FO: Slipper Socks; and The Joy of Collaborative Crafting

Here we are, the day after Christmas. I'm relieved and pleased to report that I finished all three craft projects that had Christmas deadlines. The Ravenclaw scarf was in my last post. Here are the slipper socks I made for my daughter:



They're just socks with suede soles sewn on, constructed more or less according to Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' instructions in Simple Socks: Plain and Fancy, but with a few more stitches on the leg than the foot, and 1-inch elastic sewn into the tops to keep them on securely. The yarn is KnitPicks Crayon, held double on size 7 needles.

When DD put them on and DH saw them, he said, "Aren't they big for her?" (They are.) DD, age 3 1/2 and already the consummate knitter's child, retorted, "That's because I need to grow into them!" Don't you wish all your gift recipients were so understanding?

The other project I finished was sewing up some Christmas stockings my mom had made, one in needlepoint and one in counted cross-stitch. My mom has been doing this kind of work for years, including Christmas stockings for all of her immediate family members, their spouses and descendants over 3 years old (this work takes a while!). She's quite good at it.

Have you ever known someone that you loved dearly, but that you would never give handknits to because they wouldn't appreciate them, or wouldn't take care of them properly? I've heard some knitters opine that one should never give a handknit sweater to a non-knitter unless one also does the recipient's laundry. Just picture a woolen sweater, very clean but several sizes too small and thoroughly felted, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Well, my mom is not a knitter, but she's not one of those folks, either. Working with her (or giving her handknits) is a pleasure because each of us has, I think, a fairly deep understanding of the nature and the value of the other's work. I know about the hours of repetitive-yet-exacting work that go into a needlepoint or counted-cross-stitch piece because I've watched her do so much of it, and done a bit myself. It's an honor to be trusted to cut and stitch such a thing! She knows (or senses, and will know after she reads this) about the much-less-time-consuming, but still exacting work of turning a needlepoint piece into a Christmas stocking without ruining it nineteen ways before you're done. And each of us delights in the beauty of what the other has made. The value we place on each other's respective crafts makes this kind of collaboration uniquely satisfying, and each time I sew up a stocking (eight by now, I think) and don't ruin it nineteen ways, I breathe a sigh of relief and feel a little closer to my mom.

I'd love to hear your experiences and thoughts about collaborative crafts, whether in the same craft with your collaborators or different crafts. Are you a lone-wolf knitter secretly craving collaboration, or a party animal when it comes to your creations? Or do you revel in the solitude of your craft? Say more!

Wondering what happened to the FlyLady BabySteps? Well, between DH being out of town, DH and DD being sick, and getting ready for the holidays, it's continued to be a time of shoring up progress to date against the floods of circumstance. Okay, actually I took a step ahead of the BabySteps by creating a weekly routine (one or two cleaning chores to get done each weekday), but I'm not holding myself to it yet. I was just craving some strategic structure (e.g., I vacuum on days when DD goes to preschool, not on days when she's home and I might be doing my chores during her nap) and a good checklist for basic weekly cleaning.

It came in handy when our Christmas-Eve guests were coming: I could look at it and see what I hadn't yet done that week, and just do those things, cook dinner, and not worry about the rest. Nice feeling, that! Taking a step outside the BabyStep structure, while keeping within the spirit of baby-stepping my way to greater satisfaction with my housekeeping and self-care, is a little like tweaking a beautiful knitting pattern to make it even better for my purposes. N'est-ce pas?

FO: Ravenclaw Scarf; and Hanging with the Big Dogs

Finally, here it is:



The finished Ravenclaw scarf (a la Prisoner of Azkaban, pattern by Lauren Kent. I did only 12 sets of stripes rather than 14, to fit DH's desires for his scarf. This puppy is WARM, and wide enough that he should be able to wrap it around his neck and cover his ears and nose at the same time. I used five balls of Cascade 220, four in blue (color 9484) and one in gray (color 9324). Knitting this Continental-style, which I learned on this project, probably saved me 50% on the knitting time. Now I'm all set for some colorwork!

I have a hat in mind to go with this. Pictures when it's on the needles.

I have just one project, the slipper socks, remaining to finish up (probably an hour's work) for Christmas, and DD is the recipient, so no shipping time. Hooray! It seems like time to relax into the holiday.

Speaking of relaxing, I spent yesterday evening at a potluck and knitting circle on a nearby cooperative (community-supported agriculture) farm; a neighbor who is a member took me along. Some folks there were involved with the farm, and others fit in I'm not sure how.

Now, among my city friends, I stand out as a crafter and semi-Luddite (in a good way): knitting, sewing, canning a lot of stuff in the summer, and so forth. But among this group, I could tell there's a long way farther to go in that direction! Everyone there could knit (including the teen and preteen boys who came with their parents), some also spin, and I think more have livestock at home than not. Some folks were talking about going in together on an order of chicks in the spring -- one is building a new coop now, and some already have some hens. Several keep goats for milk. Much of the potluck food was from veggies grown there on the farm. The man sitting next to me, who was a great conversationalist, was finishing several pairs of socks he'd knit on his sock machine, as he told the group about a successful meeting that morning that was part of the effort to prevent the local cement plant from burning tires. (How'd you like that across the road from your organic farm? Yechh!)

I felt like such a city girl. But in a good way. A city girl who loves handcrafts, grooves on local food, and is learning more every year. It was humbling and encouraging at the same time. How often do you get to have an experience like that?

Happy holidays, everyone. May your fiber arts keep you warm, good food fill your bellies, and the people around you receive you with open arms.

Dancing as Fast as I Can

I think maybe this is not just me -- the knitting furiously to try to finish a holiday present. Neh? I'd love to hear your comments about your holiday knitting quests. I just enjoyed reading a compilation of "SHE Shouldn'ts" on FlyLady's web site. (SHE stands for Sidetracked Household Executive, so these stories are about what SHEs, as opposed to born-organized folks, should NOT have taken on for the holidays!). Included were several stories of elaborate knitting/crafts projects begun in November (or later!) for Christmas use/giving. I'm hoping that since I have only one in progress (Okay, two if you count sewing up my mom's needlepoint stockings. Okay, three if you count DD's slipper socks... uh oh...), I'll be able to finish in time.

The knitting project in question is not a surprise anymore -- there's no way I could have finished on time and kept it a secret -- so here's a photo:



Recognize the Prisoner of Azkaban - style Harry Potter scarf, in Ravenclaw colors? (Hey, here's an unabridged CD version of the book for listening while knitting! I used to do this while quilting, but hadn't gotten there yet for knitting...) Perhaps from the knitting + blogging combination you already figured out I'm a bit of a geek, without even knowing about my physics background or my obsession with home canning? Well, here's letting you know that it runs in the family. The scarf is a special request for my husband, who got me going on Harry Potter and oh so many other series of books, mostly sci-fi and fantasy. I found the pattern, by Lauren Kent, on Ravelry -- here's a link to it on Lauren's web site.

Progress on FlyLady's BabySteps has been stalled for the past week or so, as I nursed DD and DH through their respective winter bugs and rested a lot to avoid getting sick myself. Now everyone is well (knock wood), so I'll be trying to get back in the groove. The good news: I haven't needed to backslide, just to stop adding new things to my routines for a little while. The next step I'll be taking is to reorganize my Control Journal a bit for three daily routines: One for before I leave the house in the morning, one for late morning or afternoon, and one for before bed. My morning routine was getting unwieldy and not so doable, so moving some items to the midday routine should help prevent discouragement and the attendant temptations to Give It All Up. 'Cause you know, giving it all up doesn't keep my house looking nice, and I'm getting to like it looking that way.

Moving Right Along

Are we having fun yet?



Yep. These slipper socks are almost done -- I'm going to put some 1" elastic in the tops and fold the yellow bit to the inside, sewing to form a casing. Then I might need to deal somehow with the fact that the slippers are more than an inch too long for DD's feet. She enjoyed wearing them around the house today anyway. Maybe it's not such an issue. But suggestions are welcome!

Further knitting pictures may have to wait a bit, at least as long as my current project remains a surprise to the intended recipient. Suffice it to say that it's made from Cascade 220 wool. Lots of it. From a pattern I found on Ravelry. (My invitation arrived today! Callooh, callay! They really made it through the 3000 or so people ahead of me on the waiting list quickly!) And I'm taking the opportunity to learn to knit Continental-style. I think I'm already faster than I was on a typical "throwing" day. I'm craving colorwork, you see, maybe some Selbuvotter mittens, and I like to do fair-isle knitting with one color in each hand. It helps if I can do that without my left hand going all crampy, and today all was good.

Early Openers
Today is Day 22 of my FlyLady quest to incorporate sanity into the upkeep of my house. So far, so good. I really like the pacing of the BabySteps -- they don't add a new daily chore every day. Those are spaced out nicely with reading essays and just learning things, so the whole deal doesn't feel like an exponential increase in work. Recently one of the essays sent on the FlyLady list pointed out that a lot of housework chores feel like they're going to take forever. Yeah, what she said. Often that thing I'm procrastinating on for an hour takes all of, oh, seven minutes to finish once I actually do it. Remembering that, plus remembering to ask myself why I'm doing this, has been great.

I went away for this past weekend, and something novel happened. When I got back, the house was orderly. And this time it wasn't DH, obsessively cleaning while alone in the house. All the human inhabitants were with me in the mountains. It was me, just doing those daily basic routines before I left, that meant I didn't have a pile of dishes, or major detritus from laundry or packing, greeting me when I got home. It felt like an early Christmas present. Wahoo!