Random Knitting Thoughts

I took Picovoli and the coordinating knitting bag to a kid-thing yesterday. I was so impressed with myself -- I was going to sit in the background, knitting away, looking coordinated even though I didn't attempt to match my clothing to the knitting and bag (mostly because I didn't think of it until just now). The other moms were going to be So Impressed.

When I got there and pulled out my knitting I realized that I had lost my beginning-of-row marker some time in the last 34 rows of knitting. And, since it was time to place new markers based on the position of that marker, well, hmmm, not much I could do.

I think the problem was that I used official stitch markers. I usually use hair elastics I find down the side of the couch, or old twist ties that are littering the floor. Hair elastics and twist ties have more zing. One sees them and thinks, "what is all that crap hanging on my knitting?" and then recalls that one is marking one's place. Regular stitch markers are so anonymous, they quietly drop off into oblivion.

So I'll have to wait to impress that particular group of moms. One of them impressed me -- I overheard her comment that her choices in medication for a particular condition were limited since, "I'm still nursing," and she gestured to her 2 year old just like it was the most normal thing in the world to be nursing a 2 year old. Woohoo.

In the meantime, I keep popping up with new things I want to start knitting NOW. I found some green merino laceweight in my closet, purchased to knit myself a shawl. I look hideous in green, but this is yarn is so very pretty I might just cast it on and knit a ... thing. A lace thing. A lace thing that exists simply to be soft and lacy and green. Also, I was looking through my Mason Dixon book and was overcome by the notion that I can knit that rug we need for the back door on big, stocky needles. Plus, the new Interweave Knits arrived, full of patterns I could actually picture myself knitting and wearing.

I've also been thinking about sewing. I've spent the morning pondering a subscription to Burda Moden, or maybe re-subscribing to Ottobre. This reminded me that I used to buy Mon Trictot magazine at that dirty little grocery store out past the dorms at college. Does Mon Tricot still exist? I got rid of all my old copies in a fit of decluttering -- I'm not sure why, since the patterns were no worse (and often better) than those in all those old copies of Vogue Knitting and Easy Knitting I kept. In college I knit myself a sweater set out of Mon Tricot, using Unger Cruise (the owner of the nearby yarn store was quite a fan of Unger Cruise or any other acrylic yarn -- she liked the fact that she could break off the yarn by melting it with her lit cigarette, freeing her of the need to keep track of scissors). Gees, those were the days, knitting crappy acrylic just because it was there and I felt like knitting, even though knitting wasn't fashionable at the time. I think I've become overly pragamatic as I've aged.