Gooberpalooza.

As I've said before, this blog does double duty as a log of the Goob's cuteness (and evilness) and an easy way to share photos and video with the family. So you guys are left suffering through a montage of cuteness.

She was watching TV in her box, again.


When she saw the camera, she climbed out and insisted on posing for a shot.


The teen years are gonna be some picnic, let me tell ya.

The husbeast has been giving the Goober occasional horsie rides. The video's badly lit, so I'll share a photo first.


And the badly-lit vid:


The other day, the Goob came up to me with a pretend cup of 'menolade' [lemonade]. So I said thank you, and pretended to drink it. Then she said "That will be three coins."

At the moment she's sitting in her box, watching TV and singing 'row row row your boat'.


Otherwise, I've been stressed to the gills and doing nothing exciting. Still knitting, still spinning. Details hopefully soon.

And have I mentioned lately, Elizabeth Zimmermann was a freakin' genius?

Notes from the weird side.

A friend of mine keeps telling me that when the Goober grows up, she's going to write a tell-all book about me entitled 'Mummy Weirdest'. I wish her luck. Can't wait to read it.


I owe all my blog readers an apology. I fear I vastly underestimated your knowledge. For years I have resisted posting most of my free-association thoughts, figuring no one would track on them. But seeing how many people laughed coffee out their noses on the VK review's Piet Mondrain comment, from now on I promise a stream of consciousness. May the gods help you all.


A quick cruise on Ravelry shows the most popular patterns from this issue of VK are Jared's green mittens (the pick of the litter, if you ask me), and the gold pullover with the giant cables made of twisted stitches. I'm curious to see how those hoods turn out.


There is one tiny raincloud in the entire state at the moment, and it is parked over my house. (That's okay. I like rain.)


On Sunday, while dealing with a mild case of heat stroke (apparently my medications mess with my ability to sweat), my father-in-law called to tell me it was 65F/18C at his house, he was wearing his favorite lopi sweater I'd knit him, and he was nice and toasty warm. I called him several names. One of these days I'm going to have to knit a copy of that sweater, because I give it another year, tops, before it falls apart. (It's the silver and blue Ram's Head Cardi on my Ravelry page, knit in '03. He's worn it every day of every winter, since.)


I have ditched all other knitting to crank out a quick gift for someone (who reads this blog, so no more mention). I am using some Bendigo Colonial 8-ply that Bells sent me ages ago. I'm thinking of the color as 'giggling little girl purple'. Does anyone know if Bendigo dyes in the wool or after the yarn is spun? 'Cause this sure as heck looks like it was dyed in the wool.


The husbeast has suddenly become aware of the term 'stash' as applied to yarn stockpiles. (That's what I've always called it, the stockpile.) So now he's making many marijuana-related jokes about my yarn. Last night he called some yarn clippings 'shake'. He thinks he's really funny.


Uh. Still raining. There's a cat face mashed into my ankle. There are so many toys on the living room floor you can't walk through without tripping or stubbing your toe. The Goob is flinging stuffed animals so she can sit inside her toy basket. Seems like everything is normally weird around here.

Oh. Video of the husbeast and Goober playing horsie, coming up soon. The cuteness will make you gag.

Vogue Knitting Fall 2008

Here we go again. As always, I use the pattern numbers in the magazine instead of page numbers for the patterns. Anything in quotes if from the magazine, all else is my editorial commentary. All photos from the Vogue Knitting web site unless very obviously not. (You'll know.)

I've been reading histroy books (still? Again?) and that has bled over into this quarters' review. As has the design research. The lag on this review has been finding certain photos. But anyway.


This issue's issue is not so much the patterns - most are pretty decent - but yet again the schizophrenic "We're Vogue Knitting and we're super cutting edge and fashionable, and Oh, look! Norwegian mittens!" I wish they'd make up their goddamn minds.

ARTICLES: First, I can't help but note that the 'sweater map' thingie is gone. That lasted, what, three issues? One of the few technically useful things in the magazine. Of course they killed it.

There are two allegedly technical articles with sort-of patterns attached. One by Nicky Epstein showing how to make scallops:

And another one discussing miters (very cutting edge; we've been doing modular knitting for what, fifteen years now?) with a sort of cool cape pattern in it.

Ravelry has made the big time; there is an article about them which is kind of nice. Another one on the fiftieth anniversary of Schoolhouse Press (Elizabeth Zimmerman's company, now run by her daughter Meg). Some sucking up to Kaffe Fassett, and another article on knitting in Canada, presenting it like it's news.

Nothing from Lily Chin, which is too bad. Her articles were good. Basically the only reason I was glad to buy the magazine, in several instances. Did I mention I paid seven dollars for this piece of shit? Oh, and the letter from the editor is a long, maundering page of drivel about 'back to the future' and how wonderful it is that everyone's knitting again. HELLO. OLD NEWS. FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO TALK ABOUT. Gah.

Judging from the ads, once again yarn manufacturers are attempting to make super-bulky knitting popular and 'in'. No fucking idea why. It's ugly, looks stupid, is unflattering, finishing is a bitch, and worst of all, COLD. I assume there's a bigger profit margin for bulky yarn? Why else push it like this? Some of this shit is one stitch to the inch, for crying out loud. The husbeast commented 'they might as well just knit it out of manila line'. Manila line is the really super-thick hemp rope they use to tie up war ships.

I don't know who is designing over at Moorehouse Merino, but those lobster claw mittens are fucking hilarious.

PATTERNS: Whole lot of 'uh' this issue. Brace for it.

1. "Kaffe: spheres of influence"

A couple paragraphs of sycophantic ravings about Fasset, claiming this idea was cooked up out of Japanese prints. Mostly he's riding on his own coattails. And as always, there's no fit; the body is a box with drop shoulder sleeves. Anyone else had submitted this, I bet it wouldn't have made it into the magazine. Oh and look. A full-page Rowan ad on the opposite page! What a coincidence!


Mitten patterns: "Haute in Autumn. Our richest fall harvest yet". Barf. They're fucking MITTENS. Some are NICE mittens, BUT THEY ARE GODDAMN MITTENS TO KEEP YOUR HANDS WARM. Bah.


2. 'Yellow Harvest' mittens knit at 14 sts to 10cm/4in.


3. 'Green Autumn' mittens by our buddy Jared over at Brooklyn Tweed. Knit at 32 sts to 10cm/4in.

These two mittens make a fine comparison for 'what not to do'. The yellow ones have visible holes between the stitches and the bobbles are so big they'll snag on everything. The green ones, knit at a much smaller gauge, not only look and fit better, but the bobbles are properly decorative and not snaggy, and the yarn traps enough air - without holes - to keep your hands warm. Go, Jared. Way to knit some mittens.

Of course I can't help but point out both these syles are FOLK STYLES that have been knit for HUNDREDS OF DAMN YEARS and are about as cutting edge as I am. That's the editor's fault.



4. Who in hell is going to knit and wear elbow length gloves covered in oak leaves? Seriously? A Druid with hand problems?



5. Yet again with the folk styles. They've been knitting variations on this in Scandinavia for hundreds of years. Nice, but Vogue, my ass. Considering how many knitters I know knit because they hate sewing, I think the modern response to all that embroidery is likely 'no fucking way'. But whatever. All that extra wool will help keep your hands warm.



6. I never understood the English term 'twee' before. Now I do. Excuse me while I go throw up.



7. Convertible mittens with fingerless gloves underneath. Nice, useful, and a really old style.



8. Traditional Norgi mittens. Fucking brilliant. Totally new and amazing and cutting edge. And whoever knit these, think you could have avoided laddering the knitting where the double-points meet? Sheesh. You're submitting to Vogue, for crying out loud. (Look at the back of the right hand mitten.)


MADE IN CANADA: "From the land of the maple leaf and the Mountie hail many of today's most gifted knitwear designers." No shit. Really? They KNIT where it's COLD? Holy fuck. Let me write that down. Oh, and they're using the VERY MOTHERFUCKING VOGUE packing crate photo shoot again. The little play button symbols on the photos means you can hit the Vogue Knitting web site and watch a fashion show video of the sweater. No. I'm not linking to it. It's bad for my blood pressure. (Terby, I owe you a smack in the head for that link, you booger.)



9. Green tunic thingie. Very Vogue, Very Eh. Done it, seen it, what's wrong with the neck?



10. Damn. NEVER seen ANYTHING like this before. How cutting edge. (It does come in plus sizes, and would be flattering.)



11. Green caridgan. Ditto on 'never seen anything like this before'. Don't know what in fuck's up with that belt, either. Looks like it belongs on a Viking Berserker. Nice enough if you want a tweedy knock-around cardi; comes in plus sizes. So Vogue it gives me a migraine.



12. Fiona Ellis comes through with something flattering and wearable that looks interesting. Dunno if I like the bow on the neck, but that's personal and easily fixed. What in FUCK is up with the leaves and the LEIDERHOSEN? SHOOT THE STYLIST!!! TWICE!



13. Koigu jacket. This thing is, essentially, a sleeveless kimono. (Everyone together now, never seen that before.) They have done everything possible both in the magazine and on line to disguise the bottom edge, which is ribbing and sucks in so the whole jacket looks like a mushroom. I'd put in a hem if I were knitting this, personally; or garter stitch to match the side edges. And there is an actual intarsia color pattern knit into the body, but there's so many colors screaming you can't tell. Maybe, I don't know, use two colors that CONTRAST?



14. Felted bag. You say Vogue, I say Oh please. Honestly, I like this. I might knit it. That as much as anything else says 'not Vogue' to me.



15. Floral socks. You have got to be fucking kidding. Okay. Yes. They're cute. Yes. I like them. But if those are high fashion, my ass is a paint sprayer.



16. Beige cable-knit cardigan. Goddamn. Never seen ANYTHING like this before.


THE ALLURING DRAMA OF BLACK AND WHITE (yeah, right):


17. Fucked up black dress. First thought on seeing all those necklaces; what's wrong with the neck line? I suspect if you fixed the arms and knit it with something that draped, it would be okay. If you were into knitted dresses.



18. Sleeves too short, hem isn't straight. The collar? It's symmetrical, according to the pattern. You just can't tell, looking at it. Oh yeah, let's knit something that looks like a mistake. BUT IT COMES IN PLUS SIZES!



19. "Dynamically duotones, a short-row shift emits mod magnetism." There are probably ways to make this flattering. But I'm not knitting anything with Big. White. Arrows. pointed at my crotch. And get over the Audrey Hepburn thing, you aren't pulling it off.



20. Oscar de la Renta on crack.

No Zoolander. Snap.


SIGNATURE STITCHES: "Just as Seurat had his dots and Degas his dancers, today's greats knit mood and muse into fabric distinctly their own." Yeah. My pudgy white ass.



21. Too much. Too much color, too many bobbles, too many leaves, too many cables, total visual overload.



22. Twinkle foists yet another super-bulky piece of shit off on the world trying to tell us it's high fashion. And you know what it looks like? What it really looks like???

That's a re-creation of an outfit pulled out of a Danish peat bog and dated to the bronze age. THE MOTHERFUCKING BRONZE AGE. THIS IS NOT CUTTING EDGE, BITCH, THIS IS LAZY DESIGN. GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL. Ahem.



23. Tunic cardigan with a nice drape, slight ruffle, and a bit of lace across the back. Nice. Really nice. Perfect for fall when it gets a little chilly. And sort of stylish. Oh my gods, I may swoon.



24. Too bad Elsa Schiaparelli isn't still alive. Then she could sue.


AN ENGLISH GARDEN: "Lushly cabled cardis transform you into an Austen heroine ready for a proper turn about the bedgerows with your very own Mr. Darcy." Do I have to be tiresome and point out that cable-knit cardis didn't exist in Austen's era? No, of course not. SHOOT THE COPYWRITER!



25. Looks like Martin Storey ran out of yarn before he put on the peplum.



26. Run of the mill cabled cardi. There are deliberately run stitches that I always think look like mistakes. And they don't do shit to keep you warm, which I assume is the point of a cardigan. (Oh, excuse me, I'm sure Vogue would tell me that warmth is not an issue, it's about LOOKING GOOD.) Anyway. Yet another cable-knit cardi. Can't get enough.



27. Have I mentioned that texture stitches get lost in variegated yarn? Yeah. Yeah, I have. Have I mentioned designers should KNOW this? Yeah, probably have.



28. Giant cables faked with twisted stiches. Cool. Semi-original. I'd find a way to replace that hood with a collar, though; there's something not right going on with that hood.



29. COCO CHANEL RIPOFF. You see this??? The color, the cut, the STYLING with the fabric rose and the junk jewelry and the FREAKING HAIR CUT. Coco Chanel. 1920s. Vintage. Classic. My grandma dressed like this. It's a good to great look, but about as original as... as... STEALING FASHION IDEAS FROM A DEAD WOMAN. Grrr. Argh. Grrr. My grandma's gonna come back from the dead to register a complaint at the Vogue offices. Watch for reports of zombie attack in NYC next week. She'll be wearing her gunfighter wig (pulled down low on her forehead, 'cause she means business). Fuckers.



30. Slouchy cardigan. Is it symmetric? Is it not? We can't tell, because THE PICTURE IS SHIT AND THERE'S NO SCHEMATIC FOR THE PATTERN. Vogue, you assholes.



31. Yoked cardi knit in pattern-disguising varigated yarn. I could swear I've seen this before... wait... wait..

Why yes, I HAVE seen this before. It's Mrs. Weasley!!



32. Yet another totally average, done-before cabled cardi. Nice enough. Comes in plus sizes.


THE OL' BOYS CLUB: "Sharp takes on men's wear, altered oh-so-softly to fit a woman." Yeah, maybe if the old boys were boys in the 1980s. Bah.



33. Hat. This pisses me off for several reasons. First, the styling. The hair, the eye shadow, the sleveless blazer with the collar turned up, the plaid, the pins. This is EXACTLY how I dressed in 1986 when I thought I was fucking cool. (Except my hair would have been pink.) Oh, and the hat?

WE'VE BEEN KNITTING VARIATIONS ON THAT HAT SINCE THE BUGGERING MIDDLE AGES!!!!



34. Slouchy, unflattering knit coat. Eh.



35. Ohmigawd. It's almost... Vogue. Flattering, unusual construction, fashionable without being silly. I'd change the colors and make the sleeves longer, but that's just a personal thing.



36. If Piet Mondrain got dysentery and shit out a sweater, it would be this one.



37. Scarf. Eh. Interesting texture pattern, and in a muted color like this it would make a nice Christmas gift for a guy. I'll probalby use it with some of this carbon fiber.


There you go. Lots of cool stuff this issue, really, but not much of it 'high fashion'. I'm good with that, I just wish they'd quit claiming it was high fashion. This was probably the most wearable issue this year. And if you've got an urge to knit fifty slightly different cabled cardigans, this is the issue for you.

I need a drink.

The side bar. And oboes.

I spent most of yesterday going through my archives (I'm up to 2008; hope to get to that today) and putting links in the sidebar. There are now sections for recipes, book reviews, and my history rantings. If anyone runs across a link that doesn't work, let me know, please.

The VK review should be coming up today. Terby has been tormenting me endlessly via e-mail over it. Last night was a streaming video fashion show. She's so mean.

As for oboe playing, I was in a symphonic band. The high point of my 'career' was blowing (as in screwing up because my reed suddenly turned into a paper soda straw) a solo in front of an audience of about two thousand. Then there was the time a pad fell out right before a solo and I had to crawl across the floor under the flute section to retreive it, in front of an audience of about a thousand. But I did make that solo. The craziness of oboe players is well documented. I suspect if you aren't crazy when you take up the oboe, you will be after you play it a few years. It has to do with being a solo instrument (many, many solos and other showcase pieces are written into classical music - Swan Lake, anyone?) that is notoriously unreliable. Either you're crazy enough to think that sounds fun, or it'll make you crazy after a couple tanked solos. My brother-in-law is a professional violinist, and his wife a pro cellist; on the few occasions I've met friends of theirs, they ask if I play an instrument, I say 'oboe' and they treat me cautiously, like I'm at critical mass. For the record, I think it was the tanked solos that made me crazy. I wasn't to begin with. No. Really. Seriously.

Good times.

And for the Goob fans, I saved a few photos while cruising the archives. Think of this as the Goob's greatest hits.




Oh. And if everyone leaves me alone this weekend (figure the odds), I might finish the lace. Then it's back to my father-in-law's Christmas jumper. (I've decided since it's knit with Australian wool, it's a jumper.)

Random blatherings about nothing in particular.

Still got the migraine off and on. I think it's due to a combination of sinus and not sleeping well. (For some reason, interrupted sleep triggers major migraines for me, and of course there's the cause/effect deal where the migraine messes with my sleep, which makes the migraine worse, which makes my ability to sleep worse, which makes the...)

Anyway. Started on the last section of the chart for the doily. I think I'm going to offer an English version without the charts for anyone who wants it. Once you know what the chart symbols mean, it's pretty easy. I'm also gearing up to order 2,000 yards of black silk to knit what is, essentially, a giant square doily with beads, for a shawl for my mother-in-law for Christmas. (Is it a shrub, or a small tree?) Of course now I also have the urge to knit every new lace pattern I got (there are about thirty) so who knows what in hell's going on around here. Craziness is a pretty sure bet, whatever the details are.

Still knitting felted bowls for a swap with a friend; she sent me a stack of books. I was gonna send one bowl, but when I saw the huge pile of books she sent, well, I'm going to make a few more. Possibly with needle-felted accents, depending on my insanity levels. (They're pretty high right now.)

Uh... Oh. I had this probably hare-brained idea (hair brained? whatever) of pursuing other relaxing hobbies as an alternative to taking tranquilizers. This has led to me pricing oboes on eBay. And to my shock I've found I can afford one. Back in the dawn of my life, I was an oboe player for several (six?) years; since I can't play the piano any more due to the busted hand, I'm thinking about alternatives, and the oboe might work. Especially if I prop it on something. I mentioned this to the husbeast, who was alternately amused and intrigued. He comes from a hugely musical family, so the concept of playing an instrument for fun works fine for him. He's not sure about the 'sounding like a lame duck' aspect of re-learning the oboe, though.

And one last question. For the spinners out there... I spun about 150 yards of worsted-weight (uh, 5-ply? 8-ply? for you Aussies) two-ply yarn in about four hours yesterday. Um. Is that fast? Slow? Doesn't really matter, I'm just curious.

And since there aren't photos of anything else, here you go.


Gearing up for the Vogue Knitting review. Hopefully tonight. And I'm going to be fooling around with the sidebar and header some more.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got another bowl to knit.

Etc.

I'm cruising on some migraine medication and unable to string together two coherent thoughts, so I thought I'd attempt to field some questions in the comments.

-A tutorial on fixing dropped stitches in lace knitting would be lovely, but I don't have a system for it. It's all trial and error. In a big way. I usually do it a stich at a time and keep poking at it until I figure out if it's right or not. Tracking back to yarnovers and picking up from there is a good place to start; so is working backward from decreases. Remember, when a stitch zips back to a yarnover, the column of stitches stops there. When a column of stitches zips back to a decrease, it turns into TWO unzipped stitches. I won't admit how long it took me to figure that out.

-The knife reference from the husbeast was actually documented, way back in the archives. In a nutshell, I had a pocket knife in my knitting bag and lost my temper with a cheap circular needle one night. The first mention is here; scroll down to 'I killed the Blue Shimmer'. Further lameass rastionalizations by yours truly can be found here and here. You will note in the last post I mention that the husbeast will never let me hear the end of it. And I point out that two years later, he's still going on about it. So. It's nice to be right.

Sekhmet, you fucker.

Remember the washcloth full of catnip tea? I stupidly left it on the floor of my office for Sekhmet to enjoy. You know, trying to be nice.

She ate the catnip.

So she passed out, and was sleeping, curled in a ball, twitching and rowfing in her sleep. (She does this normally, but this was bordering on convulsions, not the usual mild twitchies.) So as I usually do when she's dreaming, I laid my hand on her back to wake her up.

She SCREAMED, lept straight up in the air hissing, and landed facing the other direction - toward me (who at this point had also jumped and shrieked and was thinking of hissing), nearly throwing herself off the futon. She puffed up to twice her normal size, sort of blinked, got her bearings, then began meowing pitifully ("meow? meow?") and crawled into my lap, purring at me for reassurance. I petted her for a while until she chilled out.

Damn stoner cat. Fucker's going to be stuck to me all night, probably hallucinating.

Bugger.

Don't you hate when you accidentally drop a stitch in lace, and the motherfucker unzips past a couple decreases down to a double yarnover about five rows down?

Anyone seen my damn crochet hook?

Woosah.

I spent the weekend trying a revolutionary new good-health program called 'getting enough rest'. It started on Friday when the husbeast got home from work early. So I took a nap. And went to bed early. And slept in. And did it all over again. When I wasn't asleep, I deliberately did things I knew relaxed me.

Knitting (decoding the German is going fairly well, thank you):


Spinning (more of the Peacock Tweed; not sure I'll have enough for my original plan, but I'll come up with something):


And a lot of reading, mostly of novels I know will make me laugh. Heavy on the Janet Evanovich (her latest Stephanie Plum made me laugh until I cried last night) and the J D Robb. In the J D Robb, there's a murder committed by a woman named Dolores. In my mind's eye I'm supposed to be seeing scary-yet-beautiful woman. Instead I'm getting a sheep in rhinestone sunglasses. Franklin has a lot to answer for, I tell ya.

Finished off the restorative weekend with an afternoon out with Terby. We were planning to knit, but wound up sitting and talking for a couple hours. Worked for me.

And now, this morning (I feel wide awake before noon for the first time in I'm not admitting how long), I began the day with a two inch cockroach toes-up on the kitchen floor. Blue's Clues is running that damn episode about emotions so every five seconds the Goober runs up making some hideous face, going "I happy/sad/shy/angwy/funny" which is only funny the first couple hundred times. Sekhmet is plastered against me, overjoyed I am not knitting or spinning and therefore allowed on my lap.

Back on the carousel.