Knitting Linguist

This and that

2012-02-29T14:40:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I'm actually managing to write a quick post on a Wednesday! I have this theory that twice-weekly posting (Sundays and Wednesdays) would be nice, and keep me on track. But lately (as I'm sure you've noticed) it's been a miracle to make my Sunday post. However, I have gotten past three big deadlines this week (just hit "submit" on the third), not to mention scads of grading (including one of those twelve-hour piles - as in, it takes at least twelve actual hours of grading to get through it; I have to spread those out or I find myself getting bitter and failing people just because my butt hurts from sitting too long). So I figure I can reward myself by thinking about fiber for a few minutes.

I still don't have any shots of me actually wearing Poplar and Elm (although people have seen me wearing it, so it does exist). With luck, that will happen this weekend, when Rick is around to take actual pictures. Having Rick around is also a prerequisite to getting a picture of the first Blunnie Sock, which I have finished (no-one else's feet are even close to big enough to model his socks)(I should also say that I immediately cast on for the second sock in order to ward off the dreaded SSS). Nevertheless, there are other interesting things to show off.

I have been spinning, off and on. Spinning makes me happy. I got through this:

That is four ounces of Polwarth top, in the Misty Water colorway, handpainted by Erica (whose fiber I adore - every one I've tried has spun up like a dream, and the colors make me very happy). I'm trying a little experiment here. I spun that up woollen, fairly fine - Polwarth seems to cry out for woollen spinning, and this turned out light and lofty.

The experiment part comes next. On her blog, Erica has occasionally shown braids of some of her colorways wound together (that temptress); she made the mistake of showing Misty Water with a braid of BFL in SeaGreen, and I snapped them both up.

The plan is to ply them together, which isn't so experimental. But the plan is also to spin the BFL worsted, which is the kind of spinning that BFL seems to me to cry out for (all that lovely shine just gets maximized that way). So the hope is that I'll end up with something that blends the traits of that warm, light, fuzzy Polwarth with the long, strong, shiny BFL. Stay tuned.

The more I get to try different fibers, the more I'm intrigued by immense range of texture and function that the fiber world offers. So when I saw that Ellen and Jan had each gotten a sampler of fiber from Woolgatherings, I jumped on the bandwagon (they are kind enough to not seem to mind).

And that's not the half of it! There's a whole other layer in there - 24 total.

I made Rick stand and feel each one while I told him their names (he, too, is a patient person who humors me). The names make me so unutterably happy I can't tell you - how can one not be excited about fiber like Shetland Humbug? I mean, really. The plan is to choose a couple of these each month to research and spin up, and to compare notes with Jan and Ellen. I am really looking forward to it. I'm teaching a class at my LYS on the 17th on getting to know one's fiber, both for making good yarn/project pairings (for knitters) and for spinners who want to think about the range of fiber possibilities available to them. As an inspiration for me, Erica sent me a huge bag of all kinds of wonderful fibers I'd never seen or touched before, and I'll be showing those off to students (I need to get a picture of that, too). So while I'm hoping I might inspire some local folks to take an interest in playing with me, I don't have a study group like that yet - I love that I have a long-distance one, with people who are as ~~nuts~~ ~~weird~~ interested in learning new things as I.

And speaking of ranges of possibilities and fabulous names, look at what I'm knitting right now.

That is Rams and Yowes, a lap blanket pattern by Kate Davies, she of the famous Sheepheid (which I also now have yarn to knit). I love that she wrote both patterns to celebrate the immense diversity of colors of Shetland wool - the blanket has nine different colors. And oh, the names! We've got gaulmogot, and mooskit, shaela, and yuglet. I (naturally) started poking around, looking for etymologies of the names, but only have been able to find information for two: sholmit and moorit (if anyone knows about any of the others, please, please let me know!). Sholmit comes from a Gaelic word meaning "Having a white face, as of ox or cow"; and moorit comes from a root morand-r, meaning "brown mingled with black and red" - it is cognate with English murrey, and French moree, and comes from an older root mor-.

Wool and language all mixed together. It just doesn't get much better than that.

Randomness

2012-02-24T09:49:00.000-08:00

So. I actually did finish the sweater last Monday night, in time to wear it to teach on Valentine's Day (one of my regular students, who has taken many of my classes and knows me well, knew me well enough to ask whether I'd knitted it, which was kind of nice). I have been putting off posting until I could get some pictures of it (and of the new happy project I have OTN, plus the spinning I'm working on), but I have not been able to motivate myself to get my camera out and get cracking. So I thought I'd better post in any case.

It's been a rough month, frankly. I lost a friend at the end of January, and very soon after that, another friend became very ill - the kind of ill that sometimes turns out in the worst possible way. The very good news is that she is recovering, but those things have been on my mind, in unpostable sorts of ways, and it's been making it hard to get myself moving. It doesn't help that February once again (I seem to remember this happening last year) turned into a month of deadlines, so that what little motivation I have had has been expended on those, and I have been letting everything else fall by the wayside in favor of being at home with my family.

I have been thinking, though, about the role of the internet in both of my friends' illnesses. In different sorts of ways, their experiences had an online presence, which gave friends and family from near and far the ability to know how they were doing, and to send their loving thoughts. And now that their illnesses are over, one way or the other, that record of their experience, and of those loving thoughts, remain. Part of what got me thinking about this is the fact that in both cases, I tended not to log my responses to this online presence through comments - for some reason, when it comes to things like that, I tend to prefer either private email, or real person-to-person contact.

Like many of you, I am old enough to remember clearly a time before the interwebs (I did not invent the world wide web, mind you - I just remember what it was like before it was created, heh). And, for that matter, before email. A time when people sent, you know, letters. Written on paper. With ink. And as the use of email expanded, I would occasionally soliloquize mournfully (in my head) about the loss of these artifacts, these letters, and wonder what future generations would think of us, when there was nothing concrete remaining of these quotidian messages, windows into everyday lives? (Note the irony: I have never been good about writing letters, EVER - I am a much better email correspondent than I am a paper mail correspondent. The post office gives me hives.) But honestly, I think I have always thought of electronic media as ephemeral. (And, in my defense, if you've ever had a hard drive wiped, or lost an entire linguistic database because of a computer upgrade that somehow left it behind because your new Parallels H-drive can't see your old Parallels H-drive - why yes, I am speaking from experience - then you know why I thought of e-media as ephemeral, and in fact, as aggressively and capriciously ephemeral.)

But here's the thing. Right now, my friend's words live on, even though she can't write any more. And the love and worry and support that her friends wrote to her also live on. My other friend regained consciousness to find an entire record of her friends' love and concern for her, all expressed while she didn't even know it was happening. But there it is, out there in the ether, in little electronic impulses of 1s and 0s (if I understand this right) - ephemeral but somehow, simultaneously, entirely real and enduring.

Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like love itself, doesn't it? Utterly ephemeral, and entirely real.

That's not where I thought I was going with this, but I think I like it.

So close to a sweater

2012-02-11T12:13:00.000-08:00

I really am very close to a sweater now - I have two sleeves, a back, and one front. The second front is cast on. While knitting that piece, I must contemplate the edging. The pattern calls for crochet, but I am not all that fond of crochet, both as a process and as a trim - I've done it on sweaters before and have been less happy with it than I might be (I admit here and now that this could be because my execution is poor - please do not read this as a condemnation of the craft in general). I may do i-cord instead. I may leave it as is. Only time will tell.

What sweater, you may ask (it having been so long since there was much in the way of knitting content around here)? Poplar and Elm, I reply. I am knitting it out of HazelKnits Entice, and I can find no flaw in this yarn. I'm liking the pattern rather a lot, too. I did get a titch paranoid about whether I was knitting a size that will be big enough for me, though, so I blocked the back and sleeves before casting on for the first front, just to be sure. (I'd like everyone to be proud of me for a moment here, though - note that I did not just knit a size bigger than it seemed like I ought to, just to be sure it would fit, as I have done in the past.)

It's all good. I wasn't so worried about the sleeves, but it was a relief to see the back block out as I'd hoped it would. I should mention that the one modification I've been making to this pattern is to make the body three inches longer than called for (and I'm relieved to have enough yarn). It is written as a fairly short garment, meant to fall above the waist-band of jeans, for example, and I know that that's just not my style (nor particularly flattering to me), so I adjusted.

The motifs on this are quite nice, pairing, as they do, an openwork increase on the sleeves, with the same motif using M1 increases for the body. I am particularly enamored of the body motif, I must admit (this is why I haven't cleared the blocked pieces off the end of the dining room table yet).

Isn't it beautiful? Just the right amount of texture, and this yarn shows it off wonderfully. The sleeves are nice, too.

I didn't block them aggressively, both because they didn't need it for the size, and because I know from experience that sleeves tend to open up in the wearing in a way that the body of a sweater (or a shawl) just doesn't. So I took it easy on that. I didn't even pin any of this out - just got the pieces good and wet, and then stretched then out on the blocking mats and let them dry.

My spinning is calling to me, but I am so close on this that I think I'll plow through until the second front is done. Maybe even this weekend? Hmmm...

A dark week

2012-02-02T17:02:00.000-08:00

It's been a long week, for lots of reasons. The upshot is that I didn't post on Sunday, and that I have no photos of any of the knitting I've been doing (Poplar and Elm has a second sleeve, and I'm about six inches into the back).

Today, however, is Imbolc*. Halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, Imbolc reminds me that the light does come back - truly it does! It's also a day that people often post poetry on their blogs, and while I don't usually do that, I thought I would today. This one has been in my mind this week.

Success
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
And the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation
Of honest critics
And endure the betrayal
Of false friends;

To appreciate beauty,
To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better
Whether by a healthy child,
A garden patch,
Or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life had breathed easier
Because you have lived.
That is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

*Actually, some years Imbolc is February 1st, some it's February 2nd. I'm sticking with today because it makes me happier.

Knit through all things

2012-01-22T15:21:00.000-08:00

It's been a rough couple of weeks, for various reasons - somehow even reading has seemed to require too much of the wrong kind of brainpower - so I have been knitting. (I have also been spinning, but haven't taken any pictures of that yet. Soon.)

In keeping with the plan of moving ahead with projects long-planned but not-yet-executed, I cast on for a pair of socks for Rick. These are the Blunnie Socks, from last year's Rockin' Sock Club. And they are knitted* on size zero needles (take that, size 15s!). I don't have any pictures yet, but the first one is moving along fairly rapidly, and I am about halfway through the gusset.

I also dithered for some time about the best way to use my precious three skeins of HazelKnits Entice (colorway Violeta), purchased at Sock Summit. You know how easy it is to get crazy about finding the absolute perfect way to use up yarn that you really love? It was threatening to get that way, until I finally talked myself down by reminding myself that there is more beautiful yarn out there in the world, and that getting attached is unhealthy (I swear, knitting up luxury yarn is excellent practice in non-attachment). I decided on Poplar and Elm (silencing the monkey brain that wondered whether a wrap style is a mistake, since Rick isn't fond of them, blah blah blah), and cast on.

I am one sleeve in, and loving every minute of this knit.

This yarn is absolutely scrumdiddlyumptious. So soft and squishy and happy. It also took well to the ripping and reknitting I did (twice) at the start of the sleeve. I decided that I was too impatient to knit an actual gauge swatch, but that I would knit the sleeves first, as a reasonable approximation thereof. I cast on with the suggested size 5s, but after an inch or so, thought that things seemed too big. So I ripped and went down to size 4s. But after four inches or so, it was clear that 4s were going to be too small (and I'm knitting a size which is on the small side in any case, so a bit big is much better than a lot small), so I ripped that and went back to the size 5s. And did all of this ripping make me cranky? No, indeed it did not. Because did I mention that the yarn is amazing? And that I'm working with my lovely Signature needles, gifts of my beloved SIL? And that I am NOT working on size 15 needles? I'm in my happy space.

Yesterday, I also taught a silk hankie class at my LYS - always great fun. I went in with some mawata that I'd stashed away for my next class, but when I got there, found that a new shipment of hankies had come in from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks. And there, right in the middle of the pile, was the perfect colorway to go with my newly-finished purple scarf. So I snagged that one and used it to demonstrate technique during class (casting on my own pair of mitts in the process). I finished the first one last night, and the second one today, and I am pleased as punch. I have long been wanting a pair of mitts for myself, so this is a real treat.

Nice, no? The colorway is Cabernet, and I am just delighted with them. The pattern is one I put together for the class, and it seems to do the trick, while leaving plenty of scope for play for students who want to add a little somethin' somethin'. I also picked up another mawata in a colorway (I think it's Lagoon?) that will go with the second one of these scarves that I'm knitting (although this Cabernet one should go with both of them when worn together). But I'll probably hold off on knitting those until the scarf is done - a sort of bribe, as it were.

Classes start this week, so it's off to the races for me.

*I saw a letter in the recent issue of The Knitter from someone who expressed her vast annoyance that the magazine had recently taken on the habit ("appalling" was implied) of using "knitted" as the past tense of "knit", when everyone ("cretin" was implied) knows that the correct past tense of "knit" is "knit". In keeping with this prescriptivism, I would like to point out that the above usage is not the past tense (in fact, I do often use "knit" as the past tense of "knit", although I now have an overpowering urge to do otherwise, in as Uhmurrikan a way as I can manage), but is in fact the past participial form of the verb "knit", since that is a passive up there. I contend that the past participle of "knit" is "knitted" and will defend my stance against all comers.** Hmph.

**Don't you love grammatical curmudgeonliness and chest-beating? Can't you sense the dripping sarcasm?

A knitting blog should have knitting...

2012-01-15T12:13:00.000-08:00

Right?

And so I do. Along with gathering up projects long-planned but delayed in execution (off with their heads!), I have also been gathering up WIPs. By which I mean, if I am going to be entirely honest, I have been sidling up to my WIPs, trying not to make direct eye contact, lest they charge.

However, I have finished two of them. They are two of the most recently cast-on, admittedly, but they are, nevertheless, off the needles.

The first is the Leif Slipover, which I knitted for Older Daughter.

I have my doubts about the wearability of this vest, to be absolutely frank. It's bulky. I admit that I have serious prejudices about bulky yarn - most of those have to do with the fact that it's...well...bulky. It doesn't drape in any sense of the word. I guess it's cozy (right?). And cozy is nice. I think what it boils down to for me, though, is that I never feel like it's moving with me when I wear bulky stuff. I feel like my clothes are wearing me instead of the other way around. I'm really hoping that Older Daughter doesn't share my prejudices. (It may help that she has easily four inches on me, too; I think height helps when wearing big clothes.)(OK, I guess it's almost five inches by now. I'm still in denial.)

Here's what made me knit it, though.

That, right there, is a very cool design feature. Very cool. And I do love how sculptural the cables are at this gauge. I knitted it on size 15 needles, instead of 17s, but other than that, I knitted the pattern as written.

I also knitted it because it seemed like a cool, teenager-y sort of knit. I so hope I'm right. It hasn't been blocked - in no small part because I think it'd take forever to dry, and we're finally having some coolth around here, so I thought she might want to wear it. I'll ascertain whether I'm right and then find a time to block it - maybe that'll improve the drape?

The cables are cool, though.

I should be more enthusiastic about this one, I know. It's the color she wanted, and I'm pretty sure she likes it. I think that this particular knit just combined too many elements of which I am not fond, and, frankly, I was totally underwhelmed by the pattern-writing. I kept wondering where IK's tech editor was on the day they finalized it for print (and I know enough to know that this may have nothing to do with the designer's original pattern-writing skills). There were a lot of bits in there that just made no sense whatsoever, and I admit to being pretty glad that I was able to "read" the cables to see where things were supposed to be going. That said, I think that the design itself is very nice; I particularly like the waist join (as I mentioned), and the designer does a nifty thing under the arms, in which one picks up the purl bumps just below the stitches used for the two fronts as part of the back - it's a nice way to create an overlap under the arms that tightens things up and looks clean.

I think you can see it there. But you can also see how bulky this is!!

OK, I'm over it. I also finished a project which is the exact opposite of this one in every way.

(In spite of how happy Older Daughter looks wearing this, it's mine.) Actually, to be fair, I'm only halfway done. This is the Churchmouse Bias Before and After scarf, and it's intended to be a pair, which can be worn together or separately, in two different colors (my second color is a gorgeous teal green). The ends are beaded, which adds a lovely weight to what is otherwise a weightless (but warm and soft) scarf. And, as promised with this pattern, it is ugly (really ugly) during the knitting, but the blocking changes everything.

It's knitted out of Cascade Alpaca Lace, on size 6 needles, and it's one of those knits that's boring boring boring in execution, but which I know I will wear endlessly.

If I can get it away from my daughter.

The Plan

2012-01-07T12:08:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big one for resolutions in the new year, at not least resolutions per se. And I'm also not a huge fan of resolutions with regard to my knitting or spinning. I think part of this has to do with the fact that my work life is so planned out (for example, at this point I have a fairly detailed plan for my work and research stretching through to June 2013; if I make it that long and get everything done, when it's supposed to get done, I will have shuffled many of my overcommitments off of my plate, and should have some breathing space to figure out the next plan - we'll see) that it's really nice not to have my knitting/spinning life too planned out. (Note that I am not counting here the spinning classes that are coming up at my LYS, for which I am already - you guessed it - planning.)

Nevertheless, I have lately been sitting in the fiber room (aka the den), noticing wistfully and with sidelong glances the skeins and balls of yarn (we won't speak yet of the bumps and braids of fiber) which I bought with a specific project in mind (heck, I even bought the pattern) which somehow fell by the wayside as other, momentarily shinier, projects caught my eye. The thing is, though, I bought that yarn and those patterns because I really, really liked them - and I still do. Therefore, and after talking to Sallee about her plans for the next year (it would appear that I'm not the only one with this issue), it seems that the thing to do is to put all of that yarn together with the proper patterns and to bust a move on these projects. It's a KAL of sorts, although I don't know that we're sure what to call it - you are most welcome to play along.

Here are the ones that were the most obvious:

(and by obvious, I mean: sitting right there in plain sight, or immediately available in my stash); and one more that I forgot when I was putting those together:

A little tour, then, is in order. First, the ones whose yarn/pattern match I am most absolutely sure about (as in, I'm not rethinking my original plans). That pile of blue right up there (and I should say that the colors on none of these is quite right, but I'm busting a move here, and I'm not stopping for anything), is some Rowan denim that I bought on sale in Sacramento over Thanksgiving (taking that sale as a sign that it is finally time) to knit the Indigo Ripples Skirt, which I have been wanting to knit ever since I saw it in IK in (sigh) 2007. I'm hoping this is enough yarn... (if anyone has some Rowan denim in the dark blue (80), dyelot 225 that they're dying to get rid of, you know where to find me)

Next up: that single blue skein there is a skein of Sanguine Gryphon Bugga that I managed to score ages ago (colorway Blue Metalmark) that I've been hoarding, saving it for "good". That's silly. So I'm knitting a pair of the Kimono socks (my very favorite) out of it - I know I'll wear those a ton, as this denimy color goes with just about everything I wear. The skein at 12:00 there (which is really a lovely fuscia, not at all the orangey it appears in this picture) is a skein of Baah! Luscious Lace (merino/silk) that has been destined since I saw it to become a Citron shawl (you can see the pattern right there), and so it shall. And the two skeins of Hazel Knits artisan sock below (colorways, Rick's Cognac and Splish Splash; the blue one is closer to robin's egg blue, but the other one is pretty close) were purchased at Sock Summit this past summer with the express goal of becoming Catkin. I'm thinking the amber as the main color and blue as the contrast - any opinions?

Next up:

The hank and ball up there on the top are the remains of the Briar Rose Seapearl (my very favorite yarn) that I used to knit my first Wine Dark Sea sweater. That sweater, for various reasons having to do with the great mismatch between my image of myself and my actual self, is too big. I have long been meaning to knit it again, and maybe to even write up the pattern as I do so. I am hoping that the approximately 900 yards that I have there will be enough (it should be). Below that is a cake of BMFA Socks that Rock lightweight in Schwarzwald, from this last year's sock club. It's destined to be socks for Rick (using the club pattern that came with). And the two skeins to the right of that are Alpaca with a Twist Fino (alpaca/silk) meant to become a pair of Oh Deer! for me. (Seriously, best mittens ever; they totally make me happy - so serious and elegant on top, so goofy on the bottom.)

Finally:

These are the ones I'm a little less sure about. The skein of sock yarn at the top is definitely destined to become a pair of socks for my dad before his birthday next fall; I just don't know what pattern yet. (The yarn is Holiday Yarn Flock Sock in the Cafe au lait colorway.) The little skein next to the Pretty Thing pattern is a skein of Plymouth Earth ecco cashmere; I bought it with Pretty Thing in mind, but there's more yardage there than I really need for the pattern (and I don't want to waste cashmere!), and I'm worrying/dithering about the utility of a neckwarmer in my world, so we'll see. The cake of yarn next to the Drifted Pearls pattern is a ball of Briar Rose cashmere; my dither there arises from my fear that I might not have enough yardage for the pattern and my feeling that perhaps this yarn should be for Rick - the colors would look great on him. So the pattern may have a rethink. And finally, there are three skeins of Hazel Knits Entice (merino/cashmere/nylon) that I also bought at Sock Summit this year, specifically to make a sweater for myself. I'm pretty sure that it will be a pullover Leaving (such a lovely pattern), but I'm still dithering over the pullover/cardigan question, and reserve the right to fall in love with another sweater prior to the cast on.

So there it is. I also have some projects OTN that I want to finish, and a few that I will probably make the decision to abandon and rip this year, but that's another story. I will also probably do the same kind of thing I've done here for my spinning fiber - I have purchased quite a bit of it with specific projects/plans/spinning experiments in mind, and it's time to organize that and queue it up. And I can think of two or three more projects' worth of yarn (that is, yarn I purchased with something very specific in mind) that I'll probably dig out of stash fairly soon to organize like this. How about it? Am I the only one out there with planned but unexecuted projects lurking about, rattling their chains in my stash? Projects which still appeal, only eclipsed by some shiny distraction, projects which deserve their day in the sun? How about you?

Happy new year!

2012-01-02T21:08:00.000-08:00

A bit late, I know, but I mean it all the same. It's 2012, and I hope for each and every one of us a good year, full of the things we love most, including fiber of course, but also in my world, family and friends and long walks with my dog, and time spent on the beach, and good books, and delicious meals shared in good company.

I got a lot of that over the holiday break, in fact - I feel very lucky to have ended what in other ways has been a tough year in such a wonderful way. Rick's brother and sister-in-law and our niece came to spend nine days with us, and I loved every one of them. It was hard to see them go. I've got pictures to share another day, in fact - we did a lot (including running my first 5k, thanks to my SIL's inspiration - I still think that she slowed down for me, but I stuck to her heels, and made it over the finish line in the end; can you tell I'm feeling proud?).

Meanwhile, until I have all of that organized, I thought I'd share the last few knitting projects from the old year, just to wipe the slate clean, as it were. I didn't aim to do any holiday knitting, but I did finish one last baby surprise jacket plus booties for a friend's baby-to-be, and managed to give it to her at my LYS' holiday party - thank goodness, because her baby came a few weeks early! I don't have any pictures of the sweater and booties, alas, but I'm hoping that perhaps I can get a picture of them in situ, on the baby herself.

I also started and finished a sweater for Younger Daughter in the weeks just before Christmas. I saw two projects in IK Winter 2011 that I knew immediately were meant for my girls. The first was the Fabled Cardigan, which I wanted to knit for Younger Daughter. I promptly cast on after picking the yarn up at my LYS (I used Cascade EcoWool), and this knit up fast. I will never be a fan of chunky yarns and big needles (but wait 'til you hear what I'm working on now!), but I admit that this one is right for what it is.

Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I didn't put the garter stitch edging on the bottom hem, letting the cables do the finishing for me (the picture below is truest to color).

And I added cables at the bottoms of the sleeves, as well.

I figured that this was in keeping with the front sweater skirt, which has cables right along the edge.

And I found the perfect buttons in Grandmom's button box.

All in all, I'm very happy with the way this turned out, and if it would just get cold around here, maybe I'd see more of it on her!

I have also cast on for Older Daughter's project, of which I have no pictures as yet. I am knitting for her the Leif Slipover from IK Winter 2011, in Cascade Lana Grande (which I have an overwhelming urge to call Lana Grossa; perhaps this says something about how I feel about knitting on yarn this big), on size 15 needles, which are, frankly, not so much needles as boar spears.

I also knitted a little sweater for myself. I saw it (and the yarn) at my LYS during the holiday party there, and knew that I really had to have it for Christmas eve this year. I finished it at 3:30 on Christmas eve, an hour before people started to arrive for the annual ~~herring fest~~ ~~aquavite binge~~ Christmas eve party. Whew.

It's just meant to be a little light cardi to add some color and warmth, and that's exactly what it did. I'm ashamed to admit that I can't remember the pattern right offhand, but the yarn is Baah! La Jolla, hand-dyed (beautifully, I might add) by my friend Mira.

I think this one is going to get a lot of use, actually, even though I hadn't been actively desirous of a sweater like this. It'll be perfect in the classroom, for example - the sleeves are short enough to stay out of my way, and it adds just enough warmth to be nice, without making me all crazy and overheated when I get excited about, say, morphophonological variation. Heh.

I also finished up the socks I started for Cat Bordhi's class.

I'm much happier with the way I finished up the cable in the second sock (on the left); I need to decide whether it's worth ripping the first one back to fix, or whether I'll just let it go. They fit very nicely - I love this heel quite a lot, and this kind of short-rowing worked beautifully for the toe, as well; my first short-row toe.

I'm particularly happy with the spiraling cable. It's hard to get a picture of the back of one's leg, but:

There are more pictures on my Rav page. The yarn I used for this was Dye Dreams Luster Sox, and it was a very interesting experience. It's a lovely 3-ply yarn, made of Blue-Faced Leicester (BFL), which is perfect for socks in so many ways. However, I found that it handled very differently from the way I expect yarn to handle - it seemed to be picking up twist as I knitted. I finally checked and found, interestingly, that the yarn had been spun counter-clockwise and plied clockwise, which is opposite to the usual spinning and plying pattern for knitting yarns. I had heard and read many times that it is better for knitting yarn to be spun clockwise and plied counterclockwise, but this is the first time that I've worked with a yarn that hasn't been. It definitely makes a difference in the manageability of the yarn. I have some left over, so I want to take some time to play with it a little bit to see if I can really see what's going on when I throw the yarn to knit, and why that seems to be adding clockwise twist (which in turn causes the yarn to behave as if it were overplied). Very interesting.

Last, but not least, I finished the Not Stockinette socks that I cast on over Thanksgiving to alleviate my stockinette slump. These are the Isabella D'Este socks from the amazing Clara Parkes' The Knitter's Book of Socks (I love every single one of her books, and would like to be her when I grow up).

I love everything about these socks. They fit like a glove, and the pattern makes me very happy. It's hard to go wrong with a picot edge, little lace motifs, and a gusset decrease that manages the movement of the lace pattern on the foot. So elegant and finished.

I couldn't get pictures that really do these justice - I'll work on it. But that one is pretty close to the true color. These are knitted out of Jitterbug, which is perfect for socks - a springy, round 3-ply in a barely variegated solid that doesn't hide all the pretty patterning going on here.

I am very pleased with the way these turned out, and I'm betting I'll wear them a lot.

I do have some knitting plans for the new year, but I will wait on those until I've taken some more pictures to go with them. I did, however, do some playing around on Ravelry this evening, and it seems fitting to end this with a recap of this year's projects:

30 projects started and finished in 2011, including:
7 pairs of socks
6 shawls
9 hats
3 baby sweaters and booties
4 sweaters (two for me, one for my mom, one for Younger Daughter)
1 pair of mitts

Not too bad, all things considered.

Happy New Year!

You know you're a spinner when...

2011-12-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

You've got something like this drying in your back yard.

Isn't it pretty? This is some of the Polwarth that Erica dyed in one of her photo dyeing adventures. I took one look at the first of those fibers (Duck Water), and snapped it up. It's been sitting near my spinning wheel for what feels like forever now (nearly five months), waiting for me to have time to spin it. I finally got to it last week, when I'd finished the last of my baby knitting (there's a deadline on that stuff, you know - it's not like you can exactly ask an expectant mother to hang on because you've still got one more seam to finish), plus some Christmas spinning that I can't show you now.

Didn't those colors come out beautifully in the yarn? I was so afraid I'd ruin it that I almost didn't want to spin it. I can't tell you how squishy and lovely this fiber was in the braid. Polwarth has an amazing hand - it feels almost like merino to me. I wanted to maintain as much of that squishiness as I possibly could, so I spun this up woollen, into a nice round three-ply. I think I have about 200 yards there (I need to count again once it's dry)(which reminds me, oh you spinners out there - do you reskein after washing your yarn, and does that give you a more accurate sense of how many yards you have?).

The first two pictures are more accurate representations of the color. This is four ounces of Polwarth, and I have to tell you, I am flat-out in love with Polwarth as a fiber. It spun up like butter, I tell you, just like butter. Erica must do something really special while she dyes this fiber, because it drafted like a dream - no compacting or felting to speak of. I could have kept on spinning those singles forever and ever. I absolutely have to get enough of this fiber to spin a sweater out of at some point, no doubt about it (I wish I could knit a sweater from this color, actually - it is so absolutely right up my alley; I might have to figure out a way to use it in a sweater, come to think of it; must meditate). I sort of had a hat in mind, or maybe some mitts, but we'll see. Any suggestions are, as always, welcome.

I was reminded the other day of two Younger Daughter stories that, in retrospect, also suggest that I am a spinner. Story the first: a year or so ago, my mother asked for a kitchen scale for weighing things (as one does) in the kitchen (note: she is not a knitter or spinner - although she sews beautifully - and both the girls know that). So off we went to Sur La Table (an adamantly cooking-oriented store), to get her the scale that I have and love for weighing fiber and yarn. (It lives in the fiber room - which Rick asks me to tell you is really the den, the DEN! - and must be hunted up on those rare occasions when I weigh things in the kitchen.) Younger Daughter went along to keep me company, no questions asked, until we were just about to check out and she looked at me in a puzzled sort of way and said, "But mama, why does memere need to weigh fiber?" I love that my daughter's baseline assumption is that scales are for weighing fiber, in spite of all of the evidence that suggests that I am the one using a scale in ways that do not match the norm.

Story the second: also about a year ago, we were in the Bay Area (where it is often chilly, no matter the time of year), and I was realizing that I needed more in the way of a jacket than I had brought. At the same time, it came to my attention that the outdoors store right next to the hotel was about to have a sale on fleece outerwear. So as we got up one morning, I told Younger Daughter that we needed to run out quickly before heading out on the day's adventures, so that I could buy a fleece. Once again, she willingly went along, tra la. It was only as we were walking over to the store, and she asked, "What are you going to knit with the fleece?" that I realized that she'd assumed (as if it were the most natural thing in the world) that I was going to buy a sheep fleece. How many kids would even think of that as an option?

Only the child of a spinner.

(Taken in her new-to-her solo dress - a wonderful and unexpected gift from the dance mom who made it for her daughter, now grown out of it - at last weekend's feis.)

Knitting and linguistics

2011-12-13T20:25:00.000-08:00

So. I think I said in my last post that, in our conversation during her class, Cat described to me the way she's been thinking about knitting in terms of linguistics. Needless to say, I loved it. So (because I like to share the things I love), I thought I'd try to explain the whole thing here, and see what you all think. This means that there is going to be a linguistics lesson. This is, in fact, a very fibery sort of post, in the sense that (if it all goes well), we'll be talking about knitting by the end, and talking about it analytically, but if linguistics isn't your thing, I completely understand. Next time, there will be pictures of knitted objects and spun yarn (yes, I have been spinning!). Note, you will need to say things out loud during the reading of this blog post - shut your office door, if necessary.

I'm going to lay out what we said in class in brief, just to kick things off, and then back up and define the main linguistic terms. Then I'll go at the linguistics/knitting thing again, except it will be clearer, and you can (and should!) join in the fun. (I should say that there is just no way to do this justice in one blog post - this is just sort of a kick-off.) In essence, Cat said that she was intrigued by the linguistic unit of the "phoneme", and thought that it could apply to knitting. I even wrote to Cat to make sure that I remembered what she said about how that would work (by the way, can I just tell you how much fun it is to meet someone who's as enthusiastic about thinking this way as I could ever hope to be, and who is totally willing to talk to me about it, even though I'm sure she's crazy busy?): "Any unit of stitch manipulation that could be placed into or removed from a piece of knitting to alter its appearance/ texture. This would include single-stitch units such as knit, purl, yo, etc., as well as larger horizontal units like cables and larger vertical units like slipped stitches, etc. What seems essential is that each unit, whether simple or complex, carry its own distinct identity/meaning (thus morpheme is better than phoneme)." That last bit is because when she expressed this idea to another linguist in another class, that person suggested that the idea of "morpheme" might better capture what she was thinking.

And so beginneth the lesson. First, the "phoneme". Phonemes are defined as units of sound in a particular language. The main idea to get here is that speakers of particular languages treat sounds which are, acoustically, different from one another as if they were the same. In doing so, they are acting out an unconscious agreement among the speakers of that language that those variants will not change the meanings of words if they are changed. So, for example, in English, we use a sound which I will represent with the symbol [t] (a linguist would say that this symbol stands for a sound which is described as a "voiceless alveolar stop"). You can hear that sound in a word like "stop"; it is the second sound in that word. (I won't get into it in too much detail here, but it is absolutely critical to remember that spelling is NOT language, and that we are talking here about SOUNDS, not about the way those sounds are represented alphabetically.) There is another sound in English that is very similar - it is represented by linguists as a [t] with a little superscript "h", which I can't make Blogger do, so we'll call it "aspirated t", which is what it is. It is very much like the first [t], except that it has a little puff of air associated with it - you can feel that if you say the word "top". Feel how there's a much bigger puff of air when you say the [t] in "top" than when you say it in "stop"?

Now. You tell me. Would you consider those two sounds (and believe me, acoustically, they are definitely two sounds) to be two different sounds, or simply variants of the same sound? In other words, are they as different as [d] and [t], or not? Note that [d] and [t] are "different" enough to speakers of English that they will distinguish between words - for example "dill" and "till". But would [t] and aspirated [t] do that?

Most native English speakers will, at this point, either say "no", or they'll look at me like I'm nuts for even asking ("duh" being a stronger version of "no"). For English speakers [t] and aspirated [t] are simply variants of the "same" sound, while [t] and [d] are "different" sounds. (But make the sounds [t] and [d] for a second, paying very close attention, and notice how similar they are. Acoustically and articulatorily - the way you move your mouth - they are as similar as [t] and aspirated [t] are; [t] is a voiceless alveolar stop, and [d] is a voiced alveolar stop - the only difference between them is whether your vocal cords are vibrating or not. Cool, huh?) This is specific to English - some languages view [t] and aspirated [t] as being utterly distinct sounds, as different as [t] and [d] and just as able to distinguish between words (Bengali is an example of one such language). But for English, the sounds [t] and aspirated [t] are variants of what we consider to be "one sound" - linguists call that "one sound" a phoneme, and we call its variants "allophones".

One way to think about it is this. Clark Kent and Superman are really the same guy, right? I mean, they look really different from one another, and they always show up in entirely different environments, but they're variants of one person - [t] and aspirated [t] are the same way. When he's at home, alone, with no-one to see him, who is this Clark Kent/Superman guy, anyway? He's the phoneme. And Clark Kent and Superman are his allophones. They are variants whose appearance is conditioned by environments - Clark Kent writes newspaper articles and pines after Lois Lane, and Superman gets to save the world. In the same way, aspirated [t] appears by itself at the beginning of words, and [t] appears in other places in words. (It's more complicated than that, but I'm simplifying.)

(For another fun exercise, say these pairs of words: beet/bead; etch/edge; bus/buzz; block/blog. Do you notice that in each pair, there is one word where the vowel in the middle is just a little longer than in the other word in the pair? Do you notice it's always the second word that has the longer vowel? Those vowels - short and long - don't distinguish between words in English (if you say "beeeet", you'll just sound like you're emphasizing the fact that you're talking about beets rather than turnips), but they are distinct from one another. Long and short vowels are allophones in English. There are other languages - like Kawaiisu - where short and long vowels are distinctive phonemes in the language - they will distinguish between words.)

Phonemes have no meaning by themselves. But by contrasting with one another, they can create meaning within words - no English speaker will confuse words like "till" and "dill". So, phonemes are minimal sound units within a particular language. They are building blocks, but by themselves they mean nothing. And phonemes have variant forms which cannot create meaning distinctions.

Now we move to morphemes. Morphemes are defined in linguistics as "minimal meaning units" - the smallest bits of language that have meaning. In a word like "cats", there are two morphemes - the morpheme "cat", which means furry thing with whiskers that purrs, and the morpheme "-s", which means more than one of whatever it's attached to. Morphemes, too, have variant forms (we call them "allomorphs"). In the case of the plural morpheme in English, there are three variant forms - pay very close attention to the way you pronounce the plural morpheme at the end of the words "cats", "dogs", and "churches". Really, really close attention. If you do (and it can help if you put them in front of another word, like "are", in a sentence), you'll notice that in the first one, we pronounce the morpheme [s], in the second [z], and in the third, something like [ez] (for any linguists out there, I'm sorry - I can't make Blogger speak IPA). Cool, huh? But we wouldn't want to say that there are three different bits that mean "plural" - we'd want to say that these are just variants of the "same" plural morpheme - they are allomorphs of the plural morpheme. (There are lots of other examples, but just by way of one more, think about words like "impossible", and "intangible" and "inconceivable" - if you pay close attention, you'll hear that you say that last one, in casual speech, more like "ingconceivable". That prefix im/in/ing-, meaning "not so much", has three allomorphs.)

OK. Back to knitting. The question is, are there units of knitting that are comparable to phonemes and morphemes? Are there units which are basic building blocks of the language of knitting, with variant forms, which don't have meaning in themselves? And are there other units (again, with variant forms) which do have some kind of "meaning"? Looking even more broadly, is there a knitting syntax? A way of combining larger and larger units of knitting to make "sentences" and even "narratives"?

After much contemplation (probably more than I should admit to, given that it's not even been two weeks since Cat dropped this lovely little cognitive plaything on me), I think that the knit stitch is a phoneme. I think it has two allophones: the regular knit stitch, and the twisted knit stitch. I think that the knit stitch contrasts with another phoneme, the purl stitch. I don't think that either a single knit stitch nor a single purl stitch has meaning in itself, but I do think that they contrast with one another in larger knitted structures. I also tend to think that a yo is a phoneme. And maybe decreases and increases are phonemes, and the different kinds of, say, decreases are allophones of one phoneme. In other words, a k2tog and an ssk will not distinguish different meanings within a knitted structure, but either one will contrast with a kfb or a M1.

I think that things like k2,p2 would be a morpheme - the "ribbing" morpheme. I think that it's a morpheme because when stitches combine like that, they have a meaning within a knitted structure. I also think that that morpheme has allomorphs, like the k1,p1 allomorph, or the k2tbl, p2 allomorph. I'm wondering whether cables are morphemes, and at what point is one cable different enough from another that they're two different meaning units? And, are small cables surrounded by purl stitches simply allomorphs of the ribbing morpheme, or something else?

And should we be calling these something else? Alloknits and allomotifs? Or...?

I love this analogy. It's making me think about what kinds of "meanings" are recognizable in our knitting, and I do think that there is such a thing. When we see someone else's knitted garments, we know what they're trying to do. We may not always find whatever it is appealing, nor think that it's the best way to convey a particular "meaning", but it's recognizable. This is very much the same way that a syntactically appropriate sentence of English may be appealing to some speakers, while others think, "I wouldn't say it that way." But it is recognizable as English, and it is recognizable because it follows the rules of the language which are acquired, unconsciously, by all native English speakers (I do not speak here of eighth-grade grammar class rules, which aren't the rules that linguists are interested in). I do think, though, that there comes a point where this analogy may break down. The combination of morphemes into words, and words into sentences, is subject to a pretty stringent and inflexible (all things considered) set of rules. But that doesn't seem to be the case in knitting, at least not when it comes to knitted motifs (although probably when it comes to bits of garments - for example, you wouldn't want to put a sock cuff on the toe).

And maybe that's the best bit about knitting? It's rule-governed, but not rule-bound. I think I like that.

What I did with my Friday

2011-12-04T12:19:00.000-08:00

Or: The Things I Get Out of Knitting Classes That I Can't Get Out of a Book

What did I do with my Friday? Briefly, this:

And why I was I dancing on the tabletops, you ask? It was not just an example of my ever-present joie de vivre (at least, not in this case). Rather, I was letting people get a closer look at this:

So that everyone in the class would know to finish turning their heels when they'd gotten as far as this (if you embiggen, you'll see that there's a piece of yarn being held across my foot at the sweet spot for heel finishing):

(I admit that when the building manager happened to peek in at this moment, he looked a bit worried; I'm sure he was wondering just what kinds of knitting-related accidents were covered under his insurance policy.) The good news is that no knitters were harmed in the making of these photos, even though I'd climbed up there with not one but two Signature dpns in the top of that sock. (Notice how wisely I'm balancing myself with a hand on the ceiling? I was trying to behave like a grown-up.)

So there you go. My Friday was spent taking a class with Cat Bordhi at my favorite LYS in the whole world (as you all know): Yarning For You (thanks, Deb!). I can't tell you how grateful I am to have an LYS in my backyard that creates learning opportunities like this (and others; her class schedule is always busy).

And I loved every minute of it.

People sometimes ask whether a knitting class (or retreat, or...) like this is worth the money and the time it takes to do the homework and come to the class. The question is usually asked along with something like, "but couldn't you just learn that from the book/pattern/website/YouTube video?" And the answer to that part is yes, of course. I'm a pretty smart chicken, all things considered (and you are, too), so there's almost no technique that I (or you) couldn't learn from one of those places, if we put our minds to it. That said, I don't think I've ever been to a class that I didn't think was worth it in the end, and I've been trying all weekend to articulate the reasons for that in my own head, so that maybe I'll have a chance at coming up with something vaguely intelligent when asked that question in the future. Since you are always so patient with my musings, I'm using you as guinea pigs for my potential answer(s) - lucky you.

My thoughts keep circling around - there are so many reasons - but I think that the heart of the matter, the place they're centering on, is this: knitting is a practical craft, like cooking, but it can also be, at its best, a practical art. I am a huge fan of the Arts and Crafts movement, and of its essential, foundational philosophy that things which are practical can and should also be beautiful in ways that derive directly from, and enhance, their practical purposes. Knitting is uniquely suited to fulfilling that vision. But in order to at least attempt, some of the time, to make my craft into art, I need to understand the fundamental building blocks of that craft. I need to know how knitted garments are put together; I need to know the way that knitted stitches are formed on the needles; I need to understand what yarn is and how yarn interacts with the knitted stitch to create garments, and how those things together can work to cover the human body (or whatever else we're covering at any given moment) both usefully and beautifully. The more I know about those things, the better my knitting is.

Knitting classes serve my desire to learn in so many ways. For one thing, if they do nothing else, they create time. They say that I believe that my learning and the eventual products of that learning are worthy of the effort involved in carving out space to focus. Once I go to an all-day class like this one, I'm essentially saying that my knitting is worth the commitment of that whole day. I realize that non-knitters may not understand this, but I think it's critical. It is so easy to say that we'll spend a whole day at home knitting, only to find that any one of a myriad of other important concerns have eaten into our time. I have the urge sometimes to go out to the garage and turn on power tools to protect my knitting time - people so rarely interrupt someone who's working with a table saw, have you noticed?

Then, there are also the techniques that are the most obvious purpose of the class (the stuff on the syllabus, as it were) - in this case, it was to learn about Cat Bordhi's Sweet Tomato Heel (that link is for the ebook, which I will be buying; I like almost every sock in there, and this heel fits like a glove).

In itself, that's worth the price of admission (especially since I immediately absconded with it and used it for the toe of my sock as well). In the end, even if a class ends up presenting a technique that I will never, ever use again, it's still something in my toolbox, a skill that has taught me more about how knitting (or maybe Knitting) works. If I were a painter, it seems to me that even if I thought that pastels were the total bomb - the only way to paint, EVER - I would still need to have at least tried oils. If nothing else, painting with oils might teach me something about canvas, about how it absorbs and reacts with paint - it might give me more reasons to love pastels, and more ideas about how to exploit the properties of pastels to make even better art. I'm not a painter, so maybe what I just said is a bunch of hooey. But I bet you get my point.

And then there's the pleasure of spending time with people, both the teacher and my fellow students, who are in and of themselves founts of knowledge about knitting. People who also find knitting to be interesting and compelling, and who have maybe thought of techniques, or thought about knitting, in ways that I haven't.

Cat and I had one of those conversations.

It turns out that she had to take a linguistics class when she was training to be a teacher, and she loved it. (As any sensible person would.) And she has had some seriously amazing thoughts about the ways in which the tools that linguists use to analyze language could be applied to thinking analytically about knitting. That is worth an entire post on its own, and believe me, there will be one.

Often, those conversations are what I think about the longest after the class is over.

So there you have it. At least some of the reasons why I spend my time and money on knitting classes, when I can afford to do it. How about you?

Oh, Canada!

2011-12-01T19:51:00.000-08:00

We're back! In one piece, too, after many travel adventures and a stop in Sacramento on the way home (not really, but close enough) for a wonderful Thanksgiving at my parents' house. The summative statement? I love Canada.

To be fair, I'm making that statement on the basis of a very limited visit to a very small part of a very large and diverse country. But I'm ready to go back again to make sure that I have it right, and I think that's a pretty good sign. Thanks to everyone who wrote with suggestions - we tried to hit as many as we could realistically, and we enjoyed every one we made it to. As a side note, the conference presentation (the reason for the trip) went very well (to my delight and relief), as did my presentation to the business meeting of my professional section. Whew!

If I had to sum up the one thing that so many of our wonderful experiences had in common, I'd say it's either kindness or serendipity. Serendipitous kindness? (Not one word, but it works.) To give just one example among many, we went to Notre Dame de Bonsecours in Montreal, on the excellent recommendation of people like greenmtngirl (I don't have a link - if you have one, send it and I'll attach!)(I'm embarrassed because someone else told me unequivocally to go because the view from the tower of the church is so wonderful, and I can't for the life of me remember who - whoever it was, you were right!). We climbed and climbed and climbed to the top of the church (263 stairs, if I remember correctly; the docent kindly told us the exact number before we started), to come out onto a breathtaking view of Montreal, laid out before us in the crisp (not to say frigid) evening air. My camera died right then (I'm convinced it was the cold), but my cell phone came through for me, and I was able to take pictures of the two remaining lifesized angels standing guard on the roof.

You can see a glimpse of the St. Lawrence river in the top right corner of the skyline there.

Amazing, no? Then down, down, down we went, through the exhibit on Marguerite de Bourgeoys' life (the founder), back to the entrance of the museum, where we began to rug up for our walk back to our hotel. As we did, another docent came through the gift store with three people in tow. He stopped, turned back to us, and said, "Do you want to come down to the archaeological dig under the church?" Did we! And off we went. I still don't know how the tour came about (it isn't the time of year when the dig is usually open to visitors), but we loved it, and things like that just kept happening in both Montreal and Quebec.

I loved the rampant bilingualism of both cities. It's not something that one sees very often in the U.S.; the use of languages other than English in public places is fraught in so many ways. And it may be that there were language politics playing out of which I was blissfully unaware as I moved through both cities, but I will say that I felt absolutely that people were more than willing to let me try to make my way along in French, and equally willing to help me out when my French failed me. It is rare that I get to feel like a participant in code-switching interactions (French not being a very common language around here, and my Spanish being too embarrassingly bad to try to join into any bilingual conversations that I may be lucky enough to be privy to), and I loved every minute of it, as both a linguist and a marginal francophone.

We ate. We ate like pigs, in fact, and I think the only thing that saved me from rolling home is the fact that we also walked and walked and walked. Our hotel in the Latin Quarter was a half an hour walk away from the Palais de Congres where the conference was held, and we walked all over the rest of the city - to the McCord Museum (also recommended by greenmtngrl), which had a particularly stellar exhibit on oil (the kind that comes out of the ground) and the cultures that spring up around both its use and the results of its use; to the Cathedral; to the river; and back around again. We went out to the Botanical Gardens, which were fabulous. We visited the Insectarium there (where I held a stick bug the size of my hand), and the greenhouses, where we saw flowers that I've tried to grow here, but which seemed much happier there.

And where we were also assaulted by squirrels. I begin to understand why The Yarn Harlot writes so fearfully of Canadian squirrels, in fact. I kid you not when I tell you that these squirrels not only approached us when we were standing still (I have seen that before), but they also quite literally chased us when we walked away, coming within inches of our heels without backing off. As we were alone in that part of the garden at the time, we became rather nervous of being conked on the heads and stashed away in trees like nuts. However, we escaped, noggins intact.

Quebec was equally wonderful, although even colder. It didn't once get above -2C when we were there, which I am assured is cold, even for people who aren't from Southern California. Younger Daughter was extremely grateful for the many handknits I'd schlepped along with us.

She pretty much walked around huddled up like that the whole time. But look at that sun! It was like that right up until the morning that we left, when it snowed. The sun meant that the views of the city were stunningly clear and beautiful.

There's the Chateau Frontenac, which we didn't get to visit on the inside. That picture is taken from the Citadelle (home of the only francophone military unit in Canada), which we did get to visit.

Doesn't it look French? The whole city felt like being in France.

And we saw all of the old city - we even circumnavigated the ramparts (I told you we walked a lot).

There was so much to love that I almost hesitate to mention the two flies in the ointment. The first was small, all things considered - we didn't make it to a single yarn store. (I know! How wrong is that?) The second was something that surprised me, actually, given the many ways in which Canada is a stronger advocate for her First Nations peoples than we are here in the United States. That said, though, I was surprised by the handling of the many museum exhibits that we saw which dealt with the founding of Montreal and Quebec City, and with the relationships between the settlers and the indigenous people of the area. In every exhibit we saw, the "good Indian"/"bad Indian" narrative was alive and well. You know the one (we have it here, most definitely; I see it in exhibits at missions up and down California, and it makes me frothing-at-the-mouth mad every time). It's the collective narrative that says that the European explorers engaged in fair and friendly encounters with the "good Indians", who immediately converted to Christianity and labored alongside the settlers in an egalitarian society where everyone was equally invested in the long-term success of white Europeans as they settled in their new homes. And the "bad Indians" kept launching unprovoked attacks on the settlers and their new friends. I am almost quoting, actually, from one exhibit that we saw (especially the bit about laboring alongside and unprovoked attacks). Given the otherwise tremendously high quality of the curation of the other exhibits that we saw (including an amazing exhibit on Indian - as in the subcontinent of - culture; the contrast was stark), it was surprising how uncritical the presentation of these founding narratives was. And, as a person who has spent nearly her entire adult and professional life working with Native Californians and educating college students about the problems with uncritically presented narratives like these, I couldn't help but feel frustrated every time I saw it. (Younger Daughter heard many an earful, poor kid.)

Still and yet, I'd go back in a heartbeat. Especially if I could go back when there's more daylight to explore those two cities. There was so much more I wanted to see, people I wanted to talk to, food I wanted to eat. I guess that's the best way to leave a place, right? Wanting to go back.

So spake the blog

2011-11-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

I don't know if you all realize just how much influence you have. But by way of example, when you, with one voice, said that I should finish the Vancouver stole (using words like "beautiful", and "you should finish it"), I was re-inspired. And so I have been knitting, exclusively and nearly non-stop during every spare moment (of which there have not been many, actually), ever since. And at 2:00 am on Saturday morning, I finished the ~~endless~~ ~~insane~~ ~~390-kitchener-stitch~~ lovely and well-designed tubular cast-off. See how powerful you are?

And, as I was knitting along, thinking to myself that I really, really wanted this finished before leaving for Montreal (more on that later) on Wednesday, it suddenly occurred to me that I also wanted a matching hat. I mean, we all know that the knitter's worst curse is the plethora of lovely but utterly mismatched handknits that we pile upon ourselves come the cold, but I wanted something matching. (I should note here that I have been so crazy at work lately that 10-hour days aren't doing it anymore, which is why I haven't been blogging - when I have had a spare minute these last few weeks, it has been dedicated to Vancouver. Nevertheless, I wanted a hat. Before Montreal.) And Lori came through for me (without any prompting or knowledge of my need, which is impressive) when she posted about a pattern that she received for her recent birthday - the Hat for Eudora. So I knitted one of those, too. I mean, what's one more thing when life is already ~~bat-shit-crazy~~ busy and fulfilling?

And, on Friday night, as I was plowing through endless rows of linen stitch followed by the lovely 390-kitchener-stitch cast off row (it is a really, really good thing that I think kitchener stitch is the best thing since merino/silk blends), I watched a movie that Helen had recently posted about: Crazy, Stupid, Love. And she was right - I laughed out loud (which I don't often do), and I found the relationship between Steve and Ryan to be the most compelling and intriguing of the lot. I liked that movie very much, and it certainly kept me happy during my 15th inch of linen stitch.

And aren't the results nice?

The difficulty with knitting this much linen stitch is that it essentially means knitting an entire stole in the equivalent of 1x1 rib. Hard on the wrists. Not to mention the sanity.

But so lovely. To recap, this is the Vancouver stole, knitted out of Blue Moon Fiber Arts BFL, in three colors (all on my Rav page). I will say that it didn't block out to be as big as the pattern said (no, I didn't swatch, why do you ask?), but I think that it is a size that I will use a lot here, as opposed to just in very cold places. It also drapes beautifully. And the yarn was a dream to work with. The three colors together also made me very happy - each of them set the other off perfectly.

There's the tubular cast-off. Which rather matched the tubular cast-on (I admit here and now that tubular cast-ons charm me to pieces; I'm prepared to use them on just about anything at this point).

The hat was also a delightful pattern - it knitted up very quickly (I did it all yesterday), and it's fun.

Do you see the nifty little welts on that side (hence the name - Eudora Welty, get it?)? And it has a wonderful turned-up hem, in a contrasting color.

I may actually make another of these in the gray color from the shawl, with a blue turned-up hem, that's how much I like it.

In any case, they are done. And I leave on Wednesday, and Rick's cousin is coming into town this evening for two nights. So it's a really good thing that it's done.

I should also mention, in case anyone's worrying about the "real-world" side of this trip, that my conference paper is written, and the presentation has been prepared. So it's not like I'm going to be standing up there solely on the strength of an admittedly-nifty but not very linguistic stole. In fact, I probably won't wear the stole for my talk - that's what my handknit henley is for. Now I'm just hoping that we don't freeze to death while we're there. (I'm becoming rather a delicate flower when it comes to cold weather - when I had to get into the pool this last week and it was 43 degrees out, I confess that I griped. Loudly.)

Anyone have any suggestions for things to see and do whilst in Montreal and Quebec? Younger Daughter is coming with me, and I'm planning to enjoy some time in the city once my paper is over.

Now, I just have to decide what knitting projects to pack...

Random thoughts

2011-10-26T16:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I dislike being a grownup (read: responsible). Today is one of those days. I am working (and I have gotten work done! I now have something which could pass as a powerpoint presentation for the AAA, plus a handout, plus a draft of an annual report for the section whose program selection I just chaired; and I'm about to prep for tomorrow's classes)(however, I have to admit that I did not get through the pile of grading that is waiting for me - I hit the wall). But it did mean that I couldn't spend the day with three awesome women, engaging in a yarn crawl of epic proportions (seven stores!), and ending with this. Le sigh. My friends really are good people, though - they have been texting me with updates and pictures all day, and they're getting a copy of the book signed for me. Living vicariously is good, although not as good as going along...

In other random thoughts, I will share with you a brief story. The other day I was explaining co-referentiality to a student, and she asked for an example. I said, well, the phrases "Barack Obama" and "The President" are currently co-referential - they refer to the same person. This was apparently a good example, because she wrote it in her notes. Only turns out (who knew?) that our president's name is spelled Broc.

Does this scare anyone but me?

Doldrums

2011-10-16T12:39:00.000-07:00

I think I've entered into the Knitting Doldrums. Apparently all of the projects I have actively OTN are either stockinette/garter stitch, or involve colorwork and (thus) multiple balls of yarn (making for bad meeting knitting), or both. So I'm bored. I mean, Baby Surprise Jackets are fun (and in fact, I just wound on for a third and last one today), but they're garter stitch. I also cast on for a pair of these scarves, out of a lovely alpaca laceweight. But it's stockinette. And really unattractive stockinette, to boot (I know, they'll block out beautifully, but at the moment not so much with the beauty).

Meanwhile, I'm slogging away in the Slough of Linen Stitch.

I'm further along than that, although not a lot. It takes about 25 minutes to get through a single row on this one. In many ways, it would make perfect meeting knitting, except that it comes with three huge balls of yarn, which is neither small nor inconspicuous. That's the Vancouver stole, by the way - I got the yarn for it at Sock Summit, and I cast on a few weeks after getting home. But as I said, the rows are almost 400 stitches long. And that's 400 stitches of linen stitch, so not all that fun. The results are stunning, but it's a slog.

I also finished the first of my second pair of Silk Road socks - this time for me. And they fit!

These are actually rather fun to knit, and I can do everything without the pattern (since it's my pattern). But I do have to look at my hands when I knit stranded colorwork like this - again, not so good in meetings, as eye contact is an important part of letting people know that they are being listened to.

As per my usual rule, I promptly cast on for the second sock upon casting off for the first. I really should make these my evening knitting project, but there's this small part of me that wishes the Vancouver stole would be ready for taking with me to the American Anthropological Association meetings in mid-November. They're in Montreal this year, and I understand that it's chilly in Canada in November. (heh) Of course, the fact that I also have to have a paper written in time for the meetings, as well as a presentation prepared, and a report for the business meeting of my particular association, means that there are a lot of deadlines all coming in at once. The stole probably won't get done.

So, what does one do in the face of multiple looming deadlines and boring knitting? Cast on! I just wound up some gorgeous Jitterbug sock yarn in a deep electric blue that has been marinating in stash more than long enough. The plan is to cast on for a pair of Isabella D'Este socks just as soon as I finish up here and seam the second BSJ. I just saw that there is no picture of the socks on the Ravelry site, alas. These are from the new Knitter's Book of Socks, by Clara Parkes. I will talk more about how much I love this book in another post, but for now just let me say this: I totally want to be Clara Parkes when I grow up. The woman thinks about yarn and wool in the most wonderful ways, and the collection of patterns in this book is wonderful. If you knit socks, and if you like to think about the technical aspects of yarn and yarn choices, then this book is the book for you. (I guess I just wrote about it; I don't know what else to say, really - I just love anything by Clara.) I had a lot of fun talking to Rick about some of the more engineeringly observations about tensile strength, etc. It's kind of fun when our worlds collide that way.

So, off to try to knit my way out of the doldrums!

Coming up for air

2011-10-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a mad couple of weeks, starting with a two-day external program review (two reviewers visiting from off-campus; I chaired the internal review report writing process, so I needed to be heavily involved; twelve-hour days, etc etc), following up with a delightful (but busy!) weekend taking care of the three children of dear friends of ours (leaving me to shake my head in awe at parents who regularly handle five kids), and ending with a twenty-hour stack of papers to grade (as in, it took me close to twenty work hours to grade 35 papers). I guess I know where the last two weeks have gone!

In all of that, I haven't managed a whole lot of knitting, alas. I did get two swatches knit with the sample yarn I spun for the gansey. In fact, I got those done relatively early on in the whole thing and have been carrying the swatches around in the bottom of my book bag for nearly a week and a half, hoping for an opportunity to take a picture - even if it had to be on PhotoBooth - to share. That actually turned out not to be a bad thing, as I am reassured by how well they survived. (Also, in answer to a question that someone left about blocking my yarn before I knit with it - yes, I do soak, snap, and hang (unweighted) my skeins of handspun before I knit with them. I also blocked these swatches after knitting.)

The swatch on the left is knitted with the woolen-spun yarn, size three needles on the bottom, and size two needles on the top. The swatch on the right was knitted out of the worsted-spun yarn, on size two needles (because I liked them so much better in the first swatch). I am thinking that the size two needles on the woolen-spun yarn is the way to go; any opinions? I should say, by the way, that several people pointed out the flaw (that I hoped no one would notice) in my blatherings about spinning style and warmth/weight issues. Woolen-spun yarn, while lighter than worsted-spun, tends to be warmer, because all of the air in the yarn (which makes it lighter) traps heat. (I should note that part of the reason why I didn't say that is because ganseys are traditionally knit out of a tightly-spun five-ply, and they were used by fishermen in some of the worst weather you can imagine, so I kept ignoring what I've read again and again about woolen-spun yarn being warmer, because obviously these sweaters kept those guys warm! I wonder if it's a wind/rain thing? In other words, perhaps a tightly spun and knitted sweater is more wind- and rain-proof? That would be even more true if they were spun in the grease.) In any case, there are ~~three~~ four factors (I feel like the Spanish Inquisition) which make me think that going with the woolen-spun yarn is going to be the way to go: first, it's going to make Rick happier, as he doesn't tend to like weighty layers; second, I like the way the knit/purl motifs look better in the woolen-spun yarn; third, this fiber seems happier spun woolen - it's a bit more wiry when it's spun worsted; and fourth, I spin faster when I spin woolen, and I'd like to finish this sweater sometime before the girls graduate from college.

Of course, now I need to find the time to actually spin the yarn. Even though the woolen spinning goes much faster, I still need to get to the wheel. On the other hand, I also need to get to my spindles, as I'm teaching another intro to spindling class a week from today at my LYS (I don't know if anyone who's reading is from around here, but right now there's plenty of room in the class, if you want to give it a whirl - it's a very low-key commitment to try something that you might like a lot, and we always have a lot of fun)(and yes, I meant that pun-like thing in the last parenthetical).

Meanwhile, I've been knitting a little bit here and there. I finally knit my very first baby surprise jacket.

And my second.

And you know what? It really is quite a surprise the way a total amorphous blob, given the right twists and tweaks, turns - hey presto! - into a sweater. Very cool, and I haven't the faintest clue how anyone, even the immortal EZ, could have come up with this thing; truly, it must have been inspiration, in the original sense of the word. I also took a 30-minute skill-building class today on mattress stitch (appalling that I haven't done it before, I know), and stitched up the shoulders on that first sweater like a pro. I have decided that I am not particularly fond of sewing up garter stitch seams, but at least I know that I'm doing it right.

I knitted the first one (which will be accompanied by little bitty matching booties) for Knit for the Cure, which is a fundraiser that my beloved LYS puts together every year. The store gathers up knitted donations which they sell in a booth at the end of the Susan Komen Race for the Cure in San Diego. I'm also walking this year in the 5k (on November 6th), with the team that my friend Pam has put together: Purls for the Girls. If you happen to like to donate to that particular cause, and you haven't had a chance to do that this year, I know the team would appreciate your support tremendously. If you do, please let me know, and also (regardless of whether you donate) do let me know if there's anyone you'd like us to be particularly remembering or thinking of as we knit our way through our 5k walk.

The second jacket is for a friend of mine at work whose baby is due soon; there will be booties to accompany that one as well. These little jackets knit up pretty quickly, and they work well for meeting knitting (garter stitch all the way, and very small). They also seem to be about all that my brain can handle these days; I am so terminally distracted by my ever-growing and unshrinking to-do list (which now stretches into mid-December at least), that I actually completely forgot to bring my computer to work one day this week. It's always a bad sign when I forget something that obvious and important (especially when I've left the computer sitting right next to my bookbag, and right under my car keys). Clearly, it's better not to try something like a pair of Cookie A socks or stranded colorwork at this point in time.

With luck, the next post will come much sooner than two weeks. Meanwhile, happy weekend - what kinds of fun things are you all doing to celebrate your Saturday?

Spinning math

2011-09-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

I've been sampling for the gansey. This Coopworth was beautifully prepped, and it spins like a dream. It's definitely a coarser fiber (I'm not sure of the micron count, but I wouldn't wear this next to my skin), but it will make a great woolly sweater, I think. (The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook says that the typical micron count for Coopworth is in the 30-39 micron count range - that seems about right.)

In spite of the fact that ganseys were traditionally knitted in a tightly-spun 5-ply (at something like 7 stitches to the inch, if I remember correctly), I decided that a three-ply was more realistic. I also rather thought I'd lean towards a less-tightly-spun yarn, given that my very warm husband would like to be able to wear it once in a while, and a coat of woolen armor doesn't work so well down here in SoCal. That said, I also wanted to be sure that my assumptions were correct, so I decided to start with two samples: a woollen-spun three-ply, and a worsted-spun three ply.

Here's the woollen-spun one.

This was spun using a long backwards draw, keeping my front hand still (managing the twist only slightly), and pulling the fiber back, letting the twist do most of the drafting work.

Here's the worsted-spun yarn.

This was spun using a short forward draw, keeping my back hand (my fiber hand) still, while pulling fiber out of the fiber supply and smoothing the twist into it with my front hand.

Here's my sample card (sorry for the PhotoBooth photo - it was this or nothing). For each sample, the right-most one is the singles, middle is two-ply, left-most is three-ply; the worsted-spun is on the left, the woollen-spun on the right.

You can really see the difference there between them - the one on the right is much puffier and less compacted than the one on the left. It also feels better; I think this particular kind of wool wants to be spun with some air in it - the worsted-spun sample feels a bit wire-y to me (any other Coopworth spinners out there who can tell me their experience?).

The numbers are rather interesting, too. Both of these yarns came out at 13 wpi (wraps per inch), so between a sport-weight and worsted-weight yarn - exactly what I wanted for this sweater. The stats on the woollen spun yarn (if I did my math right, and if my niddy-noddy really does give me one-yard loops) are as follows. I spun 56 yards, which weigh 19g or 5/8oz. That works out to 1424 yards/lb for the grist of this yarn. The worsted spun yarn came out at 32 yards and 12g or 3/8oz, which works out to 1344 yds/lb.

I'm planning to knit these each into a little sample before making the final call on spinning type, but at the moment I'm leaning towards the woollen-spun yarn for a couple of reasons. First, it's lighter (as I mentioned above), so with luck it'll make a more wearable sweater. Second, it's softer (so again, more wearable). Third, I spin woollen faster than I spin worsted (which means that I might have a chance at finishing this sweater in this lifetime). And finally, looking at that yardage/pound calculation, the woollen spun yarn maximizes what I've got. (It actually just occurred to me this very minute that this gives me a rough estimate of how many yards I should end up with, if I know how much fiber I have by weight! - Yes, I'm slow, hush. - I need to weigh to be sure, but I think I have a titch under two pounds, which puts me at somewhere around, to lowball it, 2500 yards, which should be enough, right?)(Right?)

OK, I couldn't stand it and went to weight it all (I'm home working today with an erstwhile-sick kid), and the verdict is: 39 oz. That's about 3400 yards, right? If so, I'm in like Flynn. (On the other hand, if my math skillz aren't as good as I think they are, it could all be bad. If one of you sees that I'm math challenged, could you let me down gently?)

A plan in pictures

2011-09-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

So here's the latest plan.

To use this:

To make one of these:

For him:

Even though he has the wingspan of one of these:

Alternate fiber arts

2011-09-11T19:58:00.000-07:00

Two weeks down, thirteen to go!

I know how bad that sounds. This is always the tough part of the semester, when I feel that I am still setting expectations for students, and they're getting used to me and I'm getting used to them. By about week four, things get good for a while, and I stop counting until week 11 or so rolls around. At that point, we're all counting down to finals, for better or for worse.

Meanwhile, I mentioned last time that I had a few things to share from our busy Labor Day weekend. First, Younger Daughter, all got up for her feis.

It's hard to get pictures of her in action dancing, without catching other kids in the photos, too (and I don't want to put some other kid out there on the internet), hence the pose. Rick did manage to get one action shot without identifiable extras, though:

That gives some idea.

As for the other activities of the weekend, I have to share something that I got myself at the Go Native Days gathering in Tehachapi. I have long wanted a Native California basket. In fact, I have long wanted to learn to weave a Native California basket, and someday I will. However, learning to basketweave generally starts with gathering the basketmaking materials with a master weaver, then waiting for those materials to cure, etc, etc (not unlike asking someone how to knit and being told, "Here's a sheep"; it's an awesome way to learn, and maybe even a right way to learn, but not something I could take on right now). The time will come when I can do that, but it isn't now. So instead, I finally committed to buying one, and came home with this.

Isn't it lovely? It's a Kumeyaay basket. The Kumeyaay people were split, many many years ago, by the arbitrary imposition of what is now the U.S./Mexico border; the weaver of this basket comes from Baja California. The pattern is called a whirlwind pattern, and it satisfies my abiding love of spirals.

It's woven of juncus grass; the black is dyed juncus. It smells nice, too (it must be the knitter in me, but when I see a basket, I automatically smell it; am I the only one who does this with yarn?).

Now, while I do know that I can't dedicate myself appropriately to learning to weave something like this, Rick and I took advantage of the fact that there were weavers at the event who were offering lessons in things like basket starts and pine needle baskets. We headed off to the pine needle basket booth, and an hour and a bit later, had these.

Little bitty pine needle basket trays. (Very, very little bitty.) They're made of pine needles and raffia. And because one should always give one's first basket away, I'm going to sew hair clips to the backs of these for the girls. And because I am an honest person I'll answer for you this question: Guess which one is mine and which is Rick's?

Hint: Engineers apparently make very good basket weavers.

(His is on the right.)

Mileage

2011-09-05T20:46:00.000-07:00

We have certainly put the mileage on this weekend! On Friday, Rick had to drive down to Coronado (about fifty miles south of here) to help lay floors for Younger Daughter's dance school's feis. As soon as he got home, we loaded the car up, and headed 200 miles north (about 3.5 hours) to Tehachapi (feeling very grateful that the Cajon pass had reopened after a brush fire shut it down; the traffic still wasn't pretty, but at least it was rolling), where the tribe that I work with was hosting a huge fundraiser on Saturday called Go Native Days. We worked at that all day on Saturday (well, the girls and I worked; Rick went for a well-earned bike ride), and then drove home on Saturday night. Then on Sunday, it was back down to Coronado for the feis, before finally coming to a rest here at home last night.

Tilly was really glad when we didn't leave again this morning.

Today has been a catch-up day, and as part of that catch-up, I finally got a few pictures of some recently-finished projects. Alas, I completely forgot to bring my camera to Saturday's event! (But I do have a few things to share from that in another post.)

First up, Stripe Study (modelled here by Younger Daughter):

I really love these colors together, but I have to admit something - I'm not 100% sure how to wear this to its best advantage. By its nature, it is asymmetrical (it reminds me very much of a fiddler crab), and that has me stumped. In this picture, it is aligned so that the point is at about the middle of the back, with the long arm of the shawl tucked over the shoulder under the shorter arm.

That's how it looks from behind. I see that as one option. The other option is to make the arms about even in front, which puts the point over one shoulder.

Then it looks like this from the back.

And front. Opinions? Those of you who have knit this, how do you wear it?

In any case, to recap, this is Stripe Study, knitted in Zen Yarn Garden Serenity Lace II, on size 6 needles. I love the yarn - it was wonderful to work with, it has a lovely hand, and it knitted up beautifully even before I blocked this. The pattern was clear and easy - very good travel and meeting knitting, in spite of needing to haul two yarn colors around. This is definitely one I'd knit again (assuming I figure out how to wear it), and that's not something I say often of a garter stitch project.

The next project is a pair of socks that I'm embarrassed to say I started on the trip to Peru and only just recently finished. Honestly, they should have gone faster, but I got distracted by the siren call of stripes (and cashmere, let's not forget the cashmere).

These went to Younger Daughter, since they fit her perfectly. They're knitted out of Vintage Purls Vintage Sock yarn, which I have knitted with before and just love, on size 1 needles. (I am happy to report that there's enough of this left over that I think I'll make myself a pair of clog socks with the rest.) I used my usual toe-up pattern, with a slip-stitch heel flap under the heel, and the gusset stitch reductions happening on the back of the leg (rather than at the side). I added a little travelling stitch thing just for fun. Younger Daughter seems to like them.

So that's it for finished projects. Right now, I am working my way glacially slowly through the fifteen inches of linen stitch (over about 300+ stitches) that I need to start out Vancouver. Thank goodness I love the colors and the yarn (BFL, mmm...), because otherwise this one would be a chore. But I plug away at it, a few rows here and there, and someday it will be done. I am also working on the pair of Silk Road socks that I am knitting for myself. I had a totally delusional moment on Saturday night while I was packing them up to go to the feis when I wondered why I couldn't find the first sock to take along (so I could be sure to compare the second sock to it so they match). Until I realized that there is no first sock - I am still knitting it. Alas.

And finally, as the secretary of my union local, I would be remiss if I didn't wish you all a happy Labor day, and leave you with this quote from the Department of Labor's description of why we celebrate Labor day:

"The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker."

Hunh

2011-08-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

Summer's over! Summer's over! Eeeek! (I feel like Chicken Little.) Classes started on campus today; my classes start tomorrow. I've spent all day finalizing my syllabi (why does that always take so much longer than I think it will?), and getting them uploaded into our online course containers (and why does that always take so much longer than I think it should?!), not to mention fighting with our lovely management program to get it to fork over class lists and permission numbers (that would be the multimillion dollar system that takes longer to load pages than my aged grandmother pouring molasses in the Arctic)(note: no aged grandmothers were harmed in the writing of this post). But that's mostly under control, leaving me to hyperventilate quietly in a corner, worrying that I've forgotten something and that I'll walk into class tomorrow with lipstick on my teeth and toilet paper on my shoe. You know, a usual beginning-of-semester day.

What this also means is that, although I've been knitting, and have even finished some knitting (Stripe Study is done! Younger Daughter's socks are done!), and have cast on for something new (more on that next time), I have no photographic evidence of the aforementioned knitting successes. Alas.

However, I did see something on Erica's lovely blog that caught my attention. It was a link to this article, entitled Tough Gals: Do They Still Exist? (Note: The use of the word "gals" in the title probably should have alerted me to its blood-pressure-raising content.) In that article, knitting (along with, oddly enough, making cupcakes) is explicitly blamed for modern women's lack of toughitude. (Gun-toting and car-hot-wiring are apparently the skills that we knitters lack that would help us to achieve modern feminist womanhood. I don't think that the word "feminist" means what the author of the article think it means.)

Now, my first reaction was to foam quietly at the mouth. I thought long and hard about writing a post about all the reasons why this kind of thing makes me foam at the mouth, but Erica already did it for me, and did it beautifully. However, after taking some deep breaths, drinking some tea, and spinning with my lovely little office spindle (pttthhhbbttt!), I had calmed down enough for my inner linguistic anthropologist to take hold.

And my inner linguistic anthropologist said: Hunh?

I love "hunh" moments. I tell my students to watch for them. Because the moment you say, "Hunh. I wonder why that person did/said that, in that way?", in that moment, you've got a little string to pull. A little string that hangs off the whole fabric of a particular cultural world. And if you pull on that string, tug at it patiently, slowly but surely you can get to see all kinds of interesting things about how that fabric is put together. Just as dropping some stitches down a piece of knitting and then working them back up to the needles can teach us more about the structure of a knitted fabric than almost anything else, so can pulling a little "hunh" thread teach us about the world we live in.

In the end, it's all data.

So, hunh. I wonder what it is about knitting that makes it an index of anti-feminism? (And I should say that this is by no means the only place I've seen or heard this.) I mean, as something that is indexical of women, couldn't it also become a symbol of feminism? Is it a particular kind of womanhood that knitting calls to mind? (Come to think of it, is it a particular kind of knitting that calls unfeminist womanhood to mind?) And why knitting and cupcakes, of all things? Why are cupcakes particularly anti-feminist? Why isn't woodworking considered a backward-looking symbol of luddite masculinity?

So many questions. This is why I think the knitting community is worthy of study - we are clearly oversimplified in the mind's eye of the culture within which we live. And this is just more data, right?

More foreign fiber

2011-08-18T19:01:00.000-07:00

And you thought you were done with Peru. But there was more fiber! And I'm here to tell you now that when other people (read: people who aren't interested and fiber and textiles) ask how we liked Peru and whether we have any pictures, what they want is pictures of Machu Picchu and Colca Canyon, etc etc. It's amazing how quickly their eyes glaze over when I show them pictures of vicunas. I don't understand it, but it's true.

We saw other camelids than vicuna, of course - we even got to feed some at a wonderful little camelid farm that had all four of the Peruvian camelids: llamas, guanacos, alpacas, and vicunas.

They were greedy.

So was I.

But the vicuna were too far away to pluck, alas.

There were also a number of women there, spinning and dyeing and weaving. We got to see one of them grinding cochineal.

She showed us all of the shades of red that can be made with cochineal diluted with various other things. They also had a lovely display of the colors that Peruvian weavers get from local native plants.

Too cool. She demonstrated spinning, which didn't seem to entertain the other tourists as much as it did me.

Tucked away in corners were the products of her spinning:

and her tools.

Of course, we did go to the more usual tourist places, like Machu Picchu - where we found llamas.

And took the kind of pictures that all those other non-fiber people expect.

Next time, I'll share a few more of this sort, and then, with luck, I'll actually have achieved something worth sharing in my various knitting and spinning projects.

Meanwhile, I'm trying desperately to catch up on my never ending pre-semester to-do list. I'm almost looking forward to meetings - at least then, I can knit!

Fiber at home

2011-08-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

While there's at least one more post's worth of fibrous content from Peru (not to mention all the non-fiber things we did; patient as my family are with my obsession, I didn't subject them to constant doses of woolly goodness), I have been spinning and knitting here at home, too.

Between Peru and Sock Summit, I had a short period of time at home. I devoted myself to finishing the Alhambra socks, as I had hopes of wearing them while at Sock Summit; there is something particularly wonderful about wearing socks that took so much effort to knit to a place where I knew I'd be surrounded by people who actually understood how much effort it took to knit them. So I knitted like the wind.

You can see that poor Tilly is feeling rather left out of the process here.

Believe it or not, these were not knit to be opposites of one another, and I held the same color yarn in the same hands throughout both socks (yellow in the right hand, blue in the left); the relative brightness of the colors seems to be very different between the two socks, though, doesn't it?

I don't care. I really, really love these socks. They fit beautifully, the pattern is gorgeous, the colors are exactly what I would have chosen if I'd been in charge. The yarns are fine enough that these socks aren't too bulky to wear in clogs (which I did at Sock Summit; this explains the now-no-longer-pristine semi-fuzziness you can see in the pictures). I will wear these a lot, come winter.

The foot and toe charm me rather unreasonably, even knowing that no-one will see them but me. I'd knit these again.

To recap, these are Janel Laidman's Alhambra socks (my Rav page here), from this year's Illuminations sock club. They're knit out of jwrayco handpainted fingering yarn (the kit yarn); the blue color is Lerwick Harbor Purple, but I never got a ball band for the yellow colorway and I don't see its name on the Rav pattern page, alas.

So, I did manage to knit and wear these and my handspun Rivendells at Sock Summit. Two out of three dreams ain't half bad, right? (I also managed to show the Alhambras to Janel, and the Rivendells to the folks at the Sincere Sheep booth; that was rather fun.)

What was the third pair I'd wanted to knit and wear, you ask? These:

You can see I didn't make it, although this sock was my major knitting through Sock Summit. This is the larger version of my Silk Road socks, knitted for me, this time (note that it fits? I've been checking...). I managed to get the heel turn to work in the larger stitch count, and I'm very pleased with that fact. These go pretty quickly when I work on them, since I don't need a chart to knit them. So I'll keep plugging away. I need to decide whether I'm going to write this pattern up or not. The major hesitation comes from writing up the heel; I may end up writing out the heel turn line by line, and I should take notes on that when I do the second one. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I have also succumbed to the siren call of the Stripe Study shawl. I managed to hold off in spite of drooling over Helen's gorgeous versions, until I walked into my LYS and saw one hanging there innocently, right above a display of Zen Garden Serenity Lace (which has cashmere in it, just so you know). I was lost.

The colors are close there, although imagine that purple a bit more on the burgundy side. So yummy. The colorways there are RaspBerry and Grey, and I love this thing unreasonably. I keep knitting away at it, even though it's only garter stitch, and I keep telling myself to save it for meetings. I can't seem to put it down - I think things like, "Just one more short row", and then "Just one more gray stripe", and I'm lost.

I'm also playing with fiber. For example, between trips I finished spinning the absolutely gorgeous fiber that Erica sent me last spring - I need to wash it to set the twist before I take final measurements, but I spun this woollen in hopes of getting a lofty yarn, and I think I've succeeded. Younger Daughter has already laid claim to it and wants a shawl.

It's really a lipstick red; the color is gorgeously saturated, and the fiber was in amazing condition, not at all compacted or compressed by the dyeing. For some reason I can't find my notes on what kind of fiber it is (I know I have the ballband stashed away, but if I stop to look for it now I'll never finish this post) - I'll update that soon. I need to decide on a pattern that will let the color and the handspun-ness of the yarn stand out. (I also need to know how many yards I have, of course - I think it's about 300?) Any suggestions?

And finally, I'm playing with silk hankies for a class I'm teaching at my LYS in September. I want to have a nice simple pattern for mitts, plus maybe one for a shawlette, by the time of the class. It's such a hardship to have to play with silk...

I'm not spinning it, although I might with the next one - right now I'm just drafting and knitting straight from the hankies.

So, fiber fun right here at home. And now, I think I should finish just one more short row before dinner, don't you?

And now it's August

2011-08-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

And I'm back from my blog break. Which means I'm also back from the things that were keeping me from blogging, and I can tell you all about them (lucky you, right?) - to wit, a trip to Peru (!!), and Sock Summit (!!). Between those two trips, I was out of town for almost all of July, and the brief period that I was home between trips was taken up with things like, oh say, laundry. And petting Tilly. And Sock Summit homework. And laundry.

I'm still not even close to caught up with the laundry from SS11 (not to mention unpacking the stash enhancement part of my luggage - wait 'til you see it all!). Instead, I spent yesterday unpacking my office (which has spent the last month in boxes, waiting for our move to our new building). The girls helped me get books onto bookshelves, and between us we had the whole thing ship-shape and Bristol fashion in a few hours. This is a good feeling, given how much I need to get done before classes start back at the end of the month.

But Peru! The four of us headed off on July 2nd, and didn't get back until July 18th. Peru has always been on my List Of Places To Go Someday (that list is actually rather frighteningly long - I need to start a plan to finance my extensive travel wish list)(note to self: buy lottery tickets today). This year we looked at our older daughter who will be starting high school next week (which means college in four years), and realized that if we want to take some of these trips as a family, maybe we should just do it. So we did.

There is so much to tell, but I think that I'll focus on the fiber-related goodness for now - and there was a lot of it. Peruvian textile traditions are still an ever-present and vibrant part of Peruvian life. We spent our whole trip in the highlands of Peru, much of it on the altiplano, where women still walk down the road, dressed entirely in handspun and -woven clothes, spinning while herding alpaca. Having read Abby Franquemont's Respect the Spindle (a book which I cannot recommend highly enough), and having seen videos of her spinning with a Peruvian spindle (she learned to spin as a child in Peru), my big goal for the trip was to find a spindle and learn more about how to spin with it - in particular, I really wanted to master the trick whereby a spinner walks her fingers, butterfly fashion, up the newly-spun yarn. (If I am being totally honest, I also really wanted to find some vicuna fiber to bring home, but I realized how unlikely that was, and I'd been told by several people that they would not bail me out of Peruvian jail should I be caught chasing Andean camelids across the highlands in hopes of snatching tufts of fiber from their fleeing fannies.)

On Day 1, in Lima (our one day in Lima), we headed to the Museo Larco where I was able to accost my first fiber artist. Many museums in Peru have a regular rotation of weavers and spinners demonstrating their arts, and the Museo Larco was no exception. When I came, this woman was weaving, but a few minutes later she picked up her spindle and set to spinning. Rick and the girls told me I was an idiot not to approach her, so I worked up my courage (and my terrible Spanish) and did just that. I learned that the word for spindle is (and this is a Quechua word, so my spelling could be completely off - any Quechua scholars out there who can tell me how close I am?) puxka (where the "x" is pronounced "sh"). I also managed to convey the idea that I really wanted to learn that butterfly-finger-walky thing, and she had me sit down to watch (she also offered me her spindle to try it, but I really hated the idea of messing up her work). Can you tell I'm just not quite getting it?

(The look on my face there says: Seriously? I don't think so.) There was also an amazing collection of very old textiles, including a spinner's workbasket. Look familiar? Some things don't seem to change much over time, and a fiber artist's workbasket is one of them.

Most of those spindles are for spinning cotton. All of the ancient textiles I saw had cotton warps and camelid wefts; none of the modern ones did. The one thing I didn't manage to do was to find an example of one of these spindles; I'm guessing they were used supported, but I could be wrong. They are all made with a narrow shaft with a bead in the middle, and from what I saw in the museum, the spun fiber was wound around the bead, spreading up and down the spindle shaft as it was wound. In that basket, in the upper right corner, you can also see a ball of spun singles wound for plying.

(Side note: The Museo Larco has a tremendous pre-Quechua ceramics collection - 40,000 pots strong - with pieces dating back 3,000 years. It also has a huge collection of ancient erotic pots. We wandered into that gallery with the girls, oops. Put another quarter in the therapy jar.)

The next day we were off to the highlands. We took a bus that went right through one of the camelid preserves, where we saw vicunas (!!). (Imagine a) a tilde over that "n", and b) that word all in capitals, gleaming gold, and with light streaming from it. Vicunas are awesome.)

Don't you think that one wanted to come home with me? We saw quite a few of them, along with alpacas and, later, llamas. The one camelid we didn't see in Peru was the elusive guanaco (the forebear of the llama; vicunas and alpacas are related) - they are very rare. At our first rest stop, Younger Daughter even got to pet an alpaca (the first of many).

And I got to watch a woman plying from a ball wound with two singles (no photo, alas), something I'd read about and tried myself, but it was really fun to see it in practice.

The altiplano is astonishingly beautiful, in a sere, spare way. There was no green anywhere (it was winter, remember), and at the altitudes above 16,000 feet, there was little to be seen but rocks and snow and the occasional vicuna (no wonder their fiber is so warm and fine).

(If you click to embiggen, you might just see the vicuna standing on a rock on the horizon.)

It was so clear that the water really was that lapis blue, reflecting the endless sky. I could have stayed there the whole time and been happy.

But then I would have missed so many other things, like Lake Titicaca (the highest navigated lake in the world, at something like 12,000 feet, if I remember correctly), where we did many things, including a visit to Llachon, where I was lucky enough to have an amazing conversation with a weaver and spinner there, thanks in no small part to our gracious and multilingual guide (the main languages around the lake are Quechua and Aymara, and most of the people in the villages are more comfortable in one of those languages than Spanish).

I tried my hand at weaving, beating down the wefts with a bone tool (and earning myself a raw knuckle in the process - I was told that this meant that I was doing it correctly; she seemed surprised that I was willing to go that far, heh). She was also kind enough to instruct me in her spindle technique; she used her spindle supported, spinning a lofty yarn for the weft threads of her textiles. Thanks to the guide, we were able to have a conversation about the differences between her spindle (a bottom-whorl) and mine (I described a top-whorl spindle to her), and the difference between the uses of the fiber she spins supported (for blankets and clothes), and the more tightly-spun fibers that people use for, say, straps for carrying bags and babies. She also told him, laughing, that I was the first tourist who had ever produced actual yarn on her spindle. It wasn't good yarn, but I felt good about it nevertheless.

I think it's safe to say that it was my best textile moment in Peru.

I'll stop there - there's lots more, but a little at a time does the trick, right?

Some FOs and some new stash

2011-07-01T17:17:00.000-07:00

I can't quite seem to keep the inflow/outflow balance even, much as I may try, but two objects rolled off the needles this week; one is a true FO, and the other is the first of a pair of socks. I stuck to my usual SSS-avoidance tactic, though, and promptly cast on for the second sock, so with luck I'll get those done before next summer's solstice rolls around.

The first FO is the Whippoorwill shawl.

(Modelled here by Younger Daughter.) This was a fun knit, well-written pattern, gorgeous fiber. I knitted it out of Frog Tree Pediboo, which has a gorgeous drape and weight, thanks to the bamboo fiber, plus plenty of loft from the merino. A very nice shawl fiber.

It's a simple pattern, but it definitely does the trick.

This is one I'll wear a lot (and I love the colors!!).

I also finished the first of the Alhambra socks.

I continue to love everything about these - the pattern, the yarn, the combination of colors, everything. I also continue to find it a challenge, which is why these are taking me so long. I really, really need to concentrate on the charts as I work, especially the charts for the leg.

It's well worth it, though. I'm thinking that if I were to go through and put in more of my usual chart landmarks (for example, I tend to draw a vertical line down the chart every five stitches or so, with a very dark one right in the middles, as it helps me to better track where I am), that might help (I don't know why I didn't do that to begin with, but there you have it). And I really do keep finding myself tripped up by the fact that the dark squares on the chart correspond to the yellow while the lighter squares correspond to the blue. It's a little mind game to keep that straight somehow.

But so worth it!

The second sock is on the needles. This is the second pair of socks (of three) that I was hoping to finish for Sock Summit (the first was the hand-knit socks). We'll see...

I also got a most lovely and unexpected package in the mail last week, from my sister-in-law (she who gives excellent fiber-related gifts). She has recently taken up dyeing (for which I am very grateful, as I am still sticking to my guns on the whole not-dyeing thing), and will you look at the fruits of her labors?

Superwash merino. How gorgeous is that? The girls have both attempted to lay claim to the one on the left. I am as yet unsure whether I will let them get away with it.

But I can tell you, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this next one is minemineallmine.

Do you see that? The colors are even richer in person, and I love everything about it. It's a superwash merino/mulberry silk blend, and it's stunning. I haven't even come close yet to finding a pattern that's good enough for it, so for now I pet it and love it. It makes me very happy.

In other news, I'm going to take a bit of a blog-post writing hiatus for the next few weeks. July is hectic, and I haven't been as good as I ought to be about posting (or about keeping up on blogs in general, although I do try!!), so I figure I'll make it official and say that I'll be back in a few weeks.

But I will leave you with this. Last weekend, we went to the local Scottish Games, as we are wont to do this time of year. And, as we are also wont to do, we made sure to wend our way to the beer tent in time to listen to the Wicked Tinkers during one of their sets (if you don't know the Wicked Tinkers and like that sort of thing, I think they're great). At one point, their cute young drummer hopped up onto a table to play, and Rick caught this little interplay on the camera:

"What does a Scotsman really wear under his kilt?" (says she, the hand there on the left)

"And wouldn't you like to know?"

He was so speedy-quick that I can only assume this has happened before. And so is mystery (and modesty) preserved.

Knitting in the interstices

2011-06-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

I keep waiting for things to slow down, and they keep not slowing down. The good news is that it's different craziness, instead of more of them same. (At least, I think that's good news.) Younger Daughter is still in school - today's her last day - and I've been going in to work to finish packing up my office. But today is her last day, and as of Tuesday my office is packed (to the tune of six full boxes of shredding, two huge blue recycling bins full of old readers and paper, and twenty boxes of books and files), so things are finally starting to feel like summer. We're even getting (quiet as it's kept) sun in the afternoon. Hooray!

In all of that, there hasn't been as much knitting time as I'd like, but last weekend, on Father's Day, Younger Daughter had a feis to go to, which means plenty of knitting time for me while waiting for her dances to come up. She has to do some sitting and waiting, too, which is hard when in full regalia, including warm dress and wig.

She concentrating, can you tell? All in all, though, she's pretty cheerful about it.

And we love getting to watch her dance.

(She's especially cheerful because her hair is now long enough that we can get a ponytail wig for her, instead of always having to wear the full wig - it'll be much lighter and more comfortable. Question: when did I become the mom who puts a wig on her kid? Answer: when I became the mom whose kid loves Irish dance. Life is strange, sometimes.)

During all the waiting, I finally finished the Rivendell socks, knitted out of my very own handspun, three-ply, sock yarn. Hooray!

(Note the dog nose in the corner. Hope springs eternal in the breast of a dog, and when Tilly sees me put my socks on, she becomes convinced that it means a walk for her.)

Here's where Ravelry is so lovely. By the time these were finished, I'd completely forgotten where I got the fiber for the yarn, or even what kind of fiber it is. But Ravelry knows all! It's a superwash Blue-Faced Leister from the Sincere Sheep, bought at the Dixon Fiber Festival last October. Spun on my Lendrum, three-ply. Knitted on size one needles, in size small.

I really love these socks. I loved them the first time I saw the pattern, and I can't believe it's taken me this long to knit a pair. I'm guessing I'll knit another pair sometime sooner rather than later. Like the Kimono socks that I so love, it's hard to imagine having too many pairs of these. I knitted them on the small side, because I'm finding more and more that I like my socks tight - they wear better and feel better in my shoes. I think I got these just right.

But my favorite part? It has to be these little droopy leaves, and the way they transition into the little travelling stitch motif. Love them.

Aw, heck. I should be honest. I just love the whole pattern. And I'm pleased and surprised with how evenly the yarn turned out - it actually felt like sock yarn! Except more bouncy, somehow, which is nice. The BFL spun up like a dream, and it's plenty soft on the feet. I think it'll wear well, too.

I have been spindling plenty (the wheels still sit, sad and lonely, though), and the second round of spinning classes started last night (each round is two sessions). Everyone was spinning by the end of the night, and I'd bet money that a couple of them will be past the park and draft stage by next week. The best bit was that a student from the last session dropped off a hat that she'd knitted out of her handspun at the store - it's beautiful! And I got to show the students in this class what someone can do with two and a half weeks of spinning experience. I'll try to remember to bring my camera for a picture next week. Most of what I've been spinning is little bits of things for class, but I have also been working steadily on the silk/cashmere stuff I've had tucked away for ages. I'm using my new Golding, and getting a very fine singles from it. I think that as a two-ply, once it's bloomed (and judging by the last batch I spun, this'll bloom a lot in the wash), it's going to be a very nice lace-weight yarn.

Meanwhile, now that school is out and the office is packed, I've been indulging myself in lots of time spent (finally!) learning Spanish with the Rosetta Stone package that we got last year. We have Level 1, and I'm determined to work my way through it in the next week or so, and then to spend the summer trying to actually use what I've learned. Meanwhile, I'm talking to myself in "Spanish" as often as I can (I find that I have to use the verb "to drive" quite a lot as I schlep the kids hither and yon); the only way to learn a language is to use it, even if I'm just talking to myself.

Week by week

2011-06-16T15:32:00.000-07:00

That's the only way to go right now, it seems: week by week.

Last week brought Younger Daughter's school's spring concert. This year they tried something different and did a musical - Seussical, actually (or, to be precise, Seussical Lite; this makes sense, as they make a point of including even the very very little kids in the spring concert). Younger Daughter was a Bird Girl.

She had a blast, which is the most important thing. And she was particularly excited this year, since Rick's parents came out to see her musical! Audience composition is important.

The first spinning class went well last week (I think). By the end of the class, all of the students were making yarn using the park and draft method. And one of them had even progressed to trying to draft while the spindle was dangling and spinning; she did pretty darned well, even if she did learn first-hand one of the reasons why the name 'drop spindle' makes so much sense. We're meeting again tonight for the second half of the class, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how everyone did over the week.

The goal of tonight's class is to learn about plying. To that end, I decided to show them several different possibilities for plying spindle-spun yarn.

What you see there on the left is two knitting needles with cops (I slid the cops from the spindle shaft onto the knitting needle), ready for plying. Between them is a ball wound with two plies at the same time, all ready to go (it's wound around a rock, to make starting the ball easier). And on the right is a center-pull ball, ready for plying from both ends. In class, I will teach them Andean plying using their spindles full of yarn (and the one that I need to go spin right now). That should give them four reasonable ways to spin, two of which are limited to making two ply (or cable-plied) yarns, and the other two of which can be used for more than two plies, if desired.

All of the spindle time (every bit of that yarn was spun between last week's class and last night, on top of all of the usual stuff that goes along with having out-of-town visitors - we went to the Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA, btw, and if you like Tim Burton and live within reach, it's a pretty nifty thing to see! - preparing for Younger Daughter's birthday yesterday, and for Rick's birthday and Father's Day this weekend) means that my poor wheel has been banished to a corner.

It sits there, with the second half of my lovely fiber waiting to be spun and plied (and glowing beautifully in the errand sun - it hasn't gotten much above the mid to high 60s around here lately, with lots of June Gloom in evidence; sun? we don't need no stinking sun!). Soon, my precious, soon.

It's June WHAT?!

2011-06-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

Honestly. How does this happen?

Well, I guess I know some of the answer to that. You'd think that the end of the semester would bring some kind of calm and order to my world, but it rarely works that way. The only differences, I've found, between summer and not-summer, are that a) I don't have the order of my classes to help me keep track of what day and week it is, and b) I don't get paid to do all the work I do during the summer. Like packing my entire office up to move to a new building. (Which is not all bad, of course - new buildings do have some nice features - but in this case, it also means that I will have less than half the amount of filing space I have now, and about 2/3 of the shelf space; you can imagine the flurry of panic and pitching this is causing among the faculty.)

But there are other good things going on. My parents came down for a visit last week, which was wonderful, and the reason they came was even more wonderful. Check this out:

That's Older Daughter, in her middle school promotion ceremony. What does that mean? That means that my daughter is going to be (already is, she says) a high school freshman. When did that happen?

She was pretty happy with herself, and with good reason - she graduated with Honors (and only missed High Honors by, I kid you not, 1/100 of a point). Go, girl!

I have been knitting, too, and while I don't have any good pictures of it, I wore my new tank top in to the office today.

Not too bad for summer, right? It's cotton, and therefore machine-washable and cool, and it fits beautifully (which you really can't see there, but it does). I even had to learn to crochet a little bit to get the edging done (and I think I might go back and put an edging around the bottom in the white color, just to help keep it from rolling up). I can't remember all of the project details right now, but I'll get them into Ravelry.

And I've been spinning ~~out~~ a lot. My first spindling class is this Thursday, and I have been working on a (brief) handout, as well as a little mini-syllabus (complete with student learning outcomes) to keep me on track. With only two hours to get folks spinning (the second two-hour class is focused on plying), there's a lot of ground to cover! Of course, spending this much time spindling means that I have the perfect ~~excuse~~ ~~justification~~ legitimate reason to spend some money on spinning (right?). For example, minutes after Erica posted her pictures of this, I snagged it. My pictures of it don't compare to hers, so it's worth checking it out. It's at my house now, calling my name, but I really want to make sure I get it right, which means contemplating exactly what "right" means in this case. I have a few thoughts, and I'll get to it soon, I hope.

I also headed over to my LYS today, at my friend the owner's request (it turns out she wanted me to ply her yarn for her, and, me being the sucker that I am, I did - note to self: resist blandishments), and as I was there (plying her yarn, have I mentioned?), a box of books arrived, containing her new order of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook. I got one, of course. Bedtime reading, here I come!

Spindling!

2011-05-25T16:32:00.000-07:00

I think I mentioned that I've been spending a lot of time with my spindles lately? Well, it's not only because spindles are great fun. And it's not only because it turns out that Abby Franquemont is right, and spindles are, in fact, slower by the hour but faster by the week. (She is right, though; I've been getting more spun on my spindles lately than I've managed on my wheels.)

While those things are, indeed, true, the main reason is because the owner of my beloved LYS, Yarning For You, has decided to give spinning a whirl (get it? get it? gosh, I'm twisted)(get it again?)(I could spin this out forever)(heh). She is now not only carrying some lovely sliver and spindles from Ashford, she is also offering spindling lessons, starting in a few weeks.

And when I say that she is offering spindling lessons, what I really mean is that I am teaching spindling at her lovely store. You can see the announcement on her website on the link above. (And if you live anywhere near here and have been interested in spindling, now's your chance!)

Actually, I'm pretty darned excited. I really do love my high-whorl spindles a rather unreasonable amount, and I love teaching a pretty unreasonable amount, so getting to combine the two is a lot of fun.

But it also means that I'm playing with all kinds of things right now, trying to think of as many ways as possible to explain what I already know how to do. I think that's one of the things I most appreciate about teaching - it forces me to articulate what I know and, if I'm going to do it right, to articulate it in several different ways. Doing that, in turn, means that I have to think about all of the other ways someone might try to do or understand what I'm doing. It's an amazing brain exercise. I got to test run it a bit at a store staff meeting this Monday (and if any of you are reading this, thank you for being such gracious guinea pigs), and I think it went well.

So I have been spinning. I spun some alpaca.

That's an ounce there, on my spindlewood spindle. I slid this cop onto a knitting needle, spun another ounce of white alpaca, and then plied the two of them from a shoebox, using my heavier Golding spindle.

I ended up with a very respectable hank of yarn, which still needs to be washed before I can say what the wpi and yardage are, but I think it's a sport-weight yarn. I'm thinking I'll knit a hat out of it.

My second new spindle also came in the mail today. It's a trindle - sold on etsy (in the Trindleman store); this one is jasper beads and blackwood.

I'm very happy with it, and I'm thinking we'll spend some time bonding tonight and tomorrow.

So there it is! A new adventure - I'm really excited, and tremendously honored that my friend is trusting me with this new venture in her store. I know what a huge deal that is for a small business owner, and I just hope I do her proud.

Tilly isn't worried, though.

And now for something completely different

2011-05-18T19:28:00.000-07:00

In addition to the knitting, I have recently become reinspired by my spindles - so today's post is a quick update on some knitting projects, and then much ~~blather~~ talk about my spinning.

First, I think I mentioned that I started the Alhambra socks, which were the last sock club installment from the Illuminations sock club. I made it all the way down the leg before stalling out on the heel flap, not because I can't do it, but just because it's felt like too much effort to get my head around knitting stranded colorwork back and forth (e.g. while purling). I've done it before, and I know I'll do it here (I have a theory that this is one of three pairs of socks I'd like to finish before Sock Summit so I can wear them to show off), it's just that it is one thing too many right now. But this loveliness will pull me back in very soon, I can feel it.

Isn't that beautiful? I rotated it so you can see more of the motifs.

Yup. I love these socks. They will get finished, no doubt about it.

I also cast on for a hat and a shawl which I will show when there is something more to see (I apparently got a bit excited about doing something new! and exciting! in the face of grading (what's the opposite of an exclamation mark? I need one here) and conference program planning).

But meanwhile, I also got re-bitten by the spindle bug. Not because I don't love my wheels - in fact, I have finished one bobbin of the gorgeous Corriedale that Erica sent me:

And I will get to the second half soon. But, for reasons which I will share sooner rather than later, it's spindles that are pulling me back into their whirling orbit. I finished the first spindle full of a gorgeous fiber that I started far too long ago, a silk/cashmere blend, if I remember correctly, from Twist: Yarns of Intrigue, and I plied and set it.

That's 100 yards of 2-ply laceweight loveliness (5/8 oz), spun and plied on my Golding spindle, which I love so much that I apparently bought another one when I wasn't looking. Oops. The new one came today, and I am already plotting which fiber to use it with.

I am also playing with what I think is some Merino from Chris at Briar Rose Fibers. I have a little bump of this in stash, and I picked up my small Spindlewood spindle (bought when I was at the Golden Gate Fiber Institute nearly two years ago), and got started on that.

Isn't it a gorgeous spindle? Look at that wood.

I do love beautiful wood.

I am also over half an ounce into an ounce of chocolate brown suri alpaca that I bought at last fall's Dixon Fiber Festival (does anyone else get just a bit freaked out by how much suri alpaca fiber resembles human hair? or is that just me?). The plan is to spin that, and then to spin the ounce of white suri alpaca that I also got and ply them together. (I think I need to find myself a nostepinne for plying - any recommendations? I'd also love to find a small sample niddy-noddy of the one-yard size; I can't decide whether to look now, or to wait until I'm at Sock Summit and get something there.) I am thinking that yarn will become a little cap, maybe? I'm spinning it on the larger Spindlewood spindle that I won as a door prize at GGFI, but I somehow am not bonding with that spindle the way I have been with my other two, so it may become a pretty spindle to look at, rather than one of my workhorses. Pictures of that yarn next time, along with the very very fine cotton I'm spinning on my takhli, and the very very fine wool I'm spinning on my kuchulu.

I don't know why I forget how much I love my spindles. Last night, I spun a half an ounce of what will probably be a fingering-weight two-ply in a little over an hour. That's not too much longer than it would take me to spin the same amount worsted (woollen's a lot faster) on my wheel. And I find that I am not as uncomfortable spinning for a long period of time with the spindles as I can get at the wheel - sitting is just hard for me, but with a spindle, I move around more than I do with a wheel. I guess what I'm saying is not that I'm giving up my wheels, but that I'm glad I have my spindles, too. (Including the new one, and the other new one that's coming in the mail early next week, I think. You can't do that with wheels!)

So, more pictures next time, including some from Tehachapi (I'm going up there again on Saturday). And very soon, coming to a not-apolitical blog near you, a little righteous indignation vis-a-vis publicly-funded education and state budgeting priorities. You know you can't wait!

Daybreak (as in, I can see some)

2011-05-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of classes. Two more to go, and I'm a free woman! (Read: I can spend the next week grading papers, calculating final grades, filing final grades, and dealing with students who don't like the final grades that I filed.)(What can I say? Freedom ain't what it used to be.)

But that's not the daybreak I'm talking about. Nope, I'm talking about Stephen West's Daybreak, or, to be most accurate, my version of his Daybreak. (Beverly, here it comes!)

I have no modelling shots yet, although I wore it yesterday (and got compliments). I have thought about asking Older Daughter to wear it so I can take some pictures of it in action, but she has been very solicitous in complimenting this shawl and in asking whether I might like her to take it off my hands, so I'm a bit worried about handing it over.

To recap, this is the Daybreak Shawl, knitted in Socks That Rock mediumweight, in two of this year's sock club colorways (Aubergenius and Pinky Swear). I used size 5 circular needles (the Signatures that my SIL gave me; they do not disappoint).

The shawl ended up having a lovely drape at this gauge, without feeling insubstantial or holey. And I really, really love these colors together.

I think this will be one that I wear a lot; I'm actually glad that the weekend forecast is for cloudy gray weather - Daybreak, here I come!

A day late

2011-05-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

I do have pictures of Daybreak to share, and I had a busy and fun weekend, but I think that today I want to wish a belated happy mother's day to all of you who are mothers and to those of you who have mothers. And to my mom, of course.

I spent some time yesterday at various periods trying to think of what to write about my own mother on mother's day (or the day after mother's day, as the case may be); I don't know about you, but there's something daunting about trying to describe someone so important. There are so many things I could say. I could say she's classy (you've all seen the pictures, you know what I mean). I could say that she's generous and thoughtful, always the first to laugh at a joke (although the last to remember one). I could say that I have never seen anyone leave her house hungry. She gets by on less sleep than anyone I know, and gets more done, too. And she's always up for whatever's going on - you couldn't ask for a more enthusiastic and willing partner in adventure. I could say all of those things, and more.

But if I had to boil it down to the heart of the matter, I would say two things. Because of my mother, I have always known that I am strong enough, all by myself, to take on anything that I have to; I can stand on my own two feet in the face of any challenge. But, because of my mother, I also know that I don't have to; she's right there behind me, all the way. And in the end, I think that says it all.

Happy mother's day, mom!

Portland, here I come!

2011-05-04T16:17:00.000-07:00

This is just a flying post, because it's Wednesday, and I really do have this goal of posting twice a week and Wednesday somehow seems like the middle of the week and therefore a good day for posting.

It was also the day of Sock Summit registration. Which means that noon Pacific time found me in my office, with the door shut, email shut off to conserve bandwidth, credit card and class list in hand, waiting for the "register now" button to appear on the Sock Summit site. (OK, in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I was pretty much staring at the computer, class list and credit card in hand, starting at about 11:15. Thank goodness I had a friend on email who could keep me company, because goodness knows no-one around here would have understood what I was doing!!) Honestly, you would have thought I was about to ski for Olympic gold, the way my heart was pounding. I was like Secretariat at the starting gate, except I was not leaning back against the fence. I kept reminding myself that Sock Summit is fun with or without classes, that the list of available classes is insanely long this year and filled with amazing options, that the less money I spend on classes, the more I have to spend in the marketplace - and I believed all of that, I really did. But there's something about being poised over the refresh button that gets the juices flowing. (Or is that just me?)

I am dying to hear the stats again this time, because I think that the site only barely managed to avoid crashing by a hair. It certainly hung up, but once I was in, things went very smoothly (none of the heart-stopping glitches of last time), and I got everything I wanted!! (Well, again in the interest of full disclosure, there were a LOT more classes I wanted to take, but I decided to at least attempt to be sane, which meant leaving some open time to hang out with people and to shop in the marketplace, as well as choosing not to take any spinning classes so I wouldn't have to stress about getting my wheel to Portland. I may regret those decisions later, but right now I am at peace.)

The schedule, you ask? Here it is:
Thursday
KnitteRx (1 hour class on knitting ergonomics)
Friday
Even Cooler Socks, with Lucy Neatby (6 hours on doing stuff with socks I've never done before)
Saturday
The Deeper Meaning of Socks (a 1 hour lecture with Anna Zilboorg)
Sock Yarn Stories (a 1 hour lecture with Clara Parkes)
Writing Sock Patterns (3 hours with JC Briar)
This is Your Brain on Knitting (1 hour lecture with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee)
Sunday
Kilt by Association (a 3-hour class on kilt hose)
Perfect Rib (a 1-hour class with Cookie A.)

How cool is that? The only one that I may regret not taking is a class on recreating traditional folk socks - it's a 6-hour class on Thursday, and I think it would be really interesting to learn how to "read" a historic sock in order to recreate the pattern. Next time, maybe?

Is anyone else going? What classes are you taking? Where are you staying? (Note: I still have no plane tickets or hotel room. That's the next step.)

In other knitting news, I have finished the Daybreak Shawl, and will (with luck) block it tonight. Given that our humidity levels were around 7% yesterday (I think today they made it into the teens), it'll dry pretty quickly, I think.

And in non-knitting news, I got the coolest cookie cutter in the mail recently from Stella, after I admired the little breads that she was making for her kids' lunches. So I made some bread dough - very plain, just white bread with millet - and cut out shapes and baked them to freeze. Tell me what you think:

I made a few coyotes for good measure, but the frogs just took the cake.

One day at a time

2011-04-27T17:08:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for the supportive comments! (Gina, I hope the end of your semester goes well :) ) I'm still taking each day as it comes, getting a LOT less knitting time in than I'd like, looking toward the end of the semester with both excitement (summer's coming, summer's coming!!) and trepidation (I have to do what before the end of the semester, and then get what done over the summer?!).

I am continuing to knit away at the blanket - I now have two squares completed and am almost all the way through the third square. They all look very much like the first square, but I'll try to take some pictures of them all together when I get a chance. I am also still plugging away at the Daybreak shawl - the rows get longer, so they take more time (funny how that works out).

I also cast on for the first of the pair of socks that just came in the Illuminations Sock Club. These socks are absolutely wonderful - I fell in love when I opened the package, and I just felt compelled to cast on right away. If you are good with a spoiler, check out the pattern page on Ravelry; I'll wait.

Aren't they amazing? And I got the kit with those blues and yellows, too!! (I put "surprise me" for my color choice, and so far I have been very happy with Janel's surprises.) I'm done with the big chart for the leg on the first sock, and am getting ready to knit the heel flap. That chart really twisted my brain into little knots, though. Not because the chart is unclear - it's laid out beautifully with no errors whatsoever. But because (get this) the main color, (which I am knitting in blue), is represented by the lighter colored squares on the chart, and the contrast color (yellow for me) is represented by the darker colored squares. Yellow is lighter than blue. I cannot tell you the trouble that this has caused me! I had absolutely no idea that my hands were so attached to the square colors. I'm carrying the main color in my right hand, the contrast in my left, as I usually do, but my brain keeps going "yellow is light and blue is dark", and it will not be gainsaid. Too funny. I'm calling it my anti-Alzheimer's exercise for the semester, and making sure not to knit these when I'm very tired.

My other project right now is to decide on a summery sweater to knit for myself. I'm dithering. I could knit this:

(Pattern page on Rav.) I think I even have the yarn (I bought a bunch of the yarn that I used to knit the Native California basket cap - Plymouth Yarn's Vita, which is a gorgeous cotton/cashmere blend that I think would work for this).

Or, I could knit this. (Not a Rav link. Here's the Rav link.) I don't have the yarn for that, but I'm sort of lackadaisically poking around for a seafoam green yarn that I could knit it in. Any ideas?

So, what do you think? Which one? Neither? These are the questions that I dwell on when I don't want to look at my to-do list. Surely others among you do the same thing?

Piled Hip Deep

2011-04-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

Isn't that what Ph.D. stands for?

This is the time of year when I begin to regard with deep concern the relative levels of the rising tide of work to be done and my nostrils. I think the former is now officially higher than the latter, and I am drowning. In some ways, that wouldn't be so bad or unexpected - after all, it happens every semester, right? and it's always worse in the spring as everyone realizes that we're about to be gone for the summer - but lately I have been feeling particularly desperate (in its sense which most closely relates to the word "despair"). It is difficult, after working insane hours to write and grade assignments, finish an article to send to a publisher, attend budget meetings and Senate meetings and faculty meetings, meet with students both in and (mostly) out of office hours, reassure students who can't get the classes they need in the fall due to budget cuts, prep for classes, etc etc (knowing, all the while, that everything that I do is subject to multiple levels of regular review: for peer-reviewed articles, reviews by my academic peers plus the editorial staff of the journal; for my classes, regular end-of-semester evaluations; for my work, regular reviews by three peers in my department, my dean, a committee of my peers campus-wide and my provost) - in essence, all of the things that must be done in order to do my job well - it is difficult, after all of that, to hear on a regular basis (most recently on Wednesday on the faculty Senate floor), our administrators saying that we all know that faculty really don't work that hard.

Honestly.

I don't mind doing all of those things - that's the job. I mind a lot, though, being held in contempt for being lazy and spoiled while I'm doing all of those things. A lot.

So I've been trying lately to find other happy places to focus on. I'm not part of the Friday Fave Five that Willow is so good about participating in, but that's the kind of list I'm going to make on this Friday. And I'm going to be really honest - aside from that work thing, I have been feeling very very lucky lately, because that work thing makes me realize how many of the really important things in my life are OK, and how very lucky I am in that regard.

1. Even in that work thing, I am reminded of all of the reasons why I do my job. My classes yesterday all went really well - students talked, students asked questions, and there were several of those lovely lightbulb moments that make teaching one of the most exciting and fulfilling things I can imagine. Love it.

2. Last weekend, when we found ourselves unexpectedly child-free, Rick and I took the train to Los Angeles for a lovely overnight getaway. We ate at a restaurant we've been wanting to try, went to a concert given by the UCLA Philharmonic at Disney Hall, and stayed the night in a nice hotel. We even got room service breakfast on Sunday!! Too fun.

3. Younger Daughter's trip to New York was a complete success. She loved it, she learned a TON, she felt really good about the whole thing. If any of you are on Facebook, you can search out Montessori School of Oceanside, and see pictures of the kids doing their thing. I got a text message from one of her teachers with a picture of their delegation on the floor of the UN General Assembly, and I just about cried. Unutterably cool.

4. The trail that I love to hike for my weekday morning dog walks finally dried out enough this week that Tilly and I could go - I am always so much happier in my skin when I can get out and walk on dirt. And Tilly is much happier when she can run off-leash and come home smelling like sage. In fact, the sage is blooming, as are the monkeyflowers and blue-eyed grass, and I can see the ceonothus, too. It's green green green, and that doesn't last long around here (in fact, the grass is already becoming gilded - summer gold is on its way), so I'm soaking it up. I also had two very unexpected wildlife sightings on Tuesday. First, I came around a corner to see, perched in a still-bare tree, a mourning dove on one branch and a kestrel on another. The kestrel was a bit smaller than the mourning dove, but was clearly trying to be the BMOC - and the dove wasn't buying it. The kestrel took off and flew around a little bit, trying to convince the dove that Kestrels Eat Birds Like You!! The dove wasn't convinced. (This wasn't unlike that cartoon from long ago with the little bitty chickenhawk that kept hollering, "But I'm a chickenhawk!" at the chicken that was ten times its size.) Eventually the kestrel gave up and went away, leaving the dove entirely unimpressed. Then a bit later, as I was standing and looking at the little lake by the trail, I saw an odd undulating in the grass. Across the trail went a long skinny furry reddish short-legged thing (the legs and fur made it clear to me that this was not a snake; I am nothing if not wise in the ways of such things). It dove into the grass on the other side, and undulated its way down towards the water. I was at a total loss (the best I could come up with was, feral ferret?), until a little bit of research informed me that we, in fact, have indigenous weasels in California, and that I had just seen a California long-tailed weasel. First ever!

5. And finally, on last Friday, I received a huge gift from the son of a dear friend of mine. He is learning to fly (and is, in fact, if I understand it correctly, about a year away from testing for his pilot's license), and on Friday evening, he graciously invited me to go flying with him during one of his lessons. I love flying. I always wished I could learn to fly, so having the chance to live vicariously through this young man is wonderful. As the kids in my life (many of them not so much "kids" anymore) - both my own and my friends' - get older and start to find their own ways, I feel constantly lucky to be able to see who and what they are becoming, and truly honored by the ways in which they let me into their lives and share their passions with me. It's like I've gotten to expand my own experience database a hundred-fold through their generosity and excitement. Does it get any better than that?

(That's my friend's son on the left. We'll call him the Pilot, since he was.)(Apparently this shot appears on the camera of absolutely every person he's ever taken flying with him.) We took off from Montgomery Field and flew down to Brown Field, right on the US/Mexico border.

The views were absolutely spectacular. The Pilot executed three touch-and-goes at Brown Field (those are exactly what they sound like - he comes in for a landing and takes off immediately, circles around and does it again, etc). And he did it, very well, in a cross-wind, which I am assured is not nearly as easy as he made it look. I loved it, since take-off is one of my very favorite parts of any flight (because it's so clear from the ground-speed that we're going FAST! and I love going FAST!).

Then we headed towards the ocean, where we saw a submarine, cruising along on the surface. It was like getting to see a whale, somehow - totally impressive, and utterly unexpected. This thing was huge.

Then around Point Loma for our flight home.

How cool is that?

A knitting update

2011-04-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

Today I thought I'd try to round up the projects I have on the needles (actively on the needles) for a quick report. We have mostly recovered from our trip, plus Rick's immediate follow-on trip to Minneapolis. (As an aside, it's been chilly enough here with this recent Canadian storm that we have snow on our local mountains, and when Rick got off the plane on Friday night, he said it was colder here than it was there. Today it's sunny as can be, and still hasn't reached 60 yet. No wonder I can't seem to grasp the fact that we're already well into April!)

First, an FO that I didn't get to show off before leaving for Yosemite (but which I wore quite a bit while there; I didn't even block it first - still haven't, in fact). It's my second Babushka.

That color isn't quite right - it's a bit darker than that. In fact, it goes unexpectedly well with the Selbu tam, which was a nice surprise, as (like most knitters, I suspect) I rarely have matching sets of anything. My first version of this scarf has been, without a doubt, probably the most-worn single piece of knitting I've ever done. The combination of the yarn, the shape of the scarf, and the stitch patterns make this incredibly wearable. It's simple without being boring, and sooooo soft and warm (hooray for cashmere, silk, and seed stitch). It folds up into the tiniest package, so it's easy to toss into a bag, just in case its needed. And I'm hoping that this blue will go with just about anything, in the way that denim does.

To recap, this is the Babushka scarf, knitted on size 5 needles, out of Jade Sapphire Silk/Cashmere 2-ply. The only two unfortunate aspects of this scarf are these: the pattern can't be purchased on Ravelry, and it takes a bit more than one skein of the Jade Sapphire to knit one. This means that I now have two mostly-skeins of this yarn (one in green and one in blue) as leftovers; I must find something to do with them. How I do suffer for my art.

On the needles I have the mitered blanket that I posted about last time. I've started the second square. This is my soothing knitting; I know how the squares go together now, so it's very mindless. I appreciate having at least one of those projects on the go at all times for when I need to go to a meeting without charts, or at the end of a long day when my brain is more mush than neuron. Another project like that is the Daybreak Shawl that I started some time ago (long enough ago that Ellen started and finished hers since then - sorry, Ellen!).

I'm finally on the stripes now (I had to knit the first plain section twice because I didn't read the pattern carefully enough, which I suppose should say something about my terminal and ongoing state of distraction), which makes it move along much more briskly, since I am so very entertained by the changing colors of the lighter section (which I suppose should also say something about my state of mind). This is the yarn from the first Rockin' Sock Club kit of the year. The patterns for that kit were really wonderful, but it occurred to me that I was much less likely to wear a pair of colorwork socks knitted from mediumweight yarn than I was to wear this scarf, and as I truly adore these colors together, this seemed like a much better option. So, to recap: STR mediumweight sock yarn, size five needles, Daybreak pattern. Very nice.

I also have a pair of socks OTN. I actually didn't for quite some time, which was kind of weird-feeling, to be honest. But having finished spinning up some sock yarn, I finally wound it up and cast on for the Rivendell socks that I've been eyeing for a while. I'm through the first chart on the first leg.

That's handspun (4 oz of superwash BFL, a three-ply worsted-spun yarn), knitted on size one needles, in the Rivendell pattern. These are coming along slowly but steadily, and I'm very happy with the way the yarn is knitting up. I'm also glad to be using my handspun as I spin it, even though it means that I'm spinning less than I'd like.

There it is. The plan for today is to get Younger Daughter packed up and ready to go for her big trip to NYC on Wednesday for a Montessori Model UN convention (eek!), do all the laundry (how does it accumulate so rapidly), and then to settle down with my knitting to watch Paris-Roubaix this afternoon (cobblestone and bikes, hooray!). Wish me luck!

Well, we made it!

2011-04-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

We did, in the end, go to Yosemite. It was under false pretenses, rather, but it as it all worked out in the end, it's OK.

On Thursday morning, we packed up and got ready to go, waiting to hear from the managers at the place where we were staying whether the water (which was off due to a broken main) was back on. Now, I'm willing and able to go without water in the right circumstances, but those circumstances (not to put too fine a point on it) involve access to an outhouse (especially in the winter). It's no fun to be in a house with no running water, if you can imagine what I mean here. I will say no more.

We finally got the news that the main was fixed, and packed up and hit the road around 1:00 for what should have been a 7-hour drive. (Shades of Gilligan's Island here.) Around San Onofre, we realized that we had forgotten the camera. We turned around. One hour later, we were back at San Onofre. (One ought not to have to see the same nuclear power plant twice on the same drive.) And then we hit LA. It took us a full hour to get through Santa Monica. Santa Monica really isn't that large. But we finally made it up to Yosemite and to the house where we were staying at 10:00 (pm), to be greeted by my parents with the news that with regard to the water, not so much.

Alas.

However, we all decided to make the best of it and headed to bed. It was rather disconcerting on Friday morning when the manager made it clear that she assumed we had water and had to be told that, in fact (as I may have mentioned), not so much with the water. We were assured that it would be on by the time we came back from our adventures in the valley, and further assured that if it were not fixed, we would be moved to a house with running water. (Hooray!)

So off we went to Yosemite Valley. We came through the tunnel in the road down into the valley to be met with this:

Talk about a perfect day for views. We stopped to be tourists (of course).

The whole park was caught between burgeoning spring and winter.

New green growth and white snow were everywhere. Especially on the trail that we took to hike to the bottom of Upper Yosemite Falls, which were in full flood. It's one heck of a climb (about 1100 vertical feet over the mile and a half up), but the views of Half Dome through the trees were pretty inspirational.

And there were some places to stop and (literally) hang out.

(Note, I did not know about that until it had already been done.)(And yes, the drop just to the right there off that rock is exactly as precipitous as it looks.)

When we finally made it to the view of Upper Yosemite Falls, we felt like we'd really earned it. And we found out later that they falls are probably the best they're going to be all year.

I'm convinced. Do you see that they're falling into a huge snow pile there? Amazing.

Evidence.

We also found a place to look down on Lower Yosemite Falls. I didn't last long, I must admit. Those are great big redwood trees way down there - we were high up.

The trails were wet and slick and steep, but beautiful in their own right.

It was a wonderful way to spend the day, even though there was still no water when we got back. But we moved houses, and never was a hot shower more welcome. You can also bet we all slept well.

The rest of the weekend was much the same. We snowshoed, and snowshoed some more, and everyone went on a ranger hike (while I worked, sigh). And on Saturday night, my parents treated us to a truly amazing meal at the Ahwahnee, which was quite an experience - I was lucky enough to sit with a view of Yosemite Falls through one of the huge cathedral windows. The food was delicious, the views were like a postcard, and the company was wonderful; it was certainly a spectacular way to spend an evening. (The girls were duly impressed by the grandeur of the dining hall, and Younger Daughter was particularly taken with the pianist: "Look, mama!! It's not a radio!" Heh.)

In the middle of all of that, I got very little knitting done. In fact, most of what I did get done happened on the drive home. So this is what I have to show for my weekend away.

One square of the Mitered Crosses Blanket from Mason-Dixon (proceeds go to Japanese relief efforts). That's Noro Silk Garden in the middle, and Berocco alpaca (I think) worsted weight on the outside. I'm knitting it on the amazing size six Signature needles that my beloved sister-in-law gave me for my birthday (can I just say how much I love Signature needles)(and my sister-in-law for knowing that I love Signature needles? She also gave me size fives for Christmas)?

And that's all the news that's fit to report!

A finished object! (Two, in fact!)

2011-03-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd try to write one more quick post this week. I have the best intentions to post on Sundays and Wednesdays (if you hadn't figured out that this was my plan, it's because I so rarely manage to make it happen), and it's Wednesday - this is good. But I won't be posting on Sunday (at least probably not), because (theoretically) I will be in Yosemite, sans internet. Why all the hedges, you ask? Well, it's because as of right now, the condo where we're supposed to be staying has no water. I can do without many things, but I admit to liking it when toilets flush. So we'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, I have finished Leaving! Hooray!

I've even worn it in public. I can never tell whether the lack of comments means that the non-knitters with whom I spend most of my time think that it's just a sweater that one might buy in a store (in which case, a good thing), or think it looks kind of homemade and don't want to say anything (not so good). I'm happy enough with the way this one turned out - look, it fits! - that I'm going with the former interpretation.

I love the lace motif on this. Twisted stitches do such nice things to lace, don't they?

And look at that back! Pretty, like wings, no?

There's even one on each of the sleeves.

To recap, this is Anne Hanson's Leaving (link above), knitted in Woolen Rabbit Oasis, colorway Forever in Denim. I knitted mine on size five and size three needles. The camel/silk blend of the yarn means that this is a very light, but very warm, sweater.

There's another sweater that I just got some modeling shots of. Look! It's my mom!

There she is, in her Moonstruck. She says it's warm and it fits well. She might just be saying that because she's my mom, but she certainly looks good in it!

The sleeves are a titch long, hmph. I'll have to look at it on her when I see her this weekend.

Meanwhile, I'll post again with snow pictures when we get back!

Happy birthday, baby

2011-03-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

Thirteen years ago this morning (at 3:46 am precisely, but who's counting), Older Daughter was born, and then there were three. She was a long drink of water back then - 7 pounds, eight ounces and 21 inches - and she's still not exactly short (OK, she's taller than me; I think she may be hitting 5'5" soon - I am ~~5'2'ish~~ not 5'5"). She gave us a run for our money, that one - colic, night terrors, sleep-walking. You name it, and if it meant less sleep for us, she had it. She didn't like to sleep because the world went and changed while she was sleeping, and she missed things. One friend described her as Ivan the Terrible after babysitting her (note: that friend babysat her many times after that; it wasn't a criticism so much as an observation) - charming as can be, right up until the moment when she WASN'T. I always knew, though, that the hard stuff was the flip side of the coin that made her one of the most observant and interested and just generally engaged kids I knew, even as a toddler. (This was the child who recognized the street I needed to turn on to go to Peet's for an extra cup of coffee on the way to daycare. At eighteen months. If I didn't turn that way, she'd ask "Copy shot? Copy shot?" - the f's in coffee were a bit tough back then, poor kid, but she knew what she was saying.) She was always on, if you know what I mean, and the price of that level of openness to the world was some tears. Rick and I always figured that our biggest job was going to be to give her the tools she needed to survive her own full-force interest in every. single. thing that was happening around her, all. the. time.

So we worked on that, and she worked on that (learning to read helped tremendously), and in watching her I came to realize that a lot of my own alternating sense of feeling deep joy in the world around me and feeling completely overwhelmed by the world around me was, essentially, the same thing. I, too, like to read a lot. (Escapism? Indeed. Knitting has been a big benefit for me, in that it takes the edge off without being quite as anti-social as reading.) The more she became able to do on her own, the more at peace she was with her world. She developed quite a sense of humor, and if there is one thing I can say about my daughter, it's that she retains the ability to laugh, even at herself, through almost anything. It seems to be taking the edge off the pre-teen years, and I can only hope, on this day she turns 13, that it continues through the teenage years.

What else to say about my older daughter? She is kind, and thoughtful, and empathetic. She is beautiful, and doesn't care. She is still willing to tell me (and her younger sister!) that she loves us when we drop her off in the morning. She just started her middle school's first newspaper. She stuck with orchestra even when it wasn't what she really wanted, but is now happy because we found her a fiddle teacher. She's willing to try almost anything once, even raw oysters, and see it through (although she did almost spit that oyster back out). She took the commuter train out to my campus today - by herself! - so I could buy her a birthday sandwich. She loves to travel (she and her best friend have already planned - and priced out - a summer in Greece between high school and college; it may not happen, but she's got a plan!), rolls with the punches, and carries a book (or three) everywhere she goes.

Yesterday, she told us that for her birthday, she wanted to go on the Flightline at the Wild Animal Park. So we went. I ended up being the parent to go with the girls, and we all loved it (so much more than I'd thought I would, in fact). Especially the birthday girl, who was just happy as could be that we were willing to go on this adventure with her.

Carefree and happy after her practice run.

And in the truck, as they took us far, far, up the valley to a platform 45 feet above a hillside that dropped steeply away.

If you click to embiggen, you'll see that those three little dots are us. The guy who sent us off explained to the girls, very clearly, that shrieking upset the rhinos and was not a good idea. They did not shriek. Neither, to my surprise, did I.

Getting our "survival shot" taken by the Park employee.

And by Rick. She looks pretty happy there, doesn't she?

Happy birthday, baby girl. I can't tell you how glad we are that you're here.

Spring break? We don't need no stinking spring break!

2011-03-22T11:05:00.000-07:00

Well, we do. But I think this one is mostly going to be catching up and getting ready for the next several weeks so I can go to Yosemite with a clean conscience. (Where I think there'll be more snow than I'd expected, after the storm that just came in and dumped feet of snow everywhere, including on our local mountains. Beverly - how's it going out there?) The ever-growing to-do list does mean, though, that I'm probably not going to get the quiet day of just sitting and knitting and spinning that I'd dreamed of. Ah, well. Such is life, right?

I am making progress on the Leaving sweater, though. I finished both fronts and the back and blocked them, and last night I finished the first sleeve. That leaves one more sleeve then button bands and collar to go. The sleeves can block while I knit the bands and collar, and with luck I'll have it done very soon.

I decided to block these pieces to be absolutely sure that I was getting the measurements I was supposed to. I swatched, and got gauge (as one does) with the size four needle that is used for the body (rather than the hems), but then as I was knitting the back it just seemed like it was going to be WAY too big. Instead of doing what I usually do and ignoring my gut until I've already knitted the whole sweater, I stopped about six inches into the back, took stock, and ripped back to the hem to start over with a size three needle. And then, of course, I fretted that the whole thing was going to be too small. However, I don't think it will. It blocked out to the measurements that I'm aiming for (it is still an open question whether I've chosen the right measurements, but that's another issue entirely), so I'm declaring myself happy.

The first picture is truer to the color of the yarn, but this is what I love about this sweater - it's almost sculptural, isn't it? Such clean-cut lines in this motif. It makes me very happy.

And for some reason, I'm even more charmed by the way the motif is split in half along the button band (which will go right in the middle there). It's why I'm knitting the cardigan instead of the pullover for now - I love the way this bit looks! I may have to knit another one as a pullover someday. This is exactly my kind of sweater, and I love the weight of it in this yarn - very light, with a lovely drape, and I bet it'll be warmer than the weight seems, with the silk and cashmere in it.

Meanwhile, this is waiting for me when I'm finished.

I don't know if I'll get there this week, but it's a powerful motivation.

On another topic completely, I'm dithering about whether to go to Sock Summit this summer. I'd thought I'd be going to the Golden Gate Fiber Institute, and I've been saving my pennies for that, but I'm not sure that's going to happen now, and I'd hate to miss both events. Is anyone else going?

I can stop anytime I want

2011-03-14T17:27:00.000-07:00

No, really.

I am apparently not quite done posting about the hats I've been knitting. But there are only two more, and they're both for me!

This is one I've been wanting to knit for ages. I grabbed up the yarn a couple of months ago when I found out that my LYS might not be carrying the fingering weight anymore, and I've been staring at the yarn and the pattern, sitting all ready to go in my knitting basket, for some time. The yarn is the same Frog Tree alpaca that I used to make my niece's mittens last fall. And the pattern is Selbu Modern; I absolutely adore this particular motif. I have high hopes of wearing this and the next hat when we go to Yosemite in a few weeks (where it should still be plenty cold). Because I'm telling you - unless something changes around here, hat season is over in SoCal; the wisteria are blooming, the whole neighborhood smells like orange blossoms, and the sweet peas are out at the farmer's market. It's spring!

But I still knitted one more hat that I've been lusting after ever since Anne started knitting it. The cables in this hat are so sculptural, it makes me happy just looking at it.

Of course, you can't really see it here (no-one around to take pictures for me, so you're stuck with what I can do myself), but this will give you the idea.

The yarn is the same yarn that I used for my Congressional hats; see, they really were something I'd wear myself! I really like this yarn (Berroco Ultra Alpaca) for hats - it has a lovely hand, and it's a great weight for knitting on size seven needles, pretty quickly (at least, it certainly feels quick after colorwork on size twos!). The pattern is Anne's Monkeybread Hat, which she has just released (she includes a scarf pattern, too). You know how much I love her patterns, and this is no exception. Clear and concise, and the results are to ~~dye~~ die for. (Obviously, I have color on the brain right now!)

Part of the reason for that is that I've just finished spinning the fiber I was hoping to have done in February - two more hours would have seen it done, but it came down to mom's sweater or the spinning, and we all know where that went (with good reason; you should see how great it looks on her! She's going to send some pictures I can share). In any case, I now have 330 or so yards of a lovely fingering-weight (I think - I haven't done the wpis yet, but that's what it looks like to me) three-ply sock yarn, spun out of superwash BFL that I bought from the Sincere Sheep booth at the Dixon Fiber Festival last October.

That doesn't really do the color justice at all - it is a lovely spring green with bits of yellow, just exactly what I wanted to be spinning in February. I think I have enough yardage to knit myself a pair of the Rivendell socks that I've been wanting (I think I even got enough twist in there to make the stitches show up as they ought; those of you who are spinners should be able to click to embiggen and give me your opinions). With luck, those can go on the needles either over spring break (next week! next week! next week!) or while we're in Yosemite.

Meanwhile, I have finally gotten the yarn that I have spent the last several months waiting for with bated breath (through no fault of the dyer - customs apparently likes yarn as much as the rest of us, and held this lot back for petting before she could get it). Kim was so nice about my emails ~~harrassing her~~ checking up on the yarn (her patience was amazing, actually), and let me tell you, now that it is here, it is everything I could have hoped for and more. The color is exactly what I wanted it to be, which isn't always the case. There are actually several more colorways in this yarn that I would gladly knit - someday... And what am I knitting with it, you ask? Well, the sweater pattern that I bought the minute I saw it, and have been carrying about with me ever since, waiting to cast on. (Sorry, that's a Rav link; I can't get Twist to load, but it's the Leaving sweater - one of Anne's lovelies - from Twist Collective.) I have this little hope that maybe, just maybe, it will be done in time to wear to Yosemite. We'll see.

Hat, but for another reason

2011-03-10T12:44:00.000-08:00

I don't know how it got to be Thursday. All I know is that I just finished my last pile of grading (for the nonce; the gradeless state never lasts long around here), and I have ten minutes I didn't think I'd have, so I thought I'd better take this chance to share my latest hat. (Actually, not my latest; I've got two more to show off this weekend, but this is the one for which I have pictures.)

This hat is not knitted for Warm Hats Not Hot Heads (although that project is continuing and even expanding its scope - check it out, there's something for everyone!). Instead, it's for a friend of mine, with whom I work in Tehachapi (in fact, she's the fabulously talented grantwriter who keeps language revitalization projects going across the state). She puts me up in her home (puts up with me, perhaps?) whenever I'm able to stay the night up there, and spoils me with good beer, good pizza, and excellent company. (Not to mention lovely hikes in the morning.) Someone like that most definitely deserves a hat, don't you think?

This yen to knit her a hat coincided with my desire to try to knit a version of a California basket cap; Native Californians traditionally wove wonderful baskets to wear as hats - very different versions exist all across the state. The ones from the region where I am working now tend to be twined (rather than coiled), and to have a conical shape (rather than a flat top and not very deep sides). So I went through a wonderful book that I have, sketched and drew and dithered, and finally came up with something I liked (not to mention the several other ideas that I now want to try). I headed off to the store and got some yarn (the name of which I canNOT for the life of me remember right now, which is sad, because I love this yarn so very much that I bought enough to make more hats plus a little sweater for myself - oops)(edited to add: it's Plymouth Vita - such a gorgeous yarn, it's 85% recycled cotton, 15% recycled cashmere, and 100% wonderful), took the beads that my friend had given me to experiment with, and cast on. The results? Well, I like them.

That's fairly true to the colors, there. Those beads are red, and they're placed around the rim the way a lot of basket caps put dark stretches in the final rows of a basket.

Here it is on my head. It fits very much like a cloche, which is different from Northern California caps (although just about right for the Owens Valley, which is what I was aiming for), and I like it enough that I'm thinking I might need one myself...

My friend graciously agreed to model it for me. There were requests from others at our work session, too - I may be slowly knitting a cap a month for quite some time.

I'll end with a picture of the amazing clouds that were boiling up over the hills on my way into Tehachapi on Sunday morning (those are clouds there, not snow-covered hills behind the front hills).

And I'm off and running to get the next pile of papers!

Early, on time, late

2011-02-28T18:44:00.000-08:00

Here's what I have today - a pile of knitted items for the mail:

In that pile, there are:
Early: My mom's sweater, lacking only buttons and a final steam-pressing of seams and collar;
On time: Five hats for various Congresspersons, for the Warm Hats Not Hot Heads project;
Late: My aunt's Christmas socks, finished very soon after Christmas, but not yet mailed.

It turns out that I am not much of a grown-up when it comes to certain kinds of errands, and going to the post office is one of those kinds of errands. I can always think of something that I should (or would rather?) be doing instead, so I never go. Today I went and got envelopes/boxes and stamps for everything. I then came home and packaged up the hats - they are now in the mail. My aunt's socks will hit the road tomorrow. Mom's sweater (her birthday is next week) just needs some buttons, but its box and label and stamp are ready and waiting, so it can get packed up and dropped off (no need to get out of the car, even!) as soon as the buttons are sewn on. Now if only stopping by the fabric store weren't another one of Those Errands that I tend to avoid...

Mail, and some thoughts

2011-02-23T16:42:00.000-08:00

So, since my knitting is not all that interesting (look! another hat! look! a second sleeve!), I thought I'd share some of the lovely things that have arrived in the mail lately. (Warning, Illuminations Sock club SPOILER.) As a quick update, though, the second sleeve is finished, the pieces of the sweater are blocked, and all that's left is seaming and knitting the collar. I have one more hat to knit, too; when Ellen posted on Rav this morning that we've got almost the entire Senate hatted, I figured I could do a bit extra to get us all the way there, right? In light of the fact that public discourse continues in its trend of calling for violence against people exercising their right to free speech (in this case directed against union supporters), I think the hats and their call for civil discourse are more critical than ever.

So, first up was a lovely surprise from Erica, she of the DesigKnit blog which I so enjoy reading. Erica began experimenting with dyeing a while ago, to my great delight (because it meant that I could live vicariously through her; her weaving adventures serve the same purpose for me), and she has now, to my great delight, started an etsy shop! The colors that she's working on are just lovely (I have my eye on a couple of those rovings) - I don't think that there's a one that I wouldn't knit or spin. If you look at this post, as well as in the shop, you can see the results of her experiments with shaded depths in her colors. You could also look right here:

Isn't that lovely? I had some terrible trouble capturing the colors - they're very rich, and the range is amazing. Erica may have gotten it better in the first picture in this post. See what you think. In any case, I am so looking forward to spinning this lovely Corriedale - I think I may have found the fiber that will go on my wheel for my March spinning - thank you, Erica!

Also on the fiber front, I inadvertently hopped onto a bandwagon that I didn't realize was in existence. Towards the end of January, as I was poking about my fiber stash looking for my next spinning project, I happened upon a little baggie of silk hankie that I'd bought some time ago (in Ohio, maybe?), and remembered reading about Ellen's experiment with spinning silk hankies. A little poking around on Knitty later, I had a plan. I decided to knit them unspun, which turned out to be much more fun than I thought it would be, actually, and I was working out what I should knit, when the Yarn Harlot posted about her lovely silk hankie mittens (on my birthday, actually - I can't seem to link, but if you look at her February 2 post, you'll see them). In that post, she happened to mention how many grams of silk hankie it took to do that - to wit, 30g. I had 9g. It occurred to me, then, that I wasn't going to get very far with 9g (alas), and that I'd better do something about it. What didn't occur to me was that ordering silk hankies from BMFA right after the Yarn Harlot had posted about silk hankies from BMFA was going to be rather like hopping on the freeway in LA after someone's announced an imminent tsunami. Crowded.

But they have arrived, and I love them. It's only 20g, but I think I can do what I want with that (fingerless mitts), and I'm dying to get to it.

That's the Blue Brick Wall colorway, and I just love it. I also love that if the mitts turn out and I want to knit a hat to go with, I could get some yarn dyed up in the same colorway to do that. Very cool. See that hint of purple at the top right? So pretty...

Last but not least, I got my Illuminations Sock club package! (Here comes that spoiler!) I was very excited about this - I signed up for two sock clubs this year, the Rockin' Sock Club, and the Illuminations Club - the point of the latter was to kind of kick me into colorwork gear in a nice sort of way. Which made it very entertaining that the first RSC kit was colorwork (not to mention all the freaking out that engendered on the discussion list - many people feared that it was a sign that the whole year would be colorwork). Nevertheless, RSC won't be socks, so I was very much looking forward to seeing whether I'd want this kit to be socks or not.

I do.

Look how pretty! These are absolutely my colors (the colorway option I chose for this club was "surprise me" - and I am so happily surprised here!), and I love both the patterns, but think I will do the leaf one. I have never tried Shibui, which is what this yarn is, and it has silk in it! Silk! We all know how I feel about silk. Mmmm....

So, all in all a week of good packages, don't you think?

Quickie

2011-02-20T14:25:00.000-08:00

I don't have any pictures today of all of the knitting I've been doing, but I realized that if I stopped to take pictures, I wouldn't ever get to writing a post, so I'm just dropping in quickly. We got some serious rain on Friday night and throughout the day yesterday, which gave me the perfect excuse to hole up at home (I didn't put any shoes on or go outside all day yesterday, and today's looking to end up the same way) and make some progress, in an entirely relaxing and renewing sort of way, on some projects. I finished the book I was reading (I love the fact that an ereader stays open while I knit!), and got all the laundry in the house done (how often do I get to say that?), and made a huge pot of chili (which we forgot to put in the fridge last night before going to bed, so that was a wasted effort, alas).

On the fibrous front, I finished the back of my mom's sweater, as well as the first sleeve. Hooray! I now have two fronts, a back, and a sleeve finished, and I'll cast on for the second sleeve this afternoon. With luck, I can have that done this week, then next weekend I will seam the sweater and knit the high collar. I really do need some buttons, though... Just as a reminder, I'm knitting Moonstruck, in the colorway pictured there, out of Gaea yarn, which is a pleasantly squishy merino. It's nice to think that this might actually get finished in time for my mom's birthday (she says, ducking and waiting for the knitting gods to smite her). I need to be a grown-up and go to the post office to get a box for it, as well as envelopes for mailing my aunt's socks (remember those? the ones I finished a month ago? pitiful) and my hats for the Warm Hats Not Hot Heads project. (I wish I understood what my aversion is to the post office specifically, and to running errands like that in general, but there it is.)

Yup, I said "hats". I finished the second hat for the project; it turned out that I had enough yarn from the skein for the first hat to knit another Paris-Roubaix hat, this time a bit longer and bigger. I played around with these a little bit; with one of them, I carried the pattern through the decreases at the top, with the other I didn't. They're both nice, though; I would wear either of them, in public, and that seems like a reasonable criterion for sending them off. So the second one (being bigger) will go to Rep. Darrell Issa, and the first one will go to Rep. Susan Davis. Depending on how the second sweater sleeve goes, I may see if I can finish one more before the deadline; we'll see.

I am also spinning; I have finished the second third of the fiber that I posted a picture of last time, the lovely top of superwash BFL from Sincere Sheep that I got at the Dixon Fiber Festival in October. Once the last third is spun, I'll be able to ply. I'm trying to decide what socks to knit out of it (it may depend very much on how many yards I end up with). Right now I'm dithering among three choices: another pair of the Kimono socks (because you can't have too many pairs of those, right?); a pair of Hyacinth socks (which have the advantage of being short), or a pair of Rivendell socks (for which I have had the pattern for literally years, waiting for a chance to knit them). Meanwhile, I can dither pleasingly whilst spinning. Which is what I am off to do!

Coming together

2011-02-14T17:02:00.000-08:00

I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful comments on my last post. So many comments just reiterated the point that I was hoping to make: this isn't about political party - there is more than enough incivility to go around. No group of people is innocent of its vitriolic members. Alas. But I can't help but think that speaking out for civility is worth doing. As a linguist, I have lectured to my students about the difference between freedom of speech and hate speech; I have talked to them about how absolutely, fundamentally necessary it is to insist upon free speech, upon the right of every human being to speak their mind without fear. Hate speech is not free speech - hate speech makes freedom of speech impossible to practice. It shuts free speech down by creating fear and hate. So, as a person who has always stood, passionately and publicly, for freedom of speech, I also stand for civility in the practice of that freedom, so that it is a freedom that we all can enjoy - even, and perhaps especially, people who think differently than I do.

One of the best things about reading everyone's comments was seeing yet again how really diverse everyone who comments here is, in politics, region, race, and religion (just to name a few). And yet, here we all are, commenting civilly and supportively (whether or not we're in agreement about any particular thing), brought together only by a shared interest in fiber and the manipulation thereof. It makes me wonder if, as a second act to the knitting of hats, we shouldn't descend upon the capitol with fiber and our fiber manipulation implements of choice, to teach our representatives to knit, crochet, spin, weave, whatever it is we know how to do best - wouldn't you want to be a fly on the wall to hear the conversations that might take place then? You may say I'm dreamer...

A few other things came together this past weekend as well. On Friday afternoon, knowing that our girls were going to a school Parents' Night Out (fundraiser for Younger Daughter's class), Rick and I were dithering about what to do with our sudden spare time when a dear friend called to tell me that she was sure it was too late and too much but she suddenly couldn't use her tickets to the Kodo drummers, and did we want them? Why, yes! Yes, we do! And off we went. It was unreal. Like standing in the middle of a crashing wave. I don't know what to say except that if you ever get a chance to go, grab it and don't look back.

Then, on Saturday, Rick took the kids and that same dear friend's son and went to see the naval airshow down in San Diego. They had an absolutely wonderful time, and I got five hours alone to do laundry, clean the house, and then (as my reward) spin and knit. As part of my commitment to myself to spin at least two ounces of fiber a month, I sat down first to spin the superwash BFL from Sincere Sheep that I bought at the Dixon fiber festival last fall.

I split the four ounces into three equal bumps, and am spinning them worsted, with the goal of making myself a pair of socks from the results.

Much as I love woollen spinning (which, for me, is rather like petting kittens, in that it is great fun and has variable results depending on many factors apparently beyond my control or ken - things might go smoothly, or I might end up with fur everywhere - who knows?), it is nice to go back to worsted spinning - it appeals to the control freak in me. Hello, my name is Jocelyn, and I know where my twist is. Heh.

I am also plugging away on the sweater for my mom. I can't remember if I posted the starter picture of the first half of the front?

There it is again. I am now done with that half, and almost done with the second half of the front (I should be able to finish that tonight). I need to get another hat knitted, and then I can cast on for the back. I am still very happy with the general squishiness factor of the yarn. I am also, being me, a bit worried about the size. I have knitted my gauge swatch, I got the measurements from my mom, but I'm going to fret about it until it's on her body and it fits. Am I the only one who seems to think that fretting is a crucial part of garment creation?

I'm also working away on the yarn from the first RSC shipment of the year (warning - SPOILER). Much as I loved the two patterns that came with this shipment (if you're interested, you can pop onto the Rav thread - there are pictures), they were both stranded colorwork knitted in mediumweight sock yarn (quite thick), and while I actually cast on to start a pair, I knew in my heart of hearts that I'd never wear them here in sunny SoCal, so I frogged them. I decided instead that this is the perfect yarn to finally knit myself a Daybreak Shawl, and I have cast on and am working my way through the first, solid colored, section. This will be a slow, long-term knit, to be picked up when I go to a meeting or am reading a book. Lots and lots and lots of stockinette. I don't have a picture of what's been knitted, but here are the two yarns together; I am delighted beyond words with these colors.

I will be wearing this one a lot once it's done, I think.

Warm Hats Not Hot Heads

2011-02-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

I finished the hat for my Representative! I need to block it before I send it, but it's done. I may knit another (Ellen, I'll be sure to tell you who the next one is for if I can get to it in time).

Something happened the other day that drove home to me (as if I needed any more evidence, after reading about the death threats levied at a 78-year-old woman, for example) the need for everyone to see the humanity of not only those with whom we agree, but also those with whom we disagree.

I was getting blood drawn at my home (nothing serious - just an insurance thing), so the insurance company sent someone to my house early on Friday morning. We chatted a bit as he set up his briefcase and got out the things he'd need to get the job done, and he settled down to fill out my forms. When he saw my name, he said, "Jocelyn. Huh. Do you remember Joycelyn Elders?" I agreed that I did. He went on, "Talk about a waste of a human being."

I was floored. Waste of a human being? Really? I couldn't believe that someone was sitting at my kitchen table, saying something like that, as if I would agree with him.

He went on from there, and you can imagine what it was like. But it was that initial statement that stuck with me. Talk about hateful and inflammatory rhetoric. There are grounds upon which one might disagree with someone's politics. But to dismiss their humanity, that's something else again. That's dangerous. To relegate someone with whom one disagrees to sub-human status is to free one up to do some pretty frightening and inhuman things. It is exactly this sort of demonization that we all need to stand against.

I'll tell you something else. I was a coward. That man, sitting in my home, was about to stick needles into my body, and I said nothing. I mean, actually nothing - I sat in total silence until he ran down and changed the subject. That was pretty cowardly. I hope that this hat is a little louder than I was.

A real weekend, at last!

2011-02-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, but I really appreciate weekends that don't start off already filled up with plans. There's something about knowing that I will have time to do the laundry, start to finish (rather than ending up with heaps of clean laundry, unfolded, on top of the dryer; surely I'm not the only one who does this?), clean up a little bit, knit quietly in the sun (as opposed to at night when I'm so tired I can hardly count stitches), walk the dog, drink that second cup of coffee. As much as I enjoy the linguistic documentation work I do, it's hard to have to get up at 5 on a Saturday morning, knowing that I won't get home until Sunday night, with Monday morning staring me in the face. This weekend is one of the quiet ones, hooray!

It's a nice end to a series of birthday celebrations. My birthday itself was made so much nicer by many little things. I woke up to a lovely birthday and happy Imbolc email from Mary Lou. And right next to that in my inbox was a new pattern from KnitNana; another sweater that I'm dying to knit! And Lori wrote me a birthday blog post (thank you!). Then, three of my fellow committee members, at the first meeting of my day, sang me the Mexican birthday song (really, a seranade), which I'd never heard before - it's really lovely, and much more romantic than "Happy Birthday". Talk about a wonderful way to kick things off; those five hours of meetings didn't hurt nearly so much after such a nice morning. Everyone's thoughtful, funny, wise, and cheerful birthday wishes here made my day, too - more evidence that there's a lot to be said for getting older. You all gave me a lot to look forward to!

I spent much of the day in anticipation of Rick's surprise plans for the evening. He threw me surprise parties for both my 20th and 30th birthdays, but I'd told him this year - no surprise party, in no small part because most of my friends were taking me out to lunch on Friday, and overkill is, after all, overkill. But he went one better. He drove us out to a new restaurant for dinner - a place with absolutely delicious gumbo (mmm...gumbo), and then we headed over to the California Center for the Performing Arts in Escondido, where their free first Wednesday concert was a zydeco band! Go, Rick. Starting a new decade with great food and live music is absolutely the way to go. And when I got home, there, waiting for me, were flowers from my parents, and a little package from Stella, with a beautiful bottle (literally - the bottle is quite lovely; I don't have a picture of it, but you've got to trust me on this one) of gorgeous saddle brown fountain pen ink. I don't know how she knew, but I'd just cleaned out my favorite fountain pen (the one Rick gave me for my 30th), so I promptly filled it up, and now I spend my time trying to think of excuses to write things instead of typing them. All in all, I felt very spoiled!

I also wore my new pair of socks.

These are my second pair of the Kimono socks; my first pair (after years of wearing) finally got thrown into the dryer (I think) and are shrunken shadows of their former glory. I really do love these socks, though; they're very elegant in their simplicity. These are knitted out of Sanguine Gryphon Bugga - my first pair of socks out of this yarn (although I have used it to knit socks for Rick), and man, is it nice. Not every yarn about which the knit world makes a fuss is worth the hype, but this stuff is. The yarn itself is lovely (a bit of cashmere is a good thing) and the colors are rich and saturated. And, judging by Rick's pair, it wears astonishingly well, given that cashmere content. I have a lot left over, too; I need to weigh it and see whether another pair of socks might be eeked out of the skein (hooray for small feet!).

The original pattern calls for two little ties at the side; in both this version and my other pair, I only knitted one tie. It seems better to me that way. Aren't the little eyelet lines nice?

I have been working on other things, too. I finished my third pair of Noro socks, and promptly wore them. (I finished them while in Tehachapi on Saturday, and on Sunday it was cold enough that it was snowing at the higher elevations, so I was glad to put them straight on.) But I don't have pictures of those. I also finished the Lune shawl that I was knitting out of my handspun. It's a bit smaller than I'd hoped, but I think that blocking will make it a nice little bit of warmth for the back of the neck.

And I've been getting set up for several projects; I think I'm ready to go in just about any knit-friendly circumstance.

Am I the only one who does this? When I've finished a few projects, I find myself getting things set up for the next several projects, with the yarn wound up, and put into a knit bag of the right size with needles, a copy of the pattern, and whatever notions I need to get through it. I try to have a range of projects. For example, the small purple bag contains my second Babushka (this one in blue), the small blue bag has the yarn, pattern, and needles for my hat for Warm Hats Not Hot Heads (to be cast on as soon as I hit "publish post"), the big purple bag has my mom's birthday sweater in it, and the gray bag has the start of my new project with the RSC yarn.

My mom's birthday is coming up at the beginning of March, and I am knitting her this sweater. As soon as I saw a picture of that sweater, I thought, that's mom's sweater. It's more her than I can possibly tell you. I am using Gaea, in the colorway that's pictured (her choice - this isn't really a surprise present, which is why it's safe to post about it).

I cast on last night for the right front, and made good progress. The yarn is absolutely gorgeous - so very soft and easy to work with - this is going to be a pleasure to knit. I have high hopes of finishing this for an on-time birthday present, but I hestitate to make a 100% firm statement, as we all know how the knitting gods are about hubris. So we'll just say that it's looking good, and I'll go and pour a libation to alleviate the potential for a giant knitting smack-down.

Happy weekend!

Taking stock

2011-02-02T16:09:00.000-08:00

I don't know how it happened, but today is my birthday. (I mean, I do know how it happened - birds and bees and all - I just can't figure out where the heck January went. If anyone finds it, could you send it my way? I'd meant to use some of those days to get things done...) It's one of those birthdays that people call a "big" birthday, and big birthdays, like New Year's Day, somehow seem to call for taking stock.

In many ways, it's a funny sort of birthday, because I keep getting questions which are all variants of "Aren't you bummed/freaked out/sad to be getting this old?" I feel like I'm disappointing people, because I'm really not feeling any of those things. (I will, however, freely own up right now that the fact that Older Daughter is starting high school next year is sort of freaking me out, but that's because she's getting so old, not because I am.)(It just occurred to me to ask: Mom, does this mean that you're finding my big birthday more thought-provoking than your last big birthday?). So I've been trying to figure out why I'm not feeling those things (I'm all about analyzing data). It seems like as good a way as any to step back and assess. There is, of course, no single reason, but there are a lot of things that add up to me feeling, far from upset, actually pretty damn good.

My usual response to the variants of the EEEK comment, which seems flip but isn't, is to say, "it's better than the alternative". But I'll tell you, I mean it with all my heart. I sat at two deathbeds this year, and while both women had lived full lives and were ready to let go, I was utterly aware in both cases of all the people I know and know of who were not, and who would have given anything for more time with the people they love. I have friends who have faced and are facing life-threatening diagnoses, and I am grateful beyond belief that I am not. And I am fully aware that the only reason why I am not is the luck of the draw. It could be me, and it might be me, so I appreciate that it is not.

I think it also helps that almost every single one of my close friends has already hit this milestone (and the rest are coming up right behind me in the next few months). Some of them are more than a decade ahead of me, in fact (which means I'm already not dreading the next big birthday - thanks, guys!). I have trailblazers, and they are blazing some pretty impressive trails. What is there to be afraid of, or regretful of, when I can see just how great it is on the other side of this one day? (In fact, the woman in the office next to me just came in to confide that she found this birthday liberating. I'm with her all the way.)

In fact, those friends, the trailblazers and cheerleaders in my life, are a huge part of why this birthday is a good day. I am lucky to have friends (including so many of you whom I met right here on the blog - you know who you are) of rare ability, thoughtfulness, and skill, and I find myself inspired by all of the amazing things that they do - I have tried so many things, and become better at so many things, and thought carefully about so many things, because of that inspiration. I feel like I should be taking all my friends out to a great big birthday dinner and toasting every one of them and saying, thank you!

When I look back at the last couple of big birthdays and assess where I was then and where I am now, I can honestly say that I am happier now than I have ever been in my life. I am healthier, both physically and (much more importantly) emotionally. My relationships are better. I am more confident in myself. I have walked through some pretty big fires and I find that, far from lamenting my scars, they seem to me to be badges of courage. I have a lot more faith in myself now. I've got a lot of growing left to do, of course, and I know (past performance in this case being a perfect indicator of future returns) that life isn't going to stop throwing curveballs. I think what I'm saying is that I trust myself to be able to deal - not without some kicking and screaming here and there, but a bit more gracefully each year. That is the gift of time.

If I had to describe, in two words or less, how I feel about the next year and the years after, I think they would be:

Joyful anticipation.

And I can live with that.

Warm hats not hot heads

2011-01-27T09:07:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I was disheartened to the point of paralysis by the events in Tucson, and by the steadfast refusal of some folks to step back from hateful rhetoric. I have spent a lot of time and thought over the last two years and more, trying to figure out how to encourage thoughtful and respectful public discourse when a not-insignificant group of people refuses to see the importance of such mutual conversations. What has caused me even more distress is the fact that these hatemongers are not abjured by those for whom they claim to speak. Where are the people who should be saying: No. You don't stand for me. I may share some of your goals, but I do not want my goals promoted with hate and fear.

I'll tell you where some of them are. They're right here among our fellow knitters. And I'll also tell you how glad I am that Ellen and Alison haven't been paralyzed, but instead have decided to do what knitters do best: to knit, and to use that knitting to remind people of their common humanity. They have begun a project called Warm Hats Not Hot Heads, with the goal of getting people to knit hats for as many of our Congressional representatives as possible, to remind them that, in the end, we all have the same basic needs even if we go about getting those needs met in different ways, and that respectful discourse is crucial in working together as a nation to meet our common goals.

Looks like I'll be knitting some hats this month. Who wants to join me?

The train!

2011-01-23T11:04:00.000-08:00

Yup, the light at the end of that tunnel was a train. As of tomorrow, the semester is officially here. I'm as ready as I usually am by this time; my syllabi are finished and posted on the online course sites, my files with course materials are all in the drawer in my desk (instead of in my filing cabinets), the dates on the course assignments have been changed, I have printed up the class rosters, and added the names of the many students who have asked to be put on wait lists (because it's apparently impossible for our administration to actually activate the wait-list feature on our enrollment software - and yes, that does make me cranky, because it's both a huge amount of additional work for me, and because it means that faculty have to be the bad guys, even though it is by no means our fault that there aren't enough sections for all the students who need classes).

I have also wound up yarn for meeting-type projects, copied the patterns (I like to have trashable copies in my knitting bags - I don't want to lose any originals), and cast on (I don't know about you, but I need to concentrate when I get a project set up). Since I also have a birthday coming up (and since I will be spending all day on my birthday in meetings - CFA, budget committee, Senate, right in a row), I decided that starting a couple of simple projects in decadent yarns would be the way to go. To that end, I got started on the Lune shawl last night with my handspun silk/cashmere.

It's knitting up beautifully. The scarf will probably turn out smaller than the pattern, as I'm using a slightly finer yarn and smaller needle, but I like the way the fabric is turning out at this gauge. Once the pattern is established, it's completely mindless, but decadent in this yarn, just right for meetings. I also cast on some Bugga - my first for myself! - to knit another pair of the Kimono Socks. I have/had a pair, but they seem to have slipped into the dryer, and are now too small for my feet. I have long wanted a second pair, so this seems like the perfect opportunity. Of course, for these to be a second pair, I may have to knit yet another pair after this, but this seems like a good start.

That's it in knitting news. I finished my aunt's socks, which don't make for exciting pictures, since they're exactly like the Lenore socks I knitted for myself. I've mostly been enjoying the lovely weather by taking my knitting out to the back patio - it won't last, so I'm sucking up the sun while I can. I haven't had a chance to take any pictures of the hood I knitted (too busy sitting in the sun), so I can't share that. I can share a couple of shots from some hiking we did a few weeks ago.

Happy kids, happy dog.

We have also lately had some spectacular views of the snow-covered mountains north and east of here. Right from the hills behind our house. I wish we could get a clearer shot - early in the morning, when it's clear, they're just right there, bigger than life. I think if you click to embiggen this picture, it's clearer - the white there on the horizon is not clouds.

Snow-covered mountains and San Diego. Weird.

What's that light I see?

2011-01-18T14:31:00.000-08:00

I do believe it's the onrushing train of a new semester!

Classes start a week from today. This week is report-back week, so I'm wading through my usual pre-semester List O' Things To Do As Of Yesterday. Last semester, the list was organized into Soon, Sooner, and Soonest; we'll see how long I can go before I'm at that stage again. I appear to have syllabi for my classes, though, and as I've taught them both before, I have lectures and assignments prepared, so I oughtn't to make a complete fool of myself during the first week. In fact, I'd be sitting pretty, really, except that one of these classes I've only taught twice before, and once was during the furloughs, so I keep wondering whether I should change it around.

Part of the reason why I'm feeling a bit like I don't have my feet under me yet is because the last week or so has been nutty. Last week I had two all-day meetings, Rick had two all-day meetings (overlapping on one of those days), we had out of town guests who came an unexpected day early (which was wonderful in a lot of ways, as it gave us far more time to visit than I'd thought we'd get!), and then as soon as we both finished our all-day meetings on Friday, we packed up the car and headed for Mammoth. Traffic wasn't too pretty, and we didn't get in until about midnight, but then we got two absolutely perfect ski days - warm and sunny and almost no wind, great snow, and the lines weren't long! The fact that Mammoth is such an absolutely huge mountain (one might even say - wait for it - mammoth) means that there's always some run, somewhere, that doesn't have a lot of people on it. And the best bit? I was skiing on my brand-new skis - a Christmas present courtesy of my beloved husband, who remembered how much I'd enjoyed them when I demo'd them last year, and hunted them out, as Nordica isn't making these anymore. The new skis with the deep side cuts are so much fun to ski on the steeps that it almost feels like I'm not working at all (barring that high-altitude panting - 11,000 feet makes for thin air)!

We got home yesterday and here I am today, having some trouble committing to the whole work thing. It's this time of the semester that it really hits me how much work eats into my knitting time. Of course, I'm bound to be singing a different tune after my first day of back-to-back meetings. In anticipation of that day (February 2, to be precise), I have already begun to line up projects, winding yarn and finding needles and patterns and packaging them all up together in knitting bags. I wouldn't want to be caught short, right?

I did finish one big project just before we left. I don't have pictures of the whole thing yet, but I do have a few of the pretty part:

This is the Wintersweet Scarf from IK Holiday Knits. I used Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool and I completely rejiggered the edging. It was supposed to be a pretty little colorwork scarf knitted widthwise, but that meant purling the WS rows in colorwork for 60 inches or some such (further complicated by the fact that I wanted three colors, intead of the pattern's two, which would have meant long floats across the WS rows), so I had another idea (imagine some kind of drum beat indicating incipient doom here): I decided that I would cast on somewhere around 80 billion stitches, then knit the scarf part from its long edge (casting the middle bit off and then on again to create the spot where the hood is inserted) in (get this) linen stitch. With a seed stitch border.

Doh.

The colors are gorgeous, and I was right about the linen stitch - it's given the whole thing a lovely subtle woven look. I also didn't have to carry any floats at all, and (I realized halfway through) I was essentially doing intarsia when I knitted the end seed stitch border, so there's a new skill learned. But honestly, each and every row took about a half an hour. I was like to die. It took forEVer.

And now that it's done, I'm not sure that it's as charming as I'd hoped it would be. Rick used a phrase that might have been "old Russian woman" when I first put it on. I need to get some opinions, so you can bet there'll be photos at some point.

Meanwhile, I'm working on the second of my third pair of Noro socks.

These are addictive in their simplicity. I've been knitting them toe-up (not my usual style, but for some reason, that's how I tend to start short-row heel socks - short-row heels are also not my usual style, but with the self-striping yarn, it just seems like the way to go), so I cast on and off I go, mindlessly watching the colors appear and disappear. I'm almost ready to turn the heel on the second sock, so that'll go quickly.

I have also started (more) mitts for the girls.

That's the first of them. It's more Classic Elite Waterlily. I love this yarn perhaps more than I ought. I want a pair of these mitts for myself. I love this yarn so much that I also knitted a hat out of it, for Rick.

It's a much nicer mossy green color than it looks there. This is Anne's latest hat, David's Toque (I don't think that the pattern's out yet), and Rick wore it all weekend in the mountains, nice and cozy and warm.

I also have a pair of socks on the needles for my aunt (she requested a pair of the Lenore socks that I knitted for myself while I was in New Orleans - just like mine, she said, so I ordered the yarn and waited - it didn't come in time for the holidays, but they'll go to her as soon as they're done, a belated Christmas present). So, that seems like a reasonable set of knitting to get me set up for the start of a new semester, doesn't it? Just in case it's not, I also wound up the yarn to start a new project:

Tucked away in there are the makings of another Babushka. You may note the needles that are sitting right there on top? Those are a gift from my lovely SIL (along with the bag, actually) and her family - Signature needles, size five, with the medium tips - they have become my new favorite needles in the whole world. The join between the needles and the cable is amazing - truly, it's smooth as can be, and the join actually turns so that the needle rotates relative to the cable. No kinking, no twisting, no getting sort of rucked up the way cables sometimes do. Just smooth smooth smooth, with the signature (ha!) Signature needles, grippy in the right ways; even the medium tips are plenty pointy. I think I'm going to suggest to some of those who love me that a set of the size sixes might be a nice birthday present.

And speaking of the Babushka, I will leave you with a knitter story. On Sunday night, after our second day of skiing, we bundled up and headed out to Angel's for dinner - our favorite spot for our last night in Mammoth Lakes. I was wearing my Babushka, because it really is the scarf I wear the most. Suddenly the woman at the table behind me leaned over and said, "Excuse me. Are you a knitter?" I said yes, how did she know? But of course I knew, and I had to laugh when she asked for the pattern name, complimented the seed stitch (I love knitters!), and immediately recognized the cashmere content of the yarn when I handed it over. Am I the only one who always feels just a bit warmer when recognized out there in the world by a fellow knitter?

Resolution

2011-01-09T15:44:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year, when a ~~young~~ person's mind turns to thoughts of goals, plans for the new year, resolutions. I know I'm not the only one; I've read some really wonderful posts lately contemplating goals for the new year, including a few with watchwords (appealing to my linguistic self), some of which really resonate with me, including "deliberate" and "sufficient". I think that both of those are keywords which help to remind me of long-term overarching practices like balance and mindfulness. Being deliberate is an aid to living mindfully - slowing down certainly helps me to pay much closer attention in the moment; and understanding sufficiency leads to greater balance. This got me to thinking about whether I have a resolution for the year - not the usual: lose ten pounds, start lifting weights, publish another paper - but something bigger, a practice rather than a goal to check off the list, one of those things that's worth keeping in the front of my mind, something that encourages me to be mindful and balanced.

A phrase came immediately to mind, and I've been contemplating what it actually means, and why I find it so difficult to even approach. Put simply, I need to work on this: just because I can do something, doesn't necessarily mean that I should.

I'm not sure if I'm the only one who acts, more frequently than not, on the basic belief that the only thing that should stop me from taking on a new commitment is an inability to actually do whatever it is that I'm being asked to do. The problem with this belief is that, push comes to shove, there is very little that I couldn't do (I don't think I'm unique in this, either, by the way; I think that all of us, if we really really had to do something, could find a way to do it). The problem is with that "push comes to shove" bit; I am not good at judging if the pushing and shoving are real, or if the sense of do-or-die pressure is simply a fiction dreamed up by the little anxious voices in my back brain. The upshot is that I find it very difficult to say "no, I can't". And nearly impossible to say "no, I don't want to". (It probably doesn't help that questions are so frequently phrased as, "Can you do this?" Well, yes, I suppose I can...)

I don't know about you, but when I'm struggling with an old ingrained habit like this, it helps a lot to know where its power comes from. This one has a lot of oomph, some of it from more general bad habits, some, though, from principles that I hold dear, and that's what makes this a tough one. In terms of the negative, some of this comes from a sort of deficit mentality, the kind where I think: I'll never see this yarn again/have a chance to eat this particular food again/get this opportunity again. And the next thing I know, the yarn is purchased, the food is eaten, and the commitment is made. Hence the resonance of that watchword "sufficient". Added to that is a long-held sense that what other people want is somehow more important than what I want, or than my needs/sanity/etc. Not to mention the fear that if I say no to people, they will no longer like me. These are not useful things to believe, and I'd be more than happy to shed them.

But the feeling that my ability to do something in some way obligates me to do it also comes from principles that I have really thought about and that I try to live by. One of these is my general dislike of hypocrisy. I try really hard (I don't always succeed, goodness knows, but I do try) not to criticize people for doing things that I also do, and as a concomitant, I try hard not to expect things of people that I wouldn't do myself. It makes me crazy when people stand around saying, "Why doesn't someone do something", but then refuse to step up and do things themselves. I guess what I'm saying is that I try hard to hold myself to the standards that I hold other people to.

I also know myself to be truly lucky, to have not only a sufficiency but an embarrassment of riches in my life, and I am very aware that no small part of those riches comes from the actions of other people, some of whom I know but many of whom I don't. And I believe in my obligation to respond to that generosity of the community of humankind with a generous heart. That means that when I see something that needs doing, the seeing comes with an obligation to act.

I also fundamentally believe in people, and in the capacity of people to do great good. And I believe that I should do what I can to make the world a place where people have a chance to exercise that capacity. Again, I'm not saying by any stretch of the imagination that I always (or even mostly!) manage any of these things, but they are guiding principles that I come back to when I judge my own actions, and when I try to decide on right action.

What I seem to have lost here is a sense of balance, of not only taking care of other people, but also of taking care of my self, of holding non-violence as a key principle in judging my own actions. I encourage my friends to set limits, to take care of themselves, to say no, and I cheer them on when they do, but I don't give myself the same encouragement. If I truly do believe in holding myself to the standards I set for others, why not that one? This is where I stall out, though. I know what I can do if I have to, and the voice in my head that says that choosing not to do is the lazy choice (and furthermore, that my "principle" of finding balance is just an excuse to be lazy) is a pretty loud voice. I think that this is where a broad reading of "sufficient" would be a good thing: not only do I have sufficient (a plethora of sufficiency, in fact!), but I am sufficient. Imagine.

So there it is: Just because I can, doesn't mean I should. Deliberate. Sufficient. Balance. Mindfulness. Watchwords for a new year.

Taking care of business

2011-01-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

That's what I'm starting to feel like I need to do. I spent some time this morning deleting and filing email, which always makes me feel like I've got things more under control. I also am working to get dates and plans put into my calendar (my external brain; without it, my life would be even more chaotic than it already is!). I also have some business to catch up on here on the blog.

First, I have to share with you one of the things that came in a lovely holiday package from Stella (there were a number of fun things, but this one has captured my imagination).
Look at that gorgeous fiber! I can't wait to spin it up; my long-draw is finally starting to get marginally better, and merino this lovely just calls to be spun up into a light, warm, soft, fluffy yarn. I adore the colors. Stella was aiming at finally finding me the kestral-colored fiber I've been desiring; I think that what she got here are the California hills in the fall at sunset, which is perhaps even better. Thank you, Stella!

Stella also just posted about a lovely pattern that she wrote last year; I was lucky enough to get to test-knit it, with wonderful results.
It's a little ballet wrap (which can be knitted with beads and sleeves; you should go see her version - it's wonderful; she also has a contest going to name the pattern, and the winner gets two skeins of one of my favorite sock yarns ever, so maybe I shouldn't be telling you about this...). I love this so much, I am tempted to knit one for myself, using the largest size and heavier yarn (this is two laceweight yarns held together).
I highly recommend this pattern, if this is the sort of thing you, or a young dancer of your acquaintance, might like. What I particularly love about this wrap is the fact that it takes advantage of everything that knitting has to offer in the way of construction, everything that makes knitting unique relative to working with, say, woven fabric. The shape of this garment is constructed as it is knitted, in one piece, rather than being worked into it later with seams. It's clever, but not so clever that it's annoying; it uses the flexibility that is available through knitting, rather than doing odd things simply for the sake of doing them differently. It's what knitting should be, and I wish I could think of garments three-dimensionally like this myself. I may not be able to, but I certainly can appreciate the results when someone else does!
So, apparently, can Younger Daughter.
I knitted this last February; I don't have a project page for it on Ravelry yet, but I'll try to get to that soon (more business).

In other business, I've been wanting to be more consistent about my spinning time. I love spinning when I do spin, but it's not something that I do every day, or even every week. It's something I tend to save up for when I have a whole day, which is rather ridiculous. Janel Laidman (she of the sock club that I appear to have joined, oops; that makes two, since I also rejoined the Rockin' Sock club this year) has decided to do a spinning stash-down this year, based on Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's self-imposed sock club idea. In Janel's version (all the rules are here), you make a monthly goal for spinning, post that goal somewhere (that would be here that I am posting it), then each month show the fiber and the spun yarn. I am making my monthly goals very small, mainly because while I do find the time to spin reasonable amounts of fiber in spurts (for example, spinning that big bump of BFL from Briar Rose that became a sweater), I don't spin consistenly, fifteen minutes here and fifteen minutes there, and I'd like to try to motivate myself to do that.

So my goal: to spin between 2-4 ounces each month, working my way through the smaller bits and bobs of fiber that I've picked up at various festivals.

My hope is both that this will make me spin more consistenly, and also that it'll help me to keep up with the spinning that I need to do if I'm going to feed Older Daughter's dyeing habit.

With that in mind, I sat down yesterday and spun the two ounces of silk/cashmere that I bought at the fiber festival in October.
I spun this fiber long-draw, both because I still want to get a better handle on the technique, and because at my spinning class in Ohio last spring, the teacher said something about the fact that the way one spins a fiber blend like this (a blend of short fibers like cashmere and long fibers like silk) can bring out the characteristics of one or the other fiber. I tend to spin something like this worsted, which brings out the characteristics of the silk (smooth, shiny, dense). This time, spinning woolen brought out the characteristics of the cashmere (light, fluffy, SOFT).

I ended up with about 230 yards of this loveliness.
I love the colors, and I can't wait to knit it up.
The plan is for it to become the Lune Shawl (the small version); I already have the pattern. And even though this means that I met my January goal, I'm going to haul out the two little packets of suri alpaca I also got at that festival, and put them near the wheel so I can keep going and aim for that four ounces.

On a final business note (because this post is FAR too long for me to start talking about New Year's thoughts and goals), I am experimenting with taking the word verification step out of the commenting process. I know that for some people, any typing at all is an exercise in endurance and discomfort, so adding to it doesn't help. I promptly got a spam comment this morning, but only one, so I'm going to see how it goes. I'd like to keep it off - one less step to commenting is great - so I'll keep my fingers crossed that the spam stays within reason (is any spam reasonable? a question for the ages). Happy New Year!

FOs for the FY*!

2010-12-30T11:40:00.001-08:00

* Finished Year

It's almost the end of the year, and I have found myself wanting to wrap up a few projects. (Which is not to say that I haven't also been starting new projects, because I have, but it's been good to feel like I'm clearing out both my list of stuff OTN, and the mental space devoted to those projects.) Yesterday, after putting some solid hours of work into it, I finished up the Tibetan Clouds Stole (my Rav project here). I cast this one on at the beginning of March, so it's been a long-term project. That was mostly by design; I knew with the beads that this was not going to be portable, which always slows things down. I also had put quite a bit of effort into finding the perfect yarn in the perfect color with the perfect beads, and I was happy to take my time with this one, enjoying the process and the feel of the yarn and the fact that I never once wondered whether I'd made the right choices. However, as I approached the end, and started to see the number of pattern repeats decreasing, I began to want to be done. And then I began to badly want to be done. So it was nice to get to the end yesterday.

I soaked it and spent the better part of an hour wiring it up and pinning it out to dry. (As I did that, I thought about the fact that this is going to be one of those shawls that makes non-knitters say things like "You should sell things like this! You'd make a fortune!" and that they never never understand just how many hours go into making a shawl like this, and that no-one will pay what those hours are worth, let alone enough for me to make a fortune. I knit things like this for my own pleasure, and if I give them away, that is also for my pleasure. I wish that knitters were paid what such things are worth, but it's my impression that we, typically, are not.) And then I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The waiting time was not wasted, of course. I put it out to block just before dinner last night (leftover duck stew and the last of the baguettes, retrieved from the freezer), and after that was done, we watched a movie while I worked on the second Silk Road sock. As of this morning, they, too, are finished.
They are even now soaking for their own blocking session. (ETA: These have blocked out even better than I thought; they may end up fitting me after all. Poor Younger Daughter...) I think I forgot to show you my absolute favorite bit of these socks: I kitchenered the toe shut in two colors so the stripes go right over the toe. I am charmed to pieces by this.
The project details for this one (on yet another Rav project page): my own pattern (which I will write up), in Spud and Chloe Fine, a silk/merino blend that I highly recommend - I loved working with this yarn, and I love that it comes in solids that are this bright and vivid. Knitted on two size 2 circular needles.

I wasn't the only one who spent yesterday playing with fiber. Older Daughter, she of the first FO, spent the day playing with dye pots. For Christmas, she received a natural dye kit (from us, but honestly, this is something she wanted!), and yesterday she dyed up her first batch (some undyed handspun that I'd been saving for just this purpose, some natural-colored wool I had in stash). The results?
Four ounces of lovely purple yarn. I wonder what she'll make with it (assuming I don't thieve it first)? I'll get the dye details from her, but I believe that lac was involved.

And then this morning, finally, the shawl was dry. And the rain had stopped (we're getting hammered with rain these days). I actually dressed up to take some outside shots of it.
The central motif makes me very happy.
It's like a mandala, isn't it?
The edges are just gorgeous, too, and I love the way that the beads run all the way up the sides, between those little eyelets (you can't see them well in that picture, but trust me, they're there).
It's long enough to wear with both edges hanging back over my shoulders.
Or hanging down. (Can you tell I'm not used to the sun after all that rain? Look at me squint!)

All in all, a successful project, I think.
Project details: Tibetan Clouds Stole by Sivia Harding. Knitted out of Sundara Yarn Fingering Silky Merino, which may be one of my very favorite yarns ever; every single stitch was a joy. The beads are dark amber silver lined glass beads. Size five needles. (In fact, finished on my brand-new Signature circular needles, which it turns out I absolutely adore - more on that later - thank you, beloved SIL!)

In case I don't manage to post before Saturday, I wish all of you a happy and peaceful New Year, filled with family and friends and health and fiber and time in which to enjoy all of them.

Making

2010-12-27T12:25:00.000-08:00

The mid-winter holidays have always seemed to me to be a time of making: making food, making presents, making memories, making light in the dark days. This past week has certainly been no exception.

Years ago, when Rick and I finally had a house together, and his Grandmom was feeling a bit overwhelmed by hosting his family's traditional Christmas eve gathering, I started doing it, with her, and then on my own. I didn't do it last year, feeling worn out by a bad autumn and too much to do, and as much as I think it was probably a wise decision, we all missed it. So this year I did it again. We had about 30 or so people over, and I spent most of Thursday and Friday morning getting ready. We make pickled herring (that's Rick's job), which is served with boiled potatoes and aqa vite, then ham and havarti and pickled cucumber salad, and red cabbage and hard bread and pork pies (my addition, in place of the Swedish meatballs that so tormented me for years - I don't enjoy making meatballs, but pork pies were our traditional pre-midnight Mass Christmas eve meal during my childhood, so I substituted). Dessert is butter cookies and rod grod and whipped cream (the kids love it). And Rick makes mulled wine. Mmm... The girls love it, and look forward to it all year - this year they even ate a little bit of the pickled herring.
As I cooked, wearing Grandmom's apron that she gave me when she officially stopped doing this party herself, I found myself missing her terribly, while being grateful at the same time for all of the memories I have of standing in her kitchen making this same food. I hope my girls, and maybe, depending on the way things go, their kids, feel the same way about making this meal themselves someday.

I also made my usual two huge braids of yeasted cardamom bread for Christmas morning. I didn't take pictures, though (sigh). And on Christmas day, I made fresh baguettes and duck and sausage stew with sage and potatoes and celery root. That is our very own Christmas tradition. And then on Sunday, I cooked not a thing - we have enough leftovers for a while, I think.

Other making happened, too. Of particular note is the fact that Older Daughter this morning presented her very first finished knitted garment ever. (I suspect her of turning on her light in the middle of the night to read and finish it; we've all wanted to do that at some time or another, haven't we?)
How about that? I'm so impressed, and now that she's actually finished an actual garment, I think there'll be no stopping her. Maybe she needs her own Rav page?

I, too, finished something.
There's the first Silk Road sock; the second is at the heel flap.
(The colors are more accurate in the second picture.) The second sock is turning out just fine, following my notes for the first one (this is not always the case), and I am 99% sure that I have figured out how to size it up with another four repeats and to still get the nifty lines on the heel and down the foot.
I don't know why, but I'm just charmed to pieces by the lines down the sole, and the fact that I worked it so that decreasing the thicker blue stripes on the bottom can coincide with decreasing the subtler thicker blue stripes on the top before the toe decreases.
The only thing that's stopped me from finishing the second one is the fact that I've also been working away madly at the Tibetan Clouds stole; I'm halfway done with the second side panel now, and with the end in sight, suddenly I'm over the whole process knitting mentality, and into full-fledged product mode. I want it, and I want it now. But I also kind of want the second of these socks.
While my knitting dukes it out in the den, I wish all of you a happy holiday season, and a peaceful week as we head into the new year.

Home!! Home at last!

2010-12-20T09:19:00.000-08:00

I'm done travelling for the foreseeable future, hooray! * I went up to Tehachapi this past weekend, Friday and Saturday (and luckily, the drive wasn't too bad in spite of all of the rain we're getting); it was tremendously productive, and so good to see everyone. But I'm glad to be home.

The cold I've been fighting off is glad to be home, too - it is making its presence felt, but thus far I've kept it at bay, just constant sneezing and sniffling. I am not swimming this morning (we do swim in the rain many times; after all - we're wet either way, right?); it seemed like that might be pushing it. Instead I am going to go into work (dragging the girls with me - they've got ants in their pants after three days of rain) to file grades and clear up a few administrative email type things, and then I think I might be able to consider this semester done and gone. Another hooray!

I've been knitting along through all of this. I finished Rick's socks just before leaving for Tehachapi, thus ensuring that everyone in the family had some new knitwear from me before I left.
As you can see, the socks match Tilly. I may have to rename them Tilly socks. These are knitted on size two needles, using Lang Jawoll Magic yarn, on sixty stitches. I put little cables up the sides, once I'd turned the heel.
These are my usual Rick toe-up recipe, where I put a heel flap on the bottom of the foot, and then decrease the gusset stitches in pairs along the back of the heel. He doesn't like the way a gusset looks, but he does like the way a slip-stitch heel flap wears and and cushions on the bottom of his heel, so this is a good compromise. I didn't get a picture of the cuff, but the little cables extend into the 4x2 ribbing. I'm not sure what I thought of this yarn; it's a singles with nylon, so it felt splitty to me, and it was sometimes hard to work without looking, which is rather the point of a relatively plain pair of socks like this, to my mind. I'm not sure I'd get it again, but I'll see how it wears - that may change my mind.

With that done, I was free to cast on for a very plain pair of meeting socks for me. I finished the first one on Friday, and the second on Saturday.
I actually tried to get these to match, by winding off some yarn after the first sock to get to where I thought the colors would go in the same order, but it didn't work. I think I just need to accept that when knitting with Noro, I hand over all color control. I'm actually OK with that when knitting something like this - pure mindless entertainment. These are knitted with Noro Silk Garden Sock, on size 2.5 needles, 44 stitches, toe-up with a short-row heel. I made them longer than the last pair, and I'm entirely delighted with them. I may have to go get another skein of Noro; these are going to be my mindless knitting for a while, I think.

But mindless doesn't always do the trick, so I've been working away assiduously on the Tibetan Clouds stole, and have finished the first side panel and all the set-up for the second side. I realized, though, that I'm going to come up short on beads, so I've ordered more. I can keep working on it in bits until they come (or until I run out of beads, whichever comes first), but in the meantime, I needed another project that requires some thought, and I guess I needed silk, so I decided the time had come to cast on for the Silk Road socks I've been wanting to design ever since going to the Silk Road exhibit at the Bower Museum last July. There was a lovely pattern on a silk mortuary face covering, gold on blue, that struck me as being perfect for knitted socks. I put together a chart for it a while ago in my little knitting notebook.
And last night I wound up the Spud and Chloe yarn I bought just for this, and cast on.
I decided to start with a braid at the top (there will probably be a hanging tassel there, too, before I'm done), and then worked from there. I'm pretty happy with the way this is working out, and I am delighted with the fabric itself. This yarn is absolutely gorgeous - it's a merino/silk blend (perfect for a replica inspired by a silk weaving), and it is so much cushier than I'd thought it would be for such a fine fingering yarn - the yarn is the perfect weight for doubling in this way without being too thick. So I'll work my way down the leg of these over the next few nights; I think I know how I want the heel to work, and I'm rather looking forward to getting there and seeing whether I'm right. If this all turns out, I'll try to write it up as a pattern; it should be fairly sizeable by messing with yarn weight and/or pattern repeats.

All right, off to file grades and put this semester to bed!

*Note: Rick is tracking the snow levels at Mammoth very closely; they've gotten another 7-8 feet with this recent storm. Skiing may be in my future, all desires not to travel notwithstanding.

Not so much with the holiday knitting

2010-12-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

Which is not to say that I am not knitting - I am. But around August, I decided that I wasn't going to do any "holiday" knitting per se. Instead, I decided that I'd just give out whatever I knitted for people as I knitted it (you may remember that this started with the decision to give my niece her kitten mittens when I saw her this fall instead of waiting and sending them now). This has taken at least some of the pressure out of the holidays, at least in this one matter, and I get to know that the recipients are getting use out of the things I've knitted. My SIL, in fact, kindly sent me some pictures of the mittens in use, right around Hallowe'en.
Being a knitter herself (and much better with the artistic side of displaying knitted goods), she kindly got shots of all of the little nifty bits of these mittens.
Like the fish skeletons on the thumbs.
And the pawprints on the fingers. I really need to knit a pair of these for myself - I truly love them.

I also knitted a hat/mitts set for each of the girls, which I have duly handed over. And this weekend I finished a scarf for Older Daughter to add to her set. (I had enough yarn for that - barely - because she and I had the same yarn in our hats and mitts; there's a bit left over from Younger Daughter's set, but not enough for this particular scarf - I need to figure something else out for her.)
The hat and mitts are my own made-up patterns, but the scarf is Anne's latest fun pre-holiday release, the Cabled Keyhole Scarf. Isn't it fun? And it is such a quick knit; I managed to finish it up in no time, squeezed into the little bits of space I had available (a bit of time in the evening here, sitting at a feis registration desk there). It hasn't even been blocked yet, and it still looks good. (So if your holiday knit list looms large and you're looking for something quick to knit, consider this one.)
I love those chunky cables. And the keyhole construction means that it'll stay on right where it belongs, with no loose ends to get in the way and catch. It's pretty warm today (already 71 and due to get warmer - what happened to my winter?), so Older Daughter wasn't up for a long photo shoot in wool, but I'm betting I'll get some good shots of this over the next couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, holiday madness has, of course, set in. One of the reasons why I've been searching for another way to handle the desire to give hand-knits without making Christmas the time to give them is because of how nutty this time of year gets for me (I know I'm not the only one!). Grades are due on December 22nd, and I can't tell whether I'm going to end up pushing that deadline right to the wire. I feel like I'm as organized as I can be, but finals don't come in until 5:00 pm on Tuesday, and I am heading off to Tehachapi on Friday for one last linguistic work session up there before the holidays, so that's one less work day to grade. And, of course, both of the girls end up with activity piled on activity at this time of year, most of them scheduled at the last minute (thus eating into time set aside for things like shopping and grading and and and). Younger Daughter has long had a feis scheduled for this past weekend - it's her Irish dancing school's annual competition in Palm Springs, so of course we were planning to go. We'd decided to go overnight so we could volunteer and help with set-up, only to discover that while we were in New Orleans, her teacher announced the date of the school winter play, and (you guessed it), it was Friday night. By the time we'd figured that out, Younger Daughter already had her part and her lines memorized, so we ended up juggling - Older Daughter and I caught a ride out with friends so I could meet our volunteering obligations, and Rick and Younger Daughter followed after the play. Then, their piano recital ended up being scheduled for today (my theoretical shopping day), and Older Daughter's orchestra teacher scheduled a last-minute concert for this coming Wednesday night (I kid you not, we just got the date for that one less than a week ago - am I the only one who already has tons of things scheduled for this time of year and very little room to add more?!). That means I won't be going to the party at my LYS that night!

But, the feis went well. It's a pretty full day for Younger Daughter, with lots of concentration.
She has fun, though, especially once she's past her first dance or two.
And in the end, isn't having fun what all of this is all about? With that in mind, I think I'll relax with the socks that I'm knitting for Rick. They may or may not be done in time for Christmas, but they'll keep his feet warm whenever they get to him.

A link for your entertainment

2010-12-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

I have much to report, and little time to report it. This is the last week of classes, and then it's all marking papers until grades are due on the 22nd. But Beverly just sent me this link, and it made me so happy I had to share.

Linguists. Singing. About theory. It just doesn't get a lot better than that.

Next time: knitting. I promise.

It's been how long?

2010-11-28T12:07:00.000-08:00

I just looked at the last date I posted, and it's been nearly two weeks! I was asking myself where the time went, but then I realized that I know exactly where that time went: to the conference in New Orleans, and then family and Thanksgiving. I suppose that's enough right there to take up all of that time, not to mention work, and the usual other things that come with two kids and life in general.

New Orleans was absolutely wonderful. We got in late Thursday night (the week before Thanksgiving), and I was at an 8:00 am panel the next morning. But it was a fascinating panel, on languages in Louisiana, so that was worth the early morning; it certainly gave me some interesting ideas for changing one of my classes next semester. I actually ended up at 8 am panels all three mornings of the conference, but as they were all interesting, I decided that it was worth the pain of that alarm (remember, NO is two hours later than California, so it felt a lot earlier than it was). I survived my talk on Saturday evening; no-one laughed, people seemed interested, and there was a knitter in the audience, waving her knitting at me when I talked about knitting during meetings. This is the second year in a row that someone has come to a talk on knitting to knit in the audience, and I can't tell you how much it means. Both times, the person was gone before the Q&A period, so I didn't get to say thanks, but it's a friendly thing that makes the room feel warmer. I could tell when I started my talk that people were doing that thing that people do when knitting comes up, sort of crossing their arms and preparing to weather the next fifteen minutes until someone talks about a more interesting/important topic, but when I mentioned the 2700 respondents to my survey (thank you all!), there was a stirring in the room as people sat up, and when I talked about what happened with Tina at BMFA a few years back, there were gasps. I got some interested questions at the end, too, so all in all, I'm declaring it a success.

The conference also gave me some knitting time, and I finished my New Orleans socks; they're Gothic enough for the part, don't you think?
I even wore them on Sunday, at the second half of my panel. I think I'll wear these a lot; they fit beautifully, and they look nice.
These are really fun socks to knit; the lace at the top provides a bit of interest, but the rest is really simple to remember, so they're perfect for knitting at meetings, or other places that require some attention. I knitted the lace bit of the second sock on the flight out, so I was perfectly set up to finish them on Friday and Saturday.

On Sunday, I cast on for a pair of socks for Rick that I am working my way through right now.

But conference attending and knitting was not all I did in New Orleans, oh no! We listened to live music every single night we were there, even though it made those early-morning alarms harder to take - and it was absolutely wonderful. I adore live music, and I love jazz, and New Orleans has plenty of both and to spare. We also ate and ate, and I got to try every single thing I'd wanted to eat. On Friday, Rick met me outside the conference to grab some lunch, and we headed off to a place that came up on Yelp when he looked for lunch spots in New Orleans. We got there, and there was a group of conference attendees waiting, but I took one look at the menu and saw things like lovely little spring salads with blue cheese and took Rick aside and told him that I had one word for him: gumbo. Or po' boys. Jambalaya. We were in New Orleans, and there was no way I was eating food I can get in any big city! He is a good man, and promptly found K Paul's where I ate a shrimp remoulade and fried green tomato po' boy, with a cup of gumbo on the side. Now that's what I'm talking about!

And it only got better from there. We ate gumbo and jambalaya, po' boys and beignets (a word to the wise: do not eat beignets outside in the wind while wearing black jeans; ask me how I know), crawfish etouffee and grits with mustard greens, all washed down with good local beer and topped off with bread pudding and pecan pie. Man alive, it is impossible to eat badly in a city like that. We met a guy on the flight home who said he didn't like New Orleans because the food was no good and he didn't like the jazz. I about cried.

We also went on a post-Katrina tour, where I also about cried. We saw the places where the levees broke, and went into the Lower Ninth Ward. I am still coming to grips with the fact that, five years later, there are still houses standing empty and destroyed, with the spray-painted marks of rescue crews on the walls, cheek by jowl with the empty lots that were once the homes of New Orleanians. I wonder why it is that we have funds for reconstruction in other countries, but we have not yet finished the reconstruction of one of our own great cities and ports? I wonder if there's any reason anyone could give me that I would find compelling enough. I wish I had the right words to convey the sense of outrage and sorrow I feel, but I don't know that I do. I do know that I want to know more about what happened, and what's happening, and that I will find out.

We came home on Tuesday, met my aunt at the airport, and headed home, where my parents and the girls were waiting for us. They'd all had a wonderful time together; I'm surprised the girls were excited to see us at all, given how much my parents spoil them (their perogative, I think). We had 15 people here for Thanksgiving, all delightful company - it was a wonderful evening.

My parents and aunt left on Friday, and we've been slowly getting ourselves ready to face the week ahead. I avoided (as I always avoid) Black Friday shopping, except for one thing: my LYS was having a sale, so while the turkey stock was simmering, I headed over and got a few skeins of yarn and my coupon book for the year. I ended up with two skeins of Noro (I can't remember which kind), enough to make a hat and mitts for each of the girls, one skein of Noro Silk Garden for socks for me, and a skein of sock yarn to make socks for my dad. I started on a hat for younger daughter right away, and finished that and the first mitt this morning.
She could not keep her eyes open when the flash went, so it's either pictures with closed eyes, or bad color. I'm going for the good color, as you can see. It's completely unblocked, but I'm not sure I'm going to get it back to block it.
With luck, I'll finish the second mitt today, and she can wear them to school this week; it's been more than chilly enough for it around here!

And now I think I'm caught up, and with luck I'll be able to stay caught up as I make it through these last weeks of the semester; if only I could say the same about my grading...