Rest of the summer book report

Okay, here's another semi-annual book report. It seems I haven't done one of these since, let's see, early August? Hmmm. Brace yourselves: that's a lot of reading in these parts.

Walking Through Walls: A Memoir by Philip Smith. This one is hard to describe: the memoir of a guy whose father was an interior decorator to the Miami rich during the 1950s (yep, his dad has a lot of interesting stories to tell). What makes the memoir even weirder, and yet more compelling, is that Smith's father also was regarded as an extremely talented "psychic," for lack of a better word. Through a mystical regime of fasting, yoga and all sorts of New Age exercises, his father transformed himself into a psychic healer. It's really difficult for me to accept at face value all the anecdotes that Smith tells of his father -- an ability to heal people through mental energy? stopping ants from invading your Florida house by "talking" to them psychically? -- but the author seems sincere in his belief that these things actually occurred. Whether or not you accept it as literal truth, it certainly is an entertaining and offbeat read.

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. Mixes the current-day fictional story of a young man who grew up in a polygamous sect with the based-on-history story of Ann Eliza Webb, who was one of Brigham Young's wife (possibly the 19th wife). Fascinating stuff.

Exit Music by Ian Rankin, is the latest in the gritty John Rebus detective series set in Edinborough, Scotland. When this book opens, Rebus is about to retire from the force -- and he, and his partner Siobhan have all sorts of mixed feelings about his imminent departure. You can always rely on Rankin for a solid, entertaining mystery with lots of local color.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. This book, published in the US posthumously, got a lot of press; I found it to be quite a bit overhyped. The beginning is especially slow to get moving, although the pace picked up about a third of the way through. The book begins with a magazine publisher being found guilty of libeling a prominent industrialist, although the reader is told that he was set up. The publisher then gets a strange invitation from another wealthy industrialist to move to his remote village and write a family history -- including solving the long-ago murder of a cousin. Not a bad read, but I had to persevere through the first few chapters. This one needed a good edit.

The Calling by Inger Ash Wolf. Wolf is the pseudonym of "a well-known and well-regarded North American writer." If you Google the pseudonym, you find a lot of articles speculating as to the real identity of the author, but, well, who cares? This is a decent mystery about a Canadian detective who is not the typical protagonist of a mystery novel: in her sixties, with serious back problems, living with her mother. She's tracking a scary serial killer with a religious fetish.

A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read. I got a kick out of this one; another mystery, but the main character is a former debutante, daughter of a WASP family with old money. Her ambivalent attitude toward her family and its social prominence, and the insider's look at what it's like to grow up in a family whose prominence and wealth has faded in recent times, was interesting, and it was a keep-you-guessing-til-the-end kind of mystery.

Between Here and April by Deborah Kopaken Cagen. The protagonist in the book is a mom of two, juggling a freelance career with her struggling marriage and the chaos of young children. When she begins having fainting episodes, she consults a psychiatrist, and discovers disturbing memories of a childhood friend who went missing. Some of Lizzie's turmoil has to do with problems in her marriage, her own mother's failings, and her repression of a brutal incident while on a photojournalist's shoot. But some of what Lizzie investigates is the unpleasant side of being a mom -- i.e. how exhausting giving one's all to a child can be; how childrearing can sap the energy & vitality out of even a good marriage; how even the most loving and doting mother sometimes wants to beat the crap out of her kids because no one else knows how to push her buttons as well as they do. Yep, it's heavy stuff, and a bit melodramatic at times, but thought-provoking.

Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (not to be confused with Anne of Cleves). How could I refuse to read a mystery set on the Shetland Isles? I enjoyed the story of a lonely detective oddly named Jimmy Perez, who grew up on the Isles and now investigates crimes there. When a teenager is killed, Perez has to investigate her death, and figure out if recluse Magnus Tait did it -- or if he's been blamed for someone else's crime.

Christine Falls is another brooding mystery set in 1950s Ireland, written by a Booker Prize winner under a pseudonym. The main character is a pathologist who discovers his stepbrother altering a file at the city morgue.

Slip of the Knife by Denise Mina, is part of a series of mysteries set in 1980s Glasgow. Another fast-paced read with newspaper reporter Paddy Meehan investigating the death of her former lover, who was also a journalist.

Goodnight, Irene by Jan Burke. Breathlessly billed on the cover as a favorite of Bill Clinton, this is another fast-paced mystery with a newspaper reporter as the main character. Irene Kelly is a reporter at a small newspaper in southern California investigating the abrupt death of her friend and mentor.

The Sonnet Lover by Carol Goodman tells the story of a college professor who returns to Italy to serve as advisor for a film about Shakespeare. The professor also is trying to figure out why one of her star students fell (or was pushed) off the balcony of a high building just before he was scheduled to spend the summer in Italy working on the same film.

And yes, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, the teen novel about a high school girl who falls in love with a modern-day vampire.

Too many distractions

First, the other moms at Little Miss's ballet class insisted that I read Twilight. I was highly skeptical -- and then couldn't put it down.

In the meantime, I was cajoled to join Facebook and have been spending way too much time playing with it.

And then we woke up to see snow:



Meanwhile, the "to-do" list grows ever longer...

This just in. . .

Did you know that "[k]nitting blogs are the estrogen-fueled, crafty-fingered appendix of the blogosphere: surprisingly large once you take a look at them, yet hardly noticeable to anyone but the busy bacteria that hang out there"? Hmm, I'm not sure I like that uncannily accurate description (especially coming from "The A.V. Club" -- which I guess is written by people who watch a lot of teevee but aren't quite funny enough for The Onion?), but at least the authors pay homage to the Yarn Harlot. (Thanks, Mr. G-K-I-Y-H!)

Today's Ravelry moment

Go to the "Patterns" forum and help the desperate, canine-loving knitter who is searching for a pattern for a "dog poop bag":

some time ago I saw a pattern that was for a larger bag. I believe it had a square stiffened base with a scented dryer sheet in it to mask “offensive odours”!! It’s not just for holding plastic bags but for carrying home the - er - doings of one’s dog. I thought this would make a good quick easy gift for a couple of friends with dogs.

Here might be a good time to use that yarn with the antibacterial properties they were advertising a few years ago... (thanks, Selma!)

On sock flats

At Stitches the other weekend, I spent a lot of time examining sock flats. If you aren't familiar with them, they are long rectangles of yarn, sometimes knit with two strands, other times knit with one with a line of demarcation to show the halfway point. They are dyed as knitted cloth, rather than as unknitted yarn. You can either unravel the cloth and wind it into a ball, or knit them directly from the cloth, just casting on with the loose end and unraveling as you go along. (The ones knit with two strands together are for those who knit two socks at the same time -- one strand for each pair, ensuring matching socks.)

What fascinated me were the ways in which the dyers had applied the yarn to the flats. (Please believe that I am in no way denigrating any particular dyers or vendors at the show; this is merely one of those pointy-headed musings to which I am prone.) Some of the flats had colors applied more or less randomly. But others had created patterns on the flat. Some had zigzags of color; others stripes or criss-crosses; some even had stamped or stenciled shapes onto the flat to create an image of, say, an insect or a flower in one color on a different colored background.

Which led me to wonder why.

If you were going to keep the flat intact and, I don't know, frame it or something, then the stencils and intricate designs would make sense. But it seemed odd that the dyer had gone to all the trouble of creating these designs, knowing that the person who bought them was going to (presumably) unwind them and knit them into socks. And given the variables in gauge and sock size and stitch pattern, there was no way the dyer could ensure that any particular pattern would be created or recreated in the finished socks.

One of the issues that Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn addresses in the technical section is why handpainted yarns look the way they do when knit into socks. I spend some time talking about the phenomenon known as pooling (or splotching, or stacking, or landscaping, or whatever you happen to call those effects where particular colors seem to line up in the knitted stitches and create patterns or unattractive blotches or almost-stripes).

And it seemed to me that a lot of these sock flats were going to end up pooling like a mofo.

One of the vendors had helpfully included a flat along with one of the socks knit from it. Curiously, the finished sock had a very symmetrical striping look to it. Upon closer examination, I concluded that the sock must have been knit using two separate balls of yarn, alternating rows. (I even saw what I think was the un-woven-in end where the second ball was added in, shortly after the cuff.)

Now there's nothing wrong with using two balls of yarn in alternating stripes to break up the pooling of a handpainted yarn. Indeed, it's a time-honored method -- but it's a method usually used when the knitter doesn't like the way the colors look as the sock is being knit up. In other words, it's something you do when your handpainted sock yarn is pooling and you hate it.

So if the sock flat looks attractive in its unknit form, but not that attractive in the knit-up sock, what's the point? Is it for the dyer to have fun playing with the flat? Or is it for the knitter who ends up knitting and wearing the socks?

I have resisted creating sock flats that use these kinds of decorative methods for the very reason that I thought they'd make socks that pooled and splotched. Now you're always going to have a skein of handpainted yarn here or there that pools and splotches -- it comes with the turf. But I guess I'm wondering what the point of the sock flat is if it doesn't do something different than you can do with a regular hank. (When I've dyed sock flats, I've used them to create striping effects that one can't easily achieve with a normal-sized hank of yarn.)

Your thoughts are welcome, especially if you've knit with sock flats before. (Just please don't mention any vendors or dyers by name in the comments. I don't want anyone to think I'm picking on them.)

Today's Ravelry moment...

In today's Ravelry moment, offer your thoughts on the desirability of knitting a headstone cozy (Patterns thread), or help recommend yarn (without elastic) for a knitted bra...

Gloomy day, pretty patterns

Another week slipped by me, although in my defense, I did get a lot done. Unfortunately, blogging was not one of those things.

However, at least I can report that there are lots of pretty new patterns to ogle:

• Twist Collective's Winter Issue is out here (hey, lookit that nice scarf & cap set by Ve-Ve!);
  
• there's a preview of the winter Interweave Knits here (hey, lookit that wonderful green sweater by my co-author Laura!); and
  
• sometime this weekend, the new Knotions will be out (hey, lookit that helpful a book review by yours truly).

Have fun!

With apologies to Cameron McIntosh

I just returned from my overnight venture to Baltimore, host (for the last time) of Stitches East. I was joined by intrepid traveling companion Mindy -- who for the first time in a long time, was NOT working the show.

This was my third (I think) Baltimore Stitches, and I was just beginning to get to know the city a little. Alas, the X-men are moving next year's Stitches way further north: to Hartford, Connecticut. They even had a guy from the Hartford Chamber of Commerce sitting at a table to give out literature about new locale. Bye-bye, Baltimore -- it's been fun.

While many of the regulars were there -- WEBS, thank God, and the Mannings, and Yarn Barn of Kansas -- some of the smaller yarn shops and many of the farms and smaller vendors weren't. Blue Moon Fiber Arts was one conspicuous absentee; Morehouse Merino and Green Mountain Spinnery and Kid Hollow were three more; I'm sure there were others. The crowds also seemed smaller. There were only a few times where I was aware of there being a long line at a vendor or more than one or two people looking in a booth. I guess the struggling economy had to affect the knitting world, too.

And while I enjoyed myself, I couldn't help but feel a bit bereft. Oh sure, we had a delightful lunch with the charming Mama E. I got to say hello to some of my faves, like Kathy from WEBS (her husband Steve is quite a hottie, too -- way to go, Kathy!), and Linda P., whom I dearly love, and Kristen Nicholas (maybe someday when her slutty licentious kitteh gives birth for the forty-seventh time, I can convince Tom to let me take one of the kittens: an itteh-bitteh kitteh from the knitterateh?); and, okay, Li'l Ricky was wearing something awful (in this case, pants the color of stale ketchup); and I bought some fab yarn and books, including the yarn and pattern for a Norah Gaughan sweater (she is the best thing that happened to Berroco. Ever.).

But something was definitely missing.

At dinner, an empty chair at our table mocked me.


The maid left three pieces of chocolate in our room, when there were only two of us.



As I stared into a box of pastries that Mindy brought, I thought wistfully: Vé-vé would have loved these...


AHA!

It wasn't that something was missing; it was someone.



I missed Vé-vé.

Yes, it was all coming clear now.

Here was the lonely, empty chair where she would have used my laptop to check her email and send saucy billets-doux to her sexy husband.



This would have been her wineglass, to share the impertinent yet inexpensive (with a hint of poir) bottle of red that we (finally) tracked down.


(I never thought I'd find a state with even more bizarre liquor laws than Pennsylvania, but Maryland is pretty weird. I mean, what kind of state sells wine at a Rite-Aid?)

Mindy would have (sniffle) showed her the Salt Peanuts she made from Vé-vé's pattern:




and I would have shown her this advance copy I just received of my new book:



When I saw Mindy's clothesbasket full of coffeemaking equipment -- Mindy brings her coffee press, spring water from her well, a heating source and saucepan, mugs and coffee with her on every trip -- I got morose, imagining how Vé-vé and I would have teased Mindy about her fancy "portmanteau" and about how seriously she takes her café americain.




And this architectural detail, on the outside of the Wharf Rat? We would have admired its decorative lines together as we supped on a light déjeuner.



Yep, Stitches East was fun and all. But it just wasn't the same without Vé-vé.

On my own
Pretending she's beside me
All alone, I walk with her till morning




In the rain the pavement shines like silver
All the lights are misty in the river
In the darkness, the trees are full of starlight
And all I see is she and me for ever and forever, knitting...

Come say hi at Stitches East!

If you will be at Stitches East, please stop by the Rosie's Yarn Cellar booth on Saturday around 3:30 p.m. Lisa, Laura and I will be signing Knit So Fine: Designs with Skinny Yarn so please bring your book -- or just stop by and say hello! I'll be at Stitches East Saturday and for a little while Sunday morning so look for me.

Now that this big election is over, things will be getting back to a more normal state -- which means more book reviews (and I'm working on one for Knotions, too) and more dyeing and other good stuff, too.

Yes we can.

Yes we did.

10 Reasons Why You Should Vote For Barack Obama

1. His judgment is superlative. While Congress dithered and let themselves be led into an unnecessary and staggeringly expensive war, Obama called bullshit on them:

...I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.

The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don’t oppose all wars.

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.

I don’t oppose all wars.

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this Administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income — to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

2. He is not a muslin; no, he is an actual human being rather than a piece of fabric traditionally used for quilting. (Also, he is not a Muslim, but rather a Christian; however, personally I don't give a rat's ass what his religion is.)

3. While the conventional wisdom said Hillary Clinton was a shoe-in, Obama quietly and carefully set up an exceptional campaign machine, making brilliant use of new technology and old-fashioned statistics, and won his party's nomination. Without raising his voice, he took on some of the toughest and most experienced politicians in Washington to get where he is today -- and if he can beat hardscrabble politicians like the Clintons, Karl Rove and John McCain, just think what he can do in the White House.

4. He passes the "one house/one spouse" rule.

5. He's run an honorable campaign, and despite the conventional wisdom and all the handwringers, he's never stooped to sling mud the way his opponent has.

6. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their family. Obama cut out of his campaign with less than two weeks to go to visit his ailing grandmother, so he wouldn't risk missing her should she pass away before Election Day. (By the way, he showed good judgment on that, too; his grandmother passed away Sunday night at the age of 86.) He took another break on Friday night to take his two daughters trick-or-treating. That says something about the measure of the man.

7. People like him and are inspired by him. It's foolish and short-sighted to hold his transcendent ability as a speaker against him. And the fact that he inspires people in America and around the world is a good thing. If you can inspire people, they will work with you to get things done.

8. If John McCain dies in office -- and no presidential candidate has been as old or had such an ominous medical history (as far as we can tell from the limited release of McCain's medical records) -- Sarah Palin would be president. 'Nuff said.

9. Don't be manipulated by fear. Don't let the powers-that-be who have profited handsomely and grabbed obscene amounts of power unto themselves scare you into thinking we'll be less safe with a democrat, or a person of color, or a man who wants to work with our allies, or a [fill in doomsday scenario here] in office.

10. We've had dumb for nearly eight years and look where it's gotten us: now it's time to try smart.

Please vote.

And please vote for Barack Obama.

For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

Halloween recap

It's been a wild couple of days, but here's the (belated) Halloween recap.

Yet another reason to make handknit socks

I went to see Barack Obama speak yesterday in Chester, PA. I arrived at the crack of dawn to volunteer, and we stood in the rain, wind and cold for hours. However, I am happy to report that the only part of me that was not freezing and miserable were my feet, due in part to my handknit wool socks...



As I helped an elderly black woman with a walker to the handicapped seating section, we chitchatted about the weather, and I said casually, "I'm sure Obama will be worth the wait." She said, quite seriously, "I've waited 65 years for Obama." Being part of that, seeing a crowd full of young and old, black and white and hispanic and asian, college students and senior citizens, parents bringing children so they can own a piece of history, it was a remarkable experience and one I'll treasure.

Take-home reader from the school of hard knocks?

I am hardly a high-maintenance elementary school parent, but I must confess to feeling a bit squeamish about the home reader that Miss Thang brought home the other night:



File this one under "R is for Roadkill."

Rhinebeck Road Trip -- the denouement

I can honestly say that I didn't actually see Dolores for the rest of the trip. Laura asked about her a few times, but all Franklin did in response was mumble unintelligibly (I think it was Latin) and Jim seemed inclined to studiously avoid all mention of the topic, once he had exhausted his analogies to bygone Hollywood divas (his riff on Joan Crawford was highly enlightening, I must say).

Still, I had my suspicions. I couldn't help but wonder if Dolores had managed to get some wet-behind-the-ears desk clerk to slip her our key card. I opened the door gingerly when we arrived back at the room after dinner, but all was quiet. I noticed one or two odd things, though; when I left for the show, I was sure that I shut my computer down, but when I went to log back in again, I found all kinds of crazy stuff in the browser cache. (Most of them were, um, not consistent with Blogger's usage guidelines, shall we say, but here's a shot of one of the tamer ones:



Somehow I doubt Dolores' interest was scientific, you know?)

And during Franklin's booksigning, a redwell folder full of contracts was thrust into my hands by a prominent literary agent specializing in the crafts field. I must admit that my curiosity got the better of me. The top sheet was a marketing proposal seeking permission to use Dolores' likeness to sell merchandise; when I got to the page with a submission from the Thunderbird company, using the tag line "The hooch of choice for hoochie-mamas," I could read no more.

When we were ready to check out on Sunday morning, however, all doubt was removed. A sobbing chambermaid ran down the hall and pressed this into my hand:



And this odd notation was scrawled at the bottom of our Express Checkout bill.



In any event, all was quiet as we packed up the station wagon, sated by our weekend with friends and fiber. As we got into the car and fastened our seat belts, Laura timidly asked if we were going to wait for Dolores.

Franklin snapped, "We're leaving now. My plane leaves at 2:15 and I'm not missing it."

Laura looked uneasy. "But how will she get hom--"

The sound of Buddhist chanting from the backseat drowned her out.

"I think we'd better leave, Laura," I said quietly. "Franklin's starting to get stressed out and if we don't go now, he won't make his plane."

"But--"

The chanting grew louder.

Jim helpfully clapped his hand over Laura's mouth and we drove away.

After I got back Sunday night, photographs with taunting messages began arriving in my email account via dummy addresses:

Et tu, Kathy?

And Dolores apparently went on a fact-finding mission to determine what, if anything, Mel wears under his kilt:


As the kids were helping me bring in my bags from the car, Nick showed me an empty Cristalle bottle. "Why did you bring this bag full of empty bottles home, Mommy?" he asked innocently. "Don't they recycle in New York?"

"Let me have those, sweetie," I told him quickly. And as our recycling bucket filled with empty bottles of Johnny Walker Red and cheap tequila, a wistful smile appeared on my face. Good old Dolores. I missed you, my friend.

President of the Lucky Club

Beneath my wisecracking, opinionated, profanity-laced, sarcastic mouth lurks a tender and loving heart. So it is completely without irony that I tell you that pretty much every day I feel like the president of The Lucky Club to have so many dear and wonderful friends in my life. This was made even clearer to me over the weekend.

My traveling companions, Jim, Laura and Franklin, are three of the most fun and amazing folks you'd ever want to meet.





(Geez, I must be in a good mood; when was the last time I actually posted a photo of myself?)

It felt luxurious to have driven up Friday night so that we could begin Saturday at a more normal hour (as opposed to getting up at 4 a.m. and drive), so after a lovely breakfast (ahem, at which M. Habit was frequently accosted by fellow diners/rabid fans) we arrived at the gates just as they opened.

This year, I felt that I didn't see that much of the show, but who cares? Instead I saw a lot of my friends. Like newlyweds Mel and David:


And talk about "when worlds collide": the Knitting Curmudgeon collides with Ve-Ve:



This is a very handsome new friend I made (I think it's Alan, please God, let it be Alan):



I got several hugs (and wisecracks) from Joe, who quite simply is just too handsome for his own good:



and also Lars and Ted (wait 'til I get to Ted!!! but that's a whole entry of its own):



and I even got (joy of joys) to meet Franklin's family:

including this adorable tot, who is clearly a future warshcloth knitter, as my ball of Sugar-n-Creme entertained her for hours:



I also got to spend time with Mindy, but for some reason I forgot to take out my camera at dinner Saturday night and take her photo, as well as some of the other hilarious dinnertime companions at our table...

So it's pretty easy to see why I don't have tons of photos of sheep, or yarn, or spinning wheels, or punkin-chuckin'. I can see all of that next time. But having friends like this? Priceless.

Rhinebeck Road Trip, part deux

We turned off the New York Thruway around nine o'clock Friday evening. Except for an occasional waft of ovine flatulence (reminiscent of Cool Ranch Doritos and Jagermeister), our trip was a delightful chance to catch up, trade gossip and talk yarn. We checked in -- Jim had thoughtfully informed them of our late arrival -- and pulled the car around to the back of the hotel so we could put our bags in our rooms. (Handy for us, we were only a few doors away from each other, in the same corridor.)

As we disentangled a bit of Romney fleece from Laura's tote bag, she looked over at the noisily gently snoring Dolores and said timidly, "Should we wake her up?"

Jim and Franklin exchanged uneasy glances.

"Absolutely not," I said firmly, carefully closing the liftback so it made a minimum of thunk.

"But Carol," the kind-hearted Laura protested weakly, "you have those child locks on the door so you can't open the doors from the inside--"

"Never mind, Laura," I broke in. I grabbed her hand and tugged. "C'mon, I'm starving."

Laura looked a bit dismayed, shooting a few baleful looks at the sleeping hulk in the back of my car, but Franklin was already putting his keycard in the slot to open the hotel door. (I thought I heard him mutter something along the lines of "I'd love to see Tom's face when he sees what Dolores does to the car" but maybe I misheard. Franklin doesn't have a vicious bone in his body.) Clearly, he wasn't going to wake her, so following his lead, I marched Laura toward the warmth and light of the hotel.

After a quick bite, we adjourned to our rooms. Laura still looked a bit troubled.

"Are you sure we should have left Dolores in the car?" she said, a note of skepticism in her voice. "It's kind of cold out there."

"She needs her beauty sleep," I told her, "just like, um, Norma Desmond before her big role in Sunset Boulevard, you know?"

"There are some parallels between the Gloria Swanson role and Dolores," Jim mused. "The faded scent of glory, the disproportionate sense of one's own importance, the young and talented writer who gets unwittingly sucked into her twisted orbit..."

Laura wasn't entirely convinced, despite Jim's insightful theories about the glory days of Hollywood cinema. "I still think she might be mad."

At this point, I thrust my copy of Guys With Yarn at her:



and Laura was quiet for a good long time.

At around four in the morning, there was a huge commotion down in the pool area. I heard the sound of breaking glass, muttered cursing and then a huge splash.

"What's going on?" Jim mumbled.

"You're dreaming, honey," I said in my best Mom voice, and pulled the drapes shut a little tighter. After double-checking that both security locks on the door were securely on, I drifted back to sleep, full of fibery dreams for the day ahead.

To be continued...

Rhinebeck road trip

First I picked up Franklin Habit -- world-famous blogger, author, raconteur and all-around bon vivant -- from the airport. Then I loaded faithful traveling companions Jim and Laura into the station wagon, got the Mapquest printouts ready, and started swilling Diet Coke to stay awake. I had thought that the trenchant smell of lanolin and bourbon was due to some new aftershave of Jim's, when something made me glance in the rear-view mirror.




to be continued. . .

Getting ready for Rhinebeck

Riddle me this: why is it that, on the rare occasion that I get nasty emails from bigots, they are always full of spelling and grammatical errors, to the point where they are almost incomprehensible? (Lucky for them, they always manage to make the hate come through, though.) Can it be -- dare I suggest -- that bigotry and ignorance go hand in hand? But geez, people, if you want your screeds to be taken even a little seriously, could you freakin' spellcheck them? Maybe read through them once or twice to make sure that every sentence has a subject and a verb?

Sheesh. (shaking head reproachfully) It's just impossible to find good screeds any more. I guess all the good ones are being made in China these days.

Best. Gifts. Evar.

I had occasion to receive some free gifts this past month. One was a lovely set of stitch markers from Zero on etsy.



Coincidentally, I just started a sweater in the round and had used a bunch of random stitch markers that I pulled from under the couch cushions (except for the one that had the squished MilkDuds on it) to mark the raglan decreases. So now I am going to switch out the old ones and add these beauts. These would be great gifts for secret pals or even to treat yourself...

This is just too much:



Heather sent this to me a few days ago. Is it not the cutest? I especially love the leetle Bunnies for Obama tag. I would totally buy a shirt that had the bunny logo on it (and I'd also buy one in the shape of a kitteh's head that said LOLCATS for Obama or Kittehs 4 Obama -- hint, hint....).

I hope I get to see some of you in Rhinebeck this weekend. I'll be moseying around all day Saturday and early in the day Sunday. I'm going to be at Franklin's booksigning for at least part of the time (Saturday, 12 to 2 at Carolina Homespun's booth) and I will bring a bag with some BBF inventory if anyone wants to pick up a skein at no-shipping/Rhinebeck-discounted prices. I'll be delighted to sign your personal copy of Knit So Fine, too, if you want to bring it or pick up a copy at the show. So if you see me, flag me down and say hi.

Cavalcade of baby sweaters

We seem to be hitting another phase where people we know are having babies. Lots of babies. Two of Tom's coworkers either just had or are about to have babies, both of them girls, so I have two finished objects to show you.

This one is a little short-sleeved jacket from a Sirdar booklet.


The yarn is Paton's Silk/Bamboo, and while it is lusciously silky and has a great shine, and is a nice luxurious yarn for a baby gift, I'm not sure I'd use it again for a pattern with lots of garter stitch. The pattern was written for a yarn that also prominently contained bamboo, but I think the lack of elasticity in the yarn I used made for every teeny inconsistency in my knitting showing up in the garter stitch edgings. (Yep, I did block it, too.)

Sometimes I get in the mood where I just want to follow directions for a pattern rather than figuring it out myself. Even then, I sometimes find myself second-guessing the way it's written. This pattern was written so that you cast on a bunch of stitches for the front left, and then put some of them on a holder after the first row, and knit up the stockinette portion of the front first. Then you go back and put the 10 or 12 stitches from the holder onto a slightly smaller needle and knit the garter stitch edging separately.

I came really close to bagging this and knitting it all together, just doing the first 10 or 12 stitches in garter stitch and switching to st st for the rest of the row, but then I thought "Hey, don't be a know-it-all. Maybe there's some reason not apparent to you now for why they do it this way."

There wasn't. When it came time for the finishing, I had to seam the garter stitch edging that runs up the front to the front, which irked the shite out of me. I tried to figure out what possessed the designer to do it this way, and the only thing I could think of was that s/he really, really wanted to use a smaller needle size for the garter stitch edging than for the stockinette portion. Feh. If I did this again, I'd knit it all in one piece. And I'd use a yarn with enough wool in it that the elasticity made up for the switch between garter and stockinette.

Lesson learned: It doesn't always pay to be humble.

The second jacket was a much more satisfying knit.


Huge thanks to Liz K. for suggesting this pattern a long time ago as a quick and easy baby gift. It's from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts and has the virtue of being knit in the round. All you do is graft the underarm stitches together -- no seaming required. It's so easy that you don't even have to do buttonholes; you use little beads that will fit between the stitches on the placket as "buttons." (I'm not convinced the beads will really hold the placket closed but it doesn't matter given the style of the sweater.)

This one was knit in the old stand-by, Plymouth Encore, for wash-and-dry ease. A big thumbs-up to this pattern -- although make sure you find the errata for it, as there is a substantially-revised version of it that changes the way the raglan decreases are done.

A salute

Today is National Coming Out Day. It's a day for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered to be open about who they are, and for heteros like me to open up and discuss issues that impact the GLTB community. I have begun an informal tradition here of posting on National Coming Out Day. I do this to honor and salute my friends -- those intelligent, funny, fun, decent people who add so much to my life -- who happen to be GLTB.

I'm a straight white woman who grew up in a middle-class family. I can never truly know what it's like to be GLTB in this world.

But I do know what it's like to feel fundamentally different from your parents, to feel that there is a major disconnect between what your parents think and believe, and what you think and believe. I know what it's like to have to close off a part of your life from your parents because they just can't handle it, I know what it's like to have conversational minefields with your family that you're constantly stepping around, and I know what it's like to know that if your mother knew some of your secrets, it would break her heart. That still doesn't mean I know what it's like to be GLTB in our society, but I do have a teeny inkling of some of what my GLTB friends must feel at times.

So today I salute you, my dear friends who add so much to my life, who make me laugh and who make me think. I honor your courage and your spirit in the face of ignorance and judgment and cruelty. I love you and I hope I live to see the day when you can love who you want and be who you are without fear or repercussion.

Notes from Ravelry... (a new feature)

Today in Ravelry, you may enter a discussion as to what yarn would be the best choice for potato-scrubbing gloves. Or you may give comfort to the knitter who is reluctant to use her 50% acrylic/50% polyester yarn made by Fruit Of The Loom in case it is a valuable and sought-after keepsake. . .



Please be advised that I lerve Ravelry and I think it's the shizzle. But I still find some of the threads amusing.

Bugtopia

It hasn't been that long since I blogged about our nasty encounter with yellowjackets. Well, our house must be very inviting to bugs (you don't think it's karma's response to all my moth repellent devices, do you?) because we are now facing Invasion of the Brown Marmorated Stinkbug (halyomorpha halys, for Franklin and the other Latin scholars).

These nasty, crunchy, stinky bugs are invading the side of our house that gets the most sun. I scoop 'em up, I flush 'em, I even have taken to vacuuming 'em, and more keep coming. Sigh. I have it on good authority that these bugs hitched a ride from Asia in shipping cartons and since they have no natural predators here, tend to multiply quickly.

In the meantime, some sort of icky meal bug has infested my flour. (We are big fans of the Pantry Pest sticky trap.)

And to add to the overall bugginess, we had a visitor show up on the outside of a window:



A praying mantis. At least he had the good sense to stay outside. I have a rolled-up section of newspaper and I'm not afraid to use it.

I was supposed to be caught up by now

The end of the summer was a bit frantic. Lots of family stress, no set schedule for the kids, vacation, and deadlines for some spring projects. I convinced myself that once the kids went back to school, I'd catch up. Well, the kids have been back at school for nearly a month and guess what? I'm still not caught up.

My house is filled with these:


Somehow I managed to be the collection point for the hats and scarves that Ravelry Obama supporters knit for homeless veterans. This week's big project is sorting and counting, so that I can divide them up and mail them to the people who will deliver them to the homeless shelters in their states. Charcoal has been enjoying the collection process, though; he's gotten dibs on the extra bunny-sized boxes. (I think someone needs boxhab, no?)


I am woefully behind on my sock/fiber/yarn clubs, and about a thousand other projects on my to-do list. I've been hoping to keep the BBF website better stocked, and in that regard, I did make progress; yesterday I uploaded lots of superwash merino sock yarn and some great rovings (merino/silk blend and some silky 100% Wensleydale):


So I guess I better load up on coffee and get those dyepots cranking. When I'm ready to scream with frustration, I remind myself: t's only 2 weeks to Rhinebeck.

An important public service reminder

The deadline for voter registration is rapidly approaching. So please, PLEASE, if you are concerned about the direction our country is taking, and you think we need some changes starting from the White House down, and you are sick of having an inarticulate numbskull in the Oval Office, please make sure you are registered to vote and please apply for an absentee ballot if you need one.

You can check a national voter registration database, and get information about registering to vote and getting absentee ballots for your specific state by going here or here. For example, if you live in Pennsylvania, like I do, you've got to register no later than Monday, October 6th -- which is this coming Monday.

A friendly challenge

Elvis completed his cap this weekend:




(okay, we haven't sewn the ends in yet, but still). Look at the pride in his face! In fact, he's having so much fun knitting that he is already bugging me to help him start a pair of matching mittens.

Wouldn't it be nice to help some other kids learn how to knit?

Well, it just so happened that I was contacted by the good people at Donors Choose, a nonprofit organization dedicated to hooking up teachers who need classroom resources and donors who want to help kids learn. Teachers are invited to submit proposals listing specific items that they want to use to help their kids learn; then donors can pick the specific proposal that they'd like their money to go to. During the month of October, bloggers ask their readers to help them raise money for some of the Donors Choose proposals. So I'm asking those of you who can spare five bucks or whatever to please go to my Donors Choose page here and help spread your love of knitting (and/or crochet) to some kids whose teachers want to help them but lack the financial resources to do so.

When I signed up to do this, I didn't know that the Knitting Curmudgeon was also starting a challenge, so let's see if we can at least keep up with Marilyn when it comes to fundraising. You know, in the spirit of friendly rivalry and all that crap. I make no promises to knit with Red Heart if we meet our goal, but I will sweeten the pot by drawing a name for a free skein of BBF sock yarn from amongst my donors...

Thanks in advance for your help! Once again, the link to my fundraising challenge is here.