Tangled Yarns of a Knotty Historian

Santa Cruz... What will I knit with you?

2009-10-26T16:21:00.001-07:00

So here I am, working on my school stuff in Santa Cruz, but I haven't been knitting at all! I have a couple projects (they are older and slightly complicated) that I get out occasionally, but then I just get frustrated and put them away. I've cast on for a couple simple projects with gift yarn from last fall -- yarn that I truly adore -- but I'm not happy with the way it looks after I start knitting, and I just frog it after a few inches.

I think I want endless, simple garter stitch (or perhaps stockinette in the round?). Something I can do in the dark, or at meetings, or when I'm sleepy and frustrated... truly relaxing or meditative knitting. But, I don't want to use any of the yarn I have on hand to knit it with...

Monarchs

2009-10-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

I visited the butterflies today.

There is a Monarch butterfly wintering site near school, and they are just beginning to arrive. Orange and flickering, they circle the grove until settling on branches to masquerade as leaves.

Back in CA

2009-09-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

Well, a lot has been happening. I'm back in California, and I'm going back to school.

I got here very late on Friday night, after a killer drive from Portland straight through to Santa Cruz, and I haven't even finished setting up my room. School starts this week, and I'm nervous but excited about it.

Today I decided to venture out of the house to sit in a coffee shop (my home away from home) and send emails. I'm trying the coffee shop just down the street from my new place, and it looks promising, but the mocha is so sweet I can barely drink it. Well, next time I'll try one of my old haunts.

I'm sure I'll update my blog more often now that I'm back in CA. Cheers!

Monday Night

2009-06-15T21:41:00.000-07:00

Ella is running around the apartment in a true Frenzy. I think it may have been brought on by watching the bird hoards flying around outside the apartment. I just spent almost two hours giggling and reading Bridget Jones's Diary. Now it's time to work on something meaningful.

I hope you are all doing well. Cheers!

Belly update

2009-05-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

An update on Dan...

My sweetie is feeling better. He's back at work, and seems to be handling it well. He's not supposed to life heavy stuff yet, but otherwise his activity level is almost back to what it was before. Luckily he hasn't had any major complications, but his tummy doesn't respond to food quite the way it did when he had a gallbladder. We've been discussing how we might change what we eat (yes, I get to change too) in order accommodate his altered digestive system. We may come out of this situation with healthier diets all round.

In other belly related news...

I preformed at a Hasani's Hafla, (a.k.a. belly dance party/show) this Saturday. Yes, for those of you who don't know all my secrets, I have been belly dancing for about a year now, and this was my second public performance. I was nervous, but I had a lot of fun!

I'm including a picture for you, but it's a bit grainy:

And here's a little self-portrait from the show:

Gall*

2009-05-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

Last week became very complicated. Dan's doing OK now, but I had to take him to the emergency room early Thursday morning. After a rollercoaster of a day (with x-rays, ultrasounds, blood tests, waiting around, consulting with doctors, etc... etc...), I took him home... sans gallbladder.

He is now home recovering from the surgery. He's even considering going back to work tomorrow. He'll be OK. He's strong. (He offered to let me take a picture of his healing belly for the blog, but he's already removed his bandages, and we decided healing wounds aren't really good knitting blog pictures.)

*I almost titled this entry "Bile and Pain", but decided to go with something less harsh.

Lynn's big beret

2009-04-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I found this Noro yarn on sale, and I immediately knew it would be perfect for making a gift for Lynn because they are exactly her colors. After careful consideration, I decided to make her another hat--specifically a beret.

You see, this is not the first hat I've knit for dear Lynn. I made her a lovely Odessa a few years ago, but she can’t wear it anymore. She has a hearing aid, and if she wears a hat too tight over her ears it makes the hearing aid feedback.

This hat doesn’t have that problem.

I used the "One Day Beret" pattern as the basis for the hat (I showed it to you way back here), but I purposely made it rather large on top so it can bell out over her ears. The extra space stops the feedback problem. (Yay!)

I finally presented the finished beret to Lynn in February, and I think she’s really happy with it! When I was down in Portland last weekend, I noticed it in her car. She told me that she keeps it there for convenience and wears it frequently when she's chilly.

It makes me really happy when I know someone I love is using something I knit for them.

Action

2009-04-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

Spring's bustin' out, on a green sunny rampage, after the snowiest winter I've ever experienced in Washington. The dandelions have taken over. The sky is clear. The farmer's market is open, and I'm listening to the siren call of tiny plant starts (Buy me! Put me in your earth! I will grow for you, feed your soul and your belly!) And on Sunday I had a mini-crisis.

Don't worry. Everything is now resolved. It was a paperwork crisis—and everything is now filled out, submitted, and received—but it could have been bad, and the shock seemed to shatter something inside of me. After I panicked and cried, I called dear Sabrina. She talked me down, put things in perspective, and was lovely. She helped me find my strength again. Then I moved back into action mode—and haven't stopped since.

I've felt frozen inside for a while. Frozen by fear of failure, by feeling overwhelmed, by... all sorts of self-doubts. And all that emotional ice was freezing my actions too.

Of course, I wasn't completely inactive or even particularly sad, but I didn't feel like I was moving forward.

Now it's warming up outside, and the ice in me is melting, and it's spring, and I want to make change and take control—to act. I'm bustin' out too. Be on the lookout.

Oh my!

2009-04-20T15:29:00.000-07:00

It's been such a long time since I last updated my blog! I better change that...

Stay tuned...

Happy Christmas-Hanukkah!

2008-12-25T20:27:00.000-08:00

Dan and I are very happy because our big present is... a week off together starting today. Yay! But the weather is conspiring to keep us inside for a while.

I haven't driven the car for over a week, and the only way we were able to get over to my mother-in-law's house for Christmas was by getting a ride with relatives in their giant monster car (otherwise known as a Suburban).

We ate turkey, opened presents, and enjoyed each other's company. I particularly enjoyed watching my niece and nephew opening their gifts.

After a bumpy ride home, I lit my candles and spent some quality time with Ella.

I look forward to seeing my family in Portland soon, but I'm waiting on the weather to figure out when and how I will get down there.

I hope to post again soon. My camera is full of pictures of the snow, and I want to share them with you before it all melts.

Love and good wishes to everyone!

Paris Loop

2008-12-23T10:26:00.000-08:00

Two things: I finished something and it's been snowing here.

Jenny took these pictures of me modeling my new Paris Loop over a week ago on Sunday during knitting group. We had fun. The snow was just starting. It was exciting. Little did we know what Mother Nature had in store for us.

I like my Paris Loop. It adds a touch of elegance/hippie-sheik to my wardrobe. Plus it's a pretty color and warm. It knit up super quick the chunky yarn I got for my Birthday (the name of which escapes me while I am typing the content of this blog entry on my morning break from work, but I'd be happy to look it up at home if anyone wants to ask). It was a great project for knitting while reading, in the dark on busses, or watching TV.

Dear Kelly knit a couple of these in our knitting group in Santa Cruz. It isn't an item of clothing I would expect to work with my figure, but when I tried Kelly's on (long ago) I was surprised by how flattering it was. But, if I make another one, I might try to make it a bit smaller around but with looser, more open stitches.

This project also made me realize that I really must try knitting a sweater in the round. Soon.

Coming soon: pictures of snow... and more snow.... and more snow...

Why I love knitting scarves: 16th birthday edition

2008-11-30T09:32:00.000-08:00

1) They fit everyone (except maybe babies.... but babies look cute in everything else).

2) They offer unlimited opportunities to play with color and stitches.

3) Simple or complex, it's up to me!

4) Most scarves involve very little finishing (particularly now that I've converted to spit-splicing).

5) I enjoy watching them grow longer and longer--offering a sense of progress.

6) Knitting a simple scarf is a form of meditation.

7) They don’t take too much yarn.

So when Tristan asked me for a scarf for his 16th birthday, I was super thrilled. And, to make it even better, the yarn I used was a birthday gift from my dad. I knit this scarf in just a couple weeks and brought it on a little trip with my family to Cannon Beach in Oregon on the weekend of Tristan’s birthday in early November.

The blustery costal rain didn’t invite a lot of pictures, but I did take a few rather dashing pictures of Tristan with his birthday scarf. He was a fabulous sport about everything.

Note: Tristan’s is wearing his favorite shirt in these pictures. You can see the complete message in the final picture: “I’d rather be watching Red Dwarf.”

Tris, I hope you had a lovely birthday! I'm so glad I was able to be there for your celebration! I'm so proud of you!

A perfect lunch

2008-11-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

Yummy. Wish you were here.

Knotty Historian + Job = No Blogging

2008-10-29T15:46:00.000-07:00

Working a full-time office job has really reduced the amount of time I want to spend in front of the computer at home... to nil. And this isn't good because there are things I want to do on the computer at home--like blog, and upload photos, and check my email, and write my dissertation--but I just don't do it.

I'm scheming to figure out how to add my online life back into my daily life. But don't worry, my knitting is great and so am I.

Cheers!

A working woman

2008-09-03T10:12:00.000-07:00

This is my first blog entry written at work--I started a new job yesterday! It may be a distraction from knitting (and that dissertation thingy) but the people here are nice and it's good to know that we'll have money for important things like rent, food, and yarn...

Nothing much else has changed since my recent posts: I'm still knitting the second sleeve of Ribby, slowly but surely, and Ella is cute. I'll try to make another post soon with some pictures of something so that I can hold the interest of you, my lovely readers.

Cute Ella

2008-08-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

She just keeps growing and growing!

And this picture kind of cracks me up.

The honor of competition

2008-08-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

I am not a Ravelympic winner, but I was a competitor.

My first week of knitting wasn’t very strong. I underestimated the challenge facing me and only finished one sweater front in the first week. I kept thinking those infamous last words:

“I only have the sleeves after this.”

Experienced knitters already see the fallacy of this statement because, first of all, the sleeves weren’t the only thing I had left. Blocking, knitting the front bands, sewing up, knitting the collar, and sewing in the zipper all remain to be done after finishing the sleeves.

Plus, the idea of only sleeves belies a fundamental ignorance of how BIG long sleeves really are.

A large amount of knitting goes into a 2x2 ribbed sleeve. In fact, finishing one sleeve turned out to be all I could manage in the entire week--the thing is so huge it’s practically a scarf.

But, even if I’m not a Ravelympic winner, yesterday I started the second sleeve. This challenge didn’t end in a finished sweater, but it did get me to pickup a languishing project and make significant progress toward its completion.

It may not be finished today, but soon I will wear the first sweater I’ve made for myself.

Olympic Ribby

2008-08-16T15:36:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all your comments on my last post. I chose to pull my Ribby cardigan out of the depths of my closet, and finishing it is my Ravelympics challenge. But, I enjoyed all of your cheerleading about my tessellating fish blanket, and I hope to start work on it again soon. I’m just not sure how to work on it with Ella. She’s been quite a little troublemaker with my sweater--I can only imagine what she will do when I start laying out fish to sew together.

The sweater is actually quite far along. The back and left front were already totally done when I set it aside. I picked it up again last weekend and started with the right front just below the decreases. That’s almost done now, even though I haven’t spent much time on it. I better hurry this up because I don’t have that long before the Olympics end on the 24th of August.

Olympic Knitting

2008-08-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

I want to do some Olympic Knitting. But the deadline for signing up for the Ravelympics is rolling closer and closer, and I can't decide what to do...

Should I submit one of my languishing unfinished projects in the "WIPs Wrestling" category? Or should I start a new project? I need to decide soon in order to sign up on the Ravelry web site... I do have quite a few big WIPs:

I'm thinking maybe my lace project that hasn't seen much work for a few months.

But there's also my Ribby sweater.

Or, does anyone else ever think about all those fishies in my closet.

Imagining hats

2008-07-25T16:18:00.000-07:00

Well, the knitting has been slow lately. I’ve been oddly distracted, and knitting group hasn’t met consistently for months. But I am knitting. And imagining knitting.

Lately I’ve been thinking about hats. Lots and lots of top-down hats for all of my friends, my family, and my friends’ families. My imaginary output is surely staggering, while my real output equals almost nil.

Some of this vast imaginary productivity is inspired by reading Through the Loops! She makes an amazing amount of beautiful stuff all the time and knits hats as easy as a sigh. They always look super pretty too. I want to be liker her… So I started by looking at the free hat patterns on her blog. There are quite a few to choose from. I started with the One Day Beret, one of her many top-down hat patterns, but I'm not knitting it in one day.

I’ve only made a few hats top-down (actually, baby Joe’s hat may be the only one) but so far it’s going fine. I had a little trouble keeping my DPNs strait for the first couple rounds, but then things sorted themselves out. The yarn is some Noro that I got on clearance a while ago.

Maybe I’ll knit faster now that I have a new accessory.

What do you think? I got them on Monday.

Little trouble

2008-07-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

Kitten ownership is challenging.

Ella is a sweet little devil, but she is a little devil. I am her favorite chew toy, and she loves nothing more than to climb up my body and sit on my shoulder. Last weekend I showed my sister the scratches all over my shoulders, and she became concerned and somewhat disturbed.

But I do like Ella... very, very much. So, it was extremely upsetting when she took her stitches out the night after she was spayed last Wednesday. I'd confined her to the bathroom overnight, as per the vet's instructions, but she chewed off the outside stitches sometime between 3:00 AM and 10:30 (Thursday is our day to sleep in). Upon this discovery, I immediately began to panic and called the vet's office. I took her in for them to look at the opening, and they told me it was closed enough to heal the rest of the way on its own--but I needed to keep her very confined for the next three days--our extremely vocal little kitty had to stay in the pet carrier. This was a trial for Ella, me, and Dan.

Now she’s out and about again, and acting like she feels fine, but I can’t help worrying about the strange, hard little lump where the wound is healing.

Catching up

2008-07-02T15:51:00.000-07:00

Although I haven't posted much over the past few months, I did take pictures to show you. Time to play catch-up, before these get any more out of date.

Now that summer has come in earnest to Olympia, I have pictures to show of our very strange spring:

The Yarn Harlot toured the area, and I drove down to Portland to see her speak. My super sweet family came with me to the event, and my 13-year-old brother charmed all the knitters--he even got free yarn!

I've been holding onto a little knit sweater that was too small for the original baby I knit it for. Not any more. It finally has a home with a sweet little guy who was born just a couple months ago. These pictures were taken when he was only about a week old.

I'll try to post again soon and give you an update on my knitting. And, perhaps, a few more kitten pictures. We named her Ella.

Playing: A Kitten's How To Guide

2008-06-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

Step 1: Jump out of the bag at the silly human with the camera. Surprise!

Step 2: Find the best toy ever! (Recommended toy is anything but something overpriced your silly human purchased in an attempt to buy your affection.)

Step 3: Give chase and kill, kill, kill! Do not let it escape your grasp!

A new friend

2008-06-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

Dan and I found a some new trouble yesterday.

She doesn't have a name yet, but there are several we are considering: Gabby, because she's quite a little talker; Rocket, because she takes off like one; or maybe Jayne, because we're Firefly nerds. She was nicknamed Killer at the Humane Society, but she doesn't seem like a "Killer" to us -- more like a little bundle of wiggling purring silliness.

After a relatively short period of shyness when she first got home, she began exploring and playing all over the living room. She's so tiny that she fits almost anywhere and has decided that one of her favorite places to hide is on the bookshelves in the little space on top of the books. I'll try to get a picture of that for you later. Her almost constant state of perpetual motion makes photographing her a bit of a challenge, but at least I got a couple good shots to show you.

Anyway, I've had a bunch of things to blog about over the past couple months, but didn't manage to post. This little furry girl is too cute not to share.

Dashing

2008-04-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

I'm still knitting, but I may be a bit out of sync with the seasons because I just finished some fingerless gloves. Then again, it snowed here a week ago. So maybe I'm not that far off...

This is the Dashing pattern from Knitty. I fell in love with this yarn (the new Manos silk blend) and wanted to find a quick project that would only use one skein. The cabling on the wrist is a bit lost in all the colors, but I still like it. Yay for knitting and blogging!

I meant to post about this project earlier, and even took some in-progress pictures (see below), but I’m afraid I’ve been a naughty blogger--not just a knotty one. Still, all the lovely flowers beginning to bloom encourage me to post more often. There are all sorts of lovely things to show you other than my slow knitting progress...

Amanda's scarf goes to Washington (D.C. that is)

2008-02-28T11:37:00.000-08:00

The title of this post was the title of a lovely little email I got from a dear friend and fellow aspiring historian who left for D.C. the night after she passed her oral exams in January (congratulations!). You may know her by the moniker "New Knitter" which she uses when leaving comments on my blog.

D.C. is a bit colder than Santa Cruz, and she brought the scarf I knit for her a few winters back and has been using it frequently to keep warm when she's out and about in our nation's capital. I told her it would thrill me if she sent a picture for my blog of her wearing the scarf in front of a national landmark. She out did herself and sent several. Here are my favorites.

The Washington Monument:

The Vietnam War Memorial:

The Lincoln Memorial:

Yay New Knitter!!! I love pictures of people wearing the things I make for them! Thank you.

Short

2008-02-24T15:14:00.000-08:00

I have a short amount of time to write this blog entry before the battery charge on my laptop fades into nothing, so bare with me.

First, I started a new project:

I decided that I really need more lace in my life. And, after digging out some old holiday yarn that I've been hoarding, I decided that now is the time to actually make a scarf pattern I've been coveting in Victorian Lace Today.

Second, I have a new haircut:

I'm not sure if you can see my hair very well in this picture because I took it myself while walking to the coffee shop and the wind was blowing, but my hair is now a bit short. I think I like it. It's fun to have a new look. What do you think?

Coming soon: Amanda's scarf goes to Washington (D.C., that is)

TIME:MASTER

2008-02-07T16:02:00.000-08:00

Exactly one week ago, at this time in the afternoon, I was in bed with a fever of 102.4. It was rather awful. Now I'm better, and I'm embarking on a new campaign in my battle to master (my) time. Goal setting, here I come! Grrrrr.

One of my goals (along with specific time/page requirements for this week) was get a book to read for pleasure, hence the Pratchett book in the background of picture of my new planner. I think it's already had a discernable positive impact on my general wellbeing.

And, although I haven't been blogging, I have been knitting. I even finished a simple little scarf for my niece, but I don't have pictures. My main project is a hat with earflaps for my sister, who requested a new hat about a year ago. I'm designing it for her and really hope it lives up to all her expectations. Isn't this yarn super lovely?

I'm proud of my little sketches, I made them while watching Project Runway several weeks ago. Oh, and a nice French girl who came to my knitting group wrote Tricoter on my design (because that's the word for knitting in French).

Back to work!

Further adventures of the birthday scarf (and a new hat)

2008-01-16T15:24:00.000-08:00

I would be remiss not to tell you about the wonderful show I attended a couple Fridays ago and the spontaneous roll that my unsuspecting birthday scarf played in the festivities.

The first knitting related event occurred when I met the lovely Miss D.

My sister's introduction included describing Miss D. as "crafty," and (as if to provide evidence of Jenny's statement) Miss D. immediately pulled up her sleeve to show me the words "crafty lady" at the bottom of a large tattoo. I, of course, asked to see the whole tattoo and then took a picture to share with you, my gentle readers. She's considering continuing the piece around the inside of her arm by adding a heart shaped ball of yarn with two knitting needles sticking through it--a choice I fully support. Plus, she came to my knitting group this Sunday. (Yay!)

The show was quite long and I managed to knit most of a small hat during the evening (which seemed to give Miss D. knitting envy because she brought a fuzzy scarf project back with her after a quick jaunt home for some earplugs). I started the hat a few days before with the intention of making a new baby hat for my little nephew, who is already way too big for the first hat I made him. I was about an inch in and finished it during the show. But it's too big for a baby! Even a big baby like sweet Joe! So, I think I'm going to give it to Derek, my friend Karen's son, who it will probably fit. (I'll try to get pictures when I present the gift in a couple weeks.) Anyway, it's fun to spread the knitting bug at rock shows.

But, you ask, what about the scarf? What adventure did it have? Well, after the show, Cataldo recorded one of the tracks for his upcoming album, and I was one of a bunch of people who stuck around to sing for the chorus. One of the other performers acted as the hypeman (indicating to us when to sing, etc), and he used my birthday scarf as his signaling tool. It was fun. I shook bells. My scarf was the center of attention. I sang. Music + Knitting = Good Stuff!

A holiday knitting recap

2008-01-08T11:07:00.000-08:00

I did some holiday knitting: scarves, of course.

I wanted to make something else for my dear Lynn (who I knit Odessa for last winter), and I decided on a light airy scarf, simple but elegant, that won't be too heavy for a sweet lady who's having hot flashes. I'm also hoping that it will be more versatile that the large lace scarf/shawl that I made her before I started this blog.

I knit this scarf with Kidsilk Spray (in the "Regal" colorway) on size 11 needles in a simple garter stitch pattern. It's the same technique (skinny mohair/silk yarn on bigger needles) that I used for Kayla's birthday scarf. I think Lynn's happy with the final product and looks quite cute in it.

The second scarf was for my Grandma Tennie. And, in naughty knitter fasion, I didn't have it done on Christmas, but I did get it done the day after and took some pictures with my brother before I left town.

To be honest, I've been working on this scarf for just shy of a year. The pink yarn was a gift from my father last year at the holidays, and right away I intended to use it on my grandma's scarf. Looking back over my blog posts from the last year, you can see the project mentioned here and there, and I even showed the yarn in my post on Valentine's Day. For some reason, I really wanted to make Grandma a scarf with reversible cables, but none of the patterns I tried looked good with this yarn. I've lost count of the number of times I would find a pattern, start knitting it, get frustrated, frog, and then feel guilty that I still hadn't made Grandma her scarf.

This fall I made the realization that my concept needed revision, and I shifted to experimenting with using the slight bulky yarn in more open/lacy patterns. I settled on knitting the scarf horizontally in a simple feather and fan pattern, with an instant fringe made by cutting and reattaching the yarn at the end of each long, long row. After the addition of blue stripes, I decided that it was probably going to be nice enough for my super sweet Grandma. When I revealed the project to her on Christmas (still on the needles) she seemed excited about it. I tried to finish it before we drove her home, but I couldn't manage to complete the bind off until late that night.

I would have preferred to take FO pictures with Grandma, but Cody was a super model. After donning the scarf, he immediately inquired, "Do I look like Dr. Who?" I love my family.

Birthday scarf report

2008-01-06T15:03:00.000-08:00

Well, last time I suggested a few upcoming entries for my blog, but now I'm doing something else: I'm showing you photo evidence that I did, in fact, finish my birthday scarf, and that I love it and wear it daily. It's lovely and colorful and warm and long and... everything I hoped it would be. I got a bit finicky about utilizing every single bit of the fancy Noro Silk Garden yarn, and, by the end, was spit splicing small (2-3 foot) segments of yarn between the two balls so that the colors would work the way I wanted and in order to get optimum length out of the four skeins. I think I was successful.

So, do I look ready to tackle 2008?

A New Year: 2008

2008-01-02T14:26:00.000-08:00

As I write this, the first day of 2008 is sliding past. I plan to post this in the morning and hope it signals the beginning of a cycle of more frequent blogging.

I've been in a funk lately. It's odd. And I'm not sure what I need to do to pull myself out. I was awake this morning before Dan, which is unusual for our days off, and I went to the backdoor to take pictures of the sky. Maybe my early morning initiative is a good sign for the what will come in 2008.

It's been cold here recently, freezing at night. I wear my birthday scarf all the time, but (probably because I'm in a funk) I'm very bad and didn't put up any pictures. My new winter look also includes a furry hat. I'll make my sister take a picture for me so that you can tell me if I look prepared to take on the new year.

Ideas for future blog entries: "WIPs and chains," "a holiday knitting recap," and "knitting from the left" (a new perspective with the lovely Miss A.). If I'm really productive, I'll write all of these in the next week. Wouldn't that be astounding?

Plushy womb

2007-11-14T15:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, I didn't knit this one, but I have to post a picture of it.

I took this picture a few weeks ago of the plushy womb (pattern from Knitty) that Laura made (she's one of the women from my new knitting group). Laura is a doula and was interested in the pattern for a while, but she wasn't very experienced reading knitting patterns. I helped her a little (she caught on quickly), and she thanked me with some reusable menstrual pads. I haven't tried them yet, but I couldn't resist their charm when she offered them to me: one has really cute pictures of cowgirls and the other one says "wake up and smell the coffee."

Anyway, the pictures of my new little nephew in my last post made me think about the mind-blowing amazingness of childbirth, and that reminded me that I'd forgotten to post this picture. Soon I'll post some pictures of my newest FO.

Welcome Joe!

2007-11-04T12:50:00.000-08:00

There's a new baby in my family! I now have a sweet little nephew!

I thought I would be able to welcome him into the world before I left for Los Angels, but he was born last Thursday, one day after I left on my research trip, and I had to wait a week before meeting the little guy. He's a lovely little bundle of new born baby goodness with fabulously dark eyes and loads of wiggles. I, in fine knitterly fashion, greeted him with a hat (regular readers saw it in process back here).

Personally, I can't resist dressing babies and small children in hats with ears. It amuses me to no end. So, as soon as I found out that Dan's sister was pregnant with her second child, I thought of Hello Yarn's free pattern. The yarn is some amazingly soft baby alpaca that Holly gave me as a going away present last June (she called it "provisions" for my trip from CA to WA).

As you may be able to tell in these pictures, my hat is almost too small for Joe's little head. Thus, I'll need to get busy on a new hat for him to wear as the weather continues to cool. Plus, his sister outgrew her hat with ears and may enjoy a new little something from her adoring aunt—big sisters also deserve knits.

I love this picture of her all tired out after meeting her brother at the hospital for the first time. (Thanks to Tim for all the great pictures!)

SoCal

2007-10-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

I'm on another research trip in sunny, hot (and fiery) Southern California. This time, instead of spending all of my time going through archives, I'm also conducting oral history interviews with some very interesting older people. So far it's gone well, but I haven't managed to get nearly as many done as I originally hoped. On the other hand, I found a very promising new source for primary source documents pertinent to my subject, and it's at another lovely space. For some reason, I've been lucky as a researcher and usually find myself working in fabulously cozy and friendly archives (unlike other people I know).

Really, I've spent the entire trip in lovely surroundings. Staying with my aunt, uncle, and cousin is always very nice, and during this trip I got another treat and was able to spend the weekend with my dear friend Holly at her family's very beautiful and comfortable house (my view of the kitchen table before I started this blog entry is pictured above). Holly is the first friend from Santa Cruz that I've been able to connect with since I moved in June, and I've really enjoyed seeing her and getting to know her mom and sister. We even knit together a little.

Her family's house has a fantastic view and is full of interesting pictures and objects artfully displayed. Everywhere I look there's something else to examine and contemplate. But, despite the plentitude of decorative objects, none of the rooms seem cluttered or busy. It's inspired me in several ways, but particularly: I want to have more flowers inside and to try putting more framed photos on the walls.

Holly and I noticed something else interesting when we stopped for lunch on our way to LACMA yesterday. Seeking Ethiopian food, we stopped on Fairfax to look around. It's well known as a Jewish neighborhood (people always seem to bring it up when I mention that I'm researching Jewish history in Los Angeles), but now the streets are also lined with Ethiopian shops and restaurants. Next to where we ate lunch we saw "The National Council of Jewish Women Thrift Shop," and it was like I'd been transported into a modern version of my MA thesis.

All in all, the more I learn about Los Angeles, the more interesting it becomes.

Busy on my birthday scarf

2007-10-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

This is my birthday scarf. My birthday was several weeks ago, but this is my birthday scarf because it's made out of my very, very lovely birthday yarn: four luxurious skeins of Noro Silk Garden. The pattern is a very simple design that I first saw on Brooklentweed's blog months ago, and I've wanted to make it ever since. I'm mesmerized by watching the colors change as I knit this and can't wait to have its loveliness snuggled around my neck. It's definitely cold enough outside to warrant a scarf, and I want to wear this one right now!

Sunday Knitting Group

2007-09-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

As you know, I loved my old knitting group: I loved the women I shared it with; it's location; the way we laughed and sang, vented and gossiped, and shared our lives with each other along with our knitting (and crocheting!). I miss it, but I've finally reached a place where I'm ready to move on and start a new group, understanding that it will be different than my first.

If you are in the Olympia area, I would love for more knitters to join. Here are the specs:

Sundays, 2:00 to 5:00 at the downtown B&B.

I've had two so far, and hope they will continue to grow. My sister took some photos last week, and, looking through them, I started to contemplate the differences and similarities between the two groups.

First Difference: More dinosaurs.

Second Difference: The possibility of indoctrinating children.

Third Difference: Instead of just discussing uteruses, one of us is knitting them (it's a Knitty pattern!).

We'll see what next week will be like...

Fashion forward

2007-09-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

To be honest, I didn’t realize that headbands are in again, but I’ve had three requests for them, in some form or another, over the past few months. Another clue is that I’ve gotten quite a few complements on one I made for my self out of a delicious bit of scrap yarn (there’s a picture of me wearing it way back here).

My “ah ha” moment came when my littlest brother, Cody, marked his entry into teenagehood by requesting a headband for his 13th birthday. Headbands were certainly not in vogue when I turned 13 in the early-nineties. They had unsavory associations with 80s styles, and I was a teenager in the grunge era. Now things are different. Today’s burgeoning trendsetters, such as my brother, are heavily influence by manga and anime, where headbands have different connotations.

Cody asked for "forest colors" and I felt this Trekking sock yarn qualifies. I asked Cody how he will use the headband, and he answered, “Sometimes I’ll wear it when I practice Taekwondo, or maybe when it gets cold.” So, I tried to take some pictures of him practicing kicks, but it was challenging because he moves so fast. Sometimes it seems like he’s flying.

Details

2007-09-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

The sweater is coming along nicely. I finished the back (happy with my decision to frog and reknit part), and have moved on to the left front. The comments on my last post included some questions about the pattern, so I will address those today. It's the Ribby Cardi from Chic Knits. The pattern is available to purchase online, but I picked it up at Stitches in San Jose last spring. The website even has a Gallery of pictures from people who already knit the sweater. I spent quite some time pursuing it before I bought the pattern, contemplating how it will handle my, well, feminine curves. Time will tell.

I'm not yet sure what form of collar I'll make. The pattern gives options for a shorter one or a shawl collar. The yarn is Uruguay DK, also procured at Stitches, with green for the body and purple for the sleeves. It's very soft (70% merino, 20% alpaca, 10% silk) and easy to work with, but I'm already anticipating using something machine washable for my next sweater.

Yes, of course I'm already considering my next sweater. It has taken quite a bit of self control—and my sweetie's reminders of other unfinished projects—to refrain from buying the yarn for Rogue. I'm waiting with baited breath for some of my blog friends to finish theirs. Scarybez seems to have finished hers but hasn't posted a picture modeling it, and dear Kelly (who was with me at Stitches, so long ago) has been slowly but surely working on hers for months. Very exciting.

Second chances

2007-08-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

First of all, if you are reading this, I want to thank you for sticking with me through my inconsistent blogging: thank you, very much. Plus, you should know, it's really reassuring to see your lovely comments. I sincerely appreciate their humor and caring sentiments. I've become increasingly annoyed that Blogger won't allow me to respond by email to people's individual comments. Oh well. Maybe I'll just start commenting on other people's comments to keep the conversation rolling.

I've been knitting again. I'm making "Ribby"—the sweater I've referred to in my last few posts—and, so far, it's quite simple. I almost finished the back piece but was unhappy with the way I joined the third ball of yarn, so I frogged back to an inch or so below the armhole shaping. Below is a picture I took before ripping back, but you can see the poor join better in photo above. It's a horizontal line of uneven stitches.

The feeling of frogging was redemptive and freeing. The mistake doesn't matter. I can erase it. The sweater will be better because I made a choice to fix it. Still, it was a choice. Not fixing it would have also been fine because it's all a matter of my own needs and preferences. I'm not trying to please anyone else. I am free to choose either way. My actions. My time. My sweater.

I love knitting.

Working

2007-08-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

I’m in Los Angeles on a research trip—almost like a real historian. I’ve been knitting in the evenings, and have made a good bit of progress on the back of my very first adult sized sweater (woot!), but most of my time has been spent in my archive or stuck in traffic between my family on one side of L.A. and the archive on the other.

Here, in all its glory, is a picture of my archive:

Can you see it? It’s in the corner, behind the chairs and curtain and stuff. That’s right! The boxes back in the corner. That’s the stuff dissertations are made of. What may (or may not) be goldmine of untouched, untranslated Jewish activism. Lovely.

And really, my research setup is quite nice. They gave me a key to the building, there's plenty of room to spread out, and no one cares if I take off my shoes while I'm going through stuff.

You should see some of the pictures I've found. Just imagine: socialists in the 1940s dressed up like pirates for a costume party. Too cute!

In the Evergreen State

2007-07-28T15:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I did it. I moved back to the Northwest. Here's a picture I took the other day that I think really captures the spirit of the region. I call it "Joggers In Rain With Radiant Green Backdrop."

When Dan and I arrived in WA the fates of weather conditions arranged for an unseasonably wet couple of weeks, probably to welcome us home. Now it's warmed up again, and Dan and I are just beginning to find our routines—work, family, school stuff, etc.—but I still haven't found my normal knitting stride. I'm fairly shocked it's been a month since the last time I blogged, and I really miss my knitting group. I had plans to start one here, but lately I keep thinking about how a new group will be totally different from my old one. Then I just get hung-up on trying to decide what day I should try to have it, and then I can't decide where it should meet anyway. Oh well. I miss you, my sweet Santa Cruz crafters!

Of course, I'm still knitting a bit, even if not as industriously as usual. Here's a little something that's almost done. It's a super cute free pattern from Hello Yarn. I'm making it for a special baby due this fall.

Now I have a very important question for you, gentle readers: Do you think the ear I made is too long? I'm worried it will be overly floppy, and this concern is keeping me from picking up stitches for the second ear.

Finally, by popular request, I took a picture of my new apartment. This is the living/dining room area.

Isn't it pretty? You should all come over to knit with me and sip tea.

In flux

2007-06-28T23:51:00.000-07:00

We survived the long haul up to Washington and even found a place to live! It’s been stressful and hectic, and I didn’t sleep or knit very much. Our family has been very kindly housing us until we can get into our new home, and we’ve found a few minutes here and there to visit our old haunts (including Canvas Works, Olympia’s yarn store), but we feel that establishing ourselves in our new (bigger) home is necessary before we can relax and really enjoy coming back to the northwest. Being here still feels very surreal and, though we’ve only been away a short time, we find ourselves missing our friends back in Santa Cruz. Hopefully we will find ourselves again soon.

Transitions

2007-06-20T22:56:00.000-07:00

Now everything is happening very fast. Boxes are everywhere. I need more sleep. We've reserved the moving truck for Friday. It's a period of transition.

My blog will make the trip up to Washington too, but my entries may continue to be inconsistent for a while. I hope you stick around to see what happens becuase transitions can be exciting. Plus, I decided that my traveling project will be my very first adult sized sweater...

I passed!

2007-06-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

Now I'm an official Ph.D. candidate. Does that sound good? Maybe I should knit a sweater to celebrate....

Unfortunately, my imminent move takes the edge off my relief. While I'm looking forward to the good things that will accompany my move (family, old friends, a bigger living space, the loveliness of the northwest, family, etc.), I also have to face the parts of moving that make me sad (leaving my new friends, stress, packing, looking for a new place, feelings of displacement, leaving my Santa Cruz community, etc.). This is a really lovely little spot to live. Oh well, such is life.

My sister still doesn't know where she and the band she is touring with are going to play tonight. We may just takeover a space on campus and call it guerrilla music.

Ack! Come celebrate with me and my sister!

2007-06-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

Edited to add at 8:58, Sunday night:

Well, something terrible has happened. The show my sister was scheduled to play at was canceled. Now she has no where to play on Wednesday night. She asked me if I have any friends with houses who can host a small concert, and I had to tell her that none of my friends have houses. We don't know where the show will be, or even if there will be a show. If anyone in Santa Cruz can help, please let me know. Ack!

I have absolutely no time. No time. But I'm writing this because, theoretically, I'll pass my exam, or turn into a pumpkin or something, on Tuesday. Therefore, I will have a reason to celebrate on Wednesday, and, conveniently, my sister is on her exciting west coast tour and will be in town that night performing.

Everyone who would like to celebrate with me and see my sister in all of her lovely indie-rock-singer-songwriter-ukulele-playing glory should come to the show on Wednesday. It will be an intimate little house show at 619B Broadway St., beginning at about 8:00, and there will probably be a small door fee. If you're curious about my sister's music, look at her myspace page where you can listen to a few of her songs. It will be fabulous! Plus, the completion of this whole QE thing really will be something to celebrate.

What was that? Where's the knitting? Um... We'll just have to talk about that after Tuesday, but I did go to knitting group yesterday, and I have a picture to prove it (note the new haircut and the knitting needle hanging off my head):

The Albino Squirrel Speaks

2007-05-22T11:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Tangled Yarns Readers,

I'm sorry to inform you that Amanda, a.k.a. the Knotty Historian, is lost and believed to be buried under a pile of books and student essays. I last saw Amanda leaving her discussion section on I. B. Singer at 3:25 on Monday, and, as corroborated by several witness who saw her at coffee shops around town, there was a wild look in her eyes. Those around her have become concerned about the soundness of her judgment at this time, and, if spotted, we suggest approaching her with caution as she may be easily startled. Considering that she must finish all elements of her QE dossier and complete grading approximately 40 student papers by 5:00 tomorrow, it seems that her temporary insanity is probably justified. As for the rest of us, we simply hope she resurfaces before Friday when she is scheduled to drive to Los Angeles for her Grandmother's 90th birthday.

Sincerely,
Ms. Al. Squirrel

Nobody expects an Albino Squirrel!

2007-05-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

As I sit here writing (pounding my head against the wall), I realize that I haven't checked in with my blog friends in over two weeks. Do not worry. I have only fallen off of a metaphorical cliff, not a real one. The writing continues. The goal: a finished dossier to be submitted several weeks prior to my QE scheduled for June 5th (you need not remind me that several weeks means, urm, now). Knitting has also fallen off a metaphorical cliff. Forgive me and send good writing vibrations.

In the meantime, enjoy the mystery that is the Albino Squirrel!

Personally, I'm intrigued. This thing lurks next to the Physical Sciences building and greets my students and me as we exit class. My students gave it the nickname, and, believe me, that rump is eerily white. It's not knitting, but it is interesting.

On the knitting front

2007-04-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm feeling better. This cold was much milder than my last one (which kept me sick for a whole month!), and I'm back to my busy, busy self. The glimpse I gave you in my last post inspired some curiosity about my current project, and I want to fill in a few of the details.

It's the Swallowtail Shawl, designed by Evelyn Clark, from Interweave Knits (Fall 2006). Honestly, I'm almost done. It took a bit over two weeks to knit (I started it as soon as I finished Peter's scarf and will finish binding off at knitting group this afternoon), but don't hold your breath for FO pictures because I don't know when I'll have a chance to block the finished shawl.

I followed the pattern as it's written, except for the yarn. This is what I used:

That's a picture of the yarn I got for holiday gifts this winter, and the one in the middle is the Paris color way of Handmaiden Yarn's Seasilk (bought online, here). I've really enjoyed using it. When I began I was worried that all the color changes would be too busy for the lace pattern, but I overcame that concern as the project developed. The yarn is smooth and luminous. It smells faintly like the ocean or a bit of nori. I'm seriously looking forward to making something with the second skein (on the left in the picture) but haven't yet decided what it will become.

As for other fronts, Dan and I realized yesterday that we will be moving in exactly two months... crazy...

A glimpse

2007-04-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

I am sick again! And this is really quite unfortunate timing because I'm way too busy right now. I need to write. I need to read. I need to teach. I need to comprehend what people say and offer articulate responses. Instead, I'm a very sad example of a graduate student.

Oh well, at least my knitting is pretty.

Peter's scarf

2007-04-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

I made a scarf for Peter, one of the professors I work with, and it turned out even better than I thought it would.

Of all the people I know, Peter talks the most about death and mortality. Perhaps it's because he's Hungarian. Perhaps it's because he was a Jewish boy in Budapest during Nazi occupation. Perhaps it's just how he is. Here is an example of our conversations last spring (we had many little talks like this one):

Peter: Do you think I will make it through lecture today?

Me: Of course! Why not?

Peter: Well, you never know. I may open my mouth and the words may be gone.

Me: I'm sure you'll be fine.

Peter: Do you think that this problem with my voice is cancer?

Me: Your doctor said it's nodes on your vocal cords. How are you feeling otherwise?

Peter: Fine. But, we all must die. I think it's cancer.

He was right. Shortly after his diagnosis I asked Peter if he would like a scarf, but he didn't want me to knit him something until his health was better. I listened to Peter's request that I wait until he "survived" and put his scarf on a list of projects for later.

After treatment during the summer and a leave of absence in fall, Peter taught again in winter, and I was his TA again. He's recovered quite well, and I decided that his 70th birthday this month would be a good occasion to give him a scarf. He seemed very happy when I presented his gift, and was happy to model for my blog. He said, "Amanda, if I can lecture in front of 300 students, why would I worry about my picture on the internet?"

Scarf Details:

The scarf itself is made from Cascade 220. I cast on about 320 stitches and just knit, knit, knit away in the symmetrical stripe pattern.

As a design element I incorporated the "wrong side" of the garter at color changes on both sides of the scarf. Thus, it doesn't have a "wrong side."

Also, it was important to me to have both edges as similar as possible. So, I used "EZ's Sewn Bind-Off" (Elizabeth Zimmerman was a knitting genius!) to make the cast-off edge less obvious, and it worked like a charm. Several experienced knitters haven't been able to tell which edge was my cast-on and which was my cast-off!

The fringe was made by cutting the yarn and reattaching it at the end of each row, creating an instant fringe and eliminating the need to hide ends. I originally planned on trimming the ends to make a more even fringe, but several friends told me that they really liked the uneven look. So, I left it as it was.

I'm really happy with the finished scarf and will definitely use this technique again!

Small things can make a big difference

2007-04-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

I finished another scarf (the one I was working on during my grading). Holly and I decided that the left over yarn makes the PERFECT fashion accessory. What to you think?

A FO picture will come soon.

In other knitting news, the yarn I got for my grandma's scarf is in time-out. (I'm sorry, Grandma. I love you, and I want to make you a scarf, but the yarn isn't behaving.) I have begun a new project for her that should please, but its identity shall remain a mystery for now...

Lastly, my dad uploaded some pictures of my family to Flickr so that I can see how tall and old my brothers look. They are significantly younger than me (I'm 27, and they're 12 and 14), and I haven't seen them for one-and-a-half years! I can't get over these pictures (here's my favorite, and this one from last summer is also really great). So, in order that they don't forget what I look like, here's a picture of me wearing my Clapotis as a shawl:

Back to work!

Applause with a French Accent and My Vacation

2007-04-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

Well, school is back in session, and I have a variety of interesting but challenging tasks facing me this quarter. I am making some progress with my writing—which makes me feel good but also reminds me how much time I must dedicate in order to accomplish small steps—and I'm looking forward to the class I'm TAing and the readings course I'm taking. But, before I dive headlong into another pile of books, I need to show you something. My Clapotis:

This pattern, available for free on Knitty, is super popular in the knitting world, and the reasons are simple: it's fun and the results look good. I found this yarn on clearance last fall and, despite the fact that I wasn't planning on knitting a Clapotis, as soon as I saw it I knew what I would use it for. Now, if you read this blog regularly, you may be wondering when I knit this, because it barely made an appearance until today. To be honest, I think I did most of the knitting in December, and maybe January, right after I bought the yarn. I even gave you a glimpse when my fall grades were due.

I found that the knitting went quickly because the pattern has built in goals/rewards: "Oh, I can't stop now. I'm almost to the next row where I drop stitches!" But, silly knitter that I am, I was really slow with the finishing because I was worried the scarf/shawl was too long. So, I stuffed it in my knitting box and forgot about it until a couple weeks ago when I fished it out again, hid the ends, and suddenly had an *instantaneously* finished Clapotis.

My lovely model for these pictures is Karen. She and her son, Derek, came to visit me for two days over spring break. We had such a wonderful time playing at the beach, wandering through lovely natural settings, seeing sea lions and butterflies, eating tacos and tamales, and talking. Plus, I took tons of pictures, many of which I uploaded to my Flickr site, even creating a special set of pictures from their visit. (Karen has a wonderful blog about raising her son at Go, Bebe, Go! But, I don't think she's updated it for a few weeks.)

Their visit was very refreshing! Now I'm ready to get down to work. QE prep, here I come!

A girl with a hat

2007-04-01T20:40:00.001-07:00

The hat fits!

And she looks so cute in it!

I want to send another thanks to Tim for the great pictures of Katie in the Kitty Hat. He sent them so quickly that they sat in my email in-box without attention for several days until I completed my grading and allowed myself a brief return to my online pleasures. I think they were worth waiting for.

After the grading was done, done, done I spent two days (well, maybe three) behaving as one on vacation before returning to my qualifying exam preparations. I will QE this spring. It must happen, and it will happen. (Must. Write. Faster.) Please send me good writing vibrations.

Also, please contemplate this second picture of Katie as she contemplates a sheep. The circle between animal, yarn, and Kitty Hat makes me happy.

Quick!

2007-03-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

I'm just offering a quickie today, so that you know I haven't fallen off the edge of a cliff or something.

What I've been doing for the past three days:

I'm on the downhill slope of grading finals; plus, I have a new project. It's a horizontal garter rib scarf, and it's been great for the end of quarter stress.

Coming soon: Two FOs and a very cute picture of my niece wearing the kitty hat I knit for her.

Kitty hat

2007-03-18T11:38:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness, I actually finished something! (Please do note the festive cabbage modeling the hat. I found a double use for part of our St. Patrick's Day dinner.)

This little pink kitty hat is based on the Kittyville hat from Stitch N' Bitch. I sized down the original pattern, from adult to toddler, and left off the ear flaps. I don't remember the name of the yarn, off hand, but it's super soft and has tiny yellow and blue flecks spattered in the pink—very spring.

This hat is, of course, for my adorable little niece, who's been busy growing since we saw her last summer. I do hope that it fits her. She long ago outgrew the sweater and tam that I made for her. Although I had fun taking pictures of my cabbage wearing the hat, I do believe it will look much cuter on little Katie.

(Thanks to Tim for the great picture of Katie!)

A week, some notes

2007-03-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

Spring burst all over the place this week, with blue skies and warm sunshine. Not much to say, otherwise, but I thought I should check-in since it's been a while since my last post. Here are some of the things happening this week:

It's the last week of classes for the winter quarter at my university. For me, this point in the quarter is accompanied by a faint sense of relief overshadowed by panic as I scramble to find closure for my work.

On Monday I went bowling, and I got four strikes! This is a lot for me. Overall, I didn't end up with my highest score ever, but that is definitely the most strikes I've gotten in an evening.

I am still knitting my sock. In the comments on my last post, scarybez asked what pattern I am using. I kind of made the pattern up by myself. I originally thought I would make Thuja, from Knitty, but the gauge I liked with the yarn was too small for that pattern. So I turned to Yarn Harlot's Knitting Rules! so that I could create my own pattern based on the basic sock recipe she describes. There is a pattern going down the sides that my stitch dictionary calls "mock ribbing."

On Thursday I will show the first draft of my dissertation prospectus to one of my advisors. I'm rather nervous and afraid that I didn't do it quite correctly, but I'll never know until I get feedback. Wish me luck!

Back to work...

Riding the sock train through sick land

2007-03-05T13:07:00.000-08:00

I'm terribly sick of being sick! Enough, I say! We are gaining on the two week mark, and, I ask you, isn't that long enough? Why do my ears still throb? Why does my throat still ache? Has my head permanently converted into a mucus producing machine? Why do I still feel like the most productive thing I will do today is take a nap? Arrrrgg!!! I have no time for this!

Thank you for your patience with my whining. I will now show you a sock.

Despite fabulous plans for my sweet grandma's scarf and a cat hat for my little niece, all I've managed in the past two weeks is to keep going on my socks. The marvelous Erin, who kindly entertains me while I'm a disgusting sick person and feeds me homemade chicken soup, modeled the first sock so I could take some pictures. At knitting group on Saturday I officially passed the half way mark on the second sock by picking up the gusset stitches off my heel flap. The heel is turned, and, I must admit, it was almost beyond me in my current state. Luckily, clearer heads were with me.

I know you can't see the sock very well, but I love this action shot of Erin and my sock. Doesn't she look like she's having fun? Did I mention that she feeds me chicken soup, and hot tea too?

Where I am

2007-02-28T13:34:00.000-08:00

I took this picture while I was walking on campus yesterday:

I think I need to place myself more firmly in my surrounds so that I can be more aware of where I am and what I am doing. For example, last week I was in a bookstore and read the first page of Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close because Tweak, with passion in her eyes, said it's amazing. And, she's right. I started laughing loudly in the bookstore. But I can't do that right now. I have to work. So, at that moment, I decided that when I move back to Olympia this summer I will start a book club and that will be the first book we read. The thought made me happy, but now the idea keeps coming to me while I am supposed to be writing my dissertation proposal. I need to get THAT done here, now, before...

I am here, now, to prepare for my QE. I need to focus on that.

As far as my productivity is concerned, I have been making a valiant effort to stick by my resolution, despite a rather tenacious cold. My dear readers, your advice was fabulous. I think I should ask you smart people for input more often, and anybody who didn't read the comments on my last post should do it immediately, particularly if you are a graduate student with a wandering eye.

Do your dreams for the future distract you from your purpose for the day?

Oh, since this is a knitting blog, I should also note that I went to Stitches West last Saturday with some very good company. There were knitters and yarn as far as my sickly eyes could see. I made a very exciting purchase, which I will have to discuss with you another time, and forgot to take pictures. Ops! Back to that paying attention to where I am thing...

Rainbows and resolutions

2007-02-22T17:11:00.000-08:00

Dan and I are both sick--sore throats, stuffy sinuses, pressure in our ears, and postnasal drip. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I stayed home from class this morning, and later we followed the rainbow to Longs Drugs to stock up on throat lozenges and tissues with lotion.

Can you see the rainbow?

We also had a long discussion about productivity, procrastination, and focus (or lack there of). So, in the spirit of my newer, better, more productive mentality, I might not be blogging much for a while. Or, when I do blog, I might just include a picture with a few words, like this entry.

Do you have any advice on effective time use? I think I need it.

A day for pinks

2007-02-15T10:31:00.000-08:00

What should be in a post-Valentines edition of a knitting blog? Songs of love? Yarn to make one swoon? A discussion of romance? A critique of the commercialization of love? Chocolate? (I really do recommend reading Yarn Harlot's entry from yesterday.)

I'm afraid my level of sophistication is not quite that high right now. Instead, I will simply share some observations about color that this knotty historian made during yesterday's day of love. I'm not a big pink fan. I don't think I own a single pink item of clothing. Yet, as I was contemplating the Valentines Day color scheme I realized that the yarn I obtained for my niece's hat and my grandma's scarf is all pink. So, fate demands a little photo with both pink yarns and some other pink and red things that I bought yesterday to celebrate yummy colors.

How else did I celebrate? Dan and I ate some very sexy fruit salad for diner. That was the follow up to the very romantic midterm review session that I led in the morning. I know, I know--the extravagance of it all is quite overwhelming.

A little of this, a little of that

2007-02-10T10:46:00.000-08:00

My knit-blogging of late has been a bit lax: an entire week has sped past since my last post, and that entry didn't feature any knitting. Tut, tut. I hope to redeem myself by presenting a brief overview of my recent projects.

Project 1: Square-Along

This is an older picture. (You can tell it's old because it includes two of the scarves, all bundled up with postcards, that I mailed to Eastern Europe. They've been gone a while, and I am giddy with anticipation that I might soon hear from my far away friends.)

Here you can see my first square for Larissa's "Square-Along." Although I initially hesitated, I'm really glad that I participated in this knit-along. It's another project, like my Socks 101, for Larissa's upcoming book (written with her husband) featuring knit-alongs. The "Square-Along" gimmick was that all the participants knit 7 X 7 in. squares following Larissa's recipe and using sock-weight yarn. Then the squares were all sent to Portland so that Larissa can sew together the sample for her book. Any extra squares will be included in a blanket/blankets for charity. I sent two squares (the second is pictured below). I was simply thrilled when I saw Larissa's picture on Flickr where I can identify my squares amidst a bunch of other people's. Yay!

Project 2: Sock it to me!

I am making another sock.

This has been a nice portable project, and, hopefully, the resulting sock will fit and I will be happy enough to finish a mate for it. The pattern is kind of out of my head and based on Yarn Harlot's sock recipe in Knitting Rules! (which was a rollicking good read). You can see that I've made a decent amount of progress since the picture revealing my sock's humble beginnings. I am currently only a couple of inches away from the toe decreases. Can you stand the excitement?

I am beginning to understand why some people collect gratuitous amounts of sock yarn. This is fun, and look at all the purdy colors...

Other Projects: Hopes and dreams for my knitting future

Knitting and fanaticizing about future knitting go together. The next two projects on the docket are both for sweetie pies in my family: a scarf for my Grandma Tennie and a cat hat for my little niece. I now have yarn for both and have started devising patterns based on altering other people's patterns. I don't yet have pictures because I don't like the results of my experimentation thus far. But knitting group is this afternoon, and I may take another run at my grandma's scarf (in my fantasy it's covered with lovely rambling reversible cables). We will see.

Oh, and please don't ask about the fishes. They are in timeout.

Thoughts on my most significant WIP

2007-02-03T10:43:00.000-08:00

On Thursday Dan and I visited the Carmel Mission. We spent about two hours wandering the grounds, taking pictures, examining displays, and contemplating paintings, statues, and the basilica. The trip made me think about history, aesthetics, and the renovation and commemoration of historical objects. I became preoccupied with thoughts about those who recreated the mission, who rebuilt the structures and setup the little museum displays. What is the social significance of their act of commemoration?

My dissertation topic came more into focus this week, and I made contact with the organization I will, most likely, be researching. Will my work also be an act of renovation and reconstruction?

I suppose, inevitably, it must be.

Three scarves for far away friends

2007-01-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

I spent last July studying Yiddish at Tel Aviv University (you can find lots of pictures and details here through here). It was a rigorous academic program full of opportunities for rich cultural and intellectual experiences. Happily, the students were heavily international, and I was able to acquaint myself with smart people from different countries who shared their perspectives and stories with me. We studied, explored, sang, ate, complained about the heat, swam in the sea, talked about loved ones, worried about the war, shopped, walked to class, helped each other translate, danced, laughed, and formed a little community together. I became particularly close to Agi (from Budapest), Bartek and Adam (both from Poland). I hope that some day I can visit my friends in Eastern Europe and/or perhaps they can visit me, but I'm not sure when the time will come. In the interim, I don't want them to think I have forgotten our time together, so I made three scarves destined for Eastern Europe.

The specs:

Yarn: Malabrigo, one skein for each scarf (I can't rave enough about how soft and nice this 100% merino wool is to work with.)

Needles: 10.5, Knit Picks Options

Pattern: I think the stitch pattern is called "herringbone," but I'm not sure. You can find the instructions at "My So Called Scarf." In my version I cast on 28 stitches and knit till I was out of yarn. You can see close-up of my stitches on Agi's scarf here.

I have no idea how long it will take for my little packages to make their way across two continents and an ocean. Hopefully, they will arrive soon to warm the hearts and necks of my friends in Eastern Europe.

Blue sky, open door, new beginning

2007-01-21T11:23:00.000-08:00

This hasn't been an easy week. Although the sky is blue, the days are cold and nights are colder. The apartment feels empty and lonely, but the sensation gets a little less strange everyday. My back's been hurting because I slipped and fell down the stairs on Wednesday while I was rushing to answer the phone (stupid telemarketer), and I haven't quite been feeling like myself. At the same time, I seem to be suspended in some strange academic limbo where time passes but I never feel closer to my goal. Something has to change.

I didn't knit for most of the week, but on Friday knitting made an appearance when Dan and I were trapped in our apartment all day with the door open. The property management has been trying to "clean up" our apartment complex (which is sometimes a good thing) and part of this process is repainting all the buildings. Why they choose November through January for this project, we'll never know, but Friday was the day they painted all the front doors on our building. We got a note about a week in advance explaining that we would have to leave the door open for about 6 hours (it turned out to be more like 7) while the painters applied two coats and left sufficient drying time after each. Friday happens to be the only day when neither Dan or I work, so we were both free to guard our apartment while the door was open all day. We cooked. We watched movies. We got cold. So we wore knits.

Dan took this picture to document the experience. You can see the open door in the background, me all bundled up, and Dan demonstrating the softness of the scarf I made for him. To be honest, I wear it more than he does because he says that it doesn't get cold enough here in CA for him to need a scarf. Friday was the exception.

At the end of the day we had a pretty, brick red door. The sad part is, after all of that trouble, the door got a big scratch out of the paint by the next morning. I'm afraid I accidentally brushed my bag against the paint that night when I was coming home from an evening visit to the coffee shop. The paint was dry to the touch but apparently not yet hardened. Oh well. I'll call the office Monday morning to see if they can do a touch up.

Yesterday at knitting group I finally finished the last scarf in my trio of scarves destined for Eastern Europe. I originally thought I would have sent those by now, but life doesn't always go the way you expect.

It's time for a new project, a new start.

Our little love

2007-01-15T10:27:00.000-08:00

Niko Niko Fincannon

July 1997 – January 14, 2007

Niko, our lovely cat, went by many names. She was our Neek-Neek, our kitty-cow, our fuzzball. Although she was a cat, she also resembled many other animals, and we called her by those names too: little lion, little monkey, little lemur, little bird. We liked to say that she was made of pure Neekonium and if she was a race horse her name would have been Lenin's Beard. She is our little love.

SOCKS 101

2007-01-12T20:51:00.000-08:00

School started, and I began Socks 101. I am pleased to report that I (finally) finished my first pair of socks. I relayed my sordid sock knitting past during Socktoberfest when I tried to revive a flagging sock project, but my efforts didn't result in a finished pair of socks. No, I needed a good old lesson in Socks 101—a basic and quick pattern to help me prove to myself that warm handmade socks are within my power.

As I explained before, I made these socks as part of a knit along/test along for a book. The pattern used one skein of Manos del Uruguay, and the size of the yarn and needles makes the project go fairly quickly. After you're done knitting, you "full" the socks by getting them damp and running them in a dryer for a few minutes. Above you can see the socks before their twirl in the drier, and below you can see them flying about at the Laundromat.

My friend Kelly kindly let me take pictures of her wearing my new socks. (I love this picture with her tattoo.) You can see more pictures of these socks and other test-knitters' SOCKS 101 at a Flickr site here.

I think I will name these my "Happy Blue Socks." Doesn't Kelly look happy wearing them? I must say, I'm happy in them.

Reading + Knitting = My Life

2007-01-10T11:05:00.000-08:00

Wow, I can't believe it's already been a week since my last post!

I've been very busy working—tidying up loose ends from last quarter, beginning my new quarter as a Teaching Assistant, and reading, reading, reading—but I'm also almost done with my three scarves destined for Eastern Europe. I only have a few inches left on the last one (pictured), and then I have a few ends to hide. I'm not sure if I need to block these, so I will probably skip that step because I don't want to wait a year for them to dry (it's currently rather cold and humid in my apartment).

I'm also participating in a knit along, or rather a "test along," for SOCKS 101. It's kind of exciting because Larissa (you can see her blog at Stitch Marker) is writing a book, and this knit along is testing one of her patterns. All of the finished test socks are available for viewing at a special Flickr site. I will post mine either tonight or tomorrow. Isn't that exciting?

Time to get back to the books! I'll probably have a FO post by this weekend.

In the sprit of randomness

2007-01-03T22:46:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in a cafe working and have no time to blog, but I don't want my avid readers to miss me (Apple Jack, you know I'm talking about you!). So, I will share three unrelated things that I thought might make good blog content.

1) Yesterday I was talking to my Dad on the phone. I could hear my teenage brothers talking in the background. Tristan, the 14-year-old, decided that I should take my hobby to the next level: "extreme knitting." It would involve knitting while jumping out of a plane, or underwater, or something. Fabulous idea, don't you think?

2) Two people asked in the comments on my last post what brand of yarn I'm using for the scarf I'm making Agi. The brand is called Malabrigo Yarn (follow the link for information about the Uruguay based company), and it's really great to work with. I finished Agi's scarf and am making two more with the same kind of yarn but in different colors for some nice Polish boys. You can look forward to pictures of a finished trio of scarves destined for Eastern Europe in the near future.

3) Just before I started writing this little entry, I overheard some people at another table talking about Evergreen, the college where I did my undergraduate work. I loved my experience at Evergreen and am ready to promote it at any time. So I turned to the table and said: "Are you talking about The Evergreen State College?" One of the boys started talking with me and then, when I told him that I'm now pursuing my PhD in History, he said: "Hey, I think I met your sister in Olympia." Apparently he was sitting in another public place talking about Santa Cruz, and my big sister (who is super gregarious) overheard him and started talking with him about my town and how her sister is here studying, etc, etc... Isn't that fabulously random?

Finally, an unrelated picture because otherwise this entry would be pictureless, and we can't allow that.

My cat wins the fluffy winter coat award, but she's still spent the last month hiding under blankets. I briefly considered the validity of knitting something for her to keep warm in/under, but that thought only lasted a second. She would never use something made expressly for her. Cats are just too contrary for something like that.

Time to smell the roses?

2006-12-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

First, I want to say "Thanks" for the kind words about my Odessa. Dear Lynn likes it too, which is the most important thing. Now, onto other business.

For months I have concealed my urge to warm the hearts and necks of nice eastern Europeans I met while I was abroad during the summer. The dam has burst, and I am well into knitting three little scarves destined for a long journey east. First, of course, I have to knit a scarf for Agi, the clever girl from Budapest who kindly made me her companion for trekking the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I just hope she likes the yarn I got for her.

Olive green and pink isn't a color combination I normally reach for, but I picked this yarn because I couldn't resist the way it makes me think of rosebushes in full bloom. Agi can be critical sometimes, and I am worried that I should have picked a safer color, but, hopefully, she will also see roses. I think this stitch pattern (is it called "herring bone"?) shows off the yarn's color variations to great effect. It's Malabrigo Yarn, a kettle dyed pure merino wool, which is amazingly soft for 100% wool. I'm zipping along on this scarf and will probably finish this weekend, but I should probably be spending more time working on other things. What things? Let's zoom out a bit, shall we?

Ready for a shocker: school starts next week. (Now imagine me repeatedly hitting my head against a wall.)

Sometimes I can be a big old procrastinator, and I haven't exactly been rushing to take my qualifying exams. I saw a member of my QE committee about a week ago, and he introduced me to someone as "the girl who's afraid of QEing." Ouch! My biggest resolution is to finish this up ASAP, which means I have a BUNCH of reading to do/review and writing to finish. To be honest, I started to get depressed yesterday while I was with Dan at a bookstore because I couldn't help thinking about all of the knowledge I am lacking in my chosen fields. Do I have time to smell the roses? Probably not, but it's cold in eastern Europe.

Lingering

2006-12-23T20:56:00.000-08:00

I came downtown tonight to sip coffee, look at stuff online, and, maybe, work a little while my sweetie has some time to himself in our tiny apartment. As I turned past the post office, I saw that the giant menorah is still completely lit. That's odd, I thought, last night was the last night of Hanukkah, wasn't it? After a few seconds questioning my decision to light all eight candles last night, I realized that the city must have decided to leave the lights on for extra holiday cheer. The giant metal menorah seems to have replaced the more common giant Christmas tree, and, perhaps, those in charge thought it would be festive to leave the lights (which were carefully lit one-by-one over the past week) shining through the holiday weekend. Letting it linger, as it were.

Personally, I also like to make my holidays linger. The longer it lasts—the more celebrating to be had. My mother's side of the family is Jewish, and my father's is Christian, and I grew up in a fairly secular household. But, we always celebrated holidays from both cultural traditions: any good reason to have a party, my mother once told me. We got eight full days out of Hanukkah (with a big party for everyone we knew on one night), and my family also found ways to string Christmas out for at least two days. When we all opened gifts, I loved to hand them out so that I could make it last as long as possible. We took turns watching one another open gifts, one at a time, and I loved the way the excitement lingered.

This winter I am with my husband. We aren't traveling to see more family because Dan couldn't get time off work, and the holidays really are an awful time to travel far. I miss my family tremendously, but I'm not worried because I still feel their love, even when we are far from each other. In some ways, the gift exchanging will linger even more. When, I wonder, will the package come? When, I wonder, will I finish the last bit of my holiday knitting and send it north? New Years, perhaps?

Knitting also has a habit of lingering. For example, take a look at the scarf I finished for Dan about three years ago. I have completely lost track of my original reason for making it. Was it Christmas? A birthday? Or, maybe I was making him a random gift. It took me years to knit this thing. It's a light weight baby alpaca yarn in something that I remember calling a "fisherman's rib" stitch pattern. It was basically a normal k1, p1 ribbing, but each knit stitch was into the stitch below, which meant that I had to LOOK at what I was doing ALL the time, and I wasn't as fast then. I know I worked on it for more than two years, maybe three. I think I began it around the time we moved in together, and added a few rows when we visited friends in the evenings, a few rows on buses, some time in a box, more after the wedding, more after the move to CA and the beginning of graduate school. Years of lingering with this as my primary project. Now, I am still wholeheartedly proud of its warmth, beauty, and simplicity. What better sign of commitment and love?

So here is my advice, from a girl who is no stranger to lingering knitting projects: If you are still working on a holiday knit, don't be sad if it isn't/wasn't done "in time." Instead, see it as an opportunity to let the joy of the holiday linger. You will also be stretching out the holidays for the lucky recipient: in January, or February, or August when the present is done, they will get a special reminder of how much you care for them. What is central to the holidays if not celebrating our relationships with family and friends? There's no reason not to let that celebration linger.

Happy holidays to everyone!

Odessa

2006-12-21T23:14:00.000-08:00

Well, since I flashed my Odessa at you last time, I figure I better spill the entire bag of Odessa beans. I also heard a rumor that the person it's for doesn't see my blog often, so I don't have to worry about present surprise spoilage. Plus, to be honest, this was such a fun and interesting knit that I really am bursting to share. (I already influenced/convinced one other knitter to start hers. But really, it wasn't hard: she'd been thinking about making one for a while and we were at a craft store. Eazy-peazy.)

The really exciting thing about Odessa is that it has BEADS! (Can you stand the excitement?) I was worried that knitting with beads would be difficult, but, no, it was a snap. The fabulous Grumperina, who designed the hat and maintains a lovely and interesting blog, created a very clever and clear pattern, and she gives more info about knitting with beads here. As you can see in the picture above, you string the beads onto the yarn before you start knitting, and then you just slide the beads along as you knit, manipulating them so that they are sitting on the yarn as you pull a stitch through in the places where you want to add a bead.

The other very exiting part of this project is that I used the "magic loop" method for knitting in the round. You see, I don't own circulars in the correct size (16 inch) because my fabulous Options Needle Set doesn't go below 24 inch circulars. Since the whole point of the Options Needle Set is to avoid buying more needles every time I start a new project, I figured it was about time to learn the magic loop method so that I can use larger needles even when the circumference of what I am making is small. And, again, it was easy! I googled it, and found some very helpful information here about how to magic loop my way to success....

Well, actually I'll let you tell me if you think my endeavors were successful. What do you think?

(I just love the way this thing swirls around to its apex, but it felt like it took a bazillion tries to get a good picture of the top of my own head.)

I'm afraid my gauge was a little smaller than the pattern called for, and it feels a bit tight on my head, but I didn't change it because its intended recipient has a much daintier noggin than my own. The little hat is currently on its way north, and, according to the post office employee, it will arrive in time for a special someone to open it up on Christmas. I hope she likes it.

Good times, good times

2006-12-20T11:28:00.000-08:00

Nothing like a little holiday bowling with friends. So festive. It was only the second time Dan has ever bowled.

And of course there was festive holiday knitting taking place at the bowling ally. Tee-hee. Very good times indeed.

Holly, who was also knitting, has really improved her technique since the other time we bowled together. She has this amazing way of walking up to the lane and dropping her ball (THUD!) just so. Then it slowly glide/floats to the pins. "Very Zen," Dan commented, and I agree. She almost beat Shane (who's technique includes a very charming hop as he approaches the lane) in our second game of the evening.

But wait. What's that next to the bowling shoes?

Could it be an almost finished Odessa? Why, yes it is!

2006-12-19T22:51:00.000-08:00

Happy Hanukkah!

Many little fishes

2006-12-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

Well, I started the tessellating fish blanket many months ago, and it still isn't finished. Ack! My goal was to have it done by now. I originally saw the pattern floating the blogosphere last year, and I really liked the concept of knitting a blanket of little tessellating fish. The concept tickled my nerdy little heart, reminding me of a childhood love of M. C. Escher paintings and Square One TV. Then the pattern disappeared off the web for a while, and I was afraid that my fish knitting schemes were foiled. When a friend rediscovered a slightly altered version, I immediately snatched it up and started knitting last June.

Fish were my primary knitting all summer. They came with me to Israel in July, although I didn't get much knitting done while I was studying at Tel Aviv University, but in August and September I was a fish knitting machine. After I rounded the corner of 200 fishes in October, I figured I had enough to make the blanket, and the project stalled. Of course there were several reasons for my fish lull: 1) school started in full force, with all its stresses and demands on my time; 2) finishing (such as blocking, sewing edges, or hiding ends) is my least favorite part of knitting; and 3) I craved other projects. Thus, November was all about knitting scarves—not sewing fishes.

Last week I took my giant bag o' finished fishes over to visit Erin, and I arranged them on her floor to see what pattern would be best for sewing them up. Then, a bevy of new stumbling blocks appeared, and the fish didn't want play together nicely. Instead, the orange fishes, which I originally knit up in order to "brighten" the blanket, jarringly refused to mix with the other colors. Then, the fact that I didn't have the exact same number of all the fishes became an issue. If I want to have an even and consistent pattern, I will have to leave out several fishes and/or knit MORE fishes.

The present fishy breakdown goes something like this:

17 dark red
22 red
22 pink
21 light grey
19 dark grey
22 blue
19 dark blue
21 dark green
21 green
22 light green
(I might use one orange fish.)

Total = 207

But I still don't know how many fishies it will take!

The Day Grades Were Due: a portrait

2006-12-13T16:00:00.000-08:00

Rain, rain, rain.

Grade, grade, grade.

Knit, knit, knit.

Sleep, sleep, sleep.

(no picture available)

Next time: How many fishies does it take?

Best scarf ever!

2006-12-11T12:24:00.000-08:00

I remember the day my father showed me his musical saw. I was probably around 7, sitting on the couch in the living room next to my dad as he waxed poetic on the wonders of the "singing saw." I think my mother was also there, and probably my sister. But mostly I remember my dad, happily telling me how lumberjacks and folk musicians play their saws, and he played his saw a bit (I think it had a painting on the side of trees), and then he played a tape to show us what an experienced musical saw player sounds like. As I remember it, the sound was a serene warbling gently floating along the tune. I wasn't supposed to play the saw myself, because I was too little and might hurt myself or the saw, but, at the time, I really wanted to. It looked like the most wonderful, exotic, exciting musical instrument ever! Imagine: that dreamy, ethereal sound came from a saw!

The first time I came to Santa Cruz, I saw this statue of Tom Scribner and immediately remembered my father's infectious excitement 20 years ago about his musical saw. I'm sure it's been at least 15 years since I saw the instrument, and my father has moved on to other interests—including mason bees, flower frogs, taekwondo, and kettlebells—but the statue still awakens a warm sense of childhood awe. According to the plaque at the base of the statue, Tom Scribner was a lumberjack, writer, political activist, musician, editor, and humorist. I'm betting he was a fabulous Wobbly. (You can click any of the pictures in this post to see them bigger.)

And so, I hope this new "Best Scarf Ever" will also kindle happy, proud thoughts later on, after I have produced other scarfly loves. Its simple and beautiful "mistake rib" stitch pattern, its lovely soft yarn from scraps and leftovers, its ordered (yet) random two row stripes—all of it adds up to WONDERFUL! Like the singing saw, it may not be my favorite later, but it certainly is today, and it will always be special. Hopefully, a certain silly sister will agree.

Caught in the act

2006-12-05T12:28:00.000-08:00

I have no problem knitting in public. But, though I've maintained this blog for just over 6 months, I'm still not quite accustomed to photographing my knitting in public. My cave-like apartment is not ideal for taking attractive pictures, and, because of this, I'm often driven into the streets in search of adequate lighting.

There is a certain polite, vaguely confused smile I see when strangers notice what I'm doing. If you photograph yarn, I'm sure you're also familiar with that particular look in a person's eye when you catch them watching you. It says: "Maybe if I smile this weirdo nut won't be threatened."

Anyway, my life is very busy right now (end of the quarter = avalanche of grading), and my work yesterday demanded multitasking. Thus, as I walked out of the bank, I realized that the light was good and the cement had a nice pebbly texture that would probably make a nice backdrop for photographing my new yarn. After furtively glancing around, I decided the sidewalk near my car was sufficiently distanced from the bank, and I could probably get away with snapping some pictures without drawing too much attention to myself. Pulling yarn and camera out of my car, I quickly set about my business.

There I was, squatting to take a few fast shots, when a woman walked directly up to me. I tried to look small.

"Did you just buy that yarn?" she asked.

"Oh, recently," I answered.

"It's very pretty. Nice colors."

"Yah, I like it."

She then proceeded to ask me where I got it, fondle it a little, note the fiber content, and wish me a nice afternoon.

I was left thinking: wow, we really are everywhere.

By the way, I decided to make my new acquisition into this popular pattern. Clap if you think it's a good plan.

Help?

2006-12-02T11:52:00.000-08:00

Ack! Blogger is all confusing! I upgraded to the newer version of Blogger, and now I can't tell how to upload pictures. It's very annoying because—let's be honest here—the pictures are key to any knitting blog. I'm sure some people read what I write, but I know for a fact that others just skim the pictures and move on. What will I do?

If anyone knows about how to upload pictures in the new "Beta" version of Blogger, will you please help me? I have pretty new yarn and knitting progress to show... I will post more cute pictures of my fuzzy cat if it will help...

Anyone?

Edited to add on 12/3/06:

Well, I finally had a few minutes to figure out the problem. I talked to a friend who also updated her Blogger account, and she was not having the same issue that I was. I searched through the Blogger help files and found one reference from September where they said that some users were unable upload pictures because of a separate "fix" they made to the program. The solution was to delete all of my temporary Internet files. Yay! I'll post some new stuff later today, after I fulfill an appropriate requisite of grading, reading, and being responsible.

Signs of the Season

2006-11-25T09:56:00.000-08:00

With blue skies shining, how can I tell that it's winter on the CA cost? Well I spied a few signs of the season that I can share with you. First, Niko grew her winter coat and is now fantastically fuzzy.

Second, Dan is also working on his winter fur.

Third, my scarf saga has reached closure. Behold my NEW alpaca scarf.

It's a simple scarf, made with knit 2 purl 2 ribbing in a symmetrical stripe pattern that I like. The yarn is Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande. I've used this yarn for several projects, and I always enjoy knitting with it. It sheds a bit, and the finished project can be a bit fuzzy, but I love it for hats and scarves because it feels soft and cozy. Plus, I enjoy these colors tremendously.

Now my hat has a mate again, and I am wearing both almost every evening when I'm out and about with the ocean chill in the air.

Too busy

2006-11-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

I don't have time to post, but I have been knitting. Look what I've been making out of those yarn scraps I showed you on the rock.

Purrdy colors. Oh, and the sunsets have been amazing recently. I took this shot from the middle of a parking lot because I couldn't stand not documenting the moment.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is celebrating. And to my family, you know I love you and my thoughts are with you. Always.

A Finished 21st Birthday Scarf

2006-11-16T21:56:00.000-08:00

A happy scarf for a happy birthday present:

I made this scarf using a half ounce of Habu silk mohair blend, and it's super soft. The recipient helped me pick the yarn, and she requested something simple but light and a little lacy. I knew, in theory, that knitting every row in a skinny mohair on larger needles (I went with US size 9) would create an open almost lacy effect, but I'd never done it before. Personally, I'm really happy with the results. I just hope the Birthday Girl is also pleased.

Below is a picture I took of the scarf when it was about half way done. As you can see, I used the new Knit Picks Options Needles, and I really liked them. They arrived, as a late birthday present from my father, on the day I was ready to cast on. Clearly, I was fated to use them because they even matched the yarn!

Knitting it went by in a flash, but I procrastinated a bit with the blocking. Really, I'm not super experienced when it comes to blocking my knitting, but I've read so many places about the benefits of blocking, particularly anything lacey, that I decide to make an attempt in the hopes that it opens, evens, and lengthens the scarf. But, as you can see, I haven't yet perfected my blocking setup.

Dan joked that I'd made a runway for the cat. Luckily, she stayed away from it after the first time I chased her off. Most of it was pinned to a towel on the kitchen table, but it was a little too long, so I tied one end to a chair. Dan observed that the process looks like I put my knitting on the rack. What do you think?

I know it's not the ideal way to block a scarf, but, if anything, it's a little cleaner and fresher now that it bathed and straightened up for the party tomorrow night. I'll try to get one final shot of the Birthday Girl in her clean new scarf to add to the blog this weekend.

Edited to add: Here's a picture of the Birthday Girl backdropped by a ridiculous amount of booze for her 21st. She seemed happy with the scarf, and wore it until she got worried about the possibility of an encounter between the scarf and the earlier mentioned booze.

Scarf Saga

2006-11-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

Two years ago, my wonderful sister sent me a lovely bunch of soft, bulky alpaca yarn for my birthday. It was love at first sight, reigniting my knitting passion, something that had smoldered with lingering projects and little attention through my first year of graduate school. I immediately cast on for a new scarf. When I ran out of two of the colors before finishing my project, my sister was a great sport. She quickly mailed more of the required colors in the matching dye lot. When it was done, I loved my scarf.

Eventually I made a matching hat. For some reason, I had sharp pangs of desire for a hat with earflaps. I played with designs for a while, eventually making something up that I was happy with. I felt quite cozy and styling with my matching alpaca hat and scarf.

Then, last spring, tragedy struck: I left my scarf on the bus. I knew immediately and turned back, but the accordion door was already shut and the bus moved on. After many calls to the bus station and several visits to their lost and found, it was clear: a stranger had my scarf.

What to do? After a period of anger—at myself and the scarf thief—I decided that the only course of action left to me was to find more of the yarn, and to make another scarf. I mean, really—the hat simply wouldn't look so snappy without its mate. Now, that mission is almost complete.

In this picture you can see the two scarves I knit during the past week. One is a delicate silk and mohair scarf for a friend, and the other is my NEW scarf. Both need a little more attention before they are complete (ends to hide and blocking to be done), but I'm really happy with both. I'll post another picture of each when they're completely finished. In the mean time, I have a bunch of bits and partial skeins left of the alpaca yarn. I think another scarf, perhaps for a very nice sister, is in order.

My Recipe for a Fun Section Meeting

2006-11-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

This started as a response to one of my fellow gradstudents when she displayed frustration with her students after they were unresponsive in an early morning section meeting. First I told her to make them dance and sing. Then I wrote this, but it became too long to just be a comment on her blog, so I decided it can be a post on mine.

OK. Here's a real suggestion for sections:

When students come in, tell them that they need to do a little writing and that you will collect it at the end of class (sometimes I use these to take role). Write instructions on the board:

Spend 4-5 minutes brainstorming themes from the readings.
Write down 3 "significant" or "memorable" details from the reading (with page references or quotes).
Then I usually end it with one more definition type question that relates to something they SHOULD know at this point, but many are still confused about (for example, in my Russian History class: "What's the difference between a peasant and a serf?").

After giving them enough time to do this stuff (I love watching them writing and thinking), make them share their themes as a big group. Write them on the board. If their really reluctant to share, make them go in a circle. Then make them get in small groups to share their details from the readings and talk about how they relate to the themes on the board. After they've had time to share, make each group report on what they talked about (Encourage them during this point with statements like: Did you come-up with similar details from the text? If not, were they related to similar themes? etc, etc.) Encourage other groups to ask questions of the group that is presenting. Then, after all groups have shared, make some nice transition statements to move them to the last question they had to write about. Make them turn to the person next to them and share their answers. Then, after they shared, ask them what the answer is. After they figure it out as a group, ask them why this is an important issue...

Then class time is probably up.

As you can imagine, there are many possible variations on this recipe for a section meeting.

.............

Oy, why did I write this? Now someone else has to tell me how to concentrate and be productive when I'm supposed to be reading student papers.

As for knitting, I'm done knitting both scarves, and now each just needs a little finishing so that they can be pretty. Pictures and finished object posts to come.

SCARF MADNESS

2006-11-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

My little California beach town has very mild weather. The summers are sunny, but not hot. The winters are wet, but not freezing. Overall, mild. Yet, I insist that it has good scarf weather.

As a child of the North West, I am a devout follower of the layering school of dressing. Will it rain all day? Is that morning grey deceiving? Will we have sunshine, winds, or rainbows? Or maybe, all of the above? Here in costal central California, my heavy wool layers are not necessary, but my scarf is a must. Observe, for example, Halloween.

This town has Halloween festivities at least 20 times larger and more raucous than any other place I've lived. About half the population of the city converges on a one mile stretch of downtown. And although many of the revelers are scantily clad, don't let looks be deceiving: even here, nights are quite cold in late October.

This guy, and others dressed like him, must have been freezing. Me? I was fine—I wore a scarf.

Perhaps in reaction to witnessing all that shivering on Halloween, I have gone completely SCARF MAD. After less than a week, I have almost finished knitting two scarves, and I have plans to knit at least one more ASAP.

I took this picture yesterday at knitting group. More knitting progress has taken place since then.

Say it with me: "WE LOVE SCARVES!"

Favorites

2006-10-29T11:30:00.000-08:00

The always charming creator of Friknits is soliciting fellow knitters to share their favorite finished objects. Upon reading her post I immediately wanted to join the fun, but I don't have pictures of many FOs on my blog. In fact, there's only one, and it was back in June. I guess that's what I get for knitting a blanket...

Anyway, I've never been good at ranking favorites. As a small child I remember being nervous if I had a favorite stuffed animal (what if it hurt the other animals' feelings?). Even now I abhor surveys where I have to rate things by numbers (How do you feel? 1-10), and I don't really believe in grading (even though I've been responsible for determining my students' grades for the past 3 years). It's not that I don't think some things are better than others; it's that people often don't discuss what characteristics they ascribe the most value to. Thus I want to clarify how I chose my "favorite." Was it be based on the yarn or pattern? Or, perhaps the utility or attractiveness of the finished item? Hmmm.

Here are the criteria for my "favorite":

1) difficulty of project and effort invested;
2) how much I learned while making it;
3) pride in finished results.

Without further ado:

I made this baby sweater and matching tam using a pattern from an old issue of Interweave Knits. My family sent pictures last winter after my little niece grew big enough to wear the outfit her aunt sent. I love these pictures (so cute!), but you can't see the sweater design too well. It crosses over in front and buttons on top of the shoulders. Plus, the pattern uses plain stockinet, ribbing, and seed stitch.

In one picture she looks like she's about to take a bite out of the hippo. It makes me smile. The ability to make people smile should also be on my list....

Ack!

2006-10-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

I am discouraged and weary. Is there something wrong with me? Yesterday I was told that I haven't been doing enough when I comment on student papers.... It made me cry. I just don't know how I can do more.

No knitting to show you. I did finish seaming the baby sweater, but I didn't block it. Should I? Does it matter? Personally, I'm not sure.

OK. Time for some inspiration. This is Corrie:

I took the picture during knitting group a couple weeks ago. See the sweater she is wearing? She made it almost entirely using a pair of chopsticks. Yah, chopsticks. And the yarn for the sweater? Well, she got that from recycling a thrift store sweater. Inventive, creative, and resourceful--that's Corrie. Plus, she's completely humble about the whole thing. She said she made the sweater a few years ago when she was completely broke and desperate to knit.

See? Amazing things are completely possible.

Back to work.

The way of Yarn

2006-10-20T22:09:00.000-07:00

I just want to point out that there are many people more obsessed than I am....

I saw this car as I was leaving my favorite coffee shop, and I couldn't help but snap a picture. I'm hoping the yarn-loving car owner doesn't mind that I'm posting this online.

As for my knitting, I am an awful procrastinator when it comes to the non-knitting finishing elements of projects. The baby sweater is still waiting for a bit of attention, and I just realized this morning that the fishes are almost done. . . . which means that soon I will have hours and hours of sewing and HUNDREDS of ends to hide (And, no, I am not exaggerating when I say "HUNDREDS". I will have over 200 fishes, each with two ends, plus any ends created in the sewing-up process. (Though, I have been imagining using fish ends to sew with, which might head off more end creation, but at the moment this is all purely theoretical.)).

An end hiding party is clearly in order. Anyone game? Perhaps we can watch Project Runway on DVD and drink tea?

Ends! You cannot defeat me! I WILL PREVAIL!

Socktoberfest, here I come!

2006-10-15T10:38:00.000-07:00

The wind is blowing, the leaves are changing, and October is half over. Thus, Socktoberfest is also at its midpoint, and I have yet to make an entry about the festival of socks going on in knit-blog-land. Basically, as explained by Lolly, the sock party organizer, it's a month long celebration of sock knitting. Writing about Socktoberfest means revealing my sordid sock knitting past. Lucky for you, it's not a long history.

I am one of over 1800 participants in this year's Socktober festivities. Many of the participants are avid sock knitters, skilled in their craft and with fantastic socks flying off their needles. Me? Well, I'm not that much of a sock knitting girl. So far I only have one finished sock to my credit. But to my defense: it is a lace patterned knee-high. Sadly, it wants to fall down, and I am having a hard time bringing myself to finish its match. Unfaithfully, last spring I turned to a new sock project for solace:

Where did I get the pattern? Well, I wanted to try the toe-up method, so I used the tutorial on Knitty. Creating the toe was an exciting process, and then I started zipping around and around the foot. Unfortunately, I don't know how to make the heel from this direction. So I turned to my only book about knitting socks, Cat Bordi's Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles. But there still remains one problem: I am using double pointed needles, not two circulars.

I know that experienced sock knitters can make conversions between sock patterns in their sleep, but I am not yet a member of that happy club. Sadly, the little purple sock, with its neat little rows of stitches, sat without attention or progress for the summer.

Happy for me, Socktoberfest is the perfect time to pickup my neglected sock. It is now getting the attention it deserves, and, maybe, I'll have another finished sock to be proud of by the end of the month. If only the two matched....

Oh, and I have a sweet new t-shirt, thanks to my fabulous sister. Other "knotty knitters" can purchase their own here.

Surprise

2006-10-11T11:03:00.000-07:00

The scene last night:

It is evening, around 9:00. Dan and Amanda have just finished eating dinner and are resting for a few minutes before Amanda will go out and work some more. Both show signs of fatigue. There is a loud knock at the door. Dan and Amanda are briefly startled by the unexpected sound They exchange looks, and Amanda goes to reveal the identity of their nighttime visitor. She peeks through the window and then smiles as she quickly opens the door.

"It's Erin!" she announces with excitement.

----------------------

Erin is the fastest knitter I know and, most importantly, my dear friend. In fact, we met entirely through knitting. Over a year ago, I spent much of my summer indexing a book. One day I was working at a table outside a cafe (and a yarn store), and I saw a group of young people knitting and crocheting. When I was ready for a little break from indexing, I went over to the group to say hello. Erin immediately asked if I knit and invited me to join her group. The rest is, as they say, history. I became Erin's most loyal knitting group attendee, and we became good friends.

Currently, Erin is so busy that she doesn't come to knitting group, and I have sort of inherited its leadership. Not only does she have a fulltime job fighting mortgage fraud, she decided to go back to school for her MBA, and she is working at the CA Renaissance Fair on the weekends. She is amazingly driven, but no longer can make it to knitting on the weekends. I miss her, and was really happy to see her last night, if only for a few minutes. She stopped by to present me with a thoughtful birthday gift, which she hadn't had time to give to me on my birthday: a beaded necklace that she made herself.

Thank you, sweetie!

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Erin for something else: this blog. You see, Erin inspired this blog. I became interested in writing a knitting blog after seeing hers. Although she is currently too busy to knit much (and thus there aren't many new entries), Erin's blog is a wonderful record of her creativity and productivity. Plus, when I expressed interest in starting my own knitting blog, she was full of encouragement and support (as she has been with all of my knitting adventures).

So Erin, thanks for everything. And remember: I'll keep the knitting group going, but I look forward to you coming back someday. Plus, you know you can always call me if you want a friend to knit with, study with, or talk with.

One list and some pictures

2006-10-07T20:58:00.000-07:00

This was an action packed week, and I am about to start another. Unfortunately I don't really have time to describe it all for you, but here is a list of some of the things I learned:

I love the zoo, and I love it even more when I have a camera that allows me to take about 250 shots. (Some of my favorites are scattered through this post.)
Using a cable cast-on and elastic bind-off isn't hard and looks good.
All the baby sweaters I knit look like they could be costumes from Star Trek. (Here are shots of the front and back of my newest almost finished project. Now I just have to sew the top seam, hide ends, and try a bit of blocking.)

It doesn't matter how many times I explain something in an assignment if I am asking students to do something they haven't done before—many won't understand.
Students need clear time limits and structure for small-group work, no matter how old they are.

Responding to 20 student papers with detailed suggestions for revisions is time consuming.
Panicking doesn't help—except maybe when it wakes me up early in the morning, thus allowing an additional hour to read student papers.

It feels good to pass back 20 papers, each with personalized feedback and comments.
I love my camera.
I seem to actually enjoy teaching--even while I'm panicking.

I hope you learned something new this week too!

"Do no harm"

2006-09-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

My students turned in their first assignment: a short essay offering a "portrait" of themselves as writers. Reading them, I find myself both fascinated and frustrated. Why? Well, I am extremely interested in my students' stories—one primary purpose of the assignment is for me to get to know them—but, so far, I haven't written any comments on the papers. I am hesitant to begin.

These essays are testaments to the diversity of students' perspectives on writing. Many talk about how they like freedom in writing. They enjoy free writing and wish they had time to keep a journal. Other students lament that they lack the creativity necessary to be a "good writer" and talk about how they prefer to stick to clear formulas for essay organization and development.

My students come from different social and cultural backgrounds. Many of them are bilingual (One talks in her paper about her frustration with juggling three languages—Spanish, Chinese, and English). They are interested in all sorts of subjects and have a variety of different majors—business, biochemistry, history, film, computer science, etc... After each essay I find myself with more questions.

Through my own experience working with student writers, and my experiences as a student, I know that teachers can have a striking impact on their students' writing practices. I keep thinking about my advisor's axiom for teaching writing: "The first rule is to do no harm."

It reminds me of knitting. I originally learned out of frustration with writing during my first year in college. Knitting offered clear progress. Something tangible. Substantial. Writing seemed illusive. I never knew when I was done, and everything could always be better. I hope that my students aren't driven to learn knitting for the same reasons I was.

Happy, happy...

2006-09-26T18:29:00.000-07:00

What can I say? Here in the Birthday aftermath, things are looking pretty good: there was a lovely breakfast with lovely company; the butterflies subsided after my class (which went fine, thanks for the well-wishes); and the day ended with a festive evening of good friends, bowling, beer drinking, laughing, and delicious cake!

I even got some knitting related goodies:

Yes, that is a luxurious skein of 400 yards of soft, silky cashmere. (Oh, Holly! Thank you! You have such good taste in yarn!) The brilliant Sabrina found the beautiful embroidered bag on her recent trip to El Salvador. Although Sabrina herself doesn't enjoy the art of playing with sticks and string, she did have my knitting-obsessed ways in mind when buying the bag. (Thanks so much! It will be perfect for a knitting project and a book!)

Really, thank you to everyone who celebrated with me and made my entry into late-twenties lovely and memorable.

Of course, I am terribly silly. My exciting new camera (thanks to Dan, Niko, et al.) was in tow at the bowling ally, but I was so overwhelmed with the general revelries that I completely forgot about it until after the cake was eaten, the games were played, and my lovely friends were putting their shoes back on. Thus, no pictures. Oh well. Just imagine colorful shoes, big smiles, wacky bowling technique (2 of the players had never bowled before ever, and several of the rest of us, including myself, really have no technique to speak of), a few pitchers of beer, and a gorgeous strawberry cream cake.

One last note: goodbye dear borrowed camera. Thank you for putting all 1.3 of your mega pixels toward my bloging efforts. You are a trooper, duct tape and all.

Nerves

2006-09-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

I am very nervous/excited/eager/hesitant about Monday. What happens on Monday? Well, that is the first day of my class. When I say that the class is mine, I mean that I am the instructor... the sole instructor. Thus, I am fully responsible for the class. I am nobody's assistant. I am in charge. This is both thrilling and a bit terrifying.

I feel significant pressure, in part, because this is where my life has been leading for many years. In high school many of my teachers predicted that I would teach someday. Since then I have had copious amounts of education and worked as a tutor, workshop provider, teaching assistant, and grader/reader. Yet, Monday will be different. I feel like now is when I'll find out if this is really what am supposed to do with my life.

Breath. Think calm thoughts.

How about knitting?

Well, I keep knitting fishes, and I'm afraid that anyone reading this blog is probably getting a bit bored with the fishes and starting to wonder if I am capable of making anything else.

(An aside: I spoke with my Dad on the phone yesterday, and he suggested that a fish obsession may run in the family. He used to have an aquarium cleaning business (when he was about my age?), and my sister's first word was "ish" meaning "fish," probably because my parents sat her in front of the aquarium to entertain her when she was very little.)

Perhaps, I will wrestle up some more original knitting content by combining the two themes of this blog entry: teaching and knitting.

I have taught many people how to knit. Here is one:

This is my friend Holly at our knitting group last weekend. (You can see the entryway to my favorite LYS, the Swift Stitch, in the background.) She is working on her second project: a knit-one, purl-one ribbed scarf that she started more months ago than she cares to admit. I taught her knitting basics last fall, and she quickly knit up a very pretty garter rib scarf. Unfortunately, her knitting was stalled when she cut off the tip of one of her fingers at work. Now, she has healed and returned to the project. I predict that she will be done knitting the scarf very soon.

I'm happy to teach anyone to knit who shows an interest. I've shown random women at parties. My 11-year-old brother picked it up from me in a snap (Cody is 12 now and leaves very sweet little comments on this blog). I taught one of my favorite baristas. I've shown classmates and coworkers. A couple of times I've helped students who approached me after class with knitting questions instead of history questions.

Maybe I should just breakout the yarn on Monday. Our first class could be a little knitting party. It will be my Birthday.

My name is Amanda, and I am a fish addict.

2006-09-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

Behold the wonder that is 131 fishes!!! And yet, I must make more, MORE!!!

All I knit is fishes. The baby sweater stalled when I got my big new bag of fishy yarn. At this point I am so familiar with the pattern that fish just spring from my hands. I like to stack them up when I finish several of the same color. Dan caught me petting them. It's definitely addiction.

Happy Birthdays!

2006-09-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

The many birthdays in my family this week make me think about all of the wonderful things there are to celebrate at each point in a person's life. Happy Birthday to:

My funny Apple Jack who turned 80 on Sunday!
My dear husband who is 34 today!
My sweet niece who will be 1 on Saturday!

Dan and I both found this little guy too cute to pass up, and we sent him as part of our package to little Katie.

What else am I celebrating?

A giant bag of yarn for me to knit into many, many little fishes! It's almost enough to make me forget that school starts next week, but not quite.

Cameras are (not) quitters!

2006-09-07T17:31:00.000-07:00

Today I have sad news: The digital camera I am borrowing has quit cooperating.

I also have good news: I ordered myself a new camera for my very own! (Of course, I will happily share with Dan, but I am the most excited about it.)

Thus, it looks like this may be a pictureless blog for a few weeks (I didn't pay for extra quick shipping, so it may take a while for the camera to arrive)--unless, perchance, the camera decides to be friendly again, but I am skeptical. Apparently it can sense that it has been rejected because it stopped working right after I ordered the new camera. Thus, here I am with no ability to show you the little project I have been working on instead of fishes.

But wait... what's this?

The camera mysteriously took a picture when I was trying to demonstrate how it isn't working.... Apparently it's just trying to be contrary.

Yay! You do get to see my progress on the baby sweater! I am using the yarn I showed you a few weeks ago. Despite actually being the yarn called for in the pattern (a rare occurrence), I've been having gauge issues. I'm hoping that the final product will fit the newborn sweetie. The sweater's design is rather interesting: it's knit in one piece from side to side, the sleeves are picked up and knit, and then the garment is seamed across the top of the arms and shoulders. The whole thing is closed with a tie, a kind of variation on a kimono.

Soon I will buy more fish yarn--it's on sale. Fishy, fishy, fishy.

Knitting with Dan and Conan

2006-09-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

This week Dan and I celebrated the seventh anniversary of our first kiss. We have been together for seven years... that's over one fourth of my life! What did we do on the day itself? Well, not much because Dan worked all day, and then I went on an evening odyssey to pick up my friend Kelly and her husband from the San Francisco Airport. So really, we spent little of the day together. We did, however enjoy a pleasant lunch with Conan of Cimmeria.

Dan and I try to have lunch together whenever possible. Normally this means that I pick him up from the hardware store where he works, and then we sit in the car next to the park or beach and eat whatever we have for lunch that day. After eating, we often read to each other. When he reads, I knit.

While Conan, with his barbarian ways, is a violent and ruthless icon for masculinity, reading Robert E. Howard's stories is very entertaining. (Dan and I both agree that the stories actually written by Howard are the best.) He depicts Conan's bloody, swashbuckling adventures very cinemagraphicly, and with a philosophical sensibility which takes you by surprise. While Howard's representations of women and "the races" make me cringe occasionally, they are a reflection of the racism and sexism of 1930s United States (and the 1960s when Howard's stories gained popularity), just as Conan's brutality is a reflection of the world he lives in.

Anyway, knitting with Dan and Conan gives me something to look forward to on workdays, and I look forward to many more years of knitting and reading with my sweetie!

Grey skies

2006-08-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

Last night a random woman at the grocery store said I "look smart" and asked me how to spell the name of the town just east of where I live. I answered, but I don't know if I was right because I have a terrible weakness: a spelling deficiency.

Those of you who know me realize that I am not exaggerating when I say that I really do have terrible spelling problems, problems that are sometimes incongruous with other elements of my life. For example, before returning to school to pursue my PhD, I worked at a writing center for five years--that's correct, a girl who can't spell her way out of a paper bag helped college students refine their writing for five years. As a teaching assistant, my current source of financial support, my students correct my spelling on a regular basis. I have become very dependent on various "spell-check" devices, and I rarely have confidence in my ability to spot the difference between correctly and incorrectly spelled words.

Thus, today when beginning my blog, I didn't know if my title should be "Grey skies" or "Gray skies." Entering both into my word processing program didn't clarify the situation because both spell something, and the thesaurus function in my computer was also unhelpful. The entire time I had a hunch that "gray" is correct as a color, and "grey" is used in other situations such as "greyhound," etc. Yet, I needed to find confirmation.

After a bit of hunting, I made a discovery. According to Wikipedia's entry on variations in American and English spelling, the correct American way to spell the humble color follows my earlier hunch—gray. But, it is acceptable to follow the British spelling when one wants to attribute a positive aspect to the color, instead of dwelling on dull or negative connotations associated with "grayness."

And, although it is overcast at the beach today, I do not find it dull or depressing. I think it is lovely. As a child of the pacific northwest, I find grey skies homey and rather pleasant. Life would get boring if the sky were always blue. (Plus, when the skies are grey, there are less tourists crowding my little town.)

I want to proudly point out that I have 11 colors of fish at this point in my blanket (not all are in the picture below). Two of those colors are grey, and I like them. Grey fishes, and skies, are a source of joy in my life.

Red fish, blue fish, old fish, new fish

2006-08-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

All I knit is fish. I have several really interesting projects waiting for some attention, but all I've done this week is make approximately two fish every day. (That is, all I've done as far as knitting is concerned. The grading and writing part of my life has been really busy lately.)

At the same time, aren't they sweet and clever? Look at the clever shaping which produces the fin. And the yarn is such a good, economic choice. It's Lion Brand Wool-Ease--which means that the resulting blanket will be machine washable, and I have been using coupons to buy a few skeins from the craftstore each of the past few months.

Even Niko approves of my thrifty yarn selection! But, it's a good thing that I'm not paying too much for the yarn, because it will take a lot to finish this thing. I currently have 70 finished fish, but the sweet hubby and I both agree that I will need at least twice that number to make a decent sized blanket for an adult sized person to snuggle with on the couch. I'm trying not to think about how many ends I will have to hide when I'm done...