Hand-dyed inspiration

I took a two-week vacation from work, in the hopes of not injuring the incoming class of freshmen with my bad attitude (born of too much rah-rah orientation spirit and not enough me-time).  While some of this time was spent at the beach, at least a day of it was spent dying wool with my mom.

We've done dying days before, with rather less than stellar results.  Either the colors weren't quite right, or the yarn didn't take the dye evenly, or in the end it didn't align with the vision I saw in my head.  So this time, we changed up our system, worked a little more diligently and patiently, and came out with four skeins each of yarn that made us (for the most part) quite happy.

I thought I would share the photos that were our inspiration, and the resulting yarn.  All of these are on KnitPicks bare bases, some of which have been discontinued since we stashed them.

source: pinterest.

source: pinterest.

source: Pyrex Collective via pinterest

source: pinterest

On the needles IV

What I'm doing: School started this week, so I have been busy helping students ensure that all is right with their schedules before they are permanently locked.  While our office usually requires that students make an appointment, during the first week of classes we allow walk-ins, which is exciting but very tiring; we can see anywhere from two to eighty students in a single day.

I've also been attempting to fit exercise back into my daily schedule, which is less fun, but probably better for me.  I have a whole rant that I'll make on some other day about how we have produced a society in which it is okay that work take precedence over personal health, and where it is just expected that you will be on the brink of exhaustion almost all the time.  It's really quite horrible, and I'm trying hard to nip my couch-potato-ism in the bud now, but it is an uphill battle (literally and figuratively - the goal for this week is to be able to jog up the hill behind the health center without getting out of breath).

What I'm reading: I just started Ahab's Wife, which is the retelling of Moby Dick from the perspective of the young wife Captain Ahab left behind.  Thus far, I must say I am less than impressed - in the first vignette alone there is a fairly unbelievable description of childbirth, someone freezes to death, and a young slave escapes across the river à la Eliza in Uncle Tom's Cabin (an artistic choice made for no apparent reason at all).  It seems to be a lot of the author saying, "Look how much I know about 19th century literature!" and not enough of the author saying, "Look at this choice I made because it was an integral component of the narrative!"  I know 19th century literature, and you, madam, are no Harriet Beecher Stowe.  At this point, you're not even a passable Emerson.  I'll give it another 50 pages, but unless it gets significantly better, I will be taking this one back to the used book store.

What I'm watching:  We're still in the process of finishing up the last season of Fringe.  I almost don't want it to end, because I have so enjoyed having Joshua Jackson in my life again.  But once that is completed, I think we'll move on to Broadchurch, about which I have heard only amazing things.

What I'm knitting: The Trimmed with Roses Cardigan, with a few modifications.  I'm knitting in the round to the armholes, and I added two red stripes above the ribbing.  I cannot explain how much I love this yarn, and how beautiful I think this pattern is going to turn out.  I haven't decided if I'm going to do the short-sleeves of the jumper or the long-sleeves of the cardigan - I think it will depend on the amount of yarn I still have when I reach that point.  I might also do fewer buttonholes when I get to the button-band.  We'll see.

Book Review: Thames: A Biography

I love London.  Some might say I am a little obsessed.  My first project as a research assistant was to help design a course that tied early novels to the geography and social structures of London.  So when Peter Ackroyd uses the city (or in this case, the river Thames) as a backdrop for his wild, outlandish, pet theories, I get a little peeved.

I just finished Thames: The Biography, and as the Boy can attest, it left me spitting mad.  Having read several of Ackroyd's other works, I should have known that this would happen, but every time he sucks me in with the promise of interesting anecdotes about my favorite city, and then disappoints me with bad scholarship and poor argumentation.


His particular bug-a-boo in Thames is the idea that the river has been used for religious rites throughout history, and that the modern incarnations of religious houses, commercial buildings, law-courts, etc, that border the Thames are there due to some sort of primordial understanding of the river as a spiritual medium.

Okay, I'll follow you down that rabbit hole, Peter.  What's your evidence?


1) There are lots of churches dedicated to Mary along the river, so that is proof that the river is connected to some sort of ancient fertility goddess.  Huh.  As opposed to the numerous churches dedicated to Mary that aren't along the river?  Somehow those are just churches, but these are tied to internalized remembrances of our ancestors?

2) Lots of the great early modern English astronomer-philosophers lived along the river, which suggests that the flow of the river has always inspired people to look to the heavens and investigate the stars. Sure.  Or, you know, it's darker along the river, because it's a place on which humans find it harder to build things.

3) The existence of henges, cursus, barrows, etc, along the Thames (in conjunction with our modern buildings of power) suggests that for thousands of years, "the Thames remained a sacred and highly charged area." (65) Maybe.  But considering that the most famous henge is on a plain 72 miles to the west, maybe it's just that England is an island, and after multiple thousands of years of human habitation things start to pile up.


He also makes the statement that "London Bridge is Falling Down" was a nursery rhyme dating to the 11th century, when Aethelred the Unready's Viking ally, Olaf, pulled the bridge down with his boats.  The 11th century destruction of the bridge is a highly contested "fact" that is attested only in skaldic verse (which, due to embellishment and generic tropes, has more in common with fiction than with history), and most folklorists agree that the rhyme dates from the 17th century (though it builds on medieval children's games).  So it is extremely problematic that Ackroyd chooses to state these things as absolute fact, with no qualification and no sourcing.

The fact that he includes these unsubstantiated "facts" and makes such poorly substantiated but somewhat titillating arguments suggests to me that he is not confident enough in the significance of his subject matter. He's afraid no one will really care about the Thames qua Thames, that the river only matters to moderns in some larger, Ancient Aliens kind of way, as a gateway to our past beliefs.  He clearly thinks that no matter how tenuous his argument in support of this bosh, it will still be more engaging than an actual history of the Thames.  And that is what makes me the most angry.  The river doesn't need Ackroyd's pet theories to make it more interesting; between 17th century frost fairs, mudlarks, London Bridge actually falling down, Battersea power station, Jerome K Jerome (to say nothing of the dog), the disappearance of the Fleet, Ceasar's incursions into Britain, and all the other amazing things that the river has produced/experienced, why would you ever feel the need to embellish it with bad history and even worse argumentation?

So save yourself the frustration and gnashing of teeth I experienced.  If you're interested in the history of the river and its human inhabitants as they were and are, and not as someone with an obvious ideological agenda wants them to be, read something by a different author.

The Garden

This year I decided it would be fun to plant a real garden.  The townhouse has a back patio that actually gets sun, and has a spigot to make watering a breeze, so I thought the time had come to try growing some veg.  We eat a lot of potatoes (as good Irish folks do), and I think we consume our weight in spaghetti sauce and salsa every month.  So I planted a small container garden of potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, zucchini, and herbs (rosemary, basil, parsley, sage, and cat-mint).

Shortly after I planted them, it looked like this:

But sadly, things did not quite go as planned.  I combated the bugs - beer traps got rid of the slugs that were eating all my basil.  I fertilized and Mother Nature watered consistently.  And still, the veg did not appear.  The plants grew green and tall, but without fruit.

Apparently, my back yard does not get quite enough sun to truly be full-sun.  So a few weekends ago I pulled out the tomatoes and the potatoes.  The zucchini strung me along for another three weeks, blooming with gorgeous yellow-orange flowers in the morning, which promptly fell off by dinner time, before finally turning yellow all over and dying. 

Now the growing season is over and I have no veg.  But that's okay.  You win some, you lose some.  At least it was a convenient excuse to by a spray-nozzle for the hose that not only has different settings, but has an honest-to-goodness throttle on it, which is, without question, awesome.

And at least the herbs are happy.

Frankie

We have a new member of the household.  Having both grown up in households that couldn't say no to an animal in need, neither the Boy nor I were capable of saying no to this face when it appeared on our facebook feed:

Especially not after his initial rescuer, (one of my co-workers, who found him under a van) informed us that she was naming him after ol' blue eyes, Frank Sinatra.  Since we already have Sammy and DeanMartin, we decided it was a sign.  We picked him up as soon as we got back from our honeymoon.  He's about 7 weeks old, at best guess, and is suffering from all the typical signs of abandonment (fleas, worms, ear-mites), but has had his first round of baby-shots and will be going back for boosters soon.  He is the snuggliest little dude and loves to sleep on chests.  He's also very playful; he loves to fish things out of the toy bucket and run them all over the house.

The household is...adjusting.  DeanMartin is cautiously interested, but Sammy wants the intruder to disappear and never come back ("when's this baby's momma coming to get it?").  It's been less than a week, though, so I'm optimistic that another couple of weeks will find everyone getting along swimmingly.

On the needles

What I'm doing: I am half a week away from a two-week vacation.  Why is it that the week leading up to the vacation is so hard to get through? You'd think it would be easy, since you know the respite is coming, but in fact it's harder, because you have to work the whole week to get there.  While I will be playing with fiber and we have a beach trip planned (during which we're probably getting married), the thing that I'm most looking forward to is the fact that I will have two whole weeks in which I can catch up on this ridiculous sleep deficit I'm currently experiencing.

What I'm reading: This weekend I started and finished both Maise Dobbs, by Jacqueline Winspear, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman.  They were both excellent, although I found the narrator of Ocean more compelling than Ms. Dobbs, whose new-age self-reflection and unlikely rags-to-riches story I found rather unbelievable, despite the otherwise convincing depiction of WWI-era Britain.

What I'm watching:  Bomb Girls.  A Canadian period-piece about a group of women working at a munitions factory during WWII.  It is on-par with Land Girls or Island at War for soap-opera quotient, but that's probably why I mainlined the first three episodes in one sitting.  Meg Tilly is fantastic (I know everyone always goes so crazy over Jennifer Tilly, but I think Meg is a much better actress), and the other young ladies have the same semi-wooden, yet somehow compelling, acting style that appears in most Canadian tv.  I doubt it will win any awards, and it's certainly no Foyle's War, but it's entertaining, and worth watching if you're interested at all in homefront life during WWII.

What I'm knitting: Just finished my Debonair Jumper, which turned out to have more positive ease than I was expecting.  I think, much as it pains me to admit this, that I'm going to have to start washing and blocking my swatches before I start on my projects.  I knit more densely than most people seem to do, and so as soon as I wash the FO, it loosens and spreads.  So if I want garments with predictable negative ease, it seems I must swatch and block, rather than just swatch. Yuck.

Stashbusting: Pea Soup Sweater

I've had this Brown Sheep Cotton Fine cone in my stash since...2007 or 8.  It was part of a Patternworks sale that seemed like a good idea at the time, because I was convinced of my wool allergy (which turns out to be an issue solely with lower-micron wool - pretty much anything that comes from Peru makes me itch just looking at it) and thought cotton was the only alternative (this was before I learned about Amy Singer's No Sheep for You).  Clearly, as it has been languishing in the stash since 2007, it was not such a great idea.  Four cones of lace-weight, unmercerized cotton might be perfect for weaving, but it's not as awesome for knitting.

But finally, as part of the great stash-busting event of 2013, I took some time to match these cones with projects, and found the Pickle's Plain Cardigan pattern.

I made the smallest size, and even with the yarn held tripled I still didn't manage to use up the whole cone.  The only changes I would make if I knit this again is to make fewer button-holes, and to make them smaller.  They sort of overwhelm this small garment, and it makes it difficult to find appropriate buttons.  I'm still searching - I think dark brown wooden or faux leather would look nice, but I haven't found anything I'm completely sold on yet.

Overall, the yarn turned out to be much more pleasant to work with than I was expecting, and produced a fabric with much more drape than the feel of the cotton on the cone led me to expect that I would get.  For my first major Knit the Queue project of the year, I think it turned out quite nicely.  And it worked up in a single weekend, so I definitely can't complain about that.

Bayerische Socks

Modified Bayerische socks

Based on Eunny Jang's Bayerische pattern, but knit with Blue Moon Fibers Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Strange Brew.  The pattern calls for an almost lace-weight fingering, to accommodate the 90+ stitches you're supposed to cast on, but even using needles which were far too small to use comfortably with the thicker STR (1.5 US), there was no way I was getting down to that kind of gauge.  So I cut out two of the charts, and replaced them with a ktbl, p1, ktbl combination.  I was also concerned about yardage issues, since I was knitting these for the Boy, whose feet are rather larger than mine, so I knit mine from the toe up, rather than the top down.

For those interested in doing the same, my mods are as follows:

Magic cast-on 22 sts.  Increased to 61.
For top of foot, worked chart D2, ktbl, p1, ktbl, chart B, ktbl, p1, ktbl, chart D1.
Continued in pattern until approx. 2.5" less than desired length (for the size 11s I was making, that was 5 1/2 repeats of chart B).
Worked gusset to 51 sts, then worked a short-row heel with twisted knit stitches (which I achieved by a sl1 as to knit, p1 across the right side).
Worked the leg pattern over 64 stitches, as chart D, k1tbl, p1, k1tbl, chart B, k1tbl, p1, k1tbl, chart D,  k1tbl, p1, k1tbl, chart B, k1tbl, p1, k1tbl.
Worked a twisted k1tbl, p1 rib for the cuff.

It required some finagling to match up the transition from the half-charts of D1 & D2 to the full D charts, but I think it turned out nicely and is the part of the sock I'm the most proud of:

I have heard a lot of talk about how complicated Bavarian twisted stitches are, but if you can cable and you can twist stitches, then there's no reason why you can't do beautiful things with Bavarian twisted stitches.  That being said, you might not want to be crazy like me; I knit these while watching panels at Kalamazoo, and while I  managed to keep track of my charts without too much trouble, it's not really something I recommend.

I am thrilled with how these turned out, and how easily the pattern converted from top down to toe up.  And the Boy is actually wearing them!

On the needles

Sometimes I struggle with the idea of blogging.  What is appropriate to post and what isn't?  If people come expecting to read about knitting and yarn, is it okay if some days I'd rather talk about the fact that I'm struggling to decide if I ought to flip my classroom in the fall, or that the potatoes in my garden clearly think that we live in northern Ireland this year?  Because I don't always have yarn-related things to talk about.  Having recently begun the adventure of cohabitation, I find (like all my foremothers) that my knitting time is being severely impinged upon by the responsibilities of a good housewife (and my thoughts on that are something best saved for another day).

I suppose the reality is that it's my blog, and I can write about whatever I want.  If I want to rant about Steven Moffatt and his desecration of the Doctor Whoniverse (don't get me started on River Song, or the repetition of the "impossible girl" trope, or even how he kind of ruined the Weeping Angels through overuse), I can do that.

What I'm doing: I just returned from the Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, which was quite an experience.  I split my time between panels about things I teach and panels about things I enjoy, meaning that I learned equally about the role of Jews in medieval society and how to analyze textiles from extant images.  My favorite thing about the whole conference was that during the textile panels (put on by DISTAFF), over half the audience was knitting, and one of the only questions I received throughout the entire conference was about the sock pattern I was working on (a highly modified form of Eunny Jang's Bayerische pattern, about which more will be said later).  Knitters.  We are everywhere.

What I'm reading: All the things.  My attention-span is shot lately (conference nerves, mostly), so I'm jumping between Fighting the Great War: A Global History, Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey, and Fitzgerald's The Lost Decade.  The only thing that's actually holding my interest is something I'm reading for work: Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe (which is a popular history that is rather suspect in places - his interpretation of Carolingian religious practices concerns me - but which references quite a few primary sources I had not come across.  This will, of course, soon necessitate the long and painful process of translating things from the Minge Patrologia so that I can inflict them on my students).

What I'm watching: Doctor Who, obviously.  We just mainlined the last of Series 7, and will soon be switching over to Game of Thrones.

What I'm knitting:  I'm working on secret knitting, which will be given as a gift next month (at which point I'll show a picture of it).  What I can say about it is that it was intended to be a stash-busting project, using a giant skein of Caron One Pound that had been lingering in my stash for ages.  For so long, in fact, that Caron has since switched the color of the yarn that goes by that name.  Which means that what was supposed to be a stash-buster has resulted in the purchase of three more skeins in the hopes of finding one that matched.  We have finally decided that said project will be ombré, and it will be a design feature.

Spinning

You guys.  In school, they warn you about pot by telling you it's a gateway drug.  How come nobody ever warns you about knitting?  It's totally a gateway craft.  Without knitting, I would never have learned to crochet, to needle-felt (not that I enjoy that, particularly, but it's a life skill I now have), or to dye.  And now, the gateway has opened that much further.

I've started learning how to spin.

Now, perhaps not all of the blame should be put on knitting, as a craft.  Some of the blame belongs squarely on the shoulders of my YEE (yarn enabler extrodinaire, to use the Jimmy Beans' phrase) mother.  I mentioned to her a few weeks ago that I was considering learning how to spin.  As she is an avid spinner herself, I probably should have known better, because when I stopped by for dinner last Wednesday, there was a braid of GnomeAcres Merino/Silk blend in Gnomey Nights waiting for me.  We promptly sat down at my mom's wheel and she showed me how to spin.

Here are the results of my first thirty minutes of spinning:

I realize these are terrible pictures, but it was late and this was my only chance to take the shots.  It runs the gamut between lace and sport weight, but is more consistently at the lower end of that spectrum.

I have already learned that I prefer to spin off rolags, rather than the braid, and I had a fit over the color transition from blue to yellow (I think the yellow dye damaged the fiber slightly, as it isn't drawing as evenly or easily, no matter how much I open it up before-hand.  You can see the lumps it created.  I'm sure eventually I'll be adept enough to prevent that, but this was only the result of my second time at a spinning wheel).  I'm a short-draw spinner, and I'm working hard on learning how not to overtwist.  But dang, it's fun!

And just to cement the habit, on Saturday, at the Fiber Fest, I picked up these:

Now I just need to buy my own spinning wheel.