Simplicity at its Finest

One scarf.
One skein of yarn.
One 4-row garter-based lace pattern.
One enormous mess.


















Look at all those ends. It takes real talent, I tell you, to knit a one-skein scarf and end up with TWENTY MOTHERFUCKING TWO ends to weave in. But it's my own fault for trying to be clever. I was innocently knitting this Crazy Zauerball through the color changes -- sky, green, violet, navy, all very charming and rustic -- when I came to a large block of solid, flat black. I mean, a large run of black, so much so that I would have ended up with a good 4" of scarf in dense, dead black.

So I clipped it out. I figured I could find a spot in the ball where the color more or less matched the piece before the yarn transitioned to black. And I did, too. In the middle of the ball.

So I clipped it in the middle and started knitting, and next thing you know, I'm clipping again to avoid a lifeless bit of gray. And again to match the colors pre- and post-gray. But that becomes a problem because following the post-gray is a color that duplicates the pre-pre-gray. If you follow.

Well, even if you don't follow -- the upshot is that I had that entire Crazy ball reeled out through my living room and I basically repatterned the color changes through the last 14" of scarf. Crazy ball, you so crazy-making! I had to rip and reknit the end of this scarf four times to get it right.


In other news, The Foxy Redhead would like it to be known that there are chipmunks on the back patio. Or, there were chipmunks a day or two ago. She'll continue to keep vigil in case they return. This means she'll be unable to mind the fireplace a/k/a the Magical Bird-Producing Box for more pigeons. Please inform her at once if any birds should appear there. She would really, really hate to miss them.

Travel Knitting

And the winner of the "Which Yarn Gets to Travel This Summer?" Sweepstakes is...
::drumroll::

The Crazy Zauberball!

This is a really terrible picture. In true life, the yarn colors are a saturated purple and green with hints of gray, navy and black, but my orange-ish kitchen table always throws off the colors in my photos. Darned if I can figure out how to fix it. I suppose that's the punishment for having an orange-ish table in the first place.

The yarn? Eh. Splitty. Like, bad splitty. The lovely, textural, rustic look is achieved by a loose spin and loose plying technique, so even though the finished fabric is very pretty and intriguingly textured, the knitting is a bit tricky. Even with this extremely simple lace pattern, the k2togs frequently are more like k1.5togs.

The pattern? The lacy baktus, a freebie found via ravelry. The pattern is so simple that it hardly rates as a pattern. It's an 8-row garter stitch repeat, with 1-stitch increases on one edge in rows 1 and 5 and lace (yo, k2tog across) in row 7. Then, after the scarf is about as wide as you want it, you work decreases instead of increases in rows 1 and 5. It doesn't get any simpler than this, which is in part why I chose this for travel knitting.

I've knit about 18 inches so far. Maybe more. Would have definitely been more if the flight home had been more, shall we say, peaceful. It was a very stormy evening. My flight was delayed, and the in-flight turbulence was dreadful. It was hard to even read a book, let alone work with a very splitty yarn like this. I ended up ripping about two inches because of a dropped stitch, but it's my own damned fault for trying to knit on that flight in the first place.

I thought about taking Mendocino because I love it so much, but in the end, I didn't want to pack it. I'm already on ball 5 and it's growing -- would've required a good-sized chunk of suitcase space to pack it. That will be fine for Stitches when room and luggage restrictions are not an issue, but for business travel, it just wasn't going to work.

The trip itself was lovely. I accomplished a surprising amount of work for someone who spent so much time in the bars and parks. Many stories to tell, but none of them, alas, suitable for print. ;)

Danger Boy Dances in His Underwear

Testing out my new video camera. It's blurry. Or we're all drunk. Take your pick.

Taking It To the Mats

This picture makes my blocking look crooked, but it's really the picture that's wonky. I was standing on a chair with the camera held overhead, and the angle is funny. (Proving once again that I am a genius with a camera.)

I thought I would talk a little about the blocking process because I do things a little differently than some.

First, I soak the pieces for 30 minutes in cold water with a good blob (1 or 2 tablespoons) of hair conditioner dissolved into the water. Dissolve the conditioner in the water before you add the wool, or you'll get uneven distribution. The conditioner will soften the wool dramatically. It won't hide all the crunch in a rustic yarn, but it will mask the roughness and let the blocking go a little more easily. Cheap conditioner works just as well as the expensive stuff.

Next I insert blocking wires on the straight edges of the garment -- in this case, the side edges of the body piece -- and use those to stabilize the fabric as I pull and smooth and squoosh it into shape. The actual shaping can take a few minutes, but inserting the wires will shave a lot of time off the total. Pin the straight edges first, too, because those make good reference points for shaping the rest of the piece. (My mats have grid lines scored into them, so I can use those to make sure things are straight, too.

Not everyone uses conditioner and wires to block pieces like these. The other tools I use -- a straight-edge ruler and tape measure -- are pretty ordinary.

In this case, I wanted to block the sleeve to the body piece to make perfectly sure that the saddle was blocked to the proper measurements. So I'm doing one sleeve plus the front now and the other sleeve plus the back later.

There's still quite a lot of finishing work on this sweater before it will be wearable. Not just seaming, but knitting the braided bands at the collar, cuffs and hem. The bands are knitted on sideways. I'll post pictures of those as I do them, because it's kind of a cool technique that could come in handy if you ever need to lengthen something.

Special Note To An Interested Person

This is my desktop wallpaper. Don't have some stinky boy in the house to complain about it, neethur.

Scenes from a Train Window

Okay. So here's the story on this picture. I told Tricia I would help her catalog the yarn leftover from the closing of Nana's Knitting Shop. She promised to duly reward my with episodes of season 4 of the Tudors, featuring my boyfriend Henry who I adore. And who adores me. Or would if he ever knew me. (Humor me.) Wait -- let's all admire Henry for a moment so we can understand better the rest of the story.

























You see that? He could distract a saint, right? So we had ten episodes of the Tudors featuring my boyfriend Henry pictured above. And we had about 6 hefty bags full of yarn to catalog and photograph. Naturally, we decided to do a bag or two between episodes, which meant we were working really, really, really fast. I would dump out a bag, sort it quickly, and pass it to Tricia. She would make notes on the inventory records and snap the photo. Then I would scoop it up and stuff it back in a bag -- very quickly, because Henry doesn't like to wait for things like yarn indexing. He's impatient that way.

So we got through about half the total yarn and about half the total episodes, though sadly, many of the pictures are sort of insane. (Sort of? The one above looks like it was shot from a train window.)

But Trish, if you let me come back and watch the rest of the episodes, I do most faithfully promise to control my raging lust a bit better and let you take a proper photograph without rushing. Cross my heart. It won't be easy to keep a man like Henry waiting, but it will be a good exercise in discipline for all of us. ;)

Been a Long Time

It's been a long time since I put a big new project on the needles. For a year now, at least, it's been all little bits and dollops, scarves and socks, hats and baby mittens. And ripping out old, failed projects. And working on existing projects that seemed they would never, ever be completed.

So this feels like a real milestone, a real leap of faith that the corner has been turned and it's safe to tackle a big new project. le sigh

The project I've chosen is Mendocino, from Starmore's Pacific Coast Highway. It's a simple cardigan with some simple cable work on the bodice, but like most of Starmore's designs, it has that little something extra that makes me long to knit it. The way the cable is set into the shoulders, perhaps, or the beautiful collar, or just the cozy look of it.

As an added bonus, it ought to clear out about 20 balls of Sublime from the stash. Stash reduction is about to become my battle cry, not merely stash dieting -- details will follow.

In the meantime, happy knitting. (I know mine sure is.)

Miscellany

Nana's Knitting Shop's last week was a sad, bittersweet, angsty time, but I wouldn't have given up one moment spent at that back table. Not one. As sorrowful as the mood was, the chance to spend time there was something I'll always remember with pleasure. It was sort of lucky, actually, that I quit my job and destroyed my wrist (deQuervain's tendonitis, ew) during the final days. It meant there was little I could do beside hang out at that table and talk to people.

On that note, a few promised links regarding our far-ranging conversations of the past ten or so days.

RE: the Globe's recent production of Macbeth, which we gather was staged like a horror movie aimed at teenagers:
The Times of London
Telegraph
Official London Theatre


RE: You can't make this stuff up. It's too perfectly ironic.
Jesus being struck by lightning.


RE: Shetland-spun yarns
Jamieson's history, with emphasis on the difficulty of machine spinning Shetland wool
Shetland Wool Council's discussion of the breed

I'm hunting for the travelogue with the photos of the Jamieson's mill. It discussed the particular carding technique used with Shetland wools. If I can remember which blog that was, I will post the link later.

D. O. N. E.

Presenting Ishbel the Third. I think this might be the prettiest of the Ishbel trio, but we won't know for sure until next year when my friends and I gather in Los Angeles and show them off. Meantime, this white Ishbel will wing to Australia, and the Blue Skies Ishbel will journey to Kansas, with my love and friendship for the recipients.

I thought I would easily finish this Friday afternoon during open knitting at Nana's, but I stupidly miscounted my chart progression and suddenly realized I had a whole 'nother chart to knit. As lace knitters know, those last rows are always killers because they take a billionty times longer than you think they will. And I had 8 more than planned. Do the math, and this took eight billionty times longer to finish than I thought it would. And there went my fond and foolish plan to finish it Friday afternoon. Good thing I like knitting, eh.

So after the horrendous storm killed Chicago for a few hours, and after it was safe to drive home from Nana's (dodging tree branches and cursing broken traffic signals the whole way), I came back here, popped a Poirot video into the DVD player, and watched it almost twice through as I finished the shawl.

Which brings me to a question. Do any of you watch these Poirot movies? What do we think of them? This is my first exposure, and I'm ambivalent. It was fun -- the look of the series is beautiful, the acting was good, and it moved quickly enough on the first watching to slide right over all my objections at the leaps in logic. But on the second watching, I started analyzing the script -- a dangerous occupation -- and found myself calling out, "Objection!" to every bit of hearsay or other bad evidence. (Proving once again, you can take the litigator out of the courtroom, but you can never really take the courtroom out of the litigator. I haven't tried a case in 9 years, but I tried the crap out of that movie.)

That might be a personal problem. What do you all think? Thumbs up or down on Poirot?

Three's a Charm. Or So They Keep Telling Me.

The first time I knit Ishbel, I was a bit annoyed by the pattern directions and convinced it was actually a much easier knit than its behavior indicated. The second time I knit Ishbel, the pattern made sense and the process felt fast and light and lovely. And now, the third time...




















I'm more than a little bored. Don't get me wrong -- the yarn is lovely (Dream in Color Smooshy), and the pattern and yarn play very well together. And the recipient will be happy to get it when it's finally shipped off to her. Certainly, there's joy for me in knowing she truly wants this. But really, the Ishbel thrill is gone. This isn't a pattern anyone needs to knit three times. I'll be happy when it's done so I can get back to the sleeves for St. Brigid, which are about a quarter done now.

And I also look forward to knitting my new lovelies.



















On the left, Handmaiden Sea Silk for a Montego Bay shawl (purchased from Broad Ripple Knits in Indianapolis, a lovely new shop within walking distance of my favorite Indian restaurant, which provides further evidence to prove my theory that God loves me and wants me to eat curry and buy yarn).

On the right, a Zauerball from the same shop, which must be knit into a shawl because any socks would be fraternal, and we can't have that. (Chrissy, can I get an amen, sister?)

In the middle, a pair of Ella Rae Lace Merino skeins, which for some reason insist on photographing red when they're actually a fuschia/purple blend. I bought these at Nana's Knitting shop during the first week of her store-closing sale. (cry) (sniffle)

I've also bought a stack of patterns and a few sets of Addis, but I've been holding off on buying much yarn. For one thing, I'm in total denial that the store is actually closing. Yes, I've known about it for a long time, and in theory anyway I've had ample time to wrap my head around the giant hole Tricia's departure will create.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

And really, I don't. Not one bit. I was in the shop three times last week, and each time, there were more empty cubbies and more sad faces. The vultures are definitely picking the bones clean over there -- and more power to them, because every knitter loves a bargain. God knows I do, and plan to spend a little more before it's all gone.

But that still doesn't mean I like it.

In fact, I hate it. I hate that the back table, my refuge and my solace for the past several years, will be moved to Cory's house where I'll probably never see it again. I hate that the friends I've made there over the years will likely scatter, only to be seen at intervals or on ravelry instead of at our weekly knit-ins. But mostly, I hate that I won't have a friendly place for instant yarn therapy.

You know what I mean. You're knitters, too. You know what it's like to have a knitting place filled with people you're always happy to see. You know what it's like when that pressure builds and you absolutely must, no excuses, no delay, play with wool until calm is restored. You know that the smell of wool and the touch of cashmere can change your mood, and the clicking of the needles can change your life.

Trish and I will always be friends -- God knows, I have to keep her close just so I can be sure she doesn't try to run off with my boyfriend Henry Cavill from the Tudors. That greedy hussy. We all know she'll skip off with him if I turn my back for a second, so yes, I plan to keep a permanent eye on her.

But the shop. I hate losing the shop.
(sob)

Something Finished, Something In Progress, Something New

Ishbel 2 is off the needles, blocked, and ready for shipping. Ishbel 3 is presenting a challenge because I can't find the right yarn for it, but the quest continues. If anyone knows of a fingering weight (3-ply) yarn with a slight halo and a natural aran color, I'd be grateful for a tip.

Meanwhile, I finished the front of St. B and started the sleeves. The sleeves should go quickly now they're on the needles.




















My other big news -- last week I went out of town an editor, and returned home a publisher. That's right! I quit my job at the publishing company and opened my own! You have no idea how excited and terrified I am of this entire project, but what the hell. You only live once, so you might as well live your dreams.

The new company is called STAR Guides Publishing -- STAR is an acronym of our initials. I'm acting as publisher, and we'll be publishing a series of books on the craft of writing with plans/hopes to expand beyond that. We'll also be conducting online workshops and mini-clinics on a variety of craft and business issues. And we have more plans besides, but for now, this is enough to get started. The web domains have been purchased but we have a long way to go before we'll be able to claim that our website it built -- right now, we just have placeholder pages there, but that's temporary.

I'll be taking on more freelance editing and book doctoring work to keep the money flowing in the meantime. (I've already booked enough work to cover two months' pay at my old job, if you can believe it.) So I'll still be pretty busy, but not like before. Now I know I'll be getting paid a fair rate for all these hours, or I'll be working for myself.

Sign me,
Full of Hope

Catherine de-Parr-ted

Buh-bye, Catherine Parr. Your colorwork was wonderful, but your shape and fit sucked dog paws.

The yarn will be gorgeous in some other project, I'm sure. I have a few patterns in mind. A leading contender now is Knots and Bark by Fiona Ellis. Here's a picture swiped from ravelry, chosen because you can easily see the color breakouts. I was thinking the dark green for the body and sleeves and the light green for the bodice, but then I will need a third color for that accent work at the neck and bodice. Anyone have any suggestions? Would a creamy white work?

Winding Weekend

Pictured from top to bottom: Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn, Chuckanut Bay 10-Ply Aran, Cascade Eco-Wool. We thought the Chuckanut made enormous balls, but check out the size of that Eco-Wool. I plopped the Colinette on top for comparison purposes. Most of us know what a wound skein of sock yarn looks like, size-wise, so that ought to give you an idea of just how enormous the other two are. So enormous that my ball winder -- gimpy even on a good day -- nearly expired from the effort of holding it.

Now that the Kauni shawl is blocking, I turned my attention to what's next. "Next" meaning not just what's next to be cast on, but what's next to claim my knitting time.

I have these things on the needles:

1. The blue Ishbel. I've finished the body and three of the six lace charts. This one could be completed within the next week or two.
2. The Oskar Loves Ishbel socks. On the heel of the first. Nice to knit, but not compelling. I keep them on my nightstand for sleepless nights.
   
3. The purple Smooshy socks. These are my carry-around knitting. I like to keep something portable and patternless in my purse, and these are it. I'm a bit more than halfway through the first cuff, and that's all the result of picking at these in stray moments.
4. Fulmar. Stalled because my brain was needed for other things. It's not a difficult pattern, but it does require a certain amount of focus.
   
5. The Afghan for Danger Boy. Stalled because it's crochet and my wrist has been swelling here and there.
6. Catherine Parr. Probably will be frogged.
   
7. St. Brigid. Stalled because I needed to wind the next ball of yarn.
   

Three small projects, three big projects, and one disaster. Also, the lace skater's top is on hold until I get some better needles. The points on the Addis just can't handle this pattern, and I'm making a total hash out of it as a result.

On this list, the one that jumped out at me was St. Brigid. It's reason for being stalled is the most east to overcome. This would be fairly quick and easy to finish. The blue Ishbel will be done soon because I really want it off my knitting list, and there's little time involved. So after that, St. B.

Hence, the winder came out.

And you know how it is. Once you wind one ball, you want to wind the rest. But if I wind it, I might cast it on, and I want to finish some things before I start new things. So my compromise was to wind one ball of the Eco-wool for a Starsky (or possible for the Shirt-Tail Cardigan -- still debating which pattern I prefer), which will be the next sweater after the St. B is finished.

After Ishbel is finished, I might try to finish one of the pairs of socks before casting on another small project. I'm eyeing two other scarves for the summer -- light, small projects always being better for hot days. But I don't think I need to have a mountain of small projects on the go at one time just because the days are warmer. In a perfect world, I would keep my knitting list down to four projects at a time. But this isn't a perfect world, and I'm sure not a perfect knitter.

What are your summer knitting plans?

Kauni Northern Lights Shawl

Hooray for finishing things! So much better than letting them hang around inside knitting bags. Cast on to bind off in 29 days. Not bad. I also knit half an Ishbel and half a sock in the same time period, so I think it's safe to say my knitting is picking up speed again. Not like the old days, but still, it's on the calendar every week.

I'm so in love with this Kauni yarn. Yes, it's rustic, but not unbearably so, and the color changes are magnificent. Almost hypnotic. Imagine if Shetland yarn and Noro had a baby, and that's about how the Kauni is. Less raggy than the Noro, less crunchy than a Shetland but with a very similar hand. Plied like the Shetland, dyed like the Noro. I would knit with it again in a heartbeat.

In fact, I'm already dreaming of Stitches and debating whether to buy enough for a stranded cardigan. I'm thinking Kauni in the black/gray/cream colorway paired with a solid bold color like red.

Yeah, and given the state of my stash, I'll put it on the knitting schedule for around 2025.

(Even knowing that, I still want the yarn.)

Yarn at a Writer's Conference

This is a very kind, very goodhearted author, Nathalie Gray, wearing the white hat she deserves. Forgive the picture quality. The window behind her made the lighting difficult, and I assure you her face is flushed from my camera and not from any other factor. The photo was taken at the North Market, just before we indulged in a bowl of delicious Jeni's Ice Cream -- OMG, the best ever. Go to Columbus and eat ice cream. You won't ever regret it.

























Here we have another author friend, Lyn Cash, who tried to make off with Ishbel. Heh. Ain't gonna happen. Ishbel did enjoy being the center of attention, though. (Notice how Lyn is trying to look all innocent and stuff. We're not fooled.)


























Yes, there was yarn shopping. I think my stash-wagon habits are really starting to take hold, though, because all I bought was some laceweight (25% off, so who can blame me!) to make a cardigan. Isn't it pretty? The colors make me think of a winter storm. I don't know why -- gray sky, brown landscape, and everything faded by the low light, maybe.

















My self-control is even more shocking when you realize that the store we visited was FREAKING AWESOME. Look! They have AISLES. It's hard to tell from this picture, but there were four whole entire aisles of yarn! And the staff was super nice, too. My favorite moment, though, was walking in with Rachael Herron (yarn-a-go-go) and watching the clerk's eyes widen as she recognized her. Awesome. I love shopping with a knitting rock star. They were incredibly nice to us and even used their computer to look up pattern details for us. Knitting Mercantile ("the Merc" to locals) -- well worth a visit if you ever get to Columbus.

Off the Needles, On the Wires

Look what fell off my needles and onto the blocking wires. Ishbel! I decided to finish it because I want to wear it at my conference next week. I put my zebra bag in the photo frame so you can get an idea of how I plan to wear this scarf. Black trousers, black turtleneck, Ishbel, and that zebra patterned Liz Claiborne tote. Normally I wear business suits to conferences, but in this case, given that this is the "party conference," I can get away with something more casual as long as I still look pulled together. And that combo of scarf and bag are pulled together without being all matchified. I hope the resulting look will be slightly Euro/urban, which works better for a business casual atmosphere than just your ordinary pants and shirt.

I love this yarn, the Cherry Tree Hill Possum Sock. Lovely stuff, very soft, almost furry. It was wonderful to knit, too. I've heard some complaints about splittiness, but that was not my experience.

I did, however, have one slight problem with it. Look in the photo at around 5 o'clock, on the blue mat. You should see a fuzzball there. I can't tell you how many of these worked free from the strands during the blocking process. Granted, this is going to happen a little while handling a wet, short-staple yarn. But even so, even allowing for wet handling, there was a lot of shedding. I hope it stops after the yarn dries, but just to be on the safe side, I'll be spritzing that shawl with hairspray before I remove the pins and wires. That should cut down on the potential for shedding.

My only other news to report is that I decided to cast on another pair of socks to travel with me next week. I want something simple that won't require a lot of thought. And lo and behold, right on top of the sock yarn heap was a skein that mimics the Ishbel yarn. It's sort of splotchy with black and cream, but where Ishbel is tinted slightly blue, this sock yarn is tinted slightly green. It's an Opal yarn, and I can't read German to save my life, but the word "Oscar" appeared on the label. So I'm dubbing these socks "Oscar Loves Ishbel."

We're Seeing 2FOs!

Look up in the sky! What is that? OMG -- brace yourselves! We have 2FOs!



















This is the pair of Mountain Colors Bearfoot socks in 2x2 rib I started last October. I used to knit a pair of socks about every two weeks or so, every ten days if I really tried. These? Six months. But at least I'm knitting again. That's a big happymaker. (As is my crabapple tree. It's spectacular this year. Warm springs do make a difference.)


























And here's the finished hat for the Good Guy. This one took a month to knit. Very easy pattern, lovely result, but I have to say that the best part was the yarn. Cascade Lana D'Oro -- a little on the dear side at about $9 per skein or so, but it is really, really lovely stuff.

Ishbel is also off the needles, but not yet on the blocking wires. May I say what a pleasure it is to be finishing up objets tricoteuses again? After about a year of chaos (13 months since my car wreck, which started the whole tailspin of crazy), things feel far more normal and controlled again. I'm still not knitting every day, but I am knitting at least a couple of times a week, and that feels huge. There's still a lot of room for improvement in my daily schedule, but that's okay. There's always room for improvement, isn't there?

My World In Color

You would think that I hate this house what with it being broken in half and everything. (New crack discovered in bathroom wall yesterday. Cry.) But really, I love this house. And here are a couple of reasons I love it despite its deeply flawed foundation.

Hot purple rhododendrons blooming by the wrought iron garden gate. This shrub dazzles me every spring.
























The forsythia hedgerow along the east side of the house. The early morning sun shining through those windows turns everything gold from the blooms.

























Of course, the bushes are even prettier with yarn in them. These are my two precious new babies gained via a dispensation at the Beverly Hills Art Center yesterday. On the left, STR Silk Thread II in color Lunasea. If you look closely, you can see the very subtle variations in the color. On the right, Roxi by the Grinning Gargoyle, a super cool indie dyer who I plan to stalk until she agrees to be my new BFF. This yarn is spectacular. Her color work is beautiful, but the quality of the yarn and the friendliness of the lady herself was what really won me over. I might have to cast this on next. Or right now.

Prepare for a Shock!

I caved. Spring fever got the best of me. There's no vaccine for startitis.

This is the mandatory Ishbel. Mandatory because every knitter on the planet apparently must knit it to retain knitter cred. I'm not a big fan of groupthink in any form, but even I can't resist the pull of mandatory knitting. (See also, mandatory monkeys, mandatory clapotis, mandatory jaywalkers, etc.)

My general response to mandatory knitting is to resist until the initial craze is over. Makes me feel like less of a joiner somehow. So everyone else knit their Ishbels last year, but I'm just getting to it now.

Cathy asked to knit this with me. She's interested in learning lace, and this was one of the two easy patterns we picked out together. I figured I ought to look at the pattern before she and I tucked into it, and next thing you know, I'm almost halfway through the easy stockinette portion of the pattern. I won't go too much farther without Cathy casting on, though. So now that I've started, I might just tuck it away until she can catch up.

The yarn is the Cherry Tree Hill Possum Sock, and I adore it. It's pooling in an almost zebra-striped way, and this will inevitable make me want to carry my oversized zebra bag when I wear the shawl. The scarf is just off enough to avoid being matchy matchy.

The Kittawake Hat

In case you haven't already seen it, here's Panera Erik wearing his woolly crown. Well, he says it's his gangster hat for when he wants to rob places, but we all know it's impossible to feel like committing felonies when wearing Starmore designs. Or misdemeanors. Bad language, on the other hand, can still flow pretty freely. Ask me how I know.

He's been very good to the knitters, and, well, we all know how knitters show their appreciation.

Aleta took this picture and I swiped it from her.

And that's about all I have to say about the hat.

Spring Fever

I've got the worst case of startitis. Making myself even crazier than usual. I've spent hours and hours this past week browsing ravelry and my extensive magazine collection. (Side note -- hey! Did you know you can log your magazines on ravelry now? I've already logged two out of my nine boxes of magazines and have added patterns from them to my favorites list. Love it!)

So, to begin at the beginning of my almost crippling case of startitis, one week ago tonight I was struck with a wicked urge to start something new. Never mind that I have lots of great projects already OTN. I finished something on Monday, and therefore my crazy knitter gene went into overdrive on Tuesday.

I spent most of the afternoon staring longingly at a couple of bags of yarn clearly visible from my desk. They're stashed behind a piece of furniture, so you can't see them from almost anywhere in the room except my desk.

I stared at pink yarn for a bohus.

Silvery blue yarn for the Mendocino cardigan by Alice Starmore.

Shetland yarn for the Fair Isle cardigan by Veronik Avery.

Stared and stared.

By 7 p.m., I was ripping apart my bookshelves in a quest for patterns. I think if I could have found the bohus pattern, it would have been on the needles. Took me two hours to find the copy I made of Mendocino, and by that time, to be candid, I was overwhelmed by the urge to cast on every single pattern in my collection. I was almost paralyzed by it.

I decided to stall and keep working on the OTN patterns for a little while longer. I knit a few rounds of the lace blouse, a few inches of a ribbed sock leg, and a few more rows of St. Brigid. The more I knit, the more the urge to start something new faded. I saw this as a good thing.

Then two funny things happened. Two people did something unexpectedly nice for me over the weekend. Without getting into detail, one involves someone who really helped my family in a way I'll never forget. My family has been in turmoil for months, and this woman -- who knows nobody in my family except me -- has blown me away with her kindness and generosity.

She needs a white hat. Good guys always wear white hats, right? So back I went to the startitis frenzy, until I found this gem of a pattern in ravelry. I already have the right yarn in my stash, and so this will get cast on as soon as I can locate the yarn. It's here somewhere! But seriously, how adorable is this hat?

Eye Candy and Brain Food

Dear Tricia,
You can look, but you can't touch.

That's the Eye Candy. Now for the Brain Food. I just heard of something really wonderful started by a pair of college girls who are tired of bad behavior being left unchallenged. They want to make a difference in this world, and they've found a way to do it. It's called Nickels for Change, and in their words,

Every time we hear something sexist, rape-defending, victim-blaming, or flat-out misogynistic (an also just plain prejudice - whether it be sizeist, classist, racist, ableist, or anything else), a nickel goes into Our Jars. We plan on doing this for a year. At the end of the year, the money will go to a charity that works towards ending violence.

This sounds like a fine idea to me, and I've already added two nickels to the jar. The first is in honor of our friend Catherine who, as I heard it, responded to an anti-gay rant with grace and dignity. The second is due to the comment on the blog where the Nickels for Change initiative was announced. You'll know the comment when you read it. It's the one that says Indian men would stop raping if they got laid more often.

In other news, I spent the afternoon knitting the lace skater's top at Nana's with a table full of people I want to see more often. Great time. Any day now, I should be able to actually share knitting content. Shock, right?

This Has Little To Do With Knitting

My parents returned from their winter residence last Thursday. If there was ever any doubt that my dad is awesome, that doubt was firmly removed when he handed me this little care package.










































These are Norman Love chocolates direct from the artisan's shop in Florida. Those of you who are Food Network afficionados might recognize his name from the Challenge series. He sometimes judges the confectioner's challenges.

And trust me, these handcrafted chocolates taste exactly as you'd expect. They were made by the guy good enough to judge everyone else. They're decadent and delicious and make Godiva (which I love) taste like Barbie chocolate from the toy store.

My dad is awesome. Clearly. And how much does he love me? A ten-piece box much. That's a lot.

With their return came a flurry of events. First my sister took over the kitchen to make a clutch of princes and princesses out of sweet stuff. The dresses are fruit roll-ups, yo. Best part? Watching her try to roll out yellow starbursts to make the crowns.























Then we set fire to a cake in honor of my niece's birthday. Good times. There was also a cousins' slumber party at my house, complete with a wii tournament, sledding in pajamas, and chocolate chip pancakes.





















In the midst of all this birthday shopping, Danger Boy scored a new ripstick. He's managed to ride it several times without ever drawing blood. Benefits of maturity?




















I show you all this in lieu of showing off my knitting. There has been knitting. I just can't show it off now. Someday I'll explain that. But also not now. :) The kid is due home from school in mere moments, and family madness has claimed my life for the moment. As Martha would say, it's a good thing.

Ravelympics Countdown!

Marking my starting point -- I'm about halfway through the fifth pattern repeat of the front of St. B. The back is done. And that's all we have of that.

We'll see how far I get between Opening and Closing Ceremonies. :D I'm very excited to be able to say that my knitting will be a regular part of my day for the next couple weeks. I've logged a lot of extra hours recently to make that possible. I'm ready!

PS. My camera is toast. I need a new one. This one can't be fixed.

February 2010, Taking Stock

I signed up for the ravelympics. There's been a little more knitting time lately even though I don't always have the inclination for it. This isn't the fault of knitting. This is the fault of overcrowding and other people wanting to sit in the knitting chair, plus the noise and disruption associated with all these new bodies in the house. It's not that they're being bad or awful -- they're not. It's just that the second I get into the knitting chair, the dog wants attention. Or the boy. Or the sister. Knitting is my quiet time, my time for contemplation and unbroken rhythms. Or I want it to be that, anyway.

In any case, I'm on ball three of the green afghan, and I'm making progress on the second sock of the burgundy bearfoot. I would gladly show off some pictures, but my camera lens has broken. I think it can be repaired but I haven't had time to deal with it yet. I just keep forgetting. This will have to be repaired before the ravelympics, of course, because they want photos.

So far, the only project I've designated is St. Brigid. My hope is to finish the back and get a good start on the sleeves. That would be a wonderful accomplishment as it would represent a big chunk of time set aside for knitting.

It's possible. Not easy, but possible.

My urge for the past several weeks has been to take stock of my routines and schedule and try to get some better routine and balance. This is merely a function of the chaos around me -- I'm searching for some sense of control, and not finding it. But I'm within a few hours of finishing a major, major project, something several months in the making, and once that is off my desk, I have the sense that a routine will be possible. So this has been much on my mind. What I wouldn't give to be able to block out a rough schedule for each day -- so many hours for this task, then an hour on that, then an hour on that, and so on. That's how I function best, and that's beginning to feel within reach.

And the ravelympics may be a great motivator to reestablish that kind of daily rhythm. I'm looking forward to it.

So what about the rest of you? Who has signed up, and what events will you be competing in?

Made It! Whew!

Back at Stitches in early September, Adrienne and I made a yarn diet vow to each other. Shook on it and everything. I vowed to buy no yarn at all, and she vowed to buy no yarn other than a special dispensation for her trip to Ireland. (Overseas travel should come with an automatic dispensation, right?)

We agreed our deal would last to the end of the year. Perfect, because The Fold's New Year's Day sale would be the ideal feast at the end of the diet.

I was perfect. I bought a couple of magazines but not a speck of yarn. And when our annual trip to The Fold came around, I was ready for it.

Funny thing, though. I got up there and didn't really want to buy anything! I fondled dozens of gorgeous yarns and put them all back. We must have browsed an hour before I snapped out of it and realized this sale comes around once a year. Plus, Adrienne and I had already vowed to extend the yarn diet from January 2 to April 30. So with the realization that this would be my only chance to buy yarn from September through April, I decided to splurge a little.

Even so, I came home with extra cash in my pocket. Quite a bit. Which strikes me as the perfect balance, actually, because I felt like I splurged and still managed to feel virtuous about under-spending.

In the picture above, you'll see three skeins of baby yarn on the right side. I bought enough in these three colors to make a winter set of hat, gloves, and scarf. I've been browsing my Latvian mittens book, trying to pick a pattern. Kris helped me pick out the colors -- I never would have selected that orangey red on my own, so I'm very glad she helped me because these colors really pop against my black coat. I can't wait to see how they knit up.

In the front are two skeins of Malabrigo sock yarn in semisolids. I need some plain, dark socks to wear with my closet full of black turtlenecks and sweaters, so the charcoal and cream Opal and the charcoal Malabrigo will get lots of use.

When will I knit it? Only time will tell. I've been picking at the green afghan for Danger Boy in the spare moments I have available for needlework -- an increasing amount of time, but still not enough to really make any headway on existing projects. Nevertheless, it's an improvement, and I do feel that with the New Year, I've turned a corner and am heading for a sunnier field.