Knitting class update, with some music on the side

I feel badly, but I've cancelled tomorrow's knitting classes because so few people signed up. I hope if you are one of the two people who did, you will sign up for the one that will be after the holidays.

I am also mulling over teaching a lace knitting class at Treetop Zen Center. Knitting complex lace is basically meditation with yarn. Mindfulness and concentration are essential.

Knitting is so rich with meaning. Come to think of it, is there anything that isn't? How could I be so foolish as to think that?

A friend asked me last night if I thought that "spiritually evolved" people might have different taste in music. I am not exactly big on the idea of "spiritually evolved people", but we'll leave that matter aside.

As for music, like what you like! Sure, some people think they are more evolved because they listen to John Adams instead everything that Justin Broadrick's done, but I think they're deluded. So there.

But I sure can't knit lace and listen to anything by Broadrick. Well, perhaps I could listen to Jesu and knit.

I had thought I'd failed miserably in trying to find an embed, but here it is, thanks to stumbling onto a new blog today (not that the writer of said blog likes Jesu or anything. He just had a lot of music embeds). Be forewarned - this is not the happiest music:



Image note: The cover of Jesu's Silver (linked above), which looks just about like what I see out my window today.

Lace Knitting Class

For any of you who live in Maine, I'll be teaching one or two classes at Heavenly Socks Yarns in Belfast on November 17th. Go here for details.

Photo note: Not the greatest photo, but the shawl is eight feet long! It's from Folk Shawls, and makes an excellent project for a beginner lace knitter.

Once upon a time, with sheep

Once upon a time, I had this fantasy: I would move to Northern New England, raise sheep, spin their wool and weave blankets on a 19th century loom (and I'd make a living at it).

Well, I did all of that, except for the part in parentheses.

It's been quite a while, but I miss those sheep. Getting up with the sunrise and tending to the animals, though sometimes a chore, was mostly a pleasure. I'm not looking back with rose-colored glasses. I loved raising sheep.

The second year that I had sheep, we saw a crazy cold winter. One month (I forget which one) the temperature never rose above zero. One morning, I looked at the thermometer and saw it read minus 28. I bundled up for my trip to the barn. In one hand I had a bucket of grain and in the other, water. A part of me wondered if those sheep would be frozen to death.

They acted like it was any other day. Some of them were in the barn and others were out sitting in the snow. They all had mustaches of ice. As I entered the barn, I sloshed the water around and got one of my mittens wet. Stupidly, I put my hand on the metal handle of the door to steady myself. Thankfully, that was one tough mitten I had knit. It immediately froze to the door, but my hand was hot inside of it, and I didn't lose any skin. I would have, most certainly. There were "freezing flesh warnings" on the radio. I had never heard of such a thing before.

It felt warm in that barn. The smell of hay was strong. I sat down on a hay bale and remember wondering if I'd knit a replacement for that mitten. It was a scallopman's mitten, designed to be worn by hands that got wet in the cold waters off the coast of Maine. For you knitters out there, these mittens were 90 plus inches around, knit with worsted weight yarn on size 2 needles and to top it off, they were lined with loops of wool (thank you "Homespun Handknit") I knit them before I even moved to Maine, while I was dreaming up this fantasy. I could not wait until I moved to a place cold enough to warrant wearing such things.

But no, I never knit a replacement.

I really miss those mornings with my sheep. I don't miss the anxiety I sometimes had after I started hearing coyotes on a regular basis. I once saw one at the edge of the woods. The sheep knew it was there before I did. I was wondering why all of them were standing at the edge of the electric fence, all turning their heads in the same direction. I looked where they looked and saw a coyote, its head down low to the ground.

Thankfully, no coyote ever got one of my sheep. I think they would have outrun any coyote, actually. The first time I had these sheep sheared, the fellow who did it came with two sheep dogs. Those sheep bolted right out of the shearing pen. I am not exaggerating when I say that the dogs chased them for two hours before the fellow called them off. He was afraid his dogs would drop dead from exhaustion. He came back the next day and did it my way, which was pretty funny, for I was a city girl who didn't know much. But I knew my wild sheep. They'd be cooperative for a bucket of grain with molasses in the middle of summer, when all they usually got was grass.

I remember these as lazy days. I'd spend time sitting in the barn or up in the pasture. I'd sit on the picnic table near the vegetable garden and shoot the shit with the fellow who owned the property. We'd talk for hours and then go back to whatever we were doing, me weaving or spinning or moving the fences around. There was a lot of work, with the sheep or in the garden, or with something or other, but I just remember a sort of langorousness, as if the days were longer than any days that preceded it or days that have come since.

I really miss that piece of property. It was a quarter of a mile down a dirt road and had acres and acres of rolling pasture, surrounded by a woods with a meandering path that lead to a large pond with an active beaver dam. It was perfection. Unfortunately, it wasn't my own property.

I feel like I live in suburbia these days, but that surely is a joke, for if I wanted a few sheep in my backyard, I could have them. There's no zoning against it, as far as I know. I'd be surprised if there were. I thought perhaps we should get some chickens, at the least. Somehow I don't think any of these things are going to happen on my little half an acre, but who knows?

Tonight I started spinning again after so many years. A wonderful woman lent me a wheel and it felt great to practice the simple art of spinning wool. I wonder why I ever stopped.

Painting note: This is a first - I had another image gracing the top of this post that I disliked so much I had to remove it. Instead, I offer up:
Gerard Dou's "Woman Eating Porridge" 1637
Beautiful spinning wheel - Dou was a stickler for detail, and probably would be diagnosed with something (OCD, perhaps) in this day and age. He made his own brushes in order to work with such precision on a small scale.

Addendum: I am quite smitten with Dou's paintings. His use of light and attention to detail are spectacular. I highly enjoyed the paintings I saw on line. I'd love to see some in person. Once upon a time, I lived in a place where I could go to a museum and see great art. Ah, there are tradeoffs in this life, aren't there? At least, now, I've got the Web. If I didn't, I doubt I could managed to have lived in Maine so long.

Buddy, can you spare a dime?

This'll be brief (gasp!) My depression was becoming severe and debilitating. I'm not feeling wonderful but I'm feeling better. Why? Well, at 3:00am on either Friday night or Saturday morning (whichever way one is coming at it) I learned how to do the "Magic Loop" method of knitting in the round. I would normally say "skip this entry" to those of you who don't knit, but since I'm not going to give a tutorial, feel free to stay.

Periodically, I contend that being interested in "everything" is a remedy for depression, but I think it's fair to say that if I were to use my blog (and my life) as evidence of this theory, that is appears to be not all that true. But then again, what if I weren't interested in anything? Hmmm. Well, I wouldn't be me, so I can't really say, can I? If I were still me, and I wasn't able to engage in doing anything, or reading, I would be stupendously depressed.

What's even better than just being interested in things (art, politics, nature, the world. . .) is learning something new. By 4:00am on Saturday morning, I was having a ball! It was the best couple of hours I'd had all week. Unfortunately, I thought "Oh, this is a turning point! I'm going to have a great weekend!" Nah. It didn't work out that way, and besides, those kinds of expectations are the kiss of death.

But I did make a pair of pulse warmers for my hands, traditionally called "Wristers" in northern Maine (photo above). These are real fingerless gloves. No knitter in their right mind back in the old days would have wasted their time knitting five short fingers. That's hard knitting, and these babies took about an hour and a half to make, at most. They are warm.

Are you depressed? Make something. It feels good.

Knitted lace, lace knitting

Warning: If you are not a knitter, I would suggest skipping this post. It's full of knitting terms that would render it meaningless to you. Ah, the problems of having a generalist's blog!

Last night I stayed up till after two in the morning. I had finished an eight foot long stole in the morning, washed it, blocked it and spent a bit of time admiring it. It's quite beautiful, but it was a piece of cake. I used a pattern from Folk Shawls, even though I usually don't use patterns. I loved this one, and figured it would be a good idea, for once, to use a pattern, for I've only once before knit fine lace (and that was almost twenty years ago!) It was a good idea, and I re-learned to structure of lace well. If you are thinking of knitting lace, I suggest you start the same way, with a project designated as "easy", or you most certainly risk the danger of complete frustration which will put you off lace for many years to come.

I also suggest that you do not start with cobweb weight or lace weight yarn, but a light sport weight. The thinnest yarns have very little give, fall off the needles and break easily, adding to the potential of frustration.

What words of warning! I enjoyed knitting the stole immensely. But last night's beginnings are a different story altogether. I just unraveled five hours of work!

There's a difference between knitted lace and lace knitting, though whether the definitions of both are "true" is disputed. Lace knitting is patterned on every other row, and knitted lace is patterned on every row. I will say, even if folks dismiss the terminology, that knitted lace is much more difficult. It is easy to get lost when patterning on every row. If one makes a mistake, one can't rip out to the unpatterned row, which is easy to identify. No, if one gets lost, or makes a mistake with knitted lace (which some call "true lace"), you must (and I can't stress this enough) understand the structure and principles of lace knitting in order to fix it. Otherwise, you are doomed. Seriously.

I understand the structure and principles of lace knitting fairly well, and I can attest to that, even then, it's pretty easy to become lost, especially at two in the morning.

Last night I spent at least a half an hour on one row of knitting, for I kept forgetting where I was in all the yarn overs, knit two and knit three togethers. I pulled out row upon row until I felt fairly sure everything was correct. But in the cold light of morning, I looked at my knitting and felt sure it contained one too many mistakes. I've made a bit of a vow to allow for mistakes when knitting (unlike when I was young, where any small mistake would scream at me to fix it). This, in theory, is a great way to knit, but with knitted lace, if you do make a mistake, it starts to multiply on itself, leading to more and more and finally rendering the pattern meaningless.

The pattern is fairly meaningless, too, as one is knitting. It doesn't look good and it's not supposed to. The knitting needs blocking (or dressing, as they call it in Great Britain). Before that, it's a mess, looking entirely like a somewhat controlled series of mistakes. For this reason, I find it inherently frustrating but also absolutely fascinating.

So, I ripped out my knitting (oh, and it was the second time, I must admit). It was too wide, anyway, and goodness knows, I don't need to do that many repeats in one row!

I will keep you posted. And I've got to take a picture of the finished stole. I am proud of it, even if it wasn't as hard as it looks.

Image note: page of instructions from the bible of Shetland lace knitting, or knitted lace. Whatever you call it, it's truly gorgeous.

Addendum: I am up to row fifteen of a complex pattern, on size 2 needles and cobweb weight yarn. I should have cast on more. The width is a bit too narrow and I don't want it to look like a scarf. I can either make it insanely long, so that I can drape it over my shoulders twice (which sounds good) or add a wide edging. I don't have to make that decision for many months, I'd venture to guess, even though it's knitting up fast. Today, I encountered no glitches and no confusion. Was it all because I was tired last night? Yes and no.

I learned a lot making all the mistakes I did yesterday. And today, I noticed that while I was knitting, I was not only counting stitches, but doing so in a sing-song manner, so my knitting puttered on with a soundtrack that was keeping me in line (and on the beat). This seems a good way to knit something complicated. It is a pattern that has a rhythm to it, after all

I highly recommend to anyone who wants to knit lace that is patterned on every row to make a fairly big swatch beforehand. It's usually unnecessary to swatch for gauge in lace knitting so forgoing it may be tempting. But, swatching to become intimately familiar with the pattern is a good idea.

Addendum: Approximately 1000 stitches later, I have this piece of advice for those of you who want to knit lace with true lace weight or cobweb weight yarn. Use small needles, size 0 or so. I'd also advise using Inox straight needles, for they are not in the least bit slippery. I generally do not like straight needles, but Inox doesn't make anything smaller than 2's in circulars. Crystal Palace makes 0 bamboo circulars, but if you use them you'll have to be careful about not snagging the yarn, especially with cobweb weight, on the connection points between the needle and the circular part (what's that called, anyway?) The reason I'm recommending small needles is because the lace has more integrity when knit tighter. One can see the design more plainly, and if you are new to this, this is very important. I ripped out those nearly 1000 stitches after hopelessly trying to chase down a dropped stitch and fix a break in the yarn. Just switching from 2's to 0's has made the whole endeavor a pleasure. Now, it's a crazy endeavor, no doubt, but I can't help myself. I must persevere!

Shirt renovation

If you look to the right, in the links section, there's my abandoned blog. It has many photographs of various projects I've done. This is but one of them.

I call it the "shirt renovation" for what I did was buy a huge men's chambray shirt (one dollar), removed the cuffs, put a new collar on, and added some design elements and three huge pockets in front.

Nothing snarky or funny about this post. Just sharing something I enjoyed making. If you'd like to see the whole project as it progressed, please leave a message on this post. I have detailed instructions.

Now, is this chic? Nah. But if you live in a very rural area, like I do, it's nicer than the average apparel I see on other women. Why do so many people wear pastel sweatshirts with awful "artwork" on them?

Note: Google "country sweatshirts" and you'll find lots of horrible stuff.