Hurricane Sweater

I tell ya, this hurricane thing has been pretty crazy. Having grown up in California, I had no idea what to expect. On Monday--the day the fun was due to begin--I sat at the dog park giving Camper a pre-storm run as another friendly dog owner explained to me how in Florida, coconuts can literally fly off the trees and kill you during a hurricane! He advised me to get some nonperishable goods and stay inside. While we don't have coconuts here in Brooklyn, I decided we should listen to him.

The day went like this: rainy rainy rainy, wiiiindy, rainy. Then really fucking windy! Camper and I stood at the back door and watched our puny little fruit trees flop in the wind. (In fact, below is a really boring video I took of the yard which is only good for the very end when Camper growls at the wind.)

For the rest of the day, I ate all of the nonperishable food first, like I wasn't supposed to, and only on day three of not being able to go back to work have I started in on the lettuce and fruit. Our power stayed on. Our internet worked. My phone stopped being able to make or receive calls (much to my mother's dismay). I feverishly searched the internet for updates on what the hell was happening out there in Manhattan and beyond. I let Camper out now and then and was a thrilled to feel the wind pushing up against the glass door (you really had to put your shoulder into it if a big gust was blowing). Four stacked lawn chairs blew across our yard, and our big green party bucket (you know, the things you fill with ice and put your beers in) got crushed. RIP party bucket.

We fared pretty well. Others we know did not (and seeing as a lot of people still don't have power and lost absolutely irreplaceable belongings, they're still not doing well...and my heart goes out to them and my shower is open to them).

But if there was one bit of good news this week, it's that I made some major progress on Robb's sweater. That's right, it turns out that hurricanes provide the perfect conditions for marathon knitting. When I wasn't shoveling my face with cheese-laden snack foods, I was working row after row of Stockinette. What I'm holding in the photo above is not, in fact, knitted long johns, but the completed front and back of a cardigan!

(So you can understand it better, I have tried it on for you as it will eventually be worn. And from the back. Note that it will have arms and will not look like a hippie cape, as it does here.)

We're still a long way off from being done, but finishing the back put the wind in my sails. As many of you know, it's been nearly two years since I started this sweater--and I'm still not convinced that it will fit Robb, nor am I convinced it will look good on him--but progress is progress. The sweater is currently being blocked on my kitchen floor, pinned down to a bath towel, and when Robb gets home from work, it's try-on time! And then possible sewing up the sides time! And then picking up stitches for the arms time! It feels like a miracle.

In other news of astonishing amazement, I finished the first draft of the story I have been working on, and I'm sure I will have lots more to say on that topic soon. For now, I am basking in the unique glory that comes with saying you're going to do things and then doing them. Now, both the story and the sweater have a lot more work ahead of them (I guess you could say the story needs to be sewed up and have some arms added to it, too). But phase one? Complete!

Jess's Future Stylish Child

So you know how in my last blog post I went on and on about how focused I am right now? How I'm not really crafting all that much? How I'm only working on Robb's sweater and the writing of an epic story? Well, it turns out I'm having trouble keeping that focus. This is hardly a surprise.

Last night as Robb and I watched the debates, I knit his sweater furiously (literally...these debates make me tense!), working row after row of knit and then purl, knit and then purl, trying my hardest not to watch the expressions on the candidates' faces (I hate watching men smirk). After an hour of knitting, I threw the cardigan over Robb's shoulders to see how much further I have to go in the back. Five more inches, including the ribbing. It's getting there folks, it really is! I'm in the zone now. However, I'm a wee bit worried that my gauge was off and we're discussing our options (there might be some panels added to the sides, beneath the underarms--a knitting maneuver that scares me. What will that do to the armholes? What do I look like, a surgeon?) At one point I declared how great I'M going to look in this sweater once it's done, so the confidence level is clearly shaky. We shall see, folks, we shall see...

In the meantime, I keep finding things that I want to knit (but can't yet) for my dear friend Jess's future stylish child. Jess is incredibly fashionable, and she's having a girl, so it only follows suit that this girl will be fashionable. (Though I'm sure that's what they all said about Chastity Bono when she was born, and that apple fell pretty far from Cher's fashion tree...which is probably a good thing.) Well, we'll have a few years of dressing Jess's little girl up before she starts forming opinions. But I MUST finish Robb's sweater before I cast on another. Really, it's imperative.

In the meantime, I'm dreaming of this little potato sack sweater. I found the inspiration on Pinterest and followed the link to this fabulous Finnish blog. I have no idea what she's saying--or if there are actual instructions on how to knit the sweater--but it's so simple, so straightforward, so timeless, I really think I could make it up. (Famous last words, I know.) I mean, it's all garter stitch! And it's chunky as all get out, which means speedy results! And it's for a baby, so no shaping! Plus that little color-blocked tummy just kills me. I think I'd avoid the hood as that just seems like I'd be asking for trouble (especially since I'm talking about making up my own pattern).

After I sketched out the potato sack above, I started thinking I might prefer an A-line sweater for this little girl. I do suspect, after all, that she's going to be very girly. Though for a baby sweater, the lines might get lost (she's not gonna do a whole lot of strolling for a while, right?). So maybe the A-line comes for her first or second birthday. I picture it with goloshes. Don't you think? So I guess I really am saving this one for a rainy day...

Frida's Ensemble

In early June, Megan had a baby, and though I didn't get to meet little Miss Frida until early August, I already knew how much I would love watching her grow up. And how much I would love watching Megan grow up, too.

When I first met Megan, she was 27-years-old and had just returned from a many-months-long trip to Europe. Both wordly and world-worn, she came home to San Francisco to find that her best friend Mark had started dating a 23-year-old SoCal transplant (me). The first time Megan and I met, we huddled together in Mark's bedroom amidst a thick layer of cigarette smoke, surely listening to whatever the newest release from Bloodshoot Records was that day. We instantly became very good friends, not unlike the easy way that children make friends when they are young. Without overthinking, without wondering if the enthusiasm is shared, without wondering if you can trust your secrets, or if you're oversharing. The joy of making a lifelong friend is an instantaneous thrill, and ten years later, I'm not surprised to see the bond is still going strong.

 

In the month leading up to Frida's birth, I knit furiously and thought about who Megan would be now, what her life would look like with a child in tow, and how lucky Frida was to be born into the world of such a strong, interesting woman. I guess you could say I knit my good intentions into it, though Megan reports that they keep finding strands of my long blonde hair knitted into the fabric, so I guess you could say I knitted more than just my intentions into it? (For those with hair phobias, sorry...I know that's sort of gross. We find it funny.)

Because Megan is passionate about hot pink (and most bright colors for that matter), I figured that Frida would not be a pastel baby. But she also would not be a carbon copy of her mother...it just couldn't be so. For Frida, I chose this deeper pink, a vibrant fuchsia...let's go ahead and call it hot plum. And because she will be a San Franciscan and a German (her father is from Berlin), she will need a hood to get her through the damp winters, and she might as well start getting used to wool now. (Superwash, of course...I'm not insane.)

Soon enough I realized that it had to become an outfit, and so I whipped up this amazingly fast and satisfying baby kimono from Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing. An old tablecloth and a few yards of bias tape and we had ourselves a matching set. (For those crafty types who need a last-minute killer baby shower gift, I highly recommend.)

Before I mailed the package off to a yet-to-be-born Frida, I did what I always do with baby clothes: modeled them on my old teddy bear. (The effect is a bit creepy, but you get the point.)

Personally, I think Frida is a far cuter model. And in Megan's always excellent fashion opinion, red and hot plum do go together. I'm so glad that I made the sweater in the bigger size, so she can wear it with the super long sleeves rolled up now and still be wearing it this winter as she grows. (For those who are interested, the sweater pattern is called the Audrey Hoodie, and it's from the fabulous book Vintage Baby Knits by Kristen Rengren!)

As for meeting Frida? Words sort of can't explain. It's funny how when you meet the baby of an acquaintance, you might feel tentative and not exactly melt into a puddle from the cuteness. Hell, you might even think the child looks like a squirming alien. But when you meet your best friend's baby, you go straight over to her and grab her little hands. You find yourself holding her and bouncing around and singing a little song that you just made up, and you stare and wonder and catch glimpses of your friends' expressions in her furrowed brow. Honestly, it felt like I was meeting a person who  already knows the punchline, who already knows the stories, who is already in the club, even though she has yet to learn any of it. She will. After all, she's one of us girls now.

Welcome, Frida

Oh friends, my heart is full of joy today. You see, it's not every day that one of your best friends in the whole world gives birth to her daughter. It is a special day indeed. I knew it would be special, but I didn't think I would, say, burst into tears upon seeing her photo pop up on my phone. It's amazing what energy a little life brings into the world, no?

And so, you see, little Frida is the only thing I could possibly write about on my blog tonight. There is, in fact, a little ensemble that I made for her--a little bit sewn and a little bit knitted and just a wee bit crocheted--but I'm not sure yet if the package arrived, so until I know, I'll just give you a glimpse. Sort of like the tiny little photo that popped up on my phone today...it's just a taste of what's to come.

Since I can't be in San Francisco to gaze upon her in wonder, I spent some time today on the subway, in a moment of fitful happiness, gazing upon her from afar. Oh, but I can't wait to meet her.

June 18, 2012
Welcome, Frida. The world is already better for your existence. Megan is better for your existence. And our lives will never be the same. Nor should they. With you, our homes feel different. Our future takes a turn towards a life filled with lawns, and twirling. We can all see it, this life. I hope that in the years to come, I will walk into your house without knocking and you will give me a casual hello while you color, that our lives are just that normal. And over dinner one night, you will proudly announce that you love artichokes, and I will say I do too, and we will plan on having an artichoke eating contest someday. I hope that we talk about your bullies and your boyfriends. That I teach you how to knit one summer on a day when it rains. That we give you stories to tell your friends later in life about your amazing mama and her kooky, drunk friends. And that you, someday, might have a gang of kooky friends of your own.

Thank you, Frida, for arriving.

Meet Hot Lips (the Knitted T-Rex)

So I don't know if you all remember, because it was SO LONG AGO that I hardly remember, but do you recall when I decided that I was going to knit a dinosaur from the appropriately named book Knitted Dinosaurs? I actually went so far as to ask all of you which dinosaur you wanted me to make, and based on your votes (and the votes of your children and dogs), I decided to make the T-Rex!

Folks, this was so long ago that there were leaves on the trees, and they were turning pretty colors. Want proof? This is a photo I took from the window aboard the Amtrak train as I rode up to Rhinecliff to go to the Sheep and Wool Festival. See? Leaves!

And here is the dinosaur's tail, which I knitted on the train whilst sipping coffee. (Actually, looking back on this, I can't think of a more idyllic way to spend a Sunday morning...)

Not long after the Sheep and Wool Festival, I actually finished knitting all of the components that make up a knitted dinosaur. These include (clockwise from top): a body that, unstuffed, looks like a snake with a crocodile head, a mouth that turned out to be way too large, two tiny useless forearms, a couple of legs, a couple of of foot pads, and in the middle, a spiky ridge to run down the middle of his back.

Over the course of another week or so, I sewed the whole thing together, attaching this to that, stuffing each little limb, and weaving in all of the tails. I must say, sewing a dinosaur together is a bit less romantic than knitting him on a train while admiring fall foliage. But he came together really nicely (except for maybe that giant mouth.)

My roadblock came right before Thanksgiving, and it was so stupid I can't even stand it: I didn't have any felt for the teeth and the eyes. That was it. That was the ENTIRE roadblock. And so my poor dinosaur sat there fully assembled for months, with no eyes and no teeth. He was basically soulless.

Want to know how long it took me to fix this problem? FOUR MONTHS. God, that is so embarrassing. I know that I've been talking about this theme a lot recently, but why do I leave so many things right on the verge of completion? Here's what I'm thinking: This is the year that I attend a special month-long workshop held by, like, Oprah Winfrey, and my yoga teacher I loved so much in San Francisco, and maybe my mom, and possibly a life coach, and when I emerge from this workshop, I will be a person who actually completes things in a reasonable amount of time. Or, you know, doesn't start things until the other things are finished. Or, you know, become a perfect person.

Yup, totally gonna happen. I'll go call Oprah right now.

OK, my quest for perfection may be a bit unrealistic. What I should be focusing on is this: I finished the damn dinosaur. I had to walk seven blocks to buy the felt, and then it took one whole hour to cut out his felt teeth and eyes and sew them on. And now, I present to you: Hot Lips Houlihan the T-Rex!

So about that mouth...this is what I was talking about when I said it turned out a little, um, large. (I used a different yarn at a slightly smaller gauge and wow does that make a difference...well, now we know.) 

You'll notice, too, that his entire body is actually a little large--18 inches nose to tail! In fact, to show you just how large he is, I posed him next to a toy dinosaur that I've had for years and years. Not that this comparison will be helpful at all for anyone who hasn't seen the toy dinosaur before. OK, maybe I just wanted to take a picture of them together because I thought it was cute. So sue me!

For similar reasons of cuteness, I also decided to take pictures of Hot Lips eating the smaller T-Rex as he tries to run away.

And then they became friends.

Epilogue: After giving it some thought, I don't actually think that Robb and I need a stuffed dinosaur in our house. And so, pretty soon, he will be leaving his little buddy to go join a yet-to-be-born baby. (I can't tell you who yet. But if you are pregnant and you are a friend of mine, you might be in the running. But don't get your hopes up, because it might not be you.)

Let's hope that Hot Lips brings years of joy and fun to this little baby, and that his giant teeth and mouth don't scare the crap out of the child and scar him/her for life. Yay!

In the meantime, thank you, friends, for participating in the making of this dinosaur! I hope it was all well worth the wait.

One-by-One Rib

Last week, somewhere in the sky above the midwest, I fell a little bit in love with one-by-one rib.  I had been furiously "making" things for weeks and weeks--peppermint bark, gift-buying lists, books, blog posts, HeyAllday Bags, trips to the post office, trips to the dog park--and I realized I had not spent a lot of time doing what I truly wanted to be doing. Relaxing. Enjoying the sensation of coming inside from the cold. Icy beers with friends. And I have been lacking a fraction of the dimension required to do what I have really been wanting to be doing these days: write. It was in the air, in a janky Spirit Airlines jet, that I began to make a new winter hat for Robb, and I found a fraction of an eighth of this space.

You see, I'm a knit girl, not a purl girl. I like to work round after round of mindless Stockinette without even looking down, then suddenly look at my hands to see that I've knit an inch or two. So I was a bit chagrined to discover that the hat I wanted to make was worked in 1x1 rib--one knit, one purl, over and over again, for what feels like the rest of your life. It's that bring the yarn forward, bring the yarn back thing that really slows you down and ruins the flow of the movement. There I was, on an airplane, in what was probably the first two hour stretch of non-rushed time I had experienced in a month, and I was concerned about speed. (Note: This irony did not occur to me until much later. I think we hardly ever realize, in the moment, when we are being ridiculous.) I slogged through the first few rounds of this hat, begrudgingly noting how smooth the merino was (it's Berroco Pure Merino). By round five, the fabric had started to double in on itself in that way that ribbing does, where the purl columns get hidden beneath the dense squish of knits. The fabric takes on a quality that I can only describe as "sproingy," and it just gets better and better with ever round. Denser, sproingier, squishier, cozier. Soon enough I realized that I could not put it down, and it wasn't because I wanted to be finished, but because I was fascinated by what I was making. I did not listen to music, I didn't talk to a soul, I didn't think about the people in the neighboring seats. I may not have even had a sip of water.

Enough has been said on the topic of knitting being a meditative activity, so I won't bore you with further description of my trancelike state. (Nor will I pretend that knitting this hat solved any of my problems or removed any of the knots in my shoulders--in fact, it probably introduced a few.) But having two hours to focus exclusively on something so delectably simple and repetitive was a necessary transition for my brain.

I'm sure at this point you're becoming scared that this blog post will get too serious, and so to assuage your fears I felt I should probably include this photo of Robb trying on his hat. Almost there!

And now, it's New Year's Eve. I'm decreasing the crown. I'm writing this blog post. We've taken the dog to the dog park every day since we've been home (sometimes twice!). We've seen our friends. We've watched really bad movies (including Mannequin and Christine). We've napped, we've slept in, we've eaten pizza three times this week. In essence, we've slowed down and enjoyed some peace, preparing ourselves for this new year. For its challenges, transitions, discomforts, and excellent successes. I've been asking myself today, what have I done this year? And aside from some obvious things that were pretty exciting (A promotion at work! A puppy at home! The creation of the Modern Carpet Bag!), I can't help but feel that this has been one of those years that sets you up for other years. Let's call it a stepping stone year.

I will tell you a secret: I write this blog so that I will keep writing. One of my authors asked me recently, in all seriousness, what book are you going to write? And I was a little surprised to find that she asked. And I was even more surprised to find that I didn't know. I do love crafting. Would it be a craft book? Probably not exactly, though I'm not ruling it out. What I do know is this: I like to write about life--both the awful and the hilarious--and that is what this eventual book will be. This blog, in its own peculiar way, is me practicing. I hope you like my drafts.

And to that author who asked me what book I will write, thank you for taking me seriously.

Nancy Drew Book Review

I have to be honest. It has taken me DAYS to write this book review because I have just been too excited about my Nancy Drew book and haven't known where to begin. From the moment I opened it up and felt that vintage yellow spine sort of crack, a thrill ran through me. And every time Bess made a declaration about what she was going to eat or Nancy made an unheartfelt observation about a victim, I was so tempted to underline the text, and yet, I felt like I needed to keep my copy pristine for the next reader. It's just. So. Good.

So here's how Nancy Drew re-entered my life. Last June, my sister and I descended upon our parents house to help them clean it out. You see, they're moving for the first time in 32 years, and we had a lot of crap to sift through in order to dig them out of there. (Not that they're hoarders or anything. You just, you know, accumulate a lot of stuff over the course of 32 years.) One of the discoveries we made was a giant box full of old hardback Nancy Drews. I believe that somebody, maybe my grandmother, bought these for me and my sister when we were kids. But truth be told, I never really got into Nancy Drew. I remember reading a couple here or there, but I was always much more interested in what the Wakefield Twins were up to over at Sweet Valley High. (I mean, they were getting felt up and going on motorcycle rides with bad boys and getting into accidents and falling into comas...Sweet Valley was pretty enthralling for a 13 year old girl.)

So when we found the box of Nancy Drews, me and my mom and my sister all kind of sighed. Oh Nancy, we thought, why do you have to be so boring? We felt bad that we had never really read the Nancy Drews and we kind of knew deep down that Mom was going to donate them to Goodwill, so we each took one and promised to read it. I chose The Clue of the Broken Locket.

Reading a Nancy Drew book as a 34 year old woman in the year 2011 is sort of a strange experience. As you read the book, you find yourself wondering what "ladies hiking shoes" looked like in 1965. Or how long it took for Nancy to re-do her titian coif after getting dunked in the lake when mean old Mr. Driscoll drilled holes in her canoe to keep her from her "nosy sleuthing." One hour? Two hours? Did she have to sleep in rollers? One of my favorite would-never-happen-in-2011 oddities is when the girls' boyfriends come out to visit them at Misty Lake (where they are sleuthing) so that they can go see a groovy band, The Flying Dutchman, play a show--but the boys aren't allowed to stay at the cottage with the girls. Even though the girls have, at this point, been physically attacked not once, but twice (both times with logs and rocks hurled at their heads, knocking them out), had their cottage broken into and their possessions wrecked, and Nancy has been kidnapped and escaped. But no, the boys are going to stay at Mrs. Hodgkins lodge up the way. For the sake of modesty. "Goodnight, girls! Good luck fighting off your attackers!"

But other than these little societal oddities that we modern ladies might find amusing, the stories are pretty darn enjoyable, and the mysteries are pretty well unraveled. Note that author Carolyn Keene doesn't mess with things like emotions or descriptions of scenery or clothing. She makes sure that Nancy sticks to the facts--who cares how Nancy feels about Ned Nickerson (or if, in fact, he feels emasculated by Nancy's line of work?). Nancy, after all,  only has a mind for clues and evidence--nothing else matters when she's on the case. Except there is one odd thing that happens throughout the book: I am fairly certain that every single meal is reported, and it is usually reported by her best friend, Bess, who is introduced to us as "a pretty blonde, inclined to be overweight." I swear to you, if Bess opens her mouth at all in the book, it's either to talk about food, or to put food into it. One of her first lines in the book really gave me insight into her character and her near-constant fear of running out of food: "We don't know a thing about how good the food is in Misty Lake. Why don't we stop for an early supper?...Look! The sign says fresh broiled lobster. Mmm!"

Other than Bess's hunger, I suspect that Carolyn Keene used meals as a way to help the reader understand the passage of time. As in, "two hamburgers, a bowl of tomato soup, and a pecan pie later, Nancy decided to investigate the grounds of Pudding Stone Lodge once more."

Needless to say, reading this book made ME awfully hungry. I knew I was really invested in the book when I found myself one Saturday reading the book in bed, in my pajamas, while eating macaroni and cheese. Delicious!

Some other interesting observations about Nancy: she really is rather unfeeling. And this was, in fact, one of the only places where I did write a note in my book because I was laughing SO HARD. It's at the end of the book [SPOILER ALERT: She solves the mystery], and they finally find the woman who has been held prisoner inside of Pudding Stone Lodge--this woman's children, in fact, have been held captive by the villains, who are training them to perform in the circus!--and the woman is now free and reunited with her children. She has literally been free for 15 minutes when Nancy says "Sit down, Susan, and clear up a few more puzzles for us," and she goes on to ask her a million questions about the clues so that she can tie up her mystery. As a reader, I'm thinking, Nancy, this woman has been locked in the cellar for a year! Show some tact! Have you even offered her a glass of water?

Ok, in looking back at what I've written, I've come to realize that this is less of a "book review" and more of a "Nancy Drew in general" review. But the point is this, if you like campy writing, and you like Scooby-Doo style mysteries (this one even included a phantom boat!), you should really pick yourself up a Nancy Drew mystery. I guarantee that you will be telling all of your friends about the insane things that Nancy and her friends eat, and thinking to yourself "No, Nancy, don't break open the antique clock in order to search for a clue...it's probably valuable! And it's not your property! And...oof...too late." The books are all worth reading. In fact, my sister and I are desperate to know what happened to the rest of the books in the box at my parents' house! Perhaps we need to hire Nancy Drew to track them down at the local Goodwill?

And now, you're probably all wondering, what on earth does Nancy Drew have to do with crafting? The answer is this: very little! EXCEPT for the fact that I realized recently that one of the photos in an STC Craft knitting book, My Grandmother's Knitting, has a photo of a very pretty girl in a very pretty sweater reading THE VERY SAME Nancy Drew book. Other than that, there is absolutely no connection to craft.

A Woman of Many (Ridiculous) Hats

As I may have mentioned before on this blog, my absolute favorite thing to knit are hats. You see, you can make them so FAST. Each one is just a little noggin warmer, after all--a couple hundred yards of yarn, give or take--and if you get real compulsive, you can knock one out in a night. In fact, the first hat I ever made was a pink and red crocheted cap that I started making at around 9pm and finished at 4 o'clock in the morning...I was so enthralled by what I was doing, I don't even think I got up to pee. When I was finally done with the hat, I plopped it on top of my head with the tail still hanging down from the middle and ran to the bathroom, realizing somewhere along the way that I had probably done permanent wrist damage....but no matter! I had made a HAT! A glorious girly hat! (And because I'm sure you're distracted by the giant beard in the photo above, I will tell you that this beard belongs to my lovely friend and former bandmate, Marc...he just happens to be in one of the only photos I have of this illustrious hat, circa 2004, San Francisco. Lucky Marc!)

It was just this last week, however--when I sold the Big Kiss Blue Hat (shown above) to a dear friend--that I realized my choice in hats might verge on the ridiculous. And that it maybe wasn't just an isolated incident or two. It seems that, more often than not, my hats turn out a little crazy!

Case in point: the hat shown above is probably the most normal hat I've ever made. I literally call this pattern my "One-Hour Hat" because you can make it so quickly (btw, it's more like two hours...I like to lie to myself when knitting). I made it with bulky Blue Sky Alpacas yarn that I had left over, and while it's a wee bit sporty with the stripes, it's cute, warm, and not too freaky-deeky. A couple months after I made this hat, I went to make another one in the blue yarn I used for the Big Kiss hat. I "thought" I was creating a crown just like I did in the One-Hour Hat, but as it turns out, I was making a spiral. A biiiiiig spiral. One that started out nice and wide and just kept on going. By the time I figured out I was making a wizard hat, it was too late to turn back. (I mean, you can always turn back, but honestly, I was kind of thrilled by what I had done!) I quickly realized that I loved the hat, but it was not "for me," so I put it up in my Etsy shop, where Sara snatched it up like the smart girl she is and wears it proudly!

Now, the reason why I think the elfin cone incident happened is because between the One-Hour Hat and the Big Kiss hat, I made this hat above, which DOES utilize a nifty swirl decrease to shape the top. However, in a beret-like situation, you CAN start out with a zillion stitches and do a slow spiral decrease and not create a "point." (Just in case you're wondering, and I know you are, this "slow spiral" I speak of is where you decide to decrease and you, say, *knit 9 stitches, knit 2 together* all the way around, then knit a plain round; then on the next round you *knit 8 stitches, knit 2 together* all the way around, then knit a plain round; and you keep decreasing like this until you have only a few stitches left.) OK, but do you notice something funny about this grey beret? It's huge. HUGE! And that's after I felted it to make it smaller.

Which leads me to my next problem: I hate making gauge swatches when I make hats.

Which is what happened with this hat. This was supposed to be a BERET. Let this be a lesson to all of us about the importance of gauge.

There have also been hats that I just knit too long, like this one from Modern Top-Down Knitting which was supposed to be a cute hip hat (like it is in the book!), but somehow turned into more of a flying nun type of situation. (Or, if I knit it in yellow and unrolled the brim, I could look like a Gorton's Fisherman ad.) 

(Total sidenote: doesn't this guy also look a lot like the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World"? Could it BE?)

Believe it or not, the Flying Nun/Gorton's Fisherman hat is not even the weirdest bonnet I've made. The question is not "why did I make a bonnet with bear ears"--oh no, the pattern itself is cute (it's from Stitch 'n' Bitch Nation). The question is "why did I make it using that gross pubic-looking yarn?" Needless to say, this one hasn't been worn out a lot in Brooklyn. Not even on Halloween. And yet...I can't seem to part with it.

Ok, ok, there have been a few winners, too. Like this Sunflower Beret that I made from Knitting Nature. It was a mother of a stitch pattern on the top, but it FITS and it is hands down one of my favorite winter staples and it really does keep me warm and goes with everything.

(Here it is from the back...look at all that fancy stuff!)

And then there's the "suit of armor" hat. Knit up in a yummy natural-colored alpaca, it is soft as can be and drapes beautifully, though it also sort of drapes into my eyes every now and then too.

And so I added a giant pom-pom, which keeps the hat sliding down the back instead of down the front.

But I swear to you, I am still searching for the perfect handmade hat. Even with so many hat patterns available and so many hats already in my collection, I still feel like I could make fifteen more and not be done. Knitters: if you have a favorite hat pattern that you love to make, please do share in the comments! I will love you forever. Non-knitters: you may proceed to make fun of me and my hats now.

Dino Help!

Hi, I'm Ankylosaurus. I like plants, crawling, and hitting things with my big spiky tail.

Friends, I have to admit something. I have not been able to stop thinking about these Knitted Dinosaurs! Every time I see a photo of one I start thinking about how I want to make one. They're pretty small...how long could it take? Four hours? Five? That's just one big knitting evening really. Or...one train ride up to Rhinebeck for the Sheep and Wool Festival, which I happen to be going to this weekend. Hmm...knitting a dinosaur on the Amtrak train at 7am on a Sunday going to a knitting festival? Why that sounds great!

The problem is this. Which one do I knit!!!??? I need help. I love them all too too much. Here are a few of the ones that I can't stop thinking about. Will you please leave a comment and tell me which one to make? Thank you very much. 

Hey there, I'm T-Rex! I have a reputation for being pretty violent, but I actually have a heart of gold. I also have 60 teeth.

Hi guys, I'm Diplodocus. I like hugs.

I'm Plesiosaur! Just wanted to poke my head up out of the water to say hello. I'm really into seafood, and I love to dance. Just kidding, I swim.

Baby Sweaters and Bears

Much to Robb's dismay, I decided to embark on making a baby sweater for a friend a few weeks ago. You see, Robb's sad that I haven't finished his man sweater (and truth be told, I'm sad I haven't finished it either!) I did that thing where you can't decide how you want to work a section--should I give it side seams or just work it back and forth? But isn't it a tad feminine to not have seams? Doesn't a big burly man sweater need big burly seams? And so, even though I'm working his cardigan top-down and seamless knitting is the big perk of that construction, I stalled beneath the armpits for months, not sure what do do.

Alas, I have decided on a seaming route, and now I am back on track! But first, I had this cute little baby sweater to make. It's the Easy Baby Cardigan from More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, and it's in the 4-to-6 hour gift chapter, which translates to one bad TBS movie starring Salma Hayek, two episodes of Antiques Roadshow, and approximately four episodes of Pawn Stars (yup, my TV viewing choices = nerd alert.)

But this sweater isn't just for any baby! It's for my lovely coworker Natalie's baby. And guess what? This child is going to be born into Pickle Royalty! (She's married to Bob McClure of McClure's Pickles, which I will always think is the coolest thing. Think about it! Free delicious pickles for life!)

Right after I finished sewing the buttons on this sweater, I found myself thinking, hmm...this is really tiny. Are babies really this tiny? I decided that I simply had to trust my gauge and that author Joelle Hoverson and tech editor Sue McCain know how to size a pattern (which believe me, they do.) All the same, I felt the need to try it on something, just to see how it fit. Which is how my old, beloved teddy bear Smokey wound up wearing the sweater. Of course, I had the curtains wide open so I could get good light for the photo, and this happened to be the exact moment that our upstairs neighbor walked outside to take out his recycling. And since we're on the first floor, well, he got a nice, good look at me--the 33-year old woman holding a bear in a sweater with a camera around her neck. I bet that didn't look too creepy.

Anywho, the point of the matter is this: knitting something for an amazingly lovely person who is about to give birth to what will surely be an amazingly lovely baby is a really good feeling. Especially if you knit it in machine-washable merino yarn.

And now that I'm done, I'm ready to commit to Robb's man sweater! I think I need to set myself a goal...can I have it finished by the end of October? That's a lot of bad movies I'd need to watch between now and then, but oh, it would look awfully good in a pumpkin patch...

Technology Crafts & Lace Knitting

So, a couple of months ago, Robb and I decided we wanted to throw an engagement party/barbecue for our friends Jess and Ryan. (Which is the occasion for which I made the individual ice cream cupcakes with homemade magic shell!). When it came time to create an e-vite, I trolled both of their Facebook pages looking desperately for a photo to include in which they are both eating hot dogs or hamburgers, a chicken wing, anything! But alas, there were no photos of them eating a thing. (Well, there's one of Jess eating bacon at bruch, but I thought that wasn't quite right.) So instead I decided I had to craft my own photo of them eating said barbecued foods. I found the prettiest picture of them I could--at our wedding, in fact, with golden light behind them--and I somehow figured out how to cut and paste a hot dog and a hamburger over their mouths. It looks, in a word, terrible. But I was delighted to have learned how to do something so lame and fun using basic Mac software (i.e. Preview).

Electrified by the possibilities that this new "technology" had to offer, I went wild looking for things that I could annotate, manipulate, or otherwise deface. One of my first practice rounds with arrows and annotations was this photo above, in which I wanted to point out how frumpy my butt looks in these particular cut-off shorts. (Here, all this time, I had been thinking that I had this cute little Daisy Duke butt...nah ah...these shorts are sad little droopers.)

But the REAL benefit of learning how to include annotations on photos is so that I can point things out to you people on this here blog, using precise arrows rather than elusive descriptions. How else, for instance, would I explain to you the mistakes that I made in the Feather Mitts that I knitted recently? These are from a book I edited, Loop-D-Loop Lace, and they were so so so much fun to make. A little bit challenging, but really quick. I finished nearly one whole mitt, in fact, while at jury duty. But it's funny how we learn as we knit. The one on the right is the one I made first, and you can literally see my learning curve. The picot stitch at the bottom (that's the pretty ruffled part) is made by purling the stitch on your needle together with the cast-on stitch several rows below. It's sort of hard to get the hang of at first, and I never know which loop to put my needle through when I'm picking up stitches, so I wound up with this seam line where you can see the pick-up. Note that in the second mitt, however, I'd figured out how to do it...it's seamless!

And then, about 16 rows into the stitch pattern on the first mitt, you can see where I lost count about halfway through the row. (I was watching the Stonewall Uprising documentary on PBS--so good!--and I totally forgot what I was doing.) I looked down about two rows later and realized that my lovely feather-and-trellis stitch pattern was a little more wavy-gravy than feathery-trellisy. While many knitters would go back and fix this problem, I am not one of those knitters. Believe it or not, ripping out lacework is NOT my favorite activity. And so, when I sew up these mitts, I do believe that I'll just wear wavy-gravy on the palm side and flaunt my more polished patterns on the back.

Now aren't you glad I figured out how to use annotations and arrows in Preview? Otherwise, you may never have had this chance to judge me. And my frumpy butt.

Stroll Down Memory Highway

Friends! I feel like I've been gone for a million years. But for those of you in the knitting world, you'll be happy to know that I was up to something good. As you may or may not know, we are doing a third book in the Custom Knits series with Wendy Bernard (the second book comes out in October!), and I got to join our amazing LA crew for the photo shoot. And here's a fun fact: Did you know that Wendy and I both grew up in the same town and went to the same high school? In fact, she lives in the same neighborhood where my parents live! So Wendy was kind enough to pick me up at my parent's house and drive me to the shoot each day. (Like a typical non-driving New Yorker, my driver's license expired months ago and I only just recently noticed.)

So, while the days were long and the knits were plentiful, the shoot days were very fun. The crew was incredibly talented and easy-going, the weather was wonderful, and we got to do things like go out on a sailboat (praying that the amazing bikini-clad model wouldn't fall into the ocean and/or get hypothermia...it was chilly out there!)

At nights and on the weekend, however, was the really hard work. And it had nothing to do with knitting. See, my parents got this idea in their head about six months ago that they are ready to retire and move to the mountains. So, as of this August, our lovely suburban house of 32 years will go up for sale. And in the meantime, my parents have had 32 years worth of renovations to do. And last week, my sister and I had 32 years of crap to sift through. Exhibit A: This box.

Do you know what's in this box? This box alone contained every single note that I received between 7th and 9th grade. That's right, this doesn't even cover the rest of high school. That's every little "hey chica, what's up?" Every love letter. Every "this class is SO lame." Every letter I ever wrote in a fury and never sent. Many of them were still folded up in that intricate origami style favored by tweens and teens...why did we do that anyway? For the convenience of passing the note in class? Did we have an obsession with pull tabs? Is it because they're the perfect size for fitting in your back jeans pocket? There were thousands THOUSANDS of these notes, and while I didn't read every single one, I did at least take a look at each one. Some were saved for further investigation and for inflicting humiliation on friends. Most were tossed. (I may look like a hoarder, but I swear I'm not!)

Some gems popped up, like an elementary school classmate's headshots. (Nice Don Johnson, Andy!)

 

Diaries were read aloud to the amusement of the whole family. A particular favorite was this entry from Erin which reads, "Dear Diary, I've got to do it. HANDS ACROSS USA!"

My "We Are the World" record resurfaced...!

As did my beloved Ramona Quimby and the Sweet Pickles gang.

 

(Do you remember these awesome endpapers???)

 

Of course my favorite literary find was not the vintage Nancy Drews, but...you guessed it: my Sweet Valley High books. Oh those Wakefield twins! You were so slutty and unlikable, but I just couldn't stop reading about your lives!!

And here I feel a need to put a special spotlight on book #6, titled "All Night Long", in which Jessica apparently dates a mustachioed gay man. Was this really what we thought of when we thought of "bad boys" in the '80s?

 

We found ugly earrings from the '80s...slick gobs of plastic molded into geometric shapes.

And heart-shaped earrings with hearts in them for me. What every 5th grader wants to wear, clearly!

 

We found Raggedy Ann, whose pants refused to stay up. (Much to our hilarity.) 

Aunt Ginny came over on Saturday afternoon and we pulled out the Barbie trunk, which contains about 5 mutilated Barbies, 2 cross-dressed Kens (we never had any boy clothes for them other than those blue swim shorts!), and Barbie clothes that spanned several decades. You see, my mom and aunt used to play with Barbies, too, and their grandmother made clothes for the Barbies, including several of the ones shown below. 

Just look at this sweet little dress!

While mom and Aunt Ginny got nostalgic about their childhood, Erin and I confessed to having a special place in our hearts for the Barbie clothes of the '70s and '80s. We definitely preferred the Star Search "spokesmodel" gowns and sparkly bell bottoms when it came to Barbie's wardrobe.

Last but not least, we had to deal with the dolls. Not Barbies, mind you, but our Great Grandma Neva's collection of international dolls. Neva had many interests in her life, but one of her greatest passions was collecting dolls from around the world. Some were bought at Buffums, while others were made in remote villages in countries far far away and brought home for her by traveling friends. And since she passed away 30 years ago, my mom has kept the dolls boxed up in the rafters of the garage. Every few years when we were growing up, Erin and I would beg her to get out the boxes so that we could unwrap each one and marvel. These weren't for playing, they were for investigating. Some are scary, some are gorgeous. Each one is fascinating and exotic. We counted them all, but then we found another box, so I believe the final count was somewhere around 140 dolls. We unwrapped each doll and propped it up against the walls in the family room. We gave up on organizing the dolls by country, and so they became a sort of "Small World"-esque collection of freaks and fancy.

There were dolls from Spain and Mexico, Ecuador and England. (I took the two tall ones shown above. I LOVE them.)

There were dolls from Japan, and dolls bearing fruit. Even a few dolls that had been nibbled on by rats (I'm not joking) like the lady on the left (above).

There were dolls with missing parts, like this one that we named "Holly Bucket Hands".

There were fancy Parisian dolls (I took these ones, too)...

...Iranian cloth dolls, and Native American dolls picked up on reservations in the 1950s.

Dancing dolls from Thailand stood alongside porcelain geishas and shellacked stands.

In the end, the four of us flipped coins to decide on an order, and then we went through and each picked a handful of our favorites. I don't think any of us took more than 10 dolls. And the rest, I'm afraid, we'll be giving away to charity. There's only so long you can carry around another person's collection, and while we love them, none of us has room for 140 dolls. So we took our favorites, and now we'll display them. Better to have a few treasures out in the open than a collection out in the garage.

Aunt Ginny wondered if Neva was watching us from beyond as we played with her doll collection, fought over our favorites, and giggled at their disrepair. And I would have to say yes, without a doubt. Neva's presence, as well as the presence of so many other ancestors, was loud and clear all of last weekend. From Great Grandma Katie's crocheted and embroidered dish towels to Great Great Grandpa Myron's underlined passages in century-old books and hand-written sermons tucked between the pages.

The moment when I most felt their presence here, in our present world, was when my mom found a photo--one of many in a mish-moshed shoebox--of a house in North Hollywood that my great great grandparents moved into when they first came to Los Angeles in the 1930s. It was a lovely single story Spanish style house, and on the backside was written an address, a description of the facade, and a mention of the young jacaranda trees that were planted in the front yard. I said to my mom, let's look it up on Google maps! Maybe it's still there? And so we typed in the address and switched to the satellite view, which first showed us a view of the greater LA area. As we clicked to zoom in, we saw the neighborhood, the street, and then there we were, at street level, looking at the exact same house--the same arches, the same white stucco, the same tiles--as shown in the photo from the 1930s. Aside from a swapped out fence, all that was different were the jacaranda trees, which now reach far beyond the roof of the house and are full of purple blossoms.