Heard the Yarn Harlot, finished Honorine

I tried to explain to Husband who the Yarn Harlot was, and why I was going to see her. She doesn't teach people how to knit, but it's more knitting commentary, like all those sports analyst shows where 4 guys will sit around and talk about sports and not actually play the sports.

Yesterday the doors to the Hilan Theater opened at 5pm. I got there at 5:30ish and there was a line out on the sidewalk. It was all women, all white women, as far as I could tell. Out of the crowd in the theatre, I saw only one black woman. And there was me.

Before Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka the Yarn Harlot came on, Knitch raffled off some prizes. As I knit on Honorine, I balanced my raffle ticket on the knitting and tried not to knock over my wine. I was concerned that someone in the row in front of me would win, jump up, knock over her chair at the thrill of winning 2 skeins of Malabrigo, and knock over my wine. Didn't happen. Nor did I win anything.

The Hilan Theater seems to be more set up for live music performances because there were three levels, 2 bars in the open space, concrete floors, a rail for putting drinks, and they had to set up rows of folding chairs for us. I sat in the upper level, three rows back, and couldn't see anything. Which in the end was fine, because most people had their eyes on their knitting, not on Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. The e-mail from Knitch said that there were 700 confirmations sent out, but it looked more like 250. But I'm no gauge of crowds.

I'm looking forward to seeing what she posts about on her blog about her trip to Atlanta. She did mention at that the Atlanta airport, in the ladies' room, she ran into Vickie Howell of Knitty Gritty. Makes me wonder what she was doing in town.

YH was funny, and talked mostly about how people don't understand knitting and knitters. A lot of what she talked about has been covered in her books and her blogs, so I won't discuss too much of it here. One of my favorite lines was "There are no machines that shear sheep, so every single skein of yarn started with a man with a seriously pissed off sheep between his legs. In my mind, he's a sweaty, shirtless Australian named Mick."

I really liked her discussion about the ability of knitters to change the world, using the example of Knitters Without Borders, her effort to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders. It brought tears to my eyes because as the primary fundraiser for my organization, I really would love to be able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from individual donors, as she has.

And I had to laugh as she compared fundraising to knitting, each requiring small gestures repeated over and over and over, ad nauseum, to create a beautiful, useful, and larger whole.

The first shift of book signing was changed to occur at the theater and the second shift at Knitch. I was in the first shift, but didn't get her to sign my books. It was getting late, I hadn't had anything to eat, the space was crowded and confusing with people trying to line up for the book signing, people trying to leave, people trying to get to the bathrooms. I got crabby so left. To go to Knitch to shop.

The store was full too, which didn't help my mood. What did help was fondling all the yarn. I did buy some hand painted sock yarn (don't remember the company now) to make another So-Called Scarf, nevermind that I haven't finished the first one. I'm really liking the stitch pattern. Mainly, I was there for some bamboo circular needles, which they keep behind the counter, so if I have to stand in line for needles, I might as well buy some yarn and make the wait worthwhile. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

When I got home, I showed the yarn to Husband who saw that the skein of 450 yards of machine washable, hand painted yarn was $20.50 and asked what are you going to make with that? I said a scarf. The colors are pale but not pastel, mostly light blue with some pink, light green, and then blips of chocolate brown. I'm trying to branch out from my usual jewel tones and primary colors.

Then I finished Honorine before bed. Now all that remains is to send it through the washer and dryer and it'll be ready for wearing. Pictures next week.

Yarn Harlot tonight

Going to see the Yarn Harlot tonight, as arranged by Knitch. I have Honorine with me and My S0-Called Scarf. I started the scarf last night with Manos del Uruguay in Bramble just in case I finished Honorine and needed something else to work on. Not likely, but I am prepared.

Sooooo tired

The board meeting is over. It was pretty good, we've set direction for the next 5 years, with good achievable goals, blah, blah, blah.

And now I am sooooooo tired. But I need to type up all the notes from the last couple of days before I forget everything.

The flip charts are taped up all around the room, and I'm going to just sit in the middle and just transcribe them.

But first, I will reset my brain by reading the news and knitting on Honorine a bit.

What's so funny about peace, yarn and pottery

My apologies to Nick Lowe.

I've finished the baby blanket for a friend and am still feeling the crochet vibe. So I've swatched these, using the "Big Round" pattern from Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks:

The cluster stitches in the middle make me think of cupped flower petals.

One of the things in my Knitpicks order is a yarn guide that you wear on your finger. It's supposed to help stranded color knitters keep the different yarns separate. However, I'm going to use it to keep the yarn off my skin. When I crochet for a long time, the yarn sliding across the top of my tensioning finger gets to be quite uncomfortable and eventually a little groove gets indented into the top of the finger.

In other news, I've made progress on Husband's afghan, finished one more blue stripe and have wound the yarn for the next blue stripe. Then I will sew the stripes together, pick up stitches on the left and right and knit the side stripes.

In the past, the sewing together was not fun for me, but now I rather like it.

And I've cut off ridge row at the bottom of the Honorine sweater and have begun knitting down. It's just stockingnette in the round, which some people hate, but I love because it's just mindless knitting. I wonder if I could get away with knitting at the board meeting this weekend.... Maybe I'll work on it during lunch and they'll see that I can talk while eating and knitting, and then it won't be so bad during the rest of the day. I did knit during a Georgia Progressive Summit meeting while one of my board members was there...

Anyway, next Wed, Sept 19, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot, will be in town to speak. Honorine will the be perfect project to take along.

Wednesdays are my pottery class. I have been loving it. We are learning to make very large wheelthrown objects. Usually my pieces are about 8 inches tall, and use 5 pounds of clay. In the first class, I threw a jar at least a foot tall, using 8 pounds of clay, and yesterday I threw a huge bowl (that's me, the bowl lady) using 10 pounds. And all 10 pounds put up a fight, but I got it done. The bowl's at least a foot tall and 15 inches wide. I wanted to make my mother-in-law a huge salad serving bowl and I think I got it.

I really like Mariella, the instructor. She's got a lot of energy and not very rigid. I've had instructors who say there's only one way to do this or that, but Mariella's not that way. She thinks imperfections show that these pieces were made by an individual artisan, and not stamped out by some machine. I like that attitude.

I'll miss the next class because of the Yarn Harlot, but I'll go to Mariella's Monday afternoon class instead. Because this weekend will the weekend of work so I'm taking Monday off. I'm going to sleep in, have a cup of coffee, and then go do pottery for as long as they'll let me. I have some pieces from the spring quarter that have yet to be glazed. And I'll have to buy another bag of clay, since I've used up the entire 25 pound bag in just 2 sessions.

It will be bliss. There is nothing better than throwing pottery. You have to focus just on centering the clay on the wheel, and that centers you. Then in pulling up the clay and working on it, you have to pay attention to what the clay tells you. All your motions have to be smooth, deliberate, and slow. You have to feel the clay and make sure you don't push it too far that it weakens and collapses. One instructor said "the enemy of good is better."

In the end, if you do it right, which isn't hard, you get a piece that's beautiful and useful, and peace in your day.

Red shoes

I still want red shoes. I want red, high heeled, look-at-me shoes (not to be confused with f-me shoes). Some thing work appropriate, fun, and comfortable.

Instead, I bought more yarn ($45.28 worth from KnitPicks and qualified for free shipping!) in yes, red, and black, and the new Folk Style book. Dare I make and wear the red skirt on the cover? We shall see.

The Honorine sweater continues apace. One elbow length sleeve done, the other almost done. Then pick up and knit the neckline, and then lengthen the bottom. It's just too short, so following Grumperina's advice, I'm going to cut off the bottom few rows, pick up the stitches, and knit down.

I remember reading about her doing this to something she made and e-mailed her to ask. And she was so sweet to e-mail me back. So I practiced on my swatch and now feel ready.

Off to a meeting. I wonder if they would mind me knitting. It's an afterwork meeting, with progressives, they should be okay with hand crafts, right?

Found my waist

It may seem strange that I've lived almost 37 years and just discovered my waist. For some reason, I thought my waist was where my belly button is, in the space between the bottom of my ribs and the top of my hips.

Then I started knitting the Honorine sweater with waist shaping and really looked at myself. Most patterns are not made with petite, short waisted people in mind, so I knew I'd have to amend it. I also borrowed How to be a Budget Fashionista by Kathryn Finney from the library. She had a tip that to find your waist, bend sideways, and where your body creates a crease, that's where your waist is.

That's when I realized that my waist was actually right at the bottom of my ribs, about 1.5 inches above where I thought it'd been. Hmm.

So what does all this mean? It means that I really am very short waisted and should really only shop in the petite section. It means that empire waisted dresses really are my friends. It means that I should shorten all the tops I knit, and don't have to buy as much yarn.

Now I wonder what else I've been clueless about.

Honorine and Babette

I've finished crocheting the squares for the orange and ivory baby blanket. There are 36 and I just barely had enough of the orange to finish. I frogged the swatches I had to get enough yarn.

Now all that remains is sewing them up and adding a border. And waiting for the baby. However, the baby girl (not mine) isn't born yet, so the blanket is nameless. And I just found out someone else had a baby boy, so of course I'm thinking, another baby blanket to make!

I've cast on for Honorine, using KnitPicks CotLin in Moroccan Red. When I got the box last week, the red made me swoon. Okay, not literally, but I was very happy with it. I swatched with size 6 US and size 5 US and size 6 gave me gauge (22 sts = 4 inches). However, after washing and blocking, the yarn expanded and the size 6 US swatch now turns out to be 20.5 sts to 4 inches.

What to do? Should I go with the pre-washed gauge and cast on the number of stitches for my bust size, or go with the after washing gauge and cast on the number for the smaller bust size and rely on washing to make it grow to my size?

I've also decided to knit it in the round and omit the lace insert for modesty. Actually, I don't want to have to wear a camisole underneath. It's just too warm in Atlanta most of the time to need it. This involved more math, as the lace insert uses a different yarn, with a different gauge which I had to convert to my washed CotLin gauge. In the end, I chose to go with the smallest size and cast on 180 stitches. Here's hoping this works!

Crocheting the orange and ivory really got me into the crochet groove. I've been eyeing Babette by Kathy Merrick from Interweave Crochet 2006 and there are lots of great pics on Flickr. I also have Glorious Patchwork by Kaffe Fassett (love his stuff!). The quilt on the cover was the inspiration for Babette.

But most of my yarn is not machine washable and there's no way I'm going to hand wash an afghan. Really now, people.

However, in flipping through Glorious Patchwork, I found a few quilts that I could convert into knitting or crocheting. After the orange and ivory blanket is done, I'll do some swatching and we'll see what comes of it.

However, it'll have to go the end of the line behind Husband's afghan, Honorine, Brother-in-law's vest -- for winter holiday or his January birthday, the Sandy cardigan from Big Girl Knits for Ma -- needs to be done by Chinese New Year next year, and fixing Sister's Bi-colored Cables sweater. I probably just need to reknit the sleeves. And the collar.

But for now, I will just enjoy going round and round on Honorine, my portable, mindless knitting.