Saturday, May 17, 2008

Spring is the best time of year to be outside taking walks through the gardens and parks, eating a light lunch at a cafe with a chilled glass of white wine, or flouncing downtown in a sundress and strappy heels. Unless, that is, you are me, and have to work in an office where you are a slave to someone else's notion of the proper temperature.
My office is a freaking icebox in the summer, because the moment the temp hits about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, the management company decides it's time to crank the AC to "Arctic" and leave it there until September. I supposedly have a thermostat in my office, but it does nothing, even when I call the maintenance guy to properly set it, instead of nudging the thermo-wheels with an unbent paper clip.
Today is even worse, because due to a freakish set of apocalyptic storms, the area is flooded, rainy and desolate. No sun, constant rain and cloud cover equal temperatures in the 50s, but still the AC is blasting on me as though it were 90 degrees in the shade. It's miserable. So I am doing two things about it:
1. Whining at great length;
2. Knitting things with which I can bundle up.

My jaywalk socks, slow in the making though they may be, are now done. I'm so happy, because whenever I show up at the office sans tights (because you can't wear tights in the spring no matter how cold it is inside), I always stared at them, longing to slip off my shoes and put the socks on. Now I can, and they are wonderfully rich and warm.


This gorgeous shawl is called North Roe, and is a free, Frenchified pattern. It's stunning, and has converted me from someone who scoffed at those silly triangular shawls to an aspiring lace knitter. It helps that I get to use this awesome citrus colored wool that I got off etsy. I started off with a few mistakes, but now I have cut my lace teeth on it and am to the point where I am very comfortable reading the chart (though it was confusing at first) and making sure all my stitches are accounted for. Also, it's interesting knitting with a constantly changing pattern, and it's going very fast!



Finally, a new project. I need something for my hands, because they freeze under the merciless AC like little five-pronged blocks of ice. Fingerless mittens sounded like the perfect idea, but a search for patterns taught me otherwise. Fingerless, it seems, is truly the case, so you have all these patterns that stop just at the bottom knuckle line, effectively making what are called "wristwarmers." Now, at the risk of airing one of my Unpopular Knitting Opinions, I don't understand the concept of the wristwarmer. My wrists do not get cold, because I have long sleeves. My hands are usually fine. It starts getting chilly just at the knuckles, and by the time you get to the gnawed-off tips of my fingers, they get frozen to the point where they could get featured in a Radcliffe novel. I need partial fingers, people! Fortunately, Ravelry saved my life (how did I ever knit without you, Ravelry?) with several (free!) lovely partial finger glove patterns. Oh I'm sure I could have figured one out for myself, but the cold is making me feel lazy.

So three small projects to help me bear the bitter cold of spring and summer. Of course, I should get back on my sweaters, but these small projects are such fun right now. I will save the bigger ones for my upcoming vacation!

No comments: