I’m not hopping on the yarn-diet, buy-no-yarn-in-2007 bandwagon that seems to be making the rounds. Those who are, I know, have their reasons for doing so and I respect those reasons. But I’d like a chance to express my reasons for choosing not to follow along.

First, my stash is just not that big. I don’t have a room for my stash or even a closet — I have several large plastic bins that I store on a bookshelf and in a corner of my dining room. Oh… If I knit nothing but lace and socks and maybe a sweater and a couple of hats, and finished up the projects already on needles, I’d have enough yarn to keep me busy this year and partially into next. About half my stash is sock yarn and I am not adding to that collection right now unless I find some unique fiber or amazing color that I really want to try. I’ve joined the STR sock club this year, so I already know that some lovely yarn will be coming my way.

I am usually thoughtful about my purchases. Not always, but usually. Sometimes the thinking goes very quickly — so quickly that it might appear to be an impulse buy. But I do think and consider and weigh what I already have against the desirability of whatever new thing has caught my eye. Even if I buy impulsively, I have a roof over my head and my bills are paid and I have money in savings and buying a skein of yarn does not take food from my child’s mouth (he feeds himself quite well nowadays, anyway).

I’d rather knit a pretty sweater than buy one.

I have learned the hard way that failure to buy a wonderful yarn when it is available might mean that quantities large enough for the intended project are not available when I get around to starting on it. With colorways and even fibers changing quickly from season to season, it’s sometimes best to strike while the iron is hot if a particular yarn is needed (or wanted).

Most of the yarn I have has already been earmarked for projects, even if those projects have not yet been started. Most often I decide what I’m going to knit and only then start looking for a yarn to knit it from. I’ve also learned the hard way that buying yarn in quantity without the actual project in mind usually means that I don’t buy enough.

We are blessed in Portland buy having probably more local yarn shops per capita than almost anywhere else. Each is a unique shopping experience. All carry wonderful yarns and amazing fibers. Whatever you are looking for, be it acrylic or qiviuk; whatever shopping ambiance you prefer; there is something here for everyone. But our LYS exist only because they are sustained by the yarn needs of Portland area fiber crafters. If we all stopped buying yarn for the next nine months, by October we might find that our choices were fewer and some wonderful local businesses were no more.

I love yarn. All the yarn. I feel that I show admirable restraint by not buying all the yarn – even the yarn I don’t plan to knit with. OK… there are those three balls of pink KidSeta. But that was an aberration. Really. For the most part I am content to stroke and fondle and smell and squeeze and simply visit the yarn without bringing it home.

But I will not feel guilty when I do. 🙂

Yeah. It’s that post. The one where I look back on everything I did last year, bemoan the things I didn’t do, and resolve to get in gear during the coming year.

I actually finished quite a few things:

• 14 pairs of socks
• 7 pair-of-socks bookmarks
• 6 hats
• 1 pair of gloves
• 1 lace shawl

Even if all of the bookmarks are counted as one object, that’s still nearly two finished objects per month. That’s not too bad, if I do say so myself.

The 2006 FO list has been removed from the sidebar, and a new list and new gallery for 2007 have been started. Nothing in them yet, but I’m working on it.

There are unfinished objects over in the sidebar. Sadly enough, a couple of them were unfinished last year at this time. But since both are items that I’d really like to have, I will keep slogging away at them.

This is a bronze Roman key, made sometime in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD (or CE). It was most likely made to fit a small chest or casket that stored valuables.

Who was it that used this key? Did it belong to a woman? The wife of a merchant? The daughter of a general? Did the casket break and the key was thrown away? Was it lost and searched for but never found?

What secrets and treasures did the little chest guard? Jewelry? The spices of the Orient? Important papers? Plots against the emperor? (several of the more interesting ones fall in that time period) Plans for conquering the rest of the known world? A precious book?

Dare I say it… yarn? (ok, ok… I know that knitting hadn’t been invented yet, but spinning and weaving had)

Let’s go back 2000 years and use this key… unlock the chest… peak inside… what do you see?

The key is strung on a chain because I am wearing it as a pendant to remind myself that things that are locked away and hidden may be safe, but they are also not of much immediate use. This year I resolve to look for hidden treasures to be unlocked.

I finished the Noro hat on time for the gift exchange yesterday. The recipient seemed pleased with the gift!

I love Noro. This is Noro Kureyon colorway #159. Look how the stripes just naturally changed at every purl row group, so it looked like I did something really, really hard when in reality I did nothing at all but knit around and around. Magic like that is just too cool.

I used about 1-1/2 skeins. Some of it went towards matching the stripe sequence when the color changed abruptly at a knot as Noro yarns are so fond of doing.

As I said, I love Noro. But really, if one pays that much for a skein of yarn, shouldn’t one reasonably expect that there will be no knots? And if there is a join in the middle of the skein, that the color will at least match? Just saying.

Anyway… 1-1/2 skeins of Kureyon, size US#6 needles, simple beanie pattern, about 4 hours worth of knitting (partly wasted when I didn’t like the top the first time and frogged it out).

Sorry for the really horrible picture. It was dark (naturally) when I finished the hat, and since I had to give it away the next day there was no time for a daylight pic.

Thank you to everyone who commented on the Snake River Socks! I washed them three nights in a row so I could wear them the next day. Yeah… they’re that good. 😉

Of course I have a new pair of socks on the needles. Not much chance of actually finishing any of those UFOs right now. But we’ll see what the holiday vacation brings, eh?

When I say surviving December, I’m not talking about the normal Christmas/Holiday of your choice madness. There’s very little of that at my house, and I’m surviving just fine, thank you very much.

No… I’m talking about just physically surviving what Mother Nature continues to throw at us.

Thursday we had another of those storms of the Decade/Century/a long time, featuring high winds, soaking rains, downed trees, etc. Thursday as I left work and drove towards Tangle for Thursday Night Knitting, I could see transformers going out in the hills above. It looked like the 4th of July, with huge, bright blue and green flashes. I had heard on the radio that a main road near my house was closed because 4 or 5 trees had come down across the road, so I was relatively certain that my power was out. The wind was whipping and tree limbs were coming off around me and things were blowing down the street and the rain was lashing everything and I probably should have been driving straight home, power or no power.

But I needed Noro.

I needed Noro to knit the hat for the gift exchange on Monday. Strangely enough, I have no Noro in my stash. What would you have done, gentle reader?

I dashed into Tangle. Noro in hand, I settled down in a chair to work on the Snake River socks, at that time nearing completion. There were only three of us intrepid knitters there, willing to brave the weather. Every now and then I looked outside to see trees whipping back and forth. But with no power at home (probably) why go there?

But… I have to drive home down tree-lined streets.

At around 8:00 PM I decided I’d better wimp out and head for home, because it might take me a while to get there. It was an interesting drive. Several roads were closed, and some parts of the city went dark as I drove through them. I looked up ahead and couldn’t see the lights on my little mountain, so I knew I was right about my power.

At home, I called the power company:

We are experiencing a power outage in your area. Approximately 5,000 homes are affected. We have received calls from 3,243 locations. Due to the nature of the outage, we do not have an estimate when power will be restored.

I settled down to knit with a flashlight balanced on my shoulder.

There were actually about 500,000 homes across Oregon that lost power. Some people still don’t have it back. I was lucky! It was back by 10:00 PM that night.

The fence came down last night. I think the wind, combined with the alternating freeze/thaw and the huge amount of rain we’ve had the last couple of months just finally did it in. The uprights rotted at ground level. Much of the rest of it is about to come down, too. It’s been there for 10 years. I haven’t talked to my neighbors yet, but we’ll work something out about replacement. The shiny gold bits on the ground in the second picture are what’s left of a reflecting globe I had in the back yard. It’s the only casualty besides the fence. I’m very lucky considering the damage to some homes.

It’s fun to see what people have in their back yards. Whodda thunk my neighbor would have a concrete cherub?

The Snake River Socks are finished. There’s still not much light — we’re having freezing fog right now — and this is the best I can do for pictures. I’m really pleased with the way that these turned out!

The stitch pattern looks really complicated and cable-ish, when in reality it was simple increases and decreases. I love the color, too. And they fit perfectly!

I included the close-up of the heel because I’m quite proud of how it came out. Note how the garter border on the heel flap joins up with the purl stitches in the pattern and the knits stitches sort of flow next to it? Not bad, eh? I was going for sort of a waterfall effect on the heel flap, with the garter stitch representing moss-colored rocks edging the stream. Fitting in with the whole river theme.

I wanted to include a close-up of the ribbing at the top, but neither the camera nor the socks cooperated. Hopefully you can see from the picture how the stitch pattern separates and then rejoins, eventually merging into a 1×1 rib… sort of like a stream rippling over rocks. Or that’s what I was going for, at any rate.

These are going to be on my feet today for sure! And maybe tomorrow and the next day, too!

I’ve started the Noro hat and will try to post a pic tomorrow.

Stay day and warm!

The Snake River socks are progressing up the ankles. No, I have no pictures. Yes, it’s still raining. No, there is no light. It might stop raining briefly this weekend, at which time I will madly snap all kinds of pictures of anything I have knit lately.

Yes, I would like some cheese with that whine.

I just found out that I need to provide a $10 – $15 gift for a gift exchange. I’m thinking that knitting a quick hat (need to have it by Monday) would be much preferable to venturing out into the malls and shopping centers of America amidst crazed shoppers looking for that perfect bargain with only 10 shopping days left before the immovable Christmas deadline. If I use something stripy like Noro it will look a lot harder and more expensive than it was. What do you think, gentle reader? Can this knitter, to whom deadlines have not been kind lately, actually produce something on time?

Since I still have no real knitting content here, I will offer this picture of my lovely and wonderful niece Z at her school’s Christmas program. (She attends a private school so they can still call it a “Christmas Program.”) The kids were all super cute and the program was fun. I’ve sort of missed this kind of thing a bit since #1 Son has grown up and stopped doing school programs.

Lovely Z is in the middle row, 3rd from the left. Bro and Sis-In-Law are rightfully proud of their little girl! (And so am I!)

I’ve tried several time today to take a decent picture of my progress on the Snake River Socks, but I’ve been unable to get decent light all day. Even at work, where I sit next to a window, the gloomy rain, rain, rain has turned my pictures to gray blobs. So you will have to take my word for it that I am up the ankles and on the home stretch. I’m very pleased with the heel. I ripped it out a couple of times before I came up with something that I like. You’ll have to take my word for it that it looks great.

I hate winter. Actually I just hate the gloom. If we could have a bright rain falling from blue skies, I wouldn’t mind at all.

Note that I don’t mind not having snow.

#1 Son, Bro, Sis-in-law, Neice Z and I all went out for dinner last night and then to Christmas With The Trail Band. It’s a holiday tradition for us. The Trail Band, founded by Marv & Rindy Ross (once of Quarterflash) are marvelous musicians and their show always includes wonderful guest performers. I love listening to selections from The Nutcracker performed on glockenspiel and hammered dulcimer (with help from others). One of my favorites this year was an arrangement of Baby, It’s Cold Outside featuring recorder and reed contrabass (think tuba only with keys and a much, much, much lower register). The alphorns were pretty cool, too. One of the performers, Cal Scott, told a story about riding the train during Christmas time.

It reminded me of my own riding the train story, which I offer to you, gentle reader, in lieu of knitting pictures.

I don’t remember what time of year it was. I was very young – maybe 4 or 5 at most. We were traveling by train to the magical world of Disneyland. We were my Mama and Dad, Bro, my cousin Margaret, and myself. Margaret is older than I and must have been about 15 or 16 then. She was along to help with the kids (that would be Bro and I). By train it was an overnight trip, so Mama and Dad had booked accomodations in a Pullman car. There was a really cool pull-down berth, as I recall. And a table the folded out from the wall. I was quite fascinated with it.

These were the days when dining cars were formal, and children of such tender age as Bro and I were not allowed. To this day I’m not sure whether that surprised my parents, or they had counted on it. At any rate, they left us in the compartment with Margaret while they dined in style, and then they brought our dinners back to us on trays.

The little table was unfolded and our dinner layed out, and I knew that I had gone to heaven because dinner included fruit salad. The canned type. And right on top was a whole half of a big maraschino cherry. Canned fruit salad was absolutely my favorite thing in the whole, wide world. I usually had to fight Bro for the cherry — but there was my very own. Right there on top! And not a little piece, either, but a whole half!

I lifted up my spoon to dig in…

The train went around a bend…

All of our dishes slid off the little folding table and on to the floor with a crash and a splash.

And that was the end of my fruit salad.

My parents called for the Porter and the mess was quickly cleaned up. But by the time they went back to the dining car, service was closed. They were gone a long time, or it seemed like a long time, because it took awhile to find someone who was willing to make a couple of sandwiches for hungry kids. We did eventually eat, but there was no more fruit salad to be had anywhere on the train. I was unconsolable. Even the adventure of getting to sleep in the really cool pull-down berth did not assuage my sadness. I mean… I didn’t even get to eat the cherry!

I remember nothing of Disneyland or of the journey back. But I remember watching my fruit salad slide off the table just like it was yesterday.

I do like to journey by train even today. But I hang on to my food now with a tenacity that probably surprises my fellow passengers.