Rayon and Rockets

At my house, the only time of year more stressful than Back-To-School in the fall is School-Letting-Out in the spring.  My Teacher husband and my Student children pretty much cease to function in any meaningful way, and we are so awash in school-related commitments that we meet ourselves coming and going. 

How appropriate, then, that while our heads are barely above water socially, the weather here is in full Monsoon, to match.  I know I will be complaining and missing the cool rain when it's miserable in August, but I could do with a bit of brightness at the moment, to cheer me up.

Forecast for Fairview:  Wet, Wetter, Wettest.  Primordial rain forest.  Blah Blah Blah.

I resolve to make my own sunshine:
 

Ain't it sparkly?  It's so slinky and sexy - Absolutely screams "Take Me Out To Dinner!"  I hear and obey.

The day I bought this skein, another lady bought the same yarn in a different colorway.  We helped each other pick, and laughed about who should get which color.  They had only one skein in each.  Because I was traveling, I knew I wouldn't be using mine any time soon and decided to wait till I got home to wind it.  Oh Ye Merciful Yarn Gods, Thou art, occasionally, good to me! 

The other lady elected to have her skein wound by the two gentlemen working at the store.  Why two?  Because by the time all of her 550 slippery, sparkly, rayon yards had backlashed and slipped down around the bases of both swift and winder, that's how many people it took to untangle the mess.  I chatted and knitted, there in the store, for about two hours, watching the horrible process out of the corner of my eye.  Then I heard there was a shoe sale across the street and had to leave on an emergency recon mission (and lo, there were cute clogs).

When I got back an hour later, the would-be winders were still at it, while that poor lady was stranded there waiting to reclaim her yarn.  Here's the best part:  Another customer in the shop mentioned to me that the woman who so patiently was waiting for the guys to hand over her yarn is an actual rocket scientist.  That's right.  She could not only legitimately verify that ball-winding is not rocket science; She probably had worked out about fifty ways to solve the problem while she waited.  But she never said a word, or tried to hurry them up.  Just patiently waited, without any signs of the stress and/or agony I was showing.  And it wasn't even my yarn.  This lady was an island of calm, while I developed an eye twitch.

The winding was still in process when I left the store, fully four hours after the debacle began.  I will remember my friend the rocket scientist for as long as I live when I think about patience.  I should get some of that.  And Soon.

Today I'm going to attempt to wind my own 550 yards of slippery gorgeousness, using only two hands and my own swift and winder.  I'm pretty scared.  O benevolent Yarn Gods, bestow your favor upon this skein and let it tangle not!  I have neither the patience, nor the mental fortitude of a rocket scientist.  If things go sideways, I don't really like my chances.

Pan Handling

Okay, I just have this last project to show you, and then I promise to lay off the kitchen-improvement jag and get back to knitting.  Just one more, and then I'll quit.  Really.

My kitchen facelift consultant (Susie) pointed out that if I were to acquire a pot rack that I could reclaim one whole cabinet's worth of kitchen real estate.  And I wouldn't have to touch every pot we own each time I make an omelet (or, if you are a Smally, a "Mom-elet).  Wait; I asked, incredulous:  You mean that I could just saunter up to said rack, choose the one and only pan I need, and then walk away?  Without handling and re-stacking all its bretheren?  Whence comes this POT RACK you speak of?

Like everything, it's only easy on paper.  For starters, pot racks cost a bleeding fortune.  And if that weren't bad enough, they are ugly.  I mean truly heinous.  Like some cosmic conspiracy to punish the kitchen-challenged for not having enough storage space.  I know they are supposed to be utilitarian, but, Really?  You have a choice (assuming you have a squillion rubles) between styles which could be charitably described as "Inner City Playground" and "Rusty French Chicken"  Neither rang my bell.  But then I stumbled upon this helpful wee article, and resolved to take a whack at making my own.  What could possibly go wrong?

The woodworking part went okay, if you don't consider a pound and a half of wood putty too much to hide the, um, extra screw holes I accidentally put in.  I don't, because I knew the wee beastie would be painted (its own OCD saga of Spackle, Sand, Paint, Repeat).  Ultimately I triumphed, and felt pretty smug that my pot rack would both fit the space I have for it, and look passable doing so.

I retired to the hardware store (the real one, where they employ codgers who mostly know how to do things, and who will bail you out if you bat your eyelashes and pretend you didn't know you needed a miter saw for that).  All I needed was the right fasteners.  Campbell and I cleverly weighed the pots and pans, in addition to the newly finished rack, so as to have an answer when asked how much weight we were proposing to swing from the ceiling.

Would you believe that it's possible to spend $90 on hardware to suspend 42 pounds of cookware from your ceiling?  Me either.  We left the hardware store with a bag of weird fastening bits and our hopes high, if guarded.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, that's automotive spray paint and primer shown above, so that the hardware bits could be made to match my swell kitchen faucet, to which they will be adjacent.  These stoopid pieces of metal had to have about eight thousand individual stickers pried off of them with my fingernails.  Then each one had to be rubbed down with lighter fluid to remove the residual sticker goo.  Then all the pieces went for a relaxing soapy bath, followed by a vinegar rinse.  All so they could then be spray-painted to match my faucet, in no less than four separate steps.  At the end of that, I was ready to give any number of rubles;settle for any commercially-available eyesore; just to have the saga over with.  What overdose of idiot pills made me think that a desire to do home improvements is the same as having home improvement skills?

Have I mentioned that I don't even like the kitchen?  Cooking to me is like being punished for being hungry.  Aside from the convenient beer storage, I find kitchens to be largely overrated.  And then we ran out of beer, somewhere around the time I tried locating the ceiling joists.  For I while, I was convinced there was not a single stick of wood above my kitchen, supporting the upper story.  Stud finders, knocking, and pilot-holes all failed to devine any framing.  I have no idea how I ultimately located infrastructure, but I finally did.  And then I had to fix the mess I had made of my newly-pinted kitchen ceiling.  Spackle, Sand, Paint, Repeat.  I began to pray for the sweet release of death.

My kitchen loathing notwithstanding, I did eventually prevail.  The cookware is suspended, the cabinet reclaimed, and the pans, well and truly Handled.  The rack has been painted the color that my cabinets will ultimately wear too.  Oh, did I mention I had to case the damn window behind the rack, too?  Well I did.  Natch.

Would I recommend trying this yourself?  Not really, unless you suffer from a deplorable excess of self esteem and free time.  I will say that it's nice not having to accept what was available to buy, when I didn't like any of it.  There is a special satisfaction that accompanies getting just the thing you wanted, in spite of the fact that no one had it to offer you.  Not unlike knitting the sweater you wish for, rather than settling for the one you can buy.  Only with more swearing and climbing  on the countertops.  I think.

Non-Knitting UFOs

All right, clearly my ungainly kitchen exploits have touched a nerve.  Good thing I didn't try cooking in there!  I would like to validate everybody who asked:  

YES.  Any unfinished painting/organizing/decorating project qualifies as a legitimate UFO.  Tired of knitting?  No need to admit it publicly.  Just bust out the spackle and grind on home to the finish.  You will not believe how much that last cabinet hinge/pantry door/wrongly-hung shelf was pissing you off. 

NEWS FLASH:  You Can Get It Done.  Just bust out the spackle knife and haul ass.

Ever have a friend rip back a mistake for you and hand it over at just the point where you loused it up the first time?  Well, I may not be able to find you to do that (this time), but on behalf of all the dumbass projects that have left you unfulfilled, here's my knitterly call to arms: 

YOU CANNOT KNIT ANYTHING PROPERLY IF YOUR TOWEL BAR FELL OFF THE WALL.  It will forever be bugging you, interrupting your knitting time with its insistence that it is a REAL project; a LEGITIMATE use of your time.  And when you get out of the shower, every stinking day, you are being reminded that the towel bar is there to be resolved.  I'm here to tell you that not only can you reclaim your morning shower; you can now explore the vagaries of modular knitting (or whatever) with the certain knowledge that there are no more projects more pressing than the one in your lap.

Take it from me:  There is no satisfaction like the satisfaction of having completed that home-improvement project that you abandoned last summer when it made you mad.  True, that bookcase is no quiviut, but you will not believe the spiritual calm which descends upon you once you vanquish the beast of the crooked soffit.  And if you need a tool to get the job done?  NEWS FLASH:  It's almost Father's Day, and all tools everywhere are on sale now.  Buy the stupid tile saw, or ball-peen hammer, or x-ray vision stud-finder you have been telling yourself that you needed to finish the deed.  Get over it and get on down the road, so you can knit in peace, for pity's sake.

Label the damn spice jars.  Line the stinking lingerie chest drawers.  Change the light fixture in the laundry room.  For crap sakes, it's not hard.  It's not like it's KNITTING, after all!  You only abandoned it because you were too tired to find the solution that time.  Tomorrow, take the electrical tape by the tail and tackle that non-knitting UFO (Not before you've had your coffee, of course.  We're not savages, after all).  

Then send me a picture.  Or a story.  You can do this, by damn.  Remember:  It's not like somebody asked you to make dinner!