Is it fucking spring yet?

Best Quote I Heard All Day

If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively. --Mel Brooks.


Well, God knows I've got a big fucking mouth, so I guess I'm living colorfully. Although my mother keeps reminding me that in little more than a year, I'll be 60. Yeah, and you'll be how old, Ma? Heh. I'm going to see Black 47 on St. Patrick's Day and it looks like Clapton and Winwood in June. Rock on.

Been busy, as usual. The new job is just perfect but time consuming, as my kind of work always is. But then, they do pay me twice a month. So no bitching here. Plus, being with Jerry sucks up writing time, and I’m sure not bitching about that.

I realized the other day that I originally started the blog as grief therapy. Not that it filled the void but it did give me focus when I needed it. Had Jimmy lived, I don’t know if I would have gotten so involved in writing, although I had been an editor/writer for many years prior to 2002.

The grief therapy ended long ago but I was still pretty much alone, with work, knitting, and friends taking the place of a significant other. Now I spend my weekends with Jeremiah, still knitting but not writing. At the beginning of a relationship, it’s important to spend the time building it. Now that we’ve built it, I’m sure Jerry won’t mind if I spend an hour or two on the weekend writing. Considering that he’s mucking around with fixing up his house, he now has a time sucker-upper too. So I'll get back into the swing of things.

Generally speaking, if you want to know what I'm doing, I've gotten into the FaceBook thing. Most of my friends and family are on it and I enjoy sharing pictures with my kids and friends.

Plus, the Punk Princess, who has 900+ friends, plays on FB a lot. She made an unbelievably funny video for her history class...she plays Hitler. You have to see it to believe it. Produced it, edited it, and starred in it, along with friends Jennifer and Miranda. Yikes.

Sox
I almost never make socks other than my plain vanilla 60-stitch socks with the common heel. I don’t use Magic Loop, don’t knit from the toe up, don’t change a damned thing because these socks FIT.

I don’t care about fancy-schmancy socks, which is why I never buy sock pattern books, although I am designing socks for Rock Sox that are fairly complex and I love doing that. For myself, though, I can’t be bothered.

I wear my socks with jeans and I am not going to invest in those see-through clogs just to show off some stitch pattern. My socks are strictly utilitarian. I use self-patterning yarn and that’s it. Nobody’s gonna see some hot-shit lace patterned socks if I’m wearing pants. However, I know lots of people love to knit socks with a challenge in them. And they are good learning tools for those knitters who want to try a new technique or stitch pattern.

Jerry’s Aran
In between making my basic 60-stitch socks, I laid out the Aran patterns, wrote the set-up directions, and got the 32-stitch repeat done. Besides the gauge factor, the swatch gives me the opportunity to add some smaller patterns if needed. I haven’t yet decided whether I want more or not. I took two pictures, one that shows the truer color of the yarn,
the other below that shows the stitch detail a little better but isn't color true.

I played around with the direction of the baby cable on the left side. About 2/3 of the way, I decided to see how a left-leaning cable would affect the single moss stitch filler. I wasn’t too happy with the definition between the moss stitch and the right-leaning cable, so I thought perhaps doing this change would sharpen the definition. I may also slightly decrease the number of reverse stockinette stitches between the motifs.

The yarn, Dale Falk, is on backorder from Denmark, so for the time being, I’ll work on the stitch pattern layout and do the calculations for the sweater. The sleeves will be saddle-shoulders. And perhaps finish my Dembrow cardigan, which has been fermenting in my project basket and possibly growing mold or fungi.

Spring Stuff
I did some surfing around to see if any of the magazines had a preview of their Spring issues. Vogue Knitting has never done previews, which is a smart idea, given their generally awful offerings. Knitter’s may have a Spring preview but as far as I could tell, it’s either not gone live yet or it’s buried somewhere in that mess of a website.

IK’s preview is up. A few nice things but all in all, once again underwhelming, with few challenges for advanced knitters. Too many garments with more than 75% stockinette. The Fountain Pen shawl was about the only challenge I saw, and for an experienced knitter, not a big challenge.

The photography is still very static, the models less than memorable. Of course, you could always make the argument that the garments are the show but I offer up Rowan’s magazine as my rebuttal. Rowan puts American magazines to shame. I would far rather spend my money on Rowan’s publications than the American rags. Even if I don’t care for some of the garments, they are so beautifully modeled and photographed that the most unappealing item looks great.

And will someone please tell me why designers persist in creating spring and summer garments using worsted-weight cotton? Other than those allergic to wool, I see little use for this shit. If you don’t know how to handle cotton, you’ll end up with a saggy balloon-y nightmare, the odds of this happening being greater, the heavier the cotton.


Rhinebeck Rewind Retreat
Ted and I were talking the other weekend. Always a dangerous thing--we do go on. Me, bitching about not being able to go to the guys’ knitting retreat at Easton Mountain to see him as well as Peter Jobson, who will be coming from Oz.

We started discussing the possibility of having a post-Rhinebeck retreat this year, for a few days. So I’ve set up a survey to get your feedback. It seems to me that Rhinebeck is altogether too short and not always easy for friends to meet and spend time just BSing and knitting together.

If there’s enough interest, Ted and I will do this retreat. So give use your feedback.

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Well, lunchtime is over and it’s back to making tutorial videos using Captivate, the Adobe answer to Camtasia, which I've used as well in the past. Quite fun, actually. One of these days I might fool around with doing a knitting tutorial, although I don’t know about what. Suggestions? I won’t get this posted until tonight because I can’t access Blogger from my work computer. It’s locked down, majorly. Websense, the site blocker, is not rare and handy. It’s a pain in the ass.

Best Quote I Heard All Day

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. --George Burns

Well, it's not large--there are, at last count, 25 of us, which includes two wives and one husband who married in. The Meyers, the Robertses. the Petersons, the Roths. And the two Carsten girls, Eleanor and Nancy, from whence all of this goodness emanated.

It's been seven years since all of us were in one place at one time. But this weekend, the sibs and I took Mammy up to Connecticut to see her sister, my wonderful Aunt Nan, and we got to see two of the cousins, Carole and Mark.

Carole definitely displayed the fine family trait of snarkiness with some choice comments. If she knit, she could do me one better in knitsnark. I gave her the URL for the blog. Now, if she reads it, she'll find out just how snotty her cuz is.

Here are the ladies and the bro, on a lovely May Saturday in Connecticut.

From left: Ma, Rich, Karen, Nan, and Carole

Sherman's March
I've never bothered to do toe-up socks. Why? Because I have my Formula 1 sock pattern that fits nicely and that I have memorized. But having finished one pair on Sunday, I decided to muck around with a toe-up to see what all the fuss is about.

First, there was the Sock Wizard-generated pattern. The short-rowing in the Sock Wizard is wrapped, so I decided to give that a shot with some of Carol's wonderful merino sock yarn, Rainbow Bright, which I bought a few weeks ago.

Well, the wrapped short-rowing sucked, big time. Hated how it looked. And it was a royal pain in the ass, besides, picking up those damned wraps. You can't really tell from the picture but trust me, it sucked.

Then, I remembered reading last week about the Sherman technique on Mel's blog. So I ripped out this toe, read the excellent tutorial Mel has done on the Sherman shortrowing, and reworked the toe. This is unwrapped shortrowing, with compensation for the wraps by making one and then decreasing it with the prior stitch or, as Mary Sherman Lycan, the originator, calls them, "encroachments." Just read Mel's tutorial and you'll get it immediately.

Much better. Whether this will fit better than my stock cuff-down sock with common heel and wedge toe remains to be seen. I don't like the look of it as much but then, fit and function count heavily. You need to try it all. I really need to pull out Lucy Neatby's Cool Socks Warm Feet and revisit it.

Open Mike Tuesday
In an e-mail, Carol brought to the Wolvies' attention an ad in this Sunday's New York Times that evidently shows a woman of babyboomer age knitting. She had heard at MD S&W that knitters were fomenting a protest. So the topic this week is:

Do you give a rat's ass as to how knitters are portrayed in the media? Or do you have your posters ready for the protest march?

Go for it, babies. More cowbell.

Woolee Winder Banshee
I had thought at first it was simply a noisy bobbin. Not. While spinning Carol's alpaca, the Matchless started to make gawd-awful clacking noises. OK, out comes the oil. No good. New drive band. No good. Tighten all the screws. No good. Then off comes the winder and on goes the original flyer. That worked.

I've not had this problem with the winder on the Joy but I'll be taking apart the Matchless Woolee Winder at some point to see if I can find wherein the problem lies. It took me a while to get used to using the old flyer but I'm back on track.

Birthday Presents
Now, Barb insists this was not a birthday present; however, it did arrive during the Mar Birthday Festival Week. A thoughtful gift from a good friend, much appreciated. Barb's company, Wild Geese Fibres, has much worth buying. My fingers are itching to work with this alpaca/silk laceweight.

And then, there was my sister's birthday present, which she claims isn't my "real" present. Huh.

Yes, Wallace & Gromit lovers, it is Shaun posing as a hot-water bottle cover. Which delightful article Karen found at a garage sale. The seller said that it was bought at Bootts. No doubt. You'd never find anything like this in the States. I haven't decided whether or not that is in our favor as Americans.

However, there is a certain charm to it. You have to search, but it's there.

Some Enchanted Evening
I'm so disappointed that I didn't receive an invite to the white tie extravaganza at the House o' Shrub. It's highly likely that I was excluded from the guest list because my hat collection does not meet HRM's standards.

It would be a treat to see Shrub give her a shoulder massage. Or perhaps say, "Hey, Queenie, how y'all doin'?" Unfortunately, behavior like that is not rare for the Fucktard-in-Chief, and it's continuously unhandy.

Best Quote I Heard All Day
I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet. --Bob Dylan

It's National Poetry Month. So in keeping with the spirit of things, I'll be printing some of my favorites.

My first writing efforts as a child were poems. I wish I still had them. However, these years, I find poetry in music lyrics that speak to me. Here's one of my favorites, And She Was, by David Byrne of Talking Heads.


My Talking Heads
Well, that was quite the onslaught of comments. I have no comment, other than to say that some of you are almost, if not more, vitriolic than I am.

One thing I don't do these days is badmouth other bloggers in public. (Well, there's one I have jabbed in the past but that blogger is so boring, it's gotten to the point where I don't bother, since she's now a parody of herself.) That's not to say that I don't have my opinions but you may presume that if I don't mention them, I don't read them.

There is one thing for which I will be forever grateful. The comments that I get are not from asskissing idiots who have nothing better to say than

"I luuuurvvve your blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Spare me. What may interest you is that a few of the "popular" bloggers have less of the milk of human kindness running through their veins than they'd like you to believe. But since they write their blogs for the great unwashed, that's what they get in return. I'm pleased that my Comments are a forum rather than a mass paean to my wonderfulness.

I started off opinionated from the get-go. You know what you're getting with me. If you don't, you'd better leave in a hot New York minute.

That said, I will entertain Patsi Purl's suggestion about bloggers you don't like. But I'd like other suggestions from the rest of you. It can be controversial. Or not.

Personally, I'd like to see opinions about the excrutiating difficulty endured by lefthanded knitters, whether knitting needles would have been considered weapons of mass destruction on a JetBlue plane resting on a runway for eight hours, or whether combined knitting is a bigger pain in the ass than it's worth.

Sogs
That's how I'm feeling about them lately. It would seem that this week, all the knitting I've been able to manage has been on these ubiquitous sogs.

My endless fascination with socks has to do with several potential personality flaws.

• I love symmetry. It must be the German in me.
  
• I can be anal-retentive when it comes to matching the dye repeats perfectly
• Sometimes I have a short attention span when it comes to knitting and I need to get something finished

Sock-making happens in the spring and the summer, in order to replenish my sock drawer and to make something knitted for my loved ones. Socks are almost always welcome gifts.

Today brightened considerably when a package from Black Bunny Fibers arrived, posthaste.


Yeah, more sock yarn. Nobody dyes like Carol does. Rainbow Bright on the left, Lively on the right. There's nothing I like better than bright colors for socks that I wear.

I was once described by a certain doctor as an effervescent breath of fresh air. Well, maybe sometimes. I think you can tell by the socks I'm wearing if that's the case on the particular day. With my 57th birthday looming, I'm rather seeing through a glass, darkly. However, it will pass and I'll be back to my teenage mentality shortly.

Bright socks help. A lot. So does sex.

Weavin'
Not this week. Too much work and the eyes are too tired after 5. I'm going to try to get my towel warp on the loom tomorrow. Sunday is Easter, so die ganze Familie is coming over for ham, raisin sauce, red potatoes, fresh asparagus and green beans. I enjoy having an excuse to cook.

I'm sure Mammy and I will sit and knit. I have to re-educate her as to Lavold's particular increase methods. She can't figure it out. Jenn and Rin will run their mouths, Norm and brother Rich will chat about movies, Liz will make a 5-minute cameo for dinner and then go back to her room to talk to her friends. The self-named Scrap Curmudgeon will show up with my nephews, I hope, if her in-laws leave at a reasonable hour.

In other words, a typical family get-together. Rare? No. Handy? Absolutely. Because they're the best and I love them to pieces.

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.

Best Quote I Heard All Day
Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers.--George Carlin

The 503 mile roundtrip from Wharton, NJ to Reston, VA is 809.5 kilometers.

Now doesn't that sound exhausting?

It's so good to be home again, back in Morris County. I gotta say, Reston and Herndon are two of the most soulless places I have ever visited, including Toledo. All concrete, impossible traffic, and more malls than God intended anyone to build.

If I've offended any Restonians or Herndonians, tough shit. I'm a Jersey girl, whaddya want?

No Hope Sunday
I refreshed my jaded palate by visiting with Joe and Thaddeus yesterday down in New Hope, PA, one of my favorite places and definitely two of my very favorite people. Not that I needed to drive more but it's a mere 57 miles from my house to theirs. And certainly far more fulfilling a trip.

Naturally, Joe and I went to Twist first. Naturally, we both bought stuff. Every time I walk into that place, I buy stuff. Deb Brady just knows what to stock. So here's the damage.

Two Elsebeth Lavold books. I haven't seen any of her more recent books, not since the second one, which I didn't care for. But these are gold.

Naturally, I had to buy some Silky Wool to make this sweater from Book Nine.

And yes, as ever, the ball of sock yarn to add to the collection.

(I did not bring my camera, so if you want to see a lovely mugshot of moi reveling in my purchases, Joe put one up on his blog.)

I love to shop with Joe. We have almost identical tastes so we're terrible enablers of each other. Which makes it all the more fun. Read all about the folk-art fish on his blog. I'm really tempted to go back there and buy it, if it isn't a gazillion bucks, which knowing New Hope prices, it probably is. And I have no idea where the hell I'd put it. But I want it.

Boyfriend Myth Solution
I don't believe that crap. However, I think that if you feel a pressing need to knit for your boyfriend, the solution is a pair of socks. For starters.

After all, not everyone LOVES handknit sweaters. My brother won't wear them.

Blasphemy. So bite me.

I had started this design last year and then it got lost in the shuffle. So I resurrected it, got some Soft sock yarn and started a pair of socks for JT. He doesn't know he's getting them yet, but since he does read the blog when he thinks of it, he'll find out. This is his reward for keeping me electronic company in VA so I wasn't too lonely.

I worked on these socks during the little downtime I had. As Joe says, if you don't travel for business, you have no idea how little free time you actually get to knit.

Now, this is a type of broken rib pattern, based on a 2/2 rib. The purls always remain constant, but the knit stitches are broken with purl, alternating every other unit. I stretched out the sock so you can see what I mean.

The nice thing about this stitch pattern is that the purl breaks do not diminish the rib's natural stretchiness. And being an 8-stitch repeat, it works nicely for socks.

If JT's a really good boy, he might get a sweater next. But only if he asks.

More Small Shit
The Julia yarn that Kristin gave me when she was at my house was burning a hole in my bag this week but all I could do were the socks. So today, I started my pillbox hat design, for which I had done the charts. This is lovely yarn to knit with.

Obviously, I haven't gotten very far but I'm liking it. It seems to me that for the past year or so, I've moved away from the bright colors that I generally seek, like a magpie seeks shiny things.

It's time to go back to my colorful roots. Heh. I think I need to think outside the box, to use an express I generally abhor.

Do you all find yourselves stuck in a color rut at one time or another?

(I'm even thinking that my hair color is in a rut. I'm tempted to go a bit darker. After all, I've never made any bones about being a bottle blonde.)

So maybe just because I'm going to be 57 (or 37, as I believe I am mentally) next month, perhaps change is in the wind.

Just sayin'. Alert the media. Oh, shut the fuck up.

You Read It Here First
I'm going on record to say that I will absolutely warp the loom within the next 10 days. If only to shut JT up. He's been razzing me about it.

I'm going to put aside the Morehouse warp and go back to the cotton warp for the kitchen towels. And just try to get something on the loom.

Will tatting be next? Now there's a rare and handy craft for which I have no talent. And no use.

Postscriptum: I want to go on record by saying that the Men Who Knit and the Dogs They Knit For, or whatever the fuck that book is called, is filled with the fugliest designs I've ever seen. Yeah, I know. It's a Modesitt creation. It's totally hideous. Gets my award for the worst knitting book of the year, bar none. So have yourselves a flame-o-rama. Ugly is as ugly does. That's my story and I'm sticking to it, as I always do.