catch up

Hi everyone! It's been a really busy weekend. Brett and I had company so we spent a lot of time doing the things one does when one has company, i.e. not blogging.

It has been otherwise a pretty productive week.
The house is very clean.

The tomato seeds have lots of leaves on them now, the broccoli, cosmos, and marigolds have sprouted, the basil is on the verge of getting real leaves.
The north west bed of the garden has been double dug, and most of the rocks are out of it.
The peas are in the garden and will probably sprout some time next week. I'm trying to believe that they really will be ok in the frost, since we got dusted again last night.

I finished the Apple Mittens last night and will probably just suck it up and use the circs so I can finish the Monkey Socks. A commenter a while back suggested I order a new set from Knit Picks, and I probably just should, but for some reason I'm resisting ordering anything online.

We visited Lynn and the alpacas down the street and I got to meet Lira from whose fleece the Fly Creek Cap was knit. We also went to Howe Caverns which was beautiful and very cool. I have pictures to show you all once I get a chance.

White House Green Thumb

So I definitely have gardening on the brain. Never fear, gentle reader, this too shall pass and I'll swing back to my typical crafty ways soon enough. At times like these I wonder if I might not have just a little teensy manic streak. When I get tracking on something, I tend to pursue it to the exclusion of all (or at least most) other things. Right now it seems to be gardening. Forgive me. I have not forgotten the mittens, the socks, the quilt, the lace work, the pattern design. It will all be back soon.

But for now it's a 24-7 local food fest up in here.

Maybe you've heard by now, but in case you haven't, the kitchen garden is back at the White House. My first reaction is to be happy, as I would be happy if it were revealed that the First Lady actually designs lace shawls or the President knits his own socks. (Can you even imagine!? Just typing that gave me goosebumps...) I am pleased that something I find valuable and Good has found support at the highest levels. You all know I'm just a touch fanatical about local food consumption and small scale economies based on self-sufficiency and the Jeffersonian Ideal, so I might not be seeing straight here. I shall atempt distanced analysis...

Cynical Kate knows that the White House Kitchen Garden, maintained solely by the Obama family, is untenable as the main method of food production for the Presidential family, let alone state dinners. In 17th century France, as spices became commonplace and fresh vegetables expensive, tastes shifted so that haute cuisine favored the simple and fresh to display the valuable produce the wealthy could afford. These days, it is a status symbol as much as anything could be that occasionally a state dinner might feature an heirloom tomato picked right from the vine, just a few steps away. Serving that tomato speaks to the values that the President (and First Lady) and by extension America, wish to display to visiting dignitaries- frugality, resourcefullnes, hard work, self sufficiency. But if the President were forced to entertain only with what his household could make themselves on the White House Estate, there wouldn't be much time left for managing a country. The fantasy that we can convert modern American consumerist culture into one based on a subsistance model is romantic, but ultimately empty. The White House Kitchen Garden is absolutely propaganda (which does not necessarily make it bad. Professor Orr you taught me so much...). And the taxpayers are going to be footing the bill for this symbol-ridden garden.

Now, Idealist Kate knows that there are far far worse symbols that the taxpayers could be footing the bill for. (How about a Mission Accomplished banner and fighter pilot photo-op?) And anyway, costs seem pretty low. According to the Times, seeds and soil amendments are about $200, the labor will be provided by grounds crew, kitchen staff, and other White House staff volunteers, along with local school children. I like what a garden says about America. I like that President Adams planted the first one as a matter of necessity but also to take pleasure in seeing things growing. I like that the First Lady wants to use it as a teaching tool to show city dwelling students where the food they eat actually comes from and the work that it takes to make that food grow. I like that it's promoting healthy eating along with the appreciation of nature. I like that the First Family is setting a positive example and actually doing something productive with the land the White House sits on. I like what The Garden is propagandising.

So I don't care. I'm drinking the KoolAide. The way some people want to know who Michelle's wearing to such and such a dinner, I want to know what she's planting in the garden.

It's an interesting topic to consider, but I find the politics of food really fascinating. In another life I'd be a nutritional anthropologist. If you want to read what more intellectual people than I have to say about this, check out the Times's compiled opinion page. I did find some dissent on the comments page over here, mostly concerned that it's just a "photo-op" and has no actual effect. Generally though, the well reasoned arguments have come down in favor of the garden, but for a variety of reasons. Isn't politics fun?

The First Green of Spring

I have a book of poems selected by Garrison Keillor. It was a Christmas gift that I find myself deeply thankful for with regularity. I read Good Poems last spring, quite a lot of it at a camp site back in Iowa with a warm fire at my feet and the sun slowly setting. The collection appeals to my sensibilities; one section is called "Work" and mostly has poems about the rewards of manual labor- farm life in particular. Keillor has a great intro where he explains what makes a "good poem" and says, "they offer us truer accounts than what we're used to getting. They surprise us with clear pictures of the familiar." The poems are often narrative, and emotional, and always delight in words. There's very little in Good Poems that makes me angry and a lot that makes me very happy. This first page I opened to when I set out to read just happened to have what has become my favorite of the collection. I bookmarked it and everything.

So I thought I'd see if I could find a suitable spring-y poem and share it here.

The First Green of Spring
David Budbill

Out walking in the swamp picking cowslip, marsh marigold,
this sweet first green of spring. Now sauteed in a pan melting
to a deeper green than ever they were alive, this green, this life,

harbinger of things to come. Now we sit at the table munching
on this message from the dawn which says we and the world
are alive again today, and this is the world's birthday. And

even though we know we are growing old, we are dying, we
will never be young again, we also know we're still right here
now, today, and my oh my! don't these greens taste good.


This is from the "Resurrection" section of the book. I particularly like the way that none of the lines end with a complete thought, but lead the reader into the next line, continually renewing and surging forward. Until the last line of the poem which dwells on a singular moment and finds contented enjoyment in the present, rather than thoughts of the future.

What do you all think?


P.S. my basil and tomato plants have sprouted!

warming trend

It's sprinkling a little bit right now, but the past few days have been amazing weather wise, leaving little time for writing or knitting. Monday, Brett and I took a lovely long walk down the road. He was walking into work, I turned around at a little over two miles and took Honus back to the house. It was really nice to be out and about in the fresh air and sunshine with bare extremities, but I paid for it the next morning when my calves were so stiff I could barely walk.

I'm still hurting pretty bad today, but I think that's at least partly due to working in the brand new garden. I've been inspired by a book I took out of the library to set up the garden in four very manageable sections with walking space between. Today I finished turning over the sod in the pea and lettuce quadrant. I'll let it dry out and shake the topsoil back into the bed. Apparently this is supposed to keep weeds down better than just rototilling. Sure is a ton of work though; at least the bed is small. If the weather stays nice, I'm hoping to plant the peas by next week.

Hope Springs Internal

Today I staked out a 12ft x 9 ft section of the really grassy part of the property to plant for a garden this summer. And I am thrilled about it.

When Brett and I moved in, I talked to the land lady about wanting to put in a garden and she seemed to think that was fine. Over the course of our months here, I started to get worried that she might change her mind and not want us digging in the back. So I tuned down the garden dreams and figured I'd just plant a little basil in the kitchen and maybe a pot of tomatoes on the deck. The closer it gets to warm weather though, the more I've been thinking about the pleasure of spending time doing something productive outdoors and the joy of some fresh garden veggies of my own.


Aunt Karen, suggested that I look for a community garden to plant in, and though there's no such thing that I can find here in The Coop, I'm pretty sure that if I asked my neighbors for 100 square feet of dirt to cultivate, someone would be very accomidating. But I really want to be able to walk out and get busy, or I doubt I'll stick with it.

So, I did my research, planned out the size I wanted, then I called up the landlady and asked very nicely if it was still ok to put in a garden. And she said yes! I do plan on sending her an addendum to the lease agreement for us both to sign (just in case), but I'm optimistic enough to believe that I might actually have instant salads this year, and perhaps some homemade pickles, salsa, tomato sauce, etc.

Now, I know that the garden I had at Living History Farms was massive. Way too big for Brett and I to handle alone. The garden I staked out is very modest, easy even. Based off of yields from the Farms garden (knowing how little vegitation this household actually eats) and the recomended spacing for planting, I've figured that we don't really need a ton of space. I would like to do some pumpkins and watermelon though, and my research is saying they need around 10 ft to vine out. We absolutely have that space, so I'll probably hill a few out in the grass, weed a little and hope the native flora doesn't do them in.

In knitting news, I really want to finish my second Pacific Monkey Sock (from Knitty. See?) but I'm still short a needle. When we were in Oneonta, I even looked at the Big Box Retailer for another US2 DPN set, but the best I could do was US3! Next time I'm somewhere I can grab US2 double points, I'm geting a few sets. It's my favorite size for fingering weight and aside from the joy of having a spare, I can see using more than one set if I want to work on more than one pair of socks at a time. I'm about to put away the snowshoes for the season, but here's a shot of the lone Monkey sock in action.

To Do

Yay!

The sun is shining and by tomorrow the weather is supposed to be in the 50s. Snow is drip dripping and with the heat back on in the house, I'm feeling downright cozy.

Brett will be here tomorrow and I've done next to nothing with my big bad cleaning plans for the last week or so. Today I'm amped up to do some serious work though.

I'd like to:
get some laundry done
sweep the hardwood
vaccuum the carpets
shovel the back porch (and pray that I need not do it ever again!)
clean out the fridge
and clean off the kitchen counter tops
soft scrub the stove top
dust the woodwork
windex the windows
clean my bathroom and wash the towels
straighten up the living room
change some lightbulbs

generally make the house someplace I might not cringe to admit to living in if our lovely neighbors stopped by for tea (the ones with the beautiful house who put a white lit Christmas tree out on their front porch. Fit for Better Homes & Gardens, these people are...)
The goal is to leave nothing laying around that Abby will consider a toy, besides, of course, her actual toys.

take recyclables back to the grocery store

bake raisin scones
plant some tomato and basil seeds
get going on that second mitten
find clamps around the house so that I can do this to my as yet unused loom

And I think I will light some candles and play some music and be generally happy with life.

Kinship

Thanks for all the comments in recent days folks. I love hearing back from those of you who are reading and I enjoy each comment.

There does seem to be a little confusion about the kind of knitting destruction my cat has caused. She does not merely play with finished knitted objects. Oh no. She usually takes the ball of yarn connected to the work in progress and bats it around the living room. Occasionally, she will pick up the yarn ball in her fierce little teeth and trot around with it, displaying her prowess as a huntress and dragging my hand-dyed, lace-weight or luxury fiber all over the house. Beast.

I think she just likes attention. She has a great little homing beacon that must tell her when I'm busy with something else, cuing her to find the most difficult place to be and defend it with plaintive mewing. When I was putting together the quilt top, she slept on top of the parts I was piecing together, or on the chair at my desk. She follows me around the kitchen when I cook, sitting up on her haunches to bat at my legs and whine. If I'm trying to knit, she wants to be in my lap. If I'm reading in bed, she curls up on top of my book and purrs insolently.

A two year old human couldn't possibly be as difficult as this cat.

I would also like to say, on a completely separate note, that I love the Midwest the way I love my brother. It is the love born of kinship. My brother and I come from the same people and the same background and whatever has gone into his making has gone into mine as well. We have known each other his whole life and are inextricably connected. I might poke fun and point out the endearing quirks, but I know that those things make him who he is and they are therefore at least a little part of me too. I may grow exasperated at little irritations. But Lord help the mister (or missus) who seeks to find fault with him, because he's a part of who I am and I'm a part of who he is too.

Thus do I feel about the Midwest, as well. I lived there during all my formative years. The people who live there are my great big extended family. And when people give me attitude about "Typical Midwesterners" I usually get punchy. Not everyone everywhere is exactly the same and I resent the implication that Midwesterners are backwards or overweight or close-minded or any of the things I hear so often from people who think that being from a Coastal Metropolis makes them inherently more virtuous than other people. I especially dislike how often "Midwestern" is spat with disdain in political discussions. And I do not apologize for taking comments like, "I was really surprised by the lack of diversity, acceptance, etc. [in Ohio]. I hear people say that the midwesterners are friendly and open, but this was far from my experience," just a wee bit personally.

High school psych class (in a Midwestern school) taught me that it is human nature to form mental distinctions- to separate Them from Us. No doubt some observations about Them are bound to be unflattering compared to Us, but Thumper taught me that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Easier said than done. Still, I choose to post things on the wide wide internet that I feel are positive, or constructive, or at least funny and not openly hostile.

That being said I will depart from my pacifict ways to issue this warning: if you choose to mess with the Midwest, the Midwest may mess back.

Views

It's snowing again.

Briefly we had rain that melted away the snow on the driveway. Lots of farms actually had spots of ground without snow. Muddy, I'm sure, but all the livestock looked happy to be out trying remember how to graze.

I bought basil and cherry tomato seeds that I plan to start in pots this week. Hopefully, they can stand up to the sulfur water we have in the faucets here. Surely I will not be buying bottled water just to have fresh home grown basil.

Winter does give some amazing views. Brett and Honus went for a hike and found views that look like this:


To fend off the winter blues, I have been making fruity crepes:

This plate is frozen strawberries and canned mandarin oranges. I drained the oranges and put the syrup in a saucepan on medium high heat. While I was making the crepes (1/2 TBS melted butter, 1 egg, 1/3 cup milk, 1/4 cup water, 1 TBS sugar, 1/3 cup flour, and a tiny pinch of salt. Pour into a medium heat crepe pan or small non-stick skillet and let cover the entire pan. When the edges start to brown, slide out of pan onto your plate and fold into quarters. I can get four thin crepes or three thicker ones out of this recipe.) I put the frozen berries into the hot mandarin syrup with a splash of vanilla extract and a little lime juice and let them simmer. The berry texture wasn't great: kinda mushy and the whole dish was overwhelmingly orange flavored. Next time, I'd cook the berries less and try to tone down the orange flavor. Probably only use half the mandarin can and make the syrup with half the juice. I'd also like to pop a little acid flavor in there- more lime juice?

But doesn't it look yummy? And less than a $2 for the plate!

Meme

A very fun meme, but probably not terribly interesting to non knitters. Still I think it's kind of fun to take stock of what I've done and what I plan to do. I yoinked this from knittinhoney.

Directions are to bold those things you've done, italicize those you plan on tackling, and leave the rest.

Afghan
I-Cord
Garter Stitch

Knitting with metal wire

Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks top down
Socks toe up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens tip down
Hats top down
Hats Cuff-up
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/second-hand yarn

Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Domino knitting

Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Baby items
Knitting with your own hand-spun yarn
Slippers
Graffiti knitting (And probably never will, but I think it's super cool)
Continental knitting
Combination knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Participate in an exchange
Scarf
Teaching a child to knit
American/English knitting
Knitting to make money
Buttonholes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dyeing with plant colors
Dyeing spinning fibers
Knitted items for a wedding
Household items
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on one or two circulars
Knitting with someone else’s hand-spun yarn
Knitting with double point needles
Holiday-related knitting
Teaching a male to knit
Bobbles
Tassels
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dyeing yarn
Steeks
Knitting art
Knitting two socks on two circulars simultaneously
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener stitch
Knitted flowers
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards
Machine knitting
Knitting with self patterning/self striping/variegated yarn
Stuffed toys
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular cast on
Free-form knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mits/arm-warmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an on-line knitting magazine
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets (horrors!)
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

Apple Mittens

Usually, I do my best to keep my crafting budget to a minimum. I alter the yarn recommendations on patterns, or I buy just one skein of a gorgeous yarn. I don't knit many sweaters because they always use so much yardage.

Still, I know that on any given project I might spend a minimum of hours and a maximum of months of my valuable time. Knitting is a very sensory experience- every time you sit down to work on it, you're going to run that yarn around your fingers and you're going to look carefully at each stitch. You are involved with that project. Knowing all that, what is the point of using materials that you do not love, or that do not inspire you?


The yarn for this project is courtesy of Grandma J by way of a Knitted Together gift card. Whenever I was feeling a little stressed or unhappy working at the farms, I had this great fund of happiness I could dip into on that gift card. And boy did I.

I could walk into the store, wander around, find a ball of something stunning and take it home with me, no worries about budget or if I'd earned it. This Dream in Color yarn was one such purchase of complete happiness. The skein is from the Classy line, a merino worsted with plenty of twist to keep the soft wool from pilling, and the juicy color is called "China Apple."





When I started in on these mittens, I worked my swatch with the bone needles and loved every second of the work. I kept stretching it out, looking at the stitches, admiring the evenness and gentle color gradation, demanding Brett look at it and admire it too. And I cast on that night.


Yarn: Dream in Color Classy- China Apple.

Needles: US 6. I don't have a set of these in double points, so I used two interchangable circulars.

Pattern: My own. Double cuff, Norwegian flat thumb. I wanted to keep it simple and let the yarn speak for itself. I might add a little embroidery to the back- something in an apple or leaf shape.


I'm still working on the second mitten, but they're such a fast knit, I'm pretty sure that they'll be done long before winter is. I'm guessing I'll have just a little yarn left over.

The Quilt Part Deux

Today I finished all but two of seams on the quilt. Lest you disbelieve, I also ventured to the Public Library to upload some pictures.

I really love it. There are mistakes. But it is a first try, and I tore out plenty of seams to try to get it just right.



When I took this picture, I had just started putting the horizontal sashing in and I was a little overwhelmed by the strong red. Having had a few days to look at it now, I think it's really perfect. The fabrics I chose for the blocks wound up being mostly blue with a lot of tans/browns/yellows and reds, some greens and some purples and blacks. I like the color distribution in blocks, and I think the red sashing helps pull out the bright, warm tones so that the whole top feels cheery in a very rich way.

I can't wait to head down to Heartworks fabrics here in Fly Creek and pick out a nice piece to use for backing. Mom, any tips on how much to get and how to put it together so I can start quilting?

And what kind of quilting should I think about? I've got all that space in the sashing to quilt. I don't have any stencils or anything to work with yet, so I've got a totally blank canvas.

Right now I couldn't be happier with it, really.

Wish list

Things I would like to be doing right now:

Running outside in shorts, listening to my iPod
Uploading pictures to the blog
Knitting on the back deck, warm in the sun

Life is hard.

Bone

Today I worked on the quilt. I have a few more seams to do on the sashing before I can move on to the next step, but it's coming together nicely. Brett said he liked the way it looked, and I think I do too, although the bright red sashing might be a little overwhelming to the blocks. I'll get a picture up after my next library pilgrimage.

For my birthday, Brett bought me a set of antique bone knitting needles.

Talk about a beautiful tool! You can tell holding them that they've been used over and over again, because the ivory is polished to a beautiful luster. Stitches slide off the way they would on metal, but don't slip. The points are extreemly sharp, but broaden realtively quickly, unlike the stilleto shape you need to keep fine points on metal needles. I've never seen a needle like this before, and I love working with them.

So tonight I whipped up a swatch with the Dream in Color in my stash. Remember? This stuff:


I really do need another pair of mittens.

Interweave Knits

If you don't know Interweave, as far as I can tell, you are missing out on one of the truly great knitting resources of our time. It's a quarterly magazine, full of interesting product reviews, essays about knitting philosophy, great articles on technique and page after page of delicious knitting photography. I can only aspire to be so pretty on this blog. The patterns they publish are usually close to my tastes- sophisticated, but comfortable, with just a touch of special pretty detail, eminently wearable without being boring. When I sit down to start a big project, I know I'll spend upwards of $50 on supplies and weeks of time committed to the project, so I want it to intrigue, challenge, and ultimately satisfy me. Interweave always has at least a few patterns I immediately like and a couple that grow on me. And of course, no one can be happy all the time, but they hit the mark more often than not. Go and take a look, then come back and we'll talk.

My favorite sweater this issue is probably the cover sweater, the Diminishing Rib Cardigan, a very simple, clean design shown in a pretty wheat color. I love the waist definition, the subtle belling at the three quarter length sleeves and the swingy open front. I want to make it immediately.

I also love the violet Silk Cocoon Cardigan. I think the neckline is probably too wide for me, but the wrap would be flattering and there's just enough interest in the bubbly stitch pattern at the cuffs and shoulder. The yarn is the fine and completely luxurious Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk. I very rarely consider the recommended yarn for sweater projects, mostly because it's never within my budget, but this sweater would be so perfect in that yarn it's hard for me to think of a substitute.

I will say that I don't understand the Watered Quartz Tee even a little. The big horizontal stripes and basic square construction make even the very pretty model look unfortunately broad and flat. The texture is appealing, but the whole shape of the sweater seems terribly off to me...

On the other hand, the strong ZickZack Tunic would look horrible on me, falling as it does a good foot below the posterior, but I love the way the drop sleeves create a little flutter and the cowl wraps you in warmth, despite the short sleeves and all over sharp lace patterning. I wonder how this would look if I shortened it to a more realistic length for my hips, maybe with that ribbing starting at my natural waist and continuing to just past the belt line. This sweater was not an immediate favorite, but it has a lot of apparent potential.

The first project I'll probably actually get to is the Baa Rug- a really cute moss stitch throw rug knit with roving, instead of spun yarn, on size 50 needles. I happen to have a whole bunch of chocolate brown camel roving that has just a few too many gaurd hairs left in it to be something I love spinning- this will be a perfect project to use it up.

Interweave also picked a number of accessories that I think are great including the Float Stole, Bettie's Lace Stocking, Net Duffle, and Blooming Cotton Scarf. Small, fun projects like that will be perfect summer knitting for when it's too hot to work with wool.


The article I was talking about yesterday was "Start as Many New Projects as You Can" by Vicki Square. She urges knitters to imagine that each unfinished project has been given to you by another knitter and you have free reign to do whatever you want with them. Like felting down a fair isle project into hat, or cutting (gasp) a cardigan into pillowcase material. This was an idea I had not thought of- my UFOs tend to pile up and I say, "I'll finish that, or unravel that sometime soon" and the prospect of actually tearing them up is painful and daunting, so I never do anything about it. No more! I have productive energy now!

In that spirit, I managed to lose one of my favorite, awesome fair isle mittens this winter, leaving me with just the one.

Any suggestions on what to do with one lonely little mitten. I can't throw it out because it's just too pretty and i spent too long knitting it. So what can I do?

I'm sitting with my laptop at the tiny little Cooperstown library using their blessed, wonderful wireless internet access so as to avoid killing the access we have at the house with Kbs and Kbs of upload information. I hope to make this a weekly pilgrimage so that I can upload photos here and then edit posts at home.

Oddly, I have missed the blogging. Knowing that there are people interested in hearing about them helps me focus on the positive and interesting things about life here. And since work at the moment pays the bills but doesn't do much in the way of intellectual stimulation, it's good to have a chance to try to write well about things that matter. And what matters to me is being able to create things.

Yesterday I got my spring issue of Interweave Knits (thanks Mom!). I will tell you all about how I feel about it and the patterns tomorrow, I think, once I've had another night to read the patterns and give it some thought. But the article I want to talk about right now was about starting as many new projects as you can. There has been so much new in my life lately that in my knitting I desperately wanted to actually finish something. And in January, I absolutely did.

I finished my mom's Bristow Sweater. So much measuring and resizing and seaming and a weeks long search for buttons in this frozen land and finally, at last, a sweater I am deeply proud of. Mom says it's snug, and I probably could have given a few more stitches of ease throughout, and added another inch to the sleeves, but hopefully it's flattering and warm.

Before I sewed up all the seams and wove in the ends, it looked like this:





I forgot to take a picture when it was all done with buttons and such, but trust me, it was a thing of beauty. And rather a lot of cat and dog hair I tried to eradicate without much luck.

I used Cascade 220 Superwash yarn and bought more than enough. There's two and a half balls left! It was a beautiful soft yarn that I enjoyed knitting with, though I did find that the red dye would come off on my hands when I worked with it for extended periods of time. Before I figured it out, I thought I was working my hands raw! I soaked the pieces about a half an hour before I blocked them, and then ran the sweater through a cold woolen cycle before I sent it off, so hopefully most of the color is now fast.

I also finished a pattern for socks that I'd been working on since the summer. I bought the yarn on a whim- my only non-gift yarn purchase of the year and wrote up a pattern inspired by Sophia Copola's movie about Marie Antoinette. Full of pretty vivid colors and over the top luxury, I thought the sweet pink of the sock yarn would be just right for a princess soled sock with a little lacy cuff and a picot bind off.

The end result was this:

The pattern is written and I'm looking for test knitters if anyone's interested in a free sock pattern...

I also worked on a pattern for a slouched hat with Linda's yarn, the one I talked about in my stash post.

The hat turned out like this:

This pattern is all written up and ready to be tested too...

Now, having finished and accomplished and whatnot, I am bored. I started another pair of socks and lost a needle with only one sock done. I started a lace project only to discover that my cat decided that she loves to play with yarn as much as I do and I had to clean up a living room strewn with laceweight.

Plea

Dear Spring,

I understand that you appreciate the drama of a late arrival. You do know how to make an entrance, after all. I know that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that anticipating good things makes them so much better when they get here.

But please, please hurry!

It has been such a long winter and I need a little sunlight and green growing things. I know it's only February and I must be patient. Do you know that your good buddy Winter has left snow on the ground since I moved here in the middle of November? Please, make it stop!

I say all this in anticipation of yet another snow storm on its way tonight. You have the power. You could make all this suffering end. You could bring us warm air and little budding flowers. You could cut our heating bill from the insane hundreds of dollars a month we pay just to hover around 60 degrees. I'm not asking for a vacation. I just need a little break.

So if you could just think about showing up on time this year instead of waiting until late April like you usually do. And if you were really really generous, maybe even showing up a little early to the party? Would tomorrow be asking too much?

-Sincerely
Kate

stash

Today I'm back in Illinois, relaxing with my family and looking forward to celebrating Christmas. There is still Christmas knitting to be done, mostly on my gift for Mom, but I tried to pack light for the car ride back out here, so I don't have any extraneous projects at the moment to distract me from the real work at hand.

I left all this beautiful yarn in New York:


These are my favorites, displayed on the overwhelmingly pink wall of my New York bedroom.
From left to right I've got Lisa Souza Sock! yarn in South Pacific, bought after listening to the Lime and Violet podcast. Those ladies sure can conjure up yarn lust.

The pink skein is Dream in Color Classy (Merino wool) in a color called China Apple. This skein came from my favorite LYS in Des Moines, Knitted Together and it was thanks to a gift of yarn money from my Grandmother I was able to buy such a luxurious bit of yarn. It's a worsted weight, and I have no idea what I'll do with it.

Next, the blue skein is Mountain Colors Bearfoot. Back when I had my employee discount at Iris Fine Yarns in Appleton I bought an embarrassing amount of yarn, and this was one of those skeins that came home with me. Serviceable, I know this will turn into a lovely pair of socks somewhere down the road, but it's wall decoration for now.

The chocolate color on the far right is alpaca yarn I picked up at the Cooperstown farmer's market from Linda, the alpaca farmer who lives down the road from me in New York. I pass her farm every day and wave at the happy alpaca who live there. Linda is a very savvy farmer who knows that she has to have a market for her goods, or there's no profitability to breeding alpaca. Alpaca fiber is amazing, silky and dramatic while incredibly warm and soft, probably my favorite high-end yarn, and Linda knows its value. This little splurge was totally worth it though, since it gave me an excuse to strike up a conversation with Linda in the first place.

Finally, the blue skein is the one I'm most proud of having in my collection. It's wool from the 1850 flock at Living History Farms, naturally dyed with indigo in a big copper pot over an outdoor woodfire. Katie, the 1850 domestic supervisor, was an early friend of mine in Iowa and we bonded over food and fiber love, so when I finally got a play day away from 1900 and came to work Wednesdays on her farm, fiber was what I worked with the most.

We spent afternoons carding and spinning on the wheel, until, on my last day there, I Navajo-plied what I had spun and came away with a beautiful even 3-ply skein of wool, alive with a subtle gradation of indigo. Katie gave me this skein as a going away present when I left for New York. Characteristically, I don't want to spoil it's current state to make it into something else more beautiful/useful, just in case I ever change my mind.

The potential of an untouched skein is vast; sometimes it's just nice to have all those options waiting to be tapped.

Grunt

Fire Good!

The Quilt (Part I)

I have been knitting. Oh yes, I have been knitting. It's all for gifts though so I can't show and tell just yet. In the meantime, allow me to showcase my mom's craft: quilting.

I don't remember my mother ever not quilting, though I know once upon a time she didn't. When I was growing up, one of the best rooms for playing in was Mom's quilting room; she had cabinets full of notions and shelves of fabric. To my great horror she would throw out huge scraps of that fabric, just the bits that were too small to become pattern pieces. I would paw through the scraps and salvage the bigger pieces to start my own fabric collection, sometimes even sewing them together in vaguely pictorial scenes. I put a swatch of green corduroy (what on earth was Mom doing with green corduroy that I wound up with that much of it?) next to a swatch of light blue and "appliqued" on a flower that the generous might describe as daisy-ish. I made an American flag with 10 stripes and about 3 stars. I took a kids quilting class at a local fabric store and made a passable wall hanging of, first, a garden of veggies and then a fusable webbing collection of hearts. I liked them ok, but I knew they were not the sort of thing Mom did and they were therefore not quite right.

Mom meanwhile was churning out beautiful bed quilts and lap quilts and wall hangings and all sorts of fantastic things. Here and there among the simpler ones were quilts she would call masterpieces- the ones she spent years or more on, with elaborate apliqued borders and miles of intricate hand quilting. There was the grape basket quilt, pearly gray and rich purples, based around a set of blocks for someone else's quilt top that never quite happened. And the Virtuous Lady, still in production (I think) in warm earthy colors with a border that makes me think back to medieval manuscript marginalia.

(illuminated page from a Bible, manuscript painting, Flemish, early 14th century.
Photo from Medieval Art, Verinoca Sekules
click for detail)

She's very good at those kinds of borders.

Quilting is the only thing I think Mom does that she gives herself due credit for being really really really good at. She accepts praise for being a good teacher, a good wife and mother, a good person, often too humbly. Her quilts are something else altogether. She gets her masterpieces appraised and has a dollar amount to associate with them. Quilts are not tifles and are only given away as signs of deep love to those she cares about most. I am one of the lucky ones and have never been without a quilt of my own. There are three that have been made just for me: a pastel shoofly that covered my bed for most of my childhood, a stark, linear blue and white quilt that she started for me when I was a baby and I had to grow into a bit, and a brushed cotton twin-extra long quilt that she made to keep me warm at college. Mom has never been stingy with quilted love, especially to family.

My family is full of creative people. You can't turn your head in my parent's house without seeing something beautifully handcrafted. There's a painting that I love of the ancestral barn, done by my uncle's uncle. Long silk and satin dresses in my old closet that my aunt made for my highschool dances. A beautiful photograph of a wooded river taken by my Grandpa and framed under his direction. My grandmother's quilts for my brother and I used to be there, but we can't bear to part with them so now they're with us. My mom's quilts, of course, are everywhere. And the house itself is my dad's creation, from the second story addition (electrical and plumbing too, yes) to the remodeled kitchen.

I do the knitting thing, of course, but this summer I decided I wanted to make a quilt. A real quilt. Pieced on a machine, none of this fusable webbing stuff. When I went home to visit in September, Mom and I went to the fabric store and bought a little bit of new fabric and used a bunch of her scraps to round out the collection. So there's a lot of Mom and a little of me in the fabric. I picked a pattern (Dutchman's Puzzle) and she did the math to make everything work out to the right size. She showed me how to use the rotary cutter to cut pieces and guided me through piecing the first block, making sure the points were clear and neat.

I had to pack up the sewing machine (borrowed from Grandma) to move it to New York, so the project waited. Once I got out here though, I went to town and the blocks are all finished now. I took a few pictures of my favorites; there are 16 blocks all together.

Animals make photoshoots tricky...

After three days of driving, during which Abigail the kitten and I were beset by snowstorms and icy roads, I made it to my new abode in Fly Creek, New York. By the time I got off the well traveled roads, the sky was darkening rapidly and I was more than a little nervous. When I got to the house, Brett had left the light on, but, not counting the pets, I was alone. In the dark. In the cold (the heat was out). Surrounded by forests and fields.

There was no phone service at the house. There was no internet connection. I've never felt more isolated than I did that first night, waiting for Brett to get back from Austin.

The whole reality of what I had done was terrifying. There had been no room for doubt; for weeks I did not allow myself to second guess the decision I had come to so painstakingly for fear that someone would see my worry and talk me out of it. I wanted to come here and do this "adventure" thing and, having arrived, I had to either tough it out or collapse into a puddle of directionless emotions. I unpacked and cleaned and did whatever I could to take my mind off my insanity.

Once I finally unpacked the car, I drove back down the road until I got cell reception (There is none at the house. Or anywhere nearby, apparently.) and immediately pulled to the side of the road, punched the flashers, and called my parents. I felt that night like I did at slumber parties, or gone away to camp: trying to be brave and focus on the excitement, but not quite confident enough to not feel desperately, horribly homesick.

I fell asleep on the couch, waiting for Brett to get back, and when he did, another person in the house made everything so much easier. No longer alone, it was easier to be happy about the move and to enjoy the chance to do whatever I wanted with my time. I baked cookies and planned a cheap grocery list and knitted and sewed. I drove around and looked for someone to hire me part time, discovering, again, that I lack the self confidence necessary to believe that anyone should hire me or would even want to. Logically, I know I rock. Emotionally, it's much less certain. But I picked up application after application to jobs I'm extremely overqualified for. Until I finally got up the nerve to walk in to Portabello's, where, after I made a joke about pirates, they offered me a job on the spot. The restaurant is very nice and the family who runs it is delightful. I like going to work there, though I'm still learning just about everything I need to know to do my job well. It's only been a week. I'll pick it up.

The pictures I have for you are of the house and surrounding land. (Taken from the comfort of the now warm house)

The view upon walking in the front door. Two bedrooms off to the right, one of which is mine. Rest of the house is off to the left, starting with a mudroom with the door to the basement and the sliding glass doors to the back porch.



A little further is the kitchen and what we've made into the dining room. Off to the left there is what may someday be a sitting room. As you can see, there is a pool table there now. It is not ours and was not supposed to be there. It's a pain.


From the corner of what may someday be the sitting room. Complete with prowling Abby.


From the foot of the stairs looking back towards living room. Upstairs is Brett's room. It has a deck and a jacuzzi, but no heat vents. It is therefore very cold most of the time.

From the window at the foot of the stairs the view to the front yard is thus:


And the back yard looks like this:


(The stone thing is a huge firepit. I like marshmallows and hotdogs.)

Chester is looking out the window in the pool table room.


And this is what he sees:

That's Brett and Honus, at the edge of the yard. The steel garage thing is not on the property, but just barely. The "road" next to it is the property line.


Maybe someday I can train Honus not to bolt when he's outside and we won't have to leash him for walks, but I'm still working on it.

Every time I'm out for a drive I see things I want to show you all. My midwestern experience with farmland is that the road is straight and the farm houses/barns/etc are set pretty far back from the roads. Here, the road takes the path of least resistance around the hills and often splits farmsteads right in half with the house and garage on one side and the barn and other outbuilding on the other. One pretty white Georgian farmhouse with a wrap around porch has a large molding around the front door, wide enough on the lintel that they set a row of pumpkins over the top of the door.

In summation: I'm here, safe, employed, and now, finally, blessedly, connected to the internet.