Casualty of War

The suspense is driving me nuts!  My Sock Wars target was supposed to receive her ‘death socks’ on Saturday.  When USPS couldn’t deliver, they left her a notice to pick them up at her post office.  They’re still sitting there and, surprise, she won’t answer my emails now.  I’m glad I paid the outrageous price to send them with delivery confirmation and online tracking, otherwise I would have no idea what was going on.  I didn’t have to deal with this kind of childish behaviour in Sock Wars III, and it’s a bit disappointing.

However, there is lots of fun fiber play to distract me.  I pieced a crazy quilt block for a Yahoo group stitch-along.

The theme is “Under the Sea”.  I was glad to be able to use the ’silkie’ mermaid image.  It’s been in my stash for awhile.  The ribbon is not stitched down yet, as I am not committed to keeping it there.  The fabrics are almost all cotton, but one piece of silk dupioni crept in there.  I started out as a ’sane’ quilter and the cotton-snobbery of those days is hard to overcome.  Silk is starting to win me over, though.  Let the embellishing begin.

I’m thrilled about the KAL (knit-along) on Ravelry that’s based on Wendy Johnson’s book of toe-up socks.  This month’s sock is the Lacey Rib (darn, is it Lacey or Lacy?), and I’ve made some progress on sock one.

The toe and heel are both knit by the short-row method.  This yarn is impossibly soft!  It’s Claudia Hand Painted fingering weight merino, in the Strawberry Latte colourway.  I’m a first-timer with this yarn, and I absolutely love it.  Did I mention it is soft?  It gives great stitch definition and isn’t a bit splitty.  Also, it is really really soft.  The needles are Addi lace, size 000.  Yes, that is 1.5 mm.  Would you believe I knit so loosely that these are the needles I have to use to get 8 stitches to the inch?

 

Sock Wars 4

Last year was the first time I participated in Sock Wars, and I felt pretty lucky to have successfully taken out one victim.  I am the world’s slowest knitter, after all, and some people were completing a pair of socks in less than 48 hours!

It was fun, so I decided to try my luck again this year.  As of today, I have not been taken out yet, and I just mailed this to my current target:

The socks are hard to see inside that plastic bag, aren’t they?  I was in such a hurry to take the photo and get to the post office.  My target is in Texas, and Canada Post, bless their hearts, tells me it will be up to 9 days before the socks reach their destination. 

Last year, my victim actually sent me a skein of gorgeous yarn after she received her “death socks”, and I thought that was nice, so I’m sending a few extras along for my victim.  Maybe that will take the sting out of being eliminated.

 

I Wish I Could Tell Her in Person

I have had bad eyesight for most of my life.  When I started having trouble seeing the blackboard at school, at age 7, my parents’ solution was that I should move to the front of the classroom.  It took several months to convince them that my vision was compromised to the point that I needed to wear glasses.

The day I finally took possession of my new glasses could have been the last day of my life.  I was 8, and my mother had taken my brother and me to the mall to pick up my glasses.   What a revelation, seeing things clearly for the first time!  I didn’t want to take them off.

We had to take an escalator back down to the main floor of the mall.  My mom was busy with my brother, who was about 4 at the time.  They got on the escalator and proceeded down.  I was behind them, realizing for the first time that seeing more clearly was going to take getting used to.  I had no depth perception with the glasses on, and when I stepped forward, I missed the escalator stair and started to fall.

I was a long way up, and there was no one in front of me to break my fall.  If I had fallen, I would have been killed.

With amazing reflexes, a woman beside me grabbed my left arm, pulled me back and held me, it seemed, until we got to the bottom.  I was  panic-stricken and had started to cry, and never said a word to her.  I think she may have asked if I was okay, and I may have nodded, but I don’t really remember anything except being scared witless.  My mom and brother had no idea what happened until they reached the bottom and stopped to wait for me.

I don’t know whether anyone thanked that woman for what she did.  I hope so.  For many years, I couldn’t ride an escalator (up or down) without holding the handrail in a strangler’s grip, frightened out of my mind.  I would get off as quickly as possible and then, once I calmed down, I would remember my heroine and offer silent thanks to her again.

I haven’t thought about that day for a long time.  She was gray-haired when she saved me, and probably passed away years ago.  Today, on my birthday, I need to thank her one more time.  You saved my life.  Thank you.

 

Happy Birthday

Harlan Ellison is 75 years old today.  You may not know his name, but you have probably seen something on television or the movie screen that he had a hand in creating.  Google him and be amazed!

I was introduced to his work at a convenience store in Winnipeg, circa 1978.  I was about 14 years old, and a voracious reader.  I bought this book because I was in the mood for something new to read, and the spine was labelled “science fiction”:

This was the first time I understood the value of a handmade book cover.  Pulp fiction-style artwork aside, the short stories inside were appealing, and I went on to read as many of his books as I could get my hands on.  He also wrote a great deal of nonfiction, including critical essays about TV shows and movies.  His work had quite an influence on me.  I was raised in a dysfunctional environment, and the moral philosophy that was the undercurrent in Ellison’s writing gave me inspiration that was otherwise absent from my life.

Tomorrow is my 45th birthday, and I’ve been thinking about the people who have inspired me and made my life better than my 14-year-old self could have imagined.  Harlan Ellison is one of those people.  There are three others who deserve my thanks, and I’ll talk about them over the next couple of days.  I had thought of honouring them in the order that they came into my life, but Ellison gets to jump the queue because it’s his birthday…he was number two.  Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the first person who saved my life (literally).

 

Catching up with the Socks

There will be some 2009 Rockin Sock Club spoilers in this post, so look away if you don’t want to read about the March socks.

I haven’t been blogging very regularly, but I’ve still been knitting.  There have been some inspiring sock pattern books published in the last few months, and I can see many more socks coming off my needles this summer.

First, I finally knit a pair with the Patons Stretch Socks yarn.

They are quite soft and comfortable, and go very well with jeans.  This picture was taken after two trips through the washer and dryer, and they’re in good shape with only a little pilling.  I have to be careful knitting with this yarn, though.  If you don’t keep an even tension, and stretch the yarn too much while knitting, you can end up with two socks of visibly different size.

I recently received a copy of Wendy Johnson’s Socks from the Toe Up, and I want to knit every single pattern.  Gorgeous socks, knit in yarns that make my credit card tremble in anticipation.  I had never knit a short row toe before, so I grabbed a skein of Araucania Ranco multy, and knit basic stockinette socks with short row toes and heels, using one of the basic patterns from Wendy’s book.

I tossed away the ballband from this one, so I don’t know which colour of “multy” this one is.  The Araucania is not a very soft wool, but it is nice enough and has some nylon in it, so maybe it will wear better?  I love the short colour bursts in this yarn; it gives lots of different colours without a pronounced striping effect.

The March sock for the Rockin Sock Club was designed by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, and stretched my sock skills to the limit.

The pattern is called “Rogue Roses”, and that panel of purl stitches and rosebuds twists diagonally across the leg of the sock.  The cuff has a picot edge, something else I had never tried before, plus the socks are knit as mirror images of one another.  My aching head!  It was worth it.  I love these socks, which look alarmingly torqued on their own, but fit perfectly once slipped on the feet.  The yarn is Socks that Rock mediumweight, in the members-only “Gertrude Skein”.  I’d love to make a quilt in those colours. 

My fabric stash has been sorely neglected while I’ve been so caught up in sock knitting.  I will have some quilting photos to share soon, though.

 

Quilt Show Season Begins

Ottawa quilters are very lucky.  There are two large guilds in town, and they each have a quilt show every two years.  Conveniently, they alternate years, and share the same venue, the RA Centre.  This weekend, the Ottawa Valley Quilters’ Guild is putting on their show.  Check out their web site for all the info.  It’s probably going to be a rainy weekend here, so the tulip-viewing won’t be so great.  Go look at some amazing quilts!

 

Craftsman Revival II?

I was browsing some of my favourite blogs today, and came across an opinion piece that made me think.  It was a review of a documentary about the indie craft (or DIY) movement.  I wasn’t so much interested in the review, but the blogger expressed something, somewhat apologetically, that is definitely food for thought.  She wondered why  so much indie craft looks like crap.

Of course, if you look at some of the best of DIY (craftzine.com’s blog shows plenty) you know that there’s some beautiful and inspiring crafting going on out there.  Besides, a big part of the indie/DIY movement revolves around being ecologically responsible–creatively repurposing items to keep trash out of landfills and buy fewer new things.  Maybe these crafts need to be appreciated on those terms, instead of merely on esthetic effect and quality of workmanship.

It occurs to me that it was almost exactly 100 years ago that much of North America was experiencing a revival of the Craftsman style/philosophy popularized by William Morris in the late 1800s.  His motto was that people should “have nothing in (their) houses that is not beautiful or useful”. 

In the early 1900s, you could build your own house from a kit.  They were sold by Sears, among others.  Making your own furniture and embroidering your own household linens was seen as a way for the middle class to have beauty and art in their homes without having to have a large income.  Marie Webster designed beautiful quilts and sold kits to make them. 

I wish I had been around in 1912 or so, in Gustav Stickley’s heyday, to find out whether the traditional artisans of the time thought that Craftsman style was crap.  And I would love to be around in 100 years from now to see what we think of indie craft, in retrospect.

 

Rockin Sock Club *Spoilers*

I’ve really been looking forward to the next sock club shipment.  January’s “Queen of Beads” socks were fun to knit, and I finished them!

The STR “lightweight” yarn makes a warm and thick sock.  I’ve been wondering what the other weights were like, and today I found out.  The March club yarn is a colourway that I think is just crazy beautiful, and it’s in mediumweight.

I really like the pattern that came with it, too, and probably will cast on tonight.  I can do that without guilt because, drumroll please, the Clapotis is done!  Photos soon…I’m still of two minds about blocking it.  I like the bumpy unblocked texture, but I’d also like the extra width I’ll get from it if I stretch out the dropped stitches.  A decision to ponder as I wind the new sock yarn.

 

Want a “Peace” of Me? Get in Line.

Poor neglected blog.  I’ve been busy with unbloggable projects lately, and there’s not much to show on the knitting front.  I have started the second sock from the Rockin’ Sock Club, and hope to have a completed pair to show next week.  I think I’ve managed a whole 3 rows of Clapotis.

But there’s always a little time to surf, and I saw a link to a fun quiz on Karen’s blog, so I took a minute to answer the questions.  My word:

Your Word is “Peace”

You see life as precious, and you wish everyone was safe, happy, and taken care of.Social justice, human rights, and peace for all nations are all important to you.While you can’t stop war, you try to be as calm and compassionate as possible in your everyday life.You promote harmony and cooperation. You’re always willing to meet someone a little more than halfway.

What’s Your Word?

 

Boxmaking Continues

I have finally finished sewing on the outside fabric, and the bottom has been fabric-covered and stitched in place, too.  It doesn’t look much different from the last time, I must admit.

 

The strip of fabric hanging from the back of the box will be the hinge.  It will be sandwiched between the lid pieces in the same way that it is sewn into the sides of the box.  It will be awhile before the lid goes on, since it will be a crazy patchwork piece, with some applique and embroidery on it, and I haven’t made it yet.  That’s the plan, anyway.

I know that many boxmakers use glue and gummed paper to put their creations together, but I am such a loser with glue…it always either gets smeared outside the fabric, or it oozes out of corners and just isn’t pretty.  I’m much better with a needle and thread, so that’s the way I roll.  I do get inspiration from books about boxmaking, regardless of technique, and so I was very happy to get this, earlier this week:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Japanese book, with examples of fabric boxes made with the gummed paper and glue technique.  I ordered this from YesAsia.com, and was very pleased with their service.  The prices are good, and shipping was fast.  I don’t know why Japanese boxmaking books seem to have French titles.  I have another one called “Le Coffret”.  This book also seems to have an article about shopping in Paris (it’s hard to tell, exactly, since I can’t read a word of Japanese).   The box projects are lovely, and easily converted to my sewing methods. 

Japanese craft books are really inspiring.  They’re also pretty easy to follow, if you know the basics of a particular craft.  They always have step-by-step photos, and there are often helpful illustrations included, too.  I wouldn’t try learning an entirely new craft from one, unless you read the language.  The photos are gorgeous and artistic, and if you’re tired of the focus on beginner projects that is such a feature of North American craft books, you will be impressed by the sophistication and complexity of Japanese books.  There are lots of sellers on Ebay who specialize in these books, and there are some good prices to be found there, too.