Hey folks!
I’m in St. Louis for Spring Break (until the 13th), and I have a lot on my plate. Here’s an update on what I’ve been up to, and what I’m planning on doing during this week.
I have a lot to read and write. I have a paper to research/outline/write about gender in the Child Ballad #109 (that is, “The Famous Flower of Serving Men” as Martin Carthy calls it, but I’m pretty sure Child calls it “The Border Widow’s Lament”.) It originates circa 1650, and there are a couple of interesting things I can write about, mostly using Stephen Greenblat to explore both the version that Child collected, and the version that Carthy does. So that doesn’t seem too difficult, but totally out of character for me, because I’m way more interested in other aspects of gender (re)presentation. But there you have it, at this point I’m mostly hoping that what I have fits the word count, because I don’t know if I can milk more out of this idea. Shouldn’t be a big problem.
I also have a, I think the term is, metric-ass-load of reading to do. Djuana Barnes' Nightwood, some audio books to knit too finishing listening to, podcasts to catch up on, Winterson’s Written on the Body, Kate Bornstein, psychology readings like woah, you know: catch up and getting ahead. I also want to draft up some of the (Re)presenting Identity introduction, because I’ve been playing with that for a few days in my head and it’ll be good to break the ice with that.
Also on my plate for this break is to post a slew of Academia related blog posts, because, apparently my idea of getting a backlog kitty, totally didn’t work, so I might as well clear out the cache and just post things as they come.
In terms of knitting, I just (literally, just) started the neck shaping of the sweater I’ve been working on for a while. It’s a two-color stranded fisherman’s style ganscye, using a bunch of patterns that are variants of a bunch of random things. I think taken as a whole, it has a very lattice-ish look, so I’ve been calling it “the lattice work sweater” in my head, but I haven’t really communicated that with anyone. I was listening to Brenda Dayne’s Cast On, Podcast and she described a designing process for fair isle sweaters that she likened to Jazz Riffs, and I think that’s totally apt.
In any case, assuming it fits and doesn’t look wretched, I’ll probably submit it to knitty. Starting the neck shaping means that I’m within 3 inches of the end of the body, and there’s something interesting happening on nearly every row until the end. My goal for this break is to finish the body, and the neck trim, and start on the sleeves, which are one of those parts that’s going to be a royal pain in the rear because I’m not sure quite how it’s going to work out, and I basically have to do it by the seat of my pants. The second one will go much easier I’m sure.
Also on the knitting to-do list, for this break is: start on the next sweater, (requires winding yarn, gauge swatching (gasp!) and casting on). I also have this perverse desire to knit a pair of socks (I have some pretty chunky yarn, so I don’t spend the next year and a half knitting fingering weight socks). I also have arm band thingies to put on a vest, and weave in all of four ends or something like that.
So that’s where things are going. I had actually written this post up and intended to post it earlier in the week, but clicked out of the window, and was deluded in the notion that I’d already posted it. My apologies.
Cheers, Sam