Leftover satisfaction

   There is something particularly satisfying about using up yarn left over from a previous project. I've had a couple of projects lately to use up some Kauni yarn. I love its long color changes but I sometimes need to edit out particular colors.

I took the large amount left from my Maya Dreams sweater and knit a big garter stitch shawl. It's so big that I photographed it folded up.

This was perfect to knit while watching TV. (For one thing, watching TV kept my mind off how long it took to do a single row as I approached the end. An outside row was 94 inches/240 cm long as it went along two sides of the triangle. That's almost 8 feet! I have no idea how many stitches.) I didn't time it, but I'm sure it took me over two hours to cast off the edge. I cast on a few stitches and increased one stitch on each edge and two stitches at the center on every other row. It was knit garter stitch alternating two balls of yarn.
   Usually one ball was grey and the other ball was something else like green or blue or purple. I'm very happy with the way it turned out. I suppose it I get very cold I can wear both my sweater and shawl since they were knit from the same colorway and therefore match very well.
  The other Kauni I had left over was a small amount of the rainbow colorway from my Obsession Sweater.

I knit a tam because I wanted to know my gauge when combining Kauni and 2 ply jumper yarn from the Shetlands. I'm planning to use that combination on an upcoming sweater: using grey as the background for Kauni colorway EL that shades from blue to purple. So here is my Rainbow Leftovers tam. The crown is all Shetland as I was out of green in Kauni. I got the crown pattern from Knitted Tams by Mary Rowe.

Among the happiest people

   Costa Rica often makes the news for being a country of very happy people. Most of the ticos I have asked about this subject have declared unequivocably that they are happy. A good summary of who says ticos are happy and theories about why are in this article in the New York Times. I have a few theories of my own.

  1. It's usually considered inappropriate to say things aren't great. If a Costa Rican tells you that things are "más o menos"(more or less) it's a good idea to ask what's wrong. He or a near relative might be gravely ill. Otherwise, the most common response to "¿Como está?" is "¡Muy bien por dicha!" (very well, luckily) or "¡Pura vida!" (pure life, a general purpose comment that means almost anything positive from life is great to don't worry about things.)

2. Ticos are very non-confrontational. They rarely complain about problems like noisy neighbors or slow service. This keeps life smooth and easy, if a bit noisier and slower.

3. When you are surrounded by smiling people who never complain and are always telling you how great things are, it just makes you feel better. The opposite of a vicious cycle. Scientific proof is found in this article. The authors analyzed long-term data from the Framington Heart Study and concluded:

People’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected. This provides further justification for seeing happiness, like health, as a collective phenomenon.

4. Most people are in the middle, economically. There's not a huge gap between the very rich and other people. True, there are rich and poor, but compared to many countries the divide between the extremes is less.

If you want to feel happier and can't come live in Costa Rica, you might want to check out the Happiness Project here. Pura vida.