Month: January 2008

I’ve surrendered and ordered a bag of Peruvian Highland Silk from Elann. Pumpkin may not be a flattering shade for everyone, but it’s a color I can count on.

I am such a sucker for a full bag sale. When the sale price is by the single skein, even if it’s good, I’m less tempted than I am when I come across a good bag sale. Somehow $2.98 a skein doesn’t set my heart a-racin’ the way A whole bag for under $30! does. I have gotten some great deals this way, but I’ve also been subject to frenzy-driven lapses in judgement.

One example: the bag of lavender bamboo yarn. At the time my logic was something like Bamboo. Hey, a lot of people are knitting with that these days. I should check it out while the price is good. What I failed to remember is Lavender? I hate lavender. It makes me look like a corpse. (If someone wants to offer me a trade, I’m up for it. Those 2,500 yards of bamboo are doing nothing in my hands. Maybe you hate green? Or orange? Maybe you made a purchase that you’ve decided is a mistake, but which would strike me as the exemplar of stash-building acumen?)

I’m the same way about other purchases: I seldom buy one. It’s many or none. Flannel nighties on sale at Mervyn’s for $8 each? I’m taking home four. A flattering skirt at 75% off? I’m getting one in every color. I wait every year for Bath & Body Works‘ January sale then buy enough bubbling, exfoliating, moisturizing, and girly-girl-enhancing products to last me a full twelve months until the sale comes around again. (This year’s big winners? The tomato facial scrub and the orange-mint overnight foot treatment. Also, pretty much everything in the grapefruit fragrance.)

But I can tell you right now, that Peruvian Highland Silk was no mistake. Crunchy, orange wool-silk blend—I’ll be knitting that up within days of its arrival.

One of my all-time favorite cat poses is “the wheel.” Every cat does it a bit differently. Some cats do a horizontal wheel. Others go vertical, so that one can almost imagine giving them a shove and watching them roll off like hoops. Then there’s the issue of noses: tucked in or left out? And tails: around or under? Not to mention the cats who wrap an arm across their eyes as if there are far, far too many things in this world they’d prefer not to think about.

As you can see, Sparky goes for the horizontal, nose-out, tail-around wheel.

I’m posting from one of the computer classrooms at UCSC while on a break from a day-long Excel class. In my new position, I receive, modify, and create many Excel documents. I’ve been using the program intuitively, but clumsily, and am glad for the opportunity to have a systematic go at it. I have not yet come up with any knitting-related uses for Excel, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.

Thanks for the great responses to my question yesterday! I’ve enjoyed the sites you’ve steered me to and welcome more suggestions.

Yesterday afternoon I finished up the Lacey Shrug in Malbrigo. It’s a good fit, and I expect to get a lot of use out of it. I’ll ask Melissa to photograph it when she’s back from visiting family in NY.

Of course finishing one project left me itching to start another, regardless of the fact that I have a whole stack of WIPs. After an hour or so leafing through back issues of IK, I decided on the Swallowtail Shawl. However, I’m not knitting it in lace-weight as recommended; that would be far too safe. Instead I’ve cast on using size 9 needles and Cinnabar by Louisa Harding (color 8). The shawl as shown in IK is actually more of a scarf, and I’d like a larger version that will really be worth wrapping up in. I’m not sure yet if Cinnabar is the ideal choice. It has a high cotton content, so it’s heavy, and the different fibers in the marl make it a bit splitty, but it sure is pretty. With the metallic sparkle in this yarn, I’ll either have a show-stopping shawl or something that looks like it’s made for a high-pomp junta dominated by grannies. We’ll just have to wait and see.

P.S. If you’ve got the Winter 2006 issue of IK, check out the clever cast on for this shawl. You start with a two-stich provisional cast on (which is manageable even for the provisional-phobic), work six two-stitch rows of garter, pick up a stitch along each of the three garter bumps on one side, then undo the provisional stich holder and knit those stitches as well. Voila! You have seven stitches on your needles and a very tidy start for a shawl.

… is “What is the one knitting blog not listed on my links page that you would most strongly recommend I read regularly and why?”

Or to phrase that another way (we academics are notorious for asking the same question in multiple iterations), “Who are the writers you find yourselves turning to again and again for knitting inspiration, for laughs, for common-sense advice?”

I am happily dutiful about reading the blogs I link to. I may get behind for a day or two, but I always catch up—and I’m always rewarded for my efforts with good writing and many a creative spark.

Still, the web-iverse is so flush with knitting resources—I can’t possibly keep track of all the new and interesting sites that pop up. Please tell me what I’m missing and why you find it a must-read. I’d love to know.

For some reason, Penny is particularly fond of this quilt.

Not that she would be at all interested in dressing up in crinolines and pinafores.

But she most certainly could come up with good uses for marbles or a butterfly net.

I made this quilt after the death of a beloved cat, Eloise. She was old (only 13, actually, but with an air of Methuselah about her) and suffered from almost every ailment known to felines: food allergies and mast cell tumors in particular. The allergies left her with an over-grooming habit, which left her mostly bald and the tumors—well, you don’t even want to know the details. Suffice it to say, she was not anything particularly lovely to behold.

She was quite generous with her criticism, but somehow I always knew the complaints were proof of her love. After all—she wouldn’t have bothered me with them if she didn’t trust me to generate results. In her last few months, I put my foot down, stopped forcing the anti-cancer meds down her throat and fed her whatever she wanted, which was mostly babyfood and bacon fat. She may have died a bit more quickly as a result, but she was as happy a camper as a life-long crab could be.

Well, not really. Which is what makes our latest batch of storms such a treat, despite the inconveniences. I know I’d promised I was back to regular blogging again, but when storms wipe out internet access, what can one do but pick up the knitting needles and listen to the sound of rain on the roof?

The cats have not faced this weather with my equanimity. We have chaos under heaven chez moi, which is not helped any by incursions of rained-out ants. No food left out, rain beyond all doors and windows, and the cat-displeasing scent of ant spray. They are taking it all out on each other—and on me. At least they have been able to go outside today, but more rain is due tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I have gotten a good three-quarters of the way through a Lacey Shrug (pattern from the fall 2005 Knitty). I am making it in —surprise, surprise!—malabrigo, velvet grapes colorway. I don’t know yet if it will fit me, but I know my niece will be delighted to receive it if I can’t squeeze into it, so it will find a happy home in one spot or another.

Classes start at UCSC tomorrow, so I must be a good academic and get back to start-of-the-quarter business, but I really am going to be blogging regularly again.

Last Saturday, Melissa took me to Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience. I knew I’d be getting this outing as a Christmas present and I’d been looking forward to it for months. I wasn’t sure what the actual show would be like, but knew I’d love it whether it offered scientific realism or high kitsch. Happily for me, it tended more toward the former than the latter (insofar as a set of latex dinosaurs hulking about a sports complex can be considered realistic). Yes, I knew I was watching giant puppets/vehicles, but I found myself moving back and forth between fascination with the engineering of the creatures and engagement with the different “stories” that made up the show.

I first heard about this show when my friend Ellen took me to High School Musical: The Ice Tour (apparently colons are de rigueur these days in event titles) and we saw the giant promo sign. How could I resist? I called Melissa from the lobby, saying “please, please, please….”

What a blessing it is to have a partner willing to cater to my love of animatronic prehistory!

Saturday night, we saw this as we approached the arena.

Once we were indoors, we had to stop at the souvenir stand.

Presenting—ta-da!—Calpurnia (we’ve been watching Rome on DVD) the stegosaurus. She will be heading with me to Melissa’s this weekend to meet her new little friend Rowena, who came home with us after we visited Prehistoric Gardens in Oregon.

Then we settled in for two hours of dino-rific delights.

Scene One: Struthiomimus preys on hatchlings.

Scene Two: Stegosaurus defends herself from Allosaurus.

(We had to cover Calpurnia’s eyes during this sequence.)

Scene Three: Little Diplodicus gets in trouble…

… and mom comes to the rescue.

All’s well that ends well.

Scene Four: a battle for dominance between a pair of Torosauruses (Torosauri?).

Scene Five: the emergence of flowering plants. In the program photographs, these looked quite cheesy, but in real life they were lovely—not realistic, but a good match for the other-worldliness of the production.

Scene Six: flight!

Scene Seven: three quick and wily raptors search for food.

Scene Eight: one of my personal favorites—Ankylosaurus.

Scene Nine: baby T-Rex, every bit as foolish as baby Diplodicus, also gets into trouble.

And once more, it’s mom to the rescue.

Another happy ending!

*****

OK—I’m back to work now and done with my post-holiday lolling about, so this blog will once more be appearing regularly and will feature genuine knitting content soon. (Also coming up: The Drive Home.)

Happy new year!