Just in time

I never claimed to be timely. Just in time for spring, I finished my fingerless gloves last night. (No pictures, unfortunately. It’s a gray, rainy day and my house is like a cave.) I used this pattern, which I had saved from a 2007 page-a-day knitting calendar, and Paton's SWS in Natural Plum.

As more evidence that I shouldn’t knit while watching T.V., I wasn’t completely consistent in recording how many rows I knit, and one thumb is one row shorter than the other. This, of course, is completely obvious to me and driving me crazy. I took a poll of the household: three people can’t tell at all and three cats don’t care enough to even look. I’m vacillating between ripping out one row on the longer thumb and just living with it as an exercise in non-perfectionism.

If I start the summer sweaters I planned for last year and haven’t had time for, do you think I’ll have them ready just in time for the first snowfall?

Projects for me! And weekly inspiration

These days (meaning in the last 13 years, since I was pregnant for the first time), I rarely make anything for myself. The last made-by-me sweater that I owned was a cute, short crocheted tank top, back in the days when I was still young and skinny.

But recently I stopped in at my favorite yarn store. I really wasn’t planning on going there and I certainly wasn’t planning on buying anything at all, much less anything for myself. I’d had a hard day and I wanted to go for a walk to clear my head; I just happened to choose a favorite walking spot that’s in the same neighborhood as this store.

I wasn’t looking for a retail therapy session, and besides, my form of retail therapy is usually very modest: a notebook or a magazine. I just planned to wander around in this store, looking at and touching the yarn. It was meant to be more of a quiet escape than a shopping trip.

But I ended up buying patterns and yarn for not one, but two summer sweaters for myself, one knitted and the other crocheted. Yikes! Neither is an in-front-of-the-TV project (as this is what tends to happen when I knit while I’m distracted), so I have to find some free time to devote to them.

The yarn and patterns have been sitting in their bag in my sewing room for a few weeks now and summer is fast approaching (although with our weather luck lately, we may still be wearing rainboots in August). I’m telling you about them in order to make myself find the time to work on them, instead of having them get buried in the to-do-someday pile. Keep me accountable, please. Just ask me how those sweaters are going once in a while.

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In other news, here are some fun ideas I found in my Internet travels this week:

Kathryn Ivy has a tutorial on dyeing yarn with Easter egg dyes.

Unplug Your Kids shows how to make beads out of straws and paper. You could use any kind of paper with this project—a couple of years ago Child Two and I used wrapping paper to make Christmas garlands.

Meg at Elsie Marley gives instructions on how to make fabric covers for tin cans. Hers are embroidered and she kindly shares her patterns.

Are your sewing tools little boring? According to Better Homes and Gardens, you can paint your shears!

At Big Huge Labs, see how to print eight photos on one piece of paper and then, using their folding instructions, turn it into a pocket-sized photo-album. I’m going to send some of these to far-away friends and family.

Book review: Knitting for Peace

I didn’t realize how much time had gone by until I posted the latest Wordless Wednesday photo right above the previous Wordless Wednesday photo. I have been doing a bit of crafting in the last week—some knitting and some sewing—but I’ve also had some nasty work deadlines. It is so sad when work gets in the way of the really important things.

But yesterday I had a little bit of unexpected extra time, and instead of using it to get a leg up on those deadlines, I started writing this instead. Priorities, right?

I recently made two hats (an adult size and a child’s size) from Knitting for Peace by Betty Christiansen. And I also read the book from cover to cover. I don’t usually read knitting books. I collect them, arrange them on my shelf, flip through them, admire the pictures, skim through the instructions, make grandiose plans to knit several stunning or useful items, but I don’t really read them. This book, however, is for reading as much as it is a source of patterns.

Christiansen wanted to bring together the stories behind organizations that use knitting to help others “in amazing ways.” And she certainly has found a wide variety of them. As someone who has been crafting for charity for decades now (am I really old enough to say that?), I knew about a lot of them, but there were many more I had never heard of. No matter what your interests, beliefs, or point of view; no matter what your skill level; and no matter whether you prefer to knit, donate supplies, or buy yarn or handmade items, there’s probably an organization here that will appeal to you.

What really got me when I read this book were the stories behind the groups—who started them and why they did it. Usually it was one or two everyday people who had a good idea or had seen firsthand people who need help or had turned their own experience with tragedy into something that helps others. Then, through the generosity of others like them, their efforts grew. And they grew—often into international projects involving thousands of people.

Last week I was listening to an interview with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (the Yarn Harlot) on a podcast from the Lion Brand site. The Yarn Harlot website has raised almost half a million dollars for Doctors without Borders. In this interview, Pearl-McPhee was asked if she thought knitters were naturally more generous than other people. Her theory was that knitters have a better understanding than most of how each little effort contributes to the whole. Any knitted project is made up of hundreds or thousands of little efforts. So for knitters (and other crafters, I’m sure), the making of one hat to cover one head does not seem as insignificant as it might, because we know that when you add up each of those hats, you’ve covered a whole lot of heads.

The book contains 15 patterns designed especially for charity knitting. I’ve knit only one so far, but they’re meant to be fairly easy and quick, and many of them are suitable for personal knitting as well. It also includes the websites of several groups that sell yarn, supplies, or items knit by women trying to improve their lives.

In the first section of the book, Christiansen gives a brief history of wartime knitting in the United States and shares the remembrances of Red Cross knitters (check out the vintage patterns on the Red Cross website!). One strong message that comes through from this section, and from the whole book, is how charity knitting benefits everyone involved—the knitter, the organizer, and the recipient.

Weekend projects

Somehow, in between soccer practice and games, the dreaded grocery shopping, a trip to IKEA, hanging shelves, housework, taking Dottie to the vet, nagging my children, and coming down with a doozy of a cold, I found time to work on some quick projects this weekend. First, while waiting for my son at a soccer game (he’s a ref, so I can sit in the car and knit instead of pretending to watch while I’m really chatting with the other parents: “Of course I saw your goal, dear. No, my back wasn't turned, really!”), I worked on the purple scarf I cast on at the art gallery.

Then I finally managed to pay attention long enough to do the decreases on the child’s rolled-brim hat correctly. It’s made from Paton’s Classic Merino, with a little cat hair thrown in for extra warmth, and will be donated to afghans for Afghans.

This is the same pattern I used for the adult hat, except for the top-knot. I had never knit an I-cord before and I looked it up in three books before I decided that I had to stop trying to understand the instructions and just trust them. It turned out fine. Oh, and remember my saying that my cats won’t model hats? Apparently I was wrong.

Ever since I saw some fancy stitch markers online, I’ve wanted to make a set of my own. Finally, with some help from a guy named Michael and from the Crazy Daisies, I got around to it.

I made one unique one (the red one) to be used for marking the beginning of a round. They were really fun and easy to make.

I recently got the wonderful news that my current Chemo Angels “buddy” is about to finish her treatment for breast cancer. I made her a little card and purse envelope, which I will send with a congratulations gift. She likes green and daisies. The pattern is from a Klutz’s Handmade Cards set and I found a little flower button in my jar of odd buttons to use on the envelope.

One of my goals for my Year of Living Differently is to make crafting part of my everyday life again. I’m rarely able to sit down for an hour or two at a time, but I’m rediscovering how much I can do when I take advantage of the little bits of time I do have.

Old dog, new tricks

Last weekend, Child Two and I went to SuperSunday at the Vancouver Art Gallery. If you live in the Lower Mainland and know children who like doing art, I highly recommend this. It’s a monthly free event for kids (adults pay admission to the gallery), with a wide variety of art activities related to the current exhibits.

We don’t go every month but, depending on our schedule and on whether the exhibits have changed since we were last there, we go as often as we can. The first time, we tried to view the exhibits and get in all the activities that Child Two wanted to do and I sat and waited for her while she worked. Based on that experience, (a) if there’s an exhibit we really want to see, we go on a different day because there is just too much to do on SuperSunday and (b) I started bringing some knitting to do while waiting.

On one of our visits, Child Two taught me some very important lessons about art and, really, about life in general. One of the exhibits included a huge sculpture of an elephant. We waited in line for over half an hour so that Child Two could build an animal sculpture herself. The twist to this activity was that she didn’t choose her own materials; they were decided by her spinning a spinner. She got the following to work with: a paper bag, four cone-shaped paper cups, a smallish block of wood, a piece of cardboard, and two small plastic cylinders of different sizes.

The room was hot, crowded, and very noisy—the kind of atmosphere that makes those who’ve chosen not to have kids very happy with their decision. It was getting late in the day and many of the younger kids there had obviously missed there naps. We found a spot at a table and I watched as Child Two tried various arrangements of her materials. We looked at other people’s projects for ideas and tried some more, but no animal was forthcoming.

I started to feel the way I used to feel when I couldn’t do something I had to do, like climb a rope in PE class or answer a seemingly impossible question on an exam. I got tense and panicky and—I hate to say—felt like I might start crying. “This is impossible. How can anyone build an animal out of this stuff?” I thought, starting to get angry.

I was about to suggest giving up when I realized that Child Two was not at all tense. She was enjoying arranging and rearranging her materials and laughing at the results. She wasn’t worried about making something “good” or “right.” This was just a fun activity at the art gallery, after all, not the bar exam.

I shut my mouth and pulled out my knitting. She rearranged and I knitted and we chatted until she built something that vaguely resembled an animal. Once it was immortalized with hot glue, she decorated it and, lo and behold, it became a recognizable dog.

She taught me more than one lesson that day: patience, perseverance, creating something just for the joy of it, not caring about being perfect or the best. Most importantly, though, I gained a new sense of perspective. Not everything is black or white, right or wrong, good or bad. This wasn’t a test to be aced or a life-or-death situation that had to be negotiated successfully. No, it was just a fun activity to be enjoyed for what it was.

Last Sunday was our first SuperSunday of my Year of Living Differently, and, although I did bring my knitting, I decided to do most of the activities myself (the gallery wholeheartedly encourages the adults to do this). I sketched, I painted, I made a collage out weird things, I blow-painted with ink and a straw (how fun is that?). As I’ve implied in an earlier post, I am challenged by anything more complicated than stick people, but Child Two has taught me that at these events, it’s not about the product—it’s all about the process.

I’m currently finishing a hat, but it’s in the fiddly, double-pointed-needle, decreasing stage and we all know what happens when I attempt that while distracted. So before we left the house I grabbed a ball of yarn and some needles. I usually use circular needles for everything—having been a crocheter first, I find long straight needles get stuck in my elbows and jab me in the armpit—but since I’m living differently, I chose short straight ones; the size was determined not by gauge but by the fact that these are the only short ones I have. I cast on a scarf while Child Two was doing decorating a pot and planting a tree. The pattern was developed on the fly (also a different way of working for me)—we’ll see how it turns out.

Oh, and apparently Little Bit would like to take up knitting, despite her lack of opposable thumbs.

Knitting while distracted

This, unfortunately, is my latest knitting project:



Yes, I know, it’s just a ball of wool. In fact, as you can probably tell, it’s wool that’s been knit and then unknit. This is what I get for knitting while watching Lost.

Just two nights ago, this was an almost-completed Basic Rolled-Brim Hat in the child’s size (the same pattern I used for this hat). Note the word basic in the name. I like to have an easy knitting project around for doing while I watch TV, and this pattern is easy. Most of it is just plain knitting, round and round and round. The decreases require a little more attention but I use stitch markers after each one, so they’re usually a piece of cake.

This time, though, when I did the first row of decreases, I realized that I was one stitch short. I hadn’t dropped one, so I must have counted wrong when I cast on. That wasn’t too much of a problem—I just fudged it. No one would notice if one of the decrease ridges started a row late, except perhaps for a rather tall person peering down at the wearer’s head.

Then a few rows later, I found that I was two stitches short. Despite my careful (I thought) use of stitch markers, I’d obviously miscounted again. Figuring that the problem had to be in this row, since the previous decrease row had been fine, I took it out and re-knit it, only to find that those two stitches had not miraculously turned up. Since this is a small project, I decided to just rip it out and start again, rather than risk making it even worse with my sudden lack of math skills.

Now, my husband and I started watching Lost only recently, after my cousin raved about it. We’ve started at the beginning of the first season, borrowing the DVDs from the library. The show—at least the episodes we’ve seen—is very intense and obviously I shouldn’t be knitting under its influence. I’d already noticed that my knitting got tighter during the scary parts and now I’ve discovered that I’m apparently incapable of counting to eight while watching it.

As I tell my friend Hayley so often that I’m sure she’d be happy to stuff this ball of wool into my mouth like a plug, there’s always a bright side. This is the first time I’ve used this wool (Patons Classic Merino), and it’s nice to work with—now I get to spend even more hours with it.

Blog launch and first finish

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore but I do make a list of goals. My theme for this year is the Year of Living Differently and an important aspect of that is changing how I spend my time. One of my goals is to make creative endeavors part of my everyday life again. For about 20 years, from the time I learned embroidery from my next-door neighbor’s babysitter when I was 10 until I had kids, making things was part of my everyday life. Even when I was in grad school, busy with classes and papers and research, I spent an hour sewing or quilting every day and I knitted, crocheted, or did needlework while I watched TV. Creating was like therapy to me—it’s how I relaxed, it gave me time to think, and every time I finished a project or learned a new skill, I felt a sense of accomplishment.

Then I had kids and something had to give. I was smack in the middle of a degree and working as a teaching assistant when Child One was born. We were new homeowners and new parents. The time I had spent crafting was now more likely to be spent working in the yard, marking papers, washing diapers, or at the new moms’ group at the recreation center. Not that I stopped making things altogether—I have a box of handmade clothes packed away and pictures of me knitting with Child Two sound asleep on my lap. But no longer could I leave the sewing machine out and the ironing board up, and any thought of stitching on fine fabrics was tempered by the reality of sticky little fingers. As my kids grew, my creative focus switched from yarn, thread, and fabric to fingerpaints, crayons, and washable markers.

My kids have been past the sticking-a-pin-in-my-eye-to-see-what-happens stage for several years now, but I have let other things—work, chauffeuring duties, volunteering, the hundreds of little tasks that pop up each week—take over most of my time. I still knit when I’m watching TV, but poor Child One has been waiting for new curtains for his room for four years now and too often my boxes of craft supplies remain untouched for weeks. When I think about it, I spend more time shopping for craft stuff than doing the crafts.

My work is creative (don’t believe Blogger’s claim that I’m in accounting; I’m an editor), but the ideas are not mine. In this Year of Living Differently, I want to make time for the creative things I love to do and I want to stretch myself by learning new things. As part of that, I’ve started two blogs, one that’s mainly for writing and this one, which I’ve called “Making Do” because I want to shift my focus from thinking (and shopping) to making and doing, and, as much as possible, I want to make do with the rather large (okay, huge) stash of supplies I already have.

So now that this blog is officially launched, I will post my first finish of the year, a roll-brim hat (pattern from Knitting for Peace) knitted from Lion Brand Wool. As I suspected, even though it’s an adult large size it’s too small for my humungous head, so I will donate it to Afghans for Afghans. Since this pattern is pretty easy, I didn’t learn any new knitting techniques, but I did learn that it’s just about impossible to take a picture of a hat on your own head, especially if you don’t want your face to show (since the too-smallness of this hat makes my hair look even goofier than usual). I also learned that while my cats do want to be involved in the photography process, they do not make willing hat models. They will walk through the picture,

sniff the hat before knocking it down, fight over it ("I don't know what it is, but it's mine!"), and sit prettily next to it,

but they will definitely not wear it.