How To Turn a Cable

1.  Design your own cabled sweater so that there are no instructions to follow when things get confusing.

2.  Work said pattern until time to twist the first cable and then realize that you have no idea where you put the only cable needle whose shape you like.

3.  Wonder whether you lost that cable needle after the time you used it to pick the lock on the bathroom door because your three-year-old had locked herself in.  Realize that your three-year-old is almost Ten and feel decrepit.

4.  Locate the cable needle after a miserable review of abandoned and semi-abandoned WIPs and resolve to complete all of them, just as soon as the Faery Ring is done...And the book is finished.  And the children are grown...

5.  Lose the cable needle after about three cables and declare that you shall find it at any cost, unleashing the wrath of an unfulfilled knitter on every crack and crevice in the living room.  Fail anyway.

6.  Venture out in a snowstorm to the only store in town where your favorite cheap-ass cable needles might be sold.  Smugly purchase their entire stock of 3 as insurance against future loss.

7.  Settle in to work on cables again in your favorite chair with a cup of coffee (that snow was cold) and all three new cable needles arranged within easy reach.

8.  Spill coffee on favorite chair, causing you to strip slipcovers and discover lost old favorite lock-picking cable needle under cushions.

9.  Resume work with all 4 cable needles arrayed in glory at your fingertips.  Leave to answer phone.  Return to find all 4 cable needles missing.  Blame @#$#%! cats, and sister who inflicted them on you.

10. Relocate all 4 cable needles at price of family harmony and your last remaining non-gray hairs.

11. Leave house, find yourself with time to knit and notice that you left all the cable needles at home.

12.  Resolve to learn how to cable without a needle.

13.  Fail utterly at cabling without a cable needle.

14.  Cleverly press a bent paper clip into service as a cable needle:

15.  Realize that a bent paper clip, while managing to look somewhat authentic, actually fools no one, least of all you, and doesn't work very well.

16.  Resolve to buy every cable needle ever made and stash one in every pocket, purse, desk drawer and shoe you own to forestall future emergencies.

17.  Think better of putting cable needles in your shoes and decide instead to swear off of cables in disgust.

18.  Fall in love with the Faery Ring and its yarn again within minutes of swearing off and return to battle with the crappy paper-clip-cable-needle-wanna-be.  At least you're still knitting.
 

A Face For Radio

A media professional with whom I corresponded for the first time yesterday informed me that with regard to promoting my book next year "of course, radio is out."  "Out"?  As in, "Of the three or four major media in which books are promoted, you should be automatically discounting one"?  Why, I wonder? 

When I was around 8, I began a course of singing lessons which ended up lasting for more than 25 years.  In my previous life, I trained as a classical actor.  Part of this training prepares performers for experiences in media outside the stage, notably: Film, TV and Radio.  For over 10 years, I have been the resident voiceover artist at a major teaching hospital.  If there are recordings to be made, I'm their girl.  I know the international phonetic alphabet, and I can even speak languages for short recordings, with the help of an interpreter.  Heck, I talk all the time, and not just stuff like "Please stop poking your sister with a fork" (although, that one is an old standard).

Now, the person who eliminated Radio from my media outlets yesterday does not know anything about that background.  What they know is that I am a Knitter.  So my real question is, what is it about the word KNITTER that automatically means I can't talk compellingly?  Maybe it's the idea that a book about knitting would be visual by nature.  I could understand that, but I listen to the radio all the time, and I have heard painters, photographers, and even cartoonists interviewed about their projects regularly.  I'm pretty sure these people somehow made the leap between making their art and talking about their art.  Shouldn't I be able to do that too?

No, I'm afraid that the real problem is that I have slammed up against my first case of Knitter Profiling.  This is the notion maintained by some unevolved (or just uninterested) creatures that the only people who work with sticks and strings are tightly-bunned little old ladies with too many cats (okay, I'll concede the too many cats issue - that is me, but it's my sister's fault).  I know I should not be surprised.  I am surrounded all day, every day, by non-knitters.  I have learned to tolerate their ignorance, and even to sometimes find it endearing in the way that naivety can sometimes be.  But something in the immediate assumption made by this stranger is completely crazy-making.  With exactly two facts, that person made a vast array of mistakes about me, and then paraded them with impunity. 

My indignation is both complete, and useless.  That this professional has alienated themselves from both my esteem and my employ will probably never bother them in the least.  I am the one who will have to grow a thicker hide and wise up a bit.

For the first time I can see that I have chosen a very steep hill to climb.  My little world of fiber and the people who love it is about to be exploded by a series of events that I set in motion myself. 

Now, I academically and intellectually can accept that my frame of reference is narrow.  I really do understand that not everyone I meet will embrace the work I do or its importance to my life and well-being.  I think these people are profoundly ignorant, but I do know they are out there.  In fact, I usually regard their gentle enlightenment as my personal responsibility.  But in spite of my experience with the existence of unapologetic non-knitters in the universe, I was not prepared to find one where I did yesterday. 

I guess we knitters never think it can happen to us, until it does.  If anybody needs me, I'll be in my happy place.  Wool, anyone?
 

Thankful

You knew it would happen:  I succombed to the call of the Faery Ring.  It starts out with this narrow band that you knit for 17 repeats, which comes out to 51 inches long, but only 26 stitches wide.  Totally portable, which is an excellent excuse for taking it (and only it) when I packed my knitting for the trip to my brother's house.  Thanksgiving was in Seattle this year, which as wonderful on many levels: particularly the part where I didn't have to cook the dinner.  Instead, I made shortbread and gingerbread men for the kids to decorate.  Which was good, because on Wednesday morning, our refrigerator died.

Know what happens when 24 popsicles from last summer melt all over a bag of thawed chicken parts?  I hope you never have to learn.

While we waited for the repairman, we jettisoned the entire contents of the fridge and freezer.  This was pretty surreal for my children, who have been taught that wasting food is something we try to avoid.  We made it into a game:  Un-Thanksgiving.  Instead of cooking and eating, we were throwing away everything in the place.  As we pitched things, we named what we were thankful for.  Me: frozen lima beans - I'll never miss 'em; thankful for that.  Campbell:  Corn Dogs - I'll sure be glad when we get some new ones.  Lindsay:  Popsicles - Good thing it's not summer, when we really need them.

Then the scrubbing:  It's unbelieveable the smell that comes out of a freezer when you warm it up...
And I'm wondering the whole time if there is any point to this - will I end up with the tidiest fridge in the whole landfill?  And worse:  Will we be buying a new major appliance instead of paying the mortgage and/or exchanging gifts this December?  I tried to gently prepare the kids for the worst, just in case I were to go fetal when the repair man delivered the news and could no longer explain things well.  "Won't this be a funny Christmas if we get a new refrigerator instead of toys!" 

Disbelieving Silence.  A dog barked in the distance. 

Then Campbell began to process the information:  "Wouldn't Santa still come?"  "Yes, of course Santa would still come.  We just wouldn't be giving each other presents this year because a new fridge would use up all our Christmas money."  Lindsay: "Well, at least there would be a place to keep the ice cream."  Kid has her priorities worked completely out.

The repairman came, ahead of schedule, changed a part on the back of the refrigerator, (which he even had brought with him), and left with a check for $300 from me.  It was all over in less than 15 minutes, including pulling the fridge out from the wall to expose the unimaginable dreck that lives under it.  Good thing I killed myself scrubbing the inside of the damn thing:  He never even opened the doors.

I'm thankful for a bunch of things this year.  Not least of which is the fact that I didn't have to deal with the unplanned purchase of a major appliance.  I'm also happy I wasn't hosting Thanksgiving dinner - throwing out what we had was bad enough - I can't imagine losing a whole family feast.  I'm also proud of the way my children took the news when we discussed curtailing our holiday consumerism.  I'm thankful that after the dust settled from that exciting adventure, all we had to do was get in the car and go away.  I'm thankful that the loving arms of my family were waiting to hold us all when we arrived.  I'm even thankful that I have a really clean refrigerator now. 

To celebrate (as if I needed any excuse at all), I put aside my "work" knitting, and took only the Faery Ring with me to Seattle.  I declared a knitting vacation, and immersed myself completely in it for the whole weekend.  Stay tuned, because this thing is gonna ROCK, and I can't wait for you to knit yours.  Start asking Santa now for 8 skeins of Blackwater Abbey worsted in your favorite color!