The Temporary Blahs
Knitting Ho-Hums
I taught Basketweave Rugs at Threadbear on Sunday. That meant I got to be in the middle of a hub of a whole lot of knitters during a big sale. Add the fact that this is a holiday weekend, where folks just came to the shop to knit for entertainment, and it was a rollicking good time. I met one woman from Arizona, and one from Cincinnatti, Ohio, and one from Muskegon, MI which is a hike even though in this state. On a holiday, people will travel for yarn!
I got talking to Sarah Peasley and another local knitter whose name escapes me now. We all three had found ourselves on Saturday night, bored of our current knitting projects. Now, it is my experience that knitters do not generally get bored. We may flit from one passion to the other, we may be undecided which passion to pursue today, but bored is not a commonly used word in our lives.
Yet all three of us sitting there agreed that on Saturday night, we surveyed the possible knitting projects, noted that nothing sounded particularly good, and considered just going to bed early. We were actually bored. We figured maybe it was the way the planets were aligned or something… it was just too odd for it to happen just that way without some reason!
What I ended up doing Saturday, was that I pulled out a wrap I started when it was still snowing. I was trying to knit spring into existance! The wrap is mostly spring green with some turquoise and blue. I’m making it just for me, without a pattern in mind, just randomly knitting 5 yarns as I go. It is about 100 stitches or so, knit the long way, and I maybe did 5 rows before I fell asleep a bit early.
A Race to the Finish
However, Sunday brought new purpose. I knew this was coming… Brian’s birthday is Tuesday. Now, I could have started him a pair of socks on Saturday night. But I wanted to make his sox in sportweight yarn and I only had purple or turquoise or purple jacquard in sportweight.
I knew I’d be at Threadbear, that they were having a 20% off everything sale, and that I’d been itching to knit again with some wonderful washable sport/DK weight yarn I’d knit with on the airplane on my trip to Ethiopia. (Yes, on the airplane. On bamboo 6″ size 1US needles given to me by my friend Luann, just for the trip. I finished the whole pair on the one long plane ride.) It knit fast the first try… I figured the yarn was fat enough for me to speed-knit Brian a pair this weekend.
This would have worked if I had done nothing but knit from the time I left Threadbear until Brian’s birthday. As it is, I’m very close to finishing the first sock. But Tuesday I have a dance class at Happendance. Immediately after that I have a mini-rehearsal followed by a performance with two other Habibi Dancers, for a 100th birthday party. We should get out of there about 4pm.
That pretty much guarantees that I won’t finish a whole pair by Brian’s birthday dinner. Thank goodness, he’s not much for expectations. He won’t expect any present at all, and if I show him the one finished sock, he’ll be very happy to wait a few days until I can complete the second. I did, indeed, marry the right guy!
Confessions
I did buy yarn at the Threadbear sale. There is some Colinette handpainted wool ribbon called Tagliatelli which I adore. It’s intense turquoise with bits of purple and green (Colorway: Neptune). It’s “Squooshy” which I know is not an official English word, but that word says it all. I just love everything about this yarn!
I have been visiting it every single time I went to Threadbear, for months. I pick it up, hug it, then put it back on the shelf. Sometimes I take it to a friend in the store so I can share my delight in its perfection, before I put it back. The stuff is just too darned pricey for an impulse purchase. I hear that Colinette is not expensive in Australia and the UK, but the import fees make it pretty much out of reach for this self-employed grrl in the USA.
To justify buying this lovely stuff, first I had to figure out what the heck would be a good thing to make with it… especially since two skeins was really at the upper reaches of my yarn budget. I finally realized that a tight-fitting shrug, basically two sleeves connected at the back, for dancing, was a perfect answer. I have a cheap, purchased acrylic/nylon shrug I wear a LOT. I dance at least 4 hours a week and most of that time I wear this shrug (dance rooms are nearly always too cold for me). So wearing the wool sleeves instead would be a step up (both in beauty and comfort) and it would not be a frivolous purchase, since I’d wear it a good deal.
Having solved that mystery, I then had to figure out how to justify the purchase. Usually I buy yarn that is for work projects, this or that sock I’m designing or this or that class I’m teaching. Right now I don’t see a shrug pattern in my future, though stranger things have happened.
I fantasized about a gift certificate in my future, but my birthday is in November. Ugh. And let’s face it, summer is a slow time for knitting teachers. I’m probably not heading into a new prosperity in the next month or two.
But then the boyz of Threadbear throw a 20% off sale at me. And Colinette almost never, ever goes on sale. Jump now, or regret later. The boyz make it hard on me sometimes… though they really do treat me as though they love me, so I can not complain too much.
In the end, I bought on sale two skeins of Lana Grossa Merino 2000 Cool Wool (unshrinkable merino, gorgeous stuff) in loden green for Brian’s socks (a pre-planned purchase I would have made with or without a sale), and two skeins of my beloved Tagliatelli. Ouch! Thank goodness I earned some money teaching there the same day, so the total seemed do-able. I can’t do this every day, but I will really love working with these yarns, and wearing my shrug when it’s done.
Memorial Day Turned Sunny
For the record, Monday turned out beautiful here. It was supposed to rain but it did not. I slept in a little, went with Brian to the neighborhood diner where he had breakfast and I had tea and knit his sock.
Then we came home and had a lazy day (I even took a nap) until dinnertime. We drove to the Grass Garden at MSU, then the Perennial Garden and the Annual Garden (those are right next to one another), then we walked into East Lansing (parked on campus) and found that an Indian restaurant was open.
We enjoyed our meals… his was spicy eggplant and chai tea, mine was medium okra and black tea. While we ate, we watched clips from movies all by the same very good looking actor/singer (who sings in Hindi language).
Indian musicals are amazing! Some of the scenes had easily 75 people all dancing at once. I found the dancing styles very fascinating… saw some Michael-Jacksonesque moves (especially arm gestures, lots of them) and some moves (head slides, shoulder moves, gentle hand movements) that reminded me of things we do in Mideastern dance… And the costumes! Indian women just have the best clothing (for making a woman look beautiful) of all women in the world, in my opinion.
We went home and sat on the porch till the sun went down. Brian worked on a website on his laptop and I did some spinning. I am still working on some electric purple mohair roving I bought at Michigan Fiber Fest last year. I seem to spin forever and the “bump” of mohair stays big. The bobbin is almost full, so I probably spun about a half a large bobbin today. It felt like I spun forever and got little done. It was very relaxing, though.
Tomorrow I’ll probably post some garden photos and perhaps the story of how I “designed” Brian’s socks. Until then, have a wonderful evening!