Ravelry?

I've been a member of ravelry for two years, but I really just started getting familiar with it today. I added some projects, searched for patterns, and linked some blog posts. I have a sense that I'm on to something really big, but I can't quite figure out what else to do with it.

Any of my dear readers out there want to give me some tips on how to use this exciting new tool?

Oh yeah... my user name there is mserta, if'n you want to be friends.

Garment Design: Gourmet Edition

I did break down and make myself this
sleeveless maternity dress, even though I
was 8.5 months pregnant at the time.

I'm doing the thing right now, where I'm delaying making nice things for myself because I feel the need to clean my house first, and then I don't want to make anything for my body in this size, and feel like I should save that silk noil until I've lost a bit of chub. Which is why I don't sew enough clothes for myself.

But while I was obsessing over this false choice, I hit upon a metaphor, which demanded to be blogged. So here I am, to talk about Garment Design.

Sewing for your family is like cooking for your family. Buying clothes off the rack is like buying processed, ready-to-eat food. Hey, we're all busy moms, and mouths must be fed, bums must be covered, right? (Sometimes, if you're going to a really nice store when a cheap one would suffice, it's like eating out. And that's just something you have to do every now and then.) With the decline in teaching the art of sewing - why, school systems, did you ever banish Home Economics? - people turn to off-the-rack as the staple of their wardrobe, and I really feel like this is negatively affecting the nutritional content of our dressing habits, so to speak. There is a diminished ability to express personal style, the quality of off-the-rack clothing is usually fairly poor, and changing trends can make shopping a nightmare for the choosy wearer, or one with "special dietary needs" (i.e. a larger, curvier figure, or the opposite).

This is me just making stuff up

Next comes sewing your own. Here's where I start to sound snooty - the culinary equivalent of sewing from a pattern is baking a cake from a cake mix. The patterns are designed to end up just like off-the-rack clothing. That means that they are all drafted to fit a b-cup bust size, among other drawbacks. Some will have those helpful recipe add-in suggestions on the box, such as how to alter a bust-line, or lengthening and shortening lines. But unless you've trained yourself in pattern alterations, they're not going to be very personal.

It turned into a wedding dress for my sister, which was
supposed to look like it was stitched  out of leaves.

What I mostly do is like cooking from a good recipe book. I mix and match my patterns, taking a sleeve from here, a neckline from there, use a tiered skirt instead of a straight skirt, and I lengthen everything, like I always add extra butter to my food. Sometimes I'll improvise a pan sauce, drafting a new piece or slipping in a pocket, replacing the zipper with buttons. It gives a wider scope for my ideas to take shape, and it also cuts down on the number of patterns I have to store. If I really want to make something again, I'll start by drafting my FrankenPattern onto muslin, which clips together with a big safety pin and doesn't need to be pinned to your fabric when cutting.

OK, yes, that is a zipper. I made two ball gowns in one day,
all right? I had to take a short cut.

Every once in a while, when I want something really unique, I'll just make it all up, such the Zuko costume for my son. My daughters attend an English Country Dance once a year, which requires (well, it's "optional", but we're us) Regency Era Dress, and since authentic patterns are hard to come by, I look in my Patterns of Fashion reproduction manual, and drape the patterns right there on their bodies, which is loads of fun. True cooking from scratch.

The final option is Thrifting, which I consider to be the equivalent of foraging in the wild, or growing your own food. I'm bad at all of those, so I'm just going to give it a passing nod of utmost respect.

Tune in next time for a pompous discourse on sourcing your ingredients.

Charles

I think it's time to write a little post about my son. I have a lot of children. It can be confusing, especially when even though it seems like they won't hold still long enough to count them, you can't seem to get higher than six, but you're sure I told you I have seven. Where's the missing one?

He's in Heaven. He's up at the cemetery. He's in our hearts. We've explained it numerous ways to our children over the years, depending on context. And fielded all kinds of hilarious questions stemming from the difficulty in understanding the concept of Where Does Charles Live? Is the cemetery where Charles lives? Do I have a special place at the cemetery? Oh, he lives in heaven? Can I go to Heaven and see him? What if I lived at Heaven too?

Charles is my fourth child. Almost exactly six years ago, when he was two and a half, and my fifth child was a three-month-old infant, we were walking to the store, Jane strapped to my chest and Charles in the wagon behind me. It was two in the afternoon on a Wednesday, and we were walking on the sidewalk in a school zone. A truck full of hooligans high on drugs made a bad turn at an intersection, drove up onto the sidewalk and struck the wagon. Charles was killed instantly, Jane and I were totally unscathed.

Wow. It's hard to know where to go from there. Even six years later, I have too many thoughts and feelings that I want to share to pick one out and go with it. Maybe at this point, I just want to tell you about him, and also to clarify something that I think people who know me might have been thinking for some time now:

Charles and Max, his grampa, who
we hope are back together now.

Bob has been around much, much longer than Charles. Of course, anxiety, guilt, sorrow, and the whole package are Meat and Potatoes to Bob, and he's grown strong on them, but Charles' death wasn't Bob's birth. If anything, it's provided me with more tools to defeat and shut out Bob than any other event in my life. Which is weird, and I'm not even sure I can explain that.

Since this is a craft and depression blog, I'll tell you something that makes me sad, something I don't think I've ever mentioned to anyone before (so what better place to air my secret than The Internets, where anyone can see and it will be here for all time): I never made anything for Charles. He was my first boy, but he was a surprise boy - that is, going by the ultrasound pictures, we named him Jane and had a bunch of pink stuff ready and waiting. So the pretty flowered baby blanket I crocheted for him stayed in the closet, the baptism bonnet with lace somehow didn't get finished, and when Easter Dress Time rolled around, he got a new shirt from Target. He didn't even like dressing up, and he was only old enough to go Trick-or-Treating one Halloween.

Four children turned out to take up a lot of my time. That was when my making-things-thing started to tail off a bit. For example, I used to make Pysanky (Ukranian Easter Eggs) for my children and Godchildren during Lent every year, with their initials and the year on each one. I think I started one for Charles when he was two,

determined that he should have at least one, but I didn't finish it; over a year after I started it, the egg carton tipped over in the closet and the egg popped, and everything in the carton had to be discarded, very very quickly. So, when I take up that hobby again, the first egg I make will be in his memory.

This is a photo of me that appeared in
the local newspaper coverage of
Charles' funeral - hundreds of
people were there.

Now I feel like I should end this post with something positive and lovely, but I'm kind of coming up blank. I have a new reflection from this year's Easter Season, though. During Jesus' Last Supper prayer, he says "No greater love has any man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends." I was sad, at times, that I didn't have even one second in which to try and save my son, even at the expense of my own life. People would say "wow, it's so lucky that you and Jane survived!" and I took it as graciously as I could, even though everything in me wanted to retort "Oh yeah? Lucky for whom?" I've never in my life been suicidal, but there have been long, long stretches of time where I wished I was dead.

And finally this year it clicked into place for me. One doesn't have to die in order to lay down one's life. Lucky for whom? For my children who were still with me. For Paul and Silas, who weren't born yet. For my husband, who may not have been able to take the loss of two children and a wife, but who bore up under the heavy loss of a son, with the help of his wife.

And for my friends. For all the people I love, I don't just die. I lay down my life by living it.

I finished my Shawl!

OK, I have a bit of time now. I finally finished the lace stole/shawl/scarf thingy, and I LOVE IT. It had a life of its own, as all art projects do - it doesn't look like the picture in the book, and I had to change some things as I went, but that's the fun of it, after all. Where's the adventure if it all goes according to plan?

The big thing that made me laugh at myself while working on it was this: all along, I knew the pattern said "work lace chart 31 times." Anyone see the problem here? I imagine at least some of my readers will. As I got closer and closer to the 31st pattern repeat, the more that number, Thirty-One, grated on my nerves. It's prime. It's all pointy and angular and weird. It's not Thirty, which is a nice round number, nor yet Thirty-Two, which is an elegant power of two, and twice the square of the first square. But Thirty-One was what was writ. What's more, I ran out of my second ball of yarn at almost precisely the halfway point, and I only had four, so I worried about lengthening it. But I knew in my heart that that prime number would bug me every time I put it on.

Teresa agreed to model for me.
Isn't she pretty?

So after careful row counting, I decided to bump it up to Thirty-Two. There I was, practically *finished*, but I had to add the extra pattern repeat, for the good of my soul. And the good news is, I had plenty of yarn left. I'm using it to make tiny crocheted snow flakes, because it is sparkly.

The other thing of it, now, is that I have nothing I can wear with it. So this blog is going to have to move away from the Knitting Department and into the Garment Design and Construction Zone. I want to make something navy blue, maybe. It's tricky - a dark color will show up the lace best, but as I discovered over and over (but I guess never really *learned*, since I kept doing it) while knitting, black and mohair aren't a smart combination. I looked like I have a very affectionate long-haired cat.

I began this stole just before Ash Wednesday, which was March 9. I finished it yesterday, so it took me 72 days. In between the start and the end, I also made two hats and a baby sweater. (here's a photo or two of the second hat. It's baby-sized.)

I'm alive again!

PS - if you want to see the pictures in more detail, you can click on them to view them in a full-size slide show.

Placeholder

I'm in a hurry, so here's a picture:

Hey Bob, am I a good Blogger or a bad Blogger?

...or is the proper term "Blogress?"

So I haven't written anything in ages. Thing is, I'm a choir director and organist and homeschooling Mom. that means May is Hell. Well, no, because it's also awesome, but I feel like I need to just get through it. First Communion Masses, weddings, graduations, Confirmation Mass, plus all the usual stuff. At least with Easter being super late this year, I have until June to plan for the last four Big Feasts before the choir takes a break for the summer.

I have two happy updates:

One, I am on pattern repeat number 29 of 31 on my lace. It is nearly done! It is also a lot warmer than I expected it to be. It already stretches from one elbow to the other, and it is as soft as a cloud.

Two, I attended my last session of therapy, at least for a while. My therapist says he'll miss me, but it is a long drive, and I just go there to talk about how well things are going and how much happier I've been. So, until things take a turn for the worse, I'm all done with that.

So, yes. Not much of an entry, but I feel like it was a milestone I should mention.

On Easter Dresses: or, Why Do We Tear Each Other Down When We Could Build Each Other Up Instead?

When I was a very young mom, with no car and few social skills, all the women I knew were either single college students or the wives of my only-just-former college professors and had busy schedules and a million children. As a result, I was alone, a lot. My husband had two jobs and was trying to finish college himself, so he had only so much to give me, and my baby was All Things Miraculous, but even she couldn't talk in full sentences until she was 18 months old, plus she is an introvert. She didn't like even mamma getting all up in her space.

So I learned how to sew.

It was an uphill road. Being the clever person that I am, I assumed I knew better than the pattern designers, mostly because I didn't acknowledge things like grain lines, and my early efforts were mostly Lessons Learned The Hard Way, and not actual usable pieces of clothing. But because I was lonely, bored and desperate, I kept at it. I probably learned twenty or so lessons The Hard Way before I produced a single thing I could use or wear.

One of the things I have continually dedicated myself to over the years is the creation of Easter Dresses. I love Easter, and all the things it promises. I didn't have the budget to make it more special than Christmas in the same manner as Christmas, so I had to get creative (my specialty!) and one of the ways was to make matching dresses for all the girls, beginning with my first and myself. (I stopped making dresses for myself after two, though.)

Easter Skirts

As my skills developed, the dresses got nicer and nicer. My adorable three little girls all had completely different coloring - a blond with grey eyes, a redhead and all that that entails, and a dark brunette with alabaster skin. My approach was to find the same print in different colors, and make dresses from the same pattern. In later years, when they started to have vastly differing tastes in clothing, I went exactly the other way, and started choosing a color palette, and making them totally different styles of dress. But I kept it up, year after year, even if it meant doing everything during Holy Week. It is a project that means a lot to me.

Well, one year my ever-expanding repertoire of skillz reached the stage of including smocking, thanks to one of my crafting gurus - Maureen, who also helped teach me to quilt and has inspired me in so many other ways. I was pregnant and feeling sick during Lent, so I spent many hours curled up in my chair, hand-smocking some muslin panels. It's probably the earliest I ever started on dresses, and it took a lot of time, but the results were deeply satisfying, and I dressed them in t heir smocked dresses whenever I had an excuse.

One day I took them to the library, because our wonderful dear children's librarian had asked me specifically to show her my Easter Dresses. In we filed, splendidly arrayed in smocked dresses and little white gloves and straw hats with matching ribbons. (Hey, when you go to that much trouble, you take it all the way, right?) It was Story Time Day, so a lot of other moms were there, and one said to me "Please don't tell me you smocked those dresses by hand." So proud of myself, I told her that I did.

She said "I hate you."




Looking back on it, I know why she said it, and she meant to be funny, I'm sure. She was tired, she had that difficult blend of older children that keep you running and tiny babies that keep you up at night, and she is also a woman that loves beautiful things - she grows a lovely garden in the spring - and not enough time to fulfill that love. She didn't know what I gave up to make those dresses, because it's not like I go around showing people pictures of my mountain of laundry or the unswept kitchen or the uncategorized piles of papers and books... I sacrificed to make this a priority. I knew she didn't mean it. But wow, did it hurt. In fact, I'm sure she's forgotten the incident completely. (Hey, it might be you!)




The Thing is, just as we don't see those background sacrifices, that different ordering of priorities, we also don't see what kind of power our words can have. I carried that "I hate you" around for a long time in my heart, believing that I must have done something wrong, that my creative drive was somehow blameworthy because of the things I let go. I often lock myself into a place where I'm "not allowed" to make anything or buy anything until I've done X amount of housework. It never works. In fact, one time I actually got my entire house clean AT THE SAME TIME but still didn't sew because of the guilt block. Every time I sat down to make something, I felt badly. That "I hate you" became the Voice of Bob. He was right on top of that one. Alongside "You never finish what you start," it's one of my most deeply rooted Bobisms.


I'm working on it, though. I'm learning to let myself be, to recognize what people mean when they say things like that. And I'm trying to be very, very careful about what I say when I wish I could do what someone else can do.

My beautiful Audrey, recycling dresses from
last year. This year, I actually DIDN'T MAKE ANY,
and my lovely Helen wore this dress.

Bullet Points

Whoops, been a while since I last posted anything here. It's Easter Week, which traditionally in my family consists of completely clearing the schedule, then packing it full again with stuff we never have time to do. The reason we do this is because I direct the choir at my church, and, being Catholic, this means a LOT of work in the week leading up to Easter, followed by the obligation to keep the feasting up for eight whole days. So, fragmentary brain produces fragmentary thoughts. Here you go, compliments of my shattered mind:

Craft Update: I am on pattern repeat 21 of 31. I'll be done soon. I fiddled a bit with Fair Isle knitting, I think I may try a project soon. I bought some new yarn today to make a baby-sized Entrelac Hat for... a friend... who just had a baby... who might be reading this blog.

Insight of the week: My "job" outside the house - directing the choir - is how I fill my tank, so to speak. Immersing myself in music refreshes my soul, and when things get really crazy, especially at Christmas and Easter, it's more singing and less learning, which is MORE energizing to me than the weekly grind of going over parts. At the end of 9 days in which I led 5 hours of rehearsal and 12 hours of liturgy, including the year's most dramatic moments, I was exhilarated and overflowing. And really, really tired, but in a good way. If it were any other way, I would currently be deceased.

Complaint of the week: my local yarn shop is having their annual "Ewe-niversity" day of classes on the same day as the monthly local Handspinners and Weavers Guild meeting, which I promised to take my kids to. You'd think they would have planned around that. I can't even catch a class in the afternoon, because we have a Mother/Daughter Tea. It's all about priorities here, but it's annoying when priorities so high on the list get crossed. It's like when your two favorite teams match up in the first round of the playoffs instead of the end.

Funny Story With No Plot And No Punch Line: I went to therapy this week, and when I left my house, I was stewing, boiling mad at my husband for reasons that I won't go into. All the way there, I rehearsed my list of things that were bugging me. When I sat in the chair, my therapist asked "How are you?" which prompted me, instead, to talk for an hour and a quarter about all the reasons I am happy. It was the best therapy session ever.

Well, that looks like it for today.

Sunday Inspiration: My Own Thoughts!

It's Palm Sunday for us Catholics (and others, too), marking the beginning of Holy Week. So, while I don't want to make this a blog about religion any more than I want to make it a blog about parenting, it is about what inspired me, and what I like to do, so those things are going to figure pretty prominently if I'm going to write honestly.

Today, it's St Peter who is on my mind. Whatever kind of person you are, if you spend some time reading the Gospels, and do just the tiniest bit of visualizing, you're going to get a bold and bright picture of this guy. He's larger than life, a big personality, a person who, like myself, has adopted the personal motto "To Hell With Starting Small." Take, for example, the bit where the disciples are out in a boat, a huge storm arises, and they fear for their lives. Then they see Jesus, walking on the water. All are terrified, but not Peter. He wants proof: "Lord, if it is you, command me to come out of the boat." (Though, to be fair to Jesus, that's not really his usual style.) "Come out, then," says Jesus. Well, gosh, Peter's stuck now. Jesus says come out, so, well, he'd better do it. A little forethought could have prevented this, but forethought isn't Peter's strong suit. So out he jumps, and starts walking on water. I mean, HE STARTS WALKING ON WATER!

I feel like this when I do things like decide to make Easter Dresses for all four of my daughters. Two weeks before Easter. Or to put together binders for everyone in the choir with everything we are singing from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday, in order, so that all they have to do is turn the page - which involves filing, collating, photocopying, enlarging (gotta make it easy for them to see), typesetting, hole punching, binding, unbinding because I did something wrong, rebinding, etc. At some point, I ask myself why on EARTH I thought this was a good idea, but at another point, I find myself saying to myself "Holy crap, I'm actually doing this!"

But then the other thing happens too. The waves are so high, the wind is so strong, and people aren't supposed to be walking on water, and I get this sinking feeling (sorry for the pun). People aren't supposed to walk on water. Sometimes the Lord permits it, to make a point, but then he has to step in and save us from ourselves.

Then there's the Passion reading. Peter, again, is there drawing his sword in the garden, ready to die with Jesus, but that's not what Jesus had in mind. So he trails along behind, getting into the courtyard, hoping to catch a bit of what's going on. He's worried, he's distracted, and he's confused. And he's out of his element. Someone, just as curious about the proceedings as he is, asks if he's one of Jesus' disciples. Peter, probably thinking that he'll get kicked out and won't be there when Jesus needs him, says he is not. And then again. And again. He doesn't have any intent to repudiate Jesus in his mind, he just wants to stay warm and close to the action. The denial slips right by him.

Oftentimes, we are perfectly willing to self-immolate in the noble cause, but unable to bear a collection of small indignities. Washing the dishes EVERY DAY. Smiling at the lady in the store who says "better you than me" when she finds out you have seven children. Giving your teenager a hug when she needs you, even though it's way past your bedtime. Forgiving someone who always says that thing that sets your teeth on edge, and not even telling them that it hurts you. Saying yes, actually, I AM that's man's disciple, even if it means you have to move away from the fire.

Because after the ordeal is over, when Jesus returns, Peter jumps out of the boat (again!) and swims to shore, leaving behind a miraculously large catch of fish, eager to come face to face with Jesus again, even though the last time they were together, Peter denied that he even knew him. And Jesus puts this guy, with all his faults and strong feelings and bold impulses and poor planning skills, in charge of everyone. And he's totally the right man for the job, too!

Moment of Realization

There's this thing I do, and I don't know where it came from, but I noticed it in choir today. I make things, I put things together to make someone's life easier, or give a gift, and someone will jokingly ask "Wow, but can you do this (impossible) thing too?" At which I immediately begin thinking of ways to accomplish the Other Thing. And then, somehow, I do it.

Or I'll hand out something I typeset, and someone will ask "Did you sleep this week?" At which I will feel a pang of guilt over having slept five whole hours last night, realizing that if I hadn't, I could have typeset the music AND done the dishes.

And today, I realized that people are joking around; that they are paying me a compliment by teasing me for not being superhuman. I don't ACTUALLY have to be superhuman. Not even if I wanted to. And maybe, just maybe... I should stop trying.

Because it's making me crazy.

Good one, Mom!

On Getting Bored

There are two virtues I associate with creativity: Cooperation with inspiration, and Perseverance. Correspondingly, there are two blocks to creativity: failure to respond, and Getting Bored. These two features of being a creative person are often at war with each other, in my case, in this particular way:

Lace Stole as of April 11

Me: Oh, I bet this hat would look cool if it was made out of such and such a yarn...

Bob: Don't you already have a project going? You can't start a new project until you finish your old project, otherwise you'll never finish. You never finish anything you start. (This is one of Bob's favorite proverbs.)

Me: Oh, OK, well I'll just sit down and finish my old project so I can get to my new idea... yeah... old project...

New Project: Hey, over here! I'm flashy and interesting, and I won't take long...

Old Project: Look at me, I'm familiar, and comfortable! You can follow my pattern without thinking now, it's like second nature!

Bob: This new project is irresponsible. This old project is boring. Knitting is dumb. Go wash the dishes.

Me: (washing dishes) Maybe if I had two different colours of self-striping yarn... 

Anyway, there's a lot going on in my head. My lace stole looks much the same as it did, only somewhat longer. It's true that I can now follow the pattern without thinking, and I barely need to check the chart now, but it's also true that it's getting long enough to be unwieldy when I go out, and the hairiness of the yarn makes it a bad outdoor project.

And then I saw the Entrelac Hat. Oh wow, it was cool. Furthermore, I could sort of make it an old project: see, I have this yarn. I bought it to make my eldest daughter a Christmas present, but I bought it without inspiration, only liking the colour combination. I had a vague idea for a project, but after multiple attempts, I just surrendered, showed her the yarn, and promised her an item made from it when I thought of a good one. And when I saw the Entrelac Hat, I knew what I was going to do.

My uninspired Bag of Yarn

Entrelac is a knitting technique where you make a bunch of small squares, working back and forth in very short rows, and connecting them as you go. The end result looks like knitted bands woven together. While you're working, it looks very odd indeed. I wasn't so sure I'd picked a good pattern at the start, but after a couple of tiers of blocks, I knew I was on to something. There's no picture with this pattern, so here's the one I made:

I did it slightly differently, of course - I got really bored with the ribbing right off the bat, so I didn't bother with the turning ridge, I just did twelve rows of ribbing and went from there. (Oh, and I had to learn a new, stretchy cast on method in order to make this, too! Yay, new skillz!) Then, I alternated between turquoise and purple yarn for the A colour changes.

My plan was to have a small project for my car-knitting bag (the hat) and a home project for watching TV and drinking tea (the stole). But instead, I started the hat on Tuesday and finished it on Thursday. And got only one pattern repeat done on my lace this week. Again. But that's OK! I have no deadline on my lace. I knit for fun and relaxation. As long as it is fun and relaxing, I can continue to strive for balance between Inspiration and Perseverance. I can't let Bob take it away from me.

Notes on the pattern: I used a worsted weight yarn, and had to use size 9 needles to get the suggested gauge. While I'm happy with the result, if you examine it closely, or you have a friend like Bob who will examine it closely for you, you will see that the gaps in the ribbing are pretty large, and where the squares join together, the edges look pretty ragged, and it wasn't because I knit loosely. I think that this problem could be solved by using a chunkier yarn, or by using smaller needles and increasing the number of blocks in each tier to get the right size. The adjustment would be pretty easy - you cast on 5 sts for each block. Next time I make it, I'm going to use a finer yarn and tiny needles, and see if it comes out baby or toddler size.

Sunday Inspiration (more of other people's writing)

Just a little something I embroidered
a few years ago - my daughter taught
me a few stitches so I could do this.

This week was filled with photocopying and camping, so I didn't even get to complete a single pattern repeat on my lace, not even while watching TV. So I'm going to refer you, again, to a post by someone else, this one about the importance (for homeschooling mothers particularly, but for everyone else, too) of nourishing your own interests, continuing to draw inspiration from your culture.

This post took an hour to write, because I was called away so many times. Thus goes many a "quiet" Sunday afternoon.

A Poem, a Book and a Thought.

My therapist (it still sounds funny to say that) gave me this poem to think about:

Love After Love - by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.


My Husband gave me this book to read a long time ago, and I think it might be time to read it again.

My brain gave me this thought today: when you were just a twinkle in the Creator's eye, do you think He was mostly excited about the things you would do? Or was there something else He had in mind when He thought you and made you?

This is Me being Me, 14 years ago.

Knitting Bulletin

We interrupt this project to bring you breaking news… literally. Turns out those polished wood needles I love so much are really easy for a 4 year old to snap, especially in the lace-knitting sizes. So I had to put my lace shawl on hold temporarily. The good news is that a dear lady is having her first baby, and her baby shower was a week after the day my needles broke, so I had another fun thing to focus on: a Rainbow Baby Sweater!

Everyone needs a little more rainbow in
their life, right?

This project partly owes its existence to the incisive mind of my friend Dom, one of the most artistic people I know, who rightly perceived the heart of my quandary: I had a vision, and realizing it required extra fiddly work that might not turn out. In typical me fashion, I was paralyzed by my options and wasted a lot of time asking people who were not me what I would do if I were them. Turns out that information is not relevant to anything. Ever. But Dom saw right through my question. It was not really “what should I do?” but rather “what do I want to do?” Why spend more money and waaaaaay more time making something when I could just buy something adorable? Because I wanted to make something unique, something I was inspired to make. There would be no point if I didn’t make the thing I wanted to make.

It didn't line up perfectly - turns out that
an increase in width of a single stitch can
make a difference in the end.

The thing I wanted to make is a newborn-sized cardigan made from a beautiful self-striping merino sock yarn I’ve had for a while. I say self-striping, but the “stripe” is actually a gradual color-wash gradient fading through the whole rainbow. This is a problem because the back, being twice as wide as either side of the front, would go through the color changes twice as fast, and throw off the balance of the thing. And while I wasn’t going to worry about matching the front to the back, I wanted a consistent texture. Also, the front needed symmetry for sure, so it seemed like the best thing was to work each side from a different ball (same dye lot, of course), matching the spot in the color change on each so that it was the same on both sides. As for the back, I decided to work the back in two halves the same way, and seam it down the middle.

It doesn't look like a half-finished
sweater, it looks like a huge mess.

Look at all those stringy-things!

Look at those gaping holes! (That's
what God made loose ends for.)

Somewhere my moss-stitch border got
mixed up - so I just cut my losses and
 cast off early

This sweater had so many lessons to teach me. I couldn’t decide what to title this post, because I had so many good thoughts to put down. It was about fudging and faking (adapting the pattern, knitting on after miscounting rows, etc), but also about doing things the Right Way (christening my sweater blocking kit – that was fun!). It was about the process of making something, in particular the way that mistakes have a way of blending in, and the way loose ends have of tying together more issues than just themselves when you finish them off. And it was about color and fun.

I’m posting a catalogue of the mistakes I made on this sweater, because sometimes it’s important to acknowledge the imperfections of a thing before you can put those imperfections in perspective. And after you’ve looked at all the errors, check out the final picture: They Don’t Show At All.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Lace Stole (I bought new needles).