Something resembling knitting

It seems like forever since I have actually finished a knitting project. There are several reasons for that. Jumping back into the dating pool seems to have taken up a great deal of my time. I also did a ton of prep work for Knitting in the Heartland last month.

But the main reason for not completing anything since December is my main current knitting project. I've been working on the Somewhat Cowl by Wendy Bernard since last October. October was a bad month for me to try to knit a sweater. October is also the same month that I sew Halloween costumes for my nieces every year. Last year for the first time, I travelled to Michigan to visit them for the holiday. Thirteen hours of driving each way severely cut into my knitting time. So I put it down until the beginning of this year. 

Then it happened. And I'm not really sure what to call "it". Knitters will know what I mean. For non-knitters I will describe the process.

1. As you are knitting, you notice a slight anomaly in the fabric you have already knit. You look at it closely and decide to ignore it. It can't be that noticeable, you think to yourself...and keep on knitting.
2. You get a little further along and try on your sweater in progress. That mistake is still there but you are quite certain that you are just imagining it now since you are looking for it to see if it actually is noticeable. You continue knitting.
3. Now you have made some significant progress with your knitting. Now you are pretty sure that you are hyperfocusing on the issue with your knitting. You rationalize to yourself that once it is blocked it will look fine. Plus you have knit so much already, it would be a shame to rip it all out now. You keep knitting some more.
4. It's too late. You can't fool yourself anymore. Your knitted item looks horrible. If only you had ripped it back at the time you suspected an error. You may as well give up knitting forever because everything you make ends up looking like crap in a box.

There should be a word for this phenomenon. As I was telling my friend Christine yesterday, there has to be a better term for this than "dumbass knitter is in denial syndrome". If any of you have thoughts on what to call this, let me know.

My recent experience with the Somewhat Cowl had to do not with an error in a stitch pattern since it is a very plain knit. This had to do with the fit. I thought I had figured it out correctly this time.  But I'm starting to think that the problem I have with fitting myself in knitwear has to do with the fact that I learned to sew first. In sewing, you pick the pattern size according to your largest measurement and then alter everything down from there. After you assemble the pieces, you can always take the seams in for a better fit.

Yeah, you can't do that with knitting. So while I did decrease significantly for the waistline after knitting the bust section...I still had eight inches of ease around my waist. Yes, the sweater was too big in the waist by eight inches! This was after I thought perhaps the armhole was a bit too big. And so I finally decided to rip back.

So can you see how much fabric is gathered under the arm? And how there seems to be no waist shaping at all? This sweater is making me look very boxy when in fact I have a defined waist in comparison to my breasts and hips. Plus I was dangerously close to running out of yarn. (Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool is the yarn for those that want to know.) And I should have had plenty. So I ripped it back.

Now we come to the big problem. I forgot that the neckline was lower than the armholes in this sweater. In fact, I had already picked up stitches all around the neckline, knitted the ribbing AND stitched it down on the inside. And now I need to rip this all back to point where the armhole meets the body of the sweater.  Can it be done without taking out the neckline?

Hold me. I'm trying it.

 Also, send vodka. And chocolate.

Knitting in the Heartland recap

Knitting in the Heartland was great fun this year! I attended Franklin Habit's keynote address which was all about antique knitting patterns. Boy, I'll bet that sounds tedious and boring to non-knitters. But to be true, I found it fascinating and the idea of deciphering old patterns is endless intriguing to me. Some local knitters are planning a knitalong of his pineapple bag and I am seriously considering tackling it myself. 

I wasn't able to get into any of Franklin's classes before they sold out, but I did take Spinning for Knitting with Jacey Boggs. I've taken two workshops with her in the past on textured yarns so this was the opportunity to learn a bit more on the technical side of spinning. If you are a spinner, you need to take a class with Jacey. Even if you aren't interested in creating textured yarns (also know as art yarns), her technical knowledge of spinning is superb. I've learned so much about the process of spinning from her. Plus she is so generous with her time and knowledge and is incredibly inclusive of all types of spinners and knitters. We did an interesting experiment with spinning and then knitting swatches of Z-twist and then S-twist singles. There were marked differences of whether twisted was added, removed or stayed the same during knitting the swatches based on whether one was a Continental or English knitter. I knit in a style known as Eastern Uncrossed. My method seemed to match up with the Continental knitters which wasn't surprising to me since I hold the working yarn in my left hand. I'm looking forward to experimenting more with my spinnning and how it relates to my knitting.

The vendor market was huge this time around. Which was really great for the students and shoppers.  Perhaps not so good for those of us who were vendors. Too much competition meant only two sales for me for the entire weekend but I had fun anyway and learned so much about booth presentation.  I shared a booth with my dear friend Christine, the TreasureGoddess. She has amazing handspun art yarn and handdyed fiber and yarn especially the most luscious lace yarn you can imagine. 

I debuted some new embroidered pieces this time around and was lucky enough to sell one. I'll be taking some photos this weekend and adding them to my Etsy shop. Here's what they looked like in the booth.

I'll be adding some of the pieces to my shop soon. If anyone has any ideas or requests for words or phrases they'd like to see embroidered, let me know!

Knitting in the Heartland

Sometime in the spring season of every even year, the Kansas City knitting guild holds an event called Knitting in the Heartland. This year is no exception, of course. It is this weekend, April 13-15 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Lenexa, Kansas. Franklin Habit is the featured instructor and he'll be giving a keynote on Friday evening. I believe his classes are sold out but there are plenty of other classes available. Be sure to check out kithkc.com for all the details. 

I have been involved at this event since 2006 either as an instructor or a committee member. This year, I'm very pleased to be a vendor for the first time. One of my favorite things about the convention is the vendor market. This year it is the biggest market yet and I'm very excited. I'll be selling some of my handspun yarn, hand dyed fiber and yarn. Oh and here's a sneak peek at something else you might see in the FiberTerian booth.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Simplify Week #6

The week six challenge over at Simplify Your LIfe is all about goal-setting and priorities. So while I do have a few areas that I want to focus on in my life right now...my priority these days is my health.

Eleven months ago, my former husband and I separated and I moved into my own apartment. I saw it as a good opportunity to make some positive changes in my life. One of the things I did was give up fast food. This was pretty huge for me at the time. Most workday mornings I was hitting a drive-thru for a breakfast sandwich. I was also grabbing fast food lunch or dinner at least three times a week as well. So if I were to be honest with myself, I was probably eating fast food about 8 - 10 times a week.

Not surprising that I started to lose weight shortly after giving it up. I didn't automatically shift into super healthy eating either. I found a frozen breakfast sandwich that I liked. That way if I was running late in the morning, I could grab one out of the freezer and microwave it once I got to work. I also got a lot better at bringing my lunch to work. Every little bit helps and while as a rule I don't eat fast food anymore I still find myself going thru a drive-thru window once every week or two. And my body hates me for hours afterwords. A clear sign that eating better is good for my body.

Near the beginning of this year, I stopped drinking as much soda as I had been. Usually 2-4 Cokes per day during the work week. Now I will have one, sometimes two, sodas per week. It's more of a treat now than a habit and a way of life.

All told, these simple changes have led to me losing 25 pounds over the past year. There's good and bad to that. Hooray, I'm feeling better than I have in a long time. My chronic knee problems are not quite as bad as they were. My digestion has improved and anyone who has had their gallbladder removed probably knows what I meant about that. (I'm too squeamish to go into details here.)

So if I'm already improving, why focus on health as my main goal right now? Well, there are some other areas that I've been lax at. I have not focused on my health as a significant issue in quite some time. I take my relatively good health for granted and have not had a physical in quite some time. I did have a well woman check up last week and all went well so that's good.

So here are my health goals for now:

1. Schedule mammogram

2. Schedule minor procedure (sorry internet, you don't get to know all the details)

3. Buy new contacts and glasses (have prescription, just need to order them)

4. Cook at least one meal every week.  - This is huge for me as I usally eat out quite a bit or rely on cereal or frozen dinners.

5. Get more exercise.

In the past 12 months, I've probably gone walking on the treadmill maybe 6 times? So I need to increase that obviously. Motivation seems to be a key factor. Perhaps I will try for every other week and gradually increase? A very squishy goal but hopefully I'll be able to revise it to something more concrete in the future.

Simplify Week #5

Lucky for me, week five of the Simplify Challenge is to take a breath and relax. Good thing since I was starting to feel the pressure of trying to catch up on this project.

So I'm going to take this week to talk about one of the ways that I like to relax.

Yeah, so knitting should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. The repetitive nature of wrapping wool around needles and creating stitch after stitch towards the end goal of a completed item is incredibly calming to me. And sure, I do have a tendency to choose super complicated projects that may tend to stress me out at times. In extreme cases, I've been known to throw a particular project across the room in frustration. But overall, knitting is something that I enjoy quite a bit. Like most of my hobbies, I'm keeping my hands and my brain active while creating something tangible at the same time.

Simplify Week #4

Oh yeah, I'm behind on this challenge but I'm jumping in and catching up as I can.

The Simplify Your Life challenge for week four focuses on Balance and the Wheel of Life.

It wasn't too difficult to come up with my eight points of balance for my life. I chose my five personal values from week 2: Humor/Fun, Generosity, Creativity, Independence and Health. I added Relationships (famliy, friends, etc), Finance, and Love. I thought long and hard about whether to even include Love because in the last year, it's been far from my mind. But I'm starting to warm up to the idea again so while it isn't a huge priority for me at this point, it is something I need to consider in the future.

So after ranking each of these points on my current satisfaction of each, here's my current wheel of life:

So while I'm happy with the level of Creativity and Humor/Fun in my life, I clearly need to focus on some other issues. My health is one of those things that I'd like to focus on for a while. I've lost some weight in the past year and that's just a small part of the puzzle.

Anyway, I kept putting off this challenge and I'm not certain why. Once I got started, it seemed to come to me fairly easily. Until next time...

Simplify Week #3

This week at the Simplify Your Life Challenge we were supposed to create personal mission statements.

If you just thought that tearing out your fingernails would be more entertaining, well then...we have a lot in common.

But I thought some more about the good things that I experienced last year. I looked deeply at the five values I identified last week for myself.

Humor      Generosity      Creativity      Independence      Health

Then I was reminded of the sign that was up on our wall while my former husband and I were foster parents.

Be Nice, Be Safe, Be Honest.

Great rules to live by and it got me thinking about how I could incorporate my core values into a mission statement for myself.

Treasure the joys in life and have fun. Be generous and kind. Challenge myself creatively. Honor my independence and work to maintain and improve my health.

 It's taken me longer than I expected to be able to put this into words but I'm very happy with it now. One thing is for sure, I have certainly challenged my creativity with this task.

Sparkle socks!

My friend Tim has been knitting up a storm this winter. His usual focus is socks and I certainly can't complain about that because I am the extremely grateful recipicient of the most adorable striped sparkly socks!

And I'm not the only lucky one. Tim was generous enough to give our friend Christine aka TreasureGoddess a pair of sparkly socks as well! I know she is just as appreciative as I am.

If you look closely at my socks, you will see that they are not an exact match of each other. The toes, heels and cuffs are different and the stripes are as well. I know that Tim did this to make me twitchy. I may or may not be known as someone who tries to knit my own socks to match each other exactly. Perhap even obsessively so? Yes, guilty as charged. 

Getting handknit socks as a gift is a wonderful thing. I like to think of them as hugs for your feet. And it is even more special to me because as a knitter, very rarely does anyone knit for me!

So I love my new sparkly purple striped socks. They are made of awesome!

Simplfy Week #2

This week’s challenge at Home Life Simplified is to define one’s own personal values. And I only had a week to pull this all together? Ack!

Although the more I reviewed this challenge over this past week and the more I pondered my personal values, the more I realized that putting this into words was not a struggle for me. In fact, over the past year or so I have done quite a bit of self-examination so this has sort of fallen into place for me this week.

It’s odd in a way but being on my own has helped me get back to what I feel is important to me. I have always been inspired by women who have made their own way in the world without relying on others for their self worth. Sometimes I am disappointed that I’ve slipped away from that in my life but it is nice to feel back in that place and centered once again. In my mind, it is one thing to have the love and support of a partner, family and friends and quite another to draw upon those people in order to feel worthy. Too often in the past I have been more concerned about others and their feelings, dreams, ambitions, etc. than my own. Honestly, I still struggle with this issue but at least I am at the point now where I can recognize those tendencies in the moment.

So what are some of the values in my life that I find most important to me?

In no particular order:
Independence, Kindness, Spontaneity, Creativity, Optimism, Learning, Self reliance, Generosity, Strength, Connection, Joy, Love, Happiness, Health, Humor

And to narrow it down to a top five:

1.  Humor. For me, this is tied greatly to optimism. Humor is my default response to most situations. Granted, it may not always be the most appropriate response but that’s something I’m working on as well. It is very important to me to have fun with even the most trying circumstances. Not surprisingly, I once attempted stand-up comedy in my 20s. I often wonder if I would be more successful now that I have more life experience under my belt.
2.  Generosity. I like to think of myself as a generous person. I’m not completely selfless but I do like giving of my self (time, things, space, sometimes even money) in order to help others or even just to cause a smile. I am a huge believer of giving back, paying it forward or passing things along.
3.  Creativity. I am a maker. I enjoy creating things no matter the medium...knitting, spinning, sewing, etc. Creativity is something that I use everyday even when it is applying a particularly creative idea to a problem at work. My motto is “there is a always a workaround”. There is always more than one way to accomplish a task and I love to apply my creative thinking to problem solving.
4.  Independence. Ah, how I’ve lived this word this past year. Sure, I moved into my own place and divorced my husband...but it was so much more than that. I feel like I’ve truly taken steps to be more self reliant and step out of my comfort zone.
5. Health. Yes, a sure sign of the aging process is valuing health. I’ve worked a bit a making healthier choices in the past year. Hopefully, I’ll find ways of continuing that in the coming year. But with many injuries and illness befalling my family and friends this past year, I think about wellness and health issues more often these days.

Well, there you have it. I think this week’s exercise has helped me to get a sharper focus on my values and priorities. I would encourage you to visit Home Life Simplified and check out her weekly challenge. I'm finding it to be pretty interesting. In the meantime, I'm going to get back to my knitting...

Simplfy Week #1

So at the Home Life Simplified site, there is a 52 weeks to simplify your life challenge. So what the heck, why don't I just dive right in to that? Some might say that getting a divorce and moving into a small apartment is simplifying one's life enough. But those who know me well, know that I love a challenge. Here's my response to this week's challenge:

Week #1 Challenge: Create a list of everything that went “right” in 2011

What energised you?

In late summer I purchased a new car. This was a unique experience because it was the first car that I ever bought for myself. After much research and several test drives, I finally settled on a Honda Insight. I negotiated down to the price I wanted and also negotiated to a very good interest rate. It was pretty exhilarating to have done this all by myself and to know that I was responsible for making it happen.

What made you feel happy?

Spending time with my family, especially my nieces. Especially the week that my sister and her daughters spent here in Kansas City with me. Sure there were four of us crammed into my two bedroom apartment during the hottest week of the year...but we sure had fun. I even went on a terrifying roller coaster with nine year old Adriana and lived to tell the tale.

What made you feel at peace?

Knowing that I was on my own again and responsible for only me. Having my own space in which I could do whatever I pleased.

What positive people lifted you up?

My sister, my friends, my therapist, my parents.

What filled your “tank”?

Spending quiet time all by myself, knitting, spinning or just being. I was also lucky enough to get away this past year on a couple of fiber related retreats.

What worked to bring your family together?

I think my divorce really helped my appreciate my family more and they all seemed to rally around me.

What is something that made you feel excited to dive right in?

My friend Tim and I started a knitting challenge in July and while I haven’t been always as on track as I would have liked, I have stuck with it.

What did you learn (positive things)?

Over the past year I’ve learned who my true friends are and that the only person I can truly rely on is myself. Sure these are things I probably already knew. But I think I really had some hard lessons this year in actually learning them firsthand. I've learned to trust my instincts more. And I have learned to really love being with myself.

What are you grateful for?

I am so grateful for my health, my family and my friends.