Issues/Addresses – Page 91

June 20, 2007September 29, 2016

I Can See My Floor!

With Melissa’s help, I made wonderful inroads into the big end-of-school-year clean that my little home has been needing desperately. I live in a two-room-plus-bath granny unit, with the rooms stacked on top of each other: bed/craft room upstairs, living/kitchen/dining room and bathroom downstairs. I have a bad habit of stacking things along the edges of a room when I don’t know where to put themâ€”and over the past few months I’ve more or less been constructing a series of concentric circles that left me with little more than space to turn around in the middle of each room. With a day-and-a-half of steady effort we actually cleared the upstairs floor almost entirely (there’s a bit of a mess tucked under one chair yet) and the downstairs floor is at least half clear. Melissa also assembled a new bookcase for me, and I’ve moved the huge collection of quilting books off the bedroom cupboards and down onto the new shelves. Now I can move the knitting books upstairs, since they’ve been getting more use for the last few years.

For the most part, Sparky approved of the new arrangements, if only because they kept me home all day. He had no trouble making cosy little nests for himself among the various items that I stacked temporarily on the bed. My Noro shawl met with particular approval. What he did not approve of was the vacuum cleaner.

I am unabashedly biasedâ€”nonetheless, isn’t he a darling?
Sparkleberry of America!
He and Bea were quite pleased when I uncovered the upstairs scratching pad, which had been buried under a load of washed-but-not-folded gym clothes.

With all the tidying up, my knitting is still a bit limited, but I’ve started a Harry Potter Washcloth, pattern courtesy of Michelle of InsanKnitty. It will be a gift for my younger nephew. He’s ten years old and absolutely convinced that his Hogwarts letter will be arriving this summer.

Health care is dear, and sometimes patients cannot order the medicines they need. A review published by The National Institute of Mental Health states that impotency affects 140 million men worldwide. Cialis is an ideal preparation for helping men to sustain an hard-on. If you’re concerned about sexual dysfunction, you have to learn about “sildenafil citrate OTC“. What is the most considerable info you perhaps bear in mind view about this? What researchers talk about cheapest pharmacy for cialis? Several drugstores describe it as cialis price. Remember to diagnose a man’s sexual problem, the physician likely will begin with a thorough history of diagnostic. Not to mention, if you have any other questions about this medicine ask your physician.

June 18, 2007June 18, 2007

A Sunday Stroll

I got very little knitting done yesterday, but I thoroughly enjoyed my first full day free of academic responsibilities. Melissa and I started by meeting my friend Sim for brunch on Solano Avenue in Albany. Sim and I used to date. In case you don’t spend much time hanging out with lesbians, here’s one thing to know about us: we almost always remain close friends with our exes. Maybe that’s because as women we’ve been socialized to “make nice” under all circumstances, but I prefer to think that it’s because we had good reasons for being together in the first place and are sensible enough to know that those good reasons still exist even after we are no longer couples. Melissa and I got the giggles on the way over: “You can tell everyone that we’re having breakfast with your ex and that I’ve been cat-sitting for one ex while she and her partner were on vacation and that another one of my exes and her current partner just got me a show in Sacramento.” We are, indeed, a convivial and inter-connected bunch.

After brunch, Melissa and I strolled Solano, which is one of those streets full of interesting little non-chain shops and a smattering of houses. At Five Little Monkeys we got a toy bus for Boaz (more on that below).

We passed the Code Pink House and studied their latest additions.
Radical lesbians with too much time on their hands.
Tell it sisters.

The marquee at the Albany Cinema left us pondering the question of what it means to be hauntingly French.
Movie marquee creators with too much time on their hands.

Last night we got to babysit Boaz while his moms went to see the premiere of a relative’s film at the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
Cute!

Cute!
As you can see, he was quite taken with the bus we got him. He immediately wanted passengers for it and, lacking anything better, we gave him a bag of Ricola, which he carefully stuffed into the bus one at a time through the energancy exit. He fell asleep with the hard hat still on his head and clutching the bus.

The back of my Origami Cardi is done. I’ve also done the second of three rounds of picking up stitches and knitting edging on my top-secret project.

Today Melissa is coming to my place after work to help me try to figure out how to get my house back to normal now that I’m done teaching for a while. There are piles everywhere, and no place to put anything. Melissa says not to worry, she’ll point at things and tell me what to do with them. I don’t know how I would manage without her. (I may have exes with whom I’m close friends, but I plan on holding onto Melissa for the rest of my days. We are very much looking forward to growing old disgracefully together.)

Later tonight, I’m taking Melissa out for dinner to celebrate her birthday. I wish her parents were still alive so I could thank them for her.

June 15, 2007June 15, 2007

The Evil that Is Little Knits, Redux

This and this. What more can I say?

P.S. I have been in my office for two full days now, writing narrative evaluations and determining grades and sometimes I just can’t help surfing the net…

P.P.S. In case my mom is reading: no credit cards were used in the purchase of this yarn. It came out of checking.

P.P.P.S. I’ve signed up for Dishrag Tag!

June 14, 2007

Links!

Check it outâ€”I finally have a links page. The “Links Link” is just below the header, next to “Home” and “About.”

Of course, I couldn’t limit myself to knitting links. You’ll also find reproduction quilting links, early music links, left-wing links, and more. Enjoy!

June 13, 2007June 14, 2007

Too Darn Hot!

I’m in my office and I should be sorting the last of my students’ work into piles and alphabetizing it, so I can evaluate it as efficiently as possible, but instead I am image surfing on Google looking for pictures of poor desperate souls dragging themselves across desert dunes without an oasis in sight. Why? Because it is 87ÂºF here and I am a wimp. Not just a wimp; I am the Wimp. I am the Wimpmeister. La Wimpa di tutti Wimpi. Because I am trying to find a pic that reflects my wretched, non-hottie (as in nothing sexy about it, basting-in-my-own-juices) hotnessâ€”as if that will somehow bring me relief. Because all I can think of is how in another gabillion years when I can finally retire I am heading north up the coast and not stopping until I get somewhere with 200 days of rain a year and blessed, blessed cloud cover. Perhaps Oregon or Washington will satisfy me. Perhaps I’ll keep going until I reach Canada. Perhaps I’ll drag myself clear across the Arctic Circle and south down into Scandinavia.

Despite the heat, I expect I will manage to knit a few more rows on my Origami Cardi tonight. After all, one must suffer for one’s art.

Here’s a picture of its status as of yesterday morning:
My first sweater!

Archy is curious
Archy apparently suspects this piece of harboring nefarious motives of one sort or another. If it turns into a giant, heat-induced, radioactive mutant, he will be ready to save the world.

P.S. In case you haven’t seen it yet, the new Knitty is up. My favorite? The Chapeau Marnier. Pretty and functional, with interesting detail. There’s also an article, “Socks for Diabetic Feet,” with some worthwhile yarn and pattern recommendations.

June 11, 2007

And the Answer Is…

Well that was fast. I emailed Interweave Knits last night with my question about the Origami Cardi and received this reply today.

Hi Sarah-Hope,

We will eliminate the â€œPurl 1 WS row.â€ sentence; then continue as written. The web team will post the correction at the next update.

Please let me know if you have any further questions, and thank you for contacting us about this pattern!

Best wishes,

Katie Himmelberg
Assistant Editor
Interweave Knits
Style Editor

Hip-hip-hooray for good customer service! I can knit again!

And now, pictures:

I’ve finished the Easy Triangular Shawl in Noro Blossom, so Melissa and I took it along for a stroll at Middle Harbor Park by the Oakland shipyards and had a photo shoot.

The shawl on a bench.
Here it is draped across a bench beside the observation tower.

The shawl over a railing.
And here it is draped over a railing.

A family of geese on the waterfront.
The park was full of families of geese with their gangly, teenaged-looking offspring.

This park contains the old terminus of the trans-continental railway. If your goods needed to go further west, they’d have to go by shipâ€”and that’s still the case today.
The Port of Oakland.
The cranes that load the ships look oddly furturistic and ancient at the same time, like the skeletons of a whole herd of Trojan horses. (To give you a sense of scale, that small green-and-stone building to the left of the cranes is the three-story observation tower.)

My thanks again to catbookmom for introducing me to this pattern. I’m looking forward to wrapping this shawl around me when the ocean winds begin to blow.

June 11, 2007June 11, 2007

Origami Cardi SOS!

I am stuck on the Origami Cardi. I need help.

If you have the summer 2007 Interweave Knits, please open it to p. 86 and follow along with me. I am knitting the back of the cardigan. I have done the “Row 1” bit. I have done the “Row 2″ bit. I have continued working until piece measures 4 1/2” from CO, ending on Row 5 of the pattern stitch. I understand the next bit of instructions that reads “Next Row: (WS) Sl 2… x sts remain.” But immediately after that I’m told “Purl 1 WS row.”

How can I purl a wrong side row if I’ve just finished working a wrong side row? Does this involve some aspect of the knitting mysteries into which I have not yet been initiated? If you can make more sense of this than I can, please, strap the answer around a St. Bernard’s neck along with a (large-ish) flask of brandy and send the creature my way immediately.

Thank you.

P.S. I have sent an email to Interweave Knits and am about to post on Knitter’s Review. I’ll ley you all know if I get an answer.

P.P.S. The situation is desperate, as I’m visiting my parents and have been unable to knit since hitting this roadblock at approximately 7:30p.m. last night. I’m going through serious withdrawl.

June 9, 2007June 9, 2007

3,501

Earlier this week, we passed the 3,500 mark for U.S. military deaths in Iraq. The Iraqi civilian death toll is currently estimated at somewhere between 65,000 and 71,000. These numbers haunt me, not least because I know I’m incapable of grasping what they really meanâ€”to parents, partners, children, friends, communities.

When the U.S. death toll passed 1,000, back in 2004, Melissa attended a vigil to honor the war dead. In an effort to understand the scale of the loss at that time, she began this painting, which took over a year to finish. The full piece is enormous, measuring 4’8″ x 8’7″, yet the individual soldiers measure only 2″ each.
Last Judgment: Bush and 1,000 Dead.

Here’s her artist’s statement for this piece:

Last Judgment: Bush and 1,000 Dead
Ink and acrylic on paper, 2005
55″ x 103″

I started this painting on September 10, 2004. The night before, I had attended a local vigil honoring the 1,000 US dead in Iraq. We had just reached that tragic milestone, and it was an important event to mark.

While at the vigil, I felt helpless. I live in a liberal area, and while the hand-waves and horn-toots were supportive and affirming, it felt like we were preaching to the converted. Yes, we were helping to raise local awareness, but ultimately, did it make any difference? Would the Bush administration listen to the voices raised in these nation-wide vigils? Of course not.

I started thinking of two things. First, what could I do? How could I best express, and share, my outrage? As an artist, the answer seemed simple: I needed to create a piece that reflected my anger while remembering those who had died.

The second thought I had was, exactly what is 1,000? What does it look like? We live in an age where huge numbers are tossed about carelessly: 40 gigabye hard drives, $7 trillion national debt. These days 1,000 sounds small. Is it really so?

My solution was a painting depicting each and every one of the 1,000 US casualties. I chose the shape of a medieval tympanum, the arched carving located over the entrance to a cathedral. Tympanums traditionally show scenes of the Last Judgment, which seemed appropriate both for depicting the dead and for the concept that those responsible would, ultimately, be judged for what they have brought about. Also, we seem (sadly) to be living in times that echo the medieval: crusades against the infidel, a narrow-minded view of the world coupled with willful ignorance of fact and science, a self-righteous and self-aggrandizing religiosity.

In the center of it all are George Bush and his cohorts: Condeleeza Rice, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Ashcroft, bearing the (twisted) symbols of their appointments. (Since the painting was begun in Bush’s first term, the characters are from that era. Their replacements could fit these depictions equally well.) Instead of a benediction, Bush shows us the crossed fingers of the inveterate liar.

Across the bottom of the painting is a frieze of dead Iraqis. I didn’t want to imply that the only deaths that mattered, that were tragically wrong, were those of US troops. There is no accounting of how many Iraqi civilians have been killed in this military escapade; conservative counts are in the tens of thousands.

I finished the painting on October 6, 2005. At that point, we were rapidly approaching the next milestone in the war: 2,000 US dead.
â€”Melissa West

I’m not an artist like Melissa, but I thought I could follow her lead in a small way. Below is my attempt to understand what 3,501 looks like. Each X is an individual: relationships, dreams, fears; a baby once held by a mother; hopes for a better life and a better world; high spirits and heartache; the recklesness of youth; first words of love, spoken with mixed uncertainty and exhilaration.

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

I will do my best to carry these in my heart, to mourn, and to remember.

June 7, 2007

Whooooo-Hooooo

Melissa snapped this shot on BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System.
BART sign thanks knitters.
Do you suppose this is the start of something big? Will politicians be courting us next? Will advertisers want us for focus groups? Will we bump Paris Hilton off the front page?

I just finished up my last classes of this academic year. Four student conferences today and six tomorrow, then I’m done (except for reading about 150 essays, determining grades, and writing narrative evaluations).

When I leave my office today, I’m heading downtown to pick up that pile of mystery novels I requested from the local library last week. Melissa has also made me a set of audio CDs of Bill Moyers’ Faith and Reason series, so I’ve got those to listen to while knitting.

The three major knitting projects I’ve been working on are all near completion, so look for pics of FOs next week. Meanwhile, I’m doing some major dreaming about “what next?” I think my first new cast-on will be for something similar to this shrug (on the left) from Knit 2 Together by Tracy Ullman and Mel Clark.
Mel's Patterns photo only.
The pattern comes in S/M and M/L sizes, and I’m thinking I’ll make it a bit larger to be sure it’s nice and loose and good for wrapping up in. The eyelet pattern is pretty, but I’ll substitute a different eyelet stitch that’s less fussy to knit. Last night as I thought about this project, my logic went something like this: “Well, if I’m changing the body stitch and changing the measurements, maybe I should just change the ribbing too and make up something completely new that’s my own pattern.” I really do like the ribbing on this pattern, though; it’s got a small increse worked in that allows the collar to fold back easily and makes the wrists roomierâ€”and since it’s reversible the folded-back bits don’t look incongruous.

I’ll have time to decide. I’m going to knit the body out of the bag of black/grey Inca Print I bought last weekend, but the yardage won’t be sufficient for the ribbing too, so I’ll be looking for a black alpaca or alpaca blend to knit that. While I work on the body and decide on the second yarn, I can try swatching some different rib possibilities.

And now… my summer has begun!

June 5, 2007

If I Were Twenty-Five Years Younger…

… and I’m-not-even-going-to-say-how-many pounds lighter, I would love wearing this dress from the latest issue of Knit.1.
Lovely 60s-hippie brown knit dress.
Look at itâ€”all loose and roomy where you want it to be, but nipping in at the right spots to show off a girlish figure. Wearing it would be like walking around all day wrapped up in a cozy afghan, while still projecting a confident, I-am-chic vibe.

For the most part Knit.1 and its parent magazine, Vogue Knitting, don’t do much for me. (They do sometimes have great technique articles, like last year’s series on knitting lace.) It may be that my general lack of enthusiasm is a “coast thing.” Both magazines seem geared toward what I think of as “East-Coast women,” women who dress for career and socializing. Out here in Santa Cruz, formal means black socks with your Birkenstocks.

But I love this dress. I bought Knit.1 for this dress, even though there wasn’t a single additional item in the magazine that caught my interest, even though there is absolutely zero chance that I will ever knit this dress. I just enjoy looking at it.

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