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This is where I am as of Monday morning, past the dark green stripe, on to the lighter green stripe. I have to get this book to a photocopy machine soon or else it will get ruined.
Meanwhile: did anyone see this in the New York Times yesterday: an discussion next Saturday (Feb 5th) at The Kitchen in Chelsea, N.Y. of crocheted forms to represent mathematical concepts. There's more pictures and more about the basic idea in Cabinet Magazine.
As of 1:55 p.m. Saturday, this is what I have to show for three day's solid work on the Page 136 Sweater. Thrilling, eh? The first 20 rows were torture on size 0's, and I had to re-knit the pink border because I switched to size 1's at the hem turn, so in a hurry to get to a bigger needle was I. I know that this is the kind of mistake you cannot recover from, because I have an earlier sweater with a flippy hem that I cannot steam into submission, and consequently I will never knit a hem on "the bigger size" needles again. It also took me all of yesterday to get the first row of the pattern correct, after knitting it once and finding myself 11 stitches off the pattern, backtracking to find only one errant stitch and then realizing that I had cast on ten extra stitches, which I decided is a mistake you can recover from, but I had to reposition the entire first row five stitches to the right. Since then, it's been fine. There are eight and nine-stitch floats in this pattern, which is new to me, but I remember reading that Wendy doesn't sweat that, so I'm following suit.
As I knit this, I wonder why this sweater lacks a name. Few of the sweaters in the book are given labels descriptive of anything but tailoring features: Square Neck Cardigan, Short Jacket, or simply Sleeveless Top. The book is called Poetry in Stitches, not poetry in the names of sweaters. But I am vexed by the semantic obstacle of having nothing to call this sweater but "The Page 136 Sweater." Tis true, an artist has the right to breezily not care about such trivialities as names for their work, to leave the piece to speak for itself, to leave the poetry IN the stitches, but I am a verbal person, I want a name. I wonder if there was a name at one point. What were they called in the original edition? What could Solveig have called them before they had page numbers? How did she distiguish them one from the other as they were lying around her studio? Did she command her knitting pixies to bring "that beautiful sweater there", or "sew the ribbon into that red one"? Did the english translator simply not bother? What does Dikt i masker mean?
I am tempted to call it something like Norwegian Flower, or Carnation, but after much thought, I have decided to retain the mystery of the no-name -- I think that I am going to call it simply PS136, because I don't know if Solveig was being artistic or negligent, and it sounds vaguely technical, like a stock number for a particular computer part, and I find this sweater a technical challenge, my first steeked garment. Make no mistake: I do find this thing compelling. The rows stack up nicely, and more and more of the pattern is revealed with each round, like a game of Concentration. Thanks for talking me into it.
Skip to the end for knitting related content, I have some cooking to do first.
I have in my kitchen a whole cupboard dedicated to storing the bottles and tins of spices we use for cooking. I've seen those tidy little organizers that you can use to lay out your bottles so that when you open the drawer, there they are all laid out in alphabetical order and you can find just the cumin you're looking for. But I need a whole cupboard, mostly because I have never been able to bring myself to throw any of it, however irrelevant, away. It also is so unorganized, that I lose things in there, and when I can't find the cardamom, I buy a new one. I own three jars of cardamom. I use it once a year, yet I own three. One of them is so old that the yellowing price tag tells this tale: .69c. The last time anything in a Durkee tin cost 69 cents, telephones were still attached to the wall. So last night while my husband was cooking dinner (really, truly, he does this a lot, he does laundry too, and you can't have him), my Virgo perfectionist husband discovered that there was no more chicken broth in the freezer (he makes his own: I kid you not) so I suggested he try a boullion cube. He opened the door to the spice cupboard and rooted around looking for a boullion cube. In an organizing process that ultimately took up most of the night in the editing and (gasp) alphabetizing of the bottle collection, he disinterred and rejected these fine examples of what I have in my paltry Taurean cooking life resorted to for boullion;
Number one ingredient: salt. Number two ingredient: MSG.
Next:
Smells like composting barnyard.
Next:
Ingredients not too menacing, smells not too offensive, but what does this baby look like?
Opiated chicken broth anyone?
Oh, I am so easily amused.
That's it. That's the joke. Opiated chicken broth. Get it? Okay. Thanks for coming folks. I'll be here all week.
Now to knitting. The answer is. . .
yes, I cast on. I did a half-hearted gauge swatch because I know my own knitting, and I knew what the swatch would tell me. So last night I developed a new respect for knitting on size 3s by casting on 305 stitches and knitting ten rows on size 0's for the lower edge. You don't need to see it. It's just as you suspect, fine, teeny stitches crammed onto a 24 inch circ while I locate one of my many 32 inch ones wherever they might be hiding. (Nope, not in the spice cupboard.)
Meanwhile, check out the gorgeous Poetry in Stitches Leaf Cardigan at Erica's new blog. I'm going to be unofficially KAL with her (and Margene) whether they like it or not..
I have been wandering lately, looking over the projects I have in process, feeling vaguely dissatisfied with all of them, none of them particularly motivating, cute but not compelling. Here it is, winter, snow and cold and great inspiration for making something warm, but I have no projects that get me out of bed in the morning. I am spinning passionately. That may be where all the love has gone.
So I dug through my stash (I borrowed the snow shovel from the back porch during the one six hour period when it wasn't snowing) and uncovered this.
It's a kit for the sweater on page 136 of Poetry in Stitches that I bought from Bea Ellis just before Christmas as a present for myself. I am scared of the little stitches for a whole sweater on size 2s, but I managed the Linen Drape monster on size 3s, so how much worse can it be? Answer: several steeks worse. But I have pledges from several experienced souls that I can drop in any hour of the reasonable day with my completed knitting and a pair of scissors, and they will hold me down while I cut my own knitting.
So while I plod through a plain black cardigan, while I turn heels of several socks, while I procrastinate on starting Nordic mittens I promised a friend that I would knit for her just like the ones I made for myself, but in pink and orange, I can quake in fear and anticipation of casting on. I can lie in bed and dread the swatch, I can live in fear that a kit doesn't have enough yarn in it to finish the project, I can admire Margene's Lotus and wish I had the courage to follow her example. Sure, Wendy tosses these things off in her sleep, but me? I am a bear of great doubt in my ability to stay true to one project like this.
But the yarn is here.
I want to wear it.
I want to knit it.
Will I cast on?
Will there be pictures?
Stay tuned, and see if I dare
or if I just knit another sock.
Hey, we got over two feet of snow north of Boston.
So I got some knitting done.
(that's the little needle-felted snowman I made before Christmas: he's been hanging around here ever since. I think he's a cheerful little presence.)
And in honor of the Blizzard of "05, I have a new hat.
(Can you tell that somebody hasn't been sleeping much since she got a new wheel?)
In Dale Sisik, from Dalegarn #130. This is a terrific pattern for handspinners. You knit the headband until it fits, graft it together, and then pickup stitches (remember, 3 stitches for every 4 rows) and follow the very easy shaping. I must remember this for the someday I make a presentable worsted size yarn.
Later: To answer Emma's question: this is the current version of the green and turquoise thing in the picture above, the Four Corners Hat from winter 2000 Knitters that I think is now available from Cabin Fever patterns.
I am suddenly an html idiot. Sorry this post is so messy: I can't get typepad to cooperate with me today.
Here is the naughty merino, tamed by my new wheel (have I mentioned that I have a new wheel?). The fiber is from Ashland Bay Trading, in the colourway Sandalwood. It's a soft wool, short in staple, and on the Joy regularly pulled out of my fingers as I drafted. The difference between my spinning on my Joy and on the Tina II is a testament to good tools. The Joy is a fine wheel--compact and portable--but I am too tall for that set-up and the scotch tension makes the uptake too brusque for me with this particular roving. 
Now, at this point I must assume that you would like to see what I've been complaining about, but you'll look at this and remind yourself that I complain about things that are not clearly translated by a digital photograph. You're looking at the single on the Joy and fuming, "That Moth Heaven Woman is nuts. She's a big whinging liar. That looks just fine to me. Between this and that felted bag she claims to have ruined, I'm never believing a word she says about her own work again! "
I admit, both spindles look roughly equivalent, but there's a lot more sweat embeded in the fiber on the Joy, and a lot more PG-13 punctuation marks in cartoon bubbles released into the air because of that particular spindle. So I'm taking up full time with the Tina from here on out: it's better for my blood pressure, and I can spin in the same room as my kids are watching T.V
Oh. Almost forgot: I finally finished the first of the Fritzy's Socks. At this rate the second one should be done in May. But this may be the nicest sock I've ever knit. I adore the Mountain Colours Bearfoot. It's soft and cuddly and isn't squeaky at all like most other "sock" yarns. And for those of you flirting with the skein in your stash but not sure how much of a sock you can get out of it, I divided the yarn into two 50 gram skeins with the chemist's scale, and out of one half, I got 7 inches of sock before I started the heel, and 9 inches of foot. There was enough left over that I think I could have added an inch somewhere, but better a safe sock than one with a contrast toe.
This morning I woke up to this lovely view down my garden walk after the snow we had last night.
Not much to show since it's been busy in the not-quite-fiber-way around here. I have been trying to fill up a spindle to show you, but I tell have to admit that the beautiful Tina makes the former "naughty merino" so fine that I have a lot of work ahead of me.
Naughty Merino. It has a grand sound to it, like it should be the nickname of a hockey player, or a race horse.
Or a race sheep.
For two nights, I dreamt of spinning wheels.
I considered the price I might get for my Double Treadle Joy with extra bobbins and a carrying case, compared it to the cost of a new Tina II , and decided that I should call Ann Hennessey at the Wool Room in Antrim, New Hampshire and ask her to order one for me from Mr. Jensen.
I worried about it being Martin Luther King Day, but in New Hampshire (which only beat Utah by a year) everyone is open for business!
And get this: she had one in stock.
And the Wonder Boy wanted to go for a big car ride!
Can you say planets in alignment?
And even better, when I got the box home and pulled everything out, I found a Union Made stamp on the bottom of the wheel. It made my heart glad to buy something not only home grown, but also made in a union shop.
The assembly was a snap, and even though I intend to finish this new baby of mine with three coats of danish oil as Ann suggested, I set up immediately in my corner to see how it treated the Ashland Bay Trading Co merino that has been making me crazy.
It looks like someplace very far away from here, doesn't it?
The merino is behaving itself, thanks to this wheel.
I may not need to sleep tonight.
