I was recently talking about IBARW with Sarah (it happened in the first half of August), and discovered it was mainly a LiveJournal thing, not an across-the-blogosphere event. So, mostly for Sarah, but also for my own reference, the LJ community is here and the del.icio.us account with all the links and posts tagged is here. To be entirely honest, I had thought initially that the premise was naive at best and kind of stupid at worst - how do you blog against racism? But it ended up being an incredibly interesting event, with a number of practical discussions on, first, how to notice racism (the more subtle instances, obviously, that someone possessing white privilege may not even recognize as racism per se), and second, how to retrain one's thought patterns and implicit assumptions. The event organizers also complied a wonderful (and huge) list of references and resources, which I have been slowly perusing. I have not studied race and racism in any serious way, and it's very possible that there was nothing new said, but it was certainly a teachable moment, raising one's awareness thing for me.
A cool offshoot of this event was the formation of the community, Writers of Color 50 Book Challenge, wherein members are attempting to read 50 books over the next year by writers of color. I haven't joined, because there is no way in hell I'll be able to read any 50 books over the next year, but I thought it was an interesting idea, and I've been skimming the reviews.
It is startling, once I stopped to think about it, how deep the divide is between "white" literature and that written for a non-white audience. At Borders (and at the public library), there's the "Literature" sections and then the "African-American Literature" section, the "Gay and Lesbian Literature" section, etc. That division may be good and useful - highlighting the existence of such works, and displaying them prominently - but it also reinforces the implicit assumption that "Literature" is written by white heterosexuals, and everything else needs a qualifier. The other effect, which I've noticed before, is that I'll tend to drive by the "African-American Literature" section because I feel both that a) it's somehow not "for me" and b) that I "don't belong". I've definitely gotten some sidelong looks from fellow shoppers when I do stop by the African-American Literature bookshelf, and it's ... uncomfortable. I've been thinking about this entertainment divide every time I go to the Severance movie theater, where the trailers are all for completely different movies than the ones I see at Shaker or Cedar-Lee theaters, both of which serve a more predominantly white audience, but it's more recently that I've been pondering that same division in written entertainment as well. (Also, see this entry in Overheard in NY.)
At any rate, I thought the most useful part of IBARW was that I actually starting thinking about these issues, which is a step in the right direction. Like I said, I really have zero training in the "-isms," and so it was a good starting point, just becoming more aware of my own implicit assumptions, etc.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Book Log
I've been seeing these around, and since I've actually had enough free time to read more than 3/4 of a novel lately, I thought I'd jot down some notes on the books I've been reading recently. I'm completely out of practice with actual literary criticism, so this will be more my thoughts and reflections than anything else. This list comprises what I've read over, hmm, the last 3 weeks or so. I may do this weekly, if I can manage to read enough in a week to make it worth it. Maybe biweekly.
Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein, 1961). I actually pulled this out again a few weeks ago in order to tipsily quote things out of it at Karen. (Er, sorry about that, hon.) But I ended up re-reading it again in its entirety. This is one of my "go-to" books, that I read over and over, and I was shocked to realized I hadn't read it since starting medical school. (In high school and college, this probably got read every 6 months or so.) It's not a good book, in the sense that the plot is carefully constructed or that the characters are well-depicted, or even internally consistent, and it's horribly sexist and homophobic in places but... it's one of the best meditations on the human condition - and what it means to be human - that I've ever across. Thoughts and phrases from this book just stay with me, in the way that poetry or quotations from religious texts do; they have that quality of simplicity that signifies something different every time you come across it. Some of these are one-off lines ("Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence" "'Love' is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own" "Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition; they're almost incompatible") and some are longer paragraphs that manage to express exactly my own personal philosophy on a number of topics. It's an incredibly thought-provoking novel, and I find something new in it every time I read it; I'm glad I was prompted to pick it up again.
Bee Season (Myla Goldberg, 2000). This was... weird. I found it engaging and difficult to put down, but I'm not sure the author was saying anything I particularly needed to hear. I found the characters one-dimensional, even at the times they were clearly supposed to be Very Deep and Troubled, and... I don't know. I didn't not like it, but I'm not sure that Goldberg achieved her purpose - whatever it may have been. (The overall plot, without giving too much away, is that the younger, less gifted daughter discovers a real talent for spelling. The development of this talent brings to the forefront the background level of intrafamilial conflict, and the family members react to this in a number of ... fairly bizarre ways that I didn't quite feel were reasonable developments.) Hmm. I think I enjoyed this book more when I was actually reading it, but I don't think it holds up very well to reflection. Not one I'd re-read.
Mind of My Mind (Octavia Bulter, 1977). This was very good. I inhaled this book in one 3-hour sitting, and I'm continually amazed by the tight spareness of Bulter's writing. This was actually a first read for me (I was just talking with Sarah about how I've been rationing Butler's works, especially now that she's passed away, because I enjoy knowing that there's more of her work out there), and it's set, hmm, probably a hundred years or so after Wild Seed, which I had read a number of times previously. I thought the plot was engaging - twisty but believable, as is Bulter's style - and I ended up liking the characters. I'm interested to see how this fits within the rest of the Patternist series. I did think this novel was very plot-driven, and lacked the more meditative, reflective side of Bulter's later works. Told mostly in dialogue, and from a cycling limited 3rd person POV, Mind of My Mind was interesting, but I wouldn't say it was ground-breaking, and certainly didn't have the cultural and societal insight and commentary that draws me, again and again, to the Parable novels. I'm curious to see if my thoughts on this novel change once I've read Clay's Ark and Patternmaster.
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year (Ed. Jonathan Strahan, 2007). I was thrilled to see a story by Connie Willis in this collection ("D.A."), which ended up being good but certainly not my favorite of the bunch. Neil Gaiman's "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" I had already read here, and I enjoyed it more on re-read, but I'm not sure it deserves the buzz it's been generating.
I thought Cory Doctorow's "I, Row-Boat" was phenomenal, and I need to look up his novels. (The main character is a sentient rowboat, who tends to human "shells" - bodies that are available for tourists to download their consciousness into, in order to vacation in the tropics - and he's an Asimovist, following this religion the AIs have made, founded upon Isaac Asimov's famous Three Laws. How can you not love that?*)
Similarly, Ellen Klages' "In the House of Seven Librarians" was marvelous - a story told as a fable about "a young girl raised by feral librarians" (cited from the editor's preface to the story). Feral librarians! I worried that the story would not live up to such an intro, but, to my glee, it did.
Walter Jon Williams' "Incarnation Day" is another story from this collection that has stuck with me, also - now that I think about it - with the downloadable consciousnesses, but told from a very different viewpoint: that of a young girl with a penchant for the works of Samuel Johnson, who was conceived as a computer program and who becomes a legal person only when she is accorded the use of a body. This story became a insightful discussion about what confers "humanity," and it possessed an engaging plot and excellently crafted characters. Another one whose novels I'll be tracking down.
I'd say the anthology as a whole was good, and definitely a worthwhile read. From what I could tell, it was organized semi-thematically, which I didn't love, as it seemed after a while that you would read the same story three time in a row, only interpreted in different ways. There were 24 stories in all, clocking in at just under 500 pages; I can't speak to whether these were truly the "best" short stories of the year, since I haven't been reading more recently published SF at all, but they were consistently good and occasionally superlative.
To Say Nothing of the Dog (Connie Willis, 1998). This was another re-read. I scored a copy of this book at the Raleigh-Durham airport, from the used bookshop whose very existence delighted me to no end. This is a cute little jaunt of a novel, the premise of which is a quest to locate, using time travel, the bishop's bird stump (it's this ... thing, that no one can describe except in terms of its ugliness), in order to properly store the Coventry Cathedral, which had been destroyed during WWII. Combining SF and historical fiction, this novel is just fun - it's hilariously funny and a Romance in the classic sense of the word.
---------------------------------------------------------
I'm almost positive I'm forgetting a few here, beyond the knitting books that I haven't included, and there are a few novels that I've almost finished, but I think that's it for now. The most bizarre thing about writing this post? I actually knew the copyright dates for almost every work before I looked it up. I didn't realize that was information I actually stored about books.
---------------------------------------------------------
*In the interest of full disclosure, I find it necessary to say that my junior year research thesis for AP English was on Asimov's Foundation series. I ... may be a bit of geek, and I'm definitely a geek for Asimov's SF. Just sayin'.
Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein, 1961). I actually pulled this out again a few weeks ago in order to tipsily quote things out of it at Karen. (Er, sorry about that, hon.) But I ended up re-reading it again in its entirety. This is one of my "go-to" books, that I read over and over, and I was shocked to realized I hadn't read it since starting medical school. (In high school and college, this probably got read every 6 months or so.) It's not a good book, in the sense that the plot is carefully constructed or that the characters are well-depicted, or even internally consistent, and it's horribly sexist and homophobic in places but... it's one of the best meditations on the human condition - and what it means to be human - that I've ever across. Thoughts and phrases from this book just stay with me, in the way that poetry or quotations from religious texts do; they have that quality of simplicity that signifies something different every time you come across it. Some of these are one-off lines ("Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence" "'Love' is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own" "Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition; they're almost incompatible") and some are longer paragraphs that manage to express exactly my own personal philosophy on a number of topics. It's an incredibly thought-provoking novel, and I find something new in it every time I read it; I'm glad I was prompted to pick it up again.
Bee Season (Myla Goldberg, 2000). This was... weird. I found it engaging and difficult to put down, but I'm not sure the author was saying anything I particularly needed to hear. I found the characters one-dimensional, even at the times they were clearly supposed to be Very Deep and Troubled, and... I don't know. I didn't not like it, but I'm not sure that Goldberg achieved her purpose - whatever it may have been. (The overall plot, without giving too much away, is that the younger, less gifted daughter discovers a real talent for spelling. The development of this talent brings to the forefront the background level of intrafamilial conflict, and the family members react to this in a number of ... fairly bizarre ways that I didn't quite feel were reasonable developments.) Hmm. I think I enjoyed this book more when I was actually reading it, but I don't think it holds up very well to reflection. Not one I'd re-read.
Mind of My Mind (Octavia Bulter, 1977). This was very good. I inhaled this book in one 3-hour sitting, and I'm continually amazed by the tight spareness of Bulter's writing. This was actually a first read for me (I was just talking with Sarah about how I've been rationing Butler's works, especially now that she's passed away, because I enjoy knowing that there's more of her work out there), and it's set, hmm, probably a hundred years or so after Wild Seed, which I had read a number of times previously. I thought the plot was engaging - twisty but believable, as is Bulter's style - and I ended up liking the characters. I'm interested to see how this fits within the rest of the Patternist series. I did think this novel was very plot-driven, and lacked the more meditative, reflective side of Bulter's later works. Told mostly in dialogue, and from a cycling limited 3rd person POV, Mind of My Mind was interesting, but I wouldn't say it was ground-breaking, and certainly didn't have the cultural and societal insight and commentary that draws me, again and again, to the Parable novels. I'm curious to see if my thoughts on this novel change once I've read Clay's Ark and Patternmaster.
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year (Ed. Jonathan Strahan, 2007). I was thrilled to see a story by Connie Willis in this collection ("D.A."), which ended up being good but certainly not my favorite of the bunch. Neil Gaiman's "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" I had already read here, and I enjoyed it more on re-read, but I'm not sure it deserves the buzz it's been generating.
I thought Cory Doctorow's "I, Row-Boat" was phenomenal, and I need to look up his novels. (The main character is a sentient rowboat, who tends to human "shells" - bodies that are available for tourists to download their consciousness into, in order to vacation in the tropics - and he's an Asimovist, following this religion the AIs have made, founded upon Isaac Asimov's famous Three Laws. How can you not love that?*)
Similarly, Ellen Klages' "In the House of Seven Librarians" was marvelous - a story told as a fable about "a young girl raised by feral librarians" (cited from the editor's preface to the story). Feral librarians! I worried that the story would not live up to such an intro, but, to my glee, it did.
Walter Jon Williams' "Incarnation Day" is another story from this collection that has stuck with me, also - now that I think about it - with the downloadable consciousnesses, but told from a very different viewpoint: that of a young girl with a penchant for the works of Samuel Johnson, who was conceived as a computer program and who becomes a legal person only when she is accorded the use of a body. This story became a insightful discussion about what confers "humanity," and it possessed an engaging plot and excellently crafted characters. Another one whose novels I'll be tracking down.
I'd say the anthology as a whole was good, and definitely a worthwhile read. From what I could tell, it was organized semi-thematically, which I didn't love, as it seemed after a while that you would read the same story three time in a row, only interpreted in different ways. There were 24 stories in all, clocking in at just under 500 pages; I can't speak to whether these were truly the "best" short stories of the year, since I haven't been reading more recently published SF at all, but they were consistently good and occasionally superlative.
To Say Nothing of the Dog (Connie Willis, 1998). This was another re-read. I scored a copy of this book at the Raleigh-Durham airport, from the used bookshop whose very existence delighted me to no end. This is a cute little jaunt of a novel, the premise of which is a quest to locate, using time travel, the bishop's bird stump (it's this ... thing, that no one can describe except in terms of its ugliness), in order to properly store the Coventry Cathedral, which had been destroyed during WWII. Combining SF and historical fiction, this novel is just fun - it's hilariously funny and a Romance in the classic sense of the word.
---------------------------------------------------------
I'm almost positive I'm forgetting a few here, beyond the knitting books that I haven't included, and there are a few novels that I've almost finished, but I think that's it for now. The most bizarre thing about writing this post? I actually knew the copyright dates for almost every work before I looked it up. I didn't realize that was information I actually stored about books.
---------------------------------------------------------
*In the interest of full disclosure, I find it necessary to say that my junior year research thesis for AP English was on Asimov's Foundation series. I ... may be a bit of geek, and I'm definitely a geek for Asimov's SF. Just sayin'.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Fun over the holiday weekend
The weather here in Cleveland has just been absolutely perfect over this past weekend.... I've found myself going for hour-long walks just to be outside. Ben has been in New York this weekend visiting friends, so I've been rattling around the apartment on my own, but I have managed to have fun. :)
Saturday we went raspberry picking at this great little farm, which was a ton of fun. Karen, being much more on top of things, remembered to bring her camera, so you can check out our massive haul of raspberries and other fun photos of the day here. (Thanks, Karen!) I still have about a quart and a half of berries in the fridge, which will have to be either frozen or turned into something else very soon. I'm actually not that fond of raspberry jam, unfortunately, so... there may be pie in our future.
In knitting news, the scarf grew tremendously last night after I got home from the bar and watched Battlestar Galactica until 2 am. (....what?)
The way this stitch stretches, I think I'm only going to need two skeins, which makes me regret not knitting it wider. Sigh. At least I will definitely be able to add a fringe. However, I think I will eventually buy a cone of silk yarn from Colourmart and make myself a full-size wrap in this stitch. (I'm envisioning something similar to Nereides, but knit with a laceweight mohair yarn held together with the silk. I think I would just want to pet it constantly.) It's not quite mindless knitting, since I have to look at it when I'm dropping the yarnovers, but it's simple, it's knitting up super fast, and I do like how this stitch stretches prettily both vertically and horizontally.
And, oh, I almost forgot! A picture of my birthday presents in action:
Saturday we went raspberry picking at this great little farm, which was a ton of fun. Karen, being much more on top of things, remembered to bring her camera, so you can check out our massive haul of raspberries and other fun photos of the day here. (Thanks, Karen!) I still have about a quart and a half of berries in the fridge, which will have to be either frozen or turned into something else very soon. I'm actually not that fond of raspberry jam, unfortunately, so... there may be pie in our future.
In knitting news, the scarf grew tremendously last night after I got home from the bar and watched Battlestar Galactica until 2 am. (....what?)
The way this stitch stretches, I think I'm only going to need two skeins, which makes me regret not knitting it wider. Sigh. At least I will definitely be able to add a fringe. However, I think I will eventually buy a cone of silk yarn from Colourmart and make myself a full-size wrap in this stitch. (I'm envisioning something similar to Nereides, but knit with a laceweight mohair yarn held together with the silk. I think I would just want to pet it constantly.) It's not quite mindless knitting, since I have to look at it when I'm dropping the yarnovers, but it's simple, it's knitting up super fast, and I do like how this stitch stretches prettily both vertically and horizontally.
And, oh, I almost forgot! A picture of my birthday presents in action:
I am so unbelievably delighted with how wonderfully this whole ball-winder and swift setup works. I want to wind up all the yarn I own into little yarn cakes, but then I know I will inevitably lose ball-bands and then I will end up with a mess of prettily wound yarn about which I know nothing. So. I will wind yarn as I go, but oh, I'm having lots of fun.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
New Project
So I've figured out a use for the impetuously-purchased Debbie Bliss Pure Silk DK weight yarn (it's pink! bright pink!) I acquired a few months ago. (Having limited knitting time and even more limited financial resources available for yarn, I have only just recently started buying yarn without a specific purpose/pattern in mind. By how much fun this experience turned out to be, I think it may become a problem.)
I'm making it into a seafoam stitch scarf, modeled after this version, except with 1, 2 and 3 yarnovers, instead of 2, 3 and 4, which was just far too...loopy. I'm making it 37 stitches across, which is working out to be about 9 or so inches wide. (Needles are 6 mm/US10 bamboo straights, to which I'm returning after a period of circular/dpn monogamy.) I'm hoping this will be wide enough that I can wear it kind-of, sort-of as a stole, and not too bulky to wear as a normal scarf. I'm not in love with it yet, but it's growing on me as I knit it longer and the stitch pattern evens itself out. It's about 10 inches long so far, and I don't think I'm quite halfway through the first of the 3 skeins, so... it appears that I may have enough yarn to knit a decent-length scarf, and (possibly) enough to add some sort of fringe.
I'll add a photo when I'm feeling inspired to hunt down the camera and camera cable.
I'm making it into a seafoam stitch scarf, modeled after this version, except with 1, 2 and 3 yarnovers, instead of 2, 3 and 4, which was just far too...loopy. I'm making it 37 stitches across, which is working out to be about 9 or so inches wide. (Needles are 6 mm/US10 bamboo straights, to which I'm returning after a period of circular/dpn monogamy.) I'm hoping this will be wide enough that I can wear it kind-of, sort-of as a stole, and not too bulky to wear as a normal scarf. I'm not in love with it yet, but it's growing on me as I knit it longer and the stitch pattern evens itself out. It's about 10 inches long so far, and I don't think I'm quite halfway through the first of the 3 skeins, so... it appears that I may have enough yarn to knit a decent-length scarf, and (possibly) enough to add some sort of fringe.
I'll add a photo when I'm feeling inspired to hunt down the camera and camera cable.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Cables and Lace Cardigan
It's finally finished! I started knitting this last year (July 2006, maybe?) and completely stalled when it became clear that the sweater would not be as cute as I had hoped. For one thing, I knit it a size too big, I turned out to be not-so-competent at crochet, and the drop sleeves are not terribly flattering, but... hey, it's done. It will be warm to wear around the house this winter.
Pattern: elann.com Cables and Lace Cardigan, size for 41 inch chest (I'm not sure why I imagined this would be a great fit for my 37 inch chest....)
Yarn: elann.com Den-M-Nit Pure Indigo Cotton in Ecru
Needles: Clover US7 bamboo circular (I think... it was a while ago)
Here's a close-up of the stitch pattern, which I really do think is pretty, with the added benefit of being simple to memorize.
So now that I've finished these backlogged projects, I'll have to start something new! I have some gorgeously indulgent silk yarns waiting in the stash... I think a scarf and/or a shrug may be next in the queue.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Birthday celebrations
Well, I'm back in Cleveland, having spent a really wonderful week visiting the family. Ben picked me up at the airport yesterday, and when we arrived home, I had this waiting for me:
Which was just so sweet of Ben. (The boxes contained a a new pair of headphones, a yarn swift and a ball winder, about all of which I am very excited. I am currently having to resist winding every ball and hank of yarn in the house, while dancing around with my suddenly fabulous-sounding mp3 player, in the hopes that I will get something productive accomplished today.) Thank you, Ben!
Since I was visiting my family for my actual birthday, this year I had an indulgent number of birthday celebrations: dinner and drinks last week with friends in Cleveland, an evening out with my family on my birthday proper, and a lovely visit to Blossom yesterday evening.
Karen and Brandon joined us:
(Here's a picture of Ben and me:)
And here's a photo of our picnic, before we made a sizeable dent in it:
Needless to say, we had a great time: good company, good food, good music. The Canadian Brass were playing, who are a brass quintet with a sense of humor. It was a delightful end to a great vacation.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Wedding!
Well, it's (almost) official - Ben and I will be getting married on April 25, 2009 at Saint Clements in Portland, CT! I went back for a second visit today with my parents and Katherine, and we still loved it, so we've got our date picked out and our contract in the works. One decision down, approximately 18,000 to go.... :)
The rest of the week has been lovely as well - we came back home to CT on Thursday night (there was no clamming, unfortunately, as it was really too cold to be wading around). I was able to visit twice with the fabulous Sarah, who is far too kind to me and gave me both books and yarn! (I'm still trying to decide what the 160 yards or so of Plymouth Alpaca Baby Grande wants to be when it grows up, but in the meantime it is very nice to pet.) And now I have a fantastic collection of new reading ahead of me, including The Invisible Sex and The Kindness of Strangers. Thanks, Sarah!
In knitting news, I have 3 buttons sewn onto the cardigan - only 4 to go! I'm hoping to finish that tonight, but it's slow going - I've apparently learned carelessness dealing solely with knitting and tapestry needles for so long, and I keep stabbing myself with the sewing needle, as the buttonholes are too small to be sewn with yarn. But I'm going to try forging ahead this evening, and hopefully I will be posting a finished object photo tomorrow!
The rest of the week has been lovely as well - we came back home to CT on Thursday night (there was no clamming, unfortunately, as it was really too cold to be wading around). I was able to visit twice with the fabulous Sarah, who is far too kind to me and gave me both books and yarn! (I'm still trying to decide what the 160 yards or so of Plymouth Alpaca Baby Grande wants to be when it grows up, but in the meantime it is very nice to pet.) And now I have a fantastic collection of new reading ahead of me, including The Invisible Sex and The Kindness of Strangers. Thanks, Sarah!
In knitting news, I have 3 buttons sewn onto the cardigan - only 4 to go! I'm hoping to finish that tonight, but it's slow going - I've apparently learned carelessness dealing solely with knitting and tapestry needles for so long, and I keep stabbing myself with the sewing needle, as the buttonholes are too small to be sewn with yarn. But I'm going to try forging ahead this evening, and hopefully I will be posting a finished object photo tomorrow!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Vacation (the knit-free edition)
So I'm in Rhode Island this week, having a wonderful time at the beach. Since my sisters came up Sunday night, the weather has been pretty crummy, but we stuck it out this afternoon and put in our time down by the water. My dad engineered a shelter from the wind:
We had to find non-tanning alternatives for beach entertainment:
We warmed up after the beach with a lobster dinner:
All in all, it's been a lovely week so far, even with the sub-par weather. We've had good food, good company and I've gotten a lot of knitting and more than my usual share of reading done. (Aside from the wedding planning magazines that seem to spontantously multiply around me, I've been reading Three Cups of Tea, which reminds me very strongly of Mountains Beyond Mountains both in content and style, and an anthology of last year's best sci-fi and fantasy short stories, which have been stunning. I think I'll have a few novels to look up by the time I'm finished.)
Overall, a completely relaxing vacation, and it's only Wednesday! On the agenda tomorrow is clamming with my dad at low tide, which will be fun - hopefully I'll have some photos of clams for tomorrow's dinner!
We had to find non-tanning alternatives for beach entertainment:
Although not quite as warm as tanning, Scrabble did turn out to be fun. That's my sister Jen on the right, then me, my mom, and my sister Katherine.
We weren't the only ones on the beach, but I do think the seagulls outnumbered the humans:
We warmed up after the beach with a lobster dinner:
All in all, it's been a lovely week so far, even with the sub-par weather. We've had good food, good company and I've gotten a lot of knitting and more than my usual share of reading done. (Aside from the wedding planning magazines that seem to spontantously multiply around me, I've been reading Three Cups of Tea, which reminds me very strongly of Mountains Beyond Mountains both in content and style, and an anthology of last year's best sci-fi and fantasy short stories, which have been stunning. I think I'll have a few novels to look up by the time I'm finished.)
Overall, a completely relaxing vacation, and it's only Wednesday! On the agenda tomorrow is clamming with my dad at low tide, which will be fun - hopefully I'll have some photos of clams for tomorrow's dinner!
Medrith's Little Lace
Vacation with the family in Rhode Island has been lovely, if a li
ttle cold. I had hoped to make this vacation the Week of the Finished Objects, and so far I've been doing all right with that goal: the cardigan is shrunk, seamed and buttons purchased, and the socks are finished! That's me knitting the socks over the weekend, back when there was still sun around.
My sister Jen and I were totally swimming. The water was really warmer than the air.
ttle cold. I had hoped to make this vacation the Week of the Finished Objects, and so far I've been doing all right with that goal: the cardigan is shrunk, seamed and buttons purchased, and the socks are finished! That's me knitting the socks over the weekend, back when there was still sun around.And here's a photo of the finished socks:
Pattern: Medrith's Little Lace, in A Gathering of Lace
Yarn: KnitPicks Essential, in Black
Needles: KnitPicks double pointed, size 3.00 mm/US 2
No modifications that I can remember. These socks were fun, but took forever to get through - I think I started these back in March. I've realized that, in order to knit socks in any sort of efficient way, I need a pattern simple enough to memorize.
Socks are, for me, is the knitting cotton-candy equivalent. The socks should be fun, portable knitting that can go anywhere and be worked on without thinking about it too much. I liked how these turned out, but I don't think I'll ever make them again - the 20 row repeat made them feel like work.
Anyway, I'll be updating soon (possibly tonight) with photos from our beach excursion today, complete with sweatshirts, a windbreak, and a Scrabble game. It was a determined sort of day.
My sister Jen and I were totally swimming. The water was really warmer than the air.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Saturday Market Bag
The blog's first finished object!
Pattern: Saturday Market Bag
Yarn: KnitPicks CotLin in Key Lime, Linen and Desert Turquoise, about 3/4 skein each for the first two colors and less than 1/4 skein of the turquoise
Needles: 8 mm/size 11 KnitPicks Options (used throughout)
Modifications: 9 repeats of the lace pattern, instead of the 6 repeats written; 10 sts for the strap instead of the 6 written, used needle size as above.
This was, I think, the quickest thing I've ever knit - I cast on as soon as the yarn arrived, and something like 2 days later, found myself weaving in ends. I had made this bag already, but had played fast and loose with gauge, and it turned out a bit too large, but I think this set of modifications worked perfectly! The pattern is easily memorized, and I'm very pleased with the yarn, as well - the linen softens beautifully as you knit, and the bag is stretchy but keeps its shape well once it's emptied. I think friends and family might be getting these for Christmas....
In other news, the pieces for my Cables and Lace cardigan are in the dryer as I type this. Hopefully I can seam that together this evening, and finally be done with this sweater - I cast it on last summer, and the pieces languished in the closet for months until I learned how to crochet and could make the button bands. Better late than never, right?
Pattern: Saturday Market BagYarn: KnitPicks CotLin in Key Lime, Linen and Desert Turquoise, about 3/4 skein each for the first two colors and less than 1/4 skein of the turquoise
Needles: 8 mm/size 11 KnitPicks Options (used throughout)
Modifications: 9 repeats of the lace pattern, instead of the 6 repeats written; 10 sts for the strap instead of the 6 written, used needle size as above.
This was, I think, the quickest thing I've ever knit - I cast on as soon as the yarn arrived, and something like 2 days later, found myself weaving in ends. I had made this bag already, but had played fast and loose with gauge, and it turned out a bit too large, but I think this set of modifications worked perfectly! The pattern is easily memorized, and I'm very pleased with the yarn, as well - the linen softens beautifully as you knit, and the bag is stretchy but keeps its shape well once it's emptied. I think friends and family might be getting these for Christmas....
In other news, the pieces for my Cables and Lace cardigan are in the dryer as I type this. Hopefully I can seam that together this evening, and finally be done with this sweater - I cast it on last summer, and the pieces languished in the closet for months until I learned how to crochet and could make the button bands. Better late than never, right?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
