Knit Sisters

While I was confined by illness to my home, I spent most of my time blowing my nose daintily into a lace handkerchief, cursing the Three Fates (not to mention the the Nine Tastes, the Five Spices, the Four Tops, and the Seven Deadly Sins…only to arrive at last at the conclusion that I temporarily hated everybody), and swilling DayQuil like a sailor on leave, but I also managed to come to the end of time:

It was far less apocalyptic than one might have imagined.

For those who are interested, the specs:
1) Just over six skeins of Malabrigo (worsted weight) in color Scarlet. So in other words, seven skeins. Those two amounts being equivalent when you get down to brass tacks. Right. So. Moving on.

2) One skein Malabrigo in color Velvet Grapes. As the contrast color, Velvet Grapes was perfect. And I’ve got a lot of it left.

3) Pattern: My own, with heavy assists from Fiona Ellis and Ann Budd. My most heartfelt thanks, ladies! Couldn’t have done it without you!

4) Needles: US size 7 32″ circular and 16″ circular Addi Natura. Renewed my love of bamboo knitting needles, my collection of which had fallen into benign desuetude.

5) A couple of episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, the entire first season of The Muppet Show, a disappointing viewing of the remarkably dull and shallow Marie Antoinette, and several hours of fine conversation.

Et voilà! Time Out of Mind.

And lo, when the sweater was finished, she began to feel better and therefore far less surly and she went forth into the world, singing and dancing and telling all who would listen of her virtual resurrection!

Fortunately, this recovery occurred in time to spend most of a day with the lovely and witty Em, the kind and talented Marc, their youngest daughter, and her tartufo:

This last-minute save did not entirely make up for missing out on much of the weekend, but it made me a whale of a lot happier than not seeing them at all.

Naturally, Miss A. was part of the proceedings:

What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?

Alex kept a watchful eye over our smallest diner and her tartufo:

Hey, kid, you gonna eat that?

At some point shortly after this photo was snapped, Alex announced, with a note of alarm in his voice, “We have lost one-quarter of the tartufo! We have lost one-quarter of the tartufo!”

After a frantic search, the AWOL tartufo quarter was discovered wedged into a crack in the banquette, melting inexorably into a sticky, lubricious puddle between the two segments. It was unclear how this could ever be cleaned up.

Unless the restauranteur owns dogs.

And on that note, our dinner and our day out came to an end. Marc, Em, and the girls set off on their long car trip home and Alex and I—unused to the vigorous physicality and relentless inquisitiveness of small children—lapsed immediately into a coma.

We can only hope, for the sake of Marc and Em’s sanity, that the girls, buckled into their car seats and stuffed with carbohydrates, followed suit shortly thereafter.

The faithful and astute among you, dear readers, have no doubt noticed my absence, once again, from the blog for a week.  Once again I left my dear sister holding the blog bag.  Thanks, Ellen, for holding down the fort.  Time Out of Mind is looking magnificent indeed.

I will not bore you all with the details of my family travails and crises.  Suffice it to say that it has been a hard, hard winter, capping off a hard year.  Let us hope that spring will bring us all fresh promise and happiness.

And, moving on, my progress on the Handsome Triangle shawl.

I really am almost done with it!  I have only one full pattern repeat to finish, and then the somewhat daunting task of knitting the ruffle, involving as it does an exponential rate of increase and ever-lengthening rows.  But not that many rows!  There is light at the end of this particular lacy tunnel.

                                         A detail.

Of course, these photos, like the shawl itself at this point, reveal only a hint of the shawl’s true personality–just a promise of what is to come.  That will only be achieved by a proper and ruthless blocking.  Hard, but necessary.  Sort of the knitting equivalent of tough love. 

I think there’s a metaphor there somewhere:  about living along, following the pattern as best you can, and having faith that someday, at some time, you’ll be able to do the hard but necessary work of unfurling your life.  Stretching it ruthlessly out to reveal its true beauty.  Trusting that what you’ve been working at, at times so laboriously and with little joy, will pay off in the end.  Hoping that the people who love and support you will be moved to remark upon its loveliness–hoping that you yourself will be able to wear it with pride and say, “I made it myself.”

I can’t wait.

Time has one complete sleeve and about a fifth of a second:

I knocked off Sleeve Numero Uno while I was at Woolcott with my knitting peeps, which was fortunate for my general morale, actually, because my co-worker, the lovely Kat, quite emphatically encouraged me to pick up the stitches for the second sleeve immediately after finishing the first.

Admittedly her vaguely hectoring tone may have had something to do with the fact that as I held the sweater up and admired my work on the newly-completed first sleeve, I said, “Hey, do you guys know anybody about my size who only has one arm? Specifically only a right arm?”

Here’s how Time looks (well, if you can forgive the glare and the indifferent lighting) when worn:

Not photographically ideal, I know, but this is what happens when I’m home alone.

So Time has a sleeve and—I deeply regret to report—I have a cold. Naturally, I blame my landlord, the source of all that is cold, evil, and snot-ridden in this world.

I am never a good patient, but the timing of this ailment is particularly bitter because my friend Emily is in town with her tinies, Miss A. and Miss A.’s little sister, and I’d like to be touring the greater Boston area with them instead of drinking lemon tea at home and slugging DayQuil every six hours. There has been some griping and railing against the fates. Ahem.

Alex reminded me this morning that I am “trying” when I am sick because I get into a black humor and lose perspective and even sometimes claim, in spite of massive and irrefutable evidence to the contrary, that no one loves me and that I have no friends.

I didn’t appreciate his perceptivity in this regard.

Point being, I’m going to keep this post short, seeing as I am bound to be the most “trying” and dismal sort of company you could possibly keep, even on the internets. To make up for my general surliness, I would like to compensate you with a link to the delightful film short, Maddie’s First Banana.

The director, who also happens to be Maddie’s mother, gets an amazing range of emotional response from her actress, don’t you think?

Chez Les Eskimaux, the furnace is roaring away comfortingly,

and Shelley and Zeno are luxuriating wantonly in the warmth (note how the animals have literally unfurled from their body-heat-preservative tucks and have arrayed themselves in a curiously symmetrical formation around Alex…one almost suspects that they are planning something untoward…). Meanwhile, Alex and I have finally had the courage to strip off the top two of the four layers of clothing we had become accustomed to wearing in the house.

When you’ve spent nearly a week dressed like Anne Frank going into hiding, you don’t want to de-layer too quickly. You can get the bends.

It’s true. You could look it up.

If you will bear with me this evening, I would like to backtrack a bit and say a few words about how “Time Out of Mind” went from having the Neckline of Doom:

to having a Neckline that Rocks:

As Polarbears (sadly blogless) astutely noted last week, the problem was largely too many stitches, but since I was ripping that sucker out anyway, I decided to make a couple of other modifications that I think made the whole neck element work better.

I ripped the Neckline of Doom out while I was with my knitting friends at Woolcott, mainly because if I have to frog, frogging in public lessens the incidence of cursing, weeping, howling, and making dramatic claims that I later must disavow (e.g., “I hate knitting and I never want to knit again,” and “F*ck this ribbing and the horse it rode in on”).

That sad task accomplished, I set about to build a superior neck, much like the biotechnicians on The Six Million Dollar Man in the 1970s: “We CAN rebuild him. We HAVE the technology…”

This time, I picked up twelve fewer stitches on either side of the neck. Like so:

and like so:

Since the stitches for the cable panels were live to create continuity, those were moved back from waste yarn onto the 24″ circular needle I used for the neck. I knitted seven rows in the established pattern, then continuing in that pattern, I decreased four stitches (purls) between the cable panels on rows eight, ten, and twelve—ultimately losing 12 stitches total, six in front and six in back. Those stitches were decreased at the edge of the cable panels so that they would be less noticeable.

I did row thirteen in seed stitch to lessen the roll and rumple of the bound off edge where the cables were, and then I bound off in the contrasting color.

In the final analysis, I got a much neater bound-off edge and a much cleaner-looking neckline. With a total of thirty-six fewer stitches! I also learned a valuable lesson about necks.

Less is more.

From my perspective as a feline, the same could be said about dogs.

After five days of living in an igloo, we were amazed and delighted when our new furnace groaned to life around 4 p.m. yesterday. Its maiden voyage was a rough one, requiring the little-furnace-that-could to raise the temperature from a frigid 48 degrees (yes, that’s where it kind of permanently settled…which means it could have been worse, of course…although had you tried to tell me that on Friday I probably would have hung up on you) to a toasty 68 degrees.

You will never meet anyone so grateful to be in a home where the temperature is in the sixties. Comparatively speaking, I feel like I am on the isle of Oahu, basking in the sunshine on Waikiki and enjoying the “spirit of aloha.”

Pardon me for a moment while I summon Alex to fix me a Mai Tai with a miniature umbrella…

In practice, we were at the hotel for much of the past five days, but because of the animals’ needs and because we were unable to relocate all of our possessions, we were unable to completely abandon the house.

We all found this extremely inconvenient, except perhaps for Shelley, who enjoyed all the walking back and forth between the house and the hotel. And the subsequent sack-outs on the sofa in our suite.

A few tasty details from the furnace debacle:
1. The Paleozoic furnace was operating, we learned from our friendly Keyspan furnace professional, at a whopping 50% efficiency.

2. He also told us that there is a special place in hell for criminally neglectful sumbitches landlords who care so little about their property and their tenants that they fail to replace Paleozoic furnances operating at 50% efficiency.

3. When we asked him if there was a particular reason why the Paleozoic furnace died at that particular moment, he said, “Yeah, the same reason that that 114-year-old woman in Connecticut died a few weeks ago. She was old.”

4. The new furnace operates at over 90% efficiency. 90% efficiency, 100% satisfaction Chez Les Eskimaux!

5. It is warmer in this house than it ever has been. And I mean ever. This furnace just flat out has more juice. Go, little furnace! Do your stuff!

So I suppose that in the final analysis, this short-term cloud is bound to have a long-term silver lining. And yet…I still hope my landlord rots in hell.

Meanwhile, I took Wanda’s advice for getting out of the knitting doldrums and started a sock project:

Regia 4-Ply in red, black, and white. Faux-cable pattern over 60 stitches on US #1 needles. And highly portable.

And “Time” has not been out of mind. The lovely fit I spoke of formerly:

I have not yet ceased to be amazed that I got this part right!

How the sleeve is shaping up:

Upon consultation with my pals Kat and Kerry, it was decided that one central cable would be the most flattering sleeve solution.

And finally, a shot in which you can sort of see how the neck fits:

A woman with two-thirds of a sweater and central heating is a very happy woman indeed.

And last, but not least, many thanks to all who offered their support, commiseration, and warm thoughts during the Great Furnace Debacle of 2007.

Once again, I have good news and I have bad news.

The good news is that I retooled the neck of “Time” and now it is perfect. You may, however, be wondering why there is no accompanying picture. Well, then. Shall we proceed to the bad news?

The bad news is that our furnace died an unceremonious death sometime during the night of February 6th. We woke up on Wednesday morning to discover that it was 48 degrees in the house.

It has remained 48 degrees in the house ever since.

Our lying, cheapskate, craphound landlord has made arrangements to have an entirely new furnace put in, but that will take a couple of days (!!%$#@^&). Of course, he might have thought of this twenty years ago, when the furnace was only forty years old rather than sixty years old, and he might have thought of this during the summer. What I’m telling you here is that this crisis was inevitable and that a certain neglectful sumbitch just didn’t care enough to avert it.

Speaking of that same sumbitch, do you know that he actually had the audacity to tell me just yesterday that the furnace was “only 10 years old”? Like I don’t have eyes.

Meanwhile, I am staying in a hotel and charging it to him. That, I must say, has lit rather a fire under his lazy wazoo, but that’s the only heat that we’re getting around here because there’s only so fast you can get an entirely new furnace installed in the dead of winter. As it turns out.

Until there is heat, there will be no new sweater pictures, I’m afraid. The camera has gone on strike due to unacceptable working conditions.

Shelley Bales, in warmer times. File photo.

Well, as it turns out, the camera was actually a victim of reason #1 (see Monday’s post), and I myself had, indeed, set it down in an unlikely place.  Then, naturally, it was knocked off onto the floor, possibly by the cat,

 

or, more likely, by me.

And, just to compound my humiliation, Rob found it within about five minutes of getting home.

So, after having publicly and completely undeservedly maligned my poor husband, I feel it incumbent upon me to offer an equally public apology.

I’m sorry, Rob.  Mea culpa.  Mea maxima culpa.

And now, those pictures.

                                                           Melissa Leapman’s new book, Cables Untangled.  Full of great projects that are now on my wish list.

Like these ultra-cool cabled pillows.

And these beautiful cabled sweaters.

Wouldn’t one of these sweaters look great in my new yarn?

                                     Elann Uros Aran in that gingery color I was talking about on Monday.

And finally, my progress on the Suffolk lambswool.

                                                One bobbin full.

                                        And another in progress.

“Lord, make my words sweet today, for I most likely I will have to eat them tomorrow.”

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I finished the body of “Time Out of Mind”:

Doncha think I make rawther a handsome vest? And truth be known, I fit my maker quite perfectly…except for one small detail…

The bad news is that the neck looks terrible, rumply and amateurish:

Bwah, ha, ha, ha, ha! You think you can design sweaters, fool? You will be punished for your hubris, and I will lay my vengeance upon you! And you will know my name is The Knitting Goddess!

I have to rip it out and rethink it completely, but I may knit the sleeves first, just to avoid feeling downcast about running in place. I am at a bit of a low-ebb with knitting, I’m afraid. I don’t have decent portable project going and Time is getting to be a very big boy for his age, even putting aside for the moment that his neck is kicking me to the curb.

Meanwhile, in defiance of traditional graduate student lore and angst, the only thing that went right for me today was dissertation writing. The rest of the day was characterized by mercilessly low temperatures,

If I stay in a tight tuck, I may be able to preserve some of my body heat and survive until someone comes to rescue me. Someone with a warmer house.

surly cashiers, and burned dinner rolls. The latter mishap was especially bitter because I was so looking forward to having a roll with my broiled fish, steamed broccoli, and multivitamins, and to have that hope literally carbonized at the last minute, even though it was my own inattention that sealed those rolls’ fate… The agony!

You have no idea how fixated you can become on the idea of a dinner roll when you can only eat thirty-nine things and one of them is “oleomargarine.” (If you are new to the blog, you can get the back-story here.)

If my Berkeley professor was here, he’d ask, “So what’s the lesson?” Based on today’s events, I think the lesson would have to be: spend more time on your dissertation. Although come to think of it, the lesson might also be: hire a cook.

In the plus column, we ordered our wedding rings! They look approximately like this:

We are now deciding what to have engraved on the inside.

We’ve also been in the process of gathering addresses for the invitation list, which is a larger task than you might think, in this age of electronic communication. We have many friends with whom we never exchange real letters, so we don’t keep street addresses for them. But it has been an excuse to get in touch with some friends I contact infrequently.

Today, for instance, I e-mailed a friend of mine who always signs her e-mails with her initial and a line from a song, the cheesier the better, e.g.:

Love, M. “Really love your peaches…”

Upon which the recipient might reply with the signature:

XOXO, E. “…Wanna shake your tree.”

Other strong candidates for lyrics of this sort might include:

More than a woman, more than a woman to me…

I wanna put on my, my, my, my, my boogie shoes…

Goodbye Michelle, it’s hard to die, when all the birds are singing in the sky…

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!

It’s more than a feeling…more than a feeling…when I hear that old song they used to play…

Even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with ya honey…

And you! You light up my life! You give me hope! To carry on!

Baby, what a big surprise…right before my very eyes…whoa ho, oh, oh, oh…

But now circling back to the subject of those wedding band engravings, what do you think about, “Really love your peaches”?

Me? I think it’s class, pure class.

I went on an exhaustive search of the house this evening, looking for the digital camera.  It is nowhere to be found.  This can only mean one of two things: 

1.  I have put it down in some strange place and can’t find it amidst the general (ahem) clutter. 

OR

2.  Rob put it in his coat pocket this morning to take some pictures at school, unbeknownst to me, and forgot to take it out of said pocket when he left this evening to go to his fencing class.

Do you know which option I am betting on?  Yep.  That would be number two.

(As an aside, do you ever wish you could just trade in your life, your problems, and your family for someone else’s, just for a little while?  God knows I’m not asking for a life without problems, but some different problems would be ever so refreshing once in a while.)

But, as Harvey just pronounced, I am persevering.

I was going to write about my recent acquisition of this book, and the beautiful cabled designs therein.

I was going to write about another recent acquisition:  this yarn in a lovely sort of gingery cognac color.  About the gorgeous cabled sweater that might possibly be made by me from this yarn.

I was going to write about another raw fleece that is lurking in the closet, one which I have not even touched yet.

I was going to include a picture of my spinning progress on the Suffolk lamb’s wool.  I finished the first bobbin, and started the second, and this sort of progress should be documented, don’t you think?

But no!  It’s all gone down the tubes. 

For want of a camera, a post was lost.

For want of a post….

Truth be known, I loathe Robert Frost. Something there is that does not love a dour, ungenerous New England poet.

Quite. I must say, among the American poets, I prefer Whitman. His lanky, muscular line provides the perfect accompaniment to gnawing the end off of a cow femur.

Nonetheless, I keep thinking of his mean-spirited “Mending Wall,” in which the narrator’s beleagured neighbor, the one who keeps saying, “Good fences make good neighbors,” is immortalized forever as the schlemiel who just keeps thoughtlessly mending the stone wall every spring and saying the same unexamined thing over and over because he thinks it’s clever.

As opposed to the narrator, who questions what the point of the wall is, but likewise keeps mending the stone wall every spring.

My question to you is, who’s the bigger jerk?

But lately I’ve started to think that I too am an old-stone savage. For a year and a half, we lived on the first floor of our three-story house without neighbors on the second floor. The house was very cold in the winter and there were drug dealers living on the third floor, yes, but it was very quiet. The drug dealers only popped around a couple of times a week and they pretty much sidled into the house, dropped things off, picked things up, and headed out to points unknown where there was a little cash-o-la to be made in illegal commodities. I liked to think of them as “young entrepreneurs.”

We were just one big, happy, dysfunctional, criminally-inclined family.

Until the people on the second floor moved in. One month later, the drug dealers cleared out, apparently having come to regard the space as “no longer suitable to their business needs” now that there was someone immediately downstairs to monitor their comings and goings.

A mere two months later, Zeno and the rest of the Mad Dog household were plunged into mourning for our oil-dripping, petrochemically-hazardous derelict truck, which “the new people” had insisted, through an enraging combination of uncontestable and coolly rational arguments, on having towed away.

You can see as well as I where this is going.

First they came for the drug dealers,
but I did not speak up because I was not a drug dealer.
Then they came for the derelict truck,
but I did not speak up because I was not a derelict truck…

The awful part about all this is that they are perfectly nice people. They love my dog, they are civilized, they don’t throw loud parties, they only cook aromatic foods about once a week, and they have politically-correct bumper stickers on their cars indicating their love of the Goddess and vegetable-oil-powered vehicles and their hatred of George Bush and U.S. imperialism.

And yet, I hate it when I’m trying to go to sleep and I can hear them walking around upstairs, which they seem to do at all hours of the day and night. Can you imagine? People thinking that it is “okay” to walk around their own apartment? I mean, how inconsiderate can you get?

Yeah, I know this is my problem.

But I swear their cat wears combat boots. Thud, thud, thud, thud, meow!

The lastest development is that our neighbors have proposed having tea together to “chat about the house.” Something there is that doesn’t love a chat. (Something there is that doesn’t love le chat, either, but that’s another matter altogether.)

I think perhaps in response I will send a note saying, “Good fences make good neighbors,” and leave it at that.

Progress on “Time Out of Mind”:

I realize this is a bit like watching the grass grow. Humor me, will you?

The front proceeds…