First things first

One thing I love about knitting is how it’s introduced me to the social circle known as the local knitting group. Mine consists of about a dozen women, and at one of our meetings there are usually anywhere from four to eight of us present (though we’ve had larger gatherings–and even gatherings of just two people). For years (long before I joined it) the group has met monthly at a local community center, and last fall we added a monthly meeting at Starbuck’s to the mix. Some time during the winter, a few of us found ourselves wanting to get together more often, so we started having spur-of-the-moment meetings on “off weeks” (when we weren’t at either of our regularly scheduled locations) at Barnes and Noble (which not only has coffee and snacks, but also stays open quite late–and we do close down the place!).

This group consists of some relatively new knitters (like me) and some very experienced knitters (pretty much everyone else). Everyone is so generous with knitting advice and knowledge! I created a private Google Group for us about a year ago, and it seems that every day someone is asking questions, answering questions, sharing interesting links, pointing out fun patterns, and engaging in fun banter and chitchat. I love it.

Last Thursday, we held a yarn swap/sale among ourselves, at our scheduled meeting at the community center, which is the only place with tables where we could spread out the swag. And wow, we really needed those tables: people cleaned out their stashes and brought boxes and boxes of stuff to swap and sell. My own stash is fairly meager, so I brought only some sock yarn in a lovely-but-definitely-not-for-me color (which I swapped for something else). But I went home with a tote bag full of stuff that other people no longer wanted–but for which I already have ideas. What fun!

In early summer, I signed up for the Knitting Gnome Swap. It’s a linear swap: you get a box with a knitted gnome and some knitting-related stuff in it, and you keep the stuff and send the gnome (along with knitting-related stuff that you’ve gathered for your pal) to the person downstream from you. Gnorm the gnome (and his brother, Gnuman–there are two traveling gnomes for this swap) has been on the road since May and, after a month-and-a-half delay in New Jersey, finally made it to my house last weekend. My knitting group was excited to meet him, so I brought him to last night’s get-together and took lots of photos.

Last summer, when my family went to Vermont for vacation, we stayed in the Northeast Kingdom. This meant that on the way up there, we passed right by Putney–so of course we stopped at the Green Mountain Spinnery. (And on the way back home, we stopped by one of my favorite restaurants in the world, the Miss Bellows Falls Diner.) This year, though, we went to the other side of the state, about thirty miles northeast of Burlington. Our route took us through the Adirondacks and on a ferry across Lake Champlain, far from the Spinnery.

But of course that didn’t stop me from acquiring some yarn during my vacation! On a rainy Wednesday, my friends Gina, Katie, and Beth (who were vacationing with their families on the same pond we were on) and I drove to Essex Junction, just under an hour away, where we visited Kaleidoscope Yarns. Hands-down, it’s the best knitting shop I have ever visited. The staff was friendly but not in-your-face (and certainly not snooty or unwelcoming like pretty much every other yarn-shop owner or employee I’ve ever encountered). And the yarn selection was…well, let me just say that I am still amazed at my willpower. I was surrounded by amazing yarns (with no tacky novelty yarns in sight) and managed not to buy anything. I was sorely tempted by the Malbrigo and by Green Mountain Spinnery’s Sylvan Spirit, but I decided to wait until I had a particular project in mind before making any yarn purchases.

After a terrific lunch (thanks to a recommendation for a local restaurant from the yarn-shop staff), we headed to the Pine Ledge Fiber Studio, owned by Joanne Littler. Her in-home studio/shop is open only by appointment, and it took a couple of days of back-and-forth phone calls to find a time that worked for all of us. But it was well worth the trouble–what amazing yarn. It’s super-bulky stuff best suited for hats. The huge, hanging skeins Joanne had were a bit out of my budget, but she had a few baskets of odds and ends–ten yards here, thirty-five yards there–available at a discount. From those baskets (and the two giant plastic totes of other oddments that she brought out for our perusal) I managed to put together enough yarn for three hats: one for Jan, in blue (top photo); one for Sylvia, in purple and magenta (second photo); and one for me, in red and a russet autumnal mix (third photo).

Sylvia has her own “knitting bag” at home–a small totebag filled with my yarn scraps and gauge squares. It also includes a giant crochet hook, which is just right for her version of “knitting” (i.e., poking at a clump of yarn bits held in her hand) but not something that’s likely to poke out her eye. Joanne had a few bunches of brightly colored merino tops, so I picked up an orange one for Sylvia to add to her knitting bag. (The fuschia one is going to my downstream Virtual Vacation Swap partner.)

A few days later, after the hike featured in the previous post, we stopped in a little shop attached to a nearby historical society. There, amid the books, jewelry, cards, and prints featuring the work of Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley, I found locally spun and dyed yarn. I had no idea how much I’d need for an adult-sized sweater, but figured that five four-ounce skeins of heavy worsted would surely be enough for something for Sylvia. I chose a subdued periwinkle blue that I think (hope!) she’ll like.

I am very very fortunate to be part of a local knitting group. It’s been around for years (ten? fifteen?–long before I moved here or even started knitting), and I joined about a year and a half ago at the urging of two friends who are fellow knitters and parents of some of the kids in Sylvia’s playgroup. At the time, the group meet monthly at a local community center. Since then, we’ve decided that we like to knit together so much that we’ve added a monthly meeting at a local coffee shop and impromptu meetings at a bookstore. These “impromptu” meetings generally take place during a week when we’re not at the community center or the coffee shop. In short, we’re meeting pretty much every week. I love these evening get-togethers–partly as a chance to spend some time with grownups, partly as a chance to let my husband have some time on his own with our daughter (post-dinner playtime and bedtime), and partly because all of those women know a heck of a lot more about knitting than I do, and I get to learn a lot from them.

I’ve decided to knit a sweater for myself. It’s a wrap cardigan called Damson Wine that uses Rowan Kid Classic. I’m actually using the called-for yarn for this, though in a dark green rather than the original purple. I thought about throwing caution to the wind and just plowing right ahead, but since I don’t have the 7.5mm needles the (British) pattern calls for, I’m using the nearest equivalent, US11, which is just a smidge larger than the 10 7/8 the 7.5mm would be if they actually existed in U.S. sizes. My knitting is often a bit tight, so I figured the extra needle size would probably be a good thing.

With lots of help from my knitting pals to figure out exactly how many stitches to cast on, I knit a gauge swatch last night, using Jil Eaton’s technique of adding a few rows of garter stitch (I used four) at the top and bottom and three garter stitches on the left and right sides to create a tidy, easy-to-measure “box” of knitting in the middle. This pattern is a twelve-row knit pattern that uses 7.5mm needles on the odd rows and 5mm (US8) needles on the even rows. (Good thing I have Denise needles! I just put one of each size on either end of cable, and I’m good to go!)

This is not the ideal project to work on if you’re hanging out with a bunch of interesting people and aren’t familiar with this type of knitting. Let me just say this: I am a terrible multitasker. Truly awful. If my husband tries to talk to me while I’m addressing an envelope, I screw it up. If my little paladin is running across a wide-open space in the middle of the desert in (geek alert!) Tanaris, she has to stand still so I can type “Hello” to a friend who just logged on. And if I’m trying to knit a swatch with yarn-forwards and k2tog and skpo and all sorts of stuff like that–and different in every row–I cannot talk to anyone. (But I can listen to conversations, as long as they’re not the sort that expect a response from me. So maybe I have a teensy weensy bit of multitasking ability.) Fortunately, the gauge swatch didn’t take very long to do, so I was able to move on to a project that let me be a bit more social.

So here it is, the gauge swatch in all its glory. As you can tell, it is unblocked. And after my friend Pat measured it about a dozen times to be sure, it still comes up about a quarter of an inch too short in each direction. So what to do? If I go up a needle size on the large needle, then I’m using a US13, which will surely be too large. If I go up a needle size on the small needle, then I’m using US9 and US11…and they might be so close in size that the big-small variation in the pattern gets lost. Pat’s advice: “Steam it, pin it to the measurements you want, then see how the yarn likes being stretched that way.” We’re both optimistic that blocking will do the trick–even just pulling the swatch by hand opened up the lace pattern nicely. I’ll keep my fingers crossed…

When I was in market-bag-knitting-mode in May, I gave one of the bags I made to my friend Katie. The handles were too long for my liking but just right for her, so I was happy to give her the bag. (This was not a total freebie, though: I did leave the ends for her to weave in herself. Mwahahahahaha!)

Katie insisted on knitting a bag for me–and I was delighted to say “Okay!” because I don’t think it’s possible to have too many reusable bags. She even let me choose the color of the yarn, which was awfully nice of her since she already had a ton of suitable pink-orange-yellow yarn in her stash but she knows that color combination makes my head explode. (But you know what? If she had made my bag in those colors I would have loved it anyway and taken it–without my head–to my local farmers’ market.)

She gave me the bag last week, and I’ve already put it through its paces. She is a looser knitter than me (aka “Death Grip on the Knitting Needles”), so the bag has some stretch to it. But it works wonderfully and provided the perfect container for the produce I bought last weekend. There’s something awfully wholesome about seeing fresh fruit and veggies peeking out through the holes of a cotton string bag. Thanks, Katie!

The very excellent Mei has named me a Rockin’ Girl Blogger, and now it’s my solemn duty to pass it on to five other people.

• Katie, at Maylee Beezir, who is a fellow knitter, a fellow Whedonophile, and one of the nicest people I have ever known. She’s my favorite person to go to Target with. :)
• Beth, at knitsmitten, who is a fellow knitter, a fellow outdoors enthusiast, and one of the nicest people I have ever known. She also gave me a chunk of her mint plant, for which my mohito-loving husband is very grateful.
• Gina, at the Mirthful Menagerie, who is a fellow knitter, a fellow cat lover (she has five–all rescue cats!), and one of the nicest people I have ever known.) She also writes some of the most gut-bustingly funny posts I’ve ever read.

(Do you see a theme here? I am very lucky to know so many really nice people!)

• Pixie, at My Obsession with Fiber, who was my SP10 spoiler and did such a great job of choosing wonderful gifts for me. She’s been a fantastic correspondent, too!
• Knittymama, my SP10 spoilee with whom I have an uncanny amount in common. Both of us are vegetarians. Both of us use the same cloth diapers for our kids (well, not the exact same ones, since our kids each have their own sets–just trying to nip in the bud any literal interpretations out there). Both of us own omops. (If she tells me that she wrote in Ralph Nader on her 1996 ballot, I think I will pass out from disbelief.)
• Arianna, at *stars upon thars*, who was my SP8 spoilee and has so many interests (knitting, social activism, literature) that I’m amazed she has time to breathe. Plus she worked on Lord of the Rings Online, so she also rocks for geekery.
• Lynnette, at Linnet’s Nest, who was my SP9 spoiler and sent me all sorts of interesting stuff (including a ball of yarn made of pineapple fiber!). She also just put up a post that includes the phrase “farting poodle,” so she definitely rocks for that.
• JD, at jean.e.ology, who is a fellow knitter and writes amazingly thoughtful posts. We met when I stumbled across her blog and saw a recent post in which she offered to give away two extra issues of Interweave Knits that she had. She also rocks for having one of the coolest blog names I’ve ever seen.
• Imperatrix, at Peaceable Imperatrix, who is a fellow knitter and a fellow wordsmith. She gets outraged about the same sorts of things that tick me off too, but she’s much more articulate than I am about them.

Okay, okay, so I’ve listed nine people, not five. Math was never my strong suit. Besides, since I rock (on toast) I should be able to make up my own rules.

(The toast reference? It’s something very geeky that Jan and I say when we really want to emphasize the awesomeness of something. Example: Sylvia has just gone to sleep for the night, and we’re feeling all mushy-lovey about her. “Sylvia rocks…on toast.” Rockin’ without toast is pretty good. But rockin’ with toast is even better.)

What’s that hanging in the greenery? Those are three of the four baby sweaters I made for three friends having babies this summer. Interestingly, I purchased the yarn and chose the projects long before any of the babies’ sexes were know. As it turned out, all three babies are boys. How about that. The simple boatneck was finished first and went to Liza (whose baby was born in late May) a couple of weeks ago. I finally completed the other three sweaters last week. Two were given yesterday, and one is already wrapped up and will be delivered soon. So I’m afraid this less-than-perfect photo will have to suffice until I can get photos of the babies wearing their new duds (maybe next winter?).

The vest goes to Megan (whose baby was born last week). Sylvia modeled it before I wrapped it, but I thought I’d post a photo of it all by itself. I hope to see the baby soon, and I really hope he and his parents like this little item. The rows of purl stitch really pop against the stockinette background, but the pattern isn’t so complicated that I have to consult a chart for each row.

The other two sweaters are for my friend Minjoo (whose baby is due in mid-August; she’ll get them today at her baby shower). The terra-cotta-colored sweater is in KnitPicks Shine Worsted (like the sweaters I made for my other two friends), which has a very nice hand and yields a surprisingly substantial fabric. This is a pattern I developed myself (and will try to write up soon), with some inspiration from Debbie Bliss’s Simple Boatneck and the famous Wonderful Wallaby. I did have one big snafu while making it: because of its very small circumference, I had to knit the body on double-pointed needles (rather than circulars), and because everything was all sort of scrunched up on the needles, it was only when I go to the point where the neck placket opens up that I was able to stretch out the knitting on the needles a bit…and discovered that I’d been knitting the placket in the middle of the right sleeve. Sigh. That was easily (though time-consumingly) fixed, though, and I am very pleased with how it turned out!

Here’s a close-up of the neck and closure on the other sweater. This is the kimino sweater from Jil Eaton’s Minnies book. I chose Green Mountain Spinnery Cotton Comfort in Weathered Green for this one. I love the color. And I love the yarn–it is such a pleasure to work with. And I love that this yarn is from Vermont, where Jan and I got married with Minjoo as the maid of honor.

Martin is not a very common name these days, but I happen to know two different Martins. To keep them straight, I refer to them as “Martin the lawyer” (a Boston-area friend whom I met through another friend) and “Martin the Swiss guy.” I’ve been friends with the latter for nearly two decades, ever since he was an exchange student at my high school. A few years later, I studied at a Swiss university for a year and spent some time with him in his own country. He did a Ph.D. in computer science at Åbo Akademi University in Finland. While he was there, he learned Finnish and told me about the Finnish celebration of “strawberry summer.” I can understand how, in a northern country with long winters, strawberries that herald the arrival of the short summer are cause for celebration. Now “strawberry summer” always comes to mind when I eat fresh strawberries.

Last Saturday Jan, Sylvia, and I went to one of those pick-your-own farms. It’s strawberry season right now–and, really, it’s hard to find something that beats fresh strawberries.

Considering how many strawberries we ate in the field, I’m amazed we were able to fill up our two boxes. The total haul: over thirteen pounds.

Some strawberries were washed and made into strawberry ice cream (following Ben and Jerry’s recipe).

Lots were eaten out of hand, and some found their way into strawberry shortcake. But what to do with the rest? I decided to make some no-cook jam, but when I went to the store to get fruit pectin I could not resist the siren call of the box of canning jars on the shelf.

Here’s the result of a couple of hours of work. Unfortunately, the jam didn’t set up the way it’s supposed to–my fruit-to-pectin ration was off. Fortunately, preserved strawberry sauce is still delicious (on pancakes, waffles, ice cream, etc.)

By happy coincidence, I have reason to write up another “wow, my friends are great” post. In this case, the friend didn’t give me much-needed decorating advice but sent me yarn.

About two weeks ago, Beth, my roommate from college, called to let me know that her local yarn store was having a mega-sale. Would I like anything? she asked. I was sorely tempted but opted to save my pennies this time. Apparently, she decided to take matters into her own hands: in the mail a few days ago I received a package full of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino.

Now, I love this yarn. I’ve raved about it here before, and Beth and I have had extensive discussions on the subject. And now I have a lot of it. In addition to the four skeins of peach, two skeins of sage green, and two skeins of chocolate brown that Beth sent, I have one skein of chocolate brown (leftover from the cardigan I made for Sylvia) and three skeins of red (from JD). That’s twelve whole skeins of this stuff!

So what should I do with it? I’d love to hear suggestions! I think it would be fun to use it all in one project (though I suspect the red may be a bit too bright to go with the others). A striped sweater? Some sort of intarsia thingamabob?

1. There is special circle of hell reserved for the people who put this god-awful sun-moon-stars wallpaper border in my house. Not only did they exhibit terrible taste in wallpaper, but they put this stuff directly under crown molding in the most formal room in the house. What in the world were they thinking? Fortunately, it all came off–though not without some elbow grease.

2. Home fix-it projects never take as little time or money as you think they will. A few months ago, Jan and I were talking about all the things we want to do with our house, and we realized that we were experiencing the sort of option paralysis that stops us dead in our tracks when we’re standing at the counter in an ice-cream shop: with so many choices, it’s hard to know where to begin. So we decided to choose something “simple” and do it, just to feel a sense of accomplishment.

“The living room!” we declared. “The supplies won’t cost much–just paint!–and painting doesn’t take that long to do, so we’ll be done in no time! And really, it’s about time we got rid of that wallpaper border before its ugliness causes permanent blindness.” It took about two whole months to settle on a paint color (tip: paint your sample paint on a big piece of foam board, so you can move it around the room and test it against your furnishings and in different lighting conditions), then nearly a full week of every-free-minute work to get the supplies we needed and to clear out, prep, and paint the room. Oh, and of course this cost about twice what we anticipated.

3. Shoving nearly two rooms of stuff into one heavily used room is no fun at all. We moved all of our living room crap, er, I mean possessions into our not-terrible-spacious dining room, which made for very crowded mealtimes and decreased enthusiasm for cooking. (In addition to being the Week of Living Room Painting, this was the Week of Take-Out Food.)

Sylvia handled it pretty well. As an almost-two-year-old, she could have gone the way of “something has interrupted my routine, and I don’t like it” or “hey, cool–I have a different view from my high chair now.” Fortunately, for all of us, she took the latter path.

Those people who live through kitchen remodels? Gah, I don’t know how they do it…

4. Good friends are worth their weight in gold. In addition to serving as color consultants who surely saved us from some horrible mistakes, our friends Katie and Gina helped us out tremendously. Katie lent me her wallpaper steamer (which worked well enough that I didn’t have to resort to any chemical goo–hooray!), and Sylvia spent Saturday morning at her place (with her husband and daughter), which gave us a few hours to paint the ceiling and get the stinky oil-based primer on the walls (tip: use this type of primer over places where you’ve removed wallpaper, or else the adhesive–which you can never fully remove–will bleed through your paint and cause you much sorrow) without subjecting a small child to the fumes.

Gina, who has painted more rooms that she can probably remember and is a painter extraordinaire, spent pretty much her entire weekend with us. Jan and I, being the cowardly novice painters that we are, gave her all the tough jobs, like cutting in around the edges. (Going near white surfaces with brush full of colorful paint is, like using steeks, on the list of Things That Scare the Crap Out of Me.) And she was amazing–all the paint she applied went where it was supposed to go. Me…well, I had a few little spots to tidy up.

On Saturday, Gina’s husband, Todd, came with her and fulfilled the critical role of Baby Wrangler. He and Sylvia spent the entire afternoon in the den, reading books, drawing pictures, and building tunnels with pillows and blankets. (”Paint: $120. Brushes: $30. Having someone make sure your child doesn’t try to eat Sherwin-Williams products: Priceless.) On Sunday, Gina returned to help paint the trim, which took about as much time as the rest of the room combined, thanks to the three, large, multipaned windows in this room.

BUT IT’S ALL DONE! (Well, almost. Tonight we pick up a final pieces of furniture and finish putting everything away.) Pictures of the finished room will follow soon…when it’s fully finished!