This weekend I went on a crochet bender. (I also went on the first of many, many training rides, and it was so cold, windy and difficult that today my arse would like to write a blog post all its own about the indignities I put it through, but I have denied it the privilege.) This scarf I’m working on has you knit in waste yarn into several openings (by several, let’s be clear. It’s freaking 58)  and then when the knitting is done, you take out the waste yarn, revealing an opening, with stitches above and below, which you then crochet around with a contrast yarn to secure the live stitches and decorate the edges. I worked on it forever.

I had one big problem. I don’t like crocheting.*  It makes me crazy.** I have trouble remembering which terms from which country apply, despite practice I’m simply clumsy with the hook, and I experience wild and varied problems with tension.  For me, crocheting*** is like making artichokes. It’s a ton of fiddly, tricky work**** and usually when I’m done I get something I’m not crazy about anyway.***** Maybe I was indoctrinated in knitting at too young an age, maybe I’m doomed, but I can say this: every once in a while, something comes along that makes crochet worth it for me, and this scarf is one of those things, and here I am.

Each one of these openings takes me about 13.5 minutes, if I want it to look nice – and that’s only now that I’m up to speed.******* (This does not include time taken to get another coffee or change into my flannel jammies just in case either of those things helped.) Crochet and I are so at odds with each other****** that to make it come out right, there’s swearing, and fiddling, and I’ve done at least five of those completely over again, and I had to use Lucy’s super clear chart of where the hell the holes are that you put the hook in the whole time, if I had any hopes of all the openings looking the same. (That’s a thing about crochet that I find really hard. Knitting? You put your needle in the next stitch. Crochet? THAT HOOK CAN GO IN ANYWHERE. Choose wisely, young Jedi.)

I’ve got one end of the scarf done, and that’s 29 openings, and it looks fantastic, and that my friends, represents just about seven hours of work. Last night I snapped and knit a little garter stitch just to remind myself that there are parts of the textile arts that I don’t suck at. It’s breaking me a little, this crochet, and knowing I’m only half done…  but still…

Doesn’t it look pretty?

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*Note what I said. “Crocheting” as in “the act of accomplishing crochet.”  Now note that I didn’t say “crocheters” or “things that are made of crochet.” I know we’ve been down this road before, but there’s a big difference there.

** Note: IT. Not you, if you like crochet.

***See *

****For me. I understand that lots of people, particularly actual crocheters, instead of occasional wannabees with strong knitterly tendencies do just fine and think that it’s knitting that’s fiddly and tricky. Both positions are permissible, depending on perspective and skill. Right?

***** This is like the way that some people don’t like carrots or wool,  you’re totally allowed to dislike things without having a moral judgment made about you. It’s not like you can tell someone walks in the heart of darkness because they think spinach is gross.

****** Me and crochet, not me and crocheters. Some of my best friends are hook adept.

*******I want to know how long it takes Lucy to do one. Or any competently bi-craftual person, actually.

I swear that I thought this one was going to go south on me. I swear it.  I was knitting and knitting and going faster and faster, and I kept thinking about how embarrassing it would be for both Lucy and I if this didn’t work.  Two knitters, with at least 80 knitting years of experience between them, fairly clever minds (at least Lucy’s is stellar) and despite all that, and doing a bit of math, and the purchase of an insurance skein, and the fact that one of them is the designer of the project, and we screw up yardage? It would have been entertaining for you, but a dismal performance for us.

I should have had more faith. I had 3 skeins, 83 metres each, and that’s a total of 249 metres. Resting there, upon the scarf, see that little butterfly? It contains SIX METRES.  I measured. I got away with only six to spare, and I can tell you that that wee bit there is a smidge sweaty. The last few rows were squeakers.   Holy cats.

All that remains now is my nemesis – crochet. We have an uneasy relationship, the hook and I.  At least I have lots of yarn for that part.*

*I would not say that if I were not totally sure. I know a booby trap when I see one.

I was going to have a lovely post today about how I knit and knit and I know how things are with the scarf because it’s totally finished, but these things happened

1. Joe, completely and totally out of the blue, decided we should have company to dinner tonight, which is a wonderful idea and one I can fully support (especially since he’s committed to at least half of the cooking) despite the fact that you can’t cook and knit at the same time, which is a real bummer and probably the reason takeaway exists at all.

2. The sun came out – briefly.  I’ve been trying to get out for a ride for days and days now, but it’s been rainy and gross and cold and I don’t know if I’m cowardly or smart, but I don’t ride when it’s lousy like that.

3. The problem starts to be when it’s lousy all the time. Did I tell you that Jen and I decided, after we didn’t die on the Bike Rally, that we would increase our commitment? Have I mentioned (I don’t think I have, because I can barely believe it myself) that we decided to be Team Leaders? We have our very own team of 22 riders this year, and all the responsibilities that go with it.

4. I don’t know about you, but I think that Team “Leads” shouldn’t be trailing behind, and Jen and I are still middle-aged-slightly-dumpy-mothers, and there’s no way that we can just get out there and do this thing without some really, really significant training. and the weather has been so bad that I’m starting to hyperventilate when I look at the date.

5. Which means that when the sun came out today, I ran to my bedroom and stuffed myself into my (incredibly discouraging) spandex, and hit the road.  I got a quickie done, and that’s probably going to keep the panic at bay for another 24 hours.

6. I can’t believe that as a species, we’re thinking about a trip to Mars, but there’s no way to knit while you drive a bike.

7. In case you’re wondering, I sure am hoping to do Karmic Balancing gifts on the blog this year. I’m riding, Jen’s riding, Ken’s riding, Pato’s riding and (be still my little heart) Amanda, Megan and Sam are all riding.  That’s a super high number of knitters on a team. A record.  We’re so proud of making this a family affair this year.  Details next week.

This post was going to be all about the hat I started last night and how much fun it is, and how well it’s going, but then it stopped being fun for one tiny little second and I switched gears faster than a sixteen year old can wreck the mood at dinner.  I put down the hat, picked up a scarf and I haven’t been able to put it down.

It’s the Emperor’s New Scarf, and the construction is fun and clever and easy (so far, there’s a bit of crochet at the end that I’m a little worried about. I’m not really bi-craftual) and from the minute I picked it up, I’ve been obsessed. Completely obsessed.  The yarn I’m using is Elsebeth Lavold Angora, and it’s totally discontinued, and Lucy and I stood there in StevenBe and absolutely agreed that three skeins would be enough and you’d think between the two of us we’d know that there’s a sub-rule of discontinued yarns that says that if only three skeins are available, three skeins will never be enough no matter what maths you do, and well…

Maybe it will be. Maybe.  I’ve got a bad feeling, and you know what you should do when you’re worried you don’t have enough yarn? Knit faster – like it’s possible to outrun the yardage, and that’s what I’m doing.  Maybe I can squeak a little more out of it if it all happens so fast the yarn doesn’t see it coming.

(PS. This is a rookie mistake. What can I tell you.  I was tired.)

I’m home, which if you had lived my yesterday, you would find as amazing as I do.  I left Minneapolis yesterday at 3:30pm, and through an absolutely farcical chain of airline events, got me home so late last night that it was this morning at 3am when I sat down on my own chesterfield. I slept late, as one does, if you arrive home in what is perilously close to the time you usually get up, and today I’m predictably having trouble gathering steam. I had a wonderful time at Yarnover, and at StevenBe’s FiberFest – and very unpredictably for a woman with a brand new camera, I took so few pictures that it would boggle the mind.  I have a few of the market at Yarnover – which was a huge and wondrous spread,

and I thought I had one of the shop at StevenBe, which is likewise nothing more than a great room of temptation. but it turns out that I just have a picture of Jeremy (Chief in charge of order at the store) looking at me suspiciously, which may pretty much sum up our relationship.

I also have this one, which records the moment that I was so captivated with Lucy Neatby’s new E-book, A Little book of BIG holes for Hand Knitters, that I took all leave of my senses and let her pick me not just two projects, but the yarn for them.

She was, despite the obviously disparate state of our tastes, astute in the extreme when she picked them.  I’m thrilled. So thrilled in fact, that between the charm of new yarn and the exhaustion of travelling that way, I’ve spent the better part of a day winding new yarn and trying to resist the urge to cast on two new things. I expect my fortitude to fail shortly. The last picture is one I snapped last night at heaven knows what time, as I sprinted down the rainbow hall thingie at O’Hare, trying to make a flight for home.

More tomorrow, when I’ve rested, slept and thrown all my current projects on a fire in favour of new and amazing things. They don’t call me Harlot for nothing.

I’m almost packed, I just have to add my knitting to the suitcase and then I’m off to the airport.   I’ll get to Minneapolis just in time for the opening of Yarnover, and I’m really looking forward to it.  I really like the work I do, teaching and being with knitters, but these larger events have a little icing on the cake – a chance to see (however briefly) other teachers I only run into once or twice a year. This many years in the field and the other teachers start to be your friends, and events start to be tiny reunions.  There’s not much time to see each other when you’re working, but still.  I’m so looking forward to it. My one wish for things like this is that each teaching day came with four evenings so that I could see everyone I want to, and sit with them, and hear what they’re working on… all those knitter minds.

Lined up on the chesterfield is the knitting.  I think I’m finally learning not to take way, way too much.  (Because someone will ask, the first bag is from YoYoGo, The second’s my Splityarn bike bag, and the third is a Tom Bihn yarn stuff sack. The cat hair is courtesy of Millie. It was a gift.) After years of practice, I think I’ve finally got it down to a silly amount of knitting rather than a laughable quantity.  If I were going to be home, any one of these projects would do me, but once I’m on the road? Away from the stash? Any less than this and I start getting insecure. (What if I have a layover? What if my plane is cancelled? What if I suddenly knit faster than I ever have before and I run out?)  I like to have an assortment.

I’m taking the Sweet Dreams adaptation I’m working on, but it’s beaded, and despite Denise at Lost City Knits sending me this video that really would make beading on a plane a little more possible, I’m just not feeling it.  (By the way, I went out and bought the crazy dental floss thingies she’s using there – I didn’t even know they existed, and the minute I’d bought it I found my crochet hook down the side of the couch. Amazing.)  This will be my “alone in my hotel room and not moving” knitting.

I’m also taking the Color Affection that I have been working on ignoring for more than a year. I picked this up again a few weeks ago – and I swear it’s going down. I can’t handle it kicking around for any longer at all. It seems stupid to finish it just in time for summer, but whatever. If I put it down again I know I’m never picking it up. This knitting’s no good for when I have limited space – like on an airplane. There’s three balls of yarn and they’re forever needing to be unsorted, and that’s the kind of yarn game that ends with me annoying the passenger next to me. I try to be a better missionary for knitting than that.

To fill in the gaps, I’ve got a new sock on the go, although there’s no guarantee it’s going to make the cut.

It’s Skeined Alive 80/merino 10/cashmere, 10/nylon – in a fabulous colour called Vermiculture. I feel great about the yarn, but the pattern I picked is Anne Hanson’s Sign of Four, and I think the stitch pattern might be totally lost. I’m not feeling it at the moment, but it could start coming together in another repeat or two. We’ll have to see how it feels.

That’s it. That’s all I’m taking, although the pangs keep coming.  The urge to tuck a little skein of sock yarn into a pocket, perhaps just a little ball of laceweight as backup… Never mind of course that I’m going to a knitting convention and to a great yarn store… and that if I need more yarn I shall be awash with it in about four hours… No no.  What if, what if…

Maybe I’ll just put in one more thing.  It can’t hurt.

(PS. I’ll be at StevenBe on Sunday afternoon,  if you wanted to stop by and say Hi.  I’m teaching until 1, and then I’ll be around for a few hours until the next class.  Give them a call and reserve a book if you need one, and I’ll see you there.)

1. My internet keeps going on and off, probably because my neighbours are still renovating. At least I hope that’s what’s happening.  I’ve lost this post three four five times. At least I finally got smart enough to put it in a document so that it would still be there.

2. Joe comes home today, and it will be so nice to see him – however briefly.  I leave for YarnOver and StevenBe tomorrow. I’m almost done packing/cleaning/organizing so that tonight I can actually visit with him for 30 minutes.

3. I think it is very easy to like your husband if you don’t see him much.

4. I finished the socks last night, so I didn’t have to cut them up into a million pieces, which I do truly swear was an option.

5. I think that even if you practice for years and do yoga,  taking pictures of your own feet never gets easy.

Yarn: Hot Socks Nil, Colour 25 Pattern: My own, from Knitting Rules, except I kept two of the ribs from the top/front running all the way down to the toes. Just for sport.

6.These don’t fit me. Which is good – because if they did I think I would keep them.

7. I’m like that.

8. You know, these were feeling kinda familiar, and then I googled the yarn name and my own blog turned up.  I knit just about exactly this pair of socks about a year ago. I totally forgot. Is that weird? (I guess the instinct I had that Ken would like these socks was a powerful one.)

9. In January I said that if I was going to make my goal of 12 pairs of socks done on time for Christmas this year I had to knit one pair at least every 27.83 days.  So far this year I’ve knit four pairs. It still seems wild and obsessive to keep track like this, but infinitely less wild than I feel when there’s three pairs to go on the 15th of December.

10. I gave away one of the pairs for a birthday present. Does that mean I have to knit 13?

Dear Socks

I don’t know what crap you think you’re pulling, or if you think you’re messing with an amateur or something, but let me tell you. I’m no rookie, and I see what’s happening here.

I’ve been knitting on you way longer than any reasonable pair of socks should take, and I don’t know what you’re doing with all of the stitches and yarn I keep throwing at you, but you can just take this scam you’re running and stuff it.

You should be done. You should have been done yesterday, and I know it, and you know it and I don’t know if maybe you thought that I wouldn’t notice that you were messing with me, but I have raised three teen-aged girls and I have my black belt in spotting sneaky manoeuvres and you aren’t even competing at the Olympic level.

This is the way it’s going to be. I am going to knit on you for one more night, and you can choose what happens next. Either you can decide to be finished, or tomorrow I can take a sharp pair of scissors and cut you into a million pieces.

Your call.

Love (or not, again, that’s up to you.)

Steph

I don’t know what it’s like for Joe when I’m not here. I travel all the time, and he must be used to what the house is like without me.  Usually, when Joe’s home,  I’m up way earlier than he is – on account of the music business being a thing that starts and ends late. (Musicians have realized my life goal of a world that starts at 11  and ends at 23:00. If Joe’s up at 7, it’s usually from the other side.)   I get up and come downstairs, and I can have my coffee right that minute, because Joe is the miracle man who comes home in the wee hours and sets the coffeemaker to do it by itself  before I wake up, a gesture of love that I’m not fool enough to overlook.

I don’t miss Joe in the daytime.  As a matter of fact, the last few days have been stunningly productive – probably related to the way that Joe fritters away most of my mornings when he’s here. He reads me things from the news, asks me where we keep things, asks me if I know where he put his insert-object-I’m-not-responsible-for here.  I don’t mind that much – it’s really the only time of day that we connect.  Usually I give up and knit and find his stuff until he leaves. Then he’s off – gone to do his thing all day, and that’s when my day starts. I work from 11 or 12 until about 8, but I don’t see him again then until very late. I have my dinner alone most days – I cook for both of us, but Joe eats his when he comes home.

When Joe’s gone if I clean something up it stays clean, but I don’t really clean anything, because it’s just me.  When Joe’s gone, I have a chance to see friends I don’t usually see, and we go out for dinner (which is a great plan, because why anyone would cook for one, I just don’t know.

Without Joe, I miss landmarks. I miss the moments that our days intersect, and the reasons to do things like dinner and cleaning,  and here I am. Three days without him, and I wonder what his days are like without me, because without him my days are lovely, but strange, and I can’t wait until he comes home to bother me again, and I wonder if that’s what it’s like when I’m away from him.

Joe and I dropped the ball this Easter. Usually this is a strong suit for us. I make special things, and knit little holiday themed presents, and cook foods that are special to that time of year, and Joe hunts clever gifts down – and we’re usually pretty good at it. We’re very attached to our immediate and extended family, and we enjoy time with them, and building beautiful holidays is important. This Easter? Boom. Nothing. We did nothing.  I’d like to pretend it was because we are so busy and everything in our lives are so complex, and we travel and blah, blah, blah, but the truth is that there’s a huge amount of notice on when Easter is, and therefore no excuse for the fact that on Friday, when Toronto was closed – Joe and I suddenly realized that we hadn’t done anything about the thing, and called around to the girls and discovered that between jobs and commitments, the only time we could have an Easter egg hunt and a family brunch was Saturday morning, and that’s when it got wild.  We checked around and discovered the one open grocery store (all the way across town) and set off to try and pull together this thing.  “Where the hell are we going to get baskets?” Joe queried, and I shrugged, and we got in the car.

When we got there, it was pretty obvious that we weren’t the only people with a procrastination problem.  The store had nothing. No baskets, almost no Easter chocolate, and the few bunnies left were all the ones that were amputees, had their eyes on crooked or had suffered an unfortunate decapitation.  The only thing the store had that was related to the season at all was a thousand million other crazed parents all willing to cut you to get that deranged  looking amputee bunny, and Joe and I (who will fare very poorly in the upcoming zombie apocalypse, let me tell you) opted out of the scrum and backed into a corner near the birthday cards to regroup.  “We’re going to have to get creative.” I said, and Joe high fived me.

We started in the bakeware aisle.  No baskets? That’s cool – how about something basket-like, but useful? All the girls cook… Ah-ha! Bread pans!  The rest was easy.  Instead of that silly paper Easter grass? Tea towels lined our “baskets”.  We went through the store grabbing treats that our young women would never buy, but would love. Pink Himalayan salt in a grinder. Paring knives, all little kitchen bits and pieces, and when we were done we tossed in a few brightly coloured pairs of socks, some maple popcorn, and bam.  The only thing missing was the traditional chocolate bunnies, and we found those in an open drug store we stumbled into on the way home.

We were feeling good about it. Now all we needed were little gifts for Lou and Myrie, dyed eggs and we were home free.  Sam took care of dying the eggs that night – she’s serious about her craft.  This year she had a plan. 11 beautiful eggs, all the colours of the rainbow, and then one rainbow egg.

While Sam worked on that, I surfed quickly surfed Ravelry, and found exactly what I was looking for.  A quick stash dive, and knitting commenced.

By the morning, the house was full of all of us, and I hadn’t really made a dent in the knitting. We had an egg hunt, we played a few games, we had a beautiful brunch, and then I knit. I knit and I knit and I knit.  I got up every so often to start the bread dough for the next morning, and I did my first little training ride for the Bike Rally.  (20 Kilometres only. I’m going to have to seriously pick up the pace.) Somewhere in there Joe got on a plane and left for England (it was a surprise to me too) and I kept knitting. It’s been a long time since I stayed up late on a knitting deadline, but come the next morning I was almost done.

I got up early, baked bread, threw together a fruit salad,  and made devilled quails eggs – wait, those are too pretty not to share:

Then off I went to Kate’s house for an Easter brunch, knitting the whole way. Right before the egg hunt, I finished.

Oh yeah. Right there.  Matching Baby Bunny Booties for Lou and Myrie.  They were the cutest thing ever – and the best part was that Lou slammed his on his feet and ran around the house making sure everyone saw them.

I upsized the pattern a bit, simply by working them in worsted weight rather than the DK the pattern called for. That made the newborn size into a six month size that fit Myrie perfectly, and the third size became a larger toddler size that fit Lou just right.  (Not that he toddles, the kid runs everywhere he goes. He’s a blur.)

He loved them, the grownups loved them, and it was totally worth it.

Pattern: Easter Baby Bunny Booties. Yarn: Leftover Cascade 220 that was kicking around.

We pulled a great Easter out of the ashes, and the best moment for me?

Doesn’t that kid look like he’s totally going to be a knitter?

(PS. It is exactly this kind of success after procrastination that means that Joe and I will never change. Failure is corrective. Cute bunny shoes, quails eggs and the best Easter baskets ever? That really didn’t teach us a lesson.)