You Say It's Your Birthday?

It's my birthday, too, yeah!

In 1955, A Gallon of Milk Cost 92 Cents

Dwight Eisenhower is president of the US Hurricane "Diane" claims 184 lives form North Carolina to New England Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat, which leads to bus segregation being declared unconstitutional The AFL merges with the CIO, creating the nation's largest labor union Dr. Jonas Salk discovers a vaccine for polio The Scrabble board game debuts Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California Kevin Costner, John Grisham, Arsenio Hall, Steve Jobs, and Billy Bob Thornton are born Charlie Parker, Albert Einstein, and James Dean die Brooklyn Dodgers win the World Series Cleveland Browns win the NFL champion ship Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is published

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

And a Happy Birthday to Kay, too.

In the Green, In the Green

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In case you've been wondering, I really am still working on the green blanket for afghans for Afghan. I'd say I'm about half-way, feeling deeply grateful that the current campaign will still be shipping in April and May. Chunky yarn. I really need to get into the habit of doing my charity knitting in chunky yarn.

The other thing I'm really pleased with? Observe.

Front.
Back.
I hate that the "wrong" side of knitting so often looks like, well, the wrong side of knitting. Especially when there's no place to hide the wrong side, like an inside. Not a problem with this blanket. It looks good on either side.

And yes, I have deliberately held off posting about blanket progress until today. Erin go bragh.

It's Friday Again

I love this piece, and these guys are having a great time with it. I just had to share.



Makes you want to just sit down and read your atlas, doesn't it.

Foot In Mouth Disease

I had to laugh. I didn't mean for yesterday's post to be a polemic against coffee cup souvenirs, but apparently the universe chose to take it as one. I quite like cups. I fall prey to the siren song of the new coffee cup all the time. In fact, my favorite cups are souvenirs, and vice versa. Behold some evidence.

On the left there's my Tube cup from London. Clare brought it home last year, because back when we took our "us alone" trip I was so entranced with "Mind the Gap." Occupying center stage is one of my first souvenir cups, purchased from The Scarlet Letter at the Country Folk Art Fair held at Kane County Fairgrounds. Next to that is from this year's Stitches Midwest. It's a Jennie the Potter (I may have talked myself out of one that first year at the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Show, but, you know, second shipwrecks and all that).

So, despite yesterday's comments on the souvenir cup, and particularly in light of the deep freeze we're in -- it's a very brrr-inducing 19 degrees (Fahrenheit) here as I write -- I have to say I'm delighted with the Malabrigo Club's March shipment. Hence the above-mentioned laughter.

The yarn is Malabrigo Lace in Cognac, but it's clear to me that Erin, recognizing that Winter hasn't loosed its grip yet, somehow aware that it would -- however briefly -- snow(!) today, has sent a cup of hot chocolate.

And It Only Took Me 31 Years

Marc was at a conference in Seattle last week. A nice irony when one considers the near non-stop rain we'd been cursing hunched under enjoying here in the Windy City. ( It was rain. That meant it was above freezing. Count your blessings.) Whenever he travels, he picks up something for us poor benighted types who were left at home. It's usually t-shirts for the kids. Often a coffee cup for me, although he has been known to deviate from the program - like the year he brought back the embroidered shawl from Olvera Street, but that's another story.

On one of his daily check-ins he commented that he found only one t-shirt vendor who had Pacific Northwest designs, and had had no luck finding a replacement for the Orca design necktie he had gotten for some long-distant Father's Day (must have been the year we bought him ties from all the museums where we had memberships). Hoping to stave off another souvenir cup, I casually mentioned yarn.

"You know, I saw a yarn store on my run, not far from the hotel and I almost went in." Being a smart woman, I nearly jumped through the phone lines encouraged this train of thought. I even went so far as to Google yarn stores in Seattle. By the way, do you people know about KnitMap? What a great invention. Sure enough, there at Second and Bell I found So Much Yarn - a clear and karmic sign. At the question of how much yarn, I knew right off to respond, "Sweater quantities. The staff will know."

(Him)"You'd really knit a cardigan for me?"

(Me) "Um. Well. Sure."

He went off to scout. It occurred to e that the yarn requirements for a man's cardigan might be a little different than a child's pullover. A quick check through Ann Budd's A Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns and Martin Storey's Knitting For Him confirmed the suspicion.

He confirmed the existence and status of the yarns store (moving, not going out of business). I told him how much yarn.It got a little sticky.

(Him) Silence. "That's a lot of yarn."

(Me) "Yes it is."
(Him) "It wouldn't fit. How would I get it home? Where would I put it? I'd have to buy a suitcase. Do you think they'd let me have a box?"

I could tell I was losing him.

(Me) "What if you just see if there's anything there you like? You could pick up a couple of skeins for me to play with."
(Him) "That could work."

I was quite excited when he handed this over. It obviously wasn't a coffee cup.

Behold my souvenir.

I admit, I was a bit puzzled. The skein is Cascade Sierra, a 50/50 cotton/wool blend. The ball is Samoa, a 50/50 cotton and acrylic.

(Me) "You want a cotton sweater?"

(Him) "Well, no. Wool would probably be better. I just bought them for the color."

The irony of all this?

I'm already knitting him a navy blue wool sweater.

I Feel Old

Do you know whose birthday it is? If I hadn't heard it from Carl on the Morning Program on WFMT I wouldn't have believed it. Barbie is 50 today.

I'm not talking about her current incarnation as floozy. I'm talking about Sorority Meeting Barbie. Solo in the Spotlight Barbie. Back in the day when you could buy an outfit without a doll in it. She had an outfit for a Friday Night Date, a Movie Date, the Junior Prom. Her wedding dress was a Bride's Dream. For all her bad rep, though, she had a cap and gown (the outfit was called Graduation), something to wear as a Commuter, a Stewardess, and a Fashion Editor. She played Guinevere in Camelot (my sister had that one). She was Barbie who had her own car (an orange corvette). Barbie who had her own Dream Home (it may have been out of cardboard, but it was all hers).

Why, you may wonder, have I bored you with this frenzy of nostalgia?

Barbie was a knitter.

Friday on Wednesday

Well, That was an interesting two weeks, filled with holidays and stomach flu. I remember there was a birthday in there (I finished the scarf), and some meetings and coffee. I know I did some driving to and from Urbana. I have a vague and faded recollection of a multi-generational lunch out for another birthday.

It was the stomach flu that threw me off. No. Not me personally. It was a very sexist stomach flu. It zeroed in on the members of the male persuasion that dwell here. Still, all in all, things have been rather more eventful than I like. I like peace. I need quiet. Not all the time, but some. Having all of the guys home last week was not conducive to either. It's a long time since I've spent the night on the bathroom floor with a child draped across my lap, and I was a lot younger then.

Looking over that last paragraph it's clear that I'm still swimming in the stream of my consciousness. So here's Friday's post today. I'll try to string together some coherent thoughts tomorrow.

Your Quirk Factor: 47%

You're a pretty quirky person, but you're just normal enough to hide it. Congratulations - you've fooled other people into thinking you're just like them!

How Quirky Are You?

Edited to add: I don't know why, but Blogger won't publish my quirk factor, which should be appearing in that big empty space. It's 47%.

Oh. And here's a close up of the birthday scarf. Just to remind myself that I still knit.

Handmaiden Lady Godiva in Renaissance. Knit according to Misty Garden from Scarf Style on I forget what size needles. Maybe I'll remember tomorrow.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

Some things are indisputable. Death and taxes. Into each life some rain must fall. I don't much like green yarn. A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Easy isn't always the same as better. Yarn club shipments are a toss-up.

I suppose it was inevitable that my next Malabrigo Club project would be full of, well, green yarn.

This is Malabrigo worsted in lettuce. Lots of it because the project is a sweater. Sigh.

Now, much must be said in favor of a club that includes sweaters. As noted over the past few posts, I am deeply devoted to sweaters. Further, in these grey and gloomy hind-end of winter days, green is a good idea. I just can't get mind around a sweater in this green.

More indisputable facts. This is not a pale green. Not a wishy-washy, just kidding, apologetic, poor excuse for itself. This is bright. New leaf bright. Little kid bright. It doesn't quite fluoresce, but it wants to.

Truth be told, I've been hiding from the yarn for a few weeks now. Trying to come up with a project engaging enough to overcome the almost overwhelming need I feel every time I look at it to start screaming for a blindfold, or at least a darkened room.

It is perfect for Afghans for Afghans. In addition to (bleh) socks, a4A is asking for child-size blankets. After sweaters, blankets are my favorite thing to knit. Green is a favored color in Afghanistan.

Final indisputable fact: this I can knit.

Reality Checking

First off. After some reflection, it occurs to me that there might be those who feel my reporting of sock-related data is less than even-handed, might even be called biased. That I might have been a bit disingenuous with the facts I chose to reveal.

Never let it be said that I report unfairly.

Should you happen to choose to do a pattern search for, say, "sweater," on Ravelry, you'll get 492 pages (9828 matches) for this supremely useful and delightful object. A similar search for "worsted" under "yarn" resulted in a mere 20 pages (544 matches). This seemed grossly under-reported, so I searched under "Yarns" again, this time selecting worsted from the "weight" filter, producing a more realistic report: 202 pages (4034 matches). Allow me to interpret these results for you. Clearly, those of us who knit sweaters with worsted wool feel, in our exuberance and generosity of spirit, a well-founded desire to share the wealth, spread the joy, welcome others into the happy place called Sweaterland. See? The difference between sock knitting and sweater knitting is self-evident. At least to sweater knitters.

Second. It's done. They're done.

Well, not done done. They still need to be blocked. But the tedium is all behind me now. Nothing but good times ahead.

Third. I don't know what the blue yarn is, but it's not Dale of Norway Baby Ull.

Oh no. Does this mean I have to knit another sock?

It's After Me

That little blue sock is stalking me. I know it. You may think it's just sitting there on the dining room table, but it's after me. I tell myself it's only a few more rows before I can shape the toe and graft it and then I never have to knit another sock in my whole life. A mere 32 stitches a row for maybe 4 or 5 more rows and then I get to decrease down to 6 Kitchener stitches. Yet it hasn't happened. The photo in the previous post? I could post the same one today. The only change would be that Liz (the cat) took out her extreme fascination with blue yarn (and, we have noted over the years, she is only compelled by blue 100% wool yarn) on it.

It's not knitting row after row after row. Since I started the socks, John's Island Embrace Variation II afghan is a good 4 to 6 inches along. That's four to six inches of 120 garter-stitch rows.

It's not knitting in the round. The someday-to-be-steeked cardigan in the round a la Elizabeth Zimmermann that I'm making for the Himself has acquired another 2 or 3 inches. That's 2 to 3 inches at 200 stitches per row.

The sock? With it's paltry 32 stitches in the round? Languishes.

It's clearly not knitting that I'm off of. It's the sock. It's just annoying. All that fiddly stuff with the heel flap. The weird little short rows and decreases to turn the heel. Slogging through further decreases for the gusset. Then round and round like a dementedly boring merry-go-round ride while I try to get the foot to the point where I can end it all. All that and what will I have when I'm done? Not a sweater that's for sure.

Meanwhile it's like those trick portraits where the eyes seem to follow you around the room. Accusingly at that. Pretty soon I'm going to be spending all my time in the kitchen, the front room, the bathroom, the hallways, anywhere that the sock can't see me.

Not For the Faint-Hearted

Sweet Angels of Mercy, you people do this all the time? On purpose? Without duress?

There are 424 pages, pages, of sock patterns on Ravelry. 96 pages of sock yarn. Do you wonder why there are 8466 sock patterns? What the need for 1914 matches for sock yarn might be? Do you want to know why? Do you want to know just what the little secret is that Sock Knitters don't tell you?

Knitting socks is boring. Mind-numbingly boring. Put out your eyes with your dpn's boring. And I've just finished a garter stitch afghan. I know boring.

Diane says the challenge with socks is to knit another just like the first.

I don't know if I can bear it.

Relativity

I have this peculiar relationship with time. I keep expecting it to conform to my necessities. I should know better. It didn't behave over Clare's Christmas break, so she left without her scarf. A six inch scarf, after all, isn't of much use. She was philosophical about it, observing that that's what birthdays are for. No problem. Her birthday was weeks and weeks away then.

And now it's not. Fearing Determined that her birthday cannot happen wihout this scarf, I have been knitting something fierce.

This was yesterday.

This is today.

Sometimes, time obeys me. Or perhaps knitting time does?

I don't think I'll get the thrummed mittens done, though.

It's a Swatch

The cast-on is too tight. Apparently I have a disconnect between the ability to cast on loosely and the amount of stretch I deem necessary for a sock cuff.

The ankle is too short.

The foot is too long, unless, of course, one is planning a gift for the Yeti's first-born.

And despite balancing finer yarn (the pattern calls for sport, not fingering, weight) and being the world's tightest knitter against the recommended needle size for the pattern and knitting for the longer sock, the sock is not baby-size.

I'd rather have a sleeve.

I Don't Do

Disney on Ice. Milk in coffee. Patience. The glad suffering of fools. Hand knit socks.

Especially hand-knit socks. The idea of wearing wool on my feet invariably calls to mind the aunts in Dylan Thomas' "A Child's Christmas In Wales." The aunts who "always wore wool next to the skin" and "gave mustached and rasping vests that made you wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all." Give me some nice store-bought cotton socks. I'm not quite a bag for a buck at the five and dime type, but I will cheerfully hand over $5 or $10 at TJ Maxx.

Further, the process holds no appeal for me. I've heard the drill. The merits of a short row heel. The fiddly bit about gussets. The satisfaction of Kitchener stitch successfully completed. The woes of second sock syndrome. It all fails to quicken my heartbeat. When bloggers start flirting with Sock Mode, I click over to another blog. I figure if I'm going to knit that many stitches, I want a sweater. Or at least, as Clare and Diane (both sock knitters) have pointed out to me, the sleeve of a sweater. I expected to wander through the rest of my knitting career blissfully using sock yarn for afghan squares and fingerless mitts.

When the call went out from afghans for Afghans for the Spring 2009 Campaign, I fully intended to let February go by. Baby blankets in March; that's what I was going to get behind. Socks for babies? Actual socks? Actual hand-knit socks? Actual hand-knit socks as in not booties? I don't think so.

I don't do socks.

Of course, baby stuff is small. Were I to contemplate sock knitting (not that I was), baby socks might be something I would consider. Not a lot of stitches in a round, if the round only has to make the circumference of a baby's leg (not that I care). Not a lot of rows, either. Unlike their heads, babies legs are not disproportionate to their overall size (not that I've been checking).

Then a4A sent out a second letter. Dang it.

I'm still not doing Disney on Ice.

TGIF

Haven't I been good this week? Aren't you impressed? Don't I deserve a reward? I think I do. I'm going to indulge in Friday Foolery. It didn't seem fair when I was hardly posting at all, but I think I've earned it this week.

You Scored an A

You got 10/10 questions correct. It's pretty obvious that you don't make basic grammatical errors. If anything, you're annoyed when people make simple mistakes on their blogs. As far as people with bad grammar go, you know they're only human. And it's humanity and its current condition that truly disturb you sometimes.

The It's Its There Their They're Quiz

So true, so true. Now go have fun.

Art vs. Life

What is it called when you have a story that teaches a lesson? Not fable. Not parable . A *something * tale. I think it's medieval. I have one of those today.

It all started with a brown coat. I usually buy black. I've had black coats for years and years ands years. Hence, all my accessories revolve around black. Black hats. Black gloves. Black printed scarves. Note that. Printed scarves. The scarves are where I go for color. I have to do something or people would think me a Johnny Cash imitator. The thing is, most of my scarves don't work with my new brown jacket. In a word, they clash. The only scarf that doesn't is the Scribble Lace scarf (there on the far right) I made early in my knitting days.

The Scribble scarf was an adventure for me. I was so new to knitting -- a couple of months into it as opposed to now, with all of a couple of years -- I didn't understand how the rows of stitches work together, with subsequent rows determining how the stitches present themselves. I was at the follow the pattern slavishly stage, because none of it really made sense but it all seemed to work. Truly magical. I love my Scribble Lace Scarf.

And here we come to the meat of the matter. Scribble Lace is art, and art can only imitate life. It's beautiful, but it is clearly not wearable. It catches on things. Anything. Hangers. Keys. Corners. Coat hooks. Zippers. Buttons. That little knob on the deadbolt lock. For a Scribble scarf, the world is a perilous place.

I've given up trying to realign the stitches and now just try to loop it through in such a way that the biggest snags don't show. I'm wearing it, but only because it's what I have and it's been freaking cold out there.

I may need toget a life, but I've been giving serious consideration to what I want in a scarf. I like to wrap scarves around my neck a couple of times; I need length. I don't like the feeling of wearing a neck brace; I don't want bulk or stiffness. Long and pliable, those are the keywords. Well, Scribble is long and pliable, so I suppose I have to add long, pliable, and not loosely knit ("No one expects the Spanish Inquisition ....our two main weapons are ... three, three main weapons ...").

This is what I've some up with.

The yarn is Reynold's Odyssey in 503, picked up at the actual (as in not virtual) Patternworks store that fateful trip to New Hampshire when Amtrak lost my yarn suitcase. It's a merino worsted weight, which meant, in my quest to avoid bulk, I didn't want a wide scarf. Since the yarn is variegated, I went looking for a pattern that would break it up a little. I decided a bias knit would work, something along the lines of Grandma's Favorite Dishcloth (ArtisanAmy has a picture if you scroll down a bit). Then I realized I didn't want to work it in garter stitch. I find that garter stitch, while it can be stretchy, is not always flowy - that whole stiffness issue. Which is how I came to choose "Elizabeth's Wool-Angora Diagonal Scarf" from Luxury One Skein Wonders. It has the yo increases like Grandma's Favorite, which I think pretty, but it's stockinette, so it will drape better than garter stitch (I hope).

All of which sums up why I am not an artful knitter. I once read that someone described their home as "for use, not for show." That's the lesson I learned, the moral of the story.That's how I want to knit, with the additional requirement that something made for use can also be beautiful.

A Promise is a Promise, No Matter How Small

Shamelessly misquoted from Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who, the Jim Carrey version of which John and I recently watched. John loved it. Must be a boy thing. I mean really. Jesse McCartney as Jojo?

I admit the promise was only to me, that, having wantonly neglected the blog for lo, these many weeks, I would post something every day this week. But my Internet has gone all wonky today. I suspect it's not happy to be back in single digit temperatures after those few days of "seasonable" weather. Besides it's all cold and drafty here where I type the blog (I may have anthropomorphised my Internet connection a bit, or was that projecting? or both?). All in all, the conditions are not conducive to cleverness, or even original thought.

Then. Then, Blogger ate my words. I've heard of feeding one's blog, but had always taken it as metaphor before. Still, a promise is a promise.

All of which means you'll have to settle for a little Yarn Pr0n. Behold, John's Blanket, a.k.a. Island Blanket Variation #2.

That's Noro Yoroi (the same as Marco's) in colorway 4 (John's stash still had the tags), and Manos del Uruguay in X (the topaz) and 13 (the dark Sherwood-y green). Cast on 120 stitches (although Marco's ended up with 119, which means either I lost one along the way or miscounted from the very beginning) on US 11/8 mm circulars. Knit for about two years.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. A knitter is faithful one hundred per cent.

Hobson's Choice

Hobson owned a livery stable. The story goes that, while he kept a lot of horses (since he mostly rented to the vast population of students in Oxford, or maybe Cambridge), he would only rent the horse closest to the stable door. In other words, Hobson's choice is no choice. My way or the highway. A Pig in a poke. Caveat emptor.

It's kind of like joining a yarn club.

Some of you may remember, my first yarn club experience was not happy. I joined one that promised it would be projects other than socks and the first pattern they sent was - yup - socks. Just to add insult to injury, the colors were Barbie clothes color, and not the classy Barbie of the 60's; the slutty Barbie of the 90's. Happily, subsequent shipments were to drool over. But that first shipment taught me a lesson. When you join a yarn club, you puts your money down and you takes your chances.

Which should have prepared me for my second yarn club, but didn't. This time I joined the Malabrigo Yarn Club over at Eat.Sleep.Knit. E.S.K. is one of my favorite online yarn stores. They carry Dream in Color. Lorna's Laces. Shibui. They were my yarn store of choice for the first yarn club. Anyway. Joining a yarn club means a free pattern and treats in every shipment. I figured this was an unloseable proposition. I mean, it's Malabrigo, right? How could I miss with Malabrigo plus treats?

Well.

That's how. The yarn is Malabrigo Chunky. The color is Brisa. According to Wikipedia, Brisa is the northeasterly wind that blows on the coast of South America during the trade wind season. I say it's Barbie all over again.

Which is why I went back to Eat.Sleep.Knit and picked out my own yarn.

This I can make up into a cowl I'll wear.

Sometimes I'll take my chances. Sometimes, yarn club or no yarn club, Mr. Hobson can get stuffed.

A Double Helping

St. Bridgid's Day (although technically that was yesterday, not at all clear why she is invoked today on so many blogs). Groundhog Day. Candlemas. Eve of the Feast of St. Blaise (patron saint of wool workers). Call it what you will. It's time for my favorite annual blog event. This year (the 4th) I even managed to remember in time to participate.

I couldn't decide. Pretend one of them was for last year.

It Couldn't Be

I can't believe it. It's not one of the 6 impossible things I ever expected to imagine before breakfast, or during or, as was the case, after. I have a Finished Object for you. Not just any Finished Object.

The long-running, never ending, Variation on the Splendid Sofa/Island Surprise Blanket. It's been featured off and on here since I don't know when. Wait. Yes I do.

It marks so many milestones.

First major project.

First eBay yarn buying.

First realization that 10 skeins of something isn't always as much as you think it is.

First (and only) time a Public Carrier lost one of my suitcases.

I know it's done because I ran out of yarn at the bind-off.

Twice.

The yarn - Noro Iro in Something or Other, Manos del Uruguay Worsted in I Don't Remember (the turquoise) and No Idea (the blue). Knit according to Cat Bordhi's pattern that I found here (it's still free).

My word. I almost don't know what to do with myself. I guess it really has been as cold a winter as I think it is. Color me gobsmacked.

It couldn't be. I didn't think it would ever be. But it is.