Tennis and Baby Blanket
Blanket for new cousin Eliza Madeline Wayne (no relation to Batman), at Legg Mason Tennis Classic.
Seriously, It’s Cursed. In Other News…an iPhone App!
Back and Left Front Match!
So I have been jogging along happily with the CPH (rav lnk) – and by “happily” I of course mean “grudgingly and while dreaming of other sweaters.” For the person at late night a couple of weeks ago who asked why we were supposed to block the back while knitting the left front – I suspect it’s because at one point we are asked to “work even in patt until front measures same as back to beg of shoulder shaping” and we will, of course, want to do that after blocking. Perhaps. Although it’s not like the front is blocked at that point – oh, whatever.
Those of you who came to our late night meetup may have overheard me admitting that I dunked the back in water and then forgot to take it out — for three days. [It is entirely possible that I have been doing too much the last couple of months.]
Danielle and I speculated about what this would do to a sweater back, and I am here to tell you the answer: it makes it really, really soft and stretchy and about 3″ longer than it was pre-dunking. In order to get the sweater back to its normal state, I had to air dry, spray-block, coax, plead, pray, spray-block again, beg, weep, curse, smoosh, wait, and spray-block one more time. But it finally did end up in the correct form, as we can see from the photo above (look! the back and the left front are both blocked to the correct measurements! and they match each other too!).
Took the right front with me on our road trip and am about to start the armhole shaping. Was just starting to feel good about the project, reminding myself that I have only the sleeves and the hood to go after that (conveniently blocking from my mind both my general dislike for piecing sweaters together and my growing suspicion that I do not have enough yarn for this pattern).
Then, last night, I walked into my office and saw this:
"I Regret Nothing."
"But I Don't Want It Recorded."
Freaking cat, nesting on my nice sweater. Freaking yarn, drawing all manner of evils to whatever I make out of it. Anyone got any good cleansing rituals?
Last but not least: my friend Blake of TouchArcade and a few other sites let me know about Stitch Minder for iPhone. So, if you have an iPhone (or, I imagine, an iPod Touch) and need to count some rows/patterns/etc., search for “stitch minder” in the App Store. I’ll let you all know how I like it. And you let me know what you think!
Next time: Yarn from Warrenton…
Back from Abroad
Andy and I are back from Casanova, where we spent a relaxing 24 hours and ate way too much. Our meal at the inn we found was 5 courses, and I wanted to hurt the woman who brought us course #4 (cheese). It’s not right to resent a gift of cheese.
Best few hours might have been in Warrenton, where (in addition to seeing the fine establishment shown) we wandered into to the Liberty Heritage Museum. [It was that or the Old Jail Museum.]
We also went to the Frost Diner, which sported a sign reading, “Please do not seat yourself at a dirty table,” and really good cheeseburgers.
My favorite attraction, of course, was My Favorite Yarn Shop (no, seriously, that’s its name) on the outskirts of town. We are totally coming back here. The lady behind the counter was friendly, there were rooms upon rooms of yarn, and the owner had her own line of dyed yarn for sale. I’ll post photos of the yarn I bought tomorrow…for now, I’m off to teach a class for Knit-A-Gogo.
Getting Out of Dodge
PartnerInCrime and I are going out I-66 for a 24-hour minibreak in (wait for it) Casanova, Va. Purty, right?
Stardom
Went to a concert tonight, the nature of which is a little embarrassing. Suffice to say I have a soft spot for certain 60s- and 70s-era singer-songwriters. Randomly, my father was given two box seats to the concert, and I went with him.
I was reminded that wondrous things happen when people are inspired. One man with a guitar and some uncomfortable emotions (and, let’s face it, a feel for the cheesy turn of phrase) can grow into a full production with three spangled back-up singers, a horn section, and arenas full of dancing fans.
So dream big. You just never know.
The Cursed Yarn; or, Knitting Distractibly
CPH Short-Rowed Shoulders
First Off: Come to Knit Happens tonight! I’ll be there until about 7:10 p.m., working on the left front of my CPH.
And now…the time has come to tell the tale of the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran I purchased in 2005 and am now making into my Central Park Hoodie (rav lnk) during our knitalong.
I thought I’d make myself a nice Katrine (rav lnk) from Rowan Classic Weekend (rav lnk). [Note: this pattern is listed as Katrine in my book but Katrina on the Rowan site. Don’t know what to do with this.]
So I bought some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (rav lnk) in a nifty teal color. My first choice (as always) was green, but charming Holly at Knit Happens pointed out that the teal would look better on me. What? Thinking about how the sweater would look when I was wearing it? Whole new concept…
Got to the big shawl collar and got confused; decided big shawl collar would look silly on me anyway and switched to Not Your Standard Issue Sweatshirt (rav lnk). Had gauge issues (as in “gauge while knitting didn’t match gauge while swatching”), decided sweatshirt would make me look like cow — and, besides, didn’t want to make hood.
Next up: Basic Instinct (rav lnk). Was knitting while in car, so perhaps that explains this round of gauge problems…that, and the fact that the yarn had been three different sweaters at this point and was getting a little tired.
Briefly considered Gloria (rav lnk) from Noro Knits and several others. For quite some time, expected I would make it into Tempting (rav lnk) from Knitty. Somehow, could not find sweater that would change me from a sad, gauge-hopping shell of a knitter into a confident competent knitter supreme. [Who knew?!?]
Was about to give up entirely and throw away used, pilling, angry yarn when someone swore to me the yarn would be as good as new if I frogged, skeined, soaked, hung to dry. So far, it’s looking reasonably good as a CPH…but I still want it to be something else about half the time. Just like I want to be someone else some of the time…or to have a different job, or a different past, or a different haircut or a different height. Today, just pressing on with this pattern I chose — which, after all, is a really nice one.
Even if it is going to look weird on me.
Next Time: A plan to eliminate distraction.
Crying, Tinking
Tinking on the Porch
A few years ago, I went to upstate New York for a month-long writers’ conference. So many good things had converged to make it possible for me to attend the conference – a fellowship, time off from work, a small amount of discretionary cash in my bank account – that I felt that the universe was converging around me and that I was somehow Meant To Go. Hurrah for me! Etc.
As soon as I arrived, I was terrified and, confusingly, homesick. At 30 years old. I wanted to be at home, in my nice simple job with my nice boyfriend (now husband) and all the daily distractions from writing. I kept crying, as if I was 10 years old at sleep-away camp. I called a friend and she pointed out that, whatever was being kicked up by this time to myself, I’d probably just have to work through it. “But I keep crying!” I wailed, and she said, “Well, I guess you can just make a list of everywhere you’ve cried up there.”
I cried in the dining hall, in the snack bar, in my room, at the gelato place in town, over savory crepes near the dorm where I was staying, in my car, between workshops, late at night, early in the morning, around noontime, until I was finished. Somehow I’d calm down enough to go to classes and readings, so I wasn’t completely off the wall. And I felt a little braver about emotions after that: I’d cried all over that small town, and hadn’t been sent to a mental institution or broken into a million pieces.
I’ll probably have to start another list this year. For the second time in two days I have cried in public. Today it was watching “Mamma Mia” at the AMC Hoffman. What a cheeseball I am! How humiliating! Why couldn’t it have been at “The Visitor” like one friend recently? Or at home alone? On the other hand, there was lots of singing and dancing to cheer me up.
Well, anyway, the universe has subtle and not-so-subtle ways of keeping me right-sized.
I got home and found that I had made some errors while knitting in the movies, and that Andy had gone out on some Andy-Pampering-Weekend errand, and that I had left my keys in the house. Then the thunderstorm arrived. I sat on the porch and tinked several rows and cowered at the lightning. Andy got home and all was better (and drier).
CPH on Sunday
Work on the CPH continues: I have finished the armhole bind-offs and decreases, and I’m approaching the shoulder bind-offs. I am going to try the wrapped stitches and three-needle bind-off for the shoulders; I’m eager to see how it works out (and I really don’t want this sweater to be any bulkier than it has to be).
We are approaching a critical point for my yarn ADD: once the back is finished and I’ve started the front, I usually yearn for greener pastures. I am committed to finishing a sweater with this blighted yarn if it’s the last thing I do, but did consider frogging my CPH in honor of a Danielle Sweater (no rav lnk – weird) from the Yarn Girls’ Guide to Beyond the Basics (rav lnk).
So far, I have not succumbed. It’s a day at a time proposition. So far, today, I still choose to knit the CPH. We’ll see what tomorrow brings…
Man Time, Woman Time
Sometimes my iphone camera stutters like this when I click the shutter at the same time as mail comes in.
This weekend Andy is Taking Time Off: not fretting about any of the pressures in either of our lives, not doing anything he doesn’t want to do (work; errands; etc), and, conversely, doing whatever he wants to do. It’s kind of fun to indulge him like that for a weekend, especially since we usually enjoy similar things, anyway. It’s what we do for each other’s birthdays, too.
So far Andy Weekend has meant:
- Us going out to eat last night;
- Andy shooting NERF Pellets around the house (sometimes at me; sometimes near the cat);
- Andy going to see “Mongol” at the Shirlington Theater;
- Us eating BLTs for dinner and watching “Lonesome Dove” tonight.
It’s also meant he’s much more relaxed, and, indeed, so am I. Briefly considered the idea that we could trade off: if I got next weekend off, we could watch “The Imposters” and eat gluten-free pizza all weekend. And I would teach Andy to knit. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?
Of course, every weekend should be time off in just this way. I think it’s worth trying to do more during the week so we can do fewer errands over the weekends. Something to strive for, anyway.
Meanwhile, today I saw my uncle (JaneLawton‘s brother), aunt, and cousin off at National Airport. We sat outside the security checkpoint for a while, talking about my mother and her house, how to get through the death of a parent, uplifting things like that. It’s hard, but it’s good to talk about her and hear about how other people have survived loss. After they left I sat in the rocking chairs in Terminal A where you can watch the planes take off, and cried about Mom.
Rocking Chairs at DCA
I didn’t cry much after the first week or so after Mom died; I think I felt it would be a sign I was backsliding or not doing well. But these days it seems to me that it’s healthy to cry and it’s better just to do it than to hold it in. So: I cried in the rocking chairs at the airport. It didn’t kill me. I felt better afterwards. Etc.
So, to sum up.
Man Weekend: movies, Nerf blaster, food indiscretions.
Woman Weekend: knitting, weeping, trip to the airport.
There are days I really don’t see the point in being a girl. On the other hand, we do get to live longer.
Acknowledge, and Press On.
Battered by Storm, but Still Growing
This morning I’m tired and feeling lost. The grief process, as I found out last year when my husband lost his father, is long and complicated, and there are some days when I don’t know if I’m going to make it through. Of course, I don’t know what the other option is — mental institution? going on strike? free pass from the Powers That Be? — so I keep plugging.
This reminds me, as so many things do, of knitting. I love so many things about our craft — texture, color, the meditative state I occasionally pass through while penduluming from ‘I love this pattern so freaking much!’ to ‘This sweater is what is wrong with America today’ — but what stands out for me, many days, is the fact that it reminds me about faith.
Lots of knitting techniques look improbable, even insane, on paper, and not being a very visual person I often can’t picture what the instructions I’m following will end up doing. Excellent example: turning the heel of a sock. I don’t have to know how the heel turn works in order to do it. I just have to follow the instructions, line by line, and if the pattern writer and my own fickle skills are in my corner, I will end up with a nice turned heel (and, every time, I feel enormously clever because of it). Magic!
Unexpectedly Hanging In There
And so it is with life. I don’t know how it works — I don’t know the plan, or even if there is a plan, but if I just keep following the instructions (wake up, take shower, water dying aloe plants and inexplicably thriving wildflower pot, go to work unless weekend…) I will get somewhere. I have to do the footwork, but things do change — time keeps moving, the universe heals us, we reach out and help one another as we trudge the path — and I learn something (often grudgingly, it must be admitted) as we go.
I had an acting professor in college who took us through Sense Memory exercises every week. When we got distracted, he’d tell us just to recognize the distraction and move past it: “Acknowledge, and Press On,” he’d intone, making precise but traffic-cop-esque gestures.
So it is. Today, I acknowledge and press on through problems large and small: my mother’s death, my fear that I have killed her plants, an enormous project at work that seems to expand with every milestone I reach, various worries, a CPH with a small error, my very real desire to lie on the floor and sleep for about a million years.
Cabling Past the Error
But what can you do? You turn the heel with the instructions you’ve got, even if you don’t know how they’re going to work, even if you know something isn’t quite right about the stitch count they’re giving you at the end of every row.
And sometimes, if you’re very good, you’re rewarded with candy cane custard.
Today I’m off to work, to talk to a landscaper about our insane yard, and to Springwater Fiber Workshop for their closing sale. I can’t believe Springwater is going away, but it seems it really is this time.
My friend Elisa and I were actually slated to redo their website this summer, and I’ve asked the folks I know there whether anything can be done to save the place, but it looks like not this time, not in its current form. I’ll post more after I visit this afternoon.
Christmas in July
It’s coming — the candy cane custard at the Dairy Godmother! Christmas in July, tomorrow!
This custard is to your mouth what a breeze on the beach is to your sunburned back. Cold, delicious, a little shocking.
And this year there are opportunities for giving, as well as receiving.
I can’t begin to say how much this excites me, other than to offer you all this photo of my Peppermint Stick Sock from last August.
I’ll be buying myself a quart — two, if my partner in crime will allow it…
And, ok, I have not yet frogged the sweater. Am getting second opinion. Possibly a third.
Knit Like You Mean It. 