life by the lists: a q&a

q: what? no knitting or yarn shown?
a: no. I've only got a partial sock to show you, and frankly, it looks like its mate did a coupla posts ago. You'd need to scroll down in the post and imagine about 2 inches before the heel.

Here's some wool on the hoof. As they say to the sheep dogs, thatd'll do.

q: what's with this format?
a: a two part answer. One: I have extreme interview envy. I mean really, is this not the best knitting author interview? Ever? Where else would you read the ugly Noro vs backordered Rowan question? I wanted to get the Yarnplay before, now I must.

q: What's the second part?
a: Second? oh yeah..sorry. Stress.When I'm stressed I lose things. Like my train of thought. A Bar Mitzvah here next week. FYI, even if you are making a Bar Mitzvah that is laid back and small by 21st century north american standards, don't leave most of the details to the last minute. You'll thank me. I am now living by the "to-do" list. One for work, one for personal, and that is it. Then we celebrate.

q: and your holiday knitting? and the miters? what happened to all those cheerful mitered squares?
a: oh! so sorry! I see on The List its time to stop blogging. Buh- bye.

knitbloggers, knitbloggers, lend me your ears

Because mine need some recommendations for knitting podcasts.

I've been enchanted by Cast-On. That Brenda Dayne does a great 'cast. Good music, with real life chat, touching essays, a sense of humor, lots of knitting talk, all seamed together beautifully. I'm through most of her backlog now. sniff, sniff. Spoiled from the start. So please, tell me what you've found to listen to!

Next lend me your eyes. I finished a little something.

Three little somethings. A friend helped out in a pinch with some graphic design, refusing pay but when pressed, admitted she'd love some handknits. Although I don't think my friend is in any way incomplete, she only wanted fingerless mittens , and something to cover her ears and part of her head, but not a hat. It seems oddly psychological to have only open ended garments but we'll leave that to some other profession. She requested them in wine. (I hope she meant the color, not floating in the liquid,now that I think about it....)

some details:
Fetching from Knitty
Yarn: Bazic wool from Classic Elite, on size 6 needles
Modifications: Longer cabled cuffs , longer hands, and more cables over the fingers, wth a longer thumb. No picots on the bind-off. Its a cute pattern as written , just too skimpy in its one skein incarnation.
Comments: Two (open ended) thumbs up for this yarn. Its a superwash, not stiff but spongey and soft. It has an extra nice twisted texture, as if one ply is fatter than the other.
The color is so rich, I'd guess it had an overydye of something dark, just a touch, for extra depth. Or maybe its the texture that makes it look that way? It took almost a skein for each mitt. Unlike last time, I remembered to make the cables face each other. Progress!

and the headband is from Garnstudio Drops site, whatta treasure trove of patterns that is. Hopefully most are translated better than this one which had some major mistakes. Easy enough to see in advance though. That no such thing as a free lunch thing again. I suspect its the same pattern that showed up on Craftster as Panta , if not, they're close cousins, but the Panta write-up is too convoluted for me. Same yarn as above, also took one skein. Based on testing on my own and another visiting head, this could be the new go-to quick gift of choice around here. FYI, way cuter on a live being than it is laying flat.

Now I know I use to show off finished sweaters, then it was shrugs, then scarves, then hats, now, headbands. Do you sense a trend of diminishing returns? The downsizing of FO's? Soon I'll proudly exhibit a fuzzy string wrapped twice around my pinkie. Check back soon.

out there

While I haven't been blogging, I've been living up to my name.

I've been out of town working on location for about 12 days of the last 3 weeks, not all in a row. When I get back home, I've been filling my time with more working like crazy, catching up on the family life : school! emails from teachers! a son who grows 2 inches in a week and has nothing , nothing I tell you, to wear! . And ack! bolting awake at 4 am to obsess over details I haven't taken care of for the Bar Mitzvah we're having here in 3 weeks. Yup, that's three. No, I haven't figured out the cake or painted the pots, planted mums in them for the decorations or figured out what to wear. Or, now that you mention it, lost the 10 pounds gained this year to make said what-to-wearing more fun.

But, the sheep..lets talk the sheep. A bunch of my time's been on sheep farms. I've learned a lot of fibery- life facts. For instance, farming doesn't leave a whole lot of time for knitting this time of year. Oh the irony. Surrounded by wool and not a minute free to knit. I think I might have spent about 20 minutes aggregate knitting. Most nights I was keeling over exhausted, and I wasn't actually doing the real work, just photographing it.

For instance, take Nanney Kennedy of Sea Colors.

If you're going to Rhinebeck? Stop at her booth. Swoon. It took heroic measure (and repeated mental reminder of Big Event needs, see above Bar Mitzvah reference) not to come home with a carfulof her gaw-jus yarns.

My brilliant plan to do tons of knitting while on the road and get ahead with the gifty/holiday list pretty much tanked . Instead I got close and personal with all kind of critters.

Including a conference with my fellow agency members, none of whom believed me when I said what I was working on. They were like "Sheep? Knitting? Really? No..you're kidding. Knitting? Heh, heh. ". Which only makes you wonder if we exist in a bubble, a very lovely dyed and spun bubble. We're talking some of the world's best adventure outdoor photographers, people who over breakfast mention they were just in Mongolia shooting flyfishing , or documentarians who tell you they're heading back to Cuba on Thursday, and hope Fidel kicks soon, so they can witness the change over in government and how it affects society. And I just shrugged and said. "yeah, knitting. Its, ummm, not just for grannnn.....new yoga...no, I mean it, knitting, and wool, like with needles..."