October 2005 Archives

Angela tagged me for this meme that's been working its way around the blogs.

What is your all-time favorite yarn to knit with? I don't have one particular favorite, although Misti Baby Alpaca and Rowan Kidsilk Haze were memorable experiences. I like luxury yarns, such as alpaca, cashmere, and silk. I've seen qiviut and paco vicuña, both of which I'm dying to knit or spin with eventually. I know, my checkbook is doomed.

Your favorite needles? Susan Bates Quicksilvers because I learned to knit on them, plus they come in cute pastel colors. My Denise Interchangeables are great too. But you know, I'm starting to fancy Addi Turbos...

The worst thing you've ever knit? A top for my really awesome sister-in-law, out of Lion Brand Lion Cotton. What was I thinking? I think she needs a shawl for Christmas.

Your most favorite knit pattern? Interweave Knits' Flower Basket Shawl because it taught me the basics of lace knitting. Debbie Bliss' Grace because I was in cable heaven the whole time I was knitting it. And Wendy Johnson's toe-up sock pattern. Invaluable. You could knit all sorts of socks with this.

Most valuable knitting technique(s)? Cabling without a cable needle. Mirrored decreases (hello, ssk!). Tubular cast-on and cast-off.

Best knit book(s) or magazine(s)? I like Scarf Style for the variety of projects, the layout, and the photography. Interweave Knits' Fall 2004 issue is really good, too.

Your favorite knit-along? The Incredible Zoo-Along, hosted by the Knitlette Abby. I made Laurie Lambkin for my niece. Bouclé yarn? Unless Laurie is completely covered in drool and beyond rescue, I will never touch it again.

Your favorite knitblogs? The pioneering knitbloggers: Wendy Knits, Super Eggplant, Knitty Gritty, At My Knit's End, JenLa, and Skinny Rabbit. There are so many of the new ones too, but these are the knitblogs I read first.

Your favorite knitwear designer(s)? No specific designer in particular; each one has their strengths. Debbie Bliss has great cable patterns; same with Rebecca magazine. Dale of Norway, Rowan, Louis Harding, Kim Hargreaves, Sarah Dallas, Jo Sharp.

The knit item you wear the most? That's easy. Debbie Bliss' Grace.

Who's next? Mmm. This is a good meme to pass on, so I'm tagging Mia, Elizabeth, and Julia. Only if they want! Please feel free to take this and make your own!

Comments closed for this post.

So how much yarn did I have left?

Aeron kindly volunteered to model.

Fuzzy Wuzzy, yes that's me!

Perfect symmetry.

Two ways I wear the shawl: around the neck,

or tied around my shoulders. Really, there isn't an *outfit* that goes with a shawl. You can wear it with anything, but I like it best with jeans and a solid-color top.

Pattern: Kiri from All Tangled Up's Polly
Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze in #589 Majestic
Needles: US9; US10 for bind-off
Finished Size: 81" x 38"

For 2 balls of KSH, that's a large size. But then again, I'm a merciless blocker. I stretched it out as far as it could go without warping the top edge. Also, I completed only 5 rows of edging and bound off on the 6th row. There are still points on the shawl, however. I used the bind-off from the Flower Basket Shawl, since the given bind-off wasn't stretchy enough, even with using US10.5.

I made my only mistake on the shawl: I mistakenly knit twice into a yarn-over, and later when I discovered my mistake I just k2tog. You know KSH is a monster to frog, and I wasn't about to get spanked by a strand of mohair. This mistake would come back to haunt me day after day, until I finally remembered an interesting fact about Persian rugs:

"To the Moslem weaver perfection on Earth does not exist--only Allah is perfect, so trying to achieve perfection would be considered arrogant," [John] Gregorian [author of Oriental Rugs of the Sik Route] writes. "Many Middle Eastern people accept mistakes as part of life. If a family is weaving a rug and dyes wool as needed with the result being the colors do not match or age in the same way, ultimately, they do not consider this to be an error. The rug is simply the way it is," Gregorian writes.

With the divine being perfect, we can only strive to do our best. Seeing the extra imperfect stitch, knit together with another, makes me smile now.

Off to Nuremberg she goes!

Reading: Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. The Snow Garden, Christopher Rice. Much better than his first effort. Gilgamesh, the latest English translation by Stephen Mitchell. The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century by James Howard Kunstler. BF jokingly sneaked Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose by Paris Hilton, et al into my stack of books. Mmm. I think I'll read it. Not.

Thanks for helping me with the decision on Bea Ellis' original hat designs! Traditional came in with 11 votes, followed by Ufserud with 7, and Let It Snow with 5.

Two-color knitting! I can't wait for the kits to arrive! (Hee hee, I'm ordering all 3! I'll wait to show you the colors.)

If Time Magazine were to nominate a Person of the Year, I have to say that it should go to Mother Nature. Wouldn't you agree with me?

Knitting. Ah, knitting. Sometimes I feel guilty about ignoring my knitting or alternately, my climbing. I haven't any new projects to write about, mainly because I'm trying to finish Kiri as quickly as possible. So hence, another picture of it here. Can I just say what a dork I've been for ignoring circular needles for more than a year? Anita and La first got me curious about them; La had these needle-and-cord thingies called Denise needles, and showed me how easy it was to change the needle. But I'm a little slow. It takes at least a year to process that kind of information! (grins)

But anyway, do you notice anything different between this and my first shawl?

No lifelines.

He he.

I thought, when I first started out, might as well tempt Fate for the third time and knit with Kidsilk Haze without lifelines. ...It's good for the head.

One of the pleasures of being a novice knitter is discovering designers, designs, and techniques. Everything is so new! I don't know how I arrived at Bea Ellis, probably through reading our Wendy's voluminous archives, but I got there and fell in love with Miss Ellis' original hat designs. And with a spectrum of beautiful colors to knit with! I was quite taken with (from left to right) Let It Snow, Ufserud, and Traditional. So help me decide which one to start off with. Tell me which one you'd knit for yourself (experience level not a condition) and why. Thanks girlies!

We put so much focus on work and money sometimes. Why can't we have something like Bhutan's new measure of wellbeing, Gross National Happiness? Doesn't it sound glorious?

Apologies for being under the radar recently. You see, BF and I played hooky took a vacation for a few days. We went climbing in Arizona.

The sky is amazingly blue, isn't it? And the limestone cliffs of The Pit, which is just outside Flagstaff, are in the sun all day long. See all those holes, or huecos, in the rock? Plenty good for pullng on.

Butterfly remains in one of the huecos. A reminder of the fragility of life.

I like to randomly click the button on the camera while hiking. This is one of my favorites, from walking through grass on the way back to the parking lot.

Evidence of fall everywhere in Arizona. The canyon was alternately greens, yellows, oranges, and reds.

Limestone cliffs in Jacks Canyon, some 30 miles south of (Standing in the Corner of) Winslow, Arizona. Note the first 5 feet off the ground where water cut into the cliffs long, long ago.

The abrupt weather changes from sunny to cloudy to sprinkly all weekend made for spectacular pictures.

Climbing-wise, I lead all the 10s and 11s, and completed a 12 that BF put up for me. In other words, I am on-track to doing a 12 this year. We made a campfire every night, talked about future climbing trips, read from each other's books and discussed the significance of wet wipes, down booties, and headlamps. All in all, a wonderful vacation.

And happy to be home, clean, and warm again!

This box that had been sitting in the corner near the bikes. I thought it was BF's motorcycle gear again. Finally yesterday I told him to open it and toss out the box (because I'm kind of a neat freak and I don't like the clutter). So BF, with a big smile on his face, proceeds to open the box. He peeks inside, says "Oh yeah, this is all mine!"

And proceeds.

To pull out.

Yarn.

I shrieked. It was *my* box and he was just playing along. So Mia, BF says thanks for the yarn, he's kind of got his hands full, so he's giving it to me. Do you mind? BF thinks the Rowan Linen Drape colors work better with my skin tone, and the Fleece Artist Merino has enough yarn for socks for me. Thank you, thank you, thank you! You are so very kind!

Thursday after work Frank and I rode into downtown L.A. for Yvon Chouinard's lecture at the Center Library/Mark Taper Forum. I have to say that riding a motorcycle into downtown Los Angeles traffic is a fairly hairy thing to do. We had 2 people cut us off, and BF was really good with his brakes. The first guy was apologetic and waved to us. The second person was on her phone and couldn't be bothered to signal or acknowledge us. *sigh* If they only knew what it's like to be exposed.

Anyway, Mr. Chouinard's "lecture" was sponsored by USC School of Business, which accounted for a lot of attendees in suits and ties, or backpacks. There were few other scruffy people we identified as climbers. There was a woman 2 rows in front of the amphitheatre who knit throughout the lecture. I was actually riveted by what she was doing because I'd never seen anyone knit Continental (I know; sheltered child). She had the new Bryspun circulars as well, and she knit pretty quickly!

Mr. Chouinard started off talking about his beginnings making climbing equipment in Yosemite, then expanding, then growing the company. And then he talked about business' responsibility to society and the environment. He focused mainly on Patagonia, the outdoor apparel side of his business, not Black Diamond Equipment, which is outdoor equipment. If you're familiar at all with Patagonia you'll know that it's pretty expensive. And here's the reason why: when they set out to make a 100% organic tee, it's not just that the cotton that goes to make this is organic. It has to be grown on a sustainable farm, and not be sprayed with harmful pesticides that soak into the ground and render the topsoil useless forever. It has to be harvested by people who need the money, or by machines that do the least amount of damage to the plant. It has to be cleaned, woven, and spun into fabric with the least amount of waste that will be harmful to the environment. The fabric has to be dyed with environmentally friendly dyes, by a factory that recycles its waste water and does not use chemicals. So you see, when you buy a $28 cotton tee, you'll know it's made in the purest way possible.

Mr. Chouinard came off as a very friendly, very open kind of guy. The kind of guy who's not much into business and financial details. The kind of guy whose passion for nature became a successful business inititative. The kind of guy who looks at the process to get the best possible solution for his products. He also has a good philosophy regarding his employees. He hires friends, people he trusts, people who if they leave at 2p to go surfing, leave having finished their work. I was quite impressed with him.

And of course, I had to get my book signed! One of his favorite stories is about the Great Wall of China. The ancient Chinese built this architectural wonder to keep out the invaders, but still they got in. By bribing the gatekeeper. This is my favorite picture in his book, Let My People Go Surfing : The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, of Yvon Chouinard scaling the Great Wall, which he rates as 5.8. And he still goes climbing when he can.

Where did the weekend go? I got home from my contract job Friday, sat in my computer chair to do (overdue) freelance, and when I got back up, it was 7a Monday morning. This is what happens when I say "yes" to clients instead of "sure, but can you send the check for those closed projects first?" I haven't checked my blog (Yahoo!) email, just the work (this domain) one, so please know I haven't ignored you. In the past 2 weeks I've helped launch a number of online initiatives as well as created presentations and promotions. I'm exhausted.

The one fun thing we did this weekend was get together with some friends who are moving up to Seattle and won't be able to take along all their wine. Woohoo! BF peeled me off the chair and took me for a much-needed mariination in some good old reds. Bordeaux... woodsy. Chardonnay... crisp with a hint of sweetness. Cab... fruity. And they all went so well with the Thai food. Everyone there was a climber as well, so you know all we did was talk about climbing (like knitting, it's a drug). We were invited to take home some lovely wines as well; I quickly grabbed a couple of 2001s and BF went for the Gallics. We have our preferences. I know. I'm blabbing. Tired. *whine whine whine!* ;-)

I sent my squares in to Annie. I never took a picture of them; they're the pink ones made of Cascade 220. Somehow I didn't think taking a picture of them was... appropriate, if I can use that word. Like I felt there was something sacrosanct about knitting a square that would help to create an afghan that would comfort someone who just went through a tragedy. For me it was a contribution that needed no fanfare. I don't know. Does anyone else feel that way?

Blogs focusing on animal rescue in New Orleans: JustThinkingAboutIt's September 27 entry. Pets over at Eric's Dog Blog. Flickr member Danakay on rescuing animals post-hurricane.

An informative piece on the H*mm@r, and some food for thought, James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century . Surely, one for the booklist.

So much for National Spinning and Weaving Week. I have nothing to show! So just imagine, then:

(insert image of Kiri shawl here)

Kiri is getting to the point where it takes more than a couple of hours to do 1 pattern repeat. Two hundred plus stitches can be a little difficult to manipulate, so I've switched over to my brand new Denise interchangeables, courtesy of Copper Moose. Kidsilk Haze makes such a beautifully light, but warm, gossamer. I am in awe that I am knitting something like this.

(insert image of 2 ounces of spun Coopworth here)

Spinning. Joyfully. It feels new every time I take the fiber up in my hands and start the wheel, but my confidence has grown and I'm able to spin much faster (although I'm still on the lowest ratio), with more tension, and I'm actually leaning back in my chair. Woohoo!

(insert image here)

We went to the library last week and I devoured every single book that I borrowed. I am bookless. In desperation I picked Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Supremacy from a pile to donate, but I put it back pretty quickly. His writing doesn't do it for me. For some reason Tom Clancy, with his 500-page, story-within-a-story, tangents going into other tangents, epic tales of battle and Jack Ryan, work better for me. Anyway, I browsed along the knitting section and picked up Barbara Walker's Knitting From The Top Down. This woman was prolific, wasn't she? I've been making notes, thinking of making a sweater with some stash yarn.

Speaking of stash, there's a definition that truly applies to all knitters who hoard "collect" yarn for future projects: the joy-to-stuff ratio. Uh-huh. That would be you. And you. And you.

BF and I watched a series of French movies last weekend: A Very Long Engagement, God is Great, I'm Not (both starring Audrey Tautou, of course, but the second was disappointing), and Bon Voyage, which I highly recommend. I really loved A Very Long Engagement and Bon Voyage because they were so well written, and the endings were perfect. Just perfect. You would have to watch them to understand what I mean. Lately the quality of "popular" American movies has been average, and we've been turning more and more toward foreign and indie films for quality entertainment...

Yvon Chouinard, climber, environmentalist, and founder of climbing companies Patagonia and Black Diamond Equipment, will be speaking tonight at the Mark Taper auditorium. One of my heroes. I'll give you a full report next week.

Have a good weekend!

This week is National Spinning and Weaving Week! Spin, spin, spin, peeps. Work has been keeping me busy, so all the joy I can give you right now is through linkage. Enjoy these from the huge, wide, wonderful internets!

◊ Threadless for tees.

◊ Of interest to music fans, and anyone who's read about Rosslyn (The Da Vinci Code, anyone?): Composer cracks Rosslyn's musical code

◊ An interview with Jonathan Ive, who without a doubt is one of the most influential designers around. Remember when the first new Macs came out, the ones that broke the beige mold? Mr. Ive was responsible for that.

◊ Blogworthy design blog #1: Jason Santa Maria, who also redesigned A List Apart.

◊ Blogworthy design blog #2: Re.Luct.

◊ Blogworthy design blog #3: Peloria Photoblog. Lots of macros that are a bit too consistent, but good all the same. Interesting: her images measure 550 x 400 pixels, but when I downloaded one and opened it up in Photoshop it was 1100 x 800 pixels, in effect giving it the definition of 150 pixels per inch (interpret this as sharpness and depth) as opposed to the 72 pixels per inch that is standard. I'll have to play around with that on my own.

◊ There is an article in one of the knitting magazines this month about using Photoshop to enhance images for the web. Worth taking a walk to the bookstore to look at. However, note that Photoshop should be the instrument of last resort; it is all in the composition, the lighting, the mood when you take that shot that Photoshop can only "enhance", not recreate.

◊ For those of you who don't have Photoshop: did you know you can still crop pictures using Microsoft Office? Open up an image in any graphics program that you have; select all and copy; paste into an Office program, say PowerPoint; resize and crop using the Picture tools; select all and copy; paste back into your graphics program; save as a .jpg file. You can also adjust brightness, contrast, and colors in PowerPoint, if you want. Pretty nifty, huh? (Don't forget, there's the little Office Assistant that can help you find the tools you need.)

Comments closed for this post.