Etherknitter

What I did on my summer vacation, part II

Monday:  The Art Institute of Chicago, the new Modern Wing.  The collection is perfect.  Pictures without flash are allowed. 

Picture of niece knitting:

Etherniece has waited a year for the second knitting lesson.  She holds the needles herself.  She forms her own stitches.  We reconvene several days later.  She wants me to fix the snaggles in her knitting.  I hear my teaching coming from her six year old lips:  "All knitters make mistakes.  Even experienced knitters make mistakes." 

She looked at my ball of Smooshy Pansy Go Lightly, and asked how much it cost.  I told her about $25.  She looked thoughtful.  "How many of those balls do you have?"  I laughed.  "More than you can count."  She guessed a thousand.  "I don't know, Etherniece, maybe more than that."  Her second guess was a thousand billion.  I realized I have no idea how many of those balls I have at home, so we compromised on a number that gave her some practice in counting upwards.  How does one so young already understand the concept of stash?

The pink swatch, bottom part, is hers.  (I fixed the snaggles on the top 2 rows so that she could keep going.)  The blue swatch is all hers.  I am humbled by how fast the young brain learns.  The pink yarn is donated from Auntie's stash.  The blue yarn is from a LYS.  I took her in the store, wondering if I was giving her a gateway drug.  ("The first time is free, honey.")  I wanted her to be invested in the yarn choice.  She had a choice of Encore or Mission Falls wool.  She chose wool.  And the blue was without input from me.  Really.

She looked at the yarn on the counter,  as I trotted out $7 plus change.  Then she looked up at the woman at the cash register, and asked, "Do you make money here?" 

You just have to laugh.  I told her that might not be a polite question to ask people. 

We ate:

EtherMere took us to Spiaggia Cafe, and to the restaurant in the Modern Wing at the Art Institute, and the Pierrot Cafe.

We relaxed:

We laughed until our tummies hurt:

EtherMere took us to LookingGlass Theatre's production of The Arabian Nights.  The play starts with two drummers who commandingly gather your attention, force you to the edge of your seat, and keep you there for the rest of the play.  We know what happens to Scherezade.  That matters not a whit as the stories within stories took us to other times, other lives, into other hearts.  Go, if you can.

I knit with the swiftness of many hands:

Since I am working on many projects, none were finished.  (I forgot to mention that minutes after I wrote the Kitchen Sink post, I cast on for the Swallowtail shawl.)  The yarn (SeaPearl, from BriarRose Fibers, Rhinebeck 2008) is fingering merino/tencel.  It holds shape well, and drapes beautifully.  That means the WIP looks less like a lace snarl than usual.

The last photo cracked me up.  The Art Institute has an exhibit that featured architectural drawings by famous people.  The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum concept sketch (1990) was created by a man who had to have been a closet lace knitter:

Who?  Frank Gehry, of course.

What I did on my summer vacation

Chicago.  Saturday.

Mr. Etherknitter and I fly to visit his family.

Humid, hot, overcast.  Dinner at Tango Sur, a wildly popular Argentinean BYOB.  Reservations, a table for six, and we bypass the hourlong wait for a table.

Our waiter is Alfredo.  He is not unaware of his impact, and poses as he probably has posed hundreds of times before.   Do not sigh.  I see his future:  he woos you, wins you.  Soon, his paunch grows.  You begin to  irritate him with small indiscretions that only he perceives.  He smacks you across the kitchen with the back of his hand.  You cannot leave and are consumed with self-loathing.  No one is happy.  Trust me.  I am right.

Sunday.  Father's Day at Wrigley Field.  The Cubs win.  The old ballparks resonate with the sounds of summer. Those Aero-astro-fliptop-domes are NOTHING compared to the majesty of the olde shrines.

Tuesday.  Fiddler on the Roof, Topol's farewell tour.   This is my first time seeing Fiddler, and it is a grand way to do it.  Topol is magnificent in the role.

We are exhausted.  It is 95 degrees every day and every night.  The AC at the house is broken.  The repairmen have not returned our calls.  Sleep is elusive. 

Knitting is accomplished every spare waking moment.  Smooshy socks see a little bit of progress.  The baby blanket is now large enough so that nonknitters do not think it is a hat any more.  Circular blankets wean one from the idea of rows (360 st and increasing 8 every other row) towards the idea of process. 

More to come. 

Kitchen sink post

I am in the middle of startitis, which means I will finish nothing soon, and have a good time in the execution.  People are reactionary:  the initiators are the exception.  Clearly, I am one of the herd, reacting to something in the ethersphere.  New spinning projects are layering the floor with roving.  I am knitting projects that represent more than a MILE of yarn stash (900yds + 1000 yds + 880 yds + 500 yards).  It is a very good thing that socks don't count, since I have countless socks in progress.    I spent an insomniac night last weekend, Friday, I think, re-re-realizing that if I don't get my exercise program regularized, I will look and act my age.  That is unthinkable.  Unacceptable.  Hooping is FUN but so far it doesn't meet aerobic or flexibility or muscle strength goals.  New beginnings, new WIPS, new yarn and fiber diet.  (Yes, really.)

There just doesn't seem to be enough time in a day.

The annual BYOB picnic for the wine guys and girls was the Sunday just past.  Six degrees of separation showed itself once again.  I met a man who sported a nametag that said "John".  No last name on the tag proved to be surprisingly unsettling.  We swapped lies about great wines, compared what was in our current glasses, and, finally, I admitted my need to know his last name.  He told me, and it was a familiar surname.

"Oh!  Are you related to *famous spinner/knitter in the Boston area whom I met last year at SOAR*"?  He is her father. (Since he has no real idea what "can I blog you?" means, I omit the identifiers.)

You may recognize Wool Peddlars' shawl around my shoulders. 

Clematis Candida languinosa is taking over the dogwood by the porch.  This year, it climbed up the back of the tree.  No vantage point exists for the photographer trying to show the extent of bloom (phenomenal).  I unvented a classic photography trick.  Make the subject look filmy and sensuously soft by photographing through the upstairs bathroom window screen. 

Rain/rain/rain/sun/rain/clouds/dusk/rain is responsible for shoddy photography.  I'm not complaining, just explaining.  (Rain = free water for the garden, and I am happy.)

These were Foxfire Fibers batts.  The fibers are some combinations of BFL, cashmere, angelina, and silk.  My plan for these skeins involves either a hat or mittens with corrugated ribbing, and a bit of colorwork.  Measurement of available yardage will be key to the planning.

Laceweight brown and blue:  one ply of alpaca purchased at SPA 2006 so I could learn to spin alpaca, one ply of Shadeyside Farm alpaca/silk, both two ounces.  They were spun during Mr. E's bone healing convalescence.  After hanging around the bobbin rack for three years of indecision, they were plyed together in the service of freeing up storage bobbins.  (Internal debate:  should I be a purist and ply each one on itself, or should I mix the two to obtain more useable yardage?)  The latter won, and turned out beautiful yarn that marks a moment in times past.  I turn out my share of craptastic yarn, and this isn't it.

Elegantly Simply Triangle Shawl, in Hunt Valley black cashmere, MDS&W 2006.  One significant omission from this picture?  A lifeline.  Heh.  Time to live on the knitting's keen edge. 

The alpaca baby shawl pattern (Rav link) appealed as a unique and beautiful baby blanket.  I'm using Tess Yarns superwash merino.  Her superwash is a guilty pleasure.  It is smooth, knits into a beautiful fabric, and will promise easy care.  Like all lace, it will look like snarls until blocking happens.  The knitter starts on dpns, then transfers the stitches to a circ, to knit a square in circular technique until it is about 34", 880 yards (more or less) or declared to be done. 

Swiped: Ten favorite things to do during "Me" time

1/2.  Knit and spin.  These two play swapsies on an intermittent, unpredictable schedule.
3.  The dreaded internets:  email, Bloglines, Ravelry, generalized looking at yarn and fiber. 
4.  Relaxing with a glass of wine, Mr. E, and a knitting project on the porch in the summer.  It IS summer, so the porch qualifies.
5.  In winter, this one is obvious.  Ski.  Downhill edges cross-country just a bit in the thrills department, but cross-country edges downhill in the food and time that is leftover for knitting department.
6.  Admire my garden.  Since the tick episode several years ago, and the onslaught of deer and voles, the actual act of gardening is a little less pleasurable than it used to be.  But I can view the bloomers from a safe distance. 
7.  Sleep.  This is pathetic, but it is true.  My job takes everything I've got and more.  Sleep heals the body and the psyche.   I keep telling myself there will be enough time to sleep when I'm dead, but the argument so far has not changed the need for sleep.
8.  Quietly watch the local wildlife.  My hummingbirds, my chipmunks, my birds at the feeder, my reproductively-challenged robin who abandoned her nest when the eggs didn't hatch, the rabbits on the lawn that hop out of headlights' view in the quiet evening dusk. 
9.  Read.  This used to be #1 before the knitting and the spinning.  Another pathetic development, but there really are only so many hours in a day.  And night.
10.  Speaking of running out of hours, 1-9 takes all the time I have.  I dabble at cooking.  I fail miserably at cleaning and organizing.  A quiet piano sits in the house, mourning our previous relationship. 

This little guy lives under the deck.  I always imagined chipmunks were cheerful until this picture showed only worry and fear.  I suppose there was too much Alvin, and not enough reality in my childhood when it came to chipmunks.  His cheeks are full of sunflower seeds.  He is plotting his escape from the camera, and the biped who is blocking the way out. 

Etherhooper

Elizabeth contaminated me first.  Amy Boogie threw on the finishing touches at Cummington.  Hoopnotica sent the most ridiculous package I've ever seen in all my retail therapy experience.  (I couldn't believe it arrived undamaged.)

This is my second hooping session.  Is muscle memory the same phenomenon as neural pathway formation?  No matter.  This is FUN. 

The Queen

Last year she sulked.  She petulantly coughed out two flowers.  I asked her why she bothered.  She did not answer.

 I could tell in April that this year would be sensational.  The buds were too numerous to count.

Cummington 2009/NYC

As I walked out of the fleece sale, I was busted.  I had little choice but to whip out my camera and give as good as I got. 

I ran home from Cummington to go to NYC for the rest of the weekend.  Amtrak is relaxing when accompanied by an iPod nano soundtrack, tea, knitting, and seats with unobstructed shoreline views for the ride. 

Dinner was a moderate dose of molecular gastronomy.  Only in NYC would a chef deconstruct lox and bagels.  His version had an ice cream bagel covered with seeds, smoked salmon dehydrated then shredded, and cream cheese crisped on the side.  It was excellent.  (Thank you, T&W, for taking us along for the ride.) 

It took a day to hear the citysong.  Postmodern landscapes, and more people than I can usually imagine, overloaded the circuits. 

The view of watertanks, roofs, graffiti from the hotel room drew my attention in different light.  This one was 5:30am, misty, quiet, waking up with noisy street yawns.  

I made good knitting progress on the Berroco cardigan (Leilani).  I figured out that reversed shaping for K2tog on the WS is ssp.  They both point in the same direction on the RS.  The left front will soon be done.  (Yes, I owe a gaggle of pictures to the blog.  Soon.)

The weekend in pictures

New Hampshire Sheep and Wool, version 2009, was a perfect release of software.  Yes, there were bugs, but the gnats disappeared once you left the fields and woods for the safety of the barns.  The current year's distro of sheep/wool/goat/alpaca/bunny products gave the end-user everything we could possibly think of wanting. 

I wandered aimlessly, pushed by Manise in one direction, pulled in others by texture and color.  I saw everyone except Terry.  Gayle helped me with tubular cast-ons.

The camnesia was recognized.  I did little to cure the malady, except take one picture of Kelly.  She declared that nothing that could be posted on the interwebs would bother her.  The picture is meant to show the Bosworth midi, and the Foxfire Fiber she is spinning.  (I saw her at the Foxfire booth, where she muscled ahead to the fiber shelves.  I knew I had nothing to fear.  The blues and greens were safe, and would still be waiting for me.) 

Chris Woolybuns had soft, lush roving and yarn.  I came out with superwash merino sock yarn and Cinnamon Twist roving. 

I bought Ingrid balls (three of each, her Ward Brook Farm Corrie/Romney X roving).  They are so much fun to spin.  I found another ounce of Pygora B roving (Oliver's first year fleece) from Tucker Woods Farm.

Friends Folly Farm seduced with wool/mohair roving, beautifully prepped, in a one pound bag.  It's the same colorway I bought at SPA. 

Barb Parry's book on dyeing, and a bag of BL/mohair followed me home.  That's it.  No fleeces.  No wheels.  No spindles.

A male hummingbird did a fly-by feeding on May 3rd.  Our birds returned on May 6th, continuing last year's battles with fury fueled by fearful concentrations of testosterone.  They were initially confused by the new red leaves of Pieris japonica.  I watched finches doing the deed on the lawn yesterday.

Mrs. Robin got her nest built before I decided what to do about the invasion of birdpoop.  It stays until the tenants vacate.  She sits multiple hours, head turned to where we can stare each other down through the transom window.  The height of her nest makes RobinCam difficult, but not impossible.

 

 

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain

This Winter Girl has been loving the spring this year.  I am not sure why.  Some of those brain circuits that science can't figure out are probably connected to an appreciation of the renewal of warmth, food sources, and resumption of commerce between tribes.

Tribes?  Yes!  New Hampshire Sheep and Wool stares us in the face this weekend.  My tribes will be there in all their fiber frenzies.  I, of course, will be calm, quiet, cool. 

That coolness will come when Gayle shows me a tubular cast on like Eunny's (on Youtube) that somehow doesn't end up with an odd number of stitches.  I'm not linking to the video because it lies.  Eunny blithely knits through the instruction, and ends up with nineteen stitches on her needle, and not the twenty she seemed to be promising.

Techknitter explains why this happens (December 7, 2008 post).  I understand.  But I need 56 stitches for my K1 P1 in-the-round Grant Park Pullover sweater cuff.  I'll try Fluffbuff's method.  I may be the only knitter on the planet who can spend an entire WEEK casting on for the sleeve of a sweater, without success.  I am simply grateful that Cascade 220 is so forgiving of endless knitting and ripping.  Wool!  Nothing beats it.

But spring is as spring does.  I was seduced by Berroco Linen Jeans and this pattern.  I have use for a summery, flippy, casual evening cardigan like this.  I swatched with one skein, hit gauge spot-on, had no hand aching from the yarn, and ordered enough skeins for the pattern.  It is a fun knit so far. (One sleeve is done.)

Walking through the Boston Public Garden yesterday left me shivering.  The rain was without mercy.  Cold.  Wet.  Soaked.  An umbrella and a rainjacket were no defense against the relentless open faucet of springtime.  

I found satisfactory compensation. 

These two old Kwanzan cherries have been growing together for decades.  They look like two octogenarians leaning on each other for comfort and support.   One cannot tell where the two end or begin.  Each year, they require a wire to support heavy, sagging branches, as humans require canes with age.  Winter storms damage other branches, and spring amputations save the life of the tree.  No one can tell whether the Druids or their spirits still stay with the trees.  But I see the souls of these ancient stalwarts every spring when they bloom. 

The swans (Romeo and Juliet) were back in the pond at the Public Garden yesterday.  White echoed white.

Tradition dictates a Victorian style planting of this public space.  Beds of tulip monochromes are followed by annual monocultures that reflect the seasons.  I admire the spectacle.

I can't wait to see the Fiber Faithful on Saturday!  Next post will have a modest show and tell of fiber, finished spinning, a Smooshy sock, and whatever other dragons I manage to slay over the weekend.

Jumpstart: The spring fiber season arrives

Barb Parry of Foxfire Fibers helped nudge the spring fiber season a week early.  We scooted out to her farm on April 19th for a spin gathering.

Mystic's twin Cormo lambs were still getting used to ex-utero life.  It's a tough world.  You get booted out of all that womb-ly warmth and comfort, only to find that one of Mom's udders is busted, and the other one is slow to produce.  Then you look around, and realize that the sister you were kicking all winter is now competition for scarce milk resources.  Life would be SO unfair, but Barb brings out the bottle every few hours, giving Mystic a chance to catch up with her lambs.

Two sets of triplets are segregated with their moms.  That offers the moms a chance at some extra feed for that third set of gums hooked onto their undersides. 

April 25th followed as you expect in this most perfect of all universes.  Connecticut Sheep and Wool welcomed winter-weary fiberistas.  I think the temps broke some sort of record.  It was an uncomfortable 92 degrees.  This may have been the one festival at which sheep were happy to be part of a shearing demonstration.  

Kelly did drop-spindle tricks, tossing it in front of her with a double handed twist to set plying in motion. 

And was it Manise who said, "How many women does it take to jumpstart a car?" 

This many: