Stuck in the middle with you...

Things I am in the middle of...
1. The great chocolate chip cookie adventure.  Remaking all of these recipes to document and photograph.
2. Finishing the dining room.  I painted months ago, am about to get a new china cabinet, an old dining room set, and need to hang all the gorgeous food photos I bought from smitten kitchen. 
3. Three different knitting projects.  (I know, craft dork comments welcome.)  Two scarves, because you never know when you may need a scarf as a present come Christmas time, and another R2D2 knit hat for Adam Science.  He said he'd wear it.  I'm calling his bluff.  Will the high school kids he works with even know Star Wars? 
4. Perfecting my coaching/feedback class at work.  I just don't know if it's effective enough.
5. Updating my resume.  Because, you never know when you may need it.
6. Cleaning my apartment.  Ha.  This is one really pretty funny.  I'm always in the middle of cleaning my apartment.  I hate to break it to myself, but I think I'm a messy person. 
7. Becoming a person who can complete a 5K!!  I'm getting closer!  Keith (the name I've given my running iphone app) has me up to running a full 20 minutes.  I think Keith is crazy. 

Send me some "How about you finish something, Sarah!" thoughts please.

Finishing the hat

From Sorkin to Sondheim - the post subject refers to the Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George, which is the story of Georges Seurat. During this song Georges girlfriend is leaving him because he is engrossed in his work, and not enough in her. As she is talking about why she is leaving, he is focused on this painting and ends the song:

"Finishing a hat...

Starting on a hat..

Finishing a hat...

Look, I made a hat...

Where there never was a hat"

While I'm certainly not comparing myself to Georges Seurat and his art in any way, I have been engrossed in a hat of my own recently. I've mentioned previously that I'm working on an R2D2 knit hat for a friend. Just a little over a year ago, I said casually in passing that I think I would like to learn to knit and the next day received a link to instruction on how to knit a hat that looks like the top of R2D2's head. I'm not sure I had any real intention of following up on learning to knit, but now I had a reason to. I was unemployed at the time and anyone who motivated me to fill the time (in a way that wasn't sitting around and watching Gilmore Girls - not that there's anything wrong with that) I thought deserved what they asked for. I took a 4 week knitting class and started on the hat.

This hat has brought me nothing but pain and suffering. Sure, several good lessons were learned the hard way. That doesn't make it okay that I've had to start this thing 3 times. Here's a picture of all three (all three and my cat who was poking around them) :

Let me take you on a little tour of hats. On your far left is the first one I tried. The idea of stitching all the blue boxes on after it was knitted didn't sound like much fun, so I tried a more advanced knitting technique called stranded knitting where you carry both colors around the hat. (Do I sound like the giantest craft dork right now?) That was complicated, and I'm fairly sure I was doing it incorrectly, but I got through it. Now, when it came to starting to shape the dome there was a stitch I hadn't learned. I watched some You Tube videos, thought I had a hand on it and started the decreases. After two rows, I realized I had read the pattern incorrectly and had done way too many of the new stitch. I was supposed to do one of those stitches every 12 or something and I had done it continuously. I thought perhaps I could just pull out the two rows and re-insert my needles and pick right back up where I had left off, but I'm just not that good. Dang it. Starting over.

Using the same pattern, I start again (see middle hat), this time not using the stranded method and resigned to having to double stitch all the blue boxes. I get to the dome part and follow the directions, for the most part. I think I lost count somewhere, but it all came together. Except, when I looked at it, there were funny points in strange places and kind of a hole where it didn't all come together at the top. I just didn't feel it was acceptable.

I start again. Why I'm so determined to do this so well, I'm not really sure. The friend this is for is, much like this hat has been, kind of a pain in my ass. But, now, this is for me. I just want to do it. I go back to the internet and search for a different pattern. I decide it's the pattern that's cursed, not me and my skill, or lack thereof. I find this one and decide this is the one that will make it happen. Thanks to Megan for posting this pattern with lots of great pictures. I finish the actual hat in just a couple of days and now have to start the double stitching, adding the main detail around the middle of the hat. I pull the hat out of my knitting bag and go to it. After about three boxes I think, "Man, this one came out lumpier than I thought." And then in a flash of pure idiocy where you have no one to blame but yourself, I realize I had pulled hat #2 out of the bag and started stitching the detail on the wrong hat. Double Dang It.

I sigh. I pull the correct hat out. I start the stitching. I think to myself again how much this hat, and now the friend who requested it, are becoming more and more similar.

Double stitching takes longer than I would like it to. I finish. Just this morning actually.

(please ignore my totally messy hair)

And so it is complete. With the exception of four stitches I have to add in red. But I don't have any red yarn at this time.

The Crackpots and These Women

Wednesday night is Knitting and Tea night at my new favorite cozy place - the London Tea Room on Washington Avenue. You should go read their website - read through the menu and the tea information - not only to get information - but because some of the cheekiest humor is woven throughout the site. It made the place even more attractive to me. (I was first attracted because they have scones and tea - enough said.)

Once a month they've stayed open a little later and invited knitters into the shop to sit and knit and sip. I went last month and it was a really lovely night. I'm currently working on a project that requires some helpful hints from more experienced knitters than I.

If you're just not sure what that is - it's the start of an R2D2 knit hat. Yes, I know. It's pretty dorky. It was a request and since there's really not a lot of knitted projects that I want to take on (I never want to knit myself a poncho or a purse - I am not Ugly Betty) I say yes to anyone who asks for a scarf or a hat. And I like the challenge that this hat is providing - knitting with two colors of yarn is tricky.

So, tomorrow I will sit, sip, knit and ask questions of some strangers doing the same.