KnittaPrince.com

Overshadowed...

2011-10-05T21:48:00.003-05:00

In the midst of knitting up some catnip-stuffed cat toys, I take a moment to snap a few Instagram pics of the kitties playing like crazy with said cat toys. As I begin to scroll through my photo stream, I notice many of the IGers I follow have posted shots of varying styles to commemorate the death of Steve Jobs. If you don't know who that is, please throw away your iPhone and proceed to flog your self immediately with the white earbuds that came with your iPod.

Without Steve Jobs, none of us would have died of dysentery on the Oregon Trail. Apple IIe, y'all...

I bring up my Twitter client and begin scanning through the news posts, confirming what I can hardly believe. Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Jobs has left the building.

Another tidbit of news that I came across regarded one of the news media's favorite darlings, former half-term Alaska governor and ridiculously unqualified Republican Vice-Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin. Hiya, how ya doin'?

It seems she chose today to announce, once and for all, that she would not enter the race for the GOP presidential nomination, thus drawing to a close months...no, YEARS (at least 2) of speculation about 2012. Surely, there was no doubt that, even after President Obama won his first term in 2010, she certainly set her sights on the Big Chair and, for that first year or so, we all lived with the fear that maybe, just maybe, she could do it.

Then she opened her mouth and starting spouting off on a wide range of issues, becoming one of Obama's most vociferous, if slightly less informed, critics. Fox News, never one to be too concerned about "facts," in the loosest definition on that word, brought her on as a paid commentator. She resigned as Governor of Alaska halfway through her first (and only) term and, suddenly, she's raking in tens of thousands for each and every speaking engagement she can sign up for. It's all a little dubious, and that's being diplomatic.

But recently, she seems to have perfected the art of the Victim, pulling out the ol' violin anytime she's deemed the Lame Stream Media to be too harsh. She's so misunderstood, you see...always taken out of context. Following the shooting of Arizona State Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Palin was quick to mount a defense...of herself, claiming that she, too, was a victim. You see, prior to the shooting, a Sarah Palin political action committee released a map of the United States with crosshairs situated over states that had vulnerable Democratic seats. Representative Giffords was one of those crosshairs. And she had just been shot...in the head...at a public meeting. And the media was raising a collective eyebrow. But nevermind that...Sarah Palin is also always the victim.

Of course, she is...poor thing. And this is precisely why I find it so very a propos that, on the very day Sarah Palin decides to bring an end to the endless speculation, the positing of the pundits, the clamors of all the Mama Grizzlies (who shoot wolves with a shotgun...from a helicopter, because that's a fair hunt!)...on the very day when, due to this announcement, Sarah Palin's own importance in this upcoming Presidential cycle is necessarily and significantly lessened...

...that, on this day, Palin's grand announcement has been automatically and drastically overshadowed by the unfortunate passing of a great man whose singular contributions to our society and to our world are so much more than anything she could ever possibly envision on her best I-Ate-My-Wheaties-You-Betcha day.

Ms. Palin, with all due respect, get off the stage. This day is not yours.

R.I.P Steve Jobs...I love my iPod Touch.

Now, I have cat toys to knit.

The Procedure

2011-09-19T08:35:00.005-05:00

On this, the morning before I go under general anesthesia for the second time in as many weeks, I would offer these words of kindly advice to my oral surgeon's assistant, Belinda:

"Your bedside manner needs work, dear."

If you or someone you know works in a situation where you routinely administer general anesthesia to patients, never forget that for the vast majority of us, "going under" still has a definite element of fear to it, and this is coming from a dude who spent the first decade of the new millennium experiencing a bevy of chemical pleasures. Although it might be standard daily practice for you to wind plastic tubing around my head and to announce blithely, "Okay, we're going to give you a little nitrous to help calm you down," it is not standard practice for me to be knocked the fuck out. Remember, the main appeal of drugs to most people, I think, has to do with the alteration of perception, not the obliteration of it. So, with all do respect, find your empathy and always remember that the person in the chair is counting on you to be present, and not just physically so.

Luckily for me, I don't think she'll be there today and I've been told the people at St. John's Mercy are really quite adept at what they do. If the gentleman with whom I pre-registered this morning is any indication, this seems to be true. His voice was not just calm but calming and, as someone who knows a thing or two about conducting yourself on the phone, his skills therein were quite impressive and I told him so. I'm ready for The Procedure.

First, let me reveal The Discovery.

Two weeks ago, while I was having my last two wisdom teeth removed by an oral surgeon, a biopsy was done on a suspect area on the underside of my tongue. The biopsy came back showing "mild to moderate dysplacia," or a fancy description for pre-cancerous cells. As I understand it, they are pre-cancerous only in the sense that they are irregular; not in the sense that, if left unchecked, they would eventually develop into cancer. This may...or may not...happen. In any case, the course of action decided upon is to remove the offending tissue.

And that leads us to The Procedure.

This afternoon, I will again go under general anesthesia and my oral surgeon will remove tissue from the soft area under the right-side of my tongue, as a preventative measure. There's a pathologist involved, who will conduct analysis in real-time on the samples to determine if the margins are clear of irregularities. Once determined they've gotten it all, I'll be stitched up, smacked on the ass and sent home with more pain meds and a week off work to recuperate.

And yes, I am a little scared...not just for the procedure or the recuperation but really about the whole thing. Any time anything is prefaced with "pre-cancerous," you have to count on having a PR problem right out of the gate. And this is particularly poignant given the recent death of my Gram from lung cancer. It runs in my family, or, at least, my Dad's side, it seems. Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Dale, Aunt Jean, Uncle Huey...

In any case, I'm being told by the medical professionals that this is not a big deal, a little out-patient procedure, I'll be home by mid-afternoon. The refrigerator is stocked with yogurt, applesauce, pudding and cottage cheese. I also bought a dozen eggs for when more advanced food (i.e. scrambled) is permitted. And I've got enough knitting projects in the works that I should have no trouble staying occupied (and non-vocal) while I heal.

A great big thank you to Mama Mary, Daniel's mom, who has graciously offered to be my driver to and from the hospital. Also, much love and thanks to my friends and co-workers who have all offered such support. Kisses and locked pinkies to BK, who can't be here but will be in spirit.

In a sense, this is the "broken foot" all knitter's secretly hope for: that terribly unfortunate happening that keeps you in bed or, at least, around the house such that really all you can do...is knit. This week is dedicated to healing...and to making serious progress on BK's birthday "Bitterroot" (now 2 birthdays in the works)...

...and a "reglier" scarf for my lil' dude, LoLo. I may even get to finally finish "The Tudors."

Here we go...time to get cleaned up and ready to roll.

UPDATE: I'm home, in some pain though on meds. Also, as expected, I can't really talk very well. All in all, though...I'm okay. :-)

"It's going to be Ritchie..."

2011-08-14T12:50:00.005-05:00

Welcome to Seasons 6 & 7 of "The West Wing," brought to you by real life politics.

Prediction: Barring some major political derailment like a tawdry sex scandal, Rick Perry's going to nab the Republican nomination. And he'll do it for all the politically incorrect reasons.

He's a ruggedly handsome older white man, fatherly and reassuring in stature with a mild downhome accent. He's the anti-Obama, devoid of any semblance of the intellectual elitism that conservatives list as one of Obama's faults...as if being smart was a bad thing. And let's face it, racism is still alive and well and, in some backwoods areas, thriving. Can you think of a more quintessentially white man stereotype than Rick Perry? He's the fucking Marlboro Man!

Sure, there are other anti-Obama-ites in the Republican line-up, white persons one and all...well, except Herman Cain but he's already identified himself, in my eyes, as a hypocritical douchebag for his hardline stances against Islam and Sharia Law. It's always a bit shocking to me when such sincere bias comes from a member of a different minority.

Speaking of which, Rick Santorum...he's a tiny minority all his own...he's going to be the next Tim Pawlenty. Poor frothy fecal matter (Google his name.)...you're just not gettin' any political traction, are you?

Michelle Bachmann just won the Ames Straw Poll, taking in something like 23% of the vote, followed in close second by our favorite libertarian, Ron Paul. Well played, yes, but Michelle's not going to nab it, I don't think, because...well, were do I begin? She's too far Right for her own party's nomination. She lacks the executive experience. How about her pesky habit of referencing historical events out of context and saying things that are just not true. Oh, and you had better bet that this pesky "Pray Away the Gay" counseling bullshit WILL be an issue. (Marcus, honey...if you could come out sooner than later, dear...that would really help us all, don't you think, hmm?)

OH...and Ronnie! Good ol' Ron Paul. Good showing in Ames, he did...but he's not going to win the nomination, either. You know why? He's too libertarian for the whole country. Not that I would necessarily be opposed to a Libertarian President but I think the country wouldn't go for it. But then how did he do so well n the straw poll? Listen, straw polls are a lot like the first round of voting in French Presidential elections. There are so many candidates from the entire political spectrum that the People can vote their conscience. The main parties still garner the majority of votes but the smaller parties sometimes have a good showing. Not too terribly long ago, the far-right party of France, due to the general disgruntlement of all the people, was able to sneak their leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, into the second round of elections. This, of course, had the obvious effect of guaranteeing the reelection of Jacques Chirac for the simple reason that, though many people share Le Pen's extreme xenophobic-isolationist sentiments, no one would say he was fit to lead the whole damn country. So it is with Ron Paul.

Rick Perry...southern, down-home charm. A gentleman, a Man of God. Bingo! This...this is what the evangelical wing of the Republican Party was missing and waiting for with baited breath. A God-Fearing Man of the People. Sure, Bachmann is Jesus-carzy, too...but she's also just fuckin' crazy. Rick Perry seems...sane, sensible, thoughtful and compassionate. He recently led a prayer meeting called "The Response" which pulled in an estimated 30,000 participants. He wants to lead by Biblical Law...which is what makes their opposition to Sharia Law so ridiculous. But I'd bet evangelicals are having a collective Jesus-gasm...finally, someone we can get behind without the embarrassment.

You mentioned embarrassment? What about Sarah Palin? Her fuckin' balloon's got a hole in it and whether she realizes it or not, she's losin' air fast. Make up your fuckin' mind, seriously...you look like a reluctant child tip-toeing around the pool, not sure if the water's warm enough for you to swim in it. Mama bear, my ass. But, yeah, Palin's a Jesus nut, too...but, man...she's got baggage, now. She's going to be the mosquito in the Election's ear...ever-present, popping in and out with her annoying, high-pitch "you betcha-hopey-changey" buzzing, the one you're going to want to smack down before too long. I think she likes the sidelines. I think she knows she lacks the leadership abilities and, quite frankly, it's easier and safer to simply butt-in to political conversations, say a few things (which will be either dumb, factually incorrect or self-absorbed), then duck back out again. C'mon, people...she couldn't even finish out one term as Governor of Alaska. I venture to say she has very little sense of civic responsibility; had she had more, she would have fulfilled her obligation to the People of the State of Alaska. Instead, she resigned, realizing she could rake in tens of thousands of dollars just by showing up, smiling, saying more generic political slogans and platitudes, shaking hands, kissing babies and, just generally, irritating people.

But the Tea Nuts, they looooove her, which is precisely what scares me about them. They say Obama's a narcissist; I think it's the pots calling Mr. Kettle...narcissistic. And while we're talking about narcissism, let us also talk a bit about racism because (WARNING: Gross generalization not meant to be taken literally) the Tea Party has no black people. (And a silence fell across the room...) Perhaps not literally, true...but their rallies are a testament to the white bread establishment. Obama is a "black president" and there are many people, both in the general population and also in Congress, for whom this is ample and sufficient grounds for wanting him out.

Mitch McConnell, you look like Jesse Helms...that's all I'm sayin'!

It's going to be Rick Perry. It's going to be Seasons 6 and 7 of "The West Wing" all over again, when President Bartlet went up against the Republican nominee, Governor of Florida, Rob Ritchie (played excellently by James Brolin). And I don't think it's going to be as easy as trouncing the opponent in one televised debate. So I say, let Obama be Obama. Sure, I don't like everything he's done and I don't view him as a very strong leader...but the reality is that he's better than anything they're going to throw out, so...

Game on, boyfriend! Let's step it up, Mr. President!

(Or...I could just be full of shit because it's really too close to tell anything and I'm just blowing smoke outta my ears. Meh...*shrug*)

Goodbyes & Endings

2011-06-27T10:05:00.005-05:00

It's Monday morning, I have an oh-so-lovely cup of my special home brewed coffee (3tbsp Folger's French Roast, 2tbsp Folger's Vanilla Biscotti) and the rain is coming down slow and steady. I'm newly home as of last night and can say with some certainty that sleeping in your own bed is an underrated joy. What was supposed to be a 5-day romp through Chicago ended up being a whirlwind tour of the northern Midwest, some good spots, some low spots...but altogether an experience not to have been missed.

You see, my Grandma is dying. At 83 years old, they discovered metastasized lung cancer in her brain, a tumor, which by all accounts, occupies the whole left of her brain. In the course of one week, she went from being cogent, conscious and responsive to...not so much. Resting comfortably at the moment in a long-term care facility adjacent to the hospital, she's napping quite a bit these days.

Allow me to give you some context, dear readers. The woman in question, Mrs. Frances Brickner, is the person who first taught me to crochet when I was about 9 years old. I consider it to have been my gateway drug into craftiness. With some of what I'm sure must have been some truly crappy yarn, I learned how to chain and single crochet and proceeded to hook myself a square that was so tightly worked, it promptly rolled up into a fiber burrito.

While we were growing up, my sister and I had our favorite grandparents to spend weekends with. For me, it was Grandma Tammy, aka Mrs. Frances Brickner. We grandkids called them Grandma & Grandpa Tammy due to a cocker spaniel, named Tammy, they once had when we were young. Somehow, it stuck. They lived out in the country...dirt roads, corn fields...mostly I went for the craftiness. Her influence on me during my early years has, I believe, led me to become the knitter I am today.

Changes were made to the trip and I headed north, to return to my hometown. When I arrived, my sister was kind enough to come with me to the care facility. This was advantageous not only for the support but also because it had been so long since my last trip home that I no longer remembered where the hospital was. We grabbed some breakfast at the local McD's and I grabbed a cup of coffee for Grandma. Sure, I knew she wouldn't be able to drink it...but I know if I were in her position, I'd probably enjoy the smell of some fresh coffee in my room. Am I right?

Sis took up position at the foot of the bed. I pulled up a chair right up along side. I spread the Sock Yarn Blanket out over her and gently placed her hands on top of it, moving them back and a forth a bit so that she might better feel the texture. We knit four squares together that day, my Grandma and me...and I stayed for as long as I needed to, 8 hours. At the end of which I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek and I told her, "You were always my favorite."

"All good things...," right? Actually, just "all things." Everything ends, eventually, inevitably...life is a flowing river that segues from one event to another. We move, we marry, we die...people divorce, friends take jobs in faraway places, lovers come and go and sometimes stay. The whole of humanity is an undulating sea of connections in perpetual and persistent change. When the time comes, you have to be able to let go...for no one connection can last forever. A lifetime, perhaps...but not forever.

Live simply.
Be at peace.

And go call your damn grandma...right now.

Todd's Tri-Force Skull Cap

2011-06-12T10:33:00.009-05:00

My intarsia most certainly did not look fine, Peter, though I appreciate you saying so.

The mini-saga that is the Tri-Force Skull cap, a lil' project assumed at the behest of my friend Todd in Chicago. Not a problem, really...just a simple stocking cap with some comparatively simple geometrical colorwork. Though I'm not intimately familiar with all the tricks of the colorwork trade, I have done one or two clever color things in my day:

...and compared to Mario there, some little gold triangles should be a snap, I was thinking to myself. And then, when it came time to knit them into the hat, I realized where I was most short-sided: I was knitting the hat in the round, not flat. For those of you not in the know, knitting in the round in one way of constructing a three-dimensional tube of fabric, like a sock, sleeves or a hat. Normally, it works great and it's normally my preferred choice of techniques. If what you're knitting is round, knit it IN the round.

With intarsia or Fair Ilse knitting, color is added as a separate strand of yarn, twisted and looped together with the main color to pull it all into one solid piece of fabric...which is when knitting flat. The strands can be carried up to the next row as you turn your work and knit back...

But when knitting in the round, the color strand actually has to come up and ALL the way back by itself, with no options otherwise, unless you carry it all the way around the circumferance of the the hat, which would just be madness. Instead, you get a WS that looks like this:

...which doesn't work so hot because the hat needs to be stretchy to fit over someone's head and still be snug. This means those diagonal strands you see need to longer, to accommodate the stretch. Unfortunately, this also means greater risk for snags and such. So, I did the hat over a second time, this time opting to NOT knit with the color, but rather add it after the fact using duplicate stitch, a technique I heretofore thought slight of as cheating, in much the same way I think a lifeline in lace knitting a little bit of a cheat.

But as of this Sunday morning, I admit I am now a convert to the wonders of duplicate stitch. Sure, it's more needlepoint thank knitting, though you are working with your own knitted fabric AND you're following the strands as they knit themselves together...but really the clincher to the whole thing is the finished result: a smoother, flawless graphic with a much cleaner WS:

...all in all, the damn thing turned out splendidly! I'm quite please with myself at the moment...and in a couple of weekends, I'll give this to Todd and pray it fits his head.

What else? I celebrated my thirty-something birthday in May...this little bird was a gift to myself. He just looked so ready for a party, what with his little hat and everything, so I brought him home, where he promptly started hanging out with the Cylon. I told him to be careful but you just can't talk any sense into felted birthday birds these days...

In other news, I recently acquired an iPod Touch and have come to really enjoy the Instagram app, wherein you snap quick shots of stuff, apply a filter and post, not only to the online community that is Instagram (I currently have 52 followers), but I can also simutaneously post to Twitter, Facebook and Flickr! Just like Twitter sapped a little of my blogging juice away when I started it, I find Instagram has sapped some of my Twitter juice...which means actual blog posts like this one might become a rarity (as if they're not already) and I would LOVE for you to follow me elsewhere, too!

Fin me on Flickr HERE and you can find me on Twitter HERE. What will you see? Check it:

That's all for now. My parents are headed into the city. We're going to lunch and then, for my Dad's birthday, he wants to go to Trader Joe's. He's never been there, ever...

It Never Rains...

2011-04-30T09:03:00.008-05:00

...but it pours. An old saying, usually alluding to a deluge of bad time and troubles, all happening at once. Luckily, in my case, I'm using it only to indicate a ridiculous amount of activity, not necessarily and, in fact, mostly not of the undesirable persuasion. Big words, BIG words! But what do they mean?! It means there's a shit ton of stuff so sit down and here we go!

First, the super secret knit project! At the beginning of this month, the Lady Susan retired from our shared workplace after 20+ years with the company. We worked together in Customer Service for the 2 years I've been with the company. As a quilter, she and I often had crafty talks about patterns, colors, projects...

She was also my go-to gal for all things mathematical, which is to say numbers boggle my mind and she was often there to help untangle them. It's ironic, somehow, considering I partially define myself by a passionate hobby that, in all honesty, is heavily steeped in numbers. The key is that knitting is also visual, which allows me the opportunity to understand numerical concepts but without the clutter of the actual numbers. It's pure coincidence that the scarf, when finished with some occasional beading, resembles, I think, a knitted abacus. The beads weren't part of the original pattern; I just added them for class.

There was a party, many kind words, gifts of various sorts. Then, with much envy in our hearts, we sent her out into the world with nothing but oodles of free time to do anything she desires. I don't know a fellow crafter who wouldn't give have their stash and then some for that deal.

Then, it was time for a serious break. A semi-annual trip to the North would be just the thing to recharge after weeks of hellacious conditions at work, some of which led to a week's postponement of said vacation. 7 days in Michigan...drinking coffee, playing video games with a 6-year-old and knitting to my heart's content, often while watching said 6-year-old outperform me at said video games. Smart as a whip, that kid!

I was also gifted this silver and kyanite pendant, hewn by the loving hands of my oldest and dearest companion. She's a self-taught metalsmith by trade, visionary artist by nature. You can check out Willowsong Studio on Facebook or on Twitter.

On my way back home, not only did I have this lil' guy as a traveling companion...

...but I also swung through Chicago to visit an old friend. This is something I often think of doing but have never, ever followed through on until this trip. Several important events transpired during this roughly 24-hour period:

1) I acquired this cake of handspun, made by my good friend Shivian.

2)I immediately set to work incorporating it into the Sock Yarn Blanket.

3) The next morning, after a vegetarian brunch and ample walking around Boys Town, we found Loopy Yarns, a well-known Chicago yarnie den...:

4) ...which is wear I met, quite by accident, Stephen (Ravelry: sbarendt), a fellow dude knitter whose been part of my friends list for some time. It's awesome and...slightly strange...when you run into an online bud in person just by happenstance. Well, okay...we are both knitters and it was a knit shop. By the way, he's super cute...

5) I also broke my 16-month yarn fast due to a 50% off sale Loopy was having on some Koigu.

This is significant, people. Since December of 2009, I have purchased no new yarn for my stash. All included, I bought yarn only twice, both times for specific projects made at the behest of others. Imagine it, fellow knitter...no new yarn for sixteen months. Self imposed, of course, but when faced with the all too delicious temptation of 50% off Koigu, I didn't even try to resist. Fuck that! It had been 16 months, I was on vacation and c'mon...it's a frakkin' steal! Besides, the Sock Yarn Blanket needs love, too...

Finally, after 9 days of no Twitter, very little Facebook and once-per-day e-mail checks, I finally made it home, only to discover:

...a huge, honkin' box that I did not order. Coming all the way from Pennsylvania from my Twitter bud @Knitsophrenic, it was full of...

...yarn. Holy hell, it was totally stuffed with yarn! It seems Miss Kate was engaged in a little destash action of her own and, knowing how I knit kitty blankets f for local shelters, she sent me a message, asking if she could send me some yarn. Do you even have to ask twice? Of course you can! Look out, Tenth Life...kitties are going to have some new mats to curl up on this Christmas! Many thanks, Kate!!

That brings us up to speed. Currently, I'm working on a Tri-Force beanie, a project that is teaching me the horrible truth about intarsia in the round.

This is clearly going to take a few attempts to get it right. I may even opt for duplicate stitch, though it seems like cheating.

All for now. It's time for a damn nap...

Mysterious Knitting

2011-03-25T22:39:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, despite all your best intentions, things happen and you don't know why. And while you might think I'm referring to something larger in life, something more incomprehensible, something fateful or destiny-related...but I'm not. I'm talking about knitting.

I just spent the last 2 hours knitting and tinking, knitting and tinking, knitting and tinking the same inch-and-a-half of fabric, over and over again. Why? Because there was a problem. Specifically, a missing stitch. Not a dropped stitch...a missing stitch. And not several...just one. I was off by one, single, lonely, bastard stitch...but I couldn't figure out where or why.

It's the super secret project. It's due in a week at the end of this month. And it's lace. Lace is a beautiful, delicate and intricate weaving-webbing thing based entirely upon numbers, patterns and visual rhythms. You start with a certain number of stitches and you end with a certain number of stitches. Everything that happens in between is only numeric poetry, conducted by deft and nimble fingers.

And because I'm a dude knitter, living on the edge of the knit world, a rebel, a loner...dare I say even, *gasp*, a dangerous knitter...I knit without lifelines. Lifelines keep a knitter from completely losing their frakkin' mind when a lace pattern has gone totally, terribly awry. They allow one to unceremoniously remove the errant needle and haphazardly tear out the offending stitches until peace and order has been re-established...at the base of the lifeline. Screw lifelines, I say. It's knitting, for crying out loud...how many ways to we have to liven it up a bit?

So, as you can imagine, I was so very tempted to rue my fate this evening when, to much perplexity and wonderment, I found myself several stitches into a row, yet missing a stitch. I knew instantly I was missing a stitch because I was slated for a SSK...but I lacked an S. At first, I considered just doing an SK, though that looked cheap and tawdry. Well, okay...not tawdry but most definitely cheap. And cheating. No cheating allowed.

I take a moment's reflection, then begin tinking back to the beginning of the row. I read my stitches, following the pattern in head bit by bit and arrive at the end of the row utterly convinced that all the stitches are there. I start out again, only to arrive at the same place with the same problem: one damn missing stitch.

Next, I tink back not only to the beginning of the row but also the prior all-purl row. All purl WS rows are great for lace. I call the equalizing rows, as the serve to set up uniformity and regularity in the stitches for the next complicated shaping row.

So, now 2 rows tinked and back to a shaping RS row. I count the stitches...53, right on the mark. I read the stitches and follow the pattern. All present and accounted for. Excellent! I redo the all purl WS row, turn my work and start in again...and discover one missing stitch.

...

At this point, conspiracy theories begin to form in my brain as to how everything can check out, yet still I fall short one stitch in the same place every single time. Tink, tink, tink...3 rows out, then 4. Count stitches...53...run through pattern, a-ok. I consider handing my knitting to my friend, Daniel, and having him count to verify but I can't take a negative hit to my massive PR machine, so I don't.

I take a deep breath. All systems go, sir. We should be ready for take-off. Alright...here we go. Slowly, like a newbie knitter, I work stitches as though I were in the midst of a walking Buddhist meditation. K2, ssk, 2yo, k2tog, yo, k3, ssk...it repeats, and repeats. I arrive at the end of row successful. WS all purl row...also checks out.

Fast forward 10 minutes and I'm back to where this story started, only this time...no missing stitch. So...where did it go, or, rather, where did it come from. Obviously, the logical and rational explanation lies in my own handiwork and my working of the stitches. But I think the mystery of the situation is more fun to contemplate, so I chalk it up to an intellectual exercise and secretly thank whatever gods may be listening that I didn't completely frak up the super secret project.

And I'm still not going to use lifelines. You only live once...make it count.

Young Christian Soldier

2011-03-17T19:38:00.003-05:00

...is one thing I am most resoundingly not.

True story:

I walk into my gym tonight and go downstairs to the locker room to change for my workout ('cuz being this beautiful is really, really hard). When I walk in, there are already two guys there: one shirtless, younger; the other in nothing but a jock, older, maybe in his late 40s. The young guy is just mentioning that his middle name is Michael. I don't know why...now hush!

"Oh yeah," says the older guy. "I've got a story about Michael that'll flip your lid, man."

"Huh?" The younger guys furrows his brow, clearly not understanding.

"Yeah, Michael...you know, the archangel? Yeah, man...check this! When I was just a young Christian soldier, I was partying one weekend in Salem, Missouri and one night I went down to the river and I challenged all the demons. I challenged all the demons and spirits in Salem, Missouri. I said, 'C'mon then!'

"And man, suddenly, I felt weighed down and I hard a hard time breathing. Oh, man...it was intense! I was choking and could barely speak but I eeked out, 'Call Michael...call...Michael!' and BAM! It was over...just like that. I tell you what...man, that Michael...he's something else, huh?"

The younger guy, all the while the story is being told, is collecting his things and getting dressed. Whether he purposefully timed it or maybe it was a matter of luck and happenstance, but he was ready to go by the time the older guy had finished.

"Wow, that's crazy, man. Well...have a good workout!" and he split.

The older guy and I conducted ourselves in silence for a couple of minutes, all the while I'm thinking one overpowering thought. It wasn't that he was crazy or that he had probably been on drugs at the time (...okay, there was that, too...) but the one, overriding thought that I almost...almost vocalized was:

"What the hell made you think you could take on all the demons and spirits in Salem, Missouri?"

And there you have it. True story.

Because no matter your faith or lack thereof, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Pagan, Indefinite Spirituality With No Definite God Or Goddess Figure (or just Other)...I think we can all agree that challenging all the demons and spirits in any one location is probably, decidedly not a great idea.

Though, apparently, if you're a young, Christian soldier, you can call on Michael the Archangel to help you. No guarantee he'll show, though. Best probably to avoid spirit challenges altogether...unless you're a professional skilled in this sort of work, of course. In these tough economic times, I wouldn't want to be viewed as a "job-crusher." (Boehner, I'm looking at you, you Cheetos douchebag.)

Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?

2011-03-12T09:28:00.005-06:00

That famous line was lifted straight away from 1986's "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," starring a very cute and precocious Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara and Alan Ruck. The latter appeared just last night on the newest episode of "Fringe," only one of the best television shows going right now. If you haven't seen enough to be hooked, then you really haven't lived. In any case, the famous line was uttered by the dry and humorless teacher played by Ben Stein, who, though a great character actor due to his signature deadpan delivery, is also a super-conservative douche who champions the teaching of Creationism (or are we calling it Intelligent Design now?) in our classrooms. Ludicrous, I tell you...

Intelligent Design is the academic equivalent to a massive shrug of our collective shoulders and resounding, collective "Idunno."

I'm sure I'm over-simplifying the whole thing (but probably not), but it's essentially the idea that the universe, our planet and, well, everything is just so complex that it could only have been "designed" by a Divine Hand. Really? That's your explanation for everything?! It not only sounds like the ultimate cop-out to brush away anything we don't already know about our world but, at its core, I think it's just plain lazy.

In any case, I've been on a sort of sabbatical but, as you can see, not much has changed in terms of my political thoughts. I know I started a separate blog for political stuff but sometimes, you know...I just sit down and start writing and what I get is what I go, so go with it, will ya? The line from "Ferris Bueller..." just popped into my head as I came to realize that I've been absent from these pages for about 4 months. What the frak, dude?! Where ya been, huh?

Well, I've had an "atypical lung infection," which happened right after a weekend business trip to Montreal at the end of February. Before that, there were some other medical issues unfolding in the family unit that require a modicum of attention. I love that word: modicum. Truthfully, though, the main reason for no bloggy-bloggy was simply that I was working on one project and one alone: 'Ber's Baby Blanket. You don't have to go back very far to find the blog posts in question (or for a satisfactory synopsis). Suffice to say, it has been completed:

The irony of all ironies, however, was that 'Ber was totally for sure this embryonic life form would result in a little girl. THe nursery was designed around this, from the wallpaper to the color scheme...which, of course, dictated the colors for the blanket, as well.

It was meant to be the coordinating piece de resistance! Alas, the universe, the powers that be, hell...maybe even Jesus himself, has other plans and 'Ber gave birth to her fourth son. As far as I'm concerned, the blanket is his. After all, I made the blanket for the baby in her belly...I gave no though to its sex or gender. However, from what I'm being told, many of the items that were intended for the little girl are being placed in a box and saved for her eventual arrival in the future. I'm okay with that, too.

There was also a quickie birthday chullo for my bff, Daniel:

Friday nights have become out "Fringe" nights, which is way better than its former Thursday time slot which meant I had to miss Knit Night on those evenings when I had to choose between a newly minted episode or a riotous evening with the girls. I love my ladies, this is true...but "Fringe" nights are serious bro-time, so a balance had to be struck. No more, though...no, sir.

Currently, I'm working on a super-secret project for a very special something coming up at the end of the month. I'll have pictures and the accompanying story then. No more 4-month absences, I promise.

Knighthood

2010-11-14T10:03:00.008-06:00

I'm officially a prince and a knight, as the above envelope clearly indicates. It's good to be me...

It's a beautiful Sunday morning and, although I secretly resent Sundays simply because they're the end of the weekend, I find them to be wonderfully suited for certain things like napping, knitting and enjoying an entire pot of coffee. Yes, milk and sugar, please. Thanks!

I'm about a week overdue in properly expressing my thanks and gratitude to one of my favorite intrawebs knit buds, Peter, who sent me a fantastic care package! As a dude on a yarn diet for the past ten months, I was understandably twice as excited when I opened it up and found all the goodies inside!

The main reason for the package was to return to me the grey Icelandic top there in the back. For those not in the know, it's essentially a bag of unspun wool, acquired a couple years ago when I thought I would spin myself oodles of gorgeous yarns using only my trusty drop spindle. In fact, it was Peter himself who inspired me to give it a go. I discovered soon enough, though, that spinning just isn't my bag, baby...so I send the grey fluff to him, hoping he might get more spinning use out of it than I did. Peter, however, has been crazy busy, moving cross-country for school and even taking a jaunt to Bali to study their traditional music. Yeah, he pretty much rocks!

So, though the fluff remained unspun (and probably will into the near future), he did include a collection of seriously yummy treats, including those of the edible variety:

It's a thing with knitters...chocolate. Oh, and cupcakes, too, which seem to have been adopted as the official treat of the knitter world. Personally, I like normal cupcakes with a little frosting on top. Recently, though, cupcakeries have sprouted up all over this fine nation, serving what can only be referred to as mutant bastard cupcakes, sometimes the size of a small child's head, filled with oozing, delicious cremes and fillings, topped with metric ton of icing and sometimes with edible sculptures of chocolate, spun sugar and other craziness.

But, I digress. Though the chocolate will be thoroughly and sensually enjoyed, I assure you, the real excitement comes from the other stuff, mainly new yarn! Starting off, we have a beautiful, shadowy hank of the oft-coveted Malabrigo worsted, containing deep hues of blue, green and a bit of brown. It's a popular yarn, a little on the pricey side, but knits up like spun butter, so very smooth. Yum...but what I'm most excited about is this one:

It's a hank of hand-spun done by Peter himself. Seriously, I love this...from the colors to the plying of the various strands. Peter, seriously, you know how to spin some serious fiber, my friend. This makes the third hank I've been fortunate to receive and really, in my opinion, from one knitter to another, a hank of expertly rendered hand-spun is one of the most thoughtful and meaningful gifts. I know how much time is involved in its creation...thank you, Peter, so very much. In other news, 'Ber's Baby Blanket is officially on the needles and speeding ahead! I'm almost ready to add in the first garter ridge of accent...which I'm dying to do if only for the little variety it will give me.

On the upside of repetition: this blanket is great movie/tv knitting! Yes, copious amount of the same, smallish repeat but I've made it through a third of the second season of "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer." No, I'm not kidding...it's like seeing an old friend all over again. Plus, being able to stream it through Netflix and my PS3...nothing short of the single most revolutionary development for homebodies and nesters everywhere. Seriously...it's the solution to over-priced cable and satelite services.

Now, if you'll excuse me...I have a pot of coffee, a bag of chocolates and a baby blanket to work on.

What's Up, Baby Blanket?

2010-11-04T15:39:00.014-05:00

I. am. bloody. brilliant!

How's that for a Saturday morning affirmation, huh? Now, to put this all into context, I can also be completely clueless on some counts, especially where math is concerned, which is what makes this story such a sweet little victory.

Since my last post, the elusive chevron pattern needed for 'Ber's Baby Blanket has, well...eluded me. I knew what I was looking for...see? I even sketched it out:

...but I had been unable to find just the right pattern. Some of my online knit buds even tried helping out with suggestions, but they weren't quite right. In order to achieve the V-shape characteristic of the chevron, you need a combination of increases and corresponding decreases, so that when you increase your stitches, you form the top of the mountain and when you decrease, you get the valley. You always decrease by the same number you increased, thus always ending the with the same number of stitches you started with. The problem is that most of the patterns I had so far found involved the use of yarn-overs as the increase method, forming lacy eyelets which could cause a tangle hazard to little people under the age of one.

I wanted a more solid fabric, one without gaps for little hands and feet. I found one that was close:

...and so I sat down and started knitting up a swatch, partially to determine gauge, partially to experience how the pattern was constructed. Knitting and grammar are similar in my mind in the sense that they're only made up of components, replaceable, changeable components. A noun is a noun and you can always substitute one for another. Likewise, a double increase is a double increase...and if you don't like the way it looks, substitute one for another. Once you realize this, whether about grammar or knitting, that one component can always be substituted for another, similar component, creativity begins to really flow freely.

In the lower half of this swatch, you can see the original pattern, which due to the use of a k2tog-ssk combo as the double decrease, creates a vertical gap. For the double decrease: a pair of k1fb. Not bad, not bad...but not what I wanted, not quite. So...switch it up.

Instead of k1fb twice, I opt for k1m1 twice, picking up and twisting from in between stitches to make a new stitch. And, instead of the k2tog-ssk combo? Sl2 as if to k2tog, k1, p2sso. This put the middle stitch squarely on top, giving a nice defined ridge.

Eureka...almost. As I started knitting with this modified pattern, I realized my stitch count was off. Apparently, my improvised pattern didn't need as many stitches as the pattern I was bastardizing. So...this required some figuring, as you can see:

...but I finally got it. I finally fuckin' got it! A solid chevron fabric with no lacy eyelets and a single garter stitch ridge for accent.

...and this is why I. am. bloody. brilliant!

So, going back to the sketch. Remember the sketch? Yup...

...so, the idea is a white chevron field and every 5 or 10 rows, a garter stitch ridge of accent color, cycling between crimson, dusty rose and pink, according to the color scheme 'Ber had indicated. Badda-bing, badda-boom...ladies and gentlemen, I do believe we are ready for take off.

It Starts With A Tweet...

2010-10-18T20:25:00.003-05:00

"If I can't find a simple chevron pattern in any of my stitch dictionaries, clearly I need to expand my library. #HowKnittersRationalize"

On a recent trip back to my home state of Michigan, I was spending the afternoon with my 'Ber and her 4 kids at a local craft store, picking out fabrics for the new nursery. Yessir...she's expecting her fifth. Give it up, yo! Anyway...fabrics, yes. Color palette, chosen. She's come to me to request one of the most crucial elements of any nursery: a baby blanket.

I love doing baby blankets, I really do. Don't get me wrong, it's not as if I'm a serial blanket knitter. I mean, what kind of knitter do you take me for? Seriously, though...I love making them, thinking that my blanket might become their "blankie." I don't know if that's ever happened yet...there are only 3 or 4 in the world thus far. It's about to become 5.

So...a blanket. Okay...I'm in. We talk size (about 5' x 5'), density (not too thick, not too thin), materials (acrylic, no question), colors (white, with accents of crimson, dusty rose and pink) and patterns (nothing with too much open work). We decide on a simple chevron pattern, probably about 5 rows high, with garter ridges in the accent colors. Not a problem, I say, I can find that in my stitch dictionaries at home. With the vaguest notion of a new baby blanket in my head, I headed south, back to St. Louis.

For those who aren't familiar with them, stitch dictionaries are to knitters what a thesaurus is to an English major: a nary used but indispensable reference. They are vast collections of stitch patterns that, like Lego bricks or Lincoln Logs, inspire creativity and often end up a component of something we're working on. Knitting, like grammar, is fond of substitution and stitch dictionaries, like the thesaurus, provide the bits that serve as substitutes. Replace that rib with another variation. Get rid of the rib in exchange for a more feminine picot. Insert an off-center cable running down the side of a cardigan where there was only stockinette before. We look through them like coffee table books, languidly looking for a spark, a curve, a line to catch our eye and spur the imagination.

I just scanned the bookshelf. With the stitch dictionaries alone, I have over 750 different stitch patterns. You might think that would, indeed should, suffice to find what I need. But no...in my search for a simple chevron pattern, I came across many new patterns I had never seen, several patterns I had seen, many that I already knew (but that were named in the book differently) ...even a chevron stripe and a divided chevron pattern. None were right, not even close and thus was born the simple tweet:

"If I can't find a simple chevron pattern in any of my stitch dictionaries, clearly I need to expand my library. #HowKnittersRationalize"

Don't worry, though...I'm a resourceful guy. The chevron is not the boss of me!

Scarves

2010-09-03T07:18:00.003-05:00

I have a problem with knitting scarves. It's not that I knit them too often, nor that I knit them not enough. No, I have a real problem with scarves because they are Long (notice the capital L) and take a long time to finish right.

They're tricky, though, those scarves are...don't doubt it for a second. If you do, you're dead! No, not really, but it's true that scarves has a certain seductive power over we knitters. We see them, the classic, quintessential beginner knit project, in books and magazines, on Ravelry, and they look so chic and stylish or snuggly and warm. We see them, with their cable patterns and intricate motifs or maybe it's just the standard 2x2 ribbed scarf, simple, effective for both men and women. We see them...oh, yes...and we get it in our minds, "Wouldn't that be just a great project?"

So we stash dive, looking through our vast library of fibers and colors, determining what we have 2 or 3 skeins of ('cuz that's how much it'll take). Maybe a trip to the LYS is in order, you know, to find something special for this one. (We knitters need very little excuse to go to our LYS but "I need something special for this one project" is a classic.) Once we have it, we cast on and marvel, once again, at how quickly it goes. How can it not, right? The damned thing only has 30 - 40 stitches in a row. We're scratching out row after row...and we scoff, pshaw! I'll have this done in no time flat!

That was a week ago. Now, it's slowly developed into a labor of love, for yourself or whoever the lucky recipient will be of this long strip of knitted cloth. If you have a pattern motif, you've probably memorized it. If it's ribbed, you probably made a slip-up about 7 rows ago, exchanging a knit for a purl, due to the mind-numbing agony of repetition...but there's no way in holy hell you're going to rip out all the mindless toil you just put in. Oh no, I can't be bothered with that. This project has already lasted too long!

Another week passes and you knit and you knit and you knit...and you see the scarf is too short. So, you knit and you knit...let's see what's on Netflix...and you knit and you realize the scarf is too short to wrap around your next. Onwards you knit and you knit and...zZzZ...what? oh! the scarf!...and you knit and it's finally long enough to toss jauntily over your shoulder...but not long enough to really wrap around your neck. Knit and knit and knit and you wonder why knitting machines didn't form a labor union and strike a long time ago. This is crazy! Will it ever be...

...done! Finally, you stop a moment and take stock of your situation. After a seeming infinity during which you were clearly knitting but the overall length of the scarf never seemed to increase, not even a centimeter, you've suddenly entered the very delicate area near completion. This is a delicate and critical time in the creation of a scarf. This is the moment where you must decide how long is long enough...and how long is slightly too long. It's a finer line than you might think. Stop paying attention for even a few rows and you may find that an otherwise perfect, gorgeous scarf has suddenly become half-an-inch too long. Stop prematurely and your recipient will find it to be wonderful, albeit slightly irritating in that it's a mere inch too short to stay wrapped. (Luckily, knit wear stretches, so this is much less of a problem than the former.)

The only things that might rival the scarf are blankets, which are not only as long as scarves, if not more so in some cases, but are wide as well. A blanket row is usually well over a hundred stitches, many time much, much higher than that. If you're knitting a blanket, may whatever gods there may be have mercy on your soul. It could take an hour to make it through one stinkin' row, many times longer than that if you're knitting a complex pattern.

The other rival to the scarf is the shawl, those tricky wickets that start out all cute and coy with their beginning 7 stitches (or 3 or 5 or some other small, odd number). They seem to bat their eyelashes at you like a ridiculous doe-eyes anime character, tricking you into their literal web with the beauty and intricacy of their lace patterns. But don't be fooled...the shawl is the mud-boggin' tractor pull of the kntiting world. Sure, you start with 5 stitches...but you increase at least 2 stitches every other row, many times it's 4. So 5 becomes 9, then 13 and 17 and 21 and...before you know it, your row has grown to 177 and 204 and 249...and on and on and on. Plus, it's lace...which means, "Pay attention, stupid." This shit is not hard, but one wrongly placed stitch and you'll be tinking back several rows to fix your own oversight. By the time you've gotten to finishing the shawl, you wake up and realize that you've been been binding off for the last 84 minutes and you still have a few hundred stitches to go. Like I said, the tractor pull of the knitting world. It starts out easy enough but grows exponentially until you collapse to the floor, knitting outstretched, mumbling, "Just one more row, I can do it."

And then it's all done. Very anticlimactic, don't you think? It's done and weave in those pesky ends, you soak and block until it measures perfectly. It's dried, folded, maybe gift wrapped with a lavender sachet...and you swear to yourself and all the universe tat you will never, ever knit another scarf again for as long as your knitting life may last.

But then you find that perfect pattern...and you do it all over again.

Why I Don't (Often) Read...

2010-08-26T18:36:00.002-05:00

You know...I have an English degree. Yeah, I know...but it's true. And I don't read. Shocking, I know.

There was a time when I made sweet, sweet love to my Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volumes A, B and C; a time when I read "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte and then didn't sell it back because I genuinely enjoyed the experience. I remember my elegant introduction to a certain Henry James, not via "The Portrait of A Lady" as so many have assumed but rather though the less common "Aspern Papers." I still have the $4 "Everyman" edition I bought used from the bookstore of Central Michigan University, a bit tattered and certainly well-worn. Jane Austen's "Emma" and Robertson Davies' "Fifth Business" languish on my bookshelves, though, in truth, I'm fairly certain the latter of two is there because the bookstore wouldn't give me any money for it.

I had professors who opened the doors and ushered me through to a world of analysis and a level of craftsmanship heretofore unknown to me. Deborah Aldrich-Watson gave me the key to understand medieval literature, especially the work of John Donne. One in particular, William Mayhan, was hands-down the single best literature professor I ever had the pleasure of taking a class from, three times: Intro, poetry of the Romantics and the Victorian novel. Bill, you completely rocked my literary world. I loved to attack my paper topics like I was in an episode of "Law & Order," proving beyond all doubt that William Faulkner's Miss Emily wasn't as batshit crazy as everyone thought but who was merely the victim of a horrible life of heinous abuse. You better believe I scored an "A" on that one!

My Anne Rice, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter and Shakespeare take up space on a set of twin bookcases positioned on either side of the entry between the living room and would-be-dining-room-turned-office. They stand there, sentinels of knowledge, keepers of extrodinary worlds, the indelible prints left on this world by some of the greatest (and not so great) minds of our time...and I completely ignore them. Dust collects on their gold-trimmed heads and at the base of their spines, which I wipe away with lavender-scented dust cloths about once a month. Why?

Because...I knit.

Kitty Blankets

2010-08-24T19:21:00.004-05:00

Okay, okay...will you people all just simmer down? I know, we've got a lot to go through...so why don't we all just take our seats...Mildred, Leafa...are you about done? Thank you, now...

The first order of business concerns the creation of a new blog. Yes, yes, I know...it's quite exciting but just...Bob, sit down...you'll have plenty of opportunity. Alright, now...I've called it K2P.com and it'll be the new location of "armchair political commentary." Basically, I've picked up my soapbox and set it down about halfway down the block. I started this blog, right here, as a place for my adventures in knitting with my cats and a little gardening thrown in for good domestic measure. I wanted to attract other knitters (with or without cats who may or may not garden) and, though I feel strongly about certain things goin' down in the world, we knitters come from varied and diverse backgrounds and I want to turn no one away. Politics and social commentary can be polarizing so...we moved them up the street just a bit.

So, on to the knitting, shall we? Harvey, Gladys, Mabel...so good of you to come but the cookies and punch are for after the meeting...okay?

I was so excited when I got home from work. Look what came in the mail!

It's the newest issue of the Knit Picks catalogue! For those not in the know, Knit Picks is a really great, economical, online knit shop with an astounding array of options. You can check 'em out HERE. This is by far my favorite issue...the layout and organization is just superb and oh, what's this...is all about autumn, my favorite time of year. Since I've also been conducting Yarn-Over 2010 since the beginning of the year, this is about as close to shopping as I get.

Speaking of Yarn-Over 2010, it's progressing along quite nicely, thanks for asking. A brief recap: I vowed to go all year without buying any new yarn. No, seriously...it could be given, traded, gifted...so long as money did not change hands, it was good. I meant for it to be both a stash busting and budget balancing event, which it definitely has been. I can honestly report that since the first of the year, I have purchase only 2 balls of yarn and, in my own defense, those 2 were for a project that was started well before the beginning of the year AND said project was for someone other than myself, THEREFORE...what's a guy to do? Leave a pretty German lady out in the cold without a hat? You see my point. Aside from that, however...no new yarn.

People...people...don't make me call in security like last time, okay? I know it can be upsetting to some of you, all this talk about "no new yarn" but I assure you, it's much less jarring than you might imagine. In fact, I recently got to bust out of my stash some "vintage yarn" that I've has lying around for some time. This yarn has got to date back at least to the 80s, if not before. I mean check this shit out, yo...

I mean, Just take a look at the labels, the color...it was $1.49 a skein!

But wait...oh, what's that...what's that down in the corner of the label? Hah! It's the Amoco Oil logo...on a label for YARN!

I'm sure this is pre-BP ownership days but still, I knew I had to make something charitable out of it, if only to put something BP/Amoco/petroleum-based to good use. So...I present to you...

...kitty blankets, or CatMats, as I like to call them. I'm making a total of six for a local feline shelter, called Tenth Life. Though they don't yet have a physical building, they do have a network of foster homes and they focus on kittens and cats with extreme medical needs for which other shelters might find difficult to bear the financial weight. Though I can't adopt or foster, I can and do knit...and as any knitter with a cat will tell you, they just love to lay all over your stuff. I've included the pattern below, though you could probably come up with your own just as easily as I did. I added bit of left over sock yarn from the Sock Yarn Blanket in order to give myself some variety in color and to add some stripes.

Using any worsted weight yarn with US10s or US10.5s and using the knitted cast-on, CO 82sts.

R1-10: Straight garter stitch. Then...
R11 (and every WS row): K7, p68, k7.
R12 (and every RS row): K all.

This will give you a blanket approximately 22" wide. For the length, you decide. My shortest clocked in at just 16", the longest at 25". Really, the length is usually decided for me based on the sock yarn scraps I'm using to make stripes or patterns. When the blanket is as long as you want, then do another 9 rows of garter and bind off.

Now, that's all I have for this evening. I know you might be anxious to see some early pictures of the Bitterroot I'm working on but, as with all lace projects in their early stages, this one just looks like panties all bunched up...and, frankly, no one wants to see that, not even if they're your own, so...let's just move on.

The comment box is in the back, as always...and there are cookies and punch on the table back there. Thanks for your time and attention...I'm tired, shit.

Prop 8

2010-08-07T09:13:00.003-05:00

It's Saturday morning, a few days after a Federal judge overturned California's Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment defining marriage for that State as a union between a man and a woman. In a nutshell, Prop 8 was ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that is denies equal protection and due process as put forth in the U.S. Constitution to gay men and lesbians. An inevitable appeal was filed the next day.

So, for the past several days, after having read the 138-page decision, I've been bumbling around my apartment trying to understand the rationale behind the argument for those who actually support Prop 8. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am gay and, therefore, entertain a certain bias. I am also, however, mightily interested in trying to not just comprehend but also understand the other side of the coin. This has led me to read some dissenting opinions, to watch some segments from Fox News and to follow some more conservative Twitter feeds. I have found about what I expected: crazy conspiracy theories, poorly written essays, flawed logical thinking.

But I have also found some well-written and considered entries, as well, and though I cannot agree with their stance, I can at least begin to see where some of them are coming from.

For starters, can we just agree to forgo any discussion of religious belief, faith in Jesus or abominations in the eyes of God? See, I'm not a Christian, though I respect that you may be, and I have serious reservations about injecting religious or spiritual beliefs into a conversation best reserved for rational, factual, common-sense basis. We can still inject personally held ideas and the conversation can still be passionate, heated...but I would no more impose my religious beliefs upon you and I expect the same.

Religion shouldn't be the purview of the State, and maybe that's where we first diverge in opinion. Even within Christianity, there are too many variations, too many subtle differences between the myriad denominations...but when you add into the mix the other religions of the world that the U.S. is an oasis for, then the waters become too murky to actually promote forward movement. We all just stand around, arguing our points to people who, like us, are already too deeply entrenched in their own value system to objectively entertain the option of anything else. Everything becomes point-counterpoint...a verbal game of tennis in which we each try and knock down the arguments of the opposing side without actually trying to understand the ideas put forth. So, I leave you with your God and you to mine. Thanks...

First, I don't understand how same-sex marriage would detract from or weaken the institution, as I've heard so many claim. During the campaigns leading up to the election, this was one of the major arguments put forth but I have never, truly understood the logic behind the statement. How would my State-recognized pairing/partnership/relationship in any way adversely affect your State-recognized pairing/partnership/relationship? That's the question and I'll gladly entertain any serious, non-faith-based response you'd like to offer. Don't mention the Bible to me...as a holder of 2 college degrees I would put forth that, as a factual source, the Bible is out-of-date and unreliable at best. No, describe to me how my relationship actually takes anything away from yours.

The loudest cry I've heard from the pundits of the Conservative Right is that the Will of the People has been brazenly trampled by yet another act of judicial activism. I really hate that term, by the way...judicial activism. If I remember correctly, the term was brought into vogue during the W.'s first term, when Bill Frist was Senate Majority Leader, to provide political spin to judicial decisions, usually made in favor of the Liberals. The Massachusetts gay-marriage decision was one of those decisions. Judicial Activism! they cried. We cannot allow our non-elected judges to abuse their positions for furthering their own beliefs...that is until a decision upholding the constitutionality of a highly restrictive abortion bill is handed down, then God's Will has been done. The Dems were a little slow on the uptake with that one but eventually, even they started spinning Judicial Activism back at the Right, like badly aimed ninja stars. We're all hypocrites, people...just politicians more than most.

But where was I? Will of People Trounced! News at 11...yes. It's true...Proposition 8 was approved by the electorate of the State of California. 52% of voters agreed that "only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." And yes, one un-elected Federal judge took that 52% and canned it in one fell swoop. C'mon, people...institutionalized discrimination is never a good thing...and sometimes the Will of the People is wrong. Oh boy...I'm gonna get in trouble for that one, aren't I? Well, it's true. I think it is fundamentally wrong to deny something, like marriage, to one segment of society to which all other segments, have open and free access. Can a black marry a white? Can my sister vote in an election? Is a black man an Man? Or only 3/5? When you're dealing with issues involving respect and human dignity, you simply do not put that up for a popular vote by a generally uninformed and impressionable "People."

In case you didn't already know, as a country, in the realm of politics...America, you're dumb. And that's me being nice. France consistently breaks 60% voter turnout; Germany is 77%. In an election year, we're lucky to break 50% and the number goes down from there. As a culture, we are more concerned about Lindsay Lohan in jail than the BP oil spill. Our collective attention span is about 2 weeks, near as I can tell, and then we move on. Recently, when I mentioned something about the Gulf, one of my co-workers sincerely asked, "Is that still going on?" In terms of our political involvement, participation is even worse. I now understand where the idea for the Electoral College came from. As sad as it is, people can often not be trusted to choose what is in their own best interest. We see this on the individual level all of the time and it's true in the grander scope of our society, as well.

Now, don't get me wrong...I whole-heartedly believe in self-determination but I'm also a big fan of not hurting other people. I'm a soft touch that way, I guess. You go ahead and do what you want. So long as you're not hurting others, I'm apt to let you alone. The essential character of Prop 8, however, does hurt people and quite a lot. It denies the recognition of a relationship by the State, and all benefits therein, to a suspect class of the population when such recognition is readily and freely available to all other segments of the same population and, in fact, has always been readily and freely available to the rest without the need for a constitutional amendment saying as much. Proposition 8 is all about one (large) segment of our society telling another (smaller) segment, "No, you can't have that. It's only for us."

And that is simply wrong.

There are other points, too: the concept of "ordered liberty," the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment...but those are perhaps for another entry. I am far from having said my peace on this issue, just as the Courts are far from having said theirs. Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night!

Free

2010-07-21T09:09:00.003-05:00

If I cared more about what people think,
I'd be much less of who I am.

Likewise, the more I learn and accept about myself,
the less important becomes the estimation of others.

One day, I will know myself
and be free.

One sock, one scarf...

2010-07-18T16:15:00.002-05:00

I know, I know...but these things take time. Meanwhile, enjoy a docu-photo-mentary-drama of some recent events and I'll come up with something clever soon enough.

I finished one of two socks at work.

Sarah was a total trooper on my recent trip to Michigan. I needed a picture of her "Bonyard Shawl" and it was a zillion degrees outside. Thanks, lady...much obliged!

I finally finished Grandma Dorothy's Lily of the Valley scarf. She was very tickled.

I tried to have a photo taken with her and the scarf but the lady protested, citing unacceptable hair-do status as a valid excuse.

That is all for now. Carry on.

Knitters' School

2010-06-16T18:46:00.003-05:00

WARNING: This post contains material of a highly knitty nature. If you're not a knitter, you should be...but until then, you might not be interested in this post...unless you just really like my writing, in which case I'm very grateful to you. You have been warned!

So, I get home from work tonight and am eating my dinner when I get this idea, more of a vision actually. I'm lying in bed with the lamp on my nightstand turned on. In my lap is a book, open to a certain page and a skein of yarn, some previously used and rewound skein of so-so yarn from the stash and I'm holding in my hands my favorite set of bamboo US 9s. This is knitter's school.

From time to time (and especially now that I'm the midst of large knitting projects only), I like to teach myself something brand-spankin' new. I'm not talking about having to re-teach myself the damned Kitchener stitch every single time I finish a sock; freshening up on the details of a long-forgotten lace chart; or looking up how to do that one finishing edge you love to do as often as possible but not often enough to remember. No. I'm talking about something you have never, ever done in your whole, entire knitting life: a new stitch...how daring! A new picot edge...bold and, well, edgy! A new yarn, a new color, a new needle...anything brand new! This is knitter's school.

Tonight's little lesson, should you choose to follow along: Herringbone. Specifically, I'm referring to "Herringbone I" from The Harmony Guides: Knit & Purl by Erika Knight, page 32. If you have the book, run and look it up. If you don't have it, why not? It's a superb resource to have if you're into improv knitting. Remember, patterns are only guides and are always ready for a little improv-ing. In any case, if you don't have it, I'm including the stitch below**:

Herringbone I - Multiple of 2. 1st row: K2tog tbl dropping only 1st loop off L needle, *k2tog tbl (rem st and next st), again dropping only the 1st loop off L needle*, k1tbl. 2nd row: P2tog dropping only 1st loop off L needle, *p2tog (rem st and next st), again dropping only 1st loop off L needle*, p1. Repeat forever...or until you're done.

And to think I despised the linen stitch, with its back-and-forth slaloming yarn in and out and around each stitch. Compared to this, linen was a walk in the park. I cast-on 34 stitches and knit 1 row, you know...just to set up the stage, so to speak. Knit two together...through the back loop...okay, no problem...got it. Drop only the first loop off the left needle...okay, I...whoop...caught it. Yeah...that's going to be the challenge with this stitch, fellow knitters. K2tog tbl isn't a problem when the combined stitches get slipped at the same time...but when you have to stop and split them apart after you just bound them together...

Just be careful to not drop a stitch. I also learned, the hard way, that herringbone does not tink so easily. It's a lot like tinking an ssk, wherein you not only transfer the stitches from right back to left, but you also have to reverse the twist on each stitch...except it's nothing like that. Tinking herringbone is like trying to solve the Great Puzzle Knot of Egypt. It simply cannot be done by mere mortals...though Elizabeth Zimmerman probably could.

After 30 minutes and 3 failed attempts, I put the lesson down, but not before I saw what was supposed to happen. I just needed a break, so...I came out to the dining room and I'm telling you all about it. In my first attempt, I was just dead wrong in my execution; attempt two was a dropped, though recovered stitch; and the third involved a dropped stitch, the Great Puzzle and much furrowing of my brow. I wish you the best of luck on your attempt. I'm going back to try again. I'll let you know how it goes.

UPDATE: After another hour and 4 perfect rows, I've decided that I love the effect and finished look of herringbone...but the amount of finagling and canoodling needed to achieve those results is just preposterously absurd, truly. I've put everything away and I think I might be ready for an early bedtime.

**"The Harmony Guides: Knit & Purl" by Erika Knight, page 32. This book contains several "public domain" stitches: garter, stockinette, linen, etc. As such, I don't have any qualms about reproducing the text of this one page here in my blog. Not only to I believe this stitch to be a "public domain" stitch, but I am also using it for educational purposes.

Gypsy Caravan

2010-06-12T16:16:00.001-05:00

So, that last blog post was suuuuuper heavy on the text. Consider this its photo-centric brother. Less text, more eye candy. The subject? The Gypsy Caravan, an annual event put on by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in which people bring their wares from all over to sell in the blazing heat and sun of the Missouri summer. Megan and I went and my poor friend Daniel actually worked the event.

We founds hats.

We found more hats.

This is as close as I'll ever get to military service.

Its historical significance is its only redeeming quality.

You don't wear them, your shoes do.

I love classic tins like this one.

Oh yeah, more hats.

There were cocktails...

...and disco lunchboxes.

And still more hats.

So...what treasures did I take home from this swanky yard sale?

I don't have to explain the funny.

Softens like a powder; protects like an oil.

The Official Boy Scout First Aid Kit...

...complete with some of the original supplies!

Thank you, that is all. Carry on.

Play by FoxSaver®

The Dusty Wasteland

2010-06-12T14:56:00.005-05:00

There is no way you're going to get me to apologize for taking so long in between blog posts (not that anyone asked me to). I think it's silly that so many of people whose blogs I read do such a thing and I will not be party to it. This is my soapbox, my bully pulpit, my photo album...I'll be damned if anyone tells Baby how to run this blog. So there!

By the way, the lavender is blooming. You know what that means? Yep...time to go to the lavender farm.

With that being said, I recognize that it has been a bit since my last entry. What can say? Sometimes, I don't feel like writing. It comes in a missive (I like to think it's my prose-muse) and then I write. There is no missive this time...this is just me making myself write. This is an update blog entry...you will find no Pulitzer-worthy writing here. Or will you?

A partial explanation for my lack of writing can be provided by my presence in the Twitter-verse. If you're a user and not already following me, you can find me at @knittaprince. I do not claim to fully understand the mysterious draw that Twitter has...but has it, it does and I readily admit to enjoying the challenge the 140-character limit has presented me with on more than one occasion. So yeah, Twitter's been stealing some of my mojo...

The other explanation is that there hasn't been much going on knit-wise lately. Okay, that was a bald-faced lie...I have been knitting as much as ever but I find myself mired in the dusty wasteland that I like to call the...it's called...it's not called anything yet. I thought I'd have a stroke of brilliance and a truly clever name would come to me but it didn't...which only serves to reinforce what I said earlier about muse-less writing. It happens...I'm coping, so should you.

The Dusty Wasteland is that period in a knitter's existence when, though there be projects in progress, each project is slightly larger in scope than your run-o-the-mill gloves or socks and, though progress is being made on each project, the knitter in question hasn't had the reassuring satisfaction of having completed anything in quite some time. This leads to a feeling not unlike that of a tractor pull in which the further one progresses with a project, the harder and harder it is to keep going with it. Enough already...jeez! Can't you just be done already...like NOW! Ugh!

In my case, the project implicated is Dame Grandma Snyder's lace scarf with its 28-row pattern repeat. I enjoy(ed) the pattern and have learned much about lace knitting from the exercise, but, as every knitter knows, scarves are always longer than you think and, if you're at all like me, about two-thirds of the way though, you begin to curse the day you ever decided to knit the damn thing. This scarf has the advantage of a particularly long pattern repeat, which serves to stave off boredom and mental fatigue for a bit longer than your simpler 2x2 rib...but eventually, the staving is insufficient and you...just...can't...

But you do. You push on, like a brave frontiersman ('cuz I'm a dude...insert your own intrepid icon here) pushing through a blinding snowstorm, like a marathon runner whose own body has turned against them, you push on! You make deals with yourself...at least 1/2 of a repeat...at least 6 rows each night...at least purl the row you just knit. You come up with any strategy, any motivation you can to push forward even a little. Thus far, I've been able to add another 2 repeats in the past week.

To my non-knitter readers, I know that this must sound perfectly neurotic and, though I am admittedly a neurotic individual (but in the fun way!), you must understand that for us, we Knitters, this, this is what we Do. I'm reminded of my good friends Madge and Megan who are currently in attendence of TNNA trade show in Columbus, OH. The National NeedleArts Association is a trade organization and this weekend, there's a show with thousands of vendors and thousands of attendees...and although it covers more than just knitting, in a very real way, it's all about the knitting. Madge and Megan are in a unique experience which could be described as the equivalent of getting to go backstage at a Rolling Stones concert (insert your favorite band or artist's name here)...they see all the swanky swag, they meet the producers of all the finest yarns (and some of the less fine, as well), they meet our version of celebrities (Ysolda Teague and Stephen West were specifically mentioned). I'm excited for them and wish I were there, though I'm fairly certain my bank account wouldn't last ten minutes.

Anyway...it's a passion. If you have it, you have it. If you don't...keep looking 'cuz everyone's got a passion for something!

PS - Whaddaya know? Looks like I got a little scoot from the muse after all.

Ani DiFranco - A Review

2010-05-29T11:42:00.005-05:00

Ani DiFranco - Live at Bull Moose Music 4.17.2009

She hadn't done an in-store performance in over fifteen years, not since it became unnecessary for her to do them. During my time at Vintage Vinyl, Jim and I tried a couple times to get something lined up and, though we came away with some awesome swag for the fans, the answer was always the same: Ani doesn't do in-stores or meet-n-greets. Period.

Last year, however, in celebration and support of Record Store Day, Ani DiFranco dusted off the proverbial stool and bellied up with bandmate Todd Sickafoose on stand-up bass to play a 4-song set to a group of captive fans. Sponsored by WCLZ and that station's Randi Kirshbaum, the songs are interspersed with brief interview segments in which Ms. Kirshbaum poses some questions to the lil' folksinger and does so surprisingly well. The 24-minute program contains two previously unreleased tracks, "November 4, 2008" and "Unworry," both slated to appear on an upcoming studio album to be released in the fall.

What first strikes you about the performances themselves is that they recall a much earlier Ani, when the music was less layered and complex, when there were fewer members in the band. The simplicity of the music deflects the listeners' attention back to the trademark Ani lyrics. "Alla This" (from 2008's Red Letter Year) and the older "Everest" (from 1999's Up Up Up Up Up Up) sound like they just had a fresh bath and a haircut. "November 4, 2008" is a powerful, politcal song extolling the victory election of Barack Obama. "Unworry" a relationship reflection that sounds simpler on its surface than it actually is.

In short, "Live at Bull Moose..." is, for me, akin to rediscovering faith in something I thought I might have lost. Though not necessarily the disc I would choose to introduce someone to her for the first time, it is a wonderful example of Ani DiFranco at her stripped down, acoustic best.

Read a first-hand account of the show HERE. There are some great snapshots, too!

Carry My Luggage?

2010-05-07T15:40:00.007-05:00

Carry MY luggage…fucker?

Mark Foley, Republican from the Florida 16^th, in September 2006, resigned from the US House of Representatives after it was discovered that he had sent sexually suggestive text messages and e-mails to former Congressional pages. This behavior, it was eventually discovered, went back over 10 years, involved numerous male pages and was readily known about in the higher ranks of the Republican leadership. At least he finally came to terms with his gayness.

Ted Haggard still hasn’t. Formerly an extremely influential evangelical pastor with a congregation of over 10,000 and the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, Haggard worked tirelessly to ban gay marriage in Colorado until, in late 2006, it was revealed that, for the past three years, Haggard had been paying a male hooker to have sex and party down with some meth. He immediately resigned from all leadership positions and the revelation rocked the evangelical community, eliciting statements from such monumental fucks as James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and that ever popular crazy fucker, Pat Robertson. Good ol’ Ted finally went into a 3-week intensive counseling session with four other pastors and, to this day, refers to himself as “a heterosexual with issues.” Sounds like an underestimation to me.

Larry Craig, now there’s a smarmy fuck, eh? Republican from Idaho, he serves ten years in the US House of Representatives before being elected and serving another eighteen years in the Senate. He twice voted for and, in 2008, was a co-sponsor of the Federal Marriage Act which would have denied marriage rights to same-sex couples. He twice voted against extending the federal definition of hate crimes to include gays and lesbians, though the legislation finally passed in 2007 despite him. Oh, and he likes dirty toilet sex. In mid-2007, Craig was arrested in the mens’ room of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, allegedly attempting to solicit sex from and undercover officer by employing a series of toe-taps and something with a dropped piece of toilet paper. Craig later pleaded guilty to a lower charge while simultaneously maintaining his innocence.

Roy Ashburn, Republican California State Senator…a man with a solid, anti-gay voting record. “No” on recognizing out-of-state gay marriages; “no” on extending anti-discrimination laws; “no” three times on the creation of Harvey Milk Day. But yes, yes, yes to partying down at a Sacremento gay club, getting drunk and driving his state-owned SUV a short distance before betting pulled over and charged with a DUI.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we have Doctor George Rekers, professor emeritus of neuropsychiatry and behavioral science at the University of South Carolina and a founding member of the Family Reserch Council. A highly educated man, Rekers, an officer for the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality and founder of FactsAboutYouth.com, a website essentially posing as a phony medical group attempting to solicit anti-gay propagandist literature under the guise of trying to teach teens about sexual orientation, has worked to advance anti-gay views for years. And wouldn’t you know it, just this week he was photographed at the Miami International Airport in the company of a male hooker named Lucien, whome he had allegedly hired as a “travel assistant” to carry his luggage. The problem was that Lucien was hired through Rentboy.com, a online gay escort service. And though Rekers denies any impropriety, the young man tells a different story, indicating that Rekers received daily, nude rubdowns and that he was a fan of something called the “long stroke.”

Revile them or pity them, you’ll have to admit that these men easily fall cleanly into the “Biggest Fucker” category.

These aren’t just men who are unhealthily wallowing and stewing in their own tar pit of self-hate. These are men who have been gifted with positions of extreme influence and power in our society, the ability to hold the fates and lives of hundreds if not thousands and tens of thousands of people in their trusted, seemingly capable hands. These are men who are trusted to shape the fabric of government, trusted to guide our children into adulthood, consulted on matters of extreme importance, matters of faith and religion. These are men whose bottomless pit of epic self-loathing, when coupled with their roles as politicians, lobbyists and advisors, have the awesome capability to inflict untold amounts of hurt and damage upon hundreds of thousands, millions of gay men and lesbians in our society, not to mention our world at large. These are men with the power to destroy lives. And they always seem to be Republicans, don’t they?

To them and the countless other smarmy, closeted, Conservative fucks, I would simply ask that you STOP shitting on those of Us who are perfectly OKAY with who we are. If you’re conservative, if you’re a Republican, then you and I are already at odds with one another on a political, social and, hell, probably even intellectual levels. You try to stop my liberty and pursuit of happiness at every turn and I’d really love to take your semi-automatic rifles and sub-machine guns away forever. Fine…but when you actively, knowingly and, in many cases, vigorously pursue courses of actions to deny freedoms, strip away previously granted rights and criminalize the very behavior you, yourself, are engaging in every bit as actively, knowingly and in EVERY case vigorously, that…that is simply some of the worst evil one could commit in this world.

You would destroy the lives of others because you hate yourselves that much.

You are beyond pathetic, gentlemen…welcome to the Biggest Fuckers Club.

The Perfect Knit, Part II

2010-05-02T19:27:00.006-05:00

The perfect knit is an elusive creature because there’s always something, some small thing you forgot to do or something you did too much of. You never really know how it happened (or sometimes maybe you do), but it did and it’s there and what are you going to do about it?

But, wait…I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? We last we spoke, we knew what we were going to knit and with what we were going to knit it…but we hadn’t actually started. And it (almost) always starts with a slip knot. The core, the seed, the nucleus of many o’ knitted thing: the simple, yet effective, slip knot. Make one…and slip it onto your first needle. Long-tail or knitted cast-on? Depends…do we want a stretchy or firm edge? Either way, we diligently work the needles in and out of the yarn, creating intricate patterns in the air while simultaneously multiplying the number of loops on the main needle, each loop perfectly formed, its tension identical to its neighbors and theirs to their neighbors and so on and so forth and…

You count. Once, twice…three times a lady, making sure you’ve got the precise number of cast-on stitches called for. It just wouldn’t do to start the horse out of the gate wrong now, would it? No, of course not…so you’ve got it, the right number, the magic number and the light is green! And you’re off…

At the beginning of any project, if you’re at all like me, there’s a certain amount of reverence, a certain due diligence paid to the craft. This is where the meditative aspect of knitting comes into play, when the craft becomes contemplative. By delving into the movement and formation of every stitch, everything else in the whole of the world can be mitigated. All that exists is right there, in your hands, and you fall into a rhythm. If it’s a pullover, you’re working the stockinette diligently, row by row, remembering every third (or was it fifth?) row to decrease 2 (or…maybe 4?) stitches. If it’s a simple 2x2 ribbed cap, oh baby…this, this is the ultimate meditative knit, especially when knit in the round. Why? Because it ain’t nothing at all except 2 knits, then 2 purls…and repeat forever (or until you have about 6 ½ inches knit)! When you’re working in the round, there is no end of the row, nothing to break your concentration, your stride, no need to stop and turn your work. Just knit and go…

But then you see it! What?! No, it can’t be. Something’s wrong…I’m short one stitch. Or, maybe it’s a purl where there should be a knit. It’s just one stitch, one little insignificant…but it’s right there! Right in the middle, right where it’s most noticeable…it’s…right…there!

Just think about the law of averages for a second. Now think about how many individual stitches make up any given knitted item. Small things like dishcloths might have as little as 225 (given a 15st x 15rw square). Socks, scarves…probably close to a thousand, if not more. Sweaters? Shoooot! Hundreds of thousands of stitches, each one a unique opportunity for something to go wrong: knit when you should purl, slip one too many stitches, forget a yarn-over, decrease in the wrong direction. When framed in these terms, who cares about the perfect knit? Think of how many of those stitches were done properly, perfectly…and stand proud of your excellent average.

But the knitting powers-that-be don’t care about your perfection average. They’re only interested in that one time, that split second, that late night when you’re so tired but simply must finish this one last row; that knit night where you had one glass of wine too many; that airline knitting fiasco with the turbulence, where all the luggage went flying about and you dropped your knitting. Yeah, that’s when it happens.

Knitting is a cassette tape of the craft world. Crochet is, too. Not cassette tapes in the sense that they’re outmoded and have been supplanted by newer better technology, no. Knitting is a cassette tape in that it is sequential, one to two to three…you must pass through all points between A and B to reach B. Unlike a CD or DVD which will allow you to immediately and easily access any point you’d like right now, cassette tapes need to be fast-forwarded and rewound to find that one part or that one song. Likewise, in order to correct your knitting mistakes, you’ve got to be willing to backtrack to the scene of the crime. If it was just in the last row, then it’s probably not much to ask. Praise be to the knitting goddesses! You have only to tink backward to the mistake, fix it and keep going.

But what happens when your transgression is miles back, rows and rows of perfect, little stitches. Your mistake, it stares at you like a fox crouched at the treeline of great forest, watching you, taunting you. No one else in the universe may be able to see it…but you do. Worse yet: an intricate, complex lace pattern pristine in its construction…except right…here. You see? You’re missing a yarn-over. See? Yeah, I know…it breaks up the whole pattern, really ruins the continuity, doesn’t it? Hmm, right…you could go back, but…that’s an awful lot of work to have to pull out. Well…can you live with yourself if you don’t go back? Hmm…can you?

And there, ladies and gentlemen, right there…there is the one million dollar question. Can you, dear knitter, can you send out into this great and wondrous world a creation that you know to be flawed?

You betcha, I can. See, in my knitting world, there’s a sort of statute of limitations on mistakes. If they remain undetected long enough, they stay. Imagine you’re in the process of casting-off the back of a cardigan with three stitches left to go. At that moment, all the way down by the ribbed waist, you see it: a purl stitch where there should be a knit, right there in the ribbing. Damn! Then…I shrug my shoulders and bemoan my outcast state because there is no way in hell you’re going to get me to rip out three days of knitting for one lonely stepchild of a stitch. No way, no sir! I take a mental note not to do it again and I move on. It teaches you the value of sometimes letting go.

This is why, in my knitting, I strive for perfection but I am very often very okay with less than that. In my world, however, this does not equate to failure. This is learning, an ongoing, never-ending process…and this is just one reason I’m a knitter.

The Perfect Knit, Part I

2010-05-01T15:33:00.010-05:00

As a knitter, I strive for perfection in my knitting but I am very often very okay with less than that. I like to think other knitters do, too, but maybe not all of them. It could be argued by those who know me best that my quest for perfection in knitting has less to do with my identification as a knitter and more to do with me being who I am as an individual. Which ever way that quirk comes out in the wash, the fact still remains: I try to knit the perfect knit every single time. So far? I have not succeeded.

You wouldn’t think the road to knit perfection to be perilous and fraught with pitfalls (or, if you’re not a knitter, maybe you would). Knitting is, simultaneously, a severely clever craft and insanely simple. There are only two real stitches: the knit and the purl (which is simply the mirror opposite of the knit). That’s the simple part. So…what could possibly go wrong? There are myriad variations and a seemingly infinite number of combinations thereof…decreases, increases, cables, textures, patterns. Knitters are, by and far but certainly not always, some damn clever elves.

So, how does it happen? It creeps into the process, which, for me, is the most important part of knitting. It’s the “how” that fascinates me eternally and not, contrary to conventional belief, the finished product. Sure, the item I’m knitting must hold some level of fascination, intrigue, wonder or, at the very least, passing suitability before I’ll ever deign to knit it. I need never knit a bikini or frilly lingerie-type things. Feminine sweaters with beads or picot edging are also out for I know no one for whom I would ever dream of knitting such things. Plus, I’m a guy. I’m one of those increasingly less rare mythical creatures: the dude knitter. We’re like the unicorns of the knit world, trumped only by the straight dude knitters who are like…I don’t know, the Loch Ness monster? Time Lords? My point is that dude knitters are rare, straight dude knitters even more rare…but we do exist and in ever-increasing numbers. But, I digress…

The item does matter. Am I making it for myself or, as is most often the case, for someone else? I have a serious shortage of things made for myself. A couple pairs of socks, my Boneyard shawl and a pair of gloves comprise the collection. I’ve promised myself that, before the end of 2010, I will knit myself a cardigan, something comfy, with pockets for small stuff and buttons instead of a zip. Everything else I have ever knit in my life has been for another person but never for a stranger. An embroidery tote for Mom (with lining and pockets courtesy of Miss Stacy), a hooded sweater for LoLo, a scoop-neck sleeveless top for BK, mitts and hats for a panoply of friends and even a Doctor Who scarf for Johnny. Each item chosen for a reason…because it was requested by or selected for or reminded me of the person who eventually becomes the recipient of said item.

Once the item has been chosen, materials must be selected. This is perhaps the most fun and agonizing decision present in every project. A veritable pallet of color and texture at your disposal: thick, thin, smooth, rough, chunky, fine, light, dark, solid, self-striping, hand-painted, randomly variegated…the choice is almost without end. These are the reasons the choice is so very enjoyable. The same also give reason for agony and fret. Personally, I have an affinity for the finer gauges of yarn: lace-weight, fingering, sock and DK. I can easily move into the worsted, heavy worsted and aran range but you’ll almost never see me in chunky or above. Blues, greens, greys…burnt colors and solid contrast work best for me. If I’ve selected a handspun or a yarn from a smaller producer, I’ll often stare at it and appreciate the work and craft that went into its creation. Someone, somewhere spun, dyed, painted and wound this hank, skein, cake or ball into what it is right now. And I’m about to transform it again, using only two (or more) pointed sticks, from one mammoth length of string into a three-dimensional, wearable, useable item.

Knitting is fucking transformative, man.

To be continued...

Spaghetti

2010-04-21T19:08:00.002-05:00

It's Tuesday night and I'm in the process of making spaghetti. This is something I do often, at least once a week ever since I could cook for myself. You should bear in mind that this is no ordinary spaghetti, but a family recipe handed down for at least three generations, a concoction that my sister and every single cousin (on my Dad's side) also know how to make, to varying degrees of success, a simple meal that will last for a week and is worthy of every bachelor(ette) in this great world (who isn't a vegetarian [or following a gluten-free diet]). This is MY spaghetti.

I don't know whether it started with my Grandma Tammy or whether her mother taught her. What I do know is that my Dad picked it up from his Mom, as did his three brothers, and it served him exceptionally well throughout his life. When the time came, my sister and I learned how to make it as well. Grandma always made it for us during our childhood visits, without fail. Even within the past few years, as Grandma marches through her eighties victoriously, if a bit slowly, we grandchildren have been known to still request a small pot of it be whipped up. Grandma has never failed us.

No one ever knew what made Grandma's spaghetti so undeniably good and no one else was ever able to make it the way she did. Some came close, some not, but none ever really made spaghetti that tasted as good as Grandma's. This was not rocket science, people. The list of ingredients contains only three essential items and the whole thing takes less than an hour to make. It should not have been Mission: Impossible to replicate this stuff...but it was.Dad was convinced the secret lie is letting the water boil off the pasta naturally, so you wouldn't have to drain it before the next step. This incorrect assumption led to many eye-peering sessions over the kitchen sink as he would attempt to get just the right amount of water into a shallow sauce pan in which he would boil the pasta, traditionally thin spaghetti. Regular spaghetti noodles were too thick, angel hair too thin. Often, Dad would trade out thin spaghetti for elbow macaronis. This substitution is acceptable, though his theory ultimately was proven wrong...by me.

You see, I cook this stuff every week. It costs less than $8 to make an entire pot, which will last all week. On nights when Mom was out, this was dinner. As I worked my way through my twelve years of undergraduate studies, this sustained me. Throughout my thirteen months in France, spaghetti was my solution to escargot. And even as I've progressed through my adult life, I still absolutely love this stuff. In my life, there have only ever been two people who didn't like my spaghetti (and one of them eventually recanted her testimony). The other guy was my first boyfriend. O_o Yeah...

Ground beef, thin spaghetti, tomato juice...that's it. Salt and pepper to taste. Traditionally, the tomato juice would come from a jar, having been canned by Grandma from tomatoes picked from her garden. On the table, a butter dish and a short pile of bread slices. Next to the bread, a chunk of cheddar cheese. Grandpa loved his cheese. Of course, there was also the skinny green can of Kraft grated parmesan cheese, which I loved to unceremoniously dump onto my plate after having heaped it full of spaghetti. I would fill myself to bursting, I love this stuff so much and would have happily eaten it every day of my life.

I just now ate a small bowl of it. No bread and butter, no parmesan cheese...I find that the first bowl, fresh out of the pot, is best enjoyed unadulterated. Kort likes it was a tablespoon of Schnuck's small curd cottage cheese and a sprinkle of Geifro. In France, I added crème fraiche to the mix, rendering the whole thing creamier and delicious. Sometimes, I'll slice up a quarter pound of hard salami, sliced thin and cut into squares and added to the frying pan toward the end. A couple years ago, I switched from ground beef to ground turkey and, with the building of my gardens last year, have also been adding fresh lemon thyme, basil, rosemary and whole sage leaves to the meat.

I still don't know why it tastes so good. Thanks, Grandma...

Dangerous Knitting

2010-04-06T11:56:00.002-05:00

Have you ever noticed how we knitters seem to develop relationships to our projects, to our patterns? I never really did until this weekend.

As I mentioned before, I've started work on a Lily-of-the-Valley scarf for Dame Grandma Snyder and this weekend provided me with plenty of time to work on it in earnest. I even have the mixed blessing of being home sick for the past two days with a touch o' something tummy-special. In any case, if you've never knitted lace, there's a certain amount of trepidation and excitement when you start a new pattern. Some prefer to work from a chart, full of left- and right-leaning slashes, circles, dashes and other cryptic symbols; others prefer to have all that transcribed into text, preferring to work with abbreviations like yo, k2tog, ssk and psso. There's a framework that needs to established, and established well, within the first few rows of stitches. The edge stitches, usually 3 or 4 in a row, often done in straight garter, provide the frame within which there are smaller motifs: the 4-nupp diamond, right triangles created through the use of increases and decreases, the flower motif itself, with an arc of nupps suspended from a left-arching branch. When you're establishing the frame, all of these combinations are new and curious, a picture-pattern whose form is revealed stitch by stitch, line by line until, after 5, 10, 30 rows, you've completed one pattern repeat. You stop and the fabric you've just put together so expertly, admiring the simplicity and complexity of what you've just done.

"Repeat rows 1-28 twenty-nine more times."

Yeah, 29 more times...because scarves are long. Even shorter scarves are still long when you're dealing with a 30-row pattern repeat. You mean...I've got to read through that chart 29 more times? Well, yeah...but...kind of not. What do I mean? I mean...you begin to develop a relationship with your pattern. You come to know it, each little motif and the one situated next to it. You come to know that the flower nupps get knit on a stitch in between 2 yarn-overs on the row below. You learn that you can turn a 4-point diamond into a 5-point simply by moving the right yarn-overs either before or after the decrease. A P5tog gets easier with practice...but only a little bit.

Depending upon the complexity of any given line, some patterns seem impossible to ever memorize. But if broken down into even smaller bits, you don't end up looking at the chart (or the written directions) nearly as often. It's truly an exercise in meditative concentration. I never watch movies or television when I knit lace. I can't. I've tried...and failed. I suppose I could if I used lifelines, but I don't. I think a lifeline, while definitely an excellent and recommended practice, steals a little of the fun. For those who don't know, a lifeline is a length of yarn, often of a contrasting color, that is periodically threaded through every stitch of a given row. Why? Because it's not uncommon, with complex lace patterns especially, to miss a stitch, drop a stitch, forget a yarn-over or in some other indeterminate way come to the end of a row and realize that you're off by one stitch.

Off by one stitch...so? What's the big deal? Can't you just...you know...make a stitch there at the end and keep going? Sure...you can. But keep in mind the integrity of any motif is really just a reflection of the harmonious relationship between all its component parts, in this case rows of stitches and the stitches themselves, one lining up onto the one below, a hundred thousand little squares all coalescing into a pattern, a picture...and missing even one of these little bits could throw the whole pattern off.

Emphasis on the "could." Sometimes, if you read your row closely, you can pinpoint where the missing stitch is supposed to go. This usually is accompanied by a small sigh, some small relief and a small amount of tinking back to that spot with the intention of putting that errant stitch where it belongs. And sometimes you can, simple as that, no harm, no foul. But sometimes, when you arrive and you replace your previous knits with the exact same knits, it occurs to you that the problem might not have been on this row, but on some previous row. Suddenly, this problem just got bigger.

Enter stage left the Lifeline.

If you were a conscientious knitter, thorough and practiced due diligence, you would have, not too long ago, threaded some yarn, possibly red, through the stitches of one row. The point: if need be, I could break-glass-in-case-of-emergency, pull the work off the needles and carefully frog the stitches back to that row, the row I know was perfect, the row that was knit before...before...oh, it's too much to think about.

Anyway, I don't use them. I know, it is shocking. Maybe I should but...it's like rock climbing without a rope. It's dangerous, exciting even, to knit lace without a lifeline. Admit it, knitters, in our knitting world so full of softness and comfort, you love a little danger with your wool! You love it! Traveling without your needle tips? Your sock might come right off the needles! Dangerous! Starting a new cardigan without knitting a gauge swatch? Look out! Danger...

Where was I? Oh yes...no lifelines and you're off your pattern by one stitch. What to do, what to do? Ask the Doctor, he'd know! Yeah, but he's not here. Bugga...

This is where you trust your knit-stincts and the relationship you've developed with your pattern. You read the line, you see where the stitch is supposed to go to but not how it's supposed to go there. You've got a nupp coming up and you know where it needs to go to preserve the arc of the branch and the placement of the buds. The lightbulb suddenly goes off. You couch a little k1fb next to the k2tog to make it less noticeable. Magically, now you've got the right stitch count and the lily-of-the-valley perfectly lines up and no one, except you, is the wiser.

Retrospectively, about 5 pattern repeats into the scarf, I'd be hard pressed to look back and try to find where I made that little improv repair. My solution blends in perfectly to the lines of the pattern and I still have no idea where that missing stitch went to. But the mistake hasn't been repeated since. I rock...

Important To Watch...

2010-04-06T11:49:00.003-05:00

It's Tuesday and while I'm home with a touch of the flu (or some other unidentified bug that causes bad tummy feelings), I thought I'd blog it up a bit. Fancy a cup of coffee? In the process of getting to this point, however, I was distracted by a tweet I found from the Huffington Post regarding the release of video from 2007. When I went back looking for it to share with you, the tweet seems to have disappeared. I found it again via The New York Times.

You can find it here.

I watched the 17-minute version and it completely took the wind out of my sails. The footage in question documents the shooting of two Reuters employees, a photographer and his driver, in Baghdad in 2007. I don't even know what to say...except that I think it important to watch.

Blogging at 10am...

2010-03-28T10:19:00.002-05:00

In truth, I am usually awake at...let's see...10:20 in the morning, so this is nothing new. Were this a normal Sunday morning, I would have probably just gotten up, made coffee and fed the cats. For some reason, however, this morning of all mornings, Team Feline banded together and roused my sleep bright and not-so-early at 530am. By 8 or 9, it was time for a mid-morning nap. It's a rainy day here, the windows are open and the air has a spring chill in it and I really wanted to take a mid-morning nap while listening to the soft sounds of rain falling and birds singing.

Benson, however, is an asshole. Benson, for those who don't know, is my orange tabby, an adolescent in every sense of that stage of child development and quite possibly the feline incarnation of my emotional self, I haven't decided. To get to the point: cute as a button I would usually find the act of curling up next to my head and purring, like one huge furry headphone and the soundtrack is your purr. Normally, it'd be cute; this morning, it was the mosquito buzzing in your ear. Plus, too much coffee and cocoa...equals no mid-morning nap. And so, I blog...

(Even as I write this, Ben has parked himself in the corner of the room by the far bookcase, under the papasan, to wail quietly in his boredom. Woe, is me...he seems to say. Someone get a small hankie and a sofa. I think this belle's about to faint.)

The good news is that certain projects have been finished. Many of these had been in the hopper for a pretty long time: the Swallowtail shawl finally reach completion after sitting on the needles for...a very long time. The Three Sisters Scarf has only a few rows of garter left before the cast-off. Eva's long-ago requested, oft re-started due to gauge problems, reversible cloche is also done, though I am certainly not at all thrilled with the result. Have you ever felt just completely done wrong by a pattern? No? Damn...it could just be me. No pictures on any of the three yet, though...as two of them are lace and will need to be blocked. Aha! A blocking blog post...

What this means, however, is that I can finally start work on Grandma Snyder's Lily of the Valley scarf from "Knitted Lace of Estonia," by Nancy Bush (p.90). This is a special project and I wanted to be sure I could focus and give it the attention it would deserve and require. It's not a terribly complicated lace pattern but I want it to be perfect, without missing stitches at the end of a row or a last-minute YO to make the count right. Nope, Dorothy Snyder is a special lady and Courtny's grandma, an amazing painter and world traveler and she deserves something special.

"With double strand of yarn and using knitted method (see page 23), CO 63 sts. Drop the extra strand and cont with a single strand only."

The knitted method, or the knitted cast-on, is a cast-on method so simple that it's often (but not always) the first cast-on method a new knitter learns, because it introduces the knit stitch immediately. No complicated ins and outs like with the long-tail cast-on, just simple knit and place on needle. Repeat 62 more times. It's pretty amazing then, huh, that I didn't know this method until last night, when I started this project.

In the process of following the cryptic instructions and the hieroglyphic diagrams, I had a moment wherein I rediscovered (again) why I love knitting. It happened again when I learned that slipping 2 sts as if to k2tog (k1, psso) will give a double-decrease that looks slightly different than if each stitch had been slipped one, then the other (k1, psso)...which, in turn looks slightly different than if you only sl 1 st, then k2tog after (psso). Don't get me started on the sssk...which is really hard to do with bulky yarn and US6s, by the way.

I suppose had a been studious and thoroughly prepared, I could have studied up on decreases and known all these varieties and their differences well in advance of any lace knitting...but the brilliant and revelatory moment that came with both the new cast-on technique and the new double-decreased serve to remind me why "self-taught" is often the best method. Sure, it might be slow going, maybe even frustrating but the moments of discovery are incomparable.

Gams and the Quest For Identity

2010-03-22T19:09:00.006-05:00

Astounding is the moment you realize that you're self-identifying as something: I am a Knitter. What are you? More on this in a moment...

I can finally share with you all the secret test knit I've been mentioning. Craig H., an online knit bud of mine, has a brand spankin' new pattern in the latest edition of Knitty, just released online! For those of you who aren't in the knit know, Knitty.com is an online quarterly knit magazine-type thing, full of FREE patterns that don't suck. Alright, not every one has ever tickled my creativity or drive, but by and far, we knitters look forward to and anticipate each new issue.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Craig had a pattern for these great boxer-brief-esque dude shorts. I had found them on either his Ravelry profile or on his own website and expressed great interest in them...and kept expressing my interest until...tah-dah!...

And that's how ya do it, folks. Bam! If you remember those gauge issues I was having not too long ago, one of the troublesome projects was this one. The picture of the ring almost as big as a toilet seat? Yeah, that was supposed to be the leg. Mmm, no...not even the waist. I remedied that, however, using Cascade Rustic (a 79/21 wool/linen blend), a US 9 (I think) 24" bamboo circular and a lot of perseverance.

There was only one instruction in the pattern I couldn't abide by and it had everything to with sewing elastic into the waistband. The problem? I'm no sewer...I'm a knitter. Plan of attack? Improvise and make something up. The solution? A series of yarn-overs in the knitted columns of the waistband ribbing, coupled with a contrasting color I-cord. See? I didn't need to sew anything. Brilliant...what a relief.

The pattern itself? Really quite simple. It's written quite well and I had absolutely no trouble following along. The great thing is that the cable pattern gives you just enough variety to keep it interesting while the rest of the circumference, with its plain stockinette, satisfies the desire for some simple, mindless knitting as well. It's the perfect project for watching movies and television. The new Doctor's coming soon...knit these while you watch. The actual pattern of the cabled section could also be changed out, subsituted by a pattern of your own devising (provided, of course, that it was still approximately the same width).

Speaking of patterns, I'm renewly intrigued by the geometry of nature, brought about in large part by the re-emergence of everything I planted in the gardens last spring.

It's really quite amazing to see everything that had previously turned brown and dead begin to creep out of the soil again. The oregano, anise hyssop and catmint have new growth, tiny leaves growing up out of the middle of dead branches. The contrast is appreciated.

The daffodils happily survived the transplant and, though somewhat smallish, are coming up in droves. There will be crocuses to keep them company next year. That's all for now. Many thanks to my friend Danny for modeling the gams. What a peach...

"...and then I told that old snapdragon

just what I thought of him!"

"Oh my..."

The Sock Yarn Blanket: 2010-02-27

2010-03-18T11:40:00.002-05:00

The Sock Yarn Blanket: 2010-02-27
Originally uploaded by knittaPrince

I know. I know I've taken an inordinate amount of time between this post and the one preceding but that's my prerogative, I guess. In truth, I just haven't been gripped by the drive to write about much of anything. I thought for a little while that I was going to embark on a series of autobiographical explorations but that seems to have not panned out...at least, not yet. Instead, behold the Sock Yarn Blanket!

In truth, what I really want to blog about I cannot. You see, I test knit something for my friend Craig (Etsy shop HERE) and it seems his pattern is about to go live in a place where you will all be able to see it. As such, he's asked me to not post photos of or blog about this item, though I can assure you, my version of it turned out to be the most rockin' thing ever in the history of...well, in the history of my knitting. I hope to reveal it to you soon enough...

I also hope to write more, among other things.

Oh! So, spring is here! That's exciting, right? The windows are open and the kitties are planted on window sills throughout the apartment, watching the goings-on of my street. My bulbs are coming up beautifully, having survived the transplant that took place last summer when I built my gardens. The daffodils are lovely in their early morning yawn and stretch. Only three have thus far bloomed but their bedmates are budding and will soon follow suit.

I'll also take this opportunity to throw out the same call for plant samples as I did last year. If you have a garden that needs a wee bit o' thinning, drop me a line. I could use some perennial greens and blooms and am certainly not above digging them out myself.

What else? Oh yes! Yarn-Over 2010! This non-event event continues, having started in December for a month-long trial, then whipping into full swing on January 1. The object: purchase no yarn for whole year of 2010. The purpose: to use only yarn already stashed in a budget-balancing, stash-busting maneuver to benefit both my bank account and my storage totes.

How's it going? Great! Thus far, I've not bought any yarn whatsoever...except that one time. But, wait...I can explain! It was the reversible cloche I've been knitting for my friend Eva. She lives in Germany and, during her last trip Stateside, asked me to knit her a hat with a brim. After deciding upon the pattern, I started this damn hat three times, encountering a bevy of gauge troubles each time. You can ask Megan (if you know her) and she can attest to the itty bity cloches I would have ended up with had I not re-started again and again. After finally solving the problem by holding the yarn double, it became clearer and clearer as I knit that 2 skeins would simply not be enough to complete the hat. So...after much internal wrangling, I order ONLY 2 additional skeins. I justified it to myself (and Megan) by pointing out that it was needed for a requested project that was already in progress before Yarn-Over 2010 actually started.

*Sigh* It felt good to get that box in the mail, exciting even. And even though I knew I had only ordered 2 skeins, I hoped and crossed my fingers that perhaps there would be a sample of something, some fiber, some soak or maybe a stitch marker, something exciting and surprising. But no, only two skeins and a pick slip. The good news was that the dye lot was identical to what I needed, a sure sign from above that my transgression would be overlooked.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

Gauge Is A Fickle Friend

2010-01-31T10:57:00.002-06:00

So, I feel the need to get back to knitting...as is blogging about it. I dabbled with some tangential topics but now it's time to touch base with what has been happening fiber-wise. To do that, let's talk about gauge for a minute, shall we?

For those of you not lucky enough to have (yet) been indoctrinated into the world of knitting, "gauge" refers to the tension of your knitting and provides a sometimes necessary ratio of rows and stitches per inch. For some projects, such as scarves or shawls, gauge is almost nonsensical in that the finished size of the item is either "big enough" or...well, not. However, when a knitter embarks upon a fiber voyage of great magnitude, let's say a sweater, gauge becomes not only necessary but rather imperative.

Most patterns will give you the gauge with which they are to be knit, in a convenient stitch/row ratio. For example: 5sts/7rws = 1" in stockinette stitch on US #6/4mm needles. Simply put, if you were using the same yarn and the same needle size, and you were to knit up a square in the same stitch, then lay the square flat and measured, you should find that you have 5 stitches horizontally and 7 rows vertically for every 1 inch knitted. If you do, then you have gauge. If you don't, you need to alter one of many variables.

The possible variables include:

The weight of the yarn. Lace, sock, DK, worsted, bulky...the thicker the yarn, the thicker the knit and the fewer stitches per inch. Conversely, the thinner the yarn, the thinner the knit, the more stitches per inch.
The size of the needles. The larger the diameter of the needles, the more yarn it takes to make a stitch; the smaller the diameter, the less it takes. Bulky yarns are (usually) knit on larger needles. Lace projects are (usually) done on thinner needles.
Your own personal tension. Each knitter has their own unique amount of tension they hold in the active yarn when they knit. This makes for tight knitters and loose knitters. I tend to be of the former persuasion.

Given that each knitter has a unique tension, even if you did use the same yarn and the same needle size, there's still no guarantee you'll hit the right gauge. If you're a loose knitter in the above example, you might end up with 4.5 stitches per inch. If you're tight, maybe 5.5 stitches. And although 1/2 of a stitch doesn't seem like a big deal, keep in mind it's 1/2 of a stitch per inch...which means if you add 1/2 stitch for every inch across the width of a sweater, suddenly what should have fit like a glove looks more like a druid robe than a sweater.

As knitters, we are inundated continuously with admonishments regarding the necessity of knitting a gauge swatch. The swatch is that square of fabric I mentioned earlier, a test run with the chosen yarn and chosen needles to determine where you are in relation to the gauge needed. We are told to knit a swatch in numerous how-to books and at the beginning of almost every single pattern ever made. Ideally, the swatch should be knit, washed and dried to achieve an accurate measurement...but who has time for all that? Besides, I don't have my own washer and dryer handy.

So...where am I going with all this? Right here. There are two projects to which this topic is specifically relevant. The first is a hat. Specifically, the Not-Just-For-Chemo Reversible Cloche by Mary Keenan. It's a great pattern for a non-felted cloche and specifically calls for 18 stitches, 26 rows = 4" on US #4/3.5mm. Madame Keenan used Malabrigo Worsted. The friend whom this cloche is for, Miss Eva from Germany, chose Berroco Pure Merino. Both yarns are listed as Aran weight, with 8wpi (wraps per inch). I faithfully found my US #4 straight needles, cast on the requisite number of stitches for a larger sized hat and set off on my adventure!

After several nights of working the brim in a linen stitch on straight needles, I was ecstatic when the pattern finally called for joining the work in the round to begin the body of the hat. I found my double pointed needles and...found that, after joining, I had a hat too small. Not just too small for Eva...too small for a baby! I thought my eyes were perhaps faulty, so I worked a few rounds until the truth just could not be denied. Only a newborn perhaps would ever be able to wear this hat.

Okay, okay...not a big deal. I moved up to a US #7 and cast on again. Several nights of work, join into the round, work a few rounds and...again, too small. Are you kidding me? WTF? I'm sorry to say I don't have any pictures of the 2 baby hats. I ended up taking them both to Knit Night where they were unceremoniously dismantled and rewound into balls. Currently, I'm knitting the hat for the third time, on US #9s with the yarn held double. And you know what? Whatever size it turns out to be is the hat I'm sending to Germany. Hmph!

I do, however, have pictures of the second project, a pair of shorts that you will soon see the pattern for on a popular knit site we all know and consult on a quarterly basis. The pattern was sent to me by the designer directly. Let's call this a test-knit, shall we? I have loved this pattern since I first saw the finished project and immediately found some Patons Shetland Chunky. The gauge on the pattern: 5sts/7rows = 1". I made sure to knit a test swatch this time, given the hassle with the cloche. My gauge: 5sts/7rows = 1". SCORE! I grabbed the circular needle, cast on for the first leg and was off!

Here's the beginning of the leg:

What you may not be able to fully appreciate in this picture is the scale of this gauge disaster. Let me re-frame it for you with some context:

Yes, the leg is almost as large in diameter as a toilet seat cover. I hang my head in shame before you, fellow knitters. Needless to say, I ripped it out immediately.

So, where did I go wrong? I had the correct gauge, yes...but I had the correct gauge on straight needles. I neglected to knit a test swatch in the round, as the legs of the shorts would be knit. And that, my friends, made all the difference in the world.

I have re-started the shorts, this time using Rowan Cashsoft 4 Ply and am please to report that they appear to be of wearable size this time...though I may have underestimated the amount of yarn needed to finish the shorts.

Move to Amend

2010-01-23T12:11:00.002-06:00

“I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan. November 12, 1816

I've just become aware of a rather important organization, Move To Amend. Seeking to amend our nation's Constitution in light on the Supreme Court's recent decision concerning campaign finance reform, I think it's at least worth a moment of your time to take a look and see what it's all about. I've already signed the petition; you, of course, don't have to.

Denouement

2010-01-22T18:56:00.003-06:00

If you thought even for one second about that last question before answering, you've already taken one second longer than I did. Of course, I wrote him back.

Had this been another time, his message would have probably been written at a desk, it would have traveled across an ocean, probably folded neatly in thirds before having been placed in a heavier paper envelope, on the front of which certain names and addresses would have been faithfully inscribed. A colorful stamp would have been found in the upper right corner, bought in a French bureau de tabac on the walk to school, affixed immediately with a lick of the tongue and the press of a thumb, the whole thing being then dropped unceremoniously into a yellow box on the side of a nondescript building.

Had this been another time, I would have found it in two weeks time, lying on the hardwood floor in front of my front door, having landed there after being pushed through the mailslot by an oblivious carrier. I would have opened it immediately, hurriedly, ripping the envelope raggedly with my hands, not even waiting to make it to the desk where a proper opener lie. I imagine the reaction would still have been very much the same, however.

So, yeah...I wrote back to him. I wrote back wishing him a Happy New Year, too. I included a vague reference to our previous adventures and touched upon the highlights of the past five years: graduation, starting the gym, knitting, quitting smoking and starting a new career. Oh, and then I finished it off with another vague reference of the past, the writing equivalent of sealing an e-mail with a kiss.

And yes, he wrote back to me after that. He told me about buying an apartment, securing his job in Angers as a school teacher and faculty member at the private university where I attended classes five years ago. It's a lot of work, he told me, but he was really enjoying it. Unfortunately, his romantic life had been less than stellar, like mine, and, also like me, he was single. It would seem, he said, that la vie nous deux rend au meme stade: Life had brought both of us to the same stadium.

Then he mentioned the possibility of coming to St. Louis to visit me.

And that's where this story ends...for now. I wrote him back again and completely forgot to mention the possibility of a trip to see me. It doesn't mean the option if off the table, simply that I don't think we're anywhere near close to starting to talk about something like that. It's been five years...let's trade some stories and get to know each other again, first...

I'm going to write to him right now and tell him a little about last night's Knit Night. It seems a good place to start.

...and then...

2010-01-20T21:16:00.003-06:00

Okay, number one: If you haven't done so already, you need to go back and read the previous post.

Number two: If you have already read it, you may want to go back and skim it again, to brush up on the salient points of the story. It's okay...I'll wait.

...

You good? Alright, then. I had to go back and read the damn thing, too, because, as you may or may not have been aware, it's been several days since I wrote the first part of this story and, according to a bevy of sources, they have been filled for some with emotion and suspense. I've been asked a dozen times in a dozen ways, "What happens next?" This morning, it was explained to me why I'm a complete bastard. I have left people breathless, I have made some people cry. And if I don't write something soon, I swear I will be carried off by a 1930s B&W film riot crowd, complete with flaming torches.

However, I have also had to examine how far I'm willing to go with you. How much am I willing to share, to reveal about myself to you, the reader, whom I might though probably will never know. How much do I reveal about Bernard or any other person who might figure into an autobiographical tale? How much crosses a line, how much invades another's privacy...how much am I allowed to tell you?

It started with "Hello my dear dean." It was Tuesday morning when I saw though it had arrived the day before. The left side of my mouth curled up in a half-smile and I swear to you, my heart skipped a beat. Immediately, everything came flooding back to me, like a movie trailer watched in fast-forward in the glory days of the VCR. Remember? When you were trying to get to the actual movie on the TAPE and the only way to it was to fast forward through the FBI warning and all those damn previews, one after another, with their teeny scenes cutting and jumping from one to the next so fast that if you barely know what movie they're advertising for? Yeah...it was kind of like that.

The message had two photos attached to it. The first is of him with a beautiful and obviously French woman. He's wearing an impossibly dark sweater with a white button-down collar setting up a startling and stark contrast. His hair is dark with a slight wave to it. And his eyes, light blue and still gorgeous. His expression is content, neither too serious nor with a smile. This is the face I remember, the face I traced with fingertips and whose contours I memorized in my sleep.

The second photo was of him with a small, blond baby boy with deep-sunk eyes and a chubby face. Here was his smile, so natural in its form and beauty, flanked on either side by the subtle flattery of the parenthesis, the slight laugh lines that flag him as someone who smiles a lot. Here he has a slight soul patch below his bottom lip and a small gold chain he wear beneath a black t-shirt.

Hello my dear Dean...

I wanted to wish you a Happy New Year by way of this message. I hope that everything is going well for you there in the States. When are you coming back to France? I hope to hear back from you soon...Je t'embrasse...B.

PS - Here are a couple of photos...perhaps you will find me very much the same. A bientot.

And that was all there was. A five year silence had been broken and if you think for a minute it was only to wish me a Happy New Year, you are not keeping up very well. Bernard is a dyed-in-the-wool romantic, conventionally so in many respects, but if there was a random message turning up after five years of shhh...nothing, my initial instinct says...well, do I write back?

Do I write back? You might think that it should be a simple question, with an immediately resounding, "YES." But think about it for just a moment: he is where he is and I am where I am and it's been 5 years and do I really want to turn over a stone that long ago dried in the sun? Or do I leave well enough alone?

French Flashback...Five years ago, Part II

2010-01-12T20:00:00.002-06:00

It's Tuesday night, I'm newly home from the gym and am suddenly struck with this autobiographical impulse. The idea for the French Flashbacks was to lift portions from a journal I kept throughout my time in France and re-visit them five years after the fact. This one, however, is motivated by the intersection of my history with my present, by an e-mail I received this morning from someone I never thought I'd hear from again. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, one of the many characters of my life, M. Bernard Jeannot:

Bernard and I met near the end of my stay in France, through a mutual acquaintence: his singing partner and my housemate, a young French woman named Emily. All of about 22, she was eager for he and I to meet and one day, when I was just getting in from my day on campus, I found Emily and Bernard singing together in the kitchen. Acoustics being what they are in old French kitchens, and I don't need to tell you, their voices were carrying quite a bit, drawing much unwelcome attention from the Monsieur and Madame of the house who, I might add as a small aside, were horrible, horrible people.

I was instantly stunned by everything about him, but mostly the angular cut of his face and those blue, blue eyes. Paired with the beautiful dark hair that typifies the French, you have to admit they do make a striking deux. As I felt a smile cross my face, I saw myself extending my hand as though I wasn't the one doing it. He rose from his seat with an expression that seemed to mirror my own and, as we shook hands briefly, there was some kind of fairytale, instantaneous spark that happened. And if you think for a minute I'm making any of this up...man, you can't make this shit up!

He came upstairs later and as we sat next to each other on my bed, I felt giddy and stupid like a 15-year old. The door was open, of course...as to do otherwise would either win you the cheeky and playful deridement from your housemates or a firm knock on your door from the proprietors, as we were not supposed to have overnight guests. As we talked in my room, there seemed to this unstated, unknown yet palpable level of understanding between us and I made very sure to make very clear from the onset that I was leaving in six weeks.

This departure, it is an inevitablity, not in the slightest open for debate or negotiation. We can either part ways now and call it good or, knowing full well the expiration date of our time, we can just see what happens in just 42 days time.

The very next day Bernard and I saw each other again. Since he was Emily's singing partner, he had the perfect excuse to be at the house when I would be, though he didn't need one, of course. But there was a playful coyness to our courting, which makes everything sound incredibly gay and campy but which, in reality, had a welcomed innocence behind it all. Bernard was sincere in his passions, with none of the vapid shallowness so often found here. Was that too cheeky? Fuck it, keep going...

...I was very, very sick in this photo...

So, how exactly does one go about dating someone for 6 weeks, knowing that everything stops, like it or not, ready or not, on the 43rd day. It depends on which one you are: are you Me, leaving France after 13 months to return home, to see my family, my friends, to leave behind this lovely country I had come to call home and close the chapter and turn to the next page? Or are you Him, having just met the person you feel you could quite possibly spend the rest of your life with and being faced with the immutable truth that he lives on the other side of the Atlantic ocean and nothing you say or do will change the fact that he's leaving?

Truth is relative to the person experiencing it and nothing could be more true in this specific instance. Though I loved spending time with Bernard, and our time spent together became more and more, he wasn't the only person in town I had responsibilities to. There were other friends, Americans, Canadians and French, some I had known since my arrival, who also wanted some of my time. Our times together were coming to a slow fade to black and everyone needed one more night, one more drink, one more coffee...one more wave from the train. I tried to keep it light and give it my all, both at the same time. He, on the other hand, tried to live the life of a true relationship in the span of six weeks. There was a lot to accomplish and things moved very fast.

I was soon given a key to Bernard's apartment and I almost always have a change of clothes there, should I need one. He lived on the other side of town, some 1 hour on foot between my place and his. I walked it many times during those weeks, at all hours of the night and day. I have stumbled down the street at night, arm in arm with drunk French kids I didn't know but had somehow ended up getting drunk with on the way to his house. And I have seen the old French woman with her black shawl, sweeping the stoop of the bakery at the crack of dawn, preparing the fresh croissants and selling me 2 on the way home. I spent most nights there with him, curled up on the couch, talking about some aspect of French grammar he was trying to help me sort out.

Bernard, you see, is incredibly smart...and that's by French education standards which, compared to US standards make us all look like a pack of backwater hillbillies. (I was going to name a State, too, but I'll let you fill in the blank). He finished in the top three of his class, ensuring him of his pick of teaching posts throughout the entire country. He's the kind of smart that I am in awe of. He also taught French, which was just one of many perfect pairing points we had in common. Keep in mind, he taught French there the way we are taught Engish here, not as a foreign language but as our native language. Bernard knew French literature and grammar, style and rhetoric and every fine point of detail, every point of clarification that I came up with only served as an ongoing and perpetual conversation between the two of us, sometimes moving from the living room to the car, through the drive and even spill over into the conversation of the dinner party we were attending together. He was smart, he was gorgeous...he was French!

Ahhhh, well...time moves on and, unfortunately, as foretold, I could not stay on. Bernard and I split ways several days before I left. We were to meet on campus at 18h00 and he would bring me my things. It was cool and overcast at dusk, the perfect moment of twilight. If I remember correctly, he asked me not to contact him afterwards, that severing all communication would be easier than hearing my voice or seeing my face again. So, I turned from him first and started to walk back to my house. I could hear him get in his car and start to pull away, car tires on gravel...and you better believe I turned around and stood there in the gravel feeling like Meryl Streep, tears sliding silently down my cheeks. I never heard from him again...

...until today.

Can I Kick it?

2010-01-10T09:32:00.001-06:00

First, winter has finally arrived here in St. Louis. Last Wednesday saw our first real snowfall of the season, maxing out at a traffic-stopping 3 inches. It was almost enough to shut the city down for the entire day. Many schools and universities called off in favor of snow days and even my office started an hour later to give people time to make it in safely. I imagine the jet stream will shift north soon enough and the warmer air will melt the snow. This is what usually happens in a St. Louis winter. We're lucky if we get 2 major snows each season.

Second, I had a wonderful surprise arrive on Thursday! A thank-you package from my Flickr knit bud LimeGreenOctopi showed up on my doorstep, a response to a package I had sent him containing the remnants from the Diamondback Mitts. Jo Sharp Silk Road Tweed Aran or some such nonsense. In any case, not only did I not finish the second Mitt (so sorry, Stephen) but I also didn't care for the yarn much either. LimeGreenOctopi made an off-hand comment and badda-bing, badda-boom...What I got in return, however, was way better than what I sent! Enclosed in an envelope were 2 hanks of AslanTrends Sante Fe, color #1320 Earth Seasons, a little "Knitta Please" postcard, a milk chocolate Yooper bar, a little Moleskine notebook and a mixtape of some of his favorite music! Do you even know how long it's been since anyone gave me a mixtape?! I already ate the Yooper bar, too...in case you were wondering.Third, here's a crap-tastic photo of the Boneyard Shawl I've been working on for Ms. Sarah Scott, a phenomenal lino cut artist in Grand Rapids, MI. I just finished it last night, close to 1am...

...and haven't blocked it yet. I plan to do that today...but, then again, I also plan on going to gym, taking a nap, eating lunch...and who knows which tasks will actually get done. It's Sunday so it's anyone's best guess, really. I could really, really use with photography lessons, yo. Here's the print I received in trade:

So, when I originally sat down at my desk to write this entry, I had some really great shit tumbling around in my head...and although it's all still tumbling, it's not quite smooth enough to be committed to virtual paper. Stay tuned though...I'm working on it. For now, though, I think most everything's been covered. There was a pair of mitts and some work on the Sock Yarn Blanket, too...but I didn't snap a pic of the mitts and the SYB is so gargantuan, it's virtually impossible to photograph. See? Again with the photo advice...consider the phone lines open.

I'm going to take a Sunday nap now...

What? Take nap now? YAY! Purrrr...

Play by FoxSaver®

Year End Special

2009-12-31T16:27:00.003-06:00

Welcome to the last day of 2009...or the first day of 2010, if you're reading this late. It's not only the end of the year but also of the decade, the first of the 21st century. It's kind of a big deal...like me.

Tomorrow, I officially welcome the start to Yarn-Over 2010, my personal stash-busting, budget-balancing non-event of the new year and decade. Why a non-event, you ask? Because all I have to do for it to be a resounding success is simple NOT buy yarn for the next 12 months. Simply do nothing that involves the exchange of monetary currency for spun fiber and I can add this to my list of life accomplishments!

Now, you should know I've been doing a "test run" of the Yarn-Over theory all through the month of December. I experienced a budget flush around Thanksgiving during a visit to Michigan during which one of my favorite yarn shops anywhere was going out of business. I figured after that, I shouldn't/wouldn't/didn't need anything more for the rest of year, so...I started early. Well, all was fine and good for the first three weeks. I took my name off the mailing lists and websites that often feature excellent yarn at excellent prices. What I didn't count on was one of the best indie retailers sending out a 20%-off Year End Sale e-mail to her preferred customers. If I got this e-mail (I did), it means I'm a preferred customer (I am), which, in turn, means I bought a lot of yarn from this woman in the recent past (most definitely).

To those uninitiated, Miss Babs sells wonderful hand-dyed sock yarns. Merino wool, various plies to choose from, I've been a fan of her yarns for as long as I've been knitting. When that e-mail showed up, I fought it, I really, really did, I swear...but the 20% also applied to her already on-sale destash...and who can really turn down a double discount? In all honesty, when I got to the website, though, the destash section was completely empty...but by that time, it was already too late. The hypodermic needle was already poised...

I bought conservatively, though. Thinking more about the Sock Yarn Blanket than any other project (and the 9 other Knit Night goers who have also started their own, thank you very much!), I opted for smaller, less expensive skeins of lovely 2-ply merino. $9 a pop, 10 in total with a 20% discount...you do the math. My last yarn purchase for the next 12 months was under $100, shipping included. I just received it today:

In other unrelated news, I've just come back from seeing "Avatar," that new blockbuster, big-budget CGI extravaganza from James Cameron that everyone is talking about. Personally, I really enjoyed the film...it was entertaining, engrossing, albeit a bit predictable. I saw a matinee and it was well worth the $4 I spent. But more on that later...

The movie and its themes got me to thinking about a story that was circulated all through the St. Louis Metro region toward the end of November. The story involves a deer hunter from Edwardsville, IL, who took down a 25-point buck this season. For those who don't know (for I barely do), that means the buck had a mean, massive rack of antler atop his head, a testament to the long life and years of experience this animal had accrued. Anytime a deer of that stature is taken, it tends to make the news.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me just state for the record that I am not a hunter, never have been. My father was, his brothers were, their father was, too. It was a family thing, learning to use the bow and the gun to take down game. I suppose it was sometimes done for the meat the animal provided but, just as often, it was done for the sport of it. Personally, I've never understood the "sport" aspect of deer hunting: there's no way you can really lose unless you count not killing an animal that day. If you want to hunt lions or, better yet, bears...that makes more sense, especially if there's a very real possibility that you could lose...a leg.

There were several aspects to this particular deer hunting story that made it so extraordinary to me. The first of these was the manner in which the hunt took place. The hunter had been using Google Earth to plot the most likely paths the animal might take. Ingenious really, if you think about it for a moment. Now this, this aspect of hunting I can understand. The accumulation and careful analysis of information pertaining to a quest.

The second aspect, and really the most amazing, is the manner in which the kill went down. The hunter's analysis must have been correct because one night, while the hunter was lying on the ground, the buck came by. The hunter took aim with his bow and let one fly...only to have the arrow deflect off a tree and rip through the buck's ear, which in turn startled the deer, causing it to slip down an embankment and off a cliff, where it fell over a cliff and down 20 feet into the water, where it drowned!

Don't believe it?! You can read about it here, here and some comments others locals have made regarding this story here. I was even able to find a photo of the hunter with his kill here.

My initial feeling when I first heard this story is about the same as it was today when "Avatar" reminded me of it. I may not fully understand the act of going out into the cold woods with a bow or a firearm to sit and watch and wait for an animal to come along so you can take its life...but when an animal as regal and proud as I imagine a 25-point buck must have been comes along, what possesses a hunter to take up arms and cut short a life which has already spanned so long? Is it the taxidermed head mounted to the wall, rack still attached the skull? Is it bragging rights to your buds about your prowess in hunting, which surely wouldn't apply here? What is that urge that seizes you to kill a living thing?

I will concede that under the best of circumstances, there may be some honor to be found in the glory of the kill. This story, however, is far from the best of circumstances. This hunter took a lousy shot that caused this beautiful animal to fall to its death and drown. There is surely no honor in that, none whatsoever. Take a look at the photo, the very existence of which at least implies some sense of pride at having brought this animal down. If this man had wrestled the deer bare-handed to ground, perhaps...just perhaps I could better understand. But, simply put, I don't. I just don't know how someone could do what this man did. It saddens me to think of that buck.

In one final note, a happier note...here's Benson. He, like so many who have come before him, has decided to start hitting the gym for his New Year's Resolution.

Scrooged

2009-12-29T11:06:00.003-06:00

Let me be clear: I don't hate Christmas.

Now, let me clarify. This whole story started several weeks before Christmas while I was having a phone conversation with my father, during which I indicated to him that I didn't want us to do a gift exchange this year. I didn't realize when I said it that I was instigating a minor revolution in the family dynamic, but there you have it.

My reasons for this request were quite simple. Last year, I got both my Dad and step-mom lovely, long, plush bathrobes, the kind you often find at high-end spas. I have one at home that I wear ALL the time and thought they might like them, too. I mean they're warm, comfy, cozy, have pockets...what's not to love. Simply put, I don't think they've ever been worn...by anyone. No problem...not really.

Also take into account that I am a knitter...in case you didn't already know. Odds are pretty good that at some point in the next 12 months, both my Dad and my step-mom will get something from me, hand-made with them in mind. I don't yet know what those items might be or when they'll be made...but I wouldn't bet against the House on this one, folks.

But what it all really comes down to is that for many years now, I have been trying to understand why people do what they do around Christmas. I'm not confused about getting together with family, baking and cooking oodles of food, gorging oneself to bursting and taking naps on the living room sofa. The gatherings of people and the parties I understand.

What I don't understand is the money, the spending, the consumerism. Truth be told, I've never really understood it, not at its core. I tend to think of myself as a thoughtful, pensive individual, thorough and methodical in almost everything I do. I don't make a lot of assumptions and tend to pose more questions than many people are really comfortable with or understand themselves. So, it only makes sense that I would start taking a hard look at everything that happens around the holidays.

Every year, we, as a nation and a culture, spend oodles and gobs of money on shit. Many times, we spend money we don't have yet, don't have at all and may never have. We spend it on stuff like televisions and PS3s and kitchen appliances and sport coats; jewelery for the women, dress shirts for the men and inane, flashing, blinking, loud, crazy toys for the kids. En masse, we descend upon the shopping malls with lists of people we feel we must buy for: Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters, uncle, aunts, cousins, grandmas and grandpas. Then there's the second tier: office collegues and secret santas; neighbors and maybe your postman; random donations to Toys For Tots; everyone at Knit Night or everyone at Monday Night Dinner.

People get anxious, too...especially as the big day closes in on them. Realizations about who they have or have not bought for set in and people start to panic. I've noticed that people seem to have subjective evaluations about how much they're supposed to give to the people in their lives and if they don't feel that they've attained those levels, they start buying more and sillier things to make up the difference. Suddenly packs of socks and packs of cigarettes are fair game! Candy bars and Burt's Bees sample packs, even sample bottle of shampoo and deodorant become "stocking stuffers," the holiday equivalent of hot dog filler. People struggle and strive to find more and better things to give to people and all in an effort to do...what?

The commonly held idea is that Christmas is a time to spend with friends and family and to exchange gifts around a lit-up tree to demonstrate the love and caring of the season. But I tend to be of the opinion that, especially for those that are nearest and dearest to me, the love and caring I feel for them is not at all dependent upon a "season" and I give them gift throughout the year and not just towards the end of December. I give them gifts when I happen upon something that makes me think of them or when I set out to make something specifically for them. I buy my parents bathrobes because mine brings me such pleasure and I want to share that pleasure with them. I give über-rare Tori Amos CDs because I know Kort will love them and give them a good home and I like to see her face light up.

A couple years ago, I opened a Christmas gift from a family member who will remain unnamed (although I'm pretty sure they don't read this blog...it's called respect). When I opened the box, I found a casserole baking dish, gorgeously glazed in a deep red. The problem is that I've never made a casserole, I've never talked about casserole and, to this day, I've never, ever felt the desire to make a casserole, even though I could now...because I was given this casserole dish. Please know that my intention is never to appear ungrateful, but I have to ask the question: what made this person think I could really use a casserole dish? Did they see the casserole dish and say to themselves, "Oh, that would be just perfect for Dean!" Better to have given nothing at all, I think.

But we, as a culture, as a nation, often have a problem with that: not giving anything. Which brings me back to my original point of not having a gift exchange this year. When I explained everything to my parents, there was a slight pause on the other end of the phone and then a simple question: "But...what will we put under the tree for you to open?"

Nothing. Nothing at all...and that's kind of the point. I went out to my Dad's to eat dinner with my family, to make them laugh and to laugh with their jokes, to drink copious amounts of coffee, to play with the dog and to see people I don't often get to see. I didn't come out to stock up on stuff I don't need, might not want, but feel obligated to drag home with me anyway. I think what that one question really revealed was my parents' own uncomfortability with the prospect. Everyone else would be opening presents...except me...and they felt bad about that...even though I wouldn't feel the least bit bad about that. They would...

And ultimately that's their issue, not mine and I can't take responsibility for how someone other than myself feels. I can acknowledge it, respect it...but I will not take responsibility for it. In the same vein, I also will not plunge myself into excessive debt to but trinkets for everyone I know simple because it's December 25th. Better, I think, to not have anything to give them on Christmas...but rather, give them something when they're not expecting it...in fact, when they're least expecting it. The pay-off is so much better for both people!

So, Christmas...I neither love it nor hate it. I do, however, hate what it has turned into for too many people. We are knitters and jewelers and print-makers and hand-crafters of everything...there's no reason we should ever be wrapping up a carton of Camels with a pretty, sparkling bow simply because of some societal pressure we feel to give someone something, anything...

...just because it was Jesus' birthday? Hey, it's the Winter Solstice! Here's a Mag-Lite for your car and a coupon for $5 off your next car wash.

Oh, and just to finish the original story, we did not have a gift exchange this year. Other people at our family gathering did, but between my parents and me, we did not. My Dad cheated, though, when he slipped me a $100 bill. "You said not to buy you anything...so we didn't."

Good-bye Citty Knitting

2009-12-16T14:24:00.002-06:00

I made my first trip to City Knitting several years ago. My best friend had just moved back to the Grand Rapids region with her new son and I was going up to visit them and to touch base with my home state, which I hadn't seen in quite some time. During the trip, Courtny and I did an old-fashioned yarn crawl and after several hours and a couple stores later, City Knitting emerged as the winner hands down. I wish I could say it emerged like a victor from the clouds of ware but, truth be told, there wasn't much competition. Simply put, City Knitting rocked my knitting world. After several hundreds of dollars of yarn, I left feeling more exhausted and satiated than any sex I've ever had has ever been able to accomplish...ever. You get the point...

This week marks the closing of City Knitting forever, for always.

Around Thanksgiving, I had the advantageous opportunity to visit them one last time. The same pleasant ladies I've always seen were still there, still looking beautiful and pleasant. I even had the pleasure of running into Lorilee, the owner, during my visit. She was looking plaintively at the wall of sock yarn, slightly diminished and thin. I gave her a hug, the dude knitter from St. Louis, and thanked her for just being there over the past couple years. It was always, always a must-go destination every time I drove up.

To commemorate the closing of the store, Courtny was commissioned to created a piece to be given to Lorilee. As an emerging artisan jeweler and metalsmith, and as the best friend of a knitter, she had no trouble coming up with the perfect piece:

A small, diminutive knitting needle, hand-made from sterling silver. Across the top of the head, stamped into the silver, the word "Joy."

For anyone interested, you can get more information regarding this unique piece, as well as other available pieces, by contacting Courtny directly via WillowSongStudio@hotmail.com or by searching fro her via Facebook.

Much thanks to Lorilee and the staff of City Knitting, one of the best Local Yarn Shops I've ever had the pleasure to frequent. Thanks for selling Yarn Hollow and for winding up those 24oo yards of lace weight Cedarwood & Cinnabar I bought while I was there. I know it took awhile. You all have always been beyond welcoming and, as a dude knitter, I have always appreciated it.

You will be missed.

Social Networking, Microblogging and 1 New Tire

2009-12-10T20:32:00.002-06:00

It's Thursday evening and I'm at home, comforting myself after an mini-adventure in the best way I know how: with a fresh pot of coffee and my favorite new mug. You see, tonight I learned, yet again, the value of having really great friends. In this case, it's my work-friend, Trish. She is just amazing...

'Cuz you see what had happened was...it was 5:30p and my work week was over. I left the building, glided through the chilled and brittle air and got into my car. As I was pulling away, I could hear a distinctive thwump, thwump, thwump which, of course, caused me to pull the car over. I thought that perhaps, due to the excessively cold air, the tires had settled a bit, giving themselves a slightly flat side. Although the basis of my theory was soon proven correct, it wasn't so much the cold air that was to blame as it was a total lack thereof, specifically in the front left tire.

Yes, I experienced my first flat tire...ever. And you know this shit never, ever goes down after work on a lovely late April evening, when the flowers are in bloom and all the world seems to be in a good mood. No. This happens on the second day of a particularly bitter cold snap, when most of my co-workers have left long before. But there was Trish, leaving not too long after myself. She drove over and immediately asked, "Okay, what did you do?" Funny lady...

Long story short, she stuck with me while our boss, Barry did what he could and while an super nice guy from second shift first re-inflated the tire (only to discover some odd...bloating...on the tire wall), then changed out the tire of dubious means with my spare. Sir, I neglected to catch your name but please know that I am exceedingly grateful for your kindness. Trish followed me to the nearest Dobbs and left me in their capable hands to meet up with her oh-so-cute boyfriend, Dow, to whom I also extend gracious thanks for allowing me to borrow your girl so impromptu-ly.

So here I am now, back home, with cold feet (literally...I don't know why) and my fresh mug of joe. I just realized I forgot to add sugar...be right back...

And, while I am handing out gratitude to readily at the moment, some thanks must go out to Deborah for gifting to me and the Sock Yarn Blanket the remains of an autumnal Schoppel Wolle Zauberball. Yea, I love sock scraps...

My delay in between blogs is due in large part to my burgeoning exploration of Facebook and Twitter. I'm not totally sold on either...but I am helplessly addicted to the gaming apps. I'm a vampire and a gangster with a fish tank and a farm and I just colonized my second planet. I have no excuse...lock me up now, officer...please.

On to the knitting...

After a 5-month duration, Work Project IV is finally done! Remember, the Work Project pieces are those that I do at work, on lunch hour. I don't work on them at any other time, which explains why it took five months to knit a pair of socks.

During my recent sojourn into the Michigan wild (of Grand Rapids), I was able to get back to the Swallowtail Shawl and make some serious headway into the second motif. I didn't succeed in competing it, but progress was made.

I also just completed 2 pairs of mitts for my good friend, Shivian, and his boyfriend, Kai. They live in the frigid, snowy land known as Chicago.

Originally meant to be a pair of Diamondback Mitts in red & black, I eventually opted for a simpler pattern done twice. Shiv's mitts are knit with Southwest Trading Company "Karaoke Multi," a 50/50 wool & soy silk blend with deep, saturated colors. Unfortunately, the red and black colorway didn't hold throughout the skein, so the second mitt ended up more red and...deep red. It's the beauty of a hand-knit item...I also started knitting Kai's mitts out of the same yarn, hoping for better results for his blue and black color request. As you can see...it was not to be. Not only did the blue and black not go through the entire skein, the colorway actually went lighter, into the robin's egg and turquoise regions. I had to fall back on an old reliable, Plymouth Encore DK in a blue/black twist. I held the yarn double throughout, so Kai's are actually thicker (and probably warmer) than Shivian's.Work Project V will begin on Monday. I'm going to do another Boneyard Shawl, this one using 2 colors of Rowan Classic Cashsoft, a blend of extra fine merino, microfibre and cashmere. I have a new friend, Sarah, who makes this amazing linocut prints. We've arranged a trade: a 2-color Boneyard Shawl for one of her framed prints. It's a deal!

I also have other small projects in the works, though not yet started. Eva needs a hat with a curved brim and a pair of black fingerless mitts; Amber needs mitts and a swanky scarf; her kids (all 4 of them) needs scarves and the newest one needs a lil' baby hat to keep his head warm.

So Much To See...

2009-11-29T18:09:00.004-06:00

Okay, as I write this, I have SO much to include. Don't be surprised if this ends up being a rather photo-heavy post. You have been warned...

Please note: As I write this, I m enjoying a bottle (or several) of Schlafly's Saison Ale, a seasonal brew locally made here in St. Louis. It's part of my bounty from the conclusion of the 6th annual Rock N Roll Craft Show...along with Ferdinand. But you'll read more about him in a bit...

As you may (or may not) know, I am recently returned from a week-long adventure to the northern regions of Michigan where I spent what was the BEST Thanksgiving I've ever had in my thirty-three years' worth of Thanksgivings, probably because MY family was no where to be seen. The drive up was uneventful and easily managed. My best friend Kort and her soon-to-be 5-year old son, Logan, live with Sarah and her daughter, Eleanor, in a wonderful old-ish, two story in Grand Rapids. The days were spent accomplishing a bevy of knitting on the Swallowtail Shawl, as well as a mitered-square pillow sham of my own design. I had the pleasure of sleeping in Sarah's bedroom upstairs, a smallish room with an older bed frame which would creak at the slightest movement. The temperature of said house was also a degree or two on the chilled side of life, all of which lended itself to a wonderfully old-fashioned experience. The knitting contributed, too...
Many thanks to my great friends Kiana and Stacy, who co-operatively took exceptional care of my three cats in my absence. They each garnered a dark-chocolate bar for their efforts. Here's the adorable cat schedule they kept...I love the "S" signifying scoopage.

I, of course, made my usual visit(s) to City Knitting, the local knit shop to see and be seen in during a trip to the west side of the State. Unfortunately, they will soon be closing their doors for good, before the end of the year. Given this development, Lorilee has placed some discounts in place to encourage the everything-must-go mentality... and which of us fiber enthusiasts can really resist a discount of any size.As you might hae already guessed, I completely stocked up as though the harshest winter in St. Louis history was about to set in and snow me in for the next three months...which couldn't be farther from the truth, but there you have it. As such, I must, out of necessity, announce that Yarn-Over 2010 will be starting 1 month early, on December 1st, 2009. As you can already see throughout this post, my bounty was exquisite and exceptional, especially the locally dyed fare from Yarn Hollow that I brought home.

Upon my return to St. Louis, I immediately had to report for duty to the Rock N Roll Craft Show on Saturday morning. This event happens every year for the past 6 years and features the work of a bevy of local crafters and artisans: everything from art and graphic prints to jewelery, knitwear and other textiles. I originally met organizer Nora Vandervort at an event at the 3rd Degree Glass Factory. Long story short, I volunteered my time to help the event and the local, handmade movement. The event was as incredible as I knew it would be. Brilliant people from the St. Louis region and elsewhere displaying some of the most original, charming, cute and, frankly, bizarre works you could imagine.

During my time manning one of their registers, I only had to remind myself a couple times why I was there at all. No pay, very little kick-back, long lines of holiday shoppers and lots of people I didn't know. What the hell was I doing again?!? Oh yes, giving back and helping other hand-crafters get their stuff out there. A firm believer in karma and karmic retribution, I knew it would come back to me one day. And it was fun...a special kind of retail fun...but fun all the same.

Although I expected nothing in exchange for my time, some of that karmic energy came back to me earlier than expected, in the form of a 6-pack of Schlafly Saison Ale and Ferdinand. I'm still laughing about him. Ferdinand, as I have named him, was the last of a quintuplet of sock-beavers submitted in the show, by Erika Rogers. I had had my eye on them all weekend and had made an agreement with myself that if there was still one left at the end, it was coming home with me. Alas, at the end of the show, all of the beavers were gone. Sadness...

Nora and Sarah, two of the organizers, pulled me aside to thank me for the three shifts I had worked. Their thank-you to me: the last beaver of the bunch! I was so excited...and so were they, as they jumped up and down chanting, "We stole your beaver, we stole your beaver!" If you don't get the joke, go to bed now.

Ferdinand immediately began surfing for porn on my computer as soon as he was comfortably at home in my apartment...that tramp.

I was also keeping my fingers crossed about a couple Sarah Wyman prints. Alas, only one of them remained at the end of the show but, appropriately enough, it was the one print I really liked. It's entitled "Jasper," named so, I assume, for the kitty in the piece. It now hangs above my bed...and Benson seems to approve.

It's the end of a long week of vacation and personal time and I must admit that I feel recharged and at ease, for the most part. I took some time for myself and gave back to my community. In turn, some art above my bed and Ferdinand, the beaver. Tomorrow, I return to my office, to my Canadian foam customers and a week's worth of e-mails but for tonight, I'm nursing my fourth bottle of Saison Ale and the kitties are curled up in their beds.

And maybe just for tonight, all is well in my world.

(PS - Do you know how long it takes to put together a blog post like this after 5 bottles of Saison Ale? Hrm...me either!)

PhotoBooth Fun

2009-11-24T16:09:00.001-06:00

PhotoBooth Fun
Originally uploaded by knittaPrince

So last night, while trying to take a simple snapshot of ourselves with a Cubist Literature t-shirt, Sarah and I found the PhotoBooth program on her Mac. Keep in mind, Sarah and the Mac were only recently introduced so there are a lot of things about the Mac that Sarah just isn't in the know about...this was merely one.

We took about a skabillion pictures with it...or maybe just 25 or so but by the end of the experiment, we were ALL laughing so hard. I think I almost gave myself a headache. It was righteous fun for a bunch of thiry-somethings who still haven't lost their juvenile sides.

2009-11-22T10:38:00.002-06:00

Good morning, Sunday. Michigan weather is pretty close to that of St. Louis, although it's a little more chilly. Not that I've been outside, mind you...I'm still in my PJs...

As you may have already guessed, I didn't drive to Texas but rather to Michigan. After I got here, I reflected that I did indeed make the right choice. The drive up here was as lovely as a 7-hour drive can be but I'm glad it wasn't any longer. The drive to Texas would have been an additional 6 hours...which probably would have involved a hotel expense at some mid-point. Thinking about it just now, that would have been like the drive to Michigan times two.

Anyway, no point in fixating on what isn't.

Almost immediately after I arrived yesterday, we all went out from dinner and drinks...which sounds so sophisticated. Kort, Eva, Sarah, Mulder and I went out to a tapas restaurant called San Chez. It was less than stellar. I was carded...and didn't have my ID. I wasn't flattered, rather pissed off. The waiter had fucked-up hair anyway...hmph! I'm naming names...and his was Brett.

Today brings fresh coffee and massages all around! Kort's friend Janelle is a massage therapist and, even as I write this, Kort is being twisted and pulled and rolled out like dough...and loving every minute. Later today, who knows? City Knitting isn't open 'til Tuesday and I plan to make my usual ransack of the place, especially since it'll be the last time. Not only is Yarn-Over 2010 coming up but the store is also going out of business before the end of the year. The discounts aren't that great (only 10%) but a discount is a discount.

Death of a Distant Friend

2009-11-18T11:43:00.002-06:00

I got a phone call from my Mom this morning. Her ears must have been ringing from last night's blog post. I got the call right as I was walking into work.

My Mom had to have her dog, Cupcake, put down yesterday. They had been best buds for the past 12 years. Cupcake was a little Shitzu and had been my Mom's primary friend through a lot of stuff...a couple marriages, a couple moves...and now, she's gone.

Apparently, Cupcake woke my Mom up the night before last, which was very out of character for her. In the morning, she was largely unresponsive and lethargic. After a trip to the vet, it was determined that she seemed to have had a stroke. The decision was made to put her down.

The really heart-breaking part of this phone call was when my Mom went into detail about what happened after the vet, when the brought Cupcake, now deceased, home and placed her in the box that would be her final resting place. My Mom had cross-stitched a new blanket for her for Christmas and this was placed in the box. There were a couple of her favorite toys and her favorite collar. These were also placed in the box.

Besides herself with grief, my Mom barely knows what to do with herself...and I feel a slight pang of guilt about having written my preceding blog post. Although I am slated to drive to Michigan on Friday to spend the Thanksgiving week with Courtny and Eva in Grand Rapids, I'm toying with the idea of driving to Texas instead, to spend the week with my mother.

But that's a 13-hour drive, over 700 miles one way. And plane tickets are $400+...which is out of the question. Could you do a 13-hour drive in one stint? Me either...which then incurs hotel expenses. This is one of the very rare instances when I wish my Mom were closer than she is.

As so often happens when someone or something very close and dear to us passes away, all the rest of us can do is feel sympathetic and ineffective, given there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to make it hurt any less or be less sad.

Send her some kind thoughts, won't you? She could really use them...

Twittering, knittering...

2009-11-17T19:39:00.003-06:00

First, as you may or may not know...I now tweet. You can find me at @knittaprince.

I feel I have been remiss in my blogging duties...and I don't have another French flashback until Thanksgiving, so I can't squeak out it so easily. Neither do I, however, have much of an update in my knitting world. So buckle yourself in, this could be a bumpy ride.

I went out to Hot Shots tonight after work with my colleague, Trish. She's really quite wonderful and seems to enjoy my myriad neurosis, which only serves to endear her to me that much more. For those who don't know (for I certainly didn't before tonight), Hot Shots is a sports and billiards bar, large and spacious with waitresses scantily clad in running shorts and referee tops opened in a wide, sighing V-shape to expose their ample and often overflowing breasts. Trish, on the other hand, is really none of these things and I enjoy her company all the more because of that fact.

But we had had one of those days that is truly deserving of a beer and/or cocktail and thus was born the idea, so sublime in its concept and flawless in our execution of it, it can only be a harbinger of more unwinding after-work sessions to come.

On the drive home, as often happens after a couple pints, I began to think. Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, it doesn't really take a couple pints to make me think. I tend to do admirably well all on my own, thank you very much. Anyway, I get to thinking and on this night my thoughts stray towards the first real boyfriend I ever had, Erik. We were even engaged for a spell, believe it or not. Obviously, not everything in this perfect world of our has a fairytale ending, even when it involves two faeries, but there you have it. Just one of the gross injustices you may have found on your path through life. In any case, I often think back to this relationship as it so closely mirrors so many of my own mother's failed attempts at love.

(Even now I hesitate to write more as anything pertaining to my Mom is usually uber-off-limits.)

My Mom, bless her heart (and yes, I really do mean that) is a fine, upstanding woman who has been dealt a fairly mediocre hand in this life. Whether socialized to believe marriage to be the epitome of a woman's existence or perhaps she merely came to believe it to be true through her own unique experiences, it is a simple fact that this seems to be the driving force in her life, the only one, true thing to which she aspires and, unfortunately, one of many things which has remained painfully aloof and out of reach for her. I love my mother to death, though without the presence of a strong male figure, she tends to flounder or, rather, become sedentary, merely going through the motions of her day-to-day existence but, seems it to me, without much substance, drive or reward. As might well imagine, a true relationship poses somewhat of a trap for her, for where she to discover herself in one, she would almost certainly and immediately relinquish and surrender happily and willingly any and all autonomy to the Man in question. This has occurred more times than I care to count...okay, five times to be precise. There would have been a sixth but I fancy myself as the voice of reason which caused her to seriously reconsider.

In any case, as she has done so many times in the past, so I did with Erik...and, to increasingly lesser degrees, with others I have have the pleasure of spending some of my time with in this life. The difference between my mother and myself is that I seem to have the ability to recognize and self-critique my own behavior, identify and then correct, more or less. She, sadly, does not.

I recently sent out a Tweet in which I plainly state that one should never regret a relationship or view it as any kind of mistake. Every relationship we have teaches us something valuable and important, not only about other people but more importantly about ourselves, what we look for and need and what we don't. You should really only regret a relationship if you have learned nothing at all from the experience, in which case be absolutely sure to blame only yourself, not the other person. If you have learned nothing, then you haven't been paying attention...now, have you? Mm-hmm...

French Flashback - 5 years ago today...

2009-11-08T08:29:00.004-06:00

Monday November 8^th 2004

It’s another day in paradise here in France. Last night, Hans left to return to Germany, leaving Ashleigh in a pretty numb state of mind. I have no idea how those kids are going to do this long-distance relationship thing. She had planned on going to Germany for the holidays, but apparently, she’s flat broke. Yeah, and that’s not at all an exaggeration. She told me last night that she’s actually overdrawn in her account back in the States and she quite literally has no money left, even though she has another 5 weeks left to go. She’ll be getting some money from CIDEF as a reimbursement for her rent, since she moved out of the family’s house and on her own and that reimbursement should cover her rent until she leaves. She still needs to buy her train ticket to Paris and, luckily, the plane ticket is already bought. But, esseintially that leaves her with no money for anything else…no drinks at Cargo, no cups of coffee to study by, no movies on a rainy day, no cigarettes.

Ultimately, it’s none of my concern aside from the fact that she’s a friend, but I also know that it will inevitable place me in the position of having to say no to her. No, I can’t buy you a drink, or give you a cigarette…because she can’t pay me back, period. And I don’t know exactly how much I’m going to need, therefore I can honestly say that I don’t have it. I don’t have enough to money to buy drinks for two, or enough cigarettes for two. Please don’t ask because I don’t want to have to say no.

I think I’m going to see a movie with Max tomorrow night, although I think I said it best when I told Pierre-Edouard this evening that je n’ai plus de sentiments fortes pour lui. It’s just not going to develop into anything more than a friendship. My strong happy feelings for him died, like they always seem to do. It’s sad really and I’ll be the first to admit that I should really start therapy on this issue. It only seems to exacerbate and I can’t see how it would heal itself unless I consciously work on it.

On a similar note, I don’t know why I ever slept with Pierre-Edouard, aside from the fact that he was the first nice guy who expressed interest in me, therefore…yippee, fuck me! But, really…in my opinion, he’s a bit mal-placed. He has a certain bourgeoisie air, but he lives the life of a poor college student, making him appear rather haughty and, well, mal-placed. He’s kind of a dork, actually. But, en meme temps, he’s a good friend, one who really enjoys spending time with me and I with him. Besides, imagine if I didn’t have any French friends here. Then it really would be a sad state of affairs when second semester rolls around and everyone I know is gone.

My classes are going okay at this point, although I still have my doubts about how everything will unfold in the exams. I’m still coasting along in all the littérature/poétique/stylistique classes, wondering where it’s all going and trusting Anne-Sophie when she says that everything will be alright. How, I’m not sure. My translation courses are okay, although the passages I’m translating into French are truly difficult and I wonder how they could ever expect me to be able to do them…then I remember that no one expects me to be able to do them because I’m not a French student. Simply put, I’ll be amazed if I get the minimum grades I need to pass this semester. There’s always the second semester, which I could also fail or also pass. Hard to tell at this point.

I found out today that in order for me to apply for the CAF, Pascal and Valerie have to fill out a certain portion of my application, for which they want me to pay them an additional 20€. However, according to both Max and Pierre-Edouard, they can’t require me to pay them in order to fill out an administrative form. So, what do I do? Do I make a stink, in my limited French and attempt to find out why they want me to pay them to do something they’re apparently supposed to do for free? Or do I pay the 20€, knowing that I’ll be getting a lot more than that from the CAF and let it slide?

The same is true about the heat in the house…I’m truly cold most of the time, especially when I’m sleeping. I’ve asked them to increase the heat twice, with very little results. In my mind, I’m paying them 280€ per month to have a heated room, which it is, although not to my comfort. Where is the line between living like the French do and sacrificing too much in order to do it?

An Open Letter

2009-11-04T12:27:00.003-06:00

An open letter to my neighbors at 2119-A Maury:

Welcome to the neighborhood, neighbors! It's been a couple months, I think, since you moved into that long vacant apartment across the divide between our buildings and I've been meaning to welcome you properly. Actually, I tried to do that a few weeks ago while working in one of my front gardens. I stood up and smiled and said, "Good afternoon" but you only looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. And although I do speak a foreign language, I'm fairly certain I wasn't speaking it at that moment. No matter, though...welcome!

I must say, you are a lively bunch, aren't you? For the longest time, I thought it was just one person who had moved into that quaint one-bedroom apartment so similar to my own. Imagine my surprise when I saw your girlfriend/wife/sister cooking naked the other day through my kitchen window into your own. I was cooking spaghetti...she was frying chicken.

Last night, I thought I was only imagining things when I started to hear the yelling coming from your apartment and was surprised to learn, when the pots and pans started to be thrown from your kitchen into your living room, that it wasn't at all a dream, only a truly disturbed reality. It was hard to know how many people were really involved as it seemed a whole pack seemed to pace quickly from one end of the apartment to the other like a herd of cats. Although I didn't need to be told that there were really people in your apartment, one of your guests seemed to think it necessary to remind us all that he was "still here, nigga" over and over and over again. One thing was clear, due to the ever elevating volume of those talking...someone was about to get the "ass whooped on they own proptee." Oh, this can't be good...

I also wanted to thank you for the extremely sporty display of masculine virility last night as you and your bare-chested brother were sparring in the backyard. With the two of you knocking the fuck out of each other, it was very much like an African Spartacus! Two lithe and fit young men, locked in a death-grip dance with each other, occassionally punctuated by the satisfying wet "shunk" sound as a fist came into perfect contact with a face. It was truly inspirational, especially when additional articles of clothing were shed!

Also, I wanted to come clean and admit that yes, I was the one who called the police on you last night. Although I would normally consider 11pm on a weeknight to be fairly early for a "party," I was exceptionally tired from a long day at work that had started at 5am. Plus, the sound of a screen door being kicked in can be rather unsettling, don't you agree? I mean, I understand that someone pissed you off by referring to you as a "fuckin' faggot" and that your brother was acting like a "ho ass nigga" who couldn't "bring it real," but was it really necessary to punctuate your point by wretching over the edge of the balcony into the bushes? I must say, it made for quite the lawn ornament when I left for work this morning.

In short, please take note: we have a very nice neighborhood. We have an exceptionally nice block. It's quiet, peaceful and populated by very nice people, most of whom cause no problems for anyone else and, from time to time, can even be seen engaging in charming conversations on the sidewalks while walking their dogs. As the newest addition to our neghborhood, it's important that you know that last night display of "crazy" was entirely unacceptable. I may have been the one to call the cops last night, but I assure you that I am not the only person on our street who has no reservations about doing so when things get out of hand.

Sincerely,

Dean

Yarn-Over 2010

2009-11-02T11:44:00.003-06:00

So, this was what I was originally going to write about yesterday before the blog post morphed into the criticality event that it was. I'm talking about Yarn-Over 2010, which is the name I have opted to use for the hypothetical yet entirely possible trek that I may embark upon wherein I will buy no yarn for an entire year. Get it? Yarn...Over...no yarn all year? Maybe it's just me...

Anyway, it's an idea that I've been hacky-sacking around in my head for a few months now. The impetus for such an insane idea comes from a few places. It started originally as a budget-control device. In many areas of my life, I tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of guy. Pair that with borderline obsessive-addictive personality and you've got the perfect recipe for the ultimate stash builder...which is exactly what I have done. As many of my fellow knitters (though certainly not all), I have acquired more yarn than I could possibly use in my own lifetime. If you think I'm kidding or exaggerating, then allow me to reassure that I am doing neither.

It's a beautiful stash, too. You just have no idea unless you've seen it lately. My total yarn reserve has grown to such a size that I have long been trading out the lower quality acrylics, fluffy faux mohairs and mal-chosen bouclés from my early knitting adventures, giving them away to anyone who would have them and filling in the newly liberated space with the trappings from two visits to the Loopy Ewe, some recent knit night acquisitions and my sizeable booty (giggle) from the Strange Folk Festival, where I made out like a bandit.

The other motivation for Yarn-Over 2010 is as a stash busting exercise, something every knitter has claimed to have done or is in the process of doing or will be doing soon...with very mixed results. Some are very good at it...some knitter's claim to not even have a stash to bust at all! I, however, have only thought of busting said satash and have never been very good at it. I'm not a very fast knitter, although I am diligent and persistent. Unfortunately, that means that I do tend to acquire way more yarn than my output requires.

My yarn income and my financial output have long been at odds and it is time to put myself to the test. Thus was born Yarn-Over 2010. It's still a work in progress but here's that I've come up with thus far:1) Beginning January 1st, 2010, I will no longer be permitted to purchase yarn for a period of 12 months. To be clear, "purchase" is meant to mean any exchange of any monetary unit via cash, credit or check in exchange for any amount of spun fiber in any form including but not limited to skeins and hanks.
2) This does include sock yarn, long believed to not count towards one's stash consideration as it is, well, sock yarn. I've never understood where that distinction came from and it seems rather random and arbitrary. Given that I'm also working on the Sock Yarn Blanket, I've been very happy with this distinction but the truth can no longer be denied...sock yarn does count as stash and will continue to throughout Yarn-Over 2010.

3) Yarn may still be acquired through other means if such means present themselves. This means that I can still accept sock yarn bits and leftovers for the blanket and can take free yarn that people may be giving away, as they sometimes do. I can also acquire new yarn by trading yarn already found in my stash as this does not increase the total amount of yarn, only equalizes it from one form to another.

And that does it! Don't buy any new yarn for all of 2010...simple as that. The hard part has nothing to do with running out of yarn or even worrying that I might, as I know that I currently own enough to keep me going for much longer than that. The challenge lies in simply doing nothing. All I have to do is not buy yarn.

Keep in mind, Yarn-Over 2010 doesn't start until January 1st, which means that any purchases made between now than then don't count. Obviously, it's a bit defeatist if I go out and spend hundreds of dollars in preparation as, in a sense, the preparation has already been done. Besides, I've already put my only credit card into a block of ice in my freezer.

So...anyone crazy enough to join me? If not you, then maybe your other knitting friends and internet buddies? Tell them there's this crazy dude who isn't going to buy yarn for a whole year in effort to reign in his budget and bust his stash. Maybe we could start a Ravelry group...

Criticality Event

2009-11-01T14:36:00.003-06:00

I recently wrote an e-mail to a long lost friend with whom I've recently been put back in touch. We were taking turns writing back and forth, offering up missives of digestible length in an effort to bring each other up to speed on the events of our respective lives over the course of the past fifteen years, the approximate length of time hat we've been lost to one another. It's no easy task, as you might well imagine but neither is it particularly difficult. It has caused me to inadvertently put into perspective the "big events" of the past decade and a half. You know and event qualifies as "big" when, as you write your narrative morsel, the event effortlessly sneaks into the prose. Those events that do not, are not.

So, what qualifies as "big" in my corner of the world? The end of my relationship with Erik, to whom I was briefly engaged to marry and the subsequent loss of touch with my own reality; meeting and forging an unbreakable attachment to my best friend Kort; my interstate relocation from Michigan to St. Louis; my doomed-from-the-start relationship to Joshua which led me down the road; my time at Vintage Vinyl; the winding and self-revelatory path of Adam.

And, of course, my sojourn to France.

It was while writing about this latter experience that I realized, after having written the description, a truth that I have long felt but, heretofore, had not been capable of finding the words to express it. So long 'til now, it merely felt like some small, delicate form of insanity teasing at my mind. What it really is...I still am not sure.

What I'm referring to occured upon my return to the States after a 13-month long stay in the land of wine and bread and berets and wine and cold winters and tiny cars and song and dance and...you guessed it, wine. I came back, strongly against my will and only out of a sense of necessity. When I came back, I retook possession of my old car, moved back into my old apartment, resumed my old job and my classes at my old school. I slipped back into a life that, for me, had, in a sense, been put on hold in my absence. Unfortunately, for everyone else, life continued, shit happened, leaves fell, a baby was born, snow melted and flowers bloomed.

Old car, old apartment, old job, old school...and when I slipped back in, like a car on the exressway merging back onto traffic from the roadside rest stop, I was a man one-minute forever out of synch with my own surroundings. Sometimes in advance and sometimes, more often than not, behind...but never quite in tune. In all honesty, this feeling absolutely persists to this day. I have never, ever been the same since my return. Europe changed me, international travel changed me, exposure to everything else that exists in this world and the innumerable possibilties that exist...it has all changed me. Maybe we could call it irreversible jetlag.

I think my return from France was my personal criticality event. I've never come back from it. I think I was unhinged just ever so slightly because of it. I've never been quite as focused, I've never been quite in synch, I've always been slightly outside the event horizon of my own life ever since. I wish I could say that I wouldn't ever change it...but that wouldn't be quite what I mean.

I guess what I mean to say is sometimes, I just wish I had never come back.

Aged Beer, New Trees

2009-10-29T13:45:00.002-05:00

Just a quick update due to this awesome picture:

This past Sunday, my knit friend Megan and I participated the the Schlafly Bottleworks "Aged Beer, New Trees" event wherein, for $5, you drink beer and plant trees. It's fairly self-explanatory. Well, I am apparently super-buff when I drink beer and plant trees, as evidenced by this photo taken with Megan's phone. I either need to drink more beer, plant more trees...or get the same phone she has. Damn...

Gridlocked

2009-10-29T11:49:00.002-05:00

Have you ever found yourself with so many projects-in-progress that you simply cannot, under any circumstances, make any discernible progress on a single one of them? I'm terming this phenomenon "gridlocked" and I've got it bad. I feel just pressured and pulled in all directions, you understand, towards all projects as if they were little children all demanding all my attention, all at the same time! I feel absolutely squeezed into a tiny corner with respect to my ongoing knits and I've got a plan to break out of it.

My god, I think I'm losing it...I don't think I have that much left to lose. You might be asking yourself at this point (as I often do), "Holy buh-jeez, Knitta...why what ever could possibly have you just so flummoxed?! (I'm amazed I not only used but also correctly spelled 'flummoxed' in a sentence.) Well, let's reap a bit:

1) The Sock Yarn Blanket - Critical Level: LOW

This little ditty of a project is perpetually ongoing and causes me very little anxiety in so far as I knew, I just knew that it would take me a very long time to complete. In fact, this is the bosom I rest my weary needles on when the other children are screaming too loud. She is, however, getting larger (well, duh...) and, as such, takes up more space and weighs more. Trying to keep my cats off the blanket whilst in progress (whilst?!) is proving to be as much of a chore as turning the whole damn thing around when I finish I tiny row on a tiny square.

2) The Three Sisters Scarf #2 - Critical Level: MEDIUM

I am so neurotic...I don't even know who this is for. Seriously, I just wanted to make something with the Lavender Cliffs cone! The problem (and joy) of lace is that you have to pay attention to that you're doing, otherwise the whole damn thing goes to hell in a hand-woven hand basket. One wrong move and suddently you're wondering where that extra stitch came from at the end of the row. But I have so many episodes of television that I want to watch...

3) The Swallowtail Shawl - Critical Level: HIGH

Every damn time I dig into my knitting bag, it's there. Just there...sitting, curled up, one motif finished and waiting to move into the next. It's patient, it doesn't complain...and that's what bugs me! (I told you I was neurotic.) This poor thing has been waiting for so long to move into the next phase of its pattern that I simply must get back to it! I think a trip to the local library might be just thing to jump start back into it. Like its sister above, though...no recipient in mind. Just consider it lace exercise for the brain...

4) Diamondback Mitts test knit - Critical Level: MEDIUM

Even though Stephen West has already published his newest pattern and made it available via Ravelry, which I guess means the "test" portion of test knit has effectively been resolved, I still feel the need to finish the second mitt! Mitts, like gloves and socks, come in twos...you can't have just one. And no, I can't just turn the second one into a cool wristband! So, there it sits...I'm not crazy about the yarn, nor the US 8s...*sigh*...

5) Shivian's Diamondback Mitts - Critical Level: HIGH

These were started just last night...because I'm a masochist. My friend Shivian loved what he saw with the first Diamondback and asked for a pair in red and black. He's a great friend and they are just mitts...right? And surely I must have some red and some black...surely! How about pairing some chunky aran tweed in red with worsted black silk-cashmere blend? I swear I will never make these mitts again. Respect the pattern, yo!

6) Work Project IV - Critical Level: LOW

I knit these on lunch, when I'm not blogging. There's no pressure here, you nut!

None of the above even takes into account the encroaching holiday season, insidious though it is. I have discovered that, since becoming the knitter in the family, people have come to harbor deep-seated though nary expressed expectations that surely there will be a hand-knit item under the tree-menorah-secret-santa-gift-and-cake-table for them...surely. But I'm a deliberate knitter, not known for my speed but rather by the precision and intricacy worthy of a clock maker. Take into account that I have never in my life truly been seized by the Christmas spirit. I resent the pressure put upon me by my family (especially) and society (in general) to wallop my butt into a deep rut of debt in the name of giving my step-mom yet another gift basket of bath stuff and my father a gift certificate to the tobacconist (especially now that I'm a non-smoker). There's less pressure with my mom and it's non-existent between my sister and I...which is really the greatest Christmas present of all! God bless ya, sis!

Ahh, Christmas...

Breast, 2001

2009-10-27T22:09:00.001-05:00

Breast2001CRichter12x12
Originally uploaded by knittaPrince

The painting you see to the right was meticulously painted in Las Vegas during the summer of 2001 by my best friend, soulmate, confidante and accomplice. Courtny Richter. I have forever loved this work, much as I love its creator. Although the piece is not mine and I do not own it, I hang it proudly in my living room. It's a small piece...only 12" x 12"...but the reactions it illicits and the conversations it has started are priceless.

Courtny is the same woman who recently created my gorgeous, rock star ring from a plain sheet of sterling silver. The ring is merely the most recent incarnation of the creative energy she seems to channel to well. I think the painting was the first example of it that stands out in my memory. She is not a muse for me, but rather more a creative conductor. Like electricity, it often jumps from one of us to the other and back again. When we're together, silence often reigns in the room as we both become lost in our respective crafts.

She is a woman of a most excellent and outstanding character, a phenomenal mother, artist and friend. I am most blessed to have had her in my life for the past 15 years, give or take. I am beyond fortunate to call her my "wife."

Blog Imperative

2009-10-22T11:40:00.002-05:00

It's been so long since my last blog entry that I have elected to forgo knitting during my lunch break today so that I might pull everything up to current. As I mentioned before, BK and little LoLo were staying with me all last week, which was awesome...except for a cold that set it around the same time. Lo got some new mitts in red but that was about the extent of the knitting I was able to accomplish. My world becomes very crowded when there are 2 adults, 1 child and 3 cats.

BK turned artisan jeweler a few years ago when she opted to move back to Michigan to raise Lo near her family. She's been working with beads and wire for a long time with great success and has recently moved into the realm of metal smithy. My chosen medium being soft fiber, I know very little about the field, but she's been going hog nutz for it recently with some very impressive results:I have the extreme pleasure of calling this fine piece of metal work mine. Completely wrought from scratch by her nimble and capable hands, the inner ring is a sterling silver spinner, caught by the outer oxidized and hammered ring. I can hardly believe this whole thing started out as nothing more than a small sheet of metal! I think it's very rock star...or Lord of the Rings. I love it either way!

In other knitting news, I was recently approached by the formidable Stephen West, an up and coming knit designer, to test knit one of his new patterns, the Diamondback Mitts. He just released the pattern via Ravelry and I'm pleased to have been one of the first peeps to churn it out!In other knitting news, I came across some close-out cones of Brown Sheep Co.'s Nature Spun Fingering via the DBNY website and snatched 'em up like mad. Two cones, one in lavender, another in sage. They were ridiculously cheap (in my head) and I love them both like a new puppy. I haven't worked with the silvery-sage green one yet, but I did start a lace scarf with the lavender:
This is the Three Sisters Scarves #2 pattern...and yes, there are three patterns that make up the trio. I don't know who the three sisters are, but I'm sure you could find out if you're really dying to know. I haven't been so motivated. I do enjoy this pattern, though...it's a fairly simple collection of YOs and both R and L leaning decreases which gives a nice, neat lace motif.

Let's see...what else? The Swallowtail shawl is stalled in between pattern motifs at the moment. I need to make sure I'm in a space where I'm able to concentrate properly on the change in the chart...and I've been a bit distracted lately.

The Sock Yarn Blanket is, of course, perpetually ongoing. A few more squares have succeeding in their infiltration efforts, but not really enough of them to warrant a new photo.

I'm hoping to make a long weekend trip to the Chicago area before winter really hits...although, being north and being Chicago, winter could really hit at any moment. I have several friends who live there and I have never, ever visited any of them. This includes Jeffer, Shivian and boyfriend, Rachel with new baby Zane...plus I want to yarn crawl a bit. That may not be in the budget, though...

Here's a crazy thought! I have a HUGE...stash of yarn. ;-) Do you think it would be possible for a knitter, any knitter...to make 2010 a year without yarn purchases? Put yourself in my shoes and think about it, really think about it...because I am. Remember, I have a large enough stash to last a whole year...definitely! But could I go a whole 12 months without purchasing any new yarn?

What little knitting...

2009-10-16T08:27:00.003-05:00

I haven't gotten much knitting done lately. What I have done is very small...both in quantity and in size. Logan outgrew a pair of fingerless mitts I made for him 2 years ago, so I new pair were in order. I dropped everything, knowing I could churn them out in a night. Well, it took a week. Houseguests, cat fights and a persistent cold kept me from making satisfactory progress. But, the wee mitts are done:
It's been n0thing short of chaos and pandemonium here lately. We've got 3 cats, 2 adults and a 5-year-old all co-existing in my 1-bedroom apartment. You wouldn't think cats could take up that much space...and they don't, not really. Except for one thing: cats are almost always moving and usually in silent, stealthy ways. So, although they don't take up much space, the space they do take up is constantly shifting. Take into account there are three of them and you never know when you're going turn around and trip over one. Please factor into account the bass rumblings and occasional cat fights...always spontaneous in nature. It's a lot like walking through a feline mine field.

The three warring factions seem to be coming closer and closer to a peace accord. They've passed through that very rough, initial introduction stage and are know dukeing it out for supremacy. This was to be expected. The hierarchy has changed and everyone is jockeying for their position relative to the other two. This could very well change again once Nolan has lost the use of his claws.

I've finally completed the first sock of Work Project IV, previously blogged about here. It's a slow-going process making anything on my lunch hours at work. I try and get away from my desk, but often the conference room across the hall is being used. If it's not, then I recede into the shadows and knit in peace, only interrupted by the occasional passer-through. As you can see in the picture, I tried cabling the ribbing on the cuff, but didn't achieve a very noteworthy result. *shrug* Oh well...
PS - I've been asked by Stephen West to test knit on of his new patterns! I've never test knit anything before! How cool is that, yo?! I don't know anything about it yet...and I may have to keep it a secret. I don't know how these things work...

Play by FoxSaver®

Feline Integration: Day 3

2009-10-13T12:41:00.001-05:00

Then there were three...
Originally uploaded by knittaPrince

The world watched in wonder and anticipation as the Nolan made an address to a joint session of Catgress. Seen here, The Nolan makes a less than impassioned plea to the Peachy and the Benson, both rapt in attention but less than impressed with the Nolan's Obama-esque oration.

BREAKING NEWS: Late last night, an insidious plot to dethrone the Peachy was discovered when a small scab was found atop the Lady Peachy's head. Approximately 1/8" in length, preliminary results seem implicate the Nolan as the wound matches the profile of the notorious "claw" defense system.

Apologies, reassurances and great outreach was made to the Peachy in the form of humanitarian aid (cat treats) and cultural exchange (excessive playtime with a new mouse toy).

Feline Integration: Day 2

2009-10-12T13:52:00.002-05:00

In my new role as Secretary of State for the Feline Nation of My Apartment, I'm please to announce that 3-party talks are continuing and we have made some progress. All three parties can now partake of the morning kibble in the same room, albeit spread far apart and always with a bit of suspicion in their eyes.

The long-standing peace accord between the political factions known as the Peachy and the Benson have, however, taken a slight step backwards as both parties have begun to growl lowly at one another, thus indicating a temporary suspension of a peace which has reigned in the land for years (2 years, to be more accurate). We have every hope and expectation that the previous peaceful relations between the two parties can be re-established and we are not concerned that this might be a sign of increased regional instability. I think such reports are not only premature but also irresponsible and unfounded.

The emergent new, third faction, known only as the Nolan, has agreed to submit to Humane Society vaccination inspections this evening which we hope will help to further sustained and civil relations between the involved parties. (The Nolan has not, in actuality, been notified of this vaccination trip and we do expect some resistance. For this reason, Peace Keepers have been deployed into the territory in the form of me and...me, just me.) Open talks with the Nolan are ongoing and we continue to collect and collate new and exciting intelligence.

The Benson has come to realize that the Nolan has more and better weaponry at his disposal than he does. After a thorough investigation, it has been determined that the Nolan has at his disposal a highly advanced form of technology known as "claws." This dangerous and precise arsenal has been deemed "sharp" by the Inter-Apartmental Regulation Agency and steps have been taken to open negotiations with the Nolan with the view of eventual nullification of said arsenal. We hope to accomplish this goal in approximately 2 weeks with a minimal financial expenditure. The current administration has issued an executive order to remove the block of ice containing the credit card from the freezer in order to further fund these peace-keeping efforts.

The most powerful, yet most reticent, participant in these 3-party appears to be the Peachy, who, with a matriarchal structure of society, seems able merely by the gift of advanced oratory (i.e. low growling and occasional hissing) to force the Nolan to reconsider any advance into close proximity that he may be contemplating. Relations with this administration however, and particularly with me, seem to still be warm and welcoming, although the Peachy has expressed some concern about the Nolan. The Peachy has confirmed knowledge of the Nolan's arsenal of "claws," but only by way of heresay and third-party accounts, not by personal engagement.

Feline Integration: Day 1

2009-10-11T08:52:00.002-05:00

My home has become a bastion of feline tension and temper.

Nolan is as non-chalant as ever, exploring and going about his business as if nothing could be better. He comes from the streets, remember...so the introduction to these little things called "toys" has him literally rolling on the floor. Rolly balls...bouncy mice...feathers...it's all a street kid could ask for.

Benson has met his match. After his first run-in with Nolan, in which he received a smack across his face, he has since backed down with every ensuing meeting the two have had. Remember, Ben is the cat for whom only total world domination will due when it comes to lifelong goals. Apparently, this has since changed to protecting the underside of my bed.

Peachy holds her own. She is the one that Nolan backs down from, no smacking required. Interestingly enough, she need only growl low and slowly for Nolan to stop in his tracks, contemplate her seeming calm exterior for a moment, then do a 180 and head back the way he came.

And me? I'm sort of a bundle of nerves...this has much to do with my full-house status at the present time, though. I'm trying to be diplomat between these politically charged, three-party feline disarmament negotiations while simultaneously enjoy the company of my best friend and her son.

I hear growling...it could be a cat...or an airplane passing overhead. They're very similar in timbre...

Who is Nolan?

2009-10-10T08:51:00.002-05:00

I'm pleased to introduce the newest member of my feline tribe. This is Nolan...

Until last night, Nolan had been living in Michigan with my best friend, where he would split his time between her front porch and that of her neighbor. We don't really know where he came from originally, just that he started to show up around the neighborhood several months ago. He was very small and really personable. Kort started giving him food and water throughout the day and soon he was a regular feature.

I had the pleasure of meeting the lil' dude when I was visiting there at the end of July. So small, he could curl up comfortably in my lap, where he would just purr and purr and nap while I knitted away. I was instantly enamored.

But then the weather started to change and leaves began to turn and fall to the ground and everyone's thoughts turned to little Nolan. What would happen to this cute little cat when the Michigan winter came barreling down as it always inevitably does? Would he find warmth and food? Or would something more grave and disastrous happen?So Kort called me up with the proposition. Since it wasn't an option for either her household or that of the neighbor to take him in, would I consider giving him a home? Well, I had to think long and hard about this. I already had two kittehs with a pre-established dynamic and a household that was more of less balanced and at peace. Whenever you add another cat into the mix, everything gets tossed into the air and the heirarchy comes into question. Ultimately, I couldn't say no.So last night, around 8pm, Kort and Logan arrived with Nolan in tow. The poor dude has been wailing for hours on end in his carrier and had finally given up hope of escape. I made sure to have the back 2 rooms of my apartment ready for him and we moved him in right away. The arrangement: Peachy and Benson stay in the front of the apartment and Nolan in the back. Benson was too pissed off about the other house guests invading his domaine to really notice the presence of another cat. Peachy, on the other hand, clued in to it right away and spent much time contemplating the space between the floor and the botom of the bedroom door, a space comprising no more than a fraction of an inch but more than enough to give away the fact that someone was in there, someone new.

Nolan, for his part, has no idea there are 2 more beings like himself only gargantuanly larger in the apartment. Of course, at this stage, he doesn't even know there's more to the apartment than my bedroom and the sunroom. Later this afternoon, we're going to reverse the arrangement for the night. Peachy and Ben will stay in the back, which gives them more opportunity to get used to Nolan's scent. Nolan, in turn, will have the run of the front of the apartment to explore and discover.

It's a brave new (feline) world here on Maury Avenue. Stayed tuned...

"Ben, listen to me...I swear! There's someone in our bedroom. I smelled them!"
"Mmm...pigeon..."

Boy Walking

2009-10-04T20:59:00.004-05:00

Isn't this the cutest lil' book you've ever seen? I found it at the Strange Folk Festival on Sunday, September 27th whilst perusing the available wares with Madalene and Megan from my lil' knit night. Thanks for pulling me out of the house, you two...seriously. Anyway, hand-made by Stephen Lott and titled simply "Boy Walking," it was too cute to pass up. I think it's the sweater and button-down paired with the sneakers that did it for me. You can check out more of Stephen's work here.

I've got nothing much that I want to write about for the moment...except to say that my family is total bat-shit crazy. I'm shaking my head even now thinking on the exceptionally insane brand of crazy that makes up my family. Dude, whatever...

Have another peek at "Boy Walking" as he strolls through my literary France. His hair is awesome...

It's not at all glamorous...

2009-10-02T20:54:00.002-05:00

If you think for a moment, as I used to, that a job involving oodles or scads of travel to far off places sounds cool, hip and jet-set, then you dilute yourself too, too much...but I still love you. Business travel, my friends, is none of the above. But please, don't misunderstand my meaning...my jaunt into the wild north that is eastern Canada was a certifiable success...just in a very business-like kind of way.

Constant, perpetual travel is exhausting. Through 4 days, I visited 3 cities, took 5 flights, drove 2 cars, rode in 4 others, slept in 3 different hotels, met three dozen (minimum) new people, confiscated 1 bar of soap from the first hotel (which was later confiscated from me by airport security) and successfully knitted 2 stocking caps for winter.

In all that chaos, I was able to wander the streets of Quebec City for just over an hour. I saw only the skylines of Montreal and Toronto. I could have been anywhere...Idaho, Florida, Colorado...they all look the same. The interstates look the same in Canada as they do here, except the signs have different symbols on them. Oh, and the town names are all French, of course...but only in Quebec, not in Ontario. In Ontario, all the signs are printed in French and English; in Quebec, they're only in French. Tough...figure it out.

This was the first call I made, on Tuesday morning, at the local Reno Depot, the French-Canadian equivalent of a Home Depot or Lowe's...but for building contractors. Don't I look fresh and daper, all dressed-up business-like! Yeah, that freshness soon wilted into fatigue and exhaustion by the end of the trip. The photos also became less and less as the excitement wore off.

As in all European cities, Quebec also has a castle, known as Chateau Frontenac. In St. Louis, we also have a Frontenac...it's the really, really posh shopping mall to the west of the city.

Around the chateau, the battlements of the old city walls still stand. Please notice the addition of a chic new scarf from the photo from earlier in the day. Unlike here in St. Louis where we are still slothing toward autumn, it had arrived in full force for them there Canadians. It was C-O-L-D. Okay, so I exaggerate slightly...but it was most definitely in the lower 50s F, which necessitates a scarf.

This is mostly what I saw throughout the trip, though. It was grey...it was cloudy...it rained an awful lot. I think between the planes and rental cars, I probably logged enough mileage for a free something. Unfortunately, as you might have guessed, there was no time whatsoever for yarn crawling. Quebec was the only city I can honestly say I was in. We never even came close to Montreal or Toronto, although their respective skylines were pretty.

All I can say is that I loved being submerged in French again, for the one day I was in Quebec. It reminded me of my year abroad and I became nostalgic for me I once was while there. I also greatly enjoyed meeting in person all of the clients with whom I speak regularly on the phone. All things considered, it was a good trip. I'm glad it's over. Most of all, I'm glad I'm back home.

Dear god...if you can see me, please help. I'm stuck...in Quebec.

Go North...to Canada!

2009-09-25T20:28:00.002-05:00

Yep, I'm going to Canada! I've been working this new gig with Magic Foam Inc for almost a full year now, fielding calls in the customer service department for the Canadian clientel and the powers-that-be have deemed me worthy of my first ever business trip.

A little background might be in order here. You see, prior to this sweet deal, I had been working in music retail for about thirteen years, first at a little store in Michigan, then here in St. Louis at a local landmark, Vintage Vinyl. Through my eight years with Vintage, I rose through the ranks and eventually settled comfortably into a cushy position in the back of the store, "behind the blue doors" as we called it. The job had amazing perks...free music, free shows and concerts, incredibly flexible hours and the best darned people to work with ever! During my time there, I was able to establish myself in this new city, go back to school and earn my 2 degrees and even take a whole year off to travel to France...and then take my old job back when I returned. Amazing, really.

The downside to music retail is...well, it's still retail with a pay scale to match. To make up for the lack of fundage, I took on other jobs: working in the university language lab, selling my stuff on eBay, teaching french to Nestle-Purina employees and administrative assistanceship with the Alliance Francaise de St. Louis. At this time a year ago, I was working three, sometimes four jobs and managing just fine. The financial truth of the matter, however, was that my immense student loans were going to be coming due all too soon and I had no more slack to give.

Luckily, as seems so often to happen in my life, there was a confluence of events that brought about perfect change right when I needed it most. I was working at the Alliance, the phone rang...badda bing, badda boom...a couple weeks later, I had landed a sweet job handling all customer servie tasks for the Canadian market for a local company who manufactured Magic Insulating Foam, among other things. How? Because I had years of retail experience AND because I speak impeccable French. Well...it was impeccable. Five years is a long time...

In all my travel-laden years, I've managed to make it to Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Colorado, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, New York, Wisconsin, Washington DC, Texas, North and South Carolina. I've also been to Windsor, Ontario, Canada...but that's just across the river from Detroit so it might not count. I've experienced Rome, Florence and Venice, Italy. I dashed through London Heathrow Airport once. And, of course, a true love...France. Angers, Bordeaux, Nantes, Tours, Le Mans...I loved all these cities.

Anyway, next week I'll be venturing forth into the Great North of eastern Canada, where the strongest European influence still exists in North America. It's going to be a whirlwind tour comprising three cities in as many days. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll have much time for sightseeing or yarn crawling (although I'll give it my best shot). I'll start in Quebec City, then on to Montreal and finish up in Toronto...all on the company dime. I'll be meeting with, drinking with and eating with customers and reps that heretofore I have only spoken with on the phone. I'm sure there'll be lots of those "You don't look at all like I pictured you" moments...and I'll try to have some lovely photos to share.

I love international travel...I just hate the traveling part of it. I love being there, experiencing the excitement and wonder and exploration of a new place...but I hate the luggage, the planes and airports, the cabs and hotels. Hate it...but this, this is going to be fun.

A Tale of Two Gardens

2009-09-22T09:19:00.002-05:00

Welcome to my home. This is where I live and have for the past three years or so. I also just signed a lease renewal for 24 months, if that's any indication of how much I like it here. This is my home, mine and mine alone (not counting the 2 cats who live with me).

My apartment is the upper-left portion of what we here in da 'Lou call a 4-family flat. I haven't a clue why they're called that as I can't imagine an entire family living in my apartment, but then again times were very different back in the 20s and 30 when these were built. My street is lined with them, one after the other, all with their gorgeous red brick. )Don't get me started on how St. Louis is located on a major fault line and that someday the next Big One will come along and level the entire city.)

For the past couple years, I've had a lovely container garden on my balcony. I love the fact that I even have a balcony to begin with and I was inspired to do something with the space. I usually grow Morning Glories along the rails, which eventually give a lush green curtain against the world. Along the right, you can see the purple clematis working its way up the side wall. But, I wanted more. More space, more variety...I wanted to get my hands in some serious dirt and smell the earth and make green stuff pop up out of the ground. Behold...the target:

The evergreen bushes in the front of the building certainly look benign enough, don't they? I'm presuming they were probably planted way back in the day, maybe even with the original construction of the building. I passed by them everyday and gave them no mind until, one day, I realized that these ineffectual, bland bushes, which were really just a lazy excuse for landscaping, were hiding beneath their boughs prime gardening real estate!

So, I pulled them out...

...on both sides of the porch...

...until they were gone!

Now, I admit, at this point, that the building looked so sad and...slightly crooked. :-\ And we can't have a sad building, so I went to work immediately!

I grabbed shovels and dug trenches...

...on both sides of the porch and I filled them with paver gravel...

...and, on top of the paver base, I lay down landscaping block...

...and I built walls!

And behind the walls, in the dirt, a variety of beautiful herbs and flowers...

...and the plants, they took root and grew!

Some grew from just little baby plants...

...into monsterous, out-of-control beauties!!

Others grew so fast...

...that I had to build additional lattice on the fly, using flexible bamboo matchsticks from a previous balcony's matchstick blind.
You can easily find dewey sage...

...and lichened trees...

...bizarre visitors from worlds unknown...

...diverse blooms, both elegant...

...and exotic.
There are even occasional night-time visitors, in the form of elusive Moon Flowers.

These are my gardens. Many thanks to my landlord for allowing me to dig in his dirt (and for keeping my rent reasonably rated). Enjoy...

I Found The Loopy Ewe

2009-09-19T19:45:00.002-05:00

Thursday night saw a joyful return to my Edwardsville, IL knit night. The finances lined up just so (not to mention the planets) to allow me the nearly 100 mile round trip. Among other things, I learned there is a different route to the shop which will cut the mileage in half! Although M. was in Oklahoma and the Cake Pusher had to leave early (even after all the fuss, it was for a good cause), there was wine, cheese and jovality all around.

As the hours and attendees waned, I learned of a St. Louis yarn shop that I was not already aware of: The Loopy Ewe. As I am the one working on the Sock Yarn Blanket, this came as surprise to my ladies. You see, located in the far west of the StL burbs, The Loopy Ewe deals almost exclusively in sock and lace weight yarns. :-O Excuse me? Yes, that's right! Although it's primarily an online retailer, on Thursdays and Fridays, between 11am and 1pm, the public is welcome to come by, peruse the stacks and generally go crazy. I assure you, when I left Knit Night, I had absolutely no intention whatsoever of seeking this place out. Cross my heart...and swear to you on my most precious stash of yarns!

Come Friday morning, however...well, I woke up close to 11am...and it was my Friday off...and I didn't really have any plans...none at all, in fact. Sorry Megan, I couldn't resist my own curiosity. So, Google Maps to the rescue and about 45 minutes later, I had found The Loopy Ewe!Please, take me at my word when I say that this experience was the closest to sex I've ever had without actual sex being involved! The sheer depth and breadth of the choices contained in the store were almost more than I could wrap my head around. Although they carry the names knitter's all know, I was really amazed at the amount of indie companies represented, many of whom I had never heard of before. So, the next question is, of course, what did I find there:

All of the selections were very reasonably priced, the store was immaculately clean and all of the women working exceled in customer service...and they gave me that cute Loopy Ewe tote! Everyone was so nice and welcoming, something that is sometimes lacking when a guy walks into a yarn shop. I spent a good hour just wandering among the racks, taking it all in before making any decisions about what I wanted. I avoided the stuff that I had seen before or that I could have bought elsewhere and focused more on stuff that I had never seen or heard of before.

Dragonfly Fibers - Dragonsock
Colorway: Beach Grass
100% superwash Merino, 390yds

Claudia Hand Painted Yarns - Fingering
Colorway: Sharks
100% Merino wool, 175yds

Alchemy: Yarns of Transformation - Juniper
Colorways (L to R): Aubergine, Diamonda and Breath of Fire
100% superfine Merino, 232yds

Neighborhood Fiber Co. - Penthouse Silk Lace
Colorway: Cooper Circle
100% silk, 1100yds

String Theory Hand Dyed Yarn - Caper Sock
Colorway: Nerrivik
80% superwash Merino/10% cashmere/10%nylon, 375yds

Tuscan Grove Hand Dyed Yarn - Venice
Colorway: Garden Maze
100% superwash Merino, 440yds

Neighborhood Fiber Co. - Maisonette
Colorway: Thomas Circle
50% Merino wool/50% Tussah silk, 1250yds

Sheepaints - Silkbamboo
Colorway: Serpiente
60% wool/20% silk/20% bamboo, 460yds

Are you still standing? You may want to sit down. I know, it's a lot...a lot to take in, a lot to show, a lot to buy. But I can honestly say that, although this purchase was worth a pretty, shiny penny, I haven't a single ounce on buyer's remorse surrounding this purchase. The quality/price/value ratio is so spot on! And...and...the cherry on top this sqwooshy yarn cake:

FREE SAMPLES!

How cute are they, these little mini-hanks of fibers galore! There was a basket on top of one of the racks, filled to overflowing. When I asked the ladies how much each one was...wait for it, wait for it...they said they were FREE! I swear I swooned like I Miss Scarlet O'Hara. I may have been visibly trembling. Now, to the everyday knitter, samples are fun, but they usually don't have enough in them to make anything of substance...unless, of course, you just happen to be working on a Sock Yarn Blanket. And wait, oh, what's this...I am!! I apologize for the questionable quality of this photo, but the blanket is almost too large to capture in a single frame. It's only about 1/4 the length of a standard bed and not even as wide and already I have to stand on a step-stool and hold the camera far above my own head. This is what you get.

I'm going to go bask in the yarn glow now. Loopy Ewe, I love you!

Little Surprises

2009-09-18T10:08:00.003-05:00

When I leave for work in the morning and sometimes when I come home at night, I often take a quick survey of my gardens to check in on the plants and pull the little baby weeds as they appear. This simple practice not only helps the myriad plants but also imparts a grounding effect, just a little earthy fix before heading into the potentially frenetic workplace.

Last night when I came home, I was going about the task as usual. Most of the bloomers have done their jobs and are starting to quasi-wilt into their autumn holding patterns. However, when I checked out my gardens next door, I cam upon these odd little guys:
There are currently two blooms with, what appear to be, about 2 dozen more buds about to open anyday! I haven't a clue what they are. The original cutting were given to me by a wonderful woman from my LYS, along with a plethora of others. In case I never thanked you properly, Deborah...thank you! If you can shed any light onto the nature of these bespeckled blooms, I'd be very interested to know. I mean, c'mon...they're awesome! Like Mama Nature took to dabbing these little dudes with a loaded paintbrush...
After photographing these immediately ('cuz I usually have my camera in my satchel), I headed inside and came upon my second surprise, a medium sized box left for me by my friendly, neighborhood postman in between the screen and main door of my apartment. Huh? Why, what is this? I don't remember ordering anything...oh, except for that 1lb cone of Silvery Sage millend from DBNY...but that wouldn't have arrived so quickly. So, what could it be?It was from Baker & Baker in Baraboo, Wisconsin! Baker & Baker is a rep agency that the company I work for uses to handle some of our industrial accounts. Headed by the ever-charming B. and his lovely and kind-hearted wife T., this surprise care package came packed to overflowing with treats from the recent fiber festival that T. had gone to. She's a fellow knitter, among other crafty things, and we had tossed around the idea of me going up for the festival and visiting with them. Unfortunately, we had the dates all wrong and the festival happened about a month before we thought it would. ANYWAY...T. decided to suprise me with this package.

Contained within, I found a small dropper of lavender oil, some soft black licorice pieces, a box of honey drops (which are just the coolest damn thing ever!) and a large hank of some scrumptous merino sock yarn by Creatively Dyed Yarn! I would never have chosen this color myself but it so snappy and I love it! This is why I love it when people chose yarns for me...I come to love and appreciate colors that I would never have gravitated towards. Not only am I going to make my next pair of socks out of this, but this yarn is also going to be added to the ongoing Sock Yarn Blanket as one the double-size squares! Thank you SO much, T.!

It's the little surprises that really make your day. Speckled flowers and snazzy yarn...what more could this boy ask for? Now, if you'll excuse me, it's my Friday off and I'm going back to bed now.

Self-Indulgent Colorways

2009-09-13T08:40:00.007-05:00

Happy Sunday...I've come to the conclusion that 2-day weekends are entirely too short. I am fortunate to have a job where I get to have every other Friday off in exchange for 9-hour work days. I'd gladly do 10-hour days if it meant that I could have 3-day weekend every weekend.

First up, we have François Le Chat of the St. Louis Les Chats. Perhaps you've heard of them? No? Well, they're an off-shoot of the Manhattan Les Chats, of course. Very well known and well-connected stuffed cat family. Anyway, François has a twin brother, Pierre, who is currently visiting Yarndude in the Great North. Pierre wanted to see what was goin' down and experience the butt-ass cold winter, so I packed him up with the recent care package I sent and, well, there he is. I told him it was going to get cold...but he didn't seem to believe me.

In other news, I was re-reading yesterday's post and I have to apologize if it comes off sounding a bit self-indulgent. At least, that how it sounded to me. Not the first part, mind you...the time-capsule journal entry from 5 years ago...that part was fine. The second portion though, where I start waxing reminiscent and sounding like I'm in some hazy, opium-induced stupor reflecting back on what in my childhood has led me to where I am today. I don't mean at all to invalidate what I wrote...I will stand by it in a court of law...but it was not as well-organized or as well written as it could have been. Be that as it may, there it stands.

Next up, we have a brief update on the progress of the Swallowtail Shawl. It's coming along quite nicely, although I may need to add a few repeats of this initial motif in order to make the shawl shawl-sized. It calls for 14...what you see here is 9 or 10...I forget exactly. There are, I believe, 2 more motifs and then the edging. Or is it 1 more and the edging? I don't have the pattern in front of me...

I'm also seriously considering casting on for a second shawl project, this one being Gail (aka Nightsongs) by Jane Araújo. There are a couple minor tripping points to overcome before actually starting though. The first of these is the amount of commentary currently available for this pattern. For the non-knitter, it's usually not necessary to read up on a pattern before you strike out on the knitting adventure. That's kind of the whole point of having the pattern. You follow the instructions and/or the accompanying chart and go with it. With this pattern however, there are whole forums devoted to the myriad questions, comments, variations and corrections for this pattern. In short, a lot of people seem to have a lot of difficulty with this pattern. Hmm...oh, but I do love a challenge!

The second point to be determined is the choice of yarn...always an important point worthy of intense debate. I have two choices in mind, both with pros and cons:

Choice #1: Jojoland Harmony (left)
This is 100% merino wool, super soft with a lovely colorway (HC03) that moves subtly from light tan through a medium azure. Clocking in at a whopping 880 yards, there's no doubt there were would be more than enough yardage to complete any size shawl I chose to make. The one down size is that this is a super fine lace weight (9 stitches per inch!), more akin to sewing thread...which means either using super fine needles or have a super open motif.

Choice #2: Knit Picks Shadow - Sunset (right)
Also in 100% merino, this is kind of a luscious burnt cranberry hue with slight variations in color. This is standard lace weight, thicker than the other choice, thus solving the needle size/openness dilemma. However, the hank contains 440 yards, thus casting a wee bit o' doubt as to whether there's enough yardage to carry me through to the finish line. Now, we knitters, aside from almost always being willing to justify the purchase of more yarn with any excuse, especially if it's needed to finish a project, are also very good at coming up with imaginative choices to finish our projects without buying more of the same. In other words, if I come up short, I can always buy another hank of the same...or...having other colors of Shadow in my fiber arsenal, I could always pair this with another complimentary color. Here's a close-up for the colorways...you can also see the gauge difference:

At this point, I defer to public opinion. Voting is open:

a) Jojoland Harmony

OR

b) Knit Picks Shadow

5 years ago...

2009-09-12T12:31:00.006-05:00

125-MontStMichel
Originally uploaded by knittaPrince

Angers, France: September 13th, 2004

I haven’t seen my host family for about a week now, not since the last time Pascal and I discussed the assurance in the kitchen. I haven’t payed him yet, he hasn’t given me receipts and other documentation, and neither of us has sought the other out. It’s intimidates me to even knock on the family door simply because I don’t understand what they’re telling me and it’s so very important to understand. But therein lies the paradox…how can I understand what they’re saying without trying and practicing to understand? And how can I practice without reaching out and making an effort?

Do I want to go home? Do I want to try and live out this time in France without putting myself on a ledge? Without trying new things? Living as insulated and protected as I can? Can I really go back after 10 months abroad without having superior speaking and comprehension skills? How many people would be disappointed with me if I returned early or without the skills they expect me to have?

More importantly, could I live with myself? How do I reconcile the conflicting feelings I’m having? How to I calm the scared part of me and allow myself to become strong and outgoing?

How do I do anything?

My my, how things have changed! I recently rediscovered the journal I kept throughout my year in France and came upon this entry, made 5 years ago yesterday! It would have been near the end of my first month and, as you can tell, I was feeling very alien, very alone and very, very unsure about who I was or what I was capable of accomplishing. The experience was the best thing I could ever have done for myself in every possible way and I learned more about myself and left so much of an older version of me behind...and came back completely changed.

Well, not completely. There are fundamental, core aspects to a personality that are never changed. They're like the basic framework of a building around which everything else is built. And you can change the decor and paint walls...and even knock out a wall here and there to change the configuration...but somewhere, deep at the center of it all, I am fundamentally me.

I am fundamentally a solo pilot. My experiences...they're mine and I like them that way. My stories are my stories and I enjoy sharing them with others. I can play well with other but I usually prefer not to. Even on group adventures, I'll be the one to wander off and explore by myself. You might accompany me along the way, but you'd only be there an an accessory. There are few exceptions: Kort, because she is the air; Boyfriends, because they are the other half; Ki and Stacy, because they complete my foundation.

My parents were both conspicuously absent when I was growing up. My father in the physical sense; my mother in the emotional. Bless them both, neither was very good at being a parent but they did the best the could. What this meant for me was that as a child growing up in a rural Michigan town, I learned how to do for myself. I played and learned and lived by myself and, as a result, became fiercely independent.

I encounter challenges connecting with most people and developing close ties to them. I've already listed those to whom I am attached, but the rest of world is so often a mystery to me and one that I seem to naturally orbit around but rarely ever skim through. Crowds tax my energy and my patience; solitude and silence open doors to creativity and peace. The behavior of people in general fascinates me but I have no desire or skill to actively participate as a member of a community. Gay community, knit community...I participate in absentia, observing from the outskirts and occasionally as a passer-by or -through. I'm the slippery wicket that can't be pinned down.

In my advanced years, I'll be the kindly old man on the metaphoric fringe of town that no one is afraid of but whom they see only in passing as I totter around the yard or garden, knitting in the porch swing, waving to them as they walk past.

The Road to Paternayan

2009-09-07T09:26:00.004-05:00

August 5th, 2009
Originally uploaded by knittaPrince

It's Labor Day and in observance of this fine excuse for a day off, I'm boycotting the gym...which works out fine since my Dad decided yesterday that today would be a great day to come visit. He and my stepmom live just across the river on the Illinois side of the world, in a little po'dunk town. There are a lot of them over there, on that side of the river. Thinking about it for just a moment, I realize that the rest of my crazy family all live in tiny towns...my sister in Michigan, my dad in Illinois and my mom in Texas. All small towns...and I have to wonder why? Actually, I don't wonder at all...it's enough for me to know that I prefer city life. I am a city dweller not because I love the frenetic pace or bustling activity. I just prefer to be around stuff and in a general location where the mindset is a little more cosmopolitan that you would usually find in a small town. Around this section of the Midwest, the small town mentality is not so much quaint as it is just plain scary.

So, let's talk yarn. It's one of my favorite subjects and I know it is for you, too. I'm going to walk you through the ardous labor of love that is Paternayan. It's sounds almost yogic and I suppose it could be viewed as meditative...or it could just be that I tend to think of most of the things I do as meditative. Anyway, the story goes that once upon a time not to long ago, during one of my visits to the Illinois side, during one of our usual coffee and cigarette sessions (before I quit smoking), my stepmom tosses into my lap a hank like the one you see here......and asks if I can possibly use it for something. I scoff and her implied suggestion that maybe I couldn't use it because c'mon...it's wool yarn. It's not as if she's giving me some crappy acrylic, this is wool, so of course I can use it! At the time, I had never heard of Paternayan and was completely unfamiliar with the yarn. My stepmom then brought out a small trash bag full to over-flowing with more hanks of this stuff in all kinds of colors! Upon closer inspection, I noticed this worsted weight yarn was comprised of three loosely twisted strands, which led to the idea to split them apart, thus making it 3 times the amount in lace weight. Great idea! But how do you split an entire hank into three balls without making a bloody, tangled mess?
Like with all hanks, I first needed to transform it from its beautiful, braid-like self into a self-respecting ball. This is the easiest step...even though I don't have a swift or a ball-winder. Just pull your knees up, keep the hank taut...and get goin! And in no time (or maybe 15 minutes), tah-dah! Once the ball has been establish, I found the three ends. It's not hard to do as they practically scream "Here I am..." I start by taking one end in the left hand, the other 2 in the right (or vice versa...it doesn't matter) and I pull them in opposite directions. At some point not too very far in this step, the slight twist in the main line will travel down the line, concentrating until it's impossible to split them any further. At this point, I need my first clothespin. Attaching the clothespin at the nexus prevents the twist from travelling back up the yarn, thus avoiding a possibly disasterous tangle. I've got a whole ball to work through...do I really want to wrestle with tangles so early?With the clothespin in place and at least one free thread, I can start winding it around its own clothespin. This needs to be done in such a way as to ensure even coverage. Don't wrap it too tight or you won't be able to open the clothespin at all. Why do I need to open it?Well, to secure the yarn, of course! Once I've wrapped all of the slack, I use the clothespin to secure the end and hold it in place so it doesnt unwind as I work with the other 2 threads.Once the first thread is wound and secure, I separate the other two threads from one another and wind them around their own clothespins in an identical fashion. Again, make sure the nexus clothespin doesn't slip. Here we have 2 threads wound...
...and finally, all three. Once all three separated threads have been wound, I remove the nexus pin and, holding the main yarn tight against the ball, I hold the ball up in the air with enough space for the three pins to hang below it. The pins will begin to spin, thus releasing the excessive twist that concentrated in the main line as I separated the individual strands. Make sense, so far? You have to release the twist in order to be able to pull the strands apart.So, fast-forward a bit...I repeat the process, over and over. Separate, wind, untwist...separate, wind, untwist. Here's the process about halfway through...roughly two hours after having wound the original ball. You can see the twist in the main line in the upper left, enough to make it twist upon itself.Patience and perseverence are the two things needed to successfully make it through the whole ball without it becoming a tangled mess. Remember, one of the goals is to not have to cut the threads for any reason. Ideally, I want three balls of continuous, unbroken lace weight.So...did that all make sense? It all comes down to how much work was I willing to put in to garner 3 balls of FREE lace weight yarn? Well, apparently, I'm willing to pu in quite a bit of work, actually...because I've split about 6 hanks thus far...and there are probably close to 3 dozen more waiting in that trash bag! Here's the thimble recap: you start with the hank...
...and about 4 hours later, you end up with a litter of lace weight balls, all with their own little clothespins. As an additional step, I usually rewind the balls so as not to include the clothespins before I put them into my stash.
And what do I do with so much lace weight? I knit shawls...here's some progess I've made on the Swallowtail Shawl I started a couple days ago...and, yes...I am using Paternayan to make it!