Best Conversation I Had All Day

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....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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,

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

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.