Chatter
Did you guys want to hear me natter on at length about Book the Second? I'll warn you, I talk fast. But if you're not put off by the speed of my prattle, there's a wee interview over on this week's Knit Pick's podcast. And, in totally unrelated news, I seem to have beaten InDesign into submission. I feel like I'm actually making progress. Of course there's still plenty to learn, but at least I feel like I'm getting the hang of it instead of simply flailing and swearing. There's hope for me yet.
Loser
I am currently engaged in an epic battle of wills. I am losing. This is somewhat disappointing, as my opponent is InDesign. InDesign, being a (more or less) inanimate object, should not be able to win out against me, a real live thinking breathing human being with more or less reasonable levels of clue and perseverance. And yet, I am still definitely losing this battle. You'll have to pardon my partial absence for a day or two while I decide whether to keep trying or to burn my whole house down to teach the computer who's boss. At this particular [...]
Rip-rippity-rip-rip-rip
Every now and then someone asks me how it is that all my knitting comes out so well. After I've stopped laughing, I assure them that it doesn't. Not really at all. An amazing percentage of my knitting comes out exceptionally badly. Probably a higher percentage than of your knitting. Every pattern that gets to the point where you see it has had lots and lots (and lots) of failed prototypes. So, just to reassure those of you who might be feeling that you're the only one whose knitting occasionally looks like a pile of limp spaghetti, allow me to [...]
Instant Gratification
I don't knit scarves. Any attempt to knit a scarf is met with boredom and then despair. I don't have the necessary fortitude to make a giant rectangle of unending sameness. Cowls, yes. I can even see a shawl (especially one of the charming asymmetrical ones). But not scarves. So it may come as something of a surprise when I say I whipped out a scarf on Friday afternoon. A proper, woolly, fiber-y scarf. It started like this. A few minutes later it looked more like this. And a little bit later still it looked like this. That last picture [...]
Encouraging
So you guys are awesome. Your reassurance on the matter of Yard (and our general neglect of) were tremendously helpful. The gentleman from the company who did our patio three years ago came out. He was not judgmental. He did not administer some sort of horticultural pop quiz. He did not chastise me for my amazing laziness. He said yes, we can make it simpler. He said yes, we can refrain from murdering your tree. He said yes, we can start next week. So yeah, that was easy. The nice men will come and make it less awful. He did [...]
Knitting Props En Masse
The image collections on the Library of Congress' website are an endless source of entertainment. And, just as important, I can convince myself they're educational (as opposed to the collections of adorable baby animals or kittens doing amusing things that also seem to flourish on the internet, which are also a source of endless entertainment, but likely not at all educational). I stumbled across this one and thought I'd share it. It's listed as being sock dryers at the Union Point hosiery mill in Greene County, Georgia and was taken in the fall of 1941 by Jack Delano as part [...]
Milestones
I think I've explained before that writing books isn't either as linear or as quick a process as I initially thought. It goes in loops, at least for me. There's a general process for each project. There's some variation, but it usually goes something like this: pick yarn get yarn play with graph paper swatch rinse and repeat as necessary to beat the swatch into submission do some math finalize swatch finalize notes take the notes from the graph paper and turn them into a real pattern get sample knit (and do the first round of testing in the process) [...]
Bad at Yard
We are bad at yard. Amazingly astonishingly alarmingly bad at yard. This is especially embarrassing since our lot is tiny. Like 35 feet across, 100 feet deep type tiny (and that's total...the house plops down in the middle and eats up most of that space, the driveway and garage get a chunk too). And to make matters worse, our across the street neighbor is freaky good at yard. It makes us look extra bad. We used to at least have the best of intentions. We talked about planting blueberries and thought about flowers. Yeah. Not our skill. All plans ended [...]
Deceptively Adorable
The hat is done...washed, blocked, and otherwise prepped. It is totally and completely adorable. That is, it is totally and completely adorable when I have it on my head. It looks rather goofy and lumpy when on Alphonse the handy hat form. For you see, Alphonse is about the size of a normal person's head. My giant dome is a good 2 and a half inches bigger (blame the hair...or maybe I drank too much milk as a kid). All of which means that a hat that fits me doesn't quite fit Alphonse. Some time I'll try and get a [...]
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