Samurai Knitter

Yarrr.

2012-02-02T22:48:00.000-05:00

Piracy, copyright, profit, and kiss my ass.

Yes, yes. Content stealing is bad, and we're all going to hell. And God(s) kill a kitten every time you download a torrent. And, you know what? Fuck them.

Not the content producers, no. Not the worker bees who truly make the stuff. Them, I want to give what money I've got to spend. No, I'm talking about the distributors of the content, who make it hard to get, then piss and moan when we download it off the internet.

Here's an example that's going on right now.

The BBC (British telly) is running a VERY popular show, Sherlock, its very much anticipated second season of three shows. All three were run in January. In the UK. In the US, we're supposed to wait until... well, hell, I can't even find the information. Sometime in the summer, I believe. So American audiences, who've been slavering over this show for a YEAR, have to wait to see it, while their UK friends squeal and slip and give out spoilers. Yeah, right.

People who've never downloaded a bittorrent in their lives are getting Sherlock and watching it. And you know what? Good for them.

The BBC would whine about this. They DO whine about this. You know what? It'd be easy as hell to solve - SHOW IT ON MY BLOODY TELLY. We've got BBC America in this great godforsaken land, they could have shown it simultaneously in both places with little or no trouble, and made a bundle of advertising revenue. No. They stall the release and everyone on the internet illegally downloads it. WHY IS THIS NOT SEEN AS THE BBC'S STUPID DAMN FAULT? Because IT IS. We'd all happily watch the show on their channel WITH THEIR COMMERCIALS, BUT WE CAN'T.

Fuck them and their stupid, archaic business model. They deserve to lose money.

How about another one, for fun?

Disney. Disney DVDs of classic movies like Fantasia and the like. They have this stupid, fucked up, idiotic program where they release the DVDs for a limited time only. If you don't buy it then, you have to wait another ten years. In the mean time, you have a kid, and your five year old wants to watch Sleeping Beauty (or whatever) and YOU CAN'T GO OUT AND BUY THE BLOODY DAMNED DVD BECAUSE FUCKING ASSHOLE DISNEY ISN'T SELLING IT. So you torrent it, or you buy a used copy (Disney has tried for years to make purchasing used DVDs either illegal, or requiring a second royalty payment).

What I said above about fuck them and their archaic business model? FUCK THESE ASSHOLES AND THEIR ARCHAIC BUSINESS MODELS. You want me to buy your stuff? SELL THE GODDAMN STUFF YOU FUCKING MORONS.

And one last one, just to round it out into a trilogy of ranting profanity.

Harry Harrison's Deathworld Trilogy. Originally published in the sixties. The first two are available in print (anthologies) and digital form. The third book cannot be had for love or money in any media. WHAT IN FUCK IS UP WITH THAT. It should be illegal to make the first two books of any trilogy available, and not the third. I would pirate that bitch like Bluebeard on a Spanish galleon, if it was available, but it's not.

So, in summary.

I WOULD DEARLY LOVE TO BUY SOME SHIT BUT THESE MOTHERFUCKERS WON'T SELL IT. Then they whine and piss and moan and try to pass draconian laws and make up ridiculous figures of money lost. They are living in the 1960s with their business model, and they deserve to loose revenue for the way they AREN'T SELLING their content. FUCK THEM.

When it comes to stuff I can actually buy, I do. Especially books, because I know that my money does go, in part, directly to the author. And book publishing is actually trying to keep up with changing formats and content use. (Not perfectly, but they're trying.)

Anyway. Piracy. They're asking for it.

Grrr, ar. I'm gonna go kick a parrot.

Problem solving.

2012-01-30T20:22:00.000-05:00

Everyone seemed to think video of themselves knitting was a clever idea, for identifying problems. I thought I'd outline the two secrets to coming up with this kind of stuff.

First, look at it a different way. I learned this one doing bookkeeping. Won't add up? Add from bottom to top. Or left to right. Turn the page sideways. Something. Or, have someone stand in front of you with a video camera and record you, knitting.

Second, for some problems, it works better to make a list of exactly what you need. What's the priority here? About ten Thanksgivings ago, I was trying to figure out the Gravy Problem. You know, the gravy boat isn't big enough, and it always gets cold. I determined I needed something 1. larger, and 2. with a lid. Eureka. Since then we've served gravy in the tea pot. Works beautifully.

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In other news, we were finishing up the Goob's winter nine-week period, scanning things and uploading them to the school. Since it was RIGHT THERE in the scanner, I got this for all of you:

Good times.

A knitting exercise.

2012-01-29T20:34:00.000-05:00

I've been having increasing problems with my hands... and the big problem is problems with my LEFT hand. Which is Really Bad, because that's supposed to be my 'good' hand. It was especially painful after knitting. I couldn't quite figure out what in hell was going on. What to do?

I had the hub take video of me while I was knitting.

Pretend there's a video of me knitting here. I'd love to post it, but Blogger AND Flickr are both refusing to accept it. Buggering fucks.

Here. Have a photo instead. Me knitting:

It looks pretty good. Nothing's twisted around horribly, doing unnatural motion, or anything like that. Fingers are in natural, half-curved positions. However.

Pay close attention to my left hand and wrist. See how it's sort of twisted outward? For no apparent reason (it doesn't help my grip, motion, yarn management, anything), it's just bent. Backward. Wrist bent backward. Yeah, THAT sounds like a problem.

Imagine your ligaments and tendons are rubber bands. Some of them stretch from your elbow down to your fingers. Many more run from your upper arm down through your wrist. Any bending of your wrist (especially backward) stretches those tissues. See?

Not good. It's squishing your radial and ulnar nerves. Gee, that might MAKE IT HURT.

My new assignment: Quit twisting my wrist out while I'm knitting.

Now it's your turn. Get someone to video you, while you're knitting. Take a good, unbiased look at it. Are you twisting around, or bending at bad angles? Fix it. Your hands will thank you.

Mom is another word for sucker.

2012-01-21T21:12:00.000-05:00

This is "Purple", the unicorn Pillow Pet. At Christmas, my kid informed me that Purple needed a mini Pillow Pet of her own. With everything going on, I didn't order it right away, but look at that. Like an idiot, I got my kid's Pillow Pet its own Pillow Pet. The Goob's calling it "Baby Purple". I'm calling it "Purpette".

Call me an idiot.

What I've been doing.

2012-01-19T22:22:00.000-05:00

Really, it comes down to this:

Mario Kart 7. For the Wii.

I got it as a family present at Christmas, figuring we would all enjoy playing it. I was so, so right. These days we're playing a couple-five rounds before bed nearly every night (because the best way to get a six year old to sleep is wind them up with flashing lights and loud noises). It is a great family thing. All three of us line up on the couch together and race. We've even made a new rule - what gets said on the couch, stays on the couch. The Husbeast and I are known to cuss a blue streak. The Goober thinks we're a riot, but is surprisingly good with her own language. "Darn it!" is about the worst I've heard.

When I'm not frying my nervous system swerving around Koopas and fucking blue shells (FUCKERS), I've been at this:

Knitting the Half a Washcloth shawl (which I still need to turn into a .pdf and upload to the free pattern database on Ravelery) and reading. I'm reading a LOT. Now that my meds have been shifted, I can actually concentrate again, most of the time.

I've also been having a few technical difficulties with my latest obsession.

See the rainbow 'flash' on my nails? That's an effect known as "linear holographic" among nail polish geeks. (Yes, they are out there. Thanks to the internet, I've found some of them.) The linear holo is from a pigment that was originally developed for automobile paint, called spectraflair. These polishes are relatively hard to find, as these things go. Long story shorter, I was logged onto a Brazilian web site earlier tonight, trying to buy a couple bottles of it. Those people who say Spanish and Portuguese are similar? THEY LIE. I'm not sure whether I bought some or not; I'm waiting to see what goes through on the credit card at the start of business tomorrow. As for what it cost? Um, I don't know because it was in Rials instead of US dollars.

Explaining this to the Husbeast was, um, interesting. (His opening statement: "You're fired.") He's being remarkably patient about it, all things considered. But, really? I can't help but think: Strange international shipments with exchange rates I don't know, in languages I don't speak... feels like things are getting back to what we call normal around here.

Hee hee hee.

Blacking out.

2012-01-17T18:53:00.001-05:00

(Image from here.)

January 18 is designated as an internet-wide day of protest. Websites everywhere, including biggies such as Wikipedia and Reddit are joining in. I'm a small fish, but I'm definitely supportive.

The issue - in case you hadn't heard - are two bills being debated in congress right now. The "Stop On-line Piracy Act" (SOPA) is in the House. The "Protect IP Act" (PIPA) is in the Senate. Both are being pushed by the recording industry, Hollywood, and other big-dollar lobbyists. The laws are too vague, too powerful, and have no policies spelled out for implementation. It gives content owners (lobbyists, essentially) the ability to BLACK OUT ENTIRE WEB SITES, without any appeal, any procedure, nothing. Just click and it's gone.

For instance: Say you're YouTube. Someone posts a recording they made of a Loony Toons cartoon. Instead of pulling or blocking the single cartoon recording (which is how it's handled now, fairly, IMHO), these laws would make it possible to completely black out the entire web site.

Technically, Ravelry could be shut down for copyright violation if someone posted a video of content they didn't own. Whole web site, poof. Because one twit on a message board violated copyright law.

Because there's nothing laid out in terms of logistics, requirements for a take-down, these bills could be used to black out or shut down anything the lobbyists don't like the looks of.

Censorship, in a word.

I've nothing whatsoever against copyright protecting peoples intellectual property. But shutting down whole sites based on the behavior of a single user who isn't even on staff? That's just insane.

You can read an excellent summary of the laws, HERE.

Don't like it? Good. Neither do I. The house has sort of backed down on SOPA, saying they would shelve it indefinitely. However, that still allows them to revive it at any time. And PIPA is still up for a vote in the Senate. You can track down your representatives, see where they stand on these bills, and e-mail their sorry asses. Here's a great web site for keeping track of congress.

Overseas? E-mail anyway. These bills would allow blacking-out of overseas sites, too, and certainly sites whose servers are in this country, that you use, to be shut down. Start with the guy in the senate who is sponsoring PIPA, Patrick Leahy.

The really alarming thing about this whole thing is reading the comments of the jerks sponsoring these bills, and realizing they're clueless about internet infrastructure and how the whole thing works. Really, really alarming.

Like most of the other political issues I blog about, I see this as a civil rights issue. It doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, atheist or religious. You should have the right to say what you want, when you want, without Big Brother blocking your web site. So happy knitting, and I'll see you on the 19th.

ETA: Just found THIS WEBSITE, which is what's going on, all in one handy place.

I'm normal.

2012-01-13T16:33:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I find it so hysterically funny when I get a clean bill of health from a shrink, but I do.

With the new med switch-up, my pain doc wanted to be sure she wasn't masking symptoms of other problems, and sent me off to the shrink they've got attached to the chronic pain clinic. (Depression and chronic pain can look a lot alike.) That was this morning. Now my pain doc will be reassured and I'll build up a rep for being cooperative, and it's all good.

As I told the shrink, I didn't really WANT to do the appointment, but there's no good way to frame the "I don't need a shrink!" argument and sound sane. So, fine, Hi.

Besides, it was the responsible thing for my pain doc to do, and I should always support the responsible stuff, not just when it's convenient. Right?

Bah. Pain in the butt.

---

ANYWAY.

I seem to have dyed the ugliest yarn in the history of the world. No, really. I've got this earth-tones thing going on in my living room, and I wanted some variegated yarn to knit this afghan with. And I wanted practice dyeing darker colors.

I wound up with fug.

It should look better knit up, but how could it look worse? (Don't answer that.)

Of course who knows when I'll get to it with the ten thousand other things I've got on the needles. At least it's starting to sound like me again, huh? Before you know it, I'll be setting myself ridiculous, arbitrary deadlines for no good reason.

A dilemma. Or three.

2012-01-09T16:20:00.000-05:00

FINALLY I HAVE KNITTING CONTENT AGAIN.

My ability to concentrate is coming back. Which does very good things for the knitting. I've spent the weekend zoned out with a migraine, knitting another Half-A-Washcloth shawl.

...that's a ruler in there for scale. It's getting big. Many, many, glorious rows of garter stitch, perfect for this sort of thing. I started with 880 yards of yarn, and I doubt it's half gone yet, so this thing's gonna be even bigger than the last one, and it's about four feet long across the top.

Three months ago, I'd have stared at the walls or, at most, played Bejeweled.

When I don't have a migraine, I'm still slowly knitting on the PT Project.

I'm up to round 45 and slowly plugging away. I've discovered that if I wear my distance glasses AND my cheaters at the same time, I can focus on the TV, the knitting, and in the space where the two sets of lenses overlap, my pattern. Of course, then my nose gets sore. Of course.

Mind you, I haven't forgotten about that poor, poking-along KAL I'm supposed to be writing up, and I'm hoping to get my hand working well enough to get back to it before someone sneaks over here late one night and bonks me on the head with a #50. Which I richly deserve.

So, needless to say, I've got enough to do, especially since I'm still trying to get my hand working again after a year and a half of staring at walls.

But I've got this.

That's the yarn to knit a Watson Scarf from the newest Sherlock Holmes movie. (If you haven't seen it, the scarf actually has a role in the movie; Mary knit it for Watson, and at one point someone tries to take it from him and he punches them in the face. At that point, I knew I needed one.) I'd like to have it to wear this winter. And it'd be nice to upload it to the free pattern database sometime before the movie comes out on DVD.

AND. AND!

The Husbeast got me a set of Signature needles for Christmas. He accidentally ordered the wrong ones and they had to be exchanged. (He still gets mad props because he ordered them without so much as batting an eye at the cost.) The new ones got here today. Which means I SHOULD REALLY CAST ON A PAIR OF SOCKS RIGHT THIS INSTANT NOW NOW NOW. (May I add, the folks at Signature were super cool about the exchange and it was done as quickly as the Post Office could make it happen. Good customer service there. I say this because I bitch enough about the bad, so I feel obligated to mention the good.)

Except there's all this other stuff.

Weather being what it is, I'll probably wind up zoned and knitting on the shawl again. But... damn!

A spot of PT.

2012-01-04T18:40:00.000-05:00

Due to spending the last year and a half asleep, my hand is screwy again. Still. Whatever. So I thought I'd start the year with some PT. (I also need to make an appointment for formal hand PT. Bah.)

No, really. It only looks like knitting. It's PT. I swear.

It's on quad-zero needles, with tatting thread. I think I was on round twenty, in that picture. See, lace is the way to do this, because there's no weight to lift. It's all about finger strength and dexterity. And without any weight, it actually makes my arm hurt less. Though it does make my fingers sore.

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In other news? The Goob is perfecting passive resistance.

This is me, making the Goob eat an apple. The Goob informs me the M on my shirt stands for 'mean', not 'Mom'.

I'm mean. Rawr. EAT YOUR APPLE!

To a new year.

2011-12-31T22:43:00.000-05:00

I'm sure no one has missed the fact that it's been a rough year around here at House O Samurai. (For me. The rest of the family is chugging along in great good health and style.) We finally, FINALLY have finished the six month process of switching my main pain medication (FOUR MONTHS to wean off, two months to start the new one) and I really do feel like a new person. In the last week, I've accomplished more than the last six months. Boxes unpacked, things done. I'm CLEANING.

So that's it for my new year. START OVER. Start adapting this house to ME. Get the store room in the basement set up for ME. Plus the usual eat better and get off my ass stuff.

I really, REALLY feel like this is a new start, it just coincidentally starts at the new year. I'll take the symbolism and run with it.

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In need of more zombie knitting, since I cast off the Half-A-Washcloth Shawl, I started another.

This is leftover Samurai Knitter yarn, from my old (defunct) Etsy shop. 880 yards of lace weight merino yarn in color "Primrose". It's a light yellow with pink flung over it in random flecks. The pink blends in some places to peach, and in other spots is nearly fluorescent pink. Awesomeness.

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For Christmas, I got the Goob a sweatshirt. She loves it and wants the whole world to see it.

It's the T-Rex hoodie from Think Geek. (They also have a Raptor.) Rawr.

They also come in adult sizes.

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A happy, healthy new year to all.

Book Review!

2011-12-29T22:45:00.000-05:00

Reading the Forested Landscape, by Tom Wessels

This is one I can't really tie in to the fiber stuff. I'm usually pretty good at that, dragging all subjects back to knitting and spinning. This one? I'm at a loss. There's some stuff in there about sheep, but it's about grazing and deforestation, not, you know, using the wool for stuff.

Anyway. The book.

Do you like trees? Forests? Woods? Do you wish you knew more about what went on there, in terms of how old the growth is, whether the land had been used before, like that? This is YOUR BOOK. Holy crap, it's amazing. The author is like the Sherlock Holmes of trees. (I don't know if his bio says that. It should.) Thanks to him, I am seeing the land around me in a whole new way. Fence rows. Pasture trees. Crop field vs. hay field vs. pasture. Beavers. (No, really.) ALL THIS COOL STUFF.

Wanna know what a field was used for? If it's old, look at the stone fence nearby. Only regular plowing (for crop fields) works small stones to the surface. So a crop field's stone wall will have little stones in it. A hay field or a pasture would only contain the larger rocks pulled out of the soil to level the field. IS THIS COOL OR WHAT? Sherlock Holmes stuff, people!

You should see me, riding around in cars these days. I kinda hang out the window. The place where I grew up? ALL sorts of logging about a hundred years ago. The field down the hill, with the farm house in it, has been cleared land for at least a couple hundred years. (You can tell by the way the giant trees on the property have grown.) I spotted a tree struck by lightning, on the turnpike.

If you like trees? You want this. Seriously. Even the husbeast has found the info I've relayed interesting, and he considers trees annoying things he has to mow around. SHERLOCK. HOLMES.

The hits!

2011-12-28T20:52:00.000-05:00

From Christmas. 'Cause we had a great holiday. (So great I've been sleeping like DAMN.)

We spent two days in Ohio with the in-laws, visiting with hub's bro, SIL, and kids. I gave one of the kids a Glow Dome from Crayola. They're pretty cool; it's a clear dome with little LEDs along the edges, that make whatever you color into the globe, glow.

The Goob and her eldest cousin bickered, bitched, and fought over it like siblings. Then we came home and I gave the Goob one of her very own. There was much shouting and dancing.

Then there is the Spot It! card game. I really wanna tell youse with kids about this one, because it is amazing.

It's one of those rare games you can explain in a minute or less, and it's as fun for adults and children. Each person gets a card, then they try to be the fist to match things from your card, to the central card being flipped over. We played two rounds in about five minutes, before dinner tonight. I think the Goobie laughed the whole time Also, affordable for birthday gifts and stuff. Whee!

For me, the husbeast got the entire Girl Genius book collection. I was psyched.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you already know. But, when we did this last move, my ball winder disappeared. Still know exactly where my swift is, but no idea on the winder. So for the last year and a half, two years, every time I had to wind a ball of yarn BY HAND, I'd Tweet "Anyone seen my ball winder?" So guess what I got for Christmas? I'd post a pic, but it's a plain old blue and white Royal ball winder. I've already used it.

Hubby also got me a set of Signature needles, but accidentally ordered the wrong size. They're in the mail for a return, but I'm still saying YAYAYAYAYAY! I think I'm gonna love them. (Size 1 DPNs, 7" long, for socks.)

Oh, and I have a new lap desk.

Ha, kidding. It's a really old lap desk.

Free shawl pattern!

2011-12-15T19:59:00.000-05:00

A free shawl pattern, for Christmas. For those bloggers who've hung in this year through the chaos.

It's very simple. In fact, here's the pattern right here:

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THE HALF-A-WASHCLOTH SHAWL:

Cast on five stitches. Knit back.
*Slip one, knit one, yarn over, knit to end.*
Repeat the directions between the asterisks above.
When you're nearly out of yarn, cast off loosely.

This specific shawl uses two Crazy Zauberballs and measures approximately four feet across the top edge. It was knit on size five needles.

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There ya go. I've got Scribus fired up and am putting this in a (likely one page) PDF file, so I can upload it to Ravelry.

For those wondering, here's the washcloth pattern:

BIAS-KNIT WASHCLOTH:

CO 5 sts. K back.
Sl1, K1, YO, K to end.
Repeat, working until you've used up half your yarn. Then,
SL1, K1, YO, K2tog, K to last 5 sts, K2tog, K to end.
Repeat until you're down to 5 sts, bind off.

Enjoy!

That time of year.

2011-12-10T22:09:00.000-05:00

For three years now, the Goober has gone to Ohio near Christmas, gotten gussied up, and gone to a Christmas party with her grandma. Today was the day, this year.

She picked out the dress. We walked into the store, and she saw it and said "OOOO! Purple SEQUINS." I said we needed to find a dress with sleeves. Being a good kid, she didn't argue. But we poked around and none of the other dresses worked. (What is it with no sleeves this year?!?) So, since nothing else worked better... what the hell. We got the dress she liked. (Life is short. You're only six once. Purple sequins are required.)

Then we rounded it out with tights covered in little hearts, and these:

I would so totally wear a pair of these. I posted the picture to Twitter the other day with the caption "GLITTER SHOES!" and everyone said they weren't sure whose feet would be in the shoes.

They have Hello Kitty charms on them, too.

Maybe I can get some Chucky T's and paint them with glitter.

Marsh Mallows

2011-12-06T21:26:00.000-05:00

See, now about 1/4 of you are laughing, and the other 3/4 are going "whaaaaat?"

Yes. That, above, is a marsh mallow. They are native to northern Africa, but it's been naturalized just about everywhere. All the way back to the ancient Egyptians, it was used medicinally. The roots produce this goo ('mucilage') that soothes sore throats and helps acidic upset stomach. Some folk used it on their skin, like a moisturizing lotion. They're also grown all over as an ornamental; see how pretty they are? They're related to hollyhocks, hibiscus, and even (distantly) chocolate.

Back in the day (a couple-three hundred years ago), French confectioners used the goo in the roots to make what we know as proto marchmallows-the-candy. They'd whip the goo, add sugar, and other flavorings like rosewater.

These days, since marsh mallows aren't easy to farm, we imitate htem instead with egg whites instead of root goo.

Hmmm. Homemade marshmallows for Christmas, instead of some of the cookies. Yeah. I can do that.

Hmm.

2011-12-05T21:46:00.000-05:00

Well, I spent last night and today fooling around and I can still knit. I mean, knit for more than ten minutes at a time.

It's got to be very small gauge; small and light. I assume that's because it's lighter in weight and the actual motions themselves are smaller. Even Cascade 220 is too heavy at this point. But sock yarn is working.

With luck I'll get drugged up next week so I can finish this KAL before you guys start sending me felted wool and broken knitting needles in the mail.

This also means the Christmas knitting is dead in the water. Luckily it was just a couple felted bags; I can work around that. But this will be the first year with NO knitted gifts in a long time.

Maybe if I drug up successfully I can knit a hat or two.

Keep your fingers crossed for Toradol. It would make a great Christmas gift.

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I keep forgetting to mention... remember the deer?

Up the road, we've got an archer. He's got a little range set up in a field; most of the year, he uses one of those modified hay bale targets. But for the month or so leading up to deer hunting season, he uses a deer target. It's an actual fake deer, stuffed with something to make it shootable.

About a month ago, the deer target got the attention of a real deer. Real deer gored the hell out of the target, tore it up, and probably peed on the pieces.

These are the same deer that like to lay around in my back yard.

Lately I'm worrying less about the freaking bear in the area.

Frustrated.

2011-12-04T20:11:00.000-05:00

And sad. And kind of worried.

This is how far I've gotten on my annual winter socks from scratch. I haven't knit anything.

I really can't make a fist with my hand. Given a minute or so, I can carefully assemble my fingers in a ball, but it takes concentration and care. Not what you'd call a fist.

We're still screwing with my medication, but I'm starting to worry if it never gets fixed.

Yesterday, I went and bought this:

Iridescent tinsel. Even it's not enough to get me spinning. (Though, if at all possible, I am spinning this into lace weight and knitting SOMETHING crazy with it.)

How about something happier? Yes. Let's do happier.

We got the Christmas tree put up. The Goob did most of it. It's her thing.

She's been sick (the sore-throat-and-sniffles deal, nothing major), which just adds to the whole event.

First thing when the tree went up, the Goob asked "Are we going to use my star?" Years ago, when she was maybe two, the Christmas tree topper got broken. I don't even remember what it was. I had the Goober color some paper with crayons and a glitter pen, then rigged up a star with tape and cardboard.

It has survived to top the tree another year. The Goobie gets a big charge out of it, so I'm trying to figure out a way to laminate it, or something, to keep it indefinitely. But for now, it's safe at the top of the tree.

Maybe I'll drug up and see if I can knit. Or spin. Or bake. Or something. Painting my nails as my only creative outlet just isn't cutting it. (Pain doc appointment next week.)

GET ME A PEN

2011-12-01T20:49:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about it since I wrote yesterday's blog post. People turned to me for advice on writing their senators and representatives, for looking up congressional info, and... I knew the answers. Before this, I'd never really seen my penchant for writing snarly letters to elected officials as a protest, but you know, it is. In my mind, a protest involves picket lines and chanting and possibly mild violence of the 'throw a few punches' type. But then, my dad was a member of the UAW (United Auto Workers union), so I suppose it's not shocking that image was in my mind.

Writing seemed more civilized to me, and I don't know what I thought of it as. But it's a protest as surely as waving a sign at city hall.

See, this is all Ralph Regula's fault.

He was my congressman, where I grew up. We had a great government teacher at my high school, and she and Ralph would organize government orientations, for lack of a better word. I've actually met the guy; he retired in 2009 after 18 terms in the House. While I didn't agree with everything he ever did, he was an old-school politician who actually acted like a public servant.

With all that, then, it didn't seem odd at all to me, to write a letter or call his office when there was something I was unhappy about going on in office.

Then I married the husbeast and moved to Virginia, just in time for the Ollie North vs. Chuck Robb senate race. You remember Ollie North, the "I was just following orders" dude from the Iran-Contra hearings? Him, running against Chuck Robb, who was almost a cartoon of a corrupt southern politician. I spent about a year writing nasty letters to both Robb's offices and North's campaign offices. I don't remember if I refused to vote, or if I voted and wrote in Kermit the Frog. (I do a lot of both.)

Then on to Hawaii, and again, letters fired off to relevant people. I actually got into a face-to-face confrontation with one of the congressmen while I was there. Do not rag on the enlisted military in my presence, I will chew your face off.

Well, you get the idea. Apparently I've been protesting with the pen rather than the picket sign all this time and it just never occurred to me.

So, it's time to protest some more.

The bill discussed in yesterday's post? S.1867? It passed in the senate today, a vote of 97-3. There's a petition to impeach every senator who voted in favor of it. You can sign it, here. (The internet makes all this with-a-pen protesting much easier and faster.) While I don't think they will impeach the entire senate, I DO think that thousands of signatures on that WILL get their attention. It's a small thing. It's an easy thing. If you're outraged, go sign it.

I hope the president vetoes this thing or I'm going to be writing in Kermit the Frog again next year.

Knitters, mobilize!

2011-11-30T20:56:00.000-05:00

This is going to be another post about government. I don't really think of it as politics per se, because I don't think it's really about a controversial subject. At least, I wouldn't think so. It's more like my first amendment blog post was, a call to protest the loss of our civil liberties. You can think whatever you like - I'm trying to SUPPORT that. As I've said before, personal freedoms are what made this country great. They're the best part of us. We need to defend them.

"The 2012 Defense Authorization Bill" is before the senate this week. (Overseas folk: We each have two senators allegedly representing us, decided by state.) It is bill number S.1867, if you want to look it up yourself. The problem is, they've thrown in some INSANE additions, including, AND I QUOTE, "Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force." Got that? What this boils down to is, the military can pick you up and hold you in 'detention' for as long as they like, without need for evidence, warrants, trial, or any other common legality normally used when arresting someone for a crime.

As far as I can tell - not a constitutional lawyer, but I read a lot - this violates the laws of habeas corpus, covered in the Constitution, "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it." Instead of pushing through revisions to the amendments (which we have processes in place to do), they're making an end run and trying to declare the US a war zone, which would then essentially give them martial law. You thought the Patriot Act was bad? Ha. That's like kindergarten compared to the potential mess this bill would cause.

They're speaking of America as 'part of the battlefield'. IF (I'm not sure it's in the bill) they do this by declaring the United States a war zone, they could deploy US troops within the United States, against American Citizens. Again, I am not sure that is provided for in the bill explicitly (probably not), but to read senators' comments, this is a step in that direction. (This is discussed in the ACLU article, link directly below.)

You can read the bill here, and you can read the ACLU's thoughts on the subject, here.

This? This is really fucking bad. I don't care if you're liberal, conservative, GOP or DEM, young or old. This is a massive shit on the Constitution and all it stands for. You should be against this. This could directly impact you and how you live your life.

So, this senator, Mark Udall from Colorado, decided hey, this would create a police state, and that's really not cool. He introduced an amendment to the bill, striking out the parts about making the country an English-speaking version of the Soviet Union. Yesterday, the senate voted on the amendment. It was voted down, 61 against the amendment, 37 in favor.

A friend of mine summed this up with "They're trying to declare American citizens the enemy." I replied, "At this point, we kind of are." Because I'm sure as hell not in favor of this bullshit.

Here is the list of the 61 senators who'd like to make it possible to lock people up without a warrant or legal reason and 'detain' people like they're doing in GITMO, except in the US:

Lamar Alexander [R, TN]
Kelly Ayotte [R, NH]
John Barrasso [R, WY]
Roy Blunt [R, MO]
John Boozman [R, AR]
Scott Brown [R, MA]
Richard Burr [R, NC]
Robert Casey [D, PA]
Saxby Chambliss [R, GA]
Daniel Coats [R, IN]
Thomas Coburn [R, OK]
Thad Cochran [R, MS]
Susan Collins [R, ME]
Kent Conrad [D, ND]
Bob Corker [R, TN]
John Cornyn [R, TX]
Michael Crapo [R, ID]
Jim DeMint [R, SC]
Michael Enzi [R, WY]
Lindsey Graham [R, SC]
Charles Grassley [R, IA]
Kay Hagan [D, NC]
Orrin Hatch [R, UT]
Dean Heller [R, NV]
John Hoeven [R, ND]
Kay Hutchison [R, TX]
James Inhofe [R, OK]
Daniel Inouye [D, HI]
John Isakson [R, GA]
Mike Johanns [R, NE]
Ron Johnson [R, WI]
Herbert Kohl [D, WI]
Jon Kyl [R, AZ]
Mary Landrieu [D, LA]
Mike Lee [R, UT]
Carl Levin [D, MI]
Joseph Lieberman [I, CT]
Richard Lugar [R, IN]
Joe Manchin [D, WV]
John McCain [R, AZ]
Claire McCaskill [D, MO]
Mitch McConnell [R, KY]
Robert Menéndez [D, NJ]
Jerry Moran [R, KS]
Ben Nelson [D, NE]
Robert Portman [R, OH]
Mark Pryor [D, AR]
John Reed [D, RI]
James Risch [R, ID]
Pat Roberts [R, KS]
Marco Rubio [R, FL]
Jefferson Sessions [R, AL]
Jeanne Shaheen [D, NH]
Richard Shelby [R, AL]
Olympia Snowe [R, ME]
Debbie Ann Stabenow [D, MI]
John Thune [R, SD]
Patrick Toomey [R, PA]
David Vitter [R, LA]
Sheldon Whitehouse [D, RI]
Roger Wicker [R, MS]

I have taken the title of "Senator" off all these names. I do not use titles when addressing people for whom I have utterly no respect. Holdover from the military years. Anyone wanting my respect has to earn it. (Otherwise I call people by their last name only. It's considered quite rude in circles where titles are usually used.)

See how every one of those names is a link? It goes directly to the contact page for each senator's personal web site, to make it as easy as possible to leave them a message. It doesn't have to be elaborate - in fact, I'm convinced the longer it is, the lower the odds it will be read. Just leave a message, saying you're appalled by the bill (S.1867, if you want to throw that in so it sounds like you're paying attention - this vote was on the amendment to it). I intend to tell my senators that due to this vote, I'll never vote for them again, for anything. Including dog catcher. A short message will get the job done. There's likely an aide or intern scrolling through e-messages, but if we send enough, the aide will report that they got 50-whatever e-mails that day, pissed about their vote on the bill amendment. It's numbers we need here, not long, eloquent messages. I spent hours putting all these links up, to make it as convenient as possible for everyone. So if you feel strongly about this issue, please, click, fill out the forms, hit send. It won't take long at all and we've GOT to make ourselves heard BEFORE we lose the civil liberty to do that, too.

It's interesting to cruise so many senate web sites at once. They all are about honoring veterans. Not one mentions wanting to wipe their ass with the constitution. It's also startling, how the vast majority is old white guys. It's horrific. They don't come close to representing the country racially, religiously, in any way. They sure as hell do not represent me, nor do they look like they have any intention of trying.

While you're at it, message the president, and tell him you're worried about this and you really hope he plans to veto it, if it lands on his desk. (He has said he will, but let's still ask. Can't hurt.) There's a petition to sign, as well, if you're so inclined, here.

For youse guys overseas, well. Many argue that 'foreigners' don't have a right to any input on our government. But the rest of the world watches, and takes their cues from US policy, a lot of the time. Recently, the Egyptian government justified crackdowns on protests in Tarhir Square by pointing out that the US government had done the same thing with the Occupy movement. It's a small world. Everyone's watching. I'd e-mail the president, if I were overseas and concerned.

This... this makes me alternately angry and sad. There's no way a bill like this should ever have gotten this far. I am disgusted with my government.

And then, nothing happened!

2011-11-29T21:12:00.000-05:00

I've been under the weather for the last two days and have nothing really to blog about, but damn it, I said I'd blog every day, so here I am. Hi. Or something. I guess I'll just do a topic jumble.

Someone asked me today where the VK review was. It's still in my head. Honestly, I've been bored with them for years and would have quit doing them around 2009, but they keep pissing me off, one way or another. Eventually, on a day I'm feeling particularly grumpy, I'll do the one I've got laying here now. But mostly, I can sum it up easily enough in one word: "Feh."

Several friends have been asking me to review other knitting magazines. Partly because it might make me seem less biased, but mostly 'cause they just wanna laugh their butts off, I suspect. I'm sure I could do more of the same I do with VK, namely discuss how the piece has been photographed and who it would look good on. But really, I don't feel like I NEED to review any other knitting magazines, because all of them deliver on their claims. Decent patterns, reasonable errata notification, the probability that if you follow the pattern you'll get something that looks like the picture. But, we'll see.

---

The Goob crashed and burned today. The whole side of her face is bruised, and her glasses are bent all to hell and one of the lenses popped out. She's a pretty cautious kid (you know those adrenaline junkie kids who want to jump off the roof? Not mine) so this was the most serious spill we'd had in a while.

She fell over the arm of the couch, face-first into the legs of a really sturdy table. At first it was funny; all I could see from where I was sitting was butt and legs in the air. Then she started crying, I got up, and, well. It's a miracle she didn't break her arm. In fact, I let her get herself up, because I was unsure what she'd hurt and what she hadn't. So far, no complaints from her about her arm, just her face.

Next time she needs to get up OFF the couch and walk AROUND it to pick up the damn Buzz Lightyear on the floor.

Right now she's wearing her old glasses. I REALLY need to order her a couple sets, with the most obnoxious frames I can find, for Christmas. She seems fascinated by the rhinestones in my glasses. Heehee.

---

There have been many questions about my fingernails, on line and off, the last two days. So, what the hell.

The RIDICULOUS glitter is a brand called KleanColor, in a shade called "Afternoon Picnic". It goes on like a layer of asphalt and removes with about the same level of trouble, but it looks pretty cool while it's on. Under it is a pretty run-of-the-mill blue creme I got at the drug store.

Speaking of nail polish, several folks mentioned that I may want to watch it, with my migraines. I appreciate the thought. Actually, it's my asthma that can get set off by the polish fumes. My migraines are a symptom of this stupid chronic pain thing I've got going, and aggravated by a past skull fracture (really), my hormone cycle, and the weather. I've never noticed any chemical exposure setting off a migraine, but you guys are right -- chemical exposure IS a common trigger for some folks.

---

Right now I'm reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Having been an English major, back at the dawn of time, I'm rather surly about Great Literature and so I sneer quite a lot at critically acclaimed novels. But, the trailer for the upcoming movie intrigued me, and I happened to have a copy that my SIL gave me last year, so I pulled it out. It's good. I like it. I won't go into annoying raptures on the state of modern literature (because that stuff pisses me off), but it's good. There's a really dense plot, which I can enjoy if the characters are interesting, and these are. The prose is pretty spare, but I don't know if that's because it's a translation; probably a little bit of both the translating an the original form. At any rate, if you're looking for a good mystery to read, you could do a lot worse.

Pain Meds Part Two

2011-11-27T21:10:00.000-05:00

Because I forgot something, and there was a good question.

First, what I forgot.

Pain patches. They come in two versions I know of, narcotic and NSAID. The narcotic patches work simply as an alternative dosing method - the drug soaks in through your skin rather than your stomach. This is especially wonderful for people with stomach problems, or people who are not really coherent enough to swallow. (Tranquilizers are available in drop form, used under the tongue; same result.)

NSAID patches are a REALLY new thing. There is only one I know of, the Flector patch. It happens I use them. They're about three by five inches, with a synthetic felt on one side and an adhesive goo on the other. The goo contains Diclofenac Epolamine, an anti-inflammatory. You stick it on your body where it hurts, and the drug soaks in there, in the isolated area, rather than soaking through your whole body from the pill form. (They were given to me because I've trashed my stomach, taking NSAIDs for fifteen years.) They are AMAZING. The only drawback is, it works on only a single isolated spot rather than the whole body, but if you've got pain in a single area, boy howdy is it AWESOME.

Related, is Voltaren Gel. Rather than the goo being on a patch, it's in a tube like toothpaste. Spread it anywhere, within reason (there are doses). The drug is Diclofenac Sodium, very closely related to the patch.

No one seems to know about these two, the Flector patch and the Voltaren gel. I wish I knew why; I once saw a back specialist who handed out samples to nearly every patient he had (and followed up with prescriptions if it worked) and he seemed to have the right idea. They're particularly good for osteo arthritis, which pretty much everyone over forty has. So please, please ask your doctors about them. They're wonderful and as safe as pain drugs get.

---

The other thing was the question. Someone asked about marijuana.

I've been saving marijuana for a plant post, once I read this very cool book I've got on it. But for now, I'll try to sum it up without going all Plant Freak.

In a nutshell? Nothing works like THC (the active ingredient in weed) but THC. No other known plant contains it. No one has ever been able to replicate it. It's one of those "mother nature specials" that's far too complicated for us to re-create, or even fully understand, right now.

But how THC works for pain is really interesting. It seems to inhibit the memory part of the brain, the part that sort of strings your experiences together into a coherent whole? It slows that down or shuts it off (depending on your dose). So instead of being ground down with fifteen years of pain, you have one single instant of ow. The single instant is quite easy to shrug off, without all the baggage. (Another example - I may have once been driving stoned. I knew what road I was on, I knew where I'd come from, I knew where I was going. But I couldn't put together the passing landmarks in a way that told me where I was on that road.)

No other drug I know of works in this way. Which is why THC should be legalized. It's cruel not to, with no other alternative to offer.

A word on marijuana safety. Smoking it is really not good. Smoke will eventually cause emphysema, COPD, and other lung problems. Not cool. Look into vaporizing it, or eat it. I've got some lovely brownie recipes.

Pain Drugs

2011-11-26T11:49:00.000-05:00

Subtitled "things to talk to your doctor about".

With the aging population, and the possibility of injury... well, I don't think enough attention is paid to pain control in the US. In fact, the state of pain control, and the approach to it, is a disgrace. Which is a rant for another day. So, we'll just get started with what I've learned in the last fifteen years.

First, a note. There is "acute" pain, which is pain from an obvious source, like an injury. Then there's "chronic" pain, which is long term and the source is either unidentifiable, unfixable, or both. For practical purposes, docs consider the first month after an injury acute pain, and anything after that chronic pain. I'm not sure it's accurate, in fact, I'm sure it's NOT, but that's how it's treated in the US.

So let's talk drugs! This is by drug family or group of similarly-acting meds.

NARCOTICS: Yeah, we'll just get that one out of the way first. They work great for acute pain, but suck for chronic pain. That's not to say they shouldn't or can't be used for chronic pain, but there are other, better meds that can be tried, first. Taking narcotics, regularly, over a long period of time, can screw up your brain chemistry and affect your pain perception, actually sensitizing you and making things hurt worse. When docs say long-term narcotics aren't a great idea? That's not the DEA talking. I've read the studies, because I thought the same thing. No. They're really not a good long-term choice. Yeah, they also cause physical dependence, but it's no different than getting headaches when you quit caffeine cold-turkey. Taking some, even taking a lot, isn't going to result in you turning tricks for more. On a personal level, I hate them. They've got oodles of weird side effects, of the minor but really annoying variety, and then having to wean off the damn things when I take too many is just more annoyance on top of it. But the next time I break a bone? I WANT SOME.

NSAIDs: An abbreviation for "non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs". Acetaminophen, ibuprofen, aspirin, and a host of others are all in this family of drugs. I think of them as the opposite of narcotics: Instead of being good for acute pain, these are better for long term. In fact, depending on the cause of your acute pain, the blood-thinning qualities of NSAIDs can fuck you up - you're not allowed to take them after surgery, for instance. Long term is kind of fraught, too. These have the potential to cause a LOT of damage, if you take enough. Liver and kidney damage, increased risk of stroke, respiratory (asthma) troubles, you name it. Drinking and taking NSAIDs is particularly bad, and a good way to blow out you liver and make it fall out and go squish on the floor. But... when they work? Best thing ever. My favorite drug of all time is Toradol, an NSAID. It's very strong, so it's potentially dangerous, but my gods, it's awesome to be able to take a pill and have the pain go away with no weirdass side effects or loopiness or anything. Just wonderful, pain-free glory. Seriously; my 'normal' behavior after Toradol is to sit around smiling. Blissfully. For about two days.

The rest of these are generally only used for chronic pain.

CNS MUFFLERS: I'm not sure if these have a technical group name... probably, but damn if I know it. Gabapentin/Neurontin and Lyrica are two drugs given for, well, originally nerve pain. But then someone had the realization that ALL pain has to do with nerves, and they've lately been giving them out more and more for other type of pain. They work by muffling the nervous system, reducing the signals sent. Obviously this is a good thing when you're in pain, but the drugs aren't selective about what signals they muffle; there were a couple months during our move, when I was on lots of Lyrica, that I couldn't feel my feet. Which is kinda scary when going down stairs, especially with a long-standing injury that'd probably be aggravated by falling. These have a lot of other strange side effects, due to their direct effect on the nervous system: 'brain fog', numb spots, tingles, strange tastes, visual disturbance that's not QUITE a hallucination.

SSRI and SNRI ANTIDEPRESSANTS: These, obviously, mess with the ol' brain chemistry. The part of the brain that controls mood is the same part of the body that controls pain. Someone got the bright idea of trying to boost pain tolerance with anti-depressants. They kind of work. You still feel the pain, but it's easier to shake off. It also can lead to weird moods (not all of them 'up'), euphoria, and everything else you'd expect from fucking around with your brain chemistry. These drugs are also known for causing weight gain, which is a bigger problem than it first sounds like; if you've got leg or back pain bad enough to take regular drugs for it, the last thing you need is weight to make it hurt worse.

TRANQUILIZERS: These make more sense than you'd first think. They've got lots of effects. They can work as a muscle relaxant. They can quiet damaged nerves. They can help with anxiety that's a pretty obvious result when you're in constant pain. Problem is, a lot of them cause wicked-bad physical dependency, so a lot of care has to be taken to match the proper med to the proper use.

MUSCLE RELAXANTS: For orthopedic problems in particular, these can be wonderful. As with tranquilizers, though, some can cause physical dependency. Flexeril, which is a really popular one these days, DOESN'T cause dependency, which is why doctors love it so.

On the topic of physical dependency; don't let it stop you trying a medication. Yeah, quitting them again is annoying, but it's just a matter of weaning off and maybe feeling like crap for a while. A week of mild nausea is worth it, for three months (or years, or whatever) of feeling better. Quitting caffeine or cigarettes is worse than any of these meds if you wean off them first.

Steroids are another option for some types of pain. I don't have much experience with them. I've got NO experience with them for pain - I took them for asthma once or twice. They DEFINITELY have side effects and need weaning to get off them, but they can be worth it. I liked how I could breathe when I took them. I like that.

I'm not covering other things, like nerve blocks and steroid shots and like that. They can be amazing, but they're a whole other level of pain control. And this was never meant as a diagnosing guide, just a list of things to try, if you haven't before, and are in pain. Good luck.

Food History

2011-11-23T19:25:00.000-05:00

Specifically, family history.

I give you Exhibit A:

The family "Corn Casserole" recipe, from my mom's side of the family. Looking at it, I'm not sure if it's my mother's writing, my grandmother's, or possibly my aunt's. (All their writing looks similar.)

When my mother died, I got all her recipe boxes. It was about five years before I could bear to open them. When I did, I found that all the recipes, everything, were in alphabetical order. Even in the box of "recipes to try". I stood in my kitchen and cried, because it was so totally Mom. Who the hell alphabetizes their recipes, within each little category? No one by my ADHD, organization fanatic mother. (Yes, I inherited/learned the skill. No, I do not use it much.)

Anyway. The recipe. It's in MY recipe box, now, because I've used it once before. I pulled it out today to gather up the ingredients for tomorrow, REALLY looked at it, and burst out "#@#%*!! Mom, it doesn't even have salt and pepper!"

That's the other thing about that branch of the family.

They're German (big shock in this area), and came into the country through Cleveland, back in the huge immigration waves, around 1910. They were peasants, and cooked that way. No spices, no garlic, rarely onions. Anything beyond salt and pepper was exotic. Wait, no, my mother did make me cinnamon toast. Her coffee cake had walnuts and cinnamon-sugar in it. That's it. My grandmother was a hell of a cook, but there wasn't seasoning in ANYTHING.

My brother learned to cook in the Marines, from a member of his team who was a Cajun. I learned to cook from my grandmothers, but proceeded to watch cooking shows a whole lot. Plus a very good friend of mine is of Italian heritage and (rightly) believes that roasted garlic is the food of the gods. I remember my brother and I cooking dinner once, in my mom's kitchen. She stood and marveled as my brother and I threw in spices, garlic, and other stuff. She could never get over how my brother and I cooked. Roasted garlic chicken (stuff chicken with heads of garlic; roast) blew her mind.

Tomorrow's family corn casserole? I'm adding a jalapeno.

Sauteed in bacon grease.

---

In another food related moment, today the husbeast went out to run some errands. One of them was to pick up some medication for me. He came home and handed me a bag containing drugs and Nutty Bars.

Because that's how we roll.

...I got nothin'.

2011-11-22T20:47:00.001-05:00

Right. Blogging every day. HI!

Maybe there's something interesting in my photos. Let's have a look.

...no...

I could blog about food, but which one? And will my readers kill me for a blog post on wheat?

Still spinning the blue stuff...

Re-reading a silly romance novel from 2002...

I could blog the tree book, but I wanna read it first.

Oh. The Goober's new thing is HELPING. She scrubbed out the sink for ten minutes this morning, and nearly killed my new dish brush in the garbage disposal. (Far better the brush than her fingers.) I want to ask her what's WRONG with her, wanting to CLEAN, but that would warp her little mind, so I just let her. It's great that she helps, really, it's just weird.

---

Still got nothin'.

Well, there's always tomorrow. Usually.

Book!

2011-11-21T20:32:00.000-05:00

This one's for all of you who ask me "How do you KNOW that?"

My answer is, I read a lot. But since you really don't want to spend twenty years reading books, I thought I'd mention a book I ran across, that would give you a jump on Knitting Knowledge:

The Knitter's Life List, by Gwen W. Steege.

This is a fun book, full of short articles in themed chapters. Chapters are things like yarn, sweaters, socks, know-how. Then in the chapter, you'll find well-known people who are experts or top designers, information about different types, history, like that.

My discussion, a while back, about Fair Isle vs. Stranded Color? There's a whole section in the Sweaters chapter on different types; folk, and "Twentieth Century Classics". Other chapters have similar info. So imagine that blog post I did, except a whole chapter of it.

Really, it's like if you took the introductory information from every knitting pattern book printed in the last fifty years, assembled it into an easy to deal with format, and published it. This is that book. One of the great things is, it doesn't ignore the internet. Most knitting books these days stay away from networking because it's such a huge, bottomless well, but this one does a good job, both in the actual text, and in the Appendix. The Appendix is full of URLs to fiber festivals, designers, and free patterns mentioned in the text.

There are also a lot of "Meet _____" pages with short profiles of knitters and spinners. So you can get a handle on at least the well-known folks.

I'm not sure if there are any patterns in the book. I haven't seen any. Have you ever wished for a book ABOUT knitting? Here you go.

Something for your Christmas lists. Enjoy!

This is America, damn it.

2011-11-19T10:17:00.000-05:00

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
-Evelyn Beatrice Hall

Yeah, we're having that discussion, because apparently we need to. Plus, I'm pissed as hell.

This country was founded in 1776 by a bunch of beatniks, rebels, and it could be said "dirty hippies" on a platform of defiance and granola-hugging personal freedom philosophies. Even the Founding Fathers called it "the Great Experiment", because it had never been done before and they were making it up as they went along. But make no mistake: They knew what they wanted, and clarified it quite well in the Constitution. Since I'm still angry, let's just quote the relevant bit, shall we?

THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

See that? Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom to peaceably goddamn assemble. It doesn't say 'when or where convenient', or 'so long as the police and billionaire mayors approve'. IT JUST SAYS SO.

My own personal slap in the face by the First Amendment came when I was in my early twenties and ran into rabid anti-abortion protestors for the first time. Up until then, it was all just academic; yeah, yeah, freedom, blah blah. But then, here in front of me, were these rabid assholes who I really wanted to smack in the head. (Long story for another day.) I mean, REALLY wanted to smack in the head. But they had the freedom to be there. Once I thought it through for, oh, thirty seconds, I realized that we couldn't go locking them up or shutting them down on the basis of agreement, because that'd be the start of a long, slippery slope to a police state. So I indulged in flipping them off whenever I saw them (hey, I get freedom of speech, too), and that was it. Welcome to a free country.

By the time the Tea Party got going, I'd encountered so many ideas and opinions I disagreed with, over the years, it didn't even occur to me to wish for them to be shut up. This is America. Let it rip. One of the things I love best about this country is the great stew of ideas and opinions, and my own right to walk away if I'm dealing with someone too fanatical to be reasoned (or argued) with. Tea Party, check. Have a lovely time. Don't wait on me to join you.

And this brings us to the Occupy movement. Yeah, I'm in sympathy with them, but that's beside the point for this blog post. That's not what really scares me. (And pisses me off.)

What's really got me worried, and what should really scare the shit out of you too, is the response from the government.

Occupy's message is hitting a lot of very powerful people in the wallet, and in the last month, I think sheer numbers is starting to really worry them. Not to mention the 650,000 accounts closed at the "Big Four" banks and switched to credit unions. (Figures on this are very hard to find; but many credit unions are reporting a 100% increase in business since "Bank Transfer Day", November 5.) The response has been, well, Biblical.

Homeland Security coordinated with 18 cities to evict Occupy protests. Does that worry you? That an anti-terrorist organization is being used to shut off peaceful protests? It should. It really should. Unless you sincerely think Occupy is being run by terrorists. Which means the precedent has been set; the next time a group of people protest, nation-wide, Homeland Security might help evict those, too.

The police brutality has been off the charts. In the last week, cops at Berkley pepper-sprayed kids sitting peacefully on the ground. Cops in New York, well, the last two months have been a long string of police brutality in New York, but, let's see: they slammed a Supreme Court justice (who was there as a legal observer, not a protestor) into a wall; and, well, here's a summary, from the Guardian (UK), to give you an idea how the rest of the world is seeing this. Over on the Left Coast? Well, cops in Seattle pepper-sprayed an 84 year old woman (that's classy). Convince me a tiny 84 year old woman poses a threat, unless she's got a gun. Oakland... well, Oakland's always had a bit of a problem, in the form of a we-they view of the police. The last two months have done nothing to help it, with not one, but TWO military veterans being put in the hospital by police: Scott Olson was shot in the head with a tear gas canister; the cops helpfully threw flash-bang grenades at the people who tried to help him. Then Kayvan Sabehgi was beaten so badly he had a lacerated spleen, then left in a cell overnight before finally being treated for injury and taken to the hospital. Oakland claims they are investigating the injuries, but when the ACLU asked to see the progress of the investigation under the Freedom of Information Act, the city told them to buzz off.

I could go on. It's continuing now. You say you haven't heard any of this? Or almost none of it? Yeah. That's the other thing. The cops have been trying to block the press, everywhere, at every turn. News helicopters are ordered away from camps before clear-outs; the clear-outs happen at night under cover of darkness; cops ignore press passes and other credentials and toss reporters in jail. So even on the internet, detailed information is hard to find. (If you're interested, log on to Twitter and do a search for #OWS. You'll be amazed at the information that never seems to get to the 'outside world'.) Human rights groups are worried, because they understand without freedom of the press to keep people honest, this will only get worse. See all the articles I've linked to? How they're mostly from fringe and/or online only news outlets? That's because the major ones are mostly ignoring this. THIS SHOULD SCARE YOU.

And if all of this didn't suck enough, banks are paying big bucks to work behind the scenes to discredit the Occupy movement because "...Republicans will no longer defend Wall Street companies.” Just chew on that whole thought process a minute. By the way? That document linked to in this paragraph? Short of violence, that is the single, most chilling thing I have ever seen on the internet. Ever.

Now, do you agree with the Occupy movement? Doesn't matter. Really. You're welcome to hate them all you like. But even allowing for that, you should be damn worried over how our constitutional rights are getting shit on. No one is holding these cops accountable: One cop who randomly pepper-sprayed a peaceful protestor lost ten days of vacation. That's it. As far as I know, he's the only one who has been disciplined at all, even with videos of police brutality plastered all over the internet. Cops have been hiding their badges and refusing to give their names, so all those videos? The official word is, the cops in them can't be identified. Scared yet?

No, if you're not a protestor (I'm not), it's not really your problem. Yet. But if this continues, do you think Occupy will be the only unpopular opinion to be shut down? If the powers that be can do this, what will stop them from shutting down other protests? Eventually, they will shut down one of yours. This is America. We protest like we go to baseball games and eat apple pie.

At least, we used to.

Cranberries!

2011-11-17T21:16:00.000-05:00

For those who are new here, I'm really into food history. I wind up doing quite a few posts about food, and since I'm stalled on blog topics, I thought I'd cover some Thanksgiving foods. I've already done Brussels sprouts, corn, and the spice rack.

I almost didn't do this, because I thought "oh, cranberries are pretty boring". But then I remembered that not everyone has spent the last couple decades reading food books and taking classes, so... I hope you find it interesting.

There are four different species of cranberry, including Vaccinium oxycoccus, the Northern Cranberry from Eurasia, and V. macrocarpon, the cranberry everyone eats. It's native to the New England area of North America and grows up into eastern Canada and down as far south as the Carolinas, in high-altitude areas that are kind of chilly.

There are two ways to harvest cranberries. The Bog/Wet Pick method is the one we're familiar with, if you're one who pays attention to such things. (Cranberries grow in dry, chilly areas; they don't actually grow in water. The water is part of the harvest method.)

Fields are created with sandy beds and dikes around them. When the fruit is ripe, the area is flooded with water. Cranberries have little air pockets in them (sort of like tomatoes, but open, rather than full of seeds and goo), so they float. The bushes are swished around with giant rakes, and then the berries are sucked up in a giant wet vac. Due to the moisture, they don't keep for crap, so they're immediately juiced, jellied, or frozen.

Dry Pick is just about what it sounds like; people pick the damn things by hand, which would have to suck because they grow low to the ground. These berries keep much better, and account for the less than 5% of the worldwide cranberry harvest that's actually sold fresh. I imagine it's sold mostly in New England, because no one else would know what to do with them.

Nutritionally, chemically, cranberries are pretty awesome. Lots of vitamin C and fiber, trace minerals, and 'phyto chemicals'. Phyto chemicals are assorted plant chemicals that aid the body in some way. A hundred years ago it'd be called a tonic instead.

Cranberries contain goodies that aid circulation; it thins the blood a tad, and sort of de-grease your digestive tract. It's got tannins that fight tooth decay. And, its most well-known property, it does fight or inhibit urinary tract infections.

There's just one drawback. (Isn't there always?) Raw cranberry is so sour and bitter, it'll turn your head inside out. So lots of sugar needs to be added, or the juice needs to be blended with other, sweeter things.

The fiber in cranberries is the soluble type, and one of them is pectin. Pectin is the thing that makes fruits turn into jelly. The cranberry jelly at Thanksgiving? It does that all by itself.

Historically, there's not much. Native Americans put it in their pemmican, for flavor and nutrients, I imagine. Plus the pectin/goo factor. First recipe for cranberry sauce, 1663, from the pilgrims.

I'll do what I can to find some more interesting Thanksgiving foods for the next week.

---

Oh, and found while poking around for cranberry information: Traditional Dyes of the Scottish Highlands. Enjoy.

Whine, bitch, moan.

2011-11-16T17:45:00.000-05:00

Still migraine weather here, so I'm still, well, all fucked up. And I've got tendonitis in my shoulders from playing Rabbids (this mostly amuses me). And, well, fuck it.

Some photos off my phone, since I have nothing much to blog about and migraines are pretty fuckin' boring.

Oh, and I did a George Jetson, pulled the chip out of my phone, and plugged it into my net book. That always makes me boggle. It's like something my BFF and I played at, with Legos, when we were kids. Seriously. We made pretend flip phones, in about 1975 when the idea of having one that actually WORKED was a figment. It never occurred to us to pretend a camera with video capabilities. That was TOO crazy.

And here I am, living in the future.

Babbling. Right. Photos.

Finished a Baby Surprise Jacket. It's done with Cascade 220 hand-dye superwash whatever. Took about a skein and a half. Super cute. Feel like someone hit my knuckles with a hammer.

We were out over the weekend and got a meal at Wendy's. The hub got a salad and picked the cherry tomatoes off it. The Goober saw them and thought they were grapes. This is the face that resulted when she ate one.

In conjunction with the new Muppet movie, OPI has come out with a collection of eight Muppet-themed colors of nail polish. This is "Meep Meep Meep", purchased entirely because I am a huge Beaker fan. You can get them at salons in JC Penney stores. Enjoy.

We're working on writing. A lot. I hates it, Precious.

I put Sekhmet on a diet, and she's lost at least a pound. You can totally tell, can't you?

The Goob likes to get up super early in the morning, nest like this, and watch cartoons. It's mostly cute, until she flings the stuff everywhere and I trip over it.

Still spinning this, when it doesn't feel like my fingers are being ripped out.

Now I get to go exercise (using a Wii Fit Plus, awesome rig) and swear at my shoulders a bit. Then maybe I'll try to get something done. Cheers.

White

2011-11-14T20:35:00.000-05:00

It's been YEARS since I added to my series of blog posts on dyes and colors (links in the side bar). So, it's a fine time to do it.

White, as a color name in English, goes back through Old English and eventually traces to several older Scandinavian languages that mean 'bright' or 'shiny'. There's a really interesting listing of idioms using the term white, and when and how they came about, here.

The oldest form of white paint or pigment would have been chalk, and related soft, white ores. It's available pretty much world wide, often on the surface, so it's not what you'd call hard to find.

Flint, which was used for tools before the invention of metallurgy, is often found in a chalky matrix, so there you go. Two for one; tools and pigment. (Interesting, if useless, note: The Iceland Spar from the viking navigation post? It's essentially a crystalline form of chalk.) They'd have been mixed with clay or oil at first, then other carriers later on. Tempera paints in the middle ages were made with a mineral pigment (chalk) and eggs as the carrier/glue to hold it to whatever surface it was painted on. Chalk, however, has drawbacks; it's not REALLY white, it can mix really badly - or not at all - with other pigments, and it can flake or rub off easily. But, for all it's drawbacks, we STILL use it, in 2011, on slate or synthetic chalk boards. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

But, oil darkens chalk, and it's not white any more. So when oil painting was developed, sometime around the 1400s, they had to find something else.

The 'something else' turned out to be "white lead", or lead carbonate. Powdered lead, what could possibly go wrong? It was beloved by many artists because it was so opaque - you could paint it over other colors, and it would cover them. It could also be mixed with other colors and make THOSE opaque. It had a couple problems, though. The toxicity was one, but I don't think that's why it was abandoned. Compared to other paints they were using - cadmium yellow, orange, red and green; cobalt blue; arsenic based yellow and oranges - really, lead white was relatively stable in comparison. No, I think lead white fell out of use because it turns BLACK when exposed to sulfur. And guess what the coal fuel of the Industrial Revolution belched into the air in amazing amounts? Yup. Sulfur. You wind up with cave paintings originally painted with lead white, that have sadly gone black on us.

For a few decades painters dabbled with Zinc White, but it was expensive (four times the cost of white lead, by some accounts), it dried too slowly, and it was transparent, making it useless as a true replacement for white lead. It was introduced as a watercolor ("Chinese White") but it never really caught on, otherwise. Well, no, wait. It did. The white goo that mountain climbers and lifeguards paint their noses with, to avoid sunburn? That's known to them as "zinc oxide", or our friend Zinc White.

What finally took the place of white lead is the pigment we still use: Titanium dioxide. It's the white in Liquid Paper. It's in your nail polish. It's in the paint on your walls and on your cars. Even the colored paints have titanium dioxide added to make it opaque. It occurs naturally, and it is 'mined' out of swamps and riverbeds by a complicated sifting process that sort of slurps out the dirt, removes the titanium dioxide from it, and replaces the gunk right back in the river where they started; kind of neat.

And this brings us to textiles.

For much of history, truly white clothing/fabric didn't exist. They could hunt albino animals, and did. They could color leather with chalk, and they did. Later, after animals and plants were domesticated, they could breed for white in both animal and plant fibers - and did. But as everyone knows, there's no such thing as true, 'bright' white in nature. For that, you need bleach.

Linens were originally washed with lye-based soaps and left out in the sun to whiten. Wool and animal fibers, well, they bred the animals to be as white as possible, and that was about it. In the 1700s, with industrial chemistry gearing up, people began 'bleaching' (read, 'damaging all to hell, but whitening') finished textiles with SULFURIC ACID. That didn't work out so well for the long term (good gourd), and finally, in the 1780s, chlorine bleach was invented - the stuff we know as 'bleach' today. But even with bleach, that's not the end of it.

What we, today, think of as a white textile - let's say a white tee shirt - is the end result of some wild and crazy processes. First the cotton was bred, over thousands of years, to be as white as possible. Then, as part of processing, it is bleached as white as it's possible to get it, without (overly) damaging the fiber. Then, it is in fact dyed. The class of dyes used are called "optical whiteners" and are there to reflect back as much of the visible light spectrum as possible. Have you ever noticed how your white clothes will often glow under black light? That's why - the optical whitener is bouncing back all the light possible.

Oddly, it's true, bright white that is the hardest 'color' to achieve in modern textiles.

Oh, and one last thing - white LED lights? They aren't true white, in that they don't produce ALL colored light wavelengths. They're really an optical illusion; they produce yellow and blue wavelengths and trick the eye into 'seeing' white. So don't expect colors to look right under them.

Didn't know white was quite so complicated, did you?

PS: Traditional knitting NEVER uses true white yarn. Because it didn't exist. The closest they got was undyed, 'natural' yarns. And there's no way in hell any house wife worth a damn would send her family out in light clothes, because she didn't have the detergents it takes to get them clean again. There's a reason real fishermen's sweaters were dyed nearly black with indigo.

Vindolanda

2011-11-13T11:07:00.000-05:00

(Yeah, yeah, VK review... what?)

Vindolanda is one of those things where, if you're into history and/or archeology, you go "Oh, yeah. Very cool." and if you're not, you've never heard of it. So now, you can hear about it. Then you can sound all smart the next time the subject of the Roman Empire comes up in dinner conversation. (Okay, we don't usually talk about it either, but work with me here.)

Vindolanda is the name of what was once an auxiliary fort and garrison that housed soldiers staffing Hadrian's Wall. What makes it super interesting is, the entire site is being excavated. Usually, due to really lousy budgets, archeologists will dig a trench through a site, document what they find, guess at what else is there, and close it up again. Not Vindolanda. The site was purchased in the 1930s by an archeologist, Eric Birley, and it remains in the family, and they continue to excavate. They're on their third generation and still digging away. I remember watching a TV show about Vindolanda a while ago, and one of the Birley family was talking about it. He said he can always tell when they get to the Roman levels of the dig by the smell. Someone asked him what the Romans smelled like. He said old laundry. Can you imagine what it was like, to grow up on a Roman dig site? It probably seemed totally normal for them. TOTALLY NORMALLY COOL.

In the 1970s, a Trust was founded to continue funding, and they occasionally get additional cash from the Heritage Trust and the British Museum, and probably a lot of other places. Vindolanda is unique, for many reasons, and very well known in archeology. Everyone wants to keep it going, well funded and protected.

What makes it unique? Well, for starters, these:

The Vindolanda Tablets. In short, wooden post cards, written by people living at the fort. Not just inventory lists and administration records, but personal letters, written by the wives and mothers. Gossip, invitation to a birthday party, and a letter from a mom nagging her son to write more have all turned up. They expect to find more, and are working at translating all they've found so far. History types consider this find one of the most remarkable and valuable ever, in the British Isles. (Gold is all well and good, but this stuff is invaluable for historians trying to figure out what in hell went on two thousand years ago.) Thanks to these documents, they've got a really detailed chronology of the fort that was only guessed at before. There is evidence of letters being sent to and from other forts, York, and London, but nothing has been found at the other sites. Probably because they haven't been extensively excavated; these turned up about FORTY YEARS into the dig.

Due to some quirk of the soil composition, and the depth at which thins are buried, things that normally rot into nothing have survived. Like wooden post cards. And leather shoes. And, well, all kinds of stuff.

Then, a new wrinkle. (One that's relatively new, and I actually hadn't known about until I researched this blog post.) In 2010, they found a body. Not, you know, a formally buried body in a grave yard, but the body of a girl, tied up and buried under the floor of the barracks. For obvious reasons, they think she was murdered. Think about that a minute. They've been methodically excavating this site for 80-odd years, and it wasn't until 2010 that they found the girl's body. Which makes me (and everyone else) wonder what all has been missed in other archeological sites, where they've only had the time and funding to run a few trenches.

Less war. More archeology. That's what I say. We could have excavated the entire planet down to the bed rock for what the nuclear arms race cost.

Until that happy day, YAY HISTORY!

What's the process?

2011-11-12T21:07:00.000-05:00

I've had a migraine for a week, and am kind of cranky, so bear with me on this.

The new Vogue Knitting is in my hands, and I'm flipping through it, getting a feel, to do the review. Right. Situation normal. But then I see this... hat.

How does something like this get designed and put into an allegedly high fashion magazine? What's the thought process?

I know from talking to (and being ranted at) that VK dictates quite a lot to designers. Like, nearly everything in some cases, from the sounds of it. In this case, the designer is Deborah Newton, who has been working as a knitwear designer for decades, and written a kickass book on the subject. How is it that someone as excellent as Newton winds up with this hat?

Newton submits a proposal for a hat. I can't imagine it was this hat, so VK says "no, it's not fucked up enough, put random flaps on there blah blah blah". Newton figures, what the hell, it's a pay check and she likes to eat, so she makes it. They get it in the mail and... what? Did they really think this was awesome? Was it "Perfect, just what we asked for" or was it "Oh shit, what do we do with this"?

Then, whatever the response was, they hand it off to the stylist who has it photographed in the most stupid, awkward way possible. "Yes, yes, let's put it on the model's head so the button and flap stick straight up off her forehead. THAT WILL LOOK SUPER SOPHISTICATED."

Do they do this shit on PURPOSE? Do they seriously think this is fashion?

I know to push the envelope on style there are going to be hits and misses, but this is out of the ballpark. I'm just sitting here going "HUH?"

(Again, please note this isn't really about the designer, who wanted to earn a pay check. I'm wondering why VK dictates this stuff. Even if Newton randomly did turn in something weird - which I can't imagine, given her long history - VK was not required to publish it. So they must think it's acceptable... HUH?)

I don't get it.

Reminder!

2011-11-10T18:14:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is Nigel Tufnel day.

Setting a bad example.

2011-11-09T19:54:00.000-05:00

So, you know how you're not supposed to do anything for hours at a time? Especially when you're creaky and have a fucked up nervous system and arthritis in most of your joints?

Um. Hmmm. Yeah.

I feel kind of bad even mentioning this, because, hmmm.

I've got this friend. We will call her W. She is married to an IT dude we will call Moo. He sees and hears about all the really cool games and stuff, and it winds up passed on to me. Remember Plants Vs. Zombies? I know some of you still haven't forgiven me for that one. That was their fault. Well, a while back I got another game recommendation from W and Moo. I knew better, but I went out and bought it, anyway. I stood in the store, with the game in my hand, thinking "this is gonna turn into a time suck of epic proportion". Then I bought it.

Raving Rabbids Party Collection. For Wii. It's three games on one disc. It comes on every gaming platform known to man, but on the Wii you can pretend it's exercise. (Actually, if you ask my arms, I'm pretty sure it really IS exercise.)Today I played the Raving Rabbids TV Party for. Um. -cough- Three hours. Okay, four, but I took a break after hour one, so it's only the three hours straight, after that, that count.

I can't really feel my fingers, and my shoulders are a disaster, but I spent the day shooting zombie chickens with a plunger gun. And dancing to bad 80s music. And... uh, skiing down a mountain on an upside down cow. There were some explosions and flying through space and a gunnery sergeant in there, somewhere. It's kind of a blur.

Yeah, you wouldn't like this game. Really. Think no more about it.

I'm gonna go stick pain patches all over myself and pray to Keith Richards to make the drugs work better.

---

And another thing. The Goob drew a zombie.

This is the best zombie ever.

The Principles of Knitting

2011-11-08T15:29:00.000-05:00

Yes, THAT book. The original.

The Principles of Knitting, by June Hemmons Hyatt, published 1988.

I bought it in 1989, when I'd been knitting about a year, because I could see the value in such a thing. Plus I'd been using the copy out of my local library and really wanted it. I paid full price - $29.95. (That was the year I worked at Citibanc and lived on my own, and with no one to stop me, I spent 37% of my income on books. My mother did my taxes that year and about keeled over when she sorted my receipts.)

No one has blogged this book, that I've seen on the internet. Probably because it's been out of print so long and it's so hard to find. An updated and expanded second edition has been in the works for at least three years. I've planned to buy a copy for my mother-in-law as a Christmas gift every year, and every year, they push back the publication again. Amazon was taking pre-orders at the end of this summer, before news broke that they were pushing back the publication date AGAIN, to February 2012. We hope. So, in the mean time, here's what they're building on. It'll give you an idea why this book is kind of mythical.

It's laid out in double columns, with fairly small text, to cram in as much information as possible. There's two-color printing (black for text with a dark aqua as accent color), with black and white photos and hand-drawn diagrams as needed.

The table of contents:

For youse who can't read it off the picture (I understand; my eyes suck these days) as always, my comments in parenthesis:

Part One - Working the Stitches (continental vs. other types; stitch mount; decreases and increases)
1. Learning to Knit and Purl
2. The Stitches
3. Decreases and Increases
4. Decorative Increases and Decreases

Part Two - Constructing a Fabric
5. Circular and Flat Knitting
6. Casting On (about ten methods)
7. Casting Off (ditto)
8. Selvedges (why, how, different types, what they're good for)
9. Contouring the Fabric
10. Picking Up Stitches
11. Hems, Facings, and Folds (why, what they're good for, many methods)
12. Openings
13. Double Knit

Part Three - Decorative Techniques
14. Working with Color
15. Inlay (more data than you can imagine)
16. Decorative Needlework
17. Beads and Sequins (multiple methods)

Part Four - Working a Project
18. Materials and Tools
19. Starting and Carrying Out a Project
20. Finishing Techniques (brain melt)
21. Cleaning and Dressing a Knitted Garment
22. Fulled/Felted Knits

Part Five - Reading and Designing Patterns
23. Reading Written Garment and Stitch Patterns
24. Stitch Gauge (brain melt)
25. Calculations used in Pattern Making and Alterations (DUDE.)
26. Stitch and Color Pattern Charts (now very pedestrian; at the time, huge news)
27. Schematic Drawings and Garment Pattern Charts

Oh, and in case you're wondering how she crammed that much info into one book? Here's how:

That page count isn't including the glossary and index.

"Meticulous" is the word I'd use, if I could only have one to describe the book. When I first got it, 20-odd years ago, I thought the amount of detail was crazy and I'd never use it. Twenty years later? I've referred to all of it, at one time or another. Nowadays, there are other books that rival or surpass this one, on narrow topics - for instance, "The Knitter's Book of Yarn" by Clara Parks is, dare I say it, better and more comprehensive than the "Materials and Tools" section of Principles, where yarn and fiber types are covered. But as an all-in-one, with all layers of needed information in one place? Nothing's ever come close to this book, that I've ever seen, before or since.

If you took "The Knitter's Book of Yarn", "Knitting in the Old Way", "Knitting Lace", "Knitting Without Tears", a couple books on fit by Lily Chin and Wendy Bernard, and had all of those jumbled together by a master knitter who then explained everything with diagrams? That's about what "Principles of Knitting" is.

With luck, the second edition will be out in February. Or by next Christmas. Or the one after that. Until then, you can talk to your local librarian about Inter-Library Loan and have them lay hands on it for you. Unfortunately, you'll have to give that one back.

Sekhmet, you fucker.

2011-11-07T18:31:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since one of these, hasn't it? I'm sure it is the cat's fault.

Do you know what season it is? If you ask Sekhmet, she will tell you it is Cold Toe Season. There is only one solution to cold toes; lay on your hoomin's lap. (In principle, I am in favor.)

She hops on my lap, paces around, and stands for long minutes between me and the computer that is usually on my lap. Then she wiggles around. And wiggles. And wiggles. Then she shoves her face in my boobs (usually amusing unless the cold, wet nose lands in my cleavage). Heavy sigh, happy cat. For a minute. Then more wiggling. Eventually she arranges herself so she's laying lengthwise along my lap, shoving my computer away from me as she goes. MY ARMS AREN'T LONG ENOUGH TO REACH THE KEYBOARD by the time she's finally comfy.

If I move her? She bites my feet.

Fucker.

I went a little nuts.

2011-11-06T18:13:00.000-05:00

You know how picky I am about colors? (As well as being interested in how they're recreated.) You know how I've said my local yarn store, Natural Stitches, carries the ENTIRE Cascade 220 product line, and STILL sometimes doesn't have the color I want? (I consider this my failing, not theirs.)You know how I have, in the past, dyed my own yarn and spinning fiber to get EXACTLY what I wanted?

Right. Well. I suppose this was just a matter of time.

About twenty years ago, I bought this light blue nail polish. It was the PERFECT light blue color. But it had one problem. It didn't cover for shit. Five layers of nail polish seemed a little extreme to me. Occasionally I would pull it out, be sad that it was so pretty but didn't really work right, and put it away again.

Last week in some fugue state, I fixed it. Well, no, I didn't fix it.

I had a bottle of white nail polish sitting here. Far and away, the most common pigment for white anything these days is titanium dioxide, the stuff used in Liquid Paper to make it cover everything in one coat. (It is also put in skim milk to make it look white rather than blue. Enjoy.) White nail polish? Consider it acetone-based Liquid Paper. For nails. I KNEW it would cover. I even read the label to double check. Yes. Full of titanium dioxide.

So I poured in blue nail polish until it was the color I wanted. Viola. My light blue nail polish, with actual coverage.

I've been wearing it for three days and can't decide if this means I'm really bloody clever or have finally lost my mind. You be the judge. I'll be gloating over my nail polish.

...but I blogged!

2011-11-05T18:50:00.000-05:00

Been busy all day, so I didn't have time to research anything interesting. Potential topics: drugs, plant anatomy, and colonial history. I'll try to settle on one tonight and do some poking around online for tomorrow.

This morning was the Goober's last swimming class for a while, and after that I met a blog friend in person finally (more on that later), and we visited. We also got totally lost in Pigsbird, but that gave us more time to chat. (When you cross the river seven times in an hour, you know something ain't right. Or was it eight times?) Nice afternoon. Then I came home and played Wii with my kid. And I didn't have to cook today. Damn. It was almost like a vacation.

---

Yesterday, I finally finished the spinning I've had on my wheel for six months, at least:

There's 500 yards of it (a bit more, actually), so I don't feel totally stupid for taking so long at it. I've no idea what I'm going to do with it.

But, now that I'm done, I've started the annual socks. Every winter (since we moved north), I've spun and knit myself a pair of socks. Last year, it was these:

This year, I've got some merino/silk blend dyed in blues from sky blue to dark indigo, mostly a medium blue. If the pattern works for the second time, I'll write 'em up for everyone.

---

Thanks to everyone who commented on the home schooling. It helped, a lot. You know how it is; you hear enough negative stuff and no matter how much you thought through your decision, you start thinking "crap, am I sure...?" I am reaffirmed.

To celebrate I got the Goob a book on minerals, so we can work on understanding how rocks can bend light. And a Mythbusters book because, hey, it was there, and so was I, and it teaches science with explosions.

And I got a copy of Vogue Knitting.

And so, the Goob.

2011-11-04T09:15:00.000-05:00

(Because we ALL need me to take a break from the news for a while.)

For those of you just tuning in, I've got a six year old daughter who is known on the internet as either "my kid" or "the Goober". The Goober nickname goes all the way back to when I was pregnant and had my first ultrasound at, what, six, eight weeks? At the time, the fetus was the size of a peanut, and resembled one quite a lot. In the southern US (where we were living at the time), an old folk name for peanuts is goobers, so there you have it. Until we found out gender and figured out a name, the fetus was "the Goober" and it just stuck. "Goobie" is a possibly even more humiliating term I use.

These days, the kid has made it known that "Goober" is not her favorite thing, so I've also been calling her "Boo", after the little girl in the movie "Monsters, Inc." She'll stay "the Goober" here until she figures out I'm using the nickname on the internet and has a fit, I guess.

Oh, speaking of the internet? She's figured it out. She watches kid's shows on TV and they say "Go to our web site at ____ and play games!" and she bugs me to use my computer. In the last week, all but one of the really annoying scenes we've had around here have been about her and my computer. (The school issued her a computer, yes. But she needs to be supervised -casually- on the internet, and it's just more convenient to use mine.) And she REALLY doesn't need to be on the internet for more than two hours at a time.

As you can see, she's just thriving away. The photos above are from yesterday. I tried to take her photo, and she yelled "NO!" and ran off, laughing. So I chased her around the house, clicking blurry, bad photos until the camera died. The happiness when she was a baby? Still there. And thank all the gods for that.

We've been doing swimming classes, all summer and into fall. We're in the boonies and don't have a local Y - they're held at the local high school.

Her last class, for now, is tomorrow. We've got this great community recreation center, and they send out quarterly fliers full of classes for kids and adults; the new one is due any day. We'll sign her up for more swimming, karate, and anything else that looks fun, and it'll all start up again after Christmas.

School? We're still doing PA Cyber. It's... interesting. She's at or above where she's supposed to be in math and reading. Writing? Her writing sucks, but she knows how to do it. I'm trying to remember how good my handwriting was at six, and I doubt it was very neat. So, that's fine. She's REALLY interested in science and figuring stuff out. Remember the vikings and rocks post? She found the Iceland Spar while I was in the shower. Burst into the bathroom with it in her hand, demanding to know what it was. I explained. (While in the shower.) I told her she could look at it, if she was VERY careful not to drop it. She raced back out. Eventually I got out of the shower, and what do I find going on in the kitchen?

She was shining a flashlight through it, and was drawing lines on the paper to follow how the light 'bent' as it shone through.

Apparently I'm raising the reincarnation of Issac Newton, without the mercury fumes and related loopiness.

Personally? I hate home schooling. Hate it. I'd love to put her on a bus and have a few hours to myself every day. But I've gotta ask myself - would she have a chance to do stuff like the flashlight and rock, in a classroom? With an adult working one-on-one with her, answering her questions? The local school district has children her age in classrooms that are 35-40 kids per room. I can't see that working well for her. So I'm stuck. Really, it's pissing me off. People in the public school system shit on me because I'm home schooling. Other home schoolers (not all, but the ones I've managed to find locally) shit on me because PA Cyber is considered public school by parents. But if I want to transfer her into public school soon (and holy shit, do I), I need to be following the state curricula so I can say with confidence she's able to go into whatever grade. I'm pretty well stuck.

I'll keep on muddling through the sucky parts, and really enjoying the good stuff. Which, really, is what all parents do, isn't it?

Getting political.

2011-11-03T17:53:00.001-05:00

Sorry.

---ETA: Apparently, while I was writing this, the Senate moved to kill not one, but TWO infrastructure jobs bills. S.1769 basically failed to move on to the next step, due to a whole lot of apathy when the Senate voted. Info here. I haven't been able to find a break down on exactly who voted in what direction. Fuck it. Never mind. Skip the whole damn post. I'm going to write hate letters to my reps.---

Actually, I've always BEEN political, but I kept it off the internet while the hub was active duty because when your husband's in the Navy, calling the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces a flapping twat over the internet is unwise. (But, hey. Bush Jr? Flapping twat is the nicest thing I called him.)

I shall try to remain moderate for all of you, because nothing's more tedious than listening to some extremist rant, and we're all entitled to our own opinions, anyway. But I'm pissed. Have I mentioned I'm pissed?

A short bit of lead-in, for perspective, and because I'm a history geek and today's current events are tomorrow's history, so for crying out loud, get the details right. And because not all of you are from the US (if you're not, and you're still reading, thank you) and don't know this stuff. And because not all of you had the great government teacher I did.

When the president introduces a bill (potential law or appropriation of funds to start a project, declare war*, like that) the Senate (two per state) and the Representatives (determined by population, one per smaller region) vote on what they call a "Cloture Motion" or just Cloture. Think of it like closure. Do they vote yes, and axe the thing dead on the spot, or do they vote no, and discuss it further?

Our economy, like everyone else's, is in the toilet right now. Our president (who I'm rather indifferent about) has been trying to pass bills that would create new jobs. HIS JOB, wouldn't you say? Looking after the citizenry? We're at a stage where unemployment has only been worse, once. Chart here. The country needs jobs.

The president, being a smart guy, figured out one thing that would work would be to put people to work fixing infrastructure (roads, bridges, like that), which is in a pretty sorry state because we spend significantly less than the rest of the world on keeping our country paved and safe. Chart here. (Interesting editorial drawing on that chart, by the way.) This is a tried-and-true plan. It's one of the major ways FDR put people to work during the Great Depression (and where a lot of our really awesome stone bridges come from); top economists NOW are suggesting it. The president put it together with a lot of other, similar ideas for job creation, and introduced the bill.

So what did the Senate do?

Yup. Killed it. It's dead in the water. You can see how your senators voted here.

It was trimmed down and broken into pieces, and the infrastructure portion was re-introduced and is currently under consideration for a motion to proceed. It is bill number S.1769, if you wanna do your own searches on it. (Here's a good summary.) Basically, they're deciding whether to kill it. Since they're proposing to pay for this project by a .7% tax on people whose income is over a million dollars, I bet it get shot down, just like the last time. It's looking REALLY close. Got an opinion on this? I hope you do. Track down your senators and tell them how you feel about it.

You guys who aren't stuck here? Technically it's not your problem, and you're not their jurisdiction, so to speak, but I bet they'd take notice if enough outraged e-mails from outside the country showed up in their in box. If you want, you can e-mail my senator who voted against the last version of the bill, Pat Toomey. I intend to; as always, you're welcome to join in the fun.

There you have it. My radical agenda. Jobs for people and maybe a few fixed bridges. ('Cause the husbeast? The industrial inspector? He'll tell you, the bridges in this country are FRIGHTENING.) I hope you won't all hate me for wanting some millionaires to pony up a few bucks to make it happen.

And just to warn you... I consider myself a conservative because I think the Constitution should be followed strictly (including using the provisions for amending it). But the GOP wouldn't have me as a gift. I think "government by the people, for the people" is a mandate for public health care, among other things.

Yesterday's general strike in Oakland? Except for the vandalism? Awesome.

I am not a pinko commie. I'm a democratic socialist. Also, my dad was in the UAW. I've been blue collar all my life. So. Y'know. Oh, hell, just call me Pinko.

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*Included for the folks who wouldn't know how the system works here: Yes, Congress has to vote (in favor, obviously) in order to declare war. That's why Iraq is a war and Afghanistan isn't. Afghanistan is a "police action". Total bullshit? You betcha.

Vikings, and navigation. And rocks.

2011-11-02T13:21:00.001-05:00

This was supposed to be a post about the culture shock of living in the boonies of Pennsylvania. But then this showed up in my RSS feeds this morning, and, hell, there's always time later to discuss how weirded out I am to be living in an area where people steal bridges.

Right. So, the vikings. Great seafarers, discovered and settled Iceland and Greenland, poked around in N America before most of Europe knew it existed. All very cool. But there's one thing that most people don't think about. Okay, there's more than one, but there's one that's the real biggie. How did they figure out where they were going?

Being vikings and all, a great deal of their sailing activity was done in or near the Arctic Circle. Which means they did most of their traveling (all they could, I'm sure) in summer. Summer, when, in the Arctic, the sun never goes down. How are you supposed to navigate by the stars, in the Land of the Midnight Sun?

I first encountered this question when I had a job selling crystals and jewelry at a job in Waikiki, years ago. Being me, I was geeking out, researching the history of crystals, and ran into the problem, which historians and tech people have been puzzling over for centuries.

There are references in the Sagas about "A stone with which one could see where the sun was in Heaven." There are mentions of "sun stones" in church inventories, descriptions of gifts (a horse and a sun stone), and other discussions. They were definitely a well-known and valuable (obviously) thing.

But WHAT?

Everyone who knew anything about the situation (rocks, navigation, and history) figured it was probably some kind of feldspar - crystals which, due to their crystalline structure, would polarize light. Moonstone, rainbow moonstone, spectralite, and Labradorite are some of the names used for semi-precious stones used in jewelery that have the effect to some degree or other, hence the pretty reflective qualities of them. (Rainbow moonstones are my personal favorite, for jewelry purposes.) Still, there's a shitload of feldspars out there, and no one was quite sure what in hell the vikings were using.

My choice was always iolite, which I'm not sure is technically a feldspar, now that I think of it, though it has similar diffraction behavior. (I use gem terms for rocks, because I learned about them at a jewelry store rather than in a geology class.) There are clear forms of iolite in a gray-blue that, cut properly, would work exactly like a polarized eyeglass. Check it:

See how it refracts light, and makes the stone look like it's different colors, from different angles? Using one of these would be like finding the sun in the clouds, wearing polarized sunglasses. Which I've done. It would work. The nearest source of iolite for the vikings would have been Cornwall, in the UK. Or Connecticut in N America - but how would they have made it to N America to find the stones, if they hadn't had them first? This is a logistical problem, obviously.

But it appears I was wrong. (SHOCK!)

They discovered an "Icelandic Spar" on a shipwreck that went down in 1592. It so happens that, because they're so freaking common, they're really easy to get hold of, and I actually own one. (What? I'm a geek!) Here it is.

You can see, by the way the light's reflecting off it, that it's got some odd refractive index, and I wasn't even trying. You can also see that it breaks along planes in the crystal structure, which would make shaping it for sunglasses purpose really easy. Probably the deciding feature is, it's so common in Iceland that I've heard people could simply pick them up off the ground at one point. It's been confirmed by scientists who know this stuff that yes, it would work to find the sun on cloudy or bright days.

Solar navigation. With rocks. I love history.

PS: I sold a metric assload of iolite and calcite jewelry to sailors, with this information. Geeks, unite!

ETA: An article from Discover News, with a great photo. Thanks to @sharkgrl for the info!

NaNoWriMo. Sorta.

2011-11-01T19:09:00.000-05:00

It's November, the month that crazy people try to write a novel in thirty-one days. That's way too extreme for me (good luck to you folks trying it), but I thought I'd use the buzz around the internet to get me back to blogging.

I want to write a blog post every day this month.

Now that (I think) all of the zombie-making drug is finally out of my system, I'm having to get things going again; exercise, knitting, spinning, WRITING. So I'm Just Gonna Do It.

Here we go.

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I've been pondering WHAT to blog for quite a while. I think really I need to quit thinking and start writing. But, topic ideas include more history, some entries on world religions (history and description, not editorializing), and like that. Plus there's that series I did years ago on color; I could do white, or black, or specific dyes. The discussions of fashion designers remain popular. And I've got decades of fashion left to do.

Plus there's always plants. And with Thanksgiving coming up I'll probably start babbling about food soon.

Right. I shall kick myself in the ass as needed.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T21:37:00.000-05:00

The Goob was a fairy princess. She wore her wings over her winter coat - it was raining and forty degrees out there. I'm now stuck with a huge bowl of candy 'cause only the very local kids came around tonight.

She wanted to go as Olivia, but we got to the costume store and she spotted the wall o' wings, and she just had to have the blue and purple ones with GLITTER. So, fairy princess again. For the third or fourth year in a row. I've lost track. But, hey, you're a girl, you're six, you gotta be a fairy goddamn princess, right?

If you can't tell, she's wearing her glasses, under the mask. I was standing around, pondering cutting holes in the sides of the mask for her glasses, or something, and while I was going over every complicated scenario, the Goob solved the problem herself.

Oh, and she also demonstrated her geek heritage.

The husbeast and I mostly carved it, but she picked it. Insisted. ANGRY BIRD! Next year I'm using a hand-held jigsaw. Power tools are my friends.

While everyone was running around trick-or-treating, I ducked over to visit with the neighbors for a bit. One of the first things she asked was, "Hey, that wheel thing you use on the back porch. I keep forgetting to ask. What the hell is that?" It's my spinning wheel. Heeheehee. She wanted to know what I DID with it. I explained how I like to spin and knit socks, then wear them and feel clever. Her husband, an engineer, thought that WAS pretty clever.

KAL 07.1: Where we're at.

2011-10-28T19:32:00.000-05:00

And where we're going.

There was some concern about the last round of directions. So to answer them, first, a photo of a finished EPS sweater:

The shaky orange line is where your needles are, right now.

Yes, there is more than 100% of stitches on the needle. You'll need that extra fabric to put your boobs and shoulders into. It is supposed to be there. (As I recall, you should be in the neighborhood of 138% right now, but don't fret if you're of by an inches' worth of stitches.)

Yes, at the moment, the arm pits are giant gaping holes. That's okay. We'll be grafting the arm pits shut as part of the finishing. Think of them kind of like inside-out sock toes, if that helps. (If it confuses you, forget I ever typed it.)

We will begin decreasing all those extra stitches again quite soon, and quickly; eight stitches every other round. It creates the perfect shoulder for a casual sweater.

All is well. You're doing fine.

The global village.

2011-10-24T21:07:00.000-05:00

This is one that's been making my brain hurt for a while.

The husbeast, since he retired, has been working at a factory that builds turbines. He inspects them; makes sure they aren't cracked, that the welds are solid, that no one machined it too small by accident. That kind of thing*. The factory is owned by an international conglomerate that builds all sorts of things meant for power plants, refineries, and like that. Major, very large, heavy industry.

A few months ago, he mentioned to me that the factory was going to be doing a new trick; testing the turbines. Not just the bits they build here in SW Pennsylvania out in the boonies, but big, hunormous things shipped in from all over, the finished products built by his factory and others, in working order. It turns out, the conglomerate was running their main 'test floor', as they call it, in Japan. Since the tsunami knocked out the reactors there, they've been on power rationing and don't know when it'll end. Looking around, they decided the best facility to take over the job would be, yes. This place here in the boonies of Pennsylvania.

While all this made sense to me, I was thinking big picture: HOW much were they going to spend, shipping stuff halfway around the world for testing? I knew the turbines the husbeast built were big, but geez, how big could they be? So I asked how much power they were expecting to use, that it was worthwhile.

100 megawatts. They needed 100 megawatts of power.

I didn't run around doing the Doc Brown "ONE POINT TWENTY-ONE JIGAWATTS!?!" while tearing out my hair, but it was a near thing.

The output of an ENTIRE power plant, the WHOLE DAMN THING, is between 400 and 600 megawatts. (It varies a lot; fuel, conditions, design, etc. But that's the neighborhood. Nuclear submarine reactors produce about 20 megawatts, at least according to public info.) That joke we all make about how we turn on the air conditioning in our house, and they know it at the power plant? IT WILL BE TRUE for this test floor. They're having to put in a power grid substation for it. A hundred megawatts.

We are living in the future. A tsunami in Japan has created a shift in the power grid in rural Pennsylvania. Look out for butterflies.

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*The husbeast's job consists of all sorts of wild and crazy methods, from the very, exceedingly simple to the really Meet George Jetson futuristic stuff. The first thing he did when he went to work there was make them buy new measuring equipment like calipers. He's the one who calls regular rulers "a fucking wooden stick" with a lot of sneering. One night he was asked to check some parts for cracks, just a quick check. He was in a hurry, so he walked along them and hit them with his flashlight. Ding, ding, ding, thunk. He pointed out the thunk and said it was cracked. He was right. This is where the term 'dead ringer' comes from and goes back into prehistory in bell making. The guys he works with act like he's a combination of Gandalf and Mike Holmes.

KAL 07: Joining it all up.

2011-10-22T14:14:00.000-05:00

Yes. FINALLY. Really sorry.

Having read my blathering post, I've come back to the top and am putting in a checklist of steps, so that -hopefully- between the short list and my blather, it will make sense. If it doesn't, you may pelt me with acrylic yarn. Or ask questions. Whichever seems most appropriate.
-Figure 8% of your 100% figure. For me, it is 18 stitches. (222 x 8% = 18) These are your armpit stitches.
-Knit across the body to where you're putting the first sleeve. Put armpit stitches on stitch holders, both on the body and the sleeve. (I suggest using an even number of stitches for the body, and one more for the sleeve, to make grafting easier later; mine was 18 stitches body, 19 stitches sleeve.)
-Put the two arm pits together so they meet, like they will when the sweater is finished.
-Put some kind of stitch marker on the body needle. Knit the sleeve stitches onto the body needle. Put another stitch marker. Knit across the back of sweater.
-Repeat for the other sleeve, when you knit across to it. Don't forget the stitch markers.

Confused? I hope to hell not. Details, blather, and photos of the process below.

So. The whole point of doing a sweater is, you know, having a sweater. It needs sleeves. The sleeves need to be opposite each other, on the body. Can't stress that enough. And if there's a cardigan opening, it needs to be equidistant, between the sleeves. Sure, you're laughing, going "no kidding", but there have been sweaters produced with arms in the wrong place. More than once. And I'm not the only one who has done it.

Now, if you'd marked the sides of your sweater as you knit the body, with stitch markers or loops of string, you know where the arm pits go. If not, you might wanna do that, now. Get your 100% figure, divide it in half. That gives you the number of stitches on front and back. (My 100% figure is 222, so that's 111 each, front and back.)

Remember, steek stitches (for cut cardigans) do not go in the 100% figure. And the steek? It goes in the middle of the front. Between the arms. Just sayin'.

You will put armpit stitches on holders (I suggest actual stitch holders, rather than putting them on a string, because the string allows too much stretch and distortion). Then you will put all the other stitches on a single circular needle: Front of sweater, outside of sleeve, back, outside of other sleeve, then the front again. (Giving a quick overview before digging into details.)

Why don't I shut up now and put up some pictures? There's an idea.

Sleeve with armpit stitches on stitch holders.

Yeah, yeah, I know there's technical terms for this stuff, but y'all know what an armpit is, don't you? If you can't tell, there, the yarn end for the sleeve is right in the middle of the stitches on the holders. It will make grafting a little difficult later, but if you're going to have a bunch of darning and irregular rows meeting, you want it buried in your arm pit, not out on your shoulder for God and everyone to see.

Body, with stitches on stitch holders.

I use the body yarn to knit the sleeve into the needle with; the end of the sleeve yarn is in the armpit.

Getting ready to knit the sleeve into the body needle.

The sleeve is on the left, the body is on the right. Both sets of armpit stitches are together in the middle. The sleeve needle is silver, the body needle is blue. With this manouver, all the stitches will wind up on holders (armpit) or the body needle (body and sleeve).

With the sleeve and body on the body needle.

Reading the stitches left to right, from where my hand is holding the tips of the needles, there are sleeve stitches, then after the stitch marker on the right side, center of the screen, are the front body stitches. (The last stitch marker, upper right corner marks the steek, central front, because I'm making a cardigan.)

From there, I knit across the back and repeated the entire process on the other sleeve.

The advantage of doing it this way, rather than simply shoving stitches on and off needles and shuffling them around that way (which you are welcome to do instead) is, it reduces the odds of dropped stitches. It also makes it possible to knit one of these sweaters with just two circular needles, one for sleeves and one for body. Knit on the first sleeve, knit to where the second sleeve belongs, use your newly empty sleeve needle to make the second sleeve, knit it on, and you're ready to go.

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With the sleeves and body put together, you need to knit an inch or two plain. This dictates the depth of the arm holes in your finished product. That is largely a matter of personal taste. I would do at least one inch, possibly two or three, depending. Things to consider:
-Smaller people need less arm room than larger people. (Kid sweater? One inch is fine. Medium adult sweater? Probably two. Really large adult sweater? Consider three.)
-Jackets and cardigans and pullovers intended to be worn over other clothes are a great deal more comfortable with larger arm holes.

For reference, and if anyone's curious, I'm doing probably two and a half inches on mine. It's a cardigan and I like my clothes on the loose side, usually.

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After this will be shoulder decreasing and possible neck decreasing. Now's the time to decide if you want a crew neck or a V-neck.

Catch up.

2011-10-22T13:16:00.000-05:00

You know, I am continually amazed at the drugs that are legal, and the drugs that aren't. I've spent a month going through withdrawal from a prescription drug, AFTER weaning off it for two months before that. And it's been worse than the time I took Percocet several times daily for a year, then quit cold turkey. But marijuana is illegal. This makes no fucking sense to me. (For those just checking in, I've got a chronic pain thing going on, and all this is under doctor's supervision, legal, and blah blah. Just annoying as fuck.)

I don't think I've gone two weeks without blogging since I started this thing in 2006. This whole mess royally pisses me off. Royally.

Anyway. I will comment on comments, because I got nothin', but I wanted to let youse guys know I'm still alive.

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Vogue Knitting. A designer checked in and left a comment on the last review (it's over there). She asked me to correct the spelling of her name. Oops. Sorry about that. Sincerely. I did fix it, and cut and pasted it straight from your e-mail, so I hope it's correct now.

The designer also clarified the sizing issue with VK, and confirmed what we already know - that they dictate the sizes, not the designer. I guess she didn't read back further to realize we know that too. But at this point, I'm over blaming designers for the shitty sizes in VK, and I'm sorry if that last review read differently. Don't get me wrong; I still think it's complete horse shit. I just realize the designers aren't the ones producing stuff in two ridiculous sizes.

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Stink bugs. Someone asked if they really stink. Not exactly. The name, as far as I understand it, is in reference to how they work: When you squish a stink bug, they send off a pheromone or stink or something, and every other damned stink bug in the tri-state area homes in on it, and goes straight for your head. That's why people go to such extreme lengths to avoid smashing them; not the stink, specifically, but the result. I've also been told that inducing death by other means (pesticides and/or soap), they still stink and still bring in all their relatives.

Over the summer, I got mad and smacked one, didn't kill it, just swatted at it as it flew past, and it STILL called in all its icky little friends. They're evil. And disgusting. And pretty damn ugly, too.

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The glasses. I'm calling the Progressives my vertigo goggles. Thanks to the drug fun I'm having, I can't be sure it's the glasses, though, so I'm still wearing them off and on to try getting used to them.

My optician's nurse had shared the "point your nose at what you want to see" tip, thanks to all of you who shared it. It does help some, but now I'm wondering if all the bobbing and weaving I'm doing has something to do with it. Oy. Well, I'll keep experimenting.

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Last week was my birthday. The husbeast got me another folio of Niebling patterns. If I ever get through my current knitting list, there will be lace craziness going on around here. It's a great motivator; I desperately want to cast on the most insane doily I can find, but I can't 'til I get the KAL done, and some Yule gifts.

And speaking of, now that I've done some writing calisthenics (hey! I remember what a sentence is!) I am now off to write the LONG overdue KAL post.

Mud and weeds and stink bugs.

2011-10-06T19:52:00.000-05:00

Oh my.

At this point, I don't know if I'm so fucked up because I'm messing with my main pain medication, or because I'm sick. Most likely a combination of the two, 'cause I've definitely got a sinus infection. So, you know, FUCK.

Anyway. Other stuff I've found interesting lately. Let's talk about that. More interesting than green snot.

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The big archeology news of the past week-ish, is this:

See the little lines, there? They're called flutings, and what they are is simply a spot where someone's run their fingers over some damp mud in a cave. Apparently they are found world wide, but the study that's been getting news is about a cave in France. (I don't know if France is REALLY the center of the world for cave art, or whether it just seems like that because they have been settled a looooong time and their countryside has been explored extensively.) The flutings in that picture there are possibly as old as 13,000 years.

See how they look like a kid did them? Ran their fingers through, did some doodling? That's because a kid REALLY DID DO IT. Scientists have done studies that make it possible for them to estimate the ages and genders of the people doing the flutings, and they've found that many of them were made by children! Also, the children have drawn not only on low walls, but up across high ceilings and very deep underground, so adults almost had to be helping them.

No one knows what exactly it means. And it's kind of nice that for once, the archeologists are actually admitting it. Some have admitted it COULD have a ritual purpose, but most of the spin on it seems to be saying it was little kids doodling, JUST LIKE THEY DO NOW.

Taking precise measurements, they can sometimes track on individual's work. They think the most prolific of the doodlers was a little girl, somewhere around age five. What this means is, 13,000 years ago, there was a little girl doing the exact same thing that MY little girl would do in a cave with muddy walls.

The mental image of a group of muddied-up children tumbling out of the cave after a day spent fooling around makes me smile. It's all so, well, NORMAL. Some things don't change.

I love history.

More detail and less editorializing (and also video) available at the NPR web site.

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Also, I've been reading this:

"Weeds", by Richard Mabey. Basically, a history of weeds. Both culturally (what do we consider a weed, and why?) and botanically (how they grow and what they're good for). He's a plant freak, and reading the book kind of reminds me of reading my own blog posts about plants. So if you like the stuff you've read here on leBlog, you'd enjoy this book. It's fairly new, so your library should have it, if you're unwilling to spend money for weeds. Gardeners, it will help you. Plus, hey, plants. Plants are cool.

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All else is much the same. I finished the one sleeve and started the next; this would be the next KAL post, but I don't want to try to explain something clearly while I'm tired and full of snot. So that's coming tomorrow.

There is a stink bug in my living room. This displeases me greatly. But if Sekhmet eats it, I'll try to get photos. CHINA. COME AND GET YOUR BUGS AND TAKE THEM HOME.

Germs should be bigger.

2011-09-28T20:28:00.000-05:00

So I could kick them.

Finally off the medication that left me fucked up for more than a year, and within days, I'd contracted the germ that the husbeast brought home and shared with the Goober. Now I'm full of snot and hoping to avoid pneumonia.

I'm knitting on the super-zombie project, because I can't concentrate on anything remotely complex like the KAL sweater or the BSJ I'm knitting. With that in mind, you're stuck with random topic jumble.

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It is still green and pretty in my end of the world, but temperatures are feeling a little autumn-like. The leaves better change quick, because it's not unusual for the first snowfall to hit in mid October.

The Goober is going on and on about how she can't wait for winter. I know she's got sled riding and hot chocolate in mind. I have not called her any names. Yet.

---

A while back I made this up to send out to someone I was talking to, so now I offer it for - hopefully - mild interest. This is my neighborhood. We're sitting on a natural gas field, and the little red dots in the picture are gas wells. There are lots more in the area, not much further away, but those are the immediate ones. I think the one at the bottom right of the picture is the one that's getting struck by lightning every storm, that I see out my front window.

The odds of a lightning strike igniting a gas well are low. The odds of igniting the gas field is astronomically low. But I always think of Centralia, and think that Pennsylvania is a very weird place.

---

On a related topic... did you know awesome sunsets are usually an effect of lots of dust in the atmosphere? Yup. That's why Hawaiian sunsets are so awesome (Kiluea), and why, when Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, everyone in the world had amazing red sunsets for at least a year.

The picture above? We live east of Pittsburgh, and the sun sets 'behind' the city. Another cause of dust (and other crud) in the atmosphere is city grunge. So thanks to Pittsburgh, we get lovely sunsets almost every day.

And, I'm in danger of coughing up a lung again. I'm going to go drink tea, whine, and be really irritated.

PS: I painted my nails.

Fields of vision, knitting, and annoyance.

2011-09-24T14:36:00.000-05:00

Right. Since I've been diagnosed with middle age, developing problems seeing things up close (LIKE KNITTING), I've been looking - ha - for a solution. I'm blogging about it because I'm not the only one aging, and it's likely 90% of us will develop this problem eventually - if we don't have it already.

My quest for a solution has led to this:

Which is, now that I look at it, pretty crazy. On the table there are two pairs of up-close, one pair of distance (with a polarized clip-on thing), and a pair of progressives lenses. Progressives, for you young kids, are the new, high-tech version of tri-focals. They have a 'zone' in the lens for up close, middle distance, and distant distance, with the between spaces ground to sort of middling focus. They're kind of awesome, and kind of suck - they take a lot of getting used to, because you have to get exactly the right bit of lens between your eyes and whatever you're looking at (different distances are DIFFERENT, go figure). And if you're like me and spend a lot of time looking at stuff out of the corner of your eyes, trying to focus on twenty things at once, or one single thing, they may drive you nuts.

This led to me purchasing what are known as single-focus lenses, which are just what they sound like. The driving glasses are ten kinds of awesome, giving me distance and nothing else. (I suspect I love them because this is exactly the type of glasses I've been wearing for twenty-five years and it's what I'm used to.) I use them to see things far away, and for anything else (like the speedometer), I look under or over the lenses.

So, the real point, here. Knitting. For only knitting (or only spinning), the up-close 'cheaters' work great. Fine. Whatever. The problem lies in the fact that, hey, when I knit I don't JUST focus on my knitting. (This should have occurred to me earlier, but no.) I knit, I watch TV, I look at a pattern, I read, I use my computer. Okay, usually not all at once. Usually it's TV or a book, not both. But that still leaves knitting (close), pattern (middle), book (different middle), computer (middle, what the hell, why isn't it the same as the book, damn it?), and TV (mid-distant). No single-focus lens is going to work for all those. So you're back to, dare I say it, progressives or tri-focals (debating ordering a pair of those), or just losing your damn mind.

At the moment, I'm either not wearing glasses (hello, eyestrain headache, you bitch who prompted this whole damn quest in the first place), or wearing eyeglasses for one focus (usually the knitting) and looking over/under/around them for the rest. To wear my progressives and have them work for everything, I'd need to rearrange the living room to get everything into the right spot in the lenses.

Bottom line? There's no easy solution, as with so much else. Oh, and aging is damned irritating, which I always suspected anyway.

Any of you out there also aging, maybe you'll find this useful or at least interesting. Anyone got $150 for a pair of trifocals? I've totally maxed out my insurance policy for eyeglasses and they won't let me sell my kid on eBay.

Fuck it.

2011-09-20T21:28:00.001-05:00

These stupid leaf edgings have been kicking my ass for OVER A MONTH. And I know there are knit-alongers waiting for me to move my ass and get these sleeves done so we can move on to the next step.

So, yesterday, I said fuck it.

I'll graft the bloody damned leaves on, later. I used a provisional cast-on and got to knitting. It's about to the elbow (once you add in the missing leaves) and I'm done with the decreasing. With luck, it'll be done damn soon. Damn. Fuck it.

Someone asked if they should bind of their sleeves, or what. Leave the stitches live, either on a string, holders, or a knitting needle. We'll join them up with the body at the arm pits, and knit the whole darn thing together. This is a seamless pattern.

In related news, I found the new best thing ever.

ChiaoGoo (??!?) knitting needles. Lace style. See, the one thing I hate about Boye knitting needles, which were my former favorite (for 20+ years), is the cord. It's a nylon type plastic, and they curl up like cooked freaking shrimp and are super annoying to work with. Even after you heat them up super hot and straighten them out. (Use hot water for that.) These have actual metal CABLES. Coated with some kind of plastic, they naturally try to straighten out, but not obnoxiously. The circular knitting on the needle holds the ends together, but it doesn't curl like crazy. Perfection. And I find the lace points are exactly the right level of pointy. According to the packet they're stainless steel, so those with nickel allergies don't need to worry. It shouldn't discolor your yarn either. I feel mildly bad about buying Chinese, so as soon as an American company produces something similar, I will buy it instead. In the mean time, I am knitting like the wind on this sleeve, and plotting how to replace all my circular needles with these. Without going broke or having the husbeast kill me.

ETA: I got these at my local yarn store, Natural Stitches (Rt. 8/Penn Ave in Pittsburgh). However, a bit of poking around yielded this web site, which sells them, too.

As I was knitting like the wind this morning, I had the classic "OMGWTFBBQ! I won't have enough yaaaaarn!" So I went and looked in the closet. Um. Over a thousand yards left. I'll, uh, just chill out now.

I fucking love No-Doz.

2011-09-12T19:53:00.000-05:00

I am getting back to normal. How do I know? I'm setting stupid goals for myself again, and sometimes meeting them, thanks to the glory of caffeine. This is what I've knit in the past two days:

Two sleeve cuffs. With luck, I'll get the sleeves done in the next week. Maybe less, at this rate. Unless the caffeine burns a hole in my gut first. (Kidding. Really kidding. I'm not taking that much.)

---

Spinning? Almost done with that, too. And I can't wait, 'cause I'm a little tired of orange. For now. There's this much to go:

Then the plying, then, hell, then I'll probably knit something with it until I'm doubly sick of orange. But next? For a break?

I'm spinning those socks I meant to do.

Whee, ha!

---

In a fine example of the internet corrupting me, well... there's this company called Konad. They've developed this method of using nail polish for what is, essentially, printing on your nails. It's sort of intaglio meets offset lithography; no one seems interested in giving it an official name, in the trade. I'd heard about it, seen videos, and, well.

I got a starter kit.

Look! A butterfly!

---

Oh, and one last thing.

Sekhmet, you... freak. Funny how diets make everyone crazy. Now we have scientific proof.

HOLY SHIT, I CAN SEE!

2011-09-10T19:22:00.000-05:00

The cheaters got here.

Now that I'm working the kickass librarian look, I will knit like the wind, get these sleeves done, and get this KAL moving. Sorry about the delay. I've already tried them, and I CAN see now, and they do work, so things will pick up soon.

Oh, and if it looks like my hair matches my glasses in that photo, it's because I dyed it this week. It was supposed to be purple, but really looks more like magenta. Oops. Colors get really unreliable when you put them over white hair, did you know that?

---

In other news, the Goobie celebrated her sixth birthday.

I daily wonder how in hell I wound up with this, this KID roaming my house,

but it's been a hell of a trip so far.

I'm sure it'll just keep getting more interesting. I mostly can't wait. (The idea of her asking for car keys does fill me with a bit of terror, though.)

---

Last, least important, and most annoying, Sekhmet is on a diet.

Since she was a stray, she associates food with security. During Hell Year I let her graze her head off, and never really cut her back after. Oops. So now I'm cutting her down to reasonable helpings of food. (She's also getting bacon, steak, cheese, and other table scraps in small quantities, so don't feel bad for her.)

She's grown increasingly more irritated.

The other night she woke me up at 3AM, by whopping me on the head.

Fucker.

Why don't I spell it out.

2011-09-04T15:58:00.000-05:00

Since apparently, some folks aren't getting it.

This is aimed (mostly) at knitting professionals. You know, the people you expect to KNOW STUFF. Say, producers of international magazines and publishers of lots of knitting books. The rest of you, well, I hope you find it interesting and educational, but since it's your hobby and not your JOB to know this stuff, well, it's your hobby, so enjoy.

First, COLOR KNITTING.

There are a bunch of different types of color knitting, but for now we're going to cover the two major types so I'm not here all freaking day (and neither are you). The two main types (not counting stripes or using types of variegated yarns, or slipped stitches, or...) are intarsia and stranded.

INTARSIA means "to insert" as in puzzle pieces, in Arabic. (I think Arabic.) The knitting term is swiped from a woodworking technique of the same name, in which pictures are made with little bits of different colored woods put together. That's basically what it is in knitting, but with fiber instead of wood. You knit little blobs of knitting, and twist the yarns together where the colors meet, to hold the little bits together. Generally, if a blob of color is more than an inch across, it's done with intarsia, because that's what it's best suited for. It gives you big blocks of color, like this:

Kaffe Fassett is probably the most well known/notorious/insane(?) of designers who regularly use this technique, and this is his "Long Leaf Coat". For technique how-to, you can cruise over to Knitting Help to learn or jog your memory.

Then, there is STRANDED COLOR. It is just like it sounds like. You use two (or more) colors, and carry them along in strands across the back of the knitting, using whichever color you want to or feel like or the pattern says to do it. This is, historically, a popular method, because with all those strands running behind the main fabric, the thickness of the fabric doubles, at least. Which makes it much warmer. Because of all the strands running along behind, most folks don't knit with one color for more than an inch at a time, and usually try to stick with only two colors, for the sake of sanity. You wind up with smaller patterns, that often look like this:

This happens to be Dale of Norway's Hafjell, knit by Yours Truly. (I'd have put up an example of my intarsia knitting, but I hate intarsia.)

So, get it? The two-color technique is called STRANDED COLOR. Anything knit with the other color running along the back, ANYTHING done with that TECHNIQUE, is called "stranded color".

FAIR ISLE IS A HISTORIC GROUP OF PATTERNS BASED IN THE NORTH SEA. They are knit WITH the stranded color technique, and are FAIR ISLE PATTERNED. The hallmark of the Fair Isle is an XOXOXO horizontal striping effect:

See? Wait, why don't I help.

Horizontal striping, XOXO within the stripe. More modern versions sometimes disguise the XO quite a bit with flowers and other pretties,

and in this case, the X is the negative space, but if you look, it's there. (Also, look at the ribbing. That's called "corrugated ribbing" and is another design point for this traditional type of sweater.) Some folks get into arguments over whether some types of sweaters are really Fair Isle or not, because the islands in question have been influenced by many many other cultures over the years. But really, if you're getting strict about definition, you need an XO pattern for it to be Fair Isle. It might be beautiful and awesome, but it might not be a Fair Isle.

Here's one we could argue over. I'm not sure if I consider it traditional or not, but I'm putting it here to give you an idea how hard it is to label some of the newer designs. And in the overall scheme of things, it doesn't matter a damn - it's a beautiful sweater and looks quite durable and warm, and that's what matters. But we're talking about correct labels here, so I'm trying to be, you know, correct. All above Fair Isle pictures are from the lovely book "The Art of Fair Isle Knitting" by the wonderfully skilled Ann Feitelson. If you're at all interested in traditional knitting, it is an excellent purchase and covers a great deal of history and color theory as well as having twenty-ish really nice, well written patterns.

Lusekofta ('lice coats' after the white flecks), or Setesdalen (after the valley of Setesdal where they were unvented) are ANOTHER type of traditional sweater also knit with the stranded color technique. They are very well known, so I'm including them in the retrospective.

White on black, with most of the torso in white flecks. Often an XOX design, but not necessarily. VERY traditionally, the placket and collar of the cardigan or pullover are done with black felt, embroidered with lots of color, and held shut with pewter or silver (or other 'white' metal) clasps. This one is from Dale of Norway. Knit with stranded color. NOT A FAIR-ISLE. Get how this works? Now that you've seen it, you can look at the Hafjell I knit, above, and argue whether or not it's a "real" Lusekoft because it's blue, and because the pattern across the shoulders is quite big. But you can certainly see what the inspiration was.

BOHUS STICKNING is the name of a Swedish knitting co-op that's been out of business for decades. It is thought they developed the yoke sweater, to showcase their incredible color work, done with STRANDED COLOR:

It is very likely that all yoke sweaters are descended from them, though it can't be proven at this late date. Not all of Bohus' sweaters were yoked, though. Some were all-over, some were just the fronts, or cuffs, etc. But they were known for their use of color, especially using purl stitches in a stockinette field to blend things:

Some of their designers are still alive and enjoying some well-deserved fame. And there's a book out, with patterns and a history - "Poems of Color" by Wendy Keele. Sweater shown is the Blue Shimmer, pattern available in the book.

So there you go. By now you've probably got the idea why this stuff drives me crazy. Stranded color is the TECHNIQUE. Fair Isle is a specific folk style (that's pretty darn cool). Anyone who finds traditional folk styles interesting, you should look at "Knitting in the Old Way" by Priscilla A Gibson-Roberts and Deborah Robson. They discuss all this in great detail, and lots besides, as well as tweaking the EPS into doing all sorts of amazing things.

Vogue Knitting, fall 2011

2011-09-02T20:07:00.001-05:00

It's that time. Actually, past that time. Had trouble getting motivated. As usual, photos are from the magazine or web site, quotes the same, all else is mine. (Also, I've figured out a way to do the review without breaking my momentum, which means a longer review... both good and bad, I guess. If you're here for just the patterns, scroll on down. They're here.)

For those who think I get off on criticizing people, guess again. I actually feel kind of bad about some stuff in this issue. But my job, as I see it, is to save KNITTERS time and frustration (and money). And some of this stuff has to be pointed out, if I'm going to do that. A great deal of this stuff is fine (other than crappy size selection), but most can be improved with an eye toward fit and optical illusion.

So, the magazine. The usual advertising-as-article. Rowan's making a new bulky yarn, may the gods save us. Plymouth is pushing matching his and hers sweaters - again I appeal to the gods.

There's a free pattern available on the web site (somewhere unmarked) that's a knock off of the white angora cardigan that Kate Middleton/Princess Kate wore during her wedding. I'd tell you if it was free to all or just free to those with a magazine, but, uh, I can't find it.

A page of knitting art that's kind of cute; I may need to get some for the living room.

Trendsetter Yarns is advertising Big Fuzzy Things.

The weather gets cold, and people start knitting super-bulky. I could cry tears of blood.

The 'new yarns' section is balls of stuff. AGAIN. No gauge swatches, AGAIN. Fuckers. Anyway, it's about 'chainette' yarns, the ones that are basically loosely-knit I-cord. Considering that Clara Parkes' all time favorite yarn is said to be one of these, in cashmere, they may be worth trying out. They aren't cheap, though; think scarf, not coat, no matter what VK tells you. Debbie Bliss is doing one in alpaca/merino; Lana Grossa has one in wool/silk/poly, and Rowan has one in 98% alpaca with enough poly to hold it together. HELLO, HEAT STROKE!

Ad with Maryilyn Monroe's hair photoshopped to wool. Creepy.

Franklin (Habit) interviews the winner of last issue's mohair contest. No idea why it wasn't in the LAST issue, but he's always interesting.

"News" is pushing a Nicky Epstein book from 2008. Some woman is knitting her way through it. I wish her luck with that. Sincerely.

Signature Needles is making circulars now, short and long.

UNICORN BOOKS IS PUBLISHING ANOTHER COLLECTION OF NORWEGIAN PATTERNS. "Norwegian Knitting Designs: A Collection From Norway's Foremost Knitting Designers" by Margaretha Finseth. MUST HAVE! Wait. It's a reprint from 2002. How very helpful for VK to leave that out. Anyway, if you didn't get Norsk Strikkedesign in 2002, now's your chance. (I love my copy. Just saying.)

Spotlight discusses the new "Principles of Knitting" and INSISTS that it's coming out this year. I hold not my breath, but I would like to give a copy to my MIL for Christmas.

Meg Swansen writes about how to do short rows. Three different methods; Barbara Walker, Yarn Over Method, and Japanese Method. Being cool, Meg also credits who taught them to her.

Technique is with Nancy Marchant, who shows how to do two-color cables in brioche knit. A brain-bender, but very cool. Have you bought her book yet? No? Why not?

The "Special Advertising Section" has a free sock patterns available on line at VK, from Kollage yarns, Alpaca with a Twist, Mountain Colors, Simply Socks, and Tilli Thomas. "Download this free pattern at vogueknitting.com" what, they couldn't bother to set up the actual pages and PRINT THE EXACT URL to make the patterns easy to find? Sheer laziness and bad planning. (Let me know if y'all find 'em.) There's also a free cardigan pattern from Classic Elite. This one's actually on paper. Y'know, so you can find it.

And then, the patterns.

Section one is "Masterpiece Classics". When I read the word "classic" in regard to knitting, I think of classic FASHION knitting, as in stuff created since 1920ish that's really iconic. Not FOLK KNITTING, which is a whole other category - and all the stuff in this section. Don't get me wrong. I love folk knitting. Most of what I do is considered folk knitting. I think it's timeless and produces sweaters you can wear until they fall apart, so there's not a thing wrong with it. BUT IT ISN'T FASHION. For folk knitting to cross over to fashion, it needs to be adapted in some way. In other words, "inspired by", not "a copy of". The majority of stuff in this section is plain old Folk Knitting, so again I wonder why in hell VK calls it fashion. But the few fashion bits they've got are pretty cool. This sort of thing, along with weird and/or dumb names and mis-labeled techniques, is not the fault of the designers, who have nothing to do with how the magazine is put together (or how their designs are modeled); it is on the heads of the editors, who should REALLY know better, particularly if they knit. (Allegedly. I hold not my breath.)

1. Nordic Gloves by Lone Smevik Soleng (apologies if I got the name wrong).

One size, measured by hand circumference and length. They ARE Nordic, and are called such in the title, but the blurb on the page calls it a "Fair Isle snowflake". Methinks the editors need to TALK TO EACH OTHER. Or PAY THE FUCK ATTENTION. Or both. Photographed in such a way, I've got to look at the schematics to know if they're mittens or gloves. And I'm so used to VK fucking up the names of things, I can't trust the title “Nordic Gloves” to actually mean gloves. But they do, and they are. Want a high-fashion pair of gloves that look like something knit 200 years ago? Here you go. HUSBEAST: "What, is she fainting, her hair is so bad? Or is it because the cat around her neck farted?"

2. Squirrel Cardigan by Yoko Hatta. Again with the term "Fair Isle" in the page blurb. SERIOUSLY, VK? SERIOUSLY?

Four sizes from 36 to 48 inches/92 to 122 cm. Knit with alpaca, so really better suited to the winter edition. Ask me, the squirrels would look better across the shoulders, give a more flattering line, and you wouldn't have to worry about having wild animals hanging on your ass if the fit goes a little wrong. Hey. It's possible. Oh – those of you worried about plagiarism because there's an identical sweater from a Japanese knitting mag? No sweat. Same designer, slightly different gauge, AND A STUNNINGLY ORIGINAL PATTERN FOR VK! (Thanks to my readers who directed me to the copyright issue over on Ravelry.)

3. Nordic Cardigan by Shiri Mor.

Two sizes. 32 and 36 inches/81 and 91 cm. They are calling a 36 inch bust a size medium. FUCK YOU, VOGUE. “A modern take on the timeless XO motif”. NO. IT IS A TAKE ON THE NOT-MODERN NORWEGIAN LUSTKOFE, MOTHERFUCKERS. Thank you, VK copy writers, for fucking up AGAIN. (“Everyone here knits”, my ass.) As part of the modern take, there is actual FITTING. Take a look: See the darts, to add waist shaping?

Yup. A lustkofe that's flattering. Impressive. (That's harder to pull off than you might think, given the originals.) Unfortunately, 36 inches in a cardigan meant to go over other clothing means very few people - even fit, "thin" people - can wear it.

4. Oversize[d] Nordic Pull by Kristen Nicholas.

Five sizes from 38 to 53 inches/96 to 136 inches. THIS. This is just appalling. No effort whatsoever was made to match up the diamond patterns on the shoulders. NONE. What's really pathetic is, it's easily solved! All you do is pick up the sleeve at the shoulder, in pattern, then knit downward to the wrist. It was pioneered by EZ and her daughter Meg years ago, in the Russian Prime. And since Meg writes for VK they could have done a technique article tie-in, and made things really helpful. OH YEAH. BUT THEY DIDN'T. While I'm ranting, have a look at this:

Okay. Red circles are obviously where the shoulder seams don't match up. (SERIOUSLY?) Now let's take a look at how this hangs. See the yellow lines? Yup. It's an A line, on purpose or accident, and in and of itself, A lines are okay. Except then the horizontal pattern is put on at the hips, creating an optical illusion making them seem even wider, which they already are due to the A line. Um. NO. HUSBEAST: "God, I thought that was her butt in front. It's camouflaged, apparently."

5. Colorwork Vest by Cheryl Murray.

Five boxy sizes from 40 to 52 inches/101 to 133 cm. Steeked alpaca (??!??), so make sure you use a sewing machine or hand sew very closely, to hold the cut stitches. Also more appropriate to the winter issue. If it's a 'colorwork' vest, WHERE'S THE COLOR? Seriously? Anyway, this is a take on a North Sea style, the precursor to Fair-Isles. Before synthetic dyes existed (1860s, ish), they used the natural colors of their sheep. You'd get things like this as a result. Except the zipper's new. Those have only been around, what, a hundred years?

6. Snowflake Jacket by Yoko Hatta.

Four sizes from 36 to 48 inches/91 to 122 cm. A yarn company special; one yarn is discontinued, but to knit the medium size without the carry-along is $423 USD. Ha. I will never get this type of fashion. If it's cold enough to warrant a long coat/cardigan thing, with a big collar, why then, does it have short sleeves?

7. Nordic Yoke Pullover by Ruth Garcia-Alcantud.

Four sizes from 31 to 37 inches (really? REALLY?)/78 to 94 cm. Yet another sweater that fails to take into account the difference between regular stockinette and stranded color. I don't know if the idea was for the sweater to be super-tight across the shoulders ('cause it is) to hold it up, or if that was just an, um, accidental design element. Possibly it's because of who they chose to model it.

But it looks like crap on the model, from the back. Whatever else there is to say, that is DEFINITELY not a proper fit. Also, stylist, what in HELL is up with the hair??!

8. Fair Isle Hat by Mary Ann Stephens.

One size, 20 inches/51 cm. Adorable. According to my books, Scandinavia and the North Sea islanders were producing hats like this for 150 years. There's a lithograph from 1857 with a hat just like this depicted.

9. Fair Isle Cardigan by Rosemary Drysdale.

Five sizes from 34 to 56 inches/87 to 143 cm. Another copy of old styles, rather than an adaptation. Unless you count only doing the color work on the front an adaptation of style. “...fetching Fair Isle cardigan”. IT IS NORWEGIAN. IT HAS SOMETHING CALLED A NORWEGIAN FUCKING STAR ON IT. IT HAS LICE KNIT IN. GET WITH IT VK, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. YOU LOOK LIKE IDIOTS. (I know I keep harping on it. But this mis-labeling makes VK look really, really, REALLY bad.) Also, check out the hand-on-hip to make it look like it's got a waist. It doesn't.

Section two. (Please no more mislabeled folk knitting, my heart can't take it.) "The New Trend; Captivating twists pop against a field knit in the comeback color of the season". Please note, this 'comeback color' makes most of the population look like shit. The model is a striking woman with the best coloring possible to wear this lime green, and SHE doesn't really look good in it. So, you know... be ware.

10. Cable Raglan Dress by Sarah Hatton.

Note they don't show the whole body, anywhere. Ha. THAT'S a good sign, all right. Four sizes from 35 to 39 inches/89 to 100 cm. It doesn't even look good on the model. Shorten it and wear it as a pullover.

Also: Arm trick!

11. Cabled Cardigan by Mari Tobita.

For the love of all that's holy, KNIT THIS THING IN A DIFFERENT COLOR! Five sizes from 34 to 48 inches/86 to 122 cm. If I had the time, I'd knit this one for myself. In, you know, another color. This one's pretty cool. The lace panel in the middle kind of stretches and creates an optical illusion of an hourglass figure that makes the person wearing it look slimmer and curvy. See? (Blue lines.)

The way the sleeves are set in, though (red circle), you're gonna need the finishing skills of a god to make it look as good as this sample does. The collar is picked up in pattern and knit on after... finshing skills of a god, I tell ya. But if you CAN pull it off, it's definitely one of the best choices in the issue. In another color.

12. Cabled Shrug by Devin Cole.

Three sizes from 38 to 43 inches/96 to 109 cm. Which is too bad, 'cause big-busted women look good in styles that define the waist. Like this. Fuckers. Mmmm, pooled blobs of color. BEWARE THE VARIEGATED YARNS, PEOPLE! I'm assuming VK demanded this yarn be used (Prism, high cost, $160 USD for size medium.). In a solid color, it'd be a nice pullover. But the way that neck is set in? You're back to needing a god of finishing skills. Interestingly, they don't show the neck in the picture (shock!) but the ribbing meets sideways reverse stockinette RIGHT SLAP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CHEST, so do it right or not at all.

13. Wave Cable Jacket by Ellen Liguori.

Four sizes from 40 to 55 inches/101 to 141 cm. Finally! Someone sizes a coat properly! Kinda cute fuzzy coat-jacket-thingie. “...provide a cool backdrop for graphic cabling.” HAHAHA. In the magazine, you can't even SEE the cables, for all the busy yarn, between fluff and shifting color. I had to look at the pattern to be sure the cables were THERE. REALLY well planned pattern/yarn choice combination, right here. Make a note under “what not to do”. Knit with a less busy and fluffy yarn, it looks like a nice pattern for a light jacket. (In these situations I assume VK dictated yarn choice, 'cause designers should really know better.)

14. Ribbon Cable Cardi by Helen Sharp.

Four sizes from 34 to 47 inches/86 to 119 cm. Rather run of the mill cardigan with ribbon strung through the holes in the cables. The collar. THE COLLAR. What the hell is that, a giant snap the size of a pocket watch? Or is it some kind of brooch? I can't tell. Wut de heww? Also: CODE RED ON THE RIBBON. The pattern calls for WIRED ribbon. (Ribbon with wire in the edges.) DO NOT USE. I'm something of a ribbon expert, due to crazy stuff like this... Wired ribbon is nearly impossible to straighten out again, once it gets bent. So the first time you fold this sweater? You've permanently fucked up the ribbons. Use regular, it'll be fine. If you fall in love with a wired ribbon, that's okay: get a pair of pliers and pull out the wires and you're good to go. HUSBEAST: "WIRED ribbon? Bitch, please. Do you want Dracula's collar or some shit?"

15. Ribbed Turtleneck by Pat Olski.

Four sizes from 30 to 39 inches/85 to 99 cm. What. WHAT. WHAT??!!?? is that tie thingie doing on the side of that sweater? WHAT??!?!?!?! It's like someone knit a perfectly nice turtleneck with an asymmetric cable, and then stuck some dumbass bow on the side for some crazed reason. WHYYYY?!?!?! No one try to explain that bow as fashion. FASHION IS NOT DORKY-LOOKING. Leave the bow off. If you can fit into it, it's a great sweater.

And our next section, my eternal favorite, the super bulky designer WTF section! "Bold bands of color invigorate that unmistakable Twinkle Silhouette." Oh, suuuuure. You betcha. HUSBEAST: "That's some bulky-ass shit. Is that for wearing around the house, is that what that is? It's gotta be. Plus size? HORIZONTAL STRIPES. That doesn't make sense."

16. Striped Cardi by Twinkle.

Sizes. Ha, it comes in sizes. Three sizes from 54 to 62 inches/137 to 157 cm. “Everything about Twinkle's short-sleeved cardi is oversized...” SO WHY ARE YOU GOING TO HANG IT ON YOURSELF? It makes the model look like a heifer! Also, this sucker is knit with SUPER bulky yarn. WHYYYY do you want to wear something called “SUPER BULKY”???? Wait. Wait.

THERE YA GO. Oh, and $124 USD for the size medium. HOOK ME UP.

17. Striped Back Top by, yes, Twinkle.

Three sizes from 40 to 48 inches/101 to 122 cm. More of the same. Another super-bulky monster. Want carpal tunnel? Knit with this stuff. Six stitches to four inches/ten centimeters. $150 USD for medium. THERE SHOULD BE A LAW. Oh, and want to make yourself batshit crazy? Knit this. There are different gauges for the front and back. Oh, won't THAT be a joy to join together. Because seaming super-bulky is so easy WITHOUT a gauge difference. Seriously, Twinkle? SERIOUSLY?

Section, uh, three? Four? Next. Section next. "The Art of Lace." Blah, blah, blah. Giant portrait of Marie Antoinette looming over the photo shoot; not sure that's quite the way they wanna go, historically speaking. Then again, VK doesn't seem to know KNITTING history, so, why am I surprised? LET ME EAT CAKE, BITCHES. (Do not bother telling me that quote wasn't historically correct. What do you see around here that's historically correct? Hey. Is that a cupcake?)

18. Lace Cardi and Cowl, by E J Slayton.

Five sizes from 36 to 52 inches/92 to 133 cm. I really don't get this new concept of knitting a perfectly good cardigan and plopping a cowl on top of it and calling it sophisticated. It's not. It's a cowl on top of a cardigan. Anyway, it's nice enough. A-line, knit with sock yarn so it's a transitional weather piece. The lace pattern itself is easy too. If you want a beginner lace garment, this one's a nice choice.

19. Lace Turtleneck by Jenifer Stark.

Three sizes from 31 to 43 inches/80 to 109 cm. HOTTER THAN A SUMMER IN HELL. Two layers of knitting, one of them mohair. If you live somewhere that gets cold, then yeah, go for it. But, damn. HOT. Also, it's TWO SWEATERS, which will obviously take TWICE AS LONG. And also cost, well, twice as much? $184 USD for the size medium. But, still. Nice if that's what you're looking for. (HOT.) HUSBEAST: "What's wrong with this? She's twisted all out of shape." Nothing, she's just posed that way for some unaccountable reason.

20. Lace Bodice Top by Laura Zukaite.

Three sizes, measured at lower edge which makes no sense to me. Silk/cashmere blend. No tensile strength, so a tunic will grow to a dress while giving you heat stroke. I assume this is another Yarn Company Special. $245 USD for size medium. Economy? What economy?

21. Lace Shawl by Candace Eisner Strick.

Width along top edge, 52 inches/132 cm. If you want a lace shawl, this is a nice one. It's even got some fitting to it, so it will stay on your shoulders better than some. Do I need to editorialize on how long knitted shawls have been around, and how non-fashion they are? No, I didn't think so. It's a nice shawl. If you wear them, you could do a lot worse.

Section next to last! YAY! "All About Ease" Knit these timeless fashions to look utterly boxy and waistless. No. Wait. "Unwind in generously sized toppers that give you room to breathe." Am I the only one who thinks "topper" sounds like a dominatrix? Yes? Okay then!

22. Bulky Topper (HA! A plus sized dominatrix?) by Mari Lynn Patrick.

Five sizes from 35 to 44 inches/90 to 113 cm. Hot damn, once again the Boobs of Doom work in my favor! Oh yes, kangaroo pockets. SO FLATTERING. DOUBLE layers of fabric over your gut! What could possibly go wrong? “Casual charm” my ass. Awesome necklace, though.

23. Cowl Neck Pullover by Maie Landra.

Five sizes from 40 to 53 inches/101 to 141 cm. Slightly schizophrenic pullover... is it a tunic? Is it a turtleneck? Is it multi-color or solid? I do like the idea of knitting with two strands of Koigu for color variation, but that isn't gonna be cheap. In fact, $478 USD for the next-to-largest size. DUDE. Holy SHIT. SERIOUSLY? IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE SLEEVES!

24. Lace Belted Cape by Kristen Omdahl.

One size, 80 inches/203 cm. A poncho with a belt, so you can't raise your arms. Uh huh. I don't... just... WHAT??!!??

25. Rib Yoke Topper [insert your choice of dominatrix joke here] by Anna Cohen.

Five sizes from 48 to 56 inches/122 to 143 cm. Another schizo sweater. It's like they started knitting a businesslike pullover with the tuxedo shirt front sort of thing that's kind of cute (but needs better increasing around the edges). Then they got bored and slapped some short sleeves on it that stick out like wings:

and don't 'fit' the rest of the sweater. In fact, they don't fit at all, style or actual size.

26. FUN FUR COWL, BABY! by Vladmir Teriokhin.

Size... you know, fuck it. No one cares. No one's gonna make this thing. A FUN FUR COWL. In Vogue Knitting. In 2011. Oh no, NOT OUT OF TOUCH WITH KNITTERS AT ALL. Not a bit. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!!?? Oh, wait. It's crocheted. THAT'S TOTALLY DIFFERENT. (I kid, I kid. No one hook my brain out my nose.)

27. Jacket by Vladmir Teriokhin.

"Very oversized" three sizes from 52 to 60 inches/132 to 152 cm. At least the man knows how to size a freakin' coat. You could actually WEAR IT OVER OTHER STUFF. Unfortunately, that's about the best that can be said. It doesn't fit right. It buttons over the shoulder, oddly, and results in no waist at all. And there are double – triple?? - layer pockets adding bulk to the hips, which, you know, ALL WOMEN LOVE THAT. Plus, that eternal question, IF IT'S MEANT AS A JACKET, WHERE IN HELL ARE THE SLEEVES?

28. Cropped Topper (HA! Short dominatrix!) by Faith Hale.

Three sizes from 38 to 46 inches/96 to 116 cm. It is what it is, which is a really casual, bulky short-sleeved jacket. One of the yarns is named Vagina? Wait, what??!? Hang on...

There. Is that REALLY what you want to look like, from behind?

SECTION LAST! HOT FUCKIN' DAMN! "What you want NOW!" Allegedly fast knits for allegedly instant gratification. "Knitterly [WTF?!] enough to hold your interest, small enough to wear almost instantly." Some of these WOULD make nice gifts. And at least everything isn't freakin' red again.

29. Hooded Neck Piece by Kalurah Hudson.

One size by neck circumference. I can see the usefulness of a hood separate from a jacket; you can add it on to anything, when you need it, in changeable weather. What I can't see is the fashion, high or otherwise. I'd use fewer buttons so they didn't bunch up and stick out in front. Just sayin'.

30. Lace Scarf by Carol Sulcoski.

Someone knit a scarf with lace patterns from a Barbara Walker book. Did they get PAID for this?

31. Textured Hat by Simona Merchant-Dest.

Stocking cap. Yup. Useful. Nope, not fashion.

32. Fingerless Gloves by Judy Sumner.

Fingerless gloves. Am I the only one thinking we've hit market saturation for these types of patterns? It's like rectangular mohair lace wraps, a few years ago. Had enough, thanks!

33. Leaf Mittens by Pat Olski.

Mittens. Yup. They're mittens, all right.

34. Lace Scarf by Nancy MacMillan.

Another Barbara Walker Special. Pretty sure that central pattern is Chinese Lace from book three, but I'm not looking it up. It's late and I'm wishing for vodka. I'm damn tempted to look up the patterns, chart them, and offer them for free, but I don't need the bullshit copyright headaches it will lead to. (Someone paid Barbara Walker a percentage, right? RIGHT?)

35. I-Cord Gloves by (ha) Karen Kendrick-Hands. Ha.

Gloves. Is it me, or do those look weirdly, oddly bulky? Or is it just that she's wearing really light sleeves?

36. Cabled Leg Warmers by Yoko Hatta.

Fitted leg warmers. Or footless socks. Or. Um. Something.

37. Braided Cowl by Laura Zukaite.

Interesting cowl-capelet thing. It would be nice to wear with a coat, to fill in the neck and keep you warm. It's got really unusual construction, though, and given VK's track record with errata, KNIT WITH EXTREME CAUTION. Too bad, 'cause this one's kind of cool and potentially useful. Maybe one of these days VK will hire someone to actually pay attention to errata and I won't have to worry about this stuff, and neither will you.

That's it. Stick a fork in me, 'cause I am DONE. Until next time, knit wisely.

Wait, what, SEPTEMBER?

2011-09-01T10:55:00.000-05:00

How did THAT happen?

Well, anyway. I know I've been knitting at the speed of dark on our KAL sweater, and I think I've figured out the problem. You know how middle-aged people have eye problems, and their close-up vision starts to crap out? GUESS WHAT! I saw my eye doctor, and I'm officially middle aged. (Joy. Truly. Although it sure as hell beats the alternative.) So after forty-two years of being nearsighted like crazy, I now can't see things up close. Which would explain why knitting has not been fun.

I've got an order in to Zinni Optical for some close-up glasses, the little half-lenses that we always called 'cheaters'. Once they get here I expect the knitting to pick up speed. (I also got sunglasses, so I guess I'll do some kind of fashion show when they get here.) Three pairs of glasses for $35 dollars. Granted, they were all single-vision, and I got cheap frames for the cheaters until I'm sure what kind I like, but, dude. THIRTY FIVE DOLLARS. I now want to go order outrageous glasses for the Goober to wear for holidays and dressup. If ever a kid needed rhinestones, it's this one:

In the mean time, I have a new pair of progressive lenses. I haven't QUITE walked into any walls, and I haven't fallen off any curbs or down the stairs, so I guess I'm doing okay. I guess.

This also explains why I was still enjoying spinning - I don't need good vision for that and can nearly do it with my eyes shut. The latest:

---

So. With nothing else to really blog, let's take a tour of the photos I've taken recently.

The Goober got new glasses, too. She was more interested in playing with the toys at the eye doctor's, so I picked the glasses out for her.

They're purple, so... you know.

Oh, and the doors and roof are back on my Jeep. I find this hideously depressing, but the husbeast cooked the engine in his Suburban, and until he buys a new one ($$$$), we're a single vehicle family. And he can't really wait until it quits raining to do stuff like GO TO WORK. So, doors back on. I has a sad.

---

Last weekend was... THE COUNTY FAIR! Instead of doing demolition derbies every Wednesday like last year, they arranged to do several while the fair was running, instead. So the grandstands were packed. We invited the in-laws to come along, and they did. So my tres chic MIL went to a demolition derby. (Photo by Goobie.)

We're sitting in the stands before it starts, she turns and asks the rest of us, "So, what are the rules?"She's also never been to a hockey game. We're working on fixing that, too. And tractor pulls, and stock car races.

Um. Yeah.

While we were there, I made a run through the "home arts" building and found the knitting prizes. There was an acrylic blanket knit with the giant wash cloth pattern (knit two, yarn over, knit to end, turn) that won the blue ribbon.

Which... dude... what?

The best in show for knitted garments was a really nice red gansey-type cable-knit. There were some other things that looked nice that didn't even place, and I told the hub that they really should display these things inside out so we can see the finishing (which probably decides that sort of thing.)

But the best part? The "unlimited" category. (Read "doilies and other insane lace projcets".) Guess what?

IT IS ALL CROCHETED. I need, NEED to enter a Niebling next year. (And will hopefully be able to knit one, once I get the new glasses.)

We saw a badass llama:

It was getting ready to spit on me, so be appreciative of the risks I took.

And the Goob oinked at some pigs.

Some of them oinked back. She loves that.

Mood swings. This is new.

2011-08-25T16:50:00.000-05:00

I've finally got the amount of drugs in my system low enough that I'm having moods again. I remember moods. I liked those. Very exciting. Get the blood moving.

We got some mail from one of our congressmen today. It was one of those reality-altering lying pieces of shit that I've come to expect from politicians these days. (Did you know Medicare costs more than Defense? Neither did I. Maybe if you add up ALL the social programs and put them against defense MINUS the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.) This prompted many waved middle fingers and the shouting of "lying, cocksucking motherfucker!" and other, worse things, I will not repeat.

The husbeast, watching all this impassively, waited for a break in the stream of rant, and asked "mood swing?"

I answered "No, I'm pretty sure I'm REALLY FUCKING MAD about this."

But there you go. It's been so long, we're not sure what in hell's going on with me. Gotta say, though, I prefer this to the way I've been. I got more 'creative stuff' done in the last three days than in any three month period in the past year, all put together. If this means I need to open the can of whoop-ass, well, hey, that's cool, right?

Speaking of cans of whoop-ass, I've got the latest Vogue Knitting. I'm going to get to work editing images, and do the review in the next couple days.

---

CREATIVE STUFF!

Well, I did some writing, a couple thousand words' worth. (More, now, if we're gonna count blog posts.) Also spinning - finished plying the first bobbin of Burning Rum. Then I've gotten the cuffs of this KAL sweater figured out, so with luck, we'll be moving on to the next step of that knit-along soon. (Soooo embarrassing...)

---

I've also got my new progressive-lens bifocal eyeglass thingies. They're... interesting. I'm giving myself a while to get used to them before I go back and demand another fitting, but I think the focal point of the left lens needs moved over a few millimeters. We'll see.

Now. I'm gonna go draw circles on pictures from the VK web site, and try not to work myself up into a froth. Or maybe I WILL froth, and write it all down. Hm. Hard to decide.

Q & A

2011-08-20T09:59:00.000-05:00

Comments on comments, and like that.

There are lots of questions about the flowers for the Goobie's hat. (And thank you all for being so excited about it.) So here are, I think, all the answers to that.

Any and all fibers are welcome. The underlying green yarn of the hat is non-superwash wool (Cascade 220, in fact), so it'll be hand washed. Anything should work.

Her favorite color is purple (of course), but any colors are welcome. She's like her mum - she loves all colors.

Bugs and leaves are also welcome and will be sewn on too.

Anyone producing any really wild stuff like Venus Flytraps and the like, be warned: I may keep it and turn it into a refrigerator magnet.

Those of you who think you already have my address, remember I moved here last July. I am not in Monroeville any longer, and am definitely in Pennsylvania and not Ohio or South Carolina. (Boy, the last two years have been really crazy, haven't they?)

People were wondering if I'm knitting the Greenleaf Cap. (Rav link.) Yes and no. I think I've independently arrived at something very like it all on my own. (Showing, once again, that a truly new knitting design is really rare.) I think the crown of the cap I'm knitting for the Goob is going to be more like a long stocking cap, but it looks like the edging is close to identical. So anyone wanting to knit something like this, hie on over to Rav and download it for free. Actually, if I weren't devoted to the idea of a Jayne Hat for myself (the husbeast wants one too), Freyalyn's Sheep Cap is absolutely awesome.

---

Today we were supposed to go to Ohio for our home town's annual festival. Obviously, I am not at a fancy barbecue on the parade route right now.

While still in the same COUNTY as where we live, we blew an oil line off the Suburban, which then pumped said oil onto the highway instead of back into the engine. We may or may not have caused the whole motor to melt together. Probably not. But it still ain't good. If the engine isn't fused, we may still have to replace significant parts to make it go again. Although that's the difference between paying out a thousand-odd bucks and a couple hundred, so hope for a few warped bearings or a melty lifter or two. (Rather than, say, having to rebuild the engine, or replace it altogether.)

So we didn't go. The Goob cried. Usually when she cries it's over stupid stuff when she's tired, so we just tell her to suck it up. Today? Yeah, that was legit disappointment. So we tried to sympathize and cheer her up.

I mentioned all this to the in-laws, that the Goobie cried 'cause she wanted to see them. Because they're awesome, they're coming here tomorrow and we're doing a cookout here.

---

Went to the eye doctor yesterday. Yeah. You know how when you get older, your close-up vision goes, and you have to hold things further and further away from you to see them? Hi. I'm old now. (My optometrist had never heard the joke about 'I either need to get glasses, or have my arms lengthened.' Where has HE been?)

I'm getting bifocals. After 42 years of being insanely near-sighted, I can't see stuff close to me any more.

HOWEVER! The doc and I agreed I could get dedicated close-up glasses, once I explained the knitting and spinning and all that. So I need the most outrageous half-glasses known to man, to hang at the end of my nose. I've looked on the web site at Zinni Optical and found a pair I like, but I thought I'd throw it out to the rest of you: Anyone got frame suggestions? Something suitable for me?

Oh, and while I was at the optometrist yesterday, I was looking at their frame for half-glasses. The nurse comes over and says "Oh, you'll want something colorful" and starts pulling things out for me. I'm thinking 'how did she know that?' until I put on the first par and looked in the mirror: Oh yeah, my hair's pink. It was probably pretty obvious.

Fast on the uptake, that's me.

So, flowers!

2011-08-19T19:17:00.000-05:00

In the comments the other day, my buddy Shoveling Ferret mentioned she'd like to contribute a flower for the Goob's hat. So, heck, that's what we'll do! Anyone who wants to contribute, e-mail me (samuraiknitterATgmailDOTcom) and I'll give you an address to mail to. All flowers welcome. If you think it will survive being sewn to the hat of a six year old, send it.

---

In related Goober News, we're doing the home-school program again this year. Well, sort of. We're sticking with PA Cyber because I want to transfer her into 'real school' soon, like next year. (I wanted it to be this year.) If it weren't for that, I'd ditch PA Cyber and their curricula and totally go off on my own.

I'd wanted to put her in school this year, and if it were all about me, I'd have done it. But she's really too hyper to do school-in-a-classroom right now. Not ADD hyper, but little kid hyper. She'll be doing karate and swimming (and art lessons if I can find them), so she'll still be getting out. And we FINALLY located the local park/playground, so we'll be swinging by there. I hope to cut a deal with the ladies at the local library about "story time", too. It's ages three to five; the Goob turns six at the start of September. I'm hoping they'll fudge things a little if I promise to drag her out the instant she gets disruptive, if she does.

---

Me? Well, with this cut back in medication, I'm not so zombified any more. Several folks have told me it took about three months to really snap out of it after they shifted the same drug, so I'll probably get more awake as time goes by; so far it's been about three weeks.

What's really starting to bother me is, I can't find any local fiber stuff. Natural Stitches is absolutely awesome, but it's in Pittsburgh and too far away for regular driving. I'm looking around for local stuff; there are two craft fairs coming up. One major, one minor. I'm hoping I'll be able to figure something out then. If not, I'm considering starting a fiber guild of some kind. But, there ought to be one here ALREADY. We've got sheep farming like crazy. The county fair has a prize offered for fiber arts done with locally grown wool, for crying out loud. So, with luck, I won't have to re-invent the wheel and will be able to just join something already established. Then of course I'll have to find a baby sitter...

A spot of irony.

2011-08-17T19:10:00.000-05:00

Just a tad. A tiny little bit.

OKAY, FINE, THIS ISN'T FUNNY.

Yes, it's true, the alleged expert (though I've never claimed to be one, except sarcastically) knitter, me, the one leading the KAL...

Fine, I'm having some trouble with the sleeves, okay?

I ADMIT IT. IT IS THE FIRST STEP TO DEALING WITH DENIAL.

So, if everyone would be patient just a bit, I will re-knit this:

a little bigger, and get these stupid sleeves done, and we will continue onward, without me bitching any more.

Much.

The good news is,

I think this will make a great hat once I knit a top to it and add about a hundred flowers. (Possibly some I've crocheted, if I ever figure THAT out, oh, hell, not going there again.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go knit a metric butt ton of leaves.

This is what I get for coloring outside the lines.

PS: Just cleaned an unholy amount of crud off my camera lens. Pictures should look better now. (Good grief.)

Queen Crankypants.

2011-08-14T19:34:00.000-05:00

I've decided that's my new title. 'Cause I am.

I hadn't been blogging because, well, hello, cranky! but I've realized that, heck, you guys think I'm funny when I'm like this, so what the hell am I waiting for?

---

I've regained my ability to concentrate. At least for this week. So I've been spinning. Quite a lot. Sometimes I drag an appalling amount of electronics out onto the back porch with me (iPod, docking station, net book, phone/camera, and of course a fan) and spin out there.

The Goob wanders in and out, splitting her time between the sand box and her great new love, Cartoon Network. I can't stand it, but school starts up soon and I'll start up an "educational shows only" rule. Can't wait.

So far I've got one bobbin of Burning Rum:

And I'm working on a second bobbin. I've changed my mind, and rather than socks, I'm going to do a two-ply lace weight and knit something lacey and neck-warmey for winter with it.

---

Oh, the pink hair? Yeah, it's not bright enough.

But, it's a start. Next time I'll try more heat with the blow-dryer while it's on my head, that might help.

---

It's gradually sinking in to my stubborn brain that we really have moved into the boonies. Last night I was sitting out on the back porch after dark (yes, spinning), and this BAT flew past. A BIG BAT. I'm fairly used to bats, and knew we had them around here, but this one looked like a freaking OWL. And we have those, too. I hear them hooting late at night.

Then, we've got this hedge back in the back of our yard... it's like a mini nature reserve. Including the predators. I heard a commotion back there and when I glanced back, I saw a red-tailed hawk flying off with... something... in its talons.

Then I made the mistake of searching for local bear sightings. That was really stupid.

Color madness.

2011-08-03T18:47:00.000-05:00

Not much going on here, other than more of the medication crap. Though I'm feeling more motivated and awake, so that's good. Real good.

But, well. Tour de Fleece taught me one thing: I really don't like spinning solid colors, especially not natural colors. Snoresville. (Unfortunately, I've got three pounds of assorted natural fibers to spin for a sweater. I'm thinking I'll do it in stages, between stuff I enjoy spinning more.) I found myself at Natural Stitches yesterday, and rather than buying the books I went for, I found myself in the fiber department, buying COLOR. (Yes, yes, I've got two pounds of natural merino waiting for me to dye it colors. Quit harshing my buzz.)

I wound up buying a Northern Lights pencil roving from Louet. Half a pound of it. I split it in half by length, and am going to spin it into two close-enough halves and knit socks with it. Um, this is one half of it:

That's half of it, AFTER I spun for about two hours. So far there has been no noticeable dent put into it.

While I was spinning it, I realized the yellow-to-dark-orange part reminded me of the dark rum floated on top of a Mai Tai. And the orange-to-other-orange part reminded me of a Tequila Sunrise. Someone else said it reminded them of a Singapore Sling. So, hell, I'm calling it 'Burning Rum'.

Oh, I also got this multiple-blues sort of thing, a silk and merino blend. Probably more socks. Maybe mittens. Can't decide. BUT IT'S COLOR.

---

Then, this evening, I finally did something I've been meaning to do for quite a while.

I'm taking advantage of the silver hair.

Pictures when it's done.

---

Oh, I also got some Madeline Tosh lace:

I'm doing a prototype shawl thingie, for possible sale later. And to keep my neck warm when the weather cools, 'cause my PT told me to.

---

The Goob's been having fun.

Now I've gotta go spin some more.

Blindly moving forward.

2011-07-30T09:45:00.000-05:00

'Cause, really, what other option is there?

I've been dicking with my medication again. A year and a half ago, I got put on Cymbalta, which is an anti-depressant sort of drug developed for chronic pain folks. (Those of you who aren't interested in health shit, I get that. Scroll down. There won't be a test later.) Anti-depressants are kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't solution to pain; they work better than a lot of other options, but they still suck. (I ranted about the whole thing here, on a blog post entitled "Fucking Happy Pill Shit", which tells you what you need to know.)

Anyway. A year and a half ago, the doc put me on this drug. It gives me what I call "nap attacks" - I will fall asleep almost like I pass out, for two or three hours. When I first started it, one memorable evening I fell asleep on the living room floor with the Goober's beanbag chair as a pillow. When I mentioned this to the doc, she told me to keep at it, because it would go away. HAH. Guess again.

After a year and a half of trying to time the nap attack at bed time, by moving the time I take the pill, I am done. DONE. Fuck this. Next appointment, we are going back to a different drug I've taken in the past. OR ELSE.

Or else I will take a nap on the counter of the nursing station. That'll show her.

---

Still knitting on the sleeves. I was going to make the bell sleeves bigger, but after reading the comments on my last post, reason set in. I'll be keeping them as they are.

I will do a blog post on different sleeve types, but ultimately, in the EPS system, so long as you're at your 40% number when you get to the armpit, you can do anything you want, short of knitting a Volkswagen.

---

So, I've got this little netbook I roam around the house with. Usually I keep an electrical socket open in all my favorite spots, and plug in as I roam. I've even got a spot on the back porch. Lately I've noticed the plug felt funny as I moved around, but didn't pay much attention. (See drug commentary above.) It worked, so who cared?

Yesterday I sat down at the kitchen table, went to plug in my netbook, and there was this hunk of metal sticking out of the hole for the ground plug. Huh. Then I looked at the plug itself.

Well, there's the problem.

I used pliers to pull the prong out. It was the ground, so I didn't have to shut off power to the entire freakin' house while I did it. I used insulated pliers, anyway.

Fortunately (sort of), I had saved the cord from the netbook I killed the winter before last, so I switched them around and all is well. But damn, that was weird.

Decisions.

2011-07-25T20:12:00.000-05:00

It's the big problem with EPS and coloring outside the lines, and doing whatever you want. Deciding what in hell you really want to do.

I sat down and started knitting edging for my sleeves. That was kinda nice.

Reading, knitting, if it hadn't been for Cartoon Network in the other room, it would have been perfect. (It also would have been nice outside, but the weather has sucked. SUCKED!)

After about eight repeats, I hung it over my wrist to get the feel for it.

I want bell sleeves. But how belled?

Bah. Can't decide, and can't knit on this 'til I do.

---

We had a fun weekend here. The in-laws visited. My mother-in-law had her knee replaced about a month ago. She's doing great, but things have been rather catch-as-they-can at their house. So they came over, I cooked a lot of food, made ice cream, and other goodies. We sat around and watched movies and vegetated.

We should do it more often.

Apocalypse... how?

2011-07-13T20:06:00.000-05:00

I have a confession. Last week, in kind of a fugue state, kinda stressed out, without enough sleep, I was at the book store. And, well, this is what I bought.

The directions kind of made sense. I thought maybe... maybe this time it will make sense.

Then I hit the yarn store.

I've got about ten miles of crochet cotton around here, so, you know...

Maybe I'll figure this crochet thing out.

If it rains blood and plagues of frogs and locusts show up, I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

(For newcomers, I have nothing against crochet. I suck at it.)

---

Remember Tour De Fleece? I'm trying to do it this year.

Unfortunately, I went off spinning this winter in the midst of all that PT and whining (hey, idea for a new blog, "PT and Whining"). So my goal for the Tour is to just get my ass in gear again. I have to build up slowly because of my hand problems, and on day one I could only spin for half an hour. Really annoying.

The other night I finished this:

It's Gotland wool, which is sort of like Shetland. Spun to about worsted weight, triple ply.

It's the worst spinning I've ever done since I learned to spin. Breathtakingly awful. The single broke three times while I was plying the damn stuff. Ugh.

---

The one nice thing has been the weather. I spent last weekend spinning out on the back porch. We had a couple days of super hot weather, but a cold front went through, and I'm hoping for more porch spinning this week.

The Goobie likes it too.

KAL 06: Sleeves

2011-07-12T20:22:00.000-05:00

Finally! Sleeves!

All right. You've knit the body up to the arm pits, right? Set it aside. That's right, take a deep breath, set it aside as is. Hug it first if you want to. Get yourself some DPNs or a shorter circular needle, or whatever you need to knit cuffs, and get ready for the next.

Let's take a look at our handy schematic again, hmmm?

You need to cast on 20% of your stitches for the cuff.

If you're knitting a generic pullover, make the cuff match the ribbing you already knit at the waist; use whatever needle you used before, and whatever ribbing. If you knit a hem for the waist of your sweater and have no other plan, ribbing is a good way to go for the sleeve cuff. Use a needle one or two sizes smaller than the main body is being knit on (makes the ribbing stretchier) and knit a couple inches' worth. Consider a tubular cast-on and a 1x1 rib.

20%. You can get it with a calculator, pressing "[100% figure] x 20% =" I used 222 stitches (remember, steek stitches do NOT count in your 100%) for the body. So, for the cuff of my sweater, 222 x 20% = 44 stitches. I'd cast on 44 stitches.

Once the ribbing is knit, switch to stockinette stitch, the needles you used for the body, and knit three rounds plain. On the fourth round, mark a column of stitches to function as the underarm stitch. Increase one stitch on each side of the underarm stitch. I use the make one (backward loop) increase method.

Increase two stitches, one on either side of the underarm stitch, every fourth round, until you reach 40%. "[100% figure] x 40% =" or in my case, 222 x 40% = 88 stitches. After that, knit until the sleeve is as long as you want. Remember, you're knitting to your arm pit, not your shoulder.

Then, knit another one.

To avoid the cliche of sleeves two different lengths, the best and easiest way is to make sure you've got the same number of rounds/rows in each sleeve. I do it by tying string into the first sleeve, every twenty rounds. Then I knit the second.

Next up? Coloring outside the lines, on the sleeve cuffs.

Lines.

2011-07-09T12:20:00.000-05:00

Some friends and I have been talking about where we draw the line on a pattern, you know, whether we'll knit it or not. It was hinted that my line is in the road in front of the funny farm, but we all have them. Here are some of mine:

-Lace short rows. There's no fucking way. Nothing in the world is cool enough to struggled through that. (Though I've done stranded colored short rows, and it was easier than I expected... hmmmm.)

-Charts. If it's complicated, I want a chart. Doesn't matter if it's color, lace, or texture. I want to know where I'm going and where I've been.

-Lots of seaming. This one's more of a grey area, but I feel that if I wanted to sew, I'd sew. I want to knit, not sew crap up. So the more seamless, the better.

Uh. Sadly, I think that's it. I'll wrestle almost anything else if I want it badly enough.

How about you guys? What makes you say 'hell no'?

Wait, whoa. What?

2011-07-04T20:22:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the glory of Benadryl, well, hell, how in fuck did it get to be July? I would have sworn it was mid-June.

Fucking sinuses.

Even the Tour de France/Tour de Fleece kicking off didn't register with me. I just sat in front of the wheel like a zombie and did some spinning.

This is Gotland wool. In top form.

It's in that crack between brown and gray; natural color. With top, you lose a lot of characteristics of the fiber in the processing. It's coarser than merino (big duh) and has some kind of crimp going on that makes it tricky to draft.

---

What finally snapped me out of the antihistimine haze is my Jeep.

We took off the doors and switched tops around, and it's ALMOST as good as a motorcycle; you can smell and feel where you are, just like when you're riding. But it's a darn sight safer. And can haul groceries. And has a radio.

I drove around like a maniac for most of the early afternoon, grinning stupidly and sliding around graveled corners on back roads. We're very near a lot of farms and have great back roads for this sort of thing. At one point I passed my neighbor; he was riding a four-wheeler like a bat out of hell, and I was going the other way in the Jeep. Like a bat out of hell. We waved and grinned like maniacs.

With luck, the adrenaline and the massive amounts of sinus medicine I've been taking will kick in, and I will become coherent. Well. More coherent.

I hope, I hope, I hope.

Checking in.

2011-06-24T18:10:00.000-05:00

I've had a deep, lurking headache/migraine thing going on this week. Mostly I've been on the couch, snarling at the world. Which, you know, not the greatest blog fodder. Grrr, argh, blach.

Sleeve post coming, soon.

Today, the husbeast, the Goober, and I went out into the front yard and cemented our reputation in the neighborhood.

Word went out, I'm sure, about what hell-raising brawlers we are.

Our poor neighbors. Heeheehe.

So, the headache-migraine thing has finally backed off, and with luck I'll be around more.

Sleeves, and a blog post about coloring outside the lines. Soon.

Cussin' and the kid.

2011-06-19T14:31:00.000-05:00

Someone left a comment about how, if I don't want my kid swearing, why do I use profanity all the time? And I've got nothing else to blog about, so you're now stuck reading my Theory of Profanity.

I don't want my kid using profanity for the same reason I don't want her using a paring knife: she's not old enough to understand how to use it, yet.

I'm a writer, and a former English major. (There's no such thing as a former English major. It's like the Marines. Once joined, always a member. Except instead of "Semper Fi" it's "Carpe Diem".) For most writers, there's no such thing as a 'bad' word. Some are just, well, stronger than others. Living in Hawaii reinforced this a great deal; Hawaiian has no profanity, and the concept that profanity is about usage and tone of voice has washed over into all the other languages out there. So when used properly (like, say, to express my opinion at the idea of a 38" bust equaling size extra large) it just underlines my point, or adds humor, and whatever.

Until my kid gets better at gauging social situations,the idea is for her not to swear. In fact, she's heard ALL THE WORDS, and occasionally uses them. Sometimes her stuffies or Little People get angry and cuss each other out. If she's alone in her room at the time, I don't say anything because it's an acceptable use. She's JUST starting to understand "home manners" vs. "out in public manners", and once she really gets it, I'll loosen up a lot on the occasional swear word. As it is, she will occasionally mutter "what the hell?" and again, since it seems appropriate (like when seeing High School Musical), I let it ride.

As for my language, these days I mostly swear on the internet, due to that kid thing I've been discussing. Usually for humor, sometimes for emphasis. Because it's the internet, people are able to decide for themselves if they want to deal with it and not read if they don't like it. Simple enough.

Vogue Knitting, early fall 2011

2011-06-15T14:07:00.000-05:00

It's that time. I'm looped and am dealing with swimming lessons, so yeah, a fine time to editorialize. As always, pictures are from the VK web site, quotes are from the magazine, everything else is mine. Yee haw whee. Go copyright.

This time around, I'm not going to draw on the pictures. I'm going to try talking YOU GUYS into seeing what I do, just by looking. Oh, and those of you who wonder how I know this stuff? My cousin was a model, and had actual modeling textbooks. My mother decided in my early teens I needed poise, so I was fired off to my cousin to do hair and makeup and posture for a week. It was fun. I read the textbooks. I also learned how to walk in heels. Good stuff. There should be required courses in high school with that stuff.

Anyway, what, where was I? Review. Right.

The letter from the editor flogs VK Live, and their new iPad app. "...so many of the garments we feature are season-spanning". Indeed. Keep that gem in mind, further on.

The featured yarns still lack gauge swatches. Everybody there knits, my ass.

Articles! I think they know I enjoy the articles and are cutting back. It's personal. I swear. Really. IT IS ALL ABOUT ME. -ahem- Meg Swansen discusses the new book coming out, "Knit One Knit All", which is a book of EZ's all-garter-stitch designs. It sounds like it was quite a project - the ideas may have been EZ's, but Meg, her son Cully, and a bunch of others had to work from vague notes, half-documented ideas, and other madness. Looks like fun. Carol Sulcoski discusses schematics, how to read them, and use them. Beginner-level stuff, but if you need the information, it's a good article.

That's it. I think there's something in here somewhere with winners of the mohair design contest, but I can't find it, so what's that tell you? So, two articles, in a magazine I buy for the articles. Delightful.

Section one! (Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.) Brioche socks by Alexandra Richards.

They stuck the photo of these socks on the index page, and nowhere in the editorial content of the magazine. They're like an afterthought, and I'm confused. But they look like nice socks.

Section two, "Into the Woods". Models roam around a barren wood, carrying candelabras and trying to look atmospheric. Everything's red, which is a HUGE relief because after a year of red sections, the last issue DIDN'T, and I JUST COULDN'T COPE. Red is the ONLY fashionable color.

2. Pompom capelet by Yoko Hatta.

Five sizes (?) from 38 to 50 inches/97 to 128 cm. It is a tube of knitting with some pompom cord tied on it. There is no schematic. Finishing requires a safety pin. I would be embarrassed to sell this as a pattern.

3. Reindeer Capelet by Yoko Hatta.

Bizarre sizing that makes no sense to me, 20 and 25 inches/52 and 63cm. No schematic. They have an article on schematics and then don't use any. Cute, innit? Near as I can tell, it's a rectangle with a button. If you decide to knit this, I suggest yarn colors that contrast more - the reindeer are getting lost in the color blending. Also? Fornicating reindeer. Best. Capelet. Ever.

4. Tied capelet by Yoko Hatta.

Four sizes measured at lower edge, from 44 to 56 inches/111 to 142cm. Considering you'd wear it over other clothing, I'd skip straight to the 56i/142cm size and adjust with the draw string, unless I had a REALLY small frame. This is essentially another knit tube, again with no schematic so I can't really say.

5. Cabled Capelet by Yoko Hatta.

Another rectangle with a button. Measured at lower edge, five sizes from 38 to 51 inches/96 to 130cm. Um... yeah.

6. Zippered Cape by Mari Lynn Patrick.

I think the zipper runs diagonally along the edge in the front, where end and side meet. "Neck edge measurement [??!!??] 26, 28, 30"/66, 71, 75cm". Riight. Okay then.

And then, the mohair design contest winners. All of the seem to be pros. Wait, no, one is a student at Parsons School of Design. I wonder if they won for their resumes?

7. Mohair Lace Dress, by Laura Zukaite. (Grand prize winner.)

Five sizes, from 27 to 40 inches/68 to 101cm. They say it is adjustable with back lacing. Hmmm. It looks like a jumble of lace patterns to me, like she sat down with Barbara Walker and knit one stitch pattern for a while, then shifted randomly. It's kind of cute, but you'd have to wear it over stuff, and silk/mohair blend - it's knit with two strands of Silk Mohair held together - is really hot. Plus, $170 USD to knit.

8. Sheath and Wrap by Lynette Meek.

Sheath, four sizes from 35 to 47 inches/89 to 120cm.
Wrap in one size, back between sleeves 20in/51cm.
Personally, the idea of mohair in a close fitting sheath dress makes my skin crawl. It could work as a layering piece for winter, but eeeesh. The wrap is kind of cool, I can imagine swanning about in that in cooler weather. Both have been hand-paint-dyed after knitting; the exact colors chosen aren't to my taste, but that's really easy to change. $223USD to knit the medium dress, $...well, I'd love to tell you how much the wrap is to make, but I can't find the yarn for it. Anywhere. At all. On the INTERNET. Very cute.

9. Bobble Tank Dress by Monica Hofstadter.

Another skin-crawly dress that you have to wear over something else, thereby increasing your chances of heat stroke. Four sizes, from 25 to 38 inches/64 to 97cm. All I can think of when looking at those bobbles is maggots.

Next section, our beloved designer section. Anna Sui checks in with "her signature brand of hippie chic". This stuff looks like the kind of crochet that people have struggled against for years, trying to show crochet can be pretty and not look like, well, like this. It's like everything that was bad about the seventes.

10. Flower Hat, and
11. Flower Vest.

The most appalling abuse of yarn I have witnessed outside a church penny market. Boye is trying to revive the horror that was the Bloom Loom, and I assume roped Sui into making these to demonstrate how cool they are. I hope to hell Sui got paid a lot, because if I were a crocheter I'd be ready to burn this in effigy. As for Boye.. WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE?

12. Granny Square Vest.

I just... what... what in fuck? I've been staring at this for days, wondering how in fuck I'm supposed to review it, and I don't know where to start. This is so horribly, awfully cliched. Crocheters feel like they're struggling against a stereotype of stupid-looking, dorky projects, having to live down the avocado and orange granny square monstrosities of the sixties, and now, here's another one. Way to go, Ana Sui and Vogue. You're so far out of touch with reality, I'm not sure you're on the same planet. Everyone, please go look at THIS for some real crochet beauty. It does exist. Just, um, not here. Gods. SERIOUSLY, VK? A project that's actually OFFENSIVE to some crocheters? It's not your grandmother's crochet, YET IT IS! MADE OF GRANNY SQUARES!

Sigh. I've run out of adjectives.

Next section, "Easy Knits, Easy Fits", where you can wear really loose stuff and if you pose JUST RIGHT, still look like you have a waist. Maybe.

13. Cowl by Faith Hale.

One size, so, okay. Call me crazy, but if I were a designer, I wouldn't use a lace pattern made famous by EZ. It would look too much like I ripped it off and slapped it on an unshaped tube and collected money for the 'pattern'.

14. Scoop Neck Top by Faith Hale.

Four sizes from 51 to 63 inches/129 to 160cm. Shown in size 55in/139cm. With the cowl on there, my first thought is "what's wrong with the neck?" Might be nothing, but I can't know that, can I? Schematic (yes, finally) shows a crew neck. I know it's meant to be oversized, and I am a huge fan of 'oversized', but it's knit with bamboo/viscose blend, meaning the fiber has no memory or tensile strength, so while it may START the way it looks now, it will continue to grow until it's around your ankles. Perhaps a nice wool/nylon blend?

15. Cropped Pullover by Lori Steinberg.

Four sizes from 33 to 45 inches/83 to 114cm. This is probably the safest knit in the magazine. Also not the least high fashion, but you can't have everything, right?

16. Boucle Vest by Lori Steinberg.

Three sizes, measured across the back between the shoulders. "Because front pieces are designed to wrap and overlap, vest will fit a wide range of bust sizes within the standards for the sizes given." Oh yeah, you betcha. $144 to knit the medium size. Are you fucking kidding me? Wait, all right. Lesson, grasshoppers. See how the model is holding the front together? That means it probably hangs REALLY strangely if left to its own devices. And look at the actual silhouette of the thing. It's an A-line, sure, but it's stiff as a board, with no draping. So you're going to look like a giant cone with legs sticking out.

17. Tapered Pullover by Renee Lorion.

Five sizes from 36 to 52 inches/91 to 132cm. Another winner for this issue. It'd be flattering to everybody, the edging is interesting, and the color is even flattering (also easily changed). One potential drawback: The shaping is achieved with changes in needle size, rather than increasing and decreasing. Meaning if you knit with a really strange gauge, use caution and work up a LOT of swatches first.

18. Cable Rib Jacket by Vladmir Teriokhin.

Three sizes from 46 to 54 inches/116 to 137cm. An interesting idea that's been used by other designers for a while - a jacket worn either way, right side up and upside down, so to speak. Interesting idea, decent execution. The shoulder seams kind of worry me, but it's possible that jacket was really dragged at before being photographed. $339 to knit the medium size. But it's just wool, so substitute at will.

Section, oh, whatever the hell.

19. Lace Pattern Cardigan by Lisa Hoffman.

Four sizes from 37 to 50 inches/94 to 128cm. Another classic you can knit, and wear for forty years until it falls apart. (Which means it probably isn't Fashion, but whatever.) No shaping, which is hidden by the Arm Trick, but it is what it is. And that's classic.

20. Lace Vest by Kristin Omdahl.

Two sizes, 35 and 38 inches/89 and 98 cm. They're calling the 38in/98cm size Large/X-Large. And mind you, it's something meant to go over other clothes they're defining as "loose fitting". Shouldn't VK allow for boob jobs, even if they don't allow for plus sizes?

21. Lace Trimmed Top by Shiri Mor.

Four sizes from 33 to 38 inches/84 to 98cm. VOGUE, YOU ASSHOLES. 38 INCHES AS THE LARGEST SIZE FOR JACKETS AND VESTS IS TOTAL AND COMPLETE BULLSHIT. For the two of you who can fit into this when worn over other clothes, I'd consider altering it for a button closure instead of the belt. That way it'll look less like a bath robe, and you'll look less like a stump with four layers of knitting swathed 'round your middle. Oh, and VK? A 38 INCH BUST IS NOT EXTRA LARGE, PARTICULARLY NOT FOR A JACKET, FUCKERS!

22. Lace Jacket by Iris Schreier.

ONE size, 38 inches/96cm. Uses only two skeins of ArtYarns' Beaded Mohair ($87USD), so if you can fit into it, and are looking to try the yarn, this'd make a cool project. If you can fit into it.

Next section, "The fashion blueprint: Lithe, drapey tunics with vertical detailing lengthen and strengthen the knit silhouette." Apparently, the copy writers (or their editor) don't know the diff between vertical, horizontal, and diagonal.

23. Welted Pullover by John Brinegar.

Three sizes from 35 to 41 inches/89 to 104cm. I suppose if you want a welted tunic, this would work. The yarn choice is a cotton/nylon blend, and I'm not sure the nylon is enough to keep it from 'growing' until it's around your ankles, though.

24. Drop Shoulder Top by Rosemary Drysdale.

I fail to see any "vertical detailing". Anyone else? Six sizes from 43 to 58 inches/109 to 147cm. A yarn company special; uses tencel yarn from Prism. $163USD to knit the middle size. Bet you could do it cheaper.

25. Cabled Poncho by Daniela Nii.

Wow, that's not fantastically unflattering or anything. Put the cable on the front of a regular sweater and call it a win. (Also: When did ponchos acquire sleeves? No one told me.)

26. Boatneck Top by Sinje Ollen.

Three sizes from 50 to 67 inches/127 to 170cm. Another winner. Really pretty. It's a silk/alpaca blend, so it may be too freaking hot for between seasons, but it'd be easy to substitute something else. Try to get a decent percentage of rayon, bamboo, or tencel, so it'll drape properly. This version uses two colors to emphasize the wavyness of the Old Shale pattern. If you'd rather de-emphasize, use one color and switch the purl-on-right-side to knit-on-right-side rows. I'm tempted to knit this myself, but it's on size 2/2.75mm needles and I swore off crazy knits for the year. Maybe next year.

27. Striped Tunic by Josh Bennett.

HEY EVERYBODY! LOOK HOW BIG MY BUTT IS!

28. Colorwork Poncho by Deborah Newton.

IT IS A SWEATER, PEOPLE! PONCHOS DON'T HAVE SLEEVES! Four sizes from 39 to 46 inches/99 to 118cm. $375 to knit the next to largest size. Not a typo. But the gauge being what it is, you could knit it with Cascade 220 for a hell of a lot less. Oh, and that's $375 for 100% wool.

29. Long Vest by John Brinegar.

Yup. That's what it is, all right. Six sizes measured by width of back. That's whole lotta stockinette to grind out. It's also really unshaped.

30. Relaxed Cardigan by Mari Lynn Patrick.

Six sizes from 34 to 45 inches/86 to 114cm. Fastened, it's loose and baggy and unflattering, and unfastened, it's chaos and confusion and baggy and loose. And unflattering. I don't get it.

Well, thankfully, this wraps up another VK review. As always some real gems in with the WTFery. Until next time, knit wisely.

Crashing for the night.

2011-06-14T20:26:00.001-05:00

I tried to finish the VK review. Really. But I ran out of vitriol.

Usually I do have to take a break about halfway through, because I start saying "meh" to everything, with no details. Can't have that. So with luck, the VK review will be here tomorrow.

---

Tonight I knit at the Goob's swimming class. Just the teal KAL sweater, nothing exotic. There was a woman in front of me, a little to the left, who kept turning around to look at it, and me. I smiled at first, half expecting her to come over, sit down next to me, and whip out her own project. (It has happened before, usually in air ports.) Alas, no. Just odd looks. So I quit noticing her. Sort of.

Maybe tomorrow she'll bring her knitting? We can hope, anyway.

Those little black motherfuckers.

2011-06-13T19:08:00.000-05:00

We have ants.

In case you are new around House O Samurai, well, folks who've been around a while know I hate the little bastards with the fire of a thousand suns. Come payday, we'll take care of the situation, but that leaves me with two days of creepy-crawly skin, dunking ant-covered things in hot water, and teaching the Goober words she really, really shouldn't know yet.

Son. Of. A. Bitching. Mother. Fuckers.

Could Sekhmet eat the ants? NO. Because she is fucking evil and unhelpful, the fucking furbag. All she does is lay in sunbeams and CHEW ON MY BACK DOOR.

---

I had a photo to upload here, but there's some fucktastic fucking fuckup between my phone, Flickr (A PAID FOR ACCOUNT, COULD IT WORK PLEASE?) and Blogger. So, well, fuck. Fuckers.

As if I was not neurotic and flat-out crazy enough, today we started swimming classes for the Goober. The Red Cross does "water safety" (they don't do swimming lessons any more, insert eye roll here) at the local high school every quarter and I can sign up through our very excellent Recreation Committee. I thought I had to get in the pool with the Goob, so I showed up in a bathing suit, royally pissed off. Turns out I DIDN'T have to get in the pool, and I amused all the other parents with "Yippee!"

Along with five certified Red Cross teachers, they had two kids from the high school who were certified as life guards, also hanging around. One of the kids spent his time wrapping little kids in towels and catching them when they slipped. It was really cute. I wanted to find his mother, give her a high five, and tell her job well done.

It turns out I am not a helicopter parent. (You know, one who hovers all the time.) I had worried about this, what with the Goob and I spending so much time together. But, no, the kids went off to swim, and I was like "Right! Have fun!" and was out in the hall drinking soda and Tweeting. All the other parents sat in the bleachers and watched every move. This goes on at Karate, too: Parents sit in bleachers and watch like it's a performance instead of a class. I do not get this. Maybe because the parents don't see their kids all day like I do, so they feel the need to watch them in lessons? I dunno. Karate or swim, you may find me out in the hall, texting and playing Bejeweled and drinking soda.

---

All these stupid painkillers I take? Turns out when I'm eating sensibly and have a negative caloric intake, I get loopy. Dizzy, sarcastic (er), like that. Don't know exactly what's going on, but I'm going to try to enjoy it, since I can't really fix it. (Fixing it means eating constantly, and I really don't need the Boobs of Doom to expand further.) Brace yourselves for some crazy blogging.

Yes, it strikes me that this is a fine time to review VK. Cheers?

I must be near Amish country!

2011-06-09T15:08:00.000-05:00

I am about halfway between Lancaster County, PA, and Tuscarawas County, OH. That's pretty much Amish and Mennonite ground zero. The relevance of this? I live in the land of People Who Make Stuff. Go to the county fair and ask sheep herders about buying fleeces? They don't bat an eye. Knit in public? The further out into the country you go, the less people seem to notice. (Also, HAND MADE CHEESES, but that's another blog post.) What does this mean in practicality?

Vogue Knitting at the grocery store. Yep. Not kidding.

So, while in there to pick up lemons (lemonade) and chocolate (PMS), I swung through to pick up the new VK so I could review it. And there, lo and behold, in the rack right above the VK? SPIN*OFF. Can you believe it?? Spin*Off at the GROCERY STORE?

A couple pygora goats in the back yard, and life would be about perfect. Okay, and some 'blue' angora bunnies. And a sheep.

---

This was supposed to be a blog post about black smokers. (The geothermal vents, no tobacco involved.) Unfortunately I got bogged down on the Goob's school, and I do need to start photo-editing the VK review. Maybe tomorrow.

---

The Goob is sitting here reading Phineas and Ferb magazine (also at the grocery store), and watching Mythbusters. That's my little geek.

The other day we were watching a school video, and the teacher asked "What's a baby pigeon called?" and the Goober yelled "A PIDGELING!" I think we're going to have to keep that word.

---

Anyone seen my ball winder? It has disappeared into The Pit. I know I unpacked it, but I can't find the damn thing. Soon as I buy a new one, I'll find the fucker, so I'm hand-winding Cascade 220 and cursing.

So. Where's the damn ball winder??!!!!!

Pictures!

2011-06-07T18:09:00.000-05:00

Sort of my weekend in photos.

We had really amazing weather over the weekend. Perfect, mid-seventies, sunny, breeze. The Goober and I celebrated by going out and buying a few outside toys to play with.

She spent the whole weekend out there. She'd still be out there, but she's sunburned and it rained today. My nest on the porch swing looked more like this:

Saturday night, for some diversion, we went to the tractor and truck pull, down at the county fairgrounds. (Yes, yes, we live out in the boonies. It's fun here. And quiet.)

This is what the Goob thought of the tractor pull:

Sunday's diversion revolved around the glory of a Five Guys bacon cheeseburger:

Best. Burger. EVER. They put the bacon on the bottom so the cheese doesn't make it soggy. Perfection.

By then, well, the kid was burned, fried, overstimulated, and pretty darn sozzled:

---

See this? This is the evil fucker. This is the evil fucker, looking guilty, next to her evil handiwork.

See the flaking paint to the left? That's my back door. The paint had cracked and just barely begun to peel. I was leaving it alone. Then, this weekend, because we were out on the back porch ignoring the cat, she grabbed on to the flake of paint and pulled it loose. MORE THAN ONCE. When I yelled, she gave me that "oh, do I have your attention now?" tail flick that cats do.

Evil fucker.

---

The knitting continues apace.

This is a better representation of the color than my other pictures, but still not accurate. It's what I think of as a 'between' color, you know, one of those that wavers between shades depending on the light. This one's a teal that is sometimes blue and sometimes green. In natural light, apparently it looks blue. I think I like it.

Still here!

2011-06-02T19:58:00.000-05:00

I think the weird shutdown of the blog earlier this week was - ha - due to that hacking problem with China. Once I confirmed that I was me, and changed my password to something more secure, all has been well. It's so odd to me. I've got another e-mail account I use for The Really Serious Stuff, so if China needs to hack me to find links to LOL Cats e-mailed to my mother-in-law, well, I hope there's no problem with national security from me.

---

This week was kinda nuts. We all went to a family get-together on Monday for Memorial Day. We did kind of a pot luck. There were eleven kids and nine adults hanging around, and the kids ran wild, and the Goob got put in time out, so, you know. Traditional American holiday. I made cookies and cupcakes and took potato chips.

Then, the Goober went home with her grandparents, and I spent all day Tuesday reveling in the silence and NOT DOING ANYTHING. It was the best day ever. The Goober went to the zoo.

Wednesday she came home, and looked a little worn out. We sat down to watch Mythbusters, and...

She NEVER does that. But she did last night.

Then, today, I asked if she wanted to go outside with me. She said yes (of course) and raced out the door. By the time I got out on the back porch, there, in the porch swing...

Yeah.

We didn't do much today, either. Though I actually had to feed the kid and like that.

---

I'm sort of knitting! I've got a little done on my KAL sweater.

You can see the purl fold line; I've got the hem and about two inches of it done. My hands are bothering me, so it's going slow. You guys don't have to wait on me, though. Once a couple of you get to the arm pits, I'll talk you through the sleeves, which are next.

---

With the shifting of the sun, we're now getting bright light in the back windows in the afternoons and evenings, which is lovely.

Sekhmet digs it.

...hello?

2011-05-30T21:29:00.003-05:00

Apparently someone got into my Google account. So passwords have been changed, and I've been verified, and blah de blah.

Let's see if this works.

Sekhmet, you fucker.

2011-05-24T22:41:00.000-05:00

I put the sick kid to bed, sat down to read my Kindle in peace for the first time all day, and... I'm having trouble... concentrating... what...

KAL 05.5: The A line.

2011-05-23T13:26:00.000-05:00

There were questions about how many stitches to cast on, when working an A-line. That can be kind of subjective. I've seen A-lines with bottom hems that are positively voluminous (1000% or more). That's not going to be any fun at all to knit in plain stockinette, and depending on the weight of the fabric, it wouldn't look good.

So all I've got are guidelines.

250% is a pretty good rule of thumb. If you're using a heavier fabric (3 stitches per inch or heavier), I'd consider 200%. For thinner fabrics you could go up as high as 500% but I'd think twice because DAMN, that would be a lot of stitches.

250% with a hem is what I'd do. You need to decrease down to 100% by the time you get to the arm pits, or 100% + 8 stitches if you're doing a cardigan with a steek. To figure decreasing, first you'd need a row gauge and a measurement for how long you wanted the 'skirt' of the jacket to be.

Let's say your 100% figure is 100, for the sake of argument. And you need 75 rows to make your skirt long enough. The cast on would be 250 stitches - 250%. You would need to decrease 150 stitches to get down to your 100% figure (total cast on, minus your one hundred percent figure, equals how many stitches you need to decrease). To figure out how many stitches to decrease per row, you divide 150 by 75: you get two stitches per row (total number of stitches to decrease, divided by the number of rows you need to do it in, equals how many stitches to decrease per row). To put it in knitter-ese, then, cast on 250 stitches, and decrease two stitches per row until you arrive at 100 stitches and the arm pits of your sweater.

You can either distribute the decreases randomly over the skirt to make it a circular piece, or you can decrease at two distinct points to make it more angular. Up to you.

There you go. No swooning.

KAL 05: Math and CASTING ON!

2011-05-21T17:06:00.000-05:00

Okay. This knit along is based on EPS, and I wrote an article about it ages go for Knitty. So, before we go further, it may be wise for you to go read it, if you haven't yet. THE ARTICLE HERE.

To repeat: I wrote the article. I still hold the copyright for everything in it because it is my creation. It is licensed to Knitty, essentially. I still hold the rights. So I'm allowed to use graphics from it, which I'm going to do. 'Cause it's mine. We can save the copyright freak-out for another more deserving occasion.

100%. Mine is 42 inches. (I'm knitting a cardigan that I want to fit over other clothes. Plus I have big boobs.) I got that by measuring a jacket that I like the fit of; armpit to armpit was 21 inches, so it's 42 inches the whole way around. Make sense, I hope?

My gauge is 5.3 stitches to the inch. Being lazy and using my lucky calculator, 5.3 x 42 = 222.6. WE WANT AN EVEN NUMBER OF STITCHES FOR THE BODY. Easy peasy. The body for me is 222 stitches.

From here you could cast on right now, or you could do ALL THE MATH at once:

If you're doing ribbing on the bottom edge, cast on 90% instead of 100%. It's easy to figure: Just push in (your 100% figure) x 90% = and the figure will pop up on your calculator.

If you are knitting a cardigan, you will need a steek in the front to cut open later. For the steek, add eight stitches. You need those to stabilize and cut later.

The cheat sheet:

TO FIGURE 100%: Multiply stitches per inch/cm by the circumference you want. You want an even number of stitches; it will make sense later.

TO FIGURE 90%: On your calculator, put in your 100% figure (the number of stitches, not inches or cm) then press x 90 % = on your calculator.

FOR A PULLOVER WITH RIBBING: Cast on 90%. Join and work in the round. Knit your ribbing, increase to 100% (easiest is to knit nine and make one around). Continue working in stockinette to the arm pits.

FOR A CARDIGAN WITH RIBBING: Cast on 90% plus eight stitches. (Mark the eight stitches). Join and knit in the round. Knit your ribbing, then increase to 100% plus eight stitches (easiest is to knit nine, make one around.) Work to arm pits.

FOR A PULLOVER WITH A HEM: Cast on 100% using some kind of provisional cast- on. Join and knit in the round. Use needles a size or two smaller than your main body. Knit 1.5 inches/3cm for the hem. Work one round in purl, for folding later. Shift to main needles and work body to arm pits.

FOR A CARDIGAN WITH A HEM: (This one is a little confusing. Just follow along, I'll take photos as I do mine.) Cast on 100% using some kind of provisional cast on, and smaller needles. KNIT FLAT IN STOCKINETTE (back and forth) for 1.5 inches/3cm. This is the hem. Work a row of reverse stockinette for the purl fold line. THEN, cast on eight stitches (your steek) join and knit in the round up to the arm pits. To summarize, you knit the hem flat (reduces bulk in the steek later), then cast on your eight steek stitches as a bridge between the edges and work in the round. I'll be documenting this one with photos, promise.

Questions? I bet there are questions.

Q & A

2011-05-19T19:56:00.001-05:00

To address some questions folks have asked:

There's still some worry over the prototype. It's going to be a starting point, no more. You have to start SOMEWHERE. Find a sweater or sweatshirt that fits properly through the chest. If you don't like the sleeves or the length, that's fine. Figure out what you want to change about it. This way you don't have to play the ease game, which is very difficult.

Traditionally, a sweater is knit by measuring around the chest at the arm pits, or wherever your boobs create the largest circumference. Then you add four inches for ease. But that's too simplistic. Some folks like tight sweaters. Some folks like really loose sweaters. So it is much, MUCH easier in the long run to just measure something.

---

Since I'm thinking of this as the "EPS Long Form", we are tagging projects on Ravelry with "LongForm" so that anyone who wants to look at all of them, can. Enjoy.

---

An ass ton is approximately 800 yards of yarn.

ETA: The metric conversion would be "arse tonne".

---

The hem issue will be discussed in more detail when we cast on. (This weekend. I promise.) But you use a needle one or two sizes smaller than the main sweater body and work a short length in stockinette. Then you do one row/round in reverse stockinette (or purl) because it makes a VERY neat fold line. Then you go back to stockinette and the regular needles, and work on the body. There are a few more details, depending on whether you're doing a cardigan or pullover, but that's the gist.

---

Roxie, I will be talking everyone through the math, because, well, your method in the comments kind of scared me.

---

I think that covers it. Apologies to folks who really want to get moving NOW, but I've got a bunch of folks still catching up. But we're gonna get moving soon. After we do the math it's going to go quickly. Honest.

KAL 04: 100% and proportion

2011-05-17T20:45:00.000-05:00

This is more about the philosophy behind what we're doing, than actual DOING, but since this is about really understanding what's going on, it needs said.

The EPS is based on PROPORTION. That is the great thing about it, as well as the potential problem. Everything is a fraction of the body circumference, also called (in various books) the key number, or the 100% figure. Once you arrive at the correct figure, you can play around with it quite a lot. But if you blow this first part, nothing's going to come out right, ever after, amen.

To get the figure, lay out your prototype. Don't stretch it or anything silly, but smooth it flat, on a flat surface. Measure it from arm pit to arm pit, and double the figure. Make sure you measure straight across and not crookedly.Write down the figure you get.

Now. Once you've got your 100% figure, you CAN start knitting. Cast on some kind of edging and let it rip, on up to the armpits.

However. (There's always a however, isn't there?)

Look at your prototype. What do you like or not like about it? Does the bottom edge suck in to a ribbing that makes you look like a mushroom? Does it drape out in an A line? If you like the way the bottom edge works, measure it too, and hang on to it for our upcoming step involving math. If you don't like it, figure out what it takes to make you like it (what kind of edging do you want on the bottom hem?) and jot it down for the horrifying math part.

Traditional edgings include:

-The Usual Ribbing Edge: casting on 90% on smaller needles, working some kind of ribbing, increasing to 100% at the end of the ribbing, changing to the regular needles, and knitting up from there

-Hem: casting on 100% on smaller needles, knitting an inch and a half/3cm of stockinette, working a purl fold round, switching to the usual needles, and knitting from there; the raw stitches of the cast-on are either worked as a knit-in hem or stitched down later

-A Line: casting on up to 250%, working a hem or ribbing, then decreasing down to 100% gradually over the bottom portion of the sweater until the arm pits are reached (this method uses an ass ton of yarn)

Your homework for now is to measure your prototype, get your 100% figure, and then decide what kind of bottom edge you want. I'll be doing a hem.

FYI: I suggest a notebook or a document on your computer, or some other single spot to write all this stuff down. We've barely started with the measurements and math and figures, and trust me: you lose your plans halfway through the project, you're in a world of hurt. I've been there. It sucked.

It's like the fuckin' Jetsons.

2011-05-15T20:21:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd write another blog post tonight (no swooning!) There's a photo I wanted off my phone, and since I needed to pull the battery any way (to reset it), I figured, hell, I'd pull the chip while I was at it. My phone (a Blackberry Curve SomethingRecent) uses solid state (no moving parts) storage on a secondary chip for all music, pictures, movies, TV shows, and other media. So I pulled the chip out of the phone, PLUGGED IT INTO MY COMPUTER, moved the file I wanted, then put the chip back in my phone. Okay. This is stuff we dreamed of as kids (at least I did, and my friends). I have got more computing power (WAY MORE) in my phone than they did in all the Apollo spacecraft combined. This is messed up. Then I dropped the chip, picked it up, and really started to think about it.

That is eight gigabytes of storage capacity, almost exactly the size of my thumbnail.

I am too old for this shit.

Except I'm dealing with it well enough (except for that droppage issue) so I guess I'm not. IT IS STILL NOT RIGHT.

The husbeast is downstairs watching a movie on his super large screen TV, that is plugged into his giant large screen TV. THE ONE WITH AN iPOD DOCK.

---

Anyway. The blog post. After a fashion.

This is the picture I wanted off my phone.

As with so many really good photos, it was just one of those things. The Goober appeared at the back door with a handful of dandelions, I had the phone in my hand, and there you go. I tried to do it again later with a real camera, and of course the results weren't nearly so good.

The Goober has lately gotten hooked, playing Bejeweled. Last night we had this discussion:

ME: Okay. Time for bed.
GOOBER: But I have to teleport!
ME: Fine, but as soon as you teleport, it's bed time.

Sounds like a geek house, to me.

---

In the Sekhmet You Fucker stories, we have a new one. War has been declared. Remember my new chair?

She thinks it's hers. And the nice, high quality fake suede? (It's fake, but it feels really close to real.) Yeah. Hangs on to fur like a fuckin' MAGNET.

EVIL. EVIL I TELL YOU.

And of course, the person most annoyed by this is the husbeast. (Forgivably. He did go out and buy the chair for me.) So it's this constant war and somehow I'm stuck in the middle.

Yes, I've taken advantage of the catapult effect of the chair's shape. More than once.

---

Remember the blanket I want to knit for the living room? It got this far:

Has anyone seen my motivation? Yes? No? Well, can you find it and send it over here? Pleeeeease?

Group created!

2011-05-14T22:36:00.000-05:00

The Ravelry group has been created.

I know some of you don't want to participate in the giant time suck that is Ravelry. That's fine. I get where you're coming from. My goal is for all KAL information to be here on the blog, easily found to the whole wide internet. So there's no loss by not joining. But if you wanna... HERE IT IS.

So, anyway...

2011-05-14T19:58:00.000-05:00

I actually felt like blogging this week, but Blogger ate itself, so, um. Here we are. (Do you think "my dog ate the server" works as a valid excuse at Google HQ? I'm thinking not, but I'd love to be a fly on the wall.)

I've wondered what to do about questions and answers with the knit-along. I've finally decided I'll address them on the fly (like, right here, as they come up), but then I'll go back and add the comments to the relevant post. Ideally, I'd like to put ALL THE POSTS together into a PDF and upload it to Rav (or otherwise make it available) as a sort of EPS long form for anyone who wants it.

There've been lots of questions about using things in place of gauge swatches. It's your sweater, I'm not telling anyone they HAVE to do anything. HOWEVER. Youse guys who are talking about some kind of flat-knit sample, and using it as an in-the-round swatch? Proceed with extreme caution. Lots of folks think their gauge is the same, flat and in the round. It almost never is. If you've run the numbers before, and you KNOW, then knock yourselves out. Personally, I vary by about half a stitch per inch. That's a lot. (And I knit more loosely in the round. I'm told that's unusual. I'm always special.) So... yeah. It's up to you. If you've never compared before, you might want to. It's a good thing to know. For instance, when I do back-and-forth short rows at an in-the-round neck line, I always make sure to knit loosely so it 'goes' with the rest of the sweater.

Incidentally, it's 'fixin' to rain' (as some folk in the south are known to say). I'm sitting in my living room, watching lightning repeatedly strike a natural gas well over the ridge from our neighborhood. There's a lightning rod on it, so there's no worry, but I almost hope the lightning rod fails. It would be interesting. (No one lives near enough to it for it to be dangerous if it were to blow.)

Anyway. Knitting.

Someone had an intelligent question about my two different colors of yarn from swatch to sweater, and wouldn't that make a difference in the gauge? (Good question, and bravo for thinking of it.) Yes. A very slight one. If I were doing a tailored anything, I would, indeed, knit a new swatch with the proper yarn. But I'm knitting myself a loose pullover (okay, possibly a cardigan, I haven't decided yet) so it doesn't matter too much.

I'm setting up a Ravelry group for us. I don't intend it to be our primary anything, but one of my Beloved Readers pointed out that it would be easy to post photos there, in case of questions. It's a good point. So, I'll do that and get a link out to everyone. For those of you not on Ravelry, it's free if you want to. For those of you worried about getting sucked into the madness that is Ravelry, you don't have to join the group if you don't want to.

Okay. I think that's it for the knitting questions. I'll probably remember something as soon as I click "publish", so heck, I'll just have to blog again tomorrow. Heavens.

KAL03: Measuring gauge

2011-05-09T20:24:00.000-05:00

So. We measure gauge. This involves a bit of math, nothing too horrific. I usually scratch it out on the back of an envelope or possibly a notebook, but a calculator is also a valid solution, if decimal points really scare you THAT much.

Lay out your gauge swatch. Stick a pin somewhere in the middle of it, between two stitches. Lay out a tape measure (centimeters or inches, doesn't matter; I'm running in inches just because that's where my brain is right now). Make sure the tape measure along the row, so that you are measuring across ONE row, not several. (That's my favorite mistake.) Stick the second pin in, one inch away from the first. DO NOT LOOK AT WHERE YOU PUT IT. Do not shift it a little to one side or the other to make it 'fit' or be neat.

This, incidentally, is 5.25 stitches per inch.

Things to remember:
-DO NOT LOOK WHERE YOU ARE PUTTING THE PIN, YOU WILL SHIFT IT AROUND TO MAKE IT NEAT.
-MAKE SURE TO MEASURE ACROSS ONE ROW, NOT TWO OR THREE.

Write down what you get, down to two decimal places. My measurement would be 5.25 inches. Measure three or four more times. Write down each stitch count you get. Once you've got AT LEAST THREE (but five is better) measurements, average them out. (Add them all together, then divide by the number of figures you have.) That is your UNWASHED STITCH COUNT.

Now go wash your swatch, however you intend to wash your sweater. For me this means a trip through the sink or washing machine, soaking in mild detergent, then a rinse, then a spin to get out the water. I let it dry flat, wherever it's convenient.

When the swatch is dry, measure it all again for the WASHED STITCH COUNT.

The washed stitch count is the figure you are going to use for everything, in terms of the EPS math.

The unwashed stitch count is for when the sweater is halfway done, and you look at it and say "OMG IT DOESN'T LOOK RIGHT". You can measure it right there, and know whether or not it will all work out in the blocking.

For simple, casual knits like the one we're doing, I often skip the unwashed stitch count - it's most useful for tailored knits, when you're trying to fit things precisely and a half an inch is a big freaking deal. But for now, well, you guys can use the practice, so I had you do it. But you can skip it if you really want.

Hey! I'm well!

2011-05-07T22:33:00.000-05:00

Whaddaya know! Poof! Feel great, yesiree!

Years ago (I am reasonably sure it was 2000, but I would not stake my life on it), the husbeast and I had an... incident, you could say. The annoying start of a trend, you could say.

2000 was the year my mother was sick in Ohio, and I was living in Hawaii. Well, there were three years like that, but 2000 is the year I logged enough miles (in planes) to go around the earth more than once. (I quit keeping track. It was depressing.) Between the stress, the jet lag, and the fact that planes are seething pits of germs, I got sick. A lot. All the time.

The husbeast, unreasonably, I thought, found this upsetting and worrisome.

I kept explaining that it was a series of colds. I was run down. I was on planes all the time. I WAS FINE. His answer to this, after a few months, was to make a doctor's appointment for me, haul me down there, and physically shove me into Dr. R's office. Given no choice about it (the husbeast, y'all may have noticed, is considerably larger than I am), I arrived at the doctor's office spitting mad. Dr. R asked me what was wrong, and I delivered a five-minute rant that started with "I've been sick for a couple months".

It took some effort, but Dr. R did not laugh. He did allow that my being sick for months did seem like a reasonable thing for the husbeast to be upset about. (Bah. Dr. R ALWAYS sided with the husbeast.) However, he did agree with my assessment, wrote me a prescription for chicken noodle soup and bunny slippers (seriously; I loved that guy), told the husbeast I was fine, and turned me loose. You could tell Dr. R loved the whole thing.

Spring in Hawaii, I used to get pneumonia. Some pollinating plant or other combined in unholy union with my asthma, and if I wasn't super careful, blammo. (One of the few things I found truly annoying about living there.) I would resist going to the doctor, usually giving in (with no grace whatsoever) when the husbeast made noises about taking me. Again stress reared its fucking head, though, and got the better of me.

I'd been in a nasty, four year long lawsuit, and we had just about settled the whole damn thing, when the plants pollinated and my asthma went crazy. I figured I could sleep it off. (In my defense, some years, I really could.) I felt worse and worse, my voice began to disappear, and a fever started creeping in. BUT I WAS FINE, DAMN IT. Then, one afternoon, the husbeast called. You guessed it. He informed me I could go in my pajamas, wrapped in a blanket, or I could get dressed. He was on his way to pick me up at that moment.

I got dressed.

By then, Dr. R was using the husbeast as a gauge for how sick I was; if the husbeast appeared with me in the waiting room, it was time for concern. I went into the exam room. The husbeast waited. I came out (imagine, if you will; doctor, nurses, receptionist, patients all over) and told the husbeast, "It's pneumonia again." He replied, "YOU DUMBASS". Everyone gasped. I rolled my eyes.

Down at the pharmacy, they asked me if I'd had those drugs before. I said yes, I'd taken them when I had pneumonia the year before. The husbeast said "YOU DUMBASS". The pharmacists and customers were horrified. I rolled my eyes.

So, this Friday on the phone, the husbeast said "you've been sick for two weeks. It's probably time you saw Dr. B." After some quick negotiation, I have the weekend and if I'm not doing better Monday, I can make my own appointment or I'm sure the husbeast will do it for me.

I FEEL JUST FINE, DAMN IT.

(We'll get back to the knit-along Monday, latest. Thanks for your patience.)

Well, hell.

2011-05-04T14:16:00.000-05:00

There will be a slight pause in our knit-along as I deal with the lung snot from hell. I wanted to soldier on through it, but I'm to the point where I can't think straight, and that does nothing for my tech-writing skills.

Maybe this will give more folks a chance to get organized and join in.

With luck I'll be back in a day or two, this time able to string together a coherent sentence.

Sorry!