What Summer? July 3, 2009

I woke up at 7:30a today to see a somewhat-clear blue sky outside the window. I felt a crash of joy! — and then a sudden drop into despair. The entire western half of the sky was dark grey and full of looming rain clouds. As usual.

We haven’t had much of a summer here in New England. It’s been rain, rain and more rain. It’s been perfect weather to sit inside, read, and knit, but I haven’t been doing much of that. I’m taking a creative writing class three nights a week, and working 40+ hours on top of that. I’m always exhausted but luckily I only have three more classes to go, and then all of my evenings are free! I foresee much more knitting in my future.

I made a goal to read at least 30 books this summer. That’s not a huge goal for me; I read voraciously, all the time, anywhere. The class has absorbed a lot of my reading time, but I’ve decided to cheat and use the books I’ve read for the class towards my total. I’ve read about 18 books so far. I reread the Harry Potter series in preparation for the sixth movie, but since I’ve read them so many times before, I’m not going to count them towards the finished total.

There has been knitting; since February, I’ve finished up a pair of Monkeys, a February Lady Sweater, and an Ishbel. I started and frogged a pair of stripey Koigu socks for my boyfriend (his feet are spoiled), and currently have four rounds of ribbing done on them. I’m ashamed of myself; I haven’t kept up with any of my knitting goals for this year and I’m going to have to hustle my bustle to get them done.

I am pretty proud of that FLS, though.

Toe-Up Pomatomus Pattern. May 30, 2009

I know I’m not the first person to make them, but I wanted to share my pattern notes for my Toe-Up Pomatomus socks. I cobbled them together from lots of different sources, and now it’s one of my my go-to sock patterns. Enjoy!

Toe-Up Pomatomus

I began with a provisional cast-on (using the directions found at Knitting at Knoon (http://www.knittingatknoon.com/provisional.html). I started with 36 stitches (half the number needed for the foot of the sock), and using the short-row method, decreased to 12 stitches.

Here’s how I worked the short-row toe (instructions taken from Wendy’s Generic Toe-Up Sock Pattern, found here.

1. Knit 36 stitches. Move the working yarn as if to purl. Slip the last, unworked stitch from the left needle to the right needle. Turn your work.
2. Slip the first, unworked, stitch from the left needle to the right needle. Purl the next stitch (you will have wrapped that first stitch around its base with the working yarn) and purl across to the last stitch. Move the working yarn as if to knit and slip last stitch. Turn.
3. Slip the first stitch and knit across to the last stitch before the unworked stitch. Wrap and turn.
4. Slip the first stitch and purl across to the stitch before the unworked stitch. Wrap and turn.

Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you’ve decreased to the desired stitch width of your toe – I decreased to 12 stitches. Want a wider toe? Don’t knit as many short rows. A narrower toe’s more your style? Knit a few more!

To finish working the toe and to create the little “pouch” for your toes, follow these steps (also taken from Wendy’s Generic Toe-Up pattern):

1. Knit across the 14 live stitches across to the first unworked, wrapped stitch. To work this stitch, pick up the wrap and knit it together with the stitch. Wrap the next stitch (so that it now has two wraps) and turn.
2. Slip the first (double-wrapped) stitch and purl across to the first unworked, wrapped stitch. Pick up the wrap and purl it together with the stitch. Wrap the next stitch and turn.

Continue working these two rows till you’ve increased back to 36 stitches across.

Now you’ll need to unzip that provisional cast-on and pick up those held 36 stitches. I recommend picking up each stitch individually first, instead of unzipping the entire row – it’s painstaking, but much better than trying to pick up dropped stitches. Make sure both your needles are pointing in the same direction if you’re using Magic Loop.

Next row, knit around the entire row to join the sides together. You’re now ready to begin the pattern!

On the 36 instep stitches, work Rows 1-22 of Chart B twice, then Rows 1-11 once more (knit the 36 sole stitches). I have a size 8.5 US foot, so you can adjust the pattern to fit your foot. The nice thing is that you can try the sock on as you knit – so you can stop at whatever row you’d like. Work till you’re two inches away from your heel. You’ll now work a short-row heel using the 36 sole stitches.

It’s easy to work a short-row heel – just follow the directions for making a short-row toe. Work as many rows as you want, depending on how wide or narrow you want your heel to be.

When you’ve worked all stitches and you have 72 live stitches once more, join for working in the round and continue with wherever you left off on Chart B – for example, if you stopped on Row 11 of Chart B, start with Row 12, working around on all 72 stitches.

If you stopped working on Row 22 of a repeat, begin your ankle stitches with Row 1 of Chart A. You’ll work the pattern repeat 6 times each row.

Work Rows 1-22 of Chart A for the desired number of chart repeats, until the sock ankle is the length you’d like. I knit two full repeats of Chart A for my sock ankle.

Next, work an inch of twisted rib – knit 1 tbl, purl 1, rep till end.

Finish with Russian Bind-Off:

1. Purl the first two stitches together.
2. Loosen the stitch.
3. Move the stitch from your right needle back to your left needle and purl the next two stitches together.
4. Repeat Steps 1-4 to end.

Weave in ends; block lightly if you’d like.

I’ve used Koigu Painter’s Palette Premium Merino for every pair of Pomatomus (Pomatomi? Hm.) that I’ve knit. It’s slightly thicker than your average sock yarn — almost a light fingering weight — but I love the smooth hand and drape when knitting KPPPM with size 2 needles. I use Magic Loop when knitting from the toe-up, but you can easily adapt the pattern to use DPNs or two circs — whatever your preference!

Happy knitting.

50 Word Wednesday. May 28, 2009

The tongue forgets last. It sketches summers of blackberry bushes and ocean water you weren’t supposed to swallow. It’s memorized winters of bleak days broken only by the hope of a drop of jam. Most of all, it remembers the feeling of your mouth, soft and sad, like a peach.

Fifteen minutes goes by fast on the Internet. May 27, 2009

I’m so used to getting no hits on my blog that it was quite a shock when I checked my stats today to see this:

Eighteen views! I spent a few minutes wondering what I had done to get so much attention, and then I remembered that I had left a rather steamed (and possibly slightly sanctimonious, I admit it) comment on Pharyngula’s blog after another one of his patented attacks on religion. Aaah, so his angry hordes of godless heathens came stomping over here to attack me (all eighteen of them)!

All kidding aside, I respect his right to be an atheist, and I agree with many of his issues with religion, especially of the organized variety. It’s too often used as a divisive tool, or a weapon, or a way of keeping people from making educated, autonomous decisions about how they want to live their lives. I take issue with his high-handed attitude toward religion in general — that it’s all bad, all lies, all smoke-and-mirrors. Intolerance isn’t just a trademark of organized religion. Hmph.

However, now I know what to do whenever I want more blog hits.

May 13, 2009

I don’t know what is it about this song/video, but I’m dropping tears into tissues as I write.

50 Word Wednesdays. May 13, 2009

I have two things I could say, so I’m writing you two letters. One to tell you I love you, one to tell you I’m leaving. Even if it’s just to fall apart, we have to move forward. So: pen to paper. I’ll know which letter to give you tonight.

No dream deferred. May 3, 2009

I’m supposed to be writing a paper on Pope’s satirical attacks on Lord John Hervey, but as far as a procrastination tool goes, a blog is a pretty effective one — especially a somewhat-abandoned blog. As long as I’m writing — something, anything — it will all balance out.

I recently got back an essay from a professor for whom I have only the greatest respect. He’s in his seventies (eighties?) and has the most amazing mind I’ve encountered in years. He’s the ideal college professor that I dreamed up back when I was in middle school and had no idea what college really meant, or stood for. He’s stooped and walks in a slightly stiff shuffle; he always sounds like he’s about to clear his throat with an attention-getting cough. He talks about Heidegger and Kant with a tone that’s somewhere between familiarity and admiration, peppered with light amusement at their foibles. His class is easily one of the most challenging I’ve ever taken. I’m not one for critical thinking or logic or rhetoric — my talent lies in analyzation, typically of the Deconstructionist variety (drawn a long enough line, and you can connect anything to anything else), not in reason.

I dread getting back assignments from him. One of my largest flaws is a ever-reliable tendency to second-guess and doubt myself; even if I loved a paper or a poem or even an email when I finished it, within five minutes I’m cringing over the shallow triteness of a sentence or an attempt at humor. I felt the familiar swooping feeling in my lower belly when he handed back my latest essay. It hadn’t fared well in peer review the previous week and I fully expected him to savage it. He didn’t. He praised my ability to distill complicated criticism into a concise, “beautifully written” form, and later said that I had a “wonderful sense of prose rhythm”. He said that I wrote better than he did. I was stunned. I felt that swirl of anxiety melt away into something warm and golden. If that feeling had a flavor, it would be chicken soup. A warm spoonful of praise from one of the few people from whom I would believe it.

I want to write for a living. I want to write fiction, I want to write literary criticism, I want to teach literature to middle school students and end my career as a shuffling, slightly stooped college professor. That moment, holding the essay in my hands, reading my professor’s praise, I realized that I would. I’ve always known that I can, but now I know that this is my path. I will pave it with letters, fill in the gaps with imagination, sweat, and tears.

The best dreams are the ones you return to for comfort on a bad day, and then realize that they’re already coming true.

January 22, 2009

Gulp.

Music In 2008. January 14, 2009

My Top Ten Albums of 2008
(in no particular order)

1. M83 // Saturday = Youth
2. Cloud Cult // Feel Good Ghosts
3. Beach House // Devotion
4. Santogold // S/T
5. Grouper // Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
6. Crystal Stilts // Alight Of Night
7. Marnie Stern // This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That
8. These Arms Are Snakes // Tail Swallower And Dove
9. Xiu Xiu // Women As Lovers
10. Foals // Antidotes

Honorable Mentions:
Fleet Foxes // S/T
Of Montreal // Skeletal Lamping
The Black Keys // Attack & Release
Deerhunter // Microcastles
Okkervil River // The Stand-Ins

I think 2008 was a great year for music! I discovered some new artists (Crystal Stilts, Marnie Stern), and some of my old favorites released impressive new albums (These Arms Are Snakes, Cloud Cult).

I started listening to a great deal more noise, thanks to my boyfriend, who’s not only obsessed with the genre, but is a performer himself. I have to thank him for introducing me to Merzbow, Masonna, Yellow Swans, and for everything else that’s made my vision blur as I listened to it

Apparently Britney Spears made a comeback, but I think I was taking a nap.

Here’s a non-knitting goal for this year: see more shows! I hope that These Arms Are Snakes, Rogue Wave, and Land of Talk have tour stops here in Western Mass, but I’ll be happy just to go. I used to see tons of shows in the early days of my undergrad career, but that’s tapered off in the past few years. Hopefully, I’ll be able to change that soon.

Sherwood out!

Gratitude. January 13, 2009

Thirty years ago today, my parents got married.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Thanks for getting married so I could be born.