Lime Street Knits

What a weekend! I got the key to the new apartment and have been moving ever since. My brother and Mom were up for the weekend, thanks to my boyfriend, who managed to catch me completely off guard with a surprise birthday party. (Note to all potential surprise party throwers - If your guest of honor is in the process of moving, you may want to suggest that he/she clean up a bit on the day of the party.)

I've been bad on the blogging and knitting front, but promise that I'll be better as of August 1st. The new apartment has been taking up my life. And speaking of the new apartment... I just love it! It's even bigger than I remembered, which is unusual. I have a tendency to double the size of apartments in my mind.

I've just found out that I'll be able to start moving into my new apartment a few days early. Hooray! This should make the moving process much less grueling. Maybe I'll even let myself go swimming tonight! (I haven't gone in almost a week and my whole body feels terrible.)

On the subway, on my way into work this morning, I stood near a woman who was knitting a beautiful, variegated sock. I wanted so much to ask her what type of yarn she was using, but she seemed to be in the zone and I didn't want to disturb her. I also felt the urge to pull Grace out of my bag and out myself as a fellow knitter.

Is this unhealthy? Whenever I see anyone knitting in public, I get the "me too!" syndrome and want to self-identify myself as a knitter. It's probably because I'm so hungry to talk about knitting. None of my friends have any interest in it and I'm too chicken to go to a stitch and bitch. I have a bit of performance anxiety because I'm an armpit knitter. Armpit knitter... what a terrible expression! I challenge the knitting world to come up with a cuter name.

Why is it that knitting inspiration only strikes when I have very little time to knit? I haven't picked up the needles in three days as the combined result of packing, a lovely visit from my boyfriend's family and the new Harry Potter book. And suddenly this morning at work, a pattern idea for an entrelac bag hit me out of nowhere. I sketched out the basics of it on a post-it. That's all I really had time to do. And then this afternoon a fair isle pattern popped into my head, completely unprovoked. I actually spent my lunch hour charting the fair isle because I didn't want to forget it. There are plenty of good ways to create a fair isle chart and let me tell you, doing it over lunch hour on Excel while wondering what will happen to Harry Potter ain't one of 'em.

It's a kind of Baroque pattern inspired by a building I saw months and months ago. I'm thinking that it should be knit up in these colors.





I need to pack! Why the sudden inspiration?

I'm going to have to start cranking out new baby gifts very soon. The stars have aligned so that five (yes, five) friends and family members of mine are due to deliver in August. I'm not complaining. I'm very happy for all of the parents and grandparents to be. And lord knows I love knitting baby clothes. It's just that my no-new-knits program is going so well, I hate to give it up. I'm weak willed. If I hop off the wagon now, I may never get back on.

In an attempt to stave off the inevitable, I decided to really do my homework before selecting baby patterns to knit rather than immediately starting my go-to gift, a simple boatneck sweater with matching striped hat. I was hoping that this would buy me enough time to finish off Mr. Cash, but instead it lead me to a treasure trove of temptation, specifically Jaeger Pattern Book #29



If you haven't had the chance to peruse this book, please follow the link and peak at pictures of the collection. They're absolutely gorgeous. I should send a thank you note to the Windsor Button employee who directed me towards it. Or maybe I should send her Grace and Johnny Cash, so that they don't wither on the vine.

The third panel of Grace is about fourteen inches long now. My new technique with Grace is to pretend that she's only going to be four panels wide. I know, deep down in my heart of hearts, that I won't be happy until she's five panels wide. But at the moment my four panel delusion has rekindled my interest in working on her, so I can see no reason to disabuse myself of the notion.

In the interest of full disclosure, my rekindled interest in Grace may also stem from the fact that I'm cheating on her. I've been working on Johnny Cash on the side. I don't know what's happened to Johnny over the past few months, but suddenly he's a breeze to knit. If this keeps up, he may be my next FO.

Most of the time voice mails from my Mom sound something like, "Just thought that I could catch you. Call when you have a moment. I love you!"

But every now and then they sound like, "I don't remember how to knit two together or P-S-S-O. Call as soon as you can; I'm in the middle of a row."

My Mom and I have something of a one-way knitting hotline. Whenever she makes a mistake or encounters a technique that she's not familiar with, she gives me a call and I try to talk her through it. And although verbally explaining a knitting technique to someone over the phone isn't the easiest or most efficient pedagogical model, I wouldn't trade it for all the world. I think it works for us because I don't believe that my Mom really needs the verbal directions. She's a smart lady. She has lots of instructional knitting books and the whole darn internet. I think that our knitting calls are much more about the ever important pep talk. I see myself as Burgess Meredith to her knitting Rocky.

Somewhere along the line I was lead to believe that knitting was "too hard" for me. It kept me from learning to knit for a long time. It also kept me from moving on to more complicated projects as a new knitter. I know that my Mom had this misconception for a long time too. So now that she's over the initial hurdle of learning to knit, I like that I can prevent her from falling into the trap of not challenging herself. In knitting and in life, I think it helps to know that someone out there is rooting for you. And I'm glad that I can be that someone for her.

Last night I talked my Mom through binding off her first cabled project (hooray!) and through the first few rows of her very first lace project. Before we got off the phone, she told me that she would like her next project to be a sweater. I'm so very proud of her.

It's official. I've broken out my Harry Potter glasses and scarf in preparation for The Best Harry Potter Party Ever.

If you haven't given a listen to Harry and the Potters, I would highly encourage you to do so now. The Parselmouths are also fabulous.

Two completed panels of Grace? Why, yes, they are. How kind of you to notice!

Progress on Grace has slowed significantly now that packing is in full swing. So it's nice to have these small, validating moments of achievement.

This morning I had the realization that I'll be spending my birthday weekend moving. Sigh. I know that birthdays are not, in fact, magic. And that the normal obligations of work, bills, etc must still be met on one's birthday. It's just that... let's just say that this is a big birthday for me. If hard pressed, I might confess that on this particular birthday I will be turning a number that starts with a "th" and ends with an "irty". And carting all my worldly goods from one apartment to another like a pack mule is not at all the way I planned on celebrating this auspicious occasion.

I know that there are many, many worse things in the world and will not dwell on this small disappointment. I just wish I'd realized it earlier.

And to keep with the completely trivial theme of this post, I found this adorable bag at a store in Harvard Square called Mint Julep.



Now I can bring my lunch, coffee, knitting and a great big book to work all in one bag. And hopefully, look vaguely stylish.

Speaking of a great big book... I finished The Fountain Overflows and it was truly, truly lovely. So now I'm moving on to the great big Edith Wharton biography I've had my eye on. I love summer.

I forgot to mention one of the adventures I had while on vacation! I went to a crazy little shop in Kenmore Square called Nantucket Natural Oils, where they will create a personalized perfume for you based on your specifications. First you look through a scent menu and select scents that may be appealing to you. Then you smell dozens and dozens of the oils and the staff guides you through combining the different scent "tones" in a perfume. I'm sorry to report that I have the olfactory sensibility of an old man. My favorite scents were "tobacco" and "old book".

I brought The Paris Review Interviews, I with me to read on the beach yesterday and was absolutely floored by the interview with Rebecca West. On the way home, I stopped at the Harvard Bookstore and picked up a copy of her novel, The Fountain Overflows. This happens every now and then. I stumble upon a marvelous author and can't for the life of me figure out why I didn't know about him or her years ago.

It seems that my reckless bragging about my do-nothing vacation compelled the vacation gods to smite me. Two completely unanticipated events derailed me this week. First, after months of searching, my boyfriend and I finally found a new apartment. It's large for Boston, in our price range and actually in the same building that I already live in. Which means that, in theory, the move should be remarkable easy. The bad news? We move in three weeks. Three weeks! So there was more packing than knitting this week. Also, completely unexpectedly, I was approached by a local college and asked to interview for a Performing Arts position... the next day. Which sent in me into a "did I already pack my suits?" tailspin. The interview was fine. A little rah-rah for my taste, but some schools are like that. I suppose the only thing to do now is wait. And remember not to pack my suits for another week or so, just in case I get called back for a second interview.

On the knitting front, Grace is still growing, but the bloom is officially off the rose. I'm trying to figure out how to put the zing back in our relationship. It seems like there ought to be a book that deals with this; some sort of Knitters are from Mars, Afghans are from Venus type self-help manual.

Also, and I feel that this is more of an accomplishment, I taught my mother how to do YOs, K2togs and PSSOs. She's now enthusiastically at work on a lacy baby hat. Three cheers for Mom!

And there was swimming! For all of my woe-is-me vacation complaining, I was able to squeeze in a remarkable amount of swimming. Lake swimming, ocean swimming, pool swimming... You name it, I swam in it. My hair has started getting a little funny from all of the chlorine, so I took the plunge (sorry) and bought a fabulously ridiculous bathing cap. In truth, it's not nearly so goofy as I would have hoped. When I first strolled into City Sports, visions of my Nana's crazy Esther Williams-style bathing caps danced in my head. She had at least half a dozen caps in an assortment of Easter egg pastels, each with a different gigantic plastic flower affixed to it. I'm sorry to report that these caps cannot be had for love or money and I had to settle on a little black number by Speedo. It's a a little too sporty, a little too shiny and gives the impression I can do more than doggy paddle. Which is to say, this cap is a dirty fibber.