knitting kitchen

We’re back from our vacation in the Adirondacks and after an action-packed week at work, it seems as if we’d never left.

Mark and Abbey at the high jump, Lake Placid Olympic Center
My friend Teresa who makes crazy-beautiful things, asked me to knit a sweater for her to display some of her crewel work buttons. She chose the pattern and the yarn and I set about knitting. All was going well until the middle of vacation. Work has been difficult, I’ve found that I need time to enjoy the repetitive motion of easy knitting. This sweater, however, was anything but. The body of the sweater is knit (no problem) and then a lace panel is knit perpendicularly to it and is attached by knitting two together every other row, unless the row you are working on is one of the short-rows in the crazy, 20-row pattern. I couldn’t really knit it in the car with the magnetic board to keep track of the row and the dog being incompatible car mates. So I’d knit it at night. By Wednesday or Thursday I realized I’d ended more than a couple of nights ripping back almost as much as I’d knit. Added to this frustration was my anxiety over the fact that there was a deadline if Teresa was supposed to use this for a demonstration in the end of April. I’ve never done this before, and I can’t believe I did this now, but I emailed Teresa and telling her I was bailing on the sweater. I have so little time to knit as it is and I was making each of my vacation evenings end in misery and frustration.

Teresa, as ever, was very gracious and understanding. Another knitter friend of hers picked it up from me at work the following Monday. I hope Teresa, the knitting friend, and the sweater have all had a happy ending. For me, it was a new and rare instance of me taking care of myself. Once I got over the fear of disappointing Teresa, and especially after I was greeted with her kind understanding, I have been enjoying all of my much less strenuous knitting that much more.

Here is the sweater from Hell:

While on vacation, I was fortunate to find Adirondack Yarns (not to be confused with Great Adirondack Yarn Company). AY is a store in Lake Placid, NY. Susan, the owner, could not be nicer and I loved her shop. She allowed me to spend a significant amount of time just exploring and when I was ready for help, she was gracious and informative. At one end of the store is a coffee shop which she also operates. The knitting books are in that room and there are sofas and tables so you can explore patterns and caffeinate at the same time. I thought that the buying for the store reflected her awareness of her clientele. The store is in a resort area and she has several ‘vacation’ projects like scarves and socks, as well as a wonderful collection of sweaters that can be worn by real people. While my daughters may love a cropped lace v-neck tank in size 2, it won’t do anything for my wardrobe. Also, in response to most vacation knitters’ desire to have something unique to remember their visit, there is a thoughtful collection of hand dyed yarns in every weight and in many fibers. What better way to remember your happy visit to Lake Placid than to knit a sweater with hand dyed blue face leicester?

M’s birthday is at the end of our vacation week, and as soon as I’d given up on Teresa’s lace madness, I set out to…drum roll…put together M’s Christmas sweater! He’s been playing cricket with a group of kids after school a couple of times a week and he really needed a stylish sweater for the “shoulder” season. After watching Jeeves and Wooster (again) last winter, it was agreed that a cricket sweater was required. As I went to the trouble of designing it to meet our specs, I usurped the honor of naming it. Named for Bertie Wooster’s newt-loving cohort, here is Fink-Nottle:

Alle’s decided to go to Syracuse and at accepted students’ day, I saw her name in lights at the Carrier Dome.

I have much to say about Syracuse and my amazement and awe at the opportunities there. I will save all my gushing for another time, but for any fiberheads out there, check this out:

The university has a room of looms! It also has this:

That’s right, hammers! These are just a few of the tools in what is known as the Forming Room. It is an entire room with hammers, anvils, and leather-covered tables sporting oddly shaped indentations the sole purpose of which is to shape sheet metal.

As I walked through this one of the art buildings all I could think was, “this must be what Heaven is like, room after room filled with all of the means to make anything you want.” I’m seriously thinking of what I can do to be able to walk through those rooms day after day.

a metal lathe salvaged from a basement where they had to jackhammer it out of the concrete floor.