Monthly Archives: November 2012

Applying What You Already Know About Fiber

I have kind of a confession to make.

At the end of last winter, I was in Target, and I noticed that they had their accessories on clearance.  Among them was a pair of flip-top mittens in a rather pretty blue and white variegated colorway.  I have a fondness for fingerless mitts, and I’d been thinking about making a pair of convertible mittens like these, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet, and they struck me as kind of fiddly.  (Not that I generally have a problem with fiddly things, and I’d made mitts with partial fingers before without issue, but… I think it was the yarn.  I have a weakness for pretty colors.)  There were other excuses – I’m sure you’ve seen them before.  I had a lot of knitting in my queue, and none of it was mittens.  I have a hard time knitting for myself.  And so on.

The long and short of it was that I broke down and bought a commercially knitted accessory for the first time since I’d taken up the needles myself.  And since I bought it at Target and didn’t spend a million dollars on them, they were acrylic.

And then I forgot about them.  It was the end of the season, they went in the bin I keep my fingerless gloves in, and thus far this winter I’d been using my own fingerless mitts.  Then a concatenation of events caused me to lose one of my Codename: Garnet mitts (remember those? oh, and don’t worry, it’s just lost in my apartment and I haven’t had a chance to hunt for it yet) and found me digging through that bin in the very early morning.  Finding those mittens seemed like a blessing, because it was definitely getting cold enough for mittens.

That was yesterday.  I wore them in to work by themselves, and they were fine; last night it was cold enough that I layered them under my Hurry Up Spring armwarmers (and how glad am I that I made those over the summer? Super glad), but I’d been layering my Garnet mitts under them, so it seemed perfectly natural.

Yesterday, however, it was dry when I was commuting.

Today?  Not so much.  Which means my accessories got rained on, as they do.  My Through the Woods hood kept my head dry and my neck toasty warm, of course.  (If you’re looking for an extra layer to protect your head from the wind and precludes the need for a cowl or scarf?  Check that one out.  Fantastic.)

I’m sure those of you who know anything about fiber can see this coming, right?

Yeah, my acrylic mittens? Just got wet. And then my fingers got cold. And I reminded myself of all the wonderful insulating properties of wool, and I thought about the two balls of Felici Sport I have in my stash that was given to me by an incredibly kind stranger, and… well…

Can anybody recommend a good convertible mitten pattern?

The Monday Before the Election

Sorry I’ve been so quiet lately. I finished one temp assignment and started another. This one is in Portland, so I have a lot more commute and my day starts earlier and ends later. One bonus side effect of this is more train knitting time, and another is that I finally seamed my Through the Woods hood and have been wearing it every day.

But I’m not here to talk about that.

I’m here to talk about politics, and civil rights, and marriage.

For those of you who don’t know, my fiancé Jack is transgender. He’s very male to me, but because of family health history, he’s opted to forego medically transitioning.

What this means is that as far as the law is concerned, we’re a gay couple.

In Arizona’s last election, they passed a constitutional amendment denying us the right to marry.

Imagine my surprise and delight when Washington’s legislators and governor passed a law legalizing marital equality. On Valentine’s Day, no less.

Suddenly marriage became a real thing, something to plan. We started researching venues and recruiting attendants, like any other couple.

And then enough signatures were passed to put marriage equality on the ballot. Instead of going into effect in July, it would be put on hold until November. Instead of marriage being something I had a right to as a consenting adult who was madly in love with another consenting adult, it was something that my fellow citizens had the right to decide about. It was a “lifestyle” that was somehow threatening to people who had never met me.

Let me tell you this. I’m divorced. I was married in 1999 to a man who was, at the bottom of it all, a Nice Guy. There was a lot of internalized misogyny and self-loathing that went into that decision, and a lot about settling and not rocking the boat as I went through with a marriage I wasn’t sure I wanted when it came down to it. On my wedding day, I was absolutely positive I was marrying the wrong man – but we’d spent a lot of money and I had a lot of family there, so I went through with it.

It was the kind of mistake that lots of young women in their early twenties make. It was the kind of mistake that everyone should be able to make, regardless of gender.

Because marriage isn’t perfect.

But I’m 36 now, and as many women in their mid-thirties have done, I’ve learned a lot about myself. As many people have done, I’ve been through a lot. And as many people have done, I’ve found a partner who treats me with respect and love and makes me happy every single day. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and I want nothing more than to commit to sharing the rest of my life with him and have my state (and my insurance company, and so on) acknowledge that I’ve done so.

My legal last name is still my ex-husband’s – changing it back was a stress I couldn’t deal with at the time, and I have no desire to use my mother’s ex-husband’s last name either.

I’ve read a lot of different opinions about name-changing. Jack and I discussed it, at length.

I want to take his name. The change symbolizes the creation of our family, emphasizes my sense of belonging with him. The men whose names I’ve worn up until now have been bad for me; I think it’s about time I had the name of someone good for me.

But first, I have to wait for my fellow citizens to decide whether I’m deserving of making this choice. I made it at 22 without anyone’s intervention, even though I probably wasn’t ready. (Who’s genuinely ready at 22 to make decisions that will impact the rest of their lives? Very few people.)

My county votes by mail, so if you’re local, you’ve probably already voted, but if you have the opportunity in your state (for this election or any other), please, please vote in favor of expanding people’s civil rights. This isn’t about religion, or history, or any of those things. If you’re not in favor of gay marriage, you don’t have to have one. But I’m not in favor of marriages that dissolve in six months, and I’m not allowed to stop them. It’s about the ability of someone like me to make a commitment to another consenting adult they love. It’s about rights.

Happy Election Day, everybody. Get out there and vote.