Friday, November 30, 2007
Public Service Announcement
If you have kids who are old enough to use the phone, or someday will be, please read this post from Sheepish Annie.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Math Lies
I know many of you are true numbers lovers. Just mention math and your eyes get all dreamy and you sigh with fondness as you drift away on a sea of equations. You know who you are. You weigh your yarn and count your rows and calculate your yardage. You swear by the numbers and smile to yourselves smugly when some other, less-number-oriented knitter makes a whopping huge mistake that could have been easily avoided by a few minutes with a calculator.
I am not one of you.
I am not a math-hater. Not really. I did very well in math in school and took the requisite three calculus courses in college. But I've never much liked math. Never saw the point, to tell you the truth. It all seemed like reinventing the wheel to me. Someone already figured out the answer/did the proof/made a chart, so why should I do it all again? And what's it all good for, anyway? I can't think of a single time in my life when I've actually used calculus outside of a classroom. I mean, I've never once said to myself while driving down the street, "If car A (mine) enters the intersection traveling south at 40 miles per hour, and car B (the other guy) enters the intersection traveling west at 60 miles per hour, at what point will car B impact car A?" I just slam on the brakes and cuss like a sailor.
Still, I recognize that math has a valid place in knitting. I use math, for example, to calculate the number of skeins of yarn I need based on the yardage. I use math to figure out how many stitches to cast on to get a certain number of inches in width. I even use math to check my gauge, although, as we all know, gauge is really just a myth.
But I know the truth about math: math lies. Examples are rampant in blogland. No amount of calculating and planning will guarantee that you will have enough one-of-a-kind, hand-dyed, laceweight silk to finish that gift shawl the night before your mother's 60th birthday. No matter how much math you have done, you will run out. Math cannot save you when you substitute yarn for a raglan sweater knitted in the round and have to calculate row gauge for the raglan decreases. You will end up with a sweater fit for an orangutan. And don't expect math to come to your rescue when you painstakingly measure the diameter of your baby's head to make absolutely sure that pullover will, in fact, pull over. It won't. Why? Because math lies.
Case in point:
I am working on a project using a laceweight yarn held double. I knitted a swatch (even though I doubt that there is anything truly useful to be gained from such an endeavor), measured my gauge, and calculated the yardage I would need for the project. I ordered just that much. I know this is tantamount to waving a red flag in front of the knitting goddess, but it's cashmere/silk, so, you know, I didn't want to raid the kids' college fund. I checked my gauge again when I started knitting, and all was well. I kept an eye on my yarn usage as I worked. And even though the numbers told me things were peachy...I ran out. Not a few rows early. Half a sleeve early.
I considered ripping and reknitting the whole thing with a single strand of laceweight, but even I couldn't stomach the prospect of ripping out that much lace. So I bit the bullet and ordered another skein, which is more than I need to finish. But since I'm holding the yarn doubled, I needed to turn one skein into two balls. After a little consideration, I set up my ball-winder and swift, got out the postal scale, weighed the bobbin for the ball-winder (15 grams), weighed the yarn (50 grams), and determined that, if I wound until the bobbin plus yarn weighed 40 grams, I would have divided the skein in two.
So I did. When I hit 40 grams, I cut the yarn, slid the ball off the winder, and wound the second half of the skein. Then I weighed the two balls. They weighed 25 grams each. In theory, and if math were not the stinking little liar that it is, they should each have had the same yardage, right? This is machine-spun yarn, after all. There should be very little variation in the spinning. Blithely moving ahead with this assumption, I fed the end of each ball into the ball winder and began winding them together to make a single, double-stranded ball. Things were humming along according to plan until, to my surprise and completely without warning, one ball--and only one ball--ran out.
This is what was left:
This is not a small amount of yarn. This is many, many yards of laceweight. And when it costs more per gram than, oh, caviar, gold, or enriched uranium, this is a lot of yarn to waste. There is, of course, only one explanation for this, and I will say it again: math lies.
I am not one of you.
I am not a math-hater. Not really. I did very well in math in school and took the requisite three calculus courses in college. But I've never much liked math. Never saw the point, to tell you the truth. It all seemed like reinventing the wheel to me. Someone already figured out the answer/did the proof/made a chart, so why should I do it all again? And what's it all good for, anyway? I can't think of a single time in my life when I've actually used calculus outside of a classroom. I mean, I've never once said to myself while driving down the street, "If car A (mine) enters the intersection traveling south at 40 miles per hour, and car B (the other guy) enters the intersection traveling west at 60 miles per hour, at what point will car B impact car A?" I just slam on the brakes and cuss like a sailor.
Still, I recognize that math has a valid place in knitting. I use math, for example, to calculate the number of skeins of yarn I need based on the yardage. I use math to figure out how many stitches to cast on to get a certain number of inches in width. I even use math to check my gauge, although, as we all know, gauge is really just a myth.
But I know the truth about math: math lies. Examples are rampant in blogland. No amount of calculating and planning will guarantee that you will have enough one-of-a-kind, hand-dyed, laceweight silk to finish that gift shawl the night before your mother's 60th birthday. No matter how much math you have done, you will run out. Math cannot save you when you substitute yarn for a raglan sweater knitted in the round and have to calculate row gauge for the raglan decreases. You will end up with a sweater fit for an orangutan. And don't expect math to come to your rescue when you painstakingly measure the diameter of your baby's head to make absolutely sure that pullover will, in fact, pull over. It won't. Why? Because math lies.
Case in point:
I am working on a project using a laceweight yarn held double. I knitted a swatch (even though I doubt that there is anything truly useful to be gained from such an endeavor), measured my gauge, and calculated the yardage I would need for the project. I ordered just that much. I know this is tantamount to waving a red flag in front of the knitting goddess, but it's cashmere/silk, so, you know, I didn't want to raid the kids' college fund. I checked my gauge again when I started knitting, and all was well. I kept an eye on my yarn usage as I worked. And even though the numbers told me things were peachy...I ran out. Not a few rows early. Half a sleeve early.
I considered ripping and reknitting the whole thing with a single strand of laceweight, but even I couldn't stomach the prospect of ripping out that much lace. So I bit the bullet and ordered another skein, which is more than I need to finish. But since I'm holding the yarn doubled, I needed to turn one skein into two balls. After a little consideration, I set up my ball-winder and swift, got out the postal scale, weighed the bobbin for the ball-winder (15 grams), weighed the yarn (50 grams), and determined that, if I wound until the bobbin plus yarn weighed 40 grams, I would have divided the skein in two.
So I did. When I hit 40 grams, I cut the yarn, slid the ball off the winder, and wound the second half of the skein. Then I weighed the two balls. They weighed 25 grams each. In theory, and if math were not the stinking little liar that it is, they should each have had the same yardage, right? This is machine-spun yarn, after all. There should be very little variation in the spinning. Blithely moving ahead with this assumption, I fed the end of each ball into the ball winder and began winding them together to make a single, double-stranded ball. Things were humming along according to plan until, to my surprise and completely without warning, one ball--and only one ball--ran out.
This is what was left:
This is not a small amount of yarn. This is many, many yards of laceweight. And when it costs more per gram than, oh, caviar, gold, or enriched uranium, this is a lot of yarn to waste. There is, of course, only one explanation for this, and I will say it again: math lies.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Heaven's Waiting Room
I went to the doctor today. This is a momentous event for me. Having had some serious, mysterious medical issues in my past, I have learned to avoid doctors. It's not that I don't like them, or don't trust them, but medical science is really still in its infancy in many ways, only no one seems to have told the doctors that. I think someone takes them aside in medical school and tells them, "Listen. Patients expect you to have all the answers, so if you don't know, for god's sake, don't tell the patient! Make it up if you have to! Stick them full of needles. Pump them full of drugs. Cut them open for a look-see. But never, ever admit that you don't know what's going on! And if they question you, give them your most superior look and hand them a paper towel with armholes and the instructions to 'change into this and wait here.' Then leave them alone in an icy examining room for two or three hours to contemplate the error of their ways. You are all powerful. Never let them forget it!"
Or something like that.
I'm not sure what else could account for a neurologist telling me that, at age 28, I suddenly had epilepsy and should take anti-seizure medicine for the rest of my life (even though it causes birth defects and I was trying to get pregnant), when in fact, I had a growth in my brain--only revealed after I refused the meds and insisted on more tests.
Or the ob/gyn on call in the emergency room who told me that I was suffering from muscle pain and, "all pregnant women experience some discomfort; you'll just have to get used to it," when in fact my intestines had tied themselves into a knot, were weeping fluid into my abdomen, and had caused several blood vessels in my gut to become so distended that they were within moments of bursting by the time the surgeon finally got in there and untwisted everything. That time, it was only my husband's flat refusal to take me home from the ER for a third time in two days that forced the powers that be to admit me and do the necessary tests to discover what had turned an otherwise sane woman into a writhing mass of moaning, animal agony. Muscle pain. Yeah.
But I'm rambling. I went to the doctor today. Only the need for a prescription refill to prevent the arrival of any more joyous blessings can get me through the door of that office. I tried to get one in my usual fashion--booking the appointment, getting the doctor to call in the prescription, and then canceling with the promise to reschedule "soon"--but, apparently, they are on to me. The scheduler politely pointed out that it had been "quite a while" since my last "visit" and that they "have missed me." In this case, "quite a while" means "since shortly after the birth of my seven-year-old," "visit" means "forced appearance," and they "have missed me" means "ain't no way you're getting a refill unless you show up."
I know when I'm beat. I went in.
My doctor's office is probably a lot like most others these days. It looks more like an airport waiting area than a doctor's office, except that instead of vests and ties, the people behind the counter wear scrubs, and instead of a miniature pillow with someone else's hair oil on it, they hand you a scrap of faded fabric they grandly refer to as a "gown." Other than that, you can expect to sit around for hours past your planned departure time, crammed into an uncomfortable seat, with babies crying and sick people hacking on you until you wish you had just stayed home. The one thing that is different about my doctor's office than most is that the average age of the patients in the waiting room is about 103. And that's only the ones who still appear to be breathing. It's located in well-known retirement area. I privately think of it as "heaven's waiting room." I used to go to a nearby gym--it made me feel really, really young and fit.
I suppose I was fortunate. The office only rescheduled my appointment once--twice, if you count rescheduling it again with another doctor after mine decided to take vacation the week of my appointment. And then the doctor was only running 45 minutes behind. Add to that the 15 minutes in advance of the appointment time that I arrived in order to sign in, fill out forms, and pay my ever-increasing co-pay (because, after all, it would be rude to show up late and make the doctor wait for me), and it only took five weeks, plus one hour, of waiting to get in to see someone I would really rather not see at all. Oh, the joy of HMOs.
How is all of this relevant? Well, during all that waiting, I was knitting. I still can't show you a picture of this project, but I can show you how much yarn was left by the time the doctor finally tapped on the door and entered the exam room where I was stylishly wrapped in a hanky and a kleenex, shivering my over-exposed rear off while I knitted away on the exam table.
I smiled pleasantly as she apologized for the lengthy wait, using phrases like "patient emergency" and "not my fault," and I politely agreed that "these things happen," and gave her my most patient and understanding nod. "Oh, are you knitting?" she asked then. I held up my project, deliberately displaying the eight inches of yarn left dangling from the end of my needle. "Yes," I replied, quite mildly, looking her straight in the eye. "And you arrived just in time." You know that moment when someone goes really still, and starts paying really close attention? Like, when they've just realized they are in mortal peril and should back slowly away from whatever is staring them straight in the eye? Yeah. She gave me two years of refills. I don't think she wants me to come back any time soon.
Or something like that.
I'm not sure what else could account for a neurologist telling me that, at age 28, I suddenly had epilepsy and should take anti-seizure medicine for the rest of my life (even though it causes birth defects and I was trying to get pregnant), when in fact, I had a growth in my brain--only revealed after I refused the meds and insisted on more tests.
Or the ob/gyn on call in the emergency room who told me that I was suffering from muscle pain and, "all pregnant women experience some discomfort; you'll just have to get used to it," when in fact my intestines had tied themselves into a knot, were weeping fluid into my abdomen, and had caused several blood vessels in my gut to become so distended that they were within moments of bursting by the time the surgeon finally got in there and untwisted everything. That time, it was only my husband's flat refusal to take me home from the ER for a third time in two days that forced the powers that be to admit me and do the necessary tests to discover what had turned an otherwise sane woman into a writhing mass of moaning, animal agony. Muscle pain. Yeah.
But I'm rambling. I went to the doctor today. Only the need for a prescription refill to prevent the arrival of any more joyous blessings can get me through the door of that office. I tried to get one in my usual fashion--booking the appointment, getting the doctor to call in the prescription, and then canceling with the promise to reschedule "soon"--but, apparently, they are on to me. The scheduler politely pointed out that it had been "quite a while" since my last "visit" and that they "have missed me." In this case, "quite a while" means "since shortly after the birth of my seven-year-old," "visit" means "forced appearance," and they "have missed me" means "ain't no way you're getting a refill unless you show up."
I know when I'm beat. I went in.
My doctor's office is probably a lot like most others these days. It looks more like an airport waiting area than a doctor's office, except that instead of vests and ties, the people behind the counter wear scrubs, and instead of a miniature pillow with someone else's hair oil on it, they hand you a scrap of faded fabric they grandly refer to as a "gown." Other than that, you can expect to sit around for hours past your planned departure time, crammed into an uncomfortable seat, with babies crying and sick people hacking on you until you wish you had just stayed home. The one thing that is different about my doctor's office than most is that the average age of the patients in the waiting room is about 103. And that's only the ones who still appear to be breathing. It's located in well-known retirement area. I privately think of it as "heaven's waiting room." I used to go to a nearby gym--it made me feel really, really young and fit.
I suppose I was fortunate. The office only rescheduled my appointment once--twice, if you count rescheduling it again with another doctor after mine decided to take vacation the week of my appointment. And then the doctor was only running 45 minutes behind. Add to that the 15 minutes in advance of the appointment time that I arrived in order to sign in, fill out forms, and pay my ever-increasing co-pay (because, after all, it would be rude to show up late and make the doctor wait for me), and it only took five weeks, plus one hour, of waiting to get in to see someone I would really rather not see at all. Oh, the joy of HMOs.
How is all of this relevant? Well, during all that waiting, I was knitting. I still can't show you a picture of this project, but I can show you how much yarn was left by the time the doctor finally tapped on the door and entered the exam room where I was stylishly wrapped in a hanky and a kleenex, shivering my over-exposed rear off while I knitted away on the exam table.
I smiled pleasantly as she apologized for the lengthy wait, using phrases like "patient emergency" and "not my fault," and I politely agreed that "these things happen," and gave her my most patient and understanding nod. "Oh, are you knitting?" she asked then. I held up my project, deliberately displaying the eight inches of yarn left dangling from the end of my needle. "Yes," I replied, quite mildly, looking her straight in the eye. "And you arrived just in time." You know that moment when someone goes really still, and starts paying really close attention? Like, when they've just realized they are in mortal peril and should back slowly away from whatever is staring them straight in the eye? Yeah. She gave me two years of refills. I don't think she wants me to come back any time soon.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Death By Cables
I have been knitting, but much of it has been unbloggable. No, I'm not knitting gifts! I am working on a project that I'm hoping to submit to Knitty, though, so I can't share it with you yet.
But just so you don't feel too left out, here is some knitting I can show you.
This is the Dickinson Pullover from the Fall 2007 IK (my favorite-ever issue of any knitting magazine). I love cables. I love the texture and the appearance of movement and the way I feel so unbelievably clever when I execute one successfully, even though I'm just following the pattern. With my spatial orientation issues, the reordering of stitches to form fancy shapes is like a little miracle to me. But it is possible--just possible--that there may be a few too many cables in this sweater. And not only are there cables, but there are also pattern stitches and ribbing and shaping and charts. Oh, yeah. There are charts. Each row has three different charts, which all have different row repeats. Meaning, for each row, you have to figure out which row of each of three different charts you are supposed to be working. This is fun and challenging, but makes this project not terribly suitable for working while supervising children, sipping wine, talking, watching tv, breathing...
There's been a lot of frogging and tinking around here lately. And there may be a small row gauge issue happening, too. I substituted a completely different yarn, of course, and although my stitch gauge is fine, my row gauge is...not. I probably could have figured this out in advance, had I actually swatched in pattern, or even checked my row gauge at any point before completing the back of the sweater, but I didn't. Because this is a raglan sweater, the row gauge matters. One might think I had learned this lesson as a result of my ill-fated Ariann, but apparently, I am a slow learner. I am still telling myself that it's not significant and that an extra inch, or two, or three in the armhole will make no difference in the finished sweater. It will block out, right? And anyway, I hear dolman sleeves are making a comeback.
But just so you don't feel too left out, here is some knitting I can show you.
This is the Dickinson Pullover from the Fall 2007 IK (my favorite-ever issue of any knitting magazine). I love cables. I love the texture and the appearance of movement and the way I feel so unbelievably clever when I execute one successfully, even though I'm just following the pattern. With my spatial orientation issues, the reordering of stitches to form fancy shapes is like a little miracle to me. But it is possible--just possible--that there may be a few too many cables in this sweater. And not only are there cables, but there are also pattern stitches and ribbing and shaping and charts. Oh, yeah. There are charts. Each row has three different charts, which all have different row repeats. Meaning, for each row, you have to figure out which row of each of three different charts you are supposed to be working. This is fun and challenging, but makes this project not terribly suitable for working while supervising children, sipping wine, talking, watching tv, breathing...
There's been a lot of frogging and tinking around here lately. And there may be a small row gauge issue happening, too. I substituted a completely different yarn, of course, and although my stitch gauge is fine, my row gauge is...not. I probably could have figured this out in advance, had I actually swatched in pattern, or even checked my row gauge at any point before completing the back of the sweater, but I didn't. Because this is a raglan sweater, the row gauge matters. One might think I had learned this lesson as a result of my ill-fated Ariann, but apparently, I am a slow learner. I am still telling myself that it's not significant and that an extra inch, or two, or three in the armhole will make no difference in the finished sweater. It will block out, right? And anyway, I hear dolman sleeves are making a comeback.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Thanks, Sarah!
Sarah designed a new button for our movement, and she is obviously far more talented than I in the graphic arts department. You can get it here. Thanks, Sarah!
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
No Knitted Gifts Button
Okay. For those who want it, here it is. I admit it's not that impressive, as buttons go. I'm not the most technologically savvy blogger. If anyone wants to dress it up, be my guest! (And let me know, so that I can grab it, too.)
No Knitted Gifts!--The Movement
Hello, my name is Suzanne, and I am a knitaholic. There is nothing I love better than knitting, except possibly receiving knitting-related gifts. And because I feel this way, I also believe that there is nothing better to give a loved one than a knitting-related gift. If I had any loved ones who knit, I would know exactly how to make them happy for the holidays with gifts of yarn and needles and tools. But since none of my loved ones knit, I try instead to make them happy by giving them knitted gifts. This does not always work.
Hard as it is to believe, not everyone appreciates knitted gifts. Even those who have witnessed first-hand the amount of time and effort that goes into producing them may not be all that eager to find one wrapped up under the tree. No matter how lovely the yarn, how intricate the pattern, how well-executed the design, they simply are not interested in receiving, owning, or wearing wonderful, wooly things that would melt the heart of any knitter. I won't go into the many sad tales I could tell of knitted gifts that earned a resounding, "Oh...thanks," and wound up buried at the bottom of a drawer or lining a pet bed. You can probably imagine, and anyway, I don't want to make anyone cry.
So this year, in the midst of all the buzz in the blogosphere about holiday knitting and deadlines and stress, I have made a resolution. I will knit no gifts for the holidays. That's right. None. Instead, I will knit things for myself alone. I will buy the loveliest yarns and find the most beautiful patterns, and I will wrap the finished gifts in perfect, shiny wrapping paper and put them under the tree. When I unwrap them, I will ooh and ahh over the softness of the yarn and the detail of the stitches. I will exclaim over how long it must have taken and how much thought and love must have gone into each stitch. I will put them on and marvel at the fit and the comfort. And I will be happy to receive such wonderful, personal gifts. Everyone else is getting Starbucks cards.
Now...who's with me?
Hard as it is to believe, not everyone appreciates knitted gifts. Even those who have witnessed first-hand the amount of time and effort that goes into producing them may not be all that eager to find one wrapped up under the tree. No matter how lovely the yarn, how intricate the pattern, how well-executed the design, they simply are not interested in receiving, owning, or wearing wonderful, wooly things that would melt the heart of any knitter. I won't go into the many sad tales I could tell of knitted gifts that earned a resounding, "Oh...thanks," and wound up buried at the bottom of a drawer or lining a pet bed. You can probably imagine, and anyway, I don't want to make anyone cry.
So this year, in the midst of all the buzz in the blogosphere about holiday knitting and deadlines and stress, I have made a resolution. I will knit no gifts for the holidays. That's right. None. Instead, I will knit things for myself alone. I will buy the loveliest yarns and find the most beautiful patterns, and I will wrap the finished gifts in perfect, shiny wrapping paper and put them under the tree. When I unwrap them, I will ooh and ahh over the softness of the yarn and the detail of the stitches. I will exclaim over how long it must have taken and how much thought and love must have gone into each stitch. I will put them on and marvel at the fit and the comfort. And I will be happy to receive such wonderful, personal gifts. Everyone else is getting Starbucks cards.
Now...who's with me?
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