A Little Color

Yesterday I saw a few leaves changing color a bit. Well I didn't actually see them changing, they were already reddish. Anyway, I was happy about it, because Fall is my favorite season, and summer is my least favorite. All the heat and humidity, and I don't like the beach: I like to swim, but I hate getting sand everywhere. Plus, summer sucks if you wear glasses. You non-glasses-wearers don't think of it, but when it's 93 degrees and 98% humidity, that chunk of plastic on the bridge of the nose slides everywhere. Glasses don't breathe. And if you swimming, you either take them off, and wander around blindly, or else you swim in glasses, and they get all wet. Wet glasses are one of my big pet peeves.

Winter isn't any good for glasses either, they fog up all the time. Technology has moved us beyond glass lenses, luckily, because glass lenses contract in the cold and fall out of the frames. Its hard to find something transparent when you can't really see.

In spite of all this, glasses are easier than contacts. I don't mind sticking my finger in my eye (the Widge jabs my eyes all the time) but I have really dry eyes, and anyway there's been all this news about blindness caused by various contact drops. I hate all the fussy cleaning contacts need.

So Fall is better, and I'm happy to see it coming soon.

No pictures, for a long time, but if you want photos, visit: Matt's Road Trip.

Is it Sunday already?

actually all the days are the same for me, except that Sesame Street doesn't air on the weekend.

Just started a lengthy biography of Hemingway, who is, of course, my first love. Too soon to tell how it is, I'm only on page 17 out of 600. Some days all I want to do is read, and other days reading just isn't satisfying. No matter what book I come across, it isn't right. But I think I'm just edgy because I'm almost finished with a project: I quilted the entire table runner today, and it turned out very well, but I don't have enough fabric for binding, so I'm at a standstill.

Probably I should just go get some sleep.

Any recommendations of good books? (bearing in mind that I'm the sort of reader who likes Hemingway)

Thinking about handwork

So I just got back from quilting class: it was a one-day hand quilting lesson, and I think it was pretty good. I've seen hand quilting how-tos in books, but I needed a real demonstration before I could mentally grasp the physics of it. Now I understand the principle, and its just a matter of practice.

So I came home, and immediately knit a few rows on my dishrag.

Knitting is the craft I've done the longest: probably about 17 years, off and on, so I feel most comfortable with it. Its become somewhat meditative, or at least it can be, depending on what I'm working on. The latest dishrag is a seed stitch pattern, my favorite stitch of all, because it makes a wonderful texture, but isn't complex. I've pulled this rag out and re-knit over and over, but that doesn't bother me, not like when I am piecing a quilt and realize I sewed a complex seam with no thread on my bobbin. For me, knitting is about the process, so in a way its very zen, except for when I start thinking about how I'll be using the finished item, which isn't very zen at all. In quilting, I' still looking for results, I'm still actively trying to achieve a desired result, and it can be stressful. I have to remind myself that a hobby shouldn't cause stress (I have a Widget for that). In knitting I feel like I can adjust as I go, and I'm not certain what I'll get until I get it. I can't say that I design knitted pieces, but I feel comfortable working with no design. My quilt class attendance is a step on the path toward making quilting that way: calm and comfortable, the old friend I can turn to when I'm cranky, the one that relaxes me. I try to ignore the technical requirements and just let the experience wash over me.

At least thats how I think about it in quiet moments.

Deus ex Quilt

So I've been actually making progress on some quilting, and I'd post a pic, but my camera is in a box somewhere. But as I was working along, I thought to myself: self, should I be using this flammable adhesive spray right in front of the oven? And is this area sufficiently well ventilated?

And then I thought about quilt myths. I read recently in a quilt magazine that the ipod has been called one of the great quilting tools. I personally listen to my ipod while quilting. I know you can get knitting podcasts (www.knitpicks.com), and if there aren't quilt podcasts, there soon will be. But wait: isn't the stereotypical quilter a little old lady?! Thats right, and now legions of quilters are listening to the smooth sound of Laurence Welk while whipping up quilted tea cozies.

The most famous myth, however, is probably the one that quilters deliberately make mistakes because only God is perfect. Yes, I make deliberate mistakes, because I feel the Almighty might be threatened by my needlework. If not for those deliberate errors, guests would come to my house, see that table runner I just finished, and begin worshiping me as the Messiah. Quiltmakers are far too pious a group to allow that! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if ever you see a truly perfect quilt, you know that it was, indeed, crafted by a Supreme Being, because all other quilters put in deliberate mistakes.

The blog title would suggest that I knit, and I do, but lately it hasn't been interesting. I've been knitting dishrags. Dishrags are great to knit, because they don't have to be in matching colors or any specific size. Plus they actually do something, instead of sitting in my craft box(es), forever, like almost every other item I knit.

Eeeek!

yup, its been a long, long time since I posted. I lost my password. Honest. Plus we moved and my computer was in a box somewhere, and then I got the laptop but couldn't remember my blog address...anyway...

So I'm including a photo of the Widget helping to garden. He loves all the dirt. He has a new favorite show: Curious George, which is fine by me because: 1) its not Barney, 2) theres nothing else on at 3 PM, and 3) the Man in the Yellow Hat isn't bad looking, for a fictional animated character. Lately, however, Widge has been asleep at 3. Curious George also comes on at 8 AM, but thats also when Little Einsteins are on. With all their classical music and art appreciation. Now, if Curious George were up against the Higglytown Heros, George would win, hands down.

I' m okay with the concept of auto mechanics and plumbers being heros. I can even turn a blind eye to the episode where the cow is a hero. After all, ice cream is a serious necessity and without cows, there'd be none. But in one episode, the camel is a hero. First of all, how many camels are there wandering around your town, helping folks out? No, wait--first of all, isn't it true that heroics imply some degree of free will? The plumber doesn't have to unclog your toilet at 2 AM, after all (unless he wants a repeat customer). The auto mechanic is only a hero if he choses not to overcharge. But camels don't seem to have that sort of option. A camel never calls in sick, no matter how much he wants to watch the NFL draft instead of schlepping a bunch of crap across the desert.

Of course I could be wrong. Camels might be highly altruistic creatures. Maybe the show is justified in naming them as heros.

The pack mule, on the other hand...

Turkey!!!

Okay, I know that most folks make turkey for Thanksgiving. But why cook my own when I can have MIL's dry turkey and many, many pies for free? But that doesn't stop the grocery store from giving me a turkey, and since I now have two in the freezer, things are getting crowded. I really don't get all excited about the turkey anyway, but I could really use some leftovers. Turkey soup, here I come! Unfortunately I have to first reduce the giant, frozen turkey in my freezer to cooked turkey bits before I get to the Soup phase.

So now the giant, frozen turkey is in my sink, partially frozen. I had him out yesterday to thaw, but he decided to thaw a little bit, then give up and just lay around (thats how I know its a male turkey). I have the brine all prepared, and it looks good to me, but I have to yank all those turkey bits from the inside of the gobbler before dunking him. Of course, the grocery store doesn't give away small turkeys, either. This one is 18lbs. My mother apparently served a 10lb turkey to five and had a few leftovers. I have this hulking turkey-beast for three (me, Hus-bun, and Hus-bun's buddy, one of the nicer fraternity brothers, recruited for the occasion based on his ability to function decently in a private home and the fact that any home-cooking he gets is cooked by him. He could use a good meal).

In other news, my MIL wanted to know if I called the pediatrician to ask about formula. Ask what? I wondered. Well, it turns out that she thinks formula is too expensive, and she's pretty sure the doc would let us put Crabby on something cheaper, and maybe supplement with vitamins. "He's pretty healthy, he should be fine." she says. I'm pretty sure the medical advice of my baby's doctor isn't based on economics. MIL has several grandkids (thats right, I don't know how many neices and nephews I have); one, whom she raised, is only 6 years old. But her knowledge of child-rearing dates from roughly 1965. I guess I can't blame her too much.

Anyway, I don't need to be cranky, because its snowing! Right now it looks like it intended to snow for real, not that pretty, postcard snow we got the other day, the kind that falls in fat flakes but vaporizes when it hits the ground. We'll see if this keeps up. I have a sweet little sled for Crabby, and I so much want to pull him around over a field of untouched snow. Of course Crabby hates wearing a snowsuit, refuses to sit still, and besides, we live in an apartment with almost no grassy space and about a million little kids. But if I didn't have my daydreams, I'd be stuck with daytime TV.

giant man-socks

My baby brother has size 17 feet. He loves to receive hand-knit socks, so I've done my share of massive, takes-forever, why-did-I-choose-stockinette-for-this socks. But he really enjoys them, and they're great in-between projects, to clear my mind. Like after I read a really intense book, one with a bunch of detail, or where the characters really became "real", or one that introduces a whole new idea, and then I need to read a few mindless cheap romance novels to clear my mind before the next really meaty book.

I never knit anything much for the Hus-bun, and it never occured to me to wonder why. But now, four inches into his manly socks, I understand. He has the world's beefiest ankles. Seriously. as in, if I just kept going on this sock, it would easily be a sleeve for me. This is one big sock: not long, but with plenty of girth allowance. Big, big socks. (I'll post photos later, right now I have a cold and I don't want to move.)

This is why I won't knit sweaters. (Actually my whole knitting life is a series of excuses for not knitting sweaters. I have Sweater Guilt, like I feel that, as a knitter, I should have a sweater or two to my credit.) Anybody who would appreciate and wear one is either so insanely tall, or as wide around as a small island. Thats just too much commitment to one project for me. They'll have to be happy with the mutant man-socks instead.