BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS

I have begun the pink mohair shawl.

Recipe: Cast on 8. Knit around.
Increase 4. Knit around.
Increase 8. Knit around.
Continue to increase 8 every other round. Insert lace pattern in appropriate place.
Knit until you run out of yarn or patience.

Here she is, near the beginning.


Now, I've switched to short circular needles. 40 stitches are added every 10 rows, so it grows quickly. Punk rock mob cap.


The big sugar maple in the front yard was taken down Sunday.

When we moved here in the fall of 1994, that tree was incredibly beautiful. It's leaves were yellow gold and it was a WOW! of a sight. That 65 foot tall tree was our sole air conditioning for a half dozen years.

Then came the beginning of the end. Age, drought, and possibly a virus - whatever the cause, the tree was dying. Each spring saw fewer green leaves and more barren branches. Each storm brought down limbs.

So. The tree cutters did their work, quickly and skillfully.

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

There was a big high school graduation party in town last night. Graduating from high school is a Very Big Deal around here. There was a rented tent, tons of food, a large Congratulations banner and aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and shirt-tail relatives galore.

I never had that party. I never graduated from high school, in spite of an IQ of 157. I can't imagine having that many relatives and friends of family.

Family is very important in Laconia. The joke here is that everyone is related, but it isn't a joke - they are all related. This community was platted and settled in 1816 by Squire Boone, Dan'l's brother, a few months before Indiana became a state. Some local families really do go back that far. In fact, one of our neighbors is an actual Daniel Boone who is descended from Squire Boone. We live in Boone township. The roads here are named for the old families - Crosier, Merk, Kintner. The graduation party was for a Kingsley. Most everyone here is related in some way to a Kingsley - they were quite prolific. There are also the Faiths, the Beanblossoms, the Millers, the Duleys, the Ashtons, the McKims.

Me, I'm a McKellar. Once was a Holloway. Was born a Hall. I'm not from around here. I was born in Fayetteville, Tennessee. When I was four, my family sought a better living in Huntington, Indiana - and they took me along. I remember the ride in a Lightnin' Taxi from the housing project to the bus station with my mother and two older brothers and my Woody Woodpecker coloring book. It was 1961. Dad had already gone north to find work and a place for us to live. Mom hoped that I would stay awake until Nashville where we would change buses, but I couldn't. I had no idea what was going on. I had no idea that my parents couldn't make a living farming. I didn't know about the fire burning down their house when oldest brother was a baby. I didn't know about the tornado a year later that lifted their house up and over the chimney, setting it down on the other side of the road - with my mother and oldest brother still inside. I don't remember the bull breaking daddy's leg, making him limp slightly ever after. I don't remember the poverty.

I do remember other things, though. How fearful, timid, painfully shy and awkward I was as a child. How sensitive and emotional. How different I was from the German and Dutch farmers that had settled northern Indiana. How dark haired I was amongst all these blondes. How poor we were, always living in rented houses. These were not my people - but I had no idea who my people were. Even my Tennessee relatives weren't like me. No one in my immediate family was like me.

I grew up in the country. My blond brothers could barely stand to have a little sister around. So I turned to literature for friends. I loved to read. I read everything I could get my grubby little paws on. I read my brothers' English literature and other school books. I read and re-read the 1964 edition of the Funk and Wagnall's Encyclopedia that mom bought at the grocery store, book by book, every few weeks. Also the 20 some odd books of the Illustrated History of the United States. (Thank you, Mommy!) I spent my summers reading the Reader's Digest Abridged Best Sellers (4 stories a book,) Jane Eyre, War and Peace, and other 50-cent editions of books from Scholastic Press. I was banished from the dinner table because I wanted to read while I ate. So, I ate in another room and read, read, read.

My poor, sad mother took her life in March of 1974. She was 42 and I was seventeen. That fall, I took sick with Grave's disease - a thyroid condition - and by early spring I was too sick to continue school. Mrs. Turnbloom, my high school counselor, tried to keep me up with my studies but the end of May and graduation came and went without me marching to Pomp and Circumstance to collect my diploma.

Part of me misses very much having a large and loving family that would gather to celebrate my graduation. Part of me is very pleased to not have a large and nosy family wondering why I didn't.

I am very glad to have found a group of fiber people that doesn't care and just loves me for being me. Strange, sad, creative and weepy me.

Professor Backward

Just a thought from a founding father...

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
- John Adams

I like doing crossword puzzles. Hard ones. I used to do crosswords at breakfast, back when I had a real job and got the daily paper every morning. Back when I was somebody. To be more effecient, I would take spoon to cereal in right hand and pen to puzzle on the left. Writing with the "wrong" hand was an interesting exercise. Some letters, like N and S, I was prone to print in mirror image. Sometimes, just for grins, I would try to write the alphabet upside down with my left hand. (No, I didn't have way too much time on my hands. I worked with my hands and I liked to keep them and my brain busy.)

I recently memorized the alphabet in reverse order. I like to recite it silently on those nights I can't quite fall asleep.

I also like to knit in reverse instead of purling. I can purl just fine, thank you very much, but it is ever so much more interesting to not turn the work at the end of a row, but to knit back across from left to right.

Here's a photo of reverse knitting. Mechanically, it is a purl stitch worked from the back side. I'm working on a short row toe. Like writing with the non-dominant hand, it takes awhile to get comfortable.



Finally finished the blasted socks that I cast on going to Maryland. Finally. Socks don't usually take me this long, but I learned a new short row heel and toe technique (with wraps) and struggled an inordinate amount with that. Then knit the foot too short and had to rip back. Used the three-needle bind off at the toe. I think I should have grafted the seam, but dammit! they are done and I am happy. The yarn is Knit Picks dye-your-own sock weight that I dyed last fall.



The 2nd Annual Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival will be Saturday, June 3 in Franklin, Indiana. Lynne Oakes will be there with her yarns and patterns (and I will be there with my usual stuff, too. Knitting needles and bunny blends) And look to the sidebar to the left on this page for a link to the 2nd Annual Fall Fiber Festival and Market in Corydon, Indiana in October.

Oh, and here is a shot of dyed angora, alpaca and silk before blending. Pretty!

LACE IS THE NEW SOCKS

At least it seems that way. Just received the new Interweave Knits and there is a lace primer inside. Also received the latest Knit Picks catalogue that urges one to "discover the beauty of lace."

A month or so ago, I discovered See Eunny Knit, Eunny Jang's blog with excellent posts about lace knitting and knitting lace.

I began my own dabbling in Laceland last year when I thought I was going to have some surgery with a 4-6 week period of recuperating. I had been preparing raw mohair - washing, combing, carding, spinning and dyeing - for several months. I had enough on hand to begin a shawl, so I studied my books and came up with some sort of pleasing pattern. I downloaded knitter's graph paper (Google it!) and with pencil and eraser in hand, I tried to make it all come together.

After the initial awkwardness of 12 stitches on 4 needles and a few rows with bad words, I discovered that lace is NOT HARD! I think I used size 6 needles and a 2-ply mohair spun fine, (no, I do not have a wwp available) so the actual knitting sailed right along. I can't remember exactly how long I worked at it, because the surgery and recuperating were a non-event. The yarn was delightful to work with and I love how fuzzy the shawl has become with use. Finished size is about four foot square.



I'm inspired to do it all again! I have the yarn already spun and dyed. Three skeins that gradually go from hot fuchsia to fuchsia with red to fuchsia with red and orange. Won't that be perky come January?



Here's a shot of Sweetie, Bonnie, Buster, and Fishy. We are all such high energy beings.



PamperedProboscis wants photos of the psycho hair. We'll see. And V wondered about the blue silk and angora. I think your monitor is right on. I am still waiting for babies to arrive - am checking on Fuzzarelly often.

HAIR TO DYE FOR

The grey roots weren't just roots anymore. They were sprouts. They were meandering vines. They were weedy fields.

I normally wear my hair in an untidy mess piled on top of my head, held in place with a stick or two and decorated with knit flowers. Talk about easy care! Once up, it stays up! Okay, sometimes I lose a stick and the locks get really frowzy looking and I need to comb out and regroup. But still, it's easy care. I shampoo every week - or two, if I'm feeling particularly European. Or depressed.

Went to the Kroger today and got me some Natural Instincts in Chinaberry, Clairol. Time to dye the hair pink, no purple, no - a kind of berry color. Umm, berrrrries.

What many of you all may not know is that my hair now is almost long enough to sit on. It's very long. Longer than it's ever been. Hillbilly grandma hair. So when one dyes one's hair, there is a lot of hair involved. And a lot of berry colored dye. When I stepped in the shower to rinse, and flung my head once or twice, I swear it looked like a scene from Psycho - dark red spatters and streaks everywhere! Eek. Now I have to clean the shower and kill some of Sweetie's science experiments. Dang, trying to be purty is painful.

The picture today is what I'm spinning - angora and silk.

ALLERGIES, or THE SNEEZE THAT REFRESHES

Bad allergies today. Took two Benedryl at noon and slept the day away.

Lamar woke up my sorry ass at 4:00 and we went to the Bait & Switch. He had found me a snazzy exercise bike and an arc trainer at a yard sale over the weekend. Price - $25. For both. And they work. Lamar's motivation is to slim me down for his ogling pleasure and that's fine. Lamar is 75 if he's a day and ogling is about all he's capable of anymore. Besides he's kinda scrawny; I could take him at least 2 falls out of 3.

It's been drizzly all day. Sat on the porch.


Worked on socks.

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

Been mowing and wondering what to write today. The problem isn't a lack of material (as I am an introvert and slightly crazy and have tons of conversations with the committee in my head.) No, the problem is how to narrow down the selection and then focus on that subject for at least a paragraph or three and without it turning into Moby Dick.

Hi, my name is Ishmael and I am an alcoholic.

I quit drinking on April 3, 1988. And I relapsed in October, 2004. I have so much drinking to make up for. That's a joke, I said, that's a joke, son.

So why did I relapse and why am I still drinking? How much space does Blogger allow? Not enough for the long version, so long story short - retail store, stress, Sweetie away, beer available, stress, awful neighbor and stalking, and stress. I will say that I drink differently than way back when in the bad old days.

Way back when, whilst married to the Pyg(malion) I was so miserable and unhappy and clueless that I drank in order to get through each day. At my worst, I chugged white wine before work, as much as I could without puking. Then I snuck vodka through the day (can't smell it, you know) and then drank beer in the evening. What a mess! I was lucky enough to not get caught or wreck the car and/or hurt others. I performed my job well and brushed my teeth twelve times a day. But I was a mess. Black outs, sex with strangers, and purity wildness. Manic/depressive, too. A tribute to my race, I was.

April 3, 1988 (I was 31 and it was Easter Sunday) I went to my first AA meeting and didn't drink again for a long, long time. I loved that group, the Dogwood Club in Atlanta. I got my shit together, learned how to live, and made peace with my cosmic muffin. Faced reality. I eventually left the Pyg, remarried and relocated, blah blah blah.

When I took a sip of beer two years back, I remembered that euphoria of a good beer buzz. Hello, Al ka Hol, my old and dear friend. Yes, now and again I drink too much. But I don't drink to live anymore. Of course, I live on that river in Egypt called deNial. And fuck it, I want to have a bit of booze in my life right now.

So there you have it. I'm not sorry except for the extra weight gained from the beer and menopause. I'm still cute. I still have my peace with the cosmic muffin. Life is short. I'm gonna live it like I mean it. What would you regret not doing or not having done if you got hit by a truck tomorrow? Think about it. Do it today.