Archives for February 2007

Last call! A couple of slots remain in my class that starts this Monday night in Emeryville at the fabulous Knit-One-One. We’ll be learning how to knit lacy socks on two circulars on the yarn/needle size that you like. Plus, we’ll just be goofing around knitting and laughing, so it should be fun times.

If you’re coming to knit with us, do this: Choose the yarn you want for your socks (have about 100 grams to be safe). Knit up a couple of small swatches on different size needles, just stockinette, and decide what fabric you like. Bring two 12 inch needles in that size along with the yarn to class, and we’ll be on our merry, lacy way.

At the very least, go have a peek at the blog post about the class — I look a little silly, but Harriet is looking fine, no?

Hey! I’m in Curve magazine! Go get it! I wrote an article about me’n’Lala visiting Venice for their travel issue, now on stands. Borders carries it, I know, as do most Barnes and Nobles, and any independent bookstore that carries Out and Advocate will have it, too. It’s a lesbian magazine, you should know. Just in case your husband wonders why it’s in your bedside reading, you can have something planned. I’m on pages 40-41. Woot!

I was a dork at Stitches, as usual. I had a BLAST. I got there around 1pm, and just wandered around, moving between wildly excited and completely overwhelmed. It’s kind of being a kid again at Disneyland, isn’t it? I want! I want everything, and look at this, and what about that, and that’s my favorite thing EVER, and I’M TIRED I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE and oooooh, pretty, I want that!

Luckily, I ran into readers who were awesome, and said hello, and made me step off my merino-high every once in a while. I only took a couple of pictures, and none turned out but this one, but it’s great:

That’s Bonnie and Bonnie. (By the way, when you organize yourselves like this in the wild, I really appreciate it.) These two made me laugh my ass off and regain some human composure again, so I really appreciate them.

I also really appreciate Cindy and Jeni and Emily and Nancy and her partner Adriana, with whom I hung out after the whole deal.

However. There was one highly embarrassing moment I’ll tell you about.

Nancy and Adriana were staying there in the hotel, and we’d been up to their room to drop off some bags (ahem) before dinner. We went back down in the elevator and exited into the lobby. It was swank. Nancy said, "Look at all this high-tech stuff! Virtual concierge!"

I looked over and saw that there was indeed a concierge desk, and behind it, up on the wall, was a huge TV screen with a woman’s face on it, who appeared to be looking into the room.

A computer-concierge! I thought that was just too nifty, so I literally ran up to the desk and smiled and waved at the computer image. It smiled and waved back! I said, "Hello!"

It said, "Hello. Can I help you?"

I turned around and said to my compatriots, "Look! She looks so real!"

"Can I help you?"

I goofed a little more, hoping to get the computer to echo my motions, like it had with the waving.

"Um, is there something I can do for you?"

It hit me suddenly, the ugly truth. "You’re real, aren’t you?"

"Yes, I’m real. What can I do for you?"

"Gahggh hrm abbat SEEYOULATERSORRY!"

And I ran away. She was real, and there had been a camera somewhere pointed at ME, so she could see ME, and I could see HER, and it wasn’t fancy-hi-tech computer-concierging, it was just a remote employee, and wasn’t that just like me? I wonder how many times that’s happened to her? I think it would be funny all the time, if I were her.

So. Stitches was great, and hello to all you sweeties who said hello, and then I went down south to the little mama’s house for the Oscars on Sunday night (Al Gore, you’ve never been more adorable) and had a great time with my sister Christy on the drive there and back, and this morning I woke up to find this in the backyard*:

How is THAT for a best-case scenario? It fell OVER the fence, but didn’t damage it, and the tree is just resting in our backyard. Must talk to the neighbors about that today, I suppose….

* In actuality, I didn’t wake to find that. I woke, opened the curtain to the window that looks out to the backyard, then decided it was stuffy, so opened the window itself, then went and let the dogs out onto this same porch, then let them back in. Then Lala called and said, "Look in the backyard," and I finally saw what had happened. I am not observant at all before I have caffeine.

I get to go! I wasn’t going to be able to go to Stitches West because of my work schedule, but a coworker is paying me back some time, and I’m leaving work at noon today, and I can be there by 1pm. I’m going to help out a bit in the spinning guild booth, and then wander! O joy! The party of my people!

Nowadays it’s not even about the yarn, not (that much) about the fiber — it’s about seeing friends and bloggers and friend-bloggers and hanging out.

I will remember to bring my camera, as it’s already in my spinning bag. However, I can only hope that I remember to TAKE pictures.

If you see me, say hi!

How did I miss this? Crochet/knit snark, mockumentary style. You MUST see it.

Almost-Flashdance.

That’s what it will always be called, in my mind. I told you a little about it — I tried it on for the first time and realized that I had bound off the neck four inches lower (and wider) than I should have?

And an off-the-shoulder gansey is not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very bad thing. It’s not in fashion here in the States, nor, I expect, is it in fashion anywhere in the world. And if it were, and I wanted to bring that trend here to Oakland, I would make a bad standard-bearer, because I’d be too busy clobbering all the folk who would be falling about in the streets in paroxysms of laughter to see me pass.

So, how did it come about, this near-miss? I have an orange sweater that I live in. I mean, almost every day I throw it on over whatever I’m wearing to ward off the chill. Wool is better than a sweatshirt ANY day. You know that. So it’s pilling and pulling, and it’s really only good for inside the house and I pray that the UPS guy drops-and-runs rather than requiring a signature, because no one but Lala and the dogs need to see me in this.

I wanted a new throw-on knock-about sweater. I chose a nice yarn, and decided to make it super simple. But I wanted a little bit of the guernsey about it, so I threw in some traditional patterns, lifted from Knitting in the Old Way. I chose three patterns I liked, and threw in a cable on either side of the main motif. (It is understood that this is not Traditional and therefore not a Gansey, but I call it my gansey in my mind, and that’s okay.)

It’s knit in the round to the armholes, then the sleeves are joined, and I made a simple raglan decrease every other round (and threw another cable in at the raglan line, for fun).

My problem came in that I THOUGHT I knew where to make a neck. Try it on first? What a silly thought! I didn’t, and got the almost-flashdance horror. Then, gunshy, I made a weird kind of turtleneck. Third time was the charm, and it’s now in the right place.  (And no, sadly, I wrote none of this down. But you could make up your own version! Off the shoulder for everyone!)

It’s a good knock-about. I can’t get a good color-match with our camera — it’s not periwinkle like this — it’s really a true lilac with a pink undertone. I love the color.

Specs:
Pattern: my own, inspired by Knitting in the Old Way
Yarn: Lang, Soft Shetland, 8 balls, 130m to each, color 701.0046/1057

(Bonus! Our camera has a nifty feature that lets you take ten pictures in a rapid-fire row, and then you get nifty shots like this one
. That makes me laugh.)

Sunday I was in a finishing frenzy, and kept digging things out to finish. Good at starting, good at doing, not so good at finishing. Hello, three unfinished but almost done novels, how are ya?

Let’s not talk about that, shall we?

So, knitting:

You’ve seen this before. Specifically, you’ve seen this back in 2004. Two thousand FOUR. Isn’t it 2007 now? I forget, but I think that’s right. She’s never, ever, ever been worn, except to take the finished picture (specs there) because I never put in the zipper.

Please. A zipper? I don’t even mind putting in zippers. I hate sewing, and it’s not that fun, but it’s satisfying to do by hand, because it ends up looking so neat. I decided I wanted to wear it Sunday, so I grabbed it and put in the zipper (which had been neatly folded inside the sweater for the past almost-three years. It’s not like I didn’t even HAVE a zipper, I did). And voila, Bob’s yer uncle:

The bottom ended up wanting to be scalloped because of the way the pockets pull, so instead of fighting that, I put the zipper in to accentuate it.

Love the pockets:

From the back:

I also had to finish the scarf that is so gorgeous I will wear it in summer. And I don’t even usually wear scarves, but I made it with Kyoto, which is the most stunning yarn in the universe, seriously. It absolutely glows, and it’s the softest stuff, and you must get some. I had some random balls lying around. I’ve never made anything with it, but when I go to ArtFibers, I usually end up walking out with one precious ball. Just because. And I’m glad I do that, because I got this:

I tried so hard to get a shot where you can see the yarn’s glow, and this is as close as I got:

I used Stephanie’s one-row scarf pattern, and I threw in stripes where I felt moved to do so. I swear, it was practically religious, and I usually hate knitting scarves. Highly recommended.

As if that weren’t enough fun, I finished up a baby sweater that had been done (as has the baby, as of last week) and only needed buttons and a bit of lace. I’d learned about the Ribbonerie last week (how did I not know?) and stumbled into the store, amazed. (I also stumbled out, as I happened upon their 10th anniversary sale, and as soon as I entered this amazing ribbon-wonderland, they pressed a glass of champagne into my willing little hands. Now, sitting in the sunlight, sorting through antique buttons and scraps of lace with champagne to hand? What could be better?)

I left the store with two old mother-of-pearl buttons and a half-yard of ribbon that was quite literally worth more than the sweater, but don’t they look nice together?

Specs: 5 hour baby sweater pattern, free (bootie pattern there, too)
Yarn: (Wait for it) Caron Simply Soft, color wine, NO DYE LOT. Gotta love machine washable.

Click HERE
for a detail of the embroidered white-on-white ribbon.

All right. I’m tired of typing, and I haven’t even shown you the new sweater, the one you’ve never seen a scrap of! That’ll come tomorrow because right now I have to go for a run. Or a Cadbury Creme Egg. Whichever comes first. The eternal question, isn’t it?