Forty (not ounces)

I'm turning 40 in a second, and while I've been making that joke for most of my 30s, it's suddenly no longer a joke.  For my 40th I've decided to challenge myself with the Vivian Cardigan which has been in my Ravelry queue since September 7, 2010. Thanks Ravelry, for maintaining a procrastination timeline for me, totally appreciated.

Here is Vivian - I can't tell you how much it pains me to see her using the cuff of a hand-knit sweater to wipe oil paint off that canvas.  Clearly she didn't knit it herself:

This pattern is a little intimidating and I'm going to have to adjust for measurements, something I've never done before.  But I'm 40, and can do this.  If I were 20, I'd  just shrug and say "Math is hard.  I'll make a scarf instead," knowing I had years to come back to the Vivian.  But I'm 40 now.  I have the patience of middle age, a phone that doubles as a calculator, and a narrowing window of arthritis-free years ahead of me.  This is the time.

I started out by searching the local knitting stores for the right yarn and finally settled on this pretty baby alpaca from Juniper Moon called Dark Harbor.  It's sooo soft, just the kind of thing the most impressive sweater you ever knit should be made of.

I forked over my $120 for the baby alpaca (surprising cheaper at Gather Here than online) and wound six balls of yarn for myself - ensuring that it was no longer returnable.  It's a good sign when you keep petting it, right?

Then I dutifully made my swatch to check gauge, and I knit 5 stitches to the inch instead of 4.25 which doesn't seem like a big deal until you think how many inches there are.  It's already such a loose knit that I don't want to up the needle size.  For all you non-knitters this basically meant that I was stuck with six balls of non-returnable, too-thin yarn.

But I'm 40 right?  So I met with one of my many newly-in-her-40s friends, who happens to be good at math, and over coffee and a 4 lb. chocolate eclaire, phone calculators in hand, we THINK we have solved the problem - and not with more math.

Katie's going to knit the same sweater - so it's not like she's working for free!

We just manhandled my swatch until it fit the gauge - I'm sure this is exactly how Elizabeth Zimmermann would do it.  It took two hours to write out and knit the first row.  This thing is either so complicated you'll never see my mistakes, or so intricate you'll notice every one.  I'll share the final product either way.  My goal is September (I guess I should specify, September 2014).

And for those of you who are wondering - THIS is 50:

Curse Of The Love Sweater

I learned it as the "Sweater Curse" but whatever you want to call it, the belief is widespread among knitters: if you try to knit a sweater for a significant other, the relationship will fail before you finish it. Some people think once you're married the curse no longer applies, but I'm (conveniently) not one to tempt fate.

My way around the curse was to seek out the hand-knitted sweater that I would have made for Mr. Responsibly if I wasn't constrained by the curse.  That's how he ended up with this pretty Irish fisherman's sweater by a Maura Kennedy.  Maura and I, because I like to think I had something to do with making this sweater before it appeared on the shelf at Irish Imports, chose a lovely blue/green wool that matches his eyes but falls a little flat in these pictures:

My plan worked, it definitely makes him feel loved:

Since then I haven't really knit for him.  I don't do gloves, and Mr. Responsibly doesn't wear scarves much.  Really all he's ever gotten from my needles is one unwearable hat.  I just can't quite get it right.  Back in 2008 I really wanted to make him the Elizabeth Zimmerman Watch Cap:

Nice job, toknitisdivine.blogspot.com!

After three attempts with the same ball of yarn, I'd made two too small, one with a super girly brim when you folded it (I think I cast on too tightly), and finally, well, this last one:

I gave up.  But this December we could not find the box or shelf or drawer where we must have packed away our winter things so Mr. Responsibly has gone hatless.  I decided it was time to try again.  No more pork chop stitch, we're vegetarians.  No more worsted, I was going chunky.  No more variegated burnt orange, it was time for a conservative charcoal.

Sometimes I like it, but from the side I'm less sure: 

Is it still a little off - too long maybe? Does he just need better glasses frames? Or does my simple little hat just not stand up next to Maura's sweater?  I guess the only thing that really matters is, he wears it!

Going Back to Cali

I did it.  I took my toddler on a cross-country flight, all by myself.  I'm not sure I would've done it if I'd known we were going to add 3 hours to the flight so we could "refuel in Salt Lake City due to the strong headwinds," - an excuse I still don't believe, given I've flown this route a million times since 1992 and never encountered that issue.  But luckily we had an absolutely charming 10 year old boy sitting behind us who was willing to copy every noise J made for hours on end.  This was her feet through most of the flight, trying to scale the back of her seat as she air kissed, spit and squealed at her new friend.

The red-eye return trip kind of sucked since (as I learned later) my girl had mild pneumonia, water in her lungs and a double ear infection.  If there's a prize for observant mothering, I apparently am not winning it!

But the point of the trip was to see some of my west coast family for a pre-Christmas Christmas because none of us wants to travel during the real week.  It's nice: you get a tree together, play Christmas music, open presents and pretend it's the real thing. And I took pictures of none of these things since I was for once living in the moment and forgetting to record it!

Which gets me to the MADE part of the post.  You may remember I made this lovely wallet for myself earlier this year.

It's a great pattern from Blush Bunny that you can get here - and though time consuming (some hand work), totally worth it and not that hard since the instructions are so detailed.  I'm going to say it's about a five-hour project from ironing to final thread clip.  Seven if you're making two!

This time around I made the credit card slots a quarter of an inch narrower (my cards fall out sometimes because the slots are a touch too wide) and I used a medium-weight interfacing, which gave it a more structured feel than mine has.  For my sister I used this really pretty muted fabric with maroon accents.  In case you hadn't noticed, that pink/lavender color is my favorite right now.

For my mom, who like me does not fear the bright, I went with this fabric.

A little modern, but one of my favorite color combinations.

I was practically finishing them on the way to the airport so I didn't get any photos prior to wrapping.  When I grabbed them a few hours later to take pictures, they had both already been filled by their respective recipients.  I'm taking that as a compliment.

Hint for next year: start the Made gifts in November.

Let's Hear It For New York

Sometimes you have to take a little break from creating to fill the inspiration well - and there's no better place for that than NYC.  I went to school there and have been back many times, but you can only visit the old haunts so many times before it gets repetitive.  The key to keeping it new, we've found, is to have a project in mind.  We've dedicated past trips to baking supply stores, specialized spices (Kalustyan's!) and Christmas windows.  What always gets me about New York is how all-out it goes on everything.

With Windsor Button shutting down in Boston this year, there is just no good shop for ribbons and notions in my neck of the woods.  Sure, every fabric store carries the basics, but sadly the largest selection you'll ever find here is at Joann's.  So this weekend, the hunt was on for buttons and ribbons.  We started with some basic fabric shopping, but in the garment district it's just too overwhelming.

Ugh.

Wool suiting.  Almost makes me want to be a lawyer again.

Then we hit the notions stores.  M&J Trimming was my favorite and had the best conversations to eavesdrop on ("What are you thinking? It's for a tweed coat, not a caftan!").

One of many button walls

The grosgrain ribbon wall.  Take that, Michael's!

Aha, where Carrie must have shopped on SITC

The fabulous rotating wedding cake display

I also loved B&J's around the corner - so many feathers and fake flowers it made me consider millinery.  Another sweet shop, with less selection and an older feel was Tender Buttons.  A long, narrow, hallway of a store with excellent selection and antique buttons on display:

After all the fabric and button shopping, Mr. Responsibility got his day at a REAL museum and we checked out the new Islamic Gallery at the Met.  We both like Islamic art, but I've always been more attracted to the swoops of the calligraphy than to the geometrics:

Tughra (official signature) of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificen 

The mother of all chevrons

Soaking in this exhibit it hit me for the first time how easily the geometric patterns could transfer to quilting, and I developed a new appreciation/obsession.

It was a lovely weekend - but the best part was being able to order appetizers and meals and dessert and coffee, knowing there was no toddler getting antsy in her booster seat.  I ate a pound of gruyere in one sitting in honor of J's Grandma, the frenchy cook.

Showing respect

It was a great weekend - now back to the drawing board.

gLoved

I have such mixed feelings about fingerless gloves.  On the one hand (heh heh) they just look cool. You can't argue with a trend once Hermione embraces it.

and Spiderman:

and edgy Siberian hackers:

And it's not just an emo/superhero thing.  This whole web page is gamers seeking advice on how they can "modify" Grand Theft Auto Four so that Nico wears fingerless gloves:

But on the other hand, they just seem so impractical - like I care if my palms are warm when my fingers aren't.  There's a reason why people wearing fingerless gloves always seem to be cradling a cup of coffee.

compulsivecraftiness.com

craftedportla.com

momadvice.com

How/why then, would you own fingerless gloves in New England?? You get them because you are known and loved by a knitter who is too impatient/unskilled/tired to knit fingers.  That's why my friend Kelli is wearing them:

I did the pretty lace swerve from this free ravelry download.

Kelli's got a little bit of superhero in her, so I'm not too worried about frostbite.  Maybe she should get herself a hot cup of coffee though, just in case.
XOXO

Measure Twice, Knit Once

I plan ahead.  I'm the kind of person who knows whether I'm going to get a cart or a basket before I even pull into the grocery store parking lot.  My list of creative to-do projects is so long and thought out it includes things like J's fingerless drumming gloves (come middle school she'll be practicing in our cold garage).  I just like to know what's coming.  The trouble is, while I know what I'm going to make, I don't always calculate the supplies correctly, and my shopping can predate the actual project by years. My Orange Peel quilt required four trips to the Cambridge Quilt Shop due to miscalculations, but at least the fabrics were still in print (on the up side, Lynne and Monique know me by name now).

I've mentioned before that whenever I take up a new craft I immediately commit to making a *insert time-consuming project* for each of my nieces and nephews. I did my first Christmas stocking six years ago when I first learned to knit:

My youngest niece is now three, and she's next on the stocking list.  There were five nieces/nephews in front of her, so she had to wait patiently.  I wanted to do a matching but contrasting color for her so I just switched it up:

Of course the problem is, I bought the yarn two years before actually starting the stocking.  When I started to run out of the red I panicked - there was no way to get a second skein from the same dye lot. I'd have to use a slightly different color to finish the toe (Naooooooo, as j would say) or start over (I don't do that, ever.  It's a patience/perfectionist gene I was not born with.)  I made do with what I had and cut corners/rows wherever I could.  I could've waited to give this gift in person, but I sent it through the mail so my sister can explain to Daria why she gets the small one.  She has much more parenting experience, so she probably won't say "because Santa likes DJ better," but I can't wait to hear what she comes up with.

After knitting a big sock, I was in the mood for a newly conceived project, not one that's been stuck in the closet forever.   A hat for a toddler seemed like something that could just be whipped up and I liked this cloche from ravelry (free download!).  I've never done anything with thin fingering weight yarn or tiny size 3 needles.  Always seemed like a good way to get bored and develop arthritis.  But, I loved this yarn that matches J's eyes, and so did she.

It came out pretty cute.  Doesn't quite cover her ears, so she'll only get to wear it for a couple more weeks, but I'll round up some super chunky and size 15 needles for the next hat!

I think I'm still in a knitting phase - it's such a nice way to make watching TV feel productive. Maybe I'll just relax and see what kind of inspiration next week brings!