Episode 143 Momentum

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This episode is sponsored by my Longaberger Home Business and Quince & Co.

Chickadee is a little darling—soft, plump, springy, and eager to loop into intricate color patterns or delicate textures. Its three plies, spun from softest American wool, are twisted together firmly enough to be sturdy, yet gently enough to be soft and cushiony.  41 beautiful colors to choose from and at just a little over $7 per 181 yd/50g skeins…you will find Chickadee a great value for your sport weight knitting.

 Find Chickadee and the other Quince fibers at www.quinceandco.com.

You can find my Longaberger Home Business at www.longaberger.com/paula.  Please send me a personal message or visit my web site to sign up for my customer email list.

Ravelry: PrairiePiper

Instagram: knittingpipeline

Twitter: knittingline.

Ravelry Group

Pipeliner Notes

Thank you for the star ratings and reviews on iTunes. There were new reviews from skunk box, sparker29, and MizPurl.  I really appreciate your encouragement and 5 star ratings.

On last week’s show a lot of you liked the information about the needles from China.  One point I forgot to mention is that the joins are extremely smooth and have held up well.  We took the 16” 000 out of the case after we recorded last week and were marveling at the small size of the needle and the smooth cable.

Knitting Dish with Mary Woolybear368 

Events and Announcements

Maine Retreat waiting list started.  Deposits are due and balances due at the end of September.

Cornerstone Inn/Washington IL Fall Color Retreat

October 23-26, 2013 Wed late afternoon to Sat morning

Cornerstone Inn Bed and Breakfast/111 Washington Square, Washington IL 61571

5 openings left.  Email me and I will hold your spot for a week until I get your deposit.

Spring Retreat will be March 14-15, 2014 with optional yarn crawl fun day on March 13.  Feel free to make overnight reservations now.

To book Sleep Inn call 309-481-0450.  Ask for a room in the Knitting Pipeline Block. (Do not book online).

Knitting Pipeline Retreats Group 

Nature Notes

The activity has settled down quite a bit at the feeders because we needed to take a break at the platform feeder and safflower feeder.  We do this once a year to give the vermin a chance to move elsewhere in our neighborhood.  We had been considering a feeder break and then one day I saw a groundhog outside nibbling on some vegetation.  That did it.  I do not want to deal with groundhogs!  Bob still fills the hummingbird feeder and niger thistle feeder so we still have lots of hummingbirds and goldfinches.  We also have a fountain on the patio which is used by birds and squirrels and possibly others.

The hummingbirds have been exceptionally territorial lately.  We had a few aerial battles on the weekend when we could actually hear the collision of the birds.  There is plenty of room at the feeders for several hummingbirds but they didn’t learn to share in kindergarten.

We know that in September, we will wander through the warm winds of summer's wreckage. We will welcome summer's ghost. --Henry Rollins 

Needle Notes

From the Fields by Larissa Brown

PrairiePiper’s Project Page

Gift Pattern from Maureen/ScrappyDoo.  (Dec 2012) Thank you!

Fat Squirrel Fibers Hazelnut MCN Medallion Red 600 yd

The Old Man and The Sea by Melski

PrairiePiper’s Ravelry Project Page

Unwind Expedition Sport Graphite Colorway. 4 skeins. Purchased from Dana at SSK.

Mods:

Added garter stitch length to sleeve so they are still short sleeves but come down a little further.

Did not mirror mesh lace.

Tip: Made a spreadsheet to keep track of cables and mesh pattern.

Plain Socks with Desert Vista Dyeworks Goo Goo Cluster Colorway

The Blethering Room

In Episode 141:  Zugunruhe from the German “zug” meaning a pulling or move, and “unruhe” meaning anxiety or restlessness.

MiddleagePearl wrote:

Well, as predicted, Paula’s podcast has spawned a feverish internet search for a previously unknown topic, “Zugunruhe”. And not surprisingly I found a NY Times article by James Gorman on the subject and a study funded by the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology on African stonechat birds that confirms this behavior even in non-migratory birds. In reference to knitting, I think of Zugunruhe means that we knitters feel the end of summer approaching in the slant of the sun, the change in day length and cooler morning temperatures. Those seasonal changes make us want to cast on hats, sweaters and all wooly, warm manner of knitwear. The same could be said about springtime as our knitting habits evolve then too.

Momentum

My DIL Stacy is working on her PhD Thesis and when I recently asked her about it she said, “It’s all about momentum.”  I said, “I know exactly what you mean.”  I’m not exactly a monogamous knitter but I also don’t like to have a lot of projects going at the same time.  If a project languishes for too long it seems to lose its energy and momentum and then it is harder for me to pick it up and get moving on it.  That has happened to my Kindness of Knitters Blanket as I put it away for the summer.  I did take it to SSK thinking that I might be energized by other sock blanket knitters but that didn’t work.  I know I will finish it.  I just need to get the momentum going again.  It is a lot harder to get a stale project going than to keep going on a project that has lain dormant. Probably the only thing I remember from the meager physics I learned is the law of inertia: “An object in motion stays in motion and an object at rest stays at rest.” Seriously.  That is all I remember from physics.

Momentum is one of the reasons that Knit Alongs, otherwise known as KALs work so well.  As others knit the design along with us we feel the energy of all the knitters and it somehow encourages us to keep up.  It is a bit like bicyclists who benefit from drafting.  Momentum is perhaps why we tend to buy more yarn when we are with friends than alone.  We are caught up in the energy of the moment and what seems good for someone else might seem good to us too, until we get home and look over our purchases.

So this energy, this momentum, is the reason I decided recently to knit down to zero projects with the exception of the Sock Blanket which is going to get some knitting on it as soon as the weather cools off.  I had started on the Point of View Vest by Hannah Fettig in Sparrow, Quince & Co organic linen before Stitches Midwest in early August.  Soon after starting that project I started losing interest.  I seemed to have forgotten how slowly it went with size 1 needles and fingering weight linen.  I was so tempted to put it away until next spring but I knew that would not be a good idea for me. I set a goal to knit down to zero before starting any new projects. I was finishing the socks in Desert Vista Dyeworks, finishing work on The Old Man and the Sea, and had the From the Fields Shawl.  I know that doesn’t seem like a lot to some knitters but it is a lot for me. Finally I was down to just the Point of View Vest.  It only took about 3 more days and I finished it off with a great feeling of starting fresh on September 1.

We all have different tolerance levels of the number of projects we can handle at one time.  For me I need to keep it down to a few so I can keep the momentum going on those projects.  It is a bit like juggling balls to keep them all in the air and active at the same time.  Some of you can handle a lot of projects at one time and cannot imagine having just one or even a few.  When zugunruhe comes on and you feel like migrating to another project you can do that with no problem even if you have 5, 10, or 15 projects going.

In the Pipeline

Listening

EweUniversity.com audio cast by Kris

Yarns at Yin Hoo is an audio podcast by Sara who is Sarapomegranate

Come into The Piping Circle for a Bit

Morton Pumpkin Festival Parade Saturday September 14, 2013

September 14^, 2013 with St. Andrew’s Pipes and Drums in Springfield IL

By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather And autumn's best of cheer.~~Helen Hunt Jackson

Have a great week, haste ye back, and hold your knitting close.