JenLa

I want to get started on Audrey’s socks right away, but if memory serves, I don’t think I’ve ever bought pink yarn of any kind (except for the skank of Caron I got for the SD’s baby _______et), let alone pink sock yarn, and if I ever did, I didn’t buy it for myself, and I’m sure it has already found it’s intended recipient.

So, even knowing that I probably didn’t have any, I went stash diving last night, and if anyone else was privy to the voices in my head, here’s what you would have heard.

“Okay. Which drawer holds my sock yarn?”
“Hooo…heeee! Oh, man, that’s a RIOT! Ha! Which drawer indeed! You wish you were THAT organized.”
“Ooooh! 2 ziploc bags of leftover sock yarn. Need to set that aside for the assorted baby booties project.”
“Good luck finding all your patterns”
“What do you mean, I know where ALL my patterns are! Shut up.”
DH: Whatcha doing?
“Hello, I’m in front of the Yarn Storage Facility, what does he THINK I’m doing?” La: Looking for pink sock yarn for Audrey.
DH: Uh, okay.
“Yeah, like he knows who Audrey is. Yeah, that’s right, go back to watching the History Channel, and leave me to fondle my fiber in peace.”
“Oh, wow! I forgot I had this. This would be PERFECT for a pair of fingerless gloves for me!”
“Okay, Zoe’s post says that Audrey’s a redhead, so the rust-colored alpaca is NOT a good color choice for Shedir. While I’m here I need to look for alternate yarn if I’m gonna knit it at all.
“Maybe I should organize this yarn by drawers. Should it be: lace, fingering/sock, worsted, leftovers…or maybe, wool, sock, cotton and luxury. Maybe THEN I’ll remember what yarn I have. Hmmmm”
“Or maybe you’ll just ignore it for now and keep looking for the pink yarn which was your original mission. Otherwise, we’ll be here all fucking night. Holy shit! You still have a ball of novelty yarn. Why the hell did you keep that crap?”
Dunno. Guess it missed the culling. And didn’t I tell you to shut up? I distinctly remember telling you to shut up.”
“Aha! …and AHA!”

Good news? Not only is it actual pinkish sock yarn, it’s ENOUGH pinkish sock yarn.
Bad New? Both of these yarns were gifts from knit bloggers I admire and who, one day (I hope) I will meet in person.
More Good News I doubt either of the original givers would be offended if I were to use the yarn they gave me for such a worthy recipient.
More Bad News I love them both and don’t know which to pick. Should I be selfish or selfless?

HELP! I’m in need of indecision intervention, and quick!

As for the stash diving? I highly recommend it. Only GOOD can come from reacquainting yourself with your yarn!

There was this show I worked on. It was the last TV show I did, the one during which I bought this place and formulated a loose plan for getting out of the business. The show was absolutely instrumental in this decision. For one thing, the money we earned on it got us the down payment and for another, this show made me so damned miserable that I realized I had to get out. I’m not telling you the name of the show to protect myself from potentially damaging google searches-some of you have guessed from past entries about it anyway (there’s always a well-hidden clue, at least I hope they’re well-hidden.) Really, it was not the actual show itself but a hand full of people that made it unbearable. The last week of shooting, I was thrilled to think that I’d be in another state far far far away from it during season two. So close to having it all behind me. Then post-wrap some weird, ugly, frustrating, insulting and unjust things happened with relation to the show and despite the fact that I would never have to step foot on that set again, I couldn’t stop thinking about the damn thing. Anger and bitterness that I never planned for bullied their way into my life on a daily basis. The old adages about time being a great healer and what comes around goes around being cliche yet also true, later we were told second hand about shame and admission of regret and mistakes. The fact that the wrong knew they were wrong and were punished for their behavior worked on me like a tonic. This show was summarily dismissed from my daily consciousness for the most part. When I do think of it, I still picture certain individuals getting trapped on the set during a fatal equipment explosion but the point is that I don’t think about it much at all now.

Until today. I just got a book in the mail. It’s a book about this show. A behind the scenes sort of self-glorification type of book. I had pointedly and repeatedly refused to sign any photo or interview releases for this book in order to exact my revenge. Or something. Yet, here is this book and I appear in any number of photos. And as I’m turning the pages I see pictures of some very dear friends. Two, in particular, that I bonded with over knitting. One knew how to knit and asked me to teach her to make socks. When I asked if she knew how to use dpns, she informed me that before we got that far perhaps I should show her the purl stitch. By the time the show was over she had knit not only cabled, lacy socks but also an intricate aran sweater. The other knew how to knit and purl but had never used dpns. She didn’t need much but cheerleading from me and to be with a couple of other knitters to boost her confidence. By the time it was over she produced numerous scarves, hats and socks. And I knit stuff, too-don’t remember what, but I also wrote my first knitting pattern for one of these ladies. We all three took something fiber related away from this show. And in this book there is a picture of one of them knitting her first sock, with a quote about how she always knits during down time for the relaxation. I looked at that picture and quote and said to myself, “Hey!! That was ME. People knit on that show because of me! And there is the sock that I encouraged into existence; photographic proof of my knitting ambassadorship.” And then I remembered all our knitting lunches and the sheer relief from the daily agony that I would not have had were it not for these women and our needles. I remembered our friendship and the yarn stores we visisted together outside work. If they truly wanted to show what goes on behind scenes there would be pictures of the friendships that pop up, the important things that happen to us that have nothing to do with the show except that it brings certain people together. And therefore it would certainly have pictures of our on set knitting circles. Wen knows what I mean. But the greatest thing about this book is that it did the exact opposite of what I expected. Instead of bringing the pain and anger back it brought the good memories to the surface. I finally got peace. And closure. Anyone who thinks knitting won’t change the world just hasn’t tried it yet.

And on the subject of the world wide knitting revolution, there’s this Measuring The Speed of Meme project going on. Our particular blog demographic being the anomaly that it is, we knit bloggers really ought to get in on this. In the beginning we did a lot of memes, but they’re all so long and boring these days we dropped the habit like ten laceweight alpaca stitches off a broken denise cable. Since we often skim or skip other people’s “eleventy answers about moi” memes, we hardly expect that anyone would be interested in ours, either, but still. Knit bloggers are horses of another colorway in the blog world and it’s time to be counted. Link the project in your blog then go ping technorati.

Two last things. Sorry, hope you weren’t demanding pictures today. The shearer that Janice referred me to can’t get to my goats until March but she assures me they’ll be absolutely fine until then. So, Rabbitch, your fleece is going to be delayed, but there will be more of it. At least my mind is at ease about it and I don’t have to make them twee little coats. And the other thing is that I was so smugly proud of my first Audrey sock that I tripped over my big head and now I have to rip out the second one (which was 2/3 done, dammit all) because of gauge issues. So what would you do? Pictures or temper tantrum? Yes, my crowbar has a date with the drywall. I shall then forsake my knitting and throw myself into the arms of my Husqvarna Designer I in vengeance.

And I was completely oblivious to the fact that I had lost it! No, smartass, not my mind. I’ve been aware of THAT loss for quite some time now, but thanks for stating the obvious. No. I’m talking about my knitting momentum, my mojo, my augury; that which makes all knitting undertakings enjoyable and exciting and challenging and fun!

My enthusiasm for the sticks and strings wanned so gradually I didn’t even notice it was gone…until I got it back. It hit me upside the head like a paternally-delivered pew-based to-the-back-o’-the-head-got-caught-sleeping-during-Sunday-sermon stealth bitchslap from my childhood.

Unfortunately, it ALSO showed in my posts too, which, in my book, were more BLAHg-worthy than blog-worthy. No sense in denying it. I could HEAR you all screaming at your computers: LA! BE LESS BORING! But that’s all ancient history now, or let’s hope anyhow.

Now I have a gazillion projects I want to do, and I want to start them all now. NOW I say! It’s not like I don’t already have the yarn for most of them. Well, all the non-pink ones anyhow. I have a surprising lack of pink yarn in my stash. Must rectify that and soon.

1. Shedir and Shedir pattern-based socks for ;
2. Tea-Shirt tea-[shudder]-cozy for my mom;
3. Socks for the MIL;
4. Eleventy-hundred baby booties for my step-granddaughter;
5. Sweaters for every kid in the family (they all need some serious sweater intervention);
6. Felted bucket hat for my newest SIL;
7. Fiana’s Scarf from Fibertrends for me;
8. Eris for me;
9. Somekinda fingerless driving gloves for me;
10. Pad-Around-The-House socks for me;

The only thing that I can attribute to this serious re-kindling of the knit love is my most recent FO.

Yarn: Leftover Elann Peruvian Highland Wool in Oatmeal Heather
Gauge: somewhere in the neighborhood of approximately around 21 sts/28 rows = 4″, roughly
Pattern

Sweater: Trellis in the 12 month (middle) size
Cap

La Fudgery, aka…winging it, but based the smaller version of the cables on the Trellis pattern.

Notes: Okay, everyone look at those pictures closely. There is something TRULY amazing about that baby sweater. Give up? Ok, I’ll give you a hint: Look at the sides and the sleeves of the sweater. Do you see it now? YES! La fully completed a sweater….with side-seaming and sleeve attaching and button sewing on and everything. And those seams? Even though I tried Stacey’s brilliant lazy little cheat seaming, I ended up doing mattress stitch. Yes, folks, pigs DO fly!

I LOVED knitting this sweater. Except for the prior knowledged that the yarn pills like a crack ho Lindsey Lohan, I don’t think that there was one single aspect about this sweater that I didn’t like or found boring. Though, I did learn one important lesson: If the designer has you knit the sleeves flat, it’s usually for a good reason. I thought, “I am SO clever! If I knit these sleeves in the round, I’m saving time, and saving bitching about seaming, and saving DOING seaming. And I won’t have to do sleeve island a second time, though, it IS a baby sweater, so it’s more like sleeve isle, than island. Besides, just how much “structure” does a baby sweater need anyway?”

Yeah, well, I clevered myself into a tight spot…literally. The top-o’-the-sleeve circumference was WAY smaller than the armscye. hhhhhhhhhhhhh It took some doing; a little fudging in the side seam here, a re-bind-off there, and a tad of stretching, but as you can see, it all turned out ok.

The other thing I like about this sweater? It’s not pink. The DH informed me that Chrissy had cried to him, “everything they gave me at the baby shower is pink.” Well, my first thought was “Duh! You’re having a GIRL!” But then I’m all, “WTF? Do they even KNOW Chrissy at all?” That woman, though feminine and girly, is NOT a pink kind of gal. What makes anyone think that the non-pink mama’s gonna want to surround and dress the baby in pink?

JTFC!!!

My trip to Massachusetts was, for the most part, lovely. Amongst the various family news, one couple is closing on an awesome house next month, one couple got engaged and one couple is moving from the west coast back home again. We ate a lovely Heritage Turkey who lived a very happy life in NY and the youngest member of the family pardoned yet another turkey who gets to live a happy life in OR (provided it likes unseasonable snow). We teased her that next year the turkey mafia is going to come after her demanding another 20 bucks or the turkey gets it. We also had the best damned pecan pie I’ve ever tasted and you’d think that you can’t beat the south for pecan pie, but I’m here to tell you that this one made with only maple syrup and no sugar was miles above any other. It was bought from a local or I’d be blaring that recipe all over the innerwebs right now. Also what made the trip nice was getting a lot of knitting done.

I must say I had very uneventful flights. I sat next to quiet, polite people on all four flights. I did sit in front of screaming children on half of those but since it could have been worse, I won’t complain about that much. I do still fervently wish there was such a thing as “family flights” and “adult flights”. And yes, I’d pay more. The first day was mostly spent on Jared’s set and OMFG was it boring. Since I hadn’t slept in 36 hours I finally found a dark and quiet corner and napped for a bit, followed by some knitting for a few hours. We followed that up by hitting the bar to sort of top off the tanks before heading out to drysville the next morning. I knit on the 3 hour drive there and I knit in front of the TV during movies and I knit at the table during conversations. Then I knit in the ER on Sunday morning for a few hours, too.

Yes, the Emergency Room. Because on Saturday we headed back toward Boston and decided to have a nice, expensive meal together since we never see each other anymore. So we headed over to Legal Seafood, which is a big, famous seafood chain with a good reputation. We both proceeded to order and eat the New England Lobster Bake which includes not only lobster but also mussels and clams and clam chowder. And we drank some champagne, too. It was the most expensive purge of our lives. I was more or less ok after one bout but Jared couldn’t shake it so we hit the hospital around 5 am and he got 3 liters of IV fluids and some injections for nausea and some lab work. He still hasn’t eaten anything more than broth. We also learned some stuff about food poisoning. Apparently everyone thinks that whenever they eat something that doesn’t agree with them they’ve got food poisoning, but real, honest to god FP gives you joint and muscle pain, fever and elevated white cell counts among other things. It’s something altogether worse than your average stomach yuck. I felt awful leaving him like that and getting on my plane, the poor thing but I cleaned up his apartment and bought him some bland groceries so he’d have something he could eat if he ever feels the urge again. He’s at work today but he still doesn’t sound too great. And btw, the 5 hours of additional knitting time wasn’t worth it. We had plans to roam the streets of Boston and have a nice big fattening breakfast, alas.

Now I’m home and I really meant to get this post up earlier but I got all involved in guineadom. The birds have been stuck in their coop for the duration of my trip because I wasn’t confident about them going inside at night for the neighbor who was coming to feed them. Naturally they were ecstatic to get out this morning and it is a beautiful, warm, sunny day so they’re spending a lot of time browsing and napping in the grass out in the backyard. Also, I noticed that a few of them were acting a little strange. A little overly “nesty”. Then later I noticed that they seemed to be doing it. And by “it” I mean breeding. I’m not 100% convinced this will lead to anything as they are still reasonably young and it’s totally the wrong time of year, but a couple of them were broody in the coop so I went around cleaning it and building and installing nesting boxes just in case. I’d so much prefer them to lay their eggs in the coop than out in the pasture somewhere. And since someone will ask, yes I intend to eat their eggs should any appear. Well, use them in recipes anyway. Ah….puberty. My little keets aren’t little keets any longer.

Ok, so wanna see some knitting?

It’s the Moebius Thing I was working on. I’ve provided both “draped” and flat pictures so you get the idea. The yarn is cashmere, which was another small part of the avalanche of generosity sent to me by Zoe. The pattern is from Fiber Trends, but I only cast on 192 stitches so I’d get more of a cowl than a scarf. I LOVE this scarf. I wore it continuously in the New England Cold. And when you love something this much that’s made from gift yarn you gotta pay it forward. So here’s a little something I’m working up for Audrey:

It’s not just a thank you to Zoe, it’s also part of my Knit Unto Others along with my Red Scarves. Are you knitting Audrey some socks?

What’s can better than killing two birds with one stone? (That’s rhetorical) Especially on a holiday Friday. So…

This one’s for you Jen!

(Psssst. Click the pic…)
Margaritas…I think I’ll have two in Jen’s honor! Do I hear three?