martinimade

"Landing at Moontown is a country-boy job of work, no matter what the plane. We come in from the east, drop over some soybeans, drop to a hundred, then fifty feet over Moontown Road. I love these times of ushering an aircraft through a change. I happen to think that fifteen to twenty feet off the grass is always an illuminating place to muse on the many ways that this next, imminent meeting of you and the real earth can work out.

"Burns throttles down with a tender touch -- I swear the man could fly a dead dog, whether of not it was on its way to heaven. The plane doesn't fall so much as it lets go of the sky."

-- Guy Martin, "Time Machines" in the June/July Garden & Gun.

I know! Two knitting posts in one week! It's like I decided I needed to finally finish a bunch of stuff so that I could start some new stuff!

I had no idea what to do with Clara's first batch of the bale. As heretical as it is to say this: In general, I'm not a big fan of cowls, which is what a bunch of folks were making. I wanted something simple and cable-y that would be good to wrap around my shoulders on a chilly day when I am sitting and working. Ergo, this:

It's more like a small rectangular shawl than a scarf and will be perfect.

Here's what it looks like on a smaller person:

What the pictures don't convey is how soft and squishy it is. Oh, bale. You are pretty nifty.

Once upon a time, Lisa and Adrienne worked for the same alternative newsweekly. Now, both spend their respective days mining their creative souls and leading hermit-like lives. And so an idea was hatched. Every week, one would send the other a sketch - either in illustration or word form - and the other would make a companion sketch. The result would be posted on both their blogs every week, just for grins. Even if the result isn't award-worthy, the exercise might make both minds more nimble. Hopefully.

Lessons learned while walking the dog this afternoon:

Stumpy corgi legs can move much faster than you expect. 

Said legs can definitely move faster than your two human legs, especially when said stumpy legs are controlled by a brain that really wants to chase that deer. 

In the summer, once everything has leafed out, it is really hard to see deer when you only have puny human eyes. Ditto your ability to smell them with your inefficient human nose.

Most people, when a dog charges in front of their car, get mad at the owner.

This is to be expected.

In my neighborhood, they stop and help you corral said dog on a third neighbor’s porch so that you can get the leash on the bratty canine. 

Then they drive off with only a tip-of-the-cap, as if this is what they do all day. 

The dog will have learned nothing from this and spend the rest of the walk nearly choking herself to get. that. deer., even though the deer has long since run off to cause havoc in another neck of the woods.

* Men are fragile.

* Long, yes, but so true: There is no secret.

* I kinda want to go here.

* All relationships need more cowbell.

* I, um, OK.

* In case you thought there was anything new in the world.

* Glass fossils.

* If I had a shelter near me, I'd set up a branch. But maybe you have one....?

* For my Dad.

* It's the footnotes that really make it funny.

* All of these are true.

And, lo, I finished Blumchen, which I have been knitting on intermittently for, oh, two years. 

But before the finished product shots, a few thoughts. 

Thought the first: Anne Hanson's patterns are amazingly well-written and packaged. Would that she could organize the world. 

Thought the second: The blocking class I took with Hanson changed the way I think about finishing. It really is just as important as the knitting itself. Not only did I wet block all of the pieces before I seamed them, I also steamed all of the seams after they were sewn. I even went so far as to borrow a dressmaker's ham to deal with the shoulders. Overkill? Maybe. But the seams are gorgeous.

Thought the third: I might have a problem with buttons. 

This is about half of the buttons I own. That's totally normal, right?

I pulled out a few that I thought might work.

Then pulled out a few more.

Then found something that looked suspiciously like a lentil.

It then dawned on me that I should see which buttons actually fit through the buttonholes. Et voila. My choice was made. I'm still not 100 percent behind what I've gone with but know that buttons, like so much of life, are impermanent. 

Thought the fourth: I'm really pleased with how my Blumchen turned out. 

The yarn is divine. The color is perfect, thanks to Chris from Briar Rose Fiber. I really took my time with knitting this and it shows.

Thought the fifth: I really, really, really wish I'd taken Amy Herzog's Knit to Flatter class before I started Blumchen. 

(Warning: This next photo is not at all flattering. It is included to prove a point. When you speak of it, be kind.)

It's a little ... snug. Totally my fault, mind. I shall now look for someone who is smaller than I and who looks good in greeny-blue. Anyone?

Thought the sixth: It's a bummer, yes. But I did really learn a lot this time around. And my next sweater, which I'm about to cast on for, is totally going to be the one.

Banks may have displayed a lack of anger at his diagnosis, but that does not mean that his righteous ire is extinguished. As we chat, he frequently loops off into hilarious denunciations. "I can understand that people want to feel special and important and so on, but that self-obsession seems a bit pathetic somehow. Not being able to accept that you're just this collection of cells, intelligent to whatever degree, capable of feeling emotion to whatever degree, for a limited amount of time and so on, on this tiny little rock orbiting this not particularly important sun in one of just 400m galaxies, and whatever other levels of reality there might be via something like brane-theory [of multiple dimensions] … really, it's not about you. It's what religion does with this drive for acknowledgement of self-importance that really gets up my nose. 'Yeah, yeah, your individual consciousness is so important to the universe that it must be preserved at all costs' – oh, please. Do try to get a grip of something other than your self-obsession. How Californian. The idea that at all costs, no matter what, it always has to be all about you. Well, I think not."

-- Stuart Kelly, Iain Banks: The Final Interview

I had a different post planned for today. Then, last night, we went to the Girl's 5th grade moving up ceremony.*

When Scott and I looked at the pictures, well, you could have knocked us both over. I mean...

... how is it possible we have a child this age?

And who knew that she would transform into a young woman overnight?

We couldn't be more proud. Also, stunned. But mostly proud.

Because it was also taken last night, a gratuitous corgi is gratuitous:

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* This is new for our district. K-6 was in the same building until the budget bru-ha-ha of this year. Starting in the fall, the middle school will hold 6 - 8th grades. Which makes more sense to me, mostly because the difference between a first and a sixth grader is so vast and the gap between a sixth and and eighth grader is less so. But others' opinions differ.**

** Regardless, the middle school is within walking distance, which will be a nice change.

Once upon a time, Lisa and Adrienne worked for the same alternative newsweekly. Now, both spend their respective days mining their creative souls and leading hermit-like lives. And so an idea was hatched. Every week, one would send the other a sketch - either in illustration or word form - and the other would make a companion sketch. The result would be posted on both their blogs every week, just for grins. Even if the result isn't award-worthy, the exercise might make both minds more nimble. Hopefully.

It used to be that you knew who the thugs were. You had your Whiteys and your Jimmys. Anyone with a soft-sounding nickname was most likely a thug. You had your Bugsys and your Luckys.  

Now the thugs likely go by Thad or Tim. They wear suits. Street corners aren’t their habitat, trading floors and air-conditioned offices are. We know they are thugs not because they beat a stoolie with a bat but because someone leaked email about fixing the LIBOR. 

It’s all so complicated now. It’s all so intertwined.

* Heh. Dude-itors. Additionally, sigh.

* I just have something in my eye, is all.

* The Paper Source Wall Art Calendar for 2014 is now available. And I mention this because of this.

* These have been cracking me up. 

* This broke my heart a little bit.

* I might have to do this with the kids.

* I hope to be this eloquent when the time comes.

* Imagine a sphereical termite.

* Two lists: 1 and 2.

* Nothing. Has. Changed.

* Bugs are just weird, man.