Hi Folks.

Sorry for being quiet the last few days. I got sucked into a minor little void of a knitting project. There’s news for you all. Here’s the scoop:

It’s a little known fact that Malabrigo Yarn and HandpaintedYarn.com are two fronts of the same operation. The side effect is that there is some overlap in materials, though at this time no duplication of products. That is, the same basic dyes are used, and some of the same fibers are used (though not milled in the same way).

Anyway. So for my birthday, I got a sweaters worth (actually, probably more than a sweater’s worth.) of lace weight yarn which I fully intend to knit I sweater out of. It comes out at 12 stitches to the inch, over 468 stitches, on US size 0 needles (The smallest commonly available size.) It’s dizzying and the progress is incredibly slow. So slow.

Did I mention that I’m attemping to do stranded color work (sometimes, though incorrectly in this case, refered to as Fair Isle: the technique is the same, though the patterns come not from the Hebrides but from Turkey.) This is bordering on the insane.

In any case, my normal plan of attack is to knit sweaters with pattern stripes running vertically. I tend to be of the opinion that this has several advantages. For starters it’s more flatering, and is really cool looking. Additionally, it’s also unusual, because the vast majority of hand knitted things have stripes that run horizontally. It also maximizes a number of knitting pleasures for me: once I establish a pattern I get endless amounts of fun building on this pattern. While the patterns repeat (and frequently patterns range from three rounds to not more than twelve or sixteen rounds) They very rarely syncronize, such that every round is indeed different. For example I’m working on a sweater now with five different patterns, ranging from four rows to eighteen stitches. The patterns synch every five inches or so (36 rounds.) So it’s fun for the memory, and it suits me. So there!

Anyway. My plan for the sweater had 10 individual patterns, short row repeats (which was a good move), but the problem is that such patterns are very subtle and include little features which are created with only a stitch or two. When your stitches are one 1/12th of an inch square, this is incredibly tiny, the effect is hard to see. Now I think it would end up looking really good in the end, the problem that arises is that it’s too hard to see the stitches to actually knit the pattern.

So my solution. Take out about 3-4 rows and knit stripes horizontally. This means I’ll have to rely on paper/my computer more, but the yarn is so small that I’m going to wait till I can order some more suited needles for the project. I need a breather in any case.

So I’ve put the sweater aside, finished a pair of socks, and gone back to knitting things that don’t make me feel like a loon.

In other news, I’m feeling more sane and less blah. I reorganized R-tron and my files on our external hard drives. By my count, we have about 65 free gigabytes of external storage combined. This is out of a total 450 gigabytes. Now there’s some duplication, but not much. This felt like an accomplishment. I’ve also gotten back into doing some reading, and feeling more productive. School will start soon, and all will be better. I really have to find a place with a summer session from now on, I don’t cope well without the structure that being connected to the rhythm of academic life. Ah Well. So it goes.

Cheers, Sam

Here, by request, is an item that I wrote up about the dogs and life in general. In all, a pretty good picture of life here. All in all a good time…

I’ve put rodney’s bed underneath the table behind me, because I was tired of running my chair into it, and there’s only so much room, doncha know. anyway. so rodney, being a burrowing dog, has taken to this room limitation like a bee to a flower.

and she’s lying there behind me snoring. which is incredibly cute.

also, when i picked her up from the vet, from her mange treatment, it said “rodeny, female” and I was like, “arooo” but in fact, I had once again forgotten that the little ferocious squirrel killer was a girl.

Oh wait, you all haven’t heard about the Squirrel (unless I told bodel about it when I talked to her last week, but the rest of you don’t know.)

Rodney killed a squirrel. And brought it in to the house. And left it in her bed.

Perhaps needless to say, the bed behind me now is a new one

There’s a lot of things I could blog about: the dead squirrel in the house, what I’m reading, the cool things I’ve found in my web serfings, or a nifty reflection on Star Trek: The Next Generation but I won’t. At least not yet. I’ve made some key progress on a bunch of knitting related projects, and I have some thoughts for you. So there.

I think I’m going to buy the number six ebony needles at some point, anyway, though not this instant, as my next two worsted projects are/will be on number fives, because I’ve already started the first one (and its more directly from a pattern, and I know this will fit, so I’m sticking with it) and the second one will be on fives because I intend for it to be a jacket and I want something on a little tighter. After that I have two projects on smaller needles (because the yarn is thinner,) so its not a pressing issue.

I’ve started Faroe, and I’m really enjoying the sweater. Again. I lost the pattern after knitting the first half of the first round. I was able to remember the pattern from a year ago, and now have eight inches of knitting completed. So there. I’m a modern day memory ninja. 4.5-ish more till the gusset starts, and I will need the pattern for that, because even I’m not that good.

I’ve been pondering for a while, how to finish the neck of this sweater. One of the cool things about the sweater is that the neck has a pattern and is hemmed. The other problem is that the neck is about two inches high, which is way too high. Under more normal circumstances where neck/collars are less of a design feature (usually some sort of ribbing) its easy to just stop after an inch and a quarter or an inch and a half, and be happy; however, in this design that’s not possible, and with a neck like that I fear that it might make the sweater almost unwearable. Now I don’t want that to happen, clearly, and I also don’t want to wreck the design by just knitting ribbing at the neck. Which leads me to the following thought and my “Yarn Need.”

Since the collar is hemmed, it strikes me that there’s no reason that I can’t buy a ball of super nice black yarn (the sweater is black and white) and knit the hem facing in it. And while I’m at it, I’d knit facings for the cuffs as well. And since it’s only one ball I think I can go all out. My requirements are: soft (and silky) comfortable, not too warm (no angora, for instance), black, and something close to worsted weight. I’m thinking some combination of (merino) wool and/or alpaca with silk or tencel. I thought about Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk (DK or regular, actually a bit on the bulky side might be alright), but that might not be right. Also all the merino/tencel blends I’ve found have been fingering weight, or just fiber, and I’m not keen on spinning this myself. I’ve also thought about Frog Tree Alpaca, but I haven’t seen that in a while and don’t remember it that well. I came across a skein of the Bulky/Chunky, baby alpaca (in white alas), I’ve seen a couple of different branding, but Plymouth seems to be the most common, that might work. Any ideas? I’m all ears. Leave a comment or drop me an email.

In other news: I’ve broken the back of the first sleeve of the teal tunic sweater, and should I feel particularly inspired (read: unlikely) I might finish it tonight, If not soon. Usually home stretch knitting inspiration is enough to carry me through the second sleeve, so the end is defiantly in sight. I’m forcing myself to at least finish the Teal Tunic before I start the next sweater (Turkish Gul (Rose) Coat/Jacket), which I’m excited about. I spent a few moments a couple days ago figuring out the numbers and pattern(s) for the sweater. It’s going to be fun.

And finally, I wanted to post a comment that I wrote for this entry in Stephanie’s blog. Stephanie asked for the three most influential knitters. Here’s my response:

I was just thinking of this the other day. Here are my thouhgts:

1. Elizabeth Zimmerman because without her, all of our (yours, mine, this community, etc.) wouldn’t have any foundation to think about knitting as something that we could do just for fun, because she made possible the contemporary sense of independent and creative knitting. While others on this list have mentioned Meg Swansen, and this is a nomination that I would gladly (and whole heartedly support), except it would mean excluding another amazing knitter, and given that Elizabeth is no longer around to come to dinner, I say let Meg come as her proxy.

2. Alice Starmore. Alice has written the best patterns I’ve ever read, and the only ones that I am, for some unknown reason, drawn to follow without question. What I like most about Starmore’s is that her sweaters are complicated, difficult, but not undoable, and unabasshedly so. Most designers these days seem to be attempting tailoring or dresmaking with knitting needles, and I’m generally less than impressed with the products. Starmore patterns, though clearly not (all) traditional in the strictest sense, respond and interact with a knitting tradition, and are sweaters, uniquely designed by a knitter, and the patters shine as a result.

3. Pricillia Gibson-Roberts. The first two were no brainers, and I think many knitters would say “starmore, zimmerman, and um, um, um….” in search of another knitting giant perhaps of either a more contemporary/popular (a la Nacy Bush, Sally Melvile, etc.) and while I think they are very important to our contemporary understanding of knitting (and indeed Nancy Bush, in particular has written a number of books which I predict will provide the perfect stepping stone for those knitters, converted in the recent fad--the frilly polyester novelty scarf knitters turned felted bags/hats/etc knitters--to move on to more complex things like color work, cables, and lace. But this is merely a diversion.) Pricillia Gibson-Roberts, with some of the best qualities of both Zimmerman and Starmore, doesn’t give patterns but teaches the skills neccessary to design patterns like the ones that earned Starmore her place at the table.

So there!

Cheers, sam

I’ve had occasiton to read/share Knitting Without Tears and Stephanie’s (the Yarn Harlot) new book Knitting Rules, which as forced me to think about the whole gauge issue again.

You may have noticed that I’m not a big gauge monkey. I knit. It usually fits pretty well, and when it doesn’t, there’s always something worse wrong with it. Like the wings on the vest I made my father, or the star trek shoulders I did on my second sweater, or the tight forearms and crappy yarn on my first (and thus far only attempt at Ram’s Horn), or the hem which hang uncomfortably on the cardigan I made last summer.

I’ve made enough sweaters with, enough different kinds of yarn that I have a good idea of how many stitches I need to make a sweater that fits pretty well. One of the upsides of color work sweaters, is that the patterns often dictate a particular number of stitches, that isn’t that flexible, so even if I thought a sweater would fit a little bit better with 2-8 fewer stitches after doing a perfectly washed gauge swatch, I probably couldn’t take those stitches out. The style of these sweaters is intended to be loose, so it works out.

So I know if I cast on about 300 stitches in worsted weight wool on a size five needle, the sweater fits. Generally at a 38 or 40 inch chest. The astute among you will recognize that this means I’m knitting sweaters at, get this, 7.5 or 8 stitches to the inch. I should be knitting at 5-5.5 (maybe 6) stitches an inch.

I’m typically a loose knitter. Outrageously so. This has, unsurprisingly, produced something of an identity crisis. (Also we should note, that my needle collection is built around being a specific kind of knitter, so might require more needle buying, which I dread).

It’s also lead me to a quandary that I think you all might be able to help me with: What do I do? Options seem to be:

• Continue at my insanely tight gauge, because I’ll be able to follow a pattern and produce a sweater that will fit me.
• Move up two needle sizes and hope that works well enough. But I might have to redesign patterns.
• Buy ebony needles in size six, because I own exactly 2 individual size six needles (both double points, and no they don’t match) because they are pretty, and I covet them, even though I don’t particularly like the experience of knitting with wood, and the extra friction would probably tighten my gauge so as to have no effect on my quandary…
• Something else?

Hope to hear from you soon!

Cheers, Sam

It’s a shame TealArt doesn’t have a “currently playing music” option. Lets pretend it does. The music for this post would, then be: “Never Tire of the Road” from Andy Irvine’s Rain on The Roof.

I think I’m a little more together now than I was last night when I wrote that entry from hell that I subjected you to. Up on the docket for today’s entry some more thoughts on my knitting, and maybe, if we’re lucky, an update on writing and reading projects.

I’ve started the sleeve on the Turkish Delight sweater. I think some serious blocking is going to be enough to fix the flaws in the collar, so I’m being guardedly optimistic about this garment. The sleeve knitting is fun.

After a mishap that’s really to embarrassing to relate, I had to go out and purchase a new US size 5, 16 inch knitting needle. I did, however, not get an Addi Turbo, opting for a needle brand I wasn’t familiar with. It’s metal, and is as slick as an Addi. The cord is stiff, and the needle bits are heavy, so it might not get the dents and dings that my Addis so frequently get. The join isn’t perfect, but this isn’t a high traffic needle, but I’m mostly pleased with what I’m working with. My only other complaint is that the pointy bit on the needle is a little shorter than an addi, so it took a little adjusting, but all is well. Frankly most of the time, I don’t notice any difference.

16 inch circular knitting needles always make my hands hurt anyway, so I’m working to get through this as much as possible. The sleeve has about 5 inches on it already, and I started it yesterday. These sleeves go fast for some reason.

I’ve been thinking about knitting a lot of late, because I’m drawing close to being done with my major projects of the moment. I usually keep a number of small projects on the needles at all times, usually a pair or two of socks, and my current sock projects are supremely uninspiring. I want to make a couple of pairs of normal worsted weight socks, I think, and instead I have two socks on size 0 and 1 needles. Unacceptable. I think I want to give my mother the last of my uninspiring fingering weight sock yarn and be done with this. The other sock I have on the needles has a cable on it, and was able to knit 4 or 4.5 inches without realizing that I really hate cables. I think they both have to go. Casting on a pair of socks on reasonable size 2.5 needles will make me happy.

The other flaw with these pairs of socks that I hate, is that their toe up, and I rather like traditional socks, so I think I’m just going to settle on that.

In sweater news, The Faroe sweater is of course next, and I’ll probably start that this weekend. I also want to start another Turkish sweater. I’m going to use a slightly (oh so slightly) modified pattern from TD, which is called Gul, apparently meaning rose (frankly I don’t see it, but whatever). It’s the center panel, and it’s a lot of fun, pretty balanced foreground/background, and looks like it has vertical columns, but is only one pattern. No tessellation. Woot!

Part of me wants to make it into a cardigan, but I can’t figure out how to make all the bands hang right. My current game plan is to read some of AS’s Fair Isle book on the subject of cardigans to see how to manage this quandary.

In other knitting news, I’d like to make note of a development. I’m no longer sewing steeks at all. Just finding the middle stitch and cutting. It works. The key is knitting in wool that you know will felt with a steaming and a little encouragement, and that’s as good as anything you could do with a needle, and perhaps even better, and making the steeks wide enough 8-10 stitches is plenty. Any kind of sewing, even gentle backstitching as AS recommends, alters and malformes the fabric, and knitting won’t ravel sideways, so I think this is a winner.

That’s all for now. I’ll do the embodiment post later. Hows that for organization?!

Stay well.

Mid-day Update: I did mid-project blocking, and it calmed many of my fears regarding the neck lines of both of my sweaters. I need to do some sewing to make it perfect, but I’m ok.

I also haven’t ripped out the two socks which have been bugging me, but I did start a new pair, and it’s making me happy. And that’s what’s important.

It feels like time for another TealArt post, so here I am. I remember a while back I made a resolution to separate my entries out more and provide fewer long rambling entries, and more single topic entries. So much for that. My father (hi dad!) would quote someone who said “sorry for writing a three page letter, I didn’t have time to write a one page letter,” and I feel really bad for forgetting who it was. I’m going to be embarrassed. Everyone else, check the comments to see who it was.

Anyway, I’ve agreed to do a news segment for a podcast, which should be fun, but I need to write that up. I did some test recording, and my sound quality is pretty good, but it’s so much harder than I thought it would be. After so long on the radio where I wasn’t forced to listen to myself, it’s almost crazy making to record things for pod-casting.

I read my story for the circle games podcast (which I’m going to start calling Circular Games) and there are a couple of things that I need to fix. I though I was done, but there were a couple of editing flubs. It takes about 10 mins to read, and I have the rest of the first cast pretty well laid out. It should happen this week.

I’m reading a book about Embodiment and Cognitive Science (which creatively is titled Embodiment and Cognative Science). And it’s interesting read, in that social science way. I’ve been reading a lot of French body-centric theory/writing (Anti-Oedpus, Discipline and Punish) this summer. I’ll probably have something more to say about this shortly. I’m not sure if I’m learning anything exactly, but it’s a great book both as a reference, and as a gateway to connect psychology and social/cognitive science to feminist and queer embodiment. Because both disciplines (ha!) are both studying a lot of the same phenomena, and there isn’t a lot (any?) crossover. If I were designing a course in embodiment theory, I’d definitely include parts or all of this book. The author is also on the faculty of a school on the gradschool list. Here’s hoping.

Ok, so having said that, as you can see from the title of this post, I totally meant this to be a post about knitting accomplishments and decisions. So lets get on with that.

I’ve finished the body of a second sweater for this summer. I named it, creatively, “Teal Tunic.” It’s just a basic drop shouldered, gansey style, crew necked number. The neck line isn’t perfect, and it’s a bit bigger than I wanted it to be, but exactly as bit as I was planning for it to be. I did a guage swatch, I just have an unrealistic idea of my body. Sigh It think it will be nice. And hasn’t been blocked and it doesn’t have sleeves, (or cut arm holes, yet) so I really don’t have an idea. I think it would fit my dad, but I don’t think it would look good on him. I’m going to finish it, because it could still surprise me, but I think I’m going to chalk it up to poor planning.

I’ve started the first sleeve on the Turkish pullover. It’s going very quickly, and I’m starting to like this sweater again. The neck of this sweater, also didn’t come out as perfectly as I hoped, but I haven’t blocked it, and I think there’s still potential. I guess I’m a little disappointed because I thought that the sweater design would be salable in its current form, and I think I’d need to knit another model, and I so don’t have the will to do that now. I might block it out before I’m done with the sleeves to see how it turns out. I’m more hopeful about this one.

My next sweater is going to be a remake of Alice Starmore’s “Faroe” which I’ve already knit once. I really like this sweater. Her patterns are also really good, so I think this will be a good shift. I think I’m going to change the collar a little bit, so it’s shorter (because I feel, that if you’re neck’s cold, you should wear a scarf, sweater collars are harder to change at whim.)

In other knitting news, I’ve discovered Pattons Classic Merino, which I think is a fabulous wool. The Teal Tunic is of this wool Competitive with Cascade in my book. It’s softer. Not as firmly spun, so I think Cascade wins out for things like Arans and socks, but I’m defiantly going to be using this yarn more in the future. It also sells for 5 bucks a ball at Michael’s, and you can’t beat that.

Anyway, I’m going to leave you with the following thought, and get back to other more productive persist.

Is there anything better in the world, than a comfortable keyboard and a hot cup of black tea with a dash of milk in a familiar cup? I submit that there is not.

Cheers!

My project for the week (and saying it in this way legitimizes a week where I read fiction for fiction’s sake, and knitted for knitting’s sake) was re-reading Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game books, which I really enjoyed. It was hard having read the book before (and even the books that follow it in Card’s sequence), it was like watching old friends walk into a trap. Particularly, in this case, because the trap was traumatic for the characters.

As an aside here, I’d like to state that the vernacular would have used the term “psychological,” which is in my mind inaccurate and inpercise at best. Everything is psychological, particularly material reality. But no one asked me.

I didn’t record the pod-cast today. Perhaps late tonight, because of the intense reading, my sleep schedule of the past two nights has become particularly skewed. So it goes.

During my reading, I made note of a few things that really got me interested. I was reading on an old Pocket PC that could make voice recordings, so I made use of the feature and recorded two notes. The first was a note about story telling, and I had a sudden realization about how to play a development in my own project.

The second point, made a note about an academic interest. There’s a part about two-thirds of the way through the book where a character is reflecting on the implications of a fabricated identity. And there it was. The creation of identities (on a personal and community level) is a recurring interest, and there was a passage which really brought together a lot of really good points. So that was good.

Anyway, I’m not feeling particularly articulate right now. Perhaps in a bit.

Be Well, Sam

I made a mitten today. By request. It’s rather spiffy. I’ve never made a mitten before, and I think it came off rather well. I tried a couple of shaping techniques that I don’t use very often, and was reminded why I don’t use them. I have the other mitten to knit along with a brief re-knitting of the thumb, but all in all I’m pleased. I also have a lot of time to finish, seeing that it’s summer at the present. It was good.

I went to the farmer’s market here today. It was rather nifty. I got a lot of cool eggplants. I foresee grilled/broiled japanese eggplant, and Baba Ganouj in our future.

In a culinary related note, I’ve discovered, much to my amusement, that I’m a somewhat adventurous eater. (I have historically been somewhat of a picky eater.)

I don’t think that my palate has really changed much, but there are things that I think of as common place that aren’t. Like greek food. I was standing in line at a greek stand at the aforementioned farmer’s market (unfortunately for me, we entered from the wrong end of the line, which meant we didn’t eat.) I said, oh I think I’ll have the falafel, and the woman next to me who had just ordered a jeer-ro sandwich said “what’s falfel?” So I explained, rather awkwardly that it was sort of like baked or fried hummus patties, only without the tahini (sesame paste, I think) and it’s courser. So really, not very much like humus at all. Garbonzo bean base at the least.

The other anecdote, of note, is that I introduced this household to pinjur, a bulgarian dip with eggplant, roasted red pepper, garlic, maybe onion, and seasoned with hot peppers, vinegar, and a bit of sugar. So it’s a tangy/zingy vegtable dip, that’s smooth and almost a little creamy (the eggplant I think). Delightful. Didn’t everyone grow up with a jar of it in the fridge?

In other knitting news, I have reached the gussets of the sweater. Three more inches until the “armholes start” from there, it’s only two-two and a half inches till the first part of the neck starts (I’m doing an open neck) and that’s really cool: the second part of the neck starts five inches later.

Other people might think, “the body of the sweater, not to mention the sleeves, is 26 or 27 inches long, and seeing that I’ve only knit 13 inches, I still have a hell of a way left to go.)

“Bah!” I say. From here on out, I’m no more than a day or two between interesting features. The five inches of the neck is something of a stretch, but it’s nothing compared to the 10 inches of pattern that I just endured.

I’ve already planned the next seater. A black and white one that I knit last summer. Faroe. I think I’ve written about it here. I want to reknit it, in a version that I’m more likely to wear.

What I knit after that depends on where I am. If I’m still in Nashville or St. Louis, I might start on a lace weight merino pullover. If I’m in Wisconsin, I might start a grey sport weight sweater. Or, I’ll start the browncoat, which needs some more thinking.

If anyone knows of a good source for nice (but still reasonably cheep) worsted weight wool in a number of good subtle brown tones, that would be particularly splendid. I’m thinking about Bartlett yarns' worsted yarn. It’s nice, and I think I could do a coat for a pretty reasonable amount (40-50 bucks or so). That’s generally what I consider generally a fairly reasonable price point for knitting a sweater that will take six to eight weeks of good knitting. If you have thoughts, send or comment them on in.

I’ve had this strange desire to watch the Star Trek movies again. I have fond memories, and even though all of the new generation of sci-fi shows (Babylon 5, Firefly, Battlestar, and Stargate to a slightly lesser extent) like to hate on Trek for being fantastic, overproduced, and overly technical I think that the show was wildly influential, and much of the material was at the very least passably good.

I’ve seen most of the original series and while I like it, I’ve not been that fond of it. I watched the New Voyages that have been released, and was particularly astounded by their quality. They even managed to get Walter Koenig and D.C. Fontana on board. It’s good stuff. Really good stuff.

Having said that, I think the Wrath of Kahn/Search for Spock/Voyage Home trilogy is among the best Trek around, with the possible exception of some of the 4-5 season DS9 (the ones where the Dominon captured DS9 and the BDH* are stuck fighting on the Defiant). But I really liked a lot of what happened in DS9, and that might have less to do with the quality of the show, and more to do with the similarities to Babylon 5 and where I was in my life when I was watching it. Generations was cool too.

I recognize using the term “Big Damn Heros” to refer to Trek and not Firefly characters is perhaps a faux pas of Biblical proportions, I’m ok with it.

So I started out this post, with the notion that it would be shorter and include a segment on bad writing, and it did neither. So it goes.

Hope you’ve enjoyed.

Happy July.

Cheers, Sam