Stripe Study and Other Business.

I finished my Stripe Study shawl sometime in mid-April, and here it is nearly Memorial Day. How does that happen? All the deets are on Ravelry. This was wonderful to knit. Simple, forgiving, and oddly compelling (one more stripe…). Better yet, it is wonderful to wear. The asymmetric shape lends a modern feel. The only reason this is not an ideal knit is the need to juggle two balls of yarn.

I started a second one, this time using three colors. I still have a ton of the green Ultra Alpaca Fine, and I’m making do with the rest. The only drawback is that with more than one contrast color you can’t really carry the strand up the side. This means ends to weave in.

In other news, it’s spring! Hasn’t it been glorious? The migratory birds have already been through. Orioles, rose breasted grosbeaks, indigo buntings. So cool. We hiked the other day at a park a bit further north, and we saw a bobolink. They are native to Wisconsin but I don’t recall ever having seen one. We got our annuals and vegetable patch and basil planted over the weekend. I did some major deck sitting. All good stuff.

Hope you have a good Monday!

Spring Socks.

The weather has been wacky, but it is still cool enough for hand knit socks. Finished this pair this morning (yes, there are two, but I managed to lose the photo showing both). This is your basic 64 stitch cuff down sock, knit in broken rib, with a slip stitch flap heel. The yarn is Trekking XXL. I have a crap ton left, as I always do after knitting two socks.

I have another ball of the same, in crazy springy colors, ready to cast on in my quest to keep the sock drawer topped up.

My last post never hit google reader. We shall see what happens with this one. Hope you all had a nice weekend!

Stand up!

You have probably seen this scary infographic at some point in recent history. It depicts the extreme toll on our health taken by sitting all day. This is true even for regular exercisers. The ugliest statistic: Sitting six or more hours per day increases your risk of dying within 15 years by 40%.

Ouch.

I sit. I get paid to sit. I sit at a desk or computer when I am not sitting in meetings. I sit at lunch. I sit in my car. I sit in my comfy chair in the evenings. I knit. Therefore… I sit.

Yes, I exercise. But apparently that doesn’t count because … I sit. A lot.

I shared that I have been having some low back problems. I don’t believe these issues are as related to doing mountain climbers and burpees in boot camp as they are to sitting. Sitting shortens your hamstrings, freezes up your hip flexers, and does who knows what else to other muscles involved in pelvic stability and core strength. Sitting is bad sh#t, people.

I’ve been thinking about how I can sit less, move more, and try to counteract 20 years or more of being a desk potato. Here are some ideas. I’d love to hear yours, too.

1. Arrange your space so you can work standing up. In my office, I have an adjustable height computer table that I can raise to standing height by pushing a button. I try, I really try, to stand at the computer for part of every day. On a good day, I do all my computer work standing, but that doesn’t happen often enough.

2. I also have a lectern that allows me to read standing up. I don’t do this very frequently, because, well, I’m lazy. But I can and I should. My wireless headset also allows me to walk around my office when I’m on the phone. Another thing I don’t do enough.

3. A friend loaned me something called a dyna disc to sit on while at my desk. It mimics the act of sitting on a Swiss Ball, which is not really feasible in an office environment (as Dwight Shrute learned when he attempted it) and forces you to keep your core stable. It really helps with my back pain and I do use this almost all day.

4. Stretch. I take a lot of stretch breaks and it really does make me feel better. Yoga helps, too.

5. Take walk breaks. Duh. But do I do this? Not so much.

Any other ideas??

Enjoy your Wednesday, everyone.

WIP Wednesday

This is the Stripe Study in progress as of a few days ago. I did take out my initial effort and restart it using a garter tab cast on and kfb increases rather than the M1s called for. It seems much tidier to my eye now. I agree with the masses who have declared this a very compelling knit. There’s enough going on to be interesting but not so much that you can’t have part of your brain somewhere else.

My colors are subtle, and I’m thinking I’d like to add one carefully placed two row stripe in a very bright yellow or poison green. I’m hoping one of my friends with sock yarn issues might have a few yards of scrap yarn to help me with that.

That’s all from here. Does anyone else feel like this week is crawling?

Fashion Friday.

When my girls were younger, we watched What Not to Wear every Friday night. Then, I soaked in many of the sensibilities embraced by Stacey and Clinton. Things like, a heel and a slightly pointed toe in a shoe make your legs look longer. Pants that taper at the ankle make you look like an ice cream cone (and not in a good way). Fitted clothing makes you look thinner; wearing a sack adds pounds (which seems counterintuitive to many).

I haven’t kept up with the show lately, but I religiously follow Corporette, and I also enjoy several other fashion blogs, including faux fuchsia , extra petite, and amid privilege.

These bloggers vary widely in age, size, personal syle, and background. What they have in common is knowing very definitely what they like and what works for them. They all look great.

I would love to have the time, money, and expertise to create my own perfectly curated wardrobe. I don’t. But since I started paying attention to this stuff, I have become much more thoughtful and careful about my clothing purchases, and I have developed a core battery of items that I would say characterize my personal style. I thought I would share some of those things today, and another time I will share my personal list of fashion “dont’s.”

Cardigans. Store-bought. Hand knit. Cashmere. Cotton. Black, print, brightly hued. I love cardigans and I wear them all the time. I buy them in multiples when I find a brand I like.

Tanks and camis. To wear under all those cardis. I also like them under jackets.

Pencil skirts. Classic, unobtrusive, and well fitting. Love them with tights and boots in winter or a pump in summer.

Pant suits. Not much to say here, other than that I prefer a pant suit to a skirt suit. Most of mine are from Ann Taylor. Single breasted, dark neutral tones.

Pearls. Some real, mostly faux. I have a choker, a long strand, a triple strand, and a bracelet, as well as some necklaces that incorporate pearls with other materials. I wear them nearly every day.

Earrings. I am not dressed unless I’m wearing earrings. I like dangly, arty ones, almost always in silver I don’t match them to my other jewelry.

Shawls and scarves. I wear a lot of black, so my brightly colored hand knit shawls, as well as various scarves I’ve collected, add a nice splash.

I shall stop here. Tell me, what clothing or accessory defines your style?

Ten Minutes is Not Enough.

- I don’t know how to do bullets on the iPad app. Jumping on the bandwagon anyway.

- The weather here has been very warm. I’m worried because everything is budding and will inevitably freeze when the weather returns to its senses.

- I started my Stripe Study shawl using the blue color for the stripes. That was the right decision, but I’m going to rip back anyway now that I have a feel for the shaping. The pattern says to start with a regular cast on, which never looks great in a triangular shawl. I’m going to try a garter tab. Also, the M1 increases don’t look nice to my eye. In a forum, the designer suggested just doing kfb, which I think would flow more nicely.

- A small group of friends has started meeting most Monday evenings to knit. I find this is a great time to do tasks I dislike, like casting on a lot of stitches.

- I understand that WordPress is doing unfriendly things like making people log in to comment. That is seriously annoying and I understand if you don’t want to deal with it. Also, they started running ads visible only to those people who are not logged in. That seems counterintuitive. I’m not enough of a blogger to change platforms, so I hope you will bear with it all.

- I have a meeting to attend this evening, of the “we are all volunteers but we are going to use your time inefficiently and meet for the sake of meeting because most of us don’t have anywhere to go during the day” ilk. That is probably not charitable of me but it is nonetheless how I feel. Point is, I am going to be brave and knit during the meeting. Should I even feel guilty about this? Please advise.

Happy spring!

Anticipation.

Is there anything better than a brand new project? I just wound the yarn for Stripe Study. I’ve got a skein of Sun Valley Fibers MCN in Midnight, and a skein of Ultra Alpaca Lite in a nice saturated green with no name. And a Sunday afternoon.

I haven’t decided which color I want to use as the main color (of which one actually uses less in this pattern). I’d like to maximize knitting with the MCN, because it is so decadent, but I have slightly less of it than the other. I guess I’ll make a decision when I cast on.

I’ll let you know. Enjoy your day!