ProseKnitic – of Words und Wolle

Knitting

Honestly, it really is not a mobius. Of course I have managed to twist the sleeve around a couple of times while knitting back and forth. I find that I have a tendency to change gauge if I add another needle. And I really do not like to put stitches on and off a stitch holder. As you can imagine, this can lead to the most interesting contortions as I wind up working on three – four sections at the same time. I have less than10 cm to go on the second front and am 1/2 down the first sleeve.

And if you are looking for an absolutely great and elegant men’s sock pattern, Colin has written up his Bavarian Twist Sock pattern. It has enough patterning to be interesting while not being fussy. Socks for my DH in something other than my standard slip stitch or 5/1 rib have just moved to the top of the sock line.

Spinning

The Corriedale “Fire” roving from Crown Mountain Farms is plied. After it rests on the bobbin for a couple of days, I will then skein it after which it will appear here with the rest of what I have finished. Once I know for certain how many meters I have, I can decide whether it will become the Shibori Vest or the contrast yarn in Celtic Lattice (both are found in Folk Vests). It was worth the slow ratio on this wheel to have a large enough bobbin to hold the entire 8oz. I really dislike breaks or joins in my yarn.

Passover preparations

There is less than 48 hours to go until the first Seder. For the second year in a row I am organizing it for our community. Since we are holding it at MTV Chapel Fellowship Hall, this gives me two kitchens to kasher. Naturally I spent a large amount of today either cleaning or pushing the four members of the family in residence to do their share. After a few flare-ups (no, I don’t give a whit about the grass length, no one can see it and doing email during daylight hours is not essential) I managed to brow beat the guys taking a large amount of trash to the recycling center and vacuuming.

The girls were supposed to be working on the kitchen and their rooms. Well, they have spent a lot of time in the kitchen and made some progress. But mostly I have been hearing their voices raised in harmony for the last few hours with interludes of solo opera from Nina. So I don’t think all that much is getting done. There are no cleaning or sorting sounds.

I am on load #8 of laundry and the turkey is thawing (the only kosher meat the commissary carries is turkey, chicken drumsticks and hot dogs. Since I did not have time to make a run to Strasbourg, turkey it is. No way is this crowd going to settle for a vegetarian meal.

I don’t see that I am going to have time until next weekend to update my projects webpage. At that point coding is going to look easy compared to eating more matzah!

-Holly

The dear man brought me chocolate. A 400gm Cailler bar of extra fine dark chocolate. And since it might contain wheat (it says so on the label) it will have to be consumed prior to the start of Passover. Oh, and now that it is open I can hardly give it away now can I?

Spinning

I gave up last night on figuring out where I had mislaid an audio book for my cassette recorder, and just spun for an hour. The bobbins on this wheel will hold upwards of 200 gm. I am about 1/2 through the plying process.

Audio Books

It seems one of those universal knowledge items: most people can read, but very few write. And even fewer really write well.

I will now add a caveat to this: just because you can write, does not mean that you can read. Or at least that you can read out loud such that others are going to enjoy the experience. They may have written it, but no—as a oral reader they kill the book.

Since I have made it through the first and second line audio books in the library, I have expanded the sampling in order to not go nuts on my commute. In the process I have discovered the above. Reading for audio books is a skill, an acting skill just like Radio Theater. It requires a pleasant, interesting voice on the part of the reader. Characters need to be clearly distinguishable if there is dialog; and delineation indicated between action and background information.

In fact, the six or so authors I have listened to thus far has ranged from adequate to so awful you could clear a room. Or perhaps I should not say listened to as none of them, with voices ranging from whiny to endless monotone, lasted more than two tracks before I ejected the CD in disgust. So it was with trepidation that I put the first CD of Very Bad Deaths by Spider Robinson in the slot this morning as I started my drive to work.

A mellow voice informed me the title of the work, then started in so comfortable and pleasant a manner that I felt we were sitting side by side in front of a fire while he recounted his personal story. It is this exact manner of telling that make his redention so compelling. If you are interested in details or review, I recommend the SF Site.

Elena

Who is keeping up her end of the bargin, providing colour coordinated decoration. Not a bad dog’s life.

-Holly

Four feet dancing with excitement, Elena welcomed me home at the end of today. Anxious from spending time alone, she followed me around the house for the next couple of hours. But after eating and going outside, it seems that I am forgotten. Put aside in favor of more important people.

But no matter how much time she spends sitting at the gate waiting for George, tonight she will be disappointed. He left for Switzerland this morning and will not come home before tomorrow.

What will be excellent for her is that he will bring 2-3 of the teens with him. The plan is for him to stop in Stuttgart on the way home and rescue them from school. This starts the two week of vacation and they just might have more than the usual amount of stuff to drag home. A ride makes it easier than schlepping everything on the train; or at least for Noah with suitcase, backpack, E-guitar and amp.

Spinning

Since the two bobbins of “fire” singles have been sitting there for a few days:

I decided that they needed to be plyed.

The wheel is a second hand Dutch wheel I bought last year for teaching and loaning purposes for under 100€ off of eBay.de.

Knitting

No progress. Absolutely none. I was in meetings today where it would not have been a good idea.

Other than that?

I spent almost three hours tonight trying to find my back up hard drive. A journalist had asked me for pictures from downrange to complete a story she is writing. Since I am a laptop or two past the one I took to Kuwait in 2003, the digit pix had to be on CDs (somewhere) or on the festplatte. But it was not in my studio, our bedroom, or in the dinigroom where I had last seen it.

I discovered it downstairs, on the floor in my son’s room under a pile of things. He had borrowed it to move files from one computer to another. Apparently returning it just fell off his list.

After a significant amount of time rooting around, I located a couple of pictures of me in uniform. I don’t have many of me, I am the one with the camera. After doing some cropping, I emailed them off. I would be interested in reading the article when it comes out, but I don’t read Russian.

-Holly

Knitting

I am still trying to find my copy of Folk Vests. The red vest is partly started as I mentioned in a previous post. Being more than happy to double count a project, I am planning on it being my UFO for my March Madness group as well as for the Red Sweater KAL.
Niagara – I have turned the heel (progress is slow, I really don’t like the yarn or pattern this time around) and have finished the 118 rows of body, to be able to start the second set of short rows. Putting this together is going to be like origami or the EZ Baby Surprise Sweater.

General Ignorance

After almost 20 years in the fun world of main frames, I started in the wild world of electronic communication with email in 1986 (yes, almost 21 years ago). Joining Fidonet in 1991, I ran a BBS using Maximus and Opus on my OS/2 Warp system. The Three Mausketeers (1:109/172), came down in 1993 when we moved back to Germany. Phone costs were so prohibitive that I could not afford to go back on line in Zone 2 and just settled for ASCII email and USENET groups.

And I have maintained a mailing list since I deployed to Bosnia in 1998 – but this is my first foray into blogging software. So you have to believe that I was astonished to find that the “moderation” section had caught six comments. Worse, they had been sitting there for over a week. I had set filters to catch anything with a link in it. Well, in capturing originating IP, WordPress algorithms considered those as being links and held them. I extended my appologies to the kind knitters who had left comments and hope that they come back sometime.

New Books

The following all arrived in the mail today, and it is an interesting mix of Urban Fantasy along with a Spinning Books:

Which means that the cassette recorder will be put away in favor of books in the hand. I can do mindless knitting at the same time. Multi-tasking occasionally really works.

-Holly

Knitting

As I was working my way down the leg of this sock, I took a good look at it. And at the needles in my hands. Oops. There was obviously something wrong with the way it looked. I had been wondering about the flimsy feel of the fabric hand. And I had been blaming the slightly limp yarn that really has limited resiliency. But it was designed to be knit on 2,0 -> 2,5 mm needles. Not on the 3,5 mm that were in my hands.

You see, I had just finished up that vest on 6,0 mms and grabbed the rosewood double points lying inocently on the table next to my chair. Anything feels smaller after fat yarn and equally fat needles.

You can see where I identified the problem, just at the bottom of the stockinette portion. The lower round of lace is knit on the finer needles and looks much better. The heel is done in seed stitch. I do like the blue, but really don’t care for splatter pattern yarn, or the lace pattern, which is why I have eliminated two repeats in favor of the stockinette insert.

I am a bit farther on the 1/2 circle Baby Sweater -

Books & Audio Books

It took a second trip, but my brain re-engaged this morning enough to grab the bag of library returned. After checking in everything, I was down to one cassette set (for some reason, the PHV Library has a sticker on every tape rather than the box) and one book. This meant I felt free to check out a 3-CD Radio Broadcast entitled Superman Lives Again, High Profile by Robert B Parker and Puss ‘n Cahoots by Rita Mae Brown.

This was my reward for staying awake this morning in the Joint Force Health Protection Working Group briefings and to strengthen me for more of the same in the afternoon. I am enjoying the sunshine, what I can see of it from the window. What is worrying me is the birch tree across the library parking lot. It might not have survived.

And tomorrow looks like more of the same.

-Holly

Books and Reading

When I looked at the pile of books on my window sill in the bedroom and even more on the floor next to my chair in the living room, I realized that I have become significantly in arrears in reading. And also in cataloging the books. Since I am PC based, I am able to take advantage of the lovely program BookCat to keep track of everything. After all, with publishers re-releasing books with new covers, I have saved the original price of the shareware just by avoiding duplicates. And, if I do wind up with duplicates, there is always
Bookcrossing as a means of setting books free to see where they go.

None of this explains why after carefully packing up all the CDs, audio tapes and books that I had finished to be returned to the library, I walked out the door this morning without the bag. When I stopped in, it turns out only one thing is over due. And it is a book that I think one of the kids borrowed, since I was done with it over 2 weeks ago. I have also finished up the 9CDs of The Main Corpse by Diane Mott Davidson.

Knitting

I have managed a few more rows on my Niagara sock heel and another 40 rows on the ½ circle cardigan. I will do update pictures tomorrow, when it is actually possible to see progress.

Should I mention that I found a nice source of yarn for dyeing on the web? Wollatelier-Schlawin has Sockwolle for €1,75 per 100gm, I will see how it is for quality and then either get more, or move on to one of the other sources available for weborder here in Germany.

Oh, yes. I was at work today and actually managed to get a few things accomplished.

Home

When we bought this house in 2001, there were some items of furniture that had been left from the previous owner. Along with the color scheme, shag carpet, and horrible wallpaper, these obviously dated from the low price end of the 1960s. All one could say for them is that they did not cost anything.

As time has gone on, we have gradually fed various of these furniture relics to others or the recycle center just as we also worked on renovating several of the rooms.

One of the last remaining rooms, except for our bathroom and the ½ bath in the upper hall is George’s office. There are ceiling spot lights directed toward the built in books shelves, the wiring circuits having a hunger for expensive bulbs. There is otherwise no lighting in the room that is not supplied by a couple of cheap floor lamps.

Several months ago now we held a clean out the office weekend on George. The end result is that his desk was excavated, shelves and cupboards emptied, boxes put in attic storage and a way cleared through so that you could easily walk from the door opening to the living room to the one leading to our bedroom hall.

But we had left an old daybed, not having a couch to place in the room. My feeling had been that this was an extra place for company. But what it had really been doing is serving as a dumping ground for extra stuff.

Today, while George was running, I took advantage of Shana and Frank’s visit. Clearing off this piece of upholstered junk, Noah and Frank hauled it out through the living room to the back patio. Then, they brought up the futon couch that had been in Shana’s old room. They were just rounding the corner from the back hall to the living room when George got back to lend them a hand.

With a wooden frame and cream colored fabric, it makes the room look much more comfortable as well as professional. I just have to move something next to it to serve as a small table and place some lighting on that wall as well. It does fold flat, should we have an excess of visitors. It also neatly covers the LAN plug-ins along the baseboard of that wall while not blocking access should we want to take certain rooms downstairs off line.

The house is now quiet, the kids are settled back at school, Shana and Frank have headed home, and George is at work in his office. Since it is a work day somewhere in the world, it is another evening of conference calls for him.

Reading

I have listened to all the audio books currently checked out from the library. This includes the first three Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich, read by Lori Petty.

I started The Attack by Yasmina Khadra and decided it requires too much concentration to be a knitting or driving book. It has received mixed reviews, the positive ones from the original French and mid-Easterners. The more negative ones coming from the English speaking reviewers. From looking at his website (the author is actually a former Algerian military officer who, after completing his military service left for exile in France for his personal safety), it is obvious that the translations of his works may be good, but are lacking in English.

Knitting

Ah yes, the important update with pictures. I finished the toes of on both pairs of socks (Hope and Inside-Out) and am in the process of updating the pix on the 2007 Sock Page. I also finished up the Sweater Vest and it is now blocking.

So currently on the needles are the Chameleon Colorworks March Sock of the month – Niagara Falls. and Baby Half Circle Cardigan in Seina-Pink for an accent with the main portion being in Siena-Stripes.

And then there is the joy that only a dog can feel when enjoying her current best thing of the day -

-Holly

A long time ago, and in several countries, not all of which are now far away, telephones were simple objects.

You got your phone service from a national phone company that controlled, organized and regulated everything. It could take weeks to get a phone in your house. Your choices of phone was relatively simple – with or without a unit meter. The billing system itself was extremely complicated: it was all about units. But how many units you were charged depended on the time of day and where you called. Even local calls had a charge.

We adapted.

In 1984 when I PCSd to the Washington DC area, I was appalled to find the phone system had been privatized. It was extremely complicated. Not only did I have to figure out a carrier, but I had to go find my own phone. There was a blinding selection of shapes and colors, none of which made any sense to me. The quality of service had seemed to decrease, the long distance carriers offered deals so complicated that graduate degrees in reading fine print were essential. And, dialing was out and pushing buttons was in.

I was relieved to escape this madhouse, but found that Telekom seemed to be on the same track. I had to procure now my own phone. Since none of these models featured meters, getting the results of the phone bill every month was a surprise. Additionally, since nothing was itemized, it was a real challenge to break the code on getting a real bill so that you could tell if those were really your calls. The attitude on Telekom’s side? We billed you, so those must be your calls.

Then the wall came down. Suddenly there were people all over who came from places where the only phone in town had been at the local Inn. Where the infrastructure was not going to support extra phones and the waiting list for a personal phone was rumored to be 5-6 years.

It was right about then that hand held phones, independent of a physical location first came on the market. These Handis were neither attractive nor light, but had the advantage that you did not have to wait years, nor be tied to a particular location. And the trend started spreading.

By 1995, even the military was starting to buy these cellular telephones. The miracle of modern technology meant that you could find someone anytime, anywhere. More reliable usually than the old brick radios, I sent mine along routinely on the long distance ambulance runs.

They got smaller, fancier over the subsequent years. Home phones did not become a thing of the past, but the other technology lead to changes here as well. Not just satisfied with the old fixed phone system that allowed only one phone in the house on the circuit to be active at a time, combinations were now available with base stations and phones that were portable.

This leads me to the problem which has persisted through to the present. This lovely, programmable handset charges when sitting in a base station or charger. It uses electricity steadily from the battery when not docked. The more it is used for calls, the faster the phone goes to empty. When it is uncharged, it is silent.

Living in a house with a number of others, three of which are teenagers, it is not uncommon for someone to go off with a phone. Or, when the call happens to be for a downstairs inhabitant, the nice ringing phone is handed down to the requested recipient of the call.

When the call is completed, in principle the phone should be returned to a base station or the original location so as to make it easier for others to use; or to answer, when the next call comes in.

Now, I don’t particularly get many phone calls. Those from work who want me routinely call on my cell. The teens get a fair number of calls. George gets calls.

They all use the phone, then leave it lying where ever they were. Discarded as unimportant, locating a phone only becomes an issue when there is an important phone call to make. But these two phones always seem to have migrated somewhere.

Pushing the button on the side of the main base station is supposed to make the phones ring. When they ring, I can find them. Provided, of course that they are not out of charge.

-Holly

It was snowing this morning when I awoke. There was slush and ice on the roads and the driving conditions were listed as amber for my community. As I stood there looking out the window, I started to wonder why I would want to drive anywhere.

Calling in to the office it was quiet, and not snowing. There was nothing that needed my signature, no meetings and no crises. And I have a computer with which I can VPN or webmail. I.E., there was every reason in the world to telecomute and none to drive. A side benefit is that I can do mindless knitting while reading email at home, something I normally don’t do at work.

In between emails and document reviews, I finished the second sleeve on the last of the back zip baby jackets. Then, I started looking around for something new, something quick. I looked at the Sweater Vest pattern #081 by Mac & Me which I had purchased a few months of ago. I then pulled out a number of skeins of Great Adirondack Yarn Company’s Berkshire in color Chili Peppers purchased on sale from Webs on sale a while back. Since this is a bulky weight yarn at 108yds/100 gm, I also pulled out the 6,0 mm needles. Altering the pattern for a gauge of 12/10cm rather than the 24/10 cm of the original pattern, I happily altered the pattern as I went

Knit from the neck edge down, I am well past the rejoin for the arm slits. In fact, I think I am over 1/2 way done. I should be able to complete it tomorrow, along with all the finishing on the socks and zippers.

Chameleon SOM has arrived

At the mail room today, which I got to because I was in town, was my March kit from Chameleon Colorworks. Looking at the pattern, it is pretty straight forward and I should be able to knock off the first one of them tomorrow as well. So spoilers tomorrow.

Otherwise, there were a dozen of us for services tonight, which is a pretty standard number. I think that we are just about organized for our community Seder till the night before when the chapel kitchen must be tackled.

Books and Audio

I am finishing “O” is for Outlaw by Sue Grafton on CD, picked up some of the first Evanovich’s on tape, and stayed up too late last night reading the latest Diane Stabenow.

-Holly

You can’t graft sock toes on a train, even one as smooth as the IC from Frankfurt to Salzburg that stops in Heidelberg at 0914.

In retrospect, this should have been obvious. The train speeds along at close to 200km/hr and I am comfortably sitting with my feet propped and the Chameleon SOM-Hope propped in my lap.

Did I mention that I had changed the design so that the cables neatly meet together in the middle, right before the end of the toe?

The train zigs, I zag. Leaving me to carefully pick up several stitches that manage to escape down several rows. My tiny crochet hook is at home. That fact that the yarn is a lovely, soft, non-slippery bamboo-merino may have been the only thing that saved me from extensive reconstruction of that toe.

But doesn’t it look really nice?

I was on the train to Sonthofen to attend a conference held at the Allgäuer Stern. My choice had been a nasty drive, or a comfortable 3 1/2 hour train ride with only one change; in Ulm.

The snow came late to the Allgäu this year. Like much of the rest of Germany, it has rained, causing economic hardship in this area known for skiing. From the hotel it was obvious that the snow had finally arrived.

I was able to knit about 1/2 of the second Falling Leaves sock out of BMFA Scottish Heather getting the heel flap completed on the way down. I finished it up on the way back. I used a tighter guage on the second sock to see if I could get striping rather than pooling on the leg. [Pattern: Falling Leaves, ~60 stitches on 2,5mm needles).

. And yes, I knew better than to mess with the toe, just placing the last live stitches on yarn till I graft in a non-moving location.

The fourth baby sweater has only 5 cm on the last sleeve and the hand sewing to be complete. I have one more now to do, but I am going to find a different pattern.

Audio Books

Miss Marple is finished. I had brought along N or M? which is also by Agatha Christie. It is out of her Tommy & Tuppence series and I did not care for it at all. I had a similar reaction to A Postern of Fate. At the time I blamed it on the reader, but now I think it is a matter of style and characters which I find so stupid, unbelievable and flat that I will skip any others.

I also had packed McNally’s Trial, only to find it was a CD set. And me without a CD player.

-Holly

There was a package at the mailroom for me from Australia. I have known Kathryn now for a number of years. Meeting through a knitting list, we have kept in touch over email. Through her I have gotten to know Margaret.

We have swapped small things, and I, guilt free, occasionally dump excess sock yarn on Margaret since she does an extensive amount of knitting for charity. Raising money by auctioning off socks has always struck me as an excellent method.

Inside the package was a pair of socks. Always thrifty, these were knit out of left overs.

They have stripes of jacquard pattern separating the solid stripes. There are rows scotty dogs and pussy cats with the colors reversing from the tops to the bottoms.

And finally, there is a paw on the heel!

I am hoping that she kept track of the pattern as I think these would be fun for kids socks as well. It won’t be that difficult to turn it into a .pdf file and post it if she has the charts.

Reading

Finished McNally’s Dilemma, no surprises and a great reader.

and have moved on to A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie, read by Joan Hickson. A perfect voice for the part of Miss Marple, Ms Hickson recorded this audio book just short of her 90th birthday.

-Holly

I don’t know where they have gone, the small snails that have left their homes behind. Littering the steps on the way up to the house, I try to avoid crunching on them as I go, laden down with backpack and bag.

Almost bowled over by the dog who is so happy to see me that she streaks down to street level and then back up, she barks and jumps, avoiding my camera.

The snow in Landstuhl never made it here, small flowers are blowing in the breeze and the mini-daisies are fine.

We spend a few minutes tearing around the terrace before retreating exhausted into the house.Since then she has been guarding the door, waiting for George. Which doesn’t make any sense at all, considering that he just called from Switzerland. Somehow, I had in my mind that he was home tonight and maybe leaving tomorrow. I had delayed going to the Chaos Quilters so that I could take the car with GPS, but I am just as glad not to have to drive home in the dark with the temperature dropping.

Fiber Progress

I have ony the toe decrease left on the “Hope” sock so I went ahead and cast on for the second Falling Leaves sock. The pattern is from Knitty.com and the yarn is Socks that Rock -
from Blue Moon Fiber Arts in
Scottish Highlands. I finished the first bobbin of the Fire Corriedale singles and filled about 1/3 on the second bobbin.

I am on the train to Sonthofen in the morning and back on Thursday night. I have to figure out knitting for the train: socks are always good. The poor pup, she will get checked on by Shana, but hates being home alone.

-Holly

It felt rather strange this morning, on a Monday, not to be headed to work. But it is a federal holiday, which obviously means that the weather is completely rotten since it is still “weekend.” Gave me the perfect opportunity just to stay inside, knitting, reading and spinning. And dishes and laundry, let’s get real here.

Knitting

Instead I finished up the second of Inside Out:


Rather than kill my hands or switch back and forth with needle sizes, I stayed with 2,5 mm needles through out. Including all the changes made with the second sock-I cast on 26 stitches for the toe, decreasing to 6 stitches at the tip. When the toe was complete, I picked up three stiches on each side between the front and the back sections of the toe. Distributing accordingly, I adjusted the number of 2/1 and 2/2 ribs to match the number of stitches. After the heel, I again picked up stitches along the edge to increase to 65 prior to starting the cable section (and to avoid any holes). I knit almost 15 rows prior to starting the pattern, adding in a 2/1/2 cable on the inside of each leg crossed every five rows for a total of 5 large cables plus the five stitch cable. They feel extremely comfortable and well padded.

I knit the heel flap, turned the heel and got half-way down the foot on the second of sock of my ChameleonColorworks Sock of the Month Club.

And finally, I have hauled out my Chinese Red Vest, from Folk Vests by Cheryl Oberle. I have tracked down at least some of the extra yarn (For You, Gedifra, 125m/50gm, Merino on 4,0 mm ebony circ). About 10 cm or more past the armhole split, I just don’t have all that much left to do. This is what I decided to get done as my first project in the Red Sweater KAL. My only issue now is locating my copy of the book, so I have the pattern.

Spinning

Taking a break, I pulled out the lovely corridale pencil roving that I got from Crown Moutain Farms in color fire. It spins like a dream and I am planning on a fine singles on the Timbertops chairwheel, then plying it on the Dutch upright that is currently being used as a roving holder. It should be more than enough to do some colorwork with, once I find a solid that I like for contrast. I am thinking of a dark red since brown would be boring. It should knit up on a 3,0 to 3,5 m needles.

Books & Tapes

The Sayers are all finished untill some more come in the library.

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs is a lightweight novel that centers around a knitting shop in Manhattan. Since I don’t live there, I can’t address how accurate that portion of the novel is, but the research supporting other portions of the novel is extremely week straining my credubility. This story of a single mother and her daughter suffers from too many two dimentional characters, continually shifting times and points of view, and a forced ending. Sad to say, it will probably do fine in the book clubs but I can only recommend it if you enjoy reading any fiction having to do with people and knitting.

McNally’s Dilemma by Lawrence Sanders is currently in the cassette recorder. Boyd Gaines is the reader. Another in the Archy McNally series set on the Florida Gold Coast, the usual cast of characters is present, and the good guys win (sort of).

-Holly

Baby back-zipped x2

They are done and we dropped them off to the twins this afternoon. At two months old, they have just hit gestational age. Although not particularly fussy, as early babies go, we stayed and visited only a short time before heading back to get our teens ready to head to school.

And, as you can see, I managed to hand sew the zippers into the backs of the sweaters without as much pain as it could have been. Clover dressmakers pins are both sharp and fine enough to hold the knitted fabric to the zipper without distortion.

From there, it will be on the zipper on the third sweater which I hope to be able to send on its way on Tuesday followed by the second sleeve on the fourth. (this baby has not yet been born). Nina left me the fifth sweater done up to the armhole split, so maybe I can get that one finished as well.

And then it was on to the second of the STR-Inside Out socks.

The first sock is done, and I am now to the second round of cables on the leg. I am hoping to be able to finish up tonight. It has been an interesting experience. I normally do not care for toe-up socks, but there can be a real advantage to not having to graft toes.

Reading

I just finished listening to Hangman’s Holiday, a collection of 12 short stories. Containing 4 Lord Peter Whimseys’ and a variety of others, they are vintage Dorothy Sayers. The actual quality of the production is fair at best and I do find Nadia May’s voice a bit iritating. Some of it might be the style of the time, it no longer seems to be required to read every last page, footnote and annotation. She also does not vary some of the voices quite enough, making the occasional character change difficult to follow when she reads a rapid conversation

.

In contrast, Ian Carmichael turns in his usual superlative performance on the 11th Lord Peter Whimsey mystery The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayer. Set in the Fens, the story revolves around the ringing of bells at the old church. Subtitled – Changes Rung On An Old Theme in Two Short Touches and Two Full Peals – many of the chapter headings come from the technical terminology. I think it would be a fine read for anyone who is a student of hand bells (or church bell ringing-which seems to be mostly an English sport)

.

And the current paperback for the backpack is Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dream Hunter, another in her Dark Hunter series. I am not far enough into it to have an opinion yet. OTOH, I am not going to stay up all night just to read it

.

So I am off to update the pix on my finished and UFO pages, then to crash.

-Holly

Instead of knitting the whole day as I had planned, it turned into errand day. Blah..

It was something about needing a few groceries, white cotton socks, and returning books to the library. I did manage to move the baby sweaters off the terrace table where they were spread out, being blocked to the inside ledge of the living room window.

Just as I was settling into my comfortable chair and picking out my next audiobook, the youngest decided she really wanted to go and get her hair cut. The next up daughter went along. After due consideration, we dropped them off near the Uni Platz and went to Mannheim with the oldest to look at wedding dresses.

Since the Rockin’ Sock pattern is not fit for public consumption, I took along some pink. Doing the heel flap on the second sock, I got a number of questions about “was ist das?”. On returning home, the baby sweaters are feeling almost dry which means that I am out of excuses. For what? Sewing the zippes in the backs of them. Finishing is not my love. I love zippers in baby sweaters, but putting them in is a pain. I even have zippers. Since we are seeing the twins they are for tomorrow, I really need to get this done.

-Holly

Did I mention Blue Moon’s “Socks that Rock” sock of the month club? I am sure that I did. There are about 2000 totally insane people participating this year, which I am sure is overwhelming their local small town post office. After all, can you imagine walking in and asking for that many priority mailing boxes?

There have been various discussions of this colorway – named Monsoon. Personnally, since the colors are green, brown, darkish grey and a touch of lighter color – I keep wanting to call it camouflage or BDU.

But anyway, the pattern is named Inside Out, because the sock could be worn either way. Since the sock is primarily ribbing, the pattern on the top still is interesting, regardless of which side is out. I mostly followed the pattern, except for the following:

1) rather than change needle sizes-I used my 2,5 mm needles through out.
2) this meant that I had to reduce the number of stitches on the toe from 36 to 30 (on each side), but went down to 6 stitches with the wraps (from 8)
3)increased 2 stitches, one on each end, this meant that I had reduced the bottom by one repeat and the top by two.
4) since the sock had a fair amount of stretch, so made the foot a bit shorter than I otherwise would to the start of the heel
5) used 32 for the heel, then increased to 65 when starting the upper portion.
6) since there were these extra five stitches, I inserted an 5 cross cable on the inside of each sox, and did this every 10 rows. On the second sock, I found it worked better to do 15 rounds of the 2/1 ribbing before starting the crosses, this gave more “give” around the ankle.

In pictures -
Is what my first sock looked like on my foot. I had well over half the yarn left.

Looking at mostly the sock top (the cup is Heidelberg from the Rosenthal series of Cupola City Cups -

Literally taking the attitude of Inside Out – just the top appears like this-

And then there is the not so polite over all look of the sock when viewed ohne Fuß.

What can I say? Since this was a training holiday, I had a relaxing day to sit at home and knit. I have other socks that I can knit in public. The Time Traveler’s Wife is done, as is the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. This leaves me down to only The Main Corpse by Diane Mott Davidson on CD for the car traveling. Looks like I need to add a library trip on my errands list.

It would have been nice to have this pattern back when I was part of an inspection team and the guys set “Ol’ Lead” on the tablein front of me one afternoon. I responded by knitting it a purple cover, but had the ribs going the other way……

-Holly

On knitting

I was taking a knitting break at lunch. Just quietly sitting there knitting a second sock. You know second socks don’t you? This one, a lovely semi-solid light pink is being knit out of a bamboo/merino blend. Of course I had forgotten the pattern at home. Since this is cables, I just decided to use the first sock as a pattern. Easy I thought, but extremely impressive to one of my co-workers who wandered down the hall who does knit, but has not strayed far from the vanilla sock.

What I should have admitted is that I never could have pulled this off had it been lace. I look at lace patterns and my eyes blur and my hands start to sweat. I can’t read them off the sock. But there are a couple ones out there by Cookie A that are worth trying. Since I do Paypal and download this proved to be quite easy. Thelonious is going to be the first one I tackle, solid color yarn I think.

On tiredness

After a non-functioning alarm clock this morning, compounded by a golden retriever who felt it was a great morning to head for the local meadow, I got to work about 35 minutes later than planned. I was still in time to do my PT test, walking the aerobic portion at this point in my life. A couple of years ago that I acknowledged that old injuries could be turned into new, fresh, painful ones if I persisted in pretending that I was young and invulnerable.

The dog whined in my office, extremely disappointed that she could not tow me for 6 1/2 laps around the area. In stead, we did that at lunch, right before the knitting.

On my bookshelf from the library

Probable Cause , Theresa Schwegel – Hardback
The Friday Night Knitting Club, Jacobs – Harback
A Day of Small Beginnings, Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum – Hardback
The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Murder in the Casbah & Other Mysteries. Vols 13-18, Voices of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce – CD
A Deeper Sleep, Diana Stabenow – Harback
Hangman’s Holiday, Dorothy Sayers – cassette
The Nine Tailors, Dorothy Sayers – cassette
Off Armageddon Reef, David Weber – Hardback

Ranting on military fools

Feel free to ignore the following.

There has been a lot of controversy about the military lately. I am a supporter of free press. What I find at fault is how the military reacts to what is in the press. If you have been following the controversy at Walter Reed – there was a lovely piece in the Wall Street Journal today (15 March 07) by Daniel Henniger entitled The Walter Reed Fiasco. He discusses the fallout, the fact that this was not really “new” news. He also validates that MG Weightman was sacrificed in an attempt to stop the criticism. Since this an officer whom I have worked for several times in the past and hold in the highest respect, I am hoping that some of his points are taken by those who should be reading his piece.

And then there are the idiots who believe that “don’t ask, don’t tell’ is reasonable or fair. I will concede anyone their personal opinions, but I think all of us serving need to keep our personal prejudices buttoned up inside. We have learned to do that with other issues, I don’t see an issue: you either believe in EO, and that harrasement of anyone is wrong- or you don’t. In the LA Times this morning Nathaniel Frank makes the point quite clearly.

And part of the reason, I still maintain that so many of the older and more conservative men object is that they really, when all is said and done, do not subscribe to the idea of a blameless victim. We all have had experiences with people who had done dumb things, then claimed harassment. When the victim is female, most ask “what has she done?” When the victim is male, and the perpetrator is female – the usual comments are whistles or “what made him such a stud?”

If you let gay men in the military – there are a lot of men out there who see the risk of being “playing the female victim role” and it makes them quite uncomfortable. Largely because they do not see the victim as blameless (and what would others think of them if they were harassed).

If they really supported EO, then they would be committed to a harassment free workplace where everyone worked and was rewarded based on performance, and not anything else. Sexual preference would not matter in the least. A predator is a predator regardless of their sex, or the sex of their victim. I really hate to say it, but the fact that men find being the victim in this case so personally threatening ought to give them a clue—that women do not appreciate it either.

I have the next four days off. It is time to knit!
-Holly

Ok, my March Madness Sweater is complete! Viveka from Knitty

The sweater is for Miriam. It is knit out of Shelridges Farms Misty Blue on my lovely gold-plated 4,5 addi turbos. I knew there was going to be a reason that I needed them. The gauge was 20/10 cm. Of course, not liking to sew things together, I knit the body in one piece to the start of the “V” and the armholes; binding the shoulders off together. I knit the sleeves also in the round on 4,5 ebony double points, then bound them in as well. I posted some of the construction details on our March Madness Knit-a-long blog.

This meant I could wind up the yarn that finally arrived fromBlue Moon Fiber Arts. Ok, I know that I do not need any more sock yarn, but I have enjoyed a couple of their other patterns and yarn and got suckered in. Me and about 2000 others, so I am not alone in my insanity.

Leaving out the controversy about fiber names (I am one of these weird people who like the color name of a yarn to accurately reflect the colors of the yarn. Otherwise, to me, why bother at all when you can just give it a number while there are others who really like puns in names) this particular color is named “Monsoon.” You could also call it Tornado Sky or really BDU (for those with an Army background).

See?

and the started sock in a pattern called Inside Out. Since I have no interest in trashing my fingers with size 2,0 mm needles or smaller, I am adjusting the pattern as I go. The only trick is really going to be adjusting the sock top from 73 stitches down to something reasonable on my favorite 2,5 mm rosewood needles.

I have almost 10cm done of the first sock and I am up through Disk 9 on The Time Traveler’s Wife. But it is late, and the SGM is gifting us with a PT test at 0630 in the morning. It would not be so bad, except for the 125 km drive which precedes it. Ah well, the downside of my comfy home.

-Holly

Heidelberg, 13 March 2007, Tuesday

I managed to get a number of things done for work, on my way to the mail room if you want the truth. And my STR box from Blue Moon fiber finally came in. The color may be named Monsoon, but trust me-it is those colors that I love to hate, found in my good, old BDUs.

The afternoon meeting was decent, considering that I was not able to knit. Not that anyone there would have minded, it is rather than I had only four needles with me, and this sock calls for a lot of cables. Totally dumb move on my part punished with over two hours of twitchy fingers.

Coming in the door to a happy dog, I managed to finish up the second sleeve and bind it in on
Miriam’s March Madness Sweater. Now all that is left is blocking and ends followed by figuring out what I need to do for the neck finishing. I got a definite no from the daughter when I made a couple of suggestions. Further ideas would be welcome.

Putting The Time Traveler’s Wife back on the stereo, I then wound the wool from the STR kit and cast on for the first “Inside Out” sock. Since this is toe up, and a rather different method at that, I had not been paying much attention to what I was doing till I was past the toe and starting up the foot. Then I completely cracked up. I checked a couple of other knitting blogs to make sure it really was supposed to look like this. Ok, slightly bulbous toe and narrower shank.

Let me just leave it alone and post a picture tomorrow when I am to the heel. That way I will not get censored for using “hot button” words in this blog.

It is rather late, and I have the commute again tomorrow, making it time to put the needles down.

-Holly

It came through again this morning, a flash of bright green swooshing past the living room picture window.

Sunday I had been sitting on the windowsill, knitting the second sleeve of Miriam’s sweater when I first spotted the green parrot that has been cruising around on our terrace roof. I had strewn some futter and sat with my camera at the ready. The dog, of course went nuts. Not because of the birds, but because she could see a potential snack from the dining room door that she could not reach. The parrot is a ring-neck and one of the best amateur pictures ,along with comments, can be found at here on a blog from Tokyo.

The issue of feral parrots is not new. There is a website even devoted to the Free parrot. What is unusual in this climate is how well they are doing considering that none of the birds are native to Europe. Most seem to have either engineered an escape from domesticity, or were let loose by their owners when they proved too much trouble. Colorful, bright and aggressive, this wily bird managed to drive off pigeons and sparrows to hit the feed.

 But it was gone before I could get outside with the camera.

-Holly

11 March 2007 The Last Exit

Sunday, Merz Internat, Stuttgart

There is that final moment when you can make a decision, and then it rolls past. Along with your exit off of the Autobahn, the last opportunity to chose another route, to not sit in a Stau.

The radio message system had reported about a 10 km Stau between Pforzheim-something and the following exit due to an accident in the construction zone. I guess that we kept expecting to see a slow down or stop in the stream of red tail lights snaking away over the hills in the distance. I had even gone ahead and programed the GPS to look for alternate routes, not that there is much of an alternative other than B10.

It was dark by now, well after 2030 and a varying two of the three teens were sleeping in the back seat. Normally they take the train back to school on Sunday night, but this time they were getting a ride for several reasons. The main being that Noah had his backpack, suitcase, guitar and amp; a bit more than is reasonable to schlep from train to Straßenbahn to school. There was also the fact that Nina had not had a chance to do her math tutoring untill late this afternoon.

So there we are, just passing Pforzheim-Öst. The insane babbler on the GPS tells us that the next exit is 13 km. We head down another hill and around a curve. On the A8 of course.

And there it is in all its glory–brake lights as far as the eye can see. Or at least 3 km, which ever is worse. Luckily the accident must have been long since cleared away, for suddenly the slowdown just opened up and everyone resumed a normal speed. Of 60-80 km/hr that is because we were not finished with the construction zone which only cleared right before the outskirts of Stuttgart.

After dropping them off and hitting the road, we took my normal route back: A81 -> A6. There is construction this way as well and, since it was past 2100, the trucks were on the road again in full force and fleets.

All of that as a passenger and I accomplished absolutely no knitting. I had not brought the second sleeve off Miriam’s sweater to complete the last 10 cm because measuring is hard in the dark. Instead I had brought some sock yarn and needles. Right-pale pink yarn and bamboo needles. I could not see a thing! Complicated by a pattern that called for cabling in the second row.

I was reduced to discussing politics as I had also forgotten The Time Travelor’s Wife. George, I am sure, was much happier this way.

-Holly

Perched on the side of the hill, our terrace overlooks the city of Heidelberg. I could be tacky and say that it mostly overlooks trees (and Campbell Barracks) on a bad day. The weather is typical, four seasons in 24 hours: if you are not happy, wait a few hours and it will change. Most certainly the cold tonight is likely going to kill off the brave early flowers.

After this past week of constant running between teaching sessions, meetings, box hauling and checking the mail room for packages, I am more than happy to spend a quiet weekend. Especially if I can avoid cleaning and laundry. I would much rather knit on Miriam’s March Madness Sweater or work further on updating projects on the family website.

But there are teenagers to hassle, the son trying out his new guitar and perhaps a need for some fresh food stuffs in the house. Either that, or at least grab some supper before I crash.

-Holly