Gestrickt und gesponnen wurde:

• Glomerata komplett fertig! Und ich bin begeistert.
• feather, foliage, and pines, auch komplett fertig
• Hopefully Enough Yarn, eine Strickjacke nach eigener Idee aus handgefärbter und handgesponnener Wolle; die Jacke ist im Wesentlichen fertig, leider ist mir tatsächlich die Wolle ausgegangen, so dass ich die Knopfleisten und alle Blenden aus einer anderen Wolle stricken muss; und dafür muss ich erstmal spinnen
• Beige Mystery Hat braunes BFL auf der Bosworth Featherweight Spindel. Soll Sockenwollstärke werden für den Wooly Wormhead Mystery KAL
• Marled Mystery Hat, dreifarbiges BFL auf der Bosworth Featherweight gesponnen, das zweite Muster des KALs
• Fast Stinos für meinen Mann, die Ferse und der Zwickel des ersten Sockens sind fertig
• Somewhat Turkish, es fehlt nur noch die Ferse des zweiten Sockens

• Farbverlaufswolle fertig gesponnen
• Indian Summer die zweite Spule angefangen
• orange-melierte Merino-Seide für Socken auf der Bosworth Featherweight weitergesponnen,
• orange-fuschia-roter Merino-Kammzug auf der Bosworth Mini für die Strickjacke
• Baumwolle auf der Takli.

Des weiteren wurde erwähnt:

Petzis Spinnforum und das dazugehörige Lexikon (kann ich nicht direkt verlinken)

Winterkatze

Flight Path KAL

Maggie Casey’s Buch Start Spinning

• die urbane Spinnstube
• Wooly Whispers
• Twinneedles

News und Termine:

• großes Spinntreffen
• 3. German Raveler Treffen
• meine VHS-Kurse: Perfekt passende Pullover stricken und Spinnen mit der Handspindel
• Keltischer Sommer Socken/Celtic Summer Socks

Gestrickt und gesponnen und sonstiges habe ich:

• Topfbrot gebacken (Rezept bei Anke Gröber und hier der Link zu dem ausgezeichneten Buch “Nudeldicke Deern“)
• Deo gemacht (den Link hatte ich von Sallys Blog “Already Pretty“, der verweist auf das Rezept von How about orange; Link zu Reginas Blog (Ich habe für mein Deo 3 Esslöffel Kaiser-Natron und 3 Esslöffel Pfeilwurzmehl aus dem Bioladen vermischt, dann ca. 4 Esslöffel Kokosöl und 10 Tropfen Grapefruitöl. Einfach in einer Schüssel mit der Gabel verrühren, fertig.)
• gewebt hier der Link zu einer Anleitung, wie man mit dem Gurtwebrahmen anfängt, allerdings auf Englisch, aber mit vielen Bildern und Videos und hier ist Lavernes Blog, auch auf Englisch, eine wahre Fundgrube
• Ebony Turtleneck ist komplett fertig!!!
• Rivendell
• “Irgendwie Türkisch“, zweiter Socken bis ca. 15 Runden nach der Ferse,
• Glomerata
• Hopefully Enough Yarn, eine Strickjacke nach eigener Idee aus handgefärbter und handgesponnener Wolle 
• Farbverlaufswolle weiter gesponnen, wird schon.
• Polwarth von The Painted Tiger etwas weitergesponnen, die erste Spule ist jetzt wirklich so gut wie voll
• Indian Summer weiter gesponnen.

Hier der Link zum Zugsocking von Stuttgart zur Wollmeise. Und hier Fotos von der Operation Rollkragen, die dann missglückt ist:

I mostly talk about all the projects I’ve been working on since August which you can find on my ravelry projects page. Sorry there are so few pictures.

I mentioned Tini because she gave me the idea for one of the topics, and

the Ouroborous Sweater by Debbie New.

Also there is a lot of mention of Wollmeise yarn.

[podcast]http://creativemother.de/audio/Handgemacht9.mp3[/podcast]

Gute Vorsätze allgemein:

• flylady
• word of the year (Das ist ein Link zu einem Post von mir, in dem ich über meine Wahl eines “Wort des Jahres” für 2009 schreibe und der Post enthält auch Links zu dem Blog von dem ich die Idee habe.)

Terminplanung:

• 3. deutsches Raveler-Treffen (15./16. Oktober 2011 in Frechen)
• großes Spinntreffen der Handspinngilde
• Backnanger Wollfest

Die nächste Folge wird eine Spezialfolge auf Englisch sein, aber keine Angst, das wird “Best of”, diejenigen, die nicht so gut Englisch können, verpassen nichts wesentliches.

Was ich gerade stricke und spinne:

• Cool Leave Mittens
• Sheldon
• Maplewings
• Ebony Turtleneck
• Schnappdrachenhandschuhe
• Vincent
• Second pair of handspun socks in perfect colors
• melierte Merino-Seide
• handgefärbte Merino

weiter wurden erwähnt:

• Tudora
• Threadsthrutime
• IST-Crafts
• Ouroboros Jacket aus dem Buch Unexpected Knitting
• Baby Surprise Jacket
• Enchanted Sole
• Frida Kahlo-Buch: “Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress: The Fashion of Frida Kahlo” und auf Deutsch gibt es das auch: “Fridas Kleider” (Schirmer/Mosel)
• Go WIP Go!-Gruppe auf Ravelry (deutsche Gruppe trotz des englischen Namens)

NaNoWriMo habe ich überstanden und mir meine “Gewinner-Urkunde” abgeholt, mein NaKniSweMo-Pulli ist fertig und ich war beim Adventsspinnen in Ohlstadt. (Ich kann leider nicht direkt auf das Spinntreffen verlinken, nur auf das Forum als Ganzes.)

Fertige Projekte:

• Handspun Vine Yoke Cardigan
• Silky Green
• Beety Curves (der erste Socken), More Beets (der zweite)

In Arbeit:

• Cool Leaves Mittens
• Sheldon

Liegt dumm rum und geht nichts weiter:

• Maplewings
• Ebony Turtleneck

Außerdem wurde erwähnt:

• Snapdragon Tam und Snapdragon Flip-Tops

• Türkische Spindel von Threadsthrutime

Des weiteren habe ich noch einen blöden Fehler gemacht, ich habe des öfteren von linksgerichteten Abnahmen geredet und dabei jedes Mal gesagt, dass ich die Maschen links zusammenstricke. Das war falsch, ich stricke die Maschen natürlich rechts zusammen, verschränkt oder sonstwie….

Ferner wurden erwähnt:

• Virtual SOAR
• Judith MacKenzie McCuin und “The Intentional Spinner“
• NaNoWriMo
• NaKniSweMo
• Von meinen Projekten: Devon in Teal, die handgesponnenen Socken, Ebony Turtleneck und Maplewings.
• Neu angefangen: Handspun Vine Yoke Cardigan, Silky Green, Cool Leaves Mittens, nochmal Ebony Turtleneck (Ich gebe nicht auf!), Babysocken.
• Alle UFOs sind FOs: Toasty Pumpkin, Alien Algae, Psychedelic Liesl und Damson in Plum
• Frau Schlamusers Kommentar zu den sinnlichen Strickern
• Yarngasm
• Dornröschenwolle.

Außerdem ist mir dieses Mal beim Anhören das erste Mal aufgefallen, dass mein Podcast zischelt. Es gibt so einen hochfrequenten Nachhall, der daher kommt, dass mein Kopfhörer nicht ganz dicht ist und das Mikrophon mich von dort zusätzlich aufnimmt. Tut mir sehr leid, dass ist mir vorher nie aufgefallen. Ich dachte, ich hätte einen geschlossenen Kopfhörer, aber nein. Nächstes Mal nehme ich den wirklich geschlossenen Kopfhörer von meinem Mann, dann dürfte das nicht mehr vorkommen.

But then this is the first day of fall break (which lasts a whole week, ahem), and we’ll ignore the fact that it’s only two more days until NaNoWriMo, and that I still have to read through the first part of the novel I’m supposed to write the second part of so that I can make a list of things that happened, and people I wrote about. It would be especially nice to remember the spelling of my main character’s name.

I’m also currently doing a self-imposed round of spinning workshops. I suppose things won’t get boring any time soon, which is a good thing. I did take a few more pictures that I haven’t shown here, so get something nice to drink, lean back and let me show you what I did:

I recorded more podcast episodes:

I got out my sewing machine and made “treadle booties” for my spinning wheel. When folded the treadles tend to knock against the wheel which then leaves marks in turn. Majacraft recommends wrapping the wheel in a towel but that’s bulky and tends to slip.

My husband happened to run errands for once, and he remembered how much I love roses and got me these:

I looked around for pretty things to take pictures of and these were on my desk.

Trying to take another “artsy” picture, this is a table that my son arranged in his room.

I got a surprise package that was all wrapped up in Mozart galleys:

That confused me a bit because I have a friend who used to do research for the new complete edition of Mozart’s works, and that was what the package was wrapped in. It turned out that the package was a very belated birthday present that a knitterly friend had gotten for me in Scotland:

It is the most amazing roving. It’s from sheep that live on the beach and eat seaweed. They have a dual coats and the soft layer is gorgeous and really soft, and special. I might have to learn how to dye fiber for this.

I also spent a lot of time and energy finishing knitting projects that have been sitting around for up to a year. First, a new sweater (pardon the sweat pants):

Socks for my husband:

A shawl (another Damson by Ysolda Teague made from Drachenwolle):

Now on to my self-imposed (and self-taught) spinning workshop. I wanted to learn how to make really thin singles for lace because I have this gorgeous Blue Faced Leicester top that I want to make into a shawl. I started spinning from that top only to find that there is much to learn, and so I used something else I had sitting around. Here you see the fruits of an evening of spinning:

After two nights of this I decided to learn how to chain-ply it on the third night:

The pin in the picture above is a big pin but still, the yarn is pretty skinny. I know a lot more about spinning real thin now, I also think it might be a good idea to wait with the spinning of this until I can afford a lace-flyer and lace-bobbins. Not that they are a magic trick but I think they will make spinning lace yarn considerably easier.

I will go on and take pictures and post them here because I like it very much. I only stopped doing the “a picture a day”-thing because I have too many things I need to see to every day, and more often than not I was frantically taking a picture at 11.30 at night. Also my life is not very visually interesting, I sit at home all the time, and often when I do go out I forget to take the camera.

• Tini
• NaNoWriMo
• Martina Hees
• Verena Stricken Winter 2010 (und das nächste Mal sollte ich mich vielleicht darauf beschränken, die Vorschau durchzugehen….)
• meine Projekte auf Ravelry

First the corner in my bedroom that holds all the crafting books and most of the yarn:

Looking into those boxes:

The biggest box holds sweater yarn, the medium one is mostly dk and sports weight, and the smallest one holds most of the sock yarn. Then there is the drawer that holds mostly the yarn of works in progress. Also, miscellaneous sock yarn, notions, fabric and interfacing. There is more fabric stash elsewhere, I have a box with 3 meters of canvas in another dresser, and a box with 3 meters of denim up in the attic. On top of the dresser is a plastic bag with yarn for a hat and mittens for my husband, and several pairs of socks in use together with the library books. (Since taking the picture the socks have been washed, I have installed a dirty socks basket, the hat has been knitted, and the rest of the yarn has been put into the drawer.)

Then there is the small shelf above the bed that holds all my handpainted sock yarn. Also dictionaries. (You might note that there are way more dictionaries than sock yarn.)

In my studio there are some bins with spinning fiber. There is also another, very small box that holds yarn and finished projects that I need to take pictures of for ravelry. Don’t panic, the yarn fits easily into the drawer in the bedroom.

Looking at these I think that I might not have enough yarn in the house. What do you think?

• Veranstaltungen: NaNoWriMo und Virtual SOAR (Dazu sollte ich vielleicht einen neuen Fred bei den deutschen Spinnern aufmachen. Hat jemand Interesse?)
• meine Projekte (wie immer), spezielle Erwähnung bekommt dieses Mal der handgesponnene Vine Yoke Cardigan (für den ich noch keine Projektseite angelegt habe)
• die Ravelry-Gruppe Go WIP Go! und der Kampf dem UFO-Teil
• NaKniSweMo
• Custom Knits
• und den Film How I Spin.

Mir ist dann erst später aufgefallen, dass ich die in der voherigen Folge versprochenen Stash-Fotos immer noch nicht veröffentlicht habe. Ich habe sie schon gemacht und sie sind auf Flickr zu sehen. Hier im Blog gibt es sie bald. Versprochen.

(Und hier sind sie nun: Stash-Fotos.)

It all started way back last summer when suddenly I realized that if I wanted to teach a lace knitting class I would have to provide the students with some sort of pattern. I couldn’t take somebody else’s pattern for teaching (well, I would have needed permission), most patterns I like are in English (and I’m teaching these classes in German), plus I had very specific ideas about what to teach.

So I decided to design a pattern. Now, I have designed things before, I did a lot of knitting in the 80s when there weren’t a lot of nice patterns around, and all sweaters were very boxy. Apart from the sweater that had a fancy brioche pattern in three colors there was never anything fancy. (Well, and then the lace sweater, and when I taught myself how to knit entrelac, and gloves.)

I already had a sketch lying around somewhere because back when I made a purple stole for a friend of mine I originally had planned to design a pattern just for her. My problem was, though, that there is no lace yarn to be found at my local yarn store (apart from mohair, and I’m not going to give a beginner mohair which is impossible to unravel). So I had to make something that used sock yarn. And that idea was for a big stole with very thin yarn.

I ordered nice hand dyed semi-solid yarn with bamboo from Drachenwolle, made another sketch and thought, “I’ll do this during summer break.” Summer break came and went and – surprise – I hadn’t worked on my pattern. Fall came around, I found that I was somewhat reluctant to design something without even knowing if there would be enough people interested in a class but then I had to start some time. Finally, I gave in, pulled out a couple of stitch dictionaries and used those instead of doing it all from scratch. I made the prototype in two weeks time, it went really fast and easy. Then came the charting. Not easy and fast at all. I think I changed the charts four times to make them clear and easy to follow.

The lace knitting class provided me with test knitters. I had wanted this class to be the “lace knitting class to end all lace knitting classes”. I set out to teach them everything so that they would be able to knit every lace project they ever wanted to. So this little shawlette is quite complicated. It uses almost every kind of decrease known to knitters, and it has nupps, and stars.

It’s called Estnisches Tüchlein/Estonian Shawlette because that’s what it is. You can download it for free. There’s a German and an English version of the pattern.

My students liked the pattern, and the class even though after week one they were sure they’d never get it. But all of them came back for more, and at the end of our fourth evening everybody was confident they knew everything necessary to finish the shawl. And then they asked me for a follow-up class.

Silly me, I thought I had taught them everything they needed to know to go off on their own but they wanted to come back. So there’s a second lace knitting class this semester. Sadly I can’t use the same pattern as last time because of the students who already did that. So I had to design a new pattern. This time I wanted to teach them two things they hadn’t learned the class before, namely provisional cast-on and doing lace on both right and wrong side rows. And I wanted the pattern to be a bit easier than the first seeing that the first one kicked everybody’s ass.

Well, the thought of me making simple things is really funny. I wrote the pattern, I thought it’d be easy-peasy, then I got bored (as I’m wont to do), and slapped on a border that’s so hard to knit it made my own head hurt. Also, I – again – designed on a deadline, not only was there the beginning of the class looming, I also decided to do it during the ravelympics.

What are the ravelympics, you’ll ask? Unless you’re one of the thousands of people participating. The ravelympics are something that took place on ravelry during the winter olympics. The goal was to find a challenging but doable project, cast on during the opening ceremony and finish before the closing ceremony. I wouldn’t have thought about joining (much) if not for a friend of mine who was team captain for team Germany. And you know how much I love crazy internet challenges and strange, artificial, and arbitrary deadlines.

I tried to stay sensible though, and only planned two projects during that time. Project A was making this roving into socks:

All the pictures are dark and dreary because that’s what the weather was like in February.

My socks were done in time and I got some medals:

And project B was to design and knit that lace scarf, write the pattern and publish it on ravelry.

And I did it! And I have the medals to prove it.

And out of the process you get a free pattern for a lace scarf. The scarf is called Erster Frühling/First Spring for download here. (And I get a very cozy pair of yummy socks. Even though I’m not really taken with the colors. I will have to learn chain plying for my next pair. I already ordered the roving. Because while my sock drawer is so full that I can’t quite close it anymore, I really need some more hand-spun, hand-knit socks that are really, really warm. Just in time for spring.)

A few days earlier the new spring and summer edition of knitty went public. For those of you who don’t know, knitty is an online knitting magazine with all free patterns. When I saw that it had come out I went over and had a look. Now, the first thing I always look at is knittyspin. That’s the part of knitty about spinning, and about patterns made with handspun. And then I saw Tappan Zee. It’s a short-sleeved cardigan with a little lace around the yoke. I looked at it and thought, “I have to have this!” I looked at the requirements for the yarn, found that I didn’t have anything in stash that was suitable, went over to an online fiber shop, ordered 400 grams of merino-silk top, threw in another 300 grams of assorted merino for sock yarn, printed out the pattern, and started waiting.

And that was the moment it hit me. This is insane. I felt that I absolutely had to print out the pattern this instant, when first I would have to wait for the fiber to arrive, then I would have to spin it, ply it, wash it, and only then could I start knitting. I won’t be needing the pattern for another four weeks or so. The only thing I need earlier is the specifications of the yarn I have to make for it. But I absolutely felt that I needed the pattern to sit there, right in the middle of my desk.

Now, I have to add that I made a little pact with myself not to buy any more fiber until the 400 grams I already have sitting here are all spun up. I’m a little fed up with the way that there’s yarn everywhere in my house, leaping at me from unexpected places. I just finished spinning the yarn I bought last June, and am slowly starting to inch my way through some of what I bought last September. I’m not quite sure but since last summer I have spun about 800 grams of fiber. I still have 500 grams sitting around here (See how that became 100 grams more over the last two sentences? That’s because I remembered the other fiber I still have.), and then I went out to buy 700 more grams just because I had seen a pattern for a little orange cardigan in a magazine. By my own estimate once that fiber arrives I will have enough fiber here to keep me spinning for the next year or longer.

So, what started this? For one – as you all know – I can’t resist anything orange. If that cardigan hadn’t been made of orange wool I probably would have thought, “Oh, that’s interesting but I don’t need a pattern for it, I can make that myself.” and I would have put it aside because yoke sweaters don’t look that good on me, and I never wear short sleeved cardigans. But since it is orange, and the model has pink hair – I couldn’t resist. Well, I could have if I really had wanted to but I didn’t want to.

Also I really need a cardigan or two. One of my go-to cotton cardigans is starting to look old and ratty, no surprise if you know that I bought it in 2003, and I wore it almost constantly since then. On the other hand a merino and silk cardi will probably be too hot. But maybe the short sleeves will help.

The other thing is that despite my deeply felt cardigan shortage I do have a handspun cardigan and a handknit sweater sitting here that are almost finished. I only need to weave in the ends and sew on some buttons. These sweaters have been sitting here for months, and I haven’t managed to finish them despite my desperate need for more cardigans.

So, to be frank, I really didn’t act in any way sensible when I ordered all that fiber. I had this “I want that!”-impulse, and acted upon it. And it’s that same impulse that makes us buy yet more shoes, or three dozen skeins of sock yarn even thought we could insulate our houses with the yarn we already have sitting around. It’s not the most mature thing to do.

I’m still okay with my decision, and I did start spinning that merino-silk as soon as it arrives. My impulse cost me about 25 Euros, and I will make something out of that fiber for sure. But I have to see to it that I don’t give in to the Want too often.

Giving in to the Want once in a while is a good thing and can make us happy. Giving in to it all the times is unhealthy and makes us unhappy.

Of course my plan was to continue on, and make this mad November-dash into a nice little daily habit but so far it’s been the same thing as the years before, I haven’t written one word after crossing over the finish line.

This year I managed to do this as low stress as possible, I was very good and wrote mostly in the mornings, even if that meant turning on the computer at 6.15 and writing 500 words at breakneck speed until it was time to wake up my son. I never wrote late in the evening, these days I’m just too tired for that.

Life conspired against me, and so I ended up falling behind starting the second week. And I fell behind and behind until at the beginning of the last week I was on the brink of giving up. Then I remembered that that’s always what happens, I start out all smug, ahead of the game and then I feel like I can never do it. And then I decided to finish early even, and I had two days where I wrote like crazy. The second of these days was Saturday and that was the only day in this year’s NaNo that I asked my husband to do everything else so I could write. I wrote 6,000 words that day, and I even went grocery shopping, and took a shower. (Not necessarily in that order.)

I also finished knitting my NaKniSweMo-sweater the day after. Now it is sitting there looking at me because I still need to weave in the ends, wash it, get buttons and sew them on. The sweater is very pretty, I’m only afraid it might not fit because the yarn is rumored to grow bigger with washing. Sadly I can’t show you a picture because I keep forgetting to take one while there is still light outside. My motivation for really finishing it is also quite low because I won’t be wearing it for the next months. While it is wool it doesn’t have a turtleneck, and I know from experience that only turtlenecks make me warm enough in winter not to catch a cold. So, this lovely low neckline will be something for early spring.

I found that knitting a sweater in a month isn’t all that hard for me. Even when I start five days late, and I’m knitting something in a fine gauge, that is to say with sock yarn. The knitting was very pleasant and quite mindless. I find that that’s the way to go at the moment, my head is quite full, mostly with mundane and trivial things, and so I enjoy knitting stockinette around, and around, and around. Quite unusual for me.

As every year I find December quite overwhelming. There’s the present buying, and the present choosing for Christmas as well as my son’s, my mother-in-laws, and my husband’s birthday. There’s the school things to do like helping with the Christmas crafting, making and wrapping a nice little present for my son (that’s not supposed to cost anything, nice touch), and about half a million things I just can’t remember right now. We have already reached the point where we don’t go anywhere anymore, and if you’d happen to invite us anytime until February the answer would be an automatic “no”.

I’m still blessed to be teaching quite a lot, and I mean really a lot. For the first time in years I had to turn down a potential student last week. My timetable is full. On the upside that might mean I might get my new piano a little bit earlier. Last week I suddenly had a revelation about the piano. I thought that if I wait until I have all the money to buy it I will never get it. But I could pay it in installments. That’s totally do-able. And reasonable. Yes, it is. So I’m looking at a bright new shiny piano in my future. Sometime next year, I hope.

And my husband will be giving me this for Christmas. It’s a flyer for my spinning wheel. It’s called a “freedom flyer”; that does sound lovely, doesn’t it? A friend already told me about it, and when the new “spin-off” magazine arrived there was an ad in there, and I made my husband drop everything so I could show it to him. I would have bought it right away myself with part of the money I got for teaching those two knitting workshops but then my glasses broke on Saturday, and so that money will go elsewhere. And he (my husband) said, “Does that mean you want this for Christmas?” And I said, “I don’t know, it is too expensive, and I don’t really need it.” “Do you want it?” “Um, yes.” “Then I’ll give it to you for Christmas. Go on and order it.” And I did.

Oh, and about the glasses? Turns out that I’m getting old. Well, I knew that but not only do I need glasses to help me with my nearsightedness, I need reading glasses as well! For now I’m trying to do without but this will get interesting (and quite expensive) in the future.

On the plus side I’m getting new glasses! And they look pretty! And it will be safe to wear them for driving! And I will be able to watch TV again! Because right now I’m wearing glasses that are way old, and the whole world is fuzzy and looks a bit depressing. I spend most of my time spinning while listening to podcasts…

Yes, I decided to do NaNoWriMo again this year. First I was all sensible and only wanted to use it to get back into a regular writing habit, and write about 500 words a day. And finish a story I had started in June. Then I thought that not starting something new was like cheating. And then I thought, “Well, I can try how many words I can write comfortably without stress during fall break, and then I can decide later.” And – I think I’m hooked again. For now it’s really enjoyable if a bit crazy, I have managed to write mostly in the mornings so I could do other things later in the day without having to live with the dread of unwritten words all day long. In the past I have often procrastinated until bedtime and then written in a very bad mood and very tired.

And now that I’ve actually sat down to write about it I find that I can’t really describe it. The yarn isn’t that much more beautiful, and it still is uneven and looks very – handmade. But somehow I’m enjoying every stitch. This handmade yarn has much more personality.

I felt the same way about the first thing I ever made out of my own yarn, which is why I called it the “happy hat”. But now I have made three small shawls out of yarn that I spun and I enjoyed knitting them in just the same way. Even though the orange merino/silk-blend was supposed to become an Aeolian. And I didn’t manage to spin it fine enough, so it became an Ishbel instead. I seem to be on an Ysolda-spree right now. I have two of her sweaters in the making, and have just finished two of her shawlettes.

So, here’s the evolution to shawls:

merino/silk-blend hand-dyed by the “wool dragon”, the pattern is Ishbel by Ysolda

Blue-Faced Leicester multi from the “wool sheep“, the pattern is Gail (aka Nightsong)

This has been quite hard to photograph. When it was blocking my husband said, “This looks like the perfect latte.”

And this is some Corriedale, again from “das Wollschaf“, made into a Damson, another Ysolda-design. The Corriedale isn’t as soft as I would have loved it (I have since learned that that’s the nature of Corriedale). I was in such a hurry to make this that I didn’t even take a picture of the yarn or the finished shawl, the picture was taken by my father.

You might ask yourself what do I need so many shawls for? Well, the orange one is mine (and I use it often) but the Gail is for a friend of mine who lost her father this year, and the Damson for one of my aunts who found out she had breast cancer a couple of months ago. Don’t worry, she’s doing fine and on the mend again.

And the next thing I’ll make is for me again. Finally I managed to spin enough yardage for Aeolian. It’s Blue-faced Leister again (so soft, and marvelous to spin), hand-dyed by Spinning Martha, and I really love the yarn, even if it’s a bit too thick and uneven:

Since the meeting started earlier on Sunday – at ten – and I had to pack, and have breakfast, and check out of the hotel before that I was in a bit of a hurry on Sunday morning. Of course that didn’t prevent me from talking for too long again over breakfast. Since I had to catch a train in the afternoon, and since the Bürgerhaus is near the train station but the hotel isn’t I decided to take all of my luggage with me.

At first I had felt very smug that I still could close my backpack after all the yarn I had purchased the day before but then I found that my second knitting bag, the one with the workshop supplies still sat outside. Oops. Then I found that I had to get more cash for the rest of the day because while I already had bought all the yarn I wanted I also wanted to have something to eat that day, and maybe buy some stitch markers and knitting needles. So I went in search of an ATM machine only to find that my card couldn’t be read. The same with the next place. (Note to self: get card replaced because that happened again last week.) Fortunately my other card got accepted. So now I’m the happy owner of some KnitPro wood needles, and some new stitch markers.

After finding a place to hide my enormous backpack I went to teach my knitting workshop for the second time. It was as delightful as the first time though we all had a bit less energy on this second day. Then I found some potato soup to eat before going back to the classroom, this time to take a workshop myself. That was the “finishing techniques” workshop taught by Sharon Brant. I didn’t really expect to learn something new in that workshop but I did. 1) It’s a good idea to use checkered fabric for blocking finished knits because it’s easier to lay the pieces straight. 2) How to get a buttonhole tidy, though I haven’t done a buttonhole in ages. And most interesting that 3) I am a quite fast knitter. I felt a bit sorry for the teacher because every time I’d looked up from my completed assignment I felt like putting her under pressure but really, I was content just to sit there and wait. I also knew the feeling because in my own workshop that day there had been a very fast knitter who got up and left with her finished sock heel as the other just started to ask me to show them the second step. I didn’t compete in the speed knitting contest, though, because I didn’t realize there was one until after the winner was announced.

Also, I still don’t like to knit sweaters flat and sew them together, and though I hate to admit it, my mother taught me well. I felt a little defensive, just sitting there in the workshop instead of oohing and aahing about all the exciting new things Sharon showed us. It was like when there was a knitting daily post about “the best way to pick up stitches for a sock gusset” or something, and I had really high hopes for that, only to find that the “very best way” was the exact same way my mother had shown to me, and her mother to her before me, and that’s the exact same method that has me having holes in my traditionally knit socks all the time. Sigh. But then I have to remember that I have been knitting for thirty years so far, that I made it through the knitting craze of the 80s without much in the way of patterns, always trying out new things. And that I have – for the past two years or so – learned more about knitting techniques from the internet and books than I ever knew before.

So, the workshop was great, and did indeed show you the things that you can’t learn out of a book. Unless you buy Sharon Brant’s “The ultimate knitting bible” or something, that is.

After that I went back to the marketplace to show my handspun shawl to Christine from Drachenwolle because she had dyed the fiber for that. And I talked some more, and some more, and I was very sorry to leave in time to get to the train.

My trip back home went smoothly, and I was so full of all the sights and sounds of the weekend that I haven’t been able to knit anything more complicated than stockinette in the round since then. I came back to my family and somehow things didn’t went as I imagined them, and we all celebrated my return by having a big fight. None of us wanted to but we were all so tired. My husband found out that I indeed do some of the housework when I’m home because my absence was noticeable.

I came back, unpacked my bags, wanted to force everybody to look at the yarn I had bought, failed, and then we just decided to call it a day. Since then I have been back to teaching again, my son has had his very first day of school ever, and the week went by in a flurry of minor excitement, and phone calls from students, and forms to fill out.

He loves school, he loves his teacher, he loves homework, and tomorrow will be the first day that he is going to school all alone without one of us with him. It’s really easy, he just has to leave the house, turn left and keep going, only it would be a good thing to remember to look out for cars before crossing streets. He already made a new friend, so everything is going well.

And here’s a picture of the things I got at Backnang:

7 skeins of Drachenwolle sock yarn, roving and lace yarn from Spinning Martha in the front, a special ravelry bag, turquoise Merino-Cotton for my husband, a gift skein from Filatura di Crosa (very soft and nice), knitting magazines (also a gift from them), and some knitting needles and removable stitch markers. Today I showed all this to my husband and son and my husband agreed that, indeed, I had been sensible in my purchases and didn’t buy too much. Now I only have to find a place to store the yarn…

Saturday I could have slept in but, alas, I woke early. With the free wifi in the hotel I found myself surfing the net even before breakfast (no family to keep me in check), and had to question my sanity at this point. When I went down for breakfast it turned out that the whole hotel was firmly in knitterly hands, and once again I chatted non-stop until I had to go and get ready for the meeting itself.

This time I was in the company of other knitters and so I did manage to find both the yarn store where we were to get our tickets and the way to the Bürgerhaus where the actual meeting took place. That yarn store the Wollstube Wollin is truly amazing. I’m used to yarn stores that carry only one or two brands of yarn but this is wool paradise. At that point I was really good and only bought this:

One skein of Drachenwolle, and two balls of Merino/Cotton for a hat for my husband (I got that at 50% off in his favorite color.)

At that point of the day I still had hopes of having lunch somewhere but ended up in an ice cream place that was so overwhelmed with all these guests that I sat there, knitting about a third of a sock without even seeing a waiter. Then I left. Next to our tables there were three people shaking their heads exclaiming, “They’re all knitting! All of them! Look! they are all knitting.” They might have been additionally confused by the fact that one of us was in fact, male.

So off I went to the Bürgerhaus, my fellow knitters had left me to take their new yarn to the hotel, and to change shoes, and was greeted by what has to be the most photographed statue in all Germany after this event:

Of course, since I had only bought 200 grams of yarn (at that point) and was wearing my trusty if unfashionable sneakers I was ready for everything. You know, I felt a bit weird at the beginning of the day with my two knitting bags slung over my shoulder but once again – I wasn’t the only one. Knitters and bags seem to got together like hot water and tea. Inside I was greeted by an explosion of color, and a hall full of chatting knitters. Splendid. And then I even managed to grab something to eat and some water. I had been afraid that I would have to teach my first workshop on an empty stomach, not a good thing at all.

When I went to check out the room where the knitting workshops were taking place I almost ran into “Mama and Papa Ravelry”, Jess and Casey. I managed to not go squee! and rush towards them, and immediately afterwards I turned shy as I sometimes do (not very often but always when something is important to me) so I didn’t speak to them at all. For the whole day. They entered the hall and we had some speeches of which I didn’t take any pictures. But here’s yarn, and knitters:

The one thing that I didn’t like as much was the fact that all the workshops were in the same room. We had big tables and each workshop gathered round one. Originally I had planned to talk a lot in the beginning but then I soon found out that people couldn’t hear me anyway so I just shoved my scripts in front of the participants and told them to start knitting.

I had been quite nervous because I had never taught a knitting workshop before. I was teaching “sock construction according to Cat Bordhi” and I was afraid that all the participants would sit there, “New Pathways for Sock Knitters” in hand and ask me about wing stitches and what to do if your ankle is that size, and your foot is that size, and all sorts of technical questions that I would then have to look up in the book, and probably screw up.

Instead they all were very, very nice. Most were quite competent sock knitters of course, since the topic is somewhat special, but in the end each and every one of them left with their own little sock heel and saw that, yes indeed, it works both toe-up and cuff-down. I even had to explain how to work “wrap & turn” for short rows which I hadn’t expected. It seems that most Germans do what we call “Doppelmaschen” when working short rows. (The link leads to a German pattern. To see a picture of the “Doppelmasche” (that would be double stitch which is not the same thing in English, sorry) scroll down to the bottom.) After a seemingly endless time that I had to wait until everybody finished their gusset increases and that I tried to pass by telling interesting bits about sock construction and knitting in general, and by simultaneously knitting a gusset myself which I then screwed up because I can’t teach and keep track of my sock heel without using a row counter. Then instead of using my very big prepared sock heels for demonstration I just went round the table and showed everyone individually.

It’s truly amazing how different people knit. Some are very fast, some are much slower, and they all look different even though I only had “continental knitters” in my group.

After my own workshop I went back to the big hall and bought yarn. And talked, and met people, and took out my spindle to spin with some of the others. Then I just sat down with a couple of people I had met before because I experienced a bit of people and yarn overload.

After that I went directly to the after-hours-party, I think. (That can’t be, I must have unloaded my two bags of shiny new yarn and fiber first.) We had excellent food there, buffet style, I had some beer, and talked and talked. I enjoyed the talking so much that I stayed way later than I had wanted. The beer was a bit of a disappointment, by the way. I like to sample local beer, and I had some at the place where we ate the night before but this very excellent restaurant only had beer that is local to Munich. And when I’m home I don’t usually drink it because there is better stuff to have.

So I went home late, then decided to finish off my half-bottle of wine afterwards while reading. Which – somehow – led to me being somewhat late on Sunday. Interestingly I didn’t have a headache. Must have been good wine.

(And yet too long so there will be – part 3.)

I’m perfectly aware that that was last weekend but then I seem to become busier and busier, I really should do something about this, one of these days, you know, when I have some spare time on my hands.

(This is a series of too long posts about that meeting. Feel free to skip.)

Before going to the meeting in Backnang (that’s near Stuttgart, and I didn’t know there was such a place before either), I went hiking in the Alps with my husband and son on Wednesday, and to a writer’s meeting on Thursday complete with shopping for all the school supplies and clothes my son will be needing until the end of the year. Even my to-do-lists were making to-do-lists but, strangely enough, I managed to do everything on time without forgetting anything important. I don’t even think I forgot anything. I might be getting better with this after all.

The raveler meeting was on Saturday and Sunday but I decided to go there on Friday because otherwise I would have had to get up really early on Saturday and teach a workshop after a long train ride. I tried to pack lightly as I always do but failed miserably. Not only did I put two knitting projects, an extra knitting bag for my workshop, books and handouts, I also packed enough clothes for a week. Since I planned on buying yarn and spinning fiber I took the big backpack, the one my husband used when we were traveling Brazil for two months, and it was full. As was my giant purse/knitting bag. Also my muscles were still sore from four hours of hiking in the mountains on Wednesday. When I got on the train a woman was looking at my huge rucksack and said, “That will be a long trip, won’t it?” Um, well, only this weekend.

In my defense I have to say that I also brought a bottle of wine for Friday night’s “pajama party” complete with two wine glasses and a corkscrew. For the whole trip I was unsure if maybe those people with ridiculous trolley suitcases on wheels do indeed have a point but every time I went my merry way, up stairs, down stairs or on and off trains I remembered why I choose to carry all my luggage on my back.

In order to get a cheap ticket I had booked a train that arrived at Stuttgart Friday noon but there wasn’t anything to do for me in Backnang until the evening when I had a date with a couple of twenty or so other knitters for dinner. So I decided to stay in Stuttgart for the afternoon and visit the Lindenmuseum. I had been there before, back in the days when I still studied cultural anthropology. I found that I already new most of the exhibits but it was very interesting to see how I had changed in the meantime. Ten years ago I was mostly interested in West Africa, and America, this time I spent a lot more time in the Asian part of the exhibition. Also my interest in African musical instruments has waned somewhat and instead I studied every piece of fabric, every garment and every tapestry.

There was a part of the exhibition showing Japanese interiors and tea things that I loved, and then I rounded a corner, saw a big Buddha in the corner, and had to stop myself from bowing before him. That wouldn’t have happened to me ten years ago for sure.

Backnang, the place of the meeting (for once I’m trying to stay on topic here because there will be quite a few knitters interested in this and they won’t be interested in hearing about museums I guess) is very picturesque. I can’t show you, though because as always I didn’t take a lot of pictures.

The hotel was splendid, I had a really nice very big and comfy room, and I didn’t even get back pain after sleeping there. That never happens. When I entered the lift that took me up to my room I already met a woman with big bags of spinning fiber. I looked at her saying, “You’re here for the meeting, aren’t you?” “Yes,” she said, “I went to Wolle Traub today.” I looked into her bag, “That’s Ashland fiber, isn’t it?”. And yet, it was, and yet she didn’t find me peculiar for knowing that.

When we knitters booked the hotel we were said to hear that there was no bar or restaurant to gather in so we decided to have a little party in our rooms. Hence the “pajama party”. In the end the very nice hotel staff put some chairs and tables in the yard for us so we could sit there and chat.

After putting away my mound of luggage I explored the city of Backnang, and totally failed to find any of the important sites for the weekend. That’s what happens when you don’t want to look touristy and refuse to take out your map. You wander around, manage only to find big box stores and buy underwear for your son instead of yarn or something interesting. I also felt a bit lost and therefore phoned my husband who, of course, didn’t hear the phone ring and didn’t answer.

That was the last moment I felt alone, or lost, or lonely for the next days. You know, I often feel a bit weird with my knitting and spinning obsession and I do know that it’s not entirely healthy and a bit out of control but it was very, very nice to be in the company of people who were the same. I found my tribe! Almost 300 people in one spot who all carried gigantic bags with several knitting projects, people who wore wool sweaters, shawls, and socks in weather better suited for short sleeves and bare feet. People who, like me, first looked at your knitted item, asking you about the yarn or the pattern or both, then looked at your button with your ravelry username, and then looked into your face. All of a sudden I wasn’t the only one who lost her train of thought in the middle of a conversation because she wanted to figure out where she had seen the pattern for the sweater the woman on the table next to her was wearing. (By the way, there was a dark haired youngish woman at the Kunberger Aura on Saturday evening who wore an orange cropped cardigan with cabled lapels and hood. She had a red t-shirt underneath. Does anyone know her, and what’s the sweater called, please?) [Edit: And thus is the power of the interwebs and of knitterly friends, Frau Schlamuser just told me that it was Arwen's Cardigan made by Catluzipher. I just knew that I had seen it in Interweave Knits and I was right.]

But back to Friday evening. (I might have to write this in several installments, it’s getting huge.) There were already half a dozen knitters gathered in the hotel lobby when I came down the stairs. One of them was Frau Schlamuser whom I had met a couple of weeks before in Munich. We had decided that it was a bit weird to travel hundreds of kilometers to see each other when we are living next to each other already. There were others that I recognized from their avatars, and/or the user names they had on their buttons. A bit later I had a button of my own and there were quite a few people looking at me saying, “Oh, you’re that creativemother!” knowingly.

We all went to a new restaurant nearby. That restaurant had only just opened, the menu was very short, the waitress was totally new to this, and they all were quite overwhelmed by a group of twenty or more people. We had to wait for our food a long time, it was partially cold, all in all one can only hope that they will get better at this. We did have a lot of fun though:

I’m only showing you some of my pictures because I know that not everyone is comfortable with seeing his or her picture on the internet. So, instead of gathering for our little “party” at nine, as we had planned, we only started that quite a bit later. And when I finally brought my wine and glasses and such, almost no one wanted any more. So after a delightful evening I was stuck with half a bottle of wine left. Oops.

I’m really too lazy to link to everyone I met but it was so nice to see the faces of people I only knew through their forum posts or blogs (and that in my mind’s eye looked like their cats or like a bunch of socks or something because that’s what their avatars look like on ravelry). I also met a lot of people I hadn’t known before. And all of them were nice, and sociable, and fun to talk to.

After all that talking and drinking and eating it got a bit later than I had wanted. I was in full-blown people-and-talking mode but I think I stopped all my story-telling and general talking now and then to see if the people around me looked bored, or wanted to say something too. Most of them weren’t shy themselves so I was cool. All Friday evening (and Sunday) I had to answer the question, “Is that Ishbel?” because I wore my handspun Ishbel that I stil haven’t taken a picture of, and on Saturday I contemplated pinning a note to my shawl saying, “Yes, that’s Wollmeise. Yes, it is a Faroese shawl, the pattern is Irfa’a by Anne Hanson. I’m not sure about the colorway, I think it’s Red Hot Chili.” But then, where else to wear a lace shawl like that but to a knitter’s meeting?

I’ll continue this in part 2.

I finally managed to write something by writing a first draft in English. My excuse for being more comfortable with writing in English has always been that I’m more used to it because of the blog and the internet but yesterday as I was scribbling down my draft on a piece of grocery list at midnight I thought again and I think that I take writing in English a bit lighter because it feels like paying with toy money. It feels a bit less real and therefore less threatening.

I told my husband about my feeling that writing in English is a bit less real for me than writing in German (I know it doesn’t feel like that for most of my readers) and he said, “English is your teddy-land!” I don’t know whether you’re familiar with teddy-land, it’s a land that my son invented where all his stuffed animals live. He goes to sleep there because teddy-land is mostly his bed, and my son is emperor of teddy-land.

So, it seems that English is the land where I go to play. I do know that it is a real language and that there are people who speak nothing else but for me it is as if there where teddy-land inside my computer, it’s where all the nice stories and music come from, and they even invented their own language. Plus there are all these nice imaginary people, and there seems to be a lot of knitting and writing in my teddy-land.

Anyways, here is my draft for the short bio:

My name is Susanne. I’m a singing teacher.

I love improvisation which keeps me in the moment, as does mindfulness meditation.

Since I also love to knit I combine the two in mindful knitting.

I told you it was only three sentences. The tricky part was connecting the singing with the knitting, and the meditation.

In German and after several re-writes it turned into:

Mein Name ist Susanne. Ich bin ausgebildete Musikpädagogin und unterrichte seit mehr als zehn Jahren Jazz- und Pop-Gesang.

Mein Interesse gilt dabei besonders dem Bereich der Improvisation, der spontan im Moment entstehenden Musik.

Die Konzentration auf das Jetzt, diesen Moment ist auch das Grundprinzip der Achtsamkeits-Meditation, und dieses Prinzip verbinde ich mit meiner fast lebenslangen Liebe zum Stricken durch “mindful knitting”, Strick-Meditation.

Kreativität hat viele Facetten.

That’s (in toy speak):

My name is Susanne. I am a trained music educator, and have been a singing teacher for jazz and pop for more than ten years.

I’m especially interested in improvisation, spontaneous music made in the moment.

The focus on the now, this moment, is also the guiding principle for mindfulness meditation. I’m combining this principle with my almost life-long love of knitting through “mindful knitting”, knitting meditation.

Creativity has many facets.

See, it turned out to be four sentences in the end.

As for the classes, there will be a lace knitting class (that’s self-explanatory, isn’t it?). I probably will be designing a lace scarf pattern for this, one that starts easy and gets more difficult over the six week class. There will be a class called “knitting as a spiritual way” where we will use knitting as a focus for mindful sitting meditation and we’ll think about how knitting connects people, how it tells stories, and such.

And then there will be the most exciting class for me (never mind that I’m making each of these up as I go along) the circle singing. There will be a one-day workshop where we will be making up songs as we go along. If you want to hear this kind of singing, go to the webe3-site, or go and listen to Bobby McFerrin’s Circlesongs-CD . We’ll stand in a circle, and I’ll make up patterns for the others to sing, then we’ll build patterns upon patterns, and in the end there will be music made by all of us together. If the students are able there even might be a bit of soloing.

So, if you’re living next to M.unich I’d love to see you at these classes. I probably will put up a link to them once they are link-able. The knitting classes will start in October and the circle singing will be November 8th.

Seems that there might be a bit more posting in this place now that the procrastination is out of the way…

Nice summer combination of sleeveless top and short skirt. Think of a day spent sailing on a lake.

Cozy and practical sleeping bag. Removable pack of tissues as a pillow. Notice the border in contrasting color. (The designer probably ran out of yarn.)

There’s a few year’s gap between the above models and this one. Here there’s actual seamless construction in a floor length sturdy gown with puffy long sleeves. The dress is buttoned at the back and features single rows of single crochet in a brighter color to add interest.

This model is meant to be worn at elegant tea or garden parties. A black skirt sets off the brightly pink top, again with long sleeves. The bow at the neck adds a little extra touch, and for those chilly evening breezes there is a nice black shawl to complete the outfit.

City wear in bright colors. This is an 80s model after all. A simple straight and sleeveless dress that can be worn with or without the matching short sleeved jacket. The simplicity of the piece draws the attention to it’s cheerful color, and the interesting texture achieved by irregularly placed rows of single and double crochet.

The next dress is actually my very first piece of sewing. My mother made herself a dress at that time, and since I was so interested she decided to teach me machine-sewing. The fabric is leftovers from her dress. She helped me measure the doll, and cutting the pieces, then I sew the front and back of the dress, and the hem. My mother helped me gather the skirt and then she sew it to the top of the dress. She also made the hat. (So this time my mother’s the designer, not me.) There was a matching shawl made from thin red cotton but I don’t have it anymore.

A light summer dress made of brightly printed cotton. Notice the matching sun bonnet with it’s pretty rick-rack at the brim.

Again a summer dress, lacy and flowing, fit for a party in a nice dusty pink. Unlike the earlier works this one is knit instead of crochet which gives the fabric a nice flowing drape.

This one is for colder weather, a wooly coat and matching hat. The moss stitch fabric is gathered at the cuffs. The double-breasted front is once again closed with bows. The crocheted hat has a ruffled brim that frames the face and a bow in contrasting yarn to add more visual interest.

Another evening gown, a straight top and skirt with embroidered detail at the neck and shoulders made from a sleek, silk-like material. This model also features a matching bag with embroidered detail, and matching shoes (not pictured because they didn’t fit the model).

It’s really interesting to me to see all these in one place. I find that I still avoid seaming as much as I can. I even used pinky shears to cut out the pieces for the green, hand-sewn dress so that I didn’t have to sew more than absolutely necessary. The preference for bows and yarn as closures is due tot he fact that I didn’t have any buttons. Later I took inexpensive snap-fasteners that my mother didn’t mind giving me.

The other reason for why I tend to knit as seamless as possible came to me just a few days ago when I used my little sewing kit that I got from my grand-aunt when I was 14. I needed a tapestry needle and when I took it out that I had another one tucked away in there which I hadn’t known about for twenty years or so. In my youth there was the tapestry needle. One. It lives (to this day) in my mother’s knitting basket. We were not allowed to take it without asking, and we had to put it back immediately afterwards. Of course I avoided asking for it as much as possible.

I thought tapestry needles were expensive and rare. I don’t know when I decided to buy my own, certainly some time before I moved out of my parent’s house, and imagine my surprise when I found that tapestry needles are actually quite cheap, and that you can’t buy one only, you have to take a packet of two. At the moment I’m the proud owner of about four or five of them, the two I bought myself, and two or three that came with the sewing basket I inherited from my husband’s grandmother who was a seamstress.

Of course the doll clothes you see above aren’t the only ones I made when I was young. But these are the only ones I still have. I kept them because I liked them so much. I remember making clothes for a stuffed ape in bright yellow, blue, and pink cotton, crochet dresses for Barbie dolls, purses, and hats, and such. All made from leftover yarn and fabrics. I’m not sure but the yarn in the first picture on the top might actually be leftover yarn from my third big knitting project, a Norwegian sweater with colored yoke. When I was a child, I didn’t know you could have a home without a sack of leftover yarn and fabric in the attic.

So, while my husband knew that I sometimes knit or sew a bit he was quite unprepared for today’s situation where yarn, fabric, and needles are everywhere. There’s an on-going knitting project in every room of the house (well, not the basement at least), and my fiber-related paraphernalia is crammed into every available closet. For example I now am the proud owner of three functioning sewing machines (I only use one of them, though), and I own at least two pairs of knitting needles in every size available.

Of course I started thinking about when did this start, and why did I have the feeling that it never stopped. And I realized how important making socks, and sweaters, and skirts had once been to me, and how I slowly gave it up. First the things I sew almost never fit, and the sweaters didn’t either, and then I stopped wearing hand-knit socks in the house because I started wearing sneakers indoors. So there was no need to knit new socks because the old ones didn’t wear out.

And then I was looking for a warm woolen cardigan, and there were none to be found, so I bought wool, found a pattern and made one. And then I found knitting blogs, and ravelry, and since then I have been knitting like a madwoman. With occasional sewing. (I just made an apron for my son last weekend. Fun, and quick.)

It all started when, in the summer of 1975, my parents, sister, and I were vacationing in Hungary. We were camping, and some other woman that we met had a crochet shawl. My mother loved it and the woman showed her how to make one. I wanted to make one to, and so we bought yarn (very acrylic in orange and blue), and my mother showed me how to do double crochet and chain stitches. It is a nice simple pattern like half a giant granny square. I actually finished the shawl on my own. I only never got around to attaching the fringe, I think my mother did that for me. Seems I always had a problem with the finishing.

Sorry for the bad quality, this was a group shot from a carnival party. I was supposed to be a gypsy. My mother made a skirt for this. As you can see, already the orange and pink-combo appealed to me. The look and face remind me of my son a lot.

The summer after that we had to learn crochet in school but since I already knew how to do it, I got to make advanced pot holders. I was so proud!

That year a friend of mine and I met to play with our Monchichis (those were all the rage, then, I had to buy my own because my mother is against horrible plastic toys), and lamented our lack of Monchichi clothing. Since we didn’t have any money we asked our mother’s for yarn, took our crochet hooks, and this is what I made:

My very first “design”:

A dress, complete with a slit for her tail, a coat and a hat. I actually have more of the clothes I made for this doll and another one, and I took pictures of all of them. Shall I show them to you?

In the summer of 1977 our vacation lead us to Cornwall. Here we met another German woman who knit sweaters for all of her four daughters. Again, my mother loved the sweaters, and that woman showed her how to make them. And I got more yarn and needles and learned how to knit. I wanted to make a sleeping bag for my Sindy-doll. To this day the two parts haven’t been sewn together.

That’s me, age 10, playing. It’s a bit weird that I have a picture of the very first garter stitch square that I knit, and almost no pictures of any of the dozens of sweaters I made. Maybe my parents have more pictures of that time than I do.

Back at home I picked up a book on knitting from the library and tried to teach myself how to purl. If I had been left on my own I would have become a combination knitter but my mother looked at my purl stitches, and showed me how to to them “right”. The first thing I knit after that “sleeping bag” was a horrible vest, made of bulky yarn. My mother made me knit it because she thought it was the perfect beginners project. Quick, and easy. She always tried to dress me in blue because she likes it, and she thinks I look good in blue. Of course I don’t like blue, never have, never will, and avoid it as much as I can. Knitting things of blue yarn actually makes me feel uncomfortable. Nevertheless I eventually finished the vest because I only got new yarn after finishing a project.

The next thing was one that I chose myself. It was a glorious cardigan, made with four different colors, it had stripes, and textured patterns of knit and purls, set-in pockets, buttonholes and everything. The brochure from the yarn shop showed it in different olive, and rust-colored yarns but my mother was adamant, she didn’t like those colors (I still dream of them. I would have looked so great in that sweater!), so I got to make it in four shades of – blue.

I guess my mother secretly resigned herself to make something out of that yarn after I would have given up on it. She never would have finished it for me since she doesn’t like her knitting to be complicated. Well, I do like it to be complicated, obviously, because I finished it. The project after that was a Norwegian sweater with a yoke in stranded knitting. Again, I had to do it in blues.

The next thing (I think) was a sweater that was knit in one piece from the front to the back, increasing for gigantic sleeves of the kind that we call “bat-wing”-sleeves in German (I don’t know how to call them in English, they basically start after the waist, and look as if you could go hang-gliding using only your pullover). It had an intarsia pattern with 12 different colors. Again, I couldn’t have the yarn the pattern called for, the only yarn available that had that many colors that worked together was a mohair yarn. My father sat down and re-calculated the pattern for me, which was very, very nice, only since he didn’t have a clue how knitting works (and I basically was a beginner, too), I tried to do things that are impossible with a yarn that you can’t rip back. It took me a long time but I finished this one too. It never looked as it should have, though. The colors were wrong, the drape was wrong, and I had made the increases and decreases for the sleeves in a way that made the sleeves much too tight, also it was too warm.

After that I stopped using patterns and made up my own designs. The first of those was a bright pink cotton sweater with a lace pattern. Sadly, there are almost no pictures of me wearing my sweaters, and I have thrown them all away over the years. You also have to remember that those were the 80s when sweaters were boxy and had no shaping. I designed a striped hat when I was thirteen that was very popular with my friends, and I made several for them as gifts. I taught myself how to knit socks from a book, I figured out how to knit gloves on my own, and I learned to look at other people’s sweaters and copy the stitch patterns. A friend of mine had an entrelac sweater her grandmother had made for her, and I remember sitting in class one day, looking at her back and trying to figure out how that was done. (I did figure it out, and made myself a white cotton vest). You have to know that I knit so much at that point that my English teacher said he didn’t recognize me without my knitting in my hands. (Back then we were allowed to knit in class.)

Over time I got weary of the fact that most of my sweaters didn’t fit, and I thought this was because I never could use the yarn the pattern called for. I didn’t know then, that swatching is more complicated than knitting up a tiny piece of stockinette, measuring it any which way, and guestimating how many stitches to cast on. In the nineties I started knitting from patterns again. I made a silk lace cardigan with a crochet edging I have worn so often that it’s starting to fall apart. That one didn’t fit either, at first, I had to make the back much wider than the pattern stated to save it.

Then I made a couple of sweaters using fashionable novelty yarn. None of them fit, and you can’t rip back novelty yarn, so I threw them away, knitted sweaters got out of fashion, and it took me three years to make a measly crochet scarf.

Until about two years ago. Now I’ve found a new determination. I’m much more thorough in preparing and executing my knitting, and I’m also willing to rip back everything and start anew. Also, I no longer use novelty yarn or mohair which makes the whole ripping back-approach much easier.

I have always been proud of how independent and fearless a knitter I am. I will approach everything in knitting with fierce determination, and work my way through it. I like to learn from books, and the internet helps a lot. But only the other day, when I was threading my tapestry needle, was I realizing how much I have learned from my mother. She has a hard time following a pattern, and she doesn’t like intricate stitch patterns, complicated construction, or doing colorwork. But she was the one who taught me how to cast on, and off, and how to sew knitting together, how to thread a tapestry needle, and how to alter a pattern on the go when you see that it won’t fit. She was the one I could take my failed attempts at self-designed sweaters too, and then she’d help me think of a way to save it.

I’ve been so much in my own with my knitting that only last year did I realize how firmly I am embedded in a tradition of crafty women. My maternal grandmother was the master-crafter. All her daughters know how to knit, and sew, and crochet, and do embroidery. Every one of the them has something she likes doing best, one is knitting socks for children, one is making embroidered tablecloths out of the linen their mother weaved, and one is quilting, and sewing.

I’ve always considered myself to be on my own but I’m not. Even my sister is knitting, and crocheting, and quilting, and making things, and has a spinning wheel. It seems to be a family thing.

I started them on a whim more than a year ago. The pattern is Tiffany by Sabine Riefler. I used leftover yarn from a crochet scarf, and in their first incarnation they looked completely different. I had to frog them since they were a) way too big for me, which wasn’t much of a problem since my husband said he’d like them, but then I b) ran out of yarn. I ripped, I started a doll’s sweater with the yarn, I ripped the sweater, I read a bit about doing two-handed stranded knitting, I tried again on tiny, tiny needles, and there they are. In two-handed stranded knitting you’re holding one color of yarn in each hand, and you knit continental with one hand, and English with the other. It was very weird at first, especially since I had to modify the way I knit continental, too, since usually when I’m knitting I’m using both hands. In this case I had to free my right index finger. At first I felt like wearing handcuffs, and my right hand hurt but in the end it got easier and more comfortable. And I really love the way the knitting looks and feels, and most of all that there are no strands on the inside. Someday I will make a whole sweater using this technique, I’m sure.

By the way these are all crappy photos because it’s still grey in grey here.

Then there’s the cardigan that I started last year in June. It still needs washing, blocking, and a button. It looks really crumpled because the yarn used to be an almost finished bobbled and cabled sweater that lay in the attic for something like 14 years. It survived the big de-cluttering of 2004 only because I like the color, and I thought that it might become a new sweater eventually. Last year when I saw the pattern Something Red by Wendy Bernard I wanted to make it immediately, and I thought about the yarn in the attic. So I unraveled the bobbled monstrosity, wound up the yarn and re-knit it. No, I didn’t wash the yarn first. Silly. I’ll have to wash and block the finished thing anyway. I made it a bit too small because I think the cotton will become bigger with wearing. This will either be something that I wear all the time, or something that I don’t love at all. The knitting went really fast, until I got bored with the plain stockinette, and with the cotton (because I really don’t like knitting with cotton). I have this feeling that maybe my knitting basket dooms project because the cotton sweater sat in there, only lacking one sleeve for months, and months, and now I have started a new sweater which lives in the basket, and again I am both enthusiastic, and reserved. We’ll see how that one turns out.

I also finished my Clapotis. I had bought some Wollmeise Lace Yarn, which I wanted to use for Mystic Earth. Well, it was much too colorful for that. So I made it into this:

Much better. Also needs blocking, of course. If I go on finishing things at this rate, and not blocking them I will need a special closet for “things to be washed and blocked”. Right now they are blocking both of our dressers. Ahem.

Another one from Wollmeise, this time Wollmeise sock yarn:

The pattern is Ornette by Cookie A. I love the intricacy of her patterns and also the fact that she named so many of them after Jazz musicians. I will have to knit a Thelonious Sock eventually because Thelonious Monk is one of my favorite musicians of all times.

Then there was the re-knit of Gretel because the first one turned out too big for me:

You can find a picture of the bigger one here, and there you can actually see the pattern of the hat. I really love Ysolda’s designs, they make me very happy.

The last thing I want to show you for today is yet another shawl out of Wollmeise Lace, Irtfa’a by Anne Hanson. When you click on the link you’ll see that it is supposed to look like a raven’s wing, well, mine rather looks like a bird of paradise, maybe a psychedelic bird of paradise:

Again with the crumpled look because again, not blocked. Which is why you can’t really see how beautiful it’s going to be. In my defense I have to say that the drum set is sitting on the rug that I use for blocking. But who knows, maybe someday I’ll block everything, and then the sun will shine, and I’ll show you even more pictures of knitting in reds.

For those few of you who’d want to read even more about my projects, you can find me on ravelry. And of course I already started three new projects, or rather four, a pair of plain socks to take with me when riding trains and such, a little doll designed by Ysolda for my son, an olive green turtleneck for me, and a lace stole. Not that much, don’t you think?

On the other hand I can barely close my yarn drawer, and there are projects, patterns, yarn and needles everywhere in the house. How can those two things be true at the same time?

So I decided to a) think about it, and b) pull out the wool and have a look at it. I haven’t gotten as far as actually looking at it right now but thinking about it helped a little. I think I might start to understand what’s going on here.

1. I usually put my leftover yarn in the attic. Sadly the “leftover yarn boxes” are full. More knitting means more leftovers. This is one of the reasons why there is a lot of yarn in my yarn drawer.
2. When I ordered the yarn for my last two sweaters online I, of course, ordered a bit more than I thought I’d need. Since the shop isn’t nearby I can’t just go and get more. Actually, with the last sweater I ordered the exact amount of yarn needed and I have about 2 1/2 skeins left over. I know, it’s a mystery. That accounts for 400 g of yarn between the two sweaters. The leftover yarn would make great mittens or hats (I don’t knit scarfs, hate making them). Only the colors don’t match anyone’s coats.
3. Even though I thought I don’t have any more sock yarn there is in my yarn drawer: a) an almost finished pair of summer socks, b) leftovers of two pairs of socks, enough yarn two knit another pair out of the same yarn, c) between 40 and 60 grams of each skein of Wollmeise sock yarn that I’ve ever owned (which might become either striped or fair isle socks at one point).
4. There is leftover Wollmeise lace yarn, enough for a lace scarf, or if combined with the two other colorways of Wollmeise lace that I have (that accounts for two of my currently active projects), there might be enough for yet another stole,
5. There is yarn I bought in order to make yet another lace stole, this one will be for a friend.
6. There is leftover yarn from making a scarf and hat that will eventually become a pair of fair isle mittens for me. (
   And it would be nice if I finished those before August. So that I can actually wear them.
7. There are three balls of cotton sock yarn that I wanted to design socks for. They have been sitting in the drawer, untouched since July. I had an epiphany last week, and have declared that I will just make socks following a pattern. Designing should be fun, not a chore. The pattern is sitting on my piano at the moment, the yarn is in the yarn drawer. And I won’t start them soon, since it’s not summer yet.
8. There is enough cotton from 1994 to make yet another preemie blanket. Only I hate working with cotton.

I think that’s all, apart from the hat that needs seaming that sits on top of the fridge, the lace shawl and pirate scarf that need blocking that sit on top of the dresser, the two pairs of socks, and two lace shawls in progress that sit on the kitchen bench, the unfinished cotton sweater that sits in the knitting basket in the living room (it only needs another sleeve and a button band to be finished), and a ziploc bag with the cast-on for the aforementioned baby blanket that probably will never happen.

So, you can easily see why I have the feeling that I’m in desperate need of wool, can’t you? O already ordered yarn for another sweater (one that I really need), a knitted doll, and a pair of socks. I’m desperately waiting for them to arrive. Before I run out of yarn and things to knit.

I feel quite virtuous, though, because only half of the drawer is full of wool. The other one is occupied by my fabric stash. That somehow overflows into the rest of the bedroom too…

P.S.: I just remembered the spinning stash, and the handspun. And the yarn that was a hat that was too big for me until half an hour ago when I wound it on the niddy-noddy to re-knit the hat. Ouch.

With the needles that I used I had 16 stitches and 23 rows on 4 inches pre-washing, and 15 stitches and 20 rows after washing. You’d think that isn’t much, won’t you? What’s a measly stitch? Let’s see: for this particular sweater I cast on 141 stitches. 141 divided by 16 is 8.8 that is 88 cm. And trust me, that is not enough to fit me. But after washing it’s 141 divided by 15, and that is 9.4 which is 94 cm, much better. So just by washing the sweater and blocking it it would become 6 cm (or 2.3″) wider. That’s how much difference the measly stitch makes.

So, back to the actual sweater. I did everything right, I swatched, and measured, and washed, and measured, and chose a size that would hopefully fit me, and then I knit the whole thing in one piece instead of making a lot of weirdly shaped pieces that have to be sewn together. The sweater is quite fitted, and the designer obviously isn’t afraid of sewing everything on, including the buttonbands. (It’s the L’il Red Riding Hoodie by Jennifer Stafford, by the way.) And while I do love the design, and while I’m certainly not afraid of seaming, I don’t like it much, it always looks wonky, and I stubbornly refuse to sew together a raglan. Raglan yokes are meant to be knit in one piece.

The knitting experience was quite interesting. I was knitting something that looked about two sizes too small. I had to put together the instructions for the fronts, buttonbands, back, and sleeves in one place at one point, and these weren’t of the “now decrease two stitches every fourth row” kind. Even though the whole thing is in plain, boring stockinette, it was more challenging than knitting lace. Also I don’t really like the yarn. I wanted something plain, not too expensive and hard-wearing, and that’s what I got. In a color that goes with everything I own, so the color isn’t particularly exciting too. It’s no wonder that I actually started two more sweaters before finishing this one. (Actually, upon further thinking I recall that I started three more sweaters before finishing this one.)

But at last, and through sheer stubbornness, I finished it. There wasn’t much seaming, of course, and I even managed to graft everything that needed seaming nicely together (a first for me). But then there was the zipper. I had to put a zipper into a knitted garment. Argh. Here are pictures of the unwashed hoodie, pre-blocking and pre-zipper:

Of course it took more than a month before I even bought a zipper. I managed to wash and block the sweater, and, alas, finally it matched the intended dimensions. For months I had been sure it was all a mistake, and I’d end up with a hoodie fit only for my son. I even worried about what to do about the waist shaping and bust darts, something he really has no need for.

I carefully measured the hoodie, went to the store with my huge gauge swatch for color-reference and bought a zipper. When I came home I immediately was sure that the zipper was too long. Also too heavy. And I didn’t know how to put a zipper into a sweater. I’d certainly not use a sewing machine but what to do? Thanks to ravelry and the internet I found two excellent tutorials, one by Grumperina and one by Claudia. I mostly followed the latter because of the, as Grumperina put it, “absolute quality in every shortcut”. I’m very keen on shortcuts when sewing (come to think of it, I like them in knitting as well, only you can’t use any in music). And I actually basted my zipper in! I never baste anything in, but finally I have been convinced to make exceptions for zippers. Some shortcuts aren’t shortcuts but time-wasters. It’s a good thing to know the difference.

So, after about nine months I finally have a nice everyday hoodie that I made all by myself. It’s thick wool which will help me to stay warm through winter, and I love the fit. It will surely get a bit longer since I have knitted it all in one piece and there are no seams to prevent it from sagging but that suits me fine, it’s a bit short now anyway. Here are the pictures of the hoodie after washing and blocking:

Also I seem to be in sweater knitting mode. I think it has something to do with several things: a) it’s becoming quite cold, b) I am a bit sick of my two winter sweaters, the red one and the terracotta one that I have been wearing all winter long for the past four years (and both of them have sleeves that are too short), c) I realized that knitting a lace stole or shawl doesn’t take more time and work than knitting a sweater but while I clearly don’t need more than four, or let’s say five, lace stoles and shawls I can easily need more than four winter sweaters.

And now that I have experienced the wonders of knitting gauge swatches, and measuring them, and even of such extreme steps as looking up the measurements of the finished sweater in the pattern, and – instead of just assuming that I need something in size M – actually measuring me, and some sweater that fits, and choosing the size accordingly, well, they might even look good on me.

Which is why I set out to knit a sweater in November. It’s red. I love it so far but since it’s not been washed yet it’s still too small for me. I started on November 8th, and completed it two days ago. Happy NaKniSweMo!

All of a sudden I had this urge to knit something from my handspun. What good is all this new yarn if it’s only sitting around looking all artsy? So I looked for patterns. Since there is only so much you can knit with 90 grams of very bulky and uneven yarn (this is the second yarn I spun on my wheel), I was glad to find this pattern [Urchin] by Ysolda. I knew I probably had just enough yarn to make it. Of course I wanted to cast on immediately but then I had to first wind the yarn into a ball, and then wait until work was done. Friday in the evening I sat down and started making it in the smaller size but with bigger needles to compensate. Because it’s all garter stitch I got confused about which stitches were wrapped and which weren’t a lot. At the end of the evening I had about a third of the hat, and was afraid that it would be too small. So I started again on Saturday. I went up a size and knit a bit more loosely. It all went beautifully and was much fun to knit. Then I started the final wedge and found myself eyeing the ball of yarn every other second. Would there be enough? With about 1.5 m of yarn left and eight more rows to go I remembered the leftover singles I still had on the bobbin, and went to ply them very sloppily. I went back and knit the remaining eight rows, and found that the yarn was just barely enough without the “emergency yarn”. I had two little snippets left in the end, about 5 cm altogether. The hat looks much better than I thought it would. I’m very, very happy with it. Now I only have to take pictures…

Since then I have been waiting for the stars to align so that I can take pictures of me wearing the finished hat. I wanted three things to come together: a) the sun should be shining, b) I should be wearing make-up, c) I should have time to take pictures. Today I realized that the next time that would happen would probably be in spring, and so I decided to take pictures anyway:

I had wanted to write posts about how to learn to love exercise, about me and my son, how we had weeks of fighting and yelling, and now it’s all getting better, about how this same son wakes up early every single day now, so that my poor husband who doesn’t respond well to the traditional fighting over getting dressed, fighting over breakfast, and fighting to get out of the house on time, especially when he had been woken an hour early, resigned himself to sleeping in the guest room, well, I wanted to write about the usual things.

Also I have been on a finishing frenzy, knitting-wise. I’m just about to finish a cardigan, and a huge lace shawl, and then, today, in the middle of the day, just a few minutes before my first student of the day was to arrive I decided to do something wild and crazy and start a completely irrational project just like that.

But then I looked at the yarn and saw that it needed to be wound into balls before I can use it, and while I might be crazy enough to try and start a project in ten minutes, I’m clear enough to see that ten minutes doesn’t work if you have to wind the yarn first.

Time for the next weekend to-do-list, I think.

I also love going back to a more regular life, I only hope that it won’t turn out to include only housework and teaching. We’ll see how that goes.

At the start of summer break I posted my to-do-list here on the blog. I thought it might be interesting to see what I managed to do. Here we go:

1. I did not read the books I borrowed from a friend (“Those Left Behind”, and “Quicksilver” by Neal Stephenson) but I read all the books of the “Twilight”-series (sorry, Mad), and a couple of mystery novels.

2. I did play my piano once or twice.

3. I did play my guitar a bit more often than the piano.

4. I spun 200g of combed merino top with my drop spindles. I’m quite pleased with how it went in the end. I would have spun more if I hadn’t decided to get me a spinning wheel. I’ve been waiting for that for ten days now, not wanting to start spinning something on the drop spindle.

5. I almost sew the dress I have been wanting to make since last summer. I spent an afternoon sewing it, then I found that the part where the top and the skirt connect (you know, the waist seam) are not the same width (that’s what happens if you just eyeball everything, especially seam allowances), and use marker that fades over time), I got frustrated and since then I have been waiting to have a bit of free time together with enough patience to fiddle with the seams for as long as it might take to somehow make those two things connect.

6. I sew two reusable grocery bags. One for a friend of mine, and one for me. Now I only have fabric and notions for one more bag around, a bag that will match the summer dress.

7. I went on vacation.

8. I didn’t take my son to the zoo. But we did a couple of other things together.

9. I didn’t visit the botanical garden (I wanted to see the roses in bloom, in fact I have been wanting to see that for years now but never managed.) I think the roses will be blooming again next year…

10. I went swimming two times. In actual natural water.

11. I had my eyes checked, and had my contacts cleaned so that I can wear them again.

12. I didn’t finish the red and the green cardigan I’m working on. But I finished another lace shawl.

13. I didn’t design socks for red cotton yarn and knit them. But I knit my “Poisoned with Chili“-socks, and I even got an award for them. I belong to a ravelry-group for German sock knitters who have a competition for “sock of the month”. What can I say, the winner got one more vote than me. But I’m happy and proud.

14. I didn’t have dinner at the Osteria Italiana.

15. I didn’t see a movie with my husband in an actual movie theater

16. I did more exercise but not quite as much as I had wanted.

17. I didn’t read my two NaNoWriMo-novels

18. I wrote two stories that might turn into something longer. I’m really excited.

19. I did get back into the habit of doing housework but not cooking.

20. I didn’t sing and record any improvisations.

On my husband’s list there was also:

1. We didn’t go to the mountains with our son but decided to postpone the mountain hike until next year.

2. We didn’t go to the Olympiaturm with our son, but we went to a Buddhist celebration.

3. We did harvest our own potatoes. They are already eaten up (and they were delicious).

4. We did take a walk to the Andechs monastery with our son (and have some of their delicious beer of which our son doesn’t get any). We had considered this something like a long-ish stroll but to our son it was enough for one day. That was the reason we didn’t go to the mountains this year.

I did spend an awful lot of time dealing with my broken computer, first making sure it was broken, then taking it to the shop, getting my old computer out, setting that up again, looking for backups, and software, and updates, then I had my new computer fixed, and had to do the whole software, update, backup routine again since all data on my hard disk was lost. (Folks, please backup. Everything. regularly. And see if your backups work. I have a nice DVD labeled “iTunes music May 2008″ that won’t load.)

Computer problems not withstanding these were about the best summer months we’ve had in years. We also bought a new bed for our son, spent quite a bit of time as a family, sat in beer gardens, and took it easy. It’s summer break, so it isn’t so much about to-do-lists.

Now I’m ready for fall.

And today isn’t only the last day of summer break, it’s also De‘s birthday. Happy birthday to you, De.

I didn’t quite know what to write about her but then I found I had said it all when I wrote her a letter last year. So, let’s drink a bit of champagne again, to a new school year, and another year of bloggy friends.

That is not a problem of mine. I’m always happy to find problems that I don’t have in addition to the ones I do have – it makes me feel a bit less, well, problematic.

The problem I do have is something I have decided to call “Third Sock Syndrome”. This problem also had been unknown to me until about a year ago (and I really might be the only knitter suffering from it). It started when I made my first pair of socks following a pattern. Until then all I had knit were socks that we Germans call “Stinos” (when I was a young knitter we didn’t call them Stinos by the way, we called them “Socken”). “Stinos” is short for “stinknormale Socken” which means socks that are so ordinary that they practically reek ordinariness. You don’t need a written pattern for “Stinos” you get shown how to do them by relatives or friends, and they are done following a formula. (Be glad because I just edited that whole formula out of the post so you don’t have to read through it.) That formula-aspect means that you can knit them in all sizes with any ribbing or cabling or colors you like. Since they are so easy to produce there is nothing like this fancy “swatching” and such, you just eye somebody’s feet, go like “It looks like his feet are a bit bigger than mine.” and cast on any number of stitches that feel right. Then you just knit on until you have reached the tip of that person’s little toe (at which point you let that person try on the unfinished sock – you better don’t believe it when people are telling you that you can’t try on a cuff-down sock on double-pointed needles) and make a toe.

But since I like both a challenge and pretty socks I started knitting socks from designer patterns. With different heels and short rows, socks knitted toe-up, with all sorts of lace, and cables, and whatnot. Since then I have developed third sock syndrome which means for every pair of socks that I make I have to knit the equivalent of about three socks. Often more.

Take that sock I’m currently working on right now. The pattern is absolutely gorgeous by Yarnissima, one of my very favorite sock designers. I bought the pattern, pulled out some Wollmeise yarn, wound it into a ball and started knitting, all in a continuous, fluid motion, regardless of the fact that until then I was frantically working on two cardigans and a lace shawl at the same time. I got a bit frustrated by the toe but that’s only to be expected in a toe-up sock, they start out fiddly. Everything went fine, I often stopped to admire my nice, shiny new sock, I managed to turn the heel without much fuss, then I tried on the sock and – it was too short. Ugh. I had to rip back the entire heel and gusset in order to make it longer. I calmed myself by telling me that it was all for the best, I wouldn’t want a sock that’s too short, and the second time I really got the hang of the gusset, and it looks much better. I didn’t like the toe that much though because the cabling started a little later than I would have liked but since I followed the pattern, surely everything would turn out right. I knit on, enjoying myself tremendously.

Oh, and the too short foot? That’s the thing that happens when you decide to knit the sock in the smallest size so that your socks won’t turn out too wide without compensating for the fact that while your foot’s circumference might be small, the length of your foot is not. Duh.

I knit on and on, and didn’t make a lot of mistakes, even when I knit on the train at 11.30 pm after three beers. I had a bit of a trouble with the start of the cuff because I couldn’t figure it out at first, which meant that I knit one round, thought a bit, un-knit it again because I thought it was wrong, thought a bit more, knit half of it in the other direction, finally got it, and knit it again exactly the same way I had done it the first time.

But that’s not a problem. Things like that happen all the time in knitting. Maybe I should put a sign on my knitting bag(s) “Think before ripping.” (And another one that says, “Just do as the pattern tells you to.”) but I was okay with that. Then I saw it: I forgot to cross the cables after the gusset. It looks unpleasant. I really don’t like it.

Could I live with a mistake like that? I looked at the very, very long sock, almost finished, I looked at the missing cable. I thought about how that part will be hidden by my shoes anyway (not to mention that the whole of the sock will be hidden by my shoes and pants but that can’t be helped). I looked at the sock again. I finished it and bound off.

Today I cast on for the second sock. (See, I told you that I don’t have second sock syndrome.) I fiddled with the provisional crocheted cast-on. I did it for the first time in my life, and it will certainly be the last time. Apart from the fact that it takes three times as long as my usual provisional cast-on, it also requires me to find a crochet hook and waste yarn. Nah, I won’t do that again. So, I started the toe, and then I got to the part in the instructions that said “knit row 4 of chart 1″ and suddenly it hit me: That didn’t mean knitting row 4 of chart 1 and then starting with row 1 of chart 1 in the following row, no, it probably meant knitting rows 4 to 6 before starting row 1. No wonder the toe of my first sock looked too un-cabled. I had started the crossing of the cables four rows too late.

Even that I could have stomached but now I want to do the second sock the way it should be done. Which means that apart from it being nicer looking, and more cabled, it also will be four rows longer. Which would make it the perfect length since the first sock is still a bit too short. But now, do you see what that means?

I will have to frog the whole first sock from cuff to toe. The whole thing that took three days of dedicated knitting. There is no other way. (No, there isn’t. I mean it.)

For now I’ll just knit the second first sock, formerly known as second sock. I feel a bit of frustration here but I’m almost ready to accept that that is how it goes every single time. In order to get a pair of nice, hand-knit socks, I need to knit not 2 but 3 of them. Third sock syndrome. Meet sock minus one, formerly known as first sock:

And that also is the answer to the question of “How do you manage to knit all these nice things?” It’s easy. I just don’t give up.

I found the pattern when I followed a link to the Hanami stole I had seen on somebody else’s blog. It’s by the same designer. The swirls and ornaments appealed to me instantly. I wanted to knit this stole for myself.

It’s called Scheherazade, and I thought of mine as my storyteller stole. Telling stories seems to be more important to me than I have recognized in the past. So this stole became a symbol to me.

While knitting I imagined myself on stage, singing, and wearing it. Not very practical, but then.

Of course it’s a writing talisman too

November 30, 2007: Wollmeise Lace-Yarn in “Campari Orange” arrived.

March 31, 2008: After ten days work.

June 17, 2008: Blocking

I have to keep you in suspense for the final result because I was to busy to take a picture today. But I promise one soon.

Which reminds me that I had promised you a post about the things I like. I have been thinking about it for weeks now but all I can come up with is “Raindrops on roses, and warm woolen mittens, …” (and I just found that I misquoted it, I’m horrible at remembering song lyrics) Every time I try to write a list of things I like I end up with something like this, and it feels totally arbitrary.

So. I’m almost 41 now, and I keep thinking about what to do with my life, where it’s headed, and I still don’t know. Music is important, I now know this, because without music I get depressive. Sometimes I also get depressive with music but without it I always do. I know that I want to sing more, and make up songs, and improvise, and that I want to perform again. I only don’t know how or where or when or with whom. And I find that it feels a bit pointless to hum to myself at home, and so I bought myself a new recording thingie that is sitting on my desk and gathers dust. (I actually recorded something and started to write a post about this at the end of, um, April. Well.)

Last year I had this feeling that I should become a tarot reader. I bought tons of books, and three more decks of tarot cards, bought a spiral notebook, and started learning the meaning of two tarot cards each day. For about a week or two. Because while I enjoy pulling cards and doing readings for people with the oracle cards that I have, I never can remember the meanings of the cards. I always have to look them up. And while I feel pretty good about drawing cards for people it then occurred to me that people might want to know about serious life-issues, and I didn’t feel up to the task. Also, learning while I go along might work for the things I usually teach and do but for this I felt that I needed a better foundation. I haven’t abandoned the thought, though, it’s just one of the things that is swirling around in my mind.

Then there’s the knitting. It has become quite important to me again over the past year (which you might have noticed), and so I started thinking along the lines of, “Maybe I should teach knitting classes.” or design knitting patterns again and see where that leads me. That’s my latest spleen, and so I have started drafting a plan for knitting classes, and have run into my old obstacle of not being able to promote myself. I just can’t do it. I have all these plans, and enthusiasm, and I know people would love the classes but when I put it all to paper it becomes stiff and hollow and brittle. My husband has been going over my draft to help me, and now it’s up to me again.

Then, the designing. As I have said before, having ideas is never the problem for me. (And I thank God for that.) As soon as I decided that I wanted to design something there were a few ideas popping up. I even bought yarn, and I have thought about them constantly. Now all I need is a couple of days to really do something. And, most important of all, I need some space in my head for that.

Just in case you’re wondering why I, all of a sudden, think that I can design knitting patterns, well, back in the eighties when I lived in a small town I pretty much made up all my own patterns. Not always successful but then, these days, I actually knit gauge swatches and such, and on top of that I’m totally willing to rip everything back until it looks like I want it to. The only thing I’m a bit nervous about is that in the eighties sweaters were just rectangles, and these days they are supposed to fit a bit more tightly. On the other hand, from what I see these days, baggy sweaters might be back again soon. And designing fitting sweaters only means doing a bit more math. Which, strangely enough, is not a problem, it only takes a bit more time.

I also would like to teach creativity, and work as a coach but I have this feeling that I need to grow a bit before doing that. The other thing I’d like to do is improvised music. So I’m planning to teach circle singing, and waiting for the opportunity to improvise with others.

Then there’s the writing. I like doing it but I still have to read my two NaNoWriMo-novels. (That still sounds weird, my two novels. Lately someone asked me what I had been doing, and when I told her “I have been writing more, there’s the blog, and I have written first drafts of two novels and a screen play.” it sounded really weird to me. But then, it’s true nonetheless. It won’t do me any good, though, until I do something with what I have.)

I know that this is pretty much the recurrent theme of my blog, my lack of focus on just one thing. So, I have decided that I’m unable to do just one thing, and go in all directions at once. Which is fine, only now all these things in my head keep canceling each other out. Where to start? I start each day with a plan to do one of the important things, like, “Today I’ll be working on my concept for knitting classes!” then procrastination happens, or housework, or blog reading, or exercise, or family, and soon it’s “I’ll do it on the weekend when I’ll be having more time.” (That one’s always good for a laugh.), and so the weeks go by one after the other.

So, this, of course, will be the weekend when I will be:

1. Doing some extra thing with my son like going to the zoo, or riding our bikes.
2. Sew a dress, and about three bags.
3. Knit about 250 rows on Mystic Meadows.
4. Clean the house.
5. Do all the laundry.
6. Design and knit a pair of socks and a men’s sweater.
7. Finish my plan for knitting lessons, write a CV to go with it, take a new picture of myself, write accompanying letter, and mail it off.
8. Sleep for at least eight hours straight each night.
9. Cook something not fast food-like.
10. Read half of “Shadowplay”, “The Mindful Way through Depression”, a third of “Spook Country”, “Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames”, and re-read “Mindful Knitting: Inviting Contemplative Practice to the Craft”. (I sense a theme here with the self-help books.)
11. Watch two games of soccer because of the European Championship.
12. Write my monthly story for the writing group.
13. Mix the improvisation I recorded.
14. Record some more.
15. Write one or two blog posts.
16. Do yard work. (If you knew me in real life this one would be ROFL-worth funny.)

While I’m at it, I could also teach my son how to swim. Or something.

These are not really my plans for the weekend but then I might have taken on a bit more in my life than I can reasonably do. Do you know anybody who hasn’t? Which of the things should I drop? I know, the answer is housework but my husband doesn’t like doing it all alone. And I don’t blame him. So, any advice? I could quit blog-reading of course but that isn’t really an option, isn’t it?

Since I didn’t know the place where the market was supposed to be, at first I thought we’d have to take the car and make a family day trip out of it but further research showed me that getting there was actually quite easy. I only had to get on the train that passes the nearest train station and stay in there for about 50 minutes. Then I found out through ravelry, the knitting and crochet community, that of course there were a lot of people planning to go there, and i figured it’d be best to go there right when the market opened.

So I dropped off my son at kindergarten, for once wearing makeup and carrying my enormous purse with my knitting and something to read and such, and got on the train. I had posted on ravelry which train I planned taking and there had been a couple of other people saying they would be on the same train, so I sat in the first car, knitting, so that they could find me.

That didn’t work out though. At one station suddenly the train was turned around. The first car became the last. Just before leaving the train though I spotted Elemmaciltur, Mrs. B, and needlegnome (That last one is link to a ravelry profile. You have to be a member to be able to see that but she doesn’t have a public blog.) We went to the market together.

I’m not meeting many knitter in real life and so I found it quite refreshing to hear things like, “Is that the Kaffe Fasset-yarn in your scarf?”. Also it got me so confused that I answered yes before realizing that the Kaffe Fasset-yarn actually was in my purse instead of around my neck, and that probably nobody there possessed x-ray vision. I also did that confusing thing where I talk English a lot, and then with different people keep switching between English and German until I need a few seconds to answer to anything because I first have to make clear which language I’m currently hearing.

The market was very nice but of course we made a beeline to the Wollmeise’s booth first. I had prayed beforehand that it would be a pleasurable experience for me, and it was. Though right after we arrived all hell broke lose. I went in with a vague idea of wanting about four skeins of sock yarn, preferable oranges and reds with at least one skein of something turquoise like Pfefferminz Prinz for my husband, and at best two skeins of lace yarn, preferable something earthy, and something orange or red. When I went in the lace yarn was invisible under all the people so I just grabbed one delightful skein of sock yarn after the other, then when there was a slight opening at the lace yarn basket, dived in, pulled out the two reddest skeins I saw, decided that I didn’t like the other colors that much, found a salesperson, paid, and waited in front of the booth, the paper bag with my yarn firmly clasped to my bosom until everybody else was finished.

I had ample opportunity to see that not all shoppers are as decisive as me. I saw one woman agonizing over a skein of lace yarn for about half an hour. She put it next to herself and looked in the mirror, she asked a friend and two other people for advice, she thought about whether it would be enough or not… I saw people going in there with a list as long as my arm, people who had to get something like 20 skeins for other people. I can tell you, I was very happy to be standing a bit apart from this. Well, I could have had a list too, you know, in fact I did have a list. I told one woman whom I met on ravelry that I would bring her something, if possible. She told me her favorite colors, and I was happy to have found something she’ll like.

After that we wandered around the rest of the market, I bought a marble for my husband, had waffles, and then after hitting the booth a second time (not me) we went home.

It was an interesting experience to meet people whose podcast I have been listening to and blogs I have been reading for months. Mrs. B started to tell me about the spinning wheel she borrowed and I already knew it. I felt a bit like a stalker. Especially since none of them reads my blog.

I’d love to meet knitters more often but then I’m already doing too many things as it is. The only meetings I could manage to attend would be on Sundays and that’s family time.

The very best thing for me though was that I found out that there is such a thing as enough talk about knitting (and spinning) for me. When I came home on Friday hungry and thirsty, and my husband had prepared a lovely meal, and I then started to teach again I was so happy to making music again! I had feared that my longing for knitter talk were bottomless. With the people I know I usually talk about knitting until their eyes start to glaze over and then I try to stop. But there I met people who are willing to talk about fiber and such for hours on end without getting tired of it. And that eventually I was ready to talk about other things again. You know, like other people.

The good news:

I finished the brown cardigan.

The bad news:

It. Is. Too. Big.

The good news:

I can wear it with another sweater underneath. Which I’m doing all the time anyway. Because I’m always cold.

Some of you might recall that this cardigan had been almost finished in July or so, and since it was way too small I decided to frog it completely and start over again. Because I am a perfectionist and also a bit too obsessed about all this knitting stuff. I even made a gauge swatch. With three different sizes of needles. And then I knit it all over again with needles one size bigger (or 0.5 mm in my case). It wasn’t exactly happy knitting at this point. With this endless chocolate brown diamond pattern, all those irregular decreases, and the yarn all wavy because it had already been knit … (What? You mean I should have washed the yarn before re-knitting it? Very funny. Yes, I have heard that some people do things like that. But then, there are even people who have tongue-piercings.) Also I knitted a brown lace stole at the same time. There came a time when I just had to knit something else in a different color. But then, in January, I promised myself not to start anything new again until I had finished some of the on-going (or better “on-waiting”) projects on my knitting needles. I made it all through the sweater by sheer force of will, and by carnival I was ready to wash and block the finished cardigan pieces.

I washed them. I wrapped them in towels. I borrowed a rug from my husband. I fetched my pins and my tape measure. I laid the wet sweater pieces out on the floor, took my tape measure in hand, and – the pieces were too big. I almost fainted.

Apparently this wool has a tendency to spread out after being washed. Who knew? (Well, my mother obviously. She said, “But you can’t go and knit that whole thing over again. It will block out.” She sounded almost desperate since my mother would never frog something and make it again. Never.)

So, I could have finished this cardigan months ago and in the meantime finished the next one for sure. Grr. On the other hand that keeps me from spending even more money on yarn.

The next sweater already got started, it’s called “L’il Red Riding Hood” by Jennifer Stafford. As much as the thought of a red hoodie appeals to me I’m making it in green so that it goes with everything I own. This time, by the way, not only did I knit a gauge swatch the size of half a pullover, I measured that thing and then washed it, let it dry, and measured it again. Which means that right now I’m knitting a sleeve that is barely big enough to slip over my wrist. Fun! But then the gauge swatch spread out considerably after washing. Also since I had to use another yarn the gauge doesn’t match exactly. I’d need more rows. But then I’m changing the pattern to be knitted seamlessly and so the whole thing probably will get longer and longer over time.

I tell you, this sweater knitting is filled with drama. Sock knitting is so much more soothing to my nerves. Even if I have to rip out an almost finished sock (What, me? Um, yes, I just ripped the heel of the sock I’m currently knitting. The foot was to short. And knitting it again will only take 1 1/2 hours. Or so.)

This would be the socks I’m currently knitting by the way. I absolutely love the colors. It’s self-striping sock yarn inspired by a Hundertwasser painting. The pattern is called “Elfine’s socks” by Anna Belle.

So. About all this swatching. If – in my last ten knitting projects or so – I had just taken the yarn, the recommended needle size, and made it in a size M everything would have been fine. If I had just not looked at the thing I was knitting before blocking I could have just gone on and on. No problem. So for me it seems I can either knit something like three swatches using different needle sizes, wash and block them, or I can go ahead and make that thing just the same and not waste two days.

The only thing that swatching helps with is the not agonizing about whether it will block out or not, but to be frank, even though I have experienced how the yarn I’m currently knitting with gets bigger and loser after washing I’m still not sure whether the really small sweater I’m knitting now will fit me in the future or not.

So, don’t try this at home. To be a good knitter you always have to knit gauge swatches and measure everything very carefully. Do you hear me?

I was a bit nervous when I signed up for this. I was afraid it might turn into something like a nine-week-NaNo where I had to spent every waking minute frantically knitting to catch up. Also I was afraid that I wouldn’t like the pattern. So I decided to give the stole away if I didn’t want it for myself, and I made a firm rule not to freak out over this. If I couldn’t knit it in the designated time I’d just finish it later. No pressure.

Then there was the first part of the pattern. I was quite excited on January 18th, printed it out as soon as it went up, and started knitting immediately after dinner on that same day. And was almost disappointed because – it was so easy. After knitting for 2 1/2 hours on Friday evening the first part was more than halfway done. The pattern is very logical and symmetrical so far and so I had long stretches of knitting where I barely had to glance at the chart. Saturday morning I started knitting again immediately after breakfast (what? obsessive? me?) and had the first part finished after another two hours or so.

I almost contemplated casting on for another lace stole that I want to make on the same day, and working on two of them, but then I had to remind myself of the other four unfinished projects around the house. It seems that knitting lace makes me very happy, even though I hardly will wear lace stoles every day. But knitting lace can also be addictive. Like playing computer games. “Just one more row.”, “I just want to see how this will look…”, “If I knit a mere six rows I will have finished this part of the chart.” Never mind that knitting a row might take anywhere from five minutes to an hour.

Which I found out the hard way when working on the second part of the stole last Friday. Since the pattern seemed so easy to me I decided to knit it while watching the finale of “Angel”. Great move! While I made excellent progress for about two hours I also spent almost an hour knitting back four rows.

So, what does this have to do with being proud and such? Well, I am immensely proud that my stole looks so nice and that it’s so easy for me. But when I looked on the group’s message board and ravelry group I found that there are very few people who think like me. There are people who never have knitted lace, people who had to start over three times already, people who are in tears because they are so frustrated and they find it so hard.

I’m not here to make fun of them. I know how they feel and I’d love to help each and every one of them. Sit next to them and help them correct a mistake four rows down without having to unravel the whole thing. But I can’t, since this is an online group. Instead I have been thinking about why this is so easy for me. I found a couple of reasons: a) I have been knitting for 30 years. b) I have never been afraid to try new techniques. c) I like to challenge myself. d) I have heard that German knitters are considered to be very fast.

I can’t say, I have never thought about knitting as a race, I just do it. When Debra Roby wrote that she is a slow knitter and needs about 30 hours to knit a pair of socks, all I could say was that I know that back in the eighties when I had to take a very slow train to visit my parents I could start and finish a sock (basic, boring, very easy sock) on the train ride. That would be nine hours with time off for eating and such. But, really, I don’t look at the clock when I’m knitting. I just knit until the thing is done.

And then I found that instead of being proud of what I had done and my skills in doing it, again, I had tried to find reasons why it wasn’t a big deal and why, really, there was nothing to be proud of. And this is something I have been doing all my life with everything I do. You know, if I can do it it can’t be hard to do. And I could have done better. There surely would be a flaw or mistake in there somewhere. I’m one of those people who, when you’re admiring something they made, always say, “Yeah, but I made a mistake here. Do you see it?”

Every time I’m starting to be proud of something I think about how this makes all the other people around me feel bad. How I really shouldn’t be standing in the limelight but instead I should be there to help the others getting better. How the things I do are not important in the big scheme. How there is always someone better than me.

This even extends to happiness. Even though I know that this is not true, my inner child is firmly convinced that every time I am happy this will make somebody else unhappy. As if there weren’t enough happiness around for everyone and if I take too much there won’t be enough left. And then people would get angry at me.

This certainly is a main factor in my life, one that makes me sabotage myself and makes me at least slightly unhappy all the time. And, as everyone knows, people only like you when you’re nice and humble, when you’re not bragging, and don’t make them feel inferior by being so damn superior all the time.

So, well, I changed the pattern and I’m not sure if the change looks good, maybe I should frog it all and do better the next time over. And, really, you could have done the same under the same circumstances as I and so don’t feel bad. You totally could crank out lace if you wanted to. Go you!

Can I have that bit of leftover happiness if you don’t want it? Thanks.

for Wordless Wednesday, the pattern is Elijah by Ysolda

Now, this is the just post anniversary. A year ago there was the first social justice roundtable where before there had been nothing. In fact, that social wedding was the reason that I found this particular corner of the blogosphere. De wrote about that wedding, she posted a picture of her own wedding day and the lyrics to “One”, and that moved me to seek out Mad and Jen who came up with this idea. And I promised to write something about social justice once a month at least. A promise that I kept, mostly, with the exception of March. (And this month you won’t find my post on the list because I forgot to nominate it. But that’s the beauty of being one of the hosts, I can point you towards it now: “Healing the World“.)

Since it has been a year of talking and writing about social justice, we decided to go a little further, to have a baby and to ask people to volunteer. I have to admit that I was a bit reluctant at first. I’m always reluctant to commit my time or energy to something new. But then I did want to do something. And I realized that it didn’t have to be something really big. Just small and doable would be enough.

My first thought was forcing my students to do regular performances at the local retirement home. But my heart wasn’t really in it. Also, the students wouldn’t have liked it. But then I allowed myself to think even smaller. And I found something totally unspectacular. Something I already have started doing, actually. I’m committing to knitting a pair of socks or a hat, preferably both each month for “Frühchenstricken“, that’s a German project to knit for preemies.

Just last week I found a similar American project for those who, like me, might be interested in doing a bit of social volunteer work while sitting on their own sofas watching TV. And then there’s “project snuggle“:

Project Snuggle- A project of knitted bears for police to take to child victims of domestic violence. Simple, really yet so very absent in the world of charitable knitting.

I would totally support this if it weren’t crazy to ship hand-knit stuffed animals half-way around the world.

Knitting for preemies warms my heart. At first I thought it was all about the fun of knitting doll-sized tiny socks. They are so cute! And almost instant gratification. But then I found that I also liked it because I was born too early myself. And at a time when my mother wasn’t even allowed to touch me for weeks. Now that I am a mother myself it rips my heart to hear her tale of how she stood in front of the window, looking at me every day for four weeks until she was allowed to take me home.

When I posted about this project the first time, thinking that it wasn’t really making a difference if I knit six pairs of socks or not, Sofia wrote a comment saying that her own daughter had been a preemie and how it warmed her heart to see that someone, a total stranger had taken the time to knit something for her daughter. And I thought back to the time my son was born, and though he wasn’t premature, I also wondered who had knit the horribly striped booties that he wore in the hospital. And while they were indeed very ugly I also knew that they were made out of love. Not for a child or grandchild but for some baby that person had never seen.

And that sentiment, love for human beings that we have never seen, is what brought forth the just posts and now the baby shower.

So, without further ado here is this month’s list. I’m really humbled by all the people who have committed to do volunteer work, and if you have too and your post is not on this list, please leave it in the comments.

Laura at Twenty Five Days to Make a Difference
Lawyer Mama with Christmas in Omaha
Magpie with 13 Ways to Help
Painted Maypole with God loves Fags
Reluctant Memsahib with it’s the corruption that’s the problem
Victoria with Give
The Chick with AIDS facts you should know
Jeff with Bless the invisible children
Mir on blogher with Dutch Diplomats, a Korean Adoptee, and the Unthinkable
Suzanne Reisman on Blogher with Dec. 17 is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers and When Will We See Some Female Geeks?
Chatoyance with Books will fly through the air for children
Jenn with full circle
Sin with 28
Frieda with What I would pray for, if I prayed
Hearts in SanFran with Only the good die young
HearthTalks with Putting it in perspective
Liz with AIDS: No longer your friendly neighborhood appetite suppressant
Chani with Sanuk is not a four letter word
Veronica with Give
Jen with it’s coming on christmas, two little girls, two little girls, pt 2
Lost White Kenyan Chick with Electioneering and corruption
Laloca with Joseph Heller couldn’t've come up with this
City Girl with thinking out loud
Ida with Gay and Homeless: The numbers to back it up
Quaker Dave with There are no words
Denguy with Everyone should eat
Jangari with Intervening into the intervention
Emily with Lazy mother’s guide to saving the planet
The Individual Voice with Christmas in Iraq and Afganistan
Babylune with it’s series of posts culminating with the generous december group writing project
MauiGirl with No more death penalty in New Jersey
Reya with What’s important
The Psycho Therapist with If you can’t find money to kill people

Baby Shower Gifts
Jenn with Let’s change the world, shall we?
Omaha Mama with Giving more and Teaching to Give Back
Andrea with Enough, again.
CCE with A words: Altruism and Asceticism
De with Oh baby,I can help
Sage with Birthing in chains
Karen with Baby shower treats
Alejna with Gifts and thanks
Jennifer with New Year’s resolving
Reality Testing with Project Snuggle in conjunction with Flutter’s original idea in 2006 there once was a girl
Aliki with Newton’s third law
Painted Maypole with Unto us a child is born
Sin with Win-win
The Psycho Therapist with On giving to organizations

Those who listened
TIV: The Individual Voice
Crazymumma
LawyerMama
Painted Maypole
Chani
Jennifer
Mayberry Mom
Pundit Mom
Susanne
Hel
Mad
Jen

And as always you should also check out what Jen, Mad, and Hel are writing this month.

So here are my finished “objects” in chronological order:

Jaywalker socks for my husband. I started them on our train ride to Paris. I had to knit about three and a half of them to get them right. (No, my husband only has the usual two feet.) They’re still a bit too big…

Vinnland socks, again for my husband. Those on the other hand are too tight. I love this pattern. I made my usual short row toe and heel, though, because I can’t get the hang of wrap stitches. I have learned a different way to do short rows which I like better. (Of course I found that out only after I had knitted the toe the first time and it was full of holes. What can I say, I’m an expert at ripping things, obviously.)

Then I made a pair of dashing, fingerless mittens for my mother which I forgot to photograph. That was no fun, again, I made about six of them until I was left with a pair that seemed right. Oh, and she says, she doesn’t like them, and so I will have to frog them and re-make them. But she only told me after I had given her a matching hat (Le Slouch by Wendy Bernhard) for Christmas. And she loves it. Phew.

(That’s me wearing the hat, not my mother.)

Finally I made something for me, my first lace stole (It’s the hanami stole. When I saw it I knew I wanted to make it and now I’m hooked on lace stoles. I’m planning two more already.):

And a hat for me to go with my crocheted scarf:

(I’m not very happy with this picture but I’m pressed for time here, sorry.)

And finally, Carlos Santana, the elephant who still has to get his eyes:

What I’m knitting right now (but not all at once of course) is: a pair of mittens for my husband, a pair of socks for myself, still the brown cardigan (sigh!), a scarf for my husband (with sock yarn, a true labor of love), and I made a swatch for the secret of the stole II- knit-along (the button is in my left sidebar). And a scarf with the Vinnland-pattern for myself.

the pattern is Elijah

My husband has already written about our not so joyful summer break. I didn’t know that you could get almost depressed because your computer is broken, but there you are, this is modern life. In fact it was his computer that broke, and got fixed, and was still broken, and got fixed, and was still broken. I’m about to bring it home again tonight, so keep your fingers crossed. Maybe it will be really fixed this time. (And thank God for extra apple care security plan. Hurray!)

So back to the knitting. Some of you may recall the brown cardigan I have been knitting for a while. In fact I ordered the yarn on Valentine’s day (this year that is) and since then I have been knitting away, unraveling whole pieces of it from time to time, but steadily making progress. This is how the cardigan looked yesterday at noon:

Only half a sleeve left to knit. This is how the cardigan looks now:

See, even the camera has a blurry eye… And then I remembered why I haven’t knit anything besides scarfs and socks for years. The problem is that for about twenty years knitting my gauge was always way too lose. Every thing I knitted ended up to be too big. Then I had enough of this and I taught myself to knit more tight. Since then every single thing I knitted ended up too small. I forgot all about this when I started knitting that cardigan. I thought if I did everything right there wouldn’t be a problem. Until about two months ago I held one of the finished sleeves to my arm out of sheer curiosity. It was, well, about three sizes too small, but we all know that you can block it and then it will turn out right, won’t it? Right?

It was about that time that my sister asked me for leftover yarn. She wanted to knit for charity. I didn’t know there was such a thing in Germany. I had heard about such things in the US but never here. Then, on the other hand, it isn’t as if I were knowing vast amounts of people who like to knit. There’s my mother, my sister and my aunt and that’s that. Of course I immediately started knitting for that on my own. Knitting for preemies. Stricken für Frühchen. For hospitals.

So I laid my cardigan aside and made these:

Yes, those are three socks. I still have to knit another one because then I started reading knitting blogs like this one and then I had to start knitting jaywalker socks for my husband immediately. I knitted the first sock on our way to Paris and back, finished it only to find that the fit was terrible, revisited the pattern, found out that it was a very bad idea to knit the heel differently on a whim because it left me with a foot that was much too wide. Then I unraveled it. And since there was another mistake early on I had to unravel the whole thing and start over again. I just finished it for the second time.

You know I thought I was a quite experienced knitter. I can do all the techniques. Only now I am feeling a little low. I would be a nice change to knit something that would go right the first time and then actually fit.

I won’t give up though. I took me about four months to almost finish that cardigan the first time around. Well, January is a nice cold month. No problem. But first I’ll knit the second of my husband’s socks. And the second teeny tiny baby sock.

I still have a huge stash that begs to be turned into baby socks, hats, and blankets. And three sewing patterns. And fabric for a dress. (Since I have just gained about 2 kilos (4,5 lbs) and it’s a summer dress I’ll leave that and the matching bag for next spring. I’ll probably finish my husband’s bag first and then buy some new fabric to make myself a bagpack tote following Liesl’s pattern.)

So I made. a. plan: First I’ll knit the second of my husband’s socks. Then the second baby sock. Then I’ll start knitting the cardigan again. (Which size? Which needle size? Do I do a sample piece before to see the gauge if it never turns out that way anyway? Do I just start somewhere and then measure once I’m a few inches in? AARGH!)