Knitting setup: time well spent

When I was away at university I had one of those friends who really transform you.

She knew about stuff I didn't, and she was fearless about doing stuff I wouldn't even consider, like successfully sewing her own expensive silk blouse for a fancy party with her parents' wealthy friends even though she only had the floor to cut the fabric out on and a community sewing machine that rarely worked.  She introduced me to the New Yorker, which I still read compulsively, and she once made me buy a pair of steeply discounted striped linen dress pants she had seen in a designer outlet earlier in the day and which felt were perfect for me (I was unconvinced but she was right: I wore them constantly for years.)

She also took one evening every few weeks to look after boring details, like mending or hemming or using an intensive facial mask or whatever.  The practicality of that approach - just book the time and put things in order, never mind trying to find a few minutes here or there, or while scrambling at the last minute - has really stuck with me. So I think of her whenever I do what I call...

Staging Knitting

If you like knitting and you have the materials for more than one project in your house, chances are you have a bit of a mess on your hands at least some of the time.  And if you like to have knitting with you for long car trips or doctor's office waiting rooms or to help you wind down in the evenings, you would probably benefit from starting several projects and then setting them aside so they're ready when you need them. Not only does it ensure you have a steady supply of projects, it really takes care of that mess.

Staging your knitting might involve choosing patterns and swatching with different needles to get your gauge right.  Just finding needles is often a biggie.  You might choose to cake some yarn you'll need soon, even if you don't have time (or free needles) to actually cast on yet, because this is the hour or two where you'll have time to get to your swift and ball winder.  Staging isn't just casting on, though it is the best part, if you ask me.


Here are some types of knitting you may want to have on standby:

Mindless knits: also known as 'emergency knitting' to deal with stress during an unexpected medical crisis, mindless knits don't require you to look at them much and are fantastic for watching a movie, catching up with a friend, or enjoying the scenery on a long car drive.

Gift knits: one thing that makes it especially great to be a knitter is that you can give truly one-of-a-kind labours of love to the people you care about or the people to whom you owe a lot of thanks.  Having a few giftable knits set by in advance is ideal, because you don't have to wait to mark the moment.  You can just be spontaneous.  Or, if you know you're knitting for a particular person, you can do some of the work during an event that is or might be special to that person. I often work on mindless gift knits during concerts, to build some of that beauty into the finished product.

Lately my perpetual 'gift knits' are scarves, woven on my loom at home.  I try to make sure I get a new one set up as soon as possible after I've finished the old one, just in case I have a few minutes here or there for weaving.

Comfort knits: this is the kind of project that makes you feel better.  It might be the softness of the fabric that soothes you, or it might be the way the colours blend, or it might be the motion of your hands as you work the particular stitches the pattern requires.  Regardless, comfort knits are an important resource for any knitter and you never know when you will need one.

Challenging knits: sometimes what you really need is to sink your teeth into a project, or you want something you can show off at big yarny gatherings.  Maybe it's time to push your limits and see what you can do with two sticks and a ball of string.  That's when you'll turn to a project that's challenging to you - cables, lace, colourwork, a new technique, whatever.

Travel knits: this is the one thing I always have to have ready - a compact project to throw into your bag so you're always equipped with ways to pass the time, no matter what the day throws at you.  One week I might not touch my travel knit, another I might work on it so much it's practically done.   And at that point, I've got to have another barely-started project to take its place, fast.

Obviously, some of these categories will overlap for different knitters.  And there are probably lots more categories to consider when setting up some knitting for later.  Is there a particular kind of knitting on your Must Have list?


(the purple cuffs are tops of a pair of gift socks I'm knitting in Twisted Fiber Art's 'Boreal' colourway from an old club collection, with the complementary purple for the cuff, heel and toe.  I've put them into play now so you'll be seeing a lot of them here - I hope you like the colours as much as I do!)

Step away from the knitting

Long post alert! but with pictures and a Very Important Message, so - yay.  Ready?

Because we will be talking today about carnivorous knitting.  Non-knitters don't really get this, because from the outside it looks so peaceful and passive, but we crafty types know there are a lot more hazards in knitting than just very sharp needles.

Very sharp and pointy needles that no person in their right mind wants to go near, unless they are us.

Knitting is one of those insidious exercises that leads fairly quickly to accumulated supplies and hours spent with our hands full of fiber instead of, say, laundry or spreadsheets.

For example - even with the powerful addition of weaving to my arsenal, plus the Amazing Knitting Planner, I am barely making a dent in the yarn that's tucked away here.  (not buying new yarn is probably the best answer to that problem, but let's not go there.)  I know my yarn stash is not the largest in town, so I'm pretty sure this particular issue is universal among knitters who have strayed from the 'supplies for one project at at time until finished, then shop for a new project' path.

Small-batch yarn: it's irresistible

Actually, I had a really interesting (to me, probably not to him) conversation about this with Leslie's husband, who happened to be in town last week, sadly without her.  He remarked on the way this business of yarn dyed in small batches, but appealing to people in very large batches indeed, runs contrary to the approach of businesses who want to grow grow grow, but works anyway.  And this made me notice a truth about our spreading yarn stashes.

Before artist's yarn:
not only did yarn used to be boring, its boring colours and fiber contents were widely available in yarn shops and department stores.  you never bought more than you needed for a given project, because you could always get what you needed for the next one, when the next one was ready to go.

After artist's yarn:
if you fall in love with a yarn, never mind what you're going to use it for, if anything: BUY IT NOW.  because otherwise it will be gone and you will have lost your chance forever.

Result:
hello, knitters swimming through yarn to get to the phone or the front door.


Also, when we aren't feeling all gleeful and stuff about all that stashed yarn, we are at risk of feeling a bit guilty and/or overwhelmed by the fact that we will never, ever knit it all, no matter how much it deserves to be knit.


Possibly worse for our living spaces than a growing yarn stash is the time we don't spend on other things because we're knitting.  I don't know about you, but I see knitting as an excellent opportunity to multitask and feel very proud of the fact that I can learn all about things aired in documentaries on TV, or travel to my destination, while making a sock.  Focusing on that makes it so much easier to overlook dust and filing and other distractions that can't be paired with simultaneous knitting, said Mary, whose backup kitchen counter is currently about 1" deep in papers that need to be put away somewhere or other.


And then there's the whole Writing A Blog experience, a hole into which many an unsuspecting knitter has dropped, never to be seen again.

The Writing A Blog Experience

A lot of people mark the anniversary of the day they started their blogs, which makes me feel like I missed something in early February when Hugs turned five.  Yep!  That's five whole years of five posts a week, with only a few short breaks here and there for emergencies.

Some people come for those posts specifically (you know who you are, and I thank you for helping me seem marginally less crazypants for putting in all this time on an effectively unfunded website) and some people come for the many patterns I seem to have written (and I thank them too, because quite a lot of them send me really kind and encouraging messages about said patterns.)

Writing all those posts isn't a hardship for me because a/ I am chatty and b/ I am a writer and this is how I warm up every day.  But sometimes it occurs to me that if I wasn't putting an hour or two out of every twenty-four into prepping material for Hugs, I might not be as far behind on other things.  The thought of this usually leads to the idea that I might perhaps scale back, and without exception, on the day that idea begins to take serious hold I get a particularly nice e-mail or comment from somebody who really, really enjoys my posts or my patterns or both.  So I keep going.

But... I'm thinking this is a good time to change things up a bit. 

This sock is in shock.  Socks get knit with such regularity here, the thought of 'change' is not reassuring.

Changing Things Up Doesn't Mean Stopping

These five-plus years of Hugs have coincided with five-plus years of me pretty much not writing any novels, which is the one activity that makes me happier than knitting, except it's not as portable and pick-up-and-put-down-able and flexible about how many people are in the room talking at you while you work.  But lately... I have been writing again, and it's going well, which means I'm having to dip into all the other buckets to keep the momentum going.

And the biggest bucket of all is the time I spend just knitting.

So: I have stepped away from (some of) the knitting.

And: I therefore have less knitting as a subject for cute photographs.

Which Means: This blog is gonna get awful dull.

which I think would be very sad, don't you?  assuming you don't find endless sock photographs awful dull already.


The Exciting Solution To This Perplexing Problem

Starting now, I will be posting hopefully not-dull things at Hugs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

And I am introducing Twitter Tuesdays and Twitter Thursdays.  Yep, I am dusting off my Twitter account, and on those two days I'll be trying out something that could be silly and fun, or completely humiliating.  Feel free to let me know if it's the latter so as to save me from myself - though preferably not on Twitter - should you decide to stop by to check it out: I am @marykeenanknits.

And in between all of that I am going to go through my stash again and be really, superhugely realistic about how much of it I can knit.


In Conclusion

I'm sure you understand that knitting less does not mean not knitting at all.  I mean, none of us want my head to go exploding.  Also, I still have to weave the monthly scarf, though I will tell you right now the March Scarf is going to be the March/April Scarf because I did say laceweight, right? 

The key is going to be not getting all obsessive about some new and complex project.  So in preparation, as one who packs for a long arduous journey, I've cast on two new pairs of socks for easy pick up-put down knitting.  And tested them to make sure they work, ahem.

I hope you don't mind the change too much.

And if you don't come to see me on Twitter tomorrow, I hope to see you here again on Wednesday!

Movies to knit (or spin) by

The new-hat knitting has been fueled by the discovery that somebody's uploaded a lot more Hitchcock movies to YouTube since the last time I checked.

There's Spellbound, with Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck:

And also, Notorious (also starring Ingrid Bergman but with Cary Grant this time):

And let's not forget Rebecca, my goodness:

I personally enjoy The 39 Steps in both movie and book form:

Not to mention The Lady Vanishes, which is one of my very favourites - love love love it:

Or perhaps you would prefer Jamaica Inn, which I've read but never actually seen (but will shortly, now that I'm committed to a second new hat pattern this month, yay!):

And there are many many more, if you search on "Hitchcock Full Movie."

If you are sneaking in some crafty time after everybody else is in bed and you have to be very quiet, Hitchcock made a lot of silent films too.  You can turn off the volume and skip the musical accompaniment, and no one will be the wiser. 

I like The Farmer's Wife,

and I look forward to watching The Lodger (it gets pretty good reviews):

and also I'm pretty sure I've seen The Manxman in a theatre where the scale of the seascapes was impressive.  If I'm right, the story is incredibly moving as well.

And that probably enough company for a whole weekend of knitting!

Hope you have a terrific time whatever you end up doing - for the first time in ages I'll be knitting nonstop, huzzah - and I'll see you again on Monday.

Too much matchy: stripey socks and watches

I stopped wearing a watch about a year ago, in part because the band on my most recent watch got really murky-looking and couldn't be cleaned or changed, and in part because I didn't like the way it made a lump in the cuff of my handknit mittens.  I know, I know.  Priorities!

To tell the time, I've been compulsively pulling out my cell phone, but when I go on this vacation thing that's coming up, I'm probably not taking the phone.  So recently I went out shopping for a new watch that would be flat on my wrist because I had this crazy idea to bring fingerless gloves along (if I ever finish knitting them.)

Hello, Swatch.  The 'skin' line is so thin, it's like wearing a quarter that weighs a lot less than a quarter should. In fact these things are so light you don't know you have anything on at all if you don't glance down at it. 

So: I did buy that black-banded watch up there (with shopping points!) and I do love it but... oh dear, it's just so very utilitarian looking.  It's true that my approach to fashion these days is Everything Black, so as to showcase Super Stripey Handknit Socks, but... erm, did I say 'utilitarian'?

And also, it's easy to swap out Swatch bands.  Much, much easier than it is to have said Swatch bands shipped to Canada because for some reason the US site doesn't do that little thing.  So about a week after discovering that I found myself entirely by accident (ahem) at the local Swatch kiosk and

Yippeeee! they had in stock the stripey band I'd fallen for online!

It is awesome.  It matches so many of my newest socks.  And it was super easy to put on, with the assistance of a 2.0mm double pointed knitting needle to get the post started, and a pretty leaf-topped pin to get it going the rest of the way out.

Yep, awesome.

Mostly.

If only the stripey watch band didn't look so wrong, on.  I don't know whether it's the Zing next to the Solid of the watch face, or the thought of the Zing distracting from the Zing of my socks, but... oh dear.

I had to go back because I like this better.

(but not quite as much as I do the second watch to which I succumbed while I was buying the strap.  am I this bad with yarn, too?)

10 ways to get more knitting time

If I had my way, I'd be spending a lot more time making stuff.  Ideally, making stuff with yarn.

Yum.

Maybe you get to do that whenever you like but I seem to be in a perpetual state of:

Why can't I just sit and knit????

I mean, it can't just be the whole Not Independently Wealthy thing.

And it's not like retirement is going to be the walk in the park I was promised either: every retired person I know is busier than s/he ever was.

So I think it's really important to try to maximize the downtime now, and not next month when the current deadlines are past.  There are just going to be other deadlines taking their place: I can tell, because it took me nearly five months to open a bag of Loom so I could start using up a ton of yarn, which is actually a priority activity for priority lists like housekeeping and gift giving and not moving to a bigger house, like, now.

And that my friends is why I am happy to say that in spite of an even crazier schedule than ever, I've been able to make some mental shifts and do some tricks to buy myself more than an hour a day of quality time with my yarn, even if yesterday's hour was achieved in part by knitting while walking home from the gym.

Simplifying your schedule for crafty gain

1. The house doesn't need to be that clean.  Seriously, #1 decision.  In the absence of allergies and asthma of course - unless you see ants or some even less palatable insect, or a yarn cake is going to be trailing through dust while you warp a loom with it, or somebody is coming over who might think you're living in squalor (and you care what that person thinks), you can skip vacuuming for a little longer.

2. If you are going to throw some of your time in the direction of housecleaning, invest at least of little of that in decluttering.  What's the point in dusting around shelves occupied with all manner of everything, if you're not going to have any more yarn storage space there than you did before?  Also: it's so much easier to tell yourself the house doesn't need to be that clean, if it's not also super disorganized.  Either way you gain yarn time, even if it's only looking at it more often.

3. If you're not lucky enough to get to wear easy predictable non-effort-requiring outfits every day, set out clothes the night before.  I know, you hear that in every article about simplifying the morning rush, but try this twist: set out clothes for the next three days.  Maybe it's just me, but working through the choreography demanded by errands, weather, length of day, and venues to be visited takes so much time, and it doesn't take three times longer to do it for three days than it does for one.  The result: two evenings with more crafty time in them, and up to three mornings that start with a row or two of knitting (or that just start a bit later, to accommodate the extra inch or two of knitting you stayed up late to do the night before.)  I am so in.

4. If a crafty thing is more fun in pictures and finished product than in the act of making, buy it.  Life is short, and leisure time is shorter, and every crafty project has to cover a lot of different functions including and especially: making you happy. There is a lot to be said for letting other people be happy, by buying stuff they made.  Or, to put it another way, Hello Etsy!

5. Outsource.  Which is sort of an extension of Point #4, though not specifically about crafty stuff.  In my experience, hardly anybody has both time and money, and some don't have either, but generally you're going to have a bit more of one than the other - or at any rate, a little more than strictly necessary.  If it's time that's super short, why spend on a spa when you can get the same relaxation plus a pair of mitts from knitting?  Or you could spend less and buy the knitting time via a prepared lunch.

6. Or even a prepared everything.  I used to go into the Posh Grocer's for a rare treat and think: If I just shopped here all the time, my life would be so much tidier and nicer.  Recently it occurred to me that that might actually be true so at the moment, I'm buying fresh, prepared foods from the Posh Grocer's every few days and not trying to stockpile the pantry which was getting way too crowded anyway.  There is SO much space in my 'frig now, and what is taking up space in it is stuff like this:

Mixed organic greens, grown locally, which cost about the same as I'd spend on two days' worth of chocolate and turn ordinary lettuce into something you actually look forward to eating.  Other great finds: broccoli salad that keeps for days, amazing homemade soups you don't have to open for a couple of months, and a really awesome steak and mushroom pie that freezes just fine if I don't get to it in time.

And instead of a ton of junky stuff when I get stressed, I'm having stuff that is just as cheery-uppy with a heavier dose of pampering, like this:

(that missing pecan tart was a taste test. review: delicious.)

Without a significant uptick in my grocery bill since I am
a/ eating everything I bring home
b/ finding time to keep up with the busier schedule that seems not to be going away
c/ sensing a lot more mental (and physical) space, and
d/ not making any less yarny stuff than I was before:
I am calling this strategy a Win.

(p.s., it turns out Carol is doing the same thing now, and this other guy I know said he found Posh Grocer salads in his 'frig the other day courtesy of his wife and is totally sold: the idea is clearly spreading. which is nice in this modern age of competing grocery stores because I would go broke if I were solely responsible for keeping this place open and selling things I want to eat.)

(and saying that reminds me that I am in fact spending valuable yarn money at the Posh Grocer's, in aid of spending more time with the yarn I already have.  hmmmm; how much stashed yarn do I have to go through before this is too high a price to pay? maybe that point will coincide with the point at which my schedule eases up, in which case I won't have to worry.)

7. Have a lot of projects on the go.

Some are going to be portable when others aren't, and the crafty downtime while you wait in line or sit in on a conference call or walk home from the gym really adds up.

8. Set up projects you aren't ready to start yet, too.  Last January I posted about the prep I did at my primary knitting space and man, the project bucket I set up then is still a huge timesaver.

9. Use audiobooks.  Omigosh.  I will often get caught up in trying to get through the next item on the To Do list before I let myself knit, and I almost never get time to sit down with a book, but if I'm dying to find out what's happening next in a story I will make myself sit down.  And once I've done that, picking up my needles or loom is just, well, virtuous.  Current knitting tool: Japanese Girls and Women by Alice Bacon, courtesy Librivox.  I've only listened to the first section (twice), and obviously: over 100 years out of date, but it's fascinating.

10. Commit to making everybody something handmade for the next big holiday.  There is no greater motivator than fear, or a looming deadline you can point to as the date on which you will once again clean the house, get out of sweatpants, open the steadily building pile of mail, and/or walk the dog yourself.

Hope one of these tips works for you.  And I hope they keep working for me!  See you tomorrow, and have a great day today.

Knitting time management

The line between time management and time loss can be as slim as laceweight.  Or maybe I mean the line between neglecting everything else to knit, and neglecting knitting for everything else.

Take for example my usual policy of neglecting everything but knitting, which means messy things like dealing with dust rabbit colonies and orange peeling fall by the wayside in favour of having a thirty-sixth hat, or twenty-fifth pair of socks.

Versus my current policy of doing everything but knitting so I will be much more efficient with my knitting time by being healthy, fit, and resident of a dust-resistant home.  Which is crazy, because what gets left out is Zen, which is what happens when you knit (assuming it's going well, but more on that later.)

* * * * *

Brief pause for a pretty, and partially relevant picture:

And... back to today's topic...

* * * * *

Knitting Does Not Equal Guilt

You have to make time to do what you love - you just do, and you can't feel guilty about how much you do that because guilt isn't warranted in such a situation.  Think about it:  if doing what you love happens to make your life better, great.  If it makes somebody else's life better, for example by way of suddenly owning your twenty-sixth pair of socks, fabulous.

But realistically, doing what you love is going to make you a happier person, which makes you nicer to be around, which is SO much more important than being the person who keeps the dust under control.  And ever so much more important than feeling guilt.


The Role of Organization

Still... being organized can make it easier to have more knitting time.  We have all learned the hard way that the time spent searching for cable needle X or laceweight needle Y could have been better spent knitting shawl Z.

And who - as a passenger, though I know some drivers also indulge, to which I say GAH - hasn't benefited from travel time with progress on a project that was enough in one place to be scooped up into a tote-able bag on the way out the door?

Other short- and long-term ways to cheat more knitting time can include:

Requiring less sleep (and if you figure out how, do tell).

Buying previously-chopped veg and a prepared chicken for supper.

Setting out your next-day's clothes while folding laundry - and if you can manage it, a few days' worth, so as to scrape up some early-morning calm knitting time.

Planting perennials in front of your house rather than annuals, and enjoying the floral show at your non-crafty neighbours' houses instead.

Opting for a low-maintenance look of minimal makeup and hairstyling (this saves on shopping and salon time too.)

Knitting Time is Special Time

Speaking of which, when I finally had time to get a haircut the other day, Rob asked me what big knitting project I have in hand at the moment and I -

didn't know what to tell him.

Me: speechless.  This never happens.  (and this time, it only lasted milliseconds.  still.  speechless!)

I've been so focused on Zen-ing up my day, letting go of manufactured deadlines like writing a blog post every morning before 8am or having all the clean laundry put away by 8pm, I haven't put any thought into knitting at all, and have been working away at random plain socks for purely functional purposes.  Useful, but hardly uplifting.

Fortunately, I did give way about a week ago to the lure of the Sugared Violets crescent shawl, and I also had a few movie nights and car trips since then.  So I have something happy to look at every day.

Avoiding Disaster

Given the terrible lighting you would be forgiven for thinking I have included that picture of the shawl  in all its crescent-ness to say Look! I'm nearly done!

In fact, I expect that experienced knitters will look at that picture and say one of two things:

a/ Wow, Mary must have a seriously long circular needle; or

b/ Whoops, Mary messed up and has taken most of the stitches off the needle to rip back.

If you're keeping score, that's a chocolate to you and none for me, because I need my hands clean to rip back.  Yep, I messed up on the lace while watching yet another movie (The Brothers Bloom, which started well and got disappointing very quickly).  I checked my count; knew I'd erred; couldn't find the err; decided to fake the count at the end of the row since it was the first of a fresh pattern; knit, increased, and decreased another 416 stitches and discovered where the mistake was.  About 609 stitches beforehand.  It's just easier to frog than pick back 609 stitches with a minefield of yarn overs in it.

The moral of which is: the best way to manage your knitting time is: don't mess up during your knitting time.

Or, you know. Use a lifeline when knitting lace.

Changing my stride

There is SO much thinking in my head these days, all of it existentially crisis'd, most of it as a result of being tired all the time.  As in, why am I tired all the time?

And of course the answer is - I bet this will ring a bell for you too - I'm doing too much.

But here is the kicker.  The much that is making me tired is the stuff I actually enjoy and do for myself.  Nobody's holding their breath for it.  For example, I can count on one hand the people around me who long for handknits, and I'm one of them - yet I keep taking time to knit X for Y.  Conversely I can't count high enough to get to the number of designers who put out knitting patterns.  I can't even count high enough to get to the number of designers whose new patterns I eagerly await before every release. 

Anybody will tell you it's important to do what you love and love what you do (and if what you happen to love is creative work, they might add that you should do it for love alone because odds are you're not going to get paid for it!)

I've always taken that advice and I still agree with it, but I'm rethinking my unfortunate tendency to set goals related to the things I love doing and cling to them... even when they're unrealistic and even though I get so tired trying to keep up.  So lately I've been thinking:

Do what you love when you feel like it, because you feel like it, and without fear that anybody including you will be disappointed if you don't.  If somebody loves you, it's for you, and not the hat you may or may not have lovingly knit in return.  If you donate something for a fundraising silent auction, you've participated even if you don't make something to go with it so it's even extra personal.

Or alternatively, cake is still cake without icing.

First Test

Opening up my first parcel for the current Biscotte club:

Sometimes the pattern arrives in my inbox before I open the yarn, but it was the reverse this time and I spent a couple of hours out of the house thinking SOCKS!

The actual pattern?  HANDWARMERS! which are so, so cute.  Stranded with hearts on the palm and oh - just adorable and so Valentiney - and obviously designed with so much time and love and fun.  I've designed for Biscotte myself and I know how that goes, so  I really want to make them.

I also really want this yarn to be socks because it's Felix, which I adore for hardwearing socks.

I spent a good part of yesterday wrestling with myself on the question while frantically working on other things for which I have set totally arbitrary personal deadlines nobody else will care about.  This morning?

Nope.  Not fussing over this one any more.  My personal shipment of yarn wants to be striped socks.

(With maybe a round of stranded hearts from the handwarmer pattern because they are just so CUTE.)

Not waiting

My normal setting is to work first, then play, but this summer I'm making a conscious effort to Not Wait.  All those things I spent the winter dreaming of doing when the weather got better and the pace eased up?  I'm just doing them. I'm not worrying about the fact that the porch needs another scrape and paint, or that my trusty Adirondack chairs are begging for a fresh coat of stain - those projects will sort themselves out later. Right now, it's summer, and I'm going to enjoy it.

Okay, I'm still putting work before play, but my mindset is a bit different. I'm just very, very aware of how lucky I am to be in a time and place of perfect summer weather, and I'm taking my spinning and knitting outside. My house has always reminded me of a sweet little cottage and this year I'm treating it like one - a place where you are just happy, even if you're doing a lot of little houseworky chores like washing the dishes or throwing in laundry.  (The washing the dishes part is made even more quaint at the moment by the fact that the dishwasher went bust a few days ago and I can't get to the appliance store till tonight; when the new one does come in, I plan to be cottagey by using my rediscovered counter space for baking homey treats.)

This picture of one of the Tavener socks in progress captures my feeling, I think:

Just sundrenched.  And all that stuff past the heel?  (they're both past the heel now, by the way)  Knit at a neighbourhood barbeque.  Bliss, I tells ya.  Hope you're having some of the same.

Stocking stitch forever

Painfully aware that I'm participating in a cardi knitalong starting June 1, I spent some downtime on Tuesday taking stock of the current projects to figure out what I can finish before then.  The sock sweater is up there on the Want Done list not least because I strongly suspect I will need its needles to get gauge for my cardi, but the baby sweater is up there too because it's possible I might actually pull it off.

(and then there is the Irresistible, which is busy being Irresistible and cutting into project-finishing time, unless finishing a project you didn't officially start counts.)

The point is, finishing those two sweaters means a whole lotta stocking stitch.

A whole lot.

But I am nothing if not determined.  The sock sweater, now that I've confirmed my original math is correct and know how far to take the body and sleeves before joining them, is still in pieces and more or less portable.

The baby sweater, owing to the larger amount of yarn involved and the consequent twisty-knot potential, is working out better as kitchen knitting.

It's not going quite so fast as Sock Sweater (and neither of them so fast as Irresistible), but then, you only have to wait so long for a pot of tea to steep.

It would be nice to take a break from stocking stitch to swatch gauge for my June cardi, if only it too didn't have to be done in You Guessed It.  Time to borrow more movies from the library, wouldn't you say?

me vs. the ants

Okay, I give in: there is some merit in putting housekeeping above knitting.  (but only some.)  A minor issue with ants in the kitchen multiplied overnight and kept me pretty busy this morning such that I - wow, it's after 11am!! - missed my 7:30am blog-posting routine.  Thank goodness I put yesterday's watermelon rind straight out into compost once it was melon-free or I might not be here now, even.  Criminy.

The crazy number of ants presents a neat parallel to the number of unfinished projects I keep feeling guilty about neglecting (why is that, anyway? It's not like anybody is waiting for any of them) and the equal number of projects I would like to have the opportunity to feel guilty about neglecting.  I'm not going to list them all here because that would be too depressing for such a lovely sunny morning as we are having here, but I will concede that I don't want to cast on for the June Cardi Knitalong with Knitting and Tea and Cookies without bumping a few of the current works into the finished object pile.  By which I mean at least two, and possibly three.

Here are some factors in my favour:

Today is the day before (or in my case the first day of) a long weekend

I've been invited to a friend's about 2 hours' drive away

Even though technically I am supposed to be getting weeds out and plants in to my garden, it's gonna rain and be miserable all day Sunday

The baby sweater is finally going along swimmingly such that I could just get on with it already

There are also some factors not remotely in my favour (see weeding and planting reference above, plus an increasingly urgent need to get back to basement-clearout totally unrelated to some cats I may or my not have visited at the local adoption centre while picking up ant traps - no really, totally unrelated, dagnabbit)

but

Assuming I pack well for the car, I really think I could knock at least one project off the table this weekend.

(of course this would mean keeping my hands off the Irresistible for the duration in spite of being desperate to figure out how I managed to have the right stitch count and yet be off a stitch at the very same time.  wish me luck.)


So off I go.  Happy Victoria Day if you celebrate it, and have a great ant-free weekend either way!

Cleaning vs. knitting

There is a terrible thing happening in my house and that is: cleaning.

Normally I am quite relaxed about cleaning.  I care about the surfaces on which I prepare food, and I like my clothes to be fresh, and if I find myself walking over crumbs on the floor I will address them, but I don't typically worry about vacuuming until I notice dust bunnies commuting en masse to their manufacturing job across the room.

There are certain things though that do prompt me to clean in a big way, the kind of way that leads to redecoration that includes painting etc.  It's not that bad yet.  But there is just enough going on of the various factors that keep me from being able to sit down on the sofa with fiber to - well, keep me from sitting down on the sofa with fiber.  And the worst?  I'm kind of getting addicting to shiny bathroom tiles. 

Oh how I miss the motivation of Christmas Knitting, when I could ignore everything and let the mail pile up because otherwise X would not have his/her present.  Also, the TV programming was awesome.  Lately, not so much. 

Instead I have been going through things that cn't be ignored any longer, and the more you do that, the more you notice other things that can't be ignored any longer, and it goes on like the reflections in two mirrors that don't quite face each other.

And all the while you're finding things to put away that remind you what you'd rather be doing with this particular leisure time.

Looking through old knitting articles that might be timely for current projects

Playing with the vintage tool collection

Swatching out the idea that's been waiting more than a week now for your attention

And still, you're cleaning.

It can't last forever, can it?

Existential knitting crisis

Ever since I opened the first bank account where I had to give my job occupation and said 'writer', I've been pretty clear about what defines me as a working person. Still - spending the last week or so knitting up a sample for an idea that was accepted for publication and working up swatches for two other ideas - I kinda wondered.  Designing patterns is definitely a form of writing, and it's not as though I wasn't knitting almost as soon as I was writing, back in my teens. 

It is a lot of work though.  Even patterns I think will be easy when I first get ideas for them: working them out, oiling the gears, smoothing the edges, dropping details that overpower the whole, writing it all up in the clearest way possible - ouch.  It takes hours.  It almost makes me forget you can spend the same number of hours sweating over a single passage in a story. 

Makes me wonder, too, how designers who do seriously big projects for a variety of magazines and yarn companies, producing maybe 10 sweaters in a year plus as many skirts/coats/shawls/socks, pull it it off?

Enter The Designer's Studio, a blog wherein Faina Goberstein undertakes to interview a whole ton of knit designers. I spent a fair while there the other night and here is what I learned:

An awful lot of high-producing designers tend not to spin yarn, or dye wool.  There isn't time; they have to focus. They knit on planes and their knitting groups don't necessarily meet in the same little place a few blocks from home every Tuesday (or if they do, they aren't always with them) because they are traveling all the time giving workshops.  Yep, they teach.  And like Kathi, who comes up with the cutest designs for her classes, they tailor little projects to showcase the particular skill they are covering. 

Little projects that, like my little designs, surely take hours to work out.

Okay, so enter me again, not much of a flier and feeling like I'm already doing as much on the knitting front as I can get away with, and recognizing I need to cut back a bit at least while things are as unsettled and heavy in the time demands department as they happen to be right now, requiring me to be a little less wedded to the sofa. 

What I decided: I gotta stop getting excited every time I see a call-for-submissions I can swatch for.  Yes, it's wonderful to be able to come up with an idea that somebody might actually take (this is so much rarer in fiction-writing, I still can't quite get over it.)  Yes, knitting's a fabulous creative outlet with a lot of assets, including mobility and the freedom to hold a conversation while working, that fiction just does not offer.  But it's hours of work with a deadline attached and people counting on you.  Gotta stop.

Yep, gonna be sensible, I thought: after these swatches go into the mail: taking a break.

And the next morning I woke up with an idea for a really fantastic vest literally knitting itself together in the very front of my mind (without actual needles, oddly) just like I used to find short stories coming together when the words were flowing. 

And the next day?  An idea for a pillow I really want to have.

So now I gotta rethink the whole 'sensible' thing and drop something else from the schedule.  Like cleaning, maybe?  Or laundry?

Nothing to see here

Nothing to see because Carol's long-delayed second Bed Sock finally finished drying (YAY) under cover of darkness and had to be wrapped in same to be ready for delivery this morning.

Nothing to see because I have been so busy baking cookies to deliver to the neighbours for a little Christmas love, I didn't have sufficiently free brain to think of any other projects I absolutely must knit for myself before Saturday.

(though I did work on Carol's second Bed Sock while hovering over the oven timer the other night, putting it down to switch the pans around so the meringues would brown evenly.)

Nothing to see because

GAH

the one thing I hoped to avoid has in fact come to pass: owing to my hat and cowl digressions last week, I must finish Manhat in social settings with people who will probably blab to Man, assuming Man himself doesn't actually pop in.

Fortunately I'm up to the crown. If I knit it close enough to the zip top of the knitting bag it's in, maybe it will just look like a boring navy blue blob not worth even asking about, and not an intriguing something with maple leaves on it?

All done

Look!

Just in time for Christmas, SUSP is leaving me for a full and happy life elsewhere. I boxed it up yesterday, and today it is beginning its journey via the courier office near my trainer's.

(This a good time, in fact, to acknowledge Carol's contribution: twice-weekly sets of wrist curls to ward off carpal tunnel. Couldna dunnit without her!)

Yesterday post-boxing ceremonies I went off on a road trip to see the CP holiday train, which in the event looked much like last year - and that's lucky, because my camera gave me Full Battery signals all the way until the train was pulling in, and then changed its mind. It's hard to get pictures of a lit-up train at night, anyway, unless you have a much better camera than I do.

This year, my friends and I went to a smaller town to see the train (the logistics seemed a little safer than cars moving over muddy unlit trainyard grounds through crowds of people with strollers and toddlers) which was awesome mostly for train reasons but also for the knitting opportunity.

I was just so anxious to finish Clockwork. This is how far I got before we lost the light at the end of the afternoon:


and then I worked on in the dark, making surprisingly few mistakes. I got all but the last row done before getting home again, and then I stayed up too late (I'm seeing a pattern here) to cast off and run in the ends.

So that's done. But I'll show Finished pictures later, when I have some. And hopefully, when that happens, I'll also be able to tell you how I fixed the problem I'm having with it, le sigh.

First though: gotta make my Christmas knitting plan, because wow, are we ever getting close to the big day.

Coffeeshop knitting

I stayed up waaay too late last night reading through the last three months' worth of entries here at Hugs. Honestly, it's just like what I imagine a food diary to be, keeping this blog - an impartial witness who can tell you what choices have led to the result you now have.

So this morning I'm very tired, and I know why I've been very tired, for months now.

For a start, I've been grinding out Big Projects with Deadlines instead of just enjoying myself and stitching away on small manageable knits.

And I've been making gifts at the last minute, instead of following last January's idea of just making random Things when I feel so inclined and then magically having a fully-stocked gift shop in the crafty cupboard when I'm struck by the idea to give somebody a specialness.

Also, I devoted more than a week to a design idea I really wanted to work in spite of its obviously not workingness.

This insight isn't going to do much for me - just last night somebody asked me what I would like for Christmas (the implication being that said somebody would acquire and even wrap it) and I said Yarn for the Mariner sweater I want to knit, please.

As I drifted off to sleep later I thought - wouldn't it be great to start the new year without a single work in progress? Just a clean slate! (Because naturally, I can finish Clockwork and its matching hat and a new design that's cooking and anything else that gave way to Christmas crafting, all in the week between Christmas and New Year's.)

And this morning I remembered I am having coffee next week with a friend who's having a rough go, and it occurred to me I should make him a pair of felted wool mittens as a spontaneous Christmas offering. That isn't such a big deal to do as I'm sewing a few more pairs this week anyway - but then I thought it would be nice to make a pair for each of his kids too, with some matching wool in them for a wintertime bond when they're not together. It's too good an idea for me to give up without a fight but -

Yes.

Clearly I'm not going to be changing my ways any time soon. Here I am doing all this plotting and scheming and I'm still not even finished the SUSP pattern-tweaking yet!

Luckily pattern tweaking doesn't travel well, and I have another one of those days today which will require a short stint in a coffeeshop between appointments. So I'm taking along the official Christmas knit, the one that can't not get finished, and I'm going to have hot chocolate.

Because I swear, I just saw some snowflakes drifting past my window.

Rethinking the resolutions

Yesterday I noticed a new pattern had been uploaded at Ravelry from the Fall 2010 Biscotte & Cie club. And speaking of which, you might want to think about putting a spot in the starting-in-February club on your wish list (deadline: December 25) because you get an exclusive pattern with each skein of luxury yarn at the low price of $85.00 for three months.

I got distracted and missed the deadline to join the fall club this time which was awful, but I did kinda get to participate because that new pattern I mentioned was mine - I was lucky enough to be asked to design for November's yarn!

All of Louise's colours and yarns are beyond yum, but knitting with this one - merino with a hit of cashmere in the most lusciously spun heavier weight - was an experience I had to draw out as long as possible. We called it Strawberry Sundae for the stacked cables that looked a bit like iced cupcakes, or ice cream.

(The pattern is currently exclusive to club members, but at some point in 2011 I'll be selling it here as well.)

Noticing the new pattern made me look over my design page at Ravelry, which made me blink.

Do you know, there are 26 patterns up on that page? That's in just 2 years - less, technically, as I didn't start publishing any until late January of 2009. And it doesn't count the other 8 or 9 designs I finished and haven't done anything with yet. Not counting them, that's more than one pattern every month.

This made me dig a little deeper into Ravelry's records. What have I done so far in 2010?

I've spun I think 6 100g braids of fiber (that's 1 skein every 2 months, without actually knowing how to spin yet.)

I knit a cardigan for myself

plus 2 Big Projects on Small Needles that aren't for myself

and a baby cardi.

I knit 6 pairs of socks

and 3 pairs of mittens

and a couple of short scarves

and the samples for the shawl and hat that came out in Interweave Holiday Gifts in October.

Oh, and some hats I haven't photographed, and the Double Double Cloche I published earlier this month, and the redesign of the Confectionery Cap.

None of which includes the stuff I'll finish off before New Year's.

Looking at all that, and remembering yesterday's potential resolutions, I can't help thinking I can do whatever I want in 2011.

And also that in some cases it's much better to look back than to look to the future: that way, you see all that you have done, instead of what you think you can't do.

Knitting in instalments

Today is all about non-family deadline knitting, so it's good that I managed to fit in so much of the glasses case around the craziness of yesterday.

This is how far I got while waiting for Trish:

and this is what I knit in the car with Trish en route to my LYS of choice The Naked Sheep, which is closing, which breaks my heart, but filled my knitting cabinet with mementos to be revealed at a later time:

While taking this picture I noticed I'd forgotten to start adding in the white stripes I'm using to avoid needlefelting some details on at the end, so I had to frog back a bit, but then I forged ahead.

While I neglected supper:

After supper while neglecting to get ready for the party:

At the party, which - in spite of holding out on leaving the house before casting off - I managed to arrive at after a few people but before a few others:

In the end I wasn't sure about that diagonal stripe for my uncle, so I'm doing random horizontal ones for my aunt. Mostly what I'm doing here is hoping that felting makes the colour transitions a lot more subtle, but I guess you won't know whether that worked till Monday, heh heh heh.

(unless I don't manage to fit in time to knit the rest of the pink, in which case it will be ack ack ack.)

Crunch

Today is where la la la playtime meets Whoooooa work time, because the Super Secret Urgent project got itself ready to begin about ten minutes after I pulled together these colours:

They are all Patons Classic Wool, also known as the raw material for my aunt and uncle's Christmas stripey glasses cases. And since they are getting themselves ready to leave for a winter in Florida, and I am notoriously bad at getting to the post office on time if I miss their departure, the glasses cases are Super Urgent as well.

I have a social thing tonight - this is rare enough, but also I have been looking forward to it which is rarer - and I am going to need a nap today owing to the crabby factor and another round of Staying Up Late To Swatch, so today looks like it will be interesting.

Check back tomorrow for how far I got with the Patons (and if I don't post at 7am, it will be because I had to wait for another round of daylight to take pictures.)

Meanwhile, other crunchies:

If you are wishing you too could be part of the Vesper Sock Club, spots for new members are now open in the Fall/Winter installment. It is killing me but I have to miss this one owing to physiotherapy eating up all my yarn money (darned Achilles tendon, I wish I didn't need one so much.) Did I say killing me? Slow torture, that's what it is.

And it didn't help that yesterday when I was feeling hurty post-physio I put on a pair of socks made from club yarn and was vividly reminded of how exceptionally soft and happy all Julia's skeins are.

My one comfort is that I bought a spot in the Twisted Fiber Art fiber club before the physio started, but that is also slow torture at the moment because I have noticed there is a lot of activity in the Ravelry spoiler thread which exposes photos and hosts discussions of the current month's batch. And mine has not yet arrived.

Can't - look - Can't - look - away - GAH.

My low-fiber diet

I decided the only way I would get my socks and other knitting obligations done is to limit my spinning, so I hit on this plan:

Every day, I get to spin only what I can draft in 30 minutes.

I find it takes about as long again to spin that much, so it's only an hour on spinning instead of the usual three that eat into potential sleep time at night. Also, just like on a food diet, I try to do the spinning before 7pm. Any later, my willpower is impacted and I stay up too late.

So, in spite of a weekend that felt austere, I still got closer to plying the red Fleece Artist stuff:


If I'm nimble, I can probably draft out what's left in the bag in the designated 30 minutes and ply it tonight. Well, if I'm nimble and break my diet just a little.

Of course all this was in aid of moving forward with my variegated socks. I got the second sock set up and about halfway to the heel, and I reknit the first sock's heel and revised my instructions so that they are easy to follow and have correct math and all that nonsense.

Most of all, this means I have a sock I can take anywhere because all I need to do is keep going round and round until I run out of yarn - unless it starts to get very long such that I have to increase to accommodate my calf, which is unlikely.


I seem to be getting a lot of navy pooling around the ankle after a very pale foot, but I'm trying not to be disappointed about that even though navy is the one shade I never wear; I'll just have to think of it as an especially rich blue. And chalk it up to more motivation, as well - getting further along to see what colour pools next!

Adapting

Time to face facts:

It's December 4th.

In 20 days, I will be past the point of knitting anything for anybody.

It takes me an average of 30 days to come up with a pair of socks, to say nothing of the other 5 or 6 things I'm supposed to be knitting for presents.

I can't knit socks for my likely-to-enjoy-handknit-socks friend.

I can however substitute a hat out of qiviut:


Let's just hope I have enough qiviut in the stash!