This One's for Narcissa ; )

It was pointed out to me by a reader that it had been three weeks since my last post. As I wasn't aware that anyone read even quasi-regularly except the ever-faithful Needle Tart (aka She Who Must Bail Bistickual Out Of Knitting Corners By Pointing Out The Obvious), I was actually more than a little pleased that someone sounded as if they not only read, but actually wanted to read more. I mean, really? Go figure. That random comment rather brightened up an overcast--both literally and figuratively--day. Thanks, Narcissa--this one's for you!

Sooo, what I have I been doing these past three silent weeks?

Well, Thing One graduated from high school

(Pictured here with The Girl, who is continuing her streak of being loved and adored by all of us--Thing One has good taste. Oh! And there was only one other couple in our row at graduation and guess what the lady was doing? Yep, knitting! I was too shy to Kinnear her--and I had my hands full of my project--but her's looked like a cuff, knitted in the round on dpns in a very pretty shade of red.)

a cousin got married the weekend after graduation

(Does she look radiantly beautiful or what? Her new hubby's quite great as well :) )

and of course we had to celebrate with the family

(There's The Girl again...)

(The Things learn the all-important throwing of the horns from the boyfriend of the bride's sister.)

(That's one of the bride's beautiful sisters with me, and yes, it is her boyfriend corrupting my youth above.)

and then last weekend there was a Saturday night musical and a Sunday matinee for another play to attend--people I knew were in both productions.

But fear not! I have been messing about (and up) with sticks and strings.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Has she at last finished the Shetland Lace socks?

I wish. But no.

The wee scarf for Thing Four that is to go with his hat and mittens? Welllll, Thing Four is the ex's, so, you know, he's not here to measure scarf length against. Darn hard to make a scarf when your not sure how long it should be. The fact that I've made other scarves without the scarfees being anywhere near means nothing. This one is for Thing Four, and it should be tailor-fit to him. Like the hat. Remember the hat?

Ohhhh, she's finally felted her mother's uber-late Christmas Red Hat hat and bag! Um, I'm taking that out to her in July. I have plenty of time. Weeks, even.

Then she's finished the also late, done in endless, poke-your-eyes-out stockinette Christmas socks for her dad? Those're on the Christmas-in-July list as well. I promise.

Hmmm, maybe she's finally gotten with it and is crocheting that snowflake shawl for Carolina?

Er, maybe not.

Okay, okay, okay--I'll admit it. I started the Hidcote Garden Shawl by Miriam Felton. I knowIknowIknow I am badbadbadbadbadbad for starting another project, but I have an excellent reason, which I can't divulge here, for doing so.

And lord help me, I think someone needs to call Lace Knitters Anonymous and stage a massive intervention for me, because the fascination I felt when I started the Shetland Lace Socks has crossed over into full-blown obsession. Lace tempts you with emerging patterns and soft, delicate yarns. It demands your undivided attention and threatens you with a dbl dec when you were supposed to have a sl1 k2tog psso if you even try to glance elsewhere. It whines piteously if you leave it alone for too long and will not be happy until it has you up at 3:00 a.m., knitting "just one more row" (which usually ends up a lot more than one).

It's cunning, it's ruthless and it's vicious and it is taking over my life and I couldn't be happier about that, especially as I am in addict's state of denial over the unfinishedness-ness of the other projects. I can put down the lace at any time and complete that other stuff with time to spare. Honest.

And like any good addict, I have my excuses--reasons; I meant reasons!--for lace knitting. This pattern is teaching me new things! Totally new, really.

Why yes, I can prove that. Here is my extensive list.

(Well, okay, there are only two items on it, but hey, I'm only at the end of the second chart. Two lessons learned within one chart falls well within the definitional parameters of extensive.)

So, onward.

1) I am not crazy and I can actually count. For all of you who know me, shut up shut up shut up! Miriam herself told me I was not crazy. For once, it actually wasn't me arsing things up (and that's way more uncommon than anyone who knows me might think).

I was at a friend's house, sitting on the couch, knitting happily along. I finished the last repeat on R 15 and glanced at the directions--to 5 sts before the marker. I looked at my knitting. I had 4 sts before the marker. I heaved a patient sigh and ripped back.

I knitted. I had 4 before the marker again. I sighed more heavily and ripped back again.

By the fourth time, I wasn't heaving lady-like sighs anymore. I was swearing in a manner that would have raised eyebrows in the foc'sle of a whaler.* My friend being the sort of person he is, though, didn't even bat an eye. Um, perhaps I should think about the company I keep--hmmm?

*And yeah, I stole/paraphrased that line from the brilliant P.G. Wodehouse.

Finally, I did what I should have done after rip back number two. I counted the number of stitches listed on the pattern to make sure they came out to 49, as they were supposed to do.

Huh. They did.

Then suddenly, a new idea dawned on me. Now, don't laugh, but I decided that maybe I should count the number of stitches being used to create the 49 stitches. Blindingly, painfully obvious to all, I'm sure, but to wee knitting me with the dyslexia that falls firmly within the realm of mixing up numbers, it was nothing short of a Divine Revelation. (And I didn't even have to eat any funny mushrooms to have it bestowed upon me.) I went back over R15, omitting the yos and counting out all the stitches in the dbl decs, k2togs and ssks and guess what?

I needed 48 stitches to create those 49 stitches, but in R13, I ended with only 47 stitches.

I emailed Miriam (still more than half-convinced I'd messed up somewhere) and she immediately emailed me back, stating I wasn't crazy (I've kept the email for proof), that it was the fault of one missing yo and that the pattern should read *yo, k3, k2tog, k3, yo,k1, yo...instead of the *yo, k3, k2tog, k5, yo, K3 that I had. Knock out that extra knitted stitch (back down to needing only 47 stitches again) and add in that extra yo and I was finishing--happily--the row out in no time. The fact that she'd sent me a completely updated pdf of the pattern was quite appreciated as well.

Miriam, like Marguerite, was so kind and helpful. Aren't nice designers who are patient with clueless people just lovely to have around? I can't wait to knit up some of their other patterns. (I think the Blessing socks are waiting in the wings. Well, unless they get crowded out by Eleanoras or the Basketweave Ribbings...)

2) Patience. I know, those of you who know me in the real world would be shocked that this is not an attribute which I already possess, but Row 23 on Chart 2 has taught me that perhaps I could do with a bit more zen-like acceptance in my life.

I'm not sure what it was about that row. Miriam's directions, as always, were clear and easy to follow. It wasn't an error in the pattern. I redid all the math I did above for Row 15 , and all the numbers were as perfect as could be. Miriam reminded a Designing Goddess Divine. But still.

I was supposed to have 57 stitches on both sides of the center stitch. I had 58 stitches, which meant something had gone awry 100 and some stitches apart. And it turns out that both errors I made were both located in approximately the same place--one near the beginning of the first half, one near the end of second half, which put them both near to either end of the shawl.

A symmetrical screw-up--how me. I would like to pass on my newly-acquired wisdom by pointing out that when doing a sl1 k2tog psso, it's helpful to do the *#^%&%!# psso part if one wants to get the correct number of stitches so that one's lace doesn't end up looking like a yarn interpretation of a Jackson Pollock painting.

See? Lesson learned, amid much swearing in my office during lunch and break-time while picking up a million and one dropped stitches as I tinked back along the row. Note to all: circulars from Knitpicks, which I love, are also a bit springy and it's best not to lose your grip on them if you only have a few stitches on the right-hand needle. Picking up a drop in lace, especially a yo, is a real bitch. Still, I managed to do it without leaving any gaping dropped-stitch holes.

(Ever notice how glaringly obvious those holes are when compared to the regular holes in lace? I did, which is why I spent more time than I am willing to divulge squirreling around with the yarn and trying to make it look like normal knitted fabric again. I succeed in that, nominally, anyway, and it was out of the patterned zone, so I didn't throw that off. Thank God that section lies up against the neck, and let's hope that I never run afoul of an old lady who'll actually inspect my stitching through bifocals that magnify everything by 200%.)

All that said, I would like to thank R 25. Row 25 knitted up perfectly, in about (it felt like) 5 seconds flat, with no dropped stitches and all numbers counting up as they should.

I will love R 25 to the end of my days.

I Didn’t Plan To Do It This Time

Okay, the snow zombies are coming. Sometime. Honestly. But the friend who wanted to help me do something “fun” with their little photo shoot just got slammed hard at work. And since he, like many people, is just hoping his company can remain a company rather than a name on the economic casualty list, I’ll not be bothering him about them right now.

Understandable, I hope. Dude has a bit more to worry about than making the SZs look fetching, you know?

So today we’re going to move to another favorite theme of mine: corruption of youth. Yes, it happened again. But it wasn’t me who started it this time, honest! And the where, I’ll admit, came at a time and a place when I least expected it to happen.

Thing 3 had a Court of Honor for Boy Scouts.

(And, note to anyone out there who is thinking, “Those guys discriminate against homosexuals!!” Yes, they do. And do my kids know I don’t agree with that policy? Hell, yeah. One of my oldest friends is gay, and I’ll go head to head with anyone, Scout people included, over whether he is doing something “wrong”. Because he’s not. IMHO, I don’t really think God gives a flip about who you love—He cares about how you love. So there, BSA is, to me, totally wrong.

But I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, folks. Lots of institutions, like schools, churches, or oh, say, my own government, have policies and philosophies with which I strongly disagree. But that hasn’t stopped me believing in a higher power or seeing that my kids are educated. Nor has it made me move out of my country, though if we would have elected another Republican, I would have considered it most seriously. For me, Scouts has been a way to spend one-on-one time with each of my Things—and that’s kind of tricky when one gets past the Dr. Seuss-imposed limit of two—and a way for us to be able to camp as a family when the ex had issues with that and I was trying to keep familial peace. Stupid in retrospect—trying to keep the familial peace, I mean—but it seemed a good idea at the time.

And, more importantly, this Troop has accepted Thing 3’s Asperger’s Syndrome without a blink; instead of being on the outside, Thing 3 is very much in; as in as a kid with Asperger’s lets himself get, anyway. So Scouts? It’s a big deal. He succeeding there, and he loves it. We’re staying.

Ahem. I will now step off the soapbox.)

Anyway, I was knitting while the talks were going on (shocking, I know) and while they were setting up for Court of Honor. Currently, I’m double knitting a scarf for Thing 4 to go along with his mittens and hat. I fully expect to have to make new mittens for next winter, but that’s not a big deal as the scarf will keep until then (it will have to, seeing as his mother didn’t get round to starting it until right before spring hit). Anyway, I was knitting and purling away and kind of people watching, when I noticed a little girl. She had stopped at our table a couple of times before the meal, and I thought perhaps she found Thing 4 kinda cute. (They’re near the same age.) But now here she was, after the meal, near the wall, watching our little family unit. Thing 4 had moved to see the video they had shown more clearly, but she was still staring at the empty seat next to me in which Thing 4 had sat.

I finally cottoned on to the fact that she wasn’t boy gazing, but yarn gazing. She was staring at the bright red and dark blue piles of yarn with a look I supposed I would see on my own face if yarn stores had mirrors hung over their bins of baby alpaca.

I smiled at her.

She smiled back, took a step forward, almost said something, then retreated to the wall again.

I knit and purled. I glanced back. She was still there. She did her little step forward, step back. And then?

“I knit too,” she blurted out.

“Cool! You wanna come help me with this?”

She most definitely did. She shyly informed me, when I asked, that she made dishcloths and blankets. She was fascinated with the scarf and with me knitting two different colors at once. I plopped the needles into her hands and showed her how it worked.

She had never purled before, and had most definitely never double-knitted, but she totally loved it. She wanted to know why I was using both hands to create the stitches. I explained how I had to keep each color on its own side so I didn’t knit the sides together, so each hand had to help. I showed her how you could pull the two sides apart, and what the right side of the fabric (for now hidden inside the scarf—I double-knit inside out) looked like. She couldn’t get over the smoothness of stockinette stitch. I explained that if she knitted one row on straight knitting, then purled back, she would get fabric that looked like that.

She continued on down my row, checking to make sure she was wrapping the yarn the correct way with the purl. She had only ever thrown yarn (er, no, I still can’t remember which that is) but she took to throwing with her right to purl and slipping with her left to knit as she alternated stitches like a pro. She accidentally slipped a stitch here or there when the yarn didn’t catch right, but I showed her how to fix that.

The absolute best, totally coolest thing about this surprise knit moment, though? When the candle was lit and lights turned down and when I went up with Thing 3 to stand with him as they ask parents to do, that chica just flipped on my Knit Lites and kept right on stitching.

(Imagine this picture in the dark. Darn flash ruins everything. But thanks, Thing 2, for thinking to take it!)

You rock, G. Hope I see you at the next meeting. Bring your sticks, okay?

Random Snow Day Moments

I absolutely could not believe it when I read my email from work this morning.

Classes are cancelled and offices are closed today (Monday, March 2nd).

I was further perplexed when I looked out the window and saw that my driveway was not a solid mass of snow, as it had been following the two previous big storms--neither of which had closed the campus.

Still, I didn't argue. Instead, I stayed curled up in my jammies, decadently reading Erin Hart's mystery Lake of Sorrows (good book) and contemplating whether or not I could wait almost a year for the newest William Kent Krueger, Red Knife, comes out in paperback.

I finally stretched and then pushed myself out of bed. (No, I'm not going to tell you how late it was, so don't bother asking.)

My eyes fell on the snow zombies. I had said in my last post that I was feeling more like picking up the needles and hook again. That had been only partially true, I'd discovered. Though I'd notched things down to quiet sadness, I found focus was still a bit fuzzled and I was maybe not quite as optimistically optimistic as I had optimistically projected.

The problem with reading, knitting, crocheting, writing (or working) is that while I absorb myself in the one task, my mind wonders into other territory. I call it thinking on simultaneous levels; others have referred to it is analytically freaky. There's probably some truth to both descriptions. (I mean, you're talking about a person who could listen to a never-read-it book on audio tape and keep up with the story line--I actually cried at a sad bit, okay?--while writing example business letters and not missing a beat nor falling behind on number of letter produced compared with the other example letter writers, none of whom were listening to audio books. My boss pointed out that most people can't truly listen and pay attention to one thing and write something else. I didn't know that. Heck, I listen to people tell me things and talk back to them while typing emails to other people about other things at the same time. I thought everyone did stuff like that, but evidently I'm a bit weird.)

Anyway, acting is the one place where I have to use all levels at once. There is simply too much happening onstage, too much to react to and timing to watch, etc. etc. It's the only time and place where I think in only one moment, the here and now. Well, maybe not the only one, but any others I can think of are rather personal and so not bloggable, you know?

(Tell me there are other level-thinking people out there who tend to think past/present/future simultaneously, okay? It'll make me feel better.)

Sunday's rehearsal was one of the best first run-throughs of which I have ever been a part. Terrifically fun cast members, stellar director. For a few hours, all of me was completely collected in one moment of synergy, with no offshoots into territory that really needs to go to ground anyway. It left me calm and centered and clearly focused. And that focus was still with me when I woke up this morning.

So, when I saw those snow zombies? Well...

Dudes. They're done.

They're having their wee pictures taken in the lightbox tomorrow, and then are being sent off to a pal in Chicago for some special treatment before being posted. Neglected Blogs promised something cool, remember? And hey, that's a whole whack of late Christmas and ALL my Hanukkah gifts gone in one go.

Getting that done made going out and tackling the driveway with the Things seem like a walk in the park. Thing Two went after the snow slump by the garage that had fallen from the roof the last thaw, and then froze itself to my driveway before I got home from work. (I'm seriously starting to loathe sloped metal roofs.) Thing Three valiantly trudged out to take on the snowplow hill at the top of the drive. Thing Four just went little-kid nuts with a mini-shovel and packed down more snow then he moved. And yeah, I got the entire rest of the driveway.

It was great. We had a snow dumping fight. (It's the best when the snow is too powdery for snowballs--just scoop and dump, preferably on someone shorter for full impact.) We discovered a good inch of ice at the top of the drive, hidden beneath the few inches of snow, which sort of pointed to why classes were canceled for snow I could have easily driven over. We were visited by a lovely yellow lab who played with us, then led the Things to the back yard, where he was almost buried in snow as he ran about with them. (Sometimes driveway shoveling just doesn't matter in the grand scheme, you know?) When everyone returned to the front yard to tell me of their adventures (like I hadn't heard and watched and laughed already), yellow dog came along. I christened him Sam, and the Things agreed. He looked very Sam-like.

Eventually, the Popsicles named Thing Three and Thing Four took their much-reddened cheeks inside to warm up. (I'm still pondering how it is that none of the Things got any of my light Mexican-Lakota coloring, which led to barely reddened nose on my part, and instead dived firmly into the pale Irish-Swedish side of our gene pool, which led to complete Rudolph noses and apple cheeks on their parts. I've been accused of adopting them all, and I'm beginning to wonder if that might be true; though who the hell would hallucinate labor? Four times?) Thing Two and I were left with Sam.

"Mom..."

"No, we can't have him in the house; we're renting and it's not allowed. Why don't you walk him down the road and see if he lives at one of the neighbors?"

"You're doing that answering before I ask the question thing again."

I waved that away--I'm a mom; it's what we do--and watched as she and Sam trudged down our road, where they found Sam's owner. Thing Two wilted. She had already had visions of Sam tucked up on blankie in a corner of her room, maybe playing with her yarn while she knitted, just like Muffy the Yarnslayer (scroll down to the last paragraph for the low-down on Muffy).

But what's more, Sam wilted. Though his owner was obviously a very kind man and very good to his pet, Sam did not want to go back into the yard with the other two dogs. He wanted to stay and play with his New Girl. It was touching, and bittersweet. The guy talked to Sam (who's other name is apparently Gus), he cajoled and wheedled and finally had to put an arm around Sam's neck and lead him away, tossing a, "Thanks for bringing him home, deah," over his shoulder to my daughter. She stood in the middle of the road and watched them go, not moving.

I went and met up with her, and arm around her, walked back home with her.


So it was a day of quiet accomplishment. Reading. Knitting. Chores turned Thing-Memories-Made time. Er, lines NOT practiced for show like I promised director I would so I would know whether or not I needed a one-one-one line run through (sorry, Sir Director, but I'll have time tomorrow). Blog posted (almost).

Four out of five is not bad, all in all.

Oh, and one other thing. A February thing. It seems only fitting that in the month of the Blogversary, I discovered that I was actually listed in a Blogs I Read list on a new blog called Stringin' Crazy! She does Tunisian crochet (which I want to do as well as her) and her embroidery, from what I saw, is freakin' to die for. I only wish mine were that good (yeah, I do that sometimes too--even people who craft both ways have occasional dalliances outside the yarn). And her Wednesday Musings made me laugh. I don't know, maybe I'm listed on other blog rolls out there, but that is the first I've ever seen and I was darned chuffed about it.

Snow days. They stand out, don't they?

The Blogversary

The wee little blog celebrated its one year birthday this month, and I have shown that by…

Um. Well. I haven’t shown it in any way, actually.

This has been an oddly not-much-knitting-or-crocheting month for me. There have been job worries; although my acceptance of an 11-month contract instead of a 12 was presented as “completely voluntary” it doesn’t take a genius to know which way the wind blows, especially when you're standing in gale force economic winds. So, I accepted and have until June to figure out how to make up the money I’ll be losing. There have been Things who saw fit to share the sickness love, taking their turns one week after another will new variations on each illness, instead of getting all done in one go (marathon few days of no sleep for mom is actually preferable to drawing it out over six weeks, let me tell you). And there have been things to think about and get through.

You know how it is. Sometimes life demands so much attention that you can arse up even single chains and stockinette stitch when you attempt them. When that happens to me, I find that it's best if I simply set the crochet hook or needles down.

It’s kind of lonely doing that. Most times, when things are off-kilter, there's nothing like shaping a granny square or knitting down a row to bring me back to myself. When I hit that land of thinking without thinking, working with my hands grounds me. This month, though, my focus has been too scattered. I've looked down at the yarn in my hands and realized I was making froggable moments, again and again and again. And wasn't even irritating when I did it. That's when I decided to just set things aside.

But, me being an incurable optimist (read totally naive idiot), I can't help but bounce back before I should; really, I know it's fashionable to languish more in these moments, but I'm sort of hopeless at it. I'll still have some worries and sadness with me, but it will be of the quiet sort that moves gently along with me and still lets me enjoy what I can.

We had a huge storm and beautiful amounts of snow. I'm getting out and meeting new people. I still have a job next year, unlike so many people who have been laid off. I was cast in two one-act plays and both are parts which will challenge me to try new things. Thing Four came and snuggled with me last Saturday morning, almost falling asleep against me, the way he did when he was a baby.

All these things have nothing to do with money or other worries, and all are great gifts. They are bringing things back into focus for me. They are making my hands feel like it's time to pick things up again.

As the month draws to a close, then, we here at Neglected Blogs are making a change. It’s going to be big. It’s going to be shocking.

Yes, it’s the uber how-late-can-you-get-the-feckin’-Christmas-&-Hanukkah-stuff-done extravaganza.

The snow zombies are about to return.

Stay tuned.