Smoking Weedy Sea Dragons and Drinking Irish Breakfast Tea.

Titania, Queen of the Fairies

2011-12-04T17:17:00.000-08:00

Little Snow

2011-12-04T17:11:00.001-08:00

Craziness

2011-11-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

In which I volunteer to create a lion hat for Bridget's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. With less than a week.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T21:52:00.001-08:00

In Transit, San Francisco

2011-11-19T10:04:00.000-08:00

Avalon, Catalina Island

2011-11-19T09:36:00.000-08:00

Paris at Night

2010-08-22T11:24:00.000-07:00

Wacky Barcelona

2010-06-24T20:17:00.001-07:00

Pet chipmunks for sale on La Ramblas

One of the Metal People

Nekid people are popping up all over Barcelona...

Bats with B-cups

Goth Laundry Day

Streets of Barcelona

2010-06-18T21:54:00.001-07:00

Placa de Catalunya

Parc de la Ciutadella

Is it just me, or does this one look like a travel ad from the 70's?

Placa Reial

Etsy shop is up!

2010-01-05T10:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SeaDragonYarns

Yarn o' the day:
"Starry-eyed and Laughing"

This one's not on the shop yet. Apparently, people only look at new stuff on Etsy, so it's good to dribble out the items. Apparently.

You can divorce a guy, but not his Mom's cinnamon rolls.

2009-12-23T15:21:00.001-08:00

A good mail day

2009-12-12T18:55:00.001-08:00

Backstage at the Nutcracker

2009-12-06T21:15:00.001-08:00

Kate in her Buffoon costume in the dressing rooms at Marin Civic Center, doing a leg lift.

mwahaahaa

2009-11-30T14:59:00.000-08:00

Cities in Dust

Spanish Boots

Holidazed

2009-11-30T14:55:00.001-08:00

Younger than that now

2009-11-23T15:00:00.001-08:00

Full skein of sock yarn...

2009-11-19T23:28:00.000-08:00

Colorway: Drifting In and Out of Lifetimes

More yarny chemistry

2009-11-19T23:08:00.000-08:00

This is the same greenish yarn, overdyed with black.

In over my head

2009-11-11T10:09:00.001-08:00

"In Between Days"
Actually a little more teal than in the photo. Superwash worsted.

No name for this one- just 50 yds messing around.

Other Early attempts..

This was better. No name for this either, but 400+ yds silk/merino.

Photo Update

2009-11-07T17:27:00.001-08:00

Here are some photos from Chrissy Field in SF this afternoon.

And here are some photos from Halloween. Bridget was Hobbes (from Calvin and) and Kate was a Cheetah. Many thanks to Grammie, who did most of the tiger sewing.

Camping in Yosemite

2009-08-20T11:51:00.001-07:00

This was the view from our campsite in Lower Pines, right next to the river.

Here's our campsite, where life revolves not around the picnic table, or firepit, or tent, but around the bear locker. Bridget and Kate were quite impressed with all the ranger presentations about bears, and very insistent that bears will come to your bear locker if it is left open for even a second, even if you are cooking on top of it, so there was much locking and unlocking.

Bridget demonstrating how Matt showed them that Half Dome looks like your thumb. They did this everytime they saw Half Dome, which, as pointed out above, was a lot, since it was the view from our campsite, as well as most of the valley.

Here's Kate's thumb, too.

Here we are rock climbing while walking from Lower Pines to Yosemite Village. This turned out to be the longest hike we took on the whole trip.

The next morning we went swimming in the river.

Kate shows off her gappy teeth while scootering around and around the campground.

We went swimming again...

Here is the requisite photo of the kids with the bear in the dining pavillion in Curry Village.

Here we are, tired of being in photos.

Thumbs and scooters, at the same time, on the way back to camp to make s'mores.

Our private sandbox under the bridge.

Olmstead Point, on the Tioga Road.

All of us together, looking bedraggled.

Practicing our rock climbing again.

We spent a few hours at Tenaya Lake before heading home.

Finishing MoJo

2009-07-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

It was (ahem) suggested that perhaps I didn't need to buy more sweater yarn because I've only been knitting socks. But in the last two weeks, I have had a burst of finishing MoJo, and finished a number of WIPs that were in danger of becoming abandoned indefinitely. I had started this black shawl in the hopes of taking it to Hawaii, but once it became clear that I wasn't going to finish it in time, I sort of got distracted. But I decided I wanted to wear it to my friend Diana's wedding, so I had to get it done. That inspired me to get a bunch of stuff done, plus another sweater that's all done but the seaming...

Ballerina

2009-06-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

Here is Kate in her end-of-year Ballet Performance costume (yes, there is a theme here).

Here is another picture of Kate. Why is this here? Pants. You'll never see it again.

Why are all these pictures of Kate? Isn't the oldest child supposed to have all the pictures? Well, this is what happens these days when I try to take a picture of Bridget....

Sculpin

2009-06-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

This is Kate, in her Sculpin costume, as seen in Mrs. Cellar's Afternoon Readers' production of "The Three Little Sculpins".

What is a sculpin, you ask, and is it really camo-colored? (Well, I did, anyway, when she picked out this fabric at the store). Here is a sculpin. They live in tide pools in Northern California, the subject of the end-of-year research project.

International Day

2009-05-22T19:23:00.000-07:00

Today was International Day at school, in which each class performs a folk dance associated with their chosen country, and brings food from that country to share with the rest of the school. They start with Kindergarten and work up to 5th grade. Kate's class did Mexico, Grace's class did aboriginal Australia, and Bridget's class did modern Egypt.

More Socks

2009-05-20T16:27:00.001-07:00

I knit the first of these socks in Hawaii. It may seem incongruous that I was knitting wool socks while at the beach. Of course, I didn't really knit them at the beach. I knit them on the bus, and in dark conference rooms with air conditioning and no windows while listening to talks about Diffusion Tensor Imaging and so on. And it was congruous with the novel that I was reading, which was about Newfoundland, and though it did not prominently feature wool socks, the characters would have been happier if it did.

Kate and Moira's Birthday Party

2009-05-20T16:24:00.001-07:00

Yes, this giant trampoline now lives in my yard.

In which Bridget and I go on a hunt

2009-04-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

I've become a wisteria addict. I see them, and I want to steal them and take them home. The problem is, wisteria become somewhat attached to wherever they already are. As a poor (but legal) substitute, Bridget and I drove around and collected these wisteria.

Oh yeah, this was supposed to be about knitting

2009-04-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

So, I realize I've strayed a bit from the original conception of a knitting blog, with information about what I am knitting, as well as what is happening in my life while I am knitting it. So, here are some socks. The pattern is Knitty's Spring Forward, and the yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy, and the color is Wisterious.

How this is (tangentially) relevant to my life will be made clear in a day or two (that is the mysterious part, see...).

The Garden creates it's own Wacky Project

2009-04-01T07:29:00.000-07:00

Wacky Garden Project of the Month

2009-03-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

This is the second incarnation of this project. The first incarnation involved several lessons, the highlight being the fact that spray paint can melt styrofoam.

So, we started again with plastic lampshades...

Spray-painted red, then decorated and coated with Modge Podge, glued on googly-eyes.
Now, they are Frockling Among the Strawberries.

Growing

2009-03-14T19:44:00.000-07:00

In which both Bridget and Kate lose some teeth, Kate gets a haircut, and we embark on a grand seed-starting expedition...

And - Spring!

2009-02-24T09:35:00.001-08:00

Why I love living in Northern California in February...

Snow

2009-02-22T12:57:00.001-08:00

My Funny Valentines

2009-02-13T19:14:00.000-08:00

So, I don't have much of an emotional investment in Valentine's Day as an adult holiday, but it is one of my favorite kid holidays. I think it's because Bridget and Kate get very excited before Valentine's Day about planning what they are going to GIVE to people, rather than what they are going to GET, unlike birthdays and Christmas, and even Tooth Fairy days (digression- Bridget lost 3 teeth in 2 days last week. The Tooth Fairy was apparently caught off-guard by this unexpected windfall and experiencing a bit of a cash flow crisis, because she had to make two trips to cover the second re-up). Anyway, Bridget spends a lot of time on Valentines. For the past two years, she has given each of her classmates a small stuffed animal from her collection, each selected specifically for its recipient and given a hand-made name tag. This year, however, too many of the less popular stuffed animals were survivors of Noodle-attacks, so she had to come up with another plan. The planning coincided with a renewed interest in knitting, and so Bridget decided that she would knit squares and decorate them with iron-on patches for each classmate. True, in the end I helped with the knitting and the ironing, but it still warmed my heart to watch her deliberating over which color yarn and which patch each classmate would like best. I know, I know, Marcel Mauss is gagging right now, elementary school Valentine's Day is just a great pink Potlatch, but still.

Oh Yeah.

2009-01-30T19:55:00.000-08:00

Green Screen

2009-01-30T13:41:00.001-08:00

Kate's class went on a field trip to the local weather report studio, and learned a lot about TV (though perhaps not so much about weather, which is what they are actually studying). If you look closely, you can see that they are all standing in front of the forcasted days of the week, on the monitor...

Happy Birthday, Alison!

2009-01-21T07:36:00.000-08:00

Ok, I admit it. In the past, I have been late in calling or sending emails, and sometimes I've probably missed it altogether. But because I truly am grateful for the 20ish years that you've been a part of my life, I decided to do something different this year. So a few of your other friends and family and I got together to get you the one thing you really really wanted - A New President!

Welcome to my closet, here's a pair of black Mary Janes.

2009-01-08T10:14:00.000-08:00

I thought about hanging them in trees, but it's too damn cold outside (unless you live in Chicago, in which case, it's positively balmy and I'm just lazy).

And some red ones too, just for kicks.

Happy Holidays

2008-12-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

Christmas in California...

Happy Happy Joy Joy

On the first day of Christmas, my true loves gave to me...

2008-12-09T09:46:00.001-08:00

A Very Messy House
And a Shiny Plastic Christmas Tree

Or, as Bridget says, we call it "Christmas" because it's Christian, and you make a mess.

A number of people have asked me if Bridget and Kate are having a hard time right now, since it is the first holiday season without their father. I suppose the answer is "yes", but not worse than you would expect, under the circumstances, and maybe not worse than other holiday seasons. They are very clingy with me, which I'm sure I will be nostalgic about when they are teenagers and won't speak to me.

Lust

2008-11-26T12:17:00.001-08:00

Must. Knit.
Sylvi from Winter 2008 Twist Collective, by Mari Muinonen

NaKniSweMo (Part One)

2008-11-24T07:57:00.000-08:00

Well, it is almost the end of November, and I completed my primary NaKniSweMo goal, to finish my February Lady Sweater, with a diamond lace pattern instead of the gull lace pattern in the original EZ sweater. This is knit in Dream in Color's Chinatown Apple Classy (worsted weight superwash), and the color is amazing. I have a secondary goal too, but having learned my lesson during Soctober to set the bar low, I am considering this success!

Wacky Project of the Week

2008-11-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

Some time ago, I saw a photo in a gardening magazine of someone's "quirky" garden, which included an entire armchair covered in mosses. I thought it was a great idea, so I decided to do a simpler version in my own yard.

First, I had to find an old wooden chair with a removable seat. I found this one for $5 at The Salvation Army in San Rafael.

Then, I made a basket out of plastic netting left over from puppy-proofing the fence.

Which I lined with weed cloth.

And tucked into the chair to make a "seat planter" that would hold dirt, but also drain well.

I staple-gunned that to the frame.

And filled it with compost and potting mix.

And planted it with elfin thyme, and an ivy cutting. I may add some sweat pea seeds or other vining plants too.

Ta Da! Ok, I agree, the overall artistic quality is still a bit lacking, but I'm confident that it will look sufficiently quirky when the plants have filled in.

Bridget's 10th Birthday

2008-11-23T10:18:00.000-08:00

There was mayhem!

Socktober

2008-11-10T10:22:00.000-08:00

In October, I joined the Stash and Burn Soctober Challenge. My goal was to knit 2 pairs of socks, or about 700 yards of sock yarn. I finished my Rattlesnake Creek socks, in Dream In Color Smooshy, in the "Deep Seaflower" colorway. However, I'm still working on the leg of the first sock of the next pair, my Mingus socks in DIC "Good Luck Jade". This pattern is beyond my memorization capacities, so I can only work on them when I'm sitting at home with the pattern right in front of me. Maybe by the time I've finished the first sock, I'll have it down. Meanwhile, I've signed up for Stash and Burn's NaKniSweMo Challenge (National Knit a Sweater in a Month, a rip-off of NaWriNoMo, National Write a Novel in a Month). More about that when I have something to show for it....

Harvest

2008-11-10T10:09:00.000-08:00

I'm proud of myself for actually getting a little closer to my goal of growing some of my own produce this year (and I even made a compost pile)!

These are lemon cucumbers. I had hundreds of lemon cucumbers. You know, you can give away one or two cucumbers, but most people don't want a bag of 10. Next year I'm going to figure out how to donate garden produce to the Marin Community Food Bank. I also planted eggplant, and have one on the vine, still. And strawberries, lettuce, parsley, oregano, bell peppers, lemons, lemon balm, lemon thyme, thai basil, sweet basil, chocolate mint, various tomatoes and a peach tree that grew about four peaches this year. Next year I'm going to try to grow exotic varieties of pumpkins.

My own private New Hampshire.

Thank You

2008-11-05T07:33:00.000-08:00

Thank You
Thank You
Thank You

(yes, you, Alison)

Because of you, I got off my butt and sent money, made phone calls, talked to my family and friends and colleagues. And I know I'm not the only one.

Yesterday, I got to take my daughters with me to the polls before school, so they could see how we vote, and help me fill in the bubbles. And then I got to go to our "overflow" Obama headquaters at someone's house and make calls to Ohio and Virginia. And then we sat around the kitchen table listening to the radio as the results came in, and Bridget taught us all an Obama cheer-dance, and we ran around the living room screaming when Ohio was called, and I had to explain, several times between then and the end of Obama's speech, why I was crying.

This was something I heard last week on the radio (I don't know who wrote it):

Rosa sat so that Martin could walk.
Martin walked so that Barack could run.
Barack ran so that our children could fly.

Halloween '08

2008-11-01T19:09:00.001-07:00

Before we start, this is a screenshot from the movie "My Neighbor Totoro" directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The creatures are the Totoros, and Mei is the younger girl in front.

Kate was dressed as Mei, and Moira is Little Bo Peep.

Bridget is a witch.

Grace is a Bloody Witch.

Here is everyone, getting ready to go Trick-or-Treating.

Note the pillowcases for loot. These kids don't mess around...

Here is Noodle in his costume. It was a big hit.

And examining the spoils, afterwards.

Halloween Preview

2008-10-30T20:49:00.001-07:00

Autumnal

2008-10-30T20:13:00.000-07:00

Those of you who live in New England can ignore this post.

I live in a part of the country renowned for its lack of seasons. It's sunny and dry until it starts to rain in November, and then the hills turn vivid green, and it rains until March, and then it's sunny and dry again. Except of course in San Francisco, where the ocean air rubs up against the sweltering heat of the central valley, and it is foggy all summer long.

But in my little corner of the bay area, we have these brief glimpses of that illusive season, autumn:

Field Trip - Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-24T09:54:00.001-07:00

Kate's class went to a Pumpkin Patch in Petaluma, where they dug potatoes, milked a cow, went on a hay ride, and of course, picked pumpkins.

Field Trip- Safari West

2008-10-24T09:46:00.001-07:00

Kate's first grade class went on a field trip to "Safari West", in Santa Rosa. It's a combination zoo and resort. These great photo's were taken by Lester Ng, Aidan's dad.

More Yard Projects

2008-10-22T22:28:00.000-07:00

Here's another recent yard project. My yard has become a big creative outlet, and also a source of excercise and angst reduction. Occasionally, the kids even play out there with me!

These are birdhouses that the kids painted sometime last spring at a "birdhouse painting party" that we had, sort-of (there were two other people). They've been scattered around the yard, where Bridget says Fairies live in them, but I finally hung them on the fence. We had a disagreement about whether the Fairies would be mad, would enjoy their better view of Mt. Tam, and would be able to get into them, now that they are not on the ground (I mean, come on, these are special walking Fairies?).

These are just some other views of the yard. My pirate ship is looking a little the worse for wear, so that may need some upgrading next spring. It's a little hard to see, but that white thing in the middle of the deck is the sail, blown over the top of the mast, and the hammock sort of thing that you could sit in fell down, and the ship's wheel fell apart, and Noodle chewed up half of it.

Weedy Sea Dragons?

2008-10-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

So, perhaps you have been wondering about the title. What is a weedy sea dragon, anyway? Well, when I was a senior in high school, the summer before I went to college, I worked at Books Inc. Which was a bookstore in the pre-computerized instant inventory era, and employed people to write down the title and publisher of every book sold on a little slip of paper. I'm not kidding (this is 1990). When we weren't doing this, I would sit around with my fellow literati wanna-bes, and write little stories, and look at books. In one book we came across photos of weedy sea dragons. I wrote down, on one of those slips of paper, that someday I would write a book, and call it Smoking Weedy Sea Dragons, and Drinking Irish Breakfast Tea. Or maybe it was Drinking Weedy Sea Dragons and Smoking Irish Breakfast Tea. Anyway, these beautiful creatures and my pretentious title have stuck with me.

Sorry for the lack of photo credits. If these are yours, well done!

Garden Project Update

2008-10-18T08:40:00.001-07:00

They look a little bigger, right? Don't they?

Yosemite in Autumn

2008-10-13T20:25:00.001-07:00

We arrived at Yosemite Friday night, about 8pm, hauled everything into our tent cabin in Curry village, and got pizza at the cafe. The highlight of the evening were the raccoons, who came right up under the cafe tables, looking for something to scrounge.

Saturday morning was drizzly and misty. The walls of Yosemite Valley were barely visible above us. It reminded me of Portland, and I thought- this is beautiful! I could live in Portland again, I could do this...

Kate and Bridget got raccoons, inspired by the previous evening.

Since it was raining, we (and everyone else) spent the morning riding the shuttle bus around to various indoor exhibits, including the museum, visitor center, Ansel Adams gallery, and the Miwok village replica.

Here is Bridget, waiting for the bus.

One great benefit of the rain was that there was actually water in Yosemite Falls. The last time we were here, in August, I kept pointing to a dark spot on the cliff, and saying, see, in winter, there's a huge waterfall there! Although it wasn't huge, it was lovely to see it, and it only lasted the day.

Apparently the waterfall inspired everyone to stick out their tongues.

It began to clear, a little, and we could finally see Half-dome.

Here are Bridget and Kate waiting for the bus outside the Awanhee.

After a cold night, Sunday was clear and glorious. We took the bus to the road to Mirror Lake.

Much time was spent looking up.

Mirror Lake is becoming Mirror Meadow, turns out.

Requisite group fishbowl photo.

The rest of the day was fabulous and sunny, but I ran out of camera batteries. We had lunch on the river at Housekeeping Camp, and then Ice Cream at Yosemite Lodge. We walked over to the Swinging Bridge (which was dissapointingly stable), and played at the beach there, in the golden meadows below Yosemite falls.

I am Dead

2008-09-24T09:51:00.001-07:00

I struggled to the end…

but was no match for mhardersen’s deadly weapon

The rescue dogs found only my grizzly remains.

I SITZ, I KNITZ, I KILLZ (I HOPZ)

2008-09-20T20:24:00.001-07:00

I decided to enter the fray as a warrior in Hat Attack 2: The death hat always knocks twice.
The idea is simple. The arms dealer distributes the plans for your weapon, you acquire yarn from your local armory, engage in weapon-grade knitting, fire your weapon, and assassinate your target before your assassin cuts you down. With hats.

This is my weapon.
I launched it at Nederlass on 9-18-08 at 0900 hours. I am still alive.

To be honest, I'm not crazy about the pattern and I won't mind too much if my target has finished her hat before I kill her, because otherwise I will have to finish it and kill her target too. I will probably donate my own death hat to the 7 Long project (hats for the UCSF Pediatric Cancer Unit). I have a link to this, but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. Maybe the lull of impending demise?

More my style? Proving I have poor judgement?

2008-09-15T15:26:00.001-07:00

Mrs. Dumbledore

You like ‘em powerful and brilliant. And why not? A guy like this, you can have intelligent conversation with, laugh with, and you know he can protect you. Sure, he may have a weakness for power, but he’s got that under control. And sure, he let his sister die, but he learned from that. And sure, he harbors a secret, forbidden love for a man widely known to be his mortal enemy, but…well, no, that’s actually a pretty big obstacle. Good luck with that.

Cheating

2008-09-13T08:30:00.000-07:00

Here is stage 0, last year. See how much progress I've made in negative 1 day!

A garden project

2008-09-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

I've noticed that having WIPs on my ravelry page keeps me working on my knitting projects, instead of letting them get buried under things on my desk and disapearing for months. So I thought I might try the same thing with a garden project, and see if this helps me keep it watered and not buried under weeds....

So, here is stage 1:

This is 3 flats of elfin thyme planted between the pavers of the patio that I put in last summer, and put thin soaker hose in between a couple of months ago. I had tried planting corsican mint seeds, but the weeds won out. So, the idea is that this will fill in, and all be green in between the pavers. We'll see how it goes, this gardening WIP.

WooHoo, I'll be published...

2008-09-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

I finished the Reed obituary for Matt, at the very last minute in good Reedie fashion. They changed it around a little to match the format they have for obits, but it's pretty much the same as my version. I also made this blog

I posted the newspaper and Reed obituaries there, and the idea is that people can add comments after they read the obituary, or the family can add information about Matt and the kids, or whatever.

When I was trying to think of what to write about Matt's time at Reed, I remembered one of the first days we were there, up in his tiny room on the 3rd floor of Kerr, and he showed me how he had opened the pencil drawer of the battered wooden desk, when he moved in, and someone had scrated "matriculate elsewhere" into the wood.

Perhaps I should be worried....

2008-08-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, so recently I purchased this yarn, with which I am planning to make a hat and scarf for a friend.
And then I purchased this sock yarn.

And then I purchased this other sock yarn, but it's going to be a lace sweater.

And then, Bridget wanted me to make her a version of the February Lady Sweater that I made in DIC Classy Happy Forest. I suggested the Malabrigo, above, since I had it on hand. She said she'd rather have a light blue. So, the next time we were at one of the stores that has yarn, she picked this out (with perhaps a bit of nudging from me?).

Does it help if I point out that this is Cascade 220 superwash, which is a much more practical yarn for a child's sweater than Malabrigo? Not even a little?

Bittersweet Miracles

2008-08-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

One of the nice things about writing a blog for one person is that I don't need to worry about the backstory. Although I may write a lot about Matt's death someday, you already know about it. But I've been thinking a lot about how bittersweet the miracles of life are- at least, of my life. Why is it that I only seem to grow as a person by showing up in the face of calamity? Is it like that for everyone? Someone was going to send me a bit of text about the way in which death and despair serve as the compost of our lives - that they enrich and builds us, even though they smell atrocious. I rather think Matt might like to think of himself with the worms in the compost that feeds rest of our lives. An ambivalent role, to be associated with the suffering and yet also with the redemptive growth of the people you love. I'm reminded of conversations that we used to have back in college, about the necessity for experience and suffering in the artistic process. He used to claim that some people were too coddled, that our problems were hangnails and bad hair days, and we wouldn't be able to write, or act, or paint, until we'd been more thoroughly crushed by life. I countered that we all have the same internal scale of heaven and hell- we have all had, by definition, the worst days of our own lives. But I secretly agreed with him then, and twenty years later, I am willing to say that my worst days were never as hellish as his worst days, and perhaps even that my worst days were never as hellish as his best days. On the other hand, you and I, those of us who were somewhat less enamored of our pain, are the ones actually doing the writing. And, now, the living. I find it ironic, bittersweet, that I always saw myself as experiencing a more Faulkner-esque life vicariously through Matt, and now he's doomed to find vicarious existance through me, and that I am going to be a better writer, and a better person, because of it.

Ok, Ok

2008-08-12T18:12:00.000-07:00

So, since you have told me explicitly that I should actually write something on this ol'blog, and since you keep pointing people to it, despite the embarrassing fact that I haven't written anything in a year, and that all they'll see is a picture of a chewed up pig, and since I (probably) no longer have to worry about being stalked... I thought I would share my deepest thoughts, so you would know how I spend my time.

So- why is it that the Chinese women's gymnastics program can spend millions training these brilliant tiny whirling dervishes, design them fabulous patriotic costumes, build them a huge new stadium, but they can't spend $2.99 on a package of BLACK goody hair clips?

To pull my mind out of the gutter of complete internet coverage of the Olympics (trampoline? When did trampoline become an Olympic event?), I decided to rename the blog, since I don't have all that much witty to say about knitting and literature, and just do what everyone else does- use it to send you random updates about things that have very little to do with me personally, alternating with attempts to write very personal things that no one else would care about, but make me feel literary. And then I might add occasional photos of knitting and gardening and children and dogs, home improvement projects, and other creative endeavors.

Puppies are bad for knitting...

2007-09-28T00:42:00.005-07:00

Argh!

Puppies are good for knitting!

2007-09-28T00:42:00.001-07:00

So cute! So cuddly! So incapable of removing the garments we put on them!

mamalamarama

2007-09-28T00:40:00.001-07:00

More. I am nothing if not redundant.

Literary Knitting Heroines

2007-09-28T00:33:00.001-07:00

A list, to be augmented:

DeFarge.

Wavey Prose, Beety, and Bunny Quoyle, from Annie Proux's The Shipping News. Obviously important to me, as I've discussed..

Elizabeth Bennett - a great literary heroine to be sure, but really, I can't remember if knitting actually occurs in the novel, and if it does, I don't see it as very Lizzy-like. Knitting makes her like the rest of the women in her world. Reading, walking outdoors, turning down marriage proposals make her beloved.

Molly Weasley - the grande dame of Potter knitting. I'm planning to make my children Weasley sweaters for Christmas every year too. Ok, maybe just Mamalama sweaters, but hey - maybe Molly and I use the same pattern.
Dobby. unmatched socks, good enough for a ball. With broomsticks and snitches, even.
Hermione - elf hats. Must reread this. Did they have holes for ears?

Marion Winik, in First Comes Love (yes, I know she is a real person, and that book is memoir, not fiction, but...). That line about a great big red piece of nothing that she knit after loosing her baby has always stuck with me. And she called the baby Pee Wee! I just love her books, that's all.

Goodness. There must be millions of novels out there with characters who knit. Even recent novels. Can you think of any?

Knitting Book Rant

2007-09-28T00:31:00.001-07:00

First, let me say that I am delighted to see so many wonderful new books of knitting patterns hitting the shelves. You guys rock. I might even buy a couple, instead of xeroxing the patterns from friends or from the library. But why is the first half of every knitting book filled with detailed descriptions of the basics - How to cast on. The knit stich. The purl stich. I will accept that some beginning knitters will appreciate having one or two books of beginner instructions, along with some lovely beginner patterns. But does it have to be in every book? In your book? And I saw this as a person who basically learned to knit from books. Can't you trust that they'll go out and buy a bigger, better book of instructions (or borrow it from the library)? And frankly, many of these books are full of patterns that no begining knitter is ever going to follow anyway. Look- with that space, you could have included 5 more patterns. Or pictures of each pattern in a different yarn. Variations on the theme. What a baby sweater looks like in the 3 months size, and what the same sweater looks like in the 2 year size. Ok. I'm done now.

The Mamalama sweaters

2007-09-20T10:27:00.001-07:00

K calls me mamalama sometimes, when I am putting her to bed, and she has just one more thing to tell me before I leave the room.

I started making these sweaters as a modification of the Baby Delight cardigan. Basically, I've become a lazy knitter. I don't like seaming. I don't like carrying a pattern around with me. I like to knit on the ferry, at work in lab meetings - places where I need EASY knitting. I also like the way raglan sleeves look. So, these sweaters are my mindless knitting. Round and round and round - start at the top, and stop when they fit. I do the sleeves back and forth, because I don't like double pointed needles, which means I have to sew up the underarms, but that's it. I make a square for a pocket, and then let the kids pick an iron-on patch to put on the pocket (originally, this was because B wanted a bunny, and I was too lazy to find a very small bunny intarsia pattern). The first one I did (the spiral one) has a square of intarsia sewn onto it, which was a lazy version of the front of the sheep sweater, so clearly, my laziness is progressive.

But a cool thing about these sweaters (especially the ones worked in Bernat Denim Style, which is super duper cuddly) is that they stretch longer as kids wear them, and we wash them. This can lead to a neckline that stretches too big, but also means that the sweaters have grown along with the kids. Here is K, wearing the spiral sweater when she was 2, and she is still wearing it now, at 5. Of course, being my kids, they aren't growing like beanpoles or anything, so results might vary.

How I learned to knit- the version in which heroine and heroin swap needles

2007-09-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

Do you remember that horrible apartment I lived in - on E. Hyde Park Blvd at the north edge of Hyde Park, in Chicago, as a first year graduate student at The University? It was student housing - a converted hotel. We lived on the 9th floor, in a north facing unit. The entire apartment had a floor of brown linoleum, and metal cabinets in the kitchen, radiators under the windows in the living room.

So, I was sitting in that miserable living room, with my feet on the radiator, watching the snow blow across my window, and wondering how I was going to keep from going further insane while waiting for my husband to return from his forays to the west side, with my car, and whatever might be left of my money. I read a lot of emotionless academic journal articles. I read a lot of distractingly emotional novels. I drank a lot of tea, and coffee, and alcohol.

One of the books that I read, huddled there against the radiator, in my cozy salvation army recliner, was The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx. I loved this novel for many reasons, but I was particularly inspired by the knitting in the novel. It seemed like the perfect thing - to be surrounded by bright, warm wooly yarn in front of a warm fire (substitute) on those blisteringly windy days. And to be busy with something other than waiting, or pacing, or making deals with God, or making deals with myself about how long to wait before I started calling jails and institutions.

Actually, what seems most incredible to me about this today (with its reprieve from that sadly credible insanity) is that when I went back through The Shipping News to methodically locate these descriptions of knitting that so inspired me, I found out that knitting is hardly mentioned at all. The first mention that I could find was on page 251, where Bunny tells Quoyle that Beety is teaching her to knit, and that she is making him a scarf. Later, Wavey gives Quoyle a sweater "the color of oxblood shoe polish". There is a longish section about knitting fishermen, for whom knitting and net-mending were closely related, and a joke about a knitting truck driver. When Wavey is in St. John's with Quoyle, she sees "a lovely Shetland wool that would make a Fair Isle sweater". I think that was the line that inspired me. I could imagine the feel of it, and the muted colors. But now I like best what Bunny says - "It's kind of a trick, Dad, because it's just a long, long, fat string, and it turns into a scarf".

Remembering that I had, sort-of, knit before, I put on my Sorel boots and coat, and walked over to the Woolworth's that was by the grocery store, near the 53rd st. train station. It must have been one of the last Woolworth's open. I bought a ball of white wool-acrylic blend yarn, and one of those pamphlet books, "Teach yourself to Knit and Crochet". I guess I must have bought needles too. I remember a woman in line saw the yarn, and asked me if I knew how to make pompoms, and I apologetically showed her the booklets by way of explaining that I didn't know anything. And then I went back out into the cold, and back up to the ninth floor, and made a big tangle. I actually wrapped my purls wrong for about 7 years after that, because it's hard to learn to knit from a book.

How I learned to knit- the wholesome version

2007-09-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

This is a Panda Bear that my Great Grandmother Mimi crocheted for me when I was born. My children have it now - which means it represents 5 generations of women in my family.

When I was about 5, Mimi and my grandparents came out from the East Coast to visit us in California. I remember sitting out on the deck, and Mimi trying to teach me to crochet a great long chain. I'm not sure anymore how much of this is real memory, and how much is just memory of photographs of us sitting out there. Anyway, she taught me to chain. She made us afghans, and some crocheted slippers for my mother. Like my ex-grandmother-in-law, she was incredibly talented and yet just about everything she made was Red Heart acrylic in 70's colorways. To be fair, Mimi didn't live past the 70's, while my ex came to college in 1990 with a new orange and brown afghan from Betty (but I'm getting ahead of myself now, and somehow terms like ex-grandmother-in-law are undermining the Wholesomeness thing).

I don't think I ever actually crocheted anything again until I started knitting, but throughout my childhood, I was enamored of fiber-art projects. I did those nylon loop potholders. I did a latch-hook unicorn rug, and a latch-hook dog. I walked around Montera Junior High School with embroidery floss safety-pinned to my jeans, making those woven friendship bracelets that turned into muddy brown cables in soccer season, and probably drove my mother nuts. At some point in high school, I decided to learn how to knit, and bought a skein of teal acrylic yarn and some aluminum needles. I had found a copy of Good Housekeepings New Complete Book of Needlecraft (1971) on our shelves, and tried to follow the diagrams for knitting. I did manage to knit a few rows, but my gauge was so tight it was hard to get the needles into the stiches. I know this, because I stopped working on it, and put the yarn and needles (with knitting still on) in my mother's sewing basket, where it stayed, in an increasing state of knottiness, for the next 10 years.