Fashion: Yarn Style

Summer Peaches in Cotton Lace and Spangles!

 

It’s been swelteringly hot here in California so I’ve been knitting cotton lace. Everyone needs a lace vest for summer, right? It’s a light, cool piece that adds a hint of style to a dress without making you much warmer. I’ve been seeking the pattern for a white lace vest like this for years!

 

“Peaches” by Kim Hargreaves is a free pattern that you can download from Ravelry here

 

I discovered the pattern when we kicked off the Kim Hargreaves-along in the Stitching over the Days group, which I am helping moderate. Our knit-a-long lasts until December and we are all knitting at least one piece by the ravishing knitwear designer. While I was posting  the free Kim Hargreaves patterns that can be found on Ravelry, I stumbled on “Peaches” and it was love at first sight! 

 

This pattern calls for Rowan Cotton Glacé, but I find that yarn hard on the hands so I substituted in Rowan Summerlite dk instead. The Summerlite is a dream to knit with—light and bouncy and comfortable to handle for hours at a time.  I have already purchased more for another upcoming summer pattern! “Summer?!” You may say, “isn’t it just one more day to fall, and September 1^st?” Not around here, my friends. In fact, the hottest days of summer have not even hit here yet. Indian summer, mid September, is truly sweltering in Sunnyvale so I will be continuing to make items in cotton for some time. 

 

 

So far every summer garment I’ve sewed so far has been in cotton, but this may be my favorite. It is a spangled Indian muslin, which I discovered at FabricsRus in San Jose for $3 a yard.

 

 

I used the popover dress pattern from Gertie’s Jiffy Dress book. I chose the shirring option of this sewing pattern which involves gathering in the waist using concentric circles of stitching with elastic thread. It was not an easy process but after much practice and effort, I am very happy with the result!

 

 

Soldotna by Caitlin Hunter

 

Recently I participated in a knit-a-long of the Soldotna Crop cardigan at my local yarn shop. What a great stashbuster Caitlin Hunter's design is! I used Handmaiden Casbah (blue), (Fibercompany's Road to China and Myak Baby Yak Medium (dark browns), Olann Merino dk (white flecked with pink, blue and brown) and Rowan softyak dk (pink). This top is really versatile because all of us had different figures and different color schemes but we all looked smashing in the sweater!

 

 

 My friend, Sylvie and I had fun finishing Soldotna at around the same time and then we wore them on our trip together to Yellowstone Park in Montana. The park was gorgeous because of all the late rainfall which had created a bonanza of wildflowers and dramatic waterfalls. I found the Soldotna Crop, with its short sleeves, to be a perfect weight sweater for the kind of alternating warm and cool temperatures at this time of year in Montana. Sylvie and I wore our sweaters from early in the morning at the Paint Pots Geyser basin:

 

 to our late evening dinner at Chico Hot Springs where we indulged in the flaming orange dessert:

 

The Soldotna is a very short pullover and I lengthened it by following the example on the Malabrigo instagram page of a version lengthened using a repeat from the upper yoke of the sweater.

I really didn’t have the option of making the blue section of the sweater longer as I’d run out of yarn—I tried to knit the sweater almost entirely from stash but the teal section used Handmaiden Casbah doubled to DK weight which almost immediately sold out from the store I’d bought it from so there was no way to extend the main body section. And I found it fun to bring more colorwork to the bottom of the sweater anyway. It is still cropped on me but looks great paired with jeans or a high-waisted skirt.

 

 

Here are a few more photos from our trip to Yellowstone:

 

1: The Paint Pots

 

2 A Mother Watching over Baby Elk

 

3. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone Waterfall

Vilma by Sarah Hatton

 

I’ve been knitting Vilma for over a year and a half-- it feels strange to finished it at last! The more stranded knitting projects I make, the less motivated I feel to work on long stockinette sections. But I persevered! The worst moment was last November. I left my half-knitted sweater in the back of a taxi in Paris and it took a while to to start again. Eventually I decided I would be permanently traumatized by Vilma’s loss unless I started over. 

 

 

I had meant to achieve a sweater-girl style look with Vilma, in keeping with Fran Jeffries sweater, which she wears in The Pink Panther movie here:

 

I think I achieved that pretty well, although my sweater is too tight in the bust. I have not washed it yet so I am hoping it will loosen up a bit. I went up a size from M to L in the bust section, then reduced to M in the yoke colorwork section to fit my shoulder/neck area. I had assumed that by adding so many extra stitches, it would be looser in the chest but for some reason it isn’t. Apart from that issue, the fit of the sweater is quite good, and I especially like the back:

 

 

I am wearing Vilma with the stretch-wool pencil skirt I finished sewing a few months ago. That skirt seems to go with all my sweaters so I’m wondering if I should make another one in a more spring/summer color scheme. A fellow knitted said that she feels shift dresses also go really well with sweaters so I have purchased a pattern to try. In the meantime, I sewed myself a little skirt/top ensemble out of denim using the Hollyburn skirt and a self-drafted top which I am really enjoying:

 

 

I like outfits  that can be paired together as a dress or worn as separates. And something about denim for summer seems right. As it's almost 90 degrees here, sleeveless seems a good option. My next project will be the fabulous Unst by Marie Wallin. You may remember that I got to try Marie Wallin’s sample on when I visited her booth at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival two years ago. I plan to go up a size so it fits me better than this sample:

 

 

To swatch for Unst, I am knitting some fingerless mittens using the same yarn and gauge, the Skerries Mitts:

 

 Skerries Mittens by Marie Wallin

 

I am in no hurry to finish any stranded projects right now because it's

too hot to wear any of them.  By the way, I should mention that

I really enjoyed knitting my Vilma out of the Rowan Finest

yarn that was, sadly, discontinued a few years ago. The yarn

is a blend of cashmere, merino and alpaca. I heard that it 

pilled quite badly in the knitting process from someone on Ravelry, 

but I did not have that experience myself, and I handled this sweater

quite a bit as it took so long to make the darned thing.

 

I don't see pilling, do you?

 

I have some bits and bobs of Finest left over in my stash, so I am

planning to cobble them together into an Asbury cardigan

by Martin Storey once I finish Unst. 

 

Clueless? Pairing Handknit & Sewn Clothes

Karen cardigan by Sarah Hatton + my sewn Hollyburn skirt

 

When you knit a sweater to match an item in your wardrobe, there are a lot of advantages. You’ve worn the garment for a while and understand its proportions. Understanding the style and shape you need to complete an outfit is key. I was thrilled that Myrna suited my purchased vintage dress as planned:

However, my other project was not so successful. I had originally thought, “How hard could it be to create a sewn outfit to go with my new cardigan?”

 

Because the official design photo of Myrna is styled with a V-neck garment underneath, I figured I 'd sew a V-neck top and skirt at the same time I knit the cardigan, and it would all go together

 

 

Since I was knitting the cardigan at the same time as I sewed accompanying pieces, I waited until all the garments were done to pair them together, which yielded surprising results:

 

 

I’m not saying this outfit is terrible, but it reminds me of a three-layer cake. Clearly, I should have remembered Tim Gunn’s words from Project Runway—matching colors don’t make a collection. It’s the match of the proportions of the pieces! The top is too long for the cropped cardigan and then the skirt flares out in a pouffy 3rd tier. Despite my disappointment, I wore the outfit to work. The Belgian father of my writing students raised an eyebrow and said, “You look Swiss today!” Hmm. Not sure my intention was to create a Swiss National costume. I don’t think I’ll be wearing Myrna with that red and white garb any time soon!

 

 

I've also tried to sew a dress that complements my new Willowwood sweater. My first dress attempt (and I will add the first dress I’ve sewn for 32 years) was the Simplicity pattern 8231.

 

 

While 8231 makes a great house dress, the proportions are all wrong when paired with Willowwood. Without a distinct waist band to the dress, the cropped sweater meets the skirt just where it starts to flare out, creating the illusion of no waist.

 

See how much better the cropped sweater looks with my waist-hugging, store-bought dress:

 

 

Refusing to be discouraged, I next sewed the Dahlia dress which is a popular Colette pattern and was on sale for $8. I also chose Dahlia for the distinct waist band which defines the figure better than the Simplicity Pattern: 

 

 

I’m super proud of this dress. The shoulders fit well since I tried the pattern hack that my wonderful friend Andrea helped me find here:  It's also a classic style I can wear to work. However, go with the Willowwood crop it does not:

 

 

Guess which sweater does go perfectly with Dahlia?

 

 

Note my look of dismay in the photo above! None of my plans are working out! On the bright side, I did randomly create a cute outfit with Myrna and Dahlia!????????

 

 I wear the Dahlia dress so much that I sewed up a second version with some Liberty poplin I found at a huge discount on Bluprint and a contrasting blue quilting cotton.

 

 

Something is working well, but it's not my outfit pairings, that's for sure! As Cher admits in the Clueless movie based on Emma by Jane Austen, there’s only one conclusion to be drawn-- the clueless one is me!

 

Do you readers have any advice? Until I figure out what I'm doing wrong, here is the plan:

 

     1)    Limit sewing and knitting projects to items matching what I already have.

 

     2) Wear each completed item for a month before I attempt to sew/knit a piece to match. By that point, I should understand what proportions will work. Or perhaps I won’t need to make another garment because the completer piece is already in my closet!

 

After all, the intention is not to pile up a bunch of random clothing but create a capsule wardrobe of things I want to wear, that go together and look good on my body type.

 

But perhaps some of you readers, being more advanced sewists than me, have a better idea?

 

Myrna by Andi Satterlund

 

 

 

I knitted Myrna to wear with a vintage-style dress I purchased last year.  I knew I would wear the dress a lot more if I had something to cover my arms, as the sleeveless style is not appropriate for teaching. Although I had queued Myrna, it was not until I saw CleoCMC’s version that I knew it was the one. Have you noticed how influential it is to see a really beautifully knitted version of a pattern? Seeing a knit on a real-life person, tastefully styled, allows you to imagine that sweater on you more easily.

 

 

Because Constance wears a lot of vintage styles like I do, I was 

able to see her Myrna paired with a vintage-style dress so I knew

 it would be perfect for mine. The pattern was clear and easy to 

follow, and I was able to knit it up in two weeks because the yarn

 is a worsted weight. Although the pattern calls for Miss Babs

Yowza, I am skeptical about using superwash yarn for garments 

as it has a tendency to grow, so I used some Rowan softknit cotton

 from my stash instead. 

 

It’s really a pity that Rowan discontinued Softknit cotton as it’s chainette structure makes it easy to knit and stable to wear. I have experienced no stretching from the cardigan, Karen, that I knitted with the same yarn two years ago.

 

 

My only complaint with the Myrna pattern is that the buttonholes are really big and a bit gappy. I used quite large vintage buttons I’d purchased in a Montana antique store for the cardigan but they are not secure. Now I plan to go back and reinforce each buttonhole by hand. Sigh.  Other than that small detail, I highly recommend the Myrna pattern. It has a lot of style in a small package and is fun and relatively easy to knit!  

 

 

 

Willowwood by Caitlin Hunter

 

I have finished knitting the boylandknitworks Willowwood

pullover in Woolfolk Far yarn. The combination of design and

yarn was absolutely scrumptious! I immediately became obsessed with the design when I saw the Pom Pom magazine because I feel it captures the drama and exhuberance of Victorian style but the cropped shape keeps it modern too!

 

 

The whole theme of the woman warrior with Victorian style in Pom Pom Quarterly 27 is just fabulous. Too often strong women are portrayed as hard-edged but the designs are so sumptuous and elegant!

 

Nightingale by Nora Gaughn

 

I have my eyes on the above design, Nightingale, as well. What a genius idea to create a suit of armor out of woolen cables! And the design uses an American made yarn, Quince & Co Lark, which I’ve been interested in trying. The other reason I am so obsessed with these Pom Pom designs is I’ve been reading some wonderful literature lately about strong Victorian women. Deanna Raybourn’s series that features a fearless Victorian female butterfly hunter and explorer, “A Curious Beginning” is just as sumptuous and well-fashioned as the Pom Pom knit collection.

 

The heroine Veronica Speedwell (Speedwell being the scientific name of a cornflower) is a blue-eyed warrior who will stop at nothing to capture the butterflies that take her fancy or the villains that threaten people she loves. It is so refreshing to read a thriller romance series in which a wounded hero is the retiring, beautiful character who must be ultimately stalked and trapped by an adventurous, world-traveled heroine.

 

Willowwood neck detail
 

Deanna Raybourn has been a bit of a muse for me of late, and her incredibly intelligent and entertaining interview in this podcast informed me about the intrepid Victorian woman explorers that Raybourn modeled Veronica Speedwell after. So knitting this pullover was mandatory for me, as it brings me one step closer to the marvelous world of adventure and thrilling scientific pursuits that Veronica Speedwell and the explorer Stoker inhabit.

 

 

I had the wonderful opportunity to try on a sample of Willowwood at Stitches West which resolved me to knit a more fitted version for myself. Although the second size of the pattern fit me rather well, it was quite wide at the bust which made my chest look simply enormous. For those of us who are on the busty side, I feel it is really important to pay attention to this area of a sweater. I altered the pattern accordingly by casting on only 160 stitches to define my waist and then I added in an additional 10 stitches every inch until I reached the armhole, at which point I’d reached the recommended 220 stitches. This created a gradual widening of the sweater so that there was NO wide swath of fabric hanging from the armhole to the waist, which had seemed to triple the actual dimensions of the chest area.

 

 

I also made the sweater more fitted by knitting the body on a size 7 cubix needle which tends to create a tight gauge instead of a size 8 needle as the pattern required. I only switched up to size 8 for the stranded sections of the pullover and sleeves. Otherwise, I knitted the pattern exactly as written and it fitted just as I wanted it to! I am planning to sew a dress to go with this pullover but I’m going to have to find a dress pattern with a lot of waist definition. The dress pattern I tried was too high-waisted for me to wear with a cropped cardigan and has become a house dress instead:

 

 

Between the cropped high waisted top and the high waisted dress, my waist seemed to disappear.  I'll try to post a photo next time to show you what I mean. So I’m going to try the Dahlia dress by Colette patterns instead:

 

 

Striving for the Ultimate Chanel Skirt

 

As y’all know, I have long been a fan of Karl Lagerfeld. Ever since I saw his Chanel Spring Summer 2017 collection I have been obsessed with the A-line zippered tweed skirts.

 

Some of the tweed prints were even based on circuit boards, which, since I'm the wife of a computer programmer, particularly appealed to me.

 

 

I mean, only Lagerfeld could have made a circuit board so fashionable! Anyway, I’ve been pining for one of these skirts for years knowing that I could never afford to even purchase one resale. Considering that new, the skirts were priced at around $6,000, even at 1/10^th of the original cost, a used skirt would be $600! But now that I am taking sewing classes, it occurs to me that one day this skirt might be in my reach.

 

For this reason, I am starting my sewing adventures with skirts! My first pattern was Gertie’s Short & Chic Aline skirt. Overall, I liked the Gertie pattern but felt that it was not made for a beginning sewer. The patterns were all overlapped on top of each other so that it was confusing to tell where one ended and the other began, and so I ended up cutting the pattern out to the wrong shape and wasting $25 of fabric.

 

I feel that the money the author saved in avoiding adding additional pages to the patterns may have been a false economy. As a user, I would much have preferred to pay more for the book than to lose at least double that money on fabric I cut into the wrong shape. I even traced the pattern ahead of time as I’d never tried to follow one pattern superimposed in top of the lines of others but still I got confused. Oh well. I ended up with a wearable skirt in a different piece of fabric.

 

 

However, this half circle skirt was too full to reproduce the Chanel skirt I adore. So, inspired by cleocmc’s video podcast, Stitching Over the Days, I sewed a Hollyburn skirt. It's pictured below with my Karen Cardigan by Sarah Hatton. 

 

 

I made a muslin of the skirt first, to ensure a good fit, and ended up adding in a dart to the back pieces of the skirt so that it fit better at my waist. I had tried adding a back dart to the Gertie skirt and it worked so I just copied over the same dart I’d added. Overall, I feel the Hollyburn skirt is more figure flattering for me than the Gertie pattern because the Hollyburn has a waistband to define my waist and the skirt is less full. The Hollyburn is a super easy and fun pattern to use and I highly recommend it for the beginning sewer. Like Constance, or CleoCMC on ravelry, I can definitely see myself sewing another one of these skirts for summer! I’m thinking of a red linen skirt with a red and white checked top!

What do you think? If the pieces work out, I could knit a white Myrna cardigan to complete the outfit:

 

As happy as I am with the Hollyburn skirt, I still feel it still has not achieved the correct shape of the Chanel skirt I am longing for. I am now looking for a simpler, A-line skirt pattern with a front zip to practice with. Perhaps by the time I find it I will have acquired the necessary sewing skills to create my heart’s desire. In the meantime, I am continuing to knit happily away on various projects

 

1) Willowwood by Caitlin Hunter is in progress

 

2) I’ve finished my Hermione’s Everyday socks in Junkyarn which I loved:

 

3) I’ve knitted my second version of the Bargello Beanie by Vickie Howell in Malabrigo Mecha:

 

Is anyone planning to participate in MeMadeMay? I just signed up here with my pledge. But more about that next time…..

 

Wardrobe Style: Integrating Knits with Sewing

Short & Chic A-Line Skirt by Gertie + Emma Tee

 

I recently finished sewing Gertie’s pattern, Short & Chic A Line Skirt from her book, Gertie Sews Vintage Casual. It was the first skirt I’d sewed myself from beginning to end in years, and I was proud of the accomplishment.

 

However, I realized that the skirt shape I’d chosen wasn’t super easy to pair with sweaters that have any positive ease. The skirt is so wide, as a half circle, that it really needs to be paired with a top that is not bulky. At first, I thought the A line skirt would be perfect to pair with my Emma Tee, because the fabric and knit share a pink and black color scheme:

 

 

I think the outfit is generally cute if I pair it with a black belt. But the sleeves look a bit loose on the arm and that stands out when the Tee is paired with this skirt. On the other hand, the Emma Tee looks great with my black lace Maje skirt. I think it’s because the loose lace and grommets of the skirt flare out and that goes better with the flare at the sleeves of the Emma Tee.

 

 

Who knew that there were so many details to keep in mind when trying to put together an outfit made by hand?????

 

Since I’m a rather inexperienced sewer, I’m going to keep my wardrobe focus on knits and try to sew complementary wardrobe pieces. But now, after my first few efforts, I'm starting to realize how much I DON'T know what I'm doing and how much there is to learn. So I will start by imitating people with experience. My thought is to look at how knits are styled in pattern photos. For example, the cropped pullover Willowwood that I'm knitting is paired with a rather fabulous looking dress in a floral print:

 

 Willowwood by Caitlin Hunter on the right is from Pom Pom Quarterly #27

So I’ve decided to sew a print dress to wear under my Willowwood, and casting around for an easy sewing pattern, I found Simplicity Pattern 8231

 

 

It looks like it just uses elastic to draw the waist and bust in, and I should be able to handle that. So as soon as I finish sewing my Hollyburn skirt, which I will blog about in my next post, I will sew a wearable muslin of this Simplicity pattern. 

 

Here is the cotton fabric I’m going to use to sew my practice dress. I found it at the Discount Fabric Warehouse of San Francisco yesterday, and it was $6 a yard, so I hope I can make it into a dress I will enjoy wearing on its own, even though it is my “practice run”!  I know some of my readers have been sewing for a long time. What strategies do you use to find sewing patterns that will work with your knits? I would truly be grateful for any advice you want to share!!!!

 

 

Gransmoor by Lisa Richardson

 

I sewed the pieces of my Gransmoor sweater together on the plane! I was determined to wear the pullover to Interweave’s Yarnfest in Loveland and I got my wish! You can see my husband teased me about my mad deadline knitting until he caught me in a silly photo:

 

 

Gransmoor is designed by Lisa Richardson using Hemp Tweed. The design is from Rowan Magazine 62. I have been longing to knit it, but working a whole stranded sweater in pieces is not for the faint of heart. Adding another level of difficulty, the sweater has raglan shaping so you have to track many decreases for the body and sleeves on both front and back while stranding on knit and purl sides. Since it was so complicated anyway I decided to add waist shaping as well. However, I feel the raglan structure is the trickiest part of the pattern. All of the side decreases for the raglan shaping means the pattern is constantly shifting over one stitch on each side and so I did end up making a mistake as I was working on the purl side of the garment where I couldn’t see the pattern:

 

 

This is the correct version of the top panel, which converts from a grey leaf to a white leaf with the stems of the leaves aligned in the center. I hadn’t realized this was the anchor point when I was knitting the motif the first time. As I decreased the WS edge for the raglan and purled across, I accidentally shifted the center point of the leaf motif over by one but I couldn't see the pattern as I was on the purl side. I didn’t discover the error, actually, until I knitted the front piece. At that point I went back and unraveled the whole top panel of the back. Now the pattern is correct but the raglan sleeves may be just a bit too long. I hope they will not lengthen even more with wear!

Paired with this sweater is the pencil skirt I sewed with Maxi, my mother-in-law’s help several years ago. She left me to finish it on my own and you can see that I put it off for quite a while! But I think this skirt is super versatile and I plan to wear it with many different knits. Such as…..GASP…. the gorgeous sweater Maxi gifted to me during my visit!

 

 

The gorgeous stranded creation I am wearing is Magnolia by Marie Wallin knitted in Rowan felted tweed. Maxi purchased the kit and altered the shaping across the shoulders for a better fit. This cardigan is really a masterpiece! Maxi decided to give this sweater to me and I will treasure it FOREVER! You can find her notes on the project here.

 

 

I think with this gift I have won the knitting lottery of all time! 

2019 Couture Knitting and Sewing Goals

 

I’ve been mourning the Great Karl Lagerfeld and reflecting on his remarkable life’s work. I doubt there will ever be another designer like him in our lifetime with his combination of creativity and output. Anyway, this has led me to realize it’s time to get back to couture inspirations for my knitting. After all, this blog became my way to share and learn in pursuit of knitting heirloom pieces I could not buy in a store. I am happy to say that I achieved some of my goals.

 

Isle by Kim Hargreaves

Isle styled like Lagerfeld's jacket from Chanel Paris Salzburg runway

 

My adaptation of Steed by Kim Hargreaves

 

Steed colors modeled on Lagerfeld's Plaid dress from Chanel F/W couture 2014
 

 

Then with my challenges of wearing my knits for 100 days in a row, I shifted my focus to everyday wardrobe staples. I still tried to keep up with trends and create beautiful fabric but my focus was on wearability:

 

Cherry by Anna Bell

 

 Cherry leaf pattern similar to Lagerfeld top: Chanel Paris Soeul runway

 

Martin Storey's Braid

 

Finally, with my head injury last year, I switched to small, manageable projects like socks and hats so that I could still craft in spite of dizziness and neck pain. I do love all of my projects, but I am back to feeling if I am going to spend time working on a garment, why not make it one that will be treasured forever?

 

My Design: Gabrielle in Winter  inspired by Lagerfeld's 2013 Fall Winter Couture runway

 

One of the reasons I have been reflecting on my goals is that some of my concussion symptoms returned this week so I had to take off from work.  This may have been triggered by the stress of both my cats developing IBD and the resulting struggle to hand feed them multiple times a day to keep them from starving. Anyway, it has been important to find a positive way to fill my time. I adore my students and miss them and of course it can be challenging to power through nausea, blurred vision and fatigue for large blocks of time. Especially when covered from head to foot with yummy tuna heated in the microwave one plate at a time to tempt the kitties to take a bite.

 

So I put together a binder of photos of some of my favorite projects and the couture inspirations to remind myself of all that I can accomplish although I am temporarily on pause. The binder has been a really fun project because it creates an immediacy with comparing images side by side of inspirations and completed projects. And then once you start putting in photos that inspire you, it easy to add more! I'm sorry a lot of the binder photos above in this blog were so dark. My vision is poor right now and if I were to wait to post this until I could edit them properly....... However in the moments when I've perked up, I have created a pinterest board for inspiration.

 

Perhaps it's time to brush up on my sewing so I can plan full outfits instead of knitting tops and cobbling wardrobe items together with them. This will also allow me to support some local California fabric makers. So here is a list of my 2019 goals:

 

  1.     Take sewing classes to create a template (sloper) of a well-fitting top and skirt. This way when I create a knit that needs a complimentary top or skirt, I can sew one without fiddling with a ton of patterns.

 

 

     >2.    Experiment with adding knitted or crocheted trim to sewn fabrics.

 

     >3.    Improve my crocheting lace skills.

 

     >4.   Sew a basic fitted top and add a knitted, crocheted, or embroidered element.

 

     >5.    Sew an Alabama Chanin pattern such as: The Basic Tank Dress

 

 

      >6.    Sew one Gertie pattern such as: The Short and Chic A line skirt

 

Biggest goal of all—rest up and get healthy again! It’s essay season and my students have lots of papers to write--they need me!