Knitters-Knitters

Campers-Campers, a Look Back

Tomorrow is Olive's last day of summer camp.  Judging by the entries in the Holy Binder and the conversations I have at the end of the day with Olive's aide, Olive's favorite activities have been tae kwon do, swimming, and Shabbat.  I admit that despite my ancestry, my entire knowledge of what happens on Shabbat comes from watching Fiddler on the Roof.  I know there's candles and singing, and I'm guessing--given what it usually takes to make it into Olive's list of favorite activities--snacks.

This week has been a banner week for Olive.  Yesterday, she broke her first board in tae kwon do.  The board was pre-broken and taped, but Olive was very pleased with herself, nonetheless.  Then, today was rock-wall climbing.  Olive climbed the wall (with the assistance of counselors) and on reaching the top, crowed with pride and high-fived all her neurotypical fellow campers when they reached the top.  Her aide told me, "Once Olive got up there she was strutting all around, pretty sure she was awesome."

As we were driving home, I remembered a night back in college when the thought occurred to me: what if I'm mentally retarded (that was the term, back then) and I don't know it?  What if the hoity-toity prep school I went to was actually a special school, and right now, I'm actually attending a special college?  How would I know?  Would it matter?

If there's a benefit to being a very mentally impaired child as opposed to slightly, it's that you don't know and you don't care.  Olive doesn't know collegiate swim teams don't send scouts out to recruit Best Splashers.  She doesn't know her tae kwon do board was pre-split, and if she does, she doesn't know whether this is the norm.  (In fact, I don't know that one, either; my knowledge of tae kwon do is slightly less than of Shabbat.)  And she doesn't realize her fellow campers scaled the wall with much less assistance.  What she knows is that she reached the top, and that, yes, she's awesome.

Again with the Knitting!

It looks like all my commuting energy has channeled its way into knitting, because I don't remember a time when I actually finished this many projects.  Started yes, but finished--no.

This is another Elizabeth Zimmermann fair isle yoke sweater (from Spun Out #4), this time using color charts from Poetry in Stitches. My model is especially charmed by the butterflies.

Yarn: Satakieli from Nordic Fiber Arts.  I love this shop, but I don't order from them often because they have a disconcerting habit of holding the entire order until back-ordered items have come in (invariably, at least one of the colors I want is not in stock), as opposed to mailing the yarn piecemeal and charging me extra shipping.  I think they do this to be kind and save the customer money, but if they only understood the urgency, the desperate need to have at least some of the new yarn, they'd abandon this practice immediately.

I suppose I could just let the proprietress know I want my yarn sent in separate mailings, but this hearkens back to the hot mustard conundrum.  It is embarrassing to admit--even to another yarn person--that I'd happily pay to have my yarn over-nighted to me.

I'm not following mob mentality...

...I'm jumping on the bandwagon!

Going by the blogs I like to read, August is the month to give something away.  In the spirit of blog bonhomie, I'm hosting a contest with two different prizes.  Prize #1 is the lovely Malabrigo you see here:

Four skeins of Silky Merino.  150 yds per skein, approx. 50 grams apiece.  50% silk, 50% merino.  The color is called "Spring Water."  There's no suggested gauge on the tags, but if I were knitting it up, I'd use something in the US 6-8 range (4-5mm).  From a smoke-free home.

And since I know I have several readers who don't knit, are allergic to wool, think silk smells funny, or in general, don't get the whole fiber thing, we have an alternate prize.  Bruckner, The Masses, 3 CD set.  Donated by LB, from his reviewing days.  Unopened.

Now here's the very easy test: which city is depicted in the photographs below?  This is painfully easy if you've read my blog even a few times--all photos were all taken by me, and I don't get out much.  Enter your answer in the comments, and indicate which prize drawing you want to be in.  I will do the drawings and post the two winners on Friday, the 8th.

To enter the contest you can be American, Canadian, European, Australian, you name it, and feel happy and confident in the knowledge that your shipping will be covered by me.  You can have been to this city or not, lived in this city, or even been born in this city, hated it and fled at the first opportunity. The only two rules are: 1. You and I cannot share DNA and 2. You must not Google.  You may, of course, flip through my archives for clues.  If you can correctly identify the building the last photo, your name will be entered into the drawing of your choice twice.

Please remember to indicate which prize you're competing for in your comment!

Ouroboros

Last night when I was falling asleep, this thought occurred to me about LB: At the center of our marriage is the tail-chasing serpent of a fallacy that I am the smarter one, while he is the morally superior one.

Unlike most things that occur to me as I'm falling asleep, this still felt significant the next morning--so much so that I emailed it to LB at work.

His reply was Bite me.

The Discomfort Zone

I've discovered that by aggressively hammering a nail into the bottom end of my drop spindle, I can turn it into a top-whorl instead of a bottom whorl.  For some reason, this works more easily for me--much less leaping and skittering on the part of the spindle, and each twist of the wrist seems to last longer.

This is, I think, my fifth attempt at producing yarn.  I'm not sure the end result looks any better than tries 1-4, but the process is coming a little more naturally, and I feel like I have a clearer understanding of everything I'm doing wrong.  For instance, as you can see from that stray loop near the top, I've over-spun in many places.

I'm a long way from enjoying myself though.  The other night, Olive woke up at around 2 a.m. and snuck downstairs to commit all sorts of mayhem in the kitchen and crafts area.  And I confess, I was a tad disappointed to find that my bag of roving was not among the early morning casualties.

This is much more within my comfort zone: another Elizabeth Zimmermann yoke sweater, this time for Agatha.  The flower pattern came from a chart in Poetry in Stitches.  The yarn is, I think, Hifa 2 from Nordic Fiber Arts.  I haven't chosen the color patterns for the yoke, but basically, I plan on flipping through Poetry in Stitches and finding charts that fit the same numbers of rows and stitches as on the EZ pattern instructions.  I'm not sure what color will predominate the sleeves--I'm on a bit of a fiber diet right now and it'll come down to which shades I have the most of.

Speaking of the discomfort zone, last Thursday LB, Olive and I went on a tour of what will be Olive's new school -- the little Kindergarten through 3rd grade school 40 yards from our house.  Judy, the director of Autism Academy, came with us for moral support and to ask all the questions we were too ill at ease and nervous to remember.  The program met with her -- and Olive's -- approval.  I did have one moment of, Wait a minute -- I have a kid who's going to be in Special Ed?  Those moments still take me by surprise, but I tell myself they'll eventually stop.  And if not, I don't want to know that in advance.

Olive was downright reverent while walking through the hallways, holding hands and smiling the whole time.  We had taken Olive to the school a few times since moving here to play in the playground, but she had no interest in the jungle gym and would hurl herself at the door of the school, wailing piteously to be let in.   

She seems to know it is to be her school.

Accolade

Olive won an award at camp today.

Normally I'm against that whole, "Everybody gets a prize!" thing, but Best Splasher...

...now that's an accomplishment.

Fair Isle Yoke Sweater

Daisy's fair isle yoke sweater is finished! 

The pattern is Elizabeth Zimmermann's Child's Fair Isle Yoke Sweater, with only the most minor tweaks here and there in the color patterning.  The yarn is Dale of Norway, Heilo, on 3.5mm needles. 

I made the near-tragic error of using up every inch of the cream color before doing the weaving at the underarms, so I had to fudge it a bit. 

I had expected the sweater to run a bit large, but it turns out that 26" around really does mean 26", so I stretched it during the blocking.  This is probably the 8th time I've made this particular sweater, and it never disappoints.

Tamara was kind enough to ask after Clover, Spaniel of Joy, and how she's adjusting to the move.  I'd say she enjoys her new digs overall, but is suffering from that metaphysical crisis of wherever she goes, there she is.  It is Clover's greatest wish to scare someone, anyone.  She didn't scare the two elderly dogs down the block when we lived in Milwaukee (in fact, when they walked past our house and heard her bark, they'd roll their eyes in doggie derision).  She couldn't scare the Indian food delivery guy in Chicago, or any member of the cleaning staff, and when she tried to frighten the gardener, he actually scooped her up and tucked her under his arm like a parcel.  For hours afterward she hid in her puppy house, ears hanging low in shame.  This new house has a big back yard with rabbits--lots of them.  At first Clover was very excited by this and did her special pointing at one (very cute--using her little elbow), but the most she could inspire from the bunny was a casual backward glance.  Our next door neighbor was enthused to see we had a dog, and asked us to walk Clover into her yard sporadically to deter rabbits from eating her plants.  We perform this task dutifully, but with little hope.

Clover does bark and jump, and although small is at least 14 pounds--hardly a chihuahua.  And yet, no one cowers in her presence.  It's a mystery.

Settling In

This weekend was largely spent trying to become accustomed to our new home.  We're at that point where you're pretty much all unpacked, but you still feel like you're cooking in someone else's kitchen, using someone else's toilet, and waiting, on some semi-conscious level, to go back home where everything feels right.  I've compiled a small list of the items I can't find, the items I'm sure are keeping me from feeling like the true denizen of Northbrook that my credit card statements say I am.

1. Navy blue capri sweatpants.  Extremely unattractive and baggy-kneed, but comfy and sorely missed.

2. Small net used for catching aquatic frogs (and transferring them to a large pot while their tanks are being cleaned).

3.  Clover's heartworm medication.

4. Morse Code clicker.

5. Interior tier to Sabina's bookshelf.

There was more, but like my pair of NODJ pants, things have been turning up little by little.

The weekend began with Olive waiting patiently for her turn at LB's coffee (hot milk, cocoa powder, and sugar.  He claims there's coffee in it, too, but this will never be proven without assistance from NASA).

Discovering she gets to finish the bottom inch or two...

Yum!

Then we had guests: OFD, Mom, Lo and Brendy, and Aunt Marilyn.  There was a nosh prepared entirely by Elegance in Meats.  I've been there 7 times since we moved here, but the woman at the register has the good taste not to point this out.

Aunt Marilyn and Olive peruse the Wall Street Journal.

Four Perlmans, deep in thought.

Mom reading the Holy Binder--the daily log of Olive's adventures at Camp Apachi.

As often happens during these get-togethers, the camera is largely forgotten until it's time to study the Mapquest printout for directions back to Milwaukee.

After our guests had gone, I got out my new toy: a bag of roving this blogger convinced me to purchase.

Spinning with the drop-spindle is fun and satisfying.  The joy of releasing a small amount of the drafted wool and seeing the twist travel upward is an experience both new and eerily familiar.  My main complaint about spinning is that...I suck at it.  I worse than suck.  Despite my efforts to understand the half-hitch knot, the spindle often breaks free and agressively unravels its contents.  I can't decide if I should be spinning rightie or leftie--neither feels correct.  And worst of all, I'm not even sure I'm using my spindle right side up.  It doesn't match the drop-spindle in the book I'm using, with the hook being at the far end of the disc.  if you know about such things, please tell me.

Should it be like in the above picture:

or this one?

Despite my horrific, thick-and-thin results, I decided to take my little finished product very seriously, and did the whole back of the chair skeining thing,

...the hot water soak, and laying out to dry.

Then I wound it into a ball.  I think it looks like I made it in Spinner's Special Ed, but LB declared my results, "very anthroposophical." 

This is Steiner for, "Hopefully of deep spiritual value to you, because it would not survive in any competitive arena."  I'm going to hang onto it as a point of reference for measuring what will hopefully be progress.  Also, it'll come in handy if I ever want to knit myself one of these:

Sweet Victory

Chenille Protrusions

Last night I cast on a sweater for Daisy: an Elizabeth Zimmermann yoke sweater (pattern can be found in Knitting Around and at Schoolhouse Press) using Dale of Norway, Heilo.  The cream color may seem an unusual choice for a 12 year old, but Daisy is one of those unusual children who never gets dirty or even sloppy, never trips or falls down, and has an air of composure about her at all times.

Case in point, Daisy's workspace:

Daisy has wanted her own bedroom since she was old enough to understand that she could indeed carry on brain-stem functions when not in the same room as older sister Sabina: Sabina, who happens to feature clutter, and the long-limbed tendency to knock things over with broad, sweeping gestures.  Now that Daisy has her own room, she happily sits on the edge of her bed for long, silent stretches of hand sewing.

Here's a little dress she made for dolly--early work, as you can tell by the stitching.

Note the hand stitching around the perimeter of her current project, which she informs me will be a cake.

As I was prowling around her bedroom taking pictures, Daisy quietly materialized behind me.  You'd think someone as private as she would mind finding me in there snapping away, but she was, as always, bemused.  No, she did not mind me taking pictures, and happily brought out one of her recent works for me to photograph.  She made it with knitting needles using a stitch of her own unvention.  She has given it no name, but  it's a satchel of some sort, distinguished by chenille protrusions. 

Here's a digital painting of Daisy, created by Carys using the photo I posted last week.  Click here to see it in its fully expanded glory: