Enchanting Juno

I heard the best of the best are in town.

I'm wildly flattered that Dr. Steph has nominated me as one of her make-my-day bloggers.  I feel the same way about her - she posted?  yay! - and it is always particularly gratifying when a love affair turns out to be two sided. 

And now I in turn get to nominate 10 who make my day.  Rules:  "Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times." (The bit about posting and letting them know?  Not doing it.  I feel like a complete tool asking people to come and play along.  If any of these bloggers find this and want to participate, fantastic.  If not, that's fine too.  And I would say pleasure and inspiration, and optimistic about the possibilities of the internet, rather than happiness in general.)

Ysolda

The QC Report

Knitting on Impulse

Vegan Yum-yum

Klosekraft

Here be Hippogryphs

The Panopticon (on non-Dolores days Franklin is erudite, hilarious AND thoughtful, which is a rare and difficult trifecta)

Dress-a-day

Inanities (this one is new-to-me, but rapidly becoming a favorite)

Fashion Incubator

I found this exceptionally hard - many of the blogs who held this title in my early blog reading days are gone or dormant now, or so close to dormant as makes no difference, or not quite as vibrant.  I have no doubt in the fullness of time that the cycle will come round again, but I've been restless recently, feeling like the need that got me reading blogs in the first place wasn't always being fed anymore, even though the sheer volume of blogs has become enormous and I have so many friends and favorites I read frequently.

I recently purged my blog roll (in the most ruthless fashion) of many, many, many links I was no longer keeping up with from the sheer swamping volume of it all, and have been adding new and interesting ones as I find them.   These 10 are ones that I jump to read when I see they have posted and usually click away improved by the experience.  Worth it.

I'd love to hear about any that you know of (knitting or otherwise) that are interesting, educational, well written, thought provoking and/or just pretty to look at.  I'm in a track on the Internet where the view is sort of getting oh, not repetitive so much as self referential - like a closed loop - but I KNOW there's more out there. 
Poetry, arts, politics, religion, personal, commentary, fashion, cooking, sewing and of course knitting - what I want isn't topic specific, but thought and great writing and a sense of a strong personal perspective.

So click, read, enjoy...and if you've got something good in your back pocket, please share.  I'd love to hear about it.

 

blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah.

I know the cat blogging is a bit cheap.  I've been having a bit of trouble deciding what to talk about these days, and Miss Kitty is always a charming distraction.

I was IMing with a friend this weekend who said he found me far more provocative in person than on the blog and I think its true that I guard myself here.  I know people who blog and put their whole selves out there in a way I admire but cannot do any more.  I know others have struggled with the same thing - we want to be authentic, but we also want to keep our private parts private.  What to say, how to say it - when does the naval gazing cross a line? 

There are others still who are bolder in e-print, maybe more how they wish they were than who they are.   I find it interesting the ways that self-presentation is related to self knowledge or perception.   I don't have any very complete thoughts about it, mind you, but I do find all the styles of this thing kind of compelling.   I like to try and figure people out. 

Life is pretty good though - Christmas was difficult and wonderful the way that family is difficult and wonderful, and I'm knee deep in boys right now, and trying to work hard and notice more about my friends - not just notice, but act on the noticing.    I'm thinking about doing some more housecleaning with yarn and tools - not because I regret my stash in any way - no regrets might as well be tattooed on my ass, I feel so strongly about the benefits of learning from experience - but because I feel crowded in my space.  I need a bit of psychic room.  Which starts with physical room.

I might be giving up high heels - I wore pointy toed, thin heeled boots to NYC Friday night and it was Monday before my feet stopped aching.  Admittedly it was an idiotic choice.  But the bones of my feet seem to be the fastest aging part of me and I think they might be done with it.  Anyone have a size 12 foot and a higher pain threshold than I?

I ate a Thai chicken curry that about dry cleaned the inside of my head.  It was fantastic - the way in which my taste and tolerance for flavors and heat have changed in the last year or two is a joy and a revelation.  Jury is still out on habaneros though.

The finishing continues:

It really turned out rather nicely - this yarn is so hot that it'll make your feet sweat in anything without holes, so crochet is a good choice.  I fought with the cat for possession all weekend - she won:

but it heads out to its new home this week.  I have two balls left over, so maybe a cat mat.  Someday.   

I never realized that knit blogging would help me me kick start my cooking again.  I can do fancier cooking when I want, but for my daily bread I like simple, vegetable heavy and tasty.  Anne posted this unrecipe last week for something that fit the bill. 

I would show you the whole thing, but even though I made it twice, this last piece was the only bit that lasted long enough to be documented.  Isn't it pretty?

Savory pastry crust learned from Nigella Lawson, frozen organic spinach, Israeli feta, ripe cherry tomatoes (somewhat miraculously ripe actually. Not just ripe for January.  RIPE.), olive oil, salt and pepper.  3 or 4 large shallots and 3 or 4 cloves of garlic coarsely chopped and sauteed until softening, add a handful of pine nuts, cook a bit more.

Turn off heat, put in the spinach (squeezed as dry as possible), cheese, tomatoes cut in half, mix it together, salt and pepper, put it in the pie shell with a bit of feta and olive oil drizzled on top.  Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. 

The garlic did that thing where it cooked to a mild, softly solid bite (see coarse chop) which I love.  And Israeli feta is my favorite because its got a soft rather than hard crumble, as well as a great flavor.  But this is brilliant because you could add or change almost anything in it and with would still be good.

I ate the leftover filling for breakfast the next day.  I'm maybe going to make it again tonight.

Snowball, meet Hell.

There are lines, people.  Lines we cannot cross. 

The house is hers to play in.  I have said not one word about the one million little claw marks on the floors and occationally the furniture, I wasn't mad when she smashed a vase I had full of peacock feathers (foolishness on my part, I admit), I clean up the dead mice with words of praise, she can sleep on any part of me that pleases her and she is perfectly welcome to place herself between me and any person who enters the house whom she feels is a threat to her comfort.  Which she completely does.  The more I like them - even if she clearly likes them herself - the more carefully she keeps an eye on them.  Times about 11 for anyone I might have a romantic interest in.  Transparent little beast.

These are the rules: 
The cat shall not put her little feet on food prep surfaces.
The cat shall not sit or stand on the keyboard (this one is a challenge).
The cat shall not molest or ingest the wool (this one too).   

And in this case, the crochet thingy is not for her.  It's for my friend J.  So there.  Anyway, its almost done - 3 sides of single crochet and you can see it.  If I can figure out how to photograph something so vast.

I will have about two-three balls left over - it was just getting too freaking huge.  So she might get a little mat in the same stitch pattern.   If she pays plays her cards right. 

I dunno though, I bought her a sheepskin last year.  Romeldale.  And she hardly goes near it any more. Ungrateful wretch.

Eyes open, barely.

So I have this coffee mug I got as a promotion from the shipping people at work.  I like it.  I think the design aesthetic is pleasing and it is a good size and insulated.   But it has a round bottom.  Which I used to find pleasingly organic to contemplate and cradle.

But when it sits on the desk in front of me, and I lean forward to answer the phone, and it is only 8:30 and I am not awake yet, I shove it with my breasts and it wobbles like a Weeble - almost exactly like a Weeble in fact, dumping a mug full of tea onto my keyboard and then popping upright again.

It is just going to be that kind of morning, I can tell.

Unexpectedly the keyboard, which is wireless, has failed to short out.  That's a good sign.   

I have been on a cleaning jag recently - my house had passed the point of being untidy and gone over into a little too dusty for mental health, so I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.  And I must say, I like it this way.   Which isn't even that immaculate except as a less seedy contrast to what came before.  I am now at the point that I could start over again and do a really fantastic job in a comparatively short time frame.  Which I will think about but almost certainly not do.  I wonder how long I can maintain this - the signs are poor, as yesterday's dishes are all over the kitchen.  Note to self, go to whole foods for the green dish powder, the box is empty. 

I had really a very nice weekend though, I just sound crabby because I had a 10 pm dinner of ...OK, I had to Google "goat, California, cheese, ash" to come up with the name, I am a definitely a little blurry on my outlines this day - Humbolt Fog and Cahill's Irish Porter Cheese and crackers.   And I'm feeling a bit unsound because of it.
Come to think of it, I do not recall any vegetables yesterday, which may explain many things. 
The cheese was very good, but I am not sure I can recommend that particular pairing.  Most certainly not at that particular hour.

While I mull my next major project I have been trying to continue the theme of finishing and dragged this thing out into the light:

You can't tell what it is?  Blizzard Wrap from Scarf Style, which I cast on solely to have an excuse to use Blizzard - which is far to bulky for me to wear, but seriously cozy.  This was three years ago, or something. 

I only know three crochet stitches, which I learned for the purpose of making this wrap and had subsequently forgotten.   I have retaught them to myself, using a crochet book I bought, also three years ago, Crochet Basics.  I find it to be excellent.  (Also, I lied, I learned crochet for another project.  Had forgotten until I checked the archives.)

I find it slow going really - the yarn is very heavy and the hook is like, a size one million.  Also, and this is the real problem, every time I pick it up I have to pry the cat off it.  She LOVES this thing.  Apparently, she's an alpaca kind of girl.  Also, a pain in my ass. 

Variations on this theme have played out over the past week or so.  Every 56 stitches I have to relocate the beast from where she has settled and really, sometimes it isn't worth the dirty look.  I'm making about a row and a half a night, max. 

If I have a skein left I'll make her a little mat or something, which she will of course ignore completely.

More tea.  Must. Make. More. Tea.  And not spill it.

 

Further adventures in finishing stuff.

So all this time I thought I was a slow knitter and never finished stuff and that turns out to be kind of bullshit.  Ah, well, not the first time I have believed something slightly uncomplimentary about myself that turns out to be maybe a tiny bit of a misconception. 

(I spent the holidays around my mom which means I must now laboriously relearn how to feel and also, not to believe only negative things. Project!)

Anyway - I had this kind of backlog of knitting that I realize now all dates from the perfect storm of the wrist injury I had three years ago and the process of learning how to be a reasonably competent knitter/pattern choose/size estimator.   So for a long time it felt like I got nowhere.  But this weekend I picked up an old project and realized there are, like, six empty cubbies in the 9 cubby work-in-progress thing. (Oh, and one sweater in a bin somewhere.  And one pair of socks I began that I cannot yet speak of.) 

In fact, my cat has taken to sleeping in one of the empties.

I should probably dust.   

Anyway -here's another thing that I meant to show you when I cast on, but it was over so fast I didn't hardly have a chance.    Christmas gift for my niece - who of course burst into tears when asked to wear it, but her Mum liked it, which is almost more important.

Dream in Color Classy, Ruby River Colorway - Pink!  And Purple!  And Soft!  We Like!

Baby Soft Cardigan from The Knitters Book of Yarn (which is my favorite knitting book in a very long time and you should all take a look at it at the very least - great information, great patterns.)
5.5 mm  needles -  Harmony Options, which are, at this point, slightly edging Holz and Stein for favorite needles ever.  I love them both - but the points are so good, and if I broke one or lost it I wouldn't have to cry like someone stole my corsage AND my boyfriend, which is a plus.  I keep making people buy them. 

Touch the needles.  would you like to knit a row?  Yes, that is www.knitpicks.com ......there's a starter kit, you know.

If I had it to do over again I would pick up and knit down for the sleeves, rather than seam them on after, but that's it.  Easy as pie, almost as cute at the intended recipient.  Took WAY less than the 500 yarns of worsted recommended - like barely 300.  24 month size.  A few days of casually paced knitting and a great outcome for the effort.  Ravelry Link.

 

Not unlike the Bermuda Triangle.

I started writing this morning and it was the most awful self-referential claptrap.  Really.  I know self-referential and this was the bad kind.  Do not even reassure me.  So instead I will tell you about the most awesome knitting ever.

Really.

Perfect pattern, perfect yarn, holiday = a knitter vanishes.  Allow me to explain.

Just before Christmas I got to hang out with the fabulestest New York knitters Chez Too Much Wool - and you know what, I can't even pretend I'm not the luckiest girl in the tri-state area, I am.  The nice thing about it is that I bet you are too - tell me the knitting people in your life are not almost universally the best you know?  Anyway.

Visiting from the frozen Midwest was Ms. GreenDillyBeans, packing a pair of mitts she had finished the day before.  They were brilliant - 4ply yarn, perfect fit, gorgeous pattern.  I wanted to steal them.  I would show you, but the next day she lost them.  I almost cried, I tell you.  Cried.

But instead, I decided that the pattern was the perfect thing to do with the Sargasso cashmere blend I finished a little bit ago.  About to get on a plane for the holidays - interesting pattern?  Check.  Small project?  Check.  Handspun you adore more than life itself?  Check.  Sanity for the holidays?  CHECK baby.

I kept meaning to tell you about it, but Christmas ate me. 
I cast on and did a few rounds of ribbing then stuck the whole thing in my bag for the plane.  My self-control was heroic, I tell you.  HEROIC.

This is under the orange tree as sunrise come over the mountain, after a day of travel.
I used floss to hold the thumb stitches, as I was on a plane and my resources were limited.

Mitt the second, Christmas eve.  By which time I totally needed tequila.   If I could have found a blue agave to pose it with, I would have.  I find it interesting that my family - who know not of the blog - said nothing about the photos of knitting with plants.  I think they just think I am insane (Well, really, my brother knows of the blog, but he doesn't KNOW the blog, if you see the difference.)

Finished the pair on the plane home - and have barely taken them off since.  The right mitt - knit on the plane out - is distinctly larger than the left, knit over the holiday.  I can't imagine why, can you?  I have enough yarn left to make a third mitt and I am FIGHTING the desire to redo the loose one.  Even though I am the only one who can tell the difference.

I love them.

Admire the thumb shaping.

It is very hard to photograph one's own hands, by the way.  Tripod and timer were used.

Genius who Wrote the Pattern:  Mitaines a chevrons @ www.tinysushi.com (Ravelry link)

Genius who Discovered the Pattern:  Green Dilly Beans (replacement pair underway)

Genius who Blended the Fiber:  Abby's Yarns 25 cashmere/50 merino/25 silk blend

 

2.25 mm Inox DPNS, handspun fingering weight

Mods - 32 rows of ribbing, not 10, made thumb a few rows deeper.  Added another column of rib on the outside of the hand - was a mistake I liked and decided to repeat on purpose.

Used 1.9 ounces of the 3 ounces I had, or maybe a bit less than 200 yards.  The perfect project for small amounts of luxury handspun yarn.  Or luxury yarn in general.   Go.  Knit some now.   

The train of thought is leaving the station.

How loathsome is the word spunky.
Though now that I have said this I recall The Spunky Eclectic, which is a fantastic place run by a fantastic person, and anything but loathsome.  How about I amend that to 'spunky' in conjunction with 'heroine'?

I was looking at my amazon shopping cart - I have found the perfect gift for the world's most difficult recipient and because I have the self control of a wayward 6 year old, I will be sending it along to them as soon as I get my holidays bills sorted, instead of properly waiting for an appropriate gift giving occasion.  I also found the perfect gift for my dad, if he were still living, but since he is not, I shall buy it and read it myself.

Anyway - while I was gloating over these two items and their carefully selected -  even winnowed - companions in the shopping cart, awaiting my first discretionary dollars of 2008, I found a listing of recommended discussion topics (Amazon is another place apparently afflicted with discussion boards.  I have complicated feelings about discussion boards, which I will spare you), one of which was ...wait, allow me to get the correct text....

Ah, can't find it again - something like "desperately in search of spunky heroines", which immediately caused my gorge to rise.  As well as my dander.  Someone told me last week that her daughter's approaching toddler-hood filled her with dread re: the thorny subject of dolls.  Which she herself didn't play with and which she associates with the direst kind of retro-femininity.  This is despite the fact that she knows - intellectually - that there are many fierce and partisan feminists and millions of strong, kind women who played with dolls quite happily and without harm, in her gut, it feels wrong.  And though I played with dolls happily and for years, I completely understand the power of this irrational conviction:  the whole idea of a spunky heroine acts on me similarly - spunkiness, which implies a brave and energetic spirit, is certainly not a bad quality.  But it is an UNDERDOG quality, with a diminutive feel - when applied to a female protagonist it has a paternal air of head patting and a distinct whiff of glass ceiling.  Someone who is ascendant cannot be plucky.

This is the exact same feeling I get when someone talks about Hillary Clinton's neckline instead of her policies, or possible character as a world leader. 

(And how about the Iowa Caucus?  I NEVER thought Obama would take it - but the combination of wins by both Huckabee and Obama I find a little hallucinatory.  Welcome to the split personality of the American people.  What a strange country we are.)

It is a wonder I ever get out of the house, when a passing line on a website loses me an hour of annoyance, irritable mental hunting for understanding precisely the root of annoyance and then writing about it.

A Winter's Tale.

I am not all talk (though a little doubt could be forgiven, really). The strange nature of knit blogging is that if a finished object is not photographed and blogged, somehow it doesn't fully exist.  Even if one is wearing it.  Frequently. Similar to the sound of one hand clapping or Shroedinger's cat, the witness gives form and structure to the reality.

I'm doling them out though, as a) I have 8 days worth of stuff to happen in the next three - would anyone like to come and do the laundry? and b) it would rather dilute the impact of the reality.

Sunset Adagio - looking rather Gothic here.  This is winter's natural light - it looked perfectly gorgeous in the wind.  The edge ruffled and rippled as it moved and I am just simple enough that I could have stood there with cold feet forever and watched.

(click for big, please.  I like this one.)

Hard to believe that this is the actual color:

Nice, huh?  Adagio shawl pattern from Candace Eisner Strick, silk fingering weight from Ball and Skein, 4 mm Holtz & Stein Needles.  Begun in June, stalled since September when I ran out of yarn (despite the fact that Judy found another half skein for me in October.  I am slow). 

About three repeats short of specified size, as the yarn shortage was becoming apparent, but my silk gauge is so loose, I think it worked out well.  Just the right sort of pick me up for the dull colors of December. 

If I ever find happiness, it'll be when I stub my toe on it.

Heh.  Met a goal, not a goal person.  Not the writing of greatest clarity.  Oops.

It is totally possible to meet a goal without having one.

I find with most things that I do much better if I sneak up on them.  Emotional growth, human understanding, knitting, exercise....if I make a chart, a goal statement and specific plan, the first thing I do is exactly the opposite of what will make progress happen. Maybe clean the cabinet under the sink.

I've never liked being told what to do, apparently not even by myself.  Which is totally strange really, because you would be hard pressed to find a less indirect human being than I.  Even when I am trying to be delicate and nuanced, all I end up doing is choosing the delicately nuanced word that most brutally rips the band-aid off.  I have a near-genius for it. 
Someday I must tell you about the incident that ended with my closest friend calling me an overeducated WASP bitch - mostly as a joke.  I was trying so very hard to be smooth about the question I had been asked, too. 

It never works. 

A few months ago I was talking about this with a friend - who had just said that I default to forthright, which made me gloomy.  Because, well, it IS true and it seems like such an unsophisticated way of being.  Am complex person, dammit.  So I was glooming - not unlike Eyore - about the problem that is my tendency to leak the truth, and his response was "well, not for you it isn't".  Which has been an interesting way to think about it.  Not my problem?  If another person is troubled by honesty or perception then that might be...their difficulty?
But isn't...everything my fault responsibility problem?  Huh.  (This person also suggested that the DVDs I have in my possession which belong to someone else that I have tried to return and not gotten a straight answer to where to send them are in fact, at this point, mine.  And maybe I could just let go of fretting about my obligation to the original owner at this point.  Huh again.)

Anyway - I do have goals, but making a list and systematically setting out to meet it doesn't work for me.  Instead, I have trends, trends in increased health, fitness, intellectual and emotional development, satisfaction, dating, cooking, bill paying, organization, etcetera....and of course, knitting. I like trends.  Trends leave room for back and forth progress without feeling like a failure, trends allow for maneuvering room, trends allow for flexibility.  Trends allow for falling without failing, for getting up and beginning again without having to start over.  Starting over sucks the energy right out of the soul (well, in this context anyway).

The way I see it, we are always Works In Progress, and there is no end to that.  And absolutes give me indigestion.  So do rules, for that matter.  So no resolutions, no goals.  Be or not be.  Stay in motion.  Some days better than others.

In the back of my mind I began the year thinking that I would like to get it right with a few sweaters, that I would like to get a handle on my fit issues, and choice issues for projects, and have some sweaters I liked to wear and you know, stop dicking around with being half-assed about knitting. No plan, just something to keep in mind.  To inform my choices with.

And here I am, in December. a lot of finished work that works for the last 12 months.  But no plan.  Never a plan.
Just a thought to guide me.
 

 

3 Alarm

Posting is clearly going to be slowing down here - of course now that I've said that, no doubt I will be full of procrastinatory energy and you won't be able to get rid of me, but the days, they are like the sands through the hourglass, yes?  And Christmas is coming. 

I have a few things left to figure out, and a house to clean and a suitcase to pack and oh, the laundry...I don't know how people who are responsible for others manage it, I really don't.  But today I am optimistic, as I spent part of yesterday sorting out a guilt pile - you have guilt piles, right?  The unfiled, unpaid, the Damoclean sword in paper form, the encroaching tide of mystery data.  It starts out as 6 pieces of paper for next month and 6 months later is knocking the phone out of the cradle with the bulge of its retaining wall.

Yeah, I fixed it.  Paid them, filed them, threw their sorry asses in the shredder.  Back down to 6 pieces of paper for which I WILL WRITE CHECKS TODAY.  And I'm a little giddy from the high.

Also, I am on fire with the knitting, not that you could tell.  But the truth is that if tonight goes really well I could bring my finish count for the past few days up to three items.  Someday I must tell you about it. 
At knitting a few weeks ago someone pointed out that I had knit a lot this year.  I was in the throws of ripping 10 inches of ribbing out of the Dream In Color cardigan at the time and said something bitter and disparaging, but it turns out she was right.  This year I have finished 4 sweaters - 3 of which I actually wear - plus a myriad of mitts and scarves and things.  Which was my actual, if unspoken, goal in knitting this year: clothes. 

I'm so not a goal person.  How peculiar is it that I met one?  And the universe still intact and everything.

I think.