Knitting: February 2008 Archives

Knees are somewhat better today, and I went swimming, and then I had peanut butter and banana and honey and tea, so you know, there's all that.

I also took a pic of my new hat. It's simple, it's ribbed, it might look better if it had a little i-cord something or other on top, but I thought I might try wearing it under the bike helmet, so I left it plain on top.

In other rib-knitting news, I have decided fuck the tubular cast-on. I am just gonna knit Snow White with my regular long-tail cast-on, or maybe a cable cast-on (which I successfully taught myself yesterday while trying unsuccessfully to learn the tubular), and I'll maybe use needles a size bigger or something. I don't care, and this annoying cast-on is delaying my access to the pretty sweater, so off with its head!

For the record, I am not going off completely half-cocked here; I checked Ravelry last night at 3 in the morning and did find someone who'd made a perfectly nice Snow White with a regular ol' cast-on, and I do not generally have a problem with casting on too tightly. So there we are.

Incidentally, I want to point out that the expression half-cocked most probably derives from old-style firearms, which I don't think will shoot half-cocked. (Yep, I was right.)

In any case, I have shot a firearm of this type, and, well, now you know: I know how to shoot. Add that to your list of freaky things you'd rather I didn't discuss here. But, hey, I figure if you wanted to be reading a PG-13 type of blog, you'd have left long ago. (Byeeeee! Have a nice trip...)

Anyway....yeah, rifles. Yarn. Cat asleep on couch, as per usual. I'm gonna go swatch some Classic Al now. Well, after I finish that work I owe that client. And maybe write a poem to end this completely inane and aimless post.

Later: Work done, but sorry, no poem. But I got to talk to my bicycle mechanic about crank length. He was up till 2 am researching cranks for me. Now, that is the way to a girl's heart.

"Where is fancy bred? In the heart or in the head?" - William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Also, Willy Wonka, in his Chocolate Factory.

More adventures with my darling Nikon, and a ride over bridge and dale to meet the fair Annabelle for dinner and wine. And a stop at the bike shop to chat with the friendly neighborhood Bike Boys, in all their slim legged glory (hubba). And some work on my novel. And some knitting with pretty girls in a bar.

And...why oh why isn't this the way every day goes? Okay, yeah, that was two days' worth of stuff, but you know what I mean.

Annabelle said, "You're silly when you're on the bike."

And I said, "Well, I get a little giddy, maybe."

But the truth is, I can't quite sort out whether it's the rush I get from being back on my favorite mode of transportation, the wee little bits of endorphins it affords me, or the special bikemen brand of testosterone that I keep getting high on whenever I am in that bike shop. Whatever it is, I like it. I like it very much.

I also like getting creative work done, especially when it includes three of my favorite pastimes (writing, taking photographs, and knitting).

I am almost done with a new hat, which is Malabrigo repurposed from an abandoned fingerless mitten concept. I got one mitten done, wasn't happy with the fit, and determined that really, the yarn wanted to be a hat, and the fingerless mittens wanted to be made from something DK. And within minutes (or so it seemed) two skeins of beauteous DK weight yarn appeared in the mail.

I am revving up to start work on Snow White. It's that darned tubular cast-on that's been intimidating me, but I will just have to blindfold my fear of it, and get on with it. And that's really all I have to say for now. I am not feeling replete with wordyness, but I have lots of pics to show you. I guess I shall have to dole them out over a few days.

Oh, and hey, did everybody see the eclipse? An eclipse in a clear sky and something like five inches of snow, all in one weekend. Not too shabby for boring ol' February.

PS. The title of this post refers both to the photos (natch) and to what seems to be happening to me lately. Somebody's been clicking my embiggen switch. And I think that somebody is ME.

Wow, right? This incredibly gorgeous yarn was sent to me by Anna, who shall henceforth be known as Incredibly Generous Anna. Those are two skeins each of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Lakeview, and Lorna's Laces Swirl DK in Valentine. And the colors are even more vibrant and lovely in person. Sigh. They are now sitting in a pile on my chair looking like candy.

She also sent me a soy candle which melts into massage oil. How freakin' cool is that whole concept? And a carry-your-knitting bag from Loopy Yarns. And Miss Kitty got her very own care package, too, comprised of a pair of excellent woolly catnip mice (she went right for them) and a passel of nice and smelly dried fish (which we may be sharing with our neighbor cats, as she kind of licked them and then walked away, which just proves the eternal unpredictability of cat behavior).

Thank you, Anna!!! I think I may have to cast on for some Swirl mittens right this very minute.

It's been a week of realizing that there are real people out there reading these words, just as I am reading theirs, and that we all interact in this strange blind cocktail party that is the Internet. And though it often seems like science fiction, or that we're all characters in a book, we are instead this queer brand of friends who've simply never met. I suppose it is nothing new - penpals have been around for ages, and in the days before quick and (relatively) easy travel, friends who lived in different towns would go months or years between visits.

So maybe it's not so odd.

But it feels odd. Like the magic that allows strangers on a train to get to know each other in an afternoon. Or how I walked into a certain bike shop and suddenly felt right at home. Lately all of human interaction seems a blur and a conundrum to me. I just feel dizzy with it. I fall in love at the drop of a hat - or into infatuations that are hard to explain. I make big decisions on a dime, and stop momentarily to wonder, and decide that it just feels right, and proceed full steam ahead.

The only constants are wind and water and me and my cat. And the cat and I are given to strange nocturnal activities. I find myself dancing on the subway platform a lot lately.

I've been doing a fair amount of knitting behind the scenes here chez girlwich, though I keep forgetting to photograph it and/or post the pics when I've taken them.

For instance, I made a rather cute little lavender garter-stitch heart pillow for my mom, but it's already been packed and shipped and unwrapped and exclaimed over, so no pic of that. But I guess when you've seen one lavender knitted heart, you've probably seen them all.

There's also the drop-stitch scarf, which was completed sometime last week, and washed and blocked (as much as I ever block anything, which is admittedly not much) and worn and admired by all and sundry. Okay, by two local knitting buddies.

I made myself take some pics, finally, once there was enough sunlight in this apt to do so (it's been a grey, rainyish, snowyish, icyish week, for the most part). And here's one of them, at least. I won't know until I finish this post whether you get the other one also, which just shows the end with the ruffled edge I decided to put on to firm up the drop stitches. It came out rather nice, though of course not especially square or perfect. But then, I am not much of a perfectionist - well, as a knitter, anyway. Other areas of life we can discuss at another time.

And now I am knitting some fingerless mittens, in still more Malabrigo (yes, I know, I have a lot). For two reasons: one, because I only have one pair of fingerless, and if I should (perish the thought!) lose one of them, I am screwed. Also, two, because I need a portable project to carry with me hither and yon. What's that you say? Sox! Yes, sox, of course, but I need a mindless portable project for those times when I am sittin' with the girls drinking alcohol or caffeine in liquid form and knitting away.

And First Sox do not a mindless project make. While mittens aren't quite mindless, I have done enough of them to not get massively confused if my attention strays onto more-interesting topics than row counts. Boys, for example. Bicycles. The various merits of 1/8 in. chains as opposed to 3/32 in. chains. To teflon tape or merely to pack the threads with grease.

Don't worry, the girls don't know what the hell I am talking about when I get like that, either. But it floats my boat.

"Engines make her hot!" - Serenity's first mechanic, referring to his soon-to-be replacement, Kaylee.

"You go to my head with a smile that makes my temperature rise. Like a summer with a thousand Julys."

"You give me fever when you kiss me, fever when you hold me tight. Fever in the morning and fever all through the night."
Today is one of those Mondays that seems to have an atomic weight of 50, compared to ordinary Mondays, which have atomic weights of 30-35, and to ordinary other days, with their weights of 25, and ordinary lightweight Fridays, with their weights of 18-20.

The sky is grey and low. The cat is alternately hyperactive, needy, skittery, and purrful. I am slow and tired and on a slow angry burn about something that has little to do with current circumstances and much to do with my heavy, heavy past.

It is no wonder, I thought earlier today, that I seem to have an urgent need to be physically strong. I am perpetually carrying giant rocks around. I'd like to hurl them at something and watch them smash. Well, I am working on that.

"Here's how to be an agreeable chap: Love me and leave me in luxury's lap....When I say, 'do it,' jump to it!"

So here is the on-the-train project I've been working on in bits and drabs (that phrase being my own concoction compounded of dribs and drabs and bits and bobs, methinks). The beautiful Verde Esperanza crack (Malabrigo) wanted to be a drop-stitch scarf when it grew up (it told me so), and I am liking the result so much that I am not even going to weave anything into the dropped stitches a la Bob + Weave, as I'd originally planned. It reminds me of waves, and I am way into waves lately.

"And if I fell into the spell of your call, I'd be caught in the undertow."

Sure do wish y'all could hear what I hear sometimes. Today it is Shirley Horn, giving a little maniacal laugh at the end of that song.

PS. In case you are wondering, those pale weights holding down the edges of the scarf so you can see the dropped stitch portions are two of three beachrocks that my neighbor brought me a while ago as a thank you for looking after her cats.

Today (I call it today until I go to bed, which gives me a little extra leeway) is the annual virtual poetry reading for St. Brigid's Day, and so I am putting up another.

But before that, a few important things that happened today:

I got invited to join Ravelry.

I got my yarn for Snow White (it is perfect).

I went out to brunch and ended up spontaneously spending the whole day out with the girls, meandering from eating place to haircut to eating place to shopping place to eating place. I am now very, very full. Overfull. Ouch.

I have sworn off pursuing boys. I am tired of the fuss and the nebulousness and the frustration. We came up with several good shorthands for this, which I will not at the moment share here, but suffice it to say, I had a moment in Ricky's where I was laughing so hard I was doubled over. And then I looked at a robot t-shirt and bought some sugar scrub. So I can have incredibly soft skin that no boys will get to enjoy. Also, earlier, I bought two more "date tops." Yeah, so that swearing off is going really well for me.

And so to the poem.

Cream, she said, and ran her
eyes into his stars
his legs tangled in a weedy
mess along hers
the dark blanket a forest
for them to chew into

The sudden dearth
his arms gone and then fluttered into birds
So many damn birds
All that's left after a rain
is chatter and flight.

copyright 2008 Lizbon Grav. All rights reserved.

I saw Sarah Jessica Parker on the street, suckling at a cigarette as if it were her last meal. At first I thought it couldn't be her (though it looked a lot like her), because she looked awful - creepy almost.

Then I remembered the Rule of Celebrities. Which is, roughly speaking, if you spot someone in NYC who looks like somebody famous, it is usually them. To wit, my two Lance sightings. On the first one, my eyes registered that it was Lance, but my mind talked me out of it. The second time there was no mistaking him, which made me realize that the first time, I hadn't seen "some guy who looked like Lance"; I'd seen Lance.

I think we expect celebrities to look luminous, the way they do on magazine covers and in movies - to look different than we do. So their reality looks too small to be believed.

In a similar way, things like Writing Novels for A Living look too big for a regular-sized human like me to be able to accomplish - even though I know in my head that the people who do that for a living aren't any bigger than I am. (I refer here to psychic size rather than physical height, for those of you who are snarkily giggling behind their hands right now.)

Eh. In other news, I am considering converting my road bike to a fixie. You know why? Let me give you a list.

A) Because when I went for a ride, my chief complaint (apart from frozen feet because my bike shoes are held together by electrical tape) was that it wasn't enough exercise.
B) Because I really kind of dig tinkering with my bikes.
b-sub1) Because I get to play with tools.
b-sub2) Because I know for a fact that a girl working on her own bike = hotter than hot.
b-sub3) Because it is very satisfying to fix something myself.
C) Because I have always hated my drivetrain.
D) Because there is just nothing cooler than a road bike converted to a fixie, except:
d-sub1) A road bike converted to a fixie by the girl riding it.
E) Because, when I mentioned this plan to Boywich (soliciting his advice on the conversion because he knows about such things), his response was: "Well, if you meet a cute fixie-riding boy and tell him you did the conversion yourself, he will cream his shorts immediately."
*Side note: I love Boywich.

PS. These pics are Rhinebeck leftovers. I still have a camera, and I even have new yarn to photograph, but I am too tired/lazy/rained-on (take your pic - ha ha) to take new pics. And really, who can argue with pretty wool?!