Sigh of Relief

I spent most of yesterday watching television, watching the inauguration and watching the crowds of people in Washington, D.C. and all over the world, watching and celebrating together.

Yesterday’s celebration followed a great big national sigh of relief. It would have been unseemly to cheer the departure of the 43rd president, to have shouted “good riddance” as his helicopter flew over the crowds on the Capitol Mall. And so we celebrated the incoming president instead.

The commentators seemed to think that what we were celebrating was our first black president. And, yes, that was a very important part of what we celebrating. On the day following what would have been Martin Luther King’s 80th birthday, in the presence of members of the Tuskegee Airmen who chose to fight for their country in a segregated military, of Congressman John Lewis who was almost beaten to death for his role in the civil rights movement, and thousands of others who believe in an ideal denied them only because of the color of their skin, a black man was inaugurated as president of the United States. It was a day many of us, black and white, did not expect to see in our lifetimes.

But to me, that Obama is African American, is symbolic of more. And his election promises more. If we can overcome our history of racism, we can overcome much more.

Yesterday came in a very dark hour. It came when it seemed our nation had lost its way, surrendered to fear and given into the intoxication of consumption. It seemed we had forgotten that our strength comes from justice and that what unites us as Americans is the common ideals codified in our constitution.

Yesterday we remembered who we are called to be. Yesterday we knew we could do better in all the ways we are challenged to do better.

Knitting with Sari Silk

I sat for three quiet hours last night knitting a scarf from recycled sari silk. It wasn’t on my to-do list, wasn’t planned as a present for anyone, wasn’t practice intended to make me a more skillful knitter. I cast on and knit for the sheer pleasure of working with this yarn, of feeling its softness with my fingers and watching its unexpected colors reveal themselves in the scarf flowing from my needles.

This was the yarn that had made me a knitter again after a decade long hiatus. Discouraged because I didn’t have time to knit, I didn’t know how to knit the things I wanted to knit and my knitting didn’t meet my standards, I had given all my knitting needles, yarn and unfinished projects to Goodwill. I remember looking at the back and partly finished front of a silk vest that had sat unfinished for several years and thinking they weren’t as bad as I had thought, but into the Goodwill bag it went. Still, I loved the look of knitted garments, loved the look of yarn in the ball and one day when I happened on a new yarn shop, I wandered in and there, right by the front door, found a basket of sari silk yarn. Soft, colorful with a rich luster. I’d never seen anything like it. I bought three balls and planned to make a shawl.

From the beginning it was a difficult relationship. Even before I left the store, I was frustrated by the colors. There were no color numbers and no dye lots. The yarn comes in all the colors of saris seemingly picked at random and spun into balls. Rich jewel tones, purples, jade and ruby red, and warm autumn colors, browns, oranges and yellow green, predominate. But these are suddenly interupted by the black and orange of Halloween or the red and green of Christmas. I wanted four balls for my shawl, but after pawing unsucessfully through the basket of yarn searching for balls in the same color way, I settled for three similiarly colored balls, enough I thought for a smaller shawl.

When I began to knit I alternated between love for the colors of the yarn, the softness of its feel and exasperation at what seemed to me to be the yarn’s poor quality. It varied in thickness from a single thread to heavy worsted weight, it twisted and kinked as it came off the ball, very difficult for someone who hadn’t held a knitting needle in many years. Unrefined furry puffs of silk marred the smooth appearance of my knitting. And when I finally learned to catch all the varying textures of the yarn in my needles, all of a sudden the colors changed mid ball from rich jewel tones to the warm colors of autumn. I put it away in frustration until I found more of the yarn at another shop and after again searching for a ball in the jewel tones and finished the shawl. After much frustration I finished the shawl only to immediately discover a hole where a thin thread had broken. I mended it with a piece of wool and decided the yarn simply didn’t work.

No matter, I was knitting again. I found internet sites to teach me what I didn’t know about knitting, about tension, gauge, and stitch definition. I collected skeins of wool, organic cotton linen and hemp and made more shawls, scarves, sweaters and hats. I kept the little parts of the balls of recycled silk I had left over in a bowl, beautiful to look at. There was a quality to the yarn I could not resist. Every now and then I’d pick it up, feel it and look at it. I knit a little into a wool scarf and some into a hat. And then I decided to try it alone again. My knitting skills had improved. I felt able to handle its flaws. I started a scarf. And as I knit I understood this was a yarn without guile, its flaws were not flaws, they made the yarn what it was.

Recycled sari silk isn’t really recycled and it isn’t made from old saris. It is made in Nepal from the ends of warp threads remaining on the loom where the new sari was woven. After the sari has been cut from the loom, the threads are gathered, teased and spun by hand on drop spindles. The yarn I buy is fair trade. I am assured my money goes to women’s cooperatives where the women who work in their homes earn enough to support their families.

As I knit with this yarn I wonder about the women who spun it. I know very little about them or the distant part of the world where they work and make their home. The land of Everest, Three Cups of Tea and a Nepalese man I met some years ago who had turned his home in Katmandu into an an orphanage. I imagine these women with a quiet dignity going about their work, kneeling on the floor with the colorful silk laid out before them working their drop spindles. Sometimes my fingers touch a little bit of their lives, pieces of grass, splinters of wood, twisted into the yarn.

There is a quality to this yarn that brings to mind two very elegant elderly sisters who were my neighbors in South Caroline thirty years ago, one a widow, the other never married. They welcomed me into their apartment, furnished with dark wooden furniture with clawed feet, perhaps inherited from their parents, heavy upholestery, drapery, oil paintings and china. And while I would have set such things aside, packed them up to protect them, bringing them out only for special occasions, these were the things with which the elderly sisters were comfortable, the things making their apartment their home. A small crack in a tea cup, wear on the upholstery. These made me comfortable when they invited me in for a cup of tea and freshly baked cookie.

I imagine the women who wear the saris cut from the threads that will be spun into my yarn. These women will have chose their saris for the intracies of the patterns and rich rich colors woven into the silk. When they put on their sari they will study themselves in the mirror and apply a bit of paint to their faces, in a self conscious effort at beauty.

There is no self consciousness to this yarn as their was no self consciousness to my elderly neighbors. Still useful. Unpretentious. And beautiful.

Mother’s Helena: What I Did

This is Clara's mother's Helena. I made Helena for Clara and knew it would please both Clara, and her mother if I made a matching sweater for mom. See Clara's Helena and Clara's and Mom's together below.

Step-by-step, here's how I made a Mom's Helena...

1. I babysit once a week, so on one of my babysitting days I found one of my daughter in law’s sweaters, measured the bust, arm length, sleeve depth and body length. My dil had a sweater with ¾ sleeves and a bit of swing so I was able to use those measurements. If you only have a traditional sweater to measure, the bust is the important measurement. You can guesstimate the others.

2. Generated a pattern for a top down v-neck cardigan with Sweater Wizard, using the measurements from dil’s own sweater. Size 7 needle; Cascade 220. Any top down v neck cardigan pattern would do.

3. Modified the sleeve increases so that the last four increases were spaced every four rows followed by 1 ½ inches without increases.

4. Modified my basic pattern to make it a Helena as follows:

Worked in stockinette 3 rows after separating for the sleeves.
Using size 5 (2 sizes down) needles worked raised band (k2 rows, p1 row, k2 row)
Back to size 7 needles
Increased to 200 stitches from 168 for bodice swing immediately below raised band
Worked lace pattern for 8 repeats
Switched to size 5 needles and worked 6 rows, then eyelet row, then four rows and bind off

5. Sleeves: I needed to go up a needle size to size 8 because I knit tighter in the round

6. Knitted on the 7 row garter stitch edging pretty much as directed in Helena directions. I used one button right below where I had finished the neck shaping. I put the button hole in the middle row of the edging, the 4th row.

The sweater was easy to knit and looks great. I’m pretty pleased with myself right now!

In Time for Christmas! Whew!

The Mother Daughter Helena's are done! I hope mother and daughter will model their new sweaters for the camera Christmas morning.

Mom' sweater is in Cascade 220 in a slightly muted pink, Clara's is in Berroco Comfort DK in bright pink. Close enough to satisfy Miss Clara, I think!

Mother Daughter Helenas

Here is Clara's Helena. I love the picot hem. I'd never seen it before but now I see it everywhere. It is so easy and so pretty! See my December 5th post for pictures before turning the hem under.

And here's Mom's! I have one sleeve, the hem and the edging to do. Hopefully I'll have pictures of that one soon. I started with a Sweater Wizard v-neck cardigan and modified it to be akin to the girl's Helena. I'll post the details when I get it done and know it works! Right now I best get knitting!

February Lady Sweater Hints

The February Lady Sweater is done and looks terrific on my daughter. I complained about this pattern as I was working on it but I stuck to the pattern, deviated not a wit, and the end result is just what I wanted.

That said, here are some hints for success:

· Everyone says the sweater runs big, or stretches. Pay attention to gauge and choose the finished bust size, not your ready-to-wear size. I made a small for a 41 inch finished bust.

· Mark the front of the sweater after the first row or two so you make sure to get the raglan increases on the right side – every time! With garter stitch it would be easy to get confused.

· Raglan increases: This is the one change I would make to the pattern. The pattern has you make raglan increases every knit row a prescribed number of times and then stop the increases and finish the yoke. But many knitters complain that the pattern results in folds in the underarm. I agree, although they looked better in the end than I feared. So: next time I am going to taper off my increases rather than end them abruptly. I’ll do the last three increases every other knit row rather than every knit row.

I did the M1 front and back increases as suggested. They give a nice look. If you aren’t sure what they are, check out the video at http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/increases. BTW – I love all the videos at knittinghelp.com. I frequently turn to them when I become confused about something I think I should know or used to know and can’t remember.

· Eyelet increases: The pattern calls for a row of eyelet increases in the first knit row after the last raglan increase. I ended up with 12 rows in the yoke below my eyelet increases. I thought that was too much, just for looks. If I were to do it again I’d do the eyelet increases 3 rows up from the last garter stitch row.

Then the question is: to do eyelet increases or not. I thought they looked silly. My daughter thought they were a nice design element. Some knitters try to do an invisible increase but really, right across the yoke, any increase is going to be visible. I thought about doing invisible (knit front and back) increases in the last garter stitch row, right above the beginning of the lace, and think that would work.

· Buttonholes: I ended up with four. Three looks better. I had to do four because I made my second one too soon and there would have been too much yoke below the last buttonhole had I only done three. So don’t make your second buttonhole too soon.

And pay attention to which side you make your buttonhole on. It may not matter to you, but traditionally a woman’s buttonhole goes on the wearer’s right side. If you want it that way, make sure that’s the side you put it on. I used the buttonhole directions referenced in the pattern. It’s ok but I wasn’t thrilled. If anyone knows a better way or has suggestions I’d love to hear them.

· The rest of the sweater went together easily. I knit the sleeves at the end. Others have suggested doing the sleeves earlier so you don’t have so much sweater to maneuver. I wished I had until I finally realized (duh!) I didn’t have to keep turning the sweater everytime I did a round on the sleeve if I turned the sleeve instead. I’ll probably do the sleeve last again just because I always worry I’m running low on yarn and if I ever really am running low it would be easier to make the sleeves shorter than to make the body shorter.

Oops... I forgot to mention one intentional pattern modification I did make. On the sleeves, I decreased one stitch per lace repeat in the last row of the lace. Garter stitch is wider than the lace stitch and I didn't want the cuffs to bell out quite as much as they do on the pattern. If I were to do it again, I think I'd take them in even more. However, once again, my daughter preferred the slight bell aas written in the pattern.

All in all this is a lovely pattern, a quick knit and I’m going to make it again. Soon!

Another Hat!

My resolution to knit all my leftover yarn into hats to be given to charity at Christmas is not going to be completed this year. I'm afraid this will have to go on the list of resolutions for 2009!

Here's another hat in Plymouth Tweed and I still have enough of that yarn for one more! I love this yarn but I want it gone!

This hat is from the Maniacal Thrower. The pattern for her Slouchy Copy Cat Hat is clearly written, easy to follow and fun to knit. The mock cable rib provides a little diversion for the knitter and interest to the hat! I was pretty pleased with myself when I was done and now I'm wondering how I can use this stitch pattern in one of the sweaters I have planned.

I'm not an economist but...

We talked about the economy at knitting group this week. We talked about stores closing and retirement funds disappearing. We talked about cutting our own spending. We talked about the empty spaces at the new shopping center in our area, the one built to cater to the affluent, with a day spa, expensive lingerie store and two stores devoted exclusively to olive oil. Already a kitchen store and a stationery shop have closed. I don’t think either had been open a full year.

The shopping center was designed to look like a quaint French village, with a bell tower pealing church music, while the Mercedes dealership next door looked remarkably like a new church when it was under construction.

Today our airwaves and newspapers are filled with stories of low consumer confidence and a consequent drop in consumer spending. Economists debate what should be done while the government seems frantic to convince us to spend again.

I’m not an economist and I’m sure there is a lot about the situation I don’t understand. But what I know and what the women in my knitting group all understand is that we have created this problem ourselves and we aren’t going to fix it by doing more of what got us into the problem in the first place. We have to find economic fixes other than those intended to stimulate more over consumption.

Americans have proved ourselves quite able to spend more than we have but we can’t consume more than we have. Our planet simply won’t allow it. What we have is limited, limited by our natural resources, limited by the size of the planet. I’ve heard that if the whole world consumed at the rate of American consumption, it would take seven planets to fill our demands. I’m not sure the figure is precisely accurate but my common sense, my own looking at the world, tells me it’s not far off.

So why are we trying to get Americans to consume more? Yes, we know businesses close when spending is down. A lot of jobs are lost when Circuit City goes bankrupt. But at best, keeping these stores open, doing business as they have always done, is only a temporary fix, contributing to our trade imbalance and national debt.

As I said, I don’t pretend to be an economist. But I don’t think the economists understand this much either. My eldest daughter majored in economics in college. She tells me that when she entered the business world she quickly learned that most of what she had been taught didn’t hold up.

And, despite whatever holes there may be in my analysis, I’m quite sure my conclusion is true: There has to be a better way. We have to find a way to run our economy not dependent on over consumption and debt. I’m quite sure the future of our country and our planet depends on it.

My intuition tells me knitting is part of the answer. No instant gratification here! Instead the purchase of $50 to $100 of wool, a very renewable resource, yields hours and hours of pleasure in the disciplined creation of a unique hand knit item, perhaps a gift to be enjoyed for many years, rather than something to be tossed out at the end of the season.

And so I continue my current program of sweater knitting. The body of the February Lady is just about done, the lace before blocking is the usual heap of undisciplined yarn. I'll finish the edging and begin work on the sleeves today.

More Sweaters

Blocking Helena

Clara's Helena is blocked. Now to hem and add the border! The
hem is going to be so pretty! You do a row of (yo k2tog) and that becomes the turning row. When the hem is turned it will make a picot edge. How clever is that!








February Lady Sweater






While Helena was drying I thought I ought to start her mother's sweater. I wanted to adapt the February Lady Sweater to be more like Helena but I'd never made the February Lady and didn't trust my ability to visualize how the pattern would knit up. So I decided before I knit mom's sweater, I'd knit one as written. Here it is in green Cascade 220. I think the yarn is a good choice. The garter stitch has a tendency to stretch and a heavier yarn will help hold it in place.

This is a very simple pattern. So simple I thought I could knit without paying much attention and before I knew it I had had to cast on 5 different times! Yes, 5! The first time my brain was completely turned off and each round the increase moved over a stitch. I had placed a marker before the raglan stitch, right where the increase should go but I moved the marker before increasing. That meant that the next time around the marker came before the previous increase and not right before the raglan stitch. Wrong! Then somehow I put an extra marker in the middle of the back. How did I do that? I don't know, but I had knit several inches before I realized I was knitting a sweater to accomodate quite the dowager's hump. Then I was making the M1 increases backwards, knitting from the back on the right and the front on the left. I've written before of what comes from hurrying. Finally, when I was focused just enough to get it right, I found it to be a very easy knit and I'm just about ready to start the lace.

Mother Daughter Sweaters

Or why my daughter in law is the best mother for my granddaughter!

I’m probably going to make some people mad with this one…

A young mother in our area was arrested after leaving her baby in the car while getting her hair cut. Sounds awful right? The story reminds us of other stories of babies left in a car with the engine running and doors unlocked, babies left in the car while their mothers were inside drinking or partying oblivious to the child, babies left in a hot car with the windows rolled up. Some of those babies died.

But this mother thought she was taking care of her child. She was following the advice I remember reading from La Leche League when I was a new mother, “Never wake a sleeping baby.” The teething baby had had a rough night, had fallen asleep in his car seat and she didn’t want to wake him. She locked the car and cracked the windows on a day when all agreed overheating was not an issue. She was in a chair twenty feet away and reportedly could keep her eye on the baby. A well meaning stranger saw the baby, called the police and mom was arrested.

The women in my book club agreed with the district attorney’s decision not to charge the mother but thought the mother had been stupid. Someone could have abducted the baby before the mother could get to her car. While she watched, a child abuser could break the lock, open the door, and grab the baby strapped into the car seat secured to the car, all before she could get there. Really? If she were watching from only 20 feet away?

I remember being left in the car as a child. In other ways my parents were very protective, overly protective even. But leaving their children in the car didn’t feel neglectful. I was left in the car while my father went into the bank or the grocery store. Once I awoke in what felt like the middle of the night locked in the back seat of the family car with my two sisters in front of a restaurant on Highway 99. My father had tired while driving and needed a cup of coffee. Did they leave us alone in the car too much? Perhaps. But the danger we felt was abandonment not any being abducted by strangers. Parents didn’t worry so much about child abduction then and locked car doors was thought adequate protection.

When a child was abducted in northern California when I was a child, my parents held us tighter, watched us more closely for awhile. As the horror slipped from the front pages of the newspaper and the front of their consciousness, they relaxed. Today there is no relief for a parent. A child is abducted in Michigan and it is headline news in California. But how many children really are the victims of the scary stranger abduction that is every parent’s worst fear? More than in the past? So many more that a parent can’t leave her child twenty feet away from where she is getting her hair cut?

I needn’t worry about my daughter-in-law leaving Clara in the car. She is the best of mothers and I have none of the criticism I hear from other mothers of sons. And my son is a wonderful father. But he is a worrier and hovers too closely over three year old Clara.

“Relax,” I tell him. “She’s fine.”

And she is. But Clara is a bit of a worrier too. It runs in our family. My own father, yes, the one who left us in the car, was overly protective and fearful for our safety. “Don’t do this.” “Be careful of that.” I’m a bit the same way and my son undoubtedly learned it from me. Thank goodness for my daughter-in-law whose calm, assuring protective encouragement is exactly right for both my son and my granddaughter.

Clara, of course, is very attached to her mother and wants to be just like her. So, for Christmas they will get mother daughter sweaters. Everything has to be pink for Clara these days! Preferably hot pink. But, although she would probably wear it to please Clara, I don’t think Mom wants a little girl’s hot pink sweater. So, the sweaters won’t be exactly alike, but close enough. Clara’s Helena will be knit with Berroco Comfort DK in a warm pink. Mom’s February Lady Sweater will bea slightly muted pink in Cascade 220. I’ll modify the February Lady Sweater to use the same lace pattern that is in Helena.