Christmas Crafting

I got toys for Christmas!  It was strange to wake up Christmas morning and know that I wasn't going to see the family, but cell phones and video chat are magical things.  It was great to talk to everyone as they unwrapped presents and went to various holiday gatherings.  And me?  I was wearing new Christmas PJs, drinking coffee with egg nog, eating bacon, and enjoying a lazy quiet morning - playing with my new toys as enthusiastically as my nephew!  I got the most wonderful set of needles, and a new yarn swift (contraption pictured below, aids in the winding of balls from skeins of yarn), and new yarn, as well!

The yarn acquired previously, check the beautiful needles!

Lace always looks a jumble until you block it out...

Blocking is a feat of magic!

A birthday scarf for the almost-birthday girl!

For Daddo.

Daddo was unimpressed with my glee over the new knitting gadgetry - you'd think he'd have a greater appreciation for the implements needed to make his Christmas scarf.  Apparently not.  These babies were also under the tree with my name on them, and they're going to work a treat at the office - who can't hear you now?  That would be me - I tested them today at home, with the world's loudest dishwasher silenced for the gentle tones of Kate Rusby while I worked on the couch.  It was wondrous.  I'm a very lucky and spoiled girl.

Love: a definition

My knitterly resurgence has brought about a lot of learning moments - challenging projects, the making of yarn, and perhaps the occasional leap without looking.  I've taken on a plethora of knitting projects for other people, and each one has taught me something about the measure of love.

Love, it turns out, can be measured.

Love looks a little like this:

• Five inches of mohair lace, ripped back because I found an error.  Mohair.  (And this project was finished a while ago, and given to it's intended recipient, but seriously - mohair.)
• Grey lace, knit at dusk.
• Two-at-a-time socks, converted to two magic-loop socks.
• 470 yards of laceweight, hand-wound into a ball, with the knowledge that there are three more skeins where that came from, and I still have to figure out this whole life line thing.
• A sweater, when I offered socks, and there's an owl sweater I want to make myself.  Owls!
• Double-pointed needles and complicated instructions, for something I don't know for sure that you'll wear.
• Sheer certainty that another someone will be getting a gift card, because the number of projects on the needles is approaching insanity.

And since there are people reading this who will, come Christmastime, know the lowest point of a project, I'll also add that there is the giddiness that comes with each one:

• Beauty.  And the pride that comes with both the first lace and the first serious repair.
• A delightful fabric, and a lace pattern finally memorized that's become a blues night regular.
• Two new tricks learned at once, and one discarded as less practical.
• The pure joy that comes with knowing I've found the right yarn, the right color, and the right pattern for the recipient, even if the timeline is less clear.  You won't mind if I wrap it still on the needles?
• Appreciation for blind faith in my talents.
• Hope that I've finally picked something that this someone will wear...
• Hope that another someone will like their gift card.

I'm a little stressed with the sudden advent of October, which comes with the knowledge that December isn't really that far away.  I went a whole week without knitting last week, and just think about all that wasted knitting time!  But I've been excited about the prospect of giving these gifts since I conceived of them, and the low points in each project makes each one that much more special at the end.  Each project represents a new lesson learned, and who doesn't love learning new things?

But a swift, ball winder, and set of interchangeable needles are all on my Christmas list.  And perhaps a lace chart magnet reader, since an iPad just for the knitting apps seems excessive. 

The Second First Sweater

My very second knitting project, after a very simple scarf, was a sweater.  I've always been an over-achiever.  However, I had not yet learned that patterns should be altered for the individual, and copious measurements should be made throughout the process.  Instead, I followed the instructions...  and ended up with this:

I apparently had a short-waisted, broad-shouldered, long-armed being in mind.

For years this sweater was stored in with my yarn stash - never worn, just occasionally pulled out to be examined and admired.  From the get-go I was a ridiculously OCD knitter, so my stitches were even, and the fabric wonderful, if I do say so myself.

Finally, after my knitterly re-emergence, with lace, stitch designs, and baby sweaters under my belt, I found myself looking longingly at sweater patterns.  I bookmarked them on the web, I pored through all my knitting books and magazines, and kept coming back to the same pattern over and over.  I loved the drape, the style, and the creative simplicity in the design.  I realized that it needed the same yarn weight I'd used in the ape-human sweater, and I still loved the blue - I could picture the sweater in that blue over a shirt and my favorite jeans.  In this land of above-freezing temperatures, the short sleeves would be a good way to offset the warm wool.

Finally, I was in.  I pulled out the never-worn, much-labored-over First Sweater, and with complete abandon, and growing excitement, painstakingly pulled out the seams.  I discovered that the arms were big enough around to be the torso to a sweater that actually fit me.  What was I thinking all those years ago?  I gleefully pulled out stitches to create loops of yarn hopelessly kinked by all that time spent in knitted form, like this! ------>

So each skein pulled was soaked, squeezed (NOT wrung!), and hung to dry.  Never more than one at a time, because that kind of foresight is just asking too much for a person so thoroughly convinced that she can accomplish this knitting project.  Instead, as each skein dried I wound it into a ball and sat on the couch with my needles and growing swath of sweater.

(If you're wondering, then yes, it took longer this way, because I continually misjudged the speed of my needles and found myself with no more yarn, and a two-day drying process to wait for.)

Finally, however, and in reality, just under two short months later, I cast off the last stitch.  I researched better ways to work in the ends, despite the fact that I decided on a method that took longer than my usual (but looks so much better).  I soaked the sweater and laid it flat to "block" - a process which helps the fabric conform to the shape it needs, and in this case gave me a chance to obsessively measure the folds that defined the look of this pattern.  It took forever to dry, and of course reached a suitable state on a weekday morning.  Despite being in a late heat spell, I raced home from work that evening to sit in a sunny room on the floor, where the still air made the inside of my apartment unusually stuffy.  I sat in a t-shirted, pants-less state, with a cold beer handy to bear the warmth of the wool on my legs as I sewed up the folds and then slowly picked up the collar stitches required to add that final something.  I impatiently created the i-cord loop and attached it with buttons selected in a panic the previous weekend, when I realized that crucial step had been forgotten.  I drank deeply from the fast-warming beer, and smiled even as my face glistened with sweat, because I was done done done, and my second first sweater was everything I thought it would be.

It's really not wool weather yet, though the northern California nights are obligingly cool, and we even had a dreary, not-quite-rainy Sunday, when I could wear my sweater all day long.  I've only suddenly burst out with, "I made this sweater!" to my co-workers.  I even resisted when I found myself wearing it in a yarn shop.  It's ok, because the I-made-this-sweater! song plays in my head the whole time it's on.

That's the same smile my nephew wears when he accomplishes a challenging task.

Buttons without buttonholes were a big win.

Pleased as punch!

It worked!  I enter this last day of the holiday weekend extremely satisfied.  I have been extremely busy, but the end results will keep me happy for a long time to come.  See what I mean?

Dear Ikea, I would like to amend all previous curses - you are not the most ridiculous do-it-yourself furniture in the world.  That honor goes to World Market.  I apologize for the slander, and will in future only curse you when you do not succeed in drilling holes of the proper length (I was absolutely correct in my curses that day). 

Note to self, apartment fire extinguishers are a must.

That's the only corner of the balcony that gets sun, and only for 3 hours in the morning during the summer months.

 Lest you think I'd only succeeded in creating a giant pile of cardboard in my living room, I spent time on my other weekend goal, as well:

You have no idea, do you?

It's a pair of socks!  Or it will be one day soon.  Do you see that?  (I hear Daddo saying, 'no, what is she talking about?')  And unless you really zoom in on the text above the chart, you won't see it.  It says "right chart" - or something like that.  Yes, indeed, not only am I knitting socks from the toe up for the first time (and that took some figuring out), I'm knitting socks toe up two at a time for the first time (again, a thinking job).  And it's worse than that, because not only am I knitting lace socks toe up two at a time, I'm knitting lace socks with a mirror pattern (different on left and right socks) toe up two at a time.  No simple stitch repetition lace for me, no sir.  I never was one for baby steps - or even a logical progression of complexity, apparently.  I'd curse myself and my own ambition, if I weren't so absolutely charmed with this:

Seriously, how wonderful is that?

I'm only five rows into the lace pattern, so it doesn't show up, yet, but it will.  The shade of purple convinced me by the time I'd finished (successfully) casting on the first toe that these babies were headed to my grandmother, who will wear purple every day till the end of time, just because she can.  So my plan to take a breather from all the baby knitting in order to make something for myself is a bust, but I'm tempted to wear flip-flops every day of the week here, anyway.

A universal language

Friday was a beautiful day, and I was ... well, a little frazzled from the week.  So I played hooky.  I drove away to explore, and then I put on shorts (gasp! the girl's legs are white!) and took a walk around the neighborhood.  The walk included a stop by a nail salon that I'd gotten a recommendation for, and I sank into that massage chair with a sigh, since it's been entirely too long.  You know it's been too long when the girl looks at your toes and says, "you cut nails yourself?"  Yeah, so ignore the mangled mess.


I pulled out my knitting, which is infinitely preferable to the inane magazines that the woman next to me was analyzing in depth with her daughter.  I'm used to a few odd looks when I pull out knitting in public, but the nail stylist at the chair next to mine was out and out staring.  To the point I was uncomfortable.  To the point I was glad she wasn't doing my nails, she was so distracted.  She said a quiet, "me likey" when our eyes met, but didn't know much English, and that was the extent of the conversation.  Finally she finished the nails of the woman sitting next to me, smiled at me, and disappeared.  I heaved a sigh of relief, and settled into the pampering and the rhythm of the stitches.  A few minutes later, however, she reappeared, with a handful of yarn and a pair of knitting needles.  She came over to stand beside me and look over my shoulder, went away to sit and try a few stitches, and came back with her yarn and a pad of paper, on which I wrote the simple lace pattern I was working, and demonstrated a couple of iterations.  We didn't speak a common language, but we did - I finished the scarf this week, and will be mailing it to its recipient this week.  I'm curious to see if she's started something along those lines next time I go in for a pedicure.  It was a really magic pedicure.

The wispy scarf.

My first lace project.