Monday, October 11, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Grief
SJW
b. 10-11-78
d. 5-25-2010
There is no imagining this.
To Stevie:
Stop All the Clocks
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
~ W. H. Auden
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do Not go Gentle into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
~ Dylan Thomas
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Kernel and Ear-Flap Hat Olympics: No Medals for Me
I want to go on record and state in no uncertain terms that I am VERY HAPPY for all Canadians everywhere: congrats on winning the hockey game!!!!
Yes, that may sound like treason to some, considering I'm from the States, but hey, it IS their sport, after all, and let's get realistic, those guys are all NHL players anyway (or on their way there), so it's not like the teams are made up of the same guys who have worked together for years sacrificing everything to get to the games. They are all professional athletes, and well paid ones at that, so the glum faces of team USA after that overtime was sort of poor sportsmanship in my book.
Yes, it is something to lose the gold medal, but come on, they won the silver, they were in the Olympics, and tonight they will play in their respective cities on their respective teams and make a LOT of money while many around this country are losing jobs and homes. Lots of the other athletes from little tiny countries that don't have the big mega sponsorships or Nike or cough syrup ad contracts or decent training facilities, an entourage of trainers, masseurs/masseuse, coaches, positive-mental-attitudes-coaching, go-fers, and all that jazz still show up and are damn glad for the opportunity even if they place 32nd.
End of rant, onto the Knitting Olympics.
Swatch:
For the regular Harlot-Olympics, I was going to make a colorwork ear-flap hat from some stashed Lamb's Pride worsted. I wasted two precious days' worth of knitting time rewriting the directions, revising the basic pattern to accommodate a woman's size, and working out new color (pattern) charts. See close-up of wave chart that would replace the first section of colorwork on the original pattern:
But as suspected there, those best laid plans all gang aft agley (often go awry). After my last bout with the Lamb's Pride bulky on the Bella's Mitts, my skin could not take a repeat of the itch involved. Early on, with both ear-flaps and about an inch or two of the beginning rows, the welts on my skin from the yarn were not worth any finished project.
I am either allergic to mohair or whatever else makes up the rest of the composition of that yarn. Into the frog pile it went.
If I had planned on this project earlier, I would have been able to get some merino worsted weight from some place other than the LYSs that lack anything other than primary colors. My stash lacks a lot of bright colors in worsted except for the Lamb's Pride that lingers because I don't like the feel of the yarn. I've moved away from knitting sweaters and afghans and the like and have mainly been working lace, usually scarves, and mittens, socks, and hats, so most of my stash is lace or fingering weight with the very occasional sock weight yarn, and almost all of that is some sort of handpaint.
The good news is that I have been thinking about how to solve the problem of rolling caused by the stockinette stitch and have been thinking about using an iCord or some other stitch modification, but that leaves the ear-flaps to contend with. The original pattern (Kristen Nicholas's) uses crochet trim to solve this problem, but I'm not sure I would go with that. I DO crochet, but I think I want something that is more integrated into the knit pattern. What I think will happen is that I am going to start from scratch and create a whole new pattern using the newly created color charts if I can. The notes on Ravelry for the original pattern indicate the size is off and fits a child not a woman, and my swatch indicated that would indeed be the problem, so the whole thing needs to go back to the drawing table.
In the end, I entered the hat into the Aerial Unwind (frog) on Ravelry. Not much of a reason to do so other than to get the project off my list.
Ha! Not a chance in hell to finish that scarf for the Ravelympics though I sort of knew that going in.
I made some small bit of progress during the first week of the Olympics, but after that the chair was pulled out from under me: meetings, long work days, and a variety of other reasons that didn't allow enough dedicated time to knit, plus the aforementioned waste of two precious weekend days on the ear-flap hat right in the middle of the Olympics. She's doubled in length, though, so that's something. Ah well. The hope was there.
Late Sunday night I tried to take a photo of the scarf on top of the quickly dwindling pile of snow next to the driveway. Yes, this IS a dark and crappily lit shot. What can you expect for 10:30 p.m. and a point-and-shoot? You can't make out much, but you can tell that the scarf is not yet a scarf by any stretch of the imagination.
We've had a very mild winter this year. When I discuss winter in general, I combine the end of the previous year (November and December) with the beginning of the new year (January, February, March, and sometimes April) as for me it is the season of winter which falls over two years. Not a lot of snow in December but we did have a decent amount in November. January was fairly dry, very mild, temps often above freezing except for a week of very hard freezes. By February the snow was nearly gone, melting more and more each day.
For some reason, I felt very nostalgic for snow, though usually once we are past New Year's Day, I am ready for spring. But I guess since the snow was so light and the winter so safe (those of you who live in true winter areas know exactly what I'm talking about), I sort of missed the white fluffies. Then lo-and-behold, snow. Lots of it. Soft and fluffy, miserably heavy and wet. Nearly a record-setter: the fifth or sixth heaviest amount of February snowfall since someone has been keeping track of such things.
Now our temps are going to be in the mid30sF, and although we have several feet of snow in the yard and on the roof, lots of it will be melted by the beginning of next week. We are supposed to reach 50F by Sunday, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear of some local area flooding. The ground is saturated. Ah, winter.
Yes, that may sound like treason to some, considering I'm from the States, but hey, it IS their sport, after all, and let's get realistic, those guys are all NHL players anyway (or on their way there), so it's not like the teams are made up of the same guys who have worked together for years sacrificing everything to get to the games. They are all professional athletes, and well paid ones at that, so the glum faces of team USA after that overtime was sort of poor sportsmanship in my book.
Yes, it is something to lose the gold medal, but come on, they won the silver, they were in the Olympics, and tonight they will play in their respective cities on their respective teams and make a LOT of money while many around this country are losing jobs and homes. Lots of the other athletes from little tiny countries that don't have the big mega sponsorships or Nike or cough syrup ad contracts or decent training facilities, an entourage of trainers, masseurs/masseuse, coaches, positive-mental-attitudes-coaching, go-fers, and all that jazz still show up and are damn glad for the opportunity even if they place 32nd.
End of rant, onto the Knitting Olympics.
Swatch:
For the regular Harlot-Olympics, I was going to make a colorwork ear-flap hat from some stashed Lamb's Pride worsted. I wasted two precious days' worth of knitting time rewriting the directions, revising the basic pattern to accommodate a woman's size, and working out new color (pattern) charts. See close-up of wave chart that would replace the first section of colorwork on the original pattern:
But as suspected there, those best laid plans all gang aft agley (often go awry). After my last bout with the Lamb's Pride bulky on the Bella's Mitts, my skin could not take a repeat of the itch involved. Early on, with both ear-flaps and about an inch or two of the beginning rows, the welts on my skin from the yarn were not worth any finished project.
I am either allergic to mohair or whatever else makes up the rest of the composition of that yarn. Into the frog pile it went.
If I had planned on this project earlier, I would have been able to get some merino worsted weight from some place other than the LYSs that lack anything other than primary colors. My stash lacks a lot of bright colors in worsted except for the Lamb's Pride that lingers because I don't like the feel of the yarn. I've moved away from knitting sweaters and afghans and the like and have mainly been working lace, usually scarves, and mittens, socks, and hats, so most of my stash is lace or fingering weight with the very occasional sock weight yarn, and almost all of that is some sort of handpaint.
The good news is that I have been thinking about how to solve the problem of rolling caused by the stockinette stitch and have been thinking about using an iCord or some other stitch modification, but that leaves the ear-flaps to contend with. The original pattern (Kristen Nicholas's) uses crochet trim to solve this problem, but I'm not sure I would go with that. I DO crochet, but I think I want something that is more integrated into the knit pattern. What I think will happen is that I am going to start from scratch and create a whole new pattern using the newly created color charts if I can. The notes on Ravelry for the original pattern indicate the size is off and fits a child not a woman, and my swatch indicated that would indeed be the problem, so the whole thing needs to go back to the drawing table.
In the end, I entered the hat into the Aerial Unwind (frog) on Ravelry. Not much of a reason to do so other than to get the project off my list.
Ha! Not a chance in hell to finish that scarf for the Ravelympics though I sort of knew that going in.
I made some small bit of progress during the first week of the Olympics, but after that the chair was pulled out from under me: meetings, long work days, and a variety of other reasons that didn't allow enough dedicated time to knit, plus the aforementioned waste of two precious weekend days on the ear-flap hat right in the middle of the Olympics. She's doubled in length, though, so that's something. Ah well. The hope was there.
Late Sunday night I tried to take a photo of the scarf on top of the quickly dwindling pile of snow next to the driveway. Yes, this IS a dark and crappily lit shot. What can you expect for 10:30 p.m. and a point-and-shoot? You can't make out much, but you can tell that the scarf is not yet a scarf by any stretch of the imagination.
We've had a very mild winter this year. When I discuss winter in general, I combine the end of the previous year (November and December) with the beginning of the new year (January, February, March, and sometimes April) as for me it is the season of winter which falls over two years. Not a lot of snow in December but we did have a decent amount in November. January was fairly dry, very mild, temps often above freezing except for a week of very hard freezes. By February the snow was nearly gone, melting more and more each day.
For some reason, I felt very nostalgic for snow, though usually once we are past New Year's Day, I am ready for spring. But I guess since the snow was so light and the winter so safe (those of you who live in true winter areas know exactly what I'm talking about), I sort of missed the white fluffies. Then lo-and-behold, snow. Lots of it. Soft and fluffy, miserably heavy and wet. Nearly a record-setter: the fifth or sixth heaviest amount of February snowfall since someone has been keeping track of such things.
Now our temps are going to be in the mid30sF, and although we have several feet of snow in the yard and on the roof, lots of it will be melted by the beginning of next week. We are supposed to reach 50F by Sunday, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear of some local area flooding. The ground is saturated. Ah, winter.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Valentine's Day Tulips
I never got around to taking or posting a photo of the tulips hubby got me for Valentine's Day, so here they are:
My hubby is the BEST!!
Our snowfall this year has been pretty minimal, and the temps have been extraordinarily mild. During most winters, we have a week or two of below zero (Fahrenheit) during the day and awful cold at night, but this year, just a few really cold days at night, and those actually occurred in December 2009, so officially last year. The weather has really been warming up lately, causing a lot of snow melt. But, another storm front is moving in this evening with a predicted 4 to 8 inches of snow, so maybe we'll have some more pretty weather tomorrow and hopefully a snow day on Tuesday. Unlikely, but maybe.
My hubby is the BEST!!Our snowfall this year has been pretty minimal, and the temps have been extraordinarily mild. During most winters, we have a week or two of below zero (Fahrenheit) during the day and awful cold at night, but this year, just a few really cold days at night, and those actually occurred in December 2009, so officially last year. The weather has really been warming up lately, causing a lot of snow melt. But, another storm front is moving in this evening with a predicted 4 to 8 inches of snow, so maybe we'll have some more pretty weather tomorrow and hopefully a snow day on Tuesday. Unlikely, but maybe.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Knitting Olympics
Well, lookee here. It's amazing what one can find in one's stash. This is some Knit Picks Gloss that I thought I had used:
I made hubby's binary hat out of this, but the stash has been sitting ignored in a basket on the fireplace hearth under a pile of purple Lamb's Pride. I thought this was some silk tweed that I was saving for a hat, but to my surprise and pleasure, it's Gloss. I know I still have the silk tweed somewhere, but Gloss is nice and soft, too, and I like it for colorwork.
I also have a ton of Lamb's Pride that I am loathe to use because of the itch factor:
(Yes, your eyes aren't deceiving you: we finally got snow!! Two snow days this week ~ Tuesday and Wednesday ~ which is unheard of! Which means we have several feet of snow just off the driveway. Photos taken on snow piles.)
And some Plymouth Yarns (acrylic I think):
I have been debating about entering the Knitting Olympics, and to be honest, I wasn't sure if the Yarn Harlot was going to host it again: it is a TON of work, after all, and right now she is at Madrona. Usually I don't do well speed knitting, hence the reason I abandoned Sock Madness after the first year.
But I have long been thinking about an ear-flap hat, and I just might entertain the idea of making one, or at least starting one, for the Knitting Olympics.
Yesterday I looked through my patterns, searched online, and found one by Kristin Nicholas (season 2 Knit & Crochet Now TV). The pattern is simple enough and free, but I think I will modify it, especially the fair isle pattern. I love Kristin Nicholas's patterns/colorwork because I am very drawn to strong, bold, graphics and colorwork. Many years ago I made a Fair Isle Pullover (Icelandic style) from the book she edited, Knitting the New Classics, when she was at Elite Yarns. The pattern was well written and worked wonderful despite some of my changes to the colorwork patterns.
Back to the hat. Feedback on Ravelry suggests that the size needs to be modified by either casting on more stitches or by moving up a needle size, so I will have to play around with this a bit.
I spent a fair amount of time today calling LYSs to inquire as to the status of merino worsted weight solids. The LYS farthest from here (about 10 miles or so) has some, but they are only open for a few more hours, so it's pretty doubtful that I'll get there in time, and if I am going to do this, I'll need to cast on soon, if not during opening ceremonies.
Evidently my stash has some solids that are worsted weight or DK, albeit none in merino. The color selection of the Lamb's Pride would work best with my winter ski jacket (purple/grape), but I would definitely need to line a hat made with Lamb's Pride before I could wear it. Just trying on the Bella's Mitts made with LP Bulky raised welts.
Maybe I'll make a pair of plain socks instead. I have some Lorna's Laces I've been thinking about using though I've been more inclined to use this for a scarf:
I made hubby's binary hat out of this, but the stash has been sitting ignored in a basket on the fireplace hearth under a pile of purple Lamb's Pride. I thought this was some silk tweed that I was saving for a hat, but to my surprise and pleasure, it's Gloss. I know I still have the silk tweed somewhere, but Gloss is nice and soft, too, and I like it for colorwork.
I also have a ton of Lamb's Pride that I am loathe to use because of the itch factor:
(Yes, your eyes aren't deceiving you: we finally got snow!! Two snow days this week ~ Tuesday and Wednesday ~ which is unheard of! Which means we have several feet of snow just off the driveway. Photos taken on snow piles.)
And some Plymouth Yarns (acrylic I think):
I have been debating about entering the Knitting Olympics, and to be honest, I wasn't sure if the Yarn Harlot was going to host it again: it is a TON of work, after all, and right now she is at Madrona. Usually I don't do well speed knitting, hence the reason I abandoned Sock Madness after the first year.
But I have long been thinking about an ear-flap hat, and I just might entertain the idea of making one, or at least starting one, for the Knitting Olympics.
Yesterday I looked through my patterns, searched online, and found one by Kristin Nicholas (season 2 Knit & Crochet Now TV). The pattern is simple enough and free, but I think I will modify it, especially the fair isle pattern. I love Kristin Nicholas's patterns/colorwork because I am very drawn to strong, bold, graphics and colorwork. Many years ago I made a Fair Isle Pullover (Icelandic style) from the book she edited, Knitting the New Classics, when she was at Elite Yarns. The pattern was well written and worked wonderful despite some of my changes to the colorwork patterns.
Back to the hat. Feedback on Ravelry suggests that the size needs to be modified by either casting on more stitches or by moving up a needle size, so I will have to play around with this a bit.
I spent a fair amount of time today calling LYSs to inquire as to the status of merino worsted weight solids. The LYS farthest from here (about 10 miles or so) has some, but they are only open for a few more hours, so it's pretty doubtful that I'll get there in time, and if I am going to do this, I'll need to cast on soon, if not during opening ceremonies.
Evidently my stash has some solids that are worsted weight or DK, albeit none in merino. The color selection of the Lamb's Pride would work best with my winter ski jacket (purple/grape), but I would definitely need to line a hat made with Lamb's Pride before I could wear it. Just trying on the Bella's Mitts made with LP Bulky raised welts.
Maybe I'll make a pair of plain socks instead. I have some Lorna's Laces I've been thinking about using though I've been more inclined to use this for a scarf:
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