Viva November!

Wow, October was no party. I had strep for 3 weeks -- after which I accomplished my first perfectly executed cycle of antibiotics ever, so determined to not be sick AnyMore was I. Then, the very last day as a gleeful kick in the pants (after 3 days of "defrosting" during which I never thought to cock my ear for a running motor noise) I found out Halloween morning that my refrigerator had quit. Of course by then it had not been cooling for several days and I had a mess of dairy products as usual. It took 7 garbage bags and I didn't recycle most of the food jars. It was depressing enough to throw it all out. I didn't have the necessary to clean out everything as well.

A few days ago I got the new frig and it has a normal freezer instead of a shoebox and finally I can have half-gallons of Breyers like everyone else! And without the 2inch layer of ice. I do miss my egg holes terribly though, it was so nice to see the friendly eggs all in a row.

I am still hard at work on Christmas gift for the few, the chosen. I have one man's hat done and the red lace scarf is going well, though a bit slow. I finally got past the part of the doubled yarn that I had to rewind: changed my mind about pattern.

I have six straight days with no work! Lots of knitting!

Dahl=Valley=Derry=Dairy

I realized last night that I have a lot of milk on hand. From left: hemp milk, kefir, goat milk, buttermilk, reg 1%, plus assorted yoghurts off stage. I oughtta have the best bones around! I just used the kefir to make a milkshake. The TJs blueberry soda was not great for me, but it would make a great float, so the kefir went in with it - the tangy yoghurt taste cut the sugar of the soda very nicely and it was blueberries and cream. Pretty good.

I have to crow because I really rocked out an invisible bind-off on 2x2 rib yesterday. I didn't want it to end, it looks primo and I didn't even practice! I went to the LYS and then Border's to score a VK Fall (waited too long) and ended up finding the exact BO I needed in IK, so I snapped it up and started right away. Victory! Can't decide if I should repeat it on the cuffs or not.

Sleeves are underway so I can start getting an ulcer over what shoulder shaping I'm going to do and how I can't rip out the bottom.

Emergency! now with ferrets!

Getting a digital box for my TV has greatly expanded my vintage-programming experience. Having RTN: almost like having cable! It's no BBC America, of course, but seeing the first Kojak episode ever was a new experience. Then there are the siren-porn shows: Adam 12, Emergency! I had no idea that Battlestar Galactica was so old -- or so much cheesier than Star Trek. Who knew Buck Rogers was in space? not a ranch, space! Not me. Magnum PI? Oh, the humanity. Oh, the unholy manchesting. My favorite so far is definitely Emergency! The customer service is horrific:
Man having heart attack (now stuck on elevator between floors) worries oh-so-mildly. EMT response? "Buddy, can you calm down? Jeez, chill out will ya?" They always act like it is so rude, gosh, that the stupid people are not laying there silent as the dead instead of being, you know, concerned about dying while the medics chat about the chief's mood. A Riot.
Might have to catch some Mork & Mindy soon. That used to be one of my favorites as a kid. And Family Ties.

There was a ferret documentary on PBS Friday night and I ended up watching most of it. My opinion of the animals is now more favorable, but owner stereotypes were mostly confirmed. Ferrets seemed to be the JackRussels of the rodent pet world -- leave them alone at your peril! The ferret antics were pretty entertaining and it did make you want to visit with some ferrets, if not section off a custom-built floor of your house for them. The singing ferret owner was my jumping off point. As soon as they started the section on old ferrets dying, I knew there had to be a dead ferret song coming. There was one, but there was also a dead ferret freezer in her house (temporary to eventual cremation, to be fair). That's where you realize that you are not at the pet shop window laughing in delight anymore, no, you are in strange territory. Ferrets in the freezer, then bulk cremation, then she described how they portion out by teaspoonful the percent of ferret ash that each owner gets back. Um.
Yeah, so there were one or two that were vaguely normal, a few that were militant and dedicated, and the remainder were a little alarming. But the raccoon-faced ferrets? Adorable.

The series is noted Here. Very angry I missed the synchro-swimming installment. The film was really good, I'd like to see some of the others. Hope they get replayed.

I am making Buttermilk Cheddar Bread today. Been wondering: all the blogs where photo rights and pattern rights are so righteously defended, why do the intellectual property rights of recipes not concern any one? I often see casual references that the posted recipe is from a website that isn't free to join or a book (also for sale, ahem) that is unique to one author. Now, if the poster has significantly reworked the ingredients or method, I'll stretch that point. But if they have merely rephrased a few things, why is it okay to put that on your own site? Knitting stitches are discrete building blocks, just like ingredients and proportions are, right? My recipe is from Bernard Clayton's Book of Breads and it tastes just as good as my mom's old recipe for cheese bread. Now, if only my oven stayed at a steady temperature instead of rocketing up to 550 every time I set it above 400. That would be helpful.

Aprons Among Us

I have been ripping orange yarn and cheering Latvia today.

The Sunrise Circle Jacket proved to be very large when I started seaming. I had my boyfriend try it on, wanting to know just how huge it was -- and it fit better than I expected, even knowing it slumped all over my shoulders. I was close enough to stitch count, but apparently the row gauge was off, off, and more off. Strangely, I'm not ready to step off a cliff -- I am quite calm. It feels good to have knitted a whole sweater (I know I'm capable of finishing a large stockinette project without bailing or breaking out into cables now) and the practice in first-time seaming was surprisingly fun (great using a slightly darker yarn if you have to rip it out). So, this sadder-but-wiser girl unraveled the whole sweater while winding it around a big cake carrier, hung it off hangers and doorknobs, and weighted it down with mugs, glass jars, and trigger bottles of cleaner. My apartment is liberally festooned. The Rowan Pure Wool Aran stinks when wet. Yuck.

Despite that, I am swatching the hexagon texture pattern from Knitting Nature, to maybe make a cardi. Not Norah's asymmetrical one, but something simple enough. I'm going to use this yarn for something! But I also vindictively bought the Reynolds Odyssey to make a fractal cardigan from the same book. The colors are too pretty and I'm terrified they won't be around if I decide to buy them in the future. Binge after purging the other project?

I saw a production of the Synge play The Playboy of the Western World this week. I read the play for no good reason a few years ago and preferred it; it was wonderful to see it performed at last, and so ably. The PICT cast did a great job, I loved the leads, but the best moment was the apron. The female barkeep takes off her apron at the end of the night: does she put it on a hook to hang? No! There are two nails at the high corners of the window, she raises the apron, twirls the ties around the nails, and Presto! Curtain! It felt so right, I think it has to be historically accurate. And of course, I don't have curtains but I do have aprons. The solution has come to me from the 19th century through historical drama. Who needs the Home channel?

Requiem:

Ahh, wet sheep smell

Works in progress - and/or purgatory.

Right is my spinning -- I am almost done with my first bag of roving! Will it look terrible when i get the nerve to ply it? Of course! But I'm going to knit something with it anyway. I do dread the moths. Hand spun looks so much more insect-edible than store bought. Maybe it will decoy the moths away from more expensive skeins.

Center: my Sunrise Circle Jacket is now in Limbo. All of the pieces are done, but all of them need to be adjusted. I have a complicated and random system of row-fixing crochet chains either holding last rows or marking rows to cut back to. Since the pattern seems enormous on most people, I stopped before the end of the fronts, gave it a douse, and am drying it before making alterations. On each piece. At both ends.

I hope the wool doesn't smell this bad after each washing. I can smell the eucalyptus on the other items from the load, but the orange has a different flavor.

I did a seam or two to see how things are lining up, and it wasn't onerous. They didn't shrink any faster than the sweater body, so that's a success.

Yes, it is a perilous cliff . . . will dahlofwool's first sweater ever be wearable?

Left is some doomed thing I keep trying to turn into a market bag. The hemp, it wants to work with me, but so far we are struggling.

Pack Up the Tomato Box

God bless MDK. Really. I was starting to read various knitting blogs, and they were on ALL the blog rolls -- so they couldn't be any good, right, if everyone liked them? Well, they are good. And fun. I am slowly working my way through all the archives. The bookmobile post was enough to yank out all of their lurkers.

The bookmobile was such a stressful event. God help you if you left a due book at home, outside the big sturdy box we used for our three-reader supply. It was only a 7minute drive to the next stop, but my mom viewed it as a huge imposition. Once inside the bus I had to be yanked out. I always checked out my books to the sound of the engine revving up.

I was fascinated by the black woman who worked on the bus. My school was all white and I think the librarian was the first woman of color that I saw working at any job -- and a job that was so idolized! I was six and I thought she was so cool and distinguished behind the little gate.

That bookmobile may have had more books than my elementary school library, which was shoe-box-sized. I quickly rebelled against the grades 1-3 books and was allowed to take out the bigger books. We were only allowed to take out books every other week, but they let me do it every week -- a big stack from my hands to my chin (this was before tinies had backpacks).

disclaimers: this is my book, but that is the porch bench afghan, which is not of my issue or choosing! The dark circles under my eyes are totally there and not a camera shot issue. It was a bad day and i just read a 200p book in an hour and a half. You would be too!

Red in Tooth and Claw

Other blogs have their book tours and their babies, now I bring you my own circle of life.

This morning I left the house for work to find Porch Kitty trotting forward with a whole dead chipmunk in his mouth. He was only out for 2 hours that morning and I've never seen a chippie in my neighborhood: the squirrels dominate. Also, both front paws were declawed by previous owner. So, the rodent had a better chance than usual. I was pleased as any mother at a dance recital. I petted my cat while he had a corpse in his mouth and told him how proud and impressed I was. Mighty Hunter!

Though there was nary a slice of compunction pie at the grisly scene, I did draw the line at running upstairs to get the camera. Who will admit to being the target audience for dead chipmunk photos? Even totally precious action shots of proud killer kitty with prey al dente?

The dead still adorned the porch at my return, so chipmunk salvage was quickly carried out.

This is the preying mantis that was standing near the body. Puzzling since I hadn't thought that they were carnivorous, but soon realized that the mantis was staking out the corpse flies and having quite the nice supper. Chillin like the old guy at the college club. The mantis got quite perturbed when I leaned in, and started to book it towards the plants, but was determined to enjoy his fly To Go.

At least someone feasted.

Joan, I'm on your tailgate

A while back I found the Kauni cardigan along with untold hordes of other knitters. It looked addictive to knit, but surnuf some of the color sequencing got a little dicey for some folks. Some examples looked like the yarn got away from them. THEN I saw the glorious Damask Kauni here and I was sold on the yarn's possibilities.

One small problem: no way in Hades could I ever follow that pattern for more than a handkerchief. So I looked in vain for another pattern. Classic Fair Isle didn't seem a perfect fit. I wanted something with the vertical sweep of Damask, but much easier to follow and a bit more geometric. Starmore was consulted; I looked at old needlepoint journals; I marvelled that I didn't have nearly as many knitting books or magazines as I thought I did, since clearly they were insufficient to present need. Then one day i saw a photo on a blog: Joan, right after the Bohus sweaters, in exactly the type of pattern I wanted, in the same yarn. Well, easy as pie! I would go to her website or find her on ravelry, right? No. I hunted. A lot. All I found was another small photo. ARRghghhGHH.

Joan!

So, I got out the good graph paper, and I did bunch of heavy squinting, and I have a chart to work from.

Just to be sure, I did try a pattern from Poetry in Stitches, but the floats were too long for comfort, and it didn't use the colors at the same rate, an important factor. And yes, that's a mistake on my swatch: I was watching the Indiana Jones movies, prepping for the new release, and apparently it got too tense for me.

A Busride Too Short to Knit

Guys (by which i mean Me),


I'm trying to get digital. One Hamilton's worth of cheapo camera at a time. The first one needed all the light of an atomic explosion to show anything but deep darkness, but it was $10. To be expected. Catomine found a slightly less no-name, but extremely similar item for same price that yielded visible objects. now to upload . . . ohgod, ohgod.

Aha! soon, i may be powerful enough to remove blemishes -- or at least strong enough not to have caffeine or chocolate, which causes them.

Please note my Winter Scarf 2007, which everyone is tired of seeing on me. Daily bus riders (78C) surely have scarf fatigue. it was knitted several years ago from a forgotten thick and thin unspun yarn, and i didn't wear it for a loong time because i was so tickled that i had used the complete amount of yarn with only a 3inch tail on either end. with no frogging at all. of course the decrease gets a little funky as i raced against the shrinking yarn length, but i made it work out so nicely with no waste (EZ would be proud) that i couldn't bear to weave in the two tiny ends that i was so proud of. so the scarf lived in a box until i resurrected it and wore it one winter day, darning in the ends as i rode on the bus. how's that for procrastinating? and seed stitch, who can get enough? It even matches my storebought cashmere hat.

What I really want to know is: Who made the sci-fi reader's scarf? I would try to sneak a photo, but it will be too warm next week for him to wear it. It is the size of a table runner for the 40-foot state-dinner table in a movie. I believe each stripe is an entire ball of yarn. It appears to be over twice the length of his body and over a foot wide. If it happens to be his first and only attempt at knitting, i applaud his gusto for knitting and his aplomb in wearing it. If it was a gift, however, i suppose i must respect his loyalty to the donor. But really, it's like a knitting machine went crazy while he slept, and then he tripped into it on the way out the door. I want to like it, but it puts him in danger of tripping.

Dark Lace

Almanac of projects: March
I have received shipment of hemp, nettle and camel yarns from nearseanaturals.com and have used my boyfriend as an umbrella swift. the hemp and nettle is going to be a farmer's market bag in Azalea lace. Cannot tell whether plan of doing 5 reps instead of 6 will cause dome shape instead of flat circular. and my selected xerox does not reveal exactly what a M.3 is, so i'm doing my own blind equivalency.
my stash closet is looking very well organized. the crochet cotton has been firmly segregated, and the wools protected.

i need homes for beading supplies (seed beads mostly) and aluminum knitting needles.

Remember, if you get a pattern or two you like from a library book, don't forget the abbrev. page!