I recently made this scarf from this Spud and Chloe yarn. It makes me very happy. I wear it long or looped twice around my neck with the button (a coconut shell flower from here) fastened into a hole in the opposite end. It is very warm, and it is very me.

But I also love this scarf simply because it exists. I started out trying to make this bandana cowl with the yarn, but I was impatient about testing gauge and knit halfway through the pattern two times in a row–getting way-too-big results on both size needles I tried–before I had to just abandon that idea for sanity. So I cast on for a cowl of my own devising, which didn’t work out either. I couldn’t understand why. I put this stuff aside, then started and finished a hat with totally different yarn, no problem. Just made it up as I went, and loved the results.

But I still had my two skeins of this Spud and Chloe Outer in Flannel that wanted to be made into something. I got out my Vogue Stitchionary Volume Two: Cables. I gazed at my favorite section, the braids. I began one. I was going to run out of yarn before the scarf was long enough.

Then I looked back at the Pippi braid in the Stitchionary. I tried it out. If this didn’t work, I wasn’t sure the yarn could take more wear and tear after being knit and frogged so many times. But it worked out! It exists! I love it better than I would have loved any of those ripped projects. Maybe the yarn just wanted to be this all along. (Also, maybe the yarn wanted me to learn short rows along the way, because the bandana cowl taught me those. Or maybe the yarn is just yarn.)

I’m also excited about this mistake above. When I was still getting the hang of the cable at the beginning, I made one repeat too many and gave the end this curve. I hope it doesn’t look too mistake-y and instead has the air of intentional design detail. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. You can see the different between this picture and the one above with the button, which is the end where I cast off.

So here’s to making things exist that want to exist, no matter how many false starts may precede them. And here’s to mistakes that turn out not to be so bad after all.

***
A sign I saw this fall, outside a rural convenience store:

LUNCH SPECIAL
WE HAVE WORMS

I believe those two lines were meant to be unrelated. But I tell you, it took me a minute to figure that out.

Tags: knitting, scarfs, signs, yarn
Filed under: Knitting

Overheard in a museum gift shop:

Two male cashiers (MC) converse.

MC 1: I just like for people to get what’s coming to them, whether that’s happiness or pain.

MC 2: Or mild vexation and irritation?

MC 1: Yeah. Some people really deserve that.

Tags: museum, overheard
Filed under: Found

Overheard on a train station platform:

[Husky-voiced Man talks on cell phone.]

HVM: Yeah, I’m here at the station, waiting for the train. I’m hungry. And I definitely need the bath tonight.

[Short pause, in which another eavesdropper reacts. I, unfortunately, have my back to the action and thus don't see the particulars.]

HVM [chuckling throatily]: Now this guy here’s laughing ‘cuz he thinks I only use the bath like once a month.

Tags: overheard, train station
Filed under: Found

Overheard on an elevator:

[Two colleagues, Male Coworker and Female Coworker, discuss Male Coworker's in-process kitchen renovation.]

MC: I learned to keep my mouth shut after the one time.
FC: Mm-hmm?
MC: I asked my wife why we needed to remodel the kitchen around a brand-new, $4000 stove when all the food we eat comes out of an $85 microwave.
FC: I bet that went over well.
MC: We ate out of the $85 microwave that night.

Tags: kitchen, microwave, overheard, remodel, stove
Filed under: Found

Overheard on a city street:

[Two Young Women walk together down the sidewalk. Sleazy Man walking by takes notice and stops to leer.]

SM: How are you doing tonight, ladies?
YW #1: Gorgeous.
SM: You know that’s right.

[Young Women continue to walk purposefully down the street, never making eye contact with Sleazy Man, while he watches them retreat with creepy grin.]

Tags: city, overheard
Filed under: Found

I am yet another person in love with the Jillian Tamaki embroidered Penguin Classics book covers. (Or at least, in love with the photos of them floating around the Internet. Word on her blog is, the real things will come out in the fall, printed with a “sculptural-embossing technique.”)

Emma, in particular, makes me so happy:

Tags: book covers, classics, embroidery, Jillian Tamaki, Penguin
Filed under: Links

Spotted on the city street:

Woman carrying a human head in her arms. No, that can’t be right. Upon second glance: It’s a beauty school mannequin head. Chemical waves set in place impeccably on its plastic scalp with metal clips.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Overheard on an elevator this week:

[Young Woman (YW) speaking to Male Colleague (MC)]

YW: So my friend and I had a big fight this weekend.
MC: Oh yeah? Is this your boyfriend you’re talking about?
YW: Yeah. We fought because we’re not in love.
MC: Oh boy.
YW: So then my other friend, this guy from college–
MC: What, he took the opportunity to profess his love for you?
YW [with a meaningful look]: Well–
MC: Decided to throw his hat in the ring as a contender?
YW: Well–

[The elevator arrives at the lobby. Young Woman and Male Colleague walk out of earshot, forever leaving me with this cliffhanger. Blast it! How did the story end?]

Tags: elevators, overheard
Filed under: Found

I’ve been a fan of the Vlogbrothers (YA author John Green and his brother Hank Green) since I caught a bug a couple summers ago that had me prone on the sofa for a week. Their funny YouTube musings on my laptop got me through. Lately, I’ve been enjoying their Thoughts from Places video essays (like this one) quite a bit, but the video below from last spring is still one of my favorites.

Tags: Hank Green, John Green, videos, Vlogbrothers, YouTube
Filed under: Links

I have this pair of beautiful green leggings–my soulmate leggings.

Oh wait, is that not a thing, soulmate clothing? It should be, don’t you think?

Case study #1: The green leggings. Dark green, cotton and spandex, not too tight but taught enough not to be bunchy, they have been my go-to long underwear all winter long. They have also stood in for tights on those days when actual tights were just too thin for the cold blowing down the city streets. It’s the color, really, that makes me love them so. Such a unique legging color! But a subdued enough hue to work under a long skirt with a pair of boots–unlike my striped pink and yellow pair of actual long johns.

Case study #2: The polka-dot purple leggings. I fear the fate may someday befall my current verdant soulmate leggings that long ago befell these purple beauties. Oh, elementary school, when one could while away the day in purple leggings with small black polka dots and feel on top of the world. These puppies were not relegated to long underwear duty. These puppies were worn to be seen. Worn and worn and worn well past the point where they fit properly. Worn well past the point where they could still technically be considered fabric, they’d become so thin from so many washings. One day, they mysteriously disappeared. My mother had a guilty look in her eye when I asked her what happened to them. Sigh. Growing out of–and wearing out–beloved clothing and shoes was one of the harder parts of growing up.

Case study #3: The gray shirt. This was the first actually wearable item of clothing that I ever designed myself. I used computer software to draft the basic pattern for a long-sleeved t-shirt to fit a sloper with my exact measurements, then once it was printed, altered it by hand to give it a yoke. Cut it out from organic heather-gray jersey knit. To assemble the shirt, I was left entirely to my own devices–no pattern directions to aid me–and loved figuring out the puzzle as I went along. Midway through making it, before I’d sewn down the yoke lining to the inside, I tried it on…and hated the fit. The look in the shoulders wasn’t at all what I had in mind. I tossed it aside and moved on to greener pastures, then finally told myself a week later that I should do the finishing work on the shirt as a matter of principle, since it was my first self-design. It didn’t matter how it looked; I could wear it as a sleep shirt. So I added the cuffs, did the hem, hand-stitched the yoke lining, tried it on once more…and loved the fit. Without the lining curling all around inside, the shoulders fit great. The simple band cuffs added a subtle sophistication. I remember freaking out in front of the mirror, so happy I’d pushed through to finish it. I wore it ALL THE TIME for over a year, put it aside for a time when it was too small, and am now happy again to pull it out of my drawer and put it on when I need a bit of comfort.

I could go on. Soulmate clothing? I think yes. These examples–and all of the many more special garments in my life that I haven’t listed–have felt not unlike destined figures in my life. They make me feel like me, so happy to be in my skin. I think, in fact, that the reason I became so enamored with making clothes was because it upped the amount of soulmate clothing in my life. I was much more in control of the items hanging in my closet–of whether I loved them or of whether they were there to get me by, because I hadn’t had the kismet or energy or funds to find something I liked any better.

When you buy clothes, you are on a hunt through a dark forest that may or may not present to you the delicious berries you seek. When you make clothes, there’s a little bit of magic. You’re making the berries themselves. Of course, when you make clothes, there is still a great deal of chance. First, you have to find the right fabric. Find–or design, or alter–the right pattern. There’s no guarantee that once you make the garment, it will fit right or look the way you imagined. But the more you work at it, the better you get at taking an idea and turning it into the thing you imagined–or something better than the thing you imagined.

However my soulmate clothing comes to me, I am grateful for it. I don’t know many better tools for life than feeling comfortable in your own skin. When your clothing, your social skin, feels meant-to-be, it’s a whole lot easier to move through the world.

Cross-posted here.

Filed under: My Story, Thoughts