Confessions of a Yarnaholic

 A package arrives from Three Irish Girls.

While everyone forages for day-after-Thanksgiving dinner, I am escaping to the world of Ravelry, where I just discovered that I have 50 (!) different yarns in my stash. Fifty different yarns? How did this happen to someone who is surely the slowest knitter in the world? Mercifully, I generally have just one skein in each yarn, but STILL. I am worrying that my plastic yarn tub (just one, I swear) will explode under pressure, just like Rebecca's overstuffed closet in Confessions of a Shopaholic.

The Little Supervisor gets involved.

The most awkward realization regarding this stash assessment for someone who still has not learned to knit a proper sock? The news that I have a frightening number of skeins of sock yarn in my collection. Given that the Second Sock in my First Socks looks as though it was knitted for someone with a talon for a toe, this is a disturbing discovery.

But I just could not resist the power of Ravelry and its Dye For Glory sock yarn competition.    

Organized in conjunction with the inaugural Sock Summit, Dye For Glory encouraged small and large dyers alike to submit a special colorway for judging by Ravelry readers and for sale at the summit. As we've discussed already, I am no sock knitter (or so I keep telling myself), but these yarns could have persuaded just about anyone to dig out the size 1 double-pointed needles.

The Little Supervisor inspects "Father Time" and "Alchemy," both by Three Irish Girls.Which apparently I will be doing, stat. 

"You can knit me some new socks with these?" the Little Supervisor asked as she opened the package from Three Irish Girls. "Two socks for all of us--Mommy, Daddy, and Lucy?"

Sure, sweetheart. Because Mommmy also picked up a skein each of Lollipop Cabin's "Laying in the Autumn Leaves," Knit Witch's "Brewtopia," and Knit Witch's "Portland Rain."

Laying in the Autumn Leaves by Lollipop Cabin

PS: All three of these packages contained a delightful surprise: a little yarn "lollipop" from Lollipop Cabin, complete with a pattern for an itty-bitty sock; a teensy skein from Knit Witch, and a sweater stone from Three Irish Girls. Charming!

Everyone Has Ideas. What Do You Do With Yours?

I may be one of the few women in the country who hasn’t read The Time Traveler’s Wife, but that couldn’t stop me from going to hear Audrey Niffenegger speak Thursday.

In town to promote her new book, Her Fearful Symmetry, Niffenegger spoke with Scribner editor in chief Nan Graham in a Smithsonian Associates event. Dressed in a long black outfit with a touch of Goth, Niffenegger talked the influences on Her Fearful Symmetry (nineteenth-century novels and literary conventions), the history of London’s Highgate Cemetery, and her creative process.

Everyone has ideas, she said. “The question is, are you going to grab one and ask it questions?”

That’s a valid question in itself. Like many writers, I keep an ongoing story idea file that is perpetually overstuffed with clippings and printouts. I have a digital version in my email, where I tuck away email messages that contain story leads and potential sources for the always-upcoming news meeting. But the size of those two folders--paper and electronic—is dwarfed by the ideas for articles, stories, books, blog posts, crafts, and goals professional and personal that swirl so frequently in my mind.

Even stories that are fully reported, with their interview notes indexed by source with colorful post-its, can languish in my notebook as I at times lose my motivation to bring that story idea to reality.

It reminds me of this New Yorker cartoon, which to me perfectly illustrates the crazy synergistic process that has to happen in a writer’s mind (or at least my writer’s mind) before a story begins to flow onto the page.

But too often we get stuck long before we plot out our project in post-its.

Niffenegger suggested tonight that writer’s block is really a sign that a person needs to go back and reframe the question that they’re asking.  I agree to a point. One of the most valuable newspaper writing seminars I ever attended essentially said the same thing that if you’re having trouble writing a piece, you probably didn’t organize it well. If you’re having trouble organizing, then you probably didn’t think through your reporting. And if your reporting is going poorly, then you need to reconsider the initial premise of the story.

However, an attack of writer’s block (or the crafting, athletic, or artistic equivalent) assumes you had the courage to risk writing that story in the first place. To me, that’s what Niffenegger means when she talks about the difference between people who have ideas and people who ask those ideas questions. The first group is content to daydream; the second is willing to consider what it might take to bring that idea to life.

Which type of person are you?

Life Imitates Art. Again.

Remember Sherwen's encounter with Daddy Bunny?Apparently Rage Kitty does--and so does the Little Supervisor, who actually set up this tableau. (Seriously.) But she also quickly moved to defend her beloved baby panda Patsy and her mommy from the stuffed intruder with the maniacal eyes and disturbing name. "No, Rage Kitty! You can't come in the Panda house!" she declared.

Don't look now, Mommy Panda, but a giant orange cat is watching you.

Life Imitates Art

Daniel and Hugh, as seen on a steadily raining day.When I ordered tickets to see Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman on Broadway in “A Steady Rain,” I had no idea that the play’s title would prove so apt a description for my day in NYC.

It rained. Steadily.

But the soggy weather was worth the trip (via the new Bolt Bus—leather seats and free wifi for $45 round-trip from D.C.). When I was younger, I daydreamed about living in New York City, which seemed so intimidatingly and thrillingly oversized, from the skyscrapers and the population to the sheer number of taxis and the wealth of museums, theaters, stores, and more.

After years living “out East,” though, I am no longer quite so intimidated by the Big Apple, but I still find myself thrilled by the city every time I visit. There’s just something about the energy of the place, where life happens 24/7 and the locations captured in novels and movies (“Eloise,” “The Age of Innocence,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “Sex and the City”) materialize before your own eyes.

Purl, in Soho. In addition to seeing 007 perform in person, I also took a pilgrimage to Purl, which was friendly, well-stocked—and approximately the size of a postage stamp. Purl Patchwork, its sister store down the block, is even smaller—it is perhaps two-thirds the size of a postage stamp.

Given New York rents, I know I shouldn’t have been surprised at the small square footage, but I think my surprise had more to do with the inverse relationship between the shop size and the influence Purl and its blog, the Purl Bee, seems to have in the knitting community.Purl Patchwork. If only I could make time to learn how to sew.... 

True, Purl’s founder previously worked for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, but I suspect that experience and connections only represent part of the shop’s success.  What I encountered was a tiny, colorful yarn shop filled with useful touches and helpful assistance.

A round table displayed yarn swatches the size of placemats. Staffers offered to wind skeins into balls for free. They answered phone calls from panicked knitters about yarnovers and patiently re-taught a novice how to cast on a scarf. Shop windows and walls displayed baby booties and other projects that I’d only seen before in the crisp photographs of Last-Minute Knitted Gifts or the Purl Bee blog.

Yes, even real-life knitting in New York City imitates art.

Sweater Weather

This is how I know I have become a knitter: I have started my first sweater.

Tinkerbell Sweater (in progress) from Miss Bea's Dressing Up.