Pillaging and Plundering on Friday night, I knit a fantastic amount on my skull/flip flop sock…which all had to be frogged when I got home and saw the dropped stitch three inches back on the soul….knitting and drinking is hazardous to productivity. The bar was verra verra crowded. “”Who are all of these people in our bar? What do these happy hour/happy worker people think they are doing here anyway?” There was a line when we left...meaning that the bar was at capacity and they weren’t letting anymore people in, highly entertaining to be toting our knitting bags out past a line of Sorostitutes and Frigalos (er…Sorority Chicks and Frat Guys) who were waiting for our chairs. Personally, I think that we should move pillaging and plundering to a new night, since Friday nights are sort of scary. I’m voting for Tuesdays, since Tuesday is ladies night and drinks are half off after 8:00, fer ladies, and since we’re female I don’t think they’ll actually ask for our finishing school diplomas…we’re knitting fer fuck’s sake, how much more ladylike does it get? We could meet at 7:00, and knit until 10…and get up with a happy hangover on Wednesday morning.
The most exciting thing that happened while Pillaging and Plundering is that one of the Plunderer's came up with a possibly perfect sweater for the “free” wool. It’s from “Inspired Cable Knits,”* the “Celtic Icon” hoody (which does not have pockets but after estimating how much yarn I have I suspect that I won’t have enough for pockets anyway). So on Saturday I mostly sat around starting “Celtic Icon,” knitting about 3 inches, whipping out the measuring tape, sighing dramatically and ripping it out….over and over and over. The third or fourth time I actually made it through one whole repeat of the cable pattern and realized that I was going to go stark raving mad if I had to knit anymore of them. Also I realized that since I’m knitting a larger version, busty gal that I am, the cable would be sort of isolated in a big field of stockinette. Verra boring.
What’s a Pirate Girl to do when the possibly perfect sweater ends up no
t being quite as perfect as she’d hoped? She reaches out for “Viking Patterns for Knitting” which she always keeps with in arms reach, because baby Ms. Lavold knows how to design a cable! Plus Vikings are Pirates…so we’re keeping it in the family as it were. This is the book that got me excited about knitting. I saw it in the library knew that I had to become a knitter, and right quick. The second time that I had it checked out for more than three months, I decided that I had to purchase it, and it’s still the only knitting book I’ve ever bought.I am sort of desperate to get something substantial on the needles since Dready and I are heading out of town for a much needed road trip this weekend. We’re driving out to Philadelphia to visit our pal Dr. Vic (who comments here occasionally but probably stopped reading this blog because of posts like this one that yammer endlessly about knitting and assume that people know and or care what the difference is between a cable and, oh say, a hole in the ground). It’s estimated to be a 15 hour drive, and if I don’t have something interesting to knit I will go nuts and then Dready will go nuts and not even “The Complete Works of Slayer” will get us through. So possibly against my better interest I am starting the “free wool” sweater, because I’m excited about it damn it! And because I like the feeling of danger inherent in knitting something out of insanely precious yarn (I don’t care if it’s itchy, I picked shit out if it damn it! and spun it on a drop spindle that I made myself from parts I bought at a Michael’s for 75 cents) that I almost certainly don’t have enough of, in a pattern that I’ve altered recklessly. The photos in the book are cleverly taken in such a way as to hide the decreases on the raglan sleeves, so I suspect that they were sort of fucked up even before I willy nilly substituted a different, wider cable pattern. But whatever! I’m knitting on the edge damn it! I’m taking foolish risks and trusting in Ninkasi that it will all work out in the end. On the plus side, the yarn doesn’t seem much the worse for having been through a thorough frogging.
And guess what I’m doing tonight! Guess guess guess! I’m moving into my studio! I have the keys in my pocket even as I type these words. I have every intention of hijacking Dready’s camera to commemorate the event so that this can be one of those fancy “illustrated” type blogs.
Tomorrow: Manimal’s knitting school, and a product review of “TV-b-Gone.”
Ragnar….extreme knitter, and studio-havin-artiste
* In spite of my personal problems with "Celtic Icon," based mostly on the completely counter intuitive cable pattern, I should say that "Inspired Cable Knits" has a much lower suck factor than almost every other book I've looked at lately.
5 comments:
Tuesday nights are for beer club on the 2nd and 3rd Tuesdays of the month, so if we stick with the 4th, that works, but Fridays are nice as it is the end of the work week, so maybe both.
Or move Friday pillaging and plungering to a different venue, Harpers?
Are you going to dye the free spun wool?
Harper's? I can't stand that place, I only go there if the keg runneth dry, and then only in the afternoon when I can deal directly with Scott and not have to talk to anyone else.
I'm not opposed to a different venue, but Crunchy's is the only bar that I actually like going to. There was this really irritating man there last night and Dready was drunk so she was trying to get him to buy her a shot. I put my foot in the middle of the table and leaned in, in what I hoped was a menacing fashion, and the irritating man said "Steph! Steph! This woman has her foot on my table!" and Steph said "So?"
Fuckin' love that place.
As far as dying the "free wool" I'm afraid that I'm going to run out and have to beg borrow or steal some from someone else who was in on the shit picking, so I'm going to dye it after it's knitted so that I don't have to try and match a dyejob with the additional yarn. There's going to be some sort of miracle though and the estimated 1200 yards that I have is going to be enough to make a large sweater...ha! And the fairly dramatic difference in the weight of the yarn will disappear and...and...yeah. I'm praying to Ninkasi.
Oooh, congratulations on the studio! That's so cool!
My one attempt at bar knitting was lace at a very, very dark Irish pub. Yeah, I know...not that bright. Happily, I put it away before I wonked it up too bad.
Dagwoods?
I don't like Harpers after 5 either, but their happy hour is happy.
We need another brewery, one in walking distance.
You could knit a vest hoodie instead of making sleeves, to save some yarn, esp since you will be adding a zippa.
Hey Hey, I still read... Actually I've been meaning to comment that I'm psyched for your studio! :)
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