Now Norma Knits

Actual Knitting Content!

I'm finishing up David's sweater.

The neckband is done and one sleeve is sewn in. 

And I know one thing for sure: I definitely want to knit more sweaters in DK/Sport-weight Peace Fleece. 

So even though I just sold off all that stash, and was hoping to get to that sweet spot of only owning enough yarn for one to two sweaters at a time, I have ordered more yarn.

Last week I got email notice from Peace Fleece that they will be raising their prices on or about February 17th. The price increase is not huge, but still, I quickly put in an order for enough yarn for a tunic-length cardigan for me, and three skeins of colors I had not seen before, so I could just see what they look like.

That's Grass Roots in the back, and new color Blue Jay on the front left, new color Mourning Dove on the right, and Violet Vyehchyeerom in the middle. The colors are quite accurate in this photo. Love them all! 

And... since we've got another snow day, it looks like I might be able to finish David's sweater today. And you know what that means -- maybe more knitting content to come!

So, a PSA about the planned Peace Fleece price increase, from their email:

In the late winter of 2009 most of the goats in West Texas had just been shorn. All at once a storm swept in from Mexico with cold rain and 40 degree temperatures. In one night over 12,000 mohair goats died. This was an extraordinary livestock tragedy that had an immediate impact on the mohair market, doubling the price of adult hair which Peace Fleece blends in its wool. Fortunately the unshorn kid goats were not affected but it will be two or three years before they will bring stability to the market.

Year 2010 saw Asian buyers enter the American wool market and substantially increase the price of American wools. In order to cover the higher costs of wool and mohair, we will be raising our retail skeins by $1.00 and our wholesale skeins by $ .60.  The last time we were forced to raise prices was back in 2006.

You will be seeing these new prices around February 17th, after we have completed these changes on our website.

 

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'..... Still Catching Up.... I Think I Can, I Think I Can... And Related Sentiments

So as I've mentioned a few times lately, I am still playing catchup with my blog-reading, and trying to leave a few comments, and even answer a few emails and comments of my own(!) to try to show that I am still an active and caring member of the blogging community and it's not just all about me-me-me. Well, that's the theory anyway.

Yesterday I got caught up with Gayle and Carole and Thea. Well! Thea has been super-busy as always. But when I made my way, in reverse chronological order, all the way back to her post from just before she went to Rhinebeck, what did I find but her new sweater pattern Collins. LOVE.that.thing.

I actually do remember seeing this somewhere back in the fog of the campaign, but BAM! there it was yesterday. And one lot of the yarn I am currently selling on eBay would be PERFECT for it.

There's enough yardage there for the 32 size.  

 

I'm Blate, I'm Blate.... For a Very Important....

Oh, never mind. I'm blogging late. Trying to be funny. Not happening. Whatever. 

So... I've been sore, and trying to avoid knitting because of that. What a PAIN, literally. It's because I know no moderation. You already know this about me. I have TIME. I KNIT. I forget to take a break, I forget to stop, I forget to stretch, I forget to... well, I was going to say I forget to eat, but that would be a lie. I never forget to eat. I wish that would happen once in a while, but that is never a worry over here. So I don't notice that it's hurting while I'm doing it, but when I stop, and when I'm trying to sleep or even after I have slept, OUUUUUUUUCH, pangs of hurt and/or deep-tendon- and back-, and deep-muscle aches. 

You don't need to tell me, "WELL then, STOP DOING THAT." I already know. And you certainly don't need to be a pain in my ass by telling me I'm knitting wrong. I get it. Yes, I knit English. I am a thrower. And yes, maybe you are another style of knitter, but stop getting up my nose about it. Because I don't believe you. Entire cultures knit the way I do, and entire cultures knit full-time and maybe they hurt and maybe they don't, but it is not WRONG. It is just the way I knit, it's the way I enjoy knitting, and I'm too set in my ways to change. Plus, I don't want to!  

My knitting physical stresses are added to by my professional physical stresses and (in spurts) my exercise stresses and my gardening activities' stresses, and all day long, day in and day out for 30 years or so, I am pounding away on my forearms and elbows and shoulders. I suppose something's gotta give. The damage is done, and the damage is deep, and from time to time it flares up in a very big way.

So just shut up already; I do not believe you that changing my way of knitting, given all that, is going to change whether I experience pain. I'm 51 years old, I've been over-using my hands and my forearms and my elbows and my shoulders for a long time, and they are kind of a mess. Knitting in a different style (I've tried) only makes them a different kind of mess and just slows down my knitting to an awful, horrid, putrid, unenjoyable (and yes, just as painful -- actually more painful) crawl. I consider myself lucky that I don't have arthritis -- only muscle and tendon and joint pain. I gave up kneading my own bread years ago for this very reason. Knitting, stenoing, typing, lifting weights, riding a bike, using the computer mouse or tap-pad, using a garden spade or weeding -- they all use my forearms and hands and wrists, and they're tiiiiiiiiiired and they need a ressssssssst. (And now I've got Lilly Von Schtupp in my head. Thank you.)

One person hilariously claimed that I was stupid and I was knitting WRONG ALL WRONG, and that in her highly intelligent and superior [and the only way to knit] method, there was NO MOVEMENT of her hands or her elbows or her forearms. No use of those muscles and tendons or joints whatSOEVER. No USE of those muscles and tendons and joints of the hands and wrists and forearms and elbows! This is really the kind of magic I am looking for right now! Disney fairy mind-controlled knitting! No hands or arms or elbows or shoulders needed! I wish.

I was going to say just F.O.A.D., but that would be rude, so I won't. Well, I will to a couple of people, but not to you. I know, RIGHT?

Ahem. *taking off cranky pants now* 

I am trying to heal, so as much as I wanted to knit yesterday -- because I truly have THE BUG and I truly want to see David's sweater finished and my mother's sweater finished, so that I can work on two other sweaters I want to work on -- well, it's just [assume Dana Carvey's voice in his George H.W. Bush impression] not gon' happ'n. Instead I watched a lot of Eddie Izzard on my computer. And I rewatched Julie and Julia again on the telly, just because it was there. My lack of the ability to figure out the TV remote, and/or the ability to figure out what the hell is on, are epic and pathetic at the same time. I really do want to figure that out someday.

Nah, I really don't. And anyway, by the time I do, the technology will be obsolete. Not worth the effort. 

But I have been doing some more decluttering and emptying of shelves and bins. I've got more piles of stuff to go to various charities, and I've listed some more of my yarn stash on eBay.

Rowanettes, activate!  

There is some Rowan Cork, perfect for knitting the Log Cabin Socks in Handknit Holidays:

And some Scottish Aran Tweed, the same yarn that I used to knit my Garter Yoke Cardi that is featured in my banner above. If you are small or extra-small, this is enough for a cardi of the same type:

I've also got some random balls of Felted Tweed that I haven't gotten around to listing yet, but I will this afternoon. Perfect for lots of little mitts or a stripy sweater:

Go have a look. And a heads up: I had an "oops" moment with the Magpie Tweed, and found two more skeins of it. I THOUGHT I had more. I found it in a different bin. And so I've had to list it separately. 

There will also be a sweater's worth of Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed added this afternoon:

But first, I gotta eat. (see above)

She Knits! (And a Bit of a Black Friday Stash Sale)

Hey Knitters! Raise your needle tips and click-clack them together!

Why?

Because I finished the back of David's sweater yesterday!

Man, this is slow progress. I started this thing August 21st. But at least it's progress, and at least I still love it. 

I was thinking of immediately casting on for the front, but I felt the need to knit something at a different gauge and with a different feel. I have four other sweaters on the needles at some stage of being ignored, so.......

naturally I cast on for something new. I just wanted to look at this delicious color of green and to feel something much softer and smoother running through my fingers. This is Berroco Pure Pima cotton, and oooooh, it feels nice to knit. Unfortunately I've decided that I cast on the wrong size, and so it's going to be ripped out and restarted. Maybe that was just enough of a palate cleanser to get back to the grey Peace Fleece. We shall just see, shan't we?

I've decided to off-load some of my yarns, starting with the Rowan Magpie Tweed.

To give everyone a fighting and fair chance on this discontinued and desirable yarn, I've listed it on eBay here. Go have a look, and you know the drill: Bid high, bid often! Tell your husbands and your boyfriends and your girlfriends you want this scrumptious yarn for the holidays.

SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS:  If one of my blog readers buys this yarn at auction, and he or she tells me so, I will include some of my home-grown garlic in the package -- or if garlic is not your bag and jam is -- I'll include a jar of my rose petal jam. How's that for a fun holiday shopping deal for Black Friday?!

 

 

Stolen From Abigail: "The Best XKCD Cartoon Ever is the Best XKCD Cartoon Ever" -- AND Actual Knitting Content (No Joke!)

 From here.

P.S. If the full cartoon is cut off, you can either click it to make it bigger (thereby making it bigger, haha) or click the link for the cartoon at the original site. (I was having some problems with the formatting and in my previews it seems to be cut off on the right side.)

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Finally the tendinitis has eased enough (of course, because I have a P.T. appointment at oh-dark-thirty tomorrow morning) that I have been able to do some knitting. I've done a teeny bit on my mother's Shetland sweater, but that's still a bit painful, so I've gone more for the softer and easier option -- the Calmer sweater -- and great progress has been made.

I'm about at the place where I need to figure out what to do with the v-neck. 

I've even done some swatching. Please note, you are on the RIGHT BLOG -- yes indeed, the anti-swatcher has actually swatched. Mark your calendar.

This is the second attempt, and though I have not yet figured out exactly what I want to do with that damn V, I have learned what NOT to do, so that's something.

I also reminded myself of something else really important:  I love Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool yarn. I discovered this years ago, and panicked when the rumor was that they were going to discontinue it. I bought up enough (more than enough) for making a sweater at that time, literally for a song (and if you've ever heard me sing, you know how CHEAP that is!), when it was on sale at JoAnn. 

It has sat untouched, in a plastic bag, all this time. I pulled it out the other day to swatch that basketweave scarf sample, and picked it up to continue to try to figure out this v-neck. Yarn snobs, cover your eyes: That is NICE yarn, and so cheap. I wonder if it pills something awful, but I don't care. I'm determined to make a sweater out of it. It knits up soooo nicely, and flows over the fingers like butter. Once we become yarn snobs, we forget these things. And sometimes the snobby super-expensive yarn turns out to be nothing but expensive, saggy, stretched out, pilly crap that did nothing but eat a hole in your retirement account. (Right, Sandy?)

There is even an Aran sweater pattern on the damn ball band, and it looks like a nice one (though it takes a high-power microscope to read it). I'm going to make it. Screw the snobs!

Setting the Record Straight

Yes, I had a little yarn accident the other night at Kaleidoscope. It was the classic kind: I tripped over some yarn, fell down, and on my way to the floor, the credit card I was holding in my hand swiped right the way through the credit card machine. 

Joan is on a mission to keep me honest and refuses to let me get away with just mentioning the Geode. All right, FINE!

There was a little bit of Pure Pima in a nice forest green that came home with me, too.

Despite Gale's quick tutorial on photo editing yesterday before she left, I'm too tired to work with this one tonight, and it looks like a nice khaki green in this photo. However, in reality it is a nice forest green. It's Color No. 2240, which the Berroco company has named "Kelp." I guess it's not forest green after all -- it's seaweed green. So sue me. I have in mind making... well, believe it or not, first of all, a swatch* (**). I want to see what this cotton yarn does -- does it shrink, does it grow, does it fade, does it pill -- before I invest time and emotion into a big sweater. But the color grabbed me and pulled me into the forest sea, and I was helpless against its pull.

I'm thrilled to report that I've been taking ibuprofen to beat the band, with no bad reaction, and it seems to be slaying the tendinitis dragon. Fingers and swords crossed! 

I'm sorely tempted to cast on for the Geode sweater (the one in yesterday's photo) right NOW, but come on, LET'S GET REAL HERE! First I must a) finish my mother's sweater b) finish at least ONE of the three -- or is it four? -- sweaters for me that I already have on the needles. 

And there was a wonderful scarf pattern that I bought, as well: The Flared Rib Scarf by Natalie Wilson. I was surprised to find that this pattern is not yet listed on Ravelry. It would make a wonderful Red Scarf Project pattern.

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 *No, you have not accidentally landed on the wrong blog. A swatching I will go. Just watch me. I mean it!

**Asterisk(s) and footnoting purposely and playfully added just for the benefit of Katherine, who had this to say yesterday:

One thing I love about you, Norma, is that when you put an asterisk by something, YOU HAVE A FOOTNOTE TO GO READ ABOUT THAT ASTERISK. I am so annoyed when I see something marked as if there might be more information about it somewhere and there is nothing (especially annoying in ads). I sit there wondering what the HELL that asterisk is for. Did the writer not really mean whatever it was that was starred? Is it a trick? What?? WHAT??? So. I'm a Norma lover because of the footnoting. I might be a footnote lover in general.

That's me:  Building community, one pet peeve at a time.   

XO

A House Guest

I have a house guest! 

(It's Gale Zucker.) 

Don't believe she's really in my house?  

How 'bout this for proof:

Here she is, blogging and signing books with Mr. Jefferies on what we now fondly refer to as Paula's bed, which is the daybed in my "fiber room."

We met some friends at my favorite yarn shop for knitting and talking and laughing 

 Jill, me, Jill's daughter, Shawn, Joan

(Gale's behind the camera, of course.)

...and OMG, I tried on one of the shop model sweaters that I had been eyeing for months. I bought the pattern for it several months ago:

...and once I tried it on, it was all over by the paying:

I sooo much wanted to just buy the store model, but Jill wouldn't let me. Look at that thing! It fits me like a glove, and who wants to KNIT it when you can BUY it? 

Oh, wait.  

You Wouldn't Be Pulling My Leg, Now, Would You, La Mode?

I went out to JoAnn's to get buttons for a sweater yesterday. When I got there, I discovered that buttons were 50% off, and I kind of went a little bit crazy. 

What was I thinking? Ah, well. At least they were cheap. Le sigh.

Lately I've been intrigued by the interesting patterns and buttons in this Green Earth line by La Mode. I put a set of buttons on one of you-know-who's sweaters recently that were supposedly 50-60% post-consumer recycled plastic, and they look for all the world like wooden buttons. Kinda nifty, I thought.

Up there in that collection of buttons, you will notice a set of black buttons from the same line. Up close, they're quite nice, with a marble-ish line running through them. Very tailored, very vintage-looking:

I had a surprisingly hard time getting buttons to go with this Lauren's Coral Peace Fleece, which is really why I ended up with so many dumb buttons, none of which seems just right. 

The ones below are, to me, the most pleasing with the yarn, but they are a bit too large. I bought them anyway. I figured I'll MAKE them fit. But when I got them home and read the card more closely, I said, "HUH?!"  

Recycled COTTON? Seriously? The card says these are "up to 80% recycled cotton fiber."  SERIOUSLY? 

If it says so, I guess it must be so. But weird.

I can only show you a hint of the sweater for the moment. Maybe later.

And I'm really not so sure I can make these big buttons fit. But we shall see. 

P.S. I got some online chat help with my camera from Sony last night, and after several tries, we got the camera reinitialized. Now it seems that at least it works -- all except that the flash will not pop up automatically. I don't really care about that much. If I really do want it to work, I can pop it up manually, and I don't usually like the flash anyway. What I was mostly concerned about were the lack of ability to auto-focus and the macro didn't work. We managed to get those back, so I'm happy. And I PROMISE NOT TO EVER TOUCH THE SETTINGS AGAIN. Yeah, right.

P.P.S. How much you wanna bet that next year my resolution will be:  Use up all the BUTTONS I've collected!

I Have a Wee Problem

Alrighty then, so I started that seed stitch scarf in that gorgeous red Cascade 220, which I LOVE, by the way. And I never ever ever (never ever say never ever) buy just one skein of Cascade 220. I never.ever.do. I almost always buy two skeins -- I don't know why. If I don't buy two skeins, I buy a sweater's worth, plus an extra. (That'd be seven, for me.)

And so I'm blithely knitting along, and I go to locate the 2nd skein. I can't find it anywhere. It now appears that I used it last year or the year before, for a Red Scarf that was color-block, sort of. I ended up not liking the way it came out -- the gauges of two of the yarns (both Cascade 220) were different enough from the third yarn that it really wasn't nice enough to send to the OFA. So it's been in my closet all this time, and I just pulled it out to send to the Salvation Army, but it hasn't gone yet. 

In the meantime, I searched Ravelry for this yarn, and I was lucky enough to find two people who have it in their stashes. I wrote to one person, who only has one skein. I figured she probably wouldn't mind selling me the one skein. She wrote me back to say that she was sympathetic to my plight but all her stuff is in storage and she'd have to try to see if she could find it. So there is still hope, but, well, I know how *I* would be if all my stuff was in storage -- no way would I be able to locate a single skein of Cascade 220. Another person has six skeins. She might not want to break up her lot, but I'm willing to buy the whole thing if she wants to help me out. I love this color enough that I'd happily knit scarves in it till the cows come home, and I'd even love to knit a sweater for myself in it. But there is no contact ability in her account. So no go there.

And here's the hilarious (well, I guess that would depend on your definition of "hilarious") part of this story: I started writing this post to ask you all if you'd check your stashes for Cascade 220, Color No. 9404, Dye Lot 5433, and before I was finished the 2nd paragraph, I thought, "Well, you dummy, why don't you rip out the red portion of that uglyish scarf and reuse the yarn."  Doh.

So. Problem sort of solved, and I was going to delete this stupid story. But then I decided that I guess this peek into the snow globe of my mind still makes for a blog entry. 

 Not blonde anymore; just slightly flaky.

The (Tangible) Things I Brought Home From Rhinebeck 2009

I had the unrealistic plan of buying nothing, but you know how that goes. I did spend more than nothing, but I didn't damage the budget too terribly bad, I think.

A really great tote bag:

It's great-looking, well made and well designed, with two outside pockets, two inside pockets, and a drawstring-topped liner in contrast color, as well as a carabiner on the side. From Sliver Moon Farm.

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Some really interesting soap:

 

They had me at "gin & tonic."  From a very cool Rhinebeck business called Merriweather's.

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Some Trekking sock yarn for Paula, because she is Trekking-deprived and I was on a mission.

 

This one doesn't count against the budget, since it's for Paula.

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A sweater kit to make a couple sweaters for you-know-who:

Charcoal grey alpaca, no less. From Style Hounds SoHo. I know I said I wouldn't, but if you saw this lady's pooch sweaters, you would have caved too. And I chose charcoal grey because it just seems to match a sophisticated little city-and-country Yorkie with a posh and proper name like Mr. Jefferies. However, for a small dog like Mr. J., the kit makes two sweaters, and I wish I had had my wits about me to ask her for two different colors. (she had a great selection) What is a guy gonna do with TWO charcoal sweaters, hm????  Perhaps I will have to use two different stitch patterns.   
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And a sweater's worth of Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair in Moss Green (I have in mind the sweater pattern Gaelic Mist for this yarn, a finished model of which I saw and admired this weekend)... 

...which they packed for me in a nice canvas tote.

 

And just before I was ready to hit the hay for the night before a very busy work week, I remembered that I forgot to photograph the pewter Celtic buttons I also bought for the green sweater. I'll save that for another day, and now I've got to get to sleep.