Escape knitting

There are times - many times - when work life is so frustrating and ties my psyche in such knots that all I can think about is getting home and spending my Saturday morning knitting on the couch. If it's easy knitting, I can have the television on in the background; if it's more difficult, I either ensure I have something on that I've seen before, or, I turn it off altogether.

My Pink Memories sweater, in progress.
A ribbed neckline is added later.

Last weekend, it was raining, it was chilly, and my mind really needed to be focused on something that wasn't my day job. And so I knit. The subject: Isabell Kraemer's Pink Memories sweater, knitted on size 4 needles (when I swatched I swore to myself that no way was I going down to size 3). My memories are knitted with Misty Mountain Farm's Prime Alpaca, which I dyed to a warm brown a few months ago. It's a simple pattern: a top-down, raglan sweater knit in the round. The fun part is that the front is garter stitch, and the back and sleeves are stockinette. When I saw this pattern, the yarn practically begged to be knit into it -- the different textures create interest, but there aren't any complexities in the pattern that would get lost in the yarn's fuzzy halo.

So there I was on the couch, trying to escape into my knitting, but because the pattern is so simple, my mind kept running off to think about the things I wanted to escape. (To explain those things would simply bore you. Just the usual frustrations with a pigheaded, idiot supervisor who undercuts the people who report to her instead of supporting them). Perhaps at this point I should simply have played the 1963 film The Great Escape. Instead I started poking around for something else to knit that would have a little more complexity.

It should come as no surprise that I love a good theme, and the Down Cellar Studio Podcast's Pigskin Party KAL fits the bill. It's a knit-a-long that lasts throughout the NFL football season. Say what you want about football and the NFL (I don't watch NFL football, myself), but this is a great excuse to knit. I participated last year and had so much fun! It was a great opportunity to try new yarns and patterns, and interact with other knitters.

This month's interception (an opportunity to knit a specific type of thing that can be entered for extra prizes) is to knit an ornament of some type. For a lot of people, this is probably a Christmas tree ornament, but it could be any knitted or crocheted item that is small enough to hang from something. Now here's the thing. For years I've thought it would be fun to knit little bird ornaments to hang around the house or on a small Christmas tree for the holidays. What an opportunity to finally begin this project!

Megan Kreiner's Four Calling Birds

And so, I put down my needles to plan my bird knitting. There's not a whole lot of options, but I did find myself tickled by Megan Kreiner's Four Calling Birds Ornaments. The cardinal in particular looks so spot-on! I even have the right yarn already! The only bummer is that it's only available as part of the 2014 issue of Love of Knitting: Holiday Knits. I could buy a digital copy of the magazine, but having never done this and being uncertain as to what I would actually get, I opted to find the hard copy instead. I found it at vintageknits.com (quite the handy website).

The magazine is scheduled to arrive in my mailbox TODAY. I'm very excited. Perhaps I will go crazy and knit all 16 "fun ideas to deck your halls" as they say on the cover... or perhaps not. The wreath just wouldn't have that lovely evergreen scent. But I will enjoy escaping my demons this weekend as I bury myself in a potential flock of knitted birds.

Warehouses: Where it’s at

A week or so ago, my husband and I managed to float the same Friday off work and traveled to Portland, Maine, for a beer and yarn spree. Tess’ Designer Yarns was the first stop.

I won’t focus too much on the yarn in this post, other than to say that it is just so pleasant to browse these luxurious yarns in the quiet atmosphere of the shop, in contrast with the crowded, rushed feeling of a festival. (No doubt my purchases will be featured in later posts). Tess is located in downtown Portland on the second floor, where I imagine she pays much lower rent than a sidewalk-level shop would cost.

Speaking of costs, parking lots in Portland are five dollars an hour, hotel room prices are comparable to those in Chicago, and while I’m sure there are still hipster eateries, we stumbled into having lunch at an upscale French bistro, Petite Jacqueline. I enjoyed it very much, but it would seem downtown Portland is a different city than the Portland I met back in 2010 — and I know if I had more history with the city, the changes would be even more dramatic.

Before our parking bill grew any larger, we got back in the car and drove west on our quest for delicious beer.

Bissell Brothers was the first brewstop. Located in the Thompson’s Point development, the parking is pricey here too, but this is one of the latest trendy breweries everyone wants to visit. I honestly can’t say I was blown away by the beers - they weren’t my style and I’ll admit I wasn’t entirely caught up in the mood. Other blogs do this brewery more justice than I can.

It was our next stop, Bissell Brothers’ original location, that really struck me, and got me thinking. Located just off I-95 on Industrial Way, three breweries and a distillery occupy a warehouse near the western boundary of the city. On this Friday afternoon, cars filled (free) parking lots and lined both sides of the road. We snagged a parallel spot next to the warehouse (I just love showing off my parallel parking skills) and set out to explore. Austin Street Brewery, Battery Steele Brewing, and Foundation Brewing Company are all in one large building. The long-established Allagash Brewing Company is across the street, and Maine’s first microbrewery, D.L. Geary Brewing Co., is right up the road.

Flight of beer at Allagash.

In this warehouse environment we found friendly people of all ages, friendly dogs, friendly babies, and lots of tasty beer. Each tasting room was open to the warm afternoon, and featured roped-off outdoor seating, with the exception of Battery Steele, which is temporarily closed after selling all their beer. After tasting and purchasing from Foundation and Austin Street, we crossed over to Allagash, where their impressive distribution and market share affords them the ability to offer a free flight to every guest. The atmosphere reminded me of our favorite breweries at home: Great North Aleworks, located in Manchester, NH in a warehouse next to a giant Bingo hall, and our trifecta of the Londonderry and Derry town line in New Hampshire: Rockingham Brewing Company, From the Barrel, and Kelsen Brewing Company. While not in such close quarters as these Portland breweries, the trifecta are located close enough to each other to make it fun to carpool from one to another on a Saturday afternoon — and while they are not all technically located in warehouses, their locations are decidedly industrial.

As small breweries need cheap real estate (and proper drainage, as explained to us by the Foundation barista), and local micro and nano breweries continue to be popular, these industrial back roads are now the trendy spots. I’m sure no one is more surprised by this than the Bingo players in Manchester, who find their sprawling parking lot is suddenly smaller in size.

Fly in the lace

Junie Marie Mitts by Karen Troyer Ladman,
knitted with Claudia Hand Painted Yarns Worsted.

In my last post, I wasn’t feeling so great and needed a pick-me-up. I’m glad I can say that doing those things - hiking, making yogurt, cooking good foods - definitely helped. I’m not back to 100% happy yet, but I’m climbing out of the pit. The knitting is helping too!

I finished the Junie Marie Mitts while watching the 1958 version of The Fly. For those of you who have not seen it, The Fly is about a man who invented a transporter (this is pre-Star Trek, folks) and, ok, so, I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but there’s an accident that morphs him into a half fly, half man. True to 1950s sensibilities, most of the film is just a normal film about a well-off husband and wife; he’s found success with his scientific experiments, and she’s found success in a happy marriage. Not too bad until he becomes a bug.

Anyway, I’d never seen it before and I got a real kick out of it. The final scene even kind of pulls off being menacing, in a campy sort of way.

The mitts came out great. (Good movie = good mitts?) I particularly like how the thumbs came out - no holes! The pattern includes adding a stitch in that spot between the thumb and the first finger, and in the next row, knitting it together with an existing stitch. I'm still a newbie to mitts, but I think that extra stitch helped avoid creating a hole there. The mitts are a gift for a birthday swap and I’m a little worried that the gift is too simple, but it’s a pattern she clearly likes (so many variations of same in her favorites!) and the neutral color should be easy to wear.

The Jordan pattern by Wendy Bernard, knitted
with Lana Grossa Linea Pura Solo Lino linen yarn.

Now I am free to focus my concentration back on my Jordan, which I’ve whittled away at for a few months. When I started it in May I really thought I’d have it finished to wear for the summer. And I might have, but, as the Knitmore Girls would say, I had a knitting attack - a big one. When I finished the body, it didn’t look right to me. It just didn’t look as pretty as it should have. I strolled through the other projects on Ravelry, just kind of taking a step back and seeing what other people said about the pattern, when I ran across the words “and no purling until the sleeves!” I was all like “what”? And then I realized.

I’ve only knitted two other lace projects, and both of those were knit flat. This one is knit in the round. Since I recently discovered an appreciation for charts, I followed the chart in this pattern, which clearly says to purl on the wrong side. Well, yeah. I mean, the wrong side is purled. But if you’re knitting in the round… you don’t purl. Oh. OH.

Sooo I ripped the entire thing out and started over.

Got pretty sick of it and took a long break to do a different craft project. I honestly wonder if I would have gotten back into it if I hadn’t taken a vacation that involved seven and a half hours on an airplane. That sure did it! I finished one sleeve on the plane (during the Star Trek reboots - that was fun watching them back to back), and now the second sleeve is just flying off the needles. They don’t call ‘em Turbos for nothing! I’m really hoping I can keep this up and finish the project by Labor Day weekend. I might actually be able to wear it once or twice… and then my needles will be free and clear for the Down Cellar Studio Pigskin Party. Jen does an amazing job running this KAL and I’m looking forward to doing it again. I got a real kick out of it last year, and am hoping this year’s KAL will have a similar effect. Football season, here we come.

A sense of self

I haven’t been the happiest person of late. A lot of this can be blamed on the simple truth of lack of sleep, or possibly the continued interruption of my body’s natural circadian rhythms (getting up an hour earlier for my not-new-anymore job continues to throw off my balance). But being unhappy also throws me into a state of self-analysis: if I’m not happy, then, what does make me happy? What helps me feel satisfied with life?

It’s fun to think about these things, but what’s even better is to act on them. This weekend (which I made a three-day weekend because I could, and because I was kind of sick on Saturday anyway) I am making an effort to experience all of these good things, listed here in no particular order.



While making this list, I realize that making lists should be on the list. It is tremendously satisfying. Making a list generates order out of chaos. It relaxes my mind and makes the insurmountable suddenly doable.



Being outdoors. The absolute best day of my recent vacation with my husband was spent on a bicycle ride. 
I also really enjoy hiking (most folks know this) but I haven’t done any hiking this year at all. Part of this is weather, allergies, and poor planning. Part of it is honestly not wanting to drive to a mountain when I already spend so many hours in the car each week. But I don’t have to go that far. Today I will drive 20 minutes to a small hill outside of town, and get a hike in.



Cooking good things definitely belongs on the list. For me, that means using local foods when I can, chopping and dicing and transforming them into healthy meals. Recipes usually come from EatingWell or Cooking Light. (Minor segue: Cooking Light, I think, saved my life. I am so grateful to have discovered it when I was 24, still naturally thin, and genuinely interested in how to eat healthfully. Now that I am 41 and gain weight at the drop of a hat, I am putting the lessons I learned to good use).

Today I will make this week’s yogurt. I will also make a tried-and-true Chopped Greek Salad with Chicken for dinner, and prep what I need for Crispy Vegetable Quesadillas so I can make those tomorrow night.





Knitting and watching old movies are also on the list. Fortunately, these things can sometimes be done simultaneously. Today, I will begin working on the right-hand Junie Marie Mitts. These are a gift as part of a birthday swap, so I won't show a photo of mine yet. I am so freaking happy with myself -- I knit the first mitten in two days. Two days! The first pair I ever made took more like six months - I had no idea what I was doing. So this is pretty awesome. I kind of got in a knitting rut this summer, but these mitts are getting me out of it. This is a good thing.

For a movie... I do not know. Romances of the 1930s or 1940s? Or sci-fi of the 1950s? The Day the Earth Stood Still is still on Netflix. Or, perhaps a re-watch of Double Indemnity? That's a great one. I'll have to see what is available. I enjoy them all.

I also need to do my laundry. Not because I enjoy doing laundry, but because it's on a mental must-do list. And the best part of making a list is crossing things off the list.

Yogurt mojo

If I thought I was becoming a outdoorsy hiker type who enjoys cooking local veggies, this year is trying to prove me wrong. I have not hiked to the peak of a single tiny mountain. I have not been to the farmer's market. I did not join a CSA this year. And it's JULY. And not July 1, or 2, or 3, oh no. It's the middle of July. I am a hot mess.

My only defense is that pollen season was so bad this year that I was, literally, sick for about a month. I still believe I had some other illness, because it honestly felt like the flu for about a week there, and the person who originally examined me was convinced I had strep. But no... and so I suffered. And then, when I got to feeling better, the bugs were bad. And then... well, then I was just lazy.

Fresh yogurt!
Image from http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Yogurt

In an effort to regain my mojo, I made yogurt last weekend. In my previous yogurt-making experiences, I initially found success, but the last couple batches failed to thicken. Now there are plenty of cultures who enjoy a nice yogurt drink, but that really wasn't what I was going for. I complained about this to my dad when I visited him in April, explaining I was pretty sure switching from full-fat to two percent fat milk was causing the problem, because that was the only thing I'd done differently. He made fun of me a little, saying it really doesn't make that much difference as far as calories are concerned, and that I should just use the full-fat milk.

And so, I did. And you know what? Worked like a charm. I have delicious, creamy yogurt with a pudding-like texture. I Googled how many calories are in six ounces of homemade yogurt made from full-fat yogurt, and held my breath.

And then I laughed. Dad was right! My little jars of yogurt hardly contain more calories than the cups of Yoplait Light I was buying. I guess when you figure there aren't any added sugars, etc. this makes sense.

Okay, so, one problem solved... up next, how to simplify dinner preparation.