Christmas Crafting Madness (no yarn needed)

It's that time of year again. That time when crafters around the globe suddenly take leave of their collective senses and decide that they will craft perfectly beautiful handmade works of art for all of their loved ones. And their neighbors. And the milkman. And their local barista (who is looking awfully chilly now that he's shaved off his Movember stache). Before you know it, the crafters in question are spending precious crafting minutes making spreadsheets to track their progress, gathering their materials and spending long sleepless hours  knitting/hooking/spinning/ embroidering/papercutting themselves in to a lovely New Year's resolution of avoiding RSI for the 2015 Holiday Season.

Or maybe it's just me. Every year, EVERY STINKIN' YEAR, I make a conscious choice to remain steadfast in the face of (solely internally generated) holiday crafting pressure. I will not knit for every single member of my family and their dogs/cats/assorted goldfish. I will not lose sleep over trying to finish just one more present as time winds down to Christmas. I will perhaps gift a few, extremely knit-worthy people with handknitted items, but there is no reason for me to a) make myself crazy, b) make my family crazy (scrambled eggs for dinner will only fly so many times you know) and c) make the world any more crazy then it already is around this time of year by adding my stress vibes to the ether.

And even after all that, every year December 1 hits and I start making lists. Lists of who can be gifted knits already finished. Lists of super quick projects I can knit up in an evening with worsted weight yarn held doubled. Lists of postal timings and who would like yarn for a present and who needs an actual finished object. Things degenerate quickly - Himself needs new (fingering weight) socks, and the girls would love felted slippers. Maybe a lace shawl for my mom. The SCN (Super Cute Nephew) probably needs a new sweater for Christmas, maybe with an intarsia Rudolph face? You can see where this is going...

This year, things are different. Yes indeed. Totally different. Himself is not getting knitwear this time around - maybe a woven scarf, but I can whip that out in no time at all. The in-laws are arriving AFTER Christmas so there's plenty of time to sort out their gifts after December 25. If I'm mailing things back to the States they have to be in the post by the end of next week so pfft! Not going to happen.

This fabulous planning ahead and resisting the urge to START. ALL. THE. THINGS!!!!! means that it's totally reasonable for me to make the girls quilts for Christmas, right?

You can see above the evidence of my weakness in the face of Country Thread's collection of Moda Jelly Rolls from our Bath scouting trip at the beginning of November. I've been obsessed with the idea of making jelly roll quilts for about six months now, and finally have the materials to get started. But let's review the facts:

1) I have a very old, very small Singer Featherweight sewing machine.

2) I have never made a quilt of any size in my entire life.

3) This project will require excavating the desk in my studio which is buried about 1.5 ft deep in Other Very Important Stuff (otherwise known as Junk).

What could go wrong?

(Some) Mondays are no fun

Well. Here it is. Another Monday. This one, in particular, has been established as A Very Bad Day by virtue of the following:

1. I arrived at work, ready for a very busy day of lab stuff, only to find that the cells I was going to use were all growing beasties that should not have been there. Break out the bleach, rejigger the experimental schedule, and grumble.

2. I have, apparently, come down with the same beasties that my cells have. Cue runny nose, headache, scratchy throat and general brain fuzzies*. So off I go to procure pharmaceutical aids.

Better living through pharmacology.

3. Ahhh...there isn't really a number 3. I think numbers 1 and 2 have taken care of it.

So now I am huddled in front of the computer, trying to get things taken care of for the Yarn in the City Road Trip, and wishing I could consume Lemsip more often then every four hours. Thankfully, there is a steaming hot toddy in my very near future, plus huddling under the covers with my latest, very special design project. 

On the left is the start of the sock on Saturday, on the right is the new sock and the old one that I'm reproducing. Suffice to say that this design has historical, genealogical and medical interest, and I'm looking forward to getting it in a final form** for you all. 

* We will ignore the fact that said brain fuzz might also be a general state of being in my world.

** Top-down and toe-up FTW y'all.

Woecakes

Teachers the world over bemoan the seeming inability of some of their students to fail to follow or, in some cases, even read the directions. Heh. Read on for a prime knitting example of why directions are important.

Way back in June, I started working on a sweater that I am DYING to be done with - I can't begin to explain how much I want to have this one off the needles and on my back, particularly when the mornings have a bit of a bite, and I need something to throw on for the school run. 

Well, things were going pretty well for a while (after the first ripping festival when I decided to change needles and knit it inside out, because (shudders) reverse stockinette dontcha know). But then the move happened, and I put it down and it was forgotten for quite a while.

About a week and a half ago I picked it up again - I had managed to get through the short rows for one sleeve, and once I figured out where the heck I was in the pattern, the second sleeve cruised along and I managed to seam them up and finally, FINALLY start on the body.

Now, a sweater in fingering weight yarn is, as I'm sure we'll all agree, a commitment. It's a labor of love, because it certainly isn't any kind of instant gratification project. So I was working away on the body, a few rows here, a few rows there. Last weekend we went to take the dog for a walk in Richmond Park, and I attempted to mortify my children by knitting and walking at the same time. With other people around! Imagine their horror*.

Yesterday Allison and I had a meet up at a coffee shop, and while I was waiting for her, I pulled out my Juniper and started working, hoping to get a few more rows done before she arrived and we had to talk shop.

After a while, I thought "Self, you've got your Kindle here**, and it might be a good idea to see how long the body needs to be." Which was thoroughly unnecessary, as the body certainly needs to be longer then the approximately 3 inches I had done, but anyway: I pulled out the Kindle and opened up the pattern.

I looked at the pattern. I looked at my knitting. I looked at the pattern again. I looked at my knitting again. And do you know what I saw?

Pretty red...

Actually, more important is what I didn't see.

Wait a minute...

What I didn't see were any decreases. Because in the pattern, you're supposed to work a set of decreases every few rows for waist shaping. And I, in my complete and utter daze of enthusiasm to get this thing done, had read through the sleeve directions and joining to work in the round for the body and NEGLECTED TO READ ANY FURTHER. 

Because I am an idiot. Knitters, don't be me. Learn from my bad example. Because otherwise,

You too may end up with a pile of red, fingering weight spaghetti, for the SECOND TIME*** in one project. Woe. Woe is me.

* Disappointingly, when I said to Devil "Is this weird that I'm walking and knitting?", she replied "Nope." Darn it!

** I am trying to both a) save paper and b) combat my tendency to print out a pattern, make lots of notes on it, and then promptly lose it by using electronic copies.

*** At least one time too many, if not two times. Bah!

One benefit of tech editing

I started tech editing for real in May of this year, after an online class and a bunch of practice in an apprenticeship. And I love it - it appeals to the analytical side of my brain, and to the "this isn't perfect here's what you should do" voice inside my head that I try very hard to keep internal instead of external most of the time.

While I was pretty sure that I was going to enjoy tech editing by the time I started, there has been an unforeseen benefit: namely that I get to see a whole bunch of really, really cool patterns before they're generally available. Sometimes I can't help myself, and I have to ask the designer if I can cast on right away because I just can't help myself.

Two recent patterns I haven't been able to resist: Tabetha Hedrick's Fée Shawlette

Nautilus shawl...

I edited this pattern just about the time I started thinking about a present for Boo's Year 2 teacher. This was knit out of less then a skein of Kettle Yarn Co's discontinued Falkland/Tencel blend, so it's got fantastic drape and a lovely sheen from the Tencel.

Boo was a most enthusiastic model (my little hambone)...

My latest tech editing project is the Santa Maria Scarf from NorthbrooKnits. 

The pattern isn't up on Ravelry yet (although I know it's been released), so I won't give too many details. I'm using my precious one and only skein of A Verb for Keeping Warm yarn. It's their Annapurna base in "Root" (dyed with madder) and was part of the Knit Love Club in 2010. I figured that any yarn with cashmere belonged on my neck, not my feet, but hadn't found the right project until now. 

Pattern is addictive, yarn is luscious, Porpoise is happy. The end.

Reboot

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of various life transitions. We've been in the UK as expats for the last five years, but at the beginning of May, Himself's company said "You're going back to Houston at the end of July." To which we replied with a resounding "Hell no!" (OK, maybe that was mostly me). In any event, the decision to stay in the UK was followed by deciding whether Himself was going to change jobs (he's not), and has now been followed by the necessity of finding a new place to live (which had the buy vs rent dilemma, followed by the Hoo boy, we will have to sell a kidney and/or a child to get a down payment right now realisation).

With all this madness going on, I have been seeking refuge in Other People's Designs, and enjoying it tremendously. A couple weeks ago I cast on for Veera Valimakki's Juniper on a long plane ride, in some lovely dark red merino I picked up in Florence with my sister-in-law.

All was going swimmingly, if quite slowly. The sweater is in reverse stockinette, and even though there were directions FROM THE DESIGNER HERSELF in the Unwind Brighton KAL Ravelry thread about how to do it inside out (so mostly knitting instead of mostly purling), I decided to be a freaking purist and do it as written. Purling. Lots and lots of purling. Add to that the fact that I had chosen a pair of blunt and unpleasant hard plastic circulars (the better to deal with airport security) and the result was an unhappy project.

I sat on my couch on Friday night, looking at this sweater yoke. And thinking to myself "Self, you could switch to those lovely zippy metal Addi Turbos you've got upstairs. And while you're at it, we could start over again and do this thing in stockinette."

Juniper is cruising along now.

The next thing I knew I was sitting in the midst of a pile of bumpy red spaghetti, casting on for the neckline again. However, two days later, I'm past where I was when I ripped it out, and am zooming ahead. It's not going to be done by the end of the KAL (that would be tomorrow...), but it should be done well ahead of the worst of the British "summer".

It's good that I've resigned myself to not finishing this for the KAL, because yesterday morning, my lovely friend Allison completely and totally blindsided me with another fabulous Veera pattern that made me drop everything, buy the pattern, print it out, wind up the yarn and start swatching, all before 10:00 am on a Sunday morning (there may have been vast quantities of coffee involved. Don't tell anyone...)

The pattern I'm so excited about is Whispers, a gorgeous ethereal little summer top, knit in fingering weight on large needles, with a loose drapey fit through the body, fantastic fluttery sleeves, and pleats above the bustline. Allison had called me with a sizing question, and when I pulled up the pattern on Raverly, I gasped out loud. Must Have It Now. So we're having an impromtu KAL of our very own. She's using sweetgeorgia Tough Love sock, and I'm going with my second yarn idea: Scrumptious Lace in Cherry, double stranded.

Is that not the most gorgeous red you've ever seen?

My swatch is dry, and the gauge is right on. I can't wait to get started. 

I guess we can call this my Red Period. Either that, or my Homage to Veera Period. Maybe both...