a little place called "What If"...

i am sat up in bed, with an animator snoring away next to me and a cat curled up between us under the blanket, also sleeping peacefully. it is a slice of something resembling domestic bliss, and i am cherishing the moment. 

every now and then i peer out though a tunnel of leafy limbs to a tree about half a city block away from here. it has gone a deep shade of fluorescent-pink that puts me in mind of Cyndi Lauper's hair back in the day. trust me, the photo does not do it justice, as my camera seems reluctant to believe that anything that color really does exist. 

there is also a little squirrel taking a nap just a few feet away from the window, with his tail wrapped around his body like a cozy blanket. even the local wildlife seems to be feeling the effect of the advancing cold. 

we have arrived (yet again) at the time of year when my so-not-Canadian-ness is on full display. like when i climbed out of bed Sunday morning to discover that my bedroom had been transformed into a walk-in freezer...

me: it's so cold. 

him: (pausing briefly to "test" the air) i guess it's a bit fresh.

me: you Canadians with your "fresh". it is freezing! i'm cold, so i'm turning on the heat.

him: really???

that last bit was said like i had just announced my plan to jump out an airplane using a bra-cup for a parachute. his Canadian-ness may be keeping him insulated against the rapidly-advancing frost, but it is the blood of the tropics that flows through my veins. it may (only) be the first week of October, but the heat is on! i have zero regrets. 

the highlight of this past weekend was the removal of the bug screens from the windows (and the balcony door) so that we can spend the Winter months enjoying unobstructed views of... well... snow. yes, life really is terribly exciting around here. 

the balcony garden project has similarly been put to rest for the season. there are two large heads of celery waiting to be harvested, but all the other containers have been covered up for the year. it is always surreal to look out at the space that just a few weeks ago was a near-impregnable mini-jungle, and all that remains now is a lifeless row of double-stacked containers waiting to be covered in... well... snow. 

on the more serious side of life, the city of Montreal has (once again) tightened restrictions in light of the ongoing emergency, so we are fully prepared for a long Winter of little-to-no contact with the outside world.... more of the same really. the social isolation is not proving to be a problem for either of us, as we tend to be loners (together). however, i have to admit that i have had quite a few sleepless nights of late, and i spend many a waking hour struggling to keep my mind from wandering down the path to a little place called "What If". 

the one glimmer of joy that has emerged from the constant search for distractions is that i have returned (tentatively) to my crafting of things. i am still not ready to pull the cover off the sewing machine, but i have purchased a few new patterns in the recent weeks and i plan hope to put them to use in the near future. in the meantime, i have been knitting. 

that gold yarn i was so in love with last time around is well on its way to becoming a new sweater for self. i cast this on literally right after i hit "publish" on the previous post, and i really wanted to have it done before the end of September, but... distractions. it will be finished one of these days.

the pair of socks that i had spent all Spring/Summer mostly ignoring were finally finished and passed along to the animator. this is the Bavarian Cable Socks from the Socks From the Toe Up book by Wendy D. Johnson. i knit this pair in some yarn i dyed in a colorway i am calling "koi pond"...because it is!

the design features all-over traveling cables that have the effect of leaving the socks all scrunched up right off the needles.

so i gave them a soak, and left them to dry on sock-blockers, which i purchased expressly for this ridiculous pair of socks. they looked fantastic the next day.

i cannot begin to explain how much i (still) despise knitting socks, especially when there are cables involved. naturally, he loves the bloody things. they were on his feet seconds after i handed them over. good grief! [random aside: he is blaming my camera for the paleness of his legs in this photo. i am not sure how to break the unfortunate news to him.] 

i vowed never to knit another pair of socks, then i sat down to watch a podcast on the You Tubes in which the host mentioned that she was participating in something called "socktober" (which is exactly what it sounds like). problem is, she happened to mention this just as he was walking by. you could hear him screech to a cartoon-like halt at the mention of that word. 

him: did she just say "socktober"?

me: i think you're hearing things.

him: nope. i heard it. it's a thing. you are making me socks for socktober.

all of the protest that followed was for naught, as he was already busy selecting his next pair of hand-knit socks. he settled on a pattern called Sea Oats, and i was given the immense responsibility of selecting the yarn from my stash. 

i had dyed a couple skeins of sock yarn in one of my desperate attempts at distraction, so i narrowed it down to those two. one colorway is "Grand Bay" and the other is "Zombie Apocalypse". ten points if you can guess which is which.

having made my final choice, i divided the yarn into two even (by weight) balls. now i just need to muster something resembling enthusiasm to get started on his next pair of custom-made socks... any day now. 

Jultember: nerd two ways...

i have met a few people over the years who claim that they almost never dream. my mind boggles at the possibility of such a thing. there is a virtual circus of activity inside my head every time i close my eyes for longer than a blink.

some of those dreams play out like a movie with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and i occasionally find myself struggling to stay asleep because i do not want to wake up before it is done.

some of those dreams help me sort out the confusing details of things: like that time back when i was having trouble remembering the ascending sensory pathways and descending motor pathways in cross-sections of the spinal cord... until i fell asleep one night and dreamed that i was a pulse of energy traveling from one part of the body to another, up and down those pathways. it all made perfect sense when i awoke. everyone has dreams like that, no?

there are also those dreams that rip me violently from my sleep and leave me almost afraid to ever close my eyes again.

then there are the dreams that serve as a magic window into the ludicrous corners of one's personality. i begin a lot of days with a good laugh when recounting the absurdity that was rolling around inside my head while i slept.

i had a dream recently in which i was walking outside of a building, and there were two men engaged in a heated conversation about something. one of them had a look that screamed "professor of some super-smart subject", and he was arguing with a younger man who i presumed to be either a colleague or maybe a protégé.

as i got closer, i could hear what they were saying. they were arguing about someone's theorem about something or another, which made no sense to me at the time. then i noticed that there was a wall of formulas projected onto the very air behind them (like something out of an Iron Man movie). and every time one of them spoke, the arrangement of formulas would change to reflect whatever they were talking about.

then one of them said something about "Oppenheimer's theory...", and the image on the invisible wall of formulas switched to a black-and-white photograph of a man.

i was instantly captivated.

i started walking forward with my eyes fully fixated on the image, and i passed right between the two men who took no notice of my presence. they went on arguing, but the picture of the man on the screen remained the same. and i just stood in front of it with my mouth agape.

it was as if life finally made sense.

i woke up a short while later, and just laid there in a complete mental fog, trying to figure out where i had heard the name Oppenheimer. it was then that i heard the faint sound of my favorite animator at his computer, so i got out of bed and the very first thing is said to him was...

me: sweetie... who is Oppenheiner?

after a few taps at his keyboard, he began to read...

him: Julius Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of Ca...

i raised a hand at this point to call for a halt to the reading. it was coming back to me.

him: why are you waking up and asking me about Oppenheimer?

so i told him about my dream. then i got to the good bit... the thing that had absolutely captivated me.

me: it was the sweater he was wearing!
him: of course. 
me: i had moved closer so i could examine it up close. and while the two of them were still throwing theorems around behind me, there was only one thing running through my mind.
him: which was?
me: i can make that!

then he just shook his head at me with a look of amused-pity on his face. i get that look a lot around here.

him: so all your dream proves is that you are a nerd two ways.

he can mock me all he wants, but i guarantee you there will come a day when he is walking around looking flustered, and i will ask him what he is looking for, and he will say the words that will make me smile... have you seen my Oppenheimer sweater?

want to know how seriously i take my absurdity? well...

for the past couple-few weeks, there has been a Google search for "oppenheimer" among the like five billion tabs that open automatically when i start my browser. its sole purpose for being there was to make sure that i did not forget about the thing. most of all, it was a reminder to find a pattern for something similar.

yes, i could make up a pattern of my own at this point, but that would send my OCD tendencies into overdrive, so it is far less stressful to find a pattern and start from there. besides, it was not a complicated garment. it was a raglan-style sweater with sleeves that were much darker in color than the body section. kind of like the long-sleeve baseball shirts he is so fond of wearing.

his current favorite one features Skeletor's face on the the front, so i am already aware that there will be an inevitable request for something equally absurd when i eventually get around to making the Oppenheimer sweater.

see??? it is already a thing!

after much searching, i finally settled on a sweater that bears the inspiring name of CB29-09. [i agree... the model is adorable.] i am going to offer the making of this sweater in exchange for a drawing that i have been begging him to do for almost a year now. [if you have been here before, you may recall a similar scene regarding my gnus.]

yes... my life really is steeped in absurdity. that is the point of the thing.

i bet she is dreaming about that sweater too.

 

blame it on the bingo...

the crafting world is full of "alongs". that being, people making/doing the same thing at roughly the same time for some shared sense of support and community. i am a self-proclaimed curmudgeon, so i really hate "alongs". naturally.

the rest of the fiber-crafting community, however, absolutely loves this sort of thing. whether it is a new pattern by a popular designer, or a new colorway from a favorite hand-dyer of yarns, there is always an along to be had.

so, after many years of shaking my head dismissively at so many of these groups, it saddens me to announce that i am engaging in what will be the first (and likely last) along of my fiber-crafting life.

this came about as a challenge of sorts to stop being so much of a curmudgeon about... well... everything. and i chose this particular along because it had the most "do whatever the heck you want" rules of any i could find.

the good people over at the Wet Coast Wools (which is both a podcast on the You Tubes and a yarn shop in Vancouver) are hosting a year-long Bingo-along. that is correct. they have created a harmonious blend of knitting (or crocheting, if you are into that sort of thing)... and BINGO. yes, please!

i joked at first that i would enter it if only to have something to regret as the year went on, and it turns out that i was not wrong. it is now approaching the middle of July, and i have yet to cross a single square off of the bingo card. boy do i ever regret this decision.

seriously, it was less than two months in, and people were already asking if they could start working on a second bingo card. meanwhile, i have set myself the goal of completing one row, and i am already failing at that.

i have more than enough projects in various stages of doneness that could be finished up and applied to said effort, but that would require me to be motivated or concerned, and i definitely do not resemble either of those things at present.

i did manage to finish one small project that would qualify for the "make something for an animal" square on the bingo card. see it?

how about now?

it is shown here modeled by my middle-kitty, Philly, a) because she looks like the model-kitty in the pattern, and b) because the other two cats had sense enough to go into hiding when i was looking for a furry mannequin.

it is a cape-like garment that is designed to keep a cat (or similar sized dog) warm, which makes sense for the recently-shaved cat in the original pattern photos. my cat, however, is about seventy-five percent fur, so the last thing she needs is even more warmth.

and, no... i do not intend to make a habit of knitting clothing for my cats. this was a one-off item that i made one evening while trying to distract myself from how disgusted i feel these days by the world around me. it was a brand new pattern that had just been posted to Ravelry, and i could not stop laughing at the thought of trying to get one of my cats into something like that.

i can assure you that Philly was not happy about being chosen to be the model, and she absolutely refused to look at me while i was taking the photographs. such a diva.

for now, the sweater will live in one of the nooks on my wall display of yarn-filled cans.

if memory serves, it was pouring outside... and i was sipping on some craft beer... and he was listening to music of some kind. so, while i could choose to blame it on the rain, the alcohol, or the boogie, i am going to blame it on the bingo.

wayyy outside my comfort zone ...

i feel like i am risking ruining my carefully-curated curmudgeon character by saying this out loud, but i have been making clothes for Barbie dolls. pretty much.

you see the shocked expression on Mama Kitty's face? that is exactly how i felt when this all started.

there is a whole (long) story behind it, but i will have to save that for some other day. for now, just know that i may have officially lost what little there was left of my mind. please... send help.

on the more immediate side of life, i woke up this morning, looked out the window, and the only thing i could see was the brick wall and chimney of the building directly across the driveway from us. everything else was lost in a white haze.

it should be noted that when i talk about looking out "the window", what i mean is that i looked out the only window that is not currently frosted over with a solid sheet of ice. check out the view through the sliding glass doors. Montreal is somewhere out there... i hope.

by midday, i was super-curious as to what it looked like down at street level, so i decided to get a large pot of soup started, then take a trek out to my local yarn shop while it simmered. the yarn shop, i should point out, is literally around the corner, so it was not like i had to hitch up a team of huskies to drag me on a sled across the tundra. it is a short walk to the corner, cross a street, then walk to the middle of that block.

i even managed to talk him into going outside with me.

me: come on. we can see what the snow looks like at ground-level. and you can help me pick out colors of yarn. 

he made a face.

me: plus...plus... we can go to the bakery on the way back, and sit there sipping hot beverages while we watch the cars and people slipping around on the ice. 

he found that idea far more appealing.

then the wind began to howl again, and the snow went racing even faster sideways past the one non-frosted-over window. it was quickly decided that as i was still getting over the tail-end of a nasty cough that has been driving me bonkers for most of the past month, this may not be the best time to go venturing out into an ice storm. that almost makes sense, i guess.

he did, however, take a quick trip to the corner store to buy eggs and cat food. the eggs were needed for a bit of baking we were planning on doing later in the day, and the cat food was a sensible precaution. i am aware that my cats have me listed as an all-you-can-eat buffet in their emergency contingency plan, and i did not want them to get any ideas with this storm.

he came back in a short while later, looking completely shocked.

him: you know when you see videos on the weather channel of those really big Winter storms? the kind where the snow is blowing like a hurricane, cars are skidding all over the road, and people are slipping and falling on their butts as they try to walk? 

me: yes... ?

him: it is exactly like that outside.  

so... uhm... yeh... we are staying put for at least the next day or two.

beyond that, we live on a street that is so small and tucked out of the way that people who have lived in this area for decades usually look puzzled when we try to explain where it is. this pretty much means that it will likely be mid-week before the city remembers to come dig us out.

how am i staying sane in all of this cold, grim weather? how sweet of you to ask. i am knitting myself a sweater in a very not-me shade of orangish-yellow yarn. trust me... the photos do not fully capture the intensity of this color.

anyone who has ever met me in the flesh would know this color is wayyy outside my comfort zone. i was trying to decide between the many shades of grey in my stash. however, as it is currently the depths of Winter in a place that seems to be continuously competing to be labeled as the coldest, darkest spot on the planet, i decided to make my own sunshine.

the pattern is the Gloria sweater by Danish designer Signe Strømgaard. like i said... it is a not-me color, but i have to admit that it does look rather fetching next to my skin.

on the fifth day of Christmas...

i'm feeling so relieved 
i... cannn... BREEEEEEEATHE!!!

finally!

to be fair, it is only one nostril back in action, but that is enough for me to survive without the constant mouth-breathing of the past four days.

i feel so dehydrated, especially as drinking anything meant that i had to stop breathing entirely while i sipped and swallowed. who knew breathing was so complicated??? no exaggeration, i experienced a massive life-or-death dilemma while eating a gingerbread cookie. i was chewing it for what seemed like forever, but it still felt like a mouthful of bone-dry crumbs. that is when i remembered that i would soon have to inhale.

problem was, with a mouth full of dry cookie crumbs, even the slightest inhale would result in some of that going racing into my lungs, which would end with a fit of coughing and choking. that is when the panic kicked in.

i could not decide what to do. should i spit the chewed up bits of cookie all over the floor, then inhale? or maybe i should try to form some kind of tunnel to let the air through? trust me, it was hilarious. i ended up using my tongue to sweep all the bits into one cheek and keep them there, while i finally sucked down some air on the other side of my mouth. all of that because of a lousy cold.

but, now... i can breathe! i am celebrating the happy development with my first cup of coffee in almost a whole week, and it smells and tastes great. i had almost forgotten how awesome smelling and tasting stuff can be.

i think it is fair to write off this week as an official bust. we are both still not over this bug, and it will be a while yet before our home stops being filled with the constant sound of coughing.

the worst part, however, is that i was genuinely too sick and tired to work on the one project i had set aside especially for this week.

i was calling this my Marvel-ous sweater, as i was going to work on it while we watched those movies (plus some other stuff). i was totally convinced that i would have it done in time to wear when we have our special New Year's Eve dinner. at this rate, the special meal may turn out to be yet another bowl of chicken soup for two.

the pattern is called Morning in Engelberg by Nadia Crétin-Léchenne. i especially love the juxtapositioning of the textures in the garter stitch and the cable.

that cable is plump, almost to the point of being marshmallowy... -ish, -esque, -like?

and i am using this adorable stitch-marker that i made some years back when i was deeply fascinated with creating things from beads and wire.

and now i need to add that to the list of activities to revisit in the coming year. no promises though.

Pepto-Bismol in the parking lot...

it is Monday, and i appear to be alive, so it is fair to say that the Wintery illness did not win. i still feel pretty crappy, and i have less than zero energy, but it is steadily getting better... i think.

meanwhile, he has devised a brilliant new way to gauge my wellness.

me: [in the whiniest tone possible] sweetieeee...!
him: i know. i know. you're sick. do you want me to get you anything?
me: no.
him: do you want something to eat?
me: no.
him: do you want me to make you some tea?
me: no.
him: do you want to watch something together?
me: no.
him: do you want a piece of chocolate?
me: no.
him: no chocolate? wow... you must really be sick. 

then i pulled the covers over my head and went back to sleep for the next several hours.

the entire weekend was like that. one big blur. however, i did manage to take some photos of my latest finished object. ta da!

this is the Willow sweater by Pam Allen. it is part of her Plain & Simple collection. Willow is a relaxed, oversized sweater with an elegant simplicity that is one hundred percent me. to be honest, i want to make every single garment in that collection... except maybe that cowl/hood thing. that one is definitely not me.

i love love love the gansey-style textured motif on the top.

it is on the back too.

 i made very few changes to the pattern... except...

i added a couple-few inches to the overall length, which made it slightly tunic-y (ish? esque?).

and i added pockets, because it was screaming for pockets, and i aim to satisfy.

i also split the hem at the sides, and i made the back slightly longer than the front.

oh, and i finished all of the edges with a sewn bind-off, which is always a pain in the neck, but it makes for a much more attractive edge. you can see it here on the cuff...

and on the neck...

i usually make a point of not making stuff in the same color as the sample garment, but i had a yarn that was perfect for this project, and it happened to be in a similar warm-white color. best of all, the yarn is a cotton-acrylic blend, which means that i can actually wear the thing for more than thirty seconds without breaking out in hives. madness, i know.

i started this project one day in Jultember (that being, the month whose name i no longer speak), right after having a meltdown in a drug store parking lot. said episode ended with me frantically opening a newly-purchased bottle of Pepto Bismol, and taking large gulps of it in-between the tears.

it was a rough day following an indescribably stressful week, and i had just discovered that there was a large rip straight down the center-back of my dress as we were getting out of the car to walk into said store. naturally, i remained behind, and when he asked me what i was planning on buying again, all that i could manage to say was "Pepto-Bisoml".

i casted it on as soon as we got home, and i called it the "Pepto-Bismol in the parking lot sweater" for obvious reasons.

it is living for now in one of the cubes in my recently-erected yarn storage system that was put in place to keep my stash under control.

is there still yarn in every room of our apartment? yes. yes... there is.

29: used to (almost) be...

my mom is always complaining about being cold. the inside of their office is kept feeling like a walk-in fridge in mid-Summer. then there is the arctic chill along the Hudson River in mid-Winter, which makes going to and from her workplace feel like you are in a wind tunnel in Antarctica. as a result, she is always cold.

i welcome any excuse to make use of my ever-expanding stash of yarn, so i took up the challenge of making a cardi (or two) for my mom. specifically, i wanted to make a wool sweater that could be used as an extra layer of insulation under her Winter coat, but that she could wear unbuttoned around the office to keep her shoulders and arms warm during the air-conditioned Summer months.

after much contemplation of both yarn and pattern options, i finally set out on the seemingly simple task of making a cardi for my mom. then everything went terribly wrong.

this used to (almost) be a cardi for my mom.

[random aside: i am drinking a very non-Summery cup of hot chocolate and taking my patented mix of 'one of each type' of headache tablets, because it is one of those days. moving on...]

all that remains is this narrow strip from the bottom of the back section. well... that plus all the yarn that has been wound into a ball about the size of my very-non-small head. i went searching for said ball of yarn today, but it was nowhere to be found. hopefully i did not toss is away in a fit of absolute frustration.

there are those moments in life, when you have to accept that something is not meant to be... then you stop wasting your own time. unfortunately, i tend to suck at taking my own advice. i kept encountering one minor problem after the next, and each time i would rip back to some earlier point, then try to figure out what i was doing wrong. i probably threatened on multiple occasions to send the whole thing flying through an un-opened window, out into the middle of the street below. that is my go-to threat when faced with so much frustration, and he always says the same thing.

him: go ahead... but you're the one who's gonna fix the broken window. 

turns out, i really did not like the choice of that particular yarn for that project. it was producing  fabric that felt very uncomfortable in my hands, and i knew that the finished garment would lack the cozy factor that i was counting on for my mom.

so, one day, as i was in the midst of unraveling the previous inch or two with the intention of knitting that bit over again, frustration got the best of me... so i kept on unraveling. that strip remains only because i wanted to hang on to part of it so that i could try to figure out what went so terribly wrong.

i was so annoyed at this point, that i went on a mini-marathon of knitting other stuff, just to get that project out of my mind. there was the cardi for his mom (which i talked about earlier in the month)...

i also kitted a couple warm weather tops for me (which i will try to remember to take photos of one of these days), and i made a Flax sweater pour moi. i made one for him a few years ago, and it is his go-to sweater in the Winter, which warms this knitter's heart. now i have one of my very own. hopefully it will get just as much use.

my Flax includes a side-split on the hem, and the back is a couple inches longer than the front, which i tend to prefer these days.

i also made the column of grater stitches (the horizontal ridges) a bit wider than the pattern suggested... because i can do what i want with my own top.

with that done, i (finally) tracked down the leather elbow patches for his Watsyn Cardigan, so now he is allowed to wear it... you know... once it goes back to being cold again.

i love this design so much. it is sized from child to adult, so you can get plenty of use out of the one pattern. the collar is my favorite part.

i added pockets to his Watsyn (which was not part of the original design), and i finished it off with some coconut shell buttons with a design that reminds me of the Daymare Town games.

still, in the midst of all of this activity, all i kept thinking was, i really should be knitting that cardi for mom. however, it was so warm out by this point, that the thought of sitting around with a lap full of a heavy wool garment seemed like a punishment, so i opted instead to start working on a less-bulky sweater using the same pattern as in the cardi for his mom.

it was my sincerest intent to have this done by the end of this month, but it has been so hot and muggy, that working with wool was not a realistic option. i managed to get the odd few rows done, especially on the really unpleasant days when we had the AC blasting, but it is very hard to be motivated by a wool sweater in the middle of a heatwave.

this is about as far as it has gotten. it does not look it right now, but i assure you that the Sibella is a really beautiful cardigan.

the bottom edge is rolled up, so it is a bit longer than it appears at present. this rolling is typical for this kind of knitted fabric, and it will sort itself out once the ribbed hem is added along the bottom.

i used the same approach as with the gold cardi: begging in the middle, knitting up through the patterned yoke section, up to the neckline, then resuming knitting from the bottom of the yoke, and i will continue on in that direction down to the bottom edge.

i know that mom likes her sweaters on the longer side, so i plan to keep on knitting until i run out of yarn. for that reason, i put the body stitches on hold, while i work on the sleeves (i am almost done with the first one), then i will go back to working on the body, making sure i reserve enough yarn to add the button bands at the end.

i love this pattern so much, and i will very likely make the pullover sweater version for myself at some point.

so, while i have been (mostly) neglecting the cardi, i did cast on—and i have almost completed—a light, almost-meshy cotton layering piece that i will most likely also give to my mom... although i may wear it once or twice before doing so. it is the Alfama cardi by Amy Christoffers. i absolutely loved this pattern at first sight. it would be a fantastic cover-up for those cooler days at the end of the Summer. and i am making a longer version than the sample, because 'tush coverage' is a high-priority in my life.

the yarn i am using for this is a (mostly) cotton blend with some little blips of color that only makes me think of clown barf. i have not spent much time around barfing clowns, but it seems safe to think it might look something like this.

the clown barf cardi will definitely be done some time this week, and i will hopefully get back to working on the other one... unless some other thing catches my attention before then.