Xmas Gifties

I did receive a couple of excellent holiday gifts to please the knitter in me.

My swap buddy GypsyGirl sent me some lovely, lace-weight merino in a delightful brick-ish red:


She also sent me a lovely pattern to go with the yarn, so I won't have to try and decide which lace project to use it on. That's actually a painful process, leading to lots of lace yarn not being knitted up. She sent me other knitterly delights including a black sheep - I want to thank her for the lovely holiday package!

And my friend Anton, now that he's beginning to appreciate what knitting is about, picked up a couple of things at ye local yarne shoppe for me. One was some of the softest cotton I've ever handled in my life - it was love at first touch!

And some silky Malabrigo; I'm going to knit up a pair of Susan Pandorf's mitts with it:


Finally, we always have crackers at Christmas - the things you pull apart that go 'bang' and have a paper crown, a prize, and a bad joke within. I received a knitting joke en francais:

Patricia: Savais-tu que ca prend 3 moutons pour faire un cardigan?

Emilie: Je ne savais meme pas qu'ils pouvaient tricoter.

Heh, heh.

And You Thought I'd Given Up on This!

Nay, not I, sirs and mesdames! Still knitting, still blogging.

I've been writing the last few months, but less and less for the blogs. However, I'm going to attempt to blog more regularly (every 10 days or so), just to keep in blogging mode.

I'm almost finished with my second booty - I was distracted with canning, and hanging out with friends and poets, when I was first laid off, so the second booty was a long time in coming. And then, after I started it, I had to put it down for holiday knitting. Crap, I just realized I didn't take a photo of one of my knitted Xmas gifts. Well, it was just a garter st scarf out of a nice art-type yarn, about 800 ft long (a wee exaggeration, okay?). You'll just have to believe me on this one.

I also started my first "Hemlock Ring Blanket", the legendary project launched by Jared Flood. If you join the Yahoo! group, you'll find a very clear pdf of the destructions. Some folks have had difficulty following it, but I found it clear and easy to use. I've had no trouble with it, and I'm glad I let braver, younger souls knit it up and work out the bugs, kinks, and other difficulties. (The group is free - join up if you want to knit this project!) Anyway, I'm 20 rounds away from the short version still, but I'm hoping mayhap by next weekend it will be done. If I can bear the way it looks when it's blocked, it will be an Xmas gift. I'm using a chocolate-colored version of Cascade Yarns eco-wool - I do love the color. I hope my knitting will do it justice! Knitting lace in such a huge gauge makes me nervous; I'm used to that super fine stuff.

I also am knitting up another set of "Gorilla My Dreams" wristwarmers for a friend and former coworker. She liked the pair I made myself, but said she'd prefer browns, greys, etc. So I found some PEP print in those colors, and purchased it to make her a set. In the process of knitting them up, I posted an entry on my non-knitting blog about the special handmade gifts I was giving folks this year, namely taxidermy gone bad. That was a joke - but I realized that the wrist warmers I was knitting up looked like dead kittens, so I'll be giving at least one bad taxidermy-ish gift this holiday season. See, I'm not a liar after all!

I also started two versions of the Manly Lace scarf, one in a sock yarn from KnitPicks, and one in some old Sirdar dk I had laying around. I'm hoping that, when these are finished, that the men I give them to won't think I'm giving them something less than manly. It is a fun pattern to knit up, though, easy to remember and looks lovely. The first photo captures the colorway (knitpicks yarn) fairly accurately; the second photo shows up the pattern; dear readers, you can let me know if it's manly lace or not.

I began a lovely set of wrist warmers from Spincycle made from their BFL - and it's a lovely, silky BFL that they're using. A gorgeous color, too. Not cheap, but so incredibly pleasurable to knit up! I should have added it to my stash, but I'm embarrased to be knitting up new yarns when I've a century and half worth of stash. In fact, embarrasing to admit, of all the things I've been working on recently, only the Fidget and the Sirdar Manly Lace are from yarn that I've had for more than six months. (The photo doesn't capture the vibrancy of the yarn; the close-up made them brighter, but also faded the richness of the colors.)

I also whipped up a pair of wrist warmers last night from a ball of "Jolt" merino boucle I purchased from Pancake and Lulu on Etsy. The colors are gorgeous - it was a dream to knit up, a lovely, jewel-toned, squishy dream come true. There was very little of it - silly me, I only purchased one ball - so I cast on 15 sts, knitted to 5.5 inches, and then did the same with the other end of the yarn. I ended up getting 6.5 inches, enough to sew up, leave a thumb hole opening, and have me a couple of quickie warmers. I'll provide the details in my next posting; I haven't sewn up the sides (I need to mark where the thumb opening will be). I'm hoping these will work for playing the piano at a friend's house; he keeps his place a bit cooler than I keep mine, and I'd like something super basic that will cover the hands without annoying the fingers one bit. If I'm successful, I'll let you know.



I'll be knitting up a swatch over the next couple of days - I found a nifty men's scarf in Nordstrom recently, nice design idea but super simple knitting (it would be a good project for a beginner - you get a switch up in pattern so you're not knitting five or six entire feet of garter st or stocking st or rib st). If the yarn works, I'll start knitting up and post the details, for anyone else who wants to duplicate an expensive scarf. Wish I could remember the designer's name on the label, but I don't. Apologies.

Once the throw is done, I'll be taking up the Saigon lace again. I'd like to get that finished. It's not that difficult, but the beads do take up time (always with the beads!).

Finally, I taught my friend Anton to knit. He rather pooh-poohed knitting as something not challenging until he spotted my lace charts. Being a mathematician, the idea of knitting being able to be charted, graphed, got him all kinds of excited. He knows the difference between Z twists and S twists, warp and weft knitting, he's charted his first chart using Mathematica, and last Saturday he came over, worked on his long-tail cast one, and worked a few rows of garter stitch. My first pupil* - and his knitting actually looked like knitting!

*(Okay, he's my second pupil if you count a woman I helped out at a writing workshop - she was having some sort of serious selvedge issue, I couldn't tell what she was doing wrong, but I suggested that she slip the first stitch of each row and that fixed it for her.)

Here's to more blogging and more knitting in 2009!

Play by FoxSaver®

Long Time No Scribble

That's not quite true, you know. I was laid off last month and, in anticipation of that momentous event, I began a blog about my unemployed life. Now you might think that, being unemployed, I'd be doing even more knitting. But that's not quite true. All the things I didn't have time to do when I was working full time caught up with me, you know, like friends, and other writing projects. In addition to which it's been fairly warm here, too warm to want to handle nice yarns and cover them with sweat. So I haven't been doing much knitting - until this weekend.

In the midst of a heatwave, a friend offered me safe haven in their cool and mostly shaded home, and I took it. I've been knitting to episodes of Star Trek TOS, since the connexion here in the Bat Cave, as I call it, beats the hell out of my dial-up at home. I'm still (still!) working on the wool-bamboo scarf. It doesn't seem to matter how long or short I think it should be, I never seem to make enough progress on it. Oh well, I'll have something to knit to and from my trips to the grocery store for the next five years, I guess.

I'm starting a second Fidget for another friend, even though I haven't blocked the first one yet.

And I frogged the drop-stitch scarf pattern that I was knitting up in Blue Heron's Beaded Wool. I wanted a pattern that would allow for better fondling of the yarn's unusual squishy texture. So I decided to go with ye olde wavye gravye again - but I think it will be nice. The pattern has easy shaping so that I'm not just knitting straight ol' garter stitch, but the fact that it's garter stitch will mean that there's nothing to compete with the yarn's gorgeous texture and colors.

And my final knitting announcement for now is that I finished my first sock! I admit, it's not exactly stunning, but it has all the basic things that a sock needs, and it doesn't look like it was knitted for some space mutant. I consider that a major victory (let's not discuss my first venture into sox 25 years ago, please). I ordered the Tsock Tsarina's Sock 101 kit, and I have to say, it was great with everything except the Kitchener stitch (where I simply gave up and went to YouTube and used the knitwitch's video). I'm sure the written Kitchener stitch directions make sense to some, but not to this kid. All that remains to be seen is if I can get through the second sock...and then on to the next pair.

Craptastic Craft Idea!

Yesterday a friend of mine and I went shopping at the Goodwill near her home. As a knitter, a stop at the craft section is de rigeur, and who am I to disobey the laws of knitting, non? So I found a couple of bags that had some nice wool yarns in them - photos to follow someday - but of course there were a couple of balls of acrylic origin (or suspected acrylic origin). So, what to do, what to do. I appreciate that there are good uses for the stuff, but I don't have small children or animals, and I don't knit for relatives who don't appreciate quality fibers. I'm fine with people having other criteria for preferring synthetic fibers, but I don't see why I have to pretend to share or agree with those criteria.

Anywho, my friend later gifted me with a bottle of her homemade raspberry vinegar (inspired by my father, she found some mother of vinegar and is now making her own). So when I was packing up all my luggage to head home, I pondered how to pack the bottle of vinegar so that it wouldn't be endangered. And voila! I found the perfect solution - the yarn skein cozy!!!


The perfect gift, folks - enjoy!

Kool & Kicky

If you're a vintage pattern collector, you've probably noticed that Spinnerin yarns, in the 1960's, tried some rather unusual motifs and photo spreads for their patterns. Nothing too bizarre - no photos of Vampira modeling sweaters, for example. But I think their "Kool & Kicky" volume comes pretty close with the models they chose. Behold, The Return of the The Wicker Man:

Yes, the Daughters of The Wicker Man have decided to avenge their father's death (a theme common to kung fu films and horror movie sequels). Here they are, in all their beauty. If you suspect they are in your area, carry lighter fluid and one of those bbq fire starters - burning is the only death these creatures know!

This is some of the more pathetic yarn hair I've seen.

This one with her black lace veil is obviously the evil leader among them.

The pink pigtails are effective on this one. This would be the good Wicker Sister, the one who thinks they should give up their pointless plan for vengeance and move on...she loved their father as much as the rest of them, but that doesn't mean he was right in everything...perhaps she's befriended or fallen in love with a human male...anyway, we all know that she will die, too, but her death will be less gruesome than her sisters', perhaps even accidental.

I know, I've seen too many horror movies... (Are you kidding? I just wrote a treatment for 'The Return of the Wicker Man' - a sequel loosely based on the first one, or to be exact, the title of the first one. Hey, in the first Friday the 13th, Jason wasn't the killer - that series didn't suffer much from the change in focus. Killer wicker mannequins - no wonder Hollywood won't hire me to write movie scripts.) But I digress. I was surprised to find that the patterns in this book go up to finished measurements of 44 inches. Shockingly generous in 1967. The designs are all sleeveless; I'll have to hunt down some appropriate yarns and try whipping one of these up. I don't care for the colors, but fortunately there are no pattern police to come around and enforce compliance. I may try knitting them up in the round, too. Surely somewhere in the world wide webz there are some excellent hints for converting flat knitting to round. When I have time to follow up on this, I will report back.

My BFF - Knitting

Okay, I confess, I have just too much f*cking fun with Google books. I search out all the ancient public domain books for antique knitting patterns, folklore, weird fiction, and combinations thereof. So this little poem was found in the Friends Intelligencer. I don't know if these Friends were Quaker (I could look at the front of the volume...you, dear reader, seem to think I'm much more motivated than I am). So yes, this poem is a bit sappy - but I think there's an element of truth in it, at least for the more hardcore of us (you must be nuts if you think I'm going to be caught more than 10 minutes from a knitting project for any length of time). I don't think I'm as aged as the narrator of the poem seems to be; on the other hand, what was the the life expectancy for lower middle class women in the Victorian era? 60? Well, I'm closer to 60 than 20, that's for sure. Perhaps if I'm feeling inspired in the near future I'll update this to sound not quite so, er, cheesy. (Apologies for the tiny print; if you click, you'll end up in Google books and you can zoom the page from there...I'll try to figure out a way to do this better next time.)

Friends' Intelligencer By Friends Intelligencer Association, Friends Intelligencer Association

Another Crappy Swatch Photo

My swatch for Goddess Knits Anniversary Mandala Pi Shawl, using lace weight yarn from Sheep of Different Color, colorway is Altair:


This yarn is so wonderful, soft and incredible to touch, the color is absolutely gorgeous. I dreamt of this yarn the night that I knit with it. I look forward to knitting up the other 1700 yards of it. "Last night I dreamt I knitted with Altair again..."

Nut Hamburger Update

Apparently it was all the rage to do peanut butter things to hamburgers back in the day - I found a couple of links to recipes for nut burgers. Don't know if I'm going to try this myself at any point, but if you want to whip up the lovely special from The Barrel, you can try one of these recipes:

http://www.recipesource.com/main-dishes/burgers/00/rec0022.html

http://www.recipesource.com/main-dishes/burgers/00/rec0022.html

Last Night I Dreamt I Went to Manderley Again

I spent yesterday with my mother; we had our usual celebration of Mother's Day that doesn't take place Mother's Day weekend. I'm hermit enough to hate competing with 20 families worth of three or four generations (the youngest one of which is screaming infants) at local restaurants. I'd rather do it the weekend before or after, and have a relaxing time. So that's what we did; on the way there we stopped at a local bookstore, and I found some lovely things on their 25 cent cart, including an early printing of "Rebecca". Sure the jacket is beat up, but it still has the jacket. And the book itself has this lovely silver band around it. Here are some crappy photos of it:
The photo of the silver band doesn't show how nice and shiny it still is; I have a photo that does, but the image is pretty much obliterated by shine. 25 cents. I tells ya, I'd have paid ten times that for this copy of the book. I'm very pleased with it! (I also picked up a scary knitting book, but that will be another blog entry.)

"Rebecca" is one of my favorite gothic novels (sure, it's set in the 20th cent., but by its nature it is very gothic); and this is certainly not my first copy of it. I think the others are in storage. However, this is one of those books that is always a good, juicy read and as such, is worth having more than one copy of (especially at these prices). There are a few books in my library that are like that for me - "Jane Eyre" (I've at least two copies), "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (again, at least two copies), anything by Jane Austen (I've a few of her books in multiple copies).

Jane, of course, is the anti-gothic - read "Northanger Abbey" if you've any question on the specifics. A world that is nothing but gothic novels would be very boring, and I'm glad that Jane was an early poker-of-fun at the movement. The first wave of gothic novels certainly left something to be desired; if you've ever read "The Castle of Otranto" you'll know what I mean. And I've never been able to make it through an Mrs Radcliffe novel. There are a couple of that era that I haven't tried that I certainly will make an effort to complete, like "Vathek" and "The Monk".

The Brontes did gothic quite well, and each with their own spin. For example, Anne's reflected her more extensive existence in the real world, and her views of women and their abilities is not the least that of helplessness and frailty. Her women are intelligent, not afraid to act, and of strong morals in the face of a world that does not reward such morality very often.

Of her two novels I've read, "Agnes Grey" is less gothic in tone, but rather grim. Agnes is a governess and the book relates her experiences of serving in horrible families with offspring who are, at best, shallow, self-centered and cruel in their thoughtlessness and, at worst, monsters (no point in pussyfooting). I mean, I consider a lad who enjoys crushing baby birds with rocks to be a monster. "Agnes Grey" had critics' knickers all in a bunch; after all, upper class children would never behave in such a fashion, right? Right?

"The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" is much more what one expects of the Brontes. Still, the heroine, Helen Huntingdon, is bolder in her actions than even Jane Eyre; she exhibits a sense of self-worth wonderful to see in a 19th cent. novel. I think this novel also got some folks' knickers in a bunch; after all, once Helen realizes what scum her spouse is, she denies him, er, sexual congress by slamming her bedroom door in his face. Shocking, you are no doubt thinking. If you're not, then you are perhaps unaware that women were expected to submit to their husbands - in all ways.

Along these lines, there is an edition of "Jane Eyre" (yes, I know that's Charlotte and not Anne) illustrated by Dame Darcy; one of the nice things is that it contains the forward to the second edition. The second edition is dedicated to W.M. Thackeray, but is also a bit of a nice feminist rant. It's a nice trade paper edition and worth owning.

I look forward to reading "Rebecca" again; I think the book does a little better by the second Mrs de Winter than the film does. At least, in the first couple of pages she seems to have a little more going for her than Joan Fontaine did.

I've pretty much finished with my rambling about novels, but let me add my recommendation of just a couple other novels along these lines: "Behind A Mask" by Louisa May Alcott and "Lady Audley's Secret" by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (similar stories, but both rousing good fun if you rather like bad women), "A Long, Fatal Love Chase" by Louisa May Alcott (stalking old school style), and "Dragonwyck" by Anya Seton, another 20th cent. novel, but set in the 19th cent. and effectively demonstrating gothic sensibilities in upstate New York. There's a new edition of this one out with an introduction by Phillipa Gregory. Haven't gotten a copy yet, but since my only copy of this book is 60 years old, I'll be looking for one used somewhere.

500, 10K, 10K

(I wrote this weeks ago, or so it seems, but never posted it. However, I dare not deprive my readers of cupcake cheesecake photos, if you will.}

Three events - of questionable world importance - on Ravelry in the last week. The Selfish Knitters Group got their 500th member - woo hoo! PSA - Don't waste time and good yarn money knitting for those who don't appreciate the time, labor, and quality resources that go into a nice handmade garment or toy. Pox on them, I say.

Also the MCY thread had both its 10,000th post and 10,000th reader. Do not speak ill of the MCY thread - these are my peeps, as they say out in the world. (In my cave they are those horrid little marshmallow easter candies.)

And so I said I would make cupcakes for the event, and I did - red velvet with butter cream frosting. I know that there are many who prefer cream cheese frosting of some sort, but give me butter anytime.

I shared my freshly made cupcakes with fellow Raveler Bella, but you'll have to look her up and ask her about it - I didn't get any pics of her eating them. I did, however, document my eating of the cupcakes:


Geeze, those things sure look like baked viscera in the photos. What was fun was that I took some to work the next day and the red bled just a wee bit into the frosting (probably in honor of MCY yarns, known for their hemophilia). They looked like little slasher film cupcakes - so cute!