It may be the season change, loss of light or just a slump in biorhythms, but I’ve been in a rut of sorts lately. I think I’m slowly coming out of it. The tumbleweeds of animal hair that have gathered in the corners this week are starting to bother me. That’s always a sign that I’m coming out of it. I’ve also begun a few projects. A clear sign that my knitting mojo is back and maybe my “life” mojo will soon follow.
Actually, I went through a big urge to sew a few weeks ago. Of course this occurred just days after taking my machine into the repair shop for a “quick” cleaning and tune up. When I dropped it off I was told that the tech wasn’t backed up at all and it would only be “less than a week” until it was ready. That “few days” ended up being three weeks. (I could go on a big rant about how I had to call three times and it was never ready, I stopped by on the evening when they were supposed to be open late to find them closed, and how finally I just happened to be in the area last Thursday and checked to see if it was done. It was, but they had never called me. But I digress.) Of course Saturday was the Halloween Bash at E’s school. So Friday night and Saturday morning I had to hurriedly sew up a khaki shirt for her costume. She was going as a “Wildlife Adventurer Attacked by Venomous Snakes” no reflection on any persons living or dead.
As I began to sew her shirt I noticed that the top thread tension was really loose. So I changed the needle and rethreaded it. Still off. I changed the bobbin. Still wonky. I tried other fabrics, interfacings, etc. etc. So no better. Finally I just manually adjusted the tension control (it is actually electronic so it was a matter of pushing some buttons on the touch-screen) until it was set to “super tight, should be breaking the thread”. This seemed to work. Until I tried to make a button-hole. I forgot that when I changed stitches it returned to the preprogrammed tension. After practically taking the damn machine apart to extract the practice fabric that was melded in the feed dogs with a ball of thread the size of Cambodia, I again manually set the tension. I managed to execute five passable button holes and call it a shirt. Had I been making something that needed a higher caliber of workmanship than a Halloween costume I would’ve been very annoyed. As it was, I only wanted to stick a seam ripper in ONE eye instead of both.
To top it off, my serger also chose Saturday to take a partial crap. It works fine for three thread narrow overlocking but the left needle position completely refuses to cooperate with the other stitches and meet up with the hook correctly. So on Monday I packed both machines up and took them back to the repair shop/Bernina dealer. I told them how they had had the Bernina for three weeks for a cleaning and it came home with a stress disorder and how I just discovered that the Viking serger could only manage to rape and pillage with one needle.
This is when the nice lady proceeded to tell me that woman across the Fox Valley area had all tried to sew again for the first time in a year this past weekend in order to make pirates and mermaids out of regular children and had instead turned their sewing machines into WMDs and they all had been brought in to be defused. It would now be at least 4 weeks until my machines would be done. The Bernina *may* get looked at sooner seeing as it was returning for a repair to a repair but she wasn’t sure because the tech wasn’t in to ask. So I guess I won’t be sewing again for a while.
BUT! I have been knitting.
The ladies at Friday Knitting last week helped me decide on seven colors for the Millenium Argyle Vest from the new Interweave Knits book. Most of it is the Jaeger extra-fine Merino DK weight. But we couldn’t come up with a complete palette with what they had in stock (it is no longer available in the USA.) so we added some Karabella to round out the selections. I really like what we came up with and think it will be a gorgeous vest. The stripes are the back and the “elderberry” color will be the main color on the front with the other six colors; olive, lagoon, cypress, violet, teal and red, making up the six diamonds and diagonal lines on the front.
My shopping experience to select these seven colors illustrates why we need local yarn shops. I went in knowing that I wanted the Jaeger for this vest. I’d worked with it before and it is one of my favorite yarns. I also had a basic idea of what colors I *thought* I wanted to use as well. But after pulling my selections from the shelves and putting them on the table I saw that I needed to amend my original ideas. Between the other Friday Knitting participants and the owners, I had input, suggestions, opinions and many options presented until I had a more than satisfactory selection of yarn. At first we were unable to find enough balls of the elderberry color that I really wanted to use as my main color. The owners looked at the inventory on the computer and in the back room and finally after much searching, we found enough.
Yes, I could’ve probably found a very suitable DK weight merino wool online somewhere for a lesser price. I also may have even been able to find a wider color selection of this particular yarn. But what I would not be able to find when online shopping was the ability to mix and match and stand back and look at and switch out again and again until I had the “just right” combination. Nor would I have had the opportunity to have 6 or more other knitters sitting with me and offering their insight, humor and company during the shopping process. And most importantly, I found my knitting mojo again that day. I think Neil added it to the bottom of the nice shopping bag he packaged my purchase into at the cash register. 
