Yarn Along

Yarning Along with Ginny, sharing a current knit and the reads for this week....

First, thank you to the folks who emailed and commented Monday about my mother-in-law. Your prayers and kind thoughts are greatly appreciated right now. We were able to get her home on Saturday and she is set up with a wheelchair, an adjustable bed and now will have home healthcare every day to ease the burden, specifically on my father-in-law.


I know I said I wasn't casting on anything new last week, but with all the hours spent in the car back and forth to the hospital plus the actual time in the hospital I got to points on all my UFOs where I needed to focus- shaping, finishing, lace... and I just couldn't have that along with me during the last week. So I did cast on the Back-to-School U-Neck Vest, another by Stefanie Japel from the book Fitted Knits. This is my third knit from that book and I *love* how clear the directions are. I've made my way through the 2x2 rib and I'll be able to move on from that section tonight.


We're reading Charlotte's Web together right now in addition to quite a collection of books on pond life, superheroes and dinosaurs (totally not in the same book). I am reading Tim Gunn's Guide to Style because I have none. I mean, I know what I like, but that's totally not what I wear because I'm a mom and in my work life I work with kids. I need to be practical but also professional looking without looking like I'm trying too hard.


The thing is that I have a coordination problem- I just can't coordinating off the top of my head unless it's very obvious- all the same color, or black with a color, or white with a color. My "uniform" seems to be jeans and a nice black shirt. And my hair? I'm in ponytail land right now and I really don't want to be. I'm really not looking to be trendy all the time, but I do want to look nice. My goal is to decide what my basic go-to pieces should be and then build from there. I'm willing to make many pieces, but I'm not opposed to buying pieces if they will be backbones of my wardrobe.

I need help, y'all! How do you mix mommy-hood and style?

Valuable Skills for Knitters

When I first started knitting the simple act of completing a row felt like triumph, and for a long while I felt like completing a few rows in a day accomplished a lot of progress... until I heard other knitters talking about how many inches they knit each day. Boy, did I feel slow. And then I took on my first adult-sized project. It was one of the patterns that first drew me to knitting- the famous February Lady Sweater.


I started to work on it and got through 90% of it over a few months- why didn't I finish? Well, I'd made so many mistakes on it that I just couldn't bring myself to complete it. I know now that I'm not the sort of knitter that can make a quick fix and ignore little mistakes, but working on that first sweater that was the advice I was given and it made me never want to work on the sweater again. It sat there with 1 sleeve left to go for a LONG time before I did the right thing and ripped it out. The yarn is washed and waiting in cakes for that sweater to be re-knit (and it will be, because I love it so much!)

I thought I'd share some of the things I learned in knitting that failed sweater that have proven to be incredibly valuable to me in my current knitting.



1. Know who you are and where you're at.


I'm the sort of knitter that would rather rip back and fix mistakes than move on with a quick fix. Call it perfectionism if you like, but it's certainly not the crippling kind. I just don't like to be stared down by mis-knitted sweaters. A friend of mine is quite the opposite. If she discovers that she's off by a stitch at the end of the row she looks back through to make sure she hasn't actually dropped something that's going to pull out and then she'll just quickly add those missing stitches and move on like nothing happened. The thought of ripping and reknitting a few weeks of work makes her ill.


It doesn't matter what type of knitter you are, but take the time to really know and embrace your true identity so that you can move forward taking advantage of your natural strengths. This knowledge is liberating! Even though plenty of knitters speak with bitter anguish about trips to the frog pond I don't feel bad about ripping out because I know I will be happier with the finished product. That doesn't mean that I don't sometimes banish projects to UFO timeout (sometimes it's healthy to take a break from misbehaving knitting) but ultimately I know that I'll never finish that item if there is a glaring mistake and even if I did finish it I would NEVER wear it.



2. Learn to "read" your knitting.


This radically changed my life. Remember those glaring mistakes I told you I made on my FLS? Yeah--- part of it was due to not really knowing the difference between the front and the back. When it was time to divide for the sleeves I did, but then I was confused- which was the front and the back? I threw a flippant "it kind of looks all the same" out there and moved on only to understand later that it DOESN'T look all the same, especially not in the lace repeats...


So what is reading your knitting? It's knowing what each stitch looks like after it's made so that when you look back you can "read" it and know that you did a knit stitch or a k2tog so that you can find your place again. This skill is what allows me to stop in the middle of a row even if I'm knitting lace. I can always read back through my knitting to figure out where I'm at again.


Great pictures of different stitches are available at Techknitting and videos for each stitch are available at knittinghelp.



3. Keep track of your progress.


Keeping track of each project is one of those little admin tasks that many people agree is a good idea but most of those folks never actually do. Have you ever had a project you started and had to set down for some reason- only to come back a few months later totally unsure of where you left off? Um, yeah. That used to be me.


I got tired of that though and started keeping notes. This looks different for everyone, but I mostly mark up the pattern. If it's printed I mark off rows on the pattern or write in the changes I've made to a portion. If the pattern is in a book I generally have a big post it note on the pattern where I mark rows and changes.


I also have a notebook that holds my life (not just knitting) and I frequently jot down a quick note in that notebook about what row I'm on in a project for easy pick up later.


You can also use the notes section of the project pages of ravelry. All you have to do is type up a quick sentence or two about which row you left off on  or how your project is going. I try to put all my notes about changes and pattern likes/dislikes into the notes section by the time I'm finished with a project, because those noted have proven so valuable to me when other knitters include them on their projects!



4. Read your pattern all the way through before you start.


This was my number one mistake in the beginning of knitting bigger projects. I would get part way into a project only to discover that it was FAR more complicated than I was capable of accomplishing at the time, or I would discover some tool or needle size that I didn't yet own.... yes, a lot of patterns come with a list of skills used and a list of supplies needed, but it's super easy to accidentally leave one little thing off that list that makes it difficult for you to complete the project.


Save yourself a little bit of trouble and read ahead.



5. Do projects you love- you won't regret it.


I'm just going to say it- your first project does NOT have to be a scarf! It seems to be a popular first item, but I'm not a scarf person and probably never will be. In three years I have knit precisely one scarf - the lovely Kernel- for a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law last year. I started out knitting nothing and moved on to baby-sized things- they're small so you finish faster and you still run into skills like grafting, seaming, lace, and shaping.

You *can* start with a scarf, but you can also start with a baby blanket or a sweater or a simple shawl. What's important is to choose a project you really love. I don't spend my time knitting things I "should" knit- I only knit projects I really like (or special requests from my boys, because who can resist a request from your kids for something handmade???).

What have you learned in your knitting journey that has been valuable to you and your progress as a knitter?

Quiet

Since last Wednesday we have been to the hospital more times than we'd care to count to help care for Brian's parents. My mother-in-law's cancer is very aggressive and there has been complication after complication in recent weeks.


We've spent the time we've had at home over the last few days staying quiet and trying to string together peace between hospital visits. There has been sleeping in, comfort food, lots of read alouds, and yes- knitting too (alongside keeping up on dishes and laundry- the two never-ending chores!)


We worshipped yesterday at church alongside friends and we praise Him who makes all things new.


I'll be back in this space tomorrow.

Yarn Along

Yarning along with Ginny and sharing a current read as well.

Another excellent picture in my bathroom mirror...

The Textured Tunic, now with buttons! I really love this sweater- it makes me so happy every time I see it. I am going to make an attempt at some better pictures as soon as the sun shows up again. It has been raining much of the time for several days now (and thank goodness for the cooler temperatures that has brought!), plus my photographers have been gone again! They decided yesterday was a great day to stay out til bedtime running around town so I ended up taking my own mirror pictures. Lovely, eh?


I'm still hard at work finishing items from the UFO basket. A pair of mittens is done and the plans for this evening include either finishing up a hat or sewing buttons on my little red cardi as well as knitting a bit on something else- maybe Omelet?


I finished Delirium this week. It is another in the genre of books set in the not-to-distant future where something has dramatically changed the world so that it is similar to our own, but obviously not like ours a la Hunger Games or The Giver. The book is well written and an interesting idea, but there were serious pacing problems. It started far too slowly with world building and by the time it actually developed a good pace and interesting story line it started the decent to the conclusion and the conclusion was completely disatisfying. If it would continue to another book in a series it might be able to be redeemed, but it appears to be a stand alone novel. I've been reading a lot in this genre this year and it seems to me that Delirium is an attempt by the author to hop on the bandwagon of this trend in YA fiction without much of an attempt to hide that fact.


I started Matched by Ally Condie last night and it's already a much better pace and plot. I got about 1/3 of the way though last night which is always a good sign for me- Delirium took me forever to read because I just wasn't compelled to read it.


I hope your current reads are in better shape than mine were last week!

Mama Retreat

Back in June when I turned 30 my husband got me the most awesome present.

A full day and overnight to myself.


A little "Mama Retreat" if you will.

We talked last spring about how much Ezra wanted to go on his first tent camping trip and how much Ender was looking forward to camping again this year for a "just the boys" weekend. But planning and going on the actual trip got lost in the shuffle of life until this weekend.


It was a little last minute, but I helped them get packed and sent off as long as they promised to call and tell me how much fun they were having.

And then they had such a great time that they stayed a second night.

And me?

I spent my time on a two-part knitting mission:

1. Find great buttons for my two recently finished sweaters.

2. Get as far through my UFO basket as possible in 1 weekend.

In the basket:

Poet's Pullover (needs 1 1/2 sleeves)

Ender's Mittens (needs thumbs and 1 cuff)

Ezra's Mittens (in need of thumbs)

Tappan Zee** (need to finish sleeves that I wanted to add)

Ezra's winter hat (needs to be decreased and finished off)

Omelet shawl (most of the last chart)

The basket is a little emptier this morning, and I've declared this a week of Finished Objects. I resisted the urge to cast on something new even with 4 sweaters and several shawls worth of fresh yarn staring at me. That basket is going to get knocked down to zero before anything new gets going.


**Oh, Tappan Zee... I'm seriously considering ripping and re-knitting the whole project. It's a fast knit so time isn't necessarily the concern, but I started knittting it before I knew much about fit (and I'm still learning, but know so much more than I used to!) and it doesn't fit well. It's overall too big, but especially in the shoulders, which makes it look like it's swallowing me... So I'm thinking. If I rip I'll definitely reknit with that yarn and that pattern because both are fabulous- I just made a really poor sizing decision.

Operation Find Buttons was also a success- now to get them sewn on!