No, It Really is Spring

Regardless of the solid precipitation and receding snow on the ground I can tell spring is here. We only see cardinals in the yard in the spring and they wouldn't make such a heinous mistake. Most think of them as a winter bird and that may be so but they only visit my yard in the spring. I will leave the snow shovel on the back porch until mid-April. I put it away two weeks ago and we had 6" of snow fall as a result. My bad.

 The snow came just as we turned the clocks ahead. Gives me more time to come home from work and play the camera as the sun is going down. What gorgeous deep purple shadows were cast on the snow covered yard and garage roof!

 The last blast of snow seemed to clean the air. The ground hog is taking alot of grief for the false early spring prediction but I suspect he just doesn't care.

Here's some spring...

 and here...

 and here.

Welcome.

Still here, still knitting.Obviously not blogging about it though. No funny life stuff to share. Need some funny. My cat glaring at me at suppertime is as funny as it gets and you really have to be there for the full effect. I hope something funny or fun happens soon. I need something to write about. Life has been way too morbid and stressful as of late.

Knitting vs. Knitter

Knitting: the act of knitting. The answer to "What have you been doing?".
Many people knit. Blindly follow the written word of someone else. Creating row upon row of knit and purl stitches but not understanding why they are doing it or what they are doing. Decreasing and increasing because the pattern says so. Not because they know they need to shape the material in order for it to fit properly. Just doing as they are told.

When Grandma cast on 20 stitches on to a pair of double pointed needles with rubber bands on one end of each and handed them to me over 40 years ago, I wanted to understand why it worked the way it did. Why was there a hole where there wasn't before. Why do I have 21 stitches now? Why does the end curl up? Why, why, why?

This is why I don't teach knitting. I don't have the tolerance to deal with a mind that is not curious enough to want to know how it works and why.

Knitter: one who knits. But more importantly in my mind, one who understands knitting. How it works. How to push the boundaries and "rules". How to break them. How to take  measurements and simple math and create a sweater, hat, mittens... the list is endless. And most important, knowing when the only solution to a problem is ripping out the entire project and starting again, disappointed, but not discouraged or angry.
I'm a knitter.

 I was putting the finishing row on a 26" length of aran cables and twists then realized there was a mistake 14" back. I tried to isolate and fix the cable but I could not get the twist and the tension the same as the original therefore I had to bite the bullet and pull a week's worth of knitting out. 660 yards of wool. My mom, one who knits, was emotionally upset because all that work had to be ripped back. She didn't break down in tears but if it had been her project, well, it probably would have been put in a bag and left for dead. More than once she has found an error in her knitting and I have taken it and ripped it back because she can't bear the thought. She leaves it alone until the grieving process is complete. She has to have a written pattern. I've tried to get her to think about what she is doing rather than hanging on to each word in the written pattern as if it was gospel. She admits she can't.

If I had been on a deadline for this project I would have been a bit more aggravated...with myself. Put the blame where it belongs. If I had been paying better attention I would have noticed earlier that one cable was twisting the opposite of the rest. While knitting you create a rhythm, your fingers know the pattern. You unconsciously count to yourself. I dropped the ball on this one.

The project is back on track, the stitches have been picked up, the cable corrected. There was no loss of life, no blood shed, no tears. The wool was given 24 hours to relax. I'll check my work more often.

I'm a knitter.

Here We Go Again

Here comes the end of October and with it another major Hurricane, Sandy, thank you very much, who at this date has done major damage in Cuba and the Bahamas. The weather folks are changing their story hourly but they are positive we are going to get the brunt of either wind or rain/snow up here in New England. Playing it smarter this year. Pack all the frozen food into one freezer and clean out what I can of the fridge before Monday rolls around. Test the flashlights and inventory the yarn stash. Okay. Ready.

This is heading for the blocking table. May come in handy.

It's Amazing

What a summer! Can't say I'm going to miss it and hope the door hit it in the butt on the way out. We weren't tortured with the horrible storms of last summer but the humidity and heat? Geesh! Enough already. 

At least you can breath in and out without feeling you need to take a shower and a nap. 

Anyhoo. I did something yesterday I haven't done since last spring. I PUT ON A CARDIGAN. A CARDIGAN FRESH OFF THE BLOCKING TABLE. No photo proof yet. I need to put a finishing touch on it. Later, promise.

What I can show you is an amazing process. Below is a ball of wool. Just a few yards of fiber spun and dyed. I picked up two sticks with a plastic cable connecting the two. I made some loops on the sticks.

 I wove the loops this way and that to create a fabric tube.

 I added tubes of knitted fabric and cut the largest tube up the middle of what I called the front. I picked up more loops and wove some more.

 When I finished the woven tubes I had a cardigan to wear when the tank tops are put away; socks replace flip flops and soup is on the stove.

And then I started the process all over again. 

I don't care how many years I do this, it NEVER gets old.