Turning the page

I'm sure many of you have heard that phrase once or twice (and very often during this election season). My experience with it recently came by way of a shawl that I endeavored to create. I just remembered that I own one of the very wonderful Barbara Walker Treasury of Knitting Patterns book -


I decided to try one of the lovely lace stitch patterns for an over sized stole that I plan to wear to my library's annual luncheon. I had just gifted myself nearly 750 yards of some delicious Habu yarn that I bought for a mere $20 bucks from Purlsoho.

After about 3 repeats of a 12 line pattern my lace didn't look anything like the picture.





What could possibly be wrong? I began to wonder about my lace knitting skills, could I be so lame after all of these years and not know it?

Then, in an attempt to find a more mindless lace pattern, I turned the page and Voila! There were 18 more lines to the dang pattern!

Now that's much better

There were other surprises to my weekend. I turned 49 and that feels as bad as I imagined it would. A blizzard blew in out of the blue




and screwed up any attempt at fun canceling a weekend trip to Boston that was to include a basketball tournament (yeah big whoop). I had dreams of lunching on Boston clam chowder and touring yarn stores while my son ran around some basketball bubble. Instead, I got to be tormented by the child because I decided not to risk my way too old life and drive among New England's historically bad drivers in 20 degree weather on 2 feet of snow!

In the end, I managed to divert my attentions by watching the rerun of the Obama/Clinton debate.



National politics is sometimes a lot kinder than the dirty tricks my 13 year threatened me with if we didn't at least try to drive to Boston.

I'm not ashamed to say that I ignored him while I instead yelled at the TV, jabbing points with my needles and otherwise pretending that I could solve the nation's problems if only my son would stop whining about his bad fortune for have a wussy mother who is afraid to drive in a blizzard.

Knitting is my salvation for now, look what I got done in just a couple of hours!

Lamb's pride bulky, 2.5 skeins

If only I could stop pondering what it feels like to be as old as my mother. I guess I'll just turn the page on that one.

It's all Ravelry's fault

So, I'm minding my own business, checking out the pages over on Ravelry when someone posts a picture of some Peaches & Cream dishcloth yarn. It caused me such a dilemma. I had sold off most of my dishcloth yarn some months ago and thought I'd give that fad a rest for a while.

Alas, I couldn't resist those colorways


Those people over at Elmore-Pisgah must have used magic to process my order because I got my package in just a couple of days. And, to make matters worse, I learned that their plant is in North Carolina, the grand state where my son's tuition payments goes! Now, I can't wait for Homecoming weekend!

I did set some rules with this repeat fad. I must churn out a bunch now. So check out what I've done so far. Instant gratification love:

I made several Valentine's themed cloths to give away

Mary Anne over on Miss Wolly Knits shares her lovely Feather and Fan recipe. It is a breeze to knit. I could make these all day.

I've always admired Hakucho's ball band cloths so I thought I'd give it a try myself

Chairpads are now in my future!

And a whole lot of knitting going on

As you all are well aware by now, I'm stuck sitting around a lot. I sit for hours watching my boys play basketball. I sit in lots of school and community meetings. So, I get to knit a lot. This week alone, I totaled over 10 hours of meetings and games. So what did I get done??

My LYS had a few balls of Rowan Ribbon Twist in the 40% sale bin. The trick for me is to USE THE YARN RIGHT AWAY. I made the tam the same afternoon.

My weird and wonky cables

I finished up my second pair of Dashing using this fabulous Zara yarn that I bought the same day I met two blogger buddies for the first time - Ina and Monica. Monica, who works at Stix-n-Stitches and hosts the group over on Ravelry, told me about the first Ravelry meetup at her store in Montclair.

There, as I was leaving, I met Ina -

She called me by my name having recognized me from my blog. As I looked beyond her bicycle helmet, I realized who she might be because Ina often blogs about her bike riding adventures! So cool.

Over at my LYS, Close Knit in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ, Jen, was finishing up her pinwheel sweater. It was soooo nice, I said to myself, "self, you should make one for ourselves." And so I am.

After miles of veritgo inducing, ever expanding stitches for that dang pinwheel sweater, I decided to try something a bit more fun. I had a few skeins of Silk Garden in the ol' stash so me and my ADD self, started this simple tank top from Vogue's Winter '04 edition.

Ribbed U-Neck Vest

And speaking of knitting stores, I saw this great blocking board and table over at the Skein Attraction in Teaneck, NJ that I've been saving my pennies to buy. I hope to pick it up this weekend so I can block the vest and seam it up.

Last but not least is my 3rd pair of Dashing. The yarn, Bernat's Cashmere, inspired by Beate's friend,Erin.

Properly placed cables

This weekend, if all goes well, I'll get some reading done(Free Lunch, David Cay Johnston) and a few Valentines Day dishcloths I'm making for Mom.

God don't like ugly

I don't get to watch a lot of TV. I prefer watching a movie and I almost always knit through it. I do watch Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report and the occasional network news performances but for hard news, I prefer to get serious analysis from the internets. There is one tiny exception to all of this, I watch Larry David when I want to laugh out loud.

Well, last Friday night, my boys didn't have any scheduled basketball so what did they want to do with all of their spare time? Go see some basketball. I managed to get last minute, cheap Knick tickets (yes, they do suck) and I grabbed my knitting bag and we rushed for the 6:50 to New York City.



It was on the trip home, that I got some excitement. When former New Yorkers are sequestered too long in sterile suburbia, we tend to marvel at the pageantry of strangers. So when this lady grabs a seat across from us with this little chihuahua tucked in a bag, I perked up and got ready for the show. As she fussed over the dog getting him comfortable, I noticed that she and the dog had matching knitwear! My children are always eyeing me when we are in public. They like to get some indicator before they think I'm going to embarrass them. My sons saw me looking at the lady and noticed the knitted garments too, gave me the signal - "pleeeeze don't say anything to that lady about her and her dog's scarf."

"I'm not going to say anything but can I at least admire it?"

Then the lady pulled out a book on Freida Kahlo. I just thought the whole thing was so cool so I started to take pictures. My children, who only lived in New York for a couple of years, had the nerve to tell me that I was being rude and that everybody knows that you don't take pictures of strangers without their permission. I told him that those rules don't apply in New York. Wink, wink.

They begged me to put the camera down. I obeyed only because at that moment I remembered that Larry David episode, Rat Dog and I started to laugh out loud!

The boys knew exactly what I was laughing at as if they dreaded the moment when I would see the coincidence beyond the knitting and told me to be quiet. I told them that as a former New Yorker, I knew personally that people can be anything they wanted, act anyway they wanted and certainly laugh at anything they wanted without the fear of drawing attention to oneself. So there.

They were rescued by the conductor who called our stop and the boys bolted for the doors. I hurried after them and LEFT MY CAMERA ON THE SEAT!!! Fortunately, a man ran off the train with it and kindly handed it to me. I stood there in shock, the end of my photographic life flashing before me.

That's when my son, not missing a beat, said, "tsk tsk, I guess God don't like ugly."


Where do children get the nerve?? Anyhooo, how can you not take pictures of that face!

Uneasy EZ mittens

I'm not one for fads. I am very impressionable though when it comes to knitting - is that the same thing? Last week I got together with fellow blogger Beate and her friend Erin. We sat in Beate's lovely kitchen and drank delicious pressed coffee and ate homemade cookies while we knitted and chatted about knitting projects as if we were planning dinner (projects that were marinating) or what to do about misbehaving children (projects given a time out).



I realized that the 3 of us were knitting a bunch of internet popular knits: Dashing fingerless mitts; Grumperina's Jaywalker socks; Knitty's Colorimetry headband and Jared's Elizabeth Zimmerman's Mitered Mittens from EZ's Knitter's Almanac.

Beate's friend was knitting up a pair of Dashing using a shockingly scrumptious Bernat yarn (65% acrylic, 30% nylon and a mere 5% cashmere but what the hey?). It really did feel like true cashmere so the next day I bought 2 skeins.




This is my version of Dashing, demented isn't it? I don't know how I did those crooked cables but I tried to divert attention away from them with the cutesy bow.


That's Beate modeling one of her lovely shawls and the mitts that got my attention. For the next two basketball games I tried making my own version but instead of using Silk Garden as Beate did, I decided on Kureyon. I've got a bunch of skeins to burn since I've decided not to knit that other internet fad - the Lizard Ridge afghan.

Ok, so when I got home, I dug out my Knitter's Almanac and browsed through Jared's blog to see if he translated oracle Zimmerman's pattern into something spazzes such as myself could follow. Nope. His is equally vague. So I say to myself, "self, you are a self respecting knitter, figure it out!"


My thumbs fit fine but they look oh, so wonky! Onto the superfriends site, Ravelry. There's bound to be some instructions that are not pitifully "pithy". I found that Grace, had some ideas and she even emailed me to help but I'm sorry to say that my results looked nothing like her lovely ones.

I decided to plunge forward and do my thumbs the EZ way. I almost wanted to close my eyes before I snipped -

EZ says to cut into the finished mitten just where you want the thumb to be. Yites!

Then pick up the loose stitches...

So far so good...

Not bad, right?

EASY afterall!