In an earlier blog I mentioned the project I love to hate. Well, now I will talk a bit about my favorite knitting. Well, honestly, all knitting is my favorite for different reasons, but if I had to pick one type….it’s straight stockinette knitting in the round! I have been working on a sweater for myself this summer that really balances out the complicated scarf I am knitting. I especially love stockinette in the round since I taught myself how to “flick” the yarn with my right index finger. I wrote all about it in this post.
I “flick” or throw the yarn holding it on my right index finger. However, my finger doesn’t actually do the flicking. It is all in the wrist as they say!
I came down with Covid two weeks ago and my interest in knitting was ZERO. My head hurt so bad that even watching TV was painful. All I did for 2 days straight was lie in bed with an icepack on my head. The fever and the headache were my main symptoms so doing anything else was out of the question. I didn’t take any photos while I was sick, but the photo below says it all about how I was feeling.
Once I was up to knitting, I was so happy to have my summer sweater to knit. I was at the part of the sweater where you separate out the sleeves and you just knit in stockinette in the round until you get to a certain number of inches from the neckline. It is heaven! My daughter had no symptoms but tested positive so she had to stay at home. We watched endless episodes of The Simpsons while I knit. Other than being sick…it was pretty cool.
Back to car knitting at the rink! Whenever you can, match your nails to your knitting.
I am just about at the end! My daughter is back at the rink (she is a figure skater) and I sit in the car and knit. It is one full hour of uninterrupted knitting. How cool is that? I switched to the smaller needles but forgot to switch back to ribbing because I was just enjoying the stockinette so much. I didn’t make it a full round before I realized it, so no harm done.
Stay tuned for my next post about picking up the sleeve stitches!
Anyone else have Covid recently? I went OVER two years but it finally caught up to me!
Yeah, I just had to add that last part into the title. I couldn’t help myself.
It’s June 13th and we aren’t quite to the start of “official” summer, but I think it is safe to say that we are all in that mindset. I think it took me a while to get into it, but I’m here. The trouble was it was April and I was still wearing long sleeves, North Face Vest, and trailheads hat that has snowflakes on it!
It may have been nice and bright but it was freezing! Well, the temps finally warmed up here in NJ, so the running shorts and tanks and tees have surfaced to the top of my drawer. I especially love my Disney Princess Half Marathon race shirt!
I can only speak about my little part of the world, but it can be cool and sixty degrees one day, and ninety-five with ninety percent humidity the next. No joke! Since I am still nervous about running too much in the streets, I stick to one loop that incorporates a park trail only for runners/walkers/cyclists. I feel I can concentrate more on the road in front of me (as in look for any rocks I may step on) and not worry so much about cars hitting me! I don’t run with headphones anymore but that still caused me to step on a rock, fall, and fracture my ankle back in 2020. I really don’t want that to happen again.
So here’s what I do. I find a good loop in a park setting, and park my car as close as I can to the park. In my trunk I keep a HUGE bottle of water, lip balm, sunscreen, and Nuun tablets. My car becomes my “water/refueling station”. This will become very important as my miles increase this summer. The water is a no brainer. I notice the difference when I drink about 16-20 ounces at my house BEFORE I leave the house.
What do you do to prepare for summer workouts/running?
We all have something that we love to hate. I have recently picked up a very challenging knitting project I took on probably about eight months ago. I did a few of thesescarves to learn cables and gave them away as gifts. They were a hit! I also realized that knitting cables wasn’t so bad, so then I did this hat. It includes twisted stitches too! I was hooked! (that’s a little crochet humor there)
First cable scarf
First cable hat with twisted stitches
I saw Staci over at VeryPinkdo a tutorial for the celtic scarf. How cool is this scarf? Yes, very cool. I decided I wanted to give it a try. Last August we headed out to Hersehy, Pennsylvania for my daughter’s skating competition. I asked my husband if we could stop in Nazareth so I couldKraemer Yarns, the shop that sells the pattern and the yarn for the celtic scarf. He absolutely agreed. My husband is always up for a road trip! Here is a photo outside the shop.
It’s so cute inside and the woman working in the shop was so nice and helpful. I planned to purchase a kit (available on the Kraemer website) for the scarf which includes the pattern and the amount of yarn needed for the project. Unfortunately, she said they didn’t sell kits in the shop but she looked the pattern up for me, told me how many skeins of yarn I would need, and pointed me toward all the beautiful colors available. If you have not checked out Kraemer Yarns, go right now. The link is here. I have used their perfection worsted and their perfection dk (that is the one I am using now for the scarf) and they knit up beautifully. The perfection worsted is the yarn I use in almost all the dog sweaters I have made. I talk about my first dog sweater inthis post.
I didn’t start the scarf right away so it was not completed by Christmas. Even if I did start it upon my return home, it still wouldn’t be completed. To be honest, I am saying a prayer I can finish it by this December. So yes, this has become the project I love to hate. I am sure we all have something in our lives that fit this category. I have messed up these cables SO MANY TIMES, I lost count. This is my third start of the scarf and I decided to use the proactive lifelines Staci suggests in the video. Yes, you should listen to the knitting experts! They know what they are talking about. She even made a mistake while doing the demo and had to pull out some cables. So if she can make a mistake so easily, why would I even think that I would have no trouble. It was actually a teaching moment as she said in the video because you got to see how she “tinked” back the cables. It’s still hard. Like really hard. Cables are twisted so you have to pull them out and get them back in order QUICKLY. (And using dark yarn on dark needles doesn’t help any) If you tug on the yarn too hard, the stitches will drop. Dropped stitches aren’t too big of a deal for standard stockinette, but cables? Yeah, not so easy. I have had to do it once so far and I really hope my friend doesn’t notice. Of course, it’s dark yarn, so there are benefits as well as it hides mistakes better.
Current state of the Celtic Scarf. I use embroidery floss for my lifelines
Back to my trip. So I selected the yarn in the color garnet as shown in the photo above. I wouldn’t say a dark color shows this pattern well, but I want to give this scarf to a friend of my family’s, and this is her favorite color. This woman was done a lot for my family over the years and is the type that appreciates homemade gifts like this.
I also selected perfection worsted in Ivy and made this beautiful cowl for another friend.
The above photo of the celtic scarf is where I am at this moment in time..early June 2022. Let’s see where I am by the end of summer. I think I will post progress photos. That just may keep me motivated.
I have written a lot about why I hate this project, so what could I possibly love? This scarf is no doubt making me a better knitter. Practice is what makes you a better knitter. That’s really what the bottom line is. Last summer really wanted to learn to knit without letting go of the right needle. This is usually called “English style knitting” or “throwing”. I just felt I was wasting so much time. So I sat and practiced “flicking” as I believe it is called. I really wasn’t sure if I could do it. But here I am…flicking with the best of them! So, tinking cables will one day not make me hold my breath…well at least as much. I am also getting so good at reading my knitting. This is by far the best skill you can learn and it honestly just takes practice. So I knit just about everyday. It may only be a row or two, but I always take time to knit. So maybe I don’t hate this project that much….
Questions:
Any projects you love to hate? Or maybe something else?
Finishing a fun knitting project is similar to finishing a good book. You are happy to see the outcome, but deep down feel a little bit sad because it is over. I completed my sixth dog sweater (same pattern as the first five) and it was just as rewarding as the first. I love having a knitting project sitting there just waiting to be picked up. I have mentioned in previous posted that I try not to have too many projects going on at once. I have a big project that can only be done at home (blanket), a complicated project that needs my undivided attention which means no audiobooks, podcasts, etc., and then my favorite- my portable day-to-day project. I saw a sale on Kraemer yarn and I jumped on it and made Jonesy another sweater before the warm weather came. I just couldn’t resist. Go to Kraemer Yarns for the pattern and yarn. The pattern is called Poochie Keen dog sweater and the yarn is perfection worsted.
Thanks to my friend thebellapack I finished the book The Maid by Nita Prose. She is my “goto”when I am need of my next book. It also doesn’t hurt that we are in a book club and she has great suggestions. She had recommended it quite some time ago and it took a while for it to arrive from my library. There was quite the waitlist…but it was worth it! I was reading it while I was knitting the sweater. And I was reading it, not listening to it. This actually worked out well since I didn’t want either to end too quickly.
Now in the back of my mind while knitting this dog sweater I was thinking about what I had planned next. It is a lightweight sweater and I have been dreaming (that might be an exaggeration) since last summer. The pattern is called “Anker’s Summer Shirt” and you can find it on ravelry. I let myself get intimidated by big projects and I know that I shouldn’t. Well, I took the plunge! I went to Close Knit in Midland Park and they helped me choose yarn for this project. They are fantastic there! I go back and forth between them and Yarnia in Montclair. I like to support the LYS! (That’s local yarn store)
I started on the swatch while Jonesy’s sweater was in the washing machine! (BTW- I went to college in Pennsylvania my freshman year and they thought is was funny that I called it a washing machine) So here is the washed and blocked swatch! I think I hit the money on gauge. Phew! I look forward to casting it on! More to come!
Questions:
Do you call it a washing machine or a washer? My Pennsylvania friends found the term “washing machine” funny. They also didn’t say “vacuum cleaner”, they would say “hoover” or “sweeper”.
Are you sad when a good book is coming to an end? Do you star to read slower?
How about knitting? Do you like the start/middle/end of a project? For me it depends on what I am knitting…just like the book.
On December 12th of last year, I started feeling soreness in my right shoulder. By the 14th, I couldn’t lift my arm. I could bend my elbow, but that was it. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have calcification that causes the inflammation. What causes the calcification? Well, it isn’t from too much calcium. It is mostly caused from an imbalance somewhere but it’s tough to really pinpoint where that is. It could be that I am over using my upper trapezius muscle if my lower traps are feeling tight. But this would be something that would be ongoing so that is why it is tough to give true reason why.
I was feeling nervous about going to physical therapy during the pandemic. I was doing all the exercises my doctor prescribed and I definitely saw improvement. But once that improvement stopped and I was still having discomfort, it was time to go see the physical therapist.
One of the first set of exercises I was given was internal/external rotation. I have done these exercises countless times on my pilates reformer. A huge benefit of doing pilates is that it targets the smaller muscle groups…like the rotator cuff. The rotator cuff consists of several muscles. They include the subscapularis, teres minor, supraspinatus, and the infraspinatus. So yeah, there’s bit going on there.
So my PT tied a band to a doorknob, closed the door (so the band was attached to the other side), and handed me the other end along with this rolled up towel that was taped up. It actually looked like an ace bandage that should probably not be unraveled ever again. He told me to put it under my arm as I did the rotation exercises. I had actually learned that you should try to keep your elbow as close to your body as possible. He explained that if you did that, you wouldn’t actually work your rotator muscles as well, so this rolled up towel will help keep my elbow just far enough away from my body and keep it in place so that I can get full use of the muscles. My mind was blown! It’s these revelations that I find so cool that make me think I should have studied something other than English literature when I was in college.
Here is the incorrect way (I am not so great at taking photos of myself exercising, but how can you not resist seeing Jackson taking a snooze in the background! I had to use these photos!):
And here is how my PT had me perform all my internal and external rotation exercises (Jackson continues to sleep. Yes, that is a ladybug Pillow Pet he is using):
I am realizing this post is very similar to the one I wrote about my ego being checked at the door. I do the same exact thing as these types of situations. I do believe my knowledge of exercise helps my physical therapy move along a bit faster, but I considered myself a clean slate when I walk in the door. I am a pilates trainer. Not a doctor, physical therapist, massage therapist, nurse, or any other type of health care provider. And just like everyone else regardless of their professions, I continue to learn.
Well, once again, I did not knit much on vacation. I don’t seem to do much knitting on vacation as I wrote about it here. To be honest, it wasn’t a vacation. My daughter and husband were off from work though, so that was nice. Actually, the week before Christmas my shoulder started hurting. I did the normal things I do to help, but it just got worse. I ended up in so much pain and I wasn’t able to lift my right arm for just over a week. Yes, I couldn’t lift my dominate arm for a week! Even scrolling on my phone was painful!
I finally was able to knit again around the 29th of December. All gifts I was planning are just going to have to wait. Sometimes, that just happens. Friends and family will understand. Right? I did manage to finish this sweater for my neighbor’s dog right before my shoulder acted up.
Just wanted to write this quick post to document my lack of FOs and workout posts during the last month of the 2021. We are in a new year and I have new goals for 2022 so stay tuned!
What are your knitting/fitness goals? I don’t mean 2022, I just mean for January. Baby steps…
I just posted about my latest knitted FO….another dog sweater. Check out the details on my instagram @201pilates
My neighbor has the cutest little Dachshund and I just love the way she looks in sweaters. I purchased several skeins of yarn from Kraemer during their Black Friday/Small Business Saturday sale which included the colors needed to knit Jonesey (that is the name of the Dachshund) a Christmas sweater. While I was waiting for the box to arrive my neighbor came over to me when I was outside and asked if she could pay me to make Jonesey another sweater. Absolutely not! I don’t take money for the the things I knit as I explained in this post. So I had to let the cat out of the bag that I was planning on making her another one anyway!
So What’s the Tuesday Tip? Here it is…
When I knit Jonesey the first sweater (first dog sweater I actually knitted), I used the magic loop method to cast on. Well, I actually tried dpns but wasn’t so successful. You can read about that here. In the tutorial I followed to make the sweater, a Chiagoo set of needles is mentioned for knitting small circumferences. Hmmmmm, I was intrigued but I already have several needle sets for a hobby knitter and I wasn’t sure I would like holding such a small length of circular needles. So here’s my tip if you are unsure about a needle set purchase: Just purchase one size of the needles! Most needle companies offer “singles” of their needle sets. I think even Knitter’s pride offers a combo set of three different sizes in three different needles. Pretty cool. So, I purchased these and they were awesome. Here is a pic of them in action:
They are itty bitty knitting needles for an itty bitty dog sweater. I put the full set on my Christmas list now that I know I love them. What is really cool about the set is it includes two lengths of the same size needles. This way, you can hold the longer needle in your right hand (or I should say dominate hand) and the smaller one in your left so you can obtain a smaller circumference with more cord space. This takes using double pointed needles or magic loop out of the equation. Don’t get me wrong, I actually really like using the magic loop method, but not right at the cast on. Here is a photo without a project so you can see how it works.
You can also attach both longer needles or both shorter needles, but I just like the way this setup feels in my hands. One needle is 2 inches and the other is 3 inches. You also get two cord sizes: 5 inches and 6 inches. This means you can make 9 inch, 10 inch, 11 inch, and 12 inch circulars with this set!!! I see more mitten, glove and maybe even sock knitting in my future!
Ok, ok, I am not trying to sound mean about the above title. I am writing this post because it is now “officially” the Christmas season. (My husband has all sorts of rules about when seasons begin and end. It deserves a post of its very own.) So many of us “crafty people” have stepped it up into high gear. Trust me, we have been “in gear” since the summer, but now we are working on finishing and fine tuning any last minute gifts we want to make/knit/create, etc. Well, I am anyway. Remember I am a complete amateur.
Summer knitting!
I would honestly only call myself an advanced beginner knitter that dabbles in some intermediate projects. But just dabbles. My favorite item to knit are hats and when people see my latest I get the following comment “You really should open an Etsy shop”. Yeah, that would be nice but let’s think this through. Now I am not saying NEVER, but the chances are low. Let’s do some math.
First, I am a SLOW knitter, so those cute items I post take some time. So think about how much money YOU make in an hour and now multiply that by a few hours. OK, now, I also don’t like to use cheap yarn. There is nothing wrong with using big box craft store yarn, but I love the way merino wool feels in my hands when I am knitting. Now add that all up. So when you see a hat for $40 and say “Oh I can get this at (insert name of store) for a quarter of the price, I die a little inside. Now I know there are people that really do appreciate something hand made and prefer to support a small business, and I am one of those people too! But I am just not sure that the things I make will come off well over a website. You can’t feel how soft my double-cuff hat is because I used a cashmere blend yarn! I am also not sure I want to give up my hobby. Read on…
So soft wool/cashmere blend hat!
There is also another part to this. Sometimes a hobby is just that..a hobby. I recently listened to a podcast that interviewed Brigid Schulte. She is the author of “Overwhelmed: Work. Love, and Play When No One has the Time”. Her book was inspired by a New York Times article titled “The Case for Having a Hobby”. I admit, I haven’t read the article because I do not have a subscription, but I would like to read her book. She talks about how people don’t really have hobbies anymore, Here is the first paragraph describing her book:
According to the Leisure Studies Department at the University of Iowa, true leisure is “that place in which we realize our humanity.” If that’s true, argues Brigid Schulte, then we’re doing dangerously little realizing of our humanity. In Overwhelmed, Schulte, a staff writer for The Washington Post, asks: Are our brains, our partners, our culture, and our bosses making it impossible for us to experience anything but “contaminated time?”
Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time by Brigid Schulte
Does that make sense? If not, check out this article here. Knitting (or insert hobby here) can go down that slippery slope where it is no longer my meditation but my stress. I like to make gifts for people and if someone asks me to make a pair a mittens or a dog sweater, I am more than happy to oblige. I just don’t know if this “hobby” is ready to take off into something else. Maybe sooner or later it will but I think I need to take a hard look at myself and see if I am ready mentally to take that step. There is a line in the article I link to that says once you start making money at something, it is no longer a hobby. Truth.
Pilates teaser! One of my faves!
Let’s not forget, I actually DID turn a hobby into a an actual income producing activity. I teach pilates!!!!! When I started I had no intention of teaching. It took a few years for that to settle in and expanded to teaching many fitness formats. But I admit, (pre-pandemic) I would quietly join different studios so I could be “anonymous”. No one was trying to follow me or match my form. I was able to do my own workout without having to think about what was coming next or if someone was watching me to be the “example”. In that moment, I was able to enjoy my “hobby”. But these moments are few and far between and I accept that. Teaching fitness has become such a part of who I am today and it is in fact, a job. I prep for ALL of my classes. I have lists of exercises sorted by muscle group and tagged by level. I am not going to lie, it’s a lot of work. My prep time is on my dime and that’s fine with me because I love it, but I treat it like a job. Just because I treat it as such, doesn’t mean it isn’t a passion. It absolutely is. I STILL get butterflies in my stomach before I teach a class. I believe the day that no longer happens is the day I should stop teaching.
So, will knitting take on a new life of it’s own. I guess time will tell.
I learned this early on during my fitness teaching career. My IT (instructor trainer) for pilates explained how she always checks her ego at the door because instructors need correction and cueing too! Whether we are taking a class or at an instructor workshop, we can always learn just like in any other career. We don’t see ourselves when we are doing a plank (even with a mirror because if you turn to look you put your neck out of alignment which could change the rest of your spine) so we can be crooked or hiking our shoulders in our ears. How many times has an instructor told you to relax your shoulders? Did you intend to hike your shoulders? Of course not, you didn’t even realize you were doing it. Same goes for the instructors. We need those reminders just like everyone else. But it isn’t just about correcting, it can be about anything.
It’s been well over a year since I have taught in person so I am still getting my groove back. I’m nervous, self-conscious, and worried I am going to slip up or just blank. In other words, I have a lot of nervous energy while I am teaching right now and my ego is very fragile. Here’s what happened the other day to inspire this post.
I introduced myself to a member and asked her name. She replied and we chatted for a minute or two about how we liked doing early workouts to begin our days (I am teaching the 6 and 7 AM classes right now). I told how much a pleasure it was to have her in class and thanked her for attending. I arrive home later in the morning and check my email. There is a message that just a half hour after I chatted with her she cancelled her class with me for the following day. (Note: I need to opt out of the option that I can see who books and cancels) I IMMEDIATELY took it personally. I said to myself that she met me, arrived at work, and cancelled the next class she had booked with me as the trainer. Of course she must have hated my class. What other explanation could there be?
Umm, Crissy? There could be several explanations. Yup, eventually my inner voice kicked in and reminded me about checking my ego at the door. I then had to tell myself: She could have arrived at work and found out she had an early meeting. She could have looked at her calendar and realized she had a conflicting appointment. She could have just decided, you know, I want to sleep in tomorrow.
This is just one example. I have had members tell me before class that they need to leave early for various reasons. I do appreciate it when they do it (not because of ego) because I know that they are Ok and aren’t heading to the ER right after my class. But seriously, everyone has a life outside of my class and I realize that. They have jobs, kids, significant others, and just their own well being to think about.
Oh, and that member ended up re-booking the class the following day.
I am going to hold off on showing the “bad sides” until I do some repairing. I think I can fix some of my mistakes and I would like to write a separate post about how I did that.
The title of this blog is the EXACT reason I love and appreciate knitting. I honestly didn’t realize it at the time. I wrote about all the reasons why I started knitting here, but today’s post is why I appreciate it so much. That other post is about why I started knitting, and today’s is about why I continue.
No, the MTM was not a complete failure. It still resembles a hat and will still get worn (by someone) someday. It didn’t turn out how I expected, and you know what, that’s OK. And there it is. This hat I wanted so badly to knit did NOT turn out as I hoped. It doesn’t look anything like the model’s on the pattern’s page and even with all my repairs, it still won’t.
When things like this happen in my knitting (or in life) I recall this podcast interview where the founder of Fibre Forward talked about how she learned to knit just after her divorce. She explained how it gave her an outlet to experiment with new things…..and fail, and see how the world didn’t come to an end! I am probably not doing her comment justice, but the root I am getting to is how knitting has been such a tool to manage my stress and anxiety. Some of my projects will come out lovely, and some, not so much. Knitting is a creative art. We need to try new methods and techniques out and see where they take us.
Photo taken pre-Covid.
I still tag my knitting photos with #pandemicknitting because we are not out of the woods yet with Covid-19. I foresee many beautiful and botched FOs in my future and I will learn something new with each and every one. If you feel like knitting may help you calm down or relieve stress, please do get in touch with me. Contrary to what some people believe, you don’t have to open up an Etsy shop just because you knit a cute hat. It’s not that kind of pressure…but be warned, you may want to knit a matching cowl!
Sit-ups and Stitches 