Aqueduct

I’ve been sucked into an online vortex over the past few weeks, researching a project for school [I am taking 4 classes, Online Research, Pedagogy and Curriculum, Conceptual Web Design and Legan & Ethical]. All four classes are at the point where they are bleeding into each other and my individual projects are becoming entwined. For example, I’ve been researching the current state of feminism in the academy, using all my newly fine tuned online research skills and putting it together in a web site that will be constructed following fairly rigorous guidelines [but right now is just my sandbox]. I’ve been paying particular attention to Creative Commons licenses, because you can use the information in keeping with the intent of the copyright provisions orgininally intended by our fine ancestors, as well as open source software. The one thing I haven’t been able to melt in, but keeps claiming some of my attention is the sudden explosion of Carnivals on the web. Carnivals are essentially collections of “best” posts on a particular subject from the blogosphere. Historians are doing a fantastic job of bringing their writting to the edge of the ivy tower, letting others peak in on their experiences and thoughts and generating tremendous debate. Carnivals don’t have to be strictly academic, as The Feminist Carnival shows us - or, surprise, surprise Knitting. There will be another knitting carnival in the next few weeks, so if you see an exceptional post, send The Knitting Fiend a link and nominate the blogger.

Second, if you blog, you might want to consider adding your site to the ecosystem. The ecosystem rates the blogsphere by links, and there has been some criticism that the big guns [men political blogs] get linked to by everyone, leaving a lot of bloggers by the wayside. We can stand on the outside and hold protest signs or we can join in and have our collective [womens] voice included.

“Where are the women bloggers?” someone asked at a recent conference. My answer is that we’re already here, and you are welcome to join us, we just like to mix our politics up with some fiber.

Don’t tell my husband I’m posting. He took Alex to the playground (in mittens, a hat and a warm coat) so I could be doing school work. Want to know what I did? Actually, I undid this:

then did this

until it looked like this:

Koigu deserves better than what the sock was becoming - too big, too loose, and I kept thinking, well, I can just felt it. But really, that is a cop out. I’ve got a bunch more mitred squares around. I think I will sew them up all together and make myself a funky version of “on the moon.” A girl can’t have enough fancy tampon holders, can she?

Thanks to my perfect, brand new, sock pal socks. The fit me like a glove, and are keeping me extra warm today. Thanks Mia!

I am also kept warm today by my fantasticly warm alpaca/wool shapely sweater. When I tried to take a picture of it to show off for you all, it came out looking like this:

Well, it kind of looks good on me in that photo, but you can’t see the sweater. Proving I am nothing, if not dedicated to my craft, I took the sweater off, and photograhed it for you on the floor, sans shapely me.

I took two photos and quickly put it back on. Now I am nice and warm again.

An update on the warm the children project, one vest is done, which neither child will try on, let alone consent to wear. Alex says “no, that Cate’s” Cate says, “No way, that’s Alex’s.” I think the new answer will be, “this will be donated to charity.”

GWB is Harriet Miers’ Dyke Tyke.
Dyke Tyke is the male equivalent of the Fag Hag.

12 hours to upgrade? Not quite as easy as Movable Type promised. The problem wasn’t with the installation instructions, it was with permissions for my webserver’s folder. Oh, and I had an extra “d” tucked into a word.

Who else is making Annie Modsett’s Corset? What yarns did you use? Although I swatched with Artfiber’s Kyoto (thank you whomever put those samples in the GSRP box - I love this yarn), finances dictate that I not spend $150 on a corset right now. So, I’m thinking about Knitpick’s Andean Silk. Have you used it? While I’m there, what other yarn would you tell me to thrown in my shopping cart?

So said DH as I misread a very poorly worded aside in a travel book and made us go a whole mile out of our way. We covered a neat little slice of new england last week. We started out at Storyland for two days worth of rides and nursery rhymes, followed by almost a week exploring the midcoast region of maine, primarily in the Damariscotta, Maine area. We went to a county fair and I made the following declartion to my husband:

“If you are going to judge sheep, and award blue ribbons in 15 different classes, you should not allow 100% acrylic yarn entries into your kntting competition.” DH aggreed, and when we run the world, this will be rule #101.

Finally, I promised a tale of the sock.

I am participating in the Sockapaloza 2 hosted by Alison over at the Blue Blog. I was so excited to get started, that I cast on, throwing caution to the wind. (and ignoring the fact that when I made these socks last year, in the same yarn and the same needle size, that they were too big and I needed to felt them). I was very excited, but realized they weren’t really the colors my secret pal requested. So I put them aside and will pick them back up later this fall, finish them, make a make and then felt them. They will look great on me.

Then I ordered some Twinkletoes sock yarn from ebay, cast on for the Retro Rib socks from Interweave, but I just couldn’t get into the pattern. Further color reflection revealed they were too dark for my pall. Back to the sock yarn drawer.

Finally, I realized that a beautiful hand painted Lorna’s Laces yarn doesn’t need lots of embellishments or a fancy pattern. I cast on for a basic sock with picot edges, and finally found my groove. I did a star toe, rather than a tapered toe, because I find they wear better for bigger feet, which both my pal and I have. I hope she likes them. I’ll be done by the end of tonight, hopefully and will use up the leftover yarn for a super secret surprise that may or may not be a lavender eye pillow.

The mac transfer is going … ok… I never knew how addicted I was to my keyboard and my right mouse button. I’m designing a new blog using Dreamweaver, PHP and MySQL, look for a test blog later this week.

If you haven’t already, go on over to January 1st’s and tell her a joke. Plan on spending a few minutes catching up, they are great for a giggle.

After being a PC person since the late 1980s, I decided it was time to see how the other 1/3 live - I’m typing this from my brand spanking new G4 Powerbook. I’m going to be doing lots of site revisions and bone up on some new skills before school starts in a couple of weeks. Please bear with me during the construction phase and if you are a Mac user and have cool widgets, pointers or knowledge to share, please do.

That is what I am going to call this sweater, because I cast on and knit it up in a frenzy last week during the heat wave. I LOVE IT! The body fits perfectly, and I just need to knit up one more sleeve and then set it in. Ready for fall.

Thanks to Karin in New Jersey for sending off this fantastic present, a skein of lovely hand crafted yarn and stitch markers. I will put these to good use Karin!

Remember the Cestari Yarn in search of a project? Well I was playing with a swatch, just trying to see what stitches my fingers felt comfortable with, which stitches the yarn liked, and letting the yarn tell me what it wanted to be. I cast off, and suddenly the swatch was talking to me. I want to be a gansey it whispered in my ear. Hum, I loved knitting Cate/Alex’s Gansey ~ I knit it for Cate, but by the time I finished it, it fit Alex much better ~ and remember thinking I’d love one to wear myself. So, off to my library’s internet site, where I was able to put in a request for Knitting In The Old Way by by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts and Deborah Robson. I picked it up today and will bring it with me on vacation on Wednesday.

We have crazy vacation plans, first it is off to Storyland where I hope to get some serious sock knitting done while waiting for kids to enjoy the many playgrounds and rides. Then it is off to Round Pond, Maine for a visit with DH’s mother, hopefully with lots of time sitting on the edge of a rocky beach, maybe even getting some sock knitting on a lobster boat!

Have a great week everyone I’ll post lots of sock photos when I return.

my men

If I had to be stuck on a desert island with an unlimited supply of only one brand of yarn, it would have to be Schaefer. I know I’ve sung their praises a lot here, so the declaration is hardly headline news, but I’ve been playing with lots of Esperanza and Elaine lately, finishing up
Clapotis and casting on for a pattern to be named later [APTBNL].
My version of the clap is bears little resemblence to Kate Gilbert’s masterpiece. While her model sips a cafe latte on the left bank, mine play hide and seek.

I am thrilled with the final product, though and can’t wait to wrap myself up in this, as I’m longing for the return of winter. When the heat wave here gets too unbearable, I remember certain passages from T.C. Boyle’s Drop City (or as I refer it to my publisher friend Matt - the novel I should have written.) Suddenly, I’m freezing my t*ts off in a leaky cabin, the wind howling outside, with just minutes of sunlight a day, at the end of the last road in alaska. To warm myself up, I’ve been working on APTBNL.

Last summer I got to dive into Elaine (Schaefer’s local rep) car stash, skeins upon skeins of Shaefer, many without proper labels. I was attempting to match up to skeins I received as a gift from Elizabeth in VA. In the end, I put together the yarn for the Clap and the yarn I’m using for this project.

I struggled with ideas for all this amazing yarn, I needed a pattern that could showcase the colors, but that wouldn’t be too boxy or too traditional. I’m not quite sure why I didn’t think of a long sleeve shapely tee immediately, but when I finally hit upon it, and did all the math required to resize it both to fit my gauge and my measurements, I couldn’t wait to get started.

I spent Sunday & Monday in complete denial about our heatwave, caught up in the fantasy of a winter holiday to my Alaskan Sleeve Island.

And couldn’t wait to cast on for the body. I used the Elaine from the sleeves for a moss border last night, rushing through so I could get my hands back on the Esperanza.

I’m made it through short rows in the round, now I’m off to pair my decreases, send food and candles, I’ll be out when the snow starts to melt in my dreams or the heatwave starts to pass in my reality.