New Magazines!

I just got two new knitting magazines in the mail! Yay!

I love getting magazines. They're like literary cookies, small, sugary, and not all that good for you. Knitting magazines are slightly different because they provide patterns, fiber and technique knowledge that you wouldn't easily be able to figure out on your own. But sometimes they're junky too.

I love the two magazines I got for different reasons. One is super artistic and usually contains at least one or two patterns I actually am interested in knitting. The other is not super artistic but has a ton of really good technique and fiber information. The problem is both have annoying features as well. And just because I'm kind of an angry woman I'm going to tell you about them.

The problem with the artistic magazine is that they are often so concerned about being artistic that the pictures don't actually show the knitting. I'm a person who really has to look at the picture to see what I'm trying to do. It's like the cover on the puzzle box, you need to see what the end result is supposed to be. They also have pattern problems, like mistakes, poorly written directions (hence the need for the good pictures), and unclear abbreviations. I also hate it when I have to flip through the magazine to find a special technique that's called for, or, (again with the pictures) to find the larger picture of the item I'm making.

I can't tell you about the problems with the patterns in the non-artistic magazine because I haven't made any of the items in it. That's the problem. The patterns are for ugly things that I don't want to make. They're getting better though, there was one sweater in this issue that I thought was cute, maybe there's hope.

An Unfortunate Situation

Here's my story: Last spring, during that time when the sun is warm but there's still snow on the ground, I decided to go running. Not knowing how warm I would get, I started the run with my mittens. About a mile and a half in I got hot and took them off. Then at mile 2 and a half I checked my pockets and one of them was gone! Tragedy! I tried to backtrack a little to see if I could see it but I couldn't and I gave up, hoping some homeless person would find it and have one warm hand. My next thought was about how I would have to make some more, but generally having a Scarlett O'Hara approach to life I put it out of my head and finished my run.

Since then I have made no mittens and now it is snowing. This is unfortunate indeed.

By the time I actually make some mittens the snow will probably be melting again, and I will have gone the whole winter with cold hands.

My Brain Doesn't Work

I realized tonight that my energy and brain power can only do so much. My limits are reached by simple daily life: driving and working, chasing a brilliant and very handsome ball of energy who is nearly two years old, and making sure I have clean underwear. I simply have very little head room for anything else, and unfortunately that anything else extends to my knitting. I have lately attempted to learn new skills and work on adventurous projects, and while this philosophy has been very fruitful in the past, at the moment it falls flat. Like, I don't even want to look at those projects, much less work on them.

The only projects I'm interested in doing right now are small ones that require absolutely no thought. Sigh...

I like them, small thoughtless projects. They're very relaxing to me at the moment.

I started a lovely little hat for my boy. Very simple and cute. He has an adorable hat that his grandma made for him, which he wears all of the time, like even in the bath all of the time, but it's going to get very cold and he needs choices. That's the beauty of being able to knit. Choices.

Easy fun

My new scarfywrappythingy. It's not blocked yet but it still looks ok for pictures. I am definitely planning on blocking it especially since I have new lace blocking wires to do it with.

Oh dear...

...It's been sooo long since I posted. I was doing so well for a little while and now my poor blog is languishing in the vast unattended portion of cyberspace. Sad.

I've been knitting. Just not writing.

Here's where I'm at with my knitting projects:
For my Meringue Yoke Cardigan I finally found beautiful metal buttons at Yarnover in, get this, the Ingebretsen's booth. I always thought Ingebretsen's was a bakery but I am wrong they are wonderful Scandinavian button suppliers and my cardigan now has viking dragon buttons. Excellent!

The twisted yoke cardigan is done except for the plackets, which I am afraid to start. Because every time I pick up stitches to knit the plackets I pick up either too few or too many, or pick them up unevenly, and the sweater puckers and stretches in weird ways. I'll get there eventually.

In the meantime though I knit a beautiful shawl/scarf/wrap thingy that was easy and fun.

I am also in love with garter stitch and need to find some new projects.

Oh, and I'm still procrastinating on my Master Knitter program. It's such an undertaking, who am I really to be attempting to get certified as a master knitter. I kind of suck. Well, not really, but I definitely lack some skills. I guess the idea is that it will help you get to be a master knitter, but I'm not so sure. I just want everything to be perfect the first time. That's not unreasonable is it?

Over the Hump!

In every project, it seems, there is a point where I just cannot proceed right away. The pattern changes, the sleeves have to get attached, etcetera, etcetera, and somehow I need to grow some courage to continue. Well I grew my courage on my cardigan and started the cable pattern. I, of course, already messed up the second row of the cable chart and had to take it out, but it has been started and the roadblock is gone.

 Sometimes, I think, life is like knitting in this way. We need a little rest time to grow some courage to make changes. It's hard to find the energy to change when we are keeping up the hectic pace that so many of us are accustomed to. It's difficult to even know what we want our change to be when there is hardly time to think about the mundane everyday questions and certainly not the grand how-do-you-want-your-life-to-be kinds of questions.

 People ask me what I want and, unless it's in reference to lunch or dinner (bbq sandwiches, pizza) my answer is invariably "I don't know." I kind of know what I don't want but I'm not entirely sure of what I want. And what if what I want turns out to be crap and I don't really want it? I guess these are eternal questions. Maybe you solve them before you die and that's when you know your time is up. Luckily I think I've got a long time before I get anywhere so the world is stuck with me for a while.

Absent but coming back

I've been absent lately from my creative endeavors but I'm on my way back.

First I was in a slump, uninspired and unmotivated then I caught some very infectious daycare germs and was flattened by illness, then I couldn't find my knitting tools and was forced to do nothing.

But now those problems seemed to have resolved themselves. I found my tools, row counter being the most important and easiest to lose, so I can continue on the yoke of my cardigan (btw the sleeves are very much the same size), plus the needles and yarn I was missing to work on a new little toy I'm making for...me probably. The toy has got me working and thinking again about fun things to make and I'm recovering nicely from my illness.

I've still got some problems: a lingering cough, some extra snot in my nose, no buttons for my other cardigan, behind on my master knitter swatches, not much time to knit (or write, or think, or shower). Despite those though, I think I'm on the mend; coming back from my late-winter blahs and starting to feel like the world is turning right side up again. As Martha S. says, it's a good thing.