Dogs Steal Yarn

It's sweater weather!

It is suddenly FREEZING in this apartment. One of about 3,457 pluses about moving into a house is that we'll actually be able to control the thermostat. For now, we're just huddling together (the dogs and I, that is. Billy isn't home yet) and hoping the super decides to kick on the heat soon. Diego and I are wearing our matching black turtlenecks, but Sadie's still running around naked. She's a tough girl.

Countdown to my brother's birthday on October 14th. I'd like to have his sweater done by then. I'm four inches on the body away from joining with the sleeves and starting the raglan decreases. Doesn't sound like much, but he's a big boy and it's a big sweater. If I can keep working on it and not let some other project lure me away, it'll get done in time.

Yes, this sweater was supposed to be done months ago. It just hasn't held my attention and I've put it aside many times since starting it. The texture of Peace Fleece varies WIDELY between colors. Guess it depends on the dyes used. Well, the Muppet monster sweater is Peace Fleece, and I loved working with it. My brother's sweater is also Peace Fleece, but the black yarn is not at all pleasant to knit with. The actual fabric it makes is great. A bit rustic, but not too rough and really "masculine" (whatever that means. It's a texture my brother would view as masculine, and that was the point of choosing it. He's a cop and a Marine. What can I say?) This black yarn takes actual muscle to knit. It pulls on itself and scratches and sucks every ounce of moisture from my hands. There's a stripe on the body and on one sleeve. It's also Peace Fleece--Zarya Fog, the color is called. Gray with blue and purple. Lovely. This stripe color is incredibly soft. Just that black yarn. I'm hating it. I'm going to have about six skeins of it left when I'm done. Now that I've sold it so well, if anyone wants to talk about a trade, let me know. ;)

Knitting: Good for what ails ya

Thanks so much for the supportive messages following yesterday's post. It's nice to know I have so many people pulling for me. It's also interesting to see how many knitters are currently writing novels.

Anyway, I knew the MFA thing wouldn't be easy. I'm back in the saddle today.

I have finally finished the first sock of Billy's pair. Poor guy. I started this sock back in May and kept putting it aside in favor of other projects. I finished it last night and immediately cast on for the second. I'm dedicating all my subway knitting to it, so he'll probably have a pair of toasty socks in another week.

It's Regia ringel #5156. I prefer the Regia colorways that are tiny stripes rather than this faux fair isle, but this pattern is definitely more my boy's style than stripes would be. He's happy with his one sock and seems surprised at how much more comfortable it is than a storebought sock. (It's all the love that's knitted into it, of course.)

Title? Eh. No title today.

The chunk o' novel was workshopped last night. My head is still spinning. A lot of conflicting comments. Some helpful, some less so. The biggest problem I have coming away from it is that I felt a lot of people responded as they would to a short story, not keeping in mind that this was the first 27 pages of a novel. Those 27 pages would be about 15 when typeset, I think. I've only ever workshopped short stories and poems before. So now I'm left wondering how useful the workshop format is for the novelist. I left my one-on-one meeting with the teacher before class feeling excited about our conversation and the things he challenged me to work on within the novel. (Ernesto Mestre. He's awesome. Author of The Lazarus Rumba. He's wonderful. We love him.) I left class feeling like I never wanted to write again. After a restless night's sleep, I'm over that. But still. A new feeling for me. I've never felt so discouraged after a workshop before. I don't think it's that my classmates were harsh or unfair. I think I was unprepared for how very different it feels to offer up a work that is so very much unfinished and in progress. When you turn in a short story, it already has its beginning, middle and end. You turn in a finished first draft (or second, or third). With a novel, most of us turn it in as we're still working on it...and I wonder if that's a dangerous thing.

Oh. And I won't be reading on Sunday. I was mysteriously dropped from the reading and someone else put in my place. The organizer apparently forgot I volunteered. It was one of those really ego-affirming nights. Yup. Maybe I'll skip the reading entirely and stay home and knit.

FO!!! (Finished Monster!)

Here it is, folks!

Once it was all done, and the underarms grafted, I liked the fit a lot better. It's pretty much what I had in mind when I planned it out.

I can wear the neck rolled down:

Or I can turn it up for a more Muppet-ish look.

I wanted this sweater to work with the way I wear sweaters. I like to pull the sleeves way down over my hands when I get cold, so I made the sleeves so that I can wear them over my hands like this or for those moments when I actually need my hands, I can roll them back like this.

Since it's rather roomy on me, we found that it fits the boy perfectly. He also insisted that this photo needed to be taken. Isn't he cute?

So there's the Muppet monster sweater. It's quirky. It's not for everyone. But that's just fine, cause it's for me. And it's mine, all mine! Woohoo!

A monster grows in Brooklyn

I've been all about the Muppet monster lately. My brother's sweater? My mom's sweater? Those baby gifts? Off to the side, baby. I want a new sweater for fall. I'm three ribby turtleneck inches away from casting off. Then some quick underarm grafting (oh, how I hate to graft) and I'll have a shiny new monster to wear. Woohoo, I say!

One potential problem that may keep me from adoring it and wearing it to death: I wanted it to be a big, roomy top-layer layering piece, so I designed it with lots of ease. I think I gave it too much ease. It's damn boxy when I slip it over my head. I'm tempted to shrink it a bit. I might just do that.

I have a big job due tomorrow, so most of today will be dedicated to that. It should only take a work break or two to finish this beast up, though. So...should all go according to plan, there'll be FO pics tomorrow.

Monsters need love too

Sadie thinks the Muppet monster sweater is perfect for snuggling.

I decided to skip the flea market this morning. I'm getting a bit nervous about the expense of all the repairs we'll need to make to the new house, plus the cost of moving. We're going to buckle down even more than we've already been doing and really squirrel away as much as we can. That means no flea markets. No yarn. No art supplies. Only those books that I need for school, or that I can find used. At least for a little while. The books will be the first expense to be allowed again, as we start to ease up. My mom still went to the flea market and she says I still made out like a bandit cause she bought me some old baskets big enough for stash storage AND a big bag full of shetland yarn in yummy colors. And when my mom says yummy colors, I trust her. She's an artist with incredible color sense. Nice to know you're never too old to get flea market gifts from your mom.

Instead of the flea market, Billy and I hopped on our bikes and went for a four-hour ride. Can't spend money if you don't slow down. We went down to Coney Island, then around through the beautiful Victorian neighborhoods of Brooklyn before making our way back around the park to home. We went through the new neighborhood but didn't go past the new house.

When I get frustrated about the temporary extreme penny-pinching, I look at this picture of the new house. (It's the extreme savings mode that gets to me. I'm always pretty damn thrifty, just by nature. But no yarn?! No books?! No Tasti-Delite?!) This is the skylight in the upstairs hallway. A skylight, for crying out loud!

Billy is conked out on the bed, the dogs beside him. I think I'll put off work until tomorrow and go work on the monster for a while. I hope everyone's having a beautiful weekend.

And now the fun REALLY begins

I turned in a chunk of the novel to my workshopmates last night. That means it's my turn on the hot seat next week. Gulp. This is where the whole MFA thing really starts--my work out there for critique for the first time. (Well, first time with this group, anyway.) I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm sitting on my hands so I won't email everyone and ask if they've read it yet.

To make things even scarier for myself, I've volunteered to read at our first MFA reading of the semester. A week from this Sunday. I'll post more detailed info for you NYC folks as the date approaches.

The Muppet monster sweater body is ready to be joined with its sleeves! Raglan decreases, here I come. I have a lot of work to do this weekend, and my wonderful little mom is coming to play tomorrow (Annual Stuyvestant Town Flea Market! Woohoo!), so I definitely won't have a new sweater to wear on Monday. Maybe by end of next week though? Ooh! Maybe I'll finish the monster in time to wear it onstage for the reading! There's some inspiration to get up in front of the crowd. Nevermind my fiction, folks. Get a load of this FABULOUS sweater!

Lazy Wednesday

We're moving kinda slow around here today.

I've got plenty that needs to get done today, but I just want to sit around and knit. It's been one of those days so far. "Just one more round and I'll get to work." Right. I've been one-more-rounding myself for two hours. After this post, I'm sitting down to work. Really. Diego will probably stay in bed, though. He's a lady of leisure, you know.

There were only three of us here for knitting last night, but it worked out well that way. Nice and cozy. A good way to get to know Michelle in person. She was just as sweet and funny and intelligent as you would expect. Which is to say very sweet, funny, intelligent. She is a Grammar Avenger, after all.

Since I don't really have anything of interest to say today, why not head over to see Alison and guess how many fish she caught?

Alrighty, off to work I go. Soundtrack for the day: Bright Eyes and The Long Winters.

Because I didn't have enough projects planned already

The new Knitty is out and it's full of great projects this time. There wasn't anything in the summer issue that really appealed to me, which was disappointing because usually there's a few things I could see myself making. Not a problem this time. I'm definitely going to add a me-sized Accordian to my projects list. There are several other jackets I'd consider making too. Accordian will be a good use of some of that half a ton of Peace Fleece in my stash.

A few of us from the MFA program went to hear Jhumpa Lahiri read from her new novel tonight. She won the Pulitzer for a somewhat uneven collection of short stories, and this combined with the fact that she's charming and intelligent and beautiful made us inclined to dislike her. (Writers are terrible. We're just like everyone else, but more so.) Then we watched her looking very uncomfortable as the photographers backed her against a bookcase and camera bulbs flashed in her face. And then she admitted that readings like tonight's (it was PACKED) made her feel that maybe her writing was coherent and good, because she did doubt that. Which makes her just like us, but with two published books, a Pulitzer and a PEN. That's good news. It's also bad news. If her doubt never goes away, ours probably doesn't either. So in the end, we liked her.

And in the face of that, boy does it feel good to just knit a sock! Tuesday is for getting tomato sauce on your knitting. Knitting circle tomorrow night! (Well, today by the time most of you read this since it's already almost midnight.) Michelle of Everybody Loves Saturday Night (Isn't that the BEST blog name) will be joining us for the first time. Can't wait to meet her in the real world. What happens when two Grammar Avengers Who Knit meet offline? Hold on to your dictionaries. That'll be THREE, actually. Andrea, who is a GAWK Without a Blog, will be here too.

Muppet Monster Marches On

I've been knitting away at the Muppet monster sweater. The body is at 9 inches now. Five more to go before I join for the yoke.

That's it for the yellow stripes. It's all salmon from this point forward. I can't wait to wear this one. As I've worked, the bottom edge has rolled to cover most of the first body stripe. I'm curious to see how much of the stripe will be visible after blocking. Whatever the sweater wants to be is fine. This one has a personality already.

Things fall apart

I didn't want to write a 9/11 post. I don't want to write about 9/11. It seems unavoidable though. I can't just skip today and pick up talking about knitting tomorrow. That doesn't feel right either.

Two years ago today--amazing and impossible that two years have already passed--I saw the first tower burning as I crossed the Manhattan Bridge on the Q train into the city. None of us on the train knew what had happened, but we knew it had to be bad. The consensus in the car was "Looks like a bomb," and then, "Oh, those poor people." We could see them falling. And then the train went back into the tunnel at Canal Street and we were left wondering what the hell was going on aboveground. At the time I thought to myself, "If one of the towers is burning, then anything--absolutely anything could be on fire." Not a unique thought for the day, but that was mine at the time.

The rest of the day for me personally, as for many others, consisted of trying to get home to Brooklyn and expecting to die on the way. I didn't think the towers were the end of the attack. It made sense that there would be more to come. I was surprised to find at the time that though I was thinking I might very well die that day, I was ok with it.

That feeling didn't last for more than a few weeks, though, and now I'm every bit as afraid of death as I'd always been. When the lights went out the other week my first thought was of another attack. Today I'm staying in Brooklyn, because I'm nervous about getting on the subway and going into Manhattan on the anniversary. It's not a daily, conscious fear, but it's there. I don't dwell on it. I don't let it rule my life. I continue to live in this city, and love this city. Today I'm going to give in to it, though. No subway.

And in this midst of this fear, life goes on as it has for the past two years. I've reached a breaking point in my novel. The point that my wonderful teacher, Michael Cunningham, insists every novel-in-progress reaches. It's the point where the whole damn thing falls apart. It refuses to conform to your idea of what it was supposed to be and demands to be something else entirely. I could draw parallels here between this point in the writing process and what happened when our sense of what was possible in the world and in our lives broke down on 9/11, but that just seems ridiculous. It'll be less painful trying to work on my broken-down novel today, because in the face of today's memories I can see it for the small, small thing that it is.

One more thought, something that has stayed with me since the days immediately following the attacks. I'm a Buddhist. Forgive the Chan digression here, but those of you who also study Chan (Zen) may find this helpful. Perhaps some of you who do not will too. After the attacks, my teacher, Master Sheng-yen, said that if the terrorists had understood that the Twin Towers were fundamentally empty, they would not have attacked them. He said that the terrorists were victims too.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Yes, that's right. Today is my wonderful, adorable, fabulous mom's birthday. It would be great to report that I had, in honor of her birthday, finished her 3/4 sleeve Cotton Fleece pullover. I can not report that. Not without lying, anyway. The biggest drawback to having five+ projects on the needles at any given time is how often each one is put aside in favor of whatever my fingers are craving at the moment. Or whichever gift project is inspiring the most guilt as I look at it all huddled and lonely in its project bag. Four gifts to one me project at the moment. I think the ratio is a bit off. The gift sweaters are starting to gang up and bully me. I think they might be planning to jump my Monster sweater and hide it in the far corner of the hall closet.

My mom's pullover needs its second sleeve, and then all I have to do it join and knit up the yoke. The second sleeve is a quick project, since they're only 3/4 length for a small mamma. I really should just jump in and finish it up. Here's your sweater so far, Mom:

Happy Birthday, you most wonderful mom, you! (Can you tell I just think she's the greatest, cutest, most worthy of hugs? She's a great dog gramma, too!)

On another note, Billy brought me a really special surprise last night. The Muppet Show 25th Anniversary CD! It's got "Mahna Mahna," "Bein' Green," "Movin' Right Along," and just about any other Muppet song you might still be humming in the shower after all these years. I'm SO excited. And there's a great group photo of the gang on the front so I could show Billy that, yes indeed, Animal and my Monster sweater are the same colors.

Grad school really interferes with my blogging

Sorry to have been so quiet the last couple of days. The MFA program is great. Wonderful. Fabulous. If it were possible to hug an entire program, I'd be doing it daily. But, man...I thought I had no free time before!

I've also been occupied with trying to get a rather nasty spider bite treated. Last weekend, Billy and I went hiking on the Appalachian Trail and I was mugged by a spider. It leapt at me from out of nowhere. The bite now looks like this (Warning! If you are easily grossed out, don't click that link.) I went to the emergency room with it after class on Wednesday night because my doctor couldn't see me until Friday afternoon and the thing was getting worse by the hour. I waited four and a half hours in the emergency room. The med student who finally saw me didn't give me antibiotics as I'd expected, even though I was running a fever and the thing was scary. He said it looked bad because I'd been putting hydrocortisone cream on it, and that I should use Calamine lotion instead. (Always makes me think of Velvet Underground.) So I dragged myself and the boy (who kindly waited with me) home at three in the morning, got up a few hours later and bought Calamine. Which promptly made the rash even worse. 100 damn times worse. Med students.

Yesterday I went to see my doctor, who said yes indeed I have an infection and need antibiotics. So now I'm on antibiotics and prednisone. I don't like taking medication, but I do like the fact that my arm no longer itches so much it feels like it's rotting off.

While waiting in the emergency room, and again at the doctor's office yesterday, I got a lot of knitting done. That's what this blog is supposedly about, right? Well, I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and wanted to work on one of my own projects instead of any of the gift sweaters, so I put in some time on the monster sweater (so named because the colors remind me of a Muppet monster). I have one and a half sleeves done so far.

I'm basing it on the brilliant EPS system (Elizabeth's--as in the mighty Zimmermann, worthy of much homage and veneration--Percentage System). I've added extra long sleeves that come to my knuckles, which I've belled out and tapered back in at the wrist ever so slightly. It also features the asymmetrical stripe thing I'm doing on my brother's sweater. I like the look of random bands of color in otherwise tame stockinette. The bands you see now on the one sleeve are the only ones for that sleeve. The rest will continue in the salmon (Peace Fleece, by the way. Love that stuff. The yellow is Naturspun.) The body will have one or two bands. I haven't decided yet. I'm leaning toward two.

Here's me modeling the sleeves, so you can see how they fit to the knuckles. Sorry it's a bit dark.

I've got a ton of work to do this weekend, both for school and for money, but I want to put in some time on my brother's sweater as well. I think he's starting to feel neglected. Everytime he sees me, I'm knitting something other than his sweater.

Moving right along...

Okay. Regarding the whole Debbie Bliss thing, I'm just going to plod ahead and make a huge sweater for the kid to grow into. There. That's settled and I feel much better. Of course it's natural when you read about someone having a problem like mine with this pattern to wonder if they're measuring wrong, or reading centimeter instructions as inches and all that. I would probably think the same thing. But because I know I measured right and I know the instructions are in inches and still way too big, and I know I'm knitting to gauge and it's still way off from the specs, I found myself feeling defensive when reading comments that I may well have left on someone else's blog under the same circumstances. All last night I resisted the urge to post an entry that went something like, "It's not me! It's Debbie Bliss! I swear I measured right!!!" I'm not sure why I care that much, why I felt so defensive. But I did. Which is interesting.

I visited a friend in the hospital yesterday. She's in danger of delivering a very very premature baby and she's on serious monitoring and bedrest to try to prevent that. She's a knitwear designer, and understands every stitch you could think of, and every fiber, in ways I never will. This in spite of the fact that she doesn't know how to hand knit. She machine knits, and she knows how to give others specs for hand knitting, but she doesn't know how to physically do it herself. Since she's stuck in the hospital, alternately bored and terrified, I figured knitting might help. I brought her needles and yarn yesterday, and the basic instructions from the VK site. That's how I learned, so with her much greater understanding of the mechanics of knitting, she should have no problem learning that way. At the very least, she now has weapons to wield against the awful interns.

The supersized baby sweater is not subway knitting (it's got cables, etc. Too complicated for me to work on when there are distractions), so I'm dividing my mindless or near-mindless knitting time among three projects right now. I finished the body for my mom's sweater last night and now need to do the second sleeve, then join it all, figure out how to make a scoop neckline in the round, and hopefully have it done before too much more time has passed. The body for my brother's sweater is still many many inches away from joining, but I keep plugging away at it. The third project is my monster sweater. I'm only four inches away from a finished first sleeve. Maybe I'll have that ready to post tomorrow. I really want to be able to wear it this fall.

I know all of these things will fit because I wrote the damn patterns. Take that, Debbie! (Okay, that's the last jab at her, I swear. She's very talented. She just has some quality control issues and maybe shouldn't let assistants proofread patterns for print or whatever it is that's going on over there. I've heard similar complaints from a number of knitters. I will now leave her alone.)

ok...

So I think the chest measurement given in the DB pattern is for 23 1/2 inches around, not just for the back. Thanks to Alison's comment for pointing that out. So the pattern makes more sense. Here's the problem I'm still left with: I'm knitting at the correct gauge and the back is measuring 14.5 across. The thing is huge and I'm at gauge. I don't know enough about the mechanics of cabling to figure out how to reduce the size, so I'm torn between knitting it up per the pattern and producing something she'll grow into a long time from now, or scrapping it and making something else using a different designer.

The Debbie Bliss Universe of Monster Babies

Knitting for myself has been postponed once again. There’s been another birth, calling for another baby sweater. Once again, I’ve turned to Debbie Bliss, because her baby designs are so damn cute. Once again, I’m surprised to find that the knitted garment, when knit to gauge, is freakin’ enormous. Okay...now, I don’t have any babies of my own. I only have tiny dogs. So perhaps my sense of baby scale is skewed. But is 23 1/2 inches really an appropriate measurement for the back of a cardigan intended for 3- to 6-month olds? Eight rows into the back, I looked at the width of the fabric on my needles and was sure there’d been a typo. Thought it must be for 3-year-olds. But no, flipping through the rest of the book I see that measurement is consistent throughout for baby sizes. Moms out there, help me out. Can this possibly be right? Or am I making yet another baby sweater that the kid will wear when she leaves for college?

The baby in question is the new daughter of my mom’s boyfriend’s daughter. Got that? Let’s try it another way. My mother’s boyfriend’s daughter has had a daughter. Her first. She’s adorable. She looks like a tiny bald monkey, but I haven’t said that to anyone in the family. (Though I think monkeys are adorable.) You know how all newborns look like monkeys? I think it’s cool, because in newborns we see so clearly how closely related we are to primates—we’re just hairless monkeys who learned how to use tools more complicated than a twig for ant-fishing. Other people don’t seem to like to admit this though. Apparently it’s rude to say a baby looks like a little monkey. New mothers don’t like it. So I hold my tongue. I think it’s tied in to this strange desire most humans have to ignore our connection to the rest of the animal world. We’re animals, people. We aren’t more or less special than any monkey, dog, housefly. We aren’t superior. We’re just on top for this short period of time. Get over yourselves. There, I feel better. Yes, that’s me winking at you.

Now, back to the sweater big enough for the Infant Who Ate New York. It’s got bobbles and cables. Fun for my fingers!