Day 146: Giving to makers

Dudes, the last few weeks have been brutal.  I guess all there is to say is that I went to New Orleans, was home for a day and a half, left for Vancouver (which, I had to keep reminding myself, is in another country and therefore requires me to go through, oh say, customs, and which therefore meant I needed my passport), spent almost six days there during which I was nearly 100% constantly in meetings (barring a delightful two hours spent at the UBC Museum of Anthropology, which I highly recommend), was home for a day and a half, and then everyone came to stay for Thanksgiving.  It was wonderful to have my folks here and Kivrin home, and I had a ton of fun making an entirely new set of dishes (all taken from this cool NYT article), but on Saturday I fell over at noon and didn't get up off the couch until nearly 6:00, went to bed at about 9, and slept for 10 straight hours, and I'm still dragging.  Today's the last day of classes, and then it's me and a metric ton of grading.

But that's not what I wanted to share with you all.  The part I wanted to talk about is the fun of giving a handmade gift to a maker.  At the conference, there were a couple of people who had spent this past year doing massive amounts of behind-the-scenes work to bring off an event in celebration of the UN's International Year of Indigenous Languages, and it seemed to me that it called for something more than a simple thank you note or email.  Thus, handknits. 

At a lovely breakfast with one of them, I gave her a shawl/scarf (I never quite know what to call one of those half-moon-type dealies), and was instantly reminded that she is also a maker.  Without a word, she took time to admire the stitches (from both sides), to look at the colors and the way they worked together, to feel the fabric and its drape.  She tried it on, and took it off and admired it again.  She talked about how she would use a pin that she recently made (that's her area of making) to wear it and how good it would look.  And then, just the other day, she sent me a picture of her wearing it.  Here's the thing: there's no way to actually know whether (a polite) someone really likes what we make for them, but the way a maker receives a handmade gift is such a delight - they appreciate the craft that went into the making, and they understand that at least part of the gift, is the gift of time and energy and creativity.  That's not to say that folks who aren't makers don't deeply appreciate handmade gifts - I regularly and with pleasure knit for folks who don't craft - it was just fun to see that other level of appreciation.

All right - time to tackle the inbox, and the ever-mounting pile of end-of-semester grading.  Wish me luck!

Day 93: A quiet day, with none of the pictures I'd planned to post

I was really disciplined yesterday and got caught up on grading.  I'm ready for class on Monday.  And that means that, even though there's always something I could work on (upcoming conference presentation, I'm looking at you), I am not going to work this weekend.  It's amazing how spacious it feels to have a largely unscheduled weekend. 

I got to the barn early for my ride, before the temperatures rose too much, hit the farmer's market on the way home, and the rest of the day was mine.  If there's one thing that single-digit humidity is good for, it's blocking things, so...

That's Adair, knitted up with Manos del Uruguay Serena (alpaca/cotton), in the Fig colorway (which isn't showing up quite right in those photos; I'll try to get a better modelling shot at some point).  I saw this at Churchmouse when I was there in June, and feel immediately in love.  I think it's going to be one of those really versatile shawls that can go with almost anything and get carried almost anywhere.  It's already dry - I just need to unpin it and weave the ends in and it's good to go.

I took a nap, treated my chickens to yogurt and raisins, and set myself up to spin and listen to On Being's replay of an interview with Mary Oliver.  (Which I recommend highly.  I may actually go back and listen to the entire unedited 90 minutes, it was that wonderful.  I also may have ordered her Poetry Handbook and Dreamwork.  For store pickup.  Tomorrow.  Oops.) 

What a perfect way to spend an afternoon.  Now pizza dough is rising on the stove, onions are caramelizing in my favorite cast-iron skillet, and I'm just waiting for Tess to get home before dinner.  I hope that each of you got to spend at least part of today doing something that felt expansive and roomy and lovely.

Day 86: More knitting!

So, when I'd finished the socks I showed off yesterday, I still had lovely, happy, stripey yarn left over (these are generous skeins).  So what could be better than fingerless mitts, thinks I, and next thing I know, these had popped off the needles!

Aren't they darling?  I used up every last bit of the Must Stash, and almost all of the Miss Babs.  With these, I knitted a true afterthought thumb.  Since I wanted to use all of the striped yarn, I had no idea where I'd want the thumb to be.  So, once I had my tube, I stuck my hand in, approximated where a thumb might be good, snipped, and freed up about sixteen total stitches, from which I made the thumbs.  I am a big fan of fingerless mitts, as they keep my hands happy on chilly morning walks, and, especially when driving (for some reason, my Raynaud's is triggered by cold steering wheels more than almost anything else).  So these are ready just in time for the mornings to get cooler!  (And, I hope, in time for me to get back to walking on my favorite trail.)

Day 85: Knitting does still happen around here

I am, after all, a knitting linguist, and I do still knit.  There is a shawl to show at some point, but I haven't had a chance to block it (maybe this weekend?).  Meanwhile, I have been poking away at a really fun pair of socks that I started at a long weekend of board meetings last spring, and then put away while getting through the College Blanket Saga (TM).  Once that was done, they came back into rotation as an easy and small project, perfect for the car and meetings.  And then they came swiftly off the needles.

Aren't they fun?  They're Must Stash Yarn in the colorway Ready Player One.  Totally aside from the fact that I love that book, every single one of the colors of these stripes makes me happy.  This yarn comes in two identical skeins, so that the stripes end up matching (and how awesome is that?).  My one and only regret about them is that I hadn't gotten the contrasting yarn when I cast on - I just wish I had knit the top ribbing in that, as well as the heels and toes.  (Not enough to cut the ribbing off and reknit it, though - I'd hate to toss that extra bit of stripey goodness!)

There's a happy story about that contrasting yarn.  I cast on for these, as I mentioned, at a three-day set of meetings this past spring.  These meetings are really intense, and they involve a LOT of sitting still.  So I knew I needed something totally mindless to knit, but also cheerful and fun.  This yarn was the answer to my prayers.  I also knew that I didn't want any shaping to disrupt the stripes, and that I'd need a contrasting color for the heels and toes.  There was no time to get anything before leaving home, so I counted on finding a yarn store somewhere near the meetings.  During the first day, a colleague recommended a little shop in Arlington, near where we were having dinner that night.  So off I popped, in my free hour between meetings and dinner, to check it out.  The shop was FibreSpace, which I cannot recommend more highly.  Not only is it a fantastic little shop with friendly folks and a great fiber selection, but check this out.  I had found a skein of something very yummy, and very expensive (especially given that it was technically just for the toes and heels - I was telling myself that I'd get another pair of socks out of it), when I went up to the counter to get an opinion on the color.  The nice young man behind the counter says to me, are you just getting this for heels and toes?  Yep, I say.  And he points to a little basket on the floor behind me and says, "That's what the Miss Babs mini-skeins are made for!"  And that is exactly what I ended up doing.  He could've failed to tell me that, and I would've spent the money.  But he didn't, and he saved me quite a lot, and I am telling you that I'm definitely going back when I'm out there for the next board meeting, and I want to recommend them to you, too.

I knit these top down, as a tube, and put in a strand of waste yarn where I wanted the heel to be.  Then I basically knit a toe as the afterthought heel. I was so enchanted by the stripes that I ended up knitting a very shallow toe, but they fit nicely.  I wore them all day yesterday, both in and out of shoes, and they're cozy and comfortable.  Now I need to get another skein of this yarn, because Rick wants a pair, too.

More related knitting to show tomorrow!

Day 66: Done!!

So, as I wrote earlier, I finished this about a week and a half ago.  I took the finishing in alternating bits - weave in some ends, knit squares together, weave in more ends, knit strips together, weave in some ends, knit the sides, weave in the last ends.  That helped a lot with making all of the ends seem less daunting.  And today, after taking Kiv to Target to get the last (almost - there will be more Target shopping once we get to Seattle, for things we don't want to pack like light bulbs and school supplies) of her packing list, we finally had time to take a few photos.  I think you can see that she was humoring me.  And now it's folded up and packed away.  We leave midday on Wednesday. 

The details again.  This was The Shieling (the link is to my Rav project page), Kate Davies' spectacular blanket pattern.  The colors and yarn were so perfect for the pattern that I decided to forego messing around, and ordered the yarn from Kate.  I used 31 balls of Milarrochy Tweed (a wool/mohair blend).  I have bits and bobs left over, but only one full ball over the amount called for in the pattern (and that full ball is in the main color, Hirst).  The pattern is well-written and easy to follow, and honestly, it was a fun knit - it was only the timetable (and the fact that it's a blanket, so there's a LOT of it) that added a certain je ne sais quois to the whole experience. 

But it's done, and now my girl will have a hug to take with her to college.

Day 64: Sneak peek

This has actually been done for a bit, but there’s been no time for photos. Looks like I made that deadline!

Day 39: Still plugging away

All the squares are done.  And the last square got blocked yesterday.  Twenty squares have been knitted into four strips, which have been knitted together.  Two more strips to go, and then the edging.  I think I'm going to make it, y'all.  (By which I mean, I think I'll have it done before she leaves next month - but I may go crazy before then.  I want to knit something small!!  Stockinette!!  Mindless!!!)

You may now return to whatever you were doing.

Day 37: Where there is wool...

there will be a cat.

(Note, each of those squares is surrounded by t-pins.  She is working very hard to be sitting in juuuust the right way!)

Day 33: Thirty!

Last night, I finished the thirtieth square!  Wow.  It's a miracle.  I also wove the ends in on five already-blocked squares, which means that I can knit those together. I figure if I spread out the end-weaving and knitting together, I'm less likely to get frustrated with how fiddly those tasks are.  Then it's garter-stitch edgings, and I'm done! 

(I say that like it's just around the corner.  But it's not.  We leave to take Kiv to college on September 18, and I find myself hoping that I have enough time.  Because classes start in less than two weeks, and this isn't really meeting knitting, so I need to be disciplined about working on it every evening.)

(Also, guys?  I am SO done with this knit.  I crave stockinette.  I crave small and portable.  I crave something I can knit while I'm reading.  I crave being able to actually look at the bloody TV while I knit.  I am ready to be done with colorwork.)

(But I'm also glad that my daughter will head off to college with a blanket knitted just for her.  My older daughter loved hers all through college, and it is currently folded up neatly on the end of her bed.  This is a Good Thing.)

(Also, I'll be knitting one next year for my niece.  Please please please let her want something less, you know, colorworky.)

Day 19: Shieling update

Twenty-three squares down.  Seven more to go.  (And please don't remind me about the ends to be woven in or the whole putting-together part of this project.)

That is all.

Reflections on Instagram and conversations about racism in the knitting community

I have been absorbed in the conversation on Instagram this week, about racism in the knitting community.  I have been reading, watching people’s stories about the precipitating event and about the responses to that event, thinking carefully. (Note: by “precipitating event”, I don’t mean “isolated incident” – I mean “one thing that looks a lot like countless other things that just haven’t happened to lead to a big important conversation, even though they should have.)  What I’ve seen has resonated with what I know to be true in academia, and with what I have been also seeing and worrying a lot about in the mindfulness community, where words like ‘forgiveness’ are bandied about without any context or discussion of what it means to tell, for example, POC to forgive without a concomitant addressing of the ongoing institutional violence and oppression that they are being asked to forgive.  That, folks, is a problem.  That is something that I’d like to talk more about in the future, when I can make better reference to the people who are on the front lines of dealing with that, and who have written and spoken wisely and thoughtfully about it. 

By the same token, I don’t want to summarize the discussion on IG or speak for the people who have done so much educating – that they shouldn’t have to do – over the past week.  I’d instead refer you to: @ggmadeit; @thecolormustard; @su.krita, who kindly gave me permission to point you in their direction.  There are many other people doing this work whom I hope you will seek out as well.

I really wasn’t sure that I’d end up saying anything about this, for a couple of reasons.  The first has to do with my own use of IG, which, until this week, has largely been to follow friends and family – in other words, it hasn’t been a place where I’ve engaged a whole lot with the knitting community.  In the last week, though, IG has become a place where I follow knitters and spinners.  In some ways, I’m not sure how I feel about that, because I’ve been trying to spend less time on social media, not more.  But at the same time, I can’t regret the inspiration I have drawn from the projects and work of so many fantastic and creative women.  So.

This blog is the space where I have done much more connecting and thinking about making and the world of makers.  And this is the space where I have to look at and think carefully about the makeup of the blogs and bloggers I follow, which are almost exclusively white women.  That is not OK, and it is not OK that I hadn’t until now taken steps to change that - to make sure that the blogs that I read and follow represent the world that I live in.  I also have to think about my disappointment in several of the well-known white women designers whose work I love and whose blogs and IG feeds I do follow, who have said absolutely nothing about the work that’s been done this week.  It’s impossible for me to imagine that they don’t know about it, so where are their voices?  Where is their work to amplify those who have spoken so clearly this week?

And that’s what finally helped me to realize that I need to say something.  I don’t have a lot of readers any more, and I don’t have very many followers on IG who are part of the knitting community.  (In fact, for those of you who aren’t knitters who followed the link from my IG feed – hi!  Yes, I have a knitting blog – who knew, right?). So, it’s not like I can do a lot of amplifying here.  And I don’t want to tell the stories that BIPOC members of the community live every day and have told so well (see those references above – there are so many more).  Instead, I want to talk about parts of the response to those stories that have disturbed me greatly, and that have done additional violence to those who exposed themselves in coming forward to talk about their experiences of racism in the knitting community. 

And I want to say this very clearly to those women who have been doing all of this work – that, I say again, they should not have to do – I hear you.  I know that you know this, but I want to say that I know that you are not crazy.  Racism and its effects in the knitting community (and academia, and the mindfulness community, and and and…) are real and corrosive.  Thank you.  Thank you for taking the time and emotional energy to talk about that.  Thank you for your continuing work in calling people out on the deeply problematic ways that they’ve responded to the initial discussion.  I can’t imagine the toll it’s taken on you and continues to take on you.

It’s those responses that I want to talk about a little more.  I can’t say that I’ve been surprised by the way that many WW have responded, nor by what they’ve said in their own posts, and in the comments on the posts I reference above.  But I have been disgusted and appalled.  There are two trends in particular that I want to call out.  First, the “I’ve been afraid to say something” (because someone might get mad at me, I might say the wrong thing, etc).  And second the “let’s get past this/I want this space to return to being my happy space/let peace begin with me/let’s level up” responses. 

OK.  “I’ve been afraid to say something because I might say the wrong thing and then someone might get mad at me.”  I hear this all the time from young men in my gender classes.  (And I, too, feel that fear.)  There they are, perhaps for the first time, sitting in a room with women who talk about the ways that sexism and violence against women inform everything that women do, every single day.  And at some point, some young man says exactly that: I’m afraid to talk because I might say the wrong thing and someone might get mad at me.  And I say – and I say this with genuine love and sympathy – good.  You should be afraid, and you should know what it’s like to have to watch every word you say because someone might take it the wrong way and police you.  Welcome to the lived experience of members of oppressed groups, who have to watch what they say all the time.  All. The. Time.  Every minute of every day.  And for whom the consequences of saying “the wrong thing” aren’t just facing the momentary discomfort of being called out for it.  The consequences are far worse and far more systematic.  Loss of jobs.  Violence.  Lack of justice for violence perpetrated against them.  All of that and more.  So, with love, I say this same thing to the women on IG who have left that comment: sit with that discomfort.  Think carefully before you speak.  And, when you have something important and useful to say, say it with care, and then listen, with care, to what people have to say to you.  If someone takes the time and energy to tell you that what you just said was problematic, think for a moment about how hard it was for them to do that – given that difficulty, assume that what they’re saying is important enough to take on board.  And that goes for what I’m saying here.  There is no way that I am getting this all right.  I am trying my best, but I live and breathe a racist system just like the rest of us.  I am sorry for what I am getting wrong, and while I don’t think it is anyone’s job to educate me, if any of you want to share with me how I can do better, I am listening.

My other response to this fear of saying the wrong thing is this: maybe we should all be careful, all the time, of our words.  I’m a linguist in no small part because I believe in my guts that words are powerful things.  They change worlds.  With Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Day coming up, I can’t help but think of his famous speech – when he said he had a dream, he was speaking that dream into reality.  We are not there yet, but his words call into being the possibility of a better future.  Which is what we all need to be working towards, and what I hope the knitting community can take a step towards, thanks to the powerful words of women who spoke and speak out.

And that brings me to that other response that I’m really hating right now: Ok, we’ve said this stuff, now can we go back to our peaceful happy place?  First off, if we really read what people had to say, we’d see that, obviously, that space is neither peaceful nor happy for those folks who wrote about the problem of racism in the community.  Right?  So we can’t go back to that – we shouldn’t want to.  We should want to go forward, to something more inclusive.  How can this be my happy place if it’s someone else’s oppressive place?  This is the hard and important work for white people: to see and acknowledge and feel the pain and violence that white supremacy causes to us.  To white people.  To want to return to a happy place that we know is exclusionary to others makes us less human.  I don’t want to be less human, just because it’s easy.  And I don’t want my desire to dismantle racism to come from a place of white saviourhood, which is what happens when I think of it as something that’s happening to “them”, over there.  Racism is toxic, period.

This also highlights a thing that I’ve mulled over in both personal and social relationships for a long time: the habit that people have of wanting to take credit for the good without taking responsibility for the bad.  In personal relationships, this happens when I say, but these things you did? They were abusive and painful.  And the person I’m talking to says, why do you always want to talk about the bad things?  What about all of the good things? 

Yep, the good things are there.  But you can’t pretend that’s all that’s there just because it’s easier and more comfortable, when the bad things are making lumps under the rug where you’ve swept them.

In history, white folks want to do this.  We want credit for Lincoln without taking the responsibility for Jackson.  And responsibility doesn’t mean a quick mea culpa and then can we move on please?  I’m thinking restitution. I’m thinking dismantling structures that replicate the injustices “of the past” again and again.  Sorry and now let’s move on doesn’t cut it. 

I didn’t mean to write this much, and I think it’s time to stop and listen. A few final words.  First, if anyone reading this has responded in one of these ways, please realize that doing so, or glossing over this past week as if it didn’t happen, is another form of violence.  Please don’t do that.  The second thing is to remember to see the women who came forward to speak in all of their resilience and glory.  Their feeds are full of creativity and beauty that I find totally inspiring.  Please don’t treat their feeds as pain porn to feed some kind of white liberal guilt.  This conversation is one part of a much larger whole – a critical part, but not all that there is.

Thank you.

On the fly

Well, knitting has been happening - it's the writing about it that's been failing to occur.  And, to be honest, even the writing hasn't seemed so impossible - it's taking pictures that's been hanging me up. 

Like this:

I finished the striped sweater (cheers, clapping!).  I'm delighted with it.  I have worn it several times, to many kind compliments.  I wanted to do a nice photo shoot to really show it off.  But did not.

Then Oa was making progress, so I figured I'd do a photo shoot with both of them.  Except that finishing Oa turned out to be a real pain in my butt (because I had Plans regarding the neckline, as you may recall - and you know what they say about Plans).  It is now done (wild applause from the audience!), and I am happy with it.  It took me a while to work up to the finishing and blocking (and it took forEVER to dry), but that, too, is done, and I've even worn it (and was told I should have submitted it to the county fair, but was too late).  So photo shoot time, right?

Well, no.  Because the couple who manages the barn where Disco boards are having a baby this month, and I decided, as you do, that the new baby really needed something handknitted.  So that had to get done, because you really can't ask a breathtakingly pregnant woman to hang on while you knit.  So I did that. 

And while I didn't manage a photo shoot, per se (because I was - literally - seaming and weaving in ends and sewing on buttons while sitting ringside watching Tess ride), I did get a few shots before I wrapped it up and handed it over.

And I was going to show you those shots (because honestly, it's the cutest little baby surprise jacket ever, due to an unexpectedly felicitous yarn shortage and subsequent switch halfway through).  But Blogger and iPhoto are refusing to talk, so that's not going to happen.  See?  Me and knitting photos are existing in a relationship that can be summed up by the word "thwart".

Because even after all that was done, and I thought I'd do a photo shoot of my new sweaters, I had a paper due to a journal last week.  And then when that was done, I needed to put together the presentation for my conference next week.  Because tomorrow I'm leaving for Ireland.

Ireland!

To present a paper (written with my dear friend and colleague Marie, she of the pussyhat survey) on the relationships among knitting, identity, and well-being.  How cool is that?

So do you know what I have to go figure out now?

That's right:  what sweaters am I packing, and what knitting projects do I need to bring?

When I get back:  photos of sweaters in the Irish countryside.  I promise.

Some knitting!

First, thank you all so much for reading my last post, and for participating in the survey.  If you haven't responded yet but are interested in participating, it's still live - here is the link again: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HDTVNZ7.

Meanwhile, I did promise the occasional post about knitting, and I have, in fact, been knitting. Most of my time until this last week has been spent on one big project, but in the last couple of days, a few things came up and now I have three projects OTN.  It's starting to feel like old times around here.

First, the big project.  A month or so ago, I belatedly treated myself to a subscription to Kate Davies' latest project: Inspired by Islay.  Every week, Kate would send out a new pattern (on Wednesday)(also uploaded to my Rav library), and on Friday, an essay about the inspiration for the pattern, capped off by whiskey tasting suggestions and notes written by her partner.  And now that it's all done, hard copies of the whole collection of patterns and essays are being shipped out.  I love Kate's designs; one of my favorite sweaters (the Northmavine Hoodie) is her design, and I think it exemplifies her incredibly clean lines and well-thought-out design elements beautifully.  It's one of the sweaters that I'm most proud of (and that is most likely to get the amazed "you MADE that?!" - along with my Bohus).  (To my horror, I realize it's not on my Rav page - I really was out of things for a while there, wasn't I?  ETA:  Oh, wait, there it is!)

In any case, the Inspired by Islay collection has a number of patterns I'd like to knit, but the moment I saw the Oa, I absolutely had to have it - I treated myself to the yarn (Kate's own Buchaille) for my birthday.

I want this to be a good sweater so much that I swatched.  It's not that I don't usually swatch, but sometimes, I'll cast on for the sleeve and see how that goes (sleeves and swatches are about the same size, yes?).  Not this time.  This time, I knitted a swatch in the round (in two different needle sizes), cut it, and steam ironed it - exactly as called for in the pattern.  (Can you hear the proud tone in my voice?)

The only thing I did differently was to cast off in blue instead of white so that I could remember which side was done with the size three needle, and which with the size four.  I've been plugging away at the body devotedly since casting on.

That's probably a good seven inches or so of progress.  It's not speedy, but since it's only two colors per row, it's not too terribly slow, either.  I was planning to be monogamously devoted to this project, but, well...

I made the mistake of reading Mason-Dixon, and saw that they are partnering with Jen and Jim Arnall-Culliford to create a Year of Techniques, with a new pattern showcasing a new technique coming out each month (and uploaded to my Rav library - I really love that!).  Since I'm trying to create opportunities for myself to feel more inspired, I signed on.  I figured I'd knit the patterns as I have time (read: after I finish Oa), but then I saw the first project, which uses helical stripes, and I kind of had to try it.  Right away.  I hied myself straight to my LYS to get a Zauberball of mine own, but the only ones they had, while lovely, just didn't have quite enough long striping contrast, so I went off-script and got myself a cake of Alexandra's Crafts Sister, and cast on with that.

I have to say, these helical stripes are a giggle.  Once I really got it into my head that I'm knitting two rows at a time, it got much easier to see what's happening here - the upshot of the technique is stripes with no jog at all.

I'll take better pictures once I'm further along, but trust me - no jog.  No carrying yarns up the inside.  Just two balls of yarn, chasing one another around the armwarmer.  The pattern (which comes with a link to a video tutorial) offers a discussion of how to do this on circular needles or on dpns, which is what I'm using.  I have to say that I think this is probably easier on dpns, since I can drop the yarn at the end of one dpn, without having to move stitches around on the needles.  They say that you can do this with two-row stripes (up to four, even), but I can't quite get my head around that.  I kind of what to try it, though...  These are the Hyacinthus Armwarmers, and I'm kind of thinking I'll make more than one pair.  (In fact, maybe I'll order myself a Zauberball right now so it's here when I need it.  Hmmm....)

But not yet!  Because I'm on serious pink yarn duty.  I'm involved with a group of friends and colleagues who are politically active, and at our last meeting, one of them said she'd gladly pay me for yarn if I'd just knit her a pussyhat (she also offered to pay for my time, which is silly); everyone else in the room asked to go on the list, too.  I said yes.  Then I went home, talked to a knitting friend of mine who was there, and dithered.  I want to knit Oa!  And that's a lot of pink hats!  And I knew if I wrote to everyone and said that my love for them had overwhelmed my good sense, they'd all understand.

But (and here's my dark secret), I want to be the kind of person who knits for other people.  And I am not.  I mean, it's not that I never knit for other people - I spent all last fall knitting sweaters for the girls and my niece; I spent a year knitting a blanket for Older Daughter to take to college.  But you know what I mean - the kind of open-hearted person willing to say, yes!  I'll knit nine pussyhats!

Of course, because life is complex and I am of two minds about nearly everything, I also aspire to be a person who knows when to say no.  Because knitting for people notwithstanding, I definitely find it hard sometimes to say no.  So I decided this was an opportunity to sit with myself and figure out what I want, in this instance, at this time.  I thought carefully about the whole thing and realized that, honestly, by the time I finish Oa, it'll probably be too warm to wear it anyway (alternatively, we'll have a nice bout of May Gray and June Gloom, and I'll have it done for that).  And once Oa's done, I'll be harrassing my daughters to tell me what I can knit for them.  So, really, why not knit nine hats?  But I also knew in my heart that I really didn't want to spend hours knitting with, say, cheap acrylic yarn (shudder).  The upshot is that I realized I honestly was willing to put off Oa, and to knit nine hats (if that's what it turns out to be), if and only if I was doing it with yarn that I really, REALLY enjoy.  Read: it's not gonna be cheap.

So I wrote to everyone with the honest statement that I'd rather buy nice yarn from my LYS, and saying that I completely understood if people didn't want expensive pink pussyhats.  So far, most of them do, and I have cast on for the first one.

The yarn is Fibre Co Tundra (alpaca, wool, silk).  It's soft and puffy like baby ducks, the pink is a nice rich raspberry, and I'm knitting this up on a size nine needle - a bit smaller than called for, but I think the fabric is turning out well.  And I'm enjoying it.  I'm glad I spent some time teasing out what I wanted to do and what it would look like, and being honest about it.  I do worry that I'm committing people to spending money on hats that may not in the end, be what they visualized (too bulky, too hot, I don't know - just not what they thought they were getting), but I'm trying to let that go and enjoy the process of knitting them, now that I've gone through the process of figuring out what I want knitting them to be about.

All right.  I'll stop there.  I have a few fun stories to tell about my last couple of weeks, but I'll save those for next time.  What do you have OTN these days?

A snowy long weekend

As you may know, California's drought appears decidedly to be on hiatus.  Read: we've been getting some serious precipitation. 

Here's a funny thing about that.  I love rain.  I love cold, wet winters.  (Among other things, cold wet winters means snow in the mountains - we'll get to that soon.)  But since getting a horse, I have become decidedly less enamored of rain.  Rain means no turn-outs and no lunging.  And no turn-outs and no lunging means a fresh and frisky horse.  Which means I don't ride.  It's interesting how adding a new activity to my life has completely changed my outlook on weather.

(I got a new camera, about which I am tremendously excited.  Among other things, it is much smaller and lighter than our old good digital camera, with better resolution.  And I can take close-ups again!  Say hi, Disco.)

Our local flora and fauna, however, feel no such ambivalence towards the rain.  Everything around here is bursting out with whatever growth it can muster. 

 Even some of my favorite old trees are looking happier with their feet wet.

Of course, all this rain also means snow!  Rick has been watching the snow reports at Mammoth like a hawk.  When the base got to 15 feet, he started giggling like a child on Christmas eve.  So, for the long weekend, it was pretty obvious where we were going to go.  We got out of town on Thursday afternoon and beat the storm to Mammoth.  Which was a good thing, because by the time we got down the mountain after skiing on Friday, it was hard to find the car.

Glad we didn't drive through all that snow to get there!  The skiing did get a bit hairy here and there, when the mountain was enveloped in clouds and whiteout conditions...

(That's Rick and Younger Daughter, just upslope of me.)  And the top of the mountain didn't open all weekend long - I think it's the first time ever that we've been there and not been able to ski the whole mountain.  When the sun peeked through the clouds, though, the view down into the valley was stunning.

And there was always some Mammoth Brew Co goodness at the end of the day to take away the aches and pains.

The knitting got some run time, too.

(If you look closely, you'll see that's a Bohus reproduction Wild Apple on my head - toasty warm and good-looking to boot!  Those Swedes know a thing or two about keeping warm in the winter.  And what you can't see is that my handspun, handknit cowl is tucked into my coat, keeping my chin and neck toasty warm even in the worst of the wind on the chairlift.)

On the way home, we were treated to stunning views of the eastern Sierra

And the western White Mountains peeking through the clearing storm.

I didn't neglect my knitting, either, although pictures will have to wait for next time.  I finished a hat for Younger Daughter (Ysolda Teague's Snapdragon Tam), and on the drive home, I cast on for my Oa, which I am very excited about.

And I think that's enough for now!  What did you all do for the long weekend?

A few projects on and off the needles

One nice thing about a long holiday break (which has been over for a while now, but still), coupled with no longer being chair of my department (the email load dropped off almost instantaneously with me handing the chairship over in the fall - I can't tell you what a relief that was), is that I finally had time to get excited about knitting again.

It's not that I haven't been knitting all along - last fall, in fact, I knitted a sweater for each my girls, and then one for my niece for Christmas.  It's more that I wasn't engaged in the joy and fun of thinking about new projects, weighing the options, looking at yarn; and I definitely wasn't anywhere close to thinking about playing around with designing anything.  One thing I know about myself is that I absolutely loathe last-minute pressure; I hate being late.  So, as chair, I realized pretty quickly that the only way to be ready for the inevitable late-notice, oh-my-gosh-oops-we-forgot-to-tell-you-this-is-due-tomorrow stuff, was to be veryvery on top of everything else, so that I'd have room for the last-minute things when they arrived on my plate.  I got into the habit of keeping an ongoing list of big-ticket items (the kinds of things that I know I need some serious time to get through: curriculum, meeting agendas, personnel reviews, etc etc), and the smaller things that I could knock off in five minutes here, ten minutes there (email, email, email).  Which meant that any time I had five or ten minutes, I was trying to get through those things so that I'd have longer chunks of time for the bigger stuff, and at the end of a day of getting through all of that, I really just wanted to read something mindless or knit something mindless or go to bed.  The nice thing about that strategy is that I did get enough sleep every night (no last-minute all-nighters to get something done), and I did get to walk my dog on a trail almost every day, and I had dinner with my family, and I spent time with my horse.  So, it wasn't the worst survival strategy in the world.

But what I almost never had was several unscheduled hours with nothing planned, and no to-do list that I felt strongly about getting to (to avoid emergencies later down the road).  And another thing that I seem to be learning about myself is that I need that kind of time - that kind of I could almost be bored here so what could I do that's interesting kind of time - to feel that there's enough space to poke at a new and exciting project, or a new craft, or a new instrument.  I'll also admit that things like Facebook, the New York Times crossword puzzle, solitaire, and Instagram all make it really easy to fritter away the smaller chunks of time that could become bigger pieces for sinking (in the sense of slipping into a lovely warm bath) into the creative.  As I write this, it occurs to me that I need to use time the way I did as chair - except, instead of getting the little work done in small chunks of time so I could create big chunks of time for the hard projects, I need to stop spending my small chunks of free time on little relaxingish things, so that I can create for myself the space, and spaciousness, to settle into a creating place.  Something to mull over.

The fall didn't really give me room for that - the chair transition and a few other things got in the way. But knowing that I had a sabbatical this spring, once I finished teaching an online intersession class (my first fully online class, and one of the "other things" whose preparation was on my mind during the fall), I was able to take a few weeks to not-work, and to start to get my legs back under me.

I knitted cowls for me and the girls:

That's me and Older Daughter; Younger Daughter has one, too.  These are all knitted out of Baah Sequoia, a super-chunky and super-soft and lofty yarn dyed by a friend and local dyer.  I have discovered recently the pleasure of cowls, in that they never fall off, and you don't have to deal with ends flying about or not staying put.  Of course, there is also great pleasure in a lovely neck-warming small shawl, so I knitted one of those, too (and used it, in progress, as a header shot for an article that was just published on knitting and food in socialization).

The yarn for this is a lovely little skein I picked up from the Yarnover Truck during the Vista Fiber Festival.

I don't have any pictures of me wearing it yet; I'll have to get some.  I'm surprised I've managed to hang on to this one - a lot of people have threatened to steal it.  The yarn is Apple Tree Knits Plush Gradient, and the pattern is Imagine When.

I also (finally) finished Rick's winter socks:

These are just a plain pair of socks, knitted out of Candy Skein Delicious Fingering, in the Sour Apple colorway.  My only complaint about this particular skein of this yarn (which I've used before and love) is that it stained my fingers blue-green every time I worked on these socks.  They are therefore due a good soaking before Rick actually wears them out and about, lest they turn his feet and shoes irreparably green.

One funny thing about these is the heel, which I knitted in my usual eye-of-partridge stitch.  (I knit these from the toe up, with a heel flap on the bottom of the foot.)  On one sock, the eye-of-partridge turned out beautifully visible.  On the other, not.  I can't figure out what the difference is between the two - same needles, same stitch, same everything, different outcome.  It's weird.

And for my birthday, I treated myself to a sweater that I've been admiring: Evelyn.  This was a fun and easy knit, and the yarn is soft and plush; I'm a bit worried that it's looking a titch fuzzy already, so we'll see whether this turns out to be something I can wear constantly (which I'd hoped - it's good-looking AND cuddly, which is a winning combination, in my book), or whether I need to be more careful of it. 

This was a fun knit, for the most part.  The cable up there at the top of the back felt a bit fussy (mostly because that much cabling in that small of a space tends to lead to tight stitches when I knit), but boy does it look nice:

The sleeves are more of the same, but narrower...

As is the button band.  (A snap will eventually go in there at the top.)

The only part of this whole sweater that kind of annoys me is the collar, which would not lie flat for love or money.

I have since tacked it down.  (That'll teach it to be contrary.)

There are a few other small things I could post, but I think I'll save them for another day.  I'm wrapping one of them up today (I hope), and, if all goes well, the yarn for my next sweater will arrive in the mail.  (Arrive, yarn, dang it!)  If not, Younger Daughter has mentioned that she'd like another hat, so perhaps that'll go OTN instead.

And that's all the knitting news that's fit to report.  What are you all working on?

Welcome, new year!

Like everyone does at this time of year (I assume - maybe I'm overgeneralizing), I have been contemplating The New Year Post.  Somehow it seems like, when posting at this time of year, one is meant to look over the last year, contemplating resolutions kept, and resolutions not-so-much kept (and why is it that that list always seems so much more front-and-center than the other?). 

You know:
Did not lose weight
Did not Achieve Enlightenment

Oops.

To be fair, I did some things this year that weren't so much resolution-oriented, as finally doing or trying things that have always been on the back burner.  I started horseback riding, racewalking, went to Turkey, was promoted to Full Professor, established an inconsistent but real sitting meditation practice, established a more-consistent home yoga practice.  All of those are desires that have been kicking around in the back of my head for a long time - some (like horseback riding) since childhood. 

Mostly, I tried to focus on the word I chose as a touchstone last year, instead of establishing resolutions: mindfulness.  That's been a word I've chosen a few times now, as something to keep me on track, and this year I feel like I made some pretty significant breakthroughs in finding that place of mindfulness more often.  Sometimes, it means being mindful of sad feelings like those I wrote about last time; sometimes, it means being open to being happy; sometimes, it means just sitting with the squirrel that apparently resides in my brain, flitting its tail and chittering at every insult.  It's a busy busy squirrel.

So instead of that list of future resolutions, I've been trying to decide whether I want to re-up on the mindfulness, or add something else.  In the end, mindfulness is the key to focusing on any concept that I'd like to bring into my life, so I decided to throw caution to the wind.

Abundance.

That's my word for the year.  Not seeking abundance, but seeing it where I already have it, which is in so very many places in my life.  Feeling a lack of abundance is something that drives me to grab opportunities when they come up, out of the fear that nothing like that will ever come again (not always a bad thing, but not good when I am overcommitted; this is something I have been working on), to buy things that I don't need, out of the fear that I'll never get the chance again (I have this SO much more under control than I have in the past; it is one of the reasons why I have passed up several interesting yarn and fiber clubs over the last few years, for example - I already have a STABLE stash), to eat things that I don't need or want, because I feel a need to reward myself, and fear that I won't have opportunities to "treat" myself in the future.  That one's a kicker for me.

I can't be the only one who feels that way about food, right?  There are so many times when so much of my life is utterly overwhelming, and I feel that I "deserve" some kind of treat, or reward for surviving.  And so many treats and rewards require time or money, and I don't feel like I have time or money (to get a massage, take a riding lesson, sit quietly and knit, read a book).  In the end, I have to eat anyway, right?  It's not like I'm not spending time and money on food in any case (my little squirrel brain says), so I may as well just indulge a little...

Is it just me?

So, abundance.  A good focus, and one which I think will remind me to be mindful of the things in my life that I have already: daughters, husband, friends, activities I love, opportunities that fulfill me instead of leaving me drained.

This past week has been one of quiet crafting and contemplation, which I think is exactly what I needed to come to the realization that I have this habit of living in a state of persistent fear of scarcity, even when surrounded by abundance.  It was good to give time over to being quietly creative.

I spun.

That's FiberOptics gradient, in the Midnight colorway.  I spun this one woolen, and chain-plied it, for a lovely round plump three-ply yarn.  I wasn't able to get the whole thing onto one bobbin, alas - which tells me just how much loft is added in the woolen spinning, compared to the worsted.  The last braid of FiberOptics gradient I spun, I spun worsted, and it all fit (barely) onto one bobbin, both the singles and the three-ply. 

The colors are a little darker and more saturated than you can see here, but this is close.  This is destined to become a Spectral cowl, which I saw and immediately fell in love with.  I started to go down the rabbithole of needing the yarn that it was knitted in, and then remembered that I already had this beautiful stuff in stash, and went this route instead.  I am glad that I did.

On New Year's eve, just before the ball went down at midnight New York time (as late as we manage to stay up these days), I finished a project that has long been hanging out in the WIP pile:

This is the second of the Bias Before-and-After scarves (Churchmouse Yarns pattern), which I started an appallingly long time ago.  But they're both done now, and I am looking forward to wearing them separately (I wear the purple one all the time) and together.

When I went out to photograph, I noticed an unexpected color theme here.

(The color of the second scarf is closer to the middle picture - you can see the similarity.)

I have also been plugging away at Green Wood, and I not only made it through the yoke, but the short rows as well.  I have set the sleeve stitches aside, and am now entering into the long slow stretch of the body.

This is very tiny yarn, knitted on size 1 needles (size 0 for the yoke; I could have knit the body on 0, and I think that that makes a nice fabric, too - but this is probably slightly more wearable here in San Diego).

Just in time for all of the meetings that I will be attending next week.  With luck, this will help me keep some of the happy break time glow, even in the face of politics and meanness.  I really appreciated all the words of support and wisdom that everyone shared in the wake of my (admittedly, not very happy) last post.  Thank you for the additional reminder of the abundance in my life.

Happy new year!