throes of addiction

It's this bad: to bed at 1 a.m. after a fun nite with friends, eating Buck's yummy Indo food (forgot to take a picture of the table) and my homemade mango ice cream, sitting out into the wee hours with flaming tiki torches and candles on the table. Barfing Gene notwithstanding, very nearly a perfect evening--I think 8 is about my perfect party size. And sleeping Sadie spent the last half of it in her unfinished faces blankie, proving that tails woven in is not prerequisite for usefulness, just for cosmetics. I cannot describe how lovely to have Le Ann ask for "Sadie's blanket" and I able to give it to her. I am Nann, creator of warm and functional objects!!!

Now: up at 7 to feed an insistent but no longer pukeybreath Harvey, I start surfing knitblogs (less guiltily than in recent weeks, when I was only avoiding the ends-weaving-in syndrome). Every day I keep finding more yarn shops in Seattle. Do you think it would kill some of them to move a bit south? I'm stuck with growing but too-novelty-focused, slightly snootish Yarn Garden in GH and deliciously-stocked-to-the-rafters-but-intermittently-open-and-no-website Fibers Etc. Where is the famed T-town Renaissance where yarn is concerned? Yeah, yeah, I hear the siren call of "open my own shop" out there, but I push it into the same brainspace as the "open our own Indo restaurant" madness.

However, unlike everyone else I've talked to, I had a great experience at Lamb's Ear Farm, but perhaps it was because the owner wasn't there, just a baby-jumper-knitting young ski-capped guy. Cool. The Yahoo LYS reviews say the owner is a nightmare, and I've had two people tell me that they felt like the staff was watching them like shoplifters--perhaps because of the nightmare layout, with that totally hidden-away back room? But they had some decent books (partly I judge this by whether they have any of the Barbara Walker books), and a nice selection of yarns, some Koigu (almost bit on that one but thought better of $30 socks for the moment--I think I'm saving those for a yarn shopping EVENT, like finding it on a visit to Paul in NYC), lots of the Cascade 220. But jumper-knitting guy was helpful and didn't even smirk when I (looking at jumper) said I'd never done intarsia. He just said nicely, this is fair isle. I'm such a technique groupie.

So the next project made it into my mini project bag, this skanky shop bag from Skeins. Perfect size for socks, perfect handles. For this I spent $45 and a weekend sewing my knitting bag and various project ditty bags? to carry my projects around in a shopping bag? But a nice shopping bag. And the project? A pair of ice-cream pink Fixation socks using the free-with-purchase pattern.

I have to start with this one instead of the IWK Summer 2005 Evelyn Clark "Go with the Flow" socks because, dammit, I have been too cheap to pay full price (no coupon to chintz my way out of it) the required sz 1 dpns. How I love wrestling with the porcupine! And because my magenta superwash Fortissima Socka (another impulse buy, this time at Mount Vernon, on the way home from my retreat) is a little scratchy.

blog slacker, but looky here!

Yes, I haven't blogged in almost a month. Wine trips, working lots, medical stuff, best friend visit, birthday party, 35th b-day retreat off in the scary woods. . .all that takes its toll on knitting time. Plus, when you have a project like this staring you down. . .I've been reading other people's knitting blogs because I'm forbidden to start another project until this monster is complete. Looks close, right?

Not so fast, buckaroo: all those fuzzy things hanging down are ENDS TO BE WOVEN IN. And there are more on the backside. Eek. The whole thing consists of 188 individual crocheted blocks stitched together (so technically, it's not on the "sticks"). Yes, Fiber Police, it's Red Heart acrylic, but lighten up--it's an on-the-floor, pull-on-the-faces, needs-to-be-durable BABY BLANKET. I'm still batting for the natural fibers team. It came from a Leisure Arts pattern book--the original was made in cute crayola brights but the baby-in-mind's room is pastels and safari animals. The tan faces are actually earless-for-now dogs--the ears have ends to be woven in, too! Though I'm really pleased with how it turned out, I would have to be certifiable to do it again, though I have enough yarn to do another one. Only if I can never afford another item for my yarn stash to make a new project. I'm having trouble loading closeups of the animal faces, probably because I had my camera settings wrong and these are jubungai pictures.

I thought giving myself three months 'til due date to finish it was plenty, but Sadie is now four months old! I've been having nightmares and denial about this thing, because I calculate that there are something like 4o0 ends (I figured out only halfway through making the blocks that I could stitch over the ends as I was starting a new color, duh). Despite my vows to not pick up another project until it was done, here's what I've been working on in the meantime:

These will always be the Leprosy Socks to me--I used Cascade 220 Quatro in 9434 Colorway (I am a bad impulse shopper in LYS's, this time The Yarn Garden in Gig Harbor--I don't even wear turquoise blue!). The pattern was Knitting Pure & Simple's Beginner Socks in worsted weight. Easy--too easy. Why do I listen to yarn shop owners who are used to working with the beginner novelty yarn crowd? I have never met a knit stitch I didn't like or couldn't learn from a book. So of course I got bored with the idea of endless stockinette stitch and decided to add my own pattern to the instep. If you can see it at all (not a good match with the colorway), you can tell that I should have started it a few rows earlier, when I separated the stitches into heel and instep. It was a boring waffle weave stitch from my old pattern dictionary (once, it seemed like it had a lot of stitches but now when I look at it compared to the Walker books, it's the two-moss-stitch-one-cable-stitch snack version).

And finally, here's the project that started it all:
Faina's in a delectable maroon (for Maroon Fridays at U of Puget Sound!) merino/cashmere blend from La Lana/Mondial? Not sure if I'm reading the label right. The pic is terrible at showing the lovely chevrons (I think this is about midway through the third repeat). Sadly in need of blocking--perhaps merino has too much stretch for this pattern--even with the seed stitch border, it wants to curl up on itself like a hug, and I'm now certain that the cast-on edge is too tight and will always be kinked up, making the fringe look all hurky.

So today, since I have a stupid summer cold and Buck is working, and I am trying hard not to dump it all and go visit the Seattle yarn shops (still have Acorn Street, So Much Yarn, and Tricoter to have seen them all this summer), and because I want to buy a little yarn at Needlepoint Joint when I get too tired of parents on the upcoming visit (it's Nancy Bush country, my dream is to get a signed copy of Folk Socks while I'm there and some Crystal Palace dpns), I will spend the day weaving in acrylic ends. It seems a good sick-day thing to do, and we are nearly ready for the annual Indonesian dinner with friends tonight, thanks to a lot of sous-chefing last night.

want more life!

Found this today: Steve Jobs' recent commencement address at Stanford.

Not exactly knit-related, except that it is permission (no, an imperative!) to do more of what I love. Plus, knitting is a meditation that seems to call out the questions in me, while also offering the affirmation of liking to do something. Jobs uses David Wyte's "follow your curiosities" that has been my own mantra for finding out what it is I love. In the melee of the last few weeks (four weeks ago, we went to the doctor and all this began again), I've forgotten that turning my face from the curiosities is just simply saying, I can't bear to. . . what's the use? Julia C. says this is actually fear. Isn't it all?

Had a bit of it on the 4th while I was walking, dreaming of finding the perfect kayak and making the perfect socks (or really, just the next socks). Then turfed it yesterday with all the old stallings. If life is so short, why is it also so easy to waste?

sock away

Okay, first sock (ever) finished today, and second sock on the sticks. It is an ugly little thing--the basketweave pattern I picked to avoid the killing boredom of stockinette while still being able to knit without counting or concentration looks like a skin condition, and I should've started it when I split the round into heel flap and instep. The pattern just doesn't show up enough in this yarn (a Cascade 220 quatro with plies of blue, teal, taupe, and another blue). And because it's on the instep, I get to look down at my leprous feet all the time. Also, non-Kitchener toes, the decrease-and-close-the-loop type, look clunky. I know now I could've started with a much HARDER pattern (challenge junkie, I am). But I will love them forever, or until they wear out this winter from sliding on our lovely new hardwood floors.

So I now understand hooked on socks! I bought the yarn a week ago at The Yarn Garden. God help me, I tried to keep it to one project going at a time (not counting animal face baby blanket--hey, acrylics appropriate for droolers and vanilla-wafer-crumb-sticky fingers don't count), but I needed a porta-project for car rides, evenings outside waiting for B to finish the cigarette. Would've killed to have my sock last night at the 4th of July, actually felt itchy fingers (by the end of the evening, literally itchy, since I seem to have been stung by something on my yarn-feed/flip-off finger). Nothing like knitting to make the time pass. . .

new project lusts

Today, many lovely knit-related things: my first pair of socks growing OTS (bought the supplies just to be able to have a porta-project--nothing more comforting than row after row materializing as socks!!! I can imagine myself wearing on my retreat, if it gets chilly, which it probably will because we are having the coldest Pac Northwest July on record). Many tasks from my forbidden "to do" list done, and some I would even write as accomplishments on my calendar. This following a nearly sleepless night, where I just could not get to sleep, as insomniacal as a two-latte afternoon, which however I suspect may have been simply subcutaneous sock-knitting lust that just couldn't wait until morning.
Others: a really gorgeous knitting book--not bought yet but will go back on Monday for the sale--Elsebeth Lavold's Viking Knits Collection. Cables--I've been a cable junkie since my brain finally clicked into it at 14--and gorgeous shapes, kind of like the Hanne Falkenberg Mermaid jacket, at least in the flared hem sense. And earlier today, surfing, found this sinuous little gem. Granted, my body type needs no more flare at the hip, and I will be suffocating in scarves before long. Another lustworthy project is the Beaded Smoke Ring. Otherwise, picked up a Jo Sharp Contemporary Knitting book today and was just left cold--too basic, "not enough going on," as Buck would say. Although I liked many of her designs from the "Family" collection--yes, Aran cables and cotton--and the colors are so restful, just evoking beaches (ya think?). Remembering that I am attracted to technically complex, unusual designs, incorporating lace patterns (not a surprise that I want to leap to the most expert learnings).

But, thanks to a reasonably complete pattern and good picture-by-picture instructions, I taught myself to make socks, and so I don't worry about my ability to pick up any pattern, and I'm not interested in paying $60 for a sock class. It all started because I don't have a good "grandmother/aunt/godmother taught me to knit" story because I taught myself out of the World Book encyclopedia ChildCraft volume on projects for kids. Or maybe another antiquated book my mother (a non-knitter, they say it skips a generation?) had around.

virtual knitting

my must-reads:
Interweave Knits
Knitter's Review

LYS's (some more L than others): Yarn Garden, Hilltop Yarn, So Much Yarn, Tricoter, Lamb's Ear Farm, Wild & Woolly, Acorn Street Shop, Fibers Etc.

online knit-gear shops:
Knit Picks
Elann

blogs I like:
The Very Merry Seamstress (not a knitblog, but well done there anyway)
Zeneedle

Bruxknits blog
Magknits blog

Local knit groups:
Purly Girls
Seattle Knitting Guild