“The Show with the Mouse” and Self-Striping Yarn Factory

I just came across this video that shows how they make self-striping sock yarn. It’s in German, and made for little kids, but still really neat to watch. I think they’re at the Opal factory.

http://www.miroguide.com/items/3683300

Knitting Camp Retrospective #1

Hi Knitters,

Three friends and I went to Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp (#1) this year and had an absolute blast.  I have plans to try and put in words everything I learned/experienced there, but have had, until this point, no good starting place.  On Monday, I came down with strep throat, which basically forced me to stay still and in bed for 36 hours.  It is/was horrible, but I had a lot of time to think about knitting–something I only rarely sit down and think about.  If I did this more, I might start fewer projects I end up ripping out.  In any case, I was just remembering some of the basic skills I pretty much knew about already, but Meg helped me “remember.”  Here’s a short list:

1. Picking up stitches along the side of a piece of stockinette.  Not too difficult, but I had always done it such that there were big loops.  (Mostly on the heels of socks.)  Meg suggests that the best way is to pick up the vertical ladder between two columns of stockinette.  This works like a charm, especially when you pick up 2 out of every 3 ladders.
2. Grafting garter stitch.  I never had a reason to do this, but now that I know I can do it and that the technique is firmly planted in my brain, I might choose a project that involves it.  Make sure that one piece of fabric ends in a “ridge” and that the other piece ends in a “valley.”
3. Sewn cast off.  Another thing that never really worked for me.  It’s supposedly very good for socks, but whenever I do it, especially after a ribbed cuff, it always looks too ruffly.  Next time I do toe-up socks, I’ll try the simplified tubular cast off!
4. Purl-when-you-can in colorwork.  You don’t necessarily have to do 30 rows of (what I think is stupid-looking) corrugated ribbing.  You can stagger the purls by purling with your dark color when you are purling into another dark stitch.  I tried this on the fair-isle pullover I just started, but mistakenly knit the first row, so there’s still a little bit of curl.  Next time I’ll get it right.
5. Afterthought pocket.  I’ll probably never use this, but it was fun to do on a practice swatch!
6. “Square” I-cord.  Purl the middle stitch in a 3-stitch I-cord.

Okay, that’s enough for now.  I’m feeling another nap coming on.  Hope to write again once I feel human!

I graduated, and have a video to prove it!

http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=202638

Go to about 6:30; the camera pans over to me on the left at about 6:50.

Merkel ist die Scheiße!

Longest bike ride this year to date

14.49 mi, 1:19:54, of 132 mi total this season.

Dalai Lama Quote

If people everywhere are not allowed to strive for the happiness they instinctively want, then they will be dissatisfied and will make problems for everyone.  Unless we can create an atmosphere of genuine cooperation–cooperation not gained by threat or force but by heartfelt understanding–life will become ever more difficult.  If we can satisfy people at a heart level, peace will ensue.  Without the basis of coexistence, if undesirable social, political, and cultural forms continue to be imposed upon people, peace becomes difficult.

Rebuilding in progress…

Before I switched to WordPress, I stupidly deleted all the entries in my previous blog. Luckily I had made an .html archive, which now lives on my desktop. In the days to come, I’ll be reconstructing them and adding them back in to this blog. In the mean time, my reeeeeealy old entries from LiveJournal (2004-06) are up and running just fine. Live and learn! I’ll be converting most of my knitting entries into Ravelry projects. (At least those posts where I say, “Hey, Look! I made something!”)

Bear with me!

Lexiphane’s famous!

http://www.madisonrecord.com/news/219637-program-brings-new-faces-into-madison-st.-clair-courtrooms

New friend, new gifts!

I met knittaprince from Ravelry yesterday at my favorite café, Meshuggah. We both brought sock yarn scraps to exchange, some of mine are cute mini-hanks, which you see below.

Oh, how I love to eat Pisa!

This post has been long in the making. While having dinner at a friend’s house last Sunday, he told some funny stories about his family. This seems like a good place to write some of my own down before they get lost in the ether.

Language seems to be a constant topic with this set of grandparents. Mom and Dad always taught my brother and I to say the scientifically appropriate words for parts of our bodies, so you can imagine the look on my grandma’s face one evening in 1990 as she knelt in front of the bathtub when my little brother spurted out “Don’t forget to wash my penis, grandma!”

My grandma and grandpa Jackson have interesting ways of pronouncing some words which have puzzled my cousins, aunts, uncles, and parents for years.

Pizza is pronounced PEE-za, because “otherwise it would be spelled P-I-T-Z-A and a Z sounds like a Z!”

A subset of PEE-za, the oh-so-delicious frozen brand DiGiorno comes out as dee-EYE-gee-OR-ni-os.

Jacuzzi is just plain hard to say, and comes out Kah-JEW-zi.

The latest and best specimen is one that my mother had to tell grandma was just not something she should be saying. It refers to my cousin’s broken down, rusty car. My cousin’s African-American boyfriend calls it a hoopdee (slang for such a car), which translates into grandma Mary pronunciation as “Hoochie.”