Planning for a Shop Hop

My eyes are barely open. But I am so excited about tomorrow. It has been a tough week, especially for Mom. I kept my two feet firmly on the ground when I helped with the roofing project. Otherwise, I worked on household chores. Mom, on the other hand, climbed up on the roof each morning and brought her own hammer and grabbed the power drill when it was available. She's worked on roofs before. She didn't wait for instructions. When the men got to where she'd been working, they stopped and just stared. Plywood secured. Ready for tar paper. Next? My uncle finally told the one man paid to help to stop calling her "ma'am". Mom suspected he wanted to avoid hurting her feelings after it was obvious she was holding her own. Me? I was on the ground running from the ants. Which, it turns out, I had due reason to fear. We think they are fire ants.

But tomorrow is our reward. Mom and I reserved seats on a bus that will take us to four different yarn shops in the area, aka a "shop hop". This was the brain child of Crystal Plemmons, our current programs director for the Guild. Crystal worked on getting this event off the ground through every possible kink and presented the Guild with not only a chauffeured ride to four LYSs, but also 15% discounts at each of them, a chance to win a raffle for a basket of knitting goodies worth $25 donated by each of the LYSs (so really 4 chances to win), and a reserved luncheon at a restaurant in Black Mountain, NC, right beside one of the shops! We each paid about $30 for a seat, but I think it is well worth the price. It will be a mini-vacation, lots of time to knit and chat, and just catch up with members who Mom and I haven't had a chance to get to know yet.

I promise lots and lots of details after tomorrow, but now I'm going to share the patterns that I've been dreaming about in preparation for the shopping. I made a list. Then I edited that list. Then I made another list. Finally, Mom and I worked on the day's budget. And I edited the list again.

So I'm going to be looking for yarn to make these patterns:

Sturgeon,below, is a wrap designed by Norah Gaughan and featured in the Berreco: Norah Gaughan Vol. 13 booklet. I love this whole booklet (which I now own. Celebrate, celebrate!). The pattern calls for Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light, but who knows what colors may call my name.

Copyright Berroco: http://www.berroco.com/patterns/sturgeon

Wedgewood (Rav link), or one of the other scarves from Jen Lucas's Sock-Yarn Shawls book (2014). I've already made two (my first Wedgewood, for Mom, and Timpani, for a good friend). There are at least two other good people who need gifts from me. I'll need 400 to 800 yards of sock weight to make most of the patterns. I already own this book, too.

Valdai (Rav link), another wrap designed by Norah Gaughan for Berreco. This one is available free via Berroco. This one calls for a far chunkier weight or for a double-strand.

Finally, there's this beaut: Vitamin D (Rav link), designed by Heidi Kirrmaier. It is a simple, elegant, swinging cardigan that I plan to make for gifts and for myself. I haven't yet actually purchased the pattern...but I know I will and I want to go ahead and get yarn, but that's just silly talk because it shouldn't be budgeted for if there's no real pattern in hand...right? There's no doubt in my mind that I will have that pattern soon. Lovely. (And did you see the number of projects on this one? 2884 is a whopper!)

There are three more Berreco: Norah Gaughan booklets that I really, really need: numbers 7, 8, and 15 (the most recent). But I've decided that tomorrow's budget must be reserved for yarn only. Unless, of course, the later booklets happen to be on deep discount.

Discipline. I have discipline.

(You'll have already guessed that earlier versions of this list must have been far longer. And included pullovers and heavy, cabled cardigans. All axed. Slashed by the vicious red pen. I am an editor, after all. That is red ink in those veins. I wonder if I'm too much of an editor? Could this be why I don't finish many manuscripts?)

Who am I kidding? The only thing that will keep us from going broke before lunch (and leaving us hungry), is if Mom spends it first. I get pretty good at talking myself out of purchases once I think that someone else is really pining for something. Then I feel really good about doing my part to help them attain whatever that is. Please, Mom, don't read this bit. It could so easily be used against me in the future...

World Wide Knit in Public Day / Week

I'm not quite too late to cover this event. Saturday June 14 was the official World Wide Knit in Public Day, which kicked off this week as World Wide Knit in Public Week. I celebrated by helping to set up and manage the tent and display table for the Smoky Mountain Knitting Guild at the Appalachian Lifestyle Celebration on Main Street in Waynesville last Saturday.

This picture doesn't do justice to the number of interested people who came by with questions or offers to purchase our samples. The samples were decidedly not for sale. Many had been gifts to one another or we simply couldn't consider selling our work! What price for hours of stitching and a garment that we liked to wear ourselves? Our goals were demonstration and education. We had a simple garter stitch scarf on stubby size #13 (US) bamboo needles to hand over to anyone who said they knew how to knit. It was the "community" scarf and will eventually find its way around the entire Guild, then be given as a charity item. (OK. I just jumped up to grab said community scarf and take a picture of it for you. It is apparently out and about in said community. I'm sure it will come back for a photo op...hopefully.) In the picture above, on the left, you can see the giant, blue ball of yarn which will become the rest of the scarf.

We advertised our upcoming adult learn-to-knit (free) classes and welcomed all knitters and crocheters to join us for any of our weekly get-togethers or monthly Guild meetings, with or without joining. It is good to simply begin by building community and connections based on our shared craft. So much can grow from it. Many people have seasonal homes here in the mountains, but we have many seasonal members of the Guild, so we encouraged everyone to stop a moment and talk. Maybe just to encourage them to pick up their needles again. Some had questions about sources of yarn and patterns, or were curious about the patterns for the samples that we hung around the tent edges. Some had just been waiting for an invitation to join a group. We jumped at any chance to give our flyers to crafters, and not-yet-crafters, with scribbled notes of great websites, like Ravelry.com, that they should check out. Or we pointed out our email and invited them to send any knitting or crochet questions our way, regardless of their membership in the group.

And in all that talking and sharing...not many of us got more than a couple of rows knitted in 7 hours. At the end of the day, though, I felt it was a grand success. Plus, we have many ideas on how to make it even better next year!

Mom and I took advantage of our lunch hour to walk through the festival. Michael Reno Harrell, one of my favorite storyteller / singers, performed.

I didn't get to listen to him for very long, but we decided that Dad would definitely enjoy hearing him perform. When we got back home, I jumped online to see his full upcoming schedule and discovered that he'll be at the Pickin' on the Square in Franklin, NC in August. We'll load up as many family members as we can in the Suburban and head that way when the time comes.

We found Julie Wilson of the Jehovah Raah Farm demonstrating spinning (lusciously curly and brightly dyed mohair) on a Lendrum wheel.

Mom fell in love with this 100% mohair (70 yards of it!). We didn't purchase it, but we know Julie and there will be time to get some of her wares later.

Julie had also brought some of the animals from the farm, including this might-as-well-be-newborn gorgeous, Angora kid:

This is his mama:

And these two, freshly sheared alpacas in their finest white:

(I just love animals.)

Here's a video of Julie spinning. She was answering some question I asked about tailspun yarn and demonstrating what she was actually doing with the mohair, which was not tailspun. I'm really very ignorant about spinning and barely know the vocabulary enough to stay afloat during a demonstration, but Mom and I are interested in learning. Eventually.

If you want a spinning wheel like the one Julie uses here, you can actually get them direct from her. She is a distributor (I believe that's correct) for the Lendrum spinning wheels. They are actually designed and manufactured in Canada (by Gordon Lendrum). Click here to go directly to her Farm's Lendrum online store. (That link is not the same as the one above it, which gives background on the wheel's maker and its design.)

Among the instructions for demonstrators was a plea for us to dress in "period" or "old-timey" Appalachian clothing. I was born in San Antonio, TX while my father was still active duty Army. But within the first few months of my life, he left active duty and joined the Reserve Army, then we all moved straight back Home. Home being right here in western North Carolina. Mom and Dad were both raised here. Their families have deep roots here. I left after high school to go to college and lived for 10 years (those impressionable years, age 18 to 28) in the middle, flat part of the state. Then, when common sense finally caught up with me, I high-tailed it right back Home to these mountains and my family. After a short stint working in Louisiana a couple of years ago, I decided that will never leave these mountains again, if I can help it. Back to the point of the "old-timey" Appalachian clothing. We don't have any. My mother's people were, and my living grandmother and her husband still are, farmers. It was always denim overalls and button-up shirts rolled to the elbow, worn both by Papaw and Mamaw. Before that, Mamaw handmade the clothing for all the children. But those clothes were worn until they either had too many holes that couldn't be darned or they no longer fit, in which case, they found new homes with new children who needed them. Clothing didn't stick around. If it did, it made its way into a new life as a wash rag, a piece on a crazy quilt, or a dress on a doll.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I got the bright idea to wear denim overalls, and the only pair in the family that would fit this fat-bottom girl was a new-ish pair belonging to my step-grandfather. Did you know that denim overalls are hot as Hades? Even without a full-on sunny day in mid-June to accentuate that fact? The only reason I see for folks to wear them is to avoid the inconvenience of normal pants falling down during a day's work, which was pointed out to me by Cindy Rickey, who personally discovered this great feature since she moved down here and began landscaping and farming. She lost 30 pounds due to the strenuous work and gained new respect for the overall. On the other hand, I think I'll stick to elastic waisted cotton skirts, unless I'm working in something that will eat up my legs (like the fiberglass in those old roofing shingles I worked with all week).

Those shingles kept me from knitting in public during this World Wide Knit in Public week. My aunt and uncle needed a new roof and I don't climb that high. So my job was to pick up the old shingles and load them into truck beds, then unload them at the dump. No one told me about the evil, flesh-eating, human-hating ants that have swarmed over the yard since my aunt and uncle moved away to Sanford (for a job) for the last year. Who knew ants love shingles? Who knew ants hate me? Who knew there was something worse than spiders to enter my nightmares? Spiders don't come in such great numbers...

Stitch n' Pitch

Do you know about the annual Stitch n' Pitch event sponsored across the country by The National Needlearts Association (TNNA)!?? I had not until this year.  Last Monday I noticed a reminder that tickets were still available through Purl's Yarn Emporium, which appeared in their monthly email newsletter. The event took place last Friday (June 6, my birthday and the 70th anniversary of D-Day) at the Asheville Tourists game against the Kannapolis Intimidators at McCormick Field in Asheville. Our Tourists, a Class A team in the South Atlantic League, are a farm team for the Colorado Rockies team. We won that night, 6-4. 

Basically, once a year, the TNNA helps sponsor and organize LYSs to gather local knitters at their local baseball field to support both craft and sport. This year we were able to get discounted tickets (only $5, instead of $8). They offered the first 100 stitchers that arrived with Stitch n' Pitch tickets (only available through LYSs, I think) gift bags full of yarnish goodness! 

There may have been more than 100 bags given out at our event. It was also $1.00 hot dog night, so I was in hog heaven. Pun intended. There were fireworks, too, but Mom and I left early during the 8th inning. We had great seats:

Knitting the colorful cowl during the game.

This was basically my birthday party from Mom. I love eating outdoors, sipping sweet tea, watching a live ball game, and it was even better surrounded by over a hundred fellow knitters! The stadium was packed. (Not just with knitters, but we were pretty loud and happy.) One of our own was even allowed to make one of the special pre-game first pitches. She pitched a big ball of yarn to the catcher! It didn't matter who I found myself next to, in lines, in our seats. I ended up striking up conversations about knitting with total strangers and we talked like old friends. 

We delved into our goodie bags and found so many treasures:

This generous bounty (yarn, coupons, coasters, LYS maps, patterns, bumper stickers, needles, cards, and more) was bagged by volunteers and provided by Purl's Yarn Emporium, Friends & Fiberworks, The Knitting Diva, Black Mountain Yarn Shop, Asheville NC Home Crafts, Earth Guild, and Echoview Fiber Mill.  

I know you're wanting to know about the yarn! The two little rolls of black and blue yarn in the upper right corner of the bigger picture of bag contents are Grundl Four Seasons' Flamenco Uni in #20 (the blue) and #17 (the black). 

I don't have very good close-ups of the others, but below is Universal Yarn's Bamboo Bloom in Zen Garden (mostly rayon from bamboo and wool). Mom and I had almost purchased some of this recently at Purl's for a specific project. So glad we didn't, but we still need one more skein... We traded at the game to get two of this color. They're different dye lots, but beggars can't be choosers. 

The rest of the close-ups are terribly blurry. 

This is Freza Yarns' Alp Royale in #909, which is a beautiful mix of mossy greens and browns in wool, cashmere, and a little Merino and Mulberry silk.

This bright orange is Freza Yarns' 100% bamboo Nirvana. (It may be discontinued because I couldn't find it on their site.)

These are Viking of Norway's Odin Superwash wool in #869.

We also got two of Mondial's Malizia in #850 (a mix of greys and silver). 

Now that I know this happens once a year around my birthday, I will be prepared next year. If we still have our giant Chevy Suburban (it has been acting its age lately), I'll be able to offer rides to members of my Smoky Mountain Knitting Guild. Lots of other knitters came to the event as groups in vans. We are blessed in western North Carolina with a good number of LYSs, but distances can be intimidating with current gas prices. Needless to say, I'll be cheerleading this event next year. 

Oh! But this wasn't my only birthday gift this year. My parents gave me a pretty cool, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. They took me to see Dolly Parton at her benefit concert in Knoxville, TN at the Thompson-Boling Arena on May 28th. Proceeds went to her Imagination Library and a medical fund that she started to benefit poor Appalachian areas. I say "once-in-a-lifetime" because access to tickets isn't always easy (she came to the local casino in Cherokee, NC, but tickets were swept up by a third-party vendor and re-sold at extortionist prices), and she's not young. I just love her. We all really enjoyed it. Thank you, Mom and Dad! 

P.S. If you have children younger than 5, check out Dolly Parton's Imagination Library and see if your area is served. The purpose of the charity is to give (free) books on a regular basis to pre-school children who may otherwise have no means of getting books into their homes. Statistics suggest that children who come from homes that have books become readers. Dolly began her charity give-aways in the poor areas of Appalachia, but now the charity serves areas all over the globe.

Colour Me

...Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, anyway!*

Finally, an end is in sight. My color starved days of knitting neutrals are numbered.

I am deep enough into my brother's Spruce Cove Pullover that I feel a sense of accomplishment already. I've progressed a bit further than this picture shows and the mock rib of the body knits up pretty quickly. (I apologize for the blurry photography.)

I've swatched for Dad's Henley sweater in a darker, tweedy brown (Vanna's Choice in Barley). I'll actually be custom designing his sweater based on his measurements and a combination of reference sources (much more on that later).

But the real fun is this: 

This is going to be the sweetest little cowl (for me!) and it is a pleasure to knit. It is the simplest pattern (just enough YOs and K2togs to keep it interesting) and the colors just spin onto the needle like magic. This is a wee kit that came in the cutest packaging (which had a ridiculously large part in my deciding to purchase it) from Friends & Fiberworks, a LYS in Candler, NC. They sometimes bring samples of yarn and kits to sell at the monthly meeting I attend for the Smoky Mountain Knitting Guild. (I'm the guild secretary this year, which is pretty cool, if I say so myself.)

See? Cute as a button! The yarn is Adriafil KnitCol color no. 61. According to Adriafil's UK web site, it is also known as "Chopin Fancy." As WEBS points out, it features teal, wine, lilacs, and browns. The sample cowl matched the shirt I was wearing at the meeting and I just loved the mix of colors. I was lucky to find one of the kits that actually had the same colors as the sample. You can see from the links that this yarn comes in the complete rainbow! Even after looking at all the others, I think this one is still my favorite. Two little buns of color, a neatly folded pattern, and perfectly sized plastic box zips around the top and, get this, has its own handle. You can just take your knitting kit with the rainbow all tucked inside for a stroll!

*Props to Blondie's "Call Me".

A Funny Thing

This afternoon I was feeding and watering the chickens and a thought almost bowled me over, which would have been pretty easy because I was squatting in the coop with an old skirt wadded up around me. My brother built the coop, which has a high-rise, insulated nesting penthouse, and my sister-in-law selected and raised the chicks from wee little hatchlings. 

That little fuzzy thing in the back right corner is our silky rooster. He's a bit of a freak with 7 toes on each foot and feathers in weird places. But he's our freak rooster.

Even with the pups (over 80 pounds each now) running laps around the coop, the hens were placid and I took a moment to pick up "Sleepy" and cuddle her a bit. One night recently, one of the girls managed to squirm their way out the coop door somehow. Mom discovered it when Lucy (our girl Great Dane) wouldn't leave the coop when called. Mom found Lucy herding the AWOL hen against the front of the coop. Lucy wouldn't let that bird go around the little building or anywhere. She wasn't interested in biting or being aggressive at all. She let Mom pick up the hen and return it to the coop with no problem, then happily followed Mom back to the house. 

About that thought that struck me this afternoon in the coop. Fifteen or so years ago, when I was a temporary flat-lander in the eastern part of the state, I never would have imagined myself in a chicken coop. Sure, I was raised in the rural mountains and most of my childhood was spent outside, especially at my mother's parents' house, where gardening, canning, and chicken coops were just a normal part of life. But for over ten years I was at college or working in the Triangle area of North Carolina. I became expert at navigating aggressive urban traffic and became picky about my wine, my coffee, and, later, my tequila. I wore high heels, danced till last call, and when my first marriage crashed and burned spectacularly, I bought a townhouse on my own. I shopped at Target, not Wal-mart. You all know what I mean. I was still a t-shirt and jeans girl, but those denims were low-slung at the waist and flared at the ankle (it was the late 90's and early turn of the century, after all). I am not afraid to flaunt that long ago image because these days I'm a humble 75 pounds heftier than I was back then. 

It took less than a year after that separation for me to crumble. Not completely, of course. Hitting rock bottom would come about six or seven years later. But, life is good. Just not easy to peg down with expectations or well-laid plans. I'm now a teetotaler and I'm happy with just about any old coffee, as long as its strong. Every single pair of jeans that I can now fit these curves into, and not feel smothered, have been picked up from Goodwill thrift stores. I'm a master of using trade credit at Mr. K's Used Books, Music, and More to get "new" used books that I can't otherwise find at the library. 

Back then, I never would have thought I'd enjoy that happy moment stroking a hen's feathers, squatting on a chicken poop littered floor, wearing off-brand Croc clogs, an old skirt tucked around my legs, hair chopped short for ease, feeling a breeze through wire walls. 

Of course, then there was that moment this morning when I picked up a hand-knit dish cloth from the basement floor, planning to throw it into the wash...but hesitated when I spied a shiny black speck on it.  It was a spider. Possibly a black widow because it was so shiny and glossy. In my dumb curiosity, I stalled too long and it flew towards me faster than...well, than anything with less than non-poisonous, evil purpose would. Obviously, it intended to kill me. I couldn't find it after I did my freak-out dance, so I totally stripped, threw the dish cloth, and my clean clothes I'd been wearing, into the washing machine, slammed shut the lid, then ran up the stairs and through the house--completely naked. Good thing I live up on this mountainside.

Not Finishing

There are some readers who will finish a book regardless of how they feel about the book itself or their own reading experience. It could be the worst book they've ever read, and they'll finish it, word for word, cover to cover. I do not understand this. I cannot do this. When I say "the worst book they've ever read," I mean something completely relevant to the individual reader. Your favorite book could be my idea of a hell on earth, or the other way around. I respect that. But for someone to sit still and suffer through their own version of hell on earth in a neat, handheld package is beyond me.

Thus, I do not finish that which does not earn my interest or respect by page 30. If it has a tentative grip on me, I'll give it to page 50. Due to professional need (I was a middle school librarian at the time) I tried Stephenie Meyer's Twilight twice. On the second attempt I made it to page 90. Sorry. Despite assurances that it gathers speed after that, I just couldn't do it.

Why? Because life is short and I have 397 books (and growing) on my to-read list. Because sometimes you are just not ready for Book A and only Book B will satisfy...then along comes Book A five years down the road and it knocks you off your tush. Like The Grapes of Wrath when I read it in college. I doubt I would have had that amazing experience reading it in high school. I waited to read Jane Austin, almost all of her works, in the year after I graduated from college. I managed to save her just for my personal reading for the whole four years I was getting my English degree. I also managed to avoid reading Charles Dickens, but for very different reasons. Classics are far and away better reading when they are not required reading. Dickens, well, he may not be to my taste at any time. Perhaps that will change for me one day. In the mean time, there is no space for the ol' chap on my to-read list.

I read all kinds of books. Autobiography, other nonfiction, urban fantasy, erotica, paranormal romance, literary fiction that pretends to be "above" genrefication, essays...you name it. I do not read crappy writing. Example: recycling almost whole sentences or paragraphs in a book....I'm looking at you, Danielle Steel. I may have trouble memorizing things, but you only have to tell me once that our heroine is blonde and suffering from some trauma in a single book within the first five chapters. I haven't read a Steel novel since that one when I was in high school. Nora Roberts is a far better writer to my mind.

Here's my bedside table right now. One book of essays, two memoirs, one Pulitzer-prize-winning literary fiction, and one urban fantasy (from bottom to top).

The only thing I absolutely will not try reading (I'll give any book or author a fair chance) is an author or book that doesn't respect its readership. How can I tell? I love all things bookish and I've delved into most aspects of the book world. I've worked as an editor at a major publisher, a published writer with a very small press, a freelancer, a proofreader, a researcher, a bookseller in an independent bookstore, and a librarian in all kinds of libraries, including working in acquisitions directly with vendors and distributors. Here's a great example. A certain major New York Times bestselling author was hosted as a guest speaker by our book store and told a store employee that his job is so easy because his readers would purchase and read any ol' slop he puts on a page. Oh, yeah? I will never touch that man's books and I'll give his name to any personal acquaintance who cares to ask. I don't care to be sued by a man with far more moolah and clout than I, but there you have it. I'll tell you many names of who it is not. That, I'm happy to do.

Well. That's one way to find out if a book is not worth your precious reading time. And my lovelies, your reading time is precious.

I feel guilty about not finishing knitting projects. I do not feel that same kind of guilt when I can't finish a book. Some books, yes. I have no idea why I cannot get finished with The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It is beautifully written and I am keen on the descriptions and the characters. I'm on page 329 and I believe we're in Cold War Hungary. Many other books, mainly nonfiction, are bookmarked and await moments when I need to dip back into them to clear my literary palate of the high drama, and sometimes anxiety, of fiction. Not that nonfiction can't be dramatic. But the writing style can often be soothing.

One marked exception is Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It is fiction, but is so beautifully written and has a "still waters run deep" joy about it that I just love to read it in small chunks in between other things. Sad things happen in it, but it overcomes them with something far more powerful. Another exception is Scattershot: My Bipolar Family, a Memoir by David Lovelace. The very first chapter was such a violent trigger for me that I couldn't read any further.

So, I have intense experiences and sometimes relationships with books and authors. And I can't always predict what will happen, so I give each one a chance (unless they've already burned their bridge, as mentioned above). If you've read my About page, then you know that I'm an unapologetic book sniffer and I love the book as an object and artifact, as well as for its treasured contents. I'm one of those women who include careful consideration of trade-paperback carrying capacity of any purse prior to purchase.

Since I'm being honest about my bookish self, I will let you know that I don't just cease to finish books if they fail me. I have been known to throw them, if the experience was especially bad. Yes, I'm a tosser. Not into the trash. But into the air, against things, into donation boxes with more than necessary force. Even in knitting, I throw the working yarn around the right needle instead of "picking". When Frank E. Peretti killed off a certain female character in The Oath, that book went flying all the way across my bedroom and smacked the wall with a satisfying thud. I know exactly what Bradley Cooper's character felt when he stuck with Hemingway all the way to the end of A Farewell to Arms only to feel utterly betrayed. What did he do? He threw that book as far from him as he could get it. (Here's the scene on YouTube. Major spoiler alert if you haven't read the book and care to.) That's me.

Before readers or writers freak on me, I am a firm believer that the author is utterly free to make their story decisions without worrying about pleasing everyone. You cannot please everyone and if you tried, you'd have a very, very boring book on your hands. So, George R.R. Martin, you keep writing what you want. Piss some readers / viewers off with your willy-nilly powerful death pen. I would soooo read your books if I wasn't kind of scared of them. (I don't want to get all excited, fall in love with a character, and then need to throw a book that size through a wall. This house is a little old.)

I believe there are tons of good books out there and we just have to keep looking for the right book for us at that moment. And that means sometimes looking beyond the “safe” places, such as Oprah's list or any book club list (no offense intended to either). Forge a new path for yourself. Use some (really cool) online tools, like GoodReads or LibraryThing. Use Amazon as a jumping off point for finding read-alikes, or, even better, go right up to a real, live, breathing librarian and say, “Dude, I don't know what to read next and I'm kind of bummed out about it.” Or browse the stacks at a bookstore or library like this: walk very slowly and keep an eye out for fonts or colors on the spines of books that interest you. Sometimes I lightly touch the spines with my finger tips. Make sure to stop here and there to look at the bottom and top shelves, too. Pull these books off the shelf and read the plot summary on the inside flap or the back. Don't put the book back on the shelf if it doesn't strike your fancy. Just put it on a table or lay it flat on an empty space on the shelf. The library magically makes it disappear and return to its proper place later. If you end up with ten books that sound interesting, check out all ten! You don't have to finish them. If you read one, that's great. Especially if that author rocked your world and now you know she/he has five books published. You are now on a quest to find the other four. The only tool you need prior to any of these book-finding techniques (except for the random library / bookstore shelf tours) is the title / author of a book that you really enjoyed. Use that title / author to discover what other readers purchased or read next. That may be a good "read-alike". If you like Christine Feehan's Carpathian series, a good read-alike for you might be Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series. It's a cool librarian word. Now, you're cool like us. ;)

I have to go now. There is a major sweater that is not finished. That is not cool.

Finishing

If you are a knitter and spend any time talking about it with other knitters, you know that "finishing" garments is / can be a big thing. Some folks are easy going about it. Others have strict rules and will judge your knitting accordingly (you will be able to identify these folks by their reaction to learning you're wearing something handmade; they will grab an edge where seams meet and flip it over to inspect the underside). Yet others are middle-of-the-road and dream of the perfection of fine finishing. And then there are those that patronize a specific LYS enough that they actually just bring their various knitted pieces in and drop them off for a staff member to finish for them. (I get my yarn all over the place, so that's not going to happen. Especially if there's a cost involved. That's yarn money!)

For those who don't knit, "finishing" is the part where we clean up the knitted pieces, sew it together if necessary, attach buttons, and so forth. Much of this is invisible to the outside once it is done, especially if done well. Sometimes even side seams can be made to disappear. I'm a process knitter, so the actual part where I just get to sit and knit makes me the happiest. Stopping to sew it all together when I never learned to sew was, when I first began this knitting adventure, a bit stressful. There are patterns for whole sweaters that require barely any sewing, and I like those. They are knitted in the round and usually have raglan sleeves. Dropped shoulder sleeves are OK, but not the most flattering. They require picking up and knitting stitches along gapping holes left just for the purpose of creating a sleeve. I can pick up and knit till the cows come home. But...for some devilish reason, I am drawn to beautiful patterns with set-in or in-set sleeves. (You can't see me, but I just had to stop and take a deep, settling breath at the very thought.) This is not an easy finishing technique for me. It took me weeks, yep, weeks, to finish the sleeves on my mother's birthday cardigan. But it is done. Hallelujah.

In my defense, the sleeves were normal stockinette and the body was that complicated lace and twisted stitch cable combo. Plus, the front sides angled to create the asymmetrical effect, so even sewing up the sides was wacko. Oh, and I felt it necessary to take it upon myself to re-write part of the pattern and made the sleeves a different size than what was given. 

I don't think I did such a bad job. And Mom now has a Mother's Day present, since her birthday was way back in January.

On a wonderful shiny note, here are the handmade buttons she made for it. They go on one shoulder, as you can see the closed cardigan above in the second photo.

She's a genius. Aren't they beautiful?

Here's the Ravelry link to the original pattern, "A Touch of Luxe Cardigan" by Anna Cohen, which appeared in Creative Knitting magazine, Winter 2013. None of the issues I whined about were due to the designer's hard work and vision. You can see more of Anna Cohen's designs on this Ravelry page. On the other hand, my whining says volumes about my ability to follow instructions (lack thereof) and lack of patience. I could look at it this way: my patience is actually impressive, because despite over five months' of work, I still finished it!

I also finished the Norah Gaughan's Moshup, all but the blocking, that is. Again, I couldn't stop myself. I altered the pattern just a wee bit. Just the back where there was a pointy bit with yarn-overs. This one is for me. It's just chunky, over-sized, and meant for comfy warmth on cold days. I haven't picked out buttons yet for the cross-over front flaps. 

No sweaters today, though. It is beautiful and sunny! Keep on knitting and don't fear the finishing. If I can do it, you can, too!

P.S. Alison gave me a very nice compliment in her comment below, but I decided I needed to explain better what it was that unsettled me so much about finishing. (By the way, "unsettling" is the perfect word; thank you, Alison.) When I sit down to seam flat pieces together, I don't have as much trouble, as long as we're dealing with stockinette and / or garter stitch fabric. I just think about it as a visit to the Bar-V Ranch. Bars: just look for the bars between vertical rows of knit stitches and slip your tapestry needle beneath them. Vs: just slip your tapestry needle under two legs of a horizontal row of knit stitch "V"s. With garter stitch, pick a purl bump (you can think of it as a "bar" to keep with the "Bar-V Ranch" theme) row and make sure you keep using the same one all the way up. If the garter stitch is horizontal, you can poke at it until you find a row of stockinette legs and use the "V" legs to guide your tapestry needle. The unsettling bits? Fuzzy yarn and un-even selvedge edges. (Where in the world did the bars and Vs go?) In-set sleeves that require seaming in a circle. A circle. Stair-step shaped selvedges. Lacy patterns, angled selvedges due to increases and decreases...yes, even when the increase or decrease is made one-stitch into the row. The two sweaters you see above had almost all these issues. 

The one thing I highly recommend is to block before you seam. Especially if you're working with lots of pieces of plain stockinette stitch fabric because it curls at the edges. 

I hate to admit it, but I am pretty satisfied and happy once I've finished a project with seams that marry so nicely that I would let my mother or myself wear it to our monthly knitting guild meeting. That requires confidence. 

Again, thank you, Alison. Knitters need to check out Alison's blog. This "Fifty Fifty" top she knit is gorgeous.