dying to dye

The last week or so has been full of work. The play that I'm workshopping culminates with two presentations/performances on Sunday and Monday, and my free time has been spent sewing storage pouches for the props and organizing what else needs to be done. This morning I'll be sewing a baby, something that feels more real and has more weight than the bundle of fabric the actress has been using until now. I'm pretty excited about having a craft project. It's fun to figure out how to make these things. (If only I had more time in my life to sew for myself as well as knit and spin!)

But my mind has been scheming. As we have for the past few years (and my whole life really), in August we're going to spend a week at my parents' house in Maine. As is typical, I have starting thinking longingly for it. I want to bring my wheel this year and spin tons of fiber. I want to lie on the grass and just listen to the wind in the trees. I want to visit the Hope Spinnery (which I've only just heard of but is very close).

And I want to dye. A few years ago, back when I was in my first year of grad school (1999) and doing research on the colors of natural dyes (which is very important if you are designing costumes for a play set anytime before 1856) my mother gave me a book that she had: The Dyer's Garden, by Rita Buchanan. I am not really sure why my mother had the book, but it's been on my shelves since then. Until this week, when I transferred it to my purse and have been reading it whenever I can.

At first I thought I'd just gather what I needed when I got there. Goldenrod (yellow) and Black Eyed Susans (blackish green) grow wild all over my parents' property, so I could just wait till I get there, harvest a bunch and get to work. But then I started to really read the book, and discovered that St John's Wort has some really interesting dye qualities (the color changes drastically depending on very small variations). And, well, I'd like some other colors besides yellow and blackish green.

I'm a little lucky because my father is currently in Maine putting in their vegetable garden, opening up the house and more or less feeding the black flies. I'm also lucky because I am not such a great gardener, and in this case if the plants can be planted in Maine I don't have to deal with keeping them alive. (Witness my window herb garden, which is all dried up)this was basil

So, yesterday I got on the Fedco Seed site and ordered purple basil (purple), woad (blue), dyer's coreopsis (goldish browns, orange), St. John's wort (brown, orange, green) and bronze fennel (yellow, brown, black). I also ordered parsley, cilantro and beets, but those are my contribution to the vegetable garden.

I called my father to tell him to expect some random seeds in the mail, and said that some of them were for dyeing, and I hoped they wouldn't eat the basil (especially when you need 18 plants to dye 4 oz of wool). I wasn't so assured when he was genuinely excited that I'd ordered purple basil seeds (bad sign) but then, with 7 plants to dye from over the course of a week, it might be alright if one of them isn't available. Right?

a finished object

There is much to catch up on, but I have some drafting due tomorrow and so you will get a small entry today.

News news news! I started Teva Durham's Brilliant Retro Sweater (from the Winter 2005 Interweave Knits) 2 years ago, in the spring of 2006. It was a sweater I was pretty majorly excited about-- both to knit and wear. I got the yarn (Elsebeth Lavold Silky Tweed) from ebay, cast on and knit like crazy. Within a month or two I was done knitting and I started piecing it together.

I distinctly remember sewing on the sleeves while on the bus to Wellfleet, MA, where I worked in July 2006. I had some trouble getting them to fit well, and I was afraid I'd have to reknit the caps. (sound familiar?) Anyway, by the fall of 2006 I had sewed on the sleeves, which in fact did fit. No reknitting required.

But then there was the problem of closure. The original pattern used hooks and eyes to close the cardigan, and I thought it looked strange and uneven. I wanted a zipper. At some point over the winter of 2006-7, I found a very long zipper while wandering along W 38th St. It was about 8" too long for the sweater, but it was the right color.

And then I got really overwhelmed. For some reason sewing on a zipper scared the bejeesus out of me, so I let it sit. The sweater sat in my knitting basket, the zipper was in my sewing notions basket. I wanted to wear it. I brought it to Christopher's cousin's wedding last June, and I wore it then, but was frustrated by its inability to close. And this spring I've worn it a few times, but I've not liked how it flops open. The fabric, which drapes beautifully, also seems to stretch, and I felt like it really needed something to stabilize (and close) it. So on Friday it happened. The Knit Picks catalog had a spread on how to sew zippers in to knitted garments, and it looked not so hard. We made a quick trip to Philadelphia, and I brought the sweater along for the bus ride. And I sewed. It wasn't so bad. By yesterday afternoon it was done, and I can wear it. I think it still needs a little blocking around the zipper (perhaps with a little steam) but otherwise I'm thrilled.
And let me tell you: it is so exciting to finally have the perfect spring sweater!(a tiny last word: I noticed these colors when I was putting away my clean clothing the other day. I thought it was amazing how closely this color combination relates to the yarn I just spun. Am I the only one? Are these colors just in my mind?)

check it out

my fourth handspun.141 yards of hand dyed merino.

I'm happy with how it turned out, but I think I should also consider this yarn a learning experience. Instead of splitting the roving vertically into very thin strips (and essentially pre-drafting, which it seems a lot of people do) I split it in half vertically and spun each half onto a bobbin. Which makes for some very long color repeats.

I'd like to knit it into something fairly soon so I can see what that looks like in a knitted garment. It might be really cool (esp if the color changes are subtle, as I hope they are), but it also might mean that there's a chunk of brown, and then a chunk of green.

catching up

I haven't shown much of my knitting recently. I guess I've fallen off the bandwagon in that respect. The sharing part, not the knitting part. Some of what I've been working on is gift knitting, and so I can't post that here. And slogging through the never ending sweater projects... that's just not so interesting.

But I do have something to show. I made something with my merino handspun! Check it out: In case you can't tell, it's a neck warmer. It is knit flat and seamed. My gauge was off, and it was too wide, so when I'd knit it as long as I wanted it wide (!) I cast off and then picked up stitches from the side. Honestly, it sort of looks like it's supposed to be that way. (At least that's what I'm telling myself.) The pattern is Ilean by Patti Simmons, discovered happily on Ravelry.

I also recently started a tank top. Pattern: Beaded Cami, by Black Dog Designs.

It's zooming along, and the stockinette stitch is perfect for knitting while I'm in rehearsal and have to concentrate on what's going on around me. I know it will be useful, but with the way the weather has been behaving recently I am considering putting it on hold and starting a pair of fingerless mitts.

I actually have a pair of mitts already, or I should say that I had some mitts. I knit a mitt in January, loved it and finished its mate at the end of March. And then I promptly lost the mate. So I have one mitt.Pattern: Chevron Mitts, by TinySushi

The thing about these mitts is that they're knit with tiny needles, and they don't take that long, but it still feels long. And so I'm tempted to take some of my handspun and whip up something really simple. But then, I could probably just make a mate for my lone mitt, and then I'd be alright. And the single mitt could be used.

Oh, the agony! (can you tell I'm on the cusp of casting on something new? And it doesn't really matter to me what that new thing is?)

perspectives

Last weekend I went to my high school reunion. 15 years. It's really hard to think about and really get a handle on what has happened in that time. I mean, a lot has happened. A lot of good things, things that have steered me in the right direction and to the life I lead now.

College. Internships. Struggling in New York. Grad school. More struggling in New York. Meeting Christopher. Getting my own apartment. Moving in with him. Struggling some more in New York.

Things have really come together in a way that I couldn't have anticipated 15 years ago. When I was in high school I worked very hard not to be noticed, to blend in. I was so, so, so self-conscious. I raised my hand only in the most dire situations. It's taken me a long time to trust my own opinions and aesthetics. (Grad school was a huge help in helping me understand that what I made and liked was often much more successful than something I created to please a professor.)My closest friends from high school didn't go to the reunion, and for a moment on Saturday afternoon I was seized with silent panic as I greeted people who I had barely spoken to in our 13 years as classmates. But I relaxed, and people were friendly, and more and more classmates arrived.

There was so much to catch up on! Pregnancies, children, careers, family. And there were memories to hash out. By the end of the afternoon I was wandering around the school with two women who I had barely seen since graduation, talking about elementary school and various events we we remembered each other being involved in. It was really fun. That evening we all met at a bar in Manayunk and I spoke to another woman who I had been close to when we were in elementary school.

Throughout this all, I was struck by how much we remember from so long ago, things that were so serious and helped mold us into who we are now. Fifth and sixth grades are so horrible, with puberty and kids forming alliances and some kids just developing at different speeds than other kids. (In case you couldn't tell, I was one of the slower ones to catch on to fashion and cliques.) There's also this feeling at that age that everyone else has it together, and I remember feeling so alone, lost and vulnerable. And I thought I was the only one who didn't have it together. Talking to these women gave me a whole other way of understanding what was going on. Clearly we had all had a hard time, and we had all found different ways of coping with it (and talking about our fears with each other just wasn't an option. Interesting since that's how I deal with stress now).

Ok. Here's the revelation, and why I've been dwelling on this all week: no one is as perfect as they may seem. This isn't really news, but knowing that I wasn't the only one with self-esteem issues growing up (even if I thought certain people had it all together) changes the way I felt like I fit into this group. Suddenly we were all flailing around, not just me. And this week the world (and how I fit into it) just feels different.

fibers

As you can tell, I've been spinning a lot in the past few weeks. I have been working my way through (and using up!) the fiber that Christopher gave me, selecting fibers from that collection that are already dyed or have a tint to them, saving the white fibers for future dyeing experiments.

On Friday evening, while wasting time in the East Village, I dragged Christopher to Downtown Yarns. (he's getting very good at going around yarn stores and squishing the balls) I swore that I was just going to browse, but then it turned out that they have a small selection of hand painted fiber. It wasn't that expensive, and I've never used hand painted fiber, so I bought a little. I started spinning it almost immediately. I love how it's coming out, and I'm anxious to start plying it to see the final product.On Wednesday afternoon I met up with a woman from my knitting group who has done some dyeing, and she showed me how Kool Aid dyeing works. I used grape, Jamaica and pink lemonade on my Shetland wool, and we set the dye in her microwave. I'm rather pleased with how it came out, but I have to be patient and finish spinning my merino from Downtown Yarns. My dyer friend also loaned me a few books on dyeing and spinning, so I've got plenty to keep me busy.

After our dyeing adventures on Wednesday we went to our knitting group. I hadn't been since February, I think. My trip to Germany, the show in Hartford and then Christopher's assault got in the way of my going. It was a very happy reunion. I'm so glad to have that group of folks who are also excited about fiber, knitting, crafts and Brooklyn. I showed them my newly dyed (and still wet) fiber, and everyone took turns smelling it. Because of the Kool Aid, it had a strong grape-sheep-farm smell. Not something you smell every day. The knitting group was exactly what I was needing. I'm so glad I have them.

strangeness

We received a phone call very early this morning, at 8am. Everyone knows that if you live in New York and don't have children, Sunday before 11am is off limits. You don't even make plans for brunch before 1pm.

It was the Food Coop. A man on the end of the line asked when we were going to come pick up Christopher's backpack, which has been there for several weeks. I had no idea what he was talking about. Christopher's backpack was stolen when he was mugged nearly 4 weeks ago, and we haven't given it much thought since then. Apparently it's been at the Coop, of all places, sitting in the office waiting for us to pick it up.

Frankly, it's a little disconcerting. As far as we were concerned, the backpack was gone forever, along with Christopher's glasses and grading sheet. The man at the Coop said that someone had found it between some cars near the Coop and brought it in, thinking that perhaps a Coop member had left it next to their car while loading up their groceries. It's really nice to think that there are honest people who make the effort to reconnect belongings with their owners. It's just strange to think that something that I associate with pain and sadness has been sitting in a place that I consider a haven of sorts.

I told the man that I'd come get it in the next week, and he sounded irritated. He said that was what he was told last time he called us, and didn't seem to believe it when I told him that this was the first we'd heard of the backpack's whereabouts.

another handspun

This is some of the mohair/merino blend that Christopher gave me for Christmas. (the touch of red is from the Gotlandish/merino I got in Denmark. It turns out to need some carding before I can spin it.)It's great yarn, but there are only 84 yards. What can I do with that?

I'm running out of fibers that are dyed or otherwise a color... I could just spin some undyed fiber, but wouldn't it be fun to dye it?? I'm just not sure where to start.

two photos

One:
my second ever handspun.
I'm not sure what to do with this. There're only about 138 yards of it. For now I will fondle it and maybe someday make a hat or little scarf or something. I'm improving, I think!

Two:
The amaryllis in my kitchen window.
It rained all weekend, and I started feeling a little like the amaryllis: longing to go out and so sad at the weather. I had to turn it around because I was taking its behavior a little too personally.

exhaustion

Recovering from Christopher's attack is strange. On the one hand I feel like it shouldn't be that hard for me: he's looking tons better, he's now able to take the subway alone to Manhattan (though not home). On the other hand, his eye is still bruised, he still sees double, and we're both nervous to go out at night. We are both feeling rather vulnerable.

Each day is very different. Some days I feel energized. I have things to do. I go to work. I get my hair cut. I go grocery shopping. I vacuum. Other days, I feel really sapped. Yesterday was like that. We had put a lot of energy into Christopher's reading (which went very well!) and totally crashed on Thursday night. When I got up to go to work on Friday I just felt unable to face the day, and I went back to bed for a few hours. (Luckily for me, my work is flexible and they have been very understanding. Not that I get paid when I don't show up, but at least I don't lose my job.) I spent the rest of the day at home, doing yoga and pulling our tax information together (yeah, we still haven't filed. It was just really low priority).

There is another thing that I've finally found solace in (and I knew I would, it just took a little time): my spinning.

I'm not a great spinner. And I mean that in many ways: I'm inexperienced and I don't produce a lot of yarn. Since getting my wheel in December, I've made one skein of (rather ugly) yarn. That's not a great average. Since then I've been very slowly working my way through the rest of my maroon merino multi 64s. Some of it was on a bobbin and I started filling a second one right after Christopher's attack. I didn't get far because it was just overwhelming, too much for me to deal with right then. Well, yesterday I sat down for about an hour and just spun and spun, and this morning I spun some more, and I'm now out of the maroon roving. I'm rather proud of myself, and I'm pretty excited about how much I liked spinning. It put me in a calmer place, and that's what I need right now. I hope to ply it this weekend, and I'm looking forward to trying a new fiber. I'm so charged by spinning at the moment that all I want to do right now is spin and spin.

If only that I didn't have other things to do, like our taxes.

an event

For those of you hanging around Manhattan tomorrow with nothing to do, there is going to be a reading of Christopher's latest play. It's at 2pm (I know, weird and inconvenient) in midtown.

Christopher finished the play last summer when he was on his residency in Vermont, and it's gotten a bit of attention since he's started showing it around. Most notably, it was a semifinalist for the O'Neill Playwright's Conference, which is sort of a huge deal (even though they ultimately didn't accept him). Gareth Saxe, last seen playing Joey in The Homecoming at the Cort Theatre (on Broadway), will be reading one of the parts.

It will also be Christopher's first social outing since his assault.

Come join us!

Details below:

DREAMS OF THE WASHER KING
by Christopher Wall
Directed by Giovanna Sardelli
Thursday, April 24th, 2 PM
Abingdon Theatre Company
312 W. 36th Street 1st Floor (between 8th and 9th Avenues)

spring renewal

We took our walk on Friday, an hour or two lazy loop of the Botanical Garden. It was bright and the Bacitracin on Christopher's wounds somehow leaked into his eye, so he was uncomfortable. (We didn't realize that the Bacitracin was the cause of his pain until we got home and we flushed his eye and removed the bandage.) It was nice to be out though, and the spring weather was fantastic.

On Saturday we rented a car and drove to Hartford, where we saw the final performance of the show I'd designed (and abandoned). Everyone up there had done a wonderful job pulling the design together in my absence, and the trip gave me closure as well as a sense of pride. The set looked damn good, if I dare say. (Hopefully the pro photos look better than mine; it was really tough to photograph well.)

We spent the night in Amherst, MA, at the home of family friends, and on Sunday morning I had pure alone time, the first in ages. Our hosts were out of town for Passover, so the house was ours, and while Christopher slept I sat on the patio with my journal and just wrote and enjoyed the sunlight for a few hours. It was rejuvenating and relaxing, exactly what I needed.

When Christopher got up, we headed into Northampton, where we found a new wallet for him before wandering around the Smith College campus. For those of you who don't know, this is where I went to college, and the campus looks very different than it did 11+ years ago when I was a student there. Most confusing to me is that my house (or dorm) has been gut renovated and the houses around it have all been moved to different spots, a few were torn down, and this massive student center was built in the space that was left. I can't remember anymore where everything used to be, but the area I knew best just doesn't feel very familiar. It's rather disconcerting.

Spring is here! Going 3+ hours north was a little like going back a few weeks in the life cycle of the plants in NYC; here there are more blossoms and the leaves are just about out. In Massachusetts the leaves were just poking out, the peonies in our friends' garden just sprouting.

I'm glad. I need this weather and the cheer that comes with it.

Rollercoasters

This week has been long, but I can't tell you a whole lot about what happened. We had some visitors. We ate a lot of soup. We received lots of well wishes and cards (thank you all for your notes!). I have become an expert eye drop administrator, though I'm still mastering the eye ointment.
Wednesday was spent shuffling between doctors. First the Oral Surgeon (who goes by "Keith." It's a little off putting, to be honest. You don't really want your doctor to be human and have a first name.) who took the stitches out of Christopher's eyebrow and from the corner of his eye. He was very positive about how things were healing and how the swelling has reduced.

Given my stress headaches I should have known that I would have a physical reaction to Christopher's condition, but it really took me by surprise. While I was sitting with him at the ER I felt very dizzy and hot. After his surgery I actually had to run to the bathroom to throw up. And while his stitches were being removed I thought I would throw up again, though I didn't. At that point Christopher told me to go wait in the waiting room, since I could barely stand and my head was reeling. These attacks take me by surprise and are completely dehabilitating right when I want to be focused on relieving his pain and anxiety.

Luckily it looks like the worst is over, and so hopefully these attacks are too. We also visited the Opthamologist on Wednesday, and they said that any problems he's having with is vision now should go away within a few weeks. We saw a plastic surgeon as well, someone unrelated to the surgery and the hospital, and he said that the work the surgeons had done looked surprisingly well done, and that he thought that Christopher would look completely normal within a few months.

Yesterday our big trip was to the police precinct, where they apparently had lost all record of Christopher's attack. I had been transferred here and there when I called on Tuesday, and then was informed that we had to come fill out a new report, which might take awhile "because there could be a shooting outside." This didn't make us feel so good (or safe) but the visit went very well and everyone we spoke with seemed concerned about what had happened and as confused about the lost report.

So. Today is another day, a beautiful spring day. Our big plan is to go walk around outside, which Christopher has barely done since the attack. He is currently rather terrified of our neighborhood, and also self-conscious about his bruised cheek and bloody black eye, but I think a trip to the Botanical Garden might do him good. Let's hope so.

sadness

I have a sad post today.

Last Monday, Christopher got mugged. He was walking down our block on his way home from work at about 9:30pm when someone whacked him in the face and took his backpack and wallet. He made it back to our building, where he received aid from a few our of our neighbors.

Long story short, he spent the night in the ER with his best friend (I was still in Hartford) and had surgery the following afternoon to repair multiple fractures in his face. He's now home with me, and we're trying to pick up the pieces. It's tough. He's in pain. He's afraid. I want to make it all go away but I can't.

For now I'm fielding phone calls and trying to keep our lives together. We are lucky to have a community of loving friends and family around us, and are not hurting for pureed soups and smoothies (which is just about all Christopher can eat now because he can't chew). My mother was here a few days, but left this afternoon, and now the house feels quiet and empty, and a little lonely.

I tried countering our solitude by spinning while we listened to This American Life this afternoon, but it was hard to care about the spinning, it just felt like I was posing or something. I told Christopher that I need something I can accomplish and feel positive about, and the spinning is just not so natural for me yet, even though it does have more of a Zen effect than knitting does. So now it's back to my knitting. Since I'll be house-bound I could get a lot done, in theory.

Anyway, that's life this week.

life on the road

My life has been a whirlwind since we got back from Germany. I am designing sets and costumes for a show in Hartford, CT, and so I've been trekking up and back weekly. I used to think that I'd like business trips, because I like to travel, but I'm discovering that I don't. Traveling for fun is so different than traveling for work. When you travel for work you only have work and work-related things to do. There is no going home at the end of the day, and there's not much time off that's very focused or relaxing.

A few years ago I designed the set for a play in Vermont, and the only place to go in town (besides the theater and a bake shop, where you couldn't really sit) was my haunted hotel room, where there was a really dinky TV and 24 hour news coverage of the Pope's deathwatch. I have never had much interest in the Pope, but in this case it was utterly absorbing. I kid you not. (perhaps I wouldn't have this problem if was in a higher paying field, but still.)

Anyway, I'm nearing the final stretch in this project, and it's really nice that the end is in sight. I'm looking forward to having time to pet the cat and organize my yarn (which I'm embarrassed to say is all over the place). On the other hand, I have two more set design projects waiting in the wings. We had a meeting for one this afternoon and the other one will be in full swing almost as soon as I get back. It's exciting to have so much to work on, and I certainly can't complain, but I also wonder whether my life will always be this hectic. I mean, this is the career I chose, and I knew that this was the lifestyle that came with it. But the lifestyle makes more sense when you're 25 and single. How does one incorporate a family life into this time sucker of an art form?

a quick plug

I am up over my head in design work at the moment, but I thought I'd put in a word for my parents' rental house, which is in Maine.
The house is for rent on a weekly basis through the summer. It's a darling house, but not the type of place you go to if you want to catch up with your TV watching. Rather, it's a good base to explore the area and come back to, or to sit on the lawn and read, or cook a delicious meal in. It's a quiet spot, on a dirt road (which you can see in the photo), with great swimming just a short walk away. And it's old and has tons of character.

My father has set up a website where you can learn more about it and there is also a link to a slide show of photos. Really, it's a very affordable summer vacation. And the area is really wonderful.

Home from Hamburg

We got back to New York just about a week ago. A long week ago. I knew that I should blog about my time there before I was swept away in my life here, but alas, that didn't happen. So here is a breakdown of highlights of our (my) trip (most of these photos are unrelated to the highlights, but that's the way it is):

-My friend and I took a long walk one day from one Hamburg suburb to another, all on walking paths through the woods. We brought along her 2-year old, who immediately fell asleep in his stroller. About a quarter of the way along, it began to rain. Hard. We found shelter at a bus stop (where we could have taken a bus back to the train station), but then, for some strange reason, we decided to continue on. Little did we realize that there was no turning back once we left the bus shelter. We trudged up and down hills, stairs and across streets, longing for some hot tea and a hearty snack (we had a little food, but didn't want to eat it in case the 2-year old woke up and was hungry). Overall it wasn't so bad, but I think my friend would have been much happier without having to push a stroller.
-One one of the last nights we were there, I went with my friend to meet a few Hamburg knitters. I had found them via Ravelry, and they had enthusiastically suggested that we have a knit night. We met at a Scottish pub not far from my friend's apartment, where we had ale and cottage pie and admired each other's knitting. It was a really wonderful experience, something I wish I'd done earlier in my trip so we could have been able to meet a second time. They were definitely what you might call kindred spirits, and my friend (who knits a little now and then) vowed to join their group. I hope to live vicariously through her relationship to them, though of course we're all now friends on Ravelry so they're not too far away!-Christopher and I walked around Hamburg quite a bit. We went to a show of art based on the trials of St Anthony (which was rather fun, actually) and also to the opera. We saw Tales of Hoffman, which was in French with German supertitles. Many years ago I actually did this opera as a design project, but clearly I am getting old, as I couldn't remember much of the plot past the second act. Added to our confusion is the fact that the opera's plot is rather fantastical and each of the 4 main singers plays 4 parts, so by the end it was like watching someone's beautiful dream set to amazing music. I have no idea what it was about, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. Now it's over... I'm back designing like mad and Christopher is busy revising a play of his for a reading scheduled for mid-April. It's busy here!

Finally Finished Forecast (well, almost)

Last fall I fell in love with a sweater. It was one of those things where you see a photo and have to cast on immediately. And so I ran out, bought the yarn (the last 4 skeins of Cascade 200 in that dye lot) and began knitting. Today I sewed on the last button and tried it on. I love it. So much that I don't want to take it off. But... yes, of course there's a but...it's too small. I really should learn from these mistakes... I might have gotten gauge, but I've been suspicious about the size since I cast on. It's actually rather comfortable (if not roomy). The main problem is that the sleeves are too short, as is the bottom of the sweater. I have a little yarn left, and I've decided that I'm going to use it to lengthen the bottom of the sweater. (Luckily it's knit from the top down, so pulling out the bottom edge won't be too tricky).

My hostess has suggested that I give it to someone smaller than me. I'm not sure she realizes how rarely I knit myself a sweater, and that it has taken me 5 months to make myself finish it. (The knitting itself was rather quick, I just got really distracted along the way.)
But for all intents and purposes, I think it's done. And I'm proud of it.

Pattern: Forecast, by Stephanie Japel, published in Knitty.
Modifications: I just did ribbing on the wrist and bottom edges, and I started the ribbing earlier in each case. Bobbles were 3 stitch bobbles instead of 5 stich ones.
Yarn: Cascade 220, 4 skeins. Bought from Downtown Yarns, NYC
Buttons: from a store in Hamburg, Germany (looks like I might need to get a few extra before I return to the States)

Started: October 2007
Completed (not counting my future extension of the bottom): March 2008

Denmark

I have mentioned being in Denmark last week, but I didn't say much about what it was like there.

First of all, I have a friend who lives in Hamburg. We've been good friends since we were at summer camp together when we were 14. Though we have never lived in the same city (or state) our families both spent parts of their summers in Maine, so we saw quite a bit of each other each year, even outside of camp. After college, my friend moved to Germany to be with her German boyfriend. A few years later they married, and now they have two little boys, aged 5 and 2.

That is why I am here, and for so long. We hadn't seen each other since they came to Philadelphia for Christopher's and my wedding in October 2006. We were both feeling the separation, so I got a fairly inexpensive ticket to see them. They had already planned to go to the western Danish coast for a week in March, so I followed them there. And now we're all back in Hamburg, where they live. Christopher joined me here last Friday.

It's really nice be here. I feel very much away from my life in New York now, maybe too distant, since I have been getting emails from friends and people I'm working with and I need to keep connected. (Unfortunately, the work stuff is important, and I can't just ignore it.) But no one has called me here, and my cell phone has been turned off for almost 2 weeks now. It's great.
Anyway, back to Denmark. My friend and her family rent a house in a town called Henne Strand every year. It's on the western coast of Denmark in a beach town, the type of place you'd find on the Jersey Shore, fairly new and overpriced, touristy. Stores are geared towards the vacationers and everyone speaks German, since most of the visitors are from Germany. Things to do include walking to (and along) the beach and relaxing your rented cottage. The little cottage they'd rented had a fireplace and cozy living room, which was perfect for reading and knitting in. This is the house we stayed in.

It is March, not exactly the time of year to lay out in the sun on the beach. In fact, it was rather rainy for much of the time we were there. And windy, but apparently that is very normal for Denmark. The coast might just be super windy all year round. Check out these stones. I think they might actually be like that because of the wind. The land was also interesting because for about 1km in from the coast there were terrific dunes. Tall, tall dunes. I wondered a little if some of them (like the ones betweeen the houses) weren't manmade, but others were clearly natural.
Here's a question: does beach vegetation look similar around the world? I couldn't help being reminded of New Jersey, but that is the sandy beach I'm most familiar with.

first felting

As you might imagine, I immediately cast on a project with my new Danish wool. Two of my purchases were skeins of something called Preyarn, or Unspun. I have been wanting a pair of felted slippers, and this stuff is made just for felting. It's not twisted at all, and it's pretty much a worsted or sport weight, which means that it breaks like crazy. The woman who sold it to me said that she'd used about 200 grams for a pair of slippers she had made, so I bought two skeins of it. The pattern I chose calls for a Turkish cast on and knitting the slipper up from the toe using Magic Loop. I don't think the pattern considered that I would be using very weak yarn, and there was a lot of strain on the toe, which caused breakage and general holes in the knitting.

I finished the first slipper that night, and decided to felt it before I knit another, since I'd never felted before and had no idea how it would work. The pattern gauge is 4 sts to 1" pre-felting, and I was getting something closer to 3 stitches to an inch. It was huge, and I thought it might be bigger than it was supposed to be. When we got back to Hamburg (and my friend's apartment) we made a night of felting my single slipper. I looked for how-to online and found a mixture of advice, mostly involving violent agitation, soap and hot water. I settled on a spaghetti pot and ladle as felting tools, and changed the water a few times to make sure it was hot. (It also smelled very sheepy.)A very helpful article on Knitty told me what to expect: my knitted object would actually seem to expand and stretch before suddenly felting. I'm glad I knew to expect this, as this is precisely what happened. After about 30 minutes of stirring my slipper, I pulled it out and it had started to shrink. I could see the fibers beginning to felt, to such an extent actually that it was felting to itself inside the slipper. I got some scissors and used the blade to cut the it apart.

And voila! Suddenly my slipper was about the right size. The last thing I did (before setting it out to dry) was soap it up and more or less massage it onto my foot, so it shrunk to my foot's shape and size. I then rinsed it in cold water and set it on a windowsill to dry. Perfect!Of course, I used just a smidgen of a skein for my one slipper, so I will be left with a ton of purple felting yarn. I am interested in using it, but I can only imagine so many purple felted things in my life... maybe I should make myself a bag.

Pattern: Keep Away Felted Slippers, from Knit Front and Back
Yarn: Preyarn from OldMill

the search for yarn

There is so much to write!

Last week I was in Denmark with my friend and her husband and children. There wasn't much of a plan while we were there except to relax and take walks on the (very windy) beach. I had told them before I came that I wanted to visit a yarn store or two, and through the marvelous wonders of the internet I'd received recommendations to stores in northern Germany and western Denmark.

Our first try was a failure. We drove north last Saturday and hoped to stop in a town near the Danish border called Flensburg. I had heard great things about a yarn store there, and some of the folks from Ravelry had actually wanted to meet me there. Unfortunately, we arrived right after it closed at 1pm. It was very sad. On Tuesday we decided to try a store in a town close to our rented house in Denmark. This store, though open, was pretty much a disappointment: mostly acrylics and very scratchy plain old yarn mixed in with nicknacks and children's toys. We thought we'd head down to a town called Ho the next day, but after checking the store's site we learned that it was closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays. And so on Wednesday afternoon I drove with my friend to a town called Tarm.

When we neared the outskirts of the town, we saw a sign with the yarn store's name and an arrow. We turned onto a very narrow rural road and drove a little ways, past farms and cows. It turned out that the store was in one of these farms.The store was in the farm up there.

Next to the parking area was a pasture of cows, which we later heard were a breed from Scotland. When we went to get a closer look at them, they all ran over to the fence. Apparently they thought we were going to feed them. The woman who ran the yarn store told us that they are very friendly and not at all dangerous, that she can go in and lean on the bulls and they won't do anything. Anyway, we met a wonderful woman in the shop. Almost as soon as we arrived she asked how we'd heard of her shop. I told her that it had been recommended to me by Danish knitters group on Ravelry, to which she replied, "oh, it's you!" She is also a Raveler, and had been part of the discussion on what shops I should visit and yarns I should find in Denmark. We talked about Kauni yarn, and the wonderful sweater designs of Ruth Sørensen. She showed us the Danish yarns, which we oohed over. We also were very clumsy Americans and kept knocking over cones of yarn or displays, but our hostess seemed to take it all in stride.

In the end, I went home with this: It's really too much yarn, and thanks to my bad skills at translating kroners to dollars, I spent much more than I realized. I have decided not to feel too guilty about it though, as none of these yarns are easy to find in the US (and definitely not in New York) and I just need to keep my yarn purchases to a minimum in the coming months.

going on a trip

In about 3 hours, I'll be sitting on a big plane. I am, once again (if you can believe it) going on a two week vacation. I'll be visiting my friend and her family in Germany, and we're all going to spend a week on the Danish coast before heading back to Germany where Christopher will join us. I'm pretty psyched.

I have been packing for the past few hours, which more or less means that I have been wandering around the apartment, spotting something random and collecting it. Here is the beginning of my collection. Notice that just about everything is cooking or knitting related.Clearly I have plans for this next week! Knitting wise, I'm hoping to finish a bunch of projects, including both the Forecast sweater for me (just lacking a sleeve) and Christopher's Jarrett (which just needs me to cast off the sleeve, block it and sew both sleeves to the body). It will be such a relief to have those projects done.

Through the wonders of Ravelry and modern technology, I also have scouted out the best yarn store in the area I'll be in, and have tips as to which local yarns to buy. I'm really excited and have already planning to make myself a pair of Keep Away felted slippers which one of the very cool felting yarns that they sell there. I've never felted before, but what else is a week on the rainy Danish coast good for?

getting political about my food

I don't usually talk about my politics. It's just not what I want this blog to be about. But I am very into food, and I love the way that our country is finally excited about local and organic foods. It's just good for everyone.

And so it made me angry when I just read this Op-Ed in the New York Times about a mid-western farmer who had to pay $8,000+ in fines when he used a field to grow organic watermelons, because the field had been slated for corn. I find it so horrible that big agriculture dictates what we eat and what is available in our markets, and controls what we pay for our food as a result. Don't get me started. Just read the article.

a photo for the weekend

I barely seem to have time to sit down these days, and I haven't been to the gym in at least 2 weeks. I don't want to neglect the blog, but I also have a ton of things to do in the next hour or two before I head to Hartford for a few days.

So. I leave you with Dinah, who finds many ways to enjoy the sunlight. We are fortunate that most of our windows face south, and the sun shines in basically all day. (In the summer we're a little less excited by this as it really heats up the apartment.)