Le Pacte Des Loupes

Until I can knit again - still some weeks off, if my friends, coworkers and well-meaning strangers are to be believed - I might as well pass the time by catching up on some earlier finished work. This lovely short scarf is...

Domina?

Yes, Bernini's David?

Domina, there are things afoot in the villa about which I, as your steadfast champion, need to be informed.

For example?

For example, what has happened to your lovely hands? What has damaged them so badly that you can no longer craft beautiful adornments for The David? Where you attacked by the pack of wolves?

Wolves? What are you talking about? David, there aren't any wolves here.

Aren't any wolves..oh, fairest lady! How I have failed you! Not only has that scoundrel of a husband allowed wolves to overrun the grounds while I remained anchored on this hateful pedestal, but the trauma has wiped the horror from your mind. Would that I could have stood between you and their slavering jaws. I turn from you in defeat and shame.


Have you gone insane, my stationary friend? I broke my finger in a motorcycle accident. You know that. I mean, yeah, I was on some powerful pain medicine after the surgery, but I'm pretty sure there weren't wolves roaming about the place.

But they were everywhere! Did you not...oh, accursed sound! I hear their diabolical howls. Hide! I beg you! Take shelter behind my muscular frame. I shall hold them off while you flee.

David, that's just Molly, whining and throwing her food bowl around because she's up in her kennel. Molly. You've met, remember? She drinks at the water di...majestic pool at your feet fifteen times a day.

Good lord! You have NAMED the beast?




Details
Pattern
Wisp from Knitty Summer 2007

Yarn
Artyarns Pearl Rhapsody (kind of like Silk Rhapsody, but better) in color 2268...I think. Molly ate the skein wrapper. I think it was 260 yards, and I have about a yard left.

Daisy bought this yarn on her cross-country trek home to Maine and sent it out to me. It languished in a basket for several months, and was at risk of being a Too Special to Ever Become Anything yarn. Readers, you know how I feel about TSEBA yarns. Something had to be done before it got any closer to the dreaded garage bin Vortex of Indecision. Yarns go in, and they never make it back out again. I went into my queue, picked the closest thing I could find, yardage-wise, and just started knitting.

Needles
Brittany Birch, size 8. In retrospect, this project would have been a lot easier with lace needles, or even the pointier tips of the Boye interchangeables, but the BBs weren't too bad. The yarn felt better on wooden needles, so I stuck with it.

Time
It was my lunchtime knitting, so I didn't really keep track. I finished it about two months ago, and I started it right after finishing the crochet throw.

Modifications
Only because I screwed up at the beginning and didn't do the setup rows right. The ends don't match, because one end has the support for the buttons and the other doesn't.

Conclusions
I liked this pattern. I think I'd like it a lot more if I were to knit it again with pointier needles. The finished scarflette/wrap/whatever is shorter than I usually like regular scarves to be, but then again, it's not supposed to be a full-length scarf.

I can see wearing it as a cowl once I find the right buttons for it. It'll look stylish and sophisticated while I'm driving down the road in the follow car, trailing behind all of my motorcycling loved ones. But that is a story for another day, when I can stand to type for a bit longer. My left hand is about to give out, and I can feel the pins moving around under the dressing on my pinkie. It's creepy, actually. I'm going to wrap this up and stop moving for a while.


Yes, Domina! Be still, in the name of all that is holy! There is danger in the wind. Can you not detect its menacing miasma?

David, for God's sake, there aren't wolves in the house. That's the smell of the pan from last night's dinner. It's garlic. We're perfectly safe.

Hush, noble lady. They are watching...

The Shepherd's Hook

On Trying New Things

Text message to Doc: I am riding a motorcycle! :-)

Many people I know ride motorcycles. Big Guy and his lady friend, several of our neighbors on the cul-de-sac, many people at work, and Doc and The Chemist are all avid riders. Most importantly, Accountant Boy used to ride, and wants to start again.

I, on the other hand, haven't ever had a desire to ride a motorcycle. The whole idea of being exposed and vulnerable out on the road, and all of the work involved in even the most basic maneuvers put me off of them before I'd even sat on one. Let me reiterate. I had never sat on a motorcycle and gripped the handlebars in my life. I rode on the back of Big Guy's bike once, when I was in high school.

To be honest, I haven't even enjoyed riding a bicycle in the last twenty-four years. Once I learned to drive a car, there was not turning back. I tried to pick it up again at UCSB, because biking to school was so much more convenient than walking, and I lived too close - embarrassingly close - to drive. It didn't stick, though. Once we graduated, I got rid of my Roadmaster. We bought mountain bikes a few years later, but we've only ridden them twice in the last dozen years. For me, four wheels make more sense than two.

Everyone told me that I should at least try riding a motorcycle. "Take the beginning rider course, and just see if you like it. If you don't, no big deal. How will you know if you don't try?" After months of hearing this from every rider I know, it started to make sense. Was I resistant to riding simply because I'd never done it? Was it the same resistance that held me, paralyzed with fear, at the top of the high dive when I was ten years old? Would it be fun, the fear an amusing memory, once I'd done it? Was it that Santa Claus situation, wanting to do something so badly but being terrified of it at the same time?

Whatever the case, I kept telling people that I just didn't want to ride. Although I appreciated their confidence in me and my ability to be a rider, I did not have this confidence in myself. I was even willing to entertain the idea of being a passenger. However, I spent so much time thinking about it, and had so many conversations with riders about it, that I convinced myself that I was in the wrong.

I agreed to take the beginning course, and went with my very eager friends and an equally eager Accountant Boy to CycleGear, where I bought gloves, boots and riding jeans. I'm not going to pretend that shopping for gear wasn't fun, and that I didn't get too caught up in it to listen to my inner voice, which was still trying to tell me to not ride. That's exactly what happened. I quelled my inner voice by shouting over it. "But look at this beautiful Dainese jacket!".

We bought our helmets at another store, really nice, full-face helmets. Big Guy told me that I should get a skid lid, but I told him that I loved my chin too much for that. "All your gear, all the time. That's how I'm going to roll, Big Guy." He chuckled.


Text message to Doc: I am in the emergency room. :-(

Four and a half hours into the first day of the riding course, I went down while turning a corner. I think, based on the scuffs in my new boots and the gouges in my helmet, that I hit a patch of gravel as I was turning. My head bounced off the tarmac, followed in close succession by my shoulder, my knee, and, apparently, my hand. It happened so quickly that I was back up and cursing before anyone noticed that I'd hit the ground. "Stupid! I can't believe I did that. God, I am so pissed off right now."

The instructor picked up my bike and told me to get my gear back on and keep riding. I held up my helmet, which was now not entirely intact. He played around with it for a few seconds, then handed it back to me. "Mount up!" He walked away before I could tell him that my knee hurt, and my hand felt like I'd slapped it pretty hard on the ground. Therefore, I felt like a sissy for complaining about it. What should I, as a rider, do after falling like that? Clearly, dust myself off and get back on the bike. That's what I was expected to do.

My helmet had other, more prudent ideas, and fell apart once more as I tried to pull it back on. I couldn't get the instructor's attention again, and A.B. was concentrating on his turn in the emergency braking exercise, so I killed the engine on my bike and stepped away to figure it out on my own. A man from the sidelines, there to watch his young daughter get her license, trotted over to help me. "I don't think I can fix this," he said. "You shouldn't wear it." He paused for a second and looked at me. "Hey, are you O.K.?"

"Well, my hand does kind of hurt." I pulled my gloves off, right one first and then the left. "It's redder than normal, but I did slam it pretty hard when I fell." Having only been told to check on my helmet, not knowing that I'd dropped the bike, A.B. rode up just as I exclaimed, "Oh! I don't think I'm supposed to be able to press on it that way and make it move!"

"O.K. We're going to go to the emergency room and get that looked at," A.B. said in the most measured tone he could muster, given that I was injured and that he was not a little grossed out by my dislocated and rapidly bruising finger.

"I'm just not going to look at it, because it didn't hurt until I looked at it."

"Let's just get to the car."

"Wait! My helmet! Get all of the pieces. And could you carry it for me? Because I don't want to take my right hand away from my pinkie..."

"Yeah, I've got it. C'mon, honey. Let's GET GOING."


Now, it might be hard to tell, if you don't spend much time looking at my fingers - and why would you, because that might be considered weird and intrusive - that there's much wrong with my pinkie. I, however, spend a lot of time looking at my fingers, because I love my hands. I think they're beautiful, as hands go. I spend a lot of time looking at them when I'm not busy typing. Is that vain? Maybe. The takeaway here is that I love my hands, both for their form and their function, and I know exactly how each finger should look.

This one? Wrong. The last joint isn't bending the right way, and it's missing its characteristic lateral wrinkles. Also, the knuckle is all screwed up. I've broken off half of the piece that would hold the first and second phalanges together, and now the joint isn't stable. They tried to pull it back into place in the ER, but it wouldn't stay, because there's nothing to anchor it. The little piece is now floating around where my knuckle should be.


And now, two hours prior to the surgery, I'm rushing to get in one last blog post before beginning what will probably be eight weeks with my hand in a cast. Eight weeks of showering with my arm wrapped in a grocery bag. Eight weeks of having to plan where I park my car, because it's not easy to back out of a parking space with your right hand on the wheel, especially after a quarter of a century of doing it the other way. Eight weeks without knitting, without (easily) typing, without being able to walk my dogs...yes, there are two dogs now, and I haven't even had a chance to tell anyone about the second one. Weeks, and then more weeks of physical therapy to try to make it work right again.

I'm able to write this now because my finger is only in a splint. This is the first day since the accident that it's felt good enough to use it. I've suddenly rediscovered the muse and feel like writing again. Of course there's a second half to even this lengthy story.

And I have so much to say about riding and knitting and work and summertime and dogs and...I'm out of time. We're heading off to the surgery center.

A Conversation via Text Message

Doc: Looks like Volvo driver decided to go thru insurance. May need some statement/claim help.

Me: We'll happily give it, once we figure out how to make the steam cleaner work. Winston is unsettled at the moment, and now I am, too, b/c I can't clean up the evidence of his unsettled lower digestive tract. Hoping A.B. didn't want to do Insanity workout tonight. It will not be pleasant.

Doc: Oh no! Is it a bissel? I have a little experience with them. Sorry about the digestive unsettling - hope things dry up quickly. We have a gallon of natures miracle if you need any. ;-)

Me: YES! Oh, that would be wonderful. As it stands, I'm pouring solution directly on the floor and sucking it up with the hand tool attachment. Funny, but not effective.

(Forty minutes later)

Me: Accountant Boy is on the case. it's only a matter of time, now. I'm enjoying a frosty Boddingtons while I watch.

(Twenty minutes later)

Me: We were trying to figure out where the last of the smell was coming from, and then...


Me: ..yes, right on - and in - A.B.'s running shoes. You can't tell me that's not some kind of message.

Doc: Yikes - sorry I failed with the callback. Glad u got backup! I'm at cooking group @ work, will be joining The Chemist for a hoppy beverage around 9pm when he's back from company dinner. Hope Winston's belly is feeling better soon.

Me: Might we join you for a refreshing beverage, or is it a couples thing?

Me: "In my SHOE!"

Doc: I think I laughed, and then threw up in my mouth. Or maybe it was the other way around. Oh god. What a catastrophe. Betcha ten bucks Buddy wouldve given him two paws up.

Doc: Of course - time-to-be-firmed-up. Can call when on the way if u like?

Me: We'll already be there, because...Jesus. How do you get the picture out of your head? The horror...the horror.

* * *

Still knitting, still trying to make time to catch up on blogging, etc. And I was going to do just that tonight, but when I walked into the house and smelled that specific, evocative odor, I knew it wasn't going to happen exactly as planned. Winston eats a high quality food, which makes his feces especially fragrant. From a distance, it's not unlike walking into a kitchen where a beef stew has been simmering for several hours. Up close, it's not so pleasant. The point is, you know what's up with him the minute you open the front door, and exactly how much work is going to have to go into making it right. So, while I'd love to talk about the things I've made and the things I'm doing, that will have to wait for another day.

I'm going out for a beer.

Neoprene Cockfighting Suit

"I just had a flash of a dream. It was a tight shot of a woman's hands wrapping blue neoprene pads around the legs and feet of a rooster. There was an even tighter shot of the neoprene covering the rooster's talons. I watched as she then put a full body suit on him, pressing it firmly closed at the breast, and pulled a tiny hat over his head and fastened the extended neck guard, all also made of neoprene, under his beak. I didn't see any more of the woman than her hands. The whole scene took about ten seconds, and it looked like background video from a newscast."

"Sounds to me like someone's angling for a spot on Donny Deutsch."

"That's my big idea? Protective gear for fighting chickens?"

"It practically sells itself!"

"No, no it doesn't. Because here's what else I remember. The suit completely enveloped the body of the rooster, pinning his wings to his body. How long do you think the cockfight's going to last if the roosters lose their balance, fall flat on their backs and end up futilely kicking the air with their little neoprene legs?"

I had that dream a little more than a year ago. I still don't know what it means.

Meanwhile, I finally decided that I hated the idea of a Big Kureyon garment, but that I hated the idea of ten balls of the stuff sitting in my stash bin even more. My knitting friend, let's call her Natasha, and I recently took a crochet class. I already knew how to crochet, but it sounded like fun, so what the Hell. Anyway, someone asked the instructor what would happen if one kept adding rounds to a granny square, as though there were some punishment to be meted out for not stopping at the prescribed number of repeats. "You'd just have a bigger square. But why would you want to do that? It'd be so boring."

Challenge accepted, my good man.


Details
Pattern
No pattern.

I took a ball of Kureyon, chained six stitches, joined, made granny square rounds until I'd almost run out of yarn, then fastened off the last loop. It ended up being eleven rounds for each of the big squares.

It seemed like it was going to be too small when I finished, and I spent a good bit of time thinking about how to stretch it out to twelve squares. No matter how I did the math, I was never going to get more than eleven out of it. I'd play around with Post-It notes during conference calls, rearranging the squares on my desk in as many ways as I could think to shift them, but all of the best arrangements, meaning those that would make the final product look like a blanket instead of an unfinished craft class experiment, had either nine or twelve squares. I finally came up with the four little squares solution.

And you know what? The instructor was right. It was really, really boring. The only thing that kept me going was watching the color changes happen.

Yarn
Noro Big Kureyon in color 8, long discontinued. I used about eight and a half balls of it.

The color's hard to photograph. The close-up under the bright light captures it, but that's not entirely true, because it's never under that kind of light in my house. It ends up looking murkier than that most of the time.

The yarn itself is, well, it's Noro. Some of the balls were continuous, some of them had three or four knots in them. The color repeats weren't consistent from ball to ball, which is obvious when you look at the squares. Each was started with one end of the ball and worked straight through. No two are the same. That's the nature of Noro, and that's why I don't work with it much. That much inconsistency drives me crazy.

It made a fairly stiff blanket, because the yarn is bulkier than it seems in the skein. It'd work almost as well as a rug.

Needles
Brittany Birch hook, size I, except when I'd forget and pick up the H by mistake. I don't think it happened too often, though.

Time
About two weeks to finish the squares, mostly on lunch hours. It took another week for me to get around to linking them all together, and a couple more days before I felt like weaving in the ends.


Modifications
None, because it wasn't a pattern.


Conclusions
Is it the most finished, elegant blanket I've ever seen? Well, no. I got bored when sewing in the tails, so some of them cross back over other stitches. The wool is more rustic than I usually like. And, you know, it's granny squares. It's going to be more country than rock 'n roll.

But here's the thing. I was never going to make anything else out of that yarn. Ever. I got a good-size blanket out of it, especially after washing and blocking. It took three weeks total, and that's with a few days of staring at the stack of squares and sighing because I didn't want to put the damned thing together. I got rid of about 1400 yard from my stash, with enough left for a scarf.

The most important thing is that I like looking at it when it's wrapped around my feet. The colors really are beautiful. All in all, a success.

...and then I saw this. Now I feel inadequate.