Etherknitter

Numerus octo

I missed one.  I owe you one.

I was thinking about FOMO during the weekend that was Rhinebeck.  FearOfMissingOut is not correct.  Fear of missing out is what one feels when one suspects that others are off doing something without them, and having a stupendous time at it.  Rhinebeck?  That is KNOWING that others are off doing something wonderful without them.  FOWYAM is more accurate:  Fear Of What You Are Missing.  But I don't think that will catch on any time soon.

So when I saw Kristy Glass' epic movie-length video of Rhinebeck sweaters, I knew it would have my attention.  It is fabulous.  The women, the creativity, the sweaters, the ambience, the humor, and the humanness are all captured exquisitely.  Go watch, even if you did go to Rhinebeck this year, and missed nothing whatsoever.

One last late fall garden picture, a very confused digitalis plant that wasn't supposed to flower until next spring.  She gave her all, and froze to death in the end.

Nomre yeddi

Color and colorwork are related and separate.  Colorwork design intersects with color concepts, and changes the perception of color itself.  Color by itself, without fair isle motifs, is not what my stash is about.  Most of us buy variegated hand-dyed colorways, which ends up as a shortcut for playing with color.  But there is a certain amount of cheat involved in that.

Mason-Dixon Kay and Ann teamed up with Kay's long-time idol, Kaffe Fassett, to produce Volume #13 of their Field Guides.  This one is perfectly named:  Master Class. 

I could never see the pull, the attraction to moshing colors together.  I did not get the Fassett-adulation.  Weaving may have moved me closer to the concepts, but not with plan or intent.  Mostly.  But then Master Class seized my imagination, wrenched me to the ground, and made me buy stuff. 

The yarn packs sold out in a micro-instant.  My Dusty color batch of Rowan Felted Tweed is on backorder.  Once it arrives, I will play with stripey weirdness, and coiny goodness.  Go look here if you haven't already seen it.

I still can't explain the coup de coeur.  Should an intervention be planned?

Numuro sesi

Today was spent solving the knitting problems of the 'verse.  There may have been weaving and spinning problems also addressed in the mix.  I am actually more organized than I realized.  There are WIPs that need attention.  There are UFOs that are surfacing.  There are, as previously referenced, startitis projects looking over my shoulder and whining.  But then, there is a FOURTH category.  WIPs that are threatening to become UFOs.  These need stat attention before they go critical.  The deck still has to be cleared, but I suppose that will happen Tuesday.  It just didn't seem to be much of a draw today. 

Today's picture is the yummy of the season:  honey nut squash.  I searched my own blog (!) via google to figure out if I had blogged about it last year.  I found only a pre-Thanksgiving picture, with no description of these beauties.  I googled it by itself to see what the hivemind had to say.  Clearly, I am far behinder the curve than I imagined.  I found a reference from 2015.  I was three years late last year.

It is a butternut squash varietal, easy to cook, excellent portion size, delicious, and I am probably telling you absolutely nothing you don't already know.  I will distract you with a picture, and then slink away to my wine glass.

 

Numara bes

The Knitting Muse (no links since Lynn has ceased the blogging life) told me about a Ravelry group (Stash Knit Down) hosting "Race to the Bottom of Your Stash".  She had signed up, and I thought she was nuts.  

Until.  (There always is an "until".  It keeps life interesting.)

The knit-down includes any use of yarn or fiber, as long as it is GONE.  And it counts all the yardage in UFOs that are finished in the 18 month time-frame (April 2019-September 30, 2020).  The lights clicked on for me:  external motivation to get UFOs done.

I have not thrown out yarn, donated it, burned it, or given it away.  I have finished some UFOs, and plan to finish more.  I have been steadily knitting.  The truth that comes home is that knitting one's stash is a V E R Y slow way to use up stash.  The real bang for the dollar is finishing UFOs, where the total yardage of the piece then counts.  My current startitis is not helping whatsoever.  (Knitting discipline is an oxymoron.)  I DID set a realistic goal, or what I thought was a realistic goal (25,000 yards in 18 months).  I knew it would push me but not unattainably so.  I am currently behind, but have my sights set on finishing stuff.  And starting new stuff.  Late fall through early spring is, indeed, our prime knitting time.

I apparently am focusing on sweaters, hats, and scarves.  When I told Mr. E that I didn't seem to be thinking much about knitting shawls, his response was completely unknitterly (as one might expect):  "You have too many shawls already."  One can only nod sagely, allowing the husband to interpret that nod as he may.

One finished projected, woven of slubby rayon, warp was green/variegated blue&green/blue, weft solid blue slubby rayon--

מספר ארבע

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.’

 

Translate equanimity to Choose language Afrikaans Albanian Amharic Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Bangla Basque Belarusian Bosnian Bulgarian Burmese Catalan Cebuano Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Corsican Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hausa Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Kazakh Khmer Korean Kurdish Kyrgyz Lao Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Maori Marathi Mongolian Nepali Norwegian Nyanja Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Samoan Scottish Gaelic Serbian Shona Sindhi Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Southern Sotho Spanish Sundanese Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Western Frisian Xhosa Yiddish Yoruba Zulu

 

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!