Resolutions

I've never liked New Year's resolutions. I believe that they are made, in part, due to our subconscious desire for increased self loathing resulting from the failure to achieve our goals. Ok maybe that's just me. But here they are:

Non-knitting:

1) I will get a Texas drivers license. According to Texas law (or maybe Houston law, who knows) you have to register your car and change your license 30 days after moving to the state. I've lived here since August 2004 and I still have a license from Virginia showing my parents' address (an address at which I haven't actually resided for 8 years). I have an actual reason (lost social security card, which is required, failed attempt to get new social security card through mail, and dread of spending a day waiting for new one), but I believe that my secret reason is that I'm not really ready to admit that I live here.
2) I will not spend more money than I make. I believe that I've just about nipped this habit, but I need to keep it in mind. You know when I really really want something and that one credit card is just calling my name and it's just $100 or $50 or $400.

Knitting:

1) I will not start projects that I am not 100% committed to. Unfinished projects make me feel bad about myself. They laugh at me, taunt me and tell me how undisciplined I am.
2) I will not over commit myself to projects for other people. As fun as I think it is to knit everyone I know a small hat, scarf or booties, the pressure is not fun. And every baby born around me is not a reason to knit. I will knit for my babies when and if they come.
3) I will not over commit myself to yarn. My stash is not something I like. It makes me feel wasteful. To me, it's like buying shoes that don't go with anything I own and the letting them sit in the closet for years. Sure they are cute, but what's the point? I know this is grounds for permanent removal from the cool knitter club, but I don't really care. I'd rather not have gobs of yarn shaming me.

So that's that.

Confessions...

"These are my confessions... just when I've said all I think I can say, my chick on the side said she's got one on the way." Usher

Ahhh, the deep intro quote.

Confession 1: I have made a very difficult decision. I am not knitting until February 1, 2006. Ummm, no, January 1, 2006.... No. I must respect the tendons: February 1, 2006. Well, we'll see. I made this decision this past weekend while killing my thumb and wrists to finish my parent's Christmas gifts, both of which were causing undue stress. You know, I've been paying all kinds of money and spending all kinds of time in physical therapy, getting adjusted by the chiropractor and going to the orthopedic doctor, and I'm just being a jackass by continuing to knit. I mean really, it's like the kid sneaking cookies past his mom. Like I'm getting away with it. Hello, it's just making me take longer to get better. So that's my decision, and I'm sticking to it.

Confession 2: I knit this morning. I know. I'm terrible. I knit five rows of 24 stitches each. I was testing my pattern. I was just.... I know.

Confession 3: I threw away perfectly good yarn. Along with the hurting thumbs, I have been having an aching conscience. I just don't think I am one of those knitters who can have 8 projects going at one time. It just hurts me. I feel really bad and really wasteful, and I just can't take it. So, I liberated myself.

• I liberated myself from Kiri, which I think is a lovely shawl, but my heart just wasn't in it the way it should be. Plus I was convinced that it was going to be a disaster. And I dropped all these stitches and couldn't figure out how to pick them up correctly, making it more disastrous. I just broke it off and threw it away.
• I liberated myself from Knitty's Kitchensink, which I think would be a very handy bag, but the stitches in the patterns were killing my tendons. The worst was the herringbone stitch in which you k2tog, drop one stitch off the needle and k2tog with the one you've already done and the next stitch. OWWW. There was also one where you knit into the second stitch on the needle, twist it around and knit into the second stitch on the needle. OWWW. I saved the yarn.
• I liberated myself from Interweave's Star Rib Mesh Poncho. Mostly, I was liberating myself from the yarn. I thought I loved Brown Sheep, but I think I've realized that I just don't. I was using Cotton Fleece, which I thought was the greatest thing when I first started, but now that I've experienced different yarn, I don't like it. Doesn't have a great hand, splits a lot when you are working with it, etc.
• I gave myself permission to liberate as necessary from the Midwest Moonlight Scarf and from my mom's sock. Midwest Moonlight due to potential scarf fatigue and mom's sock due to tendon fatigue.

There they are. My confessions. Not nearly as earth shattering as Usher's, but I feel better being honest with you, dear readers.

New Best Friend...

Wendy, the owner of my LYS, Yarns 2 Ewe suggested I buy The Knitters Handy Book of Sweater Patterns about six months ago. I sort of nodded my head and said "sure I'll buy it" all the while thinking that I would never buy that book. Well, I have seen the light and made a new best friend. By glancing at the book, I learned more about sweaters than I have ever known. You think I'm kidding. I never had any idea what people were talking about when they called sweaters raglan. But now I do, and my life has changed. I've already started designing something. Probably raglan, with flared sleeves, a cable pattern on the sleeves and possibly with split sides near the waist, tunic style. Well ok, I've spent a while thinking about it.

Oh look, here's the pattern I'm thinking of. I'm sure that others have thought patterns almost exactly like that, but I like it. And I took about two hours playing with it using Microsoft Excel, an old best friend. Whewy, my creative muscle is tired.

Ode to the sock

I am completely enamored with my mother’s sock. I love knitting it and am fascinated that I am creating such a garment. Here’s why:

1. I totally dig the two circular needle method of knitting socks. Although I only did ½ a sock via the traditional, double pointed needle method, I feel that this one is vastly superior. Because it a) It hurts my thumbs less. Granted the size one needles are hard on my thumbs no matter what. (oh for those of you who missed the beginning of the thumb drama, check this link for what’s wrong with my thumbs) b) It’s simpler. Since I am using two needles instead of four, I only have to turn, switch needles and replace the yarn twice every round. c) I can try the socks on without messing them up. After turning the heel on the first sock using traditional method, I tried to be clever and put it on and in so doing dropped about half the heel stitches.
2. I love the heel flap. I love the way the sl1, k1; purl ends up looking. And it’s all squashy like i-cord. Love it.
3. I think that turning the heel is one of the most genius things in the whole world. Really. The woman or man who thought of this way back in the day when people were unfortunate enough to only have tube socks is my new hero. I love the cute little cup that I MADE for my mom’s heel. Mother, you can know that your daughter is with you with every step, cupping your heel when you wear these socks.
4. I love that since birth, I have been wearing socks and always thought of them as no big deal but when in reality, they are quite complex.
5. I love the way the heel flap, gusset and instep link together. I love it.
6. I love to watch the sock progress. After every row, I stop, look at the sock, smile and marvel at my intelligence. I am amazed that animals like pigs, cows, monkeys and others actually go with out them. I don’t know what’s wrong with them… I mean, look at that gusset!!!
7. I also love Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock. It has reinforced my obsession with everything Lorna (at my LYS the other day, I whispered to Ann, “See how much more Lorna’s Laces they have?” She sort of rolled her eyes the way people do when I’m being obsessive). I don’t know if this Lorna person is real or not, but if so, thanks for producing something that can act as the physical embodiment of my knitting obsession.

I love all these things but hate the fact that I will probably be a while before I do another one. Need to get these tendons better, Ms. Homiquest. If my physical therapist knew I was knitting my mom socks, she would remove my thumbs and paste them to my forehead.

My dad’s scarf has gone from being almost done to annoying the piss out of me. Why doesn’t it just finish itself? I mean, really. I give and give and give and get nothing back from this scarf except “you switched the right side and the wrong side” and “your cables twist the wrong way” and “you are never going to finish me on time.” I just put my hands over my ears and go “lalalalalala… I can’t hear you scarf.” At this point, the cats look at each other and say, “She’s talking to the knitting again.”

And speaking of cats. I am about to kill one of them. Oh, he knows who he is. He thinks he’s so clever. Every morning, he sits on the bed and purrs as loudly as he can in order to wake me up and get fed. He probably starts this at 4 am or so, but it usually doesn’t wake me until 4:45 to 5:30 am. My alarm is set for 6:04. After he wakes me up between 4:45 and 5:30, I spend the next hour and nineteen minutes to thirty four minutes keeping him away from my head. So many people think it is cute when cats “make biscuits.” I guess that I do too except when they make them at my skull’s expense. Yeah, he’s figured out that if he scratches the hell out of my skull, I will wake up. And I don’t even feed him right when I get out of bed. I take a shower or knit first. However, this clever cat has probably figured that the likelihood of his getting fed while I am asleep is quite low. You know, he probably thinks that I leave every morning to go sleep somewhere else. That’s what he would do. No cat, I work for a living so that you have such a nice sofa to sleep on. Really, I'm so annoyed with you that I doubt I will ever knit you a sweater as nice as this one!

Sophie et al.

I had left over Manos del Uruguay from my brothers' hats, so I decided to make a Sophie bag. Well, about 10 rows into it, I realized I didn't have enough yarn. So, I made a modified Kristen Sophie. It's shorter, doesn't have twisted i-cord handles and (since I loved it so much from the satchel), it has i-cord edging on the top. I didn't over felt it for once. In fact, I may have under felted it. But I don't care, I like it.

I love it in fact. I sat behind two women on the plane to Virginia Beach from Houston. I remembered them because they kept passing a video game looking thing between them. On the return trip, I sat in front of them and told them I remembered them. They remembered me, informed me that they were playing scrabble (not video games), saw my progress on the bag and were quite impressed. I love how impressed non-knitters get with knitting. Especially an easy stockinette bag on circular needles. Make me feel like I've destroyed my thumbs for a good reason (though we do not speak of them).

I have been knitting my mother's socks as well. Having mastered the two circular needle method, I have been knitting away. The socks are a little big, but I'm hoping against hope that they will shrink somewhere along the way (does superwash wool shrink??). I took this picture this morning right as I left for work (hence the black stocking leg underneath the socks) so the quality is not great.

Yeah, that's not a very good picture. There's a pattern there on the socks. Little upsidedown Vs. Oh well. Anyway, I love the two circular needle method. It's so much easier on my thumbs. Anyway, I'm on the heel flap, should turn it and pick up stitches tonight. I'm also working away on my Daddy's scarf. It's the same as before only longer. I still really like the pattern but am a bit exhausted of it.

Next, we come to the $24 cookies. Why were they $24? Two words: Vanilla. Bean. Those things are damn expensive. Does the vanilla bean tree only produce 1 vanilla bean a year or something? I almost left the expensive thing out, but decided that if Martha included it, it must be important. Oh, these cookies are from Martha Stewart's holiday cookie magazine. Brynne has been a baking fool, making cookies from this book that look fabulous. Well, I thought I would join in on the fun. These are the Vanilla Cookies with Raspberry Cream sans Raspberry Cream (I made the cream, but the photos... you guessed it, didn't come out. I need a session with my new camera and its owners manual to figure out why I can't get good pictures out of it).

There they are in their baked, $24 glory.

Not much else going on. I made another recipe out of the book, but forgot to photo it. Not that the photos would have come out.

Update: I forgot the poor kitty. Apache was being so cute that I photed him and I forgot to post him. Here he is in his cuteness. I run around the apartment with a long piece of yarn and the kitties chase it. Apache caught it and was being so adorable. Please ignore the semi-unpacked suitcase.

New Toys

Ok, I've been composing a post about knitting in my little head for some time (what a post about knitting on your knitting blog, why's that?), but I've not got time for it right this second. But I just discovered a new toy that is so fun you should all go play with it. I just read about Pandora on a blog I use to stalk old friends from college (shhhhh, great thing about the blogsphere, stalking people without them knowing). Anywho, it's really great and you all should check it out. You enter a band or song name and it creates a station with music you might like. It's like the BN.com "People who like this artist also liked..." feature, only it has given me bands I really actually like.