The Year of Sewing and Knitting Dangerously

Things My Grandmother Taught Me...

The last six months have been full of internal upheaval for me as well as physical upheaval for several members of my family. But the saddest event of the last six months was the death of my grandmother, Mildred Collins ten days ago.  She was 95 years old, and her quality of life for the last little while wasn't great, but it's still hard to say goodbye.  So I shall try to here.

My Grandmother was an interesting woman.  She spent most of her life married to my Grandfather, and to us outsiders, theirs was a very happy marriage.  They both loved to read and play music, together or separately.  When I was 8 or 9 they moved out to some land in Northern Saskatchewan, where my Grandpa had always wanted to live.  I don't know if Millie was very enthusiastic about the idea in the beginning, but that's where some of my favorite memories of her are situated.  It was a happy house, mostly because the people who lived there were so happy.  As I have contemplated what she meant to me for the last couple of weeks, I have come to realize that some of my favorite parts of myself are from her.  These are some of the things I know:

1.  My house may not be neat as a pin, but there is always something interesting to look at, and there's a place to put your tea or your scotch by every chair.  It is a house where things get made and people learn by doing.

2.  Knitting has an inherent ability to calm the savage beast, or just the sad one.  After my Grandpa died, I was able to go and spend the weekend with her at the farm.  We sat one afternoon and talked about him and his death while we knitted away, and Grandma stopped at one point and said that she thought that the knitting needles stimulated nerve endings in your fingertips that helped to calm you down.  I don't know whether there is any scientic basis in that, but it sure does help when you can't seem to settle to anything.

3.  At 5 pm, those who imbibe should have a drink and politics should be discussed.  Actually, the topic of discussion doesn't have to be politics, but it does need to be something that all the assembled company has an opinion about, and its more fun if those opinions oppose eachother.

4.  One should always sing while doing the dishes.  Okay, my relatives are going to point out that Grandma hardly did the dishes after supper.  But after big family meals, the women would end up in the kitchen, moving food from table to fridge, and someone would invariably end up singing, and everyone else would join in.  Music makes everything better, and making music with family is a joy and a surprise every time.

5.  If you really, really love someone, you make them socks.  My Grandma made me my first pair of handknit socks, and I loved them and loved them until they wore through the sole.  In fact I raved about them so much that one weekend she asked me if I would like a pair of knee socks.  Of course, said I, having no idea how much knitting went into a pair of knee socks.  When I was there again a couple of months later, she asked me again, a little hesitantly whether I was sure that I would wear knee socks.  Yes, yes.  I can hardly wait.  So a couple months later they arrived in the mail and I wore them a few times, but not nearly as much as the ones that wore out.  And in fact I still have them, twenty years later.  Now that I know how much knitting goes into a pair of knee socks, I know that she really loved me, because even though she was bored to tears by 14 inches of grey ribbing for each sock, she finished the pair.

6.  Graciousness will get you everywhere.  A few days before she died, I was able to travel to Saskatoon and spend some time with her.  She was pretty heavily medicated, so I don't know whether she knew I was there, but it was important to me to be there for awhile to say my goodbye.  The staff kept coming in and saying what a lovely woman she was.  And she was.  She had a smile for almost everyone, particularly in the last few years when she wasn't really sure if she recognised you.  What must have been a very frustrating time for her - she knew she should know people, but she wasn't sure who they were - was made a little easier for everyone else by her smile.  Which isn't to say she was always happy.  She had her share of the family demons.  But she was usually the first person to get the joke and if it was slightly lewd, all the better. 

7.  You can only use the Scrabble Dictionary to look up words you already have in your head.  You can't graze it for the only word allowed that used a Q,Y, Z and I.  Really, Grandma, you can't.  And board games shouldn't be rude.   We were playing Trivial Pursuit one summer and the following question came up:

"What do the letters in SNAFU stand for?"

Do you know?  Well, the flip side of the card spelled it all out, including the "F" word.  She was shocked and appalled and she ripped the card up and threw it in the fire.  I didn't know whether to laugh or be shocked.  I was a teenager and certainly knew the word, but her outrage was very real. 

8.  Seasons are good.  As we are having a big dump of snow on our heads, I am reminded of the farm in all it's seasons.  When I was young, I was lucky enough to spend lots of weekends there with my Dad.  He and my Grandpa would get up early and have breakfast so that they were out in the woods, cutting down trees to supply the wood-burning furnace, by 8 am.  I would wake up in the little bedroom under the eaves to a quiet house (Grandma never went to bed before 2 am and never got up before 11), but the sound of a chainsaw going out in the woods.  This morning when I was shovelling out the driveway, someone in the neighbourhood was using a chainsaw, and the combination of the sound and the snow and the light made me feel like I was ten again.  In a good way.  Then my ten-year-old came out to go to school, and I hoped that when she is 38 she will hear something and have the same calm settle on her.  Witnessing change is important.  Whether it was from Grandma's spot on the sofa, watching the trees on the rise change through the year, or while she was looking at the pictures of family at different ages and stages, Grandma seemed to appreciate the seasons that she was able to witness. 

There are a million other little things.  And she was a splendid person who will be missed. 

Today, you should have a drink and a knit and a discussion with someone who will hopefully disagree.  I plan to.

I'm BAAAAAAAAAACK

Ha!  While it may have appeared that I have disappeared off the face of the earth - I haven't.  Ha.  The last six months have been chaos incarnate.  Not really on the outside but definitely on the inside.  The spring was really busy, but then summer came.  Also really busy.  I seem to have ended up with a business to run while I wasn't looking.  Things are coming in steadily and going out reasonably so.  I have had a hard time this spring/fall figuring out where priorities should be.  Finding that whole balance thing has been a struggle.  The point of the 52 week project was to make myself a bit of a priority in the whole thing.  But that kinda fell by the wayside in the middle of weddings/graduations/family drama.  So I seemed to fall off the finishing wagon.  But I'm heading back on.  It's either that or just fall over into a pile of wool and fabric and suffocate.  Not a bad way to go but I've got a few things to do yet.

So thank you for your patience and look for more interesting things to come.  Really. 

I'm Here....Just Drowning at the moment...

Hey you!  Yeah, you guys who come and check in once in awhile.  Thanks for that.  I'm in the middle of the spring rush.  Just drowning under weddings and alterations this year.  One last minute addition of a wedding dress and bridesmaid alterations (their dresses, not them) and I have officially ended up over my head for the next couple of weeks.  I'll try and take some pictures and post occasionally, but for the next few weeks things will be intermittent at best.  On the plus side, I'm getting to do some really fun things that will make for interesting posting later, when I can breathe again. 

Hope it's spring where you are.

It might rear it's head here.

Sit in the sun for me.

You thought I was gone...

Hah!  Admit it!  You thought I was gone again.  But no!  Just drowning in work and life.  Go figure.  I don't have any pictures of work or life today - just a rant.  And Canada Post is the culprit.

My family lives across the street from the university in our town.  Literally across the street.  I can see the residence from my front window.  This is apparently a complicated thing for Canada Post to grasp.  For the second time in three months, a package has been lost because a postal person is unable to read an address.  At Christmas, my mom sent a Christmas present in the last week before Christmas, and it was sent to the University postal centre, delivered to three different people and returned to the postal centre each time, before someone actually looked at the address on the package  and delivered it to the correct address.  So it appears that we are experiencing the same technical difficulties this time around.  An expedited parcel left Montreal last Wednesday and has been in Calgary since Monday.  It has been delivered to someone, signed for, and is now "out for delivery" again.  Insanity.  How hard can it be to read an address and deliver it to said address?  Is it too much to ask?  Am I sounding a little frustrated?  Well I am.  The addresses in Calgary are pretty straightforward.  Street numbers correlate with avenue numbers to make things pretty easy to find.  But oh well.  I'm not going to fuss much more, other than to utter an AAARRRGGGHHH of frustration.  Yeesh.

What week is it?

  So apparently Monday has become THE DAY.  Or at least it is this week.  Or last week.  It won't be next week.  Just to keep you on your toes.  Today is all about the knitting.  I did do some sewing last week, but the knitting achievements are monumental.  One project has been wallowing around this place (and the old place) since the last Winter Olympics.  The other is newer (just this winter) but it was made using problem wool.  Wool that I love the colours of, the feel of and everything about it, but that just wasn't meant to be a garment. 

Project: LIndsay's Cardigan

Pattern:Ribbed Diamonds Cardigan by Kathy Zimmerman

Yarn:  Alpaca from Saskatchewan.

What is important about this sweater, is that it is finished.  It was started during the last Winter Olympics.  Given that we are coming up on a new set, that makes it three years ago.  It is a lousy picture, given the grey winter light that is showing up today, but you'll have to take my word for it's loveliness.  And its' completion (except for buttons - always with the buttons).  Hah.  Many in my house (including my husband) doubted that this would ever be completed.  But they are now wrong.  I like it when others are wrong.  Go figure.

 Project: Winter Star blanket

Pattern:Radiating Star Blanket by Alexis Layton.

Yarn: Mystery Lopi from the Mill ends Bin at Wal-Mart a couple of years ago. 

So, while looking up the link for said pattern, I just realized that I didn't follow the directions.  The blanket that is pictured there is in the spirit of the blanket that I made, but it doesn't look like this one.  I like mine though.  I used the sawtooth border that Elizabeth Zimmerman used on one of the Pi shawls.  I am a sucker for a knitted-on border, and a sawtooth one makes it extra sweet.  The colours of the yarn (which tried to become a sweater no less than three times and had to be ripped out for a variety of reasons) are not true in the above picture, but they are true in the picture below:

  Same room, two minutes later.  Who woulda' thunk it?  Lighting  is a mystery.  Anyway, I love the blanket.  It is a lovely conclusion for yarn that was becoming cursed.  Not that I believe in that kind of thing. 

So that's the knitting installment for this week.  There will be sewing later in the week, then more sewing next week.  Followed by the week after and so on, and so on.  At the moment, it's all good.  And that's all I can ask for.  See ya soon.

Week 8 - I can't count, and an admission of defeat...

This is late this week.  In fact, it's now next week.  But that's okay.  I spent the weekend trying to madly finish something, anything, but then had to fess up that this is one of those weeks where I take a bye, since I am three or four weeks ahead in my list, so far.  I am almost finished Lindsay's Cardigan - been on the needles for three years.  And I am also almost finished a lap blanket that I started this winter.  But neither one is actually finished.  So next week will be a big one. 

I had bad sewing karma this week.  It all started with shortening the sleeves on a t-shirt for a client - snowballed out of control, as coverstitching sometimes does, ending with having to replace said client's shirt, having put rows of little holes in the fabric, since I had to redo it so many times.  Much swearing ensued, and, well... that was the end of sewing for this week.  It was also my husband's birthday on Thursday, so days were lost to that and the almost finishing of his cardigan for the B'day.

I also came to an important conclusion last weekend.  While this whole project is supposed to be about accepting myself at the size that I am, I am actually perilously close to being overweight (like 0.8 pounds away from that particular designation).  So I need to get a little smaller to become a little healthier.  I carry my weight around my middle, so if I gain a few pounds, my pants won't do up.  I sort of thought that I was doing okay, that the number on the scale (which was creeping up) was reflecting my massive muscle gain (huh) over the last two months of working out again.  Until I realized that I have been wearing the same two pairs of jeans with spandex in them for the last little while.  And that my other pants wouldn't even do up.  Time to do something about it.  So off to Weight Watchers I go again.  Actually eating vegetables.  Who woulda thunk it? 

So no pictures this week, just a confession, some resolve and a promise of more fun in the future. 

Week 6 - A two-fer and the lake, the lake, my kingdom for the lake...

We've been to the lake.  Not just any lake.  The lake that makes me happy and calm and the very best version of myself.  If we could figure out a way to live there I would be gone in a flash.  Seriously.  Even in the winter when it's -20, I'm a happy clam.  Or I suppose I should be a happy fish stuck under some ice while those annoying folk up above dangle treats that I shouldn't eat right in front of me.   

That's the boy and I getting back from some skiing on the lake - you can see the ice fishing huts over my right shoulder.  It was only -10, so by the time we had been skiing awhile we were both overheated.  Look at all that knitwear at work!  That's my Turn-A-Square hat and my Birthday Cowl.  And my Squirrelly mittens are in my pockets.  Excellent.  A lovely time was had by all, except for moments where my daughter was concerned, but that's par for the course. 

So what did I do in the last couple of weeks?  Where shall we start?  How about before we left?  When we are at the lake in the winter, there is usually a day or two where getting dressed seems highly inconvenient.  A pajama day.  We actually do these at home when things get too busy and everyone is going in different directions all the time.  Nobody is allowed to get dressed.  Usually I just hang out in flannel pants and a sweatshirt, but I wanted something a little more feminine this time.  Something that would highlight the good parts and gloss over the not-so-good parts.  Enter New Look 6572.

 

Project: Pajamas for the lake - and when we get back. 

Pattern:New Look 6572

Fabric: Pinstriped Grey flannel for the tunic and pants and purple wicking knit for the camisole.

So this seemed to fit the bill.  Three pieces that work for this kinda thing.

First there are the pants, which are really wide at the bottom.  Really wide.  And they are much more attractive on a body than they are in that picture.  I am not nearly that wide, and neither are they.  I changed the drawstring waist to a straight elastic one, since I tend to do up the drawstring, then never undo it anyway (have I mentioned that I have no ass, so that is actually possible?). Other than their wideness, they are standard elastic waist pants.  

Then we move on to the tops.  First, the camisole:

 This is view b from the pattern.  And it's pretty.  I don't usually go in for pretty, but this is pretty.  I didn't follow the directions, and got into my usual snafu.  You are supposed to sew the bodice together, then sew the skirt together, then attach the two (the wrap is a mock wrap), using that seam allowance for a casing for the elastic.  That's what I did for the grey shirt (which I actually made first).  But I was listening to a good cd, and thinking about my girl (chaos in a ten-year-old) and before I knew it, I had put it together like it was an actual wrap top.  Only a problem when you try to insert the elastic.  I had already decided that I didn't want the elastic in the back seam, since it was hanging nicely over my asslessness.  So I inserted elastic through the whole casing, tacked it at the beginning, cinched up what seemed like enough for the first wrap side, tacked it down at the side seam, left the elastic in the back un-cinched, then tacked the other side seam and cinched up the other front.  Then, since I didn't want to be bothering with buttons or anything, I tacked the two sides of the wrap down.  So I ended up with something that looked like the picture by going around the back and coming in the side door.  Go figure.  Here's the back.

 

Looking at this reminds me that I had to take 2" out of the back of both tops the whole way down.  Apparently I didn't really care about lining up that seam where I couldn't see it. 

Then we have the grey top:

  Since this was to be the outside layer, I sewed the wrap shut so as not to have any non-g-rated moments while lounging.  Other than that, I followed the directions that came with the pattern.  And they worked.  Go figure.

While we were at the lake, I started recovering the furniture that is there.  My mom bought this wonderful rattan furniture when they built the house a few years ago, but the upholstery on the cushions was very dark.  The whole room is brown.  So there has been talk and debate for the last year or so about what to recover them with so the place will look less like a hotel - everything lovely but very neutral.  The dithering was making me a little crazy, so before we left I went and bought a mountain of fabric in bright colours without asking anyone's opinion, thinking that it would be the perfect solution to everyone's problem.  The decision would have been made and it would be done without any fighting or discontent. (let me add here that my parents both have really good taste but that they occupy opposite ends of the colour spectrum.  My dad likes bright clear colours, and my mom likes soft neutrals a la Martha Stewart.  And they both care about how the place looks, so the battles have been legendary.)  Well, we got there and I covered one cushion with one of the fabrics that I was most confident about, and it looked like crap.  The two others looked quite good, so I covered one chair in one, one chair in the other, then left the couch and the ottoman with a note on it, saying that a decision would be good.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures before we left.  So you'll just have to trust me.

One of the nice things about the trip to the lake in the winter, is that it takes 8 hours and my husband drives.  So I can finish things of a knitterly nature:

 

Project:  Socks for the Girl

Yarn: I can't remember.  I started these for myself during the Superbowl (need long bouts of stockinette during such a stressful time) but somewhere along the way they ended up being for Kyra.  They are longer than I make for myself because she is a fan of the kneesock.  So they got finished during the drive to the lake.  Along with a hat, that got started and finished.

 

This is supposed to be an interim hat for the boy.  I asked him a couple of weeks ago if he would like me to make him a hat and he responded by requesting the most complicated hat known to mankind.  So this hat was supposed to keep his noggin warm in the meantime.  But it's too small.  Even though I had him try it on repeatedly and everytime he said it was good, perfect, etc.  Three days later he admitted that yes, it was indeed too small.  So another interim hat is in order.  Either that or he just continues to wear the red toque that you saw at the top of the post. We'll see. I did some other knitting while I was there, but (surprise) no more finishing.  I was  looking around when we got back and realizing that I have an alarming number of projects that have been started this winter only to be abandoned when they require any attention.  Apparently I should have started a blanket back in the fall that required gigantic swaths of garter stitch, since that seems to be all I am capable of.  Ah well.  Time to focus on one project at a time again for awhile and get some of these unfinished things off my plate. 

Find some sun somewhere, cause spring is coming.

Gone...to the lake but not fishin'...

I do have items to post this week, but I am in a flurry of packing before we head off to the lake until Feb. 18th.  More later, when we return...

Week 5: A little self-analysis...

When I started all this a month ago, it was with a view to reducing the stashes of both fabric and yarn that have accumulated over the last ten years or so.  Once I moved into the new sewing room and realized that, while I had lots of room for storage, I didn't even make a dent in the bins ( I kid you not) of fabric and yarn that are stored in the shed ( and inventoried, no less).  A noble aim.  And the fact that it would reign in the spending seemed like a good idea as well.  The part that didn't occur to me until later is that it would force me to really look at myself.  I'm a little slow sometimes. 

I used to sew for myself a great deal, back in the days of toddlers who napped reliably.  I made clothes that fit me well and made me happy.  I haven't done much in the last couple of years though.  I gained the ten pounds that I was always going to lose, then lost it courtesy of a couple of dieting binges (yes, it is possible to binge on dieting), only to gain it back again.  The classic yo-yo dieter.  So spending the amount of time that sewing requires on making something that wasn't going to fit me in a month when I lost the weight seemed silly.  Only I never focused on losing the weight longer than a couple of days.  So I bought all the fabric and yarn, made jokes about my theoretical wardrobe, then went shopping to buy some clothing that fit.  When you are in a store you can blame the fact that something doesn't fit on the sizing of the store, not on your own shape.  When you are standing in your bra and underwear with a tape measure in your hand, there isn't anything to hide behind.  Literally.  I'm not huge, by any means.  But I am larger than the picture in my head.  The picture in my head is from before my baby days (my babies are now in junior high) and needs some updating.  But I don't want to update it.  I want to be it again.  But mindfully now.  There are some things that I know about myself.  I know that alcohol isn't good for me.  But I love a drink on a Friday night.  The problem is that it isn't usually one drink.  It's usually half a bottle of wine on Friday, and half of another on Saturday.  I know that my body is much happier when I don't eat sugar.  But ...you see.  It's the "but"s that are getting in the way of my butt.  So here's what I realized.  I am happier (Hah!) when I am exercising regularly (no great mystery there - endorphins anyone?) and I don't feel the need to eat/drink so much.  The idea for now is to sew for myself the way that I am today, while maintaining some sense of happiness as well.  Because the number on that tape measure, while it isn't a measure of how good a person I am, does affect me.  So there.

This week I made two projects, both of which are atrociously photographed, but are symbolic of where my head is. 

Project: Shirt of My Heart.

Pattern: Christine Jonson 723 Straight Shirt

Fabric: Sweatshirting fabric with a boucle knit face, as well as some woven cotton.

I started this shirt as a companion piece to a dress that was to be made as well, but this one ended up with a life all it's own. The fabric is fairly heavy, and the pattern calls for self-facings and a double-layer collar.  That all would have been too bulky, so I used a woven cotton as a separate facing and the undercollar.  That gave everything a little more stability as well.  I grabbed a piece Jamaican print fabric that came from my Aunt Diana's house.  And realized halfway through the construction of all of this that I was making something that looked like it had come out of my Aunt's or my Grandmother's closet.  They are big on the overshirt. So the facing fabric came from Diana's and the buttons are all different vintage buttons from my button box, which has recently been enriched by other relatives.  In light of my struggles with myself, this one feels just right.  Like I am where I am supposed to be.  

 Project: Pants of...well..my pants.

Pattern:BWOF 11-2008-105b

This is the first pair of pants that I have made for myself in a couple of years, and they are okay.  They have reminded me why I love and hate making pants for myself.  Pants are fantastic when they actually fit, but they aren't something that you can just whip up in a couple of hours unless you have fitted them well already.  So these ones are pretty good.  They don't look like the picture in the magazine at all, but then I also don't look like the picture at all.  They fit well at the waist, and they are long enough (with a 34" inseam, that can be a challenge).  They have a nice detail down the side seam - a strip of the corduroy on the bias.

 See?  Nicely wrinkled pants with a detail down each side.  This picture also highlights my main fitting challenge.  See the upper leg? On the front, my quad muscle is big and strong, so I always need more fabric in the front, but my upper leg in the back scoops in substantially under my rather flat butt, leaving a lot of fabric hanging out in the back.  The picture below says it all.

 

Handfulls of fabric under my bum.  Combine that  with the propensity for my pants to drift down from the waist over the course of the day, and I look like I'm wearing diapers by 5:00.  So that's the goal for the next pair.  Making something that fits my legs reasonably well. 

There has been no completion of any knitting this week.  In fact, I have been in a knitting funk (not to be confused with any funky knitting).  I have an array of projects on the go - more than usual and that's saying something.  But I seem to be having a hard time settling down to anything.  We are heading to the lake later this week, which means 8 hours in the car each way.  Some knitting must get done.  Or Lindsay and I will fight all the way.  The knitting on the car trips keeps my head down and keeps me from hammering my foot on the non-existent brake on my side of the car when Lindsay pulls out to pass someone.  He's an excellent driver, he just has a better idea of when he can pass someone than I do.  I tend to wait until there is no-one for miles before I pass (if he was driving behind me, I would be making him crazy), so there is lots of deep breathing for me when he is driving on the highway.  The knitting keeps both of us calm.  I just don't look. 

I will post again before we go.  Have a good couple of days.

Week 4 - A sweater that isn't knitted...

This has been a good week.  I have had a bit of a sea change in my head which is tiny but huge all at once.  It has made things easier and less of a struggle.  There is enough struggle in my life.  Eliminating one is always a good thing.  So what is it?  Well, you'll have to wait a couple of weeks.  It still feels too new to go on talking about.  Suffice it to say that a joy-full life is always a good thing. On to sewing...

There is only one project to report this week, but it will be compensated for next week, since I almost finished a pair of pants, but not quite.  And I'm almost finished a sweater full of owls, but not quite.  And I have almost ...well...you get the picture.  It's a week full of middles.  Hopefully not all of them are squishy. 

Pattern:Jalie 2692

Fabric: Navy mystery sweaterknit from the stash.  It has a bit of texture, and I think it will wear well. 

This is another great top pattern from Jalie.  The shawl collar is constructed in an entirely cunning fashion that requires faith and the precise following of directions.  I love things like that.  I generally don't follow directions terribly well, but in this case it's necessary, if only for one step.  The rest of it is pretty straightforward.  I had a bit of rippling in the hems, but that's okay  (when I am wearing it, and my hips are stretching it out more, there is much less than there seems to be in this picture).  This one is really wearable and I can see a couple of others in my near future.   

So that's it for this week.  Other than my dressform looking like she needs to see the chiropractor (what is going on with that shoulder?), things are shaping up as we head into February. 

Next week, things will be crazy.  In a good way.