A Little Owl Travels

K,

Hey! You went found somewhere in your state you love, that's pretty awesome. I just wanted to let you know that while I'm here in Burlington, Vermont, my little knitted owl, Archimedes wanted to start his own blog! I've been typing it for him, since he doesn't type so quickly. But he's pretty excited about it.

You should check it out.

A Little Owl Travels

Love,
A

Sweet Jesus, how did this end up in the middle of NM?

A,
I went camping in New Mexico last weekend. Up in the rocky mountains, in Lincoln National Forest, where it is green, lush, humid, and cold all year round. Where there are birch trees, crocuses, irises, columbine, and wild strawberry plants. Normal plants! And elk! At our campsite! Can I just say how much I miss nature? It was a haven of beauty surrounded by the total desolation that is the southwest. I have no idea how it is possible for NM to stake a claim to something so beautiful--it was completely out of character for the state.

And how much more amazing is a national forest than a national park? Oh so great. For one, we were able to bring Dutch with us onto our campsite and onto the trails. At many of the national parks that I have been to, you are made to feel like a tourist. You are overwhelmed as much by the many throngs of vacationers as you are by the beauty of the park. The trails are paved and overrun with people, and there is not the solitude of nature that perhaps you came to enjoy. At a national forest, there is no entrance fee, you are less likely to encounter another person on the trails, and it seems overall more wilderness-y and primitive. I spent my childhood visiting different national and state parks, and I want to say that this forest was the best of them all . . . Most likely, however, that would be my nature-deprivation speaking to me and altering my impartiality. Oh, to get out of Arizona and see some green again.

You can't really camp in Arizona, at least where I am. For one, I don't really care to set up camp in the desert. And for another, there are too many illegals and drug smugglers for it to be safe. Where we live, we are surrounded by mountains and national forest (although how this actually constitutes a forest, I'm not exactly sure--it's more scraggly bushes than trees). Yet these mountains taunt me, for I am not about to go hiking alone in the desert, even if I bring Dutch with me. And of course James, who hikes around all the time, then comes home and does three different workouts each day, doesn't always have the motivation to chaperone my hiking. Which is quite understandable. That's not to say that we don't explore the mountains, it's just that we have to find a time when our weekends coincide.

In any case, we had a marvelous time camping, cooking over a fire, and finding out that Dutch is a thoroughly domesticated dog that is afraid of the dark. He is still recouperating from the weekend and I suspect he will be sleeping this entire week. Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, there are no pictures on this post documenting the beautiful nature. It seems that I accidently left the camera at home and therefore you will have to use your imagination to picture this oasis.

I did want to say, thank you for the birthday package. It was joy after joy, and the yarn is squishy beautiful amazing-ness. I want to knit with it immediately, but I have to admit, I am having a hard time focusing on finding a project for myself. I haven't done that in a while, and it's taking some discipline, but I think I have a couple of ideas in mind. I also thought you should know, when I took out the yarn, James smelled it to see if it smelled like kool-aid.

Hope you are enjoying a lush and nature-filled summer! When are you going to VT? You know, the king arthur flour company is located there. Lots of yumminess if it's in your area.

Take care!
K

ps. In the book I am re-reading, one of the characters has a job being paid to listen to vacationers re-tell of their adventures and sift through their copious amounts of pictures. The vacationer doesn't want to risk losing a friendship by boring their acquaintances with accounts of their travels, and so they pay someone else to listen to the entire story. I am crossing my fingers that you are not similarly bored by the reminiscence of my trip, or at least not enough to damage our friendship. At least I didn't make you look through all my pictures.

toy hermit

A,
There's a reason why I always knit in the round. And it is not because I particularly care for double-pointed needles. In fact, I find double-pointeds somewhat awkward to knit with, particularly considering I have to take care that I don't leave a gap in stitches between the needles. On the other hand, not knitting in the round would be far worse. As you know, I find finishing projects to be the least pleasant part of knitting. Which is why I avoid seams at all cost. At all cost! And it has occurred to me at certain points in my knitting career that I not only find seaming projects to be un-enjoyable, but I don't find that I am particularly good at it either. It is also likely that each of these observations explains the other.


As I was finishing up my hermit crab this morning, I was thinking to myself that there must be a better way to do this. I am sure that there is a way to piece this all together that is a bit more systematic. And maybe a way that makes it look a little cleaner. Did you notice that I-cord around the circumference of the shell? That's something I added. A little aesthetic addition? Well, yes. But it's mostly to hide the botched job I did of stitching on the hermit's head.


It seems to me that with knitted toys, it is particularly important to get the finishing done well. It is partly this finishing that gives the toy its character--the position of a certain appendage or the stitches on the face can completely change the character of the toy. And particularly with this pattern, because it is so brilliant, I want to do it justice.


On the other extreme, I was at a store earlier this month, where they were selling a number of hand-knit toys. It looked like the wool was unevenly hand-spun, and the entire toy smelled delightfully of lanolin. But the best part about these toys was that they were roughly pieced together. It wasn't the precision that made them stand out. It was the earthy, rough-hewn imperfection of the projects that made them seem all the more imaginative.

I don't know how this reflects my own knitted hermit crab, but I guess in the end, he didn't turn out too shabby. I did really enjoy making his shell. And I am quite certain that its recipient will love him no matter what--which is probably the best part. But until next week--when I say goodbye to the hermit--this crab is sticking with me, and we are going to have many adventures together.

Happy knitting,
K

I've got crab!

A,
Whenever James and I get together with his friends from work, I feel like I am part of a stereotype. Which isn't necessarily bad; it just amuses me how fifties-ish it feels. For example, last evening we went to a friend's house for a cookout. Once everyone had arrived, the guys all went outside to start the grilling. As far as I can tell, their conversation revolved around work and sports and working-out and other "manly"-type things. The wives, on the other hand, all segregated themselves in the living room. Everyone except for me had brought along an infant or a toddler, and our conversation revolved around teething and school and fussy eaters.



I brought my knitting along, to work on a simple project, and the girls told me that once I had kids I wouldn't have time to knit. And I thought to myself, ha! That's what the graduate adviser told me before I started grad school, and look at me now! Knitting away . . .


I took a break this weekend from studying for my oral exam to work on this hermit crab. He's just in pieces right now, but hopefully soon he'll be a real, live, whole hermit crab. A girl in my research group is having her baby any day now, and I thought a knitted toy would be a fun way to celebrate a tiny new person. Hopefully I'll find the time (and patience) to piece him all together before the imminent big day.


Take care,
K

The most pointless day ever

A,
Have you ever had any of those days where you think to yourself, what was the point? Why did I even bother? Sometimes I feel this way with my knitting when I realize I need to rip back and start completely over. Or when I finish a sweater for my mom and then realize that it's just a tad too small and that she will never wear it. Or, listen to this.

James and I were going to fly to Minneapolis this weekend to go to a funeral. We left our house at 7am on Friday to drive to the airport. Flew to Denver for a layover. Everything fine so far. I took great note of the fact that there appeared to be grass near the runway. A plus for Colorado. The sky was also overcast, not something I'm used to seeing. (By the way, are you still thinking about CO as a final living destination? James and I spend quite a lot of time making plans for the future, and they change drastically from week to week, but I'm keeping CO in mind whenever I think of the next few years)

Our connecting flight was late arriving at the gate. This began to get annoying, as we thought about the fact that we were spending less than 24 hours in Minnesota, and it would be nice to make our flight soon. When the plane finally did come in, we were informed by the passengers that they had hit a bird during their take-off and sometime during their flight they had also been hit by lightening. . . Some time later we learned that our flight was canceled. You may be able to imagine why.

Following was a long wait at the customer service desk. There was another flight leaving for MN that evening, but by the time that we reached the front of the line the flight was full. So there was no way we were going to make the funeral the following morning. Plus it had started blizzarding outside and we were worried about more flights being canceled. We decided take the 6 pm flight back to AZ--which we just barely made before the plane left the gate.

However, blizzarding continued and de-icing failed. So we were told that we would be waiting on the runway until the snow abated.

I feel that I have to mention at this point that the airplane seats were the most uncomfortable seats that I have ever sat in. They were concave, which simply did not lead to proper or comfortable posture.

As you can imagine, it was quite a wait on the runway for the snow to pass. Eventually the skies cleared up, but it wasn't time to celebrate yet. Because we learned at this point one of our engines had failed and that we had to be towed back to the terminal so that someone could look at the engine. By the way, this engine that failed was the one that controlled our air temperatures and circulation. Without it, the cabin became unbearably stuffy and hot.

After five hours of sitting in this plane, we were able to finally take off. Dehydrated and starving, (we hadn't eaten since lunch) we returned back to AZ, drove home, and made it back by 1:30 AM to our house.

And what had we accomplished? Absolutely nothing. We spent the entire day at the airport, and we just ended up back home.

I bought a book while we were in Denver, and I finished it before our flight back even left the ground. That's how ridiculously long this day was.

Were you able to go to Katie's wedding? As you can see, I was struggling with other travel plans that weekend, but it would have been nice to see y'all. I hope your weekend was less pointless than mine.

K

A fine crumb

A,

Why baking bread is similar to knitting:

it's a tactile, hands-on process
smells wonderful
often involves following a recipe
you want to show everyone your finished product


Why baking bread is not similar to knitting:

you can eat bread
you can wear knitting


This is my sourdough starter. It is over 250 years old.


Plus, it's amazing. I even made waffles out of it.

I hope you're enjoying the holiday. My Easter bunny says hello.


Yes, that's an Easter turd next to her.

Happy knitting and happy baking.

Love,
K

Alpaca Farming

K,

Your are timely as always. I was getting really nervous, because I didn't know when Lock and Load was going to come in the mail. I really think he should change his name, however, to, "My Precious." Because that's how I feel about whatever you send me from those alpacas. Oh my gosh. So lovely. I don't want to spin it or do anything with it, hardly, for fear of ruining it. I love it sooo much. Yummy yummy yummy.

So you slipped in a pamphlet/sheet of paper on alpaca farming in the box, which was perfect, because apparently one of Kris's fellow physics graduate students Brad feels that life may not be treating him well at the moment and that perhaps he may want to step into the wonderful world of alpaca farming. This was not on any suggestion I made. I did not even mention alpacas. Kris just came home and told me that Brad was considering alpaca farming.

Delightfully, I knew I had just the thing, and sent Kris back with the pamphlet that informed Brad about how alpacas might spit on him. I also sent off 3 samples of fiber, the raw clip you newly sent me, the grayish alpaca you'd sent before, and some baby suri alpaca that I'd had in my fiber stash. (And I told Kris to be very careful.)

Apparently Brad was very impressed and took the pamphlet home to his wife. His father may own some 40 acres of land that he's not doing anything with that he'd let Brad use if he wants to. Now he just needs alpacas. And expertise. And time. And food for the alpacas. And everything else to take care of the alpacas.

Maybe a loan.

I've been working on my owl sweater, and while it's been going quickly, I don't know if it's going well or not. I feel like there's this bulge in the back from the way the shaping in done, and no matter what it wouldn't really go away. And so, rather than just knitting until I had to frog it all later and cry, I'm blocking it on the needles at this very moment.

Hopefully this makes the bulge go away. Hopefully. Cross your fingers. Other than that it looks pretty good. Most people in my class think it's a hat.

Love,
A