Come and gone

Well Christmas is over and a new year is upon us. I think my one and only resolution for next year will be to NOT attempt to make all of my Christmas presents. I always think it sounds like such a good idea and then the reality of it kicks me in the face. Too much stress, I'm just going to make things for people and give them to them whenever I feel like it, they'll get UnChristmas presents, that sounds like much more fun doesn't it?

Saving Money

Ever since the stock markets went into free-fall and the economy went sour I have noticed an abundance of money saving tips in pretty much every publication and internet post in existence. Most of these tips are benign and maybe slightly useful, but there is one that keeps surfacing that irks me: Save money by knitting.

To paraphrase Mr. T, I pity the fool who takes up knitting to save money.

Here's a rundown of what things cost me; I'll use the raspberry hat from a couple of posts ago for an example: One skein of the chunky Brown Sheep yarn costs $15.00. The hat took me at least 3 hours to make and at my current labor rate (from my employer) that would be about $60.00. $75.00 for a hat. That's not including the needles used to make it which I already owned and would cost about $8.00. Plus the design work which probably adds up to another hour. Hmmm...doesn't look like we're saving a lot of dough.

Yes, you can buy cheap 3dollar yarn from Wal-Mart and make something that's lumpy and ugly but you can also buy a warm and decent hat for 3dollars from Ragstock, and if you're really interested in saving money I'd suggest the Ragstock option.

Learning to knit with cheap acrylic yarn is asking for failure, frustration and disappointment. It's hard to work with, hard to fix errors and never looks good in the end. You'll end up spending twice as much time making something that looks half as good. That's not saving anything, especially sanity. If you want to learn to knit do it because you want to make something and learn a new skill, not because you want to save money. There are no shortcuts. The personal reward for producing something that is lasting, functional, and beautiful is immense. When you try to pinch pennies on materials or time, you are only shortchanging yourself.

Busy Time

It's now the crazy time of year when there is a social event almost every evening until Christmas. I kind of like seeing people and having fun things to look forward to all the time, but it is pretty exhausting. Late night piled upon late night makes for sleepy days. I am a big fan of napping but napping can only do so much to alleviate exhaustion. Small price to pay for good times.

My Christmas presents are coming along nicely. I do think I should have started much earlier than I actually did. Some people might get gifts with needles still attached, but what do you do? I only have so much time and I do the best I can.

Note Taking

Note taking is critical if you're going to work without a pattern. Unfortunately I am always over-confident about what I'll remember and lazy when it comes to writing what I'm doing down. This really becomes a problem when you are trying to make two identical objects (like mittens) the first of which you didn't think through thoroughly and had to redo, thereby confusing the first and second knittings of it in your head.

Thankfully when you are working with ridiculously big yarn you can easily see your increases and decreases. Big yarn is my savior. I can count my stitches and figure out exactly what I did. This helps, but does not ensure an exact replica of my first mitten. Luckily, close enough is good enough for me.

Mittens!

I made some sweet mittens today...well, a mitten, but it's an awesome mitten, and I'm going to make the other one. I made it with the same big yarn I made the razzledazzleberry hat with and it turned out great...um...the second time around. I almost gave up and started something else but I forced myself to continue and work out my problems, and I did, my feeling of satisfaction is immense. Like the billboard says: Failed Failed Failed and then...Persistence.

Confessions About Knitting for Babies

All of my friends are having babies right now...ok maybe not all but a lot, and my problem is that I'm having a hard time getting up the courage and fortitude to knit baby things (the pressure of Christmas doesn't help either). I want to do good things for these struggling new parents but I have qualms about making precious woolly goods for the crinkly infants. The infants aren't really going to appreciate the goodness that they have and the parents might worry that the wool will disturb the soft skin of their sweet munchkins, or worse, cause an allergic reaction. Plus, they'll grow out of it in about two weeks and all my hard work will be for nothing.

Am I selfish? Probably. Maybe I just have a healthy sense of the worth of my time; I don't want to waste it on those who don't know what they've got. Sometimes I feel like I'm being ungenerous by not making cutesy baby things for my favorite moms and pops to wiggle onto their adorable progeny but then I think about the pile of unwashed laundry and my sweet husband who keeps asking me for a simple hat to keep his noggin warm in the cold weather and I say too bad. Another crafty auntie or gramma will easily take my place and those gifts will mean even more because they're from family.

Maybe after Christmas I'll make some awesome babywear, because after all it is really fast and easy and there are some really cute patterns out there. Hmmm...

Giving Thanks

It's Thanksgiving! I like Thanksgiving a lot. It's the one holiday dedicated to just being grateful for what we've got and I think that being grateful is very important.

It's easy for us to forget how lucky we are, most of us are warm and well fed with socks and shoes for our feet and warm coats for when we go out. But there are people out there who don't have those things, little kids who want socks for Christmas because they don't have any, and parents asking for blankets so their children will stay warm at night. It makes my problems look small. I'm really very lucky but sometimes, when I'm in the midst of my day, problems seem so large and so unsolvable. But they're not. To have a day to just look around and appreciate family and friends and say thanks warms my insides more than any cup of hot cocoa ever will.

I wish I could do more for the needy of the world and maybe someday I will but for now I'll do the little bit that I can and be thankful for the rich life that I lead. A life that's rich because of the people in it.

Razzledazzleberry

Once again I am attempting to make all of my holiday gifts, and I am actually going to do it this time. For sure. Really. In the hopes of completing this laborious task I made a hat with really big yarn and needles that only took me about 3 hours to make. Yay for fast! Plus I put a pom pom on it and I've never done that before. Adventure, excitement and dazzlement! I can't show you a picture yet though, because I might give it to you and then you wouldn't be surprised and Christmas would be ruined. I don't want to ruin Christmas.

After Christmas update: Here's the hat

Summer

Good heavens! Time is flying by! My life got away from me for a while but I hope that I am catching up to it. This spring was a difficult one for me, full of worry, doubt and sadness, but summer is here now and things are growing and blooming. I plan to climb all of the mountains ahead of me and drink in the fresh air from the top.

Which brings me to my knitting. I have finished two whole projects! And they turned out beautifully! Well...the mittens are a little small, but hey, I'll give them away and the lucky recipient will think that I am just naturally very generous...ummm...and the sweater has too many buttons, but I feel it's a fashion statement, kind of like the way those scooters in England had too many mirrors in the '60s. So, not perfect but good enough.

I have been taking piano lessons this spring and I love it. It is very challenging but I find that I am learning much more than piano; I am learning truths about life that were always there but I never understood them, like the truth about practice: It takes practice to get good at something. I realized I am just starting out knitting and I must be kind to myself, and whatever amount of talent a person has will never add up to a lifetime of practice. I could probably count all of the projects I have completed on my fingers and so I don't have much practice finishing. I read a quote from Martha Graham once that said "Practice is a way of inviting the perfection desired," and I like to think of all of the time spent ripping and swearing as my invitation to perfection. Yes Perfection, come and visit me.

Knitting Weekend

Knitting weekends are my favorite. On kitting weekends my Mom and I and my aunties all get together to spend a weekend hanging out and knitting. Usually we all get there on Friday night (the location changes) and spend the evening gossiping, eating, and catching up. Then we go to bed late, overstuffed and tired.

Saturdays we shop. We get up in the morning and eat our breakfast (When we go to my Aunt Sue's it's homemade Danish, YUM!) and then leave for shopping. Some of us have projects in mind and some of us just go to see what is there. After a while we stop for lunch and then inevitably decide that we are done for the day and need to go home and watch movies and knit. So that's what we do.

We watch a lot of movies and solve the world's problems. We'll also help each other figure out how we got extra stitches and decreases that look funny, or we'll tell each other that the new thing the person is trying is way easy and they'll love it, no matter how intimidating it looks. Stories of all the different lives are tossed in like salt and pepper. Lots of laughter over silly things done in the past or stories of the crazy doings of current loved ones. Lots of love and support.

Then we go our separate ways on Sunday. Hopefully to return with gorgeous finished products to make the others jealous next time. Or, most of the time, jokes about what went wrong.

Chunky Fever

This morning I have fallen in love with chunky knits. I made a beautiful little warm hat in the time it took me to watch a cheesy romantic comedy. Speed is a beautiful thing. The pattern is from Twinkle's Big City Knits by Wenlan Chia.

Being the procrastinator that I am I decided to put off making decisions about my sweater. But, just because I don't want to make decisions doesn't mean that I don't want to knit. I wanted a fast and satisfying project (and a hat) so I decided to go forward with knitting up this pattern, which I had gotten the materials for many moons ago. I didn't have the right sized needles (a ridiculously large #19)so I had to make some minor adjustments but I think it worked out. Pretty rewarding for a couple of hours work.

Decisions

My sweater has progressed nicely, and I have reached the point where some decisions must be made. Here is my dilemma: This sweater is originally designed as a flat knit sweater, meaning the pieces are knit back and forth and sewn together when they are done. I however, decided that it would be much better and easier to knit it in the round, meaning I knit the front and back all at once going round and round to make a sweater tube. Knitting in the round is great because when you are done you don't have to do any nonsensical sewing together, you don't have any bulky seams, and you don't have to make more pieces. Unfortunately I have to figure out how to adapt the pattern to this round configuration. I would be o.k. with it except there is a fancy neck that I have never done before. I have to admit I am a little afraid.

You reach a certain point on a sweater (when the sleeves are attached) that the idea of having to rip out rows and rows to fix stupid mistakes in necks becomes much less appealing. I have reached that point and now have to figure out how to not screw up the neck. This pattern is, in true '70s style, written out completely with no charts. Charts would make this task much easier. Trying to dissect all of the abbreviations in the pattern and imagine what shapes they are trying to make has pretty much given me a headache. I will conquer it...but it might be a while.

Wrong Sweater

Wow! I saw the most incredible commercial on TV. The ad featured a tall blond man with a Scandinavian accent. It was very clear that they were trying to portray this man as Scandinavian, but he was wearing an Aran sweater! Can you believe it? I was appalled. I don't even remember what the ad was for because I was too busy being distracted by this Scandinavian man's Irish sweater. Who does that? If you are going to go to the trouble to play off of a stereotype, you should at least get the stereotype right. There are so many different sweaters they could have used instead to be believable. Well now we know: that product is no good. If the manufacturers are not going to take the trouble to get the knitting correct, who knows what other corners they have cut.