Minutiae

I arranged the TV show sweater-vest work in progress near the window for a photo.  Clementine, my devoted desktop associate and sometime critic has come in for a closer look.  She expressed her approval by blowing bubbles.

What you can't tell from this picture is that this has been the Gnarliest hem facing of my entire knitting career.  Why Gnarly?  Because I decided that I wanted a wrap sweater without pausing to weigh the ramifications; namely that a sweater which wraps must overlap itself by about a third.  More sweater width = more stitches.  No big deal that, unless you are a dumbass who wants to make a sweater out of sock yarn.  You guessed it:  320 stitches in a row on US size 2 needles.  And if that weren't bad enough, the depth of the hem to be faced meant that I shouldn't join the round until after the facing was done, amounting to 38 rows of FLAT stockinette.  Flat stockinette, in my opinion, is the knitting equivalent of sitting through a lecture on Dung Beetle Husbandry.  With a hangover.  Flat stockinette in sock yarn on size 2's with 320 stitches in a row is the knitting equivalent of being number 427 in line at the DMV.  On Christmas Eve.  When the "now serving" sign says "8".  And having to pee.  

So when I tell you that it took me three days to push through the wall on the @$%*! hem facing, I hope you will appreciate the relief and triumph with which I began the sweater part of the sweater.  And you will also understand how it is that I know Clementine approves.  She wouldn't dare not.

Here's a better view of the interesting part, now happily joined in a round and well underway:

I am beginning to think that hand painted yarn is the only way I want to live.  The colors are so much more complicated.  So deeply nuanced, and full of surprises!  It's the difference between poster paint and watercolors.  Clementine approves, and so do I - fish are seldom wrong about knitting.

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.