Another factor, though, was a kind of satiation. How many more sock patterns, shawl patterns, sweater patterns, could I look at? How many more can I queue that are really all that different from the 172 currently in my queue? I’d look at them and kind of yawn, or feel tired: ah, but that one’s just miles of stockinette. Ah, but that one’s just another triangle shawl and too similar to my Ishbels. Yeah, but I know how that one would look on me (or its corollary: I am not sure how that one would look on me). And since I’m on a yarn-buying severely restricted diet, I had to go cold-turkey on my feverish following of every new madelinetosh colorway.

Anyway. I noticed this morning that I’ve returned to checking my friends tab, and feeling excited about the things I see. I spent last weekend knitting — all day Saturday and all day Sunday — and have returned to knitting while I watch tv. Finishing my byzantine traveling woman probably helped; Janna taught me that the cure for a knitting slump is an FO, and it worked again. I’m on sleeve #1 of my little red featherweight cardigan and I’m enjoying working on my KtyKozue, though the yarn is kind of hard and hurts my stranding finger. When I hit the long middle of pure stockinette I may bog down, but it’s an enjoyable scarf to knit:

I know, it looks like a grinning face or something. Zen Garden Sea Lace yarn, Kozue scarf, combo suggested by dear Kty

The most visible sign, to me, that my love of knitting is returning is that I have already bought the pattern and materials for this year’s birthday sweater. Last year, Kelly gave me the Dark & Stormy pattern (Thea Colman) which I knitted with madelinetosh vintage, in Baltic. I enjoyed the pattern so much that when I saw the newest one – Vodka Gimlet – I knew it was the one.

Vodka Gimlet, photo from Rav

And for the first time ever, I’m even using the recommended yarn (The Plucky Knitter Primo Worsted), in this gorgeous emerald color called Oz. I thought about making it in dove gray, or even charcoal, but decided that the brilliant green would be spirit-lifting in dreary winter. The sweater’s cute, with some waist shaping (I may make mine a bit more shaped, since my waist is relatively small and my best body feature), and a cropped length which I never thought I could wear until I began my strength training and coincidentally lost some weight.

I’ve also been so tempted to make a stripe study shawl — I think I’m the only knitter in the world who hasn’t made one yet. I keep looking at my stash page, trying to come up with striking combos. I haven’t felt it yet.

How about you? Got any exciting fall knitting plans?

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Screw it. I’m making plans anyway. For once in my life, I’m going to just take my time and do it right. (Mister Rogers has a song about that — I like to take my time, I mean that when I want to do a thing, I like to take my time and do it right. I mean I just might make mistakes if I should have to hurry up, and so I like to take my time. That came entirely out of my memory, by the way.) I’m making plans, I’m taking my time, I’m going to do math (gasp! No! Not math!), I’m going to measure myself (get the smelling salts, gussie, ma’s fainted), and this time, I’m making a perfect sweater.

Geez, what a long-winded way to get here. In the wake of my gorgeous-but-large Dark & Stormy (which I will get into shape this weekend), I want to be thoughtful and slow and careful with the next one. I’ve now made three sweaters — my mondo cable cardi, my Peasy, and my Dark & Stormy. I adore them, they’re all gorgeous, but I did them my usual way, getting a wild hair, willy-nilly ordering some yarn and yes, making a little swatch, but then plowing ahead blindly. It’s a wonder they’re as good as they are.

Next up: Gudrun Johnson’s gorgeous Laar sweater, in dragon’s blood red. Here’s hers:

so beautiful!

One lesson I learned on Dark & Stormy: use needles you enjoy working with, even if it means you have to go buy new ones. I absolutely hated every minute of using the Denise needles, and believe it took me much longer to make that sweater, in part because of the needles. The constant difficult scootching, ugh.

So I’m making a substantial swatch, I’m measuring all the critical areas of my body for fitting this sweater, I’m making adjustments to the pattern so it fits ME (especially since I look absolutely nothing like the gorgeous model), and if I goof, I’m ripping. If it’s ok but meh it’s not quite right, I’m ripping.

I’m making a public vow. Promising myself. Yeah.

Now, though, now that I’m in the period between having a stable income and figuring out how to have at least enough of an income, it has a new urgency. Frugal is my new watchword, at least in this interim period.

So last night I went “shopping” in my ravelry account. I looked at the excesses in my queue (though I’m not as bad as some! one raveler has 6,182 projects queued and 20,141 things faved. I’m going to have to unfriend her because when I look at my friends activity page, it’s always flooded by her and we don’t have the same taste). Anyway – long diversion there, sorry – I looked at my 183-item queue and put some real order in it. After I finish the projects on the needles, what do I really want to knit? Really?

I have 10 projects ready to go, matched with yarn that’s already in my stash:

1. Austin Hoodie, knit with my porcelain tosh merino light
2. Sockhead hat, knit with some cool sock yarn my youngest daughter gave me for mother’s day
3. A Noro striped scarf, using some really beautiful and soft Noro I stashed
4. Inaugural Sweater, with yarn I bought specifically for it
5. and A Very Braidy Cowl, with yarn I got from Kelly when she was destashing

1. madelinetosh, tosh merino light (colorway: porcelain), 2. Regia Galaxy – Jupiter, 3. Noro Silk Garden, colorway 267, 4. Noro Silk Garden, colorway 275, 5. Valley Sheffield, 6. crystal palace merino5 color 9454

And 5 more ready to go after those. There’s something that feels so good about imposing constraints, limits, order.

See? No more wedding talk.

.

• JFK = JFK airport in New York
• HKG = Hong Kong
• PNH = Phnom Penh, in CAMBODIA

We’ll be going to Vientiane and Luang Prabang in Laos; Phnom Penh and Siem Reap and Kep in Cambodia, and of course, Hong Kong as a transfer point. The blog is set up, and I’ll add information there as the itinerary firms up. For now, what I know for sure is that I’ll be spending Thanksgiving in Laos or Cambodia. Isn’t that amazing?

Making pizza for tonight’s dinner

pizza

Since I’ve been dying for cake: yellow cake with chocolate frosting

AND cutting out a linen dress, cleaning the floors, doing some knitting — because it’s so springy outside, and tomorrow we’re heading out to Astoria, to our favorite Greek restaurant for a leisurely afternoon.

Happy happy spring!

*  It’s been a hell of a week – 12.5 hour workdays, which were nowhere near enough. By the end of each day, I was still too far behind, how does that work?

*  I saw a friend I usually see once a week, and the evening I was on my way to see her, I thought ‘man, it feels so long since I saw her!’ It took me the whole trip to realize that I hadn’t seen her in 2 weeks, and that’s because last week I was on vacation. In Honduras. Last week feels like forever ago. And not real.

* Until this moment: for my vacation, I took the electric kettle, a huge coffee mug, a plastic cone for making one cup of coffee at a time, and a stack of filters (plus a bag of fresh-ground really good coffee). So every morning on vacation, my routine was to make a cup of coffee and drink it on the porch and knit. So this morning, I just made my coffee and poured a cup into that particular mug. The vacation feels real, I remember it. And I wish I were there.

Two sides of me:

* The not-so-nice side – I always get really mad on the subway when an adult with small(ish) children expects other adults to give up their seats so the kids can sit. What??! Kids have all the energy! They haven’t just worked a terrible job all day, they’re not stressed out, their backs don’t hurt! I’m sorry, if you’re 4 or 5 years old and there’s enough space for you to very safely stand and hold onto a pole, I am going to keep my seat. Bite me, adult giving me a dirty look.

* The nicer side – I have a friend who had a major stroke last year and who is currently in the darkest place of suicidal depression. She’s very brave but she doesn’t know that (or anything good) right now. So yesterday I wrote her an email that included this: “The bravery of us poor little frail people in this world, going forward as if we know what we’re doing, going forward as if it’s all somehow guaranteed (until something happens and we’re reminded that it’s not……but we go back to our old habits of thinking it’s all guaranteed). It makes me feel quite tender toward humanity whenever I think about this. Here we all are, with all our troubles, with the pain and trouble that we all bear in one form or another, with our small joys and our fragile hopes and plans. Here we all are, tiny little specks in an unimaginable infinite, on a tiny little planet whirling around a tiny little sun in just one little galaxy, here we all are, doing our best. GREAT. Now I’m starting to cry. I think we are all amazing, and that includes you. And I guess, then, that it must include me.” See? I can be kind towards people. Just don’t ask me to give up my seat to a 4-year old.

Finished the monkeys – will block them and get them in the mail to Katie first thing Monday morning:

one's a little smaller than the other - i'd bet the smaller one is more tightly-knit and therefore the one i knit here in Manhattan. looser = vacation.

blocking the monkeys to make them closer in size to each other; actual color is closer to the photo above this one, which came out weirdly golden.

I have a 3-month plan: I am putting all my ducks in a row, getting everything lined up to quit my job in 3 months. Period. I’ll teach, as much as I can; I’ll do writing and statistical consulting, as much as I can; I’ll try to do developmental work and rewriting on manuscripts for publishers, as much as I can; and I’ll make things and sell them, as much as I can. I’ll pare down my expenses, as much as I can. I cannot persist in this job that sucks the living life out of me. I’ll be 52 in November, and I say uncle. I want to have a life that’s not just bearable and happy on the weekend, you know?

This week, 3 people at work quit. Two of the editors in my group are going  on interviews and will leave the second they get another job. Granted, I don’t know everyone on my floor, but everyone I do know is looking for another job. No exception. My boss even told me that she suspects our brand new assistant is already looking for another job. My company is based in the U.K., and there, it really is an enormous honor to work for this company. People stay with the company their entire lives – so very proud to work for this company. And I get it – it’s an amazing amazing and old company! It published the very first book. BUT (1) it doesn’t hold the same cachet here, (2) the Madison Ave experience is 100% different than the experience on that lovely lane in that beautiful town in the U.K., and (3) publishing is under such pressure now due to the economy and the transitional moment between books and online presentation of [free] content, we’re all turning into diamonds from the pressure.

Anyway. Lots to get done this weekend! No easy traveling knitting right now, as my knitting time is turned entirely to the wedding shawl. I’d hate to carry that in the subway – snowy white cobweb-weight wool, complicated Estonian lace patterns. My only other knitting alternative right now is the lettuce-green Ishbel, which is also a bit hard to do on the subway. So this weekend I’ll get back to the shawl, and I just have so much other stuff to do towards my eventual release to freedom. I feel myself getting lighter, just thinking about it.

As much as I complain about the soul suck of my job, one good thing about it is that for the most part, it’s possible for me to work from home if I need or want to. And today I wanted to, because of the silly pronouncement of the “snowricane” or “snowrnado” (depending on which weather site you pick). Reports of Gusting! Winds! UP TO 75 miles per hour! Days and days of power outages expected! Watch out! And also: back alert weather. The snow is heavy, and you might hurt your back so watch out.

We haven’t had the winds – at least here in Manhattan – but it has been snowing without stopping all day long. It started snowing before 7am and there hasn’t been a moment’s pause. Some hours the flakes are huge, like monarch butterflies, and other times they’re normal sizes. The trees are hanging with heavy snow on the branches – all the way out to the tips, hanging heavy. The snow is so wet, it falls in fists off the ends of the branches. It’s really pretty. I sit at a desk right by the window and work work work, pausing to glance out the window at the beautiful view. Want to see?

practically my back yard

pretty lampposts

Riverside Drive - so empty!

the end of my street

I know they look like black and white photos, but they’re not. It’s just a black and white world right now. Very very pretty – especially since I get to just watch it out my window.

Tonight I hope to get some knitting done, and I have a LOT to get done this weekend: making the pillows using my new fabric, finalizing a syllabus, and cutting out that wedding dress I still haven’t cut out.