OFF & ON

... THE NEEDLES, THAT IS

I finished this piece a few weeks ago, but it has languished, awaiting blocking. I've no great love for blocking, and it is something I feel I do poorly. I don't seem to have the intuitive skills necessary to do an exemplary job. And when I say I find it more difficult than knitting a lace scarf to begin with, they look at me like I have three heads, and one of them is up my arse.


Anyway, don't get all vershtimmeled. I fixed the bottom edging before it dried. The yarn is Alpaca Lace by Cascade in the Turtle colorway. I used approximately 520 yards, or 1.25 skeins. The pattern is one of those from The Knitted Lace of Estonia, but I'm too lazy to get out of bed and walk into the library and get the book off the shelf. (Aren't you proud of me, though? I got the entire stack of books from my bedside re-shelved! Myfanwe is quite pleased, anyway. After a while the pile falls over and makes it hard to walk.)

You can't really see the mossy green in the photos -- I'm going to have to learn this camera better before we go to Ireland. I don't think I've taken a decent picture with it. I'm sure I just don't know it well enough, but my old camera, which broke, must have been idiot proof, because I couldn't take a bad picture with it.


Now for ON the needles. This shows about half of my progress on the Candle Flame Shawl. The pattern is free from knitpicks.com. The yarn, Alpaca Lace by Cascade again, is in the Flax Heather colorway.

This shawl does not have to be completed until January, so I am going to give myself a special dispensation from my One Project At A Time rule. I have some beautiful Alpaca Lace in Amethyst Heather that I want to cast on. You will see the Alpaca Lace a lot in the coming months. It is a joy to work with. It doesn't split, it is smooth between the fingers, it is easy to grip, it is fairly forgiving, and I love working with it. You will also see a lot of it because I have purchased a lot of it. I also plan to start an Ishbel in Glazed Carrot Malabrigo Lace for Myfanwe.

When I break a rule, I really break it big!

GOBSMACKED!

Yup. Gobsmacked is exactly what I am. I am smacked in the gob.

This is a picture of my friend Lindy. Lindy works for a social service agency in Geelong, Australia and, in her spare time, freelances as Santa Claus.


I wrote Lindy a little e-mail telling her that I had found a copy of Yarn Magazine Issue 6 -- the one with the Cathedral Window Shawl -- at a distributor in Australia and asked, should the distributor balk at international shipping, if Lindy would be so kind as to purchase the magazine and have it shipped to her address, and then I could send her a check to cover the purchase and shipment to the US.

It must have been too complicated, because she wouldn't do it.

Instead, she informed me that she owned the magazine and would be happy to put it in an envelope and send it to me! Can you believe that? Lindy, who has never met me in person, is willing to go out of her way for me.

I say all the time that the people who read my blog are the nicest people on earth. And this is proof, yet again, of how very right I am.

I'm going to bed now -- and I will think about color choices as I head towards slumber.

I am gobsmacked,

CAN YOU CHECK YOUR MAGAZINE RACK?

Or check in the stack by the commode? I am looking for the Yarn Magazine Issue 6, April 2007. I went to the magazine's website, and although they have most back issues available for sale, guess which one they DON'T have!

Why, you may ask, do I want this issue so badly? Here. A picture is worth a thousand words.


This is the Cathedral Windows Shawl. And I want to knit it. I have a cousin who is a Sinsinawa Dominican, and I would like to knit it for her or -- because she is not the greedy type and might well give it to one of her Sisters -- for a member of her community. I knit a shawl for Cousin Margie a couple of years ago, and when she was here for dinner a couple of weeks ago she mentioned how much she loves it. I think the Sisters will like this one, too.

So if you happen to have Yarn Magazine, Issue 6, April 2007 in your collection and would contemplate parting with it, I would be more than happy to purchase it from you. You would be doing a mitzvah!

(p.s. I borrowed the image from a Ravelry project. Do you think it would be wrong or bad or rude to e-mail the people who have knit the project to see if they would be willing to sell their copy? I feel a little uncomfortable. I'm kinda shy.)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I spent the evening at Loopy Yarns, and I had a perfectly lovely time. Loopy celebrated Christmas in July -- Santa was there and passed out gifties to all the good little knitters. (Santa had an elf with him. I thought elves were short and looked like Jeane Kirkpatrick, but this one was tall, thin, and -- I don't think my wife will feel threatened by this observation -- he was more than a little bit hunky. Who knew?)

Anyway, I bought a bit of yarn. Possibly enough to keep me in stitches for the remainder of 2009. I bought:

3 skeins of Cascade Alpaca Lace in color 1407, Amethyst Heather;
2 skeins of Cascade Alpaca Lace in color 1411, Turtle;
3 skeins of Cascade Alpaca Lace in color 1409, Caribbean Heather; and
2 skeins of Malabrigo Lace in Glazed Carrot.

Technically the Turtle doesn't count as yarn for ME, as I bought it as a gift for someone.

My plan is to knit the Amethyst Heather next. (The Ostrich Plume -- which is also known as the Lace Dream Shawl) And although it is probably not the best color to be working on while in Ireland, I think I will start an Ishbel in the orange Malabrigo just before we leave for Dublin. That way I'll have several inches of mindless stockinette to knit on the plane.

Have I mentioned that I am terrified of flying...because I can't stand the thought of 12 hours without my Signature Arts needles? I knit lace on 7", stilleto-tipped needles, and I have heard conflicting stories about whether or not I will be able to take them on the plant. If anyone has flown Aer Lingus with pointy needles since the cowardly acts of September 11th, would you please drop me a line and let me know what your experience was like?

G'night!

Today.

Today I worked a full day.

Then I met the Lovely Myfanwe at her office and walked with her to Grant Park for the Taste of Chicago. While at the Taste we ate: chimichuri chicken wings, cumin-dusted fries with sweet mango tamarind sauce, stewed goat and jollof rice, fresh/hot potato chips with hot sauce, a giant bbq turkey wing, chocolate chip cookies, lemon ice, and a rainbow cone. We ate the turkey wing while sitting 50 feet from the Barenaked Ladies, who were performing tonight. And then we went to hear Honeyboy Edwards, the blues performer.

All of this -- beginning to end -- cost only $40.00 for the two of us. No kidding.

I love Chicago.

KNITTING

In knitting news. I am about 1 third of the way through Candle Flame Shawl. The Candle Flame was my first lace, and it made me very tense. It wasn't an appropriate pattern for first lace. But nobody could tell me I wasn't ready yet -- I knew better -- and I did it anyway. It wasn't disastrous, but I really wasn't ready for it and it just made things more complicated. I wish I had listened and waited, but you can't turn back time.

Anyway, I'm enjoying this knit a great deal. But I already looking forward to my NEXT project, which I believe will be Eugen Beugler's Lace Dream (aka Ostrich Plume) Shawl from Shawls and Scarves: The Best of Knitter's Magazine. It is amazingly beautiful. I should have the Candle Flame done in time to start this and have it established so I can take it with to knit in Dublin. I want to have the shawl done by fall.

I'm going to knit it for a very dear friend (who happens to be a physician) who has been ill for several months -- she had a rather indelicate surgery which didn't go well, the surgeon really did a number on her, and the wound was an absolute mess and wouldn't close and wouldn't heal and became infected which made her even more ill and the surgeon told her she was a baby and stopped taking her calls, so she just kept on changing the dressing while things got worse, which resulted in her loosing 12% of her body weight -- and she was thin to begin -- and, to make a long story short, she's had corrective work done by a new surgeon (who has filed complaints with the old surgeon's boss AND his boss's boss) and has a would vac and has been off work for two weeks and is embarrassed to have to tell people what has happened to her. If she can make it through all this, the least I can do is to knit her a shawl.

It's getting late, and I have had a big day. Good night, Gentle Readers. To sleep, perchance to dream.

I Took Math for Music Majors

CAN SOMEONE HELP ME OUT HERE?

I have 69 stitches on the needle. I need to increase 22 stitches in one row.

Maybe I'm loosing my mind -- I used to be able to figure this out -- but for the life of me, I can't. Can someone tell me -- in the simplest language possible (I'm VERY dim this week) -- how to affect this. I though it was after every 3 stitches, but that wasn't even. and I ended up off center. I've ripped back, but don't want to go through that again if my feeble brain is just going to spasm again. So I thought I'd ask The Blog for help.

May the Force be With You.

I Have an Odd Sence of Humor

For the record, I didn't knit even a single stitch today, and I don't like the way it makes me feel. I don't like being so busy I can't find half an hour to get in a couple of rows. So I don't think I'll do this again.


Food is very important to me. I cook most of our meals from scratch, believing, as I do, that processed foods -- while not poison -- are not wholesome. I make my own soups. I can my own preserves. I try to explain to Norbert how food is grown, and I try to give him a connection to the food because I think that if you know how and where it is grown, you are less likely to waste it.

I particularly enjoy baking my own bread. Especially challah, the bread traditionally eaten by Eastern European Jews as part of the sabbath meal. It is a dough rich with egg and oil, braided and risen and topped with poppy seed or sesame seeds, or my own creation -- and my favorite -- with salt & pepper.

Knowing what you now know about the importance I place on food and my bread baking proclivities, you won't be surprised to learn that I buy my flour in 50 lb. bags.


A couple of times a year I drive to Shipshewana, Indiana to buy a car load of supplies. A few bags of bread flour, a few pounds of yeast. I do this because I like the fact that the wheat is grown in Indiana by Amish farmers known by the store owner. The wheat is milled in the next town over. Again, by someone known to the community. And it is then sold in the community.

And I never buy New Rinkel flour without getting a jolly.

Now why, you may ask, does this amuse me? My Jewish posse will see it right away.


This last picture has nothing to do with anything, except that my grandmother, z"l, always had a few African violet plants sitting in saucers in a north-facing dining room window. And they brought her a great deal of joy when they bloomed. Last year at the end of June I bought a few African violets on sale a t Jewel. And I lovingly tended them through the winter. And I was rewarded with this.

The picture looks blue, but the posies are more accurately purple. I happen to LOVE purple flowers. As Miss Shug once said, "I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it. " So I try to notice it every chance I get.

Have a lovely weekend.

NEWSWORTHY NEEDLE NEWS

For all my Chicago and Northern Illinois friends, I have big news. Extraordinary news!

Loopy Yarns, (47 West Polk Street in the Dearborn Station) has just started carrying Signature Needles! Since I purchased my first pair, I have become so attached to them that I passed on a lace project because I couldn't use the Signature needles for it. The quality is absolutely unrivaled.

I am extra excited because Loopy is the only shop in Chicago to carry the needles and they did it, in part, because I told them how much people will fall in love with them.

I plan to pick up a pair of 7-inch size 5 stiletto tips when I go to Loopy again. And I think you should go in and do the same! Tell them I sent you. And while you are there, ask to see their $9.00 a ball alpaca lace yarn. A very economical, soft, beautiful yarn perfect for your next shawl!

WHY ARE STUPID PEOPLE ALLOWED TO SPEAK AT ALL?

Today is Rachel Carson's birthday. If you don't know it already, Rachel Carson was the author of Silent Spring, a book so powerfully and persuasively written it is credited as a catalyst for the environmental and conservation movements.

Reading about her -- even just the Wikipedia entry -- is an interesting thing. She did a lot in a relatively short life. (She died of cancer at 58.)

What really twists my titty, though, is this. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson -- in a letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower -- reportedly concluded that because she was unmarried despite being physically attractive, she was "probably a Communist".

I hate stupid people. All of them.

DON'T LET THE LIGHT GO OUT

My very first piece of lace was the rectangular Candle Flame Shawl, the pattern for which I obtained for free from KnitPicks. It was WAY too difficult for First Lace, but I ended up getting the hang of it and knit a gorjus shawl.

I very much want to knit another shawl -- in a gold/apricot heather alpaca lace -- but when I went to KnitPicks to download the pattern, I discovered that they no longer have it offered to the public. And I don't have it downloaded to my computer.

Does anyone have it? I would very much love a copy. I really want this pattern because the candle motif would be the perfect motif for a shawl for Norbert's bar mitzvah tutor.

Update - 5/25/09, 4:10 p.m.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I have the pattern, I have the correct needles, and I have enough yarn. Now I know what my next project will be. Now I just need to finish my WIP so I can start! (Only about 4 feet left on a shawl. So I should be done in 3 weeks or so.)