Some pictures and stuff

Finally, a picture of Toby/Tobermory/Toblerone/Orange Thing/Small Stuff. He is worshipping the spinning wheel, which he finds an ingenious source of dental floss.



Here he is in scale with Marten.



My spoils from Spa. I have been having all kinds of ideas for the Hitch-Hiker: glossy black with big pink painted lips -> Rolling Stones Tongue -> DeadHead with Rose.



Some (maybe most) of the Spinning Men of Spa'07 -- Doug, Scott, and their gifted student Bart. Men of few syllables.



It snowed.



Doug dug.


And because they don't see why the little orange job gets all the press:


Asterix



Mena

My left foot is tired, the expanded version

We had a very good time at Spa. We made landfall in Portland on Friday night, and I really liked the Hampton Inn, but the event was at the Doubletree, so we had somewhat less social than we might have. The hotel offered a serious breakfast, as well as clam chowder and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches offered free the night we came in. They also had a hospitality room for the knitters, which was too small, so we moved into the breakfast room. But we didn't last too late.

I wish I had taken a picture of the eggs at breakfast; they were tasty but widely considered scary-looking.

I finished the vest I have been working on as we parked at the event Saturday morning, so I had something knitted to wear besides socks.
I intended not to buy much and to do a lot of spinning. I spent the first day talking to people in the dealer's room and making small, sensible purchases: some patterns, a pair of earrings I split with Doug. I showed a couple of people how to drop-spindle, and I hope I corrupted them well. MedStudentWhoKnits and I co-enabled a young woman whom I next saw spinning frog hair (one of those annoying beauiful young and gifted people, evidently), and Leslie the Shawl Pin (and hair-pin, as my hair is long enough to put back again)and I worked together for while; she has someone who will loan her a wheel. It was good seeing Linda Diak and meeting Kim Kaslow and re-meeting a bunch of people (some of whom I will need to meet several more times, but it's my problem, but theirs). I was spinning with my Spanish Peacock heart-whorled spindle and I have never had so many requests from people to let them have a spin. Perhaps because he is an SCA merchant, whose wares were new to this audience.

(There was an interruption as I was writing this last night, when the orange kitten came and fell asleep on my right hand).

Anyway, the vendors' room was quieter and cooler and had more air; the spinners' room (not that that there were not people spinning quietly everywhere else they could find that did not block fire lanes) was beyond labyrinthine and the press of chairs made it impossible to circulate. I was delighted to be with so many people who made perfectly civil, sensible conversation, even if it tended to be about wool.
It was being able to wander to and fro and meet people I knew a little or would enjoy knowing and chat and be able to breeze away with no sense of loss; I would see them again, at least that day.

I was sort of hungry. Doug said he had just had a banana. Leslie the Shawl Pin ran away from her stall and we found the bar had a menu. This did not mean it actually had food, just the promise of food. After some delay they did feed us, and then they even fed Too Much Wool. She was vexed with me because I would not tell her I preferred her new hat to her last year's hat. But later she took me to her room and produced PG Tips( hey, Cassie, they have a knitted monkey mascot; I guess the real chimps became too political) so neither I nor Leslie would faint dead away from caffeine withdrawal.

I went to try to sit down in the spinning room again, but I was distracted by a fiber event going on in the swimming area. I didn't actually get to it:About two years ago, I taught someone to spin at the Canterbury Shaker Village Wool Day, and since then Pam pops up and says "Thank you!" and I say, "You're welcome! Who are you?" I saw her several times in 24 hours, recognized her DESPITE a change of clothes, and maybe now I will know her again. (Did I take a picture of her? No. Nor of the lovely Meg Swansen Turkish Maple Leaf sweater worn by the nice woman nor the illusion knitting... Am I like, emotionally disabled, or just dumb?) Anyway. PAM (use her name several times not to forget her)'s very nice and a great spinner, with a penchant for Babe's Fiber Garden products. I had not seen the Babe Charka before. Her mother(in law?) wants her to make enough khadi homespun to weave a sari for her and a dhoti for her husband; Pam is planning to use a tabletop Western loom. I don't think Gandhi's Authenticity Police will come after her. I hope not. Pam had found a place of peace, airy space, and reasonable noise: when your wheel is PVC you have no worries about spinning at the poolside.

I was becoming kind of spacey from the socialbility and ended up again in the vendors' room, now closing for the day. But not soon enough, for I was looking at the Hitch-Hikers from Merlin Tree. I tried one last spring but I could not work the single treadle; it went in both directions. The wheel that had caught my eye this time (not a particularly unusual one, just butternut and plywood) was a lefty. I knew I was mixed brain-dominant and arhythmic, so it was not altogether surprising to find I am a left-footed spinner. David Paul and I bonded over butternut blight. He said he has only sold about 7 left-footed Hitch-hikers and two of those were for people with injured right feet. I am special.

Then 15 of us went to the Portalnd Margarita's and it was dark and noisy and two margaritas and a decent conversation and I went home and went to sleep. Doug stayed up a bit later in the hospitality room at the hotel.

The next day I wanted to get better at this single-treadle thing, so I had to buy roving. Indigo Moon is ceasing operations for a while. Wish her luck. I bought some eye candy colors from her and from Friends'n'Fibers (no website) and actually sat and spun whie the last set of doo prizes were given out. Then Doug and I found Juno and Too Much Wool and Jackie and Stitchy and Kelly and Laurie and sat and waited for lunch. I had the Hitch-Hiker and was able to spin, discreetly, under the tablecloth. People became pale and listless from lack of food and Cassie euchred Juno into doing the finish work on her hat.

Eventually, we ate. The food was good. We were all reluctant to leave, but but It Was Time. It is indeed possible to use a Hitchhiker in the front passenger seat, and I spun two ounces on the way home. Which is why my left foot was tired. It is better today.

The cats were all alive and not even too angry at us.

one thought

"Pimp my Hitch-hiker."

Having a wonderful time at Spa. More will follow.

quick summary

Life= not bad.
Major snowstorm = enroute
Vest = nearly done.
Kitten= elusive, charming.
Self= at work.

Link of the day= http://www.amazon.com/gp/gift-central/gift-guides/rc/R1I2DZ5AIZKU9C/ref=amb_link_4389302_5/002-4774050-1523248 or take the Valentine's Day quiz and say you hate it.

quick summary

Life= not bad.
Major snowstorm = enroute
Vest = nearly done.
Kitten= elusive, charming.
Self= at work.

Link of the day= http://www.amazon.com/gp/gift-central/gift-guides/rc/R1I2DZ5AIZKU9C/ref=amb_link_4389302_5/002-4774050-1523248

kitten sighted

Actually, I even got to hold him today, although at the time of writing he has apparently evaporated. One assumes he is still in the Daughter's room. Although Hobbes is a good name, he is tending toward Toby (short for Tobermory, but we hope he will be nicer than the cat in that story). Hobbes is for an older person; Toby is small.

Today he made no sounds like a short-wave radio, and seemed cautiously cheerful. I waited till noon to give him breakfast and included some chicken liver;he liked it. He ate kibble out of Doug's hand (and a chunk of Doug's thumb, but Doug says no malice was intended). Marten and he sort of played; both of them seemed eager to get to know the other, as when Marten grabbed Toby from under the bedskirt. Toby looked surprised but not upset; he rolled away. Marten definitely seemed the younger of the two ("Come on! Wanna play? Come on!") Toby looked like "So, this is a cat _not_ from my family, wow, he's BIG." No hissing. No yowling.

This may just work out.

Later Cindy B and her friend Susan came and we all did handwork, except for the cats. Susan edged a woven blanket in crochet; Doug worked on his hat. Cindy is making shooter's mitts, except they are for horse-drivers; they have breed-specific horses in intarsia on the back, and the tip of the thumb flips off like the mitten-top. I made three wristlets today, completing two pairs. They are 30 stitches around and about 6 inches long, so this is not cyclopean labor. I also wasted about two hours having every possible setback trying to make a tag for the sweater using t-shirt transfer paper. After doing everything very carefully, Cindy, who has recent transfer practice, decided my paper was old or something; we could not get the transfer-print to separate from the backing-paper after it was ironed on.

Perhaps pictures tomorrow.

I may need an intervention

SO Asterix, whose health is restored - he's still old and deaf but he's gaining weight and being annoying, which is always a healthy sign in a cat - is 17, and Mena is a sprightly nine and plays Secret Agent Kitty and is plainly SO BORED SHE COULD SCREAM. SO we decide to get he r a playmate, ideally a nerdy male kitten named Hockey Puck (Daughter suggested Robin Goodfellow had more style). Daughter is a Better Person than I am and pointed out that older shelter cats need homes too, and were harder to place. We adopt Marten, a delightful goofy maybe a year and bit old. He likes to play Ninja Kill Kitty, and he and Asterix have reached a good place, where they rarely come to grips and although Marten would dearly love to play with Asty's tail, he usually doesn't.

Mena still hisses at Marten when she sees him, and the cold snap has her playing Secret Agent Kitty in my bedroom.

Marten is SO BORED HE COULD SCREAM. He's living with codgers! Codgers! Cats to whom a hanging fringe of blanket is nothing, instead of a place to hide and leap on unsuspecting motes of dust.

And I still wanted a kitten to burn off some of my neoteny needs.

So I brought a runty little orange guy of 12 weeks home and gave him the Daughter's room as a sanctuary and he went under the bed and became invisible. He and his 3 month old litter mates and their pregnant mom ended up in the Penacook SPCA night before last, by way of one of their admin's apartment and baths with her extra silky conditioner shampoo. I think the whole family were in shock and exhaustion; although warranted healthy, they were agreeable but boneless. This morning, I have heard and seen New Guy stealthing around the room, but he is lying catto under the bed, hoping I will tell him where I keep the booze and kibble and go away. I think he needs some time to get calmer before he meets Marten.

There are not quite cats in every room in the house. I don't know what to name him ( "Hobbes" has been suggested, after a fine cartoon tiger); if he is to be Marten's sidekick then PintSize would fit, but what an awful name for a serious person, as I imagine New Guy will be in a few years. Or flat, rubber, and cylindrical.


The sweater is done. I washed it so the place I had to pick up a dropped stitch could morph into relaxation, and laid it on the floor of the fiercely cold/hot glassed-in porch to dry. Yesterday morning it was frozen absolutely stiff, which was funny. I hope to mail it off this weekend. Meanwhile, the easiest lace I have ever done - so easy I didn't need to start more than once - I have finished a Road to China wrist-mitt for my mom and started the next one. Very satisfying. Picture of same will follw, probably sooner than a picture of Orange Zorro.

Sleeves!

I have finished both of the sleeves for the OBD sweater. Now to put them onto the body and make a neck. I don't think I have ever made anything this fast (except back in the Dark Ages when I made three vests for me and both very small kids out of rainbow-colored bulky acrylic on size 10 needles in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately they were ugly). The Daughter wants a kind of loose mock turtle neck so she can wear something underneath with no colors in common with the sweater. I don't think she worries as much about itching or about spontaneous combustion as I do. I hope the yarn holds out.

I also wanted to say that I went to the pre-Superbowl sale at the Elegant Ewe and only bought a book I did not need, a pattern for fancy wristlets, and a skein of Silk Road to make them. I like the idea of pre-Superbowl sales; I suppose one could be knitting during the game, but I prefer to think of it as a counterattack.

Otherwise

Except for swingeing PMS and a collision with some ofthe spirits of bleak that I have been avoiding lately, NOT HELPED by the death of Molly Ivins, I have been doing okay. Not knitting as much as I ought to, because I have been having a little Patrick O'Brien festival. But I was underfed and low yesterday when I happened upon this utterly-without-redeeming-social-value clip of an HBO show called Extras. I have a great devotion to Diana Rigg and my respect for Daniel Radcliffe (he was polite to Regis and Kathie Lee, ewww) has only increased. He cannot possibly be too hung up on himself if he can play this. I wonder how much he had Monty Python running through his mind? Anyway, it made me laugh.

It might snow. That would be good. If it's going to be February it would be pleasant for it to be pretty.

Missing Molly Ivins

One of the consolations of the blogoshere is the company when we, separate people, lose someone we knew only from a distance (like one another, barring a fortunate fiber festival), we have company.





The New York Times
February 2, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Missing Molly Ivins
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Molly Ivins, the Texas columnist, died of breast cancer on Wednesday. I first met her more than three years ago, when our book tours crossed. She was, as she wrote, “a card-carrying member of The Great Liberal Backlash of 2003, one of the half-dozen or so writers now schlepping around the country promoting books that do not speak kindly of Our Leader’s record.”

I can’t claim to have known her well. But I spent enough time with her, and paid enough attention to her work, to know that obituaries that mostly stressed her satirical gifts missed the main point. Yes, she liked to poke fun at the powerful, and was very good at it. But her satire was only the means to an end: holding the powerful accountable.

She explained her philosophy in a stinging 1995 article in Mother Jones magazine about Rush Limbaugh. “Satire ... has historically been the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful,” she wrote. “When you use satire against powerless people ... it is like kicking a cripple.”

Molly never lost sight of two eternal truths: rulers lie, and the times when people are most afraid to challenge authority are also the times when it’s most important to do just that. And the fact that she remembered these truths explains something I haven’t seen pointed out in any of the tributes: her extraordinary prescience on the central political issue of our time.

I’ve been going through Molly’s columns from 2002 and 2003, the period when most of the wise men of the press cheered as Our Leader took us to war on false pretenses, then dismissed as “Bush haters” anyone who complained about the absence of W.M.D. or warned that the victory celebrations were premature. Here are a few selections:

Nov. 19, 2002: “The greatest risk for us in invading Iraq is probably not war itself, so much as: What happens after we win? ... There is a batty degree of triumphalism loose in this country right now.”

Jan. 16, 2003: “I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. The country is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, ‘Horrible three-way civil war?’ ”

July 14, 2003: “I opposed the war in Iraq because I thought it would lead to the peace from hell, but I’d rather not see my prediction come true and I don’t think we have much time left to avert it. That the occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. ... We don’t need people with credentials as right-wing ideologues and corporate privatizers — we need people who know how to fix water and power plants.”

Oct. 7, 2003: “Good thing we won the war, because the peace sure looks like a quagmire. ...

“I’ve got an even-money bet out that says more Americans will be killed in the peace than in the war, and more Iraqis will be killed by Americans in the peace than in the war. Not the first time I’ve had a bet out that I hoped I’d lose.”

So Molly Ivins — who didn’t mingle with the great and famous, didn’t have sources high in the administration, and never claimed special expertise on national security or the Middle East — got almost everything right. Meanwhile, how did those who did have all those credentials do?

With very few exceptions, they got everything wrong. They bought the obviously cooked case for war — or found their own reasons to endorse the invasion. They didn’t see the folly of the venture, which was almost as obvious in prospect as it is with the benefit of hindsight. And they took years to realize that everything we were being told about progress in Iraq was a lie.

Was Molly smarter than all the experts? No, she was just braver. The administration’s exploitation of 9/11 created an environment in which it took a lot of courage to see and say the obvious.

Molly had that courage; not enough others can say the same.

And it’s not over. Many of those who failed the big test in 2002 and 2003 are now making excuses for the “surge.” Meanwhile, the same techniques of allegation and innuendo that were used to promote war with Iraq are being used to ratchet up tensions with Iran.

Now, more than ever, we need people who will stand up against the follies and lies of the powerful. And Molly Ivins, who devoted her life to questioning authority, will be sorely missed.

Knittings and purchases

As the last light of the weekend faded, I rushed out to take pictures.

Here is the rather large bootie and the shelf-fungus colored false entrelac scarf:


And here is the sweater, which is going more slowly now that the Only Beloved Daughter is not driving me around:




The wool/ angora/ nylon yarn is making a warm slubby soft fabric.

I behaved very, very badly at the SCA Birka Market.



Replica Terra Sigillata cup like what I used to dig up in England and jug (lined with a slip of beeswax, smells wonderful), small black Belgic-style cup, one wooden spindle (severly underpriced, how could I leave it?, one spindle with detachable ceramic whorl like what I used to dig up in England, tiny (18" skein) niddy noddy, tiny cards for a tiny inkle loom (not shown)(I need to make heddles), a 1st c bc ceramic British spindle whorl somebody dug up, a holly-wood lucet, and a bodice dagger. My friend looked at my cleavage and remarked that I needed a bodice dagger as they always make her laugh. I was delighted to find this one, clean out of SCA period (at least in Europe), but perfect for me.



then we went to the SCRAP party, where I took atrocious pictures and had a delightful time.

Pirated from the NYT

January 27, 2007

Art Review | 'Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting'

Flair and Flash, Not Frumpiness

By MARTHA SCHWENDENER

Long viewed as the domain of grandmothers, needlework has undergone an image makeover in the last decade. Snowboarders, the old torchbearers of alt.culture, have embraced crocheting, making beanies to wear on the slopes; coffeehouses and subways are filled with fashion-conscious types busily knitting or doing needlepoint. And contemporary artists like Andrea Zittel, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Orly Genger and Jim Drain and the Forcefield collective have given crafts a coolly conceptual edge.

Time then for an exhibition celebrating the unfrumpiness of craft, and, sigh, what better institution than one that recently went through its own makeover, changing its name from the American Craft Museum to the sexier Museum of Arts & Design?

The sorry news is that, despite its title, “Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting,” with around 40 works by 27 artists, is not a benchmark for introducing such crafts’ coolness or radicalism to a vast art audience. Rather than exploring transgressive takes on knitting, the exhibition, organized by David Revere McFadden, the museum’s chief curator, devotes most of its space to art that mimics the look or logic of knitting and lace and translates it into different materials.

In an essay in the show’s catalog, Mr. McFadden does invoke interactive performances held in abandoned warehouses and the London Underground and people who knit sweaters for “oil-spill-damaged penguins to wear in Antarctica” — the kind of activities you might associate with radical or subversive practice.

But in choosing the work for the show, he cites somewhat dated textile and crafts-based artists like Sophie Taeuber, Sonia Delaunay, Judy Chicago and Magdalena Abakanowicz as his models.

Much of the art on view is in the large-scale, virtuosic craft vein. Henk Wolvers’s flat sculptures created with porcelain slip, a form of liquid clay, borrow the tracery if not the actual patterns of lace. Piper Shepard’s “Lace Meander” is a series of hanging muslin scrolls into which the artist cut lace patterns with an X-Acto knife. Bennett Battaile’s delicate sculpture of thin glass rods and Barbara Zucker’s rubber sculptures both invoke lace-tracery in heavier materials.

Some of the artists address “issues of politics, gender and ethics,” as a wall text puts it, in a general way. Janet Echelman’s giant, hand-knotted nylon net hanging from the ceiling in the museum’s entryway recreates the look of a nuclear mushroom cloud. Freddie Robins’s sinister-looking gray-knit bodysuit, with the words “Craft Kills” emblazoned across the chest, alludes to the airline ban on knitting needles in the post-9/11 era.

The works most in keeping with the show’s politically charged title are more interactive and collective, or more related to performance. For example, Cat Mazza’s collectively crocheted “Nike Blanket Petition,” a campaign against sweatshop practices represented here in a series of photographs, will be sent to Nike’s corporate headquarters.

A video of Dave Cole’s “Knitting Machine” project shows two John Deere excavators wielding telephone poles tapered to look like knitting needles — and missiles — to knit a giant American flag in the courtyard of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Mass.

Sabrina Gschwandtner, an artist and founder of KnitKnit magazine, has set up a “Wartime Knitting Circle” surrounded by panels made of industrially knitted photos of Vietnam War protesters knitting, British women knitting woolen covers for World War II hand grenades, soldiers knitting during World War I.

She invites people to join her in knitting “blankets for recovery” for people in Afghanistan and troops convalescing in military hospitals, among other projects. (On the exhibition’s opening day, Ms. Gschwandtner was chatting and knitting with Phyllis Rodriguez, whose son died in the north tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11 and who has since befriended Aïcha el-Wafi, mother of Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent serving a life sentence after his conspiracy conviction in the 9/11 attacks.

Needlework indeed has a radical past. William Morris, a mainstay of the Royal School of Needlework and the Arts and Crafts movement in England, protested late-19th-century industrial production. Feminist art in the 1970s drew heavily on so-called women’s work, and Rosemarie Trockel’s “knitting pictures” of the 1980s cleverly drew on political themes.

So many more artists might have been included whose work explores the social aspects of knitting and lace or who more radically recast these forms: Simon Perotin, of the punk-doily creations; the artisans in the Church of Craft; Ms. Zittel; Ms. Auerbach;, Mr. Drain; and so on.

Given the show’s title, some visitors will arrive wanting to know how needlework, which runs counter to our technology- and information-saturated age, has become such a cultural juggernaut, and how it might serve to break down the barriers between artist and amateur, art and craft. A few works here may well satisfy that desire. Most will not.

“Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting” runs through June 17 at the Museum of Arts & Design, 40 West 53rd Street, Manhattan. Hours: Daily, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (until 8 p.m. on Thursdays); closed on holidays. Admission: $9; $7 for students and 65+; and pay-what-you-wish on Thursdays after 6 p.m. Information: (212) 956-3535; madmuseum.org.

A series of public programs related to the exhibition is planned, including lectures, panel discussions, performance pieces and workshops in knitting, lace-making, crocheting, fabric-making, fabric-printing and digital design. Some events are free with museum admission; others require an additional fee that includes admission.

Beginning tomorrow and running every Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. through June 3 will be “Well Crafted Weekends: Inter-Generational Workshops,” for those 6 and older; $7 per person or per family (up to four people). A detailed schedule is on the Web site.

Now, the magic of photography

Thank you for your kindness and your hectoring (Norma). You instill new ambition within my pectoral regions.

First, Marten:





Only a picture in rapid motion would do him justice. He is brown where Asterix is blackish.


Asterix when he weighed more

No knitting yet, though I have two charming cuffs. I need to get Doug's scarf by daylight and he is never at home when the sun is up except on weekends (and between the vernal and autumal equinoces).

Two shots of glazing after last week's ice storm, though, of which I am unreasonably proud:



.


If you need a vicarious semester abroud, the Only Beloved Daughter's blog may be found at http://teaclouds.blogspot.com/.

Not dead yet

You get into a thing where you want to update but you think it's silly without pictures so you don't update because you keep forgetting to take the pictures and then when you do your camera batteries are shot and so you go look for the recharger and then you forget why you're in that room and you do the laundry and you take the other load upstairs and your room is so squalid you go and knit and then the next morning there you are wondering whether you are, in fact, dead, because you have not updated your blog. And your room is squalid and you really never will find the battery recharger, and that makes about three in the last ten years

I will buy some double A's.

Sarah came over yesterday and sat and knitted while I put away four months of laundry. Maybe only two. I have both floor and clean underwear again. I may get the room really tidy by the New Hampshire sheep and wool festival in May. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Sarah says she is not dead either, but she seems to have given up the whole blog thing. This is a pity because she is still knitting like a fiend.

But I have not taken any pictures.

After my cri-de-coeur about not caring about knitting any more I went on a binge and finished the faux entrelac scarf for Doug. It is way cool (think a woven-look shelf fungus) and apparently way warm, now that we have weather where scarves are a serious consideration (think of a picture). I had good intentions about not starting things without finishing other things, and as a result of this hubris the nearly finished second twined-knitting silk and alpaca mitten and the yarn disappeared totally (out of a locked car, which showed no other signs of burglary. Doug thinks it's in a bag). I really wish it would turn up. It was not under the laundry. I doubt that it is abiding with the battery charger, except metaphorically.

I made one and a half bootees for my boss's any-minute grandchild. As I had only one weight of superwash wool they will fit the child when he is about three, but as long as he likes Darth Maul he should be delighted with them (think of a picture. They are based on the Zebra Bootees in the bootee book). I have now got some green and yellow Baby Ull and no interest in making my boss's relative anything, but it's hardly the child's fault.

Meanwhile the Only Beloved Daughter has gone to a Better Place, which we call Italy. She landed yesterday, having left her breakfast and her favorite sweater in a rubbish bin in the Zurich airport (She bought a pink t-shirt in the gift shop to be decent in, poor child). Said sweater was a store-bought (you can exhale) very fine gauge purple angora and lambswool with the holes of short-stapled fiber appearing all over it; I think it is in Sweater Valhalla, where there are no moths and only valiant cats sleep on you. Before she left she had grudgingly ("You don't NEED another Project. You don't NEED more yarn.") consented to my starting a sweater in a Noro Silver Thaw that looks like an impressionist hyacinth field (the picture does not do it justice). I am doing Ann Budd's pullover, as OBD doesn't like the way raglans hang, only I did the back and front in the round with a false seam up to the divide for armholes. I began the sweater on January 12. To her amazement (and mine, and both our pleasure), I finished the back as she was driving us to her boyfriend's house on Friday the 19th. Yesterday I finished the front and started the sleeves. (Think of a picture.)

During the time that OBD (I think this will be a fine acronym for her, but her name is really Ellie, if I forget. I have an Only Beloved Son but he is at college in Maryland and not terribly communicative) was here, we continued the years-long lament for how bored Mena is. After some more havering, we have a shelter kitty named Marten (imagine a picture - he's a light brown tabby with white paws and mask). He is about a year old and a goof. Unfortunately Mena thinks he is disgusting and he keeps trying to play with her and Digger and Asterix and fur flys and ugly words howl through the woodsmoke. Marten (named and spelled for the protagonist of the webcomic Questionable Content)(in this link, he is the guy. Not the librarian) thinks they are BOOOOOR-ING.

OBD wanted us not to get a kitten because she points out that older kitties have more trouble getting adopted, which is, of course, true. There are an awful lot of beautiful kitties in the Bedford and Manchester shelters. The ones that hurt worst were the fat 8 and 9 year olds whose owners had to move out of cat-friendly residences, or at least that's what they told the shelter. But we wanted a young cat and a male, which let out about 7/8 of the talent. Marten is a sweetie. But Mena might have felt more comfortable with a kitten, and I am still having midlife-kitten hunger. So I am still looking for sweet little male kitten, in a sneaky, guilty way.

We are unusual in our region for actually having had some snow. Think of a picture of the orange pin flags (marking the bulbs I planted last fall) on the white hillside, like the flags of a leprechaun slalom. I will get batteries.

New Year!

Usually's it's my mother who gets the post-Halloween blues; she was doing fine this year until her oldest dearest friend died on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I was doing so-so, and although some of the immediate difficulties (human relationships. You have to wonder if they are worth the trouble...) seem better, I wouldn't say anything has changed dramatically. I think I am in a little plateau of 'Meh.' It's WAY better than deep depression, but not a lot of fun.

The worst feeling this has brought is that I can take or leave wool alone. I know. Don't hate me. It makes me spotty about reading the posts even of people I care about. I just am not interested in someone's else's socks, nor my own (well, actually, there have been a few links
I have checked up, I'm not really dead yet). I finished my father's socks and my mother's neck thing and my friend's fingerless mitts (I made them for Grace to give to Debbie... now, do I owe Debbie or Grace a Christmas present? ). I have a hell of a lot of roving and yarn and not a great deal of ambition and this makes shopping problematic.

Meanwhile I am knitting on a false entrelac alpaca scarf and trying to finish the twined knitting red silk/merino/alpaca mittens I stated in Dec of 2005. If I try to finish one thing for every project I start I should end up in better shape. And I have made room reservations for the Portland Spa because I know by February I will need bright colors and human contact and maybe even wool. (Well, not need wool, as such).

The number of things that I am very, very grateful for not being worse has skyrocketed; too many friends had Christmastides punctuated by screaming fights or arrests or debilitating illness.

(Does anyone have a good book to offer my friend whom, I finally realized, blindingly obviously needs to seek out Al-Anon? I am not aware of anything in the 'Co-Dependent No More' line that is any more recent.)

My cat (Asterix, 17+) has an enlarged thyroid and needs help, and as he is the last survivior I know of his litter I imagine this is the slow slide into shadow... he's deaf, but does he HAVE to yowl so loud? I know he's there. So we will be going to the vet and trying oral medication for his eating/digestive ills. In the meantime, the household wants a young kitty for Mena (9 or ten and feisty) to smack around.

I have a cold. I got it last Wednesday. I was better Sunday, so I stayed up too late, drank more than a glass of wine, exercised yesterday, and relapsed last night into mouthbreathing and sore throat. I need to go to work today anyhow, as I was out the last two days of last year. We'll discuss my attitude about work some other time.

I am going to try to blog, or write in my journal, or draw a picture five out of seven days in the year to come. I sincerely think these are good for feeling stuck.

and fiber?

I have largely finished the SCRAP database entry, so I have less excuse to avoid my Christmas knitting. This will not stop me, but still.

My mother's thing is sort of a surprise (she chose the yarn. She seemed bemused that I had so many types to choose from...) but complete (pics after Christmas). I took it almost altogether apart at least three times, and now the _very_ simple lacy pattern is correct all the way through.

My daughter's gloves were not intended as a Christmas present, and they were actually finished when I picked her up on Tuesday -- I had a couple of chances to try the fingerlength on her. I hope the angora blend does not pill too much, but in any case they will feel pleasant.


Just glovely. Thank you, Ann Budd.

So it was the Wool Tour back in October (where the responsiblity for the angora gloves lies, too) and by the end of the day and the reprise of the trip to the Fiber Studio and I was Weak and Not Thinking. My father often says he would like more colorful socks. The Taos by Crystal Palace was very colorful. I bought some.

When common sense returned (as much as it ever does), I realized the Taos was softly spun singles. The tensile strength of a scarf, NOT of size 13 socks. But so beautiful.

So I spun it again (suddenly the worsted was a sockweight) and plied it with itself (suddenly a slightly less jewel-toned bulky). It still feels like a felting disaster waiting to happen (my mother handwashes things that deserve it; I have to trust) but soooo warm and soft - not merino soft, but something with more integrity. Maybe Blue-Faced Leicester.



From 9 o'clock: the original ball of Taos, the spool of respun singles, the ball of two-ply, the sock in progress.

The only drawback is that it's 38 stitches around, makes up so fast it's dizzying, and my father may not think I have spent enough time on his present (since I like him, a certain amount of slave labor would be okay). I was able to try the initial sock on his foot and then turn the heel ("Clog-length already," my mother said approvingly. I offered a tiny pompom but we decided to go longer) while they were here for Thanksgiving; they won't be a surprise, but we agree that fitting is better than surprising.

I have a request from a dear friend for fingerless gloves for her wife. I don't think bulky will do, but I may have time to finish them before Easter. It's better than shopping.

a quick visit with the chickens.

None of them has attacked my daughter this holiday, which is good. Spike


Spike, who is probably an Araucana

continues to be the dominant male and a loud jerk, but the incidents of sexual assault seem to be less frequent. Or the hens just don't care anymore.
Faith crows with an inhale on the end the makes him sound like a dying bagpipe, but he's not as aggressive and I like him.


Faith


We get two or three eggs a day, and they are small but beautiful -- bright orange yolks. I can't say they taste much different to me, but others swear they are 'eggier.'
They come in brown, white, and off-white. Doug is fairly sure Buffy and Joyce lay the white ones on the shelf above the bin.


Buffy is the one in the middle. She is a Game Hen and looks like a velociraptor.

This leaves Ms. Callendar, Dawn, and possibly Auk laying the darker ones. These three do not flock with the others, preferring a quiet life nearer the coop.

We still haven't figured out if Auk, who LOOKS like Cochin China rooster but rarely crows and is sometimes brooding on the eggs, is a hen or not.

We lost Harmony (off-white with brown checks) last month when she flew into something, we believe, and gave herself severe spinal damage. Cordelia, the Polish, whose gender we weren't sure about either, had been avoiding the rest of the flock. She managed not to get shut in with the others that same night and has not been seen since. The crows made a terrible, unusual racket at dawn the next day...

So we are down to seven.

The other day I went to MA to get the daughter. When we arrived home, Doug, as bravely as possible, said that Joyce was missing. She is one of the layers and almost as humanized as Buffy (read that as 'eagerly exploitive.') And Doug loves her neatness. She is something like a Duckwing. We had not expected such attrition. Joyce had definitely been around at 3 pm, when I stopped in at home on the way to MA. Doug said he knew I had stopped in because the dishwasher had been running and there was chicken poop in the entry way, and indeed the living room. I was surprised because I had thought I had shooed them outside again before such disgusting events could occur. As Doug left the room, shaking his headver mortality, I saw:
o


Man and hen were reunited and Joyce seemed happy to get back to the coop.



The happy man and his chicken

There was an election

No one seems to be mentioning it, but there was an election. It went Democratic beyond my wildest dreams. I know I will soon be disappointed because they aren't far enough left, but right now, I am wandering around feeling exhilarated. It won't Change Everything. But it may help some things, and I am getting old enough that that is pretty damn good.

Meanwhile, I bought One-Skein Wonders and started something for my mother, and realized the yarn for another project was singles and soft and unsuitable. So I spun it tighter and plied it with another skein of itself, also spun tighter, and it is slightly less colorful but much more durable. And I have almost finished my daughter's gloves, thanks to Ann Budd. I had not found any good advice about gloves the last time I looked in my library, and made nearly all of the first glove before finding this. I ripped it back. It was quite glovelike, but I like the one in the pattern better.

This weekend I am going to an archaeology conference, where I plan to use my drop spindle.

How pathetic is this?

For the past couple weeks, I have been dragging the SCRAP database into the early 21st century. Really: I have been entering data from as early as 2001. No wonder that binder was overflowing. When it is doing what I want, I love Access. Things look so tidy. Now I am making personalized timesheets for the seriously hooked lab participants, which I plan to print on different colors every year, so if it ever gets this bad again it'll be easy to sort out. The timesheets have to do with getting Federal funds in return for time donated.

So I am making a fiber-in-my-possession database. I realize I am not the first to do this, but it's a new one on me. Now I HAVE to learn how to embed photographs. I can tell I am going to be carrying the files around like so many fuzzy grandchildren.

It will, unfortunately, make it entirely clear how LAME I am (no offense intended to the halt, of which I am one sometimes), because so very few entries will actually have the last line filled in: Fate. What I did with the stuff. Mostly, what I do is start something, usually a sock, and put it carefully aside until I need the needles, when I rip it back.

Daughter has the nerve to want me to finish her gloves. I am scared enough I plan to leave all the fingers unfinished, until I can put her petite digits in them. Finishing will give me something to do on Thanksgiving Day.

I am also at the -you-must-pay-attention point (narrowing the fronts and backs) of the generic vest, doing a very delightful garter-stitch shawl, perfect for the car when I can get someone else to drive. Maybe it's time to make Christmas presents. Maybe people will be lucky to get gift certificates...

Winter's coming on

The leaves that remain, mostly oaks, are becoming less brilliant every day. It is getting seriously cold. I have about 30 lbs of bulbs in my front room. I may have waited too long.

Asterix has suggested that he would be feeling EVEN better if I were to buy a small container of heavy cream and give him some of that instead of milk. Since he does not projectile v. from cream. He's doing fine, bless him. For however long.

Two eggs appeared in the henhouse yesterday, the first. Chickens hatched in mid April. Doug still thinks Cordelia is a hen and thinks they are hers. I notice changes in Buffy's and Joyce's combs and think some serious hormones are happening there. Whatever. I would be grateful if Doug would not refer to the eggs as 'our first lay.'

The saddest remark about my character is that for devious reasons I undertook to make a massive database of SCRAP volunteers and I am finding playing with Access on my own time really, really interesting.