Chptr 30: Does My Butt Make My Knitting Look Fat? (and other anxieties)

Just a picture to remind myself that while I have my boy(and Meredith) (and my amazing family & friends) (and yarn) (and stitchmarkers), all is actually gonna be right my little world and I need to stop pouting and KNIT THROUGH IT.

Lists.

This is the only place I like them (while writing and kvetching, basically). I fight against them at work and at home. Bad experience with an ex who lived by them, and got a little worked up when things didn't get accomplished.

I know, management by ADD does not really equal management at all, so I SHOULD look to lists - I SHOULD! And I try. I try to make them fun.  I buy iPad programs that have them (iThings - let's not go there on a review of THAT application), I create spreadsheets of them (interesting for about 12 minutes and 32 seconds), I want to create perfect lists and then execute them brilliantly, and I never do, and so don't you agree that avoiding them is actually the route to True Bliss? (Just nod.)

List of This Morning's Anxieties:

1.  I am knitting on something that does not like me.  I know this because it is a fairly simple pattern (Alhambra Scarf), and I'm using my favorite yarn (one of, at least) Colinette Tao, I love the designer (Anne Hanson, here's her blog), and there are a billion beautiful finished ones on Ravelry and everyone else is rating this as fairly easy.  I, however, am having issues.  I am EVEN USING LIFELINES - I've completed two full-size lace shawls WITHOUT LIFELINES and now this simple little scarf is kicking my ass and so I'm only knitting the damn thing 1.75 times to get a finished object with the lifelines, whereas I'd probably have to knit it like 7 times without them.  (what are lifelines you ask?  they are sanity, I tell you, sheer brilliant sanity.  here's a clip.)  It is also a gift, and I have kinda got a deadline on it, and I've started 3 other projects for this person and ended up co-opting all of them for non-gifting-to-her purposes, so I have this karmic knitting debt I'm working through.  And karma is indeed being a BeeeeeYotch in this instance.
2. I have a doctor's appointment because a recent blood test pointed positively to me having rheumatoid arthritis, and so off I am going to an arthritis specialist this afternoon.  I have been feeling pain lately (lately being the last 15 years since whacked by a car when on a bike with subsequent icky major injuries), especially in my hips, and this is pissing me the eff off because, while personally I LOVE anything that keeps me home with books, dogs, knitting, and is an excuse to stay in PJs all day, I also have a little bit of a "just deal with it, I don't want to hear about it" attitude towards folks who feel chronic pain.  Now, don't get all righteous on me, please.  Be kind.  I have felt pain in my life and sucked it up.  But now it appears it is leading to something that threatens my knitting.  So off I go to deal with this.  All the while, as with item 1, contemplating the karma thing.
3. Car issues.  Can't talk about it.  Let's just say it involves a "check engine" light and I got no money right now to deal with check engine lights (but I do see a yarn sale... ack.  I will be good).
4. Work.  It's work.  We all have work.  But work is starting to feel like my knitting: too many projects, not enough time.
5. Appetite and Butt Size.  Anxiety leads to me wanting to eat everything, especially if sweet, and this leads to fluffiness in the hip-ass-stomach area, and my wardrobe options constricting.  You know what?  It has occurred to me that women must like buying cars because when you choose your car, you choose what other folks see of you from behind.  It's like being able to choose your ass, and then your ass stays that way.  Unlike with life when your ass shape basically picks you.  Wardrobe-wise, today I had to go to my handy Chico's travellers pants and a long jacket because I could not face Spanx.  It sucks when you are getting too big for your Spanx, which I am. Cuz I'm anxious about items 1 through 4.

So.  More than you probably wanted to know.  Do I feel better for being all TMI on a knitting blog?  Not sure.  I don't like the docs, I never remember everything I want to tell them or ask them and don't bring everything they want me to, and can't find the office, and it's raining and I haven't been to this office before so phoooooey.  Bleh.

We'll see how it goes.  I do have another couple yarns cued up for the Great Colinette Felting Swatch Experiment:  Mohair and Zanziba.

Ciao.
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Confessions of a Knitting Addict

It's true. I can no longer deny it. Gone are the days when I could quit anytime I wanted.

I submit the evidence in three exhibits.

EXHIBIT 1

I recently ran out of stitchmarkers.  How the heck this happened, I have no clue:  I usually keep packages of them, and it seems that I rarely leave any type of craft or yarn store without buying some.

Actually, I still have stitchmarkers, but I took them to work and then left them there by accident.  (Note to co-workers - I didn't really lose them at work.  I NEVER KNIT AT WORK!  Or only during Sharepoint training.  Right? wink, wink.)

Started a new lace project (Alhambra scarf by Anne "Amazing Lace" Hanson), and even though I recently organized my knitting doodads, I could not find stitchmarkers.  Any stitchmarkers.  (Do you know how crazy this is?  Stitchmarkers to lace knitters are like NEEDLES - essential.)  A thought occurred to me: I'll bet there are some in the couch.  I tore apart the couch cushions like I've heard crystal meth users search for crumbs (no, ma, I don't know about this firsthand).  I found 3.  It occurred to me to vacuum.  JACKPOT!  And I got the bonus:  I found a tapestry needle in a size I recently 'lost' the last one of...  life is GOOD, baby.  Life is good.



EXHIBIT 2

DUH!  The reason I do laundry is to felt up test swatches!  (Here, Colinette Shimmer 5 in Monet, colorway #101.)

[I will soon be posting the great Colinette swatch experiment, which this is part of, so watch this space.]








EXHIBIT 3

Made this sucker big so you could see the price on it:  $26.99 for 50 grams. (Don't look, ma, you won't understand... and, no, it's not machine washable.)

Tao is 100% silk in a single-ply cord and OMG it is OMG so amazing to knit with OMG. Colinette Tao in Whirley Fig, colorway #157.  OMG.  And if you're nice to me, I'll let you touch it.

I shower because yarn this nice needs me to be worthy of it.  (Some days I succeed.)  And in our sex ed class in 6th grade, good hygiene was emphasized as being essential to laying the groundwork for others to like you.  And I want Tao to like me.  I really really do. (and sometimes it does:  hit me.)



And, little pretties, it needs knitting on now, so off I go - happy clicks!


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Hot Child in the City (not)

No freakin' clue why, but this song has been going through my head for a few days. Nick Gilder? Why couldn't it be Nick Cave? I mean, really. Sometimes I want to give my synapses a good talking to...

So. This was taken Sunday, October 10, 2010, on Penn Ave in DC. The vestish long drapey thingee is actually Iris Schreier's "Chevron Ruana" from her book Lacy Little Knits. Which I own, and am knitting something from, but can't find! ARGHHHHHH!!!!!! My one knitting book that's MIA.

The yarn, hold your breath, is Colinette Tao in the Madras colorway (#153). Here. Breath again. This yarn is sooooooo beautiful - warm golds with glints of dark amethyst and deep turquoise. The Tao yarn is a single-ply, fairly smooth, nice silken cord. I've made some shawls with it, and loved them, and making this solely with about 8 skeins of luxury stuff was an investment - let's not talk about what I don't have in savings because I'm wearing a couple hundred dollars worth of yarn (and hours of knitting). Ok, changing the subject...

Iris' book will be linked here once I consult with my webmistress about how to do my Amazon Associate hookup. (ETA! WOO HOO - figured this out on my own!) I am a jump-right-in kinda girl - I DON'T read the manual - give me the quickstart guide every time, please. However, I will say that if you haven't knit an Iris pattern prior to knitting something in that book and figured everything out on your own, you probably should at least cruise through the intro. And swatch. Yes, I know, it sucks. But there's less super-direct instruction in her patterns than I was used to and more reliance on the techniques in the intro ("K 5, P 3: end of row is 8 stitches" vs. "knit until it's about 5 inches measured the Iris way").

That said, and this was the first thing of hers I knitted, and I did NOT swatch, and I barely skimmed the intro, I'm happy. I had to start the damn thing about 5 times (swatching would've taken about 3 false starts off that), and if I had to do it over, I'd sew up the armholes a bit tighter, and maybe make the whole thing a little smaller 'cuz the yarn stretches out.

But this pattern + this yarn is a total winner. Especially if you dig looking like a bohemian kinda funky chick and are in denial that you're middle aged (even though you're dressing like a crazy old aunt).

And a shout out to Chico's. Damn, I never thought I'd say that. If you are going the Statement Piece route (and this is a Statement Piece), they have great plain tanks and tops and pants to set off the color. Jewelry's a little pricey - I like the sale counter at TJMaxx or Marshalls. Or Etsy.

OK. Dogs need walking and I just remembered something I forgot to do yesterday at work... crapola. Happy Wednesday and happy clicking.

ETA - Ravelry page on this project here
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SOLD: Will Knit for Coffee. Or Money. Or Coffee Money...

So. This is the first sweater I made and sold - to a dear friend who is now starting to knit!

SHAZAM!

(Can I tell you that I am feeling excitement dangerously close to the kind I imagine I would feel if I was in a cult and scored a bonus-points convert - ? The kind of convert with a large trust fund and no heirs.)

Looking back at my notes on this project on Ravelry, it took me slightly less than a month to knit. I'm thinking I was fairly devoted to the project, and wasn't knitting on a lot of other stuff at the time.


Pattern Designer: Colinette - of course!
Pattern Book Title: Nostalgia (Colinette #63)
Pattern Name: Millais
Yarn Brand: Colinette
Yarn Type: Parisienne (in Fire, color #71 ) and Tao (in Windfall, color #149 )

Come to think of it, looking at the dates (March-April), I betcha this was knit with yarn I purchased at Woolwinders in Rockville (no longer carrying Colinette - but who is in DC these days? *sniff*) after getting a sweet little tax refund. It came out a little small for me, but I wore it a few times anyway, and when Leslie saw it her eyes lit up, so when an offer was made, I accepted.

Some notes on knitting this up: Pay attention to the Tao stitches. Also, they are a little tricky - the pattern is written for right-handed yarn throwers (English style) and I am a picker and knit in the Russian Continental style (more about that someday, it is such a pain to figure out stitching, let me tell you, and I am going to at some point get up and going on that; I need to do a page transposing stitches for those of us like me). I've even had English throwers contact me about how to do the stitch. Not that I'm much help.

Also, the way I knit, the pieces have a lot of horizontal give and not a lot of vertical give. So, I would go a tad longer than you think you need, at least on the body, and maybe go a little narrower in the body pieces.

Finishing: this was pretty darn easy to finish. I used the Parisienne to stitch together and because of the nylon or whatever man-made base is in that yarn, it's quite strong and disappears nicely. Just did simple mattress stitching (article with pictures from Knitty.com here), and it worked just fine.

Leslie mentioned this as a beach sweater - something nice for evenings in summer on your vacation when a chill is coming off the water... I have to say that the pattern dresses up and down, makes a great preppy-style shoulder wrap as well as a nice little pullover.

Work. Not at the beach today. Damn. Oh well...


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BTW, poking around online it looks like the pattern and yarns are being kitted and sold as of the date of this posting. If you are thinking about it, it is probably a good way to get a great color combination for this project, especially as not many US shops are currently stocking Colinette yarns. A state of affairs I would like to see changed! You really have to touch and feel and SEE Colinette to get it. Amazing stuff. (I know. Foaming at the mouth is not all that attractive. Sorry.)