Winging It

I've got a swatch, no pattern, 1200 yards of yarn, and approximately a month and a half before the weather turns too warm to wear an angora sweater. This ought to be fun.

Fuzzy Furrow

Flash

I've had this yarn for almost two years. I bought it at Stitches in 2006, and it's almost Stitches time again, so yeah, two years. I've been trying to put my finger on why I was so drawn to it, and I finally figured it out the other day. The colors remind me of the city of Mongo from 'Flash Gordon'.

I know what you're probably all thinking, especially Cristi. Just hear me out on this one.

Back when I was a kid, cable television was a revolutionary thing. Prior to getting it, we had to watch whatever we could find on the dial, and it was literally a DIAL that one cranked around until a broadcast channel came up on the screen. There weren't fifteen separate channels for the premium stations, either. There was one HBO, one Cinemax, one Showtime. And when we first got cable, those three channels had apparently latched on to 'Flash Gordon' as their go-to midday program. We probably watched it a hundred times. I loved the colors. I loved the action. I loved the music, even though I'll admit that it's not one of Queen's crowning achievments. I loved Timothy Dalton in his green tights. If it was on, I was watching it.


A new movie supplanted it on the schedule, probably 'Return of the Jedi' or something similarly big, and I didn't see my beloved 'Flash Gordon' again for more than two decades. It only briefly came out on DVD before going out of print. I forgot about it.

Then, a magical thing happened. Encore or Starz or one of those channels found a copy, dusted it off, and threw it onto one of their secondary channels. It was as wonderful and cheesy as I'd remembered. If anything, it might actually be better with a little aging. Aside from Dale's Earth clothes, it doesn't look dated. Sure, the special effects are bad, but they're not supposed to be anything other than what they are. It's a live-action comic book, not cinéma-vérité. The DVD was still in print in Brazil, so I paid a premium and got a copy of it, not realizing that it would be rereleased for the 25th anniversary. Oh, well. It may not have the extras, but my copy has the option of Portuguese subtitles.

The four balls of yarn I used for this project reminded me of all of the colors of Mongo - the reds of the guards' uniforms, the gold curtains around Dale's bedchamber, the violet clouds and the oranges of the lightning field. There's even a little bit of hot pink every so often, like Princess Aura's shiny catsuit. Needless to say, it's impossible to photograph with accurate color, because of all of that red. Trust me on this one - it's gorgeous in real life.


Details

Dr. Zarkov: "Get your toothbrush and whatever!" (The Pattern)

Clapotis from Knitty, Fall 2004

Hedonia: "It has no name. Many brave men died to bring it here from the Galaxy of Pleasure." (The Yarn)

Interlacements Dyer's Choice from a bin at Stitches. It was probably meant to be Toasty Toes, but it didn't have enough twist. Each skein had about 185 yards, and I used a little less than four skeins. It's another stash-reduction project, which makes me very, very happy.

Flash: "Where are the weapons?" Arborian: "Feel one." (The Needles)

Brittany Birch, size 6 US. I routinely start flat knitting projects with needles two sizes smaller than the pattern calls for, and more often than not, it works out. See? I can be taught.

Dale Arden: "Flash! Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!" (The Time)

I think I started it on January 9th, and I bound off and wove in the ends on January 24th.

Voltan: "Flying blind on a rocket cycle?" (The Modifications)

I left off one increase section, so it's not quite as wide as the pattern. Also, I had no idea how much it would grow once I dropped all of the stitches, so I kept thinking it was too short. Instead of thirteen straight sections, I had twenty. It's long, stretching about an inch below the hem of my coat on both sides when hung straight around my neck. I like it this way. It makes it easier to drape it around my shoulders.


Robot: "Long live Flash. You've saved your Earth. Have a nice day." (Conclusions)

I'd forgotten how boring the last, oh, two thirds of a project like this can be. I think I chased the 'just want to do something mindless' urge out of my system.

I bought this yarn for this project, and I'm glad that I stuck with that plan. I think the rippling of the dropped stitches shows off the colors beautifully.

I've worn my new Clapotis quite a bit since finishing it. It was cold down at my parents' house, sunny but barely above freezing during my dad's funeral. My mom likes to turn off the heater at night, so I slept with my freshly completed project around my neck at least twice while I was there. It's warm and comfortable, and not one bit itchy. It's perfect.


In other news, Buddy's decided to stop me from pursuing further education in systems analysis. Last night, he stomped over to my spot on the couch, rammed the book off of my lap with his head, then promptly laid on it. "Buddy! Dammit, guy! I'm already a week behind because of the funeral and everything. Give me a break!" He was not swayed. He arched his back and somehow managed to scoot himself even farther onto the opened book.

Fruit Punch Mouth

Oh, hello there. I'm Bug. At least that's my name right now. Not too sure what it's going to be in the future. I'm not quite sure what's happening, to be honest. I went for a car ride with these people, like I've done before with my friend Volunteer Steve, only they don't seem to have remembered to take me back to the Hall.

Don't anybody remind them, alright? I think I might be onto a good deal here.

How to Live Forever

Most kids have a long list of things their fathers taught them. “My dad taught me to play ball”, or “my dad taught me to ride a bike”, or “my dad taught me to drive”, things like that.


My dad didn’t teach me to play ball. He probably taught me to ride a bike, although I can’t remember him doing so. I didn't even remember that he could ride until a few months ago, when he asked me to print out a picture of him with his first bicycle. He certainly didn’t teach me to drive. One hour of careening down the country road beyond the golf course ended those lessons. I almost drove us into a ditch, and he said, “I think that’s about enough for today, honey. I’ll drive us home.” My mom subsequently taught me to drive.


My dad taught me different things. When I was very young, maybe seven years old, he taught me to play gin. We’d sit at the kitchen table and play for hours. He didn’t teach me how to win. He let me learn that on my own. It takes a special kind of man to look fondly across the table at his youngest child, staring back at him over a fan of cards barely contained in her tiny hands, trying so hard not to give away that she's one card away from ginning. A special kind of man to then put his discard face down on the pile and say, “Sorry, honey, but I’m going to have to go with three.”

Everything I learned from him was by example, by watching him and emulating him. I make sure that I put stamps on envelopes just so, perfectly lined up at both corner edges, because that’s how he did it. He taught me to whistle, which I can do beautifully, although I never could get the trill down right. I learned to love the Giants, through the few good years and the innumerable bad. I watched him and I learned what it meant to be loyal.


I’m trying, although I suspect that I’ll never be as good, to be the kind of listener, the kind of conversationalist that he was. My dad could listen to an argument for an hour, listen and think about what everyone had said, and then ease his way in and say the perfect thing to end it. He had a calm thoughtfulness about him. I didn't always agree with him, but I always respected his opinions because I knew he'd deliberated over them so thoroughly.


I remember sitting at the kitchen table many years ago, crying. I was in a real funk, and he was trying to figure out how to help me. I finally got up the strength to tell him what was wrong – that I didn’t understand how everyone in the world didn’t spend all of their time thinking about how someday they were going to die, how unfair it was that the crushing burden of this knowledge was reserved for the deep thinkers, like twenty-year-old me. I ended my lament with, “But you know, right? You’re OLD! How do you keep going, knowing that someday you’ll just be GONE?”

My dad folded his hands on the table and stared at them for a minute, deep in thought. He took a measured breath and said, “Well, I think that if I affect other people, that I do good things and make them think that they’re happy to know me, then that’s my legacy. That’s the part of me that’s still here. If I can do that, I’m not gone.”

It’s the most important thing I learned from him.

My dad died a little after noon on January 24th, 2008. He was ninety years and sixteen days old.