Knitterism

Best Conversation I Had All Day

2012-01-24T22:51:00.003-05:00

On the train coming home tonight I had an extremely interesting conversation with a five year old named Jacob.

He wanted to know what I was doing (he didn't quite understand in the abstract that I was knitting a mitten, but I wish you could have seen his face when I put the finished (mostly finished - still thumbless) one on my hand and he got what I was doing).

(The pictures are terrible, but that's what you get when you use the camera in your ipod and the light from the table lamp. Better pictures later.)

He wanted to know if I had other yarn, if the points of the needles were sharp like a sewing needle, if I had more yarn in my house (his mother's exact words were "I'm sure she probably has a lot more yarn at her house.")(Yes, Jacob. Oh, yes...there's more) and if I had any aquamarine yarn in my house, because aquamarine is his favorite color.

Aquamarine. Is that the cutest thing you've ever heard?

He then took his toy out of his bag and told me all about it, then showed me his coloring and then he read me "Uncle's New Suit" until we got to their stop . I think that was the most enjoyable train ride I've had in a long time.

Oh, Jacob also wanted to know if I planned on adding thumbs later.

He was relieved when I told him yes.

Here We Go Then....

2011-10-13T15:48:00.004-04:00

I never did get around to telling you about my camping trip, did I?

Oh, well. it was great. We had lots of fun. It was very relaxing. This was the view from our campsite, so really nothing to complain about there.

This is a picture of my mother doing dishes. She was ridiculously charmed by this little portable sink thing that we found. It folds up and fits into a little bag and I don't think I've ever seen anyone enjoy doing dishes quite so much.

Which worked out great for me, because it meant that she usually did all the washing up.

Anyway, part of the reason that I never got around to posting about it (aside from the fact that it usually takes me about a month to get around to posting anything) is that I have been Really, Really, Really Busy.

In addition to my Actual Job of, you know, having a job, and my secondary job of trying to keep the house two (okay one) steps ahead of becoming an episode of Hoarders, Ive also been working on a project. Phase I is this:

I will admit to being biased, because I am, but I love these stitch markers more than you can imagine. Not just because I like pretty shiny thing, but because they're things that I made that are a step towards building something that a couple of years ago I wouldn't have thought that I could do. I'm still not sure I can pull it off, but Holda Fiber Arts is me. All Me. It's mine and now it exists someplace other than inside my own head. The stitch markers are a start, but within the next year the plan is to have hand-dyed fiber and yarn available.

Hopefully other people will like them as much as I do, because they're going to be for sale at Rhinebeck in the Tsock Tsarina's booth (Art For Your Feet) in Building C, Space 9/10.

You have no idea how much I'm freaking out (in a good way) (mostly in a good way) about the fact that the first venue I'll be selling something at is Rhinebeck.

I guess if you're going to do something, you might as well jump straight into the deep end. Or off the deep end. I'm not sure which one this is yet.

Better Late

2011-09-06T22:19:00.004-04:00

The problem that I have with writing a blog is that when things are happening I don't have time to write about them, then by the time I can sit down to write about them, they aren't always relevant anymore.

For example - Hurricane Irene. It's hard to believe it was only last weekend. That's right - it seems like it was ages ago, but it's only been eight days.

For all the carrying on in the media, you would have thought it was the end of the world coming, but for all the effort they put into getting everyone worked into a frenzy, it really wasn't all that bad. By the time it got here it was "only" a Category 1 hurricane. Still a hurricane - it could certainly kill you dead enough if you went wandering around outside in it, or, in the case of a man from East Islip - windsurfing. If you're nice and cozy inside your house with plenty of food and water and a basement full of camping gear, well then it's just some wind and rain.

Okay, a lot of wind and rain.

And honestly, a lot of water, once high tide hits.
These were actually taken from my front steps about 20-30 minutes before high tide, so the water actually rose a bit higher than this, but it cleared pretty quickly once the tide turned back out again. We ended up with about a foot or so of water in the basement, but since we've always lived in flood zones, we keep everything down there either up on shelves or in plastic bins, so we didn't lose very much.

I know you're worried, but it's okay - all the good yarn is kept upstairs on the second floor. There's plenty of yarn in the basement, but that's mostly acrylic. It's all safely stored in plastic bins, some of it in giant zippy bags inside plastic bins, so no yarn was harmed.

I actually felt a little bad after the storm. Aside from the inconvenience of having to get the water out of the basement (whatever wasn't cleared out once the outlet pipe for the sump pump wasn't underwater anymore, that is) we really weren't affected that badly. Some of my friends lost power and only got it back yesterday. Despite the flooding the longest we went without power was about 10-15 minutes and despite my fears to the contrary, Irene didn't even interfere with my vacation plans.

Which I'll tell you about tomorrow.

Good News and ....Okay News

2011-08-24T00:08:00.003-04:00

The good news is that my computer doesn't seem to be completely fried. It's just partially fried. No internet - that seems to be out of commission, and a bunch of keys seem to not be working properly, but I've now got my photographs and more importantly my knitting patterns backed up to jump drives, which is at least a start.

So, the okay news is that I've at least got some limited use of a computer. The good news is that I can put off having to come up with $800 for a new one for a month or two at least, which is good because Rhinebeck is coming and all my extra money is getting put away for that right now.

Must keep the priorities straight.

Apparently I Am Not Capable of Learning After All

2011-08-22T20:30:00.003-04:00

I'm blogging from a borrowed computer tonight due to a slight mishap here at Casa de Jenn last night. We've had a leak in the upstairs ceiling for a little over a year. Not a bad leak, it was pretty intermittent for a long time, but we told the landlord about it shortly after it first started.

A year ago.

He figured that the roof is pretty new, so it was probably just a gutter backing up and said that he would come over to look at it, he just never quite got around to it. (There's a lot of that going around, as you'll see.)

About three or four months ago we started enclosing notes with the rent check telling him that the leak had gotten worse, it was now leaking in two or three spots, that pieces of the plaster are falling down, and the paint is bubbling where the water is running down the wall under the paint on either side of the window. We included pictures.

Since the leak is directly above my sofa, this means every time it rains I have to bring up somethng to catch the water in and then cover the sofa with big plastic trash bags. It's really quite an attractive decorative statement. Of course late August is thunderstorm season, so I'm spending a lot of time with black plastic trash bags spread around my sitting room, which brings us to last night's lesson.

I was using my laptop table as a work surface to make seom stitch markers, so I moved my laptop to the arm of the sofa and had beads and supplies spread along the seat while I worked. After a while, my mother called me to come down for dinner and while we were eating of course, the rain started. We checked the downstairs windows to make sure it wasn't raining in and I said I would check the upstairs windows when I went back upstairs but since it doesn't usually rain in up there, I wasn't really worried enough to rush.

I completely forgot about both the leak and the fact that I had left my laptop sitting on the sofa directly under the leaky spot.

By the time I got upstairs it was entirely too late. I noticed that the couch was wet right away and then I realized that the computer was soaked and I panicked. I went running back downstairs - without any pants (the upstairs was originally attic space, it's much hotter up there than it is in the rest of the house, so I usually take my shorts off when I watch TV and just sit around in my underwear and a tank top. That's right - Revel in the class.) and started literally pouring water out of the computer then started trying to dry it out with a blow dryer. I don't know if it worked because I haven't tried to turn it on yet today, but before I unplugged it and turned it off last night I was getting the Blue Screen of Death, so I'm not holding out a huge amount of hope.

The laptop is actually about five or six years old and I have been planning to get a new one, I just wasn't planning to do it this week, which I guess downgrades this from The End of the World to A Huge Pain in the Behind. The real problem is that I haven't backed anything up in about - well, ever. It's one of those things that I keep meaning to get around to. I know there are programs that go in automatically and keep a backup copy online somewhere - I've been meaning to get around to that too. (Noticing the trend yet?)

Originally the only thing that I thought about was the music that I've downloaded on iTunes, but I know from the last time my computer crashed (yes, it has crashed before, which makes my failure to back up even more head-slappingly stupid than you thought it was originally) that I can load purchased songs straight from my ipod and everything else that's on cd I can just reload, so I wasn't really worried.

Then I remembered that I have photographs on there. Those I really can't replace, but a lot of the ones I really wanted I had printed a few months ago, so again, not really a tragedy.

Then I remembered my extensive porn collection (to the unitiated, they probably just look like knitting patterns). They were mostly downloaded from online sites, but not all of them were in my Ravelry queue, so I don't know where I got them or how to find them again.

Oops.

Well, considering that I'm currently trying to purge my house of crap maybe this is a good thing. I can look at it as a clean start.....

Okay. No.

But on the bright side, when I do get a computer back I can go browsing for patterns again to replace them all.

Look Upon My Works Ye Mighty and Despair

2011-08-10T23:25:00.002-04:00

It has come to my attention that I seem to, inadvertently, be intimidating other knitters on the Long Island Railroad.

On the way home from work one night last week I was knitting away on my current sock, listening to Game of Thrones on my ipod, and just before we got to Lynbrook station, the woman who had been sitting right next to me for the past 20 minutes or so suddenly started to talk to me. We had a very nice chat about a pattern that she had printed that afternoon (it was cute and I must remember to look for it on Ravelry), the difference between English and Continental styles of knitting (I favor Continental) and how old I was when I learned to knit (eight), all in about 30 seconds. Because 30 seconds after she started talking to me we pulled into her station and she jumped up and got off the train.

That was a little weird, I thought.

My mom figured she waited so long because she figured that way she could talk to me without me feeling like I needed to be polite and pay attention to her for too long. Okay, I can buy that - it's not like I walk around with a T-shirt that says "If I Minded You Talking to Me about Knitting and Spinning I Wouldn't Do It In Public"

It reminded me, though, of something that happened a few months ago. I noticed a woman getting on the train in Jamaica station and sitting in the seat facing me several days in a row. After a day or two, I noticed that she was watching me knit and did my little "Hi, yes I see you watching what I'm doing" smile. One morning, I noticed that she had yarn and needles in her bag and asked her about what she was working on. She sort of brushed it off and said something about not wanting to take out what she was working on because it wasn't as "nice" as what I was doing.

I thought at the time, and still think, that is a terrible reason to not take out your knitting.

Whatever it is that you're knitting - that's YOUR knitting. It only needs to be as "good" as you're happy with. If you're a beginner and you're just knitting a garter stitch scarf, that's great! Keep going, you'll get more experienced and more comfortable and when you feel more confident with your skills, you'll be ready to move on to something more challenging. And if you never have the urge to knit anything other than garter stitch scarves in your entire knitting career - that's great too! If garter stitch scarves are what floats your boat then that is what you should knit and you should never look at somebody else's knitting and think that it's any better than yours.

Hell, if I ever thought that way around my friend Lisa I would never knit another sock as long as I live. Her latest design is called Fronkenshteek and I still keep looking at it and thinking "what the hell?" I would love to get a look inside her brain someday and see what exactly is going on in there.

My point though, is that I didn't spring forth knitting lace and cables and fair isle. I started with the same wonky garter stitch scarf that you're knitting. It's taken a long time to get to the point where I am now, and I've enjoyed every minute. Also, when you see something that makes you think, 'Wow, that's incredible. There's no possible way I could ever do something like that so I might as well just stop knitting right now," you should just stop and fondle your yarn for a minute and then tell yourself, "Wow, that's incredible. I should give it a try one day!'

Maybe you should be careful about trying it on the Long Island Railroad, though. Apparently, my knitting can kick your knitting's ass.

Sarah to Sweater - Part 1

2011-06-23T21:47:00.007-04:00

I bought this fleece at Rhinebeck last year and its been sitting patiently in my basement all winter, waiting for me to do something with it. The fleece originally belonged to Sarah, a Romney/Merino sheep from Ensign Brook Farm.

I tried washing the fleece in the washing machine for the first time and it worked awsomely! So much easier than trying to keep the water temperature about the same from one wash to the next in the sink. Also, a lot less messy, since I'm not dripping water all over the kitchen when I try to change he water. It's also faster, since I can do nearly twice as much in the washer as I can do in the kitchen sink.

So, I've got about 1/3 of the fleece washed so far, which is helpful, because I've got about seven pounds of it. (Sarah is apparently a very fluffy girl.) I've managed to card about half of what's washed so I have a whole grocery bag full of rolags all ready to go and I just finished spinning my first bobbin-full, which I guess puts me well on the way to this year's Rhinebeck sweater.

All I need now is a pattern.

Thank You Lord, For Teaching Me Humilty

2011-05-07T17:41:00.001-04:00

I think that I'm a pretty decent knitter. Good even. On a good day, I possibly even qualify as advanced. Nothing about knitting intimidates me. A pattern with 9 different lace charts? No problem. Half a dozen different cable patterns in the same sweater? Bring it on! A 17 color intarsia pattern - in cotton? Okay, there might be some swearing and occasional throwing of the sweater across the room, but sure, I'll go for it.

Point is, most of the things that I knit (not all of them - there are Projects of Shame hidden away that will never be spoken of) even if they're rated as "challenging" come out pretty well. So why then, I ask, am I having so much trouble with this particular shawl?

This is not going to be my shawl - I'm knitting it for a friend. Betty from Moose Manor Handpaints requested volunteers to do some sample knitting for her. She offered to pay in yarn - she didn't exactly have to go begging for volunteers. I'm working with an alpaca/silk lace weight in a colorway called Summer Berries. Betty's only stipulation was that the pattern be done with one skein of yarn and that, if possible, it be a free pattern available online. So keep in mind, that it was me who chose this pattern.

It's not at all a difficult pattern. It's translated from Finnish, but I don't think that's what's causing the problem, because I'm working from a vey clear and easy to follow chart. Yet for some reason I haven't yet managed to do a single row of this shawl without having to tink back or re-count something. Even the wrong side row that I just did, where I basically just had to purl every stitch, I somehow managed to knit every stitch.

Just before I performed that particular bone-headed maneuver, a man sitting next to me on the subway asked me if it was difficult to do. I told him no.

Apparently I lied.

Making a Public Spectacle of Myself

2011-04-14T21:32:00.003-04:00

I love that knitting and (if you're using a drop spindle) spinning are such portable hobbies. I never leave the house without a project (or three) in my bag, in my purse or in my pocket. The one thing that I actually like about commuting to work every day is that I've got two 45-minute long blocks per day to knit while I'm on the train.

I'm pretty well known on the 6:13 train out of Penn Station and people who regularly sit near me not only ask me about what I'm knitting and notice when I've started something new, they recognize things that they've seen while I was working on them. I've even noticed some of them pointing me out to newcomers like proud parents showing off a child's artwork.

I tend to get much more attention when I spin than when I knit. Most people have seen someone knitting before at some point in their lives and it's something that they more or less recognize. Spinning, though, they don't usually get. Even when I try to explain it to them, they don't seem to always understand how the fluffy stuff in my hand is going to eventually be turned into a piece of clothing via the twirly-stick-thing that I'm holding. When I spin on the train I tend to see a lot of heads popping up over the backs of seats like little urban prairie dogs. There also tend to be a lot of camera phones pointed oh so casually in my general direction.

Usually if I catch the eye of one of my observers I'll just give them a little smile or a nod. Sometimes it scares them away and they quickly look down at their book or their phone, but sometimes they'll take the opening and ask me what I'm doing. This is followed by a general sigh of relief in the immediate area that somebody finally asked and other people will sometimes take the opportunity to ask additional questions.

Some of the most frequently asked questions I've gotten:
Is it cheaper than just buying yarn? (It generally takes me a few seconds to stop laughing after this one) No, it is not cheaper. Not by any stretch of the imagination, but somewhat perversely, the more labor intensive something is, the more money my friends and I are willing to spend on it.

Why do it if it's not any cheaper? Because knitting isn't weird enough and spinning is hugely entertaining. Also, I will have yarn when I'm done that isn't like the yarn that anyone else will have.

What do you do with it? Frequently nothing. I spin the yarn faster than I can knit it and I have so much in the house that I usually forget where it is. My intent when I'm spinning it though is to eventually knit or weave something with it.

Is that the natural color of the sheep? Occasionally the answer is yes, but frequently the answer is "although it would really be cool if someone were to manage to breed a blue sheep, this particular fiber was dyed. "

Sure, Why Not?

2010-12-24T15:07:00.004-05:00

So, it's Christmas Eve. I've actually done pretty well this year, all my shopping was done weeks ago. We decided not to go overboard this year buying gifts and decorating. We're having a pretty calm and relaxed Christmas, which is really just what we need right now. I didn't even do any Christmas knitting this year. Except, my mother asked me yesterday what I had gotten for her boyfriend Tony.

I had sort of forgotten about Tony. I asked her what she thought I should give him and she said a hat. I pointed out that a couple of weeks ago would have been a good time to mention a hat, but let's not dwell.

It is, as I mentioned, 3:00 in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. She's going to see him about 3:00 on Christmas Day. I've got bulky yarn. I see no reason why I can't have a hat done by tomorrow.

Really.

Cleverness and the Lack Thereof

2010-12-14T10:22:00.004-05:00

I decided last night (when I got off the train and saw that it was snowing) that I need a hat with earflaps. So, I went online after dinner and found a pattern I liked and stayed up way too late knitting.

I love that I knit when it gets cold and snowy and windy. There's nothing like leaving the house covered head to foot in hand knits to make you feel really clever and productive.

Making me feel slightly less clever is the fact that I forgot my pants this morning. (I'm wearing pants - just not work-appropriate ones.) Our office dress code doesn't include casual, but it's really damp and windy where I live (also, I'm a bit of a clutz, so if I fall on my butt in the snow I don't want to ruin my work pants) so I'll frequently put my dress pants in my bag and wear jeans, then change in the ladies room when I get to work. This morning, though, I left the bag with my pants sitting next to the coat rack.

Oh, well. At least I'm warm.

Keep it Simple Stupid

2010-12-12T19:20:00.000-05:00

The space on one of the few non-slanty walls on the second floor needed something and I decided on a small shelf. About the same time, I was trying to come up with a storage solution for my drop spindles, as my current method of leaving them wherever I was sitting when I used them last wasn't really working. (This method also led to one of my favorites going missing for nearly a year.)

The solution that presented itself was so simple that I feel a little stupid for not thinking of it sooner.

A wooden shelf that we already had in the house and a two dollar package of eye-screws later and I have a perfect storage/display rack.

There's also space for this little guy. My mother got this for me last year from a booth at Rhinebeck and gave it to me for Christmas. Of all the sheep-related items in that particular booth she picked this one for me because she thought I would like it.

She was right. I had already been through the same booth and gotten an identical one a few minutes earlier.

Unidentified Finished Object

2010-12-02T22:02:00.001-05:00

Okay, so obviously it's a pair of socks. I would love to tell you which sock pattern it is - but I don't remember. It's a cute pattern, and it was really easy to memorize, but I had it written out onto index cards and I apparently lost the pattern at some point, so your guess is as good as mine.

I think I started these about a year or so ago. I don't know why I put them down when they were so close to being finished, but there was just half a sock to go when I found them in the knitting basket. So... one pair of socks down.

I feel so productive.

To the Rescue

2010-11-29T22:36:00.001-05:00

So, my friend has this lace scarf. It's pretty but not really anything special. It's acrylic, not hand knit or anything just something that she picked up at H&M, probably for under $20, but she likes it.

The scarf started out as a mobius , sort of, it looked like it was knitted flat and then seamed, but you get the idea - until someone borowed it from her and didn't "get" why the scarf was one big circle so she took a pair of scissors to the seam and cut the thing open.

My friend was understandably - bothered - when she got her scarf back. (I'm trying to keep this blog family-friendly so I won't go into the details of her exact reaction.)

Some liberties were taken but fixing it wasn't too big a deal. The scarf is lace weight but the only thing I had that was even close to the right color was fingering weight. The shade isn't exactly a match, but from more than a few inches away you can't tell. I had originally planned to knit a little border onto it, but when I got a closer look I decided on a crocheted edge. Partly because I just couldn't face trying to pick up all those stitches in any kind of pattern, but mostly because the person who cut the edge off apparently did it with a dull machete and I thought a crocheted edge would have a better chance of hiding the damage. So, a quick row of single crochet then a little picot edge and it almost looks like it was done that way on purpose.

What Difference Does it Make?

2010-10-09T10:36:00.002-04:00

I had basically the same conversation with two different people this week. I've had it before and normally I just find it mildly annoying, but in light of recent goings on, it really pissed me off.

The conversation goes something like this:

"You know men who knit? Are they all gay? Oh, they're gay, they just don't know it yet."

Usually I just shrug and say, "Some of the guys I know who knit are gay, some of them aren't. What difference does it make?"

Also, some of the guys I know who are lawyers are gay. Some of them aren't.

Some women that I know who are accountants are gay. Some of them aren't.

Some people that I know who are assholes are straight. Some of them aren't.

I am not gay, but I was bullied as a child. It went on for years and I never understood why it was happening at the time. My teachers were no help because they either didn't notice me and forgot that I existed, or at times, they were the ones doing the bullying.

Did this change the person that I am now? Probably. Because our experiences are what shape us. The point is, though, that I eventually got to have different experiences. Because grammar school, high school, even college - they all end. It's hard to see out while you're inside, especially when this is all you've ever known, but this is not the world.

It does get better.

Not perfect. But better. You will find your community, just like I did. You will find people who are like you and who love you because of who you are. There will still be people who hate you because of what you are, but they are the ones who are wrong, not you. And you won't have to face them alone anymore.

On a Thursday Afternoon

2010-10-01T23:49:00.003-04:00

I had to go to a closing on Thursday for work. Well, first I had to take the subway over to Brooklyn to pick up a document that our client left out of the closing package. (My fault, they did fax over the documents the night before and I didn't realize it wasn't in there until the fedex package arrived.) Then I had to come back into Manhattan and get on the Long Island Railroad to go to Flushing. I had to do all this in the rain.

Usually when I do these closings it involves dropping off some documents and picking up a check. If things go right, this should take me about an hour. Two at the most.

These things rarely go right.

I was there for five hours.

Also, most of the time when I go to these things, I'm sitting in a conference room with a bunch of people who don't talk to me because I have nothing to do with what's going on. Which means that I'm basically sitting there for a couple of hours staring at the wall, so I bring a book because its just not a situation where knitting would be appropriate. (Yes, it's as awful as it sounds.)

Yesterday, though, there wasn't an extra seat in the conference room, so they left me out in the reception area all by myself. So I took out my knitting and sat (mostly), happily. And in five hours, I managed to knit quite a lot. Much more than I would usually get done on a Thursday during work hours. I can't show you what I did though, because it's part of a Stealth Project.

I can talk about my other Stealth Project, though.

One of my friends at work is extremely pregnant and due any minute now, so we threw her a baby shower/lunch before she goes on maternity leave. We're not exactly what you would call a group of criminal mastermind types. We got everything in and set up without getting caught, but when it came to actually getting Jann into the conference room, things sort of fell apart.

Notice that her expression is a little less "Oh my God, I'm so surprised!" and a little more "What the hell are you people up to now?"

We had some really fantastic food,

there were some Stupid Fetus Tricks

and the Stealth Project

which I had to give to her without sleeves because, of course, I procrastinated. I would actually have managed to get it finished if I had gotten home before midnight the night before. The baby hasn't been born yet, though, she seems to be pretty comfortable where she is at the moment, so I still have time.

Every Time

2010-08-17T11:41:00.006-04:00

I started my Rhinebeck sweater the other day. I’ve only got 60 days to go, which isn’t a lot of time to knit a sweater. Two months seems like it should be plenty of time, but since a large portion of my days are taken up with Gainful Employment and they won’t let me knit and work at the same time (I’ve tried), that means I only get an hour, maybe two, per day. But that’s only part of the problem. The other part is that I chose an intarsia sweater.

It’s not a complicated pattern, but I don’t do intarsia that often and when I do, I inevitably mess it up. (Maybe that’s why I don’t do it much.) I know what the problem is – my tension is always off when I start changing colors. I can see that there’s a problem, and what do I do about it? I keep going. Because DenialJenn! has taken over.

I look at the knitting after a few rows of starting the intarsia pattern and say something like, “That bit right there isn’t tight enough, there’s a hole. And this part is so tight that it’s starting to pucker.”DenialJenn! says, “That can all be evened out when you weave the ends in and block it. It will be fine.”

After a few more rows I spread it out to look at it again and say, “Well, my tension is evening out, but I think that just makes this part look worse. Look, it’s actually so puckered here that it’s raised a bit and the stitches aren’t straight.”
DenialJenn! says, “It’s fine. It’s down at the bottom of the design. Nobody ever looks at the bottom third of a sweater. No one will ever notice. Plus – Blocking! Keep going!”

This usually goes on for a few more rows until I can finally get DenialJenn! to shut up long enough for me to be able to rip back to the beginning of the design section and start over.

Oh, DenialJenn! puts up a fight while I’m frogging and getting it all untangled, but we both knew from the start that this was how it would have to happen. And, we both know that we’ll be happier when it’s re-done properly.

Well, I’ll be happier. DenialJenn! will be sitting over in the corner, muttering about blocking.

Camping

2010-08-12T23:00:00.004-04:00

I try to go camping 2 or 3 times every summer. Sometimes we throw things in like hiking or rafting, but sometimes we go just to hang out and do nothing. (Unless I go with my mother, who, wherever we are for some reason always wants to go find a Walmart. I don't really understand it, but I go along with it. Sometimes you just have to choose to find your loved one's weird little quirks amusing and not try to hard to figure them out.)

This past weekend was the Second Annual Knit and Fiber Camp at Kettle Pond, in Vermont. It's a pretty long drive from Long Island just for a weekend, about 5 1/2 - 6 hours, depending on whether I stop to eat, but it's totally worth the trip.

This year it took more like 11 hours, but that was because the tred on one of my tires disintegrated on I91. Scared the crap out of me because I had no idea what was wrong with the car, just that it was shaking really hard and making a loud banging noise while I was going 70mph. (It sounded like the entire undercarriage was about to fall out.) I put on the emergency lights, got the car pulled onto the shoulder, started to cry and then called my mother. (As one will in an emergency.) Once I got Mom all worked up and upset, and she got me calmed down, I called AAA and once we figured out where exactly I was they sent me a tow truck.

The guys at the garage I ended up in were terrific. The first thing that the mechanic said to me was, "You don't drive that car a whole lot, do you?" When I asked him how he could tell, he said there were two things that made it pretty obvious. One was that the car is eleven years old an only has 85,000 miles on it, and the other is that the tread on the tires was actually fine. The rubber degraded before it had a chance to wear out. (I didn't mention that I don't remember the last time I got new tires. They may well be the ones that were on when I bought the car.) He recommended replacing all four and at that point it seemed like a pretty good idea. Except that when he checked, it turned out that they didn't have the size tires I needed in stock. So he made a few phone calls to find a set and sent someone over to pick them up (which they didn't charge me for) and got me back on the road in a few hours. I got there at about 5:30 instead of 1:30, but I got there.

It was a fantastic weekend. The weather was gorgeous. It was cool enough for long pants and sleeves during the day and at night it got pretty cold - low 40's maybe. I spent the whole weekend nice and bundled up, which just made the heat and humidity feel worse when I got back home. It's amazing how fast you forget what 90 degrees feels like.

The best thing was the complete lack of structure. We ate when we were hungry, wandered off for a walk if we felt like it, and otherwise sat and talked and knit and spun. There was yarn for sale/swap on one table, and food on the other and a group of friends to share it all with. What more do you really need?

I'm already counting down to next year.

Dear Blog,

2010-04-20T11:48:00.001-04:00

Okay, I knew it had been a while, but I didn’t realize exactly how long. I know I’ve said it before, but I’m a very bad blogger. Please forgive me.

It’s not you, it’s me. I can’t say why I’ve treated you so badly, but I’ve neglected you terribly and you don’t deserve it. I could give the excuse that I’ve been busy – but really, if there’s that much going on then I should have plenty to blog about, shouldn’t I?

Well, from now on, things are going to change. At least until I get distracted by something else again, but for the moment you have my undivided – well, partial attention.

After all – I have thoughts. Occasionally I have more than one thought in a day. There’s all sorts of stuff going on in my head and there’s nothing but a short attention span keeping me from telling you about it.

Where was I?

Oh, right. I’ll be back soon – I’m thinking.

Love, Jenn

In which I prove myself to be capable of Learning

2009-07-26T23:22:00.002-04:00

I've been knitting socks for a couple of years now, and I've been closing the toes wrong for every bit of that time. I can think of several people right off the top of my head who will be appalled when they learn this. Even worse, I see most of those people every week and I know perfectly well that if I had asked, they would gladly have shown me how to do it correctly.

I just never seemed to get the hang of Kitchener Stitch. I tried to do it. I consulted reference books. I watched tutorials on YouTube. I followed the directions on various blogs and websites. As long as I was following along with the pictures I would do okay (sometimes) but as soon as I tried to do it on my own I would mess it up, get frustrated and then give up and do whatever thing got the toes closed up no matter how bad it looked. (Or, alternatively, I would just knit down to the toe decrease then stop and leave them in a bag somewhere with the toes just sort of gaping accusingly at me whenever I happened to come across them.)

I knew that I was doing it wrong but I had decided to not care and just go ahead and live with weird toes. (Again, I know a whole bunch of people who would have happily helped me if I had asked. Apparently I like banging my head up against the wall.)

Okay, so I recently decided that if I'm going to go to the expense of buying nice yarn and go to the effort of using it to execute a beautiful pattern that I should really be paying more attention to my technique. In the past I would ignore a mis-crossed cable or an off-center decrease or even a yarn-over that didn't quite line up with the row beneath it. And a lot of the time, projects got frogged or never finished. If I did finish something, it frequently ended up in a drawer because I wasn't happy with it.

Since I've been spending time around people who are better knitters than I am, they've made me want to be better. Now I'm much more likely to rip back or drop down to fix a problem as soon as I notice it. I've also been paying more attention to my finishing techniques - doing things "correctly" instead of "quickly" and I'm a lot happier with the results and ultimately, with the finished product. So, apparently it's working and I am, in fact, becoming a better knitter.

Which brings us back to the Kitchener Stitch. Observe:

One correctly grafted toe. Done without visual aids or tutorials.

I'm quite proud of myself. Yet at the same time, vaguely disappointed in myself that I didn't just ask for help in the first place (I know - it's a character flaw. I'm working on it) so that I could have been doing it right all along. I've got it now, though. And I'll be going after all those open-toed socks now.

An Exercise in Futility

2008-11-25T21:49:00.006-05:00

Just another episode of the freakshow that is my daily commute.

It's my own fault. If I would just remember to put my ipod back into my bag when I get to the office in the morning instead of dropping it on my desk and then covering it with files, I wouldn't get involved with these things.

Two women sat facing me on the train coming home. They were sort of loud, but one of them was hauling a suitcase, which of course she left sitting in the aisle for people to trip over as they got on and off the train, so I figured they were just excited to see each other.

Suitcase Lady asked her friend what stop they were getting off at and her friend answered, Baldwin. Well, I have an uncontrollable urge to be helpful and am apparently Quite Stupid and have not learned yet that if I actually talk to People On The Train I usually wind up annoyed, so I spoke up and told them that this particular train does not stop at Baldwin.

Suitcase Lady's Friend looked at me and informed me that when she comes into the City she always takes the Babylon train to get home. I replied, yes, but this is an express train, after Jamaica it only stops at Babylon (which, for anyone who may not know, is really nowhere near Baldwin).

She said again that she always takes the Babylon train to get home, but she did it with this smug little smile and such an "I know better than you do even though you do appear to do this every single freaking day so why are you even talking to me?" look on her face that all I could really do was agree that this was, in fact a Babylon train and go right back to knitting Matthew's new sweater.

The conductor announced several times that the train would go express after Jamaica and even listed all the stations that the train would stop at (it was a short list - only three stations) but they didn't stop talking long enough to have heard anything.

I felt a little bit bad when I got off at Jamaica to change trains and left them sitting there, still talking, loudly. I sort of wonder how long it took them to finally get to Baldwin. I wonder if they're possibly sitting in the train station at Babylon right now. Then I think about the Smug Face and this woman's complete unwillingness to accept that someone might know something that she doesn't and I feel, well, not any less bad, but let's face it, sometimes you can only try to be so helpful before you have to let people learn things on their own.

Drive By Blogging

2008-11-21T23:14:00.005-05:00

Yeah, I know. Another long gap between posts. Frankly, I suspect that I'm just not that interesting. Even to me.

I haven't really been finishing much lately - I knit all the time, I just never seem to finish anything. I really need to work on that. So, since nothing knitterly has happened (and just in case anyone actually stops by to read this) here are some gratuitous baby pictures of my favorite nephew...

He can't quite sit up by himself yet. My sister in law has him propped up in the corner of that chair, otherwise he topples over like a tiny little oak tree. He's wearing the Hooded Jacket from Debbie Bliss' Simply Baby. I'm really glad I made the 12-month size. Matthew is six months now and, while he's still got a little ways to go (the sleeves are rolled up and he's still got a little space in there) this looks like it's close enough to fitting him now that by the end of the winter I think he's going to have grown out of it.

Cold Feet

2008-09-05T23:05:00.005-04:00

So they got a little behind at my doctor's office yesterday. I was fine. I had a sock-in-progress in my bag, so while I waited two-and-a-half hours past my appointment time so that the doctor could jab a ginormous needle into my knee (which is every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds) I sat and went round and round and round and got most of a foot done when a woman sat down across from me and watched what I was doing for a while.

When she realized that I was knitting a sock her first question was "Do you wear them?" An odd question to someone who knits socks, but I suppose not to a muggle. She just couldn't believe that someone knew how to or would bother to knit their own socks. Neither could the woman sitting across from me on the train this morning.

So, having amazed two complete strangers in as many days with something as ordinary as a sock, I started to think. Up until relatively recently in human history, if you wanted a sock, this was how you got it. In fact, there was a time not so long ago when a woman wouldn't be seen walking down the road without a piece of knitting in her hands for fear of being "stigmatized with idleness".

I, on the other hand, do this as a hobby. I don't particularly need to knit socks. It's a novelty for me to have hand knit socks. If I were to never knit another sock, I could just go to the store and get a whole package of them for just a few dollars. Actually, I could get a whole package for less money than it costs me to knit one pair. If these women didn't knit socks, then they didn't have any socks.

I've got it pretty damn easy, too. If I want to knit a pair of socks all I have to do is go shopping online or walk into a store and I have access to a huge variety of colors and patterns and yarn that makes stripes all on its own with no effort on my part at all. (I had a woman thoroughly confused on the train a few months back with a skein of self-striping yarn. She absolutely couldn't figure out how I was managing to change colors.) Until relatively recently if you wanted a sock you had to go out and find a sheep, then you had to shear it, then you had to clean the wool, wash the wool, spin the wool into yarn, dye the yarn and then you could get started on knitting your sock.

Now I like to knit and I like to spin, but really...... If this was what I had to go through for a pair of socks, I would probably freeze.

Happy Birthday to Mom

2008-05-10T11:39:00.005-04:00

Mom's birthday was this past Wednesday, May 7th. This is what she got:

My brother called at 5:15 AM to tell us that Jennifer was in labor (yes, my sister in law's name is Jennifer). I said great, I'm going back to sleep, call me when she's done.

Everything went just fine and she got finished giving birth to the absolutely gorgeous Matthew Jesse at 1:09 PM. I suppose if there were a competition to get our mother the best birthday gift I would have to concede to my brother this year. I don't think the slippers she asked me for are going to quite top this.

I have an excuse !

2008-05-09T00:14:00.001-04:00

Yes, yes, it's been two and a half months (thereabouts) since my last post. But in my defense, really crappy things have been happening in those two and a half months and I just didn't have it in me to post anything without sounding whiny.

Thing 1 - My aunt died unexpectedly of heart failure right at the beginning of March. She was my mother's sister and I hadn't spoken to her in about a year because of some things that went on during our last family vacation/rafting trip.

I've had some conflicting feelings. Several people, when I tried to talk about what I was feeling sort of brushed it off and said that it wasn't important and that I should forget it and just stop being angry at her. It's not that easy to just stop being angry though. I gave it a lot of thought and decided that my feelings are still valid. She actually did what I got angry about and the fact that she died doesn't change that.

I loved my aunt. She was a wonderful, thoughtful and caring person. She was also a self-centered, manipulative pain in the behind. I'm sure that I will stop being angry at her eventually and I'm sorry that she died before I got that chance. In the meantime though, I've decided that it is possible to miss her and be mad at her at the same time.

Thing 2 - About a week or so after my aunt died, I got hit by a car. Some woman made a left without checking that pesky crosswalk thing while I was coming home from the train. It could have been a lot worse, I only ended up in the hospital overnight, but I have some torn cartilage in my knee and a small fracture in one of the vertebrae in my spine. Not dangerous, just painful. Apparently it's healing well, but I'm still not allowed to go to yoga or hiking. It's not looking like there's going to be any backpacking or rafting going on this summer. Which is sort of annoying.

That's it. That's where I've been for the past couple of months. It's sucked, but it's getting better. I've been knitting. I've actually finished things, but you can't see any of them because, also, my computer crashed so I lost all my pictures and haven't reloaded them yet.

Yeah. Pathetic.

The Shoemaker's Child goes Barefoot

2008-02-21T22:46:00.003-05:00

As a knitter, I feel that I should be much better prepared for the cold than I actually am. The problem is that most of the things I knit go to other people. On the occasions that I do (try to) knit something for myself, something always comes up and whatever I was making for myself gets dropped. Somebody has a baby, or a shower or a birthday, or they spring Christmas on me again, or, let's face it, I have a short attention span. Some new yarn or pattern will come along, being all soft and pretty and enticing and I'll follow right along after it. I have no shame.

This is why I don't have a matching hat/scarf/glove set. Right now, I'm wearing a scarf that I crocheted several years ago that I lost the matching hat for, (and which, incidentally, has a hole in it), a hat that doesn't match anything that I think my mother bought for me when I was in college, probably at K-mart, and a pair of mittens that I made fairly early on in my knitting career. They came out about two sizes too big for my hands, and were knitted somewhat loosely, so they did absolutely nothing to keep out the wind or keep my hands warm. They languished in a drawer with other mismatched accessories until we moved about two years ago. When I was unpacking, they managed to end up in the laundry. I spotted them as they were going into the washing machine and I started to pull them out, but then just said "what the hell?" and threw them in to see what would happen. It wasn't like I could ruin them. Well, they shrank and felted and they're now about the warmest mittens I've ever owned. So, I wear them, despite the fact that they have nothing whatsoever to do colorwise with my hat and scarf.

I am working on a hat and scarf set. I found both patterns on Ravelry. The hat pattern is called Greenery, and may be the best cabled hat pattern I've ever worked on. The cables start right up out of the ribbing and the crown decreases don't mess with the cables. It pleases my sense of symmetry. My sister in law got one for Christmas and I liked it so much I made another one for myself.

The scarf is called Persephone. The cables don't really match the hat, but I think there's enough similarity that they'll work together. The designer of this scarf is, quite frankly, insane. Brilliant, but seriously, nuts. There isn't a single right side row on this scarf that doesn't have some sort of cross on it. You never just go for a few rows until your next cross like most (non-insane) cable patterns. It's loads of fun to knit, but you have to SERIOUSLY be paying attention. I can't wait to try some more of her designs.

The scarf has actually stalled a bit at the moment, as Baby Knitting has taken precedence (see... told you) but I'll try to get it done soon and hopefully be able to wear the set this winter. I don't know what I'll do for mittens, though.

Get Them While They're Young

2008-02-15T15:25:00.000-05:00

My cousin's ten year old was doing something at church with my mother on Saturday and Sunday, so she came to spend Saturday night at our house. I honestly couldn't figure out what in the world we were going to do to entertain this kid. Well, I didn't need to worry, because not too long after dinner she asked me what might have been the most wonderful question I've ever heard.

"Can I knit?"

I nearly cried.

So, upstairs we went to find a pair of needles, I gave her some of the Sugar & Cream that I have left over from the baby bibs and showed her how to cast on and knit. She caught on in no time and sat on the couch for about two hours working her way through a garter stitch washcloth.
Then she discovered the ball winder.

I will admit that I find the ball winder to be ridiculously fun myself, but Kellsey wound every single piece of yarn that she could get her hands on. I finally had to take it away from her and send her to bed. I won't have to wind a bit of yarn for months.

Matthew Jesse

2008-02-11T23:21:00.002-05:00

Unless my brother and sister in law change their minds between now and May, this will be the name of my nephew. The Baby Knitting started right after the Christmas Knitting was (mostly) finished. I'm planning to find out exactly how much knitting I can pile on one baby.

I'm about halfway through the Cabled Blanket from Debbie Bliss Simply Baby. I have to admit that I tend to go back and forth a bit on Debbie Bliss patterns. Some I like, some I really don't. This pattern I like, though. It's pretty simple and I like the look of the garter stitch bit in the cable, which you can't really see in the picture, but I can't seem to get it to come out any clearer.

What I'm really, really loving are these bibs. I've been churning these things out for about a week and a half now and there's no stopping in sight. They're really just garter stitch squares and you would think that I would be ready to jump off a roof by now but I'm just finding them adorable. I'm using Peaches & Cream cotton, which feels nice to work with and comes in such great colors that I'm just not getting bored with them. Also, they're small, so they're great for the train. I may have to think of something else to work on tomorrow though. I've used up all the balls in the stash. (Well, except for some pinky sorts of colors, but I don't want to make my brother's head explode.)

My Very First

2008-01-26T23:35:00.000-05:00

It's truly awful, but I'm pretty proud of it. It's my very first ball of hand spun yarn.

I did it on a drop spindle and I think I need a bit more practice. It's totally uneven and kind of fuzzy. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be fuzzy. It's also badly overspun in,, let's just say.... several...places (okay, most of it). But I'm happy because as bad as it is, it's all mine. I'm going to put it in a little baggy and write the date on it and save it. This way, someday far in the future, when I'm hopefully better at this and I'm trying to do something that's totally kicking my behind, I can pull this out and say, "Well, at least its not as bad as this."

My goal is to master the drop spindle and attempt to produce something that I might actually be able to knit something with (this isn't it) before I jump in and get myself a spinning wheel.

I was thinking of something like the classic "Sleeping Beauty" type spinning wheel, but having tried Kelly's wheel at our Sunday afternoon knitting meetup, I think that for the amount of space I have, a more compact portable wheel may be a better choice.

Speaking of which, there was some discussion last week that Panera should be paying us to come in there every week. Between the knitting and the chatting and the spinning wheels we were the main attraction in the place last week.

And I'm back again

2008-01-13T21:29:00.000-05:00

The problem when you get really busy and neglect the blog for a few weeks (okay a month) is that so much has gone on in the meantime that the thought of catching everything up becomes overwhelming and you just keep neglecting the blog. It's a vicious cycle.

So, to update - about five days before Christmas I reached the final stage of holiday knitting. I managed to get through Denial, Anger, Bargaining and Depression fairly quickly. Acceptance took a little longer. Everyone got their hats, but I had to give up on the scarves. My mom and my brother each got one sock. The others are on the way. My sister in law was pretty impressed with the self-striping yarn. I know I always am. My grandmother really liked her socks, but when she opened them - I noticed something odd.

I'm really not certain how I managed to make one foot half the length of the other, but I did, so now Granny is short a sock as well.

Today at our knitting meetup Kelly brought her spinning wheel and I got a quick lesson from her and Helen. I spun a little bit of remarkably crappy yarn and she loaned me her drop spindle so that I can practice with that for a while until I can get my own. It's possible that I may now be hooked.

The Race is On

2007-12-14T11:10:00.000-05:00

and the knitting is winning.

With only ten kitting days left until Christmas, I've managed to get one shawl done and the other is pretty close. If I can manage to sit down for a couple of hours with it tomorrow afternoon, I might be able to manage to get it finished. However, I've still got to finish two more hats, three and a half scarves, two pairs of socks and a set of golf club covers. They're mostly relatively small, quick projects, but I also need to do regular housekeeping, laundry, get the Christmas decorations up from the basement and get the house decorated and get food prepared for our Christmas party. And, oh yeah, there's that pesky gainful employment thing that eats up so much of my day.

I was feeling so confident at the beginning of the month. I knew it would come back to kick me in the ass.

Hey, weird people - come talk to me, I like it....

2007-11-20T22:55:00.000-05:00

Apparently there is a sign somewhere about my person that lets them all come to find me. That's the only explanation.

So, I'm on the train last night coming home. We had a closing today for a problem file so we were in the office late and I was on the 11:00PM train, so I suppose some weirdness was to be expected. After the station before mine I put my knitting into my bag, put on my coat and walked up to the door to wait until we pulled into the station and the doors opened. The woman in the seat behind me got up at the same time I did and walked forward as well. Nothing weird so far. Except just as we were pulling into the station this woman, who I have never laid eyes on before in my life starts playing with my hair.

Like, picking it up and running her fingers through it. When I inquired as to what the freakin' hell she thought she was doing, she said that she had been wanting to do that since I had sat down and just couldn't control herself anymore. She seemed insulted when I suggested that she try harder.

In other news, the knitting funk seems to finally be over. I think that I have Ravelry to thank. I've never understood the allure of MySpace or Facebook but I have to admit, I love Ravelry with a deep and unrivaled affection. I have found my people here. Being exposed to this large a community of other knitters is remarkably inspiring. It's also kind of nice to be able to have a conversation with people who don't give me that "we love you, but you're a little odd" look every time I mention knitting and don't think that my yarn obsession is the least bit strange.

Duty vs. Enthusiasm - I'll Take What I Can Get

2007-11-06T16:04:00.000-05:00

Okay, so it's not what you would call a raging case of startitis, but I have been casting on a few new projects during the past week. More out of a sense of duty (and let's face it - fear of December) than out of any real joy, but still..

My mother and my grandmother are getting shawls for Christmas (my sister-in-law too, if I can find something that I like for her) (something fast). Grandma is getting the Litla Dimun Shawl from Folk Shawls and Mom is getting the cable shawl from Philosopher's Wool - Sheep to Shawl. (I don't think either of them actually reads this blog. I really hope they don't, anyway.) I don't know what to make for my brother - he doesn't wear hats or scarves and he's 6'7" so a sweater is - unthinkable.

In non-knitting funk related news - I went to see a very good play Sunday night called Humans Anonymous. Off-Broadway can be sort of hit 0r miss sometimes, but this was quite good. It was written by a Canadian playwright named Kate Hewlett, who also performed. I loved the play - it was funny and a little sad. The characters and the actors were very real and extremely engaging. I was talking to my mother about the play yesterday and I thought she would like it. The tickets weren't particularly expensive and the theater is pretty convenient to both our offices, so we're actually going to go see it together next Friday.

Not Quite There Yet

2007-10-28T22:25:00.000-04:00

I know I'm going to pay for it later, but I still can't interest myself in getting very much done. It's driving me crazy. I have things that I want to make and things that I know I need to get done for Christmas. I keep thinking about casting them on. I even go so far as gathering everything I need - book, yarn, needles - into the WIP basket next to the chair, but I never seem to get quite as far as putting stitches on the needles. And it's not like I'm really doing much else. The past few weeks may have been some of the most unproductive weekends of my life. About the only place I'm actually getting any knitting done is on the train and honestly I don't think that's going to get everything done.

Thing is, I know that a day is going to come - and it's going to probably come soon, when the Funk is going to give way to a mad case of Startitis and I'm not going to be able to cast on fast enough.

Just a Phase

2007-10-12T15:14:00.000-04:00

I've been feeling extremely unproductive the past couple of weeks. Nothing is working to get me out of it, I've tried everything - fondling the stash, organizing patterns, going through books, buying new magazines... Nothing. Not a single urge to cast on anything new. And forget the stuff in the UFO basket, it's all just sitting there looking forlorn and abandoned, waiting uselessly to be knitted, fringed, blocked or sewn together. (Or some combination of these.)

I have been knitting socks on the train (everyone is getting a pair of socks for Christmas this year)(That's not all they're getting, but everyone is getting socks)(I mean everyone in my family, not everyone in the world) but even those have just been YarnHarlot's Plain old sock recipe from Knitting Rules! in self striping yarn. I think it qualifies as pretty much the minimum effort you can put in and still call it knitting.

Whatever this funk is - and it doesn't just extend to knitting, I haven't been working on anything else, either - Let's hope I get out of it soon, otherwise people are going to be getting pictures of thier Christmas presents this year. Again.

Whoohooo!!!!!!!!

2007-09-15T23:26:00.000-04:00

I'm finally on Ravelry! I actually did a little happy dance in my chair when I saw the invitation in my in box last night. That is all that I did today. No laundry, no vacuuming, no grocery shopping. It's like crack. Happy, happy crack.
I've spent the day adding my books, stash and current projects. Adding future projects to the queue. There are a lot of patterns in the queue. Lots of patterns. I joined groups, I checked out neighbors. It's fabulous.

I'm going back in.

So This is What We've Come to...

2007-09-13T15:40:00.001-04:00

Besides the firm that I work for there are three other tenants on the floor of our building, which means that the other women I work with and I are sharing the bathroom with about a dozen other women total. Now anyone who has ever had to share a common bathroom with other women holds this one thing to be true.

Women are pigs.

Following is what is now hanging on the mirror in our ladies room. It probably won't take much imagination to figure out what led to this being hung up.

To the Person or persons who have been leaving “evidence” of your occupation of this bathroom (and you know perfectly well who you are so don’t just stand there getting mad or pretending you don’t know what we’re talking about):

We do realize that there is a certain freedom in anonymity and understand that since this is not your home you feel that you are not technically responsible for cleaning and maintenance of this room. However, we would like to remind you that the rest of us are forced to share this very small bathroom with you five days a week and would appreciate it if you would please observe the following niceties:

1. Flush the Toilet – No they don’t work particularly well and it frequently requires more than one flush. However, pushing a lever is not a complicated task and if you managed to dress yourself this morning you can probably handle it. Keep at it until everything has disappeared.
2. Stop Peeing on the Seat – If you must hover above the seat like a UFO from the Planet WeeWee, please turn around and look behind you when you’ve finished. If the seat is wet it’s because YOU have just peed on it. Please take a piece of toilet paper and wipe it up. Yes, it’s icky, but there is soap and water available to take care of that. Trust us; it’s less icky to clean up your own urine than it is to clean up someone else’s.
3. Stop Doing Anything Else on the Seat – If, as apparently was the case this past Tuesday, you are having – let’s just say “intestinal difficulties,” please refrain from hovering. On the off chance that you were raised in a field where it was considered acceptable to simply drop your pants and take a crap wherever you happened to be standing and so don’t realize that this is not considered appropriate here, we would like to offer this piece of advice. It’s supposed to go “In” the toilet, not “Somewhere in the General Vicinity of the Toilet.” There is no reason why an adult woman should be shitting on the floor of the ladies room.

As was mentioned earlier, no one else actually knows who you are, but you do. So instead of standing there being insulted or pretending that you have no idea that this is aimed at you, please do the rest of us the same courtesy that I’m sure you expect to have extended to yourself and stop behaving like some sort of farm animal.

Bad Blogger!

2007-08-29T16:50:00.000-04:00

Wow. Sorry about that. It doesn't seem like its been a whole month since my last post. It just went by so quickly and so much has been going on that I didn't even notice.

In case anyone has been wondering all this time, I did stay in the city to get my copy of Harry Potter at midnight. I got a lot of comments from various friends and co-workers on Monday about a possible sanity deficiency on my part because "all the stores had plenty of copies." I wasn't afraid that they would run out - I wanted it at midnight! These people have all known me for a while. You would think that they would get the fact that I don't like to wait for things by now.

I met a woman, whose name was Karen if I remember correctly, in the knitting aisle at Borders. The two of us just sat on the floor, knitting and chatting until it was time to go line up, so it was a very pleasant evening.

There was this rather odd woman there with us - we did try to keep her included in the conversation as much as we could, but all she kept asking us was how how to knit a cape with a hood. She wasn't asking for explaination of a stitch or help understanding a pattern - she wanted me to tell her step by step how to knit a cape with a hood. She kept pulling books off the shelf, showing me patterns and asking "Would you recommend this?"or "How would you go about attaching a hood to this cape?" or "Do you think I can do this pattern?"

Not that I'm ever unwilling to help if I can, but does this ever happen to anyone else - complete strangers asking if you think they can do something? (The somewhat snarky answer is "If you have to ask, probably not.") I was really quite proud of myself for managing to not say that out loud at the time. Sometimes my mouth engages a second or two ahead of my brain. I'm sure that she was a lovely woman normally, but the whole encounter was just slightly to the left of bizarre.

Anyway, the rest of my missing month has been equally crazed. My aunt got married, I went on another camping trip with my mom and some friends, not to mention various barbeques, cookouts and get-togethers along with the usual level of insane busy-ness at work. I'm actually looking forward to the end of summer so that things will calm down and I can relax a little.

Oh, right... Christmas.

Decisions, Decisions...

2007-07-20T12:52:00.000-04:00

I had a plan for this evening. It was a simple plan, but a good one. I was going to kill the proverbial two birds with this plan. You see, sometimes, I like to work late on Friday nights. Everybody else is always quick to get out of the office on Friday so it’s quiet. No interruptions, and I don’t have to get up early the next morning, so it’s perfect. When I do this, I’ll usually stay till about 10:00 – 11:00 – get some of the backlog from the week out of the way then get the train and go home.

My plan for tonight was to work until about 10:30 then head across the street to Borders, shop until midnight (bookstores and yarn stores are about the only places that I can shop for two hours with no problem. Anyplace else, I’m in and out as quickly as possible.) pick up Harry Potter, get the 12:50 train and read on the way home. The 12:50 gets me home a little before 2:00 AM, but I don’t have to go anywhere tomorrow, so fine.

Small glitch in the plan. The 12:50 was the train that I ended up on last night due to some unforeseen problems with a file that was scheduled to close at 9:00 this morning. So, I was in the office until twenty minutes to 1:00 last night – or rather this morning – home at a quarter to 2:00 and back on the train to come in again before 8:00 AM. I’ve been mainlining coffee this morning but I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to midnight.

I don’t know what to do. Should I stay in the city, attempt to force myself to stay awake and get the book before I go home? Should I go home, take a nap for a couple of hours and then go out around 11:00PM to be at a store on the Island at midnight? (The one drawback to that plan is that I have a feeling that the bookstore in the suburbs might be a bit more packed with overexcited children than the one upstairs from Penn Station. I was going to go to the store near my office specifically because this isn’t a residential neighborhood and I’m hoping it will be less crowded.)
Or, should I just go home, fall into bed and get up early to go get it in the morning?

Adding to my dilemma is the fact that I’m a clue behind on the Mystery Stole. Clue 4 is out today and I’ve only just started Clue 3. What I need to do this weekend is figure out a way to sleep, read and knit all at the same time.

Into the Woods

2007-07-15T16:55:00.000-04:00

A highly successful Mother/Daughter camping trip went off pretty well all around. We went to Harriman State Park, which is pretty convenient ot the city and we're familiar with the area. It's normally a 1 1/2 - 2 hour drive, but we got a slightly later start than we planned and got caught in the Friday evening rush hour, so it ended up taking about 4 1/2 hours. Bit of a bummer, but we got there okay eventually.

We got in, got the tent up, got everything in. I got the fire going (1 match- 3 minutes to full campfire glory) I put dinner on, Mom and I sat down to play a game of Scrabble while it was cooking - and then the thunder started. Of course.

So we go rushing around, getting everything either into the tent or stowed in the car, hurried to get the food cooked and everything into the tent. The whole time the wind is picking up and lightning is flashing and the thunder is coming closer and closer. We just made it into the tent as the first drops of rain started – and it sprinkled for about five minutes. Nothing was actually even wet. It actually ended up being gorgeous all weekend. Sunny, not too hot, nice breeze.

We hadn’t been to this campground before and we had sort of mixed feelings about it. The campsites were way too close together. Actually the people on the next site were literally right on top of us. I now know more about some of their relatives than I know about some of mine. The swimming area was much too small and barely hip deep. Okay, I’m 5’10”, but still, three feet of water is hardly a refreshing swim.

On the other hand, it was kept clean and the rules and quiet hours were actually enforced. Unlike the campground we went to the year before last where the bathrooms weren’t cleaned for three days, the trash was never picked up and the idiots across the road spent the entire weekend drinking and playing the 80’s Power Ballad Collection at top volume until 3:00 AM every night.

Saturday evening after dinner I was sitting, working on my Mystery Shawl, mom was working on the afghan she’s making for my aunt, it was just about twilight and I looked up and over to my left and there was a buck about ten or twelve feet away, just standing there looking at us. He just wandered by, nibbling on things and then I looked over to the right and there was a doe following right along behind him.

Definitely a high point of the trip – and, of course, the batteries in the camera had died about fifteen minutes earlier.

Woosh

2007-07-11T23:10:00.000-04:00

It's been a very long but very fast week. Aside from the usual busy-ness at work, my evenings have been busy getting ready for my annual camping trip with my mom.

Now, my brother and I have always loved camping. My brother and sister-in-law actually went camping for thier honeymoon and I was a counselor at a Girl Scout camp through college (I still miss having my bed outside all summer). My mother's idea of roughing it however, pretty much meant anything less than three stars. So imagine my surprise when I talked her into going tent camping a few years ago and she loved it.

Keep in mind, now, I'm talking about "go to a campground with flush toilets and showers, where you drive into a site and unload your stuff onto the spot where you'll be living for the next few days," camping as opposed to "hike up a mountain carrying everything you need to survive on your back" camping. Let's be real. But she took to it pretty enthusiastically and now we go at least once or twice every summer. Last year, we got her to camp in North Carolina for an entire week and we also got her to do this:

That's her in the front. Can't wait to see what we can get her to do next. For now, though, I need to pick what knitting projects I'm going to take with me and get some sleep.

I am Weak

2007-07-06T14:59:00.000-04:00

You would think that someone as stubborn as I am would be a bit more strong willed. Well, strong willed I've never had trouble with, but I crumble in the face of yarn.

Despite my - well, let's call it ranting - of just four days ago about how I can't stand all the clutter and the unfinished projects lurking around the house I have in fact, started two new projects.

I have no explaination.

Well, actually, one project is within the rules. It's a cute little baby blanket that I'm making entirely out of stash yarn. No real problem there unless you count working up from the bottom of the list, but I think we can all let that slide. Right? Say right, you know you want to.

The other project, which technically hasn't been started yet, I'm having a little more trouble rationalizing. But come on along with me while I try. Here's why it's not my fault.

You see, I've been seeing mention of the MS3 project on various blogs for the past few weeks. I resisted. I think I resisted pretty admirably. But then it was mentioned yesterday that today would be the last day to sign up. I thought, I've never done a knit along before. I'll miss it. I'll never know how it comes out. How could I live with that? I decided that I couldn't and right over the edge I went. Like a Lemming. Apparently I'm a joiner. Who knew?

The problem was that if I do have any laceweight in the stash, and I'm pretty sure that I do - pink is coming to mind - I have no idea where it is. (See Monday's post) So I had to find some laceweight and wouldn't you know, they had some at Habu, which is an entirely too convenient 1 1/2 blocks from my office making it way too easy to get there at lunchtime.

There you go then, perfectly reasonable. For my penance, I will find frames for the finished pieces this weekend and finish the blue butterfly cross stitch that only needs one wing filled in to be done. Then I can start the mystery stole.

The "D" Word

2007-07-02T23:32:00.001-04:00

I'm going on a stash diet.

This is not a decision that I've reached lightly. I know it won't be easy, but it must be done.

I did a little bit of straightening in the basement this weekend and I found at least half a dozen more of these.

This discovery has led me to an inevitable and frightening conclusion.

I have too much stuff.

And a short attention span, so I'm not really confident that the stash diet will last very long, but I digress.

I seem to have more unfinished or unstarted projects than I have finished ones. My discovery in the basement led me to start checking the rest of the hiding places, I mean closets. Please to enjoy - a small sampling of the things that I unearthed.

There's this

It's a half quilted map of the globe. I don't remember buying it. I don't remember why I would have bought it. It really doesn't go with my decor.

But I apparently did a fair amount of work on it before it crawled away to hide.

Let's see then, there's this.

I found it in a antique store in New Jersey. Every single piece in this quilt top was sewn together by hand. They wanted $40.00 for it. It was filthy and needed some repair and I actually didn't buy it when I first saw it. I kicked myself the entire week and spent two hours driving back the following Saturday hoping that it was still there. I was so happy to see it I didn't even try to haggle, and that's half the fun. I repaired it and washed it, by hand. And then folded it up and put it in a drawer.

There's this stuff. These are pieces that I've either started and put down and not picked up again or just haven't even opened yet. I must have liked these things and wanted them. (This isn't everything)

Then there are the books, the leaflets and the magazines. Who knows when I'll get to any of these.

And yet I keep buying more. Never ending, never thinking about it. There were about half a dozen things that I found duplicates of. That means that on at least six different occasions I forgot that I already had something and went out and bought another one.

I can't even explain these. They're all finished pieces. They were folded up in a box. I have no words.

So, in the next few days I will be making an inventory. I will be putting things into a rotation. Things that are almost finished will go to the top of the list. Things that are started will go next. Then I start working my way through the rest of the stash. It may not last long (remember the thing about the short attention span), but if nothing else, I'll at least have made room for more stuff.

It's getting Biblical out there...

2007-06-27T22:56:00.000-04:00

I love thunder storms. The noise, the spectacle, I love it all. But there's a small problem around here with thunder storms. They knock out the electricity and, unfortunately, electricity is what runs the New York City transit system. It's also largely underground. Water, electricity and underground tunnels, apparently not a combination that's conducive to the moving around of several million people.

Once you manage to get across town to Penn Station, you get to take the Long Island Railroad. Which also doesn't run well in the rain. In fact, it went about 15 mph the entire way home. It took a very long time to get home tonight, and once I did get home, then I had to go back out again to pick up my mother, who was even more stuck than I was, because by the time she made it across town the railroad wasn't running at all anymore. So, fun evening all around.

Luckily, I never leave home without my trusty Bag O' Yarn. Between sitting on the train and sitting in the car, I got a whole lot o' knitting done tonight.
I had gotten maybe an inch past the split for the neck on this morning's train ride, so everything above that was done during the commute home or in the car while I waited for my mom's train.

Okay, so it was a very, very, very long trip home. But at least it was productive. Looking at it that way, it's harder to complain. Or, at least it was before the battery on my ipod died.

I'm not complaining, but...

2007-06-20T22:29:00.000-04:00

It's been some week. They've been keeping me very, very busy at that place they make me go to earn yarn money. I've been getting home later and later every day this week and my dinners have been getting less and less - well lets just say less ideally nutritious. Monday's dinner was pretty good - pasta primavera with some nice fresh asparagus. Nothing wrong there.

Tuesday - I gave in and stopped at KFC on the way home from the train. I try to avoid fast food as much as I can, but desperate circumstances....

Tonight I had ice cream.

We'll speak no more of this.

Look...socks!

The first pair are a bit bright, aren't they? I have someone in mind for these. She's 12, I think she'll appreciate the colors. So that's one Christmas gift down.

It's hard to tell in the picture, but the other socks are green. I like the color, but I'm not sure about the pattern. I know you can't see it at all, but i think it's getting lost in the color of the yarn. Odds are though, that I'm not going to pull it out to change now, so I'll probably just keep them for myself.

Two Down

2007-06-14T22:15:00.000-04:00

I've actually (pretty much) finished two things. There's this afghan:

which I started about a year and a half ago. Yes, it sat in a bag about 2/3 done for that long until I came across it and decided to finish. I tried a few different patterns with this yarn, but nothing made me happy. Everything I tried just interfered with the color changes.

All those endless rows of stockinette threatened to make me crazy, but I was saved by the pretty colors.

I've also (sort of) finished the striped shawl.

I finished the knitting anyway. It still needs to be blocked and fringed, but I'll knock that out over the weekend.

I really need to get it finished because it's absolutely freezing in the office. The guys don't seem to notice it quite as much. They really don't understand the connection between the cold and the fact that the rest of us keep having to run to the ladies room every hour.

No Pictures Today...

2007-06-10T14:00:00.000-04:00

I suspect that the digital camera has gone to a Yankees game. I may have to break down and get one of my own. I will, however describe for you what would be in the pictures if I could, in fact find the camera.

1. These are the plants that I spent most of my money on at the garden center yesterday. We should have a good supply of zuccini this summer, along with some nice eggplant and several different varieties of tomatoes. (My mother finds it amusing that I grow tomatoes, since I don't actually like tomatoes and don't eat them.)

2. These are the geraniums that I've been growing in pots in the house since last year. I'm going to have the biggest geraniums on the block this summer.

3. Here are the two hydrangeas that came home in pots at Easter. They probably could have gone outside a few weeks ago, but I've been sort of busy the past few weekends and so they're going out now. They'll look good next to the driveway.

4. See the pretty peach rosebush. Note to self - roses have thorns that will cut your hands even through gardening gloves. Be more careful next time.

5. In case you were thinking that this was somehow a yarn free weekend - how silly of you. Since, as I mentioned, I'm trying to get out and meet other knitters - instead of ordering things off the internet as I usually do, I actually went looking for a few yarn stores in my area. One I wasn't too impressed with - not much of a selection. The other may be a bit more promising - I'll have to go back and check it out again. I did get some nice Regia sock yarn, though. That will be my train project for this week. I may have to start travelling a bit farther afield.

I also made a stop at AC Moore - they had Sugar 'n Cream cotton on sale for $1 a ball so I grabbed a few just in case I ever decide to knit someone a washcloth. I'm actually thinking about running over and grabbing a few more this afternoon.

What in the World?

2007-06-04T20:45:00.000-04:00

Okay. Let me explain what happened here. I actually started this bag in different colors and ended up not liking them. Also, I like big tote bags beause I commute from Long Island to Manhattan every day on the Railroad so I need to carry a bunch of stuff with me and I didn't think the bag was coming out big enough. So when I decided to do it in different colors, I also decided to make it bigger. I'm really hoping that I shrinks a lot when I put it into the washing machine. Actually, I'm hoping for a pretty miraculous amount of shrinking. For my first big Fair Isle project though, I'm pretty happy with the way it came out.

I think it's going to be a while though, before I find out how much I can shrink it. I've only got one handle done and the bag's place in the lineup has been usurped by my new shawl.

I've decided that since it's summer now, I'm probably not going to use the wool bag before Fall, so I don't feel bad. And now that the air conditioning is on in my office, I really need the shawl. Apparently they're trying to make up for the fact that we couldn't wear sweaters all winter because the heat was so high we couldn't breathe. How considerate of them.

I wonder if it's possible to get frostbite indoors in June?

The shawl is made from Paton's Soy Wool Stripes in Natural Earth. I'm liking the feel of the yarn and I can't even begin to tell you how much I love self striping yarn. I don't know why I find it so fascinating to watch the colors change. I'll just go with thinking its a good thing to be so easily amused.

I'd Like to Buy a Flea, Please

2007-06-02T21:47:00.000-04:00

Mom and I spent the day today at the Spring Flea Market in Ocean Grove, NJ. Ocean Grove is a gorgeous little town on the Jersey Shore, full of pretty victorian houses and cute little shops right on the beach. There's a concert series at the Great Auditorium every summer and if you ever get a chance to go, you should.

I love these flea markets, they do one in Spring and one in the Fall. There are probably a couple hundred vendors there and the place was packed with shoppers.

<----(That's the Auditorium)

Of course, since no day is complete without knitting, I did this while we were waiting for a table to have lunch at a restaurant on Main Street.

At what point are you considered to have crossed the line between hobby and obsession?

Welcome to my Blog!

2007-05-31T18:09:00.000-04:00

If you're reading this - let's face it, you're probably lost. But, as long as you're here.....

Hi! My name is Jennifer and welcome to my very first blog entry ever.

You may be wondering ( I know I am) why I would decide to start a blog considering that I do absolutely nothing that could possibly be considered interesting to any other human on the planet besides my mother.

Well.... I knit.

There, I've said it. They say that the first step is admitting that you have a problem.

It's not so much that I want to solve the problem. It's more that I want to find some other knitters to talk to. Sort of a Knitter's Anonymous sort of thing. My non-knitting friends ( a category that includes just about every person that I know) all used to find me vaguely amusing. Lately they're starting to look at me like I jumped into a great big pile of crazy and just rolled around in it for a while. Nobody will go to yarn stores with me anymore. Apparently they're not falling for it anymore when I say "I just need one thing." (Which is perfectly true, but has nothing to do with how much I buy while I'm in there.) It used to be easier to distract them with the pretty colors.

So, this has led me to the decision that I need more friends. Knitting friends. Friends who understand this...

and this....

This is just what happens to be handy at the moment.

Oh, and also, as seems to be required by the rules of knitting bloggerdom - I have a (slightly blurry) cat.

I just can't get her to keep still long enough right now to take a better picture than this.