Etherknitter

A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Heat crowds out inspiration and industry.  That is what is happening (or NOT happening) in the Etherknitter kingdom.  My knitting nook project footrest looks like this:
You can see Marla, and her diary.  The blanket square for Kerstin is on the right.  Below that is the fantasized start of Leaf Lace Shawl (pattern only, no start).  I'm a realist.  If this other stuff is sitting around growing mold, Leaf Lace hasn't got a chance.  By the time I get to to casting on,  it will be the Fall of Lace, in more ways than one.  Littered under the fiber is the stray receipt, and row counting debris. 

Naturally, spinning represents less of a sweaty time commitment.  I have been going through 3.3 ozs of Fantom Farm wool/mohair blend.  Cate improved my life immeasurably when she lent me her Hitchhiker wheel. 
The handle and treadle are self-explanatory.  Each wheel has a learning curve for treadle speed and twist.  This makes the new spinner think about twist actively, rather than just letting "things" happen.  I really want to be past the stage of being amazed at what I have produced, and having some control over the finished singles.  Can you believe that calm, cool Etherknitter is impatient, and a perfectionist?  Gah.  My roving inevitably takes on a vortex, tornado form at the back hand.  I am told this is because I am allowing my twist to travel back.  I initially translated my spindle technique (park and draft has both hands pinching twist to control it) to the wheel.  Two out of three people have told me to release the forward hand.  I'm not sure what the back hand needs to do, as pinching there requires too many hand adjustments with each act of drafting.  If I don't pinch, and continuously draft, I get the mid-summer tornado.  Here is a sample:
The twist has traveled back because I let go to take the picture.  I normally would see a drafting triangle between the twisted developing single, and the tornadoed roving.

I find a paradox.  More attempts to exert more control have the opposite effect.  "Relaxing" doesn't work, because the process doesn't happen by itself.  However, interfering with the twist as it develops also doesn't accomplish the goal.  The analogy, like twist, travels outwards and beyond:  to relationships, marriages,  attempts to master skills, and one's own inner world.

So that brings us, inevitably, to the garden,  another venue over which I exercise futile and failing control, but which manages to please despite all of that. 

Much of the time, the garden is about foliage and form as much as it is about floral display.  This is a scented geranium (Pelargonium).  She smells like a rose, and adds variegated form and interesting leaf shape to the container garden party.  The flowers are what the horticultural trade would call insignificant. 

In July, my life would not be complete without the daily daylily, complete with exploring ant.  This is Hemerocallis 'Swiss Mint'.  The plant behind her is Allium schubertii.  It has descended from Alpha Centauri to hide from bounty hunters, who have been offered a generous reward for eliminating onion species from their star system.

What else would explain a flower and seedhead form that looks like THAT?

Knittin' and a grinnin'

Style and substance.  I think that describes our Fiberthon, AND our hostess, Claudia.   The pictures describe yesterday best:

Martha wanted to know about drop spindle spinning.  She had unwittingly placed herself in front of the table (the second picture) set up by Rosemary and Claudia.  Her first day singles are beautiful, and her blog already shows evidence of plying.   The coven grows stronger.

The third picture displays the usual suspects.   Yes, there were nametags.  They were helpful for linking person to blog, except when they weren't:

The owner of this tag was heard to say, "Nobody who has ever met me has forgotten me.  I don't need a nametag."

Heh.

Many thanks to our cheerful, generous and talented hostess.   

A coven of daylilies

Profusion works.  When you sport a name like "Altissima seedling", you have to earn your virtues in other realms.  These are fragrant and tall.  The flowers are smaller than some, but they make up for it with insouciance, charm, and simplicity of form. 

A bit of gazpacho, a fizzy Prosecco, some knitting, spinning, gardening, and hostessing is planned for the weekend.  Life is good.

A rose' by any other name...

Okay, spinners, I'm doing my job.  I just sent Cara two websites that sell roving you can't leave behind.  Did I do good? 

My fevered brain can focus on little else today.  It is SO hot.  It is at least as hot as where YOU are.  Did I say humid?  I'm cutting the air into little cubes, freezing them, and using them to cool my Diet Cherry Coke.   

The girls are holding their own out in the garden.  I'm beginning to suspect that they are the type who LIKE the weather like this.  The nice thing about the Hemerocallis annual beauty pageant is that the ladies are quite self-sufficient.  They are not demanding cooling breezes or extra champagne water rations.  Quietly donning their gowns, they are strutting their stuff:

We see Lively Lois first.  She is followed by Apricot Symphony.  And Ms. Siloam hybrid brings up the rear.  (The Siloam series all have that bicolor ring in the throat.)  Her nametag, alas, is downstairs, and it is too hot to retrieve right now.

There is only one solution to this weather:

Rose'!  I oozed into my local wine purveyor yesterday, and croaked unintelligible syllables.  Tom handed me this bottle, $9.99.  It does exactly what is asked of it:  cool, crisp, refreshing, fruity. 
Tom Schmeisser is a local treasure at Marty's where the wine community shops. 

I'm going into the room with A/C.  I am going to knit.  In the shower.  It's called preblocking.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

Spinning to unwind

Ah, the hubris of the uninitiated is followed by the sad, head-nodding comprehension of the broken-down in spinner.  "Niddy-noddy?  Cute name for a ludicrous tool.   Nostepspinner?  Notestspinner? OH.  Nostepinne.  Who needs THAT?"

I learned who might need that.  Rosemary came over yesterday and taught me how to ply.  My understanding of this:  there is now ANOTHER step wherein one can screw up one's singles before yarn is achieved.   Luckily, I had two partial bobbins of swill plies to practice on before I got to the singles most recently spun.   Through a complex process of Rosemary's nostepinne, a metal knitting needle, a cooperative husband, and a swift, I produced the great unwashed:

I now understand why people flash their skeins. Because they can. 

I am grateful that I have someone like Rosemary to help me.  She  is much more spintelligent than I am.  Otherwise, it wouldn't have been just the weather that was hot, steamy and boiling over this weekend.   My noseystepperpinner is on order from Grafton Fibers, and there just MIGHT be more roving coming along to pad the curly maple addition to my spinning life during shipping.

I may wilt in this dreadful weather (yes, I am sick of summer now), but others do not:

This is Hemerocallis Astolat.  She is a step in the evolution of a pure white daylily, and is named after Elaine of Astolat.   

The daylily below her is clearly in transition.  I suppose this outs me as a hemerocallis abuser.  I received her as a gift from Klehm, which always worries me.  Either they are very generous, or I spent too much money there.  I'm wondering if I can tolerate the amount of orange I see, or if I can spin it to think "peach".
I'll plant it and see how it feels.  Until Tuesday, she sits in a bucket of water so the roots don't dry out.  I change the water, oh, every so often, so algae and rot don't happen.  And when I get around to planting her, she will be thrilled.   

 

Escape from Planet of the Scapes

The random number generator generated LauraJ as winner and new champeen.  She gets the periwinkle Miracle yarn (Classic Elite).  (Until I sampled Joseph Galler, CE was my all-time favorite yarn company.)  I'm way behind in responding to comments, and will do so for all questions not already answered.  Thanks to all for making this a VERY fun few days.  I plan on another contest at the 1000 comment point, and, trust me, this will be even more fun.

I'm desperately spinning the last of the Elemental Designs roving so I can get it off the bobbin by the time the wheel rental runs out.  I have one thing to say about that.  "Wah!"  I've never been a fan of wishing my life away, but I really DO wish the wheel had shipped early.  Can I say it again?  Consider it said.

Today's garden didn't disappoint.  In the unusual confluence of blogdom arachnofocus, the daylily in full bloom today was a spider lily.  One glimpse will explain:

Her name is Hemerocallis 'Kindly Light'.   This is the only spider that doesn't give me the heebie jeebies.  I happily anticipate her return each summer. 

The container plants on the deck, by contrast, are fly-by-nights.  One night season stands, these are experiments in color, contrast, leaf shape, and daring.  One of my tamer choices (argyranthema) shouts her presence with every open bud:

And then, there is dinner:
Garlic scapes from the organic farmstand up the street.  These are available only for two weeks.  They are seed heads that sap strength from the garlic bulbs.  So they are chopped off to allow the plant's energy to go towards bulb formation.  And in their supreme sacrifice, they are sauteed with sesame oil, swiss chard, and extra special bold Tellicherry ground pepper as an offering to a hard-working husband who got home late.

In vino veritas

Asking which was the stand-out wine of the evening is similar to asking someone which child is their favorite.   In the wine world, the pundit says, "Whatever wine is in my glass right now." 

What do I remember days later?  The 1982 Mouton-Rothschild was wonderful.  I think in images:  this wine was at a mature peak.  It's a wine that makes me think of Pierce Brosnan:  smooth, supple, sexy, sophisticated, masculine, and brooding.   It satisfies all appetites.    The 1929 Leoville-Poyferre (generously supplied by our host) was remarkable.  One expects a dead, dusty old soldier, "interesting" is usually the polite murmuring you hear among the tasters.  This wine was ALIVE, a Sean Connery kind of wine.  Despite the evident aging going on, it had the lively flavors of decades of quiet maturity, surprising forwardness, and well-balanced charm.   The 1983 Chateau d'Yquem was, indeed, a sweet wine.  It was the Angelina Jolie of wines - voluptuous, sensuous, forward in flavor, but capable of greater complexity as it sat in the glass.
It lived up to the reputation of its superb vintage.

Marla is a victim of heat prostration.  She is lying languidly in the knitting nook, waiting for me to drop down a stitch and switch a knit to a purl in two places.  That will happen ..... someday.  Someday soon.  Probably.  To illustrate my lassitude, my current new cast-on is this:

I'm ashamed.  It's garter stitch.  Brown Sheep, Lamb's Pride worsted, color #57 Brite Blue.  The pattern is BoogaJ's Elizabeth bag.   Garter guilt.    But how lovely to just let my fingers run.   

The contest is still active, and there will be a winner by tomorrow.  I really love hearing from you.

I love this morning glory.  Ipomoea patensis looks JUST like a paper flower opening up.  You can see all the crinkles from when it was a budlet.  It stays fresh longer than most morning glories, has beautiful stellate leaves, and is a wild woman in the world.  It's putting out tendrils,  grabbing onto all its neighbors, and there are buds everywhere.  It's my kind of plant.

 

Ice bar and Eisbar

The sun showed its fickle face yesterday.  It was a gift to the Wine & Food Society's extra July event, a special wine tasting and dinner hosted by one of the members.  The premise was simple:  each person brings one bottle of his or her best. 

The most impressive bottle?  Here:

1983 Chateau d'Yquem, in a bottle size called Imperial.  This is well-named, as it is the size of eight normal bottles, and holds six liters.  This was the dessert wine, and it served 55+ people.

The reception, held on the terrace, showed suburban Boston at its best.  There were two views of note.  The first picture was the view to my left, and the second was to the right.

We are now returning to our regularly scheduled blogging.  And reality.

It is time for a contest.  This is a simple one.  All you need to do is push my comment count to 500.  The rules: 
1.  One comment per day only.
2.  On the day that the total goes to 500, the random number generator will be trotted out, and a random commenter will be chosen to receive this knitterly bounty:

The yarn is 3 skeins of Classic Elite, Miracle, 50% alpaca and 50% tencel.  Eisbar (the guy in white by the skeins) is possessively guarding the yarn, and will not be included.  He was quite offended at the idea that anyone would consider him "bounty".   The color is close to true, perhaps a touch more periwinkle in person.

I have no idea how bored the blogosphere is, or even if anyone is home and reading.  I'm assuming the comment-a-thon will end sometime this week.   In the meantime, I'm half-heartedly working on Marla, a new project, and spinning beige Romney.  Have I neglected to start Andean plying?  Does a bear sh** in the snowbank woods?  It's that kind of summer. 

Sounds of silence

I have been stunned into silence.  I simply cannot wrap my brain around meaningless death.  I spend every day patching together the wear and tear of life.  Even the local knife and gun club (what we in the ORs call the shooters and shootees, stabbers and stabbees) has its own macabre dance that more often includes only themselves.  This other, terrorist anger acted out on a mass scale and on an international stage is beyond my comprehension.

I grieve with the families of people who were simply going about their daily business.   

Elderly and ivory

This is your mother's daylily: 
It grows EVERYWHERE.  Can't kill it, no matter how you try.  When I was a kid, we called it a tiger lily.  It had a cadence:  TI-ger lil-LEE.  It's an old heirloom variety, Hemerocallis fulva, that I transplanted from my mother's property after she died. (I wanted a plant for remembrance.)  This would have been a sweet, daughterly thought, except that the daylily, in chlorophyllic form, has succeeded in representing the conflicts in the previously problematic mother-daughter relationship.  In order to avoid horticultural cacaphony, I, of course, had edited orange out of my garden.  You see the problem,  I'm sure.  Screaming orange.  I can't live with it, and I can't live without it.  This:
is NOT my mother's daylily.  It is Hemerocallis 'Double Old Ivory'.   I like this one.  In July and August, daylilies hold the fort single petally.   They have an occasional non-orange companion, shown below.  She is Iris ensata, the Japanese iris.  When I saw this cultivar in full bloom at the nursery, I fulfilled the name's promise:

'Cry of Rejoice':
I have switched bobbins on my wheel, and will figure out the Andean ply this weekend.  I suspect that plying is what separates out the neophytes from the cognoscenti.  It's not the act of plying that twinges my suspicious nature.  I think this is where I find out if my twist is too much, too little, or just right.  Here is my new bobbin, with a serious effort on it.  Serious effort translates to "maybe I can knit a swatch off my handspun pretty soon". 

The roving is from Elemental Designs Fiber Arts in New Hampshire (no website).  She said she sent it to a place that has superior processing in Michigan.  Other than the fact that she looked and acted like Honest Annie, the softness and texture of the roving spoke for itself.  I'd bet on Zeilinger's.

Cate's post on lace is outstanding.  The meditation achieved by spinning quiets my noisily chattering brain. 

I'm past the armhole decreases on Marla's front.  I'm 3 1/2 inches away from the fully-fashioned neckline.  I think it will be interesting, and educational, but not meditative.  Pictures to follow when I do the knit cast-on for the shoulders.