Knit on My Cat

Ok, so no pictures today- sorry guys, but half the reason I haven’t updated in awhile is because I don’t really have anything on the needles that really warrants a photograph. Sure, there’s been progress made- progress on a sock (the second sock of the pair, no less- my first sucessful pair ever), progress on the Ribby Cardi (sleeve #1 is dangerously close to the finish line), even a little progress on my Aran Pullover (here’s a hint kids: cables are better when you take the time to figure out how to read the chart.) But you know what? I’m with Grumperina– progress can be boring. I love reading other people’s knitblogs, and while I don’t mind seeing the knitting grow, it’s much more exciting when there are finished objects to peruse. And there are no finished objects here at Casa de Golightly.

So I’m mostly posting for the benefit of my girls at Sophie’s to let y’all know that I was not bullshitting about the Amish belief that devils and demons can hang off of buttons. I was thinking about it on the way home, and I remembered that I first read that in a book called Plain Girl, when I was in the fifth grade. It was originally published in 1955, and it’s basically a story about a 10 year old Amish girl who has to go to public school, causing her to question her Amish ways. I remember liking it. (You just have to click on the link and read the kid reviews for the book on Amazon. They are adorable and hilarious.) There’s a scene in the book where the girl is talking with her brother about why the Amish don’t wear buttons, and he teases her about devils being able to hang off them.

Can you believe I remember this? I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast, but I can remember a conversation that takes place in a book that I read well over 10 years ago!

Regardless, that is the origin of my button story. In context, I’m pretty sure that it is not like a widely held religious belief of the Amish. More like a boogeyman story. So there’s your Amish factoid of the day.

The Ribby Cardi is coming along at a steady pace. As you can see, the back and most of the first sleeve are done. The right front isn’t in the picture, but I’m working on it too. I don’t want to alarm anyone… but I might actually finish this one!

But, I have been cheating on Ribby, just a little bit. But don’t blame me! I was seduced by orange tweed!

This is the first few rows of the Aran Pullover (generic title? maybe just a little?) designed by Kristin Nicholas from the Winter 2005 issue of Interweave Knits. It was love at first sight. The yarn is new this fall from Alpaca With a Twist, which you can buy at Sophie’s here in Louisville. It’s called Highlander, and it’s a beautiful, tweedy alpaca-wool blend, and it is going to make an awesome sweater.

I’m a little worried about my cables though. Since this is the first repeat of the pattern, it’s really hard to tell if they just look weird because they’re just starting out, or if I’ve really screwed it up. Unfortunately, only time will tell. Oh well, what’s yarn if you can rip it back out and try again?

Sometimes, it’s really hard to be generous
when it comes to yarn. You love your knitting friends, but there is a finite
amount of the woolly stuff to be had, especially when it comes to the more
unique varieties. There is very little more painful to a knitter than deeply
desiring a yarn that is no longer available. So when I find something really
special, it creates a massive conundrum. There’s an inner battle between
the altruistic part of me that wants to share the love with knitters everywhere, and my inner stasher,
whose sole priority is to use the emergency credit card to buy every skein
in sight, pack it into the spare bedroom, and never tell a soul. (My inner
stasher bears an eerie resemblance to Gollum. "My preciousssss….")

Lucky for y’all, a combination of love
for my fellow knitters and the sad reality that I can’t buy it all has
lead my altruistic self to victory, and so I am sharing a very exciting
yarn discovery. (Thanks to Brooklyn of The Mosh Knit podcast, for sharing
the love with me and all the rest of her punk knitting listeners. You can
subscribe to her podcast at the website and listen to the most recent episode
to hear her worshipping testimonial.)

The yarn in question made by Deb from Portland Oregon. She quit a job she wasn’t happy with after fifteen years to become a one-woman yarn operation called Fearless Fibers. It is handpainted, it is stunningly gorgeous, and it is a BARGAIN. You can go see it at her Ebay store, Etsy shop, and even read about it at her blog. (Go to both stores, they each have different stuff.) It’s so beautiful. It is taking all of my willpower to keep myself from buying sock yarn with the money for this month’s car payment. I mean, do I really need to drive that bad?

She sells 410 yards of handpainted 100% Superwash Merino sock yarn for… I hope you’re sitting down for this…. $14.50!!!!!! That is two pairs of socks folks! And from what I hear, the yarn is nothing short of a joy to knit with. You can’t even get it that cheap at Knit Picks. Another highlight is 400 yards of lace weight handpainted cashmere for $29.99. Can you see why I am flipping out?

I am planning on ordering something as soon as I can decide what colorway I love the most. (This could take all night.) I will let you know if it lives up to the hype the second it hits the door. All other knitting will stop immediately! Socks will be cast on! I can’t wait!

Now don’t go buying it all up before I figure it out….

Gen Con was great! I don’t have any great knitting news, so enjoy these pictures of the interesting people we saw. I can laugh, but not too hard… because next year, I am totally dressing up!
















Sadly, I didn’t have the camera out when a whole troop of storm troopers were marching around the convention center after Darth Vader. And when I say troop, I mean about 8 guys, and one chick with a special booby-accomodating stormtrooper suit.

And Gandalf there? He was in standing in the hallway when we got there at about 9 in the morning, and he was still there when we left at about 7 that night. You have to admire his stamina. I don’t think he was getting paid either, but he was plugging his website so if you get a hankering, go check out Dork of the Rings.

The worst thing about Gen Con was that the whole time I was there, I had to fight the urge to yell out things that would start a nerd riot. Like, "Greedo shot first!" or "Paladins are stupid!"

The second worst thing is that there was so much to do that we couldn’t have possibly have covered it all in one day. So next year, I think we will be attending all four days. I can’t wait!

It’s really early in the morning for me to be awake (well, for a Saturday anyway) but I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to post anything for the rest of the weekend. Today I’m going to Indianapolis for Gen Con, which is basically just a huge gathering of nerds (so I should fit right in.) This is my first time, but I’m going with a bunch of people who have been going pretty much since they started having it in Indianapolis. Hopefully, that means I won’t be getting lost. I don’t know exactly what to expect, but I’m sure it will be fun! (And in case it isn’t fun… I’m bringing a sock.)

I don’t really know what I’ll be doing once I get there, although we did discuss the possibility of dressing up like Orcs and raiding the Harry Potter live-action role play. (Sadly, my Orc costume is at dry cleaners.) Whatever it is, I’ll try to take lots of pictures so you can be nerdy vicariously!

I think I’m still knitting on Sunday if the rest of my gals are, but I’ll call and let ya know either way!

The baby kimono is all done except for sewing the ribbons on to the bottom. I think it came out pretty good, all things considered, but I don’t think I’ll be making another one in the near future. (Model: Destiny the Cabbage Patch Kid. Ain’t she sweet?) The Cotton Tots yarn blocked up really nice and soft, and I recommend you try it if you haven’t. I believe it normally retails between three and four dollars a ball for 171 yards. BARGAIN!!

So far, I’ve finished one bootie and am speeding through another. Unfortunately, I’m having some serious doubts that they are going to fit the baby at all. I bound off too tightly at the top of the bootie and I think it might be too hard to get over a baby’s foot. But I’m not positive, since I have very limited experience with baby feet. I’m going to try to bind off more loosely on bootie number two, and if that turns out more elastic than I’ll just make another one. They don’t take more than an hour from cast on to seaming up anyhow, so it’s not a huge loss.

I can’t wait till Wednesday night! "Knit Night" as we call it here at Casa de Golightly is definitely the best night of the week. I know some knitters don’t have a knitting circle, but I just don’t see how they survive on their own. It’s a tough, pointy (or hooky) world out there! You need partners in crime accomplices great knitting buddies to get you through the Valley of the Shadow of Endless Stockinette.

Okay, so I’ve had My Sharona stuck in my head pretty much ever since I cast on for the stupid baby kimono. So I’m trying to finish extra fast, in the hopes that it will make the pain stop. If finishing the kimono fails, I’ll be left with no choice but to ram my size 4 aluminum Susan Bates into my brain for relief.

So…. is it a baby kimono being blocked here? Or two pink variegated coyotes howling at the moon? Awoooooooooo!


You be the judge.

While I’m waiting for the kimono to block, I cast on for some matching baby booties. It’s a very basic two-needle bootie pattern from Lion Brand Yarns. Someday, when this kid is a whiny teenager and tells me that "nobody loves her", I will have to inform her about the hoops I had to jump through to get this pattern. There is no greater love than spending at least an hour googling, fighting with your browser, and then fighting with Lion Brand’s evil whore of a website all for the sake of bootying a babies feet. (I bet you didn’t know that "bootying" was a verb, huh?)

I expect to have the kimono and the booties all seamed up and ready to go tomorrow afternoon, and then it’s back to the Ribby Cardi! That is cause for some celebration!!! Wooohooo!!!

If you’ve ever had a burning desire to know what I am like when I’m ridiculously drunk, here’s your chance! My boyfriend, Bob, recently started a podcast called CinemaSlosh, where the basic premise is he gets drunk and talks about movies. I think it’s pretty funny, but of course I am biased since I live with the guy. Your mileage may vary.

At any rate, I helped co-host last night and against my better judgement, I’m giving y’all the chance to listen to it. I’m not exactly recommending that you listen to it, just throwing it out there. You can click the link I gave above, or if you have I-Tunes I think you can do a search for it on there. Just for the record, I was making fun of Mel Gibson saying that he hates Jews, not saying that I hate Jews. I listened to it again today and I’m not sure that came across quite right, what with all the vodka. And I’ll warn you in advance, we cuss like pirates. It’s definitely not for everyone, especially if you offend easily.

In unprecedented news, I have been working on two project consistently for the last couple weeks, I am not bored with either of them, and I actually think I will manage to finish them.

I know, I know. It’s a good thing you’re sitting down or you’d have to run for the smelling salts.

Exhibit A: the world famous Ribby Cardi from ChicKnits.

I’m using Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran and I can hardly bear to put the sweater down. It is a blast to knit and it’s going much faster than I anticipated. As you can see, I’m completely done with the back and I’m also working on the sleeve and one of the fronts.

I love the colors (which are a light pink and a chocolate brown, if you can’t tell from the picture) and apparently, so does everyone else! A couple people in the knitting group have asked me if I would be mad if they "copied" my color choices. Actually, I would be flattered! But I have to give Bob some credit- he actually came to the yarn store with me and helped me pick out the colors. Who would have thought the man could display such great taste?

I think he is secretly gunning for me to make him his own sweater, but he’s crazy if he thinks I’m going to lay out this kind of cash on something for him. I have to buy 18 balls of yarn, at 8 dollars each, which makes this sweater painfully expensive. Fortunately, Sophie’s is letting me buy it in installments. This tickles me to death, because certain other yarn shop owners who shall not be named would definitely not let me store 18 balls of yarn under their counter.

You know, you can get yarn from a lot of places these days, and I am not totally in the dark about the fat discounts you can get from various online retailers. I’m sure I could have got my yarn a lot cheaper online, but you know, if you want there to be local yarn stores, you have to support your local yarn stores! And it’s little stuff they do for you, like hosting knitting groups and letting you put yarn you really can’t even afford on layaway that makes the extra cash worth it.

I do have to confess one small gripe about the Ribby Cardi, and unfortunately is has nothing to do with the pattern or the yarn. This is purely operator error. You might have to click on the picture to look at the full sized one to see it, but check out the ugly spots on the back of my cardigan where I wove in the ends. I don’t know what to do about it, but it’s driving me crazy. I might try to take the ends back out and split the plies before i weave them in again. If anybody has a better solution, please let me know. (I know, I know, nobody is ever going to notice it but me…)

I guess now we have to talk about that other knitting project now: the Baby Kimono from Mason-Dixon Knitting.

Okay, I know I sound unenthusiastic, but it’s really not the kimono’s fault. It’s a combination of things that are making the project less enjoyable than it probably would be under normal circumstances. Mainly, I’m on a very serious deadline- this baby is coming into the world no later than August 16th. The C-section is scheduled to start at 7 in the morning and baby should be here by 8. And obviously, I have to get the sweater to the mama before then, so I really don’t even have that long. I’d like to make some coordinating items to go with the kimono, as the mama is someone I’ve known since elementary school so I feel like she should get more handknit swag than normal.

Adding insult to injury, I accidentally missed the baby shower (oops!) so I feel extra guilty, and every time I pick up the kimono I think about how big of an asshole you have to be to miss your best friend’s little sister’s baby shower. I am such a bad person! Why do y’all hang out with me!?! (See what I mean? The kimono inspires angst.) I’m almost done with the damned thing now. Hopefully I’ll finish today.

Anyhow, the kimono is a pretty fun and interesting little knit, if you don’t mind garter stitch (and as y’all know, I don’t mind at all- wavy and mysterious). If you do mind garter stitch, you can do it in stockinette and follow the same instructions, which I think is a nice bonus. I’m using Bernat Cotton Tots, which is one of my favorite cotton yarns. All I have left to do is the left side of the kimono, which is the sleeve and the other side of the front, and I think I’m just barely going to have to dip into a second ball. So it is almost a one skein project!

The pattern is a little confusing in parts, but nothing you shouldn’t be able to overcome by using your common sense. For example, there’s one part in the pattern where you have to cast on extra stitches at the end of every right side row, and it says to use backward loop method, but I think it looks really sloppy that way. I changed to using the cable cast on and that’s much neater. Trust me on this one- you’ll be a lot happier with the cabled cast on.

See what happens when I don’t get to blog for two weeks? You get two posts where I go on and on forever. But I’ll try to start posting more frequently again. I think I’m not going to be working as much overtime now, so I should actually have time to do it!

As of yesterday, I’ve lost 38 pounds, exceeding my first goal of losing 10% of my starting weight by three pounds. Since I’ve been talking about my weight loss on the blog since I started Weight Watchers back in April, I feel like I should have had a speech prepared for you folks, something that could explain what that 38 pounds means to me.

The truth is, even if I would have started writing such a speech in the beginning, I would probably have had to trash it and start over again, now that it’s really happened. I couldn’t have known what it would be like, to see numbers on the scale that I thought I would never see applied to my own body again. I hope you’ll excuse me taking a little detour from the knitting so I can at least make a feeble attempt to sort out my emotions.

I only vaguely remember ever being thin. I think I was thin sometime before kindergarten. I definitely don’t remember becoming fat, but it’s been so long ago now that it feels like I’ve been this way forever. I grew up with a family full of fat people, so fat was normal for me. It was inevitable. I’m sure that some people who aren’t fat look at my body can’t understand how I can live with myself being as fat as I am, but to me, it’s just my body the way it’s always been.

Like most women, sometimes I love my body, fat and all. Sometimes I can barely stand to look at myself. Luckily, I have a lot more love-my-body days than hate-my-body days. One of the fringe benefits of being a fat woman who has always been fat is that your brain has some kind of built in survival mechanism that won’t let you loathe yourself all the time. At some point it just says, "Yep, you’re fat and not too attractive, but since that’s unlikely to change, you might as well get over it and do whatever you want anyhow." So for the most part, I don’t let being fat keep me from enjoying myself. I know women 1/3 my size who have 3 times my self-esteem problems.

Of course, the downside to accepting my body for what it is means that I’m don’t quite have the same motivation that other women with more self-loathing might have. Since I like myself as a fat person, I’m not willing to torture myself into being thinner. Trying to make a lifestyle change means a lot of conflict, inner and outer. If I decide I want to lose weight, does that mean that I don’t like myself anymore? Am I betraying my fat body by trying to change it? Does accepting my body mean that I have to give it a donut every time it wants one?

To make matters worse, some people act like my efforts are an insult to them. Clearly, if I don’t want to be fat, and they are fat, I must think there is something wrong with fat, and therefore something wrong with them.

I’ve been lucky to have the support of my friends and co-workers, but it seems like the most common reaction I get when people notice that I’ve lost weight is, "Wow, you look really good! I can tell you’ve lost weight. I really need to go on a diet." I don’t even have to open my mouth- I’ve judged them by just existing. While I love getting the compliments, I’m uncomfortable with the implication that I am the righteous dieter and they are sinful, lazy non-dieters.

What I really think couldn’t be farther from the truth. Being fat doesn’t mean you are lazy, amoral, stupid, or apathetic- it just means you’re fat! Just like being slender doesn’t mean you are a hard working, upstanding, intelligent and caring person- it just means you’re thin. Hell, being thin doesn’t even necessarily mean that you’re healthier! I guarantee that my fat vegan body is healthier than that of an anorexic chain smoker.

In case you’re wondering exactly why I started trying to lose weight if I’m so frigging happy with myself, the reason is simple- I got to the point where I was no longer able to do things I liked to do. The deciding moment was a Saturday in April when Bob and I went to the arcade and decided to play an impromptu game of DDR (Dance Dance Revolution- you can go here if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about.) Keep in mind, this is something we used to do at least two or three times a week. We were never great at it, but we could hold our own in Standard mode.

We got on the machine and picked one of the easiest songs, one that a year ago would have bored us to tears. After all, we figured we were out of practice and wanted to warm up. From the start I knew I was in trouble. I struggled to keep up, but I was panting and out of breath just a few seconds in. It was impossible. The song had a bit of jumping in it, but when I tried to jump I came down so hard on my right foot that it cramped up and I couldn’t even bend it back properly. I had to get off the machine and let Bob finish up the game. I was mortified. I started Weight Watchers the next day.

In the months since that day, I’ve been continually surprised that my body can change. Being fat isn’t inevitable after all! The laws of cause and effect do apply, even to me! The scary thing is, the changes I’m seeing now are just the tip of the iceberg. This was just the first 10%…. there’s still plenty to go. I can’t even imagine what I’m going to look like in three months, six months, or a year.

Everything about this process is built around faith in a body I’ve never even seen. It’s terrifying that I might lose the identity I’ve always had as a fat person. It’s thrilling that I might find a new one.

I want to thank my knitting group (and the rest of my blogging audience- that’s you Sadrine!) for all your support. It means a lot to me and I’m sure I’ll need it now more than ever!

I’m sorry for the long, boring, and probably incoherent post. I promise that next time we’ll be back to your regularly scheduled knitting blather. Here’s a picture of myself in my too-big jeans, so you can see what 38 pounds means where it really matters- in relation to my pants.

Happy knitting!