Lu-Lu Knits

When I met with my agent last weekend, my daughter came along with me.  She is nine years old, a serious reader and budding knitter.  She's also a lover of tea, so there wasn't anything at Yarn & Tea that she didn't love.  While Linda and I chatted and enjoyed our tea, Lindsay would fetch back various treasures from the sale baskets around the store to the table where we were sitting.  One of the things she found was this delicious Debbie Bliss, at half price, no less.  Linda bought all they had in yellow, and I scored a matching batch in lilac.  I got Liddy this, as a finder's fee.

But what I really loved was that 1.  Lu-Lu (we rarely use her real name, for some reason, and she answers to anything that starts with L) HAD to start knitting this right away, for which she needed some new size 8's, and 2.  She agreed with me that these are the perfect needles for knitting salmon-pink cashmere on.  I mean really - when I was nine I would have killed for needles like this.  I am so lucky to have this dear young knitter in my house, who assures me that I will get a turn with them just as soon as I finish the book.  She is a stern task-master.  Meanie. 

I may sneak a few stitches while she sleeps, if I find I need a reminder of what it was like to discover knitting.  I used to take my mom's needles and whatever stash yarn she didn't care about, climb the cherry tree in the front yard and knit until my butt fell asleep on the hard branch that was my favorite spot.  I taught myself to cast on in the embrace of that cherry, and all my early work had bits of bark and moss in it from the ascent to my knitting branch.  The descent was easier, of course.  Just let go, fly, and hope to stick the landing.

I have no idea when I stopped knitting in trees.  It was probably around the time I discovered boys, and if it was, I would like to state for the record that it was an extremely misguided decision. 

I think I am ready to find myself a new knitting tree, though I will probably have to bring a ladder along.  And maybe Lottie will come with me, and try not to die of embarrassment.  She's pretty charitable that way.

Buncha Hooligans

It occurred to me over the weekend that my children may have a hard time finding their best path of rebellion against me, what with my belonging to a motorcycle gang, and all.  True, the "gang" are all my siblings, and we are pretty tame, all things considered, but I think my kids may have to become arch conservatives or something if they really want to shock and appall me.

L to R:  Ian, my brother's dog, Monica, my SIL, David, my brother, Lindsay, my daughter, me, and Susie, my sister

Here are some of us, after about 100 miles on Sunday.  You will notice that I am not knitting in this picture.  Yeah, yeah, I know: them sweaters cain't knit theirselves.  But sometimes you just have to bust out and do something, even if it's wrong.  And if riding motorcycles is wrong, baby, I don't wanna be right.

During the unscheduled interruption since my last post, I have

Celebrated my brother in law's 50th birthday, which resulted in 15 houseguests for him and my sister
Put 300 miles on the bike's odometer
Took on a design project for Knit Picks (this is so cool I couldn't say no - stay tuned for sneak peeks!)
Finished and blocked a sweater body
Started 2 sleeves
Kidnapped my mom to in an effort to trick her into helping me knit (or at least cheer me on while I do)
Had a meeting with the lovely and talented Linda Roghaar (the Literary Lovely who has been my agent for half a year without ever having slapped eyes on me)
Broken my vow of yarn abstinence (it wasn't my fault:  Linda made me meet her at Village Yarn & Tea, where they were having a sale, and you know the rest - just don't squeal to my husband and nobody gets hurt)
Returned Phillip and the Smallies to School, kicking and screaming (just Phillip, actually; the kids were pleased to go)
Washed, dried, folded and stored 472 loads of laundry, resulting in a small crater (okay, indentation) on the north face of Mount Washmore
Continued trying to teach two kittens that my blocking board is not a kitten amusement sliding aparatus (good luck with that)

So, nothing much is going on here at Knitting Book Ground Zero.  I don't sleep anymore so much as enter temporary comas.
 

Only An Ocean Away

It has been said that the body of a sweater can be an endless ocean of stockinette.

I tend to agree.  Today's meditation focuses on the middles of sweaters. 

Between the interesting and exciting Beginning of the sweater, and the triumphant exhilaration of the End of the sweater, lies the no-man's land of the body knitting.  It's a desert, an unbroken field, an airport parking lot.  Immense, gargantuan, and freakin' huge.  The sweater I am working on has entered this stage prematurely, on day 2 of its existence.  It's my own fault.  I thought I would mix things up a bit, and eschew my typical extravagant lower border in favor of something more restrained.  I'm supposed to challenge myself, no?  Well that was fine, except I forgot that a simple little border does not offer the bonus of distraction.  When the first thing I do on a garment is six or eight inches of challenging color work, the difficulty usually distracts me from thinking about how many inches are completed.  Not so with this number.  The wimpy little nancy-border was over in like two seconds, leaving me on stranded on the beach.  Nothing to see but the miles of flat water ahead.  No cables or shaping or interest of any kind.  Nothing but the hypnotic sameness of knit, knit, knit. 

I have heard this kind of knitting referred to as "TV knitting".  I think it refers to the kind of knitting you can do at the same time as something else, because it doesn't require much of you.  Since ALL of my knitting is done at the same time as something else, I can't really categorize it that way.  This is neither talent nor gift; only strategy.  If I didn't co-knit (knitting while also in line at the DMV, knitting while also quizzing a child on spelling words, knitting while also water skiing - you know the drill), I would never knit at all.

This piece is also big.  I mean BIG, as in 288 stitches in a round, on size 3 needles.  That's a 48" circumference, to you and me (provided the Gods of Gauge are feeling benevolent - never a guarantee).  I made the mistake of estimating how many stitches are going to be in the thing:  80,640.  This does not encourage me.  I have decided instead to measure my progress, not by the stitch, or even the inch, but by the skein.  That's right; even yardage is too weak a measurement;  I need the big guns.  I have estimated that 5 inches of sweater body length equal about one skein of yarn, so that is going to be my progress milepost.  I predict that I will have to knit one whole skein every day this week to stay on schedule.  Even for a knitting maniac, that is a fat-ass goal.

I will now retreat to what relative privacy I can , and execute the following emergency measures:

1.    A sincere entreaty to the patron saint(s) of Repetitive Motion Injury - anybody know who that is?
2.    Blood sacrifice to Garterina and Stockinetta, the Pagan Gods of dull knitting.
3.    Serene reflection on the nature and consequence of overcommitment.
4.    Location of the backup emergency corkscrew.