Etherknitter

Motivational speech

It was a day the troubadours would mark with song for as long as men drew breath.  The battle was long and fierce.   The forces of evil had had time to build their strongholds and the might of their forces. The dark Gods of Entropy were on their side.  Swords clashed, spears flew, and the din deafened the ears.  The cries and screams of the women went unheard.  Heroes were born; minutes and swordthrusts later, heroes died.   Hope died as well, until the miracle that they had prayed for arrived.  The Valkyrie swooped down from her aerie.  She had seen the threat of Chaos triumphant, and could not bear the world that would return.  Her mighty axe rose, and fell, and rose and fell, until the kingdom sang and fought by her side. 

Dusk fell on the field of battle.  The dead lay with awkward limbs, and the wounded cried for water.  The Valkyrie provided for those in need, then vanished.   The kingdom was left with the monumental task of rebuilding.  The wisest and the strongest took charge, and the task was begun.

Yes, the Etherknitter went out and weeded the garden today. 

This was the price of surgery, and eight weeks of non-weightbearing life.    When the Foot acquiesced to function once more, temperature and humidity discouraged all but the most perfunctory of gardening tasks.  What motivated me to go out today and do so much of what is dreadful drudgery?  (Clearly, I would rather knit or spin.)

People are motivated to act in a way that gives them the greatest amount of pleasure.  Everyone defines pleasure differently.  And everyone defines the acceptable timeframe for that pleasure differently.   The famous marshmallow experiment demonstrates this elegantly.  Read the first three paragraphs of the link before you continue here.

Some of the kids decided that one marshmallow NOW was preferable to two marshmallows in the future.  Pleasure now, versus pleasure later.  The corollary to that was why I weeded today.  If I left the weeds to go to seed (as they are happily doing), then the pain of weeding next year would be tripled.  So I did something less than fun today, to avoid doing a nastier task next year.  The pleasure of knitting today was not worth the pain of weeding next year.

A second factor in motivation is control.  If I weed today, will I have fewer weeds next year?  If I weeded a month from now, that would not be true.  If I pulled the weeds today, it will be true.  So I acted at a time when I felt my actions would control what happened to me next. 

As you can see from both motivational factors (control, and what feels good), the element of time is also important.  Do you want your pleasure NOW?  Then you won't weed.  Are you willing to accept it next spring?  Yes?  That is why I went out and did battle with the dark forces in the garden. 

Rather than summarize what I found on the internets, here are the links.  They may be most suitable for the insomniac, or the truly obsessive-compulsive individual.   

I've skipped most of  what Abraham Maslow says about what motivates people.  What he theorized is implicit in what I've said.  If you want some truly basic social psychology theory, this link will help you out there.

My latest FO is the Kerstin memory afghan square.  I'll be sending it off Tuesday when I visit the  Post Office to ship the Hitcher to LeeAnn.

This is March 7th, Box Stitch, from the 365 Knitting Stitches perpetual calendar.

I'm still spinning Lisa Souza's BFL.  I am so in love with the colors.  When her website went live on Thursday with her newest sock yarn in a similar colorway, I leaped.    Perhaps that will motivate me to finish Marla and go on to other, newer, fresher projects.

The fat lady sings

I recognize that if I write the rant about summer that I've been thinking throughout this  hot, humid season, that I would be expressing a very lonely opinion in the blogosphere.   However, I know that we can ALL get around the return of weather where knitting wool feels normal and right.  The garden echoes me.  In the daylily world, this is the equivalent of the fat lady singing:
Her name is Hemerocallis 'Sandra Elizabeth'.  She is renowned in the daylily world for being late out of the gate.  Her bloom starts a month after peak bloom for the other girls.  When she blooms, baby, summer is OVER.

There are other signs in the garden that fall is approaching at breakneck speed.   Right outside my deck is a rampant plant that is pregnant with expectation.  It's Clematis ternifolia, Sweet Autumn clematis.  I'll flash it again when it's in bloom.  Right now, it is all about possibility:

That is what I like best about the fall.  The cool weather brings expectation and renewal of optimism. 

Marla's yarn no longer sticks between my fingers.  I've divided for the neck and am making good progress.  My goal?  Finish by Rhinebeck.  You can no longer recognize me by my crutches (they are gonegonegone). 

Melissa Leapman designed this sweater so that you knit the neckline as you knit the front.  No further finishing is required. 
I've put the Elizabeth bag on hold so I can get to Marla's last sleeve.  Thank you to all who voted "Step away from the bag.  Leave ALL the stripes."  I will continue upward to the handles.

Spinning is happening.  One day several weeks ago, roving just FELL from the sky into my mailbox.  It was labeled, "you are going to have to guess".  She was cagey about it, and almost had me fooled, but then she admitted to the deed.  It's Lisa Souza BFL dyed in perfect Etherknitter colors.  Here is the start, as I jigger with take-up (Scotch tension adjustments in millimeters) and varying amounts of sexy twist:
The nostepinde that I ordered from Grafton Fibers in July finally came.  It's curly maple.   I showed it to the DH in triumph.  He had a look of dismay on his face, until I explained why spinners need this particular tool. 

I've been thinking about Margene's post about motivation yesterday.  I think that deserves some research and a post by itself if I come up with anything interesting in the literature.

They're coming to take me away ha ha

Some unnatural visual acuity assaulted me last night.  I saw this:

You have to click on it to see the problem.  Just above the bottom panel of the bag, there are several rows of lighter blue, in the apparent middle of a skein. 

The design was for ONE stripe.  You can see that one at the top.  It's purple.  That's the only planned stripe.  Since this is my first felted project, I'm having difficulty predicting just how noticeable this variation in dye will be in the end product. 

The husbandly conversation was surreal. 

Etherknitter:  "See?  It's this band.  It's a variation in dye on part of a skein.  Those bastards."

DH:  "It's a feature, not a bug."

E:  "This bag is supposed to have only ONE stripe.  It has two." 

DH:  "What would happen if you sewed the top end shut also?"

E:  "You would have art rather than function.  Hellooooooo?"

DH:  "Okay.  Then let go."    

Boy, does this man know me.

E:  "Yeah.  I'm trying.  It's not working."

DH:  "I know!  You could knit a straitjacket for your next project.  You could post the pattern."

I'm soliciting votes.  Rip it?  Leave it?   The pattern is here.   And does anything need to be done about the husband?

Schacht-up

The British government will no longer be referring to the female partner of a pending marriage as a spinster.  (The male counterpart was called a bachelor.)  I don't think we have competing terms here in the Colonies.   

I find it ironic that they are replacing the term "spinster" with "single".  Do British bureaucrats spin?

This information comes via Michael Quinion, a link harvested from Janice.   He adds that "the ending '-ster' is called an agentive suffix, "one that turns a verb for some activity into the name of a person who does it. Originally, it was always applied to a woman, as in 'brewster' (a woman who brews ale, a female job in a medieval household),  and 'spinster' (a woman who spins). The word appeared in the written language in 1362, in William Langland's poem Piers Plowman. So many women were described in marriage records as having the occupation of spinster that by the sixteenth century it began automatically to be used for all unmarried women and became the legal description."

I love context.  This links me to more than my medieval reincarnation in a cloister, to my current persona's passion:
Oh yes.  She is beautiful.   I love the detailing.

It's maple, with black walnut inlays.   I guess they know their audience.

I am SO not the spinner she deserves.  I saw a quote at the quilt exhibit from Gee's Bend at the MFA last week.  Geraldine Westbrook spoke of how she creates:
"When you sit down, you got to get yourself a mind of your own, figure out a way to put them together."  Them becomes wool and wheel, instead of fabric and quilt.   The bobbin-full on the wheel is a get-to-know-you exercise not worth flashing.  Yes, I ordered bunnycrack.  Enough for a scarf.  And Kendig Cottage, curse them, happily sent me wool:

This is their colonial wool top, in navy.  Yum.   I also got some merino/silk in Bouganvillea. 

The new wheel is smooth, sleek, silky and enticing.  A spinner who shall not be named mused once that spinning might be better than s*e*x. 

Twist is a fascinating phenomenon.  It behaves almost like a living thing, moving, grasping, predictably and unpredictably.   It possesses the same fascination as fire, which also dances and hypnotizes as it follows the natural physics of its unique form and energy.   Controlling natural forces would have the spinster named "witch" in prior centuries. 

JUST so you know that I'm still a knitter, I thought you should know that I bought some exquisite  sock yarn at Mind's Eye when I picked up my wheel.  This is slightly more purple-blue lush than the picture shows, and was one of the skeins that Rosemary helped dye:
It's 50% merino/50% tencel.  It has a Nancy Bush pattern in its future.

When I have the purple band knit on the Black Sheep Elizabeth bag, I'll take a picture.  And the Marla sweater is looking for a foster home, because she says I don't love her anymore.  I will tear myself away from the wheel long enough to show her she is wrong. 

Live and Let Dye

"The reports of my dyeing are greatly exaggerated." 
                               --with the usual apologies, to Samuel Clemens

Yes, I was there.  I dyed, ate, steamed, sweated, reveled in the company.  Julia outdid herself.   I brought home a different perspective.

LauraJ threw herself into the process.   Kellee's elbow shows us how to use the dyer's palette and tools.

The obligatory stash flash amazed this stash-challenged reporter.

The denouement, rode hard and hung up to dry.

 

It was a satisfying day on all levels.  I learned a new fiber skill.  I met new bloggers and knitters.   I tasted a new wine, Falanghina.  (That grape name looks like the sort of thing that will show up on questionable Google searches for weeks to come.  )  It was a soul-satisfying day.

Most have already guessed that my wheel arrived fifteen days early.   Pictures tomorrow.

Mysterious arrivals

*DRUMROLLS* please.  I'm sure you all know what's coming.

Can I distract you from the upcoming event with pictures from the garden?  How about a nice Gaura lindheimeri 'So White'?

To be continued...

Hydrangeas on the Cape

Cape Cod is an alternate universe.  Sun.  Sea.  Sail.  Sky.  Hydrangeas.  The camera chose to bleach the color, so you can find the Elizabeth bag more easily than I could today:
While the DH sailed, I knit.  A brief trip into the town of Falmouth yielded a dip into a store with yarns in the back.  Sage had a tourist inventory:  novelty yarns, scarf yarns, baby yarns. 

I was stunned by one basket of expensive yarn.  Hand-dyed, handspun wool, priced at $41.99 for a 200 yard skein, looking for all the world like the beginning spinner's first production.  The sign above the yarn?  "So-and-so began spinning in the summer of 2004, and has never looked back.  She now spends every available moment spinning."

Yeah.  I could do the same thing (thin-thick yarn, loosely plied, not well tied off at the ends), but I don't charge for it.  Maybe I'M the fool.

Elizabeth bag, obsessively knitted, is almost half done.  The weekend required thoughtless knitting and retail therapy:  bunnycrack (oh yes please do me more) and a wool roving sampler COMPLETELY influenced by that Juno's blog entry.   

I am starting a harmonic resonance in tune with Rhinebeck.  Some of the roving websites appear to be in the summer slumps, which means the next SERIOUS roving opportunites will be in October.  My wheel should arrive in about 3 - 3 1/2 weeks.  My nostepinde should arrive any day now.  The thumb is slowly but steadily healing.  And I can FEEL the hum of Rhinebeck approaching.

Tearing it apart and putting it all back together again

The learning process is all about breaking tasks down and putting them back together.  Margene wrote an excellent post on learning to handspin.  Her description communicated the fascination of acquiring new skills.  There is joy in mastery, wonder in exploration.

I am 30% into the yearly tutorial at work.  I mentor a new resident, 1:1.   The resident gets four weeks of this training, two weeks with me, and two weeks with another staff person.  I don't leave his side.  I may pretend to be looking elsewhere, or chatting up the surgeon, but my ears are registering important information about the patient's well-being, and my eyes are crossing, using my peripheral vision to keep tabs on that which I cannot hear.  I must tear apart what I do every day, make it comprehensible, and hang it onto scientific evidence that validates the information.

Then, when it appears he's got it, I have to wean the dependency I've created and boot the young one out of the nest to supervised, more independent practice.

I'm tired.  Every night.  Teeth?  Oh yeah.  Brush 'em.  Dinner?  Okay.  Can YOU make it, dear?  When was the last time I took a shower?  Was it yesterday?  Or the day before?  Maybe I should seek the scientific evidence:  do I smell?  Yes?  Time for a shower.  I always lose 2-3 pounds in this timeframe.  (The department isn't always good about arranging breaks.)  One HAS priorities:  the garden gets watered.

Oh yes, pictures!  You want pictures.
The container plants are going gangbusters in the torrid summer heat and humidity.  A coleus, and a spiky red thing my husband picked out are visible.  The names are downstairs.  These were the plants he pushed around in a cart while I was still on crutches, and nonweightbearing.  The man deserves sainthood.

The second  picture, the Creatures from Hell.  Everyone knows about the s*e*x*u*a*l exploits that go on shamelessly in the backyards of suburbia.  We are talking about Popillia japonica Newman, the Japanese beetle.   Dinner and a romp in the hay?  Caught in the act, I'd say. 

I'm hoping for some knitting action this weekend.  Spinning?   Cassie keeps telling me to dump the Romney/mohair roving.  I'm working up to it....probably by finishing the batch.  Not what she meant??  Oh.  That's the Etherknitter for you. 

Puddles, parsley and pain

This
Fantom Farm Romney/mohair blend continues to provide equal doses of spinning pleasure and humility. 

Fiber just IS.  Like knitting WIPS, there is nothing personal in its behavior.  Despite the errors that creep in, and the frustrations involved with the pattern, the yarn, and the roving, this is all about us and not about them.  So it is with repetitive stress injuries.  This morning, as I was mesmerizing a friend in front of my wheel, I understood why my right thumb has been hurting.  Pinching and pulling has produced inflammation in the ulnar collateral ligament.  The ligament is intact (otherwise it would be called Gamekeeper's thumb), but it is tender.   I have marvelous incentive for learning to correct my bad habits FAST. 

I've had a reasonable amount of success in diminishing the occurrence of tornadoes in my spinning room.  The Boston Globe today (Sam Allis' column on page A2) said, "Learning is a significant social phenomenon.  You don't learn in a vacuum.  It's not a monastic activity."  I really appreciated the feedback on spinning technique from my commenters.  Those who said "just relax" were prescient.  I am now relaxing. 

Physical therapy proceeds apace.  In my yoga practice, I assume potentially painful pretzel positions, and probably the most athletic down-dog in class.  I still can't quite bend the Foot enough to put both feet down, so I amend the position until that landmark day occurs. 

The garden showed this pretty girl today:

This miniature Lisianthus, Eustoma grandiflorum Sapphire Blue Chip, is new to me, and a big improvement over the tall form I've grown for several years.  This has so many more flowers.  It's growing with Italian parsley, both on the deck for foliage, flowers, and for whatever uses a foodaholic can concoct.

Knitting, as well as the garden, continues in the doldrums.  I'm working on an amorphous mass of blue that is reputedly the Elizabeth bag from Black Sheep Bags.  When that looks more like a bag and less like a puddle, I'll post a picture.    Perhaps "p" has pervaded the post in progressive paragraphs, potentially performing a part in this preposterous prose.