Unveiled (now with more parentheticals!)

One of my favorite book bloggers is the hilarious and astute Raych. She consistently makes me laugh and also I agree with her taste in books, which is kind of a prerequisite for thoroughly enjoying a book blog. Anyway.

Raych has a sister (or two? I think two. But it is only the one of which I currently type.) who is Into Art in a completely opposite way from the way I am Into Art. That is to say, Rebekah makes art and I admire it. I'm convinced that Rebekah admires art as well, but I am not so much about the making thereof. Sometime in the last couple of weeks, Rebekah had an art sale on eBay. I clicked over and looked at adorable and whimsical paintings, but this one in particular caught my eye.

I decided to think about it, because $200 is a lot of yarn! And think about it I did, including having a weird dream in which I owned the painting but someone (not Rebekah) refused to give it back to me. I woke up knowing it may have been painted by someone else (Rebekah) but it belonged to ME.

The climax of this story is that I won the auction (it was a stressful several hours waiting, remind me not to play with eBay very often) and sent Rebekah a sappy little note about how the title plus the painting mean more to me than either would separately, and she wrote back to say that she's interested in how the people who buy her paintings interpret, see, and interact with them. How cool is that? I love when artists, like directors, understand that their work has a life of its own that may not necessarily be interpreted the way the artist/director intended. That's what makes art, Art, people. Make a note.

I came home late last night/early this morning from the Best Wedding Ever (congratulations, Nadia and Paul! Your love is the kind I hear makes the world go 'round.), went to sleep in my own bed for only the 9th time since June 14th, and woke up to make tea around the beginning of the afternoon. And the moment I finished simultaneously cuddling the kitty and drinking my tea, the doorbell rang. It was FedEx with a biiiig box and Canadian customs stamps! After a happy 10 minutes digging through puffed plastic bags and styrofoam, I got to this:

And after another 10 minutes of caaaaarefully wrangling plastic wrap with scissors (eep!), I got to this:

Isn't it sweet? And lovely? It goes perfectly on my wall

Love is a Servant by Rebekah Joy Plett

and has a title that coincides exactly with my summer. Everyone's First Real Art Purchase should be so easy and enjoyable. Thank you, Rebekah, for channeling my heart and thoughts into a painting even though we didn't know one another. To quote Lady Catherine, you have given me a treasure.

Happy 10th Anniversary, Bring It On!

Nathaniel reminded the internet today that it is Bring It On's 10th anniversary. I cannot even express to you adequately how much of an impact this movie has had on my life.

I danced from the time I was 5 until I strained every joint in my legs when I was 20. I was on a dance team that won every category we entered at the international championships in 1995, and was totally dedicated to the idea of being a dancer when I grew up. Cheering may not have been my life, but in August of 2000 I had just ended a horrific relationship and was in the process of being scraped alternately off the floor and the ceiling by my best friends. Bring It On came like a cheerful, hilarious bolt out of the clear summer sky, reminding us how it felt to be young and pretty again - complete with a snarky little brother and parents who just won't understand oh my god you don't know anything about meeeeee!

We fell in love with Jesse Bradford and his crooked smile, we cheered for Eliza Dushku's snotty rejoinder to cheerleader snobbery ("I came here from Los Angeles, your school has not gymnastics team, this is a last resort!"), and we drank copious amounts of tequila under the guise of sterilizing my new tongue piercing (did I mention it was the summer of 2000?)

I downloaded the beginning dream sequence cheer and put it on the beginning of every mix CD I made that year; it still makes me laugh.

I'm bitchin', great hair! The boys all love to stare.

But Nathaniel is asking for the one shot that defines the movie, and for me it's the moment that - to my knowledge - defined a singularly cheerleader kind of thing: spirit fingers.

Gold.

No longer the property of jazz dancers or Fosse fanatics, spirit fingers are now firmly in the realm of cheering. So much so that I have heard jazz dancers accuse each other of using "spirit fingers" instead of "jazz hands"!

So there you have it - possibly the most quoted bit of Bring It On, and what I think of as the best shot of the film. But like a mother with a shoeful of children, I can't choose just one to love best; I love whichever one I'm watching at the moment. Excuse me, I have to go watch a movie now.

Knit, Knitting... Knat?

I am back from the bachelorette party! And it was fun, my peaches. I was so tired on the train back home that I fell asleep with my knitting in my hands and missed an undetermined chunk of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which was b.a.d. One should attempt not to fall asleep for the crucial buildup of a thriller, or one is apt to wake up to some Serious Spoilers. I am trying to put them out of my mind.

Before I left for the bachelorette weekend, I stopped at the local library to check out a book that I was in the middle of when I left Coal City. It wasn't there, so I consoled myself with a stack of other books. At the moment I'm reading a pair of books by Pauline Gedge about girls in ancient Egypt. Afterward I'm debating over whether I should re-subject myself to GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire series. The debate goes something like this:

Me: I love those books, and I've largely forgotten what happens aside from everyone dying. I should read it again!

Me, Too: But the series isn't finished! And we haaates cliffhangers!

Me: But they're so. good! There is plotting, and scandal, and Jamie Lannister! And Jamie Lannister's abs, which are strangely compelling! Maybe it's his bad-boy-turned-good persona... or his square jaw... why do antiheroes always have square jaws? Is it a sexual prowess thing?

Me, Too: Stop avoiding the point and distracting me with attractive fictional men! Have you learned nothing from Robert Jordan's death? Never begin a series that the author hasn't finished!

Me: We're reading the Outlander series, which also isn't finished and also involves amazing abs - this time of the Scottish variety. How is that different?

Me, Too: Cheating. She could end the series at any time (do you hear me, Diana? Any. Time.) and it would still feel complete. Not so with GRRM and his many hundreds of dangling plot points.

Me: You have a point.

Me, Too: This is why we like classics.

Me: Agreed. Would you care for some Tolstoy?

Me, Too: Don't mind if I do.

And so it goes.

But back to the knitting! Of which there was plenty this summer.

THB's Last Chance Socks weighed in at 440 yards.

The Cornucopia socks were smaller, being for me and not my gigantic-footed brother. They used 305 yards.

I finished knitting my second Girasole, which was ridiculously easy and fast this time around. By weight, it is 1040 yards, but isn't yet blocked. Bachelorette duties called, after all!

I completed my second Jolly Green Knee High on the plane back from Illinois and with a broken needle, no less! Note to self: size 0 wooden needles do not fare well when jammed into a bag at top speed! Note the second: carry spare needles, durrrr. They used 545 yards, but the next iteration will use fewer as these ones are a little floppy and loose and prone to falling down, which is not a good look for knee highs, generally speaking.

For those playing along with the 12-Mile Quest (Brie), that puts me at 2330 yards completed, or 1.32 miles, not including the Ishbel for Grandma! That's not too shabby considering that I also spun almost all the Be-Bop-a-Lula singles and knitted about 70% of the Cheraphim before THB arrived with the skein of yarn I needed - he dug through my stash to find it for me, wasn't that sweet? - and it turned out to be not the color I thought it was, so now I need a Plan C. I'm thinking I might just dye the offending Wrong Color Skein, or maybe the whole she-bang after I finish the knitting. I am as yet undecided and the shawl is in Time Out. 

Here is the new shawl I started when I got home and caught up on Omly's blog. It's the Hera Mountain Ridge Shawl, and I'm particularly pleased that I didn't have to a) buy any yarn for it, or b) dip into my Lorna's Laces stash, which is strangely sacrosanct for socks lately. Instead, it is alternating skeins of Tess Sock Yarn from Stitches Past and my dear friend Cynthia. I am also completely enamored of the stripes. You might think that this much garter stitch would make me crazy, but you would be wrong. Don't feel bad, it happens to everyone.

Maybe it's just that my brain needs a rest and something to practice knitting without looking while watching Bones (boy howdy, did I miss Bones!). But I'm enjoying the hell out of this so far.

And speaking of Grandma, she is doing well. The last day I was there happened to be her fourth chemo treatment, so she and my Uncle left the house before I did and I got to wave her off. But that's not the story! The story is that as she was getting ready that morning, I told her that she looked as if she was missing something. She checked her head, neck, and ears to make sure she had on her wig, necklace, earrings, and hearing aids, then gave me a totally blank look. I couldn't keep from grinning like a fool when I pulled out the finished Ishbel from behind my back and gave it to her! She was sooooo happy, and it looks lovely on her:

Isn't she an adorable little Grandma? I'm so glad she loves the shawl. We definitely had our differences while I was there, but I'm completely happy that I went.

Home Again, Home Again

I am back in California, and it feels a little strange. I've been sleeping on a twin camp bed with a 30+ year old spring mattress for the last 2 months, so I'd been looking forward to crawling into my full sized, memory foam bed for about 1 month and 29 days. It was everything I had hoped, and I don't think I moved for a full 9 hours.

Home smells like home, which is a lovely change from smelling like Grandma's house. Not that Grandma's smells bad, you understand. But I missed the smell of green growing things uninterrupted by the smell of humidity, which is a close cousin to the smell of slightly rotting foliage.

My mom came to see me today, and I cried when she showed up. Being away from almost everyone I knew for two months will probably show itself now, instead of when I was there. Partly this has to do with my tendency to pull my shit very tightly together during a crisis and then to fall apart afterward. I used to get stage fright after the play, which is how I knew I wasn't born to be an actor.

There will be more blogging soon; I have finished objects, a final yardage count, and pictures/stories to tell. In typical fashion, all the excitement of my summer was crammed into the last week. I made it to the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Art Institute over the course of four days! Flickr will be a bit shell-shocked when I'm done with it. But for now, I think I'm just going to revel in the two days I have at home before Darling Nadia's wedding takes over the next week and a half.

Tour de Fleece, Day the Last

Well, darling Readers, the day has come. The final day of the Tour de France, of which I have managed to watch not a single moment, and with it the final day of my third year participating in the Tour de Fleece.

You may recall that my goal was to spin every day of the Tour. It wasn’t a supremely difficult goal, and I didn’t have to stretch myself a huge amount to get it done. But I did have to get up out of bed a few times and plug myself into my iPod for half an hour at the wheel to be able to say I spun that day; if you know me and how much I love my bed, then you understand that this Tour wasn’t ALL fun and games. I didn’t really play along in any of the challenge days, and my two days of rest didn’t coincide with the Tour itself, but I did manage to spin every day save two, and I did manage to finish two of my three bobbins of CMF Be-Bop-a-Lula in addition to finishing the Whammy Kiss yarn:

Look upon my achievements and tremble!  I would have finished Bobbin #2 last night, but for the third time in his life Darcy decided he wanted to sit on my lap, and it quickly became clear that while some spinners are able to operate a wheel while their laps are full of cat, I am not one of them. Whether or not my inability to do so is related to the fact that my cat is Decidedly Not Small, I am uncertain. But since he was a kitten, Darcy hasn’t been much of a cuddler, so I’ll drop what I’m doing to encourage kitty lap time whenever it presents itself.

In the last 23 days, I’ve also done a great big whack of knitting. So much knitting, in fact, that I’m taking at least the morning and afternoon off today to let my wrist rest! It’s crackling in a you’d-better-stop way, but not a you’re-in-trouble way, so I suppose I’ll listen. I did block the Ishbel, though, so here it is!

Next Wednesday my dad arrives with my youngest brother (age 10). I’m not sure what effect their presence will have on my knitting, spinning, and reading time; but I’m fairly sure it won’t increase it by any great magnitude. My dad seems to think that knitting, while a pretty and ladylike activity, is akin to doing nothing - a sentiment that drives me batty every time we go head to head over it. I think it’s because I refuse to allow him to control what I knit and for whom, but that might just be my residual teenaged angst showing through.

I plan to spend this week plowing through the projects I want to finish before I leave Coal City. To that end, here they are listed in all their glory:

1) CMF Be-Bop-a-Lula yarn
2) Cheraphim
3) Knee high socks
4) Girasole

Three of those four things are within my immediate control, and if I can ever get THB on the phone to send me the final skein for the Cheraphim, I just might do it!

Tour de Fleece, Day ...

What day is it? I have no idea. I don’t even know when the Tour ends, so maybe I’ll just continue to spin a little every day until I go home.

So far I’ve reached my goal of spinning every day but rest days. What dates the actual rest days are, I have no idea, but I’ve only missed 2 days through the whole Tour, so I’m calling it a success so far. I’m over 1/2 way through the second bobbin of CMF Be-Bop-a-Lula, and have reached that interminable part of the spinning project where the bobbin keeps getting more full but the fiber next to me stays the same size.

On Wednesday, I went to a Cubs game!  My friend from back in the Ashland days, Brandon, lives out here and got tickets from his boss, who couldn’t go, so B invited me and we spent a lovely afternoon at Wrigley Field. Our seats were even in the shade, so I didn’t get a sunburn! Although it did mean that the contrast washed out my pictures of the game. Ahh, well - one picture of a baseball game looks much like another.

I love baseball games, and Cubs games most of all. No one except Cubs fans sell out games when the team is as loser-ish as this one, and we as a body expect the loss, so we go because we love the game and the atmosphere - especially when the game is exciting. And boy, was this game exciting! We picked up a single run in the first few innings, and held on to the lead until somewhere around the 7th or 8th inning. At that point, B and I started to look at each other and say, “we could be here for awhile...”

And we were. There was a heart-wrenching moment in the eleventh inning where the bases were loaded and Fukudome was at bat - something that would strike fear into any pitcher - and the whole crowd was on its feet, waiting. But the mighty Casey struck out, and the game went on:

Everyone was tired, and even the hawkers with their beers and hot dogs had gone home. In the top of the inning, the Astros scored three runs, and people began to pour out of the stadium; I suppose three extra innings of hope can wear on even the most dogged Cubs fan. And then, someone hit a home run - I don’t know who - that brought us two runs and elicited a cry of “are you fucking KIDDING ME??” from somewhere in the vicinity of my seat.

Early in the game, Brandon told me that if we lost, it was because I wasn’t clapping enough. This is a joke, you see, because at a baseball game I tend to buy completely in. I’ll drink terrible beer at exorbitant prices, boo at the umpires, and clap with every stupid calliope song that plays across the loudspeaker. B made fun of me and said that I just wanted to clap, which may be true.

THB told me that if we lost, it was because I was at the game, since I’ve never been to a Cubs game that the Cubs have won. When I called him at work he told me to GTFO before I jinxed the team.

I should have left, still clapping.

Except I didn’t, because baseball is baseball, but Cubs games are a delight.

And after the game, we headed to the Goose Island Pub for a much-needed beer, some garlic fries, and great conversation with other Cubs fans.

I also, of course, tortured THB with the above picture, as a good sister should.

***************

Of knitting, there has been a lot. I finished Grandma’s Overspun Ishbel:

Handspun SW Merino, “Whammy Kiss”

320 yards

which is currently soaking and will be blocked in a few minutes. Then I wavered between starting a giant green Galveston (Rav link) out of the Forest Heather Shadow yarn I bought earlier this summer, or the Zephyr Girasole I planned when I was still in CA. The Girasole won out because there is a slight possibility that I can finish it before I go home. I’m about halfway through the sunflower pattern, and it’s looking a lot like the sea urchin that its similarly colored, fuzzier predecessor resembled. This one, I am hoping, won’t shed as much and so will actually be wearable. But I’m not holding my breath.

Then yesterday Grandma’s Knit Picks order came in: two balls of heathered red sock yarn and a set of 24” size 1.5’s. When I placed the order I tried very hard to resist the urge to earn the “free” shipping and buy $50 worth of stuff, thus earning me the title of “the Heroically Resistant.” I managed to avoid the temptation - mostly, so no title for me. Two balls of Felici in Green Veggies managed to slip into my cart (I swear without me knowing!) and since the arrival of Grandma’s needles liberated my own, I promptly started the top-down knee-high pattern I’ve been turning over in my head.

I didn’t realize it until I stopped knitting to start my Tour spinning last night, but I might have a thing going for green.

The Cheraphim is still at a stand-still. I will indeed run out of yarn, so I’m waiting for THB to send me the last ball of Knittery yarn to finish it up. Given that I called him during “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” it might have to wait until I get back home and can dig it out myself.

Midwest Fiber and Folk Festival

On Friday, I got up at 6, grabbed coffee, set up the GPS, and headed to St. Charles to meet up with the adorable Meghan and her precious son, Owen. It was delightful to meet someone I’ve corresponded with for so long, and we all 3 got along like peas in a pod.

Our first stop was at Meghan’s favorite coffee shop, The Four Beans in Batavia, IL.

This little place is not just a coffee shop, but also a coffee roaster, and I was thrilled that Meghan’s taste for Good Coffee was so amazingly, well, good! Smooth, fragrant Americanos (and a pound of Tanzanian peaberry coffee for home) in hand, we headed to Libertyville for the Fair. According to Meghan, last year the fair was both indoors and out, with some animals and such. This year it was both bigger and scaled back; the animals were gone, but the entire thing except for the food tents was in an air-conditioned convention hall, for which we were exceedingly grateful given the 90+ degree heat!

We strolled up and down the aisles, recognizing popular Midwest shops like The Fold, and Knitting Notions (from whom I purchased my swift a few years ago) but also some favorites from Stitches Past!

Diane was, as always, charming and talented. When she saw us she came rushing out for hugs and hellos, and showed off her new colors. I’ve been a fan of Diane’s since I first met her at Stitches ’08, right at the beginning of my Fiber Career, as it were. In the intervening 2 years, her color sense has evolved in a way that’s difficult to explain, but plain to see. Her work is one of those that can be recognized at 50 paces, or across a crowded convention hall, and she’s walked away with a chunk of my money every time we encounter one another. And yet somehow, I never seem to mind...

I actually didn’t buy from anyone else at the fair, which is just as well considering how much I’ve blown my yarn budget - or rather, my ENTIRE budget by buying yarn - since I’ve been here! But I did stop by Trader Joe’s to pick up some lavender sachets for the surfeit of wool in my possession.

Meghan and I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the lawn chatting and  watching Owen play. It was a fabulous day, and I enjoyed myself immensely - not the least of which because Meghan was even more fun in person than from a distance. I didn’t get a picture of us all together, but as we have firm plans to get together a few more times before I leave, I’m not too worried.

Tour de Fleece: Just Keep Spinning

Every once in awhile, I try to use the “stash” option in Ravelry and am completely thwarted by my own laziness. I do try to input all the yarn I buy, specifically because I am crap at remembering what I have unless I can see it - one of the slight disadvantages of being highly visual, I suppose - so unless I faithfully input skeins as they come in, I am in some danger of buying the same yarn twice, simply because I like it and forgot I own it already.  But my recent (read: since September) inexcitement over photography has led me to Stash Management Laziness.*

All this to say, the EKF yarn from which I made these socks:

Enchanted Knoll Farms, SW Sock Yarn, “Cornucopia”
Yardage Unknown

wasn’t in my Ravelry stash.  Yes, I did finish those in about 3 days; I may have mentioned that it’s quiet around here! Grandma and I have taken to laying bets on who is on the other end of the phone when it rings - THAT is how exciting it is to be here.

But small towns in the Midwest have their charms, too. The sweet lady who has been doing my Grandma’s hair for nearly 25 years has taken excellent care of her through the trauma of losing her hair. My grandma, like me and my aunt, is excessively proud of her hair. When it began falling out, she was horrified and I think that was when the full impact of Having Cancer really hit her. The side effect of her disbelief in the Big C - or one of them - was that she didn’t do what everyone said she should do and order her wig ahead of time. Thus was my poor grandma bald for a couple of weeks:

that’s her and my uncle Tony, looking more alike than either of them is comfortable with. But on Tuesday, Cathie came to the house and brought Grandma her new hair, refusing to charge her for it and cutting it to fit right in the bedroom.

Isn’t that a sweet picture? I think I’m going to have it printed and framed for each of them.

Meanwhile, Grandma has claimed the Whammy Kiss handspun for herself and ordered a shawl “to take with [her].” I tried to explain that it wasn’t meant to be shawl yarn - it’s overspun and a little ropy even for socks! - but she will brook no argument; I gave in when she asked me why I didn't want her to wear "something I made her in the next life." Manipulation, party of me! So I started an Ishbel for her out of the handspun, and while I’m not particularly happy with the product, I’m fairly certain that she won’t really wear it until she’s being laid out (such are the “special occasions” that Spanish women talk about), and by then it won’t matter that it’s a little overspun. I know it sounds callous to say such things, but I don’t think she’s going to die any time soon. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more stubborn than she is!

Last night I finished my first bobbin of the CMF Be-Bop-a-Lula! I’m trying not to overdo the spinning, since it’s the marathon of the Tour de Fleece that seems to make me abjure spinning for the rest of the year. This time around, I’m simply trying to spin a little every day, and if I get in a good groove it’s just a bonus. When I get home I’m going to have to do some rearranging and some purging so that my cherry Schact will fit in my bedroom and I can continue to spin a little every day. Lord knows that if I spun for 10 minutes per day for the rest of my life, I’d barely make a dent in the magnitude of fluff in my house. Space Saver bags might make it seem more like a mere hill, but I know the mountainous truth!

So you know those socks I mentioned? Based on previous calculated sock yardage, they probably come in around 275-300 yards for the pair. In celebration thereof, I opened my box from The Loopy Ewe yesterday, introducing FAR more yarn into the stash than I knitted out of it. Somewhere around 1975 yards, to be precise - mostly of Lorna’s Laces, I know you’re shocked. Self control, why hast thou forsaken me?

Oh, that’s right. You were never mine to start with.

Tomorrow I’m going to a fiber festival with Meghan of Stitch It! We’ll have a blast, eat too much fair food, get sunburned, and probably spend too much money, which is why I’m planning to take a good look at my fiber stash on Flickr tonight. The only thing I really find myself wanting is a good monochromatic white/grey/black roving to spin up, but I also want it to be the CMF SW merino, so I may just have to dye it myself when I get home.



*Edit: as of uploading this blog, I have entered all the yarn I've bought this trip into Ravelry. It's staggering, so excuse me while I got knit now. And maybe faint.

A Failure to Comply

I’ve been doing well at saving both calories and money, but occasionally I splurge on both. These weeks in Illinois have done something to help me get out of the rut I was in while in California; I’m outside more often, eating more healthy food (and less of it, thank goodness!), and knitting/spinning regularly. I had been running - that dreaded R-word! - but I’ve fallen back on my old method of starving* my body into submission rather than having to exercise.

You may recall a few days ago when I received some ungodly number of yards of lace-weight yarn - some 4.75 miles, to be honest. I do prefer knitting with the lighter yarns, but their yardage does add up something scandalous! I didn’t think that the yardage would toss me right over the 12-Mile Barrier I made for myself, though. Frankly, I didn’t really think at all, more’s the pity, and now I’m faced with the prospect of not only completely ignoring Stash Equilibrium, but also not completing the 12-Mile Quest this year - especially given that I may (or may not) have ordered more yarn from The Loopy Ewe today (I did). I can only plead an excess of sun, and maybe a lack of food. Sure, that’s it.

I toyed with the idea of counting every pound as a free mile on my Quest total, then on my incoming total. Then I thought that maybe for every mile I run, I could give myself 100 yards of slack, to be assigned as necessary. But then I realized that if I did any of these things and succeeded in my quest, I wouldn’t feel like I’d won fair and square using the rules that I just made up. It’s supposed to be a challenge. It’s supposed to be well-nigh unpossible. I’m supposed to fail a few times - maybe a lot of times - before I succeed. Such is the nature of a Quest. And there you have it.

But there has been progress on various things! Today was a little more overcast, so I re-shot THB’s Last Chance Socks:

The yardage is still unknown, but just think how much fun it will be to weigh everything and get yardage totals when I get home! (Do you understand how quiet it is around here yet? Calculating yardage has moved from “satisfying” to “fun.”)

I’ve also been spinning - it is the Tour de Fleece, after all. I missed a day due to I can’t remember what - it couldn’t have been fatigue! - so I’ll spin tomorrow in order to make up for it. Last night I spun while watching an episode of House and thought to myself that I would probably get a lot more yarn made if I spun for more than 42 minutes/night, but like Scarlett O’Hara, I will think about it tomorrow. Back to the subject at hand! There is definitely progress on Bobbin #1:

See? I told you. It’s note even one of those infintesimal flip-back-and-forth progresses, known only to spinners. That bobbin is definitely chubbier around the middle.
And since I finished THB’s socks, I’ve made progress on yet more socks - this time for me, and thus blessedly smaller:

 

  

The yarn is from Enchanted Knoll Farm; it’s their Superwash Sock Yarn in “Cornucopia,” and it was in my welcome package from The Loopy Ewe. It’s also very similar in feel to the Lorna’s Laces I am so fond of, which is a huge plus. I’m trying a variation on my standard plain sock - this one is longer and involves decreases in the leg to account for calves - and I like it very much. I’ve also carefully written down the pattern so I can test it a few more times before I write it up. This one might be the one, friends. I’m sure you’re awash with antici-

pation.

My obsession with socks that take up the fewest number of yards possible has subsided, I think. I’m moving on to new and different ways to make sure that I eke every possible stitch out of my sock yarn without resorting to a sock swatch blanket. I know other people have them, and they’ve worked out well, but I am about 120% sure I would never, EVER finish one, so I’m looking for other alternatives. Striped socks have gripped my imagination at the moment, so we’ll see how far that takes us. The royal us, you understand.






*No, not actually starving. I’m at my Spanish grandmother’s house, where if you’re not chewing, you’re sick. It’s a challenge just to diet, much less starve!

Brought to You by the Letter "T" - Tour de Fleece, Days 1-5

Since I began spinning two and a half years ago, my fiber accumulation has vastly outpaced my handspun output. This, I understand, is not completely unusual, neither for me personally nor for the spinning world-at-large. But in keeping with my motto of “if you’re going to sin, sin boldly,” I tend to spin for a mere month out of the year, and acquire fiber rather more often than that. Said month is, of course, July during the Tour de Fleece. Once again I have joined Abby Franquemont’s Team Suck Less, <> and I’m re-using my badge from last year - not having Photoshop with me to adjust it for the current year’s date: 

My goal this year is to spin every day of the Tour, even if only for 10 minutes (thus putting me on a secondary TdF of “Ten Minutes/Day”). So far, it’s worked quite well. I have my Victoria set up in front of my shiny new laptop that plays Netflix DVDs extremely well, and I’ve managed to do quite a bit of spinning while watching the third season of The Tudors. Tangentially, The Tudors is a terribly watchable show, completely tawdry and trashy, and I treasure it.

I have a couple of completed items to add to my Twelve Mile Quest 2010 total, as well. The Cherry Seraphim (Cherraphim?) shawl is still in Time Out, and will probably remain there for the foreseeable future. But in keeping with my WIP count limit of roughly 3 - not counting UFO’s - I sucked it up and finished THB’s Last Chance Socks (the picture for which should go here but won't because it was AWFUL. New photoshoot scheduled for this afternoon.)

When I packed for my summer in Coal City, I tried to think of things I would need for finishing projects: darning needles, extra cables for my Options set, several sizes of needle tips, my swift*, etc., but I deliberately left two things at home that I thought I could do without: my kitchen scale for estimating yardage, and my ball winder. Of course I quickly discovered that both of those things were, if not technically required, at least an element of Knitting Happiness and Management, respectively. I am, it seems, crap at both winding yarn by hand and estimating how much yarn a pair of men’s size 11 socks uses.

The second finished item I have should probably wait for its own post - after all, I have had precious few Finished Objects this year - but since the posts would go up at the same time anyway I’m just going to put everything all together. But first, a teaser shot:

These singles were started at the first annual CogKNITive Fiber Retreat in Tehachapi, California in October 2009. I may or may not have taken any pictures of them on the wheel, but I finished the second half of bobbin #2 and most of the third bobbin over a couple of days leading up to the Tour. Then I discovered that the Lazy Kate that comes with the Victoria wheel was missing the center post (it’s removable so it fits in the bag), and I have a vague memory of it being in the bottom of my spinning basket back in California. On the 4th of July I legged it to Ace Hardware and bought two 1/4” dowels, some kite string and a package of rubber bands. Combined with a loosely woven basket I found in my room, the ingredients made up a quite functional tensioned Kate. I felt like MacGuyver.

On the 5th, I finished plying:

And on the 6th I had skeined, washed, and whacked it into submission. Behold, my first finished yarn since last year’s Tour was over! 

Yarn: Bee Mice Elf SW Merino “Whammy Kiss,” 335 yards

I’m quite pleased with it, especially as I wasn’t sure about the consistency between the bobbins of singles. There is probably another 20 yards of chain-plied yarn left over from after the first bobbin ran out of singles, but it’s still sitting on a bobbin waiting to be wound off into a mini-skein.

In the mean time, I started on what turns out to be my favorite Old Standby: Crown Mountain Farms Superwash Merino, this time in Be-Bop-a-Lula:

Before I left CA I divided the 8.5 oz bump into 3 parts by weight, but my scale was acting up a bit so I’m not 100% sure the weights are accurate; when I get home I’ll have to remember to change the battery on the scale. I haven’t finished the first bump yet, so my options are still open as to chain-plying or getting one of those fancy 1-ounce bobbin winders like Jasmin has. Maybe I can find an antique one hereabouts; I’ve seen several Amish stores around, and where there are Amish there are usually beautiful handcrafting tools.

Whew! That’s about all the update I have, other than that Grandma is doing well. She had her second of eight chemo treatments on Tuesday, and she’s been so tired today that I haven’t even gotten to speak to her, she’s been sleeping so much. These next few days will be even more quiet than usual around here while she alternates between Dreamland and drinking tons of water to flush the poisons out of her system. Mr. Darcy has taken to sleeping in the hall between my room and Grandma’s so he can keep his eye on both of us lest we should move or offend him in the middle of the night. He’s adjusted fairly well, but my Uncle Tony is coming with three Chihuahuas tomorrow, so there might be a Big Shakeup in our future. Ahh, the entertaining life I lead!!


*Yes, I brought my swift. It was a big suitcase!

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

I had forgotten how much like a whirlpool this book can be. This is my third time through it; the first time was in print and the other two in audiobook, and I have loved it more every time.

Our heroine is a young, mousy girl who is being trained as a companion for world-jaunting women of a Certain Age and Status. Then Maximillian de Winter appears in Monte Carlo, and a convenient bout of flu leaves Our Girl on her own. De Winter’s first wife, the titular character Rebecca, has recently died, and all the world knows he is completely wrecked about it. But life must go on, and de Winter forms at least a passing fancy for Our Girl, sweeping her away from the vulgar Mrs. Van Hopper and into the role of the Lady of Manderly, de Winter’s ancestral home.

But Manderly is not all it seems, my precioussesssss. The servants laugh at our Fresh Young Heroine, who is a bit of a Country Bumpkin and has NO idea how to run a great house. The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, might be one of the most insidious villains in the history of novels, and is absolutely the template on which the despicable Nurse Ratchett was founded. She’s just that creepy.

To say more about the plot would begin to tell the story (plot and story being two distinctly different things, pets), and if you have not read this book I refuse to spoil it for you. Suffice to say that it’s kind of like Space Mountain; even my jaded, too-many-movies 21st century self is still surprised by the dark and twisty turnings. The tidbit of fact that du Maurier was fascinated by Brontë’s Jane Eyre (both book and heroine) makes Rebecca that much better - it is at times in direct contrast to the paragon of Jane, at times meshes seamlessly, and sometimes - dare I say - surpasses the original.

Three things I adore about this book:
1. The heroine is never named. She is only ever called “Mrs. de Winter” after her marriage to Maxim.
2. The title is, therefore, not about the person telling the story, but about the first Mrs. de Winter: Rebecca.
3. The descriptions of conversations, places, and people are brilliant, and despite remaining nameless, the New Mrs. de Winter is fully realized as a thinking, interesting person.

10 of 11 yellows, because it’s not as much of a rush the third time around as it was before I knew the Secret.

P.S. - For those of you who like Jasper Fforde as much as I do (is that even possible?), he is also a big fan of Rebecca. Yay!

A Distinct Lack of Humor

 Note: Since there's no internet at the house, I've been writing blogs and will upload them as I get to  the coffee shop, backdated for the appropriate time. So no, your reader isn't messed up!


There’s not a huge amount to do here in Coal City. My grandmother isn’t really very self-sufficient, but she does sleep most of the time, so I’m on my own a lot. I’ve been running just shy of 2 miles in the mornings, getting my homework done quickly, and then have most of the day to do whatever. It’s nice, but I keep waiting for some observant family member to call me and tell me what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s a very strange feeling.

I’ve noticed that my sense of humor is absent, and I’d like it back, please. Usually I get my entertainment and amusement from various corners of the internet, but this sleepy little house is still living in about 1976. Grandma watches Wheel of Fortune, the Catholic Rosary channel, and Dr. Oz while I hide upstairs and watch The Tudors and Dr. Who on my shiny new laptop. Maybe I need a funny show instead of dramas...

On Monday I caved and ordered yarn from KnitPicks because despite the fact that I carefully printed patterns, chose appropriate yarns, and packed them all to come with me, I’ve found a project I’d much rather for which I didn’t have the necessary yarn, either here or in my stash back home. Isn’t that always the way? I ordered two shawls-worth of Shadow lace yarn, one in Forest Heather and one in Nocturne Heather. (Both of these pictures are from the KnitPicks site because I couldn't photograph them properly. Argh!) I also picked up one of their tote bags on sale for $7, and I’m quite pleased with it! It’s a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and will make a great beach bag for the summer.

 I’m not going to start my new shawl until I’m finished with my Seraphim - or I run out of yarn for the Seraphim, which is a distinct and annoying possibility. I’ve got slightly over 40 rows to go and the yarn is starting to look pretty skimpy. I haven’t decided what I’ll do should the worst happen, but it probably involves tears and wine.

I’ve also been reading a lot, and I’m pleased to say that since I’ve been here I’ve finished three print novels - Inkheart, Inkspell, and The Big Over Easy - and almost two audio ones - Gone with the Wind and Rebecca. It’s amazing how much novel reading I do when there aren’t blogs around!

Really, that’s about it. Grandma heads in for her second (of 8) chemotherapy treatments on Tuesday, so think good thoughts for us when you get the chance.

Finally, a new post!

It’s been over a month!  And what a month. Last most of you heard, I was heading off to Joliet, Illinois, for my dear cousin Valerie’s wedding, completed shawl in hand. The wedding was a great deal of fun, the family was wonderful and crazy as always, and I had a lovely time with everyone.

I didn’t get a photo of Val with the finished shawl, but she assures me that it saved her life many times during her month-long honeymoon trip around the U.S. because her new husband likes the A/C absurdly high. She promises to send me an appropriately posed picture soon.

That’s kind of where the good news ends, I’m afraid. After the wedding, the immediate family was gathered in my grandmother’s Green Parlor and we were told that not only does my beloved namesake have breast cancer, but so does my grandmother. In fact, they both learned of their disease separately in late April and were waiting until after the wedding to tell everyone. I knew about my aunt, but not about Grandma, so the whole thing felt like a sick joke for a moment. And to be honest, it still does, a bit. One day I’m a part of a healthy, slightly absurd family, and the next I have to start getting yearly mammograms and start being veeeeeery careful about my health. The adjustment is a little strange, to say the least.

One of the advantages to being the slacker graduate student in the family is that I can pack up and come to Coal City, Illinois, to take care of Grandma for the summer with very little inconvenience to myself. She lives in a house with my uncle, who is very capable but nevertheless is what the family terms as “slow.” I don’t know what his official diagnosis is, but suffice to say that he’s managed to take care of Grandma and the house for all these years, but can’t be expected to do so in the face of chemotherapy, multiple doctor’s visits per week, and the abundance of care that an 84-year-old woman with breast cancer needs. So on the 14th of June, I packed a big suitcase, my Victoria spinning wheel, more yarn than I could possibly knit up over the summer, the cat, and my favorite quilt and headed to Illinois.

Most of the yarn I brought to IL

I’ve been here for two weeks today, and it feels like I’ve never had any other life. My room is tinier than the one in THB’s house, there is no internet in the house, and I’m trying to fit into the very specific routine that my uncle has developed in order to cope over the years. I’m within calling distance of my grandmother’s room; she sleeps a lot but I’ve been hearing beautiful stories about her youth in Ecuador and early married life when my grandfather Alejandro was a medical captain in Europe after WWII.

The Midwest: where elderly ladies bring

you homemade cream puffs as a treat.

My student aid for the summer came in, and I decided that there wouldn’t ever be a better time to buy a new laptop, so my Tia Marcelita and I took a trip to the Apple store and I got myself a shiny new 15” MacBook Pro. I haven’t been able to test drive it properly - meaning with video games, of course - because of the lack of internet. But it’s definitely quick, and I’ve been watching Netflix movies while I spin in the evenings after Grandma has gone to bed.  So far I’ve finished the second bobbin of the Bee Mice Elf SW merino in “Whammy Kiss” that I started oh, a million years ago. I’m hoping to have the third bobbin finished and the whole she-bang plied before the beginning of the Tour de Fleece on July 3rd, so that I can start working on the 2 pounds of lavender grey cormo I brought with me. Did I mention I carried more yarn and roving than I could possibly complete? Because I totally did.

I’ve also been working on my Faux Russian Stole, which I started ages ago. The original is in garter stitch, but I’ve changed it to a stockinette ground and I like it much better now.

I like the FRS, and it’s keeping me entertained, but I needed something less involved for waiting rooms, so I cast on for a Seraphim Shawl out of some Australian yarn that I can’t recall the name of at the moment (this is why I need the internet!).

But the color is “Cherries”!

Last night I made it to the second row of eyelets; it’s about to get more complicated than simple stockinette, but I found THB’s Last Chance Socks tucked into a corner of my suitcase, so they will satisfy my need for easy projects for a bit.

Last night was also Grandma’s birthday party, and family members came from near and slightly-less-near to have dinner and celebrate. Grandma didn’t feel up to getting out of bed, so we had dinner in the dining room - or the grown-ups did and the “kids” had dinner in the kitchen - and then brought the cake to Grandma’s bedroom for her to blow out the candles.

My uncle’s Rum Cake is famous in the family. Once, Val, THB and I actually got tipsy eating it because we convinced him to put a double dose of rum in. It was possibly the best dessert I’ve ever had.

So there you have it. This isn’t the summer I had planned, nor is it the summer I could have wished for, but I’m so glad to be in a position to help my grandmother and the family. I’m also grateful to be able to spend some time with her. We grew up so far away that I never really got to know most of the family here, and this chance is one that I’m enjoying very much.

Now if only I could convince myself to get up to go running every day, followed by a tanning session in the yard...

Gone a-Visitin'

I have a lot of traveling planned for this summer - Chicago, LA, NYC, and hopefully a move to Portland - so when my mom called last Thursday and asked me to drive with her and my aunt to LA to see my Great Uncle Harold, I was a little balky. Harold is my grandfather's brother, but Grandpa Ralph died when I was 4 so we never spent much time with that part of the family. I know Harold is elderly and not doing well, but dangit, I wanted to play video games and maybe hit the gym a little (a very little).

But I went because it was the right thing to do, and I knew I would hate myself if I didn't take what could be my last opportunity to see my uncle, whom I remember as a tall, cheerful, funny man with a huge miniature train set in his garage; complete with hills and tunnels and flashing train crossings. These are the things that are important and interesting when one is only six, I suppose.

Here he is with his daughter, my second cousin (once removed), Sheryl. She's everything a father could ask for, and more.

I'm so, SO glad I made that trip.

My uncle is 88 and lost his wife of 62 years about 3 weeks ago. Every time Aunt Marge came up in conversation, his lip would tremble and he would gaze with what I can only call Love at her picture on the wall. Then he would shake himself a bit and say, "We had a good time, Marge and me," and go on telling us some silly story about her entertaining people at his Santa Fe Railroad dinners. Both Uncle Harold and Grandpa Ralph worked for the Santa Fe, as did their father before them. And oh man, did Harold have stories to tell about everyone! I've never been around an elderly person who still had all their memories before, and it was an absolute treasure to hear about my grandparents, great-grandparents, and even great-great-grandparents. We found an old photo album in the closet that contained photos from around 1915 to 1927, and Uncle Harold gleefully pointed out Great-Grandmother Dot's friends and identified their surroundings. It was nothing short of amazing.

And the house! It was like walking onto a set for Mad Men. That house hasn't changed since 1965, and I am in love with it. Aunt Marge had an eye for the interesting, and Uncle Harold's work on the railroad meant he got little gifts from all over the place, so the house is full of amazing little things without being overcrowded.


Uncle Harold told us many stories from WWII. He was in the Coast Guard up in Adak, Alaska, and had great stories about the service for which he made his daughter leave the room. He was also, as you can probably guess from the above photo, a very snappy-dressing sort of gentleman. Only snappy dressers have that many cufflinks.

There was a crazy tree out front of the house that attracted all kinds of nectar-gathering birds:

and an absolute welter of morning glories out back:
I took a much more artsy shot of the flowers, but this one shows how far the vine itself has gone. What's not pictured is the part of the vine that has reached to the trees on the right. I don't think I've ever seen morning glories in bloom before!

Because Harold is elderly and ill, we spent as much time with him as possible without wearing him out. That left me lots of time for working on Val's wedding shawl, which is currently in the binding-off stage, hooray!
I actually had to stop working on it while I was in LA and on the trip home because I ran out of yarn. The swift in the background is set up for me to finish binding off straight from the skein so I don't have to estimate.

All in all, I am thrilled that I got to spend time with my uncle. The family is frankly worried that he won't last much longer now that Aunt Marge is gone, and the opportunity to talk with Harold about his life was invaluable. It turns out my family on my grandfather's side is an old San Francisco family, so we'll be looking them up in short order and getting reacquainted. I look forward to it.