Enchanting Juno

Harlot-mania

I had a whole thing written and then the computer locked up.  Something about needing to expand the memory cache to accommodate the pictures I was uploading, then ......nothing.

So beginning again.

Does anyone else remember the ads for the Broadway show Beatle-mania, which ran in the 70s?  It is a particularly vivid memory and probably a sign that I watched too much television.  But last night reminds me of my memory of those ads: something about the dazed & gushing attendees.  Then add the bemused star, and the nice ladies from L&T who really looked they could not quite believe this was all for knitting. 

When we were waiting in line, one of the minions tried to tell me that the room would be crowded and encouraged me to check my bag.  I looked at her like she was insane and said "but there is knitting in there."  She looked down the line of people, most clutching various totes and parcels that looked like they might also contain knitting, and apparently decided that we were all crazy and it wasn't worth arguing about (you could absolutely watch the progression of thoughts on her face) and went back to whatever else she needed to do.

There was plenty of room, although I think the pretty waiters had some trouble negotiating the landscape of bags - keep 'em limber, that's what I say.

Cassie and I hesitated for perhaps 11 seconds on whether to seize chairs at the front table (of course.  really) and were joined by Cara and Jen.  And a nice woman called Linda reading Jack Finny and another one called Tree whom we encouraged to start a blog.   The lights were terribly, terribly hot, but within 3 seconds of sitting down there was yarn everywhere, and then cameras and then wine.

You like Cassie's shawl?

Stephanie was lovely - you will be unsurprised to hear that we laughed until breathing seemed optional.  Her voice is deeper than I expected, and very flexible, and she has an expressive face and an extraordinary sense of vocal timing - she's a story teller.  But we knew that already.  She's the fastest knitter I've ever seen.  She knows where Philadelphia is now. She didn't get to go to any yarn shops yesterday. (The room gasped in horror.  Just like a Victorian heroine.) I wish I could say more than that, but anything I've come up with seems facile and stupid. 

I was amazed by how comparatively few bloggers there were, although the non-bloggers seemed amazed by how many bloggers there were.  Or that such a thing as blogging existed.  But everyone was knitting, socks and sleeves and scarves and sweaters and 100 different styles of knitting, new knitters (I met one young woman who'd only learned 3 weeks previously) and, well, I'm not going to say old, cause y'all will hurt me - I'll go with experienced.

I kept looking around expecting to see someone I knew, it felt so familiar.  But it was just knitters.  Eventually, I met Cari and Em and Valentina, and another Cassie and Mindy and Melissa and Irene and Sarah and Jackie.  And saw Kay again.

Lion Brand and the Craft Yarn Council and L&T were very, very good to us.  Lion Brand, of course, doesn't hurt themselves by participating, but it is a nice gesture and by making it about the Dulaan project, I think they do themselves honor. 

If everyone in that room made a hat or two out of their big ass ball of Wool-ease, that would be what, 200 hats?  300?  400? more for Ryan.  Go look at her post from yesterday and get cracking.  That goes for me too.

After seeing that crowd, I believe there are 53 million knitting and crocheting woman out there (no one seems to have numbers on men - anything from 3 to millions, I expect)  and I have this sudden weird sense that none of us are alone.  We might be solitary by nature, or we might be at a knitting group 4 nights a week - personal choice - but if we need them, these other people are out there with their needles and their wit and humor and love.  We can look out for each other, cutting across lines of age and style and opinion and whatever to strengthen humanity.  That might seem like a lot to ask of a hobby (or craft) - but look at Dulaan, look at Knitters without Borders, look at the Afghan-along.  I think knitting has what it takes.  Knitters have what it takes. 

I'm so tired today that the only reason I made it to work was that I had to move my car to avoid a ticket and once I was in it, it seemed easier to park at work than find a spot in my neighborhood, so I know I'm forgetting things.   Be very impressed that I managed all the links.

It is a sign of my tiredness that I completely forgot to say that everyone was lovely.  Nice.  Funny.  Welcoming.  There was a certain  amount of fabulousness.  For the first time ever in the history of a largish group of people going out for tapas and drinks, there was too much money on the table at the end, rather than not enough.  I told you knitters have what it takes.

And we need some kind of social usage plan - when you meet someone you've emailed with for several months - do you shake hands?  Hug?  Make out? 

What else?  Oh, right - knitting.   Yes, Julia, I started with the back..

And perhaps tomorrow some further thought on anonymity - or as someone put it, "lying."

Never say never.

Last night I said something I never, ever expected to hear from my own lips. 

"Is there any more of this tofu?"

It was insanely good.  Coconut rice, ginger sauced tofu, some kind of Asian/fusion zucchini with bamboo and scallions.  I had thirds.  It is up there with the chicken from Blue Ribbon (which I ate mostly with my eyes closed and ecstasy in my heart) and the pork loin my friend D. made last summer, with the tomatillo and apple salsa (a moment of silence for the perfect balance of spice and flavor and texture, please).

Previously the only tofu I liked came in a kale salad from a local organic market.  Which is a unique product in that I don't like kale either, but this stuff is brilliant.

Maybe I need to learn more vegetarian cooking.  I like meat, but I do not require it all the time, and it seems like it would be a good thing to explore.  Now that I can chop again.

Notice how I buried the lede, here. 

Yes, I have two hands again, I have permission to do whatever I want as long as I stop or ease up if it hurts.  I can knit myself unconscious, lift weights, hold a pen, control a knife, pick up the cat, carry the laundry upstairs.  The vistas are unfolding, a trackless future awaits.

What I did last night - after the Miraculous Tofu - was sit in silence and put together the first two rows of the main section of the back of Lucy.  It took me a while to sort out all the different bits - there are two different ribbings, and cables from two different charts in various permutations and combinations. 

Thank you for your support.  And if anyone knows a good, interesting vegetarian cookbook, I'm open to suggestions.

Because, you know, I can chop stuff again.

Weekday update.

Boy howdy, did I get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  Cranky, cranky, cranky.

It is raining, I'm mildly depressed over a risk I took that appears unlikely to bear fruit (more serious depression to follow if it turns out the mild depression was on the right track) and I've got a killer stiff neck. 

On the other hand, I go see the doc in about an hour and hopefully get to use my hand again after that.  Which is much better as long as I don't carry anything too heavy or awkwardly large..and stay away from plain garter or stockinette stitch, which is too repetative and makes my hand ache.  Yes, it is true - I am medically barred from stockinette stitch.  I swear to all the gods.

Zig Zag rib, on the other hand, requires so much fiddling it is is perfectly comfortable, if slow.  Did I mention that it is slow?

So once I inch through the 5 rows of garter stitch that transition to from the rib to the pattern, I might have something to show you.  You are all, I know, holding your breath.  And when I say inch, I mean knit 20 or 25 stitches, get up, feed the cat, knit 10 or 15 stitches, check email (be depressed at failure of risk to return result), knit 10 stitches, notice that it really is not all that comfortable, put the brace on, try 5 stitches, get frusterated at immobility of hand, go read a book.  Repeat in 30 minutes. 

5 rows take a long time this way.

Anyway......

Yesterday someone from out side the knitting land was kind enough to link to this page.  Which was wildly flattering.  But I can't quite get past the mortification that he chose a day when I decided to talk not about knitting, not about humanity or politics, but contraceptive foam.

Somebody shoot me.

We got your narcissism right here.

I succumbed, in a moment of madness, to the interview meme.  So here I am, tragically late and wearing my panties on my head, for your reading pleasure.  Proceed or skip as your nature dictates.

Questions from Wooliemama.

1. Seriously, what's the worst/best/most humiliating/most costly thing you ever did for a friend? (No bridesmaid-dress stories.)
Best ever - two friends and I clubbed together and paid for another friend's wedding reception behind her back. She and her husband-to-be were way stressed about money, so we sneaked to the manager of the venue and presented them with the paid invoice as their wedding gift. It was a great moment....but I'm not sure I'm getting the spirit of the question here, because that was easy to do, just expensive and you mean, I think, a different kind of cost.
A couple of times when I decided that telling the truth was a greater act of friendship than going along, even though I had first to accept that it might cost me the relationship.  Because my friendships are a substitute for family, that kind of risk is very, very difficult for me. Very.

2. What makes you crush on a boy?
Well, I am a sucker for a tall, tall man with nice bones. Shallow, but true.
When someone reveals a small vanity that humanizes him, or shows that little first glimpse of his emotional life - really, any of those early moments when you get the first idea that there might be more to him than just high cheekbones, that gives me a rush of blood to the heart and stuff.
I totally fell for someone once when he took the tools out of my hand, swept me and my protests aside and fixed my leaky sink. It was so masterful. I'm so self-reliant, I had no idea that might work for me.
The finisher is if I throw down an intellectual challenge and he kind of grins and picks it up and we start to delight each other that way.  I have intimidated many in my years upon this earth.  You might as well break out the contraceptive foam then and there.

3. What are your hypothetical kids' names? This isn't pressure--by all means, stay happily kid free.
This one stopped me cold for days. I have no idea. I must be missing part of my genetic womanhood on this one.
I can tell you what it won't be - one of those made-up spelling names. And for a girl at least, a name that won't look stupid on a business card (my attorney, Candi...etc). I'll try to avoid anything that you can make a dirty pun with, but kids are sneaky, so I know I won't succeed.
I willing to use a family name if it is important to my hypothetical baby-daddy.
But if not, I'll probably look at statistical probabilities and pick something that is against whatever the current trend. Either that or I'll take a hormonal notion in my first trimester and never swerve from it, common sense be damned.

4. Why the nom de plume Juno? Is that really your name and I missed it? If there is some great mythological explanation, gimme.
My first and last name are both unusual, I have a lifetime history of attracting loons (with which the Internet is well supplied), I'm mildly suspicious by nature, and never, ever want my mom to find this thing. So I don't use my real name. "Enchanting Juno" is a line from a book I read a long, long time ago and applying it to my own self amuses me. The mythological component also amuses me, but it is an accidental byproduct.

Bonus - if you know what the book is, I'll send you yarn. Email direct, please.

5. I've been reading your archives and I think we have a lot in common. You remind me of a me that didn't get married and get Mommied. So why in hell, when we are both significantly spatially oriented, do we both have such problems with sweaters that fit?
Thank you.  That's a profound order of compliment.
Umm....Body dysmorphia? Poor self knowledge? Unnaturally large breasts?

I don't know, but I'm getting an inkling that for me it part of the larger process of psychological self acceptance. I couldn't get it right until I stopped thinking of myself as freakish in some way AND developed the skill set to cope, both in terms of techniques and in terms of understanding the way standardized sizing does a disservice to everyone, small or large, tall or short.

Why does everything boil down to mental health?

A matter of expectation.

Or Why Not To Use Training Wheels.

A week or so ago I was having dinner with my oldest friend - the one who lived around the corner when I moved to the neighborhood when I was 2, which means we have known each other for...34 years.  Shit, that's a long time.

I was surfing the net while she put her kids to bed and when she came down she found me checking my stats.  Stats for what?  My blog.  Your what?  Where?  Show me.

That's so cool.  All about knitting.  Really?  I didn't realize you were that into it.  Hey, remember that sweater you made for me in college?

Indeed I do.

I still have it, you know.

Really?  Can I see it?

Yes, this is what I made when I was 17 and didn't know what I was doing.  It isn't bad:  The finishing is a bit spotty, as I just tied the yarn ends to join and there's an end I never did anything with kind of hanging around, but it isn't bad.  Tension is good.  Apparently I invented mattress stitching on my own - I remember staring at the seam and kind of puzzling through it logically.  So nothing to be ashamed of.  Note the gansey-like structure - nice to know my tastes are consistent.

Now this is what I made when I was 33, picking up knitting again and didn't know what I was doing.

Note the different level of confidence displayed.  And this time I actually knew more or less what to do, since I had already made the above, albeit 15 years previously.  But I was tentative.  Didn't feel like I was qualified.  Stayed stuck in garter stitch for a while - 3 or 4 scarves worth. 

I enjoyed myself, don't get me worng, but now I can't help wondering: Where did it go, that willingness to just believe in the outcome and make it happen?

I loved 18 year old me - she had such a shine on her, so pretty and smart, didn't take shit, was articulate and so much wiser in some ways than 33 year old me.  Now I know she was a better knitter too, and for the same reasons.

36 year old me is getting some of it back - though not the ass, sadly - but still. 

There's a lesson in here somewhere.

Art vs. craft.

What is this knitting thing?  Cassie said last weekend that one could easily describe yourself as having quilting studio without raising an eyebrow, but that people would look at you funny if you said you had a knitting studio or a sweater studio.

Why?  I agree, but why?

What is it about fiber arts that make them strictly domestic rather than artistic in the minds of most people?  What makes it a hobby not an art form even if it is way more than a hobby to you or me?  And why is it something people can put down and pick up again over the course of their lives without feeling any kind of guilt about not fulfilling their artistic vision or principles?

Why do I feel comfortable saying that it is inherently a healthy activity?

Discuss.

Notice how it works out that the only logical choice is to start a new project?

I've been cautiously expanding the amount of knitting I'm doing - very, very modestly.  Some things work, some don't yet.  These are my conclusions about what I will be working on.

• The short row experiment was on Truffle Darling, but I need to wait on it for these reasons:
  • Needles (6.5 mm) are too big for me to comfortably use right now, particularly with the brace. 
  • The brace is fastened with Velcro which mixes very poorly with the Silkroad. 
  • My gauge in this fat yarn is all over the place while my hand is strapped up like something in a science fiction movie. 
  • Plus now that I have read Lavold's Viking Pattern book I want to rip it all out and redo the increases/decreases better using the technique she describes there - I hate the way they presently look. 
  • And I think that now that I've put in the short rows, I actually should have chosen a smaller bust size to work from initially.
  • So if I want a good result, I'm going to have to wait...and probably redo the whole thing.  (It is OK, I like process.  No tears, Internet)
• Nameless red sweater has enough switching from knit to purl that it might be OK for my hand, but the Bingo and the Velcro - not a good thing either. 
• Ditto Sweater a l'Orange (see last August) with the Velcro and 6.5 mm needles - Bergamo is the snaggiest yarn in the history of the world to begin with.
• Blizzard Shawl?  Can't rotate my wrist to crochet. Yet.
• Baby G's sweater - all garter just as bad as all stockinette in terms of repetitive motion and even tension issues.
• The Redhead - I could probably do the ribbing, but once I got into the body, ditto.

So I need something that uses a nice springy wool which will be gentle to my hand and likely to hide tension errors, a pattern with a lot of varied detail to keep my hand from staying fixed in one position (and hide tension errors), on needles that are 3.5 mm to about 4.5 mm, that won't be irretrievably ruined if it catches on something rough.

Something that I've maybe been swatching with, and keep coming back to because it doesn't hurt to knit with it.

Something that is maybe slubby and colorful...perhaps a tweed?  You see where I am going with this, right?

Did you see it?  Huh? Innit pretty?  (I have never loved a yarn the way I love this yarn.  So much so that I am going to rewrite the pattern to accomodate the row gauge, which is Way, Way, Way off.  Because this pattern and this yarn were Meant to Be Together)

See? It is like fate is conspiring with me to make it impossible not to start this: Tweedy Aran Cardigan - Norah Gaughan - IK Winter 01/02.

Internet, I give you Lucy.  With, you know, Diamonds. 

Somebody stop me.

Again with the aran knitting.

One of the ways I amused myself during my convalescence was with stitch patterns.  Barbara Walker, Katarina Buss, Elizabeth Lavold, Alice S., Harmony Guides, Twists & Turns, Patterns for Guernseys etc, Nicky Epstein and more, more, more, including the Book of Kells and Celtic Art: Methods of Construction.

And I've been reading Aran Knitting, a few pages a night before bed, making it last.  You have no idea how out of character this is.

It really is fascinating.  All the stuff - the history, the patterns themselves, the mythology, the explosion of the mythology...and the idea of this all coming essentially out of the hands of a particularly gifted woman who made a leap.  I don't know if it true - it certainly plausible enough to convince me; the goofy sentimentality of the scientists come to gawk at the noble savages of the Aran Isles and the misguided romanticism that springs from it rings particularly, horribly, hilariously true to life.

But I find the idea of it intensely freeing.  I think I was intimidated by the traditionalism of it all.  I don't like the drop shoulder that many Aran type sweaters use - because they look hideous on me.  Can I mess with it?  Doesn't that make it not a real Aran? Isn't it disrespectful?  I always think of the way my mother used to say Irish Fisherman's Sweater - in a very firm way, like it was the platonic ideal of sweaters.  And anything that departed from it - in color, style, structure might be very nice in its way, but not real.  I guess that's velveteen rabbit real.

But this is stood on it's head now - and the process becomes about design, the challenge of making something beautiful, growing as a technician, discovering artistry, bound only by the limits of a designer's imagination - or even someday perhaps your own imagination - your own taste, your own skill. 

And these pattern books -what I have learned about the possibilities!  You can  chart anything that you can imagine, from the least ripple of shallow water on sand to the complexity of DNA. 

Do you ever get that feeling that you've thought you were looking out a window, but it turns out to have been a wall - all four of which just collapsed outward and left you staring at an infinite world.  (It must have been a roofless room, because nothing hit me on the head.  Just go with the imagery, OK?)

The miracle of the short row.

I have been struggling conceptually with the short row for some time. I understood how to perform the act of short row shaping - how to make the wrap - and after a couple of tries I understood the methodology (I started out wrapping on the same stitch each row, and then understood that I had to make a stair step by moving in a stitch each row, so as to create a line, not a radiating point.)

But I was stuck on how you could make one in a garment that was patterned. A month or so ago I threw the question out here and the response made it clear that I was not alone in my confusion.

Sunday I struggled with it on the train back and forth to New York and suddenly received enlightenment in that miraculous way that sometimes happens when your hands and mind are working against each other and there is frustration and near-giving up and a decision to act on faith alone.... and then there is a semi-audible click and knowledge exists, full blown and beautiful in your head.

Short row shaping exists outside the structure of the sweater. I don't know how to say it better than that - but let us say you have reached row 70 of your main body and you are at the point where you are ready to add shaping. Stop a few stitches before the end of row 70, wrap and turn, then zero your row counter and make a note of where you are in your pattern repeat.

General advice seem to say that shaping is about 6 rows per bust size over C (12 for D, 18 for DD, etc) although I expect that yarn weights have a lot to do with it. I would add that if you are working with a textured stitch make your number of short rows a multiple of your stitch pattern.

Make your short rows in pattern. You are forming a cup that extends from your ribcage to your nipple line (more or less.). When you have completed them, return to your regular knitting as if you were now knitting row 71 - change your stitch counter back and keep going in pattern. Pick up the wraps with each stitch.

Make your knitting teacher really happy by picking them up wrong and needing her help (this step is optional). I think she thinks I don't get my money's worth because I usually just hang out and ask general knitting and design rather than project specific questions.  I would like to go on record as saying that I definately get my money's worth out of this.

And here is the miracle - each end of each short row should meet the new regular pattern row, IN PATTERN, at an angle, one that forms the bust dart, but without messing with the structure of the texture. 

Here is my poor attempt at an illustration, because the sweater I am working on is a) stockinette and b) dark brown.  And I'm going to have to re-do it anyway, because the wrist brace isn't doing my gauge any favors. Ignore the bullets, couldn't get rid of them.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ssssssssssssssssss 6 x

ssssssssssssssssssss5 x

sssssssssssssssssssss4 x

ssssssssssssssssssssss3 x

sssssssssssssssssssssss2 x

ssssssssssssssssssssssss1 x 71

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 70

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 69

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 68

The top row of Xs is row 71, as are the Xs sloping down the right side.

I haven't actually tried this yet in pattern, but working the process with my hands made it clear to me for the first time that is possible and probably not all that hard. I may be talking out my butt right now - I could have missed some vital step, some basic concept, but I really think this will work unless you have a 25 or 30 row repeat. And even then, you could do it if you were willing to adjust how the pattern reaches the neckline. That might be too much trouble, though.

I spent a lot of time looking for information about this on line, and never found anything that mentioned patterns. If I've gotten anything wrong, or you think I'm right but my instructions make no sense, please comment.

Spring in the city.

I spent yesterday in New York.  It was a lovely day - perfectly beautiful and perfectly delightful.

I had brunch at one of my favorite places, I got to see Purl and it was good (maybe everyone knows this already but me - but they knit up these really big swatches, about 10 inches square - and have them piled up on a table.  So if you want to see what the yarn looks like, you can really feel the drape and scale.  Genius.  Everyone should do this.), and I spent the day walking around downtown looking at interesting doorways and crumbling roof lines and appreciating the New York of it all, which I really, really like, with someone who actually knows, more or less, where she is going, so I could surrender my will and just look at the details.

Like this:

How cool is that?  It was the tiniest little doll's house of a building, #75 and a half something street, and I was practically taller than the roof.

And why are there not more shady park benches in the suburbs?  It just isn't something one does here in the hinterlands, because we drive everywhere and have parking lots and Target - you can go to a park, but it isn't the same.  And waiting at the bus stop is a solitary and non-conversational activity.

With whom did I do all these things?  Why, Cassie. 

There's a bit of oddness to meeting a non-stranger/stranger - I think anyone who's ever met a Internet friend in real life knows of what I speak.  But it went well.  Very well.

Let me put it this way:

I brought a swatch of the Harris tweed to New York with me yesterday - both to have something to do on the train and because I wanted to induce envy....I mean, I knew how much Cassie likes it and so I thought I should share my toys.

When I showed it to her she called me a name and I knew we were going to be friends.  It is nice to meet someone who understands the correct spirit to take these things in.

And as you can see, I am kitting again - slowly and laboriously, which is leaving me with some work I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to redo...but a much more thorough understanding of WHAT I'm doing.

Tomorrow I will tell you of the Short Rows and what they have Revealed to me.