I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

Believe it or not, next week will mark the four-year anniversary of this blog and about one year since I moved it to this domain.

Time flies, huh.

I started the blog as a way to connect with other knitters and in that respect it’s been successful beyond my wildest dreams. Over the course of the last four years, blogging has enabled me to create and administer a 3,000-member Yahoo group; design patterns that have been published in books, by yarn companies, and in ezines; and help coordinate a knit-blogger campaign that resulted in the donation of more than $100,000 to the people affected by Hurricane Katrina. But, more importantly, the blog has facilitated my communication with hundreds of amazing knitters. I’ve even been fortunate enough to meet (in the flesh) many of the fantastic people who I met through blogging.

I rarely discuss my personal life on the blog, mainly because it’s not nearly as interesting as my knitting (which you may or may not find interesting either). For those of you who have asked over the years for some non-knitting tidbits about me, I’m a 40-something lawyer, married with 2 teenagers, and now living in Utah. I spent my childhood in Massachusetts then lived briefly in New York and even more fleetingly in Texas.
See, not very exciting.
I posted a 100 Things About Me list back in 2004 when it was all the rage. If you’re still curious, you can read it here. It’s pretty much still all true.

I readily confess to being an exceedingly pragmatic (and, some might say, dour) person. The blogiversary and recent events in my personal life got me thinking seriously about things like family, friends, memory, commitment, and opportunity lost but happily found again. That introspective generated a mental list of many practical reasons why I should walk away from the blog and call it good. Things like the nasty, snarky emails I get from readers on a weekly basis (don’t believe me? ask Margene), or the difficulty of trying to fit the blogging into all the other activities and commitments competing for my time. While I receive many wonderful comments on my posts, I regret that there aren’t enough hours in my day to enable me to personally respond to every one. So, as the blog became more popular, it also became a bit of a Catch-22. I love the opportunity to connect with more knitters but the more knitters with whom I connect, the less time I have to knit and blog. *sigh*

But, after dwelling for a while on all the negatives, I turned my focus to all the unbelievably wonderful things that naturally flow from maintaining the blog. The sense of community and the overwhelmingly positive tone of the messages and comments I receive from readers. I truly adore getting emails telling me that something I posted was helpful to someone.

On balance, I’ve decided the positive far outweighs the negative. So, you’re not getting rid of me yet but I have decided that I’ll be posting less often, probably no more than once a week and maybe less than that.

But enough sentiment, let’s get back to the event that inspired this post in the first place–the blogiversary.

And what’s a blogiversay without a contest?

I think the best way to celebrate the last four years is by having not one contest, but two!

Here’s the skinny on the first:
Leave me a comment between now and Sunday night, suggesting a theme for the contest I intend to hold next week to celebrate the blogiversay. If I use your idea, you win this:

A Ceilidh Lace Socks Kit (yarn and pattern) from Wooly Wonka Fibers in the colorway of your choice (it’s shown here in the Nantucket colorway but you can choose from the other colorways on the website).

C’mon, help me out here. After four years, I’m outta ideas.

Pattern: Sitcom Chic
Size: Smallest
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease in the Lime colorway (slightly less than 5 full balls)
Time to Complete: 2.5 weeks to knit, 6 weeks to add the button
Modifications:

• I added two sets of short rows to the back of the sweater right after I completed the ribbing. This helps the sweater hang straight while it’s worn, i.e., the back doesn’t ride up.
• I grafted the underarm seams instead of binding off and sewing.
• I lengthened the sleeves by casting on 34 stitches (instead of 38) and working the increases every 6 rounds until I had the required number of stitches on the needles. Then I knit plain rounds (about 12 more) until the sleeves were about 17.5 inches long.
• For the front bands, I picked up 2 sts for every 3 rows and I worked the bands in an eyelet pattern that closely matches the yoke eyelet.
• Instead of a button, I used a clasp that I bought at my LYS. Several people asked about the clasp, it’s just a basic closure made by JHB International that you can probably find at your LYS or perhaps even a craft store. Here’s a link to the company that manufactures it. The crazy thing is that Cayenne used the exact same closure on a sweater she finished last month. Talk about coincidence–Cayenne lives on the street parallel to mine, mere spitting distance from my back door!

I’m happy with the finished sweater; it fits great although I think it makes me look a bit dowdy. My daughter likes it, though, so it will get worn by someone. I was pleased with the Cotton Ease which had a good hand and knit up easier than most cotton yarns, probably because of the acrylic content.

The winner of my back-to-school contest was Alicia, who correctly guessed that my son is on his high school golf team and, as you can see from the first photo on this page, my daughter is a cheerleader. It was she who coined the phrase that is the title of this post.

Oy.

Remember I mentioned a while ago that I signed up for Emily’s Dishrag Tag knitting competition? Well, look what was sitting on my porch when I arrived home from work today:

Janine, our team captain, had packed it up with a beautiful dishcloth and an adorable sheepy magnet. I was half-way through knitting my dishcloth using one of the balls of cotton Janine sent and this pattern before I had the wherewithal to take a photo:

Two hours after I opened the box, I deposited it into the 24/7 kiosk at my neighborhood post office. I included the dishcloth I knit, two balls of cotton yarn, and a couple of little goodies for the next team member.

Now I’m off to find some ice. Knitting up an entire ball of kitchen cotton in less than 90 minutes can really make your wrists hurt. Damn.