Shawl Come Back Now

My sister, Susan, is due any second. I've never known nine months to flit past so quickly in all my life.

Athough she has reassured me that the baby won't be christened for quite some time, I still feel a sense of urgency about the shawl. It seldom leaves my side these days, and I am pleased to find that a few stitches here and there does, in fact, add up.

This is it as of five minutes ago, looking crumpled and forlorn as unblocked lace will insist upon doing.



The center panel, which was knitted flat is complete. I've picked up stitches all around the edge and am now working the borders round and round and round and round. And round.

The first bit of border is just a simple band of stockinette with the flower motif Sharon Miller adapted (in Heirloom Knitting) from the traditional cat's paw pattern. I wanted something to buffer the transition from the center to the borders; this seems to have done the trick.

The borders proper - of which I've worked exactly one round - will be a mesh-and-diamonds motif. It should pick up the geometry of the center panel, but instead of diagonals made from decreases, it has diagonals made from yarn-overs.

Reader Richard from DC asked about picking up stitches from the center panel. I made it easy on myself, Richard. When casting on, I added an extra stitch to either side of the pattern, then slipped the first stitch of every row as I knit. Since the standard rule for making a square is to knit twice as many rows as cast-on stitches, when it was time to pick up those edges I had the perfect number of little loops on either side waiting for me. No guesswork, no fuss. Not a revolutionary idea–it's the way Mary Thomas (and many, many others) work the edges of the heel flap on a sock.

I've also eliminated a lot of fuss by restricting myself to patterns that have a plain row every other round. Now that I'm working circularly, it means every other row is just knitting, except at the corner points where I increase by 1 yarn-over on either side of a central stitch. This is the same increase method (out of Elizabeth Zimmermann) that I used in Glencora and it reasonably approximates the look of the grafting done in traditional Shetland Shawls. (By "reasonably approximates," I mean it looks sort of the same if you have no idea what you're looking at and you squint.)

So you see, it's not much of an accomplishment to work this piece on the subway. (You want to see really impressive stuff, go here and here.) The stitch patterns are small - the largest repeat being 12 stitches wide and sixteen high - and grow so logically that after four rounds I don't need the pattern for reference.

Of course, when it's finished and everyone's getting ready for the christeninig and I unfurl it and they all say "ooh" the Official Story will be that I had to sit naked in a mountain hermitage for six months and learn Tantric breathing just to work the provisional cast-on.

Eleanor's Library

My dears, thank you all for the kind wishes you left while I was under the weather. I'm still somewhat cloudy, but as my father the pilot might say, visibility is improving.

No knitting today, if you don't mind. Knitting soon. Books today.

You may recall that a little while ago I wrote about buying books for a colleague's daughter, newly turned thirteen. In that post, I delineated at length my opinion of most novels being published for the not-a-girl-not-yet-a-woman market. In brief, they want to make me gouge out my own eyes with a grapefruit spoon.

I don't wish to retract a word of what I wrote, although one or two commenters did make me wonder whether I ought to have been nicer about Meg Cabot. Thanks to your dizzying 194 comments, I did think deeply about the books we read when young, and how dear they can become to us.

I turned from my desk and faced the five-foot Victorian case where I keep humor and children's books, with Eleanor's Library on the topmost shelf.

To tell you about Eleanor's Library you'll have to step back with me to the early nineties, when I was a recent graduate working for starvation wages at New England Conservatory in Boston.

One good thing about starvation wages: they really teach you to focus your spending. I was quite the thrifty housekeeper in those days, making one chicken and two dollars' worth of vegetables bought from the stalls at Haymarket last for a full week. I didn't eat in restaurants, I didn't go to movies or theater, and I didn't buy clothes that weren't marked "final clearance."

Looking back, I wouldn't have minded so much, really, except for one thing: the budget left me little or no money for books.

When I really couldn't stand it any more, I'd let myself shop a little at the Brattle Bookshop near Downtown Crossing. In the vacant lot next to its tall, old building, the shop would wheel out a fleet of library carts piled with hundreds of books in absolutely no order whatever. They were unguarded and totally unprotected from the elements. These were the rejects, acquired en masse in estate sales and deemed unsellable at retail prices.

And every book cost a dollar.

However, on the money I was making even that was too pricey for more than carefully planned visits. I was pretty careful to stay off Winter Street if I hadn't made sure of my finances in advance.

One day, however, I slipped. I was in the neighborhood to buy dress shoes. My only pair had crumbled to dust. I had to either replace them or go to the office barefoot in February. I got the shoes, but was left with eight dollars: enough to just pay for food until my next check arrived three days later.

It was an awful feeling, and I walked toward the subway in a gray stupor, head down. Passing Winter Street, something in me snapped. I felt sick, and I needed a book to make me feel better. One book. One damned book, or I might well go insane. Surely, I could spare the dollar. Far cheaper than a month in a mental hospital.

I'd been among the carts for about ten minutes when I spotted a decorated spine with the title Hester Stanley's Friends. I picked it up; the cover design was classic Edwardian:



I was surprised to see it outside; normally the Brattle (and most shops) charge a premium for this sort of artwork. Looking inside, I found this inscription on the flyleaf:



I was torn. On the one hand, this was a splendid binding. On the other, it wasn't something I was likely to read. An interesting curiosity, yes. But my circumstances did not permit spending on interesting curiosities. I decided to put it back.

Then I noticed the book next to it. Another decorated spine: Kitty Landon's Girlhood.

Inside, an inscription:



I looked at the shelf again. More decorated spines. Inside each, the same name the same bold script. Somehow, in the midst of all this chaos, these six of Eleanor's books had landed together in a neat row.

My heart started beating. For a bibliophile, this was a moral quandary. I felt like I'd stumbled over a basket of abandoned, infant sextuplets and been asked, "Which one do you want to save from certain death?"

I pulled them all off the cart and held them, debating. I wondered who Eleanor was. I imagined what these books might have meant to her, since they'd been kept together all this time. I wondered if she'd sold them herself, or whether they simply arrived in a mass shipment after her estate had been broken apart.

I looked at the inscriptions again. Eleanor. Eleanor. Eleanor. From Mother. From Uncle Bill. A Happy Birthday. A Very Merry Christmas 1911.

And then it started to rain.

I was hungry for a couple of days, but a sense of Having Done the Right Thing can be very sustaining.

This has been a long post, longer than I intended. More about the books themselves will follow, if you're interested. Plus knitting, I promise. Believe it or not, the christening shawl has grown.

Bleargh

Am (and have been) sick as a dog, and an overly-full work schedule is not helping. Posting will resume as soon as possible.

Lacy Nothings

Today for a change we shall have no squiggly drawings about knitting, no parables about knitting, and no explanations of why this, my knitting blog, contains no knitting.

No, today we shall have knitting.

This, friends, is a close-up of the near-complete center square of the christening shawl, at present my sole project and constant companion.



The icky pink acrylic at the bottom is a provisional crochet cast-on, and it will not be part of the finished piece.

For those of you who don't get into the whole shawl thing, here's a brief overview of how this one will be constructed.



Beginning at the bottom of the square (A) I cast on the full number of stitches needed for the central panel. The panel is knit upwards to completion.

Next, the live stitches at the top of the square, the stitches on both sides of the square, and the stitches at the bottom (freed from their crochet bondage) are all picked up on one circular needle.

The borders (C) are then knit round and round and round, with double increases at each corner point every other row.

When the borders are complete, the edging (D) is begun near one corner and knit back and forth widthwise, with a k2tog joining the edging to the border at the end of each inward row.

When the edging has made a full circumnavigation, the begining and ending are grafted together (E) and you drink an entire bottle of Veuve Cliquot and lie down.

Then, to stretch the piece to its full dimensions and open up the lacework, the whole is blocked severely. I know that "severe" blocking sounds harsh, but il faut souffrir pour la beauté. It also appeals to one's sadistic proclivities, which one seldom mentions in one's blog because one's mother is a regular reader.

I invented none of the above method. It's a perfectly standard, modern way of working a shawl in the Shetland manner, as described by that lovely Sharon Miller in Heirloom Knitting. You'll notice there's no real cast-on or cast-off edge in the entire piece, which I'm thinking must make for an incredible amount of elasticity in the finished object.

We will now take a moment to bless the memory of those many, and mostly anonymous, Shetland knitters who figured all this out so we don't have to.

Two notes on some of the stitch patterns I'm using.

The alphabet, which you can see in the swatch I posted here, was designed by Bridget Rorem and can be found in Piecework, the May/June 1998 issue, which you can still buy here. I'm indebted to Jean's commenter Susoolu for finding that out so I didn't have to.

The pattern for the center panel



can be found in the first volume of Barbara Walker and she calls it (with an uncharacteristic lack of specificity) Leaf Lace/Fern Lace. Well and good. But this baby is going to be born in Maine, and Maine's state flower is (I kid you not) the fir cone. And to me, this looks like a fir cone, and it's my shawl, so as far as I'm concerned it is a fir cone. Hell, if even Barbara can't decide whether it's a fern or a leaf, I figure it's an open question. If you wanna fight about it, let's step outside.

There is, of course, a Shetland lace pattern actually called "fir cone," but I found knitting it to be supremely annoying (it puckers), the motif doesn't look much different from Leaf/Fern, and it lacks the lovely diamond grid created by the decreases in this pattern.

At least my sister isn't giving birth in West Virginia. West Virginia is a beautiful place, but I'd have to come up with my own pattern for the rhododendron and right now I don't even have time to walk to the dry cleaners. I tell you, sometimes I wonder how poor Margaret Stove doesn't run mad in the streets.

Zen Interlude: Spring Awakening

It's terribly unfair.

Chicago, like most of the United States, is experiencing wintry weather that has no business showing up in mid-April. Mind you, I know better than to expect a balmy, shirtsleeves spring beside the Lake. But I do look forward with desperate longing to the arrival of the daffodils every year. Once they bloom, I feel a certain sense of accomplishment in having survived yet another nasty go-around on the Hivernal Carousel.

This year, they bloomed, and then got sucker-punched by snow squalls and freezing temperatures. The bed of daffodils I pass every morning on the way to the office is blackened and shriveled, and I don't feel so well myself.

On the other hand, the other spring arrival–baseball fans–is right on time.

I've nothing against professional baseball. Truly. In general I regard it as most Americans do the opera season, which is to say not at all. Because the transit line I ride services both ballparks in Chicago, however, I do have to deal with baseball fans. Especially Cubs fans.

And yesterday was the home opener.

Illinois is supposedly a blue state, but I've noticed that North Shore (i.e, white and affluent) parents who bring their offspring into the city for Cubs games turn a violent shade of tomato red.

I've tried to understand why this is so. I've concluded that it's because they see a trip to Wrigley Field as a to connect their children with their own past, in those halcyon days when America led the free world, gasoline was cheaper than milk, and Certain People had to sit in the back of the bus.

As the train heads south and Addison Station looms, the parents become so emotional that some actually produce handkerchiefs to deal with the tears. "We're almost there," they gasp, choking on rising nostalgia. "Can you watch for the stadium, Caitlyn? Do you see it coming up?"

I'd be the last person to have a problem with this except that in the midst of a crowded commute, the parents get pushy about art directing the experience and become visibly (and sometimes audibly) annoyed at any extras (that would be the rest of us) who don't fit the motherhood-flag-apple pie aesthetic they're after. For example:

• Passengers occupying window seats, including the elderly. (I once saw an able-bodied man unblushingly ask an old woman if she could give her seat to his five-year-old daughter so she would have an unobstructed view of the Wrigley Field sign.)
  
  
• Persons of African, Latin or Middle Eastern descent.
  
  
• Persons speaking languages other than English.
  
  
• Persons whose appearance deviates in any way from the white, suburban, middle class idea of "normal," i.e. goths, punks, transvestites, homeless people.
  
  
• Males of any stripe who are knitting lace.

During yesterday's commute, I of course fell into at least two of these categories. Possibly three, depending upon how you feel about earrings on men.

This was a source of enormous consternation to a father whose daughter–she was perhaps six–was interested in the progress of the christening shawl.

I didn't notice the family of three–Dad, daughter, son–at first because I was, well, knitting lace. But the daughter kept getting up from her seat and leaning toward my needles. After she'd done this three times I glanced up and gave her a smile.

She smiled back. And then her father yanked her away and pushed her firmly into her seat.

But she got up again, and came over, and this time asked if the design had flowers in it. I was about to explain that the shapes were fir cones when her father yelled, "Halley! Get back here now."

I honestly thought he was concerned that she might be bothering me, so I smiled and said, "It's okay, I don't mind questions."

To which he replied, "You leave my kid alone!"

And then, not directly to me, but just as audibly, "Goddamned freaks."

Rude? Oh yes. But this is not supposed to be another man-knits-in-public-and-attracts-idiocy story. Those are too common to be interesting in and of themselves.

This is a reminder to myself that my own brain's not so different from his.

I may not be inclined to tell a stranger on the subway she's a freak, but it doesn't mean I don't think it. I do it all the time. In fact, I did it at the beginning of this entry, no?

I look, I categorize, I judge. And just as I believe that man got me wrong in believing me to be a threat to his child, I'm certain I often misjudge others.

One of the aspects of elusive Enlightenment I'm pursuing through Zen Buddhism is (I hear) a genuine understanding that between yourself and myself, there is no difference. If I didn't believe that to be so, I'd probably give up sitting zazen. But even though I believe it, I haven't grasped it sufficiently to act upon it.

Hmph. Back to the damn cushion.

Tomorrow: actual knitting. (I know! I can hardly believe it, either!)

Dolores Announces

Hi, it's Dolores.

What a freakin' week, cupcakes. Not only have rehearsals for my upcoming revue at the Lucky Horseshoe kicked into high gear, but I have big news about some other new projects.

First: the Boss has finally agreed to launch Dolores Bébés, my new line of clothing for the Very Young and Impressionable. Check out the shop for designs and details. It's never too early to expose your children to a positive role model, so spend lavishly. Furthermore, I get a cut of the profits and I need not remind you that Virginia Slims don't come free.



Second: response to my call for questions has been, in a word, tremendous.

I knew the world was full of troubled souls, I just didn't know so many of them read this blog. Harry got emotionally overwhelmed trying to screen the letters and so I'm sending him to Branson, Missouri for a couple of days to chill out and maybe catch a few shows. (Ever since he discovered Franklin's hidden stash of Donny and Marie bootlegs, he's been a big fan of the Osmonds.)

Now I've read your cries for help, and I've decided there's too much good stuff for just a blog entry. Would Oprah settle for a blog entry? Would Dr. Phil be content with 200 measly words? Would those smug bitches on "The View" consider the humble written word a suitable outlet for their messages of hope and goodwill?

Me neither.

The networks don't seem to be returning calls this week, so I've decided to sidestep them and pour forth my wisdom via a Podcast to be produced by the newly-formed Dolores Van Hoofen Omnimedia. I've taken a leaf out of Barbra's book and designated myself producer, director, and star. I'm trying to get Sondheim to write me a love theme, but he doesn't seem to be returning calls either. What's the matter, Stephen? You still sulking in your tent over Bounce?

I guess maybe I would be, too.

A Whole Lotta Harlot

I was having a typical, ulcer-inducing Tuesday morning at the office when I got a message from Stephanie "Yarn Harlot" Pearl-McPhee.

She was in Chicago for a book signing. She had just been awoken from a nap by all the civil defense sirens going off. She had been reassured by the reception desk that we were not, in fact, being invaded. But she was not going back to sleep, and wanted to know if I felt like bumming around the neighborhood a bit.

I did. We did.

I'd met Stephanie twice before, but only in the frenetic atmosphere surrounding her personal appearances. This was the first time I could look forward to seeing her off-duty, as it were. To glimpse the Knitter Behind the Mask.

Well, I can tell you without doubt that the rumors you've been hearing are untrue. At no point in the afternoon did she kick little children into the street, throw her cell phone at the paparazzi, or press me to procure illicit hallucinogens so that we could trip while picking the angora fluff off her Bohus. She's quite normal, on the whole, although she does tend to say a lot of things twice–first in English and then in French. But I understand this is not so much demented as merely Canadian.

The three of us–Stephanie, her Traveling Sock, and I–strolled up Michigan Avenue in blessedly temperate weather for a visit to Millenium Park. The park is home to one of Chicago's newest but most popular attractions: Anish Kapoor's gigantic, reflective metal sculpture Cloud Gate. Only nobody (except perhaps the Anish Kapoor) calls it Cloud Gate. It looks exactly like a colossal, alien kidney bean and so we all call it The Bean. (Sorry, Anish.)

Stephanie loves the Bean. The sock loves the Bean. The sock was, of course, photographed in front of the Bean. Here, I offer you a glimpse behind the scenes:



I also took this very meta shot of me photographing Stephanie photographing Stephanie photographing the Sock.



Maybe we were tripping a little.

That might explain why, for example, we not only took a spin through American Girl Place, but actually considered–for one chilling moment–eating lunch at the American Girl Café.

However, the sight of overprivileged children, many of whom were dressed as princesses, waiting in line to have their expensive poupées professionally coiffed at the doll hair salon snapped us out of it and we fled back to the street, swearing never to speak of this to anyone.

Sorry, Steph.

The hours simply flew past and suddenly it was time to head out to Oak Brook for the signing.

It was what many of you will recognize as a typical Yarn Harlot event.

There were boatloads of enthusiastic people:



Stephanie's presentation was top-notch:



I was delighted to encounter adorable friends:



(Clockwise from back left: Knitting Camp buddy who prefers to remain nameless, Jonathan and Meg aka the Two Sock Knitters, and the Sock Knitters' very delightful friend Thorny.)

And quite a few nice readers–many of whom I'd never met–came over and said hello to me. I love that. That does not get old.

Meanwhile, Stephanie signed 25,683 books, posed for pictures, blessed babies, petted the socks of strangers, and generally handled the situation with unflappable élan. Except when the nice woman from the bookstore brought her Perrier instead of Evian and it was chilled to 67 degrees intead of 64. She'll never do that again, let me tell you, even if it turns out there won't be a scar where the podium hit her in the head.

And then, high on the energy of all those knitters rallying together, we rode back to the city. I wished her good-night at her hotel, then headed north to my place. And realized, sitting in the taxi, that I'd forgotten to have her sign my copies of the book.

It figures.

Notes on Shawl Design

Now, as Miss Cleo was wont to say in her heyday, I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking,

"Cut the crap, child. We know perfectly well that the extended ruminations on literature and the squiggly cartoons and the guest appearances by your fictitious slutty sheep houseguest are mere smoke and mirrors intended to distract us from sad reality. You haven't been knitting anything interesting, have you? Have you?

To which I can only respond, in the words of (I believe) Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Neener neener neener."

Because I have been knitting my furry little fingers to bits. But since you had to get huffy, all you get to see for now is the swatch.



This is the "final" swatch, in which the yarn, the needles, and the stitch patterns at last got together and danced in perfect lockstep around the living room while the orchestra played a spirited rendition of "You Got to See Your Mama Every Night (Or You Can't See Mama at All)."

We have here a laceweight cashmere/silk laceweight procured my homie in Boston, manipulated with size 1 Addi Turbos using stitch patterns collected by that nice Miss Walker, plus a lace alphabet to which I was introduced by one of the goddesses in my household pantheon.

As I will never have the pleasure of regaling a child of my own with stories of the labor pains he caused me, I instead look forward to forcing my niecephew to listen as I tell of how Uncle Franklin turned the world upside down and shook it so as to discover novel, seldom-seen lace patterns to put into this christening shawl.

As evidence I shall present a series of swatches which, laid end to end, would stretch all the way from Rhinebeck to Toronto and back again, except these days good luck getting customs officials at the border to cooperate. These swatches include motifs from the Estonian, Shetland, Orenberg, Asian, and Eastern European camps. They were begged from august lace knitting authorities, painstakingly recreated from fuzzy magazine illustrations, puzzled out of antique books and magazines.

And, ultimately, the winning patterns were taken from Barbara Walker, volume one, where they are located on facing pages directly opposite one another.

(But don't let that make you feel guilty. I did it out of love.)

And, as you will have guessed from the A-B-C, there will be a special message for the little kid worked into the finished piece. I'd like it to be a surprise for the parents on the Big Day, so I'll just share some of the options that were considered, then rejected:

• WHERE DID YOU COME FROM, BABY DEAR?
• WELCOME TO THE CLUB
• GOD BLESS THE CHILD THAT'S GOT HIS OWN
• PEE ON THIS SHAWL AND YOU WON'T GET ANOTHER PRESENT OUTTA ME UNTIL YOU'RE FORTY-SIX
  
• BE THANKFUL THIS ISN'T A BRIS
  
• DON'T WORRY, YOU CAN STILL BECOME A BUDDHIST LATER ON

That's my problem, you see. I just have so many good ideas, there could never be enough time to knit all of them.

Fuzzy Thinking

Hi. It's Dolores.

So, I was sitting around the other day having afternoon tea at the 'Shoe with my friend Gracie. (I know, it seems like an odd place for it, but the staff there is always quick with the teabags.)

I don't think I've mentioned Gracie before. Nice kid. We met in the fitting room at Victoria's Secret, when she diplomatically stepped between me and the saleswoman who wouldn't sell me a Miracle Bra because "the name of the garment is not to be taken literally, madam."

Bitch.

Anyhow, the least I could do for Gracie to make up for the hoof abrasions and the small bite on her left ear was buy her a drink. Over a couple of cosmos, she told me her story. And wouldn't you know, it's so similar to mine.

After they crowned her Miss Chickasaw County, she moved from Iowa to Chicago to parlay her good looks into a modeling career. So reminiscent of my own rise from a simple Vermont farm girl to the face and body of Woolrich back in the...whenever it was.

Gracie's getting a decent amount of work around town doing catalog shoots and the occasional television ad for this podiatrist who has the hots for her left foot. She really could be going places fast, except for one thing. She's dumb. As a brick. As a box of hair. As a parcel of Dubyas tied up with a Condoleeza bow.

Seems like every time we get together I have drag her perky tush out of yet another morass into which she has sailed with all flags flying. Man problems, weight problems, fine points of etiquette and wardrobe–some days, let me tell you, she's enough to give Sigmund Freud a migraine.

But I don't mind helping, because she's got a big heart to go with her big rack and she's always grateful. Like the other day, I'd helped her over a difficulty she was having with sentence structure in Cicero's speeches, and she looked over at me with those deep, brown eyes and said, Dolores, you're such a role model and inspiration. And I said, I know honey, I can't help it.

And then she said it was a shame that more people couldn't benefit from my several advanced degrees including the big-ass PhD I earned from the School of Life. And I said, honey you're so right for once.

So, in the spirit of noblesse oblige (which is French for "If you got it, flaunt it") I would like to open the floor to all those out there wandering in darkness. I got my own e-mail address and everything, it's dolores@franklinhabit.com. My faithful assistant Harry and I will consult to decide which letters I'll answer in here.

Just don't send me any naked pictures this time, got it? Not that I have an issue, but the Boss got all twitchy and shouty last time when I set them up as his screen saver.

Some people have no sense of humor.

Out of the Sketchbook

Let's Catch Up On...

Books

Your many, many reading suggestions for Violet and other teen-aged girls were wonderful and overwhelming. Both the birthday girl and her mother (who thanks you all, as do I) have read them.

I took care to indicate when inscribing Violet's books that some of the content might be a little "mature" for her mother's comfort; this seems to have had the desired result on her level of interest in them.

I needed something fun for bedtime reading, so I picked up the new Penguin edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. They did it up right, translating the whole megillah into English for the first time and snagging the Dalai Lama to write the introduction. Pretty cover, too.

It makes a nice counterpoint to the other thing on my nightstand–the latest volume of the Complete Peanuts series.

The older I get, the more I understand why potential husbands have often fled my presence when the conversation turned to books.

Knitting (Mine)

The new Baby Surprise Jacket is complete except for weaving in ends and choosing buttons. Pictures forthcoming. I tried something new this time, and instead of making yo,k2tog buttonholes as Elizabeth specifies, I turned to her one-row method from Knitter's Almanac. It works like a charm. By the third buttonhole, I had the method memorized. Highly recommended.

Knitting (Other People's)

I've been hearing from many the ten colleagues to whom I taught the basics back in February, and the word is encouraging. A summary:

• One has pressed onward with her scarf, refusing to rip back, amazed by the improvement in her technique since the cast-on row. She's doing very well, with even tension and neat edges. Her first ten rows or so are fascinating, as in places the results are unlike anything I've ever seen anybody create with needles and yarn. Perhaps I should encourage her to send the finished object to Debbie New for analysis.
  
  
• One threw her little bag of supplies into a suitcase at the last minute before leaving on a business trip. She was delayed at the airport for hours. She says the knitting saved her sanity. I tried not to look overly smug.
  
  
• One decided she didn't want to continue on in the yarn from the class, so she went to the yarn store and bought her own. She emerged unscathed with a bag of wool she likes very much. She's well into the second ball and can see the Promised Land.|
  
  
• The student who didn't want to put down her needles after she picked them up found somebody to teach her to purl and is now, by her own admission, addicted. She is asking questions about lace.

Okay, Headquarters: where's my toaster oven?

Podcasting

Brenda Dayne has asked for a new essay for the end of the present Cast On series, which delights me without end. I finished the first draft last night, once I pried Dolores (who was cruising Craiglist for temporary companionship) away from the computer.

A couple people have asked if I'm going to do a Podcast of my own. No plans to at present, no. It's a lot of work to do it well, and I can barely keep up with what's already on my plate. However, I've toyed with the idea of an occasional audio "supplement" to this blog, because I've been building a Podcast for my employer and have fallen in love with the process.

Movies

Following my review of 300, we learned via comments that Véronik Avery (who knew you were reading?) is not only so talented that she designs stuff like the "Salt Peanuts" sweater from Interweave Knits Spring 2004, she's also married to one of the Spartans from the film.

I could so smack her.

E-mail

I think there are about 340 people waiting for e-mail from me. Now that I'm starting to emerge from the black fog that has enveloped me for two or so months, I'm working through the pile. Your patience is appreciated with an almost weepy level of gratitude.

The Shop

I haven't had the energy to do much with the shop, either; but my ink bottle is once again full, so to speak. Watch (if you've nothing better to do) for the arrival of P2tog and some other stuff in the next week or so.

Tonight We Dine in Hell, Tomorrow We Brunch in Lincoln Park

Last night I did something completely uncharacteristic and went to the Navy Pier IMAX to see 300. Unless you count Henry V, I'd never before willingly sat through a war flick.

I'm not afraid to fight if I must, but I don't like violence and I hate war. I particularly detest the glorification of war, even at a remove of several thousand years.

So what the hell drew me to see 300?

There were many reasons.

The first: I was graciously invited by a fellow from the gym who had recommended it highly.

The second and third:



I'm not going to lie to you. If this had been a World War II picture and the soldiers were all running around France covered up in fatigues, I don't think I'd have been interested.

The official title is 300; but me, I'll always think of it as 600+. Yeah, there was occasional female nipplage, too, but I quickly figured out that if I squinted those parts just looked like a Tressamé commerical.

Before the lights dimmed, I found myself conflicted about which side to back. The intended heroes are the Spartans, of course. But my Middle Eastern ancestry gave me a certain sympathy for the Persians. I decided to withhold my allegiance until I got a look at both kings.

Leading the Spartans, you have 300's central character, Leonidas. He bears a startling resemblance to the soi-disant Mask of Agamemmnon excavated by Schliemann at Mycenae:



Leonidas is tough but tender, with great nobility of character. He also has an ass upon which one could serve breakfast, lunch, dinner, afternoon tea, and a midnight snack. (I regret that I have not a picture of the ass to show you.)

All admirable qualities, and I was prepared to root for Leonidas and His Merry Men. Then, after a bunch of fuss and botheration and decapitation, Xerxes showed up, carried in by slaves on his own traveling Ziegfeld staircase:



dressed in a get-up that was clearly an homage to supergay disco legend Sylvester:



The word "fabulous" simply shrivels and dies when confronted with such as this.

How on earth is a man to choose?

There was a too-brief moment in which it looked as though the two forces might merge


and render the question moot. But just when the wokka-chikka music should have started, somebody threw a spear or something and then Leonidas bellowed again and we were back to serial decapitations in slow-mo.

Even though I knew *SPOILER ALERT!* the Spartans were going to wind up as shish kabob, ultimately I finally found myself howling for Big Daddy Leonidas. Xerxes was a little too much the posing Pretty Boy for my taste, though I'd consider doing him in exchange for his earrings.

To my great surprise, I enjoyed 300 from start to finish. Granted, it lacks certain things. Character development, for one. And it would have been nice to see the Spartans actually making out with one another between battles. However, as my companion for the evening suggested, we have but to wait patiently for the pornographic director's cut on DVD.

As they say in Sparta, "Arrrrooooooooooooooooooo."

Le Coochie Dancer Malgré Lui

If you've been coming here for a while you know that when it comes to making good on her Big Plans, Dolores ranks somewhere between President Bush and Mr. Toad.

I've been stuck at work so much lately that home, when I was there, seemed relatively quiet and I'd grown hopeful that this, too would pass. I inquired of Harry, who answered evasively and quickly returned to the Ida B. Wells page of his Sistahs with Attitude Coloring Book.

Then, last night, I found something stuck between the sofa cushions:



I confronted the resident chanteuse with it this morning when I got home from the gym.

"I wondered what the hell happened to that," she said. "Much obliged, cupcake."

"I take it the show is still on?"

"When an artist is announced, an artist must perform."

"And you've recruited your chorus line?"

"Yeah. Didn't you read the back of the page?"

"The front was more than sufficient."

She flipped it over and held in under my nose.

"Why is my name on this list?"

"I guess I forgot to mention it. I need a novelty act. You're a little long in the tooth, but Lucky Horseshoe people told me I have to cater to all tastes. Do you still have that cop shirt Lars gave you?"

"Yes, but–"

"Fabulous, we're all set. Don't worry, I'm scheduling evening rehearsals since a buncha the other guys got day jobs, too. You know, Genghis is only five-five...how do you feel about a duo number? No tongues."

"I'm not–"

"Listen, I'd love to chat," she said, "But I have an early appointment with the costume designer. We can catch up later tonight. No, I have a date. Tomorrow night, then. Meet and greet with the other guys before the choreographer gets here. Wear something stretchy."

Anybody in the Chicago area have a spare room to rent?

Why I Am Going to Be a Lousy Uncle

I'd like to take a moment to say thank you for all the encouraging words that followed my last post. I am, you will notice, still here. I am even feeling rather better. The Baby Surprise Jacket continues charmingly. Dum spiro, spero.

The daughter of M, a dear colleague, is about to celebrate her thirteenth birthday. In celebration I went out to buy her a couple of books as a present. I've done so every year since M and I began working together. I don't often socialize with co-workers, but M is a delightful exception, and her daughter, whom I'll call Violet, is a good egg.

Until this year, choosing which books to give has been no problem. More often than not I wrapped up new copies of old favorites–Laura Ingalls Wilder, Roald Dahl–and sometimes later discoveries like Karen Cushman (author of Catherine, Called Birdy and The Midwife's Apprentice).

Thirteen is a big birthday. I decided to move out of the kid lit section and into the hitherto unexplored stacks labeled "Teen Readers." M told me that Violet is fond of Meg Cabot's "Princess" novels and so I thought perhaps I'd pick up something in that line.

An hour later, I staggered away from the "Teen" books bent double under deep misgivings about what's being fed to young readers by modern publishing. The available stock at Barnes and Noble leads me to conclude that:

1. Teenaged boys do not read books any more. If there were, let's say, 500 works in the section, perhaps ten were not explicitly aimed at girls.
   
   
2. Girls who read are encouraged to pursue one of three paths: princess, witch,* or slut. Should she find any one role limiting, she can blend them to become (for example) a slutty princess, or a royal witch.
   
   
3. Whatever she wishes to be, she is taught that life's chief goal is to get a boyfriend, whether she has to buy him (princess), put a spell on him (witch), or wiggle her skinny ass until he capitulates (slut).
   
   
4. All girls have three tools with which to nab the boyfriend: connivery, sex and submission. This last is true even if, according to Debrett's Peerage or similar, she outranks him.
   
   
5. A girl can either have the boyfriend or her own life/interests, but never the two at once.
   
   
6. Meg Cabot's idea of being a royal princess appears to be modeled on the life of Tori Spelling, except that instead of living in a big house in Beverly Hills one lives in a big house in a fictional country in Europe.
   
   
7. Most girls in "Teen Readers" books probably could not point to Europe on a map if it were lit up and flashing. But it doesn't matter, because being smart turns boys off and if you are smart, you better hide it.
   
   
8. I saw three books with non-white teen girls as their chief characters. One girl was a slave, one was marching to Selma, and one was having a baby and getting over a heroin addiction.
   

Here's what I got Violet for her birthday:

• Crowned in a Far Country: Portraits of Eight Royal Brides by Princess Michael of Kent
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie

None is from the "Teen Readers" section, and I'm pretty sure none is on Violet's wish list. But I figure I'm giving her two glimpses of real royal history, and the ur-Harlequin romance. I have no idea if she'll read them.

Maybe if they sit on her shelf for a while, she'll get curious and step away from the Meg Cabot.** Maybe she'll discover there's more out there than the latest crap designed to groom her as a docile consumer of The Rules, Bridget Jones, and He's Just Not That Into You.

*I don't mean a practitioner of Wicca. I mean Lindsay Lohan, but with the secret power to give her nemesis a giant zit, and make Jeremy ask her to the prom.

**I realize this is a snobbish thing to say, especially as Meg's Princess has a boyfriend and I don't. Perhaps I should read the books myself, and learn.

Solace

Since my last post, the weather in Chicago has turned freakishly warm. It's only a temporary spell, says the weatherman, but for the moment we've moved from bleak midwinter to early June.

I expected my mood my elevate with the thermometer, but it hasn't. I'm stuck in the doldrums and my head isn't properly screwed on. It has been thus for an annoyingly long time–my energy keeps ebbing, and all I want to do is crawl under the bed and ignore the world.

I don't often write about feeling blue. That's a difficult state of mind to pin down with words; it almost always comes out as whining.

I hate whining, and have extremely limited patience with those who indulge.

It'd make me feel better to write about where I'm seeking comfort. Anybody care to guess?



Yup.

It's a Baby Surprise Jacket. The yarn is Rowan Felted Tweed, bought in Amsterdam a couple of years ago. Unlike the first jacket, this one's not going to Mongolia. I know the baby who will (I hope) wear it, although we have not yet been formally introduced.

Since I began it, this project and I have been inseparable. It's giving me exactly what my brain craves right now: a clear path with a definite ending. Cast on, knit, cast off, fold, sew. No room for uncertainty.

My life right now is a great tottering pile of uncertainty. I was coasting along in a dull little rut when suddenly things started to splinter. Possibilities have arisen involving my life, my work, and my romantic entanglements. All are distantly promising, but the promise could evaporate at any moment. And there's only so much I can do about it.

I hate, hate, hate that.

These are two things Buddhism has taught me, and that I believe:

1. All things are impermanent and change is constant.
2. Suffering arises from the desire to hang on to things that are impermanent or control that which cannot be controlled.
   

Smart cookie, that Buddha. You look at those two points, and you see a clear way out of my difficulty. Stop fretting over what I can't change anyhow. Let things run their course. Relax.

All the people reading this who know me well just had a laughing fit.

If I can't control the big things, dammit, I'll try to control the little ones. Give me two needles and yarn, and I can make one stitch after another until the thing I want is in my grasp. I'm going to knit this jacket, and keep on knitting, until the other stuff I want either shows up or doesn't. It gives me the illusion of control. And I know it's just an illusion, but sometimes illusion is enough.

It Must Be March

How do I know this? Because of the hint of spring warmth in the breeze? The almost indiscernible aroma of fecundity among the flowerbeds? The palest green promise of buds on the bare branches?

Fuck no. Are you kidding? I live in Chicago. Everything here is dead, gray, and frozen with no end in sight. It's like Narnia without the exotic animal life. If I'm not still wearing my frigging overcoat in June, I'll feel lucky.

Ah, that's it. That's how I know it's March. It's because I have offically Had It with winter and have withdrawn into my own season, the Season of Crabbiness. If Mother Nature were to peek her smiling, ruddy face through my window right now, I'd rip it off.

Knitting: Big Whoop

At such times it would probably be best to keep me away from all undertakings involving sharp, pointed implements. Nonetheless, I knit. Nothing spectacular, but at least with both hands full I can't smack random passers-by.

Here is what I have to show you right now. It's (are you sitting down?) a square-in-progress.

I wouldn't even show this to you except that even in my present state of mind I think the combination of yarn and stitch pattern is quite successful.



I got the pattern out of one of the Vogue Stitchionary books. I can't remember which one, and the book is all the way over there. It's called diagonal lace or prettyprettywow lace or happyshinyfuckitlace or something like that. The sample shot uses green yarn. I think. I'm not sure. Like I said, the book is all the way over there.

I had to re-do this dazzlingly complex work of art three times before I finally realized that there's a mistake in the three-row pattern and that if you follow it verbatim, your left edge gradually decreases and you will wind up with a right triangle instead of a square. Now, if you want to knit a @#%!* right triangle, why, it's just the very thing.

The yarn, which is soothing even to hands that might otherwise be hurling chunks of ice at widows and orphans, is from Black Bunny Fibers. Carol, one of my favorite Yarn Pushers, sent it to me along with instructions to knit it up to certain dimensions and not to ask any questions.



I may be a bitchy mood, kids, but I still know better than to argue with a lady who sends me free yarn.

Casting Call

You know it's not going to be a nice, quiet evening when you come home from work and find that somebody has posted this notice on your front door:

AUDITIONS
3:30-9 p.m.
Please have your headshot and resume ready.
Dancers please remove your shirts.

I took deep breath (which sounded more like an exasperated gurgle) and stepped into the foyer. Mrs Teitelbaum was there on a folding chair next to a card table, reading a copy of People magazine.

Her head jerked up as I closed the door. "Did you make an appointment?"

"No, Mrs Teitelbaum," I said. "What are–"

"Well, okay," she said. "You're kind of short but she did say she needs all kinds, so give me your photograph and take off your shirt and wait in the kitchen and maybe we can fit you in somehow."

"Mrs Teitelbaum," I said, "It's Franklin. Franklin."

She lifted her pince nez onto her nose and stared at me.

"Ohhhhh," she said. "It's you. She didn't think you'd be home so soon. I'm afraid she's not going to be very happy about this. We're right in the middle of things."

"Things?"

Suddenly from the living room I heard what sounded like an asthmatic Corgi singing "I Want Your Sex" with piano accompaniment.

"DOLORES!" I screamed.

The piano and the Corgi broke off in mid-phrase. Dolores huffed in, followed by Harry, who was carrying a notebook and a stack of 8x10 glossies.

"What are you doing home?" she said. "I thought you had a date."

"Not this month."

"Can you go get one? And not come back before, say, nine or ten?"

"What the hell is going on in here?"

"I am trying to conduct auditions, cupcake, in preparation for what will undoubtedly be the musical and terpsichorean sensation of the Boystown summer season."

"I don't even want to know."

"I have been engaged," said Dolores, "to present my song stylings at a venerable and beloved Chicago boite, and for this I require a top-notch supporting ensemble."

"Huh?"

"She got hired by the Lucky Horseshoe to sing three nights a week and introduce the coochie dancers," said Harry.

"What's a coochie?" said Mrs Teitelbaum. "Is that French for cookie?"

"Will you all please shut up?" said Dolores. "I am paying the pianist by the hour and we have talent stacked up in the kitchen waiting to be seen."

"And they already used up all the ice in the freezer trying to keep their nipples perky," said Harry. "So one of the guys was asking if he could crack open that box of frozen soy nuggets."

"I like chocolate chip coochies best," said Mrs Teitelbaum.

"Are we done? Should I put my pants back on now?" shouted the Corgi voice from the living room.

"Yes!" I yelled.

"No!" screamed Dolores. "I haven't seen you do the dance combination yet. Harry, let's roll."

The piano launched into the opening bars of Kylie Minogue's "Your Disco Needs You." Mrs Teitelbaum bobbed her head in time and snapped her fingers.

"Aren't you going to take your shirt off like the others?" she said vaguely.

"No."

"Oh, that's too bad. Say, when my shift is done would you like to come over to my apartment for a coochie?"

I think I'm going to start sleeping at the office.

Each One Teach Twelve

Glorious Comrades:

Let none among you say I am not doing my bit to increase the tribe. About a month ago, I was asked if I'd teach knitting to my colleagues in the office. I kid you not. Once per quarter, we're herded into a room together for an afternoon class of some kind. This time, they decided it would be fun to play with yarn. And who am I to argue with that?

However, I firmly declined to teach basic knitting to a crowd 35 people, many of whom have no interest in the subject. I said I'd take on a dozen–and they had to volunteer to be there. I can imagine few chores more thankless than trying to frogmarch an unwilling horde through the longtail cast-on.

And so we assembled last week in a sunny room looking out to the lake. A funeral and a sick child reduced the class to ten. Everyone sat down with a ball of bulky Louët Riverstone and a pair of US 10 bamboo needles,* and about an hour later everybody had cast on and done at least a row or two of garter stitch.

This was my first time leading a group, and I was fascinated by the differences among the students. I'd divide them roughly into three categories.

1. This is interesting, but... Comprised about a third of the students. Will probably never pick up the needles again. I'd like to think it's not the fault of my teaching. It's certainly not because I lack evangelical zeal. They were all politely enthusiastic, but when the opportunity to break for cookies presented itself they took off–and didn't take their (free!) yarn and (free!) needles with them.
   
   
2. Hey, this isn't half bad... The majority reaction. Pressed on through the terror of casting on and the first, tentative row of stitches to reach a point where they were knitting without dropping, adding, or holding onto their needles like Dubya clinging to the last shreds of his authority.
   
   
3. St Paul on the Road to Damascus. One student, an absolute beginner. Fumbled the cast-on once or twice. Then, as though she'd been kissed by the spirit of Elizabeth Zimmerman, knit about seven perfect rows and could not stop. When it could no longer be denied that class was over and it was time to go back to work, she looked positively stricken. "I don't want to," she whimpered. "I just want to knit. I don't want to do anything else. It's not fair."

Remember the first time you said that?

Honest to goodness, I don't know to feel about her. It may be that she'll always remember me as the fellow who ushered her into a world of limitless creative possibility. Alternatively, she may remember me as the reason she's in rehab, couples therapy, or credit counseling.

Mercury Is a Punk-Ass Chump

Nothing too exciting on the needles at present. I'm afraid even to touch the christening shawl, considering my abysmal track record over the past several weeks. I've never been much of one for astrology, but the idea of a Mercury retrograde* screwing up my knitting seems downright logical. I mean, the problem can't possibly be me.

Against all odds, I've finished the Earth Mother socks and they look fine. They aren't exciting, but they fit and they match. Right now, that feels like Achievement.

On the other hand, the Mystery Square has been frogged. Again.

The altar cloth? Ripped back to the start of the Endless Knot pattern. Again.

Will somebody please tell me when Mercury is going to get its ass back in gear? Will it be soon? Or should I just give up and start blogging about découpage and popsicle-stick birdcages?

*Thanks to our outfitters at Arcadia Knitting.
*Thanks to commenter Tamar for telling me about this. If you're one of the 5,000 people who needs an e-mail from me, that's Mercury's fault, too. Also, Mercury made me eat a lot of peanut M & Ms last night, and hid my laundry detergent. And my dishwasher.

Gather Ye Rosebud

Once upon a time when the world was young and I was a college student, I had the luxury (which I did not, then, appreciate) of spending hours lying about discussing topics of High Import with my classmates. Imagine Plato's Symposium, only instead of growing drunk on wine we were getting buzzed on chocolate chip cookie dough.

One of my pet themes was whether one can impose a hierarchy of values on the world of art. For example, was it valid to declare, as the French academics did, that history painting was the pinnacle of achievement, with other genres (still life, portraiture, etc.) ranked below. At times I was known to become quite heated about this and say "ergo"-and even, when I'd had too a little too much dough, "quod erat demonstrandum."

(Heh heh. Crazy days. Remind me to tell you some time about the great Schopenhauer Kerfuffle of 1991. Man, I wonder how we didn't all wind up with police records?)

Anyway, without fail I was on the side of those who felt the creation of an absolute hierarchy of either individual works of art, or of media (i.e., oil painting is "higher" than watercolor) was silly. I'm still of the opinion that an artwork itself has no inherent value; it acquires it in the mind of the beholder. The Mona Lisa, for example, is nothing but mineral pigments when there's nobody standing there looking at it.

I feel the same way when it comes to shoving needlework techniques into a caste system. For example, there are those-and they are entitled to their opinion-who hold that knitting is somehow superior to crochet. I don't happen to agree. I think it's not the technique, it's what you do with it. Knitting snobs would do well to remember that nice yarn and two needles do not always result in a work of art...or have you forgotten You Knit What?

By the same token, crochet can be used to create an object so hideous that just looking at it takes seven years off your lifespan, or it can be used to make the rather spectacular filet tablecloths I bought in Greece last summer.

But.

I must admit to certain prejudices. For example, when I was child every household had at least one revolting zig-zag crocheted afghan over the back of the sofa. I hated them. Hated them so much that I can't even stand the Shetland lace "feather-and-fan" pattern because it makes me think of those afghans.

Ditto granny squares. I know, I know. They're hip right now, they're funky, they're vintage. People just love them. They're on the runway, they're in the books, everyone's making them, blah blah blah. I look at them and have unfortunate flashbacks to sitting around watching Lawrence Welk and eating stale cookies while the grown-ups discussed their gall bladders.

However, like a good Buddhist I do my darnedest to avoid Fixed Viewpoints and, on occasion, even my congenital aversion to certain yarn-based atrocities can be overcome.

John Brinegar, over at Yarn Ball Boogie, has just done it. He's come up with a granny-square scarf with which I am in love, to the extent that I may lie in wait outside his door so that I can conk him over the noggin with my copy of Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and steal it.

If you've seen John's work, you know he's good at pushing the boundaries enough to make you look twice at things you've seen so often they're easy to overlook. Rosebud is definitely a pattern like that. I love the metal connecting rings, and I love subtle shifts in color.

It makes me...it makes me wish I could...crochet...granny squares...

Excuse me, please. The room is starting to spin. I think I need some cookie dough.

Simple Needs