Etherknitter

Fan the flames

The Rudeness Rant is simmering through blogland.  There are those who target toilets, and those who suffer slings from the grammar and punctuation police.  I have not yet been accused of possessing a recto-cranial inversion, but I do suffer the indignities of the daily commute. 

Least Coast drivers (Massachusetts in particular) are a microcosm of the rudeness that is overtaking the previously civilized world.  Everyone has her story:  left turn from right hand lane is routine and ordinary.  Those who pull into the lane of oncoming traffic because something is blocking their lane?  Instead of stopping?  Yeah.  The city is filled with indignant pedestrians who are crossing the street with no cross-walk, and against the light.  They shake various digits at puzzled drivers who have had to slam on their brakes.  The list is endless.  So are the indignities, and the anger.

Now it is amongst our bloggers and knitters.  I can't control their behavior, but I try to understand so I can defuse my pique.

No data exists to prove my theories.  The experiments needed would be expensive, uncomfortable and unethical.  My thesis is that the responsibility for the epidemic of visible bad behavior lies with cell phones and iPods.

Stay with me.  What's different about our daily life?  We are constantly connected.  The cell phone, enough by itself, is now a means to continual communication and internet connection.  Our nervous system is never at rest during the waking hours.  The synapses are constantly being stimulated and worked.  Either we are doing business on the cell in our cars, or we are arguing with our mate over who can pick up the kids, or we are arguing with our kids over....something.  Whatever.  iPods have the same hyperstimulation effect on our neural connections.  If you aren't listening to something you can fall asleep to, your neural pathways are firing and tiring, then depleting.

What happens to a baby when he is hyperstimulated?  He tires quickly.  He fusses.  Small frustrations make him scream and wave his small fists in helpless rage.  Nothing soothes him except the slam-dunk into bed.

So it is with adults.  We tire quickly.  Confrontations in comments are the equivalent of waving our small fists.  Impatience rules our behaviors.  When we are in a car, we pull out in front of other drivers.  Our needs come first and only.  There is nothing inconsistent or impossible about developing technology beyond which our brains are able to cope.  Our neural pathways were developed several thousands of years ago for an environment with far less stimulation.  We are not evolved to evolve beyond that in a few short decades.

This rudeness won't go away.  We aren't getting enough sleep to compensate for what is happening to our neurotransmitters.  We can fill our cups with fiber (as sadly blogless Manise has often commented), but that only takes care of small numbers of us.

It's something to think about.

I do have an FO to show.  I haven't blogged it because a. it's a been there-done that item, as Cassie pointed out today, and b. I'm not feeling the love.  I wore these Feather&Fan socks in my Uggs at SPA, and experienced feet and ankles covered with mesh.  It wasn't a happy experience.  The yarn was lovely during the knitting.   I can only hope that normal shoes will feel better.

Pattern:  Feather & Fan from SocksSocksSocks

Yarn:  Lisa Souza Sock!, Pacific colorway

Needles:  Crystal Palace 1.5s

SPAccumulations

"All things in moderation, including moderation."

My SPA purchases were circumspect, and restrained. 

-Indigo Moon:  MaryLynn is leaving the fiber business.  We all keened in grief and mourning, then bought whatever we could stuff into our bags.  I own a navy blue layered batt, shot through with all kinds of unEtherknitter colors.  The scales that balance the universe then told me to buy the blue alpaca/merino/silk.  I never ignore the voices.
-I purchased two skeins of DK weight true black alpaca, labeled as the 2006 clip of Mr. Bojangles.  They will become fingerless mitts.

-Spunky Eclectic contributed  BFL roving in the usual colorway.  No picture. 

-Judy and Kim's booth incited some form of yarn frenzy.  Two skeins of sock yarn from each, plus a bit of silk/merino:

At SPA, I spun 108 grams of Coopworth from Dorchester Farms, despite this explosion of color.  It's drying in the shower after a gentle Navajo ply.  Preliminary inspection has me thrilled with the balance.  Pictures, and some FOs in the next post. 

SPA 2007

I took embarrassingly few pictures.  *beats chest*

It was an event that unfolded as you would expect.  Lots of hang-time.  Copious spinning and knitting.  Morbid fascination with other peoples' projects, purchases, and machines.  I had the same focus on sock knitting machines (think Eloi being called to the Morlocks from 'The Time Machine' by HG Wells) that Mel did.

This is a picture of turning a heel.  I almost didn't have time to focus the picture before it was done.  The good news is that learning to use the machine takes more time than knitting a pair of socks.  And picking up dropped stitches is NOT trivial.  It WOULD make my sock yarn stash seem more rational.  I think Tony Federer said it takes an hour and a half per pair of socks.  Not the point?  Thank god.

That Laurie did it again.  She had another amazing hand-dyed, hand-spun hand-knitted sweater on.  I did manage to get a picture, but the three ladies never stopped moving.  The Goddess modeling the sweater was the worst of all.  Constant motion.

They were deaf to my pleas.  "Hey, kids, this isn't a video camera, fer gawd's sake!"

You may recognize Nora Gaughan's design.  The other ladies to the left are Juno and TooMuchWool.  TMW is wearing her cashmere lady cap and Celtic Dreams in soft, squishy wonderful I have to buy some BFL.

There were educational opportunities.  I watched an Alden Amos wheel change ownership.  This wheel spins like .... I can't say this on a knitblog.  You know what I'm thinking. 

Carole needed a new drive band.  This is 15 feet (or so) of spun Coopworth morphing into a three-ply driveband.  Marcy to the left, Carole to the right.  The driveband lasted about an hour before it stretched beyond the wheel's adjustments, and it was replaced with thick cotton thread.  That was much less dramatic than plying 3x5 feet of yarn in a room with no room for people, let alone plying bodies.  Juno's purpleheart Canadian production wheel is visible below Carole's right arm.

Monica spent some time practicing.  That is PumpkinGirl in her arms.  Both ladies were remarkably quiet, and seemed to be satisfied with the transaction. Monica looks wonderful.  (And IS wonderful.)

This is a whack of socks under a sock knitting machine.  They are joined by a waste band of yarn that is used to separate/start the next one.  If you do it this way, you have to finish off the cuff AND the toe.  The guy in the first picture does it one sock at a time, so all he has at the end is a toe to kitchener.

Stash acquisitions to follow in another post. 

High hat

Done.  At last.   
50% Coopworth, 50% alpaca from Dorchester Farms, purchased at Cummingon, 5/2005.
Polwarth, colorway Winter Garden, from The Fold, purchased 9/2005. 

Spun 2006, on the Schacht.  Double ply. 

The start was delayed by procrastination over Emily Ocker's cast-on.  The pattern is Susan's Lazy-Ass No Gauge Hat.  I didn't like the fabric, but perservered.  Mr. Etherknitter kept asking, "Is it done yet?  When do I get a hat?" 

I called this my ugly child.  My beta-hat.  It is done, and the ugly duckling transformation was complete today during the photo shoot.  I can't explain why it works on his head, or how, but it does. 

It's my first handspun project.

The first picture is the location of the photo shoot from the plane.   It's the area in the middle, that looks like a palm with five fingers pointed downwards.

The second picture is the location of the photo shoot from the adjacent mountain.

The third picture is Mr. Etherknitter, on the Big Burn at Snowmass, CO, posing at 11,000 feet above sea level.  Claudia got the first on-slope photo shoot.  I think this may be the highest.

Investigational process

A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Gary's vest and the ladder-foe.

I swatched.  The swatch has not yet had an opportunity to lie.  If one does not meticulously examine the swatch, lying cannot have occurred, for truth was not sought.  This is my story of woe. 

The swatch itself is a brief tale.  Penny Straker's daughter updated her patterns recently.  I have an old copy and a new copy.  I found good yarn for the Geoffrey vest.  The swatch recommended on the pattern was complex.  First do a ribbing swatch.  Then do a pattern swatch.  The instructions dictated the exact stitches, cable size, and swatch size.  I followed directions like a lamb.  (Yes, indeed, there is slaughter coming.  But as a knitter, you knew that.)  The recommended swatch had not been changed in the intervening two decades.  I washed the swatch.  It changed size, and I tried to do the maths to compensate for the change.

Lorrie, the KnitGoddess, was the first to recognize the problem.  The swatch I was instructed to do had different stitch counts and different cable sizes than what I was about to knit. 

We guessed.  I remeasured my friend Gary, who will eventually be the owner of the vest.  I wrung my hands, gnashed a few teeth, swore a lot.  I think the size I chose will fit.   I doubt I'll try any other Straker patterns.

That's about them.  This part is about me.  Ladders.  When I switch from knit to purl segments, big ladders are forming.  Embarrassing ladders.  The vest is a GIFT.  It has to look good.  (I wouldn't tolerate ladders of that size on any garment, whether or not it was planning to leave the house.)

I've pulled tighter in the transition stitches.  The yarn has hemp and mohair, but is 43% wool.  It should have more resiliency.

It's in time-out.  I have to think about this.  Any suggestions, now that pulling the transition stitches tighter hasn't helped, would be welcomed.

Let me leave you with something sunny.  The Ellen's Halfpint Farm merino/tencel sock is coming along well.   I'm doing an eye-of-the-partridge heel flap.  There is pleasant striping going on.  Although I don't think exclusive sock-knitting is the correct answer, it presents sore temptation in its favor.