Guys and knitting

When I first started traveling it was fun and exciting.  Then as the months went on it was still interesting, but there was rather more sitting around in the airport than I would have liked.  At first, to keep myself occupied at the airport I chatted with my co-workers, did work on my laptop, read books and magazines and listened to my iPod.  Then, for my birthday, my sister got me a gift certificate to a yarn store and I started the Lizard Ridge afghan.  All of a sudden I was obsessed with knitting and I had a nice portable project.  I held out as long as I could before breaking out the kitting in front of my - all male - co-workers, but I finally gave in and braced myself for the ridicule.  To my surprise I got stares of curiosity instead of jibes about arts and crafts.  They're nice guys, and they weren't likely to actually be mean, but I was at least expecting to be teased.  Since then, the overwhelming response to my knitting has been just that: unabashed interest.  And requests for knitted stuff.

24 colorful squares

I've been knitting away since March and I finally finished the 24 squares for the Lizard Ridge afghan a few weeks ago. That seemed like the hard part, but they knit up fairly quickly and were very satisfying to work on. Step two was to clear off the dining room table and lay them all out so that I could decide how to arrange all the squares.


You'll notice that the squares still have their egg crate like bumps - there is a reason for that. Todd was very excited about this pattern, especially the bumpy texture and was supremely disappointed when I told him that they were supposed to be blocked flat. So as a concession to someone who has been very supportive of my time expensive and obsessive hobby I'm leaving the bumps in.

Step 3, sewing them all together has taken longer than hoped for. I'd been carrying around three of the squares and a book on finishing techniques in the hopes of getting some free time to develop a good technique for nice flat seams but hadn't gotten around to it until last night. Unfortunately I didn't quite line them up right so I had to take out the one seam I'd finally managed to do. Sort of makes me wish I'd done the continuous, one color version. Maybe one of these days I will. One of the great things about doing the squares in as many colors as I could get my hands on is that now I know what all the balls look like all knitted up. In fact I discovered that despite the lots of different colors approach I'd ended up with 5 squares of the same color. I seem to have played favorites. I think if I made another Lizard Ridge afghan I know what color I'd use.

The colors I used were: 134, 147, 148, 154 (2), 159, 163, 166, 170 (3), 178, 180 (3), 183, 185.

I made up my own sock pattern

For my birthday last year my sister encouraged my yarn hoarding habit by giving me a gift certificate to Knit NY. I waited as long as I could in a vain attempt to make a dent in the yarn that I already had. Soon after we moved, I gave a wicker basket back to my parents and as we were emptying it out Todd discovered just how much yarn I'd managed accumulate. Needless to say he was not as excited about my gift as I was, but when a high school friend and fellow knitting enthusiast came to visit I decided to give in and spent it.
One of the greatest things about yarn and knitting stores is that there are tons of knitted samples so you can see how the yarns knit up and how the patterns turn out. This is a little different compulsion that causes knitters to download or print way more patterns than they'll ever be able to knit. I succumbed to the allure of a beautiful multicolored afghan that I'd seen in on Knitty.com and picked out several balls of Noro Kureyon. Then as we commandeered Todd's computer to look up yet more knitting related stuff and I suggested that he pick out some yarn so that I could make him some socks.

The yarn, a rich single ply red yarn was complimented by a multi-ply tan yarn suggested by the woman working at the store a complimentary for stronger toes and heels. To take the best advantage of the red I knitted the socks from the toe up and then knitted the socks up until I ran out of the red. The trickiest part was the cuffs because I had to strike the right balance between being tight enough to stay up and being loose enough to be comfortable - oh and they still needed to look good, even when not worn. This is how they turned out:

I made it!

I finally got in to the office now: with 38 minutes left to the business day. Which is why I'm not even bothering to try to get anything substantial done. I'm just doing the little odds and ends like expenses and sifting through the drifts of email that have accumulated since yesterday. Now that I'm actually back in New York the whole adventure doesn't seem too bad, but when I got up this morning and discovered that the new flight was already two hours delayed I was prepared for the worst. Kudos to Christy the the customer service rep at Continental who was extremely nice and helpful and even got me a first class seat. Did you know that they offer Twix and Ruffles potato chips instead of those dinky bags of peanuts and pretzels? I did get some funny looks for breaking out my knitting in the airport but I made friends with this nice lady from Chicago so I have to say that it is an excellent conversation starter. I'm very glad that you can now bring knitting needles on the plane and I now have the toes of two socks started! Flights go very quickly when you are knitting away. Well, maybe the cushy leather seat helped too.

It only gets better....

Did I write delayed? I mean cancelled. Ack. Better yet there don't seem to be any seats on the flight tomorrow morning either.

The Beginning!

I'm stuck in the airport with horror movie quality storms crashing down outside, my flight is delayed from has been delayed from 7:40 p.m. to 11:55 p.m., so I figured this would be a good time to start a blog. Why not?

Business travel is exciting the first few dozen trips or so, but now, after 12 months of delayed flights, it is getting to be a drag. It wouldn't be so bad if the flight were ever on time or if the only flight home wasn't so late to begin with.

I have a good book (The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde), a new knitting project (Entrelac Socks by Eunny Jang from the Spring 2007 Interweave Knits), a lap top with plenty of work, and an iPod full of podcasts (NPR Selected Shorts) but I'd still rather be at home.