Rachael

I had eight hours off last night, got off at 11pm after a fourteen hour shift and I’m now back, at 7am for a twelve hour shift. I always forget that eight hours off doesn’t mean eight hours sleep. If you get off work and are asleep in bed in an hour, and get up one hour before you have to sit down at your terminal, you’re still only getting 6 hours. And who goes right to sleep like that? Not me, man. I’m thinking too many wild cashmere thoughts.

Like this, hanging in my bathroom:

That’s sin on a stick, baybee. It’s proving rather a pain in the ass to wind into balls. The swift and winder are ESSENTIAL, but it kind of sticks to itself on the swift, making the winding slow and tedious. It’ll be worth it, it’ll be worth it, it’ll be worth, I tell myself.

Of course, soon I’ll be spinning cashmere, I assume. My blog-friends are such freaking enablers. I love them, madly.

And one of them sent me a little treat not long ago, a glorious cone of some buttery yellow wool which I happily wound up into balls (I told someone the other day that I love winding so much that I’m about to wind the cat). Then I married it with a strand of the Paton’s Classic Wool in light natural that I used for the Must-Bolero and started working it into another Bucket-O-Chic (having given my blue one to Bethy–it looked way better on her).

I love the way this one turned out! BonneMarie ROCKS!

Now, for a full work day. I’m going to try to take it easy and hope the citizens are in happy, mellow moods. Yeah. Well, I’ll be in one, so that’s all that matters. Enjoy your day.

I have now officially gone crazy. You heard it here first.

Went to Marshalls with my friend Marama and found a little something. Okay, a big something. A big, cushy cashmere sweater, size men’s large. It was kind of gray/brown tweedy, and I LOVED it. I wore it around the store, begging Marama to tell me it was WAY too big for me.

– Nah, it’s all right.
– No, TELL me it’s too big.
– It’s kinda cute in that sloppy weekend way.
– I canNOT buy it.
– Fine. Don’t buy it, then.
– I HAVE to buy it.

Then I told her I was gonna buy it and rip it apart for the yarn. She looked at me like I had grown a third ear. But come on — it was huge, and the yarn itself was pretty heavy-gauge, as cashmere goes. Standing in the Marshalls aisle, I studied it: Looked to be about 6 thin plies, threads of gray, brown and a soft off-white. I examined the seams: It was made in pieces, not in the round, but I could see the seaming okay, and I thought I could do it. I figgered it would either be the best or the worst fifty bucks I had ever spent. (Fifty bucks! Imagine! At Marshalls! It had originally been two hundred, then marked to ninety-nine when it hit the discount store, and then another 50% off by the time I arrived. Meant to be, I tell you.)

Got home, and got nervous. So I tried it on.

Yep, a leetle big. Then I sat down and started snipping. Okay, ripping up sweaters is HARD. Especially when it’s fifty bucks of glorious cashmere. (Some people love it, some are ambivalent, but I am a cashmere whore. I mean it. It makes my stomach drop to touch the good stuff.)

I worked for about three hours on it and now it’s mostly in pieces and I managed to get one sleeve unravelled. I put it into a loose, curly skein using the swift, then wet the strands and hung them in the bathroom from a coat hanger, another coat hanger hung from the bottom (with a box of shower-curtain rings attached for weight.) When they’re dry, and straighter, I’m gonna wind them into balls.

Dude. Good thing I got that ballwinder and swift! (But if I hadn’t, I prolly wouldn’t have bought the sweater. Damn. Chicken or the egg?)

I hope it works I hope it works I hope it works. I want to make a nice, simple V-neck raglan, in this thick cashmere sin. Oh, yes. I’ll keep you posted.

And just for Friday fun, here’s where Adah slept last night. I didn’t have the heart to move her. It’s my overflow yarn basket, where I had thrown a couple of sweaters. And yes, that’s Indulgence to the left. Shhh.

P.S. Got some Imitrex from the doc yesterday for the migraines. Whoopee!

We put Bethany on the plane this morning. For those of you following her adventures, she’s my little sister (twenty-four, but I’ll call her Kiddo ‘til she’s eighty-two) and she’s out on the road, seeing the big ole country in her pickup truck named Tach. She left the truck in long-term parking in Atlanta in order to fly back for Christmas (which, you saw, was AWESOME) and now she’s back to the rambles. (Lord, I hope no one broke into her truck over the holiday. Cross your fingers for her….)

And you know how Mapquest is either really right or really wrong? Wrong this time, yep (I use Yahoo maps, myself). Got a leetle bit lost on our way to San Jose airport, but Bethany and I are so incredibly, overly fixated on being early that we managed to dump her curbside about two hours early. This was AFTER getting lost, and hitting a horrid snarl of traffic from a big accident, and two donuts each.

Here we is:

See, darling Greta? My sunglasses! Now, I’m home to play catch-up, all those things like bills and laundry that need to be done now that the fun is over…. (And a whole pile of yarn from the Boys needs to be swifted and ball-wound. Have I told you how much fun a swift and ball-winder are? Seriously, put a yarn purchase or two on hold and buy these things iffen you don’t already have them. When you get up to speed and the yarn is flying, FLYING, I tell you, onto the winder, it’s comparable to the feeling you get downhill skiing. Just for a second, but it’s there, I promise.)

Oh! Almost forgot: Go see The Station Agent. What a brilliant little jewel of a movie, enjoyable from the first moment to the last. Sigh. A good, wake-up-the-next-morning-and-think-Oh-That-Was-Nice-kind-of-movie. Enjoy.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for the comments on Orange Alert! Wore her last night to the movies, and she was warrrrmmmm…. (but not overly so, love Paton’s Classic Merino.)

Went to see Cold Mountain. Hmmm. I really don’t know how I feel about it, which is odd. I’m usually quite opinionated about movies (and lotsa other things, too, come to think of it). I enjoyed watching it. Mostly. I think. I remembered why I didn’t finish the book: It’s about WAR. I really hate war books and movies, ‘specially the ultra-realistic ones. This one had moments that saw me walking out of the theater.

(Didn’t tell my group this, but I left once during a particularly wrenching gonna-be-bloody-awful scene and came back after chatting with the candy people and washing my hands in the bathroom. And I couldn’t find my folks. I stood and stared at where I should have been sitting, but the group of four kicked back with their feet up on the railing in the front row were just too young. Shoulda been two guys and two gals, thirty-something range. The group I stared at was the same configuration, with a gap-seat for me where I should have been sitting, but they were all about nineteen. I TRIPPED for about three seconds. Then I giggled all the way back to my real seat down the hall in the right theater.)

It also had beautiful moments, incredible scenery (oh, Maggi, is that really North Carolina?), and truly stunning people (Jude AND Nicole? Perfect). Renee Zellweger, I have to admit, was amazing. I sat and actively enjoyed a great deal of it. Then I was grumpy upon leaving and remain rather ambivalent about it, and I’m still not sure why. Anyone seen it? Any thoughts?

Hey! More pop-culture:

Did you see Carrie’s arm-warmers on the Sex and the City premiere? Oh, my knit-gals are so cutting edge! Look:

Em’s:

Eve’s:

(And while we’re on the subject of her, Eve’s finished pretty-pretty Wave-Along, too!)

Of course, Carrie’s armers were blue camo fabric, but the sentiment is the same. She would have probably preferred hand-knit.

And I just have to address one of my comments. La Brainy says of Orange Alert: “What a great sweater! Is there any colour that DOESN’T look good on you? :)” Darling, please. It’s all in the digital camera. You have to know that for most pictures I post, I’ve taken at least ten more. You’re seeing the good stuff.

What you’re not seeing is this, where I appear to be addressing the spirit world. Or this, where I have lost my arms. Snort. Damn, every time I look at those I crack the hell up.

Last day with Bethany before we put her on the plane tomorrow…. Off to play!

https://rachaelherron.com/went_to_see_col/

A surefire way to beat those terrorism blues, I present to you Orange Alert.

A little closer:

And a detail :

It was meant to be a cardigan, but I like it so much that I think I’ll wear it like this a while, whatcha think? I can always steek it later…..

Specs:
Made with Paton’s Classic Merino in Paprika. It’s knitted in the round from the bottom up. I roughly used Bonne Marie’s rolled neckline from the Ribby Cardie and I stole those front cables right off my Must-Have. And the raglan decreases, although I’d like to take credit for them, are straight from a brilliant free pattern from Spelling Tuesday.

So basically, I didn’t make anything up myself. Nope. But I did the math and the measurements and there was never a pattern in front of me, for the first time EVER in sweaterland. I think of it like writing fiction: I know there’s nothing new under the sun, so it’s all in the way you put it together (and I made sure I borrowed only from free patterns and a pattern I had purchased myself). Nobody ever did THIS exact sweater before (and no one ever will — I thought I would remember to write everything down, but by the middle of the sweater I realized that I hadn’t been making notes. Sigh).

Yippee!

Bethany wrote the other day:

I have a serious question I need help with. How in hell does one make time to read every book out there, see every movie, watch at least a few of the less pathetic television shows (and some that are so pathetic it’s funny), knit a sweater every other week, cook gourmet dinners, find a mathematical equation to explain the platypus, make time for friends, and still find the time to fucking exercise?

Amen, sister. I’ve had several people ask me how I knit so fast. Here’s the ugly truth: I don’t really knit all that fast. I’m no Wendy, that’s fer sure. But you have to understand, I don’t clean my house much. I have those ceiling dust bunnies, you know the ones. I have no children. At present, I’m single, so I don’t even have to spend time keeping someone else happy. (That makes it sound bad, but you know what I mean. It’s nice to be happy with someone. But I REALLY like being happy with myself.) I work extended 10-14 hour shifts and get three days off a week. On my days off, I generally get about 6 or 7 hours of knitting time in — some morning knitting with some evening TV time later, or a whole afternoon of sitting around with the needles. And even on days I work, I can sneak some knitting time in around the phone calls when it’s not busy, and I get to knit with the TV or with a book until I go to bed. I do go out and play, sure, but what it comes down to is I knit a LOT. That’s it.

And it makes me happy. And not to sound too much like Mr. Rodgers, but hey. You do, too. Mwah.

Feeling much, much better today, and THANK YOU for all the well-wishes. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment on Thursday, which I promise I’ll keep, and I’m gonna march right in there ask for Imitrex (or Maxalt, whatever. Just give me somethin!). Yes, ma’am. Got faith in modern science? Shore do.

So I’ll fill you in a little more on what I didn’t feel like filling in yesterday — some more pictures! (Am I going overboard on pics? There are weeks when I hardly post any, when getting the camera out feels like a major pain in the ass, but when family’s all around for the holidays, it’s already out. So here y’are.)

Me in my new Bucket-O-Chic hat.

I *really* didn’t want to join the camp of Bucket Makers because I can’t wear hats. I have an enormous, man-sized head, and I look stoooopid in 99.99875% of hats. This one, while it does a little funny on me, kinda suits me. I’m so pleased, get this, that I’m gonna make another one!

And here’s a shot of Thursday night’s Knitting in the City group — no band played that night, so there was no one to shush us. And yay! Joanna came! (But no good pics of her came out….)

We did, however, get more than our share of gawkers, one man trailing a band of his downcast-eyed women who said that in his country all the women knitted all the day long, and they even made CLOTHES. We kinda pulled on our sweaters and said things like, “Yeah? Uh-huh.” He left happy that women were continuing the tradition. Ah, well. We do what we can.

Another man came up and said,
“Knitters. Jeesh. I have a highway patrol buddy and the other day he was following this woman who was KNITTING on the FREEWAY! She was weaving all over the road and not paying attention to anything. Can you believe that? She was KNITTING on the FREEWAY! He’s flashing his lights and whooping his siren, and she just keeps on knitting and driving! So my buddy gets on his car loudspeaker and says, ‘Pull over! Pull over!’ And the lady in the car just puts her head out the window and screams, ‘No, it’s a cardigan!'”

Kira didn’t think it was funny, but Beth and I liked it. Hee!

And here’s Nate, a Very Nice Guy, who comes to knitting and works on his beer cozies about once every three months. On Thursday he finished his second one! Round of applause, everyone. Here it is, wrapped around a beer glass instead of the bottle it’s intended for.

It takes a confident man to sit in a hip bar in SF with twelve knitting women, I tell you that. He’s a smart one, though. He knows it’s a chick-getter thing. The girls dig it.

Oh, and here’s my progress on the sweater I’m making up as I go along. I’m calling it, in honor of the current terrorism level, Orange Alert.

Actually, last night I finished it up. Kind of. It was totally meant to be a cardie. But I’m loving it as a pullover. (Hee! Pull over!) I may leave it as such for a while and steek it later (crocheted steeks here are the BEST). Pictures and talk about the process later, I promise. It was FUN to do.