Punctuality

When I'm running late

Every light I hit is red

I look like a jerk.

No, this isn't today. Disk Dr, Rapid City, SD 07/2004

Santa drives a Geo Metro this year

Part of the adventuring that has kept me from blogging has been the insane amount of time I've been spending in the car.

In my opinion, gifts that take arrangement and planning are usually the best ones. This year, I got my mom the Best Gift Ever. If you listen to the podcast, you know that she has wanted a vintage treadle Singer sewing machine for YEARS. As in, ever since they left the one they had in Germany. Every time a vintage machine is mentioned, or at a yard/estate sale, we stop, and for some reason or another, the machines fail to impress.

Fast forward to Oregon Flock and Fiber 2010. I was chatting with a listener (Elaine, who is AWESOME), who collects and repairs vintage sewing machines. She mentioned that she was looking to unload a few of them (to good homes) and I may have mentioned that Mom has always wanted a vintage treadle Singer. Elaine said she had just the one, and let me know that she would get back to me with pictures.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Elaine sent pictures, stats, and a price, and I was a little lost. It looked really, really good, but I wasn't sure if it was exactly right. So, I blew the surprise and let Mom know that I was going to make this sewing machine happen for her, if it's the right one. I just didn't know enough about a) sewing machines and b) what she was looking for, specifically, to make this decision with confidence. Mom loved it, so I set things in motion.

Here's the tough part. The machine was north of Seattle, and for those of you playing the home game, I live in Silicon Valley. 13 1/2 hours each direction, by car (according to Mapquest). You betcha that this puppy can't be shipped.

"It's ok, Mom," I said, "It's totally worth it. Merry Christmas!"

In a fit of shock, enthusiasm, and perhaps a little self-pity, I posted to Facebook that I might be taking an impromtu road trip Seattle-ward to see a lady about a vintage Singer. A friend of mine (through my BFF Miss Kalendar) generously offered to do the pickup for me. It turns out that she was *already* going to be driving up and back to Seattle, and she didn't mind being one of Santa's non-Unionized elves.

She arranged the pickup details with Elaine, and we made plans for me to pick up the machine from her place (in Santa Rosa) on Wednesday. Joined by my partner in adventuring (Laura), we ran errands all the way up to Santa Rosa and picked up this beauty from Delightful Lila:

I should have told you to brace yourself. Sorry. (Picture courtesy of Elaine, the Singer fairy)

What? You need a better look at the machine itself? I understand.

Have you ever seen anything more perfect? (Picture courtesy of Elaine, the Singer fairy)

Laura and I had a long, traffic-riddled drive home after the machine pickup, so we decided to stop for dinner. Fortunately, I had a recommendation from the incredible Rosemary Hill. Other than being a brilliant knitwear designer and creator of AMAZING jewelry, she also has phenomenal taste in food. She recommended Syrah Bistro in Santa Rosa.

I love a good Syrah, and along with having a staggeringly awesome wine selection, the food was incredible! We had the world's best waitress (sever? Is "waitress" still PC?), and enjoyed a leisurely meal while we waited out traffic. We got home just after 10 PM, and the guys cheerfully unloaded it into Mom's house.

Mom had seen the pictures, and it's even more beautiful in person. The gasp of delight as we walked through the door with the cabinet and the machine was amazing. (For the record, historically when Mom has gasped, it's Not a Good Thing.) Andrew still has to mount the machine on the cabinet, but it's on the docket for today so that Mom can start enjoying the machine now.

Thanks to Elaine the Singer Fairy and Delightful Lila, Andrew and I have managed to make this the best Christmas ever for Mom. The best gifts are the ones that require Ocean's 11 type planning and precision, don't you think?

Full of spirit

I have been swept up by the Holiday Spirit. That means something different for everyone, I know, but for me it means baking, Christmas music, and family functions. I have strict rules around the holidays, but they're mostly there so that I can really get my jolly on.

Like my main rule, no Christmas music before Thanksgiving. First Halloween, then Thanksgiving, THEN Christmas. Get it straight, retailers. I love Christmas music, just at the right time of year. I especially love *my* holiday playlist, which includes Michael Bublé (shock!), Frank Sinatra, Brian Setzer's orchestra, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and a few of the Carols for Cure CDs which support Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

I'm most enthusiastic about the last set of CDs. It's holiday music done by Broadway actors. Aside from supporting a great cause, the music is pretty great.  Some of the songs are interpreted in the style of the show that the singers were doing (concurrent with the recording), and some are the classic arrangements performed by wicked talented singers. (I put all my holiday music into iTunes, make sure the genre is tagged with "Holiday", and play it all on shuffle.)

On a more traditional note, we went to see MiddleJ perform in The Nutcracker last night. I'm not normally a fan of ballet, but I am MiddleJ's biggest fan, and not in the creepy Kathy-Bates-in-Misery way. (By the way, thanks Steven King. Way to ruin a perfectly nice sentiment.) MiddleJ is incredibly talented, and I find more and more to enjoy about the performance every year.

This year, it was the wicked adorable little kids in the production, mostly the ones playing mice, soldiers, and the cutest of all, the lambs. Watching little kids do ballet is ADORABLE. They remind me of a herd of puppies- cute and enthusiastic, which upstages all of the fancy-pants ballet dancers. (This is scientific proof that enthusiasm trumps talent, for the record.)

In any case, at the end of the show, I took the opportunity for a knitterly photo-op:

(The photo is blurry, but my photographer is tall and handsome. You understand.)

What's that? A sock with a future afterthought heel? It's the sock of choice for all Nutcrackers; you saw it here first.

You can't always get what you want

Dear Cece;

I miss knitting on you. I know that when you arrived in the mail, I (practically) tore through the Tyvek envelope with my teeth to free you, balled you up immediately, swatched, and cast on within the hour. There is just one thing keeping me from you, and we both know what that is.

Sweater Swap 2010: A Twist Cardigan for Meghan, from the Stitch It! Podcast.

Meghan's sleeves. I honestly don't remember the sleeves on my own Twist taking this long. I blame the fact that Meghan is taller than I am, Cece. Every row on this pair of sleeves is like an eternity away from you.

What I'm saying, Cece, is that while knitting cables feels more appropriate for the practically Canadian weather we've been having in California, I'd rather be knitting you.

But I will tell you one thing, Cece. If your sleeves take HALF this long, you're going straight to time out. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Love,

Jasmin

Get them while they're young

Last night, we celebrated MiddleJ's 17th birthday. I'm totally stunned at the fact the kids are growing up at light speed and turning into charming young adults. The milestones (birthdays, graduations, etc) feel like suckerpunches - we see all the kids with relative frequency, but it's the milestones that remind us all that they're growing up.

In any case, I decided to pull a few articles out of my winter closet for the occasion. It's been Very Very Cold (<60 F), which gives me a chance to wear my beautiful knits. I chose charcoal slacks, one of my Jackie O turtlenecks, a black silk cardigan, and my Juno Regina stole. I knit the stole a million years ago, and it doesn't get nearly enough wear. See?

Juno Regina, knit out of Handmaiden Sea Silk in "Pumpkin". 'tis the season, yo.

In any case, I showcased it by stylishly wrapping it around my neck with the pointed ends in front. The whole ensemble made me feel six feet tall, and like I was walking a runway regardless of what I was actually doing. (And let's face it, I have a FIERCE runway walk.)

Then, out of NOWHERE, came an amazing moment. Another niece, who I'll call Galette (because she is sweet, not fussy, and does her own thing), paid my Juno a compliment.

"Aunt Jasmin, your scarf is really pretty," says Galette.
"This? I knit this," I said, a little shocked.
"You MADE this?" Galette and LittleJ took time to investigate the pointed ends.
"I did."
"Could you make me one for Christmas?" Galette asked, hopeful.
I snorted, "Christmas is a month away. That is so not happening."
"Next Christmas?" Galette was still trying, and I found her optimism adorable.
"No. But, I can teach you how to knit, and by next Christmas, you could make one of these for yourself," I offered sincerely.

At this point, LittleJ mentioned that she had gone back to her knitting. I taught all Three Js to knit when Andrew was living in the cottage attached to their house, seven or eight years ago. The kids were interested, and as any self-respecting knitter knows, you strike while the iron is hot and plant that seed early.

It WORKED.

Long, long ago, LittleJ wanted to make a Gryffindor scarf. So, as any good aunt would, I enabled. I bought them Kids Knitting by Melanie Falick, hoping that the initial lessons would spark a lifelong knitting flame. LittleJ worked on it for a while, but her interest waned. It happens.

Fast forward to Thursday night, when LittleJ and her friends were all going to the midnight premiere of the new Harry Potter movie. LittleJ remembered her neglected scarf, and since they were dressing up for the event, she grabbed it in hopes that she could wear it that night. She noticed that it still was finished, so she grabbed her trusty knitting book, and flipped through it until she found the section for binding off. (For the record, she refers to binding off as just "binding". I dig it.)

In true knitterly fashion, her friends were in the car waiting for her, while LittleJ is saying things like, "I need to finish binding my scarf!!!" She did, she wore it, and I think she might just have gotten that little hit of knitting that has the potential to become a lifelong obsession. (Or perhaps it is I who is the optimist now.)

In any case, as the night progressed, it seems that all the girls there (MiddleJ, LittleJ, Galette, and the Equestrienne) want to start (or in some cases, revisit) knitting. When they started talking about this, the hills were alive with the sound of knitting, and I was Maria Von Trapp.

Since then, in my imagination, I'm leading the kids in a rousing rendition of "Do Re Mi" (but with a knitting twist "YO, a stitch, a hol-ey stitch. K, a simple knitted stitch. V, the shape a knit stitch makes..."). My imagination *might* have completely run away with me. Maybe.

Me? I'm just glad that I was able to leverage knowledge that evil industries have collected for good. Get them while they're young, and they'll be knitters for a lifetime.

Or at least, an aunt can hope.

Where have all the knitters gone?

Let's talk about the zombie apocalypse.

I've been on a zombie flick kick for a while (starting with Zombieland, which was surprisingly good), and I've noticed a distinct lack of people with any actual skills. No architects, no engineers, no farmers or ranchers, but most noticeably? No knitters, tailors, or seamstresses. Not even a couturier can be found. (Admittedly, they are rarer in real life anyway, but still.)

First, let's talk about what I've been watching. I got a double-dose of zombie apocalypse yesterday- the TiVo picked up Land of the Dead which featured my favorite man in a vest, Simon Baker, and John Leguizamo (who I apparently only like in drag). They go a little off-script with the interpretation of zombie mythos- mainly that the zombies are sentient, communicate, and have a leader. (I can just hear the trailers, "One zombie to lead them all...")

The people are all loathsome, the rich have somehow maintained their lifestyle in a gated-type community, the working stiffs fight the zombies, and everyone works for The Man. I briefly thought that this was a movie where people work together to survive. It turns out, it's about the triumph of the zombie spirit, since at the end, we find out that the zombies *only* want a place where they, too, can be safe. And kittens. They want kittens.

We could say that Land of the Dead is dated- since it came out in 2005. AMC has started a series called The Walking Dead, which is utterly captivating. It features Andrew Lincoln (who you might recognize from Love Actually or Teachers), and shows the best and worst of what is left of humanity in the United States. The exposition has been artfully crafted, the characters are being slowly developed, and the zombies seem to be sticking to the classic zombie mythos. (I hate it when they go off-book. Fast zombies, my foot.)

I won't spoil the show for anyone (because if you haven't seen it, you should give it a shot), but we're finally getting to see day-to-day life for the survivors. There is hunting, and people do laundry, but nobody is knitting. Or sewing. Or mending. We finished watching the episode, and it really, really bothered me that given a fixed amount of pre-prepared resources, nobody is thinking ahead.

Let's face it; clothes wear out. Even *if* the cities are full of abandoned department stores, they are also full of zombies. In the best of times, it's hard to find something in your size. Nevermind a store that's been looted. Plus, the gal at the dressing room is probably a zombie. We know from The Matrix that all the future holds for us is sweaters that are full of holes, since "progress" equals never learning how to mend your sweaters. I don't discriminate, apocalypse-wise. I saw 2012, too, and there was (again) a lack of people with actually useful skills. (But LOTS of nasty, movie stereotypes of rich people.)

As an aside, should any apocalypse come, I would rather have my knitting group in my camp than an army of MBAs and entrepreneurs. Or scrapbookers.

Andrew pointed out that the survivors (on The Walking Dead) haven't yet figured out that their clothes will wear out, which I countered with the fact that making clothes? Takes time. Especially if they don't have access to commercial fabric, power, or yarn. When you start from scratch, this stuff takes time. You have limited light, and have to be mindful of repetitive stress. (Though, I pointed out to Andrew that my Victoria was the best wheel for an apocalypse, since it's small and light.)

Plus, while the department stores might get looted, chances are good that you can find an LYS that is (mostly) intact.

So, to summarize, come the zombie apocalypse, come find me. We'll be the warm and well-dressed camp. And as my BFF points out weekly, everyone else will just be food.

(Thanks to my BFF, Miss Kalendar, for the inspiration for this post. Go listen to her podcast, Brass Needles. It's knitting, sci-fi, and brilliant.)

Deductive reasoning

I got home from a great yoga class tonight, but am not feeling stellar. When Andrew called to see if I needed him to pick anything up on his way home from work, we had the following conversation.

Me: I'm not feeling great, I am going to drink some water and go lay down.
Andrew: Did you eat something?
Me: Yeah, and Mom is going to boil noodles to go in some soup for me.
Andrew: What do you think is wrong?
Me: I don't know. Maybe the flu? I feel like butt.
Andrew: It can't be the flu; you got a flu shot.
Me: Well, then it must be butt. Because I didn't get a butt shot.

All hail the foresight to freeze my healing chicken broth so that all it needs are elbows.(And my amazing deductive reasoning.)

Andean ply

Last night, I came to the realization that I needed to take some pictures and do a ton of plying. Here's why:

(This tray has four sides, all of which are full of bobbins.)

Yes, the bobbins aren't full-full. They all have about 1 oz of fiber, which needed to be photographed before I could get it plied up. Thanks to my photography lesson with the incomparable Jade, a little fiddling with my lighting, the settings on my camera, and using my sweet external flash yielded some pretty good results.

So, I sat down to do some plying. I got busy and plied up the Crown Mountain Farms Blue Faced Leicester (from the Fiber of the Month Club), and I got to the end of one bobbin and realized that I still had 20ish yards of single left on the other bobbin.

I've been listening to the Yarnspinner's Tales Podcast at night. Cindy has a lovely voice, and is probably the most articulate person I've ever listened to, when it comes to the technical side of knitting. I'm listening back from the beginning, and in one of the episodes, she talks about Andean plying. For the first time, it really clicked. Basically, you make a center-pull ball around your wrist, and then ply from both ends.

Sounds simple enough, right? So, I decided to use the new skill I learned to finish off the end of the ball. (Normally, I would have Andrew walk back until the spare yardage was exhausted, and then ply until the yardage was done.)

In watching a video on how it's done, there are flashier ways than simply wrapping your wrist with single, but Cindy's description yielded some pretty spectacular results for having done it sight unseen. (You can see a YouTube video of the "right" way of doing it here.) I'm also super-pleased with myself for learning a new spinning skill.

My real motive for feeling the need to clear out bobbins?

That's right, this is what 20 lbs of clean fleece from Morro Fleece Works looks like. My table? Not as spectacular.

My fleeces from Black Sheep Gathering 2010 have started arriving. They're big, beautiful, and demand to be spun.

Just like that disc of Mad Men demands to be watched. Coincidence? I think not.

An afterthought

I've been knitting socks for a million years. However, as with all things, doing something for a long time doesn't necessarily make you an expert. I've basically knit the same pair of socks over and over again (with minor variations) about a million times.

My go-to vanilla pattern has a flap heel, though in college I did some experimentation and went through a period where all of my socks had garter stitch short-rowed heels. (Isn't that what college is about? Experimentation?) In any case, after college (like so many other girls) I went back to my standard flap heel.

If you listen to the podcast, you've heard my mom rave about how addictive afterthought heels are. If you're me, you hear it even more frequently. Like so many other things, her suggestion worked its way into my brain, and I succumbed to peer pressure. I started a pair of beautiful socks (out of Abstract Fiber's Temptation in "Snapdragon") with the express intention of finding out what all the hubbub around afterthought heels was about.

We were watching TV (The Good Guys, my current favorite show), and I decided to take pictures with my phone and tweet my progress.

This is my sock, with the waste yarn placed where the heel should go, 7 inches in. Dog sleeping in background is not necessarily necessary to execute an afterthought heel, but is a snuggly option. If allergic, feel free to substitute with a cat. Or goldfish.

To get to the afterthought heel, I knit my sock to my total foot length, minus the length of two sets of toe decreases. If my foot is a total of 9 1/4", and my usual toe decreases are 1 3/4" long, that would be:

9.25 - 2(1.75)  = 5.75 (<- total length of the foot in inches, pre-toe)

(Do you get as excited about order of operations as I do? I'm going to assume so.)

Next, it's time to pick up stitches:

Next step: Pick up stitches on either side of the waste yarn- or in this case, crochet cotton.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT pull out the waste yarn in a moment of excited enthusiasm. Mom (whose hand is featured in the photo above) was very clear about that when I got feverishly excited about intentionally making holes in my knitting. Pick up your stitches FIRST.

Like that. See? Two needles, stitches are all safe and accounted for.

Now comes the fun part. Mom says that if the waste yarn is slick enough, you can just slide it out. (I'm using mystery crochet cotton, since I'm pretty sure that Herself walked off with my sweet skein of beautiful, slick crochet cotton. She'll deny it, but I have my suspicions.)

Next step: Unpick/slide out your waste yarn. Bonus points if you pretend you're a surgeon, since removing stitches is pretty much the same regardless of your subject.

I don't think anything could have made me happier than seeing my stitches, all tidy and heel-ready blossom open as I undid the waste yarn.

Try it on. Look, it worked!

From here, knit a toe the way you normally would. Use your best kitchener stitching skills on those final remaining stitches, and voilà!

Heel!

So, there is a teeny-tiny hole at the side, but you'll notice the conveniently located tail, which I'll be using to close the hole before I weave it in.


And on that note, I'm going to go and start the second sock while the spirit moves me.

The magic fridge

As I mentioned earlier, LukeWarm and I have had some... speedbumps in our relationship. After realizing how much he was smoking, Mom suggested I help him quit. Mom's suggestion, as always, was right.

Smoking, as we all know, is bad for us and those around us. Especially (in my case) the people who I was trying to impress with my mad pie skills. Nothing gives your guests confidence in your culinary abilities like an surly oven billowing smoke. Even if you insist that it's *supposed* to do that.

This morning I put on my battle gear (cow print apron, gloves, headband), and LukeWarm and I spent some quality time working on getting him to quit smoking. As I started giving LukeWarm his spongebath (part of the terms of him quitting), I realized that I have never seen my mother scrub her oven.

Lest you think poorly of my mother (and her housekeeping), there are lots of things that just happened around the house. The oven and fridge magically cleaned themselves, and more than that, the fridge would magically fill itself.

I discovered that my parents had a magic fridge when Andrew and I first started dating. I would take a glance at my options, take something (or not), and that was that. Except that unlike my parents' fridge, nothing good magically appeared after a couple of days. 

I have known for years that the recipe for a magic fridge involves a responsible adult going to the store and filling it, but there is nothing more disappointing than realizing that you're a terrible fridge fairy.

Like any skill, earning your fridge fairy wings takes practice, effort, and knowing the needs of the people in the house. A good fridge fairy should have:

- Components to cook with
- Nutritious snacks (premade, like string cheese, applesauce, or delicious fruit)
- Yogurt/cottage cheese
- Milk
- Sandwich stuff
- Ice cream, vanilla plus another flavor
- Pot stickers (in the freezer)

(Why yes, despite my attempts at being an adult, those are staples in our house. If we don't have dessert, the terrorists win.)

So, in any case, today's lesson was that a pot scraper, Dawn dishwashing detergent, a new sponge, a few paper towels, and a heavy dose of determination will get the job done.

It also helps to have a Mom who shows you how to avoid all the work next time, by lining the oven with aluminum foil. Which explains why I never saw her scrubbing out the oven.