When Knitting Mimics Writing --- Again

I'm still working on the Vortex shawl but it's gotten a bit big to carry around. Add that to my issues with project monogamy and I cast on a new shawl. Right now I have a fascination for lace so I cast on this project....



This is Girasole - a pattern by the talented Jared Flood. You can see it on his blog or on Ravelry It's not a free pattern but it's well worth the small charge.

Right now I'm making it in KnitPicks Gloss fingering weight yarn in a color called Serengeti. It's a discontinued color that's a sort of butterscotch.

Now here's where writing and knitting seem to mirror each other. I've started my Egyptian Steampunk story, Desert Alchemy, but find myself unhappy with the start - over and over. I think I've restarted this story about three times so far. It's being a problem-child.

The shawl I've restarted six, yes SIX, times. I kept making mistakes and was obsessed with perfection so rather than fudging something so I could keep going (it's only for ME), I ripped it ALL out and started again. As of today, I'm on chart D and it's looking nice. There now are a few fudges in it where I made a mistake and couldn't figure out how/where but I'm not ripping the damned thing out again. I swear.

Today I'm going to try that with Desert Alchemy. Just write, stop fussing over every word. I can go back and fix or massage them later.

We'll see if my resolve holds....

Frogging a Novel

I'm frogging, y'all, which is not something I ever enjoy. I'm frogging and reknitting at the same time, and I'm doing the same dang thing in my writing.

I finished the second book in my contract. I gave it a couple of passes, but no major revisions, which is what it really needed. I felt it, of course. You know when that niggling voice whispers in your ear? Okay, mine is a little louder. (WHERE IS YOUR CONFLICT? WHAT IS KEEPING THEM APART? GOOD GOD, WOMAN!)

So now I'm revising, big time. I'm in the middle of it, and I'm moving scenes, deleting them, changing characters into who they need to be and killing the ones who don't matter. It's hard work, but I'm giving it my best shot.

During all this, I've been designing a sweater for the book. I had something clearly in mind: a moss stitch cardigan with pockets. I knit the whole dang thing, and then I HATED it. I'm not even bothering to ball the yarn; I'm just reknitting it right from the prior sweater's pieces (into lovely smooth stockinette).


(Crap picture, but you can see the moss turning into smooth stockinette. Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted, in Firefly)

It feels good, both things. I like the symmetry.

Just keep writing. Just keep knitting.

Obsession, thy name is procrastinating writer

I've been blathering on about my tomatoes over at my personal blog but I had to share a photo of the four (even though you can only see 1.5) tomatoes that popped out on one of the deck plants. Apparently all it takes is even the hint of a blossom to turn me into a total back-to-nature girl. I am completely obsessed with my plants. You'd think they were made of cashmere or something, the way I fawn all over them. I mean, I dash outside first thing in the morning in PJs and clogs to see their dewy faces. I tuck them in at night. I'd sing them lullabys if I had even the slightest musical ability but they have enough obstacles what with the rabbits and deer and squirrels who frequent our back yard.

Of course I'll probably be singing (shrieking) a different tune the first time I find a bug. I am not a fan of bugs. My brain shuts down at the sight of anything with a stinger. I've often said I'd probably drive off a bridge if a bee ever got into the car with me. Something primitive takes over and drives rational thought from my brain and turns me into one giant mass of terror.

But then maybe we'll be lucky. Maybe the bugs will cut us some slack. (They'd better since I'm going pesticide-free.)

And yes, we're trying the Topsy Turvy. When it comes to tacky tv pitches, I'm an easy mark. I'll probably end up with Sham Wow and the pasta steamer. (I already have a Vidalia Chopper and love it.)

I have this romantic vision of summer evenings on the deck surrounded by daisies and marigolds, zucchini and eggplant and tomatoes and tarragon and basil and Greek oregano and fragrant basil and cucumbers and a sock that practically knits itself at the speed of light.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

Who knew?

You all are aware that I'm a rabid hockey fan, and am especially interested in goalies (because of the Devils' fabulous goaltender Martin Brodeur who's on the verge of setting a couple of major records, but more about that another time). I just found an interesting piece of trivia about another famous goaltender, Jacques Plante.



"Jake the Snake" Plante was part of six Stanley Cup championship teams (the Montreal Canadiens), won a record seven Vezina Trophies (given to the best goalie in the NHL), was the first goalie to regularly wear a protective mask, and developed the modern style of stand-up goal-tending. He's in the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Canadiens have retired his number. Pretty impressive stuff!


Guess what? He was a knitter! Yup, his mom made money doing knitting piecework. She taught him to knit so he could make his own tuques (warm wool hats) to keep him cozy when he was out playing pond hockey in the frigid Quebec winters. Here he is in one of his handknit tuques:






You can see him in his goalie pads with his tuque in the photo of his junior team below.






Once he moved up to the NHL, his coaches wouldn't allow him to wear his lucky hat. However, he continued to knit as a way of relaxing from the pressures of being a professional goalie.



So real men knit too.

My First Log Cabin

I make no apologies: I developed my color sense while eating a bag of Halloween candy corn.

Yellow and orange are my favorite colors. I have loved yellow and orange from the moment I grasped my first Crayola in my hot little hand. Yellow and orange make me happy.

My first married kitchen was yellow and orange. So was my second. And my third. And my fourth. I painted our first bedroom to look like the outside of a pumpkin and accented it with bright yellow. You needed sunglasses at midnight. During the summer of 1968 when everyone else was out protesting the War, I was crocheting a yellow and orange blanket to take with me to Omaha that fall where I would be starting a new life as an eighteen year old bride. Imagine a queen-size afghan, all single crochet, all orange and yellow.

So is it any surprise that my first attempt at Log Cabin (big shout-out to the ladies at Mason-Dixon for the inspiration) would be yellow and orange? Stash yarn: Sirdar Nova. Knit Picks Harmony circs US9. I am loving every second. Actually I am loving it even more than EZ's Garter Stitch Blanket. It's like knitting sunshine.

What can I say? Yellow and orange make me happy. Knitting makes me happy. These days that's not a small thing.

What I've Been Knitting

I promise not to make any more blog promises. I promise not to promise to be a more faithful regular blogger. I promise not to promise "pictures later." I promise not to promise that I'm going to suddenly turn into an organized, orderly, normal human being who keeps regular human hours, meets all her deadlines with time to spare, and always knows what's lurking right around the corner.

I also promise not to mention 1) politics and 2) the economy because quite frankly I'm sick of both subjects. Sometimes I look around and can't quite believe any of this is going on.

Which is the last mention of it you'll get from me.

There's an emotional component to knitting that I've been thinking about these last few years. Something deep, almost visceral, that I don't feel when I'm embroidering or needlepointing or sewing but feel in my bones when I pick up knitting needles or a crochet hook. A connectedness, for want of a better word, that so far has defied my attempts to explain it. Or even understand it for that matter. It's just there. Knitting makes me happy. It makes me feel more centered. It makes me feel part of something indefinable but incredibly important. I know that you know what I'm trying to say and if you can say it better or differently please please leave a note in comments because one way or another I'm going to figure this out.

There's been lots of knitting going on Chez Crazy the last few weeks. I'm on the second Vintage Velvet. I'm 2/3 of the way through a pair of plain vanilla white socks in Comfort for Goldisox. The Log Cabin blanket is looking beautiful. I've completed two complete EZ Garter Stitch blankets in Cascade Ecological. Now the plan is two complete two more and sew them all up into one eNORmous 80 pound blanket. The WAVY scarf in Noro Silk Garden is at the halfway point. I'm planning to start two shawls for holiday gifts for two very special friends. (Simple shawls. This is me you're talking to: the woman who is scared to death of lace.) And I'm determined to knit myself a sweater or know the reason why.

And did I tell you that I poured an entire Egg Cream into my HP laster printer Friday afternoon? You can read the sad story here. I don't have the heart to retype it for you. It's too embarrassing. No grown woman should ever have to up-end a printer then race it across the family room, across the kitchen, and into the dish drainer. No grown woman should have to drag the wet vac up from the basement and spend two hours sucking chocolate milk out of the carpet.

There's a better story here. It's all about the Good Old Days of writing romance at Harlequin American, back when I was a girl of 32 and waiting for my first book to come out. That was during my needlepoint period. I'll never be able to think about the experience of writing and selling and publishing my first book without thinking about the many, many needlepoint projects that I worked on during that time. For awhile I made sure there was a needlepoint/needlework reference in every book I wrote. Don't laugh. I always wondered about characters in novels and why so few of them had hobbies. What's life without a great hobby to give it focus?

Back to work for me.

An Explosion of Metaphors

When I first got back into knitting (August 2003) I was struck by the parallels between looping yarn over needles and writing. It got to the point where I had to close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears, and start humming really loud to keep them at bay.

And then it stopped. Knitting was knitting. Writing was writing. Two separate activities with absolutely nothing in common but me. One was wordless. One was (God help me) sometimes a little too wordy. Both had the qualities of an addiction. Unfortunately only one could pay the mortgage. (Unless you count the two-scarf contract from Penguin that Goldisox likes to tease me about.)

Just when I thought I was over the worst of it and the metaphor monster had been put to rest along with the Ab Fabs and the multi-directional scarves and novelty yarns, it came swooping back in at me thanks to Susan Wiggs and the terrific workshop she's holding this week over at the Romance Divas Forum. Susan is talking about Plotting From the Inside Out (a technique I definitely hold close to my heart) and she asked a fascinating question. What type of writer are you? A quilter? A sculptor? A knitter?

You guessed it: I'm a knitter through and through. I work line by line, row by row, and have to frog the whole damned thing each and every time I find a mistake. I long to be a rough draft kind of writer, someone who powers through the story from start to finish in an explosion of heat and enthusiasm and then, when the passion cools, goes back and layers in detail, dialogue, changes in direction. But I'm not. I can't move forward without taking at least two or three steps backward. How can you know where you're going if you're not sure where you've been? I have to know where I've been, know it in great and excruciating detail, before I can take that leap of faith into the next page, the next chapter.

Kind of like where I am right now with the never-ending What Am I Going To Do With This Gorgeous Noro Silk Garden series of scarf attempts. That's Take #3 (WAVY from Knitty) up there. It's longer now.

Fortunately, so is the book in progress.

Missing in Action

The fact of the matter is I stink. I really do. What kind of rotten knitting writer/writing knitter would just disappear into the wilderness like that and not even drop in long enough to say Happy Thanksgiving?

Me.

It's not that I haven't thought about you because I have. Lots. Every time I pick up my knitting needles or thumb through the gorgeous new Harmony guides or sit here (literally) beating my head against the laptop, praying for the right words to finally FINALLY appear on the screen.

It's been a long tough grind to reach the place where the story finally has a life of its own, a life separate from me. For some reason I had a wicked time shedding the characters from my last book and slipping into the hearts of the new characters. I've been alternately overwhelmed, intimidated, terrified, uncertain, anxious, ready to grab my AmEx and race to the airport, ready to board a plane for anywhere but here.

Poor Dallas and Poor Nancy have heard all about it in email. At length and ad nauseum, I'm afraid. (Nobody on the planet can whine more effectively and endlessly than a writer on a killer deadline.) The clock keeps ticking. Those calendar pages flip faster than I can register. And I waited and waited for the paragraphs and pages to mount.

There's a weird syndrome common to working writers that I call The Butt Springs Syndrome. I was telling Goldisox about it this afternoon and, brilliant thought he is, he just didn't get it.

Me: It's like the second the writing starts going well I spring up from my chair and run as far away from it as I can get.

Him: I do that too when I'm procrastinating.

Me: No! No! It's not that. I said it happens when it starts to get good.

Him: You mean the words are flowing and you know what's going to happen next?

Me: Yes! That's it! All of a sudden the words are there and they're flowing from my brain to the keyboard without human intervention and something comes over me and next thing you know I'm at Shop Rite.

Him: (very long pause) That's just plain weird.

And it is. And also extremely common. I mean, I could understand running for the hills when the going gets tough. That's just good sense. But when it's good, when it's there, when you're finally in the zone: what the hell is that all about anyway? I mean, you'll never see me put down the needles when the cables are forming effortlessly. So what is it about writing that sometimes makes me want to flee the country?

A celebration prize!

Marching band season is officially over, I can walk on my sprained foot, and I'm knitting once again. To celebrate all these improvements in my life (although I'm starting to be a little sad about the end of marching band since my daughter graduates this spring), I am giving away this fun, funky pin I found at a local craft fair. If you'd like to be in the running to win it, leave a comment on this post. I'll generate a random number on Monday, Nov. 26th (after the Thanksgiving turkey is fully digested) and let you know who won.

Hope everyone has a Thanksgiving with many blessings to count!

What The Well-Dressed 6 Month Old Will Wear

Thanks for all the comments both on- and offline. I'm shelving the socks idea for the moment and waffling between a sweater and my trusty babies-love-it blanket. I know the baby would appreciate the blanket more than the sweater but I'm not feeling particularly crochet-prone right now.

Let me explain the problem. See the brightly colored sweater on the right in the photo? That's the one I have my heart set on knitting for my friend's six month old grandson. The baby has had a bit of a rough start and now that he's doing well again I'd like to celebrate the fact with something handmade. The brightly colored sweater is from Creative Knitting's November 2004 issue which I carefully pulled from the magazine and stored safely in those plastic page protector thingies. Only problem is I didn't pull page 96. Yep, page 96 which contains directions for the front of the sweater and the sleeves.

I went to the mag's website and they don't maintain an online archive of patterns or offer back issues for sale. I emailed the editor and am now waiting with crossed fingers.

I like the other sweater very much--simple top-down on circs. What's not to like? But the other sweater has my imagination. The yarn is Sirdar something or other, very soft, machine washable and dryable, DK weight.

I have to make up my mind today because we're heading out tomorrow and I want a great driving project underway. Any baby suggestions gratefully received.

For a woman who spent the first 18 years of her life in a bedroom with a view of the railroad (maybe 50 yards from said window) and the General Diaper Service factory (mayber 300 yards from said window) I discovered I don't know the half of the diaper situation. Or that there's a diaper controversy out there. Who knew? The funny thing is that it led me to Google "General Diaper Elmhurst Queens NYC" and I discovered it's still there. Need I tell you that there were times when the air floating over Cornish Avenue wasn't exactly redolent of roses? I wonder if there's another curly-haired girl staring out the window at 83-17 and plotting her escape . . .

Back later with contest winners!

Fuhgedaboudit: Knitting and Purling at the Bada Bing

It wasn't my intention but I scared the #*@( out of Goldisox yesterday.
He was out and about doing whatever it was he had to do out there while I treated myself to a blissfully delicious afternoon of knitting (more about that in another post) and The Sopranos.

Yes, The Sopranos. I'm going to pause and take a ladylike sip of iced tea and adjust my white gloves while you grapple with your surprise. I love The Sopranos. My father turned me on to the show in 2001 and I've been a devotee ever since. Want a university level education in the dark side of human nature? Look no further. Melodrama, Greek tragedy, farce, a splash of dark romance (I mean, the crowd at The Bing is a veritable Bad Boy convention), laced with mind-numbing violence.

Let me say this: I don't enjoy violence on television or in movies. No slasher films for me. No blood and guts. I can't take it. So explain to me why I can sit there happily knitting away on a sweet, innocent Step sock while Tony and Christopher drop Ralphie's head into a bowling bag and not blink an eye.

Which was what was going on when Goldisox (who doesn't do The Sopranos) came home.

"Another Sopranos retrospective?" he asked.

"Yep," I said as I worked one of my gusset decreases. "Tony smashed Ralphie's head into the linoleum. He and Christopher chopped him up and put his head in a bowling bag."

Goldisox, noticeably paler than he had been mere moments ago, looked at me with horror in his blue eyes. "They chopped off his head and put it in a bowling bag?"

"Yep," I said again, merrily knitting my way across the row, "but it's not like Ralphie didn't have it coming."

The look of horror in his eyes intensified. "You think what they did is okay?"

"Well, Ralphie did set fire to the stables."

"Aren't you the same woman who makes me set flies free?"

"Apples and oranges," I said as I gave the second stitch on the new needle an extra little tug. "I mean, it's not like when Sil gunned down Adrianna as she tried to crawl away. Even I had a problem with that."

"Okay, now you're scaring me." He took a step backward. (He really did.) "I didn't know you knitterly types were so violent."

"Hellooooooooo," I said. "Remember when I pulled out my needle by mistake when we were paying a toll on Garden State? Remember what I said?"

He looked from the Ralphie Cifaretto bowling bag to his innocent wife wielding very pointy metal objects, and he remembered.

Poor man slept with one eye open last night.


(Sopranos fans can read my predictions here.)

The Joy of a Very Large Ball of Yarn

That's the back of my mother-in-law's sweater: 26 inches wide and 22 inches long so far and it's almost all stockinette stitch. Is it a little monotonous? Well, yes. However, it has one huge advantage: it's all been knitted with one single ball of yarn and, as you can see, I have more left to use.

This makes me happy because I won't have the tedious task of weaving in a whole lot of loose ends, a job I detest because it comes when I want to bask in the glow of finishing the project. Only it's STILL not finished. All those pesky ends are dangling and I have to dig a needle out of the bottom of my knitting bag which takes forever and then try to neatly conceal the extra yarn. Ugh!




So for large projects, I'm singing the praises of this giant ball of Cascade Eco+ which weighs in at a hefty 250grams/8.75 ounces and unwinds for an impressive 437 meters/478 yards. It's very reasonably priced too. That's a normal ball of wool on the left and my new best friend Cascade Eco+ on the right. Nice and muscular, right?

What's your favorite yarn for a big project? Does anyone have a secret for overcoming the tedium of weaving in the ends?

Not-knitting

My house is a disaster due to a master bathroom renovation which has somehow expanded to painting three other rooms. I’m madly revising a book proposal to resubmit to an editor who’s interested. My supposedly former boss called and begged me to work Monday night. I had a houseguest all weekend (which included two Devils hockey games and a trip to Rockefeller Center to ice skate!) and I’m leaving for Puerto Rico on Friday. Who has time to knit?

(That's me waving from the Rock Center skating rink.)



Not me, I’m afraid. So this blog is about not knitting. Yes, I occasionally gaze longingly at the two project bags sitting beside my family room couch but I never get to touch them. One reason is that I find the scarf I’m knitting a bit dull; it’s only for those moments when I can’t concentrate on the work but want something to keep my hands busy. And right now I have too much to keep my hands busy! The MIL sweater is at a point where I need help but I don’t have time to go to the LYS for it. What’s a knitter to do?

Not knit.

What stops you from knitting?

My Mother-in-Law is a Hooker

Got your attention, didn't I? But she's not THAT kind of hooker; she's a rug hooker. She makes gorgeous works of art for our floors. Here are just a few examples:

This is the "Oriental" that lies in front of our living room fireplace. She chose the colors to complement the larger Oriental rug in the room.



For my son, she catered to his passion for soccer. It matches the wallpaper border in his room.



My Darling Daughter loves fantasy so she got a copy of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestry in the Musee de Cluny. My marvelous MIL changed the color scheme so it would fit in with DD's bedroom decor.





These are just a few of the stunning rugs we have in our home. So I decided I should knit my MIL something as a reciprocal gesture. She chose:

A sweater!

Not just any sweater but a copy of one she loves which another daughter-in-law gave her several years ago. My skills don't rise to copying so I enlisted my lovely Yarn Lady who came up with a pattern. And she wants it in black. (What's with my family? Everyone wears black all the time!) There's not much of it to see yet so I won't post a photo but it is in progress. She'll probably get it for her birthday in September. ;-)

Just for fun, fill the in the following blank: My mother-in-law is_____________.

(Warning: your MIL might be reading this blog!)

Suggestions, please!

I learned just today that my chiropractor and his wife are adopting a baby girl, due to be born any day now. They are over the moon with happiness. My husband and I have known them for years and I'd like to knit a little gift for the new girl. But I don't have time to do something big like a blanket.

So I need ideas. What is a relatively fast and easy baby gift that's also useful to the new parents. I've seen cute patterns for booties and hats, but do those really get used?

Next, what are your favorite patterns and yarns for baby items?

Thanks!

Dance With the Dolly With The Hole In Her Sock

See that holey sock? It's mine. Or at least it was mine. Half of a pair of my favorites. Well, boo-hoo ... I no longer have a red-and-blue striped pair of socks because of that hole. It's too big to fix, so I'm going to toss it and its mate. But for the future, I'm asking for advice on avoiding holes in the heels of my socks.

One suggestion I received was to switch to smaller needles when I do the heels.

Another was:

Right side - slip the first stitch as if to purl, with the yarn in back, then knit 1, slip 1 across the row;

Wrong side - slip first stitch as if to purl, but with yarn in front, and then purl across row.

I'm actually thinking of combining those two methods. Switch to smaller needles and follow the right side/wrong side pattern.

You know what's coming next. What are your suggestions for keeping the heels of your socks hole-free?

ANOTHER STASHBUSTER GIVEAWAY: Sockotta Superwash

Yes, I'm thinning the woolly herd over here in central New Jersey.

Available: 1 100-gram skein of Plymouth Sockotta from the Italian Collection. 45% cotton; 40% superwash; 15% nylon. 100% gorgeousness.

The picture absolutely does it NO JUSTICE at all. It's a deeper blue with green tones in it, almost marled. Lovely lovely stuff. It's just I've been there, knitted that, and it's time to try new things. (When I buy yarn again, that is.)

414 yards. Machine washable. Color #8.

You know the drill. Stake your claim in the Comments section and a "winner" will be announced March 1st.

Parade of Bad Hats

"Hats are easy!" Everyone told me that. Want to learn how to use dpns or circs? Try a hat. Nobody can screw up a hat. Hats are bulletproof knitting for the nervous novice knitter.





You think? I can screw up any hat, anytime, anywhere. I can screw up a hat with one needle tied behind my back. I present the following exhibits in defense of my position. (They are all circa 2003.)

See that pathetic grey pancake over there? That's a sad, sad attempt at making a hat from Berroco's (happily) discontinued X-Press, ten hideously splitty plies of wool blend yarn that knitted up into a dead pile of fiber. No spring. No sproing. No nothin'. And don't you love that garter stitch cuff? That was one bad idea. No stretch. Poor Goldisox put it on and--well, it wasn't pretty. I tried crocheting an edging around it so it would hang on a little better but let's face it: this is the kind of hat you pray blows away in a stiff wind.

But I am The World's Most Stubborn Knitter. If it doesn't work, I do it again. Even if it's clear to everyone with a brain that it will never work. Fortunately I ran out of X-Press before I could do myself permanent damage.

Then I moved onto Berroco Uxbridge Tweed. A nice simple watch cap. There was absolutely no way I could screw up a watch cap?

Watch me!



There wasn't enough wool in the blend of fibers to provide any elasticity at al. Even with an overall 1/1 ribbing. Way too much cotton and other inert fibers. This hat became the place where Uxbridge Tweed went to die.

So what did I do? I tried again. Same needles. Same pattern. Same yarn. Same result. And yes I was surprised. (The definition of insanity, right?)


And my last attempt: Uxbridge Tweed Bad hat and X-Press bad scarf. Hey, if why not go out in a blaze of Bad Hat glory?


Why, I ask you, did I keep beating my head against the same brick wall? Is this a normal part of the learning process or did I go temporarily insane there for awhile? Goldisox said he figured I was high on acrylic fumes from the stash of Red Heart in the basement . . .


The Berroco Chinchilla chemo caps turned out a little better but I still wasn't terribly thrilled with them. I tried knitting hats. I tried crocheting hats. I swear to you I couldn't make a normal, decently fitting hat if my life depended on it. I scoured the web for patterns, printed out a binder of them. Other people made them with great success. Me? I destroyed every hat my needles came in contact with. (I know some of them don't look so bad in the photos but trust me. On a human head, they were complete disasters.)

Things improved when I discovered a Sally Melville pattern in (I think) her Purl book. I must have made eight of these for Christmas 2005 and tortured those nearest and dearest to me with the results. It's supposed to have a flattish crown and deep -- what would you call it? My hat vocabulary isn't all it could be.



After that I retired from millinery and moved on to socks where I stayed happily knitting for a long time. The hat bug, however, reemerged last week after I finished the Top Down Raglan for Goldisox. (Pictures soon as he takes it off long enough for me to block it.) I had leftover Elann Peruvian Highland Chunky and my Denise Interchangeables at the ready so I cast on 80 stitches and started knitting a K1P1 ribbing. I knitted up 11 inches, did the requisite decreases for the crown and ended up with A Good Hat! A simple hat, yes. A beginner's hat. A baby knitter's hat. But a good warm attractive hat that Goldisox might actually wear on the one day a year when he actually wears/needs a hat.


Yes, I'm aware that it's a crappy photo. But trust me, it's a completely functional and attractive (within the limitations of a watch cap which really makes us all look . . . well, not all that terrific) on the human head. I tried to get Goldisox to pose for me but dignity won out. (Don't you hate when that happens?)




So what did this long miserable knitting nightmare of mine teach me? Mostly that I am an unreasonably stubborn knitter when it comes to everything but knitting lace. If something stinks the first time around, I will make it stink two or three or even four more times before I give up the ghost. (This is not necessarily a good or wise character trait. It might border on a form of knitting dementia.) It taught me that wool makes a difference, that gauge makes a difference, and that ribbing is your hat's best friend. I learned that hats are deceptive projects, fraught with hidden dangers. I learned to respect a good, warm, serviceable hat as the crafty work of art it is.

And I wouldn't be caught dead wearing one of mine!

Stashbuster Giveaway: Cascade Fixation

Here is the shameful evidence of my dismal failure at knitting socks. It's beautiful yarn but I just can't bear to see it in my stash; the memories are too painful.

Here are the specs:

Two balls, one with only a tiny bit of frogged yarn, the other unopened, of Cascade Fixation color #9862 (gorgeous rust, green, lavender, and taupe). Each 50 grams of 98.3% cotton, 1.7% elastic which translates to 186 yards (spandex) or 100 yards (relaxed) per ball. Made in Brazil.

If anyone wants it, let me know in the comments and it's yours for free. If more than one person wants it, I'll use the very scientific method of writing your names on pieces of paper and letting my son draw one out of a hat. Only Barbara uses random number generators.

Lunch Break

See that pan over there? That's a healthy lunch. That's a pan filled with zucchini, carrots, onions, celery, red pepper, and bean sprouts.


That is also the reason why, less than forty-five minutes later, both Goldisox and I are growling at each other and ready to eat wallpaper if you could just pour a little chocolate sauce over it and add whipped cream.


Yes, it's that time of year. Yes, we're paying the price for those hot fudge sundaes we indulged in over the Christmas holidays. We are now of an age where you have to pay the piper for every single good-tasting bit of food that passes your middle-aged lips.


I would kill for cookies right now. If you walked in front of me carrying a bag of Chips Ahoy, you would be in serious danger.






See those socks? I forgot to post a photo of them around Christmas time. They're made from leftover Sirdar Highlander that I'd used for Goldisox's socks. Toe up. Knitty's Magic Cast-on. The really cool heel from Socks Socks Socks. One cast-off was a little tighter than the other and it bugs me. So far not enough to rip it out and redo it but I just might.

See that pirate? Did I forget to mention he'll hand-deliver your $100 WEBS gift certificate if you're the lucky winner of my contest? I thought that would get your attention. I'm lying of course but only about the pirate. The $100 WEBS gift cert is very real and all you have to do is scroll down to my February 14th post and find out how to enter.