That about covers it.

As I'm not supposed to be knitting, I'm taking online classes and reading and studying all things knitting.  Today I was reading Knitting Pattern Essentials - Adapting and Drafting Knitting Patterns for Great Knitwear by Sally Melville.  In her "Preparing to Draft" chapter she discusses finding the ideal lengths for a long sweater design and writes: "Try on the pants you are likely to wear with it - slim pants or leggings.  Find a point on your leg where you like what is revealed and where everything you want covered is covered."  This made me laugh.  I immediately thought of Uncle Fester Addams long monk-like robe.  Yeah, that about covers where everything I want covered is covered.

I do highly recommend Knitting Pattern Essentials - Adapting and Drafting Knitting Patterns for Great Knitwear by Sally Melville.  The book is very detailed, has a wonderful step-by-step format and is structured for every knitter of every skill set. The is wonderful diagramming and photography throughout the book as well as an excellent focus in her "Preparing to Draft" chapter on measuring to make the garment fit your body properly and look best on you - tips that I'll carry over to my clothes shopping to find more flattering cuts and styles in my store bought clothing.

No, I wasn't paid or compensated in any way for telling you about this book.  I simply share what I love in hopes you'll love it too.

Kind of like the dentist's chair...

Ever notice when you're in the dentist chair and they tell you to breathe through your nose so that you don't gag, you suddenly don't have a nose and you are completely incapable of doing anything but focusing on how hard you're breathing, gasping, gagging and panting through your mouth?

I broke my wrist.  Actually, it's a stress fracture in my right wrist - my dominate hand of course.  And so, I'm wearing a brace.  I'm grateful for that.  I'd really hate a cast, but not as much as I'm hating the other part of this: I'm supposed to refrain from using my wrist i.e. no knitting.  Typing might even be pushing it.

Because I'm not supposed to knit, it is ALL I CAN THINK OF.  It's making me nuts.  I'm experiencing the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Okay, no, not all five stages... yet.

I've experienced denial, in which I knit anyway and made it hurt incredibly worse.

Anger - oh yeah.  Mad at everyone reminding me not to knit, mad at the injury, mad at myself for knitting an making it worse, mad, mad mad!

Bargaining: just passing through there now on my way to depression.  I tried to convince my husband that I could knit a sock.  It would be much lighter than the sweater, smaller movements, less strain.  He shook his head and said "Honey, you really just need to let it rest and heal."  Damn.  Bring on the depression.  Please let it be brief.  I feel like acceptance will feel better.

Until then, I'll be staring at my WIPs longingly, printing off patterns in my queue, reading knitting books and taking Craftsy classes - basically doing everything knitting except, well, knitting.

What knitting books should I be adding to my library during my down time?

In which I jinx myself...

I don't knit myself "garments".  Sure, I knit myself hats, mitts, shawls, scarves and socks by the truckload, but fitted clothing, no.  I've knit myself exactly 2 sweaters, a shrug and a poncho.  

The poncho hangs in the hall closet begging to be unraveled or waiting until I find myself homeless and in need of a giant burnt orange wool tent.

The shrug is probably proudly adorning a girl about 8 inches shorter than me, or someone who likes 3/4 sleeves.  It was okay. I wore it a couple times, but it simply didn't fit me well as I made the sleeves too short, having measured my back with my arms straight, not bent.  It would have looked great had I worn it to say... my crucifixion. It got donated.

The first sweater... I don't remember very well. I knit it when I was 20 (half a lifetime ago!).  It was wool in a lovely charcoal/brown sort of color and it had a cable that ran up each sleeve with an otherwise stockinette body and high collar.  If I remember right, the armholes and upper arms were too tight and it was incredibly warm.

The last sweater I remember all too well: bright salmon colored cotton in a horizontal textural stripe that switched back and forth every 3 inches or so from stockinette to reverse stockinette all over, including the 3/4 length sleeves and deep hanging cowl neck.  What does stockinette do? It curls, in this case in and out creating rolls.  Pattern was modeled prettily in the magazine. I looked like the love child of a Circus Peanut and the Michelin Man in it.  Horrible.

And so, tired of expensive disappointments, I swore off garments.  I haven't knit a garment for myself in about 6 years.

If you asked me to classify myself as a knitter, I'd tell you I'm a "jump into the deep end of the pool" kind of knitter.  I generally love a challenge and don't fear any technique. 

If you ask me about clothing, I'll tell you, in all honesty, I don't have a good understanding of my body type and I change sizes seemingly twice in a day.  I have a general idea what shapes look good on me.  I don't completely understand how to look at a pattern size and understand how "ease" will affect the fit. And although I don't have any problem resizing and altering stitch patterns or resizing a shawl or other accessory, I'm terrified of modifying a garment pattern.  

Phew!  That was awful.  I hate confessing I don't understand how to make clothes fit me.  But I don't think I'm alone.  Yeah, there is a gifted population out there that innately understands shaping and either knits or sews clothing gorgeously.  There is a distinct other population out there that have the ideal body type and look good in everything, regardless of size, cut, shape, or time of the month.  I don't fit into either of these categories.  But I'm aiming to understand shaping.  

I would love to knit a sweater that not only features a gorgeous new design but that fits me and looks great on me.  And so, I embark on taking some classes, knitting a pile of swatches and "jumping into the deep end" - mostly.  Okay, no, not so much.  I'm actually dipping a toe in first. Whilst I'm taking said classes, I'm knitting myself a sweater.  Shhhh!  Don't tell the knitting gods.  They will jinx me faster than I can say "tink!"  I'm working on a simple sweater that is actually meant to replace a store bought sweater that I adored, loved, wore constantly and managed to shrink in an accidental machine washing.  It has very little shaping and is meant to be oversized.  It should be a no fail project, but we will see.  It could turn out to be a wool bathrobe for Hagrid.

Knitting for Weight Loss

Okay, it might be one of the weirdest weight loss plans ever, but it worked for me... knitting.

I'm a t.v. snacker.  There was no better time to stuff my face full of empty calories than when my fanny is parked on the sofa watching television.  Popcorn, Mike & Ikes, pretzels, chips, dips, cheese, chocolate, even fruit all go wonderfully with whatever is on.  I was a heavy t.v. snacker - literally and figuratively.

Knitting helped me stop snacking.  How?  Expensive yarn and busy hands.

Funny thing about knitting; it takes two hands.  If both hands are busy, the only way to snack is to either stop and put down your work, or contort yourself into wild yoga poses and plant your face directly into the snack bowl or bag.  (Yes, you can grab the chip bag in your teeth and tip it up till the contents slide into your mouth - I know, I've tried, mostly successfully... but... well, then your face gets all greasy... but I digress.)  If you stop and snack, you then need a napkin (or full on hand washing) to remove your snack from your hands before returning to your knitting.  Nothing like Cheetos and angora to drive that lesson home.

I applied these realities to my television habit.  Instead of grabbing a snack when I sat down to watch my favorite shows, I grabbed a project.  Interestingly enough, I got smaller, my completed projects pile got bigger, and my yarn budget had more flex when projects required a skein or two less to fit me.

I find now that my cravings have changed.  I actually crave certain projects for certain types of shows.  What used to be a bowl of ice cream for a sad film is now a hat or some similarly in the round project.  Horror movies and zombies (my husbands favorites) are no longer bags of chips or popcorn, but lace shawls and complex projects that keep my eyes off the gore.  And there is nothing like a good sock pattern for a series.

What has knitting replaced in your life?  Snacking, grief, homicide...?  Do tell.

Progressive Knitting

My son is visiting.  When he's here, he knits with me.  He's got a scarf he's working on that he started last year and got about 18 inches into.  This year when he started working on it, I could hear the tones of defeatism as he spoke about it.  He didn't feel like he was making any progress.  It's a garter stitch scarf on US Size 10 needles with a bulky yarn.  I assured him every row was making progress and managed not to give in to the temptation to whine about my own lack of progress on my lace weight shawl being knit on US Size 4 needles that was increasing 6 stitches every row.  Then it hit me - make his progress tangible.  I grabbed a locking stitch marker and stuck it in the row he'd just finished.  Here we are now, 18 inches past the stitch marker and he's saying things like "It's really coming along now."  Apparently the stitch marker made him faster too.  Now I'm trying to convince him to try knitting a matching hat once this project is done.  We'll see...  I'm thinking about adding a "progress marker" to my project too.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

There are a lot of great novelty yarns out there.  Really cool ones.  Ribbons and beaded yarns.  Yarns with hair and built in fringe.  Sparkly, fuzzy fancy bits twisted into stunning swirls of color.  Like moths to flames, we are sucked in and we buy these things.  Admit it.  You have at least one completely nonsensical yarn in your stash.  I have twelve.

And what in the hell are you going to knit with it?

Along comes the knitting magazine to solve our problems.  Yes Vogue, show me how this yarn dazzled the runway!

Here's where I'm going to be your friend.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.  That cute cardi with the ruffled trim is NOT a good idea.  That ribbon yarn ruffle trim looks like a freakin' ruffled diaper cover on the model's backside.  REALLY look at those pictures.  And she's a size... what? Two?  That cardi is taped in place and she is posed in the most ridiculous, unlikely, unnatural posture.  Really try to imagine the worst case scenario, because I know if I knit it, it wouldn't even come close to fitting me the way they have it staged and taped to that model.  I slouch.  My chest is under-endowed.  I'm short waisted.  I've got some math to do before I even cast that baby on.  Either way, that sweater, knit to fit my size (cough, 12, ahem, cough) would make me look like a hippo in a tutu. And no matter how fantastic that yarn is, how skilled my shaping skills, it isn't going to wipe that wide-eyed-oh-my-god!-what-has-she-knit-herself-this-time look off your smiling frozen polite face.

Put down the needles.  Reconsider your project.  Knit a plushy or trade that crazy bling off to some other daring/unsuspecting knitter.

Smooches!  I just saved us both from a yarnmare.