LIZARD RIDGE IS DONE!

It's done, I tell you!

Well, okay, I need to weave in the ends.  Sometime.  I don't really care about that so much.  The knitting is finished, the seaming is finished, the border is finished.  Who really cares about the finishing?  Even working at a very casual pace, I spent a good eleven months working on the Lizard Ridge.  Weaving in the ends is hardly a concern.

It's sooooo warm on my lap.  I'm so happy I knit it.

And since I scored a goodly amount of Kureyon in that giant stash score, I may make another one sometime.  Not for a little while, but y'know.  Sometime.



What do you think of the light gray border?  It was a controversial choice, I know...

The Most Awesomiest Swap Day EVAR

Sometimes things just work out.

Mango, my friend who hosts a monthly Knitting at the Farm, couldn't host on the usual Saturday in January, so rescheduled for the last Saturday instead.  (This worked out well for me, because I was in Florida for the usual weekend and would have missed it.)  It had been a while since we'd done a swap, too, so we decided to throw that in there and make it a day.

A few days before the swap, I was looking on Ravelry (the Vermont forum) and came across a post from a woman who wanted to destash completely.  She's moving to a smaller place, doesn't even want to deal with sorting and packing, who wants it?  $200 takes the lot.  Best part?  She lives really near Mango.  I'd be there anyway, with a bunch of friends.  I sent an email to the group asking if anyone would like to split the stash with me.  Three people responded immediately that they would, so I emailed the woman who'd posted the offer and snapped it up!

Photo courtesy of Jess

Seriously, what a massive score.  I wish I'd thought to take pictures when it was all in my car: three full garbage bags, two big bins, and a couple of smaller bags... it completely filled the back of my station wagon.  We are talking a HAUL here, people.  It was a lot of yarn.  A LOT OF YARN.

Photo courtesy of Jess

The four of us sorted the yarn by size (thank goodness one of them was a librarian!) in Mango's front room.  Even once it was sorted, we are still talking about an overwhelming amount of yarn.  Jess kindly snapped a few pictures, and then we got down to the business of staking claim.  We'd put a pile of, say, fingering weight yarn in the middle of the floor, and then we'd go around in a circle and each take something until we got down to the yarn that none of us wanted.  Then we'd put aside that yarn and move on to the next pile.  We went all the way through to the chunky yarns in complete peace.  Rarely did two people feel equally passionate about how much they wanted the same skein of yarn.  There was never a disagreement or an argument.  There was a great deal of potential for fisticuffs (after all, we are talking about a room filled with yarn, free for the taking), but we all restrained ourselves.

Photo courtesy of Jess

It took about two hours to sort and divide up all that yarn.  Maybe longer.  Honestly, we were having so much fun that I didn't really pay attention to the time.  We each came away with about a garbage bag full of yarn we wanted to keep, and there was still a huge amount of yarn that none of us wanted left over.  We opened the pile to our friends who were patiently waiting (and swapping, and eating, and knitting) in the other room.  Everybody took a look and chose something to take with them.

Me taking an "I need the big picture" break while Erin sorts yarn. Photo courtesy of Jess

There was still a ton of yarn left over, so I brought it home with me and will figure out some place to donate it.  Maybe I'll go through it again and sort out things I think would be appropriate for the nearby elementary school.  Maybe I'll just take it to Goodwill.  We'll see.

After all that sorting and dividing was over, we rejoined the regular swap taking place in Mango's kitchen.  I did trade a few things, but mostly the swapping was done by the time we got in there.  I'm okay with that.

Just for comparison's sake, here's a picture of everything I brought to the swap (pre-giant-haul):

And here's a picture of what came home with me:

Imagine three *more* garbage bags full of yarn, and that'll give you an idea of how much we scored in the first place.  Seriously, we each spent $50, and we each came home with $500+ worth of yarn.  Every time I think about what was in that stash, I cannot believe the amazing deal we got.


So here's the thing: that stash was up for grabs because the woman selling it was getting a divorce.  She was moving out of the house she'd shared with her husband, and needed to make some big lifestyle changes, including shedding a lot of her possessions.  It wasn't a sad thing that they were getting a divorce: "my husband and I are actually much better friends now that we're not married to each other," she told me, standing in the driveway.  She just wanted to start over and move on, and part of that was starting over with her stash.  We found a few half-finished sweaters in the pile, and I'm guessing there could have been some painful memories wrapped up in some of that yarn.  But for the most part, she was getting a new life, and so was the yarn.  Because of her divorce, my friends and I had a wonderful afternoon of fun and reconnection and building new memories.  And she was getting a new kind of freedom in releasing the baggage (in this case, literally the garbage bags!) of that former life.  We will always have the blessing of that connection, those few minutes spent chatting outside her old house, with her dogs bounding around us, that final handshake and smile.  New life abounds, even in the midst of change and loss.  Maybe especially in the midst of change and loss.

That, my friends, is a kind of Resurrection.  Thanks be to God.

Sock It to Me!

I forgot to tell you: I had to get a Kindle because of that continuing education thing I went to in Florida last month.  One of the books was out of print but available as an e-book, so the people running the program offered to reimburse us if we needed to buy a Kindle.

What do you do when you get a Kindle?  Well, you should probably get some kind of case for it, because it's an expensive-but-breakable item that's a pain in the neck to replace.

Or, if you're me, you knit it a sock.



Kindle Sock Pattern:
Yarn -- leftover Fuzzy Bunny worsted weight two-ply (leftover from this gorgeous shawl)
Needles -- size 6, as that's all I had with me at the time.
CO 40 sts -- I did not join in the round, but only because I didn't have the right needle with me.
Row 1: k1fb, k to last st, k1fb
Row 2 and following: knit in stockinette.  It's that simple!
Cast off when you've knit about an inch longer than the Kindle itself.  Fold in half and seam together side and bottom (I did mattress stitch for the side, and just a whip stitch on the bottom).
Put your Kindle in there and don't worry about it getting scratched or smooshed in your purse!  Kindle Sock won't protect your expensive-but-breakable item from getting damaged if you step on it, though, so ... well, just don't do that.  Refrain from putting your Kindle on the floor or whatever.

Husband Sweater Update

I have made some pretty good progress on Husband's sweater lately.  Conference knitting.  Windowless room in a Tampa hotel for a week.  Attached sleeves to body.

Husband tried on the sweater when I was visiting him last weekend.  It's tight, but it does fit properly.  And he says to keep going.  At this point, I figure I'll just wear the darn thing if he decides it's no good on him when it's done.  And now he can never say I haven't made him a sweater.  Whether he wears it or not is up to him. 

Sheepie is for scale.  Also for the fun of it.

Gratification

Christmas and the first few weeks of January have taken a lot out of me.  I've already had two trips down to Connecticut and one to Florida -- and a good bit of travel knitting to show for it.  But that's for another post.

First I want to give you all a bit of gratification: I know you've been on the edge of your seats to find out what the sneak peek project was.  It's SOCKS!  Specifically, it's By the Fjords (Rav link), from Stephanie Van Der Linden's Around the World in Knitted Socks.

StrungUp and I were in Nido about a month before Christmas, and she picked up the book (she's a sucker for sock patterns; you know how *I* feel about knitting socks -- or, used to feel) and started leafing through it.  I looked over her shoulder and... well, we both oohed and ahhed for a good half-hour.  Almost every pattern in the book is something one or both of us want to knit.  We especially remarked about By the Fjords, and I came back a couple of days later and bought two copies of the book: one for StrungUp, one for me.  And then I bought the yarn.

The brown is Claudia Handpaints.  Knowing that StrungUp's frustration with Claudia is that it's 100% wool (no nylon, no longevity!  Who makes a sock yarn that's going to make holey sock? Claudia, apparently).  I held double with a 100% Rayon thread for the heel.

The red and the green stripe are both Happy Feet.  I needed two skeins of the brown, and one skein of the red (and one of the green, technically, but it's such a negligible amount that I barely think it's worth counting).

I really liked knitting with both of these, and have already bought more brown Claudia and more Happy Feet so I can do more patterns from this amazing book.  You hear that?  I WANT TO KNIT MORE SOCKS.  I think it had something to do with the stranded knitting.

Seriously, isn't this so cool?  So gorgeous?  It was a tricky pattern.  I had to think.  I may have had to fudge things.  I may have had to get creative to make the awesome swirly toe work.  And I loved every minute of it.

I'm totally knitting these for myself sometime, too.  LOVE.  I cannot wait to knit about 2/3 of the patterns in this book.

Merry Christmas, StrungUp!  And everyone else!

Christmas Sneak Peek

How silly of me to start updating my blog again just before Christmas!  I really should have known better, because I've switched to that point where all my knitting is secret-knitting!  It's awfully hard to write posts about the things I'm knitting when they're all secret.  Still... I will post a sneak peek of the secret-knitting item that most excites me right now.  Seriously, I'm enjoying this item so much that I might make it for myself sometime, too.  And it's something I've previously not enjoyed knitting, so this is a surprise to me, too!

Someday, all shall be revealed.  [insert Mr. Burns-like laughter here, Smithers.]

On Getting It Right

Husband's sweater is officially on hold.  Hopefully just for a little while.  At Thanksgiving, I held what I had done up to one of his favorite store-bought sweaters and discovered that the sleeves I have made (which I have done FOUR TIMES already) are about 2 inches narrower than the sleeves of the sweater he likes.  Meaning... he thinks they will probably be too tight, and he won't wear the sweater.  No amount of explaining to Husband that he chose a tight skinny sweater pattern and the sleeves are supposed to be like that will convince him that this sweater is actually turning out the way it should.  So more fitting is needed.  I may have to do the sleeves over again.  I may have to make him choose an entirely different pattern and start over completely.  We'll see when he comes home for Christmas and tries on the sleeves I've knit so far.

Seriously, at this rate, I'm just going to go to J. Crew and buy him more damn sweaters.  Sigh.  Can this marriage be saved?*


Not just regarding the sweater, I've been doing a lot of thinking about mistakes lately.  Specifically, about making mistakes when knitting.  I am the kind of knitter who will rip out inches and inches and inches of knitting -- hours and hours of work -- if I realize I've made even a tiny mistake somewhere down the line.  Some of my knitting friends give me a good-natured hard time for my insistence on perfection in knitting.  I don't mind their teasing, of course.  I have always believed the old adage that "a thing worth doing is worth doing well."

The Amish will purposefully knit a mistake into their sweaters (usually a twisted stitch in an underarm right next to a seam so no one can see it anyway, ahem) because only God can make a truly perfect thing.  So they deliberately put a mistake in their work.  The Persians do this with their rugs, too.  Surely there are other groups that do this as well.  And I guess I understand where they're coming from -- they consider it an act of reverence/deference to the Creator, in a way.  A kind of humility, to acknowledge and accept our own place in the created order.

I appreciate the devotion intended behind this practice, but I also find it a bit presumptuous to assume in the first place that one's work would be perfect without deliberately adding a "mistake."  And is it really a mistake if you put it there on purpose?

I generally assume, particularly with knitting, but also in life in general, that nothing I do will be perfect.  Maybe I absorbed just enough Wesleyan theology at that Methodist seminary I attended -- I like the idea of "striving toward perfection," even though we know we will never get there on our own.  God's grace both brings us closer to the perfection for which we strive and makes it okay that we never achieve said perfection. Still, the striving is ours.  That's what we do.  In knitting and in life.  So I do the best I can.  If there's something to do over -- particularly something as easy as fixing a knitting error -- I should do it.  A thing worth doing is worth doing well.  Perfect doesn't even enter into it.  Meticulous, maybe.  But never perfect.




*In case you were wondering, yes, I am turning in to my mother.  She used to say this all the time.  It's the title of a real-live column from one of those 70s homemaker magazines that used to pile up next to the couch.  McCall's or Family Circle or something.  They were "gruesome" stories of minor marriage disputes, and it was left to the reader to decide "Can this marriage be saved?"  I think the desired implication was that yes, a marriage can always be saved.  I'm not sure this is true in every case.  In my case, however, the answer is yes.  It was always yes in my mother's case, as well.  My parents have been married for something like 45 years.  I suspect they'll be fine.

Finally!

I don't know how many hats I've made for Husband over the years. He is like the Goldilocks of hats, I swear. This one's too tight, that one's too loose. This "weave" (he means gauge, but doesn't know it) is too big, this "weave" is too small. This brim's too wide, this brim's not wide enough. This color's too light, this color's too dark... I swear, I cannot get it right. It's a hat. But something in me (pride, probably) refuses to let him just go buy a stinkin' hat already. I mean, come on. He's married to a knitter! I will resent any hat he brings into our house that I didn't knit for him. He's a good and patient and kind and understanding man, so he puts up with me and my peccadilloes. Thank God.

Anyway, it seems I have finally gotten it right. This most recent attempt was sparked by desperation: my own. I was at this conference in Boston, seaming up the baby sweater for Meowkat, and finished the seaming sooner than I expected. A whole day sooner, in fact. I was faced with sitting in a conference with no knitting for an entire day. NOT AN OPTION.

This is one of those times that I'm grateful I come from an Iowan family. We're really nice folks, we Iowans. We don't know how to be otherwise. My wonderful sister drove me to the Boston neighborhood where the conference was taking place, and on the walk from her parking space to the church where we were meeting, with only 2 minutes to spare, I popped into Newbury Yarns. They have just moved to a new space and didn't have their hours posted on the door yet -- I walked in and asked, and I was there a half-hour early. But Aldrich (sp?) let me browse anyway. And by "browse," I mean "ask her for yarn to make a hat." She pointed me toward some lovely dark-gray Karabella Aurora, I grabbed some size 6 needles, and said "You might not recognize me. I'm Anne's sister. She'll probably be in a bit later." And Aldrich practically jumped over her counter to give me a hug. "How is Anne? She is such a nice lady. Please give her my best. Are you ready to check out now? Just let me sign in..."

And that, my friends, is how I bought yarn a half-hour before the shop is open. Aldrich is, herself, a very nice person and probably would have rung me up anyway without name-dropping my sister, but I'm sure it didn't hurt.

Anyway, I slipped in to the conference only a few minutes late, sat down, and cast on 72 stitches, joined in the round. Knitted a 1x1 rib for longer enough that I was ready to poke my eyes out with the needles, then switched to stockinette. Got most of the hat done during the day, then went back to my sister's house and knit more after dinner, let myself be talked into staying the night and driving back to Vermont in the morning. In the morning, I let myself be talked into staying pretty much until lunch... and I finished the hat. (Six k2tog decreases, evenly spaced on the round -- first every-other-row for a few sets, then switched to every row for the remainder.) My sister grabbed a ball of fluorescent-hunter-orange from her stash and suggested I add a tassel on the top, so I did. It looks hilarious and wonderful.

Husband loves the hat. He thinks it's just right. Now if it would only get cold in New Haven so he can actually wear it! And then I can take a picture of him wearing it.

(Just kidding. I would not wish winter on anyone. Even someone I don't like. Because I'm nice.)