All tied on
1Today I woke up with renewed inspiration. I am not sure whether it was the New Year’s Eve I spent quarreling with my shamelessly moraless and self interested coté noir, or the dramatic triumph of sobriety at 1:17am as I looked pitiously at the drunken chasseur and turned tail to find myself swaddled in my (Kate’s) north face barrel bag. ALONE. Blessed be.
I am inspired to forget about some things and focus on other things. New Year’s resolution (however arbitrary) is to live so much during the day that I don’t feel the need to stay up long into the night pining for a way to make up for what I wasted pressing the refresh button on my facebook page.
Ergo, I am all tied on. The first photo depicts where I made the mistake of shoving 4 warp strings through one dent, and the second after the mistake is corrected. I’ll be seeing you soon Leola!
I have a hole.
Not in my knitting… but in my life. I just watched my Ashford Joy walk out the door and thus am spinning wheel-less. One might think this would be liberating, what with all the white thumbed yarn clenching… the uneven twist… slanted stockinette sweaters… But no. It’s not liberating. It sucks.
And what made it even worse was the fact that I had some singles on the bobbins from the silk I spun… and so, I had to USE the wheel. That’s like sleeping with a dude one last time before you break it off ‘for reals’. STUPID.
So, now I’m looking for a new wheel… maybe something a little bigger, a dark hardwood or… wait.
How is this like my life?
Like I said
Like I said I would, I am posting two finished socks….
And what is this?
Yes, that is the beginning of the front ribbing sitting atop the finished back pannel of the Big Shawl Collar Sweater (I know, it’s hard to see, but it’s late.) It was amazing… I even added a couple of extra inches to the situation for my long-waisted bro and I somehow, miraculously finished! Can I do it again tomorrow? Seriously… my forearms…
My solstice wish is that I can somehow finish this for christmas morning without developing some sort of knitting injury.
Blessed be!
Two Broken Dishes
Today, at roughly five hours apart, I broke one of the bowls from my wedding, and my nettie pot. The bowl from my wedding feels significant because it was just after I got off google chat with JT, discussing that it had been just over a year since we separated and that it was possible to go through with the divorce now. The honey got caught on the raisin bag and fell directly onto the bowl cracking it and sending 3/4 of it flying across the floor. Ooopah!
The nettie pot though? I’m pretty sure that was pure carelessness. I know that the bathroom shelf is right at the height where I can bang it with my elbow when doing my hair, and yet I put the nettie put right at the very corner closest to my damn elbow.
In other news, I finished the second sock heel today. I love turning heels. They are such an opportunity for perfection, and I really like the way that this pattern explains it (as well as the kitchener stitch) “Knit off and purl the front” “Purl off and knit the back). So satisfying.
And the sweater… I knit on it for a half an hour today and got about… 11 rows done. I am not going to think about how many halves of an hour this sweater has until its done. I will continue knitting at MY VERY FIRST KNIT NIGHT IN VICTORIA tonight…. and let you know how I finished the back in the next post…. yes. Is that BURNING? It is burning millet. Damnit! Is it even safe for me to drive to knit night?
Progress Report
It is Sunday, December 18, 2011. The following is a brief report on Christmas Knitting 2011.
Sock one is done. It fits beautifully (on my foot) and the grafting job is impeccable. All ends are sewn in.
Sock two has been started (for fear that it might not happen otherwise).
Sweater is… well, coming along. I made a mistake and did the first increase according to the size small. WHY DON’T I HIGHLIGHT MY SIZES THROUGH THE PATTERN LIKE I’VE BEEN TOLD? Probably the same reason that I don’t wash my swatches or read through the pattern completely beforehand.
I think I will just leave it and begin increasing properly from now on.
I will be the person at the party knitting in the corner. Happy holiday preparation, eh?
Christmas Countdown
Doesn’t it always come down to this? I planned to knit one thing for christmas. A simple pair of socks for my mom. Simple. Fast. Accomplishable (might not be a word). And then… I looked into the eyes of my brother who was going to BUY A SWEATER, and saw that he wanted me to make him. Another one.
Two years ago, I made him this one.And he WORE IT OUT. Seriously. He wore it every day. Even though his shoulders got bigger, which consequently made the sweater shorter… he wore it. And he got compliments on it; one woman brought up how amazing the sweater was TWICE in one conversation.
How can I not make him another one?
So yesterday, I finally found enough yarn at Beehive to make this one. I tried to get it to stripe like the original, but… oh god. Striping without verigated yarn looks a little bit too much like Bert and Ernie. I was too ashamed and flustered to even take a photo of the disaster! So, I’m making it in one gorgeous dark colour:
And I’m praying to God that they have enough of the colour to replace the light colour that is the other half of this pile.
The real question though, after the minor detail of having enough yarn, is: can I finish it by christmas?
It came down to today.
Today I took my car in to get the timing belt changed. And winter tires. And whatever else lives under the timing belt in my car. I had the pleasure of spending the day NOT sitting in the freezing cold and smelly mechanic office, but sitting on the couch at Meg’s. I prepared well: I brought my lunch, snacks, knitting, needle felting, my computer, and the photo scanner and photos for the ecovillage.
I planned on really taking the day for me and diving into my to-dos. And yet…
By the end of the day I felt the familiar feeling of, one, wanting to go home and two, that I didn’t want to leave my home for a few days, including the snowshoe trip that I planned to go on with Meg on Saturday. The bottom line: I felt like I didn’t get to spend any time alone. What the flip right? THE WHOLE DAY. ALONE.
And what did I do? I messed with the freakin’ scanner, that is actually for a P(ie)C(e of crap) and not a Mac, and so it worked, but not in any easy peasy sort of way. I wrote a christmas list. I suck at writing christmas lists and they take a long time. And… I needle felted what I could of the ball.
But… I FELT like I did nothing that I had hoped to do. Thankfully though, as I laid pathetically on the couch, using the winiest voice I have in my being, woefully expressing my sadness to meg…. I came up with a plan.
1. I’m not going to go snowshoeing tomorrow.
2. I’m not going to go snowshoeing on Saturday.
3. I’m not going to go snowshoeing on Sunday.
4. I will go on monday. ALONE. And leave from Ayla’s in Nanaimo.Not only that, but I”m really going to explore the feelings I’m having; this idea that I didn’t get any time alone… when I was in fact completely alone. This idea in contrast with how I felt last weekend after I went kayaking; completely fulfilled and stoked to take on anything.
Wish me luck.
P.S. I think the computer may have something to do with it.
Brave
This is Meg.
Meg is the kind of person who knits when we get together and knit (I’m sure you all have friend who don’t, and then seem irritated with you when you are knitting and not looking at them when they’re talking?) Meg has that sort of cute face that when she smiles or laughs, you can’t really see her eyes, which is the only time she stops knitting during said get-togethers (a good idea) well, unless she’s drinking tea.
This is Meg’s book that she bought at Rhinebeck (Meg would be ashamed to tell you that she bought NO YARN at Rhinebeck. Not one skein. I think she was a bit sick. Maybe it’s from being brave….)
You see, inside the book is a signature.
That’s right. Meg walked right up to the table that Stephanie was sitting at… and got her to sign the book. The dedication even includes Meg’s full name, ‘Meghan’, which means that she was able to use her mouth, lips and tongue to articulate words while standing in the presence of the Yarn Harlot.
I was at SOAR with Stephanie and all I got was a blurry photo of her from 500 metres away. I went into Lettuce Knits a couple of months latter and got sweaty just imagining that Stephanie might be there. I’m not brave. But Meg is, which is good, because we’re doing this for our New Year’s adventure, so someone needs to be!
How (not) to store your felting needles
Not like this.
No. Because this could happen.
And then you have to do this
To find this (because goddess forbid you have to explain how that thing got stuck in their child’s body)
Nope. We store our needles here.
Separate from our balls. *snicker.
A Salish Loom
Let me tell you a little story about my Salish Loom.
Not so long ago, in vancouver I lived in a housing co-operative where I met a woman named Cheryl. As it turns out, Cheryl once did a lot of the things that I do now. She spun her own yarn with a gigantic treadle spinner, she wove, she was into alternative education for children, art, photography and other hippy stuff. Then she got older, and divorced her partner, her kids moved out and now she lives alone. (We might actually be very alike)
Cheryl and I had a love hate relationship, however. Sometimes, we got along swimmingly. Mostly when she was reminiscing about her past in the laundry room. Other times…. we hated each other… mostly when I was accidentally setting off the fire alarm in the building or doing too many loads of laundry at once. She thought I needed to grow up and take responsibility; I thought she needed to chill out. I always figured that I reminded her of herself at my age, which caused her to be distainfully regretful that she ever decided to grow up OR that she feared I would one day grow up to be her. Either way, I thought she was an unhappy old…
Anyway, at a certain point, closer to my leaving the co-op, she invited me up to her apartment saying that she would like to give me her Salish Loom. I was suspicious. That, and I didn’t know much about weaving at this point. I had told her about Betsy though, which made me think that she was trying to make nice. So, upstairs I went.
She showed me around her artsy, little one bedroom. She had lots of pottery (some that she had made when she was a hippy), and knew a whole lot about it, and art… and photos. It was lovely. We talked about birth and childrearing… and wasbands and husbands. And then she busted out these giant… poles, which were apparently the end pieces of a Salish Loom.
Wowza.
She talked to me like I knew what she was saying, while I stared at them – giant hunks of two-by-four bolted together with these giant corroded nuts and bolts. Then she showed me a blanket she made on it… or at least a photo of it, which gave me hope. It all seemed so abstract. Then she brought out the spinning wheel that interfaces with a treadle sewing machine and told me how she made the yarn. And then our visit was over.
So I took these poles and giant flyer and put them in the backroom, vowing that one day I would figure out how to reconstruct this loom and make a blanket too.
And today, I did it…. well, not the blanket part, but I found some wood and made what I think might be a rude imitation of a Salish Loom.
Yarn and blanket to come.