Etherknitter

A New York minute

New York is a bellwether city.  It's an early adopter of whatever is new in business, food, pop culture, style and trends.  This had me understandably worried when I crossed paths with this, outside my hotel:

It's not what you think.  I'm not particularly shocked by the booties concept.  What frosts my shorts is that they are NOT knitted.   Yes, I think that alone qualifies as hell and handbaskets, all the way to fire and brimstone. 

(I apologize ahead of time to all those who are tilting their head to the right, and saying, "Oooooohhh,  how cute is THAT?")

The city presented an upscale picture of knitting adaptations.  The Museum of Arts and Design had some superb examples of craft and imagination.  The knitting bases were indeed covered.  This picture looks exactly as it did to the nak*d Etherknitter eye.  The fibers are gold, and they are constructed

"with a very thin gold thread, which [Giovanni Corvaja] knits into a mesh using a 3-dimensional technique he developed using 20-60 needles". 

This brings new dimensions to knitting one's way to a gold medal in the Knitting Olympics.

Purveyors of more ordinary goods have caught on to the persuasive sales allure of yarn.  This next example of New York marketing was titled "Pussy Footing around".  Yes, it was in a display in a shoe store (Stuart Wei**man) at the Time-Warner center.  I think the marketing geniuses have also figured out the cat thing.

No trip to the Big City is considered finished without managing to fall into a few yarn stores.  The teaser from the last post was a cone of fine laceweight merino.  It followed me home, along with three other cones.  The front cone is Geelong lambswool, in a heavier laceweight.  The other two fuzzy cones are laceweight alpaca in black and dark grey.  Please tell me that this purchase wasn't a surprise to you.*

 

I did get to Purl.  The Koigu selection was sparse.  The Blue Sky alpaca was sumptuous and delectable, as was the Fibre Company's Road to China yarn.  However, nothing leaped into my hands long enough to make it to the cash register, so I left with no new stash acquisitions.   

The tourist literature in the hotel room showed ads for a new yarn store on the Upper East Side, called Knits Incredible.  It wasn't.  The stock was midwinter picked over.  I almost bought some lovely Claudia sock yarn.  But the woman snarling at the desk provided enough miserable customer service, that I put the yarn back and left.  Rude, curt, unfriendly, unwelcoming, unhelpful and mean does not motivate a transfer of assets from my house to hers.  I could only shake my head in amazement that the store would spend big bucks to advertise, and then follow up with bad karma.

*I really wanted some laceweight alpaca in a very light grey.  Although Habu is discontinuing this yarn, they suggested they could order it for me.  The catch was that I would have to order a full pound.  Are there any knitters out there who would take four ounce quantities if I did this?  It's 435 yards/ounce, $4.85/oz plus shipping to me, then shipping to you.   Email me if you are interested.   

D is for Downhill Racer

In a world where I see the surgical results of stupid human tricks, I'm routinely shocked that I enjoy this part of skiing so much.  As I stand at the starting hut, my pulse rachets up in a literal heartbeat.  The only thing better than running gates is winning a silver medal, and having the mountain photographer risk life and limb to capture the picture:

Spin cycle

One has no idea what happens at home when the spinner carpools up North to Maine for a SPA weekend.   I relinquished control, closed the door quietly, and slipped the constricting bonds of the day job to spend the weekend with fiberbuddies.  The husband goes feral.  Food is consumed in its raw, unprocessed state without benefit of stainless steel implements.  Waking and sleeping hours are random.  He answers the phone, sounds coherent, and the house has not been set on fire. 

Others have described the inspiration and energy that results when a whole gangbang of spinners gathers in one spot.  My pictures show the local talent.  Wendy had a stunned, Charlton-Heston-comes-down-from-Ararat-after-seeing-God-in-the-burning-bush look on her face as she produced her first yarn. My awe came when Cate taught me longdraw spinning.  Laurie (yes, That Laurie) demonstrated that inspiration can have many levels when she wore the Sweater of Infinite Possibility.  She wore, in a single garment, the knowledge that one can handprep a fleece, spin AND dye the yarn, then knit a sweater.   My fiber life has been re-energized by spending time with this group.

Team Boston had a good turnout.  Stephanie, despite her protestations to the contrary, performed a long routine with her Olympic knitting.  I did a modest amount of damage at the Grafton Fibers and Indigo Moon booths.  Pictures will follow at a later date, if I can get the colors to speak for themselves.   

2/21/06:    Where am I, what is it, and where did I get it?  Those of you who know shouldn't spill first.

Blizzard 2006

Knitting.  Tea.  Hot chocolate.  Warm, purring cats.  That's the theme I read through blogland on Monday and Tuesday for "how I spent the Blizzard of 2006".

It was not like that for me.

The trip out to Snowmass from Denver by van the week before the Blizzard was an experience in perspective.  The mountains put one in one's place.  I am a speck in this stunning volume of stone and mountain and sky.  There is so much, it will be here forever, and I will not.  This picture was a shot out the window of the van.

 

We took the van, again, from Snowmass, CO to Denver on Saturday the 11th, for our 8 am flight out of Denver International Airport on Sunday the 12th.  This is where ominous music cues in softly, stirring subliminal unease in the breast of the unwary and clueless.  I don't listen to news away from home, but I did hear other van riders talking about the Weather back East.  The hotel at the airport had wireless, so it was easy to check the United website, and confront that heartstopping word:

CANCELLED

At the height of attempted and prolonged rescheduling, Mr. Etherknitter had a cell phone on each ear, wading through the black hole of voice mail on each 800 number at United.  The Etherknitter had fired up the flight booking option on the United website, and was trying mightily.  "Okay, here's a direct from Denver to Boston tomorrow."  By the time the information was typed in, and "purchase" was clicked, the flight had *evaporated*.  Flight tomorrow through Chicago?  *click*  Oops.  Gone.  The cell phone on the left ear won, and a flight was booked out at noon Sunday instead of 8 am Sunday.  Checked at midnight, it was still good.  Checked at 6:30am?  Yep. CANCELLED. More cell phone voice mail hell.  Fried his phone.  It no longer charges and will only function when plugged into electricity.  We were booked on Monday (Monday??) at noon to Boston, arriving far too late for my day at work, and four hours late for Mr. Etherknitter's evening duties. 

Mapquest showed a 30 hour 3 minute drive from Denver.  The last time we did that, it was 17.5 hours from Chicago in a rental car after we were stranded at the in-laws during 9/11.  Nope.  Not happening.

So the DH, more desperate than I realized, went through United voice mail every hour and a half.  Rebuffed, rejected, scorned by booking agents who have heard it all, and care nothing for an OR schedule or an on-call duty, until the blizzard started to move out to sea.  A flight was opened: 6:30pm on Sunday, arriving 12:30am Monday.  Serendipity had us on the phone at the right moment.  Suitcases hurriedly repacked.  Bags thrown together.  Scramble.  Airport departure information monitors show a flight to Boston an hour earlier had been cancelled.  A flight to NYC half an hour earlier had been cancelled.  When the pilots showed up and boarded, we thought we had a chance. 

How does it warm the heart of the fearful flyer to be seated 12 rows away from her DH?  There were so many omens that this would result in an Etherknitter pancake on a Logan runway.  I had two close calls while skiing that week.  This flight looked like the third strike of fate.  The omens stacked up like coffins during a plague.  The man next to me was reading a book titled, "Now I Can Die a Peaceful Death".  The movie on the flight?  "An Unfinished Life".  Intellectually, I know that life and death are random for humans.  Omens are inconsequential.  But emotionally?  Whew. The flight was smooth until the approach to Logan.  The winds blowing the blizzard out to sea had at us.  I was not happy, and knit to ignore and forget.  We landed on ice and snow.   (Yes, I've had to rip what I knit.)

See what I mean about an insignificant speck in the universe?

I plyed the Wensleydale.  It's 120 yards of somewhat overspun exquisitely blue worsted Lisa Souza yarn.  I think the washing and hanging will tame it to a manageable degree.  Useable?  I truly don't mind if it is not.  Wensleydale and I will have to do some samba lessons before I call it knittable.  Here's the evidence.  For a blue, through a camera, and via a monitor, it's pretty close to true.

 

Knitting Olympics

The Olympians have begun.  The Opening Ceremonies and the Cast-On technicalities are complete.  I am a Team Boston cheerleader, and look forward to fulfilling my role with all possible enthusiasm.

Now what are the competitions?  The FairIsle knitters are the downhill ski racers of the Games.  Technical skills, honed through much grueling practice are called upon with each stitch.  No skill has been attained without crashing and having to heal multiple injuries in the process.  Objects besides technical race courses are ripped.  The potential for disaster is huge.  They live each course project on the edge, and finish knowing they are the reigning monarchs of the ski knit world.

The lace knitters are the figure skaters.  Demanding finely honed skills in exquisite balance, one mistake, and the whole routine is changed.  Recovery is difficult.  Beauty and grace follow effective practice, and the finished object routine leaves the audience breathless and applauding.

Sock knitters are the short-track speed skaters.  Practice hones techniques necessary to execute all the curves and changes in the race sock.  Going off course spells disaster, and each competitor goes toe-to-toe with their personal bests and their fellow racers knitters.

Baby blankets and afghans are represented by the 50K classical cross-country ski racers.  This is a marathon of knitting that requires careful thought, preparation, and training.  A grueling race project is ahead.  Endurance, strategy and timing are needed to finish with a medal.  The competitors need to plan for enough water yarn during the race to finish, and disaster strikes if the planning has not been adequate.  Only the competitor knows if she has the heart to finish this exhausting test of stamina.

Our sweater knitters are biathletes.  This combination of cross-country racing and target shooting knitting a substantial project and then having to do the finish work is a test of different skills that must be present in the same knitter.  Each arm of the race must be accomplished with consummate skill.  Fatigue is not allowed.  Stamina, finesse, and accuracy when fatigued are the tests that the knitter must confront.

The daring knitter, the knitter who knits sweaters without a swatch, is the ski jumper of the Games.  Having honed all the technical skills necessary, the knitter then races down the ramp and soars off into the sky.  The landing is always in doubt.  A graceful touch-down keeps one in medal contention.   A crash landing?  That's been called hospital air. 

Let me open up the comments to comparisons with your favorite sport and knitting.  I salute the Knitting Olympians for their willingness to challenge their knitting limits. 

 

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming

While the fingers have been busy, the brain has been blank.  Poem, picture, and party posts are easy blog fodder, but don't tell enough about a fiber life.  Life has been gloriously happening.  I'll stop being a bad blog mama.

When the DK sweater swatch imploded, I switched to Elsebeth Lavold's Torgeir for Mr. Etherknitter. Rowan Wool Cotton was versatile enough to also switch allegiances.  The evidence, appearing somewhat sanguine in hue, lies below:

The lifted increases have been an interesting addition to my skillset.  I'm working on the bottom of the first motif, which is the complex cable you can see here.

My oldest WIP is Eric's glovelets.  I keep threatening to finish them.  The twisted cable is quite satisfying - maximum effect for minimal effort.  The picture I'm showing you doesn't reveal the dreadful secret on the palm's purl stitches.  There is distinct evidence of laddering in the transition between needles from purl to purl.

I spent more time that I care to discuss in contemplating this imperfection.  How many times did I stick my hand in the cuff to see where it would fall in the FO?  Do I rip it back and probably never pick it up again?  Or do I finish it and always look at the laddering, feeling that unhappy stomach sensation that says I should have ripped it back?  And how much time can I spend dithering over such an insignificant aspect of my knitting life?  I couldn't decide because both alternatives were less than fun.  The glovelets are in a temporary time-out while I learn to live with my world-view realignment that will allow me to leave a piece of knitting work that is demonstrably less than perfect.  Some pundit once said that people are like sharks:  if you don't keep moving, you die.  I'm trying to look at this as personal growth rather than defeat.

Spinning has been fan-freaking-tastic.  I finished a Grafton Fibers batt.

The colors were beautiful, subtle, mixed with a genius equaled only by Tess, and Nancy Finn's Chasing Rainbows.  It took a few yards to understand this fiber (Corriedale).  I found out (again) about the directionality of fiber preparation.  Once I started spinning from the correct direction, it was silky and effortless.  On the other hand, I spent four ounces worth of struggle with Wensleydale.  It was beautifully prepared.  Wensleydale and I just don't make beautiful music together.  Maybe I was using the wrong whorl.  Maybe it really did want to be a heavy worsted yarn.   I do think I stumbled on some aspects of longdraw with it.  It will end up being plyed with itself (pictures to follow when that is done), with no particular use planned other than fiberholic decor.

I'll stop here for now.  Let me leave you with a teaser.

The Wind in the Hemlock

The Wind in the Hemlock

 

Steely stars and moon of brass,

How mockingly you watch me pass!

You know as well as I how soon

I shall be blind to stars and moon,

Deaf to the wind in the hemlock tree,

Dumb when the brown earth weighs on me.

 

With envious dark rage I bear,

Stars, your cold complacent stare;

Heart-broken in my hate look up,

Moon, at your clear immortal cup,

Changing to gold from dusky red --

Age after age when I am dead

To be filled up with light, and then

Emptied, to be refilled again.

 

What has man done that only he

Is slave to death -- so brutally

Beaten back into the earth

Impatient for him since his birth?

 

Oh let me shut my eyes, close out

The sight of stars and earth and be

Sheltered a minute by this tree.

Hemlock, through your fragrant boughs

There moves no anger and no doubt,

No envy of immortal things.

The night-wind murmurs of the sea

With veiled music ceaselessly,

That to my shaken spirit sings.

From their frail nest the robins rouse,

In your pungent darkness stirred,

Twittering a low drowsy word --

And me you shelter, even me.

In your quietness you house

The wind, the woman and the bird.

You speak to me and I have heard:

 

If I am peaceful, I shall see

Beauty's face continually;

Feeding on her wine and bread

I shall be wholly comforted,

For she can make one day for me

Rich as my lost eternity.

--Sara Teasdale

 

C is for Citrus

When Mr. Etherknitter and I entertain, we decorate with food.  The hunt for ingredients always includes some items not on the Master List.  When you walk into the kitchen, you will always see a large pottery vessel filled with fresh produce.  There is something emotionally satisfying about seeing extra quantities of food around the kitchen.  It must appeal to that atavistic part of us that often experienced famine in times of weather extremes.  It's a sensation that washes over and fills us with contentment on a completely nonverbal level.  You don't really know it's happening; you just know that you feel welcomed and warm. 

Extras purchased for the recipes can find their way into the platter.  Shopping, decorating, and eating with the seasons always means buying what LOOKS best in the market.  Color, shape, size, and uniqueness tempt us.  This guy was a no-brainer. 

He wasn't labeled, there were only four, and I haven't seen him at Whole Foods since.  When I came to my "C" post for the ABC-along, I googled "funny looking lemon".  It's a Buddha's Hand Citron.  You can read about it here.  His orange buddies are clementines, which helped to prop him up for the photo-shoot.  (I can see the "too much wine" comments already.)

Speaking of Google.  The person who found my blog by googling "Laurie's death"?  Cut it out. 
And whoever googled "how to escape hands tied behind back"?  Houdini's dead.  Get over it.