Tangerine Tango is the new beige...

Gentle knitters, I've been thinking about colors and why some of them are always thrillingly luscious (rosy pink, dark red) or comforting (navy, natural) or safety nets (black, brown), while others make us gag or engender a love-hate relationship. Let's consider, for instance, avocado green or "harvest" gold, which were a big deal in the 1960s and '70s, to the extent that many people actually bought kitchen appliances, shag rugs, drapes, etc. in those colors and regretted their tragically expensive choice within a very short time. Once enveloped by avocado green and harvest gold (a murky yellow-brown evoking ?) those fond feelings simply evaporated, and then where was the love?

Well, it's 2012 and now orange is in--specifically a shade called Tangerine Tango, which is Pantone's Color of the Year. The Knitting Goddess tells me the Color of the Year, flogged in fashion and décor, is an industry-generated ploy. For me, orange is the color equivalent of a scream for attention, since where I live you can't, by law, walk in the woods without wearing orange, else you risk being taken for wild game and shot at by a local yahoo who's out there proving his manliness. In fact, the one orange hand-knitted item in the house is a scarf I made H a while ago, specifically to increase his visibility when we stroll with Lola in nature-land.

Yet rather than feel that Tangerine Tango is a color I might grow to hate in the manner of avocado green and harvest gold, which I truly detest, I think of it as a color I'd grow to ignore because in a way it's so ubiquitous--the outerwear we don to maximize visibility in the woods, strip-mall signage, Halloween clichés, Fanta and Cheetos. Perhaps that's the inevitable fate of any Color of the Year, to become beige-i-fied.

These musings prompted me to inspect the orange yarns in my stash, and to compare them with natural oranges (tangerines, actually, and the last of the carrot harvest). There is a tonal harmony here, but a little orange goes a very long way, and I enjoy it best in combinations.

Here Lola unhappily models my (now) Evolved Sweater (formerly known as the Evolving Sweater), which as you can see features orange in combination with an eclectic assortment of colors and yarns.

Heartfelt

It's a self-evident truth that V-day is nearly upon us. Recently, as I perused the assortment of regular daily emails that fly into my Inbox, I happened upon this from Knitting Daily, a charming and completely free-of-charge felted heart pattern designed by Mags Kandis.

In a eureka! moment I realized that my knitting of these lumpy little valentines would accomplish much in one fell swoop:

• I'd use up scraps of yarn;
• I'd practice "wrapping" stitches, as the pattern called for;
• I'd practice short rows;
• I'd try out a knitting app I'd downloaded onto my Iphone;
• and...I'd end up with several funky knitted heart-like things.

Well, it all worked like a charm, I'm happy to say. 

Knitted heart in primitive evolutionary stage.

Does not this open-faced heart resemble a ginko leaf? And gingkos are evolutionarily both primitive, in the sense of being very ancient, and also sui generis among trees.  (Don't ask why I know this.)

Following the 18-row pattern, I did a long-tail cast-on (thanks to the Knitting Goddess, who demo'd it for me and led me through two practices), reviewed the wrap-and-turn process of short rows (again thanks to the Knitting Goddess, who was, I think, born knowing all of this very useful stuff), and worked my way down the lines. But...I'm not a diligent note-taker, and it soon was apparent that I needed an aide-memoire.

Then I recalled that a few weeks ago I'd done a search in the App Store using the keyword "knitting," and had found a few gizmos to download.  (About these as a group, stay tuned for a future post.) One, Knit Counter Lite, seemed like it might be just the ticket, and I must say it was. With a mere tap of my pinkie, I kept track of rows and where I was, exactly, in the midst of them.

This might not seem like such a big deal to those who enjoy the tactile sensations of paper and pencil to tick off the rows completed, but I am the kind of person who starts with a paper and pencil and then gets annoyed because I don't want to put down the knitting to use them, so I say forget that, and I then do promptly forget where I am in the pattern.  With the Knit Counter Lite app, I could hold the knitting and simultaneously add each row with a tiny tap, or subtract  if I ripped one (or more) out. No longer was I lost nel mezzo del caminn, as it were.

I can't remember if this app was free of charge, and my Iphone won't tell me. A more sophisticated Knit Counter by the same company (Cordless Dog) costs $3.99 to download, and it's probably worth the price of admission, as it does quite a bit more than the Lite version.

Practical-minded knitters are undoubtedly wondering what I plan to do with these fuzzy felted hearts...and so am I, though Ted thinks they make a great bikini.

At this point I'm not worried about their purpose, but more inclined to say, along with M. Pascal, "the heart has its reasons...."

(Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.)

Travelry

Do you know that memory game, played during long, boring car rides, where one person says, "I'm going on a trip and I'm taking my [fill in the blank]"? Then the second person says "I'm going on a trip and I'm taking [the thing first mentioned] and [another thing]."  Etcetera, ad nauseam. That was my life today trying to figure out which knitting project to bring with me to Long Island, where I'll be visiting my aunt.

I kept telling myself, "I'm going on a trip and I'm going to bring the brown fair-isle socks."  Then, playing the part of the next participant:  "I'm going on a trip and I'm going to bring the brown fair-isle socks and the evolving sweater." Then, a while later, "I'm going on a trip and I'm going to take the brown fair-isle socks, the evolving sweater, and the blue  variegated socks."

Because if I didn't have enough knitting along, I might run out of things to knit. OMG!

Then Ted said, "Get a grip.  You're only gone for two-and-a-half days."

So, I'm just taking two pairs of socks.  I'll be spending some significant hours on Amtrak and the LIRR; maybe I'll finish them both!

Meanwhile, the Evolving Sweater has once again regressed owing to another cable needle tragedy--this time the plastic cable separated from the metal screw-post.  I am starting to hate circular needles.

The malevolent needle is hanging out on the right.

As you perhaps know, we are having an unseasonably warm winter. Today, the first of February, the temperature in Westerly, Rhode Island was almost 60F, and the ambient flora are behaving accordingly. There are already snowdrops blooming in the garden!

Carrying on

It has been a strange week, gentle knitters. Strangest was a meeting of the Langworthy Library Knitters, which I found difficult to endure, so I left early.

As often happens when people democratically connected by little other than a single interest convene, there is some incompatibility among group members. This wouldn't matter if everyone focused on the shared passion of knitting. However, one member continually hijacks the conversation and monologues about her life as it played out from about the 1940s through present, though she seems especially fond of tales from the 1960s. Does she not notice that people rarely, if ever, respond to her chatter?

As usual there was this background noise, but then a new member joined the group, and within about fifteen minutes had informed us all of her extensive and serious health issues, surgeries, and treatments IN A VERY LOUD VOICE.

That was the straw, my friends. I do not go to a knitting club to be bombarded by the semi-tragic and deeply personal information of someone who's clearly looking for...what? Sympathy? Help? To this sad person, I donate a metaphorical Kit Bag. Were she to pack her troubles into it, she might enjoy life. Meanwhile I was the one with the fake smile on my face, while inwardly I wanted to stab someone with my #3 dpns, so nice and pointy.

So, farewell to the Langworthy Knitting Association for the time being.

Yes, people need to relieve themselves of the burdens of their misery, their angst, their fears. We all have confessed or vented to close friends, family members, clergy, and paid therapists. These are either people who know and love us, or people who are professionally qualified to help folks Deal with their Issues. What does it say about someone who foists her baggage on strangers and mere acquaintances? That, like Blanche Dubois, she relies on their kindness? IMHO, it merely adds unfairly to the burdens we all carry, less or more gracefully.

Never has the maxim, Keep Calm and Carry Yarn, seemed so appropriate.

Ted carries yarn.

Friends and their FOs, or A Tale of Two Knitters from Massachusetts

Sometimes knitters actually fulfill their New Year's resolutions.

Margaret's 40+ year-old diamond-lace handknitted socks are finally put to use.

Joan's Colinette-kit afghan is complete!

Brava, ladies!

Sock of Ages

Observe, if you will, these lovely diamond-lace hand-knitted socks. By any reasonable standard of measurement, they would be considered beautifully executed. Suppose, gentle readers, that I told you these were made by my friend Margaret M. in the 1960s, when she was an eleven-year-old stripling? Would you not agree that this is a truly awesome accomplishment?

She brought them by today. I urged her to wear them, now that they've been knocking around for 40-odd years. "It's time," I said. (They still fit.)

Margaret M. artfully drapes the socks across Alfie.

Broken promises?

Well it's 2012 and I'm ever so grateful that the holiday Binge and Binge syndrome is fading into the distance. And also the setbacks of 2011, notably the spirally-fractured left fibula. Now that I'm quasi-ambulatory--it takes a long time to recover from a broken leg, I've learned--I'm hoping gradually to rediscover my ribcage, which (like much else of my person) has chunked up from intensive sitting around. Not that I didn't get a lot of knitting done while I was intensively sitting. That, and many rich hours of piano practice. But after a while one yearns simply to move forward. I have worked up to a daily 1.5 mile walk with Miss Lola, and am hoping to stretch it soon to a two-mile round trip. Ok, enough about me, and happy new year to you!

***

Can any of you, gentle knitter-readers, relate to this photo? It is of the neckline of my Evolving Sweater, on which I was picking up stitches when the Expensive Circular Needle, an Addi Turbo, simply folded over and broke. I have occasionally destroyed bamboo-tipped circs, but never a metal one. That is, never until yesterday. Imagine my shock and horror, if you will. It's not as if I'm stronger than I realize, nor was I adrenalin-fortified at that moment. I would be interested in hearing from the knitting public about similar mishaps, so please be in touch.

***

As is my custom, I've asked my knitting friends to share knitting resolutions for the coming year. Here are most of them:

Caroline B: My goal is socks, a poncho and...I guess my general resolution is: knit more!


Doree W:  I  hope to spend more time knitting-- learning how to work with colors while holding yarns in both hands so they don't get tangled and learning how to block and put sweaters together for a more professional finish.  Would like to make more of my next year's Christmas presents and maybe some birthday ones too. 


Irene DV:   My resolution is to get a head start on next year's Christmas gifts by making up at least one per month starting in January.


Neuroknitter:  My resolution is to complete a few fair isle projects and to write more neuroscience-themed blog posts.  The first post for the year will be about how fair isle knitting exercises the prefrontal cortex.

Two pics are attached, showing some swatches that I've been playing with.  

Oogyknitter:  While I don't have any knitting resolutions per se, as you know, Neuroknitter and I are embarking upon a year-long theme of "colorwork".  We never really defined specifically what this means, so it's anyone's guess as to what we'll come up with.  I plan to keep up a semi-continuous stream of sock knitting, and perhaps produce an afghan or two in there as well.

Deborah N:  My knitting resolution is to work more with color!

Debbie N:  My knitting resolution this year of 2012 is to knit!  

Joan W:  WIP Hell:  Finish projects I've actually started is one not very exciting goal.    At some point it's too depressing.  Will keep thinking for other ideas like figuring out how to use up at least some the random bunches of wool acquired since this addiction began.

and finally, Susan B:  The last time we communicated, I wrote about how stressed I'd been and you suggested that a knitting project might help.  Well, I took your advice and just got started on a sweater for a friend's granddaughter.  Selecting a pattern, finding the appropriate yarn and getting started have all been a pleasure and very soothing.  My resolution, therefore, is to remember how much I like to knit and not to allow life's little inconveniences to interfere in that process... for too long.

***

My resolution? To go with the flow. If I feel like finishing a WIP, I will. If I don't, I won't and I won't obsess about it. For me, most worthwhile endeavors are organically-derived and follow their own time-table.

Here's to a new year of happy knitting!