Dogs Steal Yarn

Tada!

Okay, so both sweater and pumpkin hat are finished. It's a bit past one a.m. and the birthday party will be starting in ten hours or so, so I'm well within the time limits I set for myself. Next time I set out to make a baby sweater in under a week, though, please remind me that it'd be better not to choose a pattern that calls for a zipper. All's well that ends well, though.

There were no models in the house of the proper size, so no luck in showing the sweater fitting as it should. With the parents' permission, hopefully I'll be able to post photos of Chay wearing her sweater at the party. Or perhaps the pumpkin hat, at least.

The sweater pattern is Accordion. I used Lamb's Pride Superwash. Lovely stuff, with colors that have much more depth than your typical superwash. I used this pattern for the hat, and Cascade 220. I would have liked to use machine washable yarn for the hat, but due to the time constraints had to use the only orange and green yarn on hand. My wise mother has assured me that if the hat gets accidentally felted, it'll look cute on a teddy bear.

Happy Halloween!!!

Homestretch in the Great Baby Sweater Race

I think it's impossible to make scrunchy 4x4 rib look decent pre-blocking and seaming. This stuff wants blocking desperately. I probably should have pinned it out...but you can use your imagination for now, yes? When it's a finished sweater (hopefully tonight or tomorrow) I'll put it on a doll or something so you can see the ribbing properly filled out.

Oh yeah, and the colors are better in person. Okay. Enough excuses. What you have before you is the back and two fronts, plus sweet little 10-inch pink zipper. Here is the sweater in progress, begun Monday night and due to be a gift Sunday morning:

Today I need to knit the collar and sleeves. Then seam it all, sew in the zipper and, well, baby sweater. There ya go.

This needs to happen quickly because:

a) Chay's first birthday party is on Sunday and I very much want to have this ready for her
b) I'm on deadline, as usual, and need to get back to work
c) I'm about to start some secret knitting. Yes, there's a cool story to it. No, I can't tell you. Not yet. Secret, I told ya.
d) The novel. I have another 100+ pages due to be turned in to my novel workshop in two weeks. Still 30 pages away from that mark. Regardless of how I'm feeling about the project, the demands of the MFA roll on.

Anyway, I'm feeling much better today. Thanks for the assorted kindly comments. I've doubted before. I'll doubt again. What I didn't tell you was what had happened to set the doubt in motion. I know, I made it out to sound like it was just one of those angst things that pops up out of the blue. There was a source for this one. It was unfortunate. Pages were shared with an unsafe person. Ah well. Like I said, fine today. Totally fine.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a baby sweater to knit.

PS: Because I don't have enough to do already, there's a decent chance that if I finish the sweater today I'll make her a pumpkin hat tomorrow. How can I go to a Halloween birthday party and not give the child a pumpkin hat?!

That minty fresh secret pal feeling

My Secret Pal saved my life today. Well, not really, but she saved my day and that counts for a lot too. I woke with acute Art Angst. Mmm hmmm. That Doubt thing. A bad case of it. You know, that thing where I wake up on a Tuesday feeling really good about my novel and where it's going, then somehow wake up on Wednesday with the sneaking suspicion that it's a horrid little piece of crap, or, perhaps worse, utterly ordinary.

Enter mailman. The large parcel deliveryperson is Alvin. I know Alvin well, as he delivers many soft, strangely light packages on a frequent basis. (One of these days I'll tell him it's yarn. All yarn.... Man, I should have snapped a pic of Alvin today once I realized what he was delivering. Ah well.) So there I was staring at the screen and bemoaning my horrible little novel when Alvin rings the doorbell and we have a quick little chat about how, no I'm not from Australia, I just have a friend there (wasn't going to get into the whole Secret Pal thing right then: "Why yes, Alvin, you're handing me a package from someone across the planet whom I've never met but I promise it's not a bomb.").

Okay...on with it. Gah. Anyway, so it's my third package from my lovely Secret Pal, who is no longer secret. Her name is Alison and we have much in common in terms of taste etc and couldn't have been matched up better, really. Go see her and say hi and then come back here to see what she sent me.

Back? Okay, now look:

A beautiful tea canister and infuser ball with a dragonfly on it (did she see my tattoos on Rachael's tattoo page or was that just luck?), yummy smelling rooibos tea that I'll be trying this evening, and soft cotton yarn in lovely colors... I adore this woman.

The package made me feel that even if I was writing a horrid little novel, at least there were still nice people in the world to send me nice stuff. After opening the package I talked to Ernesto. Okay, confession. I blubbered to him and he let me blubber and then he told me to get past it and sit down and write. (We love Ernesto. Now go buy one of his books. Kidding. No...actually, only half kidding.) I sat down and wrote a bit and did start to feel better.

Then I went off to a meeting with a professor to discuss the horrid little novel that I was starting to think of as maybe kind of okay. Jenny Offill is my revisions tutor this semester and she doesn't think it's horrid or ordinary. The Mighty MC was also there and he doesn't think it's horrid or ordinary. Yes, on the good days I can see this clearly for myself and have a probably obnoxious level of confidence about this book and my writing. On the bad days, I'm so glad to have these three to fall back on. They've been there, done it, are still doing it. They've each let me know that it doesn't get better, or easier, not really. Michael's won the Pulitzer and still gets hit with doubt. In some ways it's comforting to know that doubt is a natural part of the process, and that I'm not to take it as a sign that I should just give up. On the other hand, there's the knowledge that I'm always going to have days like this. If I'm lucky, that is.

So now twelve hours after waking up under the cloud of literary doom, I'm mostly back to feeling excited and positive about the book. It was a short little spell, luckily. Hopefully I'll be able to bang out a few pages tonight.

Oh...and the baby sweater. I've finished the back and one front, and am halfway done with the second front. It's a mind-numbing 4x4 rib on 8's, sized for a one-year-old, so as long as I remember to buy a zipper tomorrow it should definitely be done in time for the party on Sunday. I took a photo but the rib is all pulled in on itself and I didn't want to take the time to pin it out... It looked terrible all scrunched up, so you'll just have to wait until I feel like photographing it properly. Sorry!

Okay. Here I go, back to the page. Fingers crossed, hmm? Go hug a writer and feed him or her chocolate. And if you are a writer, go find someone to hug you, and then eat chocolate. The good kind. (Rach, my love, this means you. Chocolate. Lots of it. Pop a square of it into your mouth as you turn those new keys in the lock!)

The Great Baby Sweater Race

The challenge before me: start and finish a sweater for a soon-to-be-one-year-old before her first birthday party on Sunday. No problem, if I didn't have so much else to do between now and Sunday for work and school. Sigh.

Chay, daughter of my friends Lawrence and Julie, is already turning one. Unbelievable... Next time I turn around, she'll probably be dating. (Is THAT how time zips by when you're a grown-up? I'd heard rumors about it. Apparently once you turn 31 you enter some kind of weird blip in the time-space continuum where all the kids around you get older at a frantic pace but you stay perfectly still.) I already made her a sweater several months ago, but she'll probably be outgrowing it soon and I really want her to have another one. I've got the yarn on hand (Lamb's Pride Superwash. Yummy colors) and I've got the pattern picked out so the race is on.

Wish me luck. Progress pics when there's something to show.

Thanks for the T-shirts, Gramma!

Yes, my dogs do have sweaters, but how cute are they in these t-shirts? My mother bought them when the kids stayed with her during our honeymoon, good gramma that she is. She even took Diego with her to the store to try them on first. Sadie couldn't go too because she's...um...a handful. Ahem. (Nice way of saying little bundle of evil.) Apparently Diego made a bit of a fuss in the store when a salesperson tried a pink shirt on him and she had to assure him that it was for sizing only. I had no idea Diego was so rigid about gender roles. You learn something new about your dogs every day.

There was some strange haze in the air at KnitNY on Friday that made most of the photos I took come out like blackmail shots. Here's one that did come out, though. Mindy, Iris, and Jenn.

Isn't Iris's Klaralund beautiful? Go tell her so. She had a rough morning that day.

Billy and I spent the weekend in DC at my friend Rebecca's wedding. Rebecca will soon learn to knit, as will her lovely friend Narit (did I spell that wrong? Sorry!). Everybody wave and think encouraging thoughts for the knitters-to-be!

Aren't we just full of encouragement today? I'm hopped up on coffee and feeling positive. What can I say? Go fondle some yarn. Knit with it, even. You know you want to.

Rhinebeck reunion

So soon? Why, yes. Yes. Because we can, you see. This afternoon I'll be meeting Iris, Mindy, Em, Jackie, and Jenn at KnitNY for some coffee, knitting, assorted evilly good baked things. (I'm determined to resist the siren call of the muffins again. We'll see how that plays out...)

I'll be working on my Texas Cardi. What's that, you ask? Yes, it's a new project. No, I haven't finished that damn ribbed jacket yet. What's your point? The Texas Cardi has been dubbed such because I'm using the fantastic kid/wool blend yarn I bought at Rhinebeck. It's from Brooks Farm Yarn (in Texas. Get it?). This stuff is unbelievably soft and the colors are beautiful. At Rhinebeck there was a feeding frenzy around their booth for most of the day.

Here's the back so far. I've shaped the armholes and am working my way up steadily toward the shoulders. Terrible photo, I know, but I've got to leave to meet the knitters soon.

I'm knitting it rather loosely as I want a drapey, light sweater from it (and am not sure how far my two skeins will take me). It'll either be full or 3/4 sleeved depending on how much yardage I have left when I reach that point. I'm thinking maybe a shawl collar, and definitely a two-button closure. I'm hoping it will come out nice and swingy. We shall see. Cast on, close eyes, hope for best. I can always frog it and try again, anyway.

I finished Tania's socks

(I hope she isn't allergic to dogs. Diego couldn't resist the Koigu.)

Why, yes. As a matter of fact, I DID go to Rhinebeck

The rule going in was that I wouldn't buy anything I could get from my usual yarn sources. I would only buy really special yarns that were new to me. Well, I stuck to that rule and still came home with a tableful (AND didn't break the bank, believe it or not. There were some amazing bargains to be had).

Mindy, Iris, Em, and I made the trek up to Rhinebeck yesterday along with Mindy's son Martin and Iris's daughter Cheb. The kids were both delightful in a way kids can't always be counted on to be on long car trips. Apparently knitbloggers raise superior children.

We ran into a number of knitbloggers, though I didn't see everyone I was looking forward to seeing, like Norma, Claudia, and Carolyn. I had no cell phone reception up there and that got in the way of finding people...

Here are Em and the lovely fellow yarn-hair Amber. I was especially looking forward to meeting Amber, so I was really happy that we ran into her:

There were a number of other yarnhairs around, including Jenn and Rose. I wished I'd taken a photo of all our heads together. Ah well. They're both here in the city so we'll have another chance for that.

Here I am with Jenn, Jackie, and Alison.

It was wonderful to pet the sheep and profess my undying love to the alpacas. It was great to fondle the yarn and walk away with a good bit of it. Fantastic to meet knitbloggers and reunite with those I'd met before... What made the day even more special was that I was able to meet up with two men who've had and continue to have a huge influence on me. Robert Kelly was my mentor/advisor in my undergrad days at Bard. Carey Harrison is one of my professors in the MFA program at Brooklyn College (the Proust prof, if you remember that whole adventure last semester). Both are inspiring, insightful, and way too generous with their time. Both are readers for my novel-in-progress, which tells you exactly how trusted they are. I love them both, and they were recently introduced and have become friends. I can't tell you how much that thrills me, because from the moment I met Carey I thought he really should meet Robert. Luckily, a mutual friend of theirs agreed.

They both live up near Rhinebeck, so we made plans to all meet up at the festival. Here they are, and a not-so-great shot of me, but I'll share it anyway because this photo means so much to me. That's Carey on the left, Robert in the middle. You know which one's me, I assume:

I also picked up a few surprises, not pictured in the haul above, for a special someone in Australia.

Em, Iris, and Mindy all picked up roving and drop spindles. If I have my way it won't be too long before I have them trying out my Louet... Yes, I am a fiber enabler. (By the way...I didn't need more roving, but that bag of it you see in the first photo? There was no way I was leaving without it.)

A sweater's struggles for freedom

Skelly here. Skelly "Guy" Noir, Private Eye, at your service.

Let me tell you about a girl. A girl named Lara.

She was a sweet little gray thing, all alpaca and silk. She was a nice enough girl, and well knit, but she...well, she was a little fast. A little loose. Liked that open lifestyle she’d been leading in the WIP basket, had started running with the Peace Fleece crowd, was seen out in the shadows of the wrong side of town more than once all tangled up with Lorna’s Laces. Lara wasn’t a girl who wanted to be tied down. When it came time for her to be seamed, she ran.

That’s where I come in, see. Cari, she went to the WIP basket, ready to finish Lara. All it was going to take was a little bit of seaming and Lara would be a sweater. Well, she got to that basket and found that Lara had run off. That's when she put me on the case. I tracked that girl all over the house. Caught a glimpse of her going down the stairs.

She was a brainy one. Blended in with the crowd on the coat rack and I almost missed her. I managed to get a hand on her sleeve, but she was so soft she slipped right through my fingers.

Then she hid behind a plant. Desperation ain’t attractive in a sweater, cardi or pullover.

Finally, she knew she was cornered. The gig was up. We sat down for a little chat, and we made a deal. I would bring her in for seaming, but even after she was a sweater she would still be allowed to visit her friends in the Stash from time to time. Seemed reasonable enough to me, and Cari agreed.

And so the kid went under the needle. I won’t say I wasn’t nervous. I get a little queasy at the sight of lint. The results, though? Well, she’s a beaut. And you know what? After all that trouble, Lara says she’s really happy to be a sweater. See how serious Cari looks in all these photos? She was REALLY mad at Lara for that disappearing act she pulled.

Lara likes to hang all open and loose still...

...but from time to time she’s willing to be closed.

Truth be told, she’s happiest open, which works just fine because Cari agrees. Decide for yourself, if you're going to be at Rhinebeck on Saturday. Cari will be wearing Lara. Oh yeah—and Cari finished her Silk Garden capelet too. That was an easy job, and she didn’t need to call me in to throw my bones around—no seaming!

"...and I like the lights and I like 'em pretty bright..."*

(*This has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that this song is stuck in my head. Bonus points to the reader who can name that tune. Eternal cool points if you can supply the next line and the character it's attributed to...)

I'm feeling better. Much better. Just a lingering unpleasantness in my lungs that'll pass soon enough. On day three of the plague, Billy came home with cute storebought red slipper socks and the fuzzy feet were tossed aside. I was getting a bit bored with them, anyway. I'll finish them up one of these days. Instead I finished knitting Lara. She wants only seaming, but I don't have time for it just yet. I'm on deadline today and sneaking a few minutes away from the manuscript to check in with blogland. Here's Lara, relaxing with Diego. She seems happy without seams. I guess being knit in one piece gives a sweater a certain sense of unseamed security.

Since I was still too sick on Thursday to go into my client's office as usual, I went in on Friday. It was cold as hell in that office and I started wishing I had something wrapped around my neck and shoulders. A shawl wouldn't quite work because it would get in the way of my fast-moving red pencil. A Grammar Avenger needs full range of movement when enforcing the grammatical rules of the universe, you know. The capelet I made last year (see gallery. I'm too lazy to hunt down the link right now) almost fits the bill but is a bit too long and too loose. (Confession: That capelet looks a little bit too much like a poncho, and with so many ponchos running around on the street right now I've lost interest in that look. Maybe in a few years I'll want to wear it again...) As soon as I got home I pulled out some Silk Garden (#84) and cast on for a short and tight capelet. I'm doing it neck-down. I just cast on as I would for a top-down raglan sweater, knit a rollneck, then started raglan increases until it was wide enough to hit just at the outer edge of my shoulders. That's the point it's at right now. From this point, I'm just going to knit straight down until it hits around mid-chest. I think it's only going to take two skeins of Silk Garden.

I would have finished the capelet yesterday, but we spent the day and evening (and most of the night) at a family wedding. It was out in Rye, New York, and the ceremony took place outside, looking out over the water as the sun set. Lovely. Hugs to the family members who couldn't be there. We missed you!

Before heading out to the wedding, Billy spied a bargain for sale on our corner. I've been looking for a new outdoor bike. Okay...let me explain that a bit. New Yorkers who like to bike ideally have two bikes: a good one for longer rides that's too nice to lock up outside on the street (hence called the "indoor bike" because it is never left outdoors unguarded), and a beater bike, one that you may indeed love dearly but that isn't worth much and can be affordably replaced when it is inevitably stolen. That's the one you ride around town for errands and commuting, etc. I have a great Surley Crosscheck for my indoor bike (bean green, super light and I swear it rides itself. It handles better than any bike I've ever ridden before...), but until yesterday my outdoor bike was a much-loved but seldom used 3,000 lb three-speed English cruiser named Gladys. Gladys looks really cool but handles like a tank. Not fun in NYC traffic. She was too heavy and too clunky. I hated riding her, so never did. Yesterday, Billy spotted an English cruiser in much better shape and a lot lighter. (I have a weakness for the looks of these bikes.) It's got the original fenders and chainguard, Sturmey Archer contained gears. It wants new brake pads and a new left pedal (it went flying off three times at full speed when I was taking it on a test spin) but otherwise it's great. Ladies and Gentleknitters, I present to you Gladys Too:

The original Gladys doesn't know it yet, but she's about to donate her pedals and brakes to this new bike. I don't think she'll mind. She's just sleeping in the basement most of the time, anyway.

Ugh. I have the plague.

I have the very nastiest of colds. I'll spare you the list of symptoms. I have a ton of work to do, both editing and for school, but I can't bring myself to do it. Just the thought of pointing my congested face down toward the page...

What have I been doing instead? Well, my feet have been really cold, so I started knitting a pair of fuzzy feet. This is why we have stash yarn...so you have a source to paw through when you decide you absolutely positively must start knitting slippers with feltable yarn immediately. Pictures later, as I can't really muster the energy or desire to go for the camera right now. I'll probably finish the knitting today or tomorrow, then they'll get felted and my feet will be warm and toasty. That's the plan, anyway.

I need to get healthy fast. I have another wedding to go to on Saturday. Ugh.

Scarves? I thought you hated knitting scarves?

Yes, yes I do. Or rather, I thought I did. Strike that. Readjust. It’s not that I hated knitting scarves—it’s that scarves bored me. Inch after inch of the Same Damn Thing, ya know? And they take so LONG to finish. And yet, they’re cozy. They add an easy dash of color and texture to otherwise dreary black winter coats. They’re fun to wear. So how to reconcile the dread of knitting a scarf with the joy of wearing one, or gifting one? I’m sure I’m not the first one to hit upon the following trick:

Combine scarf-knitting with trying out a new yarn, especially yarns with interesting texture. So simple...so why am I so slow to figure this out?

The famously lovely and talented La Brainy sent me a skein of Celestial Merino for my birthday. This stuff could seriously give Koigu a run for its money. One skein would have been enough for a pair of socks, but I have no shortage of sock yarn in the stash, so I decided it would be a lace scarf instead. Here’s the (very little bit o’) progress so far. I started it on the honeymoon, worked it for a little bit, and haven’t picked it up since. I’ll get back to it as soon as Lara is done.

My Secret Pal gave me a skein of a gorgeous knobbly yarn in fantastic fall colors. What to do with one skein of a great yarn that’s flown all the way from Oz and so isn’t likely to be joined by others of its kind? Here’s a happy little garter stitch scarf. Yep, garter. Simple is best for yarns like this—allows it room to show off its fabulous texture. It took me a little over an hour, I think. I can’t wait until the weather’s cool enough to wear it.

Inspired by the gift yarn, I turned to some yarn I’d spun up almost two years ago. It had been sitting around because it wasn’t enough yarn for a sweater. It’s very thick and thin and really overspun in places, too. Extremely lazy spinning that was done for stress relief with pretty much no regard to results. Spinning’s all about process for me. Luckily lazy spinning creates just the kind of texture that lends itself to lazy scarf knitting. Garter stitch again, and the thick bits and overspinning are making for really interesting texture. I’ve got a pound of roving’s worth of yarn. (Gee Cari, I suspect that a pound of roving probably adds up to a pound of yarn.) Maybe I’ll make a matching hat? Some legwarmers? Bumpy little cowls for the hounds? Dunno. I wish I could claim responsibility for the colorway, but I bought the roving already dyed. It’s Lorna’s Laces, actually. I think the colorway was Iris Garden, though I’m not sure. It was quite a while ago. Anyway, here’s the scarf so far:

Want to try a new yarn but don’t want to commit to buying a sweater’s worth? The lovely and far too generous Andrea gave me a yarny gift certificate for my birthday this year, and I used it to buy a skein of Mango Moon Recycled Silk and a skein of Alchemy Bamboo. I’m going to make a drop-stitch scarf from each. Here’s the Alchemy Bamboo. It’s enjoyable to knit with (my first time using bamboo yarn) but I don’t think I need to rush out and buy more of it. The colorway is fantastic though, so I could see myself buying a wool blend from Alchemy in the near future.

I haven’t started working with the Recycled Silk yet. I was a bit dismayed that it smelled rather like a goat when it arrived. I gave it a quick soak in water and one of those made-for-handknitters type of wool washes (I forget the brand and don’t feel like standing up to check), hoping to get rid of that smell. So maybe you aren’t supposed to submerge 100% silk in water or something? I don’t know. Cause now it smells like dog instead. I’ve already soaked it once, so I may as well try again. I’m not going to knit it until it stops smelling like a barnyard, because that’s not really a scent I care to wrap around my neck.

No, I haven’t been spending most of my time knitting scarves. Mostly I’ve been working on Lara. I’ve started the decreases for the second sleeve. It won’t be much longer now to FO. Pictures soon. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe.

The international postal gremlins were angry that day...

....and yet my Secret Pal continues to kick ass. Be jealous. Go ahead. She rocks. But even a rockin', ass kickin' Aussie of a Secret Pal can't control the whims of the postal gremlins. You see above the amazing contents of the latest package minus one item: a box of what smelled like very yummy hot chocolate powder. Alas, the box had exploded in transit. Chocolate powder everywhere. When I opened the mailer bag and saw the powder, I went immediately to the bathtub to open it there so the yarn-stealing dogs wouldn't be poisoned by the chocolatey goodness. Inside I found (besides an exploded box of what had been really lovely chocolate) that beautiful needle roll you see above, that great little notions bag, and pretty buttons and ribbon. I swear, this woman has access to my brain. The stuff she's sent has been so spot on! And you know what makes it extra special? She made that needle roll herself. Yep. See, I told you she rocks.

I think the international postal gremlins were actually trying to do me a favor. Billy and I are both feeling the need to cut back on sugar and processed foods for a while. We were very generous with ourselves with the desserts and baked goods on our honeymoon, so we've decided to cut out all refined flour and sugar for a few weeks to get back on our usual path of whole foods etc. Well, our usual path though we have always made allowances for a certain amount of baked goods. Not for a while, though. We both feel like it's time to give the system a good scrubbing. So this hot chocolate would have taunted me for the whole time until I gave myself permission for a bit of sugar again. It would have been torture (sweet torture, though. Sigh).

I met up with Iris and Jackie at KnitNY today and managed to not eat a muffin. I'm insanely proud of my restraint. My beloved Cree also joined us and I taught him to knit. He picked up the long-tail cast on faster than anyone I've ever taught before. Hey Cree--how's that practice knitting coming along?

So go eat a muffin or a cookie in my honor, since I won't be doing it for a while. And while you're at it, teach someone to knit.

XOXO