I have a four-day weekend. My plan was to go to The Fold yesterday, go hang out with with friends this afternoon, and spend the rest of the time knitting and reading at home. (Yes, "days off" doesn't mean I stop reading submissions. I never stop reading submissions.)
I rented four movies to put the cherry on top of the weekend, and last night, as I was knitting a sock gusset and watching the first movie, I got a little twinge in the knuckle at the base of my right index finger. Within an hour, it had swelled to the size of a small plum.
Ice and aspercreme have helped the swelling go down a lot, but it still hurts. I can't knit! Why, why, why does this have to happen this weekend?
So tell me, before I tear out all my hair from frustration -- if you had blocked out some knitting time, and then couldn't knit, what would you do instead?
ETA: My house is already clean. And I don't want to work more than a token amount, maybe just 3 or 4 hours a day. I'm looking for fun stuff, preferably knitting related, that won't strain that knuckle. (cry)
Friday, January 2, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Yarn!
Starting a stash diet for the new year is an utter impossibility when you live two counties away from an amazing yarn shop, and that amazing yarn shop has its annual blowout sale on New Year's Day.
Today, three carloads of us wound our way up to The Fold, about a 75 minute drive in good traffic with good road conditions. It's worth it even when, like last year, a blizzard slows down the driving.
Last year, I gave myself a stash exception for this particular sale. 30% off all yarn, 40% off all books, and some super discount yarns marked as low as 75% off? I'd be a fool not to take advantage of a sale like that, right?
This year, though, I didn't give myself an exception. I could shop, but within the stash rules for the new year. I wanted to find something for St. Brigid -- see the khaki green yarn -- and I thought I might find a little something in the super discount bin. I didn't, but I fell in love with that chocolate brown undyed Shepherd's Own from Fibranatura, and picked up 3 skeins. Amazing stuff, soft and rich, and my only regret now is not buying more of it.
So I'm starting the new year with 1500 grams added to the plus column. But it could have been much worse, given all the yarns I fondled but left behind.
My stash goal for last year was simple. I wanted to knit as much yarn as I bought, an even grams in / grams out measure. Sock yarn was exempted, and if you leave sock yarn out of the tallies, I ended up knitting 83% of the yarn I took in. (9536 grams in, and 7910 grams out.) If you leave out the yarn I received as gifts, and factor in the pink sweater, which is off the needles but not quite a finished item yet (still needs seams and a neckband), then that number climbs closer to 95%. It's not perfect, but it's not bad, all things considered. Too bad the pink sweater isn't a finished object yet! Or that great yarn hog, Catherine Parr!
Happy New Year, everyone!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Change of Course
They say the devil lives in the details. Not that I would know anything about that....
On Friday, I realized I was within two rows of dividing the front of Catherine Parr for the neck shaping. As this is a crew neck, more or less, that means there's very little knitting left to do. I did some rough math and realized I could probably finish the sweater before the end of the year.
And then I also realized I would need a second ball of yarn to knit from, once the neckline is divided into two pieces.
This isn't the kind of detail that would normally pose a problem. Normally. I had wound off several skeins of the dark green Cascade 220 and put them in a sack in my knitting bag for just this moment. Er, better make that the previous moments when I finished skeins. All the pre-wound balls in my bag have been used.
Again, not normally a problem, right? Just haul out the swift and wind off another cake. So out comes the swift, out comes the winder, and both are clamped in place. Then I went to my storage closet to get a skein, and that was when it hit me.
I had no idea where the rest of the yarn might be.
You might remember that a couple of months back, I photographed and catalogued most of my yarn in preparation for moving it to a storage location. At that point, I tried to also reorganize it more neatly -- like yarns together, every bin filled, and so forth. Somewhere on that journey, I decided to remove the "knits in progress" yarns from their usual home in the stash closet and put them --
Somewhere else. Somewhere really clever. Somewhere, I'm sorry to admit, that I couldn't for the life of me remember.
While I tried to remember what my brainstroke had led me to do, I grabbed the pink sweater and cast on the sleeves.
Because I'm not sure there's enough yarn for full sleeves, I decided to do a provisional cast on at the widest part of the sleeve, just below the sleeve cap shaping. You can see the gray waste yarn of the provisional cast on in the picture. Then I knit the sleeve cap in usual fashion (bottom up). Then I picked up the stitches at the provisional cast on, and will knit down until the sleeves are done or the yarn is gone, whichever comes first.
I've used this "middle out" sleeve construction technique in similar circumstances, and it's the best argument in favor of knitting the sleeves last. Do both sleeves at once, and you won't end up gimpy-armed if your yarn runs a bit short.
On Friday, I realized I was within two rows of dividing the front of Catherine Parr for the neck shaping. As this is a crew neck, more or less, that means there's very little knitting left to do. I did some rough math and realized I could probably finish the sweater before the end of the year.
And then I also realized I would need a second ball of yarn to knit from, once the neckline is divided into two pieces.
This isn't the kind of detail that would normally pose a problem. Normally. I had wound off several skeins of the dark green Cascade 220 and put them in a sack in my knitting bag for just this moment. Er, better make that the previous moments when I finished skeins. All the pre-wound balls in my bag have been used.
Again, not normally a problem, right? Just haul out the swift and wind off another cake. So out comes the swift, out comes the winder, and both are clamped in place. Then I went to my storage closet to get a skein, and that was when it hit me.
I had no idea where the rest of the yarn might be.
You might remember that a couple of months back, I photographed and catalogued most of my yarn in preparation for moving it to a storage location. At that point, I tried to also reorganize it more neatly -- like yarns together, every bin filled, and so forth. Somewhere on that journey, I decided to remove the "knits in progress" yarns from their usual home in the stash closet and put them --
Somewhere else. Somewhere really clever. Somewhere, I'm sorry to admit, that I couldn't for the life of me remember.
While I tried to remember what my brainstroke had led me to do, I grabbed the pink sweater and cast on the sleeves.
Because I'm not sure there's enough yarn for full sleeves, I decided to do a provisional cast on at the widest part of the sleeve, just below the sleeve cap shaping. You can see the gray waste yarn of the provisional cast on in the picture. Then I knit the sleeve cap in usual fashion (bottom up). Then I picked up the stitches at the provisional cast on, and will knit down until the sleeves are done or the yarn is gone, whichever comes first.
I've used this "middle out" sleeve construction technique in similar circumstances, and it's the best argument in favor of knitting the sleeves last. Do both sleeves at once, and you won't end up gimpy-armed if your yarn runs a bit short.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
About the Sock Yarn
In one corner of a tightly packed closet, atop a narrow bookcase teeters a stack of storage boxes filled with enough yarn to make 63 pairs of socks.63. I know. I counted.
And that doesn't include the several yarns in the fingering to DK range that could eventually be made into socks. That's just the stuff that was bought expressly to make socks.
I made 9 pairs of socks this year. So at my current rate of knitting, I have enough sock yarn to last me seven years.That's assuming I continue to knit socks at the same rate, which is by no measure a certain thing. I'm planning more sweater knitting, which means less sock knitting.
Three years ago, before I started hoarding sock yarn, these bins held the yarn for sweaters-in-progress. They held needles and notions. Now, to make room for the sock yarn, all those things have been crammed into nooks and crannies on bookcases, which are bowing under the weight of everything I ask them to hold.
2009 will be the year I stop collecting sock yarn as if it doesn't count towards the stash. I'm sure I'll still buy some here and there, and I've "budgeted" to allow myself to purchase new sock yarn after I've completed three pairs of socks. After. Not before. The storage closet has no more credit to extend.
Last year, I granted myself two exceptions in my personal rules. I said that sock yarn didn't count, as long as I paid cash for it from my weekly pocket money allowance. And I said that the rules didn't apply to Stitches and to The Fold's annual New Year's Day sale. This year, sock yarn counts, whether I pay from my weekly allowance or from gold that rains down from the skies.
Will there be an exception for Stitches? Still debating that one. I may leave it an open question until I see just how many pairs of socks I manage to knit between now and September. But my usual splurge mentality for the Stitches marketplace has started to come under heavy scrutiny, too. So we'll see, I guess.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Goals: Not Just for Soccer Anymore
I love goals. I love planning things -- setting the vision, crafting strategies, breaking a process into pieces. I love thinking about what's possible, the big dreams, and then trying to imagine ways to turn possibilities into facts.
Yeah, and I love New Year's resolutions. Let's face it. The new year is a great excuse for making goals, and not just for people like me with our daily, weekly, monthly and annual goal lists. January 1 is the one time of year when the whole world gets in on the game. Fun times.
That's a snapshot of a week in my planning book. I developed a numbering system for the things I want to accomplish every day, day after day, and use that as a shorthand in my book. Some of these numbered things may seem silly -- for example, one of my daily goals is to clean something in my house for 15 minutes. But I have to put that on the list because if I don't, I might not ever get up from my desk. I tend to get sort of stuck here. Wrapped up in my work. One of the challenges of working at home is balancing the whole life/work thing -- you never leave the office, you know. It's always here. My goals have to reflect the ways I struggle for balance.
And then there's my project wall.
Each white card is a manuscript which I've acquired. Again, because I'm a bit of a freak, I've developed a notation system to help me track where each manuscript is in the development and production process. The best ones are upside down with an X through them, because those are the ones I'm done with. They're not out of production yet, so they can't come off the wall, but I can more or less ignore them.
The delightful Miss Seven loves my office -- what little girl wouldn't love a room filled with colored note cards and pencil sharpeners and scissors? Two of the notes on my project wall were placed there by her when she was playing office with me. One reads, "everyone loves you well ... and people also like you very much." The other reads, "Hi TT, I (heart) you and I know other people do to." I think those notes will probably stay on the project wall forever. Just cuz. Y'know.
So, now that you've had a glimpse into my ordinary world of lists and planners and notation systems, maybe my decision to make some knitting goals for 2009 will seem more understandable. I'm a driven person, and knitting is where I usually let all that drop. I just forget it all and make my stitches, one after the other in soothing rhythms, confident that eventually I'll wind up with a garment. No deadlines. No obligations. No plans or goals.
Yeah.
So that's how I came to have project bags hanging off every doorknob, and I'm up to my ears in stash. Because I didn't worry about when I would knit different things, or where I would put the yarn. I just figured I'd get to it eventually, right?
That's not a system that works particularly well for someone like me.
So I'm crafting knitting goals for 2009. I have a rough draft of them posted on the sidebar of my blog. Still pondering them, and some of those goals may change between now and January 1, but they're starting to take shape nicely. I'll be focusing more on garments and less on socks. Finishing what's already been started, knitting what's already been bought.
What about you? Any knitting resolutions for the new year?
Yeah, and I love New Year's resolutions. Let's face it. The new year is a great excuse for making goals, and not just for people like me with our daily, weekly, monthly and annual goal lists. January 1 is the one time of year when the whole world gets in on the game. Fun times.
That's a snapshot of a week in my planning book. I developed a numbering system for the things I want to accomplish every day, day after day, and use that as a shorthand in my book. Some of these numbered things may seem silly -- for example, one of my daily goals is to clean something in my house for 15 minutes. But I have to put that on the list because if I don't, I might not ever get up from my desk. I tend to get sort of stuck here. Wrapped up in my work. One of the challenges of working at home is balancing the whole life/work thing -- you never leave the office, you know. It's always here. My goals have to reflect the ways I struggle for balance.
And then there's my project wall.
Each white card is a manuscript which I've acquired. Again, because I'm a bit of a freak, I've developed a notation system to help me track where each manuscript is in the development and production process. The best ones are upside down with an X through them, because those are the ones I'm done with. They're not out of production yet, so they can't come off the wall, but I can more or less ignore them.
The delightful Miss Seven loves my office -- what little girl wouldn't love a room filled with colored note cards and pencil sharpeners and scissors? Two of the notes on my project wall were placed there by her when she was playing office with me. One reads, "everyone loves you well ... and people also like you very much." The other reads, "Hi TT, I (heart) you and I know other people do to." I think those notes will probably stay on the project wall forever. Just cuz. Y'know.
So, now that you've had a glimpse into my ordinary world of lists and planners and notation systems, maybe my decision to make some knitting goals for 2009 will seem more understandable. I'm a driven person, and knitting is where I usually let all that drop. I just forget it all and make my stitches, one after the other in soothing rhythms, confident that eventually I'll wind up with a garment. No deadlines. No obligations. No plans or goals.
Yeah.
So that's how I came to have project bags hanging off every doorknob, and I'm up to my ears in stash. Because I didn't worry about when I would knit different things, or where I would put the yarn. I just figured I'd get to it eventually, right?
That's not a system that works particularly well for someone like me.
So I'm crafting knitting goals for 2009. I have a rough draft of them posted on the sidebar of my blog. Still pondering them, and some of those goals may change between now and January 1, but they're starting to take shape nicely. I'll be focusing more on garments and less on socks. Finishing what's already been started, knitting what's already been bought.
What about you? Any knitting resolutions for the new year?
Thursday, December 25, 2008
The Best Gifts Are You
So, at the holiday party at Nana's Knitting Shop on Friday, in between collecting bribes to buy me a senate seat, Tricia gave us all these lovely kits.
I say Tricia gave them, but actually it was her husband The Prince, dressed in a beautifully knit red sweater and a custom knit white beard. (Yes, Trish, the sweater is beautifully knit. Forget about that teenie row error on the back. It's a design feature.)
This is a kit with instructions to make felted cherry blossoms as pictured on the pattern card. I love the yarn -- Cascade Lana D'Oro -- and have decided it's far too soft and decadent to felt. It wants to be a neckwarmer. Or underpants. It's that soft.
Then at the SnB annual holiday shindig -- a party for the oldtimer SnB crew, many of whom don't make it to our weekly gatherings any more, but all of whom are still definitely part of the team -- we did our annual gift swap. This year's swap was supposed to be gag gifts and white elephants. I had a neatly wrapped package sitting on my dresser and walked out of the house without it. Pout! So I thought I wouldn't get to play along as Knifty Red read her little story about Mrs. Purl Right knitting gifts left and right. (It's one of those stories where you pass the gift to the left or right every time the word left or right is used, and it's really fun.)
I wasn't the only one who forgot her swap gift. Two of us forgot our gifts, and by coincidence, two people brought extras to compensate for the boneheads among us. Ahem. So I got to play along, and look what I got!
That's two precious, shiny skeins of Knit One Crochet Too Souffle -- perfect for a drapey scarf -- and a skein of Fannie's Fingering -- or as we think of it now, sock yarn for dirty girls. Did you know that in certain parts of the world, "Fannie" refers to a woman's girly bits? Fannie's Fingering, indeed.
But the best thing I got for Christmas this year, without question, was the chance to enjoy the company of my knitting buddies. Twice. When I first moved back to the creative wasteland known as "my childhood neighborhood," I knew I would have a hard time finding like-minded people around here. Creative class members are in short supply in these parts. And always have been. People like me tend to run away from places like this, you know, and congregate in areas where like-minded people won't scorn work that's done for something other than money. (Or worse -- activities done to improve the work that's done for something other than money. Try explaining that one to an accountant sometime.)
So I thought I was in for a few years of loneliness when I came back here. Family reasons drove me to do it, and I dreaded it in many ways. The first few years were every bit as isolating and frustrating as I expected.
And then I met the knitters. I was shy of joining this group at first. I knew about it long before I came to that first meeting, but I hesitated. I was afraid I would find nothing more than a group of crafty housewives -- you know the type, the women who do these things because their friends are doing it or because they heard about it at the mall. They are driven by different needs -- the need to be part of the group, to be popular, to fit in. And that's fine, but that's not what drives me.
But I took a chance and went to a meeting and found a mix of people that really does feed my heart and soul. And from there, I met some more knitters, and some more knitters, and pretty soon my weekly calendar was formed around knitting events with two different overlapping groups of people, all of whom delight me every time I'm in their company.
I love yarn. Jeez, everyone who knows me knows how much I love yarn. But what I love even more than yarn are the people around me who also love yarn.
Happy holidays to all of you.
I say Tricia gave them, but actually it was her husband The Prince, dressed in a beautifully knit red sweater and a custom knit white beard. (Yes, Trish, the sweater is beautifully knit. Forget about that teenie row error on the back. It's a design feature.)
This is a kit with instructions to make felted cherry blossoms as pictured on the pattern card. I love the yarn -- Cascade Lana D'Oro -- and have decided it's far too soft and decadent to felt. It wants to be a neckwarmer. Or underpants. It's that soft.
Then at the SnB annual holiday shindig -- a party for the oldtimer SnB crew, many of whom don't make it to our weekly gatherings any more, but all of whom are still definitely part of the team -- we did our annual gift swap. This year's swap was supposed to be gag gifts and white elephants. I had a neatly wrapped package sitting on my dresser and walked out of the house without it. Pout! So I thought I wouldn't get to play along as Knifty Red read her little story about Mrs. Purl Right knitting gifts left and right. (It's one of those stories where you pass the gift to the left or right every time the word left or right is used, and it's really fun.)
I wasn't the only one who forgot her swap gift. Two of us forgot our gifts, and by coincidence, two people brought extras to compensate for the boneheads among us. Ahem. So I got to play along, and look what I got!
That's two precious, shiny skeins of Knit One Crochet Too Souffle -- perfect for a drapey scarf -- and a skein of Fannie's Fingering -- or as we think of it now, sock yarn for dirty girls. Did you know that in certain parts of the world, "Fannie" refers to a woman's girly bits? Fannie's Fingering, indeed.
But the best thing I got for Christmas this year, without question, was the chance to enjoy the company of my knitting buddies. Twice. When I first moved back to the creative wasteland known as "my childhood neighborhood," I knew I would have a hard time finding like-minded people around here. Creative class members are in short supply in these parts. And always have been. People like me tend to run away from places like this, you know, and congregate in areas where like-minded people won't scorn work that's done for something other than money. (Or worse -- activities done to improve the work that's done for something other than money. Try explaining that one to an accountant sometime.)
So I thought I was in for a few years of loneliness when I came back here. Family reasons drove me to do it, and I dreaded it in many ways. The first few years were every bit as isolating and frustrating as I expected.
And then I met the knitters. I was shy of joining this group at first. I knew about it long before I came to that first meeting, but I hesitated. I was afraid I would find nothing more than a group of crafty housewives -- you know the type, the women who do these things because their friends are doing it or because they heard about it at the mall. They are driven by different needs -- the need to be part of the group, to be popular, to fit in. And that's fine, but that's not what drives me.
But I took a chance and went to a meeting and found a mix of people that really does feed my heart and soul. And from there, I met some more knitters, and some more knitters, and pretty soon my weekly calendar was formed around knitting events with two different overlapping groups of people, all of whom delight me every time I'm in their company.
I love yarn. Jeez, everyone who knows me knows how much I love yarn. But what I love even more than yarn are the people around me who also love yarn.
Happy holidays to all of you.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
When Looks Deceive
These may look like rather ordinary, lumpy cookies. But the taste is really something special. Several of you who participated in the cookie exchange asked for the recipe. It started off as a recipe ripped from a magazine, but -- this may come as no surprise -- I tend to tinker with recipes. Yeah, that's right. I cook the same way I knit. Recipes, like patterns, are never made as written. I may only fool around on the margins, but I always read a recipe and think, "Ooh! That sounds good. But it would be better if...."
In any event, this started off as a recipe for a sandy cookie with jelly swirls. And now it is...
::drumroll::
Raspberry Chocolate Chip Cookies
5 T butter
1/3 c dark brown sugar
1/3 c white sugar
1/3 c raspberry jam
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 generous cup dark chocolate chips
1 1/4 cup chopped pecans
Cream butter, white sugar and brown sugar. Add egg and mix well. Add vanilla and raspberry jam. (Jam will be easier to stir in if you nuke it for a few seconds. Be careful not to overheat it, but just warm it slightly.) Add flour, baking soda and baking powder and mix thoroughly. Mix in nuts and chips.
Drop by spoonfuls onto well-greased cookie sheets and bake at 350 for 9-11 minutes. Don't overbake. Allow them to cool for just a couple of minutes on the pans before transferring to racks. They need a bit of a rest before handling.
Just fwiw, I like the Girardhelli 60% dark chocolate chips. They're nicely shaped and have a good flavor and are very easy to find. The combination of tang from the raspberries, sweetness from the pecans, and richness from the chips is a real treat.
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