Enchanting Juno

Look, a sleeve!

Found the camera last night, and even more importantly, found the software and the battery charger.

As you might have guessed from the presence of pictures.

Today I have little to say, except that my trainer is an evil, evil man who enjoys my pain. Arms hurt.

Done with arm increases and into ball four - knitting straight on sleeve 1.

Juno did discover how difficult it is to take a picture of her own hand. Attempts to drape sleeve in a flattering manner over arm and hand, while operating camera with other hand, were not successful. No, you can't see them.

Oh, this is what the sarong looks like. The Jo Sharp Desert Garden is really nice to touch and knit with. It untwists pretty easily, so care does need to be exercised, but I like it. When I first started the sarong I made my friend H put down her knitting several times in order to touch the yarn. Juno can be a pest that way. On sale now at Elann.com

Oh, and if it wasn't for the unnatural interest my cat was showing in it, I think I would have taken the Lorna's Lace Carrot sock yarn to bed with me. So very soft and delicious. Guess Juno needs to learn to make socks now.

Strung out.

Hello,

My name is Juno (Hello, Juno) and I’m a Yarn Ho.

Today I went to the post office (screw third person, btw. The blog persona is an idea that is just not working for me) and found two little keys in my box, two little keys that opened two medium sized doors in the bank of package lockers.

Behind door number one was a flat box, from Interweave Press, containing four back issues of Interweave Knits. Which brings the collection to all of the last four years' issues (I think). All purchased in the past four months, mind you.

Very nice, not too excessive, we can live with it.

Behind door number two is

A squarish plastic-covered parcel from my new Internet benefactor Polly in the UK, containing 20 balls of Jaeger Albany mercerized cotton ribbon in Merlot. Very, very nice. Goood color, goood yard. Juno has big plans for this (Swooping Eyelet Pullover IK Spring 02). Thank you, Polly.

Also, an ebay package containing ten balls of Phil Ruban in Pomme – great green, love this yarn. Can’t do anything with it until the complementary chocolate colored Phil Ruban arrives from Belgium. Then....we'll see.

These two yarns are very different, but absorb light in similar satiny matte/shiny ways. Me like.

Next, a package from my new favorite on-line vendor Angelika containing Lorna’s Laces. 3 skeins of Carrot colored Shepard Sock, two skeins of Daffodil Shepard Sock – destined to relocate to the UK shortly in a yarn-for-French-magazine deal - and also two skeins of Shepard Sock in Green Valley which is WAY too pastel for Juno. It is going back (thank you, Angelika) and being exchanged for Mineshaft, a very interesting variegated gray color way. Fastest shipping I’ve ever seen: she actually got the yarn to me across county before another vendor returned an email inquiry about stock items. Guess who gets MY business? (Package also contained a card with nice long yarn samples of each type of Lorna’s Lace – enough to really tell what the different textures are.)

Finally, a package from Schoolhouse Press with a note about a backordered book and the clever circular needle holder. Yes I could have made one, but I like instant gratification.

All this on top of the three cones of lace weight merino from ebay that came Monday (2) and Wednesday (1). And the Halcyon yarn sample cards. And…I know there was something else…oh, yes, the 1800 yards of some weird linen rayon blend also from Ebay, which I really, really like, but will be hateful to kit. I’ve seen string with more elasticity.

It’s a good thing the combination knitting seems to be making me a fasterknitter, because I’m going to have put the hammer down to stay on top of the Stash that Ate New Jersey.

It’s just soft, fuzzy crack isn’t it?

Come on baby, just one more skein.
I’ll do everything you like.

Knitting group therapy.

Last night Juno was huddled on the couch, enflamed with PMS and hostility, wishing that a) she was dead or alternatively b) that every one else was, when the phone rang and a voice enquired “Are we at your house or L’s?” What? Who?

The caller turned out to be friend H, with whom, or rather, at whose behest Juno is taking a class on doll making. Juno had offered her house for one session on the principal that in July, central air is better than no central air. But no date had been confirmed. A quick review of the state of the residence informed Juno that NO ONE was getting through the front door to see the 12 loads of laundry waiting to be put away, the half sorted contents of the tool closet littering the laundry room & family room floors (part of a half complete attempt to create a textile closet) and, most particularly, to witness what the cat did to the living room rug that morning. (As of a trip the local rug emporium this week, Juno will have purchased no fewer than 5 living room floor coverings in 3 years). But it turns out that the unusually temperate July meant the location was L’s and Juno had not received the email.

Despite her reluctance to leave the house and talk to any, you know, other people, Juno went and she is glad she did. Making a small doll out of wool and fabric had never been a desire, but the class is full of wonderful women and Juno has had a surprisingly good time learning how to fashion a shaggy-haired little toy. She will be turning this doll into a firefighter for her nephew. Or she will be if she can figure out how to crochet or knit a little fire hat. Any suggestions? Juno’s nephew is only 9 months old, so fortunately she has plenty of time to figure it out.

Juno understands why some are frustrated with long shaggy scarves and novelty yarns that are made of things that might do the space program some good, but it was novelty yarn that caused Juno to pick up her needles again for the first time since college, and it is the sudden growth of knitting as a hobby that brought teacher L into Juno’s life and with her not just a doll class, but a monthly knitting group and with both of them that joyful sense of working with other women, rediscovering the way that tongues loosen and laughter flows when the hands are occupied productively and everyone is relaxed where they are, not gathering themselves for the next task, the next item on the list, the next obligation.

Suddenly Juno no longer feels like the worlds needs to GO AWAY. Permanently.

Knitting proceeds. Combination knitting has suddenly fallen into place after Juno re-read the directions to leave the hanging yarn alone on the purl side, rather than trying to guide/hold/tension it with her index finder. Enlightenment. Unfortunately, now the top 5 inches of the sleeve look significantly better than the rest of it, but Juno thinks she will wait until the rest is done before making any firm decisions about re-knitting.

Also – how gorgeous is this?
The yarn is a silk blend and there is some simple, pretty detail at the neck. The cuff/hem detail is a ribbon woven into the knit. The electronic picture does not do it justice. Like Juno needed another knit magazine to buy. Or another sweater warming up in the bullpen.

Swoon.

This morning Slate features a profile of a Metropolitan Museum exhibit of 18th century fashion and decorative arts set up as Tableaux of seduction. Through September 6.

Also, how sad is it that Juno had to create a category for the arts? Book, current affairs, film, religion, all there, no arts.

Listening for the presence of god(s)

Juno is vexed with Bergamo, or rather with herself for having such difficulty in mastering even tension with it. Experiments with combined-style knitting showed early promise, but knitting into the night several days ago resulted in a train wreck of rowing out and the ripping/twisted string re-knitting mentioned previously.

Why do we not use words like vexed more often? Reading the inimitable Pepys illuminates the fact that language is a rich thing, a beautiful tool often neglected in a world where “pissed” is the ultimate expression of unhappiness. Or perhaps it is only Juno who has let her vocabulary decay into dust?

Ahem. To return to the topic:

Honesty and the cool light of a new day required Juno to admit that the problems may perhaps have had to do with her own tiredness and obstinacy in continuing to work with drooping eyelids, rather than combined-style knitting, per se, and last night she made a second attempt. There was unexpected, if incomplete, improvement. Juno has decided that this will simply be a garment with much texture. She is not above using a crochet hook to even things out a bit manually, burying the evidence in the seams. Anyway, even slightly bumpy, it is very appealing. Has Juno mentioned how very much she likes orange? Additionally, an experimental laying of the sleeve over the forearm has shown that the lace cuff is extremely flattering to the hand.

Last night the gods argued overhead - Zeus and Thor battled fiercely for the title of most ferocious thunder god, and other deities from belief systems unknown to Juno added their mite as well. When Juno was a very tiny child she would carry her little chair to the covered porch, or sit it in the open French doors of the family room, and watch storms happily. Last night she did the same, turning out the house lights and opening the kitchen door to sit on the stoop and watch the reddish glow of the sky over the apartment building behind her house, smell the ozone, watch the slide and drip of water off the leaves of the slumping bamboo and see the reflected glitter of lightening in the millions of stop-motion rain drops revealed with each flash. All mannerisms aside, it was beautiful, exciting and humbling and Juno is grateful.

Tattoo you.

Juno took the afternoon off today and accompanied a friend to stage one of a complicated tattoo. While watching the proceedings, Juno finished the second ball of Bergamo and hugely enjoyed the juxtaposition of knitting and tattoo parlor. The best part? KIP aroused no comment whatsoever. Juno’s last KIP moment was outside the local multiplex waiting for friends. She provoked much surreptitious staring from the hoi polloi, who clearly found the act of knitting a little unusual. This proves to Juno yet again that conventionality is the freakiest thing of all.

The people watching at the tattoo parlor was excellent and Juno extends her compliments to the girl working the pink corduroy short-shorts and Bettie Page 'do. The eyebrows were a work of art. Amusement was provided to all by the super-tan woman celebrating her 50th with three friends, a straw cowboy hat, a leather belt studded with bottle caps, a chain strapped metal disco bag and very large silver chandelier earrings. Juno reminds her of Marilyn Monroe’s wise advice to always take a turn before the mirror before you leave the house and remove the accessory that catches your eye. Or in this case, catches you IN the eye.

Juno knows that compassion ought to be a watchword, but rudeness is never attractive. You didn’t really expect the artist to put down his needle in mid stroke to hop to your alcohol soaked impulse ink, did you?

Lesson for the day: Bergamo does not love to be ripped and re-knit. The end result looks acceptable, but the resulting twisty string is less pleasant to work with. Exercise more care that this in not necessary in the future.

Oh, the heart is fickle

The Jo Sharp sarong languishes, unloved and lonely, in its basket. It was Juno's escape from the horrors of the soy silk tank (now happily deceased), and despite noble service in this cause she has abandoned it, seduced by a new love. Bergamo, Bergamo, come live with me....

It springs, it bounces, it is delicious to knit. The first sleeve of Salt Peanuts is begun. Juno loves orange and she loves this yarn, she loves the lacey bending rib of this pattern. She also loves her Casein needles, and suspects she would not love this yarn so very much if she were working with, say, Addis. She suspects, in fact, that such fast needles would make many holes in the delicate airy ribbon of bergamo, and as many pulled threads. There would be weeping. But the casein needles treat the wool gently, lift it with care, provide the proper loving and supportive enviroment for optimal growth. Social Services approve.

Juno would also like to ask, just how talented is Annie Modesitt? Juno has been cleaning house this weekend and flipping through the past few years’ worth of IK, she has noted again and again how her eye is drawn to AM's designs. Juno has a lifelong passion for historic costume and AM’s designs show an extraordinary eye for historic detail in a wearable modern form - we salute her.

Begin the beginning

A strange compulsion has come over Enchanting Juno, to spare her nearest and dearest the constant knitting enthusiasm by instead sharing it with an anonymous world.

Welcome.

Things she ought to have learned by now:

Enchanting Juno is a woman of magnificent proportions - Junoesque, one might say - and as such, she does not wear garments lacking in shape. The latest reminder of this is now folded neatly on a shelf in the knitting closet, where it shall remain until Juno has the fortitude to rip it down to a pile of helpless fiber. Juno should have listened to her hands, which hated this sweater and ached and moaned at every stitch. All 12 million of them.

It was the Rosemary tank from Rowan's Summer Tweed booklet, reconfigured for Soy Silk Phoenix in Chocolate. It was very pretty but, well, it looked like ass on. Because, well, Juno has one. Plus, you know, breasts. Here endeth the lesson.

Knitting teaches many things. Today: Humility.

As for the soy silk: Juno hated to knit with it. Hated it with all the considerable passion of which she is capable. The yarn knits with all the elasticity and charm of the shoelace it resembles, but once washed it drapes like nobody's business, heavy but not clinging. Juno might be willing to try again with larger needles and a different pattern. Maybe.

In the meantime, somebody smack Juno in the head if she again picks something loose and shapeless upon which to lavish three months work.