Etherknitter

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The crimes were heinous.  Almost daily, the body counts multiplied.  Under cover of darkness, in broad daylight, when no witnesses were present, flagrant and blatant criminals continued to decapitate their victims, one by one.  The victims were taken by surprise.  None had a chance to cry out before the deed was done.  It was an unsolved mystery, enough to break the heart of the innocent gardener.  The murder scene was repeated over and over again.

Miss Zinnia, shown in the last picture taken before her untimely death-

 

 

Then, the crime scene photo, taken by Detective Etherknitter.  The heads were laid out on the deck, shredded, petals flung haphazardly, in the hunt for seeds to stockpile for the coming winter.  Miss Zinnia never looked old enough to have developed her seeds, and we wondered if the deaths were in vain.

 

 

 

One of the suspects was caught consorting with Miss Zinnia, but was clearly not strong enough to have overwhelmed her to chop off her head.  The only crime the Detective could pin on him was a spate of hair-pulling and arguing, nothing more.  

 

 

 

The perp was eventually spotted when he attempted to repeat his assault on a taller victim.  The din made by repeated falls to the deck brought the Detective to the window.  The perpetrator leaped off the deck and was lost in the multiple tunnels that was his lair.   Justice will not be meted out by man nor woman.  He eluded capture.  

We no longer think chipmunks are cute.

Our extremely hard frost is coming Thursday or Friday night.  This weekend will see the last of the plants composted or sequestered.  Let the knitting begin.

 

Nummer Tre

AutumnAloft after a year's hiatus.  Many of the balloons are different, with the prior designs evidently having met their 800 hour life span.  Again with the dawn, providing the three key conditions for alofting hot air balloons:  no rain, low wind, good visibility.  The ladies who sell coffee and hot chocolate make a fortune as we wrap our dawn-chilled fingers around a hot cup of wakefulness.  

It is necessary and customary to choose our favorite balloon each year.  Agreement is not a requirement.  The balloons did not reach great heights this year, which means that the winds at 1000-3000 feet above us must have been bad.  

My favorite this year was the orange/yellow/red striper.  Yes, I even surprised myself.  Pictures are serendipity in an LCD screen.

First, there is fire.  And then, there is favorite balloon on the right, with calm waters augmenting the fun.  

And now that Daylight Savings Time is done (who didn't love that extra hour on Sunday?), late fall shows its Japanese maple colors.  Mr Etherknitter saw this backlighted by afternoon sun.  The word he used to describe it was "incandescent".  This isn't that, but it is plenty fine.  

Acer palmatum, Beni Otake

Nombre Deux

We had our first freeze last night.  It took me by surprise, because I thought it was predicted for later in the weekend.  Nothing was protected, of course.  I am crossing fingers that the tropicals will only lose leaves rather than the roots.  We keep them indoors in the winter.  Some would say that is nuts, because they do take up space, need watering, a small amount of care during the winter.  By spring, the leaves are dead anyway.  I strip them off, water the pot, shake my head, and start accepting that the plant has died.  Six weeks later, the pot is filling with new shoots, and another summer has begun.

To say I specialize in crazy plants would not surprise many.  The wisteria needs constant hacking and controlling.  Sometimes it travels up the pine tree.  The roots pop out looking to travel elsewhere.  I have a crazy clematis that sprawls over half of its neighbors in one of the other perennial beds.  Mr. E has rigged up a strong support, which the plant always outstrips.  It climbs up and up and up, then falls over.  It had fully intended to squash and shade its neighbors all along, as plants do.  

Inside, it is all about the night blooming cereus.  I, inadvertently or otherwise, now have three.  The last sprout came from my MIL.  It has mimicked hers, which she described in gender-normative fashion, as "probably male, since it doesn't flower, and seems intent on taking over territory." One of the cereus plants does bloom.  The first picture is a pretty picture of a beautiful lady. The second picture reminds me of Alien.  I know you have seen this before, but it knocks me out each year, as if I had never before seen such a spectacle.  Please humor me.

I am finishing a sock in BallandSkein yarn, colorway Iris.  It has been the mindless project for 15 months.  I tried the Addi flips, and HATE them. I knit the first sock to the heel flap with them, then abandoned the useless suckers.  That means my second sock has a different, tighter gauge; the leg portion is smaller than the first.  The knitter's refrain holds true:  the sock is either in the shoe or under the pants leg.  No one will notice.  

 

 

Numero Uno

I am getting yarn tomorrow! Our world of insta-deliver has made instantaneity the new norm.  It takes longer for me to find a day to go to an LYS, get in the car, fight the traffic, and return home, than to order and then open my door to pick up the box.

Porch Pirates throw a wrinkle into this.  Certain times of year have made this more risky than other times.  It makes me think about hating people.

Sometimes it is a wonderful thing that getting new yarn keeps its shiny glow after a modestly long knitting career.  We knitters have long discussed the dark side of acquistion, which shall not be repeated herein today.  My purchases have morphed a touch more towards the Claudia model:  buy now what you are going to cast on (soon)(ish).  The two parenthetical additions are mine, not Claudia's.  She remains steadfast in her intelligent discipline

I ordered Cumbria in colorway Barrow, chosen by Mr. E in a conscious effort to move away from burgundy and rust.  (The yarn industry mimics the paint industry in named colors with no indication of what family of color it actually joins.)  Barrow is a tweedy brown.  The pattern planned is Churchmouse's saddle shoulder pullover.

It is an interesting construction I haven't yet tried.  It looks as if it would flatter a man with good shoulders.  He stated that he has enough scarves.  (The knitter thinks that this is not possible, but tries to respect his feeling of too much choice.)  I did not give him hat choice, because he was getting another one this knitting season, regardless.  

For me, I am working on the Charles pullover, with a deep stash dive to Rowan Magpie Tweed aran.  The sweater I bought it for is not something that will look remotely attractive on my current body.  I am liking the current move towards garments with more ease.  

Rain is falling on the last of the garden and plantings.  We have already made our first batch of shortribs.  We opened a nice Bordeaux, which was not possible prior to October.  (Bordeaux matches poorly with tomatoes, corn, and summer weather.) 

In my odd microclimate, the backyard is past peak foliage, as the front yard is at full peak.  I did not make it to Rhinebeck this year to view the iconic maple trees in their fall garb, or the iconic knitters in theirs.  I am hoping for better luck next year.

In the spirit of NaBloPoMo, this may be an every other posting.  I will type til I run out of things to say. 

A Hat for a Man

He needed a new hat.  I had the yarn.  We discussed the design process.

Yarn:  Iron Horse Farm, heavy worsted/aran weight, 160 yards of pumpkin and 160 yards of brown
Fibers:  50% BFL, 50% Shetland wool  (hand wash, lay flat to dry)
Needle:  #8 Addi Turbo Rocket 16" for ribbing, #9 Addi Turbo Rocket 16" for the hat body

When I bought the yarn, I had thought of colorwork.  When I pulled it out to evaluate suitability, colorwork was too fussy for now.  So the design was to start with a brown brim, knit about 3/4 of the brim in brown, start the pumpkin with a hidden, folded part of the brim, do the first cable repeat in pumpkin, then switch to brown for the rest of the hat.  That would stretch the available yarn, and create a nice color combination and contrast.  

I swatched.  The nascent brim looked HUGE.  I put it on a piece of yarn.  He tried it on.  He raised his eyebrow, and it fell into his eyes.  I used a crochet hook to pinch off a cable repeat while the circle of yarn was still around his forehead, and went from 144 stitches to 132 stitches.  Much better.

When I got to the second cable repeat, he demanded more pumpkin.  The pumpkin extended to the last full cable repeat that I could eke out of the skein.  He agreed.  One more cable repeat in brown, then decreases for the crown.  The top was a rectum closure.  Four ends (associated with the color changes) to weave in, the top strand to tack and cinch.  I used the cast-on tail, anti-slinky method of closing the gap described by Patty Lyons in a recent MDK post.

(It is a fantastic technique and where has it been all my knitting life?  My unventions never came close to being as slick.)  The brim was super springy, so needed to be tacked to the main body of the hat so it would not sproing free into the wearer's eyes.  

The pictures show the design process, the hat on the man, the hat on the exercise ball, and the hat on the floor.  He loves it.  So do I.

 

 

Happy New Year 2019

I am so happy to still be here to see a new Year.  

So, yes, resolutions have been out the window for several years.  I have joined the focused word per year group to practice effective change.  This approach leaves behind the unavoidable and odious concept of broken resolutions.  

2015:  Presence
2016:  Resilience
2017:  None
2018:  Patience

2019 has been a difficult choice.  Equanimity was the concept, but the actionable part was hard to identify.  I didn't think deep breaths would work to bring it on.  The French concept of sang froid (cold blood, or calm) fit.  But, again, there wasn't something actionable.  Does calm = equanimity?  I wasn't sure about that, since I could reach calm, but without equanimity.  Dictionaries have not provided much help with synonyms that might be easier to link with equanimity.  The lovely Google search below gives context:

e·qua·nim·i·ty

/ˌekwəˈnimədē/

noun

noun: equanimity

1. mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation.

   "she accepted both the good and the bad with equanimity"

   synonyms:

   composure, calm, level-headedness, self-possession, coolheadedness, presence of mind; serenity, tranquility, phlegm, imperturbability, equilibrium;  poise, assurance, self-confidence, aplomb, sangfroid, nerve;  informalcool "she confronted the daily crises with equanimity"

   antonyms:

   anxiety

Origin

early 17th century (also in the sense ‘fairness, impartiality’): from Latin aequanimitas, from aequus‘equal’ + animus ‘mind.’

 

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Use over time for: equanimity

 

So this will be a work in progress, I think.  Deep breaths with an associated thought of calm will be how I will start. 

 

Discussing this with Mr. Etherknitter (who personifies equanimity), my daily translation will be "let it go".  Clearly, that is not one word, but I am good with that.  He suggests working towards calm when in situations over which I have little or no immediate or long-term control.  

 

I think that is a good working plan.

 

And, of course, speaking of good working plans, I have made some small-scale fiber goals aimed to please rather than aimed to plan my pleasure.

 

1.  Spin whatever appeals.  Or not.
2.  Finish the towel warp.

3.  Put on a rag rug warp.

4.  Finish 4 UFOs during the year, including Grant Park Pullover.

5.  Knit stuff other than baby gifts.

 

I got pretty burned out on baby stuff, especially blankets.  Those are done for the foreseeable future.  Too much work.  Hats remain on the forefront of the queue, and fun stuff for winter knitting is there too.  But I am going to be driven by fun and yarn and utility in that order.  I want to knit more for Mr. E.  That is where the GP Pullover comes in, and the Jason hat (FO pix in the near future) that is currently a lovely knit.  When I post that, I will post a list of 2018 FOs, which were not insubstantial.

 

Happy New Year to all who lurk with me!

 

Musings on a Winter Day

Christmas:  Last garbage day, I walked out to the street after the pickup to bring the bins back in.  Under the lid of one of the cans was a plastic ziplock bag.  In the bag was a generic holiday greeting card with a picture of the garbage guy.

Two things to understand about why this is a musing.  First, the town does not provide garbage pickup with tax monies.  Residents have to hire a private service.  Predictably, the fees go up and up.  They even charge a fee because I don't do autopay (even though I pay by transfer from my account to theirs).  In this era, it makes no sense to me to give a company access to my accounts without having any ability to know what their hiring practices are.  Also understand that the trucks now have arms that pick up the cans.  The customer was instructed to set up the cans on the street in a particular way so that the driver doesn't have to leave the truck.  That means that the driver had to leave the truck to put the bag under the bin lid.

Do people really tip their garbage guy?  I'm supposed to leave a check in the bag and hope that he gets it?  People are getting their packages stolen from their front door all the time.  What a nice thievingly holiday gift to give someone all my bank account information in a plastic bag under the garbage bin lid!  Cash?  That would last 30 seconds.  I am curious what others think about this.  And what they do.

Cookbooks:  I recently bought a cookbook that received rave reviews, both as a recipe source and as an educational tome.  (I rarely buy cookbooks now, and even more rarely buy one I haven't looked through first.)  It sucked.  It sucked because it is aimed at people who have done take-out their entire lives and are now just beginning to learn how to cook.  I'm about to discontinue my decades long subscription to Bon Appetit because the editors have adopted the same focus of aiming the material at new cooks.  Michael Ruhlman went to culinary school to write more intelligently about cooking, and he does.  This author writes either at a completely novice level or she has never had any formal training, or has a miserable editor, or all three.  

The baby sweater turned out perfectly.  The commenters who talked about baby bodies were spot on.  Once the sleeves were picked up and knit, the proportions were accurate.  Rav link here.

I hope your holiday is shaping up in a fine manner.  

Nahnahnahnahheyheygoodbye #30 2018

I was looking for honest wool.  I was looking for a utilitarian, handsome sweater.  I found the pattern through Harrisville.   And then we fought like tigers.  My Brando sweater lived up to its namesake.

I think I bought the Granite colorway.  I am horrified by how long ago that was.  The pattern was not well written.  I knit the back, then ripped it out because the instructions weren't clear.  I knit at least one sleeve twice.  I know I ripped out major parts of the front at least once.  Rough calculation suggests that I knit the same sweater twice before I finished one sweater.  I just really wanted the sweater.

Bodies change  Fashion changes.  In this case, fashion changed more than my body did.  I had it measured for exactly where I wanted the hem to fall, and that is where the hem fell.  But that was somewhere in 2011-2012.  And now, it looks........short.  But I wear it, because I wanted it, and someday it will look more contemporary.  I will probably get more wear out of it at home than at work, where it doesn't look quite polished enough.

The excellent news is that I knit a sweater that fits exactly as I had planned.  It looks good.  It was seamed well.  I had no idea, NONE AT ALL, how to calculate a sleeve cap.  I didn't even know that a knitter was supposed to do that.  I put in a lifeline, somehow understanding that there be dragons, followed the pattern, and the caps fit.  My mom would have called it shit luck.  The seams fell into place.

The bad news is that I am going to show you the sweater in the world's WORST selfie.  It is all I have for you.  Someday soon, I will put it into my Rav projects, after creating some better pictures.  But that is not tonight, because tonight is November 30th.  I'm now off the blogging hook.  

Who knows, maybe more will come.

 

 

NaBlewPewMew #29 2018

I thought there would be weaving EVERYWHERE in Sweden.  Two places:  a handcrafting school near the Vasamuseet, and the Nordiska Museet.

The Nordiska Museet showed Swedish life throughout the centuries.  The exhibits showed meals, and clothing, and homes.  Utensils, tools used to survive the long winters, furniture.  In one small archival room, filled with cabinets with drawers, rested the archives containing Swedish fabrics.

They were breathtaking.  All, of course, were handwoven.  Ornamentation was in color, texture, and the weave structure.  Function was first, art was second.

Two pictures of drawers with groups of fabric below.  And then , of course, picture #3, the original Horn warp, of Ostergotland, a scrap remaining from a coverlet circa ~1900.  I felt as if I had come home.

ShaNaNaPo #28 2018

Yes, Stockholm again.  This is to convince you that you need to go there.

It is beautiful.  The archipelago includes the city, which is built on interconnecting islands.  The people we encountered were polite, diffident, reserved, friendly.  We found no native extroverts.  

-Everyone goes to the VasaMuseet.  Everyone raves about it.  I was not sure what could be so entrancing about a ship that couldn't sail.  But everyone was right.  It is beautifully exhibited, explained in ways that bring it to life, and quite a unique experience.

-We walked everywhere.  Over the entire week, we walked 35 miles.  I lost 2.2 kg, even though I ate everything.  We had fika once or twice when our feet were sore.  Gamla Stan (probably Motif #1 in Stockholm) was a wonderful walk.  See picture the first.  Everything everywhere is clean.  Unlike Paris, one sees no green guys doing the work and the hosing down of the sidewalks.  It was just.....immaculate.

-We took a boat ride through the city.  The route takes you from the Baltic Sea to Lake Malaren via a lock.  Then back again.  There were fine views, including the giraffe in an industrial area.  See picture the second.  Someone had a puckish sense of humor.

-Views.  Beautiful views, both macro and micro.  Picture the third and fourth are city views of the immediate downtown.  

-Another view I found mentioned on the interwebs:  Monteliusvagen.  It took a bit of climbing and searching, but the tourist is rewarded with a high perch, no crowds, and nothing but lovely.  See picture the fifth.

-I cannot visit a city without visiting the local market.  The historic one was undergoing rehabilitation.  Shops were set up in a large building across the street.  I have never seen so many chanterelles, except for two days prior in Helsinki!  I think it is their national treasure.  Gold, you know.  That would be picture the sixth.

We ate like royalty.  We found Matbaren, a short walk from the hotel.  Unlike many restaurants with one star, the menu adapted to whatever amount of food the diner wanted.  We declared it one of the two best in Scandinavia, until the next night when we stumbled on Gastrologik.  It also has one star, but with a twist.  Everything edible except for one item comes from Sweden.  That one item was tiny shrimp from Norway.  No olive oil is used, because it isn't made in Sweden.  It was a remarkable, pure, locavore experience - inventive flavors, superbly imagined, amazing presentations.  I learned about the wonder of Herno gin, which, alas, is not imported to the US.  

Tomorrow, pictures from the Nordiska Museet.