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Restingmotion

On Queues and Stash and a missing pattern found

I have finally resumed the gathering, collating, and indexing of the project queue and I have passed that momentary phase of stash panic that came over me last week. I am pretty happy with my stash, and pretty happy with my queue in fact. As I start looking through everything again, and setting up to photograph and list things so I can post them to Ravelry, I am really happy, and I still want to knit every single project. Rather than feeling overwhelmed, I feel satisfied.

As for the deep green Cascade 220, I realized that I had intended to knit a sweater from the fall/winter Anny Blatt book, but I didn't get around to pulling the book and looking it up until today. I think it will be just perfect.

There had been another momentary bit of panic when I feared that I was planning a long cabled sweater when I also have some dark green Louet Gems Merino set aside for a cabled sweater. That would not have been acceptable, but this pattern is perfect for the yarn, or at least I think it is perfect for the yarn.

As for the current projects, Linden and the socks, they are both poking along slowly. I am almost finished with the first sleeve on Linden, and I intend to block it and assemble half the sweater before I knit the second sleeve, just to be sure I like the fit and everything. I am in no hurry but I do want it to be just right. I may have knit fewer sweaters last year, but I was happy with most of them and even the problem sweaters were minor problems (with one exception).

Some years ago I somehow gave up on obsessively carrying my knitting everywhere. It seemed I hit a point where I felt guilty if I wasn't knitting and it had become a crutch of sorts. I realized that I didn't want my knitting to define me, and it came as quite a relief to allow myself to knit only when I felt like knitting. Sometimes I knit a lot, other times less although usually at least a little bit most days.

There are however too many UFOs and they weigh heavily. I have amassed them all in one corner and I have subsequently managed to go out of my way to avoid them. I really don't like having so many things in process at the same time. Once I finish one of the two current projects, I will move on to assessing and cataloging the UFOs. Those that I still want will get finished and those that have passed their prime will simply go to UFO heaven, I can't be bothered with finishing something just because it is there.

After that, I will finally catalog the remainder of the stash in all its glory. I really do want a stash catalog. It is really no burden to me, but I would like to know it all, and I do think I forget things. Out of sight really is out of mind, and a photo record would help. And I will probably order some yarn for those planned mittens because I was out shoveling snow this morning and really wishing I had those mittens. But other than that I don't feel any great needs for yarn, or any great urge to move more quickly with my projects, just satisfaction and an urge to relax and enjoy the process.

January 13, 2009
First Book

Finished: The Myth of the Rational Votor by Bryan Caplan

The book was good. It was well argued and interesting although perhaps a little dense at times, and dry and academic as well, not that those are necessarily bad qualities. Caplan's argument, that most votors are irrational rather than ignorant is compelling. It is an interesting book to read in this interesting time. I suppose according to Caplan all elections are interesting times in terms of voter irrationality. I think he misses some key points but the book remains thought provoking. And I believe that human irrationality is not something one can discount or eliminate.

I had this book before the last election but did not get around to reading it until now. No mind. Signs of irrationality are everywhere. But then again, that is exactly what makes humanity, and the governance of humanity so interesting, and no one has ever accused me of being overly rational.

January 12, 2009
I shall entertain you with a picture of the lovely tote bag my mom sent me for Christmas. I think it is really lovely and beautifully done as well with all kinds of nifty and useful pockets inside. It is currently functioning as a knitting bag and harboring a nascent pair of socks.

Otherwise the beginnings of 2009 have been devoted to getting back on a schedule. I like being able to be open to inspiration, but I also like a plan and a schedule and am much happier when things run in a particular order. There is a certain amount of security and satisfaction in knowing "if it is Monday I should be doing X". I can always throw the schedule out the window for a treat, but at least I know everything is getting done and I rest a little more easily in that knowledge. Of course, when DH was not well, the schedule was abandoned and everything revolved around him and I was always fretting that there was something I wasn't getting to. By putting the controllable part of life on a schedule I am much freer to enjoy the unexpected upsets and fully follow creative inspirations in my free time without some little nagging voice grumbling in the back of my brain.

This week's free time has so far been devoted to re-acquainting myself with my closet and it has been a glorious time indeed. Suddenly I have been able to see the potential in things that I have fretted over for years. Combinations seem to be cropping up willy nilly and I am thrilled to discover them. There are also clothes that fit and even look good, but don't somehow look like "me". I am just amazed that my long absence has resulted in this kind of focus on what works and what does not.

One advantage to not sorting through the closet and only having a few clothes available during the fall was that I have learned that a few perfect things are far better than a closet full of things that are lovely but not quite right. My goal is no longer to have lots and lots of clothes but to have those things that work and I love wearing. I am sure, if I keep sewing, the lots and lots thing will occur anyway. In the meantime I want to think about what I make and what I buy and be certain that it works.

That sounds far grander than the reality, I am sure.

January 8, 2009
Plan Interrupted

The year has just begun and already I am unfaithful.

I swear it was my knitting that rebelled, not I. I managed to get the right front of Linden on the blocking board but somehow my tool bag, the one in which I had unwisely put ALL my stitch holders, had disappeared. So Linden was still on the needles, the circular addi turbo I had available in the correct size.

I did look, but the tool bag was not to be found.

And there, sitting right beside my knitting chair, not yet introduced to the rest of the stash was this lovely blue Froehlich special Blauband sock yarn. Not only that, my first pair of socks accidently got entangled with my husbands pants and he threw them all in the wash together. Apparently a fierce battle ensued between one sock and a zipper/hook and eye combination. The poor sock was outnumbered and emerged mortally wounded.

Obviously it was time to start knitting a new pair of socks. When I looked at the yarn I knew exactly which pattern I wanted to use: I who swear that plain socks are best, wanted to knit the Fancy Silk Sock pattern from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks.

I am having a grand time knitting these, although I still have to have the pattern in front of me so it is not really a traveling project despite its diminutive size. I am probably going to go back Linden soon anyway.

A stitch marker leapt off my knitting today and rolled away. It was very small, 1/2 inch in diameter or so, and I have yet to find it. The search did however turn up the missing tool bag, which had gotten itself lodged way back behind the sofa. I wonder how it got there, I certainly didn't push it, and unlike a stitch marker, I don't believe it rolled.

Now I am lured away from responsibility by the call of two projects. Thank goodness the rest of the UFO piles remains muzzled.

January 7, 2009
I still manage to get dressed

We once had a receptionist who was a great and efficient worker, but she had some chronic health conditions. I could tell she was having a bad day when I walked into the office and she was sitting at her desk in full professional makeup. She had once been a model and her way of coping with physical distress was to go out of her way to mask the trouble and appear as pulled together and polished as possible. Once you got to know her it was pretty easy to determine how she felt by how much or how little makeup she appeared to be wearing.

Which brings me to a question. How do you present yourself to the world when you feel particularly miserable? Do you fall apart and just run around in sweats, or do you put out an extra effort to look "better than your best"?

I ask because I am currently suffering through a case of hives and there are days when I frankly don't want to get out of my jammies, much less face the world. I do manage to dress and go out but I have noticed a couple of things about what I will accept and what I will not do:

I try to make-up but only emphasizing the best and downplaying the worst. Since I don't have pancake makeup there is no point in trying to hide the hives on those days they invade my face; best to try and distract the eye by emphasizing something else.

Clothing is more difficult. Everything itches. Bras are hell, but at the same time I don't feel I can go out without a bra. There are very few women in their 50's or older who can truly look fabulous and pulled together without a bra of some sort, and I am not one of them, especially if one goes for more fitted or tailored clothes.

Of course there are some wardrobe styles that are probably more suitable to "hives dressing". Consider Eskander (shown here courtesy of Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus respectively)

Here is clothing that would gently skim the body, causing less distress to sensitive skin and hiding the presence or lack thereof any supporting garments.

Another contender might be Issey Miyake, another master of clothing that hints at the body underneath. Perfect camouflage for those less than perfect body image days. With the right accessories and attitude, one could still look pulled together.

(Miyake photos courtesy of Elle.com)

Unfortunately these garments don't grace my wardrobe although there are certainly patterns along the Eskander vein, and older MIyake patters also fit in this ethic. So I could of course make them. It might even be a good idea to have a camouflage garment or two, but hopefully the current plague will not last long enough to warrant much in the way of protective clothing.

Nonetheless I am grateful for my collection of turtlenecks as they hide a multitude of sins and eruptions while offering options for protective cover in the form of layering.

It really is too bad that the IRS is unlikely to agree that a new wardrobe would be a justified medical expense.

January 6, 2009
Meltdown

It seems that the line between just right and too much is very very fine.

Now I have a stash, and I love my stash. I am happy to have my stash and I am very very rarely overwhelmed by it. It is all put away, I love looking at it, absorbing the colors, and I love playing with my stash too. I never purchased any yarn with the intention that it should go in a stash although it all too often happened that way. Every skein came with a dream, a vision of what I might knit. Its just that my eyes are obviously way bigger than my ability to knit up those visions and turn them into reality.

But something happened this weekend that just tipped me over the edge. Actually it was a couple of small things.

Remember how I said I was organizing a queue of projects, that I had them all together, but I didn't yet have a coherent list. Well, I thought I would work on that. I knew there were a few stray projects hiding in corners of my office, and a few small bags of yarn, but I knew what they were and I thought I knew what they wanted to be.

That is I thought I knew what I was doing with all my yarn. That was until I came to this pile of Cascade 220. I remember buying it. I remember talking to some friends in knitting group about which color would be best for a particular sweater, I just don't remember what that sweater was.

And it was driving me crazy. Suddenly it was all too much. I had yarn that I knew I bought for a particular purpose, the fact that I can log on to ravelry and find all kinds of wonderful ideas that would be perfect for this yarn was beside the point. I wanted to know why I bought this yarn,this yarn which was sitting in my yarn closet, this yarn that I had no place to store.

You will be happy to know that I did not start tearing the sewing/yarn room apart. I am particularly proud of myself about that. And I did, by browsing through this blog and my lists of sweaters I liked, remember what I wanted to knit with this yarn, or at least I think I remember. I haven't actually pulled the pattern out.

But suddenly, I had too much yarn.

Now I haven't bought new yarn for a couple of months, or almost a couple of months. Some yarn came in December that I ordered way back in the summer, but that was bought months ago, and I have some yarn on hold at Yarn Central, which I actually meant to buy 6 weeks ago, but I haven't been to the store during that time. But I haven't bought yarn. And I am not sure I want to buy yarn because I really need to knit some of the yarn in that yarn closet to make more room, and I have more UFO's than I even care to think about.

But I also looked in my stash for yarn to possibly make some mittens. I found two perfect colors of yarn. I can imagine mittens out of each yarn. I looked in the Selbuvotter book and I looked on Ravelry and I know exactly what I want to knit. But the yarns don't go together. I can envision a mitten with each one of them, but not the same mitten. To fulfill these dreams I need to buy two more colors of yarn to go with the yarns already in my stash, so I can make two pairs of mittens.

There is a kind of odd logic to it, isn't there?

Once upon a time I would have said that buying yarn to finish a project from stash yarn doesn't really count as buying "new" yarn. Self delusion is an important human survival tactic, no?

I do want to knit the mittens, and we are talking about very small quantities of yarn here. But I just can't quite do it. I am still in full overload mode.

Perhaps next week.

January 5, 2009
2008 Hits and Misses

2008 was a pretty good knitting year for me. My output was not as ambitious as some years, but most of my projects were successful and I enjoyed knitting them and wearing the finished results.

The obvious winner of the year was Granite. It looks great, it holds up well, and I just love wearing it. The fact that I also get compliments every time I wear it does not hurt either.

It is probably about to be retired until the weather warms up again, as it is not really a winter sweater. But then, winter that is too cool for Granite is just perfect for Dreaming of Spring, my second favorite sweater from last year.

I am using all the scarves I knitted as well and am quite fond of them as well as the fingerless mitts and the boot liners, which are crying out for a second pair as they are in quite heavy rotation.

There is only one real miss in the 2008 output. Compare and contrast looked nice in theory but I didn't like wearing them together on me. They did look good on Matilda, the dressmaker's dummy, but she doesn't really get a say. In retrospect I should have put some shaping in at the bust on the vest, as it gaped open every time I wore it even though there was enough room all around. I wore the under-sweater several times over a tank or a turtleneck, but it seemed to catch on everything and snagged very easily. Once at the mall I caught a sleeve on something and made a long rip up one arm and at that point I just gave up on it.

Two other sweaters are almost successful:

Rage Management is beautiful and warm and snuggly but I have lost weight since I made it and it is truly a little big. The neckline no longer stays in place (it did when I knit it) and it borders on sloppy more than comfy and cool. I haven't yet decided if I will reuse the yarn and knit it again, but The yarn is rather fuzzy and I am not sure if it will hold up to reknitting. This may be given away.

Lilac Serenade is also turning out to be a bit of a disappointment. The problem is not with the sweater pattern or its shaping. I love this pattern and will make it again and again.

Here the problem is due to my own pig-headed choice. The yarn pills badly and there are always long yarn worms appearing on my sweater as I am wearing it. Now I did check ravelry and this was noted by many users of this yarn, but I just ignored their advice. I bought this yarn because I just fell in love with the color.

That said the sweater has been versatile and I have worn it a great deal. It too is getting a little loose and baggy looking. This yarn will not be salvaged however, and it still looks good enough to see me through a couple of months, at which point I will simply say good riddance and toss it. I will be making this pattern again, in several different yarns as it is just the perfect versatile cardigan for me.

That's it for 2008. Not a bad year at all. Hopefully 2009 will be even more productive.

January 1, 2009
Goodbye 2008

We closed the year with a quiet, snowy day. We had no reason to go anywhere and were content to sit at home and watch the snow.

I sorted through sewing patterns, played with my new camera and read, finishing up two of the books on my current pile: Sointula was beautifully written and enjoyable even thought it was at times rather fantastic and the characters were difficult at best. Traffic was full of interesting facts and tidbits of information but was ultimately of the moment and entirely forgettable. .

Luckily the skies cleared just before sunset, giving me a chance to play with my new camera and providing a suitably lovely closing for the year.

December 31, 2008
slothful knitting

Although there was a time when I thought that Linden was moving along quickly and I would have another finished object for this year, that time has long since passed and Linden has suffered the setbacks of L.I.F.E.

As you can see, I am very near the end of the right front, and then only the sleeves remain. But the year cannot be stretched long enough to accommodate the sleeves, and if I finish the front today or tomorrow will make little difference.

Perhaps this change in attitude has something to do with sloth. I feel I have been indulging in substantial slothfulness this winter, not the least because I seem to sleep all the time, move slowly, and barely resist the urge to scratch. Oh right, I am not a sloth, or a hibernating bear; it is just this cocktail of anti-histamines that I keep popping (all under doctor's supervision), and the hives and random joint swellings which keep occurring because Fosamax is not so easily expelled from the body, put something of a damper on my knitting speed.

The good news for 2009 is that after doubling my dosage of antihistamine A which caused me to sleep 14 hours a day, the new one, A prime, seems to have the opposite effect, leaving my brain wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to take on the world even when my body is dragging. Unfortunately the sleep-inducing effect of antihistamine B is not strong enough to counteract A prime. I am hoping that some New Year's Eve champagne will help usher in some end of the year sleep.

So there may be a lot of sleepless knitting, or there may be a lot of knitting-less sleep. Or we may be able to work out some happy compromise.

In the meantime, I love the texture of this pattern in this yarn. Fast or slow it is a good knit. Simple soul that I am, I love looking at it, feeling it, and yes, photographing it.

Tomorrow the best of 2008.

December 31, 2008
Goodbye to all that

This last day of 2008 found me sitting on the floor surrounded by stacks and stacks of patterns making some shaky attempts at resorting and re-filing things that have been sitting here waiting patiently for far too long.

The long past due lists of things that needed to be redone, resorted, made and remade are not going to be resolved this year but I was having a blast looking at the patterns, and then letting my eyes wander beyond the piles of inspiration all around me to the fabric in the cubbies and on the shelves.

The pattern sortie was inspired by the new Threads and the new Vogue Patterns, both of which arrived yesterday. As I flipped through them my mind began to fill up with ideas and dreams and wishes, and I began also to think about all the projects I have dreamed about in the past, many of which have been posted here. They are not forgotten.

The piles of patterns still need to be sorted and filed away. There are many piles of things that have been waiting for my attentions to wander back to them. But there must be creative activity along with the sorting and filing and I am looking forward to doing some of each in 2009.

I am not making any sewing resolutions this year. My record has not been good in the resolution department and I prefer to look forward with acceptance of open eyes. With the close of 2008 I hope to say goodbye to the frustrations of wanting and try to embrace accepting. It may prove to be a much more rewarding path.

I did finish 2008 with a sewing promise fulfilled, small promise though it was.

In October DH bought an Alpaca Jacket at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival. The price was ridiculously low and it was COLD that day. We have no regrets and the fabric is warm and snugly although the construction left something to be desired. The zipper too was sub-par, as it broke on the second or third wearing.

As usual I waited until the last possible minute, ripping out the old plastic separating zipper and threading up the machine on New Year's Eve. As I threaded my trusty old Elna Carina, I realized that it still had the test fabric under the needle from the last time I had it repaired, early in 2007 when I met Carolyn and Ann in NYC, as I was planning my sewing come-back. I wondered if I was pushing my luck, expecting the Elna to just start up with nary a stutter as if nearly two years had not passed. But the Elna has rarely failed me. And I plowed ahead.

This year no promises. No grand plans. Just determination and acceptance. I think they will see me far.

December 31, 2008