akabini

It's Knit In Public (K.I.P.) Day!

Go forth and knit amongst the uninitiated.
Knit in visible places: the bus, the bar, the game, the park, the opera, the restaurant…
Show those non-knitters that we can knit and pay attention at the same time!

We've got an easy in this year: we're knitting amongst a 'public' of other knitters here at the Acorn Street Retreat.
Roommate Kath and I have called it "Knitting Camp" for years–
it really is like a grown-up version of camp.

(Well, with more liquor, but hey.)

And what does a girl pack to knit at camp? Well... 

One of my goals this summer is to finish my Olympic Knitting project - the one I cast on during the Winter Olympics back in... oh ... 2006? – before the torch is extinguished in the Summer Olympics of 2008.

Pattern: "St. Brigid," by Alice Starmore, from her book Aran Knitting.
Yarn: Jamieson's Shetland Heather, color #998 ("Hairst")
Needles: US 4 (3.5mm) Suzanne's Ebony 24" circulars.

I've had the back and the front and the braided collar finished for quite a while now. There was a speed bump that held up the knitting a year back when I realized that I'd be much happier with the thing longer rather than shorter (it's an oversized beast, so having it cropped was not going to flatter). So I manfully ripped out the front neckline shaping (a bear to do in the first place, what with all the cabled patterns going on), add another repeat to both front and back, and re-knit the front neckline. Phew.

That was so exhausting, I had to go have a little lie-down for about 7 months or so.

Then last fall, when I came up here to Sleeping Lady with the Sisterhood of the Traveling Needles, I started the first sleeve – thanks to the encouragement of M., who will also be my partner in crime on the Vogue Knitting Tour in Canada this fall. Knit a few rows (like, 5), and put it down again.

So I set myself the assignment of working on it every morning while I'm here, just to see if I can get my mojo back with it. And see? 2 repeats out of the 5 I need for the sleeve: finished before lunch on the first day!

But St. Brigid (patron saint of milkmaids, btw) is a stern taskmistress: one wrong move and you've zigged a cable where you should have zagged. Come the afternoon, when you might want to relax and take a load off with the girls, she's a little tougher to work on. So...

Enter the A.F.P.: Afternoon-Friendly Project.*
What makes for a good AFP? Anything you consider mindless: stockinette, of course; anything that only involves a periodic engagement of the brain cells. And this project BEGGED to come along to Camp (even though I had no excuse to start it; I have other deadlines, and this is for me, and from someone else's pattern and my sakes, isn't it pretty and just in time for summer and I'm driving so I have room to bring it...):

Pattern: "No Purling Allowed," from LanaKnits/Hemp for Knitting.
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold "Hempathy," in 2 colors: 09 and 10 (a Dijon-mustardy-yellow, and a bluey-lavender)
Needles: US 2.5 (3.0mm) Suzanne's Rosewood 32" circulars (DPNs for the sleeve); and US 2 (2.75mm) for the edging.

Even I can change colors every 4 rounds, thankyouverymuch. (Sometimes I do forget to slip the first stitch of the 2nd round of a color stripe to avoid the color jog in stripes, but hey - no one's perfect, right?)

It was a sleevy sort of day yesterday. Brigid's sleeve marches on, but this afternoon will bring lots of circular knitting on 288 stitches for the body of the AFP.

Happy KIP day, everyone! Enjoy the smiles and nods of recognition you get from lurking knitters, and understanding non-knitters, everywhere.

* It should suprise no one that A.F.P. can also mean Alcohol-Friendly Project. There's nothing worse than getting in over your head with a complicated project at the pub. Hell, I've found myself frogging sock heels over that second beer.
 

I'm not sure why, exactly, but this year I've noticed a distinct connection among a sequence of spring 'holidays':
International Women's Day: March 8*
Earth Day: April 22
Mother's Day: first Sunday in May

Call me a curmudgeon, but
ONE LOUSY STINKIN' DAY for HALF the human population?
One day for all the women who hold the toughest-yet-most-satisfying job there is?
24 hours for the WHOLE ENTIRE PLANET on which we depend for our very survival?

Sheesh.

I'm with the venerable Zimmermann on this one:

I deplore Mother's Day. Mother has it good and if anyone loves her and wants to show it, one measly day in the year is a pretty squinchy space of time in which to do it.

from "Woolgathering," Issue #4, reprinted on p. 27 of The Opinionated Knitter

 So now that we're on the other side of the celebrations, calendar-wise, do we move on with a sigh of relief? Having sent the cards and the flowers, is it back to business (where women have more training and still earn 85% of a typical man's wage)?

I could get cynical here (and what with the election season in full swing, it'd be easy to do so), but I can't.
You see, I do firmly believe in my blog's tag line: I believe that we live better because of knitting.

The content here may ramble from the knitterly from time to time, but because I'm so lucky as to do this for a living, I get to spend a lot of time with knitters, and a lot of time knitting...
and you know what?

I really believe that knitters will save the planet.

And it's not just the visible way we rally around a cause, as "super-givers" in fund-raising parlance: viz. our amazing response to the Yarn Harlot's drive for Doctors without Borders/Médecins sans Frontières;

It's not just the way we lavish hours and yardage to knit up hats for preemies, scarves for the homeless, and the countless pieces of charity knitting we do every year;

It's not just the way we forge connections with loved ones and with community as we sit and knit things for those we love …

It's in the very nature of knitting itself.
Making things from string is a revolutionary act.
Work with me on this one.

In the coming weeks, I'll be putting together a series of posts on this topic.
Come the end of summer, I hope you'll be with me, stitching away to rescue the planet from the brink of environmental disaster – while getting your holiday gifts finished on time.

* How many of us remember that the March was chosen as the month for IWD
in commemoration of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911?

With delectable mysteries like this:

hmm... amazon.

and this:

... and Tom Bihn, too.*

showing up on her doorstep,
what's a girl to do but-
Get her jiggy on over at Ravelry!

Finished a long-standing unfinished project of getting ALL of my stash into Ravelry.
Phew!

That was fun.

[I have 118 different kinds of yarn in my stash? Huh. Who knew?] 

 * Spoiler: This was on my birthday wish list, and Boy had to check in with me on it, because they didn't have my first choice of colorway. And he says I get to open it early, because clearly I'll have to outfit it well  before our birthday junket to Cannon Beach next weekend - whee!

Lest I leave you hanging, wondering what tempted me at A Grand Yarn in Spokane...

I give you my Grand Haul:

1. Dream in Color "Smooshy" (because I love saying "Smooshy")
Colorway: November Muse

Because everyone needs socks the color of
rich, crumbly compost.
(Or a good chocolate pot de crème.)

2. ShibuiKnits "Sock" (evocative, that)
Colorways: 4201 (pink with acid green)
and 51301 (neon jewel tones)

Destined to become a Churchmouse Ruffled Scarf, just as soon as I can stomach the thought of casting on 600+ stitches.

3. Flax and linen:
Claudia Hand Paints 100% sport-weight linen
Colorway: "Walk in the Woods" (that's what I'm talkin' about)
and
Louet Euroflax Light/Worsted Weight linen
Colorway: "Moss Lake"

For a linen-stitch bucket bag: picture a circular crocheted base, with linen stitch in alternating rounds of handpaint and solid, with one long shoulder strap. Pattern just as soon as I can whip this sucka out – and that's after I learn to crochet my way out of a paper bag. We may be some time.

4. Sweet little morsels of
Mountain Colors "Bearfoot"
Mill ends for $3 apiece at AGY.

Having gotten my students started on their Luscious Lengthwise Linen-Stitch Scarves, I fell down and in love with these little skeinlets.
Imagine size 10 needles and 260 stitches or so - and the same basic recipe from my Luscious Lengthwise pattern, changing skeins after each row and self-fringing with the ends. Race ya!

And, finally, the pièce de la résistance: 

5. Sirdar Snuggly "Baby Bamboo"
Color:  132 (a delicate oyster-gray)
12 skeins

You know how the most recent purchase is always the thing that you just can't wait to cast on? Last week, it was "Tahoe" from a recent issue of Knitty - with yarn from my stash, no less! But now, I am smitten. The yarn, the luster, the color … this would have been the one that got away had I not leapt with open heart and open wallet.

What for, pray tell? Well, this:

"Vines Cardigan," Project #5 from Clara Parkes' wonderful wonderful new book, The Knitter's Book of Yarn.

The original pattern is knit from angora, but I'm betting my Addis that it will work up spectacularly in this sweet, slightly shiny bamboo.

I'm going to try to weasel the time soon to review this book, because I am enchanted. Not just because I got to meet Clara recently, and she's a mensch and a doll and a damn fine knitter and an even better writer … but because I haven't been so excited about a collection of patterns since Weekend Knitting.  It might well be easier for me to mark the projects I won't be knitting from this, just as soon as I find the time.

I'm trying very hard to be a very good girl and finish up 2 projects before I start this one – good thing I have a top-down pullover that just needs sleeves. Thems should roll right offa the needles, so I can tuck straight in to this one!

Here's a sign of the high regard in which I hold this book:
 
A girl needs to take a quiet moment to read up on her cellulosic vs. protein fibers.
(And yes, of course we always fold the TP into a point.)
(One gets used to special treatment while traveling.)

In solidarity with the Inexplicable Knitterly Behaviour happening across the border today, I took my sock out for a junket this evening:

Pattern: My own (to be flogged to your favorite online magazine soon)
Yarn: Sundara sock yarn
Needles: 2.5mm/US 1.5 Knit Picks wonderful DPN set, from exotic colored hardwoods. Love 'em love 'em love 'em.
Venue: Port Townsend's finest Silverwater restaurant's Mezzaluna Lounge
Beverage: Bobara's fabulous Margarita (words cannot express)

The sock's mate (and the knitter's mate) were equally amused:

Out of focus?
Perhaps?
Wonder why.