Warty Bobbles

My Scarf Was On TV

My scarf was on TV!

My son, Geoff, was wearing the scarf at the time.  He was interviewed by the local news station (KREM) in Spokane in a piece about college students facing a shrinking job market.  The piece was aired on Northwest Cable News and my parents, who live in the Portland area, happened to see it.  My Mother called and told us about it on Monday morning (before 9:00 am – I figured someone was in the hospital!).  We waited through an hour of grim-and-grislies (I’m not one for TV news – I prefer the newspaper because I can skip around and read what I want – but I digress) and saw the piece. 

I want everyone to know that my first thoughts were about how cute my son looked on TV and how well my son spoke on TV – and several more mom-ish sentiments along those lines.  Then, the scarf registered.  Hey, wasn’t that the scarf I had knit him for Christmas?  (In another digression:  scarves-as-being-great-Christmas-gifts seem to be haunting me – see my October 19^th post)  We found the video on the news station’s website and, sure enough, there was my scarf! 

Being doting parents, we fired off emails with the link to family and friends.  And I mentioned that he was wearing the scarf I knit.  Figured I might as well snatch a little of the glory while I could.  My Mother and Dad said that the news guy probably chose Geoff to interview because he looked so “dapper” (direct quote).  And they commented on the scarf – and this was before they knew that I had knit that particular scarf (you can put the remark down to pure aesthetics).

When I talked to Geoff about the news story, I asked him why he had not called and told us it was going to air.  He said they had interviewed a number of students and he had not known when the piece would be shown.  And he said:  Mom, did you see that I was wearing your scarf?  I think he hopes to get points for having had the good sense to be wearing the scarf I knit him when he was randomly selected from a campus full of students for a TV interview.  I think I should get points for knitting the kind of scarf that will get a guy noticed by a camera crew on a campus full of students.

Ravelry

I have joined Ravelry.com and – wow!  It is so much fun, so fascinating, such a cool way to connect with other knitters (and crocheters).  Sarah and I thought it would be a good idea to join because knitting is a big part of our lives – and we thought it would be good for us to be in touch with what other knitters are doing, thinking about, etc.

But I had underestimated the impact that entering a knitting community would have on my emotions.  I kind of wanted to cry.  It was like the first time I went to Stitches West – there were all these knitters and they were knitting and talking about knitting and learning about knitting.  Actually, it is like every time I go to Stitches or Madrona (the fiber arts in Tacoma). 

I am blessed to have a daughter who knits – and trebly blessed that we design and work together.  And I have a good friend who knits.  But otherwise, I have to rely on books, magazines, and blogs for my connection to other knitters.  There are knitting groups at our local yarn shop – which we keep saying we should look into.  But now that I am not tied down to my kids’ activities (school, ballet, sports, etc.), I am kind of exploring a not-so-scheduled life.   I have several weekly and monthly commitments – and that is enough for now.   As a result, I have been suffering a bit from “vocation isolation.”

Here I was – blasting away at my knitting, projects piled around me, a couple of actual commissioned pieces going, some design projects that have me pretty excited, contemplating a major writing project about knitting and design, blogging energetically about it all….And starting to feel like maybe it is all kind of irrelevant. 

With the news filled with the economy, politics, the environment, international relations, health issues, social issues…well, designing the Magical Levitating Warty Bobble began to seem kind of pale and insignificant.   Like I was devoting a lot of my life to a little private game of sticks and string and mathematics.  And that maybe I, too,  was a little pale and insignificant. 

And then there was Ravelry.com.  Something like 200,000 other human beings blasting away at their knitting – with passion and a sense of adventure and mad skills and fortitude and humor.  Wow! 

Maybe Olympic athletes feel this way at swim meets or skiing competitions – after all the hours spent alone in the pool or on the slopes.  Maybe they wonder what difference a 100^th of a second means – and then they are out there with flags waving and people cheering them on. 

Well, anyhow, that’s how I feel.  And I am pretty proud of my Magical Levitating Warty Bobble and maybe the world is a better place because there are hats and sweaters and little wooly animals -- cabled or intarsia-ed or bobbled or simply gartered into existence by people who think outside the box and push the envelope, people who tinker and figure and investigate, people who venture and envision and invest themselves in their work.

Art matters.  Artists and Artisans matter.  Thank you, Ravelry-ers, I had almost forgotten.

The Levitating Warty Bobble !

Not Knitting For Christmas

This year I am not making Christmas gifts for the family.  The bald statement sounds petulant, but it is actually the result of much soul-searching, trying-to-be-realistic, and acknowledging-that-choices- must-be-made.

While the kids were growing up, I made them gifts every year.  Usually I made my husband, George, something, too.  I often made gifts for my sisters and nieces and friends (my girls have helped with those in recent years).  Every now and they, I even made something for the guys.  These were not always knitted items – I sewed or crocheted or embroidered gifts.  The girls and I have made jewelry, too. 

And I have loved it.  One of my favorite parts of Christmas is making gifts.  When I was a small child, I pretended I was one of Santa’s elves – a lot.  I do not think I have ever outgrown it.  True, the gifts have not always been done on time (but, with one or two exceptions, they were always finished eventually).  True, some of them have seen less use than I anticipated (the Girly Boxers I knit for Sasha, for example, or the gorgeous alpaca tam I knit for George last year and for which, it seems, our climate is never quite cold enough for him to wear golfing…). 

But it has always been a gamble that I am willing to take.  It is part of the game.  And it is a good game -- but a very time-consuming one.  One husband, three daughters, one son, two sons-in-law, one grandson.  Say a decent gift takes 10-20 hours to make…that means 80-160 hours of knitting.  Secret knitting.

It came down to the choice:  either put my Pelagia Fiber Arts knitting projects (which involves, at present,  2 commissioned pieces, 2 design projects, and 2 of our standard “elegants” – which are actually already laid aside while we work on the commissioned pieces) on hold for three months or reduce Christmas gift-making.

My soul was searched, realistic-ness is being tried, and choices have been made.

So, it was with a sense of great personal denial that I made the decision to make gifts every other year instead of every year.  This is the “off year.” 

The family – God love them! -- have taken the news with more stoicism than grace.

“Mom’s not making us anything for Christmas this year.”  Long silence.

“I heard.”  Icy glare.

Afterthought.  “She had better not be making anything for Max either!”

No.  All friends and family, kith and kin will be equally denied half-knit socks, outerwear too gaudy to appear in public, intimate apparel too bizarre to be worn in private, ornaments and accents bobbled, bangled or beaded.

So far – half-way through October – my resolve holds.  Although Sasha told me that scarves are very big this year and all the girls on campus are wearing them.  In Santa Clara, in 80 degree heat, all the chic kids are wearing scarves – and this is the year I am not knitting for Christmas…..In the immortal words of Charlie Brown: I Can’t Stand It!!

Knitting Bowls And A Finished Project

My husband, George, is accustomed to finding baskets and bags of knitting about the house.  He was kind of wondering, though, why there are now empty bowls strewn about as well.  A ceramic bowl has been living on the floor by my chair for over a week.  There is a wooden salad bowl which moves about – from the dining room to the living room and back to the dining room. 

 Knitting Bowls.

 I have discovered that a nice smooth bowl (such as a wooden salad bowl or one of those many lovely bowls my kids made in ceramics classes) holds a ball – or balls – of yarn beautifully while one is knitting from said ball (or balls).  One yanks the next stretch of yarn and the ball bounces in the bowl.  The yarn pulls smoothly because the ball is not wedged in the bottom of a bag.  It does not get caught on the paraphernalia in my knitting bag (or the bag handles or the pointy wicker ends of a basket) or get tangled with the yarn from another project (I have more projects than bags…).  Meanwhile, the yarn ball bounces contentedly in the bowl and does not fall off my lap or the table top and roll across the room.

 Brilliant.

 And, now, a photo of a finished project (polite applause).  This is a picture of Sonja wearing the capelet I knit for Sasha this summer (Sasha is away at college and unavailable for modeling).  It is a wool/silk blend yarn knit in A LOT of moss stitch with a cable panel.  There are segments of mohair box pleat edging and vintage buttons.

 

 

Keeping Current

Sarah helped me update the photos in the margin of my blog page – so that they would show the projects that are not only “on the needles,” but are ones I am actively working. 

These projects-in-progress do not really look like much.  The lace is scrunched and the ruffles are shapeless.  Some are just a few rows of pattern or simple ribbing.  A nearly-done sock looks like a sock, of course – as would a sleeve, if I had one nearly done!  My favorite photo is the Afghan of Guilt which is knit in the round, growing ever larger as four stitches are added on each round.  It does look like a giant reggae hat at the moment.

The two newest projects are Max’s Thanksgiving sweater – yarn like rope knit on size 11 needles (2 stitches to the inch!).  It should take me about 5 minutes to knit – or so Sarah claimed in the yarn shop.  The second unforeseen project is a blue tam for my own sinter wear.  I like tams – they suit my head shape and they don’t give me “hat hair.”

I mentioned the yarn shop and the unforeseen nature of the two latest projects. 

Sarah and I ran an errand and ended up at the yarn shop.  We ended up at the yarn shop the way a leopard ends up at a water hole.  And, like the leopard who leaves the water hole with a belly full of gazelle, we left the yarn shop with a bag full of yarn.

There's A Toddler In My Knitting Bag

There is, indeed, a toddler in my knitting bag (metaphorically – and literally) and his name is Max.  He is my 20-month old grandson. 

He was, previously, the baby in my knitting bag (metaphorically only).  And I am finding a toddler slightly less useful as a knitting accessory than a baby.  

Max is unusually attracted to knitting.  Before he was steady on his feet, he could fly across the room and extract whatever was most dangerous or delicate out of a knitting basket carefully placed beyond his reach.  I have seen him snag a single knitting needle and whip it out of  ALL its stitches in some kind of nano-second.  He chews on wool.  And if given a ball of yarn, he will wrap the yarn around his neck.  Many times.  Also in a couple of nano-seconds.  He can summon a page of knitting instructions from anyplace in the house.  He will tear it in half and eat it.  

If he is napping, the sound of silk yarn rasping across an aluminum needle will wake him.   

Of course, the most devastating impact Max has on my knitting (as well as his mother Sarah’s knitting) is a combination of how darling he looks in handknits and his unbridled delight in and affection for anything we have ever knit him.  

He cheerfully wears wool sweaters, little socks, even hats.   He likes to bite the sleeves, I admit, but I figure that is his toddler-ish way of saying “Sweater, I love you.”   He wraps himself in his Yzma-Blanket every night as he falls asleep. (Note: Yzma is my grandmother name and the Yzma-Blanket is the one I labored so intensely over before, during, and slightly after his birth – baby-weight wool on tiny needles in a trellis stitch pattern that was worked from the back side and in which even a slight error stood out like a wart)

So, how can you NOT knit for Max?

And when (except in the middle of the night somewhere across town) CAN you knit for Max?! 

Impossibilities notwithstanding, my next project will be a knit llama for Max.  I am designing one to match the toy llama in his favorite books:  Llama Llama Mad At Mama and Llama Llama Red Pajamas by Anna Dewdney.  Terrific books with the most engaging main character, Llama Llama (who is accompanied on every page by his sweet floppy stuffed llama).

I have already bought the yarn – the same Dalegarn Baby Ull of which his Yzma-Blanket is made, except in “llama beige” instead of “froggy green.”  And there will be no trellis stitch involved.   I can almost see Max lugging around his knit llama, biting its arms (“Llama, I love you”) – the two of them on a yarn ball safari.

 

A Good Chair In A Good Spot

Another essential knitting tool that doesn’t fit in a knitting bag is a Good Chair in a Good Spot.  Over the years, I have knit in living rooms, waiting rooms, parks, trains, cars, beds, airplanes, coffee shops – wherever I happened to be and happened to have my knitting along.

 

But I have favorite knitting spots, of course.  The car on roadtrips, for example.  Starbucks is a good one, too.  At home, I usually knit in my leather chair in the living room – usually in the evening.  During the summer, I enjoyed knitting out on the deck, but autumn has settled in and I doubt I will do any more deck-knitting this year.

 

But now I have a new spot – and I am pretty excited about it (okay, even knitters may think I am a little crazy now, but…)

 

The leather-chair-in-the-living-room is cozy in the evening, but a bit gloom-ish in the afternoon.   Our autumn-winter-spring skies are (almost) perpetually gray, but even the thinnest daylight is welcome as the nights elongate.  Our living room faces east and has narrow windows – there are some lovely tall firs glowering nearly to the walls of the house, too.  So, in the afternoon there is essentially no daylight – not even the thin stuff.  Meanwhile, across the way is the dining room which faces west, has a generous bay window – and the lovely tall firs are a good stone’s throw from the house.  So, lots of thin daylight!

 

Frequently, I sit and knit at the dining room table;  except that  I don’t much care for having a big heavy table hanging over my lap while I knit and the chairs are sturdy wooden ones that are not well-suited for the leaning-back-a-bit position I prefer for knitting.  So the dilemma:  if I stay in the dining room, I get fidgety and stiff, if I retreat to the living room, I cast longing glances at the luminous dining room window and become depressed.

 

Enter: the sudden realization that I have small sewing rocker (i.e. a rocking chair without arms – arms get in the way when one is sewing by hand and, coincidently, when one is knitting).  I fetched the rocker – which is compact enough to fit between the table and the window without my having to rearrange anything.  I zapped a mug-worth of coffee I found stone cold in the pot, put my iPod into the speaker-thing which is attached to a kitchen cupboard (a benefit to being in the dining room beside the kitchen), located a piece of dark chocolate (another benefit of being close to the kitchen), pulled out my lace knitting, sat down on my rocker in a pool of weak Pacific-Northwest sunlight, and began to knit!

 

I found that the rocker has a pleasant throaty creak and that the ability to rock a bit helps me settle into my knitting rhythm – and decreases my need to fidget.  AND I get daylight in the daytime.  Sometimes it really is the simple things that make all the difference.