Your Mood & Your Gauge – A Psychological Study

– Not to sound desperate but Please Read This: I need input! –

The panic monster in my head started screaming at me one dreary morning this week, it was a litany of “you swatched this, why can’t you do anything right?” and “do you even know how to knit”. Well Panic Monster, I did a little study and proved that you are seriously messing up my knitting.

The back story to this diatribe is that a few weeks ago I designed a pattern for a baby blanket. I swatched, double checked, changed sizes to accommodate my misbehaving hand and put it aside knowing it would be ready when I went to cast on. So on Monday I did just that, I proceeded to cast on a whopping 244 stitches and went full speed ahead fully intending on pumping out this blanket. To my horror, the blanket felt stiff and tight. No longer was this the soft, airy, loose baby blanket I had envisioned, honestly the silly thing felt more like a rug than a blanket. I doubled checked all my notes and my swatch, I was doing exactly what I had planned. No deviation from the original swatch. So what happened?

The psychology major in me (one of my many degrees screams my OCD, type-A rattled mind) decided that my hand was not to blame for this one, my brain was the culprit. When I originally did my swatch I was relaxed; the weather was beautiful so the windows were open, I was as well rested as I get and Max was curled in my lap mesmerized by the yarn moving inches from his face. All was good in my brain the day of the swatch. On Monday, the day after Mother’s Day, I still felt emotionally hung over from once again not being a Mom. I was tense, upset, hadn’t slept well and had consumed copious amounts of caffeine. You can guess what comes next.

My Panic Monster was messing with my knitting.

I frogged the blanket and did another swatch, appalled by the fact I needed needles two sizes bigger to achieve the same effect. For all you non-knitters out there, two sizes is a huge difference – just picture needing shoes two sizes bigger. Two sizes…what are you supposed to do with that? and how much of this has affected my other knitted items? I have never noticed a finish product looking awkward or clunky, so how do you proceed?

Well, there are sedative….Just kidding. Kind of. You’ll see.

I spent the week doing the same swatch while experiencing the following emotions: Exhaustion (up for more than 19 hours), Happiness, Calmness, Sedation (a happy little pill to calm the Panic Monster that I rarely use, but after Mother’s Day I was a mess for several days) and Extreme Anxiety. I would come back to my needles during these emotions, knit the original swatch and then proceed to correct it with the appropriate needles. The results were a tad jarring.

Swatch: 10rows by 10rows should be 4″ by 4″ on size 7 needles.

1. Exhaustion: Swatch was 5″ by 5.4″. Desired swatch size had to be changed to size 6 needles with increase in tension.
2. Happiness: Swatch was 4″ by 4″. No changes necessary. Also no surprise.
3. Calmness: Swatch was 4″ by 4.6″. Only slight correction in tension needed.
4. Sedation: Swatch was 6.2″ by 8.7! Changed to size 5 needles rendered a product of 5″ by 5.4″. Changed to size 4 needles 4.1″ by 4.2″. Once tension was correct the product was 4″ by 4″.
5. Extreme Anxiety: Swatch was 2.8″ by 3.1″. Change to size 9 needles resulted in 3.9″ by 3.8″. Consideration with tension and yet another swatch led me to size 10 needles which was 4.1″ by 4.1″.

I am rarely sedated so I’ve dismiss this as a duh! moment, if you are fuzzy and loopy of course your knitting isn’t going to be tight. That’s why it’s not a good idea to knit while drunk, one of the many good ideas :). It was the Extreme Anxiety swatch that scares me; as I move my knitting to sweaters, shrugs and socks my anxiety could produce a product that is never going to fit right. How can you correct for the Panic Monster?

What I have noticed is that my knitting relaxes me. So I asked a nurse at work to watch my vitals during a panic attack; everyone I work with already knows about my Panic Monster and I have never felt ashamed of it. Thank God for nurses, oh hell, hospital staff in general. Nothing surprises them. Anyway,  after about 20 minutes of straight knitting I am calmer, my heart rate slows and my blood pressure drops. So I have come to the conclusion that I need to be knitting something simple for about 20 minutes before moving on to the more complex, more complicated types of knitting to ensure that my gauge is correct. I am going to have to do the same thing before I swatch a pattern out so that I can avoid more frogging.

Yowzer. What a week.

So, friends and neighbors who manage to get through my ramblings I would like to ask a few questions. Have anything like this happened to you? Do you find that your swatches can vary from one day to the next? How do you work through the process of ensuring that what you are knitting will be the exact shape and size that it needs to be?

The Munchkin & Harry Potter (Hat) Love

I have been listening to my friends talk about the birth of their children for years now, I may only be 28 but it seems my generation is okey-dokey with popping them out early. There is no judgement here; they all seem so happy, so content with life. I may experience the pangs of not having a child of my own – by which I mean someone who I carried in my body and brought into the world. I don’t think a day goes by where I don’t feel a sharp stab from this fact, being a woman whose body cannot do the one function that can create new life is utterly soul-shattering. Or it would be, if not for my Munchkin.

My Munchkin as Harry Potter – Age 4.

This is my niece Gloria, but for the purposes of this blog I will always refer to her as the Munchkin; this is what I’ve always called her and until she begs me to stop I will continue to do so. I did not give birth to the Munchkin, but I live and breathe for her, I would die for her. Isn’t this what motherhood feels like? Like an infinite well of love that will never go dry? She is the primary reason I strive to be a better person and has been since the day she was born.

5 Whole Minutes Old.

Barely 2 – Oh…that grin!

Christmas 2005 – I Could Stare All Day.

As the Flower Girl at our Wedding

Oh nostalgia, I am getting away from my point here!

Okay. Tears dried, nose blown and ready to move onward!

It was because of the Munchkin that I have been inundated with Harry Potter for the past 10 years. She LOVED these movies, we watched them so many times that the DVD’s wore themselves out and had to be replaced. I could quote lines from Harry Potter like a devout Christian can recite scripture, and I never grew tired of it. Watching her face come to life in the midst of imaginary worlds filled with magic created its own sort of magic here on earth. As she grew older and started reading the books I was elated at the possibility of continuing that magic, and I was never disappointed.

So as I was pondering Tiny Owl Knits blog and saw a Harry Potter-esq hat…well…my credit card has never jumped out of my wallet so quickly! The Parseltongue Hat may be my favorite Tiny Owl Knits creation due solely to the fact that the whole time I was knitting it was like a lovely trip down memory lane. I have been watching the Munchkin grow up for almost 12 years now (oh God, I feel old) but Harry Potter still reminds me of the magic of childhood.

So I knit, and knit, and knit until I could barely feel my fingers with my brand-spanking new addi-clicks which are as amazing as everyone says. It was the first time I worked a pattern from the crown down which was like a little adventure all by itself, luckily one that didn’t end in a brim that was overly tight due to my overly tight gauge. Stephanie Dosen is a genius with creative, whimsical patterns and this hat was no different. As I saw the snakes and their tongues sliding off my needles, well, I was giddy.

Cabled Snakes Hat.

Left Profile

Right Profile

Up Close and Personal Up Top

Even MORE Up Close and Personal!

Snakes Make Me Smile.

I love this pattern, and I will make it again and again. For now though, I am keeping this hat to remind me that life is magical. I may never be called “mommy” by a tiny little person who kind of looks like me, but I have been called “Rachel” for the last 12 years by my Munchkin, and there is nothing more I hold dear.

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I want to say Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mom’s out there! Mother’s Day may be hard for someone like me but hey, I have a Mom so I get it. Two baby showers this weekend and I won’t have another for a whole 6 weeks!

So friends and neighbors, any patterns/books/music/movies that make you feel like there is still magic in the world? If so, I am dying to hear about it!

Please Don’t Tell Me What I Cannot Do

To Those Who Doubt Me,

Please, do not tell me what I cannot do. There are millions of things that are worse than an arthritic hand, a hand with only a thumb and pointer finger that are fully functional. Or the wee little panic monster living in my brain, you learn to live with OCD just like you would live with any chemical imbalance; one day at a time. Look around you; you never have to look very hard or very long to find something worse. I consider myself lucky in that respect.

If I want to mow my parents lawn as well as their next door neighbors – whose grandchild is dying in Children’s Hospital- please don’t tell me I cannot do this. I can tie a twisty tie around the power mower lever and push with my palms. I can rest for ten minutes here and there and elevated the swollen, screaming appendage then continue the task at hand (no pun intended, although it is a good one). Real pain is having a mother whose lungs will not allow her to do the yard work she has always loved, or losing a grandchild whose heart has given it up as a bad job.

If I want to clean my neighbor’s house to prepare for the impending arrival of their first child, please do not tell me I cannot do this. This is may seem like a double no-no for someone struggling with infertility, multiple miscarriages, and OCD that gets set off at the drop of a hat around baby items. It may seem a no-no situation to avoid the panic monster living in my brain, that little bastard and I have learned to live together, he won’t stop me from helping a friend when they need it. If I can survive the war in my brain knitting their baby blanket, so soft and sweet and utterly heartbreaking then my hand and brain can handle Windex and Pledge just fine.

If I want to for hours on end, please do not tell me I cannot do this. There are compression gloves – both those you can find in craft stores and the more sophisticated versions that specialist create for loads of money – that can pull the swelling from my abused joints. There is Advil, Tylenol, ice and heat to sooth the pain and malicious looking bruising. I don’t mind the dusky purple color my hand takes on, I choose to look at my hand and it’s odd coloring as a sign that another day has gone by and I have not let my life be dictated by something beyond my control.

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I am not mad. I know you worry because you care.

I am not depressed. I know your concerns about the overwhelming emotions brought on by being surrounded by baby items with no baby of our own are painful, but hiding from them would be far more detrimental.

I will not be deterred. If I decided to stop living my life and doing the things I love for fear of pain, that would not be living. Life can be painful, usually is to be honest. It is how we choose to go about our pain that makes us who we are. I am choosing to be someone who will not be defined by a hand injury, I am not making it any worse doing these things, just opting to live with what I’ve got to work with. I will not be defined by the fact that I cannot have the child that I so desperately want. My heart may feel like it is breaking on a daily basis but to ignore or neglect all those whose bodies will allow them to make a new life would be selfish, inconsiderate and destroy that happier parts of myself. Family is, after all, what you make of it.

So please, take heart that I know my limitations, that I know how to live my life to the fullest and embrace the things that make me the happiest even if I get a wee bit teary here and there. And please – Don’t Tell Me What I Cannot Do.