The last knitters have gone, and Debbi and I are tidying up, paying the bills, having meetings – going to debriefings, and essentially weaving in the ends on our retreat. I’ll have a little more time tomorrow, as I make my way home, all the way from one side of the continent to another, but for today, a few snapshots. It was a lovely, lovely time.
I have a little policy. I don’t work on my birthday. I’ve had this deeply personal policy since I was about 14 – much to my Mother’s chagrin, because it meant that I skipped school that day. Just didn’t go. I did whatever I wanted to instead of science or history. I’ve explained this at job interviews, I’ve blown off tests – I don’t work on my birthday, and I felt strongly enough that I’ve prearranged that, and I haven’t. If it was optional on my birthday, I haven’t done it unless I wanted to.
This policy has brought me a lot of happiness. It’s not that I think that birthdays are all that, and I’ve never particularly wanted a screamingly huge party, or a thousand presents, or anything like that – but I do like the idea of a day where everyone (including you) are just happy you’re here, and everything goes your way, if it can. Your favourite breakfast, your favourite things to do, your favourite people around you. It’s my idea of lovely, and I’ve always arranged to have just that on my own Birthday – until today.
This year is the first time in all my 47 birthdays, that I am working on this day. I admit to trying to have a bit of a pout about it when it was first arranged, but it was me arranging it, so I couldn’t really get too bent. There was no other weekend that it was possible to have this retreat, and so I put on my grown-up pants (what the hell, I’m turning 47) and I did it. It’s just one day, I said. It doesn’t matter. (I was lying a little bit.)
Last night though, I was sitting with Judith and Debbi, and we were having a glass of wine after a beautiful day – I mean, a really beautiful day. I don’t know what’s going on with the retreat this time, but everyone here is so lovely, and the weather is perfect, and the vibe is fantastic, and I realized that if I thought about it right, this is almost exactly where I want to be.
Sure – would I rather be with my family, yes. I love them, and let me tell you, I’ve been waiting months to hear Luis sing me “Feliz Compleanos.” Joe would make (or arrange, to be more realistic) my favourite foods, I’d sit in the garden and knit – it would be a pretty spectacular day. This though – being here, and doing this work instead? It’s suddenly filled me with a pretty overwhelming and slightly mushy sense of gratitude.
Yeah, I’m going to work a 12 hour day on my birthday – but oh man. I’m so lucky that this is my work. I’ll be surrounded by people who have set aside a whole weekend to learn to make things, and celebrate being someone who makes things, and the whole day we’ll talk about knitting, and how it works and every person here, every one of them, thinks that’s not stupid. They’ll spin and weave and paint and stitch and knit and ….
It’s not what I would have chosen, and last night, I realized that was too bad. I’m glad I didn’t get to pick, because this IS a day I’ll spend doing so many of my favourite things after all, and I think it’s going to be an awesome day.
Make way for the makers, and Happy Birthday to me.
(PS. Thank you all for the good wishes. All I really want for my birthday is to spread the love around. If you’re so compelled, I’d love to make my goal for the bike rally. A donation would be a great gift. )
Dear Person who saw me this morning with my knitting in the airport, and said that thing.
I’d like to take a moment to apologize to you for the way I looked at you when you said what you did, like you were stunned as a bat. I know it was probably a moment of weaker reasoning on your part, but really, I’d like you to think through what the H-E-double hockey sticks came out of your mouth. You looked right at my knitting, waved an incredulous hand at it, and then you said “Did they let you through security with that?”
I know, I know. That’s the moment that I stared at you that way, and it really wasn’t super polite, but I was busy shoving down what I wanted to say to you, and it was really taking quite a lot of concentration to do it. Now that we’re not face to face though? Let’s unpack it.
Did they let me through security with that? Did they? Let’s think about that. You’ve asked a polar question. One with only two answers. Yes, and no, and since I am sitting there, with knitting needles, after security, we can presume, can we not, that the answer was affirmative? That yes, the ladies and gentlemen with the full body scanner, the X-rays, the trace detectors, the bomb dogs… the same people who made me take off my shoes and little cardigan, and then had me lift up my feet so they could check the soles of my feet and patted over the bodies of about a million people so far today, let’s assume that those people did not overlook my knitting. They made the guy in front of me take of his fitbit and then take another run through the body scanner, and they ripped up the bag of another lady in line because she had a tiny bottle of hand lotion in it that she’d forgotten, so yeah. Let’s assume these super vigilant people who are responsible for the safety of a whole lot of people didn’t just take a look at my knitting on the X-ray and think “What the hell. I just don’t care.” Let’s actually assume that they have a policy, which they do, and that they are careful, which they are, and that they allow knitting, which CLEARLY, since I re-iterate, I am past security and still have my knitting (which cannot be said of the hand lotion) they do, and it’s YES. I was allowed through security with THAT.
Furthermore, let’s discuss the other choice, shall we? The other possibility – the one that you seem to be leaning towards, with your arching eyebrow and judgmental tone, is that I have somehow run a very fancy scam on Airline security, and NO – I was not allowed past security with my knitting, but I have somehow managed to do it anyway.
What would that look like? Instead of coming through security just like everyone else in this airport, I had to come up with an extremely complicated plan. This morning, before I left home, I positioned the needles on my person and then when I passed through the x-ray machine I told them it was a steel plate I have from the war. When they looked suspicious and snapped their latex gloves, I ran. I bolted past the desk, deliberately abandoning my things in the search machine (having strategically removed all identifying materials ahead of time), and streaked through the airport, hiding briefly in a Starbucks to elude them. When I saw them pass, I used the door codes I’d stolen from a pilot I shagged last week to open the gates, and slunk through the back corridors of the airport, stepping in every puddle I could find to avoid leaving a scent for the tracking dogs. I backtracked, made only left turns, and briefly rappelled until I made it all the way back to my original gate where I used a counterfeit German passport to sneak through the locked door. Now, I’m sitting here, knitting, and celebrating the fact that, even though I have certainly secured myself at least fifteen years in federal prison, if not a violent shooting death any freakin’ minute – I have at long last met my goal of sneaking needles past security so that I can at long last knit in an airport and NO. THEY DID NOT LET ME PAST SECURITY WITH THAT.
Seriously. Now that you’re thinking, do you see my point?
Cheers, and sorry for the staring
Stephanie
1. My computer is fixed. Turned out to be something that was covered by an extended warranty, so even though my computer is geriatric (in a modern electronic sense, which is to say that these things apparently have a lifespan just slightly shorter than that of a of a healthy gerbil) it was free.
2. Our home internet pretty much stopped working reliably the day after that. Luckily, we’ve called the company and they’ve assured us that it actually is working, we just can’t tell.
3. The baby blanket is still boring, but I estimate I’m a good 5cm past the halfway part of the centre section. I didn’t take a picture. It looks pretty much the same.
4. I decided to block some stuff, because I’ve recently finished tons of things (well – three) and didn’t blog them at all – so I set up blocking stuff in the dining room, and went to power though it all.
5. First up was this Phi for You. I finished it – I don’t know when – early April I think. Ever since then it’s been sitting on my dresser upstairs for weeks waiting for me to have the chance to block it. It’s a fun little pattern (I’m not a member of Laura’s M Club, but since I made the introductions to CaterpillarGreen yarns for her – she was good enough to send me a kit. I think that was very nice) but I wanted to block it with flexible wires to make the edge really swoopy, so I knew it would be fiddly and I kept waiting.
6. The other morning I took the time to soak it, and then squeezed the water out, and then stood there for about 40 minutes threading wire through every, single, stitch, on the edge of the shawl. With that done, I could put one pin into every element of the edge, and have it be wavy rather than pointy. (Because someone will ask, my flexible blocking wires are from Inspinknity, and are this set.)
7. I pinned out the wire around the neck first, then with that secured, I spread the shawl gently with my hands, and started pinning. One at the centre, one at each end.
One at the 1/4 way mark, 1 at 3/4, then back and forth, pinning them on each side until suddenly, as I hooked the wire with a pin and pulled towards me, the knitting burst.
That’s the only way I can describe it – I was pulling, and there was resistance, and then something gave, and a giant hole appeared, and my heart skipped four beats, and I looked down, and saw what can only be described as a blowout.
8. I stabbed some pins in to hold the two stitches that were bounding away. (Since the piece is under tension, they really wanted to keep going.) It looks to me like at some point I dropped a stitch, while missing knitting a yarnover. I don’t really understand what happened since there’s no broken thread- but later today I’ll do a little repair job, and I bet it will be clear then. (I’ll take pictures.) The whole thing is going to be lovely when I get it fixed.
9. I really wish I still had some of that yarn.
10. I’m sure there is another answer.
11. Karmic Balancing gifts? Let’s do some. A few notes to the generous souls who’ve sent me emails about gifts – there are a lot of you. I’m working my way from the bottom to the top in roughly chronological order. I’ll email you the day I’m going to give your gift away (or sometimes the day before) and let you know it’s the time. If you haven’t heard from me, it just means that I’m not at your spot in the list yet. Don’t panic early, I’m working on it!
12. A thousand thanks to those of you who have helped with this years mission. If you missed it, you can read this post to see what’s happening, but the basic upshot is this: Jen, Ken, Pato and I are riding our bikes from Toronto to Montreal (that’s about 660km – or 410 miles if that’s how you measure) in the Friends for Life Bike Rally, which is the sustaining fundraiser for the the People With Aids Foundation. There’s lots of ways to help, and we really, really appreciate it. You can make a donation to one of us here:
We’re “Team Knit”. Or that’s what we call ourselves in the text message group we have set up to keep ourselves organized.
We’re all knitters, and we understand that many small things can add up to a magnificent thing, so don’t worry about the size of your gift – it’s making it that counts. If you don’t happen to have money but you would still like to help – there’s other things you can do to make a difference. You can tell your family and friends who do have money, and send them the links. You can post the link that explains all this on social media, and help spread the word… there’s many things. Any thing you can do makes us grateful, and no matter how you help, make sure and send an email to me at stephanieATyarnharlotDOTca (replacing the words with the obvious things) with the subject line “I helped”. (That makes it go in the right folder.) That way, when I choose names for the gifts, you’ll be in there. One good deed deserves another. Time for gifts!
Jane has two beautiful gifts. First, two very pretty skeins of Fleece Artist Woolie Silk 3-ply in Walnut will be going to live with Rosalyn F.
Then Alicia R will have two skeins of Natural Dye Studio Scheherezade 4-ply in Exford, (65% silk/35% camel, fingering weight, 437 yards per skein) arrive straight to her door.
Nicole has decided she can part with not just one, but two sweater quantities of yarn. (Isn’t she lovely?) This tremendously awesome set of 8 skeins of Berroco Flicker will be on it’s merry way to Sharon L
And these seventeen (that’s right) skeins of Dale of Norway Heilo sport weight are on their way to Terri P.
Wendy did a little tidying, and she has two gifts off to greener pastures. These two skeins of Lambs pride in Onyx are for Azar M
and these two 3-oz. skeins of Lion Brand Nature’s Choice Organic Cotton; one skein Strawberry, one skein Almond are off to Wendy P.
Psuke has generously obtained Indigodragonfly’s permission to donate her April 2015 SAK Club skein to the cause. Not only that, but Indigodragonfly will also donate the associated patterns to the winner who is the very lovely Rachel M.
Rosemary, all the way across the pond from me, has a skein of Handarbeitskram sock yarn for Lacey R. (I have no idea how to pronounce the name of that yarn, but it’s very pretty!)
Jill has a very beautiful skein of Yarntini yarn (complete with a very cute cocoa mug stitch marker, and she’ll pop that straight in the mail to Stephanie W.
Last, but certainly not least: Longtime friend of the show, and all round good egg, Melanie, over at Black Trillium Fibres has three great presents.
She’s decided that it’s possible for three knitters to receive a Lilt Sock Gradient, in the colourway of the lucky knitter’s choice. Elizabeth A, Megan T and Sherry B will all feel great today.
That’s it! I have pizza dough to make because tonight me and the smaller of my nephews are going to take a stab at “firetruck pizza.” In the past we’ve done tractor shaped pizza, but the winds of change are upon us, and it’s all firetrucks, all the time. How hard can it be? (Said his auntie, hopefully.)
If this works, then I’ll be able to show you this picture of my current working set up, which is me, a wireless keyboard, and my ipad.
If this works, then I’ll be able to tell you that yesterday morning, my laptop suffered what appears to be a fatal seizure, and is now in having the better part of its guts replaced, which is no less than it deserves. (I know, I know. I shouldn’t be angry with it. At least it gave me warning that it was unhappy, at least it told me that it had problems. At least I had a chance to back everything up, meaning that this is really just inconvenient, not a terrible loss that I can’t recover from, and I know I saw this coming and had time to make my peace and say my goodbyes, and that’s something.)
If this works, then I’ll be able to tell you that I’ve got my knitting right there beside me, and everytime that I discover some other vital part of what I use a computer for, that the ipad can’t do, I knit a half row to take the edge off of my impotent rage. (I tried to hook a wireless mouse up to the ipad for about 20 minutes yesterday until I realized that of course you can’t do it. The thing has no courser to control. It’s a touch screen. I can’t believe I tried for so long. I only look smart some days. It’s the glasses.)
If this works, then I will also be able to tell you that I freakin’ snapped last night, and knit several centimetres of a sock that is not a white baby blanket, because, well – it’s all too much. I’m not sorry I fell off the wagon either.
If this works, I’ll also be able to tell you that if any pictures show up, I have no idea what size they might be – but I’ve already lost 40 minutes of my life trying to figure that the *&^%$# out, and I have my limits.
Of course, if this doesn’t work, I’m going to go get a beer out of the fridge, and sip it while I smash the ipad into a million pieces, with a nice round rock from the garden, and I doubt I’ll be sorry about that either.
I’m hitting publish. We’ll just see if this works.
Look at that.
I know, I know, it doesn’t look like much. As a matter of fact it probably looks a lot like the last time you saw this blanket, but trust me, it’s finally a lot bigger. Two whole repeats bigger – and that’s a ton. I think I’ll need about 12 repeats – but I’m not sure. When I get closer to what I think is done, I’ll slip the whole thing onto a long circular and block it, and make my decision then. I’m hoping something amazing will happen, like it will grow vertically far more than it does widthwise, but my swatch tells me that I’m dreaming. Still, wouldn’t it be lovely if just this one time, a swatch lied to me in a way that was helpful and supportive? It could happen. (Note to newer knitters: No it can’t. Swatches are necessary and helpful to a point, but they have a malicious nature that can’t be denied. They have shallow, petty lives, probably as a result of being denied the privilege and honour of becoming real objects, rather than devices. It twists their hearts. Don’t turn your back on them for a minute. They can turn on you in a heartbeat, and the next thing you know you have a seven metre baby blanket or a sweater with arms that drag on the ground. Knit them, use them, but do not ever, ever trust them to the exclusion of your own wits.)
Shall I distract you from the emotional abyss of acres of plain white knitting with a few Karmic Balancing Gifts? Karen has a lovely thing, five copies of her Christmas stocking collection Trinité de Noël. (Karen sweetly notes that if you don’t do Christmas, she has other patterns you could sub.)
She’ll be in touch with Ulrike B, Dana H, Duffy S, Kerry D and Sara O.
Sarah says: I have a lovely skein of handspun, spun from a batt containing merino, cashmere, tussah silk, alpaca, mohair, firestar, and who knows what else. It looks to be about worsted weight and roughly 170 yards.
It is beautiful, and Cathy C will be enjoying it soon. (Beautiful spinning Sarah.)
Margaret at Little Gidding Suri’s has two beautiful skeins of their Suri Ultimate for a present.
Kay H should be able to make something amazing.
Marit is willing to part with a beauty, it’s this yarn, in a gorgeous colourway called “field of dreams”. (How perfect.) She’ll be sending that to a new home with Shell F, who I bet will make it very welcome amongst its new friends.
Bonnie is really giving until it hurts – Seven skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca – a sweater’s worth! Color #6279, all the same dye lot.
Alisson G is going to be so thrilled, I’m sure.
Rachel has three gifts to give away today. (Can you believe how nice everyone is? It’s killing me.) First up, this skein of Gypsyknits BFL Superwash Fingering (Colorway: Storybook) will be going to Leslie F.
Then TWO skeins of Berroco Lustra will be re-homed to Jeannie P.
Finally, last but never least, she’s sending a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Yarn Possum Sock (Colorway: Palm Beach) out to Julia C.
Let’s do one more, I like this one a lot. A few years ago, Sunshine received this yarn as a Karmic Balancing gift, and she’s been guarding it carefully until her knitting needed some good mojo. Today’s that day, and she’s sending it back out into the world to find its forever home.
Three skeins of tilli tomas’s Beaded Plie in Olive. 100% silk with glass beads. It’s lovely stuff, and I hope that Jill P will make something so beautiful.
I’ve emailed all the lucky knitters, so if you think your name is here, look in your inbox!
A little and a lot sums up my weekend – and the week previous, really. A little knitting, and a LOT of Bike Rally. Being on the Steering Committee really is more time than just being a rider, or a Team Leader – although that took lots of time last year, and I was already working pretty hard this year, when last week, through a series of events, I became a Team Leader as well. Ken has graciously agreed to be my Co-lead, so I know it will be as fun and easy as it can be. The same combination of events that led to me becoming a Leader again also culminated in a rather epic weekend. One where I swept two rides, back to back, in the rain. The first one was Saturday, and while the early half of the 94km ride was beautiful, if as hot as Satan’s armpit, the afternoon was epic. The skies opened, and it rained, and rained, and rained in huge thunderstorms, and twice we pulled off the road to cower in transit shelters, waiting for the storm to lighten enough that it was safe to ride. The roads flooded, my shoes squished, and every time I sat myself down on the bike seat, the rainwater soaking the padded parts of my shorts was squished out and ran down my legs. It was disgusting, and fierce and I can’t tell you how long it took. Forever. Joe came and picked me up at the end and I shivered all the way home, sitting on a grocery bag in the car so that I wouldn’t soak the seats. (That didn’t work.)
I took that picture in the car. Those socks were white when I started.
When I got home, I had a much needed bath, leaving a startling amount of road grit and dirt in the tub behind me, and pulled together a family dinner for my lovely daughter Amanda, who turned twenty-six this weekend. Then I think I knit a single row on the blanket, and fell asleep on the chesterfield, sitting up, needles in hand.
Sunday morning dawned very rainy and cold, and at 5:30 am I got a text from my other half on the Steering Committee, and the two of us went back and forth about whether or not we should cancel the ride. Was it too cold? (A high of 8 degrees.) Was it too rainy? (100% chance of light rain all day.) In the end, we decided to do it, and both drove over to make the magic happen. We were the lucky ones yesterday – we were sweeping in a car. Every long training ride has four sweeps. Two on bikes that bring up the rear so nobody gets left behind, and two in a car who answer the emergency number, help riders make tricky turns, keep everyone on track and help with flat tires, or riders who can’t continue.
That was David and I yesterday – and as wet and cold as we were for the day, the riders were so much worse off. David and I decided that the best thing we could do was make it as easy for them as possible. It was too cold and rainy for them to really work from their maps, so we’d drive ahead, and I’d leap from the car, and go stand in the road to signal all their turns. (Wet and cold are bad enough. Wet, cold and lost would be so much worse.) It was surreal to see how dedicated they were. Just surreal. One of the hardest rides I’d ever seen, and they all just put their heads down and did it.
My knitting was in the car with me, but I didn’t knit a stitch all day – I was in and out of the car, reading maps, trying to locate them, or running alongside the cyclists shouting their next direction to them. By the end of the day I was exhausted and cold – but not nearly as exhausted and cold as the riders, and I had completely run out of ways to tell them how impressed I was with their crazy moxie. Last night was a repeat of the previous evening. A hot bath, and then I fell asleep with knitting in hand, unknit.
Today I’m catching up. I had a big sleep last night, I’m spending the day at my desk to deal with everything that didn’t get done while I was getting rained on, and tonight, if I can stay awake, I’m knitting the everloving daylights out of that blanket.
See you tomorrow – I hope you can understand the delay on the Karmic Balancing gifts – I’m so tired. I’ll get to them tomorrow. Thank goodness all this is worth it.
This week is going to be a little fancy. I see that now. We have family friends in from out of town, and Mum and I will be giving them a little tour of the best of Toronto (sadly, I think they have little interest in yarn shops) and my sister is going out of town for a few days so Hank is coming to stay with us, and I’m going on three training rides this week, and I have two Bike rally meetings in the evenings and… it’s going to be fine, because I am going to get a spreadsheet and an itinerary, and I am going to make magic happen. (Likely I’m also going to finally manage to warp the time space continuum, but it was only a matter of time.)
To that end, I got up very early so that I could do my work and this blog before heading out for the day, and I am now in a position to give you the first official blanket report.
Lo. It is begun. This blanket begins with the centre, and when it’s all knit, I’ll pick up all around it, and knit the border, and then the edge. You’ll see how it works as we go along. That blue down there at the bottom is the provisional cast on. I’ll unzip that later to reveal live stitches, so that both ends have the same amount of stretch. (I suppose the other way I could get them to match would be to cast on at the bottom, then cast off at the top, and then pick-up stitches all around, but then they wouldn’t be the same as the sides. This is better, I think.) I’ve got a decent chunk of the thing done, just under one balls worth – but Joe was out of town, and I had a big chunk of time. Expect progress to slow to glacial pace this week. I have to follow the chart still – though I won’t soon, I can tell that I’m starting to memorize it, but until that happens, this isn’t going to go as quickly. Once I have the pattern in my head, then I can pick it up and do a little here, and a little there, and it will be much faster. (Said she, nervously looking at the date.)
Shall we do Gifts? Absolutely. I’ve got an inbox full, and don’t want to fall behind – I’m going to do as many as I can before I go out the door. If you don’t know what I’m on about here, read this post, and consider helping Me, Jen, Ken or Pato. Anybody who helps can email me at stephanieATyarnharlotDOTca, with the subject line “I helped” and be on the list for gifts from other knitters. (Don’t forget your name and address. It’s helpful.) We’ll do our best to earn it.
Onward! The first four gifts today come from Deborah F, longtime friend of the blog, and she’s got some beautiful sock yarn to send on to new adventures. First this lovely skein of Pansy, in the colourway Bingo, from Indieway will be going to live with Laura B.
Next up she has a very, very pretty skein of Sunshine Yarns, Ardennes and that’s on its way to Shanna H.
Ah, an old favourite – Two skeins of Koigu KPPPM: PS0465 (I love their romantic colourway names) will be going to live with PJ J.
Finally, I hope Clara B loves self striping sock yarns as much as I do, because this skein of String Theory Continuum in “Exoplanet” will be arriving in her mailbox soon.
Next, a beautiful shawl kit from Stephanie at Dirty Water Dyeworks. This is her Brush Creek Shawl Kit,
and Kendra M will be choosing her favourite colourway. (I love this one.)
Laura, over at The Stashbuckler has a beautiful skein of handspun to give way.
It’s 346 yards of a lovely sport weight, and I hope that Katherine T is so happy when she finds out it’s coming to her stash.
Maybe a few patterns would be nice? Wendy O, Lauren P and Lilac will all be choosing their favourite sock pattern from Kino Knits. She has the lovely Simple Cables,
and the gorgeous Four Points Socks. Enjoy, knitters!
Jocelyn at Decor Noir has a wonderful gift, one of her amazing knitting T-shirts, either Knit for Brains,
Or Knit your heart out will be going to Nancy P in the size of their choice.
Whew! That’s ten gifts, and more than I thought I would get done today, and fewer than I’ll do on Friday. I’ve emailed all the recipients, so if you think your name is here, look in your inbox. Thanks for all your support Knitters. I think you’re great.
(PS. If you sent me an email about giving a gift, and you made the subject line “Karmic Balancing” then I got it. I’ll work my way through, roughly in the order they were sent, and I’ll email you the day before, or the day of when I’ll put it on the blog. It may be a few weeks, so don’t panic early – and thank you.)
On Thursday, I was on my computer, when suddenly, my computer went black. Just died. The power light still glowed dimly, but other than that meagre sign of life, there was nothing. I shut it off, I tried to start it again – nothing happened. Nothing at all – so I did what I always do when something like this breaks. I called Joe. Joe had left just minutes before to go to the airport – he was going away for the weekend, and I don’t know how technology knows he’s left the building, but nothing ever stops working when he’s right here. He got me to try a few things (Is it plugged in?) and then told me to unplug the power, let the battery die, and then try again in the morning.
I did that – along with googling the symptoms, all of which pointed to a very bad thing. Failed hard drive – most likely. I was pretty upset. Mostly about how I’d be without a computer for a few days -but at least I didn’t have to panic completely. I have a backup. Even if the computer was bricked (as in, turned into a brick, rather than a computer) at least I have all my information still. Several years ago, I lost everything. My laptop did pretty much what it did Thursday night and that was it. I was a lot less savvy then, and Joe and Ken (my resident tech department) had grossly underestimated my skills. I think one of them had asked me if I was doing backups, and I’d thought about that – recalling that we’d put extra memory in the computer, and said yes. Big mistake. Turns out that memory in a computer has a really, really stupid name. It doesn’t remember anything. (I also had a really loose idea of how a server serves you.) Joe and Ken just stared at me while I explained that it couldn’t be all gone – it would be in the memory – right?
Lesson learned. Now I’ve got some crazy thing that the two of them came up with to protect me from myself, and my laptop backs itself up to some other thingie a few times a day, as long as I’m home and plugged in. The worst part about a dead computer now is the money, and the inconvenience of not being able to work, which is totally ironic, since not working means no money and … you get it. I poured myself a glass of wine, and walked away. It felt really mature. I swatched instead.
This here is my first attempt – and last attempt. I’m not happy with it, but I know why, so I made my changes, and started the blanket. You can see down at the bottom, where there’s garter lace? That’s the stitch pattern as written – a classic called “Madeira and diamond” and it only took, what’s that… 10 rows? to see that I wasn’t loving the garter stitch thing. I thought it was what I wanted, but the yarn is too heavy to really make it elegant, so I swapped out the knitted rest rows for purled ones, and bingo. I like the stockinette version a lot better. (There’s also a little intermittent “rowing out” that seems to be happening because my yarnovers were too relaxed on the needle I was using. I’ve corrected it by using a smoother needle.) The other problem is the gauge. I knit this one on a 4mm needle, and it’s too loose. The fabric looks good, but when I pick it up and give it a tug and a stretch, it opens up too much. It’s unstable.
(You can see here that for the purposes of the photo, I’m holding down one edge of it with my foot, so I can take the picture with my other hand. I swear I don’t usually manage things this way.)
A really good hint for when this might be happening is when you can stick your finger though the solid part of the fabric. Almost always a bad sign for something that you want to hold its shape. (This goes for everything you want to have structure, especially garments. If you can put your finger through a fabric, then you’re probably going to have a sweater that stretches badly out of shape, and soonish.)
When this blanket is done, it will be fairly heavy – and the fabric needs enough integrity to be able to hold up to that, so down to a 3.5mm needle I went. This idea, that fabric doesn’t just have to look good, it has to hold together well? It’s a really, really good reason to swatch. I did my math after that, and I’m off to the races on the blanket.
My computer did start working again after I *let the battery go dead, and then plugged it in and restarted it, and then it died again, and then it started after I repeated from * throughout the weekend. Yesterday I reset some thingie, and I’ve been up and running since then. Still, I think it’s time for this laptop and I to begin saying our goodbye’s. This feels like a terminal illness, although the treatment seems to be working for now.
Sorry to have missed Karmic Balancing Gifts on Friday, I’ll catch up tomorrow – assuming the computer doesn’t have a relapse.
Well, there had to be something to sparkle up the knitting of a great big white thing, and here we are, right out of the gate with the first glitch. I wound the first skein of the yarn, and something was bothering me. The yarn looked… different. Not the yarn itself, that looks the same, but I’ve just finished knitting that layette out of this same stuff, and it looked to me like a different colour.
Now, the yarn I’m using is The Loopy Ewe Solid Series in the artfully named colour “White”. (It isn’t really. It’s more like a cream. I like it.) It doesn’t have a lot number, so there’s no way I screwed up that part, but when I put the new yarn beside the old yarn?
I’ve got them alternating here, old and new, and I think even with a computer monitor between us, you can see it’s not the same. It’s totally not the same. I showed it to Joe last night and usually when I engage him in knitting stuff, he does his best, but can’t see what I’m talking about. He’s good at the math stuff, but questions like “Is this lace too open?” or “Do you think this increase looks funny?” are usually met with this particular look. He does his best to answer, because I love knitting and he loves me, and pretending to care about the process of knitting is a smart deposit in the love bank for him, but right before he answers, there’s this flicker of fear that crosses his face. Not real fear, not like, how I feel about spiders or anything, just that briefest moment of alarm that we all feel when we find out there’s a test, and realize there’s no way you’re going to pass. Usually right after that he searches my face to try and figure out what I think, and then says that.
So, last night I show him two skeins of yarn, and I say “Do these look the same to you?” and Joe glances at them, and then says “Hell no. Are they supposed to?” I mumbled something foul, and he asked “Do you have a knitting problem now?” and I mumbled something foul again. Yes, indeed, I have a knitting problem now. Since there are no lot numbers, the problem is time. I bought the other skeins over a year ago. More like two years ago, and there’s no reason to expect that the yarn I buy now will be just the same. I was hoping though, that it would be closer than this. I was hoping the inevitable difference would be tiny, and I could cover it by using the different lots for different sections. You know- knit the middle and border out of one, and then knit the edge out of the other, something that would disguise the slight difference.
(You see it, right? Tell me you see it.)
This difference though is more than slight though, it’s obvious, even to a non-knitter who’d only pretending to care, and I think it would be too obvious for that kind of fix. That leaves me with two choices. I have eight skeins of the original, and I could just right now decide that come hell or high water, that blanket won’t take more than eight skeins. That’s about how much yarn I used for Lou’s blanket. It could be done. it would be risky, but it could be done. There’s be no way to get more if I ran out – and I don’t know if I want to play that particular game of chicken again. The other choice is to haul off and order more of the new white – and really, it turns out that I like the new white better than the old white – so that’s what I’m going to do.
This decision has its own set of risks. I can’t wait for the yarn to get here before I start knitting. The Loopy Ewe is great about shipping, but they can’t magic away the border, so it’s going to take a little bit. I’ll start knitting now with the four skeins I have, and when the new ones arrive, they just have to match. They simply have to. There’s no reason to think that they won’t – there’s only about a week between orders, and really, there is no dye lot. It should work. It should. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to figure something else out.*
So, that’s where I am. Getting ready to knit my swatch, waiting for my order to ship, and feeling a little sweaty about my knitting. Pretty much a regular Thursday.
*I’m thinking that by then, a chunky lap rug is going to make more sense than a lace blanket.