First things first

I’ve decided to suspend my outrage at the USPS temporarily. I figure they deserve a one-day reprieve for bringing me some goodies in the mail today.

First up, a trio of books from Two Pointy Sticks. She held a poetry-writing contest three weeks ago, and I think she fell and hit her head or something because she actually liked what I wrote and chose me as one of the winners. I got to choose my prize from among a list of books she was getting rid of and opted for two Harmony stitch guides. No sooner had I responded to her e-mail with my choice when she wrote back saying, “Oh, would you like to have another book, too?” So this lovely Jo Sharp book hitched a ride in the padded envelope to my house.

Getting something in the mail that isn’t a bill or junk mail? Wonderful. Getting knitted-related mail? Oh, so very sweet indeed. Thanks so much, Rooie!

So I’m sitting on our driveway, going through rest of the mail while watching Sylvia scoot along on her scooter, when the mail carrier actually comes back to my house with some stuff he neglected to drop off earlier. (He is not our usual mail carrier. Our usual mail carrier, Catherine, is awesome. And she runs marathons.)

Along with the weekly sales circular (ugh, I hate those things—mine goes straight into the recycling bin) there was a big envelope from…Deborah! She was my downstream secret pal in SP11 last fall, and we’ve kept in touch ever since. She’s a very talented knitter and a great sewer, too. And look what she made for me: this beautiful knitting bag (with a gorgeous solid green lining). And see how the zipper pull matches the stitch markers she also sent? Awesome.

Two gifts in one day: one expected, one unexpected. Okay, USPS, I’ll let you off the hook for now. But tomorrow, you’re going back on my shit list.

Last Sunday (just over a week ago), the three of us did a day trip up to New York (about a two or two-and-a-half-hour drive for us) to attend a one-year-old’s birthday party at Shea Stadium. We left our house at 7:30 in the morning and had parked at the stadium lot by 9:30.*

I love New York City. I don’t think I would ever want to live there (unless I were filthy stinking rich enough to afford a home larger than a closet), but it’s a magical place to visit. Coming into the city early on a weekend morning is my favorite: everything is so quiet, there’s no traffic, and the city has a lovely otherworldly quality.

We hopped on the subway and took it one stop to the end of the line, right in the middle of Chinatown in Flushing. My brother (who lives in Greenwich Village) met us there, and we had dim sum brunch together at a terrific vegetarian Chinese restaurant. We took the subway back to the stadium and got to the party location (a box for thirty people) about half an hour before the game started at 1:10.

Neither Jan nor I are sports fans, but we were able to explain the basics of baseball to Sylvia. Well, not all of them: we didn’t get past the part about the guy trying to hit a ball with a special stick. That’s all she wanted to know. She enjoyed watching the first inning and a half of the game, then mostly lost interest unless the organist was playing a song.

Mr. Met stopped by the box to say hello to the birthday boy and pose for pictures. Personally, I don’t know why all the little kids who were at the party didn’t freak out at the sight of him. Think about it: it’s a guy with a giant baseball for a head. If that isn’t horrifying, what is?

The Mets trounced the Cardinals in just two-and-a-half hours, so we were back on the road again by 4:30. Even though Sylvia napped in the car, by the time we got home around 7:30 we were all exhausted. We all fell out.

There’s a knitting connection to this post, though. The gray toddler socks I knit last month were a gift for the birthday boy (whose birthday isn’t really for another week). His mom’s birthday was on Sunday (though totally downplayed because it was her son’s party), and I gave her a pair of socks I’d completed the night before (racing against deadline!). I neglected to take a photo of them, so I’ll have to see if I can get one from her.

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*Of course it figures that when I finally make it to Queens (I’ve now visited all five boroughs—woot!), the one person I know there, Deborah (my awesome downstream pal in SP11), was busy running the NYC Half Marathon through Central Park and Times Square. I’m sure I’ll get a chance to meet her some day, though!

Today’s mail brought not one but two delightful packages.

First, wrapped in even more packing tape than even I use (and I like to use enough to ensure that any package I send will survive a nuclear winter), was a small envelope from my friend Mary Ann, whom I’ve known since we went to college together. About a month ago, she sent me a birthday card in which she’d written a promise to send me another tacky magnet for my collection. When she and her family went on vacation to Great Smoky Mountain National Park a couple of weeks ago, she made doubly good on that promise by picking up two of the cheesiest magnets she could find. (Note the use of Smokey, a misspelling that ratchets up the tackiness quotient for this duo.) I’m putting these on the fridge right next to the Bass Pro goodies that another college friend, Frank, sent me in April.

The second box contained lots of yarny goodness. About two weeks ago I won a contest at Yarn Is My Metier. Karen asked people to compose haiku poems for her birthday (which was May 29), and the random number generator chose my entry as one of the winners.

Next thing I know, I get an e-mail from Karen asking my for my snail-mail info and all about my yarn preferences. Sending along my address was simple, but answering the other questions was tricker. I had a bad case of option paralysis. It was like standing in front of the counter at a Baskin Robbins. Fortunately, Karen was very patient and, after a few e-mails back and forth, announced that she would send me enough burgundy yarn for a shrug (a project I’m interested in trying) and enough taupe yarn to make something for Sylvia.

The taupe yarn? Four balls of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran. I received a Jo Sharp book as a gift from a friend in Australia two years ago, but have never tried any of her yarn before—or even handled it, for that matter. This stuff is so soft. It’s 85% wool, 10% slik, and 5% cashmere. (Interestingly, the care instructions say “Dry flat in shade.” That’s the first time I’ve seen that variation. What happens if you dry it in the sun? Does it get a sunburn?) I’m thinking I might turn this into a little vest for Sylvia, or perhaps some legwarmers for her. Ooooh…maybe cabled legwarmers!

Also in the box were a panda pencil sharpener (which was of course immediately appropriated by Sylvia) and three balls of Jaegar Shetland Aran in a beautiful burgundy color. This yarn is 80% wool and 20% alpaca and it, too, is very soft and totally new to me. I haven’t quite decided what to do with this yarn, but I’m eager to get it on the needles. Karen suggested I look at her Mia Shrug pattern (available in the sidebar on her blog, and also a popular knit on Ravelry). It’s awfully cute and may be just the sort of dive-in-head-first plunge I need to get over my reluctance fear sheer terror of lace knitting!

So thanks, Mary Ann and Karen, for making my day!

Two weekends ago Jan and I did some spring cleaning. We carted off a few hundred books to our local library (no, they were not overdue—we were donating them!) and worked on decluttering our basement. Jan unearthed a box of my social theory books (Environmentalism and Cultural Theory, anyone?), and I quickly discovered that underneath the top layer of books was a plastic storage bin. Even though I haven’t thought about it in a few years, I instantly recognized it.

Jan and I were married in a small town in Vermont where all of the various event-service people know each other. Our flowers were done by a woman named Nancy Murray at A Schoolhouse Garden, and we liked and trusted her so much that we didn’t bother working out a detailed list of each and every type of flower that would make its way into the arrangements. Rather, we settled on the number and type of arrangements, as well as a general sense of the flowers: in our case, we wanted something autumnal, though of tapestry (reds, blues, purples) rather than harvest (reds, oranges, golds) hues.

Nancy did not disappoint and created beautiful arrangements of white roses, fresh herbs, freesia, snapdragons, and wildflowers. Jan and I liked everything so much that, even though we hadn’t originally planned to do this, on the morning after our wedding, when Nancy arrived to retrieve the pots, we asked if she could dry and preserve my bouquet. “Sure!” she said, and took it away with her, telling us we’d get it in about two months.

Four months later, it hadn’t arrived, so I wrote her a note asking about it. She replied that she had indeed sent it out several week after our wedding, but thought that perhaps USPS delays caused by post-September 11th scares might be the culprit. She suggested waiting a bit longer to see if it might show up, so we did. Two months after that, I wrote to her that it still hadn’t arrived and was clearly lost for good, and asked her how much it would cost to recreate and (re)preserve the bouquet. I never heard back from her.

Near the end of the summer, a box arrived in the mail. It contained a plastic storage bin, and through its translucent walls I could see a small bundle amid bubble wrap and packing peanuts. There was also a note from Nancy. She had redone (and dried) the bouquet and mailed it to me. At no additional charge.

Yes, there are still very kind people in the world. The next time someone cuts me off in traffic or some politician utters another lie or I encounter unpleasant behavior, I’ll just remember Nancy’s gift to me, and that will go a long way toward making me feel better about humanity.

One of Jan’s coworkers is a guy named Frank. He’s always very friendly whenever Sylvia and I stop by the office to meet Jan for lunch, and never takes it personally when Sylvia gets a case of the toddler “shies” and refuses to talk to or look at him.

He’s a hardcore Mac user and an amateur photographer, so when he learned about my own interest in photography, he started sending digital photography books home with Jan. For me to keep. What a nice guy.

I wanted to repay his kindness, so with Sylvia’s help (she chose the projects: “Frank needs mittens and a hat!”) I did some knitting for him. After verifying that he can wear wool and loves blue, I used Patons SWS in Natural Indigo, with some stripes in Natural Wood. (I should mention that I am forever in debt to Lynnette, my upstream SP9 partner, for introducing me to this fabulous yarn.)

The mittens and the hat are both straight out of Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns. I knit the largest size in each pattern (making Jan try them on from time to time), and I think that worked out pretty well.

Sylvia and I went to Jan’s office last Friday, and she eagerly presented the box to Frank. I’d wrapped it in some white packing paper saved from IKEA, and she’d decorated the box with ink stamps, stickers, and crayon markings—including an S for Sylvia and an F for Frank. He seemed pretty pleased, so I think this is one knitted gift that will definitely be worn!

As I’ve mentioned before, Jan and I aren’t big on getting gifts for each for holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. This is especially true of Valentine’s Day. Now, I appreciate having an occasion to tell people that you love them (but really, shouldn’t we do this every day?). But the gift aspect of this holiday drives me nuts. Especially the woman-focused gift aspect. Especially the idea that a man should read a woman’s mind and get her the “perfect” gift on this day. And especially the idea that the “perfect” gift is defined by roses, chocolate, and diamonds. (I really hate that sexist crap.)

So I was a little surprised when a FedEx driver left a rather large box on my doorstep yesterday afternoon. As soon as I saw it, I thought, “Hmmmm. I wonder what’s going on.”

(Note the toys under the piano. The collection includes sit-and-push-with-your-feet vehicles [car, tricycle, and bike] as well as two toy lawnmowers. We call that space “the garage.” The front hall, kitchen, dining room, and living room are all connected to each other, so Sylvia can ride/push one of those toys in a circle around most of our first floor. When her friends are over, there are enough wheeled items for everyone to get one, and it’s like a parade.)

I opened the box to discover a dozen beautiful roses in different colors.

(These flowers were sent direct from the grower in California. Each stem is stuck into a water-filled plastic test-tube with a rubber stopper at the top, and there’s one of the refreezable ice packs in the box. The arrived in perfect condition.)

Don’t they look lovely?

The card (handwritten!) was the best part: “For the three of us…because we rock!”

(After dinner last night, Sylvia got to choose any rose she wanted—she zeroed in on the one that looked most purple, of course—to have her own little vase.)

After the holidays, I was on a gift-knitting roll, so i just kept going. This tam is my first finished object of 2008. It’s a gift for my brother-in-law, for whom I knit mittens in the same yarn (Patons SWS) for Christmas. His Christmas gift to me was Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns. As I flipped through it, he mentioned that he really liked the tam. “If I knit one for you, would you wear it?” I asked. He assured me he would, so a few days later I picked up the yarn for it and cast on. This was a very fast knit and a lot of fun, too. I intended this as a birthday gift for him, but since his birthday is in March and he may be heading to Nigeria to shoot a film any day now, I should probably get this in the mail to him pronto. (By the way, I don’t have a photo of him wearing the mittens yet. But if you’d like to see what he’s done with other handknits I’ve given him, look here.)

My next project was a baby blanket for a neighbor whose second child was due in mid-January. I had some Bernat Cottontots yarn in a neutral color (light cream) and figured its machine-washability would make it a good candidate for baby gear. I’d always been sort of interested in the log cabin blankets in Mason-Dixon Knitting but really put off by the garish color combinations the book’s authors seem to favor. So I decided to give log cabining a try—in monochrome.

I really, really like how this turned out, even with a few mistakes here and there (which weren’t discovered until well after I’d turned the next corner). The next time I do this, i think I’ll try a “smoother” yarn (the Cottontots has a twist to it that makes it appear a little textured), and I’ll be more careful when picking up stitches at the corners—something I didn’t figure out how to do properly until the blanket was halfway finished. Even though this blanket consists of miles and miles of garter stitch, the fact that every eighteen rows I’d bind off a section and pick up stitches to start another kept the knitting interesting.

I had five skeins of the Cottontots yarn when I started, and when I was near the end of the last one I called it quits on the blanket. It wasn’t quite 30″ on each side, but it did have symmetry (each side had six blocks), and it seemed a good size already. And I was ready to be finished with it. I used the rest of the Cottontots (plus a little bit of green dishcloth cotton when the Cottontots ran out) to whip up this little hat from Baby Knits for Beginners, by Debbie Bliss. I really love this pattern—it’s one I’ve knit many times before.

(Sylvia was napping when I took these photos, so I had to find a different model. And no, the stuffed emperor penguin chick did not sign a release form.)

For Christmas last year, my friends Gina and Todd gave me some yarn and a pattern book from Green Mountain Spinnery. After much thought, I decided to make the Artisan Vest in that book, using the Double Twist yarn called for.

The smallest size in the book is for a 36″ chest. That’s a bit larger than what I wanted, so I did some math and modified the pattern to make it fit me better. So instead of casting on 180 stitches, I cast on 160. And I counted them three times before starting to knit.

Or so I thought. After a week and a half of merrily knitting along (this vest is worked in one piece from the bottom up), Saturday afternoon I found that I’d reached 10″ and was ready to divide the piece. I knit the right front and put those stitches on a holder. I bound off for the right armhole. I knit across the back. I put the left front stitches on a holder. Then I bound off for the left armhole. And then I thought, “Gosh, there’s an awful lot of stitches left on my needles for the back.”

So I counted them. And I counted them again. And I undid all of the bound-off stitches and worked back to right before I started to divide the piece…and I counted again.

Somehow, instead of 160 stitches, I had 194. How this happened, I have no idea. Like I said, I triple-checked the number of my cast-on stitches. The number 194 doesn’t appear anywhere in the pattern, so it’s not like I accidentally followed the wrong line. And I haven’t added stitches anywhere—my rows are beautifully tidy all the way up.

The only solution, I’m afraid, is to rip out the whole thing and start over. Yes, it’s a fair amount of knitting on size 6 needles. But it’s “mindless” knitting—the kind I can easily do while chatting with friends or watching a movie. So I’m sure I’ll be back to this point in no time—and this time around, I’ll have the correct number of cast-on stitches. I plan to quadruple check them this time. And I’ll make Jan count ‘em for me, too.

Two of the gifts I received for Christmas last month were a ball winder and swift, thanks for my friend Gina and her husband, Todd. Gina has very kindly let me wind many skeins of yarn on her setup, and now I’m delighted not to have to bug her to borrow them any more. Owning my own winder and swift makes me feel like a real knitter—like I’m now allowed to sit at the grown-up table at Thanksgiving or something.

I tried them out for the first time a couple of days ago, with help from Sylvia. As soon as I started clamping things on the dining table, Sylvia observed that the ball winder crank “looks like a tricycle.” (The pedal, that is.) I let her turn the crank for a few minutes while I set the skein on the swift, and then she helped wind it up. Apart from a couple of time when she started turning the crank in the opposite direction after pausing, she actually did a great job!

And why did I need to wind this yarn? Believe it or not, I’m actually finishing the green sweater I started for myself three years ago. When I last reported on it (two years ago), I had just one more sleeve to knit and seaming to do. Thanks to the winder and swift, I was able to start the second sleeve the other day, and I’m nearly finished with it! (I’m certain to finish this sweater before the end of the month, so it will be my entry for Ali’s contest.)

As with our anniversary, Jan and I generally don’t buy each other birthday or Christmas gifts, either. When Sylvia turned two last May and really “got” the idea of getting (and opening!) presents, we decided it was time to modify this practice a bit in order to teach her about gift giving, too. So for my birthday (also in May), Jan took Sylvia out shopping for a gift for me, and for his birthday (later in May—yes, we are all three born in May) I took her out to find something for him. In both cases, we asked for specific gifts, and Sylvia helped purchase them at the store and wrap them.

For Christmas this year, we decided to expand her participation in this process and let her choose the gifts herself (within some parameters, of course), both for us and a few other people. This was an interesting experience, because she often gravitated toward stuff that she liked, which offered opportunities to discuss how gift giving is all about choosing something that the recipient might like. She’s not an expert at this yet, but after a while she definitely got a sense of how it all works. Some of her choices were quite charming, such as a carved, blue, wood tree ornament for her grandmother, “because Nana likes blue!”

I suggested to Jan that he take Sylvia to the yarn aisle at Michael’s and let her choose a skein or two or yarn for me. She’s well accustomed to my knitting and knows that I like it. I told Jan, “If you can, try to gently steer her away from the Fun Fur…but you know, if she really wants to get that for me, that’s fine.”

So late last week, the two of them went out to the store in great secrecy. In this case, “great secrecy” is defined as Sylvia loudly promising, as she and Jan are putting on their coats and I’m in the next room, that “We’re going to get Mommy a present, and it’s a surprise.” They came back with a puffy-looking bag, and Sylvia was fairly bursting with the news. But she didn’t tell me! Well, not quite…

As we opened our gifts on Christmas morning, Sylvia chose her two gifts for me to open first. I picked one up and said, “I wonder what this is!” She replied, “It’s yarn!” then looked at Jan and said, “Is it okay if I tell her?”

And here is the yarn she chose for me. Jan tells me that when they got to the yarn aisle, Sylvia quickly picked out the Wool-Ease, announcing, “Mommy likes brown.” (Brown does indeed happen to be my favorite color.) Then she saw the Jiffy Thick-and-Quick, and its bright colors (including purple, which happens to be Sylvia’s favorite color) instantly captivated her. She declared that I would like that yarn, too, and so they bought both.

Yeah, I hate pretty much all acrylic yarn. Loathe it. But this stuff? It’s my new favorite yarn.