Becca's Blog

Velcro is the devil's fastener.

Or maybe it's just that Velcro is the enemy of knits.  In the past few weeks I've spent a lot of work time away from my office, which has meant schlepping things in lots of different bags. And because it's been cold and wet, I was wearing lots of sweaters and usually a parka of some sort.

During a two-week time span, Velcro fasteners on my bags and jackets snagged two scarves, three sweaters, and a ball of yarn--numerous times. And every single time, I was annoyed, although I eventually stopped being surprised by it. The most annoying one was the Velcro strip on the *inside* of my REI soft briefcase, which is meant to secure a padded laptop insert. When you take the laptop and insert out of the case, and put knitting in, minus the customary plastic bag because you're trying to pare down the amount of crap you neurotically carry around, the result is yarn that is markedly fuzzier in spots.

Finally, a picture.

  carwash 
  Originally uploaded by beccaf

I've been uploading photos to Ravelry diligently, but not putting them on the blog, so it's gotten a little text-heavy around here. So this is an experiment in blogging from Flickr, which I've never done before. I'm all about the efficiency, you know.

This is the finished carwash flaps scarf, btw, in an overexposed, not so flattering photo.

A touch of startitis, a touch of tendinitis.

The latter makes the former especially sucky. It's been a pretty sucky week all in all, but at least I haven't caught the awful flu that's been felling my acquaintances left and right.

So the startitis is a bit my own fault--I'm the one who had the knit-in with the "no WIPs allowed" rule. So I had to cast on for the Tuscany shawl. I do love the simple, symmetrical lace pattern, and the fingering-weight alpaca-silk I'm using feels pretty perfect.  But I haven't knit any more on it for a couple of weeks, and that's not really my fault. I'm feeling the pressure of multiple new babies, including one set of twins--which are coming to some good friends this spring. The twins' parents have seen the blue baby blankie, so a coupla hats is really not going to be good enough to give them. And I've been thinking that mom-to-be could definitely use some spoiling herself, considering what she's enduring. So I cast on some Maine Morning Mitts with Patons Soy Wool Stripes (in Geranium--it's gorgeous). I tried to do two at once on two circulars, but I just cannot manage that cast-on. So I've got two going using the Magic Loop on two identical circulars. And I started looking at baby kimono patterns, and I can't decide between the one-piece one in Mason-Dixon Knitting and Dogs Steal Yarn Cari's Baby Yoda Sweater. So I cast on the back of the Baby Yoda Sweater in some pink superwash wool, and I'm planning some bibs and burp cloths. And maybe a couple of Baby Moderne blankets. Not only that, I got to thumb through New Pathways for Sock Knitters at Maia's place, and saw that the Coriolis socks would make extremely cute booties, so I'm desperate to try them, and to make some Ridiculous Ruffled Baby Socks.

My so-close-to-the-yoke-I-can-taste-it Lopi-esque pullover is also languishing--and I have yet another new project on the needles. Last Saturday I went to the first session of the Temescal bag class at Knit-One-One, and worked on that pretty much all day. It's going to be a very cute bag, and I was really happy to get to take the class. Even so, I'm not going to be ready to start the handles tomorrow--it's going to have to wait until the next weekend, if I'm even far enough then. The sucky tendinitis means I really need to leave the knitting alone, or the tendinitis will get worse, and I'll never finish any of the knitting. It also means I need to go easy on the keyboarding and mousing, particularly the recreational sort.

So what am I doing with all that extra time? Trying to get enthusiastic about yoga and other full-body physical activity, like picking up the house. Oh yeah, it's a great substitute hobby. Actually, I'm trying to read more as well, which is a good thing, and much more pleasant than housework (makes me smarter, too).

No resolutions.

OK, well, a couple of resolutions for the new year.

When Jane and I took a walk on New Year's Day we talked about how we think the coming year will be. I said--and it's true--that I pretty much endlessly harangue myself to be a better person, so in that respect January 1 is just another day. And as I get older, I'm less willing to set the kinds of goals that I can't meet.

But back in early November, when lots of bloggers were pledging to write a novel in a month, or blog every day for a month, or knit a sweater in a month (all things that I knew I couldn't do, even though the last two were intriguing), I thought about my appreciated but unused cookbooks. I don't have a huge cookbook collection, but I have a lot, and I don't cook from them routinely. So I thought that I'd like to pledge to use one of my cookbooks every day. And then work ate my life, which was the end of that thought. (And btw, why can't we do these "NaNo" things in, say, March when nothing else is going on? November is a busy month for most people, for crissake!)

And this week, I've been trying to declutter the house a bit, in advance of having my New Year, New Project knit-in on Sunday afternoon. (Anyone within driving distance of Berkeley is welcome to come. Give a shout if you'd like details.)

So anyway, a big element of the clutter in our house is books. We both love books, we both work for book publishers, I have this bedrock belief that a book will tell you anything you want to know or help you solve any problem you have--books pile up in our house. So I've been purging, and I have an adult human's weight in books set aside to leave the house, and it doesn't appear to make any difference. The remaining inventory does not fit neatly on the bookshelves, and there are still books piled up on the floor in my office. (For Christmas we usually get quite a few books, I've been amassing professional reading, and I've brought some childhood sentimental favorites home from my parents' place ... you see the problem. Let's not talk about my relationship to magazines.)

Hence, I have three interconnected resolutions related to books:

First, I will not bring any more books into the house without getting rid of an equal number. This is going to be a hard one to stick to. Borrowed books don't count, of course.

Second, I will read from my stash. I'm going to start working my way through all those worthy books I've collected, then find them good homes.

Third, I will pull out a cookbook and try a new recipe a couple of times a week.

I think I can stick with these resolutions.

Curses, miscalculated again!

After all the whining, and weighing, and ripping back, I finished the edging of the blue baby blankie and had a *whole skein* of yarn left over.

I don't want this yarn. I wanted to be rid of it. I am, however, glad to be done with the blankie. It went to its recipient last week, shortly after Christmas. He's five months old now, and quite charming. He chewed on the blankie a bit and seemed to approve.