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.

Mass Thing Migration

You know, I think three times back and forth over half the country would be enough in one year's worth of months, don't you?

But no, at barely the 13-month mark we are setting out again, this time so the Things can visit their dad, who has moved back down south.

I told myself that at least we got to drive through a different half of the country this time. (Yeah, I know I was reaching there. Thanks for pointing that out.)

So, Things Two through Four and I packed up

(small bag, clothes; large bag, stuff of a yarnish nature)

and swung south in our own state to pick up Thing One.

When I hit the interstate, the bread van did something interesting. It began to shake. Not the mild, I'm-an-old-car-and-don't-care-for-all-road-surfaces-anymore shake that it did from time to time, but a strange, full-car-body shake. When I hit sixty, though, it disappeared.

Not feeling there was much choice, we drove on.

We stopped in New Hampshire to pick up our other co-driver, and Thing One was so taken with the beauty of the mountains that he asked for my camera, then said he took only two shots because there were too many buildings at the Highland Center and he didn't want those in the pictures. (And this is the Thing who thinks that nature is something best viewed through a window. Go figure.)

While we waited for the co-driver to get off work, we participated in a gingerbread house building contest (nice Christmas present--thanks!)

Thing One helped in the usual teenage fashion

but the other three Things went to town.

We all agreed that our gingerbread person (who was almost as tall as her house) looked severely deranged, though. And thus it was here that Thing One added his contribution.

(Every pyscho gingerbread person needs a butter knife to guard against home invasion by hordes of hungry children, after all).

Once that was complete, we hopped in the van and did what we always do on long car trips. We talked. We didn't talk. We read. We watched movies and listened to music and books on tape/CD.

And we crafted. I didn't get any pictures because I was too busy either knitting or driving, but Thing Two sewed buttons on snowpeople and completed the woven pipe cleaner sunhats she was making them, while Thing Three knit on a snowperson beach towel (Thing Four gets car sick easily, so exempted himself from this activity).

I knit on the red hat hat and its accessories. (Sherry was nice enough to model it for me when I returned. See?)

About the only time I put down my needles (apart from some reading and lots of driving) and did nothing was when we were in the eastern part of Virginia. There was something about the feel of the landscape, even from a van window, that just stilled me. It's the sort of place where you would go to sit beside the tomb or burial mound of your ancestors, silent, and then from which would depart as noiselessly as you came.

I want to go back there someday. I want to soak in the history of the whites and of the people who came to be there because of them and of the people who were there before them. I want to find out the name of the plant that was in all the roadsides, and someday try to capture its winter color of beige with tones of pink and orange in a dye pot (I still regret that I was "sensible" not to mention schedule fretting, and did not get a picture on the way out, as it was dark on the way back). And I want to go with someone who will walk silently with me.

Obviously, this was not the trip for any of the above, but I loved even the feeling I received from just passing through.

We did not stay long in eastern Virginia. Instead, we drove westward through some states that were longer on their east-west axises than they were tall running north-south, met the Things dad one state away from where he currently resides, and turned right around and headed back to the lovely snows of the north.

The drive back was pretty much identical to the drive down, with the exception of fewer people in the vehicle and a lot less gear (which meant that I no longer felt like a sardine with claustrophobia issues).

(And with the exception of this hotel hallway, the like of which we most definitely did not encounter on the way out. Not something you really want to step foot in at 2 a.m. I mean seriously, who the h--- did the decorating??)

There was also more shake. Definitely more.

We tried to alleviate the bad mojo of this by stopping in Chilhowie, VA at a Tastee Freeze. I had never seen a Tastee Freeze outside of Blairstown, Iowa. (And it had been a very big deal when my Great-Aunt Helen would take my cousin and me down to Main Street so we could be handed the cone of our choice through the tiny building's service window.)

This Tastee Freeze was LOTS bigger. So we went in rather than going through the drive through--anything to leave the shake for a bit--and, while being served by employees whose vowels rolled and bounced in enthusiastic waves, I discovered that in all those years, the Tastee Freeze's menu hadn't much changed. Fried food and soft-serve ice cream.

Hmm. I think that wasn't the right mojo. Because the shake got worse. Lots worse. As in the -cup-holder-routinely-popped-out-of-its-slot worse.

By the time we got back to New Hampshire, I could only go either 30 or 85 without the vehicle shaking so much that it felt as if I was receiving a rather violent full body massage (though on the up side, this did keep my shoulder from locking up).

I didn't find this reassuring, and when I rather hesitantly mentioned the lack of fun involved in driving a different route home in the dark with bad headlights (don't ask) in a car that was intent on shaking my fillings loose, my co-driver sighed and admitted that he didn't like the thought either and would follow me home.

That meant it was once more to the couch, dear friend, for you. And then stuck 1) eating eggs that were spiced in a way you didn't care for and 2) with a six-hour drive back home the next day rather than a three due to the forecasted storm hitting a day late--definitely no fun.

Sorry, dude. Two cool Chanukah gifts headed your way, okay? (Late--I mean, I'm not even making my own holiday's deadline--but headed.)

What's A Voodooiene To Do Now

After surviving the wroth of the snow zombies, I turned other projects, reasoning that not all the SZs were dry yet anyway so it was perfectly fine to turn my attention elsewhere.

Luckily for the Things, they had chosen plain vanilla SZs for their dad and his girlfriend, and as those were the first to felt and dry, they were able to begin their work.

I, meanwhile, had a choice between making my dad Lined Sandal Socks (aka Socks To Stuff Into Work Boots When Working in Cold Environs, because my dad so does not do sandals) from Socks, Socks, Socks, edited by Elaine Rowley, or I could download the free Red Hat Bag and Red Hat Pillobox Hat patterns found on the Crystal Palace website and begin those. I looked at the socks, which would be k2p1 in plain black for an entire sock on wee needles (though I satisfied my need for color by choosing a bright red with thin bits of black for the lining) and then at the bag and hat and their respective pieces, all of which would knit up nice and quickly on large needles.

With willful denial (for which I am perhaps a tad too well known) I skimmed over the fact that the Red Hat presents would lead me inexorably back to the washing machine, the zippered pillowcase, and the Shoe of Agitation.

I wanted to knit something fast, something that would make me feel like I had accomplished a great deal all at once, instead of feeling like I was knitting the same lunchtime bottom snowball over and over.

I knew I could produce the right felting magic this time around. One zombie bag and one zombie hat were sure to magically, happily felt. (Voodooienes never say die, after all.)

And before we embarked on the great Take-The-Things-South-To-Their-Dad migration, I had finished the bag, the rosebuds, the straps and most of the leaves.

Life is good. Particularly as I’m going to be gone and won’t have to face the washer in the immediate future.

Ta ta!