As a plant freak, I have strong memories of the house I grew up in - my family moved into the house when I was six months old, and my parents sold it when I was twenty-three. Long, strong memories. And that includes the plants. I've gradually been planting a few of the plants I remember around the new house the husbeast and I bought last year. Nothing extreme, I don't intend to replicate the entire yard, but some iris at the corner, stuff like that. I might put in some poppies. And I wanted to plant a lilac.
When I was growing up, the lilac bush under the window of my parents' bedroom was a subject of hilarity. Well, for us it was. We kept the hilarity quiet, though, because my mother had an ongoing war with the lilac bush.
The damn thing wouldn't flower.
It thrived away, full of lush foliage, tall, green. Every few years, my little mother (five feet tall and maybe a hundred pounds) would gather her gardening tools and go to war. While the rest of us played, she'd prune the beast back so they could see out their bedroom windows. She'd mutter under her breath at it as she went. One year she was furious, got her shovel, and chopped all around the root ball, playing hell with the nutrient system, trying to spark it into action.
The next spring there were two sprigs of flowers on the entire, massive shrub. We giggled (when she wasn't looking) and Mom threatened it with her pruning shears.
So, I've been thinking my yard needed a lilac bush. They always make me smile, thinking of her, and anything that makes you smile is worth doing, as I see it.
Then spring hit, and things started blooming. There, in the bed behind the house, near our bedroom window, is, guess what. A lilac bush. Poor thing is frost-damaged like hell from the weather, but I ALREADY HAVE A LILAC IN MY YARD
Somewhere, Mom is laughing. And so am I.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Ready to Rock
It's been a jolly week here at House O'Samurai. The husbeast tracked home a particularly nasty germ (I'm convinced an influenza variant) and we all got it. So, lots of sleeping and nose-blowing and all that fun stuff. The Goober was silent for a whole day because her 'froat hut'. It was creepy. She just sat there. We're all doing better now, though.
I was unwilling to track the killer germs through my local yarn store, so I hit WEBS and purchased the yarn for my sweater. (KNIT ALONG TO COMMENCE MAY 1!!)
It's not remotely what I was planning. I'd thought to knit something in a light peach-pink-orange sort of color. But WEBS didn't have anything that looked right, so I sort of squinted at the computer screen and chose a likely-looking bluish. It turned out to be a dark teal heather. Since I like strong, solid colors, it will do fine.
For those joining in, it will be a slow start with discussion of fit, planning, and swatch knitting. You'll have plenty of time to get organized before we cast on the actual sweater. So if you're still getting yourself situated, that's fine. This is going to be a leisurely kind of KAL.
There have been questions about knitting cardigans, V-necks, and other types of things. I'm considering knitting a cardigan myself, so there will definitely be discussion of methods. BE PREPARED TO STEEK. This is an EPS sweater, based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Percentage System. She'd have never knit a sweater flat, so we won't either. I'm not as fundamentally opposed to purling as EZ was, but I'll definitely steek before I knit a whole darn sweater flat.
Maybe, after we do this one, we'll do another, top down this time, based on EPS AND Barbara Walker. Hmmm. There's a thought.
At any rate, on May 1, the knit along will begin, and I'll cover all the minute, gory details of how I do it. That's more for education and interest. The point of the EPS is being able to make choices, so I'll do all I can to accommodate and discuss them. I'm hoping everyone else shares their details, too. We'll all learn something, that's the idea.
Whee! Knitting! Brace for a hideously detailed gauge swatch! WITH MATH!
Oh, and go find a sweater or sweatshirt you like the fit of, 'cause you're gonna need it.
I was unwilling to track the killer germs through my local yarn store, so I hit WEBS and purchased the yarn for my sweater. (KNIT ALONG TO COMMENCE MAY 1!!)
For those joining in, it will be a slow start with discussion of fit, planning, and swatch knitting. You'll have plenty of time to get organized before we cast on the actual sweater. So if you're still getting yourself situated, that's fine. This is going to be a leisurely kind of KAL.
There have been questions about knitting cardigans, V-necks, and other types of things. I'm considering knitting a cardigan myself, so there will definitely be discussion of methods. BE PREPARED TO STEEK. This is an EPS sweater, based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Percentage System. She'd have never knit a sweater flat, so we won't either. I'm not as fundamentally opposed to purling as EZ was, but I'll definitely steek before I knit a whole darn sweater flat.
Maybe, after we do this one, we'll do another, top down this time, based on EPS AND Barbara Walker. Hmmm. There's a thought.
At any rate, on May 1, the knit along will begin, and I'll cover all the minute, gory details of how I do it. That's more for education and interest. The point of the EPS is being able to make choices, so I'll do all I can to accommodate and discuss them. I'm hoping everyone else shares their details, too. We'll all learn something, that's the idea.
Whee! Knitting! Brace for a hideously detailed gauge swatch! WITH MATH!
Oh, and go find a sweater or sweatshirt you like the fit of, 'cause you're gonna need it.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Furthermore...
(If you're here for fiber content and don't give a fig about education philosophies, SCROLL DOWN!)
I've been thinking a lot about what folks have shared, over schooling and kids and related topics. I didn't expect to hit the nerve I did - I was worried about people thinking I was criticizing their children or their jobs. Apparently that wasn't much of a worry. Interesting.
I guess, what it comes down to, is that children are individual and have different needs. (Ohmigosh. REALLY?) We all seem to have figured that out, except for the government wonks who decide policies for this stuff. Some children CAN be pushed hard, and some even enjoy it. By all means fast track those kids. Some kids need more repetition and should be able to get it without slowing down the entire classroom or being criticized. And most children are fine in that zone between the other two. The old system of placing kids by skill rather than age had a lot of things going for it (so long as we didn't send eight year olds to college, I still think that's a tricky situation).
The Goober in particular is thriving with the current system we've got going. I may think some (more than some) things she's learning are ridiculous, but she's learning them. There's a lot of the curricula I think is screwy, but again, I can customize a great deal so it's no big deal. (Though... Venn Diagrams? In Kindergarten? Seriously?)
The 'creative spelling' topic came up in the comments. The school advocates it, but I don't. (Yay for customizing.) There's whole lot of "it is okay for your child to write however they want" in the parental handbook. I disagree. I'm with my blog readers, in that it's best to start the kid off doing things as closely as possible to correct. I've stressed that it's important to write like everyone else (both in spelling and penmanship) so that we can all understand each other. I've even told her that her ideas on grammar are more logical (because they are), but we still have to do it like everyone else. Obviously she's not getting things right on the first try, but we're working to get there. I don't know about neural pathways, but it just seems dumb to let a kid do things wrong without even attempting to correct. It'll make things harder later, one way or another.
Anyway, thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts. Those of you who went anonymous to disagree with me, you're certainly free to, but you don't have to. I enjoy disagreement, especially when it's laid out coherently like it has been in the comments. It gives me things to think about. There's a HUGE difference between "I disagree, and here is why" and "YOU SUCK!" While I will always sneer at the second type of comment, I enjoy the first.
---
Remember the knit-along coming up May 1? We're still doing it. For now, all you need to be doing is buying yarn. Any type, any weight, though I suggest worsted-ish so you can keep up with the rest of us. I'm still planning to use Cascade 220 for an adult size XL sweater, to give you an idea. For amounts, find a pattern for a stockinette sweater using the yarn you want, and buy enough to knit that. If it seems a little on the low side, get a skein for luck.
Do we need a knit-along button? Or a group on Ravelry? I fully intend to put all directions, commentary, and digressions up here on the blog for posterity, but a Ravelry group might make it easier to communicate questions... I don't know. Everyone's always free to comment or e-mail or bug me on Ravelry or Twitter, so it's not like I'm hard to find.
Thoughts?
I've been thinking a lot about what folks have shared, over schooling and kids and related topics. I didn't expect to hit the nerve I did - I was worried about people thinking I was criticizing their children or their jobs. Apparently that wasn't much of a worry. Interesting.
I guess, what it comes down to, is that children are individual and have different needs. (Ohmigosh. REALLY?) We all seem to have figured that out, except for the government wonks who decide policies for this stuff. Some children CAN be pushed hard, and some even enjoy it. By all means fast track those kids. Some kids need more repetition and should be able to get it without slowing down the entire classroom or being criticized. And most children are fine in that zone between the other two. The old system of placing kids by skill rather than age had a lot of things going for it (so long as we didn't send eight year olds to college, I still think that's a tricky situation).
The Goober in particular is thriving with the current system we've got going. I may think some (more than some) things she's learning are ridiculous, but she's learning them. There's a lot of the curricula I think is screwy, but again, I can customize a great deal so it's no big deal. (Though... Venn Diagrams? In Kindergarten? Seriously?)
The 'creative spelling' topic came up in the comments. The school advocates it, but I don't. (Yay for customizing.) There's whole lot of "it is okay for your child to write however they want" in the parental handbook. I disagree. I'm with my blog readers, in that it's best to start the kid off doing things as closely as possible to correct. I've stressed that it's important to write like everyone else (both in spelling and penmanship) so that we can all understand each other. I've even told her that her ideas on grammar are more logical (because they are), but we still have to do it like everyone else. Obviously she's not getting things right on the first try, but we're working to get there. I don't know about neural pathways, but it just seems dumb to let a kid do things wrong without even attempting to correct. It'll make things harder later, one way or another.
Anyway, thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts. Those of you who went anonymous to disagree with me, you're certainly free to, but you don't have to. I enjoy disagreement, especially when it's laid out coherently like it has been in the comments. It gives me things to think about. There's a HUGE difference between "I disagree, and here is why" and "YOU SUCK!" While I will always sneer at the second type of comment, I enjoy the first.
---
Remember the knit-along coming up May 1? We're still doing it. For now, all you need to be doing is buying yarn. Any type, any weight, though I suggest worsted-ish so you can keep up with the rest of us. I'm still planning to use Cascade 220 for an adult size XL sweater, to give you an idea. For amounts, find a pattern for a stockinette sweater using the yarn you want, and buy enough to knit that. If it seems a little on the low side, get a skein for luck.
Do we need a knit-along button? Or a group on Ravelry? I fully intend to put all directions, commentary, and digressions up here on the blog for posterity, but a Ravelry group might make it easier to communicate questions... I don't know. Everyone's always free to comment or e-mail or bug me on Ravelry or Twitter, so it's not like I'm hard to find.
Thoughts?
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Kindergarten.
NOTE: This post is intended more as a rhetorical question, WTF kind of thing. It's not aimed at parents, children, or teachers. If you're one of the handful of legislators who decide children's curricula in this country, then yeah, feel guilty or insulted, OR THINK ABOUT THIS. Otherwise? We're all stuck in this system together and my intention is not to insult anyone. Particularly not children.
I'm - well, WE'RE - in an odd sort of limbo situation here at my house. PA Cyber, the home schooling outfit we use, is in fact considered a charter school in this state. If I were to switch the Goober over to brick-and-mortar school, it would be treated as a transfer between two school districts, not a fresh enrollment. When I DID enroll the kid, it was done in person, with all the stuff (vaccine records, eye tests, you name it) that goes along with other public school admissions. We follow the same mandated state curricula as every other public school in Pennsylvania - we just do it at home, on the computer. The Goober has an official teacher with a degree and certificate and it is not me. I do not know how other states do this. I do not know how other home schooling outfits do this. I'm sure some home-schooling parents pull it out of their ass; I'm also sure that the majority of them follow a set curricula like I do, one way or another. I'm also sure there is HUGE variance between different public schools, private schools, home schools, and even classrooms across the hall from each other.
That said, because I'm home-schooling (sorta), I'm more intimately acquainted with what the Goober is learning than most parents probably are, whose children are in more traditional schools. (I AM NOT SAYING IT IS BAD OR GOOD, I'M ABSOLUTELY NOT IMPLYING ANYTHING ABOUT MYSELF OR OTHER PARENTS. IT JUST IS.) We're chugging our way through, and the Goober surprises me regularly, with what she knows and how fast she learns new stuff. She's reading well and learning to write and having a fine time. But I keep thinking one thing.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
The stuff they're expecting these kids to learn is completely ridiculous. I understand reading is fundamental and writing is right behind it on the scale of importance. BUT THIS IS BLEEDING KINDERGARTEN.
They've got these kids doing illustrated journal entries, BEFORE they formally teach them writing. This is stuff I didn't do until second grade, thirty-five years ago. Today's science lesson involved first learning what a chart is, drawing one, labeling it, then sorting animals into it by habitat. ONE SUBJECT. ONE DAY. Social studies seems to be concentrating on traditional kindergarten-level stuff like what a family is and conversing without being irritating. Science is going on ad nauseum about what makes a thing living or 'non-living'. Fine. But then they've got the kids reading and writing with no real lead-in.
When I was in kindergarten in the mid seventies, we spent the year learning social skills, basic counting, colors, shapes, and letters. There were three of us in the entire school district who started kindergarten knowing how to read, and they didn't know what to do with us and basically ignored us for the year. (We played and hung out with the other kids. No drama from administration or us.) Now? Kids are expected to know all of that going in. ALL OF IT. This was explained to me; apparently the kids are supposed to learn all that kindergarten stuff in preschool.
HUH?
Kindergarten was invented in the 1800s to basically acclimate kids to the idea of school, what to do in a class room, and lay the foundation for starting real school - FIRST GRADE, AS IN ONE - the next year. Now, what, they read War and Peace in first grade? Yes, yes, I know there are all sorts of psychological and educational justifications on why we're dumping all this shit on five year old children. I've read it all, while researching home school vs. formal school. They've certainly worked out their reasons and excuses.
Meanwhile, the problems children have in school here in the US are skyrocketing. Behavioral problems, developmental problems, anxiety, depression, you name it. Depressed five year olds. Statistically it's worrisome. No, it's horrifying. (Also, these charts with "unknown factor"? YEAH THANKS FOR THE HELP. Good gourd.)
But I wonder. (Of course I wonder. I think too much.) Is the problem really the kids, or the curricula? Imagine, it seems no one has done a study on this! Shock! Yes, some kids have problems. No, I am not claiming to know specifically what an exact cause for an exact child is. But here's a thought. Maybe so many kids are having problems, because we're pushing them too hard? Sure, some kids have always been able to read early, have been great at math early, have been skilled artists early. But is it fair to expect ALL THE CHILDREN to live up to that? Mozart wrote chamber music at age five. Should they expect all kids to do that?
Most of all, is it fair to the kids to have no fallback plan when they can't live up to it?
I'm - well, WE'RE - in an odd sort of limbo situation here at my house. PA Cyber, the home schooling outfit we use, is in fact considered a charter school in this state. If I were to switch the Goober over to brick-and-mortar school, it would be treated as a transfer between two school districts, not a fresh enrollment. When I DID enroll the kid, it was done in person, with all the stuff (vaccine records, eye tests, you name it) that goes along with other public school admissions. We follow the same mandated state curricula as every other public school in Pennsylvania - we just do it at home, on the computer. The Goober has an official teacher with a degree and certificate and it is not me. I do not know how other states do this. I do not know how other home schooling outfits do this. I'm sure some home-schooling parents pull it out of their ass; I'm also sure that the majority of them follow a set curricula like I do, one way or another. I'm also sure there is HUGE variance between different public schools, private schools, home schools, and even classrooms across the hall from each other.
That said, because I'm home-schooling (sorta), I'm more intimately acquainted with what the Goober is learning than most parents probably are, whose children are in more traditional schools. (I AM NOT SAYING IT IS BAD OR GOOD, I'M ABSOLUTELY NOT IMPLYING ANYTHING ABOUT MYSELF OR OTHER PARENTS. IT JUST IS.) We're chugging our way through, and the Goober surprises me regularly, with what she knows and how fast she learns new stuff. She's reading well and learning to write and having a fine time. But I keep thinking one thing.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
The stuff they're expecting these kids to learn is completely ridiculous. I understand reading is fundamental and writing is right behind it on the scale of importance. BUT THIS IS BLEEDING KINDERGARTEN.
They've got these kids doing illustrated journal entries, BEFORE they formally teach them writing. This is stuff I didn't do until second grade, thirty-five years ago. Today's science lesson involved first learning what a chart is, drawing one, labeling it, then sorting animals into it by habitat. ONE SUBJECT. ONE DAY. Social studies seems to be concentrating on traditional kindergarten-level stuff like what a family is and conversing without being irritating. Science is going on ad nauseum about what makes a thing living or 'non-living'. Fine. But then they've got the kids reading and writing with no real lead-in.
When I was in kindergarten in the mid seventies, we spent the year learning social skills, basic counting, colors, shapes, and letters. There were three of us in the entire school district who started kindergarten knowing how to read, and they didn't know what to do with us and basically ignored us for the year. (We played and hung out with the other kids. No drama from administration or us.) Now? Kids are expected to know all of that going in. ALL OF IT. This was explained to me; apparently the kids are supposed to learn all that kindergarten stuff in preschool.
HUH?
Kindergarten was invented in the 1800s to basically acclimate kids to the idea of school, what to do in a class room, and lay the foundation for starting real school - FIRST GRADE, AS IN ONE - the next year. Now, what, they read War and Peace in first grade? Yes, yes, I know there are all sorts of psychological and educational justifications on why we're dumping all this shit on five year old children. I've read it all, while researching home school vs. formal school. They've certainly worked out their reasons and excuses.
Meanwhile, the problems children have in school here in the US are skyrocketing. Behavioral problems, developmental problems, anxiety, depression, you name it. Depressed five year olds. Statistically it's worrisome. No, it's horrifying. (Also, these charts with "unknown factor"? YEAH THANKS FOR THE HELP. Good gourd.)
But I wonder. (Of course I wonder. I think too much.) Is the problem really the kids, or the curricula? Imagine, it seems no one has done a study on this! Shock! Yes, some kids have problems. No, I am not claiming to know specifically what an exact cause for an exact child is. But here's a thought. Maybe so many kids are having problems, because we're pushing them too hard? Sure, some kids have always been able to read early, have been great at math early, have been skilled artists early. But is it fair to expect ALL THE CHILDREN to live up to that? Mozart wrote chamber music at age five. Should they expect all kids to do that?
Most of all, is it fair to the kids to have no fallback plan when they can't live up to it?
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Not knitting, but damn fine.
The husbeast is a serious gadget-head, which is probably news to no one. A while back, he got cords and stuff so we could hook my external hard drive to my TV, and further, run my computer through the TV. Plants Vs. Zombies on the flat screen. Jolly good fun. Or, you know, gigantic Twitter.
I've also been running iTunes through the TV/bass speaker setup and rocking out on the daily grind. (The Goober got in big trouble last week after throwing a fit when I switched from rock to classical.)
A couple weeks ago, the husbeast came home and found me seated on the foot stool, typing on my computer on the console table so I could blast music and write at the same time. We were chatting about it (he loves to see me writing because it means I feel pretty good and I'm not drugged to the gills) and he mentioned a cordless keyboard so I could write while laying on the couch. I replied with something like "what would make that PERFECT would be one of those gamer chairs like we saw when we were buying the living room furniture."
Next thing I know?
Innit sweeeeeeet? The husbeast, I mean, not that chair-stealing bag of fur in the picture.
I'm using the setup now to write this. Near as I can tell, there are only two drawbacks. One is my orthopedic mess; getting out of this seat will take a bit of practice, and I'm not sure it makes my shoulders happy. (Screw it. I needed more motivation to do my shoulder exercises, and HERE IT IS.) Second isn't exactly a drawback. Or not entirely. The TV screen doesn't have as much definition as my computer screen. So I have to wear my glasses to see anything I'm writing. BUT, because of the fuzzier screen definition, I can run video AND a bunch of other things at the same time. Not a bad trade off.
Now, I am going to go read Girl Genius and pretend it is IMAX for comics.
A couple weeks ago, the husbeast came home and found me seated on the foot stool, typing on my computer on the console table so I could blast music and write at the same time. We were chatting about it (he loves to see me writing because it means I feel pretty good and I'm not drugged to the gills) and he mentioned a cordless keyboard so I could write while laying on the couch. I replied with something like "what would make that PERFECT would be one of those gamer chairs like we saw when we were buying the living room furniture."
Next thing I know?
I'm using the setup now to write this. Near as I can tell, there are only two drawbacks. One is my orthopedic mess; getting out of this seat will take a bit of practice, and I'm not sure it makes my shoulders happy. (Screw it. I needed more motivation to do my shoulder exercises, and HERE IT IS.) Second isn't exactly a drawback. Or not entirely. The TV screen doesn't have as much definition as my computer screen. So I have to wear my glasses to see anything I'm writing. BUT, because of the fuzzier screen definition, I can run video AND a bunch of other things at the same time. Not a bad trade off.
Now, I am going to go read Girl Genius and pretend it is IMAX for comics.
Monday, April 11, 2011
That damn finger.
I was going to try to avoid getting graphic and posting a picture of my cut finger. But, everyone had good suggestions (that unfortunately won't work for one reason or another) and my finger's not so bad, so, what the hell. Here, then, is the damn finger.
Keeping in mind that I knit Continental, it's like I set out to fuck with my ability to knit. I don't think I could have done worse with planning and deliberate effort. I was using a bread knife with serrations, with a pretty drastic sawing motion (serrations work best when the knife moves laterally as much as possible). The cut went nearly to the bone. The husbeast scoffs a bit at this (politely), but he wasn't there to see me pull the damn knife out of my finger, and he sure as hell didn't feel the teeth bumping through my skin. Blech. (The Goober, however, was mightily impressed when she saw me dripping blood into the sink.) Anyway, since it's been a week, I'm sure it's not infected, which means it will, eventually, heal just fine. It's the meantime that's making me squirrelly.
With where the cut is, I can't just ignore it. Yarn and loose fiber catch on the edge of the cut and pull it open. (And what a lovely feeling that is.) I am one of those really strange people to whom Super Glue does not stick. So that's out. Seriously. I glued it shut to do some cleaning, and the glue held for about two hours before peeling off - and you can see, that's not a spot in my finger that's bendy. Bandages, finger condoms (ha) and gloves are also out because they all fuck with my ability to control/hang on to yarn and fiber. Remember, my right hand is already fucked up, so my left hand compensates. Basically, I've got nowhere to go but bonkers.
Really, if this is the worst health crisis I have this year, it's gonna be a great year. I was just, um, a lot frustrated yesterday when I wrote that blog post. I AM able to skein yarn with a bandage on my finger, so I'll get on that. And take lots of pictures when I dye it.
Plus, I have Phineas and Ferb Band-Aids. So I'm cool. (When I bought them, the Goober informed the checkout clerk "those are for MOM". Thanks a lot, kid.)
---
In other news, Sekhmet has been guarding her kitten.
I don't know why, and I know better than to ask.
With where the cut is, I can't just ignore it. Yarn and loose fiber catch on the edge of the cut and pull it open. (And what a lovely feeling that is.) I am one of those really strange people to whom Super Glue does not stick. So that's out. Seriously. I glued it shut to do some cleaning, and the glue held for about two hours before peeling off - and you can see, that's not a spot in my finger that's bendy. Bandages, finger condoms (ha) and gloves are also out because they all fuck with my ability to control/hang on to yarn and fiber. Remember, my right hand is already fucked up, so my left hand compensates. Basically, I've got nowhere to go but bonkers.
Really, if this is the worst health crisis I have this year, it's gonna be a great year. I was just, um, a lot frustrated yesterday when I wrote that blog post. I AM able to skein yarn with a bandage on my finger, so I'll get on that. And take lots of pictures when I dye it.
Plus, I have Phineas and Ferb Band-Aids. So I'm cool. (When I bought them, the Goober informed the checkout clerk "those are for MOM". Thanks a lot, kid.)
---
In other news, Sekhmet has been guarding her kitten.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
What's this?
Could it be... potential fiber fun?
Yup. Acid dyes. I've messed with a few, not in any sort of competent way. But with this cut finger, being unable to knit or spin, well, I've gotta do SOMETHING. So I guess what I'm doing is learning how to use industrial dyes better.
There's just one drawback.
I want to knit this blanket. We need a knit blanket for the living room, and all proceeds go to help Japan, and I think it's really pretty. All good things. Figuring it was a fine time to learn more about industrial dyes, I thought I could dye the yarn, since it will look best in a variegated but it's not vital that the colors be short or long or anything in particular. Dandy. WEBS was having their sale and I've been on a Cascade 220 kick, so I ordered in seven skeins of superwash to dye and knit up. You know how regular Cascade 220 comes in skeins?
NOT THE SUPERWASH.
Bugger.
Now I've got to skein up over 1500 yards of yarn, dye it, wash it, then ball it back up, and THEN knit it. Right. Might be ready to knit by the time my damn cut finger heals. It has been a week. I took the bandage off today, thinking I could give some knitting a try. Didn't get that far. HAS NOT HEALED YET.This had better not be some Actual Problem. No sign of infection, it seems to have closed, it's just still a damn cut. Remind me I'm not 17 and cuts do not heal that fast any more. HAS NOT HEALED YET.
Bugger.
I never thought I relied on spinning and knitting for my sanity so much. You know, fun hobby, blah blah. IF I DO NOT MAKE SOMETHING SOON I WILL LOSE MY MIND AND TAKE THE REST OF YOU WITH ME. I've got maybe ten (short) rounds and some grafting left to do on the Goob's sweater. I have a knit-along coming up on May 1. I HAVE STUFF TO DO. BONKERS.
HAS NOT HEALED YET.
Buggering fuck. HEAL YOU DAMN FINGER!
There's just one drawback.
I want to knit this blanket. We need a knit blanket for the living room, and all proceeds go to help Japan, and I think it's really pretty. All good things. Figuring it was a fine time to learn more about industrial dyes, I thought I could dye the yarn, since it will look best in a variegated but it's not vital that the colors be short or long or anything in particular. Dandy. WEBS was having their sale and I've been on a Cascade 220 kick, so I ordered in seven skeins of superwash to dye and knit up. You know how regular Cascade 220 comes in skeins?
Bugger.
Now I've got to skein up over 1500 yards of yarn, dye it, wash it, then ball it back up, and THEN knit it. Right. Might be ready to knit by the time my damn cut finger heals. It has been a week. I took the bandage off today, thinking I could give some knitting a try. Didn't get that far. HAS NOT HEALED YET.This had better not be some Actual Problem. No sign of infection, it seems to have closed, it's just still a damn cut. Remind me I'm not 17 and cuts do not heal that fast any more. HAS NOT HEALED YET.
Bugger.
I never thought I relied on spinning and knitting for my sanity so much. You know, fun hobby, blah blah. IF I DO NOT MAKE SOMETHING SOON I WILL LOSE MY MIND AND TAKE THE REST OF YOU WITH ME. I've got maybe ten (short) rounds and some grafting left to do on the Goob's sweater. I have a knit-along coming up on May 1. I HAVE STUFF TO DO. BONKERS.
HAS NOT HEALED YET.
Buggering fuck. HEAL YOU DAMN FINGER!
Thursday, April 07, 2011
What's going on.
Nothing. Nothing fibery, anyway.
This is my left index finger. Last weekend I cut it nearly to the bone with a bread knife. (The sucky part was feeling the serrations go through.) Since the husbeast keeps the knives fucking sharp around here, minor cuts are kind of rare. It is healing fine and there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage, but I've got to keep a bandage on it to keep dirt out of it. The bandages make things awkward.
It turns out that I use my left index finger for a lot more than I'd have thought. Since I knit continental, I need it to carry yarn, WITHOUT snagging on anything like, oh, a bandage. So no knitting. And drafting fiber? Forget it. Ever gotten fiber stuck in a bandaid? NOT VERY ATTRACTIVE. And I'm not going to ATTEMPT plying.
So, I started writing a novel. What the hell. We'll see how it goes. At the least, I've not gone bonkers in five whole days without knitting. That's something.
Oh, the bandaid? Curious George. I switch off between that and Hello Kitty. I haven't touched the Tinkerbell bandages. The Goober would have a fit.
---
In other news, Sekhmet is a fucker.
The Goober took that picture. Not bad, huh?
It turns out that I use my left index finger for a lot more than I'd have thought. Since I knit continental, I need it to carry yarn, WITHOUT snagging on anything like, oh, a bandage. So no knitting. And drafting fiber? Forget it. Ever gotten fiber stuck in a bandaid? NOT VERY ATTRACTIVE. And I'm not going to ATTEMPT plying.
So, I started writing a novel. What the hell. We'll see how it goes. At the least, I've not gone bonkers in five whole days without knitting. That's something.
Oh, the bandaid? Curious George. I switch off between that and Hello Kitty. I haven't touched the Tinkerbell bandages. The Goober would have a fit.
---
In other news, Sekhmet is a fucker.
Monday, April 04, 2011
Silverswords!
Silverswords are native to Hawaii and only grow there, mostly on the islands of Maui and Hawaii (the newest ones). They grow in fresh volcanic soil, and are in fact one of the first plants to move in after a volcanic eruption, which is why I think they should be the state flower. (The state flower is actually the hibiscus.) Silverswords are flowering plants, in the Aster family. It's assumed that some wind-borne seeds blew through to Hawaii from the Americas sometime in the last seven thousand years, and proceeded to adapt like crazy into the plants we know now. Because they flower, they hybridize like mad. Every time they think one is extinct, a hybrid turns up somewhere.
The freaky growing conditions (acidic, volcanic soil, high altitude, cool-to-cold temperatures), these little guys are always classified as endangered. They DO have limited ecosystems, and they aren't very many in number. But honestly? They grow in such incredibly isolated places that no one's really sure how well they're doing. Within those growing conditions, they seem all right.
Back when we lived in Hawaii, the in-laws came to visit. We all went on a tour of the islands, and one of the things we did was drive to the top of Haleakala, the not-quite-dormant volcano on Maui. I was a plant freak, so I was hoping I might be able to spot a silversword. I didn't have much hope, though, because they're endangered. So, we get to the summit, get out of the car - and I nearly tripped over a silversword growing right next to the parking lot. (In fact, if you look at the top picture, you can see a sliver of curb and parking lot in the upper right.) It was about the size of a soccer ball, and seemed to be thriving away.
They were all over the place, within their own little ecosystem.
You'll find that a lot with Hawaiian plants - many have VERY limited habitats, but within the habitat, they're doing as well as they ever did. Some Hawaiian plants have habitats measured in acres. Calling them endangered seems misleading, though I'm not sure what else we're supposed to call them. Really freaky? Limited? Hawaiian?
Oh, and one last bit. If you're going to remember one thing, remember this: Hawaiian plants often have very fragile root systems. So don't go tromping up to one, if you ever see one. And if you do, don't complain when a gardener jumps you. (One of my teachers regularly threatened the lives of the school's groundskeepers for driving mowers near her indigenous trees.)
Maybe tomorrow, I'll have something fibery to say. For now, I'm hitting "publish" before lightning strikes again.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Overwhelmed and freaked out.
(For anyone wanting fiber blogging, scroll down. There's a bit at the bottom.)
This week we got the first quarter of the Goober's new home-schooling curricula from PA Cyber. We'd decided to continue home-schooling next year for a long list of reasons (one of those deals where no one reason was a deciding factor, but when you made a list, it was easy to see). Due to that, facing the fact that this might not be stop-gap due to local school district pigheadedness but an actual PLAN, I shifted the plan. I went from a more traditional, on-paper system to one that's more computer-based. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, and in moments of clarity when I'm not freaking out, it STILL seems like a good idea.
Then the boxes came in the mail. We got ONE QUARTER of supplies. Not the full year, a single nine-week quarter's worth. Remember that when looking at the following photos. ONE. QUARTER. We got three freaking boxes for ONE. QUARTER.
Parent's manual, check.
Just looking at it makes me crave tranquilizers. The accompanying work books make a stack equally high, but that's okay 'cause kid's worksheets are heavy on pictures and take up space. MINE IS ALL TEXT. Give me a minute for a good old Victorian swoon.
Books? Yeah. This part BLOWS ME AWAY, in the best way possible. Let's encourage kids to read. Let's give them good books. Check.
One box was entirely full of children's books. Some are used for lessons, but many are just in there to give the kids reading material. These aren't crap books, either!
Many are Caldecott and/or Newberry Award winners or honorees, and the rest are very obviously relevant and apply. (One fave is a children's biography of Thomas Edison.) The Goober has been poring over them for three days and is totally psyched.
Another box held science lesson and other school supplies. Someone thoughtfully put it all in one of those giant fifty quart plastic bins we all use to store yarn in. There's a tool box. There's a bag of dirt and seeds and even peat pots. Two magnet boards, a two-inch-thick pile of tri-ruled kid's writing paper. The zinger?
Kid's got her own freakin' balance scale.
Mind you, this is on top of the box of supplies we got last October that contained a foot-high pile of writing and construction paper. I could open my own office supply store at the moment.
Really, the curricula is great. It's a simple, step-by-step operation that is really well done, if I'd just chill the hell out. Each day has its own little check list of computer, on-paper, and other activities. All I have to do is work through it step by step, like a really giant algebra problem.
Algebra made me freak out, too.
---
Otherwise. Spinning. Spinning chills me out, so I've been doing that.
I am finally plying the Steampunk yarn. This is the unadorned skein (I'm doing three, total). No beads or prickly gears in this one, so that my friend can knit collars and cuffs and other close-to-the-skin bits with it and not mangle her skin. I can't see it too well in the photo but there's a 'ply' of copper metallic thread in there with the black and colored plies.
---
Sekhmet has been helping me do PT.
Fucker.
Oh, geez. Me in my pajamas on the floor. MOST FLATTERING PHOTO EVER.
---
And, um, that's about it. I'm almost done with the Goob Sweater. I'm on the neck ribbing. Once that's half-grated down, I'll graft the arm pits, darn in the ends, and it's done.I could do it in a day if I'd quit freaking the hell out.
Pictures soon.
This week we got the first quarter of the Goober's new home-schooling curricula from PA Cyber. We'd decided to continue home-schooling next year for a long list of reasons (one of those deals where no one reason was a deciding factor, but when you made a list, it was easy to see). Due to that, facing the fact that this might not be stop-gap due to local school district pigheadedness but an actual PLAN, I shifted the plan. I went from a more traditional, on-paper system to one that's more computer-based. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, and in moments of clarity when I'm not freaking out, it STILL seems like a good idea.
Then the boxes came in the mail. We got ONE QUARTER of supplies. Not the full year, a single nine-week quarter's worth. Remember that when looking at the following photos. ONE. QUARTER. We got three freaking boxes for ONE. QUARTER.
Parent's manual, check.
Books? Yeah. This part BLOWS ME AWAY, in the best way possible. Let's encourage kids to read. Let's give them good books. Check.
Another box held science lesson and other school supplies. Someone thoughtfully put it all in one of those giant fifty quart plastic bins we all use to store yarn in. There's a tool box. There's a bag of dirt and seeds and even peat pots. Two magnet boards, a two-inch-thick pile of tri-ruled kid's writing paper. The zinger?
Mind you, this is on top of the box of supplies we got last October that contained a foot-high pile of writing and construction paper. I could open my own office supply store at the moment.
Really, the curricula is great. It's a simple, step-by-step operation that is really well done, if I'd just chill the hell out. Each day has its own little check list of computer, on-paper, and other activities. All I have to do is work through it step by step, like a really giant algebra problem.
Algebra made me freak out, too.
---
Otherwise. Spinning. Spinning chills me out, so I've been doing that.
---
Sekhmet has been helping me do PT.
Oh, geez. Me in my pajamas on the floor. MOST FLATTERING PHOTO EVER.
---
And, um, that's about it. I'm almost done with the Goob Sweater. I'm on the neck ribbing. Once that's half-grated down, I'll graft the arm pits, darn in the ends, and it's done.I could do it in a day if I'd quit freaking the hell out.
Pictures soon.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Foundations.
No, not foundation garments. The actual foundations of buildings! (All photos are mine except for the one at Fort Pitt and the last one.)
When we were shopping for our house, being me, I read a couple-ten books on architecture, home building, building materials, and like that. It gave me a great background for looking at houses, but it also helped me know what I was looking at, in places I never intended to buy anything.
We're in an area that's been settled since the 1700s. So it's not uncommon to see a beautifully restored building, but when you take a good look at it, you see stuff like this:
Namely, original foundations of buildings, cobbled together out of gods-know-what. So, being me, I started poking at the history of things.
There were fur trappers in the area back in the 1660s, but it wasn't until the French built a fort in the 1750s that the area was stable enough to settle in a serious way. I'm sure the first shelters (I can't call them houses) were relatives of tents or extremely rustic log cabins built right on the ground, and they haven't survived. When first settling an area like this, Europeans were too busy trying to live though cold and heat and panthers and finding food to expend much effort on fancy buildings. The oldest surviving building in Pittsburgh is part of Fort Pitt built in 1764:
If you can see it, it's cobbled together with rocks. Some are dressed (smoothed into a brick shape of some kind) and some aren't. Back then, they were building with whatever they could scrape out of a river bed or hillside. They favored sand stone (it's soft enough to work with a hammer and chisel, which is about all they had) and shale and slate - both of which break in smooth chunks. You wind up with something like this:
This is from a place closer to my house, also built in the 1760s. It's kind of interesting; the back walls are built like this, with random rocks, but the front of the house is dressed stones:
So in the 1760s, dressed stone was still a good bit of trouble to go to.
Larger, heavier buildings like barns were also built in a 'compound' sort of way - the corners of the foundation are built up with super heavy, solid, dressed stones, and timbers were run from corner to corner to corner. The timbers support the upper portion of the building, and then the rest of the foundation walls were filled in with anything they could find in terms of stones. Most around here (no good pictures, sorry) look like they were done with slate or shale - I don't envy them the job. Even way back, builders realized random rocks weren't enough for load-bearing, and hauled in the good stuff for that. But they didn't haul any more than they had to. Considering they were using horses, block and tackle, who could blame them?
The problem with the 'pile of rocks' building method is the cement. (At least, here where I am. Different parts of the world have different problems.) Because the sides of the rocks aren't parallel, the cement is required not only to anchor the stones, but also to fill in uneven spaces and bear a lot of weight. And this was at a time and place when cement-making was done in people's back yards or a quarry, by people who didn't exactly have PhDs in materials engineering. (I'm talking about actually making the cement, not mixing it together.) So, many of the houses around here have either had entirely new foundations built for them, or have had all kinds of re-mortaring done.
Travel - and therefore shipping any kind of building materials - between civilization (East Coast) and the Pittsburgh area was problematic for many years. You could either go by land in a wagon (through malarial swamps, freezing mountains, and over horrific roads), or by river (also malarial) which required a trip through New Orleans and up the Mississippi. Because of that, building materials were still on-the-spot productions, so everything in this area was stone, wood, and sketchy mortar. In 1834 a canal and rail line went through from Buffalo to Pittsburgh, and in 1854 rail travel from Philly to Pittsburgh became possible. After that, shipping in cement became easier and the quality of buildings went up steadily. I'll bet you this area produced better window glass than cement, for a couple decades at least. It's all in what kinds of raw materials were laying around.
In fact, due to the raw material situation, there was a thing sort of like a cinder block made, that is in fact a type of stoneware/ceramic:
They're actually pretty good at load-bearing and were used for decades until being phased out by cinder block. Sort of. I bet they're still on the market. Of houses built before WW2, I bet 1/3 or more have foundations of these types of block. In this area, anyway. (We've got lots of clay and the stuff to make glaze.) See the coal chute? Love old houses.
Bricks of course seem obvious to us as a building material. But the problem for a long time was transporting them, not making them. Here in PA, even with railroads, getting the bricks from a rail line into the valleys and hills to a building site was still brutal. Since this area is full of clay and gravel and other brick-making materials, they made a lot of them right on the spot.
Which led to a lot of buildings settling weirdly and otherwise slowly disintegrating because the bricks weren't fired right. See the patching being done between the first and second floor windows? Bricks need to be fired at about 1750F/950C to properly bear weight later and not gradually turn to dust. That's not a temperature you're going to produce with a wood fire out in your back yard, or at least not easily - not to mention, the temperature needs to be held steady for a while or, yeah, they slowly turn to dust again.
So, even though the valleys here are full of clay, bricks were still pretty tricky to make and build with.
Cinder blocks, our current go-to for building foundations, is a fairly new invention. Especially the mass-production of them. But like so much else, the real problem with cinder block isn't really making it - it's transporting the damn things. They came into 'common use' in the 1920s along the east coast, and from the looks of it around here, were used here since about the 1930s. But, just a decade ago, I remember hearing a friend in the building supply biz in Hawaii telling me about a shipment of cinder blocks coming in with a 50% breakage rate. That was about normal. Those suckers are oddly fragile.
Now, with the whole world of building supplies available, people who can afford anything, what do they do?
They build with barely dressed stone.
People are so damn weird.
When we were shopping for our house, being me, I read a couple-ten books on architecture, home building, building materials, and like that. It gave me a great background for looking at houses, but it also helped me know what I was looking at, in places I never intended to buy anything.
We're in an area that's been settled since the 1700s. So it's not uncommon to see a beautifully restored building, but when you take a good look at it, you see stuff like this:
There were fur trappers in the area back in the 1660s, but it wasn't until the French built a fort in the 1750s that the area was stable enough to settle in a serious way. I'm sure the first shelters (I can't call them houses) were relatives of tents or extremely rustic log cabins built right on the ground, and they haven't survived. When first settling an area like this, Europeans were too busy trying to live though cold and heat and panthers and finding food to expend much effort on fancy buildings. The oldest surviving building in Pittsburgh is part of Fort Pitt built in 1764:
Larger, heavier buildings like barns were also built in a 'compound' sort of way - the corners of the foundation are built up with super heavy, solid, dressed stones, and timbers were run from corner to corner to corner. The timbers support the upper portion of the building, and then the rest of the foundation walls were filled in with anything they could find in terms of stones. Most around here (no good pictures, sorry) look like they were done with slate or shale - I don't envy them the job. Even way back, builders realized random rocks weren't enough for load-bearing, and hauled in the good stuff for that. But they didn't haul any more than they had to. Considering they were using horses, block and tackle, who could blame them?
The problem with the 'pile of rocks' building method is the cement. (At least, here where I am. Different parts of the world have different problems.) Because the sides of the rocks aren't parallel, the cement is required not only to anchor the stones, but also to fill in uneven spaces and bear a lot of weight. And this was at a time and place when cement-making was done in people's back yards or a quarry, by people who didn't exactly have PhDs in materials engineering. (I'm talking about actually making the cement, not mixing it together.) So, many of the houses around here have either had entirely new foundations built for them, or have had all kinds of re-mortaring done.
Travel - and therefore shipping any kind of building materials - between civilization (East Coast) and the Pittsburgh area was problematic for many years. You could either go by land in a wagon (through malarial swamps, freezing mountains, and over horrific roads), or by river (also malarial) which required a trip through New Orleans and up the Mississippi. Because of that, building materials were still on-the-spot productions, so everything in this area was stone, wood, and sketchy mortar. In 1834 a canal and rail line went through from Buffalo to Pittsburgh, and in 1854 rail travel from Philly to Pittsburgh became possible. After that, shipping in cement became easier and the quality of buildings went up steadily. I'll bet you this area produced better window glass than cement, for a couple decades at least. It's all in what kinds of raw materials were laying around.
In fact, due to the raw material situation, there was a thing sort of like a cinder block made, that is in fact a type of stoneware/ceramic:
Bricks of course seem obvious to us as a building material. But the problem for a long time was transporting them, not making them. Here in PA, even with railroads, getting the bricks from a rail line into the valleys and hills to a building site was still brutal. Since this area is full of clay and gravel and other brick-making materials, they made a lot of them right on the spot.
So, even though the valleys here are full of clay, bricks were still pretty tricky to make and build with.
Cinder blocks, our current go-to for building foundations, is a fairly new invention. Especially the mass-production of them. But like so much else, the real problem with cinder block isn't really making it - it's transporting the damn things. They came into 'common use' in the 1920s along the east coast, and from the looks of it around here, were used here since about the 1930s. But, just a decade ago, I remember hearing a friend in the building supply biz in Hawaii telling me about a shipment of cinder blocks coming in with a 50% breakage rate. That was about normal. Those suckers are oddly fragile.
Now, with the whole world of building supplies available, people who can afford anything, what do they do?
They build with barely dressed stone.
People are so damn weird.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Down the rabbit hole.
UP FRONT DISCLAIMER to lower stress levels: We are fine. Not even property damage.
I grew up four counties west of where I'm living now. Quite a distance in culture, but I didn't think so far in terms of geography or meteorology. This isn't even my first spring in SW PA. I survived last winter's three foot snowfall and all the rest just one county away. So, you know, I thought I kind of had a handle on the weather.
Wrong.
We had thunderstorm and tornado warnings go up around two this afternoon. Not so unusual. So, I opened the window and door (so I could hear high winds; with all the trees and hills the odds of me seeing a funnel cloud in time for it to be useful are about nil) and mostly didn't care. I'd just gotten done tweeting that a tornado was very unlikely when SOMETHING hit the skylight. Hard. So I went to the back window to look.
No, not a tornado. Hail. Lots of really big hail.
It pounded down for quite a while. Lots of reports of roof damage, busted windows, and dented cars. No damage to our house, though.
After, the Goober and I went outside to take a look at the husbeast's truck, and I found this:
This was the biggest one I could find. It's about two inches wide and three inches long.
After the report of a mine flooding someone's BASEMENT on Monday, this just tops it. It is official. I live in Weird Land.
I grew up four counties west of where I'm living now. Quite a distance in culture, but I didn't think so far in terms of geography or meteorology. This isn't even my first spring in SW PA. I survived last winter's three foot snowfall and all the rest just one county away. So, you know, I thought I kind of had a handle on the weather.
Wrong.
We had thunderstorm and tornado warnings go up around two this afternoon. Not so unusual. So, I opened the window and door (so I could hear high winds; with all the trees and hills the odds of me seeing a funnel cloud in time for it to be useful are about nil) and mostly didn't care. I'd just gotten done tweeting that a tornado was very unlikely when SOMETHING hit the skylight. Hard. So I went to the back window to look.
After, the Goober and I went outside to take a look at the husbeast's truck, and I found this:
After the report of a mine flooding someone's BASEMENT on Monday, this just tops it. It is official. I live in Weird Land.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Yee fuckin' haw!
Also, the husbeast left the house wearing this today:
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Where the hell I've been.
Actually, believe it or not, I've been knitting. Figure that.
Since the 5th of March, I've knit about 2/3 of a sweater for the Goober. It's a simple, percentage-system raglan pullover. (In fact, that's what gave me the idea for the upcoming knit-along.) I did a sleeve in two days this week. The other sleeve is nearly done. Then it's just the yoke left. I'm really enjoying the Cascade 220, to the point that I think I'll be doing most of my design this year with it. "Designs", oooh, listen to me. Made up patterns sounds more realistic. ToMAYto, toMAHto.
I meant to take photos, but, hey. Brain fart. I'll be sure to do a full-on photo shoot with the Goober when it's done. She's very excited by the idea of me knitting something for her. (Even though I spun her a scarf and then knit it, this winter; apparently that's not 'real clothes'.) She picked the color, and so she's very happy. I can't wait until she's a little older and can draw her design ideas that I can then knit for her. That would be fun for both of us.
Is there something in little girls that hard-wires their retinas, so that purple is their favorite color?
---
When I'm not knitting, I've been wandering around the yard, pleased.
Bulbs of all kinds (except hyacinth, which make me sneeze) are my all-time favorite decorative flower. They're pretty much perfect. They don't require any special treatment. You plant them, you ignore them, you admire them for two weeks as they bloom. You let the greens grow for a month or two to 'recharge' the bulbs. Then you cut them back and ignore them until they bloom again. No watering, no pesticide, no fertilizer. No waste of resources. Just pretty colors and the thrill of spring returning.
Last autumn I went wild and bought almost 100 bulbs - tulips, crocus, iris, daffodils. Several types of each. I'd never have gotten them all planted without the husbeast's help. But he did help, and pretty much the last nice day we had last October, we planted while the Goober ran around the yard. Now I've got those memories AND the thrill of spring coming up.
Next, I start ripping out the established landscaping to replace worthless deer bait with plants I'll actually use. I'm hoping to rip out the topiaries by the front door using brute force (my Jeep). I'd like to burn them and dance on the ashes. But I'll probably settle for planting some smaller flowering shrubs in their place. Something that doesn't need pruned with nail clippers twice a year. Eeesh. Who in hell plants topiary?
---
Oh - they think they may have really found Atlantis this time. I'm watching a documentary on it. Needs to be a blog post.
---
What else have I been doing?
It took me a full day to find the floor of the Goober's room. And I'm not done. My back hurts just looking at the pictures.
---
The other day, the Goob and I went to Target. I bought a pet bed for Sekhmet. The Goober, who is becoming even more freaky smart as she learns to read, spotted a dog bone embroidered on the front of the bed, and we had the following discussion. Paraphrased a bit, but I remember it pretty clearly:
GOOB: Mum, we can't get that for Sekhmet. That's a DOG bed. See, there's a bone on it. That's for DOGS.
ME: Baby, Sekhmet's bigger than some dogs. It'll be fine.
GOOB: But it's a DOG bed!
ME: Do you want your beanbag chair back?
GOOB: Yeah.
Two women nearby started giggling at that point.
The Goober's got her chair back. One less thing to yell at the two of them about. Woohoo!
Since the 5th of March, I've knit about 2/3 of a sweater for the Goober. It's a simple, percentage-system raglan pullover. (In fact, that's what gave me the idea for the upcoming knit-along.) I did a sleeve in two days this week. The other sleeve is nearly done. Then it's just the yoke left. I'm really enjoying the Cascade 220, to the point that I think I'll be doing most of my design this year with it. "Designs", oooh, listen to me. Made up patterns sounds more realistic. ToMAYto, toMAHto.
I meant to take photos, but, hey. Brain fart. I'll be sure to do a full-on photo shoot with the Goober when it's done. She's very excited by the idea of me knitting something for her. (Even though I spun her a scarf and then knit it, this winter; apparently that's not 'real clothes'.) She picked the color, and so she's very happy. I can't wait until she's a little older and can draw her design ideas that I can then knit for her. That would be fun for both of us.
Is there something in little girls that hard-wires their retinas, so that purple is their favorite color?
---
When I'm not knitting, I've been wandering around the yard, pleased.
Last autumn I went wild and bought almost 100 bulbs - tulips, crocus, iris, daffodils. Several types of each. I'd never have gotten them all planted without the husbeast's help. But he did help, and pretty much the last nice day we had last October, we planted while the Goober ran around the yard. Now I've got those memories AND the thrill of spring coming up.
Next, I start ripping out the established landscaping to replace worthless deer bait with plants I'll actually use. I'm hoping to rip out the topiaries by the front door using brute force (my Jeep). I'd like to burn them and dance on the ashes. But I'll probably settle for planting some smaller flowering shrubs in their place. Something that doesn't need pruned with nail clippers twice a year. Eeesh. Who in hell plants topiary?
---
Oh - they think they may have really found Atlantis this time. I'm watching a documentary on it. Needs to be a blog post.
---
What else have I been doing?
---
The other day, the Goob and I went to Target. I bought a pet bed for Sekhmet. The Goober, who is becoming even more freaky smart as she learns to read, spotted a dog bone embroidered on the front of the bed, and we had the following discussion. Paraphrased a bit, but I remember it pretty clearly:
GOOB: Mum, we can't get that for Sekhmet. That's a DOG bed. See, there's a bone on it. That's for DOGS.
ME: Baby, Sekhmet's bigger than some dogs. It'll be fine.
GOOB: But it's a DOG bed!
ME: Do you want your beanbag chair back?
GOOB: Yeah.
Two women nearby started giggling at that point.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Let's talk knit-along.
I've been plugging away at the Goober's sweater (mostly unraveling the sleeve, at this point), and thinking about how I could get a major series of blog posts out of it. So of course my brain took it one step further and thought, hey, we could do a knit-along as I wrote the blog posts. Which is usually fun. Here's what I have in mind:
In terms of writing style, this new knit-along would run somewhat along the lines of the Steek-Along, in that I'll start from scratch with the gauge swatch. I'll record my thoughts on each step as I do them, and then everyone is free to follow along, or modify at will. For instance, for the gauge swatch I'll get into all the gory details of how I knit and measure, but everyone can do it their own way, or skip it altogether.
However, since the project itself caused some brain-melt last time, I thought we'd go with something really super-simple: A percentage system raglan pullover, as discussed and laid out in this article. (I wrote the article, and I officially give myself permission to use it.)
We'll take, what, a month, six weeks to plan and budget so we can buy the yarn, before we cast on. Sound about right? (I hate knit-alongs that give me no time to prep. I don't have a huge stash, and I don't have the cash in the budget regularly to just go buy a sweater's worth of wool.)
DETAILS:
-Size: Your own, or the size of a loved one you'd like to knit a sweater for. Because of the disproportionate head-to-body ratio on babies and small toddlers, this system doesn't work well for them without tweaking. But for anyone else, it's fine. In fact, I guess we'll do measuring for what size we want, as our first step. I'll talk about that a few weeks before the cast-on.
-Yarn: Whatever you want. We won't be steeking, so even slippery yarns are fine. Use whatever you like, whatever gauge you like. I will probably be knitting Cascade 220 if that matters to anyone, but you don't need to do the same. Medium to large size needles are a good idea, only so you can keep up with the rest of us. As for how much yarn you need, find a pattern for a stockinette pullover in the yarn you want to use, and use it as a guide.
-Skills: cast on, cast off, knitting, purling, a very few short rows you can skip if you want (back of neck shaping), grafting (underarms), k2tog, ssk. If you don't know how to do any of these things, you can relax, because I'll probably be doing detailed directions for all of them. I'm already planning to do video of my weird cast-on method that I've never seen anywhere else except "The Principles of Knitting". And like I said before, if you don't like my way and want to do it your way, simple enough: it's your knitting, do it your way.
EDITED TO ADD: I've already had some questions about different necks and sleeve treatment. So sure, we'll discuss alternatives as we get to each specific bit of the pattern. It'll be educational! (Which is the whole idea, so thanks for giving me the idea.)
Beltaine (May 1) is a good day to start a new project, don't you think? Shall we make it a date? Who is with me?
In terms of writing style, this new knit-along would run somewhat along the lines of the Steek-Along, in that I'll start from scratch with the gauge swatch. I'll record my thoughts on each step as I do them, and then everyone is free to follow along, or modify at will. For instance, for the gauge swatch I'll get into all the gory details of how I knit and measure, but everyone can do it their own way, or skip it altogether.
However, since the project itself caused some brain-melt last time, I thought we'd go with something really super-simple: A percentage system raglan pullover, as discussed and laid out in this article. (I wrote the article, and I officially give myself permission to use it.)
We'll take, what, a month, six weeks to plan and budget so we can buy the yarn, before we cast on. Sound about right? (I hate knit-alongs that give me no time to prep. I don't have a huge stash, and I don't have the cash in the budget regularly to just go buy a sweater's worth of wool.)
DETAILS:
-Size: Your own, or the size of a loved one you'd like to knit a sweater for. Because of the disproportionate head-to-body ratio on babies and small toddlers, this system doesn't work well for them without tweaking. But for anyone else, it's fine. In fact, I guess we'll do measuring for what size we want, as our first step. I'll talk about that a few weeks before the cast-on.
-Yarn: Whatever you want. We won't be steeking, so even slippery yarns are fine. Use whatever you like, whatever gauge you like. I will probably be knitting Cascade 220 if that matters to anyone, but you don't need to do the same. Medium to large size needles are a good idea, only so you can keep up with the rest of us. As for how much yarn you need, find a pattern for a stockinette pullover in the yarn you want to use, and use it as a guide.
-Skills: cast on, cast off, knitting, purling, a very few short rows you can skip if you want (back of neck shaping), grafting (underarms), k2tog, ssk. If you don't know how to do any of these things, you can relax, because I'll probably be doing detailed directions for all of them. I'm already planning to do video of my weird cast-on method that I've never seen anywhere else except "The Principles of Knitting". And like I said before, if you don't like my way and want to do it your way, simple enough: it's your knitting, do it your way.
EDITED TO ADD: I've already had some questions about different necks and sleeve treatment. So sure, we'll discuss alternatives as we get to each specific bit of the pattern. It'll be educational! (Which is the whole idea, so thanks for giving me the idea.)
Beltaine (May 1) is a good day to start a new project, don't you think? Shall we make it a date? Who is with me?
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Vogue Knitting, spring/summer 2011
Pictures from the web site, things in quotes are from the magazine, all else is mine.
NOTE: I AM NOT GIVING OUT FREE PATTERNS, NOW OR EVER. So don't e-mail and ask me for them. Vogue has an on-line pattern store. Go buy them. There's also a free pattern section. I don't care much about all the copyright crap, but I'm not stealing stuff, and that's what this would be. Designers deserve a break, no matter who they publish with. VOGUE PATTERN STORE. Knock yourselves out.
THE ARTICLES:
Meg Swansen discusses Bohus Stickning and their methods of blending colors, as well as other uses for the purl stitch. Since I am a huge Bohus fan, I consider the whole magazine worthwhile for the pictures alone. You may not. But it's a very cool article. Honestly, Meg Swansen could write about anything and I'd say it was awesome, because she is. I make no secret of my fangirl status.
Looking at the ads, there seems to be a trend of models standing all hunched over. No idea what in fuck's up with that, but it's annoying.
The 'Yarns' section once again is a wad of yarns (cotton this time) stacked up, with a list of others on the side. Supposedly everyone at VK knits, according to the editor. So why in bloody hell don't they produce a few swatches for us to look at? What, they don't have some unpaid intern out fetching coffee, they can't have them knit some swatches one day? We're talking a day's work by one person to produce actual editorial content for the magazine. Not difficult. So why do we keep getting useless piles of yarn?
Designer (?) spotlight is on a woman named Ruth Marshall who knits replicas of animal pelts and snake skins. Very interesting, but I wish Vogue had commissioned a clothing design from the woman and published it. That would have been much cooler. And made sense as to why she's in the magazine.
Nicky Epstein does macrame with I-cord.
Carol Sulcoski produces another excellent article about yarn, how it is spun, and how that affects your knitting. There's also a lot about different types of high-end fibers and blending them with other fibers. Good stuff, particularly for those of you who don't understand yarn substitution (who does, really?)
PATTERNS:
Section one: "Knits Bloom! Fresh and fanciful, warm-weather knitting is at its essence a luxury, pure and simple." Sure, luxury, even though white cotton yarn is some of the cheapest stuff out there, CONSIDERING SOME OF IT IS NO DIFFERENT FROM KITE STRING. I know lots of us wear white in summer, and that's cool, but an entire section of it, when yarn companies are working at producing new, pretty, bright summer colors? MUST WE? Plus, seriously, white cotton yarn looks like kite string.
1. Cardi vest by John Brinegar.
Five sizes from 32 to 48 inches/81 to 122 cm. The yarn's acrylic/nylon, which is cool for summer, if a bit creepy-crawly on the skin. It's a tape/ribbon for the crinkle effect seen above. Yup, it's a vest. Nice enough. Dude, what's up with the flowers?
2. Scoop neck dress by Mari Lynn Patrick.
Four sizes from 32 to 39 inches/82 to 99cm. Pullover pinafore thing with ribbing to suck in the bottom and a kangaroo pocket to make your stomach look extra poochy. Woo. Flattering. I like how the fringe-stuff around her neck obscures the pattern so you can't see what's going on with the knit.
What's the thinking that goes behind this 'fashion shot'? Whose idea was it for the model to stand on the bed waving two giant artificial flowers around? Is this supposed to be art? Whoopi Goldberg in a tub of milk is art. This is just 'do something weird so we can pretend it's art'.
3. Drape neck top by Jacqueline VanDillen.
Six sizes from 33 to 48 inches/85 to 122cm. Does that neck drape, or just stick out? I don't know. You be the judge. Don't know what's up with the model canted over in the magazine photo.Looks like a nice enough tunic.
4. V neck pullover by Carol Meldrum. "The color-blocked scheme... adds interest... and calls attention to the lovely sheen of the fiber." Uh huh.
Yet again, the web site doesn't use the magazine photo with the giant flowers. I can't imagine why. Six sizes from 36 to 56 inches/91 to 143cm. Yup. It's a V-neck pullover, all right. If you have to knit one, this is a decent pattern, though you'll always have to wear something underneath it, due to the deep V. (Not saying that's bad, just saying.) $227 USD to knit the 43in/109cm size. Plus, silk is hot.
5. Two button vest by Jacqueline VanDillen.
Six sizes from 33 to 51 inches/84 to 131cm. Hippy vest. But it has a waist!
6. Eyelet wrap top by Theresea Schabes.
Four sizes from 33 to 45 inches/84 to 114cm. Yup. It's a longish wrap top.
UNDER COVER! Vogue brings in some Names to contribute patterns. I really wish high fashion would get over the obsession with big knits, already.
7. Hooded jacket by Rebecca Taylor.
"NOTE TWO: THE CHARTS RE DRAWN FOR THE SMALL-TO-LARGE SIZE ONLY." [Emphasis mine.] Meaning that only one of the sizes has charts. NICE! (Now I've looked more closely at the charts and it seems there ARE charts for both, they're just printed on the same page. Wow. Misleading as all hell.) Two sizes, 48 and 58 inches/123 and 148 cm. I assume it's meant to be oversized. I'm not sure why anyone needs a double-breasted lace hoodie, but if you want one, here's the pattern. The front bands don't go all the way to the front hem of the jacket. The designer will likely claim this is some stylistic element of the garment, but a lot of knitters would think it looks like a mistake. Up to you. Oh- it's a raglan with all the elements knit separately and seamed together. THAT would be fun.
8. Long cardigan vest by Twinkle.
Five sizes from 37 to 52 inches/94 to 133cm. This is a really cute jacket sort of thing to keep the chill off. Kind of plain, but I think it would look better in a color. $119 USD for the medium size.
Section, uh, beach. No color yet, but at least we've moved outside, away from the overgrown flowers and neutral everything interiors. "Exquisite openwork at the water's edge: High fashion hits the beach."
9. Lace poncho by Shiri Mor.
53in/136cm wide. Yup. That's what it is. But check this out:
See how the model emphasizes the shape of her body and manages to look slim, while swathed in yards of lace? That's darn impressive. On the other hand, you won't look like that while wearing the poncho, unless you stand like that all the time.
10. Mesh topper by Renee Lorion.
Five sizes from 36 to 55 inches/91 to 139cm. Ooo! Almost color! This is a cute little, well, mesh top. I'm a fan of lace over tank top outfits for summer: It's comfortable, shows off your body, and isn't freezing cold all at the same time. This one ought to be a relatively quick knit, for those of you who also like the look.
11. Lace cover-up by John Brinegar.
24x50in/61x127cm, unfolded. Near as I can tell, this is a long scarf, with one end gathered and stitched to the other end or side. The pattern is quite vague.
12. Bias lace scarf and
13. Bias rib scarf, by Lisa Buccellato.
Both approx 72x5in/183x13cm. Yup. Scarves.
14. Lace tunic by Brooke Nico.
Three sizes from 33 to 49 in/84 to 125 cm. CONTAINS NUPPS! CODE RED! (Haha, mostly kidding, but lots of knitters find them challenging.) Nice enough white tunic. Knit in the round with grafted underarms. Cool.
Next, "So hot it sizzles. The body electric: slinky bikinis in metallic yarns make the most of a minimal amount of fabric." Every year or two, VK publishes a knit bikni or two. In terms of wearability I think it's ridiculous, but I suppose it's a must-do sort of thing. Summer equals bathing suits, after all, and you sure can't knit a standard one-piece without it looking like ass.
Both suits by Elizabeth Kosich.
15. Gold tie bikini.
16. Color block bikini.
The real problem with these is the fiber. They're knit with a viscose/nylon/metallic blend. I don't know about the metallic, but viscose sags horribly when wet, and viscose and nylon don't cope well with chlorine or salt. So we're looking at bathing suits that can't get wet. I know favorite bathing suits often don't get wet, but I still think it's kind of nuts to publish patterns for bathing suits that will disintegrate or look bad when they're soaked in beach or swimming pool water.
"Set off Sparks" is the next section, with a fitted tank.
17. Fitted top by Melissa Matthay.
Three sizes, from 33 to 39 inches/83 to 99cm. "The ribbed lattice back will stretch to fit." Um. Not THAT much. If you've got the ta-tas to roam around without a bra and not scare people, this is a great top for you. This version is knit entirely with silk, which I don't think is the best choice for summer, what with sweat and heat and all. Maybe switch out with a viscose/cotton blend. $300 to knit the medium size. Not a typo.
"Citrus brights and coral spice infuse Carnaval style into our tropical tops." Finally, some color. Woohoo.
18. Cropped tank top by Jacqueline VanDillen.
...apparently VK defines 'cropped differently than the rest of the universe. Five sizes from 31 to 41 inches/78 to 104cm. Pretty standard textured tank top. It's a same it doesn't come in more sizes, because just about everyone would look good in it.
19. Triangle top by Halleh Tehranifar.
Three sizes from 30 to 35 inches/76 to 89 cm. A halter, but for those with the bodies to wear it, the color blocks are flattering.
20. Striped top by Loren Cherensky.
Six sizes from 33 to 53 inches/84 to 134cm. If you keep the stripes very close in hue and intensity, like this, you can mostly avoid the LOOK HOW WIDE I AM effect of horizontal stripes.
21. Wrap effect top by Mari Lynn Patrick.
Three sizes from 34 to 38 inches/86 to 96cm. OH COME ON! Just about anyone would look good in that top, because of the diagonal lines! NO MORE SIZES?!?! AAAAH!
22. Cable collar top by Norah Gaughan.
Five sizes from 33 to 50 inches/83 to 127cm. I have nothing to really say. It's a cute summer top, knit with reasonably priced yarn. A very cute t-shirt style knit for summer. Goes with everything. Can't go wrong. (I am a Norah Gaughan fangirl as well as a Meg Swansen fangirl. What can I say? I love genius knitters.)
23. Bowtie cable top by Cheryl Murray.
Six sizes from 32 to 51 inches/81 to 129 cm. Cute. Another great cabled tee for summer, that goes with everything. Not everyone can wear yellow, but shoot, that takes no effort at all to fix.
24. Diagonal front vest by Mel Clark.
Two sizes (BAH). 34 and 38 inches/86 and 96 cm. I'd considered knitting this to wear over tee shirts and tanks, because it's really cute, but OH YEAH IT DOESN'T COME IN MY SIZE. 38 as the largest size, TO WEAR OVER SOMETHING ELSE, is just ridiculous.
25. Lace panel top by Louisa Harding.
Five sizes from 31 to 43 inches/80 to 111cm. Cute.
"Summertime blues. Explore the pacific palette with a lace of a crystal blue persuasion." Uh, yeah, wut?
26. Lace top by Yoko Hatta.
Four sizes from 36 to 51 inches/92 to 129 cm. Another of the 'wear it over something else' laces for summer. It's knit on a size four/3.5mm needle, so be sure you want to make the commitment it'll take to knit it.
27. Buttoned lace vest by Pat Olski.
Three sizes from 31 to 49 inches/80 to 125cm. I guess it's meant to be oversized. !! Take a good look at how this one was photographed: The edging is knit with a yarn the same color as the shirt under it. So it's really hard to tell where the vest stops and the shirt starts. Take a good look at the schematic so you're sure you want to knit it.
28. Lace cardi by Courney Kelley.
Two sizes, 30 and 40 inches/76 and 103 cm. More lace to wear over something else. I'm not sure this one would be flattering, but then I'm not sure loose lace is ever flattering.
29. Chevron lace top by Mari Tobita.
Four sizes from 31 to 40 inches/80 to 101 cm. Nice. Another sleeveless pullover for summer. This one's done in the round to the arm pits and then worked flat for the yoke.
That wraps it up for this review. I think Vogue got the message about larger sizes, but I've heard some smaller sizes saying the selection for them kind of stinks, too. No, I don't expect VK to make EVERY pattern available in EVERY size, but with thirty patterns to choose from, I'd think they could make a significant choice available in every size. There I go thinking again.
NOTE: I AM NOT GIVING OUT FREE PATTERNS, NOW OR EVER. So don't e-mail and ask me for them. Vogue has an on-line pattern store. Go buy them. There's also a free pattern section. I don't care much about all the copyright crap, but I'm not stealing stuff, and that's what this would be. Designers deserve a break, no matter who they publish with. VOGUE PATTERN STORE. Knock yourselves out.
THE ARTICLES:
Meg Swansen discusses Bohus Stickning and their methods of blending colors, as well as other uses for the purl stitch. Since I am a huge Bohus fan, I consider the whole magazine worthwhile for the pictures alone. You may not. But it's a very cool article. Honestly, Meg Swansen could write about anything and I'd say it was awesome, because she is. I make no secret of my fangirl status.
Looking at the ads, there seems to be a trend of models standing all hunched over. No idea what in fuck's up with that, but it's annoying.
The 'Yarns' section once again is a wad of yarns (cotton this time) stacked up, with a list of others on the side. Supposedly everyone at VK knits, according to the editor. So why in bloody hell don't they produce a few swatches for us to look at? What, they don't have some unpaid intern out fetching coffee, they can't have them knit some swatches one day? We're talking a day's work by one person to produce actual editorial content for the magazine. Not difficult. So why do we keep getting useless piles of yarn?
Designer (?) spotlight is on a woman named Ruth Marshall who knits replicas of animal pelts and snake skins. Very interesting, but I wish Vogue had commissioned a clothing design from the woman and published it. That would have been much cooler. And made sense as to why she's in the magazine.
Nicky Epstein does macrame with I-cord.
Carol Sulcoski produces another excellent article about yarn, how it is spun, and how that affects your knitting. There's also a lot about different types of high-end fibers and blending them with other fibers. Good stuff, particularly for those of you who don't understand yarn substitution (who does, really?)
PATTERNS:
Section one: "Knits Bloom! Fresh and fanciful, warm-weather knitting is at its essence a luxury, pure and simple." Sure, luxury, even though white cotton yarn is some of the cheapest stuff out there, CONSIDERING SOME OF IT IS NO DIFFERENT FROM KITE STRING. I know lots of us wear white in summer, and that's cool, but an entire section of it, when yarn companies are working at producing new, pretty, bright summer colors? MUST WE? Plus, seriously, white cotton yarn looks like kite string.
1. Cardi vest by John Brinegar.
2. Scoop neck dress by Mari Lynn Patrick.
3. Drape neck top by Jacqueline VanDillen.
4. V neck pullover by Carol Meldrum. "The color-blocked scheme... adds interest... and calls attention to the lovely sheen of the fiber." Uh huh.
5. Two button vest by Jacqueline VanDillen.
6. Eyelet wrap top by Theresea Schabes.
UNDER COVER! Vogue brings in some Names to contribute patterns. I really wish high fashion would get over the obsession with big knits, already.
7. Hooded jacket by Rebecca Taylor.
8. Long cardigan vest by Twinkle.
Section, uh, beach. No color yet, but at least we've moved outside, away from the overgrown flowers and neutral everything interiors. "Exquisite openwork at the water's edge: High fashion hits the beach."
9. Lace poncho by Shiri Mor.
10. Mesh topper by Renee Lorion.
11. Lace cover-up by John Brinegar.
12. Bias lace scarf and
13. Bias rib scarf, by Lisa Buccellato.
14. Lace tunic by Brooke Nico.
Next, "So hot it sizzles. The body electric: slinky bikinis in metallic yarns make the most of a minimal amount of fabric." Every year or two, VK publishes a knit bikni or two. In terms of wearability I think it's ridiculous, but I suppose it's a must-do sort of thing. Summer equals bathing suits, after all, and you sure can't knit a standard one-piece without it looking like ass.
Both suits by Elizabeth Kosich.
15. Gold tie bikini.
16. Color block bikini.
The real problem with these is the fiber. They're knit with a viscose/nylon/metallic blend. I don't know about the metallic, but viscose sags horribly when wet, and viscose and nylon don't cope well with chlorine or salt. So we're looking at bathing suits that can't get wet. I know favorite bathing suits often don't get wet, but I still think it's kind of nuts to publish patterns for bathing suits that will disintegrate or look bad when they're soaked in beach or swimming pool water.
"Set off Sparks" is the next section, with a fitted tank.
17. Fitted top by Melissa Matthay.
"Citrus brights and coral spice infuse Carnaval style into our tropical tops." Finally, some color. Woohoo.
18. Cropped tank top by Jacqueline VanDillen.
19. Triangle top by Halleh Tehranifar.
20. Striped top by Loren Cherensky.
21. Wrap effect top by Mari Lynn Patrick.
22. Cable collar top by Norah Gaughan.
23. Bowtie cable top by Cheryl Murray.
24. Diagonal front vest by Mel Clark.
25. Lace panel top by Louisa Harding.
"Summertime blues. Explore the pacific palette with a lace of a crystal blue persuasion." Uh, yeah, wut?
26. Lace top by Yoko Hatta.
27. Buttoned lace vest by Pat Olski.
28. Lace cardi by Courney Kelley.
29. Chevron lace top by Mari Tobita.
That wraps it up for this review. I think Vogue got the message about larger sizes, but I've heard some smaller sizes saying the selection for them kind of stinks, too. No, I don't expect VK to make EVERY pattern available in EVERY size, but with thirty patterns to choose from, I'd think they could make a significant choice available in every size. There I go thinking again.
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