Moth Heaven

Messing About, as Usual

I finished the knitting on the Shell Bag a couple of weeks ago, and I've been waiting for the Homestead Heirlooms handles to arrrive.  I got back from Soar convinced that they would be here.  No sign of them.  Days passed.  Nothing.

Now granted, we are wrapped like a Christo installation because the chimney is being rebuilt.  There are men on my roof with wheel barrows and scaffolding, and I can hear everything they say.  It comes down the chimney like a telephone. They don't talk about anything that's very interesting.  Mostly it's sports, which I understand is the lingua franca of the American male.  I only wish they cared about social policy or America's role in the world as much as they seem to care about rookie RBI's in the post-season.

All the scaffolding?  It puts the mailman off a bit.  He can't seem to decide where to leave our mail, so he tries something new everyday.  The front stoop made a lot of sense, which is why, of course, he only tried that once.  He's left it on the table on the back patio, under the scaffolding by the side door (nostalgia on his part I think for the time weeks and weeks ago when that was the door we used to let the world in), on my car hood, and next to the garbage cans which was also (in his defense) under a bush. He may be having me on, really.  But since the handles hadn't shown up, I went looking for them yesterday.

And the Mister, who thinks of himself as a natural bloodhound who can find anything I misplace (rememeber the keys incident?) calls out the back door at me.  "Whatcha' lookin' for?" he says.

"My purse handles."

"Those came while you were away."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I figured you'd seen them."

He, like the mailman, likes to leave my mail in (shall we call it?) interesting places.  On the table in the parlor in plain sight, of course.  Exactly where I would never look for it.  I had been waiting for the handles to finish the bag.  So finally, they are here, and I can get on with it.

I have chosen the fabric from the stash (Kaffe, of course).

I wet blocked the knitting.

  The bottom is my favorite part.  But here's the thing: it's big.

Really, really

big.  18 inches across big. This is the biggest wastebasket in the house, big enough to leave unemptied for months at a time.  I had to empty it today (you know, for the blocking?) and I found Christmas wrapping at the bottom.  That's how big this bag is.  As fond as I am of the stitches, I may have to felt it after all.

But I love the handles.  Terry was so right.

The Week in Favorites

1. The Red Sox: I have come to hate sports.  I hate professional sports most of all because I think of it as a validation for the worst of human behaviors.  There are noble moments, it's true, when that ball get improbably caught or some unfortunate child with terminal something gets to meet their sports idol, but mostly, those are accidents in a general war culture of us versus them and corporate sponsored brawling.  But I am a small person in a great sea of vicarious gladiators, so I am resigned to the parade of games and small children wearing faux uniforms (Hallowe'en is particularly grating).   It is my great relief that if the Boston Red Sox have to be in the World Series, that they just get it over with, sweep the Rockies, and get that crap off my television (just in time for the Bruins). Go Sox!

2. Fall.  I just love fall.  Both because it is the most colourful time of year, the seasons turning confirm that we have not yet messed up the planet enough to stop it from turning at all, and because it is the return to wool. And you know how I feel about the wool.

3. Buffalo Tom.  Local heros coming home between tours supporting their new album, I saw them at the Somerville Theatre the other night.  It was a good time.  They started out with a mellow acoustic set, then built up to raucous good guitar banging fun.  All that with 40-something jokes, decent beer, and all out in time to relieve the baby-sitter.  I love those guys.

4. Robert Mash's How to Keep Dinosaurs.  The Boy is in full bore Dino mode.  He is absorbing the sweep of natural history like money at an alarming rate.  He cries himself to sleep at night because he will never get to see a real ornithocheirus. We discuss the chronology of the Mesozoic over breakfast.  We clock land speed rates of various theropods as we drive in the car.  We speculate on how long the Shaw's produce section would last should a hungry diplotocus happen across the bounty.   In the blizzard of books and Discovery channel programming, Mash's book is a dark, absurd, and bone dry owners manual for this Holocene adult trapped in a relationship with the Jurassic.  Have I mentioned that it is dead funny?

5. Vong Thai Kitchen.  When I was in Chicago last week, Brooke suggested this place for dinner.  Chicago is a forest of good places to eat, so it was no surprise that this was one of the best Thai-style meals I have ever had in my life.  I have even been to Thailand, eaten in fancy restaurants and regular roadside joints there.  I have standards. . . and I wish Vong's delivered to Boston. This week, I am dreaming of lemongrass mojitos, portobello satay, and panang curry.  Yum.

6. My boots.

The 15 year old begged asked for these in black for Christmas last year, and she got them. They are a little racy on her, I have to admit.  Where she walks, she leaves  boot-shaped patches of smoking earth behind her. I thought maybe they might do the same for me.  So I got them in brown, and they do, sort of.  I don't have the legs I used to, which is really necessary to smoke the sidewalk, but even at my middle age, the pavement does wince a little.

Earnshaw Energy

Finally, a new sweater.  It's been months since I could prance around in new wool, but mostly in this one, I loll.
Try it.  A proper loll is difficult without the right wool.  The angora doesn't float about the house so much now that the sweater is off the needles, and it does fill me with the proper languor for the loll.
Adirondack chairs help too.
Specs: Earnshaw from Jane Ellison's Simply Noro book, in Kochoran colour # 10, largest size, 9.5 skeins, knit without the hood.

A Galena Kind of Day

Count me among the many many knitters who love Galena.

Galena and my fiber neighbor RoseAnn met out at the Fiber and Folk Art Fest this summer, and RoseAnn invited her to come teach a class at the Inn between Galena's weekends at Rhinebeck and Harrisburg.  So she did.

Tuesday, nine of us, like Gina

and Cyndi, gathered for a primer in Orenburg history and technique.  There was candy coloured zephyr wound into little Orenburg bobbins (or bon bons?) mounded on silver cake stands on the jaquard tablecloth,

hot coffee, and a knitter's potluck.

And Galena is funny.  Really funny.  She is also regal and charming, and comes loaded down with yarn like an old world peddlar.  In addition to the delights of Orenburg lace method,

she offered us humour, knitting wisdoms, memoir, and quiviut in many colours.

What more could a knitter ask for in a day?

How about a drop in around tea time by Leslie Wind with her newest designs for shawl pins?  Lace knitting?  Shawl pins?  It's like they planned it that way. Leslie's silver and bronze pieces are especially well suited for the lace because they are light and gentle, and every bit as beautiful as the shawls. They deserve each other. I bought one of her new celtic knot designs (that one on the right just above the circle), because you know, I had to have one.

And for those of you keeping score, the winner is:

Arwen. As is turns out, Cheryl tried on Kate's inspiring original at Rhinebeck, so we're knitting it together.  It was Cheryl who raced motivated me to knit Wing of the Moth last year in 10 days, so I have great hopes for getting more than one of those sweaters off my jones list. The yarn is from our Webs trip last summer, K1C2's Angora Soft.  I washed the yarn first, thanks to Kelly's advice, so the machine oil smell is gone and it feels really nice to knit. No wool in it, but never mind about that.  It looks great in the cable.

Have I mentioned that the reversible cable is genius?

Eenie Meenie Miny Moe

The hulking angora snuggle (aka Earnshaw) is done.  Seamed, tried on, deemed good.
Sometimes I just want a big shapeless hug from the wool
Pictures will have to wait because I am home alone for a few days, and you remember the last time The Boy was in charge of the camera?

So, I have picked up PS136 again, but while I read all the blog-goings on at Rhinebeck, I want something like a swatch, something for another sweater. 

Here are the sirens calling my name.

The new and improved Arwen.  I have Webs yarn in the stash for this, a nice black that isn't too black.   I want a sweater to just toss on, and this one with a little extra length because I am a tall girl, you know, would be perfect.

The new rage for sure.  I found this at Fig and Plum, the Cable Luxe Pringle Lion Brand knockoff.  I want this in something with a little cashmere.  Or a little alpaca. This may have to wait for the right yarn.  Or I may have to go shopping today.

Or I could knit this, Mari Lynn Patrick's Ribbed Tunic from the last Vogue Knitting.  I borrowed Allison's picture of her fantastic version (she has other pictures too.  Go look).  Love it.  Convinced it would make me look like chic on a stick.   And the persimmon Jaegar Luxury Tweed I've been hoarding would be worthy of my hopes and dreams for this one.  But then there's this.

It's cable pattern #175 from the Japanese Patterns Book 250.  That's all there is to it for now, but I want to make a sweater with this pattern across the chest, plain 6 x 3 rib up the body, set-in sleeves.  After SOAR, I promised myself to listen to my design urges, and this is a loud one.   I have 1500 yards of Foxfire Cormo silk in the stash, which was the inspiration, but after the math, I am going to be short.  So again with the shopping.

Clearly I have cables on the brain. 

Many Teachers

This is Phreadde.  This is not a pretty picture of Phreadde, as I am sure she would want me to tell you, but it is a picture of Phreadde that sums up a lot of SOAR for me. When I sat down at the dinner table the first night, the banquet celebrating 25 years of this gathering, I had never seen her before, but it was clear to me that she was a veteran attendee.  Marcy had given me a list of people to hug for her, and I realized later that Phreadde was at the top of the list. But here's the thing.  Note what is in her pocket.  Fiber.  Note what she is holding.  Drop Spindle.  Note what she is doing.  Teaching.  What is she teaching?

How to turn this into a bobbin winder for your drop spindle.

What is that?  It's something like one of these, modified with a rubber band around the shaft to grip a weaver's bobbin, which will wind off and store your spindling single for plying.  Cool, eh?

All week long, there are moments llike this. Little tricks and individualisms that made me realize how four dimensional is the wool world. 

You should see Abby ply on her drop spindle (that is, by the way, Abby over there behind the bobbin winder Phreadde is wielding).  You may have seen Abby's video or read the post about it on her blog, or seen her party trick version of it on Stephanie's blog, but to watch Abby actually ply by throwing her spindle away from her, sometimes to spin like a top on the ground, I expected sparks or a ta-dah everytime.  I'm not at all sure what it was that I was seeing, but I knew it was spectacular.  I had the feeling I have sometimes when I get a good seat and can watch the pianist's hands in a Jazz trio.  I have the remotest idea of what the fingers are doing, because I do play a little, but the virtuoso specifics escape my amateur eye.  Again with the SOAR face.

Speaking of things you've already seen on Stephanie's blog, I thought you might get a kick out of this. 

Stephanie at work, blogging the moment.  Shameless, isn't she?  Thank the heavens for that.  And notice that she is not alone getting a picture up Denny's skirt. (hellooooo google!) But I digress.  Perhaps for the best, because really, the more I tell you about the things I learned, the more your head would reel.  Like a top.  Or a drop spindle, as it were.

One other moment worth sharing.  This, the picture that I have wanted to show people for years, everytime someone tells me that I am so lucky to be tall.  I want to show them this.

Think of this as a standard coach seat.  Okay, so it's a school bus, and Juno does have a few inches on me, but that's what it's like to be tall in this world.

Just sayin'.

Have fun at Rhinebeck, for those of you who are going.  I'll be sleeping.

SOAR Face: Try it Yourself

There was much talk at Soar of a particular facial expression, the way one's eyes bug out, the mouth drops open, the colour rushes to the cheeks, and all motion in the entire body comes to a stillness as the mind moves the neurons around a little, to kick out dearly held beliefs (because this wool thing, it is a kind of religion for me, and I have some superstitions to exorcise) to make way for a new paradigm when it comes to the wool.
I have no pictures to show you of this particular face, because mostly it was me who put it on.

But here are some pictures of things that inspired it.  Look, and get a SOAR face for yourself.

Kathryn Alexander's sock sculpture.

That is not Kathryn Alexander.  This is Allison Judge, proof that people other than herself ( and Maryse) actually knit her designs, and rock them hard.

Sara Lamb's handpainted version of the Peacock Shawl.

Sharon Costello's felted vessel.

Charlene Abram's handspun sweater. She had several such things, but the small camera I had failed them.  Next time, I take the Rebel, no matter how hard it is to pack.

I didn't write down the name of this woman, but Cindy Lair's sweater is knit from a yarn painted in the school of Nancy Roberts.

Again, a lost knitter's name, but Margaret Stove's handspun lace and painted border  made me gasp. (That I should have been sitting in her class when I took this picture, --my fourth -- taken notes, and still have forgotten it was Margaret Stove herself, spinner and knitter of the christening shawls for the princes William and Harry, and author of this book, is testimony to how brain dead I was by the third day.)

Formerly known to me as "That Girl at Rhinebeck with The Shawl", Jenni's lace is astonishing to me, so fine, so very minute, that her whole shawl weighs one and a half ounces.  The category of "frog hair" was re-named "tadpole hair" in her honour.  We had to pet it again and again.  She didn't mind.

And then there was this, the last night of SOAR.

SOAR is a place so apparently abundant with beauty that it fills the trash.  Denny made out like a bandit, with fibery bits to make magic with, as only she can.

I am Alive, Incredibly

They did everything they could to kill me at SOAR; I am stronger than that, but just barely.

On Sunday morning as we staggered back across the parking lot for breakfast, Stephanie wondered aloud, from a place deep in her tiredness why SOAR didn't have a mortality rate.

Perhaps it does, they just didn't tell us about it.  The bodies are stripped of their fiber and hidden away.  At the end of the week, we all look around like soldiers at the end of the battle, and count those who are missing from our number.

"Where's Joan?"
"She was done in by the high speed whorl class, never made it past the Turkish Spindle. Poor thing, she didn't stand a chance."

"Anyone seen Amy?"
"Lace with Margaret Stove killed her.  I tried everything to save her, but her head just exploded."

And so we count ourselves lucky to get out of there alive.

Toward the end of the week, people kept apologizing for the lack of sense that was coming out of their mouths.  Ann Merrow said "Pardon me, I only have one neuron left and it doesn't have anything to talk to." Phreadde had a solution for my version of this problem: "Have another glass."

I'm going to gather my pictures, rinse out my socks, and then come back to share some of the things I know a very little better about now (none of it has anything to do with spinning.  I knew a lot more about spinning ten days ago), but first I must sleep.

Or 'Tish for Short

A small fiber triumph in my house this week when I located the last ball of the Kochoran to finish Earnshaw, that sale yarn impulse sweater I started back in May. What was a week's project has turned into an epic.  Just in time for the cooler weather, though, so the timing is excellent.  I set to knitting the last sleeve, and then dug the whole shedding angora snuggle out of hiding to seam it up.

Did I ever show you the neck?

Very proud of that stripey match business going on there.  Not easy when you think you're running out of yarn.  Those of you who have been around for awhilke know that if I'm not worried about yarn quanities, I'm not the knitter.

So, the sleeves.  I took them to knit night Tuesday to do the seam thing, and pulled them out of the bag, chirping about how I was going to have me a new sweater this week (it's been a long time since there was a new sweater around my place). Here they are. 

Perfect example of the drop shoulder sleeves.  Sleevius Dropii.  Except, wait.  What is that there, in the right upperhand corner?  Is that . . .

Another sleeve?

Oh man.  Three sleeves.  I actually knit three sleeves. 

Just call me Morticia.

well, at least now I know that I have enough yarn for the collar.

Now, I'm off to SOAR, leaving at 4 a.m. Thursday morning.  I'll be back next Wednesday with pictures and stories. 

Big Wheels Keep on Turning

Which I promise you is going to be the name of this post for everyone who was here:

We were celebrating Cheryl's beautiful Reeves by gathering together the Reeves clan, and the friends of the Reeves clan (Schacht and Russo wheels are proud to be included).

I fell in love with Lorrie's Lendrum.

And with Lily

(so did Cheryl, as you can see)

There was food, sock yarn from Judy, and lots and lots of chat.

That's my favorite part. 

Everyone said "See you at Rhinebeck" when I left at 5.  "No, sorry. " I said.  "I am spending my fiber time budget on SOAR this year." 

After such a day of spinning, I feel ready.