God Bless Us, Every One

I'm giving thanks today for my many blessings, among which I count you, Gentle Readers.  Thank you for your inspiration, encouragement, straightforwardness, loyalty, and patience.  Few knitters have the honor of friends like you, and I hope you know what your readership means to me.

Other blessings I am counting today include, but shall not be limited to the following:

Charts:    Can you imagine what would happen to me if all my patterns had to be written like this: "Row 1; work 3 red, 4 black, 7 red, 2 black..."?  That way lay certain madness.  To the inventer of graph paper, my Undying Gratitude.

Steeks:    Without which, I would have substantially less fun, and no one-woman crusade to spread the message to knitters. 

Yarn:        Just have to say it out loud - can't get enough of the stuff.  To the people engaged in growing it, spinning it, dyeing it and selling it, Many Thanks Indeed.

Needles:    Pointy, blunt, wooden, steel, circular, not, we love them all.  The clever souls who (continue to) invent better mousetraps for us deserve our deep and abiding thankfulness.

Stitch Markers:    Even though I make my own (lightbulb! I should make a tutorial for that!), I feel obliged to thank the intrepid knitter who devised the method of their use.  For this help, O knitter of old, whomever you are, Thank You Thank You Thank You.

Blue Painters Tape:    Okay, this might not be the first thing you think of in the realm of knitting stuff you love, but for me, it's a crucial chart-following implement.  Doesn't stick to paper charts.  Lasts longer than a sticky-note.  Costs little.  Also good for painting things, or so I'm lead to understand.

Sheep:    Because I Really. Love. Wool.

Knitting Books:    Where would the great chefs of our time be without recipes to inspire them?  Where would we knitters be without Elizabeth, and Clara, and Stephanie?  Knitting is a world in which there is room for everyone's idea. 

The Person Who Taught Us To Knit:    Thank you, Mom.  Even if you were only trying to find some way to occupy me and gain a moment's peace, Thank you.  Sitting close to someone you care about as they haltingly cause the string to loop around the sticks is a gift given to a blessed few.  My fondest wish for you, Gentle Readers, is that you will love someone enough to teach them to knit. 

Best wishes to you all for Peace, Love, and Yarn.
 

All Things February

It's easy for me to avoid feeling overwhelmed by holiday pressures this year:  I've moved on to being squeezed by things due 2 months hence.  I'm up to my armpits in February Projects.

It is unfailingly true that I feel most like knitting on projects that are not currently available to me.  Color problems on the Wisteria sample causing 30-skein redye?  Then that's what I want to knit!  Too bad I can't for a couple of days.  By which time I will be completely over it.  Waiting for shipment of new high-contrast yarn for Catkins Cardigan?  Can't get the wee beastie outta my head.  The minute the yarn comes, I'll be on to something else.  What's with that, anyway?  So while I wait at the intersection of these two projects for February, I turn my gaze back to the dear old Knot Garden, who you will recall, lacks only this one sleeve.  Since all my other knitting is February-centric, I have decided to make a goal of finishing Knot Garden in time for Madrona (Valentine's Day weekend).  Could happen:  There's only two projects competing with it, and as I said, it's really almost done.

It should have been finished a long time ago (shouldn't everything?), like last April or so.  I fell out of love with it around the time my first drop-spindle arrived and distracted me.  And by "distracted", I mean that a lot of things fell away from my consciousness when I discovered spinning.  Things like the water bill, automobile maintenance, and childrearing.  I should probably look in on those things again at some point.  

But now that I'm back to the Knot Garden, I have to tell you - this sleeve kinda stinks.  Here's why:  The only stitch I dislike executing more than 1x1 rib is seed stitch.  It physically hurts me to do it, and I seem to have designed a whole garment around it.  Nice work, that.  Also, being a sleeve, it's getting bigger and slower as I go, which is not conducive to momentum.  I usually  make a conscious effort to work all my pieces from the widest to the narrowest part, relying on my initial enthusiasm to get me through the fat part of the knitting, and picking up speed (at least emotionally) as I go.  But having placed the big wide cable sideways on this sleeve, I didn't look for a way to go from wide to narrow.  And of course, if all that isn't bugging me enough, this sleeve is knit flat, and that is just not my cup of tea.  All of which is the more galling because the stupid sadistic designer is ME.
 

But now that I've confronted these issues, Gentle Readers, I hereby decree the knitting train to be pulling out of Snivel Station.  There is no crying in knitting, after all, and I really do think I'm equal to a few rows of stoopid seed stitch.  Anybody else need an elbow massage after a k1, p1 session, or is it just me?
 

Snapshot of a Thursday

It occurs to me that in days hence, I may not remember accurately what this week was like.  And then I recall that blogs are excellent records for how things were, as well as how things are.  So in the name of posterity, I would like to note how yesterday went, just in case my formidable powers of denial take over sometime in the future.  I have the sense that my activity level is at some sort of benchmark, so on the off chance that I ever need to compare something to it, Here's Yesterday:

5:00 AM    Wake to the dulcet tones of morning talk radio, set to "STUN".  Close eyes again and try to remember what day this is, what I'm supposed to do next, and what I'm supposed to wear in order to do it.

5:30 AM    Achieve dim awareness that it's a weekday and the day job beckons.  Locate and consolidate various items which must be worked upon in stealth mode at day job:  Knitting du Jour (including charts, notes and appropriate needles - good luck with that) and design notebook.  Assure that tote bag reaches maximum weight limit by including cell phone, car keys, diet soda and frozen space-age polymer lunch.  Stagger toward car through freezing rain for exhilarating 20-mile commute to office.

6:00 AM    Play Well With Others, in spite of fact that coffee intake will not enhance coping skills for at least an hour.  Advise brilliant physician who cannot tie shoes (why do I judge everybody by their ability to manipulate string?) that his voice mail is not an actual cardboard box stored in a closet somewhere.  Dude was voted Most Likely To Cure Cancer, but can't manage an outgoing voice mail greeting.

11:00 AM    Break for 1/2-hour unpaid lunch, during which I plan to post to the blog, write and lay out an entire knitting pattern, as well as finish somebody's Christmas present knitting.  Totally doable.  As soon as I take up cocaine.  Consume microwaved frozen polymer lunch.  If the FDA says it's chicken, then chicken it is.

11:30 AM    Return below decks to row with other slaves.  Enumerate ways in which my cubicle compares unfavorably to jail cell.  Wonder if 19 years of keyboarding will paralyze my wrists on the exact day I finally "get time to knit".

2:30 PM    Retreat from cube-farm and drive 20 miles home, in 3/8" intervals allowed by traffic.  Remember each of the days last summer when I didn't ride my motorcycle to work and regret every single one, as the rain rolls down my windshield.  Stop at store for vital glue stick which stands between me and the evening's pattern production.  Get distracted by shiny objects in variety store and wonder why yarn is not sold there, but crochet hooks are.

4:00 PM    Greet small children and dog who are happy to see me, even though I have a slightly wild look about me.  Begin pattern package assembly in hopes of order fulfillment tomorrow.  Wish fervently that it were time for beer.

5:00 PM    Coach 8-year old through heating frozen pizza for family dinner, while continuing to stuff pattern envelopes.  Feel guilty that we are eating frozen pizza.  Feel bad for guilt over frozen pizza when there are people in my very own town who don't even have that for dinner.  Resolve not to expend any further energy on negativity.  Feel crappy for making the 8-year-old do dinner.

6:00 PM    Greet spouse, who is happy about frozen pizza, in that it A: tastes good, and B; requires little in the way of cleanup.  Resolve to emulate his optimism.  Run out of photo corners crucial to completion of pattern packaging and have small nervous breakdown.  Praise spouse for offering to get more photo corners, even if it's just because he wants to get away.

6:30 PM    Eat frozen pizza and give thanks for being full.  Phillip takes Campbell to Cub Scout meeting, while I take Lindsay to ice skating practice.  Locate and procure Christmas presents for 2 Grandmas while at the mall where the ice rink is.  Give thanks that my children have Grandmas to get presents for.  Watch Lindsay skate and wonder how she does that.  Look up to notice that someone is watching me knit, and wondering how I do that.

9:30 PM    Arrive home and shoo daughter off to bed.  Locate spouse, who is doing Grad School homework now that son is in bed, and thank him for procurement of photo corners after cub scouts.  Realize that it could very well be time for beer, except that I might not get the patterns finished once I have one. 

10:30 PM    Finish pattern package assembly and remind myself for the four millionth time that I have to remember to bring the samples with me when I drop off the patterns tomorrow.  Actually locate the samples and put them with the finished patterns.  Congratulate myself for uncharacteristic forethought.  Walk dog, who has to pee, but lacks enthusiasm due to cold weather.  Reward dog with treat and self with beer.

11:30 PM    Collapse into bed next to vaguely familiar spouse-shaped blob.  Realize that today's blog post never happened.  Promise myself to get more done tomorrow.  Realize that there are only 5 1/2 hours until tomorrow starts, and try to sleep faster.  Wonder if this is what is meant by the expression "fast asleep".