Swallowtail Takes Flight

As soon as we boarded our airplane flight after dinner on Friday evening, I pulled out a piece of scrap yarn, my crochet hook, the pattern for the Swallowtail Shawl, knitting needles, and a ball of beautiful silk yarn.

Here is what kept me busy from Baltimore-Washington International Airport until we arrived in Dallas for a brief layover:



On the second flight, I slept.

We arrived at our hotel at 3am our time, slept like logs for six hours...

...and awoke to this Saturday sky right outside our window:



and this little fellow, too:



A big day of adventure ahead!

Sukkot

Every fall we build a sukkah in the back yard, decorate with gourds and candles and small fig and pomegranate trees.


We eat our meals out here, read, knit, and enjoy the cool autumn weather.

Even out little pet wooden squirrel enjoys a sukkah.


Sukkot is my very favorite holiday. I'm always so sad to see it end!

K1, R1 (Knit One, Read One): A Good Yarn

In Debbie Macomber's A Good Yarn, Lydia, the owner of a cozy local yarn store, teaches how to knit socks.

Lydia, a cancer survivor, is joined by her sister and three other women who all struggle with their own problems. One, recently left by her husband, struggles to come to terms with the requirements of the new world she inhabits. Another, long ago divorced, shares living space with her ex and contemplates rekindling their relationship. The third, a depressed teenager, attempts to make a new life in Seattle where she is living with her grandmother. Lydia herself tries to understand her boyfriend's newfound connection to his ex-wife. Her sister, uncomfortable relying on Lydia, struggles with her own homelife. While these women are unlikely friends, knitting links them together. They support each other through hard times and help each other come through the difficulties to successful resolutions.

This book is not fine litereature. The characters are stereotypical and stock, the resolution to complex problems is simplistic, and the writing is clear but prosaic. My biggest complaint? Lydia acts like her method of knitting socks on two circulars is the magic trick that makes knitting socks bearable, as opposed to using DPNs!

Complaints aside, the book is sweet--and about knitting. I hear Nancy Bush was even involved in putting together the pattern used in the book. One reviewer asked, "Who knew that knitting socks could change your life?" This book won't change your life, but you can spend a cozy evening listening to the audiobook of this fairytale and knitting your own socks!

Saturday's Sky...

...at the Virginia Fall Fiber Festival was not nearly as interesting as Saturday's mud:





* * *

Somehow, the weather and the mud just added to the atmosphere of the sheep dog trials.

Rodney and his owner stood by the sidelines watching his pals...


...including Brie, who could not keep her sheep from going to say hello to the nearby toddler...


...and the beautifully-named Koigu (did I hear right or was that just wishful thinking?) lackadaisically separating her sheep pals from each other with a lot of help from her human assistant.


* * *

And of course a little mud did not stop the shopping. In addition to picking up several small bags of interesting spinning fiber (silk hankies, alpaca, llama, kid mohair, cormo), I also got a hank of pale gray sport-weight alpaca yarn for a soft scarf.

First on the needles, though, is champagne-colored lace-weight 100% tussah silk I picked up. Tomorrow evening on my long flight, I plan to cast on the Swallowtail Shawl from the fall issue of Interweave Knits. (Lace shawls keep pushing this month's socks aside, I am afraid!) This will be a holiday present for a very special woman in my life. Hope she will like it!

Block Party

Adamas in all its glorious dampness:

Can't blog--must bind off Adamas!

Will block tomorrow. Pics soon.

DPNs

1. Double Pointed Needles













My favorite DPNs for socks are short wooden sets of five needles.






2. Deaf President Now (March 1988)







Photographs by Yoon K. Lee. (Click to see many more amazing pictures!)

For more information about DPN, see The Week the World Heard Gallaudet and Deaf President Now!: The 1988 Revolution at Gallaudet University.


3. Deaf Protests aNew (October 2006)



photograph by Tate Tullier

There are many interesting blogs by protestors where you can learn about their perpectives.

R.I.P.

In early October 1849 on the day of a local election, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore, delirious and "in need of immediate assistance," according to the friend who found him, Dr. James E. Snodgrass. The doctor took him to the hospital. Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition, and, oddly, he was wearing clothes that were not his own. He died early on the morning of October 7. How he died is still a mystery. Many suggest he died of alcoholism. Others suggest foul play, perhaps while Poe was being used as a pawn in a ballot-box stuffing scheme. Perhaps he had cholera, or even rabies.

One of my favorite reads recently has been Matthew Pearl's The Poe Shadow. The novel addresses Poe's mysterious death in Baltimore in 1849 at the age of 40. Pearl, both a novelist and a literary scholar, attempts to present a historically accurate context of life in mid-nineteenth-century America. He also proposes his own theory of Poe's final days, rooted in extensive historical research. Narrated by fictional Quinton Clark, Pearl's novel is written in a style modelled on the vernacular style of the period, giving it a flavor of the period that is especially appealing.

The story opens with Clark's chance observation of Poe's unceremonius burial. Following the death of the great writer, the press of the time was kind to neither the author's work nor the circumstances surrounding his death. Clark vows to find the real-life inspiration for Poe's C. Auguste Dupin, the brilliant detective from a few of Poe's tales (which perhaps was the first real detective fiction and the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes). By finding the real Dupin and enlisting his help, Clark figures the truth behind the author's demise will be uncovered. His search leads to a convoluted tale of deceit and deception from Baltimore to Paris, set in rich historical detail and an authoritative cultural backdrop.

I love the combination of history, literature, and mystery in this book. As a professional historian and writer of academic monographs, I am intrigued by Pearl's creative way of presenting his own scholarship. His work is especially fascinating because of the way it attempts to transcend our usual categories of fiction and nonfiction. At times, as enjoyable as the book is, this tact seems unfair, giving the book too much authority whether one reads primarily as fiction or history. As one reviewer says of Pearl's novel, "In the guise of fiction he is able to present the various arguments and make sure his belief rules the day."

* * *



Poe keeps warm with Icarus as Son's little eye peers through....

Showing the Knits a Good Time

Last night my stagnating Adamas shawl, Son's homespun scarf on handmade needles (he did all the making), and David's coming-along-beautifully Irish Hiking Scarf all had the great pleasure of meeting a new knit: a lively sock on a great set of needles.



The needles were in the capable hands of none other than Sara, in the area for a conference and kind enough to come up to Takoma Park for a little yarn shopping at Now & Then and dinner at Middle Eastern Cuisine. (Try the okra dish!)

Sara and I knew we had a lot in common even before she arrived--but we just kept discovering more. Her post today has a great list of some of them (including a link to my book).

Thanks for the great evening, Sara!

* * *

And, in spinning news, I made my first cabled yarn.

After spinning up the extra bit of beautiful peachy fiber that Mama-E sent...



...I decided to ply it with some of the singles spun up from Moth Heaven's contribution to my fiber stash.



And then I plied the two double-plies together in the opposite direction, creating this lovely subtly-tweedy cabled yarn:



What I should make? Any suggestions?

progress

By all counts, the new year has started. (Well, except by the count of the our pesky main calendar.)

For me, fall is the time of both endings and new beginnings. It is the time to say goodbye to the freedom of life in the summer with its spur-of-the-moment "let's-get-out-of-our-house-or-we'll-roast," its children-everywhere-at-all-hours, its zuchinni-coming-out-of-our-ears abundance.

We start our new school year, an education at home and with Son's fellow homeschooled friends, a time that has almost as much freedom as the explorations of life in the summer. But overlaid on that openness is the rhythm of hearing the school bells down the street, running out to play as soon as the children there get out, and the incessant taking of notes for the state homeschool portfolio reviews. Things are more formal and structured in the autumn, no matter what our goals may be. The chill in the air seems to demand that. Personally, I love the renewed sense of purpose we all seem to feel, the fresh sense of possibility.

* * *

We have just gone through the two major holidays that mark the beginning of the new Jewish year. The second, Yom Kippur, is a time to get right with God after we have spent Rosh Hashanah and the following days apologizing to our fellow beings. Every year, I spend the day in great struggle, unable to get it right, to make it have meaning. Every year the first holiday (Rosh Hashanah) allows me to turn away from the guilt and misdeeds of the preceeding year, to apologize not only to others but to myself. It is a place from which to move forward.

I think I am making good progress on a fresh new year only to realize suddenly I am not even half way there.

The second holiday comes, another wrapping up of the old year which I have already sealed--a sealing by God this time, a God that I don't know what to do with. I sit and pray to believe in God, sit and think I am crazy, sit and get upset about the divisions that we are codifying in our nevertheless-progressive liturgy, sit in frustration that I still don't believe, sit wondering why anyone would want to believe at all when so many of the injustices and hatreds in this world stem from and are justified by godtalk and religion, sit angry that people are assuming this belief thing is easy, sit confused wondering why people think belief is necessary at all or a good thing. The new year gets underway with me feeling lost and guilty and angry and confused and hurt.

And there is a lot of sitting.

And a lot of apologizing for being angry and frustrated and cruel (no matter how silently) to those who have such an easy time during this religious celebration or any religious celebration, in this my religion or any other. It leaves me nowhere but with hurts all around.

* * *

And then there is knitting.

Adamas progresses:

after six repeats...


...and after seven.


OK--enough with the photographs after every repeat. Now that the shawl is too large to really spread out on the needles, it does not seem to change much from one repeat to the next anymore.

I keep a tally on the sticky-tab that marks my place in the repeats: eight, nine....

At first it grew so rapidly. Now it stagnates, looking the same no matter how many stitches I make. The repeats go by and I am at the same place. I thought I was making progress, that I was going somewhere, until I checked out this shawl progress calculator. An enormous commitment is before me. I need faith to get me from here to the seemily-unchanged end. I realize I have only just begun.

Welcome to Socktoberfest!

If you're part of the online knitting world, you know about Socks that Rock yarn.

Well, I have discovered the Socks with Knots yarn. It has nothing to do with Socks that Rock....

Remember when I told you about the obnoxious sock that was trying my patience and stretching my sense of propriety?

Update: I continued it just as it was, thinking I would donate it to new amputees coming back from the war. It occurred to me that an amputee with a prosthesis and a sense of humor might be amused by wearing socks that are sort of alike but not really--so I cast on with the extra yarn for a second sock, knowing it would not match the first one.

The second ball started soon after the starting color for the first sock. Oh well. (Breathe, gal, breathe....) Since I'm not making matching socks anyway, why not just cast on wherever--right?

And in a fit of talking-while-casting-on, I managed to do an inch of 1x1 ribbing at the top of the sock, despite the fact that the first sock has 2x2 ribbing. (Will the donee still think this is funny or is the lack of symmetry just too much now?!)

And then--I came to a second knot. And tied to that knot was a totally different color, going in the opposite color pattern direction.

OK. I have had enough. While I will finish these socks, it will take more bravery than I can currently muster to show you the finished objects....


Instead, in appropriate Soctoberfest fashion, I will entertain you with my favorite beer:

Keep it quiet...

Although I have enough projects on the needles right now (basic socks, fair isle mittens, lace shawl, simple shawl for car knitting), I could not resist casting on a swatch for a special holiday project I have in mind....

go with the flow

For Tashlich on Rosh Hashanah afternoon, we took leftovers from the previous evening's round challah to the footbridge over our local creek. Each standing quietly by the railing, we tore off little bits of breads as we considered what we have done over the past year of which we are not proud. Assigning our misdeeds to the bread, we cast the bits into the water. (Son played *Pooh Sticks with some of his, watching the sins swim beneath the bridge and come out the other side.) I, as usual, was a fountain of tears.

The water carries away our sins. It leaves us unburdened of guilt and ready to move on to meaningful action, true repentence, and a better life.

Afterwards, we turned to each other, hugged, and apologized for all we had done that hurt each other, knowingly or unknowingly. This time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is our time to set things to right with each other. So for all of you reading: I am sorry for anything I have said or done that has hurt you, whether I intended to or not, whether I was aware or not.

As we walked back from the water, Son erupted in tears over nothing (he was both tired and hungry), and I snapped at him in frustration and impatience (I was both hungry and tired). Ah, a good start on preparations for next Tashlich....

* * *

Meanwhile, Adamas flows on.

After the fourth repeat...


and after the fifth.


*The link is to the World Pooh Sticks Championships. Wow.

What's On My Bobbin (WOMB)

I've been spending some time with my Annabel Lee and some fiber bought at Adam's Farm in Vermont:



I was thinking of double plying (which will mix the colors)--but I may try Navaho plying it (which will maintain the color changes). Then, perhaps I'll knit up a light lacy ribbed scarf? Not sure yet. Any input?

* * *

Speaking of spinning, have y’all seen these clever new tools made from toys? I love them!

Blog Button

Isn't it perfect? Thanks, Kate! (Feel free to copy it to your sidebars, folks.)

Beginning Anew

As I sat in Rosh Hashanah services this weekend, I thought about how knitting through them would have made me feel a lot calmer, more focussed, less critical, more spiritual. Unfortunately, many observant Jews feel that knitting violates Shabbat and holiday restrictions against work. Although I do not abide by these, these teachings are integral enough to Judaism that I feel it would be a slap in the face to many in my community for me to knit during services. But my hands felt really empty. For hours and hours.

Instead, at David's suggestion, I tried to envision God as a knitter. (Theoretically I love this idea. Practically, it got me not a whit closer to envisioning God. Luckily, Judaism has room for nonbelief.)

Rosh Hashanah is a time to think back on what has come before and use that knowledge to decide the future direction of our lives, a direction that brings us peace and wholeness.

As the holiday ended this evening, I thought, "What better way to bring a new beginning and a time of peace than by starting a new project?" (It also helped me heal from the Time of No Knitting.)

I bring you the start of Adamas, designed by the same brilliant person who brought us Icarus:

After the upper chart:


After the first repeat of the body chart:


After the second:


And it just keeps marching on, orderly and dependable, after the third:


I was not the only person who started a new project. David, facing a week-long meeting, decided to cast on for his own Irish Hiking Scarf! (I am so pleased to have a partner who understands my reasoning for having several projects going at once.)

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

Blow the Shofar!




Prepare apples and honey so we can start a sweet new year:


L'shanah tovah!