Carol Ann…come into the light!

Poor little Carol Ann.  We all know what happened to her, until she found her way into the light…and landed in the bathtub with her mommy, covered in lots of viscous, chicken innard looking, I-just-got-birthed yuckies.  Of course, when you’re in your mid forties and don’t have your mommy and a creepy voiced little medium to save you…you have to save your own little self.  Not that my mommy didn’t try, but some things you have to do yourself when you are a grown-up(presumably).

Anyway, little Julia Ann(not to be confused with the aforementioned Carol Ann), finally did rummage around in the dark until a little pinhole of light revealed itself in the darkness of the big scary cave that we humans periodically find ourselves in.   Oh for fucks sake…does that drivel sound all contrived and drama queenie or what? 

To do some considerable paraphrasing, my story is as follows:  I got divorced, fell in love, suffered some losses, found my own voice and my strength, and am currently living happily ever after. 

As a result of all this goodness…I will be resuming my place in blogdom (and the corniness just keeps a commin’) post haste (OK, maybe not that quickly).  My goals for the comming year are as follows:   1.  learn how to get pictures on my blog,  2. bust the heck out of my scarily gargantuan stash,  3.  make time in each day to practise yoga, even if it is only for 5 min at a time,  4.  be a good mother and significant other in the context of my new stage in life,  and last, but not least,  5.  be true to myself. 

Best Wishes for a Happy New Year,   The Kniteral Speaker

Greetings from the Dark Side of knitting!

First order of business: I am finally back to the blog, at the gentle urging of my friends.  When my daughter gets home from school, I will have her help me get pictures up.  This might be a bit stressful for both of us since she has no patience for the technologically impaired(which I am). 

Just to warn you, this entry encompasses very scary details involving frogging, that which happens when you !*#% (picture the naughtiest expletive ever in caps) up the guage, what to do when your yarn color nauseates you in a particular project you get very far into, and perhaps more horrors too awful to mention that my delicate mind has moved them into my subconsious…that is, if they don’t resurface and scar me for life! 

Also, be warned!  If this chronicle becomes too tedious, my feelings will not be hurt if you run screaming from here!  I feel a ramble comming on…

Anyway, on to the dark side of our much loved art!  As shameful as it is to admit, I have only completed three garments this year.  I have been knitting daily in large quantities, yet ripping continually.   Do you get so attached to your yarn that you just can’t bear to make anything less than the perfect garment to complement it? 

This is why I have enough angora to make a scarf reaching from Savannah to Timbuktu, yet no scarf.  Well, I wouldn’t make it into a scarf anyway.  I have hoarded too much in each of a variety of stunning colors, and many poor little tiny orphans, to waste it on mundane projects.  Speaking of the poor little orphan angoras, can you believe that Pingouin used to put up 33yd balls?   What the “you-know-what”!

On to the first abomination that screamed to be liberated from it’s stitches, the Simply Marilyn by Debbie Bliss.  Off on a tangent first: several years ago, I bought one skein of Malabrigo in the Dusty colorway.  After making fingerless gauntlet thingies from Alterknits for my daughter and using all 200+ yards(of course), I tried for months to find that particular Malabrigo, searching every online yarn shop from here to eternity(and everywhere else).

I had one of those fabulous “Eureka!” moments when finally I found it and bought eight balls!  Then I held onto it for about a year with it burning a hole in my proverbial pocket!  Since my friend Kayla had so successfully made the Simply Marilyn, and I looked hot in it, I decided, after trying hers on(check it out on her blog, the Yarn Bearer), to whip one out for myself.  However, after the sweater was 3/4 of the way done, I had to rip it out since it made me sick to my stomach.  The colorway, which is coral with subtle brown shading, just nauseated me when knitted into a sweater, so I frogged and recast on for Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton’s Sursa Wrap from Noro Book 2. 

(Insert picture, bring text up bordering the rh side)

Here is the result, sans ruffle and I adore it. This is truly a weekend project and an impressive-for-nonknitter-friends/family, yet easy, gift.  Knit on sz 11 circs, it goes so quickly, and my faves to knit it in are Rowan Big Wool(single strand, 5 balls) and Malabrigo Merino Worsted(double stranded, 5 or 6ish balls).  I would recommend this project in any incarnation you could possibly come up with.  Everyone I know knits a slightly different version, in different yarns with varying sizes of needles, and each comes out fabulous. 

In between almost finishing a Simply Marilyn and reworking it into a Sursa, I cast on 7 more projects, all of which needed frogging.  What has now become a lovely capelet began life as a Klaralund.  Of course, when I knew I had to frog, I ran into major problems…the original yarn was Pingouin Angora 80. 

The dark plum shade was so beautiful that I couldn’t waste it, and the Klaralund suffered from an enormous, really…enormous, problem(same as the Marilyn…oops, forgot to mention that fiasco).  It was belling into a shape that resembled a yurt.  A BIG yurt that could have lodged an entire tribe of Mongolian camel-herdsmen and clan – maybe even the livestock as well.  You can understand my plight.  Either wear a maternity-looking, yeti like garment(frightfully unflattering),  rip, or attempt to salvage.  Same as the Marilyn, it suffered from adventures-in-guage-gone-wrongitis.  Yikes!

Anyway, if you have ever had angora on the needles, you know that it semi-felts as soon as you knit it.  This mess was easier to rip than the Kelly Cardigan in Erika Night’s Classic Knits(another fiasco) since I was knitting it in the round, but I can tell you this with certainty…it was still a mess!  A hot-tranny-mess to be sure!  Frightening mess that it was, it evolved into an attractive capelet.  I added simple fair-isle at the top of the yoke and then knit the top in Patons SWS with mirroring shoulder decreases until it seemed to be just the right size.

(insert pic here/mirroring the lh side)

 

This is one of my favorite pieces ever.  It is toasty and so deliciously, sensuously soft.  It begs to be worn while walking hand in hand with your lover at dusk, in a light snowfall, with a tiny sliver of moon illuminating the snow, enveloping you in a weightless cloud of warmth(the thing weighs nothing…literally).  This makes me think of romantic, rural mainland Japan in the winter.  Big sigh…

The next project was An Affair to Remember.  It’s a  pin-up-girl looking skirt from Annie Modesitt’s Romantic Hand-Knits.  After I was fairly far into the lace pattern, I realized that I had buggered it all up and was one row off thus throwing off all the stitch counts and causing a problem that would make the poor skirt quasimodo-ishly lopsided(this brings to mind the classic 1939 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame). 

Since this dire mistake needed some frogging, which I couldn’t bring myself to do, and I needed the circs that I was knitting it on, I substituted them for a length of yarn and liberated my needles.  Alas, I was not able to wear it to my pal Rachel’s wedding.  Fortunately, I didn’t frog, and I have had time to reconsider it’s possibilities.  My Affair to Remember will become a sexy, fitted sweater soon, and I’ll share the method…when I have it. 

(pic of aftrem w text bordering)

 

Somewhere in all that, I had to redeem myself (to myself), so I made the Ballet-T from Teva Durham’s Loop-de-Loop Knits.  This is instant gratification at it’s finest.  It took two half-days to complete, during the course of one weekend and looks totally hot, hugging in all the right places, very pin-up girly.  And even better than all that, it is virtually indestructable in Brown Sheep cotton fleece. 

I wash it in cold, on gentle cycle, and dry it in the dryer on medium.  After finishing, however, you must wet block it to get it to lay right.  After that, it’s smooth sailing!  Also, although it stretches when worn, it’s still incredibly flattering!  Long live T. Durham, the Loop-de-Loop Queen!  I made sz small, and it didn’t even use the entirety of the two skeins.  It requires two skeins because it is double stranded.  Make it I say, make it!

 

(pic/text bordered)

 

I am currently working on a design of my own to post.  The body is knitted in the round, from the bottom up, going down a needle size after the border to eliminate the need for shaping, and then working a stretchy stitch at the bust for shaping in the boobal region. 

I am experimenting with the orientation of two panels to complete the upper portion.  Should be done later this week and will post pics and the pattern in PDF format(Oh Kaaaay,  I need a tutorial from the My Savannah Cottage computer guru).  This sexy little confection is worked in Ironstone Flake Cotton, double stranded.  Double stranded, this yarn produces a substantial fabric.  The extra strand adds weight, which gives it nice drape, and it still has enough stretch to be comfortable, yet can be knit into form fitting, flattering garments that hold their shapes.

 

(pic/bordering text)

 

Other yarns were cast on and frogged, thus more travails than I could bear to remember.  I’m just glad that phase is over, and I’m finishing things again.  If you persevered, making it to the end of this epic story, you must be one of my best friends, tell me what you thought, and I love you!

See you soon!  Knit on, rock on, and add to your stash whenever you can!  Here’s lookin’ at your yarn, kid!              

Love and Addi-Turbos, Jules

Also, please overlook any typos, I cannot bring myself to proof and revise one more time.  Oh yeah, and I am aware that the sentences are far too long and cumbersome…it’s that pesky stream of consiousness thing again!  Sayonarra sweethearts!

 

 

On the Proper Cleaning and Selling of a Home(and other random BS)

Holy Guacamole!  This is to explain the neglect of my blog, ravelry, yada yada yada.  Excuses, excuses…oh the horror!

With a divorce pending and a somewhat tolerable(but not preferable) cohabitation situation, it seemed that feng shui-ing the joint, or some such thing, would perhaps facilitate what is now not destined to be a quick real estate sale.  Our home has had almost 7,000 internet hits since it was put on the market over 15 months ago, when I realized that I was never going to have the domestic situation that I wanted with the mess I was in.  Unfortunately, the encouraging internet numbers have not translated into live, in the flesh, showings. 

To answer the FAQ’s:  I moved into the guest bedroom 15 months ago, when I came to the sudden realization that things were not better after 19 years, that they would never be better, and that yes, intelligent, well-educated women are as susceptible to domestic abuse as the “uneducated, poverty stricken gals who stay with their abusers” stereotypes.

‘Nuff said.  I will now stick to my promise to myself that I will not bore blog readers with those particular gory details.

Anyway, the worst area of the house was my studio.  What a fricking mess!  Being cursed with the packrat gene, I had papers out the wazoo and quasi-organized files.  These included seemingly innumerable stacks of manila folders stuffed with all manner of magazine waste(ie: previously “valuable” information that I couldn’t, at some point, live without), random papers, and just a lot of unusable junk, not to mention the stacks of printed-from-internet patterns, articles, yada yada yada. 

Oh yeah, and then there were the mountains of entire magazines that I couldn’t get rid of because they contained at least ONE sentence of “relevant, not-to-be-forgotten” BS that would totally enrich my life when I read it again.  F*#&!!!  What the h#&% was I thinking during the time period of 1988-2000.  2000 was the earliest year in my beloved “research files” in which I seemed to have some semblance of what I would now consider good taste.  It seems that one’s taste evolves over time.  But bloody hell, when did I ever consider tole painting? 

After going through my carefully preserved “files”, I threw away at least 9/10ths of yellowed magazine recipes, pictures, articles and the like.  Approximately 30 magazines remain in stacks to be perused, more articles ripped from their rightful homes and filed, only to be examined in another 20 years, deemed outdated and tossed into the proverbial bonfire.  A right modern ”book burning”, if you will! 

Then, on to the out-of-control fabric stash, begun in 1998, and the totally horrifying mess of a yarn stash.  I could go on and on about that fright, but the chronicle would amount to intolerable cruely, on my part, to you, and dredging up memories best forgotten, for me.  We won’t even get into the shelves stuffed with notions and thread and just general crap, much of which ended up in the garbage pile.  I mean, really, who needs every cardboard candy box, or plastic Christmas ornament box from the previous 10 years to use for storage or putting gifts in.  The cigar boxes, however, did come in handy to store random fine fibers and threads, sewing machine feet, yada yada yada. 

Anyway, as the little exorcisty lady with the wierd voice in the movie Poltergeist said, “This house is clean”!  Maybe not as clean as all that, but exponentially better than it was.

The bottom line is this…my house needed to be properly cleaned for showings and open houses, and, out of frustration with my inability to figure out the downloading of pictures to “unboring” my blog up, I had to take a hiatus from blogging.  If I figure out how to do the picture thing, I will add pictures to this entry and the others.  Hey Yarn Bearer, you gotta save me with this picture thing!  Please…come over and handfeed the procedure to me!  Otherwise, I’m doomed to boring blogsville!

SITE TEMPORARILY CLOSED FOR TECHNOLOGICAL UPDATES!

On Kay’s new fierce and ferosh shawl, and Christian Siriano!

 Holy Cow!  My friend Kay has completed her Cloud 9 shawl and designed a fierce ruffle to finish it off.  Today(or last night maybe) she posted the free pattern on her blog(My Savannah Cottage).  She wore it to our friend Rachel’s wedding in Columbia Square(historic Savannah) and wowed everyone. 

Our knitting group planned to wear our own handknits to the wedding.  Mine was to be the Affair to Remember skirt from Annie Modesit’s book Romantic Knits.  As usual, I didn’t meet the deadline, so my knitted garment was a Juicy Couture cashmere sweater, not handknitted by me, but ferosh none the less. 

Our friend Tracy provided a bunch of gals with her innovative handknit shawls that were at Wild Fibre, our knit shop, where the bride was getting ready, and wearing a handknit, by Kristin, cashmere/alpaca heirloom quality lace shawl.  She wore it as a veil and then as a wrap with her wedding dress and looked very classy and gorgeous(I’d say fierce or ferosh, but I seem to be overusing that word).  I didn’t get to be in on these gettin’ the bride ready festivities at the knit shop because I was at the reception site getting all the fresh flowers set up(everything was fresh and very clean and elegant, if I don’t say so myself).

The main reason I did not finish my skirt was that I was doing the flowers for the wedding party and the reception and decorating the reception venue.  When I offered to do that for Rache, I had no idea how time consuming it would be, and how nerve wracking meeting the deadlines would be, and that the week of the wedding would bring a lot of sleepless nights and working into the wee hours of the morning.  However, I do treasure the experience because it brought so much enjoyment to the attendees and to the bride and I did learn a lot.  When I can get pictures, which I do have, uploaded here, I will show them to you. 

OK, let me just say that getting pictures on one’s blog when one is technologically impaired is so a “hot-tranny-mess”, to quote my favorite-of-all-time Project Runway competitor AND winner, Christian Siriano.  If I could figure it out, my blog would be a whole lot cooler and more interesting!  So…sorry about the no-picture-showin’ mess!  I’ve been trying to get my friend, The Yarn Bearer, to come over and bail me out, but our schedules are not coinciding, so I’m basically screwed for the time being.  The worst part of that is that I know I am probably doing one miniscule thing wrong in trying to download images and will feel like a total feeb when I finally figure out my mistake. 

Now, enough about that and on to the topic of Christian Siriano.  That boy is ferosh!  I thought I was one of his only fans in America until he won the Fan Favorite on the reunion show.  I felt so thrilled for him and so vindicated with my knitting group since nobody in it but Kay(My Savannah Cottage) liked him.  It was a real “nah-nah-nah-nah-nah” moment.  Anyway, I adored his little smart-ass self from the very first show, thought he was the most talented and thought he would win.  Yeah, I called it, booyah, booyah! 

When my boy Christian won, I cried, not sobbing, but a few tissues worth.  Partly, it was a relief when he won ’cause that mess was so suspenseful and I was rooting for him, but he started to cry and appeared to be so genuinely surprised and touched, that it was a very poigniant moment, and I am a softie.  Anyway, my friend Kay has the link to the Saturday Night Live spoof about Christian on her blog and it is worth checking out. 

Well, until I get pics up to back up the text on my blog, it will continue to be a lame-sans-pics tranny mess.  When I figure it out, I will edit pics into my previous blog entries.  

Sayonara, Sweethearts!  Until next time, knit, purl, and be merry! 

Two “Thumbs” Up

On Tuesday night at knitting, two of my good friends shared a juicy piece of gossip with me.  It happened to be about…me.  I happen to be an odd dichotomy of innate intellect and class combined with deliberate profanity and gaucheness(I know those analogies aren’t quite right and gauche + ness = not a real word, but you get the idea).  Anyway,  my hand gestures have earned me two nickname thingies. 

The first is “Two Thumbs Up” because I give my rude hand gestures in tandem(similar to the ole’ double guns).   The Yarn Bearer then said “Yeah, “The Julia Sandwhich”.  Apparently, both names stuck.

I learned this juicy little tidbit when my friend Jennifer(owner of Wild Fibre in Savannah and know to us as The Yarn Pusher), said something about me, which I didn’t hear, so our friend Sandy said in a fake warning tone, “Julia didn’t hear you or you might get the two thumbs up”.  Of course I looked around because I heard my name.  All the regulars, who were in the know, started snickering and looking guiltily down(you all know how it is…when you are laughing about someone and are trying to cover it up).  

My loyal pals Tracy and Kayla, who were, might I add, also snickering and looking at the floor trying to be inconspicuous, then clued me in.  Probably because when I looked around, and saw everyone having a private joke, I leaned over, and conspiritorially asked Tracy, “What’s so funny?”.  The dupe always makes a private joke hysterical when they are in the midst of it and innocently ask that question.

This cracks me up and I  totally love it.  Apparently the name originated because when my friends say something at our Stitch ‘n Bitch about me or my work, or to me, that I want to feign offense about(we all tease each other, usually with a semi-straight face), I give them an emphatic,  two-handed flip-off, including a mock-shocked, mouth agape facial expression, as if I am horrified and offended,  and if I am standing, I bend my knees, and wave the rude gestures at them repeatedly for a few seconds. 

This is done in fun, since I happen to think rude hand gestures are VERY funny when done for the entertainment factor .  Also, I only favor my most-bestest-favoritest friends with this gesture, a gesture of friendship, if you will(with the exception of the occasional crappy driver, who deserves a SERIOUS flipping off). 

I would love to hear from anyone who includes this in their shtick, since we are obviously kindred spirits.  Because most of you are probably fellow Ravelers,  my ravelry name is kniteralyspeaking(yeah yeah, I know it’s misspelled, but the other L makes it have too many letters). 

KNIT ON, ROCK ON, FLIP ‘EM LIKE YA MEAN IT!

Finally, my debut into the literary world! Does that make me a debutante?

Welcome to my blog, and holy fricking cow!  This is my second attempt at this entry, because I went to view my site and forgot to save and continue editing.  I was wondering what that nails scraping a blackboard sound was about, well, now I know and I certainly won’t do THAT again!  This is particularly annoying since it has taken me two agonizing days to get this mess up.   Well, not actually agonizing like in the sense of the crucifixion or anything(hells bells, that was not meant to be blasphemous)…OK, agonizing was definitely not the right word.  I’m thinking that sitting down at the computer and just spewing forth whatever dances through my head is probably not a good idea(maybe going with this stream of consiousness thing is not so wise), but I don’t want to delete this entry since it is my second attempt, within the last half hour, to get something down on virtual paper, and it contains valuable lessons that I DON’T want to forget(i.e. the inadvertent deleting, the rambling).

 Anyway, on to better things.  Last night, I finally got to watch La Vie en Rose on DVD.  What an amazing performance by Marion Cotillard!  No wonder she won the Oscar for Best Actress for her uncanny portrayal of Edith Piaf.  Although I have enjoyed listening to Edith Piaf for many years, I knew relatively little about her.  Just that she was a beloved, very famous French chanteuse.  This movie was very insightful and well researched .  Learning that Edith Piaf was an avid knitter was so cool!  There were scenes that included her talking about not finishing a sleeve of a sweater, naming knitting as what she does in her spare time, and showing her going to the beach to knit.   Yessssss!!!  Perhaps, unless you understand spoken French, it would be a good idea to just watch the movie the first time you watch it, since it is subtitled.  Subsequent watchings would be OK to knit to since you will have a general idea of when to look up when a knitting scene comes on. 

Another subtitled, French movie that includes knitting/crocheting, and is absolutely adorable and fun is Amelie.  One of the quirky characters(they are pretty much all quirky), knits and crochets and is an absolute riot.  Again, maybe not good to knit to the first time you watch it, but OK after the first initial watching. 

A favorite to-knit-to film of my knitting friends and mine, is Practical Magic.  It has a sort of uniqueish antique yarn swift, and a dining room breakfront filled with cones of yarn.  We watched this at our LYS, Wild Fibre in Savannah, one Friday night.  Ahhhh…knitting friends, yarn, good eats, adult beverages and a knitting chick flick…it just doesn’t get any better than that!

 Another film I have heard about from knitting friends, in reference to the knitted costume pieces, is The Golden Compass.  That sounds like a movie worth watching, and it will be awesome when that comes out on DVD.

Toward the end of La Vie en Rose,Edith is shown, as a child, wearing an adorable cardigan that I would love to translate in to a pattern.  Hmmm…one day…perhaps…maybe…