Weaving in Loose Ends

There have been a few topics I promised in prior posts but neglected to expand upon.  Here they are:


1.  Twice-Knit Knitting, or How Mom and Dad Got Together

Ok, so that's a strong way of putting it.  There were many other chapters in my parents' love story before they got married.  But I guess Twice-Knit Knitting could easily have been Chapter One. It's a sweet story, one that I will probably butcher, since I didn't get the amazing story-telling gene from my Grampa (but that's a topic for another day).


The story starts with my Mom's Mom.  Grandma Murphy is one of the most creative women I know, blessed with the entrepreneurial spirit, the drive to make things happen, and the sass/savvy of a Southern businesswoman.  Off the top of my head, her ventures include selling stoves, owning a plant store & caring for the plants of local businesses, creating and selling appliqued (insert accent aigu) shirts, and designing, making, and selling western wear under her business, Lee Wearable Art.  She also patented two knitting techniques:  knitting in a circle with two straight needles, and double-knitting.  And as if that weren't enough, she also published a knitting book, Twice-Knit Knitting.


It's out of print (sigh), but I have a copy on order through Amazon.  I'll have to scan and post some of the pictures here in a future blog; my Mom, Aunts, and Grampa all modeled her designs.  


See that lovely skimpy number on the right?  The blue bikini?  Yep, my Mom (then-15? 16?) modeled it on a beach (ordinary).  On a beach in winter (out of the ordinary).  To further put in in perspective, there was snow on the beach that day.  They had to hunt around and finally found a spot on the rocks where you couldn't see the snow!  My poor Mom ... by the end of the shoot her nipples were probably as blue as the bikini itself.


So the story continues that my other Grandma, Dad's Mom, bought a copy of Grandma Murphy's book.  Somehow my Dad got his eye on that picture of my Mom, and he cut it out of his Mom's knitting book, and stuck it in the side of his mirror in his room.  All together now:  Awwwwwah!  


And life went on ... and their paths diverged, then converged, and six years after Grandma's book was published, they were married.  Next month marks their 36th anniversary :)


2.  In January I mentioned a "new knitting venture" that I have been considering.

Last post, I showed you the hats I knit for my baby niece while I was down in Virginia.  My sister told me that at one of Leah's doctor's appointments, the nurses and other ladies loved Leah's hat.  She said if I knit up a bunch, she thought I could sell them at $8 - $10 apiece.  


The next week, I found the yarn I used for the hats on Joann.com at a nice discount.  So I bought up a dozen skeins.  I could make 24 hats in different sizes out of that dozen.  I thought maybe I could sell them to friends or referrals.


But the winter has been mild (to say the least) and other projects distracted me from my venture.  So I still might knit up those hats, but maybe I'll give them to charity.  This article particularly moved me to consider it:


http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/01/knitters_warm-hearted_bequest.html 


I have a friend near Cleveland, OH who knits, too.  We talked about setting up a non-profit knitting club ... maybe coordinating with our knitting friends around the country to donate one item a month.  It's not much, but a nice pair of mittens or a scarf or a hat could mean the world to one child walking to school in the winter.


3.  Why Pictures Are So Essential To The Success of Blogs

"How can one possibly pay attention to a book with no pictures in it?" 
~Alice, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll


I confess.  I'm as guilty as any of that most offensive of all offenses: Not reading a blog post, just looking at the pictures.  As I said before, we live in the age of Google Images and Pinterest, where we can visually gorge our appetite for knitting inspiration at the strike of a few keys.  Search for "knit" or "yarn" and you have a smorgasbord of tactile delights.  


Don't deny it: it's human nature that our five senses tend to overpower our intelligence or imagination.  In fact, it is usually for the lack of the former that the latter wins out.


I'm not sure what more I can say on that topic except that, knowing this to be true, I've tried to use more photos in my blogs.  


As an aside, for some reason I like taking up-close pictures of my projects.  I never took a photography class - maybe I should.  It just seems to break up the monotony of the standard project-shot-from-above angle.


So there you have it.  If your curiosity was burning, I hope that was enough to quell the flame.  Now I must leave you, to seam up the cream zippy cardigan!  My sister threw down the gauntlet when I told her about it and she said "Oh, so when will she be getting it?  Next year?  The year after?"  


Apparently I have a reputation for unfinished projects that I need to repair.


(Darnit, it was ok when only I knew it, but now everyone else has noticed too)


Mrs. Pi   

Radio Silence

Of late, I have been working on a super-secret project, the culmination of which just happened to coincide with the anniversary of my mom's birth.  Ok, yes, it wasn't coincidental at all.  I was working on a cowl for her, and seeing as she's one of my two loyal followers, I could not post anything about the project!

Since we celebrated yesterday and Mom is in both knowledge and possession of it, here it is:

Ta-da!  I think I shall call her Glenda.

Glenda's a simple design, but one which complimented the Alpaca/bamboo blend yarn (Mirasol Qina) nicely.  I used larger-sized (US 15) straight needles to achieve a nice drape in the stockinette section (8 stitches long), smaller-sized (US 9) in the knit section (6st long), and used the kitchener stitch to join the ends into one continuous loop.  

I just cannot describe rightly how soft the knit side of the stockinette is.  You'll have to either take my word for it or hustle to your LYS and buy some Qina!

Some more Glenda shots:

Modeled by the always-fashionable Ikea chair.

I needed a genus humanis model but was feeling camera-shy.

A fun fact on this project (and segue to a new topic): It was supposed to have another color. Je vous raconterai l'histoire:

One day, a few Saturdays ago (January 28), I was feeling particularly adventurous after having just finished proctoring a standardized test (actually, not to toot my own horn, but it was my first day as a room supervisor ... oooOOOooo fancy).  It was a lovely day, I had been sitting for hours, and my spirit felt like sending my body bravely into the unknown. 

Just the day before, I had noticed the name of a LYS in a neighboring town referenced in the back of Interweave Knits magazine, and, vaguely recalling the address, I embarked for this destination known-and-unknown.  

Oh, alright, I'll admit it - I suppose you'd find out sooner or later - 

I own NEITHER

a smartphone, NOR 

a GPS.  

Before you cry "Luddite!" ... 

Oh very well, you may call me "Luddite."  

Anyway, my instincts/memory served me well, and I located the LYS, which as it so happens was having a wonderful sale.  Serendipity!  So of course, I did what any stash-busting, rational knitter would do and purchased $50 worth of yarn.

My finds:

I was feeling a touch of buyer's remorse and left my purchases in the bag for one whole day, considering making a return.  But ... since all sales were final ...

I. Love. Yarn.  Especially piles of it.

These four beauties were sharing the same cubby-hole at Village Wool.  So, naturally, I assumed they were different colorways of the same yarn.  Well, crack the whip and call me a Luddite ass, and while you're at it, consider yourself the same because you know what happened.

Lovely Yellow was actually Mirasol Nuna (as pictured), which wouldn't have been so bad except the fact that:

1) Nuna is a completely different weight than Qina (sport-weight 5-ply vs. DK-weight 8-ply), and 

2) Nuna is a merino blend.  This does not work well as a gift for a woman with a lanolin allergy.

So, poor sunshine-on-a-daisy's-center Nuna is sitting in the craft room, while I ponder her fate.  What CAN I do with 50g of a sport-weight silk/merino/bamboo blend?

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Mrs. Pi

P.S. I understand but will only briefly acknowledge the fact that I could have posted on any other subject in the past few weeks.

P.P.S. I shall argue - topic for another day - that a blog sans pictures is destined for failure.  At least, in the age of Pinterest, it is. 

P.P.P.S.  I may have given away the entire topic of that future post in my second post-script.  Fret not, it shall still be witty and interesting, even if you now know the punch-line before the joke.

Gifts Come In All Forms

It is a supreme delight for knitters to be surrounded by people who accept us and our craft (read: obsession).  But let me tell you, it is indescribable when my loved ones actively spur me on.  It's like the difference between a parent telling their children they sing well, and requesting them to perform "Ave Maria" for the family and friends.  For whatever reason (human nature), no matter how genuine and heartfelt, words alone do not suffice to convince.  This is a truth well-established (and demonstrated in adage) since long before our time.

I've been lucky enough to have actions speaking louder than words all around me lately, concerning my knitting:  

1. Two friends recently commissioned me to knit for them.  The first completed request was a shining success: Debra's mittens were delivered to Friend 1, who beamed at them, then insisted upon paying for them.  And more than just enough cover the price of the yarn.  

This demonstration was considerably poignant for me.  I've had plenty of people request knitted items, and I never charge friends for my work, above and beyond the price of the fiber, and sometimes not even then.  I am not exaggerating when I say that the satisfaction of meeting a desire when "store-bought just didn't cut it" is ... euphoric.  

But often the requests I get from loved ones come with no acknowledgement (likely because of a lack of knowledge) of how much time and work it takes to deliver on those requests.  And that's fine.  I'm 100% okay with knitting being taken for granted.  The craft and my fellow crafters are taken for granted every day.  But the request itself; it acknowledges that someone likes what I do, likes it enough for that someone to want to own something I made.

I probably don't need to tell you it takes me hours to finish a pair of hand-knit mittens.  It's likely choir-preaching to emphasize that the work isn't limited to the act itself, but also the yarn selection, pattern research, gauging, and any number of "false starts"  - knitting a number of rows before deciding it's just not "right" and having to rip it all out and start over.  What can I say, like many in my craft, I'm a perfectionist.

I admit it, I also love compliments and recognition.  But either of those - I know you know what I'm saying here - either compliments or recognition mean so much more when unprompted.  I honestly wouldn't mention the work and time that goes into a project here if this blog weren't nearly anonymous (I've shared the url with a couple friends. Two. Literally 2 friends.).  Like many of my fellow fibre-freaks, anonymity is part of the rush.  Ask a knit-bomber.  We know why the elves helped the shoemaker.  I concur with the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.  If it paid enough to subsist on, I'd want to be the Knitting Faerie (it's so much more fantastical spelled that way).


So you see why being paid - my first item sold - tickled me.  I imagine it's the same feeling parents get when, years later, they're hugged and thanked for that special gift - the Cabbage Patch doll they waited for hours to secure, or the bicycle they scrimped and saved for, the myriad other items for which they went uncredited at the time.

My other requestor insisted on bartering with me for the wrist warmers she wanted.  She said she'd order me some heirloom vegetable seeds in exchange for me designing and knitting her some wrist warmers.  Again, the offer touched me.  I'm not even sure she realizes that what she proposed was extraordinary.


2.  Christmas was another demonstration of love and acceptance for me and my knitting:

My husband and my Mom both contributed to my arsenal of tools, reference materials, and media.  From the left:
- Four skeins of KnitPicks Imagination Hand Painted Sock Yarn, in Ruby Slippers and Munchkin,
- A gorgeous hand-thrown yarn bowl (regrettably I don't have the artist information yet - to be credited!),
- A subscription to Interweave Knits magazine,
- The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques by Nancy M. Wiseman
 

(I already wound the hanks of yarn into lovely usable cakes and couldn't resist starting a sock with the Munchkin colorway.  By the way, my still-to-be-named alpaca friend wasn't a Christmas present but he needed to make an appearance)

- A darning egg to maintain my hand-knit sock collection
- A lovely print, Balancing Act, from Sheep Incognito: The Art of Conni Togel

- A KnitPicks Corrie Vest kit

- A new project tote from Vera Bradley (in Very Berry Paisley)

(I got the matching needle case during a post-Christmas sale for $7.50!! Oh, how I love me a good deal!)

 

(The tote has plenty of room for a few small projects like Mel's Wrist Warmers, my nook, and a book I'm reading for book club, as well as convenient inside pockets to hold my nook charger, a small sewing kit, a snack, and a tube of my favorite handcream - L'Occitane en Provence lavender creme a mains.  Yes, you're right - next Christmas I definitely need to ask for a dpn holder.)

- and, Sock Blockers (in large) from KnitPicks

How did two non-knitters know with such precision how to buy such perfect gifts for a seasoned knitter?  Well firstly, they love, care, and listen to me.  And two other reasons.  

Back in the fall, my Mom was so kind as to accompany me on my first trip to the famous Duchess County Sheep & Wool Festival a.k.a. Rhinebeck.  By the way, this trip is definitely worth documenting in my next blog post - remind me to follow up.  She (unbeknownst to me) diligently took mental notes and business cards at each stand where I ooh'd and aah'd the most.  Oh, how I love my Momma!


Secondly, I have been maintaining an active WishList on KnitPicks.  I simply forwarded the wishlist link to my husband, and he chose a few items all on his own!  I love wishlists.  That way, the gifts are still incredibly thoughtful, but also perfectly tailored to my tastes :)


As for the Vera Bradley tote, he knew my favorite pattern and chose the style completely all his own, in a stroke of extraordinary brilliance and thoughtfulness.  When I asked how he knew I would love it, he simply replied that he thought it would be good for carrying projects.  Reader, I struck gold in the husband-department.


Blessed with support and love from friends and family.  I'm a lucky, lucky girl!


Mrs. Pi

Thing Of Joy, Them On The Green

The new VW Passat commercial (misheard Elton John lyrics) has brought a concept into the spotlight that is ... well, you could say it's a bit of a family tradition.  My life has been seriously littered with things misheard (nothing tragic, though).  A few years ago, the topic of "misheard lyrics" came up in discussion at work, and days later (ironically, Alanis? No: coincidentally) a friend of mine had the following word come up on her page-a-day calendar:

mon·de·green [mon-di-green]

noun

a word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of a word or phrase that has been heard.

Compare eggcorn.

See also malapropism.

Origin:
1954; coined by Sylvia Wright, U.S. writer, from the line laid him on the green,  interpreted as Lady Mondegreen,  in a Scottish ballad

(entry copied from here)

So there's an official word for it.  I'm sorry, Sylvia Wright, but you're Wrong.  The word shouldn't be "Mondegreen" but "Aminthankin" and I'll tell you why.

Some of my earliest (and fondest) memories involve my family, sitting down to dinner at the dining room table.  It was round, with leaves that made it ovalish.  It was a medium-brown wood, with awesome clawed feet and, here-and-there, the odd coffee mug ring or scratch on its wise old tabletop.  This was a time when it was neither shunned nor surprising to find an ashtray on the table - full, or just lightly dusted with cigarette ash, having just been emptied into the garbage, but not washed.  The dining set had chairs with spindly rungs.  Once, a rung broke off and henceforth became a "sword".  I specifically remember one of my two sisters, M, requesting that I play the part of Battle Cat to her He-man, so she could sit on my back, stretch the rung high into the air, and yell "By the Power of Greyskull..."

In fact, another day, that table held our family's first two cats - sister tabby kittens from perhaps a friend's cat's litter?  We had just gotten them, and were discussing names.  I think I was in the neighborhood of 3 years old.  However, despite the fact that it was nearly 27 years ago, I clearly recall M, then 5, soberly suggesting "Thing One" and "Thing Two" (from The Cat In The Hat).  Looking back, it would've made more sense to suggest Little Cat A and Little Cat B. We compromised and landed on Cleo and Tracy.  

A little while later, Tracy "ran off" ... an incident that would haunt me for years to come.  All we found was her little blue collar, and somehow my pre-K brain deduced that she must be out there, somewhere, waiting for us to find her, like a game of hide-and-seek.  Many hours I spent searching for Tracy, under the ruse of exploring the woods behind our house.  Strange that a kid should have a secret obsession like that ... but then again, I never claimed to be normal.

And I digress.  Back to the dining room table, around which we sat to eat dinner each and every night, preceded by a short prayer of Grace: "God is good, God is great, Aminthankin for our food.  Amen."  It's what I heard.  It's what I said.  Thankfully, and to the great relief of my immortal soul, I did not misinterpret Aminthankin as some lesser god, the provider of Kraft Mac & Cheese and Oscar Meyer wienies, to whom we'd also pray before eating.  Nope, I didn't know what Aminthankin meant, and I didn't really give it much thought.  It was a ritual.  A habit.  It came as naturally as turning off the lights before I left a room (if you know my father, you'd understand).  

Aminthankin: "And we thank Him ..."

And then there's another memory.  I can't have been much older.  We were riding in the car ... perhaps back from Grandma's house ... I was sitting in the middle seat of my dad's blue VW Jetta (in a time before cross-chest belts in the middle seat) leaning over, chin on palms and elbows on knees, so my head was between my parents in the front.  And Neil Diamond was playing.  And I was marginally amused by the fact that he was singing about "Reverend Blue Jeans".  Who is Reverend Blue Jeans?  Whoever he is, he sounds like a pretty good guy to me.

Reverend Blue Jeans: "Forever In Blue Jeans"

Again, when I was around this same age, M had a small pink radio/cassette player, with one speaker and a long antenna.  [Confession: I may or may not have broken this antenna and never told her.  I will consider my immortal soul free and clear of this 25-year-old burden]  I used to sit with that radio for hours, listening to Barry Manilow's Even Now tape (it was bright blue - ah, who am I kidding it is bright blue, I still have it), both sides, on the closest thing to "neverending repeat" there was in the 80s: *[play, flip the tape, play, flip the tape], repeat from * indefinitely.  My favorite song off that album was Copacabana, and I struggled to understand lyrics describing concepts completely foreign to my 4-year-old mind.  This one isn't as drastic, but endearing nonetheless.

She lost her - you bet - she lost her Tony: "She lost her youth and she lost her Tony"

Before you go accusing my parents of neglecting my ears, please understand that I was not alone.  Let me share just a few of my father's gems, either misheard or knowingly replaced.

There's a bathroom on the right: "There's a bad moon on the rise" 

(I still maintain that Dad made that one up, and everyone else is copying him)

Doctor Scholl's Chicken: "General Tso's Chicken"

In 1814, we took a little trip, along with Col. Mustard down the mighty Mississipp: "Along with Col. Jackson"

(there are additional, colorful lyrics about eating beans and passing gas, but I won't dignify them with reproduction)

Toe-Jam Football: Oh, wait.  Those were actual lyrics.

So really, I claim genetics.  Thank you, Dad ... for "the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me" (Alanis Morrissette).

Mrs. Pi

How It All Began

Christians have conversion stories about how they converted to Christianity.  I've also got one of those, but this blog is a different genre, so I'll stick with How I Converted To Knitting.  It's true, I was converted.  By Vickie Howell.  I guess it started before her, but she was the main catalyst.

Knitting for me has been a learning experience, a development ... or to be more dramatic, a metamorphosis.  Hell, it could pass as a pure metaphor for my life.  I've made lots of mistakes, I've started back at square one, I've unraveled, I've gotten tangled up in knots, I've struck inspiration, I've hit dry spells, I've left things undone, I've improvised, I've broken rules, I've enjoyed successes and failures ... ok so I've never been much of a poet, but you get the idea.  One of these days, I'm going to tell my boss I need to frog back to the beginning and start over on one of my projects at work (in insurance, mind you), and she's going to look at me like I have baobabs growing out of my face.

I can't pinpoint what it was that first made me want to try knitting.  I do know I was in high school.  Maybe it was when my mom got involved in the prayer shawl ministry at church, and watching her, it just looked like something I could enjoy.  Maybe it was when I found out about my Grandma's book, Twice-Knit Knitting, the one that pretty much got my parents together (but that's a story for another day).  Things in my life just sort of seem to pop up as recurring themes before they feature as a main topic.

Or maybe I just found myself in the yarn aisle at the craft store.  Yes, in fact, I think that was it.  Glamorous?  No.  But there it is.  I was at one of those big box craft stores - you know, the ones that carry aisles and aisles of "yarn" (well now, someone's turned into a bit of a yarn snob).  I was with my mom, and I asked her if she'd teach me how to knit.  We bought a skein of plain, acrylic/wool worsted and a pair of needles, and the rest is history (too cliche ... argh, where do they hide the accent aigu?) thus a knitting phenom discovered her calling!

Um, hardly.  The needles felt awkward in my hands (despite having mastered other tactical challenges like folding origami cranes and using chopsticks - shout out to four years of Japanese exchange students: Sakura, Yoko, Maho, and Takako).  I couldn't grasp the concept of making a slipknot.  I started off with the only cast-on method my mom remembered - the simple one, where you essentially have a string of cursive "e's" on your needle.  I had at it for a while, reading along with I Taught Myself Knitting.  And I'm fairly certain I abandoned that first effort soon afterward.

But I picked it back up, I did.  Ok, so a few years went by, and I was in college, and I needed something to do between scenes of a college play. The second attempt only went slightly better than the first.  And I confess: I dabbled in crochet.  It became sort of an obsession.  I spent a few months crocheting to my heart's content.  And then I knit a scarf, I think.  And that was it for a while.  Techniques and terms and fibers and needles lay dormant, marinating.


Until 2006.  I was living in my first house, just purchased, and I stumbled upon the show "Knitty Gritty" with Vickie Howell, on HGTV.  I was hooked.  I DVR'd each and every episode.  I learned names like Lily Chin and techniques like "long-tail cast-on".  Something about seeing knitting up-close, performed live by real knitters ... I'd be lying if the pleasure I got didn't make me feel like something of a voyeur.  There was a flurry of fiber activity, and a true knitter was born.  After a seven-year progression from larva to pupa to chrysalis ... I was a beautiful butterfly.  Why yes, I do sicken myself sometimes with inclination to cliche (insert accent aigu).


From then, I knitted not just scarves, but hats, and mittens, arm warmers and socks.  I started a vest and sweater (I'm better at starting than finishing).  So I'm not an expert knitter, but I'm not a novice, either.  I'm proficient.  All thanks to Vickie Howell.


Which is why, right now, even though I have cast on and ripped out the same mitten four times, I refuse to bad-mouth the Vickie Howell for Caron's Sheep(ish) yarn, difficult though it may be, and though it splits and breaks and somehow refuses to follow its own gauge, I will not stoop to calling it cheap, or resort to name-calling, even though it's completely good for absolutely nothing.  Because I owe her.  She converted me to knitting.

Mrs. Pi