It's a Barbie World.

Best Quote I Heard All Day

If you carry your childhood with you, you will never grow older--Tom Stoppard

I admit to jonesing for a Barbie when I was nine. I, who hated dolls, wanted Barbie and her clothes. I've just finished writing a bit about this for the book. I made clothes for her from scraps of cloth gleaned from my grandfather's closest friend, who worked in Manhattan's Garment District, and knitted weird tubular ropes using my knitting jenny. I didn't know about I-cord back then.

If I had that 1959 Barbie MIB (mint in the box), I could retire. Anyone remember her wedding dress? Exquisite. And cost $5 back then. I saved for that for weeks. 

OP Knitting

I find it interesting that many designers use other people to do the knitting for their books. I'm knitting every piece for my book. Why, given that I work a full-time job and have limited time? Because Knitting in Public is my story and it deserves pieces made by me, not some friend with too much time on their hands (I don't mind the plural possessive, despite my love of Strunk and White).

I suspect that most writers/designers of knitting books don't work full time outside the home and have plenty of minions willing to knit for them, which is why there is a continuing stream of useless knitting books. I'm sure I could round up a few volunteers to knit for me. I won't. Ever. 

That means that I may only write one or two books. Big fucking deal. I'm sure that the market doesn't need a book a year from me. God knows it's enough to work on the book every evening. Write a little, knit a little. Jerry's probably sick of looking at the current book project. I know I am.

Other Fiber Shit

Despite the book, I have found a little time to do some experimental weaving on my Flip loom. What you see in the picture is me fucking around with the warp and weft. I like the colors but the warp, a 10/8 cotton, is too thin. 

The first picks were done in leftover Raggi sock yarn, just to see what kind of fabric I'd get. A mess. Then I used the same warp cotton for weft. Another mess, too thin for the reed. Finally, I tried some Harrisville Shetland that I bought at WEBS two weeks ago. I bought two cones of magenta and dark green. Now I know that I need to use the Harrisville for warp and weft. Off comes the cotton, which I'll save for the Mighty Wolf loom when I can set it up. 

And I do have some embroidery waiting to be started. Sometimes I need to cleanse my palate.

Mammy's Birthday

Ellie's still going strong. She'll be 86 this Friday. You'd never know it. She still drives, does her own shopping, knits better than many people half her age, and doesn't miss a trick mentally. My brother is convinced that as long as she keeps planning knitting projects, she won't have time to die. I agree. She asked for yarn for her birthday. "What else do I need at my age?" 

My mother just got her Stitches flier yesterday in the mail and noticed that there was no mention of any instructors--she found that quite odd, along with the new Hartford venue. So I said to her, "Maybe I'll go this year, what the fuck. Wanna go?" I figured she'd say no. 

She said, "Sure, why not?" I almost fell over. We both got sick of Stitches a few years ago and she wasn't really interested in going to Rhinebeck. 

So look for me and Ellie at Stitches this year. For those of you who have met my mother, you know she's a trip.

Happy birthday, Ma. I don't know what I'd do without my bestest knitting buddy. May you live for another 20 years, like your doctor thinks you will.

Da Mags

I just picked up IK tonight at the supermarket, of all places. Haven't looked at it yet but these days, I flip through the knitting rags and immediately forget what was in them. Jaded, I suppose. I don't think I've bothered to look at a copy of Knitter's in more than a year. And the rest, I leave alone too. The new VK is out and I'm shaking with ennui. I'll get it because I like reading Lee Ann's column, dude.

The Rowan Magazine, which I will always buy sight-unseen, is the exception. And the exceptional. It puts the rest to shame.

Books are another story. I do want the new Marianne Isager book, Japanese Inspired Knits, and Spin Control, by Amy King. Besides, I love receiving packages in the mail when I get home from work. 

I'm such a child, as Jerry says. He's right. And rare and handy. It won't be long now...I'll see him tomorrow night. We didn't kill each other on our vacation. Always a good sign.

P.S. I've made my reservations for Rhinebeck. Have you?

Best Quote I Heard All Day
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.--Kurt Vonnegut

In the midst of the Imus/Baby DannieLynn media circus, the death this week of one of the great writers of our time has been relegated to a sidebar.

If you have not read Kurt Vonnegut, start with Slaughterhouse-Five or Breakfast of Champions.

New House Rule
After the troll incident this past week, I will say this:

You are welcome to express your opinion at any time, be it assenting or dissenting. However, if you cannot present a reasonable, well-worded point-counterpoint, and resort to what is known as "snip-n-drool," the language of inarticulate trolls whose only purpose in life is to draw attention to themselves, I will delete your comment without notice and you will be banned from commenting.

If you are unsure as to what snip-n-drool really means, I suggest you read this, link courtesy of Carol S.

A better essay on trolldom I've not read, written by Bill Palmer.

As I have said many times before, this blog is not a democracy. I own it, I pay for hosting it, I write it.

Every time someone comments, I receive an e-mail from Haloscan that contains the comment, which I generally read. I have the ability, as site owner, to edit and delete any comment, and to ban the sender's IP address and/or report it as spam. I can also determine, through my web stats service, the IP's location and its service provider.

Obviously, I can't tell who's using that address; however, I can and will report the IP to the service provider if any abuse is forthcoming from that address.

I will not put the comments on moderation because that's a pain in the ass, and 99.9% of my readers are sane, reasonable, and intelligent people who do not deserve to be treated as kindergarteners.

Frankly, I shouldn't have to explain all this. Unfortunately, there are trolls out there, as we've seen.

Obligatory Knitting Shit
The sleeve to the Lavold sweater is about 1/4" from being finished.


My preferred method of attaching sleeves to the body is by using a 3-needle bind-off. That entails a little extra work but the resulting seam is well worth the time and effort.

How do I do that? Well, by leaving the sleeve stitches on hold, rather than binding them off, sewing the shoulder seams together, and then picking up the same number of stitches around the armhole as there are left for the sleeve top. Once you have that done, you can bind the sleeve to the armhole, resulting in a perfect seam. That is, if you've picked up the armhole stitches cleanly.

If you want to use this finishing technique, it's critical that you make sure you incorporate selvedge stitches on the front and the back. And it works best on dropped shoulders, since there is no sleeve cap shaping, although I imagine it would work if you short-rowed the sleeve cap.

I've never tried that, but why not? The only caveat I can see is that you'd lose the decorative decreasing if that's a design element, such as in a raglan. I'd be interested to know if anyone has done sleeve caps this way.

Lackluster Spring
With a nor'easter brewing for Sunday and Monday, I can see that Saturday will be for running around doing errands. Sunday I'll finally sley the loom and maybe even get the entire warp done. Easter got in my way last week.

Who in the Northeast is not tired of the grim, gray chilliness that's passing itself off as spring?

The view from my bedroom/office this morning.

No forsythia in bloom on the 13th of April? What wid dat? And the potential of snow on Monday? Shoot me now.

Reading Frenzy
I have to admit, I read as much as I knit. Possibly more, and certainly faster. One of my favorite books is Pride and Prejudice, and being a Jane Austen devotee, I am very picky about those present-day authors who seek to emulate Jane. However, I highly recommend a wonderful trilogy by Pamela Aidan, An Assembly Such as This, Duty and Desire, and These Three Remain, written from Fitzwilliam Darcy's viewpoint.

You will not be disappointed.

So now it's time for another cup of coffee. Or perhaps a nice cup of tea. Tea is as rare and handy a drink as exists. Chai, anyone? No petit-fours today, howsomever

Best Quote I Heard All Day
I like flowers, I also like children, but I do not chop their heads and keep them in bowls of water around the house.--George Bernard Shaw


No flowers--improvise.

Warp Speed, Mr. Scott
Too many bad puns to be made, no? Well, bite me, I'll keep making 'em.

In any case, I actually spent my weekend spinning silk, finishing up one sock, and winding the warp for the kitchen towels I'm making for Ted and me. Much to my everlasting chagrin, it would seem that young Buster, the cat-in-training, decided to take a chunk out of the blueberry cotton cone, so it will have to be the weft and the magenta the warp. No matter.

490 fucking threads. After doing half of them, I decided that putting all 490 on the warping board would be too much, so I'm making two warp chains. One is done, the other half-finished. By this weekend, I'll be ready to sley and thread the chains.

Nota bene: Sley means putting the threads through the reed slots, threading means putting them through the heddles that are connected to the shafts. Just so you know.

Warping is a huge pain in the ass but I'm bound and determined to discipline myself and use the old sock adage: When you've finished the first sock, start the second immediately.

When I've finished weaving these towels, I'm going to start another warp immediately. That way, I'll keep up on my weaving and maybe learn something.

Big Socks
Making a man's sock in size 13 is no laughing matter. It just goes on forever. But I actually did finish this last night and started its mate, so I'll have it done in a few days. If I focus on only socks, I can usually whip out a pair in four or five days. However, there is the Lavold sleeve to start, so this will get done when it gets done.

The bad thing about making socks for men with large feet is that you need two of the 100-gram balls because one is not enough. So my thoughts for this pattern are: Make a kid's size too, father and son socks. Works for me.

Spring Vague
I picked Vogue Knitting up yesterday along with the new Handwoven (excellent issue on overshot, by the way, for those interested).

Now you know I'm not going to buy it if it doesn't have some redeeming articles and designs. This issue, albeit a spring one, which season I generally don't care for, had several good things in it, to whit:

• A new Surplice Baby Surprise Jacket that Meg found in one of EZ's journals
  
• Some good buttonholes from Meg
• Some nice lace garments
• An interview with Maie Landra
  
• Always Lee Ann's Made in Canada column, which is usually the only thing worth reading
  

The rest left me underwhelmed but most of it was not ugly, just boring. Although there were two absolutely hideous garments but I'll let you figure out which ones they are.

The cover garment is an amazing lace dress by Shirley Paden.

Now, I generally eschew knitted dresses in general for obvious reasons: hem droop and baggy-ass syndrome. A 1978 effort done in fingering weight yarn (and incidentally, included the cat's paw lace motif used in Paden's dress) taught me much about knitting dresses. The knitting needs to be firm and you need to find a shape that ain't gonna turn you into a Fat Bottom Girl.

However, this dress is just beautiful and designed in such a way that you need not fear baggy-ass and who cares if the hem drops?

As designed, it's suitable for a 20-something. But you could easily lengthen it. I would do so and knit it in black. Unfortunately, the largest bust size is 40. That sure ain't me, Ms. Tit-o-licious.

In any case, I couldn't be bothered making this, unless Liz suddenly decides the punk look is out and she wants to emulate Barbie. That ain't gonna happen. But Liz is about the only person I know who could pull this dress off.

Hot Tuna
Is there nothing worse than a tuna melt? I'm downstairs making lunch a half-hour ago and was ruminating on my method of preparing tuna for a sandwich.

As you know, I rarely, if ever, put up recipes on this blog, although I love to cook. But I do make tunafish rather oddly. Here's what I do, keeping in mind that all ingredients other than the fish are eyeballed.

Mar's Basic Tuna Sandwich
1 can Progresso tunafish
small amount of mayo
equal portion of ketchup
Gold's Extra Hot horseradish
chopped onion (optional, but provides flavor that celery doesn't have)

And then there's my weird Japanese-Chinese tunafish:

Mar's Weird Japanese-Chinese Tuna Sandwich
1 can Progresso tunafish
small amount of mayo
equal portion of hoisin sauce
wasabi
chopped scallion.

Somehow, I think a Tex-Mex version would be completely revolting and certainly not rare and handy.

Bon appetit, as she used to say.