December 2008 Archives

A while back, I was cogitating about how to make novel-reading in 2009 a fun game, as well as the soul-sustaining activity it has been since before I discovered Anne of Green Gables at the age of five, and I stumbled upon Annie's What's in a Name? readalong, which I promptly joined. Then I started looking around a little bit, and what do you know? There are a zillion of these things. As familiar as I am with the online world of knitalongs, fibercraft games, contests and mutual support societies, it never occurred to me that a similar things might exist in the world of reading. The internet: what a place.

Anyway, after trawling through all the various options, I'm signing up for three. I think they'll provide a good mix of fiction and nonfiction, old and new, fun game-style hijinks without so much structure that I'll stop enjoying the freedom of curling up with a good book. These also allow some overlap, so they won't interfere with my ability to just pick up a lovely novel and curl up with it guilt-free.

I already wrote about my plans for the What's in a Name? challenge, which asks for six books, each featuring a specific element in their titles: a profession, a time of day, a relative, a building, a body part, and a medical condition. I haven't settled on a for-sure list yet, but I did go on a pre-Christmas, save-the-Portland-bookstores rampage, and may have purchased a copy of Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride (hey, "robber" is totally a profession), Haruki Murakami's After Dark, and José Saramago's Blindness. I've also been wanting to read Balzac's Cousin Bette for ages now. So we'll see what happens.

The Nine Books for 2009 challenge focuses on reading books from one's To Be Read shelf - a noble goal, considering that magnanimous but expensive shopping spree I mentioned. I like Isabel's organizational scheme, because it's a little more structured than just "decide on how many books you want to read and then do it," but it's still flexible enough to allow lots of variation among the tomes people already own. She suggests that folks read a book in each of nine (loose) categories, including:

• Long (defined as "longer than the books you usually read)
• Free (you didn't pay money for it)
• Dusty (it's been sitting on the shelves three years or more
• Used (it had previous owners, and you bought it)
• Letter (its title shares a letter with your first name or blog name)
• Strange (outside your normal comfort zone)
• Cover (the prettiest or ugliest cover)
• Alive or not (a work by a prize winner, or, failing that, a book whose author is dead, and
• Distance (a book whose setting or author's birthplace is more than 1000 miles from your current location)

I have several possibilities for most of these slots, but in one category there was no question: I just started Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, which has been sitting on my various to-be-read shelves since the middle of HIGH SCHOOL. I am coming up on my ten-year anniversary of high school graduation, so it's a safe bet that this novel has been waiting unread for over a decade. I'd say it qualifies as "dusty." I wonder what the record will be for longest delay between acquisition and reading; ten years is a long time, but I bet someone will have waited longer.

To top things off, I was thrilled to find the Dewey Decimal Challenge. I've been reading more nonfiction over the last few years, and this will support that trend while motivating me to stretch a bit. The goal is to read one book from each of the ten Dewey "centuries":

• 000: Generalities
• 100: Philosophy/Psychology
• 200: Religion
• 300: Social Sciences
• 400: Language
• 500: Natural Sciences & Math
• 600: Technology
• 700: The Arts
• 800: Literature and Rhetoric
• 900: Geography and History

Right now, I have waiting books that fall into three of the categories (Social Sciences, The Arts, and Geography/History), and a few other slots should be easy to fill with a jaunt down to the library. Others, primarily "technology" and "religion," may be a challenge. But what are these "challenges" supposed to be, anyway, if not challenging? And I like how this particular one lends itself to just wandering around a given section of the library until something leaps out at me. That it may also force me to actually check books OUT of the library may be a blessing or a terrible, terrible curse; we'll see at the end of the year what kind of late fees I've accumulated.

I'm excited for the year of reading and knitting ahead! I hope everyone starts out 2009 on a good note.

Yup, y'all guessed it. My Christmas treat is to knit up Ysolda's Vivian pattern for myself. What a nice change of pace it is not to have to worry about all the ins and outs of sizing!

So far, my plan about Vivian is actually working out surprisingly well. Yesterday I had a very productive session of working on the sizing for the Ethel pattern, and I think a few more of them will get it to a point where it's ready to send to test knitters. Before I left for Australia a certain issue had come up with the larger sizes, and has been hanging over my head ever since; yesterday I got it all sorted, which is a great feeling. I still have a way to go, but I'm feeling much more eager and optimistic to work on it now that the Big Confusing Problem is no longer standing in my way.

I absolutely love the way this sweater is designed. I often compare garment construction to the plot of a novel: I want to keep reading and finish the part I'm on, so I can find out what happens next. If sweater-making is like novel reading, then, the "plot" of the Vivian pattern is best compared to a twisty, turny read, with lots of clever reveals and unexpected connections, but still with a warm-hearted, comforting core of familiar, likable characters. The torso portion in particular is always harboring some new and clever development, and it makes the thing a blast to knit. Both the style (zip-up, hoodie), and the yarn (bulky) are outside of my normal range, but I'm so glad I picked Vivian as my relaxation knit. It doesn't disappoint.

Needless to say, given that I'm hooked and want to find out whodunit, my progress continues at a healthy clip. The torso and a single sleeve are completed, and the sleeve is seamed. (I have a strong aversion to using double-pointed needles larger than a size 3, and I didn't have any circulars appropriate for a Magic Loop sleeve, so I just worked it flat and seamed it. Doing it that way also meant I didn't have to worry about differences in circular versus flat gauge.) I'm really excited to see all the pieces come together in the yoke (the equivalent of Poirot announcing "You're probably wondering why I've gathered you all together..."), so I'll probably be powering through Sleeve Number Two in the next few days.

Let's recap, shall we? A week ago, I was looking at this:

Now, I am looking at this:

That is totally a person in a parka, snow-shoeing down my street. Because it's freaking cold and snowy here! Mr. Bingley doesn't know what to think.

So. Okay. I'll try not to just post astounded blog entries about the real live snow drifts on our front door, but holy mackerel.

In more pertinent news, although you might think that a few days of forced quiet time inside would lead to productivity, in my case you would be wrong. I've been taking stock of the projects ahead, and frankly, there are an overwhelming number of them. So I decided to narrow them down to three for the time being: the sizing for the Ethel sweater, a piece of secret-for-now design work, and a big ol' piece of mindless knitting to work on while I'm puzzling out the first two. Sounds like a good, balanced plan, right? Except, faced with the cozy vibe, the board games, wine/hot chocolate, and silly movies from the '30s, it's hard not to just default to the mindless knitting and forget all about the challenging parts of the equation.

And that's just what I did.

This project is a huge luxury, and my Christmas present to myself: a whole sweater designed for me by someone else! And, it uses up a big bag of yarn over which I've been fretting for over a year, which failed to inspire any original designs. Those two circumstances together make me feel like I'm easing back into a warm bubble bath every time I work on it. So really, it's no wonder I'm having trouble tearing myself away.

More on the pattern later, although I bet a few of you will be able to figure it out. In the meantime, happy celebrations to those participating, and happy regular-day-except-everything's-closed to everyone else! I'll be spending the holiday in snowy Portland, making purple cables and relaxing in front of my parents' fire.

Despite the unreasonable refusal of Qantas, Australia's national airline, to let knitting needles on the plane even if they are itsy-bitsy, I did get do some mindless, summery knitting while I was on vacation. Knitting which now seems ridiculously inadequate to cope with the weather conditions in Portland.

These are Kate Blackburn's lovely Rosamond pattern, in a simple, easily-memorizable lace pattern that ends up looking delicately romantic. They're worked in the Lenten Rose colorway of Sundara sock yarn, and alternate between looking lavender or grey, depending on the light. After all, a lady is entitled to change her mind. As is a fella, when it comes to that.

I finished these on Kangaroo Island, she of the wallabies and koalas of my last post. Which meant that I was knitting along in gorgeous, 70-degree weather, looking at views like this, never anticipating that I would return to frozen landscape of ice and snow. I keep expecting a nefarious lady in a sled to pull up and offer me enchanted Turkish Delight.

In any case, I was a bit disappointed with these when I first finished them. I don't know why I wasn't prepared, because I've knit a goodly amount of lace before, but they came off the needles unattractively bumpy and frumpy compared to the negligée-inspired idea I had in my head. We can all see where this is going, of course: fast-forward to back in Portland, after a nice bath for these girls and a few days drying on the sock blockers, and I'm much more excited about the results.

When my mom's cousin Jan was in town, she noticed this pattern in my Ravelry queue and said that it was the kind of thing ladies used to put in their hope chests. I think that sums up the appeal for me. Except I, luckily, get to wear them right away - or would do, if it weren't insanely cold here. I think I'm back to lace-less woolen socks for the time being, but I'm glad to have posted these on the shortest day of the year. Warmth and daylight will be here before I know it, and when they are, lacy Lenten Rose socks will help me greet them.

Post script: being forbidden from plane knitting wasn't actually so bad. On the way back to the States I read the whole of Peter Carey's amazing My Life as a Fake, which I highly, HIGHLY recommend. Check it out!