A lace maze is in jest

2011-11-15T18:09:00.001-08:00

No pictures just now, I'm afraid, but I did want to check in and let you know I'm still alive. I'm at the Entomological Society of America meeting in Reno right now and not on my laptop proper. I did manage to get some pictures with Bug Girl, so I hope to post them when I get back. I've also managed to get lots of video of entomologists sending messages to the high school kids I'm working with, so I'm excited to post those as well. I'm wondering, having been inspired by Bug Girl, if it would be a good thing to start an entomologically-themed blog. I'm not sure my attention span is good enough or what my message is, but I do like bugs and I do like science outreach. I'll give it a think anyway.I've connected with so many people at this meeting, not only through entomology, but through knitting as well. I'm working on a pair of socks, as one does at these things, (okay, as I do) and have been able to encourage several people to pick up the craft or pick it up again. I've talked about the benefits of knitting and the devaluing of traditionally female crafts. I didn't want to go to this meeting at first. There's so much I could have gotten done at home, but this really has been valuable for me. All the same, I can't wait to get back.

Proud, but not prideful

2011-10-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

You can tell this isn't Kansas because it's in color.

One of the first full garments I ever sewed by myself was a Wednesday Addams dress for Halloween one year and I still have it in my closet. Mom helped, of course, but she claims it's all my work and I can't help but be a little proud of it.

I made the above dress for Iris in '04 and the pattern is more fiddly than it looks, but that there is Dorothy Gale's dress. It's a licensed pattern, so it's the official Wizard of Oz Dorothy dress. I even compared it to the movie to make sure it was right and not some half-baked approximation.

There's been a Halloween costume dry spell the past few years and I've partly been thankful for it. Grad school occupies my brain like the 99% on Wall St., only it's been going on for much longer and I'm more willing to give into its demands. She's been wearing the costumes from her dance recitals and it's great she gets some additional use from them, but every year she doesn't ask me to make something for her, I feel a little bit like a kicked puppy.

Maybe that's silly, but in my head Mama is supposed to make the Halloween costumes. That's part of what a good mama does and it's one of the parts I really like. I like making something for the offspring that she's excited to wear and while I've made her lots of clothes, a Halloween costume is special.

Anyway, it's that time of year again and much to my relief, she's asked me to make her a fairy costume. She wanted a skirt and I suggested a vest to help hold up her wings. First, she wanted to be a woodland fairy and I'm thinking, "Browns and greens - no problem." I even found a camo that might have worked very well for such a thing. Unfortunately, she changed her mind in the fabric store. She wanted to be a rainbow fairy instead and no, there was no way to change her mind.

Sassy!

We got the last bit of a rainbow striped quilter's cotton and it was perfect. In fact, I think this is some of my best work. The black panel has a black lace layered in front of the cotton to give it a little opacity and it makes the other colors really grab your retinas and smack 'em around a bit. Both of the black fabrics were stash. Pro tip: Children grow. Measure them before you cut fabric to make a garment. Sure, you may have measured them last week, but they probably grew last night. I must admit to inserting this panel because I failed to measure the kiddo before cutting. It turned out to be a happy accident.

The closure is an invisible zipper and hook-and-eye, but the waistband has elastic in it to allow for growth of said kiddo. She should be able to wear it for a couple more inches of tummy growth. That might be a month or a couple years-- it's hard to say. Anyway, it fits perfectly, drapes well, the zipper looks great, and it the whole garment is the exact perfect thing for her. Not to mention that she loves it and is excited to wear it for Halloween. The part I'm really proud of is that I made this entirely without a pattern. I made it with maths from my brain.

I feel like a good mom again and that here's something that's as it should be. I feel talented and competent. I feel proud.

...but not prideful. I thank Athene for granting me skill with a needle, I thank Bekah for being a good influence in the use of references, I thank Iris for asking me to make this for her, I thank the Kindergarten teacher who suggested I learn to sew, and most of all, I thank my mom for teaching me.

It's not because I don't love you

2011-10-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

Support Public Radio: They don't yell at you in the morning.

I'm continuing apace with handkerchief production, having finished one with a pine branch, one with the chemical structure of serotonin and the words "Serotonin: get happy!" and another one with initials on. I've got another with initials in the queueue...ue..ue and have plans to coffee dye one and stitch the chemical structure for caffeine in brown.

Anyway, I hope this ennui passes, though with October being fully itself and November looming on the horizon, I remain unconvinced. At least some stitching of some kind is getting done.

I've also got a Halloween costume to sew for a little girl and more presents to make than I really have time to make. If you don't get anything from me this year, it's not because I don't love you.

In other news, fall break for Iris and the school I'm working at has ended, so it's back to work for me tomorrow. Additionally, I just got the window on my Volvo fixed and it cost nearly as much as the car. (Say it with me: "Cheaper than a car payment. Cheaper than a car payment..." It's the cash-payer's mantra.) I managed to fix the fuel door myself and the head liner is high up on my list next to the trim piece that came unglued. That is, barring any unforeseen circumstances (Hephaestos forbid!). Lastly, husband's birthday is on Tuesday. Incidentally, it's also National Coming Out Day.

There's a lot going on here

2011-10-03T07:51:00.000-07:00

Last night, Bubby and I went to a show on campus for an evening of free entertainment. We were up a little later than usual, so she's still sacked out in bed, but we had a grand time. She has had a deep fascination with China for some time now, so when I dropped her off for Chinese lessons last time, they gave us tickets to Song of Silk. The show was a mix of dance, music, and theater from many different regions of China, including a yak dance from Tibet. Her favorite part was the fan dance, but they had a demonstration of several instruments that was also very cool. There's one called the suona that can, apparently, hold its own with a set of bagpipes.

No lie. They didn't need a microphone for it. There were, sadly, no bagpipes or men in kilts last night, but we did see a dude in a fabulous hat.

We also saw a lady play the pipa, which I have dubbed the Chinese banjo. This video is of the lady we saw playing the same song we heard last night.

I would love to hear the pipa and the banjo together. That would make my day.

In other news, I haven't been doing much knitting lately. My knitting mojo has wandered off to Bermuda and is probably sipping mojitos and making a lovely scarf. If you see it, send it home, willya?

I did manage to finish a pair of circle socks (Ravelry link) and have been doing a fair bit of embroidery as well. I finished a couple of for-sale hankies and have lately been working on gift hankies for the menfolk I know and am related to. This is in preparation for the winter holiday season and I fear that I'm just not going to be able to finish all my making this year. I'm not sure I ever do, but I've been quite busy lately and having difficulty finding time that isn't occupied by something - mostly somethings that are not conducive to knitting. I've also lost my needle gauge, which makes the whole process a little more frustrating.

I'm sure that my knitting mojo will eventually miss me and come back home, hopefully with my needle gauge, and I can commence to knitting again. In the mean time, here are some pictures of recently embroidered hankies.

This one is just some freehand vines and leaves. I'd planned some kind of trumpet flower to go with, but decided to leave it as-is.

To the left we see poppies, a fairly common theme in embroidery. To the right and on the opposite corner of the same hanky is the chemical structure for morphine.

The biggest trick lately is balancing all of the things and doing them as well as is reasonably expected. I think I'm doing okay at it, actually, but I do miss knitting. I am deciding to take comfort in the fact that I'm not unproductive, I'm just productive in different areas of my life.

Relax, Cupcake!

2011-09-05T20:35:00.000-07:00

Kirk's Cupcake

So, this is not actually a picture of my husband. It's not far off, though.

I know this will come as a shock to all of you, but Husband and I are pretty big in the Star Trek geek department. One of us writes fanfic, one of us plays STO, and between the both of us, we could tell you just about anything from TOS to the most recent movie.

There's nothing sexier than a big nerdy guy who's trained in take-down techniques and knows what you mean when you say your gaming group is going to be on an Akira-class ship in the new Trek campaign. Yeah, that's nerdiness to the nth degree, I tell you what.

My Cupcake

This is Husband. You'll note he's got more hair up top. I kinda miss the beard, which he has since shaved off. sigh What a handsome guy.

Anyway, enough of that nonsense. The stress that always comes this time of year when school starts and there are a hundred different things gearing up has finally begun to subside. It's also the middle of Birthdaypalooza here at the house, mine having just passed, the little one's being tomorrow, and the big man's coming up in October.

Making cake is fun and it's not often that I decide to really do it up bigtime. Really, Chekov/Sulu-related fic fests and Bubby's birthday are about it. Now, I'm not a gourmet cupcake-making person, I don't have much in the way of specialty equipment, but my artist's heart likes to come out and play with color, no matter what the medium may be.

We started with Pillsbury "Funfetti" cake batter because that's what she wanted and then dropped in some food coloring until it was just the right shade of pale blue-green. Now, I never can get quite two dozen out of a box mix and, being that there are 21 kids in her class and her teacher deserves a cupcake, too, I had to make the full two dozen. I ended up cracking open my trusty Joy of Cooking and flipped to a quickie cake recipe. In this case, "quickie" means that we used the 'lectric mixer. Y'know, like "quickie" mashed potatoes.

With food, it can be good or it can be fast. Rarely is it both.

Anyway, I whipped that up and voilá! More than enough batter! I actually made sixteen more cupcakes than were needed. They were slightly flatter than their box-cake counter parts, but that could have been easily fixed. I think I was a little batter-stingy toward the end, there. I'm particularly pleased that when I tried one of the surplus, it was soft and fluffy and cake-like where my previous homemade cake attempts had been...

...dense.

Birthday Cupcakes

Those are cupcake-flavored goldfish on the top and I was quite pleased how the combination of blue and green decorating spray made a lovely sea green/ocean blue. That stuff is amazing and I feel like a dang genius.

In the interest of full disclosure, Little Bit did most of the box-cake mixing and baking, reading the instructions, measuring, and putting the first batch in the oven. The only thing I did was mix while she very carefully added food coloring and measure out batter into cups. Bedtime came before decorating time, but she could have done all of this herself. I'm proud of how self-sufficient she is becoming and while baking cupcakes isn't an essential life skill, knowing how to read and interpret recipe directions (or any kind of directions) is. With these tools, I don't have to worry whether she'll be able to feed herself good food when she grows up. Whether she chooses to is another matter; at least she'll be able to.

Today has been quite relaxing, as was yesterday. I actually spent some time on the Echo Flowers shawl (which Little Bit is convinced is going to be hers) and carding and spinning some hand-dyed wool. It's beet/curry flavored, which makes for an exciting orangey color. I'm a little excited to try out some cream of tartar/alum mordant for my next batch involving some shriveled-up beets in my crisper. I had intended to try to make a further dent in the llama, but did this instead. I needed the break.

I needed the break from school and from all the responsibilities that seem to pile up quicker than compost at a commune and I had that opportunity today. I hope this will allow me to face the coming weeks with renewed strength. I think it will.

I did it myself

2011-08-29T06:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was lovely and relaxing. I spent most of the morning with good friends, then went out with the offspring to get a couple zippers and to look at birthday-related things. Though I'd planned to finish up at least one of the skirts I'd started to make for her, I got on a crayon-making kick. You see, I've wanted to make new crayons from old since I was a wee one and when Crayola finally came out with a crayon maker, I was thrilled and went right out and bought one. Unfortunately, the mold wasn't very sturdy and crumbled after a while (several years, I think) and there aren't any replacements, so I can't make crayon-shaped crayons anymore. I had an idea that one might take candy molds instead, so I thought I'd give it a try. Blending colors is a little different with this process and in order to get the streaks and swirls that the original crayon maker made, you have to start with a base color and add shavings and other bits of color after the hot wax is poured into the mold. It helps if the wax is good and hot so it melts the shavings on contact. If you were to try this at home, only use low heat and good crayon pieces. Crayola and Rose Art are fine, but I wouldn't use anything else.

The results were great! The only difficulty I have now is that I haven't got enough crayon pieces. If ever there was an indication that I need to color more, that's it.

My other Sunday project was to finally replace the taillights on my car. Generally, I like to have someone else do car maintenance and repair for me, but I had the utmost confidence I could do it. The hardest part was remembering which wires went where and putting the bulbs back in. They're a little fussy, but I eventually managed. It turns out that there's this vast underworld of people who restore Volvos. Who knew? At any rate, this means that I can the parts I need and short of anything that requires me to take parts of the engine out, I can fix things on my car. Woo! Next on my list is the head liner fabric and any of the bits of missing trim I can find. I can even get a replacement hinge for the little door that goes over the gas cap.

Look at that butt

I'm certain there are professionals that could have done a much better job of it, but the brake lights and turn signals all function and it looks a hundred percent better than before. Throwing out the old lights was cathartic and I've been walking around with my head a little higher ever since. Sure, it wasn't a major job, but it was my job and I did it myself.

I don't look good in yellow anyway

2011-07-25T08:05:00.000-07:00

So, the Tour de Fleece is over and while I didn't finish the llama, I did make a decent-sized dent in it. Mind you, I haven't been as gung-ho about the Tour de Fleece as I get about the Olympics and I've been distracted by shiny objects, but I did participate.

I think that, for the rest of the month, I shall focus on WIPs. I've got several now that are just kind of waiting in the wings for me to work on them. To be quite truthful, I've been neglectful of almost everything lately. I haven't been exercising, working in the lab, doing housework, or doing very many of my fiber-related projects. I'm only just now catching up and starting to do housework again and I'm planning to go into the lab today. Right now, I think I'm going to wake the sleeping offspring and knit some lace.

Running to Stand Still

2011-07-20T08:40:00.000-07:00

The past couple of weeks I've been doing training for the fellowship I'm on and it's left me pretty much wrung-out and exhausted. I hadn't seen my family much and haven't been doing the things I love to do, let alone the things I have to do to maintain the upkeep of the house. Let's not even talk about the research. My poor butterflies remain neglected in their drawers.

Also, my keyboard and mouse are acting up, but I can't get a new one 'til next paycheck. Pff

I did manage to finish the watermelon socks and get started on sock #2 of the circle socks. I forget who I'm making them for, but it's not for me. I think they're for a women's size six, but I'm having trouble remembering who wears that size shoe. The solution will present itself, I'm sure.

As for the Tour de Fleece, I think I might be starting to make a dent in the llama, but I've not been spinning or carding every day. It's a little bit catch as catch can, but I'm finally getting through the lightest part of the fleece and will be moving on to the brown bits. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with the finished product, but I'm thinking woven blanket.

I did get my iPad in the mail last week and I'm absolutely loving the thing. I have no fewer than three ways to take notes or make lists of things and a game with cutie little froggies that I've been obsessively playing.

With any luck, I'll update again this Sunday - maybe even with pictures!

Love imposes impossible tasks

2011-07-03T22:40:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not know, we have just begun the Tour de Fleece and the challenge I have chosen to accept is probably on par with a 3600km bicycle race. I have decided to card and spin the box o' llama, heretofore known as "The Beast." I will tackle the Beast, carding and spinning until I have defeated it and it has become yarn. I'm not sure I'll make it, but I've got to try. The fate of... uh, The fate of all future yarns depends on it! (Yeah, that's it!)

A challenge is no fun if it's easily done. This is why I participate in the Knitting Olympics and with the volume of fiber in my possession, joining the Tour de Fleece was only necessary to tackle the Beast. Whether I finish or not, I'll at least manage to make a dent in the thing and that is worth it. It's a good thing I love spinning yarn.

I recently set forth a challenge for people to post their positive interfaith stories and so far, so good! Here in the South, it is a particular challenge to have positive conversations about religion, but it is possible. No matter where you live, you can be an agent of peace and awesomeness. You can reach out your hand to another person and if you proceed with love and peace, you'll eventually find someone who will shake your hand.

Love imposes impossible tasks,
but no more than any heart asks

Spin wool, talk to people. Exceedingly simple, yet surprisingly difficult, but by rising to meet these challenges, we become better people. We find that impossible tasks can be overcome and that they're not so impossible after all.

Many will enter, only one will win

2011-06-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

I have no pictures today because yesterday was spent running around in my best friend's backyard and I'm sure everyone is sore today. I know I am, but not as much as the ones who did the three-mile walking race, then the sprint shortly thereafter.

Pro tip: stretch before and after.

I've been slacking off a bit in the needled arts in preparation for this weekend's Midsummer Games and hopefully I can get some pictures to share. I was busy refereeing, but that's fun for me. My favorite is the part at the end of the day when everyone falls over, exhausted, and says "Man, that was fun!" The prize was just a cheesy plastic gold medal, but there are bragging rights that went with it. Amongst this lot, we had eight pies and six cooks who thought his or hers was the best one. Eight pies enter. One pie leaves. The Twister competition was just epic and even the kids had a great time. Iris did very well and the best friend's middlest child also did quite well. Her youngest ended up not winning anything, but he did finish the three miles and I'm very proud of him for that. He's not quite there when it comes to being okay with his personal best, but he's got good parents that will help him get there.

I'm so, so proud of when he tried and I hated seeing him upset, but not everyone can win. It's more important, really, to do your personal best and if your personal best is better than your competitors' personal best, then great! If not, that's okay, too. You're not going to get a cheesy plastic medal for it, but you'll know you put forward all you could and really, there's so much you can learn from loss. There are those parents who would hand out trophies to their kids for just showing up, but the truth is that this just makes adults who expect rewards for having a pulse. We don't become skilled without challenges and without learning how to win and lose, we won't learn how to deal with both gain and loss and we lose our impetus to increase our skill. Why become skilled if you're going to be given a trophy for showing up?

Anyway, I have ideas and plans for next year. We raised about $10 for the National Kidney Foundation to honor a dear friend of ours that passed this time last year. It isn't much, but it's $10 more than there was before, so that's a win, too. One of my biggest hopes is not only that our local community strives for the best of what they can do, but also makes a habit of charitable giving. After all, what you give really does come right back to you.

Focus, dude.

2011-06-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to make my blackberry cobbler. I almost don't want to eat it, it's so pretty. I don't know how it tastes yet, but for a first attempt at cobbler, this looks pretty darn good and my confidence is high for the peach season. I have very fond memories of blackberry cobbler and I can't help but think of my Mamaw. She had blackberry bushes upon which the best blackberries on the planet grew and would sometimes make a cobbler from them.

This one consists of a little over a quart of blackberries from the market, sweetened with a little honey, and a little cornstarch and water added for thickening. On top is a basic biscuit dough, made in the manner of drop biscuits so as to be a little more fluid and less stiff than roll-em-out biscuits. Combine fruit, honey, cornstarch and water, and pour into 8" baking dish. Make up biscuit dough, drop onto the top of the berry mixture, and bake at 425ºF for 30 minutes.
I try to live my life in bits and pieces, taking it not one day at a time but one moment in time. It keeps me sane and keeps me from getting too wrapped up in thinking about the future or the past. There are times when I get distracted from this and last night was one of those times. Caught up in my own thoughts last night, I locked the door and turned off the lights to get ready for bed and instead of giving my eyes a moment to adjust to the dark, I just walked toward my bed like I knew where I was going. I walked smack into a wall so hard that I saw stars and fell on my butt. I'm pretty sure I did some damage to my nose, which bled some last night, is bruised today, and hurts when I chew. We can make pretty dumb mistakes when we're distracted. Last Thursday, I backed into a dude's truck and busted out my taillight. He was parked illegally, but I was once again caught up in my own thoughts and not paying as close attention as I otherwise would have. It's the typical absentminded professor schtick, caught up in thinking so much that worldly concerns such as the location of giant red trucks and solid walls tend to fall to the wayside. Such was the case with the accidental blueberry pie as well. I try not to dwell on these mistakes too much because doing dumb things is a part of being human.

Moments come and go. They're transitory by their very nature, but they can be pretty awesome as well. Here's another example of pied beauty from the balcony garden and it's not going to be around for very long, but I'm sure enjoying it while it's here.

I've mostly got plain orange ones in the garden, which I enjoy, but I'm also loving how each of these yellow and red ones is completely unique in size and color pattern. I have no idea how many or which genes are at work here, but the result makes me clap my hands in giddy exaltation of the wonders of nature! This one seems to be somewhat dwarfed at about half the size of a normal bloom, but the colors are bright and cheerful. We'll just call it "fun sized," shall we?

Lace knitting is one of those things that requires concentration, but that can still be taken in bits and pieces, moment by moment, stitch by stitch. This is not an easy form of meditation, but I am told that meditation is best when it doesn't work perfectly. I finished another repeat today and had to tink and adjust more times than I care to admit, but still managed to get through the several rows to earn my "finished a repeat" sticker. This was a case of concentrate or completely mess up; there was no in-between. Do or do not; there is no try.

Even though I've lost my focus several times this week, I don't fear that I'm losing it completely. It's just work to keep it up, is all.

2011-06-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

Today I'd intended to make a blackberry cobbler, but ended up making a rather soupy blueberry pie. I'd meant to blanch the blueberries for a few seconds so that I could freeze them, but instead steamed the crap out of them. I recovered them as best as I could, made a crust, and put them into a pie. It's not my best work, but it still tasted like blueberry pie.

Iris was helping to make biscuits this morning and too much goat milk went in, so we ended up with drop biscuits instead of roll-'em-out biscuits. They turned out very fluffy and good.

Many people say that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I say that lemons are inevitable. Learning to make lemonade from them requires a bit of time and effort, but it's well worth it. So I overcooked my blueberries instead of steam-blanching them. Maybe next time I'll pay better attention. Okay, so this blueberry pie wasn't my best work. Maybe I can make the filling thicker next time. So my biscuit dough wasn't firm enough to roll out. So what. We had tasty drop biscuits instead.

I've decided that "Inevitable Lemons" is our next band name.

"Screaming Names" is also a pretty good band name and behind it is a pretty good band as well. (Nice segue, Jess!) I went out with Husband to a show at The Pond in Franklin and was delighted to see our dear friend Randy, the one responsible for helping Husband and I get together. We saw Randy's good friend Miss Lolly Pop as last night's MC for the Saturday Night Special, a "Brolesque" show by Meat and Three, and the comedian, Mr. Peter Depp. A good time was had by all. I wish I had more than a Facebook page for the event, but there it is anyway.

I did manage to turn the heel and start the gusset on my watermelon socks during the show and, of course, Randy sniggered at my knitting the whole time. If I'd have been clever, I'd have brought my camera to take pictures of the sock with these wonderful performers, but no. I was not so clever. The sock, the Husband, and I had a fantastic time anyway.

Glory be to God for dappled things

2011-05-30T17:13:00.000-07:00

Pied beauty

One of the most fun things about my garden is that it's a genetic crapshoot. I collect seeds wherever I might find them and then see what comes up the next year. Each flower that blooms or plant hat bears fruit is a surprise and I can see why Gregor Mendel would be fascinated by how this works. Sometimes I'll get plain orange or yellow ones and sometimes I get funky blotched or striped ones. Who knows what the progeny of this flower will look like! The marigolds are starting to really bloom now and I get giddy over every one of them.

We had omelets and hash browns for dinner one night last week because Bubby requested breakfast for dinner. She had originally requested omelets and eggs, but we decided that it would be redundant. I am happy to report, however that there are finally tomatoes at the Farmer's market! They're not as good as they will be in a couple weeks, but they were okay.

Along with Spaghetti Sunday, we've also been making biscuits on Sunday morning. I am, of course, teaching Bubby how.

Growing up, I thought that everyone knew how to cook and that biscuits were a basic staple food that every mother or grandmother could make. I had no idea that there were parts of the world that were deprived of fluffy breadly goodness and that biscuits would just always kind of be there.

Of course, in order for them to continue being there, we must continue to make them and I hope that this little one will pass on the skill at some point in her life. I'm not afraid of biscuit-making dying out or anything, but it does happen to be part of my culture and I would be remiss if I didn't pass it along. I'm still improving at it myself, partly because I'm using butter and goat's milk instead of shortening and buttermilk, but they turn out quite tasty.

It's a work in progress, but perhaps I'll get it by the time I'm a granny.

This week, I used Hatcher's Dairy unsalted butter and Noble Springs goat's milk. They were a little flat, but still good and I think that if I kneaded them a little less and rolled them out a little thicker, they'd have been perfect. It's possible they needed a skosh more flour, too.

All in all they were a biscuit success, in spite of their moderate flatness.

In other news, I worked on some piecing this week as well, mainly playing with color more than pattern. I ended up with twenty-eight six-inch squares, twenty-five of which I suppose will be about a lap-sized quilt when it's done. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but I think it will be pretty all the same. The other three squares were odds and ends that I'll make into potholders.

I am having some guilt over not having finished Iris's quilt. The only thing to be done about that, of course, is to work on it, but either my motivator's busted or I've just got too much going on. I suspect the latter.

Pot holders are my short attention span quilting and piecing. They use up scraps and I can make something quick, pretty, and useful. This is a series of ladybug pot holders all but one of which I'm going to put up in the shop when I update. Iris claimed the center one, which had a "flaw" in it. The red plaid square wasn't big enough, so I pieced one. I don't consider it a flaw, really because she ended up liking it because it wasn't like the other ones. Like the marigolds, it was funky and different, which made it cool and desirable. So, she decided she wanted this instead of her usual income for doing a good job on her room this week. I was happy to oblige. I am thrilled whenever she takes a liking to something I've made.

So, of course, she wants me to make her more things. This thing is not for her. This one is for me. I'm not even through the first repeat of the lotus blossom tank and I have a niggling worry about gauge and fit.

I tend to be a "product" knitter rather than a "process" knitter, so of course I want this to be functional and to fit. We'll see how it works out. I'm trying to be mindful about knitting this one in the hopes that I can enjoy the process as much as the potential product.

Nothing is perfect. My marigolds are splotchy, my biscuits are flattish, my potholders are funky, my quilt blocks don't exactly match, and my tank top already has mistakes in it that I'm not going to point out to anyone. Perfection is overrated anyway. Imperfection is far more interesting and within imperfection is the space to learn and grow. I'd much rather have a thousand splotchy funky marigolds than a single "perfect" one.

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

A little of this, a little of that, and a mushroom shaped like a butt.

2011-05-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

I've been having one of those couple of weeks where knitting has kind of fallen to the side, but I have actually been knitting a little bit and I've been doing some sewing as well. I'll come back with photos of my needled shenanigans later. I finished a set of ladybug-themed pot holders that are to be put up in the Etsy shop and did some cutting for a lap-sized or so quilt in purples and pinks and blues. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but it's going to be pretty. I may make it bigger than that since I went a little overboard with the cutting, but whatever it ends up looking like, it will be loved, I'm sure. I also embroidered an E. coli in a bluish green on a hanky. I've worked on my travel sock and I started my Lotus Blossom Tank (Ravelry link). I'm concerned about gauge. My swatches lied to me several times, so I just started knitting the smallest size in the recommended needle size and I'm really hoping that it's going to come out to be close enough. I'm also concerned about proportions because it's sized for average types and not for petite types. The straps on tank tops are consistently irksome to me because they're always too long. This makes the neckline lower than I'm comfortable and the whole thing ends up not fitting properly. With any luck, I'll be able to make alterations so that I don't have that problem.

And now for something completely different:
My spaghetti sauce: let me tell you about it.

I make spaghetti for dinner on Sundays. I also make biscuits for breakfast, but I'll get back to that later. Since I learned to make my own sauce, I've reserved the stuff from the jar for occasions when I'm just too tired to cook or too short on time or what have you. By and large, the sauce I make is pretty much homemade from what happens to be available. Sometimes, like last week, I'll have some mushrooms, so in they go. Here's a mushroom piece shaped like a butt.

This week I had some red bell pepper from something I decided not to make, some carrots that were starting to look a little sad, and a fair number of things from the farmer's market. I spent a little too much, but came back with some fantastic stuff. There were green onions and garlic scapes this week as well as wee tiny baby yellow squashes, so all that went in, too. I try to freeze some of the leftovers, which has served as an excellent plan in case there's nothing else to eat in the house and I can tell about what time of year I made it because of what's in it. Kale and carrots means winter. Zucchini, squash, and extra diced tomatoes means mid-summer. Grabbing a container from the freezer and finding late spring or summer inside is like an oregano-infused trip back in time.

Taste the rainbow!

I am in love with summer and the wonderful things this Earth can produce. I love this place and the ground I walk on. So, to the people in charge of Tennessee state law, what is this? And this? Don't we have better things to concern ourselves with than restricting the rights of human beings? I believe we have a budget to balance, hungry people to feed, homeless to care for, streets to keep safe, and many other matters that are far more worth the attention of our legislature. I have seen it said more times than I care to count that Tennessee is stupid or that Tennessee sucks. No. WRONG. Tennessee is wonderful. Tennessee has things like alpaca farms and beautiful hills and Graceland and Johnny Cash and muscadine wine and Dolly Parton and Memphis barbecue and the nice lady that sells the goat cheese, and, y'know, me and this kid.

Ballet dancer and card shark

The clowns in office suck (clowns frighten me and so do these guys). They are doing stupid things. Tennessee is great. Do not malign my state for the terrible things that legislators are doing to it. Instead, watch George Takei being awesome and inspiring people as he calls out the jerkwalters up in Nashville.

That's right, George. You tell 'em.

And now, just so you don't leave here too angry, here's another gratuitous pic of the offspring.

All shall love me and despair!

We interrupt your regular knit blog for these pontificating messages

2011-05-15T07:52:00.000-07:00

This past year has been an interesting one for me and it's probable that both of you who are reading this have been with me for the entirety of this journey. I've been thinking a lot about my career path and my spiritual path as I continue to work on my thesis and move toward the end of the Master's degree journey. There's so much here that I've worked to build in my local community and so much more that I want to do, but it seems that my academic and spiritual paths are diverging.
I'm not entirely convinced that this is the case now. I'm going to have to leave the town I've grown to know as home and the spiritual community that has offered me support for so long so that I can pursue a PhD in my field of study. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love biology. I've been a scientist longer than I've been a Pagan and, in fact, became a Pagan because I'm a scientist. A religion based on the natural cycles of the Earth just makes a kind of sense to me that other faiths didn't.
Anyway, no matter where I go, I'm going to take my spiritual path with me. It's more portable than travel socks. I know I can do a lot of good here and I'm grateful for the friends I've made, the family I know, and the bridges I've built, but I'm now beginning to accept that the way in which my spiritual life is going to be turned upside-down as I reach for that next degree can but lead me to where I need to be as both a scientist and a priestess. My chosen career path lead me to where I needed to be to begin with, so there's no reason that it should be any different now.
With any luck, graduation is about a year away, but I'm hoping that coming to this conclusion now will serve to motivate me in doing what needs to be done for my thesis and whatever else I've got going on. It's going to be okay, no matter what. I don't know what the tapestry of life looks like or why it is that the Fates are weaving me in a particular direction, but I can go with it and be the best example of myself that I can manage. That's really all a gal can do.
...we now return you to your regularly scheduled knit blog.

You can't be sad when there are Cheerios

2011-05-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

Who needs milk?

According to this picture, which is one I remember from a history textbook in my early undergrad days when I was still taking core requirement classes. This happy little family looks quite snug in their bomb shelter as they await nuclear holocaust and the end of days. They can't be sad, even though Washington D.C, has probably been turned to a field of glass, Oak Ridge is but a glowing wasteland, and every Air Force base in the country has been flattened. Despite the utter destruction of most of North America in this scenario, they're as happy as can be. Why?

They've stocked up on Cheerios.

How can you be sad when there's a happy yellow box of Cheerios to keep you company during total nuclear destruction?

You can't.

I must admit that through the many layers of sarcasm and cynicism above, I actually have an honest to goodness weakness in my otherwise hard little heart for Cheerios. I'm convinced that in addition to whole grain oats and other such things that one normally puts in cereal, they also add some kind of habit-forming substance. I love plain Cheerios straight from the happy yellow box and I love them in milk with their can't sink 'em positivity and I love them with fresh strawberries.

Seriously, it does not get any better than this.

I'm hoping that all this rain we've been having means strong, healthy tomatoes and a bumper crop of strawberries. Anyone who knows me knows that fruit is candy when you are me. Yeah, yeah, Easter candy, whatever. Scoff! Bring me some mothafrakkin' berries and fresh peaches. That is the good stuff.

Thargelia/Beltaine, heretofore to be referred to as Tharjellybean, went quite well. My only regret is that I can't process dairy as well as I'd like because this stuff with fresh local whipped cream and shortcake from Claire is probably the best thing since ever. You could initiate world peace with that stuff and not have to fire a shot. This is the best of half a flat of berries, most of which went into the freezer. Some of that will be saved for Tu B'Shvat in February and the rest will be conserved for eating in winter when there are no fresh berries to be had. I can't wait for the peaches, but I'm existing in strawberry space-time now and loving every gorram minute of it. I won't want to leave, but then there will be peaches, so that'll be okay.

This seasonal eating thing has changed not only how I eat, but also how I practice as a Pagan. It's one thing to say that, as a Pagan, we love Nature. It's another thing to have a celebration because you haven't had any motherfucking strawberries in months-- and you know how I feel about strawberries. It's one thing to dance about and be happy at the change in seasons and it's quite another to thank the everlasting gods for when there's finally fresh tomatoes to eat because the grocery store ones taste like vaguely tomato-shaped styrofoam. It's one thing to celebrate the last harvests of the year and quite another to fall on your knees and weep because there's no more butternut squash for the year.

Our ancestors had no choice but to eat seasonally. That was the only way to eat and if you didn't preserve some food when it was there in abundance, the gods would smite you with starvation (unless your neighbors were kind enough to share theirs after giving you the look for being an idiot and not putting back beans). I think it's safe to say that most people don't have a connection to their food like this. Vegetables come in a can, meat is distributed on styrofoam trays, fish is primarily in stick form, and fruit consists of these long yellow things that people keep calling "bananas." Those aren't bananas. The four-inch-long nearly brown little things I had in the Amazon Basin? Those were bananas. The difference is like that between a Granger County or home grown tomato that's not been more than an hour off the vine and... whatever it is they sell in the produce department at Kroger's. It's huge.

And this is not even a pagan hippie local organic woo-loo-loo "Is that patchouli I smell?" kind of granola thing. This stuff just tastes better. The end.

Maybe I'll get some new shots of the balcony garden once it stops raining. The lettuce is looking like you might could eat some of it and I've planted new things for Tharjellybean.

I feel as though I should say something about current events, but really there's not much to say about it. The Buddhist in me isn't going to rejoice in another's death and is hoping for peace through peaceful means, but the flag-waving redneck in me is shouting "AMERICA! HECK YEAH!" I'm working on feeding the peaceful wolf, but I must admit that it ain't easy. Wah-wah, walking a Buddhist path is hard. Suck it up, Buttercup.

In other, other news, I was accepted for the fellowship that I've been stressing about for weeks, which I believe warrants the yay hands (this picture was taken about 4 months ago, but it's a great "HECK YEAH, SCIENCE!" picture).

Woot!

The bloomin' thing

2011-04-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

I have had one thought and one thought only that colors every single thing that I see and do lately. I think about it day and night and the only reason I haven't dreamt about it is because I'm pretty sure I'm not getting enough sleep to actually dream.

Comps.

I made an attempt at studying for the oral comps by going over the questions from the written exam and I got through a significant chunk before the avoidance began. There's nothing like an impending huge test of knowledge to spur on new projects and encourage me to work on the WIPs.

This is the second pink star hanky I've done in a row. It's not so much that I like pink or stars, but rather that I happen to have a lot of pink thread. I don't particularly care for it, so I tend to work with all the colors that aren't pink, thus leaving great amounts of the stuff in my collection of thread. I'm hoping to remedy the situation by using up what I have so that I can populate my collection of threads with colors that are useful and make me happy.

Here is an example of some of my older work that I came across at Kade's house. The threads are pulled too tight, the edging is machine done, and the design is too close to the edge, but even with its flaws, it's not a bad example of embroidery. I'm just better at it now than I was then. I gave this to Kade's sister years ago and it was found amongst her things only recently.

I hope that those of you out in the world who have some of my embroidery use it. Otherwise, what's the point of having it? This one didn't look like it had been used much, which is a little bit of a disappointment, but I'm glad to have it again.

I've made good progress on the Medieval Pouch as well and am approaching cast-off. I made some errors in the number of stitches to cast on and I'm going to have to block the daylights out of it, but I think it will be a fine thank-you to the lovely lady that passed on the llama. I'll have to line it, but that's no big deal.

You can see where I added spots to the cats and made them leopards. They are far more fearsome that way and reduce the long-ass floats somewhat.

I even made progress on the Circle socks. I'm still on sock #1, but I'm nearly done with the gusset and the rest of the sock is plain, so it should go pretty quickly from here on.

The savvy among you will recognize these bricks. I stole your sock picture setting, Kade. I hope you don't mind.

(She doesn't mind. She likes it.)

I must bestow upon her many thanks, not only for the use of her front stoop, but for this weekend's whiskey therapy, for the strawberries and cookies she brought me from the farmer's market, and for going shopping with me. What would I do without you?

And now I must abed, but before I go, I shall leave you with one last gratuitous Iris picture. No pics of the girl this week. She's taking standardized tests this week and I know she's going to do great, but I'm wishing her good luck anyway.

Everything old is new again.

2011-04-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

Spring is here! I know I've said this already, but I get stupid-excited about spring. Irises courtesy of my BFF, Jill's garden. The rest were flowers from the grocery store. I like to get the discounted ones that are a little old by floral shop standards, but still nice. I kinda feel bad for them and want them to be loved and enjoyed. Otherwise, it's the dumpster for them, and I can't be havin' that.

We've entered the part of the year wherein it is not yet hot enough for A/C, but just warm enough for iced tea. My Polish friend, Anna, would call this the dead of summer, but my people call this "spring." It's a bit warmer than usual, but the rain has been doing what it is meant to be doing in this part of the country-- "April Showers" and all that. I neglected to take a picture of the lettuces this week, but be assured that they're bigger than they were last week. I even considered taking a couple leaves off, but decided that this was but the product of impatience.

Strawberries have begun to appear at the Farmer's Market and I've had some plain and some cut up with a little goat's milk on top and some on top of vanilla ice cream. If I can manage it, I'm getting two quarts next week. One will be for eating and one will be for freezing. So many thanks to my dear K, who sacrificed her sleep to arrive at the Market before a reasonable hour in order to purchase and deliver said strawberries. I'd have taken a picture of them, but I was lucky to get them home and now they're almost gone. There's a bowl of Cheerios with their name on it tomorrow.

Instead, here is a picture of mints.

Where does the old mint go when the new mint grows in the garden? Answer: It becomes tea, is what.

I forgot to incorporate the last of the mint that was drying in the pantry into the tea last week, but perhaps I will do something with it come Thargelia. It would make a nice offering to Apollo, I think. Below is the new mint, slightly wilted but still fresh. The catnip didn't make it, but it will be easy enough to re-plant.

I've also had a wicked case of Short Attention Span Startitis. I haven't been knitting much on the things already on the needles and I don't think my brain has returned from vacation yet. I'm not allowed to knit lace 'til it comes back, so the shawl is taking a nap. I did manage, however, to get some of the llama spun and plied.

This is to be the Medieval Pouch (Ravelry link), but I put in a brick pattern where the ladder pattern was. This is pretty much all I did today besides make biscuits with Bubby. I straightened in my bedroom, too, and at the rate I'm going, I might even vacuum in there one of these days. It's astonishingly clean in there. My shoes are even lined up neatly in my closet. GASP! What is the world coming to? Not only this, but spending a paltry twenty minutes cleaning up in my office means that there's not a teetering stack of filing on the desk and the ironing board is actually put away.

This is not astonishing, really, except that I hardly ever put it away because I use it (see above).

These skirts are two of the Matryoshka series of gored skirts. Using little more than maths based on body measurements, I've decided to make these skirts in order to learn how to do it well. I started with Barbie and moved up to Rebecca because the smallness of the garment, especially at Barbie-size, amplifies any potential problems that may arise. Iris is next in line and then I'll make one for myself so that by the time I get to mine, I'll have ironed out most of the challenges (pun intended). I'm pleased with how both of these turned out. Barbie's kind of sticks out a little bit because the weight of the fabric is not sufficient to allow it to drape at all, but the shape is nice. Rebecca's is perfect except for the fact that I failed to allow a little more ease for the doll stand, which is not going to be a problem with actual people, so I consider it a success.

Rewards for Diligence

2011-04-03T21:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went to pick Iris up from her Chinese lesson and the director of the Confucius Institute at MTSU gave her this as a "reward for diligence" because she worked so hard and is learning so fast and this got me to thinking about this concept in general. There are many rewards for diligence if you are willing to, well, be diligent.

Here's Bubby working extra hard to clean her room. She managed to get herself grounded for telling me she'd done what she hadn't done and since she was really putting forth all the effort her nine-year-old self could muster, she got herself un-grounded. With any luck, she'll take the lesson of "hard work pays off" into adulthood. A mom can only hope. This photo, by the way, was totally kinneared. Bubby will either hide or pose in front of a camera, so getting a good candid of her is darn near impossible. I do not give up easily.

Someone on Facebook said something about the "fruits of Islam." I assure you it wasn't a nice thing to say, but I did think about the fruits of one's faith and have decided that, in my experience, the fruits of Islam is hummus and those little cookies with dates in. Sometimes the fruits of Islam is baklava. It's a plot to increase my waistline, I'm certain.

The fruits of Paganism, however, is fruit. Okay, so the picture is of lettuces (not vinca as the tag says), but I assure you that there will be fruits of some kind in the summer, just not from my balcony. Integral to what drew me to Paganism and my practice is the growing of things. Growing food is slow and difficult. It's easier just to go to the grocery store and buy a lettuce, but I don't grow things to eat because it's easy. I grow things because even in this city life of mine, I want to have a relationship with the Earth. I want to put my hands in dirt and bring out something made of sun, water, dirt, effort, and love. When I've eaten something I've grown, I know in the core of me that I've been blessed by my gods. I can't wait 'til the berries start coming in because I know no greater blessing than a strawberry grown in dirt I've walked on and still warm from the same patch of sun that shines on my face. I put love in, I get good food out. I can't think of a better deal than that.

Today, I finished making tea from last year's mint, hyssop, and catnip. These are the fruits of last year's labor and it's got me all excited about Thargelia. It's almost "clean out your pantries to make way for the new harvest" time. We'll share the last bits of last year's harvest and then we'll be up before Helios to pounce on any berries that might be at the Farmer's market. Then there will be dancing and a maypole and then planting. I am deliriously excited about this in the way that only one who eats seasonally can get.

And then there's the llama.

The llama can only be described as a "hot mess," as the young people say. I washed it as best as I could, which wasn't very well, in a feeble attempt to get at least some of the dirt out and reduce the dust I was inhaling as I carded it.

I'll give you three guesses where the only cat-free space big enough to dry it was.

My car smells of llama.

Even though I've managed to spin some of it into singles, I'm not sure what the finished product is going to be like. It's a bit of an adventure and something of a mystery. I feel like I'm never going to get through this fleece, but I will persevere. I will be diligent and in the end I will have some sort of yarn.

The alpaca, on the other hand, is twelve ounces of camelid goodness. I managed to get a really nice picture this week that shows its lovely chocolate brown. I want to take it to the Market to show the nice people that sold me the fiber in the hopes that maybe they'd trade me for more fiber, but see above re: Chinese classes. Bubby's class happens to be at the same time as when the Farmer's market is open on Saturday, so I haven't been able to go as much as I'd like. I miss it.

This is what I get for wanting to help the offspring get the most out of her brain doing something she enjoys and is good at.

The things I do for love...

There's a better picture of the Inachis io hanky, too, and I've finally finished the pink star one. I'm not in love with it and it's not my best design, but I like the border and I learned some new techniques.

I've been making progress in my weaving as well. I think it helps that I put down days that are for weaving on my calendar.
I'm thinking that one of these days, I'd like to weave a considerably larger project for a blanket or sommat (maybe with the llama?) but for now, this narrow little thing is doing up pretty nicely. It's certainly working the math portions of my brain. I'm still not great at warping, but again, I'm going to keep trying at it. I tend to learn best by a lot of trial, a lot of error, and a fair amount of observing others. With fiber arts, anyway, I'm not the kind to read and research before doing like some people. I just jump in and mess up a lot until I learn.

Extreme close up! Extreme close up!

That said, my selvedges are looking much better and I did a fair job of warping. With continued diligence, I'm certain I can become more skilled at this.

You wanna know something I haven't been doing much of?

Knitting.

This is what my Lotus Tank looks like right now - a pattern and yarn. At least the swatch has gone through the wash and lay flat to dry stage. Now, if I'd only figure out if I've got gauge and cast on, I might eventually have a tank top some day before I retire.

Don't even talk to me about the lace. I had comps this week and it completely short-circuited my brain for logic and lace knitting. I've been a babbling idiot ever since. I suppose that my last lesson in diligence for the week is the ongoing lesson of my thesis. Maybe when I'm done, someone will draw me a pretty picture of a panda.

I am hopeful and I shall remain diligent.

I'm a lucky girl

2011-03-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Steve Jobs,
I know you have used Star Trek as a source of ideas in the past and don't lie to me boy iPadd=PADD. You didn't even change the name. My primary interest lies in a cupcake-transporting device wherein one might beam cupcakes or other baked goods to other points across the world or even into outer space. I'm pretty sure we can assume that astronauts like cupcakes. In fact, please consider the following images and how tasty they might be if only I could beam a serving to your office.

Item One: Badass Soufflé

Look at this badass soufflé and tell me you don't want some. See how fluffy and bouffy it is? Locally grown eggs topped with locally made goat's cheese and home-grown oregano. I have developed mad soufflé-making skills and while they do fall, such is the nature of the beast and I'm not bothered by it in the least. This bit of culinary success was gone in 3.2 seconds and you could have had some if you were to develop the cupcake transporter.

Item Two: Best Biscuits this side of the Mason-Dixon

My daughter and I made drop biscuits today from organic butter, White Lily flour, and local goat's milk. Before I descend into praises regarding the quality of the aforementioned goat's milk, I would like to say that biscuits and the making therein are serious business to a woman such as myself. My heart was broken when I found out that Three Rivers Cornmeal had been bought and done away with, such is the seriousness with which I take my baking. So when I say these were the best biscuits this side of the Mason-Dixon, know that I am not messing around, sir! You could have had some if you were to make a cupcake transporter.

Please keep me updated.

Yours,
-Jess

The aforementioned locally-made goat's cheese and goat's milk were bought from the lady that I affectionately refer to as the Goat Cheese Girl, Mrs. Justyne Noble from Noble Springs Dairy. I cannot sing the praises of her goat products enough and may the Theoi bless her and all of her goats with, y'know, whatever they'd like to have because dang. Those were some damn good biscuits. I'm planning to pick up some local butter to further improve upon biscuit quality. The goat's milk was unexpectedly delicious and much easier on my stomach than regular cow milk from the grocery. My previous experience was with stuff that tasted like goats smell and it was not pleasant, I tell you what. Not so with this stuff. This stuff is good.

Much of today was spent in fiber processing, washing this alpaca from Legacy Acres. The picture doesn't do it justice. I had such a good time spinning this and can't wait to show Tom & Linda the end result. It's a soft and beautiful chocolate brown that was an absolute dream to spin.

I also worked on some of this, flinging llama schmutz everywhere as I carded some of this beast. Given the amount of dust and crud that I have apparently inhaled from the carding of same beast, I'm considering wearing something over my face next time, lest I inhale something really unpleasant. I carded up four batts, spun one of them, and still have quite a ways to go before I'm done. This particular beast has a staple that can only be described as "really darn long" and there's a bloody lot of it. I am not complaining, mind you, because blessed is Jenn the Llama Fairy who sent it. I chose to spin it dirty and because of that, there was a frakton of dust kicked up by the carder, much of which went into the garden and some of which went straight up my nose.

Speaking of the garden, it's been a bit cold lately, down to freezing some days, so I've brought some of the plants in until the weather warms up again. At the top left is a Dieffenbachia that I got at the grocery store for a buck fifty. I also got a couple hyacinths that I plan on planting in Bekah's yard next Friday. When I have a yard of my own, I'm going to plant so many bulbs and there will be hyacinths forever and irises all over the place and daffodils and lilies and...

Even Avel the Manequin is excited about spring. Usually his reactions are a bit... (dare I say it?) wooden.

I think I'm funny.
Here are the most recent hankies. The picture is crap, but I'm so far pleased with both. The one on the right is the pink stars in progress. I'm thinking about doing some kind of border around the edge, just for kicks. The one on the right is an interpretation of Inachis io, the European Peacock butterfly that I caught while in Poland. These are eventually going up in the shop and I've got a third hanky blank that I haven't decided how to decorate yet. Perhaps I'll embroider a disease or some other interesting motif.

What say you?

Growing Joy

2011-03-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

This last week has been pretty nice. Aside from the fact that I spent most of Thursday sleeping off a cold, the weather has been great and it's been the first long stretch of days that actually feels like spring. There is a thing that happens every year about this time of year. I get the fever to start planting things, even though I know the danger of frost has not yet passed. So, I buy a packet or two of seeds and take whatever I've collected from flowers and vegetables from last year and toss them around into the pots on my balcony. And then I wait.

...and wait.

...and watch.

...and wait some more. I watch this bare earth as though plants will emerge from its depths fully formed like Athena. I keep watching and waiting and watering and then one day, little green sprouts emerge as though they were waiting for me to walk away for a moment.

I think these are the lettuces, though I also tossed some parsley in with them. I figure that if we get even a little bit out of the pots on the balcony that goes into our dinner, that's pretty good. I may live in the city, but that doesn't mean I can't grow something to eat.

I've been working through stuff that we got from the farmer's market last summer and I'm planning to raise the grocery budget somewhat so that when beans, corn, peaches, berries, tomatoes, and so on are ripe and in season, I can buy some to preserve and have over the winter. I'm so excited about summer and have been missing all the good stuff that I took the very last batch of peaches that I froze and made them into pie. I even made the crust. Good quality local organic peaches deserve a made by hand pie crust. There is something infinitely satisfying about creating a pie such as this. You can buy a frozen pie and that's pretty good. You can get a can of fruits and a crust from the grocery store and that's even better, but this was culinary excellence. It's not so much that my baking skills are any better than any other person, but rather that the difference between truly homemade and mass-manufactured store-bought is huge. Even Husband, who doesn't particularly care for pie, had a piece. I think he remembers how good the peaches were last summer and, like me, wanted a little of that memory in pie form.

I thought the little peach on top was pretty brilliant.

Come Thargelia, we'll start seeing more fruits and vegetables in the market and I cannot wait. That will be the end of most of the preserved and shipped-in food and the beginning of the good stuff. As good as that pie is, fresh peaches are going to be so much better.

I've got seedlings growing on the windowsill in my office and daffodils on my dining room table. The sun is shining, the tank is clean, and the newness of spring has spurred on a great deal of activity around these parts.

My sister says that I make still-lifes. I don't know what she's talking about. If this were a painting, I'd put the bowl of apples a little closer to the flowers or something. It would be completely different.

Anyway, I've started to walk to the lab (when I'm not down with a cold) and I've even been knitting lace. I started the Echo Flower Shawl (Ravelry link) last weekend and it's the first lace I've knitted in a very long time. Here I am two repeats in and I actually feel like continuing. My head doesn't feel like it's going to implode. Little bit is under the impression that it is for her and feels as though that because she helped pick out the pattern and the yarn that she is entitled to the end result. We shall see, young one. We shall see.

There's not much to see just yet, but I'm having fun with it. I don't often knit just for the process, but I feel like challenging my skill set, so there you are.

The socks I'm working on are totally product knitting. I want the socks at the end and even though the pattern is interesting to me, it's not really a challenge to knit. I've made this pattern before, liked it, and decided to make another pair in a different yarn. They're moving along just fine and since they're my dice-and-paper game/take-along knitting, they won't take any longer than any other pair of socks.

I still haven't managed to get a picture of the butterfly hanky I finished, but I have seen the first butterflies of the year. Yay spring!

I'm working on another star-themed hanky, this one in pinks because I happen to have a lot of pinks. I don't actually care for pink that much, which is probably why I have a lot of it. I use up the other colors. Anyway, I think it will be nice when it's done and maybe someone will enjoy it when I put it up in the shop. Which, by the way, will be donating half the proceeds to Doctors Without Borders, in light of the earthquake/tsunami in Japan.

I hope that as the days grow longer, joy can increase. That's all I really want.

Happy Equinox!

What is this "week-end" you speak of?

2011-03-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

I've discovered this wondrous thing called a "weekend." I don't know if the rest of you have heard of this thing, but there are days in the week where you can pretty much do what you want to. It's crazy! I mean, you can do things like watch television and knit lace. You can even vacuum the living room!

Oh! Oh! Do you know what I did today? Get this:

I made my bed.

I didn't change the sheets or anything, but I saw that the blankets were messy and then straightened them. Things are wild at the deBugs residence, I tell you what. I finished an altar cloth that I'd originally planned to sell, but decided to keep, and then spruced up my altar and did some praying - mostly for Japan because damn. I am impressed, however, with how many lives were saved by their preparedness. I bow to the awesome in that.

The biggest thing I did this weekend was to update my stash in Ravelry. Now all the yarns are actually the yarns that I have. Here's a picture of the whole kit and caboodle. On the left is the kit and in the middle is the caboodle. I think that bamboo is dead.

(please ignore the box behind the basket. nothing to see here. move along, move along)

The basket has all the partials in and the shelves are arranged in some logical order that I forget right now. I think the really nice stuff and lace yarn is at the top and it looks like cottons and plant fibers next. There's a sock yarn shelf, to be sure, but I forget how I chose to arrange the rest. I assure you, it's very logical and straightforward. Much like this:

Though it looks like a weird kind of sudoku, this is actually a data matrix. [Insert The Matrix Trilogy jokes here.] Anyway, this is what it looks like when puny humans try to make sense of biological organisms and arrange them into groups so that we can give them names. It kind of mostly works and, really, that's the best we can do. We phylogeneticists talk about species concepts all the time, but I don't think there's really a "right" one. Species are a human construct, an attempt to put organisms that refuse to conform to our ideas into neat categories. Once you think you've got it figured out, Nature shows you that you either forgot about something or that she's got a trick up her sleeve that you didn't even know about. For example, Ernst Mayr once described species as being:

groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations, which are reproductively isolated from other such groups

This popular species concept kind of glosses over the fact that there are a heck of a lot of organisms that don't reproduce sexually. Also? How do you really know if two organisms can "potentially reproduce." Really Ernst? Really? He was bird guy, so never really had to deal with the complexity of say, insects or algae. What does he know anyway? Birds. Bah.

You know what's better than a whole passel of species concepts? (nice transition, Jess)

Circle socks by Anne Campbell, knit in Regia Silk (Ravelry link)

Socks.

Life is good

2011-03-06T21:30:00.000-08:00

Right very now, I have a tummy full of spaghetti after a very busy day and am feeling like I'm living the good life. I've got a warm house, a roof, a pantry and a tummy full of food, a husband and offspring that I'm rather fond of, a cat that isn't actively evil, and nobody is shooting with guns outside my house terribly often. I call this the good life.

I spent most of yesterday wearing comfortable clothes, watching a movie nobody but me would be interested in watching and taking pictures of yarn and other things string and fiber related. I call the first one "Vegetable Curry" because it was dyed in the wool with bits of cast-off vegetable bits (carrot tops, onion skins, and the like) and some cheapo curry powder that wasn't very good but makes for a nice yellow color.

The next one is Cherry Kool-aid. I'm sure you can guess why. The color is fantastic on this one, if I do say so myself (and I do). Most of the rest of the pictures were for my Etsy shop. I'm thinking I might work on some stash photos next week so that I can update my stash on Ravelry. I also got a scale and a yarn meter, so look out, world! I can more accurately measure my string!

I haven't decided if I'm going to sell these or not. I dyed the wool by hand, used a hand-crank drum carder to process the fiber and spun them myself. I'm not sure I can accurately price that.

In other news, I've switched my focus temporarily from knitting to embroidery. I've got three projects in the queue that should be all finished fairly soon. The most recent butterfly hanky is done but for washing, the four elements napkin/hanky thing is almost done, and the star hanky is sewn but neither marked nor embroidered.

I also finished the Libya flag:

The picture is a bit crap because by the time I got to it, the sun was going down, but it's all done.

I've started a weaving project, too. I'm making either one or two ritual stoles, I'm not entirely sure yet. I'm still learning how to warp efficiently and I'm learning how to use the whole loom in all its capacity to make patterned fabrics, but so far, so good. I don't have pictures yet, but my selvedges are looking much better. One of these days, I'm going to make a badass huge blanket of awesomeness. It's a thought, anyway, or a goal or something.

So, today was spent talking about "What is a Pagan" which took me at least 20 minutes and I only barely touched on the subject and after that I went to a baby shower. I'm tired, but tomorrow I shall code characters like a mofo and get this parsimony business underway. I'm rocking the phylogenetics right now and eager to get back to assigning numbers to character states in a data matrix. I find this activity rather fun, really, and I'm convinced that this is how I know this is the right profession for me.

All in all, life is good.

We shall overcome

2011-02-27T17:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what to blog about this week, so I'm going to make it quick and simple. This is for Libya.

A full day

2011-02-20T20:37:00.000-08:00

I spent much of my day at my drum carder and spinning wheel, watching TV. In fact, I distracted myself so thoroughly that when I very cleverly set up the crockpot with this week's spaghetti sauce (what with it being Spaghetti Sunday and all), I also very cleverly forgot to turn it on. The part of Spaghetti Sunday will now be played by Wednesday.

Yesterday, I bought some very nice chocolate brown alpaca from Legacy Acres Alpacas. They're up in Manchester and I love being able to see the faces of the people who shear the beasts. Bubby helped me pick it out. I was torn between the black and the chocolate and she said chocolate, so chocolate it was. I considered spinning straight from the fleece. Alpacas don't produce lanolin like sheep, so the fiber is just about ready to go right off the beast. I carded it anyway so that the yarn will be nice and even and it's going to be lovely when I'm finished. Alpaca is a joy to spin, warm to wear, and as soft as a very soft thing. There should be more things made from alpaca and having a local source makes me happy beyond belief.

I also carded the vegetable curry wool that I dyed last week and I think it might be a little yellower than you can see in this picture. Anyway, I'm pleased with the color and the fact that the dishtowels retained the yellow color through the washing machine tells me that the wool has a chance of being pretty colorfast as well.

That's not the best light because, like a distracted dorkfish, I forgot to take a picture while the sun was still up. No, no, I was far too busy re-watching Farscape. I think the color is about accurate, though.

In other news, today is open your swap box day and, if you can't tell, I'm pretty pleased. The theme for this swap was "favorite colors" and I'll give you three guesses what mine is.

Bubby took the pictures and most of them were pretty good. There were several out of focus, but other than that, were not bad pictures. Anyway, I'm very happy with what I got, not because there was a lot of stuff inside (there was), but because each thing was carefully picked out and packed with care out of love. Thanks, K.

So, just when I think that today's been a total waste, I realize that it hasn't. I spun and carded yarn, did dishes, and gave and received some love. That's a full day and I'm glad to have had it.

Free from my burdens.

2011-02-13T18:23:00.000-08:00

First the bad news.

I didn't manage to get permits for collecting in Argentina and so had to cancel my trip. No permits, no butterflies and because I'm using federal money, I have to do things properly. On the one hand, I'm much displeased because I was really looking forward to seeing the other side of the Andes, but on the other hand, I'm a bit relieved. Don't get me wrong, I love traveling and the things that I learn and see, but it's stressful, too. I'm away from my family and when doing field work, I have very little contact with them. I worry about whether they're eating right and if the bills are going to get done properly and most of all, I just miss them.

The awesome news is that I finished all of my knitting. February is for finishing and I pretty much rocked it.

Yeah, I'm bad.

Photo credit goes to Iris. Though the top of my head is cut off, she chose to focus on the scarf instead of the awesomely good-looking and badass model wearing it. I approve. Also note the NaNoWriMo winners' shirt. The pattern is the drop-stitch scarf by Christine Vogel, yarn is sari silk that I spun up into a fingering-ish weight, done on size...6? maybe size 7 circulars. It's got a fantastic drape to it and though the pattern was simple to knit, it looks like sheer genius. I named it Lakshmi for the Hindu goddess because she seems like the sort who wants people to feel beautiful and be happy. The fiber was given to me as a gift and not only did receiving, spinning, and knitting it make me happy, but maybe it helped out the person who was employed in preparing the fiber as well. Can you believe this would otherwise be waste?! I hate waste.

But I love these colors:

I call it "Vegetable Curry" and, in fact, there are patches that dyed even more yellow than can be seen in this picture. I used leftover vegetable bits like onion skins and so on and tossed it into the pot with... curry. I used a cheapo curry that is described as "mild." While the flavor didn't really excite me, the color turned out great. I have it on good authority that I should make my own curry anyway and maybe one of these days she'll show me how.

I even had enough dye for the dish towels. These have seen better days and are now patched. The one on the right was dyed with india ink and over-dyed with the vegetable curry, so it's grey with just hints and bits of yellow. The one on the right is just the straight-up curry. I may over-dye that one with coffee or something to hide some of the darker stains, but it will do for now.

It is my nature to leave off some of the stuff I do because it's just patching that I do on a fairly regular basis. This work is valuable nonetheless and while it gives a certain... quaintness to things that we own, at least that's better than a hole. I'll buy or make a new tablecloth one of these days, but a patched one will cover the table just fine.

See? This is a pretty nice looking table, patches and all. It's not my best tablecloth, but it's alright.

Finishing my knitting gave me the opportunity today to do some patching and dyeing and last Friday, when the actual finishing occurred, I started on a butterfly hanky depicting Inachis io, the European Peacock Butterfly. I caught a couple of these in Poland and there's no greater fun you can have than chasing butterflies, riding motorcycles, drinking wodka, and then making Southern biscuits from memory while mildly hungover the next morning with your friends. I'll be thinking of last summer while I'm stitching this beauty.

Aaah, yes. My life is awesome. Though I am not now on a plane to Argentina, all is otherwise very well. There's as much awesome here at home as abroad and I can proceed with a feeling of being freed from my burdens.

Wherein I get a bit too philosophical about the naming of things

2011-02-06T19:38:00.000-08:00

Lakshmi

I have found that one of the greatest hindrances to progress is to hang on to preconceived notions. Taking a moment to wonder "what if?" can take us from simply gazing at the stars to walking amongst them. We have preconceived notions about a great many things and I was given an opportunity to practice letting go of those this weekend. I had an idea that I might play dice and paper with my friends, share in some celebrations, and watch the Superbowl this weekend. I wasn't entirely wrong and did manage to spend time celebrating Chinese New Year (xi nian kuai le!) with my beloved friends, but the dice and paper and Superbowl were not to be. At this point, I have no idea what went on during the game, commercials, or halftime show and while there's a level of disappointment there, I spent time actually relaxing today. All will be well.

In fact, it's a new week with new possibilities ahead and I think I might see if one of the specimens that I brought home from the British Museum is something new to people. I don't know yet, but it might be. So far, I have no preconceived notions of what it might be other than a butterfly I haven't looked at yet. I still cannot help wondering what I'd name it if it's new. I could name it after something mythological, following in the grand tradition of lepidopterists who have gone before me, or a colleague, loved one, or other person - also traditional, or something else that I haven't thought up yet. Naming organisms is funny business and seems to me a bit like signing your own name to someone else's work of art. I, of course, had no hand in the formation of any organism other than my own offspring that I might give a name to, but it's out of love that I'd give it a name and an identity. I suppose that's the same reason we give names to our children or even to our pets. If we didn't care, we wouldn't set them apart from the others by naming them.

Madeline's Mismatched Sock#1

It's the same reason, I suppose, that we who knit often give names to our projects. We spend time in their creation, getting to know them, understanding each interlocking loop, each stitch as an act of love toward not only that which is created, but the person who will eventually use the object. If knitting brought me no joy, I wouldn't do it. I suppose that's true for everything else I can think of that I do.

It'll do

2011-01-30T19:29:00.000-08:00

The cleaning of the office continues and though it's not perfectly spotless and efficiently organized, I was actually able to vacuum. The office is quite perilous for the likes of vacuum cleaners, even young whipper-snappers like my new bagless Dirt Devil. The Hoover kicked the proverbial bucket, threads and wool still stuck in the brush that, though I pulled many a string from its rotating bristles, eventually spelled the demise of Old Yeller's poor overworked motor last September. The vacuum is dead. Long live the vacuum.

I also put up a picture I've been wanting to have framed since forever. I still haven't gotten it framed, but it's just too cool to leave in limbo. There were some old illustrations of liver fluke anatomy that I found while doing work study as an undergrad and I took this one home because I thought it was pretty. There's a warmth to the older biological illustrations that you just don't see in late 20th, early 21st century work. While it's important to create accurate representations of the object of your study, that doesn't mean they should be deliberately devoid of soul. Sure, it's just a liver fluke drawing, but the level of patience and care that went into the illustration could only have come from a love of the subject matter. Ask me about radial veins and I will tell you about patience.

Speaking of patience, happy Theogamia and may those who are married or who want to be married be blessed by Zeus and Hera in their matrimony.

This is all that's left of the cake. The icing consisted of about a stick of butter, two cups of 10x, a splash of half and half, a bit of vanilla, and yea so much cream cheese - just a little for consistency. I don't know if that's proper buttercream icing, but it was darn tasty. Tip for the wise: when making baked goods, make sure you look at the label of the bottle so that you do not put Balsamic vinegar in the mix instead of vanilla.

This finally came back to me and is some of my earlier work. There's something about an ugly crocheted afghan that makes me think of home. Even though it's Red Heart, even though I'm pretty sure this is what homemade sin looks like, it's just cuddly. It's not a delicately crafted heirloom, but perhaps someone a long time from now will see this and remember "Oh, golly, what was Granny ever thinking!? Was she crazy?" and someone will say, "Well, yes, but that's why we loved her." Perhaps not, but I see it and remember my friend that I loved because it had been in her possession for so long. Anyway, I make stuff to be used and loved and this certainly will be.

So will this. This is my new knitting fling and what I believe to be rather a good use of handspun sari silk yarn. I might just be keeping this little gem for myself to wrap around my neck on days that are just a little chilly, but not cold. The open work makes for a nice fabric that drapes beautifully and I just love the colors. O drop-stitch scarf, you have won my heart. Be not jealous, sock.

Does it look jealous to you? I made it past the heel to the top ribbing, so I don't know why it would be.

In other news, the third hat I cast on last week was a bust and the yarn wasn't good enough to try to recover. Consider it flung in the spirit of February is for Finishing.

I've also managed to do quite a bit of plying and so much so that I've had to take a few days off, lest my calves explode. Here also, you will see some yarns that were sitting about like the lazy bits of wool they are, waiting for me to measure them and put them up in the shop (Etsy link) - which is in dire need of updating. I still haven't done so, but I've moved these yarns on to the next stage. One of them is the lost 13th colony or, rather, the 4th skein of Eye of Jupiter (Etsy link) that never got put up. The green one hasn't got a name yet, but I'm thinking "Other Side of the Hill." There's a two-ply and a three-ply in the same wool. The grey is the Lincoln Longwool from Peaceful Pastures that I've been working on and it's turning out to be a fantastic worsted. I'm quite pleased with it.

I can't wait for spring. This nice weather won't last and it's going to get cold again soon, but I'll enjoy it while I can. I'll leave you with this moment of Zen:

Could be aliens

2011-01-23T18:34:00.000-08:00

I might be a little hat-obsessed right now. I'm not sure if the aliens have finally got through to my brain and implanted a compulsion to knit hats in order to take over the earth by way sending subliminal messages in the stitching, thus pacifying the human race or if I'm just on a hat-knitting kick. In fact, I just started another one a few minutes ago. I'm not using a pattern, just a basic top-down hat recipe wherein I cast-on yea so many stitches and increase by 6 every row for a bit 'til I have enough fabric to measure gauge. I'll increase every row until I have half the stitches needed for the circumference I'm going for and then every other row until I have all the stitches I need. I go for a bit, do some ribbing, and voilá, hat.

As soon as I'd finished this one, I started this one:

and knit it in the same manner as described above, only with a fair-isle pattern lifted from an issue of Stranded. I'm sending this one to a friend in Poland because I can think of no one in the world that could use a hat that is as warm as this. One is leftovers from my last Olympic Cardigan (Ravelry Link) and the other was a gift from Kade's eldest offspring. Both are alpaca, making this a rather warm little hat. Clearly, it needs to go to Poland.

It turns out I may not need February is for Finishing 6th Annual Finish-a-palooza and the only reason that I can think of as to why, exactly, I won't need it is because I'm a freak of nature. Or, it could be aliens.

Still hanging around

2011-01-16T18:55:00.000-08:00

We have had the most snow that I have seen in a Tennessee winter in... probably ever. I'm a bit disturbed by this really because this is whatchacall not what I'm used to.

This is what it looked like from my balcony a week ago (photo courtesy my old man) and there are still patches of snow hanging about, waiting for it to get above freezing for more than ten minutes. It is meant to be a little warmer and even rain early this week, so the chances are slim that it's going to stick around much longer, but I won't be sad to see it go. I'm ready for spring now.

I've been doing some cleaning up today in my office and I am very glad to report that the closet is looking pretty well-organized and neat these days. My fabric had been in plastic bins and it was literally a pain to go through it when I wanted to look for something. I ended up tossing quite a bit of trash, doing a bit more recycling, and moving a fair bit of fabric I didn't love to the giveaway pile.

These are now empty (plus one box more):

And this is what my closet looks like now:

Muuuuch better.
It turns out I actually don't have very much fabric. It shouldn't be a surprise since I've been working from stash for a couple years without buying or acquiring new, but it's different to see it all in one place like this. My cottons are on another shelf, so I do have more fabric than this, but I'm going to go through that at some point and toss the stuff that I don't love. It's a work in progress. I'm thinking we might use the plastic bins for purposes of holiday ornament storage instead of the file boxes like they've been in since the dawn of time.

I spiffed up my yarn stash last weekend and while I don't have much of that, either, its shelf is full. The next to the last shelf just so happens to be the one that the cat pulls stuff out of, so rather than putting the sock yarn there, for example, I went ahead and just put the little bits and ends and leftovers on that shelf. I don't rightly care if they get messed up. I'll just toss them back on the shelf and that's that. Occasionally, I'll find one of these in the kitchen or living room where the thieving little chubby fluffball has stolen it, but it doesn't bother me terribly much.

Note the Ohio State Phylogenetics workshop totebag in the corner. It makes a good sturdy project bag and I have an idea of what is going in there next, but I cannot tell you what that may be, lest curious eyes be watching. It's a super secret surprise.

I haven't got a whole lot on the needles right now, but seem to be making progress. I started a plain hat in handspun from one of Meredith's batts I got during the Black Friday sale at the Knaughty Knitter. I love how they spin, how the colors blend together, and I'm loving how it's knitting up. It is a batt of love, is what it is. I don't know who is going to end up with this hat just yet, but I hope they feel the love in every stitch.

That there is my new nøstepinne. I'll tell you more about it later. (Also, I love the international keyboard. It's fun. I don't get much chance to use the ø. In fact, I might do a whole post on the nøstepinne, just so I can use the ø. Nøstepinne! Gazebo. Bulbous bouffant! Nøstepinne! Galoshes.)

And here is the sock, creeping along in a steady fashion:

And here is a gratuitous picture of my offspring, who just started learning cross-stitch this evening. She's done eight entire stitches already and quite well, I might add. Once she started making the little X's, she told me, "This is kinda fun!" Music to my ears.

Another weekend done, another week begins. Tomorrow is MLK day and we're planning on some family time to take the tree down. My goal this next week is not to hang around the house so much and get into the lab, if for no other reason than to remind my professor that I exist.

I wouldn't have minded

2011-01-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

I've just finished "Rebecca's Awesome Sweater"(ravelry link) and... I don't think I'll be knitting this one again. I found it to be much fussier than necessary and I don't know if it's me or the way the pattern is written, but I had a terrible time with it and it did not come out lookin' like the picture.

There's a fold-over button band, which I wouldn't have minded but for the fact that picking up stitches at the top of the button band was a pain in the arse. There's a lace design, very like a mock-cable sort of thing, which I thought was lovely and I wouldn't have minded but for the fact that it just stops at the top. This means that when you're picking up stitches for the neck, you're picking up where there are holes and you have to finagle it a bit. I wouldn't have minded picking up the neckband at all, but for the above two concerns.

And then there were the set-in sleeves, which I wouldn't have minded, but for the fact that they didn't actually fit the armscye. The whole thing was a bit of a seaming disaster that, unfortunately, involved the sewing machine. I'm not showing you my seams. It's too horrific. I'm not really sure what happened here and I'm not sure whether if it was the pattern or me, but this pattern and I have decided to see other people. It's really just better this way.

All in all, it's still a success as a knitting project. It fits the intended recipient and the offspring likes it. If you don't look at it too closely, it's a pretty cute sweater and looks alright.

I've also finished "The Four Elements" (Ravelry link) and it seems to have blocked beautifully. It might be a bit shorter than is ideal, but I think it will do. I took these pictures during the blocking process and hope to get some more photographs of it in its full glory in the future. I'm quite happy with it and I love how the colors balance each other.

At this rate, I'm not going to have anything to finish during the month of February.

I do knit

2011-01-04T12:51:00.000-08:00

In fact, there are projects currently underway that I've even worked on in the last week! I shall start with the cure for 2nd sock syndrome.

The cure, as it turns out, happens to be my niece, Madeline. She's my brother's eldest, wears a size 6 shoe, and happens to like mismatched socks. I seem to be resentful of knitting socks for anyone who has a foot bigger than this (how dare they!), so it's really nice for me that her feet are sized thusly. I am told, in fact, that her school dress code requires matching socks in boring colors. In order to encourage her subversion of this restrictive and unreasonable rule and to further establish my place as "the cool aunt," I'll be knitting her mismatched socks from leftovers. The side benefit to all of this is that it will help use up the odds and ends of sock yarn that are insufficient for making a pair. This is the ultimate win-win-win-and more win situation.

I've also been working on a sweater for the offspring's American Girl doll. Whatever possessed me to knit such a thing, I'll never know, but I'm certain that it has to do with the fact that said offspring is charming, adorable, and that a sweater for her dolly will make her happy. ::sigh:: The things we do for love. Also, this was an opportunity to use a handspun that would have otherwise gone unused (though still appreciated in yarn form). My only fear is that I'll run out of the plain red before I run out of sweater pattern. It gives me mild heart palpitations to think of how little actual yarn there is off-camera, but I suppose the worst thing that will happen is that there isn't enough yarn and I decide that a short-sleeved cardigan is sufficient for Rebecca, find something that will work, or otherwise punt. All will be well.

This project started out as me just using up leftovers, but I've decided that this thing that is very like a knitted scarf could actually be vestments in disguise. Why can't liturgical garments be knitted? There's no rule. Once, I used my DNA scarf (Ravelry link) during a ritual because it seemed like the thing to do at the time. I then realized that there is no more perfect way to celebrate the balance and unity between the masculine and feminine than with the image of DNA. No matter who you are, if you are a human person, you get half of your DNA from a male human, half of it from a female human and WHAMMO! Life happens! It's an awesome thing in the original meaning of the word. The above scarf/liturgical garment thingamy is more of a warm/cool, winter/summer, four elements kind of concept that grew out of the particular handspun yarns that were in the stash. I picked the main pattern from my 365 Knitting Stitches a Year (Amazon link) calendar and I believe it's Polperro northcott. I like to think of it as having a very "columns of the temple" thing going on.

Right very now, I'm working on some long-overdue data entry that I've been putting off. Since the offspring doesn't go back to school 'til Monday and I'm past ready to start doing science again, this is what is getting done. Well, I should be doing it anyway. Actually, I'm making quite good progress. One of my goals for 2011 is to make considerable progress toward a thesis and graduation. I know I can do this. I've started it and I can finish it.

Año Nuevo, Vida Nueva

2011-01-02T20:23:00.000-08:00

So... yeah, it's been a year and a half since I posted here. A lot has happened since and I'm not really sure how to sum it up. In 2010, I visited a state I'd never been to before (though I'd already seen that particular ocean) and visited the surface of Vulcan while we were there. I knitted in two countries I'd never seen before on a continent I'd never been to and had the opportunity to learn new cultures, new words, and to touch something that had been in the collection of Charles Darwin. I nearly cried. Husband and I celebrated our 10th anniversary and the offspring celebrated her 9th year of existence. I won at NaNoWriMo and I finished my graduate coursework with a GPA of no less than 4.0. Now I've just got to finish up collecting data and writing something that looks like a thesis. Add in the ecumenical... stuff that I've been doing and all the fic I've written and one might say that I've been busy.

Now that I think of it, all of this is probably related to the year and a half of silence on this here blog.

Holy beans.

Well, give me a minute to process all of that and I'll come back with some yarn-related content. I've had a strong urge to finish things and then start more things. I've also discovered the cure to 2nd sock syndrome.

Determination

2009-07-27T06:56:00.000-07:00

I put on my game face today and walked to work. I also took little bit to school, said hi to her teacher (same teacher as last year, very good), ate breakfast, tossed a brick of borscht into my backpack, and did a few minutes of spinning before I left the house. I'm getting ready to make my to do: list because I've got a crapload to do yet.

I am determined (and I hope I can keep this up).

I had a bunch of stuff in my backpack today, so it was kinda heavy. There was the fat folder full of phylogenetics which is not coming home with me, so that will be a significant reduction in weight on the return trip. Woo!

So, with the heavy backpack, walking to work was a sweaty "I have a heavy thing on my back" ordeal, but I did not stop and I did not complain, I just listened to zencast, made the "grr" face, and went on. If I can tackle a volcano, I can handle the mile to work. Grr.

I've actually been knitting. Get back! Yeah, there has been actual honest-to-goodness knitting in my world and I'm halfway through the second sock on my red-and-grey just for jess stripies. They are to be rechristened the The Ohio State University socks, mostly because I knitted a fair bit of them at Ohio state. Lookit here. Biologist sock pictures.

Week at the beach was kinda awesome. I don't have those pictures up yet, but there are several where I'm being doofy around my nephew who is two and frikkin' adorable. I'm his favorite, by the way. The little dude loves his Aunt Jess because I'm the fun one. Hahahaha!

That's about all there is for now. I've got latin to translate. Engh. I despise translating latin, mostly because I'm not very familiar with it. But I'm almost done with translations of generic descriptions and then it's on to attempting to form a data matrix.

2009-07-18T21:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, so, I've been busy and distracted. There's a great portion of my nerdiness in two links. Some of the distracted stuff is admittedly a little smutty - okay, A LOT smutty, but it is as it is. It's fun to write anyway and if you don't care for fanfic (yes, I'm looking at you, little sister) then you don't have to read it.

Some people juggle geese. I write fanfic. Oh, and mom? Here's a citation in Wikipedia for the origin of slash fanfiction. And I quote:

Slash fiction originated in Star Trek fandom in the late 1960s when fans paired main characters James Kirk and Spock together.^[3]

The link cites the Cambridge History of 20th Century English Literature. I haven't double-checked the source, but slash fanfiction has been a time-honored way of participating in the Star Trek fandom since forever. It goes right along with owning Hamlet in the original Klingon and having ever worn a Starfleet Uniform. Bonus points if your mom made it for you - double bonus points if you're 30 years old and your mom is making you a new one because she loves you and knows you're a hardcore fan (I love you, mom!)

Anyhow, a couple pictures from the busy part. They're in no particular order and I plan on uploading the rest of them to Flickr fairly soon. One is for the Yarn Harlot. "Push button to cross Kinnear" just seemed really frikkin' funny to me. The dude with the hat is John Wenzel - he was our main host for the phylogenetics workshop. The other dude was the dude that changed my tire today. He's my customer service hero.

Umm... hi.

2009-04-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

So, yeah, I've kind of been busy. We will return you to your regularly scheduled blog as soon as I can get my head on straight. In the mean time, here's a picture of my new hair. The picture doesn't quite do the color justice. It's red red red, like you mean it fire engine red and black.

Pucón & Villarica

2009-03-20T06:33:00.000-07:00

26 February

We collected at Rincón in the morning and found lots of Auca. I caught one blue, which was sitting right next to an Auca, but the Auca was worn out, so I snagged the blue instead. We drove toward Pucón and collected a few things alongside the road near Quepe, just south of Temuco, but no satyrines. They have Pieris brassicae here, a common white butterfly, but for some reason it's twice as big as it is elsewhere in the world. Apparently, it was introduced from Poland.

From Quepe we continued on to Villarica. We stopped again near Coipue Viejo at an access road that leads to an antenna and found some nice satyrines here. We stopped at the Donde Manolo restaurant for something to drink and then went on our way to Pucón and Villarica.

I've found Gatlinburg. Apparently, they have Gatlinburg here, except there's a big lake and a volcano, but other than that, it's Gatlinburg. Complete with kitchy little shops and drunken American tourists. Here in Villarica, we've found the slowest restaurant in the entire world. I wish I could remember the name. It's very verdant here and Hydrangeas are extremely popular and blooming, so it's very pretty in places, but there's no bamboo.

The owner of the little upstairs cabaña we stayed in, an Argentinian, says he knows of a place where there's bamboo. I had trouble understanding his accent, but Tomasz was able to figure out where to go, so we'll check it out in the morning.

27 February

Nothing, and I mean nothing, is open before 8:30-9:00 in the morning. We finally found a bakery and I had some empanadas tipicas and coffee. They were good, but not as good as the ones on the road to Olmue. I've decided that I should learn how to make these. I love empanadas. Mmm!

We went to one of the sites described to us by the Argentinian guy and there was indeed bamboo there, but no butterflies to be had. The quality of the blackberries was quite poor, thus further confirming our theory that the quality of blackberries is directly related to the quality of collecting. We went back to Coipue Viejo and collected almost all poliozona...or is it reedii? coenonympha? thelxiope? I'll have to take a closer look when I get back to the lab.* At lunch break, we stopped at the Donde Manolo restaurant and had a hamburger and coke. Except that an "hamburguesa" means a sandwich with tender sliced beef, palta (avocado), and tomato. Not bad. It's far better than a Whopper, anyhow.

We're on our way to Curacautín and Lonquimay. I have several specimens in the lab that were collected from here, so it's definitely worth checking out. We may even check out the Argentinian border.

*Upon further review, I still can't figure out what these little guys are. They're not poliozona and they're not coenonympha. I'm calling them thelxiope for now, even though thelxiope is a nom. nud. What that means, for my dear non-biologist readers, is that thelxiope is meant to be a separate species, but the name is invalid because it was not properly described.

Puente Aserradero and Recinto

2009-03-16T17:51:00.000-07:00

24 February
In the morning, we collected at the same site as yesterday and in the afternoon at another where the road crosses a stream, not far from the end of the paved road. It's called Puente Aserradero and other than the fact that people who come here are complete slobs and don't put their trash in a proper receptacle (or their poo, either!), it looks like a lovely place for a picnic. 9AM to 10AM is rush hour for butterflies and in spite of the evil vegetative land mines of doom, we caught over eighty butterflies! We went on a nice long walk last night after dinner and saw a live, wild tarantula. I couldn't see what color it was because it was night time, but I'd never before seen a live, wild tarantula. It was wicked cool and just kind of sauntered in it's eight-legged way across the road.
Tonight's wine was Santa Ema Merlot, 2007 and it was good. Better, I think, than the wine from last night.

25 February
I had a dream that I saw a dear friend of mine at the Ren Faire with his betrothed. I was all dressed up in my doublet, but I'd left my sword at home.
Also, I've realized that I'll have to rip out sock #2 of the Chile socks because it's all the wrong gauge. I'll probably work on the January socks for a while. We collected in the site with the evil burs in the morning and then at Pte. Aserradero before lunch break. We've checked out of our little room and will soon be headed South.

Except that we found a really nice meadow for collecting this afternoon. We collected two Spinantenna tristis in a place where there's mint, lots of little flowers, and big fat blackberry bushes with big fat blackberries on them. The best part? No land mines. After procuring some cash in Chillán, we've decided to return to the little cabaña in Las Trancas. It's nice accomodation, cheap, and nearer to our meadow in Recinto than any hotel in Chillán would be. Besides, it's nicer in Las Trancas.

They have a mall in Chillán. It is full of people.

Las Trancas y Termas de Chillan

2009-03-12T05:48:00.000-07:00

Valle Las Trancas is located about 8km from Termas de Chillan. There's plenty of bamboo here, so that's good, but I realized yesterday that I will run out of yarn before I run out of sock. That's bad.

I climbed Volcán Chillán (I'm pretty sure it was Volcán Viejo) and after having done nothing active over the winter, it was, to say the least, a difficult climb for me. To add insult to injury, a group of French tourists - people my parents' age, mind you, started out well behind us and because I'm so out of shape, they passed us up. And I lost my hat. As we are hiking up at a 45 degree angle the entire way, with me out of breath, Tomasz says "Don't stop, Jess! It's bad to stop, just go slowly. The French are catching up!" The thought of a French invasion and the prospect of butterflies kept me going and even though I was passed by a woman nearly twice my age, I did it. We caught nothing but a Vanessa, but suspect that Argyrophorus might fly here earlier in the season. In fact, our locality data shows Argyrophorus here in December and January. As far as collecting goes, it was a pretty dissapointing start to our day. On the other hand, I climbed a volcano - an active volcano.
We found a spot just off the road, about four kilometers from the big hotel in Termas de Chillán, where there's lots of bamboo and a good diversity of species. The only downside is that there are these evil vegetative land mines from Hell. There's this bur plant that produces sharp spiky seeds that stick to everything - your boots, your clothes, your net. Other than that, it's a good site. We found wallengrenii, simplex, leptoneuroides, stelligera*, chiliensis, and a single germanii (which went home with Tomasz). All in all, we caught about 30 butterflies, 21 of which had been caught by Tomasz...
We treated ourselves to jugo de frambuesas y panqueques con chocolate. For my non-Spanish-speaking readers, that's raspberry juice and crepes with chocolate. The evening's wine was Misiones -D- Rengo, a 2008 Cabernet Sauvingon.

*the stelligera turned out to be ambiorix. They're very similar in size and wing pattern and easy to confuse, but they are distinct species. I'm not putting down many genus names because part of my work is to determine what the heck genus these guys belong in. What's Neomaenas today might be Auca tomorrow.

Sorry for the delay

2009-03-11T07:26:00.000-07:00

More notes from my trip to Chile should be up soon. I haven't been getting a full night's sleep lately because, it seems, there's a burglar in our area. Night before last, the police knocked on my door at 4:30AM to make sure we were okay because our patio door was open. Last night, our neighbor (who is a police officer, but was off duty) knocked on our door at 3AM because someone was trying to climb up onto our balcony.
We're alright, nothing's been stolen and the perp was duly thwarted by said neighbor, though not yet caught, but I've been really tired. I considered not going to work today, but I've got a couple hundred labels to make for insects and that needs doing as soon as possible.

Espero y espero

2009-03-08T05:43:00.000-07:00

22 Feb, 2009

Spent most of yesterday waiting in the airport as I finished sock #1 and started sock #2. I finally met up with Tomasz at the Holiday Inn. We stayed the night at the Hotel Vitoria, which was very nice, clean and with breakfast included. Dinner was meat, potatoes, and beer at a restaurant nearby. The two of us have agreed to a joint scientific study of the quality of wine at different latitudes in Chile. We know this is very scientific because we are scientists. We woke up an hour later than we meant to and are headed North to Til-til.

Collecting happened on the road to Olmue, 10-15km from Til-til at Puente La Laja near a stand with good empanadas. We found wild blackberries and wild grapes not far from here. The owner of the place with good empanadas. We found some Chusquea and a good spot with lycaenids and some of our little browns. Collecting was surprisingly good for a place so dry.
Huesillo - "little bone" a drink of peach juice with two whole peaches in - very sweet. The "little bone" refers to the peach pits.

Evening:

We arrived in Las Trancas late at night and are staying in a little cabaña. There is bamboo here and we will be collecting tomorrow, possibly staying a few days here. The corkscrew is MIA and hopefully, we will have proper glasses tomorrow, hopefully in celebration. The place is all but empty and very quiet. On the way in, we saw scores upon scores of people headed out of the countryside and back into the cities. Their summer break is done and it's almost time for classes to begin.

The two scientists in the field:

Leavin' Nashvegas

2009-03-07T08:11:00.000-08:00

19 Feb, 2009

Husband drove me to the airport and I talked the whole way because I was so excited. I don't even remember what I talked about and it's probably not important, but I was really excited and a little nervous. Anyone who knows me understands why. There was a time I wouldn't even dream of stepping this far outside my comfort zone. Anyhow, I took a picture of my "Chilean Butterfly Traveling Bracelet" that was made for me by Miss Beady. To quote her:

"Brown with a little red or orange, and some of them are silver." (That's how you described your study species.) This bracelet has been designed with the colors of your butterflies in mind. The brown beads are Czech glass. The orange/red/peach beads are all coral. Coral offers protection and prevents ill fortune and illness. The turquoise beads are real turquoise. Turquoise is native to the Andes mountains in Chile. (Although this turquoise is not from Chile. It is from Arizona.) Turquoise is a symbol of friendship and provides strength and brings good fortune. I hope this bracelet witll protect you and bring you strength on your journey.

The other one is a beetle (yes, it's a real insect) from Miss Jenn. It glows in the dark. I love it. I wore both of these on my way to and on my way from Santiago and it helped tremendously to know that there were dear friends thinking of me and wishing me well, even if they were in another hemisphere.

Arrival at Miami:
According to my notes, from the time I arrived at the Nashville Airport to my arrival at the Miami airport, I knitted three inches of my Chile sock. On the flight down, there were two people from Chicago sitting near me, both Cubs fans. I saw palm trees, though far away, and for the first time since last summer, the city I was in was having temperatures of over 80*F (26*C).

I met a knitter from Chile named Milenca who lives in Chicago, but was visiting family in Santiago. We chatted for a bit on this and that and she told me where to find a yarn shop. This was extremely valuable information. Thank goodness for knitters the world over.

20 Feb, 2009

From here on, I'm going to try to take directly from my notes. I may add a bit, edit, clarify, or skip over parts as best pleases me.

Morning:
I had to give up my snack food at customs - a total waste, but not worth the fines. I've checked in to my room at the Airport Holiday Inn, within walking distance from the Airport. Quite a change in environment. I'm sweating like a sweaty thing. I'm going to have to venture out into the world to get cash, get my car, and eat. I'd rather hole up here, but I don't have the luxury. Perhaps I'll visit the yarn shop Milenca recommended. It's on the Plaza de Armas, so it should be easy to find.
Evening:

I hired a cab and went to downtown Santiago. I spent most of the afternoon wandering around, getting good & lost, but eventually found my way back to the Plaza de Armas. I was feeling kinda down, not having eaten or found a yarn shop, so I went into a place called Marco Polo and ordered a Coca-Cola. I'd started the heel flap of sock #1 in the cab and was well into it at this point, working on it as I sat in the restaurant. I shoulda done this to start with. I conversed as well as I could with the waitress about my knitting, ordered a sandwich and water (Santiago is very dry), and instantly relaxed. I made myself do it and it ultimately paid off. I got directions to where teh yarn shops were, picked the one where there were ladies sitting down and making stuff, and bought eight skeins of alpaca. It's Peruvian alpaca from the same company as the store I went to in Cuzco and cost roughly $3.75 a skein, but the yarn itself is hardly the point. I went out into the world - the Spanish-speaking world - and managed a sandwich, one or two conversations, and alpaca yarn.

Patricio, my cab driver, even held the sock for me for a picture. I'm sitting in my underwear because it's so damned hot and considering whether I should go eat. I'm not hungry, but all I've eaten today is airplane breakfast (which wasn't bad, actually) and most of a chicken and ovocado sandwich.
...I could have wine...
Later:
Sleep: 1, Wine: 0

There goes my carbon footprint.

2009-03-06T15:09:00.001-08:00

I've just flown in from Santiago, and boy are my arms tired.

AHAHAHA!HA!...ha!...ha. eh, heh...achem...

After two weeks of hunting butterflies, I'm back at the ol' homestead. I haven't slept in something like 36 hours (overnight flight and I'm a light sleeper, despite the two glasses of wine on the plane), so I haven't got the spare neurons to put together much of a blog post.
At any rate, eleven hours of flying and fourteen hours of waiting, give or take, and I'm back home safe with all butterflies as they should be - in my suitcase and as intact as they ought to be.
I'll really update when I've slept some. I haven't even uploaded any pictures.
For now, I'll say that the plane ride from Santiago to Miami was very nice. I watched Kingdom of Heaven and The Day the Earth Stood Still and other than the lack of sleep, it was a good flight. If you're ever flying to South America, I highly, highly recommend LAN.

I will have more later, in bits and pieces as I upload photos and translate my notes from my field journal. Now, I think I will sleep until a reasonable hour tomorrow morning.

Poco a Poco

2009-02-09T05:09:00.001-08:00

Finishing is...well, it's seeming kinda slow. The DNA scarf wasn't even halfway done at the beginning of February and now I've got almost 4/6 repeats of the DNA pattern before I start the center ribbing. I'm thinking about doing the Chromosome cap to match it, but I haven't settled on a gloves/mittens pattern yet. I want to knit a chullo, something with llamas and butterflies, maybe a greek key, in "Dear Gods, my eyes!" colors, but Kadollan is right. The chullo is just not going to go with the DNA scarf in the way that I want it to.
I've finished one and a half repeats of the center panel of the Daily Llama, the socks are still on hold, and the BSJ is pretty close to done. It's my at work knitting, so it's kinda slow going. I only work on it while I've got something loading or I need a break to stave off raster burn. I think I'm going to walk in today. It's meant to be in the 70's this afternoon and it's 47*F now, which is close enough to my 50*F threshold. I really need to get my legs moving again. I'm going to be running after butterflies at 4,000m (that's over 13k feet up), so I can't really afford to have weak legs. Altitude meds didn't help last time, so I'm just going to not take them. I still have my emergency antibiotics, and I'll be taking some tylenol and something for my stomach. Fifteen hours of flying is stressful for the stomach. Another thing I don't look forward to is the lack of sleep. Movement wakes me up, which makes it hard to sleep next to another person and to sleep on a moving vehicle. I thought that perhaps I could sleep in a plane, but a plane is a moving vehicle and the best I can do is shut my eyes for a bit.
I'm still kind of in denial about the whole trip and feeling a bit like Bilbo Baggins. I don't particularly want an adventure, but it seems I'm going to have one anyway. It's a little too exciting. None of it will be real until I'm on the plane. I do have my equipment, though. My very own net that's mine. That's kind of exciting.

Good things

2009-02-04T11:58:00.000-08:00

So, I just gave Shelby (my postal carrier) his fingerless mitts. The cat had stolen them and hid them in the livingroom, but I finally found them and delivered them post-haste to the intended recipient. "I can't believe you made me something!" he said. Of course I made him something. I'm very thankful for the way in which he handles my mail. He needed them, too. It's 27*F (-3*C) outside today and dude needs something to keep his hands warm and his fingers free. It matches his uniform, too. It's made with Bernat Alpaca in grey with a blue trim.
He gave me a hug.
So, since it is February for Finishing (as I mentioned before), here are some of my UFOs:

First there's the DNA scarf, pictured here next to an unfinished book. I can read a little before I stop processing words into ideas and then I have to put it down. With the scarf, it's cabling, so I have to pay attention to get anything done. I've been working on it in the mornings and I'm very nearly done witht the third pattern repeat. It's knit in Knit Pick's Palette in Red, double stranded. I'm going to do a hat and gloves or mittens to go with, but I haven't decided on the pattern yet.

Then there's the Daily Llama. Again, it's cabling and I have to sit and pay attention to it as I've mentioned before. The color's a little off in this picture, but the cabling shows up pretty well.
I'm liking this one so far and I like cabling. I just wish I had more time to sit and do it (and actual cable needles). I swore off lace while I'm in grad school, but failed to mention anything about cables. I suppose I have created a niche for complex knitting in my brain that must be filled with something at all times. Lace goes out, so cabling comes in.

Then there are socks. I've set these aside for the latter half of the month when I'll be out of the country so that I have something small for airplane knitting that won't take much time or brain. The ones on the left were cast on on Jan. 31st so I'd have them started before February and the ones on the right are knitted for the January Pants KAL/CAL.

Lastly, there's the BSJ.
I'm not sure about the colors. It's right on the border between cute and questionable, but since returning were as tedious as go o'er, it's getting finished. I'm definitely making the pattern again, if for no other reason than because people are going to continue to have babies.

I've decided that when I make an Etsy shop, it will be called "Classify" and my slogan is "A diversity of handmade goods." So here's the first thing I made to go in said hypothetical Etsy shop. It's a wee notions bag with a zipper, made from yarn leftover from my weaving project. Speaking of which, I need to have of more fleece so I can have of more yarn so I can weave more. My tapestry skills are not that great and I much prefer weaving on my big loom, but the former takes far less yarn than the latter.
I love my woven robe thing. It's wicked warm and I love it I love it I love it.

February is for Finishing

2009-02-01T08:04:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again, to count your UFOs and take note of which need to be flung, frogged, or finished in the month of February. I tend to be conservative, as knitters go, in starting projects. Some people who read this blog (I'm looking at you, kadollan) find my lack of UFOs disturbing, but I find that it is a healthy level of unfinished stuff for me.
I have two projects that take up a fair amount of neural RAM, the daily llama and the DNA scarf. Both are cabling and both require that I sit down and pay attention to what I'm doing. I have two socks, one of which was cast on last night in preparation for my trip to Chile in the middle of February. I also have the Baby Surprise Jacket, which is kind of in the middle range of complexity. I will have pictures at some point for each of these.
Anyhow, that's five things. I've decided that for the first half of February, I'll focus on finishing the cabled projects and for the second half, I'll work on the socks. I'll definitely finish the socks and may not finish the cabled projects, but hope to at least get a little farther along. I've been working on the BSJ at work during knit breaks so that my eyeballs don't explode from looking at a computer screen too long. I'm not certain about the colors, so we'll have to see how it turns out.

Daily Llama

2009-01-27T19:26:00.000-08:00

The Llama has decided to be a kind of rectangley thing that is to be made into a purse/bag thing. I finally have a design I like, edged in a textured stitch and with an Aran vibe to it. I hope it turns out nice. I think it will and I think that I might write up the pattern and sell it for a dollar. I'm not sure about my pattern-writing skills, chart-writing skills, or whether the pattern is something someone wants. But I figure that if somebody wanted to give me a dollar for it, that would be okay and then I'd have a dollar.
The bag itself is meant to be sold. I have to figure out how much to ask for it, but I've got time yet. I think maybe I could do a couple embroidered hankies as well or some quilted popholders. I like making popholders.
Oh, the selling stuff.
I don't remember if I've posted about this here, but I may have talked about it other places. I want a laptop. I can get a refurbished one and I get a discount for being a student, but it will still require pennies I don't yet have. My plan is to make some stuff, save some pennies (literally pocket change in a little elephant bank on my desk), and if someone wants to buy some stuff from me, that would be neat and then I'd have some dollars for a laptop. I have twelve dollars now and that's just from pocket change.
As for the Llama, it's been quite the lesson in mindfulness. You have to pay attention when working cables, so I have to just sit and pay attention to nothing but the llama while I'm working on it. Otherwise, I have to tink a row. I had to tink one of the rows maybe four times because I wasn't paying attention.

Made of Love

2009-01-21T14:31:00.000-08:00

Husband bought me this fiber, so I spun this yarn and made these gloves, but there was more yarn, so I wanted to make something really spectacular. I'm making mittens. They're a little snug because I didn't give any ease in my measurements and didn't sufficiently account for how much fair isle draws up, but that's alright. I can wear them and they're just beautiful! I love this yarn so much.
So. very. much.
These mittens are so warm and so full of love. My mom recently said of the gloves I made her, "When I put on my little knitted gloves I feel so loved. It's like you are wrapping your little hands around mine to keep them warm. It is hard to explain. I also love my socks, but there is a really special feeling I get when I put on my gloves. You must have blessed them." I cannot tell you how awesome that is.
Do you believe?

I'm a rainbow, too.

Llama and the illusion of control

2009-01-12T06:07:00.000-08:00

I have this llama fleece, right? There are parts of it that are really really soft, but there are a lot of guard hairs in it and a goodly amount of VM. I could try to picky-picky through it and make a big mess trying to remove these imperfections, but I'm not going to. It is what it is. One big thing I've learned in the past few years is to let go of the illusion of control and I think my spinning skills have improved because of that. When I first started spinning, it was very even, very thin, and very tight and now it's a little lumpy, a little thicker, and a little less tightly wound. Just like me. Well, I'm not really any lumpier or thicker, but I am less tightly wound. Anyhow, I like the yarn better that way and I like me better that way.
I have this stupid broken bit in my brain that is very confused about the right order of things. That part of my brain is convinced that I can have control over every single little detail I touch, up to and including every single fiber being spun into yarn. I don't listen to it as often as I used to and it seems the less I listen to it and the more I let go of this idea of control, the easier things are. They yarn is lovlier and I'm happier.
So, I'm going to let this llama be what it is. It's llama with VM and guard hairs in it. I'm considering making a stuffy llama out of it so it won't be something worn next to the skin, but whatever I decide to make, I'm going to try to do something that appeals to the nature of the yarn rather than forcing it into something that isn't going to make me happy.

An updated stash is a happy stash

2009-01-06T19:47:00.000-08:00

I could use more yarn, though. It took me maybe fifteen minutes to update my stash on Ravelry to include almost all of the yarns I actually own. What I need is sock yarn. In a serious way. How am I to stash shop for socks when there's no stash to speak of? It's...it's... no less than appalling! I have monies for yarn. I get $60 in spendy cash every two weeks. I have $35 unspent buckaroos in my purse as we speak.
So why? Why do I have no sock yarn?
I simply just have not been shopping for yarn. I have not been perusing, finding something shiny, and purchasing. I've been knitting faster than I've been acquiring yarn and getting rid of or trading the stuff that I really don't want (crap yarn that I don't love, mostly).
The above stash picture is some palette from Knitpicks I got for making a scarf, hat, and mittens combo. I'm strongly considering a chullo. I should have a chullo.

¡Año Nuevo, Vida Nueva!

2009-01-02T18:20:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, all!
It's kinda cheesy to say that each new year brings new promise, but it does. It's nice to think you can leave all the crud of the past year behind you and start new. Sometimes I do that daily, sometimes hourly, but the new calendar year is nice for just dumping whatever emotional baggage you have to stuff that happened in the last calendar year and look at the world with new eyeballs.

Yuletide knitting went fairly well. Here's a couple things I made. Above is a pair of fingerless mitts for big brother and to the left, a washie for my mom. I made a lot of washies this year and gave them with fancy soaps. I didn't make anything big or complicated for anyone because my brain has been hijacked by school. There were two items that kind of fell flat. I made another pair of fingerless mitts and a pair of socks out of a yarn that, as it turns out, is kind of crap. The socks were also too small, but it was not my fault. I swear they were the right size when I finished them. The little dude grew between the time I finished them and the time they were given to him. Next time, I shall make them too big.

Now that I've taken the better part of December off, I need to get back in the lab, but I do feel refreshed and ready to take on the world! Well, maybe not the world, but I'll be taking on much more of the world this year than I generally take on. I'm going to Chile and perhaps also Argentina in February and at least to Poland, and possibly also to London and Munich in the summer. I'll be chasing butterflies as usual. The ones in Europe are already dead and preserved, so they'll be easier to catch. I'm very excited, of course, but it isn't quite real yet. It's not real 'til I'm on the plane.

I'm having a stash crisis. I have...very little in the way of stash. There's one skein of sock yarn and some little random bits of things. There's some palette that's already dedicated to a project (hat, scarf, and gloves/mittens combo) but that's really it. I've ordered some sock yarn for January socks. They'll probably be plain ol' socks, but they'll be blue handknit socks and that will be awesome. They're January socks 'cause I have this plan to knit myself one pair of socks for each month, animal fibers for cold months and plant fibers for warm months.

So far, it's being an awesome year. We just got back from eating out at La Siesta and we did it with budget money that was leftovers from grocery money. At the end of the pay period, whatever is leftover in the grocery envelope goes in the dining in/dining out envelope. No cash in there, no restaurant food. Leftovers from the gas money envelope goes in a car stuff envelope. Sometimes we have enough for tires, sometimes a tree air freshener, but it's a system that works for us. Anyhow, I paid everything I could pay, including every medical bill I was aware we had, and we still had $200 left in the bank. WOOT! I went to OfficeMax and got some stuff, including new plastic envelopes for the above envelope system and a stapler.

Crunch time and the formation of new traditions

2008-12-19T04:35:00.000-08:00

Every year, I get knitter's delirium and forget that there are only so many days in December before Yule, Christmas, and Chanukah. I've done a little better this year, making washies for several people I know and love and giving those with fancy soaps. I like fancy soaps and I can give them every year! Whee! Also, the people at Tennessee Gourmet are no less than wonderful. You should buy their stuff. I sent some gifts from there, but the shipping was crazy whoa, so I called them. Their gal, Sue, not only got my order down from $140-something to $102-something, but her follow-up email made me feel like a real live person instead of just an order number. Thanks, Sue!

Anyhow, I'm short by three or four gifts at this point and there's no way I'm going to get something handmade for those people at this point. There's just too much to do between now and then. Fortunately, we're going out into the world today and have pennies enough that we'll be fine.

So, John, Iris, and I have been a family for more than seven years and I'm not sure why, but we never managed to form holiday traditions of our own. I've been content to participate in the traditions of others and happy that I've made Yule part of my annual winter holiday thing, but the three of us didn't really have anything that was just for us. I thought of traditions as something that kind gradually form over time, but this year, we made a conscious decision to have family breakfast, just us, on Christmas morning. While the day of our Yuletide family breakfast may need to be fluid to allow for participation in other things and for work schedules, that time is just for us. It's something to build on and make our own.

Another new thing is Chanukah with my sister-in-law. Iris was introduced to Chanukah through John's parents, but they don't really have a big to-do at any of the holidays and have since become Mormons. I don't pretend to understand Mother of John, so I'm just going to go with it. Stepdad of John seems to just go along to get along. He's got a California surfer dude vibe to him... probably because he used to surf in California. Anyhow, my SIL is whatcha call a Jewish American Redneck and I love her so much. She asked us if we would be staying in East TN for longer than just for Christmas since Chanukah overlaps both Christmas and Yule this year and she wanted to know if she should hold back a few gifts for Iris for the days of Chanukah we'd be there. Iris is so excited about celebrating all the holidays (except for Kwanzaa, she says), but we never get around to Chanukah.

We'll have a tree and presents and lights for Yule, a tree and presents and lights and pancakes for Christmas, and latkes and presents and lights for Chanukah.
Happy Holidays, y'all.

Clicky and close

2008-12-10T05:00:00.000-08:00

Here lately, I've had a bazillion things running through my head like each one is one of those is a stock ticker with the latest update, only there are so many stock tickers that you can't see the newscast. There are several things I'm working on finishing and each time I manage to move past one of them, I clicky and close one of those tickers. I think you might be able to see Tom Brokaw's eyeballs now.

One of those things was a map and presentation for my ArcGIS class. I finished the project, it was fabulous, it was beautiful, and now I'm done. I finished the rough draft for my proposal, but haven't edited it yet. I finished my Seminar class, a pair of socks, lots of washcloths, and I've almost finished sewing one Yulemas present.

One of the bigger things I recently finished was a length of weaving that I absolutely had to have done before Yule. The weaving is done and I cut it in two yesterday so that I could sew the two pieces together. Cutting it made me a little lightheaded, but I had to and I did it. The most amazing thing about this project was that I could not have done it alone. I had help from Dear Husband, Kadollan, Bubbo's Pants on Ravlery, Peaceful Pastures, Matt and Jaime at Wooly Knob Fiber Mill, and even little Iris. She helped me ply some of the yarn I used. Thank you, all of you, and thanks to the nice woman that sold me the loom. I definitely could not have done it without her.

Every yard of yarn used in this (approximately) four yards by 23 inches of fabric was handspun by somebody. I spun all the warp threads, but the cool funky colored stuff was graciously donated by Andey and the pinky red was a trade with bittlerely on Ravelry for spinning the most lovely batt. I almost kept it, it was so pretty. There's only one that was a handspun in my stash that I don't know the origin of.

I am so pleased with this. I can't tell you how happy I am with the fabric. I made lots of mistakes along the way, but hopefully have learned from them so that next time I weave, I'll do even better.

Here's a random side note that is almost completely unrelated to everything I've posted about so far. Iris asked me to braid her hair the other day with one on each side, leaving mostly down hair, according to her instructions. She ended up looking like Elrond's great great great granddaughter. So cute.

2008-11-30T18:47:00.000-08:00

Dear and darling readers,
Please pardon me while I fall off the face of the planet for a while. My brain is full. Dear God, my brain is so full.
I'm not doing NaNo, but I'm poking at my story about Elves
The Holidays... 'nuff said.
I have another thing I'm working on that's kind of huge for me
Then there's school.

Dearest wodentoad? You're one o' them - unless you're one of a something I didn't mention. You tell me which one you are, 'cause (in theory) you'd know better than me.

Everyone needs a washcloth...almost

2008-11-11T05:19:00.001-08:00

I've been making a metric f***ton of washcloths for the season of gift-giving. With Jews, Mormons, Catholics, Pagans, agnostics, and a Deist in my family, it gets complicated. I don't mind having an excuse to give pressies to my family members and friends and such and it doesn't really matter what you call it. Anyhow, I was going to take a picture or several pictures or something, but I must needs charge some batteries first.
I knit during my Seminar class wherein we sit and discuss some controversy in biology for about an hour, twice a week. I'm the only one there that knits and it seems that my fellow graduate students are just fascinated by the whole thing. One girl, Leslie, came in late and whispered to the person next to her:
"What is she making?"
"A washcloth."
"Another one?"
Of all the topics we've discussed in this class, the male reproductive organ and my knitting have been the most consistent.
In weaving news, I have more than two yards woven. Since this was the absolute minimum that I needed, I feel like I can breathe a little. I've got more than two to go yet still, but it's nice to have that first two yards done. Right now, my spinning is just barely keeping up with the weaving, but still keeping up. I just finished setting the twist on two hanks of alpaca and I've started some lovely and rilly rilly soft llama.
I'm considering making a scarf for the president-elect later on out of the llama. 'Cause he needs a llama scarf. You know 'cause I told you.

wow. just...wow

2008-11-05T05:09:00.000-08:00

Once I speculated that we might someday, in the future, when I was older, maybe elect a president who wasn't a white male. I thought we'd grown and changed as a nation. I believed in us and I believed that we were more than black and white. I was told that it wouldn't happen. Not in my parents' lifetime, not in my child's lifetime, but it happened last night. I believe that it is the power of optimism, of humility, of the willingness to work hard that won this. This is huge.
The best part, according to exit polls, "Race really wasn't that big a factor."

I am proud of us.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled knitblog.

NaProWriMo

2008-11-02T12:10:00.000-08:00

Many of my dear friends are doing NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated - and I am not. I'm in grad school and it would not only be irresponsible of me to do that, but I would crack. Someone would put me in a hug-me jacket and off I'd go to the land of padded rooms and one way observation mirrors.
So I've decided to declare this National Proposal Writing Month so I can get this over and done with. I've already started writing, so I have a jump on my NaNo brethren and sistren. Except I'm totally lame and have only 637 words, including a page of references. Many of them are really big words, but even still...
Also, as a defense mechanism, I'm working on my own fiction story. I'm not doing it in any NaNo capacity. I just want to write this story a little here and a little there 'cause it makes me happy.

In fibery news, I've hurt my wrists weaving. On the one hand (ha) I've got over a yard of fabric in three days, on the other hand, ow. It hurt to spread peanut butter. I seem to be recovering and plan on weaving for shorter amounts of time so this doesn't happen again.

Weaverbird

2008-10-28T07:43:00.001-07:00

I hope you enjoyed reading about my Adventures in Peru. Now it's back to your regularly scheduled knitblog.

Except that today it's weaving. I finally finished warping my loom and am now able to weave on it. I find that I like weaving twill more than tabby, but I haven't done much more than that yet. There are six treadles (those are the pedals to make the yarns go up and down), but I only know how to use four at a time. I'm not terribly concerned about it yet, though eventually, I'll want to make more interesting patterns. Considering that when I got said loom, I started with parts and not even all the parts and some that had to be replaced, I'm exceedingly pleased and tickled and happy and joyful that I now have a working loom. The fabric I'm weaving was meant to be rather wider than it is, but I didn't correctly calculate how many threads I'd need and ended up about 14" short. I think I'll just go with it and not worry too much about it.

I'm using 100% handspun yarn, most of it my own handspun, but some from Andey on Ravelry and at least one that is definitely handspun, but I don't know the source. I also put in it the first yarn I ever spun. I thought it appropriate to use for my first weaving on a big loom. The bumps and slubs of the handspun yarn makes the fabric just beautiful. I just love how it looks.

This last weekend was the fiber festival here in the 'Boro and because I have this 100% handspun weaving project, I went on a holy quest for fiber. I came back with three bags full. I got one fleece from a sheep named Sophia, some purple something, and some grey something that I'm going to ply with the purple. We watched a sheep shearing, had some apple cider, and did not agree to help a farmer with his nature trail in exchange for wool. A good time was had by all (except the cutie little sheep who seemed mildly annoyed).

Oh - I do have a bit of knitting to show. These are socks I made for little one out of Tofutsies I bought for my birthday. The picture isn't very good because she absolutely could not wait any longer to put them on and I haven't had the chance to take another picture of them. I finished weaving in the ends on one and she put it on her foot while waiting for me to weave in the ends on the other one. I think this is a definite sign that she likes them. I'm also knitting a pair of socks for Kadollan's little man in a dudely green color and I finished one fine gauge washcloth in a blue mercerized cotton and one Warshrag ala Mason-Dixon Knitting. I don't have pictures of everything yet, but I have now made a whole stack of cotton washcloths for gift-giving purposes.

I long for a cardigan...

Speaking of which, the time to finish my ManSweater is NOW. It's frikkin' cold outside.

Adventures: Day 11 & 12

2008-10-22T05:17:00.000-07:00

Sept. 12
There wasn't supposed to be a "Day 11" but there was. No breakfast. I ate a granola bar and some cranberries, but I wouldn't call that "breakfast" exactly. We went to the Airport to try and find a Delta representative - no luck. We were "very helpfully" directed to a travel agent who booked us a flight and wanted an insane amount of money in cash. A. We didn't have that much in cash B. Couldn't get that much in cash and C. Wouldn't give him that much cash, even if we could. It was something crazy like $5K. We were booked on an airline we'd never heard of that had a two bag per person policy. I'd like to note for the record that three traveling scientists will probably have more than two bags each. "No problem" says the travel agent. Just to be sure, we checked with airport information to see if the airline was real. It was...unfortunately.

While Andy went to downtown Lima to find a Delta representative, Josh and I entered locality data for some of our study species. No lunch. It's a tedious job, but it helped get my mind off of the fact that I missed my baby so much. When he returned, there was bad news. We would not be flying home on Delta because their flights were all screwed up by Hurricane Ike. We don't like Ike. So, off we went to the Lima airport, again. We went to check in and not only did we have too many bags, but we had to make sure they were each under the weight limit. There was cursing and juggling around of items and bags, but we eventually managed. Nobody was happy. No dinner. Also, no knitting. Apparently, I can knit on the flight *to* Peru, but not *from* Peru. I was not happy.

Having checked in with some time to go before our flight, we go to eat. At this point, I'm in the shaky blood sugar dropping no coordination stage of having had nothing but a granola bar and some cranberries early in the morning. We go to the food court and have some Peruvian fast food, including an Inca Kola. This stuff is really sweet and it's a good thing, too. As I sucked it down, Andy says "You're like a hummingbird!" True facts. I have a metabolism like whoa. Twenty minutes later, I feel much better, but I'm not quite in the place where I believe I'm going home.

Eventually, we made our way to the gate and I took one last look at souvenirs. There's one shirt that has a cartoon alpaca, Incan dude, and conquistador lined up hip to hip. This was the funniest damn thing I'd seen all week. At this point, I was out of cash, so I didn't buy the shirt. Oh, I wanted it, though. "Perhaps they're conga-dancing..." says I, grinning.
"Yeah...they're 'dancing,'" says Josh. I've never heard him say anything funny before or since, but this made me laugh. I take final peek at the overpriced get it while you can alpaca store, but just for purposes of window shopping. I'm twitchy at this point 'cause I have no knitting. Josh could tell. It was like going through withdrawal. I saw a woman winding yarn into a ball and considered doing something... I'm not sure what, but something. We'd already been through security, but they searched our bags again before we boarded. I'm not sure what that was about, but whatever. I just wanted to go home.

This flight was as awful as the flight to Lima was nice. No beverage, snack, or dinner, unless I wanted to purchase something. No, I did not want to purchase something. No little pillow, no movie, no sleep. I can't sleep in a moving vehicle. At best, I kind of close my eyes and half snooze. I couldn't see the ocean until we arrived in Fort Lauderdale, but at some point during the flight, I finally feel like I'm on the way home. At this point, Day 11 fuzzes into Day 12. We go through customs and as the lady stamps my passport, she says "Welcome home." Never in my life have those words meant more to me. I almost cried, but didn't because I didn't want the guys to think I couldn't handle the tough stuff. I'm of the opinion that crying doesn't mean you can't handle it, but rather that it's okay to have emotions about the tough stuff. In customs, there was this poor stupid man with limes in his bag and a number of other food items. The customs dude tried to explain, "We regulate all of this stuff! No, you can't have this! No!" We re-check our bags and get ready for the next flight. No coffee. Josh bought a pack of gum and shared to get that "God, we've been traveling" taste out of the mouth.

Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta was a short flight and we ended up on the exact same airplane we'd just flown on. They changed flight attendants and they seemed nicer than the Lima to Ft. Lauderdale crew. The plane was not nearly as full, so that was nice, and because they booked my seat twice, I had to move to a vacant seat. No problem. I picked a row with nobody in it so I could have some time to myself. All the being jerked around for two days, the crap flight, the "Welcome Home," everything, came out at once. I cried quietly almost the entire way.
I sucked it up before we landed and really did start to feel better once in the Atlanta airport.

Collecting our baggage took for God and Ever, but at least there was coffee. I was so happy, I drank it with no sugar. There were giant fire ant sculptures on the ceiling of the baggage claim area and finally, I had my knitting again. I chatted with random woman #3 as we waited and eventually we had our bags and a rental car to drive from Atlanta to Murfreesboro. It was cheaper and quicker to do it this way than to try and book another flight into BNA.
Remember in Cusco, when all they had was a tiny little compact car at the rental place? This was the car we took up and down mountains, around winding gravel mountain roads. In Atlanta, when we would be traveling on paved highway and no more up than Monteagle, all they had at the rental place was an SUV. I was amused. It wasn't the kind of vehicle I'd do any actual mountain driving in, though. This thing was big to be big. It was the epitome of conspicuous consumption and I think it would cry if it got its tires dirty. It was that kind of car.

We stopped a couple of times, once for Taco Bell and once because traveling is rough on the intestines. The Appalachians looked different to me. They were tiny, small little hills, hardly mountains at all. Everything looked different, too big, too much, too wasteful. Damn but aren't we a fat, rich, spoiled country and most of us don't even realize it. I didn't understand myself, really, until we were on our way home. I felt really rich, really fortunate to live in the US, and a little spoiled.

Home. I was finally home. I walk in and the house is clean, dear husband is folding laundry, and dear daughter is so excited, she shuts the door in Andy's face (we opened it again). I had missed her so much that I just hugged her for a very long time. That evening, we went to D&D as usual and I kind of verbally vomited out an account of my trip, distributed gifts, made a first level character, and promptly fell asleep.

Adventures: Day 10

2008-10-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

Sept. 11
I'd forgotten completely what day it was and now that I think about it, perhaps our trip home was jinxed somehow. So we got from Cuzco to Lima just fine and had several hours to kill before our flight home. Here's Andy trying to work with Peruvian bureaucracy and failing. Kieth (redheaded English dude who was confused about the sock before) had a projector confiscated, so we were trying to get it back for him. I knit while Andy took care of this and Josh just sat down and people-watched.
Since that was an exercise in fail, we hung out with our friend Gerardo at the Museum of Natural History in Lima. They have this big reproduction alligator (note the sock) and where they found the fossils of this guy, they also found a tortoise shell with a bite mark on the shell that matched his teeth. In the background of picture #2, you can see an artist's interpretation of the 'gator vs. tortoise. They had big whale bones and other such interesting things, too, but I didn't get a picture of those. All of what I saw was outside, which I thought was weird, but they don't get much rain there, so weathering from rain is not much of a problem, I suppose.
There were also a number of interesting plants and trees. The one pictured below was my favorite. It's a coffee tree. If there is ever any tree that should be hugged, it's this one. I love you, coffee tree! I still don't get the thing about instant coffee they have in South America. I mean, they have access to the good stuff, so why drink the crap? Anyhow, it was neat to see a coffee tree with beans on it and banana trees with bananas on. It's like the thrill of going to the farm where your food is grown, except times a thousand. Right after my imaginary fiber tour of South America, there will be an imaginary culinary tour of South America wherein we sample all the wonderful things that grow there. Coca grows there. Whenever I had coca tea with breakfast, I'd get this feeling that I was doing something harmless, but slightly naughty like staying up past my bedtime or having ice cream for breakfast.
Gerardo took us to this fancy place for dinner where we had pisco sours (I had two, which was more than plenty) and really really good food. I tried some ceviche and had some seafood thing for dinner. I was so stuffed and schnockered by the time dinner was done.

I was wearing the happiest sweater ever that I described before, so Gerardo says, "You know your sweater is like the flag of Cusco..."
"I know." says I.
"...which is very similar to the homosexual flag."
"I know." says I.
And then while I looked over the menu, I saw several items with "bruja" in the name. "Do you know what bruja means?" says Gerardo.
"Yes, it means 'witch'" says I.
"...it means 'witch'" says he.
"I know." says I.

I told this story to dear Husband who then says, "I'm a gay witch in Cuzco, okay?!"
-which is not entirely accurate, but damned funny.

Anyhow, after dinner, we whiff over to the airport only to find that the check-in counter was only open for an hour...which we missed. Our plane was still physically at the airport, but we could not check in. The customer service people tried to explain this to me in Spanish while I am schnockered. I'd like to state for the record that this is not the best way to deliver bad news. Long story short, we were stuck in Lima. So, we got a hotel room. I'd like you to note the heart-shaped headboard and the fact that this picture was taken from a strategically placed mirror - one of many. Classy.

In other news

2008-10-15T06:49:00.000-07:00

My loom is very nearly up and running. I'm waiting on delivery of a part and I need more yarn - a lot more yarn. The project I'm working on is hand spun yarn only and I have a deadline. ACK! Anyhow, the loom takes up a fair amount of space in the office, but it's totally worth it to me. Dear Husband isn't as sure about it as I am, but we made a deal involving video games, so it's all good.
In other other news, I met Ann and Kay of Mason-Dixon Knitting! How cool is that? They are made of awesome and I want I want their new book. Husband, Daughter, and I all went to the Southern Festival of Books "for his birthday." Yeah, that's it. We were going for his birthday. He caught on pretty quickly, but had a good time anyway. I'd like to go next year just because - whether or not there are any knitting authors there. I keep meaning to link them in the sidebar, but I haven't yet. I generally click on BFF Jill's link and then on her Mason-Dixon Knitting link. Btw, Kade, you totally should blog. Like, seriously. Go now.

Adventures: Day 9

2008-10-15T06:14:00.000-07:00

Sept. 10th
I woke up to dear Aunt Flo and insufficient equipment to handle her. I had some, but not nearly enough. Claudia had already gone back home, so it was just me and three guys. Andy's Spanish is quite good, but dude - he's my boss. I can't be asking him to go get supplies for me. Josh doesn't speak Spanish at all and I really don't know Gerardo well enough to ask him to get feminine products for me, so it was all me. I asked for directions to the pharmacy, found out what time it opened, found the pharmacy, and managed to communicate (though not well) what I needed - in Spanish, by myself. WOOT! Victory!
I returned victorious and we soon left for a collecting day.
Or shall I say a not collecting day. We were at about 4,000 meters or so (12,000 feet) and we found a spot that looked promising. After running around for a bit unsuccessfully, it started to hail and rain. And it was cold. Running at 4k meters is not ideal, by the way. So we piled back in the car and drove some more. And then we kept driving. We drove almost all the way to Lake Titicaca (snicker) but not quite. At one point, I say to the guys "Okay, I have to stop now." Not only did I have to pee, but was in danger of leaking. We stop at a gas station and as I go in, Andy says something like "Fortify yourself," as though to suggest that the bathroom might be below my expectations. Actually, it exceeded my expectations. It was a clean hole in the ground.
This was the kind of toilet where you squat to pee. I've been in outhouses more advanced than this, but it was fairly clean and there was a trashcan. The odor of the place wasn't vile, either. I thank the Gods for small favors.
So, we drove back to Cuzco. The countryside was lovely and reminded me of pictures I'd seen of the American West (having never been there myself). We saw flamingos and we considered stopping in this one town where the specialty was cuy. I never did have any cuy while I was there. Maybe next time.

And now, for these commercial messages

2008-10-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

So, first I was a little weird about buying shoes online because you like to try them on to see if they fit and so on and so on, but
I frikkin' love these shoes:

I've had mine for about two months and I got a pair for Iris as well. They're no more expensive than a pair of shoes at the shoe store (particularly when they have a good sale like...now. Go now.) and they're wicked cute.

Also, I want some of this.

Adventures: Day 8

2008-10-09T06:21:00.001-07:00

Sept. 9th
No pictures from today, unfortunately.
It was nice to have a warm shower in the morning after having been on the road for a bit. We had a modest breakfast at the hotel, which was blessedly included with the room. I ate fruit and bread with coca tea and that seemed sufficient. There was no collecting to be done, so we had a day to be tourists. My first stop was Michell for some alpaca yarn. I really wished I'd been able to purchase some from the lady before, but this would have to do. It was clear that they cater to gringos, but I was determined to purchase some nice yarn in the land of many alpacas. I got a kilo of a natural tan colored yarn in a light fingering weight, possibly lace weight, for about S/ 100 - which is 2.2lbs for $30-40 USD.
Nice.
I split it with kadollan when I got home 'cause I promised her yarn.
We went about town, looking at old Incan walls and shopping. I purchased the happiest sweater ever in rainbow colors, a bag for collecting, and a used bottom whorl spindle that the person tried to pass off as "antique." I only paid S/ 10 for it (about $3), so that was good. Andy bought for me a wee llama finger puppet at lunch. They were adorable and he insisted. That went to kadollan's eldest who has a thing about llamas.
There was dinner and then bed.

Adventures: Day 7

2008-10-08T12:56:00.001-07:00

Sept. 8th
We collected some moths on our way to breakfast at the tiny little restaurant in Quincemil. Gringos, it seems, get cheese sandwiches while everyone else gets vertebrae with rice or omelets. It could be that we simply arrived too early, but breakfast was sparse nonetheless. There was instant coffee and Claudia, my roommate, had acquired some bananas, which she shared with us. She's an undergraduate at a university, I forget where, and she has this crazy hat that looks like a sleeping animal on her head.
Anyhow, we loaded up and left after breakfast, stopping to chase butterflies just a couple km outside the town. We didn't find much, probably because it was too early, so when Gerardo and Claudia caught up with us, we moved down the road a bit. There's a picture from this site with me and my net, but I don't have it. I'll post it when I get it, though. The jungle is just gorgeous during the day. There are banana trees and all kinds of interesting plants besides. I recognized the banana trees because they had bananas growing on them. I hadn't seen bananas growing ever before, so I just thought that was the coolest. It would have been awesome to have a plant press, but probably difficult to bring back specimens.
Our second stop was so much fun, I can't even tell you. There were so many butterflies that at one point, I had one that I'd just caught in an envelope I held in my mouth and another in my net. Again, no pictures because we were too busy chasing butterflies.
The third time we stopped, it was because Andy had seen some Heliconius butterflies, his favorite group, and he just couldn't stand it any longer. What he found was a Heliconius and it's mimic in the same place. I promise you that it was a wicked cool find. I didn't catch much at all, but it was kind of fun to watch the guys running around. That's Andy in the 1st picture and on the left in the 2nd picture and Josh on the right in the 2nd picture.
Since we were in the Amazon Basin, there was nowhere to go but up. So, up we went.
We stopped at another site where I managed to snag a couple butterflies - even in the group that our grant is paying us to study! I was kind of excited about that. It was a bit too cool for them, so again, we didn't find much.
About two in the afternoon, we stopped in this one town to try and find a place to stay. Gerardo talks to the children in the town to locate someplace with a couple of rooms where we can stay. They had this wicked statue (I don't have a picture of any of this) of a condor attacking a cow. We were directed to another part of town where there was supposed to be somewhere we could stay. Gerardo went down the hill to investigate, so we waited at the top of the hill. While we waited, we saw a family slaughtering a cow. It was kind of interesting to see. I'll see if I can get Andy's pictures - his are better than mine because he kind of doesn't mind looking like a gringo tourist. Gerardo comes back up the hill, shaking his head. "Not to be recommended." he says, and we move on.

And up we went some more.

...and up some more.

...and after that we went up some more.

I can't very accurately describe how much up this is. It feels like you're at the very top of the whole world and then drive up the mountain. The haze in this picture is not just fog, it's a cloud. It's not even a low cloud.
As you can see, there's not very much here, but there are people and animals living even at these great altitudes. It's not the most robust existence, but they're there.
After a while, it became apparent that Gerardo's truck was not well. He ran out of gas far before he ought to have. At this point, it was beginning to get late and the temperature was dropping. Josh stayed with Gerardo and Claudia while Gerardo's driver, Marcelino, went with Andy and me to get some gas. It was about 55km to the nearest gas station. 55km is a long way as I soon learned. It's an even longer way when half the distance is one lane winding mountain roads with rapidly diminishing daylight and then dark. It must have taken an hour and a half to go from hither to yon and another hour and a half to go back again. I tried to stay awake, I really did, but between the altitude and the fact that I hadn't had a good night's sleep in some time, I ended up kind of awake, but unable to open my eyes for most of the way back.
We all managed to get back to the gas station together and we once again tried to find a place to stay. We once again failed. At least from here, the rest of the road was paved. We kept driving for most of the night and finally found a small hotel in Cuzco so late in the evening that it was beginning to get early. There was talk of getting something to eat, but I was so tired that I faceplanted in the bed and didn't get up until the next morning.

Adventures: Day 6

2008-10-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

Sept. 7th
Wherein we start our grand adventure.
We drove and we drove and we drove out on our grand adventure over hill, over dale, etc. etc. across a pretty good cross-section of Peruvian landscape. Our destination was Quincemil. I had no idea where Quincemil was on the map and so contented myself to ride along in the front seat ('cause I get carsick) and take the occasional picture out the window. I couldn't knit, so I just kind of watched the scenery and took pictures.

Anyhow, there was a weird Incan wall...thing. We weren't sure what that was about. I'm just certain that building walls is some sort of compulsive Peruvian thing because the entire country is made out of rocks. You know, more than usual on the surface.

There were a number of "Urban Zones" with big speed bumps, presumably for the Enormous Fuel Trucks of DOOOOooom (more on that later). They use the term "Urban" really loosely. Pictured here is one such "Urban Zone." This one is one of the larger ones. Wherever there stood two buildings and more than one chicken, there was an "Urban Zone" and a dead policeman. No, not an actual dead police officer, a really big speedbump. They're called dead policemen in the vernacular.

We went up the mountains and just when I thought there wasn't any more up to go, we went up some more. You can really feel the change when you go up so quickly. At 15,000 feet, I fell asleep for just a minute and woke back up on the way down. The view was breathtaking, and not only because we were way up the mountain and there was no air. It really was beautiful. Never have I been so close to the clouds and still on the ground.

There were alpaca everywhere. Even where there was apparently nothing else, there were alpaca. There were also sheep, but mostly alpaca all over the place. Peru is silly with alpaca. I hadn't found any yarn at this point, so I made up a little rhyme:

Fiber, fiber everywhere
and all the wool did shrink
fiber, fiber everywhere
and not a stitch to tink.

I saw women there with their herds carrying (and using) drop spindles, though I didn't take pictures of them. I just feel weird about taking pictures of people without asking their permission and I didn't want to be disrespectful. Anyhow, it was really kind of awesome to me to see people living this very simple life and making yarn like people have done for thousands and thousands of years. One of these days, I'd like to do a fiber and fabric tour of Peru. There is so much to be learned here.
Also, there were quite a few horses, though Andy couldn't fathom why. I'm not entirely sure myself, but he asked me kindly to take a picture of them for him, so I did. You can see the shape of the earth behind this one where animals have been walking up and down the mountain for gods only know how long. It seems on the surface that most of the animals were quite healthy and while we did see the occasional mangy sheep, it was a rare occurrence.

There is a huge project to pave the road we were traveling - I'm talkin' HYOOOGE - as in, there's a city that was built just to house the road crew. While we were traveling, we had to stop for about thirty minutes or so while some enormous machinery was moved up the narrow gravel road. We did get the opportunity to see the beautiful cloud forest. This is not just a name. It is literally in the clouds. It kind of reminded me of the Smoky Mountains, except...more up. Much more up. I got a good chance to look at the vegetation and realized that I recognized absolutely nothing. I found something in a family I recognized, but that's it. It was a weird feeling not to know the plants.
So, the fuel trucks of doom... DOOM I tell you! And on such a narrow road, there's extra doom. Have you ever been on a narrow mountain road where one side is sheer cliff and the other side is mountain? It's like that, only x1,000. So, one of these fuel trucks is coming up the mountain as we're going down the mountain and we, being in a tiny little compact car, were obligated to move aside. Bigger gets the road. So we move aside to a tiny bit of space on the cliff side of the road, but we were not quite far enough over. So, Andy backs the car up and we feel a little bump. We're stuck. The fuel truck guys get out and try to help. Josh gets out to help. and we manage to get the car back up on the road. We thank the fuel truck guys, Josh gets back in, and we go on our merry way. "Do we want to know how close that was?" says Andy. "No. No you don't." says Josh, who at this point has the big eyes. You see, we had one wheel off the cliff and it was nothing short of a blessing that dear Josh didn't go tumbling down. There are times when you pray, like when someone you know is sick or when you have a difficult exam coming up, and there are times when you pray, like when you almost drove off a cliff.
Having narrowly averted danger, we proceeded down the mountain into the jungle. We hadn't really intended to go to the jungle, but there we were anyway. We finally found Quincemil at night in the jungle and managed a place to stay. It was a little hostel in this backwater town and to say that the room had four walls would be exaggerating. It was more like a stall with two beds. We had some dinner and beer before we bedded down for the night. Dinner consisted of french fries and microwave pizza, but it was hot and it was food. We walked back to the hostel and as I climbed into bed, I thought to myself. "Gee, I hope there are no bed bugs."

I'm sorry, did you say your head's off?

2008-09-30T17:46:00.000-07:00

Yeah. I've been kinda busy and distracted. Mostly distracted, except when I'm busy. So, if your head's come off and I didn't notice, I'm terribly sorry. I will get back to Adventures in Peru pretty soon, I hope. In the mean time, I'm on a crochet kick for some bizarre reason. I'm working on a red and purple tacky crocheted something, some crocheted washcloths, and I've finished a tacky crocheted bag in green and red...you know, the kind of red that's blue and not red at all.

geez, I'm fried.

I'm working on the DNA scarf more frequently than I was before. I don't think I'll get it done in time unless I decide to give it to someone else. You see, I had intended to give it to Jill at work because she works with the DNA in mosquito blood meals. Then, I thought I might give it to Josh (her husband) because he was working on the DNA for our big butterfly project. But they are moving to Texas in three weeks. I'm not certain they have winter in Texas and I am certain that Chuck Norris is involved in the weather patterns of Texas.

The problem with a DNA scarf when you are a biologist is that there are so many appropriate people to give it to...

Speaking of Chuck Norris:
Chuck Norris as Hamlet, Cristopher Walken as King Claudius
discuss.

(From a conversation with my dear friend Elflore)

So now I finish my wine and go to bed. I hope tomorrow is more productive than today has been.

Adventures: Day 5

2008-09-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

Sept. 6
Iris's Birthday. I tried and tried and tried to call or email today, but with no luck. I finally managed a quick "I'm here and safe" email toward the end of the day, but communication was really dodgy. Today we had the pronopholine talks, but Andy was sick so I didn't understand about 90% of them. By the time we got to the conservation talks and butterfly house talks at the end, I was almost completely lost. Honestly, I don't think any of it really stuck with me. I did manage to do something much more important than sit through talks on pronopholines. I took sock photos of lepidopterists. This first one is Mitsi, who was just facinated by my knitting. I showed her how, which was only a little bit of a challenge considering that she didn't speak any English and my Spanish is quite basic.
No symposium would be complete without an after-party. For this one, the evening began with pisco sours and native dancing. Then on to a buffet, drinking, and more dancing. I skipped the last part since we were meant to go collecting the next day. Sr. Lamas, who was our guide/host in this endeavor did not.
Here we have Carlos Giraldo, from Colombia who studies Ithomiines. His sister, it seems, is quite the artist and painted hats and t-shirts to sell at the conference. I bought a black one with a little orange and yellow Ithomiine on it. He's one of those charming Latino lads that you just want to take home with you.
Next is Tomasz Pyrcz whose last name has no vowels. He's working on the same group I am and also doing morphological work. In fact, with any luck, he'll be sending me some specimens. He's got this stern "I'm a Polish dude" look about him in this picture, but don't let that fool you. He's actually a lot of fun to be around. When I started corresponding with him, I went and learned how to say "hello" in Polish because I thought it would be nice. He thought I'd had contact with Poles, but I had not. In fact, he's the only Polish guy I know, but he thought it funny that I had gone out and learned "hello" in Polish. He speaks Polish, Spanish, and English quite well as well as several other languages. He told me a story about the first time he'd left his home country. He was six years old and on a field trip with his class. They were near the border of Slovakia and crossed a few feet over the border. "Ooh! We're in Slovakia!" they said. It's much funnier when he tells it 'cause he waves his arms about and uses his best little kid voice.
Here's Angel Viloria. He's good friends with Tomasz and another Nymphalid person. He's got a big job as the director of the IVIC, Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Investigations, but he's really a creative and down-to-earth type. He likes bluegrass, so I've invited him to come visit. Maybe one of these days, but the big job does keep him busier than he'd like. He seemed quite impressed with the fact that I knit. We are eccentrics among eccentrics.
Next up is Gerardo Lamas, another Nymphalid person and works at the Museo de Historia Natural in Lima. You wouldn't think from looking at him that he likes to party, but dude likes to party. I'll tell you more about the Museum later. Needless to say, they have a real insect collection that makes ours look amateurish. Okay, so it is amateurish. It's kind of awful, really.
<--Here's Blanca of the Tropical Andean Butterfly Diversity Project, who helped put on this shindig. She also gave a talk on conservation.

And Keith, also with TABD, who was very confused about the Sock. He's an assistant curator at the McG uire Center in the University of Florida.-->

<--Then we have Kayce, my hero from before. She's at UC Davis. We heard of each other by way of Ravelry. She doesn't knit, but one of her labmates does. We were introduced by way of SquidWidget, who was suprised to learn that there were two bug bum-lookers on Ravelry. After I took this picture, she asked, "Does it look like I'm knitting?" Nope, it doesn't. Maybe one of these days you'll join us.

Lastly, we have Jason Hall-->
<--and his wife Alma. He works on Riodinids and gave a talk on mimicry. I don't remember what she studies because she didn't give a talk this time. She was quite pleased, in fact, that she could relax and enjoy the trip for once. Believe me, I understand.
Not pictured is Carlos Peña (how did I miss him?) who is another Pronopholine person (like me).

Adventures: Day 4

2008-09-23T06:11:00.000-07:00

Sept. 5th

No pictures today. Having recovered fully, I attended the conference and sat through many many butterfly talks (with my knitting). These kinds of talks are difficult to keep up with in your own language, let alone in a language in which you are not fluent. My Spanish is fairly basic, but passable. Fortunately, there were a couple talks in English and lots of pictures.
I met some native craftswomen of the area who are part of an association to preserve native crafts. She showed me several weaving patterns and their meanings and sold me S/ 60 of stuff. She was good. She was really good. I was really impressed with her English, which was way better than my Spanish, especially considering that her first language was Quechua, followed by Spanish, and then followed by English. I was going to buy some yarn from her, but never managed to hook up with her again.
I finished sock #1 of the Maizy socks, had some Peruvian fried chicken, and missed my baby girl.

Adventures: Day 3

2008-09-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

Sept. 4th

The hotel we stayed in was really nice. I mean, I've stayed in some nice hotels, and that is a nice hotel. It was a monastery that was converted into a hotel, but they preserved the chapel. I don't know if anyone worships there, but it was really neat. This picture is from just outside my room into a little courtyard. The tree on the right hand side of the picture is an avocado tree.
We registered for the conference at the other nearby hotel and my poster was tacked up next to all the others. Mine wasn't nearly as slick or shiny as some of the others, but it wasn't a bad poster. I like it. I neglected to trim off the white borders before we left, but that's not a big deal. Most everyone who was interested in looking at it was more concerned with its content. I sat through the welcome speech, but I could tell something was wrong. I didn't feel like knitting.
I had altitude sickness. My stomach was sour, my ears were ringing, my head hurt, and I felt really really tired. Kayce was my hero. Her roommate hadn't arrived yet and her room was closer than mine. She even gave me water and put a vomit bucket nearby. There was no vomit at that time, thank goodness. There will be a picture of her later. I later made my way back to my own room and slept the rest of the day. All day long. I'd get up for a couple minutes, think I was okay, and then I'd go down again.
I had dinner at the hotel with Andy & Josh and did vomit a little afterward into the poor chrysanthemums, but only a little. I went back to sleep and decided I'd think big thoughts the next day.

Sorry, folks

2008-09-18T06:04:00.000-07:00

My internet is really really slow lately and Blogger seems to be having some issues. I apologize for any wonky formatting and the slow speed at which I'm posting. I'm not sure what the issue is, but I hope it's resolved soon.

Adventures: Day 2

2008-09-16T07:02:00.000-07:00

Sept. 3rd
So, we arrived in Lima, but since it was just a short layover in the airport we weren't really "In Peru" yet. It's on the coast, not that you could tell, but there's an ocean out there somewhere in the grey. It turns out that Lima is always this color. Anyhow, we had a cup of coffee in the airport and then off we went to Cuzco. Yes, that's a Starbucks. They don't have real coffee in Peru (with the exception of the airport Starbucks). If you're lucky, you get a syrup to which you add hot water. If you are unlucky, you get Nescafé. Most of the time, you are unlucky.
The Andes Mts. are mountains like they mean it. The Rockies look up to them and say "We're not worthy." The Appalachians are too old to care and too busy telling stories about "Back in my day, we didn't have people climbing all over us. And we liked it!" Only the Himalayas are like, "Bitch, please."
Once again on terra firma, my first impression was along the lines of "Wow, this is going to be an adventure," followed shortly thereafter by "Oh, God, the sun!" and "There's no air here!" All of these statements turned out to be true. The city is in a valley at over 3400 meters in altitude - that's 11,000+ feet for you gringos. Murfreesboro is at about 200 meters or 656+ feet. We were 3200 meters closer to the sun and farther from where the air is. Forget culture shock, try system shock. We did *not* buy a can of oxygen at the airport. That's just silly. Instead, we tried to take it easy until we got used to the altitude.
Note the word "tried." It turns out that the day we arrived, there was a transportation strike, so the taxis couldn't take us to very many places. There were big rocks in the road and a parade and we had to walk many several blocks with all of our luggage to find the Avis office. In said parade, some people were waving this flag (not my photo). "I bet that means something different here," says I to myself. It does. That's the Cusco city flag. Don't make fun, they're kind of sensitive about it. Anyhow, as we walked around, there were these bike carts all over that descended on us like vultures, but we respectfully declined and eventually found the rental office. They took us to the lot (which you could fit maybe three cars in, if you were a really good driver) where we stuck our luggage in the rental car until the strike officially ended. I searched for yarn, but to no avail. The shop was closed for inventory. We kind of tooled around the city being tourists for awhile, had some lunch, found our way back to the lot, and then left for Urubamba where the conference was to be held.
It was a lovely drive and I got to see the big white Jesus statue. Also, they like to write things on the sides of mountains. I am told that this is a habit that is an extension of the Nazca lines and that you really can see something of them from the ground. They just like to write and draw big things on the Earth. They also seem to compulsively build little walls everywhere. I'm not sure what that's about. The drive was pleasant and pretty and we arrived at the hotel later that evening. There was dinner and beer and all was right with the world. I had a coca beer and a Cusqueña at this little place down the road and I think that was the evening that I had alpaca steak. It tasted like alpaca fiber smells. I didn't order it again.

Adventures: Day 1

2008-09-15T05:55:00.001-07:00

Sept. 2nd
All packed and ready to go with my enormous suitcase of doom (you could pack me in there, for goodness sakes), Josh, Andy, and I are chauffeured to BNA by Josh's lovely wife, Jill. She's kind of awesome. She works with mosquitoes and you can't help but dig a chick that smashes up mosquitoes for the DNA of the critters they bite. Having made it through security with my knitting needles (and TSA guidelines in hand, just in case there was an issue - there wasn't), I waited patiently for the plane.
We got on said plane and began to take off when there was a disconcerting kthunk sound. The passengers looked around at each other as though to say, "Is that normal? Should we be concerned?" Turns out that it was not normal and we should have been concerned. One of the cargo doors malfunctioned, so the plane returned to the airport and we had to catch another flight. This was problematic. By the time we'd have gotten to the next airport, we would miss flight #2 and each flight following. On the way back to the airport, I spoke with a Danish pastry chef who was going home after a convention in Nashville. No, danishes were not his specialty, he was from Denmark and made awesome sculptures with chocolate. He was terribly worried that he wouldn't be able to get home. I do hope he got home okay. Fortunately for us, we had Mr. Mullett as our customer service dude. He'd helped us check in before and recognized the three of us. When he got to the counter, I think he must have called almost everyone in the whole airport and at one point had a phone on each ear. It was nothing short of amazing. Not only did he get us a new series of flights, but he got us a really nice flight from Miami to Lima on an airline called LAN. We each had our own personal video screen and could watch one of many movies. There was a little pillow and blanket, real food, and even tiny glasses of wine for no extra charge. Other than the fact that I can't sleep in a moving vehicle, this was a very very pleasant flight. Thank you, Mr. Mullett. You are my customer service hero.

2008-09-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

I'm back home!
I haven't had the chance to upload pictures from the trip, but I will soon. I may have to do it in installments 'cause there were lots of adventures. Anyhow, the trip was awesome, but I'm very very glad to be home. I can drink the water from the tap and flush the TP down the toilet. Also, I missed everyone - especially my little one.
More soon! I promise!

2008-09-01T15:52:00.001-07:00

Dear friends, strangers, acquaintances, etc.
This will be my last post before Peru. I'm pretty much packed and set to go. My poster is printed and extra knitting and needles are packed (as well as my drop spindle). My travel sock will be the Maizy sock I'm working on. I've got the foot done and since these are going to be tallish socks, I'm knitting the leg 'til I'm almost out of yarn or I get sick of it, whichever comes first. Hopefully, I'll have some wicked cool pictures of Peru when I get back. The camera is coming with, of course.
The good Gods have seen fit to give me the challenge of a head cold before flying, but I'm armed with some Claritin, meds for altitude sickness, immodium, sunscreen, antibiotics (just in case), and tylenol. The altitude meds make me feel weird an tired and sodas taste bad. I don't like them, but I'd rather not have altitude sickness, really. Of all the interesting diseases I could get, that's the one I'm worried about. I'm so weird.

So, tomorrow we jaunt off to chase butterflies in a foreign country! I can't believe I'm getting paid for this shit.

2008-08-25T06:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't fallen off the face of the planet just yet. I'm still here, still knitting. I did the Ravelympics to help me regain my focus and I think it worked. After many months of knitting, frogging, knitting again, and not knitting the Bluejaywalkers, I finally finished them. They were done on size 1 dpn's using Opal somethingor'nother in Traumfänger(Dreamcatcher) for a size 9(US) foot. This is not the best picture in the world, but here they are with just the weaving-in to do.

Also, I turned 30 and had my Logan's Run party. It was much fun. We watched the movie, had Carrousel cake (I think mom has a picture) and now I feel refreshed and renewed. The movie was put out in 1976 and the female lead was Jessica 6. The TV series ran from '77-'78 and I can't be certain, but I suspect that this is related to the great number of Jessicas in my age group. Anyhow, mom and Erin did the vast majority of party preparations, including my costume. I just had to show up, really. It's just as well since I haven't had time to do much of anything other than research. All bug butts all the time at the House. Next week is Iris's (early) birthday party before I fall off the face of the planet for a couple weeks. It'll be another morning at the farm, afternoon birthday party, and evening D&D. I was up for 21 1/2 hours last Saturday, and this Saturday is going to be another one of those. Thank goodness for Sundays.

By the way, I absolutely adore my new apartment. I had people over and relatives stay the night and it didn't seem too crowded. I had sufficient floor space to offer said relatives and even a room in which to stick my little nephew and his momma and daddy on a cot and air mattress, respectively. A good time was had by all. Weeboo parties pretty hard.

Right now, I'm working on a pair of toe-up socks in Maizy print, Springtime on size 1 dpn's. These are for me and will probably be my travel socks.

2008-08-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

I'm currently taking a break from bug butts to post a couple pictures. Not a whole lot of content, but I've got a quiche made from farm fresh veggies and one and a half finished bluejaywalker socks. Go me! I kind of made up the quiche "recipe" but it was quite tasty and very pretty. We had this a couple nights ago with black beans.

2008-08-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

I don't actually like people. I like trees better than people. In fact, if I could replace most people with oaks, maples, hickories, etc., I'd be a happy girl.
What brought this on, you say?
I have nothing in common with the other bus stop moms with the exception that I also have a kid in school and they insist on talking to me. I have nothing in common with the other dance school moms, either, except for one who works for the College of Basic and Applies Sciences and even then...
If this is representative of the greater population, then I'm really...let's say "unique." I forget that I'm on the fringes of society. I forget that I don't fit in. I don't like being reminded of it, either. The way I am is normal for me and it's normal for Iris. I like me, I like how I live, and I won't change just to fit in. But all the same, it's uncomfortable to not fit in.

I know I usually talk about my creative endeavors here, but this is a part of it. I'm an artist and artists are notoriously weird - on the fringes of society, bohemians out to change the world for the better. That's me. I've resisted labeling myself as part of any particular counterculture, but it seems that I can't avoid it. Bohemians will never win, counterculture will never become culture, but we will slowly change the world for the better. Our purpose is to challenge the world in which we live so that society will evolve into something better - we hope.

If I were alone in this, I'd have very little hope, but "I get by with a little help from my friends/ I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends."

Sorry about the lack of knitting content. Here's a picture of the Snakes! sweater all finished. I took the picture at the top last spring when I was taking Flowering Plants. You can see Lamium, Vetch, and Wild pansies. They are members of the Mint, Pea, and Violet families, respectively. Most would call these "weeds" but I think they're lovely.

2008-07-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

Look! I'm blogging. I have two entire minutes to sit and blog! Imagine that!
I've been caught up in work plus this plus that with a lot of everything else on the side. It is summer and summer means veggies. This last Sunday we worked on the trail for Delvin Farms a bit and made some good progress on it. I'm really pleased with what we were able to do. Today, we got two heavy boxes of vegetables that we split up amongst the hoards. Oh, the tomatoes. I cannot tell you how happy I am about the tomatoes. I'm planning on going in on a big 20# box of them to can and set back for the winter when there are no tomatoes. $20 for the whole box, which means about $1/lb. This is not to mention the ones that are coming from the garden, which cost very little, really. A can of the organic diced tomatoes is 15 oz. and is usually a little more than a dollar. Also, I don't know where they come from. I'll see your less than a pound of tomatoes from I don't know where and raise you a quart of garden and farm tomatoes. HA!
So, anyway, Colin's baby is the sweetest thing. Baby and wife were both at his thesis defense and both were beautiful and doing well. I haven't heard from them, but it is my understanding that they've moved for purposes of continuing education. College is a disease, I tell you, and some of us are incurable. The snakey sweater was well-received and came with a matching spoot rag that I managed to finish *during* the thesis defense.
I'm doing Ravelympics (which I keep reading "ravelly-impics") as training for the Knitting Olympics. My plan is to finish the Bluejaywalker socks. I've been working on those dang socks entirely too long, and it's time to finish them now. I'll be cultivating focus, speed, and endurance, but mostly focus. I've had a splintered focus and would like to get back into training. I'm supplementing the usual knitting exercises with continued listening to Zencast so hopefully I'll be in much better shape afterward. Hopefully, it won't be terribly long until I blog again, and I'm going to try to add pictures a little later.

2008-07-13T16:27:00.001-07:00

Hey, y'all. I'm still here, doing the Tour de Fleece. It seems that I can manage to rub two braincells together to spin, but I haven't been doing much knitting. My goal is to finish up this couple of ounces of bamboo rayon I've got. As for knitting, I'm still working on the Bluejaywalkers and the 1st sock is very almost nearly a sock. Between moving and research, I haven't got time or oomph for much else, but I'm still alive and kicking!

It's all over but the snakeys

2008-06-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

Little bit's recital went just beautifully. Things are a bit quieter now, so I've occasionally got a few minutes for blogging, email, and such. I did a bit of updating on Ravelry and uploaded some photos.
Speaking of which, I finally did take some pictures. First we have the bluejaywalkers (Take Two). The first time around, they were a little too small. I sometimes have trouble judging the size of things. Socks and mittens and such for me are tiny, but to me it appears "normal." That means, of course, when I make something for just about anyone else (except for Iris or my mom), it seems too big instead of normal sized. The size I'm making seems just a bit too big to me, so I'm hoping they're about right.
Next we have Snakes! #2 for Colin's baby. You may or may not be able to tell, but the balls of brown I had were in two different dye lots. I can tell. I don't think Colin's little one will care, so that's really all that matter. I've got two of five snakeys knitted and they should go fairly quickly. All I'll have to do then is steam press it and sew on buttons. I was concerned about how the green would look on the collar, but I rather like it. I may do something similar the next time I make this pattern. And there will be a next time. People keep having babies (no more for me, thanks). And babies should have clothing with snakes on.
Then, of course, there's the Man-Sweater, mostly finished just in time for summer. I'm rather pleased with this one. I've got to put in the zipper and do the crochet edging and then I will be done, done, done. It fits like my boyfriend's sweater ought to have fit if either he or I were of a normal size. When my husband was my boyfriend, I could make a tent out of his sweaters and have room for a friend. Still could. He hasn't shrunk and I haven't grown.
The only thing I forgot to get a picture of was the 2x2 ribbed scarf. Perhaps next time, then.
Friday I shaved a butterfly's leg. I want you to know how funny I think that is. It's off to more of the same. Hopefully I'll be able to notice some kind of morphological something that's distinctive and NOT wing patterning. I'm taking measurements of different pieces-parts now that I know how to. Who knows what today holds? Will I take more bug butt pictures, shave butterfly legs, or just spend some quality time at the library?

2008-05-20T06:32:00.000-07:00

Just about everyone who reads my blog knows that I'm really busy with school, research, and all the other stuff going on in my life. I hardly have time to knit lately, so everything is just creeping along. This morning I'm being a bit domestic. I'm making bread because we're almost out and I've done some straightening up in the dining room. I vaccumed, but I'm not really up for anything hardcore like laundry or filing. Anyhow, I have my 1970's ugly flower apron on and thought I'd post while the bread is rising.
I've been walking to work most days and took some pictures on my way in one day last week. It's a very pleasant walk and I enjoy having the chance to interact with the world around me more than I would be were I driving in my car. I met my dear friend David's parents after knowing him for rather a long time and I saw one of my former students and his dog. I smile at strangers who usually smile back and I get to listen to podcasts. I'm thinking seriously about purchasing and downloading books to "read" while walk. I don't get much as much time to sit and read text as I'd like and when I do, it's usually work-related. I also took some pictures of some bug butt drawings that I've made. I'm working on getting some digital photos of the actual butts now that I've learned how to use the program, but there's something nice about the hand drawn ones. They're...special to me in a weird kind of way. I think it is because I prefer what hands can do to what machines can do. I do get to play with photoshop and that will be nice, but I've not got the hang of using the mouse with it.
So, I have been knitting some. I finished the collar on my man-sweater, but I haven't got a picture of it yet. Now I just need a zipper and crocheted edging and I'm done. The snakes! sweater is not even inching along. If it were inching along, I'd be done by now. I haven't picked up the bluejaywalker socks since I ripped back from a mistake and just so I can end on a high note, I'm nearly finished with square 3 of my weaving project and the 2x2 ribbed scarf is almost done. I'll post some pictures of knitting and such later. So the blog isn't without visual interest, here's some work-related pictures. The first one is a hawthorn in bloom, the second one a picture of Haynes House on Main St. where I work, the third is a series of drawings I did of some bug butts, and the last is a technical work by a local artist of the life cycle of the butterfly that I posted in my lab for reference.

2008-04-28T13:24:00.000-07:00

I kept forgetting to get a picture of my pink and purple hair. I noticed this morning that the purple had started to fade, so I got a few pictures (by way of clever application of bathroom mirrors and a little photo editing). The main color is a kind of pinky color over brown, called "orchid," then there's a bright purple and some PINK that was applied to pre-lightened hair. Theresa did a fantastic job. Next time, I'm going to have her do RED. As in RED-RED-RED.
Butterflies, you see, are attracted to red. If I can attract them with my hair, I can catch them!

No, the fumes from preserved specimens aren't getting to me. Why do you ask?

In knitting news, I'm too stupid to sew up my man-sweater. Miss Kade, however, is practically done. Hers looks just fantastic and is apparently quite comfortable since she didn't wait until it was finished to wear it. Mine is not clothing yet. I've ripped back the bluejaywalkers (hopefully) past some horrid error and haven't picked them up again. I've made good progress on the Snakes! sweater and only lack the sleeves and making-up and I'm working on a 2x2 ribbed scarf that's progressing nicely. The last one is my "stupid knittting" and takes up the least amount of brain power, so gets worked on more than the others. The Snakes! is pretty easy, so it gets worked on a lot, too. Not that the bluejaywalkers are hard, I just haven't thus far managed to pick them up again.

I hope to all that's good and holy that I regain the use of some of my knitting brain cells soon. I've got one more exam on Wednesday and a paper to write, and then I'll be done for the semester. I did fairly well on my Plant Anatomy final and my flowering plants collection is finished and turned in.
*whew*
Forgive me if I seem a little loopy this week.

2008-04-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

Ach! Waily!
I am so tired, people. I walked 11.5 miles to and from school last week and walked/biked 3.4 miles today. There was much doing of dishes and drinking of wine on Saturday, followed by not very much sleep. It's finals time again, so I have to say "no" a lot until I've got the semester squared away. My legs are very sore in places I forgot I had muscles and my brain is so full it's not even funny. I was explaining to a non-knitter how I've sworn off lace for a while. After I explained that the brain cells that are responsible for lace-knitting are currently occupied in taxonomy and anatomy, he completely understood. He's a graduate student as well, so understands the level of crazy that can be.
This afternoon, I'll be taking little bit to dance class, then tacos for dinner, then I stagger to bed and pass out. In the morning, it's more butterfly butts! Wooo!

Polemerized Cellulose

2008-04-17T04:53:00.000-07:00

Cellulose is the most abundant polymer on the planet. It's followed by lignin, the material that binds with cellulose to make wood hard (stop snickering.) and straw crunchy. Anything with a cell wall has lots and lots of cellulose, grasses, trees, fungus, even the lowliest of weeds is choc full o' cellulose. It's kind of awesome how the plant makes it. We all know that plants make sugar from the sun, right? Well, they take this sugar, make a few minor alterations, and then send it through a nifty little pump that right on the cell membrane. It's like a tiny little cellulose factory. Sugar goes in, cellulose comes out.
Anything nature can do, we can do better, right? Well, not better, but we can sort of do something like what cell walls do. We human folk use a lot of cotton, wood, soy, corn, and other plants. Inevitably, there will be waste and leftovers from the processing of these materials, and most of that will be cellulose of some kind or another. We take these waste products and cook them in lye, Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) being its uptown name. This is the same chemical I use to clear butterfly butts. Carbon disulfide is added to help break down the cellulose. The end result is a viscous liquid goo that is spun into an acid bath which neutralizes the NaOH. This acid bath may contain sulfuric acid, sodium sulfate, glucose, zinc sulfate, and water. Sodium sulfate speeds up the precipitation of filaments, glucose softens the fibers, zinc sulfate strengthens the fibers, and water adds volume. What you end up with is Rayon, which was originally referred to as "artificial silk." Sometimes a dulling agent, such as titanium dioxide, is added if you're looking for something that's not quite so shiny as rayon. You can also add a bit of crimp to the fibers, either mechanically or by reducing the acid concentration. This aids in the spinning process, as anyone who's ever spun wool will know.
All of this information is as of the mid 1960's, so I'm not sure what advances or improvements have been made to the process. Some of those chemicals are pretty nasty in high concentrations, so this kind of processing is probably not the best for the environment. However, it's got to be better than polyester or acrylic. Not only are rayons softer, more absorbent, and wear better, but they're made from the waste of other manufacturing processes rather than petroleum.

Oh - I don't have a copy of the picture I drew for the Harlot. I'll be drawing more and different ones in the future, so perhaps I'll get one up here when I finish a new one. I'm learning how to dissect the reproductive parts out of the rest of the abdomen today, so hopefully I'll be able to get a clearer picture of all the different pieces parts.

2008-04-15T11:06:00.001-07:00

I've just finished my presentation on plant fibers. I'll say this again and again, 'cause it's true. I'm pretty sure that I now know more about plant fibers than is reasonable for most humans. I may go into detail in a future blog entry, but here's a little tidbit:
In the 1300's this English fellow, Sir John Mandeville, came across some cotton being grown in India and described it thusly:
"there grew there a wonderful tree which bore tiny lambs on the endes of its branches. These branches were so pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are hungrie." Ummm...yeah. I think your rye's gone ergot, Sir John.
Cotton has been grown, spun, and woven in India for about 5,000 years. It soon spread to Egypt and surrounding areas. Our word "cotton" comes from the Arabic, "quoton." Cotton has been used in the Americas for about 4,500 years, according to our best estimates. Columbus was greeted with gifts of cotton when he "discovered America," which had been there the whole time, as those cotton-producing natives could have told him. Today, the US exports the most cotton of all the countries in the world, but China is the largest cotton producer.

Now to put together my list of references and fluff my butt a little.

Big knitters come in small packages

2008-04-09T21:33:00.000-07:00

I can't not blog right now. I have been touched by her woolly appendage, the Harlot. I haven't been blogging lately because, as most of you know, I've had my head in a microscope, trying to understand the reproductive organs of butterflies. I'm still a bit fuzzy on the details, but I'm getting there. I'll be dissecting out some reproductive organs tomorrow, and possibly going collecting.
So me, Kade, Gret, Koren, David, and half of our husbands buzzed up to Brentwood to listen to, watch, bask in the woolly glory of, etc. the Yarn Harlot. I would totally have a beer with that woman, maybe three. I did forget to tell her that Iris said "Hi." So, dear Harlot, if you are reading this, Iris says "Hi."
I gave Ms. Stephanie a picture of the reproductive organs of (I think) Neomaenas monachus, though I'm not sure that's the correct genus. Of course, that's what I'm working on for my thesis. As far as I'm concerned, they're all up in the air, and nobody really knows what belongs in what genus. I'll get back to you on that. Anyhow, she loved the picture. I am so tickled, I can't even tell you.
Here we are, two fun-sized knitters (Knitters may be shorter than they appear. This is to be considered a normal part of the variation in knitters and should not be perceived as a flaw).
While waiting, listening, and waiting some more while chatting, I knitted a goodly portion of the Snakes! sweater for Colin's baby (Fig. 1). Colin, you see, is a herpetologist and clearly needs a snake sweater for his offspring. I also eeked out a few rounds of the Blue Jaywalkers. 'Cause, you know, sock picture.
After that, we all went out for Thai food/sushi. I drank a lot of tea and had Rama chicken (which was beautiful, but very peanutty).
Then I looked in my cup...
Let's just leave it at that, shall we?

In other, loosely related news, I'm kind of excited about my presentation in Plant Anatomy on various plant fibers. I now know more about plant fibers than is probably healthy for any individual.

Edit: I was working on the above-mentioned butterfly and the correct name is Quilaphoetosus monachus (Blanchard 1852). Like I said, it may yet change again. I saw the same insect referred to by FOUR different genus names! This group is just a mess, taxonomically.

2008-03-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

The Amazon and the Pict are moving along at an even pace with astounding project fidelity. The Pict (that's me) is thiiiiiis close to finishing sleeve #2 of 2 and the Amazon is about halfway through two sleeves at once. Lest you think ol' Kade's a slacker, check out the relative size (below). They should be ready just in time for summer!
Erm...yeah.
I've also got some corn yarn in the queue for some toe-up socks for summer.

2008-03-18T15:49:00.000-07:00

Why, hullo, readers!
Yeah, I'm talkin' to both of you. Okay, so I've been busy. In fact, I'm busy right now. Anyhow, last night was Sober Ride, As with last year, I did a count of cowboy hats, kilts, and street guitars. Here's last year's count. And this year's follows:

17 Cowboy hats
1 kilt (though anecdotal evidence brings the number up to four)
6 guitars
11 drunk people safely home
one dead 'possum
3 tips refused

The kilt count is down, as is the Cowboy hat count, but the guitar count is up. No crackheads, just one guy that wanted us to take him to his car. Headdesk. He was a bit dense - and tried to tip me $20 (which I refused).

I took my knitting, of course, and managed to make some progress on sleeve #2 of the Man-sweater. More later, of course.

2008-03-04T16:50:00.001-08:00

Good day, my spring chickens!
With all the wind and rain and robins singing, it's beginning to look like it might be spring soon. February has ended and I haven't finished a dang thing. But, March is for Making Mates, so I'm good. Meadow socks are done and ready to be some kind of nearish holiday present.
Mostly, like m'lady Kade, I focused on my Man-sweater, making a decent amount of progress during the month of February.
I'm halfway up one of the sleeves and would be farther along if I hadn't started a pair of Jaywalkers. For a few moments there, I only had the one thing (the sweater) on the needles and lest my fellow knitters think me some sort of yarn-faithful pervert, I cast on these puppies:
Jaywalkers in Opal Traumfänger in a kind of bluejay-lookin' colourway. Hence, Bluejay(walkers). These are super-secret socks for someone who occasionally reads my blog. Only my fellow Ravelers know the secret! Mwahaha!!
Seriously, these socks are going to be wicked awesome.

Want and Need

2008-02-28T13:24:00.000-08:00

I've got a mild case of startitis. I think my susceptibility to startitis is directly proportional to stress multiplied by project faithfulness. Since I've only had two projects for the entire month and I'm coming up on midterms, my startitis susceptibility quotient is particularly high. Fortunately my sticktoitiveness constant is still constant. Given the above, I propose the following equation:
σ=(2S*f*[β])/Ω*Ζ
where σ= startitis susceptibility, S = stress, f = project faithfulness, β = boredom. Ω = sticktoitiveness and Ζ = zen nature. When Ζ approaches maximum value, # of projects on the needles = buddha, at which point you rub your own belly and just knit to be knitting.

Okay, back to want and need. What I want is to start a pair of mittens, but what I need is to study for midterms. February is almost over, so I'll be able to start something with the knowledge that I've been faithful to the two projects I'm working on now. I'm at the 1st sleeve of the man-sweater and in the middle of the 2nd of the meadow socks. Any other February, I'd have already finished and cast on something new, but my schedule is tight - really tight. Tighter than a really tight thing. I'm a fairly fast and faithful knitter, so I'm fantastic at finishing, so the fact that I've been working on these two things for the whole month and haven't finished should tell you something. This Friday, I think some chocolate and red wine is in order. I need midterms to be over. I need to sleep 'til I wake up. I want to knit instead of study.

I'll get through this. This will pass. I feel like poo now, but I'll be okay. Happy thoughts for sanity and mental acuity would not be taken amiss.

2008-02-05T08:33:00.000-08:00

Quickie update:
In the spirit of February is for Finishing, I won't be casting on anything new this month. That is, I won't be casting on anything new unless I finish everything, which is a distinct possibility for me this year. I've started on the Right Front of the Cambridge Jacket (aka Man-Sweater) and I'm several rows into the leg of the sooper sekrit meadow socks. The latter I've been working on between classes and sometimes during class if I'm not taking notes or staining for the presence of starches in corn. The endosperm has lots of starch, the cotyledon has a little bit, and the embryo has none at all. It's very cool to look at.
Anyhow, I may further reduce the number of woven squares I'm doing to 15, considering the weight of the fabric. It'll be more like a chlamys than a himation, but I think I'm comfortable with that. I do live in the South, after all. I just don't see me wearing three yards of 60" wide heavy wool.

2008-01-29T07:47:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again!
So, it's nearly February and, of course, that means February is for Finishing! Clicky for the rules and we shall be a Frackload of Fantastic Finishers...or something. I've only got two things on needles right now, 'cause I haven't had the time, braincells, RAM, or something for casting on something new. I've been working on my weaving when I can, but that's about it. I'm going to have to cast on something portable and brainless soon 'cause the sooper sekrit sockies are (hopefully) going to be finished pretty soon, probably before the end of February. I've also finished the Sherbet Set for little bit. She says she wants a rainbow sweater next. I think she should have one. Hopefully, I can get pictures of the whole ensemble in situ at some point.
The man-sweater is moving right along (biddy-boom, biddy-boom). I'm mostly through the Left front, where the ribbing increases are. I'm really liking it so far and I hope, I hope, I hope it fits. The Mystery Stole 3 had to be ripped. I'm just not going to have the brain cells for fiddly lace for a couple years. I'm sticking to a few items with fairly simple patterns for now so that I can use those neurons for research. Of course, it also got wet and I'm going to have to wash the yarn. Apparently the dishwasher next door had a bit of an accident. There's a hole in our wall duct taped closed, a carpet dryer, and a dehumidifier. The resulting noise has thoroughly traumatized the cat. He's attempting to cope by putting his little paws over the computer screen in an attempt to acquire some of my omelette. "It's comfort food," says he. "Yes, but if you eat my breakfast, I will endeavor to make you uncomfortable!" I have also learned today that it is inadvisable to cook eggs and blog simultaneously.
So, I'm working from home today. I'm not in my jammies, but the hair is sticking up in every conceivable direction and I'm wearing the "desperately need to do laundry" clothes. So, yeah, I'm doing laundry while searching for obscure books and articles. I'm going to have a hell of a time finding what I need. Anyone out there have Arkiv för Zoologi, Volume 36A, issue 3? Anyone?

100!

2008-01-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

This, dear fronds and anemonies, is my 100th post on A Lace Maze is in Jest!
Coincidentally, Iris tells me that she is coming up upon her 100th day of 1st grade and that she intends to bring 100 acorns to class. She has an acorn collection, you see. Last year, she took a poster of 100 bits of yarn.
So, knitting and yarn things.
The lovely Kadollan has inquired as to my goals for the year. Mine aren't terribly lofty on accounta school. I don't want to say something like "I'm gonna knit a pair of socks a month!" when I've got research to do. That just ain't happenin'. What I can aim for is this:

Finish my Man-Sweater.
Make a sweater for my kidling
Make a DNA scarf
Make more socks 'cause hand-knitted socks are the awesomeness.

February is for finishing is coming up and I've actually only got a few things that I can finish. I'll be frogging the Mystery Stole 3. It's just not flipping my switch right now and I don't anticipate having the brain cells to work on it in at least a couple of years. I like knitting lace. It's fun, interesting, and challenging, but generally I like making more practical things. I'm just not in love with this pattern enough to keep knitting it.
Let's see, what else? I've got the sherbet scarf, which is nearing completion, the sooper sekrit socks for a certain person's little feet, and the Man Sweater. Holy crap. That's all I've got. I could conceivably finish every knitted thing I'm working on by the end of February. Scary. And then I get to cast on new stuff!! YAY!!

Also impending is Ostara and CoW (Crafts of the Wise) is again providing prizes for the Bardic Olympics. I made these bags just before school started and I think that's all I'm going to be able to get done. My life is hella busy. There are several things I'd like to do, but that just aren't going to happen. I think I will have more luck motivating others than making stuff myself. *cry* I wanted to make another cloak and some embroidered hankies and a tacky apron and...oh well. The one above and to the left is totebag sized and has a little matching buddy that you can take out. The other is purse sized, is made from seersucker and chintz, and has beads sewn into the center of a row of flowers. It's kind of tacky, but (hopefully) in a cute way & has a pocket inside. Both of these were made entirely from scraps.

I did promise weaving pictures. I'm on square two of forty. I am never frakking finishing this. So here's the yarn porn.
The first pic on the left there is a closeup of the first square. You can see a little where I was experimenting with patterns and weaves. It's purdy. I'm rather proud of this.
The pic on the right is the 2nd square. I am working on some basic Greek border patterns and seem to be having some success. You're looking at the back of the weaving there. I hope the front looks as good as I think it will. I'm still working on my technique and I reckon that by the time I get to square #40, I'll be pretty good at this. I hope. I'm not terribly confident that I'll finish this in time, but that's not entirely the point of doing it. Even this little bit that I've done is kind of effing awesome. I am so proud.

2008-01-16T10:44:00.001-08:00

I'm not doing much actual knitting lately, though I did get some spinning in this morning because my Plant Anatomy professor was interested to see the bamboo fiber that I was working on. No idea from what part of the plant that comes, but hey, bamboo yarn is cool. I knitted up a swatch of it and discovered a problem. It leans. I tried blocking it out, but to no avail. The darn thing leans to one side, I reckon due to the twist of the yarn. I'm not sure what to do about that, but I'll figure something out. I did finish the back of the Man-sweater and I've worked on the sherbet scarf and the meadow socks a little bit.
Anyhow, here's a pic of the random hat, all finished and on its intended recipient. That's my brother. He's not the type that likes wearing suits. He prefers interesting shirts I support and encourage his interesting shirt habit, as you can see.

Finally finished.

2007-12-13T06:07:00.001-08:00

I've had this bamboo in singles about half-plied for some time now. This is the second skein I've finished and I've got a few ounces of the roving left. It's all done on the drop spindle and I haven't had much time to spin, but finally I've got it plied.

The Worsted Stocking Knaves are finished. In the picture, I've finally finished the gusset, but...
sigh
I had to rip it back. It didn't match the 1st one, so I took it back and started over on the gusset. I finished it at Mom's on Christmas Eve, including weaving in all the ends. I was hoping for Yule, but I can finally give them to the Knave in question tomorrow.
Instead of casting on something new, I've been working on my weaving. No picture today, but I've got about three inches woven. I decided to go with a tapestry kind of method and it seems to be going much faster. The hardest part is keeping the same width throughout. I've kind of got it stretched out like a skin that's being tanned. I hope it works. It is pretty and I can't stop petting it. I plan on felting it up a bit after I'm done weaving (like ya do). I've got to get moving on this weaving. A himation is a huge garment, about 2x5 yards of fabric. Each woven square is going to be a little over 12"X12", so that's ...(calculates)...90 squares. Ugh. I'm probably going to cut the size down a little bit, 'cause that would be a bit too cumbersome for me to wear. Maybe 5'x10' will be enough. 50 squares seems to be closer to the realm of possibility than 90. Then again, if I were to decide to utilize the golden ratio, I could make it 5'x8', 40 squares. I like that, yes. It would be very Greek of me to use the golden ratio...and also save me fifty squares.

2007-11-29T17:51:00.000-08:00

"So, what have you been up to, Jess of the Bugs" you say.

Did you see I updated my profile pic? Well, I have no pictures of knitting today, but I can sum up. Here's my day:

Got up at 5AM and actually dragged butt out of bed at 5:20 to get little bit ready for school.
7AM Little bit leaves for school
8AM I've made my lunch, had breakfast, worked on some music. I leave for school
9AM I smash up butterflies for their DNA (this actually takes longer than it sounds)
11AM find out there's no meeting woot, so I work on some music and eat lunch
1PM Holy crap. Do you know how many pine trees I've got to learn before Tuesday?? I don't want to think about it. And then there's the hickories...cry
3:50PM I am late for fiddling with butterfly DNA (I actually get about five minutes of knitting while the gel is running)
6PM Finish fiddling with butterfly DNA
Quick dinner of leftovers, and then here I am.

I haven't got many neurons for knitting lately (unfortunately), but I did get a few minutes in today. OH! I finished the reggae socks! Pictures will be forthcoming, eventually. I started a pair of secret socks in Knitpicks' Essentia l in the meadow colorway, which is green, brown, and purple. The random brown hat is actually progressing well. I'm on the bottom ribbing and I hope that it will fit it's intended wearer okay.

That's it for now. I've been quiet 'cause school eat my head kind of a lot lately. Hopefully pictures before long.

Yeah, and I'm totally Kadollan's blog monkey. Ook.

2007-10-27T18:51:00.000-07:00

I went to the fiber festival that was at Cannonsburgh today. It was no Rhinebeck, but sheep were sheared and fiber was had. I got a little over a pound of some brown llama for about $10, and I can't wait to get started on it. I also got quite a bit (maybe two pounds?) of alpaca for $20 from a fellow with show animals who "just wanted to get rid of it." He chucked more from the particular alpaca in question in my bag. He mentioned something about wanting to see the final product when he shows his animals, but I can't make any promises. I mean dang. Grad school eat my head.
In fact, I set aside time and pennies to go to this 'cause grad school eat my head and I've been majorly stressed out.

Anyways, there's the llama and the two show alpaca. The pictures don't do them justice at all. I've got to get a drum carder in a serious way 'cause as easy as the alpaca cards up, I'd really like to have a quicker way of doing it. I'm impatient and also I hate hand carding fiber. It's quite an expense, though, and I'm having a hard time justifying it. I mean, I don't so much sell the yarn I make or the stuff I make with the yarn, though I theoretically could. But, you see, I spent $30 on over three pounds of protoyarn - such a bargain!

I don't mind the labor terribly much, 'cause I get this lovely yarn when I'm done that I totally made from fluff. I almost bought some flax, but didn't. Every story I've ever read about flax spinning says that it's a crap kind of occupation filled with much injury. Mind you, these are fairy tales, but still...I may get adventurous one day and try it out.

The fresh off the wheel spun stuff up on the right is from Alexa Monet, one of the alpaca. I separated the white from the black and spun that up as soon as I got home. It's currently drying over my kitchen sink. It should turn out to be soft and lovely, but again, I have no earthly idea what I'll be doing with it. Add to the stash, I guess.

And speaking of stash, I have heard it said that one should never photograph one's entire stash as it is likely to cause anguish and/or pain. Well, I did photograph my entire stash, excepting only the yarn that's associated with a current project. Mind you, it's two skeins deep, but this is it. This is the entirety of my stash.

Yep, that's all of it.
The left drawer is sock yarn and the right drawer is everything else. Under the palette is all my cotton and under the blue yarn (which is recovered from a sweater for purposes of knitting a better sweater) is all the um...acrylic. I must confess that the blue is also acrylic as is the purpley poodley whirlpool of doom. I was thinking Iris sized sweater, but it never made it past being swatched. I have no idea what the heck this is, just that it's acrylic and poodley. Just to the right of the purple poodle yarn is my Peaceful Pastures handspun and my rainbowdey handspun with which I intend to make mittens for my little hands.

In knitting knews, I've finished the first sock of both the reggae socks and the worsted stocking knaves. I'm a couple rows into the ribbing for the first and just past the ribbing on the second. I don't have a picture of the reggae socks yet, but here's the wsk with one done. I had Kade's old man try them on for fit and he liked it so much, he almost didn't give it back. I needed to have made the top a little smaller around and the foot every so slightly longer, but he likes it, so I'm going to work on making sock #2 exactly the same (excepting color - you will note that sock #2 ribbing is green and not tan) and leave it at that. More pictures to come (I hope) now that I've found my camera.

I'm in Ravelry as - you guessed it: jessofthebugs. So come visit me there as well. I'll need to update there as well as in Knitwars. Man, am I the biggest dork ever or what?

2007-10-16T13:44:00.000-07:00

Where the heck is my camera?!?!
I was going to be all virtuous and post pictures of updated knitting, but I can't seem to find my dang camera. It's here somewhere in this pile of a house I've got.
Anyhow, I'll give you the down-low:
I have startitis pretty bad. I'm thinking about starting the DNA scarf in palette, but I really need to plug away on the other stuff I've got going. Speaking of the other stuff, the man-sweater is going along quite well. I'm at the armholes on the back. It's slow, but I'm beginning to see progress happening.
The reggae socks are coming along as well. I'm at the foot of sock #1. One of my fellow GTAs, Stanton, is from Trinidad. I showed him my sock (like ya do) and he said, "Those are rasta colors!" in his Trinidad accent. I can't tell you how much that tickles me.
The Worsted Stocking Knaves are moving along as well. I'm on the ribbing of sock #2. Mystery Stole #3 is erm... hibernating. I haven't had the brain cells for fiddly lace. The only other thing I have on the needles is a moss stitch scarf for Iree and it's also hibernating.
I've done some spinning today with the bamboo and I probably should do some sewing, but I probably won't.

2007-10-01T07:43:00.000-07:00

So, yeah, school is still eating my head, but I've at least got a couple of pics today - thanks to Kade (who let me borrow her camera this w/e).

Here you go:

I've finished another skein of yarn and I hope that one of these days the other half of this fleece comes back to me. The mill I sent it to apparently has a bit of a backlog of stuff to do and when I last called them, they were up to stuff they had received in May. 'Sarrite, though, I've got plenty going on.

You may remember a while back, I named the well from which I would not drink. See how I am drinking now.

I'm most of the way through with sock #1 and with any luck, I'll finish before the year's out. I was hoping that I'd be able to finish by Samhain, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Fortunately for the feet in question, it's not really getting very cold yet.

I'm also plugging along on my man-sweater-along with Kade. She's farther along than I am, but considering that I've got grad school on the brain, I'm not worried. I've decided to shorten the jacket by about two inches because, well, I'm short. It's no surprise that when we picked a pattern for the Pict and the Amazon, someone was bound to have to make a couple alterations.

It's looking nice, I like the gauge, and I'm probably about an inch away from the armhole decreases. I'll probably have to shorten the sleeves as well, but that ain't no thang.

It's off to class for me. I'm making prodigious use of the technology fee I've paid to MTSU and blogging during my office hours. What else would I do...grade papers? Pheh.