Hello, 2016!

Stoic? Disgusted? Resigned?

Molly's default expression since her well-documented adoption five years past just about sums up my response to the state of our Union and world affairs, except that unlike my semi-depressed pet, I seek consolation in knitting, not Hill's Prescription Diet i/d Digestive Care Chicken Flavor Dry Cat Food. I was horrified to learn yesterday that adult coloring books are now toute la rage, and while I expect they provide the soothing benefits of light repetitive motion and help stressed people offload their anxieties or whatever, I wonder what happens when you go outside the lines? Could that actually make things worse?

At least if you knit away stress, you end up with something warm and fuzzy. Let me now extol the benefits of mindless, (in)terminable knitting:

Behold! Ted and the knitted mohair rectangle.

I am making this fabric on a #9 circular needle, and have almost finished using two balls of Schoppel Wolle Mohair Lady yarn, a nylon-reinforced semi-bouclé in a teal hue that causes innocent bystanders to approach me constantly when I'm knitting in public and gush compliments.  I cast on 110 stitches--that was the hardest part, because the yarn is very thin and extra-difficult to work on a fat needle--knitted a few rows of garter stitch, then began a stockinette. I'll probably knit at least two more balls of this yarn, until I decide it's long enough. That is the pattern. The shawl is somewhat too wide, I think, and in the future I will cast on fewer stitches, perhaps seventy-five or eighty, and I might even go up a needle size to make the fabric even lighter and more luminescent.

As I said, that is the pattern. I profoundly believe in the benefits (myriad) of mindless knitting, and I hope to convince you to experience it for yourself if you're not already with the program. This is the best kind of knitting for traveling or talking, or both, since you don't have to pay attention to anything except which side of the stockinette you're on.

Since the beginning of the year, six days ago, I've come across many knitting articles and blogs whose writers document their resolutions, most of which involve the failure to complete knitting projects in the past, and feeble promises to deliver a wealth of FOs in the future. Gentle knitters, these are boring and empty accountings, and I hope you aren't among the crew who beat themselves up for not getting things finished. If everything in life were neatly finished we would all be machines.

My new year's resolution, the inverse of the everyone's 'I will lose weight' fantasy, but one which made me incredibly happy, is to admit that I completely hate belonging to a gym and that it's a ridiculous waste of my money, time, and mental space. I walk into that den of ugliness, of metallic contraptions and sweaty, slobbily-dressed people glugging their water bottles between and during whatever bloated gizmo they're pounding away at, I see the ubiquitous TVs broadcasting idiotic sporting events, I try to block the hideous pop music with earbuds (encased in a knitted sleeve, of course), I grit my teeth and I do my diligence. To what end? I am no fitter than when I signed up two years ago. That's not the gym's fault--it's mine, in the sense that I find it so disturbing to be there that I avoid it as much as possible. Not a good situation. My contract expires in March, and so--goodbye! I can do my usual fitness things at home--walking with Lola, yoga by Youtube instructor, climbing the many flights of stairs in the house. Amen. And then I will have extra money for yarn.

With this post I've commenced a new blog feature--I'll be regularly linking to Free Patterns I discover or invent (moreso the former) that I hope you'll find inspiring. Some blogs do this fairly regularly, and they have nice alliterative handles, like "Free Pattern Fridays." I can't tie myself to a predictable day like Friday, because I never know when I'm going to sit down and write my little heart out to you, but I do plan to draw your attention to some excellent designs out there that may be accessed gratis. To me it's like foraging for mushrooms, which I have done (and survived, obviously), or better, wild asparagus. I know a place in a nearby conservation area where there's an ancient asparagus patch, the remnant of a long-gone farm, and I diligently monitor it in the spring so as to get the stalks when they're at peak. They are so beautiful and good, and it's such thrilling fun to reap a serendipitous discovery.

Sunrise, Wood River, January 6, 2016. 

Sending out best wishes to you for a good life and good knitting in 2016!

Cat out of bag, and miscellaneous

You can see how enthusiastic Molly is about the latest news, my article in the Spring 2015 of Interweave Knits about Sarah Upton, indie dyer par excellence, and purveyor of the only gansey yarns spun and dyed in the U.S. from American sheep!

See the teaser, "Meet a Seafarer and her Gansey"? That's it!  Find the article, "Wool at Work:  The Utilitarian Yarns of Sarah Lake Upton," on pages 12-14. It was a blast to travel to Portland, Maine last August to do the interviews and photography. If only I hadn't broken my foot...Check out Sarah's beautiful website and blog, too. And buy some of her awesome yarn! Her yarn is great for loads of other things than gansey sweaters. I recommend the sport-weight for super durable socks.

So, while I'm on the topic of my personal disabilities (file under Crumbling Late-Middle-Aged Body abetted by intensive klutziness), such as breaking my foot last August (it's all healed), I was also dealing with a horrible case of tenosynovitis in my right (dominant) hand. Yes, knitting, playing two keyboard instruments, and constant use of a computer for writing, finally just about wrecked my hand. This was most upsetting, as you might conclude. I could barely knit for about a month, and began intensive occupational therapy plus regular visits to amazing hand specialist Dr. Lee,  at Foundry Sports Medicine in Providence.  (What, you didn't know that knitting's a sport? So is playing the harpsichord.) He, and his wondrous OT Vicki Moitoso, analyzed my knitting posture (or whatever one calls the positioning of the hand) and made suggestions--such as knitting on very large needles rather than number ones and twos. Apparently it's much less stressful to the hand to hold large objects (like big fat pens and number 15 needles) rather than those that are smaller.

Ergo, I raided my stash for bulky yarn and found a bunch of rug wool donated to me some years ago by a friend cleaning her ex-husband's debris from the attic. (Don't ask.)

I just love the funky labels. The yarn itself isn't too shabby, either. Preliminary research suggests these skeins date from the 1940s, and it's in amazing shape for seventy-year-old yarn. (It might be even older. Anyone know?) I found a lot of it for sale on E-bay, in case you suddenly develop a craving.

It's surprisingly pleasant to knit big. I'm using the rug yarn to make two heavy-duty rugs/blankets for my sister's completely mental dobermans, Theo and Dorrie. If I made a rug for my pets, they'd just pee on it. That's what they think rugs are for. Barfing, too.

Knits of yore...

My friend Aeromum, who lives in Grafton, MA, sent me a photo of a cape she began knitting approximately forty-five years ago, then abandoned. She visited her mother this past Mother's Day, and mother kindly returned the project to its rightful owner.

Pretty nice work for a teenager, I'd say. My sense is the yarn will be recycled....

The venerable cape got me to thinking about things I'd knitted in past decades. Not only were there a cursed boyfriend sweater and scarf, there were two pullovers (one ribbed, one cabled) I gave to girl friends who are long lost to me, and many exquisite sweaters for Don Giovanni, a.k.a. Husband the First, a toxic quasi-human about whom the less said the better. I'm sure if all that beautiful handiwork wasn't burned or otherwise destroyed, it was given to Sally Ann or Good Will (but somehow I doubt its fate was so benign).

This is the part of knitting that upsets me, much more than frogging a labor-intensive project, or having knitting come out totally wrong. It's the putting of one's heart into a knitted garment that ends up being trashed. If I were more rational, I'd accept that once a handmade gift is given, there's no control and no guarantees--just like life.   AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

This melancholy meditation led me to the cedar chest in the upstairs storage room. There I retrieved two of the many sweaters I knitted for my sons in the 1980s. One sweater had reparable moth damage--an entire cable twist neatly eaten out, but nothing else (thanks, cedar chest!); the other was intact.

The intact one was immediately claimed by Molly, who found it an agreeable bed.

Yarn porn

Credit:  Carolyn Morgan

Beauteous hand-dyes recently espied at a farmers' market in Bath, Maine.

Mixed bags discovered at Habu Textiles, NYC. These most interesting yarns include silk-wrapped paper, cashmere and silk blends, cotton and silk blends, and a small cone of metallic something or other.

Molly dubiously assesses coral cashmere and ivory silk purchased at School Products Yarns, NYC.

To New York, with love

Linda and I are sending a box of knitted and crocheted items to New York, as part of the Hurricane Sandy relief effort.

If you'd like to make a knitted donation on your own, here's the information, provided by Vogue Knitting:

Molly says "Thank you!"

By the book...

A few posts ago, I extolled Deborah Newton's newly-published Finishing School, a book that's wonderfully inspiring, readable, and filled with practical advice. Neuroknitter, my pal in New London, Connecticut, had occasion recently to follow one of Deborah's great tips (on pages 84-85 of Finishing School)--that of using small anchor buttons on the underside of a garment to firmly attach a visible button.

While using a clear plastic button to anchor the visible button is generally recommended, in some cases yarn colors are complemented by buttons that echo the yarn. On this collar, which can be worn buttoned into a turtleneck or open, the buttons create a beautiful counterpoint to the yarn which is, by the way, hand-dyed. Neuroknitter's color inspiration came from Georgia O'Keeffe's 1934 painting "Barn with Snow."

The reproduction here doesn't do O'Keeffe's colors justice; suffice it to say the dyes Neuroknitter used (ProChem's "One Shot" Chinese Red, Slate, and Mouse Grey) are fairly close to the painting. Neuroknitter used Webs's Northfield DK, a merino-alpaca-silk blend, and it took the dye beautifully.

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Likewise, I found the answer to a dilemma in The Vogue Knitting Stitchionary, Volume Six, "Edgings," also just released. 

I've been doing a sweater for more than a year that is not just a WIP, it's a model of knitting evolution.  So, having finished the traditional parts of this cardigan--back, fronts, sleeves--and sewed it together, and inserted a belt, I decided it needed a ruffle.  Voilà!  I found my ruffle in this lovely Stitchionary, the review copy of which serendipitously arrived just last week, the only kind possible to knit from stitches picked-up along the edge.

It's the "increasing ruffle" on the left side of the page, and so far it's working out well.

The ruffle is in an interesting grey yarn, "Woodland" by Classic Elite--65% wool and 35% nettles. The nettles impart a subtle luster and silky feel.  The rest of the sweater is done in different oddballs of Noro, Lamb's Pride, Manos, and some variegated mystery worsted.

Molly!

Brownie!

Lola!

The undoing

After I'd started this sock, the first of a pair, I realized with utter dismay that I had joined two different dye lots and the colors were painfully off. There was no yarn left of the dye lot used for the cuff.

The Knitting Goddess suggested I rip it out and start over. This was worse to contemplate, because the pattern is intricate and what I'd done so far represented hours of concentration. The sock went in a basket where I'd see it every so often, and I decided to consider her advice over a longish swath of time.

Whenever I looked at the sock it bothered me. Actually, it more than bothered me. It upset me. I thought of ways to balance out the color differences, by adding other colors, or doing contrasting embroidery along the join. As soon as I entertained another fix-it idea, I was overcome by ennui.

Today, six months later, I took her advice.

Molly says:  "Learning how not to be attached is a drawn-out and circuitous process."

Lovebirds

Orla and Quentin tied the knot today, in the Woodville Chapel o' Love, located near the mouth of Babbling Brook and the northern shore of the Wood River. The ecumenical ceremony was jointly performed by GloBug and Dinosoap, who were ordained Human Ministers for the occasion. Moon Goon was Maid of Honor, and Cobi was Best Man. The bride wore an artfully-coiled skein of Berocco Hip-Hop in the Red Spyda colorway, chosen specially to complement Quentin's signature scarf. Musical accompaniment was provided by "When Birds Do Sing," an avian vocal quartet.

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Following the ceremony, the happy couple posed for an official portrait in a nearby tree.

Flags were hung in honor of the newlyweds.

And they were welcomed as a couple into the realm of conventional society by Molly, their self-appointed guardian.