Time management

In the past seven years I've been involved with Confluence so my holiday season usually centered around the Christmas concert with a mad dash for the remainder of time before Christmas. This year felt like a luxury of time was given to me to pursue my fiber hobbies so I've been spending the weekends in indolence when not involved in some sort of fiber event. This weekend it dawned on me that Christmas was a month away and I had not made any plans whatsoever on how I was going to manage it. Gifts would be handmade, but what? When do I fit in the holiday letter? What holiday events do I want to attend and can I fit them in the budget? I tend to do things by the seat of my pants more and more though I know better. You'd think I'd have learned by now.

Enabling

This last weekend was devoted to the Portland Spinnerati one year anniversary meeting and a road trip to Woodland Woolworks with Mary, a fellow fiberholic I met at my Saturday breakfast hangout, the Hollywood Burger Bar. Mary is a re-enactor for Fort Vancouver, participating in all sorts of activities from the trading period of the early to mid-nineteenth century, so it's difficult to fit in other fiber activities. So when I found out she was a WW virgin, I of course had to lead her unto temptation and propose a road trip. She's an absolute delight and the two of us gabbed nonstop all the way there and all the way back. Inside WW she found the materials she could use for her re-enactments and put a healthy dent on her credit card. My purchases were much more modest -- a couple of skeins of Jaggerspun Zephyr, some sock yarn from the clearance room, and a WPI tool -- but it was fun going through to see what I could find.

At the Portland Spinnerati meeting, the celebration was modest. I taught a workshop based on the class I took at SOAR on how to make the most out of your wheel. It was an abbreviated version of the class and I could have done better in providing information on the whys and how-tos, but my students enjoyed the workshop and appreciated getting the info. I spent the rest of the session working on plying up the mohair single with the Zephyr for making up the yarn for Karen. It came out very pretty and should make for a lovely scarf or wrap.

Ever notice . . .

I have Netflix and am able to stream the instant play on my computer, so over the weekend when there was nothing on the idiot box I played a couple of movies. One was "Helvetica", a documentary on the font Helvetica and its influence on modern typography. It brings up one of those things that is ubiquitous to our environment but never notice because of its ubiquitousness. Since watching the movie, I now notice where Helvetica is used as the font. It's everywhere.... Then check out Frank Habit's posting of his London alphabet.

Universe expansion

The past couple of weeks have seen the arrival of my SpinOff and Knits magazine and a few books. Schoolhouse Press brought back into print Susanna Lewis' book Knitting Lace which according to my more experienced knitting friends is a must have if you're serious about lace. As I went through it I can see why. Lewis has in this book everything for the beginning to advanced knitter on the wheres, whys, and how-tos of lace knitting. Another book (actually series of books bound into one) Schoolhouse Press brought back is Maria Erlbacher's Uberlieferte Strickmuster, now titled Twisted-Stitch Knitting. This has many stitch patterns and the technique of Austrian twisted stitch knitting, including how to read the charts, which are different from your standard charts you see in magazines and books. Lastly, my copy of Respect the Spindle by Abby Franquemont arrived. Few books go through with such detail the history and purpose of the different kinds of handspindles along with techniques the handspindler can use for making all kinds of yarn. When the holiday brouhaha finally settles down, I'll have some lovely books to peruse and use. Sweater anyone?

Oh and I forgot...

I've been spending my down time reading a wonderful travelogue by Dervla Murphy, "On a Shoestring to Coorg". Murphy's an Irishwoman who takes much lower tech methods to travel to various parts of the world. This one's about a trek she undertook with her 5 year old daughter to southern India that has been quite delightful to read, even the harrowing parts with her daughter running amok. Much braver than I when it comes to traveling but the rewards for her are innumerous. Portlanders, it's at the Multnomah County Library for loan. It was one of my excursion finds when I decided to do some research on India's culture in preparation for NaNoWriMo.

PNWBookGirl who is organizing Worldwide Spin In Public Day sent me a correction. The event's being held here, not at the Walters center. Thanks!

I am loved

Someday, Franklin, someday. I'll hoard my shekels, hop the plane to Albany, wend my way to Rhinebeck and give you and Ted and Dr Mel and Queer Joe and all the Wolverinas hugs.

Thanks!

The Chocolate Truck arrived!

I had remembered I needed to take a photo of the Knitters Without Borders sock when just as I opened the door the local driver of UPS arrived with a box I had been waiting for. It was a shipment from WEBS.

When I had browsed through a copy of Vogue Knitting a couple of weeks ago, I saw a pattern advertised by Elann.com that looked interesting but not too complex. It was the Voyager Lace Stole. What captivated me about it was its texture. The leaves make a wavy texture due to the decreases uses instead of being flat like some lace. The hunt through the stash produced nothing that would work for a summerweight item, so I hunted on WEBS and came up with this. The colors are stunning and the red I had chosen so nummy that I'm going gaga over it. The swatch next to it is Cascade 220.

When I looked over the pattern, I was thinking that something with a different shaping would work better for covering my shoulders and arms. It was a case of charting the pattern, playing with the main motif, and seeing what I could do to make it a different shape. This arrived as well to help me along.

Oh yeah. The KWB socks. I think my foot's larger than The Yarn Harlot's friend because I really got great stripes out of it. The hoo hah along the cuff is a cable. I thought I'd play with a cable to make it more interesting to knit. So far it's killing my hands turning stitches that small and I don't trust the stitches enough to just let them lie without a cable needle.

OFFF is next week

It just occurred to me that the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival is next week. Next week! I received two skeins of Spider Web yarn from Interlacements for swatching purposes late last month. I had a number of ideas before the yarn arrived but when the yarn came they dried up. So between sessions of picking up paper scraps and stray skeins I'm working on swatches. The Renaissance colorway of the yarn is quite pretty and working out very well. There is a Reds Plus skein somewhere that has yet to turn up. I hope to find it so that I'll have a couple of swatches to show Judy when she comes to OFFF.

In the meantime I have a potential buyer/trader for the Majacraft Suzie, who will be traveling with me to OFFF Saturday. A group of the PDX Knitbloggers will be heading down to Canby and setting up camp at a good spot so that we can compare finds. I will also be receiving from the kidnappers the Kidnapped Can Opener. The drop site is confidential but Mr Pink will be meeting up with not only the PDX Knitbloggers but also going on tour with me and Confluence to southern Oregon. I also hear he's going to Rhinebeck, the lucky dog. From what I'm hearing though his adventures at Burning Man weren't exactly chaste. I may have to have Church Key supervise his visits with Miz Swing-A-Way.

Heavy Reading

At the beginning of summer, there's usually a summer reading segment on NPR news with the reporter talking with someone famous or somewhat famous and what they plan to read over the summer. The conversation heads in the direction of reading something fairly heavy like a history, a treatise, or a novel that is "enlightening in its construction." Stuff that I appreciate but equate to reading in a quiet corner of a library with the smells of ancient tomes around me. I can't imagine taking something like "The Ins, Outs, Whys, Hows, and Wheretofores of Crimean War Buglers and How They Kept Their Polish" to the beach. So during the summer I usually look for lighter fare: a good mystery; an engrossing fantasy; a recommended novel. I'll look for stories on baseball players and stroll through the stacks of my local library to see if something catches my eye.

It must be the whiff of school that drew me to The Norton Anthology of Western Literature Vol. 2.

I remember reading the first volume in high school. It had thin pages and weighed a minor ton. It had Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer, Ovid, Virgil, Homer, and a whole flock of ancient and Middle Age pieces up to Shakespeare's Hamlet. The class that used it only used a tiny chunk of the tome, but it opened my eyes to the variety of literature that just those periods created. I even entertained the idea of getting a copy of my own because it would show that I was a broad-minded reader of the classics. But I never did.

The sight of the book on the shelf reminded me of that book and high school. I looked through the table of contents and saw it contained many excerpts from different eras that are commonly referred to in various other sources. Voltaire, Racine, Moliere, Baudelaire, Keats, Swift, Samuel Johnson, Poe, Tennyson. From the Elizabethan period to the 20th century. Printed on thin paper and weighing a minor ton. It drew me to it and before I knew it I had it under my arm, mine for 3 weeks.

Now three weeks is not enough time to take in this much literature by any means. We're talking over 2000 pages of works that have withstood the test of time. One could skim it but one should savor it. Read a piece and think about it. What was it that made it stay with us while contemporaries vanished into the dust? Why should we read this now? And how can I take this tome and prop it up so that it stays open while I'm knitting, especially at the beginning and the end?

Over Abundance

I swiped the picture from Rodger's blog so if I get another pic some time I'll replace it. This is him with some poor jetlagged teenage girl-saddled mother who goes around taking pictures of her sock with strangers.

Rodger burst into the Portland scene last year when he arrived here to attend college. Don't let his youth fool you. He has a mind full of ideas and no fear of tackling a design puzzle. His enthusiasm is infectious and I have the honor of knowing him beyond the PDX Knitbloggers. He chats about his doings at Over Abundance.

Q. When did you learn how to knit? Did someone teach you or did you teach yourself?

A. I taught myself to knit my junior summer of high school, about two years ago. I was 17. I had just learned to crochet frm my aunt, and I didn't like crocheted sweaters so I learned to knit so I could knit them.

Q. If you were sent into exile, which 5 knitting books would you take?

A. All of the Elizabeth Zimmermann books. They could keep me happily knitting for years and years to come.

Q. Describe the most unusual/notable occurrence that happened while you were knitting.

A. Being applauded by two eastern european immigrants on the city bus when I pulled out a sweater I was knitting and began working on it. That was pretty unusual AND notable.

New Pathways

Cat Bordhi does what some of us dream of: play with design and get paid enough to not have to work at another job. My previous experience with Cat is through her Moebius books from which I have yet to work a pattern but am intrigued. When her latest book "New Pathways for Sock Knitters" came out, I commented on the GLBT Knit list that I didn't think I would pay 30 bucks for a book on socks when I had several books already. But I found myself eating my words when I looked in the book and saw what new architectures Cat has come up with. So if this sounds rather gushing please forgive me. I'm a new convert who has met the sock messiah, nay touched the same socks she has touched and even spoken with her.

Taking the MAX train was the best way to get to Cat's book signing at the Forestry Center. For a Friday evening around 5:30 the train was surprisingly empty, but it's summer and I figured that folks had taken off early for the weekend. A few were going to the Zoo concert being held that same evening, but there were no signs of knitters.

It wasn't until I arrived at the Forestry Center that I met up with Chrispy, Bobbie, Judy, and a number of other knitters. One gal had traveled down from Puyallup Washington for the signing; she asked us about what yarn stores to visit. I gave her the directions to Woodland Woolworks as it would be a pity for her to be so close and not visit.

Bobbie brought out the finished top done in Bambu 7 but to her grief it turned out too small for her, so she was going to gift it to someone who could fit in it. Chrispy turned out to be the right size and received the lovely top.

Inside we were greeted by the folks at Blue Moon Fiber Arts who were busy selling Cat's books and finishing up the preparations for the signing. Tina Newton, the doyenne of Blue Moon, was the emcee but it was a job trying to herd us knitters into a quiet bunch. The intention was that Cat would talk about the book, then Cat would sign books and we would get dessert. It ended up with knitters raiding the dessert table and quietly (and in some cases shyly) standing in line to get their copy signed. We were told that Blue Moon wouldn't have their yarns for sale as it was Cat's night and they didn't want to overshadow her with ravenous knitters snagging skeins of yarn. But it wasn't entirely yarnless. Tina had a nice big box of yarn to give away as prizes for unusual items found in one's knitting bag. Kathy won for the most unusual tool made from an ordinary object (a plastic fork used as a lucet to make cording). Some of us won skeins (in some cases two) for objects in our bags. I won two for a credit card used to determine wraps per inch (it was admittedly a stretch -- that skein's going into a gift bag) and a flashlight. The other skein, in red clover honey, will be a good background yarn for a skein of Koigu I have that can make another pair of colorwork socks. Tee hee!

Cat brought the socks from the book so that you could see the architecture live. It was fascinating to see how a few increases put in at nearly any point of the sock could create such different styles. I was drawn to the Ocean-Toes sock (Cat is holding it above -- click to see a larger picture of it) and the potential for it to be a fun man's sock if done in manly colors (like black with orange flames). It would make a wonderful sock for the quivering brethren of Brother Amos' congregation that Brenda Dayne loves so much from "Cold Comfort Farm." You can imagine the flames of hell licking your toes as you descend.

If you have not gotten your copy of the book and want it, get it now. The first edition has sold out. The next edition is not due out until October. That was the warning given last night. Blue Moon has books so if your LYS doesn't have it you can try them. And Cat? She's touring, so get the chance you can to see her if you haven't met her yet. She's a very sweet person and thrilled to hear the positive feedback.

Sucked In by the Harry Monster

I don't often get caught up in what's trendy. My usual response is to avoid the popular like the plague. But Harry Potter touches upon something that I dearly wanted as a child: magic power. I devoured books on wizardry and magic as a kid and imagined a world where the people were born with magic power. The Harry Potter books touch that old yearning, so when the new one is ready to come out, I have my order in. I don't care if it's the trade hardback; I want the story not a collectible. So I'll have my copy when the last book comes out. And I'll probably be up until the wee hours reading it.

Knitting

I was able to finish my obligatory knitting but it put a strain on my arm, so I've set aside knitting for now and focused on the design of the next project. I need a new knitting bag as my favorite bag is showing signs of wear and tear. Features of the bag I love are its size, a side pocket for holding keys and my cell phone, and inner pockets at the ends that are perfect for holding straight knitting needles. Most of the bags out there aren't quite large enough but I did find one by Noni that looks large enough to handle my projects. The Rather Huge Carpet Bag has a great size. I'll do different handles as I like looser handles for throwing over the shoulder than one that you have to carry by hand. I'll also add a couple of pockets. The body will also be of different colors, so be prepared.