Thereabouts

So if you're in Nagoya,
Here's a suggestion for ya,
Take my advice, stick with rice, and think twice before ya
Bow in disgrace, lose lunch and face,
No picky icky yucky sushi.

-Pat Donohue, 2000 (please click "listen"!)

I am NOT a fan of fish. My boyfriend is perpetually annoyed by this, as it is one of his favorite foods. Last night we went out for sushi (I love tempura, so I fare ok) and he got a roll that was basically slabs of raw salmon draped over a California roll, and was obvioulsly eating it with great relish as I picked at my nori-sprinkled rice (nori! bleh!), so I agreed to eat the salmon, but not the CA roll which I already know I don't like.

See above.

ANYway, here's where I am on my $1.50.



I can't believe how quickly it's knitting up, and it seems like I'll have plenty of yarn. I made each lace and rev.st.st. section longer by a few rows to account for a difference in gauge, and I'm just about to start the shoulder shaping on the back. I found a knitalong and was the first person besides the creator to join. Woot! Though, it is awfully nice to have the benefit of other knitters' wisdom when working on anything. Perhaps I'll be a source of knitterly wisdom to a few people down the road.

Also, here's a fun thing I stole from Chef Messy, creator of the knitalong and fellow $1.50er. What my finished sweater will hopefully look like:



Pretty, right? I really love it. Poor Kyoto, ends hangin' out. I should finish it tonight.

Links

1) This book, which I went all over town looking for today. I need to read some of it for class tomorrow, and somehow it hadn't made it into my half.com shopping cart back in January. I called all the bookstores in walking distance and none of them had it, then I remembered I had a Berkeley Public Library card. I thought I was being so wickedly clever going to the public library for a book for school. Couldn't find it on the shelves. After Spanish class I hopped a bus for another branch of the BPL when I finally realized I was right by the two school bookstores, both of which specifically stock all the books we need for classes. Why hadn't I just gone there in the first place? Sometimes I'm amazed by my own blockheadedness. Anyway, mission accomplished.

2) Vegans Seek Breastmilk Source in Exchange for Room (But Not Food). Yes, I live in this town.

3) Amazing things you can learn from Wikipedia, one, two.

4) The Yarn Harlot wants to represent. I saw this the other day on my homepage; is it working already?



5) My boyfriend's car made it onto the Top 12 list of clean cars! I, of course, continue to drive the all-time clean car, my feet.

6)



I cast on for the back of the Dollar and a Half Cardigan from the latest Interweave Knits. Kind of a chain-link fence look going on in the lace (bad photo, sorry). Rather than wait for the truly mysterious Reynolds Soft Linen to show up on the market, and possibly dropping WAY more than a buck fifty on this sweater, I'm using recycled yarn. It's soooo incredibly soft, like that old t-shirt you can't bring yourself to throw away. I am really enjoying knitting with it, even though the plies aren't twisted together anymore. I also enjoy the feeling of smug environmentalism as I extend the life of this fiber by (hopefully) many years.

More on some new (and old) projects Friday or thereabouts!

Long Weekend

I had an incredibly fun weekend, almost totally devoid of knitting. My family from Michigan was in the Bay Area, so we trekked all over San Francisco and Berkeley together. I'm beat. Unfortunately I didn't take a single picture.



A Valentine from my 9-year-old cousin, also a knitter. Love that boy.

I grabbed some fabric dye for cotton on Friday, so this morning I decided to dye some bits of yarn that I've been hoarding.



+



=



I used more dye than I probably should have. At least, more of the red than I wanted. I was looking for orange. So, now I know. This is potent stuff. This time I used 50/50 yellow and red, next time I'll try 75/25. With tiny amounts of yarn like this, I calculated that I'd need only about an eigth of a teaspoon of dye, total. Luckily, my mommy got me a set of measuring spoons a while back marked Dash, Pinch, and Smidgen, which are about 1/8, 1/16, and 1/32 of a teaspoon, respectively. I don't use them for cooking, because any amount that small I just eyeball, so I felt pretty free to use them for dye-scooping. For the really big dye batches you need 2 cups of salt, and I was so happy to remember that I have a 4lb. box of pickling (plain) salt in my cupboard. Perfect!

This yarn is recycled from Goodwill sweaters, so it's lost its twist for the most part. The plies like to separate when agitated, so I'm trying to devise a system of mesh baggies for each skein. Also, I'll be tying each skein in about 10 places just to be sure they don't get tangly!

My master plan here is to knit a huge blanket based on the design of one of the Gee's Bend quilts that I saw at the De Young in San Francisco last fall. I just fell in love with it, and I've been planning this out ever since. Lately I'm just so turned on by things like this and this, which just look so handmade and so full of comfiness and snuggle-potential. I want a blanket that people will want to snuggle under (namely, me). It doesn't matter that the yarn is mismatched in gauge and color or that the component shapes don't match up exactly. I just want to start right away, but I need to dye a grocery bag full of yarn first. Dang!

HVDOE*

We celebrated last night. Today is our two-year anniversary. We had (real) champagne. We had incredibly good food. We had a great time.



There's been a lot of musing about love and V-Day in blogland, and I've enjoyed reading it all. Here's my two cents: I'm sick of the over-the-top commercial quality of the holiday, the cheap crap in drugstore gift aisles, the emphasis on needing to have a "valentine" to have an OK day. BUT, I'm also sick of the whining, self-indulgent, "this-day-means-nothing" complaining that goes on in the days leading up to Valentine's, in which my school paper and many other outlets seem to excell. I'm in love, I'm gonna do it my way no matter how many Kay Jewelers ads I see on TV, and even though we are good to each other and love each other every day of the year, it's still nice to have a day that gives us an excuse to buy some Heidsieck and celebrate.



I don't think our Stitch n Bitch is meeting tonight, so I'm going to pop in a Six Feet Under DVD and sew in my Kyoto sleeve. My Interweave Knits came yesterday, so I'm way in the mood to finish current projects and start some new ones!

*Happy Valentine's Day Or Else!, a phrase in use among friends since junior high.

Final Touches

Miles of double seed stitch to round out Kyoto.

The neckband, which is very loose and may need re-knitting, or at least re-binding off, with smaller needles:



I sewed in the first sleeve last night, but it seems a few stitches off from centered. It fits a little oddly (no photo yet), but I have this suspicion that that will change when I wash the final product. I think I'm going to sew in the second sleeve, making the necessary changes in my method, and see if the two fit any differently. If the new sleeve is substantially more comfortable or better-looking, I'll re-sew the first. If not, I'll leave it as is. I don't really mind seaming, I just mind doing it over and over again!

I am slowly but surely collecting up cotton yarn from recycled Goodwill sweaters for the blanket I want to knit. Much of it will require dyeing, however, and now it looks like we're in rainy season for realz. I'm very nearly ready to just dye the yarn, twist up & tie the wet hanks, and throw them in the dryer separated into a few delicates bags. It could go horribly wrong, I do realize this. But then...it could totally work...maybe? I wish we had a spare bathroom I could hang wet yarn in. That would be amazing.

I really want to finish Kyoto because I'm just itching to start Forecast and now the Dollar and a Half Cardigan from Interweave, which I probably won't even get this week! Why does the last 1/8 of a sweater take as long as the first 7/8???

Post-Bowl Post

Kyoto, Blue Sweater, lace swatches, mitered square (representative of 1/3 of a blanket!)

I had a great Superbowl Sunday. I was rooting for the Colts, not because I care but because a) my brother is a Packers fan and b) my boyfriend was excited about Peyton Manning being in the Superbowl. I was so exhausted from cooking so much that I practically snoozed through the whole game, but it was so relaxing to listen to my brother and boyfriend talk football in between giant bites of beef brisket and gulps of Bison organic beer (gotta rep - Berkeley microbrewery + boyfriend's new employer). I tried to make brisket like my mom's boss makes, which is so tender it basically melts in your mouth, but I think I messed it up by having the oven up too high for the first hour or so. I think next time I'll just use the Crock Pot. I also made braised red cabbage with butter and onion dip from scratch. Lots of chopping and stirring. Phew.

I am so excited about my current and future knitting. I hope to have my first couple of FOs of the year pretty soon (Kyoto and the blue sweater), and I'm planning my next projects. I want to work out a couple of my own designs (swatches above), but I'm also obsessed with Forecast and, as of today, this MagKnits pattern Invested. Love the cables! Love the different-directional peplum! Love the cheap yarn! I wouldn't use a zipper, I don't think, or would at least knit on a band to cover it, but I suddenly really want to knit this vest. Look at the photo of the back, it's awesome!

The only problem is, once again, I cannot get Lion Brand yarn. I do not have a Craft Store. I only have a Yarn Store and an Art Store. Neither carry LB. BOOOO!

So it's February, and that means I have two anniversaries coming up. The first is a romantic anniversary, falling on a particularly cheesy date (yep.) The second is my blog anniversary - one year! Not that my blog was all that great a year ago (like, as great as it is now!) but still. So I'm thinking to commemorate, I'll hold a contest.

PRE-CONTEST CONTEST!

What should I do? What should the prize be? Leave some ideas in the comments, and you'll win the prize of my deep gratitude. YAY!

S.I.W.

I will to the King,
And offer him consolation in his trouble,
For that man there has set his teeth to die,
And being one that hates obedience,
Discipline, and orderliness of life,
I cannot mourn him.

-W.B. Yeats


I. THE PROLOGUE

Patting good-bye, doubtless they told the lad
He'd always show the Hun a brave man's face;
Father would sooner him dead than in disgrace, -
Was proud to see him going, aye, and glad.
Perhaps his mother whimpered how she'd fret
Until he got a nice safe wound to nurse.
Sisters would wish girls too could shoot, charge, curse…
Brothers - would send his favourite cigarette.
Each week, month after month, they wrote the same,
Thinking him sheltered in some Y.M. Hut,
Because he said so, writing on his butt
Where once an hour a bullet missed its aim
And misses teased the hunger of his brain.
His eyes grew old with wincing, and his hand
Reckless with ague. Courage leaked, as sand
From the best sand-bags after years of rain.
But never leave, wound, fever, trench-foot, shock,
Untrapped the wretch. And death seemed still withheld
For torture of lying machinally shelled,
At the pleasure of this world's Powers who'd run amok.


He'd seen men shoot their hands, on night patrol.
Their people never knew. Yet they were vile.
'Death sooner than dishonour, that's the style!'
So Father said.


II. THE ACTION

One dawn, our wire patrol
Carried him. This time, Death had not missed.
We could do nothing but wipe his bleeding cough.
Could it be accident? - Rifles go off…
Not sniped? No. (Later they found the English ball.)


III. THE POEM

It was the reasoned crisis of his soul
Against more days of inescapable thrall,
Against infrangibly wired and blind trench wall
Curtained with fire, roofed in with creeping fire,
Slow grazing fire, that would not burn him whole
But kept him for death's promises and scoff,
And life's half-promising, and both their riling.


IV. THE EPILOGUE

With him they buried the muzzle his teeth had kissed,
And truthfully wrote the Mother, 'Tim died smiling'.

Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)



___________________________

Senior year of high school, I chose this poem to recite, from memory, to my AP English class. I think it was just "share a poem day," like this one, but I wanted people to pay attention to it, and I thought that just maybe, taking the time to commit it to memory would help them, rather than hear it read from a piece of printer paper. I'm not sure what good it did, or what good anything that year (2002-2003) did for peace, but we tried. And we're still trying.

Guilt Knitting

After I knit about 5" of my Kyoto sash (lookin' good!), I decided to put it away for a few days to finish this.



Remember this? The Blue Sweater? All I needed to do was the second sleeve, but I put it away for two months. I got it back out Tuesday night and cast on for that sucker, and in about 2 rows I can start the cables. It isn't good TV knitting at that point, though, so I didn't work on it tonight. Apparently even a mitered square wasn't good TV knitting tonight, I messed one up somehow. All that faintin' and middle-name-sayin' on Grey's Anatomy must have taken away my attention.

(Grey's: first a man's sweater in a day, now a whole clinic in eight. Yeah.)

So. Blue sweater almost done. Kyoto, actually, almost done. I'm getting excited. New clothes, WOO!

Oh, man, you guys. My best friend had a terrible week. The fire sprinkler in her closet broke (on), and soaked all her clothes and shoes and various other belonging with dirty, rusty, mildewy water. I'm sending her some of my Christmas gift cards from Macy's and such. I feel so bad for her! Maybe I can knit her something snazzy. I'll have to think about it.