I Photograph So I Do Not Buy
Good afternoon to you all (good morning to those in the States)!
I am on the bus to London for the weekend. I have four big books with me, not to mention my computer. A paper is due on Wednesday, AND a class presentation as well. But the fabulous Joe-Biden-Lookalike SteveLawton (also known as my father) is in a flat in Kensington, so off I go. Theater and Churchill Tourism await! And I’ll read and write late and early (oh dear).
This was a challenging week, with class assignments looming (what, they don’t just want me to read and talk? I have to write? Formally?) and a bad head/chest cold the last few days. But I am still enjoying myself here, which is saying something indeed.
My spirits lifted, too, when I saw what’s pictured in the first photo below…a little charity shop in Oxford’s Covered Market that sells yarn! When I saw that shop window, I felt all my muscles tense, like a pointing dog. And then I felt a little better than I did before: there’s some yarn living around the corner from me.
Now, do I need more yarn? I do not. And on my current budget I probably won’t be buying any (which is why the sign on the door — second photo below — was a relief). But it’s nice to know there’s enough knitting out there that a charity shop can make a little money selling the tools of the trade.
And now — on to London!
Knitwit?
…and now I am on my way back to Oxford. Have made through all three train transfers intact!
When I got to Paddington I almost immediately saw the ad below. I love that knitting’s a little more mainstream here, but is it fair to pick on a sheep? It’s not her fault she bought the wrong Underground ticket. Truly, we should commend her for venturing to London at all.
Short But Fierce
Hello from across the pond! I have arrived in Oxford after a few hectic weeks of preparation, during which I knit to calm myself down more than anything else.
In this program one certainly does hit the ground running — this is day five and I’ve already had two 2+-hour classes and much, much reading. I haven’t knit since I was on the plane…nor have I read for pleasure or even slept much.
But now I’m on the train, going to Paris to see my gorgeous friend Lauren, so here is my traveling sock (and project bag by Slipped Stitch Studios — I’ll add etsy link when I’m not iPhone blogging).
The yarn is Jade Sapphire cashmere, and to those who remind me socks should be made of sterner stuff — I say Eat My Leek.
Yes, eat my leek, evidently a Shakespearian retort, one worthy of being stamped on a tiny button in the RSC gift shop. I am a sucker, so I bought it for 50p, along with one that says, “She’s short but fierce” or words to that effect. We saw “As You Like It” in Stratford last night — a lovely performance, though it lacked both leeks and knitting.
Without further ado — here is the traveling sock. My England posts thus summer will probably be like this one…short and fierce, but frequent.
Crabby? Nah.
Originally uploaded by ellaislost
For her The Deadliest Crab pattern
I grew up in Maryland. Do you know what this means? Among other things…I know how to dismantle a steamed blue crab in a hurry.
When I was in elementary school, one of our last classes of the year was a science class, held outside on the blacktop playground. We were each given a steamed crab, warm and covered in Old Bay Seasoning, and taught how to take it apart and eat it. It absolutely didn’t occur to me that this was a particularly Maryland-centric thing to do until much later.
Even before that, my family spent summers on the Delmarva shore, and had lots of steamed crab feasts on picnic tables in the backyard. Occasionally, my father took us out to set crab traps for dinner. I remember my older cousins telling me that I had to ride home in the car with my feet in the bucket of live crabs. [Did this contribute to my high school vegetarianism? Only my shrink knows the truth.]
Much later, when I was in college, I found out that not everyone ate their crab with their fingers at a newspaper-covered table. [It’s a sad, funny tale of going to a Maryland crab house, digging in, and looking up to see my boyfriend of the time with a crab in one hand, a mallet in the other, and an utterly horrified expression on his face, as if to say, Am I Dating A Barbarian?]
All of which is to say – I am delighted to point you to The Deadliest Crab as an option for summertime knitting adventures. We’re told this guy is a Red King Crab, but to me he looks a lot like childhood. Check it out on Knitty…and learn how to eat a crab in preparation for summertime feasts.
Ridiculous Hiatus but Brilliant News
Hello to one and all. I can’t believe it’s been so long since I last posted…I promise I will not leave you all like that again. [I know…you were weeping nightly for lack of news from Chez KLYMI, weren’t you?]
Many exciting things happening, as always, with super-duper number one being A Home for Knit-A-Gogo. Yes, Danielle is taking the plunge and opening a storefront in Old Town Alexandria. Let there be much rejoicing! Construction has already begun inside the store, to provide dedicated classroom space as well as room for lots and lots of beautiful yarn. Meanwhile, Danielle is already plotting classes for the summer, including one on this cool cardigan. Ooh, aah…
Photo by Meghan Murphy, Smithsonian’s National Zoo
Only slightly less important, of course: here’s another clouded lopard cub photo (CLCP). Wait, wait, don’t commit me – a writer for the New York Times says it makes sense that we watch other animals:
Animals are built to watch other animals, and for animals like us, otherwise separated from the natural world, there’s consolation in it. Television is in truth a poor substitute. —Richard Conniff, The Consolation of Animals
So there! I can watch the cat all I want! [Though it probably is what makes her plot my death.] Moving on, though, the National Zoo Flickr photostream also has some very cool photos of other large cats, including Jaguars and Ocelots that National Zoo scientists observed in a forest in Peru.
I love that the Zoo is on Flickr. Whoever decided that was a good idea…thank you!
Finally, and I am under no delusion that anyone but me is interested in this, I am researching children’s sock sizes. I’m deep into knitting socks for my nieces (10, 8, and 2) and every sock I knit turns out a little wrong. I can just TELL. Wikipedia has a nice rundown on shoe-size-versus-foot length, and this site had some info as well, but I have this feeling that even though my 8-year-old niece has feet as long as mine, they’re probably skinnier than mine. Right? If you can save me from the madness that is frogging and reknitting, do get in touch…
Knit Coraline’s Sweater, Read Emily’s Book
Good morning to you all. After a weekend on dorm duty and another traveling, I have that feeling — too familiar lately — that at any moment I could just drop to the floor, snoring. So far it hasn’t happened (fingers crossed!).
The Original Sweater Glows in the Dark!
Ravelry discovery of the week: a person-sized version of the star sweater from the movie Coraline. Those following along at home will remember that Althea Crome created gorgeous, intricate miniature knitwear for the movie. I haven’t seen much about Jenn Jarvis‘ larger version.
To download the pattern, go to the Coraline website and click on “Welcome,” then “Coraline’s Bedroom” (near the stairs), then on the bottom drawer of the bureau off to the left. I haven’t knit this pattern yet, but I like that Jenn offers child and adult (woman) sizes. Whoever thought of this knows the knitting/fan culture (witness the Jayne hat from Firefly, the Harry Potter knitting book (amazon, powells, indie), and that granddaddy of them all, the Doctor Who Scarf).
Emily Does Good
Meanwhile, my good friend Emily Chenoweth has written a gorgeous book, Hello Goodbye: A Novel (amazon, powells, indie). In one sentence, it’s about a family that goes to a resort in New Hampshire after the mother is diagnosed with a brain tumor. They host various old friends who come to say goodbye.
I’ve known Emily since we were in writing school together, and her prose is beautiful yet unique. She writes gently but honestly about love and loss. [And, heck, she’s been known to knit, too.] Emily, you rock.
The Lady Loved Pink.
Pink Knitting and a Postcard
My mother was, as they say, a woman of contradictions. She grew up in the fifties and sixties in a small town in Oklahoma. She was Phi Beta Kappa her junior year – and voted the Engineer’s Queen, which was one of those beauty-and-charm honors. I think there might have been a sash involved. She moved to Washington, DC in time for the late sixties, and remembered going to work on Capitol Hill the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and the city was put under curfew.
Mom’s the looker in the middle.
To me, Mom was an example of the tension between feminism and tradition. She protested the Vietnam War and married young, as soon as my father got back from his tour in Vietnam. She was one of the first women hired by IBM as something other than a secretary – and, later, she left her job on Capitol Hill to raise her children. She went to one of the balls for Nixon’s inauguration – and then to a counter-inauguration where a naked man wearing a pig mask was sworn in.
Explanation of pink squares, after the jump. Read more…
See That House Over the Way?
The long national nightmare is over…the air conditioning has been fixed. Of course, it’s been gray and rainy since Wednesday, but at least we’re ready for the summer.
So – we can put all this behind us, except to say: a disturbing number of you wrote me privately to suggest Andy and I sleep on our porch. Like, six of you in the last four days.
To this I say: huh? Do you people not live in a neighborhood?
And That One There?
Here we have two views from our porch. I have to assume that if I can see their house…they can see my house. Do they want to see my pajamas as well? To hear my delicate snore? I mean, I guess we could ask, but…
It’s an appealing idea, though: the sleeping porch. Our upstairs balcony is just too small, and the deck in the back way too public. But it would be cool to live in a place where one could sleep on the porch. Like camping, but with a shower and a bathroom and all of your books available. Knitting for people and animals, and a cub update, after the jump. Read more…
It’s Hot.
First Night's Ice Fan
So — you all may have guessed from the Twitter feed that it’s hot here. Not so much outside as inside. Our A/C hasn’t yet been serviced for the summer and it chose this weekend, with highs in the 90s, to conk out. As in – it works but it blows warm air. Just what we want. I am writing this inside my home, but I keep going outside to make sure it isn’t cooler out there. There’s a little breeze outside, to be sure. But I have to weigh that against The Pollen. It’s going to storm tonight and I’m looking forward to that.
The War on Heat, after the jump. Read more…
What Do I Bring?
Join Us!
I’m getting ready for the v-neck sweater class this Sunday (pattern by Stefanie Japel! if you’ve knit the beanie, you can knit this! a few spaces still available!) and thinking about how to teach top-down sweater construction (conceptually revolutionary but fundamentally simple) and what items students may forget to bring.
For the most part, students bring along lots of great stuff: stitch markers, circular needles (they better bring those), row counters. We need all these things. [Several of them bring scissors, which is helpful to me since I seem to be a Scissors Black Hole. It doesn’t matter how many you give me; I hide them all and ask for more. Forewarned is forearmed.] And, of course, yarn (glorious yarn).
One of the biggest challenges I find in teaching is giving my students a sense of confidence. Some people knit along happily, undisturbed by mistakes, certain that it will all work out fine. Some people are too scared to try in the first place (I don’t see a lot of those folks). Most of us are somewhere in the middle. We don’t like to make mistakes, but we know it won’t kill us. We like to understand things, though, and when we don’t understand what we’re about to do it bugs us. We few, we happy few, we band of knitting intellectualizers.
Knitting with confidence, after the jump. Read more…
Knit Like You Mean It. 