It struck me today that I will not have enough yarn for this sweater I'm planning. I have about 1,500 yards and knit on size 3 needles, with my long torso and the tons of ribbing I'm going to do (on size two needles), it will not go far.

That was enough to get me from zero to psycho in about three seconds flat. I called the original yarn shop I bought the yarn from and proceeded to go into a rambling, muttering, scary conversation with the poor clerk.

"Well, you see, I'm making a sweater. And it's going to be long. With a shawl collar? So I need more Jaeger Trinity (because she already knew what yarn I was talking about?). Do you have anymore? {We have one ball} One ball? Oh god. Oh god. Ok, that brings me up to, uh, about 1,700 yards. Maybe 1,800. Haha, I'm bad at math, you know? Anyway, do you think it will be enough? It will have long sleeves. {Uh, it's about 1,744 yards} Have you worked with Trinity before? I'm going to use size 3 needles. You know, for the stretch factor. {Well, in fact, I've used it for one project...} OK, so you know. Do you think that much yardage will work for me? I mean, it's going to be a lot of ribbing."

And on and on and on. Hopefully I'm not the first neurotic, terrified customer she's talked to, but I dunno, I think my reputation at Stitch DC is ruined forever. At least they're going to hold on to that lone ball of yarn for me.

People. I am a wreck right now. I've called at least 8 yarn shops in the Northern Virginia area (just imagine the above conversation repeated 8 times). Everyone is sold out. I'm this close to calling the distributor. (BTW, the lovely man at Hunt Country Yarns is an awesome enabler and gave me the number and some tips on how to get the information I need from them. Very helpful, and it will definitely influence my yarn shop choices in the future. Why can't they all be this nice?)

One place has more than one ball. Aylins Woolgatherer has two balls. So this afternoon I'll be driving all over the DC metro area for three little balls of yarn.

Ok, confession time. If you can't already tell, running out of yarn is my number one knitting phobia. *The* number one.

I am going to try to make a sweater. I know that it's a symptom of insanity to repeat the same action over and over again and expect a different result, but I've never made any claims to sanity before, so. Sweater Time.

I own a rather psychotic number of How to Knit/Design/Make Mo' Bettah books (again with the references to how crazy I am) and they all say that it's a good idea to measure sweaters that you already own so you can gauge what kind of ease you would like. After a more failed sweaters than I care to admit, a light bulb went off in my head and I thought to myself, "Hey! It would be a great idea to measure up some of my sweaters!" Brilliant, aren't I?

The books all say that 2" of ease will give you a form fitting sweater. That's cool. I'm a pleasingly plump hourglass figure and form fitting works well on me (BoYz LiEk TitZ). I'm also 38" around "that area" so doing the math I come to the sum of 40" and I am a genius! No. Not so much. Back to that second paragraph where I did the measuring.

All of my sweaters measure 34". How can this be? I've heard of "negative ease" and it makes sense to me, but all. of. them?

Guys. Does this mean I'm tarty? Mutton dressed as lamb? 10 pounds of flour in a five pound bag?

So do I make a sweater with negative ease? What if said sweater is made using Jaeger Trinity, comprised of 40% silk, 35% cotton, 25% polyamide fibre and looks good knit on size 3 needles at a gauge of 25 sts and 37 rows with plenty of that crazy stretch that only cotton and silk can give you? You know the kind, by the end of the day your sweater looks more like a peanut sack.

What if said sweater was going to be more on the self-designed side? With a square neckline, shawl collar, picked up sleeves with short row sleevecaps and lots of short rows in the boob area? And is knit by a person on lots of pain medication who disregards the "do not consume alcoholic beverages" sticker?

Should I include some clever buckles in the back so the nice men in white uniforms can easily restrain me for my ride in the padded van?

Sure, they look well enough, just a pair of fingerless gloves knit from Weekend Knitting.

My one spot of natural light in the Apartment of Darkness

But the devil is in the details. In this case, the yarn. Elspeth Lavold Silky Wool is a terrible choice for working gloves, especially at the gauge specified in the pattern. Now, I love me some Silky Wool, but these gloves are very thin and very delicate. Great for a sweater, but only providing hand decoration and no hand protection. Something was wrong in how I knit them, too. There are some gaps and badly done Ktogs. Sloppy! (And sadly, typical.)

Oh well, from a distance they're fine and it's not like I'm going to be out shoveling snow with these. They were fast, too. Oh, and I should add, I mainly knit these to prove to myself that I could knit gloves* since up until now I've only ever done the Glove-esque Tube With Thumb Gusset. So yay me!

Gimme stuff!

*Yes, I know, these are still fingertip-less. I could have gone all the way if I wanted! For reals! 

Thank you all for the nice comments on my last entry. What can I say, I've had some great, uh, "material" to draw from.

It's Friday, everybody! My favorite day! The last day of work before two (or sometimes three!!!) days of doing nothing! In fact, I've made plans to spend time perfecting this whole zen exercise thing I do. I call it, "Lying on the couch, watching TV horizontally." It brings me much inner peace.

Friday nights, however, make me a little melancholy. You see, *sigh* I've been reminiscing about my friends back in Minneapolis. What times we had! I remember in my golden youth, when I had endless energy for drinking and rubbing up against hot gay men, followed by some greasy breakfast at 4:00 AM in a diner I'd never eat in sober. Nowadays it's a real party if we make it to dinner AND a movie, with another couple no less! Maybe I'm like a superhero and I draw my strength from hot gay men. I'm like, Super Hag, or something. My weakness is really strong cocktails served by shirtless bartenders who tend to ignore me.

Tonight, however, is Movie Night with The Chicas. Though I'm pretty sure it's not going to be set in a deafening club, and I'm almost certain I'm not going to be served gray sausages wrapped in bacon at the end of it (how I wish, though), we are definitely going to have so so so much fun. I'm bringing tonight's featured entertainment, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, and you KNOW we are going to eviscerate this film! Mystery Science Theater 3000 has nothing on one drunk Kim!

Enjoy your weekend, everybody, and don't forget about that zen exercise I told you about. Really, it works wonders!

1. Knitting will not build a crazy shrine to you.
    a. Unless you want it to. Then knitting will go all out, using scraps of clothing you left behind, making garlands out of your hair (which is really why you should always clean your hairbrushes) and purchasing pure white candles. Pure like your pure, pure love that knitting truly regrets losing! Can't you see that knitting has changed? That knitting really means it that things can work out? Look! Knitting has kept the room you last slept in exactly the way you left it when you left knitting two years ago! Come baaaaaaaaaaaack!

2. Knitting will never grab a handful of your thigh fat and give you "the look." Knitting will just rest there, lovingly, happy to be with you no matter how big your thigh is.

3. Knitting is not shy, is happy to be included in the conversation, but also knows when it's not appropriate for the spotlight to be on them. Knitting understands when it's time to go back in the bag. Knitting would never dream of hogging everyone's attention. Unlike some ex's I know. Who should either a) just stop or, b) get some new material because we've heard all your jokes and stories a million times and haven't you noticed that we stopped laughing months ago?

4. Your friends and family all love knitting. "Where's your knitting?" they always say. If they haven't seen knitting for a while, they grow concerned. "Something's wrong, we haven't seen any sign of knitting for a long time." This is usually when you confess that you only have six months to live and you are too busy sorting your stash to knit.

5. Knitting loves all the activities that you love. You like to travel? Why, so does knitting! Knitting will travel with you! Wanna see a ball game? So does knitting! Want to sit on the couch, drinking beer and staring at the television 364 days out of the year *raises hand*? Guess who else does? KNITTING! Knitting also enjoys fine dining and walks on the beach, unlike everybody else.

6. Jealousy is a foreign concept to knitting. Knitting understands completely that there will be other hobbies and interests in your life. I mean, you existed before you discovered knitting, right? Even if you and knitting have been together a long time, you're not freaking Siamese twins, for god's sake, you're different people. You're allowed to have different friends. You can see whoever you want, OKAY?! JUST BACK OFF. Oh, oops, sorry. I may have projected some previous anger there. I know you understand, knitting. That's why I love you.

7. You know you think about knitting all the time. You know what? Knitting is also thinking about YOU all the time. In a good way. Isn't that wonderful? Mutual obsession. It brings a tear to my eye. 

8. You can hate knitting. If things with knitting don't work out, you can scream at it, bitch, moan, gossip about it. Shove it in a dark place and forget about it. Neglect it. Then, you can rip it out and start all over again. Show me an ex that will let you do THAT to them! No, wait, don't. I want to eat sometime in the future.

9. Like some of your exes, knitting doesn't spend any money on you. Unlike some of your exes, knitting provides so much emotional enrichment and psychological satisfaction, you don't care. You gladly go into debt for knitting.

10. Knitting probably won't blog about you behind your back. But you can blog about knitting all you want! Knitting encourages this!