Partay!!!!!! (But Not Mine)

Announcement: A Work Party of the Fun Variety!

Janine will be hosting what she calls the “Git ‘Er Done” potluck party to get the squares for the Unauthorized Leave of Absence Blanket sewn together. The party will be held on Saturday, October 11, from 1-5. Please leave a comment on her site if you’re interested and she’ll send you directions. I’ll be there with Chibi in hand and bells on to say thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you to everyone.

The trip to OFFF, a mélange of really good and really bad.

The bad: Suicidal thoughts and mental wanderings in the direction of my Preciouses for the first time in a long time, not helped by Saturday night’s trip down Food-Poisoning Lane. (What is with me and vacations and restaurants and food poisoning? Swear ta’ God. When we lived in Asia, where your well-intentioned but slightly neurotic American compatriots warn you to drink bottled water and not eat anything you don’t recognize or can’t pronounce—recommendations we as a family soundly ignored—no food poisoning (okay, okay; I got dysentery once, but I was in a native village in Malaysia where anything was possible). Living in the United States, the land of filtered water, pasteurization, irradiation, the USDA, the FDA, sell-by dates, and ever-constant food recalls—have hugged more toilets than I can count. Think on’t, my friends.)

The good: As ever, my real Preciouses, my lovely knitting buddies, LindaK, Andrea, Natasha, Sandy, Elaine, Kim, Sarah, Evanne, Michelle, and Deb with a little of Jessica Rose thrown in as we passed each other, albeit slowly enough for some conversation, in two different food lines. Plus cuddles with LindaK’s sweet corgi (which did, however, make me ache with memories of my precious Frankie). Beautiful, warm, early fall weather. Piles of scrumptious roving and yarn and tapestries and patterns and felted crafts. Plus goats and sheep and alpacas and llamas and angora bunnies, one of whom, with the improbable name of “Kevin,” found, I believe, a home with Tina of Blue Moon. But not before I and a gaggle of other instant Kevin groupies had a chance to squeal at him, practically sucking all the oxygen out of his personal space, and give him lots of pats and snuggles and do the inevitable and inevitably poor human imitations of his ever-wiggling nose. And coming home to my cats, both of whom immediately burst into purrs when I walked in the door and did figure eights in and around my legs (would that be figure sixteens?). Heaven.

While I did, ‘natch, engage in some retail therapy of the fiber variety because, really, what else was there to do if you weren’t taking a class, my favorite purchase was this:

How could I resist this face?

…especially when it set me back a whopping 50 cents. Even in this economy, I figure I could afford 50 cents. Of course, I’ll regret this wasteful, wanton spending when we’re all reduced to buying 10-for-$10 packets of ramen noodles, and I only have $9.50. (Wait, what’s that? Sniff, sniff. Do I smell the slight scent of politics in today’s entry? That doesn’t happen very often!)

Here, the other things that fell into my shopping bag that cost a leetle more than 50 cents. All in all, though, I was pretty well behaved.

Nestucca Bay sock yarn, colorway "Tapestry:"

Blue Moon Fiber Arts sock yarn, colorway "Lettuce Knit:"

And, veering away from the medium pastels for a moment, a jewel-toned sock blank, the kind you unravel and knit into a sock—which my employee pointed out doesn't make any sense since this particular blank is already in the shape of a tube so all I should really have to do is knit a foot and graft it on. Which makes the whole thing rather pointless. Urk.

Note how, between the time I took the Blue Moon picture and this one—a mere 15 seconds—I had acquired a photography assistant. Also note the shine on the fur. This is not the sick Benny I brought home a few months ago!)

A picture of a booth which made me drool and drool although I did not ultimately succumb to temptation:

To wrap up, a Kooky Kraft, an etsy shop where the vendor sells disgruntled (I kid thee not) fruits and vegetables made of felt. If nothing else, have a look-see at the stack of pancakes. Too funny.

Another Relationship Bites It

How not to do a swatch: Knit it, block it, measure it, do your calculations, bond with it, fall in love with it, imagine a future together, plan a trip to California or Massachusetts which are the only two states that recognize marriage between a woman and a piece of knitting.

Then realize that you knit the swatch using interchangeable needles with a size 6 on one end of the cord and a size 5 on the other, and the damn thing has been lying to you all along.

I loathe the thought of doing yet another swatch so now I’m left trying to figure out if I dare fudge the measurements and knit the sweater anyway. What would you do?

Over time, and especially because I’m a faithful reader of Rachael’s blog, I’ve seen more and more mention of Kindles. Now, I may have misled some of you when I mentioned Kindling when I went on vacay with Elaine and Leslie. The Kindle ‘tweren’t mine, ‘twere Leslie’s. Granted, my geek self was fascinated by it, grabbed it out of her hand before she could say, “Hey, look at my new…,” and peppered her with endless questions about it. I was intrigued by the next page/previous page buttons, especially since I like to read and knit at the same time and frequently have to hold the more stubborn book pages down with, oh, other books, salt and pepper shakers, my sock-project bag, a cat, whatever’s handy. This means that, to turn a page, I have to:

Put my knitting down.

Remove the weight with one hand.

Turn the page with the other.

Read the first paragraph because the weight will obscure half of the words if I put it back right away.

Put the weight back on.

Pick up my knitting.

Read until I get to the top of the next page.

Put down my knitting.

Remove the weight.

Read the first paragraph.

Put the weight back on.

Pick up my knitting.

Read until I get to the bottom of the page.

Tink the mistake I made while going through all of this rigamarole.

Repeat.

Imagine a book that isn’t constantly trying to close! Imagine just pushing a button to turn a page! Imagine not having to use a cat to hold down the pages! Imagine being able to knit uninterrupted!

Despite my initial skepticism, I was also impressed by how easy the screen is to read. The black text on ultra-light gray is fabulous. That being said, Kindles still scream cold!, plastic!, sterile! to me, and have made me ultra-aware that books are so much more than just words. Kindles deliver words; books deliver experiences. I am, I must confess, a book stroker, a book fondler, a book sniffer. I love the look and feel of book covers. I love book-cover art. I love the breeze that fans your face if you riffle through the pages. I love the smell of the pages, especially the sweet, musty smell of older books, even ones that smell of stale cigarette smoke which remind me of my mother. I like the simple act of using a pretty little bookmark. As long-time readers know, I also get obscenely excited at the thought of going to one of our library book sales. Walking into a warehouse full of thousands of books, all being sold for $1 or .50—oh, the possibilities! Just think: On Half-Off Day, I could buy 718 books for the price of a Kindle. Be still my heart.

But most importantly, with a Kindle, you can’t experience the spontaneity of having a friend, or even a stranger, catch sight of the book title and say “Oh, I read that! What do you think?” And voilà—some quality human interaction is born. (Granted, a a stranger could just as easily say, “Oooooooooo, a Kindle! I have a Kindle! What have you downloaded?” "Downloaded?!" Doesn't have near the same cuddle factor.)

Speaking of high-tech and human interaction and all, despite my initial assertion that FaceBook was my technological Waterloo, in one swell foop, it has redeemed itself. Two weekends ago, at a social gathering of…ahem…alternative-lifestyle types—actually two gatherings (she happened to be at both)—I met a woman who wanted to learn more about knitting. So I gave her my card, she lost it, she sent out an experimental “Hallooooooooooo” to me through FaceBook, I “Hallooooooooo” –ed back, and we bonded (platonically) over a dropped stitch. Sweet!

Meanderings Continued

In answer to Irina’s question, I will be at Oregon Flock & Fiber next weekend, an OFFF virgin. I’ll be there Saturday and Sunday but won’t be attending any classes so I’ll be casting about for, in no particular order, things to buy and people to annoy. If you see me, please say “How do,” because you may know my face but I most likely won’t know yours (except my homies who I know will be there, and I will be all over all a’ y’all!). Unlike when I went to Black Sheep, when I was still thisclose to wanting to off myself and was so depressed I made a horrendously bad decision about lying down in the sun, I hope to be slightly more engaged in the world around me this time. If you see me starting to lie down in the sunshine, like a horse going down with the colic, feel free to slap me. Or tempt me with some oats. Or, better yet, scratch me on the withers. If I’m at all like a horse, I’ll do funny things with my upper lip.

Still working away on my gansey design. I’m slogging through the whole swatching, blocking, measuring, calculating dance now, almost like a real knitter. My yarn of choice for this project is Cascade 220 Heathers, in a dark pine green. So far, the results are luscious.

Joon’s decimated dewclaw did get infected (the smell, oh, the smell!) so off to the doctor she went. The solution: Some antibiotics, which she takes like a champ, almost to the point of opening her mouth for the inevitable, and soaking her foot three times a day for ten minutes at a time in, from what I can tell, is a solution of water and antiseptic soap. Really, Doctor? A cat? In water? For ten minutes at a time? Three times a day? Really? Actually she did pretty well, especially since the vet recommended this trick: Make the water slightly warm to your touch. By the time the cat realizes her foot is soaking in the cat version of Kryptonite, some therapeutic soaking will already have occurred. Also, I discovered a magic point on what qualifies as a kitty elbow where, if you gripped it soundly and roundly, she couldn’t lift her paw up. We got up to a miraculous 3.5 minutes—at which point I got bored and quit. All looks good now, and I discovered a new, pretty, white, pointy claw hidden in her fur just yesterday.

Mental Meanderings

Ahem.

And a picture for Erika, whose cat does this, too. He got under the jacket himself, and then carefully put his white hairs on the dark things and his dark hairs on the light things because he's smart that way.

Now, all of you, raise your hands and swear on all that is holy to you that you never saw the black thing draped on the left of the laundry basket, which happens to be a pair of my underwear. Clean and Downy-fresh, but still, underwear. The things we will do for blogging.

There’s done…

And there’s done done:

Granted, this sweater is now very hardware-heavy and the kid’ll never make it through airport security without being frisked by two burly men, but it’s the best I could find.

You never know where or in what form small truths and inspirations will come from. Recently, local knitter, friend and blogger Supergirl Knits wrote about ruining one heart-rate monitor and getting a new one. In conclusion, she wrote, “I learned that if you ruin something, you can get something shiny and new that works faster and better than what you had before.” While I would argue that I didn’t do the ruining, this seems to apply very much to my current journey. Perhaps someday I, too, can have something shiny and new that works faster and better. And has something to do with my heart rate, but probably not the way Supergirl was thinking.

MeTube

My first YouTube effort ever, a five-second-long video of your Blog Mistress and a slightly startled but accomodating Benny.

See, what happened wuz, I was completely clueless about the camera function on my laptop, and one day I clicked on something and then clicked on something else and then an odd blue light appeared at the top of the screen and...good God, there was my face, staring back at me, sporting a, not unsurprisingly, deer-in-the-headlights, "What the hell is that weird blue light?" expression.

It then devolved into one of those slapstick scenes where a character makes artibrary movements to see if he's standing in front of a mirror, a magic doppelganger, or a heretofore unknown twin (and it always ends up being a magic doppelganger or a heretofore unknown twin). I waved, the picture on the screen waved; I adjusted my bangs, the picture on the screen adjusted its bangs; I made an ugly face, the picture on the screen...euw. You get the idea. Anyhoo, I discovered almost immediately I had no real practical use for the camera but before I turned it off I scooped up the closest feline and we did a little mugging. And then I inflicted the whole damn thing on you. Ta-da!

Joony, for her part, recently fell of the spiral staircase and ripped 3/4 of a claw off. I called the emergency vet who said I could wait until the next day to take her to my regular vet but, in the meantime, I could dust the claw with flour to stanch the bleeding. Poor Joon: From that moment on she couldn't do anything mischievous without my knowing exactly who did it. The dusting of slightly pink flour was a dead giveaway.

Bottom line: My regular vet said just keep an eye out for infection. So far so good. Nail may or may not grow back, but I figure that's just one more I may not have to clip.

I’m trying to design a gansey, the kind that has simple, knit and purl diamond, chevron and checkerboard patterns, but things aren’t going well. Out of the three, yarn, gauge, or pattern, inevitably one doesn’t want to play along (which makes me think, of course, of the "one of these things is not like the others" song from Sesame Street). I did, however, stumble across this while doing the damnable math part of the design and thought it might be helpful to someone out there, a Wikipedia table of divisors for all numbers from 1 to 1000.

This comes in handy when you’re designing a gansey because if you want to use three or four different stacked stitch motifs, you can easily determine if they will all fit into the base stitch count. For example, if you design a sweater based on 216 stitches for the body, a stitch motif based on any of the divisors of 216, in this case, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 18, 24, 27, 36, 54, 72, 108, or 216 (some of which, I realize, you wouldna’ use), will work with any other stitch motif based on one of the other divisors. This may be common mathematical sense but it’s nice to have it all laid out in one honkin’ chart.