09.27.07
Posted in Finished Objects, General, Knitterly Fraternization at 10:10 pm by Rachel
What do you know, I’m a few days early with the October issue of Lickety Knit! My editorial staff must have been working overtime. I am delighted that you are all so pleased with this blog’s reinvention as a monthly knitting periodical – the 30-odd letters to the editor in response to the last issue have validated my choice very nicely.
New in this issue: Lickety Knit in the mainstream(ish) press! Minty speaks out! Youthful indiscretions come back to haunt me! And a very special moment with Rachel Sr.
MEDIA COVERAGE
For many years I have been a big fan of writer and newspaper editor Dan Savage. Some years ago I even had the opportunity to humiliate myself repeatedly in front of him when I organized a lecture that he delivered at the university where I work. I picked him up from the train station, escorted him around campus, and said one asinine thing after another in an uninterrupted stream of idiocy whenever I was within his earshot for the duration of his visit. (Actual quote from when we were talking about his terrific book The Kid: “I thought your story? About your experience with open adoption? Was so great! It made me think maybe I’d get pregnant? So I could give my kid up for open adoption to a nice gay couple? You know, just to help the cause!”)
Anyway, imagine my delight when I discovered that Dan Savage had blogged me! (Photo from this post.) Sparkles came across it and sent me the link. Of course I had to leave a moronic comment immediately. Just so he’d remember me.
YOUTHFUL INDISCRETIONS
My appearance on Dan’s blog actually lead to another awkward moment (why yes, my life is just one long string of these, thank you). Last week I entered into uncharted waters with Lickety Knit: I revealed its existence to a work colleague for the first time. (And let me just say, totally unrelatedly, that I sincerely love my job! My co-workers are a delight! I always do my work and never surf the internet during the day!)
As I initially considered the potential consequences of this turn of events, I felt confident that I have not posted anything on this blog that would damage my reputation at work. Err, well, with the small exception of certain photographic errors in judgment from way back in the spring and summer of 2006, but I figured that my colleague’s lack of interest in knitting was a pretty strong safeguard against his ever making it back that far, so I didn’t worry too much. Of course, not one week later (today), he reads Andrew Sullivan, follows a link to Dan Savage, sees my photo there, sees the post from which that photo came, reads the comments, and follows Rebekkah’s link (in her comment) directly to one of those offending photos. (I am not providing a direct link, but the old timers here will probably know what I’m talking about, and if you don’t, you can probably follow the links yourself to satisfy your curiosity.) The end result is that I now get to live in fear that this particular (smart, handsome, clever, ethical, merciful) colleague will one day do a PowerPoint presentation at a staff meeting in which he highlights my X-treme Knitting and brings my career to a resounding halt. Pray for me, blog readers.
A CUSTOM ORDER
Some of you are probably here to see actual knitting, aren’t you? Fortunately, I recently knit something. As part of an ongoing effort to make peace between my sister-in-law (Rachel Sr.) and my knitting community, I offered to knit her a hat. You see, Rachel is nearly always cold, and she wears – indoors and out – one of those knit earband things (modeled to the right) for the entire winter, which for her spans from September 15 to June 1. (This accessory is such an integral part of her life that it even has a name. Its name is Earband.) I generated some enthusiasm for my offer by promising I could make the hat to her exact specifications. We eventually settled on colors, size, style, lining, etc. It was only after I was about halfway done that I noticed something funny. See if you can notice it:
Yeeeeah. I made Earband Hat.
Pattern: Basic stockinette hat with a 1×1 ribbed brim and a cotton lining, about 80 stitches in circumference (I really should have recounted before giving it away).
Yarn: Knitpicks Andean Silk in navy, orange, and cream; the lining is Knitpicks Crayon in orange.
Needles: Size 8, I think? I actually made this about three months ago but didn’t blog it until now. Pathetic. And I know, I know, I swore off Knitpicks, but it was easier to show Rachel Sr. some color cards than it was to drag her from one knitting store to the next looking for the perfect yarn.
Notes: Vague as usual, but I will say that I love cotton linings in wool hats. It makes them extra soft and extra warm, plus the contrasting color adds a bit of fun. The Crayon makes a particularly nice lining. I began with that, knit for a while (3-4 inches?), then knit one row in blue, then a purl turning row, and then continued on with the ribbing and the main body of the hat from there, later tacking down the lining on the inside. My purl row looks really loose and crappy, unfortunately, which I think has something to do with the fact that it abuts the ribbing. I might have been able to fix that by using a smaller needle for that row; I’m not sure.
In spite of my initial sense that I’d had a practical joke played on me, it seems that Rachel actually has every intention of using Earband Hat in conjunction with Earband. I was heartened by the fact that she continued to wear it after our photoshoot in spite of the fact that it was (seriously) 82 degrees out. “It’s so warm!” she kept saying enthusiastically, as though without it she would have been risking frostbite. One additional advantage of the cotton lining: it is very sweat absorbant! If I’m on the subject of observing Rachel’s quirks, I must take a moment to note that she has a somewhat distrustful attitude toward technology in general and blogs in particular: most notably, she thinks that leaving a comment on my blog will somehow automatically lead to the theft of her identity and the acquisition of least a dozen stalkers. However, as Minty and I have both learned, if you point a camera at her, tell her to pose in any number of ludicrous ways, and tell her it’s for the blog, she obliges wholeheartedly. I have no explanation (and don’t expect to get one from her in the comments).
ATONEMINT
So where were we off to after our photoshoot? To get together with Minty, of course! At last peace and harmony reigns among the three of us. During dinner Minty lamented that she was somewhat alarmed by the vehemence with which people had sided with me when I listed her minor offenses (stealing my husband, running over kittens with milk trucks, etc.) in my last post. In the spirit of our peace accord, I must tell you that I may have been mistaken about some — possibly all — of those. I sincerely apologize for besmirching her reputation. While I deeply appreciate your loyalty, dear readers, I hope you will join me in turning over a new leaf with Minty. The world is against us, knitbloggers, and if we don’t stick together, we’ll have no one.
On that inexplicably melodramatic note (my brain is usually pretty addled once I finally send an issue to press), I’m signing off. I am pretty sure I’ll finish my Lotus Blossom Tank within a couple weeks, so there may actually be a special bonus issue of LK before too long! Contain your excitetment, now.
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09.01.07
Posted in Finished Objects, General, Knitterly Fraternization at 11:22 am by Rachel
What’s up, everyone? Long time no post! (Hmm, I like how that sort of makes it sound like your fault and not mine.) Since I last posted I have been caught between two extremes: first a series of 11-hours work days, then a two-week lakeside vacation with no internet access, and then an immediate return to 11-hour work days. While both of these are good things (yes, even the work, in its way), neither has done anything good for my posting frequency. I never though that I’d get to the point where my standard would become “at least monthly,” but here we are. For that reason, I’d like to encourage you all to think of Lickety Knit as less of a blog and as more of a monthly knitting periodical, sort of a (admittedly low-content) web-based magazine. Instead of “posts,” I now put out “issues,” as in “Have you seen the most recent issue of Lickety Knit?” or “I was happy to receive the fall issue of Interweave Knits, but what I’m really looking forward to is the new issue of Lickety Knit.” (Oooh, I like how I look in italics.) If you all agree to do that, then I agree not to be come LKQ (Lickety Knit Quarterly).
Before I move on to scintillating tales of my vacation (please enjoy the photo prelude in the meantime), I urge you to drop everything you’re doing and head over to Brooke’s blog at Drunken Money Knits. Remember when I said that I wanted to make many different colored shells for different occasions for Sheldon? Well, Brooke was way ahead of me, and she did it infinitely better than I could ever hope to. You will not regret going over to look at them. A few examples can be found here, here, and here (OMG and here — the shell is a little zippered backpack!!!), but there are lots of others and they’re totally worth poking around for. (Brooke, have you considered creating a section in your sidebar with links to all your different turtles for easy access? If the public is not already demanding it, I expect they will be soon.)
Okay, back to me now. I cannot recommend a two-week vacation enough if you are ever in a position to manage it. A one-week vacation barely gives you enough time to stop thinking about work before it’s time to start thinking about going back. A two-week vacation allows you to forget for a while that you even have a job — and that’s when the real relaxation can begin. (I will boastfully confess that the most thinking I did about work was when my boss called me to tell me I’d been promoted — I really ought to go on vacation more often! I wonder what I’ll get over the Christmas break? A corner office?)
My vacation (on Lake Winnipesaukee, in New Hampshire) was an idyllic, soft-focus world where I just floated from one leisure activity to another: snoozing, reading, eating, knitting, canoeing, eating, sunning, knitting, eating, hammocking, tennis (not real tennis — just enough light tennis to make me sound good on the blog), swimming, napping, reading, knitting, eating, watching the Red Sox while knitting, eating, sleeping. Doesn’t that sound divine? It was.
And whenever it started to get maybe just the tiniest littlest bit dull, people showed up! Early in the trip we had a visit from bloggers Fumblerette and Kris (not technically blog friends, as I know them through my husband and not the internet). Then some blogless friends from home paid us a visit. Then for two days we actually tore ourselves away from our lakeside utopia and had a delightful visit with my friend Emilie and her boyfriend J in lovely Portland, Maine. Finally, we were just starting to talk about whether we should stay through the final weekend or go home a couple days early so as to attend to the many chores that no doubt awaited us, when who should call and invite herself up to the lake but Minty?
Some of you may recall that one of the odder features of my relationship with Minty is her heated rivalry with my sister-in-law, whom she’d never met. Feeling mischievous when Minty called, I told her that yes, of course we’d love her to come up, but did she mind that Matt’s sister (Rachel Sr.) would also be coming? (I made a quick note to myself to call and invite my sister-in-law as soon as I got off the phone with Minty.) And wouldn’t it make sense for them to rent a car together for the six-hour drive? Minty, to her credit, agreed sportingly (as did Rachel Sr., against all odds), and I looked forward to a weekend full of high drama.
Everything went according to my plan at first, and you should read Minty’s first blog post about it for the full story with excellent photos. It all began well, with stony silences and tension-filled semi-truces.
But then things began to crumble around me. It became clear, first of all, that Minty was co-opting the rivalry for her own blog. But then, worse, it seemed as though maybe Minty and Rachel Sr. were actually starting to like each other. It all began with small things, like their cutely and awkwardly reaching for the pancakes at the same time, but by the end of the weekend they were totally cliquish and leaving me out of their little in jokes — jerks.
And now that I think about it, by Saturday she and Matt had started dressing alike, like some insufferable preppy couple…OH MY GOD SHE HAS STOLEN HIM TOO! I can’t believe I didn’t see it before now. Beware of Minty, everyone. Hide your friends and family. (I’m so enraged that I don’t even want to link to her second related post, but blog etiquette demands it.)
Yes, my personal life is in shambles, but the blog must go on. And since this is a knitting blog, after all, I offer you a small amount of knitting. (Yes, I did knit quite a bit while on vacation, but I didn’t seem to finish much. It does mean I have a good stream of nearly finished objects in the pipeline to be finished over the next couple weeks, though — if my job allows me any knitting time at all, that is.)
These are the Waving Lace Socks from Favorite Socks. The yarn is Regia Silk. I wound up liking both the pattern and the yarn quite a bit more than I expected to when I was starting out. In fact, at the point I finished the knitting I was ready to declare them my favorite pair of socks to date.
The yarn is delightfully soft and drapey — none of the stiffness that you can often find with wool or wool/nylon blends. It showed off the pattern beautifully. The only thing that wound up tempering my enthusiasm was the fact that after one wearing (the state in which you’re seeing them here), there was already a considerable amount of fuzzing and a little early pilling. You’d think that after multiple years of being disappointed by handknits in this way I would have come to accept it as inevitable, but I still manage to be discouraged by it every time.
Nonetheless, I expect that I will wear these socks often (they’re work friendly, which is another reason I love them). I knit them exactly as written in the pattern, by the way, so I have nothing useful to contribute to the collective knitting wisdom.
Okay, I’m sure I’ve exceeded any sort of advisable word count. Happy Labor Day weekend, everyone!
P.S. I am declaring Bloglines bankruptcy, which frees me from the crushing weight of my enormous RSS feed backlog, but renders me completely ignorant of anything going on in your lives. So my apologies in advance if I come to your blog and comment that it looks like you lost a lot of weight (when in fact you gave birth to triplets) or that your cat must be such a joy to you (when he was hit by a milk truck two posts ago and you posted the photo as a silent tribute) or that it must be awfully nice to be able to buy so much yarn all at one time* (when in fact your stash storage shed burned down last week and this is the only yarn to your name).
*Because apparently I am a passive aggressive jackass in my comments.
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