Sock Yarn Blues

Well... I went to Knit Happens to see Wendy, but I didn't introduce myself or anything because I felt stupid saying, hey, I'm not buying your book now because I have to save my pennies for Sheep and Wool, but love the blog! Well, turns out she'll be at Sheep and Wool, so if I get over feeling stupid, I can say something then.

I wasn't crazy about the sock I'm making. Too girly. And it was the least girly yarn I could find. Of course, then I discovered a hole in the toe - apparently I managed to knit the wraps together without the actual stitch. Now that there's a hole, they're the BESTEST MOST BEAUTIFUL socks I've ever seen in my whole whole life, and I'm saddened beyond all description that this hole exists. I've got the stitches on the second needle now, and I'll sew them up next time I get a chance to work on it. Anyway.

So, socks = too girly. I figured I'd go see what kind of sock yarn Knit Happens has. I'm a Springwater Fiber girl myself, and I keep forgetting that KH exists. I found out what kind of sock yarn they have. Beautiful! Amazing! Drool-worthy, lust-inducing, georgous, perfect sock yarns. That cost more money than I have in a month to spend on yarn. For enough for one sock. Oh. I mean, I love my friend, but I just can't spend that kind of cash on socks for him. Especially since I already bought yarn. Which is looking better and better by the minute.

So I left without buying anything, and apparently I'm really confused by this turn of events. I keep wanting to swatch my new yarn, or get it out and look at it, or at least check and see what kind of pattern might look good with it. But the "new yarn," she does not exist. No skeins have entered my home in the last week. It's a weird, phantom-limby feeling. Actually, last night I dreamed that I was sleeping. It's a lot like that.

Smarter

Darnit, the kid's getting smarter.

"What's an alpaca?"
"It's kind of like a llama."
...
"What's a llama?"
"It's kind of like an alpaca."

For months, this has been an acceptable explanation. The other day, she went, "heeeyyyyyy..." So I'm bringing her to Maryland Sheep and Wool with me. Which may be crazy, but I think she'll have fun. Oh, and in the evening, we have to go to the Scottish Festival, so it's going to be a very busy, very sheepy day.

Other good stuff - MS&W is about a month before my birthday, so I'm taking as much money as I think I'll reasonably be able to cover with birthday checks. Hooray for family who'll support your habits! I'm going to try to concentrate on patterns and books, I think - I Have. Enough. Yarn.

I'm also taking the stroller. I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid.

The baby blanket continues. I'm on the edging now. I miscalculated. It should take about 24 hours to do the whole edging. I've done less than 2. GRAH! BE FINISHED ALREADY!!!

On a positive note, I learned to knit backwards. It's so much easier than I thought it'd be, I don't know why I didn't do this earlier. I don't know that it saves that much time, but it's more fun than turning and purling, anyway. (And, I mean, even if it saves only one second per row, that's... um, over 17 minutes saved total!)

I also cast on for the socks. I have 1/4 of 1/2 of the toes done. But, y'know, no hurry on those. I'm doing two-on-two-circs, and man, speaking of things I wish I'd done before... Love it. Want to spend my summer making socks now.

Actually, I'm thinking I'm going to make kilt hose for the stepfather. (See above re: Scottish Festival and needing to go.) He's sensitive to wool, so I could probably do him up something nice in wool-ease or something like that. He can have one for Christmas and one for his birthday. (I mean, considering that each one'll take me probably over 40 hours of work, I don't think this is unreasonable at all. Plus, it'll be funny to get one sock for Christmas. His birthday's only 12 days later.)

And this is why I need to update more often...

I have too many things to put in one post. Let's see if I can be brief:

1) The sweater is limping along. I realized I read a number wrong and the back should be 3" longer than I thought. Luckily, I realized this before binding off, but it's still a kick in the teeth. I'm not sure if it's good or bad that the only place I'm knitting it is in the bathroom. (People without toddlers: "Eeeeewwww!" People with toddlers: "Hey, what a great idea!") It helps with not trying to do too much anyway - my hands start to hurt somewhere between four and five rows, so there you go.

2) The baby blanket is being dragged kicking and screaming to completion. Much like pregnancy, I'm in the last couple of weeks and really wishing it were all over already. I'm a little scared of the border, I think, and that could be why I'm dragging my feet so much. On the upside, I've decided I do really like the lace I substituted for the outermost ring, and I'm glad I chose it. I'm down to the last 15 hours worth, anyway - go finish!

2b) I miscalculated. I actually need a third more yarn than I thought I did, and while I tried to deny it for as long as possible, I'm on the last ball and still have one repeat and the border to do. I bought 3 more, in a different dyelot, of course. I'm going to try alternating rows to mix it in, but it's hard to gauge when the rows are so very very long. (Let's see... one row is 1/12 a ball... now, thinking of it that way, the math isn't so bad at all. I guess I'll start doing it about 8 rows in? Sure.)

3) A friend of mine ran over his foot with the lawnmower this past weekend. They managed to save the toe, which is really good, and I'd like to knit him a pair of socks in celebration of that, but my husband thinks it'd be tacky to give a man in a foot-cast a pair of socks. (Well, he's not really in a cast and by the time I had the socks the bandages would be off, probably, but still.) I think I'll make the socks anyway. I'm sure they'll be received in the spirit given. (Pretty sure, anyway.) But I want - shock! horror! gasp! - sock yarn that doesn't self-stripe. And I may just put my own darn stripes in. (The overwhelming urge to knit complicated patterns on 0000 needles, we'll talk about another day.)

Vital Information

And by "vital" I mean "completely trivial". Just got back from stalking following around and enjoying some shows from Slim Cessna's Auto Club. May still be a bit loopy (but not quite loopy enough to head up to RI).

Did I mention that I am a complete idiot? I had two balls of the orange laceweight. Dur. Should have rewound them separately before knitting that scarf. Well... I don't know that it would have involved less tangling/work. But it certainly wouldn't have been more. Again: Duh. Now I'm debating making laceweight gloves... hmmmmm...

And today, in the mail, I got a flier for The Knit & Crochet Show. (Why does it relate? Well, I stayed with a friend when I saw SCAC, and noticed while driving around that he lives all of five minutes from the convention center where this thing's gonna be held. So... if I could talk him into putting me up again, that'd save $109 a night - neat!) I'm a little interested in going - even though, like at all conventions, they take all the sessions I'm interested in and put them at the same time. How do they manage that? At any rate, I can't shake the mental image of gangs of knitters roaming around, throwing down with their rival crocheters, flashing gang signs and shivving each other with DPNs. Um. Maybe I need to get out more. (Or less? Something, certainly.)

Two Bad Things

Yes, I did two bad things this weekend.

1) I broke our camera. Our brand-new, super-awsome, beloved slimline camera. Three days before I really, really needed it for a couple of shows I'm going to. Alas, I'll have to rely on my memory. Also, no pics for the blog until we dig out the warranty stuff and have it repaired, and who knows when that will be?

2) I cast on something else. The baby blanket is going well, but I'm heartily sick of working on it. If I push, I can probably finish in two weeks, maybe three. The baby is due in 6. Which will come first? Who knows?

I'm not super-happy about the project I cast on for, either. Well, I'm not sure. It's a ballet-wrap kids' cardigan from... possibly Creative Knitting a few months ago? Ripping magazines apart is great for pattern organization, not so great for knowing where you got them from. It's supposed to use hand-dyed yarn, but I thought that was kind of ugly, and Kira picked out pink when I was taking her to get yarn. (Are you sure? Look, they have green! And blue! Purple? No? Drat.) So, the pros and cons of this project:

Pros:

1. It's moss stitch, which I like the look of. And even though it's the exact same as ribbing, for some reason I don't mind knitting it nearly as much as ribbing.
   
2. I swatched and measured, which means it's actually going to fit the child.
   
3. Total yarn cost: $6.24.
   
4. It's cute.
   

Cons:

1. It's moss stitch, which may be better than ribbing, but is still a big old pain in the rear.
   
2. I swatched and measured, which means it will fit the child until her next growth spurt. Which kinda seems like now - she's eating like she's having one, anyway. And it's rapidly rocketing towards summer here, which means by the time it's cool enough for her to wear it again... who knows?
   
3. It's cotton, which hurts my wrists. I never really realized it before, but yes, it is definitely the yarn, not the needles or pattern or anything else.
   
4. It's pink. Will knitting this vast sea of pinkness drive me blind and mad before I finish?
   

Swan Scarf - Pics!

(Click for larger photos.)

35 hours of work and this is what I have to show for it? A crumpled rag.



Even better - now it's a soggy, crumpled rag.



Now, this looks promising. (This was my first attempt - I totally repinned the whole thing after taking this picture.) Note fancy blocking board!



And finally - wrapping and boxing it. Did I mention the card? I wish I had taken a picture of the card. Ah well.



I just thought this picture was cool:

Whew!

Ok, I feel a little better - I had completely forgotten about knitting Mr. Charity Bear. So now staying up 'til 3 this morning to finish that scarf a) doesn't make me feel nearly as guilty for wasting time and b) makes a lot more sense. The whole thing didn't take more than 40 hours, why did it take me so long? (Well, obviously, I remember now. But I had been beating myself up over it, and I now have my permission to stop.)

Boy, I'm really happy with how the scarf came out. I wish I'd had more time to pet and photograph it. But it's winging its way to Hungary right now... ok, well, it's probably more like in the car on the way to the airport right this very second, but close enough.

I'm just so excited having finished it! It was my first time blocking with wires and pins, and I think it came out pretty well, although I certainly learned things for next time. It took me until the seventh wire to figure out the best way to put them in. (The first seven took 45 minutes, the last 5 took 15, I think.) And I wish I had stretched a little more aggressively. But oh, they were right when they talked about the miracle of lace! From crumpled rag to so, so pretty! I think I fell in love with it a little bit.

The color did bleed a little when I washed it, which worries me a bit. Then again, I'm giving it to a man who wears nothing but orange... and it was only a teensy bit of dye. And it should be hand-washed separately anyway. Even if he gives it to someone who wears other colors. (Which I fully expect him to do. It's part of why I was so relaxed about this project, I think - I know that it will wind up with the person who should most have it. Which is... well, a good feeling, I guess.) I do have a vague fear that someone'll stick it in the washing machine on hot. Not so much because I worry about it being wrecked - if it's yours, it's yours to wreck - but because I don't want someone to wreck it accidentally and then be sad about it. Which may be silly, but there you go, I never claimed to be rational about these sorts of things.

Pictures of the whole process to follow - like I said, I was up with it until 3 this morning, and then got up again at 6 to photograph/wrap/pack it. So I haven't really gotten a chance to download pics or anything. I worry a little that I'll find some huge glaring error in the photo that I didn't see live, but see above re: too late now.

Also also, I got a free blocking board, which rocks. I was going to pick up a piece of styrofoam insulation from the Home Depot to use, but didn't realize that it only comes in 8' sheets (which don't fit in my car even a little bit). I happened to be visiting my mom at the time, and she said, oh, you mean you need a piece of this stuff? And pulled out half a board of it, which she gave me. I mean, buying it would have only cost about $9, but free is even better, AND I didn't have to get Aaron to go pick it up in the Jeep. Yay!

FOB!

Friend of Bear? Finished Object - Bear!



Dropped him off this morning. Well, technically afternoon, I guess. Now I just have to finish that scarf - ack!

Bear and Scarf

Right then, looks like things are working again. I hope. Anyway. This is what I have so far of the bear that needs to be dropped off at Knit Happens tomorrow. First picture was about the middle of the evening, second was at the end. I've also started a second one, trying to convert the pattern to double knitting, but it's not going to be done in time, which is a bummer. Still, there are lots of uses for bears, I'm sure.



This is the scarf in all it's crumply glory. I meant to stretch it out and take another picture, but I got sidetracked chasing my husband around with the bear on my hand threatening to eat his head. (Were there jokes about my right to arm bears? Do you even need to ask?)



The green circle is the "design feature" I cleverly worked in by doing rows 1-6, then starting a new repeat instead of finishing the one I was on. I am very, very glad I'm working both tails at once, it does look on purpose. Ish. And I really, really don't have time to reknit it. So, hooray! (I think I'm giving up sleep in favor of knitting this weekend.) Although now that I look more closely, I didn't actually get the circle in the right place. Well, we'll all get to see when it's blocked.

More scarf, more of the time

Well, the lace scarf is going... slowly. Doesn't help that I forgot to bring the pattern with me today, so can't do anything on it. Wish I had remembered to take a picture, too, but that seems to be pretty standard.

Also unhelpful: Addi turbos. Blunty McNopoints and I are not getting along at all. It takes two hours for me to finish one inch of lace. For contrast: Tubey (which had four and a half times the number of stitches in an inch*) took 50 minutes/inch.

So I asked the wonderful and helpful husband if he wouldn't mind running to the LYS to replace my bamboo needles for me. No problem, he said, just send him what I needed. And I did! I was very careful to specify that I needed US size 2, not 2mm, and to ask the clerk if he wasn't sure of the difference. And he very nicely brought me home a lovely Clover bamboo circular, size US2. When I go to knit onto the new needles, they're huge. What size am I actually using? US0, aka 2mm, of course. Well, he wanted to get out of the house anyway, right? (He went back again last night, but see above re: no pattern, so I haven't actually knit with them yet.)

I did find a very neat solution to the knitting-both-ends-at-once thing. And it was completely by accident. When I was going to knit the other scarf, I chickened out on the laceweight and decided to use it doubled. My solution to that was to stick both ends of the hank in the winder and wind them simultaneously towards the middle. (Don't try this at home without at least one extra pair of arms.) Now I'm knitting single-stranded - but both ends are at the center of my center-pull ball! I've been going slowly, true, but I haven't had any real twisting or tangling issues, so I think it's been a success and it's definitely something I'd do again if I needed to work from both ends of a length of yarn.

*Not actually true, upon reflection. This is 14 rows/inch and Tubey was... 7, I think. So only a bit more than two times as many stitches, but it still took less than half the time, and I still feel justified in saying, "lace! GAH!"

Maybe not so bright...

Well. I'm up to the part where I have to double the stitches again on the pi shawl/blanket.

But!

The scarf I need to make is... complicated. The recipient isn't going to be in this country this year. So I wasn't feeling the pressure to get it done, which is bad. Then it turns out that a friend is going overseas to visit him, and she's leaving at the end of the month (need to find out exactly when). A deadline! Hooray!

And I decided that the Matthew is... beyond my abilities. Well, beyond my current abilities to get it done by the deadline, anyway. Which is kind of a bummer, but that doesn't mean I can't knit it later. Maybe next year. Nothing wrong with that.

My brilliant plan, though? Design and knit a lace scarf of my own! Yes! Genius! (If by "genius" I mean "misguided and mentally flawed".) I'm swatching furiously now. It's a... learning experience, certainly. I have learned a lot about lace. But I'm not particularly closer to getting this done. It'll be a seaman's scarf, anyway, so it should go fairly quickly once I get it sorted out. The lace, though... why did I pick an asymetric pattern for the central panel, again? Gah. Oh, and I plan on doing it bottom-up both tails at once, so that's good too.

And I had bought a Crystal Palace bamboo circular just especially for this project. I got it out of my knitting bag and one of the needles was SNAPPED! Grr. I never even got to use it, and that wasn't a cheap needle. Luckily (?) I have an addi turbo in the right size, but I really didn't want to use something so slippery for a laceweight alpaca lace project. Well. It should be fine. I'm sure.

Ten Things Tubey Taught Me

Finished! Early, actually. It was washed, blocked, and being worn to a party on Saturday. But I didn't get a picture until today, because... well, I have no excuse, I just didn't. I should try to get a better one, but probably won't.



Ten Things Tubey Taught Me

1. The Joggless Jog. Although I'd call it the less-jog jog, I think, my sleeves look better than the picture on Knitty, and I should have taken a closeup but I didn't. Definitely worth doing, anyway.
   
2. Color matters. I may actually rip out the entire body and reorder the stripes, because right now it does a fantastic job of minimizing my breasts and enlarging and drawing attention to my waist. I mean, yeah, I'm shaped like that, but there's no reason to emphasize it.
   
3. Horizontal stripes do not flatter. Even if they look good on the model.
   
4. I have boobs. Twenty-eight years of being small chested has led me to disregard any instructions for the busty. The sweater is four inches shorter in the front than the back, leading to weird bunching and just... oddness. Next time, short rows.
   
5. I don't have to slavishly follow a pattern. I'm short-waisted, and I made the sweater what, two inches shorter than the pattern called for? Something like that. And it's a good length. Yay! (Now, be confident enough to add those short rows).
   
6. The norwegian purl is hell on the wrists. Not worth bothering with.
   
7. 3x1 Ribbing isn't really that bad, and it keeps you from dropping stitches 'cause it's like tiny pattern repeat markers every four stitches.
   
8. Weaving in ends, however, really is that bad. And I'm terrible at it. I didn't trim the ends in case I do rip out and reorder the stripes, but even if I don't, I think pulling them out and redoing them isn't a bad idea.
   
9. AC Moore Luxury Aran is a very soft, pilly yarn. I've heard the same thing about the Cashmerino that the pattern calls for, so I'm not too fussed about it. We'll see how it looks after a few washing/shavings.
   
10. I can finish a sweater. Quickly, too. Now I have no excuse.
    

I had a bunch of yarn left over (including an entire ball of teal) so I started on a bonus: some Custom-Fit Fingerless Mitts. Super fast - I finished most of the first on the metro - and seriously easy. I should have the second done tomorrow, then I can weave in ends, wash, block, and have a custom accessory for my sweater. Nifty!

(Picture including my extraneous third leg:)

Progress Pics

Well, I meant to be posting these as I went along, but I was too busy knitting! So this is like the stop-motion version of my Tubey progress?

Valentine's Day (with help from sweetie):



Feb. 20 (getting close!):



Feb. 22 (done enough to try on):

Closer!

I know I haven’t updated – too busy knitting! I have some pictures, but since the husband took the camera one night, I totally got out of the “picture every day” thing. Which is totally a bummer, because a daily record of this project would have been neat. I’m up to the last colored stripe on the body – except I’m going to add one final, tiny stripe, so sort of not. I didn’t follow the pattern too closely. For one, I have three CCs instead of 5, and for two, I didn’t feel like fiddling with tiny scraps of yarn. I was impressed with the last teal stripe I did – I looked at the yarn left in thte ball and said, oh yeah, that’ll do me one more row. And it did. With 5” left. Just enough to weave in!

Ugh. Weaving in. I did a few ends while watching Murderball over the weekend, but yeah, that was one sleeve worth. Not looking forward to that. I should look up end-weaving, see if there’s a better way to do it than I do. Hates it.

But, there’s a party on Saturday, and maybe I’ll have this sweater done for it! Wouldn’t that be fun? (Hope it doesn’t look horrible. There’s still a chance of unravelling and reknitting the sleeves...)

Tubey Lurve

Well, I'm bummed I didn't take a progress pic last night. I finished the stripes on the first sleeve. Today's goal is to finish the rest of that sleeve (only 1 more inch!) and get up to the stripes on the second sleeve. Probably no pictures until tomorrow, though, what with Valentine's stuff going on and my mother-in-law leaving town and all.

In the community spirit, I went through and checked out all the Knitting Olympians who had signed up with Tubey. Here's the final list of participants I got who mentioned they were actually knitting it. I know it's not about the competition... but I am! I need motivation, so there you go.

Of course, towards the end of that list, I finally found the Team Tubey I'd been looking for. And I joined. Neat!



I wish I'd looked at it earlier. My sleeves are definitely too big - next time I think I'd just make the size S sleeve with the size M body. Or something. Must check to see how other people are handling this.

And in other bad news, my office becomes Monkey Central starting tomorrow. Could be worse - it was supposed to start today. But it means I can't knit. And the other part of my job, where I have to sit in a little overheated room and do nothing for an hour three times a week? Printer's out for service, so that's cancelled too. Baaaaah.

Tubetastic!

Boy I'm glad I'm past the flat part. Hooray for knitting in the round! I'm using the short Denise cable, which seems to be fine. Much easier than digging out the dpns, certainly. Did I mention I had to go down to a US6 for this pattern? I think the biggest DPNs I have are 5's anyway. Well, and 15's. Either way, not very useful.

It's actually longer than this now, and I'll do a few more rounds tonight, but I had to stop to take a picture ANYway, so went ahead and captured the sleevelet in all its tubey glory.

The picture I had to take? Esme finding herself a pile of handknits left to dry after playing in the snow today (note both scarf AND hat):

Blog? Oh, yeah.

Well, I hadn't posted because all I had to say was "finished five more rows on the pi shawl" over and over, which seemed kind of dull. I'm up to the last row of the second lace bit (using the pattern from Best of Knitters). It will never, ever be done. It's a good thing this baby isn't due until... um... later. (Keep forgetting to check! Bad friend.)

I'm about to double the stitches again. Woe!

(The giant mutant strawberry... er, pi shawl:)



At any rate, it's a good thing this Knitting Olympics thing is going on. Gives me a good excuse for a break! I just hope we have a cold March, so I get to actually wear this sweater.

But not yet, I'm thinking:



It's kind of neat. I'm using Lion microspun for the shawl/blanket, which is very smooth and slippy and thin. (And fuzzing, in the center. Should it do that? I've heard good things about how it wears, which is why I used it. I'm hoping washing improves it - if not, it will be an enormous lace dishrag, and if so, oh well.) So switching to the knockoff Cashmerino is like knitting with squooshy soft rope.

By the way, so far, so good - I've been using my 40% off coupons to buy balls of the AC Moore Luxury - $3.75 (including tax) a ball instead of what, $9 for the Cashmerino? Mom's been helping, but HER AC Moore never has black in stock, so there has been quite a bit of color-swapping shenanigans going on. And then there's the predicted snowstorm (which so far seems to be rain), which meant that I swapped some of the black I had for some colors that mom has, and will do the reverse next week.

But think of the savings!

Indecisive

I'm having a hard time getting anything started. That's part of why I signed up for the Knitting Olympics - without the eXtreme pressure of Christmas knitting, it's hard for me to get motivated. Plus, you know, life. Pssht.

So instead of the scarf that I'm just resisting for some reason, I went ahead and cast on for the Pi shawl/baby blanket. I really need to stop doing projects that grow as you do them - they're very psychologically discouraging. I need to do top-down shawls or something. But the Pi's fun so far, anyway. I'm using the version from Knitters Best of Shawls and Scarves, and it really is easy. My friend (whose baby the blanket is for) is having some problems, and it helps me to send her positive thoughts. Anyway - here it is, up to the first lace chart:

Olympic Knitting!

I've entered myself in the junior sweater competition. Yarn Harlot has a new challenge up, and it sounds like fun.

I'm going to knit Tubey. Probably. Depending on where my other projects are at the time. I may go with the lace baby blanket instead, but I'm almost certain I can do that in 16 days, and the Tubey I'm not so confident about.

I did buy my first ball of yarn. I hope I like what I've planned for the colors - I'm going with that AC Moore Luxury stuff, in Sky, Denim, Magenta (or was it Plum?), Brown, and Black. And my mom lives somewhere with a Michael's, so she's in charge of procuring the black - she can get two balls a week at the 40% off. So that's my plan.

I finished my first MK swatch, and am most of the way through the second. The plan was to work on it this morning, but Stuff Came Up (tm). So hopefully I'll get to finish it this afternoon. These swatches are harder than they seem like they should be. I've learned two different new cast-ons, and I now know three ways to purl. I'm going with combined on the swatches, but I can't really tell that it makes a difference. (Well, maybe. I should do one swatch "regular" to see, but I feel like I don't have time.) For some reason, there's one visible line in the stockinette part of this swatch. I don't know why. I may rip and redo. Blast!

FOtopia!

First, the scarf. Did I even mention I was making this? I got the pattern here and it's the two skeins of Kureyon my knitswap buddy sent. I should try to take another picture - it really does have colors, not just black blobs. And it took me like two days to make and then two weeks to weave in the TWO tails. I suck. But I get to wear it tomorrow!



This is the cabled hat. I should have taken a picture on a head, but this was like ten seconds before I ran out of the house to give it to the recipient. He didn't like it. Too girly? Dunno - I thought it looked better on, but I can definitely understand thinking I'm a freak for making it. Originally got the yarn for the Lion costume, but it was too orange, so no great loss. The pattern was really fun - of course I waited too long to write it out, so now I'd have to refigure it all. I remember it involved casting on 42, and the cable is 9 stitches wide and 1 for the turning (purl) row and the short row part goes from 32-16 and back. Should be enough to recreate it, I think. Oh, and the yarn is Plymouth Encore. Don't remember what size needles - probably 7 or 8 US?



The "Batman Begins" shawl(ette). Finished it this afternoon. The total stitch count was 140ish, I think - I had enough yarn to go one or two repeats bigger but got bored. It's a nice little shoulder wrap. And it makes a nice full-size working shawl for the 2-year-old!



The shawl, again. On. Demonstrating why I am not, in fact, a shawl-wearer.