Better news

Now that I've vented about my fiasco with the Jaywalker socks I'm feeling a bit better about things. Or at the very least I'm ready to move forward to knitty success. I've been watching the Tour de France faithfully every day for 3 weeks. I've only been a Tour fan for a few years, but I don't suppose there ever was a Tour with more unexpected events--good and bad. And so it is with knitting I guess. The Jaywalker socks surprised me kind of like the 2 dogs the jumped out in front of cyclists during the Tour. Yup, twice it happened--once during the first week and again just the other day. And so I've had big socks. The Panda Cotton ones I caught early on and remedied, but the 2nd jaywalker was just a bad surprise. But the Tour and knitting socks must go on! Vive le Tour!


The first thing I did after throwing the bad jaywalkers in the frog pond corner was grab my yellow Panda Cotton socks. I'm knitting the Victorian Lace Socks along with the Six Sox group and it's a pretty nice knit. It took a while to get used to the Mini-Melon lace stitch, but once I mastered that things went pretty well. Of course I sort of altered everything else about the pattern except the top-down start and the lace pattern, but it was all minor things really. The best part is I just finished turning the heel on the 2nd sock and I'll have another great pair of PC socks to wear in a day or so. This is very good since I ***LOVE*** Panda Cotton yarn. I'm already plotting and planning to knit several more pairs out of this awesome yarn.

Party Grrrl

Let's see, I was looking at my blog yesterday and I realized it's been more than a week since I posted last. Yikes! Yes, I've been knitting but I've also been partying! Hey, I haven't been a party girl in years so this is a good thing! I spent most of last weekend with a bunch of folks I haven't seen in decades--three to be exact as it was my 30 year High School Reunion. Excluding the celebrations surrounding my graduation last May, I haven't talked so much or had so much fun in practically forever. There's something quite fascinating about meeting up with people you knew and loved as a kid and finding them all grown up and mature! While we had a small representation of folks who never grew up or who drink too much or...you know the list, but for the most part, my classmates turned out really great. The neatest part for me was how encouraging they were when I told folks what I'd been through the last 10 years. I walked away with my "batteries" recharged and feeling once again that the world is filled with such good people. That's pretty amazing ;-)

I had so much fun at my reunion events that I didn't even touch my knitting--during the parties or even much at home. Let's face it, I was exhausted! But I didn't stay away for long. Melanie posted a huge chunk of clues for the MS3 and I knit on the natural colored one a bit this week. I'm up to 250 rows completed on the natural one and 200 rows on the blue beaded one. This is good, but I was beginning to feel like I was neglecting all my other knitting projects--like socks! So I got on to the socks and finished the 1st Victorian Lace Sock and the 2nd Jaywalker. Then I dug out a simple ribbed cuff sock from my sock basket and had another party Wednesday night--a "kitch" party. I hate grafting up the toes of my socks, so I had several accumulated just waiting for the Kitchener stitch magic finish. Part of the reason why they accumulate is that I can never seem to remember how to get starting grafting and I have to read the instructions. Once I get rolling though, the 2nd and 3rd socks are simple :-)

Once the "kitch" party was done something scary happened. I'll show you a picture: see the pink Jaywalker socks? Can you see what's wrong with this picture? Oh BAD! Everything is wrong with these socks. Not only did I practically lose my mind while forcing myself to knit the 2nd sock, but in the end the darn thing ended up being enormous! Yes, I used the same size needles, the same pattern, same yarn, same everything, but these socks are anything but the same! OK, in fairness I knew I had knit 5 or 6 extra rows on the cuff of the second sock, and there were a few goofed decreases here and there--nothing major or worth tinking for, but nothing to merit this fiasco! Then, to top it all off, the color of the 2 socks ended up being different too! I know that's a risk with fancy dyed socks, but they came from the same dye lot and the 2 skeins were even tied together when I purchased them at my LYS. This was my 1st experience with Lorna's Laces yarn, so I was even more disappointed because I know LL has an excellent reputation.

The bottom line on my jaywalker socks: everything bombed out here. The plan: FROG POND! There's no sense wasting beautiful (expensive) sock yarn on ugly socks that don't fit. Lessons learned: 1)Listen to my gut instinct sooner. I would have frogged long before now if I had. 2)Compare sock 2 to sock 1 at intervals while knitting sock 2. That way I'll find out sooner rather than later that the 2nd sock isn't matching up. 3)Six inch cuffs are too tall for me. Stick with 4" cuffs for most things and never exceed 5" The jaywalkers are sitting in a corner along with a pi shawl waiting to be frogged. I've returned to knitting more Panda Cotton socks and the MS3. I'm done partying for awhile and I'll never go Jaywalking again!

Cruising

I'm cruising right along on my MS3. After knitting the last couple of rows on the 2nd clue of the blue stole yesterday morning, I dove right on into the 3rd clue and finished it up this afternoon. I love how Melanie seems to know how to incorporate lace patterning and motifs in such a way as to make the knitting interesting without making it difficult or complex, yet the final results is anything but simple looking!

Now that I've finished the 3rd clue (200 rows) on the blue stole, I've picked up the natural-colored one and started to work on it. The natural stole knits much faster because I omitted the beads, yet the result is a slightly larger and thicker fabric because of the loftiness of the merino. The pattern is the same, but the 2 stoles are quite different!

We had guests over tonight so I knit a few more rows on my jaywalkers too. My fibro and PMS have been acting up today and I was in no mood for company so I was grateful to have my knitting. It's frightening to think what I might have said or done If I hadn't had those pink socks to focus on!!! I'm finally at the point where the end is in sight, so I'm motivated to get these babies done! I have to take my father to a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so that should give me some good knitting time. I'd like to go back to knitting new socks :-)

Indecision

I really hadn't planned on knitting the Mystery Stole 3 this soon. I was going to be good disciplined and finish the Hanami Stole first. But then I saw the Yarn Harlot's post and felt the energy of all these knitters, and remembered how much I enjoyed my summer evenings sitting on the deck knitting the MS2 last year, and well--I caved. But in giving in to the stole knitting thing I had to figure out what stuff to use. Economics had already vetoed buying new yarn, so that meant knitting out of my stash. No problem as my lace weight yarn stash is healthy, but what to use? And that's where the indecision took over. To make a long story short, I've ended up knitting not one, but *two* versions of the stole: one au naturale in natural and the other in chambray blue with cobalt AB beads.


I finished knitting the second clue on the natural one a couple of days ago and the blue version this morning. Not bad for starting a full week late! As you can see, with 2 clues completed things are looking good! I love them both, so I guess I'll keep on knitting on both of them until I can no longer keep up, or decide I don't like one after all, or I finish them both. Now wouldn't that be cool?

With all the MS3 knitting going on, my sock knitting didn't get much attention this week. I decided I needed to finish the Jaywalker socks before I lose my mind, so they have been the focus this week. I finished the gusset decreases and started the foot yesterday, so I don't have far to go :-) Once I'm done with the Jaywalkers, then I can go back to SOS 2007 and Six Sox knitting

Getting my act together

WHEW! It is so nice to be able to finally feel like I am starting to get my act together once again. The whirlwind of the dissertation and graduation quickly spun into visiting relatives and friends and a neglected garden complicated by the daily challenge of supporting my parents as my Father's health continues to deteriorate and my Mother struggles to cope with it all. I've had neither the time nor the energy to put my own little corner of the house in order so to speak. But at last, the time has finally arrived and I'm digging through the piles of papers and dust and whatnot at last. It's really scary how fast life turns into chaos when one doesn't have, or take the time to keep things in order.

While I filled the big black bags full of trash and shopping bags full of things to donate to charity, I had plenty of time to rethink my knitting projects and priorities. Like my overloaded desk, I think my knitting plate is a bit overloaded too. How easy it is to get caught up in the spirit of the sticks and yarn and commit to this KAL and cast-on that project! Being a process person, I love starting things but don't always finish what I started. Yet with my knitting I almost always *want* to wear or use the finished item, so I am more motivated to persist through to completion. So with one KAL just started (SOS'07) and another about to get underway (MS3), I had to stop and think about what I'm doing. I made some choices and hope that I will be able to work through them with some efficiency.

My first serious decision was about my Bugs Shawl that has been sitting in limbo while I agonized over what to do. I love the yarn, but I hate how the lace designs turned out. After a nice sit 'n knit session with Sandy at the Yarn Haven yesterday afternoon I came to the conclusion that to frog and reuse the beautiful yarn is better than trying to force myself to complete something I dislike. I will take the shawl into the Yarn Haven and us the swift and helping hands there to help me get the task done without having to do the unthinkable and cut the yarn.

So the Bugs is bugging out. Next up was the Panda Cotton socks. While I was at the Yarn Haven yesterday I looked at all the cotton yarns with sock-making potential and decided that I still like the Panda. I found several patterns that I felt were a better match for the yarn, but the lace was too complex for a multicolor yarn. I especially fell in love with Meida's Socks from the new IK Favorite Socks book (another KAL I joined). If I did this design I could meet the needs of 2 KALs with one project--COOL! So I purchased 2 balls of Panda Cotton in a one of my favorite colors, periwinkle, an I cast-on last night. As of this moment I'm on my 4th repeat and things look great! My knitty pal Ewe-Nice says they are a perfect fit!

I'm also trying to finish a couple of WIPs so I can wear them and move on to other things. I finally finished the cuff on the 2nd Jaywalker sock and am about to knit the heel flap. I am *so* ready to be done with Jaywalking! There are "funny little places" all over the place, but none of them are especially visible once you put them on, so I'm not tinking to fix them all. In fact, I chose to leave some as a sentimental reminder of when they were knit--like while waiting for my graduation rehearsal to begin or keeping company with my Dad at the hospital. Sometimes mistakes have meaning that would be a shame to repair.

I'm making faster progress on the Hanami Stole now that I'm into the eyelet section. It's a pretty stole and I will enjoy it, but I suspect the softness of the silk will always leave it with curled edges. Perhaps adding beads will help weight things, I don't know. I have my doubts about the silk holding a good blocking too, but I won't know for sure until I'm finished. I think I will stick to garter stitch lace for fine silk like this in the future. I'm planning on finishing Hanami before casting on the MS3. The will give me time to see what the design will be and make decisions about yarn and if I want to use beads, etc. or, for that matter, if I even want to knit it right now.

So that's the way things are here at beadntat. The place is getting clean, the knitting is moving along, and I looking for a *real* job for the first time in years. Life is good--very good.

Still knitting

I haven't posted for a few days, but I'm still here, still knitting, and still hanging out in my garden. The flowers are doing reasonably good considering we're having a horrific drought and I have to water every day to keep my transplants from dying. New acquisitions this week included a huge red and white columbine, a couple of blue salvias, and several smaller confetti lantana to fill in the space now accessible since I did a badly needed major pruning job on my Climbing Queen Elizabeth rose. The poor girl was very overgrown and not blooming much. What buds she did produce were pretty much wiped out by the Easter freeze. But the good news is shot up lots of huge new canes so I could whack away without fear of Lizzie dying on me.

I've been rather occupied with family things too, like playing "limo driver" for my dear father who finally came to the sad realization that he was no longer a safe driver anymore. Getting old and having your health fails is awful, but volunteering to give up the car keys was the hardest thing he's had to do thus far (Daddy has always had a thing for cars and took great pride in driving Mom and the rest of us everywhere). So I'm driving him to cardiac rehab 3x/week and running errands like going to the pharmacy and to the public library so he can check out tons of books.

I've been working on my jaywalker socks while waiting for daddy to finish his exercises as they are my most portable project at present. I'm still on the cuff of the 2nd sock, but should be ready to knit the heel in a few more days. When I'm at home I've been working on one of my various lace shawl projects. I showed the bugs pi shawl to a lady the other day while I was waiting to have my care serviced. That's when I had a terrible moment of clarity. You know, that sinking pit at the bottom of your stomach feeling? As I was talking with this nice lady I heard myself telling her that it was a good thing I was using such pretty yarn, because I really didn't like the design of the shawl. The night before I had been knitting on clue 4 and hissing at every twisted stitch (I'm sure there's an easier way to knit them, but I haven't looked it up yet). I finally stopped knitting and took the time to spread the monster out some and *look* at the thing--really LOOK AT IT! That's when I had my first inclination, affirmed the following day while talking to the lady at the service department--I don't like this shawl (aka "this looks ugly to me")
It was almost serendipity--and I felt guilty for even thinking such an awful thing about this design that my friend Mindy and the gang as EZasPI worked so hard to develop. But it's true, I don't like it.

I thought about frogging just the last clue, but I couldn't find a suitable lace design to sub in that would look compatible with the previous clues. And given the colors of the yarn (beautiful handpainted yarn that wasn't exactly cheap, but is sentimental since it was a graduation gift), it's hard to identify the flowers and insects. the dragonflies are sort of lost and the sideways butterfly, well, it doesn't look much like a butterfly in my version of the shawl. AAACK! Now what do I do?

One thing I have learned not to do is to frog based on a initial gut reaction. There's no sense wasting a perfectly nice project with many (MANY!!!) hours invested in it simply because I'm in a mood and looking at everything cross-eyed. No, I just left the thing alone for a few days and knit on other WIPs. But it's been 4 days now, and I still don't like the look of my shawl. I mentioned this to mother, whose sometime practical advice was "isn't it a good thing knitting can be ripped out and the yarn used for something else?" Yes, Mom. But there's something about the 2400 yds. of this yarn, all in one piece, that's makes frogging back about 80g of laceweight merino a bit intimidating. This may have to wait a little longer since I have my niece(almost 8yo)spending all of next week with me. Guess I'll be knitting on jaywalkers!

Creative Expression

While my fur baby, Miss Emme, slept amidst the comfort of my bed yesterday I had the opportunity to watch a forum address given by a professor of poetry and literature at Brigham Young University on TV. His remarks piqued my interest and reminded me of some of my own recent thoughts about reading and writing. The dissertation aside, I really haven't done as much reading of good literature or writing of my thoughts and ideas as I would like to do. I was reminded of all the great books I haven't read as I walked through the Barnes and Noble the other day. I have been blogging here, but my personal journal writings have been infrequent. In many respects, knitting has interfered with my need for other creative expression, mostly because you can't read or write and knit at the same time--or at least I can't do those things. Being a visual person, audiobooks are OK, but they just don't cut it for me. I have to *read* it myself.


Last night I resolved to change and do more writing and reading. The professor commented on how spending 15 minutes each day writing had really improved his expression and how jotting down noteworthy thoughts and ideas as you come across them in a day are great fodder for later creative writings. I love reading and writing poetry, but I have written much in the last 4 or 5 years, even though the ideas are always popping into my mind. So I put down my knitting and wrote in my journal before going to sleep last night, and I grabbed a pencil and legal pad and spent a little time this morning waxing poetic. I looked around my room for inspiration and saw all the baskets of yarns and pottery filled with needles and notions. The words came with relative ease after looking at the basket pictured above.

Jaywalking

Strands of palmetto fronds
encircle sweetgrass needles
like stripes on a barber pole;
Round and round
the coils curve upward,
capturing flamingo pink stripes
soft as a newborn lamb;
Sharp steely sticks
lift loops of yarn
along a jagged journey,
jaywalking to
just socks.

I've been busy!

I've been a busy girl this week! First, I've been trying to finish some of my many UFO knitting projects. I have blocked this Coral Lace Shawl yet, but here's a couple of pictures in it's unblocked state.

Up next are the Flamingo Pink Stripe Jaywalker socks! I finished knitting the 1st sock last night and have cast-on for the second. I figure I needed to get the next sock up a running as it will be the perfect thing to get me through my step-nephew TJ's high school graduation exercises tonight. TJ is a great kid and he attended a magnet school, so the graduation is a bit better than your usual event (my nephew Christopher graduated from the same HS 2 years ago), but the crowds and commotion and my ebullient brother can be a bit much for this old maid to deal with.

We've had my step-niece Tammy staying with us all week, so Mother and Daddy and I took her to Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Wednesday night for a picnic supper and wildlife watching. Tammy has never seen anything like this before (my brother & his wife recently adopted Tammy and her sibs from the state foster care system). First we saw the horses from the riding stable where my mother worked her "Pied Piper" charms on a couple of the beautiful critters. In the next field there were a flock of wild turkeys.


We visit the Cove in the evening because that's when the deer come down out of the mountains to feed on the meadow grasses in the cool of the day. We stopped at our favorite pull-out to eat our usual picnic of Subway sandwiches. As we sat there we watched 8 or 9 deer come down into the meadow right in front of us. Then as we continued along the 11-mile one-way loop road we came across dozens of white-tail deer, including a number of yearling bucks and a pretty spotted fawn. We thought we were doing well in teh wildlife viewing department, but then we were delighted to come upon a mother bear and her 2 cubs in a wooded area. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a decent photo of the bears, but Tammy was delighted to see "Smoky Bears". The bear population has grown in the park, so you are more likely to see bears now than when I was a kid. But I still feel the same excitement today as I did when I was younger when I see a bear in the Park. To see a mother and cubs is the best treat of all!