Holiday Stealth Knitting

Hello everyone!  The blog is going to be on stealth mode until the end of December.  I am knitting like the wind to finish Christmas presents.  I won't be mentioning what they are, or who they're for, or posting photos, for obvious reasons!  Once all the knitted gifts reach their recipients, I will be more forthcoming.  Until then...happy holidays, friends, and joyful knitting!

A Tale of Two Sweaters

Sweater #1

It's the season of declining light now.  The days are growing shorter, the nights longer and colder.  Fall is making a last bright show before winter begins to close in.  The mind turns to musing and memories in such a season.  And the good people at my favorite knitting magazine ever (Interweave Knits) are running a blog contest!  Therefore, this is a fine time to tell the story of my first real knitting project(s).  They are two separate sweaters.  Separate, but linked by a strand of twisted and tangled yarn that, nonetheless, led me to joy.

Sweater number one was my very first sweater, and my first real knitting project.  I began it because I had tired of my dishcloths, and wanted something challenging, something that would mean I was a "real" knitter.  I flipped through an issue of Creative Knitting, and found what I was looking for: a simple sweater with bands of eyelets repeated at intervals.  That sweater taught me much: my first yarn-overs, my first three-needle bind-off, my first pick-up-and-knit.  It also taught me that rolled hems are, perhaps, not the best thing for a curvaceous woman!  It also helped me maintain my sanity during one of the hardest periods in my life: the long three weeks when my beloved maternal grandmother was dying.  I worked on it during the stressful days when all I was capable of was knitting, when I flinched every time the phone rang.  I seized on it and knit the day of her funeral (after the funeral, when I was home again), as though I were drowning and the sweater was the life-saving rope.  When my recently-widowed (widowered?  Is that a word?) grandfather agreed to heart surgery a few months later, I worked on that sweater in the backseat of the car as we drove to him, knitting my fingers sore so I could have the shoulders done to show him, as I'd promised I would.  I did my first three-needle bind-off in the waiting room of that hospital.  And I did, indeed, finish the shoulders like I had promised.

I finished that sweater, and was proud of it.  However, I only wore it once.  The grief and strain I had endured making the sweater was spun into its very fabric.  It was impossible for me to wear it, or even see the brand and colorway of the yarn I had used for it on store shelves, without feeling like I was going to throw up.  It's folded up and put away now.  I don't ever want to wear it myself, but I can't bear to give it away or unravel it.  Maybe someday I'll figure out what to do with it.  As it is, though, it's a memorial of my grandmother, and a tangible testimony to the power of knitting to pull one through the darkest hours.

Sweater #2

Now, on to the much happier story of sweater #2!  I tried seven more sweaters after making that one, but all of them turned out seriously wrong somehow.  Most of them turned back into balls of yarn.  One yarn snarled so badly, as I tried to rip back the sweater, that I just stuffed the whole knotted mess into a plastic bag and forgot about it.  This is the story of my ninth sweater, the first one I ever made that was a success.

This story begins in the summer of 2011.  My then-boyfriend had proposed to me that May, and my mother and sister and I had just returned from a trip to San Diego, California.  With the wonderful new turns my life had taken, I was finally ready to try sweaters again.  I decided to use stash yarn, from one of my failed sweater attempts, and chose Doreen L. Marquart's Mock Turtle with a Twist (Worsted-Weight Version) pattern, from her Saturday Sweaters book.  I altered the pattern a bit, using seed-stitch for the bottom, cuffs, and neckband, instead of ribbing, and changing the neck to one inch of seed stitch instead of the mock turtle.  I was bored with ribbing at the time, having overdosed on ribbed socks, and I have always had a deep dislike for turtlenecks and mock-turtlenecks.


The day I began that sweater was a very special one for me.  I began it the day I chose my wedding ring and put it on layaway.  I was determined to start it that day, for a special reason.  The first sweater had been made during a time of great stress and sorrow, and that had seemed to carry over into every sweater I'd made after it.  My life had become stagnant.  Choosing a wedding ring was an action of joy, of hope, of change.  It was a symbol of the more joyful future that awaited me.  I wanted this sweater to reflect that joy and change.  I also wanted it done to wear on the visit I planned to make to my fiance that November.  I worked hard on it, and...it was a success!  It fitted, it looked fine, and I did finish it in time.  I love it, and am very proud of it, even though I made the sleeves a size bigger than they were supposed to be.  When I finish the red sweater I'm making now, and the holiday gifts, I'll probably rip back the sleeves and make them the right size.

So concludes the tale of two sweaters.  I do have some tips for beginning sweater-knitters, though.  First: be very careful what yarn you choose!  I would advise either a solid-colored yarn, or a heather one, or a flecked one, not anything that has the potential to stripe, flash, or pool.  Believe me, the stripes, flashes, and pools will be certain to emphasize the part of you that you least want emphasized!  Also, be patient and keep trying.  If a sweater is kicking your backside, by all means, take a break.  Knit socks, knit dishcloths, knit small undemanding projects for a while.  But do keep trying on your sweater.  It took me nine attempts, but I did, finally, make a successful sweater.  And, for the most useful tip I can think of: check your sizes.  Make a copy of the pattern, and highlight or mark the numbers for the size you're making throughout. That tip has been repeated often, but it's one that should be repeated.

If I should win, I would like these items in my prize pack:

1- Knitting on the Road: Sock Pattens for the Traveling Knitter (item #1048)
2- Folk Socks: The History and Techniques of Handknitted Footwear Updated Edition (item #11KN06)
3- Around the World in Knitted Socks: 26 Inspired Designs (item #10KN08)
4- Poems of Color: Knitting in the Bohus Tradition (item #662)
5- Interweave Knits Winter 2011 (item #K1112)

A Brief Vacation

Hello, everyone.  I realize it's been some time since I last posted, and it will be some time more until I post again.  I will be taking a brief vacation from blogging, since I had an unexpected medical emergency this past weekend.  I'm healthy now, but it left me shaken, and I need some time to deal with it.  I will be back, though.  I promise.  Fare you well for now!

Changing Seasons and a Lapful of Riches

The Glory of Wool

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love wool.  I love the colors of it, the textures of it, the wonderful blends that can be made of it...I love everything about it.  That being said, today I am going to write about the natural combination of my favorite fiber and one of my favorite seasons.  Ready?

Today was a wonderful mail day for me.  Usually my husband and I just get bills, or coupons.  But today...ah, today.  Today I got: the Fall 2013 issue of Interweave Knits, and the Christmas 2013 Mary Maxim catalogue.  I hardly ever order anything from catalogues, but I love to receive and look through them nonetheless.  And shush, automatic spell check.  I spell catalogue the way I was taught to in grade school.  Anyway.  I open Mary Maxim, and what do I see?  A kit for crocheted pumpkins.  Another kit for cabled knit ones (I may actually order that one).  Halloween and Thanksgiving and Autumn-themed needlepoint kits.  Another kit for knit toppers on autumn- and harvest-themed dish towels.  I open Interweave Knits (my very favorite magazine, and I am so glad I subscribed to it).  Page after page of enticing projects done in lusciously colored and textured wools, the projects themselves appealing blends of colors and textures. 

Now, the calendar may say August, but the weather, and a subtle, ancient feeling in my body, tell me that fall will soon be here.  Cool nights and mornings, and warm days, get me thinking longingly about wool projects I want to cast on rightnow.  Suddenly, the leaf-green cotton maternity sweater I am making for myself (no, I'm not, but I will be one day, and it will be good to have a completed sweater ready before I need it) doesn't appeal at all.  The brick-red wool pullover I started in May and put aside in July is suddenly crying out to me, begging to be pulled out and worked on again.  I dream about the faded-pumpkin wool sock yarn, the rich chestnut-brown worsted wool and the autumn-variegated.  I dream about the wool sock yarn the deep green of a secret evergreen forest, about the flecked deep-chestnut wool sock yarn that is real Shetland and the prize of my stash.  I dream of dense cables, of basketweave and seed-stitch and a deep-red soft wool and its companion variegated that will be a scarf one day.  I pull out my pattern books and yearn over double-knit mittens and hats, of the deep blue and white Norwegian-star mittens and hat I've been wanting to make for years.  The approach of fall sets me to dreaming of Projects Yet to Come.

For now, though, none of these dreams will come to pass.  There are other things that must take precedence.  Christmas gifts for certain people, none of which I will mention here because they read this blog.  Two baby sweaters and two baby hats, and one set of baby mitts.  I have plenty of things to occupy my needles, and I am happy it is so.  But I can still dream of brick and orange and gold foliage, and smile at the thought of a lapful of wool.  Peace and good knitting!

In the Beginning

Introduction

This is my first voyage into the well-traveled waters of knitting blogs.  While I am a new blogger, I'm an experienced knitter.  I've been knitting steadily for 6 years now, with several surges of stop-and-start enthusiasm in the years preceding.  My paternal grandmother taught me when I was about ten, I think.  I know for certain she taught me, but I don't remember exactly how old I was.

Beginning

It begins with two hands (or four or more, if you're learning the basics), two pointy sticks (or more, depending on what you're making), and string of various materials and colors.  Hold firm to that string, for it will lead you places you never thought you could go.

Every stitch you form has a story all its own.  Every thing you make has a story all its own.  Your knitting life is a fascinating tale.  In these posts, I hope to share my own knitting life, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy telling it.  Peace and good knitting to all!