MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I spent the evening at Loopy Yarns, and I had a perfectly lovely time. Loopy celebrated Christmas in July -- Santa was there and passed out gifties to all the good little knitters. (Santa had an elf with him. I thought elves were short and looked like Jeane Kirkpatrick, but this one was tall, thin, and -- I don't think my wife will feel threatened by this observation -- he was more than a little bit hunky. Who knew?)

Anyway, I bought a bit of yarn. Possibly enough to keep me in stitches for the remainder of 2009. I bought:

3 skeins of Cascade Alpaca Lace in color 1407, Amethyst Heather;
2 skeins of Cascade Alpaca Lace in color 1411, Turtle;
3 skeins of Cascade Alpaca Lace in color 1409, Caribbean Heather; and
2 skeins of Malabrigo Lace in Glazed Carrot.

Technically the Turtle doesn't count as yarn for ME, as I bought it as a gift for someone.

My plan is to knit the Amethyst Heather next. (The Ostrich Plume -- which is also known as the Lace Dream Shawl) And although it is probably not the best color to be working on while in Ireland, I think I will start an Ishbel in the orange Malabrigo just before we leave for Dublin. That way I'll have several inches of mindless stockinette to knit on the plane.

Have I mentioned that I am terrified of flying...because I can't stand the thought of 12 hours without my Signature Arts needles? I knit lace on 7", stilleto-tipped needles, and I have heard conflicting stories about whether or not I will be able to take them on the plant. If anyone has flown Aer Lingus with pointy needles since the cowardly acts of September 11th, would you please drop me a line and let me know what your experience was like?

G'night!

Today.

Today I worked a full day.

Then I met the Lovely Myfanwe at her office and walked with her to Grant Park for the Taste of Chicago. While at the Taste we ate: chimichuri chicken wings, cumin-dusted fries with sweet mango tamarind sauce, stewed goat and jollof rice, fresh/hot potato chips with hot sauce, a giant bbq turkey wing, chocolate chip cookies, lemon ice, and a rainbow cone. We ate the turkey wing while sitting 50 feet from the Barenaked Ladies, who were performing tonight. And then we went to hear Honeyboy Edwards, the blues performer.

All of this -- beginning to end -- cost only $40.00 for the two of us. No kidding.

I love Chicago.

KNITTING

In knitting news. I am about 1 third of the way through Candle Flame Shawl. The Candle Flame was my first lace, and it made me very tense. It wasn't an appropriate pattern for first lace. But nobody could tell me I wasn't ready yet -- I knew better -- and I did it anyway. It wasn't disastrous, but I really wasn't ready for it and it just made things more complicated. I wish I had listened and waited, but you can't turn back time.

Anyway, I'm enjoying this knit a great deal. But I already looking forward to my NEXT project, which I believe will be Eugen Beugler's Lace Dream (aka Ostrich Plume) Shawl from Shawls and Scarves: The Best of Knitter's Magazine. It is amazingly beautiful. I should have the Candle Flame done in time to start this and have it established so I can take it with to knit in Dublin. I want to have the shawl done by fall.

I'm going to knit it for a very dear friend (who happens to be a physician) who has been ill for several months -- she had a rather indelicate surgery which didn't go well, the surgeon really did a number on her, and the wound was an absolute mess and wouldn't close and wouldn't heal and became infected which made her even more ill and the surgeon told her she was a baby and stopped taking her calls, so she just kept on changing the dressing while things got worse, which resulted in her loosing 12% of her body weight -- and she was thin to begin -- and, to make a long story short, she's had corrective work done by a new surgeon (who has filed complaints with the old surgeon's boss AND his boss's boss) and has a would vac and has been off work for two weeks and is embarrassed to have to tell people what has happened to her. If she can make it through all this, the least I can do is to knit her a shawl.

It's getting late, and I have had a big day. Good night, Gentle Readers. To sleep, perchance to dream.

I Took Math for Music Majors

CAN SOMEONE HELP ME OUT HERE?

I have 69 stitches on the needle. I need to increase 22 stitches in one row.

Maybe I'm loosing my mind -- I used to be able to figure this out -- but for the life of me, I can't. Can someone tell me -- in the simplest language possible (I'm VERY dim this week) -- how to affect this. I though it was after every 3 stitches, but that wasn't even. and I ended up off center. I've ripped back, but don't want to go through that again if my feeble brain is just going to spasm again. So I thought I'd ask The Blog for help.

May the Force be With You.

I Have an Odd Sence of Humor

For the record, I didn't knit even a single stitch today, and I don't like the way it makes me feel. I don't like being so busy I can't find half an hour to get in a couple of rows. So I don't think I'll do this again.


Food is very important to me. I cook most of our meals from scratch, believing, as I do, that processed foods -- while not poison -- are not wholesome. I make my own soups. I can my own preserves. I try to explain to Norbert how food is grown, and I try to give him a connection to the food because I think that if you know how and where it is grown, you are less likely to waste it.

I particularly enjoy baking my own bread. Especially challah, the bread traditionally eaten by Eastern European Jews as part of the sabbath meal. It is a dough rich with egg and oil, braided and risen and topped with poppy seed or sesame seeds, or my own creation -- and my favorite -- with salt & pepper.

Knowing what you now know about the importance I place on food and my bread baking proclivities, you won't be surprised to learn that I buy my flour in 50 lb. bags.


A couple of times a year I drive to Shipshewana, Indiana to buy a car load of supplies. A few bags of bread flour, a few pounds of yeast. I do this because I like the fact that the wheat is grown in Indiana by Amish farmers known by the store owner. The wheat is milled in the next town over. Again, by someone known to the community. And it is then sold in the community.

And I never buy New Rinkel flour without getting a jolly.

Now why, you may ask, does this amuse me? My Jewish posse will see it right away.


This last picture has nothing to do with anything, except that my grandmother, z"l, always had a few African violet plants sitting in saucers in a north-facing dining room window. And they brought her a great deal of joy when they bloomed. Last year at the end of June I bought a few African violets on sale a t Jewel. And I lovingly tended them through the winter. And I was rewarded with this.

The picture looks blue, but the posies are more accurately purple. I happen to LOVE purple flowers. As Miss Shug once said, "I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it. " So I try to notice it every chance I get.

Have a lovely weekend.

NEWSWORTHY NEEDLE NEWS

For all my Chicago and Northern Illinois friends, I have big news. Extraordinary news!

Loopy Yarns, (47 West Polk Street in the Dearborn Station) has just started carrying Signature Needles! Since I purchased my first pair, I have become so attached to them that I passed on a lace project because I couldn't use the Signature needles for it. The quality is absolutely unrivaled.

I am extra excited because Loopy is the only shop in Chicago to carry the needles and they did it, in part, because I told them how much people will fall in love with them.

I plan to pick up a pair of 7-inch size 5 stiletto tips when I go to Loopy again. And I think you should go in and do the same! Tell them I sent you. And while you are there, ask to see their $9.00 a ball alpaca lace yarn. A very economical, soft, beautiful yarn perfect for your next shawl!

WHY ARE STUPID PEOPLE ALLOWED TO SPEAK AT ALL?

Today is Rachel Carson's birthday. If you don't know it already, Rachel Carson was the author of Silent Spring, a book so powerfully and persuasively written it is credited as a catalyst for the environmental and conservation movements.

Reading about her -- even just the Wikipedia entry -- is an interesting thing. She did a lot in a relatively short life. (She died of cancer at 58.)

What really twists my titty, though, is this. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson -- in a letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower -- reportedly concluded that because she was unmarried despite being physically attractive, she was "probably a Communist".

I hate stupid people. All of them.

DON'T LET THE LIGHT GO OUT

My very first piece of lace was the rectangular Candle Flame Shawl, the pattern for which I obtained for free from KnitPicks. It was WAY too difficult for First Lace, but I ended up getting the hang of it and knit a gorjus shawl.

I very much want to knit another shawl -- in a gold/apricot heather alpaca lace -- but when I went to KnitPicks to download the pattern, I discovered that they no longer have it offered to the public. And I don't have it downloaded to my computer.

Does anyone have it? I would very much love a copy. I really want this pattern because the candle motif would be the perfect motif for a shawl for Norbert's bar mitzvah tutor.

Update - 5/25/09, 4:10 p.m.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I have the pattern, I have the correct needles, and I have enough yarn. Now I know what my next project will be. Now I just need to finish my WIP so I can start! (Only about 4 feet left on a shawl. So I should be done in 3 weeks or so.)

Facebook Manners And You

DOWN TIME

I took today off from work. I've been working a lot of hours since the first of the year, and they have been pretty stressful hours, at that. And since I only work a half day on Fridays, and Monday is a holiday (Memorial Day, for my non-US readers), I decided to take 3.5 hours off and get myself a 4 day weekend! Woo hoo!

We've been having a bit of construction work done in our dining room and Norbert's room, and we had to move everything out of those rooms -- so our house is chaos. Despite that, MY plan was to spend today doing nothing but eating, napping, knitting, and maybe listening to a little music on the iPod.

Instead I:

• went to Home Depot and bought flower boxes, flowers, and some house plants (on super sale!);
• went to Target and bought a shade for the light in Norbert's closet;
• planted the flower boxes;
• cleaned up the back porch;
• hung curtains;
  
• moved book cases into Norbert's room;
• moved the dining room rug into place;
  
• took the dining table apart in the living room and reassembled it in the dining room, along with 8 chairs and pads;
• did a bit of grocery; and
  
• picked up Norbert from school.

I am so tired.

Tomorrow we have a bat mitzvah in the morning. Sunday we have to go to Ikea to buy Norbert's new bed, desk, and closet system.

Monday we are driving to Shipshewana, Indiana to buy bread flour, all purpose flour, and yeast from an Amish general store I love. And we'll might, possibly, maybe have a piece of pie (or two) at the Amish-run restaurant next door.

I don't know when I'm going to be able to work in some knitting and tea time. But it is my hope and prayer that the opportunity will avail itself.

SINEAD'S SCARF

Thanks to international cooperation between the postal services of the United States of America and the Republic of Ireland, my friend Sinead is now in possession of the scarf I knit for her. (Please, Dear Readers, do NOT write about any of the flaws you find in the pics. I want Sinead to think I did a good job!)


The Photo Credits go to Sinead's partner, Malachy Geelan, whose photographic skill made my humble scarf look spectacular.


It is hard to capture the color -- aubergine -- in photos, but it will look stunning against Sinead's porcelain skin.

I was introduced to Sinead through this blog. One thing that strikes me most about Sinead is her generosity -- and how that generosity is an integral part of her nature. It's elemental. Where other people might think about doing something nice for someone else, Sinead follows through. She doesn't even have to think about it. And she certainly doesn't let something as trivial as an ocean stand in her way.

I think Van Dyke expresses my gratitude for the kindnesses and generosity Sinead has shown me and my family. (Try to picture Sinead as a she, and not a he. And more Catholic than Van Dyke's Presbyterian.)

He that planteth a tree is the servant of God,
He provideth a kindness for many generations,
And faces that he hath not seen shall bless him.

Having come to know Sinead through this blog, my family and I are planning to strengthen our friendship this August when we travel to Dublin. Hopefully Sinead and Malachy will allow us to buy them a pint or a pot.

I'd like to leave you with an assignemnt, Dear Readers. Go out and do something nice for someone.