7.20.2007

A labour of moles

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How could you not love a book that not only informs you of how to properly term a group of moles but also instructs you in discerning the approximate century from which a building hails by the shape of its moulding, includes a tidbit of advice on achieving stealthiness ("Goloshes are capital thing. They keep the feet warm, and prevent your footsteps from being heard"), and contains this following delightfully silly poem, written by an anonymous 20th century author and simply titled The Rabbit:
The rabbit has a charming face:
Its private life is a disgrace.
I really dare not name to you
The awful things that rabbits do;
Things that your paper never prints –
You only mention them in hints.
They have such lost, degraded souls
No wonder they inhabit holes;
When such depravity is found
It only can live underground.

All this plus a jumbled treasure trove of instructions and information about everything from song birds (complete with music notation of their songs) to star gazing (intricate constellation maps included) to long forgotten parlor games (Nine Men's Morris, anyone?), no wonder this little tome sold out of its first edition in 1924 within days. I first admired the Week-end Book here ages ago and serendipitously found it on sale this week here for a ridiculously small sum of money.
By the way, did you know that to take away the stinging of nettles, you should apply a bruised dock leaf and chant this Cantrap?
Out Nettle, In Dock:
Dock shall have a new smock.

Oh yes. Have a good week-end!

7.16.2007

Criss-crossing my life away

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Okay, it’s not that bad, but still. Hours of making the same basket weave stitch row after row with no appreciable change in the size of the unworked ball of yarn make me start feeling like I’ll be working on this scarf forever, not to mention make me begin to question the wisdom of having put off working on it until a mere few months before it needs to be gifted. After almost exclusively knitting the gift scarf for the past few days with a pair of size 10.5 needles, I can’t for the life of me understand why beginning knitters are often handed needles the size of small tree trunks to learn on. I suppose the rationale is that the knitting will grow faster with larger gauge needles but talk about awkwardness in handling the giant sticks! I can’t imagine how someone attempting to master the already slightly complex coordination of motions in making a stitch ever succeeds in doing so while simultaneously trying to balance the large needles (and yet they do somehow since so many knitter started with big needles and thick yarn). Perhaps it’s the way I hold my needles but even after many rows on this scarf, I find myself struggling ever few stitches to keep the needles from a) thwacking me mid-stitch, b) toppling over and falling out of my hand, or c) thwacking me and then falling out of my hand. So instead of flying through the simple stitch pattern, I’m moving along at the poky speed of 3 to 4 minutes per row (it felt so slow that I was compelled to time it), longer if I manage to lose my hold on a needle. Now figuring four rows to an inch and a desired scarf length of at least 80 inches – sigh…

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7.13.2007

Lace on the brain

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Thank you for all for your wonderful compliments on Swallowtail! With that happy success, it’s been difficult for me to get lace out of my mind. Never mind that I have deadline gift knitting prodding my conscience and clamoring for attention, my neurons persist in chanting “lace, lace, lace.” Being in possession of both a feather-light mini Bosworth (glowing red cedar, 0.6 ounces – can you say love?) that lace-weight singles practically flow off of and merino-silk roving begging to become lace certainly doesn't help matters either. I said I was hooked before. Oh, how I understated matters.

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With my much larger Kundert to help ply, half of the roving has already been turned into near laceweight 2-ply. Now, fingers crossed that at the end of four ounces, I’ll have enough yardage to knit myself one of these. Go on, take a look. Just be sure to remember to keep breathing, or have a swooning couch handy!

7.08.2007

Swallowtail, the gateway drug

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Much virtual ink has been spilled on the little matter of those triangular or rectangular knitted items containing deliberately placed holes. Multitudes of blog posts devote themselves to expounding on the agony and ecstasy of knitting lace shawls. The excitement of embarking on a joyfully frivolous project, the tedium of finding oneself in the middle of knitting a single repeat in increasing iterations twenty times, the awe at the beauty of the finished product, the pain in discovering an error two rows of hundreds of stitches back, the delight of the magical transformation that comes from the careful application of some water and pins…lace knitting seems unmatched in the depth and range of emotions it can elicit from both the knitter and the spectators. I used to be puzzled by the obsession over lace shawls, the way those holey pieces of knitting held sway over a large percentage of the knitting population who made one after another. Sure, they were pretty, but how could these elaborate and impractical labor of love’s be so addictive? Now that I’ve finished my first shawl, I think I finally get it.

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There’s no concrete reason, nothing you can point to and say “this is why.” All I know is an attendant joy as I K2tog, YO, and ssk’ed my way across the rows, feeling happiness at knitting with the only goal of creating something beautiful. And all I know is that little thrill when I unpinned the shawl from blocking and admired its newly gained drape in the sunlight.

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Yes, I think I understand what the fuss is all about now. And I think I’m addicted.

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To sleep, perchance to dream…of knitting more lace.

The technical details:
Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl, Evelyn A. Clark Interweave Knits Fall 2006
Yarn: 1 skein Handmaiden Seasilk, Sangria
Needles: US4/3.5mm
Blocked dimensions: 55 x 24 inches

7.06.2007

Done, done, done!

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Just waiting for a good soak and some pinning now. Yippee!