Frustration!!!!

I'm running in place, or so it feels, on so many things in my life. That sounds direr than I mean it (btw, is there such a word as 'direr'? there is now!), but of the things I've tried to accomplish this week, a big zippo is happening. To wit:
1. Wednesday Night Knitting at Knitique: I decided to bite the bullet and FINISH THE GODDAMN SOCK THAT I STARTED OH, ABOUT NINE MONTHS AGO. We all know, since I have whined continuously, that I hate knitting socks. I do not knit socks. I love sock yarn. I buy lots of sock yarn. This is a joke among those who knit with me and, goshdarnit, I've decided to change and amend my ways. I WILL master that freakin' sock, or, or,--whatever. So I took said freakin' sock to work on last night and after I had done eight rows turning the heel, I decided it was all wrong and I frogged it. Then I went, crumpled instructions in hand to Danielle, who cheerfully told me I had done it right the first time. So I knit and I ripped and now I have to knit again. FRUSTRATION.
2. I am trying to get MidLifeBloggers.com up and running. By myself. Because I am, wouldn't you know it, a "Mother I'd Rather Do It Myself" kind of person. But myself doesn't know diddlysquat about building websites. So I'm sitting at my computer with OMSH's Wordpress Wednesdays handouts on one side, Wordpress's Codex on the other, and Wordpress for Dummies on my lap. I know just how I want the site to look and to work, but, but, but--. I wish I could just stick my hands into the computer and make it do what I want it to. I wish I knew what I was doing. I wish I wasn't so fucking independent!

Knit a little, drink a lot...

...or is it the other way around? No, it snot. I am home now and in the mild state of pleasantness that makes me wonder what exactly I'd blow on a breathalizer. I'm walking okay (I think) and I'm talking okay (yes, I'm sure) but the world has a wonderful golden glow about it. I took the most boring, pedestrian piece of knitting I had--a chemo cap that I'm doing for charity. I'm trying to think good thoughts as I knit it, but damn, it's tedious. I don't think I've dropped any stitches, but I'll wait till the light of day to determine that. We were a very large group tonight, about twenty plus knitters. I knew about four. No, that's an exaggeration, but it seems that there's the day crowd at Knitique and the night crowd at Knitique. I'm with the night crowd (you're surprised?) and the day people...I wasn't quite sure who they were. I organized this thing but clearly, it has grown way beyond me. That makes me happy. I see what roots I'm putting down in this community, and that too makes me happy.

New Olympic Sport Announced In Elk Grove Today

The monthly Knit & Drink heats will be held tomorrow night at Jennings Wine Bar, 8351 Elk Grove Blvd.

Contenders will be perched on high stools, sloshing back some very good wine, and seeing who can knit the most while imbibing the most. In fact, the sobriety tests for the evening will have nothing to do with puffing into a little balloon. Rather, the road test will be based on how many stitches the various athletes have dropped.

Contestants include many of the gang from Knitque Yarn Store as well as drinking knitters and knitting drinkers from all over the map. And you? Will you be coming too? The gates open at 6 p.m. Who knows when they'll close.

Crossposted at Knitique

Sari Scarf

Sari Scarf
Originally uploaded by ByJane

This was the yarn I just had to have and then, as usual, didn't quite know what to do with. So I made a drop stitch scarf, an irregular drop stitch scarf, because that's how I do things. And then I bought some beautiful beads (I think they're the kind you use to trim a lampshade) and I didn't quite know what to do with them. The I got the idea to sew them lengthwise along the edge of the scarf. And voila, here we are: another finished object!

Addendum and so on...

Point, the First: I sashayed through a local AT&T store to see what they're offering and promising. The guy there (what does one call them these days: clerk? salesman? cell service facilitator?) on hearing where I lived informed me in no uncertain terms that the only cell phone service who actually had service to my area is--AT&T. Actually I believed him, which only made me more pissed off with SPRINT for having strung me along for all this time. Stupid stupid stupid--they got some money from me, and in return garnered a huge amount of ill will. I Shall Not Forget....
Point Two: Twitter is terrific for live blogging a conversation. I watched the Oscars tonight with Neilochka, KarlErickson, Schmutzie, and Suebob--and we were all in different cities, if not states, if not countries.
Number Three: This is the Habu Wool/Stainless Steel yarn. The colors are sort of off: the blue is inkier and the beige is not so gray. It's very, very, VERY fine. Habu sells it as a kit to make a cardigan of sorts, but I don't have enough for that, I don't think. So maybe I'll make a scarf. Or maybe I'll just admire it for a while.

Kninking..err, Knitting & Drinking

Another glorious night of it, my friends. This time at a lovely little wine bar in Elk Grove (don't you wish you lived nearby). We came and we ate and we drank and we knit. I think I've only dropped one stitch. At least just one that I know about. No one looked askance. Everyone seemed to feel it was perfectly natural for a group of seven and eight women to be knitting and drinking...kninking.

Here's a pitcher for you. Don't say I don't illustrate my posts, please:

This is Sarah

And this is Brenda The rest of the group is--well, they're reflected in the many wine glasses before Sarah and Brenda. We decided we're going to do this once a month, on the third Friday. Come join us.

News Flash: A Knitting Project that I'm LLOOVVVIINNNG

Finally--At Last--Thank God it's happened. I haven't been this excited since...since...well, use your imagination. I started a knitting project tonight and I not only don't hate it, I LOVE IT!!! This is so rare that I can't tell you the last time it happened--probably way before the last time that happened.

You've seen the yarn when I wrote about my lust for sock yarn and my loathing for knitting socks But here, I'll show it to you again:

I've been searching for something knittable that wasn't (a) socks, and (b) knit on 1s or 2s. And I found it. In the Special Issue of Knitscene (I just loves me Interweave Knits and company--they publish the most fantastic craft magazines). It's the Phiaro Scarf by Katie Himmelberg



and it is so incredible perfect for me because it looks like lace but it's not knit as lace. It's a tube done in mindless stockingette on circulars and then at the end somehow you drop stitches and it looks like the picture. Yes, it will...except mine will be '70s tie dye, rather than '08 chic mauve.

I'm doing it on size 5 Addis lace needles with those lovely pointy points, and the yarn, which is Superwash Alpaca Sock Yarn is a dream to knit with. I cannot tell you how excited I am. I am joyful, joyful, joyful--and I just had to share the good news!

These are a few of my favorite things....tra la

Just some of the projects I have on needles at the moment. Note how many of them are fingering yarn. Remember what I told you about fingering yarn...and the size 1 or 2 needles. What does it say about me that I love this stuff and these needles and I AM INCAPABLE OF SUSTAINING INTEREST IN ANYTHING THAT TAKES MORE THAN 3 days? Do you think I am setting myself up for failure? Or, am I just trying to challenge myself, to move beyond my comfort zone--as I'm doing with this Blog 365? Pro or con, answer as you will, making sure to support all of your points with specifics. And no comma splices, goddamit!

Flotsam and Jetsam...

Checking my Google In box, it's obvious that I have had a heavy Commenting day. Isn't today supposed to be Annual Comment Day, or some such thing? Be that as it may, I fear I have shot my wad (as They say) on other people's blogs and have nothing to say on my own.

Well, to be truthful, I may be at the start of a slippery slope. You know, the one that descends quite quickly into the Mean Greens or Blah Blues (I seem to be in an alliterative moment here). I'm feeling like the wheel is going 'round and 'round and I'm not quite hanging on. Or some such thing.

1. I'm not getting up in the morning when I should.
2. I'm not marching forward on my List of Intentions.
3. I still haven't finished the Great American Novel.
4. Come to think of it, I haven't started it either.
5. I am eating too much of quite the wrong food.
6. I am not drinking enough alcohol.
7. My exercise routine is not being exercised, and my Pilates Reformer is gathering dust.

On the positive side, I have finished one of the two balls of yarn that I'm making into a purse. That means I'm half finished with it.

On the probably shouldn't side, I went to Knitique and bought another skein of fingering yarn. This makes the umpteenth such skein I have purchased in the past year, all of which call for at most a size 2 needle. I love this kind of yarn. I will probably be buried with it. Because I will die before I finish a project on a size 2 needle. If you knit, you know what I mean. If you don't, ooops, I'm bbbboooooorrrriiinnnggg you again.

January 1, 2008

I would like to be clever, if not altogether witty, but I think I'm suffering from a smidgeon of not really a hangover, but you know that oh-so-tired feeling you get when you've been drinking all day and then you stop? In lieu of actual words, though, I've got some actual photos. Enjoy...

This was my view for much of the morning at Knitique, my LYS. I was slithered down in my chair at the table in the back, sipping my champers and pomegranate juice (is this an actual drink, maybe a primosa? or did I come up with the pomegranate juice because it is so very good for my brain cells?). Can you tell that Knitique is a vision of lime and hot pink? These are Danielle's favorite colors and we like them too. Which is a good thing.
This is Danielle, who owns Knitique. You can't tell, but she's wearing hot pink Uggs. I'm not sure what she's doing with her hand...
This is the view of the table where I'm sitting. That's my Treo...and my Denise needles...and my pink polkadotted cup of Primosa. The yarn is one of two skeins I got ON SALE (because that is what happens at Knitique on New Year's Day). I was swatching it here, and I decided to make a purse. Which you'll see when I'm done...some day.

These are the flying fingers of Kim (see the blur) at lunch. There was a whole long table of us. Some of us (who? me?) ordered dessert first. Some of us (who? me?) had a margarita. Most of us were knitting. The waitress was, fortunately, quite patient--and we tipped her well.

This is the lovely Teresa, who, having gotten to the store at 6 a.m. was, at this point, on her fourth or fifth wind.


And these are the things I bought. The object at one o'clock is a case for my doublepoint needles which, currently, are thrown in a mass mess into a drawer. There's a pattern for a Panda Silk Easy (so they say) Scarf and below it are two skeins of, hey, Panda Silk. Then my Crystal Palace Deco Ribbon that I got on sale and the beginning of the purse. I bought the Learn to Spin kit because--well, just because it seems like I should learn to spin. Even though I've never had the least desire to. And finally, two books and two magazines. If I was a better blogger, I'd link to them on Amazon but I'm not so I won't. You can read the titles and google them yourself.

I only spent one half of what I spent last year, but two or three times more than I intended to spend this year. Oh well--if you're a knitter, you understand; if you're not, you probably stopped reading this post ages ago.

And still another FO

This is a purse...you couldn't tell?

It is the "Two Sticks Aran Purse" by Barbara Selesnick of Keep It Simple. She did it in white and used two chunky bamboo needles for the "sticks". She also had a chain strap. I did it in a camouflage-y varigated yarn called Jumbo Merino, and took a set of carved rosewood needles that I already owned for the "sticks". I lined it with a snazzy cotton and put a snap at the inside top. And rather than the chain--which was supposed to come from a hardware store (?!)--I did an I-cord.

All in all, I like like it, although it is smaller than I saw in my mind's eye (which obviously can't picture 8" correctly). And the cables don't show up as well as they did with the white. And I can't imagine where I'd wear it--maybe to a disco or mosh pit, where the sticks might come in handy. The next time I go to one.

Another FO.....a scarf & knitting as Zen practice

I bought this yarn (the name of which I hope I'll remember before I'm done posting) when I was making the poncho for Kayla. It's a rather expensive, hand-dyed wool, and in the end, I opted to go for a less expensive yarn for Kayla. Not, I hasten to add, because a still-growing 10 year old was not worth the expense, but because the yarn when knitted up felt a tad rough.

So I had this hank of wool hanging around, and concurrent with that is my upgrading my knitting book library, which also meant a review of my past knitting book library. There I found Zen & The Art of Knitting, by Bernadette Murphy. The book was published in 2002, which those of you keeping track will know is the YOTA,Year of The Aneurysm. (Or perhaps we should say all time prior to July 2002 was B.A., and all time after was A.A. But that makes it sound like some college-type degrees, and since I'm way past the A.A. and the B.A. stages, let's just refer to time as Before YOTA and After YOTA.)

I bought the book Before YOTA because Bernadette Murphy is a friend of mine (can one still say that about someone one hasn't seen or spoken to in five years?). But I hadn't, I must confess, actually read the book. But then YOTA interfered and knitting was not so much on my mind. Just buying a book that a friend has written is enough, I think; reading it is just icing on the cake.

Here we are, After YOTA, and I'm knitting again. And thinking how my knitting is a visualization of my internal process. That is, all of my stuff, my shit, my schtick or whatever you call it, comes out when I'm knitting. The same stuff that operates in my life, to good and ill, operates in my knitting. And this realization sent me back to Zen and the Art of Knitting, to see what Bernadette has to say about the topic.

So I'm leafing through the Index and I see an entry for "Judaism". Aha, I think. What can the Irish Catholic Bernadette being saying about Judaism? So I'm reading about Mitzvah Day at Temple Israel of Hollywood and how Bernadette knit Preemie caps there and about the conversation at the table and suddenly I see my name. There on page 96 am I--and I didn't know it. Or maybe I did, but forgot due to YOTA.

I got very excited with no one but D to jump around and point it out to, and we know he's not the most appreciative of audiences. Then I felt incredibly guilty that I have not kept up the friendship with Bernadette. Then I decided to make the scarf she describes on page 33 of the Chapter, "Feeding The Soul" in her honor.

The pattern calls for a 2x2 rib interspersed with knit every other row. But of course, I fucked up and lost track of what row I was on. But in the spirit of Making Lemonade, etc. etc. I created my own pattern of reversing the 2x2 and knit for an inch every three inches.

And now I've reached the end of this post and I still can't remember what the yarn is, even though Danielle told me last night. What she also said was that if you wash this yarn, it gets very soft.

Finished Objects

As opposed to UnFinished Objects (UFOs), which is my usual MO. This is a sweater vest for Bonji, Miss B's oldest son, brother of Seiji, for whom there will be a FO soon.

This was not particularly fun to make (sorry, kid) as the yarn was quite stiff, and I felt like I was fighting with it. Also, the idea that a small sweater is less angst than a big one is, IMHO, hogwash.

Still, I'm pleased with the end result. The buttons came from my mother's old collection of buttons, which makes for a nice touch. And the squiggles are crocheted bits that I needlefelted on. I am big into felting these days, as you shall eventually learn.

The Knitting Diaries: the scarfed tucked coat

This came in the mail yesterday. It's the yarn I ordered from Elann that I posted about the other day. With it came the instructions, as promised, for the coat, which was designed by Helen Hamman. They're calling it "scarfed tucked coat" --lower-case and since Helen Hamman's logo is also lower case, I'm presuming that this is a typographical choice and the name of the garment is actually, The Scarfed Tucked Coat. But it may be that that's just Hamman's or elann's way of differentiating this particular coat from the unscarfed tucked one. Or the scarfed straight-line coat. (Now the letters are starting to shimmer and blur in front of me, and I'm wondering if scarfed is actually a word. And what it would mean to be scar fed, as in eating a new brand of--blech! stop it!)

I was most eager to see the instructions for knitting the coat. I know it will be a challenge. Just to take on a project of this size--a coat, for chrissake!--is major. But it never occured to me that I might not be up to it. And then I looked at the pattern: two pages, 8 pt. type, a schematic that is clear, but that reveals the truth of what the explanatory blurb said: "This unique, asymmetrical coat features right front pleats and a long scarf, which drapes dramatically over the left shoulder. It is worked from side to side, with its body shaped by short rows."

Oy. In an instant I went from excitement to fear, from certainty of success to sure failure. In my mind's eye, I saw myself happily knitting the gauge swatch and then I saw myself shoving it and whatever else I'd completed on the coat into the back of my closet (with the other failed projects). That quick. Soup to Nuts--joy-excitement-interest-terror-failure-denial.

It seems to me that I may be on to some signal piece of self-knowledge here. If I can catch what I'm feeling and doing as I do it, it will be a way of isolating my process so that I can understand what happens when I get scared. And maybe alter the process mid-stream so that it doesn't end up in failure. So I'm going to do a diary of making this coat. Not posting about it every day, but when there is actually something to say. Maybe you all will help me figure myself out....