St. Denis

Let's talk for a minute about the tragedy of my new yarn obsession.  St. Denis Boreale is the most wonderfully textured, beautifully colored 100% wool I've ever laid my hands on.  It knits up so neatly, and has an incredible springy texture that makes you want to squoosh your knitted fabric every couple of minutes.  The colors are gorgeous.  It doesn't make me want to scratch my skin off the whole time I'm wearing it.

And it's been discontinued since the fall of 2012.

OH THE HUMANITY!

Luckily, Webs has the last of their stock for sale, so I've done what any sane knitter would do.  I've purchased four sweaters' worth of Boreale for the stash.

Oatmeal, Red, Balsam, and Eggplant

Magenta

Fjord

(which actually came from the lovely autumnsky on Ravelry, as Webs sold out of this colorway before I could convince myself of the wisdom of this splurge)

Aurora

On the needles IV

What I'm doing: School started this week, so I have been busy helping students ensure that all is right with their schedules before they are permanently locked.  While our office usually requires that students make an appointment, during the first week of classes we allow walk-ins, which is exciting but very tiring; we can see anywhere from two to eighty students in a single day.

I've also been attempting to fit exercise back into my daily schedule, which is less fun, but probably better for me.  I have a whole rant that I'll make on some other day about how we have produced a society in which it is okay that work take precedence over personal health, and where it is just expected that you will be on the brink of exhaustion almost all the time.  It's really quite horrible, and I'm trying hard to nip my couch-potato-ism in the bud now, but it is an uphill battle (literally and figuratively - the goal for this week is to be able to jog up the hill behind the health center without getting out of breath).

What I'm reading: I just started Ahab's Wife, which is the retelling of Moby Dick from the perspective of the young wife Captain Ahab left behind.  Thus far, I must say I am less than impressed - in the first vignette alone there is a fairly unbelievable description of childbirth, someone freezes to death, and a young slave escapes across the river à la Eliza in Uncle Tom's Cabin (an artistic choice made for no apparent reason at all).  It seems to be a lot of the author saying, "Look how much I know about 19th century literature!" and not enough of the author saying, "Look at this choice I made because it was an integral component of the narrative!"  I know 19th century literature, and you, madam, are no Harriet Beecher Stowe.  At this point, you're not even a passable Emerson.  I'll give it another 50 pages, but unless it gets significantly better, I will be taking this one back to the used book store.

What I'm watching:  We're still in the process of finishing up the last season of Fringe.  I almost don't want it to end, because I have so enjoyed having Joshua Jackson in my life again.  But once that is completed, I think we'll move on to Broadchurch, about which I have heard only amazing things.

What I'm knitting: The Trimmed with Roses Cardigan, with a few modifications.  I'm knitting in the round to the armholes, and I added two red stripes above the ribbing.  I cannot explain how much I love this yarn, and how beautiful I think this pattern is going to turn out.  I haven't decided if I'm going to do the short-sleeves of the jumper or the long-sleeves of the cardigan - I think it will depend on the amount of yarn I still have when I reach that point.  I might also do fewer buttonholes when I get to the button-band.  We'll see.

On the needles

What I'm doing: I am half a week away from a two-week vacation.  Why is it that the week leading up to the vacation is so hard to get through? You'd think it would be easy, since you know the respite is coming, but in fact it's harder, because you have to work the whole week to get there.  While I will be playing with fiber and we have a beach trip planned (during which we're probably getting married), the thing that I'm most looking forward to is the fact that I will have two whole weeks in which I can catch up on this ridiculous sleep deficit I'm currently experiencing.

What I'm reading: This weekend I started and finished both Maise Dobbs, by Jacqueline Winspear, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman.  They were both excellent, although I found the narrator of Ocean more compelling than Ms. Dobbs, whose new-age self-reflection and unlikely rags-to-riches story I found rather unbelievable, despite the otherwise convincing depiction of WWI-era Britain.

What I'm watching:  Bomb Girls.  A Canadian period-piece about a group of women working at a munitions factory during WWII.  It is on-par with Land Girls or Island at War for soap-opera quotient, but that's probably why I mainlined the first three episodes in one sitting.  Meg Tilly is fantastic (I know everyone always goes so crazy over Jennifer Tilly, but I think Meg is a much better actress), and the other young ladies have the same semi-wooden, yet somehow compelling, acting style that appears in most Canadian tv.  I doubt it will win any awards, and it's certainly no Foyle's War, but it's entertaining, and worth watching if you're interested at all in homefront life during WWII.

What I'm knitting: Just finished my Debonair Jumper, which turned out to have more positive ease than I was expecting.  I think, much as it pains me to admit this, that I'm going to have to start washing and blocking my swatches before I start on my projects.  I knit more densely than most people seem to do, and so as soon as I wash the FO, it loosens and spreads.  So if I want garments with predictable negative ease, it seems I must swatch and block, rather than just swatch. Yuck.

Stashbusting: Pea Soup Sweater

I've had this Brown Sheep Cotton Fine cone in my stash since...2007 or 8.  It was part of a Patternworks sale that seemed like a good idea at the time, because I was convinced of my wool allergy (which turns out to be an issue solely with lower-micron wool - pretty much anything that comes from Peru makes me itch just looking at it) and thought cotton was the only alternative (this was before I learned about Amy Singer's No Sheep for You).  Clearly, as it has been languishing in the stash since 2007, it was not such a great idea.  Four cones of lace-weight, unmercerized cotton might be perfect for weaving, but it's not as awesome for knitting.

But finally, as part of the great stash-busting event of 2013, I took some time to match these cones with projects, and found the Pickle's Plain Cardigan pattern.

I made the smallest size, and even with the yarn held tripled I still didn't manage to use up the whole cone.  The only changes I would make if I knit this again is to make fewer button-holes, and to make them smaller.  They sort of overwhelm this small garment, and it makes it difficult to find appropriate buttons.  I'm still searching - I think dark brown wooden or faux leather would look nice, but I haven't found anything I'm completely sold on yet.

Overall, the yarn turned out to be much more pleasant to work with than I was expecting, and produced a fabric with much more drape than the feel of the cotton on the cone led me to expect that I would get.  For my first major Knit the Queue project of the year, I think it turned out quite nicely.  And it worked up in a single weekend, so I definitely can't complain about that.

Bayerische Socks

Modified Bayerische socks

Based on Eunny Jang's Bayerische pattern, but knit with Blue Moon Fibers Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Strange Brew.  The pattern calls for an almost lace-weight fingering, to accommodate the 90+ stitches you're supposed to cast on, but even using needles which were far too small to use comfortably with the thicker STR (1.5 US), there was no way I was getting down to that kind of gauge.  So I cut out two of the charts, and replaced them with a ktbl, p1, ktbl combination.  I was also concerned about yardage issues, since I was knitting these for the Boy, whose feet are rather larger than mine, so I knit mine from the toe up, rather than the top down.

For those interested in doing the same, my mods are as follows:

Magic cast-on 22 sts.  Increased to 61.
For top of foot, worked chart D2, ktbl, p1, ktbl, chart B, ktbl, p1, ktbl, chart D1.
Continued in pattern until approx. 2.5" less than desired length (for the size 11s I was making, that was 5 1/2 repeats of chart B).
Worked gusset to 51 sts, then worked a short-row heel with twisted knit stitches (which I achieved by a sl1 as to knit, p1 across the right side).
Worked the leg pattern over 64 stitches, as chart D, k1tbl, p1, k1tbl, chart B, k1tbl, p1, k1tbl, chart D,  k1tbl, p1, k1tbl, chart B, k1tbl, p1, k1tbl.
Worked a twisted k1tbl, p1 rib for the cuff.

It required some finagling to match up the transition from the half-charts of D1 & D2 to the full D charts, but I think it turned out nicely and is the part of the sock I'm the most proud of:

I have heard a lot of talk about how complicated Bavarian twisted stitches are, but if you can cable and you can twist stitches, then there's no reason why you can't do beautiful things with Bavarian twisted stitches.  That being said, you might not want to be crazy like me; I knit these while watching panels at Kalamazoo, and while I  managed to keep track of my charts without too much trouble, it's not really something I recommend.

I am thrilled with how these turned out, and how easily the pattern converted from top down to toe up.  And the Boy is actually wearing them!

On the needles

Sometimes I struggle with the idea of blogging.  What is appropriate to post and what isn't?  If people come expecting to read about knitting and yarn, is it okay if some days I'd rather talk about the fact that I'm struggling to decide if I ought to flip my classroom in the fall, or that the potatoes in my garden clearly think that we live in northern Ireland this year?  Because I don't always have yarn-related things to talk about.  Having recently begun the adventure of cohabitation, I find (like all my foremothers) that my knitting time is being severely impinged upon by the responsibilities of a good housewife (and my thoughts on that are something best saved for another day).

I suppose the reality is that it's my blog, and I can write about whatever I want.  If I want to rant about Steven Moffatt and his desecration of the Doctor Whoniverse (don't get me started on River Song, or the repetition of the "impossible girl" trope, or even how he kind of ruined the Weeping Angels through overuse), I can do that.

What I'm doing: I just returned from the Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, which was quite an experience.  I split my time between panels about things I teach and panels about things I enjoy, meaning that I learned equally about the role of Jews in medieval society and how to analyze textiles from extant images.  My favorite thing about the whole conference was that during the textile panels (put on by DISTAFF), over half the audience was knitting, and one of the only questions I received throughout the entire conference was about the sock pattern I was working on (a highly modified form of Eunny Jang's Bayerische pattern, about which more will be said later).  Knitters.  We are everywhere.

What I'm reading: All the things.  My attention-span is shot lately (conference nerves, mostly), so I'm jumping between Fighting the Great War: A Global History, Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey, and Fitzgerald's The Lost Decade.  The only thing that's actually holding my interest is something I'm reading for work: Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe (which is a popular history that is rather suspect in places - his interpretation of Carolingian religious practices concerns me - but which references quite a few primary sources I had not come across.  This will, of course, soon necessitate the long and painful process of translating things from the Minge Patrologia so that I can inflict them on my students).

What I'm watching: Doctor Who, obviously.  We just mainlined the last of Series 7, and will soon be switching over to Game of Thrones.

What I'm knitting:  I'm working on secret knitting, which will be given as a gift next month (at which point I'll show a picture of it).  What I can say about it is that it was intended to be a stash-busting project, using a giant skein of Caron One Pound that had been lingering in my stash for ages.  For so long, in fact, that Caron has since switched the color of the yarn that goes by that name.  Which means that what was supposed to be a stash-buster has resulted in the purchase of three more skeins in the hopes of finding one that matched.  We have finally decided that said project will be ombré, and it will be a design feature.

On the needles

What I'm doing: The reason for posts (and knitting in general) having been so scare is that I'm moving.  One of my goals for the year has happened - the Boy and I now have a place together.  But that means that a lot less knitting has been completed while I've been doing a lot of this:

One more week and we'll be fully established in the new townhouse, with its natural light and spacious patio.  But until then, life is taking a back seat to boxes.

What I'm reading: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  This was the book chosen for this year's freshman read, so I'm trying to knock it out before the summer starts and the freshmen get here.  It tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who died of cancer in 1951, and the "immortal life" of the cells taken from her without her permission or knowledge, which have been used by scientists the world over to develop things like the polio vaccine, chemotherapy drugs, and otherwise make the drug industry quite wealthy.  I'm half-way through, and I must admit that the writing style is incredibly accessible and compelling, despite dealing with cell types and scientific research.  The tension between the treatment received by the Lacks family at the hands of the medical establishment, and what Rebecca herself is doing in writing the book, is fascinating to me.  I think the book works on so many levels, and even as a historian, recognizing the importance of accepting the past for what it is, I still can't imagine how scientists ever thought it was okay to treat people they way they did in the '50s and '60s.

What I'm watching:  Where Soldiers Come From - a documentary following a group of friends from their carefree existence in northern Michigan to sweeping roads for IEDs in Afghanistan and back home again.  I feel like it's only as groundbreaking as everyone claims because modern Americans have distanced themselves so far from the realities of war that the idea that young men go off to war and come back changed (and not always for the better) is a shock.  In the past, I think societies recognized that as a simple reality, and didn't need to make documentaries so people could "understand the horrors these young men have gone through."  You can't understand it.  You weren't there.  No amount of documenting and voyeuristic journalism is going to make you understand what it's like to be those men.  And honestly, I imagine if you asked them (or any of the millions of soldiers who came before them), they wouldn't want you to.  That said, it was an interesting documentary, and is worth seeing if only to get a better feel for how we treat our veterans.

What I'm knitting: Finished up my squares for Knitters for Newtown.  Managed to get them sent off on Friday, and will now switch gears back to queue-reduction knitting.

Vintage Pattern Acquisition

Interestingly, being cold sheep does not actually seem to have saved me a lot of money.  The money that was previously being spent on yarn simply gets diverted into pattern acquisition.  And not just your average pattern acquisition, but fairly expensive, vintage British patterns. My relationship with pdf reproductions of vintage patterns is fraught with tension - I like that they provide access to rare patterns, but I hate having to search around them when looking for originals, and am also leery of the copyright issues involved.

 It should probably surprise no one that as a historian, I love vintage patterns.  There is something very thrilling about holding in your hands a pattern that a knitter from a previous generation liked enough to purchase and preserve. I find that the thrill is particularly strong for WWII-era British patterns.  Knowing the hardships that women of that period lived through, and the shortages and privations they had to deal with, I imagine that knitting booklets were one of the only bright spots in a frequently difficult, stressful existence.  When I hold a 1942 issue of Stitchcraft, I imagine the woman who originally received it with her post being as excited as I am to receive an issue of Interweave, and rushing inside to put on the kettle so she could sit down for twenty minutes to leaf through the patterns with her cuppa.

Bestway, Sun-Glo, and Stitchcraft are my favorites - all of which are on the pricier end of the spectrum, of course.  I love Stitchcraft in particular because of the adverts, for wonderful things like Potato Pete's Recipe Book or Bunco's Toilet Paper ("We ask your indulgence if your retailer is temporarily out of stock").

Material culture is fantastic, and as a medievalist, it is not something I'm used to possessing, so I have been - and still am - willing to spend ridiculous amounts in order to own original vintage patterns.  I just can't allow myself to spend time on Ebay and Webs within the same month.

Bates

Not all that long ago, I came across the Downton Abbey Luxury Yarn Club, hosted by Woolgirl and Curious Creek Fibers.  Now, while I recognize that it is a luxury yarn club, with awesome extras like Wee Ones Dowager Countess stitch markers, $550 is FAR outside my price-range for any club (no matter how much I might have wanted it).  So I lusted, but did not purchase.  

Since the pattern I was most interested in was the Mr. Bates socks, I decided that the next best thing would be to go ahead and design my own.  So I did.

I present you with Bates:

Constructed toe-up, with a combination of cables and twisted stitches on a reverse stockinette stitch background.  I had originally envisioned using a staggered cross cable (one with uneven numbers of repeats between each cable-row - to call to mind Mr. Bates' limp), but found that oddly, the roundness of the cables did not suit the design at all.

The heel is short-row, with a twisted stitch heel flap.  These are men's size 9, but were knit fairly narrow.  The pattern can easily be sized up, however, to account for more robust foot and leg circumference.

The yarn is Malabrigo Yarn Sock, in the Piedras colorway, which was meant to call to mind the khaki uniforms of the British army in the Boer war, when Mr. Bates was the Earl's batman.  This was my first order from Loopy Ewe, and I plan on buying more yarn from them in the future, if only for more adorable sheep drawings.  However, I think the pattern would hold up well in any gently variegated yarn.

The pattern is still being edited, and will be out for test-knitting soon.

Stash flash #1

Hi.  My name is Caitlin, and I have a knitting problem.

Well, not so much a knitting problem, because if the knitting were the problem, the stash wouldn't be.  Let's say I have a yarn problem.

It looks a little bit like this:

Pardon me for *ahem* flashing my stash.  But even this is actually quite an improvement over the state of the thing at the beginning of January, before I buckled down and got organized.  Now each yarn is in a plastic bag, and if I know what I plan to make with it (and I do for about 70% of the yarn in that pile), the pattern has been printed and put into the bag.  And a half hour after this picture was taken, all the loose yarn you see was similarly corralled into ziplock baggies and placed into the storage bins you see in the background.

But no matter how beautifully organized it now is, it's still an overwhelmingly large stash.  Especially because more than of it than I would like is squeaky acrylic or dry and halo-y cotton, which won't cut it for the vintage patterns I now love to make.

I tried going Cold Sheep (ravelry link) last year, which went quite well until it...didn't anymore (yarn is a perfectly acceptable way of rewarding oneself for being a successful grown up, what are you talking about?).  My goal was to make it from the end of May to the end of December.  I made it from May through the end of September.  In penance for falling off the wagon - and boy, did I ever? -  I have signed back on for another three-ish months (til the NC Fiber Fest, in April) of being totally cold sheep, and, as I've already noted, I've pledged to spend 2013 knitting from my stash.

And in attempt to stay accountable to myself, I am also making myself accountable to you.  I will periodically flash my stash, to show that it is decreasing rather than increasing, and will have to publicly shame myself by announcing it here if I do add any new yarn.  Hopefully, you will help to keep me honest and on the wagon for the duration of 2013.

Surprise!

Look what was in my mailbox today!

Not too terribly long ago, I donated to Three Irish Girls to help get them out of the studio of horribleness. In exchange for monetary support of a certain amount, Sharon and co promised a skein of a special colorway.

And lo and behold, this lovely appeared in my mailbox today:

The colorway is Moondance (as in "a marvelous night for...") and is on the Adorn sock base.  It is beautiful and I can't wait to see how it works up.  Sometimes 3IG's yarns can be a bit...exuberant, but this looks promisingly sockworthy.

Hazel Knits

I am a sucker for hand-dyed yarns.  The colors, the vibrancy, the blends!  The frequently unexpected way it works up (although that is not always pleasant, as Jean noted today)!  The joy of watching each new color appear as you stitch.  It is, not to be too much of an aesthete, a transcendent form of knitting.

I have plenty of favorite dyers:  Three Irish Girls (I think I've put one of Sharon's children through college),  Nerd Girl Yarns, Sweet Georgia, the Verdant Gryphon (her yarns are so squishy!), Dragonfly Fibers.  They all do fascinating things with color blends and produce yarn that is fantastic to work with.

But today...today I found some of the most beautiful semi-sold yarns I have ever beheld.

Hazel Knits.

Image (c) hazel knits.  Artisan Sock in Nickel.

Image (c) hazel knits.  Filigree lace in Jay Blue.

I am sadly Cold Sheep (more on that soon), and cannot buy any of these lovelies until April.  But you should.  You absolutely should, and then come back and tell me about how pretty it is so that I can live vicariously through your yarn acquisition.  Because this is seriously the most gorgeous yarn I've seen in ages.

Perspective

I have reached the point one reaches with all toe-up socks, in which it becomes clear that there is no possible way any human being can possibly have a foot that long and skinny.

One despairs, wondering if those hours of knitting have been in vain. 

And then, one remembers negative ease and is merry again.

Obsession

I have a philosophical question for the interwebz.  What is it about knitting (or fiber arts in general) that prompts people to become so obsessed with it?

If we define a casual knitter as someone who knows how to knit, but only owns one or two sets of needles, only buys yarn when they have a specific project in mind, and only makes a scarf or blanket every once in a while, when the mood strikes them, then I can count the number of casual knitters I know on one finger.

Every other knitter I know (which is a lot, if you define 'know' in the loosest, most online-inclusive sense of the word) is genuinely obsessed with the subject, process, history, and practice of knitting.  We laugh at knitters who call the two skeins of yarn they bought this weekend their "stash."  We spend hours agonizing over whether we ought to spend the extra money for the Addi click set, or if the Knitter's Pride set will serve our purpose.  We compulsively refresh the Manos del Uruguay page on Webs to see if any new stock has been added.  We blog, we podcast, we stitch and bitch, we chat in Ravelry's forums, all to share our great love of and obsession with two pointy sticks and some string which may or may not have come from an animal.

Why?

I think it can be assumed, even without scientific study, that knitting must stimulate dopamine output in our brains, giving our reward pathways a feedback loop of awesome.  But what is it about knitting that causes us to have that reaction?  The tactile nature of the fiber?  The math involved in patterning and shaping (I wouldn't think that would be particularly pleasing to my brain, at least)?  The sounds of clicking needles?  The colors?  The repetition?  Or is it all of the above?

What causes people who can be perfectly rational about all facets of their life to, within a few weeks of picking up knitting, crocheting, spinning, or any other fiber art, suddenly be dreaming in fiber and planning their career as a designer/yarn-dyer/shepherd/yarn store owner/etc?

I don't know.

But I sure am glad I'm not alone.

1955 Petal Sweater

Picture (c) Bex.
From Coats & Clark's Sweaters are Fashion News.  Originally knit in Red Heart Super Fingering.

The minute I saw this pattern, I knew I HAD to make it for my grandmother, who has always been a classic, late '50s/early '60s style person.  Plus, she looks fabulous in red.  And I was able to find the booklet easily, at Vintage Knits.  So it had to happen.

Just one problem.  My grandmother lives in Texas, and is very hot natured, so a 100% wool yarn was not going to cut it for this project.  Enter Knitpicks Comfy fingering, which is 75% Cotton/25% Acrylic.  No ability to grab or hold its shape (this will be important later), but fabulously cool and comfy.  I love this yarn.  Does Knitpicks make a bad yarn?  The color is much richer and bluer than the called-for Red Heart, but I was able to get gauge on the first try (that NEVER happens to me), so it seemed like a great substitute (and would have been if I had been more thoughtful from the beginning).

The construction is different than anything I’ve knitted before.  You knit the yoke from the top down, and then knit each subsequent piece flat, and then the side and underarm seams are worked in one go.  It’s actually fairly brilliant, as it reduces the likelihood of that funky bunched seam at the base of the armscye.

However, it is clear that the author wrote and worked up only one or two of the sizes listed, and just did the math out for the rest of the sizes without considering the implications of some of the instructions at the largest size.  For example, if the yoke increases for the largest size were followed as written, the separation for the arms would wind up somewhere around a normal human's mid-waist.  So I doubled up on them, and wound up with something close enough to correct to be serviceable.  Similarly for the arms, if you kept knitting until you reached the appropriate number of decreases, the arms would hit your knees.

As an aside, one thing this sweater has taught me is to appreciate my tininess.  While not overall a petite person, I have a petite top half, which comes in handy for not having to knit for ages just to make a sweater.  Since this sweater is intended for my not-so-petite Grandmother, I made the largest size.  Epic amounts of stockinette, ya’ll.  Epic.

And now for the bad news.  After knitting the whole thing, I came to the realization that a) I had twelve buttonholes, and b) cotton/acrylic does not create the sturdiest of fabrics.  Once washed and blocked, my button placket resembled a particularly viscious roller-coaster ride, full of ripples and wobbles.  No amount of wiggling, tugging, or pinning was going to get that placket study enough to support twelve buttons.

I've already folded the placket under in this shot,
but you can see the wobbles towards the bottom of the sweater.

The only solution I could come up with was to tack down the placket on the inside of the sweater (it unfortunately can't be removed because it's knit as a part of the body), and then pick up and knit a new, denser placket on smaller needles.  Rather than going down just one size for the cuff ribbing and the button bands, I went down two.  After some trial and error, I picked up 138 sts along the inner edge of the original button band and knit 8 rows garter stitch with the yarn held double.  This gave me a much more attractive and sturdy band.  I also reduced the buttonholes to 7, so as to weigh the front down significantly less.  

I also found that the cuffs of the sleeves were too droopy, so I pulled them back out, decreased down to  61 stitches, and then knit them back on the smaller needles as well.

I still need to go back and sew down the original button-bands more neatly, and attach the seven buttons, and then this sucker will finally be finished.  As beautiful as it will be when it's done, I can't wait to have it out of my house.

Notes on a Scandal: My take on the USOC event

 I know this is late, but I have to say it.  After the brouhaha that occurred earlier this summer, I wasn't sure I really wanted to participate in Ravel-Greek-Suffix-Which-Happens-to-Also-Be-the-Suffix-in-an-Important-Sporting-Event-s this year.  I admire the athletes, and I appreciate any excuse to wave my Anglophile flag as high as it can go, but the whole thing left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.  While I appreciate what Stephanie said as being fairly logical, I also feel like she missed the point about why at least I, personally, was so outraged.  It wasn't that we had to change the name (although it seems incredibly stupid to me that anyone can "own" a five-letter suffix).  It wasn't even that they said we were denigrating the work of the athletes.  Though that was very, very offensive, I understand that is their standard C&D, and based on their behavior in all other arenas, I wasn't surprised to be denigrated myself by a company who represents the worst of corporate America.  What bothered me the most was how the media commenting on the fiasco spent most of their efforts poking fun at us for being knitters, rather than commenting on the ridiculousness and the injustice of the USOC's claims.  During the whole event, there was only one major article written that did justice to the knitters' side of the argument, and that was on NPR, and even that only really got the point after a knitter commented to correct the initial version of the article.

It bothers me that something that is, for many of us, such an integral part of who we are is still considered by society at large something that makes us odd, bizarre, or objects for derision.  They called us "little old ladies" or "liberal hippie leftists" (conflicted, much?).  They made terrible puns at our expense.  They generally treated our legitimate outrage as a hysterical temper-tantrum by a quaint and clearly unhinged, pre-feminist-movement granny.  Even once the USOC apologized, the tone taken by the media was, "Wow, who knew all those weird old ladies knew how to use social media!"

I am not a little old lady.  I am not a liberal hippie leftist.  I am not denigrating Olympic (can I say that word without permission?) athletes.  And I am not okay with being mocked for what is and was a legitimate complaint against the USOC.

You mock me because I am a knitter, but knitters make, with our own two hands, things that are useful, things that comfort people and keep them warm, things that fit their recipients in a perfect way no high street garment ever will, things that are beautiful.  We make complicated, three-dimensional, intensely mathematical art.  And we do it all with two pointy sticks and some string.

I am a knitter.  I knit in public, in movie theatres and in waiting rooms, at my desk (when I can) and in meetings.  I am not strange or hysterical.  I am not setting the feminist movement back in any way.  I am participating in a proud tradition of hand-crafters that stretches back at least to the 16th century, and in which I am joined by (at the very least) two million people worldwide.

I am a knitter.  What are you?

"Maybe we should up and leave this town..."

It is too hot to knit. At least, that’s the only explanation I can come up with for why took me three weeks to finish Steven’s golf club covers, when it should, by all rights, have taken me three days. We’re trying to save money by not turning on the AC too early, and thus, by the evenings, the temperature upstairs (where I usually do my knitting) more nearly resembles that of the surface of Venus than any place on earth. Now, I’d rather be too hot than too cold, but I’m not going to exacerbate the issue by knitting when my palms are already too sweaty to hold onto the needles. So needless to say, it’s slow going on getting all my knitting-for-other-people out of the way. I think Adin is about to despair of ever getting his mitts.

The woes of house-hunting have come upon me. I am not complaining about having to look for a place – that aspect of the whole experience is wonderful, as it means I am employed, something I could not be more grateful for and excited about. I’m complaining about the fact that it is next to impossible to find a decent place, in a decent neighborhood, with a fenced-in yard. Who knew it would be so difficult to keep big dogs in a part of town that does not have drug-dealers, murders, and thieves? Apparently – according to the rental home industry, at least – only sketchy people have dogs larger than 25 lbs. And supposing you do find a place in a decent part of town that claims to have a fenced-in yard, this is no guarantee that the area that is fenced will in any way resemble a “yard.” I looked at one place the other day with a “fenced-in yard” of – I’m not exaggerating – two feet by two feet. What kind of dog can you keep in that, a tea-cup Chihuahua? But I have until the end of June to have found and moved into a place, so I’m trying to have patience and keep looking.

Something I learned recently: Milk paint is difficult stuff to work with. Or, let me rephrase.It is difficult stuff to use on furniture that has already been painted. It’s hard to get the mix to come out with the right consistency, without lumps, and close to the same color as the previous coats. Even after following the instructions, sanding my side-tables down to almost bare wood and using the extra bonding agent, I’ve still had to put on four coats of the stuff to get it to even remotely resemble paint. The problem may only be that I’m trying to paint something with spindles, which is never easy, no matter the paint, but it’s hard to even get the flat surfaces to come out right. And the thing that bothers me the most about the whole experience is that it cost $30 for a pint of the stuff, and it’s not even coming out the way I want. I feel really bad about wanting to wuss out and use real paint after forking over all that money for the milk paint, but I would also like to get these tables painted some time before I die. It’s a conundrum. I suppose I’ll wait to see how it looks in the morning before I make my final decision.

Here. Have a picture of the puppies to make up for all the whining.

What I'm listening to: "A Little More" by The Audreys

A Collection of Oddments

I posted a few of my patterns (r-link) to Ravelry yesterday, and have been compulsively refreshing the page to see how many people have added them to their favorites. It's just my armwarmer patterns so far, but I'll be adding other stuff as I finish setting up the patterns. Though I was proud of them before, it's kind of ridiculously gratifying to see that other people like them, too. Especially when I have been feeling rather dejected about my abilities over the last couple of weeks, it's nice to see that even though I can't manage to get a corporate-type job, I can at least produce a product people appreciate. I can't wait now to get the yarn for my baby sweater designs and see if they go over was well as the armwarmers.

The Swallowtail is doomed. That's the only possible explanation for why, ten minutes before I was going to unpin it from its blocking, the cat threw up all over it. Now the process must be begun all over again. Which I don't mind in theory, as I could certainly use the practice in blocking - it is a skill which does not come naturally to me. But in practice, I'm sick of the sight of the bloody thing, and would shred it into bits if only it wasn't intended as a gift for my mom.

Some other things I have finished lately include my lovely Lady of Guadalupe pillow. I quilted the image and then sewed it to a piece of fat-quarter and stuffed it with fiberfill. I had initially planned on appliqueing it to the front half of the fat-quarter and then sewing the whole thing up, but that resulted in an even more oddly shaped pillow, which I did not like. So this worked better, and I ended up with a very cute little pillow that cost me about $4.

On another snow day, I painted and decorated my earring holder, which Daddy built for me several months ago. White paint and the same purple and turquoise flowers that I put on those picture frames a few months ago, and the result is perfect. It made me realize, though, that I've lost several pairs of earrings, which makes me sad. I can't wait until I move and have to go through everything again, because I'm hopeful they're just hiding in the wreckage of my current half-life.

Ravelympics: Conclusion

Well. That didn't go quite as planned. It began well, with the mass mass cast-on during the beautiful, yet extremely cold opening ceremonies. By day three I had completed pair number one, Julia Tedesco's July Socks (r-link). I recognized that this speed was not quite fast enough to get me to my goal, but I resolved to knit a little faster and persevere. Seven days of knitting, and I had three and three-quarters socks knitted, out of a total necessary twelve. The Julys, one beautiful Hanging Vines, and 3/4 of a Tadpole. Even I could recognize that math was problematic. I blame myself, for choosing patterns with so many knit/purl combinations. It takes time to pass the yarn back and forth like that! So I resolved to be content without meeting my goal of six pairs, but instead being content with four.

That didn't go quite as planed, either. Having weighed the importance of a social life against the importance of completing four pairs of socks in 16 days, I realized the social life won out, and so I spent the last Thursday and Friday nights of the games out until ungodly hours, necessitating massive amounts of recovery sleep on Friday and Saturday that substantially cut in to my knitting time. Thus, I only completed three and three-quarters pairs by the end of the closing ceremonies, despite spending Sunday in a knitting frenzy, trying to complete the last sock.

So what can I say? It was a great experience. I learned a lot about my endurance as a knitter. I also learned to be slightly more realistic about my speed and abilities. But I, just like Lindsey Vonn, fell down a couple times, and there's nothing wrong with that. Though I aimed higher, I'm content with what I managed to accomplish, because it's more than I ever did before.

Man. I sound like a motivational infomercial. Eeesh.

So, to end on a more realistic note, and be a poor workman who quarrels with her tools, The Cathedrals were unlikely to get completed during the deadline, if for no other reason than the Frohelich Wolle is just what it says - wool - and it hurts us, precious. I couldn't knit something on a deadline when I was having to stop every thirty seconds to scratch. But I probably should have realized that sooner.

The Swallowtail

There are some patterns out there that are the knitting equivalent of the pop-culture fad - like sorority girls love ugg boots, or scene kids are drawn to neon, there are some patterns that have been made by pretty much everyone interested in that kind of knitting. For lace knitters, that pattern is the Swallowtail Shawl. A complete stranger, upon seeing my Melusine shawl at RenFaire, stopped me to tell me about the Swallowtail she had just completed. She broached the subject confident that I would know exactly what pattern she meant, and I did. At last count there were 6229 completed Swallowtails listed on Ravelry.

It's popular not only because it results in a beautiful lace shawl, but because the pattern is so clearly written out. Fairly often, lace patterns resemble nothing so much as the ramblings of a Japanese lunatic that have been translated into Russian by a French speaker, and then translated into English by a native speaker of Urdu. Some very important details get lost in the translation, and unless you're either extraordinarily brave or a mind-reader, these patterns are not always much fun to attempt. The Swallowtail pattern is not like that. If you follow it line by line, it is as easy as a basic dishcloth pattern. And this is something that everyone comments on. "Oh, start with the Swallowtail for your first lace project. It's so easy!" "You can't go wrong with the Swallowtail, it's so simple!"

Ha, I say, laughing the laugh of the bitter and potentially stupid.

If you do follow it exactly, I'm sure it really is easy. But, supposing, instead of using size 4s and lace-weight yarn, you end up using size 1.25s and some thread-weight cotton of unknown origin, which gives you a gauge of roughly 700 stitches to the inch (okay, so, maybe 25 stitches to the inch, but still...). Then, dearies, the Swallowtail is not easy. It is not simple. It is MATH. And MATH is something we all know that I, as a good History major, loathe.

To illustrate my point: If you should decide to knit more repeats of the body pattern than the 14 that are called for, that's all well and good. Other people have done it, and it turns out fine. But if, and only if, you repeat in multiples of 5. If you knit 19 repeats, or 24, then you're good, and the Lily of the Valley pattern comes out perfectly with no finagling. If, however, you are too stupid to check your math and just pick a random number of repeats and go with it, you will find that nothing will work out right for the next 21 rows.
Supposing, of course, that you manage to catch the first little problem and spend twenty minutes doing the math to determine that the number of stitches you need before you start the Lily of the Valley chart is a little formula that looks like the total number of stitches - 5 border stitches - 34 set up stitches + 4 stitches from the set-up row = a multiple of 10, you are not home free just yet. There is still the problematic matter of the Lace Border chart, which is not worked across a multiple of 10 stitches, but a multiple of 8. So having spent another twenty minutes doing some math, you should realize that you must now have another formula that looks like the total number of stitches - 5 border stitches - 14 set up stitches + 4 set-up row stitches = a multiple of 8. This was a problem for me, as I had increased exactly 100 stitches, resulting in a number that was not a multiple of 8, and could not be a multiple of 8 no matter how hard I willed it to be.

So, in the tradition of all those who have gotten this far into a lace pattern and decided, "screw it, I refuse to rip the bloody thing back again after all this work," I fudged it a little, and did a second "set-up" row in which I increased the necessary stitches evenly across. And now, hopefully, fingers crossed, I can finish the damn thing without having to do any more MATH. Of course, I'm not holding my breath.

I still haven't figured out if the pattern is just not as easy as is claimed, or if I am really just not as smart as most knitters.