Annie Knits

Apparently, I Have Postitis...

The black hole of internet attention today has been this website.  Do NOT click unless you have lots of time and you've been doing your Kegel exercises.  You've been warned.  The Captain America video is particularly disturbing/amusing. 

And Monte got his summer cut today.  He looks like a Dr. Seuss character. 

Edited:  Ok, Ok, you know I don't think that stalking is funny.  It's scary and abhorent.  To clarify, what I think is funny is the above website's response to crazy men's notes.  It's kind of an in-your-face you crazy SOB's/ shake your fist at the universe thing.  The post about the response to Ben's Captain America video includes a link to a 47 or so page wank about the vid, including a parody vid or two that are very, very funny.   

It's Stinkhorn Season

Last year my neighbor pointed out that we have them.  Stinkhorn fungus.  They come out after a good rain in the spring time. 

 

 

Aptly named little buggers, they smell like a combination of old musty discloth and un-run garbage disposal.  They've got this baby poo colored sticky stuff on them and I'm totally grossed out.  Just these two smell up the whole front yard.

And, from a distance, they look like some gross serial licker is buried all but his tongue under my mulch.

Gee-ross.

Hah.  Wasn't that a charming post.  Hope you aren't reading this while you eat lunch. 

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

Mother's Day present I bought for my self and wrapped for myself and put in husband's closet for the 4 weeks until I could open it Sunday.  Shameful.  Shhh.  It makes my heart sing.  I'm officially a bag hag and I hate myself for it.  Isn't she pretty?

Some of the flowers I ordered for myself while I was ordering my mothers their flowers.  I couldn't help it.  Serves me right that I think the lilies, while absolutely gorgeous, smell like feet.

The yellow sweater.  She is nearly finished.  Sewn together and woven in.  All that's left to do is pick up and knit the neckline.  That's all.  All that's left.  And damn if I haven't done it 4 times, none to my satisfaction.    Perhaps five is the charm...

So I let her sit while I cast on and knit the back and half of the front of a sweater out of this Sakura that I practically stole from Rachel.   Too lazy to take a picture of the sweater, and I'm not even sure it will make it to the point where a picture will be worth it.  While I love the yarn with an aching yearning pounding love, the pattern support is practically nil and I don't want to make a Clapotis right now... I want to make a sweater.

So I dropped everything and read a super trashy novel in 24 hours starting yesterday at 3 p.m.  So trashy I can't even tell you the name of it...

I seriously need to accomplish something worthwhile  and not selfish soon...  Except that QVC has a TSV coming up in the next few days  that needs my attention.

I'm Ramping Up

And I'll make an assumption that you, dear reader, are not surprised at that fact. 

I know that this is a hot topic, but this is my blog and I'm going to voice an opinion here. 

The media of this country has perpetrated a hoax on us.  Strong words, I know, but that's how I feel in light of recent revelations here at our house.

The constant coverage and special reports about the so-called Swine flu have created an atmosphere of panic and thoughtless behavior.  As I said yesterday, there is no way for a thinking person to use the national media, even including (sadly) NPR, to make a rational decision concerning this risk.  We have only the facts couched in supposition and inuendo and exageration and outright misleading information which we must tease out for ourselves. 

The doomsday scenarios and pictures of people with masks have apparently made many Americans terrified of each other. 

Yesterday, it hit home for me. 

A lovely Mexican-American (yes, she's a citizen as are her husband and children) woman cleans my house.  That relationship, my friends, is an intimate one, and I trust Norma implicitly.  She's cheerful, responsible, funny, smart (her English is way better than my Spanish), and she brings me killer tamales.  What else would you want from a person who has access to all of your stuff?

Yesterday we talked a little about the flu and whether or not it had impacted her mother and siblings who still live in Northern Mexico.  She said that there was little evidence of a problem there.  That the schools are open and she knows of no one who is sick. 

Then Norma told me of the problems here.  She was told by one of her clients, for whom she's been cleaning for years BTW, not to come to the house for a month.  A month.  That's a month's income.  Norma asked the woman why and she hemmed and hawed and finally admitted that she was afraid Norma might bring the flu to the house.  Really.  Norma's had no more contact with anyone who's been to Mexico in the last 2 months than I have, but she talks like she might have...  She's so mad that she's told the woman to find someone else to clean for her.  I don't blame her.

And two of her friends, one who drives a city bus and one who works at Big Box Mart, have been told to stay away from work for 2 weeks.  Without pay.  Without symptoms.  They are Mexican.

Now, them's fightin' words, folks.

Since 9/11 we've had an ugly mentality in this country.  It's one that displays xenophobia and hysteria and it's darned unattractive. 

I personally am boycotting all national media that doesn't feature Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.   I've read the reports from the CDC on their website for myself.  A little hysterical, but at least is primary source material.  Yeesh.

P.S. -- Rachel, I started a new sweater with the yarn I stole out from under you.  I'll put up pictures later. 

Good Morning, Campers!

Normally at this time of day I'd be chivvying Dear Son about the house trying to get ready to leave for carpool (starts at 6:20 a.m. this thing does), but he is at his 6th grade class trip to the Teton Mountains this week and dear daughter doesn't have to make an appearance anywhere until 7:30. 

First things first.  The Husband of the Year award goes to my dear one this year for sheer gardening prowess and determination.  Witness.

   

Starting at the top:  nearly glow-in-the-dark impatiens across the front of the house (gorgeous!); bright cypress ground cover, bamboo, and spiderwort near the grill in the sun; hostas in lots of colors and viburnum in the shade at the back of the patio garden; and finally flowering something in the frying pan that is the west side of the house (he also has a weeping cherry that goes here but he hasn't decided yet where exactly to place it).  All that in addition to cutting the grass this weekend as the yard boy is gallivanting about the mountains out west. 

How about a round of applause.  There was increased Tylenol consumption in the house yesterday evening...

I wish you could smell this lilac.  I've got two, one in front and one in back, so every time I step out of a door this time of year, lilac hits me square between the eyes.  It doesn't get any better than that.    Next week the mock orange will bloom and fill my yard with that heady scent.  I love this time of year in St. Louis. 

How about a series of bullets in place of more random updates...

• Book Club on Sunday night here was fun, but I feel the thing kind of dying.  Most did read the book this time (and admittedly, I'm often one who doesn't read or go prepared to talk), but we hardly talk of the books anymore.  We spend a couple of hours socializing -- not that there's anything wrong with that, I guess.  I guess that preparation is the key... and someone needs to guide the conversation and keep it on the book.  But it's so much more fun to talk babies and such right now.  Still somehow, it feels like we've strayed.  The Darn Good Chocolate cake I made from the Cake Mix Doctor book was in fact darn good though...
• Each day we get an update and a set of pictures from one of the teachers on the trip with Dear Son.  Very considerate, I think.  And fun to look through.  I don't think of myself as a helicopter parent, and Son travels well, but it's still fun to see where he's been each day.  Yesterday was snowshoeing in the mountains.  Somehow I find that hard to picture ; )  He's wearing handknits in the pictures as all of the hats I got the men for Christmas (Mizzou and OSU) have disappeared so I sent him with my own hat.  That went over very well by the way... not.  If you want a link to the pics (I won't bore you with them here) let me know and I'll forward it to you.
• Dear Son and Dear Daughter have both had birthdays in the last two weeks.  16 and 12 now.  Time flies.
• The Swine Flu coverage gives me a rant.  How can any of us make an intelligent decision about our risk level when the media is screaming at us all the time?! 

And finally?  The bulk of the knitting on the yellow sweater is done.  Here it is blocking (I never block before I sew, but I'm treating this sweater with reverence since I love it so much.)

Click to embiggen.  Whew.  She is soft and lovely and subtly shaded with orange and God I was sorry to finish the cabling. 

"That's Blog-worthy."

Those of you who've met Deborah will be able to hear her say that in your heads. 

She came over to knit yesterday.  First, she shared her guild presentation concerning men and mid 19th century knitting -- fascinating and detailed stuff.  If you can get to the St. Louis Knitter's Guild this weekend to hear it you won't be sorry.  Otherwise, I bet she'll share some of her sinsights with you if you just ask. 

As we spoke about knitting and just stuff, she said those words to me about eleven times.  Ok, already.  I get it.  ; )

Last time we talked I ended with my musings about what to knit next.  I did indeed fall hard for this sweater.  Witness my progress on it in little more than a week.  The pattern is a Kathy Zimmerman pattern, the Premiere Cabled Pullover, from Classic Elite's book Summertime Knits.  What follows are the bullets of blog-worthiness.

• The pattern arises from the cabled ribbing.  Remember when I said I liked that?
• I did the cabled ribbing incorrectly actually.  Zimmerman's directions are fine, I'm just cocky.  There are supposed to be two rows of offset 2x2 ribbing before the 12 rows of ribbing.  Deborah likes it just fine the way it is.  I'm deciding whether to drop them in and do the rest of the sweater as written or to ignore them.
• The yarn is my Sundara Seasons Aran Silk Merino club yarn in the Daffodil colorway.  God almighty this is some nice yarn.  Shiny and soft and beautifully dyed.  The pilling should be minimal as the pattern contains simply reverse stockinette at the friction points.  And, as I'm three rows from finishing the back of the sweater and just breaking into the third skein of eight, I'll have enough.  I can stop sweating and trying to think of ways to acquire more of it.
• I am knitting the yarn comfortably to a much tighter gauge than recommended (an aran weight yarn substituted for a light worsted weight one).  This will alleviate some of the pilling, I hope...
• The cabled lace pattern is a simple twelve-row pattern which was easily memorized.
• Cocky, as usual, have I consistently had to rip back the twelfth row as it is a row of 2x2 ribbing done on a purl row and I always forget to do it.  It is an important row though and part of the genius of this sweater.  The ribbing pulls the pattern rows under, allowing for a super clean transition between lace and cable.  Genius.

There were more, but I forget the rest.  Apparently I was a font of blog-worthy snippets.  I should blog more...

Knitting in Absentia

Oh, there's been plenty of knitting.  And party giving and vacationing.  Busy, busy, busy Chez Annie.

Bridgett, (sadly) blogless Janet, and I gave a dessert tasting/baby shower for friend Julie's (Jules of the comments) new baby boy Andrew.  Thirty some odd women, desserts, babies, and wine.  What's not to like?

We ate desserts and opened presents.  Penny is holding the guest of honor.  Janet made a layered lemon cake and Bridgett brought a chocolate cake and I did berry shortcake.  We had candies from local chocolatiers and good wine and good friends.

 

See baby Leo in the picture?  He mostly slept.

 

Bridgett made Andrew a beautiful center medallion quilt onto which she embroidered his name.  I told Julie that if she ever got tired of that quilt, that I'd take it off her hands as it would go perfectly in my house  ; ) .

 

I knit him this blanket.  It's the Fir Cone Shawl from Folk Shawls done in Mission Falls 1824 merino.  I sized it down from the lace weight shawl and it still turned out ginormous... 

 

Here he is again, with friend Rosemary (click to embiggen the cuteness).  I think he had a good time.

After the shower, the Annie Knits family jetted off to Orlando and Nassau for a little R and R.  Snork.  We came back exhausted.  Two theme parks, a giant water park, dolphin encounter, cousin visiting, snorkeling, eating out every night.  Heck, we were only gone 6 days...  We had a blast.

 

The family in front of Poseidon at Universal Studios; Dear Son getting a caricature done (make sure to click that one -- it's hilarious; our view at Atlantis in the Bahamas; the slides in the water park at Atlantis... on the left is a tower with 4 slides, all of which are done on tubes, on the right is the slide we affectionately named the ButtCrack Slide of Doom.  Really.  See that white slide on the front of the orange building?  Ahem.  And finally, family with Hercules the dolphin.  Yes, I put on a wet-suit.  It was flippin' cold.

Other than the blanket, I've finished two sweaters (ok, one of which was started ages ago, but finished this weekend) and a pair of socks.

   

Here is a sweater I knit for another new baby in our group of friends.  He's a mid-March baby, so green and aran are required, don't you think?  The color is right in the picture on the left, but the pattern shows better (obviously) on the right.  The sweater is called Pie Man from the Tadpoles and Tiddlers Rowan book.  Super pattern, well written and easy to read.  And the cables mostly grow from the ribbing which is a sign, I think, of a well written pattern.  The yarn is Cascade Greenland.  Love it.  It's what I think of as a heavy gansey yarn.  Firmly spun wool.  Lovely sproingy stuff.  I knit the 3 year old size as this little guy has received tons of baby stuff.  

 

Here is Planalto.  It's a Louisa Harding sweater I began ages ago.  I finished sewing it together and found just the right buttons for it this weekend.  Deborah helped with the buttons. 

I love this sweater.  People have complained about the yarn, Mariposa, being splitty and hard to work with, and it is, but so worth it, don't you think?  Great color.

 

Finally, socks out of Rachel's Dyeabolical yarn.  Weirdly pooling, but awesome.  The pooling happened because I finished each about six months apart...  I was a little more tense this spring.

It's good to be back on track. 

Now, I've acquired 4 skeins of Cascade Eco Wool in that beautiful cornflower color and I'm itching to do cables with it.  I'm off to hunt a pattern.  Or I may fall hard for this.  The world is my oyster now that all the babies have popped out and been knitted for.  Whew.

More Food for Thought

This entry on Boing Boing stirred my pot a little this morning.  How about yours?

More Morning Musings

Clicky. So sweet and just wow.

Write About What You Know

When I was working on my degree, we used to do a writing exercise.  We would read a piece of literature and then try to write something in that author's voice.  You know, try to divine what words that author would use in which situation.  This exercise is a great vehicle for discussing both an author's choices in the piece at hand and writing in general.  We didn't write very long pieces, but we'd try match things like tone and verbosity...  try to achieve the timbre of that person's voice on the page. 

I was never very good at generating the pieces as I have a pretty strong voice -- I tend to drop big words and put thoughts into the middle of other thoughts and I do it a lot and seemingly without the ability to stop myself -- but I enjoyed assessing them.  It's pretty easy, don't you think, to tell when something doesn't ring true?  Can't you tell, in a piece of writing, when one word or a phrase is kind of, well, a clinker?  Gosh, who remembers what the name is for writing about writing,  or maybe it's for studying the act of studying... I know there is a name for this kind of belly button gazing.

As a result of my bizarre 4:15 a.m. schedule as of late, I've got a lot of time to surf the net.  You have to be quiet at this early hour.  Laundry is right out as my machines are near the bedrooms and make a lot of noise.   The sound of unloading the dishwasher is likewise disturbing.  The quiet clicking of a keyboard seems fine as does quiet knitting while listening to a book on the iPod, so I have a few hours of forced quiet time each morning.  Lovely.  (I sure wish I could figure out what is disturbing my sleep at the same time each morning...)

One morning, I was reading a blog wherein the author was discussing some fan fiction she had written and posted.  Don't ask, it was a link through a link, and I'm sure I couldn't find this particular blog again.   She wanted feedback and was trying to kind of cross pollinate her audience after a fashion.

Fan Fiction?  I'd heard of the stuff.   It was kind of what we used to do in graduate school, right?  I clicked the link and read a little.  Holy buckets. 

First of all, there are tons of this stuff -- hundreds of thousands of pieces on just the one site.  Probably millions of hours worth of writing and revising.  Well, more writing than revising from the looks of it, but still.  Pieces written in response to books and songs and movies and TV shows and comics and anime... just gobs of it. 

I clicked around, interested and still with an hour to kill, finding some pieces written in response to books I've read lately.  The Outlander series has inspired lots and lots of what fanfic writers call Lemons.  I looked up the term in the Urban Dictionary and it is a reference to a decidedly NC17 manga series -- umm right.  The Outlander pieces were full of absolutely foul language and and seriously perverse and pubescent sexual scenes; so out of keeping with the original that I had to stop reading.   There was no hint of a brogue anywhere, just lots and lots of hay romping and sword play.  Which I suppose is the series at its essence, but the overlay of the author Gabaldon's voice makes it all very palatable. 

Then I clicked over to the the pieces inspired by the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer.  There hundreds of categories for this stuff, with hundreds of entries under each category.  And this again was just on one site.  This pairing of human and vampire has inspired so much imagination and generated so much writing, that just the sheer volume of it begs the question:  How much homework is going undone, the time spend instead melding these characters to do one's own bidding?

Most of what I found was obviously written by teens who were fantasizing about hunky hard body boyfriends who could read parental impulses and stay over night in your room with you.  As absolutely chaste as the books themselves are, the reality (well the imagined reality) of this situation seems irresistible.  I kind of get it.

**SPOILER ALERT FOR BREAKING DAWN**  Stop reading now if you don't want any hints.

I remembered that as I had listened to the final book in the Twilight series, the one where Edward and Bella are finally married and consummate the union, I was left feeling two ways.   First,  boy was I glad that there was so little of the explicit nature of the wedding night in this book as my teenager was reading away at it in her bedroom as I was listening.  But second, and this was the more powerful I'll admit:   OH COME ON!  Tell me what happened there!  At least a hint!  Don't just fade to black and leave it all to my imagination.  

**OK, its' safe**

This disappointment I think is a direct result of the skill with which Meyer's draws her characters in these books.  Oh, yes, it's YA and a bit tedious here and there with all the Trig class and Gym class and plot exposition about vampire attacks.  But the characters and the back stories?  Genius.  I couldn't get enough, I'll admit it.  And I can't wait until her new book, Midnight Sun arrives in book stores.  It's the first book in the series, the one in which the main characters meet and fall in love, but from the vampire Edward's point of view. 

Now that's a character exercise an English teacher can get behind.