Thoughts on an Election

Trigger warning: rape & sexual assault, racism, the 2016 election.

Dearest friends,

My heart is heavy.

These past days have been difficult and frightening for many people in the United States, myself included. Many people I follow on social media are calling for a wait-and-see attitude about our President-elect, but at this moment, I am not able to see past the murky ground below my feet.

This particular election has been brutal for so many, in depths that I cannot begin to imagine. For my own part, it has touched a raw nerve, in its flagrant dismissal and gaslighting of violence and sexual assault.

When I was 18, I was raped by my 25-year-old housemate, and the fallout of that experience came very close to ending my life. A few years after that, while traveling internationally, I was sexually assaulted for a period of 16 hours over two nights.

The first experience, I have written about here before. The second, I have only begun to speak about in the last year.

What I learned from the first experience was that my sexuality was a weapon that could be used against me. That one man's blind entitlement was more important than my voice, my body, and my identity. I lost the friendship of almost every person I knew, all because they believed - or were not willing to fight against the idea - that I had brought that violence upon myself, simply by existing in the world as a woman. That betrayal cut as deeply as the rape itself, and its scars linger on my heart even still; in these last days and months, these scars have ignited like kerosene.

What I learned from the second was to be quiet.

I cannot be quiet anymore.

We have chosen as President a man who has shown hate and bigotry to be his highest principles.

Who promises to hurt my LGBTQ, Latinx, Black, Muslim, Jewish, women, and disabled dear ones.

Who threatens to take away their citizenship, their bodily autonomy, their marriages, their safety.

 Who has allegedly and admittedly sexually assaulted women, women like me, women who have once again been forced to learn that the only way to stay alive is to stay quiet. And for so many of our citizens - people of color, trans* and queer folks in particular - devastatingly, even quiet has been stripped away as a refuge.

Enough.

I have already seen the powerful forces of compassion at work in the last days. Voices that are calling for change, for community, for coming together in solidarity with those who are hurt and struggling. I have never used social media so much in my life. I have never texted the word 'love' so much in my life. I have never felt so passionately that we have a duty to our fellow citizens to honor and protect each other, in whatever ways we can muster.

This is all that I can think to do: to name my fear and release it among kindred hearts, where it might molt and extend its dark wings into a new kind of hope.

What now?

I have decided to continue my usual posting in the coming days and weeks. It is a conscious choice on my part, to share the beauty and love in my life in response to all this uncertainty and fear. I understand that not everyone is able to make that choice, and I respect the very real anger and hurt and fear that people are feeling right now. We all process things in our own ways, and whatever that looks like is okay.

But oh, dear friends, American and beyond: please know that I love you, and I see you, and I am here with you, tonight and always.

Much love,
Cory Ellen

Coral Moment

Today I am thinking of the tactile qualities of memory. The color of the sky the day I graduated from college; now four years past, but the memory still as hot and blue as the day it happened. Sitting on the fire escape at the school last summer, when the rain rolled in and my ballgown laid in a heavy pile of silk and pins on my work table. The feeling when a customer says that dress looks nice on you, and I think of Sufjan Stevens crying on stage while singing about his mother.

I've been having trouble writing about much of anything for the past few weeks. Secret projects and private matters both have been taking up my time and energy lately, and although they're not all that mysterious, they're still not mine to write about. So instead, I've been grasping for things that are real - wool, cloth, soap and water - and feeling alternately perplexed and joyful at the state of things.

And lately, this skein of yarn is one of the wooly things that's been sitting on my table and asking to become something. My friend Michael is quite a gifted spinner, and a few weeks after I admired this beautiful coral wool/silk on his wheel, he brought it to the shop and asked if I'd like to have it. (Would I??) Yesterday afternoon, I was taking photos of it in the dining room and realized how perfectly it matched my outfit - and after a rough day, that was a really nice little moment.

Hope you have an equally nice moment today. Happy Friday, friends.
<3
Cory

Creating Space, Part 5: Paring Down

 

It's hit that season again: when the sun comes out and casts light on all the dark corners around your house you've been passing by, thoughtlessly, all winter. When you look at your overflowing closet and the little bits of yarn strewn about the house and the books stacked carelessly on the floor, and you think, dammit, I'm going to put this into order!

Two days of cleaning and sorting later, sitting on the floor of your living room at midnight surrounded by a flurry of bank records and receipts for rat antibiotics and doodles drawn on tiny scraps of paper, you start to think that maybe this won't be so simple after all.

You think of the box of ten-year-old cards and school papers in the attic. You think of the garage full of camping gear and electronics. Then you look around at the mess you're embroiled in, and you start to have a mini panic attack at the center of this little volcano of your own making, the detritus of your silly, irresponsible life strewn around you like confetti.

But you forge on, that night and the ones that follow. It's not a pretty kind of forging on, either: the corners of your house, newly lit and dusted, become piled with boxes of papers to shred, bags of old shoes to go to Goodwill. The pack rat in you has a near-constant temper tantrum as you discard books you'll never read, clothes that never fit right, gift yarn that doesn't suit your coloring. (You feed it donuts with sprinkles to make it shut up.)

And at the end of each day, the house still looks like crap - but there begins to emerge a pattern of order and brightness, too: small pockets of color and space, where your newly unencumbered belongings can stretch out their legs and breathe a little.

And each night, you think of that cheerful and almost infuriatingly useful book with less resentment and more gratitude, and you plan another trip to Half Price Books, and you let it be okay that it's not done yet.

Because the journey is part of the experience... or some shit like that.

Happy Wednesday, friends! (Guess what I'm doing tonight?)

<3

Cory

Creating Space, Parts I-4:

Part I: Minimalism, Stuff, and Reclaiming Space

Part 2: Studio!

Part 3: Bookshelves for the Aesthetically Needy

Part 4: A Bright Little Nook

Ballgown: Day 14 (Or, Mental Health is Important, and So Are Friends)

Yesterday was rough from the beginning; I got to school and immediately had to rip out and fix some of my work from the day before. Then, bleary with fatigue and frustration, I accidentally cut a thread I shouldn't have, and hours of hard work began their unravelling before my eyes: where no machine could possible reach, where little threads of georgette happily shimmied out of their weave. I stood there for over an hour, sweating and painstakingly hand-sewing over the damaged area to fix it, praying with every stab that this would be the one that would make it right.

At the end, with the crisis under control and the binding safely tacked back in place, a wave of anxiety and nausea washed over me, and I had to stop for lunch and a walk around the block with the director to calm down.

Letting go is hard for me. It's both my strength and my weakness. It makes me meticulous; makes my work better. It also causes a lot of stress and anguish over things that may or may not matter. Sometimes the overwhelming fear of failure can actually paralyze me in my tracks, and I often struggle with the choice between executing something imperfectly and not executing something at all.

I think maybe the difference is in the motivation: the work that inches towards greatness is the work motivated by joy; the work that falls flat is, ironically, motivated by fear. It's a funny thing, to have to learn how to temper my need for control. It constantly pushes me forward if I put it in a reasonable gear, but left to accelerate of its own accord, it can destroy me and everything in its path. And I was in full self-immolation mode for most of yesterday, which felt pretty fucking crappy.

So it was a nice change of pace to go visit with a new friend after such a terrible day. We chatted about things we care about - feminism, tv shows, yarn, pets - and I left feeling like my heart had been filled back up. It probably sounds weird, but I feel like the universe sensed I was in a bad place, and sent me this gift - a feeling of connection, of gratitude - to knock me back into orbit and remind me of things that matter way more than a sleeve cuff.

And hopefully, today will be better.

Happy Thursday.
<3
Cory

Sock Monkey Time

  

I've been ill for a few weeks with symptoms of a chronic illness I dealt with as a kid, and although it's nothing life-threatening, the next few days are going to be an truly unpleasant barrage of tests and appointments. To make it more bearable, I have a pile of magazines and books (New Yorker! Bust! Pom Pom Quarterly! Brené Brown!), a new pair of brainless socks to cast on, and my little pink plastic Fuckmonkey to keep me company. (Thanks, Mom!)

The sock yarn is Happy Fuzzy Yarn Corrie Sock, a 75/25 wool/nylon blend in the colorway Plumeria, that I got in a grab bag at Sock Summit 2011. I'm not always happy with mystery grab bag selections, but I was pleasantly surprised by this skein - it's a lovely mix of  cheery magenta, true red, pale pink, and bright orange. Hopefully they will keep me cheered up while I am waiting to be endlessly poked and prodded.

To that end, I may take it easy on the blogging this week too - I have some Madrona stuff to share, but I want to be be functional human being again before I gush about all the wonderful yarn and people I met there.

See you later!

My WIP Basket Overfloweth

  

As I'm sure many knitters do, I have a bit of WIP problem!  Almost all of my current works in progress are on Ravelry, but it was only a week or so ago that most of them came out of the freezer.  Now that they're through that process, I'm itching to finish some of them off, so last night I finished a hat that I started in December of 2011 - only a few months after I started at NYFA!  This is not even to mention the multiple shawls and pairs of socks that just need blocking and ends woven in.

Yeeeeah, so this is kind of my basket of shame.

Getting everything back from Beetlegate purgatory has made me reinvigorated about fixing, finishing, and generally clearing out my closet of unwearable items - I'm stoked about tacking hems, knitting the tops of hats, and knitting that last sleeve for sweaters that are otherwise finished!  Although I didn't make any official New Years resolutions, clearing out my WIP basket is definitely one of my long-term goals for 2014.  It feels good to finally have the tools to get started.

Also, just for funsies, here is some rat nose - Misters Squishy and Pooper were cuddled up on the top balcony of their cage, and they looked so cozy!

A Knitter's Guide to Eradicating Carpet Beetles (or, DIE, LITTLE *#@$(*&$, DIE)

So, I've mentioned a few times that our life has been on a bit of a tailspin for the last few weeks, and now that we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I wanted to do a post about it.

The day of Mackie's diagnosis, Lumberjack found a carpet beetle larvae in our room.  Carpet beetles, for those who are lucky enough to have never heard of the evil little beasts, are a particular bane to museum collections because of the larvae's tendency to ruthlessly devour animal proteins, starch, and pretty much anything else that comes into their paths.  (The beetles don't eat the stuff, but they do move around and lay eggs willy-nilly.)  So when we found out that we had them, my heart sank at the realization that our house is essentially a smorgasbord of vintage clothing, yarn, fabric, and other tasty carpet beetle delights.

At first, we thought it was confined to our bedroom, but as the days progressed, we started finding them in the studio I share with Sparklepants, our 2nd-floor bathroom, kitchen, living room, and stairs.  Every time we found them in a new place, I got progressively more hateful and frustrated.  Much of the first week, I spent 8-12 hours a day on my hands and knees, wearing a dust mask and camping headlamp, picking up dozens of larvae with tweezers and yelling, "I HOPE YOU STARVE, YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT."  (It made me feel better.  I swear.  I'm usually the girl who insists on taking spiders outside, but I have zero sympathy for these destructive little assholes.)

Currently, our house has been sprayed and all visible larvae & beetles removed; all of our belongings are bagged, and slowly going through the process of heating in the dryer or freezing, then going directly into plastic bins or bags for storage.  Anything tasty to carpet beetles that has come in or out of our house in the last few weeks has gone through one of the two cycles, as the only thing I hate more than carpet beetles is the thought of knowingly or unknowingly inflicting them on someone else.  The whole thing is overwhelming and gross, and I never, ever, ever want to deal with it again, so my attitude is to nuke it from orbit; it's the only way to be sure.

So, in the hopes that other knitters and textile stashers are spared our fate, here are 12 tips for dealing with a carpet beetle infestation:

1.  First, don't blame yourself.  I initially thought that I brought in the infestation in a bag of vintage Pendleton yardage from a consignment store, but as we started to understand the scope and locations of the infestation, the more we realized that it was from something else entirely.  Carpet beetles are found all over the world.  They usually live outside, but often migrate inside for various reasons.  Chances are, unless you skipped around tossing carpet beetle larvae all over your home, you did nothing to cause this.

2.  Carpet beetles are not a hygiene problem, but they can be combatted by stepping up your cleaning.  By a lot.  They love lint, hair, and small bits of food, so keeping as many areas clean of these things is essential to curbing their food source.  Pull out seldom-moved appliances like the refrigerator, oven, and washer and dryer, (note: if it's safe to do so!) and vacuum and scrub underneath them.  I found almost as many larvae under our oven as we did in the rest of the house.

3.  Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever store anything in corrugated cardboard if at all possible.  Cardboard boxes are like theme parks for carpet beetle larvae.  We found 95% of the larvae along mouldings & baseboards and under appliances.  The other 5% were in cardboard boxes being used as storage.

4.  Do store things in plastic.  I have a bit of a hard time with this, because plastic does off-gas and sometimes causes a smell, but smelly yarn > ruined yarn.  Plastic will defend your items from becoming infested, and contain the infestation if they do find their way in.  All of my yarn and fabric is currently being transitioned over from open-air storage to plastic containers.

5.  If you find larvae or beetles, keep at least a few of them so they can be properly identified.  That way, if your suspected carpet beetles are something else, you can get the proper treatment for them.

6.  If you can afford it, hire a professional.  Really.  They can help you identify your problem, give you tips to keep the beasties under control, and treat your carpets and nooks and crannies with chemicals that kill and/or inhibit growth in all stages of the beetles.  There are non-toxic options available, so don't fret that you're going to have to fill your house with poison to get rid of them.  The exterminator we hired was $250 for treatment with a free follow-up appointment, and to us it was worth it for the peace of mind.  Keep in mind, though, that the exterminator is only doing part of the work: the long-term effectiveness of this process is highly dependent on you.

7.  Did I mention that I was cleaning 8-12 hours a day for a full week?  Yeah.  It bears repeating.  It takes a lot of cleaning to get an infestation under control.  Vacuuming is essential, as is laundry.  I tried as much as possible to touch and inspect every single thing I own, which sounds daunting - and is - but it can be done.

8.  Let go of as many old or unused items as you possibly can, especially if they're infested.  I've thrown away 3+ full garbage bags full of stuff from my studio.  Infested or very old yarn is just not worth saving to me - I have too much other yarn and fabric that I love more, and if I have to sacrifice 3% of my stash to save the other 97%, you bet I'm going to.

9.  Rid your house, roof, or yard of any bird's nests.  Carpet beetles like to hang out in them, then migrate into your house once they've lost their food source.

10.  Carpet beetles hate extremes of heat and cold.  Run all of your washable clothing and textiles through the dryer on medium (or hot) for at least 30 minutes.  And, from what I can tell from researching it: for more delicate items, freeze for a minimum of 3 days at 0 degrees Fahrenheit, let it come to room temperature, and repeat the process again - or dry-clean.  We ended up buying a large freezer, because Sparklepants and I have approximately 16 metric tons of fabric and yarn that needs to be treated, and we don't have the funds to dry-clean all of our stuff.

11.  Be patient.  We've bagged 90% of our belongings, and it's probably going to take 3-6 months before we're able to run all of them through the eradication process.  That's just how it is - it sucks, but I'd rather do it right and never have to do it again.

12.  It's healthy to have and acknowledge feelings of frustration, anger, shame, and/or guilt - I know I struggled a lot with all of these - but keep optimistic.  You can do this, and you will.  It may feel like your life is over, but it's not.  It's frustrating to have every account on the internet be all, "I've had carpet beetles for 10 years and they follow me when I move", and not a single one say, "I had this problem, I dealt with it, and you can too."  I'm here to say that it's possible, because we're doing it.  We haven't seen a single larvae since I found and destroyed their campsite under the oven two weeks ago, and here's hoping that it stays that way.  I'll keep you posted.

In summary: Carpet beetles suck, and dealing with them is a pretty overwhelming amount of work, but I have absolute faith that it's possible to eradicate them - not to mention, completely worth it.

If anyone has any tips, comments, or stories, feel free to mention it in the comments.  Thanks for reading, and for bearing with me for the last few weeks!

Not-Quite-an-FO: Taygete

 

Remember how I said that Taygete was just about done, only waiting for blocking?  Well.  I soaked her, and started pinning her out, and was so excited to have another finished object... and disaster struck.

 

See that little orange marker?  What it's marking is a sneaky, dumb, excessively long picot, which I discovered while threading my blocking wires through the edging.  And, since it was soaking wet at the time, I had to wait until it dried before I could do anything.  (I fretted a lot about it over the weekend.)

Apparently what happened is: while binding off for hours straight, I cast on two stitches and bound them off for the picot, looked away for a second... and did it again before continuing on the way I was supposed to.  And of course, it happened somewhere along the picked up stitches from the lace pattern, which is over halfway back on the bind off row.

And since I can't bear the idea of leaving it, I am going to tink all the way back and re-bind off.  The bind off that took three hours?  Yep, I'll be repeating about half of that, not to mention the time it takes to rip out a blocked edging and wash the yarn to get the kinks out.

Sigh.  The things I do for art.

Save Those Dates!

Warning: Wedding talk ahoy! If weddings aren't your jam, feel free to stop here!

 

I have to say, in the wedding planning process, I am one of those people who has to be dragged through the mud kicking and screaming just to get a yes or no answer to pretty much anything.  I deeply don't care about what the chairs look like.  I had to be persuaded to decide what, exactly, I wanted my bridesfolks to wear.  Cake?  Uhhhh, haven't really figured out cake yet.  (Personal note to cake: it's not you, it's me!  Don't leave, I love you!)

I'm really excited to be married... but I sorta hate wedding planning.

So in the middle of all of it, I am so glad that there have been a few things that we've stuck to since the very beginning.  We wanted an amazing photographer, and macaroni & cheese at the reception, and we wanted to send out adorable paper cards made by Lumberjack's mom.  Check, check, and check.

And even though I feel terribly behind in sending them, Lumberjack and I spent the better part of three hours last week hand-addressing envelopes, filling them with our seriously lovely Save the Date cards, and putting tiny vintage flower stamps on the front.  When they were all put together and in a stack, it felt so good - neat, and beautiful, and best of all, finished!

And I realized: hey, I like this part of wedding planning - the part where things come together.  And, admittedly, the part where I get to stop stressing out about it and eat my damn cake.

The Politics of Hemlines

Okay, so this is a difficult post to write.  And perhaps more than you wanted to know about me.  But I also feel compelled to talk about it, because it's been a long, long time coming.

Part I: A Picture

Recently, this photo by a flickr user named roseaposey went viral on Tumblr and the internet in general.  Understandably, this has some connections to the fashion and sewing community, as hemlines are both a practical and a stylistic concern.  It's started a conversation on these words: what they mean, who gives them meaning, who gets to use them, and who is hurt when these words are used against her.

It also strikes a major chord for me, because I'm always and forever an Oberlin student.

But more importantly, because I'm a survivor of sexual violence.

 I recognize the condescension and mock-concern in these words; the gross subtext that the length of your skirt says more about your sexuality than your words and actions do.

I recognize the slut-shaming words, because my best friend at the time used them to describe my experience to me, and thought that it was okay to do so.  I doubted my own feelings for years because of words like these.

I recognize the desire to believe that longer hemlines will protect you.  I changed to a simple wardrobe of slacks and different colored t-shirts for years after it happened, thinking that I could make myself invisible by changing what I wore.

I also recognize, almost seven years later, that a layer of fabric cannot protect you from someone who wants to hurt you.  That was a long and difficult lesson to learn, and ultimately not a very uplifting one.

In general, the older I get, the less okay the whole thing seems.

This picture says so many complicated things, and it makes people angry.  And maybe they should be angry, because it's absurd that these words are acceptable ways to talk about - or to - women.  They are not an okay way to pigeonhole women's experience, whether it's "slutty" or "proper".  Words on both sides of this spectrum are insulting, because they imply that sexuality is the only reason a woman would ever wear anything, and that sexuality is relegated to the young and stereotypically attractive, and that different levels of skin display are quantifiable levels of sexual availability.

All of this is bullshit, and I think the artist is doing a beautiful job of calling it out as such.

Women have different reasons for wearing what they do. Maybe she has a hormonal imbalance that makes her overheat in everything she wears, so she wears camisoles under her blazers.  Maybe she's a teenager and loves cut-off shorts because her unbearably cool older sister wears them.  Maybe she loves wearing historical clothes because she finds the story behind them fascinating.  Maybe her partner just died and she's wearing the dress she wore to their first anniversary.  Or, maybe she just feels comfortable and beautiful.

Any one of these reasons is reason enough.  No matter what a woman is wearing, she deserves not to be judged and shamed for it.

Part II: A Life, Complicated

I have very mixed feelings about writing about this.  But it's also hard not to talk about it, because the experience shaped my life profoundly.

My life pretty much fell apart when I was raped, and it was further complicated when the man who hurt me was murdered during a dispute between him and my former landlord.  I was 18 and naive, and that made me feel responsible - for both my own trauma and his death - for a long time.  He wasn't a great person, but he also deserved to live.  I struggled between compassion for him and hatred for a person who no longer existed.  Sometimes I still do.

When I think about my 18-year-old self, I just want to hug her and tell her that she'll be okay.  I want to tell her that other people's disbelief doesn't make her anger and despair any less real.  I want to tell her that this won't happen to other women.

But I can't.  And that will always be hard.

Since then, I've pulled my life back together.  I distanced myself from former friends who mocked my story rather than believing it.  I went to college and graduated.  I started making friends again.   I like to think that I've made a better life for myself than the one that fell apart.

But sometimes the weight of this story is too much.  It feels like I'm keeping a secret because I don't want to be shamed, when the real problem is that my survival is seen as shameful rather than strong.

In the end, I think that this is what the photographer was trying to critique: that in this society, silencing women with sexualized shame and judgment is as easy as using the right word to describe her hemline.  And this has to change.

This Is Just To Say

All this yarn

All this yarn I can't knit

It's so pretty

The End

Collection Fabrics

  

I was at the school alone the other night, and I decided to pull all my fabrics out and take a look at them together.  I'd been having a nagging feeling that some gorgeous printed crepe de chine I bought a few months ago was not going to fit as well into the collection as I hoped, so I piled all my fabrics onto a table and arranged them by outfit.  When I put the aforementioned crepe de chine with the other colors, it was okay, but when I switched it out for the Liberty Tana Lawn I bought a week or so ago, everything just clicked.

I made a little schematic of each outfit, since I've found that visual guides really help me.  I still have to map out a detailed schedule, but I've started looking at how much work I have to do in the time that I have.  What you see here is 12 garments; two are hand-knit sweaters that you've already seen, and I've started working on the white camisole and the pink blouse.  So I have 13 weeks, starting January 1st, to make 12 garments.

Yikes.

Doing patternwork on a few pieces already has simultaneously made me feel better and worse.  Better: it's possible, and in fewer than 10 muslins.  (Thanks, black dress, for that harrowing experience!)  Worse: it's still a lot of work, and by a lot of work, I mean, I'm going to be knitting and sewing my little fingers off and muttering to myself under my breath until April 13th around ten pm.  Sounds like fun, huh?

In light of this fact, unfortunately, I'm going to have to reduce my blog schedule again.  I'm hoping to post in-progress photos, but it might be at 2 am on a Tuesday, or it might be at 8 pm on a Friday.  There might be less written content as well.  Hopefully I can resume a normal schedule sometime in late April.

Thanks for bearing with me, and have a great week!

Waiting

   

The last month or so has been tough on almost every front - school, life, knitting - and my blocking basket is showing it.  I've been knitting a lot, actually, but you wouldn't know it to look at the blog or my Ravelry project pages.  Because as soon as I finish something, it gets cast aside for a new project, even though it just needs those easiest last steps of blocking and photographing.

So I have 1500 yards worth of projects, just waiting.  Two shawls, two cowls.  And honestly, if we're keeping count, another two small scarves are waiting for buttons and a sweater needs blocking before I can finish the collar.  Egads.

Unfortunately, it might be like this until... well, April.  I have to have my black dress completely done by December 20th, which is a big hurdle.  But then I have to start working on my line, and take winter quarter classes, and finish up some classwork, and... well, you can see how it keeps on piling up.

I am optimistic, however: this week was majorly derailed when I caught a cold on Tuesday, so I'm hoping that next week I will be able to go to school and bust out some work (and write some blog posts with Real Content!), instead of hiding in bed for three days with my stuffed dolphin and copious amounts of Gatorade and tissue.  And maybe I can get some blocking and photographing in, too.

Onward, Friday!

Well then.

So about a week ago, I got super excited about Finishing All The Things! and reached into my basket of things to finish.  I was all set to seam my Zelda sweater, when I realized two things.  First, I knit the sleeves with the wrong stitch pattern - no big deal, they look pretty good anyhow.

The second thing is a much bigger problem.

When I set in the sleeve, I noticed this gigantic blob of fabric in the front that wouldn't go away no matter how I eased it in.  In pictures it doesn't look so bad, but in real life, it's quite bulbous.  I don't need an extra pouch by my armpit, no matter how convenient it might be to keep my keys/wallet/spare ball of yarn handy.

Sooo after all of the problems that I've had with this sweater, this made me go all

But then I remembered that I've been practicing this fitting stuff at school every day for the last three months!  So I got my pins and pinned in some of the excess fabric.

The problem, though, is that unlike woven fabric, I can't just hack off that extra inch of fabric.  So I'm going to re-knit the sleeve, probably fix my "oops I accidentally the pattern" mistake, and change the shape of the front of the sleeve cap.

So why did this happen?  Well, as near as I can figure, it's because I have forward-rotated shoulders.  This means that I usually need a shorter armhole & corresponding edge of sleeve shaping on the front than the back, and it would explain why there's too much fabric in the front of the sleeve.

Although in sewn garments, there has to be a difference between the front and back sleeve shaping in order to fit most people correctly, knitted garments have more versatility in fit, and most times knitted sleeves look roughly like this:

Normal knitted sleeve

They are identical on both the front and back sleeve shaping, and most of the time this works fairly well.

But this sweater pattern has a very distinct shape and fit in the sleeves, and there is no way that the above sleeve pattern is going to attain that fit on someone whose fitted sleeve looks roughly like this:

Cory's wacky sleeve of amazingness!  Hooray!

So it makes total sense, even if it is infuriating.  It just goes to show: the difference between a "pretty much okay, I guess" sweater and an amazing sweater is purely in the details.

I might have to let this simmer for a bit and then give it another shot.  I'm sure glad I have an extra ball of the yarn!

A Small Gripe

ETA: photo changed to a delightful Mackie photo - I don't want to complain about a particular pattern or designer, as I feel this is unfair and counter to my intent, which is to have a discussion!  Thanks again for all your input.

There's a constant conversation in the knitting community about the "correct" ways to do things.  And I definitely think that there are many correct ways to get to the same results - it doesn't really matter how you knit, as long as you like how you knit!  I sometimes get people telling me that I should switch to continental-style knitting because it's faster, but to be honest, I like my pokey English style.  And I think that's a totally legit reason to do what you do: "because I want to," full stop.  Knitting is for fun, and it should be fun for everybody who does it!  (Unless they don't want it to be fun, in which case, that's deeply weird but probably scratches some itch that I don't have.)

I do, however, get a little more opinionated when it comes to knitting patterns, and that is because they are one person's way of thinking that needs to be accessible by many knitters of varying skill levels and learning styles.  I get a little frustrated when I encounter patterns where the online errata has vanished or the charts are done in a non-standard charting system.  I do understand, though, that things can be complicated: copyright can change hands and chart software is expensive, for example.  I will still be cranky about it, but at the end of the day, shit happens and sometimes I have to just take a breath and deal with it.

The thing the bugs me the most, though, that's totally preventable: complex stitch patterns that are written only, without charts.

I'm the kind of learner who doesn't do abstract concepts.  You could verbally tell me how to change a tire a thousand times, and I wouldn't get it until you physically put me in front of a car and explained it while pointing at things.  And it's especially true in knitting.  I get lost in written stitch patterns: I skip things, and I read the wrong line, and I feel fuzzy and lost without a picture of what it should look like.  The second you put a chart in front of me, though?  Blammo!  I'm the best knitter in Ze World!  Of COURSE it's a shell pattern with yarnovers on every row and nupps in the center of the leaves on the border motif!  It's right there in the chart!

So it bugs me a lot when I pay for a pattern - a complicated pattern with varying stitch counts on every row - and then when I take a closer look, there isn't a chart to be found.  I don't really want to spend an hour and a half muddling through charting that stitch pattern, when the designer already knows what it looks like and how it changes.  It makes me a sad, frustrated panda, and I'm not sure know how to deal with it in a way that's respectful of the work of the designer while still acknowledging my needs and frustration.

And I think the opposite must be true for folks who are abstract, conceptual thinkers.  I have a few knitting friends who only work from written instructions, and have a hell of a time finding lace shawl patterns that have written instructions.  Bottom line is that it seems to be a common problem among knitters of both flavors.

So this prompts some questions for me: what is (and isn't) the responsibility of the knitwear designer, and what is the best way to make patterns accessible for the largest number of knitters?  Does it make sense to have multiple versions of a pattern available, so that knitters who love charts can work from a charts-only pattern, and knitters who love written instructions can use those?  Is it even fair to ask the designer to essentially write two different versions of the same pattern, which can take twice as much time and energy?

I'm also curious what the ratio of chart-knitters to instruction-knitters is.  Is it 1:1, or 10:1, or 1:10?

What do you guys think?

Stash: Nutmeg Prairie

I woke up this morning feeling like I have a small mammal hanging out in my lungs.  And when I finally got up to take some new pictures from a recent stash swap, the back porch was swarmed with obnoxious little bugs all over everything.  I guess today is not my day for productivity!

So instead, here are some pictures of a skein of Madtosh Prairie I bought a few weeks ago in a moment of weakness.  I don't have many yellows in my stash, and I've long admired Tosh's beautifully saturated golden yellows, particularly this one, which is called Nutmeg.  I'll have to find a good shawl to make out of it.

All right... time to try again at productivity - hope everyone has a great day!

WIP: Ginger, with a Snag

Yesterday, I spent a few hours working on the Ginger wearable muslin.  Other than needing a good pressing, looks good, right?

 

SIGH.

So the story is, I finished sewing in the invisible zipper yesterday afternoon, and it was beautiful.  The waistband didn't quite match at the zipper, which I wasn't super happy about, but I could live with it.  I just kept repeating "two-dollar muslin, two-dollar-muslin" and everything seemed to work out pretty well.

And then, excited to see how it fit, I zipped myself up into the skirt.  It fit perfectly!  It hit just the right place on my waist!  Hooray, I am not totally hopeless as a seamstress!

Then I went and sewed up the back seam and tried it on again to see how the skirt hung when all the seams were sewn properly.  But as I was zipping it up again, it stuck a little bit.  I jiggled it and pulled it gently.... and it raced up, skipped a few teeth, and jammed.

So here I am alone in my apartment in the middle of a relatively warm day (for Seattle), wearing a scratchy wool skirt and starting to having a conniption fit because I keep on tugging the zipper and it doesn't budge and I've just spent two hours fighting with this stupid fabric that falls apart when you look at it sideways and dammit, you stupid fucking zipper.

After running around hyperventilating for a few minutes, I finally had a duh moment, grabbed my seam ripper, and pulled the zipper out of the seam.

And now, it lies on my sewing table, mocking me.  I have to buy another zipper, because this one's toast.  And right now, me and the skirt, we're not exactly on speaking terms.

I think this calls for a knitting break.

Thankful.

I've been having a sucky couple of days - silverfish in the bathtub, frustration at school, hardcore awful eczema that only seems to respond to steroids... the list goes on.  So, because I'm feeling a little too cranky for my own liking, here's a short list of things that I love and appreciate today.

copyright Joji Locatelli

1.  Joji Locatelli's June knitalong scarf, To Infinity and Beyond.  I love this pattern, and I think it looks gorgeous in a lightly variegated yarn.  I found it a few weeks ago on Ravelry and loved it, but forgot to favorite it... then completely forgot who designed it or what it was called.  With Lumberjack's help, I searched my web history (which was hard, because I troll patterns on Ravelry... a lot) and found it by searching KAL and cowl.  Win!

I think this skein of Dream in Color Smooshy With Cashmere is just the ticket to make a big, squishy pink-purple version of this cowl.

2.  Lists.

I wrote this list of all of the classwork I have to finish a few weeks ago, and have been steadily chipping away it since.  It's felt really good to get things finished.  It's also interesting that I feel so much better about myself and life in general when I have structure and goals.  I think that has been a big adjustment for me since graduating; where college was about living up to other people's expectations, post-grad life has been much more about figuring out what expectations I have for myself.  The last year has been hard in that way, but I think (hope?) there's been forward progress.

3.  Friends.

A few weeks ago, two different friends sent me wonderful things - one in the mail, and one home with Lumberjack from work.  A few weeks before that, one of my best knitting friends from college - who is currently living abroad - sent me a gift shawl pattern on Ravelry.  It made me feel really loved, and it made me miss them like crazy.

I've also been spending time with some really awesome women in both my new knitting group and my Issaquah knitting group, and I can't even say how much I enjoy hanging out with them every week.

Since moving and starting to work harder at school, I feel like I've been really sucking at giving back in these friendships, but I'm hoping that I can come back down to earth and be a good friend again soon.

4.  People who post silly animal pictures and videos on the intarwebs for all to enjoy.

cute rat picture does not belong to me... but still cute!

There - crankiness averted!