Startitis

I thought this would be an easy project, a no-brainer, a piece of cake. I was wrong.

I am working on reverse engineering a sweater I made in the early to mid '90's out of a mohair muff of Patons Knit n' Save. Knit n' Save was literally a giant single skein of yarn about the size of a watermelon of the uiquitous late '80's-early '90's fluffy mohair that was prevalent in most design books. I found it at a yarn store in Calistoga, CA. Each ball purported to have enough yardage to make a whole sweater, and it was cheap--good since I was fairly poor in those days. No Rowan yarn for me, then! I bought two big muffs of the stuff, each in an ombred colors, one in blues and greens, the other in reds and fushia pinks.

I used the blue green yarn to make a the ball-band pattern that claimed to take one skein and the result was a huge floppy, fluffy mock neck pullover with a giant center cable. I still have it, but it is prohibitively warm and scratchy, so that sweater languishes even still, destined to be frogged and repurposed.

The second skein I wanted to do something more special. I loved the colors and how they faded into one another immensely. I wanted to make a sweater, but the more I looked, the more I didn't want to cut the yarn. In those days there was no Ravelry. In fact, for my purposes, there was even no internet. I had already gotten a decent pattern library by this time, but there was nothing in my books that suited my purpose, so I did something bold: I made my own design.

I had the idea that I would use the whole ball of yarn. I didn't like the looser weave of the first sweater I had made--done on large needles, perhaps a size 9 or 10. I wanted a denser fabric. So I boldly cast on, deciding to knit cuff to cuff and seamless and off I went. I fit the sweater to myself as I went and tweaked the shaping as the knitting progressed. I remember frogging and reknitting parts, but mostly it went smoothly. The result was a cuff to cuff sweater somewhere between a bolero and a shrug. I had some bblack mohair yarn in my stash, so I co-opted an 8-row welt stitch I had used in another same-era sweater and put a binding around the neck/fronts/waist opening and also around each cuff. I was out of the original red yarn, but I had some other red mohair from the same sweater as the black, so I added some rows of red and another welt. I also added the same red/black welt along the neck back and sides. Lastly, I put two sewn in black snaps at the waist to close, double breasted style. The result was this:

I was quite pleased with how this turned out. The fabric is nice and dense. It is a warm sweater, but not heavy or oversized. It is easy to wear and I have worn it over dresses and jeans. And it was MY design. I foolishly didn't make ANY notes of what I did or how I did it. I had always meant to and meant also to draft it into a pattern that I could redo. As the years progressed and I saw other designers drawing up their patterns the desire to write mine up grew, even as my memory of what I did dimmed.

I have never liked to write much, even though I have done a lot of writing due to the Literature half of my college major. (Biology being the other half.) I have been told that I write well by people who read my stuff, though don't hold your breath for the Great American Novel. It'll never happen. I have though about writing knitting patterns or even pattern books for years. I have had design ideas that lack of time or laziness has caused me to not follow through on. In the long run, I have really found it easier to just truck along using someone else's designs ,even if I do tend to tweak those patterns to suit my own tastes in one form or another.

Still, there was always this sweater--my cocoon sweater--that was a completed project, that I really liked and that I had made up on my own. Now I have a motivation. My favorite shop here in town--Northcoast Knittery-- has set its regulars a challenge: they want us to submit designs for a self-published book. My jaw hit the floor when they made the announcement and I was BEYOND excited. I could do this! I--little old me--could become a published knitwear designer! Wow! It was obvious to me where to start--my cocoon. The only sticking point was I needed to choose a yarn that the store sells and that was still available for purchase--nothing discontinued. I picked my yarn, proposed my design which the others in our every-other-Tuesday designer group meetings said looked great and...nothing. I simply have not been able to get started. Yeesh.

Just as it was in college, I am dawdling. I cannot begin to tell you all how many papers I sat on and wrote, with great anxiety, at the last minute. It was AWFUL. I was always stressed. In going back to school a few years back, I tried harder not to procrastinate like I used to and I was moderately successful. Still, I find with no deadlines, I just can't self motivate to work. And here I am: procrastinating, this time by blogging. Or maybe not.

I ran a marathon in 1998. When I started training, I told EVERYONE I knew I was doing that. In the end, that served as a motivator of sorts because I was CONSTANTLY asked how my training was going and I was damned well not going to give up and admit that I couldn't do the race. I am on the hook the same way now--and I have homework. I have yarn and it has been wound up into center pull cakes. My old sweater is by my side and my laptop ready for notes. I can do this...watch me go!

NMITS

Textile people, like all technically minded folk, tend to use a lot of jargon. Each discipline has its associated terminology that tends to make auslanders scratch their heads in bewilderment or cringe with the idea that they are excluded. The words are a foreign language to these non-doers.I remember early on in my previous life working as a lab biologist feeling rather lost and ill at ease with each new research project until I learned the "code". Knitting is the same, as is crochet, dyeing, weaving, and spinning. People use mysterious words like "blocking" and "gauge", "mordant" and "oxidation", "shed" and "heddle", "carding" and "staple". These terms all mean something to the crafters who pursue these activities.

Charts for knitting are no exception. For some types of knitting, such as lace, there are weird hieroglyphics, each pertaining to a particular stitch. Written instructions for charts such as these are not much better. The stitches are abbreviated into acronyms such as SSK. K2tog, PSSO, M1, YO, etc.The internet has caused the phenomenon of acronyms to blossom, even outside of crafts and other activities: LOL, ROFL, BRB, TTFN, etc, all have made the process of communication via a keyboard more efficient.On various craft boards, people talk about having SABLE (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy), or LYS (Local Yarn Shop) or KAL (Knit Along). You can google "knitting acronyms" and come up with many sites that will cheerfully help define these shortcut terms.

As the handful of you who have read my blog know, I talk frequently about my yarn stash, which is very much and entity of it's own--rather more an archeological dig than mere hobby supplies. To that and I have coined what I think is a new acronym: NMITS. This stands for "Never Made It To Stash". Now, I have to say that what makes a yarn qualify for NMITS status is somewhat nebulous.

The yarn I made my sapphire capelet out of definitely qualifies, as I cast on a mere four days after I bought it, worked solidly on the project until it was finshed, and blocked it right away. The only yarn from this project that became stash is any that was leftover. Leftover yarn is a beast unto itself and I won't go into that here as I think of leftovers as a different kind of stash. Others may disagree, but will let it lie for now.

I am currently working on a quickie project called the After Hours Shawl. The shawl uses a single skein of sock yarn. I bought it last September, with every intention of doing a Knit Along with it, but didn't get around to it. Well, as of last weekend, I am. Still, six months have gone by since my purchase. Then again, I had it out, not bagged up, the skein wound into a ball, along with the accompanying beads and pattern in a project bag, ready to go at a moment's notice. In fact, it was mainly impulse that prompted me to take it up last weekend. I have also brought along on several trips as part of a "mini-queue" to start if the previous project wound up in time. So does this qualify as stash? I would say not. Then again, neither was it really a UFO (Unfinished Object), since I have not cast it on. I am choosing to label this NMITS. My true stash of recent purchase is bagged up in project bags and stored in bins. Most of it is pretty easy to get to, but not as easy as this was.

I will say that some of the yarn I have that is currently NMITS may be bagged and binned in the near future and some things I have out currently have come OUT of stash bins, but this shawl project never went to the true stash, nor did some other things in the pair of project bags I am currently working out of. Still, I am proud of myself to going to the NMITS pile recently and actually DOING a project. About 80% of the After Hours knitting is done, plus blocking. Then, of course, it will be bagged and stored until weather and occasion permit wearing the shawl, but that is another story.

Tactile

I have a routine when I first walk into a yarn shop--especially one I have never visited before. I tend to immediately fixate on a color and wander over to it, pick up the skein of yarn attached to it and then proceed to wander around the store gently kneading the skein in my hands. If another color catches my eye, I may put the first skein back and continue around the store with the new yarn. I aim for a perfect mix of a yummy color and a cuddly texture. I might not even look at the skein in my hands but I feel it there. It's like holding a tribble in that it calms me and helps me focus on the racks and bins of yarn that would normally send me into sensory overload.

I do the same thing when I pursue one of my other favorite activities: beachcombing. My preferred targets are agates, but I also search for jasper, whole shells, sea glass, weird pretty rocks and once when I was very lucky, a whole glass fishing float. I will wander down the beach, head down and peering at the rocks at my feet. If one catches my eye, I will pick it up and continues my slow wandering sliding the rock through my fingers as I go.

I had a chance to experience this tactile trolling in a LYS Over President's Day weekend. The store in question is Fiber-Frolics in Benicia, CA. (note: as of this post and due to a technical difficulty, the website is currently just a bare bones site. I hope it comes back soon!) This shop is one of the most tucked away I have had to hunt out in recent memory, squirreled away as it was in the Arsenal Building on the riverfront and within sight of the Benicia-Martinez bridge. Believe me, it is WELL worth hunting out. I went in with my yarn-sistah, Q. The owner was there and greeted us warmly. The shop is not large, but they have some choice stuff.

The first thing that caught my eye was some Malabrigo Lace in color 102 "Sealing Wax". This is a color that is right up my street--a warm paprika red-orange. This pic is more saturated looking and the real skeins have more variations, but it is a close approximation. I immediately picked it up...and felt how SOFT is it. Not "soft" but "SOFT". All caps. Soft as in "I want to roll around in this in the buff" soft. Light, squishy and lofty with slight halo. If memory serves, my eyes rolled up in my head a bit. I may even drooled. I wandered around the shop groping the skein in complete yarn-lust.

Enough of the lace did follow me home for a project. This yarn is so soft, though that it really rates something more than a mere shawl. Shawls are worn OVER clothes. Nuh-uh. Not for this stuff. I have queued up this project: the Scarpetta Sweater by Kristin Johnstone (apologies to you non-Ravelers who can't access the link. Note: Ravelry.com IS free...but you have to join to browse). I did cop this pic from the pattern page. Isn't this DREAMY? Very simple and wearable and NOT a shawl. I am not sure when I will get to this, but in anticipation, I have wound my skeins into center pull balls. I really want to do this soon.

But I digress. The rest of the shop Had some nice treasures as well. I knew I would buy, but it did become hard to choose. I opted, along with the Malabrigo lace, to get some Malabrigo sock yarn, which is often hard to find. There was also a nice selection of Koigu yarns (also something I don't see often in real life. The shop owner had some NICE triangular shawls knit up with the Koigu and displayed throughout the shop. If I had not already settled on the Malabrigo, I might have gotten some Koigu for a shawl. Lastly, I was tempted by some hand painted sock yarn that was done up by the shop folks themselves for a class. I wanted but I passed. I had to draw the line somewhere.

So I wandered in my yarn groping, tactile way, fluffing the Malabrigo and trying not to miss anything. It's a very nice shop and I hope to go back sometime, although it is not on our homing-pigeon route to the part of the SF Bay Area where my folks live.

As a side note, we also had a REALLY nice lunch at a bistro called The First Street Cafe in the very cute downtown area of Benicia. There was a wait for lunch, but once we got our food, it was apparent why.I had the chicken salad sandwich which was yummy. Walnuts, grapes, balsamic mayo and big chunks of chicken on really good artisan bread. I added a raspberry Italian soda with cream: VERY pink, but tasty. The place was full, thoughout our meal, so if you plan to eat there, be patient.

My childhood memory of Benicia is that it was very blue-collar with a navy yard a working shipping port, oil refineries nearby and really not much more than a small town. The city planners have definitely upscaled it. and the downtown is all shops and boutiques. I didn't spend much time peeking in shops, as there was no time, but between the downtown and the yarn store, I would go back.

Now back to that Malabrigo lace...

Listening and Comfort Food

I had a conversation with my mom today. She is seriously ill. She has been diagnosed with cancer, and the staging process has been complicated by her other health issues. We are awaiting one more test, but the wait is agony. She has had several false starts, but cannot have a PET scan until her blood sugar is under control. This is not just a problem, it is an big issue.

Mom + Insulin Pen = Epic Fail.

So, my bro and I from a long way away, equidistant north and south are trying to do things from a distance. Mom has a good friend, local to her who has been taking her to appointments and watching out for her. (The woman is a saint in my book!) Still, as the medical contact, I am getting calls from Home Health, County Adult Protective Services and various social workers. They all are telling me what NEEDS to be done. Frankly, I want to tear my hair out. Mom is a mess and she can't take care of herself, but has refused most of the services offered to her. She gets pissy defensive and stubborn when confronted. One social worker said I should threaten her with a nursing home in order to convince her to accept help. Ha. As if.

They are all making broad hints that mom should be declared incompetent and put into conservatorship. Yikes. Well, frankly, she is not nuts or incompetent, she just "prefers not to" deal with it in a most Bartleby the Scrivener fashion. As much as this irks me (understatement), it is her choice. I grit my teeth and think "What can I DO??!". Well, today, Mom told me. I phoned her just to check in and she said, in the course of the conversation "your calling means a lot to me and it makes me feel supported".

Well, there it is. She has finally expressed something she wants--to be called. I provide health care to cancer patients and I promised myself, when she was diagnosed, I would not be one of those annoying family members, who browbeat Mom with what I thought she needed which really was what I wanted her to have done. It's about her, not me. I knew all these things from a distance, but it is damned hard to live this concept when someone you love is ill. She has been reticent to express her desires as far as her treatment has gone, but has gone docilely to her appointments. While I am not very hopeful of the outcome, we have slim hope. And while I wish she were more aggressive in fighting this and active in the decision making process, I need to respect her space. Still and finally, I have a starting point. I can do this. I can call her and be calm and loving over the phone, and let her chart her own course, even if it is one of withdrawal. The question is, can I keep my sanity while this is going on? I will still field phone calls from various social services and health people telling me what NEEDS to happen, but I need to learn to detach from them emotionally, while staying emotionally connected to my mom.

In the meantime, I am going bonkers over all this. In the interest of calming down, today, I made stew, despite the gorgeous weather. It is supposed to rain tomorrow and there will be leftovers to enjoy all cozy while the storm rages outside.

I got this recipe from my dad who clipped it out of the newspaper several years ago. It was originally supposed to be served in a baked, whole pumpkin, but that is a hassle, so I added chunks of pumpkin to the stew. I also added carrots and potatoes because, to me, stew seems lacking without them.


Pumpkin Beef Stew

3 pounds boneless chuck trimmed of fat and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 cups chopped onion
2 cups chopped green pepper
1 cup diced celery
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons light olive oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon ground thyme
1/2 cup dry red wine (optional)
2 cups beef broth, preferably homemade
2 cups 1-inch cubed, peeled pumpkin
2 cups cooked fresh green beans
2 cups canned diced, fire roasted tomatoes
2 cups 1 inch cubed carrots
2 cups 1 inch cubed potatoes

In a heavy, 10- to l2-inch skillet, brown the beef, onion, green pepper, celery and garlic in the oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Pour off excess oil. Stir in tomato paste, salt, pepper, bay leaf, thyme, optional red wine and the beef broth. (I add the wine)

Place stew in a covered casserole or kettle and bake in a preheated 325-degree oven 1 1/2 hours. After 1 hour, add tomatoes. 30 minutes later, add the squash, green beans, pumpkin, carrots and potatoes. Return to oven for 20 to 30 minutes or until beef is tender and squash is cooked.

This makes for a stew with a lot of sauce. You can thicken it at the end, by removing 1/2 cup and making a roux with 1/4 cup flour and returning to cook for the last 15 minutes. Serve with bread.


I prefer Brio bread, baked locally. I am totally addicted to the stuff--all varieties, but especially the rustic italian and the kalamata olive bread. YUM!

Goodbye Gabriel

Gabriel: April 15, 1984-Feb 2 2011

Gabriel was a cockatiel. He died today, sometime during the day. I went to check him just before supper this evening and he was lying on the bottom of his cage, gone, cold and stiff, so he must have died quite sometime before. My husband checked him this morning and he was OK, but mostly quiet. He was acting quite frail the last few days, so this was not unexpected, but he didn't seem acutely ill. He was old but, still, it hurts.

In 1984, I got it into my head that I wanted a bird. I was still in college and I thought a bird would work as a dorm/apartment pet. I got Gabriel from one of my father's junior high students who raised cockatiels. I had thought I wanted a conure, but since Dad had a bird connection I ended up with a male cockatiel. He was grey--not a fancy bird at all. I got him sight unseen and he was about 3 months old when I got him. The receipt said he hatched in April (I arbitrarily assigned Tax Day as his birthday.), clutched by Long John, a male with one leg, out of Clinger.

I was taking Summer School Organic Chemistry when I got my new pal and was also housesitting for a professor and his family who were away. They had a large house and a menagerie of animals, so Gabe (or "Reeb" as I came to call him) fit right in. He was standoffish when I got him, but I spent a lot of time with him including studying with his cage by me every afternoon, so we bonded. He wanted me and only me, most of his life. It is flattering to have a critter show such preference. It really is--especially one so wonderful as Gabriel.

He never really "spoke" in the true sense. More rather, he sang words and phrases. He said his name (Gabriel), c'mere! (come here), a noise that sounded like "coyleap!", meowed like a cat made a sneeze noise when I sneezed, copied the sound when I snapped my fingers, made a high pitched chicken like "buck buck ba-KAWK" noise, a couple of odd trills, a little whispered noise like "geeba geeba geeba geeba!", a purr noise, a cardinal bird whistle, some tooth sucking noises that copied me, a hunter's call and a BAD rambling version of "Pop Goes the Weasel" that was recognizable, but only barely. There were other random noises he made and he liked to talk.

He hated most men except one male roommate in 1986 and my husband, whom he took to right away. He could be crabby and bratty and loved, as a young bird, to walk around and bite holes in my textbooks like a conductor punching a ticket. I kept his wings unclipped and he like to fly around the room and to wherever I was, greet me and then stroll around biting books and papers. He was small for a cockatiel and quite skinny all of his life. I tried feeding him well, but he chose to subsist on vitamin fortified seed--the Big Mac of the bird world.

He was a healthy little critter until he was 23 when he began to have eye infections that seemed to clear up once I started adding extra vitamins to his water. Really I tried to push a better diet on him early on, but he rejected most fresh food. I worried about this, but he lived to be almost 27 years old, so I guess I did alright by him. When he went to the vet (for the first time ever at 23) and I told her how old he was she blinked and said she had never treated a cockatiel over 12 years old.

I will miss the way he would shift his eyes from the side to the front-- his "I am an eagle" look. I will miss how his beak made him always look like he was smiling. I will miss how he talked to himself. I will miss how he would talk when I covered his cage as if he were saying: "just one more minute, Mom!" I will miss his relentless curiosity. I will miss how he would bite my glasses, try to pick at my teeth or unhook my earrings--anything shiny was fun! I will miss how he begged to have his head and jaw rubbed. I will miss how he would whistle along with the T.V. when someone would sing or whistle. I will miss watching him play in the shower and how he loved to be sprayed with water and blown dry after ( on the cool setting, of course!). I will miss that he loved to talk to my feet as if they were his peers--they were more his size. And I will miss most that he really showed that he loved me, and wanted nothing more than to hang out with me.

He was a great little companion and I loved him dearly. His passing will leave a HUGE hole in my life, since I had him for the bulk of my adult life. I had almost convinced myself that he would last forever considering how long he lived. I am not planning on getting another bird. I can't imagine a better winged critter than Gabriel. He was a really cute, affectionate and clever creature with an enormous personality. Goodbye my little friend. I will miss you!!

End of the Season

I have been a bad blogger of late. I have had lots to post about, but haven't taken the time to do so.
I have, in the last few weeks, done the following:

1) successfully hunted for chanterelle mushrooms
2) gone to see Benjamin Bagby's "Beowulf"
3) made a duct tape bodyform of my own torso
4) inventoried a large chunk of my knitting projects

...and much more!

I finally decided I needed to share something, so I am sharing this:
















Meet Henny Penny. She is a Shakefork Farm free range chicken, all dressed and ready for roasting. I am smelling her roast even as I compose this post. Henny is lying on a bed of purple sunchokes that were first tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper. She is stuffed with chestnut dressing--my variation on the dressing from the 1975 edition of "The Joy of Cooking".

Chestnut Dressing:

1 lb chestnuts, peeled and chopped
1 cup dry bread cubes
2/3 cup chopped celery
1 small yellow onion, chopped
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1/4 tsp poultry seasoning
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup whole milk yogurt
chopped giblets
chicken stock
salt pepper
butter
olive oil

Saute giblets, celery and onion in olive oil until onion is translucent. Add chestnuts and bread cubes, and toss to coat. Add poultry seasoning, white wine and stock to moisten. Add yogurt and parsley and mix well. Add a lump of butter (about 2 tbsp) and mix well. This will make the dressing taste richer. Season to taste with salt and pepper and stuff your birdie!

Henny is all golden and tasty and resting prior to carvage. Free range goodness! YUM!!















And for dessert: late season watermelon with lime and a sprinkling of paprika. Refreshing!

Rainy Day Blues

It's drippy today. The rains have come early to HumCo this year and that has left me a little grumpy, especially since the weather was wet through June this year. The upshot? We had no Summer on the North Coast.

Add a migraine onto today and I am in the dumps a bit, bored with Facebook, but too fractured to do something useful like housework or knitting or dyeing. I am in the mood to blog though, since it has been 6 weeks since my last post. I don't have much useful to say at the moment, but I have a queue of things coming up.

The first is the upcoming Franklin Habit workshop at Northcoast Knittery. Franklin will be the first bona fide knitterati I have ever met. I have known some fine knitters in my time, but mostly they were "just regular folks" in that they didn't publish, blog or otherwise exist within radar range. I am taking a photography workshop from Mr. Habit with the hope that I can beef up my skills in photographing my own projects for display. Like most famous knitters, Franklin's fame comes in the rarefied small world atmosphere of the knitting world and therefore he has a "day job", so to speak. I am very excited about the workshop, let me tell you! It is going to be a good time. I even bought one of Franklin's books so I can get a signature. I usually confine my autograph seeking to Chris Isaak (I have his signature on 4 CD's, a t-shirt and a ticket stub), but I figure this is a fun opportunity.

Also waiting to be implemented, I finally got a decent bagful of wolf lichen to dye some yarn with. My recent moth problems forced me to organize my stash, and now I know where my dyeable yarn is. The sample from this lichen I saw at last Winter's local Mushroom Fair were a cool lime green, even with varying mordants. I saw thee samples and recognized the lichen right away. It is rampant growing in the Sierra Nevada and California Cascade mountains, usually at higher altitudes. A recent trip to Lassen National Park allowed me to gather a good amount (not IN the park, mind you. I don't think that's legal) near the house I was staying at and at a convenient rest area. I have subsequently learned, however, that wolf lichen is poisonous in quantity, so I will definitely use gloves and caution. I gathered it with bare hands, but if I do so again, I will bring gloves.

I have a lot of other things to dye with as well, when I finally get my act together: re alder bark, dock root an avocado skins. Our buddleia bloomed early and weirdly, so I missed that this year. It is a medium purple and should yield yellows and/or greens. Next year I'll be ready.

My knitting is going forward slowly. I have more UFO's than I can count and they keep piling up. I knit to a stuck point and move on to something easier without finishing the preceding project. Bad me, but it's a hard habit to break. Still, I need to finish something an on that not, I'll close out this post. Ciao!