Knit Sisters

I spun on the wool/angora blend last night while watching the two-hour season premiere of Battlestar Galactica.

I realize that Ellen posted about this very show just the other day, and I have to admit that I had never watched a single episode.  But my sister-in-law Pam is a big fan, and she was at our house last night and wanted to watch the show.  So naturally we all watched it too.  Well.  This is a good show, folks, despite what Ellen may say.  (I suspect that she secretly really enjoys it, but is just too proud to admit it.  Because, when I spoke to her on the phone just before the show started and told her that we were about to watch the season premiere, she said in an extremely wistful voice, “You get the SciFi channel?”)  Now I’m hooked.  It helped that Pam was there and could fill me in on what had happened in the previous two seasons.

But back to the angora blend.  I’m spinning this pretty fine, so my progress isn’t too dramatic.  Plus I had to stop spinning and comb some more of the fiber.  I love this angora.

Putting this picture up is a little like watching a TV cooking show:  nice enough in its own way, but there’s only so much a picture can convey.  You get the idea that it’s good food, but without the senses of smell and taste, true understanding is somewhat limited.  This angora is so, so soft you almost cannot feel it in your fingers.  You’ll just have to take my word for it, I guess.  (Or you could go right out and find some angora fiber of your own.)

And lest you think I have forgotten Blue Bamboo,

I have 18 inches done.  Knitting 21 inches straight of anything is pretty boring.  Enough to make you want to stick a pin in your eye.  But I am persevering.

Oh, and I washed the tufted yarn this morning.  I’m happy to report that the rayon ribbon did not immediately shrink up, but the yarn is still drying.  I’ll have a full report and a picture next week. 

Further home improvements have occurred Chez Mad Dog! Many of you will recall the magical transformation of the porch formerly known as The Sunporch of the Damned that Alex effected, as if by feat of ledgerdemain (where, after all, did all that crap go?), while I was on the road. Now he has outdone himself by installing sunporch bookshelves:

Still life with James Joyce and dog butt.

I hadn’t really wanted to bring this up before, but the sunporch transformation is just the last in a long series of heroic efforts we’ve made over the past eighteen months in order to make our apartment liveable and turn it into a suitable and wholesome home for our pets and my yarn stash. Our landlord, a greedy, neglectful scoundrel busy man with multiple properties, had done little or nothing with our house over the years.

Let’s see some before and after photos, shall we?

The living room was…well, let’s just say that spending too much time there virtually guaranteed an emergency call to your psychiatrist and a steeply increased dosage of whatever psychotropic drug you were using at the time:

Why someone had installed a board above that bay of windows is a mystery that shall surely remain unsolved. But the funereal vinyl curtain is a nice touch, don’t you agree?

We leapt into action and came up with this:

Sadly, there was simply no way to include the black vinyl curtain in the new decor.

Every room in the apartment was some variation on the horror that was the living room. Here, for instance, is the original bleak kitchen:

which featured loose wires hanging out of huge gouges in the wall. (I “fixed” these, by the way, by blithely pushing the wires back into the wall, spackling over them, and painting over that. I faintly heard one of the wires wheeze, “For the love of God, Montressor!”)

Paint and some furnishings produced this:

And finally, the original incarnation of my office, with various pieces of furniture left by previous tenants:

I want to call your attention to the fact that the mirrors had been affixed to the wall with some sort of infernal epoxy and then painted around at some later date. I understand that the person who did this is “no longer welcome” at any of our nation’s Home Depot locations.

I washed the walls five times, I pried the mirrors off, I painted:

Same corner, folks. Veni, vidi, vici!

But wait! There’s more! What about the derelict pickup truck in the driveway?

Yes, that one. The one we had to push back several yards in order to close the gates to the back yard (which we were attempting to secure for Shelley’s use).

I solicited advice from my friend Tony shortly before Operation Derelict Truck Push because I foresaw difficulty. Extreme difficulty. And he’s the sort of person who would know what to do with a derelict truck that had been sitting in the driveway for so many years that it had sunk three inches into the asphalt, creating its own wheel wells.

Me: So, uh, Tony, what’s your advice? I mean, supposing we can overcome the inertia of this moribund truck that has sunk under its own weight into the driveway and has four semi-flat tires?

Tony (authoritatively): Well, the main thing in these situations is not to lose control of the truck.

Tony is a wise man, a truth that was only reinforced some minutes later when the now-freed truck began to roll with increasing momentum and speed down the driveway toward a parked car.

Imagine the good-natured fun and high-jinks as I tore through the thicket of brush on the driver’s side of the truck, gripped the driver’s side door handle and—now bleeding from various cuts and scratches—ran screaming alongside the truck as it barrelled driverless down the sloping driveway!

When I could leap inside and pull on the emergency brake, disaster was narrowly averted. See how just living here provides a high-adrenaline existence of constant danger and adventure? You don’t get that with just any rental property!

While we’re talking about things outside the house itself, it bears mention that when we moved in, the back yard was overgrown in thigh-high weeds

that Alex was forced—in a truly 19th-century afternoon—to cut down with a scythe. It was just like in Anna Karenina when Levin goes out to mow with his serfs.

Inconveniently, however, we have no serfs.

But I feel satisfied that after all that work, we’ve created an inviting and pleasant home environment. Otherwise, why would all these balls of Trekking keep following me home from Woolcott?

They know a good home when they see one.

And let’s look on the bright side. If I run out of space for my stash in the house, there’s plenty of room. In the cab. Of the truck we had to push.

I got all fired up about making my own ribbon yarn this past weekend, went up to the studio, and dove right in.  I found some brocade fabric living on a shelf and the instructions for making one’s own bias tape (aka yarn) and started sewing.

I used a French seam, in the hopes that it would discourage ravelling on the on-grain cut edges.

 

So basically, you cut a largish square of fabric, cut it in half along the diagonal, and then sew the straight grain edges to one another.  You end up with a tube of fabric which you cut around and around on the bias to create bias tape, or, for the purposes of our discussion, ribbon yarn.

Obviously, the bigger the square, the more yards of yarn you would end up with.  Of course, this is partially governed by the width of your fabric, or in my case the length of fabric yardage that was on the shelf to begin with.  It’s a little bit time consuming, but fairly simple really.

 

I wound up my yarn, taking care to keep it flat.

 

After rummaging around in the stash to find a likely candidate for a coordinating, much lighter weight yarn, I came up with some purple angora blend.  I had unravelled this yarn from a thrift store sweater some time ago, and then, because it was so extraordinarily thin, plied it on the wheel into a 3-ply yarn.  (OK, I realize I am starting to sound somewhat nuts–I suppose this would be the “pathological” part of the post.)

I started out using size 13 needles, and after 8 inches or so realized that the lace wasn’t looking as scribbly as I wanted it to.  So I ripped.  Maybe not such a good idea.  The ribbon that I ripped out pretty much fell to pieces:  it got very frayed and the seams just fell apart.

I began again with size 19 needles.

 

Much better.  It’s not particularly easy to deal with, though.  If I were to do it again (which I might), I’d change a few things.

1. Use a less slinky, less ravelly fabric.  This brocade is prone to just ravelling away under your hands.  There must be a happy medium somewhere between a fabric that has a nice drapey hand but isn’t going to create fringe when you breathe on it.

2. Cut the strip a little wider.  I aimed for 3/4 inch; maybe 1 inch would be better.

3. I’m not sure the French seam was really necessary.  Perhaps a straight stitch next to a zigzag would be sufficient.

I still see lots of possibilities here.  Oh, I’m crafty, all right.

Dear Emily,
Mama and I would like to present to you a brand-new pair of Regia Bamboo handknit socks for your wearing pleasure:

And it only took Mama most of her adult life to complete this minor project! My, my, how does she do it?

These socks looked like they needed a good home, so we immediately thought of you.

Plus, Mama often says that she likes to knit socks for you because you alone among all her friends wear a size six shoe. She keeps saying something about how she “loves your little dogs,” but frankly I have no idea what she means.

I have surmised from context that is has nothing whatsoever to do with minute canines.

I helped Mama package your socks up and put them in the mail. After that exhausting trip to the post office, and a subsequent bout of “puppy madness” in which numerous fowl were brutally shaken and left for dead,

The carnage was unspeakable.

I relaxed with a bone:

Uh, Ma, did you remember to enclose a note reminding Emily not to fraternize with pandas while she’s wearing those bamboo socks?

I would like for you to know that at all times during the creative process, I refrained from stealing the yarn for your socks, although it was extremely alluring. The 40% wool content reminds me so of sheep and brings back so many fond memories of my youthful herding days.

And my most recent mutton-chop dinner.

But I refrained because I recalled an unfortunate incident between me and Mama a few years ago when—giddy on wool fumes—I snatched some of her yarn and “decorated” the backyard with it. I thought it greatly improved the appearance of the property and showed a certain creative élan on my part, but she was very angry and refused to speak to me for several hours.

Like she never got overenthusiastic and made a mistake! What explains this whole going-back-to-graduate-school-in-her-mid-30s business? Or the appalling Bianca incident? You know, when she made that whole sweater on size 0 and 1 needles?

Sigh. Mistakes were made. We’ve all suffered for them.

But I’ve always heard that it is important to make the effort to have a positive relationship with your parents, so I’ve given up yarn heists (and gnawing thoughtfully on book spines…and those enjoyable ruminative chews on Mama’s Manolo Blahniks that used to bring me such joy…). This has significantly reduced tensions in the home.

I was hoping, Emily, that the completion of your socks would mean she would move on to knitting a little something for me. A fair-isle dog sweater perhaps. Or some adorable little snow booties to protect my tender paws during the upcoming winter season.

The next project, however, seems to be for my Pop, Alex:

A muted Trekking XXL colourway that is oh-so-suitable for his mature masculine sensibility.

One thinks inevitably of the old saw about a picture being worth a thousand words.

Speaking of Pop, now that he has “passed his exam” (we dogs don’t take demanding exams of this sort; we find that they are destructive of pack ties), we’ve been able to do normal things together again.

Like take little strolls and admire the goldfish pond one of our neighbors has in his front yard:

A small, shiny, green frog presides over this pleasing little artificial realm. There is absolutely no indication that he will ever turn into a prince. Or that he would make good eatin’.

Mama and Pop even went to the movies:

Mama explained that the immense popcorn kernels, Coca-Cola, and Reese’s peanut butter cups that you see in this photo are all that remains of an ancient era when mega-junkfoods roamed the earth. Scientists believe that these mega-junkfoods died off in a mass extinction following the collision of the Earth with a massive extraterrestrial object thought by many to be composed primarily of tofu.

I have absolutely no idea what she is nattering on about, to be honest. But I certainly approve of the existence of megafoods.

Well, Emily, that’s about it. Hope you enjoy the socks.

Throw me a bone sometime if you get a chance. And I do mean that literally.

Much love,
Shelley

I finally finished the tufted novelty yarn.  I ended up with some extra singles, so I plied those together as a 2-ply smooth yarn.  So now I have 3+ skeins of tufted yarn and 1 smaller skein of coordinating 2-ply.

I’ll be curious to see how the rayon ribbon reacts when I wash these skeins.  When I was in college, I used a rayon yarn for weaving which would visibly shrink (picture writhing snakes) when it got wet.  Obviously, you had to be pretty careful about pre-shrinking that stuff before you started weaving with it.

I can imagine how you might be thinking about now, “Why didn’t she experiment with that rayon ribbon to see if it was going to shrink before she plied it with the tufted lime green wool 2-ply?  Wouldn’t that have made more sense?”  Well, the short answer is, “I don’t know and yes, it would have made more sense.”  I can only say that I was in the grip of severe spinning mania and didn’t think things through real clearly at the time.  Besides, seeing as how the whole tufted yarn was an adventure, now I have something else to look forward to.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I started right in on the wool and angora blend that I made myself with my handheld combs.

This stuff wants to be spun fine with lots of twist, so that’s exactly what I’m doing.  This is about as fine as I can spin. 

 

Someday perhaps I will be able to spin a single as fine as a human hair (that’s what the best Shetland spinners are said to have been able to do), but that day is not today.

I’ll have to ply this in some way; 2- or 3-ply has yet to be determined.

Next time (Wednesday) on Sarah’s post:  Exploits in making “yarn” out of bias strips.

I have one word for you: Netflix.

Over the past two years, Netflix has revolutionized my relationship with our “home theater,” a lavish facility here Chez Stoux D’Ent that includes a two-bit DVD player hooked up to a 13-inch TV. No expense has been spared to bring high quality entertainment into our gracious home!

I was always the person who got to the video store and—put on the spot—could not think of one thing I actually wanted to watch. Half the time, I’d just get overloaded and confused and go home with nothing.

Those days are over. Thanks to Netflix.

(I swear I’m not getting kickbacks from the company for writing this. I swear. But if you, Joe Netflix Marketing, are reading this now, feel free to get in touch with an offer. Everyone has a price. And the price of a graduate student continues to drop as her dissertation drags on. It’s a little-known scientific law called the “Inverse Sell-Out Principle.”)

And I get a lot of knitting done while I’m watching my DVDs from Netflix. Shelley can vouch for this:

Oh, dear God, why? Why? Dogs don’t wear shawls!

We’ve been systematically watching all the extant episodes of Deadwood and, inevitably, Battlestar Galactica. Some of you who know about my uneasy relationship with sci fi and fantasy will peg Alex as the prime mover behind BSG. I’m just dying patiently waiting for the humans to triumph over the cylons—predictable inspiring as that will be—and for it all to be over.

In the meantime, I’ve made the Regia Bamboo socks, the ones I so cruelly abandoned in August when I took up with Icarus in Vegas, my BSG project:

Ever notice how no one ever knits on a space ship? I just want to point that out.

But I can highly recommend a delightfully maudlin, 1979 Soviet film we got from our “people” at Netflix entitled The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath.

Not only does Irony have Soviet production values that are so bad they’re good, but it features many strange and jarring jump cuts, enough to make you suspect that the editing crew was painfully underpaid, driven by unreasonable time pressures, and chronically drunk on Stoli.

Comrades, these were good and prosperous times in Soviet Union!

But if you watch it, watch it for the subtitles. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

To be fair, most of the dialogue was translated pretty well (and, I want to emphasize, certainly far, far better than I could do from English into Russian), but the film also includes several songs sung by its main characters. Here things went terribly, horribly wrong.

Song lyrics that were presumably mellifluous, even moving, in Russian were evidently fed word-by-word into a Russian-English dictionary by someone with a rudimentary grasp of the English language and they came out on the other side limping and bleeding, maimed beyond all recognition:

“I cognize both wisdom and happiness…” Cognize?

“You have left your besom in the bathhouse/
And the trumpets are deaf making you…”
Anyone who can convincingly explain to me what “besom” means in this context wins a ball of Trekking XXL and an honorable mention in the design contest. Even if you don’t design anything.

And my personal favorite, which deserves a little context: the gist of the song—as nearly as I could make out through the fog of translation—was that it is potentially better to experience love that is not passionate, but steady and sustainable.

“I do not blush from a stifling heat upsurge/
Whenever your sleeved arm rustles my trousers.”
(For proper scansion—if, heaven help us, that nicety enters into this foul rendering at all—I believe that here “sleeved” is to be pronounced in two syllables, “sleeve” and “ed”.)

Let’s hear from the translator, shall we? What have you got to say for yourself, Boris Mikhailovich?

“Comrades, I translate Russian song into good English with large dictionary using first word I see in entry. Is usually most popular!”

Apparently, Boris Mikhailovich also provided translation services for other films, giving us such wonderful English titles as (I’m not making these up), “Galoshes of Happiness,” “The Old Bandit Chaps,” and “Karl Marx: Young Years.”

Only heaven knows what was intended by the original Russian titles, and heaven keeps its secrets. Even in the face of a stifling heat upsurge.

I have one new photo today and it is of Hugo. 

 

Doesn’t he look sweet all curled up in his corner of the living room?  See that little orange thing in the corner?  That’s his favorite toy–it’s a stuffed Garfield refrigerator magnet that I think came in a Happy Meal years ago.  Somehow it has become a dog toy; with dogs, as with children, there’s just no knowing what they’ll take to.  He pulled the plastic eyes off right away, but now he just mostly carries it around in his mouth.

I’m starting to get a little worried about his undercoat growing back in this fall; so far it hasn’t and he’s seeming a bit thin in spots.  I suppose, as with so many things, I must just trust the process.

I could have taken more pictures of Blue Bamboo, but not that much has changed.  I’m still just knitting away on those 21 inches, and every photo looks curiously (or really not so curiously) the same. And I don’t want to bore everyone with the same photos day after day.

I started to get this niggling desire to START SOMETHING NEW last night.  I saw a photo on someone’s blog (sorry, I don’t remember whose) of their recently finished scribble lace scarf.  I’ve been wanting to try one of those for a while now, after reading about the technique in Mason-Dixon Knitting and before that in a Debbie New pattern in Interweave Knits some years ago.  Trouble is, I don’t really have the perfect yarns with which to embark on a scribble lace scarf.  I have some that might come close, but the ribbon I own seems a bit too narrow.  Hmmm.  Maybe a little yarn shopping expedition would be in order.

I started to think about ribbon yarn for scribble lace while lying in bed last night and I had an intriguing idea pop into my head.  What if you made your own ribbon “yarn” out of bias-cut strips of silk or rayon fabric?  There’s a technique that I’ve seen in quilting books where you sew a sort of giant tube of fabric and then cut it round and round on the bias to create your own custom-made bias tape.  Would it work to use that as ribbon yarn?  The possibilities for color would be endless, and depending on the fiber content of the fabric, the hand of your finished “yarn” could vary widely.  You could even hand-dye or hand-paint the fabric first before cutting it to get some interesting color effects.

Man, I need more time! 

It is eerie, isn’t it, that my sister has a large stash of Danubio Style, the very same furry yarn that I deputized my friend to snag shameful quantities of at the Knit Out. Could there be something genetic in the attraction to brightly colored hairy yarn?

Is there anything we can do to avoid passing on this gene to our offspring?

On a related note (that is, the note of shameful yarn acquisition), the spirit of honesty forces me to make an accounting of the yarn that I have acquired since going on the so-called “yarn diet.” I shall proceed mathematically:

Four hanks of Nature Cotton.

Four balls of Danubio Style. Yessiree, there are four.

And what’s this? Two new balls of Trekking XXL, shown here enjoying their morning latte. I tell you, these yarns just move right in and make themselves at home.

Math is not my strong suit, but if I do not miss my mark, that makes ten total new balls of yarn. Where Operation Yarn Asceticism called for zero.

I find myself now thinking fondly of my dear uncle, who is always explaining his latest diet to you.

“Ellen,” he’ll say, while popping a massive bite of chocolate cake into his mouth and washing it down with a swig of port, “this is a great new diet. I’m cutting out all alcohol and sweets and most bread.”

Which brings us full circle…straight back to the genetic explanation.

Icarus is finally getting his feathers:

The excitement Chez Wax Wings ‘R Us can barely be contained.

But now we must turn to a darker topic: housework. While Alex was studying for his big exam—which he passed yesterday, praise be!—the house has descended further and further into chaos and savagery, particularly in those areas that are in his chore bailiwick.

Not exactly surprising and certainly forgivable.

However, at some point during the post-exam celebrations yesterday, my friend Dawn and I had this unsettling conversation:

Me: Oh, ha, ha, you know the house is a wreck because Alex has been so busy with this exam. I can’t wait for him to do his backlog of chores now that this is over! We’ve been living in degradation and savagery for the past two weeks.

Dawn: He actually does chores? Huh. I don’t mean to scare you because I know you guys are getting married next summer, but I don’t know a single married woman whose husband does his fair share of the housework. Personally, I had to spend the first two years of our marriage fighting with my husband just to get him to do minimal chores. And when was the last time he made me something to eat? I can’t even remember!

Me: Really? You mean this is really going to get worse after we’re married?

Dawn: Well, I don’t know. I’m just telling you my experience.

Now, you all know that I’m not exactly Heloïse myself, but I try to keep things above the level of chaos and savagery. Is Dawn’s dark prediction likely to come true?

Married women readers, what are your experiences?

Is Alex just doing chores now and executing unpleasant tasks like clearing off the Sunporch of the Damned as part of a nefarious plan to fool me into believing that we will have an equal partnership? When actually I will be stuck either doing everything in the house myself or having to argue about it constantly?

Is there any consensus on this topic? Do tell.

Ellen called me on Sunday night and gave me her account of the Boston Knit-Out, including the tale and description of the so-ugly-it’s-cool furry fuchsia yarn she managed to acquire.

“Oh my, that does sound dreadful!” I laughed.

Imagine my shame and horror, then, when I actually read her post yesterday and realized that that self-same so-ugly-it’s-cool furry fuchsia yarn (Katia Danubio Style) is a yarn that resides in my stash.  Not only does it reside there, but it resides there in several different colors.  Not only does it reside there in several different colors, I made a co-worker a scarf out of that yarn last Christmas.

I realize that anything I say in my own defense at this point will no doubt seem both slightly pathetic and self-serving, but I’m going to say it anyway.  I kind of like this yarn.  It’s a mostly wool fur yarn, which is rare, and I purchased it with the intention of using it in some felting projects.  (Which, no, I have not done yet.  There are many knitterly things I have not done yet.  That’s why I need to quit my day job and become a free-lance knitwear designer.  Oh sorry, that just kind of popped out.)

Aaanyhoo, Danubio Style knits up pretty nicely.  I was pretty pleased with the scarf.  It’s waaaay better than, say, the Fun Fur you get at Michael’s.  So there.

In other news, I am still working on those 21 inches of Blue Bamboo that come before the armhole shaping.  I’m into my third skein of yarn.  Will I have enough?  Only time will tell.  Stay tuned for further developments…

Despite inconsistent weather and threat of rain, the Boston Knit Out took place on the Boston Common this afternoon. But we are New England people! We are stoic and unmoved by inclement weather, which comprises 85% of our weather in any given year.

Icarus enjoyed the event, where he met many admirers:

It may be hard to see in this photo, but I am now well into the second chart. Someone, please. Alert the media.

At our Woolcott booth, a good time was had by all:

Kat and Tope knit while…

…Joanna fondles the cashmere. The cashmere should feel honored, because Joanna is an actual, legitimate genius. I do not say this lightly.

Sean, meanwhile, demonstrated the wonders of On Line’s Solo, the self-ruffling yarn.

And here Sean models the lovely ruffled wrist-let:

If you have ever ruffled using the old method—the exponential increases—you will recognize what a godsend this self-ruffling yarn truly is. The last time I ruffled, I became nauseated and dizzy and had to lie down for a spell before I could proceed. I was…ruffled.

The festivities included spinners:

My ignorance of spinning precludes further commentary on this photo.

And there was…free yarn! What can one say, but “yes”?

A skein, or four, of Araucania Nature Cotton.

These people are just like drug dealers. “First one’s free.” Then they get you hooked and pretty soon you’ve got an entire room, or four, in your house packed with yarn and you’re robbing convenience stores to get more yarn money and…you know the whole sad story, don’t you?

This is painful to admit, but because I was feeling the horrible deprivations of my yarn diet, I got a bit addled and overexcited and in the heat of the moment did something indefensible.

And the winner in the “So Bad, It’s Almost Good” category is Katia, Danubio Style.

I know, I know. You’re thinking, “That’s not so bad. She only has the one ball of the weird fuchsia furry stuff.”

Or four.

The shame is very, very great.

What makes it even worse is that I didn’t want to appear to be a Danubio Style glutton, so I roped Tope—who not only hates fuchsia but is a fine, upstanding person—into snagging the final three balls for me.

That’s when you know you’ve reached rock bottom. You’re just one step away from waking up in a room full of chunky fuchsia acrylic fun fur clutching a credit card receipt for $937.27…and having no idea how you got there or where all this yarn came from…

Tope is a good friend though. A very good friend. After she procured the Dubious Danubio Style for me, we silently contemplated the “sheep” directly across from our booth.

Kat broke the silence. “You know, I keep looking up at that thing and thinking a mangy dog has somehow managed to find its way in here. It’s disturbing.”

“Yes,” Tope said.

More silence. It was almost 4 p.m. The Knit Out was on its last legs, as were we.

“Hey,” said Tope. “Do you have time after this to get some food?”

“Yes,” I said emphatically.

“Great, let’s grab a sausage.”

Kat looked at me. I looked at Kat. Someone had to say it. It was just hanging there, like a ripe tomato on a vine.

“Great!” Kat said, her eyes twinkling. “There’s nothing I love more than grabbing a sausage!”