Aristocracy Fixation

It's been so long since I posted any project photographs, I decided I'd better show you something in order to preserve my meagre allotment of knitter's street cred.

(If you're a new reader, welcome. Also, apologies. This is a very odd knitting blog in that actual yarn makes only occasional appearances. I keep meaning to post the latest ten rows of my whatever and never quite get around to it. So I draw pictures to distract you. Now you know the custom of the country.)

Here's the Regicide Scarf, front (right) and back (left).



I am still deeply in love with this yarn, which is Four Play from Brooks Farm. I can't believe how much yardage was included in the skein for a mere $14 or $16 (can't quite remember which). The scarf is 6 inches wide and a bit over 4 feet long, and I still have a good 1/2 the ball left to knit. That's generosity.

As you can see, the reverse of the scarf has the pebbly texture of reverse stockinette, because that's mostly what it is. There are traces visible of the King Charles Brocade diagonals, but they disappear at two paces. I quite like the look, especially in the variegated colorway.

C was away this weekend in New York City, so I spent a lot of time on another project as well, the square baby shawl from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac. I'm working it in Dale Baby Ull.

The shawl pattern is simple (two paragraphs or so) but includes a lot of fun stuff, like Emily Ocker's Circular Cast-On (done with a crochet hook). If unaltered, it produces a very simple square with faggot stitch dividing the four plain stockinette quarters.

I decided to put Version II of the Tulip Lace from Barbara Walker Volume I into each quarter, with the strong central line of the stem running diagonally to the corners of the square. I also plan on a lace edging using some Shetland pattern or another, courtesy of Sharon Miller's Heirloom Knitting. My first attempt was good, but not what I'd hoped for. I frogged it all completely, started over, and am much happier.

Pictures forthcoming. No, seriously.

I finished the beginning of the shawl during the final minutes of the last episode of The Pallisers, and so in honor of one of my favorite characters from English fiction I have re-named the project "Glencora." (Susan Hampshire, I love you.)

A scarf commemorating a dead king and a shawl named after the fictional Duchess of Omnium. Boy, some democrat I am.

Cast On: Episode 17

Thank you for all the enthusiastic comments about Episode 17 of Cast On. My dominant feeling is relief. Relief that my trusty essayists (C and Buzz) turned up trumps in both writing and performance. Relief that I got my bits recorded. Relief that said bits successfully arrived in Wales. Relief that I did not, in fact, sink Brenda's ship by rambling on incoherently and then making everybody listen to bluegrass.

People have been asking to see the sweater with the Latin inscription worked into it. It's here.

My Former High School

A concerned parent from Honolulu also wanted to know the name of the awful high school I went to. Here's their Web site. My disappointment at learning that the place hasn't been shut down and replaced by condominiums or a Pizza Hut knows no bounds.

I was particularly amused to find the following listed as an aspect of the school's educational mission:

Celebrates the value and dignity of each person and nurtures the development of the whole person.

I guess the faculty are no longer allowed to publicly single out members of the student body who ask questions like "Why are there no female authors on any of our reading lists?" as "stupid fucking faggots."

They've probably also dropped the lesson in biology class where AIDS is explained as God's punishment on men who sleep with men. And the attempts in gym class to find out who was gay so that they could torture the suspects.

(Before anybody starts an anti-Catholic or anti-Catholic school tirade in the comments, don't. I have [extremely] bad memories of this particular school. I don't allow slams at any religion on this blog, and I'll delete them without exception or apology. So hold your fire.)

And Finally

Hot gay cowboys on pretty horses.





See? You forgot all about how I didn't take pictures of the baby shawl, didn't you?