So, a little bit of redesign here at Reciprocity Failure. I was looking for a change and tried a couple of different templates before settling on this one. Sorry to everyone on an update feed, you probably got a few emails on that one! Well, in the end, I've chosen a template virtually identical to the one that I used before. The background color is dark instead of cream now, but the dots and everything are the same. Not a bold change, friends, but I like it.
Things are a little easier at work. I've started actually making sales, after a week of nothing. That was very difficult, because I was used to being a total rock star in fundraising. Sales has a very different pace, and it has been hard adjusting to that. Still, I love my job. My boss is amazing, it's a very positive, fun environment, and my coworkers are really great. It feels good to get the swing of it now, because it was starting to look like I wouldn't!
On the knitting front: the amazing Colinette project is idling now, waiting for that additional skein of yarn. God only knows when it will show up. I have such a short attention span for mail order. Thank god I live in a city full of yarn shops, because it would be a big problem if I had to do everything from a catalog. Well, I don't mean to be a big pessimist, but I went back to look at the website whence I bought the yarn and found that they had the color/yarn I ordered listed as out of stock. So, I may have to wait a while. Or I might have just gotten under the wire. We'll see. I don't really want to get too far into the sleeves before it arrives, in case it's noticeably different from the yarn I have now. It's hard to double-strand if you run out! Instead, I've pulled the beautiful top-down raglan sweater from its back burner. I'd sort of forgotten how luscious the yarn is. Well, other knitters will roll their eyes: how could I forget what a great hand cashmere blend yarn has? Still, terrific. I didn't miss working with those tiny needles, which is why I can't do any marathon knitting sessions on this project. Large needles are great for (relatively) instant gratification, but how many bulky sweaters do I need? That said, I don't think I'll ever be able to switch over to the European school of thought on gauge. Why do so many Rowan and Phildar patterns feature such fine gauge yarn? Who wants to knit an entire sweater at nine stitches to the inch?! Sadly, that's not hyperbole.
Oh, I'm procrastinating. I should be doing paperwork for my show, but I'm resisting. I already have the paperwork generated, you see, I just have to fill in additional info that will undoubtedly be changed later. Sigh. I could have avoided this problem if I'd left the running cue sheets at the theatre, but instead I tucked them in my script and brought them home. That would make it very hard for the designer (whom I assist) to train the new board operator. So, I have to make a crib sheet of all the levels and get it off to him. I guess I'll go do that now...

I want culture. I want to go to a ballet, or the opera, or a really great play. Well, I live in a major metropolitan area, so that should be easy, right? Well, a quick scan of the ads really doesn't inspire me. I should live in Europe, where there are heaps of ballet and opera companies, instead of one of each here. Well, one major company of each. Whine, whine, whine. Hell, even NYC would do it. It's that Sunday night feeling that creeps in when you're least expecting it. Maybe I'll go to the Art Institute this week. That's cultured, to say the least. I take so little advantage of all of the artistic opportunities available in the city. I've never been to the Goodman, for example, and I haven't been to a museum in town in years. I need something to recharge my artistic battery. Maybe I'll buy a copy of Einstein's Dreams and finally hang onto it for myself.
There's knitting, I suppose. I got bored on the train home the other day and actually read the general instructions at the front of one of my Colinette pattern books. It was very interesting. They advise going up a needle size for circular needles. Maybe I've been doing this unconsciously, since I generally swatch a size larger than the pattern specifies to start. I have a tight gauge, though nowhere near as tight as it used to be! Since I knit nearly all of my projects on circular needles these days, I'm surprised that I hadn't come across this bit of advice before. Maybe it's a Welsh knitting secret, or just so obvious to everyone but me that no one's mentioned it. Hmm. What the general advice should state is that Colinette yarns are dangerously addictive, especially to American knitters who are unfairly dependent upon the whims of the yarn's greedy importers. I've heard that it's hard to come by in the UK, since they export most of their stock, but I've resolved only to order it from there. I bought another Colinette pattern book (total now two) when I was at the young hip knitting shop. This was largely inspired by the shop model of a ribbed cardigan in Giotto, the yarn of my current project. As though I need another project in the lineup. Oh, about that current project. I detest knitting sleeves, but nearly all of my sweaters have them, so I am soldiering on through a pair of sleeves now. I had a little yardage freak-out and ordered another ball, but suspect that it may not be necessary. Well, better too much than too little.
Today, I was sitting at a high counter in the window of a coffee shop on Michigan Avenue. Yes, I've absorbed enough café culture to want to be near the window when possible. So, there I was, perched over a panini when a woman whizzed past on a Segway. Well, maybe whizzed isn't the correct word, since I think they move at a brisk walking pace at best. The Chicago Police Department has outfitted some of their beat cops with Segways, which amuses me to no end. Beat cops not actually walking their beat---blasphemy! Are they for low speed chases? It's just so absurd to see them scooting around dispensing parking tickets in the Loop. This woman, however, was not a cop, but wearing a tweed coat and carrying an expensive-looking purse. She was nonchalantly moving under borrowed power. I guess she caught my eye because she was at eye level with me as I sat at the counter. Very weird. Segways are the rickshaw of the 21st century, for rich people who are too damn lazy to walk anywhere. She was in her late twenties, too.
Chicago is a weird place somedays. Other days, fantastic. It's supposed to be spring now and the weather is almost coöperating. Lovely to look at today, but there was a sneaky cold wind blowing. I was fooled by that warm week at the beginning of March. There was even a warm day when the wind blew the sweet aroma of the chocolate factories of the Gallery District into the Loop. Such a warm, enticing scent.

LYS Envy

I was at the theatre yesterday, working on the interminable tech production that somehow doesn't do anything technical in its tech rehearsals, when one of my friends gave me a little card. There is a yarn shop a pleasant walking distance from the theatre. Naturally, I went there, even though I probably won't need anything from a yarn shop for a year. It was amazing. Hip, lovely, lots of space, great couches, great help, okay prices. It was very cute. I resisted the urge to buy all sorts of fabulous, unusual yarns from places like France and South Africa. I bought patterns and darning needles. You can never have too many darning needles. Hell, it feels like I can never have enough, as I keep losing them. As I was leaving, I thought, why can't this LYS be near my house? Why do I have to have the somewhat unhelpful, old lady LYS near my house? My actually local LYS doesn't have velvet couches or wine tasting nights or even an appealing layout. However, if the hip young knitter LYS was near my house, I would never have a cent. So, maybe these things happen for a reason.
My Indiana LYS (actually only 20 miles away, according to my trip odometer) is having a big sale, as I mentioned before. Well, I had to go see it for myself, and ended up leaving with another project. It was on sale, though, an excellent buy. That's how knitters justify these things. This really was a steal. I had previously salivated over the t-shirt sweater pattern in the Ella Rae book (currently being knit by the lovely lady of Blue Blog).It's knit in hand-dyed alpaca, in perfect Piscean shades of blue, teal, and aqua. It looked kind of strange in its skinny little hanks, but I can make that leap of faith. Look how lovely it is once it is wound up! Well, I'd thought long and hard about buying it at another LYS which I will call Markup Central. It was on sale there too, except it started off with a $10 markup. Shameless! Well, I didn't buy it them because I was planning to buy all sorts of fiber on my trip (which I did). Good decision, since I snapped it up for $4.50 a skein and $6 for the book of patterns instead of $14 a skein at Markup Central. That's a cheap project for such a fabulous fiber!
I also picked up the Chicago-based hand-dyed yarn that I wanted to make another Classy Drug Rug. The colors are a little outrageous, but I think that I will like the end result. It is a little hard to envision an entire sweater out of it, as you can see here. So much for my denying a love of the color pink. Really, I love blues and greens; I'm a total Pisces. But pink makes me happy. It can be very flattering to my rosy cheeks (or tired, hungover eyes). So, I own a lot of pink things, but I'm not a pink person. Maybe it's a phase. I'm really rediscovering color after so many years of black. I wasn't a Goth: it's a professional hazard in theatre. You may end up with a closet full of black clothing.

The Update Update

Here is the denouement of all the dangling ends of my posts of the last few months. Not that it has been all that suspenseful...
* Yes, I eventually finished my Olympic Sweater. I even wore it to England and back, as sweaters take up a lot of room in a suitcase. When I wore it to work this week, one of my knitting coworkers recognized the sweater from its pattern. Very impressive! That had never happened to me before. We had a long conversation about flaws in the pattern, including the difficulty of fitting the collar to the body. When I was riding home on the train, I realized that the sweater was an excellent illustration of that problem. Somehow, part of the collar seam had come loose and I had live stitches just hanging out, waiting to be rescued by my darning needle. When I get around to it, of course. I like the sweater a lot, but it does that hateful, slouchy cotton thing. Still, it's a much better fit than the last one.
* That show I was doing before I left for Europe is plugging along without me, just as I like it. The designer paid me for it when I got back in town. We occasionally discuss the project, but we're both finished with it. This is what I missed about design while I was working exclusively as an engineer: designers get to leave after opening.
* I bought a ticket to see Sir John in Love at ENO as a sort of pig in a poke. I like opera and I like Falstaff, I reasoned. Margaret the musical director assured me that it would be beautiful as it was composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams. She was absolutely correct. My previous exposure to his work was hymns, hymns, and more hymns. They're lovely, but not terribly exciting. His orchestral work, though, is amazing. Naturally, iTunes doesn't have a recording of the opera. Sure, it's fairly obscure, but they have forty-odd recordings of his hymns, folk songs, etc. Maybe iTunes isn't such instant gratification after all.
* My phone changer did work in Europe. So did my ipod charger, though I hardly used my ipod that week. While I was walking around Paris, on a beautiful rainy evening, with my ipod stowed away in my bag, I began to wonder how much we lose with our ipods. Not hearing loss, but things we don't hear because we're too busy listening to the Gipsy Kings. Don't get me wrong, I love my ipod. It makes public transportation bearable. But what about all that ambient noise?
* Hey, everyone waiting for a postcard from Europe from me. Don't hold your breath or swear at the post office. I forgot to mail the cards that I spent two hours composing at a cafe and found them at the bottom of my bag the other day. I was sick, I was busy, post offices in Paris keep weird hours. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. But, if you ask nicely, I can give you your beautiful French postcard. Sorry, no naked ladies.

How long will I be satisfied by the contents of my stash and not tempted to buy more fiber? Well, until the sales fliers from a couple of LYSes arrived in the mail today. Yes. I am ashamed. I resisted the temptation to purchase deeply marked down Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky to make a fantastic shrug. The shrug would be chunky, and I don't need chunky anything anywhere on my person. Also, I just bought yarn to make a shrug from the lovely people at the Phildar counter in Le Printemps. Shrugs are not like handbags: one can have too many.
However, I will probably head over to my actually local LYS during their sale this week to look for a couple of skeins of Lorna's Laces sportweight. I bought three skeins of it a couple of months ago, planning to make a Clapotis scarf (resistance is futile!). Except, it's not the silk blend called for in the pattern (and probably not a clever substitute) and has really great yardage. There are 225 yards to the skein, which makes three skeins for a scarf, no matter how wide, overkill. A bit of math revealed that I'd only need two more to make another of Lewis's Classy Drug Rug. That pattern, which has a completely different name in its published form, only calls for an astonishing 1,080 yards. That's in worsted weight yarn, and for an adult size! And they're having a storewide sale, which ought to include the usually excluded hand-dyed yarns. Does this reek of validation? It would maximize the potential of yarn already in my stash...
Work continues on the Giotto funnelneck pullover, despite my return to work today. The back piece is finished, and I've done about seven inches of the front. When I bought the yarn, I saw all of the skeins come out of the same mill pack, so I know that they're from the same lot. Except it looks like they're not. Hand-dyeds are like that, so I've been working alternating rows from different balls. Somehow, the back still looks pinker than the front. If it wouldn't be a total pain in the ass, I would tear it out in order to more equitably distribute pinkness through the garment, but I think this is one of those things that only I will see in the finished garment.

I read the new Vogue Knitting yesterday and wasn't tempted to make a single thing. None of the featured yarns or ads in the back inspired me. That is very, very rare. Oh, there was an excellent article on the state of the British Wool industry. I had no idea how hard the economies of production (over there) are on sheep farmers. No wonder English yarn is so expensive! But other than that, I just leafed through the magazine. Maybe I am currently immune to new projects because of my recent European acquisitions. It's just all too fabulous for competition. This may be the first time that this has happened in my memory, but I feel completely satisfied with my stash. How many people can say that? And how long will it last?

Stash is usually a dirty word for knitters, though some people are coming out of the wool-hoarding closet. Wendy over at Knit and Tonic has an incredible photograph of her in her stash, bathing in wool like some crazy knitting porn fantasy. She's really amazing, that Wendy! I'm not sure that I am ready to come to terms with the contents of my stash. I still have a lot of questionable yarns in it that were bought out of the sales bin when I first started knitting. I've still not learned to resist the siren song of sale yarn, but I'd like to think that I buy a better class of it now. I should weed it out and give it away, but to whom? There are also the beloved, projectless yarns. What will I do with 1300 yards of nearly lace weight charcoal alpaca? It is so wonderful that I am afraid I will never find the right project for it. I rarely buy yarn without a project anymore. Whether or not the yarns end up becoming what I'd originally planned is another matter entirely.

Yesterday was a blah day. Jet lag is not nearly so glamourous as it sounds. I have to wait for hours for my friends to wake up before I can call them, then I'm off to bed at the ridiculously early hour of ten. This is clearly an opportunity for self-pity. Well, I was supposed to have a gig yesterday. The production manager and I had discussed it three times. Yet, when I called him yesterday morning to inquire when he wanted me to come in, he told me that he had hired someone else for the gig. Argh! I played it cool, but really felt shat on in this situation. I was looking forward to seeing my work friends and instead I was at home watching the latest Law and Order spin-off. Not exactly a high self-esteem day. I just need one really sunny afternoon, to reset my clock and my outlook. But, being a Chicago spring, that is unlikely to occur.

At least my knitting is going well. My Giotto pullover is just flying off the needles. Yes, I have other projects languishing on the needles as I type, where my attention might have been better directed, but how could I resist this Giotto yarn? It was a real bitch to wind, possibly because I was using a wooden swift and it is a ribbon yarn. Giotto isn't hateful like your typical ribbon yarn, though. It isn't slithery, and at the pattern gauge, makes a fairly firm, cushy fabric. I am already to the armholes on the front piece of the sweater. Well, the adapted front piece. I can't ever follow a pattern without meddling, so I decided that I do not want a twenty-seven inch long sweater. I got out my trusty tape measure and measured one of my favorite sweaters. It's only twenty-one inches long. The Giotto sweater will be 23 7/8" long. Too-short sweaters drive me crazy, so I hope that this will be a happy medium. I look forward to wearing it soon!