Simplicity

I love lace knitting, but it has a major disadvantage: ssssssllllooooowwww progress.  Lace shawls are breathtaking, but take FOR-EV-ER to knit.  I have been knitting Celtic Sage for over a year.  I am excited that I only have a foot to go, but a foot is still a lot of knitting. 

My husband needed his tires rotated and aligned.  Instead of going back and forth between home and the tire place a bunch of times, we decided to spend 45 minutes browsing in the strip mall.  He went to Gander Mountain and I went to Hobby Lobby.  While there, I was seduced by some gradient yarn.  It called to me, then jumped in my hand.  I walked back to the tire place (this all started with tires, remember?) hoping that my sweetie didn't notice the bag of yarn in my hand, or that my children didn't rat me out. 

So this week, I have been strangely obsessed about knitting this simple, asymmetrical, garter stitch piece of instant gratification. 

Today, it is all about the connection between tires and yarn. 

In the Most Unexpected of Places

I have been making some placemats for the kitchen.  My kitchen was white with sage green accents(with black appliances), so I found a long color changing yarn that had a pale lime green that I was considering close enough.  Three placemats later, I was still not in love with the yarn, but it was sufficient. 

Then I noticed something gradually shifting in my kitchen.  My husband changed the color scheme.  It started with a new red toaster, then a couple bowls, then a few new hand towels. By the time he brought a red replacement statula, the jig was up.  My kitchen was now white, red and black.  I don't know how that happened, but obviously it was time to start making different placemats. 

I still liked the idea of a twisted yarn, but I couldn't decide between red and white twist (would it look like a candy cane?) or red and black (would it look too dark?).  I figured I would make my decision depending on what I came across first.  I tried the usual places, but nothing seemed to work. 

Then I tried Jo Ann Fabrics, of all places.  There, in a pile of neon orange, dull mousy brown and other mill ends, was the perfect yard.  A red, black and white twist!  Not Christmas-y at all!  Nine skeins at dirt cheap prices.  I felt like I had won the yarn lottery.  How often do you find the perfect yarn on clearance?                                                                                  I have started the first new placemat, though it will take a while before I have enough to use, much less a full set. 

Maybe the next house. 

Today, it is all about the hidden treasure. 

Apologies

It has been a very long time since I have blogged. It has been a relatively long time since I gave knit. These two facts are likely related. I have been very stressed lately. These facts are likely cumulatively related. I apologize to my regular readers, both of them, and promise to do better.

I have been knitting. I have progress to share. I will post tomorrow, when I am not as tired, and can figure out why posting pictures from my phone actually links to MY phobe, and not random photos that I don't recognize and certainly aren't yarn.

Today, it is all about future promises.

If There Was Ever Any Doubt

My knitting group is named Knittervention. "Because yarn is cheaper than therapy."  If I ever doubted the truth of those words, it was put to rest last night. I was a little tired, and a tightly wound pile of stress, but  it was the alternate Monday, and I didn't want to miss knitting.

I might be minimizing the tightly wound stress part. I was incredibly frazzled, distracted, one bad email away from causing bodily harm to someone. For days now, every time I did something at the office, it added three more things of the list to do. Also, the Courts have been slowly transitioning to electronic format. It started with receiving the court orders by email for civil cases.  Every day in the wee hours of the morning, I would receive a few emails from the automated system. That was manageable. Then a couple weeks ago, the juvenile court (where I have 75% of my cases) started doing the same thing, but in real time. Every sat, ten to fifteen court orders arrived throughout the day.

 The final step last week was the requirement of e-filing.  Instead of delivering motions to the court and physically stamping each document, everything is scanned and filed online as a PDF. I am sure I will like the concept eventually, right now, there is a steep learning curve. I have to learn to scan things, which requires getting my scanner/printer to be on speaking terms with my desktop. They had a falling out a couple months ago, and have only been grudgingly communicating through wifi as a mediator. I finally figured out how to scan, but now I don't know if can remember how to do it next time.

So, that was my mindset when I arrived last night. Two hours of lace knitting and pleasant conversation later, I felt more calm  and focused. I don't know why everyone doesn't knit. I know many other attorneys that would benefit from regular exposure to soft fibers.

Today's it is all about reaffirming the therapeutic value of fiber.

Re-Claiming

One of the yarns I bought last weekend was a half finished project.  A sweater, by the looks of it, neglected and unloved, with a couple other random balls of the same yarn.  I used this same yarn in my first attempt at lace.  Yarn this pretty doesn't deserve to languish half-finished, for all eternity. 

 

So I set about to reclaiming the yarn. 

 

I ripped out the sweater pieces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I gave everything a nice cool bath. 

 

I hung it all up with a towel providing gentle weight, to straighten out the kinks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wound everything into new balls. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have 800 fresh yards of pretty yarn, ready for something new. 

 

Today it is all about giving pretty yarn new life. 

Re-centering

A week ago, A judge lectured all the attorneys in a case to cool down, and start helping our clients in a case instead of keeping everyone all riled up.  On the walk back to the office, I did some thinking about how I could have handled myself differently in this case recently.  I thought that maybe I needed a personal re-aligning of my mind and spirit. 

That would be the point when I realized that while I had been knitting semi-regularly, I hadn't been WRITING about knitting.  Is this a vital part of my creative process?  Spouting on and on in a public forum about my fiber triumphs and disasters?  Is this really what my psyche had been missing?

Well, then I offer apologies to my inner Yarn Harlot and my two fans who have missed me, and pledge to do better. 

I also bought more yarn.  Can't go wrong there for a little pick me up.

Every other year, my local yarn store hosts a Customer Garage Sale.  Customers have a change to do some stash clearing: unloading the leftover balls from past projects, fibers/colors where the love has cooled, mistake purchases, and yarn where the very sight mocked your past failures.  Then the same customers scoop up these hidden treasures at bargain prices. 

This year was no exception.  A great big pile of lovely yarn. 

Today, it is all about the combination of fiber and  shopping therapy. 

Injustice and Horror

Wednesday, I was looking forward to an important and controversial hearing. It was in Indianapolis, and the other attorney had volunteered to drive, so I was looking forward to a couple hours of passenger knitting, and the triumphant victory of this case.

Four hours later, the trial turned out be to the strangest I have ever experienced.  Unfortunately, the judge ended with a decision that still boggles my mind. In my twenty years as a lawyer, this week counted the third miscarriage of justice I have seen.

It was a very quiet ride home. I don't know if the other attorney was pissed, preoccupied or plotting the next step, but the mood was very subdued.

Then the knitting starting going downhill too. I was an inch along, but things just weren't looking right. This shouldn't have been hard, but somehow it was. The yarn was fingering, thin but not too thin. The pattern was lacey, but deceptively simple. Only a four row repeat, and two of them were purls. And, I HAD DONE THE PATTERN BEFORE. should have been a piece of cake. Instead, it has been plagued with problems. Casting on took four attempts, and now the whole thing looked like crap.

Then, I realized. I had written down the pattern incorrectly. Every fourth row was wrong right from the start!  Augh!  I had to rip the whole thing out and start over. For a fifth cast on attempt.

Today, it is all about double horror.