May 24, 2004
Time to Brush Off Those Four-Letter Words
Argh! Mossy Cottage really got hit by spammers this weekend. Those loathsome, belly-crawling worms left over 3000—yup, three thousand—comments on the blog! Out of shear bullheadedness, I am slowly but surely deleting every single *$#!%!@! one, and turning the comments option off on earlier entries, but I still feel so annoyed. Long-time readers will know I avoid venting and kvetching on my blog but even a semi-Pollyanna like me has her limits...
Anyway, on to more pleasant things...
Partly inspired by Sheila’s design based on the back of a Chippendale chair, partly inspired by my determination to design something Fair-Isle-y, and partly inspired by my love for things ornate and Rococo-ish, on Friday I did a Google search based on “wrought iron,” hoping to find clip art or a picture of a wrought iron design that would translate well to a charted pattern. While I didn’t come up with anything useable, I did find this and this. What a hoot, eh, Dear Readers?
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On another topic altogether, this weekend The Mysterious K and I experienced a first, eating buffalo meat. For me, buffalo meat was Something Other People Ate, that is until Sunday, when, at a friend's house, I found myself sitting in front of a plate containing mashed yams, a roll, Caesar salad, fruit salad, a small piece of barbecued chicken...and a small piece of barbecued buffalo. I can now say buffalo meat is some day-um fine eatin'! Flavorful, light, and beefy. That doesn't mean I'll be running out to buy half of a buffalo carcass to stash in my freezer anytime soon, but I am definitely a believer.
(Of course, this all gets put into a weird perspective when I remember that once, in my childhood, I ate water buffalo meat, in fact huge, Flinstone-sized, barbecued water buffalo ribs cooked in an open fire pit at a missionary family's home in the jungle somewhere obscure like Bali or Java--which now makes me wonder why I think eating plain ol' buffalo steaks cooked on a plain ol' outdoor barbecue was such a big deal after all.)
Knitting Knews
The gecko swatch:
Robbyn, since you asked, the Grand Vision was for me to knit a hat with three or four geckos cavorting around the crown but, as I mentioned in my last entry, the swatch turned into a not-very-satisfying, semi-intarsia, semi-stranded, worst-of-both worlds knitting mess. Not to mention the fact that the gecko looks as if it made a trip or two around in a blender. The places where the head and arm look as if they have been cut off and the body looks as if it has been neatly severed in half are the places where the variegated yarn matched the solid yarn exactly. A lesson learned: Sometimes matching yarns exactly is A Bad Thing. Who knew?
Having abandoned the "wrought iron" project and muddled my way through the gecko swatch, now I'm going to try to design something based on this pattern (although I am starting to think this design stuff will be no easier for me to do than it would be for me to haul my portly body up on a balancing beam and toss off an Olympic-caliber routine. How I envy the people for whom this would be easy like, oh, TMK or Big Sister. But I plug on because I Am Determined.)
Another new, fun project came up this weekend. The people we visited on Sunday follow a Native American spiritual path, and one of them is going to undergo a spirit quest in early June. I offered to knit her some socks for the quest and she gladly took me up on it. In keeping with the requirements of the quest and with Lakota traditions, they have to be red 100% wool. An excuse to go to my LYS!
I think that gekko looks pretty nifty - but I understand the annoyance of the fair isle/intarsia debacle.
Do you know about MT Blacklist?
http://www.jayallen.org/projects/mt-blacklist/
We use it to pretty good effect. Once in a while one gets by, but it works really well to keep spammers out of your comments.
The daffodil is very pretty! I hope it works up the way you'd like it to. I've been looking at filet and cross-stitch charts myself but I haven't tried them yet. Since the cells in those graphs are square and a stockinette stitch is rectangular, I worry that the proportions will look funky.
I know, I worry too much :) But I still think the gekko is tres cool!
Posted by: Robbyn on May 24, 2004 01:13 PMThank you for the helpful link, Robbyn! My blog, however, is generously hosted by someone else on her server and I use her installation of Movable Type so I can't just willy-nilly install this myself, although it sounds as if it would go a long way toward solving the problem. All 3,000 spams came from the same IP address so I have banned it. Hopefully that will help.
I'm aware of the square v. rectangular problem you mentioned but I'm hoping the iris will work itself out since, despite my problems with the gecko, shape-wise it came out pretty much the same as the original pattern. Besides, I figure I have to start from somewhere, no?
Thanks for the comment!
Posted by: Ryan on May 24, 2004 02:52 PMHope you can work out the Iris pattern. I think that would make a lovely Fair Isle. On the wrought iron, maybe a search for wrought iron fencing would bring something more usable to light?
Posted by: Charlotte on May 24, 2004 03:38 PMWow, Charlotte, doing a search on "wrought iron fencing" was a great suggestion. Using that search, I found some good, detailed pictures on e-bay. Of course, the fence itself cost $4,500 but, hey, it's free to look and to steal ideas for patterns! Thanks, Charlotte!
Posted by: Ryan on May 24, 2004 04:26 PMI think the gecko is divine, but I agree about the perfectly matching colors. But then, who knew it would make your gecko look like the "pretty assistant" in the saw box of a magic show?
Now, because I can't mind my own business and you were so very helpful to me, I went on a wrought iron search and found a very decent link that produced some beautiful designs. (Again, stalking is such an ugly word.) Anyway, I hope it gives you some ideas to play with.
http://metals.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.archirondesign.com
Besides, I can't let you abandon the idea. Sheila's design came out so beautiful and I know you have it in you to produce as fine a pattern. Plus, it's knitting. It's fun. Who cares if it doesn't turn out exact? Ok, ok, no stoning please. *sigh* Knitting and perfectionism go hand-in-hand, don't they.
Hope everyone has a great day!!!
i want that gold vw :-)
Posted by: vanessa on May 25, 2004 02:30 AMOooooooo... Great wrought iron site, Angie! You're a very helpful stalker!
Vanessa, I found more pictures for you of that insane vw. They're at http://vrbanus.com/beetle.htm. And, coincidentally, in surfing the site a bit, I found some good, useful pictures of ornate wrought iron!
Posted by: Ryan on May 25, 2004 10:13 AMIris!! (smacking self on forehead) DOH!
Posted by: Robbyn on May 25, 2004 12:40 PMOstrich meat is, like, a bazillion times better than buffalo meat, and I like buffalo. Picture the most tender, juicy steak y'ever had, with no fatty icky bits. Oh, yum.
It's 4 in the morning, and I'm getting hungry....
Rachael, now that I've eaten buffalo, ostrich has now become my NEW Meat That Other People Eat. That tells me that a big plate of ostrich meat is somewhere in my future. (Of course, anything is better than the alligator salad they served at the cafeteria at my last job. REAL alligator meat! Fer sher, that's Meat That Other People Eat.)
Posted by: Ryan on May 26, 2004 08:33 AMI Like your gecko. It's kind of artsy and cute.
Posted by: Debra on May 26, 2004 09:12 AMPtoooey. That's the sound my throat made when I *thought* about eating alligator. You've reached my ediblimit.
Hope you feel better over the weekend.....
Posted by: Rachael on May 27, 2004 04:03 AM