Wardrobe Malfunction

This is a swell new pile of handpainted superwash merino.  It comes from here and here, courtesy of my LYS.  It turns out that I have to go on TV sporting something handknitted, and I haven't got a thing to wear.  Here are the rules for what must be worn on a TV show about knitting:

1.  Wear something in the style you will be demonstrating
2.  No loud colors
3.  Nothing in Black, White, or Red
4.  No high necks
5.  Nothing that opens down the front, because it could gap
6.  Something that opens down the front, because you have to wear a microphone
7.  No short sleeves
8.  Nothing that is hot

Those are just a few of the guidelines, and I have received them more than once.  The TV people are neither kidding, nor interested in the fact that all of their rules contradict one another.  1 and 2, for instance, are diametrically opposed, if I'm the person wearing it.  Everything I own falls under number 3.  5 and 6 cancel each other out, and 7 & 8 are just plain silly.

So I wracked my brain and came up with my best solution:  A wrap-style vest, with a jewel-toned blouse underneath.  And I am exhausted from the effort of thinking it up before I've even begun.  Naturally, I have less than two weeks to complete it.  It's gonna take a time-space-continuum knitting miracle, plus blood sacrifice to the Knitting Gods.  What could possibly go wrong?

I think I need new shoes, too.
 

All The Cool Kids Do It

This is one of those New Year's Resolutions that I never come up with until the New Year is about three months old.  I hereby proclaim that 2009 will be the year I learn to spin.  Lately I can't swing a dead cat without hitting some new information/publication/fascination on spinning.  Not that I swing dead cats all that often; but you get the idea.  I called my friend Carson to see if he could talk me down.  "How long have you wanted to spin?" he asked, trying to guage the severity of my infection. "I can't remember.  I got hold of some sheeps wool once when I was about four and wore it out by spinning and respinning it...Cotton balls were never safe from me at the time, either."  "Too late," he said.  "You're already in the advanced stages.  Nothing for it but to get yourself a drop spindle and see what happens."  Dontcha just love a good Enabler? 

I still tried feebly to control myself:  I really do not need another fiber habit to support.  Phillip, who doesn't know about drop spindles-as-gateway-drugs, thought that I had to buy a wheel to start spinning (I have not corrected this misconception - what am I, New?).  He asked me what in the world we could get rid of to make room for a spinning wheel.  I suggested the sofa: we spend too much time sitting around anyway.  Dead Silence.  A dog barked in the distance.

Then I had an opportunity to order this book, and my resolve began to crack:

I had the honor of meeting its author, the esteemed Ms. Judith MacKenzie McCuin at Madrona, only last month.  I took it as a sign that I was predestined to own her book.

It's only a book, after all.  We are pretty self-indulgent in my family, where reading is concerned.  One more fiber-related tome might not even be noticed among the rubble, were it not for the conversation about replacing the chesterfield with a saxony wheel.

Then I talked to Carson again, who kindly checked in to see how his patient was.  We formed Big Plans, he and I, for continued adventures around spinning. There will be much to tell.  For now, he prescribed the purchase of this:
 

Yummy, no?  I'm feeling better already.  You can find it here, along with all its gorgeous friends. 

Naturally, to go with it, I had to order this:

which I'm told is Ashland Bay Colonial Top.  I do not care what it is, as long as it's on the way to my house.  Look at the beautiful colors!

Clearly I have stepped onto the slippery slope, but you never can tell - I still might not like spinning, and get over it right away.  Or else pigs might fly outta my butt.

 

Bag Lady

Like most knitters, I have devoted my life to the quest for the perfect knitting bag.  About every six or eight months, I fall out of love with my current solution and decide there Has To Be a Better Way.  I have tried designer bags, utility bags, fancy-pants bags, no-frills bags, and bagmaster 2000s.  All of therm are both perfect, and totally useless, depending on what I'm trying to stuff into them.  My most recent crusade has been for something that is Big Enough.  By big enough, I mean that I have been experiencing trouble with the size of my projects, relative to the size of my bag.  It turns out that a man's size large top-down raglan turtleneck takes up more room in one's knitting bag than one might think.  It also has a tendency to squish the PB & J you threw in there for lunch, and to obliterate any chance you had of finding/answering your cell phone before it stops ringing. 

I was in denial about this problem for a long time, because I had such high hopes for my current specimen.  The thing cost a fortune: it could be described as a status knitting bag, and I saved up for it for quite a little while, telling myself it would be worth it because this one was finally going to fulfill the quest.  It's a fine vehicle, and sexy, too - non-knitters are always complementing me on it - but I have been asking too much of it.  I realized this when an abrupt stop in the car sent the bag flying off the front seat, vomiting its contents all over my car.  It was open, of course, because the project du jour was too fat to close it.  I snapped (again):  There Has To Be a Better Way.

I carefully researched the options available (again), weighed them against the knitting budget (whose first priority must always be Yarn Procurement), and determined (again) that I was hosed.  The bag I wanted to try not only exceeded my allowance, it's unavailable until its maker catches up a backlog of orders that she noted on her website sometime during the Clinton administration.  And I wasn't sure it was the right answer for me anyway. 

So for the cost of about half of the backordered bag, and one (albeit precious) weekend, I broke down and made this:

It can do this:

And also this:

That is a full-size Peace Fleece cardigan in progress, in there: the biggest thing I had available to try it out with.  The cardi does not have sleeves yet, but there is still gobs of room in there for them, and all the yarn for the whole project, too.  Could probably fit some small children in there as well, while I'm at it.  This thing is Commodious.  It has all the pockets I wanted, in all the right (I think) places - note easy access to cell phone on the right, and business card case on the left.  And the lining is light-colored (silk dupioni, no less - why not?) so I can see all the way to the bottom.  The old-school top dowels keep it stable, and the leather bottom feels nice and looks tough.

Pleased with myself?  Heck Yeah.  Getting curvature of the spine from carrying it much?  Probably.