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Archive for April 3rd, 2007

Bummed Out

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

I’m grieving a bit… not a death of a person this time, thank goodness. Just the loss of a dream. I thought I’d be going to Chicago to see Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (Yarn Harlot) tonight. It looked like I might even be going with Rae. (I missed the Ann Arbor talk to work at Threadbear, not a bad reason at all, but I really wanted to see Stephanie.)

forsythiabush.jpgNow Rae isn’t going, and I’m not going, and I’m bummed. I love Stephanie, and I wanted to Represent. To be one of the zillion knitters who show up on her tour and make a statement that we knitters are many, among other things. She filled a 750-person auditorium in NYC last week… I longed to be one of them.

The weather is supposed to be much better in Chicago than Lansing today (although this photo of a fully-blooming bush taken April 2 is proof we have had many good days already). I would have enjoyed the adventure, had I decided to go.

My car needs an alignment (since I hit the curb from distraction when I was in shock from my friend Robert’s early demise). I got new tires already but the self-employed life is such that you must handle essential things (like tires) immediately, but sometimes wait on less-essential things (alignments) until after the next check arrives.

If I drive eight hours on brand new tires without an alignment, the new tires will not be happy. I bought really good tires and I’m not inclined to throw them away early just because I wanted to see my knitting friend at her talk four hours away. After all, she lives only about 5 hours away from me in the other direction… I could just drive to Toronto sometime, right?.

dallasproject7colors.jpgNevermind that the talk is at 7pm Chicago time, which is 8pm our time. Last time I saw Stephanie speak, the line to talk with her was 2 hours long. After a half-hour talk that means I’d leave to arrive back home at no earlier than 2:30am. Now, I usually am awake at 2:30am, sometimes 3:30. However, driving that late alone is different than sitting at my desk that late alone.

Between the time situation, the car situation, and the lack of a companion, I’m staying home. It seems the smart move. There was a time when I would have forced the issue, waking up at 8am and finding a place that would do an alignment the same day… but that would mean being even more tired at the 2am hour. I’m deciding today to be a grown-up adult.

Now I have a day to myself, with no plans. Well, actually I do have one more thing to do for my taxes which will take about an hour and I’ll do that as soon as I hit “post” here.

I am really digging the relative silence in the house. There is the swish of cars going by and the clicking of the keys, but nothing else. I talked to Diana for 10 minutes at noon. I may just sit on the couch and knit my super-fun, super-colorful project for the Dallas runway, in peace and quiet.

I could drive to Ann Arbor to the Border’s knit-in (or the Sweetwater’s knit-in which I’ve never attended but Riin enjoys… she has a good blog… read Riin’s version of the Ann Arbor/Yarn Harlot event). If Diana could go to Borders I’d join her, but she’s fighting a cold so she’ll be staying home.

If it were as warm as it was last week, I could put up the hammock on the porch and read Stephanie’s new book out there. Now maybe I’ll snuggle in a blanket on the couch or in bed and read it there.

I could go see Rae or Altu (at their respective businesses) or sit at the Gone Wired Cybercafe. Right now I feel like hiding from the world, instead.

April is going to be a very social month… first I’m teaching at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Fiber Festival April 13-15, then two weeks later we sing at the New York Ukefest… our concert is Friday April 27 but I have six days marked off my calendar before and after that, depending on how our travel plans go (we will be driving to NYC).

So maybe hiding from the world is the best idea for my “free” day. Meanwhile, I’m going to do a little tax work on the computer first. It’s so close I am pretty sure I can file today.

After that? Probably I will knit on this colorful wondrous project that will become a runway item at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Fiberfest. I have used 7 colors so far, but it will contain 13 yarns/colors by the time I am done.

Hypoteneuse Shawl/Stole

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

I found Anne Hanson/Knitspot from Stephanie/Yarn Harlot‘s web blog. Anne drove to the Represent tour in Cleveland, so she’s a midwesterner of some extraction.

I looked at Anne’s designs. She likes lace and I’m not big on frilly, girly lace. However, I’ll concede that a few yarnovers (artful holes) are OK in something not intending to cover the body. (I do not like lace clothing that isn’t lined.)

Well… I love love love Elsabeth Lavold’s Silky Wool yarn. I have wanted to make a lightweight wrap in it, but have not found a pattern I liked that was un-lace enough. I like geometrics, not flowers and frills. One friend made a beautiful wrap that was pretty darned good in the lace department. However, it was a triangle and I just don’t like to wear triangle shawls.

But now I’m tempted. Anne’s Hypoteneuse Shawl is wonderful. It’s geometric and made of tweedy yarn, and my beloved Silky Wool is listed as one of the yarns that works for the project. And the model? I’ll never do this piece justice next to the very fine urban dude (with amazing dreads) modeling the wrap in Anne’s photos. Wow. This is totally my kind of shawl.

Now, if I could only truly be urban as well… if I knit this shawl do I get to move to Chicago or New York? Or Paris, or London?

I dream, dream, dream of being a true CityGrrl. Maybe wrapping up in this lovely shawl will transform me as fast as a nod of Barbara Eden’s head in I Dream of Jeannie, or a twitch of the nose in Bewitched. I can only hope.

Meanwhile the only guarantee would be that after the knitting I’d be the midwestern middle-sized-city dweller that I already am, but in a stylish wrap. I’d like it.

Now I just need to find the time to knit for me. Not a sample for a shop, not a design in development, not a project for the runway at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Fiber Festival. Knitting for the joy of it, for a piece I could keep when it was done.

I can dream, can’t I?