What Does the "TP" Stand For Again?

Today tastes like chocolate covered sugar pickled garlic. It's been one of those days where the eyes and the hands do not wish to work as a team. I'm about at the point where I'd lop both hands off at the wrists because they'd be almost as useful to me as they are right now.

I wish I was knitting, but I'm under deadline to get these done. And at last, much later than is reasonable, they are.



Artists' Trading Pins for a swap in Artechniques, a Yahoo group. The part that has been giving me fits is the jumprings and the wire-wrapped beads. Dead soft fine gauge copper wire, and I can't get it to conform to my thoughts.

I like how they came out. The swapmeistress is sending one pin from each participant to Belle Armoire for an upcoming jewelry edition. I'm hopeful; these are very much in the sort of vintagy grungy crunchy style that is de riguer and fashionable.

I may actually suck it up and make another one, just for me me me. Once the bad taste of scattering beads all over the floor and having rings pop loose/refuse to go through holes leaves my mouth.

Ooooops. I Did It Again

I loved this one meme, where you google your name and needs and post the top ten things that pop up.

So I did it again, to see what the Internet thinks I need now.

1. Spike needs help coping with his chip.

2. Spike needs a scrub.

3. Spike needs to give "Carpocalypse" to another station.

4. Spike needs a Mommy and/or Daddy.

5. Zach is all the Dad Spike needs.

6. Spike needs you and he can't lose his mother like that.

7. Spike needs an honest good hearted male role model in his life.

8. Spike needs a doggy jumper for the winter.

9. Spike needs a new pair of boots.

10. Spike needs to be protected from disease.

Ah, but don't we all??

Writing About Writing Redux

There are times I think I have nothing left to say. That I've been writing and writing and writing for work and for play and for art and that the well has finally run completely dry.

Microfiction here, shared journal there, quick character sentence for an ATC, and whoof, that's it.

I'm a junkie for journal prompts, or rather, for the promise of journal prompts. I glimpsed a deck once of 52 prompts at a store I frequent (Gareth purchased it right out from under my nose, and I thought he was getting it for me for Adverb, cos he was being sooooo sneaky about it. Then he gave it to a friend of ours--and I haven't seen the d---ed thing since.) and I was really tempted to purchase it because it looked perfect, but I didn't. (And you just read why.)

See, a lot of journal prompts are things like "Write about your favorite pet." Uhm, write about your favorite child, if you have more than one from your very own loins. Most of the parents I've talked to swear that while one kid's moon may be momentarily in the ascendency, they love 'em both bunches, sometimes in different ways. I love the cats I have differently each from the other; I love them both differently from the cats I've had; and I loved those beasts differently than I loved the various rodents large and small that I kept for pets.

So what to do when you have nothing going? Apparently just pulling out a book for a writing exercise is enough to get the juices flowing. I was going to post the results from an exercise from Writing Down the Bones, but I've got a reasonable post right here right now. (Next post. Promise.)

I've found that the old technique of opening Bones and flipping to a page wiht my eyes closed works well for choosing a technique to try. Much of Goldberg's ideas are intriguing on their own, so when the rule is that whatever pops up is what you MUST use, then there's something to start with, other than your favorite flavor of ice cream. A sunset. Woot.

Next to that is Anyone Can Write which I need to re-read, I think. It has some playful bits, though not as cut and dried and in a deck format as Bones.

And then, earlier today I found this one book where the authors gathered many of the games the Surrealists played all together in one book--more than just The Exquisite Corpse. From what I've seen . . . wow. That could keep me out of trouble for a year.

Hup, Hup, Hup!!

Scrabbling back onto the wagon, thinking of how we talk about "keeping" resolutions each year and how most of us end up breaking them moments after we set them, sometimes.

But everything else we keep, we lose sometimes. We keep our cell phone, our car keys, or wallets--but who hasn't mislaid one or more of these? We find our wallet in the car the next morning, tucked under the driver's seat. We pick up the house phone to call our cell phone in order to locate it between the sofa cushions. We find the car keys in the jacket we put on for just a minute to go fetch the mail, or the one we changed our minds about since it didn't go with the pants so well.

So I lost my resolutions temporarily. Maybe I shouldn't leave them where the cats can get at them, eh? There they were, behind the couch with Jesus and the nip mouse, all this time.

I had resolved 2007 would be the year I knit for me, me, me--and I am, but it also gives me pleasure to knit for those I <3, and for those I don't even know. So be it. I have a project on the needles for me, me, me too.

I had resolved I'd write a post each week. Oops. Didn't happen the week before last--I got busy and I was going to take pictures, and well, we all know what the road to Hell is paved with--I took pictures! (Go here if you've forgotten. Feed the naked while you're there.)

So two posts last week. Lucky you.

I wonder about people who keep all their resolutions--in a pretty little box, perhaps?? So they always know right where they are in their Virgoliccitudinousness? Or do they keep them like their keys--finding them, losing them, putting them back where they go most of the time?

Fallin' Off the Wagon

Today tastes like unsweetened black cherry Kool-Aid. I can't decide if it's more bitter or sour.

I took rather a bad tumble off the stash diet wagon. I didn't buy anything, but I wagged home a ton of freebies--that I didn't need. Not even for the project I thought I'd do with them.

See, Project Linus had a blanket bee February 3. Yeah, blame it all on the tough crowd that does charity knitting. They softened me up with brownies and coffee, those infamous gateway drugs.

I was being so good. No, wait a minute, SOOOOOOOOO GOOD. < puts away megaphone>. I was ignoring the hospitality table with all the free yarn. I looked at the booklets (most were crochet, as that's the way the pendulum is swinging now) and didn't take any of them. Hey, I was being SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD.

And then they announced October's blanket challenge. This is a biannual event--February and October. The challenge varies--usually it's color for the knitters (make something in pink and brown, teal and purple, orange and green) and subject for the quilters (sports, puppies, games). This time, it was just one theme.

*****JUNGLE***** (lemme try that again)



Yeah. Like that.

Now, before you can understand why this drove me to a) start a new project before finishing one already on the needles; and b) snarf up a metric ton of stash yarn from the pushers nice folks at Project Linus, you'll need to know that in my stash as I sat in my folding chair, was a big cone of boucle yarn in camel, gold and rust. I'd been thinking about a Project Linus binkie pattern for that stuff for years, and just had never found anything that made me hungry to take it on.

I was going to use it as a carrying thread to unite a black and white blanket (ehhhh); then I was going to double it and use it as stripes in a blanket (ehhhhhh); then I was going to use it in a slip-stitch honeycomb/big dot pattern (ehhhhh). But now, it had found its calling in a tiger blanket. Hmmmmm . . .

And so I swooped down upon the freebie table and snarfed up every skein of funny green (for the background), black (well, duh, a tiger blanket), and white/cream I could find. Someone had donated a pair of pillow shams and a half-completed crochet coverlet in cream--they went into the bag, too. (Hey, if it was a treasured heirloom that someone in the family was dying to have, then they would have gotten up and found someone to complete it or figured it out themselves. I hope that when I go, my good stash is eBayed and the acrylic is donated--whether the project is finished or no. I'd rather someone get the material and do what they want with it so someone can have and love the finished object until it wears out.)

Not pretty. Not pretty at all. Rather like watching a 300 plus pound person in foodstained clothes gobble down an 18-scoop and all the toppings sundae with their bare hands, solo. (That's probably going to garner some flames.) You can't help thinking, "Honey, have a little self-respect. You don't NEED that."

And then, that very evening, I cast about for how to make this work. Stripes of all sorts and kinds fell off the needles and were ripped out until I decided on entrelac, and then made a chart to keep the borders from being uniformly sized and shaped--I was going for more of an impression of a tiger in grass, with just the black and orange fur and green framing and intruding and . . . well, here's a photo.




Fortunately, I didn't hit my head too hard, but coming home from the bee and digging through all the black and cream and white to get to the cone of the orange boucle was a real killjoy.

< gets a cup of coffee, sits in the wayyyy back> Hi, I'm Spike, and I am powerless over free yarn.

Progress of a Sort

Today tastes like Midori margaritas with too much salt. Just as the lovely melony yum starts to kick in--blammo comes the saline!

Progress is being made on all the projects posted earlier this year. The charcoal thing is longer and greyer, the red stole is . . . longer and redder, and the castle blanket is more colorful in a willy-nilly way.

As mentioned earlier, I plan for no posts of the lace until we block--all the patterns are set, and unblocked lace looks like wet Kleenex. Seriously. It's crumply and rumply and you can't see the places and spaces that make it dandy. I suppose I could photo on the tile floor to give a sense of the thing growing, but I'd almost rather go to blogthings dot com and post a quiz result.

Currently I'm working to reduce the number of projects for other folks in the paper realm. 2007 is all about me after all. I've determined that I'm going to complete my obligations to others and then not volunteer for any more until I get my projects down to a manageable size. Yes, knowing me, this may take the rest of my life. I am very selfishly okay with that.

But it feels good to have reduced the decos down again, and to know that once I eat my obligations for the swaps I'm in, I'm done. I like decos--I like planning them, and finding just the right images for my themes, and finding the right stuff for others' themes and creating the composition. But I'm really not okay with the poor rate of return.

In one group I've sent out six decos over a year. I know where one is, and I have not received ANY home. One in particular (and not the one where I know where it is) is near and dear to me, and as far as I know, it's in a landfill somewhere.

Fortunately I bought more materials to re-create it as soon as I finished it and was having trouble prying it out of my fingers to mail. Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to assemble it.

That's how it goes, ennit? I have an art journal with stuff and things and inspiration wedged in the pages that needs to be glued in--haven't done that yet, either. I have books of techniques to play with that would yield scrumptious backgrounds to place focal images on that could then be journaled in with text winding among the pictures, or that could even have pages printed on the computer and then glued on before the book was finally bound.

Yup. Sounds familiar. So I'm focused on getting the bulge moving, closing the doors behind me (gently, gently, I wasn't raised in a barn after all). I'll probably continue with one deco group whose raisin meal¹ is to finish half-completed decos and get then home to their owners, full of art from various artists in the owner's chosen theme. I like to work in them, I just don't like having to make them on schedule, send them on schedule, and then wait . . . and wait . . . and wait for them to come home at last.


1. Raison d'etre = raisin d'entree = raisin meal. B'dum bum ching. I'm here all week; try the pork roast.

I Don't Normally Take Requests . . .

. . . but sometimes I do. Especially on a day that tastes like peppermint mocha, whipped cream, and tunafish.

But first, some background.

Ya'll know November is NaNoWriMo, yes? Well, at the office I'm in, there are two creative types who participate each year. Where most folks in this arena have all their academic credentials on the wall (down to notary public certificates and grade school spelling awards, it seems)these two have NaNoWriMo completion wallpaper (a tich blurry from where the .jpg was enlarged and printed, but there all the same).

There's no way I'm committing to a long writing project. Been there, done that, lost three of 'em when the computer died and all that was left was frag salad. After being widowed three times over, I'm just out to play the field.

However, I can't leave well enough alone. Any time there's a challenge, it seems I'm in it up to my ears.

So . . . I just had to do something. I'd been writing fifty-five word stories for postcards off and on as the mood struck me.

Sometimes it would just be a humourous thought:

He walked in as I was clipping the pollen-bearing bits off a floral arrangement. “What are you doing?”

“Castrating flowers,” I leered. “It makes the blooms last longer. After they’re pollinated, they wilt.”

“You know everything, don’t you?”

“Well, no.” I showed him the fuzzy bits in my palm. “I just have all the anthers.”

It was a great way to memorialize something funny that happened, because something funny happens most every day.

It was hot in the office, an itchy heat. He loosened his tie, undid the collar button. That helped, but when he took off his jacket, inspiration struck.

Shoes, socks, shirt, pants -- all joined the pile. Hearing footsteps, he hid in the closet.

“Look,” she said. “I’ve never seen a lawyer shed his skin before.”

But with NaNoWriMo going on, I felt like I had to step up to the plate somehow. While I wasn't willing to commit to a novel, surely I could do something else.

I could write a fifty-five word story evey day for a month! That would be thirty of them . . . and if I kept it up for three months, I'd have near-as-dammit 100 stories. I could bind them into little quartos. One on each page would be the kind of wild slim novel propounded by St. Baty. Fun!

“Some people write a novel in thirty days, but I don’t have their powers of concentration.”

“Or the time. Think of the time involved.”

“Besides, I don’t think I have that much to say. A whole novel? So I thought I’d start small.”

“So what are you working on during NaNoWriMo?”

“A fifty-five word story.”

So far, so good. I've stuck with it, and at the end of this month the first quarter in its quarto will be complete. I made a winsome little bookie out of painted magazine pages, and have tipped-in November and December so far. I need to rebind said litle bookie, as the tip-ins have fattened the text block so much that it poofs out and will not lie still. I have a tendency to use string that's a bit small and sew a bit tight when I work Coptic anyway--two threads in tandem work much better--and I'm not entirely happy with the cover. It doesn't go with the text or reflect what's inside, so I'll put the covers to use with another block and do an artist's journal with them.

I let one of the Tonstant Weaders who knows me IRL read the first quarter bookie, and she loved one of the stories so well that she asked me to put it on my blog so she could print it out/return to it/memorize it/whatever she's going to do with it (except steal it and pass it off as her own). So, thank you Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

I used to believe words were magic; if I said the right things I could have anything and be anything I wanted. My thank you notes were works of art, my holiday cards always included a line specifically tailored for the recipient. It was my own form of white spellcasting.

Then I met my father-in-law.

Let's Talk Stash . . .

Today tastes like dark roast coffee, with peppermint, chocolate, and whipped cream. With a sidecar of frustration.

Excessmas is over for another year (well, almost. Tha familial units have yet to gather, due to the weather gods frowning upon us and dumping snow every weekend. While it snoweth not upon the Salt Valley, and yeah, neither upon the Duke City, it snoweth like a muthafucker upon the Continental Divide and the plains between us. Yeah, verily, it snoweth as it hath not done in fifty years. While this moveth mine heart to gladness for the break in the drought cycle, it causeth me to rend my garments and gnash mine teeth at not being able to celebrate Adverb. Especially since Adverb actually FELL on Ephiphany this year. Grrrrrr . . .)

Bus as I was saying before that digression, Excessmas is over at last, and we are doing the simultaneous clearing and adding that takes place each year. The things we love, adore, and will use, are being found homes for . . . usually by discarding something worn and no longer useful or pretty. Other things go in the regifting closet with a note regarding where we got it from, or directly to eBay. Because none of our friends or family shop eBay religiously (or know our username).

And once again I am forced to really look at my stash, and realize that unless I am buried in the Egyptian style, I will never be able to truly use and enjoy all of this.

So once again I vow a strict yarn diet--new yarn can only be acquired after three projects using only stash are completed. No, no exemption for sock yarn--have you seen how much sock yarn you have, Spike??? No acquisition for acquisition's sake, this is not a matter of spending money, it is a matter of space. You refuse to stash on top of the master bedroom closet, you refuse to stash in the attic, you will therefore have to make space in order to get more stuff. And it makes no sense to pick up stuff with no clear purpose in mind--that's how the stash got this big!!

Otherwise, the story may go like this--

No kidding, there we were in the castle. We were surrounded by the Aubergine Dandy (yes, most of the villians have really threatening big bad names like "The Black Scrouge," "Eater of Hearts," "Dragon's Kin." Imagine just how badass a fella would have to be to live with a moniker like "The Aubergine Dandy." Yeah, like that. Now triple it.)

Our best and boldest had fallen to this monster. Only we women, the children, and the oldsters remained. We had thrown everything we had at the foe, and had no arrows nor stones left. It looked hopeless.

We, the knitting guild (or as we call ourselves, the Stitchin' BItches) didn't know this at the time. We were holed up in the uppermost tower for Sockapalooza '07. I opened the door to summon the page and have him bring up more cappachino stout, as we were running out. Oh, and some more finger sandwiches.

But instead of the page, our most puissant wizard was standing there on the stoop, hand raised as if to knock. "Were we being too loud?" I asked, waving to Miranda to turn the stereo down.

"Not at all. I have come to inform you that the castle is beseiged, and about to fall."

"That's a bummer," I said. "What should we do?"

"Fall upon your needles. All is lost," and at that, he began to weep and chewed on his beard in frustration. I looked out the window.

Torches ringed the castle round, the gates were cracking before the battering ram, and the hills writhed with bodies beyond count. Over it all flew the Dread Baroque Eggplant of the Aubergine Dandy.

"Oh, is THAT all??" Minerva cranked the stereo down as I explained to the ladies what needed doing. Bless their stout hearts and large tote bags, we made it to the walls in a twinkling, whereupon we launched . . .

THE STASHAPULT.



"YO, knit two!" The Stashpult threw cones and skeins to crash among the enemy!



"Slip, slip, knit!" Merino, cotton, and the ubiquitous acrylic flew thick and fast!



Ah, but it was the Lion Brand Homespun in its bulky glory that won the day for us, crushing the enemy and sending the Dandy fleeing like a cat with its tail tangled in a half-finished Starmore sweater. And nevermore has this peaceable kingdom been threatened.

Except by Goblin Knitting. But that's another story entirely.

This Is Just To Say . . .

I have posted a picture
of the gift that I made you
(that you have not received yet
because of the storm)

to my blog, here.
And thus, spoiled your surprise.
Could you please pretend
to have failed to read this?

Or at least,
to pretend to enjoy it
when the wrapping is torn?

Ok, I guess we've established that when I have nothing to say, I'll filch from William Carlos Williams (i.e., December 3, 2004 "So Much Depends Upon a Writing Exercise"). Shamelessly.

But at least I'm cribbing from a master. Oh, and without further adieu, here's the photo that's gonna get me in Dutch with the Dowager Empress:



It's a book for holding ATC's. We both participate in swapping them, and sometimes interchange between ourselves. I have made her sign a contract in blood that when she uhm, "no longer has need of her collection" I GET IT. Heh. So really, doing cool stuff for her that's ATC related is really doing cool stuff for me . . . oh, that was the "out loud and gloating voice," wasn't it. My bad.

Anyhoo, it's a single needle, single sheet coptic stitched book. The interior boards are covered with art paper, the exterior boards were a board game of some sort that a fellow artist snagged at a garage sale. No pieces, no notes on the board itself, just black and white spaces, and holes in the outside. I noticed that the bigger holes were very nearly almost ATC size, and well . . . that was that.




I'm glad to finally have it done--I put aside just about all my "art for me and mine" this last year doing art for others via swaps and such. The next project is to re-make a deco for me. I assume the original was either lost in the mail between artists--or languishes on someone's worktable--or got thrown away. Dammit! It was one that was important to me, so much so that I bought duplicate materials just so I could make a copy for me to fill and hold on to.

I'm glad I did--I have not seen the materials I'd need for a couple of years now. had I not snarfed them and stashed them, I'd be completely out of luck. Now i just need to pull them out and have at them. I may make color copies of some of the ephemera to help me fill the pages . . . or not.



P.S.--Blogger notes that this is my 200th post! Happy bicentennial to me!

I'm Baaaaaack . . .

Not quite from the dead, but ready to party.

I've spent much of my downtime knitting, and have the pictures to prove it. Here's a FO to start the new year off with:




Field of Flowers by Evelyn Clark in Knitpicks Shimmer, "Happy Dance." Yes, I actually used someone else's pattern without modification. I may be struck by lightning for doing so.

It was an okay knit--luxury yarn for cheap, I loves me silk and alpaca, and I loves it even more at $5.00 per ball. 3 balls made this shawl with most of a ball left over. I may have to dunk some cashmere in a hot pink dyebath and go to town with the combo.

But, but, but. I don't like the colorways Knitpicks uses for their variegated yarns. Nothing's wrong withe the hues so much, but the values just don't fly. It's like someone read a quickie design blurb--Graphic Design for Dummies, perhaps--and found a rule: "Use three values of complementary colors." So here, they used yellow for the light, pink for the medium, and maroon for the dark. Perfect, right?

No . . . the three colors stick out completely separately from each other--and I don't mean the pooling. If they were all medium shades (gold, pepto pink, fuschia) or even light shades (yellow, baby pink, bubblegum) then the colors would work wonderfully. Here you have dark, medium, light and yellow, pink, maroon. Blap, blap, blap. It's a very balkanized shawl.

Fortunately, I have a dyepot and I'm not afraid to use it--just busy. Sigh. That WILL change this year.

I actually cleared all the projects off my needles, and got down to working only on the aforementioned Field of Flowers. I've since added projects back on, and might actually send some updates to the blog for your perusal, Tonstant Weader.

Though you prolly won't see many progress pics of this one.
It's a binkie for DH Gareth; the one I made him ten years ago is rather shabby. It's Feather and Fan in Lion Brand Homespun--he didn't want wool, he finds it itchy. And he wants it big, like a coverlet. There was no way I was working in anything finer than 4 stitches to an inch. This is gonna be a lot of inches.

I'm working it in thirds--I started by casting on what I thought would be enough stitches, and was miserable within an inch. So I ripped it all out and started over. I'm much happier now, even though I'll have to seam the thing when it's through.

Why no progress pics? Look at it--it's a big black/charcoal lump. In a few inches it'll be a bigger big black/charcoal lump. And when it's done, it will be a big black/charcoal lump that covers roughly an acre of land . . . okay, maybe just a city block.

Remember the castle blan project? I've actually dipped into my stash o' squares. One of my resolutions this year is to actually get rid of some of the stash. NO MORE YARN. Anything in the stash as of January 1, 2007 or that gets given to me as a gift is fair game. But no more yarn will enter this house in my hands. No, not even free acrylic for charity--ESPECIALLY not free acrylic for charity. I choose not to give space to any more of that.

Further resolved is to knit FOR ME, dammit. I was going to knit JUST FOR ME this year, but then I found myself wistfully looking at the plans for Gareth's binkie, and remembering how much fun garter stitch is when you have good movies to viddy, so that one fell apart, but I am going to stand firm and keep me in the mix from now on.

So having finished one shawl for me, here's the next:

I'm loving this one, Leda's Dream from Pink Lemon Knits . The pattern is just complicated enough to keep me interested, but simple enough to keep me happy. I don't care much for rectangles, the stoles I've had didn't stay where I wanted them without constant rearrangement and outright clutching--but the pattern is pretty enough that I'm willing to give it another shot. It's in Shetland laceweight wool--I think this was a purchase from Blue Heron Yarns before they dropped the retail end of their business. It's harsh with spinning oils off the cone, and still smells of lanolin, but once washed it relaxes and fluffs a bit so it's not as strung out as it looks here.

And that's it on the knitting front. Next time, let's talk books, mebbe. Or possibly a writing exercise. It's so good to see all your shiny little faces again. < grin>

One Kiss Goodnight

It's that time again, where I actually go on hiatus with malice aforethought, as opposed to the rest of the year where I just dawdle off into the ether until someone reminds me that I have a blog.

I didn't useta poke at others' knitting, I really didn't. I actually subscribed to Vogue until they forgot why they were the 1,000 pound gorilla. I subscribed to Knitters' until they committed several cardinal sins--the first one being "not publishing anything that could reasonably be worn."

I subscribe to InKnitters for the articles--great techniques that actually make for interesting knitting and soemtimes (with a little tweaking) produce a flattering, wearable garment. Or, more likely, techniques that can be filched and re-worked into a more classic line.

And I subscribe to Interweave Knits for much the same reason, with the added bonus that sometimes I'll even want to make something up as written. But I am forcibly reminded that it's a mixed bag.

I mean, look at this. It's on the cover for good reason. A nice color, not too trendy, not too harsh, nicely fitted lines instead of the Garment That Ate New York, and yet I can see this being made in the largest size and still looking good on the wearer. It's what a sweater should be.


And this. I may knit me one of these and put sleeves in. Sleeves with just a skitch of bell shaping--or maybe dead straight. Not ribbed to fit the wrist, straight off the part of the forearm just where it starts to narrow.



And finally this. I have some yarn from Hunters of Brora that needs a life. You've hears of Harris tweed? Hunters of Brora is the mill that spins for Harris. Raspberry, black, or bottle green? Decisions, decisions.



But there are some really lousy design choices being made here. I'm going to skip the ones where it looks like the designer thought, "Hey! I could knit that!" without going to the next step, which is "Should I knit that?" Intarsia willy warmers on size 0000 needles are still just willy warmers--except with a lot more work.

No, I want to focus on the ones where I wonder just what they were thinking before the item went tragically wrong.

Like this one.



This is just a cloud of "feh" from beginning to end. It's a girly silhouette, with the neckline almost around his shoulders, and the round yoke cutting off the breadth of his body. The sweater is too long, so it's a half-assed tunic. And it's a big box. On a skinny little waif, it'd look cute--her pencil collarbones all sticking out, the excess fabric collapsing against her shrunken belly and flapping around her non-hips. You could even try to call it a boyfriend sweater on a chick, and you might get away with it. On a guy? No, not so much. Not unless his boyfriend is the ultra jealous type who wants to be certain no one but NO ONE is gonna look at Steve more than once.

I just want to grab it and yank the neckline up around his neck and ravel off the last four inches and put in some shaping to narrow the body around his hips. Oh, and remove his faux nose ring and teach him the pleasures of tea. He's trying waaaaay to hard to be trendy in his metrosexual sweater--and he's only made it to 2002. Sad. Really sad.

On the other hand, obviously the sample was sized for petites and they only had a tall model:



You can have a sweater with bracelet length sleeves or a sweater that hits at the high hipbone. Anything else looks like it shrunk in the dryer (eeeeeeek!!)or it belongs to your younger sister. Who's like, eleven, with really good taste.

Yes, I KNOW it's silly to knit inches of sleeve that you'll only push up out of the way. I habitually do the same thing. Could we at least compromise a little, and knit the forearm so it blouses out a bit above a rib or close-knit hem that holds the sleeve up so it looks like your sleeves are long enough? Like you just pushed them up for a minute, and any second now you're going to roll them back down because of course they hit right between your wristbone and ultimate thumb joint? Thank you.

And finally, this sweater, speaking of things that shrunk in the wash:



Well, we finally have a sweater to go with That Skirt. Now you have a whole outfit you can't go anywhere in. What the hell they didn't have a model thin enough? Look at the strain on the buttons! Waitaminnit--this comes in two sizes, a 30" chest and a 40" chest. So the model is probably 34" around, and looks shoehorned into the garment. The schematic shows a straight, boxy silhouette--it's being pulled out of shape to fit the body underneath, rather than oh, I dunno--building in shaping with short rows? Taking advantage of the fact that you're creating the cloth and the garment all at once so you can take a nip here and tuck there rather than taking the lazy man's way out and just writing in inches worth of negative ease?

Fie on you. Fie fie fie.

And that will do us till the new year. Perhaps in 2007 I will resolve to go ahead and poke at others' knitting to my cold black leathery heart's content. If nothing else, it looks like I'd get at least 4 good posts out of it. Maybe six--I'll have to review their publishing schedule.

See you once we've swept up the confetti and worked off the excesses of the holidays.

Penultimate Post

Today tastes like chocolate, dried mangoes, and the paste that comes in the jar with the stick--the sweetish kind that you'd get in kindergarten. It's been a day of ups and downs.

First the downs--the waterbed sprung a leak ON THE BOTTOM OF THE MATTRESS. Earlier this week, my clean dried laundry that our cleaning lady (The Crazed Monkey of Cleaning to the cats) had laid out on my bed was . . . dampish. I was a little puzzled, but figured my socks had been in a heavy load and hadn't dried all the way.

I changed my mind when I climbed into bed that night and rolled into a wet spot. Up we sprung, dried off what we could and laid down towels so I could sleep--except for the dripping. Up we sprung again, to see just how bad it was.

Not too bad, except we couldn't find the hole on the top, so therefore . . . Hence, this morning was spent in renting a pump (n.b.--make RESERVATIONS next time), draining the mattress, hauling the mattress cover and liner out to dry, filling the mattress upside down to see where the leaks were and patch them, then draining the mattress, moving it back into the bed, then filling the mattress and making the bed. Shooooo! I have set the heater on 'Nuclear Blast' and piled every blanket in tho house atop it so maybe I'll only need to wear ONE set of thermals and a sweatsuit to bed tonight. Or sleep in the guest bedroom.

Meanwhile, even though I am facing the usual rush of Christmas shopping and creating, I, uh, signed up for a charm swap. Hoo. I have no willpower. I need to join a Creatives Anonymous group--"Hi, I'm Spike." "Hi, Spike." "I have no control over my brain . . . is that a handknit sweater you're wearing, Group Leader?" "Stick to the subject, Spike." "Right. So, in fifty-five words . . . oh, wait, I can't do that here, can I? Lessee-- 'I am Spike. I am/ A pawn of the creative/ And I need some help.' Better?" "Spike, that's a haiku. Go sit in the corner with your sponser." "Can I knit??" "SPIKE!!!!"

Yeah. Like that. So anyway, I like charm bracelets and treasure necklaces, but the thought of making twenty-thirty different charms makes me woozy. I could--I like making beaded stitch markers, and that's essentially all these are--but the thougt of setting out like that is like thinking of hopping up from the couch and running a marathon.

However, in a swap, where they can all be the same, or all different, or all very similar but not identical--I like this. I can play with this and that and try it three ways until I like it--then make one for me to keep and swap the rest! And get back a bunch of different goodies very clearly made by different hands, and then lay hands on chain and clasps and make me bracelets to dance about my wristies. It looks like this may become an ongoing swappy, which would please me no end. Or, there's a Yahoo group dedicated to handmade charm swapping, and I may join in there after getting my tooties wet here. It's all good.

We have not yet acquired the 13 book in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. This is a bad thing. Hint hint hint. Part of walking lightly for me is to purchased used when I can--we go through so much stuff as a nation, swapping out when we're told to--not when we've got the good of it, not when it's worn out, but simply when the marketers tell the sheep that it's time for skinny jeans--no,no, I meant wide-leg pants, no I meant high-waisted boot cut, no I meant skirts. This is why eBay is huge. I buy classic jewelry at pawn shops--diamonds have no provenance--or I buy the gems and have a jeweler make it for me. If I'm going to have new, I don't want to have what all the other sheep have.

But that's another rant.

I finished the Last Lunchbox, though--



Or, at least, the last one of 2006. My knitting focus now goes to socks and Cubs for Kids sweaters. Tiny little potato chippy things that can be dragged around to the holiday parties and worked without concentration.

It's funny--when I look at the projects, I see the projects and the things thet happened around them. When I look at the blanket above, I see Deadwood, Desperate Housewives, Kingdom Hospital, and Babylon 5. I see weeks on the couch terrified that I wouldn't be able to find the job I wanted, that I was going to have to take a position doing SOMETHING at a law office--or maybe a job like I had when I was in college--they always need telemarketers .

But I also see these--



And that's a good thing.

I fell into a chance at free yarn. The only caveats are that it had to be used for Project Linus, and that it was fine gauge. How fine? Well, laceweight--think about four times as thick as sewing thread. On cones. Big honking cones. I'm about halfway through this one--



I wish I'd taken a "before" picture of this--it was unreal. The Last Lunchbox was knitted with multiple strands of yarn to make the total sum about worsted weight, and as you see, it ate up about four cones' worth of yarn that is now out of the closet and living its life. Woooo-hooooo!

And this concludes the Penultimate Post, as M. Snicket would declare. The next one will come next week, and then it's time for the Hallowthankmas vacation. Since this is the second time, it must be the way we've always done it. Looking forward to next year, when it will be tradition!!

And no one would dare mess with the Hallowthankmas tradition, would they? The Great Pumpkin would surely leave turkey drumstick bones and oyster stuffing in their sock drawer . . .

Tied Up In Knots

This rant has been a while in coming, so if it bursts out of your screen and crawls down your throat screetching, please try to be understanding. Fend it off with a mug of cocoa and a warm cinnamon roll. Thanks.

I practice yoga. Well, I practice practicing yoga, I'm not a deadly serious practitioner of the eightfold path. I do some hatha, but I don't take classes wiht the Big Names of Yoga, nor do I make pilgramages to India to study at backwater shalas because anything else is "inauthentic."

And because I can learn from the written word, and know enough to keep my ego off the mat, I subscribe to a couple of magazines. Or rather, used to subscribe, because frankly, I'm never going to be limber enough to be happy with people who can talk out of both sides of their mouth at once.

You see, there's a tremendous emphasis in the text of the articles (and the essays, and the related conversations) about our duty as the Enlightened to walk softly on the face of the earth--don't eat meat, for in order to produce one pound of steak it takes ten pounds of grain, which could feed ten people for ten days, instead of one fat hog (that's you, o USDA taxpayer, do you feel GUILTY YET??) for one meal. Don't wear leather, that's cruel. Don't wear "unnatural" textiles, for they are poisonous and wasteful. And so on, so on, so forth. ¹

And that's fine, as far as it goes. I can turn that off and get the good out of the pieces that I come here for. I am one of the Untouchables--I eat meat, I wear leather, and no, I don't feel bad about my choices. I own them, and I own whatever results comes from those choices. I own the possibility that I may choose (or be required to choose) differently in the future.

But what gets my goat (and I thought I'd finally rid myself of the Noxious Flock) is the sheer number of advertisements for stuff. Actually, for STUFF. (Where's the HTML code to make that burst out of the screen, laughing maniacally, spouting fireworks like a Catherine Wheel?)

STUFF like $50 tank tops. STUFF like $180 yoga pants. STUFF like mats, mat bags, and music, all endorsed by the Big Names of Yoga. Will buying this CD make achieving full Padma Shirhasana 3 easier? By golly, looking at this ad it will--but only if I also purchase the tank top, pants, and mat.

And here's the part that finally made my carefully suspended disbelief fall right out of Mool Bandha and into my lap. The Winter issue took up the flag for an anti-mindless consumption holiday season. (Editorial: Deep cleansing releasing breath; we KNOW you're going to celebrate Christmas/Hannukkah, regardless of what we say, so you might as well keep in mind that this is a season of giving, not of receiving, AND CERTAINLY NOT OF BUYING STUFF STUFF AND MORE STUFF for the sake of giving and receiving. Namaste, you unenlightened slugs.) And whaddaya know, instead of the ad on every third page, it was a half ad every OTHER PAGE, with a big section on how this one company was giving away ten percent of its profits on every sale to this one charity!! Woo-hoo!!! You can buy all your goodies through them and know that you are doing good in this world, doncha feel all warm and fuzzy NOW! Look, look!!! One of the REALLY BIG NAMES is a spokesmodel for this company!! Why, just reading this ad should kick your kharma up a notch or two!

And, okay, they had one thing that struck my fancy. A niceish necklace, wrapped around and around the spokesmodel's wrist, just as I enjoy doing with antique paste necklaces. No prices listed in the ad, so I went to the website.

Holy craparoonie. $350 for wood, turquoise, and coral?? For WOOD, with ACCENTS of turquoise and coral????

I do a lot of DIY, and I'm a careful shopper. I am the first to admit I know what materials cost, but not what THINGS cost. If I can get it secondhand (like classic jewelry--diamonds have no provenance) (or silk shirts--once to the drycleaner, and they're just as clean as they'll ever be again) then I do it. I'm not consuming any new resources by doing so--these have already been made. If it's leather or fur in good condition (you'd be amazed at what a pawn shop can have) then I'm not killing another being just to wear it on my back three-five times a year. I know all the secondhand places that specialize in designer jeans, and as long as somewhat worn is chic, I'm good. (When they HAVE to be hard new blue, well, I guess I'll just be out of touch for a while.)

But Spike, the company donates ten percent of their profits to charity? Why would you deprive the charity of their cut? How can you be so unfeeling?

Well, let's do a little math. The jeweler donates ten percent of their profits. Since their asking price includes their profits, the raw materials, the labor, the shipping (of material to the factory, of the finished items to the warehouse), storage space, advertising costs--spokemodel time (you don't think that the Big Name donated her time to go pose for the ads, do you?), photographer's time,printing and binding and mailing cataloges, and probably designers' fees and coffee, you know that the final donation will be substantially less than ten percent of their asking price. But let's go with that for argument's sake. $35 to charity.

The fact that I can make the same sort of lariat in pearls with accents of coral and turquoise plus give $35 to charity for less than a third of what they're asking for really honks me off. How stupid do they presume their customer to be??

If you want the article, buy the article. If you want to donate to charity, donate. But don't let yourself get fooled into thinking that ten percent of profits to whatever charitable organization represents serious goodwill on the part of the manufacturer. Suppliers will offer ten percent off their ASKING PRICE just to entice you to purchase.

Needless to say, I'm practicing letting go this season. One of the things to go will be my subscription to yoga magazines. If I feel the need to find new poses/receipies/information--I'll go to the used bookstore where I can pick them up for a buck apiece, already printed, already used once and being tossed aside.

Walking a little lighter now. Om shanti, ya'll.

1. I'm not going to get into the fuel it takes for the machinery to grow the grain, or the fuel and other chemicals needed for the fertilizer, or for the amazing costs of watering a cotton field or any of that. Someone else may take up the agricultural screed and relate the doleful facts of just how much it costs to farm in a green and sustainabler way--and how much MORE the consumer has to put out to acquire. That's not the point of this particular rant; that's why all my facts are not in order, cross-indexed and footnoted.

You Know It's Bad When . . .

. . . you walk by your boss's office and all his clothes are stacked on a chair--and your boss is nowhere to be seen.

How did you miss the fact that he ran naked out of the office and down the street?

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.

Blogiversary

How could I let the month of October pass without a comment that it's my second blogiversary! I've actually stuck with this thing (more or less) for two years! [checks posting schedule] Nope--missed March 06 and December 05. That's what happens when you refuse to do quiz results just for the sake of another post.

And that brings me 'round to the subject of this post. I've been slooooowly realizing that you can do a thing, or you can do a thing online, but you can't do both. Not really.

And now for the context around that statement. I knit, I art (note the small "a" in that), I write. I belong to many many many Yahoo groups about knitting and mail art and journaling and stuff.

And I see that a lot of the people blogs I had links to have faded away. The folks who got me going on Blogger have folded up shop, other people whose prose I admired have stopped posting, and a few folks that I recently collected onto my roll have posted saying that they had realized it was ride their hobbyhorse, or blog about every moment mounted.

And I have a few folks whom I read every time I get a minute, though I don't blogroll them, people whose blogs have formed the basis for books and such, and I no longer feel connected with them the way I did three years ago when I started reading blogs.

And on the lists, list moms have commented that the LIST is eating up the time that they used to use to make the subject of the list, and while it's nice that the list was much beloved and enjoyed, it's time to close up shop and get back to their lives.

And I find that more and more, I'm starting to feel that I'm writing about what I do more than I'm actually doing. I feel that I post here when I have good news to share (although as mentioned before, if I don't share all the bad news because I don't want the outpouring of sympathy [or worse yet, the casual, "Sucks to be you! Hope things get better; loveyabye."]then I certainly can't expect to share good news and have others understand why it's good news.) but I don't share my whole life--or even a whole part of any of my life. (Shocking, isn't it? I don't even share all my knitting with my Tonstant Weaders.)

And it takes time to produce this stuff. It takes time to come up with the subject, land fingies on the keys, set up photos, crop and fix the photos, and then put it all together for consumption.

So I really dig where folks are coming from when they say, "I'm getting off this merry-go-round; I'm going to go and explore my ideas, meet my muse at the board and DO a bunch of these things that I've been thinking about and exposed to, so I'll have the object in my hand rather than another blogpost that will be read and discarded like any other article from the newspaper."

Will there be a year three? Or will we close the Lunchbox and eat out instead?

Another Li'l Lunchbox

Sorry I haven't been around lately. I've blogged before about how transparency flies out the window when people you know in real life read your blog, so re-read thiose rants for a pithy explanation. What's been going on is stuff I wouldn't share with First Consort Gareth--except, well, he lives here, so he's privy to quite a lot that happens that I don't necessarily want to talk about.

And when it's stuff you don't want to share, you either pull up stuff on BlogThings just so you can get a post in edgewise, or you sit in the corner with your thumb in your mouth.

Or, in yours truly's case, you knit. Knit on, with confidence and courage, etc., etc.

Do enough of that and you get another li'l lunchbox off the needles and out into the world.



This one is based on a scrap quilt layout called Roman Coins. I'm happy with it; it's a nice little stash buster. I think I'll make it bigger next time, like 40" by 60", this is more like 40" by 40".

It's almost time to close this down for Hallowthankmas. (I know, I know, you couldn't tell that this WASN'T closed down from the frequency of the posts. Rant on that coming up soon.)

While Strolling on the Banks

Today tastes like the chocolate Coca-Cola cake my mother would make for birthdays if you begged specially. The old formula Coke, not the "classic formula" they came out with after the fiasco of new Coke. It's not the same, I've tried the recipie on my own, in nostalgic moments when I can conveniently forget that the recipe calls for three sticks of butter, and a cup of sugar on top of the half-sack of minature marshmallows, AND the Coke, AND the box of confectioner's sugar. Oh, did I forget the two cups of pecans?

Yup, it's a recipe out of Hell's Kitchen--nothing but sugar and fat. No redeeming virtues at all. But ever so yummy--carmelized sugar and chocolate in one gooey masterpiece, ready to go right out of the oven.

Did I mention it freezes well and microwaves beautifully? That would be why I'm out in the morning, walking for an hour before I go to the gym for my workout.

It may be spring when the swallows come back to Capistrano, but it's fall when the waterfowl come back to Phoenix. One hears that irrigation canals criss-cross the city, which made it possible to farm a water-hungry crop like citrus, and still nourish lawns and golf courses so people who move here from greener pastures to get away from winters and allergies can recreate what they left behind--moaning about the unbearable humidity and thier everlasting allergies.

But it's one thing to see photos, and another to live in a city that was laid out by Bradbury's golden-eyed Martians. Raised canals cut gouges through farmland turned suburbia, with parks and fields lying low beside them. In summer, when the monsoons have been niggardly with their moisture, the fields are irrigated--flooded--with water drawn from the canals, grass swaying under three inches of water soaking into the soil.

And having water available brings its own little ecosystem. In the winter, its common to see ducks going about their business on the canals, finding places under bridges where the current's surface flow eddies, dabbling after weeds that found cracks in the cement liner to grow, flapping out onto the banks to go to work on some grass humans planted in a backyard poking under the fence, or in a park.

So the school by my house had irrigated the soccer field over the weekend, and a little pond lay in the lowest spots. The ducks, bless their little webfooted hearts, had noticed water and grass--which meant that there must be worms and other good things. They were paddling about on the pond, oblivious to the skeletal goalposts and backstop sprouting from the surface like Excalibur.

Oh, Dear

I don't normally snark about the fugly designs foisted upon unwitting consumers/craftspeople; there are many better blogs about that. But sometimes you run across something that tastes like unsweetened coffee yoghurt--



Yup. A knit skirt, courtesy of the fall Knitty e-zine.

Now, I've no real beef with knit skirts, if they're actually functional. However, they seldom are. And this one is worse than usual.

We'll dispense of the usual caveats that the model in the picture is a size 00, and disappear when she turns sideways, so the skirt makes her look appealing and voluptuous. Never mind what it does for anyone over a size 4. Or, god forbind, someone with a belly to match her curvy bottom. This is standard operating procedure when dealing with fitted garments, anyway.

The big ooops with a knit skirt is that knitting stretches. (Please picture that text on fire, flashing and rotating like Linda Blair's head in The Exorcist. KNITTING STRETCHES. Thank you.)

Because knitting stretches, big baggy sweaters grow bigger and baggier, sleeves slowly take on the look of elbows, and tights loosen. The fiber makes a difference in just how fast the droop happens, but all knits will eventually succumb to gravity. Even Lycra tights with elastic threaded through the knitting bag in the seat and knees eventually.

And an inelastic fiber--with no stretch and snap back to it--will bag the second you bend. This skirt is knit in bamboo yarn--lovely heavy cool linen-like bamboo yarn. Bamboo yarn that is nigh-onto completely inelastic. I knitted a lace stole in the stuff, and didn't need to block it open at all.

So the second the model sits down in that skirt, she'll have a second ass at about mid-thigh when she stands up. Oh, and she'll crush her pretty ribbon corsetery, too. So she can't get in a car to go out clubbing to show off the skirt she hand-knit (and her sexy body) because she'll look bedraggled and dumpy as soon as she gets up off the seat. And once there, she'll have to keep on dancing because sitting in this skirt will be the kiss of death.

All those long hours knitting stockinette stitch round and round and round for a garment you can only put on to parade around the living room in.

The name of the garment? Glad you asked--"Intolerable Cruelty." At last--truth in advertising.

Sometimes . . .

Sometimes when you do work for work's sake, you also make art for art's sake. I love it when that happens.



While taking photos of the new building for the business blog, I happened to catch this one better than I could have planned. The only thing I had to do was crop it--I love getting a shot like that!