i am a butterfly…

Posts Tagged ‘love’

My day 3 post for Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, and I’m amazed that I’m still going! A post every day for three days? It’s a miracle.

Write about a knitter whose work (whether because of project choice, photography, styling, scale of projects, stash, etc) you enjoy. If they have an enjoyable blog, you might find it a good opportunity to send a smile their way. TAGGING CODE: knitcroblo3

This is an easy answer for me: Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed. His work almost always makes me swoon. Whether it’s one of his own designs or a classic pattern that he knit with his own style, I just love everything he produces. From his yarn choices, to his color choices, to his photography… I love it all. Even better, he designs so many great patterns for men, which is hard to find most of the time.

Several of my favorite knitted pieces are Jared Flood designs. My favorite, to date, is the Noro Striped Scarf:

I loved this so much I knit two of them, one for Scott and one for me. It was only because I ran out of Noro that I stopped knitting at two. I plan to knit more of them in different colorways.

Two of my favorite hats are also Jared Flood designs:

The blue one is Habitat, knit for Scott. The pink and brown one is Koolhaas, knit for me. I haven’t worn mine anywhere yet except out to play in the snow in the park, but Scott gets so many compliments on his Habitat. I plan to knit at least two more of those, one each for me and Scott, both in Noro. Koolhaas is another pattern I plan to knit again, also in Noro.

I’m normally all about new. It’s a rare book or movie that makes me want to read or see it more than once, and I feel the same way about knitting patterns. The fact that I want to knit these patterns again says a lot about them and about their designer. And these three are just the beginning. There are so many more of his patterns I want to try, including the ones in his book, Made In Brooklyn. Without a doubt, he’s my choice for “one great knitter.”

I’m a little late to this party*, but I still wanted to play, so I am.  This week is Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. Each day for this week** bloggers are invited to write about a specific topic pertaining to knitting/crocheting. This is Monday’s topic, but let’s just call it Day 1.

How and when did you begin knitting/crocheting? was it a skill passed down through generations of your family, or something you learned from Knitting For Dummies? What or who made you pick up the needles/hook for the first time? Was it the celebrity knitting ‘trend’ or your great aunt Hilda? TAGGING CODE: knitcroblo1

I remember my maternal grandmother (Mom-mom) and paternal great-grandmother (Grandma S) as being prolific crocheters, though thinking back I think Mom-Mom may have been a knitter. There’s one particular afghan she made that I’m sure had bobbles all over it, and I don’t think you can do bobbles with crochet.*** Grandma S did try to teach me to crochet as a small child, but I was never that into it. I picked up some basics like chaining and single crochets, but I was far more interested in my grandmother’s sewing machine**** and didn’t really like to crochet.

These days, I’m much more interested in learning to crochet that I was when I was five, but because of that early indifference, what little I know about crochet is entirely self-taught. My true passion, though, is knitting. Knitting and I had a rocky start that began in college. There was a small yarn store in my tiny little college town, and I wandered in there one day, drawn by all the colors. For some reason, I decided I would only knit with cotton, so I loaded myself up with brightly colored skeins of Sugar n’ Cream cotton and a pair of needles and set out to learn. This was well before the Internet, so I must have also bought a book or something, but I don’t remember. It’s possible that I just decided to learn from the ball band.

As you might imagine, the combination of cotton yarn and lack of resources to really learn what to do was enough to make that first venture short-lived. Over the years I tried several times to pick it up again, but it never lasted. I still had that stubborn insistence that I was going to knit with cotton and only cotton, and that made learning to knit really hard. Between the dryness, the slipperiness, and how hard it was on my hands, I never got far. I honestly don’t know what the hell I was thinking or why I thought it had to be cotton or nothing.

About four-and-a-half years ago, though, something changed.  I decided, once again, to try learning to knit. Once again, I stubbornly picked up Sugar n’ Cram cotton with which to do it. This time, though, I had the Web and several different sites to teach me how to knit. It still wasn’t easy, but something just… clicked. I suddenly got it, and suddenly I was loving knitting. Then I discovered alpaca and it was all over for me. Once I discovered that soft, wonderful fiber and the pleasure that could be found in knitting with something like that****, I was done for. Knitting suddenly became a passion.

And it still is a passion, several years later. I am so happy that this time, it took. The enjoyment I get out of knitting can’t be measured, but it brings so much delight. Now, I can’t imagine not knitting.

* So what else is new, right? Late is my middle name!

** Or for this week plus some, for those of us who are always late to things.

*** I could be wrong; I know very little about crochet.

*** Though, I still couldn’t sew to save my life, so that didn’t work out very well.

**** Not to mention the pleasure that can be had by keeping a ball of it on my desk to pet once in a while.

This week’s Ten On Tuesday theme is 10 Things You Want But Can’t Afford, but I agree with Carole that this is a depressing theme. We’re kind of broke right now, so I’m trying to think about what we have and not what we don’t. The latter is a great big list, but the former is a pretty big list on its own. Broke or not, we’re pretty fortunate around here, so I don’t want to dwell on material goods* that I lust after.

So instead, I’m following Carole’s lead and going, instead, with a theme of 10 Things You Love About Fall:

1. The crisp weather and chill breezes. I dream about this all through the summer heat.
2. The glorious colors.
3. The whirr of wings as geese fly overhead while taking a walk at dusk. It always makes me stop to watch them fly by.
4. Samhain, which is my second favorite holiday after Mabon.
5. Apple picking.
6. The beginning of soup and stew season.
7. Autumn veggies like butternut squash and broccoli and brussels sprouts.
8. Pumpkin picking and carving.
9. The endless amusement I get watching the cats as the wind blows the leaves around outside and they try to leap at them through the window.
10. The bginning of knits season.

* The number 1 thing on a list of that theme would actually have been unlimited IVF attempts and number two would have been donor eggs, but the rest would have been material things.

That’s what I’m feeling right now. Why? Because of this:

I decided yesterday that I wanted to start baking all of our sandwich bread instead of buying it. While I have a bread machine, I don’t really like the shapes of the loaves it makes, and I hate the little hole the paddle leaves, so I decided that it would need to be baked by hand. It’s been years since I baked bread without a machine, but it turns out that it’s surprisingly like riding a bike.

White bread is always easier than whole wheat, so I decided to start with Susan’s Farmhouse White Sandwich Bread.

I followed that recipe almost exactly, except that I used melted butter instead of canola. Also, I ended up only making 2 loaves, rather than the 3 in the recipe, because I held out 10 ounces of dough to use as “old dough” in another recipe later on.

Even with 10 ounces taken out, it was too much dough for only 2 loaves, so they got pretty large! As a result, I think I could have baked them longer. I did add an extra 5 minutes, but they’re probably a smidge underbaked. Still, I bet they’ll taste wonderful.

Which I’m going to find out right now, when I go have a slice.

Finished the sleeves and working on the left front right now. This has been a really fast knit and I’m just loving how it’s turning out. I can’t wait to finish it and wear it.

The yarn is a little brighter than this, more of a bright sky blue, but this is fairly close. I’m using KnitPicks Mainline. I had 22 skeins in my stash, which is more than enough for this project. (Yay for buying sweater quantities of yarn in advance!) It will probably end up using 13 or 14 skeins.

It’s wonderful yarn. 75% cotton and 25% wool, which is wonderful to knit with, unlike 100% cotton. The wool gives the cotton some spring and lightness, which I think will be good for a large project like this. Unfortunately, last time I was on the KnitPicks site, they didn’t have this yarn. I really hope it wasn’t discontinued, because I really love it.

Hopefully there will be a finished object within the next couple of weeks!

Can I catch up on the ABC-Along before the end of the year?

Hey! Two days in a row! If I’m not careful, these may become not so semi anymore.

Today I’m grateful to be part of an incredible online community. I’ve been part of a certain Grateful Dead related message board for some years now, and a lot of the people there have become good friends in real life. I even found a husband for that kindred spirit on this message board. I get frustrated and annoyed with people there sometimes, especially during this campaign season, but then something always happens that makes me remember that there are some very fine people there, and that we really are a community.

One of our community has a very sick sister. She thought her sister was going to die, but she pulled through and is now facing a long recovery. Since her sister’s illness began last week, P. has been trying to get together money for a plane ticket to go see her, and worrying about lost wages while she’s away. Today, the community pulled together and a whole lot of us chipped ina little bit to help cover P.’s plane ticket and some of what she’ll lose by not working for a few days. No one had to donate a lot; many people donating a little made a difference.

This isn’t the first time this has happened, either. When someone’s in trouble, the community circles the wagons and helps make it a little bit better. I love that, and I’m grateful to be a part of it.

Scott posted today about how back to school time makes him feel. I love when he talks about this kind of thing on his site, because it’s so rare to get a man’s perspective on all of this infertility stuff.

9 years ago last night, I met Scott’s family for the first time. The night before my wedding. We’d been together 4 years, and I was just meeting his parents. Meanwhile, he met my family and attended a family wedding when we’d been dating about 15 seconds.

Last night, to celebrate the anniversary of the evening before my marriage, I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning with a sick cat. I’m beginning to think that Goblin has some food sensitivity issues. A big part of it is that he’s a glutton and eats more like a dog than a cat, so if we’re not careful to watch him, he’ll eat his own dinner and Xena’s and Joxer’s, too. The Twins eat very lightly, so there’s always plenty left over for Gobble to gobble. Even still, most times when he overeats, he doesn’t get sick. Once in a while, though, he gets so sick he asplodes. From both ends. For hours. Last night was one of those nights, so I stayed up late to keep an eye on him and clean up everything he expelled and also to make sure someone was around in case a middle of the night trip to the emergency vet was warranted. Scott and I came to the conclusion that this must be brought on by something in his food, so we’re keeping track of what flavor of canned food he gets every night so that we can make sure to not give him that kind again if it results in a cat explosion.

Meanwhile, here I was the night before my wedding anniversary taking care of a sick cat. When we got married, I figured we’d have a 7-year-old by now, and that if there were late nights like last night, it would be because of a sick kid. The gods are laughing at me.

But, infertility aside, the last 9 years have been a mighty fine ride. Oh, we’ve had our ups and downs, like every marriage does, I suspect, but I’m so glad that we’re married and together and in love. I can’t wait to see what the future brings us.

Happy anniversary, monkee.