How to Not Knit a Sweater

I was really moving along on Arwen. I mean, things were looking great, considering that I'm the world's slowest knitter and all. I had even gotten over the worry I had when I reached the part for making the sleeve and for the life of me couldn't figure out what the hell I was supposed to do with this "short row sleeve shaping business." (Keep in mind that I've knit a lot of socks, and so when I see the words "short row," I assume a heel or a toe are going to appear. I thought maybe I was adding an elbow or something.)

I just followed the pattern on faith, and when the light came on, well, it really came on, and I was working the sleeve and I got to the sleeve cuff with all the cables and I had that going on a different row from the body cables because that's just how it worked out. And that was okay, it was working. I had two counters going. Then, in the next piece of pattern, it said to keep working the sleeve/body bit for a given number of rows, adding yet a third counter to the project, and I only own three and one of them is tucked into a sock pattern right now. I tried to keep count on a piece of paper, and I crashed and burned at something. One of the cables went wrong, and the body of the sleeve count appeared to be off, and then I tried to rip back to the part before the sleeve. Every single time I tried to put the stitches back on the needles, I only had 23 stitches in the cable instead of 24. I totally lost my shit at this point and ended up ripping the whole damned thing out.

I've started over, and I'm about halfway back to the part where I'll add the sleeve. I should have yet another counter ready for this so that when I hit the part that tanked me before, I'll be ready. I'm also going to run a lifeline at the row right below where the sleeve is cast on, so if this happens again I have a place to start and my cable stitches can't suddenly go all reclusive and mysterious on me.

Still, I have to ask myself: What the hell is wrong with me that I couldn't just pick a normally constructed sweater with sleeves that I'd be sewing on later for the first sweater I actually want to make? I'm sure this thing is an engineering marvel and all, but really, the words "needlessly complex" fell out of my mouth, along with a few other choice words that can get you a ticket for disorderly conduct if you say them in public in front of a cop. It was not pretty.

Surprise Yarn Store Trip

I had lunch with a solo practice lawyer who has an office in Plano yesterday. As I left his office (he was being really helpful showing me how he has things set up), I specifically told myself, "I do not need more yarn. I am not going to the Woolie Ewe. Even though it's just down the street a few miles, I'm not going there."

As I told myself this, I managed to turn the wrong way, and instead of taking Parker to Preston like I'd intended to, I got turned around and found myself heading south on Custer. Plano has changed a bit since I lived there, and so it took me a few minutes to figure out that I was really going the wrong way. The next recognizable landmark? The Woolie Ewe.

I swear I didn't plan this. As far as I'm concerned, the car drove me there by itself. It was the yarn fumes. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I bought two skeins of Regia sock yarn and Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. I used money my aunt gave me as a graduation present, so it doesn't really count as spending money I don't have, either.

I don't have much of a yarn stash because I'm just not the kind of person who will spend $75+ on enough yarn for a completely mythical sweater. If I'm going to buy enough yarn to do something with, I want to know how much yarn I need. If I have no idea what I'll use it for, I'm probably not going to buy it. (There are exceptions to this, but not a lot of them. Don't ask me about alpaca, I'm not admitting anything here.)

The problem with sock yarn is that there's never any question as to what it's for, or how much I'll need. I'm going to make socks with it, and I probably need two balls, skeins, or whatever it comes in, unless it's a big skein and then I need one. I fear that eventually I'll be up to my butt in sock yarn here because if I see it in a color I like, I buy it. Less than $30 for something I know I'll use eventually is more than I can resist.

Meanwhile, I finally got Arwen really started, and I'll be starting the first sleeve in the next couple of days. I have one Earl Grey sock all the way up to the toe decrease, so it's probably going to get finished tonight and I'll cast on the next one immediately to avoid the dreaded second sock syndrome. I also got an email about the fate of the Purple Tank Top of Doom. M reportedly likes it, and it all fits except for the straps, which her mother is just going to sew shorter.

Licensed, and suddenly finishing things.

I got my license in the mail late last week, and I've been trying to get things up and running for the last few days. I called a few people who had wanted me to call when I got the license, bought some office supplies, and made some plans. I've figured out what color the office needs painting, and I have the possibility of a few people who might want to pay me to do some lawyer stuff for them. I'm trying to remain hopeful even though I spent most of yesterday expecting phone calls and occasionally checking the phone to see if it still worked. I'm guessing there will be busy days and days when I'll wonder what I was thinking. I also discovered late this afternoon that if you carry the phone around all day, no matter what you're doing, a potential client will call when you've finally wandered off and left your phone somewhere, after business hours but before you would have knocked off if you had known a potential client would call. I hope I can reach them tomorrow before everyone heads out for the holiday. It would be nice to know I had some actual billable work to look forward to.

Today I stayed around home and did laundry and got ready to pack for the trip to see the folks this weekend. I have a bad case of the "I don't wannas" because I really don't feel like taking a long trip to eat a "family" Thanksgiving at the club, but it's not my house or kitchen it's happening in and I've run out law school to use as an excuse to spend the holiday at home cooking something decent in my own kitchen. My mother will probably want to go shopping on Black Friday, too, which fills me with horror. I'm looking forward to coming home already.

The bright spot in the trip is that I'm hoping to see some of my friends, and I finally finished the purple tank top of doom so I could hand it off to the mother of the child I hope it will fit. The finishing went much more easily than I thought it would, and I am filled with unjustified confidence for the eventual finishing of the Arwen sweater, which I haven't started yet. I might start it tonight if I have time so I have more than one thing to do this weekend. I'm afraid one project won't be enough to keep my patience running this weekend.

Done swearing. Commencing waiting.

We made a quick trip to Austin, staying overnight Sunday so I could be at the swearing-in ceremony for new lawyers. This is not, in fact, the final step to actual lawyerdom, though. I still have to wait for my license to show up before I can legally practice. I'm now checking the mailbox obsessively for the license, which will be here, uhh, when it gets here. I've paid all the fees, but this is the government we're talking about. I hope the mail person doesn't lose it. (Our mail person is daffy, and regularly puts mail in the wrong boxes. No one supervising seems to care much.)

While in Austin, I visited Hill Country Weavers, met some nice people, and petted some nice yarn. I bought yarn that may be socks for me (it might also hang out in my stash looking cool), and yarn that will be striped socks for a friend of mine who has requested striped socks. I bought a t-shirt that I eventually need to post a picture of, too. The shop was delightful. They're set up in an old house, and they have a huge selection. Everyone I met there, both the staff and the other customers, was friendly and nice. I will definitely visit again next time I'm in Austin.

I also finally picked up more size 6 DPNs. The only ones I had were this tacky aluminum stuff from back in the 60's (I think I got them from someone else's estate sale haul), and when I thought I bought some from Woolie Ewe it turned out that I didn't have my reading glasses on and I got 8's instead of 6's. Getting old sucks, have I mentioned that?

I finally made some actual progress on the Earl Grey sock. I knitted all the way there and all the way back, and I finally divided for the heel last night. The rest of it hopefully will go relatively quickly, and I'll start the second one right after finishing the first one. (This is how I have avoided second sock syndrome thus far. I don't wait to cast on the second one, and once it's cast on I'll work on it. It's really about the knitting to me, not the product at the end.)

I took two balls of the Arwen yarn with me, and didn't cast on so much as a gauge swatch. I'm thinking after the Earl Grey socks are done, I'll start the sweater and the striped socks for S. That way I have one complicated thing and one easy thing to work on.

Oh, and don't ask about Muir. I frogged it back again, and I'm just going to let it rest for a few months. I'll probably find a nice triangular shawl for a first lace project. It's not the pattern, it's me. I just can't seem to keep my concentration good on a 125-stitch-across lace pattern right now. I still want to try, but I might do better after I have a few more months of chart reading experience. For now, it just makes me throw things. So Muir is hanging out in the corner of my stash glaring at me like an accidentally kicked cat, and I'm leaving it alone until it doesn't hate me anymore.

Passed the bar.

I am so relieved. I can quit thinking about it and wanting to heave, to start with. It's a whole new world of not living in constant dread. Now I can start worrying about getting the office together.

I started the Earl Grey socks last night, and frogged them earlier this evening because I realized I'd gorked the pattern beginning up. I'll cast them back on tonight, and hopefully I can get the ribbing back on.

I spent a lot of the day on the phone calling friends, and a couple of hours working on my Nano novel. It was like pulling teeth out of my brain, and the idea I thought I had has morphed into an idea that I had last year that I didn't do anything with. I hope they work together, because they're now stuck together. I made it to 1,706 words, but the weekend's kind of shot for writing. I have no idea if I'll be able to pull this off this year. I wish I remembered how badly the first few days went when I did the last one in 2003. It seems like I had a better plot, though.

My DH has gone hunting. This week is the opening of deer season, and I get extra good wife points for not bitching about him wanting to go even though I thought grade release would be tomorrow. Tongith, there was no reason to talk him into staying what with me being out of my anticipatory misery. I won't sleep well without him. Might as well knit.

I fought the shawl

And right now, we're at a draw. I started Muir yesterday, and I can now confidently say that I can do a provisional crochet cast-on. In fact, I've now done it four times. Every time I thought I had things working, I'd discover little problems like too few stitches at the end of the first pattern row, and I'd end up starting over. I have so many stitch markers in this sucker it's a wonder I can see my stitches.

So I needed something else, something for when I need mindless knitting. I have the yarn for Twinkletoes and for Hedera, but I found out this morning that I didn't have size 1 or size 6 dpns. I went to the close LYS (which shall still remain nameless) and the service was wonderful, even though they didn't have what I needed, but the other customers still looked at me like something the cat dragged in. The woman who helped me was really cool, though, and it occurs to me that both of my really good experiences there have had her in common. I'm going to try to figure out when she's there and when there is not an afternoon class going on, and see if I have a really good experience. I don't want to do the people taking the classes out of their class time, but if the only person there waiting on people also appears to be teaching the class, and the class is in the middle of the store in the middle of the afternoon for two hours, well, there's a natural conflict of interest there between the class and customers. At any rate, maybe everyone won't hate me for being there if I can just figure out when would be a good time to go.

I ended up at Woolie Ewe again for the needles because I still needed them. I was good, and only bought needles.

I'm wondering if my head will stop hurting when I get my bar pass results. It's hurt every day for nearly a week, ever since they started painting the damned McMansion across the alley, so I think it's partly paint allergy and partly stress.

Local Yarn Store Comparisons

I had a much better time at the Woolie Ewe than I expected to yesterday. I need to quit thinking that Plano is a long way to drive for yarn, because really if I want to go to a store with a really friendly staff and a good selection, it's where I should go. The Other Yarn Store (which shall remain nameless here) has semi-friendly staff most of the time, but they also have terrible hours, almost no sock yarn, and the other customers are generally unfriendly. It's not that I expect to make a new best friend every time I go into a store, but the Ewe seems to attract people who are happy and enthusiastic about knitting and yarn and who smile and chat with other people who feel the same, and that Other Place seems to attract a bunch of old biddies who stare at me like I'm something the cat dragged in.

When I bought my real Knitting Bag, the one with the frame, the other customers at WE saw me wandering around with a staff member as I bought tools and stuff to put in the bag, and I was greeted all over the store with, "Yay! A new bag! A new knitter!" This Other Place, if I'd bought the same, they would have looked at me as though they were afraid I'd take my expensive new bag and tools and sit by them and contaminate their projects with noob-ness.

Anyway, I had a good time yesterday at the Ewe, and I spent about an hour fondling yarn and making new friends. I bought a really cool present that wasn't a gift certificate for my friend (I don't think she'll see this but I'm keeping quiet anyway), and I bought myself some really pretty bottle green laceweight to make the Muir shawl in this season's Knitty. I also mentioned that I'm in the Woolie Ewe group on Ravelry and I got my 10% discount and a Woolie Ewe bag.

We watched Black Snake Moan last night, and I got all the way into the toe increase for the striped socks. I think I can finish them this afternoon if I just settle down with them for an hour. I'm also going to force myself to get the purple tank top finished this weekend before I'll cast on the laceweight. I've promised my DH that the next set of socks is for him, so I hope my Knitpicks order gets here soon because I have teal sock yarn that I could make lace socks for myself with, too. I think I'm developing a sock problem of some sort.

In other news, the countdown is on. As of yesterday, one week to bar results. I'm starting to feel sick as well as paralyzed and unmotivated.

Later: The striped socks are finished!

Friday Field Trip Planning

I'm going to a birthday party tomorrow night, so I need to go to the Woolie Ewe to get a gift certificate for a present. This has the added advantage of getting to go to the Woolie Ewe. My stash is pathetically underweight, and it's being pushed around by everyone else's stash. We're not gonna take it anymore. Of course, there's the risk that I'll have a terrible financial accident at the alpaca shelf if I go alone, but I might just have to face that peril.

I've noticed that all the pictures I've posted to Ravelry on the Flikr account are really dark. I know I sort of spend my computer and study time in a dark little hole of a room, but you'd think flash photography would be able to get around that. I think I need to spend more time in the room with the skylight. Or maybe I really just need to leave the house more.

The striped socks sort of progress apace, but for some reason I've discovered that every time I knit with anything Lion Brand I aggravate my hand problems. I'm sure it's my inner yarn snob causing this. Meanwhile, I knit all the way through Countdown last night (Daily Show is in vacation mode) and I still haven't finished these dratted socks.

I need to get onto the purple tank top and just finish it. It's going to take about an hour, and then I'd be done. Why can't I just do it?

Speaking of things I can't seem to just do, add cleaning my office room. I cleared things away after I took the bar, and the desk is under about a foot of crap again. I need to clear bookshelves to box useful stuff up to take to my actual office when it's ready. I need to find my desktop. I can't get started. The closer I get to grade release, the less I want to do in here. I'm having school nightmares again, too. I just want to know whether I'm holing back up in here and studying for another two months or signing a contract on office space and getting down with the painting and planning.

I hate first posts. No, really.

I decided I need a knitting blog. Everyone seems to have one these days. There might be law here too, if I ever find out that I passed the bar exam. None of the few places I was interested in working were interested in me, so I'm back to the plan of starting a solo practice. I keep thinking I should be scared to death, but really I'm looking forward to getting set up and starting my own business. My husband the solo practice chiropractor has been a really bad influence on me that way. He's a lot happier without a boss, and I want some of that happiness for me.

While waiting to find out, I'm knitting. Right now, I'm knitting a pair of striped socks out of Lion Brand self-striping yarn, the blue and purple striped discontinued one. If I run out of yarn before I finish the toe, I'll probably be hitting up people on Ravelry who have it in their stash to see if I can buy or beg it from them.