It’s Comic-Con weekend. My friend, the lovely and talented Sarah Kuhn, presented on a panel on Thursday, and I’m still kicking myself for not finding a way to get to San Diego and back without anyone in the office noticing I was gone.

It’s also CONVERGENCE 2010 here in the 505, meaning that handweavers, um, converged on Downtown to weave and spin and knot together over a mutual love of fiber. It’s like Comic-Con, only with less cosplay, but just as much sheep love. (Hey-o!)

Mary-Heather, she of Ravelry, is a local and was kind enough to set up a Ravelry meet-up, and I now have a coveted Ravelry name button, which I suppose I could scrub and sell on Ebay for tens of pennies, but I won’t, because some day, far in the future, I will go to a Rhinebeck or a TNNA or a Stitches event, and I will want that button.

My haul wasn’t spectacular — I got a skein of 100% angora, and some repurposed knitting needle jewelry, but I had a lovely time and handed out links and email addresses left and right. So hello to all of you!

I finally cleared the sofa of the loitering finished projects — the two pairs of socks that need to be photographed and turned into PDFs, the doofy hat that I knocked out last week, the spare pair of booties for when the next co-worker announces she’s knocked up — and put them in a drawer in the coffee table, for want of a better place to stash them. I figure, if I have them downstairs, I’m more likely to remember that they’re there and are in need of photographing and PDFing and posting.

On the other hand, out of sight is out of mind.

Maybe I’d better get that drawer cedar lined.

Anyway, since the hospital has a strict No Peanut Gallery policy in procedure rooms, I was unceremoniously shepherded into a dreary lounge to wait for the Capt’n's return. I pulled out my book and my knitting, but being slightly wired from a lack of sleep and too much caffeine, I did a survey of the other tenants before putting my head down. Of the nine others in the room, five were watching the lobby television and four were reading.

And that’s where it got weird. The other readers were all reading “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” which, look at that, was the same book I’ve been working through this week. Had the readers (three women between the ages of forty-five and eighty and a gentleman of about seventy) been seated closer together, I would have called an impromptu waiting room book club.

Waiting Room Book Club, like Convenience Store Dance Party or Sunday Brunch Karaoke is a spontaneous gathering where people dance to The Knack or belt out a little Dione Warwick, or sit around and talk about how we’re all reading this taut, Swedish thriller at the same time and we’d better all discuss it.

Except that I was too much of a chicken to harass these worried looking women and the grim-faced man, all of them relegated to the waiting room. Still, I wanted to know their reactions to the plot as it unfolded, if anyone else was reading it with Google Maps parked on Sweden, and if maybe, maybe someone in the publishing world felt like it was time to have a dialog about our casual attitudes about violence against women and if SPOILER ALERT the violence in this book highlights the problem or simply falls into its own trap of exploitation and titillation. Maybe, if I was being particularly Women’s Studies, I’d trot out the bromide about how the worst a woman can do to a man is reject him, but the worst a man can do to a woman is kill her and see what the other readers thought about it.

But I didn’t, because I’m a giant chicken.

Still, Waiting Room Book Club. Keep your eyes peeled, campers. There’s opportunity everywhere.

*Last year, every conversation began with “Didja hear Michael Jackson died?” Did it matter that this was a doctor coming to talk to me after admitting the Capt’n into ICU?** Nope. “Hi, I’m Dr. Oldengrummpy. Didja hear Michael Jackson died?”

**He got better.

Well, I’m darned chuffed at how Jeeves has taken off in the last twenty-four hours. When I unveiled the pattern last night, I expected the following people to download it:

• My mother
• My aunt Gwen
• My friend Thomas, who’s just that kind of guy

I was not expecting so many other people to download it, as well. (Heck, I’m not quite sure if my mother even knows about the new pattern — it’s been a busy sort of Monday.)

Truly, I am overwhelmed with the comments and favorites and downloads. In one day, my silly little sock has received almost as many favorites and queuings as Blue Monday has in the past six weeks. I think that deserves a well-timed “Dude.”

Dude.

I’d say the experience today is rather akin to being doused in champers after the end of a grand prix, but that could be stretching the metaphor. You have all been very kind, and I thank each and every one of you. And here’s where I put in my request for pictures of finished products. There will be extra credit for the first pair of Jeeves I see knitted in a particularly riotous shade of purple.

“Not those socks, Jeeves,” I said, gulping a bit but having a dash at the careless, off-hand tone. “Give me the purple ones.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Those jolly purple ones.”

“Very good, sir.”

He lugged them out of the drawer as if he were a vegetarian fishing a caterpillar out of the salad. You could see he was feeling deeply. Deuced painful and all that, this sort of thing, but a chappie has got to assert himself every now and then. Absolutely.

– from “Jeeves and Chump Cyril”

All that said, I do have some pattern notes to pass along. Early adopters pointed out an embarrassing misspelling on the v1.0 .pdf. It’s since been rectified. A few others have asked about gauge.

Oh, here we go.

I hate gauge. There, I said it. I hate it. It’s my dirty knitting secret.

Knitting a gauge swatch pure torture for me, because I must experience the instant gratification of now, now, now, let me start now! Except I’m learning that other knitters (real knitters one might say, with lifted eyebrows and pointed tones) depend upon gauge, and if I’m going to try to pass myself off as any sort of pattern maker, I’m going to have to provide gauge, too. So last night, in a fit of pique (and yet, out of the goodness of my heart), I knit up a gauge swatch. For Jeeves, you’re looking at 22 stitches over 20 rows for a 4″ swatch. However, if you absolutely cannot get gauge, don’t fret. Jeeves is a flexible sock. If you cast on 48 stitches on 3.5 mm needles, you’ll be as right as rain.

Promise.

Another entry for Knitdown 2010: Jeeves, a knitted sock for gentlemen.

Download it for free and take part in the Knitdown.

Eagle-eyed sorts will notice that Jeeves look awfully familiar. I modified the original pattern for a DK weight yarn and cranked out a pair in a gorgeous blue silk blend for my father-in-law’s birthday. The name Jeeves came after my mother gave me metric ton of her Wodehouse and I was reminded how Jeeves came into Bertie’s employ:

“I had found Meadowes, the fellow I had taken to Easeby with me, sneaking my silk socks, a thing no bloke of spirit could stick at any price … I was reluctantly compelled to hand the misguided blighter the mitten and go to London to ask the registry office to dig up another specimen for my approval. They sent me Jeeves.”

So they did.

St. Patrick’s Day 2010 — top down drive, knitting in the sunshine and a cherry limeade from Sonic.

I blame Amadeus.

About a month ago, on one of those dreary February Sunday afternoons, we crashed out on the couch and spent three hours immersed in Mozart, his music, and the utterly fictional plot to murder him for his music. Fun times.

And while I was caught up in the story, I couldn’t help but notice how everyone from F. Murray Abraham on down was rocking some very frilly, very awesome lace cuffs.

So I dug into the stash, found some suitable sock yarn and made a pair.

Granted, the sartorialists in 18th century Vienna were wearing white lace cuffs while my 21st century version are rather more colorful, but that’s the fun of Knitdown 2010.

The cuffs are made from Lorna’s Laces Shepherd’s Sock Multi in Ashburn. The pattern is for sale for three bucks on Ravelry and Etsy.

But wait, you say, you’re charging?

Well, yeah. Given the complexity of the pattern for the product, I felt like I could ask you for three bucks and you just might give it to me. I’m not expecting to get rich off of one lace cuff .pdf. Heck, I’m not even expecting to make pizza money off one lace cuff .pdf. It’s a grand experiment in social media marketing, or at least seeing how many hearts on Ravelry transform themselves into dollars.

I’m guessing I make six whole bucks off the endeavor.

I look at this picture of this chair, and I make the sassy-faced expression of an embarrassed sitcom character who has to explain previous life choices to her witty friends. There’s a lot of cheek puffing and hand waving and ellipses. It was 2002 … Target … First house … and it’s not like we have an Ikea … Y’know?

But there are no escaping facts. It was an ugly chair. Its twin? Just as ugly. Curved back, MDF, maple veneer with an off white canvas seat, splattered with eight years’ worth of dining mishaps.

In my defense, I’ll tell you how the chairs were actually a house-warming present from (I think) my parents, that these chairs were purchased because we had purchased a house, and that house had an island, and that island had room to accommodate room for two tall chairs. I’ll also tell you about the little apartment that came before the house, and how our dining options were limited to a tiny two-person table because we couldn’t fit anything else in the space.

The two-person table was replaced with a sturdy farmhouse table made out of actual maple wood in 2004. In the autumn of 2008, I replaced the dining room chairs (two of which were the little brothers of these bad boys, and two of which were, sigh, folding) with four delightfully banged up black, cane-bottomed babies that I’d found in a consignment shop in Nob Hill.

See? Black and ladder-backed and awesome and seating for four.

The dining arrangements were moving up.

But that still left the island chairs.

They languished until last weekend, when, after mucking out the kitchen, doing our taxes, buying a new rug for the living room, doing a donation run to Goodwill, doing a donation run to the library and rejecting a new house in the north valley, we decided that yeah, we couldn’t it off any longer. It was time to do something about Those Chairs.

Fortunately for me, I had three yards of gray Passion Vine from Amy Butler’s Nigella home décor weight line just trashing up my project room, waiting to be turned into anything. Anything at all. ANYTHING.

And the Capt’n had two rattle cans’ worth of black engine enamel just taking up space in the garage.

Do you see where this is going? Amy Butler fabric meets automotive product. Yeah, this is one of my finer moments.

Sand, spray, staple.

Recovering those chairs has meant the world to the kitchen. Now all I have to do is repaint the walls and refinish the cabinets and it’ll be perfect.

Get a pound of stew meat from the butcher, pat it dry, roll it in flour and brown it in two tablespoons melted butter and two tablespoons olive oil.

Add in some minced shallots and cook for a few minutes. Throw a sliced onion on top of that and let it cook slowly for a few minutes more.

On top of that, dump a full container’s worth (32 ounces) of beef broth over the top. Toss in some salt (not too much), a bunch of ground black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, about an 1/8th of a cup of sugar and a dash of ground cloves. While you’re waiting for that to simmer, drop in two sliced carrots. Maybe a diced up potato can go in now, too, but it hasn’t been tested in the lab. But sure, live dangerously.

Simmer, partially covered, in a big green enameled pot, because those French know how to make cookware.

About an hour into the proceedings, add another two cups of water into the mix. Keep simmering for another 90, checking every so often to stir, until the liquid’s reduced to a nice, rich sludge of caramelized goodness and the meat’s falling apart at the touch of a spoon. Serve with hot biscuits dripping with butter.

I think the hardest part of late winter in the middle Rio Grande valley is the yo-yo effect. A beautiful day of sunshine and temperatures edging towards 70° can be wiped out in ten minutes’ time and replaced with ominous dark clouds and snowflakes the size of dinner plates. It’s hot, it’s cold! It’s up! It’s down! It’s hearing “Eight Days a Week” on the radio! It’s a bad Katy Perry song!

It’s demoralizing, waiting out winter’s retreat. Like the showboater in your sophomore year production of Hamlet (the one you still regret kissing at the wrap party, even though it’s been a good fifteen years since), this sulking seasonal Dane is going to rally and then mope and wring every last minute of its time on stage. (“O, I die, Horatio!)

So why not start a sock project?

But not a flimsy little sock done up in 81,000 yarns of sock yarn. Not a sock that will slouch and offer a foot only a thin layer of merino protection against the cold, tile floors in the winter of my discontent.

To hell with that. If I’m going to knit a sock to guard against winter, it’s going to be heavy-duty wool knit on heavy duty needles. So let’s give it up for Mission Falls 1824 triple stranded aran-weight SUPAHWAAAAASH!

This sock isn’t going to take any of winter’s crap. A pattern will be up eventually.