I woke to a loud rumble. I don't know what time it was, because our clock is so bright we keep it covered with a piece of thick cloth. You know how it is, you wake in the night and stare at the clock so you stress about how long you have til it's time to get up, and you can't get back to sleep because you are stressing about it, rinse, lather, repeat.
Anyway, this loud rumbling. My first thought was that we had just had and earthquake, you know, the kind that roll, and the sound was the sound of the earthquake rolling southward. Must have been up in LA or something. Then I thought, no, maybe it's a train going too fast. Sometimes the trains leaving the Port of Long Beach, with all the goods of the country on them, can be heard when the wind is right. Then, no, maybe it was a big truck barreling away from my street. What is that?
I opened the curtain and could see my whole backyard as if it were daylight, the sky was clear and the moon bright overhead. I left the curtain open a bit because the air felt nice and cool after such a hot-and-humid day. I started to drift off again, and a flash through my eyelids caught me. Huh? Is there some kind of freak out in my backyard taking pictures through the little triangle of curtain that is exposing my sleeping face to the yard? I reached for my glasses, and a little startled, I peer out of the triangle of exposed window, ready to scream if I saw someone.
There was nothing out there, but then I heard a little rumble again. What is that?? I start to fall asleep again, and there's another flash, and a rumble right away this time. Then it comes, the most incredible dumping of rainwater just started falling all at once, as if someone slashed the bottom of a giant ziplock of water over the backyard. It was raining so hard, and the air smelled suddenly clean and fresh, and I didn't even mind the temporary increase in humidity.
And I do mean temporary, as it was over as soon as it started. I don't think it rained for more than 15 minutes over my backyard. I must live on some strange climate-cusp, because more often than not, when we experience these torrential rain pours, they occur only in the backyard, but if we look out the front windows, we can see that it's just spitting or not raining at all in the front of our house. I didn't bother to check this morning, since it was all over so fast, but I was glad that there wasn't some pervert snapping photos of my through my bedroom window. Somehow my husband slept through the whole thing.
The things the mind comes up with when interrupted from a good sleep...
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I finished a pair of socks this weekend, and here is my husband modelling them for you. He and I have the same size feet, if you can believe it, and it's hard to photograph one's own feet, so I asked him to be the foot model.
The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in the color Wild Cherry, and they were knit on size 2.25 KnitPicks circular needles. I used one Harmony and one Nickel which was a great way of avioding the thing that I do at least once per sock, which is to pick up the wrong needle end while knitting and then end up with a silly twisted mess. I really liked using both needles .
I used the Harmony for the top textured side, and the nickel for the bottom smooth side, and that worked nicely! Well actually, I did the first sock only on the nickel needles, but after our local Stitch 'n Bitch Xmas party, I had a collection of the tiny sizes of Harmony needles, so I wanted to use them right away and so I did, for the second sock.
The pattern comes from Cat Bordhi's book, New Pathways for Sock Knitters, Book one. The pattern is called Bartholemew's Tantalizing Socks. Since my yarn was called Wild Cherry, the socks are now dubbed Wild Barty.
Do you know who Jim Steinman is? He had at least one solo album that I know of, but is most famous for writing the lyrics to Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell albums. He's also written a number of hits, such as Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart", Air Supply's "Making Love out of Nothing at All", and Celine Dion's "It's all Coming Back to Me Now". When a Jim Steinman song comes on the radio, I can spot it by the end of the first verse. If you notice what these songs have in common, you'll catch my drift.
I have friends as far back as high school (Suzanne), college (Karlanne) and real life (Bill) who can attest to my hatred of Jim Steinman songs. They all loved Bat out of Hell, and I always hated the songs. They are just... too... wordy! He (Mr. Steinman) crams too many words into his songs.
I'm no George Orwell, I appreciate good description and good narrative, but Great Maker! He uses too many words. And I'll bet that anyone who has an opinion about Jim Steinman songs either loves or hates them, I don't know how anyone could be indifferent.
Anyway, the reason for this little digression is to give context to the patterns in Cat Bordhi's new book. The woman uses too many words! Socks are not that complicated. These socks are not that different than the socks we've all been knitting for years.
The increases are positioned in a different place and the rate of increase is 1/3 instead of 1/2 for most socks. But following the pattern is difficult. You have to jump back and forth between several different sections of the book just to get the whole pattern. (Kinda sucks if, like me, you like to photocopy the pages you need and leave the book at home, so if you do that, be sure to read the whole pattern before walking away from the photocopier.)
She has her own language - LaLinc and LaRinc, stories about hairdressers and necklaces. It's just silly. It's like a combination of a children's story (young children) and a knitting pattern. Maybe that's what she was going for, I don't know. It's not what I was looking for though. Some of the socks look interesting, I just wanted to know how to make the interesting ones.
And maybe I am just taking out my general frustration on Ms. Bordhi. I am a bit tired of the whole dumbing down of the world I see around me. I am no expert - you may recall the last pair of socks I made took me 5 socks to get the pair, but I do think that we adults just don't need to have everything spelled out for us! We are raising a generation of bubble-wrapped children with no critical thinking skills or ability to figure things out themselves, and it seems everything around us is coming down to the same level. It's like Harrison Bergeron.
And the thing is, the very first knitting book I bought was Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles: a Manual of Elegant Knitting Techniques and Patterns and it wasn't as wordy and strange as this new one. I haven't looked at any of her other patterns because I didn't think the mobius thing was interesting, although one of my fellow S'nB women did. I'll have to ask her if those patterns were weird.
I think going forward, I will read the whole pattern, copy the relevant information onto an index card (because it would fit on an index card, really) and leave the book for reading at home, like a novel or a bedtime story.
The socks themselves are very comfortable, and I will likely make another pair in the same pattern "family", called Sky. Next, I'll try a "Fountain" sock. I'm actually thinking that 2008 will be the "Year of the Sock" for the nodster, I've got way too much sock yarn and this year I am going to use it. A lot of it. I had even skeined up some yarn for dyeing, but never got around to mixing up the dyes. I want to do that this year too. I guess that's my only resolution for 2008, more socks!
Happy new year!
ETA: Link to the project on Ravelry]]>
It's a litle disappointing that the KnitPicks yarn has only two light shades. Al the rest are more medium shades. It will be harder to make obvious fore/background combinations, but with the solids and the other colors I can fill in the blanks. Now I can get started on a swatch, or maybe a swatch of the pattern.
Meanwhile, I soaked and dried my shawl, but now I need to pin out the points and steam it to be all lovely. I'll try and do that this week and post a photo, but it may not happen til Friday, since I have that day off from work. ]]>
I've been thinking of playing with the palette yarns from Knitpicks to come up with a little fair isle sweater for a baby. The heathers are really nice, although I don't think the range is quite all there. I'll have to mix in some of the solids, and maybe some of the other odd balls I have from J&S or Jamieson's. I'm thinking something juvenile, like the fish and anchors motif from Alice Starmore, some trees, some mountains, and some wave peeries.
There are a few things that get me all girly, and one of them is Hello Kitty. What is it about her? Ever since I saw her for the first time, back in middle school, I was in love.
That's why, when I saw this book at Kinokuniya, I had to pick it up. I flipped through, and thought, "nah, it's crochet, and I don't do that very well", and I put it down. I looked through some of the knitting books, and kept returning to Ms. K. Finally, I just had to make the purchase.
It doesn't matter that I can't read the instructions. I just dug out some cotton (Paton's Glace, in white) and an appropriate hook (3.5mm) and started on my very own Hello Kitty crocheted...doll? I have no idea what I'll do with it, maybe give it to my niece, but I just had to do it.
And think, after the day at work that you had, a little yarn porn could make your day. "Yaay!"
So you pull out the "catalogue" only to find this:
