Saturday Crafternoon

I spent most of the afternoon working on this.



Yes. Another rubbish photo of a knitting project. I don't know why, but it's seemingly impossible to photograph knitting well. I promise I am not knitting a woolly, jumbo-sized vorticella. (Nor are the colors nearly as similar to sewage sludge as they may appear to be.) I am, in fact, knitting this headband thingie (the Quant, I believe it's called) featured in the latest issue of Knitty.

It's part of my ongoing lifelong quest to find a way to keep my ears warm in winter without crushing the vigor and vim out of my hair and mashing it flat to my skull. This could be the answer. We shall see. In the meantime, I'm having great fun with entrelac knitting. I am always attracted to baskety-looking woven things (e.g., huaraches) so, of course, now that I know entrelac knitting exists I find it highly appealing. I've never tried it before, and it's one of those things that is a lot easier than it looks. And if I say it's easy that means it's super-duper E-Z. I'm the person who—despite knitting two cardigans, a sweater, and a pair of socks last winter—had to at the beginning of this project look up how to make a knit stitch and a purl stitch. I wasn't certain I remembered how. Yes. I am that bad at retaining basic skills I've supposedly learned. It's sad, terrifying, hilarious, and pathetic.

Heil, Myself

My First Sock
Originally uploaded by Rozanne.

For a few days now--ever since it became clear that this sock was actually going to turn out well—“Heil, Myself” from The Producers has been playing in my head for some reason.*

It's because I'm pretty ding-dong proud of myself for being able to knit this sock. Not only have I never knit socks before, I boldly deviated from the pattern and added in a mock cable (something else I’ve never done). I deviated again by knitting the socks on two circular needles (instead of accursed double pointed needles), which required extra brainwork to convert the instructions accurately.

I must admit that I would have screwed up for certain if the Knitting Help videos (thanks, Cagey!) didn’t exist, but with their help I had no problem turning the heel or making the gusset—the two tricky bits to sock construction.

However, I am not quite the hotsy-totsy sock nazi I would like to think I am. Yeah, I kicked butt on the heel flap and gusset, but somewhere pretty early on I dropped a stitch and didn’t realize it, so there’s an unsightly ladder running from the ankle to the cuff. Sod it! I don’t think it’s fixable. Also, the placement of the mock cable could have been better. It’s a bit too close to the instep.

Still. For the first sock of my career, it’s not bad. And I’ve still got the second sock to do, so I should be able to do better with that one. Then perhaps I’ll move on to something more feminine and less lumberjacky. Maybe these.

*I always feel uneasy/guilty about the fact that I find The Producers so hilarious. Is it too easy to just accept that comedy is tragedy plus time? I wish I could get someone like Elie Wiesel to give me permission to enjoy The Producers without guilt.

Plodding

I stayed up until 2:30 AM reading a friend’s screenplay last night. It’s 128 pages, formatted according to strict screenplay protocol. She told me it would take me about half an hour to read it. It took me more than three hours. Granted I was jotting down notes, but am I a super-slow reader or what? I’ve always suspected I am. How long would it take you to read 128 pages of screenplay?

As a consequence of my nightowlishness, my brain and eyes are now shutting down. I’m not really up to writing much in the way of a blog entry, but please feel free to share my mania for local flora. There are these pink violets that have been popping up all over my garden. Where do they come from and what do they want? I certainly never planted them. But I like how this clump situated itself next to this Thalictrum flavum ‘Illuminator.’ (And very aptly named it is, too. It really illuminates some of the dimmer corners of my garden.)

A few more snaps from my garden (taken today) are here.

Portland’s fantastic succession of flowering trees continues as well. The (crab)apple blossoms are in full swing now (at least I think that's what they are).





Even B—the chap who doesn’t know a hydrangea from a rhododendron—is getting into it.

One last thing. I finished this Smurfy sweater this weekend.



I know it looks somewhat deformed and lumpen in the photo, but it actually fits perfectly and is my most successful knitting project to date. I’m quite pleased with it, and should the Blue Man Group ever decide to hire a woman, I think it’s safe to assume I’ll be a shoe-in.