The Trouble with Reading

Everybody seen this poster?  Books do show us a new world just beyond our walled-in reality.  Sometimes that new world is filled with castles and hot air balloons and frolicking unicorns.

But sometimes the world over the wall is filled with factory farms, genocide, political bullshit, and the "thoughts" of Steven Tyler.  Not everything over the wall is pretty.

After reading Holly's post about the Barbara Kingsolver book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, I checked it out from my library.

Click the book to go to its Amazon page.

It is fantastic.  FANTASTIC.  It's about a family of four who decides to take one year and eat as locally as they can.  Kingsolver makes a compelling case for avoiding food that had to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to reach our plate.  (Did you know that the average distance any food on your plate has traveled is 1,500 miles?  Nor did I.)

I knew about factory farming, and that played a significant role in my decision to go vegetarian.  Kingsolver addresses this, and if my only reasons for abstaining from meat were for reasons based on the environment and the treatment of animals, I might be persuaded to go back to being an omnivore, albeit one who shops for meat differently.  Those aren't the only reasons I have so I don't plan on going back to meat, but I am trying to convince Andrew to buy all the meat he eats from local sources.

It's a great book, and I highly recommend it.  It's a book that has wiggled into my brain, and I'm not yet sure what the ramifications of it will be.  I am just sure there will be some.

Be careful when you look over the wall.  That is exactly how they work.

I think I have a problem.

I used to laugh condescendingly at people who said they had reached SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy).  Those were the people who bought more yarn than they could ever knit in their life. Who would do that?

I'll tell you who would do that. I would.

It starts out small.  I buy a couple skeins of yarn that I can use for a baby blanket because it's on sale and, hey, there will always be baby showers.  This is just savvy shopping.

Then maybe there's an annual sale, and I buy enough yarn to make a few pairs of socks.  I like to knit socks.  I knit them a lot.  This yarn is on sale and, really, I'm being responsible by purchasing yarn on sale that I would eventually purchase anyway.

Then I'm hit by something unexpected.  There's a local yarn shop going out of business.  How many times does this happen in one's knitting life?  (Twice, so far, and I've only been knitting for five years.)  I have to buy a bunch of yarn then.  I need to help these lovely people liquidate their inventory, and holymarymotherofgod the prices are delightful.

Before I know it, I'm driving two hours one way to go to a yarn shop's liquidation sale.  And at this sale, there are grab bags that are $5 each or 4 for $20, needles and books 80% off, and balls of cashmere 50% off.


I was able to justify all of this until last night.  I was sitting on the couch flipping through a Knitpicks catalogue and admiring their new yarn.  I saw this...

Knitpicks yarn in new Thunderhead colorway

Gray is my favorite color.*  This new colorway is available in several different types of yarn.  I want them all.

That's when I had to admit that I have a problem.  I am hoping it is not too late to save myself.  I am going to admire this color on my computer screen, but I am not going to buy any.  I don't need any yarn.  I have lots of beautiful yarn already.  I don't need any yarn.  I have lots of beautiful yarn already.  I don't need any yarn....

I did put it on my wishlist though.  It doesn't count if someone buys it for me, right?


*a) Don't make fun of me because I like gray.  b) Did that sentence make anyone else start singing, "I felt so symbolic yesterday."?

More Babies, More Hats

My cousin is pregnant with twins, and her baby shower is next weekend.  I'm nursing a cold and generally feeling that walking up and down the stairs is as much activity as I can be expected to do, so I'm spending a lot of time on the couch knitting.

Swirl Hat knit in Felici fingering weight yarn in some unknown colorway 

Swirl Hat knit in Felici fingering weight yarn, Cochineal colorway



Knitting for Alpaca with a Twist

Alpaca with a Twist sent out a request for volunteers to knit some samples with their Baby Twist yarn.  I volunteered, and they asked me to knit four sample "squares" (read: rectangles) that they would then sew together and hang at TNNA.

Baby Twist yarn, image from Alpaca with a Twist's site

When I received my box and excitedly torn it open, I saw that I was to knit two Zebra Eyes and two Leopard Eyes colorwork samples.  The knitting world pays attention to fashion trends, and I had read that animal prints are very on trend.  I had not anticipated that fact ever, ever, ever to touch my life, but the universe has a sense of humor.  I actively hate animal print. 

Nevertheless, I was excited to get started.  The fact that it was animal print was a tiny setback, but this whole process was going to be fantastic!

The yarn, oh, the yarn.  It's delightful.  It's fuzzy--not mohair fuzzy, but fuzzier than wool, and so soft.  It was a pleasure to knit with that yarn.

I cast on and nearly immediately came upon a problem.

I've done colorwork.  It requires you, if you hope to do it with any sort of speed whatsoever, to hold one color in one hand and a second color in your other hand.  I have knit enough mittens and fingerless gloves that I can knit fairly well this way.  It's awkward, but I can do it.

Do you know what mittens and fingerless gloves have in common?  They're round.  When you knit round things, you are always looking at the front side, and you're nearly always doing the knit stitch.*

I'd never had to work across the back of a colorwork project, and I had no idea how to hold the yarn in my left hand.

It took watching some Internet videos over and over and over again, but I sort of figured out how to do "combination knitting," made famous by Annie Modesitt and, somewhat awkwardly, continued. 

I also realized just how many ends there are in these patterns.  A lot of ends, people.  A lot of ends.

There was one point in the leopard pattern when there are four colors used in a single row.  There's no good way to do this that I know of, so there was repeated detangling of the yarn balls. 

I was really worried about these guys before I blocked them.  They were extremely curly, and although I had tried to be very aware of not pulling the yarn too tightly, I was afraid that I had.

I blocked the heck out of them, and they turned out all right!  I used an absurd number of pins.  I didn't want those guys going anywhere.

Here's one of the zebra squares pinned with a gazillion pins.

Here's the finished product!  They're on their way back to Alpaca with a Twist, and I hope they're pleased with them.  I am, and I'm extremely excited to be finishing up a pair of socks with only one color!

*Yes, I know that's not necessarily true.  If you're a knitter, you know what I mean. 

Fabric

The fabric I won from uberstitch's blog came in the mail.  I'm smitten.  It came in an adorable tied bundle, but I am not clever enough to get the ribbon back on it once I took it off.  You'll just have to trust me that it was pretty.

It has a bajillion different fabric squares in it, and they are gorgeous.

Click to enlarge.  Seriously, click.  You won't be disappointed.

One of my sisters has kindly agreed to put these together for me in a quilt if I'd like.  I may have her do that, although when she'll have time with a full-time job, a 3-year-old, and a newborn I can't imagine.  I may also borrow a book on quilting from the library and give it a go myself. 

For right now, I'm content to spread out this beauty and admire it.  If you're in the market for some awesomeness, go visit their store.  Be warned that you may find yourself buying things even if you don't sew.  The draw is strong.

Thanks, uberstitch!  I love it!

Planted!

Yesterday I raced home from work to get outside in the garden.  I'm trying to incorporate some better gardening practices into my little space this year, so I started by working in some organic fertilizer.  It looked like dirt and smelled like poop, so it certainly seemed organic.

Spreading fertilizer necessitated a call to Miracle Grow's toll-free number.  No matter how many times I read the bag, the information I needed wasn't there.  The bag said to use 1/3 c. for vegetable gardens.  Nowhere did it say how many square feet that covered.  Was it 1/3 c. for the whole bed?  What if your bed was small and your neighbor's was big?  Was it 1/3 c. per plant (which seemed crazy)?  The nice Miracle Grow lady looked up my product and told me to put 2.25 T. per square foot for new vegetables and less for established gardens.  

The soil looks great.  The compost that we picked up from the city is so much better than the soil I have in my backyard, which is equal parts rocks, roots, and clay.

The seedlings did much better this year with the addition of a grow light.  These Napa Grape tomato plants did especially well.

The tomatoes that are the smallest are the Brandy Boy, which are on the left side of the planter above.  I'll need to keep an eye on them and perhaps replace them with plants from a nursery.  I only had room to plant eight tomato plants, so I'm planning to give the rest to a friend at work.

A couple hours later, I was finished with the garden (at least until I buy a couple more plants), had planted the hellebore, sprinkled some sunflower seeds amidst a bunch of weeds and wished them the best, repotted the begonia, and watered everything.  I was filthy and sweaty and happy.

The irony that the plant that looks the best in that picture is the oregano I purchased is not lost on me.  I'm trying to focus on how much better my seedlings look this year compared to last year.



This square is mostly peppers with some garlic in the front corner and peas struggling in the back.  I may have planted them too early this year, or it may just be that the seeds I used from last year weren't able to sprout this year.  

I had a couple of mystery plants show up in the potting tray, so I stuck them in the ground and will see what happens.  I accept that it is possible I just carefully transplanted weeds.

Before I went inside for the night, I sprayed the perimeter of the little garden with Liquid Fence, a horrible concoction of nastiness that is supposed to smell so badly to animals that they'll leave your plants alone.  I know that I certainly didn't want to hang around the garden after I sprayed it, and they said that animals are sensitive to the smell long after it's faded enough to not bother humans.  Here's hoping.

Every year I say I'm going to do things better outside, and this year is no exception.  Here are my goals, some of which are met and some of which will take work throughout the summer:

• Use a grow light for the seedlings and transplant them to roomier digs when necessary.  Check.
• Pick up more compost from the city and add it to the garden and front flower bed.  Check.
• Water the hellebore more regularly so it doesn't meet the fate of my first one.
• Water the front flower beds even though it's a pain to get the hose there.
• Check the garden every day--just a little walk-by to see if any plants are having problems, need to be trained in a different direction, etc.  
• Fertilize.  Check for initial application.  I need to check my notes from class to see when it needs to be done again.

Hope springs eternal.

Sacrifice Made

Remember how I said herbs are my sacrifice to the gardening gods?  Yesterday I set the herbs outside to get some sun. This morning, I saw that the basil had blown over. I went out to right it, and...

I hope this is the only sacrifice required, but I'm not holding my breath.