triple word score

can you tell we're excited about Tuesday around here?

teaser

knitters like to share their stuff. get a bunch of knitters in a room and people start pulling out their projects in various stages of completion, even projects that require a guided tour by the maker. knitters can take this leap of creative faith; they are used to things unfinished. imagining the finished product sometimes requires as much creativity of mind as nimbleness of fingers.

the frustration comes when you want to share widely and can't. you create a thing of cabled beauty, glorious even in its incompleteness, and it must remain hidden in the shadows lest its recipient see it.

this is my solution. just a glimpse, a brief and incomplete snap-shot, a fleeting tableau:

this is, by the way, a return to my cabled roots after a long hiatus in the crisp, precise land of scandinavian two-color knitting. let me just point out that it is reversible and the other side is just as pretty.

whew. i feel better now.

Day 11

cold snap.

warm soup.

Day 11 of this frigid, face-aching, square-tire misery, countered only by a good husband who fixes corn hominy chowder and serves it up with red wine.

Dea rocks the lace

apparently, lace has nothing on Dea.

less than a year ago, Dea picked up knitting needles for the first time and hasn't looked back since. in all my time teaching, i've noticed that most knitters will fall into one of two camps: those who hesitate to knit a stitch without someone to help them looking over their shoulder and those who throw caution to the wind and knit with wild abandon, no matter the outcome. both paths will produce competent, independent knitters, but Dea definitely falls into the latter category.

it's a pattern in her life, i think:

during her last trip to the Mayo for her continued dialysis treatment, she picked up a lace scarf pattern at the local knitting shoppe. i like adventurous knitting choices and lace is nothing to sneeze at - especially if it's only your 3rd or 4th project.

there were a few bumps and fixes along the way, a few expletives, but Dea always picked the needles back up and climbed back on the proverbial horse.

she was rewarded with this:

dang! what couldn't you do in this world with a scarf like that wrapped around your neck?

new years, lost and found

New Year's has never been my favorite holiday to celebrate. the expectation, braving the roads full of crazy people, the need to stay up way past my bedtime. ugh. this year, we decided to go gently into that new year celebrating with a few friends, a nice potluck dinner, and some fireworks in our driveway.

it was cold on wednesday night, about -30F in the hills. we're in the middle of a cold snap and it had been cold all week with no end in sight yet.

that's why when a neighbor showed up at our door at 1 am looking for a relative visiting from the south that had been missing for an hour already, we were concerned. being outside for any length of time at those temps requires some preparation and lots of fur - things this woman surely did not have after a night of reveling.

the search continued until about 4 am and eventually involved the police and a canine unit, which was able to track her to the exact spot where she got into a car - an unknown car.

she is fine. some excellent police work revealed that she was disoriented and unable to direct the driver to where she lived, so s/he took her to a local hotel and paid for her room so that she would have a warm, safe place to be for the night.

so, on the first day of this brand new year, i was confronted with the best of humanity. people who care enough to stop and help someone, even if it's not convenient. people who mean no harm and only good. people who will make sure their neighbors are taken care of, even at cost to themselves.

someone i admire recently wrote that she always harbored a funny little belief that the way we transition into the new year sets the stage for how that year will go. i thought i was lucky to have spent a quiet, relaxing evening with a few friends, eating good food, which i was. but i was far luckier to witness real humanity from strangers, as one year passed into memory and a new one unfolded before us.

i will go into this new year remembering that there are far more good people in this world than bad people and that our capacity to care and to be human far exceeds the bad stuff going on around us, though that stuff is surely easier to focus on.

happy new year, all.

stash control

knitters everywhere share at least one problem: stash control, or how and where to put all that yarn? despite my husband's beliefs, my stash problem is pretty minor as far as they go, due largely to the fact that i haven't been knitting my whole life (just a 1/3 of it), and the fact that we have a deal: the prerequisite of every new yarn purchase is that i have to knit something from the stash.

for me, the stash is not just a thing, it's a place. my stash lives (mostly) in the upstairs guest closet (though it spills into the not 1, but 3 knitting baskets in the living room). when i need inspiration to get through a particularly difficult or boring pattern, the stash is always there for me. sitting among the skeins and hanks can even turn the tide of hard day at work.

nonetheless, i was still losing track of what i had...and where. these brand new cubbies became the answer.

let me tell you, this is a type-A personality's dream. a place for everything and everything in its place. most of this yarn has purpose, or at least i have a faint idea of what i might use it for. some have even cycled through several purposes...though i doubt that would count in my husband's narrow, realistic world.

really, what the stash is -- and why it's so important -- is a big, fat, squishy, warm pile of dreams. dreams of cozy sweaters and blankets that i can wrap friends' babies in...and a purple sweater for me.

dreams of a sweater for Cobbie. dreams of beautiful, ornate (or just plain) socks:

so, if you ever get anything from me, now you know where it came from: my favorite place on earth (except maybe Tangle Lakes - and not just because i can take knitting there).

and because i actually DO do more than just knit...here's a picture of Cobbie skiing in front of me on teh way to P&C's for our usual Wednesday night dinner (the faint lights to the left is their house).

kniterly update

i spent last night in the most kniterly of ways.

last night, i hung with a wonderful collection of women, all amazing in their own right, good yarn, and a knitting husband.

of course, one must eat first (chicken-saffron soup, bread pudding, pumpkin cheesecake, and cookies for dessert)...

...in order to knit.

yes, this is the famous and talented Subarctic mama. crazy fast that woman is at picking up knitting. it's like she just gets it. kind of like her writing.

now, on to the parade of efforts currently in the queue. yesterday, Cobbie asked me how many projects i had going right now. i couldn't answer right off, so here's my attempt. may i say first, in my defense, that the holidays are near?

socks for the sock-maker. these fabulous feet belong to Theresa and she is THE uber sock-maker. therefore, she needs socks made for her, yes?

spinning a bit for a present that must yet remain unnamed, as its recipient is still in the dark. people, the wheel is next for me, i can just feel it. lord help us all (or at least Cob) if a spinning wheel takes up residence in our living room.

a baby hat - done. believe it or not, this has no owner, it was just a way to kill an extra skein of yarn that was hanging around looking lonely and unproductive. the pattern is one of Debbie Bliss' baby cashmerino wonders.

Nuchie, modeling with the pure sunshine and blue sky of Louet chunky yarn. this yarn is destined for big things - in this case, two alphabet blankets in T and G for my oldest friend Jackie's two little boys.

Thayer's blanket underway (it's now 5" - this picture's a day old!)

Brownie's "special green" skiing socks, as named by Cob - a christmas present for another unnamed recipient. this is worsted weight wool knit on size 2 needles. yes, i am crazy.

and if you didn't believe me that i'm crazy, the beginnings of a Dale of Norway sweater: this one goes veeeeeerrrrryyyyy slowly - my goal is 1 row a day. yep, 1 row a day. i try to get it done over morning coffee while i'm listening to the news and then the rest of the day just doesn't seem so hard. my friend, Cathi, and I are knitting the same sweater at the same time in different colourways. crazy. just crazy.

and then there's the perrenial Estonian "Goat's-eye" socks that i'm knitting with Norma (hers are blue and red). i'm just trying to stay one step ahead of her to help her with the pattern. this is another one of those DK-light worsted weight knit on size 1 needles. freakish.

and finally, the first of a matching pair of toddler socks that will eventually be part of this world, made from Crystal Palace bamboo-cotton-nylon yarn. if you ever get the chance to knit with this yarn, do it. it's good stuff. and baby socks are so stinkin' cute.