Some housekeeping and FO 16

Right, so this year isn't going to hold a candle to last year in terms of sheer volume of FOs piling off the needles. In fact, I can't think of a year when I was busier or more crazed. But I guess we've been lucky--nothing terrible's happened. Everyone still has all their limbs, and jobs, and houses, and so forth. My mom did get into a terrible car accident, but SHE WALKED AWAY FINE. She just had some sore ribs and some spectacular bruising where the seat belt held her gut. But that's the worst thing so far, and the year's almost over, so we're all good. I'm just super-busy with the job and the drums, and all the stuff there is to do day to day, I guess. Plus, when you're having problems relating to your life, it just gets depressing, and when I'm depressed, I don't want to knit. I can't think. So I end up reading more, which I have been. I can't say I've been making any progress on the EW list though. I finally found the right collection of Alice Munro short stories, but the damn book is massive, and I hate carrying it around with me.

Anyway, I've been "coldsheeping" by not buying any extra yarn since about April, which has also been hard. I managed to do it all the way until our vacation to Germany though. I ran into three different yarn shops while we were traveling! All really by accident. I don't think that's such a big deal, though, since we were on vacation. I got three skeins of this white, thick/thin yarn that I'll talk about later. I also got some Scandinavian lace yarn, and some sock yarn for socks for Spanky.

That brings me to what I spent yesterday doing, which was cleaning out my sock yarn bag. I've decided in 2011 to do a sock of the month club the way the Yarn Harlot did this year. I'm not sure I can manage one pair of socks per month like she does---she knits very fast. But even if I get 7 or 8 pairs done over the course of the year, that will be way more than I would have otherwise. That's in addition to the other things I want to knit, of course. Anyway, I pulled out 12 baggies and matched the yarn for 12 projects from things in my Ravelry queue and from books and patterns I had laying around the house. That also gave me a good excuse for cleaning out my old pattern binder, and looking at the things I'd stored years ago when I first started knitting. I recycled a bunch of it, because I've obviously grown (and aged, really) out of some of those patterns and don't need them anymore. Then I also decided that between now and the end of the year, I'm going to finish the Mystery Socks 2010 from Socktober (I'm almost up to the heel of the second sock, but I have to do the foot and toe of both), finish the second of Spanky's toe up plain socks, and finish up a second toe up sock from a pair I started years ago. Plus, I left the yarn out for one more pair, just in case I finish all those.

The other thing I need to plan is Christmas knitting. I want to make a scarf for my drum teacher, and some fingerless mitts for my assistant, plus a slouchy hat for her friend at work whose boss just left (and I'm pretty sure they're not going to hire before January, so I don't think she'll get a Christmas present otherwise). So that's really a lot of bloody knitting before the end of the year. My goal for this afternoon is to find the yarn for each of these projects in my stash and match them with patterns. I have a trip to Charlotte next week, but I want to finish the Mystery Socks and perhaps start Spanky's before I start on the Christmas presents, but I might take the scarf just as an alternate project. You know how it goes...

And as a plus for reading this far, I give you FO 16:



Pattern: #26 Tied Cami by Cecily Glowik-MacDonald, Knit.1, Spring/Summer 2008
Yarn: Debbie Bliss, Prima, 80% Bamboo, 20% Merino, 6 skeins

I may have a thing about bobbles...

I bought this yarn to make the garter stitch ruffled wrap from the cover of one of those Debbie Bliss magazines. I think it was a spring issue. It was pink on the cover. When I was in Pittsburgh last year, I bought enough to make it, and then it sat around for over a year while I debated making it. I really don't need more wraps, but I could use more sweaters! So I used Ravelry's advanced search to find patterns for the amount of yarn I had, based on the fiber type, and voila! This one appeared. I knew I had the magazine, so looked it up, and since I got gauge and everything, decided to go ahead and make it.



I'm sorry about that crease down the front in the pictures. I did block the sweater, but then I wore it to work, and these pictures were taken a few days after that. This is a really easy pattern, and fun to knit. It's knit in the round up to the armholes, and then split. Since it's a tank, there's not much more to it before you're done. The Prima is really drapey, as all bamboo yarn is, and it makes for a really nice summer sweater. Just in time for the fall! Har har. But I was getting so sick of seeing this yarn in my stash, so I'm really pleased with how it ended up. The longer length is flattering, the sweater isn't too tight or too big, and I can wear it over a button down shirt or a t-shirt like in the pictures to go to work, or a tank top and skirt on the weekends. I even like the cheery color. It's not a straight-up yellow--it's more like a warm gold color. Anyway, a very happy result. I do have two balls of the Prima left though, but I think I could probably use it to make some sort of baby gift, so I'm not too irritated. I just put it in the storage bag with the baby yarn.

thoughts on knitting and drums

I've been taking lessons on the drum set now since January, and I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to learn improvisation. I'll do these repetition exercises, but instead of just playing what's on the page like I have been, my teacher, David, has set up these areas where I have to plug in some of the other beat combinations that I've been practicing, without stopping to think about it. This all comes back to him teaching me from a jazz angle. He always says, "If you want to just bang out a rock beat, you can find someone to just teach you how to do that, but I don't approve of that, and I don't teach students who only want to learn that." He has a very methodical way of teaching someone. I am at the point now where I can play a whole snare drum solo, reading music and everything! It's amazing to see how far I've come in only about 9 months of irregular lessons. (I have to keep skipping because of my work travel, so it's not as regular as I'd like.) I'm still working on learning a song, but my skills are getting much more confident and sharper. Anyway, David teaching me about improvisation makes me think about knitting.

There are a lot of similarities between drums and knitting. You can follow a bunch of sheet music or you can veer off into a wild drum solo during a jazz song, just like you can follow a pattern, or do some crazy improvisational knitting piece. In each instance though, you take the skills you learn--knit, purl, cables, stick control and coordination--and you put them to use either following someone else's direction, or going your own way.

When I started knitting, after I got really comfortable with the movements and the basic stitches and had tried my hand at a few basic patterns, I started reading knitting blogs and joined my knitting group, becoming a "knitter" per se and joining the knitting community and the wider conversation about knitting. And many of the bloggers, and even some of the people in my local knitting group, started becoming dissatisfied with just following other people's patterns. The trend was to start learning to design your own stuff, be that garments or toys, or bags, or socks. I never felt that urge. All I wanted was to get really skilled at following a pattern, and being able to tell where it needed to be adjusted, either for my body type or for a yarn substitution and that sort of thing. I wasn't really into the idea of having no rules and just making stuff up myself. I like to have guidelines and directions. That's just how I am. But I end up questioning that a lot as the people around me are all happily releasing patterns or are noodling around with new lace or cable swatches just to learn stitch patterns.

So when I'm in my drum lesson and David's telling me that the next step is to leave the written music on the page and learn to adapt the combinations we have been learning in new ways that are totally made up by me, it sounded eerily familiar already. Written music is the pattern for the drum, or for any instrument, really. You follow what is there and you come out with a song. But there's no rule that says you have to do that. As a musician, you learn the basic skills, and the innovation comes with applying that in new ways, that move the conversation forward. To me, though, that's terribly frightening. Especially since it's still so new. I don't want to let go of the music on the page! But he's baby-stepping me through it, and it's getting easier.

That's why I think it would probably be a good idea for me to explore creating my own pattern. So I'm going to commit to that for 2011. I'm going to make something up. Even saying that is giving me the heebie-jeebies, but I think it will be good for me! A learning experience, right? I don't know what yet. Probably a scarf or hat or something fairly easy, but still... everyone has to start somewhere, right? And pretty soon you'll see me at Small's, banging away during my drum solo. Well, probably not, but maybe I can make it all the way through a simple rock song without stopping.

Let's hope so.