Citron

Without further ado (because I know the suspense has been killing you), it is with great pleasure that I give you Citron, aka the Big Red Blob of Doom:

Yes friends, I finished it. There were approximately eleventy-bajillion-zillion stitches on the needles at the end, and for a while I thought I had stumbled into some sort of blip in the time-space continuum, but binding off that final stitch was like attaining knitting nirvana.  I experienced a singular, blissful moment of clarity...

... swiftly followed by an overwhelming wave of hostility and disgust.  I couldn't get that f*$#ing shawl away from me fast enough.

It took me a full week before I could even look at it again, and another week to be able to sit down and weave in 6 little ends. And now it is finally and truly done.

I can't even begin to contemplate casting on for another shawl at this point, resolution be damned.  Since finishing my Citron I have gone absolutely WILD and cast on not one but TWO socks (I KNOW!  Get DOWN with your bad self!) and have been enjoying knitting on one or the other as strikes my fancy.

The pair on the left (which is not, in fact, as crazy neon orange as it appears in this photo) is the latest
Cookie A Sock Club sock, knit with Sweet Georgia CashLuxe Fine.  The pattern (inspired by Spock!) is fun and challenging and the yarn is absolutely divine.  The pair on the right is my Soccer/Swimming/AutoPilot knitting of the moment, a pair of plain vanilla socks knit out of NightFall sock yarn.

I'm sure I'll be serving myself up another slice of crazy-pie within no time, but until then I'll be happily knitting away on these babies.  Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Pushed over the edge

I'm trying to knit from stash as much as possible this year.  I wouldn't call it Cold Sheeping exactly.  Maybe Tepid Sheeping?  Anyway, as anyone who has developed a, um... healthy interest in knitting can attest, refraining from buying yarn can be... challenging.  The colours, the fibers, the sales... it can be hard to resist. 

Enter the yarn club.  Pay your money up front at the beginning of the year, then receive shiny new yarn at regular intervals throughout the year.  I'm not saying it CURES a knitter of her itch to buy yarn, but knowing you've got a shipment coming in a few weeks definitely takes the edge off, which can be pretty handy in a pinch.

Way back in February (you know... 'round about the last time I wrote a blog post?  Ahem), I received the first shipment of the Cookie A Sock Club.  It was a lovely skein of Indigodragonfly MCN sock, in the colourway E Pluribus Nom Nom Nom.

Lovely, isn't it? What a pretty thing.  And as soft and squooshy as frolicking kittens on a Spring morning.  Just perfect.

Only, well... there was a snag.  Turns out I had remarkably similar yarn in the stash already.  A few skeins of it.  And here's the kicker: I was embarrassed that I had "So Much Yarn" in this colour in my stash. Really.  I've been squirreling yarn away for YEARS, it's invaded practically every nook and cranny in my home, but THIS skein was pushing me out of my comfort zone.

There was only one thing to do, of course.  I had to get that yarn out of the stash ASAP!  Denial  balance had to be restored at all costs!

The club yarn has been knit up into one of the 2 patterns for that shipment, the Ernie Socks, and they're now safely tucked away into the Gift Box.

The green Hazel Knits (top right) is being knit up into a lovely shawl by Corrina Ferguson, Evadine.  And the Springtree Road yarn (bottom left) will most likely be cast on with next.

Me?  Too much yarn?  Pshaw.

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Call me Mrs McMatchyPants

A few weeks ago I had dinner with a good friend of mine, who also happens to be a knitter.  Knowing that she would appreciate them, I took special care when selecting my winter woolens.  I had just completed the Neon Ski Bonnet, which I showed you a few posts ago,  so naturally I grabbed that first.  I paired the hat with my (yet-to-be-documented) Different Lines shawl, and my (also yet-to-be-documented) Wood Hollow Mittens.   The shawl is knit out of Sanguine Gryphon Bugga in a rich pink and black combo, and the mittens are in a pinkish/blueish/greyish wool.  And, in case you missed it, my Neon Ski Bonnet is, well... cranberry. Bright red.

Being a knitter, my friend honed in on my new hat right away, and dutifully oohed and aaahed.  Being a fashionable knitter, she also remarked, albeit affectionately, that my accessories were somewhat lacking in the coordination department.

It was true.  Despite my best intentions, I had fallen into the knitters' trap.  There I was, proudly showing off each individual piece as testaments to my knitterly skill and general awesomeness, but I had completely forgotten the fact that they were no longer knitting projects but articles of clothing.  If I had gone to work in an outfit as uncoordinated as that, I might have been mistaken for a patient in the psychiatric ward.  Just sayin'.

I really did love that hat though.  And I still had about 250 yards left of that never-ending Shelridge.  So I set about knitting up some matching accessories.

 Clockwise, from top left: Neon Ski Bonnet, Wood Hollow Mittens, and Ziyal Cowl.

I had knit the mittens before, and I figured the cables and twisted stitch border pattern would be a good match for the headband of the hat.  I was wondering what I was going to do for a cowl when I happened upon the Ziyal cowl, by Allison Goldthorpe, a free pattern on Ravelry.  It uses the same smocked stitch pattern as the ski bonnet.  Score!

Matching, coordinated winter accessories, using leftover yarn that's been marinating in the stash since 2008.  I am living the dream, people.

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Resolutions

A couple of years ago I started this "Running for Rhinebeck" thing to save money for my annual pilgrimage trip to the New York Sheep and Wool festival.  The idea was that, for every kilometer I ran, I would put a dollar into my Rhinebeck Fund.  So I created a little "Running for Rhinebeck" widget thingamabob and smacked it on the sidebar of the blog to keep track of my progress.  Whenever I run, I boot up the blog, click on the widget to log onto Ticker Factory, and enter in my distance (and cash).  Simple!  I figured it would a) encourage me to keep up with my training, and b) give me a fair whack of guilt-free yarn money by the end of the year.  Bingo, double-whammy.

Yeah... for the past month and a bit, logging the progress has been... shall we say... difficult?  Embarrassing?  Not because I haven't been running (I have.  Not as much as I probably should, but I have).  No, the problem is that I have to face The Blog to do it.  The Blog.  This space that I haven't contributed to for months.  MONTHS. The SHAME.  Ugh.

Here's the thing.  My evenings are short and my ME time is precious.  When faced with the choice between knitting and writing about knitting, I'm going to go with knitting, you know?  Hence, no blogging.

But every now and again, I catch myself thinking about a project or a pattern, or hatching some crazy scheme, and I think "this would make a good blog post".  So I guess I haven't really gotten this whole blogging thing out of my system after all. 

I'll try to fit it in.  Somehow.  

So what have I been up to lately, you may ask?  Well, I've been knitting.  And thinking about knitting.  And thinking about what I want to DO with my knitting this year. 

I love setting myself up to fail goals for myself.  They give me a real sense of momentum, of moving forward.  Work is hectic (stupid money... grumble grumble), kids (God love 'em) are demanding, and time is in short supply.  But making lists makes me feel like I'm doing the things I want to be doing, even if I never ultimately get around to it all.

So!  Here are my goals for 2013:

• Knit up (drum roll please) 15,000 yards in total.  Yup.  Just over 13km worth of yarn.  I can totally do it.  Right?
• Knit 12 shawls.  To this effect, I've joined the 12 Shawls Forever group on Ravelry.  'Cause, you know... Peers are good :)

Shawl the First: Wendell Holmes, by Corrina Ferguson.

• Try to use some of the vintage stash.  Also in the "Peers are Good" category, I'm participating in Stash and Burn's Use It or Lose It project.  

 Neon Ski Bonnet, by Lacey Volk.  Knit with some Shelridge Farm W4 Soft Touch I purchased at Rhinebeck. In 2008!

• Knit all the shipments from the Cookie A Sock Club (oh yeah.. I signed up for the Cookie A sock club!)
• Knit an additional 9 pairs of socks, for a total of 15 pairs in the year. 

I also have a few stash enhancement goals, but they're more "guidelines" than strict rules.  Basically, I want to make sure that more yarn makes its way OUT of the stash than in, heh.  'Cause, yeah... I've got a lot of yarn.  Ahem.

What are YOUR goals?  How are you doing so far?

Happy Knitting, my friends!

Going Random

This past Saturday night, I had one of those Bizarro World knitting moments where the knitting was just going super fast and I finished everything.  OK, technically I only had 2 projects in active rotation, but STILL.  These are projects I'd had on the needles for weeks.  Evening after evening, I'd plunge into a thankless knitting abyss and nothing would get done, and then Saturday, *poof!*  Both projects were finished.  On Sunday, just as we were heading out to apple country for the day, Phil suggested I bring something to knit and I had nothing I could bring with me. Chew on that, my friends.

The first thing off the needles was the second of the Eyelet and Flame Chevron socks.  I finished these on September 1st, so technically I was a day late and a dollar short for the Solid Socks KAL, but that doesn't make these babies any less awesome.

Knit with Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in the Candlewick colourway.  The stitch pattern is the Eyelet and Flame Chevron, on page 68 of Vogue Knitting's Ultimate Sock Book, and I sort of fudged the cuff, heel and toe to make a sock, heh.

I mentioned last post that I'd talk about how I came to settle upon this particular pattern for my next sock.  WELL, here's the thing.

It recently came to my attention that I have... drumroll please... 446 sock patterns in my Ravelry library.  That's FOUR HUNDRED FOURTY SIX, sock patterns that I've either bought (paper of electronic) or downloaded since I first joined Ravelry.

I've got 2 words for that: In. Sane.  And the killer is that, when I want to knit a sock, more often than not I'll just download a new pattern rather than try to choose one from my books/PDF library, because honestly... How am I supposed to decide when I've got so many options?  How do I choose?

There's just no way.  The only solution was to bust out the random integer generator.  And that's exactly what I did, and what I'll continue to do for the next little while.  I've allowed myself a few outs (I don't have to knit it if I don't like the pattern; I have to use stash yarn), but this was the first one Mister Random Number Generator selected for me, and it's none too shabby, if I do say so myself.

******************************

In closing, lest you think I wussed out on my weekly muffin commitment, here are the muffins for week 2!

Strawberry Balsamic Jam muffins.  Not as "healthy" as last week's (who are we kidding at this point?), but really, truly delicious.  Ask me how I know.

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Be Cool

It's highly possible that I'm completely out of the knitwear-loop here (perhaps even probable), but it seemed to me that the Big Thing this Winter was the cowl.  Specifically, the over-sized, neutral cowl.  Is it just me, or were they everywhere?!? Seemed as though you couldn't open your car door without hitting some hip gray chunky-cowl wearing Fashionista. Or something.

Anyway, while I'm normally fairly immune to your run-of-the-mill fashion trend (for instance, I can pretty much guarantee you won't see me wearing any neon coloured skinny jeans this summer), I do tend to fall down a wee bit when it comes to knitting trends.  I mean... I've knit a Clapotis, a Noro Striped scarf, not to mention a few Stephen West patterns.  It was only a matter of time before I started to get the cowl bug.

When I cast on, I had visions of a long, chunky, over-sized neutral cowl that would - in my mind, anyway - instantly transform any outfit I was wearing into something a hip, young, twenty-pounds-lighter 20-something model would wear to grab a latté before running off to the museum of modern art with a group of sassy friends.  You know... like something out of a Brooklyn Tweed photo shoot.

Not quite sure I achieved that goal (ahem!), but I did wind up with a pretty gosh darn nice cowl, if I do say so myself.

Pattern:Lispenard, by Kirsten Kapur

Yarn: Mission Falls 136 Merino Superwash, colourway 003

Needles: 4.5 mm

Modifications: None

I've been wearing it pretty much non-stop since I finished it about a month ago.  It may not magically transform me into a gorgeous-if-somewhat-twiggy worthy of Jared Flood model, but it keeps me nice and warm without making me look like a Crazy Knitwear Lady (you know what I mean). And that's good enough for me.

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

In which we discuss baby knits

Here's the thing: I mostly knit stuff for myself. And by that I don't mean that I knit to satisfy my intellect or creative process or entertainment (although knitting certainly fills those shoes too), but mostly I mean that the end result, the FO, that which I am working on... is usually for me. It all boils down to this (apologies if I offend you charity knitters out there):

My Money (yarn) + My Time = My Knitwear

That's not to say that I haven't dished out my fair share of woolly love over the years. I totally have. I have many a friend/loved one who has been found worthy and been blessed with the gift of my time my yarn my skill my yarn my dedication to my craft MY YARN!!! knitwear. But I'm not one of those knitters, you know? You know the ones who whip up a pair of mittens for a casual work acquaintance because they mentioned they had cold hands once? Heck no. Screw that, they can get their own damn mittens!

Take baby knits. Some knitters are All. About. the baby knits. Brother-in-law's cousin's daughter's hairdresser is expecting her ninth? That woman needs a baby knit! And, you know... that's totally cool, more power to them.

I, however, am not that knitter. Are baby knits cute? Satisfying to knit? Satisfying to give? Fun? You're darn tootin'. But they're only worn for about, oh, 9 minutes before the bundle of joy outgrows them, and that's a clear affront to my "selfish" knitter tendencies.

So friends, if you've received a baby knit from me, know that it's because you're loved here at Casa de Dear, and tap yourselves on the back for being one of the lucky few.

The most recent baby knit to come off the needles was completed sometime in... um... November of last year? I think? I know, I'm a terrible blogger and you should shun me. Moving on.

I knit this one for a knitter friend's Miracle Baby. Really. This baby girl, this little gem, came unexpectedly into their lives, and her ecstatic reaction compelled me to knit something for her. I think it was her joy at being pregnant that drew me in. She was just SO happy, you couldn't help but gravitate towards her.


I chose the Korrigan pattern, because it was simple and elegant and had those gorgeous cables that just screamed Knit Me!!! Knit it up in a gorgeous golden yellow silk/merino blend from No Two Snowflakes I had left over from another project.

(What IS it about yellow anyway? Have you ever noticed how it can "upgrade" any old project from ho-hum to fabulous because, hey, wow, IT'S YELLOW!!!)


All in all, a successful project, I think. I hope it will keep my friend's Miracle Baby warm for many minutes to come :)

And yes... it had buttons when I gave it to her. Bad blogger, remember?

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Edited to add: speaking of baby knits, Tanis is having a giveaway for one of her awesome Shane Baby Blanket kits! Check it out here!

It went well

When I first started blogging, I promised myself that I would be a "good" blogger. My posts would be funny/witty/quirky/charming/thought-provoking, feature beautiful photography, and - this totally goes without saying - be published on a regular basis. Chalk it up to the crazy idealism of a newbie, but I didn't want to be one of those bloggers who's posts could be summarized by: I knit a sock. It went well.

That being said... it's been almost 3 weeks since my last post, and as merino is my witness, I can't seem to come up with something witty, charming, quirky, funny or thought provoking to save my LIFE. So... um... yeah.


I knit a sock.

Two of them, in fact. As one does, you know. With socks.

It went fairly well.

{Head Desk}

pattern: It's Tea Time, by Stephanie van der Linden
Source: Around the World in Knitted Socks: 26 Inspired Designs
Yarn: Sincere Sheep Keen, in the Milpa colourway
Needles: 2.25 mm
Modifications: none

According to my Ravelry projects, this is the 35th pair I've knit. Fascinating, non?

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Quickies

While in Myrtle Beach last summer, I briefly found myself in fabric heaven. It was our last day, and we had a few hours to kill, so we did some shopping. My local fabric store isn't much to write home about, so I wasn't expecting much. But DUDES, this place was WAY beyond anything I've experienced at home. Bolts and bolts of fabric EVERYWHERE, all modern and pretty and organized by colour... Oh, it was glorious. I remember wanting to spend HOURS in this place, but with 2 cherubs following me around and whining about being hungry/thirsty/hot/tired/needing to pee... it was, shall we say... challenging.

To buy myself a bit of time (not to mention the good graces of the shop keepers!), I let each of the kids choose a fat quarter of fabric of their very own. Whichever one they wanted, I'd buy it for them. And we'd use it to make something for them "later".

Weeks went by. Months, even. But they didn't forget. Every once in a while, they'd pull out their fabric and ask me when I was going to make something for them. "What about my fabric, maman? When will you make something with my fabric?".

*Sigh*

I finally cracked this weekend, and made each of them a lined drawstring pouch, using Jeni's pattern (from In Color Order).



I made the Snack Size bag, which took me maybe 25 minutes per bag, including cutting time. The kids seem happy with them, even though I was a wee bit disappointed with the finished size myself (probably should have read the actual measurements in the pattern first, huh? I mean, there are 16 size options, fps). Émilie, especially, seems to be making the most of it.


Some bling, a pair of shades... what else does a modern girl on the go need?

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Ripple Effect

Apologies for the hiatus, friends. It's been a busy few weeks chez Dear, friends (understatement!!!), and I'm so tired I can barely see straight, so it's a real tribute to my love and appreciation of this here blog that I'm even posting at all...

Without further ado, I present the second official FO to finally come off the needles: a pair of Fleece Artist thrum socks, a woefully belated Christmas gift for my stepmum Margot.


Let me just say this: I absolutely *despise* knitting these f***ing things. Hate it. After the first few rounds, the "charm" of the multi-coloured thrums loses what pitiful appeal I had deluded myself into thinking they had, and I want to snip the fledgling sock into a zillion wee bits and set them on fire. Don't ask me why. I just really, really REALLY hate knitting these things. But I knit them anyway. You know... once every 2 or 3 years, when I can finally suppress the gag reflex these f***ers inspire. 'Cause that's just the kind of awesome stepdaughter I am, you know? Heh.

Suffice it to say that, once I was finally done with these never-ending time sucks of doom socks, I had a mean hankering to knit ANY SOCK WHATSOEVER AS LONG AS IT WASN'T THRUMMED. In the next few days, I cast on not one, but TWO pairs. Considering my strict-ish policy about project monogamy, that should tell you something about how far out of my comfort zone those Socks of Evil pushed me.

Sock cast on The First:


Solid Socks Mystery KAL, designed by Laura Jenkins, knit with Sweet Georgia Tough Love in the Tourmaline colourway. Colour is way, WAY off in this picture, but hey, that's life.

Sock cast on The Second:


It's Tea Time socks, from Around the World in Knitted Socks, by Stephanie Van der Linden. Knit with The Sincere Sheep Keen 100% BFL Superwash in the Milpa colourway. Really digging these at the moment.

The recent cast-ons are helping me recover with the trauma of the thrummed socks, but I don't know what I'm completely over it yet. Maybe I should cast on for a cowl...

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

First

Yesterday, January 29th, I finally got around to creating a Finished Objects set for the year in Flickr. That means it took me almost an entire month to have a finished object. Considering how profuse some knitters are, not to mention how I used to be, I've got to say... it bugged me a little bit. I kept thinking "Seriously? Here we are, almost February, and this is all I've got? One pair of socks?".

At least these aren't your run of the mill socks though...

Pattern: Aphrodite, by Jeannie Cartmel
Yarn: Springtree Road Emeline Sock (50% Merino, 50% Silk)
Colour: Chartreux
Needles: 2.5 mm
Technique: knit on 2 circulars
Cast on date: January 12, 2012
Cast off date: January 28, 2012

I knit these beauties as part of the Solid Socks monthly Mystery Sock KAL on Ravelry. I got a wee bit confused and thought I could partake of both the Mystery Sock AND the Color of the Month KAL (which was Black/White/Grey for January), but apparently I can't do that... No matter though. These socks are made of total frickin' awesome, in my humble opinion.


Oh yeah... that's the stuff right there. Just look at those stitches! Ooh baby...

*Ahem*

Next month's colour of the month is "Spring". In February. Since I doubt the group's organizers mean us to knit with dirty white, icy grey or dull brown (such is the colour of February in Montreal), I pulled the following candidate skeins out of the stash:

Anyone have any favourites?

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Satisfaction

My last FO for 2011 was another Holiday Hooligan, Ivy, this time for Maxime.


Pretty cute huh? A bit of a finicky pain in the arse to knit, and should totally have counted as three FOs since it came with a hat and a scarf, but hey... the important thing is that he's happy with it (you know.. as much as anyone with the attention span of a four year-old can be). Perhaps even more important is the fact that I've pretty much purged the urge to knit toys, and can I get an Amen to that?

The only trouble is that, since finishing Ivy, my knitting has kind of... lulled. I've got a few projects on the go, and even finished a few things (a second Roar hat for Émilie, as well as a neckwarmer/cowl that turned out too big for her...), but... yeah. Nothing was really doing it for me. It was all rather... Meh. Schmeh. Yadayada.

Then one day I was procrastinating browsing on Ravelry (raise your hand if you've got a funny knitting story that starts with those words!), looking into the Solid Socks group... and suddenly I was a woman possessed. I had to knit a pair of socks in the colour of the month (Black, White or Grey) and I had to knit the Mystery Sock (this month's is to catch up on a former Mystery Sock). I mean... I hadn't knit a pair of fun, challenging, pretty socks in, like... weeks!


Pattern is Aphrodite, by Jeannie Cartmel (who, might I add, has some really cute sock patterns!), and the yarn is Springtree Road's Emeline Sock (50% superwash merino, 50% silk) in the Chartreux colourway.

I'm calling them my Peel Me A Grape socks. They're decadent, sophisticated and just plain fabulous, and I'm loving every minute of this project. I mean... just look at them! Oh yeah, that's the stuff right there.


Happy Knitting, Everyone!

Frozen

A couple of things have got me thinking that it must be getting mighty cold in the underworld this week, and I'm not talking about the snow that finally got here today*. Nope, I'm talking about strange, heretofore unheard of goings-on chez Dear that, had you asked me about them even a week ago, I would have scoffed at.

Thing the first? Well, brace yourselves but... I knit a toy.


I realize that might not seem like a big deal to most of you, but trust me when I say that anyone who knows me will be absolutely GOBSMACKED.

Long story short: I don't do toys. Garment knitter all the way, 100%. I've had discussions about knitted toys with people, and while I've occasionally conceded that there might MAYBE be a few toys out there that score fairly high on the cute-o-meter, I just... don't get them. To me knitting a toy would be like crocheting a cozy for my toilet paper dispenser. Um... no.

Enter DangerCrafts' Three Christmas Hooligan pattern. Pretty gosh darn adorable, wouldn't you say? Yup. Only I wasn't going to knit it, because, as I said, I don't do toys. Not me. No siree. Knit a toy? Surely you jest. Pshaw... Like, duh.

However, when Émilie told me that they were having a "bring a stuffie to school" day this week, that was all the excuse I needed I decided to put aside my aversion to knitting toys and made her one, because that's the kind of mature, wonderful mother I am.

But wait, that's not all. I said there were a couple of things...

Thing the second? I finally fixed and finished The Mittens. Yeah... I know.


Happy Knitting, Everyone!

* yeah, I know. I'm complaining about the lack of snow, even though I know perfectly well that I'll be having nightmares because of it in April. What can I say? I'm Canadian. My relationship with snow is complex.

Fishermen's Friends

About a zillion years ago (or so it seems anyway), I was stalking browsing Springtree Road's site when I fell hard for a skein of BFL fingering weight yarn in the most absolutely perfect shade of red. It was magnificent, I tell you. It had richness and depth and it just felt luxurious, you know? It looked like velvet is supposed to feel. It was called Red Delicious, and I wanted very much to make it mine.

Of course, I was on a yarn-diet at the time, one that I was actually sticking with for a change, so despite some pretty gosh-darn strong feelings on the subject, I didn't buy it.

And for weeks that was how it went. I would stalk browse Maya's site and I would have a cyber-visit with the red yarn. I would look at it and sigh over it's magnificence, and I would let it go. Until one day, I visited my the yarn and saw that there was only ONE skein of my precious Red Delicious in stock. ONE SKEIN, people.

I think you can guess what happened next? Yarn diet schmyarn diet, and I'll take a membership in your fabulous sock clique club while I'm at it, thanks.

When it arrived it was just as fabulous as I had imagined it would be. Contrary to my usual habit, I didn't carry the skein around me for a few days, taking every opportunity to look at it and give it an affectionate squeeze (shut up, you SO do it too!). I wound it up almost immediately. I had fawned over this yarn long enough, my friends. I couldn't wait to knit it up.

For some reason, I felt that the skein wanted to be knit up into man socks. Awesome, kickass, Yeah-I'm-wearing-red-socks-what's-it-to-you-pal socks. Socks that would make an impression. Epic socks.

I chose to knit up my Red Delicious yarn into these Filey socks, inspired by a traditional guernsey pattern. Because it's my firm belief that if fishermen of yore had had access to some awesome red yarn, they would totally be more traditional red guernseys in the world. Heh.


Chalk ONE up for the Christmas Gift Pile (Yup, I said it. Hang on to your dpns my friends. Chrismas Knitting has arrived chez Dear.)


Happy Christmas Knitting, Everyone!

The Swatch

I had a really laid back attitude as far as Rhinebeck prep was concerned this year. I didn't have a buying plan, didn't have any specific itinerary. Honestly? It's been a rough year, and I was just happy to be going at ALL, you know? Me and my peeps, going to spend a weekend with people who know and understand the awesome power of yarnz.

It was going to be great! I was happy and at peace. Right up until Phil asked me what I was knitting for Rhinebeck, 17 days before the big day.

At first, I just dismissed the idea. Knitting something (aka a sweater) in 17 days? Was he mental? The schedule was crazy! I was starting a new job! Things were just WAY too hectic. 17 days to knit a sweater? There was just no way, right?

Right?

I mean... it just couldn't be done.

Could it?

The thing is... you can't just plant an idea in a knitter's head like that and have nothing happen. In knitterly parlance, by asking someone what they're knitting for Rhinebeck, you've effectively drawn a line in the sand. You've challenged the knitter's skillz, dedication, and fortitude. Shit is going to go down, one way or the other.

And so it went. Fester, fester, fester... the idea of knitting a sweater in 17 days gnawed at me. I was as excited at the prospect of a good knitdown as I was pissed at Phil for even suggesting it in the first place. And to add insult to injury, it's not like I had nothing appropriate in the stash. I just happened to have 11 skeins of Shelter lying around, earmarked for Gudrun Johnston's Kerrera, for the better part of a year.

- "OK," I thought. "I'll knit a swatch. See what happens. Maybe the Shelter won't be a good match for the pattern. Maybe I won't get gauge. And that'll be that. It'll be out of my hands."

Naturally, I got gauge. On the first try, no less, which never happens. The knitting fates were just laughing at me at this point. I stared at the swatch. Tumbleweeds blew across the living room floor. Time seemed to stop. There I was, on the cusp of knitting greatness. Deep down, I knew what I had to do. I couldn't back down. I couldn't let it go. I was Knitter, and I would knit a sweater in 17 days or go crazy trying.

And for the next 16 days, I knit like the wind, people. Every chance I got, I knit. A few rows here, a couple of stitches there. By the time we left for Rhinebeck, I had completed the body and 2 sleeves, but I still had to finish the hood, make the pockets, and knit about a zillion miles of edging (in double garter stitch - aka endless time suck stitch - no less).

Luckily, Kate understood. Without my even having to say anything, she sensed my desperation, my knitterly angst, and graciously offered to drive the entire way to Kingston, all so that I could maximize the knitting time. (Or maybe she just didn't want me driving her swagger wagon. Heh.)

When we got there, while other knitters were whooping it up with cocktails around the pool, Kate was right there with me, giving me oxygen offering words of encouragement while I knit furiously into the night. Eventually even Kate couldn't hold on any longer, fatigue got the best of her, and still, I kept knitting.

I wove in my final ends at a few minutes past midnight, the night before the festival. I sighed in relief, and not a little disbelief too. I had done it. I had knit a sweater in 17 days. Wow.

Bug eyed and stiff from hours of intense knitting posture, I turned off the lights and shuffled off to the bathroom, my sweater grasped tightly to my bosom. Again, pride washed over me. I had done it. I put on the sweater I had knit in 17 days, and...

It looked like ASS.

Crumpled, egg-cartony, misshapen ASS.

My eyes widened. I may have sobbed a little. I had hoped it wouldn't come to this, but it was just staring me in the face at this point. I was going to have to block the sweater.

What was going through my mind as I dunked the sweater into a warm bath at half past midnight the night before Rhinebeck? Resignation. Acceptance. Maybe a touch of insane hope as well.

- "Shelter isn't really a dense yarn. It'll probably dry quickly" I thought as I blindly patted it into place in our now pitch black hotel room, as Kate dreamed happy dreams beside me.

It didn't quite work out that way, of course.


The next morning (you know... 6 hours later?) it was still wet as... um... water. I wore it to the fairground anyway, draped over my arm when I became concerned it was going to stretch beyond repair if I continued to wear it. But eventually I came to my senses, mostly because I was tired of lugging a heavy, dripping, slightly smelly sweater around.

Still. I knit a sweater in 17 days, y'all. I rule.

Besides, she may not have been ready to make her debut at Rhinebeck, but she's still a damn fine sweater. Which is good enough for me.







Happy Knitting, Everyone!