First Week and a Little Fiber

I made it through my first week of training for the new job. I'd forgotten that learning new things can be so exhausting! After the first two days I was barely able to put coherent sentences together by the end of the day. Part of it is that my entire routine has been tossed out the window and I'm at the mercy of someone else's time schedule. I do like the woman who I will be working for directly, which certainly helps. If someone had told me first that she had a few little OCD issues, I might have been better prepared. Things like not using her pen or touching her things for example. However! Walking to work is still making up for a lot of things, so I will not dwell on that!

By the end of the week I was able to do quite a bit of what I will need to do every day without too much assistance, and I think that as things come along, I will be able to figure stuff out. I will still have at least next week for training, and possibly part of the following week. Of course I'm going on vacation the week after the Fourth of July and I'm hoping that I don't forget all my new responsibilities over that week!

As a reward for being such a good girl during my first week, I got to have a little fiber therapy yesterday. M wanted to go to some Army Supply type store down in Salem (no, really, don't ask), so I was able to go to the Yarn and Fiber Co. in Windham. After touching just about everything they had, I came home with a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Silk & Merino DK that I have been patting ever since.








I also came home with a skein of sock yarn (I know, aren't you surprised?) that I had never seen before. It's by Ivy Brambles and it's so blue I can't stand it. Gorgeous and soft and squishy.









And just in case you were wondering if I ever actually knit with all this yarn, I also have a finished object to show! This is what became of the Malabrigo Silky Wool that I got with Kate -









With all my walking to work this winter, I'm thinking I'm going to need plenty of scarves, mittens and hats. I loved working with this yarn. I may have to look for some more to make a few more things.

Dairy and fiber is good for you

Work and weather have been challenging and draining lately. It's February in Vermont after all, so of course this is unavoidable. Flower shows bloom all through New England this time of year, and resorts sell weekend getaways to desperate yankees by using words like "hot tub" and "relax". Anything that seems the antithesis of slush or rock salt or snow shovels becomes what we all crave.

The sky was a gorgeous blue today, and waking up to sunshine was a nice change. Before I got too hopeful, the flaky d.j. on the radio warned me of subzero windchill temps. Instead of throwing an all out "I want spring now" temper tantrum, I sighed and packed my bag for a day without a walk home for lunch.

What does one bring to work with them to create a fake lunchtime getaway (when one is used to a five minute walk and then the peace and quiet of her favorite chair, a book, and good leftovers)? The recent Saveur magazine, chock full of butter, and the mohair shawl I'm working on. I have always been a firm believer in butter from my first plate of starch. I was further convinced of it's charms when I called my mother after a failed pie crust attempt (my first) - she immediately guessed that I'd tried to substitute margarine. "Throw it away" she said "start again, use butter". I did, and I've not batted an eye at not-butter for baking ever since. I'm the daughter of a woman raised on a dairy farm, it can't be helped. The mohair was from my mother too, and it was high time I got it on and off some needles. While I'd be trapped in my office, I did look forward to the good company of creamy reading and floaty fiber in my fingers.

It was a horribly drudgish morning, so I took an early lunch. At the appointed hour, I moved my chair into the sunny patch in my office, put my back to the door and my feet on the desk. I slurped down butternut squash soup while reading about the de-vilification of butter and it's return to the table (hallelujah!), and sat with a pile of whispery and warm mohair in my lap. Something about the soft click of needles blocks out the sounds of jammed copiers and coworkers talking at each other. It was lovely. At home tonight, I remember my lunch hour more than the rest of my blurred day, which is more than I'd hoped for.

Sweeping out cobwebs

For some reason, there was a conversation at Steve's office about just how much yarn I had. When details were divulged, his boss said it sounded like it was time for me to knit or get off the pot. After a month of moving all of our furniture around, and doing some I-wish-it-was-spring cleaning, I'd just come to that conclusion myself, albeit not quite so... succinctly.

We've switched workspaces, the artist and I. His drafting table faces the windows in the office now, and I'm curled into the corner by the heating vent. The sewing machine is the short side of the L that is my space, and we can both get to it (he learned to sew last week so he could make puppets). This works out better than we'd anticipated actually, and in a celebration of organization and inspiration, I'm trying to be good to my workspace and not overtax it with a bunch of half-baked projects.

I've assembled what I call the "basket of shame". It sits by my desk, full of things I either have to frog or finish. They stare up at me, little orphaned projects... the guilt alone is some serious incentive.

I'm almost done cutting all of our old denim into quilt blocks, and I've salvaged some of the zippers to sew into felted or fabric bags. Just two pairs of jeans left. The denim will be paired with my favorite bright fat quarters in a simple quilt. My grandmother is a quilter, and while this will not even touch her finished pieces, it should be attractive and will make me proud of my use up/make do abilities.

I have a pile of mending sitting by my machine, so I can do an odd bit or two when I have a free moment. Buttons will once again be reunited with plackets, and Steve may get some of his clothing back once it's patched. Pants will be hemmed, shoulder pads will be torn out. And then I'm going to train myself not to look at something and think "it'll be fine if I just...". And hopefully the mending basket will stay empty... ish.

The stack of magazines I was saving, for who remembers what, is gone. Inspiration clipped out, and the chaff recycled. There's a clipboard on my desk with the tidbits I culled, and I flip through that every once in a while, changing the one on top to fit my mindset (a gorgeous cork tiled floor, a gingham quilt, a color combo of orange and aqua).

Maybe it's the full moon, maybe it's the new space for my brain and eyes and hands to play in... but my sleep the last few days has been full of colors and images and project ideas. It is rare that I remember that kind of thing when I wake up, I'm usually more focused on the people and emotions in my dreams. These pictures lasted well beyond that first waking moment, and so I sat with a glass of wine at my desk last night to sketch them out with coloured pencils. I poked through my stacks of fabric, yarn, and ribbon and found matches, and then bundled up my sketch with the appropriate bits and put them in plastic bags. I now have a small pile of projects, stored so I can see their colors, and can pick one up when I feel like working on something. My notes and all the little bits of detritus I think would help are in there. It's a bit scary actually. Like I have some kind of momentum... that I should respect... and do something with.

Unwilling to fully engage in an analysis of my own behavior (I'm never productive AND organized unless I'm baking), I picked up the mohair wrap from the shame basket (if your mother buys you local handspun mohair, you darn well better do something with it), and started to work on it. The voice in the back of my mind was very quiet, and only said it once, but it was clear as a bell... "knit or get off the pot"!

Frankenchick pics

I promised pictures of the gift I knit and felted (and cut and sewed and cussed at) for Christmas. Not only did I complete the project without taking any photos, but I packed her up, whisked her across international borders, and left her in London without proof of ever having worked on her at all (if you don't count the felted scraps under my desk). The recipient was kind enough to send pictures.

I decided that my chicken loving friend in London needed an obsession appropriate tea cozy. I knit a miniature version. I even knit a swatch for this one... but it didn't do me any good. I cast waaay too many stitches onto round needles, and it wasn't until halfway through cast off that that became painfully clear. Sometimes it seems that cussing actually fuels my creativity, and this seemed to be the case. I figured out a work-around involving scissors, my sewing machine, a dose of my better half's perspective, and went to work.

And truly, she is a frankenchicken. Knit and felted, cut into pieces, and sewn back together again. The handle protrudes from under her tail feathers, and her comb hides the steam spout. Her bottom is ribbed so that it curls round the base of the pot a bit.

I'm happy to say she was a hit, and our friends even tromped her through London for a day. If you want to see the London sights with a felted chicken, you can check it out on YouTube.

Christmas, Part II

I called this post Christmas Part II, because I got over here to find out that Kate had beat me to the gift update post. I do have some pictures of my progress for you.

This is the first of what will hopefully end up as a pair of fingerless mitts for my mom. She's like me (or technically, I'm like her) in that her hands are always cold. The yarn is a superwash merino from Art Yarns that I used for my own mitts. The colors in the photo are pretty true to how the really look. When choosing colors for Mom, she's very flexible, as long as they fall in to the category she refers to as "Hello Kitty Colors." The pattern is my own design, cobbled together from about three written patterns and my unfailing stubbornness to follow a written pattern.

Next up, a scarf for my mother-in-law. This is a fairly simple and (in my opinion) a slightly boring scarf. I do like the flippy little ruffle on the ends. My MIL is a very sweet woman, who I am very lucky to have drawn in the In-Law lottery. She is always very put together. She doesn't wear clothes so much as she wears outfits. I'm hoping that this will fit in to her outdoor repetoire somewhere. I really hope so, since there are about eleventy-billion stitches in this scarf.

These are the socks least likely to be finished for Christmas. I'm not saying who they are for, since I think she reads this blog and I don't want to disappoint her if they don't get done. I adore these socks, done in a variegated Koigu (the blue/green yarn) and Cherry Tree Hill solid purple. They are knit in a two-color stranded pattern from Charlene Schurch, and I'm so proud of this sock! It's the first time I've been able to get the color work on a stranded sock to properly make it's way around the heel. I even managed to get the heel gusset to stripe like it was supposed to. Love, love, love them. On second thought, maybe they will have to be my Christmas socks and I'll make something else for her. Don't tell her I said that.

Okay, so that sweater for my honey. He and I talked about it yesterday and after a long list of excuses, he said to me "Even if you started that sleeve right this second, it wouldn't be done by Christmas, would it?" No, no it wouldn't. "Why don't you see how much you can get done on your other things before doing mine?" I do so love that man. I'm still feeling guilty about it, though. I've done about four embroidered pieces that will eventually be a quilt/throw for him. These are the two I have photos of today. I can imagine how I want this to look, I just hope I can make my vision a reality. Don't feel too bad for him - he will be getting many fine Christmas presents. They will most likely come from amazon or somewhere else on line. No malls for me. They give me hives.

In other news, I won a trivia contest online, and I won yarn! Yay for free yarn! The online shop is www.sonnyandshear.com and they have a great store. I've gotten a few skeins from them in the past and I found them to have a wonderful selection. I may wait until after the Christmas knitting is done before I go shopping though. I certainly don't need any pretty distractions. Kris from sonny & shear also has a really interesting and well written blog at http://knittingwannabe.typepad.com/. If you need yarn, give them a look!

Next up... another installment of "Who are you and how did you get here?" You won't believe some of them!

Finding time

Every knitting article I see this time of year assumes we have all the time we need to make handmade gifts for friends and family. I believe them every time... forgetting to factor in things like, oh... shovelling, making dinner, eating dinner, paying bills, grocery shopping, and sitting around wondering how people with kids get it all done.

I have three, no, four projects on needles right now. That beats out the number of books I'm reading at the same time. I try to keep my projects simple, since I do walk away and can forget what the stitch pattern was, which row of the pattern I was on, etc. I also forget where I wrote down those details. The Better Half got me a small notebook that I could hang from my neck like a pair of librarian glasses. You know, on a silver chain so I wouldn't lose it. Of course I misplaced it, with my project progress notes inside. So I am forced to scatter them across various notebooks at my desk. Not in the front, oh no... but on whatever page I quickly flipped open to because I was in a hurry to put the knitting down due to some highly distracting factor like burning soup or a knock at the door, sometimes both.

Of my four projects, I must finish the Christmas present. I had myself convinced that it would take no time at all, and sat down to start with scads of holiday cheer. I've now started it four times, and I'm mad at having lied to myself about the easy factor. Some yarns get so cranky after you pull them out a third time. Mauch Chunky wool begins to pull apart when you cast on repeatedly. I hate knots in my cast on, I truly do. Ultimately, it will be felted so I suppose it doesn't matter, but it's terribly annoying. I'm sure it will get done, in that last minute panic that punctuates much of my holiday preparation.

With any luck, we'll get some more snow, the temperatures will be inhospitable, I'll be trapped inside with my needles and the yarn, and we'll work out some kind of truce.

Turkey with a side of disaster

This is not my home, thank goodness. I should have sensed a disaster day in the making when I read Heather's post - an earthquake?! Yesterday, someone launched their car into the air and through a living room wall the next town over - can you imagine a car in your living room? And the disoriented driver wandering around your home?

Anyway, the Better Half and I were home, adding up the day. He was kicking himself for a traffic ticket he'd garnered, and I was pulling turkey day ingredients out of our cabinets and muttering things like "Corn syrup, check. Pecans - need 'em". We went out to dinner to decompress a bit, and to do the last of the holiday grocery shopping (you can never have enough cranberries). I needed just one (more) skein of wool for a gift I'm making, so we stopped at a local craft store that carries decent yarn right next door to the grocery store. I found my yarn (and a few other things besides), and we hopped back into the car. On the way over to the grocery store, we heard the wheel rubbing. Somebody had backed into our bumper, cracked the headlight and dented our front fender in enough to make the wheel scrape when we hit bumps.

We were going to go to the Cape to see family on Friday... eat pulled pork and sweet potatoes, sew a slip cover for the futon, walk on the beach, have a fire in the fireplace... and because some rotten individual 1) didn't pay attention and 2) didn't stop and leave their name and contact information, we may not be doing that. Deductibles being what they are, we will probably be paying for this all by our little selves. The Better Half has the car at work today, and a sympathetic coworker may just be able to help us out enough to get us safely on the road for the weekend.

I'm an odd mix of cynicism and naivete. I'm rarely surprised but often terribly disappointed with how bad people can be sometimes. Thank god for car-guy coworkers, they help balance out my feelings about the people around me.

May you have your favorite holiday eats on the table this week, good company, helpful and kind people to offset the nasty types, and a better half who would never blame a fender dent on the fact that you needed yarn.

Merry Turkey!

Bad Blogger

My god what happened around here? One post in the month of November? And that was from Kate! It appears that my last post was close to a month ago...I'm sorry, I didn't even realize I was being so bad. So, what have I been doing for the past month? Not much, really. Well, not much that I would consider blog-worthy. But I'll tell you anyway. You knew I would.

Work is...work. About the same unending dreariness that it has been for a few months now. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though. I am so pleased that I have finally found someone to come and take on the position as my assistant manager. Sometimes I think a little unemployment is a good thing. It has seemed for a while now that all the people who we would want working here already have jobs, so the parade of applicants has been a little sparse. I don't think many people realize just how policy and procedure driven banking is. Or how very very involved the government is in banking. To look at some of our more unpopular regulations you would have to assume that we are the last or possibly only chance to stop terrorism funding on the planet. "Hi, you'd like to open a small savings account for your toddler? Great, have a seat and fill out this huge, invasive questionnaire and we should be able to wrap this up before your child has a screaming fit from having to sit in my office for an hour." Okay, it isn't that bad, but it's close. Don't ever utter the words Patriot Act near me unless you want to see someone have a fit of epic proportions. Hate that thing. Bad, BAD thing! Evil! Anyway, my point here was going to be that being a manger in many other fields does not necessarily translate in to a career in banking management. I'm sure many of these people would make great managers, but this isn't something you can pick up in a couple of weeks. I wanted someone with at least some banking experience. As a former teller myself, it can be really hard to have a boss who can not answer the simplest questions about Reg CC or BSA policies. Anyway. I think I may have found just the right person. She's sweet, funny, and smart and seems to be willing to do whatever needs to be done. I like that in a person. Just make a decision and run with it. And she has many years of banking experience which pleases me no end. She starts training on Monday and should be in our office sometime at the beginning of December. Halle-freakin-lujah!

No knitting. I have completely fallen off the "knit gifts for Christmas" train. I have a little over a month left, and I have nothing. I'm still swearing up and down to my darling boy that I will finish his sweater. It was supposed to be done for last Christmas. I don't think it will be done for this one either. Really, all I need to do is seam it up and finish one sleeve. That isn't much, considering how many tiny grey and black stockinette stitches have already been put in to it. Hardly anything at all. I don't know why I have such an aversion towards finishing this sweater (see Things you Might Not Know About Me, #55. Thank you). It's really beautiful and deserves to be finished. It's the first thing I've ever made for Mark that he actually wants, which makes this all the more frustrating for both of us. I put it down a year ago because I was angry with the sleeve, and now it sits around mocking me. I didn't like the sleeve pattern or how it was turning out. I've actually given some thought to frogging the completed sleeve and throwing out the pattern. Having considered it for almost a year now, I don't see why I couldn't seam up the sweater sides, pick up stitches at the sleeve opening and knit the sleeve down in the round with decreases where I want them instead of knitting the thing separately with multiple badly placed increases, which then need to be seamed and grafted to the sweater. I really need to do that. I don't suppose anyone can tell me what size needles I was using? No? I didn't think so. I can't remember either.

To further my ongoing efforts to avoid knitting gifts for Christmas, I thought it might be time for a new project. Not knitting. Still thread, but not knitting. Now if you looked at my project area (which is just fancy talk for a pile of crap on either side of the couch and covering the coffee table) today, mixed in with all the started and frogged knitting projects you would see embroidery floss, needles, hoops and bits and pieces of fabric. Yep, I've decided that the flavor of the month is embroidery. I went from making my kitchen curtains to "hey, I'll finish this quilt I started seven years ago," to "oh...I remember why I didn't finish this, I hate it!" to "well, I'll start another quilt, a better quilt! I'd like to try that thing they call crazy quilting, with all the embroidery." That progressed to "hmmm...I don't really know much about embroidery, I think I'd better go buy me some books and stuff." I'm nothing if not thorough when I throw myself headlong in to a new craft. I like to be prepared. I ordered a kit with a book from a great place called Sublime Stitching that arrived yesterday. I am so pleased! If you haven't been to see their stuff, you really should. Sorry to be an enabler, but who could possibly resist embroidery transfers with dancing Day of the Dead skeletons? I certainly couldn't. All my latest purchases prompted Mark to say "you sure do like string." Master of the understatement, that boy. I do like string. String is good.

Summer of Socks Update

Even though I've been really bad about blog posts for the Summer of Socks, I have been knitting! In fact, if I actually completed all the socks that hit my needles, instead of frogging them, I'd easily have twice the number I have now. Somehow, even with a clear idea and a gauge swatch, what you get isn't always what you wanted. Anyway! I have three completed pairs right now to show off.

First socks off the needles:

These are Cherry Tree Hill Supersock yarn in a special colorway from Simply Socks Yarn Co. I used the Baby Cable Rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, casting on 56 stitches with 2.75mm needles. For these I used a plain stockinette heel flap, since they seemed busy enough already, without a heel pattern. They are extremely soft and comfy!

The second ones I finished are actually the first ones I cast on. These are Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Icehouse, in the Cross Hatch Lace Pattern from More Sensational Knitted Socks. (Yes, I have both books and I love them.)

I used a short row heel on these, since I've got a pair of socks made from the same yarn that pooled in a questionable manner with a heel flap. They ended up being a little snug, but the pattern and yarn makes me very happy.

These next socks are sort of not really socks. They're footies, so I don't know if they will count towards my total number of socks knit. They only took one Red Sox game to knit, so if they don't count at least they didn't take a lot of time. They're made from Sereknity's Sock Options Sport Weight in her Rock Lobster colorway. This is the first time I've used her yarn, and I have to say, I love it! So soft, so squishy, so fast to knit up. I can't say enough about this yarn! Must have more!!!

These footies were knit as part of the Sox Knitters group on Ravelry. We decided to all knit red socks for the Red Sox during the games as our little way of helping them beat the Yankees. That sort of fell flat since they beat us, badly. But it was a nice idea and I love my socks.

I have two other pairs on the needles right now. Can't have just one! The first is just straight stockinette and the other is a simple rib pattern, so hopefully I can knit like a fiend for the next little bit and get them done!

PS to blogger - I'm so hating you and your stupid "dashboard"!!! Any weird formatting errors in this post are totally your fault, since you won't let me fix them! Auuuggghhh! Bad Blogger! Bad!

Warning...Rant Ahead

There seems to be a lot of um…hostility...out in the knitting blogosphere these days. Apparently there are rules that must be followed as set out by some um…Knitters In Charge. I’ve been reading some blogs and visiting a forum that seems to have some issues that they need to deal with. I recently read a series of posts about what constitutes a “knitting blog.” Apparently you only qualify as a “knitting blog” if you offer free patterns, of your own design, for things that this person specifically wants. And NO PERSONAL CONTENT PLEASE. Personal content will make this person NEVER VISIT YOUR BLOG AGAIN! Can you imagine the horror of losing this person as a reader? How will all of us personal content writers survive? What will happen to our dreams of fame and fortune and the love of a good Knitter In Charge? Based on their criteria, I should immediately remove the word knitting from my blog title. I am not worthy of the word. Of course, that brings up a different problem. If it were simply called Gourmet Disasters, rather than Gourmet Knitting Disaster, will that upset the Gourmets In Charge? I don't want to have them on my case too, because then it would just be Disasters. I'm sure FEMA would soon find out and make me take that out too. In fact, maybe I should just quit blogging all together. I obviously don't know what I'm doing.

As well, there are certain words and phrases that must not be used, for fear of upsetting people who think these words and phrases are improperly used or possibly inflammatory. Words like “fiddly.” Apparently all the new knitters and want-to-be knitters who are reading what constitutes a true knitting blog are scared off when they see someone say that a pattern or technique is “fiddly.” They then feel that this must be something they could never do.

My first thought on reading this was that anyone who is deterred from something they want to do by a total stranger, well…then they either aren’t ready to do it, don’t want to do it, or shouldn’t be doing it anyway. In any event, it is not a universal responsibility of a writer and/or knitter to make sure everyone feels encouraged and included.

My second thought was that I have used that term, and I’m annoyed that this person thinks she knows what I meant when I said it. While doing a three color intarsia patterned sock with two circular needles, I said that it was fiddly, which it was. It was like knitting with an octopus. (Three balls of yarn and four needle points only add up to seven, but my octopus lost a leg in a tragic spinning accident years ago, so now I knit with a seven legged octopus.) My use of the word fiddly was no indication of whether or not I thought other people should try it. Maybe they are better knitters than I am and they would find intarsia to be a breeze. Maybe they couldn’t do it with all the encouragement in the world. It was not an indication of whether or not I was a total loser and just gave up because it was too hard, and in the process encouraged everyone else to stop trying it as well. (I didn’t. It’s making me crazy, but I’m still doing it.)

Anyone who knows me at all can attest to the fact that I do not follow direction well. I don’t like being told what to do. I like it less when total strangers feel the need to instruct anyone on how to conduct themselves in the knitting world. Part of what I love about talking with and meeting other knitters is the amazing diversity of people. Everyone comes from a different place and has taken up knitting for very different reasons. It is an artistic expression, much like writing is. Not everyone who knits has jumped on the bandwagon because they think it’s the cool thing to do, or because they plan to make their fortune designing knitting patterns, or because they want to be famous by writing their blog. Some of us just like writing and knitting. We should be able to do what we choose with our knitting and blogging without fear of censorship or flaming from people with nothing better to do. I’m far more put off by the behavior of a few individuals than I am by the average person who dares to use the wrong words or talk about their cats. If they want to make sure “everyone is encouraged and included” maybe they should look to themselves and their own comments first. And if I ever visit their blogs again, there had better not be any personal content.

And So The Summer of Socks Begins...

Today is the first official day of the Summer of Socks 2007. I know that my non-knitting readers aren't going to be very impressed, but I'm looking forward to it. It runs for the next three months, and I'm going to try to actually make pairs of socks, not just singles. Having a short attention span means that I don't get a lot of complete sets finished. Maybe this sock-a-long will change that, since there are contests and prizes involved. What this means for you is that I will be posting pictures of my progress and all the little details that can only matter to a sock knitter. I cast on a toe-up sock this morning with Knit Picks Dancing sock yarn. I'm not wild about my colorway, but I wanted to try a cotton blend yarn for a change. If it doesn't look decent after I get a little way in to it, I'm going to use the Panda Wool I got on my visit to Burlington. Wish me luck!

Jennifer Rocks...(and the knitting isn't half bad either)

So, M has a friend from his college days that he's still in touch with, Jennifer. Now, I've never met Jennifer, since she lives in New York, but she recently did something nice for me. She has access to some books. Lots of books, apparently. Knitting books, to be specific. So, I came home one day recently to find that she had sent me some books! Four wonderful knitting books that I had been eyeing in the book store, but wasn't sure if I should buy them. I've spent the past few weeks browsing through them, thinking of all the nice things I could knit if I just had the time. I decided the other day to put the sock knitting on hold for a bit, since I'm waiting for the Summer of Socks KAL to start on the 21st, and I want the socks I have planned to count towards that. I went back to one of the books to look for a quick project and I found this:









It's a neckwarmer. I'm going to give it to my mom, since she's always about ten degrees colder than the rest of the world. It's made from a super soft blend of wool, cashmere and micro-fiber, and my lovely and talented assistant Trish, shown here modeling it, assures me that it is not itchy at all.









The whole thing only took about and hour and a half. This book may have solved my yearly dilemma about quick knitted Christmas gifts. I have a small mountain of this yarn that I bought a few years ago with the intention of knitting a sweater. I recently realized that I have enough of this yarn to make at least two sweaters. Every one I know may end up with one of these this year. So, thanks, Jennifer! That was a really nice thing.

Cross Hatch Lace Socks

I finished the first sock in the cross hatch lace pattern, from Charlene Schurch's More Sensational Knitted Socks book. This book may be the best book ever for sock knitters, because the options are limitless. You can choose any pattern, toe up or cuff down, use double pointed needles (bad) or circulars (good), use any type of heel you like, and any type of toe you like. This was my first attempt at knitting socks toe up, and except for the provisional cast on, I liked it very much. My provisional cast on was really anything but provisional, even though I thought I was following the directions. I used a short-row heel for the first time as well, and it turned out much better than I thought it would. I really liked the pattern, and found it very easy to remember while it knits up a really stunning pattern. Pretty enough that M thought it was nice, and having seen so many socks, he can be hard to impress.

Godzilla liked them too.


He liked them so much, that he took them.

What I Did On My Spring Vacation

Along with doing many fine and fun things last week, I also took care of some stash-keeping issues. If you ask me, I really don't think I have too much yarn, but I do like to have it all where I can see it. How else will I know what I should use next? Free range yarn is happy yarn, right? M doesn't seem to think that keeping the sock yarn out on the couch (couch, floor, coffee table, bookcase...) can be considered "storage", so I went and got myself a couple of these things...drawers on wheels. Brilliant!

This one holds the sock yarn stash. I'm going to need a second one for the sock yarn since this one is already filled to capacity and the skeins tell me they are feeling a little cramped.


In fact, here's some of that sock yarn. See the blue and purple one up in the corner? That's from my trip to Burlington.


I spent some time working on the sock yarn blanket that I totally stole from Shelly Kang. I started it by telling myself that it would be a great way to use up leftover sock yarn. Really, what it has done is get me to buy more sock yarn, because I don't have enough leftovers. Hey, I need that yarn. Stop looking at me like that.


This is what the Insufferable Horror did on vacation last week. Secure in the knowledge that someone was home to keep him fed. Isn't there some quotation about sleeping the sleep of the just? This completely blows that theory out of the water.

Yarn reality frustrations

I have a lovely book (bought on clearance even!) for very simple but classy sweaters. I have lovely yarn, in great colors, waiting to be used on the right pattern. I blissed out for a few days, thinking that the combination of yarn and pattern would not only whittle down the stash, but would knit up quickly and look fabulous on me! Reality hit when I started a swatch.

Patterns always tell you to check your gauge. Knitters always tell you to check your gauge. My mother tells me to check my gauge. I've already posted about a sweater disaster that was the result of not doing what I'm told. But I just have grouse a bit about this...

The yarn and the pattern I've selected never seem to match. Never. I've fiddled with needle sizes, I've been careful to buy a yarn similar to the one suggested in the pattern, my stitches are neither too loose nor too tight. I think it's a plot to get me to buy more yarn than I already have stashed. If nothing else works, I'll go out and buy the exact yarn used in the pattern, right? Grr.

I'm sure someone with more experience could calmly explain that I am missing something important that just makes it all work out okay. Or maybe they can't and I just have bad gauge luck. After the brown disaster sweater, I'm not ready to hop into another large project without being absolutely sure of myself.

I'll try once more (with one more needle size) to work out this white mohair boatneck that i'd love to wear this summer. If I get too frustrated, I'll go back to felting. It's only a little unpredictable (I don't felt swatches, and different colors can shrink differently), and it hides a myriad of little oopses. Just my style.

Lack of Knitting Posts

I haven't posted much about knitting lately. I really should, since it's in the title. (This may not make some of my non-knitting friends and readers happy, but as soon as they accept that it's all about me, everything will be fine.) It's not because I'm not knitting, because I am. I'm just too lazy to take pictures and post them. I'm on vacation next week, so maybe I can come up with an FO or two. Right now I'm making boring old stockinette socks in anything but boring Lorna's Laces Black Pearl. I didn't think the Lorna's Laces yarn would knit up into anything I would like, but it surprised me and is knitting into a beautiful fabric. Sometimes I just need to knit something without a pattern. Now is one of those times. I'm also copying a few other people in blogland who have made or are making afghans out of mitered squares of sock yarn. I have no time table for this, since I have a limited supply of extra sock yarn and a limited budget to buy more sock yarn, so I suspect this will be a loooooong project. I'm heading over to Burlington in the morning, so there might be some new yarn when I get back. Maybe some travelling knitting pictures too. See you soon!

No Self Control

It really shouldn't surprise me that I can't stick to a diet or to a schedule. I have absolutely no self control.

Saturday, we went to Concord, where there is a Borders Books that M wanted to go to. No road trip is complete without a quick search by me for any local yarn stores. Sometimes they are worth the trip, other times not. The one I found this weekend was one of the good ones. The Elegant Ewe was really well stocked. I wasn't wild about the hovering staff, but I finally convinced them that I knew what I wanted, I didn't need any help, and that I could spend plenty of money even without their suggestions. I proved that by spending quite a bit more than my ridiculously low pre-set limit. Actually I ended up spending our grocery money for the week, but don't tell M. (Honey, if you're reading this, it's gonna be cereal for dinner for the next few days...) I bought three of these, three of these, and two of these. I couldn't stop myself. When we got home, I sat on the couch with all eight skeins on my lap. One of them is so soft that I kept putting it up to my cheek to feel it's deliciousness. M jokingly suggested that I toss them up in the air and then roll around in them. I considered it, but even I have to draw the crazy line somewhere.

M wanted to know why I needed more yarn when I obviously have enough yarn to make seventeen pairs of socks, three sweaters, countless scarves and probably a couple of hats. I figure I'm stocking up for the time when money is really tight and I won't be able to buy any more. Or if I should ever break both my legs and be unable to get to my LYS. I really have no excuse. I like yarn. I just can't help myself. And while we're on the subject, oh husband of mine...why did you need more books? You already have some books. So, you just sit over there and look at your books and mind your own business. I'm going to go roll around in some really soft yarn.

Stash Happiness

I just read Kate's purple post (I know it's been there for days but I've just been easily side-tracked lately), and I have to say that I've been feeling a bit wintery blah-diddy-blah myself. I haven't been to the yarn store recently, but I did take a trip down memory lane with my yarn stash. Just because you buy yarn doesn't necessarily mean you will use it. By that I mean, you might not use it to knit something. Every skein of yarn I have is used well and serves many purposes. Yarn speaks to me and tells me stories.

Some yarn comes in to my house and is used to show my honey just how wonderful the yarn swift and ball winder I had to have for Christmas ($135.00 for the set) really is. "See, look how fast this is! This would have taken me at least two hours! I just saved so much time! This thing has already paid for itself!" Of course, he sees right through me, but he smiles and says he's glad I'm so happy with it.

Some yarn comes in to the house and sits in a beautiful little ball and tells the story of our first anniversary trip last year. It remembers the amazing restaurant we managed to talk our way in to without a reservation, and the campy, silly lounge act playing in our hotel. It even knows about how I slipped down a little hill and twisted my knee and cried, partly because I was so mad because I knew I had the wrong shoes on. I bought that yarn on our trip, and even if I never knit a thing out of it, it was worth it.

Some yarn comes in and gets knit. Like the yarn I bought that made me a gorgeous pair of socks. When faced with the fact that these socks cost $12 a foot (plus all those hours of labor but minus the time saved by the yarn swift) I know it was worth it because when I turned to walk away, I just couldn't leave it there. Whenever I put on those socks (or just sit with them next to me, really, they're that good) I think of the yarn store where I bought the yarn. It's a couple of blocks from my house and it's owned by a wonderful young couple. They have a baby, and the wife sits and knits and the baby plays and the husband goes across the street to Baldface Books and chats with Clyde. They have the perfect life. I tell myself that they deserve to have that kind of life, and I'm helping make that possible by spending $24 on sock yarn.

I have yarn that is left over from the afghan I was knitting when my cat Madison died. I'll keep that yarn forever, because she slept on it and there is fur in every bit and I can't bear to let that go.

I have leftover bits of yarn in the stash that could not ever become something useful. There are little balls of yarn left over from everything I have knit and given away. Non-knitters don't understand about that. The giving away part. Some just look at your gift and say "cool scarf, thanks!" But giving it away to someone who understands what you have done is part of what makes knitting so good. At the end, if you're lucky, you will have a useful thing to give away. Maybe it's now an afghan that started life as a scarf. Maybe it's a hat that went astray but since you accidentally "felted it" it's now a great tote bag. But if you give it to the right person, a person who understands, they will know that there is a little piece of the knitter in this thing. Yarn speaks to me and I use it to speak to other people. So if I walk up to you and give you some misshapen thing, I promise to tell you what it is and what it's story is.

Purple feels like...

I know it's time to leave the store when my Better Half says "Have you touched everything yet?". He's a subtle guy, and then again, he's not. I am a tactile shopper, and nothing makes me happier than being in a store full of color that I can touch.

I'm not a melon smeller (although I will admit to limes - I swear they never touch my nose!), but I do love the seductive glow of a healthy produce department. Flat parsley seems so much more... green to me than curly parsley. Seeing the texture of perky little kumquats (olive sized and orange) next to a dark red pomegranate (that you know will stain your favorite shirt) makes me happy. Did you know there are purple fingerling potatoes? I do pick up produce as a way of checking freshness- raised by gardeners, I like my food to be in a state that acknowledges that it grew somewhere. I once walked behind a woman who tousled each cabbage head and tweaked the carrots as if they were parts of a small child she was quite fond of. It was odd... watching her move from one veggie to the next. I moved on to the next aisle when she got to the turnips. I don't have that kind of relationship with my food.

Fabric stores are okay, but there are few in my area that don't have warehouse fluorescent lighting (thank goodness for quilting stores). Yarn stores are my favorite. They tend to be small and friendly, they smell of fibre and craftiness, and if you're lucky there's a shop animal to pet and the click of needles. When I walk into a yarn store, I feel like I've walked into an artist's brain - bright, textured stacks of potential everywhere. I pick up yarn and sweep my hand over fabric bolts and mutter things to myself like "red. yummy". If suffering Better Half is in tow (and he often is because he is a good and kind man with much patience), I will say something that means zilch to him like "It's very orange but still pink, you know?". He has his own relationship with color, so he will nod and say something reasonable and let me continue with my only half private exclamations.

The winter blahs are definitely starting to get to me. Usually a visit with my craft supplies helps, but sometimes you just gotta go to the source, and mutter weird things to yourself while being up to your wrists in color. Never mind the fact that your mother gave you a bucket of yarn for Christmas, or that you haven't used the stuff you got on vacation this summer. And really, the Better Half is such an understanding guy, he'll probably appreciate a bit more color in his life. Yeah.

No Disasters Here

I think I can safely say that my weekend had no disasters. It's Monday, so I can't have any backdated disasters at this point. It was a weekend for staying in out of the cold and finishing projects. Projects like this beaded bag. It was way more work than I thought it would be, but it was worth it. I was standing in line at the market and the woman behind me noticed it and complimented me on it. Turns out she's a knitter too. I also finished this sock. I love this sock. I just hope I can manage to knit the other one, so I can actually have a pair of socks. I have a remarkably short attention span so I currently have six different socks, all in different yarns and patterns.