Knitting Update

Long overdue update.

Remember the giant snow storm we had two weeks ago?


Most of that snow is gone now. There's still in inch or two in shady places, and where it was piled up after we dug out, but we're starting to see more grass than snow which is great.

I don't know what plant it is called, but along the streams and in the marshy places around here there is a willowy bush/tree/vine thing that turns a vivid magenta when spring is coming. Last year, it was the first sign of color coming back in March when the snow receded and everything looked drab and dead.

There are a few little bulbs poking back up through the dirt right by the front door. They have a dark dark red color. I wonder what they will grow up to be!

The Cider Mill geese have been venturing out more and more too. Spotted them strolling down the street outside the front door a few days ago. They hissed at me for taking pictures of them on such a bad feather day.



I finished the Olympic Sweater a few days late.

Alas. But I do really like it, so I'm pleased. It has a beautiful drape and soft luxurious warmth, despite its relatively open fabric. It's much bigger than the pattern suggests. I blocked it realtively tightly to open up the fabric and to help nudge the arms and hemline a little longer, so that might be part of it, but I'm guessing my gauge was off by a few stitches once I got into the stress of the Olympics. That would account for the arm holes being about an inch or two too big.


Don't misunderstand. I loves me the sweater. Brett thinks it looks good, and it has that funky loose look that so many cardigans have in the stores these days, which is exactly what I was going for. Perfect to wear over a fitted long sleeve shirt or a summer tank top. I'm looking forward to reaching for this on warm summer mornings when I need something I can stuff in my bag and toss on once the sun goes down and it gets a little chilly. Hooray!

I finally finished Brett's Kansas City socks too.

I knew he needed a pair of his own when he kept boggarting my handknit woolies. He needs good wool socks because he does crazy things like run around in the snow to celebrate U of Minnesota victories. He's a crazy person.


After searching the stash, I found I had a great skein of royal blue Mountain Colors Bearfoot that I'd been hoarding since the days of the employee discount at Iris Fine Yarns. (I really miss working at a yarn shop!) Since the color was appropriate, I charted out a little KC design to feature on the cuff and planned a purl bump diamond pattern for the leg and top of the foot. Started out with a few blue and white stripes, jumped right into the colorwork, struggled through a few repeats of the diamonds before abandoning them and then suffered through a men's sized sock worth of dark blue stockinette. I don't know what I was thinking trying to read a purl bump pattern on dark knitting that I usually do in the evenings. As far as eye strain goes, only an eggplant purple or solid black yarn would have been worse.


So I finally finished the first sock and then, of course, second sock syndrome kicked in and the thought of doing another one made me want to take a nap. It took me almost a year to even start the second sock, but it went so much more quickly than the first that I cast on the cuff and kitchenered the toe in 4 days.


Such is the paradox of the sock knitter. You spend weeks, maybe a month on the first sock, the prototype, experimenting with design elements, writing and rewriting the pattern, knitting the damn thing, until you have spent all your creative juices and, now that all the hard work is done, you nothing left to carry you across the flat stockinette finish line. You have hit the Knitters Wall. I have found the same thing to be true of weaving in ends and blocking sweaters and shawls, or the last stretch of most knitting projects, really.

But I find that time is the best remedy. Now that the KC sock monkey is off my back, I feel free to start another pair of socks, this time following a pattern without making many, if any, alterations. Good thing Aunt Karen sent me a copy of Knitted Socks, East and West for my birthday. Beautiful patterns and inspiring photography. I've cast on for Chouwa, a highly textured feather and fan sort of pattern that is producing a lovely surf crashing on rocks sort of feel. It's great. I'm knitting with Christmas yarn too: Happy Feet from Plymouth Yarns in colorway 26 (such a romantic name, right?) which is a really mysterious variegation of charcoal grey, periwinkle purple, and a tiny hint of robins egg blue. From afar the overall effect is purple. I do really like the way the strange color combo is working with the texture, sort of softening and homogenizing the colors.

From now on, I'll remember that sometimes after over analyzing a project, I should try something I don't think will work at all and just see what happens.

Bridezilla!

I just read a very excellent "wedding undergraduate" post over on A Practical Wedding. It articulated something I've seen on the internet and run up against only occasionally in my own wedding planning where you suggest wanting something (maybe a backyard pig roast BBQ, instead of a buffet reception) and the response sounds like, "Oh no! That's doesn't feel like a wedding! It's kind of...hick, isn't it?"

It's well intentioned, assuming, I suppose, that it's not coming from a wedding industry professional insisting that going with the white standard table cloth is cheap so she can try to upsell you the colored overlays for an additional $50 a table. When it comes from a relative or (dare I suggest we don't always agree?) Fiance, I believe the intention is really to create a beautiful day that everyone will remember forever.

While the post made me feel a sense of support for making unconventional wedding choices, it made me think a little more about the other people involved in the wedding planning process.

Take the parents, for example. My parents have been great about the whole thing. Mom dealt with me wanting non-matching bridesmaids, compromised with me on the dinner service, has left pretty much every decor decision up to me and has generally supported every choice I've made thus far.

Other brides get this:
"it finally struck me this weekend that the only parts of the wedding she's [Mom] happy with are the parts she's been 100% involved in. Any decision my fiance and i have made together, ourselves - she has already decided will be a disaster. anyone involved with the wedding that she doesn't know, will be a failure."

And I thought, "seriously? Your daughter and her fiance are grown people! Trust them already!"

Brett and I watch Bridezillas sometimes and love feeling superior to the poor people on the show. Being tuned into the bridal blog world makes me look at the show and see women who are one week out from what society has told them should be the most important day of their adult lives. So often they scream in tears at their fiances, "this wedding isn't about you! It's all about me! And those table cloths have to match the bridesmaids shoes exactly or the WHOLE DAY WILL BE RUINED!" It's easy to laugh at that and call her a crazy Bridezilla, but honestly, that's exactly how she's been told to feel, and can you really blame her if she's not dealing with that particularly well? The wedding day is supposed to be a reflection of the bride: her taste and class and her value as a female member of society. She's supposed to throw the best, most luxurious party possible. The event of the season that everyone will still be talking about in a year.

A) That's stupid.
B) I know how that feels as a bride, but I honestly (I'm ashamed to say) hadn't thought how that pressure translates to Mom and Dad until I read this comment, "I think, in respect to our parents, many of them still think we are/want us to be 12 years old, not actual, full-fledged adults. Or, if we're going to go and be full-fledged adults instead of 12-year-olds, by golly we better look like extensions of them!"

It was like the clouds parted and I realized that while it's probably not always true, it is a really good thing to keep in mind that Mom and Dad are as invested in my wedding as I am.

Their parents will be there, their friends and co workers and of course they want to be comfortable with the big decisions (in a church, not a pasture) and want to have input in the little ones (bridesmaids attire). I get that. It makes sense.

So I will try to understand where the desire to input is coming from and I will try to be more receptive to compromise. I've gotten everything important to me so far and there's no reason to be difficult about the things that are important to my parents.

Love you Mom and Dad.

News Release

Bob Costas: There is the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. One such story of heartbreak comes to us from Fly Creek, New York where Olympian Kate Hackelberg, after 17 days of struggle, fell just shy of gold. Here to tell us her story in her own words...Kate Hackelberg...

Welcome to the studio, Kate.

Me: Thanks Bob, it's an honor to be here.

Bob: Now, your event was the...knit sweater?

Me: That's right Bob.

Bob: Now, for those viewers at home who may not be familiar with the sport of Olympic Knitting, can you tell us a little bit of how it differs from the Knitting many of us are accustomed to seeing practiced in our living rooms?

Me: Sure, Bob. Many people are used to seeing knitting practiced as a hobby, at various skill levels, with a wide range of goals. Olympic Knitting takes that hobby and cranks it up a few notches by imposing two rules: you must knit a challenging project and you must knit between the flames.

Bob: So there's a certain amount of subjectivity in the judging?

Me: Oh no no! It's very cut and dry. Either you finish your challenge before the flame goes out or you don't. There's no silver or bronze in the Knitting Olympics; only gold.

Bob: How did you decide on your challenge?

Me: Well, I've been knitting quite a while and in that time, I've completed a number of projects of various sizes and skill levels so I figured I would try a sweater. I chose the featherweight cardigan by Hannah Fetig. I knew that it would be a challenge to do so much knitting in the time frame, but it was a very simple pattern so I thought it would be doable.

Bob: And yet, you're here today with no gold medal. What went wrong?

Kate: Bob, I think it was hubris.

Bob: Hmmm.

Me: The more I thought about it, the less challenging the pattern seemed. I mean, when you're in the company of Olympians, it's hard not to compare yourself to them and the fearless leader of the Knitting Olympians, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, was knitting Whistler, a brilliant 4 color Norwegian style sweater. Next to that the Featherweight Cardigan seemed like a piece of cake. So in the beginning, there were nights I didn't even work on the sweater. Of course, I regret that now.

Bob: Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but if you knew then what you know now...what would you have done differently?

Me: Unfortunately, Bob, all of my issues came down to poor planning, rather than equipment failure or lack of training. Can't fault the yarn or the pattern here! I would have tried harder to write a reliable schedule. I didn't realistically think about how long the sections would take, but if I had, I would have known on day 5 whether I was behind schedule and would have been able to put in a few late nights early on, instead of being completely out of time in the last few days.

Bob: Well, it seems you've taken a lot of good lessons from these Olympic games. Will we see you back on the course in 2014?

Me: Absolutely, Bob. And next time I'll be coming for gold!

Bob: Alright, we'll be keeping an eye out for you. It's be a pleasure to have you with us today, Kate, and best of luck in your future knitting endeavors.

Kate: Thanks so much for having me on, Bob.

Bob: So many stories have come out of Vancouver, some of glory, some of disappointment, but regardless of the outcome, these Olympians have given their all. They strive to knit swifter, higher, stronger, and we all learn from their efforts. From all of us at the studio...goodnight.