PracticalCrafts

Goal Oriented

2012-01-31T21:54:00.002-05:00

The larger the pieces of the cabled sweater got, and the less able I was to carry them around, the more eager I became to finish. I'm afraid I may have said a few thoughtlessly cruel things to my poor little sock, on those occasions when I really couldn't have the sweater with me.

I finished weaving in the last end this evening. The sweater was started New Year's day. I think that's a new record for an adult sweater for me. My husband likes it.

And it fits him well- that's because after knitting him three sweaters and having to rip and reknit to loosen them up around the shoulders three times, I finally bought a clue and increased the armscye first time around.

As much as I like making up my own designs, there are some really good things about patterns from professional designers. For one thing, they tend to incorporate elements that are new to me, and so I always learn something. This pattern was the first I'd done in some time with set-in sleeves, which was a nice change. But the real lesson wasn't from the pattern itself, but the finishing. I don't think I've ever seamed pieces in reverse stockinette before, or at least not since I found out there was more than one way to sew seams in knitting.

So, after looking at the mess I made of the first seam, I went poking around on the internet and checked out what experts recommended. My seams suddenly got much better, to the point where I had to pull out the first one and redo it so it would match. I'm glad I did, even if I did finish a day later as a result.

All around it was a very gratifying project. And now I'm off to the next thing!

Blocked

2012-01-28T21:47:00.001-05:00

I finally got around to blocking the scarf and wearing it to work Friday.

The Foreign Correspondent Scarf in Valley Yarns Charlemont, colorway Evergreen.

I was introduced to this pattern by Toni, and after knitting I have to say I really envy her lace-knitting speed. This took me forever, and that was before I let it sit for three weeks before blocking it! But it's very pretty and soft and it keeps my neck warm in my often-chilly office, so I'm pleased that I finally got the blocking done.

And Now in Crafting News

2012-01-24T23:36:00.003-05:00

1. There is a hat. My cable and seed stitch pattern, plain wool. It didn't make the deadline for the collection, so I'll toss it in the bin to wait for the next one. (Just as well, it can keep the blue mittens from getting lonely while I'm still knitting the sweater. )

I tried something different with the decreases this time and am quite pleased with the result.

2. The sweater is still infinitely charming. I knit most of a sleeve over the weekend. Today, I started the second one.

3. I finally got around to blocking the Charlemont Scarf. I'm looking forward to wearing it this week! (Photos once it's dry.)

4. I was able to strike a planned carpentry project (a wall mount jewelry rack) from my vast to-do list by applying money to the problem. A novel solution for me, but I practice carpentry more out of utility than the passionate love of creating in wood. Given the cost of materials, additional tools needed, and time I'd spend doing it myself; this was a good value. Not to mention that it was pretty much exactly what I wanted.

With a sister in the business, I have a large amount of gorgeous jewelry that I wear often. Or at least I wear often when I don't have to disentangle it from a pile of other jewelry, and can find two earrings that match. Also, Biscuit thinks that batting things off the dresser in the morning is an excellent way to wake humans up and make them do something more interesting than sleeping. And with my jewelry box so full it won't close completely, I was in severe danger of having jewelry flung around the room in the wee hours of the morning.

5. I am sewing. Weekend before last, I dealt with a large chunk of the huge pile of mending in the sewing room, because cleaning up the piles of cruft was a necessary first step to doing anything else in there. Biscuit is helping me. He was so 'helpful' in cutting out fabric that he almost lost some whiskers. Since then he's adopted more of a supervisory role. (I'll save a project photo for when it's further along.)

Biscuit supervises.

6. I finally got around to installing a wall hook for my yarn swift. (see item 5, re: first steps to doing anything in the sewing room). I have a plentitude of vertical space, which I definitely need to utilize, as the sewing room tends to accumulate vast amounts of project materials of all sorts.

7. I haven't completely kicked the cold, but I think I have it on the run. Hence the greater productivity! (Besides- seven in a list is traditional.)

I Admit It

2012-01-19T07:30:00.001-05:00

The empty FO list was starting to get to me.

Fortunately there's a local group asking for donations of knitted and crocheted hats, so I had an excuse. I've got one more on the needles, then I'm back to cabled bliss!

Things I Have Been Reminded Of This Week (Or Could Have Deduced Had I Thought About It)

2012-01-12T22:12:00.001-05:00

Warning, this post is not for the squeamish.

1. It is remarkably easy to confuse minor intestinal distress of the type that passes off quickly with the onset of a virulent stomach bug. (Yes, you're getting a clue how my week has gone.)

2. It is vastly better to recognize that you have a misidentified the illness and go home sick before you start throwing up. (Yes, thankfully, I did.)

3. Having a large fluffy cat inquisitively trying to figure out what you are doing while you are busy throwing up is even less help that you think. (Really.)

4. While it is useful to know that you get lightheaded when in the grip of intestinal distress, and to have communicated same to your devoted spouse, it is still mildly alarming to him to witness it. (Compared to the appalling and never-to-be-forgotten food poisoning incident, this was trivial, but he wasn't there for that one.)

5. Passing out and diving face-first onto the floor leaves painful bruises, as well as inflicting grievous wounds on one's dignity. (Fortunately, entirely superficial and not even especially visible- the bruises and the dignity both.)

6. The strategic application of a large bottle of gatorade is exceedingly useful in shortening one's recovery time from a virulent stomach bug. (Really and truly- I felt tired and like bland foods were good idea, but otherwise pretty normal the next day.)

7. Sometimes a week feels short to you because you really did miss a day. (Tuesday, if anyone is counting.)

And on a far happier note:

8. Cabled knitting is still very soothing and hypnotic.

9. But when you really need a project that will fit in your pocket, a sock is your go-anywhere knit of choice.

So, how was your week? Better, I hope!

What I Want to Knit

2012-01-06T08:05:00.000-05:00

Craft projects happen for a lot of reasons around here. We want the results (bookcases). I need something in my hands to keep me from twitching- a lot of mittens and hats get made that way. The project suits the yarn, or suits the person I intend to give it to. Some projects get done because they're on a deadline or I get goal-oriented- Finishing things is a big motivator for me. But every now and I again, I start something and find myself simply loving the process. This, I think. This is what I wanted to knit.

And so it is with this sweater. Something about the deep texture, the heft of it in my hands, the neatness of the design (the patterns are all either 4 or 8-row repeats, so it's visually obvious which row you're on at any given time- no peering at the knitting or counting rows needed). Or maybe it's the satisfaction of doing a sweater after all the hats, mittens and scarves of the last year. Whatever. I'll be here, with my sweater, knitting.

The Motivating Power of Lists

2012-01-03T08:10:00.001-05:00

Okay, just posted the first book of 2012, and reset the FO list. But. The FO list is empty. This makes me want to finish something now. Amazing how motivating just keeping track of things is!

Two Steps Forward, One Look Back

2012-01-02T16:23:00.003-05:00

A lovely first couple of days to 2012- even the cats are being unusually friendly.

They've shared the castle before, but this is the first time I've seen them cuddled together to sleep, as opposed to being riveted to the sight of birds on the feeder outside the window.

On New Year's Day, we had some friends over for our annual board gaming party. Loads of fun, but I am going to need to do some walking- not only did I make my infamous Maple Baklava...

...but nearly everyone else also brought some kind of sweet- fudge, several varieties of chocolate-dipped pretzels, gingerbread zombies (it's a long story), and our friend John's irresistible macaroons. Delicious, but ooh, the calories!

I gave a friend a knitting lesson- she's a natural, she was zipping along on a garter stitch scarf by the time she left- and a big bundle of surplus knitting needles have been passed on to enable her new hobby. (And seriously- anyone who can concentrate on a knitting lesson while her three-year-old twins use her as a jungle gym? Serious aptitude, there.)

And speaking of paying attention to knitting, heaven knows what those gauge notes were for...judging by the size my sweater back was coming out, it certainly wasn't for this yarn. I got one pattern repeat into the back when I became certain that there were Issues. These were, in addition to the size, the fact that I'm using a pattern of a Certain Age (it has asked to be referred to as Classic, rather than giving out any details of its date of origin, and I'm respecting that). Anyway, some of the details of the styling are a little out of fashion, so I'm making some adjustments. And also a couple of tweaks to the pattern, to better suit my own taste. So we've been making negative progress on that one today, but the ribbing has now been cast on again in a more congenial size, and I'm busy re-knitting.

In looking back over 2011, I am chagrined to note that my final tally was 74 FOs, rather than the 75 on the list (there's a number missing in the 50s). The distribution was interesting. 69 knits, 5 crochet- no carpentry or sewing at all. That will change in 2012, for sure. Possibly the deck rehab project ought to be on the list--it certainly took enough time! But I have historically reserved the project list for new things, not home maintenance. Possibly I should keep a home repair/maintenance project list for 2012--it might motivate me to work on house projects more!

There were two sweaters I had meant to make but didn't get to (the one I just cast on being one of them), and two afghans I hadn't anticipated that that happened anyway. In terms of type of project they were distributed as follows:

23 hats
30 pairs of mitts/mittens
8 pairs of socks
9 scarves (two of which were fine gauge)
2 sweaters (one quite large in sport weight yarn)
2 afghans of fair size

As I suspected back at the beginning of the year, there were more than the usual number of scarves (which I usually don't do that many of). Socks were down to 8 pairs, from more than twice that many last year. I managed to blow through a whole bunch of yarn- all my bulky weight, and a lot of pastels. All those scarves and hats, not to mention the afghans, busted a lot of stash.

Project Goals for the coming year (draft):
-Finish my oldest WIP, the fine gauge bamboo top.
-A sweater for my husband (that's the one I just cast on).
-Teal variegated sweater for myself (the other one I had in mind for last year)
-The third afghan (already started).
-Colorwork wool mittens for myself- those I'll start soon, as have brilliantly managed to misplace all but one pair of mittens I own.
-The second pair of socks from Deep Water Dye Works' yarn, which is too delicious to leave in stash any longer.
-Two more bookcases for the library- (scheduled for next summer).
-At least a start to the next big quilt, and I want to make several more for charity.
-Two other sewing projects I have materials on hand for.

And....more, TBD.

On the books front- well. I haven't had a lot of book related goals, but my reading was up quite a bit this year anyway- I finished with 154 books, which was about 50% more than last year. Possibly I should have some goals- like wading through the rest of the eternal to-be-read pile and getting rid of the things I'm never going to read. Yeah, let's start there. If I manage to nail that one, I'll think about others. I'll call it a home maintenance goal.

Altogether it was a pretty satisfying year- steady progress on several fronts, a couple of big house projects down, a lot of knitting and crafting.

Here's hoping for more to come in 2012.

How about you guys? Goals for the new year?

All of the Above

2011-12-31T22:38:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in the last post, I have been having trouble deciding which project to work on next. So I threw caution to the winds and went for all of them.

I found some gauge notes, which although unlabeled, I think are for the sweater swatch. I've cast on a sweater back (which is only ribbing at the moment so I'll save a photo for when it starts to look more interesting), and we'll see how it goes. Note to self: Label what project your gauge notes are for. Maintaining suspense isn't required.

Then I pulled out the mittens I started before Christmas (inspired by the Yarn Harlot's mitten factory post), and finished them. I don't think I'm doing exactly what she did- slip stitch mosaic is another one of those techniques I've never tried before, and I think I'm going to have to pull out an actual pattern and learn the technique before I can duplicate it. These are rather more stranded than slip-stitch. Also I am reminded that I really prefer ribbing on mitten cuffs for keeping out the cold. I think these are prettier, though, so I expect I may give it another try at some point.

I've made a bunch of afghan squares- I haven't bought any additional yarn yet. I figure I'll get as far as I can with what I have, then I'll have a better idea how much I'll need to finish. The dark green I need will be on the outsides of the squares (so I can do squares without borders for now), and I may run out of the white I'm using as well, so it's to my advantage to wait.

Then I cast on an item from my Christmas B-list- the stuff I was going to try to do if I had time. (The part where I always want to knit way more stuff than it would be humanly possible to knit in the allotted time is a good explanation for why I never seem to finish. I was actually so deluded this year, that I bought the yarn for this project approximately half an hour before I was abruptly forced to face reality in the person of a small child. Apparently I thought it was not only possible that I'd finish the socks, but also have time for a hat.)

Anyway, this is a simple black watch cap, knit in Berroco Vintage, which I hadn't used before. Half wool, half nylon and acrylic, machine washable, very nice to the touch. Hopefully it will wear well.

Then today, the weather was so wet and raw and miserable, that I lost all will to knit anything that wasn't cheerfully colored. So I pulled out that skein of bright orange (the one I banished from any and all afghans), picked out a couple of friends for it, to try and tone it down a bit, and started a crocheted hat. I was inspired by having recently gotten some good tips on proportions in crocheted hats on the Crochet Me blog, and had been wanting to try them out.

My husband thinks it looks like candy corn. At any rate, that's a pair of mittens and a hat for the charity bag, to get 2012 off to a strong start!

Happy New Year, and may your holiday be warm and filled with yarn!

Post Christmas Post

2011-12-27T11:27:00.002-05:00

I grafted the toes of the socks this morning. Which is not to say they couldn't have been done on Christmas day, but. I decided on mature reflection that making myself crazy knitting all hours of the day and night, leaving other things to the last minute and or doing them poorly would generally not add to anyone's enjoyment of the season, least of all mine. Which is not to say that I didn't work quite steadily on them, I did. I just didn't go nuts. Sock number one was done just after dinner Friday, and I cast on sock number two. Sock number two got a lot of attention Saturday, as I knit in between methodically working down the list of things I wanted to happen. By bedtime I had turned the heel and was starting down the gusset. Sunday morning, I knit the foot. But on Sunday afternoon I was still 4 pattern repeats short of the toe, and out of time. So I set the sock down and had a lovely afternoon with my family. (And took the evening off from knitting after, as my hands were really due for a rest by then.)

It was a lovely afternoon. We ate my Christmas cookies. My husband cooked an excellent Christmas dinner, followed by a lovely dessert my mother brought. My mother expressed warm approval of the socks, even if late. Thoughtfully chosen gifts were given and received happily. My other family members received their various knit gifts with gratifying enthusiasm. And the socks? Here they are:

Lombard St. Socks by Susan Lawrence in colorway Gothic by Deep Water Dye Works.

And what of these other knit gifts, you ask? Well- secret project A can now be revealed as...yet more red socks! Okay, not so exciting, but my brother-in-law likes them. He got three pairs- two of these and the pair of red-with-black-toes-and-heels I blogged some months back.

And for my sister, there was secret project B, which now can be shown as, a pair of sporty cabled mitts!

These were surprisingly vexatious. First there was the yarn, which had been badly treated at some point and had a lot of breaks and thin spots, leading to an intarsia-like profusion of ends to weave in. Then there was the part where I failed to read my own pattern and knit the first mitt with a totally wrong gusset (really quite embarrassing). Then I ran out of yarn. Something I should have foreseen but didn't. I waffled for a bit on what to use as a contrast color, let my knitting group talk me out of using the yarn I had on hand (they were right, it wouldn't have looked nearly as good as the black) and then went out and got the black . I like the final look, but oy, what a pesky little knit!

So now I'm contemplating my stash with the speculative look of a knitter without a deadline, and happily weighing my options. I've already cast on a hat, and I'll probably start that third afghan, and then there's the sweater I swatched for back in October (though I'm going to be mildly vexed if I can't find my notes and have to re-swatch...). So many choices! But hey, I'm taking my last two vacation days for the year this week, so who knows what might happen?!

Christmas Day

2011-12-25T19:10:00.002-05:00

Two cats. One castle. One squirrel.

Peace on earth, goodwill to all creatures under the sun.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

2011-12-22T12:16:00.000-05:00

So there I was, feeling all productive because the shopping is done and I have made a hillion jillion cookies and the tree is up and intermittantly decorated (depending on how recently the cats have been by). And I am working on the last Christmas item of the year which is a pair of socks. (I don't think it's really giving anything away at this point to suggest that someone I know might be getting handknit socks for Christmas. I mean, these people do know me.)

And I was working on this sock before my karate practice, while waiting for the previous class, a kids' group, to wrap up. And, as there usually is, there were a gaggle of parents and kids running around while waiting for their offspring/siblings to get out.

So as I sat there, plying my needles and string, a pair of precious moppets about four and six immediately gravitated to the lady with the sharp pointy things and asked, "Hey, what are you doing?"

So I explained knitting, socks, Christmas.

They asked why I was doing it.

It's fun, the socks are warm, comfortable and look nice.

Then the older of the two fixed her bright eyes intently on the needles, opened her mouth, and struck right to the heart of the matter with devastating insight. "Only one sock?"

And thus forced me to confront the fact that yes, it's three days until Christmas, sock number one isn't quite done yet, and a rational person would have to say the second one isn't likely to be done by Sunday. And yes, they may turn out to be New Year socks and not Christmas socks, and they will be no less nice.

But why be rational? I'll keep knitting. Christmas is a time for magic, you know. Besides. I like knitting.

With Help Like This

2011-12-20T07:24:00.002-05:00

It occurs to me that there haven't been a lot of cat photos lately. For a week or so, it's because the cats were preoccupied with their new catnip bag:

They took turns with it until it got throughly saturated with cat spit (yuck!) which eventually reduced the potency so they weren't lying around on the floor all afternoon with twitching paws, rubbing the bag on their noses.

But that was then. Lately, they've been taking an active role (also roll) in the holiday preparations. For example:

Biscuit kept the Christmas tree branches from getting away while I put the tree up.

There was constant interested supervision while I hung the tree with lights, garland and ~~cat toys~~ ornaments.

I didn't get any pictures of the garland being dragged off the tree and attacked viciously because I was too busy yelling, 'no, stop it, don't eat that!' and removing it from paws and mouths. I did advise my husband to keep an eye out for 'sparkle poo' in the litterbox. He gave me a husband look, and asked (fairly enough), "And then do what?" I'm not entirely sure what the garland's offense was, but the cats tell me, 'it was asking for it'.

There was also a certain amount of removing Biscuit from the tree's lower branches. Several of them are distinctly bent toward the floor now. And the tree decorations stop a foot or so above the bottom of the tree. (After the first few low-hanging ornaments were removed by my decorating consultants, I got the message.) Mom, I'm afraid those glass balls you gave me are not going on the tree this year. I'm sure you understand.

The lovely quilted tree skirt my mother made for me got two paws up, however.

We appear to have achieved a sort of equilibrium, wherein all the ornaments are staying on the tree and the thoroughly cowed garland has withdrawn from floor level. The cats still love to sit under it (which I quite approve of), and JT is busy getting the train set running around the base which should prove entertaining--for someone.

Introducing Intarsia: The Boston Bruins Hat

2011-12-19T12:34:00.001-05:00

Although I finish a goodly number of projects in the course of a year, the bulk of them fall solidly into the category of 'things I've done before and can knock out with a minimum of grief'. The challenge lies in tailoring the project to suit the taste of the recipient, trying new patterns using known techniques, or figuring out useful and attractive ways to use up materials on hand. But from time to time, I want to try out something new and see if I can add another useful trick to my repertoire.

Thus, when one of my coworkers was describing his ideal sports-fan winter hat, I thought, 'huh, sounds like a good beginner intarsia piece'.

After poking around, I couldn't find any patterns that suited the weight of yarn I had available, so I took an image of the Boston Bruins team logo, spent an eternity fiddling with it in Paint, and generated a pattern that would fit into the number of stitches I estimated would be available on the front of the hat. I found that having prior experience with stranded colorwork was a help. After approximately 10 milliseconds of messing with bobbins, I went with the online tip about just cutting a yard or two of yarn and letting the ends hang free. They tangled, but it was easy enough to free them up periodically, and much less annoying.

Results- acceptable. The hat surface was reasonably free of puckers, the back was messy but not completely chaotic, the ends were numerous but not overwheming. My coworker is delighted with it. And I'm filing intarsia under, 'useful but not worth seeking out unless a project I really want to do absolutely demands it'.

And that makes two of the three projects I wanted to have done this week complete. Yay! (The first one was Secret, so I won't be showing it off until next week.)

Busting Stash

2011-12-17T11:52:00.001-05:00

Despite the Christmas deadline rushing at me like a herd of stampeding rhinos, I was helpless to make any progress at home on the Christmas knits until I finished this:

The Extraordinarily Pink Afghan

Now I know why there are so many crocheted afghans in the world. They are utterly compulsive. First the squares, so quick and satisfying. The sewing goes fairly quickly. And then the process crafter's dream- long hypnotic borders. I even like the way it came out- pink, to be sure, but with enough variety and other colors to break it up into a pleasing wildflower bed of color.

The finished size is 74 x 56 inches making it the largest fiber project I have done to date. Yes- that includes quilts (I've never made a bed-sized quilt). And I have wiped out my supply of pink yarn, along with most of the pale yellow, cream, lavender, and similar colors. Between the two afghans and my hat binge; I've essentially used as much yarn as I've received this fall. (I'm still working on the yarn I got during the preceding two years, though I've put a pretty good dent in that too.) The few skeins remaining from the bags of pastels my mom gave me have been consolidated into the acrylic stash without crowding.

And, as for the rest? I have a plan. The dominant color in the rest of the pastel yarn is pale green. There's some yellow and purple and variegated odds and ends that would go reasonably well with it. So, pick up a couple of the big super-saver skeins of dark green...and yes, there is going to be another afghan. After the insightful advice I received in comments, I've ripped out the garish orange agfhan square--the bright orange will make nice mittens, and the muted pastel variegated can go into the afghan.

But I refuse to start on it until the Christmas knits are done. Though I keep thinking, I would like to try a different square pattern and I've found this one that might work. I could do just one square, you know, to test it...but there's no such thing as just one square. Christmas knits! I must remain strong. Not one single...oops.

...not one single trip to the craft store to get the dark green I'd need to actually finish any squares. Yup. I'm in control, here.

The Dark Knitter Rises

2011-12-09T23:47:00.000-05:00

So there I was, lounging on the couch at Stately Holly-Turner Manor, reading a thriller, when an email blipped into my inbox. I glanced over and leapt into action, "It's the Knit Signal, Biscuit!" I announced. "Somewhere in this city, a knitter needs help."

Biscuit yawned and closed his eyes. It's one of the downsides of having a cat as a sidekick.

The knitting emergency was in my neighborhood, so I didn't have to break out the Knitmobile (cleverly disguised as a 12-year-old Saturn). I just snatched up my current project and jogged across the street.

"It's this hat," my neighbor explained mournfully. "I think it's kind of large." She is a beginning knitter of great promise, with two FOs under her belt already, and she's starting her first hat.

We extricated the hat from its circular needles and laid it down to take careful measurements. "Twenty-six inches," I confirmed. "Unless your daughter has a very, very large head, this will be too big."

"I was trying to avoid doing a gauge swatch," my neighbor admitted. "I see now why they are important."

"Yes, yes, they are," I told her. "But never fear- you may need to frog this, but at least you can measure your gauge on this hat-swatch."

We walked through the gauge calculations together, and she bravely frogged and cast on again, while I kept her company, drinking tea and working on a project of my own.

At last I returned home, confident in the knowledge that she had two rounds of the new hat done and everything under control.

"The city is once again safe for yarn," I reported to my sidekick as I returned home.

Biscuit meowed for cat food. Such is the life of a knitter.

Until the next time the knit signal lights up the skies over New Hampshire....

I Think the Hats Are Winning

2011-12-04T11:21:00.002-05:00

As the binge has gone on, hats have started to dominate the FO list. That's about to stop, however, for the very simple reason that I've been knitting the hats out of bulky weight, and I'm now completely out. Not even a yard left. How did this happen? Well:

It can be hard to tell with these things, but the knitting binge seems to be passing. I did three loads of laundry and cleaned the kitchen yesterday, and I'm starting to feel the urge to get back to Christmas knitting without reaching for needles to cast on something else. (This is not to say I don't like the things I'm knitting for Christmas, not at all. I love them too. I'm just...easily distracted, that's all.)

But this afternoon I'm seeing a friend who's collecting for the knit-a-thon, so it does make a useful stopping point. Unless I see a hat pattern I can't resist trying, of course!

Usually...

2011-11-27T23:48:00.000-05:00

...these knitting binges tend to burn themselves out after a few days. I'm starting to wonder about this one.

Chores? What chores?

Isn't It Amazing...

2011-11-25T18:14:00.001-05:00

..just how many other things one can find to do when one has a long list of chores?

For example, instead of diving into that cleaning Saturday, I was suddenly consumed with the need to start ironing the quilt fabric my mom gave me, which I've been gradually washing over the last few weeks. Here's a small portion of it,as I start to sort it into color families:

Biscuit helped- he pounced on the iron cord, knocked things off the sewing machine, sat on the fabric, and finally settled back to supervise. The little cat snores are the sign of a supervisor hard at work, I'm told.

Moderate amounts of cleaning did eventually get done, just in time for my parents to come by. Biscuit was very brave, and actually came out to see them. My mom even got to pat him- a first, as he's usually too skittish. They also picked up a bagful of charity knits to take to the collection point for me.

And later that afternoon, I headed down to a charity knit-a-thon sponsored by a couple of local knitters. Last year was their first year, and it was very last-minute, but they still managed to collect a bunch of knitwear. This year, the local knitters knew it was coming and were all ready. They had a long folding table and it was absolutely heaped with knitwear. Lots of kids are going to have warm hats and mittens this winter!

I dropped off the rest of my bag full of charity knits, leaving me lighter by a goodly amount of yarn. I think the sudden absence of knits made me a little giddy. I'd brought yarn and cast on some mittens to work on during the knit-a-thon, but when I finished them (later that day), I just had to cast on another pair. And another. And another. And a hat.

Of course part of the reason for the sudden spate of FOs is that I took Wednesday off, and have been having a pretty much perfectly lazy holiday what with sleeping late, reading, and playing with yarn. I've actually had enough rest that I was starting to get ambitious about that list of chores again...and then Cookie settled in for a nice long comfy snooze on my lap. Fortunately I've got the book I'm currently reading and lots of yarn within reach. Because after all, how can I do chores if it would mean disturbing the cat? Like I said. Amazing.

My Day So Far

2011-11-19T10:51:00.001-05:00

3:30 AM: Biscuit submits request for early breakfast to management. Management staggers out of bed cursing and feeds him.
5:30 AM: Biscuit and Cookie remind management it is breakfast time. Which is true enough on weekdays. Management staggers out of bed cursing and feeds them.
6:30 AM: Biscuit thinks he's got room for just a little something more. Submits request to management. Management heartlessly banishes him to the sun porch where he can tell his problems to the birds.
9:00 AM: Cookie suggests a snack might be in order, and husband suggests curling up on the bed for a nice nap instead. Suggestion is accepted. However Biscuit is let back in at this time.
9:30 AM: Biscuit reminds us he is still hungry. I arise for the day and provide another round of breakfast.

Now at this point you're likely thinking we're gullible and indulgent cat-parents, and we should simply stop spoiling the little beasts. Which point of view has a certain justice. However there is an issue- Cookie is a proper little glutton. Biscuit has a modest and restrained appetite and likes to have frequent small meals as the urge takes him. If we leave food out for Biscuit, Cookie just eats it all. No, really, ALL of it. And then Biscuit is forced to request more food from management anyway. And Cookie gets even plumper (we're having quite a chore keeping him only plump, I can tell you).

So at the moment we're struggling with the plan where we feed both cats at regular mealtimes, but Biscuit gets more food when he wants it, as he doesn't really eat enough otherwise. (And if he's hungry and we don't feed him, we get a long vocal explanation of why this is Completely Wrong.) Unless we can come up with a practical way of separating them at night, I don't quite see what else we can do.

Anyway- I'm awake now, and my plans for the day involve a vat of coffee and, in the immortal words of Allie Brosh at Hyperbole and a Half, "Clean all the things!"

But there will certainly be some knitting as well.

Running in All Directions at Once

2011-11-12T15:32:00.003-05:00

I feel like I've gotten nothing done, which in one sense is the truth, but there has been progress made on many fronts.

1. The new bookcases are installed and books have been arranged on them.

I know, you're thinking, "Bookcases? What bookcases?" Strictly speaking, this has been my husband's project- while I've been doing deck and pool things this fall, he's been carpenting. (Okay it's not a real word, but what do you call making things out of wood?) My few contributions involved putting the final coat of polyurethane on, and helping to hoist them into position to be installed.

This has allowed us to spread out the SF and fantasy section of our library, which had books stacked horizontally on the shelves for lack of space. However, when spread out, SF and fantasy has taken up all the new space, so history is still jammed to overflowing. We're going to need to finish two more bookcases (and do some rearranging) before we've got that finally sorted out. Not that I'm complaining. It's lovely being able to shelve books properly upright in order. (If you're new around here, you might be thinking, 'how the devil many books do they have, anyway?' The answer is that there are currently 4640 books in the permanent collection, and several hundred more in the To Be Read pile. When Jonathan and I got married, we built a second story so we'd have room for a large library. We love to sit in the library and read, surrounded by books. It gives us a warm happy feeling. Here's my favorite reading spot:)

2. All of the deadfall brought down by the storm has been turned into a modest woodpile. Augmented by donations from my neighbors, it's quite a respectable woodpile- easily enough for a year, at the rate we burn it. I've actually resolved to try and burn more wood this winter, because we had rather a surplus even before the storm.

3. The pool closing is almost complete. Thankfully, I had the cover on before the leaves started coming down in earnest. Most of the stuff is put away- I just need to empty and store the filter.

4. I've managed to whack a few of the routine chores every day this week, so I'm starting the weekend with just the endless house project list.

But, what of crafting, you're wondering?

5. I've finished the Charlemont scarf, but need to block it.

6. I finished the mittens I cast on for simple knitting during the power outage.

7. I'm past the halfway point on one of the secret projects.

8. I'm past the halfway point on the red cabled scarf.

9. The pink afghan has gained a couple more rows of squares.

10. The intarsia hat is still in time-out, contemplating its sins.

I do have a lot of crafting time planned for this weekend, however, so hopefully I'll be in a position to show off some FOs next week.

It's the Little Things

2011-11-01T23:43:00.002-04:00

Today was a day for appreciating the little things. A long hot shower. Hot coffee. Electric lights. Yes, lights...amazing how much easier it is to knit when you have them. We got power back yesterday (Monday) afternoon, after losing it Saturday evening during the snowstorm. Not that it was much of a storm, by NH standards, but it was very early, very wet and very heavy. How heavy? This heavy:

No damage to the pool or (newly stained) deck as far as we can tell.
The leaves are still on the trees, which is mostly why the snow pulled down so many branches. I've never seen the bushes in my yard flattened like this. They're normally over eight feet tall!

And the neighborhood got hammered- this was what I saw in nearly every yard along my street when I ventured out.

(It's hard to see in the photo, but there's a wire down across the street there.)

As far as losing power, it really wasn't that much of a hardship for us. We lit the oil lamp and a few candles, hauled in some wood, and built a nice toasty fire in the wood stove. Sunday morning we still had hot water for showers in the water tank, and even Monday it was pleasantly warm. Today was the morning I wasn't looking forward to washing in cold water, but I was spared even that minor hardship. We're pretty close to the center of town, so we're often near the top of the list for repairs. This is the first time in the nine years I've lived here that we've had an outage lasting more than a day.

And while I appreciate room lighting for knitting, I certainly didn't let a little thing like that stop me! Several different projects got some attention.

But, I should introduce the WIPs:
1. My lace scarf (the Foreign Correspondent scarf, which I fell in love with after seeing the two that Toni knit) and it's coming along. I plan to just keep knitting until I finish the skein of yarn, but I'm at that stage where I knit, the scarf gets longer, and ball doesn't seem to change size at all. Maybe it's a feature of the yarn? (Valley Yarns Charlemont Kettle Dyed, in Evergreen- it's a lovely silk and merino blend.)

2. The Which Way is Up reversible cabled scarf, which I hauled out of the pile and did a bunch of work on this weekend. I've actually taken a few stitches out of the pattern because I'm knitting it in bulky weight instead of the worsted the pattern calls for, but I already know I'm going to make this one again. It's a very charming pattern, and I love it that the scarf has no wrong side.

3. An intarsia hat, in time out after I messed up the chart six rows back. That one really ought to go to the head of the list, since I wanted it done before Christmas. But you can meet it when we're back on speaking terms.

4. A mitten- I started that one just so I'd have something simple for dim light. Also my local knitting group is doing a charity knitathon this month, for which I'd like to have some more hats and mittens done.

5 and 6. Are secrets.

7 and 8. The mitred square blanket and the multi-pink afghan. These will get some intermittent work- probably the pink afghan mostly, as it is very bulky and I'd like get it finished and donated before the holidays.

9. The bamboo summer top which is definitely my oldest WIP. I probably won't pick this up again until after the Christmas knitting is done, but I would definitely like to get it out of my queue this winter.

Oh, yes and the FO. Before the power went out I finished the second afghan (second one started but first one finished). Very Easter-y, but I'm pleased to have used up all the yarn- about 14 skeins-worth, but several of them were huge 8 oz skeins, so it's a lot of yarn. The finished size came out 46" x 70". Strangely, the afghan seems way heavier than the yarn was before it was crocheted!

And somewhere in there, I really ought to knit myself some more mittens. I can only find one pair of the four I ought to have, and they're in terrible shape. Although I strongly suspect that some of the missing ones are going to turn up before I get around to knitting more!

PS. Cookie wanted me to say that he's happy the heat is on too. The sitting around the wood stove thing was interesting, but the couch is more comfortable.

Not Quite Time to Panic

2011-10-28T23:19:00.003-04:00

Thanks to Toni in FL (who pointed out there are less 60 days until Christmas) and Valerie at Wandering Cat Studio (who not only pointed this out to Toni, but came up with the downright scary number of only eight weekends until Christmas), I have been catapulted from my dream of finishing afghans directly into holiday planning mode.

Actually, when I tore my gaze away from the calendar and started contemplating what I actually have planned, it wasn't that bad. I've already got a bunch of gift knitting complete and several others in process. The bad part- none of them are actually actively being worked on at this time. Oops. This weekend I will have to pull out the WIPs, take a serious look at my list and come up with a Plan. My initial thought is that I'd like a sane plan...but what fun would that be? Caution: insane crafting ahead!

Afghan Logistics

2011-10-24T20:37:00.002-04:00

(I'm afraid this is going to be a really trivial post on sewing together afghans. Please feel free to skip down to the cute cat pictures.)

So one of the things that has occupied my mind as I have been sewing afghan blocks is how to do it.

My first thought was that I wanted to minimize the number of ends to weave in. So I started thinking in terms of working with pieces of yarn as long as I could sew with. My first thought was to sew the squares in zig-zag pattern:

But after joining only a few that way, I could see that I was going to have trouble keeping them lined up. But I was reluctant to sew them in rows because joining all the squares together in a row would mean a lot of short pieces of yarn between the blocks all in a row. Which of course has led me to wonder how other people do it...most of the internet information I've seen is on the mechanics of sewing, not the order of assembly.

Then I had a brainwave. Who says I have to weave in the ends of the yarn joining the blocks? If I left a long tail, I could sew all the second row of blocks to the first (with one edge attached, they looked like a giant fringe); then I could use those dangling tails to sew the blocks together.

And that's what I did. The main downside is that the cats loved the dangling tails. I actually wound up finishing the second afghan first...oh, yes, I haven't shown you the second afghan yet, have I?
It kind of looks like the lining for an Easter basket. It's all the pastels.

It's all sewn together and I'm on the border, so I'll get a better FO shot shortly. Where were we? Ah, dangling tails. Biscuit of course loved them:

And Cookie couldn't resist joining in the fun, though his primary interest in afghans is sleeping on them (the one underneath him is one my grandmother made me).

So, what, you may be wondering, happened to the first afghan? The trouble with the first afghan is that I wanted to sew the squares such that no two identical squares were adjacent. Which meant laying them out on the floor for Biscuit to roll around on them. But once I'd done that, I needed to keep them in order. I considered pinning (too laborious), just stacking them (Biscuit would have had them spread randomly across the floor again in a trice) and then I finally hit on it. I stacked each row of blocks in the order they'll go on the afghan, ran a length of yarn through them, and put a tag with a row number on it.

They stay in order, and as long as I use the rows in sequence, I'll get everything in the order I had it laid out on the floor. All is well.

So, the first afghan is only about a third sewn, but at least it's off the floor, and the second one is being bordered. I was trying to figure out how much yarn I've used the other day and realized I should have counted the skeins at the start--it's a lot. I'm already through all the yarn I had in my own stash and two of the three bags my mom gave me. The orange is still in time out--I haven't decided what to do about it yet. Except that if there is an afghan number 3, I think it's going to wait a bit. I expect once these two afghans are done, I'm going to be afghaned out for a while.

The only problem...I'm going to have almost as much pastel yarn left as I had when I decided I had to make an afghan to use it up...

Everything Takes Longer Than You Think It Will

2011-10-13T08:30:00.002-04:00

aka: The Afghan Report. Sewing together is happening rather slowly, because I've had such persistent help.

You think this isn't so bad? That's only because I didn't get any photos of Biscuit a) rolling around in the squares, b) digging under the squares, c) attacking the yarn threaded through the needle as I sew the squares together or d) sitting on the squares I was trying to sew. I'll try and get more pictures as there is still rather a lot of afghan to sew together...

Things I Have Discovered Today

2011-10-08T17:19:00.002-04:00

1. You really can stain a large deck in one afternoon if you're willing to smother your inner perfectionist with a pillow and concentrate on completely covering the decking, and not worrying about what else is getting stained.

2. A 12" stain spreader does not fit easily into a 9" wide paint tray. You have to dip it one side at a time.

3. Extra-large paint trays are ridiculously expensive- 10 times what a disposable 9" paint tray costs.

4. No matter how carefully you swept beforehand, you will still find leaves and acorns on the deck while staining.

5. Watching humans stain decks is wonderful cat entertainment.

6. A highly motivated cat can pry open a sliding screen door so as as to inspect your staining more closely.

7. When you turn around and spot the more timid of the two (indoor) cats, curiously exploring the deck, catch him, and pitch his fluffy butt unceremoniously back inside, you should also check on the whereabouts of the bolder cat.

8. When a handsome black and white gentleman cat is having a Big Adventure in the vicinity of deck staining, he will not be spotted until after he has paced over a section of freshly stained deck.

9. Cleaning deck stain off a cat's paws with alcohol is not fun for either the cat or the human.

10. When a gentleman cat is thwarted in the pursuit of a Big Adventure, and then subjected to Terrible Indignities (having his paws cleaned with alcohol) he will naturally feel that he deserves a restorative snack in compensation. And be rather miffed when instead his human departs to continue staining the deck.

11. No matter how carefully you calculated, you will run out of stain because an extremely weathered deck will soak up more stain than you think it will.

12. As much as you may dislike ugly big box stores, having a hardware superstore three blocks from your house is darned useful at times.

13. As grateful as a person may be to finish staining a deck; it does not make the prospect of starting the pool closing tomorrow any more appealing...

I Don't Know, What Do You Think?

2011-10-05T22:25:00.000-04:00

Another busy week at Chez Robin...I've been alternating turning a bushel of apples from my sister's trees into applesauce, crocheting afghan squares, killing maurauding wildlife (these ghastly little worms that I think I inadvertantly brought in with the apples, though no one else seems to have been similarly afflicted), and confusing the cats, not that this is difficult. In order:

1. The applesauce is delicious, but I've had to stop making it until I can clear out some more freezer space to store it. (I know lots of people can applesauce, but I hate the way the flavor changes. Whereas applesauce that has been frozen tastes exactly the same as fresh to me.)

2. I have completed 108 afghan squares, which I calculate will make a slightly larger than 45 x 60 afghan and still leave some of the anchor yarn for a border. I'm currently weaving in ends on those blocks that still need it. (Since I'm eager to get it sewn together, I'm forcing myself to do the ends first. I know better than to leave them all for the end. So to speak.)

3. Robin 673, Worms 0 (I hope. I'm almost sure. *looks furtively around with a crawly sensation on the back of the neck* Really, I'm postitive.)

4. As for how I broke Biscuit's fuzzy little brain...well. When a cat sees a bowl coming out of the kitchen in the morning, extensive prior experience suggests that it will contain cereal. With milk. When the bowl comes out full of peach cobbler...well, he was quite non-plussed. Especially after he declined to believe the evidence of his nose and insisted on tasting it. (After I was done, I hasten to add- he gets to lick the bowl only after I'm done.) But I restored his faith in the goodness of the universe this morning with a return to cereal.   But only because the cobbler was gone.

5. In addition, I am amused by the link Biscuit's Aunt Cheri sent me...a retrospective of bra styles.    I'm just as happy to not be wearing these myself!

6. I'm checking the weather reports approximately seventeen times a day, since after a whole month with either rain on or immediately before the weekend, I'm getting increasingly anxious about finishing my deck project- it has to be dry so I can stain.   Also, I have to get the staining done so I can close the pool before it fills with oak leaves and acorns. It's long past time- there's a frost warning tonight.   Think dry thoughts for me.

7. And last but not least, in between weaving in ends on the pink afghan squares, I tried out some of the other yarn in a slightly larger square for the 'green' afghan. I have six skeins of the pastel green, which makes it basically the only choice for the anchor color of the second afghan.   And, it's well...take a look.

What I had vaguely recalled as being a bright yellow turns out to be a practically iridescent glowing orange.   Which would be fine if my anchor color were say, beige. But with the green....I'm trying to decide whether this is the most hideous color combination ever to desecrate an afghan, or if it's cheery in a manic harlequin-sherbet sort of way.   I could boot the orange and matching variegated yarn out of the afghan I suppose, but I was kind of hoping to use all this yarn up.

I don't know. What do you think?

It's Fate

2011-09-30T07:40:00.001-04:00

There was no way I could not have been a crafter, not with family enablers like I have. First, my mom rescues the afghan project (and supplies enough yarn for a second one). Then I see my sister and out of the blue she presents me with this absolutely delicious merino sock yarn from Deep Water Dye Works, dyed by one of her craft show friends.   I'm so lucky! (And then they combined to supply boxes of quilting fabric, but that's a story for another post.)

(Yes, that's Biscuit contributing fluff along the top of the photo. I got several photos of a blurry cat head before his attention was drawn to something outside and I managed to photograph the yarn.)

Now the urge to instantly cast on a new lace sock pattern, possibly with beads, has seized my brain. Fortunately (or not) the week is proving too insanely busy to spend time surfing Ravelry for patterns, so I'm still crocheting afghan squares. (I'm over 70 as of this morning...my first stopping point is 108, my second 144.)

Stay tuned for the next gripping episode! Will she succumb to the lure of the sumptuous sock yarn? Will she remain faithful to her cheery afghan? Will Biscuit cover everything with so much fluff you can't see the colors? (Well, yes, that one's a gimme.)   Not even the knitter knows!

Compulsively Square

2011-09-24T17:19:00.001-04:00

I now completely understand why there are so many crocheted afghans in the world.

I can't stop. Okay, I don't really want to stop, because I'm only on square 42 and I need at least 108 to make a small afghan.    But for a while it looked like I was going to have to, because I blew through my whole backlog of light colors (the ones I wanted to use up) in under a week.

But my mother came to the rescue, agreeing to give up some of her stash to support the cause. Actually she said, "Hallalujah! There is a patron saint of pastel yarn!" because she knits kid mittens for charity and light colored mittens attract dirt approximately 0.1 seconds after being handed over to the child recipient.    And boy did she come through....this is either going to be a large afghan--or else at least two smaller ones.    Take a look:

As you can see, it didn't even make it home before it started getting turned into squares. And Biscuit is very interested. I have a feeling I'm going to be grateful for my large zippered yarn storage bags, because the yarn wasn't in the house ten minutes before its cat toy potential was being explored.

I barely had taken my eyes off it and Biscuit had started scooping the smaller balls out of the bag and batting them experimentally across the floor. I had to wrestle them away from him.    I'm so mean that way.

Now I need to excuse myself. Must.crochet.squares.now....

Out With the Old, In With the New

2011-09-20T07:46:00.001-04:00

So, one more FO to start- over the weekend I finished the socks I started in San Francisco. Don't tell me you're surprised--of course I brought sock yarn! I knew, or at least hoped, I'd finish the sweater on the trip, and I didn't want to be caught knitless! So here they are:

Just plain socks, made from a skein of Lana Grossa cotton/wool blend I picked up when my LYS sadly went out of business this summer.

As for the new project--well, it's like this. When you use a lot of donated yarn, you find yourself trying to pick projects to go with the yarn. Which I kind of enjoy, because sometimes, as now, I wind up going out of my way to learn something new I might not have done if I'd been choosing the project first. This is how this weekend I found myself finally learning how to crochet an afghan square. My grandmother did a lot of crochet, but my mom never really got into it, and so I didn't have the handy instruction that I did for knitting. I've picked up some odds and ends over the years, but am still pretty much a rank beginner. And yet, for some things, like bags and blankets, where you don't really want a lot of stretchiness, it's a great technique.

I would be quite embarrassed to tell you just how many misshapen wads of yarn I frogged en route, but I persevered until I got this:

Success! Amusingly, I'm going to need more of the pastel colors that I started this project to use up, as I'm blowing through them at such a rate that I already know I'm going to run out, or as they say, be a few squares short of an afghan.

Westward Ho!

2011-09-16T22:25:00.000-04:00

So, it isn't that I have suddenly become less busy that has let me get caught up on posting FOs, but rather that I was on vacation the week of Labor Day. Unlike most of our travels, this was not a sudden-death-must-keep-moving-sightseeing-marathon, but a more relaxed trip to the San Francisco area to see family and friends.

Our first weekend was spent with my sister-in-law and her family- Jonathan spent a good deal of the weekend playing with trains with the boys.   We also went out to see the boys' favorite museum (the Hiller Aviation Museum, which I quite recommend), and the Lawrence Hall of Science, which featured a lot of audio-animatronic dinosaurs (always a big hit with the under-3-foot set, but plenty there for adults too).    I didn't take many photos during the first part of the trip, in part because the ones I did take mostly showed three small-boy-sized blurs zipping around trains, planes or dinosaurs. But my sister-in-law did get this nice one of me with my middle nephew Dash, sitting on a giant fiberglass whale outside the dinosaur museum.

We then joined our friends, who took us on a series of leisurely walking tours featuring various scenic areas adjacent to their favorite restaurants. The food was wonderful...it's a really good thing that we did so much walking though! A few highlights:

(Note that we admired the cable cars, but we didn't ride on them...we walked up the hill without mechanical assistance.)

There was also hanging out, playing games and pickling of pears. Yes, that's not a typo- our friends have a pear tree in their backyard and have been trying absolutely every recipe they can find to use or preserve the pears.   And they have found the most wonderful recipe for pickled pears . They come out sweet but intensely cinnamony and quite delicious. I came home with the firm intention of hitting the farm stand for pears of our very own. And we may not bother to can them...eight pounds or no eight pounds, I really don't expect them to last very long.

Our last day we took the ferry out to Angel Island.   It was quite windy and the bay was full of sailboats:

It was strangely disconcerting to walk all around the island and see land all around.   But the views were fantastic.

We visited the Angel Island Immigration Station, which operated from 1910 through the forties, and is now open to visitors. It's sometimes called the Ellis Island of the west, but it was aimed more at keeping people out than welcoming them in.   They've preserved some of the heartwrenching poetry carved into the walls by the people imprisoned there.   The rooms with cots and displays of typical immigrant possessions were pretty bleak-- filled to overflowing with people, it must have been awful.

After taking the ferry back, we had dinner at Louis Restaurant, with a gorgeous view of the water, and then went straight to the airport to get the redeye home.

It was a perfectly lovely trip, with family, good friends, wonderful food and terrific weather. Pretty much ideal- we can't wait to do it again!

And Now for the FOs

2011-09-10T03:23:00.000-04:00

The most recent FO was the Guernsey-inspired sweater that I knit out of the yarn my mother and I dyed a few months back. There were a couple of kinks in my plan...where I had half the back knit and then discovered that my gauge swatch had lied like a lousy rotten lying thing and I had to rip it all out and start over. And then at the end when I discovered that despite our general similarity in size, my friend Victor has somewhat shorter arms than I do. So I took a couple of inches off the sleeves. But it all worked out in the end:

Victor liked it. Here's a closeup of the patterning.

The FO before that was a pair of Jaywalker socks. I was severely short of yarn, but was able to find some dark brown contrast yarn that went reasonably well with it.

There was a simple mistake rib scarf with some nice Cascade 220 Heather out of the stash:

Three more pairs of navy mittens. I still have a giant skein of navy yarn, but I couldn't face it so I tucked it away and have been doing other things for a while.

I finally wrapped up the ribbed lace socks that I started on the trip to England. The merino-tencel yarn has a beautiful sheen and softness, but is fearsomely slippery. I was happy to be using the little bamboo needles for that.

And somewhere in there I blew through some of the brown sport weight yarn I had a lot of it by doubling it up and knitting a plain ribbed guy hat.

So, not an enormously productive summer in terms of number of projects, but I'm very happy to have the sweater done...with 340 stitches around the chest on size 2 needles, I feel sure that if I were tracking number of stitches knit, I'd be way ahead of the curve!

The "Things Done" List

2011-09-03T23:49:00.001-04:00

So. Now that I've gotten my act together and posted all the vacation photos, you're probably wondering what the heck I've been doing for the last two months. And the answer is that I've spent a good part of the summer whacking at my to do list, which had gotten so far out of control the only thing I could do was hide it in a dark closet and start a new list, a 'things done' list.

Do you every feel like you have so much to do, that you don't know where to start? Like just looking at your "To Do" list makes you tired? Like you could work all day and not even make a dent? Or worst of all-- you start something on the list and then find before you can do that, you have to say, move something, and that reminds you that you need to put in the laundry, and the next thing you know, the day is gone, and you haven't made any progress at all on the first thing you set out to do?

Well. This is when I deploy the "things done" list. Clearly, there are some tasks that need to be given priority. But there is nothing more demoralizing than starting with a plan and having no part of it come to fruition- even though you might have done any number of other things that weren't on the list! But having a large number of projects with no fixed deadline is for me, a guarantee of indefinite procrastination.

Coincidentally I just read the best decluttering tip of the year, which is to forgive yourself for having things being in a mess. Let go of the guilt and move on. So, that's been my plan for the summer.

And I'm happy to say that it's been working very well. Every day I try to record at least one 'thing done' in my pocket calendar. It might be a routine chore like dishes or laundry or working on a larger project, or simply taking care of something I've been meaning to do for ages. For example, I have:

a) Scrubbed all the green slime off the garage door (a chore that has been on my 'to do' list since 2002 when I bought the house).

b) Repainted the front door and doorway trim on the back slider (started last summer and not finished).

c) Started the deck rehab – I've completed step 1, scrubbing the black mildew off the deck. I've had good intentions on this one for at least 5 years. Now we're at the pulling nails and replacing damaged boards parts. It's got to get stained and sealed before it gets too cold, but I'm taking it one step at a time.

d) Pruned bushes in the yard and suppressed the bittersweet. This should be done annually, but I didn't get to it last year, and now I'm paying for it. But I'm about halfway around the yard, and have done most of the worst bits.

e) Cut off the ugly miserable stumps of the overgrown boxwoods that I removed in 2003, even with the ground, which makes them much less obtrusive than they were. I filed this one under 'extreme pruning'... I'm not totally sure that they recommend cutting through 8" diameter logs with a Sawzall.

f) Removed the folding cot and the ladder from the upstairs (where they have been littering my husband's office since the great house re-construction of 2006) and returned them to their proper storage locations in the cellar.

g) Cut off several pairs of my husbands' jeans that were holed at the knees, and hemmed them for shorts. They look very neat and he's actually been wearing them to work when it's very hot- handy since he has some distance to walk. I cleared out the pile of mending while I was at it.

h) I picked up a decent table and chairs on freecycle and freecycled a bunch of crappy folding chairs and other junk from the basement. I also have donated many boxes of books to the library book sale and books and other items to the humane society yard sale, clearing out a bunch of closet space.

And best of all? The time I've spent on these chores has largely come out the time I would have spent obsessing unproductively about the amount of stuff on my 'to-do' list. No really. It's true I haven't added a lot of knits to the project list lately, but I've finished some socks, and I've been working on the fine gauge sweater (after getting about two-thirds of the back done, I discovered that my gauge swatch had lied like a rotten lousy lying thing, and I had to frog the whole thing and start over. This is the Guernsey; I'll post photos shortly. And take a look at my Book Reviews for 2011 (also linked in the sidebar)- I'm at 109 books so far this year, which surprises even me a little, what with all the knitting and projects and working full time.

So, if you're a listmaker who's demoralized at the length of the 'to-do' list--and especially if you've ever added a chore you've just finished to your list so you could check off *something*... do consider putting it away and start a 'things done' list. Celebrate the accomplishments instead of focusing on the non-accomplishments. I'm betting that you'll not only feel better about how you've spent your time--you'll actually get more done, too.

Day 11: And Back Again

2011-09-03T22:53:00.001-04:00

This is the last entry in a series of posts on my vacation trip in May. The prior posts were:
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires
Day Two: Eccentric Ramblings
Day Three: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Palace
Day Four: A Day in Alfred's City
Day Five: Déjà Vu - In a Good Way
Day Six: Artists and Patrons and a Walk by the River

Day Seven: Great Heights

Day Eight: Now That is a Castle!Day Nine: From the White Cliffs to Cathedral the Third
Day Ten: Pilgrimage

Monday May 30

Our last day was spent in a last walk around London, idling through favorite places and doing our now-traditional shopping. We admired the handsome buildings:

We stopped by the British Museum and admired once again the lovely atrium.

We found a doughnut shop in , another American transplant, across from Picadilly Circus:

We stopped at our favorite London bookstore, Hatchards, and visited the Neal's Yard Dairy for artisanal English cheeses. And took a final turn through the park.

Yet another awesome vacation. We keep finding new things we want to see in England and have such a wonderful time that we keep going back. I can't wait for the next time.

Day 10: Pilgrimage

2011-09-01T22:51:00.003-04:00

Day Seven: Great Heights

Day Eight: Now That is a Castle!Day Nine: From the White Cliffs to Cathedral the Third

Sunday- May 29

The last thing we’d done every evening for pretty much the entire trip was to check the weather report for this weekend. We’d built some flexibility into our itinerary, but the hotel reservations were fixed and we’d selected this Sunday as being the most promising weather for our walk to Canterbury. We had such a marvelous time in on the long distance hike in the Cotswolds last time that we’d wanted to do something similar over the downs in this part of the country. Our planned route would take us along the North Downs Way, a marked long-distance hiking trail, through several small villages and ultimately, after 18 miles of walking, to Canterbury.

The only trouble was, the best day of the four we’d planned for Dover wasn’t actually all that good. As the day approached, we decided we’d plan for the best and play it by ear. We set the alarms for 5 am and had most of our gear already packed.

Sunday dawned gray. Miserable and gray. The skies were dark and there was a raw chill in the breeze coming off the channel. Jonathan looked outside. “I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” he said. “Let’s see what the weather report is,” I suggested. The weather report was virtually unchanged…white cloud, cool and windy in the morning, getting brighter and windier as the day went on, but not actually great. About the only thing you could say for it was they weren’t predicting rain. “I can live with cloudy and improving as the day goes on,” I said positively. We had a GOAL, and I wasn’t about to let a few clouds stand in the way. “It doesn’t look very nice,” Jonathan replied glumly, “but I guess if you’re up for it…” “Improving as the day goes on,” I repeated firmly. Surely the obliging English weather wouldn’t be so cruel as to disappoint us at this late juncture. Jonathan perused his maps and pointed out that we had bailout points if it proved uncongenial, but we shouldered our packs and got checked out. We left the hotel about 6 am.

I actually didn’t mind it—yes, it was cloudy and raw, but walking uphill with a backpack I was plenty warm enough. Jonathan led the way with grumpy determination. I should point out here that ‘grumpy’ is Jonathan’s default setting in the morning (as it often is mine-Jonathan comments that he's had to put up with me sans breakfast, which is far worse--a claim that has a certain justice). Anyway I didn’t take his glum mood in the least personally. I was sure he’d feel better about the idea once he was properly awake. We climbed out of the river valley up to the downlands where we could pick up the North Downs Way. We found it with no difficulty and it immediately led us through a picturesque churchyard and a tunnel carved in the abundant greenery.

In the early morning gloom it was more like walking through the setting for a suspense story or an English murder mystery, but we discovered no corpses and continued walking. We met our first setback when we found that a large section of the trail was closed and we had to detour. We took an extended tour of a very modern suburb and a retail strip full of unpicturesque box stores (I declined to photographically document this part of the hike), and kept going. One part I did document- the goat on the trampoline. Yes, you did read that right. Don't believe me? I took a photo:

This led to a certain amount of speculation as to whether you got a free goat with every trampoline in England. Another unanswered mystery, I fear.

We had to skirt a highway interchange and climb over a fence, but were able to rejoin the trail past the closed section with little trouble, and returned to vistas of woods and fields.

The day did start to grow imperceptibly brighter and I brought out the camera:

As the morning wore on and the miles fell beneath our sneakers, there was a distinct lightening of the sky, which I attempted to point out to Jonathan.

He stuck his fingers in his ears and declined to listen on the grounds he didn’t want to jinx it.

I ceased and desisted, since there’s nothing more aggravating to someone in a crummy mood than excessive cheeriness. But soon, even Jonathan couldn’t deny there was something going on:

The blue sky is a dead giveaway. At that point the walk ceased to be merely interesting, and became a positive pleasure. The trail cut across fields—

—often bordered by masses of poppies:

We passed through another churchyard, this one featuring an ancient yew tree:

Jonathan told me that it was once the law that yews be planted in churchyards so as to ensure the supply of wood for English longbows. This one was certainly ancient. The day continued to improve and we crossed a field full of sheep. (Obligatory fiber content for my crafty pals!)

We discovered fields of…something. Anyone? Our best guess was some kind of bean. The bottom part of the plant had roundish leaves, and the top was all these great spikes absolutely covered in seed pods. Whatever it is, they grow a lot of it in Kent. A considerable amount of websurfing has given me no clue as to what this crop is:

It was around this point that Jonathan turned around and said, “I’m so glad you wanted us to go on with this.” It was turning into a really gorgeous day, much better than the weather forecasts had led us to believe.

We saw a literally rose-covered cottage with a lovingly maintained thatched roof:

In fact, the only thing we weren’t seeing much of was places to eat. And by this time, we’d been walking for about six hours and the sheep were starting to look good.

We’d passed through several tiny villages—so small they didn’t have a pub. We strode on with renewed energy, looking for the next town. Which turned out to be the village of Patrixbourne, home to charming brick houses and an actual working ford (note the footbridge on the right for pedestrians):

But it turned out to be rather on the small side, as we noted from the house numbers:

And there was no sign of a pub or other eatery. So we tromped on to the next village, Bekesbourne, which we knew had a train station. "If we don't find something here," I said a bit reluctantly, "we might have to hit the train station and bail." I hated to think it, because we were only three miles from Canterbury, but we were getting quite hungry.

At Bekesbourne we found we actually had a choice. There was a sign for a cafe, but it was a mile off our route (so would add 2 miles to the walk), or we could go to the train station. "What do you think?" Jonathan asked. "There's no guarantee it'll be open," I said. "Let's try the train station first. Even if it's small they might have vending machines." Most of the train stations we'd seen up until then had a small building, often with a coffeeshop as well as vending machines, so this wasn't a completely unreasonable guess. And the train station was quite a bit closer. So we turned off onto Station Road and very quickly came to the smallest train station we'd yet seen. In fact, calling it a station was a misnomer- what it had was a platform and a small shelter, like you'd see at a bus stop. There were no vending machines, and no rest rooms.

"Well, darn," we said. And "Now what?" It was then we were given a sign. No, really. It was an excellent sign:

"Let's try the Unicorn pub," I said.

"We don't know how far it is," Jonathan pointed out. "Or if it's open."

I replied, "The arrow points up a walking path. I'm guessing it's not too far. And it says, 'real ales', and 'home cooking', and 'using fresh local produce'.

We followed the arrow. The pub was not hard to find—it was visible from the path:

The pub turned out to be awesome, the kind of place we'd have gone well out of our way to experience if we'd known it existed. For one thing, it wasn't just busy, it was mobbed with locals. We wound up sitting outside because there wasn't any space inside. And it had live folk music (which was going to be later in the evening so we unfortunately didn't get to hang around for it but it's the sort of thing we approve of.) The menu was extremely enticing. And they had a pub cat. Clearly she had a lot of confidence in her staff because she didn't need to supervise them closely.

They gave us refreshing beverages with considerable alacrity. We had a nice chat with some of the locals while we were waiting to order. We were spoiled for choice—they had several locally made ciders.

Out of a native sense of caution, I started with lemonade and only then ordered a pint of cider. Jonathan was less restrained. He had a pint of cider—what we Americans would call hard cider—on an empty stomach. He went back in for another drink to go with the food, and was offered a sample of a local raspberry cider which was so delicious he had a second pint with lunch.

Lunch exceeded our wildest expectations. Homemade sausage from a local farm, locally grown vegetables. It was outstanding. Even granted that we were quite hungry, it was a wonderful meal. I finished before Jonathan and sat back and pulled out the sock I was knitting. It was then that I absentminded felt the back of my neck, which was rather warm, and realized that the cool breeze had kept me from realizing that I'd gotten a blistering burn back there. I groaned...it's not the first time I've gotten a bad burn in England, but I never seem to learn. I belatedly put some sunscreen on it, and covered it against further damage. But filled with good food and drink and with our packs off, I couldn't be too worried. It was truly gorgeous

We ate, and rested our feet and when we were done we pooh-poohed the idea of bailing out. "It's only three more miles!" I said. "We're almost there."

We redonned our packs and set off with renewed enthusiasm for Canterbury. As we left the pub, I noticed that Jonathan was not managing an entirely straight path. Imperial pints are larger than American pints, and he rarely drinks at all—two whole pints of cider, which is comparable in alcohol content to some wines—well, it was a lot more than he was used to. Between the food and the drink, we strolled on at a rather leisurely pace compared to the morning.

By now we were seeing more habitations, and encountered another mystery.

See the white things on top of the roof? We were darned curious as to what they were, so I took the photo. But the internet has failed us. My best guess would be some kind of wind generator, but I haven't been able to find anything remotely similar online.

We got into Canterbury rather later than we'd intended, but we had no complaints. We didn't get to see the Roman museum, but we did take some more photos of the cathedral, taking advantage of the sunshine:

We saw more of the city.

We had more cold drinks (non-alcoholic this time), and stopped for snacks at Patisserie Valerie. We ambled gently on sore feet back to the train station and took a fast train to London, and checked into the hotel and dumped baggage.

Although we had arguably eaten enough for one day, we decided to pursue dinner anyway. We set off with the vague intention of trying a Chinese restaurant on our 'interesting places we might like to eat list', but before we made it there, we happened on a barbecue place. That turned out to be exactly what we were in the mood for, and when we went in, we found that it was (unsurprisingly) American themed and showing a Red Sox game on the television. The Sox were tied with Detroit. That settled it, and we sat down for a modest sandwich before heading back to our hotel, footsore but happy with our last full day in England.

Day Nine: From the White Cliffs to Cathedral the Third

2011-08-31T22:58:00.000-04:00

Day Seven: Great Heights

Day Eight: Now That is a Castle!

Saturday- May 28

Saturday dawned misty and cool. But we had a plan, and we’re nothing if not goal-oriented, so we set off back up the headland north of Dover and out along the white cliffs. The chalk looks just like its pictures- so bright and white it doesn’t quite seem real.

The sun valiantly tried to break through, and while the day brightened, it didn’t quite clear.

Much of the area above the cliffs is a wildlife conservation area, and we read informative plaques as we went along. We were fascinated to find that the chalk grassland ecology cannot simply be left alone, but in fact depends on the land being used for grazing, as it has been for thousands of years. In the steepest bits, they use hill ponies, who can handle the difficult terrain.

I couldn’t stop taking pictures.

We also found out that the reason the white cliffs stay white is constant erosion. Without it, they would quickly be covered in vegetation. The coastline moves by up to 2 inches a year, steadily withdrawing from France.

As the morning grew lighter, the wind grew stronger, becoming colder and more gusty. A sailboat in the channel was heeled sharply over under very little sail. As I followed the trail through a sheltered spot and emerged into its full force, I found myself abruptly stopped, one foot raised, by the force of the air. I had to lean into it to keep moving. By this time the visitor center was open and we went in, rather chilled and windblown, to read more plaques and get a snack before heading back into town.

From there we went to see the Roman painted house. It was built around AD 200, and formed part of an official hotel for travelers. The state of preservation is quite remarkable, and you can see the various painted panels. It seems like it was probably a pretty jolly place, as it was painted with scenes relating to Bacchus (Roman god of wine). It was quite interesting, but sadly underfunded. Apparently there are considerably more ruins under an adjoining parking lot which they’d like to display if they could afford to roof it over. A shame, as even a modest investment of time and graphic design would show off the really remarkable ruins to much better advantage.

By this time, we were starting to think keenly covetous thoughts about lunch, and given the local state of restaurantage, we decide to take the train to Canterbury. We’d actually planned to go to Canterbury the next day, but looking over the extensive collection of tourist swill at our hotel, were afraid that there was more there than we could cover in one day.

This turned out to be an excellent decision. The path from the train station into the city center goes along part of the old city walls:

And by a picturesque canal:

As we entered the downtown area, our decision was more than justified by a gigantic street fair filled with people selling…well, everything, but crucially, lunch. While JT was visiting an ATM, I followed my nose to a delicious-smelling booth. I returned to JT. “How about a roast pork sandwich?” So lured, he came back with me to the booth where a man was carving an enormous joint of roast pork from his own local farm, and a woman assembled them into sandwiches, I took mine with a generous topping of homemade applesauce—yum.

An elderly gentleman hovered at my elbow, waiting for his own juicy sandwich while his wife said to him in some exasperation, “I thought we were going a restaurant, where we could sit down!” Apparently the lure of the roast pork was just too strong.

Lunch enthusiastically eaten, we got up and wandered around some more. I looked at one old building, which was leaning considerably and remarked, “I’d hate to have to hang a door in that place.” Then we rounded the corner and saw the actual door:

I bet the person who actually hung the door didn’t enjoy it either.

We finally reached the cathedral:

What can I say? Canterbury Cathedral is justly famous- magnificent and highly ornamented. We wandered around inside for a bit.

As cathedrals go, it pretty much has everything. Terrific fan vaulting:

A cloister:

And gardens:

I think we wandered through some areas that aren't normally open to the public, as there was a wedding party milling around and we trouped casually after them through some lovely gardens.

From there we found that we had just enough time to see the Canterbury Heritage Museum, which traced the history of Canterbury from prehistoric through Roman and Anglo-Saxon times, and up until the present. It finished with exhibitions of the works of several children's authors from Canterbury. I didn't encounter Bagpuss or Rupert the Bear as a child, but it was easy to see the kind of nostalgia they might evoke in people who had.

By then we were ready to eat again, and after a comprehensive survey of available options, we settled on some excellent fish and chips. The sun was still high in the sky-we love that about England in the summer-so we strolled out a footpath that took us along the river Stour.

I did not take a photo of the party of young people that included one young man clad only in dripping underwear, as he had evidently just jumped or been tossed into the river. They were laughing, so I suspect that alcohol may have been involved.

I did take more photos of English scenery, though.

I couldn't seem to help it.

We eventually turned back, found the train station, and took the train back to Dover, the while discussing plans for the next day—the climactic day of our trip.

Day Eight: Now That is a Castle!

2011-08-14T22:40:00.006-04:00

Day Seven: Great Heights

Friday- May 27

Friday we got an early start and took one of the high speed trains to Dover. We really liked the high speed train-- clean, comfortable, convenient and astonishingly quiet. Unlike most people, we weren't just passing through but Dover was our destination. We had all our gear with us, but we didn't let that slow us down—we headed right from the train station to our first planned destination, Dover Castle.

Dover Castle sits on a high promontory overlooking the city. The key word here is 'high'. We had a stiff climb up the hill. My legs very quickly started muttering things like, 'St Paul's yesterday, she's trying to kill us, whine, whine, whine'. I ignored them. Wusses. We arrived in good time at the formidable entrance:

The views were spectacular—here's a view of the moat and outer wall with the breakwater of Dover Harbor in the background.

One of the interesting things is that Dover Castle was used more or less continuously as a fortification for 800 years. It's not just a building, it's a whole complex. The site itself was clearly strategic—it's the crossing-place with the shortest distance to the Continent. Long before Henry the Second there was an Iron Age hill fort there, and there is still a Roman Pharos (lighthouse) in remarkably good condition on the grounds. The present castle was begun in the 1160s, and used right up through World War II. There are sections that were build in the Napoleonic wars, and the cliff underneath the castle itself is riddled with tunnels. The castle chapel, still in use, is Anglo-Saxon.

We started with a tour of some of the WWII era tunnels, that were used as a hospital. We were unfortunately just a few weeks too early to catch their new multimedia exhibit. Some of the parts of the tunnels we would ordinarily have seen were closed while they completed the installation.

Then we went to see the pharos and the chapel. The pharos is astonishing.

Looking up inside you can see where the lamp was lit.

It's not quite so surprising that it's lasted so long when you see how thick the walls are:

(The doorway is a comfortable height for a medium sized person- a taller one would have to duck.)

From there we went up to the castle proper. Interestingly, the castle has been furnished with replica furniture in the styles and colors that would have been used by Henry the Second when he lived there. (Yes, this is the same Henry who got into so much hot water over Thomas Becket.) In addition to the furnishings, there were various audio and holographic exhibits to try and give the visitor a feel for palace life.

Here's the great hall:

Henry's bedchamber:

The view from the top of the tower was pretty fantastic too:

We walked part of the outer walls.

We had a typically excellent lunch (National Trust sites especially tend to have outstanding food, made from fresh local ingredients).

We spent way longer there than we had anticipated, exploring tunnels, viewing some of the channel lookouts used during WWII and viewing exhibits. We were especially taken with the exhibit that talked about Henry the Second's conquests and familial difficulties. He reportedly had more trouble with his four sons than he did with the whole rest of his empire combined.

Finally we decided we ought to get back into Dover and find our hotel. We'd been trekking up and down the hilly Dover Castle site all morning and early afternoon, now we headed back down the steep slope to Dover. (My legs were beyond protest and well into profanity. It availed them naught.)

En route to the hotel, we stopped at the Dover Museum, which had some amazing film footage of the Dunkirk evacuation. This was actually one of the pieces of history that had inspired us to want to come to Dover. For those who are a bit rusty—English and French troops, having resoundingly lost the Battle of Dunkirk, were pinned between the Germans and the water, on the verge of capture. The British mounted a colossal rescue—over 800 boats, and not just military, anything that would float, yachts, ferries, fishing boats and lifeboats. Nowhere is level of desperation better summed up than in James Keelaghan's marvelous song, "The Fires of Calais"

...

On the beach allied confusion, will they stand or are they running

If it's run, where will they go to between the sea and the melee

On the flanks the troops advancing and with heavy guns they're firing

And not a mother's son could save them from the fires of Calais

...

I've fished these channel waters since I was man enough to face them

For the herring and the flounder I have often hauled away

But a catch like this I've never had in forty years of sailing

Saving Tommies as they flounder 'neath the fires of Calais

...

The fishing boats roll out across the dark green channel water

As they gather speed for Flanders they cut their nets away

It's not herring they'll be pulling from the waters on this morning

But they'll reap a bitter harvest from the fires of Calais

The museum also had a fabulous Bronze Age boat, that had been found buried and preserved in water-soaked ground. The amount they learned about boat-building tools and techniques was amazing. And then there was the sheer wonder of being able to stand and look at such an ancient vessel.

We eventually made it to our hotel (which turned out to be right on the beachfront)-

and got checked in and shed our backpacks. We'd been on the lookout for a promising dinner place, but Dover, despite the excellence of its attractions, does not seem to have leveraged them into the kind of touristy place with that has lots of dinner options. However trains were frequent, and since we had already traveled by train that day, any additional travel would be covered by our railpasses (the railpasses gave us unlimited travel for eight non-contiguous days, which we had planned to take full advantage of). So after consulting the internet as to the amenities of nearby towns we could easily reach by rail, we decided to see what we could find in Deal.

As it turned out, Deal did not have a lively restaurant scene—it just had a really competent website designer and marketing consultant. We got off the train—and mind you, this was on the Friday evening of a bank holiday weekend—and the place was completely empty. We walked around in increasing dubiosity through largely deserted streets, looking for any signs of life. We did in the end find a couple of (empty) restaurants and chose an Indian place. The two young waitstaff on duty looked rather surprised to see us, and asked what we wanted. "Dinner," we told them. After a long and utterly non-plussed pause, they leapt to our service with considerable enthusiasm.

We dined in solitary splendor, on quite decent, if not extraordinary food. The staff were extremely attentive. In the whole time we were there, we saw one person come in to pick up takeout, and they had one phone call.

We returned on the train to Dover, and left the station with a handful of other people. Suddenly Dover didn't look so quiet to us. "It's slow," we told each other. "But it's no Deal."

There wasn't any obvious entertainment in Dover that compelled us, but we still had a couple of hours of daylight, so we climbed up to the promontory on the other side of the harbor, opposite Dover Castle. (This is nearly as high as the one Dover Castle sits on. There was faint whimpering from the extremities.) The castle shone gold in the late evening light.

The view up the Dour River valley was pretty, too.

We inspected the Napoleonic fortifications on the summit.

These were largely closed off, and not really a tourist attraction though there was a walking trail that went around and through them. We found a series of interesting plaques that talked about the area. It seems that when the fort was in use, they had direct access to the harbor via a triple spiral staircase that went down through a vertical shaft in the chalk. The triple nature was to provide for segregation of the classes- one stair was reserved for the use of 'officers and their ladies', the middle stair was for 'sergeants and their wives', and the third was for 'soldiers and their women'. We had a good laugh. We soon discovered though, that the spiral stair was the only way down the cliff on this side, so we had to retrace our steps back through the fort and return more or less the way we'd come. We met a local chap walking his dog whom we chatted with briefly. He told us a tall tale about ghostly horses (which we smiled at).

And we made our way back to the hotel, discussing dinner options for the next night. Not Deal, we agreed. Jonathan added, "I'm not sure I could take that kind of excitement two days running."

And because I just had too many photos that I wanted to include--check out the Dover photo slideshow:

Day Seven: Great Heights

2011-08-01T23:07:00.000-04:00

This is the latest entry in a series of posts on my vacation trip in May. The prior posts were:
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires
Day Two: Eccentric Ramblings
Day Three: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Palace
Day Four: A Day in Alfred's City
Day Five: Déjà Vu - In a Good Way
Day Six: Artists and Patrons and a Walk by the River

Thursday May 26
The plan for the morning was to return to St. Paul's and take the tour we'd missed earlier in the week. We took both the guided tour and the audio tour and regretted neither.

My first impression on entering the church was to think that it looked nothing at all like I remembered from the brief visit on our first trip over ten years ago. I remembered it as being large, dim and subdued, much like many of the other large cathedrals we had visited. But now it seemed much brighter and more highly decorated. And there turned out to be a good reason for that. For most of the intervening decade, St. Paul's had been undergoing a massive cleaning and restoration. The details of this were simply astonishing. The cleaning had been carried out by quite a small crew—less than two dozen people—and they had done it in the most painstaking manner- mostly with cotton wool and q-tips and occasionally very mild detergent on the dirtiest bits of the mosaics. The area to be covered was immense, and the results- utterly spectacular.

They don't allow photos inside, but there is an online virtual tour if you'd like to see for yourself.

The audio tour guided us around the sights—we spent some little time figuring out the locations that appeared in Connie Willis' latest books (Blackout and All Clear), as well as seeing for ourselves William Hunt Holman's famous painting 'The Light of the World'. But it also showed us images of the cathedral from various points in history, provided portraits of some of the personalities described, played music from the cathedral choir, and provided footage of some of the famous historical events that happened there. It's a quite excellent tour, we highly recommend it.

And the verger's tour was also excellent and different. We got to see several of the chapels that aren't open for people to wander into and we saw the famous oval staircase which has been used in many films- most recently one of the Harry Potter films (Prisoner of Azkaban, I think).

After finishing the tours, we climbed up to the dome. The dome has three galleries- the Whispering gallery, an interior balcony running around the inside of the dome, a slightly higher exterior platform with views of the cities, and then for anyone who still has any breath left, there is a third balcony around the top of the dome itself. We'd discussed climbing up to the dome during our first visit, ten-plus years ago, but at the time JT had been getting over a cold and doubted he had the wind for the climb, so we'd gone and done other things. This time, I wanted to go up.

The first bit is a wide spiral stair, with shallow steps and occasional landings. It went on for quite a ways, but 259 steps later, we reached the gallery. It was high. It was really, really high. Terrific views down to the cathedral floor, and it is the best place to view the mosaics in the dome. But it was really high. JT took a quick look out...and down...and quickly averted his gaze and said, "I think I'd better go back down." Not a unexpected problem—he's not fond of heights generally. And it's worse after a stiff climb because the exertion seems to amplify the vertigo reaction. He turned back to the door—and the guard said, "Sorry, sir, this is the entrance." He pointed out the exit—about a third of the way around the dome. They use one set of stairs for people going up, and a different one for people going down. JT gulped and steadfastly not looking at the big drop, worked his way around to the exit and escaped.

I admired the view for both of us, and regretted that I couldn't take photos. Then I headed up to the next level, the Stone Gallery, another 119 steps. Ironically, I think JT would have been fine on that one- there was a broad stone platform and a stout high fence that hid the edge. The views of the city were amazing:

At this point I was pretty short of breath, but I decided that I couldn't stop there. So I tackled the last 152 steps up to the Golden Gallery, the highest point of the dome, 280 feet above the ground. Here it helps to know something about the construction of the dome, or rather domes. The architect (Christopher Wren) wanted the dome to look proportionately right from both the inside and the outside of the cathedral. That's harder than it sounds—high enough to look right from the outside would mean the interior of the dome would be too high above the cathedral floor to see the decorations. So St. Paul's has two domes- an interior dome of stone. Then a cone-shaped brick support structure, and then a lightweight (relatively) wooden outer dome. So the stairs to the top of the outer dome go up between the two domes, winding around the brick cone. The stairs are quite open—iron gratings for steps and landings, and even I, sometime acrophile that I am, kept a tight hold on the railing and avoided looking down.

I lost count of the flights of stairs as I panted my way up, and stopped to catch my breath on a stone landing where one of the cathedral staff was posted. "Only twelve more steps," he told me encouragingly. I laughed breathlessly. "I think I'll catch my breath first." I looked over at him—a young guy, very fit-looking. "I bet you run up and down these all day and think nothing of it." He smiled and courteously assured me that no, they never got used to it. He looked very fit. I'm not at all sure he was telling the truth. But he was certainly very polite.

I made my way up the last dozen steps to the Golden Gallery, where I discovered that "Gallery" was something of an exaggeration. "Ledge" would have been more descriptive. And the railing was waist high, barely. And like the Whispering Gallery, the stairs were one-way. You had to go around to the other side to come back down. I settled my buttocks very firmly against the stone of the dome before freeing both hands to wield the camera. The views were even better from the height:

And then I edged cautiously around the top of the dome. In places the 'gallery' was only about eighteen or twenty inches wide and I had to squeeze between the rail and the irregular stone wall of the top of the dome. I felt even more sympathy for JT then than I had earlier. But I made my careful way to the exit and then descended. And descended. And descended. And eventually made it back down to the Cathedral floor, and we departed for the British Museum.

The British museum was hosting a special exhibition of treasures from Afghanistan that our friend Gary (the one who works in Afghanistan) had highly recommended to us. The items in the exhibit are from the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul, and their recent history is as remarkable as their ancient origins. Between the Soviet invasion in 1979, the war that followed, and the destruction inflicted by the Taliban, much of the museum was damaged or destroyed. But Afghani officials and museum staff risked their lives to spirit away artifacts and conceal them safely in vaults, cellars and their own homes to prevent their destruction. Other pieces were stolen and sold abroad, but have been identified and returned to the collection. One art collector actually recognized a piece when it was put up for sale and bought it for the express purpose of returning it.

The artifacts came from four sites, and the signature piece of the exhibit was a gold crown found at Tillya Tepe in the 1st century AD. The crown was found in a nomad burial, and was designed to fold up so it could be stored in saddlebags. Amazing!

And while great glittering gold jewelry is always an attention-getter, there were many other notable items. Gorgeously carved ivory statues and long reliefs that originally graced pieces of furniture. A painted glass goblet over 2000 years old. A Chinese mirror, and various other items in stone, pottery and bronze. It was quite fantastic.

I was also fascinated by a computer model made of Ai Khanum, a Hellenistic Greek city on the Oxus river and on the modern border with Tajikistan. From the ruins and artifacts they found, they had extrapolated what the area might have looked like when it was in use and represented it in a 3D model. The degree of cultural mixing and evidence of trade links was considerable. It provided both a tiny glimpse of the complexity and culture of the ancient world, and a heartwrenching contrast to the current war-scarred condition of Afghanistan.

We left the British museum and walked up to Euston Road to see the Wellcome Collection. As we walked, we glanced up at the sky, which was clouding over and JT commented on how quickly the weather seemed to change in England. That must have been the wrong thing to say, because raindrops started splashing down with rapidly increasing enthusiasm. I paused under a bus shelter and pulled out my rain poncho, while JT shrugged off a little wet. I had just managed the surprisingly difficult task of getting head and arms through the appropriate holes when the sky opened up and the rain came down in absolute torrents. JT opted to put on his own rain poncho at that point. We splashed soggily up the street and found more cover in a tube entrance for a few minutes until the rain slacked off a bit, then continued to the Wellcome Collection building, which was running an exhibition on dirt.

Nope, not a typo, dirt. I'd actually been hoping for something about soil composition etc, but the exhibition turned out to be more about trash and the history of cleanliness and sanitation. Still, it was interesting and also dry, which was itself appealing just then.

Both the collection and the Wellcome trust (Britain's largest private foundation for biomedical research) were the legacy of American-British pharmaceutical magnate Sir Henry Wellcome, collector of many quite odd things medical. Wellcome's company, originally founded in 1880 as Burroughs Wellcome continued after his death and eventually merged with Glaxo. The Wellcome name finally disappeared in 2000 when GlaxoWellcome merged with SmithKline Beecham and became GlaxoSmithKline.

We had time to also take a quick turn through the standing exhibits from the Wellcome collection. I'm a bit too squeamish to want to look closely at 19th century medical paraphernalia so I wasn't sorry it was so close to closing. (I also chose not to linger over the collection of sex toys from around the world, though I'm willing to believe it's generally popular.)

When we left, the rain had almost completely stopped and we quickly walked around and located a burrito restaurant for a quick bite, and proceeded to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields for a quite excellent concert.

During the intermission, we took a quick turn around the rainwashed streets before returning for the second part.

A lovely evening in all, but we did not wander far off our path back to the hotel, as we wanted to catch the early train to Dover in the morning.

Interlude: Friend-Making Monday

2011-07-25T11:22:00.001-04:00

So, one of the blogs I follow intermittantly is Kenzie's at All the Weigh. And although I rarely talk here about weight loss- I have been slowly trying to work on changing my eating habits to lose weight. It's either that or go clothes shopping, and we all know how I hate to shop for clothes! Bleh! So I've lost a bit over ten pounds in the last year, which is incredibly slow, but I'm more concerned about yo-yo-ing due to too-rapid loss than taking it slowly. Anyway, this morning Kenzie asked a great question on her regular Friend-Making Monday post, and I decided to play.

Was there a defining moment in which you realized that you needed to lose weight? If so, will you elaborate? (If you experienced this moment in some other area of your life, please feel free to share that too!)

So I don't have a real watershed moment with regards to weight. It was creeping up, I decided it had to be dealt with. But my confidence that it *could* be dealt with goes back a ways and had to do with exercise. I’ve always been klutzy and not good at sports. But in my twenties I was living near the mountains in a small town with few opportunities for a social life–but near lots of ski areas. So I figured I’d give it a try. I took some lessons in downhill skiing, and practiced, and it was fun, and I took some more lessons…and finally realized that I wasn’t bad at sports- probably more average. I’d just never liked a sport well enough to practice it before. Skiing, like other sports, is a skill and skills can be learned. And they get better with practice.

And that was a huge life lesson, and turned out to apply to so many more things than exercise. So now I’m practicing portion control and healthier eating. I need to work harder at the exercise part- I now have plenty of exercise that I enjoy, but it’s getting the time for it into my schedule that’s the challenge. Time management remains a skill that needs additional practice!

And when I tackle something new- say, installing drywall to patch the hole in the ceiling of my garage (I'm still plotting my approach, but Real Soon Now) or tackling a new knitting technique...or when a non-knitter says, 'you're so talented, I could never do that'...I remember making my first parallel turns on a ski slope and know that my first attempt might not work out, but the next one will be better. It's not a talent or a gift, it's a skill. Skills can be learned. Skills improve with practice. Skills are not about getting something for nothing or finding the magic answer that fixes things overnight. Skills are about taking a smaller portion, eating the salad instead of the fries (at least most of the time) and about pulling one loop of yarn though another until the sweater happens.

So how about you? Did you have a memorable "I can do this!" moment? Feel free to share- and head over to Kenzie's blog and leave her a link...she's eager to hear all the stories.

Day Six- Artists and Patrons and a Walk by the River

2011-07-25T00:57:00.001-04:00

Day Five: Déjà Vu - In a Good Way

2011-07-14T23:21:00.002-04:00

Day Four- A Day in Alfred's City

2011-07-07T22:51:00.001-04:00

This is the latest entry in a series of posts on my vacation trip in May. The prior posts were:
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires
Day Two: Eccentric Ramblings
Day Three: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Palace

Monday May 23

Monday was a last-minute improvisation on our parts. The original plan had been to go to Bristol to see the SS Great Britain, but just before we left, we'd found out that there was a new museum opening up, the M-Shed, devoted to the history of Bristol. Just the kind of thing we most like—and it wasn't going to be open until a couple of weeks after we came home. Also, Bristol is all the way over on the west coast, which makes it a much better fit for a trip to Cornwall and Devon. So we decided to save Bristol for another time, and instead went to Winchester.

Winchester is the ancient capital of England, seat of Alfred the Great, among others. It was settled in pre-Roman times, the site of the thriving city of Venta Belgarum under the Romans, and one of the places identified with Camelot. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Wessex and the Kingdom of England. It also has a magnificent cathedral, the longest gothic cathedral in Europe.

So, we took the train to Winchester early on Monday morning. We arrived before anything was open, and headed up to the Great Hall of Winchester Castle, the only part of the castle still left standing. It was built in the 12th century. We had a few minutes to walk around looking at the ruins and reading informative plaques (we adore informative plaques, in case I've neglected to mention that lately). The Great Hall opened and we walked around. It's mostly a big empty chamber, notable for its age and history. It was used as a courtroom until relatively modern times. In it hangs the famous 'King Arthur's' Round Table. The table has been dated to the 13th century, and was repainted in the time of Henry VIII. It was taken down in (I believe they said) the 70s for conservation and dating. It turns out to weigh over a ton, which would explain why it has so rarely been moved!

Behind the Great Hall is a recreation of a medieval garden, planted with herbs and flowers common in medieval gardens, with sod seats, and woven withy screens.

I quite liked the scattering of tools. Can't you just imagine the gardener has stepped out for a moment, and will be back any moment?

We had to see the Cathedral of course. It was majestic, immense, solemn and very, very gothic.

We walked around the cathedral, reading the memorials. Though there were plenty to churchmen and dignitaries, the thing that most struck us was the overwhelming number of memorials to fallen soldiers. It's one thing to know they happened, and another to see all the names on the stones. So many wars, so many dead. After seeing the cathedral, we decided against visiting any of the several military museums in Winchester. It was just too sad.

We wanted to finish with a visit to the cathedral library, but it turned out not to be open until afternoon, so we headed back out into the town in search of lunch. We found dueling pasty shops in the center of town. One was a chain we'd encountered before and the other was new, so we checked out the new one. The pasties were quite good- but if I had to judge between the two, I think I'd need to do further taste-testing. Possibly quite a lot of taste-testing. I can't understand why the Cornish pasty hasn't come to American markets yet- it's an excellent fast meal.

After lunch we went to the Winchester City Museum- they have a lovely building:

It also had a number of Roman artifacts, and mosaics in beautiful condition, and we especially liked the series of dioramas showing how the city looked at various points in its history.

We set out in search of the Winchester City Mill, a re-created medieval water-powered mill on the River Itchen, on a site used for milling flour since Saxon times. We did some wandering around before finding it- the river Itchen flows through the center of the city, but Winchester has several other streams as well- legacy of the Romans, who rerouted the waterways to provide better drainage.

The mill had the usual models showing how the mechanisms work, and also examples of earlier grinding technology, such as a quern stone. While I would have been perfectly willing to accept that water-powered mills were superior, a very few minutes with the quern-stone gave me a much better idea of just how laborious it was to grind grain by hand.

We also walked down to stand on a catwalk just above the millrace. The force of the water is quite astonishingly strong there, and the mechanisms are impressively large.

It's also home to a family of otters. They're too shy to come out when people are there, but they have an otter-cam on a motion sensor and you can watch a loop of the otters' activities upstairs.

After exploring the mill, we returned to the cathedral, to see the Cathedral library and scriptorium. The current exhibition was on the King James Bible, and they had many fine old books, but the glory of the collection is the Winchester Bible, a large and fabulously illuminated manuscript. The script was almost entirely done by a single scribe- no doubt the lifework of the man who did it. The bible has remained at Winchester Cathedral for eight hundred years. It had a very close call at the hands of Cromwell's soldiers during the English Civil War, but was fortunately returned to the Cathedral largely undamaged. There are a few bits missing- one illustration is in at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. But the condition of what is left is amazing. The colors are fabulous- very bright. Although the text is complete, the bible is only partially illustrated- and some illustrations have been sketched in but not completed, providing a valuable insight into the illuminators' techniques. JT compared it to an exhibit we once saw of ancient Egyptian statuary from a sculptor's workshop- seeing the first lines of a sketch, as if the artist set down his tools and went to lunch- is more evocative than seeing the completed work.

After that we took a final stroll around the city. Walking around and soaking up the atmosphere is one of our great pleasures on these trips, as well as noting the details of architecture and scenery that tell us we're Not From Around Here. For example, one of the things I always notice is the ubiquitous flint, seen everywhere from the gravel on the ground to the walls and buildings:

It especially sticks out because flint is not especially common in New England, and in my youthful rock-hunting days, I spent quite a long time searching for a piece for my rock collection. It's quite distinctive-looking, so seeing it everywhere in southern England never fails to strike me as alien and odd.

By this time we were starting to think about dinner, and hadn't spotted any restaurants that especially enticed us. Before catching our train, we took one final walk up to the site of Hyde Abbey, where King Alfred the Great is supposed to have been buried. We found only the tiny church of St. Bartholomew's, and the Hyde Church Path, tucked in between blocks of houses:

We didn't miss seeing Alfred himself, however, as he presides over The Broadway:

And from there we caught a train to London, and our hotel and ultimately to Persian food for dinner before calling it a day.

Day Three: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Palace

2011-06-22T21:31:00.000-04:00

This is the latest entry in a series of posts on my vacation trip last month. The prior posts were:
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires
Day Two: Eccentric Ramblings

Sunday May 22

Sunday was the day we’d intended to visit Blenheim Palace, a journey that turned out to be filled with delays minor and major. The plan was to rent bicycles and ride to the palace, which is a modest 8 miles or so from Oxford.

Our first setback came when we got up to find rain showers passing overhead. It wasn’t much, but riding in the wet isn’t fun, and we had some time before we expected the bike rental (‘cycle hire’ in English English) establishment to be open, so we hung out at the B&B until it passed.

We only needed one bike, because we had the one our friend Gary had arranged for us to borrow, so we walked up to the Broad, to the cycle rental place outside the tourist information center. There we discovered that it being Sunday, there was no one in sight. We never ascertained whether they weren’t open on Sunday or if they opened later, because we decided to walk to Walton St. Cycles, another cycle shop we’d spotted in Jericho, which we knew had Sunday hours. We arrived in good time, but they weren’t open until 10 AM, so we did have to wait. In the meantime the skies continued to clear.

Finally with wheels, we set out for Blenheim in the small village of Woodstock. JT had brought excellent maps of the cycle route, and it proved to be well marked- partially following surface roads, and partly on dedicated cycle paths:

We were still 2-3 miles short of our goal when the loaner bike got a flat tire.

Now, three miles isn’t a particularly long walk by our standards, but the real issue was time. Walking takes longer than bicycling. And we’d started later than we wanted. After some discussion, we decided that returning to Oxford to get another bicycle or fix the flat would take so long we wouldn’t get to Blenheim in time to see anything. So we continued with JT walking and me riding very slowly. On the plus side, it gave me ample opportunity to enjoy the wildflowers, which were quite delightful.

By the time we reached Blenheim it was time for lunch. Fortunately no self-respecting major tourist attraction in the UK fails to have a café, so we were able to enjoy hearty chicken curry sandwiches and a nice cold drink before proceeding on to view the Palace.

Blenheim Palace was originally a gift of the crown to John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, to recognize his military triumph at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704. It was intentionally designed to be monumental- well, see for yourself:

I think they succeeded.

In addition to being a rare surviving example of English Baroque architecture, Blenheim is also known as the birthplace of the most famous of the Churchill clan, Winston Churchill. They had a modest exhibit on Winston, focused mainly on his years at Blenheim palace (for a much more in depth look at this fascinating character, the Churchill Museum adjacent to the Cabinet War Rooms in London is the place to go).

Only a small section of the main house was open to the public-which still gave us quite a lengthy tour of the extremely handsome public rooms, filled with priceless antiques, china, tapestry and of course magnificent decor. A second section of the house had a multimedia presentation on the history of the house and its owners. When the house was originally conceived, it was to be a gift of the nation—which was fine as long as John Churchill and his wife remained on good terms with the queen. Following a falling out, funding became much more irregular, and the house was not completed until years after Churchill’s death. The up and down finances of the subsequent owners make it quite remarkable that the house has continued to remain in the hands of the same family (the present owner is the 11th Duke). Today, while still a residence, it is the site of a variety of business and tourist activities. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

After the tours, we took a brief stroll down toward the monument-

And also finally found a site where I could get most of the house in the frame for a photo (that’s the one above). The grounds are famous in and of themselves, landscaped by Capability Brown. He dammed a stream to form the picturesque lake and rearranged the terrain on a scale as vast as the palace itself to sculpt a fitting setting. With gorgeous results, in a slightly-too-cultivated-to-be-true sort of way:

We would have liked to explore further, but all the morning’s delays had finally caught up with us. JT went off to see if he could find a better place to leave his defunct wheels than the palace bike park (he couldn’t) and a bus back to Oxford (he could). I hopped on my rental bike and retraced our route of the morning at the best speed I could, so as to get the bike back to the rental shop before they closed. The ride was very enjoyable despite being a little rushed, and not much to my surprise, I was back in Oxford with time to spare. JT’s journey was equally efficient- we had planned to meet back at the bed and breakfast, but in fact found each other at an intersection a couple of blocks away.

We then conducted a quick international logistical discussion via Skype with our friend Gary to determine the best way to get his bike back to him, and arranged to mail the keys to the bike lock to his friends in Oxford so either he or they could retrieve it.

Dinner was an interesting pizza at Fire and Stone, and afterward we walked up the east side of the Cherwell, admiring the scenery and finding St. Clement’s church, glowing in the soft evening light—

—and a family of ducks, out for their own evening constitutional:

With the light fading on our last day in Oxford, we reluctantly headed back, with a brief stop at a pub for cider, and er, other bodily needs.

This was our second visit to Oxford, and it remains on the list of cities I’d love to go back to. In a country full of beautiful walks, Oxford still shines.

Day Two: Eccentric Ramblings

2011-06-15T12:20:00.002-04:00

This is the latest entry in a series of posts on my vacation trip last month. The prior posts were:
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires

Saturday, May 21:
The morning started with English breakfast; eggs, lovely English bacon, grilled tomato, beans, grilled mushrooms, toast and tea. After breakfast we took another stroll, this time along the canal while waiting for things to open. The day was fair, with plenty of sun and only a few clouds. The walks along the water are one of the most delightful things about Oxford—between the Thames and Cherwell rivers and the canals, they are quite numerous, and everything is wonderfully green. Wild irises and other flowers line the banks, and trees shade the paths.

Some paths border fields or greenspace, while others run behind rows of houses, each with its own tiny patch of garden. Many of these have been filled with colorful flowers and lovingly maintained:

and the even ordinary streets are often picturesque and charming.

At ten, the Oxford History of Science Museum opened. It might more properly be called the museum of scientific instruments—they had on display a staggering array of astrolabes, surveying and drawing tools, maps and globes, microscopes and telescopes, orreries and artillery aids. There were instruments for drawing sundials and instruments for navigation. Many of these were donated over the years to the Royal Society. The precision and beauty of these has to be seen to be appreciated—some were brass, stone, wood or ivory; others were made of precious metals, and all crafted with as keen an eye to grace and beauty as to function.

The theme of the special exhibition was 'Eccentricity'. It was designed to allow the museum to put on exhibit some of the odder pieces in their collections. So they chose articles that were either themselves oddities in the museum, or items belonging to eccentric individuals or both. Thus we got to see Chinese typewriters (with thousands of characters), the hat and sword Guglielmo Marconi wore to a coronation, a very early transceiver that was intended for use in a lifeboat, examples of ornamental turnings made by notable gardener and wood-turner Ellen Ann Wilmott, and other odd items.

We went back to the covered market to have lunch, and enjoyed meat pies (one of those ideal quick meals you just don't readily find in the US), and then strolled out back through town toward Christchurch.

It had not escaped our notice that this was May 21, the day prophesied to be the end of the world by unscrupulous and or deluded religious whackos. We kept a sharp eye out for any signs, but aside from a student we observed laying out a full set of clothes including shoes on the grass and photographing it, with clearly satirical intent, there was no evidence of imminent catastrophe.

The Christchurch meadow is a large park, with paths leading around it in various directions. We took yet another canal path, lined with strollers observing the ducks and scenic punters. (The punters all seemed to be of at least moderate skill, which made them scenic rather than hilarious. Just as well, as I imagine the water is still rather chilly. I didn't check.)

The were also several species of ducks, geese and swans, and other wild birds. The path leisurely followed the curve of the canal, then looped back around the pasture, where we saw some of the college's Longhorn cattle, (an antique English breed, not the Texan-style steer).

Back outside the tourist information booth, we met our guide for the Inspector Morse tour. For those who haven't encountered him, Inspector Morse was the protagonist of a series of thirteen mystery novels by Colin Dexter, and later adapted into a series of thirty-three films starring John Thaw as Inspector Morse. It also inspired a spinoff series, Inspector Lewis, starring Kevin Whately who played Morse's sidekick Lewis in the original series. Most of the Morse episodes feature wonderful views of Oxford landmarks (though much of the series was actually shot closer to London) but all the Inspector Lewis series is filmed in Oxford.

Our guide turned out to be very interesting- a retired television journalist, who had visited NH in the freezing months covering one of our presidential elections, a tremendous fan of the Morse books, naturally, and an Oxford resident who lives in the same neighborhood as Colin Dexter. He told us that Dexter, while retired from writing, is still active locally, and is currently working to protest library closures in Oxfordshire (the British having some of the same budget difficulties as everyone else). Also that Dexter shared Morse’s fondness for real ale. It was an excellent tour, with many locations from the television episodes and much Morse trivia discussed. We walked back through Queen’s College again, and also Lincoln College:

and the Oxford Union:

After the tour, we walked up St. Giles street and circled around through the neighborhoods to the north of the city. We returned through Jericho, and chose an Indian restaurant more or less at random. (Jamal’s, I think), which was excellent, though we underestimated the portion sizes and wound up quite thoroughly stuffed.

The evening being so pleasant, we decided to continue walking, and went south, crossing the Thames, and up Binsey Lane which parallels the river. We went as far as The Perch, another haunt of Inspector Morse in fiction, and a favorite pub in real life of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and their friends.

Then we picked up the Thames path and walked back along the river to our lodgings as the sun finally retired for the day, enjoying the quiet and lovely scenery.

Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires

2011-06-10T22:42:00.000-04:00

This is the second entry in a series of posts on my vacation trip last month. The first post was:
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Friday, May 20

We arrived in Heathrow, and proceeded through customs with fair speed despite moderately long lines, caught the Heathrow Express (which we highly recommend for speed, convenience and ease of handling luggage), and emerged at Paddington. Paddington Station is one of my favorites for the graceful ironwork that ornaments the big windows at the end of the station. The next train to our destination, Oxford, wasn't for half an hour or so, so we took a turn around the station to stretch our legs before coming back in to catch the train.

It was here for the first time (and not the last that day) that we congratulated ourselves for confining our baggage to what we could put in backpacks. We'll have to do laundry on the trip (for preference one of the numerous 'wash and fold' services available in London) but it means that we can walk with baggage in fair comfort. I still use the ancient framed pack my mother bought me at a yard sale as a teenager, and it remains perfectly serviceable despite thirty-odd years of intermittent use.

The day was fair- sunny with puffy white Constable clouds ornamenting the sky, and not a hint of rain in the forecast. I dozed on the train- fortunately JT stayed awake, or this might be the account of how we got back from entirely the wrong place! But we alighted in Oxford at about lunch time and made our way to the tourist information booth, with the intention of booking a tour. By the time we got there and obtained tickets, the tour was imminent so we forewent lunch in favor of getting oriented to the city. The tour was the University and City tour and took us from Broad Street ('The Broad') through the center of town, by the Hall of Ceremony, where students at the University have their Matriculation and graduation ceremonies, and on to Queen's College and to Wadham College.

Looking past the Radcliffe Camera at the dreaming spires.

The best description of the colleges is to look at the photos. The architecture- while varied in detail, has a pleasing uniformity due to the distinctive gold Cotswold limestone used in its construction. The colleges are often organized around a handsome green, the sort of lovely lawn you can only get from centuries of careful cultivation and rolling.

They also often had lovely gardens:

I found out on the tour something I hadn't realized, which was that the colleges, while all voluntarily associated with the University, are administratively separate, and that joint decision-making is done in a sort of committee arrangement. My mind boggled! Some of my academic friends have told me about the administrative struggles in universities which are all nominally a single hierarchical organization!

Our tour ended at the covered market, a pleasant arrangement of shops, purveyors of various foodstuffs and small restaurants. We marked it down as a location of interest, and proceeded to our lodgings.

We were staying in a very nice bed and breakfast, Becket House, near the train station. We checked in and found that our friend Gary (who spends a lot of time in Oxford, though he wasn't here at the same time as we were), had arranged for a friend to drop off his bicycle for us to use.

We dropped off our packs with some pleasure—we'd been carrying our luggage all day—and went almost immediately back out to find some dinner. We didn't go far, but settled on a gourmet burger place we'd observed earlier.

At this point, JT was still wanting to walk, but I was full of food and about to fall asleep on my feet. Back at the hotel, I checked email and attempted to start this trip diary....and the next thing I knew, JT was (with considerable difficulty) shaking me awake so I could actually shut down the computer and go to bed. I did so and and slept like the dead for the next twelve hours.

JT told me later that he'd come in, and said my name quite loudly. Then shaken me. Then rapped his knuckles smartly on my forehead. I remained deeply asleep. Then he tried to at least shift me aside (I was sprawled diagonally across the bed in front of the computer) so he could get in. As I am, let us say, sturdily built, this proved quite difficult. So he was forced to resort to shaking me and talking until it finally penetrated. I expect I will be hearing this story for many years.

Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

2011-06-10T22:22:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's that time again, when I relieve my vacation virtually and take all my e-pals along for the ride. If you're not a fan of travelogue, stop back in a few days, when we'll have returned to our usual fiber content.

Thursday, May 19

We had a later flight than usual, leaving around 11 pm, so we tried yet another logistical iteration in our eternal quest to arrive in England with at least some sleep. We got up as early as possible- at 5 am in my case- so as to assure we would sleep on the plane. Additionally, I tried to eat my meals on a UK schedule, as my digestion is often confused and upset by the time change.

I'm happy to say that this method worked brilliantly for me. I was yawning by the time we went through security, and as soon as I settled into my seat on the plane, I wrapped up in a blanket, tucked a pillow under my cheek, and was asleep before we took off. By prearrangement, JT waved off any attempt to give me dinner, and I slept most of the flight. Mind you, it wasn't great sleep, sitting in an airline seat, but it was far better than I'd ever achieved before.

Alas, but JT did not have the same good fortune. He always has trouble sleeping on planes and while he did manage over two hours, he was significantly tireder coming out. It's clear that the method we tried last trip works best for him- to sleep as late as possible the day we fly, and resign himself to not sleeping on the flight. The sleep he gets in the morning is just way more restful for him.

The really unfair part is that I'm the one who can peacefully knit or read for hours and enjoy the opportunity to do nothing else, whereas he's the one who finds travel boring. However, at least we have at last figured out the optimal methods for both of us, and these will no doubt be of great utility on future trips.

Other than our scientific evaluation of optimal sleeping strategies, the flight was completely uneventful, just the way we like it. And when we arrived...but that's tomorrow.

I've Been Holding Out on You

2011-06-01T07:29:00.000-04:00

Late Monday night we flew back from our vacation trip to England. A lovely time was had, cream teas were consumed, miles of footpaths were hiked, many photographs were taken. I'll be posting more about that (lots more!) later this week.

I took yarn for two pairs of socks, which was wildly optimistic when the first pair was lace, but hey, we could have been stranded by an Icelandic volcano! (That would have been terrible, but we would have managed to cope somehow. Possibly by visiting Cornwall.)

These are the ribbed lace socks from Sensational Knitted socks. Which I thought were kind of 'eh', until I saw Toni's yellow pair. At which point I realized they'd be perfect for the merino-tencel I had in the sock yarn stash. And so they are. The yarn is hand-dyed from Minds Eye Yarns in Cambridge, colorway New Jeans.

We arrived home to find that warm weather had finally arrived, my nasturtiums are growing like weeds, the weeds are growing faster, and the lawn was nearly up to our knees. The cats were well-cared for by our friend Sarah, and were largely indifferent to our return. Their reaction can be summed up as, 'Hey, it's you...how about some food? And where did the nice girl with the toys go?' Sarah apparently twitched, whirled and dragged cat toys until her arms about fell off.

So yesterday I fed cats, swept, mowed, cleaned, did laundry, cursed the weeds, restocked groceries, and we started the pool opening. We have a zillion people coming on Saturday and it would be nice if the pool were some other color than brown (note- after liberal application of dangerous chemicals, it's now more like cloudy- a vast improvement). A working pump would be nice too. I haven't decided whether to try taking it apart or just apply money to the problem. In view of the age of the pump, I suspect that replacing it is going to be plan A.

But first I have to go back to work and see how deep the piles are there. If I haven't come back by Saturday, send rescue parties. With yarn. I'll need it.

Thought for the Day

2011-05-28T16:30:00.000-04:00

It would be so much more useful, when knitting the first row after the cast on, if I would do so with the end of the yarn attached to the skein, rather than the long-tailed cast off end. Twenty-seven years I've been knitting, and I still do this.

Socked In

2011-05-19T08:57:00.003-04:00

I've decided that it is officially the coldest, wettest, nastiest spring in the History of Robin. We're in for another uninspiring day of drizzle interspersed with episodes of pouring rain. It's enough to make a person grow mold.

Fortunately, cuddling up in a pile of yarn is a pretty good antidote for that sort of thing, and what could be toastier than handknit socks?

This pair of twin rib socks was cast on back in March. These were the ones I started in a herringbone pattern I eventually decided wasn't simple enough for good travel knitting, frogged and reknit in something I could remember without a pattern. I've knit several other pairs of socks in twin rib, and so when other easily portable projects like hats and mittens came along, it got pushed aside. But finally got some attention last week, and I finished knitting them over the weekend.

And since I'd been poking around in the sock yarn barrel, I'd been reminded that I'd picked up more yarn to feed my brother-in-law's red wool sock addiction. So I cast on a pair of those Sunday morning. And here they are.

Gotta love worsted weight for socks. Only 52 stitches around, and the larger row gauge just seems to make them fly.

So now the question on my mind is, what next? Another pair of red socks for sure. (I'm casting them on as I blog.) And I've been dying to try the merino tencel sock yarn I picked up a while ago, so that's a strong possibility. I'm hoping to get some time to do some sums and choose patterns for the gansey. That's been sitting way too long waiting for design time. I've got a simple ribbed hat on the needles, just to make sure I've got something easy ready to travel. And then then I'm screwing up my nerve to try intarsia.

One thing's for sure...I'm not leaving my pile of yarn until the sun comes out.

Meet the Stash

2011-05-14T15:09:00.000-04:00

Well, Toni has showed us hers. (Bravely done, Toni! ) so I figured it might be a good idea to get mine out in the open. For one thing, I've been catching myself thinking, Oh it's only three bags--oops, forgot the baby yarn. I’m pretty sure losing track of how much yarn you have is one of your seven early warning signs your stash might be on the verge of going critical. (I'm not sure what the other six are, but maybe Toni can enlighten us.)

Plus, hauling things out of closets is intensely interesting for the cats.

So- in downstairs stash (okay, stashing in more than one location- that's probably another one), we have the bag of wool on the right, the bag of acrylic on the left, and the canister of sock yarn in the center. The wool bag includes all the sport weight wool for the gansey-in-progress.

I'm actually kind of pleased because earlier this year I had *two* bags that size of acrylic, and one of them was emptied and is now being used for finished knitted items awaiting donation! Really, I don't need to have this much acrylic on hand. So I’ve been working on knitting it down. And speaking of things awaiting donation, here's some more acrylic which has been converted to mittens:

There's also a knitting basket (not pictured) with a few odd skeinlets in it, and of course my knitting bag, which has various things in progress.

In upstairs stash, we have the baby yarn- I've been trying to put a dent in this with the mitred square blanket, but in such a light weight, it's taking forever. And in the adjoining bags we have more of the blue and yellow acrylic I've already made two sweaters from (there's enough for at least one more here, and something less than a sweater. Maybe a shrug or a vest. Those were given to me. And then two more sweaters' worth of yarn that I bought just before my mom's friends destashed the other two bags in my direction.

So, it's seven bags. That's not so much, is it? (Warning sign number 3?)

Don't Sit in the Comfy Chair

2011-05-10T23:25:00.001-04:00

As I was driving home from karate practice last night, I was thinking of things that I needed to do when I got home. After karate is generally a good time to do things- I tend to feel more energetic after practice, so I try to knock off a household chore or three before I settle down with a book. Now there is always a long list of things that I want to do at home. And as I contemplated my mental list with some irritation, I asked myself a very simple question. What point is there in being annoyed at things not being done, when the reason they aren't done is I'm not doing them?

I want to be very clear- this isn't a spousal dispute. My delightful spouse does his share of the chores, and with better grace than I do. The kind of chores that are bugging me are ironing the pile of (my) clothes that have been sitting up in the sewing room for...um, a while. Mending the two or three items that have been waiting for attention even longer. Not being able to sew because the sewing room is full of crap. The piles of clutter that are sitting in the living room where I dumped them because it was less trouble than putting them away properly. Collecting tools left all around the house because I didn't put them away in the workshop downstairs when I was through with them. Not being able to find tools I need because I left them all around the house instead of putting them away in the workshop where they belonged. Having materials for multiple projects sitting around waiting for me to get a Round Tuit.

The solution to this is pretty simple, too. Don't sit down. Especially don't sit down somewhere comfortable. That's a surefire route to picking up a book or my knitting and spending the rest of the evening in an immobile lump, excepting only the flip of pages or the click of needles. Pure basic physics-- a body at rest tends to remain at rest. (Especially if it's my body.)

You'd think that by my age, I'd have figured out that pleasant diversions need to be balanced by some picking-up-and-putting-away, and that making a list of projects needs to be followed by some doing-of-projects or the list just gets overwhelmingly long.

Hopefully writing it down on the blog will help me to remember.

Last night, I made a start. I stayed on my feet. Picked up, cleaned up. Washed my raincoat and winter coat (something I've been telling myself to do for a while- they were disgusting). Cleared off the ironing board, ironed, and did the fifteen minutes of mending needed to get things out of the sewing room and back into the closet. Put tools in the basement. Paid a couple of bills.

It's never a surprise to me how much better I feel after having done this stuff. Now I just have to remember how to do it more regularly. Stay out of the comfy chair. At least until chores are done.

Biscuit's only chore is being a cat, which he does just as well in a comfy chair as anywhere else.

Exceptionally Randomly on a Friday

2011-05-06T20:37:00.001-04:00

*I have set up a kind of Darwinian flowerbed cage match in my side yard, planting anything I could find that's supposed to do well in shade in an attempt to find something flowery that will grow there.

*Smart money is on the nasturtiums.

*I felt very smug at the gas station this morning, watching people spending a hundred dollars or more to fuel their massive SUVs and pickups.

*And even smugger when I remembered my faithful little compact station wagon has been paid for since 2002.

*And smugger yet, when I reflected we saved an additional 94 miles of driving this week by carpooling. (15.7 miles each way, whenever I drop my husband at the train station instead of us driving separately.)

*I keep seeing references to the book/movie "Water for Elephants" (which I have not seen). Every time, it reminds me of a prior book/movie, "Like Water for Chocolate" (which I also haven't seen) and I somehow merge the two and get bizarre images of chocolate elephants flashing through my brain.

*Who knew there were so many photos in Google Images of chocolate elephants?

*The short row heel has many benefits, but a few minutes of inattention can still bollix it up something fierce. Even if you've knit dozens of them before.

*However, knitting dozens of short row heels does mean you have a shot at fixing it without ripping the whole thing out.

*Though you may need to try a couple of times before fixing it right.

*I have never before known a cat who comes quietly up behind you, stretches up, and pats you on the rear to let you know that he is hungry.

*I want to know who ordered more rainy cold March weather. It was bad enough when it actually happened in March. In May, I want to find out if there is a returns policy.

*Thick and Quick chenille makes charming and very fast scarves. (I knit both of these last Saturday.) I wore the black one to work Monday, and was very glad to have it- I cuddled into it all day against the chill of my office.

*Yes, I really do think like this. Don't feel bad if you have trouble following it, I often have to pause and retrace a train of thought through a dozen steps to figure out how I got from the weather to chocolate elephants myself.

Mighty Hunters

2011-04-29T07:41:00.002-04:00

Since the weather has suddenly turned warm enough to open doors and windows, the cats have a compelling new hobby, watching the 'out', now with interesting smells and outdoor breezes.

This morning they're teaming up, though they quite often choose vantage points on opposite sides of the house, to cover all approaches.

As you may remember, Cookie proved his prowess not long after coming to live with us by stalking and killing a mouse who foolishly did not take the advent of a cat as an eviction notice. (It's so gratifying...I haven't heard so much a single scamper in the walls in months.)

Biscuit, on the other hand, is happy enough to watch wildlife but has had little opportunity inside the house, though he did find a lady-beetle last week that was good for half-an-hour of entertainment before he finally ate it. With every evidence of enjoyment.

So yesterday morning when I heard a buzz, and saw Biscuit go racing to the window, I thought, "Oh, good, a fly." I figured it would be a little fast for him, but I could go after it with a flyswatter when he got tired of it. But in minutes, he had it slowed down to toy speed, and was chasing it across the floor- which is when I got a good look at it, and realized what he had was a quite large wasp! I dropped my knitting and leapt up from the couch, seizing a magazine and beat it until it stopped moving. (I don't like wasps. I'm not phobic, but I've been stung several times over the years and it is never a good time. A good wasp is a dead wasp.)

Biscuit wasn't stung, so I can only assume that his impressive volume of fluff protected him. He was a little disappointed that I put an end to his fun, but being a cat of little brain, he got over it fast, and enjoyed the praise and pettings he got in compensation. His victory roll:

It proved so comfy he just hung out there for a while, or at least until Cookie came along and sniffed his belly, and he wisely decided curl up before he got pounced on.

Honestly- mice are pesky but fairly rare...bugs, on the other hand, get in all the time. I'm pretty pleased to have a Fearsome Bug-Slayer in the house!

Things That Have Entertained Me in the Last Week or So

2011-04-27T07:40:00.000-04:00

1. A red colorwork hat, as usual, made up as I went along.

2. Mittens- these completely used up the gray and the red. I'm starting to feel like my stash is stabilizing rather than burgeoning out of control.

3. Two red hats:

I like them so much that I'm keeping one- finally, I'll have a hat that doesn't clash violently with my red winter coat!

4. My car no longer has a giant hole rusted through the exhaust, and therefore passed inspection (the second time).

5. The new cat (the lamp-shaped one). This was a gift from my sister Kate. The real cats thought it was very interesting.

6. Outstanding chocolate cake, warmed for 15 seconds in the microwave, just until the frosting starts to melt, and accompanied by a tall glass of cold milk. (Thanks, Mom!)

7. Daffodils! Blooming in my front yard! Spring doesn't actually feel like it's put in an appearance yet, but at least it's sending advance scouts.

Where Was I?

2011-04-17T23:28:00.002-04:00

Oh, yes, knitting Thorpe hats. The last couple of weeks have been exceedingly busy on the employment front (in a good way, I hasten to add, but it has kept me hopping). And in the evenings I have come home to sink into the couch with a cat and a pile of yarn, and very little inclination to stare into a computer, hence the lack of blogging.

However, there are crafting highlights- when I left you, I thought I felt another Thorpe hat coming on, and so I did:

The crucial breakthrough was remembering that I could substitute doubled worsted weight for bulky yarn. Also that pairing a strand of white and another color gives one that attractive tweedy effect.

After that, my non-work involved brain cells dwindled to the point where a garter stitch scarf seemed like a good idea::

I'd been wanting to try a short-row scarf for a while, and it seemed like a fun way to jazz up some of my odd partial skeins of bulky weight. Wait, you're thinking. Wasn't I just saying I didn't have enough bulky weight? Well. This is a bulky weight bouclé, and while it's very soft and appealing, the nubbly texture tends to swallow up shaping or even stripes. So I've been doing mostly either plain hats or berets, or scarves with it. I quite like the slanted effect- I may well do another one.

And last but not least, I've returned to colorwork. I was having withdrawal symptoms. You'll understand, I'm sure. Just a little hat to take the edge off. (The fact that I cast on another colorwork hat straight after it shows that it might not have taken the edge off enough.)

And lest you think that I haven't moved from the couch...we have been trying to get our feet in shape for the summer walking season. Two weeks ago we went nine miles (and got rather wet, due to a sudden shower), last week was a more modest six miles for lack of time, and today we went thirteen miles on the local bike path. It's a lovely path, leading out through woods and fields. There are some gorgeous wetlands, and for quite a distance it follows the Nashua River.

Despite the warmer weather, you have to look quite closely for signs of spring. Most of the trees are still bare, and the woods are still lying quiescent. But there are small signs appearing; an occasional bush with a hint of green, reeds and water plants in the low-lying areas. And at home there are flowering bushes starting to bud, my forsythia has just barely started to bloom and the rhubarb is uncrumpling its first leaves. Spring. Coming to a neighborhood near me. Real Soon Now.

I'm So Proud

2011-04-07T23:12:00.000-04:00

The other day my husband came home and said, "I saw a woman sitting and knitting socks at the train station today. In self-patterning yarn."

"Cool," I said, nodding.

"I've been around knitting long enough, I guess."

"Hmm?" I said encouragingly, counting stitches.

"Well, I not only recognized what she was doing," he explained, sounding rather surprised at himself. "But I also recognized the sort of yarn she had."

"Were they toe-up or cuff-down?" I asked.

He thought for a moment, then answered confidently. "Toe-up."

He's going to learn to knit in spite of himself, I swear.

Biscuit and Cookie have continued as happy playmates. The other day, they both cuddled up side by side. On my favorite polar fleece jacket. No wonder it looks more like a cat fur jacket most of the time. (Before you ask, I didn't throw it on the floor- it was over the back of a chair when I set it down. How it got on the floor, I couldn't say. But I don't think it was an accident.)

Which is not to say that all is sunshine and kittens. Biscuit has continued to wander the house meowing in the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes he's looking for Cookie (in which case the meowing is followed by a thunder of paws racing around the house, interspersed with mysterious thumps, sounds of things being knocked over, and the occasional yell when someone nips too hard). And sometimes Biscuit just seems to want people to Do Something Interesting. He hasn't quite figured out yet that what he tends to get under these circumstances is a human who scoops him up and banishes him to the sun porch, where he can talk indefinitely without waking us up. But then we've concluded that figuring things out is definitely not Biscuit's strong suit. For example, here he has failed to figure out that there is a mouse on his head.

What? Why is everyone looking at me?

And in knitting news, I took a break from knitting mittens only to be caught by a hat pattern. It's the Thorpe hat. It's a fast knit and very charming. I cast on one Friday, finished it Saturday, cast on another Saturday, finished Sunday...at that point I wanted to knit one in a different color, but I've got almost no suitable bulky weight besides the red at the moment. So I converted the pattern for worsted weight, of which I have a plenitude, and improvised some colorwork. Thanks to the vicissitudes of employment, I didn't finish the third one until today.

Here they are, in all their FO-ness:

Such delightfully cozy earflaps and cute little braided ties...I may have another one coming on.

April Fools

2011-04-01T08:34:00.002-04:00

Alas, it is not that I play a joke on you, dear readers, but that Mother Nature has played a joke on me. Happy Spring, everyone:

Yes, that is my backyard this morning.

And while I'm posting (and since I'm feeling alliterative), I will also show you my myriad mittens:

Last night I finished the last pair, got everything labeled with size, fiber content and washing instructions, and decided that I should either have a wee lie-down, or else knit something else next. So I did both-cast on a hat and went to bed.

This morning (at far too early an hour) Biscuit was experiencing a state of general unspecified wantingness that manifested as roaming the house, meowing piteously. I tried food, water, an excursion onto the sun porch, patting, brushing etc. He liked all of these. However it was only when the humans ceased trying to lie down in a boring fashion and got up to add scenic interest to the house that he was satisfied. I think he's now settled down for a nice sleep- he's had a busy morning. And I'm about to have a busier one, as it is time for me to swallow the last of my badly needed caffeine and brave the roads. Hasta luego, amigos!

Ordinary Days

2011-03-30T10:01:00.001-04:00

It's been the sort of week when I think- 'gee, I should write a blog entry, but there's nothing going on'. Which of course isn't true at all, as there's always something going on, but mostly it's pretty low key. Which is good, really. I enjoy it. It's just that excitement makes for more interesting blog entries. So, let's see what's been happening.

-I've been knitting mittens. There really isn't a lot to say besides that.

-I've also been knitting the back of the gansey. I've traversed approximately 11 inches of fine-gauge stockinette with another four or five to go before anything interesting happens. No photo- you can go look at the last one and picture it longer if you like.

- I'm still on a reading binge. Looking over the list, it's clear that Mike Brown may have to be let off the hook in favor of Donna Andrews. I started the month reading her first three Meg Langslow mysteries, and courtesy of the library I've just finished number 9. Three more to go before I'm caught up.

- I have dished out vast numbers of meals for cats. It's gotten so we number them. Jonathan: "Cookie! Good boy! You're very affectionate. Are you looking for dinner?" Me: "He seemed to really like first dinner and second dinner, but I think he's jonesing for third dinner." Jonathan: "Ah." What makes this amusing of course is that as often as not Cookie succeeds in conning a third meal from my softhearted husband. Besides, if he doesn't get his own food, he just eats Biscuit's.

-Biscuit is not nearly so stomach-oriented as Cookie. While Cookie is diving into the food dish in the morning, Biscuit will sit at my feet looking up wistfully until I stop and pat him and scratch under his chin. Preferably for quite a long time. While this is adorable, I do monitor the food situation pretty closely to be sure Biscuit is actually getting anything to eat.

-I felt unreasonably organized and pleased with myself when I got in the car this morning and realized I was starting my longest driving day of the week with a full tank of gas. Before I got too smug, I reflected that my method of tidying the coffeetable consisted of restacking the magazines so they'd stop sliding off onto the floor, and shoveling random skeins of yarn back into my knitting bag. Okay, it's useful, but not such a vast difference I should be congratulating myself.

-We took our first long walk of the year Sunday down in Andover MA. It was sunny but very windy and cold. Despite this, I spied my first crocuses of the season. The town is upscale and quite pretty, with lots of nice old houses and a pricy and very attractive private prep school at its center. We stopped and walked around their small but lovely (and newly renovated) art museum, which I quite recommend. And also checked out the Andover Bookstore, their lovely independant bookstore. I brought the camera but then forgot it in the car, so I can't actually show it to you.

-We've been plotting our vacation trips for this year. We quite enjoy visiting places that we've read about or seen on television, so we've been doing research. After extensive watching of British mystery DVDs, we've determined that Oxford is probably safe (we aren't academics, nor do do we have illicit Oedipal relationships- we've determined that these are the key factors in becoming murder victims on Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis). However, we may want to stay out of English villages altogether, as Midsomer Murders has shown us they are positive hotbeds of crime and villainy. Anyone got any good fiction (or non-fiction) recommendations for Bristol, Canterbury or Dover?

I Blame Mike Brown

2011-03-22T21:59:00.000-04:00

Okay, so it's not actually Mike's fault. Mike did not make me buy a whole stack of used books in Dallas (we shipped them home, they arrived last week). Mike's book wasn't even one of the ones from Dallas, it was loaned to me over the weekend. Mike did not make me shove the knitting to one side so that I could read book after book after book like a junkie going after the latest fix (that's 9 books in the last 7 days, for the record). I never said it was his fault, I said that I'm blaming him.

See, last night, when I had intended write a blog post, I found myself with Mike's book in my hands. And I could have put it down- in fact I did put it down- to eat dinner, and then go to the library to return a DVD that was due back today. And then I got back home and picked it right back up again. I ignored the dishes, forgot the laundry, and only absentmindedly rearranged my lap for the evening procession of cats (who inspected the lap and then went and curled up elsewhere, probably because I was too absorbed in reading to Properly Attend the Cat).

Not that they were especially distressed. Cookie went and struck a goofy pose on the floor:

And Biscuit ensconced himself comfortably in the castle and enjoyed the view:

Where was I? ...oh, yes, the book. The book is How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown. He's an astronomer at Caltech, and the book is a charming mixture of astronomic history and biography levened with a generous dose of humor. It explains what astronomers, do, why it's exciting, and delves into the controversy over de-planeting Pluto, and yes, Mike Brown's part in its murder. Admittedly, I have both an interest in and more than a general grounding in science, but I think that this is accessible enough that anyone would find it fun. And while I'm still mildly inclined to say grumpily, "When I was a girl, we had nine planets.", his arguments against Pluto do make sense. I highly recommend it.

So, you're wondering, has there been any knitting at all? Well, some. There's this nice soft ribbed hat, destined for the 'give away' pile.:

And these mittens, also destined for recipients unknown:

And in a fit of ambition (between books) on the weekend, I swatched with the blue yarn my mom and I dyed, and discovered somewhat to my dismay that the yarn really wants to be knit on US size 2 needles. At which I said, and I quote, "Urk!" And then did the math and cast on for a largish sweater. On size 2 needles:

The plan for this sweater is that it's going to be a gansey (or Jersey or Guernsey, choose your spelling) style affair- the sort of thing that will be light and warm, and yet not add excessive bulk to the figure of a gentleman friend who is perhaps a tad sensitive about a certain middle-agedness in his midsection.

As for the pattern-- well, I know what the bottom half looks like- ribbing (which I couldn't resist throwing a few little cables into, just for fun) and then miles and miles and miles of stockinette. Then a change to light patterning just below the armscyes. The actual patterning... is TBD. I have a book of traditional patterns, which has given me a few ideas, and I figure I'll have plenty of time knitting stockinette to think about the patterning before I get there. Plenty of time....did I mention this sweater is going to have 300 stitches around the chest? On size 2 needles. I think I'll blame the size 2 needles on Mike, too.

Helpful

2011-03-15T22:35:00.001-04:00

It's been busy in the knit department. At the end of last week, I once again woke up to realize that I was going to be seeing my mother-in-law Saturday, and would have a chance to give her her scarf, if only it were done. So I hustled through the last few repeats, despite determined feline 'assistance'. Biscuit's turning out to be a wonderful little helper. For example, here he is, helping me brush my teeth:

I finished the last blessed row of tulips late Friday evening, but was determined to block it before I went to bed. Under the circumstances, I figured that soaking the scarf in a bowl in the kitchen was the best plan (or at least more likely to let me defend the project from curious paws) . Biscuit and Cookie both watched me block it, since anything happening in the sewing room is Keenly Interesting.

It blocked beautifully:

And it dried overnight (okay, it was a bit damp at the edges, but it dried completely in the car) and I wove in the ends on our way west. My mother-in-law was gratifyingly pleased with it.

We had a delightful day in western MA- in addition to visiting, there was a large maple-drenched brunch at the South Hadley Sugar Shack, a stroll around Northampton enjoying the sunshine, and a superfluous but pleasurable browse through Webs (I was very restrained, out of consideration for the amount of yarn currently occupying my living room). And we finished the day with Mexican food before undertaking the long drive home.

With the scarf finally off the needles, I had some leisure to finish up both the cabled mitts and the latest hat. Biscuit likes the hat even more than the scarf- so much so that I had some difficulty in getting a picture:

But human guile prevailed in the end:

Garter rib hat with twisted rib border.

I'm now wallowing in my new yarn knitting up a few more hats and mittens before I cast on another big project. Not least because the cold I thought I had shaken before the Texas trip has wrapped another tentacle around my lungs, like the unkillable Creature from the Black Lagoon. The coughing- and resulting poor sleep- is not conducive to concentration on anything complicated. And the next streak of even moderate ambition I experience is going to be dedicated to sorting out tax paperwork. (Don't worry, I won't be posting pictures of that. Unless it has a cat sitting on it in a cute pose.)

Sporty Cabled Mitts

2011-03-14T22:10:00.002-04:00

I finished the mitts over the weekend, and since Lisa asked for the pattern, I thought I'd post it: (If you spot any errors or have any questions, please do let me know- this is only the second pattern I've ever written up- and I don't think anyone but me ever knit the first one!)

Gauge: Note that this design is super-stretchy, and should fit most adults even with some variation in stitch gauge.
Stitch gauge: 5.7 st/in in stockinette
Row gauge: not important.
Yarn weight: Sport
Needle size: US 3

Abbreviations:
K - knit
P - purl
M1 - make 1, create a new stitch by putting the left needle under the yarn between two stitches, lifting up, and then knitting or purling it through the back loop.

Cable chart:

Instructions (Right mitt):

1. Cast on 48 stitches, and join, being careful not to twist. Arrange on dpns with 24 stitches on needle 1, 12 each on needles 2 and 3. If knitting on two circulars or using magic loop, arrange with 24 stitches on each side.

2. Work in K2, P2 ribbing for 2 1/4 inches.

3. Begin patterning and thumb gusset:
Round 1: Work first row of cable chart across first 22 stitches, P2, M1 (purl), K2, M1(purl), continue in pattern to end of round.
Round 2: (and all even rounds): Knit the knit stitches and purl the purl stitches.

Continue knitting, following the pattern chart on the back of the hand increasing 1 stitch on each side of the thumb gusset every fourth row, maintaining the rib pattern. Use stitch markers if desired to mark the beginning and end of the gusset. (Note there will be two knit stitches- one rib- in between the first two increases...the gusset will be centered on that rib.)

Therefore, the increase rounds will look like:
Round 5. Work the fifth row of the pattern chart, P2, M1 (purl), P1, K2, P1 , M1(purl), continue in pattern to end of round.
Round 9. Work the ninth row of the pattern chart, P2, M1 (knit), P2, K2, P2, M1(knit), continue in pattern to end of round.
Round 13. Work the first row of the pattern chart, P2, M1 (knit), K1, P2, K2, P2, K1, M1(knit), continue in pattern to end of round.

Knit 2 1/2 repeats of the cable chart, ending on row 5 (Round 29)
Increase until there are 18 stitches in the thumb gusset (Round 29)
Knit one more round, knitting the knit stitches and purling the purl stitches.

4. Knitting the thumb cuff:
There there are two ways to go- put everything except the gusset stitches on stitch holders and work the thumb on four needles. Or do what I did (because I didn't have stitch holders with me) and put all the hand stitches on two of the needles and knit the thumb flat on the remaining two.
Method 1 (in the round): Distribute the gusset stitches on three needles, cast on two stitches across the gap. Knit 8 rounds in K2,P2 rib (or to desired length) and cast off.
Method 2 (flat): Cast on 1 stitch at each end of the thumb gusset. Knit 8 rows (or to desired length), cast off and sew up the thumb.

5. Finish knitting the hand:
Redistribute your stitches back over three needles, join the yarn to the right of the gusset, pick up and knit two stitches across the thumb, and continue in K2 P2 ribbing for 2 1/4 more inches (or to desired length).

6. Cast off and weave in ends.

7. Left mitt: Work as for right except when you begin working the patterning and thumb gusset; work first row of cable chart across first 22 stitches, (K2, P2) four times (16 stitches), M1 (purl), K2, M1(purl), P2.

Spring Fling

2011-03-09T23:33:00.002-05:00

Over the weekend, I was in Dallas for the North Texas Irish Festival. It's always a good time, but this year was a standout.

The weather was sunny and warm. There were green things growing. (I know you folks in warmer climes are puzzled, you have to understand that by March we're starting to forget what green looks like in New England.) I walked around without a jacket on. In short sleeves. That's not going to happen around here until probably the end of May. Here's a couple of photos- ignore the Texans with jackets. They didn't really need them. The photos just don't do justice to the size of the thing. We're talking in the neighborhood of 40,000 people.

The music- the music is always good there, but this year, it was amazing. Ten stages, over 50 groups. We saw Tommy Sands, who performed with his son and daughter, who were both excellent. We saw Altan. We basically rushed from stage to stage, trying to pack in as much music as humanly possible into the weekend. (As a side note for my fellow music fans- this festival is a really good deal. The festival ticket was $25. For the whole weekend. A concert ticket to see a single one of these groups one time would cost more. And it's not an expensive place to travel to or get lodging in, either.)

Of course, two 5 hour plane flights with attendant waiting in airports, not to mention listening to awesome music meant there was knitting. A lot of knitting. And there were odds and ends of things I did in the run up and time after to add to that. So.

I finished the red and black socks:

The red was Wildfoote from Brown Sheep Company in Geranium. The black was some leftover Trekking solid, which annoyingly I can't seem to find more of. A pity, as it was a very useful contrast color.

And then, because socks are such useful travel projects, I cast on another pair. These were supposed to be the Herringbone Rib socks, but after a lot of frustrating knitting, finding my stitch count off, ripping back, re-knitting, I finally concludes these were Not Suitable for Travel Knitting. I frogged the whole mess and cast on for my usual basic toe-up socks, in Twin Rib, which I know well enough to knit even with the distraction of world-class music and occasional hit and run Celtic step dancers. (They roamed the festival in pods, when they weren't performing, looking for groups playing lively instrumentals. The Energizer Bunny would be left choking the dust of these kids.) Anyway, the socks:

I finished the crocheted red beret to go with the red mittens and matching scarf, so here's the set:

I took a couple of balls of sport weight wool to Texas- it's a very pretty brown plied with strands of blue and gold. I don't like sport weight for mittens (unless they're colorwork, to double the thickness) but I thought that they might be just right for fingerless mitts. Of course I don't have a pattern for fingerless mitts in sport weight yarn, but that sort of thing has never stopped me before. I've knit so many mittens over the years that I have a pretty good grasp of proportions, so it was just a matter of adjusting for gauge. Also, I'd been wanting to try something that I'd seen Lynne from my knitting group doing, which was a mitt in 2x2 rib where the ribs flowed into a cable pattern and back out. However the ones I'd seen her doing were just tubes, and I have a strong preference for thumb gussets. So I started with her idea as inspiration, swatched for gauge, and cast on, essentially doodling in yarn. Here's the first draft:

These are perfectly functional mitts, the gussets work and they're comfortable. But there were still a few things I thought could be improved. So here's the second draft, still in process:

The most visible change is the addition of a second repetition of the cabling, which I think looks more balanced. I also made some small adjustments in the length of the cuff, and the number of stitches around the thumb, to tweak the fit a little. I'm quite pleased with the second version.

Then for my next trick...you didn't think I was finished, did you?...I did a little salvage job. One of the things that came with my gift yarn were these two pairs of mittens.

Examining them, I think I have a fair reconstruction of what happened. The knitter was almost done, and she found that the decorative stripes of red yarn had broken. She tried to fix it, using more of the same yarn and tried to weave in the loose ends, but the yarn was simply disintegrating. In the end, they were banished to a dark corner of the stash where they sulked alone for many years, firmly ignored.

I could see a couple of options. The most elegant would have been to extricate the red yarn and graft the bits back together. I rejected this for two reasons- first the attempt to weave in loose ends would make getting it out without disturbing the other stitches difficult, and second because I really stink at grafting in pattern. I can manage a reasonable graft for a short span of stitches in stockinette, but my skill level isn't really up to an invisible repair around a whole cuff.

So I went with plan B, which was to amputate the cuff, frog it, pick up the stitches at the wrist and reknit the cuff in the other direction. I could have tried to just knit from the red stripe down, but I figured that re-knitting the whole cuff would help to disguise the change in direction of the knitting (as well as the change in knitters) and give a smoother result. So that's what I did.

I added some decorative stripes in a non-disintegrating yarn to make up the difference in length, and four cuffs and one thumb later, I have two more finished pairs of mittens.

Of course it wasn't until I got done with the last mitten- one of the brown ones- that I saw the insult added to injury. This poor woman had not only had disintegrating yarn, but she'd knit two left mittens. (Take another look at the first photo.) It's no wonder she never wanted to see them again. (I took out the tip decreases in one of them, refolded it into a right-hand mitten and reknit the tip in the new orientation. Somewhere, I'm sure she's heaving a sigh of relief.)

I plan to wash these before donating them anywhere- they have the look of heritage mittens...passed down from mother to daughter, still unfinished (which I believe is actually what happened).

And that really is the end. Next up--adventures in maple sugar! Because that's how we start our pre-spring celebrations in New England.

One of Those Weeks

2011-03-03T23:59:00.009-05:00

It's been the kind of week when I'm perpetually a day behind, thinking it's Tuesday when it's really Wednesday, and Wednesday when it's really Thursday. This led me to work late as there were a couple of deadlines that hadn't so much rushed toward me as crept around to my back and were preparing to cosh me from behind.

Having hacked my way through thickets of paperwork, I figured it might be time to blog about the craft stuff, before I forget all the stories that go with these photos!

This is the project formerly known as 'secret', now revealed as a scarf. Technically, it's the Reversible Herringbone Scarf by Sammie Carraher, though I did substitute a seed stitch edging for her perfectly charming garter and rib edging. I'm not sure why, actually, except that it's the sort of thing I do, abusing perfectly good patterns in the name of individuality.

The yarn was Rowan Tapestry, which is very pretty and soft. I've been referring to the scarf as 'ocean ripples' for the delicious shading of blue into lavendar and back. I quite liked the yarn, though I did find 4 knots in 3 skeins, which was a bit more than I would have expected, especially since they're not overly large skeins.

The scarf was for my mother, whom I saw this week and who loaded me down with goodies. There was a present for Cookie and Biscuit. (They were fascinated.)

I need a long pole to put up the bird feeder, but I predict it will be popular. This was what happens when there is just one bird in the bush outside the window:

I think that a constant stream of birds will make for excellent cat entertainment.

There was catnip, which Biscuit had off the top of the refrigerator less than ten minutes after I put it up there. Fortunately I caught him before he managed to tear the bag open and scatter it all over the kitchen. (He reports that it's very good stuff, and not too old as my mother had feared.)

There was yarn for me, and some needles and notions and a book of patterns, generously passed on to me by friends of my mom's who are destashing:

I'm quite delighted- I'd slacked off in the mitten and hat department, because most of the yarn I had left was light colors, and I needed more that were bright, or at least darker. And now I have them. The blue and brown sitting on the floor are wool. So I've been distracted from casting on a new sweater by the need to cast on bright hats and mittens and sample the new yarn. Also distracted from housework (not that it takes much with me) and various other worthy projects.

I'd take some photos and blog more about it, but I have to go knit mittens now.

The Sweater That Never Was

2011-02-24T23:39:00.000-05:00

In the back of my mind, I've got five or six sweaters queued up- yarn sitting tidily in the closet of the sewing room, patterns at least vaguely imagined. So this week, I cast on for what I'd decided the next project would be.

But I had barely cast on before I started having doubts. I'd pictured something with a stiff-ish feel- this was more drapey. I could have gone down a couple of needle sizes, but then it occurred to me that I am marginal on having enough yarn for this project. I'd sort of thought about going with three-quarter length sleeves if I was running short of yarn...or- I checked and found- the yarn is readily available. I could have picked up an extra skein or two easily enough if I needed to. But I am trying to use what I have, not buy more. So I cast on for a pullover instead of a cardigan, because I didn't think my original design would look right with three-quarter length sleeves. But if I was going to do that, then I might want to rethink the pattern I'd planned for the body....

It was about there that I realized I was hitting decision paralysis. Some design changes happen organically- the colorwork sweater got a placket neck because the neck was a little tight. But when the sweater's been redesigned multiple times before I even get out of the ribbing? That's a sign of a project that is at risk of becoming a WIP. After thinking some more, I realized that I already have a sweater in this color family and I tend not to wear acrylic as much (the three inch spark I got today touching a door handle just about made my fingernails smoke, and wool is better for not building up such a charge). So. Farewell, unknit sweater. I'm glad I didn't have to frog more of you.

But that left me with ten skeins of this yarn and no plan. I like having plans for my yarn. After not very much thought at all, I realized that a) I rarely have enough of any one color to make 'sets' of anything, but with this, I could make some hat/mitten/scarf sets in different sizes. And likewise b) I haven't knit that much for the charity bag yet this year. And c) I'm always complaining about not having enough dark/bright colors for mittens and hats. (Picture trying to find a white mitten in a snowbank for a moment...very difficult. Also light colors tend to attract dirt approximately 2.3 seconds after being given to a juvenile recipient.) And finally d) I've got some light colors in the stash that would go well with red, thus finding a use for them.

So. I have cast on for yet another scarf. (I'm beginning to think 2011 may be a 'scarf' year. I have plans/yarn to knit several more this year.) Biscuit approves.

He's been showing rather a lot of enthusiasm for 'helping knit' lately. Since his idea of help involves sitting on the ball of yarn and chewing on the strand going to the knitting, I can foresee some knitting challenges ahead.

And here's the yarn one movie on DVD later. (We've been watching episodes of Columbo. They're very engaging.)

I'll do a hat and mittens to go along with this. And my sweater plan has been re-assigned to a different lot of yarn. Which may or may not work- I'll have to start swatching and see if the texture is more what I was thinking.

I do like it when a plan comes together, but sometimes it's satisfying to be flexible, too.

The Path of True Love

2011-02-21T00:43:00.000-05:00

It is possible that I have been in denial about how much this cold has been slowing me down. Because if at any point this week you asked me how much I love this sweater, my answer would have been 'utterly and completely!'. And if you'd asked how much I wanted it to be done so I could wear it I would have said, 'lots and lots!'.

And yet, even though I officially knit the last stitch on it a week ago, it has taken me all week to weave in the ends (to be fair, there were quite a few). And sew on buttons. But now that I have?

True love. (Yes, this really is the green Aran that I started over a year ago. The poor thing has been repeatedly bumped off the list- and I don't think at any point it has ever been at the top of the to-knit list. But it finally got done nevertheless.)

But. Was it really love that finally got me to finish?

Or....was it that I just couldn't wait to start a new project?

I'm not sayin'. I don't want to hurt the green Aran's feelings.

PSA: On Caffeine and Cold Medication

2011-02-15T08:58:00.000-05:00

You know those non-drowsy decongestants? Drinking coffee while taking them is possibly not the greatest idea. Unless what you're looking for is a state of extreme hyper-alertness that lasts well into the night. On the plus side- it's a good time to read otherwise stupefyingly boring work documentation.

I'm off the cold medication today, but still feeling remarkably perky considering the amount of sleep I didn't get.

Surprise

2011-02-14T22:04:00.001-05:00

Today I got home and found a package waiting for me. And to my delight, it contained:

A new knitting bag, from Toni, inspiration and originator of last year's 100 project challenge. (This year, she's doing 111. I chickened out of that one.) I love the little embroidered balls of yarn.

It also had huckleberry coffee (which I haven't tried yet) and some lovely toffee. (Biscuit was fascinated with this--it was quite hard to get pictures of anything other than blurry cat heads. I finally had to lure him off the table so I could finish.)

The toffee is a Boise Idaho product and quite delicious. Jonathan thinks so too. It probably makes me a better person to share the toffee rather than hide it and eat it all myself, right? It is Valentine's Day after all.

And last but not least, an embroidered towel!

I'm a little unsure what to make of 'complex and fruity' but then we've already agreed that my sanity is a little questionable. Certainly it will look very stylish in my kitchen! (The color even matches my tile.)

Thanks, Toni, for a lovely surprise!

Serendipitous

2011-02-06T21:33:00.000-05:00

I've been lusting for a set of KnitPicks Options interchangeable needles for a couple of years now. It's actually a good deal- if you tried to buy each size of circular needle in several lengths of cable you'd very quickly exceed the cost of the set. But of course you don't actually ever need a set all at the same time, so I kept picking up inexpensive bamboo circulars as I needed them, generally in the longest cable length I could find for maximum flexibility. But with the set, I don't have to put up with that. I can just use a shorter cable. So I finally bit the bullet, unlimbered my credit card and placed the order. They arrived this week, just in time for me to try them out on the cowl:

I originally cast this on the wooden circulars, but found both that the long cable was unwieldy and the wood has more friction with the yarn than I like. I tried switching them for DPNs, which solved the cable problems, but my long DPNs are all wood as well, and the yarn is really quite sticky. But on the new needles with a shorter cable, it worked perfectly. I was quite tempted by the wooden Options needles- they're awfully pretty- but on consideration I went for the metal tips. I have a decided preference for metal, the smoother and slipperier the better. And these worked very well. The cable joins are very smooth and don't catch the yarn at all (one of my biggest complaints with circulars). And I bought extra tips to fill in the large sizes I don't own in any type of needle, which will give me more options (no pun intended) when working in bulky weight yarns. They did (as I'd read in reviews) eventually start to come unscrewed with use, but not so often it was a problem.

I finished up the cowl yesterday, and this afternoon my sister called to say she was in the neighborhood. So there was no delay at all in getting her new cowl to her.

She was hoping to finally meet Biscuit, now that he's a little calmer, but he still isn't calm about potentially cat-eating strangers- he disappeared under the bed as soon as he heard her at the door. Still, he's hanging out in the living room and relaxing more now that he's settled in. (Sorry, Kate- maybe someday you'll actually get to meet him as opposed to just peering at him under the bed. Until then...cat pix!)

Fortunately, Cookie was there to meet and greet. Also sniff her possessions thoroughly- Kate has three cats and a dog, so there was a lot to sniff.

So this isn't all I've been knitting, but I'll save talking about the other project until I have some idea how it's going. (If it turns out that I end up stomping up and down on it shouting swear words, I'm probably going to spare you some of the gory details.)

Time Flying

2011-01-31T23:04:00.001-05:00

It was another driving weekend, so a lot of knitting happened. On the way out to western MA, I cast on some new socks, because I wanted a project that would fit in my pocket. Also I wanted something in plain stockinette, so I could knit without more than the occasional glance. This proved quite useful, as I not only knit in the car, but while strolling around the train show:

This was my favorite scene- you can't see it in the photo, but the 'movie screen' was showing train videos. "I'd go see that double feature," Jonathan said seriously. More photos from the show here.

The train show was even larger than last year, which is quite a trick since it already covered an area the size of about four large Home Depots. We were almost glad we weren't shopping for anything this year--it took us over three hours just to see all the layouts, and skim the booths. If we'd been seriously looking for things for our own layout, we'd have been there at least twice as long. (We're getting ready to build the next large section of the layout, and we already have quite a backlog of kits and things to build, as well as details to put on the existing more-complete section. It'll be some time before we need additional supplies that can't be obtained at the hardware store or local hobby shop.)

I continued knitting at dinner, after dinner, at my mother-in-law's house, while visiting a friend, at brunch, on the drive back, at knit group (where I only made a brief appearance due to having returned late, and needing to return books and DVDs to the library), at home and while watching Midsomer Murders on library DVD. (We're finding them mildly enjoyable, though we like Inspector Morse better. But we're almost through all the ones the library has of those, and we're also nearing the end of Foyle's War *sniff*.)

Anyway, as of today, the first sock is progressing rapidly. The yarn is Wildfoote in Geranium, which I had never heard of before, but which is proving quite charming. It's a four-ply but a bit lighter than Trekking, which I'm using for the toe and heel. I have three skeins which I received as a gift, and I'm hoping that by mixing it with black, I might be able to get two pairs of socks from it.

I've also started a cowl for my sister. I got it cast on on Saturday and then thought it looked funny, so I didn't go any further. And sure enough, when I got home and checked Ravelry, I've been using size 8 needles for this yarn and not size 6. So- saved by project notes! I've been making a serious effort to note yarn/gauge/needle size in Ravelry, and it's really paid off for me. Whenever I use a yarn I've already had experience with, I'm able to save time in swatching.

Nor have I neglected the tulip scarf (much) which is up to about four feet of tulips. And on the mitred square blanket, I've finished the fourth round of little squares and started the fifth. It's up to about 16 X 16 inches.

And speaking of the mitred square blanket, while I was working on it over the weekend, I felt something pointy in the ball of yarn. I squished it and felt around and pulled out a darning needle. I had to smile, because I've misplaced needles that way myself- you stick them in the ball of yarn, they get pushed below the surface, and that's it until you use the yarn up and find it again. So this evening, I was working on the mitred square blanket again, and what did I find? Another needle. Same ball of yarn. I started laughing, albeit sympathetically. I could just picture another poor knitter, looking everywhere for a needle, any needle.

My husband asked what was so funny. So I told him I'd found a needle. He gave me a Look, the sort that says, 'she's probably harmless but not too tightly wrapped'. "But wait," I tried to explain. "It was the second one!" That got me the Look that says, 'but maybe I should back away slowly just in case'. Which of course made me laugh harder. I don't know, maybe you just had to be there.

Gang Aft Agley

2011-01-28T22:39:00.001-05:00

So, I had this lovely plan. Tulips in January. I'll be seeing the person the scarf is intended for at the end of the month, and that's plenty of time. Right?

Um. Not so much. This is where I woke up somewhere around Tuesday and suddenly realized that this week is the end of the month. And I will indeed see the scarf's recipient. And the scarf is currently only six inches past the halfway point. And in order to gift it this weekend, I would have to finish and block it tonight. And... that so isn't going to happen.

So, as I so often do when one of my clever plans goes awry, I tried to mentally retrace my steps. Where did it go off the rails? So I came up with a list of hypotheses.

1. House concert. This did take some time...making up flyers, doing publicity, taking reservations, cleaning, baking, setting up...I lost several evenings and a whole Saturday this way.

2. Dealing with snow. We hired the handy Local Guy with Snowblower to deal with the really big storms, so I can't complain so much about shoveling, but holy Hannah, there have been some long, slow commutes. And some shoveling, and salting driveways, and a lot of putting on and taking off winter outerwear that adds up to just about everything outside the house taking longer.

3. I spent some knitting time reading. This has some truth to it as well. After the marathon Christmas knitting, I was feeling book withdrawal over New Year's. So far for 2011, I've read 9 books. Which isn't a huge amount but is certainly not knitting time.

4. I spent way too much time knitting the addictive mitred square blanket. Yep. That's certainly true. I've got 57 squares knitted and no finished scarf, so it's pretty hard to argue otherwise.

5. I grossly underestimated the length of the time it would take to knit this project. This is actually pretty likely, too. I have a history of thinking I knit faster than I do. I certainly thought that taking out the provisional cast one would be easy and quick. (It wasn't...I wound up dropping stitches and rearranging things and after slipping things back and forth about six times trying to pick up what I thought were the right loops of yarn, I found that the first row of opposite facing tulips were a stitch offset from one another. So I ripped back to the center line, tried again, repeated this a couple more times, and finally wound up with a two rows of symmetrical tulips I didn't hate with a violent passion. If I do this again, I'll have to try casting on a row of eyelet or something on before starting the pattern- I think it would have been easier to get even when I took out the waste yarn. And let's remember to check that the chosen waste yarn is actually not going to stick to itself instead of assuming and finding out I was wrong. After pulling little shreds of it out of the scarf end with my fingernails, I think I can definitively state that it does stick to itself. A lot.) Also, this is fine yarn knit in a lace pattern on number 3 needles. Expecting it to take longer than a garter stitch scarf in bulky weight yarn is completely reasonable.

So, after duly considering all these ideas, I have concluded that the problem was...all of the above. And I still have two and a half more feet of scarf to knit. Note to self. Make the next scarf out of heavier yarn on larger needles.
Further note to self. Re-read this post next time you think you have a clever plan....

I'm Happy This Week

2011-01-19T12:46:00.002-05:00

For a whole bunch of reasons:
1. I have knit enough tulips to fill half of Holland. Okay, I'll admit that I still have to knit enough to fill the other half. And it's possible I may have solicited input from the knitting group Sunday in the hopes that they would say 'oh, totally this should be a short scarf' ...which they didn't... but it really is very pretty and springlike.

2. When the tulips start to become a little too much, I have been relaxing with a few simple mitred squares. I've long admired Valerie's mitred square blankets....though it's possible I should have been more cautious about starting a project she refers to as the 'crackghan'. It is very addictive. I catch myself saying, 'just one more', a lot. I love Valerie's scrappy blankets, but I don't have scraps, I have tons of baby solids. So I've turned to quilting for inspiration and am working the blanket from the center out. Here it is:

3. Coffee and doughnuts. (Yesterday I decided that driving to work in yet more snow was a good excuse.)

4. My commutes, both yesterday and today, while snowy and slippery, were refreshingly free of drama and excitement. Possibly my fellow commuters had the fear of God put into them last week, but they have slowed down, kept a decent following distance, do not swerve in and out of lanes, nor have they run into one another and snarled traffic in such a way as to inconvenience me. You'd almost think we lived in a place that got snow regularly, where people are used to winter driving.

5. I am no longer sick. It wasn't a severe cold as these things go, but it's surprisingly annoying not to be able to breathe through your nose. Also, I was starting to look forward to swilling Nyquil and going to bed after dinner, which is just scary.

6. It's very snowy! My inner child is delighted. (The freezing rain, I'm not so fond of. But I have a huge bag of rock salt and I'm not afraid to use it.)

7. I scored the next three sequential episodes of Foyle's War at the library. Including both a season cliffhanger, and the episode *after* the season cliffhanger (whew!).

8. The cats have been providing excellent entertainment. Biscuit continues to spend more time out from under the bed. This morning they determined empirically that the cat castle is not big enough for both cats to occupy the middle level at once and Biscuit took over the back of the armchair instead for some companionable outdoors-watching.

9. The weather forecast for Saturday (the day of our concert) is clear!

House Concert! Matt and Shannon Heaton in Nashua NH, Jan 22

2011-01-16T13:05:00.001-05:00

So, for the Celtic music fans among you, JT and I will be hosting a house concert for Matt and Shannon Heaton, an outstanding Boston Celtic duo, next Saturday Jan 22 at 7:00 pm.

They do a lovely mix of vocals and instrumentals on guitar, flute, bouzouki and accordian. Shannon Heaton has been voted Female Musician of the Year by the Irish American News, Chicago and Matt & Shannon's new CD Lover's Well has been selected as Trad Fusion Album of the Year by LiveIreland.com, Dublin.

Recommended donation $15. We are asking for reservations, please email me at nashuahouseconcert@mindspring.com or call 603-891-1339 if you're interested. And if you can't make it to the concert, do check out the free music downloads on their website!

(Knitting or crocheting during the concert is expected but not mandatory!)

Two-fer-Tuesday

2011-01-11T22:54:00.000-05:00

First up, we have two socks, two days later than expected.

These are the socks that were delayed by being left at my office over Christmas. I got up to the cuff on Saturday while enjoying music at the Boston Celtic Music Festival. And they would have been done on Sunday, except I came down with a rotten virus. Not an especially bad cold as these things go, but I blew off all plans Sunday to lie on the couch with hot drinks, books and cats.

Speaking of which, Biscuit is still skittish, but he's decided that JT might not be an evil cat-eating monster after all.

Biscuit and Cookie are not quite buddies yet, but they're getting along pretty well. They circle around, touch noses and chirrup at one another. And they play chasing games, where one of them will jump out at the other, paws flapping, and the other will go tearing off across the house. A few minutes later they come tearing back with the positions reversed. Really we're quite pleased--there has been lots of romping, and a little playful batting, but no growling or hissing or serious conflict at all.

They have also discovered a common interest in cat toys:

Cookie is definitely the superior in his stalking and pouncing technique, but Biscuit makes up for lack of skill with commendable enthusiasm. Although his short Persian legs are not suited to leaping so much as propelling himself across the floor like a very fluffy mop.

Now I'm on to the next WIP, the tulip scarf, though if I get a few minutes I do need to cast on for some baby things. I'm fresh out of stock, and I've got a co-worker with a new grandchild coming in the spring. And I like to have a gift or two made up in advance, in case I need it without a lot of notice.

Tell Me It's Friday

2011-01-07T13:45:00.004-05:00

1. My office was so chilly this morning I turned the space heater under my desk on high and tried to melt my sneakers. If telling untruths really caused one's pants to burst into flame, I might have tried it just to get warm.

2. I found (and corrected) two mistakes in the sole of the sock I'm making. Wouldn't you think if I was going to make mistakes, it would be in the patterned bit and not the stockinette?

3. I have resolved not to look too closely at the patterned bits of the current socks.

4. I'm simultaneusly wanting to finish the WIPs I have on the needles and wanting to cast on something new. My goal oriented side is still ascendant, but my dilettante side keeps drawing my attention to the new yarn and going. 'Ooh, look, shiny!'

5. I like Fridays because I can drink as much coffee as I want, stay up late, and sleep late the following morning. I'm wondering if coffee intake correlates to shortness of attention span.

6. They're predicting 1-3 inches of snow today. I'm trying to dwell on the lack of shoveling instead of wishing for a foot.

7. My inner child really wants a foot of snow.

8. But a foot of snow would interfere with weekend plans so I guess not getting it is good.

9. I often think my inner child isn't as inner as many people's.

Happy New

2011-01-03T23:57:00.002-05:00

1. FO- yes, the first FO of the new year is off the needles! I started it last week during the finishing marathon, got four rows in and decided it was never going to be fast enough to be done for New Year's Eve. But I liked it, so I just dumped it into a basket. However a garter rib scarf in bulky weight turns out to be just the thing for party knitting.

The New Year's Day party lasted until the wee hours, and we maxed out our spare beds if not our total crash space. (We were total wild people. We played board games and ate snack food until 2:30 AM. I even had a glass of hard cider. Like I said, wild and crazy.) Sunday the last groggy guest staggered out at noon. Jonathan and Cookie stretched out on the couch and emitted waves of sleepiness. I drank lots of coffee and went to my knitting group....

2. ....where I was given the gift of new yarn. A skein of Cindy's incredibly gorgeous hand-dyed silk. It's got to be a scarf, I think. I'll want a pattern with organic kinds of curves for the yarn. Maybe beads. Or would that be too much?

3. Cat. I finally managed to catch our newest family member in a rare moment of not hiding:

Biscuit is possibly the most timid cat I've ever met. Nevertheless, feline curiosity is bringing him more and more often out from under the bed. This evening, he even ventured briefly into the dining area. Cookie is mightily curious and not a little weirded out. For the first time today they got to within three feet of one another. And Biscuit hissed and ran away and Cookie retreated to the very top of his cat castle.

Poor babies--we can't help laughing at them, even while we feel guilty about weirding them out. But we're making progress...very, very slowly!

The Home Stretch

2010-12-31T23:55:00.000-05:00

It's been a pretty busy year, trying to keep up with Toni and her crazy hundred projects goal. It's possible I should have remembered that I mostly knit, and knitting is a slow craft...but you're wondering if I made it or not, aren't you? Well, as of my last post, I had completed project 94. Here's project 95, another pair of mammoth woolly house socks:

And since I was flying through the bulky weight, I cast on right after that for a pair of heavy men's mittens:

But I was starting to run seriously short of time, and after carefully looking at all my WIPs, I concluded that none of them were close enough to done to finish without giving up on the hundred project goal. Since I've got just a teensy competitive streak, I abandoned them all with scarcely a second thought and started casting on small mittens just as fast as my little fingers would fly. That brings me to 97 and 98, a pair of 4-year-old mittens and a pair of infant mittens. I was particularly pleased when I realized that if I knit the infant mittens in the round, I could do a three-needle bind-off at end and not have any sewing at all!

Number 99 needs a bit of explanation. My sister Kate very kindly made new curtains for my husband's office and my sewing room for Christmas. Not knowing how we'd want them to hang, she included a bunch of coordinating ribbon to make curtain ties. I loved the lace curtains in the sewing room just as they were--see:

But my husband wanted his tied back- they're a very handsome blue, but thick enough to block a lot of the light. So I trekked over to Jo-ann's today for some rings for the ends, and then sewed ends and rings for the ties:

And then hung them all up. Cookie inspected them closely and has pronounced them good. (Actually he just sniffed them a lot, but it was an approving sniff.)

And last but not least...I couldn't possibly come so close and then miss by just one project! So despite having woven in ends on No. 97 this morning, and completely knit No. 98 and done the sewing for 99...well. What's one more pair of mittens?

(See, they're waving Happy New Year!)

So. Whew. That's a lot of craft projects. I couldn't resist crunching a few numbers. The breakdown by crafts:
Knitting: 90 (!)
Crochet: 4
Carpentry: 2
Sewing: 4

Types of projects:
Mittens: 40
Fingerless mitts: 7
Gloves: 1
Socks: 19
Sweaters: 6
Hats: 18
Headband: 1
Scarves: 1
Cowls: 1

None of these numbers especially surprise me except for the socks...I hadn't realized there were so many. And five pair were in worsted or bulkie weight yarn...but all the rest were fingering weight. I'm starting to see why the last four pairs I have in the queue didn't make it for the year.

I've had a lot of fun with this, and it's certainly true that having a goal has pushed me to do more. However I don't think I'll be doing it again in 2011. I have some non-craft projects that haven't really moved this year, in part because of the craft focus. And the goal pushes me to do more small projects--which would be fine, except that I have two sweaters in process and six more in queue that I'm anxious to knit. Which is not to say that if I find I'm still in the running at the end of the summer, I might not decide to play again. I do tend to have small portable projects on the needles even if I'm working on a sweater at home. But right now it's not looking very likely.

Happy New Year and happy crafting in 2011!

Decision Time

2010-12-26T22:26:00.001-05:00

So Thursday when I realized that my socks-in-progress were an annoying commute away, I had to decide what to cast on next. I'd recently seen a photo of French Press Knit's Breckenridge Cowl, and thought it was a nifty idea for a small project. But I didn't have the recommended size needle and decided I'd just cast on for something vaguely similar, play around with it, and see what happened. So Christmas Day I finished this:

Even waiting for natural light, this yarn does not photograph well. But I'm rather pleased with the cowl- it's loose enough to tuck your chin into, doesn't bind around the throat, and quite soft. And unlike a scarf, doesn't hang down, get in the way, or fall off.

And so now I'm right back where I was Thursday plus one--94 FOs and I need 6 more before the end of the year to finish the hundred projects challenge. And the tulip scarf isn't going to make the cut, I'm afraid. I've been knitting on it off and on for two days and it's less than half done. I could likely finish it this week...but not along with five other projects. Time to haul out the yarn and cast on something new. Something quick. Something in super-bulky yarn! Excuse me, gotta knit now.

Satisfying

2010-12-25T21:20:00.003-05:00

Family gathered, food eaten, gifts opened, and for an extra special gift, our new kitty Biscuit came out from under the bed and let me pat him. And tomorrow we have nowhere we need to be and nothing we need to do--and a weather prediction for 6-10 inches of snow. A perfect Christmas weekend! Hope yours is being just as lovely.

Cookie got lots of presents- we're doling them out over time to avoid toy overload. He has given his new catnip mouse a test drive and pronounced it excellent:

And my 'secret' projects have gone to their recipients...both pairs of socks (it's been a big year in socks). Here are socks for my mom, in yet another self-patterning sock yarn. My mom admired them at an early stage of production and so I saved them aside for her:
(They were project #65, so it was a while ago.)

And here are the mammoth woolly house socks I made for my sister. She was hoping for toasty warm socks and lost no time in putting these on. Super-bulkie yarn, so they're extra thick and cushy.

And I did cast on a new project Friday and finished it on the drive home, but I need better light to photograph it, so that's a post for another day.

Merry Christmas, all!

Knittus Interruptus

2010-12-23T22:19:00.000-05:00

So, we've had a few interruptions to the knitting marathon. In the 'foreseeable' department, there have been Christmas cookies:

Quality control testing is currently underway. I'm confident that the cookies will eventually meet with the panelists' approval. I'm just not sure that there will be any left by then. Fortunately, I've made lots.

In the 'known possibility but not confirmed until this week' department, we have had a another happy event. Well, at the moment it's more like an unhappy event, hiding under the bed. However we have hopes that the newest feline member of our family will eventually be convinced that this strange new place is not filled with horrible cat-eating monsters and come out to be photographed for the reading public.

And in the 'completely unpredicted but all too possible' department, the socks have fallen completely off the knitting schedule due to me leaving them at work. Clearly, they are intended to be post-Christmas socks. C'est la vie.

So my Christmas to-do list has suddenly dwindled to wrapping the last few packages, doing one or two other things in the kitchen and enjoying my day off tomorrow. I think I can handle it. So I've been knitting the tulip scarf and looking at the yarn stash thinking...well, I've got a whole day...I could cast on for something quick....

Seven Ways to Know You Haven't Had Enough Coffee

2010-12-22T09:52:00.002-05:00

1. You get to the coffeepot for the third time...and realize you've forgotten to bring your mug for the third time.

2. The fire alarm maintenance guy tests the alarm and your first thought is to say, "Go 'way and lemme sleep."

3. Knit 2, purl 2 seems challenging and complex.

4. You get an email proposing the family get-together be held on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day and immediately start wondering if you should pull an all-nighter to finish holiday knitting. (Then you get a grip, remember that everything on the A-list (stuff it is reasonable to finish) is done and you're working on the B-list (stuff that is ludicrous to think will be done but I'm trying anyway. Note that my family doesn't expect this...it's my very own brand of crazed goal-orientation at work.)

5. You put coffee in the filter to brew a new pot, put the empty pot on the burner and forget to press 'brew'. (Fortunately this was not me, but one of my co-workers. I was the one who came along in time to rescue the empty pot before it broke.)

6. You finally remember to actually pour the coffee, and then set your mug down somewhere and have to ransack the building to find it again.

7. You start thinking this list ought to be called "Seven Reasons to Think You May Be Drinking Too Much Coffee".

8. You find yourself staring into the computer monitor and can't remember what you were about to do.

9. You discover that you have forgotten how to count to seven.

Tulips in December

2010-12-19T22:03:00.003-05:00

I tried to see if there was anything I could say about the just-finished Top Secret project, but the Christmas Censor (tm) software left me only with words like "knit" and "FO". You can assume that was yarn was involved and come back on the 26th for the medium-sized reveal. (A big reveal would involve something like a 747-cozy, and fortunately I don't know anyone who owns a 747, let alone have this hypothetical person on my Christmas list.)

So. The next project. Back in June when I was in London, I made a point of stopping by iKnit, a charming yarn shop a short walk from Waterloo station. I went in search of souvenir yarn, and specifically wanted a UK yarn, something I didn't necessarily see everywhere at home. After lengthy consideration and fondling of skeins, I settled on a yarn--Rennie Handknits lambswool, made in Scotland, in a nice cheery yellow. Just the thing for a scarf to brighten the depths of winter and remind you that spring is coming, don't you think?

Continuing with the spring theme, I'm using a lace pattern called Tulip Time, which I unearthed from an ancient folder of patterns. I'd gone in search of this pattern specifically, but had not recalled that it's a top down pattern..I'd always planned to knit the two halves of the scarf separately (so the tulips will all hang right-side-up), but with the top-down design, it's even easier--I've just done a provisional cast-on in waste yarn, and can knit half the scarf down, and when the first half is done, take out the waste yarn and knit the other half. Much easier than grafting!

It's moving a bit slowly, so it's hard to say when this will be done. It's for someone I won't being seeing before the holidays, so I may bump some faster-moving projects ahead of it. Speaking of which, knitter cannot live by lace alone (there are times when the constant counting to make sure you haven't added or subtracted a stitch aren't practical), so I am also working on more socks:

A simple garter rib, and I'm nearly to the heel, so these are moving along. I'm done speculating on what will or will not be done when, however. We'll just have to see how far I get.

Things I Know

2010-12-15T09:59:00.000-05:00

...and yet feel compelled to relearn anyway.

1. I should never say about a project, 'I'll be done tomorrow' because that's a surefire way to guarantee that I'll spend the evening wrapping and packing things and not knitting.

2. Knitting, if wrapped in paper without boxes, makes dandy packaging for cushioning more fragile gifts in shipment.

3. There's something very satisfying about filling a box right up to the tippy-top with stuff and not having to pay to ship packaging material.

4. One thing I didn't know before but should have: My brilliant plan for printing postage online and shipping my package from work? Has been foiled by the post office's failure to include parcel post in their shipping options. So I can ship conveniently but more expensively. Or I can go to an actual post office and reap the benefits of having made a point of having things done early enough to ship parcel post.

5. I'm really cheap, so I'm going to the post office.

6. Being nearly done with shopping over a week before Christmas? Feels really good.

7. Having the gifts already wrapped feels even better.

8. Still having a lot of things to knit...keeps the pressure on!

9. If you go around the house dredging out all the gifts you have so far to get them wrapped, you're bound to miss one. Or three. (Fortunately nothing that needed to go into the completely full box already taped up for shipment, however.)

10. Surprisingly, not all cats are irresistably attracted to wrapping paper. I had a lot less help wrapping than I expected.

11. Curling ribbon, however, is another story.

12. When you're trying to tie curling ribbon around a package before the cat's butt-wiggle and pounce gets beyond the point of no return, it's impossible to also take a picture. Sorry. (It was really cute!)

Another One Down

2010-12-13T22:15:00.001-05:00

There are times when it pays to have a dash of obsessiveness in your nature, and when faced with a ridiculous amount of Christmas knitting is definitely one of those times:

Feather and Fan socks, done. Sock number 2 was cast on late on Friday night, turned the heel Saturday night, knit the last row Sunday night, and cast it off and wove in ends Monday morning. (Okay, okay. Maybe it's a little more than a dash of obsessiveness.)

And now I'm on to the next project on my list, which must I fear be wreathed in mists of secrecy for the time being. Not even Cookie is allowed to peek:

But it's okay- it's a quick one. I'm past the halfway point already, and should be able to cast on something I can show you tomorrow!

Detente

2010-12-10T19:07:00.000-05:00

I made three attempts to get gauge for the Monkey socks. My conclusion is...the designer used No. 1.5 needles and so should I. Unfortunately I don't own any and there were no yarn stores open Sunday evening when I bowed to the inevitable (I've since been to several yarn stores and not found any. So I'm glad I wasn't counting on finding them.) I frogged and cast on for a basic toe up sock, knit a toe, and increased until it was the right size...and found that I had 68 stitches, which, since 68 factors to 2 x 2 x 17, isn't the most useful stitch count. I considered things like ribbing, and various 4-stitch patterns, without finding anything I really liked and finally started the foot with the lacy rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks. (It's a 5-stitch pattern, but I figured I could do five repetitions centered across the instep and pick up two more stitches at the top of the heel to get to 70 stitches for the leg.)

Unfortunately, I hated it. I'm sure it's charming in some yarns, but not in this one. This stripes just enough horizontally that vertical patterns just don't look good...something I remembered from an early attempt to do Diamond Lace from the same book in this same yarn, but should have taken more seriously.

I contemplated the yarn. Considered changing yarn...but I really wanted to use this yarn for these socks...it's beautifully soft and quite pretty all by itself. Then I ripped out all the ribbing (I really hadn't gotten that far) and just knit the foot plain. When I got to the leg, I added four stitches (getting me to a total of 72, a nicely factorable number) and changed over to an old standby for self-striping yarns, feather and fan. It's looking quite charming.

The sock and I have now reached a truce, wherein it shall be knit, in a size that fits the recipient and a pattern that suits the yarn and it is giving me no more trouble. And so long as that continues to be true, no one will have to do anything hasty involving...scissors.

Style Points

2010-12-04T23:20:00.000-05:00

Well, Toni has definitely beat me to the finish line on the 100 project challenge, thanks to my sudden detour onto the Christmas knitting list, but I figure that I should get some credit for artistic impression.

Everything takes longer than I think it will, and I'd hoped to have this done sooner, but still- eight days for a sweater- even a small one- isn't too bad. (I actually cast this on Thanksgiving day but didn't really do anything more than that until the following Saturday-- a week ago today-- since I was still finishing the other sweater.) So here's the sweater for my older nephew:

It's another pattern from the pattern book of Aran sweaters that I inherited from my grandmother (the same one I'm making my own Aran from). The pattern is really a rather elaborate ribbing, so it's not as long and skinny as it looks- it will stretch when worn.

And now I'm on the next item on my list, another pair of Monkey Socks. I am wondering if there's something goofy with the gauge on this. The first time I did this pattern I used 00 needles because I liked the way the fabric looked. This is the first time I've tried to get gauge. According to the pattern, I should be making the large size...and yet I know that this yarn on these needles makes a sock that's on the large size for me with 80 stitches- and this sock is supposed to be three sizes smaller. And the lace pattern for this is stretchy. So I'm dropping back to the medium even though I'm getting 10 stitches to the inch and the pattern says I should have 8 for a medium. I'm going to kick myself if I wind up having to go up a needle size on this...but I'm still going to knit a couple of inches and see what size the sock comes out. Because I'm stubborn like that. (Note to self: Robin, why are you knitting this pattern when you're on a deadline again? Me: Because. Robin: *sigh*)

I'll let you know how it goes....