Oh, They Often Call Me Speedo, But My Real Name Is . . .

. . . Spike. (Surely you saw that one coming?)

But you probably didn't see this:



At the Blanket Bee for Project Linus, the coordinator had come up with a nifty way for the crocheters and knitters to maximize their output. You see, quilting is a pretty quick fiber art--you start with whole cloth, you cut it up into pieces, sew the pieces together to make a new pattern, then tie the quilt or machine quilt it just enough to hold up to some wear, and you're done! Takes an afternoon to a couple of days, depending on how crazy you get with the scissors and electric needle.

But when you crochet, or even knit, you start with fiber and create the cloth as you shape the cloth. And knitting is slower than crochet because the stitches are so much smaller. So a blanket takes at least a week, and more like a month of steady work.

So the quilters are donating tons of blankies, and the knit and crochet folks are still plodding along . . .

But wait! What if we took fleece, used a special rotary cutter blade to make hemstitching holes in the fleece, and then had the String Pushers knit or crochet an edging onto the blanket? And voila! a new way to participate.

I think this looks pretty good for one day of work. I'm not changing my modus operandi any time soon, because I know where I fall on the line of "quantity v. quality"--to me this looks like the equivalent of a craft fair altered T-shirt compared to a tailored blouse--but for those who ached to "do more" somehow, this is a reasonable compromise.

The Quick and the Dead

Today tastes like peanut shells, ballpoint ink, and fog.

California is sending us a huge weather mass that has been dripping down on me all day. The clouds are pregnant with water and leak as they plod across the sky. One of the partners called in to touch base and asked what was going on. Nothing, I told him. Nothing, but the fog has rolled in and squatted down like it means business.

Some projects whip up quickly; so quickly that by the time it enters your mind to drop a progress post, well, they're done. This scarf is one of those; the pattern should move like hotcakes. The points of the scarf stand up and flare like a collar when it's on, and hang in interesting zig-zags down the torso. The bias of the mesh means it crushes down admirably, and it's a weekend project.

Good honest merino, trimmed with Muppet merkin. 

But then there's boogers like this project.

Party Post-Mortem

Today tastes like egg nog and espresso and petis fours. Really good petis fours, not the cheap nasty kind that feel like sand in the mouth.

Nice party last night--ran into an old friend from years gone past who took up knitting. She's such a new knitter, she hasn't learned to bind off yet!!! So I see her making this fifty foot long scarf . . . hopefully someone will give her a hand soon.

Terpsichore loved the twinset and especially loved the idea that it was worked to fit the wearer instead of an aribitrary range of sizes. We'll see how it goes when it comes time to estimate yardage. I guess I'll note here that for a 12-14 it took 12 balls of Bamboo to make the set.

We got to talking about photographing it, and she asked if I'd be willing to be the model on the pattern, since I made the prototype to my measure. What could I say, but "sure?"

So Sunday I'll meet with their house photographer, and we'll probably go to the park where First Consort Gareth and I had our wedding photos snapped. There's a big blue tile structure like something you'd see in the old Star Trek TV show being used as an alien sacrifical altar, or with a scantily-draped green stuffed bikini lounging throatily upon it, waiting for Kirk to make his entrance and enact the love scene. Much more of an interesting backdrop than the functional warehouse or blue screen.

Next project--an electric blue tank with a fun fur collar. It'll be almost off the ahoulder, with waist and bust shaping. Pictures Monday.

Holy Cow, a Progress Post??

Today tastes like salt and that awful fake wild cherry medicines use to cover their foul essence. I'm going to make up a batch of Hot Buttered Mix, and use hot buttered rum to wash down antihistamines and aspirin. Same effects as Nyquil, but would taste much, much better.

Finally took photos of self wearing the Queen Anne's Lace cardi and Shell Squared. They look goofy lying flat, but fit the model body well.

Writing the patterns was a trip and a half. The cardi takes about 4 pages, and the shell takes 2. With some creative editing we may be able to get it smaller. The deal is, though, that they're written not to specific sizes--cast on x number of stitches for a size 10, y stitches for a 12, z stitches for a 14; so long as you're working to gauge, you'll get this. Instead, I have you measuring the intended victim wearer and working to fit their bodies. Half the words involve explaining where to measure and what to do.

Thursday the local Stitch 'n' Bitch crew has a holiday party at Southwest Trading Co., the company this twinset was designed for. So I'll wag it over there and get Terpsichore's take on the garment, and drop it off to live its life with her.

Finished at last! 

Joe Ito Moment

Just a quick post in real time before I shuffle off this mortal coil to bed with a miserable dose of some virus or 'nother.

The Penelope Project is complete! The jacket has the ends woven in, the buttons sewn on, and is blocking on the floor as I type. I finished sewing up the last of the seams on the shell squared, so now all I need to do is weave in the ends and that's over.

But now the Nyquil is kicking in and gfredb ln fhi uee yuhsm anfju ehtn. Good night.

Vita Brevis, Texere Accelerante

Today tastes like . . . pomegranate juice, cream soda, and cinnamon.

Listening to: John Grisham’s _A Time to Kill_. Can you say “eclectic reader?” I knew you could.

This is a grimmer Grisham with more gore and pain than he usually dishes out. Most of my experience with him has been white-collar problems—inheritance woes, long-standing legal issues regarding dueling businesses. This is gritty, and begs questions regarding racial justice and vigilanteeism. Heavy dose of ethics, here, and no simple solutions.

Progress report:

Spent another weekend on the Queen Anne’s Lace Cardi. I pulled out my knitter’s bag o’ tricks to see if I could motivate the article into wanting to be done—I’m certainly inspired to get it finished!

I tried punishment . . .  

. . . Enlightenment . . .  

. . . Wine, women, and song.  

I finally tried chocolate. 

And the cardi finally co-operated with sleevy goodness.  

Terminal Startitis

Today tastes like . . . clay and chalk. Not the sweetish modeling plastecine—this is the nasty gritty stuff clawed from the ground, cold, clammy, stale.

I have startitis so badly, they’re going to break down the door and slap me on life support soon. Tubes up the nose, incomprehensible but scientific sounding labels flying thick as bulky cotton cables, medical codes and abbreviations shouted at leather-lunged volume. Someone will undoubtedly yell “Stat!” often.

It all began with the deep disappointment over the weekend spent wrestling with the sleeves of the Queen Anne’s Lace. I’ve been pointedly ignoring it as it snivels in the Carry-me Bag o’KIP, pleading that it’ll be good this time, that no one understands me like it does, that baby if I’ll only come back things will be different this time. It hasn’t yet sent flowers. I haven’t yet filed for an Order of Protection. We may reconcile yet.

But right now . . . oh, right now I’m cruising the singles bar of my stash and the knitting blogosphere. Hmmmmm . . . that Ribby Cardi on Bonnie’s blog looks mighty hot. Ooooh, look at the lovely smoke ring patterns at Heartstrings. And I’ve been deep (o so very very deep) in lusting love with Jenna’s bad boy, that Rogue. I’ve gone to third base with him, recharting his cables so they run . . . all . . . the way . . .down. He’d be so, so lush in rayon chenille; all I need to do is knit a swatch and re-gauge him (and nobody can re-gauge a sweater like I can, baby. Nobody.)

And the other night, as I kicked the Bag o’KIP to the curb (ok, by the front door, work with me here) I got a bit too close to the bookcase, and fell into my copies of _Bauerliches Stricken_ (gesundheit!) where I began paging through all the wondermus Bavarian twisty cables. And I recall in _Folk Vests_ that they’ve got a nice one where the triangular clock pattern runs from the waistband up to the shoulders with a neat little fill pattern in between . . . and I’ve been reminded how much I adore cardis . . . and how neatly cables pop in chenille . . . and now I need a cold shower. And a cigarette.

Hoo. So I guess it’s about time to go sink an hour into the Queen Anne’s Lace. And about halfway through that hour, I’ll see once more the vision she was when she came to me in that coffee house, and that memory will be enough to see me through this project. We have a history after all. I’ll just have to chuck Rogue under the chin and say, “We’ll always have the workshop, kid.”

Vanity Fair and Sleeve Island

Today tastes like . . . axel grease and cotton candy, dust and hot dogs, iron railings and curly fries. It’s been a helluva day thus far—and it’s not even over!

Listening to: Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. I love the classics, I just find them hard to sit and read. Reading for me is reading in bits and bites—fifteen minutes here, fifteen minutes there. It’s tough for me to focus on long and intricate sentences or mannered plots in short spurts.

However, I love to have them read to me. The narrator’s voice brings me right back to where I left off (ah, yes, she’s just found out Mr. Rochester is still married to the madwoman in the attic, so she got up in the middle of the night—and I had to turn the player off and go to work. But now, here I am in the car, on my way home, and Jane is slipping out the wicket gate, off to who knows where.) whereas if I were reading this back at home while making dinner, I’d have to back up a page or three to get back to where I was.

And yes, the player Audible used to flog (I don’t know about the MuVo) came with attachments to allow you to play it over your car stereo, so you could listen hands and ears free. Just like radio without commercials, jabbering DJ’s, and with a program you were really interested in—all the time.

Progress report:

Here’s the ups part of the roller-coaster ride. I mentioned I had created Hagatha for an on-line list of folks-- the good people at Knitting Beyond the Hebrides. Part of what the list has been doing to promote excellent knitting (knitterly knitting, with an emphasis on finishing technique and knitting skill) has been to hold Virtual Conferences, where the focus is on certain knitting techniques. Fair Isle and stranded knitting, Aran and other cables, that sort of thing. The conference mascot has always featured an evil looking witch, with hooked nose and bulging eyes, toothless maw agape in a wicked grin, holding her knitting needles in the stereotyped way, wrapped in a swath of her own knitting. “Hagatha” is based largely on this cartoon.

This conference was “Way Beyond the Hebridies” and featured frippery knitting—knitting sculpted items, knitting with trendy frou-frou yarn, knitting at its simplest level without esoteric techniques.

They ran a contest for knitted items, and in the process of the conference, the deadline for entry was moved to allow for a little more time to take photos and post. I was working from my old notes, and when I went to post Hagatha—I thought I was too late. So I put her here, and dropped a note on KBTH, since this was her intended audience, after all. I was hoping for a mention on-list, and maybe to be able to post a picture on the website.

Well! Due to an enthusiastic write-in campaign (Nader should have been so lucky) Hagatha was awarded the “Way Beyond the Stratosphere” award! I’m beyond psyched.

And now for the plunging crash of the downs. When I sat down to work on the Queen Anne’s Lace cardi this weekend, I was halfway through the sleeves.

After spending the whole weekend working on the cardi, I am . . . halfway through the sleeves. Grrrrrr . . . sometimes process is incompatible with progress.

I thought I had a good idea with how the sleeves should be worked and attached. And they looked great . . . until you actually put the garment on a human being. Then they bagged and bulged strangely. So, rippity rippity rippity. Try another way. Nope, just as bad. Rip, rip, rip. Try again?

Finally decided that while it would have been really cool to work them attached as you go to avoid anything like sewing (‘cos the really cool thing about crochet is that you can take off in any direction you wish, to cover a 3-d object smoothly with an essentially 2-d covering without the limitation of needing to work in rows, like knitting) it just wasn’t going to do. Well, ok, if this were a one-off, it would be no problem. I would just drape as I went, and the whole thing would be just fine. On me. Maybe on people who were shaped very much like me. But no way would this work in a pattern.

The response I’ve been getting from other crocheters is that the garment is gorgeous and wonderful and oh my gosh I could NEVER do that—and to this last, when I explain that it’s nothing more than a chain partially filled with double crochet and then topped with chain picots, they stop and stare and say, “Is that all? I think I COULD do that . . .” Which is after all, exactly what I’m after. A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, after all.

So—no pictures till this is done, I think. All there is is one big purple glob with two little purple rectangles. See previous shots for stitch pattern and texture. The picture in your mind is probably better than the actual shot would be.

Carrying on and on and on . . . 

However, the jacket is coming along swimmingly. One side front and one side back down, the reverse to go, then I can either join the sides with strips, or work the sleeves. I'm thinking it might just be wiser to work the sleeves with the garment flat, then do the last sleeve strip to make the sleeves round and the final side strips to make the sides round.

You've already seen this one on October 12, but here's a little more of the Queen Anne's Lace cardi. The entire back panel is done here; next comes the side fronts and side backs. She'll get a shell top to go underneath her in some sort of closed crocheted lace.  

All Apologies

Am beginning to see why the knitting bloggers are often caught apologizing for the lack of photos or the paucity of posts . . . it's hard to combine obsessive hobbies sucessfully.

Below, although it looks more like a huge crocheted key, is a design for Southwest Trading Company in thier yummiferous Bamboo. I love this stuff. Drapes like linen, with the same heavy cool hand . . . and of course, if a stitch gets away from you it runs like sweat off a marathoner in mile 23. (Transparent? Moi? Like a window, baby.)

Crochet? Why yes, I am bilingual, thankee muchly. Besides, from what I see, crochet is poised to become the new knitting. (So if knitting was the new yoga, is crochet the new Pilates? The new step aerobics? The new Tae Bo?)