The Birth of a Knitter

This past week I had the honor of introducing a muggle to the magical world of Knitting.  And not just any muggle, but my boyfriend the muggle (henceforth referred to as "The Composer").

He had previously accompanied me to a yarn shop and experienced first-hand the wonders of an LYS.  Hearing exclamations such as, "I just want to knit SO BADLY!" and listening to an entire store full of customers putting in their two cents about the February Lady Sweater in the commemorative edition of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac (I was explaining to him the importance of Elizabeth Zimmermann in our world), he seemed entirely enthralled.  There was also the wonder and awe that only a ball winder can bring to a muggle.  (What is it about guys and their fascination with those?  It must just be a gadget thing.)

He then asked me to teach him how to knit.  (!!!!!!!!!!)

I even let him use my ball winder.

 

The picture is blurry because he was having too much fun.

I taught him how to cast on and how to do the knit stitch.

I knew that he was hooked, but I don't think he realized it yet.

 

And yes, I do have a floral couch decorated with knitted and crocheted blankets.  You all knew I was an old lady at 23, right?

And look, progress!  I should tell you - that night he stayed up until 2am knitting on that swatch and I very distinctly heard him say "Just one more row..." several times.  We all know what that means, right?

The next day, I found this sitting on the table at school:

Yep, he already brings his knitting with him everywhere and takes great pride in showing it to everyone who happens to walk by.  He's doing a good job, isn't he?!  He (well, I) bound off that swatch and called it a potholder only to cast on for his first scarf during class this past Tuesday.

Yep, knitting in class.  He's hooked.

And that's how yet another cute male knitter was born.

Minor Stash Enhancement

Thank you everyone for such a warm welcome back to the blogging world!  I've really missed being here and I'm going to try to keep it up as much as I can now that a new semester is about to start.

Before driving back to Pittsburgh I had to stop one last time at The Yarnery, one of Minnesota's finest yarn shops.  (That's not an opinion, it's a fact).

I was a bit frantic when I arrived and started simply pulling skeins off the shelves left and right.  I walked in the door, grabbed the latest Vogue Knitting (I really like the Men's Fair Isle Cardigan as part of the "Chalet Chic" collection) and then continued to snatch things up that I had no use for.

Normally I buy yarn strictly on an "as needed" basis and was therefore quite appalled by my behavior.  I believe the fact that I was drawn to buy yarn simply because I wanted it means that the knitting bug has come back at full force.  I managed to resist most of the yarn piling up in my arms in the end, but I did go home with two skeins.

 

The first was a skein of Malabrigo Twist in the 'Teal Feather' colorway.  I have absolutely no idea why I bought it.  Heck, I'm still not convinced that "teal" is even a color!  But when I saw this yarn, there was no hesitation.

When I got home I remembered that I have a skein of Twist in black that I bought many moons ago and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they would be very happy together.

My plan is to knit them up into Stephen West's Westward Hat from Westknits Book 1.  Ooh, you know what'd be sweet?  It would be awesome if I could get two hats out of these skeins and reverse the colors.  I'll have to see once the first hat is finished.

The second skein I bought was Madelinetosh Tosh Lace.

The 'Tart' colorway jumped out at me as soon as I walked in the door.  I've never knit with Madtosh before and although the color is gorgeous, the yarn definitely has that superwash-y feel to it.  With only 950 yards, I haven't picked a pattern yet.  Any suggestions?  I'm thinking I may even try to design my own, but that could end in disaster and I don't have much time these days to sit around and sketch things out.

It's very pretty though, no?

Past, Present, and Future

For three months this blog has gone untouched.  I had all but removed myself from the knitting community altogether for a while, but the other day I decided that it might be time to return.  I may not knit much anymore, but I miss the blog and the enjoyment I used to get from it.

I haven't been documenting my projects on Ravelry, either.  Hats, scarves, legwarmers, socks... they've come and gone without notice.  I actually felt a bit liberated that way - no pressure to record, to document, to display anything I was doing.  It became my own personal pastime, but now I think I'm ready to return.  I'm just going to cut my losses and start from where I am right now.

From the past we have some lace:

 

Yes, that's right, I'm still working on my Autumn Arbor Stole.  It's almost done, though.  Just a couple more repeats of the pattern and I can call it quits.

It'll block out beautifully, I can tell.  It's interesting to see where my tension has changed as I've knit on this piece.  I know my tension has changed because after months of not working on it, the colors started to pool differently.  I wonder how it'll look once it's finished.

I also finally got around to blocking my Aeolian Shawl.

 

I do believe it blocked out amazingly and knit in cashmere it is the most decadent thing I have ever made.  The yarn, Handmaiden Cashmere 2-ply (or something like that), was a gift from Joan and I can't thank her enough.

 

The tonal variations in the yarn are subtle, but beautiful.  Now I just need to figure out what to do with this shawl.  It seems a shame to keep it folded up in my closet.

 

Presently I am working on a scarf all for me.  For my birthday my mother sent me some of Brooklyn Tweed's greatly coveted Shelter yarn in the Button Jar colorway along with the pattern for Dryad.  A more perfect pair couldn't have been made.

 

The stitch definition this yarn offers is spectacular and I can't wait to see how it blooms once I wash the scarf.  I'm giddy with excitement knowing that this scarf is all for me.

 

Sometimes we just have to be selfish.

It appears I'll have a selfish future as well, with projects planned to use up more yarn given as gifts.

For my birthday, Sister No. 4 presented me with a pattern kit from A Verb for Keeping Warm's club.  Beautiful yarn in my favorite colors along with an exclusive Stephen West pattern.  Really, my life couldn't get any better.

Just look at that beautiful yarn!  I can't wait to get this project on my needles.

And last, but definitely not least, I have an armful of Malabrigo from Sister No. 2 with which I intend to make the most perfect sweater ever.

The trouble is, it appears that the pattern for "the most perfect sweater ever" doesn't exist and I fear I will have to attempt to make it on my own.  I'd be planning that all right now, but my stitch dictionaries and such are back in Pittsburgh and I'm here in Minnesota for winter break.

 

But just thinking of the possibilities amuses me to no end.

and with that I bid you all adieu until next time, which I hope will be sooner than three months from now.

Warm wishes and a Happy New Year to you all!

Nightmares

When I was auditioning for grad schools last Spring, sometimes I would have strange nightmares about how they would go or what the results would be.

One dream that occurred more than once showed me being called into the admissions office of a school and being told that I had been accepted, under one condition...

...I had to give up knitting.  NooooooOOOO!!!  Of course, I didn't want to throw a tantrum and run out of the office, so I sucked it up and accepted their offer, enduring two years of knitting-less life to concentrate on the clarinet.

Now, thankfully this dream didn't happen.  However, the result seems to be the same.  I was admitted to grad school and upon arrival it appears that all of a sudden I have given up knitting - not intentionally, not officially, not happily, but somewhere along the line my knitting has stopped dead in its tracks.  What am I to do when I come home to see this sitting by my couch,

knowing that day after day, week after week, it continues to be ignored?  Do you see all those wonderful things in there?

That's a hat that I have nearly finished!  It has a lining and everything and all that is left to do is attach the tassel and close up the top.  I reached that point over 5 weeks ago and still it remains unfinished.

I threw that fingerless glove in the basket because its mate is done and this one needs only 6 rows of ribbing on the thumb and the ends woven in.  And I'll let you in on a secret - on the first one, I just knotted the ends and called it a day.  Really.  I did.  And I don't even feel guilty, except that they're coming undone.  No matter, I knit these two a year apart and they're entirely different sizes anyway, so it's not like someone's going to wear them.

That's a Windschief Cowl finished almost 6 weeks ago, yet I still haven't woven in the two ends...

A wonderful pair of mittens to match my winter coat.  Look, I even started embroidering my name on one of them!  They still need thumbs and linings, but I was so close!

And this next one is the biggest shame.

My Aeolian Shawl.  I finished knitting it in July and still it sits unblocked.  The softest cashmere I've ever felt, sitting crumpled at the bottom of a basket.  It's not right, I tell you.  Can you imagine how beautiful it'll be when it's blocked?  I pick it up from time to time and am ALWAYS surprised by how soft it is.  Unbelievably soft!!!  I neeeeeed to block it, if only for that amazing transformation experience that only lace blocking can bring.  Maybe I'll save it for one of those metaphorical rainy days.

You know what else there is?

The yarn for a long-desired Staccato sweater of my very own.  I had to go to at least 5 different yarn shops in 3 different states just to collect all the colors.  I think I started buying the yarn for this over a year ago and I haven't even swatched for it yet!

Why oh why did I have to give up knitting to go to grad school?

So here's the confession:  I have time to knit.  I do!  I spend my entire day on campus and often I find myself with a 3+ hour break with nothing to do (except practice).  I could be knitting during that time, but I don't bring my knitting to school with me.  For some reason I'm still uncomfortable knitting in public and so it remains home, abandoned, waiting for me to have a day off or a weekend free to settle down and complete some of those projects.  And there are more in that basket that I didn't even mention.

It's a sad state that my knitting is in, but I have hope that when the cooler weather begins to settle in I will feel compelled to finish that hat and those mittens, weave in the ends of the cowl, and settle in for a warm, relaxing evening of knitting with a cup of tea and a nice audiobook.

On a somewhat unrelated note: I got an iPhone recently because I dropped my old phone in the toilet and don't have internet at home, so this seemed to fix both problems.  I was hoping I would be able to blog with it and took the above pictures on my phone thinking I would be able to blog much more easily, but it appears I can't post them onto the blog from my phone.  Anyway, posts might continue to be sporadic for a while.  That's just the way life is sometimes.

I Found My LYS

One day, I will not need to physically type my blog posts.  When this day comes, you will all be graced with the eloquence and depth of the dozens of posts I have written in my head mere seconds after the thoughts occur to me.

This day will come shortly after the day we will all be able to take picture with a mere blink of the eyes and then it would be only a matter of mental concentration to implant them into my wonderful, thoughtful, inspiring blog posts (blog posts which, if you remember, don't have to be typed).

That day, unfortunately, is not today.  I say unfortunately because for many of the posts I have written in my head, the time has passed for them to be relevant.  It is unfortunate also because this post will now be devoid of pictures.

I am popping in only shortly to let you all know that I am still alive and my move to Pittsburgh was relatively uneventful.  Uneventful in the sense that the event of my hot water turning on didn't happen for a week.  Uneventful in the sense that the event of my knitting didn't happen.  Uneventful in the sense that the event of my having internet in my apartment has yet to happen.

Luckily events are now happening.  I have hot water, I am knitting (though have nothing to show you because I haven't taken any pictures), and although I still don't have internet at home, I can use it on campus when I'm here (I'm posting between practice sessions).

...and today, the biggest event of all happened.  After class, instead of dutifully marching to a practice room to practice my heart out, I climbed into my car and went for a bit of a ride.  A bit of a ride turned into quite the expedition after several wrong turns (thanks, Googlemaps...) and several episodes of construction causing me to end up nowhere near where I wanted to be.  (Here's a secret about Pittsburgh: there are three rivers.  If you accidentally cross a bridge, crossing another one does not, as you might think, ensure that you will be on the correct side of the river again.  Just thought I'd warn you.)

Once I found my way, I was able to hunt down my as-yet-unknown destination and finally, after driving a good three miles down the road of my googlemaps location, I had arrived.

I had arrived at my new LYS.  (that was spoken rather dramatically).

I wish I had pictures.  I really do.  I walked in and gasped (and I don't gasp easily).  An entire wall of cascade 220!  The most beautiful rainbow I had ever seen.  And what's that behind me?  Shelf after shelf of Malabrigo?  I swooned.  And next to the Malabrigo?  Manos.  On the other side of the shelves?  Dream in Color and Madelinetosh!  They had Noro like you wouldn't believe, incredible lace yarns.  Need Jamieson's for colorwork?  They have it.  Sock yarns, bulky yarns, washable yarns, books...  I nearly fainted.  Every turn I made brought my toward more and more wide-eyed happenings.  And when I thought it couldn't get better, I made it to the back.  In the back, next to the books, past the shelves and shelves of every yarn I ever dreamed I might find, was spinning fiber.  Spinning fiber!!!  I barely even spin anymore, but I nearly collapsed at that point.  This place has it all.

Here are some texts I sent to my sister while I was there:

"Holy crap, I just found the BEST yarn shop!"

"Oh my god, this store has EVERYTHING!"

"It's unbelievable!  A whole wall of Cascade 220.  It's a rainbow!"

"I feel like I just played hookie from school..."

I take it back, I did not find my new LYS.  I have found my new home.

If you need me, you know where to find me.  (And they're open until 9pm!!!)

Sunrises, Shawls, and Squirrels (and Such...)

Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments on my Bali posts.  I hope I didn't bore you all to sleep with my endless ramblings about my trip with picture after picture after picture of scenes that I'm sure meant more to me than they did to you.  It was important to me to be able to document that trip, so thank you for humoring me for the past couple of weeks.

I returned home from my cabin a little less than a week ago and I, of course, can't help but show you all some pictures of the sunrises which I had the pleasure of watching every morning.

Honestly, nothing is more peaceful to me than sitting alone in the morning watching a sunrise.  I could do it all day long (if only... but then maybe it wouldn't be as special).

Every morning I would sneak out of my cabin before anyone else was awake to watch the sun come up behind the trees and listen to the birds begin their morning.

In fact, I would set up my own little stakeout on the deck with everything I needed for my morning.

Just me and the outside world.  A stack of bird books within arm's reach, a pair of binoculars, my camera, and a towel to dry off in case I chose to go for an early morning dip.

I really do miss that place when I'm not there.

Though you may have noticed that I didn't have any knitting with me in the mornings, I did find time during the evenings to work on my Aeolian shawl a little more and wouldn'tchaknowit, I finished!

It still (obviously) needs to be blocked, but I'm going to wait until I get to Pittsburgh to do that.

It seems like it would be a good project to christen my new apartment with.

Speaking of my new apartment... I'm moving on Wednesday.  And yes, I am overcome by a wave of stress every time I think of this.  Moving to an apartment in itself shouldn't be a stressful event, but the composite effect of several events occurring at the same time is quite overwhelming.

• First of all, did you know I've never lived in an apartment before?  For undergrad I was required to live in the dorms for all four years, so I have never experienced the wonders of paying rent.
• I am moving to a new city on the other side of the country - a city in which I know absolutely nobody
• Top it off with a large amount of stress about preparing for grad school
• Then add the cherry of the fact that I have an audition a week after I arrive and my clarinet has gone untouched for the past few months.  And let me tell you, I may mentally know how to play, but the physicality is gone.  Sadly, this is not one of those times when the "riding a bike" analogy can be used.  The muscle memory in my fingers is fine, but the muscle development in my embouchure is gone, and that can only be fixed with careful practice.

I don't think a day goes by in which I don't think to myself, "What the f#$! am I thinking?!"  Ah stress, how I missed thee.  (Now please go away).

Also, my landlord seems to think that I owe him rent beginning from July 15, which is something he never stated until today, I have not yet signed a lease, I wasn't even in the country (let alone this half of the globe) on July 15, and my early correspondences with him state that I was looking for an apartment beginning on August 1st.  I kind of wish everything weren't happening all at once, you know?

Anyway, I'm done complaining for the day.  Look what was in our yard a couple of days ago?

It's a baby squirrel!!!!  And also adorable.  It fell out of its nest in the maple tree in our front yard and cried and cried and cried until we picked it up.

It was such a precious little thing, its eyes not yet open and its body nearly naked sans its cute little whiskers and a bit of peach fuzz on its head.  Those cute little ears and tiny claws were so endearing, I didn't want to return it to its family, but we all know that mother knows best and it was back to the tree for this little fellow.  What a cute little guy.

Bali: The Final Days

Friday, July 16, 2010:

This was our last day in the program and in the morning we were all madly rehearsing trying to remember all the parts of the pieces we were going to be performing that evening.  After lunch we all made offerings to decorate the Pondok for our performance and then took a break for the afternoon to rest up.

Making offerings

to decorate the ceiling

It was fun to hang out with everybody before the show and the show itself was fun, too!  There was actually a pretty decent turnout of an audience considering that we were all foreign visitors who had only been studying these tradition arts for three weeks, but I was touched that so many people came to hear and watch us perform.  It started raining halfway through our performance, so the audience had to crowd onto the platform with us, but hey, that's Bali, right?

After the performance we all hung out for a while before calling it a night.  What a fun time!

Saturday, July 17, 2010:

This was my last day in Bali.  The afternoon was spent as a group reflecting on our experiences in the program and we did a final prayer service to close up the institute.  It was definitely a bittersweet time for us all and I'm so glad I had the experience.  When our time together ended at 5pm, my driver came up to me and said, "So I'm driving you to the airport at 10pm tonight, right?"  I thought I wasn't leaving until tomorrow!!!  I had to run home and pack in a mad rush and then had time to briefly stop in at the karaoke bar where everyone was hanging out to say a quick goodbye and run off to the airport to begin my 30 hour trip.  It was such a bizarre feeling as I was planning on an addition 24 hours to prepare myself to leave, but maybe it was better this way.  It was much more surreal, that's for sure.

And with that my tale has come to a closing, I hope you all enjoyed the pictures and thanks so much for reading!  Hopefully I'll have an update in the next day or two with some actual knitting content.  Have a great day!