new FO: swirly mohair scarf

Sometimes it's great to knit a pattern that is simple and straightforward but produces interesting results. This would've been a great SNB pattern if I ever went to either of my knitting groups anymore.

When I bought the yarn and pattern at knit/purl in Portland, the very helpful and enthusiastic clerk told me that the really fun part was watching it turn ruffly as you bound off. So I knitted all weekend, and finally was ready to bind off (doesn't look like much, does it? at least my fresh bridey henna is pretty):

Then I started the bind off et voila! right on schedule, the swirly begins:

Here's Harvey modeling the finished item (doesn't it make him look poodle-y?)

And finally, swirly mohair scarf at rest:

bridemaking

Our friend A has turned into a bride!

An amazing day yesterday. We (the bride's maids) had planned a journey, several outdoor rituals, some henna adventures (see pics below). Nothing went strictly according to plan, and despite my usual type-A-ness about things like this, I had prepared myself and didn't care a bit (I was talking with another of the planners last week, and we both remarked how this was the kind of occasion where the planning of it is just as transformational as the day itself).

We ventured off to Vashon Island, and the day poured in varying degrees. We found ourselves wandering through lovely greenness, did our rituals as best we could in the downpour and when bad maps forced flexibility in locations, and found our way to Sound Food, a gorgeous little restaurant and bakery--looked like an afterthought from the outside but was warm and rustic inside with imaginative food, very welcoming to drenched travelers. They also had a patio out back, a wee garden where we initiated and bedecked our girl.

Then off to henna. Let me just say, Kara, our henna artist, was the greatest. We found ourselves at her friend Jane's moon loft (a little journey through a threshhold and down a path), next to the purple yurt (say "purple yurt"--isn't that fun?).

Kara's husband, Hawk, a wonderfully calm and safe guy, accompanied her and tolerated remarkably well the girl chatter (even our discoveries from reading "educational material," ahem, The Joy of Sex, on our travels throughout the day--do you know what the goldfish position is?). A photographer, Hawk took a bajillion digipics that they'll be putting up on the web for us later. These are the few I took (I forgot to get one of my own hand until I got home, that one's at the end):

knitting teaches me patience

My life is full of wondering and seeking right now. On many of the "big life" fronts: work, family, identity. I am fully engaged and engrossed, processing hard.

So last night I wrote this in my journal: "it was knitting that taught me [how much work goes into something of merit]. You simply cannot knit something faster than you can knit it. It refuses to grow by will alone. There are no tricks for making it grow faster than a stitch at a time. You can become a better knitter (only through the process of knitting many individual stitches), and you can become a faster knitter (only through the process of knitting many individual stitches). It is the 1st law: everything takes as long as it takes. There are no true shortcuts.

The main learning this morning that follows the learning I wrote of is this: Oh, I have sometimes considered it a failure when I couldn't grow something by will alone. Or rather, when I'd put a bunch of hard work into something--but perhaps not yet enough--I considered the project failed if will and want couldn't bring the finish line a wee bit closer to me. And then I doubted that my will was strong enough to sustain a longer-term effort.

In knitting, will does nothing without the stitches. It is there to provide the sheer grit and stubbornness to keep making the number of stitches (or ends woven in!) required to create an FO.

Silly rabbit.

This is partly an ode to friend A, whose bridemaking we embark on today. She is my true-life example of someone who sets her sights on the goal, and then works her guts out. For as long as it takes. And today we celebrate not only her marrying, but a whole host of dreams that are coming true for her at the same time she's marrying. These dreams are coming true after years of laboring in the desert, after disappointments and thwarted effort, a long haul over which I often thought, "I'd have given that up by now." Not her.

My wish for her today, sent out into blogland, is that more of us can be like her: fearless, driven hard by her dreams, taking rest when needed but always picking up her pack again and going on toward her vision of the future.

sick in blogland

Today it seems that every knitblog I visit, the blogger has been sick with the crud. So healing wishes go out to all suffering with spring flu!!!

My new swift has already come in handy. It does seem like it's making the untangling of the nasty merino laceweight somewhat easier. But I've been so caffeinated and somewhat stressed lately that I can only attend to it for a few minutes. The swirly mohair scarf is coming along, but those 1440-stitch rows take me approximately 2-1/2 hours to complete, so I'm averaging a half a row a night.

This weekend is my friend A's bridemaking. We've planned a journey, rituals (including henna), and she knows none of it. I think she's going to have a good time.

those who can't knit. . .buy!

Now up to 3 projects OTS, with very little actual knitting time available. So instead, I've been buying knit-related items, and doing knit-related things (yes, I know this is all potential knitting time, but I'm also having problems with my hand and having to take breaks).

Friday I had a lunch up north and decided I wanted to finally spend my Hilltop gift cert that Friend C gave me for Xmas. I had had wanted us to go together, but our schedules conflict enough that it's just been impossible. I had a leisurely browse in Hilltop West, finding nothing I really wanted. I had decided that I would spend the gift certificate on something tangible--a tool like a swift or sock blockers or a really nice basket. Then, in an "I don't know how it happened" moment, I found myself buying 4 skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca Silk in Verte, a deep inky black-green (I think it was the stroking on my cheek that did me in) and saying, "Sure, let's call the East store to see if they have the other two skeins for my project."

My project was somehow a muffler for my brother Paul, using an amazingly subtle cabled pattern from Tricoter's men's sweater book. Paul is a wonderful, fun, spontaneous, warm guy (who's moving to Cleveland shortly, thus my desire to create some handknit warmth for him). But he also loses things, and he's notoriously un-careful about stuff. And, after making it over to the East side store and picking up my two more reserved skeins, I've just dropped $70 to make him a muffler that I'm certain he'll leave in a restaurant or, even worse, throw into a hot water wash-and-dry!

I came to my senses sometime on Saturday, when I decided that my original plan was better. I'm not giving up the idea of the Tricoter muffler for him, I really do want to make him something warm for his first Cleveland winter, I just need to find a more durable, less fussy, and yes, I admit it, less costly yarn.

So I drove up to Hilltop East again today (thank god for Mondays off, however long they last) and exchanged the yummy silky goodness for this:

And, not incidentally, this Bearfoot in Elderberry (which had been haunting me since I first saw it on Friday):

Sock yarn is such a cheap thrill.

But, lest you think I haven't been doing anything knit-related, here's evidence to the contrary (please, oh please, do not print out this picture and knit from it--pity me the fact that I don't have PhotoShop to blur the details, just leave it ALONE and go buy the damn pattern!)

Does this girl need an intarsia class or what? Figuring out how to get the most mileage out of each section was a good exercise in spatial relations, but I can't help feeling like an experienced knitter would a) laugh her ass off and then b) teach me a better trick.

To show how happy I am to have some spring energy, I'm providing evidence that I actually made an effort with a recent home-from-work snack for B and me, on the "home-from-work-snack" plate I painted last spring (all toooooo often, our home-from-work snack is chips eaten out of the bag while standing over the kitchen sink):

new OTS

The last few weeks have been really busy, very little knitting time. Yesterday I spent a much-needed movie fest/knitting day at home. Today I feel a little sluglike because of that, but I accomplished quite a bit of the swirly mohair scarf:

It's funny how 90 stitches become 180 become 360 become 720. . .you see where this is going. In two more rows, I'll do the increases again and will have a whopping 1440 stitches on the sticks. Then I have to knit seven rows of that, which I'm trying not to remember is really like knitting a pair of socks. Sure, I'll finish it this weekend! I'm such a slowpoke.

Incidently, I'm not too pleased with my yarn substitution. Perhaps it was because the yarn was old and had been knocked around a bit, but it's just too fuzzy for me. Though the color is wonderful, I should've stuck with the Kidsilk Haze the pattern called for. I could've chosen that lovely silvery lavendar color. . .Well, maybe for gifts.

Side note: this is my first real project using the Denise needles, and after a small kerfuffle with the cast-on edge catching on the joins, I've been quite pleased. They're so lightweight I wasn't sure I really liked them, but for this project they're working great!