what am i doing?

I am easily affected by words. They can be magical, enveloping the reader in another time, awarding the reader a chance to experience the senses through a written communiqué and one's own imagination. Knowing this about me, you must understand a thesaurus is one of my favorite books to rummage through. I have three of them on my reference shelf: two are fair enough to use but not edited as well as I would like (and I just don't care for the fonts particularly); one has been previously moistened by a leaking water bottle (accidents happen) but this is by far my favorite issue and publisher, thus has been well used, with dog-eared corners and clear packing tape holding it together. Have you ever watched in horror as a paperback swells up to double its original size? It's not a pretty sight. Yet, this edition continues to work well for me and I am opposed to giving it up.

This discourse is not about words alone, but also photographs. Snapshots, taken by both amateur and professional, stop time for a split second, filling the mind with images of texture, shadow, and color. For some, a picture can be like a siren's call to the viewer, conjuring up stories and history.

If, as is sometimes the case in blog-land, there is a memorable fusion of both words and image, it can have consequences beyond the receiver's command. Such was my situation last week when my senses took a holiday while reading the bewitching words "Moroccan Days--Arabian Nights" and gazing at the sparkle of wee beads artfully knitted in splendid lacework.




Things to stock up on in the next week:

• a big bottle of Motrin
• a very teeny tiny crochet hook
• a magnetic chart keeper/holder
• beads: 5000, size 8

Why, you ask? Within the next week I will receive a package from Kim at The Woolen Rabbit. I partially blame Susan for designing a stunning lace wrap named "Moroccan Days/ Arabian Nights", Cass for giving her readers (like me) such powerful words as "swoon", and Ravelry for being so organized (of course there's a KAL). I can't be responsible. It's not my fault I am weak for words and shiny, pretty objects.

What am I doing? Breathe. Thirty inches wide and ninety inches long (it seems smaller when the numbers are written out as words) of lace and beads--5000 small beads. Breathe.

I'm regarding--ok, I'm ogling at--the photo again. Oh, so pretty. May the jinneyeh of the stories in "One Thousand and One Nights" guide me as I embark on my own journey of knitting what looks to me much like a magical carpet. Oh, what a ride it will be!



**These photos are from Flickr and Susan. I can only hope my final photos are as wonderful.

west-ward ho!

Stitch 'n Ride :: our own dedicated train from Sacramento to Santa Clara. The atmosphere was charged with fiber mojo (as well as caffeine) and, oh, the pageantry of delightful finished items on display was akin to a peacock convention.

"Not all those who wander are lost." ~~JRR Tolkien~~

Stitches West :: teeming with knitters, crafters, spinners, and...well, fiber. Oh, yes, I did indeed, wander. I explored the many dimensions of wool, cotton, alpaca, and buffalo (to name only a few).

In fact, I managed to get my passport stamped at all the required stations as proof of my thoroughness.




There were celebrities to be seen. Alas, cameras were a "no no" but I succeeded in getting a signature from Vicki Howell, host to DIY's Knitty Gritty. I know...I don't normally go in for that sort of thing, but I was caught up in the moment...must have been the wool in the air.

A few choice skeins of fiber were purchased (some arriving later through the mail) as well as a few patterns. For me, this trip was more of an exploration of the senses than of procurement. Sadly, a few vendors were sold out on Thursday and Friday, leaving an empty shell from which the spokespeople offered apologies.




"Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter." ~~Izaak Walton~~

Rain didn't dampen the stimulated spirits of over 400 knitters as we waited for the train, although I must say it was a quieter, more subdued group once the train began its gentle rocking on the tracks towards home. Maybe it was the sharing of newly acquired stash, or exhaustion, or the wine. Good times with good friends. Ahhh, what a day.

take the test, become the test

Traveling? New to your community? Looking for a yarn store? There's a new site, currently in beta phase, that is inviting knitters/crocheters/spinners to help build and test their data base of yarn stores. This new yarn store finder: catalogues and maps locations in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and most of Europe (wherever Google has maps) thus far.

They have a need for users to test the site, add stores and store details (name, hours, phone number, products, wifi capabilities, etc.), as well as leave comments. Add your favorite LYS to the growing list.

aurora borealis

Anna, of Knitting in Nature, has a contest that ends tomorrow, but I want to post about it quickly anyway. You can go to her blog here to read about it and see the wonderful colorway she wants to name. Below are the contest rules.

"NAME THAT COLORWAY" RULES:

1. First, come up with the perfect colorway name. Jokesters might gain extra merit, as long as it's to good humor. Post on THIS post's comment page ONLY!! Thanks. :)

2. Post these rules on your blog & your colorway idea. That way, no one will use something like it, by mere freak accident. Who ever finds out about this contest on your blog must refer you on this comment page below, before participating in the contest. (This is kind of like Lotus' Knits contest idea. But we will use a poll too...)
-->If you see your name (or blog address) on my comment page below, you can add another colorway name idea! The more referals for you, the better! Good luck to you all!

3. The top 3 best names will be put on a poll, so you all can vote!

4. Contest ends: Sunday, July 29th @ midnight!

I choose to name her wonderful colorway creation: Aurora Borealis. Look at the colorway below with the photos of the aurora borealis. You must agree that the swirling and changing of colors matches nicely with the dyes in the fiber.

(added at a later date): **Sadly...my fantastic name was not picked. La sigh!

where, oh where, on the list, am i

I am so very excited! Anne's post for today stated where she was on the Ravelry's wait list...sorry you are so far back Anne...which prompted me to check my standing. Look! Look!

• You signed up on May 31, 2007


• You are #6050 on the list.


• 494 people are ahead of you in line.


• 10434 people are behind you in line.


• 33% of the list has been invited so far

Haven't heard of Ravelry? Been on vacation or out of range of other knitters (or any fiber enthusiast) as well as the internet? Check it out here.

quality, not quantity

I apparently have too much time on my hands this morning: I am lurking and peeking in the "windows" of other bloggers. I will share...

Next fall I will need to start early in teaching students in my classroom to knit. In teaching them empathy for others and giving to others, I want them to contribute to the Red Scarf Project and/or the Dulaan Project. I found information on the Red Scarf Project 2008 that has changed my timing for this series of lesson plans from late fall/early winter to early fall. Yikes! There's also some fantastic advise on quality, not quantity that applies to not just these two projects but to all "community" projects.

cables and fur

Knitting cables shouldn't be that difficult...they aren't...I know they aren't. Just simple mathematics consisting of two stitches: knit and purl, sometimes held in front, sometimes in back, and twisted. Yes, twisted. Cruel and twisted. Somewhere along the cables I was blissfully knitting in the twilight hours just as the sun was setting this weekend, enjoying the pink, purple, and blue hues in the sky, enjoying no mosquitoes, enjoying the simplicity of a quick hat in yummy alpaca, I lost one stitch. I counted again. I squinted in the failing light (like I was gifted with better vision if I looked real close and narrowed my vision to devote all my energies into finding that stitch, that error). I was careful. I had counted out-loud. I had ignored conversation with my DH. I'm a visual person so I got out the graph paper and pictorially drew out the last several rows of stitches to compare with the disaster I had on my lap. Nope. Nothing. I counted the number of purls then knits then purls on the graph paper, compared it to the directions again to confirm correctness. Then compared stitch by stitch with my hat. Zip. Nada. Still missing one stitch. At this point I had put in over an hour of work and frustration because I was avoiding the inevitable...I had to take out my last row. Why couldn't it have been a row that was only straight-forward knit purl, no cable? So, here it sits on Wednesday, three days later, the hat still sitting in my basket looking just as luscious as I know it to be except it has been meticulously tinked back, stitch by stitch for three rows. Three, you question? Well, even though only the last row was *foo-barred* I managed to mess up the other two in the process. Lessons: don't knit in the dark and it takes less time to just rip out a big section of knitting than try to save each stitch. Too much love can be a dangerous thing.

Da Vinci gets brushed at least three times a day, more if he can beg his way into it. This is a good thing (that he likes to be brushed) since his long, dense fur is prone to felting on its own. In just a few short days, the brush fills up with his undercoat. Humm...I wonder if it can be spun into yarn? If I combine that with the dust-bunnies--well, more like dust-buffaloes--that seem to multiply and spread into all the corners of my house each week, I could have a nice side business. Too bad there are those poor people who are allergic to cats. I pondered this thought to my DH, the civil engineer nerd who is usually so practical and keeps me on track even though he doesn't really fit into the "engineer nerd" mold. He got this "I can't believe what I just heard" look on his face, those gorgeous hazel eyes that are normally a green hue turning a grey (from fear I think), like he knew I was really going to do this. Wow. I was just communicating. Although... What do the spinners out there in blogland think? Surely spinning long cat hair has been bantered around in small closed door meetings?

learning from children

This week at my knitting group, a fellow knitter (duh!) and friend was lamenting about not being able to knit with a two-year-old close by (ha, I wonder why?!). I gave her an idea to try at home to maybe free up his little fingers from her yarn and into a project of his own...

Her email to me: "Thank you so much for the sewing card idea for my son. I had some scrap mat board and some cloth ribbon in my craft closet so I made a quick card to see if he was interested. At first he just wanted to tie his cars and trucks up with the ribbon, but then he wanted me to show him how to sew and he was hooked. He does a very nice job."

I love the concept of first using the ribbon to tie up cars and trucks. How funny! I find it fascinating how children think and use what's around them. This is why I have a degree in child development. I also have a daily excuse to play in the dirt and mud, roll in the grass, jump up and down like a marionette in public, and...well, you get the idea. Teachers can act crazy and do things that are considered "odd" by the adult-world standards (whatever they are--remember I'm a teacher and I don't subscribe to that rule book most of the time). Oh, the caveat: the teacher must be with children, the younger the better, to do this. Older children, and especially teenagers, are prone to fits of their own upon seeing an adult veer away from what other adults do (even more extreme if it's the parents involved in the behavior). It is not uncommon to have these older children create a distance between the themselves and the "strange acting" adult, which leaves the adult vulnerable to public ridicule and embarrassment. As a teacher, it helps to have the school district i.d. badge prominently displayed around the neck on a lanyard just in case someone has mistaken you for a crazed mother who has had one too many sleepless nights.

There is the same phenomenon of separation and distancing between a knitter and "muggles" (thank you Stephanie Pearl-McPhee for the reference) when the craft is applied in public. Acceptable public venues seem to be: doctor's/dentist's/hospital offices/waiting rooms, tea/coffee shops, airports, Amtrak train stations, standing in long lines, hotel lobbies, hostels, camp grounds, between classes at university, the Rivercats games (there is even an annual "Stitch and Pitch" game)--to name a few. Public venues that appear to cause long, open stares, whispering, and finger-pointing: lunch-time at work, breaks at meetings, movie theater (before the movie begins), anywhere you would like to get a few rows finished while waiting for something to start or finish because it's the only free time you may get.

Children have no issues doing/working on a project in public...it's a learned trait to pull back those "urges" and conform to social standards. This wasn't always the case. I knit in public, always carrying my basket with me just in case I have a moment or two. It might bother me, but I keep focused on my project and if I get those stares and finger-pointing, I don't see them. Remember, I'm a teacher and am used to being "different". Maybe it's different in other countries. Let me know if it's so.

yummy treats

Three Lopi pattern books! I have already started on one using the yarn featured. More to come as the project starts looking like something...I frogged three times (wrong color combo, twisting, and skirmish with the cat where wool was partially digested before being thrown-up) but the number four seems to be working for me. Until I get to the yoke, it's pretty boring with knit, knit, knit in the round. The main body color? The dark green, which is not as shiny as it appears in the photo (early morning lighting and a bit of the wrong angle).

Starting with a few key ingredients--"three crab" fish sauce, rice sticks (noodles), peanut oil, garlic, fresh limes, hot sauce, and fresh cilantro from the garden--(this is not all of them, and of course I made a few adjustments to the original recipe--who cooks directly item by item, word by word from a recipe anyway?) and the wonderful recipe from Ruth Reichl's book, Garlic and Sapphires...

...this

delectable

dinner

was created and eaten with relish.

Just "warm" from the hot sauce, tangy from the fresh lime juice and fresh cilantro added at the last minute.