Rush Hour Knitting

Anybody else who grew up with Sesame Street remember that one? I rediscovered it a few years ago, and now it earworms its way into my brain frequently. Today is a day to sing of some happy.

Since January is over, so is my little fundraiser. I totaled up my sales of October Leaves, figured out what half of the profits came out to, and I’m really really proud to announce that with your help, I will be making a donation to Doctors Without Borders of $285. (I threw in a buck and change to make it a nice round number.)

Thank you to everyone who bought or gifted a copy. I hope you enjoy knitting your mitts up. I know I keep saying it, but I’m so proud of all the knitters (and crocheters) who pitched in and did this amazing thing. For example, LSG, my home base on Ravelry, has been keeping track of member donations and the current total comes to over $47,000! And Casey over at Ravelry set up a special tag for all the designers donating money from their patterns — I might have done some shopping in there over the month as well. There were a whole lot of people pitching in and they all get my thanks.

The snowman in my backyard approves of you all and your generosity. Thank you all for your help.

The weather has alternated between cold and colder lately, and it makes me want to curl up next to the fire and just stay there. The problem with that plan is that I forget to show you things, like my finished Ron socks:

Which socks I have worn several times already and I adore. Oranges and blues and dusky purples, mmm. I really hope Opal makes more Potter-themed yarns for the next movie, and that there are more colorways I can belatedly fall in love with like I did with this one. More like this, Opal, thank you kindly.

And then there is the Wollmeise Aestlight:

It’s finished now, although it wasn’t when I took this picture. Here it was only past the bird’s eye lace. Now, the long, long border is done, the ends are all woven in and it just needs a blocking — tomorrow, hopefully. And then I will have to figure out how to best photograph it, because it came out delightfully huge. I am very excited to wear it; I just have to figure out what I’m making to go with it. Such trials.

And then, there’s the work in progress:

Yes, it’s a Clapotis. I have to knit one every year. It’s a law. Go check. This is going to be a companion to my Anemoi mittens.

And I’m even working on my spinning:

I’m still terribly new to all this spindle business but it’s slowly coming together. See? I have yarn!

In between all of that I’ve been watching pattern sales slowly grow and counting how much money I will be able to donate. I’m well over $200 now, and yesterday I reached 200 copies of October Leaves off to new homes. (You know Count von Count? Yeah, just like that. TWO! TWO HUNDRED COPIES! AH AH AH.) I’m really looking forward to hitting send on that donation and sending some of this largess, this community, to where it’s needed. Just a few days left until I can give you all the grand total. (See how subtle that hint was, stragglers?) And in the meantime, you all have my most heartfelt thanks, for buying October Leaves and all the other patterns out there who teamed up to make such an amazing fundraiser. I am so, so proud to be a part of this community.

Now, all of you go cast on. I want to see your mitts. I’ll be right here, curled up with yarn, hibernating.

So my favorite place to hang out on Ravelry is a little group called LSG, a group filled with some fine ladies and gents with hearts of gold. (And language of profanity, but that’s why it’s fun.) They set a goal to raise $5069 yesterday for Haiti relief, because that’s how many people are willing to admit they’re LSGers.

In 24 hours, they have raised almost $7,000, and donations are still pouring in. It makes my little heart go pitter-pat.

And I’m not the only one who’s pledged time, or money, or pattern sales. Kristen Rengren has complied a list of knitters, yarnies, and designers who are pledging their products, as well as a run-down of aid organizations accepting donations. There’s some great stuff on that list, so you should click through and check it out. Kristen herself is donating 50% of her sales from two of her terrific patterns this month, and I appreciate that she went ahead and made a list so I could just link you all to it.

I said it in the last post, but I say it again. Knitters are an amazing community, and I’m proud to be in it.

Yesterday I bumped into a mention of the Hebrew phrase tikkun olam, which means “mending the world.” It’s a Jewish belief, with a lot of meanings and history, but the one I am most familiar with is the importance of doing good works to make the world better. I love the translation, and the idea.

And the world could certainly use a lot of mending today. Yesterday’s earthquake in Haiti has left uncountable numbers of dead and injured. Even aid groups who were already in the country are struggling with their own losses, of facilities and personnel. Rene Preval, Haiti’s president, was blunt: “Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed. There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.”

I’m typing this on a laptop, sitting on my comfortable bed in a warm house. Downstairs my mom is cooking dinner for her family, and there’s a fire in the wood stove keeping us toasty. We have a roof and food and clean water, and we’re healthy and prosperous.

So here’s what I’m doing.

I am donating 50% of my profits from January sales of the October Leaves Fingerless Mitts. I’m incredibly lucky, because not only am I prosperous and safe tonight, but I have this little pattern out there in the world that people love and are willing to purchase with their own hard-earned money. So I am going to share that luck with people who desperately need it tonight. On January 31 I will tally up my sales for the month and I am going to send that money to Doctors Without Borders. I will let you all know what it works out to, of course, when I make that donation.

If you’ve already bought October Leaves and you want to chip in, this would be a great excuse to try out Rav’s new gift feature, by the bye.
And if you’d like to pitch in, faithful reader, but you’re not on Ravelry, (and why not, Ravelry is amazing) you can follow this link to purchase.

Why do I do this? I’m a knitter. I love being a knitter. Even before the Yarn Harlot birthed the idea of Knitters Without Borders, we’ve been giving our time and our money and our knitting to people who need it. I’m proud to stand up and take my turn in a very small way in this amazing community of givers.

And another reason? I’m a New Yorker. I know the feeling of watching the sky fall down, and the entire world holding out its hands for us to lean on. My turn to hold out my hands. It’s as simple as that. My turn to mend.

And, but this goes without being said, I love you guys. Stay safe.

I haven’t really written much about knitting resolutions. They’ll get their own post one of these days, but briefly, they involve socks, practicing my drop spindle more regularly, and making more of an effort to share WIPs instead of just waiting until they’re finished.

So to that end, I thought I’d show you what’s on the needles right now.

I am working on socks. Big surprise, I know.

I started these at about 11:40 pm New Year’s Eve, so that I could be knitting fresh socks as the clock ticked over into a New Year. This is the Opel Harry Potter yarn, in the Ron colorway that I was so excited to score at this past year’s Vermont Sheep & Wool. Basic stockinette on account of the stripes, and may I just say how much I love the colors? These are meeting my requirements for autumnal oranges quite nicely – to be expected, considering the character the colorway is named after.

In the other corner, please meet my Aestlight. I’m doing the large size with the wonderful skein of Wollmeise that Melissa gave me for my birthday last year, in the True Love colorway. I’m almost done with the bird’s eye lace border, and am gearing up to tackle the edging.

I’m contemplating naming this project “Sailors Take Warning” but I’m not sure how many people will follow my mental leaps there.

And speaking of Wollmeise…

I got a little package in the mail today, far sooner than I expected it to arrive. (Mad props to the Loopy Ewe for that!)

Backstory: I’d just been telling Melissa over New Year’s about my long, patient attempt to acquire this particular colorway of Wollmeise. I’d been coveting this color for months, stalking the destash group on Ravelry and being beaten to the punch for the few skeins available. But on Tuesday, word started filtering out that the Loopy Ewe had just put an update live. And there it was, the Rhabarber I’d been coveting.

So I got it.

And some Lavendel for good measure, because when a Wollmeise update lands in your lap you take advantage. It arrived with the mail this morning and I sat there for a while just enjoying the fact that it’s mine, and just a pretty in person as I’d hoped. Now I just need to figure out what to do with it. Ideas?

The Traveling Sock and I went out to Lancaster with my friend Melissa and her husband today, because Melissa was showing two of her pictures in a show.

The Sock loves to hang with celebrities. So I made Melissa take a picture with it:

(That’s one of her photographs behind her, in the black & white frame. It’s one of my favorites of all her work.)

Melissa’s a terrific photographer — she took all the photographs for Holly & Ivy and October Leaves. Her pro website is at MelissaJaarsma.com, and if you’re in the Philly area and need a photographer, you should keep her in mind. Tell her Abbie sent you, and congratulate her on an awesome show.

2009 was a great year for knitting. I didn’t plan for it to happen, but I knit a sock a month: 12 socks, all for me.

The BSG socks (March) were also my first test-knit, an experience that helped me an awful lot as I started designing my own patterns:

And I knit beautiful beautiful things:

I think, knitwise, I had a very good year. I’m really excited to see what I can make out of yarn next year. And maybe, even, what kind of yarn I can make.

And now I’m going to go ring in a new year by casting on some socks. Happy New Year, everyone!

There are still some cookies left, and the tree is still gamely shedding needles, but Christmas is winding down. My gifts have been distributed and I can now share them with you all, in lovely photo mosaic format:

In order:
1. Mom’s socks, knit in basic stockinette on US1s out of Lorna’s Laces Shepard Sock in Black Watch. The moment I saw the colorway I knew I would use it for her Christmas present. She put them on immediately, which was very pleasing.
2. E’s Cross-Country Chullo, done in Knitpicks Palette in Golden Heather and Clematis Heather. E is my Vermont sister and needs warm things to cover her ears when she walks her dog. She also put it on immediately, so quickly that our other sister had to point the skiiers out to her.
3. Last-minute Cowls, because I always get distracted working on my immediate family. These are the Simple Fitted Cowl done in Malabrigo left over from my Holly & Ivy wrap; one for my cousin and one for my grandfather’s aide – she put it on right away and left it on for the rest of the night even though she was sitting next to a roaring fire. That is appreciation, and I appreciate her appreciation.
4. Brother Socks – Thuja pattern done in Knitpicks new sport-weight Stroll in Cobblestone Heather. The yarn was a bit splitty but I’m very happy with how it worked up. These were not tried on, because my brother shows appreciation by nodding. He nodded quite a bit, so I’m happy.
5. Blink! – My sister B presented me with Knitpick’s ornament kit for my birthday this summer, and then requested the String of Lights pattern. I was very happy to oblige. Now I have to make one for myself!
6. Coffee Cozies knit from the Quick and Easy Coffee Cozy pattern in some leftover Wool of the Andes out of the stash. These went to my sister’s boyfriends, one of whom drinks coffee and one of whom drinks…cocoa. When he’s not drinking beer. Which could also fit in a cozy.
7. Dad’s Selbuhat. I took the main motif from the Selbuvotter #10 (which I knit this spring for Dad) to make him a matching hat. It hasn’t been blocked yet, since I had to wait for him to try it on to make sure it fit. It does – picture me doing a massive sigh of relief!
8. Grandfather Socks – these are for my grandfather, whose feet get cold at night. They’ve become a tradition. Paton’s Classic in Jade, held doubled. Amazing how much faster socks go when you use fat yarn!

Then there was a wedding this past Sunday, which called for more gifts. Since I do this for every wedding I wasn’t about to change course now:

These are the Oven Mitt and Trivet patterns from Bev Galaskas’s book Felted Knits, done in Wool of the Andes held double and helped by my sister’s dog, who kept stealing the WIP out of my suitcase when I was visiting earlier this month. I have learned that Eeyore the Dog is not to be trusted with yarn. (At one point he stole it right out of my lap.)

And then I actually finished something for me, too.

My own Christmas socks! Another iteration of the Thuja pattern, this time in Socks that Rock in the Hollydays colorway, although it wasn’t labeled as such, being a mill end that I picked up at Rhinebeck. I am very pleased at the subtleness of the colorway, and also that it is warm and cozy. They were finished about an hour before we left for church on Christmas Eve, which is cutting it it a little close, I admit. But I got to wear them Christmas Day and let my toes join in the festivities. Bailey’s for me, socks for my feet — everyone’s happy.

Now I am off to spend New Year’s with friends, and consider my knitting resolutions for 2010. They involve socks. This will shock nobody, I’m sure. Enjoy your last days of 2010!

If you are celebrating, I wish you a very Merry Christmas. My knitting is done and wrapped and I am finishing a cup of tea before drifting off so that Santa can go about his work.

This is my favorite night of the year, and I hope you’ve all enjoyed it as much as I have. Peace.

From: Abbie
To: My Faithful Readers
Re: Today’s Shameful Lack of Knitting Content

Due to other obligations, I did not knit a stitch today.

However. I did make 20 dozen cookies, give or take the ones we ate already. I hope you can all find it in your hearts to be understanding.

(If you’re wondering: chocolate chip (half semisweet and half “holiday” chips), almond jam thumbprints and raspberry ribbons in the center.)

Since half of these cookies have jam in them, they can count as breakfast, right? Right!

I love the holidays so much it’s ridiculous.