My LYSs, or why I always end up buying from Webs

You would think I was fortunate living within driving range of so many local yarn stores (LYSs), as shown on the map below. But despite my advantageous location, I've yet to find a LYS I like.

I live directly across the street from Woolwinders (see letter G above). This yarn store is literally a one-block walk from my condo. A knitter's dream come true, right? WRONG. I have a variety of problems with this shop, but I'll give you just one recent example. I went in last week seeking a set of size 5 double-pointed needles. Nothing esoteric, right? Standard fare in any yarn store? WRONG. They didn't have any size 5 DPNs, nor any 6s either. Sadly, I wasn't even surprised because this has happened there so often before. I went home, got online, and ordered the DPNs from my old faithful, Webs. This Massachusetts-based Internet store always has what I need and at a cheaper price, too - even with shipping. (As an aside, when I was in Woolwinders last week, I noticed a knitter leafing through the new Webs catalog - right at the store's main table!)

Next up, there is a new, well-marketed yarn store in Alexandria, VA, called Fibre Space. I haven't been there yet because it's 45 minutes away, but I've been wanting to visit. Well, last week the store announced that my beloved Jared Flood  would be giving three workshops in May. Woo hoo! I emailed right away to say that I wanted to sign up for the sweater workshop - and was right away rejected. "Registration doesn't open until March 8." Okay. Irritating, but I'll deal. I made myself a note in Outlook and started at 9:00 AM Monday trying to register. Nothing on the site. Went back at 9:30. Nothing on the site. Went back at 10:30. REGISTRATION CLOSED, class is full, go to hell. Dammit! So frustrating. I sent a complaint and asked to be put on the waiting list. I'm second in line apparently - which means I'm not going to get to take this class despite making multiple attempts to register. Needless to say, I won't be hiking to Alexandria anytime soon nor spending any of my hard-earned dollars at Fibre Space.

There are a couple of other yarn stores about a half hour from me. One is filled to the brim with novelty yarn that I almost uniformly hate. The other is a filthy mess with mismatched skeins of yarn strewn everywhere. In both cases, they carry very few natural fiber staples like Cascade 220, and of what they do carry, they only have two skeins of each color. "We'll be happy to special order this yarn for you," they say.  Never mind. I can do that myself - and get the 20-25% discount from Webs, too.

Two final complaints about LYSs. One, the knitting classes are uniformly too elementary for me. I guess yarn shop owners think they need to attract newbies to sell yarn. I disagree. LYSs should be attracting diehards like you and me. I'm the one who has a monthly knitting budget, for God's sake! I'm not in there buying two skeins and a set of size 10 needles so I can make my first scarf. I'm buying 2500 yards of the good stuff! The first rule of business is to go where the money is. Why don't LYSs work on attracting knitting devotees like me?

And two, I wish the drop-in knitting events were friendlier and more inclusive. Most stores near me offer such events - although the one across the street charges a fee, believe it or not! The other stores offer free knitting circles, but when I go I feel like the proverbial miserable high school wallflower. The women already know each other, and like the school cliques I remember so well, aren't open or friendly to newcomers. I knit in silence, counting the minutes until I can get up and leave - never to return again.

All this being said, owning and running a yarn store is incredibly difficult work, especially in this economy. I know how much it costs me just to buy yarn for just one sweater; the overhead must be astronomical. And after my short teenage career in retail, I can promise you I'll never do it again. But I wish I could find just one LYS that worked for me. I persevere; I have shops in Hagerstown, Frederick, and Baltimore I intend to visit.

But I suspect I will return again and again to Webs. Recently I told my old friend and college roommate, Chris, that I would love to visit to Webs when I next vacation in New England. She replied that she'd been to the retail outlet and wasn't impressed - it was just another local yarn store.

Wow. Maybe I shouldn't visit after all. I don't want to be disappointed in my tried and true. Maybe I should just keep happily shopping online, getting Webs' great discounts, and keep my perfect LYS fantasies to myself.

Cinderella must die

I'm venturing off topic today because frankly, all I'm doing is reknitting the Handstrikket sleeve and I don't have much to report. So forgive me this little dalliance.

I awoke this morning remembering my Cinderella watch. A gift from my mother for my seventh birthday, I fell madly in love both with the watch - and with love. Like most little girls of my generation, I WAS Cinderella; in my heart I believed that if I toiled and waited long enough in the filthy fireplace of life that some handsome dude would amble by and give me a shoe. Then I'd live happily ever after. The end. Closing credits.

My rapture heightened with the 1965 television premiere of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical starring Lesley Anne Warren and Stuart Damon (of soap opera fame) as Cinderella and the Prince; Ginger Rogers and Walter Pidgeon as the King and Queen; Celeste Holm as the Fairy Godmother; Jo Van Fleet as the Stepmother; and Pat Carroll and Barbara Ruick as her daughters Prunella and Esmerelda.

There I was, Cinderella on my wrist and the television screen, and most of all, in my heart. I LOVED IT. I STILL LOVE IT. To this day, I can sing every note.

Fast-forward 40-plus years and I'm celebrating my 51st birthday with my bff, Theresa. Prime rib dinner to die for and plenty of time to comprehensively inventory our boyfriends and the deficiencies and disappointments inherent in our relationships. We love these guys, but c'mon, they ain't no damn Prince Charmings!

For example, Tom gave me a 25-foot Stanley LeverLock Measuring Tape for my birthday - and that's it. No armful of tulips like he'd given me for Valentine's Day nor a gorgeous sapphire ring like he gave me for Christmas. To be fair, this is exactly what I'd asked for, but still... this completely unromantic gift does not a Prince Charming make.

After more of my complaining, Theresa suggested that perhaps Tom wasn't "meeting my needs." Then it hit me: since Tom honestly and usually meets most of my needs, I (and the rest of my generation) must be the unfortunate by-product of a long-told tale of female rescue by a perfect man who - let's face it, girls - DOES NOT EXIST. I've spent a lifetime looking for that rat bastard and his glass slipper - and if I ever find him, I'm going to beat him to death with the damn shoe.

Perhaps this is maturity, or maybe just facing reality. But the fact of the matter is, Tom is a wonderful boyfriend. He is not perfect and does not come equipped with size 9.5 wide crystalline slippers customized just for my middle-aged foot. But he does love me and at this late stage of the game, that is enough. If I ever want to be happy, my inner Cinderella must die. This means I need to be content knowing he remembered my birthday at all and gave me exactly what I asked for - even if it was just a measuring tape.

After a lifetime of looking for Mr. Right, we can learn all we need to know about love from Cinderella's Fairy Godmother: It's Possible! Watch this and weep, girls, and remember that it's all a bunch of crap. Then love it anyway.

Knit. Frog. Repeat.

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. 

   ~ Newt Gingrich

I'm in no way a conservative Republican. But this time, Newt has it right - at least when it comes to knitting.

I slaved away on Handstrikket sleeve only to have it look like I'd made it for Wilbur in Charlotte's Web. Wilbur personified terrific, but that sleeve looked terrible.

So... sigh... you know the drill. Knit. Frog. Repeat.

I know what went wrong. To make the fair isle portion perfect, I refrained from increasing hoping that I could make up for it after in the solid brown part of the sleeve. Clearly, this didn't work.

So now I'm trying it again. I've increased every other row as instructed by the Sweater Wizard pattern, as well as when needed to make the fair isle design work. I also added three brown rows after the ribbing so that the initial blue and white section at the bottom of the sleeve won't buckle. I think this will work. We'll see.

Knit. Frog. Repeat. Persevere. Work diligently on that for which you've already worked diligently. No matter. I'd rather have it right. Wilbur doesn't need the just-right sleeve. But I sure do.

PS - Moosie says hi.  :-)

A picture paints a thousand words

If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can't I paint you?

Flashback: If, the syrupy love ballad by Bread, blairs from auditorium speakers at the Francis Scott Key Junior High School dance. Michael Martini, my very first love, teeters with me in the dark, his arms wrapped around my waist, mine around his neck. Thank God for school dances, the only socially acceptable means of groping a boy in front of your English teacher. Michael possessed everything a young girl could want: he was intelligent, funny, handsome, and really, really tall. Nothing has changed in 35 years - except that Michael married some other chick - but I would describe my 2010 boyfriend exactly the same way.

(This picture is of Michael and me in the Key Junior High production of "Cheaper by the Dozen." I played Mrs. Gilbreth because even in ninth grade, I was matronly!)

All right, enough reminiscing. Back to knitting. As I said, a picture shows a lot more than I could ever say, so let me show you a couple of things.

First, I want to give mega props to Patons and Bernat for offering nearly every pattern in sizes up to 5X/6X. These companies obviously care for the ample among us and not just because they're providing upsized versions of their designs. No. These companies are actually they revising their patterns to fit a larger body. Check out this Urban Cables Pullover from Patons Cables 500846. This sweater comes in finished bust sizes from 28 to 62 inches and finished hip sizes from 46 to 67 inches (God bless them!).

I'm not a turtleneck wearer, but this is a fashionable pattern. Cute. I like it. But what I like even more is that Patons revised its design for sizes 2X to 5X. The company didn't take a skinny-girl sweater and make it astronomically bigger. Instead, Patons customized the pullover for a larger body. Check out the schematics and you'll see just what I mean.

Look at the body shapes. The bodice tops are identical, but Patons' designers know that the smaller-size waist shaping and 6-1/2-inches of ribbing just won't work most larger women. Instead, Patons removed the waist shaping, thereby giving amples more needed body room, and decreased the ribbing to a more reasonable 3-1/2 inches.

To be honest, I'd be reticient to make this particular sweater because I don't like turtlenecks; am anxious about covering my body with cables; and am wary about even the reduced 3-1/2 inches of ribbing. But that's just me and my... uh... unusual body. I'm sure this sweater will work perfectly for many larger women - and for that, I am grateful to Patons for their sincere effort. Although that particular sweater isn't my cup of tea, I do love a couple of other designs from this book, such as the Cabled Yoke Pullover and the Aran Accent Vest. These designs come in finished bust sizes up to 66 inches.

Check out other Patons booklets with the sizing to 5X/6X: Pure Style, Luxury Knits, Next Steps Six - Learn to Cable, 9 to 5, Fall in Love, Spring Styles, Top Down Classics, Sacs and Sweaters, and more. And visit Bernat's website for more larger patterns, including Ready Set Snow, Cold Front, Then and Now, and many more. Lots of great patterns! Thank you Patons and Bernat.

One more picture. Just want to show you my Handstrikket sleeve - I've got a couple of inches to go on this sleeve and I'll be done. Don't you think it's shaped kind of funny? I'm following the Sweater Wizard pattern I created to a tee; I'm hoping it will look fine after it gets connected to the yoke. I compared the sleeve sizing to a shirt that fits me well and the measurements match at the top. But this sleeve makes it look like I should have haunches! Sigh... I hope it works...

Off the cuff and up my sleeve

Much to report on the Handstrikket this morning. As you may remember from my last dispatch, I finished the interminable plain stockinette body and started on the sleeves. Woo hoo! But then I hit a road block - and lots of frogging. The problem: colors.

I designed my original sleeve colorwork as shown below. The design looked great on screen - sufficient color contrast between the dark blue and dark brown. I was convinced it would work well.

I was wrong. In real life, the two dark colors are so similar in value that they are almost indistinguishable in all but the brightest light. Color value is simply how dark or light a color is. In this case, the blue and brown are equally dark and therefore share the same value.

So back to the drawing board. This time, I placed the lightest color, white, up against the dark brown. This picture shows the new sleeve colorway and a swatch of the original design (shown in the chart above).

I think I've got it right now. I like the contrast a lot better. This experience proves what I know to be the truth: it is very difficult to pick colors for fair isle designs, and contrast is key. In The Art of Fair Isle Knitting, Ann Feitelson writes:

The fundamental Shetland rule is that the pattern must be readable and coherent. Patterns are, after all, what this kind of knitting is known for.

For the pattern to show up, there must be sufficient contrast between it and the background. Shetlanders say, "the pattern is either light on dark, or dark on light." In other words, contrast is the ruling principle.

Indeed.

In addition to revising the cuff colorwork, I need to amend the yoke patterning, too. In the original, the yoke starts at the bottom with a dark blue border (see left chart below). I've revised it to start with a white border; this will tie into the cuff design, too (right chart).

I know where I went wrong in my design process. I used the original Handstrikket my mother gave me over 30 years ago as my guide; it has a white background and a dark brown initial border. I should have thought about this and reversed the values. Lesson learned.

To end today's post, I want to share a picture of my much-overlooked cat, Monica. Ironically, she perches perpetually by my keyboard hoping to catch an errant pat on the head. She personifies irksome! But she is remarkably sweet and spry for a 17-year-old feline. She even manages my pug, Moose with aplomb, despite the fact that he sucks every bit of love out of a room. So today I honor Monica - and promise to pay more attention to her, despite what my ever-demanding pug thinks.

The end of the road

Have you ever driven the Ohio Turnpike? It is boring, flat, featureless, and uninteruppted by any even a single quasi-interesting architectural element. This photo shows what the entire 241.26 miles looks like. OMG. Stupefyingly boring beyond all measure and completely endless.

But of course, I'm wrong. The Ohio Turnpike does indeed end. And then you wind up on the Indiana Turnpike.

LOL. The more things change, the more they stay the same!

This is all to say that my endless stretch of stockinette is finally over. Fourteen long, wide inches of interminable brown finished. Grace of God. Last night, I even knitted the first sleeve cuff - including a row of light blue. Woo fricking hoo! What a relief.

I adore the colors and love the yarn (Berroco Ultra Alpaca, 50% alpaca, 50% wool). I'm thrilled with how it's turning out - and so excited to finally be working on parts of this sweater that capture my interest and imagination.

Thank God life isn't the Ohio Turnpike. Things do change - including terrible economies with 10 million unemployed or years of heartbreak and mourning - even endless swatches of brown stockinette finally wrap up. As the 12 Step folks say: this, too, must pass. Thank God.

Even more Diamond Yoke pics

Tom and I met our friends Jamie and Hilary for lunch yesterday and I wore my Diamond Yoke Cardigan. Knowing full well that Tom can never take a good picture, I had him photograph me anyway. I've posted pictures of me wearing this sweater with a dress, but I thought you might like to see it with me wearing jeans. I always like looking at women actually wearing the garments they make. Showing a sweater flat on a table or on a hanger or even on a commercial dress form doesn't tell me a thing about how it actually fits.

For this reason, I present the following commentary about my Diamond Yoke Cardigan.

For the record. My breasts are symmetrical. Must be the light but my left boob looks much smaller than my right. It's not!

Even Tom noticed. Second, the shirt I'm wearing with this is too long and too baggy. Even Tom said so and most of the time he barely notices me. How we turned into old married people (who aren't even married) is beyond me. I swear I could show up everyday in my favorite faded Vermont t-shirt, unkempt hair, and no makeup and he wouldn't even notice. But even he commented that the shirt is too big for this outfit.

Gaping at the gape.You know how I feel about belly gape cardigans. Perhaps my strong opinion is based on this pattern which was definitely designed to open at the bottom. Not my favorite look. I wish it buttoned all the way down.

Where's my burka? This cardigan makes me uncomfortable because it is so form-fitting. You can see all the curves (that's a nice word for it!) that I always feel I should cover. Saying I feel ambivalent about showing off my body is an incredible understatement. I'm definitely more comfortable in baggy clothes.

A heartfelt prayer. Dear God, in my next life could I please have slim hips? Please? Please? Please? Whenever I see pictures of my mighty derierre, all I can do is cringe.

My gratitude list. Okay, enough of the criticism. Here is the good news:

• I'm proud of making such a complicated sweater.
• Pink flatters my skin.
• I don't look half bad for a woman who turns 51 in a couple of weeks.
• I've lost almost 40 pounds since I made this sweater. I don't think you can even tell, but I'm glad to know this fact anyway.
• I'm grateful I have a nice boyfriend to take these pictures, one who takes me just as I am whether it's dressed in a sweater of my own making or a faded Vermont t-shirt.

My favorite therapist would now ask me: can you take yourself just as you are, whether you're dressed in a sweater of your own making or a faded Vermont t-shirt? I know I'm supposed to give a hearty "YES!" but I would be lying. Ambivalence is my middle name.

Yet I persevere. My goal with this blog is to find self-acceptance by making clothes that fit and flatter - and to help you do this, too. Self-love is a struggle for almost all women. Let's keep calm, carry on - and cast on, too.