Warty Bobbles

Dramatic Episode

The likelihood of my knitting memoirs being made into a major motion picture (at least of the Steven Spielberg variety) is pretty small.  Not for lack of plot twists or an engaging cast or characters, but because the most dramatic episodes are based on arithmetic.

 

Last night, for instance, as I was picking-up-and-knitting 372 stitches with DK wool along an i-cord border of Dune (lovely sparkly, slubby stuff wrapped with furry mohair), the suspense was so high that I could practically hear drumbeats escalating and the long drawn-out note of a single violin:

 

The i-cord (length-wise) measured out to 4 sts/inch.  The DK wool gauged out to 6 sts/inch.  So, in theory, by picking-up-and-knitting 6 sts of the wool over 4 sts of the Dune, I would be able to make the wool knitting grow smoothly out of the length of Dune i-cord.  In theory.   I marked off the i-cord into quarters (so I could check my progress) – with 372 stitches as my goal for the 62” i-cord (6 x 62 = 372), I would be able to see if I had attained 93 sts in each quarter (372 ÷ 4 = 93).  (maybe Spielberg could insert a dinosaur or something here)

 

I started picking-up-and-knitting and quickly discovered that Dune fights back.  Getting that clinging bit of DK wool through each sparkly, slubby, furry stitch was a battle (cue the war drums and bagpipes).  I had decided on yarn-overs for the 2 additional stitches I needed for every 4 i-cord stitches, figuring the tiny eyelet would get lost in the Dune (maybe a highly magnified shot of the Dune jungle here).  When I reached the first marker, I counted stitches and – DRAT – found I had 20 too many! 

 

Well, I could drop some yarn overs on the way back.  So, I re-calculated and decided to work 5 DK wool stitches for every 4 of Dune i-cord. 

Battle, battle, battle across the next quarter of i-cord.  Reach the next marker – YES!  Count the stitches – DRAT!  Ten stitches too few.  What to do?  Would 11 stitches over 8 work?  Seventeen over 12?  What with struggling to make the stitches and to keep working along the i-cord in a straight line, I could hardly count to 4 reliably.  So, I decided to persevere with the 5 to 4 ratio, figuring I could fix it on the return row.

 

So, I continued on for the second half of the i-cord (Spielberg would probably want to bring back the dinosaur here – or maybe several – as this part is kind of slow).   I reached the end – HUZZAH!  And counted my stitches and, as predicted, I had 10 too few in each of 3 quarters and 20 too many in the first quarter.  For a net difference of only 10 stitches – not too bad over nearly 400.

 

BUT!  If I had left it at that and knit merrily along with only slightly too many stitches, I would have had everything stretched out too thin over ¾ of the piece and rather a heavy mess over the quarter that had way more than its share of stitches!

BUT!  Disaster was averted (cue the screaming brakes) as, purling back on the next row, I evenly increased 10 stitches in each of the 3 thin quarters and evenly dropped 20 yarn-overs in the heavy first quarter.

 

Flash to the Final Count which shows 372 tidy little DK wool stitches growing blissfully out of the lovely, sparkly, slubby, furry i-cord.  And they all lived happily ever after. Annnnnd: Scene.

An Awkward Silence

It has been almost 2 weeks since my last blog posting.  It happens from time to time, but coming back always makes me feel awkward – as if I had walked out the room in the middle of a conversation and was gone a really long time.  I guess this is where the “bio” part of “blog” (even a knitting blog) comes to the fore.

My Dad, who had been having considerable health issues for several weeks, suddenly developed a very serious case of pneumonia.  He and my Mom live in Oregon and so George and dashed off to be with them (and my sisters).  Dad is recovering now and regaining strength daily, much to our relief! 

There has been little time for knitting over the past 2 weeks and absolutely no time to even think about writing about knitting!  But patience is part of knitting – patience on the part of the knitter and also on the part of the knitting itself.  It has waited for me and you, gentle reader, have waited for me.

And so, back to knitting!

I completed a 62 x 6 inch piece for the Joyful Ferocity yesterday – something like 20,520 stitches, not counting the I-cord border that was worked along with it.  And how did I celebrate?  By knitting a round on the Gull Pi Shawl.  I blocked the Joyful Ferocity piece and today it should be ready for the next step:  the picking-up-and-knitting of 372 stitches along the I-cord border.  I think I will treat myself to another round of Gull Pi after that!

 

WIP'ed!

(Note:  in knit-speak WIP stands for Work In Progress)

You can pronounce it with a long “i” or a short “i”  -- I am feeling both wiped and whipped by my works in progress tonight! 

It is the fact that knitting only progresses one stitch at a time.  And the fact that I am knitting with rather fine yarns on rather fine needles.  It makes for slow going.  Even the baby booties are not so much inching along as millimeter-ing along.  Sigh.

Whatever else goes into knitting – money for yarn, creativity, skill – the plain old time spent on any project should give it some solid value.  I am knitting my life into a baby blanket, minute by minute.  When I think of what a finished piece costs, I think of the time spent more than I consider the money spent.

Actually, I don’t think of money as spent on yarn at all – it is gambled on yarn!  At a yarn shop, I might gamble $150 on yarn and hope to “win” a gorgeous wool cabled sweater.  If I am being totally straight with myself, that is how I look at it because life is uncertain and there are no guarantees.  And I can be a bit fickle.  Maybe I will lose all desire to knit cables.  Or I will get side-tracked with a capelet or lace shawl.  Or maybe I will come to the conclusion that I would really never wear a wool cabled sweater. 

There are “heat of the moment” yarn purchases in most knitters’ lives.  You wake up the next day beside a pile of angora and wonder :  what was I thinking?  But there are good bets, too.  At the moment, I am betting about $35 of poppy-colored wool on a lovie blanket for my new grandbaby!

Sometimes You Have To Play A Little

I love my “knitting work” – commissioned (or non-commissioned) Pelagia Fiber Arts pieces or teaching our knitting classes.  But is means there is a certain amount of “have to do” in my knitting life these days (kind of like it is always December with Christmas looming).  Sometimes I have to give myself permission to experience the recreational side of knitting. 

 

And it was pretty easy to do so when I found Hansi Singh’s designs – especially the delightful sea creatures.  Sarah and I, charmed and intrigued, ordered several Hansigurumi patterns, as well as her book Amigurumi Knits, immediately! My daughter, Sonja, asked me if these were stuffed animals and I said they are knitter sculptures. 

 

Two patterns were free downloads: the Paper Nautilus Shell (which are egg cases for a type of octopus) and the Juvenile Sea Nettle.  I tackled the Paper Nautilus.

 

Hansi Singh must be some kind of 3-D knitting genius!   The piece was challenging in that it involved short rows, picking-up-and-knitting, shifting from working flat to working in rounds, and grafting – a lot of workshop for a sweet little spiral that curls in the palm of my hand!  Interestingly, my “fun and playful” piece was a lot more difficult than my current “serious” work – and still it fully satisfied my re-create-tional needs.

 

 

Two Crazy Weeks And Three Vignettes

I have been traveling during the past two weeks: a few days in Portland (unexpectedly) to help my parents (my Dad had some sudden health issues), then home for about 12 hours before flying to Spokane with daughter Sonja and son-in-law Jordan to see son Geoff in Urinetown.  Back home for about a day, then back to Portland.  Some knitting along the way (of course), but no blogging (which you may have noticed!).

 

Sarah was on a road-trip to California the whole time I was gone-and-back-and-gone-again.  So, I taught our knitting class on my own and also took on several individual sessions during the few daylight hours that I was in town.  It has been a crazy couple of weeks!  We did stay in touch by phone – and she would send me text messages, such as: Went to yarn store.  Bought yarn for baby hats.  (Sarah is obsessed with baby hats these days – making several for her baby which is due in May, as well as for the babies of all her pregnant friends.  I think she is stocking up on them for friends who are not yet pregnant, but might be someday.  It is, one can only suppose, her nesting instinct kicking in!)

 

I have 3 little vignettes from the crazy-couple-of-weeks.

 

The first was the most satisfying experience of sitting with my Mother in her house and knitting a soft wooly peachy sweater for my grandbaby.  My Mother told me how she herself learned to knit when my Dad was in college and the other wives in student housing were all knitting and helping each other learn.  Her own Mother (a Finnish immigrant) knit, of course, but did so when the older brothers and sisters were young (my Mother was 8^th of 9 children).  My Mother said:  but if something went wrong, she knew how to fix it.  I could feel the flow of family through the generations.

 

The second was an irritating and awkward situation with a flight attendant on the plane back from Spokane.  She leaned over me while I was knitting and, as smiling and cheerful as can be launched into a tirade that went something like this:

 

You don’t know how WHAT YOU ARE DOING makes us sooo nervous!  All of us flight attendants.  Now, you don’t have to stop WHAT YOU ARE DOING.  You aren’t doing anything wrong.  But it makes us sooo worried, especially during take-off and landing. The FAA says WHAT YOU ARE DOING it is okay and you don’t have to stop, but, WHAT YOU ARE DOING, it makes us sooo nervous…..

 

It went on like that for quite a while.  And I just kept smiling and knitting and did not say a thing.  I was working on the peachy baby sweater using size 2 circular wooden needles – pretty much glorified toothpicks – and George was sitting right next to me writing with a pencil that was about 5 times their size.  The woman next to me was holding a sturdy book and there were others with lap-top computers that would make a lot more of a dent if thrown through the air.  Good heavens, one woman was holding a baby….

 

Anyhow, a family member who works for the same airline said that this flight attendant’s attitude was not common and that her statements were inappropriate.  So, I feel a bit vindicated.

 

The final vignette is a dream segment. First, you will recall that I have been handling our knitting students on my own while Sarah was traveling.  And that I have been on the crisis committee regarding my parents.  So here’s the dream segment from last night:

 

You know how firefighters run in a line carrying a hose to the fire?  Well, I was in a configuration like that, except that the “hose” was a giant circular knitting needle and we were all carrying the cable and rushing off to fix something!