alisonknits

Let me get a stitch in edgewise!

There's a knitting group that I used to go to for a long time, but until last night, I hadn't gone since last July.  And my attendance was pretty spotty for a while before that, too.  But when I went last July, when I was still working at a yarn store, I found that I spent the entire time helping three knitters figure out their projects (two of whom, I might add, were customers at the store).  I decided that this just wasn't fun for me anymore.  I mean, I get paid to teach people and help them through their projects, why should I have to do it in my spare time as well?  There were other reasons I didn't go back, like being busy most Wednesdays, but I think that was the main one.

This subject was discussed on the Kniteachers e-mail list recently.  It seems many knitting teachers become known as the resident expert in their knitting circles, and like me, end up getting little or no time for their own knitting at these groups.  I found that sometime when someone would come in saying they needed someone to help them with their project, other knitters would tell them, "Sit next to Alison - she's the expert."  (Even when most of the things people needed help with any of the experienced knitters could have helped her with - how to increase, for example, or how to interpret a basic pattern instruction.)

And I don't want to seem ungrateful for their praise, or stingy with my knitting knowledge.  I just want to be able to get a stitch in edgewise!  And I couldn't.  So I stopped going.

But I missed my friends in the group, so I decided yesterday to go.  I braced myself to tell people that I'm off the clock, that I'd be happy to answer brief questions or offer quick help, but if someone wanted my concentrated attention, they should schedule a knitting lesson.

Happily, that didn't happen.  But I did notice something very interesting.  When someone near me needed to learn how to increase, and someone else started showing her one way to do it, I felt the need to show her a more efficient way of doing it.  And when a friend was having trouble with her kitchener stitch, I couldn't help but dive in and try to diagnose the trouble.

Perhaps I did this to myself.  I can't keep my nose out of other people's knitting.

Obviously, there is a balance to be struck here.  I need to speak up for myself when I feel that others are being disrespectful of my time off from teaching, but I do actually enjoy helping people with their knitting issues... as long as I can knit too!

The Honeymoon Is Over

So tell me the truth - how many of you thought I'd turned a little bit wacko when you read about my religious experience on the crosstown bus?

In my world of knitting, I'm not feeling terribly inspired lately. Maybe this is because spring is my least favorite season clothes-wise. (Of course it has other redeaming qualities, like the way the air smells... except that good air smells are few and far between in NYC, and today it's just miserably cold and rainy with a hint of snow.) I find it impossible to dress for the weather in the spring. A smart girl might wear layers, but apparently I'm not that smart. I don't like dressing in layers and have few clothing items suitable for layering. Maybe I should make some.

In an effort to find knitting inspiration, I pulled a 2-foot high stack of books and magazines off the shelf last night, flipped through them, and got nothing. I realized this is probably because I can't really afford to buy any yarn for a new project right now. So I proceeded to plumb the depths of my stash for something fun to knit. Found a lot of great yarn and partially-completed projects, but nothing inspiring.

I did find a completed project that I'd been planning to re-work. It's a cotton tank top that I designed for myself. The bottom half is lace, the top half is solid stockinette, having decided that I was too modest to wear a completely lace top. Unfortunately it looks wretched with the stockinette stitch top, so I took that part off and am redoing it in the lace pattern. I would have taken a before picture, but as usual the camera batteries were dead. (You'd think by now I'd learn and get a spare set to keep charged, but no. Instead my poor blog readers are deprived of photographs due to my negligence and laziness.)

I think I'll make the top a boat neck. I've never made one before and I think it will look nice.

I wonder if I should take a break from knitting until I find something that really grabs me. I remember when I was in the throes of my St*rmore Fair Isle craze... what a great feeling that was. Or maybe I'll finish or rip out all my unfinished or rejected projects. That could keep me busy for a while. Maybe I'll design more hats or ponchos - those were fun. I didn't get to keep any of the ponchos I did for VK, and I'd like to have the bamboo one I did - maybe I'll make that for myself.

You know what it feels like? It feels like me and my knitting are way past the honeymoon phase, and now we need to find a way to keep the romance alive.

God Bless the MTA

I had a religious experience on the crosstown bus yesterday.

I had left work later than I hoped for, and was on my way to meet some friends who I haven't seen in a while.  This has been a bad week for the MTA, with lots of problems on many of the train lines, but I wasn't expecting any problems with the bus.  Alas, as I waited, and more and more people joined me at the bus stop, one after another buses passed by saying "Not In Service."  Everyone was getting very agitated.

Finally a crowded but in-service bus arrived, and we all piled on.  As we pulled away from the stop, and all along the way, the bus driver kept asking people to move all the way into the bus, but no one was moving, no one wanted to give up the little bit of elbow room they had.  At one point, when a woman needed to get off at an early stop, she tried to get to the front of the bus (being much closer to the front than the rear exit), and people started making angry comments at her, and at each other.  I had headphones on, so I couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, only the angry tone.

I was getting so upset.  "This is why I'm leaving New York," I thought.  "I can't stand these people!! Why does everyone always have to be so nasty, dammit?!"

Then I stopped.  I thought, "No, I'm going to say a prayer."  I was thinking about a lecturer I once heard, who suggested that when something bad happens, like we accidentally hit our thumb with a hammer, and our instinct is to say "God damn it!," we really should say "God bless it."  To make it better.

So I said a little silent prayer.  I don't even know who or what the god is I'm praying to, but I thought, "God bless every soul on this bus.  Let them get home safely, and let tomorrow be a better day.  And God bless the MTA." 

Just then, my MP3 player randomly selected as the next song "The Rainbow Connection" by Kermit the Frog.  By the end of the song I felt transformed.  It's hard to be upset when a muppet is singing to you.  We crossed the Park, and the bus got much less crowded.  After "The Rainbow Connection," the next song was "Our Deliverance" by the Indigo Girls, a song that I only recently discovered and has been very meaningful to me.  When that came on, I couldn't help but get a little teary. 

I'm not sure if the experience translates to anyone else, but for me, it was pretty incredible.  I've only recently been experimenting with prayer, but it certainly transformed my commute.

Tempus Fugit

"Live deliberately... and suck all the marrow out of life" has been one of my guiding principles since I discovered Thoreau via Dead Poets Society as a young teen in 1989. In that spirit, I have been having a lot of trouble lately packing in all the fun and/or meaningful activities I want to have in my life. There just aren't enough hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in the month... etc. You may have heard me rail against the limits of time before.

As such, I'm trying to not waste any time... at all. This doesn't mean I don't make time for leisure. I just am trying to make my leisure time quality time. One of the best tools for this has been my new DVR subscription. It's like TiVo, but through the cable company, or as a friend likes to call it, "Ti-Faux." DVR is the BEST THING EVER. A short backstory: a few years ago, I declined to sign up for cable, thinking that without it, I would watch less TV. Turns out, not so much. No, instead I just watched a lot of bad TV. So I finally broke down and got cable last year, which is great, but it's still a major source of time suckage. But with DVR, instead of scrolling the program guide for shows I might like, I can scroll my list of the many shows I actually like, and I can skip all the commercials. Also, I don't have to remember to set the VCR, or worry about Scott taping over the show I wanted to watch (as he did recently, which was what prompted me to sign up for this service a couple weeks ago.) It is an amazing invention. Right up there with the printing press and the lightbulb.

So that's good. But I wish I could make time for more exercise (I'm currently getting the gym about once a week), more journal-writing, more reading, more art projects, more time with friends. I just bought sheet music to Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy," which I've always wanted to learn to play. Lord knows when I'll get around to that (but I do have the bass line down). And then there's always so much to knit (and so little time). And so much to learn.

I feel incredibly blessed to have such a full life. But it's frustrating to always want to do EVERYTHING.

Hey, want to see a photo of my latest work-in-progress? Sure you do. (And enjoy it, because it was very hard-won as I learn to use OS X on my new Mac at my office.)

This is the left front. The back is plain with just the ribbing on the bottom and no cables. Now my question for you is, do the sleeves want cables like the fronts, or do they want to be plain?

An Actual Knitting Post

The other day I peaked in a box of yarn looking for something with which to make a swatch for class, and of course stumbled on all kinds of lovely yarn that I had completely forgotten about. For example, a few balls of red Cashmerino that would make a lovely baby sweater. And enough cotton tape to make myself a summer top. (I feel certain that warm weather is right around the corner, despite hearing an extended forecast calling for snow this weekend.) This is all well and good, and I'm sure if I opened more boxes I'd find even more lovely but forgotten yarn, but I'm seized by a desire to buy lots of yarn lately.

I know, I know, most knitters buy copious quantities of yarn on a regular basis, but I stashed so much over the few years that I worked at yarn shops. Plus I'm fairly broke lately while also planning to buy a house, so I really have no business buying any yarn.

Also, I've recently bought quite a bit. Just before my trip to Boston a few weeks ago, I spent over $200 on Manos and linen. Have I used the linen yet? No. Don't even know for sure what I'm going to do with it. (Fortunately, I get to return four hanks of Manos - that stuff goes far! My whole sweater took about seven and a half skeins.) I also purchased from Webs a closeout of one of my favorite Karabella yarns, Frost. Again, only half a clue what I'll be doing with it.

And I still have one front and two sleeves to go on the cabled cardi I'm now making for myself - out of stashed Cascade 220, thank you very much.

So why am I seized by the desire to buy some cotton for a spring sweater that is floating around in my head?

The good news is the house in Stoneham, MA that we currently have our eye on has so many rooms that I would have a whole room for my knitting studio, including a large closet with built-in shelves. I'm trying very hard not to get my hopes up like last year. If that happened, I could stash yarn with abandon!

What Do I Want To Be?

Warning: long and rambling post ahead...

As you can probably tell from my lack of posting, I'm feeling rather uninspired about blogging lately. Perhaps I've said everything about knitting that I care to say. The laundry list approach (here's what I'm knitting today...) has always seemed pretty dull to me, and the knitting community hasn't been as primary in my life as some other parts of my life lately. This is partly because I don't have time to go to any knitting groups, or read as many knitting blogs as I used to. Of course I'm still knitting plenty (finished that Manos sweater, started a new one that is also my own design), but for some reason it's not so compelling for me to blog about it.

But I still want to have a blog... I'm just not sure what I want to say.

What has been more primary in my life recently has been my professional life with the UU church. Particularly as I plan for my move to Boston and think about what I want to do there, it's becoming more and more clear that I want to continue on the path I'm on, working for a church or the denomination. I'm even (gulp) considering going to seminary in a few years, although I'm currently more interested in religious education or youth and young adult ministry than parish ministry.

In the parlance of ministry, which I'm around a lot working at a church and knowing a lot of ministers and divinity students, I've been thinking a lot about vocation. Calling. And avocation. I've probably blogged before about how I have this wierd thing where I always want to professionalize whatever I'm interested in. Like knitting. And church. It's kind of funny. Why can't I just have a hobby? It's sort of tied in with my desire to always be the best at whatever I do, even my hobbies. (The inverse is also true: I hate to do any activity which I'm not good at, like bowling.)

So, a year ago I would have said that what I really wanted to be when I grow up is a knit designer. But I tried that on for a little while, and found that actually, knitting on a deadline is not that much fun for me. (Who said your job is supposed to be fun?) Maybe it's enough for me to design sweaters for myself and my loved ones, and to teach the occassional knitting class when I need extra money.

Actually, I had a similar experience with theater. I got to a point where I realized that I just wouldn't enjoy myself as much if my income was dependant on my art. I always said that if you can do anything else for a living besides drama and be happy, do that. I figured out that there were other things that could make me happy. A life in theater just wasn't for me. I enjoy being in the audience a lot more now that I'm not constantly thinking about how I would have directed the play. I miss it sometimes, but maybe I'll get into community theater when I move to the suburbs.

And now I'm professionalizing church. It certainly makes it harder to worship at times, and changes the way I "do" church in major ways. But it's great to have a job that I'm so passionate about that I'm also good at. And a job that actually affects people's lives. Who could ask for more, really?

Anyway, this blog may be changing to something other than mostly a knitting blog. I'm not sure what that is yet, exactly. But I thought it best to give my readers fair warning.