Now Norma Knits

Show Your Socks III

Jane is hosting The Third Annual Show Your Socks Contest.  I'm not much of a sock knitter, so I thought I'd have nothing to show.  However, I took a look in my sock drawer, and lo and behold, I found that, over time, I have accumulated a little wardrobe of handknit socks. It's nothing compared to some people.  A certain person we all know (she needs no introduction) has about 1,233 pairs of Jaywalkers alone.  I don't even aspire to that level of greatness. 

Anyway, here are my socks in an uninspired photo.  The camera battery died immediately upon taking the first photo.  I cajoled it into taking one more photo (below) before it would do no more.  After taking the photos, I read the rules of the contest this year:  Show a photo of your first and last pair of handknit socks.  Well, now it's all complicated! 

I had to do some research in the blog, because I could not remember which were my first pair.  Thank goodness for the blog and for the photo galleries.  To my surprise, I reallyandtruly could not remember.

This was my first pair of socks, and to date they remain my best work, but I don't have them anymore, and they were not in my memory banks -- only in my photo gallery.  I repeat, thank goodness for the blog!

They were given to Selma, my former boss at the BBC. The yarn was Koigu, a gift to me from Julia FC when we first met.  She was encouraging me to become a sock knitter.  (Thanks, Julia!) Totally forgot about all of it.  The last time I talked to Selma, she said, "I'm looking down at my feet right now at the beautiful lavender socks you made me.  It was the nicest gift anyone has ever given me."  This was a good two years after I had sent her the socks and she just happened to be wearing them that day.  *heart swells*

The first pair I kept for myself are the heavyweight Vermont wool-and-mohair socks on the far left of the photo above, and here is another photo of them, with their story, again lifted from my gallery:

Pattern:  Ann Norling Adult Socks II, knitted for worsted weight on size 7 US needles. 

Yarn: Local (from Montgomery, Vermont) heavy worsted weight sock yarn 55% yearling mohair/45% lambswool, natural-dyed (the plum with cochineal/the green with cosmos, heliopsis, marigold)

These were knitted for the Socktoberfest knitalong. I originally called them the Vermont Vineyard Socks for their colors; I renamed them the Socked-Intober socks because they were finished during the Nor'Easter of October 24-25, 2005.

They are the first socks I've knitted for myself, the 2nd pair I've ever knitted. And this is the first two-color strand work I've done.

The last pair I knitted are the Trek-Along socks shown in the photo above and in this photo and completed in early 2007.

And because I'm a lucky blogger, I have a nice collection of beautiful socks knit for me by others. 

From top to bottom: Koigus from Cassie (the very first pair of handknit socks I ever put on my feet.  Still gorgeous and lovely); Trekkings from Cari; Lorna's Laces from Stephanie; and Mountain Colors Bearfoot from Debi.  Because other knitters are better knitters than I, these four pair are my favorites of all.  They are all gorgeous and comfy.

Thanks for the exercise, Jane.  That was a fun walk down Sock Memory Lane.

On Being Perfect

It's hard to survive as a perfectionist in a profession in which it is utterly imPOSSible to be perfect. 

I CARTed* an event today.  I was given more complete and full information ahead of time than I have ever had for one of these events.  I'm tellin' ya, those Catholics really got it goin' on with the prep help.  I had full texts of every speech, prayer, et cetera, for the entire event, and I prepared, I thought, fully.  I read each one and scanned for words that might not be in my steno dictionary. 

This was an event at a Catholic college, so there were quite a few Catholic/religious words I knew were not in my dictionary. I caught them and added them in.  My butt was saved a lot by this.  "Homily" would have no doubt translated "homely," for example.  "Trivium" was a new word to me, which is slightly embarrassing, since I studied Latin and I'm a word hound. I was able to put in the multitude of names and made up some brief forms for the man of honor and the college, and yet I still managed, on a few occasions for each, to find another way to write them and therefore misstroke them and have them translate incorrectly. 

After all these years of writing steno and making dictionary entries, still I am occasionally caught out by exasperatingly simple words.  The gems of the day were:  "interlude" translated as "interlewd**," ("We will now have a musical interlewd for your enjoyment."  Oy.) 

"Medieval" translated as "medical evil," and "generosity" translated as a big phonetic mess that looked like "GEN-ROSS-IT." 

I am being unnecessarily hard on myself.  There was only one person using my captions, because it was not arranged in time to get a big screen set up for all to see.  The man who did avail himself of the captions heaped on loads of praise after it was over. 

Still, the little perfectionist ex-Catholic girl has a hard time accepting less than 100%.  Maybe I should change professions.***
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*Communications Access Realtime Translation

** Could you just die?  At a Catholic event, no less.  "Medical evil" is pretty funny, too. 

*** Not a chance.  I love it too much, and I admit it:  I get a wicked buzz from pulling off what seems like magic to other people.  The guy today said:  "I noticed you sometimes fixed your mistakes."  I said, "Yes, I can fix a mistake from the keyboard if I catch it in time." 

"How can you keep all that in your brain?!!" 

Heh.  Magic.

Next up:  Nicholas Kristof speaks on China and democracy (or something. For all I know, he could be sharing family recipes.  If he starts going on about American Chop Suey, I'm outta there.) on Monday, and this one IS on the big screen.   Not nearly as much preparatory help has been forthcoming on this one.  Wish me magic luck.

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P.S.  You'll be happy to know that I washed my mouth out with soap before I went to the Catholic college.  I did, however, let "hell" slip out to a young man who was directing traffic when I realized I had driven way, way too far and was now at the football field.  I rolled down my window (now, there's an archaic expression in these days of pushing a button to have the window go down on its own, but I digress) and said to him, "Well, THIS can't be right.  I'm here for the inauguration and they told me I would be able to park as close to the gym as possible, because I have heavy equipment, and now I'm way the hell out here."  He turned gray.   It was cuter than .... well, yeah...hell. 

How To Crack Me Up At The End Of A Long, Headachey Day -- A Post With A Lot of Links

My friends.  I think I'll keep 'em. (It's a tomato-scented air freshener. Can you beat that for creativity?)

("we all" = Margene, Terry, Carole, Kim, Susan, Ann, Another Kim, and I hope I've remembered everyone) 

Well, hell.  After I did all that work making the linkfest, I landed on Susan's blog and found she had done all the work for me.  Here is the whole crew, with labels.  I'm sure Susan (labeled "me" in the photo) doesn't mind that I stole the photo from her blog.  Even if she does, I know I can take her out with a well-placed hip check.*  Also?  Court reporters trump lawyers, even federal ones.

It's so great to be remembered when a bunch of the girls are out together and I'm not there with them, but off gallivanting, buying jeans and such.  I've got my Travelocity and TrueBlue accounts set on Salt Lake City alert, Margene.  Get that guest bed and plenty of fry sauce** ready!

*phrase stolen from Kay, who said she thought she could take ME out with a hip check. As if!

**don't you love the fact that "fry sauce" has its own Wikipedia entry? ("A regional condiment."  Gotta love it.  I wonder what would happen if we spilled fry sauce on poutine.... and then bumped into someone carrying a dish of [Utica] greens......and then...[add your own regional speciality here, but please, no American Chop Suey])  We might have an International Incident on our hands.

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For those wise-acres who are waiting for me to put on my new jeans for Asswatch Wednesday, you'll have to wait a while longer.  Although Dave's referring to my jeans photos last week as "AssWatch, the DenimBitches Edition," which he then said was a typo and was meant to be DenimBritches Edition (with-an-R) was so endearing, it nearly got me to model them in the "bent-over-the-garden-pose" that Jodi and Claudia are clamoring for.  Send alcohol.  It could still happen. 

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Remember Marie, the darling girl who visited and Paula and I (but mostly Paula) taught to knit? 

Yesterday I got an email from Marie with the subject line, "TADA!!"

Here's why:

Is that not fabulous?!  That's Paton's Classic Merino from my stash.  She wanted washing instructions, and she informed me that she went to a yarn shop and bought Cascade 220 Superwash for making her next scarf. (hey!  wait a second!  Marie, when did you learn to cast off?!)

I hope I'm not telling too many tales out of school here, but yesterday in an IM chat session, Marie told me that Alex has now taken to saying, "Please don't bring that (knitting) in the car!" because when she's knitting she's not navigating, and they get lost.  I told her to tell him to shape up or ship out.  I also shared my and Sandy's motto with her (she's young. we must teach the young) "Men. You can't live with them, and you can't shoot them."  BUT this scarf is for Alex, and he loves it.  As he'd better well do, or see above. 

Way to go, Marie!

I've Got Nothing Hardly Anything

Okay, well, I do have the exciting news that the Red Scarf Fund has broken $5,000.  This is sort of stale news, and I'm a bad hostess for not telling you about it sooner.  The last I heard, it was approaching $5,500.

Well done, everyone! 

And don't forget to send in your scarves.  Apparently, based on a comment he left on the blog last weekend, Doug's desk has not yet buckled at the weight of the incoming scarves, so keep 'em coming.  This phenomenon is somewhat like the gardening phenomenon I mentioned yesterday:  I can't tell whether I'm coming or going. 

Stop!  No, don't stop!  Stop!  Don't stop!

Wait.......................What was I just talking about? 

I think I got distracted.

Um. Yeah.  Excuse me a minute while I regain my composure.

Send in your scarves. 

Lately I've been reading that a blog entry is not complete without a photo. So here ya go. Non sequitur photo of the day.  Discuss.

A Day Off, My Style

Ahh, how nice to come back from a fun weekend away to a day off.  The weather is fabulous.  I did some garden cleanup this morning, froze some broccoli, and canned five measly pints of tomatoes. 

I spent some time in August being self-critical about how I've gotten lazy and uninterested and have let the garden go, but every kindred gardening spirit I've run into in the past month and a half has expressed the same thing:  It's been quite the dismal gardening year.  Right now the garden is bone dry and things are dying on the vine.  I watered, which is relatively unheard of for me.  I just want to be able to harvest enough beets to make more pickles.  I only put up a few jars this year, and they've all been given away.  I'll be very short for this world if I show up at the family dinners without my pickled beets, lemme tell you that.  They're expected. I might not come out alive.  (My family can be an unruly bunch.)  I have even tried to buy beets in bulk at the local farmstand, but even theirs look pathetic.  If I had cared enough, I might have watered on a more consistent, regular basis, but, I don't know.  Other things have been on my mind.  And even me watering the garden would not have helped the strange weather we've had all summer:  40 degrees one day, 90 the next.  The plants don't know whether they're coming or going.  I made that statement to my doctor the other week.  He's a gardener, too.  He looked at me in commiseration and said, "They're going.  In fact, they're almost gone."  I took that as permission to further neglect my plants, and now here I am at the end of September with pretty much nothing to show for my (admittedly feeble) efforts. 

In a minute, I'm headed out for a bike ride.  I've got someone in one of the bathrooms stripping off the wallpaper which was put on about 20 years ago when I was seriously in my "cabbage rose" phase.  (Proud of me, Kim?)  I could puke every time I see it (the wallpaper) now.  Not for long!  I'm thinking deep raspberry walls, chocolate brown shower curtain, new countertop, new lighting, new medicine cabinet.  The other person who lives in this house is thinking, yeah, not so much.  Some people are uncomfortable with change. Perhaps we'll start a new trend:  The Stripped-Wallpaper-Paste-Still-On-The-Walls look.  Think it'll catch on? 

They're HEEEEEERE!

I'm back from New York and the jeans are here.  I haven't dared to try them on yet.  I'm too scared.  What if they really don't fit?  What if I've put on a ton of weight since I bought them?  What if ....

'scuse me.  I've got to go work out now. 

But first I'll explain what that green thing is sitting on top of the wonderful jeans.  It's a mitten.  Yes, it is!  Here in MY blog.  And what's more is that I knitted it!

The cuff is made of Margene's handspun, and the rest is olive green sock yarn.  I've already cast on for the second cuff.  These are intended to be the liner mittens in a double-mitten set, a la Paula's "Socks For Your Hands" that she made out of Trekking.  I didn't follow her pattern precisely, but used my Ann Budd book as a guide and did my own thing with 8 stitches to the inch.  But the outside mitt is going to be made all of the Margene handspun, using Paula's outer mitt pattern in heel stitch -- that is, if there is enough yarn. (I think there will be.)

I think they are going to be my favorite mittens of all time. 

Plugging-My-Daughter-Again Wednesday

The title is slightly tongue-in-cheek because Wednesday seems to be a day when we invent blog-filler traditions.  So I now dub this Plugging-My-Daughter-Again Wednesday.

Abigail opens in The Best Party Ever this weekend.  This could be a big break for her.  Fingers crossed! 

Wish her "break a leg," will you?  And go, if you can!

Needless to say, we'll be there for her opening night.  (The show is a long-running, popular show, but she has just joined the cast and will be in it for the next six weeks.)

We are also going to see Ryan in the last night of his most recent role in Purple Hearts. He also produced (or co-produced -- I am not 100% sure and I don't want to misrepresent) it.  His filming for As The World Turns begins Monday. 
 

The blog will be dark for a few days while I take care of this most important business.  I hope my hot jeans arrive before I go, but I'm afraid I might just miss them by a day.  Ah, well.  Next time. 

Frankly Speaking - A Gentle Reminder Lecture

I worry.  I am envisioning the flood waters of scarves for the Red Scarf Project rising, and what is intended as a wash of goodwill might become instead a tsunami of misplaced good intentions.

Please consider knitting only one high-quality scarf, knitted to the OFA guidelines, (I know the guidelines say five, but I am sticking by my own personal recommendation for ONE, given the size of the response I am sensing) for the Red Scarf Project, rather than several, this year.  Make your mantra:  Quality over quantity.  Quality over quantity.  Quality over quantity. 

If you have not read the guidelines recently, please refresh your memory by clicking here.  They are simple, straightforward and sensible.  And remember, another excellent way to support the college-attending former foster youth the OFA supports is by donating to the Red Scarf Fund for Foster Youth.

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The OFA received far more scarves than they needed last year, and a quick gaze into my crystal ball (reinforced by the seeming flood of emails I have received expressing concerns or questions or confusion or consternation about the change in dates and the guidelines for this year's project) gives me cause to worry. 

Knitters have a lot of enthusiasm for giving people knitted gifts, but the OFA serves a limited number of college students, and no amount of cajoling or insisting that they should take your scarves because you collected them is going to change the landscape.  They are primarily a scholarship organization, and the Red Scarf Project is but a teeny-tiny branchlet of their mission.   

So please put on the brakes.  Quality over quantity.  One scarf, or two at the most.  A very nice, gift-quality one. One that you would be proud to give your own college-age son or daughter. That doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the most expensive yarn, but it means soft and tasteful and lovely.  There are economical yarns, even acrylics, that are beautiful.

Please be aware that any excess scarves received will, of necessity, be donated to some other worthy causes.  I know this will upset some knitters.  People have been telling me in emails that THIS is the project that has captured their hearts and they want their scarf to go to THIS project.  But if you stop and think about it, you will realize that if far, far too many scarves are received, the OFA can't possibly distribute them all to their clients.  There just aren't enough clients, and it's a huge drain of resources to try to find alternate recipients for the surplus. 

I don't want to offend anyone, but I don't know how to say this except to just come out and say it:  The recipients of these scarves are young college students who are just as fashion-conscious and quality-conscious as your own sons and daughters.  If you are running a community service organization or a Girl Scout or Brownie Troop or some other youth organization, this is probably not the best project for your group.  Though some youngsters certainly can and do produce some wonderful things, most are probably not capable of producing the kind of quality that is necessary here.   

I'll shut up now.  Lecture over.  I hope I haven't offended anyone or trod on too many toes.

And now, so this post is not a complete downer:

PJB has completed a lovely red Irish Hiking Scarf.  Go visit her blog and tell her how pretty it is!

And here is a lovely scarf being sent to the Project, along with a Barnes & Noble gift card, from Hilary of Rochester, NY.  Thank you, Hilary!   

 

AND I've done a couple more drawings from the Red Scarf Fund donations bank.

• Kelly has won the Persia yarn donated by Elizabeth McN.

• Auntie Ann has won Dream In Color yarn from Ronni S.

• Jennifer Jarvis (not my Cousin Nipper, I don't think, but a different Jennifer Jarvis) has won Misty Mountain Farm Yarn from Ronni S.

• Melanie has won the Apple Laine yarn also from Ronni S.

• and btrulyirish Carol has won Socks That Rock Silkie from Susan
  

Your Future Is In Your Genes Jeans

I'm back and I've had a much-needed nap.  It was what any Best Weekend should be -- exhausting, exhilarating and restorative all at the same time, with wonderful company the whole weekend long.  The weather (except for a Saturday-morning rain) was Gorgeous New England Autumn Perfection.  A lot of money was spent, but wisely.  A lot of food was eaten, but sensibly.

About the money spent part, That Claudia further solidified her reputation as Enabler Extraordinaire.  It always seemed that she was shopping, too, but somehow or another I was the one leaving the stores with the far bigger shopping bags.  She did get some good things, too, though.  For two inveterate NON-shoppers, we did pretty damn well for ourselves in the draining-the-checkbook department. 

The main event was my trip to True Jeans to be a fit tester for them, like Grumperina and Claudia have done before me.  (Claudia's wearing a pair of her jeans from True Jeans, along with modeling her newly-completed bolero here.)

Awesome.Experience.  Everyone should do it.  Way to improve one's self-esteem, baby.  (especially with Claudia sitting by, commenting, "That ass is lookin' fine," periodically.)  Trying to find jeans that flatter is every woman's nightmare, and True Jeans simplifies the process.  Now my ass is in their database, as Claudia so adorably put it, and I can log into their site any time I'm bored and get a list of jeans that they recommend will flatter my figure type -- not Claudia's, not anyone else's -- mine!  And flatter I think they do. 

When you're forty-frickin'-eight and wish you could lose that eight or ten pounds you've put on in the last decade, and you can find jeans that fit like this and make you feel like this, you buy them.  They are Red Engine Jeans Super Sexy Bootcut.  I bought these in blue and black. (and their black is a triple-dyed, real, honest-to-goodness BLACK.  Awesome.  Dressy.  Sexy.  Awesome.)

Also, when you're forty-frickin'-eight, and you have Claudia there to guide you, you leave the jeans place and you go shoe-shopping to buy shoes (or boots, in my case) that are worthy of the jeans.  It's possible that she may have said, "Oh, yeah.  She doesn't know it yet, but she's going shoe-shopping.  She's gonna get her some of those come-f*ck-me shoes."  Or maybe I'm just imagining that she said it.  Either way, it's a good story with a happy ending.

So here's the thing:  I might have said, to hope to get a laugh out of you, that "I'll breathe next year," when talking about the fit shown above.  Not true.  The jeans FEEL GOOD.  They look tight, but they feel GREAT.  The denim in these is lightweight and fabulous, with just a hint of stretch.  Here's another thing, which I already knew, but it's always good to refresh.   We don't see ourselves objectively.  When asked to fill out a size and fit questionnaire, I think I was fairly objective and have a fairly good self-assessment of my body type issues.  But the part that stands out is that I have been a firm believer for years, and even wrote it on the form and said it to Julie, my fit professional:  I can't wear low-rise jeans. 

WRONG.  Wrong.  And even more wrong.  As a matter of fact, just for kicks (we should have taken a photo) they had me try on some jeans that I normally would try on in a store and that I might settle for, thinking it was the best I could do and that, well, my body just doesn't wear jeans well:  Mid-rise.  For me, it turns out, mid-rise is Bad.  Bad.  Bad.  I couldn't decide if I looked like a soccer mom or a hayseed boy, but either way it was Bad. (Nothing against soccer moms, per se, or hayseed boys, but I'm neither, thank you very much.)

Alas, life for a forty-eight-year-old Vermonter is not all "come hither" and "nights on the town in New York," which means that having some jeans for other occasions is in order.  Enter Christopher Blue Hudson jeans:

Bum-around jeans with a decidedly upscale twist.

...and we don't have a picture yet of me in the Christopher Blue Farrah wide-leg jeans. [edited to add: I got that backwards.  The ones in the photo above are the Farrah wide-leg trouser jeans, not the Hudson ones. I'm wearing the Hudsons in the photo below, but you can't really see much.] I don't yet have my jeans in my hot little hands, as I left them to be hemmed using their special process which retains the original hem, a very important detail for this detail-oriented person.

Very Happy Jeans Buyer:

Road Trip!

While several of my lucky friends are flying out to Salt Lake City, and I can't join them on this trip [pout], I'm going south (Since almost everywhere in the U.S. is south of here, I'm not giving you much to go on, am I?  Ha.) for a long weekend of fun.  I'll be a good blogger and bring the camera, though. I've even remembered to charge up the battery.

I've got a lot to do before I go, and have to leave at the crack of dawn (in my terms), so this is a great opportunity to turn to you, my people, for blog fodder.  I've got some completed Red Scarf Project scarves to show you.  So without further ado, here we go:

Crafting for Goddess models her completed scarf here.  She dyed the yarn herself and used the "So-Called Scarf Pattern."

A Quad Cities SnB'er completed this one:

and Julie did these two:

P.S.   Who else has had mitosis and meiosis explained to them in full-on knitting terms?  I have.  Aha!  Now I'll remember it, for sure!