My life has been consumed by tech editing squares. It’s a great change of pace. I almost don’t notice the lack of knitting.

This month I was published for the first time in the summer edition of Love of Knitting!  It was thrilling to see my name in print.  I am so glad that Amy helped me get started.  I brought a copy to the store for show and tell.  Imagine my surprise when Joan already knew about it.  A mutual friend had seen the magazine in a book store, leafed through it, thought “hmmm, that looks like something Jae would knit” and then called the store when she saw I had designed it.  Any time we gather around the knit table for conversation and laughs, inevitably some will brag about it on my behalf.  My mom bought a copy within hours of learning it was available and so did my aunt.   All of this is my way of saying that I am grateful for the support I receive from my family and friends. 

Unfortunately, the laughter has been balanced with tears.  I cannot begin to express how saddened I am that my friend will never see the shawl I designed for her.  At the young age of 46, she lost her fight against melanoma. It is hard to believe that it has been over a year that we made the deal to trade talents.  She had just finished spinning all the yarn I would need of the angora / wool blend. I have every intention to knit the shawl, but I don’t think I will keep it. It was never meant to be mine.  I will listen for her voice to tell me it’s new owner.  And I will miss her with every stitch.

Onto more pleasant things, I had one of my patterns, Tendril Gloves, picked for the Intentions Yarn Club.  Squeee!  This is the news I had to wait to announce to ensure I didn’t give anything away before members received their newsletter.

To distract meyou from the waiting, let’s talk yarn. A few weeks back, I attended a yarn tasting at ThreadBear Fiber Arts in Lansing. I have never visited any of the local yarn stores in the city. We decided to make a whole day of it. Thus, there was yarn oohing-aahing before we even got to the final destination.

I know I am spoiled with the gazillion (ok, several dozen but it seems like a gazillion) quality yarn stores conveniently located within easy commute. However, Lansing isn’t hurting for good stores either.

And they have a coffee shop that sells chocolate with a drive-thru. Coffee, chocolate and a drive-thru! I almost up and moved right then.

The thing I love about a yarn tasting is the chance to try before I buy. There is nothing worse than buying a sweater’s worth of yarn to discover that it pills, doesn’t knit remotely to gauge, the drape is all wrong, or any of the other tragedies that could befall a sweater’s worth of yarn.

The thing I love even more is the hanging out with fellow knitters talking about the potential of a sweater’s worth of yarn.  I know she isn’t talking in this photo, but we really did do a lot of talking!

Of course, the laughs over almost dropping the camera from a moving car while photographing the capital building through the sunroof were a high point in the day too.

A brief comment from Lynn during last week’s sit and knit prompted me to pull out my longest enduring project, my evening shawl.  Last I put it down, I had completed the third of twelve color sequences.  It should be noted that I had all the yarn required to work through the fourth sequence at that time.  I know this because the only new color from three to four is silver.  Except I didn’t.  Somehow olive had grown legs and wandered off.

I have physical evidence that olive had been present.

I have photographic evidence from a previous post.

I tore apart my left over stash. I looked where all the other colors were patiently waiting their turn. I even accused my husband of taking it.  Nope, nada, gone.

I finally gave up.  I clicked confirm of my purchase of one skein of #3610 – light olive.  The same color as this skein that waited until I recieved a UPS tracking number to make itself visible again.

Monday may get a bad rap, but I can’t wait.  If only because then this week will be officially over.

Every time my path crossed with this skein, I would instantly think of my intentions to knit Icarus. There was never a doubt as to the pattern that yarn should be used for. Still, I did not cast on.  I march to my own offbeat drum. Independent and eccentric quirky unique are good words to describe me. Sometimes too good. I can acknowledge when everyone else is right. But I won’t enjoy it. Why? Because I wasn’t first, second, or even fifty-seventh. Not a redeeming character feature but there you have it. I am not just independent; I am stubbornly-dig-my-heels-in-headstrong independent.

Recently, I needed something easily memorized and preferably lace. Icarus was a perfect match. The yarn was a perfect match to Icarus. The only thing that didn’t fit was me. It is a popular pattern. The more popular it became, the more I was determined to not “give in”.  I am not comfortable with popular.  Even when something is popular for a darn good reason . . .  simple but not boring, well-suited for strong variegated colors not just solid yarns.   

This time I didn’t listen.  Instead, I pulled the yarn out, wound it into a cake, found the appropriate needles, and casted on. I loved working the stitches almost from the very beginning! My need to be different, my unfounded fear of not being seen as unique, dissolved with each column of yarn overs I added. No one was going to think less of me for being the 1253rd person starting Icarus. It was a perfect fit. Even if I had to be forced to see it.

I know there is a lesson in here somewhere.  Probably some point to be made about letting go of fears, enjoy something for the sake of the doing, or learning that my own opinion is the only one that matters at least with my knitting.  I’ll have plenty of time to ponder while I have this shawl on my needles.

Do you have a project, knitting or other, that you have been reluctant to start? If so, what is holding you back? 

I don’t normally block socks.  After all, my feet work just fine to stretch them into the proper shape.  However, as these don’t fit me and Caesar has been shedding all over, I mean gaurding them are a gift, I gave them a quick bath and a light blocking.  I’m glad I did.  The amount of red dye that exhausted from the yarn was amazing.  I know that red dye never really exhausts but this was still more than I expected.

Pattern: None, just a standard toe up plain stockinette sock with a short ribbed cuff.
Size: Mens shoe 11.5 wide
Yarn: Regia Kaffe Fassett color#4259
Needles: Magic loop, US 1.5 (2.5mm) - 40″ circular
Notes: I originally started these with the intent of following the riverbed style from Cat Bordhi’s new Pathways book. However, I found that the way she constructs the gusset gives the socks a little too much room in the arch to fit my dad well. When I had to start them a second time, I decided the traditional construction would work better.

Just in case you were wondering how wide an 11.5 wide foot really was.

The toe is small and with four stitches every other round, 20 becomes 24 becomes 28 very quickly. Or vice versa for cuff down.  The foot and the leg are such mindless knitting that you actually have to be careful to not knit too far.  The heel – only half the stitches – ’nuff said.

But the gusset is never ending shows the least amount of progress for every round knit.   I knit for an hour and discover that I still have many more rounds to go.  I knit another hour and discover that I still have many more rounds to go. 

So what part of a sock knits up the slowest for you?

When a friend offered to spin for me in return for my knitting, I didn’t think twice.   She will spin my roving for me and I will knit with her yarn.  My very own hand-spun without learning how to spin, buying a wheel, spinning the fiber, and another addiction taking over the house the work! 

A sample of what will be my yarn is the little skein on the left – alpaca, merino, and silk in a lace weight.  It apparently spins like butter.  I read somewhere that butter is a technical term for fun to spin.

Her yarn is made of wool-angora blend and spun in a fingering weight.  It is a pleasure to knit. The bunny hairs that escape the twist and provide a nice halo to the yarn are an endless source of fascination to me as well.  Now to start swatching for lace patterns to work into a shawl.

My solution to the problem? I knit myself a pair of socks.

Yarn: Noro Kureyon Sock yarn, color #180
Pattern: Woven Waves by me (available in June)
Needles: US2 Addi turbo, magic loop

Then I started over with his.