05.25.06
Posted in General at 12:28 pm by Rachel
The folks here at Lickety Knit Corporation are sorry to say that we seem to have sailed into a patch of the knitting doldrums. We are cripplingly behind on our Bloglines. We cannot find a pattern we like for our Amazing Lace project. And after a series of successes this spring (Tubey, the Reversible Rib Shawl, Starksy), we have not knit anything more significant than a swatch in some time. (And not even a very good swatch, at that.) Attempts to nagivate ourselves out of the doldrums have resulted in our becoming further enmeshed in them. We are approaching a state of despair. We have also decided we cannot bear to keep up this pretentious “royal we,” and we will now revert back to the more conventional “I.”
Let’s take a closer look at the incident that was instrumental in driving me into these dreaded doldrums, shall we? Just a few short days ago I took my first pilgrimage to the WEBS tent sale in western Massachusetts with Theresa, fellow host of The Amazing Lace. I’m not going to get all overstatey and tell you it was a life-changing experience, but I also don’t want to understate how fantastic it feels to walk amongst tables of excellent yarn at prices averaging around 70 percent below retail. We quickly acquired, filled, and overflowed one of those big Rubbermaid storage bins that the store so thoughtfully supplies for its most insane customers. I was a little overwhelmed, but I managed to cull my haul down to a reasonable (Matt is wetting his pants with laughter right now) size. Theresa and I used our loot to test out her new car’s trunk capacity.
So why not euphoria in the face of the new yarns? Well, here’s the thing. I’m the sort of person who, when confronted with a huge amount of merchandise, some of which is heavily and tantalizingly marked down, has a hard time keeping straight what I actually like and what I just like the price of. This is why I never shop at Marshalls, even though I know you can find great stuff there for cheap. Because I become blinded by the cheap and when I get home I realize that I just bought a lime-and-puce plaid vinyl miniskirt because, well, it was so cheap!
None of the yarn I bought is the equivalent of neon plaid vinyl, but in the quiet of my own home my enthusiasm has faded a bit. Take the cones of yarn on the right. If I had to guess (and I would probably be wildly off), I would estimate that that’s around 25,000 yards of laceweight yarn in total. I got it for $20. HOW COULD I NOT BUY THAT?? Problem is, I will never knit this yarn. I will always go for the yarn I like more than I like this yarn, because there’s only so much knitting time in my life and I don’t want to waste any of that time on yarn I don’t love. (To paraphrase a beer-lover’s bumper sticker, life’s too short to knit sh*tty yarn.) While there’s nothing terribly wrong with this yarn (that red is a wool-silk blend with a lovely sheen), it has some flaws (the red is stiff and unevenly spun), and I would never reach for it first. Basically I just paid someone $20 for the privilege of moving 25,000 yards of yarn with me from home to home for the rest of my life.
Here we have some lace-weight tencel. This is beautiful stuff, and people online rave about the drape and sheen of the shawls it knits up. The colors are incredibly saturated and are a pleasure to look at. There is nothing at all wrong with this yarn. The problem is that it’s not actually the sort of yarn I want to knit with. It’s too saturated. It’s too luminous. It is bright and vivid and rich. I am dull, subtle, and muted, or at least the yarns and garments toward which I gravitate are. But I was thinking with my retinas on Sunday (so typical for a woman to be carried away by overstimulated ocular cells), and I was also in the presence of someone who pulls off vivid colors exceedingly well, and I was feeling like a bit of a fuddyduddy in comparison. You can’t surpress your own taste for long, though, and while I may very well find myself knitting with this yarn one day, I know I could have spent the money on something a little more “me.”
I had intended to use one of the above yarns for my Amazing Lace project (TBD), and it was as I was swatching them (and as it was becoming clear that each one was not quite what I wanted) that I felt myself sinking into the doldrums. I felt them coming on, and in an attempt to stave them off, I busted into what I considered my biggest prize of the WEBS trip: 20 balls of Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton in a beautiful rich brown color — perfect for the sweater I’ve been planning for Matt — at 60 percent off. Yes, I intended to swatch my way out of the doldrums.
And it was this move that landed me squarely in a fit of knitting despair. I invite you to view the yarn and the swatch to the left. Lovely color, no? Take a good close look at the swatch. And a good close look at the ball with the label moved a bit to the side. No, that’s not a shadow being cast by the ball band. No, those splotches on the swatch aren’t gentle heathering. What you’re looking at here is yarn that sat in direct sunlight for for a long, long time.
Go attempt to give your cat a do-it-yourself root canal. Your cat’s response to the procedure, particularly the noise it makes, will give you a sense of my initial reaction to this discovery. For my subsequent reaction, go cross-breed Eeyore and the Grinch Who Stole Christmas; their offspring will represent not only a breakthrough in reproductive science, but also my mood about yarn and knitting for the last two days. This may sound like overreaction, but keep in mind I was already teetering on the brink of knitting desolation before it happened. What was supposed to be my saving grace turned out to be the last straw.
However, there may be hope. My one final purchase at WEBS seems to be a lone bright spot: this lovely mercerized cotton in a color I adore. It was $15 for the bag of 10 balls. It is a brand I’ve never heard of (even Google has barely heard of it!), but the yarn looks and feels great and the sheen is just sheeny enough — not too much, not too little. I desperately need to feel some accomplishment in my knitting right now, so I think I’m going to forget about my TAL shawl for a while and whip up a cute top with this. Maybe the Lotus Blossom Tank on the cover of the new Interweave Knits. Maybe that is my ticket out of the doldrums.
Thanks for listening, everyone. Coming soon on Lickety Knit: Optimism! Less whining! The ability to keep things in perspective!
Permalink
05.22.06
Posted in Finished Objects at 10:48 pm by Rachel
Here it is at long last, my finished Starsky! In an appropriately Starsky-themed post! There I am doing a totally plausible Starsky impersonation! What, you’re not convinced? Okay, I’m going to tell you a deep, dark secret, and I hope you will keep this between us and the internet: I don’t know anything about this “Starsky” character or the show she (he?) was on, whatever its name was. In fact, I am miserably, pathetically culturally illiterate when it comes to certain decades (specifically, everything between 1945 and 1998), so when I went to do the Starsky pose that I’d seen on the Knitty pattern, I was forced to admit that I am woefully ignorant of Starsky and everything associated with him (her?). Honestly, if I’d had to guess, I would have said Starsky was the dog in a detective/dog TV adventure series.
I made a genuine effort to inform myself about this important element of American culture, but in the end I realized that it didn’t matter. I didn’t make this sweater out of some kind of admiration for an outdated TV (movie?) character. I made it because I loved the leafy cable pattern. I loved the way the bulky yarn contrasted with the more feminine pattern details. I loved the idea of throwing this cardigan on over any and every outfit on cold winter nights and chilly fall mornings. I have not been disappointed in these things. So screw the original Starsky! She can stay in the 70s (80s?) where she belongs.
Okay, some actual knitting details. The pattern was well-written and straightforward. This was my first sweater ever that called for sleeve caps, and because of my screwy row gauge I had to rewrite the cap. It worked out quite well, which made me rather pleased with myself — if anyone else happens to get a row gauge of 22 rows per four inches (instead of 18 rows), let me know and I’d be happy to share my modifications. Unfortunately, the heavy yarn combined with my inexperience made the upper arm seams a bit bulky, and they don’t lie very flat (giving a look that falls somewhere between “shoulder pads” and “linebacker”). However, I haven’t tried blocking them particularly aggressively, so doing that could alleviate some of the problem and scale me all the way back to “early 1900s schoolteacher fashion.”
The yarn (Sierra from Knitpicks) is a satisfying yarn to work with. Nothing too fancy, just a nice, hardworking yarn that is barely scratchy against my skin. It’s a great value for the money. My one complaint was that every ball save one had a knot in it (a couple had two), so I did a LOT of felted joins. I guess I should be grateful that I had that option, or I would still be weaving in ends today.
I think that’s it in terms of pattern notes. I contributed basically nothing to the knitting world through my making of this sweater. I knit it almost exactly as written, in the yarn called for in the pattern, in the color pictured in the pattern. There really is nothing for any of you to say about my FO aside from “Wow, that sure looks a lot like the one on Knitty.” So don’t feel compelled to knock yourselves out trying to think of something interesting to say about it. (”Wow, the sleeves look about a half inch longer on yours,” would demonstrate an impressive attention to detail, though.)
Given that I was so eager to wear this sweater that I actually attempted to wear it while I was finishing knitting it, I guess it’s somewhat odd that it has taken me so long to post about it. Fact is, I’m feeling a little guilty: I spent quite a bit of time and mental energy at the end of this project hoping that the unseasonably cold and rainy weather would hold out just a leeeeeettle longer so I could get some wear out of the sweater before having to put it aside for the summer, and the result was the crappiest, rainiest, most miserable May in memory. So, sorry about that New Englanders. I guess I’m still learning my own powers.
Permalink
05.16.06
Posted in Finished Objects at 1:12 pm by Rachel
This morning before work I was gathering my things together to take photos of my finished baby bolero from One Skein. I have been holding out on a couple finished object posts for a while now, hoping to get some outdoor photos once the rain stops, but that plan only works if it ever does stop raining. I finally gave up and decided I’d make the best of whatever natural light I could get.
However, I couldn’t find the bolero anywhere. I had left it on the dining room table the evening before, but this morning it was nowhere to be found. A few minutes into my search I checked the spot where I’d intended to take the photos, thinking maybe I’d already transported the sweater there, and lo and behold, what did I find:
A very mopey penguin with his beak pressed against the rain-streaked window pane, staring out into the gloom, wearing the baby bolero. (It fit the rotund little guy somewhat snugly around the middle.)
“What are you doing?” I asked him sharply.
“Nothing,” he sighed, looking forlorn. “It’s just, well, after my first photoshoot a few months ago, I thought for sure you’d contact me again for more modeling work. I mean, I thought it went rather well. Yet you’ve barely looked at me since then. Was it something I said? Something I did?”
I decided this was not the time to tell him that yes, in fact, he’d become an insufferable diva who refused to speak to me except through his agent for some weeks after the shoot. He looked deflated enough as it was. I took pity on him.
“As a matter of fact, I was just coming to find you to ask you if you’d do some modeled shots of this bolero sweater. It fits you exquisitely,” I lied, eyeing the seams and hoping they’d hold. I cringed as he attempted to pull the jacket further around his ample torso.
“Really?” he exlaimed, ecstatic. “I thought you’d never ask!” And he immediately struck a pose, leaning against the windowsill in what I suppose was meant to be a jaunty manner. I snapped a couple shots. He looked delighted.
While the penguin struts his stuff, I’ll tell you that I made this with a single skein of Blue Sky Organic Cotton, exactly the yarn called for in the pattern. (I happened to have a ball that I had received last summer from my secret pal.) I’m fairly pleased with how it knit up, though it didn’t produce the most even stockinette stitch ever. While I know I as a knitter don’t generally produce the most even stockinette stitch, I do notice that my degree of unevenness varies with the yarns I use, so I assume the yarn has to be partially responsible, right. Right??
The pattern is fairly straightforward. I did a three-needle bind-off at the shoulders instead of sewing bound-off shoulder seams. I also thought of picking up the stitches for the sleeves around the armholes and knitting them in the round from shoulder to cuff, but DPNs were not presenting themselves at the critical moment, so I knit flat and seamed, as the pattern instructed.
The one ludicrous thing about the pattern is that it wants you to pick up something like 164 stitches for the ribbed edge. 164!! In case you can’t determine the scale of this garment, the size is for “a newborn, teddy bear, or doll.” It is tiny. There is nowhere to put 164 stitches. Starsky, my giant adult-sized cardigan, approximately 50 times larger than this weensy sweater, only called for 246. Insane. Needless to say, I picked up slightly fewer stitches to no ill effect.
Recognizing the classic warning signs of rapidly expanding ego, I wrapped up the photoshoot once I could hear the penguin starting to hum “I’m Too Sexy” under his breath and pretending to check a fake watch. “Great job,” I said. “Now I’m just going to take a couple photos of the sweater without you in it.” This did not go over well. With a haughty, high-pitched “humph!” he turned his back on me. Out of convenience I snapped a quick picture of the lace motif* on the back of the sweater before wrestling him to the ground to pry the thing off him. He whined and huffed a bit and made a big deal about how I’d injured his wing tip, but two minutes later I caught him urgently texting on his Sidekick with plenty of dexterity, clearly pain free.
I would make this pattern again. I have lots of single skeins that would make adorable baby boleros, and I can’t imagine a baby sweater that would be quicker to knit. So go ahead, friends and acquaintances! Get knocked up with abandon! Baby boleros for you all!
*Lace? Did someone say lace? The Amazing Lace has nearly 300 participants now and has become, I must say, something of a time commitment, sort of like how the Iraq war has become “something of” a liability for the president. That is to say, the hosting duties are all-consuming, so if I’m slower at responding to comments and commenting on your blogs than unsual, it is not that I don’t love you. It’s that I get behind and then become paralyzed with panic when I open my email — never mind my Bloglines.
Permalink
05.14.06
Posted in General at 12:28 am by Rachel
Each morning when I get ready for work I really have to talk myself into making my lunch. I really don’t enjoy doing it. Occasionally as I spread the peanut butter on the bread I think that I could never have kids; making my own lunch is bad enough, but making additional lunches for additional family members sounds entirely unthinkable.
This week as I was having these routine whiny thoughts I remembered that every day of my elementary school years my mom not only packed me off to school with a healthy, balanced lunch, but upon the enclosed napkin she always — always — wrote a funny poem. An original poem. Sometimes it was lunch themed, sometimes it was about our pets (one memorable verse was in the voice of one of my gerbils talking to the other), and sometimes it was just a motherly expression of affection to her daughter. Given that I can barely produce a sandwich each morning, the fact that my mother produced several volumes of poetry over my elementary school years confirms for me what I have long suspected: my mother is Supermom.
Back when I was whining about the Reversible Rib Shawl (I would have linked just then to the post in which I whined, but there were about 10 of them — do you sense a theme with me?), I brainstormed ideas for what the shawl could be if I cast off at my current point in the project. One idea that came up was that it could be the cape of a superhero costume. This became a bit of a running joke, and when I went up to visit my mom a couple weeks ago, she good-naturedly agreed to model a few Supermom shots. (This tolerance of my madness alone should earn her Supermom status — though I guess mothers get lots of practice in going along with their children’s inane activities. I’m sure she was just happy that I will never again insist that we play several consecutive hours of Paddycake.) In fact, she got quite into it, which makes me wonder whether she is in actual fact the mild mannered alter ego of a powerful superhero who holds grudges of steel against school bullies who maliciously break other children’s pencils (sorry Brian LaSalle, she’ll never forgive you); draws on supernatural sources of energy that enable her to attend infinite recitals, Little League games, awards nights, plays, and concerts; and leaps tall buildings in a single bound. I’ve never actually seen her do that last one, but I can’t rule it out.
Now that my sister and I are more or less grown up and independent, my mom gets to spend more time as Cool Glam Mom and less time as world-saving Supermom, but I know she’ll still don the cape whenever I need her. I hope she knows how much I appreciate all she’s done for me, and I thought that, given the anecdote I opened with, it would be appropriate for me to express my appreciation in rhymed verse.
It took me 90 minutes to write my poem. She wrote one before breakfast every morning. I’m telling you, Supermom powers are the only explanation.
When you fall off your bike
Or you’re scared of the moon,
When get your heart broken
By a teenage buffoon,
When life gets overwhelming,
Don’t worry, stay calm!
Because help’s on the way —
Here comes Supermom!
She’ll patch up your bruises,
She’ll dry up your tears,
She’ll pooh-pooh all the kids
Who make fun of your ears.
She’ll sing cheery songs
Every day when you wake.
She’ll offer advice
That you really should take.
She handles all this
With such grace and aplomb –*
I hope that you know
I think you’re super, Mom.
And I also do hope
You don’t take it too hard
That I got you this blog post
Instead of a card.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Love,
Rachel
*Warning: Awkward but unavoidable switch from third to first person approaching.
Permalink
05.04.06
Posted in Finished Objects at 8:41 am by Rachel
I acknowledge that this is not exactly the most scintillating finished object you’ll probably see on your knitblog travels today. Socks! In stockinette stitch! Who could have dreamed up such an inventive use of yarn and needles? But I still have a few more days to go until I can post my finished Starsky (though I really am within striking distance of finishing), so I’m putting these up here to tide you over.
I call these my Spring Splotch Socks because I think it sounds nicer than my Ate Too Many Skittles and Puked Socks, which is a more precise description of the color. And yes, I aroused plenty of curiosity from the neighbors by lying on my back with my legs straight up in the air taking pictures of my own feet for several minutes. But I was intent on including our lovely weeping cherry tree in the photo, since it was inconsiderate enough to blossom during a period in which these were my only FOs. One of us needs to plan better next year.
At the time I finished the second sock, I was sitting on the couch absolutely covered in kittens who had no intention of allowing me to dislodge them in order to get another knitting project. Since I had a little sock yarn left over, I took it into my head to cast on for a pair of baby socks. As I knit I thought about the recent baby-havers I might be able to gift them to, allowing myself to picture their delighted reaction and squeals of joy over the wee little things. Then I realized that this sock yarn is hand wash only. And nothing — nothing – says “I hate you and I want to increase your suffering” like giving new parents hand-wash-only infant socks. So I think I may give them to the penguin.
Backing up a couple posts now. First, thanks to everyone for their extraordinarily kind comments about my blog following my lament about needing a “hook.” I was actually quite embarrassed to realize that it might have seemed as though I was fishing for compliments, when in fact I was really just hoping that someone might casually toss out an idea for a hook that would rocket me to blog superstardom (later in court I would deny that I had ever heard of that person). But instead you all said such nice things about my blog just as it is, and I was very flattered. Thank you for your loyal readership and relatively low standards.
Second, I’m thrilled to see that so many of you have signed up for The Amazing Lace! We have nearly 100 participants already. Keep an eye on the blog for more info about the challenges and the other details of the knitalong. If you haven’t joined yet, head on over and sign up! You can knit any lace at all, from a few eyelets along the hem of a camisole to a gigantic, intricate bedspread. It’s not about what lace you choose, it’s about what you do with it this summer!
Finally, I leave you with this random but amusing (to me, anyway) picture I saw outside the Milford Fish Market in New Hampshire last weekend. Now, I am a frugal person by nature, and I love a bargain as much as the next penny pincher. However, my love of clearance sales most certainly does not extend to the local fish market. I may be trying to rein in my spending a bit these days, but I’m not quite yet at the point of buying shrimp and scallops on clearance at a moving sale. But if you’re in the market for deep-discount seafood, I suggest you make your way to southern New Hampshire pronto.
(Also funny to me was that the other side of the sign said, “We’re moving! Watch us grow!” which suggests fish that, unlike those promised on the other side of the sign, are perhaps a little TOO fresh for my taste. Call me boring and conventional, but I prefer my fish to fall somewhere between “clearance” and “still alive.”)
Permalink
05.01.06
Posted in The Amazing Lace at 5:31 am by Rachel
Over the past few weeks Theresa and I have engaged in many soul-searching conversations about our plans for our summer knitting. She has a cross-country trip on the horizon, and I have a two-week trip to Europe figured into my plans, so conveniently transportable projects were a high priority. Eventually it became clear to both of us that lace projects — with their travel and warm-weather friendliness — were the way to go.
For many this would have been the end of the discussion. (Well, for many there would have been no discussion at all about this critical topic, but those people are probably not this blog’s primary readership.) But given the gusto with which we have both embraced the online knitting community in its many forms, and given that lace as both summer and travel knitting is not a unique idea — there are knitters all over the country lining up their lace projects for the warm-weather vacation months — we thought, why not make it a knitalong? Then we thought, why not make it a knitalong with a bit of a (friendly) competitive angle? We both got a taste for knitting-as-sport during the Knitting Olympics, and all those who participated know that the adrenaline rush of competitive knitting is like a drug — you can only knit clean for so long before you have to go back for another hit. Thus was launched The Amazing Lace.
So if you’re planning to knit lace — any lace — this summer, get that knitting off the couch and show it a good time by joining The Amazing Lace: Summer 2006 Reality Show Knitalong! Whether you’re hot-air ballooning around the world or just heading to the town beach, you and your lace will form a team to face a series of challenges over the course of your travels this summer. (Yes, most people think of “team” as a group of humans, but this is back to basics. This is just you and the knitting, fighting for survival. Well, maybe not the fighting part. Or the survival part. Point is, yes, you’re a team with an inanimate object. Try not to think about it so hard.)
Every two weeks Theresa and I will post a challenge that participants will need to interpret creatively on their blogs. Some responses will require photographs; others simply text. Then there will be finalists, voting, winners declared, recounts demanded, and Supreme Court decisions. Eventually there will be a grand prize.
Intrigued? Of course you are. So head over to the official knitalong blog and commit yourself to the knitting adventure of a lifetime. It’s about endurance. It’s about fortitude. It’s about LACE.
The knitalong’s legal team counsels that I tell you that The Amazing Lace has no connection with The Amazing Race (CBS; Television Without Pity). We do not have a million dollars of prize money; you will not be on national television.
Permalink
Let’s take a closer look at the incident that was instrumental in driving me into these dreaded doldrums, shall we? Just a few short days ago I took my first pilgrimage to the WEBS tent sale in western Massachusetts with Theresa, fellow host of The Amazing Lace. I’m not going to get all overstatey and tell you it was a life-changing experience, but I also don’t want to understate how fantastic it feels to walk amongst tables of excellent yarn at prices averaging around 70 percent below retail. We quickly acquired, filled, and overflowed one of those big Rubbermaid storage bins that the store so thoughtfully supplies for its most insane customers. I was a little overwhelmed, but I managed to cull my haul down to a reasonable (Matt is wetting his pants with laughter right now) size. Theresa and I used our loot to test out her new car’s trunk capacity.
None of the yarn I bought is the equivalent of neon plaid vinyl, but in the quiet of my own home my enthusiasm has faded a bit. Take the cones of yarn on the right. If I had to guess (and I would probably be wildly off), I would estimate that that’s around 25,000 yards of laceweight yarn in total. I got it for $20. HOW COULD I NOT BUY THAT?? Problem is, I will never knit this yarn. I will always go for the yarn I like more than I like this yarn, because there’s only so much knitting time in my life and I don’t want to waste any of that time on yarn I don’t love. (To paraphrase a beer-lover’s bumper sticker, life’s too short to knit sh*tty yarn.) While there’s nothing terribly wrong with this yarn (that red is a wool-silk blend with a lovely sheen), it has some flaws (the red is stiff and unevenly spun), and I would never reach for it first. Basically I just paid someone $20 for the privilege of moving 25,000 yards of yarn with me from home to home for the rest of my life.
Here we have some lace-weight tencel. This is beautiful stuff, and people online rave about the drape and sheen of the shawls it knits up. The colors are incredibly saturated and are a pleasure to look at. There is nothing at all wrong with this yarn. The problem is that it’s not actually the sort of yarn I want to knit with. It’s too saturated. It’s too luminous. It is bright and vivid and rich. I am dull, subtle, and muted, or at least the yarns and garments toward which I gravitate are. But I was thinking with my retinas on Sunday (so typical for a woman to be carried away by overstimulated ocular cells), and I was also in the presence of someone who pulls off vivid colors exceedingly well, and I was feeling like a bit of a fuddyduddy in comparison. You can’t surpress your own taste for long, though, and while I may very well find myself knitting with this yarn one day, I know I could have spent the money on something a little more “me.”
I had intended to use one of the above yarns for my Amazing Lace project (TBD), and it was as I was swatching them (and as it was becoming clear that each one was not quite what I wanted) that I felt myself sinking into the doldrums. I felt them coming on, and in an attempt to stave them off, I busted into what I considered my biggest prize of the WEBS trip: 20 balls of Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton in a beautiful rich brown color — perfect for the sweater I’ve been planning for Matt — at 60 percent off. Yes, I intended to swatch my way out of the doldrums. 
And it was this move that landed me squarely in a fit of knitting despair. I invite you to view the yarn and the swatch to the left. Lovely color, no? Take a good close look at the swatch. And a good close look at the ball with the label moved a bit to the side. No, that’s not a shadow being cast by the ball band. No, those splotches on the swatch aren’t gentle heathering. What you’re looking at here is yarn that sat in direct sunlight for for a long, long time. 
However, there may be hope. My one final purchase at WEBS seems to be a lone bright spot: this lovely mercerized cotton in a color I adore. It was $15 for the bag of 10 balls. It is a brand I’ve never heard of (even Google has barely heard of it!), but the yarn looks and feels great and the sheen is just sheeny enough — not too much, not too little. I desperately need to feel some accomplishment in my knitting right now, so I think I’m going to forget about my TAL shawl for a while and whip up a cute top with this. Maybe the Lotus Blossom Tank on the cover of the new Interweave Knits. Maybe that is my ticket out of the doldrums.
