Very Superstitious

It’s true – I’m a superstitious creature even though I am all about the science.  Rationally I know there’s “no such thing” as sympathetic magic, but having spent most of my formative years in desperate search of proof of unicorns, I can’t help but hope.

Sympathetic magic, for those of you who have not whiled away work hours reading “The Golden Bough” is based on imitation, or contagion/contact. Imitation involves using effigies to affect the environment of people, or people themselves – like poppets and voodoo dolls that contain scraps of hair or fingernails as a “link” to the person they were modeled off.  Contagion/contact is the idea that you leave behind “trace” energy on things you own, and this can be manipulated or detected, or even transferred – like a warrior who eats the heart of his enemy to obtain his courage.

Seems pretty logical, right? Well, logical back when the caloric principle and the humors were hard science! But still, though I turn my nose up at it I’m careful whose hairbrush I use, lest anything be left behind that could be turned over to the wilier practitioners of folk hoodoo or santeria (or cloning technicians).

As a former theatre major, I’m all too familiar with the trade superstitions.  Though, I enjoyed flouting them or enraging actors by shouting “MACBETH!” back stage or wishing an actor GOOD LUCK with a wide smile.  I didn’t know, however, that it’s not done to knit in the wings of a theatre!  Makes sense, if you’ve seen the way actors behave backstage in the dark.  Someone could lose an eye!

Knitting superstitions intrigue me though, here’s an activity that women and men have been doing for thousands of years.  It wasn’t an artsy thing then, but a utilitarian function.  Many other utilitarian activities have scads and scads of superstitions associated with them, farming especially.  But why are there so few surviving bits of folklore and superstitons about knitting?  The only ones I could remember I heard from my Yetta (that’s great-grandmother to you, she’s Serbian by birth). She assured me that if you thought very hard about someone you hate while unravelling knitting you could hex them, and that you are not supposed to unravel something you knit for someone you love, lest you unravel your relationship (I assume this excludes unravelling contract or commercial knitting).

Some knitting superstitions floating about are especially silly, like never handing your friend the needles point first or at all, lest you damage the friendship (sorry J! We’re still friends, right?).  Well, I suppose no one likes to get stabbed by a pointy object. And the idea that empty knitting needles brings bad luck?  That’s a stash justification if I ever heard one! 

 Others seem to make a little more sense  – never knit your boyfriend a sweater until you have the ring or you’ll doom your relationship.  And the offshoot of “never buy your man shoes” is to never knit your boyfriend socks or he’ll walk away from you. Well, yes, if you knit him acid green lace socks he’ll run a mile, who could blame him?  Or an embarrassingly dorky and fussy sweater in fuzzy wool that YOU loved, but your boyfriend – not so much.  Couch common sense about male dress habits in with superstitious sternness and you have a line only the most fool hardy of knitters would cross.  Although when I was in London I did see some awesome boot socks in a posh outdoors store – burgundy with lime green toes and a contrast heel…but I digress.

They say if you knit your own hair into the garment – which happens a lot to me on accident, I have lots of hair and it seems to like escaping my scalp – or think tender thoughts of someone while you knit (but not while you frog) you’re supposed to be binding yourself to the garments recipient, or knitting yourself together with the object of your thoughts.

Which can only mean that if I send Daniel Craig my cardigan we’re destined to be together!

And with that clumsy segue way I am so pleased to say that I have given in to my Aussie pal’s siren song encouragement and have started…a sweater.  It’s the Dusk pattern from Kim Hargreaves’ Dark House collection, and I must admit that the leap from 2.00 mm needles to 4.5 seems pretty enormous.  I’ve been knitting sporadically and I still can’t believe the growth on this thing.  Doing the yarn substitution so I could have something warm and cozy to wear around the office was a pain, but thus far it’s worth it.

If I finish it I will have made my final leap from being a garter stitch scarf knitter to a Knitter in the course of a year!  A very exciting prospect…

Also: Have you heard any knitting lore from an elderly relative or reputable source? Care to share?

 

It’s a hard landing when you fall off the wagon…

The budget wagon that is. Curse you Kim Hargreaves. Curse you and your beautiful oh so knittable designs and your expensive Dark House Collection book (expensive seeing as exchange rates are nearly double).

I am sick, folks. Ill, poorly, sick as a dog, however you prefer to say it. And in the most undignified way possible – the sort of sick where your nose is red and irritated from blows on less than quality tissues, you break out, you look horrific, and your voice goes from Shirley Temple to Lauren Bacall thanks to the accumulation of a rainbow of mucous.

So sick am I, that in a fit of self pity (and in spite of the fact that my sweet precious automobile demands a hefty chunk of money to have its precious brakes and rotors replaced and repaired) I purchased the Dark House Collection book and look forward to finding it confusing and struggling through it. As my work sweater, a faithful but flimsy commercial waffleknit cardi-wrap, is in the last stages of super rattiness after two years of service, I anticipate knitting this delicious little number right away. I dislike the Rowan Felted tweed though, so yarn substitution may be in order (methinks Knitpicks will have something for me!) and may add length to the sleeves as I like em long.

This could be interesting.

 

I take that back

What I said about the Lantern Moon “sox stix” in ebony – they sort of blow. I have ONE needle left out of the five and I’m only done with the foot and a couple inches of the ankle.

Some background: I am a hardcore DPN user. I learned to knit in the round on DPNS because circulars annoyed and frightened me. I started out on those annoying Lion Brand plastic DPNs which were sticky but useable and then moved on the Boye Baleen needles because they were nice and bendy. Unfortunately the tips were easy to snap off and I was easily annoyed and disheartened. The ladies at Quarter Stitch in New Orleans introduced me to the awesomeness of bamboo, but I still held out skepticism that I couldn’t take those frail wooden needles anywhere without having to stop knitting on account of a broken needle. But the little Crystal Palace needles proved to be very durable (and are currently tied up holding place on the unfinished Alpaca socks…) and I was instantly converted to a wood-only DPN user. A lot of people give me looks and ask “Do you know you can do that with two circulars?” and I give them Withering Look and mutter something about not changing a perfectly good system for something new fangledy with a lot of potential for tangles.

I’ve had problems with 2.00 needles made out of regular wood before I just couldn’t keep the Brittany Birch needles from shattering for various reasons (although in those needles defense when a pal accidentally sits on your bag o-knitting they didn’t have much of a chance at all). That and the Brittany needles were annoyingly short – the free end hit me right about the heel of the hand on both sides as I knit and I discovered I was developing an entirely new knitting callous!

Its possible that I have some serious tension issues when it comes to holding my DPNs, in fact I can’t knit with metal DPNs as I intensely dislike the way the evil little metal sticks bite into my hands when I’ve knit more than 3 rows. I don’t have this problem with knitting with metal needles in bigger sizes Most of my sock needles inevitably turn from nice upright little lines to wonky curves in the course of one sock. Chigoo type bamboo needles, while affordable and nice to knit on, always develop at least one central stress crack while I’m knitting with them, which means I knit on three instead of four and keep the last as an inevitable backup.

When I first embarked on knitting socks as a constant thing I bought myself some incentive goodies – a frail pair of blonde wood sock needles (by Lantern Moon) and enough skeins of black and colored yarn to knit the rose stockings of my dreams in Ethnic Socks and Stockings. I was instantly charmed at the notion of knitting on “toothpicks” but because of the high cost of the needles I absolutely do NOT take them out of the house. Which sort of defeats the portable and awesome part of knitting socks.

I thought about consigning the Ebony sock sticks to the “house only” needle collection but said “Sod it, I want to get these 54 inches of eventual sock done some time before the cold goes away,” and cast on at Dadzillas. I just throw my knitting into my ginormous purse, I’ve yet to get up off my arse and make them a little special sack or cube or something to hold all the sock stuff so that stitch holders do not mingle freely with lipstick and Ipods, so perhaps my needles are at a higher risk than others. But still, every time a Sox Stix broke…it was in my hand.

And they don’t just break folks – these things shatter. I got a couple harsh splinters off of them, which only made the feeling that I’d just broken a 4 dollar stick that much worse. The Sox Stix weren’t horrible to knit on, they chugged along nicely but it was hard to maintain nice tension for all the fiddly lace bits on the socks when you fear a shattered needle or find it hard to scoot the yarn along. But the Sox Stix weren’t so awesome that they could justify the 20 something dollar price tag they carry at the LYS. They are incredibly gorgeous, but they aren’t phenomenal.

Maybe it’s because I’m spoiled by my precious, precious Addi bamboo DPNs. These things are pretty much unbreakable, slick but not frustratingly so, and I can breeze along any row no sweat. Also they are long enough that stitches don’t just vanish off the needles. Addi still comes through as the only knitting needle worthy of having its own religion.

If you need to know anything else about the Lantern Moon “Sox Stix” you can check out the Knitters Review site also.

 

The swift…

I did indeed receive a swift for Christmas.  Lets not talk about from whom, or why, or how.

In any case, the swift is awesome. Winding yarn into a ball is no longer the dread task it was. I do not have to spend hours with my yarn looped over my knees or random objects praying the cat won’t discover it. I still don’t believe in ball winders or center pull stuff, but now I can roll up my pretty old fashioned round balls without being immobilized for the duration!

Astoundingly I also got yarn for Christmas, really nice stuff too, from Dadzilla and his Girl-du-jour! So nice, in fact, that I have had to hide it away while I concentrate on knitting a couple pairs of socks off my plate!

Speaking of socks…I had a bit of an epic fail at increasing. It was laziness on my part really, but because of the odd skinny shape of my sisters feet I have had to do some tricky knitting to make sure they fit nicely. This is a girl who is so incredibly picky about socks and sock positioning that when we were kids it would take her at LEAST 15 minutes, if not more, to get that offensive toe seam in just the right position before she could ease her shoes on. With this in mind I shortrowed the toes! Not a seam in sight. Now I have to knit roughly 54 inches total of sock (Lorna Laces, Lakeview) so she can have a slim pair of over the knee eyelet socks to be worn with her “Bad guy Boots”

The problem lies in the tricky increase between the narrow ball of her foot and the wider heel circumference. Between here and there I have to sneak in an extra 20 stitches for a cozy tailored fit – I just got lazy and decided to do them all in one go and ended up with ANGLES on a sock foot body. Disgraceful, I should have known better, as I know what an increase like that looks like when you make a toe. I’ve fixed it, but I lost about an inch and a day of progress. Le sigh.

Also I am currently deeply coveting Kim Hargreaves Heartfelt: The Dark House Collection. Have you SEEN THIS? It’s amazing, its’ a book of patterns I would knit at least 75% of. Which means I feel justified in buying it! Usually looking for a pattern book is painful – the designs are not usually classic, elegant, fitted or at all adaptable and it’s usually easier to get a “recipe” type book and learn “how” and then venture out on my own. This collection (having seen only the results on the pages) looks fantastic as it’s a book I might knit directly out of, save for the necessary yarn substitutions. I like the longer cleaner shapes like “Darcy,” “Emily,” “Amory,” and “Calm” but I can easily see myself knitting the other designs for hipper relatives. I may have to break down and order this for myself, as painful as it seems to spend all that money on an import *sigh*

One more boring note and I’m done, I swear. I’m on Ravelry now! Petitmains is my username, of course, but there we are. Back to stealth knitting at work…

 

Your entire party has died of botulism…

I had this dream you see…

Should I ever need to “go off the grid,” in the unlikely situation that my mother is right about the impending New World Order, I will be prepared. I can plant a roof garden , engineer a piss-to-water machine like in Water World (assuming there is no rain), knit all my clothes (which I would probably be doing if I were on Survivor, I would carve out a set of DPNs and knit an endless tube out of grass just to keep from going nuts), and then I would can the bounty of my garden so that when the cold months came I could have peas.

If my pumpkin canning skills are any indication, my off the grid experience would be like the first few times I played Oregon Trail in Third Grade. An early, untimely death for me and my wagon train (you can, P.S., still buy Oregon Trail and I imagine it would be nostalgic good times, and at least 30% less addictive than the civilization building games).

Botulism is the word that describes my canning. For all my manual studying, for all the giant canning pots in the world and careful attention to instructions I created death pickles. The grand irony in all this is that a book about family poisoning inspired me to try canning this year, and from such toxic seeds the botulism pumpkin experiment sprang. Rasputina could write a song about this, I think.

In other news the Blue Moon Fiber Arts yarn is turning out to rock pretty hard. I spent several crazy-makin’ hours with the entire ginormous skein of Geisha artfully looped over my splayed knees and hooked around one footwinding a center pull ball and futzed around with a set of 3.25 MM DPNS until I came up with something that worked, gauge wise.

This yarn is dreamy, but it’s THIN. As in so fine that the only way to produce a relatively solid fabric is with a set of 2.5 MM needles (solid meaning something you can’t see flesh through). The Blue Moon site describes Geisha as “sport weight,” a three ply that’s fine enough for lace but not too fine for garment knitting.

Well, no, not its not too fine for garment knitting if you like fishnet or 2.5mm needles. As I have dedicated a large portion of my adult life to avoiding a stint at the mental hospital I try to avoid activities that would make me crazy – and knitting a sweater with Geisha would definitely send me packing to the loony bin.

However I am not a completely unimaginative stiff, I can have ideas once in awhile. Wielding those aforementioned 3.5 mms and grabbing both ends of the skein produced a MOST satisfactory swatch. The mohair halo was dreamy and it wasn’t too poofy, the stitch definition is still very nice, and the silk adds this really intriguing subtle shine – more of a glow actually. The fabric that double knitting this yarn creates is totally worth the wee bit of extra work required to knit double. It drapes beautifully, it’s incredibly soft, and the color variations you get knitting from both ends of the skein is pretty superb.

It’s a generous yardage (well, considering the price…) at 990 yards so it wasn’t as terrifying to think of knitting a pair of arm warmers and a cowl out of both ends, but we shall see. If my record of stupid canning mistakes bleeds into my knitting life I’ll run out of yarn 2 rows from the end of an arm warmer or something stupid like that. But at least it won’t KILL me to run out of yarn.

Also – all wound up this ball of yarn looks tres fetching, even non-knitting coworkers have admired it. My sister has predictably fallen in love with the color way and would like her socks to be knit from it. Which is going to hurt the budget as they are knee highs and Socks that Rock skeins aren’t exactly cheap as chips.

In other knitting related news the blue and white hat (the hat of anxiety) has found a home on my mothers head. I am still knitting her socks, but the hat should hold her over until the next time she goes through airport security. I felt incredibly smug walking through the metal detector with my Icehouse socks on while my fellow travelers had to go with bared feet and grungy tube socks. I like to share that feeling of hand knit superiority with the people I care about.

Also in terms of things you should check out if you’re keen – Metalocalypse. As I am the last person on the planet without cable television I had not seen it until just the other night. And it’s hilarious. A “brutal,” delightfuly gory/horrifying and absurd cartoon about the unlikely adventures of a heavy Metal band. Within the course of two episodes you will be inexplicably screwing up every attempt at pluralization, so you too can be like Toki and Skwisgaar. Is there a way to make knitting Metal? Can you like…glue spikes onto your straight needles? Just throwing these ideas out there folks, because I think we all know theres no way anyone truly brutal would be caught dead in a hand knit sweater, even if it does have an anarchy symbol knit onto it.

I’m not trying to get all alt-indie-knit on you, but I totally still have a baggie of screwback spikes from when I was in highschool and I modified that dog collar with a stirrup leather punch and a screwdriver. My experimenting has shown me that I would need a size 7 or possibly 8 needle to fit snugly into the screw hole with a little epoxy to make knitting needles sure to frighten people on public transport. Metal spike ended straights, to look fetching sticking out of my skull-and-crossed-needles felted knitting bag. I could relive my halcyon days as a goth teenager – so “dark” and “angry” that only Trent Reznor or Jello Biafra could possibly understand me and my artfuly shredded clothes and spiked jewlery. Plus, they would be the only knitting needles to really go with the black nail polish… (I confess to still painting my nails black, but it is socially acceptable and even chic now)

 

The Knits of Expectation

I did indeed make a pilgrimage to a yarn shop in Ohio’s ugliest city, and am sad to report that while it is nice, it was certainly not worth the incredibly bleak drive to get there.  I picked up some yarn and a set of new shiny ebony needles for a fairly reasonable price.

So post-yarn-shop the question had become “What…do I knit with this?” It was to be a hat for the team gift exchange, for the Office Job. But once I got done knitting and blocking it…a curious thing happened.

Would you view an ugly photo of a nice (I think) hat taken with my ancient digital camera? Of course you would!

Plz to note my “do not fuck with me” shears. They are love.

Oh ho. Probably not the tightest color work on the first few rungs as I was experimenting with the idea of carrying one color in each hand (didn’t work, hands got way tired) but I should think it’s not a horrifying hat. I had great fun charting it in cobalt and white to look like a cut glass vase I saw. It should fit a head of normal size…

But now I can’t bear the idea of giving it away. And it’s not because I find it particularly enchanting or good…

I have run across another bout of acute knitting self consciousness.

Let me explain. When I was in London I toted along a ball of blue Opal sock yarn and a set of regrettably brittle birch needles, but I only occasionaly knit on it. The purpose of this yarn? A pair of socks for Dadzilla.

Why? Because upon displaying my ever-so-complicated intarsia in the round New Orleans socks he looked puzzled and disdainful and said “Can’t you get those for 3 bucks at Walmart?”

I know you knitters have heard this before. It’s pretty fucking crushing isn’t it? When you love to knit so much, the terror of having your knits languishing unappreciated in the back of a drawer is paralyzing. This may largely be why I knit for myself and my sister whom I adore because she happily gobbles and models up any whimsical experimental projects I can turn out – like the sailor tattoo hoodie I embroidered to alleviate winter boredom.

These socks were going to turn it all around – Dadzilla would learn the wonder of hand knit socks and see why I spent my precious hours clicking away with little sticks and string. It sounds soppy, but he might even see me – as I am – in my work. Neurotic or not I consider my work a representation of myself. The things that come out of the labor of my hands are precious to me and it was shocking to have my work dismissed as superfluous and pointless.

I started the socks while I was in London and knit and knit, scrutinized the pattern, and had an EPIC freak out once I got home. The sock wasn’t absolutely perfect –and who could wear a sock with a mistake in it? Sobbing (and in the midst of a panic attack), I frogged the half-sock and retreated to the comfort of the less-than perfect boot sock I was knitting for myself.

A few days later some measure of sanity returned to me. Rampant sock frogging is not normal behavior for me. I have a strict rule about knitting being a place where I can be free to make mistakes and wing it. But the idea of exposing a flaw or weakness in myself by presenting an pair of socks to my Dad with a mistake or flaw was…out of the question when I was feeling vulnerable and exposed in the wake of a failure. Especially considering that I have struggled alongside my father to establish a good relationship despite our personality and ideological differences, and admittedly I still harbor lot of old fears about living up to family expectations. And we are a family who prides themselves on gift giving skillz – you don’t ever ask what they want, you observe and strike with precision…

Two months later I completed the socks.

And they are not perfect, but I think they’re nice. They certainly will be warm (for anyone who might be curious that’s from Nancy Bush’s “Knitting Vintage Socks” a gentleman’s shooting stocking in lozenge pattern modified to be a nice normal sock) So I folded them up and tucked them into my knitting bag and turned to the hat – which flew off the needles in the matter of a week.

And when it was done I looked at the hat and wondered – can I expose myself to my coworkers like this? Can I present my own work at a gift exchange and not have a mild heart attack wondering if it’s going to be a pity take and then tucked away in a closet never to be worn again? A more confident knitter might present the hat nonchalantly and click away on the next project, happy to see the end of it, but I am not a confident knitter, I am a neurotic perfectionist.

Or should I sod it, knit a matching pair of mittens from the spare yarn and put the hat in the donations box bound for Akkol where I absolutely know that the hat will be keeping a child’s head toasty warm in the Kazakhstani cold?

I may just go and snag a L’Occtain gift basket for the coworkers and save the knitting for the people who need it and will use it. It could be that this is all just philanthropy as a bandage for my damaged ego, but sod it.

And in the spirit of knitting allowing for mistakes here is a photo of a pair of socks I am knitting in spare moments out of “Black Purl” in a rejigged lace pattern from Vogue Stitchionary for the helluvit. There are at least 70 mistakes, if not more, and I don’t care…because you can’t tell!

 

Dating a Knitter

urious thing, this “dating” in the digital age. It’s not so tough when you’re going out with a 35 year old who is still delighted by the novelty of booking a holiday online, or someone even older who has a blog but doesn’t actually operate it themselves. Being a child of the digital age I find this sort of techno-luddite befuddlement adorable, but pitiable.

Going out with someone my own age? Different story all together. There’s the process of Googling them, hunting down any Livejournals or blogs, Whois-ing them (its a new verb, look it up) or dirty internet secrets. The weird flipside to meeting someone “IRL” as opposed to online, is exploring that persons internet presence. Someone you really like in person might be the forum jackass that would trigger your “flame on” response.

For example, I seem a bit softer, or perhaps nicer on the web than I am in person, because the internet is forever, and anyone can see it if they really want to. That and the process of blogging and writing allows you to linger over your words, giving the process as much time as it deserves (it’s a lot harder to blow up in writing, but it can be done). A date or suitor might be shocked to discover a seemingly sweet and domestic “Anya” upon Googling me. If you post on the internet you’re blowing a lot of “secrets” and exposing yourself to your potential and curious “real life” suitors in the strangest ways.

Then there are the really thorny questions – do you break up with someone who has a repugnant blog or the creepiest friends on a networking site? Do our digital presences indicate what’s genuine in us, or what is constructed for show? I suppose the obligatory Google-ing is a new step in the modern relationship.

In my pre-knitting life the steps and milestones were different. Now when I think milestone I’m not talking about third date “rules” and whether or not your date calls you back within a certain number of days. Think about the first time you let slip that you have a hobby that could be misconstrued as a freakishly domestic activity, the first time you present a ball of wool for fondling, the first time your hands are free enough to knit and whip your project out of your bag to get a few stitches in, and the dreaded first knitted gift (when? what? why?) or explanation of the *lack* of knitted gifts…

I must confess to having an enormous aversion (or at least displaying apathy) to so those called “milestones.” I’m pretty laid back about meeting parents (though there is a system in place for meeting my relatives, for the preservation of *my* sanity), attending group functions, the baseball metaphor for sex – the whole nine yards. Running a relationship on a set societal schedule gives me the heebie jeebies, possibly because of the moral implications and emotional baggage inherent in abiding by those rules instead of just toughing it out on a person to person basis.

I can easily work with a fumbled date, a sports fan, or a weird movie selection (even a less than perfect first kiss), but as laid back as I can be, there’s just no getting around some things.

Like something as personal (to me) as say, knitting, cooking, or sewing. There’s just no getting around someone who thinks it’s too bizarre that you make your own clothes, or who eats for utilitarian purposes only and devours a carefully cooked meal like it’s a cardboard burger. There’s a fine line between a guy whose into the simpler food pleasures and a pig of a man who wouldn’t know a bowl of Kraft Mac n’ Cheese from the good stuff because he doesn’t stop long enough to savor it. The former may still love the sensuality of food under the right circumstances, the latter…well if they won’t slow down to savor food they probably won’t slow down for anything.

Could you, theoretically, date a person who was vehemently opposed to knitting? Or, for some bizarre reason, thinks it’s a bigger turnoff than mentioning their mother at an inopportune moment? I, luckily, have yet to meet such a person but rather think that they’d be on the BLOCK list faster than someone who isn’t turned off by an inopportune maternal namedrop.

Frankly, I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to date most knitters, what with the idea of “sexy” knitting is getting kicked around a lot these days. You see a lot of pierced “punk rock knitters” whipping things off the needles between shows, and “naughty” knitted things but that’s not why I think it ought to be classed as hot. Good knitters know texture, and the sensuality of fibers is appealing to them, and making something by hand with naught but your wits and small sticks and string is pretty ingenious don’t you think? All that sensuality and ingenuity could translate very well for a relationship. And if that wasn’t enough, most knitters have patience and ingenuity, not to mention nimble fingers.

In what world is this not hot? Plus, most parents have a very hard time thinking horrible disapproving thoughts about knitters, we can look oh so sweet and unassuming with tiny needles in hand, providing we are not secretly plotting murder most foul with a particularly sharp sock needle. In the eyes of most parents a knitting project almost counteracts the shock of oddly colored hair or visible tattoos (though I’m afraid it has no power to counteract over exposure or the F-Bomb dropped in the presence of conservative relatives).

I suspect it is not the sort of past time the uninitiated associate with a tattooed science geek so often they require proof. But out of all my hobbies I think knitting is probably the most “normal” when compared to amateur entomology and a passionate dedication to graveyard preservation.

 

I can has…canned pickles?

Isn’t everything funnier when you kick it off with a cat macro phrase? I think so, but I have a sense of humor that allows me to get along really well with toddlers and prison inmates.

Have I mentioned my love for autumn yet? I love crisp smoky air, apples, anticipatory winter knitting, falling leaves, and cloudy skies. I do miss the interesting insects going away for the season, along with some of the more interesting bats and birds, but burying yourself under warm blankets and PJs with a book, and not sweating through car journeys makes it worth it.

Oh, and PUMPKINS.

Pumpkins are permanently linked to my two favorite holidays: Halloween, and Stuff-Your-Face-With-Turkey-and-take-Naps-giving. And I adore all things pumpkin (except pie, oddly) My bedspread is dirty-pumpkin-orange, I spend all of spring thinking about the Coffee Emporiums Autumnfest blend coffee (the best pumpkin spice coffee ever), I drink pumpkin ale like it’s going out of style… well you get the idea. It’s just that there isn’t much you can do with those lovely orange gourds once you’ve made your pies and jack o’ lanterns…

Actually, you can pickle them…

Also, I’ve been reading We have always lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. The description of Constance’s beautiful canning, glistening on the cellar shelf alongside generations of Blackwood women’s efforts at fall preservation, got me all exited to try my hand at it.

Canning has always held a sort of odd mystique for me. It’s hardly a glamorous activity but seeing those shelves in my Grandmothers cellar, filled with shiny jars -all bland greens and bright jelly colors with opaque cakes of wax floating on top – fascinated me when I was little. You couldn’t eat those ancient canned items, but no one ever threw them away. The Blackwoods of Castle fame threw nothing away either, and the first hints of the family’s poisonous nature is in Merricat’s observation that eating the older fruits of the Blackwood cellar would surely kill you…

So, brain afire with images of shiny glass Ball jars filled with my very own mysterious, hopefully botulism free, canning efforts I set out to pickle me some pumpkins! But first I had to decipher the recipe, let’s just say my relatives have less than perfect handwriting.

The cryptic recipe should have been my first clue that the whole affair was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Have you got any idea how difficult it is to find sweet pie pumpkins even around thanksgiving? Damn near impossible! Luckily Jungle Jims came to my rescue and I was able to score about five pounds of tiny, sweet pie pumpkins on the discount rack, along with two bottles of extra super strength German vinegar (anything over 6% was what I needed, and it proved very hard to find). Thanks to the strange binge I had six months ago when I bought a lot of cheap and cheerful bulk spices for masala chai I was all set.

Mini pumpkins…and a mini microwave too

This is the first piece of advice I will offer you, fair reader. If you are ever given the choice between peeling 3 pounds of teeny pumpkins and say, gnawing off your own arm…

Gnaw off your arm.

The knuckles on my left hand will testify to that. But once I suffered through two hours of de-seeding, peeling and chopping those pumpkin chunks went straight into a pickly marinade, and then the next day into the canning liquid and into the canning bath…

Here’s what we ended up with:

 

(does my filthy stove make you feel better?)

 

Four wee cans of lovely pumpkin pickles! I’ll offer a recipe when I taste them in a couple weeks, as my cooking technique is really more “mad scientist” than Martha Stuart. On the upside my apartment smells pretty awesome now, like cloves and cinnamon (and homemade tomato sauce, but thats another story entirely)

On a yarn related note, my first order (I know, I feel guilty about it too) of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Raven Clan yarns has arrived…. I was stoked about this because it’s damn hard to find dark colored yarns for my knitting plots. I’m not exactly into perky colors or the muted earth tones and Liberty colors, so rich and complex dark shades are right up my alley.

On the first round I got the Geisha, the mohair and mulberry silk blend, in the “Valkrie” color and I’m not disappointed. Its really lovely and soft without a trace of the itchiness that I usually associate with mohair. The dye is well saturated and the colors are consistent, there wasn’t anything mysterious or weird stuck to the yarn in clumps, or any knots. Basically it’s mohair good enough for Ed Wood. Eventually it’ll become a cowl and arm-warmers for warm winter wear.  The yarns real attraction are the colors, lovely blackcurrant, dark raspberry and velvety black. Yummy stuff!

I got the Haida silk thread as well but I’m too terrified to unwind it until I get a swift. The blues and blacks are beautiful together though, the best “raven” look out of all the yarns I’ve seen so far, with the combination of silk about as wide as a feather shaft in shifting blue and black. Dreamy stuff – I think I’ve completely lost my mind though as I am already thinking knitting the Print o’ the Wave shawl with it…

The Rook-y medium weight sock yarn is lovely fluffy and soft, and all the *colors* are very nice, it’s just there are very weird white unsaturated blotches that I find rather irksome. To keep myself from getting too angry about them I remind myself of Clarice Starlings bleach splattered piebald crow…

So naturally I’m looking forward to my next batch of sock yarn! Now if only I can keep my act together and not freak out and order the Kim Hargreaves Dark House collection book… (not likely, the deadly combination of deep dark colored yarns and perfect patterns is sure to spell financial doom for me)

 

 

Knit in Public

It all happened one year at the family winter holiday gathering, crippled by boredom and wary of getting involved in a bout of family dramatics (and already painfuly aware that embroidering at family events leads to irreparable tension and accuracy issues) I reached into my purse and withdrew the ball of gunmetal grey wool to see if I could get away with knitting a few rows on my Dad’s Christmas scarf while no one was looking. But when they started looking, nobody batted an eye.

I learned that if you knit at a family gathering…you get a free pass from socializing with your less pleasant relatives. Knitting, unlike reading or staring into space, is not being rude or unsociable, it’s concentrating on your very homey productive little hobby. You’re not not-listening to your great-grandmother tell you the same story she told five minutes ago and every year before, you’re knitting! You’re not seething with present-related jealousy, you dropped a stitch! And it only gets easier when you start to hit the booze (and on the plus side, the hands which are knitting are not clutching the wine bottle so much). Of course my family is made of hearty blue collar Slavs with the occasional sprinkling of Irish travelers, they value hard work and productivity above all things so your mileage might vary. From then on I never attended a family event without some sort of scarf to knit on, even if it was a mere decoy scarf I never intended to finish. I never progressed out of scarves because I was disgusted or annoyed by ventures into fancy-schmancy yarn shops were I could only seem to find weird or ugly “dreadlock” yarns, or itchy ones, but never in colors I wanted. I didn’t know where the good shops were!

Being an awkward young lady who dislikes socializing in uncomfortable environs and who *really* hates the idea of wasting time, I latched on to this new discovery of knitting as avoidance and thought “Where else can I get away with this?” I managed to knit at work at a fabric shop while I was waiting on my next temp gig, and finally learned to knit in the round and “make pictures” (you know it as “intarsia” and “fair isle”) given my access to free knitting books. I had a few false starts on sock knitting on a whim, having seen the beautiful rose stockings on the cover of “Ethnic Socks and Stockings.”

When I actually finished my first pair of proper socks as cognitive therapy for panic attacks, knitting was no longer just a way to keep my hands busy between sewing projects. It was wonderfully calming – the repetitive action and anticipation of the “next bit” kept my mind off of the thought of spiraling back into the panic cycle.  I would whip the socks out and clatter away on them when I started to feel twitchy, no matter where I was.

I took my latest sock experiment,  lime and turquoise acrylic fair isle skulls, when I went to New Orleans to meet my friend J for frolic in the city in May whilst we half-attended a Harry Potter convention (oh stop your laughing!). But the knitting bug had, over the course of a month after finishing my first socks, completed burrowed into my brain then and I soon found myself impetuously throwing away my acrylic sock disaster in search of “something nicer.” Using a yarn-radar I didn’t even know I had, I managed to find the only yarn shop in the French Quarter where I greedily snapped up something to knit socks with – cream and a deep blue that made me think of Dutch pottery and it was ON SALE. The shop girls told me it was “alpaca” and I struggled to conjure up a picture of this strange animal from childhood zoo visits, at the time I knew nothing of fibre bearing animals beyond Vicuna and Sheep. I belive the shop is “Quarter Stitch” and they wrap all the yarn up with confetti and ribbons like it’s your birthday!

J had a panel to go to, so I skittered off with my little gift to me and struggled to wind my alpaca without a swift (in my B&B room and while I walked) I remembered why I love living in the South so much, people are generally good to you even if you’re a stranger. I stopped short in front of a café I’d passed earlier where some folks had hollered at me friendly-like, and asked if anyone would please hold my yarn while I wound it. Everyone volunteered! The gentleman who patiently held his hands apart while I wound yarn approved of the fiber as being “damn soft,” and asked “What the hell is an Alpaca?” when I told him what it was made of.

So while I walked back to the Quarter I started a swatch, kniting while I walked, and was astonished when I didn’t trip or gore myself. People smiled and grinned and commented on the knitting as I passed, concentrating so hard that I managed to get lost a couple times. By the time I reached Jackson Square (having walked from the Faubourg Marigny area to the French Quarter) I had a WHOLE swatch done! I eagerly cast on during breakfast and by the time I got to the convention hotel I had the better part of a toe done.

I knew then that as long as I had yarn and needles would never be bored again. Knitting proved to be the perfect activity – it could cocktail polite social avoidance with engrossing productivity, or it could be a conduit to a conversation with pleasant strangers. I could knit while I waited to meet up with people, I could knit while other people talked about things I didn’t know anything about without feeling bored or stupid. I didn’t even have to knit anything *useful* or good looking, simply waving my hands around with string seemed to be enough to get me a free ticket to zone out and work! Amazing!

I vowed that I would never be knitting-project-less again… Except when I went to a convention evening event dressed up with a small purse I could barely fit my cell phone in. I vowed immediately that I’d have to buy a fancy bag with at least enough room for a ball of sock yarn…

Just a few months ago I crossed the Atlantic on a trip to England to visit J on her turf again, and wondered what I would encounter knitting in public there now that I was undeniably hooked. When I boarded the plane I had a sock with me…the same sock I’d been knitting on doggedly in lines, under my desk at work, in the airport kiosk after nervously passing security (I rehearsed bursting into tears if a security guard should question my right to knit). I knit through the 8 hour flight, (and was told by the cheery British flight attendant that I “deserved a medal” for not stopping), triumphantly turned my first flap heel and picked up my gusset stitches while chatting with my attractive seatmate, lost a needle and found it crammed down the back of my sweater when I went to the tiny airplane bathroom, and knit throughout the endless line at Immigration (where I was told by a lovely South African couple that they hadn’t seen anyone knit a sock in years).

I couldn’t believe how much I got done! And then there was the real genius of knitting in England – accessible public transportation…and Pubs.

If you have been to London you know that London people do not speak to one another on the public transport. The first time I went to London I would have thought that this would be an excellent time to meet new people and chat up good looking lads, but alas this is not the way of the Brits. It’s strictly off limits to chat to your fellow passengers and besides that most people are listening to music, sleeping, or reading.

This time I was armed…nobody looks at anyone on the Tube, or the bus, I could get SO MUCH KNITTING done and never ever be bothered or talked to! Then I learned the curious thing about knitting on public transport in England is that people probably won’t talk to you they will *definitely* stare at you discreetly. Especially if you are knitting socks in the round and there are lots of pokey dangerous looking needles ready to spear a fellow commuter, or you are attempting some fancy pickin’ to fix a massive mistake. Also knitting on public transport *can* cause you to miss vital stops and end up lost and cussing loudly when you come out of a heel turn trance to hear “Next stop is…” the one after yours.

Knitting in London was very different from knitting in public in America because it “allowed” people to break their usual reserve to talk to you if they wanted, whereas Americans will always talk to you eagerly about what you are doing if it is sort of unusual and not threatening. More Londoners told me of a knitting relative than Americans did, and it was MUCH easier to knit in a pub than it is to knit in a “bar” (beware – every Barman knows the same joke about when you will knit him some socks). Also, the hands that knit rack up a much smaller tab than the hands which are actively drinking! Also though proper Yarn Shops were few and far between, Londoners were spoiled by an abundance of “Haberdashery” departments in their Department stores – John Lewis and Liberty had the nicest ones.

Fellow North American knitters, can you imagine being able to wander upstairs at Sears and pick from a lovely array of proper wool while your friends shop for shoes? It’s awesome! Of course there Rowan is “only Rowan” but I don’t think the average London-knitter knows the horror of facing entire isles of eyelash yarn and acrylic at a crafts outlet and wondering where the actual wool is. That might be because they are so spoiled by nice yarn they call it *all* wool, regardless of whether it actually is made of wool. Also Addis are dead cheap there, I don’t know why but this was freakin’ delightful. Although there is wool galore in Haberdashery divisions, the Yarn Shop as we (North Americans) know it is curiously absent. I only got to visit two while I was over in London and both of them were set up by Americans! Give them some time though, they are just now getting Stitch N Bitch and Rollerderby!

I think I hit my personal zenith when I knit – standing up, on the Victoria Line, during Rush hour…and I didn’t drop anything or get ill.

As much fun as it was to knit in London in relative peace, I doubt I would be able to get a crowd of English musicians to hold my yarn for me while I wind it (is this why Rowan packages its yarn in dumpling form?). In any case I am always disappointed not to see more knitters in public, or really any other knitter at all! Where *IS* everyone? I know the knitters are out there, I talk to them at yarn shops and breathlessly discuss Fleece Artist’s goodies with them, or experience the strange feeling of someone enabling *me* to justify a skein of Handmaiden in a color I love but would look terrible on me. Do we simply miss one another because our heads are bent over our socks and sweaters?

In any case if you have yet to knit in public I recommend you give it a go, you’ll get a lot more done in the average day at the very least! You may also get free pints, tickets, compliments, and new friends…

 

 

Why am I doing this?

Mostly, I think, blogging is something to do between the things I do at the Office Job because I cannot knit or sew there (and it’s really hard to read a book under your desk when you sit in a cubicle). There are only so many “F-Locked” Livejournal posts you can make in a day before you annoy everyone you know.  In the heat of my boredom I considered inflicting myself on the general populous, so that the whole world could share in my pointless wittering. Well, that and I greatly enjoy the blogging of others, and I figure I should try it too.  So because I like making lists here is a list of things I think will help me with the blog thing.

1) I like to booze it up when I “craft” I see some other people like to do this too. I figure I’ll fit right in. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone can sew or knit while sober. Although I find it helps to be sober while changing sewing machine needles and doing complicated embroidery.  (I mayyyy be drunk right now…)

2) I’m a little… weird. Perhaps other weird stitchers and knitters will flock to me, and we can all plot sparkly skull dresses for Dia de los Muertos and knit ambitious Bayeux tapestry sweaters without the stigma of “goth” or “edgy” crafting.  And in that vein of avoiding cliches I do hereby solemnly swear to avoid any and all knitting and sewing puns or cutsey turns of phrase.

3) I am trying to go to Grad School abroad, perhaps I can provide a pretty decent source of information to other hopefuls. The same applies to people who want to work in the English tailoring biz who are Americans. Boy have I got a cautionary tale for you!  In the same vein perhaps other knitters and wool afficianados in the North of England can tell me where a lass can find special wool…

4) I will not shame you, gentle readers, you will feel no inadequacy reading *this* blog. I own a TV which I watch frequently, but do not own a home.  I do not have decent decor, a perfectly organized house, or even a couch.   I do not have a yard, let alone a garden. I do not produce anything particularly attractive or photographable in my kitchen (but it tastes okay!). I also don’t have any adorable well behaved children to craft for. So behold me! And feel as good about yourselves as I do when I watch Jerry Springer!

5) I read books and stuff, I favor older American literature and weird fiction. Maybe I can recommend a book? Eh? Eh?

6) I am unfortunately not a “harlot” when it comes to cloth and yarns and things. I am more like a high class call girl, but only because of my tough and gritty fiber past. If I hadn’t had to sew all that horrible sparkle green lycra and acetate lining fabric, or if I hadn’t roasted through summer horse shows in itchy inferior woolen jackets, I wouldn’t love cotton tawna lawn and merino and cashmere wool as I do. Soft, soft, obedient wool. G-ds favorite fiber – be it in a super 100 weight worsted, or spun into dreamy fingering weight goodness… Wool rules.

7) I am an amateur science geek. This may make posts marginally more interesting as I use the “scientific” method to do stuff. Plus, I might post pictures of things when I set them on fiiiireee…shiny, shiny fire.

8 I am accident prone and do a lot of stupid things in addition to the accident prone thing. Please, allow my track record of craft related injury to be a public service announcement to all of you. Learn the peril lurking in everyday household objects!

9) If you can believe it, my minor was in journalism. This should aide me in blog posting.  However I made consistent “C” grades because of my deep abiding love for the adjective so I wouldn’t expect brevity from my posts, or adherence to Strunk and Whites basic word usage rules.

10) I enjoy kitch and vintage knitting and sewing, surely this will translate into interesting reading!

11) I have seen other bloggers exchanging goodies and getting free things, I wish to get in on this racket, as my yarn stash fits neatly in a large wicker chest and knitting bag. We shall not speak of my sewing stash….

12) I am a Southerner, and proud Kentuckian happy to be from the same region as the Coal Miners daughter – Loretta Lynn.  I figure I can help “represent” and prove that Southern craft does not boil down to southern bell crochet toiletpaper covers and smiling apple-cheeked angels.

Okay so that’s that. I came, I typed (frequently stopping to stir a pot of chicken and dumplings) I blogged. LET THE MADNESS BEGIN!