05.04.08
Posted in General, Works in Progress at 11:26 am by Rachel
See? Less than a month since my last post! Didn’t I promise you? Now I just have to come through on the “more exciting” part.
I recently received notification via email that Lickety Knit has been featured on findingDulcinea, self-described as “Librarian of the Internet.” I’d never heard of this particular web guide, but it looks nice and I’m always flattered to be noticed within the large and noisy and varied knitblog world.
The one thing that confused me a bit was its description of my site, found here:
Lickety Knit is for those knitters who want a bit of sassy humor with their blog reading. Read about the author’s knitting projects, her cats and thoughts on life, and take a gander at her finished projects, photos from her travels and (of course) some pictures of her cats.
Certainly very kind, but it gave me pause because, quite frankly, I make a concerted effort to minimize the cat content on my blog. Don’t get me wrong, I love my cats, and with three of them, they play a significant role in my home life. And if they had their way, they’d be in every knitting photo I take. But I realize that they are just plain old cats, and therefore of limited interest to a general audience. (There are certain exceptions to this rule, including cats that are ludicrously photogenic and cooperative.) Worried that I had become a cat blogger without noticing, I went back to check: my cats appeared on my blog exactly once in 2007, and zero times so far in 2008. Why on earth were they so heavily featured in that description, then?
This question did not keep me up at night, but it did get me thinking about how I would actually describe the content of this blog. I’ve decided it breaks down as follows:
- 25% knitting content
- 15% sarcastic humor
- 15% self-deprecation
- 45% repetitive excuses as to why I haven’t knit or blogged much recently
The rest of this post is going to be rooted in that last 45 percent, because (and this is for real), I haven’t read a single knitting blog nor knit a single stitch in about 8 weeks. That’s my most egregious truancy ever, so it’s only right that I come up with the best excuse for it ever. Will it be good enough? You, my blog readership (or “bleadership,” as my sister-in-law calls it) will have to be the judge of that.
Let me begin by admitting that deep in the recesses of my basement, carefully tucked away in gallon-size ziplock bags, in a box inconspicuously labeled “curling irons and hair notions,” is a small treasure trove of tiny knits that I’ve accumulated over the last three years. Some were originally intended to be gifts, some were started for no reason at all, and some were made with the faint hope that I might have a use for them myself someday. (Two were started with the intention of donating them to Project Linus, and the fact that they never made it there is admittedly embarrassing and more than a little shameful.)
Hmm, I kind of made it sound above as though I was going to be dropping a series of hints that would lead you to my excuse, but I can’t imagine that there are many of you who haven’t already arrived at the correct conclusion…well, at least part of it. For the 5 percent of you who are slow on the uptake (no, you don’t have to admit who you are), I will tell you that last year at the Yarn Harlot book launch in New York, a knitter in the audience asked Stephanie whether she’d ever heard of knitting causing or aggravating severe nausea during the first trimester of pregnancy. Stephanie answered encouragingly (”yes, but I promise you it goes away”), and while at the time I was only half-listening (because I was furiously knitting away at my charity blanket square in a futile and ultimately humiliating attempt to keep up with Minty), lately I have replayed that exchange over and over in my mind in an attempt to convince myself that my favorite hobby is not lost to me forever.
Anyway, by now I’m sure all of you have figured out that I’m pregnant. Yep, thirteen weeks tomorrow. Most of you probably have not guessed that I am pregnant with twins.
I know, seriously. I don’t really know how it happened either. (The TWIN part, people. Please do not transcribe the chapter on the human reproductive system from your college physiology textbook into the comments.) This news has thrown the Lickety Knit household into happy turmoil, and in the last three weeks we have entered an agreement to buy a new house (ours, which I adore, is definitely too small for us + twins + their crap + the parade of friend and family helpers that we are lining up), put our house on the market, signed an agreement with a buyer (whew!), and begun to contemplate our lives without any sleep whatsoever. Actually, I don’t have much time left over to contemplate that, thanks to the bone-crushing exhaustion that sends me to bed at 8:15 every night.
Here they are looking vaguely less like nothing. Still, thank goodness for the tech’s helpful labels.
So that is the best excuse I can come up with as to why I have neglected my knitting and blogging and blog-reading (bleading?) duties for so long. (And Andre and Meghal, if you’re reading this, now you know why your son has had to endure the first weeks of his life without the knitted turtle I promised you ages ago. It’s coming, I swear.) I wish I could assure you that it will get better from here on out, but I can’t be certain it will. I am clinging to the hope that my nausea will subside and I’ll get at least a sliver of my former energy back, because I have twice as much knitting to do as I originally thought I would! Suddenly that little secret treasure trove of baby knits is looking mighty paltry.
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10.24.07
Posted in Finished Objects, Works in Progress at 8:43 pm by Rachel
Thank you all for your incredibly enthusiastic responses to my Lotus Blossom Tank! You made me so happy that it caused me to post yet another bonus issue of Lickety Knit Monthly.
I have never really been what you could call an early adopter, fashion-wise. In fact, I am probably better characterized as a complete non-adopter at best, and a tragically late adopter at worst. I don’t want to go into lots of embarrassing examples, but suffice it to say that I began pegging my pants in 1992. (Is this back in, now that the 80s are back in?) (Or are the 80s not actually back in, but I’m just picking up on them now for the first time, in my late-adopter style?)
Anyway, this trait generally extends to my knitting, which means I rarely knit anything that people haven’t seen several dozen times before. But when Minty sent me her pattern for her recently designed Roman Earflap Hat and asked me to proofread it (UPDATED: here is the direct link to the pattern, and here is its Ravelry page), I was seized by two things. Okay, three. Actually, no, just two. (I probably should have deleted that moment of self-doubt rather than just leaving my thought process right on the screen, but I think it probably makes me seem more nuanced and compelling if I reveal some inner conflict; otherwise you might be tempted to think that this is just a plain old post about a knit hat.) The first thing (remember, half a paragraph ago, the two things?) was a total adoration of the hat itself. The second thing was the realization that I could be the FIRST PERSON IN THE ENTIRE KNOWN UNIVERSE to knit this hat (after the designer). Years of being made fun of because I was finally curling my bangs straight up a full three years after everyone else had stopped suddenly gave rise to a burning desire to do something first. So I knit this hat.
Isn’t it so cute? I am not a pompom kind of girl in the slightest (partly for looks, and partly because, when handmade, they seem such a precarious proposition), but I make a giant exception for this hat. Without the pompoms, this hat doesn’t really work. I originally thought maybe I’d leave them off, but take it from me, that would have been a mistake. Without pompoms, this hat is a sad and ill-fitting assemblage of knotted wool. With pompoms: a total party for your head! (Don’t ask me how adding pompoms improves the fit, it just does.)
I knit the hat pretty much exactly as written in the pattern, except I used a sport-weight yarn to get the stitch gauge Minty did, which resulted in a wildly different row gauge, so I knit for an inch or so longer than called for in the pattern before beginning the decreases. The yarn is Sheep Shop Yarn Company “Sheep 3,” a two-ply yarn that is 30 percent silk and 70 percent wool. I like it very much. (Most of my family should now be thinking “What’s the matter with bootblacking?” in reference to an oft-cited line from an old favorite TV show, but the rest of you needn’t trouble yourselves with it.)
Please everyone, knit this hat, because until you do, I’m actually still just the last person to have done so–making it no different from every other fashion choice I’ve ever made.
In progress now: the Cable Down Raglan by Stefanie Japel from the spring 2007 Interweave Knits. I swear this is actually where I am with the sweater, and I’m not just trying to find reasons to get my rack on the internet. This photo is purely for informational purposes.
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12.03.06
Posted in Finished Objects, Works in Progress at 5:10 pm by Rachel
Although there has not been much blogging going on here at the Lickety Knit Corporate Headquarters lately, knitting has in fact been happening. Unfortunately, the knitting has been falling into one of two categories: holiday gift knitting (and therefore not bloggable) and kill-me-now knitting.
Seriously, people, I don’t know whether it’s that my standards are too high, or that my attitude is all wrong, or that there’s some sort of knitting karma coming around to settle some kind of score (maybe I invented fun fur in a past life?), but my knitting seems to have been nothing but a series of disappointments recently.
For starters, I have been working very hard on Matt’s plain brown sweater, mostly to get it over with (the “eat the vegetables first” theory of knitting). You may recall that this sweater has already tormented me in various ways that I will catalogue and index for posterity once the damn thing is finished. However, I have made some good progress and said damn thing, against all odds, is starting to look like a sweater.
In fact, just as I was beginning to think that my persistence with this cursed sweater was being rewarded, I made the delightful discovery that the second bag of Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton is, in fact, an entirely different dye lot from the first bag. Yay! Isn’t this great?? I’m making Matt an avant-garde, modern, asymmetrical stripe sweater — just the sort of thing he wears all the time — without even trying! I could not imagine a better turn of events. I’m not sure you’ll be able to see the color contrast in this photo, but it’s there. And if you zoom in, you’ll get a good look at how I’ve handcrafted each stitch lovingly so that each one is different. It may look like tension unevenness to you, but it is actually a carefully constructed fabric designed to convey an impression of high-fashion shabbiness. Plus, poor workmanship is all the rage on the Paris runways right now. Yup.
In the event that it turns out I don’t love how the sweater looks with the yoke and one sleeve in one color and the body and other sleeve in another, I will get some brown dye and try to overdye the entire thing. Unfortunately, there’s not a damn thing I can do if it turns out that I don’t like how the wildly uneven stitches look. Small chance of that, though.
To give me a break from the artistic genius that is Matt’s sweater, I decided to whip out a couple small projects. I had a lovely skein of blue Manos in my stash, and I decided to turn it into Grumperina’s lovely Odessa hat that I’ve long admired. I adjusted the pattern slightly to accommodate the heavier-than-called-for yarn, and, to my astonishment, it came out quite nicely! It was a fun and easy pattern to knit (I left out the beads), and I was pleased to have a cute little blue hat to go with my navy coat. Imagine my joy, then, when I pulled the laundry out of the washer last week and, in with the jeans and towels, found my Odessa hat. I have absolutely no idea how it got there, unless I accidentally mistook the washer for a hatbox the last time, I, I don’t know, dropped acid or something. With great effort I managed to get it around my head for this photo, but it’ll go to charity now. Sigh.
Still, the hat had been quick to make, so I bucked myself up, dug into my stash, and cranked out another one in Lamb’s Pride worsted. (”Cranked out” actually glosses over some real problems I had while knitting the second hat, wherein I wound up trying to drop down stitches through multiple YOs and SSKs and then reconstruct a good two inches of circumference. I did this in an effort to avoid tinking back about 4 rows. In the end I’d estimate it took me about three times as long as it would have taken to tink, with astronomically more frustration involved. Well, let’s just hope it built character or something.
In a way this Odessa came out even better because the yarn is more evenly spun. I marched Matt outside and made him take a photo of me before I could inadvertently felt this one. Nice, huh? Don’t I look happy to be wearing it? At last, a successful finished object. What a feeling of accomplishment. Wait, what the hell is that??
That is a stitch that apparently I missed when I drew the yarn through (in theory) all the stitches left on the needles at the crown of the hat. It has now laddered its way down about 8 rows, through lots of K2togs, YOs, SSKs, and who knows what all. It is definitely fixable, but I can’t say I’m overly motivated to tackle it right now. Hats: you’re on notice. Moving on.
The one bright spot in all this is a lovely brioche-stitch scarf I knit out of two skeins of Misti Alpaca chunky yarn. I used size 13 needles and it took me about two days to make. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the nicest-feeling yarn I have ever knit with. As it flowed through my hands onto my needles there were times when it felt almost liquid, in a good way. It has been a while since the process of knitting itself has been so pleasurable. I wasn’t even beginning to get tired of it when I reached the end of the second skein. I love how the brioche stitch looks feminine and simple and substantial and warm. There is only one problem, and it is one that I have been obstinately ignoring and will continue to ignore: it’s a little itchy. I was stunned to discover this. I mean, to touch this yarn with your hands is like stroking an angel’s wing. It never occurred to me it might be itchy. And in fact, when I first discovered that it made my neck itch a little, I incredulously touched the scarf to every part of my body for which it was hygienic to do so. Not an itch anywhere. Therefore, I think it is perfectly appropriate that I punish my neck for being such a high-maintenance little snot. Think you’re too good for alpaca, neck? Too bad! You’ll wear that scarf and you’ll like it!
Oh, I thought of one other bright spot! I took my swatch for the Gatsby Girl Pullover into a great YS that is L to my mom (Ewe’ll Love It) when I was in New Hampshire for Thanksgiving. The owner, whose opinion I respect, took a good look at it and declared that it would be fine for the sweater. Given that she stood to make some money on the sale of replacement yarn, I trust her opinion and am going to press on with the yarn I’ve got. (I expressed my gratitude by buying Misti Alpaca and some yarn for a baby sweater. And some books. And needles. And notions. Not my finest display of will power ever.) Anyway, thank you all for your commiseration and advice. Muchly appreciated.
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11.20.06
Posted in Knitterly Fraternization, Works in Progress at 11:14 am by Rachel
Help me, internets! I need your collective knowledge and guidance. No time to be clever or verbose today — I urgently need advice. As a little background (cue collective thinking: “Didn’t she just say she had no time to be verbose?”), this weekend I went to the SNEKnitBlogCon (the Southern New England Knitbloggers Conference — I don’t think that’s what anyone else called it, but it’s what I call it), which was graciously hosted by Sarah Cooper, owner of KnitWits in Westerly, R.I. It’s a lovely store with very pleasant staff, and if you ever find yourself crossing the border between Rhode Island and Connecticut on I-95, you should swing by.
The group included Kristen of Audio Knits, Debby of She Knits by the Seashore, Sarah of The Knittin’ Kitten, Lorraine of Stuff, Junk, and Whatnot, Erika of Sloth Knits, and me. I really hope I’m not forgetting anyone. Sarah had a wonderful array of yummy goodies spread out for us, and we all snacked and chatted and knit. (A couple photos of a good time being had by all can be viewed here.) The group scattered to all corners of the store, however, when Sarah distributed 15 percent off coupons to each of us, at which point current knitting took a fairly decided back seat to future knitting. I don’t think a single one of us walked out of the store that day without a powder-blue KnitWits shopping bag bulging with goodies. Which leads me to my purchase, which leads me to my need for advice.
For several months now I’ve been fairly sure that I want the Gatsby Girl Pullover from the Fall 2006 Interweave Knits to be my next sweater. That desire became even more intense after Paloma finished and posted about her finished version. I’m generally very very good about knitting from my stash and only buying yarn for projects I’m really truly about to start, so I was happy to be looking for an opportunity to pick up the yarn for this project. A 15 percent off coupon and 10 balls of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in the same dye lot fairly screamed opportunity, so I snatched it up and didn’t try to cast on while driving home only because Erika was with me and might not have felt entirely safe had I done so. (We had already had one brush with danger when Erika realized that a spare alkaline battery in her purse was, on its own, heating up to an alarmingly high temperature. I pulled over and, with visions of permanent scarring from battery acid dancing in my head, popped the battery into a Ziploc plastic bag. Hey, I figure if a zip-top bags protect us from terrorism via toiletries, they can certainly protect us from exploding batteries! We made it home without incident, though Erika did take the battery with her when I dropped her off, and I haven’t heard from her since….)
Aaaaanyway, I got home and immediately swatched for the sweater. I got gauge perfectly on size 3 needles (why oh why do I keep choosing these ridiculously small-gauge sweaters?), took my “new project” photo for the blog, and was on my way. Lovely yarn, beautiful pattern — I couldn’t have been happier. Except…well. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this yarn was not, in fact, a good substitute for the Rowan Cashsoft DK called for in the pattern. This feeling grew and grew, and I spent HOURS going over it in my mind, agonizing over whether I should stop now and get new yarn to avoid the risk of ultimately discovering that the yarn was, in fact, all wrong, or whether I should persist on the chance that everything really would turn out fine. Instead of making a decision myself, I’m asking the internets to make it for me. Here are the very detailed specs. Please try to stay with me and then leave a comment telling me what to do and I promise to obey you.
The DB yarn and the Rowan yarn are virtually the same content. The DB is 125 yards per 50-gram ball. The Rowan is 130 yards per 50-gram ball. Based on this, I concluded that the yarns were close enough to identical to safely substitute one for the other (even though DB also makes/made a cashmerino yarn that is officially a DK weight — which also seems to be 125 yards per 50-gram ball but with a gauge the same as that of the Rowan DK). Given the weight and yardage similarities, it would seem to me that all these yarns would be basically the same. If this assumption is not true, I’m looking for someone to tell me (and tell me why).
Where things get confusing is with gauge. The gauge on the DB is 6.25 stitches per inch on 3s. The gauge given for Rowan Cashsoft DK is 5.5 stitches per inch on 6s. (Someone tell me why yarn can be the same yardage per weight but call for such different gauges?) The gauge given in the pattern is 7 stitches per inch on 4s with the Rowan. This is where I start getting stressed. The designer of the pattern clearly knit the yarn at a tighter-than-suggested gauge. I am knitting only at a slightly tighter gauge than suggested on the ball band (my gauge swatch was spot-on). So tell me, is my yarn too skinny? Will the weave of my sweater be too open when stretched (it’s a clingy sweater)? I pinned it out to the approximate width shown in the pattern schematic and I think it looks okay:
Of course I lay awake from 4:00-5:30 this morning thinking about this. Yarn content and yardage are the same! So the yarns are equivalent! But the suggested gauges are so different — so they’re nothing like each other! I’m going to be wearing a translucent sweater and everyone will think I’m a harlot! I will be cast out of polite society!
If I were to read this on someone’s blog, I’d probably advise that she use different yarn for peace of mind alone. However, the store from which I bought the yarn is an hour away, and I can only get store credit (not a refund). I’m not saying that’s a reason to keep me from using different yarn if I really should, but it’s a reason to keep me from going with that option automatically just to stop freaking out.
So, internets, what do you advise? I’m putting all my faith in you — please don’t let me down.
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10.02.06
Posted in Finished Objects, Works in Progress at 3:01 pm by Rachel
People, a few posts ago I was joking that my knitting just keeps getting worse and worse. Well, not joking so much as trying to disguise my rising panic with desperate humor. I think I’ve made this allusion before, but it’s like the subtraction soup in The Phantom Tollbooth. Milo and his friends just keep eating and eating it, but instead of filling up they get hungrier and hungrier. (Also an apt reference for today, Yom Kippur, but not entirely relevant to my current point.) Like Milo, I keep knitting more and more but instead of increasing in skill, I just get worse.
Take my Koigu socks, for example. You may notice they are not the same height. This isn’t even a knitterly skill thing so much as a not-being-an-idiot thing. Yet in spite of having made 5 pairs of identical ultra-simple all-stockinette socks in the last year, I completely failed to stick the landing. Frogging happened. Reknitting happened. Socks are done. There will be no further discussion.
Oh, except since you’re here, some quick FO stuff. Yarn: Koigu PPPM in color 315L. Needles: size 1s. Stitches around: 60. Notes: I had two different dye lots, so I knit the feet of both socks with one and the legs with the other. I’m glad I did, because you can totally tell and it would have been weird to have the two socks so different.
I like these socks. The end.
Moving on to other examples of my lack of knitting mojo: the sleeves on Matt’s sweater. I confidently cast on for these sleeves after executing some elaborate calculations. Several hours later, I determined that the sleeve was too narrow (I was using one of Matt’s ideally fitting sweaters as a guide, seen here) and cast on again with more stitches. A ball of yarn later, I realized that the sleeves still looked too small, so I frogged and cast on again, doggedly telling myself that my willingness to frog rather than hoping no one would notice the error was a sign of my maturity as a knitter. Baffled by why this was happening, I measured my gauge. I’d been getting 5.5 stitches to the inch on the body of the sweater. Turns out I was getting 7 stitched to the inch on the sleeve. No wonder I was getting a stunted, shriveled fabric! I guess my DPN gauge is drastically different from my circular needle gauge. So I went up a needle size, cheerfully went on my knitting way, and ten inches later, I screwed up my courage and once again measured the sleeve against Matt’s sweater and:
Kill me. Kill me now.
I know that doesn’t look like much, but trust me, it’s enough, especially given that the fabric of the handknit sweater is considerably thicker than the fabric of the store-bought sweater. So the sleeve is now in its fourth incarnation (not counting a couple minor stops and starts in which I didn’t like how and where I’d set up the increases and all that), and I have 11 inches of length and the appropriate amount of width. Lemme tell you, it is not exactly the masterpiece I would have liked given the amount of time I’ve put into it, but I’m pleased with myself for persevering.
Until two nights ago when I just couldn’t persevere anymore. Nothing was going wrong (for once), but I just couldn’t bear another round of brown seeded rib. I desperately needed to KNIT SOMETHING ELSE. So I dove into my stash, pulled out some yarn I bought last year, and cast on for a Liesel scarf. In spite of the fact that it’s too narrow, too itchy to wear as a scarf, and coming out just the way lace patterns always do when knit with variegated yarn (badly), I continue to knit it, because I just need to knit something semi-successfully, dammit! I figure if it doesn’t work out as a scarf, I can use it as a tablerunner or something. (When I told Matt this he said, “A wool tablerunner?” all incredulously, and then went on to say what a bloody brilliant idea he thought that was, and how he simply couldn’t wait for me to finish it so we could put it right to use. I’m sure that last part had nothing to do with the size 0 needles I had pointing at his eyeballs.)
Because Matt is so supportive of my projects, I’m going to be similarly supportive of his by posting this photo of him with a giant uncooked meatball. We have a tradition on Yom Kippur of breaking the fast with giant servings of spaghetti and homemade meatballs, and Matt is a hero for being able to prepare the feast even as his stomach growls and threatens to march on Washington in protest of the treatment to which it is being subjected. Me, I just lie on the couch in the living room, whimpering, my eyes filling with tears at each waft of the delicious aromas. Every year Matt steels himself against the rumblings (his stomach) and the whinings and complainings (me) so that he can produce a delicious meal for the break-fast. He’s not bad, my husband.
Speaking of Yom Kippur, I’m going to post below an essay I wrote last year on the holiday, which I posted on my now-defunct writing and photography blog. It is 80 percent serious and 100 percent unrelated to knitting, so I don’t mind if most of my readers skip it (and apologies to the few of you who may have read it last year). I just sort of liked it and wanted to repost it this year. Thanks.
My Yom Kippur
Today is Yom Kippur, the Jewish holy day for self-affliction and atonement. As is traditional on this holiday, I have not eaten since sundown last night.
What’s so remarkable about this? Jews all over the world are doing just as I am without feeling the need to blog about it. Well, there’s nothing remarkable about it, really, except that I’m not actually a Jew. I’m fasting and attending services and, in my own way, trying to come to terms with my own imperfections and failings from the past year. Given my gentile status, though, a reasonable question from an impartial observer might be, “Why?”
It’s a good question. Why am I participating in this fairly demanding holiday, one that is observed in a way that does not exactly resonate with my Unitarian Universalist upbringing? (Don’t get me wrong, self-reflection and atonement are hardly anathema to UUs, but declaring one’s failings at length, in Hebrew, in unison with hundreds of others, just isn’t familiar territory to me — and it’s harder than many other Jewish holidays to adapt to my own religious and spiritual tastes.) So why do it? As a non-Jew, I have to assume I’m not even getting credit for it from God!
Well, the obvious answer is that I’m married to a Jew, and when your husband is fasting it just seems rude to sit next to him on the couch and eat straight out of the container of Tiny Trapeze Marshmallow Fluff using a bar of chocolate as a spoon. But partly because, when presented with the opportunity, I can’t help but feel as though a day of self-denial might be, you know, good for me.
On the days leading up to Yom Kippur, as I anticipate the fast, I theorize that my hunger on that day will drive home to me the reality of the devastating hunger suffered by so many in the world less fortunate than I am. That my rumbling stomach will make me more acutely aware of all that I have. That I will be made sober by the realization that if I get very very very very very hungry to the point where I’m miserable (as I did last year), I have a fully stocked pantry and refrigerator from which to relieve my light-headedness, and that many who endure hunger as a part of life do not have that option.
The reality, however, is that during the fast day pretty much all I can think about is how hungry I am. I’m not very good at being self-reflective when all I can focus on is how many hours it is until Matt’s and my traditional spaghetti and meatball break-fast. I can do a little musing on how lousy it would be to feel this feeling every day, but for the most part I just get cranky and selfish. It’s not altogether admirable.
One might say that this renders the fast day a bit of a waste, at least for me. That if I can’t get something out of it, when push comes to shove, then what’s the point? True, the fast day itself does not live up to my before-the-fact vision of raised awareness and renewed gratitude for what I have. And each year, as the hunger makes me bitchier and bitchier, I have written off the whole exercise as pointless and ineffective.
So why do I keep doing it (aside from petty reasons of not wanting Matt to seem stronger willed and spiritually richer than I am)? Because it turns out it’s the two or three days that follow the fast that make it worthwhile. Like the feeling of euphoria that one experiences when pain is finally relieved, it is the return to eating that makes a meaningful impact on me. Not so much the break-fast feast itself, which is of course a festive occasion that I thoroughly enjoy, but the more mundane eating in the days that follow.
Tomorrow I will get up and choose from several different flavors of cereal. And when I do, I will feel genuinely grateful not only for being able to eat without thinking twice about it, but about having so much food, in such great variety, so near. At my desk at work I will resist, as I always do, the temptation to go purchase a warm, buttery muffin from the nearby coffee shop, but I will take great pleasure in the mere fact that I could do that if I wanted to. I will even find some satisfaction in the weekly chore of creating the weekend shopping list and filling my cart at the grocery store. For a few short days, the abundance and availability of food will actually feel very much like the enormous luxury that it is. For a few short days, I will not take it for granted.
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09.10.06
Posted in Works in Progress at 7:15 pm by Rachel
Oh dear. You’re all going to be so disappointed in me. I haven’t posted in two and a half weeks. I haven’t posted anything of substance (defined loosely) in three and a half weeks. Those of you who don’t use Bloglines have had to suffer the inconvenience of checking my blog repeatedly only to see the same stale photos time after time. And this after I complained not a month ago that I was losing readers! Yes, please, readers, be loyal and devoted to me, but by no means expect anything in return!
And now on to the disappointment of specific individuals. First, Matt will be disappointed in me. I am in the middle of two projects for him: Ravenclaw socks (I have finished the first) and a sweater, ostensibly for our (now passed) anniversary. This weekend, however, instead of making progress on either, I set aside all good sense and went to Patternworks (the store is 10 minutes from my family’s camp on Lake Winnipesaukee) and bought two balls of Koigu in a colorway that I adored (it is terribly represented in this photo) and couldn’t help myself from casting on more or less immediately (well, I did wait until I got home after realizing that the invisible cast-on was too fiddly for behind the steering wheel).
Whose disappointment to detail next? How about Theresa’s? No doubt Theresa is shaking her head in wonder at the plain and pale colors to which I am forever drawn (I prefer to call them muted and nuanced), even after she has tried to impress upon me by example me the glory of color that isn’t ashamed of being colorful. Alternatively, I could acknowledge Laura’s likely disappointment, as I have betrayed her yet again with my unabashed (well, okay, I am mildly abashed) abandonment of the Apathetic Sock Knitters’ Club. Ooh, ohh, and then there are the multiple individuals who have expressed hope that I will eventually venture outside of plain stockinette stitch for socks; sorry to disappoint you, guys, but I’m just not going to make wee cables and lace that will, when used as directed, be completely obscured by other clothing.
Then there’s my disappointment in myself, of course, for failing to exercise even a modicum of discipline regarding my knitting projects. Buying yarn when I already have lots of yarn to use up! Starting projects when I already have lots of projects to work on! Using lots of exclamation points when there’s plenty of less melodramatic punctuation available to me!
Honestly, though, this impulse project is making me awfully happy. The cool nights and mornings are making this young(ish) woman’s fancy turn to thoughts of socks. The beautiful colors are providing some relief from the endless expanse of brown in Matt’s sweater. The compact, mindless project makes the prospect of this week’s bus commute almost enjoyable. Man, I can get a higher word count out of plain socks than just about anyone. I’m fairly certain this is not a skill worth putting on my résumé.
Something else that never fails to make me happy is bringing the gospel of knitting to others. This weekend Matt and his bandmates (and I, the band manager by virtue of repeatedly claiming that I am the band manager) went to my family’s lake house so they could work on recording their demo free from the distractions of home (how they resisted the distractions of a screened porch and placid waters and late-summer sunshine — as well as a pretty cool storm — is beyond me). There was some down time for each band member while individual parts were being recorded, so I seized on Stephanie’s mild interest in the little hats I’d been making recently and thrust needles and yarn into her hands. By the end of the weekend she was knitting almost as ceaselessly as I — and she nearly finished her hat! I was so proud. Also this brings me one step closer to free toaster I get from the American Knitters Association* once I document 25 recruits.
So in spite of my twinges of guilt about neglecting projects and betraying people who do not deserve to be neglected or betrayed, it was a pretty fantastic weekend. Knitting with beautiful yarn in a beautiful place with strains of beautiful music (two guitars, a fiddle, a mandolin, and male and female vocalists — the demo will be available soon and you can bet you’ll all hear about it) drifting to me on the breeze — let’s just say I have no regrets.
Happy new week!
*This is probably a real thing. The toaster nonsense is not.
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06.18.06
Posted in Works in Progress at 1:51 pm by Rachel
In which Rachel actually manages to write a blog post that does not feature scandalous illicit photos of herself.
I have finally left the knitting doldrums behind me! Thank you all for your words of support, including enlightening me about the obvious: that the sun, while certainly impressive in many ways, is not powerful enough to bleach a ball of yarn straight to its core. At least not in the time frame we’re dealing with. Indeed, by removing the outers layers of the yarn (genius!), I found myself with perfectly usable stuff, in an amount that should be just enough to eek out a sweater for my not-exactly-ginormous husband. (I debated linking here to one of many possible pictures demonstrating his non-hulkitude, but decided that when it comes down to it, the survival of my marriage is in fact more important to me than my blog readership. Besides, he is hulking in all the important ways. I am talking, of course, about his hulking personality.)
Aaaaaanyway, I cast on for a sweater that I am basing on the Adirondack Pullover by Elizabeth Morrison available from The Garter Belt. I’m knitting mine from the bottom up instead of the top down, in a completely different gauge, with a v-neck instead of a crew neck. Basically the similarities end at the seeded rib. (By the way, the flowers in the picture are from a huge, exuberantly blooming wild rose bush that Matt and I never even noticed we had until this year. Something about the weather conditions this spring caused it to explode in size. Or perhaps we should ask Congress to investigate the possible use of some kind of illegal floral steroids.)
I cast on five different times for the sweater in an attempt to achieve a satisfactory bottom edge. First I discovered that a K5P1 round alternated with an all-knit round wasn’t enough to keep the fabric from curling. (Actually, FIRST I discovered that you can check and check again and still wind up with your cast-on edge twisted when you join to work in the round.) Then I tried starting with a few inches of all ribbing, without the alternating all-knit rounds, but even that wasn’t enough to counteract the curling. Then I tried starting with a purl row, but I didn’t think it looked professional and knew Matt wouldn’t like it. Finally I realized I would need to do a knitted hem, something I’d never done before. I understood the concept pretty well (a purl “turning” row sounded vaguely familiar), and though I didn’t follow any directions, I’m quite pleased with how it came out. It looks neat and professional, and it was actually really easy just to knit the cast on row together with my regular knitting at the appropriate point — no finishing to do later!
Through all this casting on and ripping out I discovered that the Debbie Bliss wool cotton is an incredibly hardy yarn. There is absolutely no wear whatsoever visible in the fabric made from the yarn that suffered the rigors of my multiple false starts. I think that that realization was the point at which I knew that my knitting luck was finally turning around.
Good thing, too, because if there’s any knitting for which you need some luck on your side, it’s lace. I have finally made some headway on my Amazing Lace project (Ene’s Scarf), and I am absolutely loving it. Here is a bit of it very hastily pinned out just so you can see that I’ve actually finished the border. There is some pooling in the yarn, but not enough to detract from the overall look, and since the length of the rows steadily decreases throughout the shawl, there’s no way for any pooling to be particularly persistent. I am going to confess to you all, though, that I seem to be knitting this shawl without lifelines, because apparently I have…well, not so much a death wish as a monumental disaster leading to crippling frustration leading to destructive acts that will be regretted later wish.
I am leaving for Europe in six days. My lace can’t wait.
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04.27.06
Posted in General, Works in Progress at 10:34 am by Rachel
In which I write a blog post about nothing and feel bad about it but can’t really do much about it because there’s nothing to write about.
I know it has been quiet around here for a while. I have been steadfastly adhering to my cardinal rule of blogging (“If you don’t have anything interesting to blog, don’t blog anything at all”), but a week and a half with no post is a long time even for me. The “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BLOGGER?” billboards going up on the information superhighway with my pitiful mug on them have started to creep me out, so I figured I ought to put something up here before I see my life summarized in the blog obituaries. (Yes, everything in that last sentence was made up right out of my own addled brain.) Anyway, desperate times call for blatant disregard of one’s own blogging manifesto.
Actually, I do have a few things going on. Starsky is moving along at a good clip; I have a non-knitted knitting-related project in the works; and I even have a pair of socks I could throw up here in a pinch (and, in fact, “throw up” is rather what the yarn’s color and splotchiness bring to mind — delightful!). Nothing ready for prime time, though. Plus the rest of my life keeps getting in the way. For example, a few weeks ago we noticed that our fence had fallen down onto our neighbor’s garage. Because our neighbor is practically Mr. Rogers in terms of friendliness and kindliness, not only was he not mad about it, but he offered to spend an inordinate amount of time (like, days) helping us repair it. Matt and I have long said that we aspire not to be “can do” people so much as “can pay” people, but when we discovered that the cost of replacing the entire fence was equivalent to two months of my salary, our neighbor, who is quite handy at do-it-yourself home repair, took pity on us. So while I’m deeply grateful for that, it did cut into my precious weekend knitting time quite a bit.
Although really, building a fence is a lot like knitting. Except instead of two wooden sticks, you use two hundred. And the resulting “fabric” isn’t so much interlocking loops of yarn as it is adjacent boards nailed to a rail. And the project is finished not with seaming but with cement. And you don’t do it sitting down in front of the TV sipping tea so much as lifting, hauling, digging, and okay, building a fence is seriously nothing at all like knitting. I tried to find even the most remote similarity and failed. I suppose both result in pride in a good day’s work, which actually is nothing to sneeze at.
Through it all, Starsky blocks. The fronts and back, anyway. I actually have both sleeves finished as well. When I eventually do my finished object post about Starsky I will explain that my new floor-length cabled wool cardigan ball gown is my well-deserved punishment for not washing and blocking my swatch before determining my row gauge. In the meantime, I’m plugging along on the double-knitted belt, which is taking for freakin’ ever and looks like tush. Then it’s just the seaming left (I’m thinking of using cement to put it together — it worked great on the fence) and the big ol’ collar. I’m rooting for a cold spell at the end of next week.
Lately I’ve been thinking that my blog really needs a “hook.” Some bloggers offer free patterns, some have a Museum of Kitschy Stitches, some have lots of helpful techniques and tutorials. I have self-deprecation and dull apologies for being dull. Needless to say, that’s not going to get me a book deal. You probably recall that I flirted with the idea of posting naked pictures of myself as my hook, and while that went over quite well with most of my depraved readership, my family and coworkers read this blog. So it’s something I’ll continue to puzzle over, this “hook.” If you have hooks to spare, you may submit your suggestions in the comments. (In college we used the expression “getting mad hooks” to mean hooking up. So if you comment that you have hooks to spare, I will not be able to help but think of you as something of a Don Juan from now on.)
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04.16.06
Posted in General, Works in Progress at 5:48 pm by Rachel
For many years my family has made a habit of celebrating holidays on the most convenient date, without regard for technicalities such as, well, the date on which said holidays actually fall. Christmas is the primary example. As my parents are divorced, we are able to spend Christmas day with only one of them. So we enjoy a full celebration of the holiday with the other parent the day before, or the day after, or the closest weekend day, or the following Saturday…whenever is the most convenient.
Some people think it would feel somehow inauthentic to celebrate a holiday on the wrong day. It doesn’t. Surround yourself with family, food, and all the appropriate accessories and accoutrements and you’ll have no idea that the rest of the world is out elbowing each other in the delicate parts in order to be the first through the door of the Wal-Mart down the road. Nope, it’s all peace on earth from where you’re sitting (near the Christmas ham).
When I first introduced Matt and his family to this concept, they were appalled. Some years back I reasonably suggested that we make a practice of observing Thanksgiving one day late. This would allow us all to travel to St. Louis on Thursday, a far less expensive and hectic day on which to fly. The fact that the grocery store would be open while we were preparing Thanksgiving dinner was an added bonus. This was unthinkable to them at first — how could we possibly celebrate Thanksgiving without knowing, deep in our hearts, that somewhere in New York City there were Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons injuring spectators at that very moment? Well, I convinced them to try it once, and the convenience became so obvious to all involved that we agreed each year henceforth to overlook the blasphemy of eating turkey and cranberry sauce a full day after Santa has paraded down 34th Street.
With that lengthy introduction (are you still here?), you should not be surprised to know that Matt and I hosted Passover’s traditional second Seder on the fourth night of Passover this year. Come on, who can travel mid-week? A Saturday is just so much easier. Matt and his sisters and his sister’s girlfriend and I had a great meal, topped off with a rowdy hunt for the afikomen. (The prize? The last piece of Chanukah gelt. It was cutthroat.)
(A quick note for those who may be confused at this point by the Christmas stuff at the beginning of this post and the Passover stuff here: yes, Matt’s Jewish and I am not. We have learned well in the past nine years that this is an issue of some difficulty for people all over the religious map. However, we have found great pleasure in exuberantly celebrating each other’s holidays, and I hope none of my readers takes offense to that arrangement.)
The quality family time that dominated the weekend limited my knitting progress, though I did manage to find moments for “filler knitting” (that’s code for “socks”) while we played board games after dinner. It is great to knit during games — when you lose, you can airily say, “Oh, I wasn’t giving it my full attention,” and if you win you can insufferably boast, “Ha, I beat all you fools without even giving the game my full attention!” As a side note for all you game-lovers out there, this game, Ticket To Ride, is a little known but incredibly fun game. (Though linked here to Amazon, you can get it cheaper (but still new) on eBay.) It’s relatively simple to learn, has just the right proportions of strategy and luck, and only takes about an hour to play (yes, Risk and Monopoly, I am criticizing you).
As I’ve said in the past, I generally don’t like to post much on non-knitting-related topics, and clearly this post is an egregious violation of that policy. But I’m pretty squarely in the middle of a couple projects right now, without any finished objects expected in the next couple weeks, and I didn’t want my blog to start gathering dust bunnies. To prove, however, that it was not my evil plan over this past year to entice you all here under false pretenses with my dee-lightful knitting commentary, tricking you all into Bloglinesing me, only to abandon all knitting content and force you to read drivel about my scintillating life, here is my progress on Starsky (that’s the finished back and the beginning of the left front). You can also observe the progress of our weeping cherry tree toward full blossom, because I know many of you care deeply about the state of our landscaping. I am pleased with how quickly it is coming along (Starsky, not the tree, though I have no complaints about the speed with which the tree is flowering) and I can’t wait to wear it.
Happy Passover and Easter to all who celebrate (and whenever you celebrate)!
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04.10.06
Posted in General, Works in Progress at 3:02 pm by Rachel
In which we discover that every truth I communicate to Laura immediately begins a process of becoming untrue.
Some of you may have noticed that handknit socks have made a fairly abrupt appearance on my blog recently, in spite of previous posts expressing my bafflement at knitters’ interest in investing so much time in these little projects destined to be walked all over. My recent foray into this widely adored subcategory of knitting has prompted questions of two flavors: 1) So, are you hooked yet? and 2) What happened to your solidarity with apathetic sock knitters everywhere?
As a fairly high scorer on the conflict-avoidance scale who always wants to make everyone happy, I am somewhat reluctant to answer, since the truth is bound to disappoint both groups. To let down the latter group, I admit that I can see some of the appeal of sock knitting and will probably crank out a few pairs of socks a year. For the disappointment of the former group, I confess that I will not any time soon be composing symphonies of adoration to sock-knitting, and my reasons for doing it at all are solidly pragmatic. There, have I dissatisfied everyone equally?
So why am I knitting socks? Three reasons. First, I was pleased to discover how nicely socks tuck away into my bag (as seen here in this totally unposed photo), easily accessible while on the bus or in other “waiting around” situations. I know other projects can do that too, but many of them quickly grow too large and cumbersome or don’t have the same level of simplicity and repetitiveness that I value in situations when I’m only knitting a few rows at a time. Having a pair of socks going all the time means always having something entirely mindless to knit when such a project is called for. (Tangent: Upon returning inside after taking this absolutely candid photo, I discovered that I was missing a needle. Know what looks a lot like a size 1 bamboo double-pointed needle? Pretty much everything in a standard New England backyard in April. Total needles found: Zero. Number of twigs pounced upon with an “Ah ha!” only to be tossed aside in embarrassment: Lots.)
Second, wearing handknit socks is actually pretty great. They feel sturdy and luxurious and cozy (and supremely well-fitting) all at the same time. I can understand why this advantage to sock knitting might be lost on, say, Texas residents, but for those of us in New England, who shiver from September right through May, it’s just short of a Godsend. The desire to wear handknit socks more than one day a week is a powerful motivator, and it opened my mind even further to the possibility of becoming a regular sock-knitter.
And now I offer the third reason that sock knitting has weaseled its way into my life:
The yarn is too beautiful to resist. I don’t much like variegated yarn for my sweaters, bags, tank tops, etc. Solid colors are more my style. But with sock yarn I can freely partake of the gorgeous hand-painteds, hand-dyes, self-stripings, and other delicious color adventures. (Yep, that’s Ravenclaw yarn there on the right!) And, well, unfortunately I’ve been doing that with a bit less self-control than I might like.
Which brings me to my newfound superstition about talking (via email) to Laura. A few months ago I told her that I shared her apathy toward sock knitting. Immediately I developed a deep-seated desire to knit socks. Then last week I rather boastfully told her that I have practically eliminated the stash-expanding tendencies that used to plague me. How many skeins of sock yarn did I purchase in the three days following that boast? Seven. Seven skeins. I know that’s a paltry stash compared to what many others can claim, but it’s a complete reversal of my non-stashing inclinations! She’s working voodoo on me, people, and you can bet I will be wary in my interactions with her from now on. (I wonder what part of the voodoo doll you stick to make someone buy too much yarn? The wallet part?)
So, now for the part where I disappoint the sock-knitting enthusiasts. My own enthusiasm has topped out at knitting plain, stockinette, toe-up socks. It’s not that I don’t want to challenge myself in my knitting, it’s that I want my limited “real” knitting time — the time in which I am able to focus on intricate, challenging techniques — to be rewarded by more than fancy socks. I know that the yarn I’m using for the socks shown here (Artyarns Ultramerino, by the way) was probably crying out for some kind of lacy pattern (without it I’m somewhat disappointed to see that the lovely colors in the skein translate into a general splotchy muddiness in the sock), but I want to keep my socks squarely in the realm of bus knitting and save my focused knitting time for showier things like sweaters and shawls.
So socks, for me, are destined to be “filler” knitting, and my adventurous knitting will be confined to (sorry, sock lovers) more worthy projects. I’ll still get the benefit of amassing a collection of handknit socks to wear without sacrificing any time on things like Starsky (progress for which is shown below — I am up to the armhole shaping on the back). I think this still makes me a worthy member of the Apathetic Sock Knitters Club (after all, it’s not the ANTI-Sock Knitters Club), but if Laura wants to carry out her threat to rewrite history, banish any mention of me in the club’s annals, and declare that Monkee was her original cofounder (no disturbing totalitarian tendencies to discern there, no siree), so be it.
Thus ends my psychological struggle with sock knitting (this topic will be covered in depth in one of the required courses at my recently founded School of Psychoknittery). I am at peace with its role in my life. I will not write any more lengthy blog posts about it, and I will restrict my photo documentation of each pair of socks to a quick snapshot here and there. And as proof that my other knitting has not been neglected while I wrestled with these existential knitting questions, here is a crappy picture of my Starsky progress (the cable pattern will look much nicer blocked). I am actually quite excited about this sweater and hope to finish it in time to wear it once or twice before the warm weather fully arrives.
Y’all are real sweet to stick it out all the way to the end of my ramblings, by the way.
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