Grand Excitement

I have this very sweet, courteous coworker. We only work together on Sundays, and every Sunday, he asks if I did anything exciting that week. Considering I'm in classes 40+ out of 52 weeks every year, my response usually requires a pretty liberal interpretation of "exciting." And yet he still asks--that is dedicated belief in the existence of exciting.

This past week, what passed for exciting was taking the car and driving out to The Hinterlands to the only independent fabric store around, which is also just about as far as the nearest big-box fabric store (just in the totally opposite direction).

Technically, the Hinterlands is a rawther large city. It sprawls like no other, though, so it's more like several different cities, the closest rubbing right up against where I live, the farthest touching the mountains rimming the valley. I think of it as The Hinterlands because it takes so long to get to the downtown, unless, of course, you have a death wish and want to take the freeway out.

Anyways--the excitement of driving to the Hinterlands is the signage. Somehow, they have managed to retain more of their old signs than any other city around, so as you drive in, you get a peek of what Arizona was like before the masses of people washed in, making tiny one-road downtowns explode into big sprawling cities. Driving by, looking at signs for motels, little florists, car repair places, and the fabric shop above, you almost feel like it would be possible to pull off all the 21st century grunge like an old carpet and reveal the city as it was, filled with cars the size of ocean liners and men in crisp chinos opening doors for women in full skirts and poufy hair-dos.

Also exciting was that this trip ended with me hitting the button jackpot. You wouldn't think finding buttons for a sweater is all that hard--after all, most LYSs have their own little button corner, and then there's the venerable Button Tin in my closet. Au contraire. I've been on the lookout for buttons for Monita's Christmas sweater since January, and it took me until last weekend to find The Buttons. 8 months later, Christmas gifts are officially, unquestionably done.

Now that's exciting.

Week 2: Organized

Every semester, during the first few weeks, I reacquaint myself with my Method of Organization. I don't know how well they fit with the dictionary definition of organization, but for all its quirkiness, my method gets me through each semester more or less together.

Rule 1: write down due dates the moment you get them. Preferably all in the same place, like a daily planner.

Rule 2: whatever comes out of the backpack absolutely has to go right back in. Less important now that I do much of my work at home, but not negligible.

Would that my knitting was so organized. Monita's Retro Duotone cardigan is off the needles (note the spiffy Kitchener bind-off on the collar), but no buttons. And Hermanita's Warm-Up needs another 7" in the body. Augh. All the shaping for the hips is done, so now it's round after round of stockinette with simple lace panels until I divide for the armholes.

Definitely book knitting. The upside of working in a library is that I can find something I want to read practically every shift... the downside is that several of my coworkers knit, and our knitty conversations are tempting me to work on something more interesting!

Abandon/Control

As a student, my year follows a slightly different cycle from the average person's. My "year" officially ends with the end of the fall semester, and while I certainly mark the new calendar year January 1, my "year" doesn't actually start until the start of the spring semester. In between is a short, blissful period of abandon. A period where I can do what I want, as I want, without restriction.

This past year, proper abandon didn't start until after Christmas (giftsgiftsgifts), but even that mandate to knit was self-imposed. Thus the bloggy silence these past weeks has been my absence from routine, from duties, from all distractions except the ones I chose, and it was absolutely magnificent.

As of tomorrow, that period is over, and it's time to return to control, to order, to obligations, limitations, deadlines--all those things that ensure the proper functioning of society but not necessarily the well-being of one's spirit. My room is straightened, my school supplies purchased. All that's left is to look back on the year past.

Resolutions. At the beginning of last year, I resolved to do a great many things. Some I did, some I did not. I did read two of the unread books in my library--I did not read the rest. I did not knit a steeked cardigan, but I did continue to knit from my stash. Browsing through my Ravelry project page, I was floored by how much I had knitted, and how much I'd learned from these projects.

Socks: I knitted two pairs of socks this year, the Latvian Stockings and the Ponyo Socks (toe pictured inside-out above). The latter, actually Nancy Bush's Lichen Ribbed Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks, are so named for their color and because I began knitting them when I went to see Miyazaki's Ponyo. The Ponyo socks were my fourth pair for myself, and it wasn't until I'd finished them that I realized that by following the pattern strictly, I was making the heels too short. I feel sort of silly that that one took me so long to figure out, but I guess I can look forward to my next pair of socks being much better-fitting than their predecessors!



Sweaters: Without intending to, I knitted a whopping five and started two others. After so many sweaters, in so many styles and yarns, I finally feel I've got a good handle on this class of project. My Garter Yoke Cardi was a sort of sampler of colorwork, raglan and circular yoke shaping, and waist shaping. In the course of knitting (and reknitting) the Graphite Shrug, I discovered that I am not a standard shape (and how to tweak patterns accordingly). Lesson from Thundercloud Cardigan: I really and truly cannot stand finishing work. That was my only multi-piece sweater, though, and as a matter of fact, all but one of the rest were raglans. My troubles resizing Monita's Retro Duotone Cardigan (shown above) and my Graphite Shrug highlight that this is a tricky style for me to rework, but I only had one real dud out of the whole bunch: Wendy Bernard's Yogini Bolero, aka the Undercover Bolero because I never could bring myself to blog about all the trouble it gave me. It's adorable--don't get me wrong there--but I really didn't like working with the hemp yarn, and after all that yarn wrangling, the sweater came out too small to fit not just me, but also both of las hermanitas!

After such an eventful year, I don't have any new resolutions, but I'm looking forward to putting my new knowledge--especially knowledge of fitting--to good use on new projects. Here's to a happy, yarn-filled new year.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas (or winter holiday of choice) everyone! I did, in fact, survive the madness of finals. Las hermanitas y yo even had time to help with Christmas baking, too. The gingerbread chalet is the most photogenic of our efforts: Monita decorated the front, and I decorated the sides. Hermanita forbade both of us from icing the roof, which is not as unfair as one might suppose--Monita and I both have histories of sticky Kitchenaids and similar lapses in fine motor skills whilst in the kitchen.

So I made it through finals, but what about the gifts? Anyone here who has been following the progress of the Tempest Cardigan will not be shocked to discover that it was a humongo (albeit tasteful and nicely-colored) black hole of time. I had to devote all of last weekend to finishing the beast. To circumvent a long rant, we'll just say that I now remember why I became so enamored with one-piece projects in the first place.



That's gift the first, off the needles but in the box sans buttons.

Note: I am fully aware my pincushion is politically incorrect *and* balding. Its inclusion in the picture is a desperate cry for a new pincushion.



Um, ya. That's what I've been knitting Hermanita. Formwise, the warm-up will look like a cross between this and this (the striped one), with sporty lacy side stripes, when it is completed. Which will not be until after New Year's. Mayhaps the Warm-up will want to take it up with the Thundercloud Cardigan.



This is the gift that gave me the idea for the labels. Last Christmas, when las hermanitas y yo were looking at my new knit.1 magazine, Monita said she wanted the Duotone Cardigan. Only problemecito: The smallest size is a 36. Monita wears a 32 at most. I really and truly tried, working a gauge swatch, crunching the numbers, working two dud starts that were like additional gauge swatches, and crunching the numbers again, but I only started on Tuesday (Monita might like to take this up with the Thundercloud as well), and I plain and simple ran out of time.

I think I know who's going to be busy knitting over winter break.

May you all have a very merry holiday, with lots of gifts sans assembly required under your trees!