Domestically Challenged

Hard to Fake

When my sister told me that the blanket I had made her daughter was my niece's favourite, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical.  Not that I think my sister is a liar or anything, but, you know, she's my sister and has familial obligations to be at least a little bit nice to me.  So you can imagine my surprise when I asked my sister if I could photograph it and she told me that it was up on my niece's bed - she sleeps with it every night.  That's pretty hard to fake.

This blanket has a very simple construction.  It is mostly stockinette stitch with a garter stitch border and the letter "A" done in purl stitch in the center.  I knit is using brown sheep cotton ease and US 7 bamboo circs.

It actually turned out very well considering that I ran out of yarn an inch from where I was supposed to cast off.  I was reminded of this fact last night as I was counting the rows I had left to complete and calculating how many rows I could get out of each ball for the second blanket.  That's when it hit me I would be short and that I had in fact been short on the first blanket, but too poor to get more yarn (yay grad school), just cast it off anyway.  I didn't tell anyone, and no one mentioned it.  Clearly, the missing rows didn't take away from anyone's enjoyment of the blanket.  Holding the original up for scrutiny, I (the one who knew of its imperfection) couldn't tell it was lopsided.  Phew.  I wasn't looking forward to going through the rigmarole of finding the right yarn in the right colour with the proper dye lot or figuring out how to move the monogram down a few rows.

La belle province

One of best aspects about not working is having spare time to do things like read, knit and go on vacation with your sweetheart (or all three, really).  For the last few weeks, Costin and I have been in Quebec.  We spent most of our time drifting through Montreal, pretending we lived there.  We read a lot, drank a lot, ate a lot and ...drank a lot.  Costin tackled the Satanic Verses, while I read Sylvanus Now, the 2005 summer edition of the Fiddlehead and started Middlesex.  Despite all of the reading, I did manage to squeeze in some knitting.

Fetching, a pattern found in this season's knitty, was a fun and fast knit.  I used up the left over zara merino from the DNA scarf I knit Costin two years ago (some serious stash busting) and US 5 dpns.  I don't think I did as good a job picking up the stiches around the thumb as knitter who made the fingerless mitts in the pattern's picture, though.  Luckily the yarn is a bit on the dark side and it's only really noticeable to me (the freak who held the thumb up very close to her face and squinted at it for a while).

I can't believe that I'm moving to Ottawa soon it's almost Fall!  I think the best way to distract myself (from my denial) is to knit Glampyre's Easy Raglan V-neck pattern.  After seeing Jae's, I have to have one.

A promise...

There are times when I knit something and I promise myself that I will never knit it again. For instance, such a promise was made after knitting miles of never ending stockinette with no pattern other than a garter stitch border that I inevitably kept screwing up because I was so caught up in the monotony of alternating rows of knit, purl that I forget to do the last 5 sts in K on the wrong side.

It was surprising how little it actually took for me to break this promise. When my sister got pregnant with Lil'Z, I was a considerate knitter and asked her if she had any knitting requests for the baby. Without batting an eyelash, she said "a baby blanket like you knit Paige".  She probably thought she was being considerate, requesting the simplest, most low stress knitted item I had made for her to date. I started having flash backs of knitting the original blanket. It was supposed to be a shower gift for my sister at the bonus shower (I had knit my first baby sweater ever for the first shower) her swanky, lawyer friend decided to throw for Jenn and her swanky, lawyer friends.  I was racing to finish it, knitting it every chance I had.  I had even begun to whip it out at my tutoring session in North York.  I knit that blanket most of my waking hours and when I shut my eyes at night, I could see lilac stockinette behind my eyelids. That blanket haunted me and I think I visibly shuddered.  But then my sister pulled out the big guns.  She told me that that blanket is Paige's favourite.

Suddenly, I was the Miss Universe winner of knitting.  The world around me fell away and I was presented with a tiara and a bouquet of Lantern Moon knitting needles.  I waved and smiled for the paparazzi.  I was still trapped in this reverie when I went to Lettuce Knit to by the light sage green (peridot) yarn (Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece).  I was probably reciting my victory speech when I cast on and knit 40 rows on the bus to Sudbury.  The spell was finally broken 5 days later after 88 rows, 5 mistakes in the garter stitch border, and 3 broken segments of yarn that had been tied together in a single skein.  Luckily, I am at the point in my knitting practice where I don't have to look at the garment itself.  Time to pick up some good movies and stop whining already!

It's Over

It's finally over. The packing, the purging, the moving - it's all done. No more anxiety, posts about purging or pictures of potatoes.  Finito.

Since we moved out of our apartment, I have been staying with my sister and living out of the boxes she very kindly let me store for a month in her basement. Apparently, I have a lot of stuff despite the thorough purge.  So much in fact that when my two year old niece saw the morning after the move, she led me to the top of basement stairs, pointed into the blackness and said with wide eyes, "All your stuff!".  Maybe the purging isn't over after all.

I did manage to use up some of my stash yarn though. I made another Fable Cardigan using baby blue acrylic instead of Fable. It turned out pretty well despite my bias against the yarn for being plastic. It's not the yarn's fault. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of it before giving it to my neighbours for their baby which is due in September (we moved out just in time to miss the late night screaming sessions!).  I also knit a dishcloth from Mason-Dixon Knitting.

I've never really done the dishcloth thing before, but this was a very fun pattern and helped me get over my anxiety about moving. Sometimes you need to knit something that is straight forward with no surprises and in cotton because it is FREAKIN' HOT in Toronto right now.  It is also a good way to use up stash yarn. I think I will only need to knit one more before I use up all of the dregs of the Rowan DK cotton I scored for $1/ball in Cape Breton two years ago.

photography by sue