And progress over the weekend: I am now several inches into the front of the Lightning-Bolt family pullover. I also picked a bit at the extremely tedious beaded-rib socks.

And I worked in my garden on Sunday. I have about 3/4 of the current garden hoed up (well, 3/4 of the part without perennials in place). Yes, I am sore, but not as sore as I expected to be. I planted some gazania and some forget-me-nots (that's a gamble, the seeds are 2 years old), and some "wildflower mix" (after checking first to be sure it contained no bachelor button; the horticultural bachelor's button is becoming an invasive species in some areas), and some impatiens (again, a gamble, I've never direct seeded impatiens before but it's too late to start them indoors now). I also planted some cosmos, and when I am really sure we won't get another freeze, I have several packets of different kinds of zinnias to go out, and some creeping nasturtiums.

I also started hoeing up a new garden area (to hold my tomatoes this summer) and I noticed one of the ladies-tresses orchids was right in the middle of it (I have several individuals of this species apparently growing wild in my lawn). I thought: do I risk transplanting it, or do I make a little popsicle-stick fence around it and try to remember not to chop it up when I cultivate that area? In the end, transplanting won out, so I carefully dug it up (luckily, most orchids have thick short roots; they are highly dependent on a form of mycorrhizal fungi that grow on their roots) and planted it at one end of my flower garden. Though now I will feel bad if it doesn't make it. But, these things have apparently survived in the yard since before the house was built (that's my guess; the house has never been owned by an avid gardener/botanist before and where these things are growing they do not look planted) so I'm guessing they're pretty tough.

A published response to "the" article. I like the line near the end about the "narrow definition of feminism".

I've talked about my mom a little bit here before. She was the first child in her family to go to college. Her father withdrew his life savings from the bank and gave it to her when it looked like she wasn't going to be able to go one semester. She wound up earning a Ph.D. in botany. She taught a bit but when I was born (and later, when my brother came along), she made the choice to stay home with us. (My father had actually asked her, she said, if she wanted to get a babysitter for me so she could continue to work and she said no). I didn't understand that when I was 18, and I'm not entirely sure I appreciated it - I almost felt guilty for interrupting my mother's career. But now that I am in my 30s, I understand. And I am very grateful. And if I were in the position to have children, and if I had the financial ability to stay home, I would.

My mother taught my brother and me to cook (without a microwave!), to sew (and more than just the basics), to read, to write. She taught us about gardening and nutrition and how to fix simple things that go wrong with household appliances. She let us take broken alarm clocks apart to see what was going on inside them. She let us keep tadpoles and caterpillars and turtles in the house. She taught me to knit and crochet and quilt (by that time, my brother's interests had shifted elsewhere)

She never once told either of us that anything we were doing was "wrong" because of what gender we belonged to. And my father once told me, "if anyone tells you there is [some subject in school] you won't be good at because you're a girl, it's your duty to show them they are wrong."

yeah, I guess my parents were feminists. Or rather, "personists," as the newer term goes.

Oh, this is too funny: punk rockin' cats (warning: popups). I think these guys were rehearsing in my back yard the other night.

I'm starting to get startitis again. I look at all the wonderful stuff in my stash and think about beginning new projects. There's the Fortissima "Mexiko" denim color sockyarn. There's the Trampoline sockyarn. From further back, there's the caramel-twist colored Socka, the Elderberry Wildfoote, the Pagan Pink Lamb's Pride...For sweaters, there's the nice green Imagine for a simple big sweater knit simply on big needles. There's my Stahl Lemur, and the 1824 wool for the Kitt jacket. There's the chunky "Arbor" multidyed cotton for a chunky spring cotton shawl. There's the pale green cashmere blend for a shawl.

and I am getting bored with my current projects. The beaded-rib socks take too long. It's too warm now to wear sweaters, so why finish the Lightning-Bolt sweater? I'm on a deadline for my mom's socks so they lose their appeal to me. The Trinity Stitch shawl is too fiddly, and I am soon at the part I don't know how to do (attaching the lace edging).

this happens every spring - I want to start a whole bunch of stuff but I just don't have the follow-through.

and no, I don't need any cheese with this whine :)

must...not....weaken...

one of my colleagues (the one who brought in free eggs from her chickens earlier) now has brought in free dogs. Yes, free dogs. Someone dumped a litter of puppies at her house. One of my former students got one, she looks like she has a lot of either golden retriever or yellow lab in her.

Sunny has a bunch more. I really cannot take on a dog at this stage of my life. I'm never home, I travel too much, I've never owned a dog before - and then there's the whole issue of training and walking and vet care and all of that.

still, the puppy was cute. But I can't give a puppy a good home right now. Jona has a husband and a teenaged son, so the dog will get lots of attention.

eventually, I do want to get a cat - but a quiet, sedate, older cat. Not something I have to train or worry about chewing stuff up or worry about when and where it needs to go to the toilet.

I've decided that the Opal Southwestern socks are going to be part of my mother's birthday gift (along with the Feather and Fan socks, and a pair of green Opal Crocodiles that still have to be made). She admired the colors of the socks every time she saw me knitting on them over my Spring Break. And while I am pretty fond of the colors, and the socks are pretty, I don't think I am quite as wild about the colors as she was.

yes, this is a bit of a sacrifice for me, I do really like the socks. But I think she liked them more. Her feet are almost the same size as mine so I won't need to do any frogging and reknitting to give them to her.

And I was thinking - another reason why I knit is that I feel almost as if I am "protecting" a skill from extinction (yes, I know millions upon millions of other people knit too, but I feel like I'm doing a little part in saving some knowledge from oblivion). It's the same reason for which I read obscure books - I don't like the thought of anything good from human history being lost or forgotten, and it gives me a little charge to think that these things can live through me.

Some further reflections on the infamous article...

I think the first thing that bothered me about it is the fact that the author is stereotyping, and she doesn't seem to realize that she is. If she had made disparaging comments about people of a particular race, or gender, or religious group, her editor would have (at the very least) told her "we're not running this". But since it's knitters, well, that's OK. Just like it's still OK (at least in some circles) to disparage fat people, gay people, people who live in trailer parks, or even academics (yes, I've heard some pretty nasty things said about academics), knitters and other crafters are an easy and still-acceptable target.

I'm not saying I dislike parody. I laughed pretty hard at the "Martha Stuart" bits on SNL. But I do dislike meanspiritedness.

I think the author of the article is better than that, but she gave into a weak or selfish impulse.

The second thing she did that bothered me was to buy into a conspiracy theory - that somehow, the presence of Laura Bush in the White House has something to do with this newfound popularity of knitting - and that it signals that in the not-too-distant future, women will be fired from their jobs, forced to wear "modest" clothes, required to stay home and mind the kids, etc. Conspiracy theorists of any stripe immediately make me distrust anything else they say.

I do hope, after all the irate letters she has doubtless received (I didn't bother to add my opinion to the avalanche) that she doesn't write ANOTHER column on "gee, those knitters sure are b*tchy people!" But with some people, you never know.

Actually, like several knitlisters have commented, you also tend to feel sorry for someone who is so closed-minded and who apparently does not understand the joy of being able to create something with one's own two hands. And yes, even cooking is a form of creation. And yes, it is possible to derive satisfaction from providing food for people and having them enjoy it.

I finished the back of the Lightning-Bolt Family pullover last night. I also put some time in quilting on my current quilt (I have not kept up with my resolution to do at least 10 minutes a day on it).

I also saw a quilt in the new Quilter's Newsletter Magazine (their website doesn't have anything on the current issue up, so no link). It's called "Good Neighbors" and is one of those "series" quilts -part of the pattern will be published in each of the next 5 issues. I really like it, it's a medallion quilt with a large house block in the center, and then a series of borders all made with different house and tree blocks.

I enjoy the pictorial pieced blocks - where you have a house or a tree or what is clearly a flower when you are done. Also, I like the idea that the quilt has so many different blocks - one of the things that really drags me down in making bedsized quilts is the "make 85 blocks, all exactly the same" situation (I could never do one of those red-and-white or blue-and-white quilts). The thought that I could spend a Sunday afternoon, say, making the tree blocks, and then the next time I turned to the quilt, there was a different kind of block to make, appeals to me.

The pattern in the magazine is done in bright Patrick Lose primaries, but I'm thinking it would also look good out of late-1800s-era reproduction fabrics - which I have a lot of in stash.

I have too many projects going already, but this one really tempts me. I may look around at home this afternoon and see if I have an empty Rubbermaid big box or a big cardboard box where I could store the components of the quilt as I picked away at it...

Knitting backlash?

Someone on the Knitlist posted a link to this Charlotte Observer article. In it, a columnist goes all snippy about the "trend" of knitting and other handcrafts - she seems to think it's either a move by women to bury their heads in the sand, or even more insiduously, somehow a move to get women back barefoot, pregnant, and in the home.

No one is forcing these women to knit, and I dare say, many knitters would be the first to raise weapons (their needles) if a "Handmaid's Tale" society began establishing itself.

ack ptui. I knit not to bury my head in the sand. I am too aware that the world we live in is far from perfect and filled with people who give in to their evil impulses. For me, knitting is like meditation - or prayer - or talking it out with loved ones - in that it allows me to better cope with the situations at hand. I am not avoiding, I am dealing.

for gosh sakes, what is so horrid and backwards about allowing yourself a few moments out of the world, allowing yourself quiet and an opportunity for your mind to rest on something other than the constant struggles and sorrows we face on this earth? If I spent my whole life contemplating the bad things of the world, I would either go mad or I would become the sourest, meanest woman on earth.

I dare this columnist to write a similar column about meditation or religious faith as a coping strategy. Because for me, that's what my knitting is - an adjunct to prayer and meditation (and exercise, and taking care of myself, and gardening, and talking to people I care about) in my attempt to make it through life being as sane as possible and as kind as possible.

Over break, I also started two new pairs of socks:

1. Opal Southwestern # 6 (picture of the yarn here). I'm doing these on 72 stitches, on size 1 Pony Pearls (I seem to knit more tightly with Pony Pearls than with metal needles). I've used a welt-ribbing like in the Country Socks pattern in Folk Socks, and the heel is a V-heel. I plan to use a round toe on these. I'm just past the gusset decreases on the first sock.

2. Beaded-rib socks (the stitch came from a Jean Lampe sock pamphlet that I bought on the cheap at Hobby Lobby when they were closing out a lot of knitting books) from a Regia pastel multicolor. I'm not very far on these as the beaded rib is quite tedious to do.

I really planned on finishing the back of the Lightning-Bolt Family sweater last night but I wound up totally crashing (after my longest teaching day of the week) and went to bed early and read instead. I think I am about three rows from the shoulder shaping on the back (such as it is).

I'm back.

Break was good, but too short. Sixteen hours each way on a train (if things are on time) is too long to travel for only a week's vacation.

I did get a few FOs cranked out:

First, I finished the Hawaii socks. I used a round heel on these and a round-toe shaping (as described in Folk Socks, this is the one where you k 6, k 2 tog, then knit a bunch of rows, then k5, k2 tog, and so on). The round toe is my new favorite toe shaping, it fits well and is fairly easy to do. And it looks good. And it doesn't involve the Kitchener stitch.

Then, I finished the Huron Mountain socks. I did these as per the the pattern, except I added one more repeat of the last lice row, because my feet are apparently longer than the "women's medium" that Nancy Bush writes her patterns to.

I also made the Corps of Discovery hat that I got a kit for at Christmas. This one was fun - I now know how to do a two-color cabled cast on, and I am now really sure of how to do short rows with wraps (and how best to pick up those wraps). The directions on this one were really good and clear. The yarn is interesting too - it comes from a crossbreed (called Columbia) that is used both for meat and wool. The wool is a bit scratchier than some, but it "feels" right for the hat. Oh yeah, my hands really softened up knitting it too, because the wool still had the lanolin in it.

I did take a little break from my Lenten stashdiet. I bought a few books at the Border's up there (no knitting books though; they didn't have the ones I was looking for). I got the Crosswicks Journal set by Madeline L'Engle and a copy of Insect Dreams (supposedly a "sequel" to Kafka's "Metamorphosis" as if Gregor had survived..). I also bought a book on tulips. I got some fabric, too, although I was told some of it was a "late birthday present" (and I didn't have to pay for it myself).

But now, it's back to austerity. Although, I am exempting garden purchases, because this is getting to be now-or-never time for topsoil addition and lawn fertilizing. I'm going to try to spend at least 1/2 hour at the end of each day weeding or cultivating or planting flower seeds so that I will have a good garden this year.

Well, like my friend Trina from high school used to say, I'm off like a prom dress!

be good, folks. hug someone you love. enjoy your free time. if you're a college student going south on spring break, wear sunscreen, don't drink too much, and if you "do it", use protection.

I'll be back in a week or so. I've decided to grant myself a week's vacation from my self-imposed "Lenten" stash-book-froufrou purchase diet. Although I will say it's been fun and rewarding to mine the stash for the basics for new projects, and I think I will continue to stash-mine for a while after Lent is over - it feels good to find purposes for all that yarn and all that fabric I've bought in the past.

Take the Celebrity Deathwish Test!

Crikey!

Two other things:

first, I never thanked Michele for her birthday card! I found it again last night when putting a pile of mail away. Thanks, Michele!

second, sadly, it looked like Dangerous Chunky has closed up shop. I hope it's just temporary (wasn't there word of Carolyn moving again?)

Turned the heel on the Hawaii socks, and have the gusset decreases nearly done.

I can't believe that today starts my spring break. I'm almost all packed, just have to run home and throw a few things in the bag after class, water the plants, put the trash out, and I'm off for a week of mostly-relaxation.

1. I finished the Feather and Fan socks last night. These are going to be a birthday gift for my mother.
I also started the heel flap on the first of the Hawaii socks.

2. I visited my friend D. yesterday - either the person who described her condition to me had bad information or overdramatized the situation. She is not required to be flat on her back for three weeks (thank God, I think the boredom would have nearly killed her). She is able to sit up and walk (provided she uses a walker for balance) and they've already got her doing PT. She was in good spirits, talking about what she was going to do "when they let me out of here" and hassling the nursing staff - her same old fun opinionated self.

3. Because my mind was at rest after seeing her, I slept normally last night.

4. And now I am faced with the much happier task of deciding what projects to bring to work on for my Spring Break vacation which starts Friday afternoon. (I'm going to visit my parents). I will take the socks-in-progress (the Hawaii socks, which will probably be my 'knit on the train' socks because I'm doing them without a pattern and they're fairly simple, and the Huron Mountain Socks). I also wound off the yarn for the Corps of Discovery hat kit I got for Christmas, I think I will take that and do it (it has shortrowing and some techniques I'm less familiar with so it's good "vacation knitting" - when I have time to devote a big chunk of time to it). I also grabbed a couple balls of a variegated Regia in pastels and a "beaded rib" sock pattern - it's a very feminine looking rib, and the Regia called out to me from my stash that it 'wanted' to be that pattern. I may also take a skein of Opal with me - either the 'Southwestern' I've had in stash for so long, or the one I got in the bookswap, or maybe the multicolored crocodile.

I knit three rounds on the Feather and Fan socks last night.

my insomnia is back. this is an old, old enemy for me. Some months I will get one or two nights, which I can write off as being linked to the cycle, where I don't sleep well, but now, I'm going on - what is it now, almost a week? of not sleeping well. The worst part is that I'm tired (usually with cycle-related insomnia, it's that I'm NOT tired - I'm too energy filled to sleep) but I can't get my mind to shut off at night so I can rest. Or I get the music-stuck-in-my-head phenomenon.

I am going to try and visit D. this afternoon - be it in hospital or nursing home - unless they're actively in the process of moving her. I think getting that off my conscience/worries will help (I know I need to go see her; she's a good friend, she's flat on her back and probably bored silly, but I'm also worried that this will have diminished her somehow, or they'll have her drugged up, or any number of things. And I don't like hospitals, at all, at all, on top of it... I just have to gut up and go see her, things will be better after I do).

Aaaagh! they still haven't moved my friend from the hospital to the long-term care facility where she will be until the swelling goes down enough for them to see if they need to operate on her vertebra. This is really stressing me out.

and apropos of nothing, a link: The Spice Pages - botanical information on many, many spices and herbs.

I made some progress on stuff over the weekend.

First off, I did my taxes. They're not that difficult for me as I never have enough deductions to make a schedule A worthwhile, so the Schedule D (capital gains and losses) is the most complex thing I have to do.

I computed my taxable income, read it into the tax table, and then came the moment of truth - comparing my tax with the withholding to see what I owed.

And I had a "What the?" moment. Not only did I not owe, I was getting a nice chunk of change back. Strange. I've always owed money before, at least as long as I've been gainfully employed. So I called my financial advisor (a/k/a dad) and asked him "where did I mess up?" and he told me: "look at the copy you kept of last year's forms"

So I did. And you know what? My income in 2002 was less than 2/3 of what it was in 2001. No, I did not take a pay cut or change jobs or anything. It's the recession. (and the fact that I owned Worldcom stock, at least up until August of last year).

So I was probably right in my calculations. Not that I'm going to stop this Lenten-not-buying thing, the purpose of that was not entirely to save money (although, I might allow myself a "vacation" from it next week when I am visiting my family over spring break...). I do owe my state $92.

I also got a lot of progress made on the feather and fan socks - just a few more repeats and I can do the toes. I also finished a small (54" by 54") quilt top I began back in January. This one used Michael Miller's hydrangea print fabrics in rose pink and purple. It's a very simple pattern, alternating 6" blocks of each fabric. And I have a different hydrangea print for the back.

and all this while worrying about my 80-something friend D., who fell on the stairs last week, shattered a vertebra, and is going to have to be flat on her back for 3 weeks even before they can decide if they need to operate....(I plan to visit her tomorrow).

lost

Last night, I was sorting laundry, with plans of doing a couple loads that evening and today. I made a pile of grey/denim things, a pile of brown/tan things, and then a pile of green things.

In each pile were a couple pairs of the superwash-wool handknit socks (yes, I wash them in the machine on gentle. They fuzz a bit but that's better than having them moulder in the bottom of the hamper until I find the time/inclination to handwash). Anyway, I looked over the pile of green things and realized: my pair of old Opals is there, the Capri Turquose Fern Leaf Lace ones are there, the drunken master ribbing ones are there, but only one of the 2002 Opal green socks was.

oh, dear.

So I went through the cuffs of all the slacks I had worn recently - not there.
I unloaded the hamper again - not there.
I checked my sock drawer(s) in case I had washed one and put it away - not there.
I searched under the bed - not there.

oh, dear.

Now what? These were some of my favorite socks. They fit well. They were as close to being identical in striping as any of the self-striping socks I've made. I liked the color.

I went and searched the cuffs of the slacks I had washed and hung in the closet, in case it was stuck in a cuff. Not there.

I sat down on the floor. No, I decided, I'm not going to try to buy more of the yarn and make a replacement sock. No, I'm not going to try to turn it into a sock dog or other sock critter - cutting a handknit sock would surely spell disaster.

I felt quite bereft.

I decided to search again. I went carefully through the piles of clothes. Carefully through the hamper. Looked under the bookcase near the hamper. Went carefully through the pants cuffs.

Then I realized that I had a pair of ski underwear, that I had put on one afternoon when I came home and wanted to be warm and comfortable, and I hadn't checked those.

so I reached in the right leg - nothing.
then I reached in the left leg.

Voila! The sock was there. I was extremely relieved, and extremely happy.

found

And: here is the value of a good classical (read: prep-school) education (and regular readings of the Chicknits blog):

My dad called me up: What do you know about Sisyphus? he asked
Oh, I replied, he was that guy in Greek mythology, who was condemned to roll a boulder up a hill and then as he got it up to the top, it would roll down and squish him, but he would be reconsitituted, and have to roll it back up again.
(my reply as close to verbatim as I can remember it)



Springtime update:

"I'm workin' with the window open, and I love it!"

(props to The Simpsons...)

And one more, especially for the math-heads: homemade topological shapes, including moebius strips and Klein bottles to wear.

Not much knitting progress; it's been a busy week.

but here are a few pages of free patterns you might not have seen:

Tata and tatao's scarves (some patterns are in Japanese)
shawls from simple to complex from The Knitting Geek
a beginner's sock pattern also from tata and tatao.
neat little cap using Regia "crazy" yarn
"brickwork" Fair Isle socks

and, just in case you have a turquoise-blue or salmon-pink, vintage 1959 Cadillac convertible: a pair of fuzzy dice! to be knit from angora.

I don't know if any other biologists/ecologists read this blog, but here are two online (free!) journal resources:

Journal of Fisheries Management online
Journal of Range Management online

both of these are set up so you can read abstracts of recent issues, or get fulltext articles as a .pdf file for older issues. Very useful, especially in these days of cash-strapped libraries having to drop their way-expensive journal subscriptions.

Okay, some knit-progress:

I am up through the heel flap on the second of the feather-and-fan socks. I am within 1" of being done with the back (the first part, sigh) of the Lightning-Bolt Family sweater. I have begun the colorwork on the second Huron Mountain sock.

This weekend I didn't do much knitting, I was digesting data. And I learned that my home computer is sadly nearing the end of its life (the screen "goes red" when you first turn it on. I have been told this is a symptom that the fluorescent backlighting tube is going to burn out soon). So. I am looking into new computers (the home computer I have is 5 years old, has been in for repairs before, and to repair the screen now would cost almost half what a new 'puter would cost).

So, my Lenten decision this year: I am not going to spend any "unnecessary" money. No yarn purchases. No fabric purchases. No clothes, no new books, no shoes, no fancy candles, no fancy soap. Nothing but the necessities of food, bill-paying, gas, and medications until the end of Lent. And thereafter, if necessary, 'till I have recouped the cost of the new computer.

Sigh. You are going to have to help me hold to this, you know. If, between now and April 20, I talk about going shopping for things or being tempted by stuff online, you are going to have to send me an email chastising me. Remind me of the computer I have to buy. Remind me of my taxes (I haven't done them just yet; I'm waiting on the info needed for Schedule D, but I know I will owe money, I always do).

I will rely on stash for the next 40 days (and longer, if necessary). After all, I do have at least 15 pairs of socks' worth of yarn in stash, and several sweaters' worth, and a couple of shawls' worth...

spring Knitty is here. Can real spring be coming soon? (I hope).

A couple of anniversaries I have to note:

Friday was the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA. Here is a reprint of the famous Watson and Crick paper. (And no, I'm not going to make any comments about "data stolen from Wilkins and Franklin...")

Saturday was Texas independence day. Ya-Hoo!

I worked a little on the Huron Mt. socks over the weekend, and I now have the heel flap done on the second of the Feather and Fan socks.

I also planted (indoor starts) six dozen tomato seeds (of different varieties, including a couple heirloom varieties) and six dozen assorted culinary herbs and annual flowers. I hope to have lots of little growing things soon.