New Year's Wish

I used to think of myself as an adventurous outdoorswoman, but the older I get, the more girlie my tastes become, and the more I crave the lifestyle of a French Coquette, all Parisian Apartment, little dog (got one!), impractical clothing, and cool shoes. In order to calm myself when faced with another bout of lugging 80 pounds of rock salt out to treat our ice ramp hill in my cruddy jeans and stomping boots, I visualize a nice, safe, warm pink apartment full of old wallpaper and lace and yarn and vintage textiles, a pot of tea at my side as I plan my next project. Somehow my husband is not in this visualization, even though I love him madly. He can come visit later, after the ice melts. My New Year's Wish is to have a place in the city again!

All-Powerful Reeling Machine

Here's a list of "Christmas presents" I've received from Mother-In-Law in the past: pop-up sponges, scouring brushes, micro-fiber dust cloths, silver polish, (plain muslin) dish towels, etc. Do you note the Cinderella theme? I guess I'm getting worse at keeping the sour look off my face when I tear open the tissue paper, because this year she made me pick out my own gifts. And so we come to the All-Powerful Reeling Machine: A swift and yarn winder from my favorite local yarn store, Knitorious. Although she doesn't knit, Mother-In-Law, an artist's daughter, loves this place because of the incredible colors on display. And I love my new yarn winder, though I had to figure out how to use the swift intuitively — just try and get a sensible answer out of those directions! (Click top pic to enlarge.)

The Gift of Smartness

These are the items I would like for Christmas, from the Montgomery Ward & Co. catalog of 1931. Those mesh bags go for about $350 now. Since these Smart Gifts are so expensive, I'll settle for the gift of smartness instead. This next year is the year I want to be smart enough to set in a sweater sleeve. I can do it no problem with fabric, so I don't know why my brain seizes when I try to do it with knitting. Although, I did just get a really cool book, Custom Knits, by Wendy Bernard, which tells one how to achieve the set-in look from the top down, with picked up stitches and short rows. I'll try that way first and if it works, well then, problem solved. I feel smarter already.

Sweetart Knitting

I guess I can too knit when I'm having an anxiety attack, because I managed to finish this Eyelet Candy Shawlet in these last three days. This yarn is Ella Rae Lace Merino in Primary #102 colorway. It really makes me want to eat Sweetarts, bad. I hate wearing colors myself, unless you consider black, grey, khaki, and brown colors, but I sure do love to knit them. This yarn taught me some things: superwash blocks funny and makes yarnovers turn huge, I enjoy knitting laceweight with #5 or #6 but not #7 needles, and I do like variegated yarn, after all.

Turkey Trot

Right after I finished my rant yesterday about how much I hate living outside city limits, I heard a weird squeaking sound coming from somewhere near my office. At first I thought it was my chair, but when I looked over my shoulder and out the window, I saw 7 wild turkeys trotting by. One lagged behind to peer in at me. Ugly little buzzard! I do hate the country, but only because I'm not in the city, if that makes any sense. The Husband and I have been discussing ways to fix our homesickness, and we'll probably end up renting another pied à terre, somewhere cheap but not too dangerous. I'd willingly work 6 back-to-back 12-hour night shifts, even in the dread Neuro ICU, for an urbane place to crash. And then to wake up and inhale the sweet soot of my ancestral town before teaching Bridget how to ice skate at Steinberg! She is such a smart and athletic chihuahua! As per the picture on this post, I assume Rice-Stix was the department store that preceded Stix-Baer & Fuller (which was bought out by Dillard's — I forget when.) I found this sample fabric booklet, and the one from yesterday, at the estate sale of a woman who lived at the end of Kingshighway in South St. Louis, and who, one may deduce by the other cool Little Hippie fashion photos I found there, had once been an instructor at Wash. U.'s Fashion School. I don't feel comfortable at estate sales, because the vulture aspect is highly pronounced. You know you're invading someone else's space and former life at estate sales, whereas the junk found in junk stores has been depersonalized. For the record, I still hate winter.

Mel-O-Crepe

I hate living in the country, and I especially hate living in the country in the winter when our hill is an ice slick and my husband is recuperating from knee surgery and I'm the chauffeur. I put the pick-up truck in 4 Wheel Low, but we still slide down the slippery slope, visions of an even more fucked-up knee or worse snowing my vision as we go. I hate winter and I hate the country. 40 minutes from Clayton is too far away. I want to live near traffic and salt trucks and pollution and noise. How the fuck did I end up out here? The only thing that chills me out in this miserable cold is looking at old fabric and guzzling hot brandy with lemon. I can't even knit, I'm so jangled. Please God our power doesn't go out as it has every winter since we moved here four years ago. I will be good. Two years ago or whenever that horrendous ice storm was, our power was out forever, and we ended up having to stay a whole week at Flea Bag Motel in Cow Town, so my other half could be near the hospital where he practices. The motel was full of cigarette smoke, pizza crusts, Ameren workers, cracked faux marble sinks, threadbare towels, lumpy mattresses, questionable sheets, 70s furniture, and yucky bedspreads. Then Flea Bag's power went out, too, even though it was full of the sleeping linemen who had just been up 48 hours straight trying to fix it all. The only electricity on in town that night was at a gun, bait, and booze shop. There I bought an LED lantern, beef jerky, and thought about throwing in a gun and some bullets, to put myself out of my misery, but snagged a half pint of Jim Beam instead. That winter really sucked, but at least my husband could walk. If anything happens this year, I guess I'll just drag him into Flea Bag across the ice pond parking lot on a blanket as he clutches our chihuahua. I hate winter.

Textile Treasure

When I'm an old crone living alone with only aches and pains for company, I'll open my trunks full of vintage fabric from time to time and take a deep wheeze of their musty perfume before getting lost in all the false memories the sight of such calico beauty evokes. Farmgirl memories of aprons, pie, and hand-carded cotton quilt batting. Wifely memories of dusty curtains and housedresses. Spinster memories of hope chest needlework that slowly grew hopeless. My addiction to yarn and knitting is physical, but my love for vintage fabric is of the spirit.

Recipe Testing

Knitting something new is so much fun. Something without a pattern, like the Black Forest Hat below. I don't like patterns. Not because they're bad or ugly — I simply find them confining. Even though the designer may have a million more knitterly chops than I do. Patterns make me break out in hives and grab for the nearest bottle of hooch, especially when it comes to armhole shaping. (I really have a complex about armhole shaping!) Although I try not to follow patterns, I always feel compelled to chart out what I've just knit. Why? For posterity? I'll never knit the same thing twice, because I knit for the adventure and joy of seeing nothing but yarn and an idea turn into something, not the final something itself. The exception may be this Black Forest Hat. I love the way it curves around the face, and the undulations of color. I can't say I made up the stitch pattern entirely, but it's enough of a Frankenstein to name it anew: Evergreen Lace. I suppose I like to chart out my designs for the same reason I write down impromptu recipes: a record of a nifty accomplishment. I give projects away as fast as I knit them, so, unlike my stuffed unfinished object bin, the finished object bin is quite bare, and therefore a poor record of skills, etc. learned.