Can Sea Scallop Survive Majorelle Blue? March 25, 2008
Posted by Sheila in Inspiration, Sea Scallop Shawl.add a comment
I am determined to finish the Sea Scallop without bowing to the distraction of another project, but my determination has been sorely tried by the pictures I saw recently from a friend’s stay in Morroco. The vivid colors and intricate patterns of architecture and tilework caused so much overstimulation of my cerebral cortex that I don’t believe I slept for two nights. What I have thought of in the past as typical Moorish arches, while perhaps typical and perhaps Moorish, were not much in evidence in these photos. Instead, the shapes of doorways to prestigious edifices consisted of a shape much like a circle on top of a rectangle… as if a giant gamepiece representing a person had been pushed through a wall to create an opening. Like this.
I’ve been unable to find photos on the internet of some especially insomnia-inducing edifices, but I did find the source of the unbelievable Majorelle blue, purportedly trademarked by the artist whose former gardens it abundantly graces in Marrakesh. The photo below is from Wikipedia–
But the one here is simply breathtaking.
And here you can find out more about Majorelle.
Four repeats of Sea Scallops and a band of edging is all that stands between me and experimenting with the ideas that have crowded into my already overfull imagination due to those pictures… if I can hold out that long.
Why Knitters are Like Computers (only better) March 20, 2008
Posted by Sheila in Code, Knitting, Writing.add a comment
I belive that knitting, coding and writing are very similar. Why is that?
Computers are, at their very hearts, simple things. They hear only two words: “On” and “Off”. If we translate these two words into the language computers are born speaking– called “binary”– what they really hear is “1″ and “0″.
This isn’t so revolutionary. Knitters have been speaking binary for centuries. The simple texture language has the values “knit” and “purl”; the fair isle language has “Color A” and “Color B”.
Weavers use binary language too. In their case, the two words are “up” and “down”. Up indicates that the warp thread in that position is be raised, down indicates it is to be lowered. The space between the raised and lowered threads is the “shed” through which a shuttle wound with yarn is passed. The arrangements of the threads on top and on bottom differ with with each “row” (in weaving called a pick), thus creating a pattern.
If a knitter looks at a line of a chart that reads KPKKKPKPKPKKKPPP she knows what to do, and she uses her needles and yarn to do it. We could think of that line of that chart as a set of binary instructions. A line of binary code (such as 010001100011101) is exactly that to a computer. But wait! you say, computers are far more complex than knitting or weaving! And that is true. But we can take the analogy at least a little further.
Let’s consider letters of the English alphabet. How does a computer know that I have typed the letter “e”? It’s because there is a binary code associated with the letter “e” (it’s 1100101). To lessen the amount of space it takes to write it out, computer geeks often use hexadecimal notation – base 16 – instead of binary. This also works because of the way computers store the information, but I’m not going to go there right now. So, in hexadecimal, the letter “e” is 48.
How does that translate to knitting?
What if we thought of a fair isle motif as a word? Each row has a binary code like oooxoooxooo. Let’s say that this is the equivalent of our letter “e”. But each row in our motif is not the same, just as each letter in a word is not the same, although there can be repeats of certain letters in any word. Let’s look at the word “rotator”. It’s a good one to use because it’s a palindrome… it reads the same backwards as forward. Similarly, many fair isle motifs are symmetrical, both vertically and horizontally. If we assign one row of symbols (representing two different colors of stitches) to each letter and then stack them on top of each other, we have a good representation of a fair isle motif.
r = oooxoooxooo
o = ooxoooooxoo
t = oxoooxoooxo
a = xoooxxxooox
t = oxoooxoooxo
o = ooxoooooxoo
r = oooxoooxooo
We can extend the analogy even further by saying that a band on one of our fair isle sweaters (a horizontal repetition of one or more motifs) is like a sentence, and an entire fair isle garment is like a paragraph or even a story. What are words, after all, if not symbols representing things, emotions, actions? And don’t traditional motifs represent things in life such as anchors, trees, churns, ropes and wheels?
Kitting, writing, code: it’s all very similar.
The Ghost of Knitting Yet To Come March 17, 2008
Posted by Sheila in Knitting, Sea Scallop Shawl, Uncategorized.1 comment so far
Sea Scallop is now consuming more than 20 minutes per row, gobbling up 525 stitches for each end-to-end trip I make with the needles. Six pattern repeats remain; the final repeat will have at least 765 stitches. Consumed by an inexplicable yet irresistable urge to know how much more work I really had to do, I turned to my good friend and local mathematics expert, X Cel. X performed some lightning-fast calculations and presented me with the bill for stitches:
| Body: | 106652 |
| Edging: | 42616 |
| Total: | 149268 |
I smiled and said fine, but that doesn’t tell me how much time I must spend to pay the bill! He smiled sardonically, thrummed his engines and spat this onto my desktop:
| Time per Stitch: | 2.66 |
| Total Stitches | 149268 |
| Total Time (hours) | 110.2924667 |
I paled slightly, but steeled myself for the information I really wanted: how much longer is this thing going to take? X consulted his Inner Formula, eyed me speculatively to ascertain whether I could withstand the truth and then displayed the final reality:
| Total Stitches: | 149268.00 |
| Stitches Completed: | 49434.00 |
| % Complete | 33.12 |
| Time Completed: | 36.53 |
| Time Remaining: | 73.77 |
I nearly fainted with sticker shock. How could I negotiate a lower bill? I inquired. He calmly explained that the only way to alter the outcome, assuming I do not shorten the pattern, is to knit faster. By just knitting a half second faster per stitch I can reduce my workload by about 18 hours!
| Time per Stitch: | 2 |
| Total Stitches | 149268 |
| Total Time (hours) | 82.92666667 |
| Total Stitches: | 149268.00 |
| Stitches Completed: | 49434.00 |
| % Complete | 33.12 |
| Time Completed: | 27.46 |
| Time Remaining: | 55.46 |
Or, if I really wanted to take on all contenders in a contest of determination and speed, knitting each stitch in a uniform and predictable 1.5 seconds, I could finish this item around 32 hours earlier! Just think… by being quick and nimble-fingered, ignoring all other life around me, inserting IV lines for nutritive sustenance and focusing on this goal to the exclusion of any other, I could save the equivalent of a 4-day work week!
| Time per Stitch: | 1.5 |
| Total Stitches | 149268 |
| Total Time (hours) | 62.195 |
| Total Stitches: | 149268.00 |
| Stitches Completed: | 49434.00 |
| % Complete | 33.12 |
| Time Completed: | 20.60 |
| Time Remaining: | 41.60 |
Visions of my life as a speed knitter streamed through my head. I saw a home void of personality and cleanliness, I saw the accusing looks of animals and people ignored. I heard the constant beeping of my cell phone signifying received yet unacknowledged calls. I felt my muscles withering from disuse and the fat creeping into my arteries to cause a dull but constant pain in my chest.
Frightened, I shook my head to clear it, looked my former friend in the eye and informed him his services would no longer be neccessary. From now on, I prefer to knit in Ignorance. It will be done when it is done.
The State of the Scallop March 12, 2008
Posted by Sheila in Knitting, Sea Scallop Shawl.1 comment so far
The Value of Ravelry March 10, 2008
Posted by Sheila in Ravelry.add a comment
I always feel, on the Monday after Springing Forward, that we are all the butt of a huge joke. Advising multiple millions of people that they will need to change their clocks and arise a full hour earlier than usual should be grounds for mass riots, government overthrows, derisive laughter and stolid resistance. Instead, we shake the sleep from our eyes, ignore the pitying glances of our pets, and pretend it’s all good. We constantly consider what time it would have been last week at this time while worrying that we won’t be able to get to sleep early enough to catch the required quantity of shuteye needed to sustain us through the next day.
We are sheep.
Luckily, sheep are among my favorite animals. Sheep graze peacefully in bucolic pastures, they keep dogs employed. They provide Mary with a little lamb, establish cause for a massive sheephunt on behalf of Little Bo-Beep, survive despite Little Boy Blue’s somnolent habits, and ensure that the master, the dame, and the little boy down the lane have a bag of wool each.
Without sheep, I conjecture, there would be no Ravelry.
I have descended into that rabbit hole in the past week, code name “fortuknit”. Looking around like a newborn suddenly thrust into completely alien surroundings, I gurgled and stared at all the fascinating aspects of my new world. The developers have done a terrific job of delivering a social site specifically for knitters and crocheters. The site helps its members organize, display, network, buy, sell, trade, advertise, be inspired, get ideas, and generally immerse themselves in this worldwide hobby.
Slowly reaching sentience about my surroundings, I pointed and clicked, quickly finding friends and establishing a library, a stash, and a project. I find the site very useful and well done. I find parts missing that I would like to see, but there is a conduit for suggestions established that I can use to express my thoughts.
The best gift this site has to offer, though, comes in the way of Total Disillusionment. If I thought that I was special in any way because I knit, I have been disavowed of this notion. If I thought I was unique because of the types of things I have created in the past, my pride has been squashed. On the other hand, if I felt guilty about the size of my knitting library; the number of unfinished projects in my life or the quantity of my recently thinned but still substantial stash, I can absolve myself based on the assurance that I am not alone.
The outcome of all this, really, is that I am hit with the reality that if I want to be unique, if I want to truly treasure the things I create, I need to make an effort to be more original. If I search for a pattern, for example, I can find multiple photos of finished items that have utilized that pattern. They all look the same! This is a side effect of the omniscience the internet gives us. In our own neighborhood we can walk about wearing a leaf lace shawl and be unique. On Ravelry we are but one of … 260?
So, my use of Ravelry.. and I certainly will use it!… as I see it will be to be inspired by the work of others, to learn from their opinions and efforts and mistakes and to constantly remind myself that if I am a good knitter, there are 100,000 other good knitters out there, and those are just the ones with an internet connection and a Ravelry account.
I am humbled.
Springing Forward March 4, 2008
Posted by Sheila in General.add a comment
I took a long bicycle ride on Sunday, staying mostly on the Burke-Gilman trail, riding from somewhere in the University District to somewhere in Woodinville, and back. As always this time of year, my faith in nature was restored as I observed the dotted swiss effect of trees pushing out tiny spurts of leaves, branches yearning toward the sun, flushed red by the exertion. Crocus, daffodils, the occasional cherry or apple tree… even a willing willow or two celebrated the coming arrival of spring.
I thought about the fact that merely 2 years ago I had to limit a bicycle ride to two miles; now they extend well over 30 miles and would last longer if the day agreed to do the same. I claim no bragging rights; I am simply grateful that my decline into stultifying sedentarianism was aborted while it was still possible.
The Kauni Klam, as I fondly think of it, is progressing nicely, scallops rippling outward, rows becoming longer, the pattern more pronounced. The once strange maneuver of a centered purl decrease (the exact opposite of a slip 2, knit 1, pass the 2 slipped stitches over) has become familiar with repetition, and as long as various and sundry warm-blooded beings refrain from spilling warm liquids across my pattern, my pleasure is complete. Nano-nano keeps me company if there is none other to be found, and I consume chapters of audiobooks as if starved for well-written words.
When light fare is desired, Sue Grafton’s series of alphabetical mysteries is jut the ticket. A is for Alibi and B is for Burglar have streamed through my ears in the last two weeks. Before that, the lengthy Until I Find You (John Irving) kept me occupied for many hours, wondering if it was ever going to end. And based on excellent recommendations my most recent absorption of Nevada Barr’s Deep South was most enjoyable.
And when bicycling, knitting, reading, working, cleaning, eating or cooking fail to fill my hours I return to writing code for my one-day dream of a knitting library index. The old data model is still there, still good, still waiting like wet mortar for me to lay out the bricks and create structure. I am in no hurry. The pleasure is in the process.
