two knits of ivory

So I'm back to comfort knitting. This is only the second skein of my Malabrigo sock stash that I have caked, but the first skein to be knit. It's a Shetland Triangle. My seventh. I've started an eighth. I was sick all weekend and I took it like a sport Monday morning. It's frustrating to have a body so heavily influenced by my brain. If it's possible to have one's hormones give one a fever, than that is what I think happened to me. And then Sunday I experienced some enervating bowel distress. Sweet baby jesus, that was fun. This morning I was thinking of Mary Baker Eddy . In simple terms, her development of the Church of Christ Scientist may be wholly attributable to her own experiences with somatoform disorder.

I was looking for some fantastic German word or phrase to encapsulate the anarchy in my mind. Mit Gegunuber are two words I put together. It may not be proper German grammar, but I make the rules on this har blog. It means, to me, "with opposite" or maybe it should mean "opposite with." Oppositional. You know they have personality disorders based around oppositionalism . I feel oppositional right this moment. Like a petulant two year old. Gimme gimme now now. Our crick has dried up. First time in the four years we've been here that it has run dry. I'm ornery, the weather's ornery, who isn't ornery? They should stay away whoever they are. I'm ready to spread the wealth on any unsuspecting passerby. Poor, poor passerbys. Yeah, so a few weeks ago I rewatched The White Ribbon. It was a foolish mistake on my part. The critical press couldn't get out of their way on this one. I have nothing nice to say about most of the re...

I've recently (maybe April or May) realized that I don't seem to enjoy knitting stockinette with lace, which is different than knitting stockinette, then lace, which I really love. An example of a great stockinette and lace combo is the Ishbel pattern (Sundara FSM in caramel apple): What I find mind achingly dull to knit is a lace project that couples plain knitting with lace on each row. Current proof of this malaise inducing phenomena maybe found in my knitting basket, a Saroyan scarf: I want one of these scarves; the pattern is absolutely lovely. My body just doesn't want to knit it. Why I don't really know. I first got an inkling into this inclination when I attempted to design a wide scarf using the day lily lace motif: This project turned out to only be a swatch. Even though the day lily lace pattern is engaging, and this madelinetosh DK yarn in the violin colorway is deadly scrumptious, I just couldn't find the will to continue knitting the proj...

True to form at chez yarn, we are now on day who knows what of ignoring the suffering in Haiti. I am catching glimpses of it when the Hubster puts on the news here and there, catching the cover of a newspaper at the gas station, hearing an interview on NPR. It seems like the world is really coming together to help Haiti and the pessimistic cockles of my heart are warming. What I am left with is my internal struggle. Because, ya know, the Haiti disaster is all about me. You mean you didn't know? It's about how I am incapable of facing it. How I am incapable of being the person I should be/should have been on the one hand, and in the other hand, how the world is inadequate, deserving of my inert, self-righteous scorn. I am as helpless in this as I am in my knitting. A mute passenger on the Morticcia express. Someday maybe I'll learn how to transmogrify my shortcomings into strengths, as I have begun to with my knitting. Ginger Waves Socks I spent a good porti...

LOL. What a whiner. I've been concerned that my last post was a little too bitter in tone. I wanna keep things light around here, and this morning I found the humor in it: Me. This is one of the reasons I identify with the wall flower Bella, everything is do or die with this character and here I was whining about how boring she is as if it were do or die. Me: "Mirror Mirror on the Wall, who's the whiniest of them all?" Mirror: "Well Dear Knitter, you don't have to be bitter, as it is you the whiniest Drama Llama queenie pie pie." I've been contemplating other things besides Twilight. No, really. Watching myself knit my recent FO, the Strange Fruit Clothilde , an interesting thought occurred to me. When I knit, in particular, knit lace, my hands are actually graceful. It's like hand ballet and it makes me feel lovely inside. Being short and squat, in body and digits, and congenitally poor at most hand crafts such as drawing, painting,...

I've been stuck on the 24 hours after Bella becomes immortal for dayzzzzzzzzzzzzz. OMEdward this part is so boring. Each and every time I force myself to read the section where she and OMEdward go hunting for the first time, I contemplate water torture instead. Some reason water torture loses. Why? Why? Why? Seriuhsly. There's no humor in this, no drama. Bella's perfect, her love is perfect, she has expensive clothes, a perfect daughter, and her inlaws built her a cottage to make a lover of fairy tales beam. Her true shallow colors come shining through when she beholds her immortal beauty. But damn, I'm bored bored bored bored. And yet I still read on. Just really more slowly. Well, I'm actually not reading this tripe, I'm back to listening to it. I am unable to force my eyes to suffer the torment. My ears, well my ears are accustomed to crap in a way I refuse to allow my visual field to be. I'm shallow enough to look at this all day with delight...

I am a narcissist. A real one, like textbook real. My narcissism doesn't conform to the textbook definition, as well it shouldn't; personality disorders aren't one size fits all. So, with an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality, I do spend considerable time performing mental gymnastics to make said narcissism less, well, narcissistic. It does make sense. It does. So Friday and Saturday I had a ferocious need to finish up my first Clothilde . It came out beautiful in the last of my Sundara Sport. I told myself that as soon as this was done I'd finish up the last bit of my Christmas knitting. Midnight Moon Clothilde This is what happened after I finished washing and blocking the Clothilde: Strange Fruit Clothilde And I did it with a chuckle, instead of disapprobation. A woman's gotta knit what a woman's gotta knit. I think part of my problem is that there is too much blue in my knitting basket. The original Clothilde and the C...

I'm pretty sure I've found my knitting sweet spot: the Shetland Triangle . I finished my 6th last week: Febrillious I finished my 5th a week or so before that: Eire Shetland Knitting this pattern smooths out all of life's rough edges. It kinda bothered me at little that I wanted to knit this pattern again and again. There was a seven month gap between my second and third shawl. Real knitters knit new patterns, real knitters try new, more challenging projects. I felt the capital K in my knitting persona slip to it's lower case cousin, like a kid eating their sandwich in a bathroom stall after a month sitting at the cool kid's table. Once I realized what I was allowing to happen, I wised up. It felt good facing up to my knitting superego and asking her to kindly shut her high falutin' trap. 1. Febrillious , 2. Eire Shetland , 3. Spruce Baby Llama Shetland , 4. Another Shetland , 5. Pink Granite Shetland Triangle , 6. Shetland Triangle Viva la Shetland Tria...

I've learned a lot of things while not blogging. 1) I've been spelling won't wrong for 42 years. I really didn't know it was a contraction. How did I not know that? 2) I must accept that I am not a blogger. I am not a social creature and blogging is about sharing, which is a social behavior. As callous as this sounds, I do not want to open a dialogue with other knitters on a consistent basis. I don't want friends, I'd really rather be alone. With Ravelry I can weigh in when I want and then ignore when I want. There is no sense of obligation to be social, and this blog has become dead weight with obligation. 3) I don't really like knitting with lace weight yarn. My foray into needle arts began with crocheting lace. In college I would buy cheap mercerized cotton thread from the Coolidge Corner Woolworth's and try to make lace, and add lace onto whatever I could. I still have a bambooesque drink coaster that I added some Estonian lace work to. ...

This blog hasn't had an FO in a good long while, so I thought I'd turn back the clock and recap what is my last lace shawl of 2008, my Peacock Seraphim. Although I am extremely proud of what this project represents, this is overshadowed by a longstanding frustration with my photographic skills. (A point which no matter how much time passes, I cannot seem to withhold harping on. Ack! What a whiner I am!) My pictures do not capture the vibrant color and hue of this fabulous yarn. Yarn ShibuiKnits Sock 100% Superwash Merino fingering weight About 907 yards (or nearly twice as much yarn as my prior two shawls ). The ease at which I've been tackling larger projects makes me feel like a "real" knitter. Not that it should, but you know, I'm as insecure as the next knitter, so it does. Needles Knitpicks Harmony Wood Options, US6 / 4.0mm Pattern Seraphim Shawl by Miriam Felton, AKA Mimknits . (More than one item fell into the cart when I purchased this pattern, s...