18 June 09

Arcane Knitting Gear

Knitting equipment from the British Isles: Knitting belt and two knitting sheaths Saturday was Knit in Public Day, and knit in public I did, in Lafayette. There I met the extraordinary Agres who has taken it upon himself to learn as much as possible about pre-machine knitting in the British Isles (and pretty much anywhere else). The best way he can think of to learn how they did things is to try and replicate the tools and try them himself. He grinds his own steel-sprung needles, makes sheaths (the clothespin-like artefacts in the photo; they attach to a belt or apron string and a thin double-pointed needle is anchored in the tip). It was an amazing day; we were joined by Barbara and Elyse and a grand time was had. I have learned that Agres considers me to have learned “excellent pit knitting skills” growing up in Spain and for this I pause for a moment and say thank you, Francisca.

Vest for Jenifer, stranded and cabled The leather pouch (knitting belt) I bought from Schoolhouse Press, imported from Scotland, used in Shetland for Fair Isle knitting, which I’ve been learning how to do as well. The vest, at right, is nearly finished (I ran out of the gray-purple yarn and don’t like the white sleeve facing I came up with as an alternative, so I am waiting for a final ball of yarn to polish it off with). This vest is for a very dear friend who lives in Sweden, and I imagine her wandering around the forest and mist in it, which is a nice thought. Because: It’s 96° here and I’m thinking and talking about knitting??

Posted by at 06:51 PM in Knitting | Link | Comment [2]

27 April 09

Trip on Transit

handspun yarn I went to Pleasanton yesterday — about 90 miles away — on my bike, bike on train, bike on BART. I haven’t put my bike on a train before and it was surprisingly easy. My bike trip at either end was only about three miles.

Jarrett Walker of Creature of the Shade has started a new blog, Human Transit. I feel lucky to be in a place where this kind of trip was not only possible but very easy. Of course we had to wait for the bridge to go down outside Martinez — they were letting a ship through — but I’d have had to have done that in the car anyway.

On the way to the station yesterday, I ran into a) a criterium, which made me alter my route through b) the antique Volvos show, on the way to get c) asparagus, which I threw into a tub of pre-prepared lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, and a little tarragon to throw on the grill at the Lazy, Stupid and Godless knitting/dyeing/spinning party. I learned to spin. I hung out with some awesome people. And then I turned around and did the whole thing backwards, running into the fixed gear event in Pleasanton — at first I thought it was part of the city code, that you couldn’t ride bikes with gears. But no. Just some tired guys at the end of the day, looking at the overpass with fear and loathing. I turned right to the subway station.

Oh, and on the way down on the train I conducted a birdathon in support of Yolo Audubon. 48 species, including Western gull, Clark’s grebe, and chestnut-backed chickadee, all of which are hard to find in Yolo County. You can’t do this kind of thing from a car…

Posted by at 07:16 AM in Bicycling | Link | Comment [2]

15 April 09

Gansey Physics

One of my fellow Ravelers has spent a tremendous amount of time and effort investigating the history of knitting, in particular the knits used by fishermen in the past. In the days before microfiber, wearing something that would prevent hypothermia while at sea was literally a matter of life and death. A store-bought gansey that was not in the least bit wind-resistant launched Aaron Lewis into the quest for how they REALLY did it.

Aaron has a large number of excellent posts but the current one is a great place to start. I am wearied in advance by his stitch-count-per-inch but recognize its wisdom. Added, then, to the blogroll, and at some point in my life I will learn exactly how to use a knitting sheath. (I get the concept, but not the mechanics quite yet, though the sight of those beautifully turned wooden objects that actually have a function has me reeling…)

Posted by at 05:44 AM in Knitting | Link | Comment [3]

2 April 09

Knitting Assistant

Charlie helping Pica knit Charlie makes the best of finding an interloper in his chair and proceeds to supervise the knitting.

Posted by at 09:42 PM in Cats | Link | Comment [2]

18 March 09

The Land of Knitting

February Lady Sweater Numenius has been reading to me from the Yarn Harlot’s latest book, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot’s Guide to the Land of Knitting, while I knit my sweater. The Yarn Harlot is a brilliant writer and you don’t have to be remotely interested in knitting to enjoy her prose, as Numenius will tell you between guffaws. She’s written quite a few other books, one of which is Things I Learned From Knitting (Whether I Wanted to Or Not).

I haven’t read it yet, but here are some things I’m learning about knitting as I go:

a) Don’t knit anything beyond garter stitch when drinking. Even just one glass. And maybe not even garter stitch if you have to do increases, decreases, or any kind of counting. This is really important.
b) If it’s a boring stitch or a monochrome yarn, have it be a small project if you’d like to finish it. If it’s a combination of the two, “small project” amounts to a sock for a Barbie doll. (Then watch Barbie not wear it; but why should she? You have fallen prey to Second Sock Syndrome, and there is no second sock in sight.)
c) Large projects should only be undertaken if they are staggeringly appealing to you, are knit on large yarn and/or large needles, and contain enough of interest to keep you going but are simple enough not to have you get bogged down in complexity.
d) The quality of the needles you use makes a huge difference in the ease of knitting. I’m going to guess the quality of yarn (and its price) make a big difference too. These factors are likely to determine whether or not you buy a condo in the Land of Knitting. They will also determine whether your bank account is going to get depleted in a hurry.
e) Attempting to knit lace is like embarking on reading Ulysses. It’s not about where you’re going, it’s about the journey. (In my case, a journey in the dark while riding a malevolent arab mare, spiteful rolling eyes and gorgeous. Landing in the ditch is the most likely outcome.)

Posted by at 01:09 PM in Knitting | Link | Comment [2]

13 March 09

A Different Kind of Detection

Oxbridge attracts a particular kind of American — the academically-inclined if not outright academic, often more than ordinarily anglophilic, and, if male, spreading a bit (okay, a lot) above the beltline and sporting a bow tie. (If you’ve read any David Lodge, Maurice Zapp, though not in fact at Oxbridge though certainly wishing he were, rather than at my alma mater Rummidge/Birmingham, is the perfect portrait.) My many years away from Cambridge — 20, at this point — and my now more than 10 years away from Harvard — where this kind of person occurs in some profusion — have dulled my sensitivity to the type. To be fair, there aren’t many of them in Davis. (Thank God. Davis is, as I have said elsewhere, a cross between Berkeley and North Dakota, and such types are ridiculed in Berkeley and nonexistent in North Dakota. But I digress.)

I ran into one the other night, though, at, of all places, the Davis Knitting Group. A late-middle-aged gent expertly unwinding a skein (hank, if you’re American) of undyed Shetland yarn (horrified there was so much — gasp — color on the knitting needles around the table, not like in Yurp), expostulating on what a backwater Davis was; how when he lived in London he could go to a different play every night; how he hadn’t unpacked all his stuff yet (he owns a ball winder and swifter); how he had taught at Oxford. (Ears prick up; you don’t “teach” at Oxford.) Apparently a doctor, though interested in the intersection of music, philosophy, and the brain. (I thought oh, maybe an Oliver Sacks wannabe?)

My bullshit detector, already on amber alert, started screaming loudly the minute he pronounced Nuffield “Noofield” and I’m afraid I rather rudely concentrated on my yarnovers and knit-two-togethers rather than engage him in a lengthy discourse about London, Oxford, Cambridge, and why Europe is more interesting than Davis. (If it’s theatre you want, buddy, you should have moved to New York.) He turned his attentions to a fascinated and more easily-impressable nurse and they gabbed for three hours about the lamentable state of American medicine.

I was startled at the vehemence of my reaction to this fairly harmless, probably lonely, and certainly rudderless old bumbler. I think it’s partly because I finally, really, feel very protective of Davis. It’s my home now. I have had it with snobs, particularly American ones of the Oxbridgephilic kind. (I’ll make an exception, I think, for Yarn Snobs, but that’s another blog post.)

Posted by at 06:16 AM in Knitting | Link | Comment [10]

1 March 09

The Longest Capitol Corridor Train Ever...

Stitch n Ride train to Santa Clara … was what we rode on yesterday, some friends and I.

It was full of knitters.

A train with 486 knitters, one knitter’s husband, fifteen staff. Knitters got on in Sacramento (described as lemmings over the cliff by Yvette who got carried along in that current), Davis, Martinez, Richmond, Emeryville, Oakland, and got swept down the east bay to Santa Clara. They had to put two trains together to fit us all in.

Chemo caps knitted for the Leukemia and Lymphoma drive I have now, gentle reader, fondled qiviut hair, which costs $90 for a small ball. (And bison, which costs $50.) I bought some luscious Blue Moon yarn (hand-dyed silk/merino worsted). I gave myself a budget and stayed within it (this was nothing short of miraculous, let me tell you; I could have spent ten times my budget within the space of say 10 minutes, and that’s including the queues for paying). (I have, as I believe I mentioned, fondled qiviut.) It was like Macworld on steroids, this place. I overheard the gal at the Calistoga-based button shop say she was really glad she wasn’t into yarn. Ha.

The haul of Blue Moon yarn Mostly the fun was the trip down and back, with Mary knitting up her hay bale twine to the amusement of the news crew and Maria working on the mobius scarf Mary had started just because she needed a knitting fix and Yvette learning how to knit on two different-sized needles and Elizabeth bringing her wit and smarts to the whole proceedings. I spent many a slackjawed moment yesterday. I ran into two people I didn’t even know were knitters.

I’m still a bit overwhelmed. But I will dream of qiviut.

Posted by at 09:03 PM in Knitting | Link | Comment [6]

5 February 09

Social Media

I’m about to head out to a social media forum at UC Davis. The idea is that there is a need to understand ways to communicate with college applicants if you want to attract them to your campus, but there are many other ways the technology can be useful to university work, and I want to find out more about those sort of things…

Being a social person I’m interested in social media but have resisted, for a long time, signing on to things like MySpace and Facebook, because, well, I have two blogs, they are already getting neglected.

And then Ravelry came into my life.

Ravelry is a social network for knitters and crocheters that this morning stands at 281,975 members. Lest this sound completely innocuous and old-lady-ish, I should fess up that among the 25 or so groups I’m a member of (some of them genuinely dedicated to bits of knitting and fiber arts) out of the by now thousands of groups (some are outlined here ), several are shall we say not particularly old ladyish. An IVF doctor, interested in a sudden spike in traffic directed to his blog from Ravelry, discovered not just one but TWO groups of knitters and crocheters who are childfree by choice, one of them a great deal more vociferous about it than the other, which at least tolerates the presence of self-professed parents (“parenttrolls” are apparently a feature of CFBC groups on the web). The Lazy, Stupid and Godless group not only tolerates but encourages profanity (“twatweasel” is the most interesting word to have entered my lexicon since my twenties, I think).

I will be interested to see what transpires at this forum. But I doubt they’ll be discussing much knitting.

(A phenomenon I’ve encountered though is that people don’t tell you they’re on Facebook. If they are, they’ll find you; if you aren’t, you don’t get it, and they’re not going to waste their breath. No such restraint exercises itself among Ravellers, though.)

Posted by at 07:15 AM in Knitting | Link | Comment [4]

28 January 09

Pre-Felting: Socks for a Giant

Slippers before felting I’m taking a woodworking class in order to be able to build simple things (like bluebird boxes or a cold frame for my tomatoes and peppers). Carpentry is not unlike knitting, bookmaking, or dressmaking. Cut or make the pieces and put them together. Adornments optional.

Posted by at 08:31 PM in Knitting | Link | Comment [3]

6 January 09

Alpaca Koolaid

I found myself in this funky yarn store in Woodland with a scary McCain truck outside and plastic lining on the windows looking for bulky cashmere for my mother’s birthday scarf but all they had was baby alpaca so I took it and ran away but the color wasn’t quite right so remembering you could dye yarn with Koolaid I dove into Safeway where I never go and where I won’t be recognized buying koolaid for god’s sake but I don’t even know what aisle it would be on is it with spices or sodas or even controlled substances but a kindly mother helped me without raising any eyebrows which gave me pause because she ought to have unless she dyes her own yarn too and I got home and filled the crockpot with water and four packets of grape koolaid and the alpaca and the house stank of summer 1967 and I pulled out this bordeaux-colored handful of worms and rinsed it and dried it and rolled it up and knitted it and the cats would just NOT leave it alone worse than catnip it was and they pulled and snagged at it so I had to do it over and this time it’s blocking in the car with no way for cats to get in. But you should smell the car.

You probably can. From wherever you are.

Posted by at 06:41 PM in Knitting | Link | Comment [9]

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