home sweet home

The kids and I just spent five wonderful days in Lawrence, KS with Steph, Eric and their cats Bonzo and Djuna. Highlights included watching the cats, dyeing yarn with Kool-Aid, watching the cats, waiting for a sleet storm to come through, watching the cats, playing at the park on the one day of nice weather we had, and watching the cats. We drove back today. What should have been an 8-hour drive turned into approximately 12. That's just how it goes with kids, but I have to say driving 500+ miles solo with a 1yo and 3yo is one of the most exhausting things I've ever done. I'll spare you the unpleasant details, but I'm ever so grateful for two things: McDonalds PlayLand and the new car's scotchguarded interior. We had a great time in Lawrence, so the grueling drive was worth it, but I am not sure when I'll be willing to do it (alone) again.

Perhaps I'll write more about our trip later, but right now I desperate need to drink a beer, take a shower, and fall into bed.

shrimp

My (almost) first attempt at dyeing yarn with Kool-Aid:



I say "almost" because the very first attempt was a little too blotchy, so I dyed it again. It's better, but drying in the basement so no pictures for now. For this batch pictured above I used a combination of "pink lemonade" and "strawberry kiwi." I was going for something bright and spring-like, but I ended up with the color of cooked shrimp. Daniel likes it, oddly enough. As he helped me wind it into yarn cupcakes, he said "Mom, it's boo-ful!" If he's not careful, he may end up with a shrimp-colored pair of socks.

like another hole in the head

I need another hobby like I need another hole in the head.

But...



...here I go anyway!

rockin'

I have mentioned several times that I am an on-again, off-again sock knitter, and that the change of seasons brings out the urge to knit socks. Springtime has an urgency to it. Tulips and daffodils and crocuses (croci?) are pushing through the cold, still-snowy ground, eager to bloom. Storm drains are full of rushing water finally thawing from the sides of the streets. Neighbors we haven't seen for months are playing outside at the slightest hint of sunshine. I want to knit small, bright pretty things, and nothing fits the bill like a quick pair of socks.



I believe this is the fastest I've ever finished a pair of socks. It took me less than a week from start to finish. I began in the middle of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's talk at the knit-in last Saturday, and finished kitchenering the second toe sometime on Friday.

I love the symmetry of a plain sock pattern. The cuff is approximately the same length as the foot. The heel flap is exactly half the stitches of the sock circumference and contains the same number of rows as stitches.



Most of the time I enjoy a challenge, but there are times when simplicity wins out over complexity. A vanilla st st sock in variegated yarn is a good example of this. Every stitch of these socks was executed while I was doing something else - keeping an eye on the kids as they played with/fought over tinkertoys, watching the last of Monarch of the Glen after their bedtime, waiting for bread to bake, sitting in the car waiting for Daniel and Anya to wake up after an excursion to a lakeside park...that probably explains the dropped stitch right THERE in the middle of the sock. I didn't discover it until I was taking these pictures. Whoopsie! I'll just stitch it down and call it good.



Yarn: Plymouth Rockin' Socks, 60% wool, 25% bamboo, 15% nylon, 1 skein. I have discovered that I really like bamboo in sock yarn. A while ago I made a few pairs of socks for Daniel out of Trekking Pro Natur that have been worn quite a lot by him and now Anya, and they barely show any wear or pilling.
Pattern: None, though there are surely several places one can find a plain sock pattern. I cast on 60 stitches with size 1 needles and they fit perfectly.
Made for: me, I guess. I have average feet (size 7) and rather skinny ankles, so I couldn't give these to just anyone. The dropped stitch is a flaw not serious enough to fix, but serious enough I will not be gifting these.

purple cables

Enough blabbing already. Here's an FO I've been wearing for over a week already!



It's a Debbie Bliss pattern from her book Rialto Classics. I like a lot of Debbie Bliss's designs, though her recent fascination with the sort of pleated cardigans that make all her models look pregnant isn't my thing. Her patterns, though, drive me bananas. The schematics are minimal, and there are never charts for cable patterns. I prefer charts to line-by-line instructions any day. (Also, all her fair isle patterns are done back-and-forth, even hats! Not that it's hard to adapt a fair isle hat pattern for knitting in the round, but come ON.) But like I said, I like her designs, so for better or for worse, I own several of her books.

I enjoyed knitting this little jacket. It's a bit swingy, but it falls right at the hip, so it's flattering. The cable pattern is very easy; in fact, for all my complaining about her lack of charts, I didn't even miss a cable chart with this design. And the yarn, Adrienne Vittadini Lisa, is just delicious. (Another aside: I don't like DB yarns much. They're soft but really expensive and they don't hold up. So they're fine for baby things that don't take many skeins and will be outgrown in 2 minutes, but no way am I forking over that kind of cash for an adult sweater.) This yarn is soft, yet sturdy, a mix of wool, alpaca, and I think a bit of mohair. It's very warm, and makes for a perfect sweater on cool Wisconsin spring days. The not-quite long sleeves, open neckline and open cardigan pattern keeps me warm without suffocating me. I wore it to the zoo this morning and I didn't suffer at all! (Predictably, the polar bear was out, and the giraffes were not.)

My only complaint is the back of the collar:



See how it won't lie flat? I may need to tack it down.

why I knit

A little while ago, the question "Why do you knit?" was asked by the Pair of Ducks. I think I left a comment there, but now I have a better answer. At least, this is why I knit today. Tomorrow I might have something else to say about it.

I think motherhood has turned me into an obsessive knitter. It might be because having kids has cut down so much on my available piano practice/rehearsal/performance time, I need - desperately - something to do that is productive and tangible. After all, there is only so much satisfaction one can gain from cleaning up poop and making snacks all day long. It's not like they ever say "Thanks, Mom, for changing that diaper. It was a real doozy. You're awesome!" or "That grilled cheese sandwich was the BEST! You totally rock!" (though the occasional "I love YOU, Mom" from Daniel pretty much makes up for it...)

I've had people ask me what I do all day. Before you get all het up on my behalf, know that this question comes mostly from single men who truly don't have a clue. How would they know? They probably don't remember the time when they needed their moms to wipe their butts for them. And it can be hard to explain how keeping wee ones fed, dry and reasonably happy whilst fixing dinner and keeping the house from turning into a total pigsty takes up all of one's time. But I don't see many adults on a regular basis who aren't also caretakers for their children, so I don't get the witless "What do you DO all day?" question a whole lot.

Truthfully, I don't feel like a productive human being most of the time. As a grad student in music, my self-esteem was constantly challenged, so that's nothing new. But at least then I had more to show for my work. I wrote lots of papers and had tons of performances (my degree is in collaborative piano; I have played certain arias so many times I could do it with my eyes closed). Then I had a baby, so I slowed down a lot but still managed to finish the degree. Less than 24 hours after my doctorate was finished (literally) (ask me about it sometime) I had another baby and everything in my life that wasn't milk production, food preparation or diaper changing/washing came to a halt.

Except for knitting. Knitting for babies is fun, providing you finish their sweaters and socks in the right season before they grow out of them. So that's one reason I turned to knitting as an outlet after Daniel was born. But the main reason, I believe, that I have become more and more consumed by knitting is that I have something to show for it. My list of finished objects of the last year is much longer than my list of public performances.

That's not all, though. I don't like to think of knitting as just a way to fill a void because that's not fair to knitting itself. If I simply needed more to do I'd probably be in a book club. Knitting is special because you can make such wonderful things, such useful things, such beautiful things all while you're dong something else. Like watching the kids play in the mud or reading bedtime stories or watching Lost (anyone else think Jack needs to just get over himself already?) or waiting for the bread to bake. What else can you do with that kind of efficiency?

almost st. patty's day blanket

I've been working on this green blanket for Afghans for Afghans, and I was kind of hoping to do an FO post on St. Patrick's Day, since it's all different greens, but I got caught up in other things instead. That's all right; there's not a single drop of Irish blood in my body (it's all German, Swiss and more German) I'm sure there aren't many people in Afghanistan who celebrate St. Patty's Day anyway.



You know that I am a big fan of this charity. Sending a single hand knit blanket to Afghanistan may feel like a drop in the proverbial bucket of making a difference to a country that has seen so much suffering for so many people for so long. But this blanket will keep some child warm, and that's important. What's more, this one, like the last one I sent, is a true community effort. More than half a dozen people knit squares for this one, including some very generous ladies from my church and a couple friends from my knitting group. That's a lot of people putting their love and warmth and good intentions into the stitches of this blanket.

The last time I organized a community blanket, we had 3 rules: 1) use worsted weight wool, 2) make an 8x8 square, and 3) use blues and greens. There were squares that were exactly the right size, squares that were only vaguely resembling the right size, a huge variety of stitches and color patterns, and while the result was actually pretty nice, getting everything to fit together was kind of a headache. Plus, my knitters griped a little about how difficult it actually is to produce a square exactly 8 inches wide and 8 inches long without first doing a gauge swatch. And of course, a gauge swatch for an 8" square can really feel like a waste of time.

This time around, the knitters contributing squares didn't have yarn on hand to use up (not stashers I suppose, poor things) and they wanted specific instructions for the squares. None of this "Oh, do what you want and we'll make it work" for these ladies. So I burdened myself with the task of shopping for blanket yarn and devised a gauge-proof square design. It really is fool-proof:

1. You need two colors of worsted weight wool and size 7 needles.
2. With the first color, cast on 30 stitches.
3. Work in garter stitch until you have a square. It should be about 6"x6", but if it's a tad big or falls short, no big deal.
4. With the second color, work a garter stitch border all the way around, log cabin style, in whatever width is appropriate to make the square 8"x8".

And that's it. It worked out quite well.



The only problem was that a few squares came back the correct size but knit at a looser gauge. When I soaked the blanket in woolwash, those looser squares stretched out. The seams held them somewhat in shape, but I thought I might have to crochet a border all the way around to stabilize it. Happily, when I checked the blanket this morning, it had dried out and those stretchy squares are more or less back to their original size. Isn't wool amazing that way? I think the blanket could still benefit from a border, but I'm kind of ready to just send it on and be done with it. Besides, I don't really remember how to crochet (though my good friend across the street could show me in about 2 minutes) and I've already woven in about 101 green ends.



Choosing the colors was one of the more fun aspects of this project. I had a lone skein of sage green wool leftover from another A4A project (the tomten), so I took it to the wall of Cascade 220 at Lakeside Fibers (they carry every single color except the tweeds) and picked out a bunch of complementary greens to go with it. I paired up greens to distribute to the contributing knitters and handed them out with instructions. I chose all greens because green is the beloved color of Islam, but perhaps next time I'll go with reds and purples, or blues and oranges.

I think I'm ready for a smaller project now, though. Something without so many seams. Like socks!

baaaa

It's been a woolly weekend! Yesterday was the knit-in, of course. And today is so thoroughly beautiful and almost-spring-like, we took a little trip to this farm, which has special events the next few Sundays because it's lambing season right now. Soooo many sheep. Soooo many lambs; they breed for likelihood of multiple births, and there were more sets of twins than singles, as well as several sets of triplets. Sooooo many little kids looking at the animals! They had rabbits, pigs, chickens, turkeys and baby chicks to see as well. Oddly enough, Daniel's favorite animal to watch was the Pekin Duck, who wasn't doing ANYTHING. He (she?) was just sitting in his (her?) cage, head tucked under wing, waiting for the commotion to stop.

Daniel did enjoy the sheep, though, and after much coaxing, he finally reached out to pet a little lamb.




When we got home, Daniel stayed out on the deck blowing bubbles...



...while I sat out there with him and took pictures of yarn.

I've told you, haven't I, that the change of seasons makes me want to knit socks? I started this yesterday at the knit-in. Plain ol' st st sock out of Plymouth Rockin' Sox. I like the feel of the yarn (love that bamboo content), but I don't love the colorway.



At the vendors' section of the farm today, I couldn't pass up the chance to buy something totally locally produced - 2 skeins of natural worsted weight yarn from sheep grown on the farm, and milled and spun in a small town southwest of here (Argyle). I might make these mittens out of it.



And another skein of locally produced yarn. This is pure mohair, grown, spun, and dyed on location. Gorgeous. I love how this mohair isn't totally hairy like most commercial mohair yarns out there. This skein has 200 yards, kind of a fine weight. I put it next to my neck and it didn't feel very scratchy, plus the woman who sold it to me said mohair gets softer as you wear it. I'm not sure what to make out of it...perhaps a little lacy scarf? Give me suggestions!



Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon, all in all.

Meg Swansen's dirty little secret

Today was the Madison Knitters' Guild knit-in, and what a grand day it was! To tell the truth, being around other knitters brings out all the shyness in me, which is one reason I've never joined the Guild or any other formal group. But I simply could not pass up the chance to meet Meg Swansen and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, plus my good friend C and I signed up for the same sessions, so I wasn't all alone.

Here are some highlights from my day:

1. Biking! Nice weather and limited parking inspired me to ride my bike instead of trying to catch a lift with someone. I haven't ridden it since our last warm spell in November, so I had to put air in the tires and search the basement for a proper lock. And I swear to you the 3.5 miles between my house and the retreat center is ALL UPHILL. When I got there I had jelly legs and a sore bum, but the exercise felt gooooood.

2. The Meg Swansen/Joyce Williams not-a-class. It was basically a Q&A session with lots and lots of knitted samples to look at and ooh and aah over. Swansen and Williams just co-wrote a book called Armenian Knitting using this incredible technique of creating large pictures without intarsia. I'm not sure if I would ever make a garment that way, but it was one of those times where just when you think you've seen it all, you realize you really, really haven't. They demonstrated some techniques, talked about design elements in their own sweaters, answered lots of questions, and were completely delightful. Meg Swansen was pretty tickled to hear that my 3yo son likes to watch knitting videos with me (I've been checking out her and EZ's instructional DVDs from the public library.)

3. You want to know Meg Swansen's dirty little secret? SHE DOESN'T SWATCH. Or at least, hardly ever. She's "just lucky" she says. Joyce Williams confessed the same. How liberating!

4. Udder cream. I won it as a door prize! Can you believe it? I really need this stuff because my hands are so dry and chapped they're starting to crack.


5. The vendors. Oh, the eye candy! There were booths after booths of beautifully hand-dyed hanks of sock yarn and lace yarn and roving and small-farm alpaca and handmade buttons...I understand that when people go to fiber festivals and such, they often make rules for themselves like "only sock yarn" or "no more than X number of skeins." I discovered quickly that the easiest way to make sure you don't overbuy is to ride your bicycle to said event. That way, you can't take home anything that won't fit in your bag. I figured there was no point in even entertaining the thought of buying commercial yarn I can get anywhere in Madison already, but there were exactly two skeins I couldn't resist:



This cheerful yellow sock yarn was under 20 bucks and I couldn't NOT bring it home. I don't have pattern in mind for it, but there are 450 yards, so I should have a lot of options.



This is probably the softest alpaca I've ever laid fingers on. I had a really hard time deciding which color to buy, since there were about 8 different natural colors ranging from black and charcoal to dark, medium and light brown to oatmeal and cream, all of them heathery and gorgeous. I thought about buying two skeins for color work, but decided that 600 yards in a single skein (!!) would be plenty for a hat and mittens with some sort of texture pattern like cables. No gauge is listed on the label, but I'm guessing it's sportweight. I think I'll make this a design project for myself; it'll be fun.

6. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. She was funny and engaging and interesting and inspiring as always. She told one hilarious story after another. She talked about how knitting is good for the mind (much as she did last year, but I liked hearing it again). She reminded us that what we do as knitters is important, significant. She signed my book: "To Susan: obsession is normal." I'm sure that's what she wrote in everyone's book, but it was like a personal validation.

I biked home to my family, who hadn't fallen to pieces in the six or so hours they'd been without me. Stu had even done the dishes! You know, I could have spent today making some money; the high school solo and ensemble competition is today and I got a lot of calls and emails asking me to accompany. And you know what? I'm glad I said no and went to the knit-in instead.

WIPs WIPs WIPs

I finish stuff! Really, I do!

In fact, I just finished a hat so fugly I'll never wear it, and I'm embarrassed to donate it. I don't want to take pictures of it, and I don't even want to frog it since spring is tantalizingly close and I'm out of steam to make hats (for the moment) so it'll hang out in the big basket of hats/scarves/mittens/gloves/biking stuff for a while.

And I just finished that purple sweater and it's really lovely and I've worn it twice this week already, but I don't have pictures yet, so you'll have to wait until this weekend to see it.

Speaking of this weekend, the Madison Knitters' Guild is having a knit-in featuring - are you sitting down? - both Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and Meg Swansen. I'm not a guild member, but fortunately, you don't have to belong to sign up, so I did. I'm excited to have several hours to do something for ME without dragging the kids along and I'm double-excited to meet these two women and (maybe) have them sign their books for me. I just hope I don't pee my pants from the excitement of it all. Or say something stupid.

Here's what I've been working on of late.
1. A blanket for Afghans for Afghans' spring drive. This is a community effort. I recruited at least half a dozen people to knit squares, and I've been really touched everyone's willingness to contribute and how quickly they got their squares done. Now I just have to sew the damn thing together. More details in the FO post.



2. Owls for Anya. It's a crying shame I haven't knit anything for my daughter since....(squinches eyes shut, thinks hard, delves deep into rusty memory of past year)...holy cow, was it last May? Poor thing's been wearing all of Daniel's hand-me-down sweaters to keep warm, which is just as well, since he is suddenly anti-sweater and won't wear them. Anya is too young to object to whatever clothes I put on her, and I have the perfect amount of chunky wool leftover from this project to make her a sweater. I think those cabled owls are so clever, and if I follow the stitch count for the smallest adult size with this gauge (4spi), I ought to come out with a sweater to fit a 2yo. Perfect for next fall, and I can roll up the sleeves for cooler days this spring. The chunky gauge means this thing is rolling along so fast I'm not bored with the st st, and the fun part is still to come!


3. Millefiori, from the latest Interweave Knits. I don't know what came over me, but I just thought it looked classy and perfect and I. wanted. it. So I bought some yarn on impulse - I know, I know like I couldn't have found some in the stash, but I didn't have a nice light green like I wanted and the Elsebeth Lavold Bambool was sooooooo soft and silky...I swatched. I washed the swatch and it streeeetched and I fretted and then it dried and the gauge mostly bounced back and I hemmed and hawed and even blogged about it. Then I finally just went with the needle size that felt right in the first place and cast on and I think it'll be fine.

By the way, believe everything they tell you about clam stitch being a total pain in the ass, because it is. It took me a couple tries and a trip to an LYS for Addi lace needles (love those pointy tips) in the right size to get it right. I think it's worth it, though, because it looks pretty dang cool.

slow progress

So I've got this purple cardigan that's been about 95% done for over a week. I had all the pieces soaked and drying on the futon when I noticed that the two fronts weren't the same length. I couldn't do anything to fix the problem until everything dried out, which took a good day and a half (wool, cables). This cardigan has been in progress, off and on, since November. I hadn't had a problem with the pattern, but I kept interrupting myself with other projects, so that's why it took so many months to knit the pieces, and by the time I saw there was a problem, it took a while to fix it. I ripped and reknit, stared at the pattern, then cursed a bit when I realized I had ripped out the piece done correctly, started another sweater, then finally came back to the wrong piece and fixed it in about an hour. Turns out the problem was in the raglan shaping (I'd missed a decrease), so it really wasn't so bad.

Here's where things stand now:


There is my sweater turned inside out draped over random toys and books on the futon with sheets that haven't been changed from my mom's visit even though she left weeks ago. I could have cleaned up and set up for a nice picture,
but this one is more honest, more true to my life: messy, sometimes inside out, and getting things accomplished a tiny little bit at a time while I deal with everything else ("everything else" being mostly kids and housework - and I obviously ignore both from time to time).

All it needs is a few more seams, a collar and buttons. Let's hope it doesn't take a whole 'nother week, eh?

Now, a couple gratuitous pix of my little girl. She still doesn't walk much, but she luuuuuurves to climb this mini-stepladder. So much so that I had to buy a second one because Daniel also loves the mini-stepladder and they couldn't stop fighting over it. And look at the book she pulled off the shelf: Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Things I Learned from Knitting! She may be a knitter yet.