JenLa

Stats:

Pattern: Kriya Yoga Mat Bag (Ravelry link) or direct .pdf download.

Needles: US 8 (5.0 mm)

Yarn: Cascade 220 Wool, 1 skein pink, 1 skein brown (most of both skeins was used)

Mods: Erm. No, I guess not.

Thoughts: Combining cabling and stranded color work isn’t hard, per se, but it’s a little like learning to drive a stick shift. You know how to do the things, but putting them all together at once feels a little confusing at first. It flowed into a very simple rhythm after a short period of time, though. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about colored cable work and am definitely pleased with this, so I’m sure that there is more of this type of knitting in the future. My little swatch even got some use.

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Remember when I mentioned getting stuck rubbernecking in the drama threads on Ravelry? For a short time after that they seemed to subside, which was nice because I got a lot of gardening done. Well, they’re back and they’re bigger and better (worse) than ever. I know it’s sort of idiotic to read those things, but I’m coming to terms with it. I love gossip and drama when they have nothing to do with me. There, I’ve admitted it. I don’t participate, I just lurk and secretly pick sides and sneer and snort to myself about the ridiculousness of it all. I was speaking to a friend about this and she feels the same way-as long as it doesn’t touch her, she likes to watch it from the sidelines. We got to talking about how much of it there is lately (a seemingly inordinate amount, but not as much as some other fora, I suppose.), how to find it (You know the person who deals with all the big trouble? Read all their posts.), and how wouldn’t it be nice if there was some central collection place for those of us who like to silently read up on the latest dramatic offerings like cheap pulp fiction. Admit it. You do it, too. I know that when there are 40 voices and 602 readers that there are a lot of people doing it besides me. So I got to thinking that we need a Ravlery Rubberneckers Group for staying abreast of the latest melodramatic offerings from the amateur actors, devising RavDrama drinking games and to discuss the basics of surviving the marathon reading required. This was a joke, but I get closer to actually doing it with every passing hour. EDIT: I did it. Join, you know you wanna.

I started my new job, which was basically the same job but a new location and more working, but might be morphing into an actual new job. I expect to be very busy for the next couple weeks at least. I’d like to call it yarn money, but the lack of knitting time and abundance of stash and queued up projects really probably means it won’t result in yarn collecting. Or at least, that’s what I thought until I caught wind of a new yarn shop IN. MY. TOWN. This may not mean much to you, but we don’t even have a liquor store here, only one grocery store, one fast food restaurant and a whole lotta farms. I will make time to install myself in it and report back.

Meanwhile, I’m stitching away productively on the Wank It! and soon I’ll be beginning Moroccan Days/Arabian Nights. Just the process of choosing yarn and beads has been epic so I can only imagine what I’ll be putting myself through with the execution. Another “Jen takes the hard route for the sake of a wild idea” project. There’s also a little Hyrna Hergobar in the very near future-and that is one that I’ve been absolutely dying to knit ever since I saw Claudia’s. It’s one of those things that has stayed with me, haunting me all this time. I keep changing my mind about the yarn, though, so it’s anyone’s guess right now what it’s going to look like. I’m more excited about my upcoming projects than I’ve been in a long time.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. So says Oscar Wilde anyway. I have *not* finished either the farm mat or the Wing Top, though I have made progress on both. Considering the Bee Fields Shawl was buzzing at me from behind a closed door, I think it’s amazing I had the fortitude, frankly. Seeing Cara knitting along on it doesn’t help, either. However, yesterday while chatting with La, I came up with a very good reason to yield to my temptation. I realized that if this is going to be my vacation knitting, I need to make sure I’m happy with my needle choice, I have all necessary accoutrements for knitting it and that I understand the instructions without needing to resort to the internet since I will be disconnected. Right? RIGHT?? I am determined to pack light for once and I don’t plan to haul all my “in case” knitting crap this time. Vacation is a time to not be weighed down by stuff. I know most of you are freaking out right now. I know it’s traditional to take not only everything you’re currently knitting that is still portable, plus several projects you’d like to begin, printed out instructions for every pattern on the internet and some extra balls of yarn and several sets of needles you don’t think you’ll need. A few knitting magazines you’d like to catch up on, your ipod or MP3 player, a couple novels for the times when you don’t feel like knitting and whatever miniaturized databases you might have [pdf files on your phone or PDA, along with necessary chargers, extra batteries, etc.] round out the selection. Pack all this in a huge tote-hey you can take TWO carry-ons and those overhead bins are pretty big-and you’re pretty much prepared for that 45 minute layover in Chicago.

Now, I do tend to follow tradition, I get that part where we want to be prepared for every potential knitting situation. Stash Separation Anxiety Disorder [SSAD] can be very debilitating. But when I think hard about it, I realize that I never knit much on vacation. I really don’t. Those layovers are never as long as you think they are, what with the lines in the bathrooms, the lines to get coffee [that's my code for cocktails] and the last minute decision to stop in the gift shop and buy pepperoni pizza flavored combos because oh yeah, they don’t have food on the flights anymore. I get a few rows in, and then I might get a few in on the plane if I can stay awake and if the person sitting next to me will stop effing touching it* and telling me about how her great aunt Myrtle used to crochet. I might get a few rows in here and there at the hotel or during family stuff. But I’m not going to finish anything. I’m probably not even going to make an appreciable dent in anything. If I were being realistic, I’d probably take ONE sock pattern and leave the rest, but I don’t have a sock I love right this second. I only have eyes for Bees. And since it may be the only thing I take with me-and with the bare minimum of knitting notions, to boot-when I do have knitting time, it will get all my love and attention. But since it will be all I have, I need to make sure there won’t be any roadblocks. Yes, I can talk myself into anything. A N Y thing.

Therefore, I decided to cast on and perform the setup, which consists of a provisional cast on and 11 rows. There is this tricky little winglet bit where you bind off a couple stitches, but the last one counts as the next stitch. This makes sense, really. Eventually I remembered doing this in the Morning Glory pattern but I must admit that when I finish a pattern, all of the notes about it that I stored in my brain are instantly set to self-destruct. It’s true. I’m the same way with a lot of stuff, if I haven’t seen you within 24 hours, I can’t really recall what you look like. My brain files all information that it’s not currently using in the recycle bin and I often wish I could reset those preferences in my internal control panel, but there it is. Intel Inside. I found the chart to be much more intuitive than the long hand, although I was going to try and reverse my policy this time and knit using the the written. It’s definitely easier for me to find my place in a chart by seeing where the stitch I’m doing is in relation to the one below it, which I can’t really do with long hand. So here I am, back to my old ways and it only took three rows.

Behold!

Once I beat my brain back into submission regarding the BO stitches, I was able to soar through the setup chart. But you know, I kind of thought I should practice a bit with those winglets. Just to be sure. So I started the second chart.

I might have stayed up until 2 in the morning practicing. But this is IT, no more until the other stuff is done. I swear it. Except for maybe exploring the idea of taking out that provisional now and grafting it instead of waiting until the end. The dangling ends of the crochet cast on are bugging the crap out of me. (insert bee/bugging joke) That would definitely make it a better travel project, right? So I should do that. Glad we’re all agreed.

*Since I brought it up just now, and we kind of asked the question at Knitch the other day, but nobody really paused to consider it, I’ll put it to you for theories. Why do we have no issues when another knitter comes up and touches our knitting, but take issue when any old jackass in an airport [or wherever] comes up to us, grabs & inspects our knitting and strikes up a conversation? Or is it just me? I have a thing about strangers invading my personal space and touching something I’m clearly working on is a serious invasion of it, but if some strange person walks into the store where I’m knitting and grabs it, I don’t mind a bit. I took Morning Glory the other day and passed it around for everyone to see and touch-and they all sniffed it and rubbed it on themselves, too. Many of them I’d never laid eyes on before. I enjoyed it. Does someone have automatic implied trust because they’re obviously in the club? And if someone in an airport is interested enough to stop and do the same thing, why is that not a secret handshake? Also, would it be rude to wear a T-shirt when you have to go out into the outside world that says “Touch the knitting and I will needle felt your ass.”?

This post is too long, isn’t it? I have more I want to say today, but I was reading a thread on a forum that tells me I should just put up a picture and stop typing now. We can talk about that place everyone is so excited about another day. Here’s one of my many early birthday presents, courtesy of Claudia. It’s for this comment on one of her posts. No, it’s not a medal, but you can’t put likker in a medal and drink it, can you?

“The I-Showed-Claudia-Something-New-Mug” “To Jen For the encroachment short row heel”

Her: hhhhhhhhhhhh
Him: What’s wrong?

Her: I wanted to start this new shawl tonight, but the pattern calls for slender, pointy size nines, and all I have are the dull, plastic, interchangeable ones.
Him: I guess this calls for a trip to the yarn store to get the right needles, huh?

Her: blink blink…blinkity…blink
Him: Isn’t there one in Long Beach that you like?

Her: mouth drops to the floor
Him: walks away smug in the knowledge that, even after 6 years of marriage he can shock her into silence, and that’s saying something

It actually couldn’t have been a nicer weekend. First, came the realization that I hate Forest Path Stole with the fire of a thousand suns. I TRIED to like it, I really did. But to no avail. I hate it. Hate. Hate. Hate. Loathsome…Detestable…SEETHING hatred. So much so that I would rather crochet a bra-and-panty set out of barbed-wire, razor blades and red heart than knit one more single solitary stitch on that craptastic stole. If I didn’t love the yarn so much, I would have set fire to it. I still may burn the pattern in effigy, if only my candle-lighting lighters hadn’t somehow gone missing…

Even the DH when seeing it, considered it too fussy. So Friday night I had the satisfaction of turning this…

Yeah, not much ripping satisfaction was to be had, the yarn kept hanging up on itself, so, after only 3 rows of utter frustration, I put myself out of my misery by severing the umbilical. Ahhhhhhhhhh! So Debi? You know I love ya, but I gotta say adios to the FPS KAL. Hasta la vista, bay-bee!

So the yarn’s on vacation now. There are a couple of patterns I’m contemplating for it, one of which is in Victorian Lace Today, and the other is in A Gathering of Lace. But no hurry, I’m now working on Morning Glory Crack…errr…Wrap, and it consumes every waking thought, every fiber of my being calls out for it. Even though it took 4 times casting on and knitting to row 4 only to rip because somehow, in the last 13 months the DH forgot how to make a meal without my assistance, thus breaking my concentration with a multitude of “Honey, where’s the…”

Saturday afternoon was spent in the company of Michelle and the incomparable Miss M. Good company, good knitting, and good geek made the afternoon just fly by. The highlight for me? Miss M falling asleep in my arms.

On Sunday, the DH and I took a drive to Long Beach where we not only intended to patronize a yarn shop, we actually set foot in one, and wanna know something? He didn’t spontaneously combust! Fancy that. I perused the patterns, fondled the yarn and flipped through some books, but only walked out with a set of size 9 Addi turbos. Afterward, we had lunch at Busters, went to an arts and crafts show at the bay, and then headed home. It’s nice having an entire weekend with no other obligations except to relaxation.

So, how was your weekend?

That is the question…

hhhhhhhhhhhhh

I don’t know why La and I have been on the same finishing schedule lately. Seems like we go weeks without anything to show, then we both finish a batch of stuff at once. It’s not even like we’re knitting the same things. Here’s what I’ve finished:

Stats:
Pattern: Morning Glory Shawl, pattern by Anne Hanson of Knitspot.
Yarn: Handmaiden Sea Silk, in Amethyst, 2 skeins, purchased from Tidal Brook Yarns.
Needles: Addi Turbo Lace, size US 4
Finished: July 24, 2007
Mods: I added a repeat in the center and did 8 repeats for each half of the MG chart instead of the 4 as patterned.
Comments: I made some error in this, and I still don’t know what. I used the chart instead of the long hand directions because, well, I’m hardcore pro-chart. Why read when you can look at pictures? The secret to why I have 2 columns running vertically where nothing crosses is probably in those long hand directions and it likely indicates that I should have been reading those etch-a-sketch lines on the chart differently. I don’t mind the variation at all and will consider it a design feature, I don’t think it detracts from the overall result. It matches up perfectly on both halves, so whatever I did, at least I did it consistently. The finished length of my stole is 80 inches. I used nearly every scrap of Sea Silk, too. The ball on the left is what’s left of the first hank, the right is the 2nd hank. So you can imagine the confidence with which I was knitting along on my 2nd half, knowing I had a bit of jiggle room. And you can probably imagine the beads of sweat as I did that last partial repeat. And OMG, how much do I love Addi Lace needles? I cannot wait until they go down to 0’s and up to 7’s. Just having the 1-6 is heaven, though. Lightweight! Pointy!

Does anyone else ever wish they knew how to take good finished pictures? Without a large seamless, draping and composing something like a lace shawl is always a challenge for me. I want to highlight the knitting and get a sense of the spirit of the knit and am often at a loss as to how to feature it. I want you to see the stitches as well as feel the light, airy, drapey-ness of this beloved stole.

Lucky for you, I don’t want you to sniff it. My only complaint about Sea Silk is the Silk Stink. I’ve seen discussions online where people have been ridiculed for mistaking the silk smell as being a result of the kelp used in the yarn, but silk smells so fishy sometimes that I think it’s a reasonable conclusion if you don’t know any better. I soaked it in a Eucalan bath, but I probably should have used something like Soak or at least dumped some fabric softener in there. The combination of fish and eucalyptus isn’t as appealing as it sounds.

I was even good and got out all my pieces of the Farm Play Mat last night and put them together. Pardon my flash, I’m way too lazy to take it outside right now.

I crocheted a pond [it's not done, that one hunk isn't just going to end like that] and put the livestock on it to see what they thought. As you can see, much like my real farm, I need more land. This will be the next finished object, and I hope it’s soon.

In case you haven’t seen it, the Interweave Knits fall preview is up. I shall henceforth refer to it as “The Giant Purple Vagina” issue. There are a couple things I like and may make, [Mirepoix, with some alterations and the Snowflack socks, ditto] but then again by the time I have room in the knitting queue, I may change my mind. I’m more interested in seeing if the layout has improved. Picture me sitting here, fingers tapping the table in impatience, a look on my face that tells you I’m all set to be annoyed.