Moth Heaven

In the Paper this Week

I had a letter to the editor of my local paper published on Friday of this last week.  I thought that I'd share it with you.

A New Social Contract

Dear Editor,

Recently, readers of the Daily News were informed that our police
department has employed the olfactory skills of a drug-sniffing dog
to better secure our city against drug use by our fellow citizens.
Tourists and Inn-streeters [the local teenagers hang out] alike can now
look forward to having their persons examined by this sensitive and
no-doubt expertly trained detection system while they window shop
and enjoy the sights of our fair city.

But they should know that, like the son of a friend of mine, they too
can be called into court for just being in the company of someone who
attracts the attention of this drug-sniffing dog.  So I would like to
suggest a new social contract to my neighbors, in the spirit of self-
preservation and keeping their names out of the police log lest they
become the object of speculation and failing reputation.

When greeting friends, instead of asking how they are, or how the
children are doing in school, waste no time with such pretty
flourishes. There is not a moment to lose -- the dog may be at your
heels for all you know.  Ask to see the contents of their pockets or
purse, and check not only for telltale baggies, but also for any
paraphernalia that may harbor residue.  Smell their breath for extra
security.  If they are only a casual acquaintance and you feel
awkward about asking, check the contours of their clothes.  Are there
any bulges that may not be explained by anatomy?  Very good friends
might even consider the full-body pat-down.  Given time, such
exchanges might replace the ineffective handshake as the typical
American greeting.  Who needs the Fourth Amendment when you are --
and have -- a vigilant friend?

Just looking out for you,

julia fc

Among Other Things, Sock Machine Questions

Plato said something like "The beginning is the most important part of the work."  If that is so, then I have been being very important the last few days.  I started the Leopard Mittens:

I cast on for the Marina Piccola socks in Koigu PPPM #P514:

I put some Sereknity fiber on the Victoria (colourway Pansy)

So many beginnings, indeed.

I have so many things needing the end of the work, which Plato aside, is really really important if the work is going to be at all useful.  But for the past few days, the beginnings have certainly been the most interesting. And there was this too. I took apart the new CSM (a Home Profit Master Knitter) cleaned and polished it, and put it back together.

Pretty, ain't it?  I was amused to see in Spin-Off, which arrived in Friday's mail, Susan Forsyth's article about spinning for a CSM.  This would explain the emails I have had in the past week asking if I wanted to sell my machine. 

Here's the answer in advance: No, but thanks for the offer to take one off my hands.  I'm very happy with both of them, contrary to my original post.  I have since worked out the kinks, know how to work them, and crank happily.  If you are looking to get your hands on one and want one NOW, I suggest you do one or all of these things:

1. Search ebay for "sock machine"

2. Join and endear yourself to the crowd on one of the sock machine knitters lists on Yahoo in hopes that one of the regulars decides to unload some of their collection. 

3. Check the list of restored machines at Angora Valley or any of the other vendors who come up in Google.  I recommend Angora Valley because I have happily bought needles and things from Pat and it's always been good.

4. Buy a brand new one from Jacquie. I bought one of a limited run 96/48 cylinder for my Autoknitter from her, and it's very nice.

Leopard Mittens

As promised, I am sharing the chart for the leopard mittens I am knitting for my son.  I haven't actually cast on yet, but I did spend the last day's worth of my knitting time trying to figure out how to let you all have a copy of it, should you care to have one. The solution is here:

Download leopardmittenpdf.pdf

  It's a pretty standard mitten chart, designed for a dk weight yarn, knit on size 4s, for a finished size of 6.5 inches around.  I am knitting mine with 2 skeins Reynold’’s Kids Playtime (which is not only soft, but also a superwash!)  in beige, and 1 more in brown.

The size may be adjusted using the same graph by knitting in Fingering (knit to 8st/in)for smaller finished size (5.25 inches around), or Worsted (knit to 5 st/in) for the larger (8 inches around). Remember that the gauge is measured in pattern in the round.

I recommend casting on with 40 stitches, ribbing for a few inches before increasing to 42 stitches, knitting one row in the background colour to set up, and then beginning that chart.  It will make reading the diagram easier to print out the chart first and tape the pieces together so that the lines match up.  And don't forget to move the thumb to the other side for the second mitten.

I was thinking of several versions of the pattern you might consider, such as beginning instead with a cuff of your own design in the Latvian fashion, maybe adding some kente cloth colours and motifs for a little splash.  (Like the 8 and 12 stitch repeat ones I put here) Or if you're feeling really ambitious, you could fill in the spots with a medium brown for a particularly leopard-y effect, either by stranding, or intarsia.  Whatever apporach you choose to take, just have fun with it.

More Yarn for sale

I'm preparing a yarn yard sale, getting the post ready for y'all, but in the meantime, if any of you are in the 100% wooly mood for some gorgeous green Rowan Magpie (and who isn't with the hint of crisp in the air as only September can bring), I have some up on ebay at the moment.

That's all.

See you soon.

Company's Coming: Quick, Hide the Knitting!

It's an inevitable disappointment to my muggle friends who somehow find out about the blog.  When they get here, having known me in my delusional college years of plotting the great American novel, in my grad school years aspiring to the tenure track, or in my suburban  years simply as a smart ass and a reliable goof, they search out the blog even though they've been warned that it's only about the wool, (finding me no doubt through some google concatenation of tall, knitting, standard poodle, and sheep poop) and they see this.

(One blogging friend says an acquaintance of hers claims to have found her blog by googling knitting and "daddy issues". Go ahead.  I'll wait . . .  1500 hits on that one? I know, eh?  )

On the one hand, the muggles don't know much about knitting blogs, so they probably think the place looks pretty nifty.  On the other, they don't speak the language, so what might be an amusing post to you about the crisis of chart errors or my latest intoxications with ugly yarn or representing in the name of the Harlot, only makes them wonder why anyone would read the blasted thing -- shiny and colourful as it is -- at all.  I never hear about it again (mercifully) or, and this is the worst, they say things like "Oh.  I had a little peak at your blog the other day.  It's about knitting, isn't it?"

Yes, I say, it pretty much is all about the knitting.

"I didn't realize you thought so much about it." 

grrrrr.

They say that the first step to solving anything is to admit that you have a problem.  Well folks, this ain't a problem, because really, I have thought about many things in my life like I am thinking about the wool these days.  Old Roses. Vegetarianism.  House renovation. Mississippi John Hurt.   The 19th-century American nationalist texts of immigrant narratives, world's fairs, and the Columbian quadricentennial. (yeah, there it is. The abandoned dissertation. Priscilla Ward published this book a few years after I quit that did what I was trying to do but much more intelligently, and I'm glad she did.). But those preoccupations of mine happened before such a beast as Typepad, so I didn't document my infatuations in quite so public a manner.  While the evidence of these episodes lives on in my library (right next to the Rowan magazines), you just can't beat a blog as a medium for obsession, and as a result, I look crazier to the muggles from this angle than I do from any other.

And yet there are so many of us knitbloggers.  What was the last count?  Anyone?  So very many of us.  I started writing out of loneliness, stuck in the house with a toddler with sensory issues who hated the outside world.  The knitting gave me peace, and the blog gave me community.  I know that's why many of us are here, knitting Mystery Stoles and Jaywalkers together.  It's a ticklish thing, that feeling of connection with people I only know by their knitting.  How many times at a gathering have I recognized a blogger by the sweater on her back?  How many new things have I tried because June or Saartje (for example) made it look so easy? I've never met either of them, but I consider them (and so many others) authorities and allies as far as beauty and wool is concerened.

Muggles be damned.  I can't undo what's been done,  just hope that google fails in finding me out.  Meanwhile, I'll still be here. We all understand each other, don't we?

And speaking of community: thank you for all the kind words, shared memories, and heartfelt good wishes on the news of George's death. 

The Post About my Dog

My family and I have lived with a Standard Poodle named George for the last 12 years.  He came to us from Giselle in Toronto as a puppy, and has always been a noble, charming, intuitive, and calming presence in my life.  Call my husband any one of those, it would be true, but George was all that, and he always thought that whatever that I had to say was interesting, even if it was because "cookie" might have shown up among those words at any minute.

He arrived during the construction of our kitchen; his early days were filled with the sounds of chop saws and compressors, so he learned quickly to be calm amid the crazy.  His first best friend was Roger, the plumber, whose favorite game with the puppy was tug of war with the chew toys.  Roger thought it was only fair if they both held on with their teeth.

One of my least favorite moments of George's life was when I found the yarn I had bought for a mother-in-law sweater shredded and strewn about the  back hallway.  George looked miserable because I think he understood that all that fun suddenly seemed frivolous, and I didn't even have to raise my voice.  He never did touch the wool again, but he did develop a taste for used kleenex and pink Barbie dresses which I would find on occasion, uh, "deposited" under his favorite tree. He remained, however, a gentle beast.  He was always been kind to cats, never considered squirrels worth his attention, barked at men but never women, and ate as delicately as if he were trained by the Vanderbilts.

We always kept George in a casual sport cut, but he did look sharp when he had just been done, and he knew it. When he was freshly trimmed and wearing his bandana, he trotted along like he was on Rodeo wearing his brand new Manolos. 

George was diagnosed by a veterinary neurologist six weeks ago with what she called the wobblies.  He had a place in his spine that was interferring with the workings of three of his legs, and while he was not in pain, his control had been getting worse for awhile (he had to be picked up off the floor, carried up and down stairs, and someone had to brace his back legs while he ate).  Our vet had told me that all of this was just arthritis. She was wrong.  The problem in his spine was irreversible given his age, however, he remained delighted to be here, it seemed.  Then a few weeks ago, he wasn't able to walk at all. So The Mister and I took him to see the vet for the last time, and we held him quietly as he went to sleep.

I grew up in a house full of dogs, my mother having raised legendary German Shepherds, so I have no illusions about dogs and the shortness of their time with us.  It seems unfair somehow though, that such companionship can only ever last a fraction of our own lives.  He was the sweetest dog of all the dogs I have known, and now that he is gone, I will have to wait a long time before I will know if my heart can bear such another loss.

I cherished every one of his last days, I spoiled him rotten (I said cookie a lot) and I said to him every day an especially tender "good dog, goodnight". If you have such a dog, or a cat you love like that, give them a hug for me, and thank the heavens for their friendship.  We are lucky to know them.

The Island of Misfit Yarn

Remember Eros?
or Furz?
I bet a good number of knitters you know got into knitting because of the sparklies and the scarves they could make with them -- cruel siren call that it was, because most of the stuff was as easy to handle as a sugar-pumped toddler.

And now here we are a few years later and the new knitters have moved on to wool.

Nice, ain't it?  Now it's all about (fictional?) cashmere content and overspun merino.

So where has all the novelty stuff gone now that it's been dropped like bad fish wrapped in yesterday's news?

Some of it lives with me. 

I bet you didn't know this about me did you?  Unless of course, you've seen the stash, and then you wouldn't be surprised to know that lurking in some of those Rubbermaids and pillowcases there is a colony of adopted novelty yarn.

I started picking the odd ball up at stash swaps, feeling sorry for the lone ball of Paris Nights lying there on the table once the Bartlett and ancient Lopi had finally found a taker.  I'd bring it home and toss it in a bag with the other sparklies, and after a few years, I had to move them into their own living quarters.  But now that they're all together in one box, you have to be careful when you take the lid off because it's like the atmosphere has been stripped away and now the sun is searing out at you from the depths of the Rubbermaid, and there you are without protection.  You can get sunstroke.  But handled with caution, they can be endearing little things.

There are a few things I particularly love about the sparklies. 

1. They are moth proof.  Not a single natural fiber in most of it, and no self-respecting moth would ever stray near one of them. Come to think of it, redistributed throughout the stash, maybe they could guard the other yarn, like a sheep dog or a llama.  I'll have to get back to you on that one.

2. They do brighten up the place with the light bouncing off them like Liberace's piano. If I ever have a dance party, I could just hang a few from the ceiling like an instant mirror ball.  Holding one in your hand, you can almost hear Donna Summer.

3. They're free. For most things, this kind of free is as appealing as a short sleeved radiation suit, but for me, it just adds to the pathos.  Like those sad-eyed velvet painting puppies, or the fat Elvis.  Excuse me a minute . . . I'm getting verklempt.

I don't know what use I will ever put to it since I have little interest in scrumbling or scarves of my own (don't you even dare suggest I use some in something I would wear), but I do feel sorry for the little balls, so cheerful and optimistic, so pathetic and lonely.  At least they can be with their own kind.  It's like I'm running a yarn asylum.  Or an island of lost acrylic.  A Cheers bar for the decrepit Vegas showgirls of the knitting world. I won't take all the jokes; I'll leave some for you to make in the comments.

Now I understand that by sharing this with you I have revealed my soft belly underside, and someone out there is going to think that they've finally found what to do with their old sparklies, now that the novelty has faded and the stuff is taking up space in the stash where cashmerino would fit nicely, but no.  You may not dump your old metallics on me, bomb me with Feza or leave a pile of Eyelash on the backseat of my unlocked car like so much August zuccini. I do have limited space; the sparklies I have are all the sparklies I have room for.  So keep yours to yourself.  Maybe give it its own place in your stash, or in a dark corner that needs a little illumination, but one where you will see it and be reminded of the little fling you had with it, silly knitter full of youth and dreams that you were.  But all the better for it.

Elsewhere, sanity persists. Sleeve two has arrived.