I am sitting at my desk in my office on a Saturday. Why? Because it’s “Maintenance Weekend”, something that occurs once a month and means that we kick all the users out of all the systems so that we can patch them up (the systems, not the users). It also means that the things I do often take a while and I simply wait for them to complete, check to see if they completed successfully, and figure out why they failed if they fail. And today, everything is failing the first or second time around. I am slowly pulling my hair out by the roots. The causes aren’t catastrophic… a dba failed to create a directory here or there; license files needed to be moved from there to here, that sort of thing. But each cause takes time to find and then to fix and then to begin again. Grrrr. Arghh.

We finished the third Nathanial Starbuck book, Battle Flag, last night. Bernard Cornwell will never win prizes for beautiful prose, but he is an engaging historian and brings to life the characters who existed during the War of Northern Aggression, whom we have come to admire as great heros– namely, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. (“Granny”) Lee. Further, I’ve learned much more than I ever knew about the pre-Grant generals of the North: McClellan, MacDowell, Pope. They (not their soldiers) were afraid (or at least overly cautious) to fight even though they had the best-equipped forces ever to exist. My forebears wore rags and used up all their ammunition, but they fought like bears to protect their land, their families, and their rights. The majority of the southerners didn’t own slaves and weren’t fighting to keep slavery, and the majority of northerners weren’t fighting to free slaves, but to preserve the Union.

Anyway, I awoke in the middle of the night with a dull stomachache that wouldn’t go away, so I crept downstairs to make myself some ginger tea, and as I sipped I looked up Stonewall Jackson on the internet, where he is alive and well. I was curious about the phrase that caught on among Jackson’s brigade just before the second battle for Manasses in August of 1862. Apparently a Yankee soldier wanted a look at this man Jackson, who was reknowned for his skill in strategy and his success in battle. Upon seeing that Jackson was an ordinary-looking man with light blue eyes and huge feet who sat ramrod-stright upon his horse, holding his left hand in the air for extended lengths of time, the Yankee declared: “Oh my God, just lay me down!” From that time forward, the phrase was used to provoke roils of laughter among the troops.

It’s still sort of a headscratcher, but I guess the phrase is supposed to mean, in a semi-sarcastic sort of way, that you realize you might as well just give up, because this foe is so formidable. Thoughts?

I’ve been practicing psychoanalysis without a license. My patient is me, and though my hourly rates are exhorbitant I’m not certain I’m deriving benefit from the treatment. Lately our sessions have dealt mainly with the subject of handknitted socks.

I ask myself: How do you feel about handknitted socks?
- I do like the idea of handknitted socks. I admire the intricacy of some I’ve seen. I like knitting heels.

That’s it?
- I like tiny needles.

What is it that you don’t like about them? (I continue my probe, trying to ascertain the truth.)

The truth, I decide, is twofold. The first fold: I do not like being subjected to the sight of handknitted socks in magazines, on patterns, at Ravelry or on blogs. Why? Because: these views usually consist of a “sturdy” calf, ankle and foot encased in a sock. The sock might be beautiful but if the flesh beneath it is not, I am turned off completely. I feel that if I wore that sock, my own lower appendages would look the same as the sockwearing model. Feet and legs– especially unattractive ones– should remain hidden inside shoes and underneath pants legs, just as unsightly rolls of fat are better off hidden beneath voluminous folds of fabric, like muumuus. Show me a sock that exhibits the same effect on feet as a muumuu does on the body and I might be impressed.

(By the way: why is it that a pedicure involves the feet, but a pediatrician treats children and a pedophile is a pervert? As a result of having your feet pampered and cared for, are you cured of children? This is something the fertility clinics might like to know.)

Secondly, I can’t see taking so much time to knit an item that costs so little at a store and fits just fine off the shelf. Other garments– sweaters, shawls, coats– are much more visible, much more individualistic and much harder to find in off-the-shelf versions that fit and flatter. They may not be inexpensive to knit if you use good yarn, but they will not be forced to fit inside a shoe and be walked on all day.

So, I’m glad other folks like to knit socks. Wonderful. It will keep the sock yarn on the shelves, and sock yarn is great for other things, too. Like shawls. But perhaps my therapist will hypnotize me one day and from thenceforth I will knit only socks. Or maybe I’ll just cluck like a chicken.

Meanwhile I am at the same point in my Icy River cardigan that I get to in my workout frequently: the bargaining point.

The bargaining point is where you really don’t want to go on, but you need justification for not continuing. The pattern is getting old, the colors are repetitious. Wouldn’t it be fine if it were ten inches shorter? Do I really need a 28″ long cardigan? Couldn’t this be for my ten-year-old niece? No, it wouldn’t; yes, I do; no, it can’t. I will persevere.

My Fetcher thought she might get a treat if she posed for a picture:

Are your feet cosy now, Ma?

So I’ve had a little time to reconsider ripping the blue warp off the loom in the blur I promised. After all, there’s still a few feet of it left, and it is rolled nicely onto that back beam. I’m not really as sick of the color as the pattern, so all I have to do is rethread the heddles in a different pattern and tie up the treadles again. Then I will have a whole new perspective on the blue. I’m thinking huck lace or Swedish lace or Bronson lace. Cogitation must occur; research is required.

Some readers may wonder why, suddenly, I am blogging again. I’ve been wondering the very same thing. If you have any answers, I’d love to hear them. I come home every day for lunch, since I work close to home, and it seems natural that I should eat and then blog. Eat, blog. See?

Claire, the black lab who is not generally the smartest dog in the world, has developed an endearing habit. Several months ago I taught her to fetch my slippers from upstairs. This involved pointing up the stairs, gesticulating wildly and commanding in a voice of heightened excitement “go get Mommy’s slippers! Go get them! Go on!” several times until Sherlock would get disgusted with her and lead her up the stairs, where she would (or would not, depending on her mood) find ONE slipper and bring it down. I then had to hide that slipper behind my back and go through the same process for the other slipper. Because of the work involved in getting her to fetch the footwear (even though she got a treat when both had been delivered) I eventually decided it was easier to get my own blessed slippers.

A couple of nights ago I was sitting on the sofa knitting away. Claire raised her head off her paws, looked at me, and suddenly ran up the stairs. She brought down a slipper and dropped it at my feet. I was astounded. It was still only one slipper, but she eagerly went for the other one when I told her to. She has decided, apparently, that whenever I am still for more than a few moments, slippers are required. Therefore, when I am home at lunch, eating, then blogging, she brings me my slippers. Go figure. The only wrinkle in this scenario is when she decides to fetch my slippers– only I’m already wearing them. She solves that little problem by fetching me someone else’s slipper!

I seem to have misplaced my Spindrift color card, and had been thinking about ordering one from somewhere, when I came across Karen’s post about where one can find them. Fortuitous! I placed my order right away.

In approximately one week, I will be attending the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference, which will take place in the Seattle Convention Center. It has been a few years since I attended this conference. I was thinking about this yesterday, remembering the last time I attended. It was held that year (I believe it was 2001) in San Francisco. I remember it clearly, because I wore my favorite powder blue Calvin Klein blazer to dinner one night with two other female conference-goers from other parts of the U.S. It was the penultimate time a man tried to pick me up.

But I digress. That trip is relevant to this blog because it was then that I visited the yarn shop in San Francisco where my knitting world was turned upside down. The book Tudor Roses had recently been published, and the shop had models of all the designs on display. I was stunned, simply speechless. At the same time, the proprietors (both male) informed me that the yarn was being discontinued. After I picked my jaw up off the ground I hastily purchased all the yarn for Henry VIII, though several skeins had to be ordered in from other stores. I don’t remember what street the store was on, nor the name of it. I do not recall the price of the yarn or the book. But I will never forget the instant connection I felt to the glorious color in those knitted sweaters. After I returned home I looked for, and found, an online group of knitters likewise infatuated with these designs, an activity which had a profound influence on the next few years of my life, for good and bad.

At that time in my life I could not understand why such a talented designer would not want to be honored by having groups of knitters discuss and delight over her creations. I did not comprehend why anyone would choose to bury their head in the sand, shrink away from her adoring public, at the expense, possibly, of her own popularity. Now I totally get it. Not that I have anywhere near the amount of talent that she has demonstrated over many years and scores of designs. Nor do I have the experience of creating and marketing a line or two of yarns. Nor yet have I ever exhibited the stamina required to endure and enjoy prolonged journeys of teaching technique and evangelizing designs. But I do have a little taste of what it is like when the world seems to invade your hobby space. Suddenly everyone is a knitter. Everyone is a designer. That’s not a bad thing: everyone should reach the point in their knitting or weaving where they create their individual garments. But everyone wants a piece of the knitted pie– this is made abundantly clear with events such as “Stitch ‘n’ Pitch” nights at major baseball stadiums or LYS “shop-hops”. What was once a charming hobby based on a craft from the past has been made common, perhaps in the modern woman’s quest for relief of boredom or their need for excuses to get together socially, or perhaps more charitably, due to their need to create.

I honestly have no idea why Alice Starmore has chosen not to focus to the degree she once did on the knitting world (though I’m happy to see that her online yarn store is still alive and well). Though I am sad that she is no longer designing knitted garments on the scale she used to, I am absolutely delighted to find that her talents have found new outlets, and I am once again dumbstruck with amazement at her creations, here. I am not an easily impressed person, but this lady is amazing. I am mortified about my own negative behavior towards her decisions in the past. I hide my head in shame.

And so with these memories I look forward to the upcoming conference, and wonder whether it will be another life-changing event. I should probably bring along my smelling salts, just in case.

The rains of Autumn are drumming on my roof and I am wearing a Shetland fair isle sweater for the first time this season. Meanwhile, though you probably won’t ever find me at a Stitch ‘n’ Pitch or a shop hop, my own humble design grows on the needles.

The humans in this household, Loki had decided, were smarter than the average. They provided canned cat food every morning, one can for him and one for Thor. They cleaned the litter box as soon as it was used so that the dog, the big black one with small brains, would not contemplate a raid on its contents. They staged soft pillows near the walls you could see through, inviting felines to sit in comfort as they observed the neighborhood. Still, they could use coaching when it came to their bedtime.

Last night, Loki had decided it was time for a lesson. He was once again stuck inside the cave that contained the big box upon which they slept. They had pushed the big board into the wall all the way, and no cat could open it from within. Loki had heard of an ancient feline ancestor reputed to have worked out the secret of the shiny ball halfway up the board, but he did not know whether that was true or just pure catlore.The holes to the outside were open, but the invisible shields had been locked into place behind them, effectively keeping every creature inside from tussling with any creature outside.

He walked over the sleeping female. The weight of his body was considerable, and each paw contained pressure equivalent to the weight of five fat chickens. She responded by petting him and murmuring that he should “lie down”. He tried again, and a third time, but the response was the same. It amused him that humans thought catkind would respond to commands. It was time to put The Plan into action.

Slowly, he wandered away as she slipped back into her dreams. Leaping onto the top of the high box that reached nearly to the ceiling, Loki selected his target. He considered the male, but he knew that the repercussions from the big strong man might be more severe than he wanted. It would be the weak female, then. The vulnerable spots would be… yes. The two lumps that protruded from her front when she walked upright. He would have to wait until she turned onto her back, but he didn’t mind waiting. He was very good at it. He remembered back when the humans had read the book about the Apache Indians, how one of the Indians could sneak up on a horse and steal him even when his owner was sleeping not five feet away. Scornfully, Loki assured himself that he could have stolen the horse even if the owner was awake! He sighed, stretched, and waited, his green eyes reflecting moonlight as the night progressed.

Eventually she did turn. Her breathing was soft and steady, and Loki could tell she was dreaming happy dreams. He could see the lumps underneath her sleeping furs, visible and vulnerable. Perfect. He crouched down, head over the edge of the tall box; shifted his paws for the best leverage. He launched himself, then plummeted downward like a diving eagle, turning halfway through his descent so that his front paws landed on one lump while his back ones landed on the other. CATTACK!! he screamed silently as the effect of his leap took immediate shape. The female grunted in surprised pain and would have thrown him off the box had he not anticipated the move and stepped gracefully aside. He heard the black dog respond to her screeches by scratching on the outside of the big board. The little curly dog growled and snapped, and the big male jumped up and opened the door. The female continued to writhe in pain, covering her head with the furs they slept under and curling up into a ball for protection. Too late!

Loki smiled and walked nonchalantly out of the sleeping cave, planning the words with which he would relate his adventure to Thor. It would be a long time before they locked him in again.

Today I finished weaving the second snowflake runner, this one using the same blue warp but an almost-white linen for the weft. It turned out beautifully and I am glad to be done with it. I think my mother-in-law will like it, and it will look stunning under her traditional Pfaltzgraff dinnerware. The other runner was given to my brother-in-law and his wife last Christmas, and they absolutely love it. I hope I’ve convinced them that yes, you do wash it in the washing machine and yes, you do use hot water. Then you just iron it dry. The fancy word for this is “wet finishing“. There are different ways to wet finish different fibers, but linen is one of the easiest. I’ll be ripping the rest of that warp off the loom in a blur. I don’t know what goes on there next, but I can tell you for sure it will NOT be BLUE.

Outside, Annie Oakleaf shows us her fall wardrobe. This is the first time we’ve seen her true colors. She was planted in the front yard last November, but she has adapted beautifully to her new home.

And inside, the newest critters have taken over Sherlock’s basket.

Mom! He's touching me!

If I die from swine flu, will I go to Hog Heaven?

Not that I have the flu, mind you, but I want to be mentally prepared in case people start dropping like pigs around me.  My employer has created a whole Pork Pandemic Plan (my name, not theirs) and is generously telling folks that if they have flu symptoms they should stay home even if they have no sick time left… they will be paid nonetheless.  It heartens me that in this economy and this century companies will actually do what is best for their people.

What would Hog Heaven be like, anyway?  Would we wallow around in mud-colored happiness?  Would there be  bacon substitute?  Would boars be allowed?  One does wonder.

But  I am perfectly healthy and these ruminations are simply the product of my addled pate.  I have the day off today and the luxury of doing nothing is going to my head.

I didn’t get a whole lot of knitting done on my Project, which I am temporarily referring to as “Icy River” although I think it once had a different name.  If a better name pops up I will switch names with no qualms.  I will be qualmless.

If the truth be known, three rows had to be ripped back because I used similar symbols on my chart and chose the wrong color because of it.  This didn’t bother me much.  Mistakes are a part of the process, and knowing how to fix them is part of being a competent knitter.  If I were a surgeon, I would be far less tolerant of error (and if I were a surgeon, you should run far, far away from me). 

And now, because I enjoyed ranting so much in the last post about the use of the French language, I’d like to rant about a gross misuse of our American English:  “flesh” vs. “flush”.  As in, “I need to flesh out this plan.”  Time after tired time, I wince audibly as I hear this instead:  “I need to flush out this plan.”  Does the plan already exist, hiding under some bush to which you will send your hound to scare it out?  No.  Do you want to write the plan on paper and send it swirling down the toilet?  No.  Are you planning to paint rosy cheeks upon a picture of your plan?  No.  What you really mean is that you have, in essence, the skeleton of an idea, and you need to put “flesh” on that skeleton, or “flesh it out”. 

I will indeed be needing to flesh out my design, as it currently has nothing but a sort of swirly haze hovering above the waist area.  In good time.

Here is a fuzzy picture of Malin’s front that I spoke of a couple of posts ago:

Not a Dog Bed. Is a Cat Bed. See?

This weekend I chose to direct my attention to creating a simple cardigan design for a fair isle pattern I worked up three or four years ago, when I still lived on the eastside and didn’t work full time. This was a fulfilling exercise, since it required a complete focus on math. Can I just say here that I admire and adore the folks who created Microsoft Excel? I don’t mean Microsoft as a company– I certainly respect many parts of it, but not every aspect.   Excel, however,  is a powerful and wonderful tool in the belt of a financial analyst, on the desk of a spreadsheet addict,  or in the hands of a middle-aged knitter who simply wants to know how she’s going to knit something before she starts.

I had two goals in mind, really. First, I wanted to know how many stitches to cast on in order to approximate the size I needed and to accommodate an equal number of repeats. Second, I wanted a legitimate approximation of how much yarn of each color I should expect to use.

To accomplish these goals, I used as a template a pattern in a book that had basically the same shape as the garment I want to knit– a long cardigan with side welts at the bottom. The gauge for it was different than my gauge, and so I had to do the math. Then I counted up the stitches of each color in the repeat of the referenced pattern and got a percentage of color per pattern repeat. I looked at the amount of yarn called for in that pattern and extrapolated a range of percentages per count of skeins. For example, 1-3 % of the design would require 1 skein; 4-8% would require 2, and so forth.

To make it even more fun, the put-up for this type of yarn has changed since my reference pattern was printed, so my friend Excel did the calculations for me, including taking into account what yarn I already have, what type of put-up, and what will be required in addition to that. Et voilà*! I had a shopping list that I could send to my favorite tax-free source.  Being paranoid (that is my motto: “Be Paranoid!”) of course I added one skein to each of the twelve colors.  You never can tell.

Breathing a satisfied sigh of accomplishment, I immediately cast on and knit the bottom border while listening to poor Nate Starbucks’ latest predicament.

*This prompts me to rant about the number of people who have no clue about this word.  I see these people writing “walla!” in patterns or on blogs and it just makes me embarrassed for them.  “Walla” is one-half of the name of a particularly sweet onion from the U.S. Northwest, and one-half of the name of a city from the same area, but other than that, it is not a word.  In any language that I know.  So if you want to tell me that you’re excitedly pointing out a Walla-Walla Sweet or that you’ve been selected to receive a key to the city of Walla-Walla Washington, then by all means, say “walla!”.  But if you want to declaim to an interested party that an item is finished and said party should take a look, then say or write ”Voilà!” (complete with accent, and pronouncing the “v” like an English… “v”) which is French and means basically “see, there it is!”  And if you forget how to spell it or how to use it… just don’t try.  Use the rather pedestrian but well understood English:  “There you have it!”  Okay?  Okay.

This week has been one of the busiest my working life has ever seen. Some folks are on vacation, others are ill– those who remain (like me!) shoulder their workload and life goes on. But I need to take a little break here in the middle of my day, and so I will write many tiny words on a neglected blog.

The beautiful summer has ended, and with it goes the obsessive gardening. Instead an urgent need for order and a place for everything has taken over. Each weekend sees me closer to my goal. Most of my yarn is now in accessible storage in my sewing room. I can look at it any time I want, and this of course leads to… knitting.

Recently completed except for a bit of fringe is a Faroese shawl from that shawl book that Schoolhouse Press sells along with a translation by… hmm… is it Marilyn Von Koeppel? Something like that. I used Deerfoot yarn in a blue heather for it, and it turned out quite nicely. This was after I had knit one using Faroese yarn. It turned out okay but much smaller than I had intended, and it needs a lining. I’m not in the mood for a lining.

Also finished is the back of the Starmore Marlin (?) aran that is in Pacific Coast Highway. I think that’s the name of it. I used Jaeger Shetland Aran in a nice brownish wine color. It was great knitting accompaniment while I listened to my husband read Bernard Cornwell’s first book in the Viking series. (I would often find the cable needle stuck behind my ear when we were eating out or going grocery shopping. My daughter threatened a knitting intervention.) After finishing the back I completed the Curve of Pursuit afghan– I do love Blackwater Abbey worsted, but it is not something that is easy to work in garter-stitch– while listening to another Cornwell book, Rebel, from the author’s civil war series about a young northerner-turned-rebel, Nathaniel Starbuck. Of course we all know that it was really the War of Northern Aggression, right?

[During the same time frame that we were respectively knitting and reading those books, I managed to read the new Gabaldon book, An Echo In The Bone, as well as the second book in the Dorothy Dunnett series, Queen's Play... both were quite satisfying.]

I then tried to start Beadwork using some gray Wendy 5-ply Guernsey, but I had two problems with it. First, the heatheriness of the yarn obscured the texture of the design too much to suit me. Second, knitting this design back and forth is too torturous. It begs to be knit in the round, because every row has crossed stitches that include at least one twisted stitch. It’s a lovely design (Jade Starmore) but not for after-a-long-hard-day knitting.

So, until I’m ready to knit the front of Marlin I’m temporarily knitting on Lochinvar (which I started a couple of years ago using navy Guernsey) while we go on to the second Nathaniel Starbuck book. Meanwhile, I’m waiting for the Jamieson & Smith yarn to arrive from Schoolhouse Press so that I can started on the Bressay jumper from Ann Feitelson’s book, and wondering whether I have all the ingredients for Stillwater from the book of the same name.

As far as other fiber arts go, I’ve managed to get both looms in the same area, along with all the weaving yarns and equipment, which is a huge win in the organization department. They are both calling for new projects, and I’m thinking of weaving ripsmatta carpet squares one of these days.

Quilting has been on hold for now, but the sewing project on deck is recovering sofa seat cushions, which is a duty rather than a pleasure, but will surely bring us all pleasure when it is done.

Perhaps I will augment this post with pictures in the next couple of days. Or maybe I’ll be too busy with other projects.