Open letter to those it may concern...

Dear Whoever you are,

I am not interested in hearing any more stories about your, your sister's, your mother's or some anonymous woman who you might have read about in the news's labor stories. Kay? I know that labor is hard, hence the word. If it was happy fun time they would have come up with a different way to describe it, right?

I don't care if anyone of your acquaintance was planning a nice gentle homebirth and had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance with lights ablazing because of one horrendous problem or another. I think it is safe to say that most women will at some point have a baby, and the fact is that most of them get through it just fine whether they are in the hospital, in a birth center, or in the back of a taxi stuck in rush hour traffic. So leave off the umbilical cord around the neck, fetal distress, c-section horror stories. Kay?

And while we are on the subject of things I'm pretty fuckin' sick or hearing about, I don't need to hear about anymore 12, 13, or 14 pound babies. I was over 9 pounds when I was born, my brother was over 10 and our mother made it through just fine. I don't know if you noticed but I'm practically 6 feet tall, with hips to match. So bugger you and your big baby trauma stories. These are birthin' hips, I've been living with them my whole life and it's time that they did something to earn their keep.

Oh, and when you find out that I am due in August, the appropriate response is "you can come over and use my swimming pool while I make you a nice glass of decaf Ice Tea." It is not "that will be hell," "have fun with that," or "you know it's miserably hot in August."

It has also been brought to my attention that 7 and a half months is a little late to be letting everyone know that I am breeding. I am in danger of a mass generalization, but the reason that I didn't tattoo "mother to be" on my forehead and take out a 3/4 page add in the alternative weekly, is because I didn't want to hear labor horror stories, tales of natural childbirth gone horribly wrong, and commentary about what a genius I am to schedule my third trimester for the three hottest months of the year. Do you think that was an unreasonable fear, 'cause so far my only regret is that it got too hot to wear sweatshirts and I could't keep it private for another two and a half months.

Ragnar...pregnant but still a pirate.

P.S. lest the blogosphere get the wrong idea this isn't directed at my immediate friends or fellow bloggers, you all have been great. It's the people who know me the least who feel the need to make sure I'm up to date on the perils of pregnancy...and I know it only gets worse and that I'm going to be dealing with helpful suggestions about the raising of my wee little pirate for the rest of my life, I just needed to get that off my chest before I had a pregnant/hormone fueled/incredible hulk style reaction the next time someone said something ignorant.

Putting the "F" into Art

And the "ass" in aesthetic....ah the life of the street artist.

Last weekend was my second "real" art festival. Several years ago I commented to a friend that I was going part time at my job in order to be a "real" artist. This friend was one of those hippy types that feels that deep down everyone is a creative free spirit, and she gave me a big hug and said "Oh, don't say that! You are a real artist! Everyone is an artist." I tried to explain that being a "real" artist meant that I would be making an income off of it....but apparently money is too crass and commercial to be connected with real art (note to self: future blog entry, "selling out"). But I persist in my belief that in order to live my dream of artisticness, I also need to pay my mortgage, my utility bills, my grocery bill and still have enough left over to pay my studio rent. Thus I am exploring the world of "real" art fairs...those being the ones that are attended by people who actually buy art.

Enter the "Detroit Festival of the Arts"

And the great thing about Detroit is that they know how to throw a party.

If you're having an art festival, why not invite people on stilts dressed up like dragons?

It was great, typical art festival, lots of little white booths filled with art, some good, some...uh...not so good, and then suddenly a little kid runs past outside yelling "dragons!!!" and you hear a prehistoric sounding roaring/cawing noise. People scramble to get away, and suddenly there are four twenty foot high dragons stalking past your booth. Poor Manimal came down to help out and was cornered by one of the beasts when he went out to seek lemonade. Thankfully their trainer came by with his big stick or he could have been trapped behind that lamp post for hours.

And if you aren't satisfied with the dragons, you can go check out the "hair" people. I couldn't get close enough to get a good picture but basically two people dressed up like geisha's pull people out of the audience and then turn their hair into crazy sculptures.

Seriously check out their website, it defies description.

And there was lots of other street art as well, like this huge sand sculpture:

And directly across from my booth there was a couple from the west coast who played amazing home made instruments, like a violcano...a cross between a viola and a volcano, which can be worn like a skirt, and plucked or bowed. Or a huge stringed instrument that stretched across the whole back of the stage and was played by rubbing rosin impregnated gloves across the strings. I tried to take a picture of it, but it looked like two people in funny outfits in strange poses. I saw their show 8 times throughout the weekend. I think I'll audition and move to the coast and learn to play the orbicals.

So needless to say I had a blast. Even if I hadn't sold anything I would still try to do the show next year, just to see what sort of crazy performance art they can dig up, but I did sell things! I don't know how the really real artists judge a successful weekend, but at this point if I cover my booth fee, the gas money, three days of "festival" lunches (expensive and greasy!) and have some left over as profit then I consider it to be a success.

Ragnar...proud to be a sell out.

Delayed Blogging...

Argh! I thought I would do better at this whole blogging thing once I moved into a house with reliable Internet...but so far not so good. I've decided to make up for my lack of bloggerliness by double posting. First off, so that you all know how good my intentions are, I will post an entry with a selection of photos that I took with the full intention of blogging. Secondly I will post an entry about the art fair I did this weekend, which will serve the purpose of "catching me up." It is (as always) my intention to post on a more or less regular basis, but since that hasn't been happening so much of late I suggest that you ration these entries. Read one tomorrow, read one next week and hopefully by then I'll have posted another one.

And if you don't like it you can blame it on this little guy:

Yes yes, as you may have guessed from my last post, Ragnar has gone and joined the breeders. Say hello to Ragnarson everyone, he's waving at you. What does being pregnant have to do with not being able to update the blog? Absolutely nothing, but it's one of the perks of allowing your body to be a duplex for 9 months, you get to blame every lapse on being pregnant. Really pregnancy just gets better and better. Aside from the back pain, the swollen fingers, the strange churning in my belly (actually that's pretty cool), the extra 15 pounds, and the need to urinate every 15 fuckin' minutes (I know all the good bathrooms, if you need to pee within 100 mile radius of the Lansing area, you just let me know and I'll hook you up,) this pregnancy thing just gets better by the minute.

Anyway, here are some things I haven't blogged about since getting knocked up.

Manimal and I had a teenager for awhile. He rented our front bedroom for 3 or 4 months, and it was pretty entertaining. He isn't an official teenager, since he's 25 or so, but in all other respects it was exactly like living with a 15 year old. I'd give him 16 or 17, but he didn't have a car, so we were always giving him rides "up to the cafe to study." Yeah, I used to go up to the "cafe" to "study" too, so I know that it's code for hanging out with yer buddies and mackin' on chicks. Highlights of living with a teenager:

The night we found one of his friends passed out in the recliner and women's clothing strewn at random around the living room.

The many times I found him staring into the refrigerator with something vaguely edible in one hand, like an unwashed carrot while he stared into the chilly depths waiting for food to jump into his mouth.

And of course, dressing him up to go to his first toga party:

"Do either of you know how to tie a toga?" emerging from his bedroom holding a sheet patterned with blue and brown flowers.

"You can't go to a toga party dressed in that."

"It's my only sheet."

So Manimal loaned him a black kilt and he togaed (to toga, I togaed, they will toga...yeah) it up with the pirate flag. Smashing, really, it gave me a little shiver and a premonition of what it'll be like to watch Rat Girl get ready for her first school dance. (Manimal and I saying, "You can't wear that...it doesn't have skulls on it. Here borrow the pirate flag, you can just sort of drape it around your shoulders like a shawl or something.")

And I do knit, really. Actually I've been knitting quite a lot....mostly sweaters in size 0 if you know what I mean. I can't really get the energy I need to rescue any of my "for me" sweater projects, since they won't fit me for awhile, but I am trying to get one made for the rat girl. The "little red riding hoodie" stalled after the first sleeve, since it has A LOT of shaping and the instructions for the second sleeve read: "mirror shaping from the first sleeve." I can barely tell my left from my right on a good day, so remembering to ssk when I had previously k2tog, not to mention knitting the short rows from the opposite side, felt like a monumental task. The LRRH languished for several weeks until I had the fabulous idea of getting a mindless DVD. Enter "From Russia with Love." Exit, the left sleeve of the LRRH. Unfortunately since then I have actually tried the sweater on Rat Girl and it looks really awful. This is a sweater that is meant to fit very tightly over boobs. It doesn't fit tightly and Rat Girl won't have boobs for at least 3 or 4 years. The unhappy ending to this story is what LRRH will be frogged and turned into something more flattering. I'm going to measure her up today. In the meantime, I can knit a sweater in size 0 in about 3 days, and since Ragnarson is due in August, he's going to need LOTS of sweaters. No really, babies get cold very easily.
We have moved out of our house. See, the cupboards are bare. Also our remodeling project has a mascot. When my parents were visiting for the East Lansing Art Festival they brought tons of loot with them....many pirate related objects since it was right around my birthday (my 30th! again) and also this "Bob the Builder" doll, which proclaims "can we fix it? yes we can!" with confidence whenever he's squeezed in the balls....I think his voice box might have slipped a little bit. Manimal is quite taken with him...either that or he needs a boost of ol' Bob's unflagging optimism, because I hear "can we fix it? yes we can!" about 45 times a day.And we've moved in with Kevbot, who has a burn barrel in his back yard with a smiley face drilled into the side. When it's really going it looks like a happy guy with crazy red hair. Kevbot has a bank of computers in his basement that makes the deck of the Enterprise look like a laptop...but can I get a blog entry up on a regular basis, no I can't.

And lastly, I have been in line behind some crazy people lately. Firstly I had to go and pay our gas bill, and this man in bike rig with full body tattoos was in front of me. This man was at least 50, but I think he was more like a fit 60. You can't see too much of it in this photo because of his backpack, but his entire back was covered with thick tribal tattoos. He also had many large gauge piercings in his ears and both nipples. He was clearly in a hurry and was quite irritated that the people ahead of him didn't have their money in order. He even turned to me with an eyerolling sigh that clearly communicated the fact that "some" people really needed to get their shit together, (the guy in front of him was trying to get out of paying his bill by saying "I don't know why my gas bill is so high, I haven't even lived there for the last 6 months.") Anyway, it does my heart good to know that rather than mellowing with age, I can become a crazy biker with nipple piercings and that the clerk at the gas company won't even blink as she takes my money (counted in advance and exchanged with out delay or comment.)

And then a week or so after that we had to pick up something at the Walgreens and this guy was ahead of us. Yes. He is wearing a skunk on his head, a real skunk. You can't tell from this photo (because, I don't know about you, but when a guy is wearing a skunk on his head I'm a little nervous about approaching him and asking him to pose for a picture) but this was basically a whole skunk, little skunk face ahead, big fuzzy skunky tail behind. It was also about 85 degrees outside, so it's not like he was wearing it to keep his head warm. It became pretty obvious that this was a source of family pride when he picked up his prescription. I don't like to put people's name's up with out asking them, but it was only one letter off from "skunk." I wonder what sort of hat he would have worn if his name had been "Moose."

See? It's not like I don't think about blogging...I just don't manage to find the time to actually do it.

Ragnar...it's because I'm pregnant.

Fourth Annual...

Today is my Fourth Annual 30th birthday! Usually I have a big pirate themed blow out, but what with one thing and another I didn't feel up to planning the Buccaneer Bacchanal this year, so I'm having a quiet dinner with friends. Perhaps this is an indication that I am maturing, but then again perhaps not. I'm still thrilled to death to get things with skulls on them, so it's not like the pirate obsession is wearing thin.

My inability to simultaneously renovate my house, get ready for art fairs and plan a birthday party blowout is not the only indication that something is "up" with me lately. Here's a list of things that might have tingled your spider sense had you been hanging out with me lately.

1. Elastic. I fuckin' love that shit. Almost every article of clothing I own that doesn't rely on elastic for a comfy fit has been shifted to the "store for indefinite period of time" pile.

2. Vitamins and Supplements. Every morning I take a hand full of pills that would choke an average horse, and have enough left over to choke a chicken or a muskrat as well.

3. Bras. In the best of time I hate bra shopping, and during the summer whilst in the midst of a major construction project and art season is not the best of times. None the less, I have been bra shopping several times, and plan on going again soon.

4. Clothes. I'm not hard to shop for, clothing only needs to fulfill two basic functions. It should cover my body, without resorting to frills, ruffles, writing or any other superfluous decoration of any kind, and it should be black. So how to explain the fact that my new favorite outfit is a pair of men's size 42 denim overalls with a generous "beer gut" cut? I have appeared in public wearing it several times, and even wore it at the art festival, although I don't think it helped my "artist" persona any.

5. Alcohol. Haven't had a whole beer in as long as I can remember. I "taste" what Manimal is drinking, out of fear that I will lose my taste for it, but I haven't tied one on in a coon's age. This perhaps explains my lack of enthusiasm for party planning. What is a pirate party with out several gallons of rum? It's a bunch of middle aged losers standing around if funny clothes.

6. Coffee. I try not to drink espresso more than every other day. Sometimes I succeed at this, sometimes i don't, but I try gosh durn it, and I haven't had brewed coffee in...well as long as I haven't had a beer.

7. I look like I've been shop lifting bowling balls by sticking them down the front of my pants.

Any guesses?

Ragnar....it's good to be 30, again.

Golden Harvest, part deux...

Look, it's a man in a hat, and it doesn't look like he's trying to rob a bank, or as if his head is being swallowed by a strange mushroom, or anything. That's because I put it in the magic shrinking machine....er...dryer.

I made a little swatch and when I washed it, it lead me to believe that the Silky Wool would shrink slightly in the horizontal direction and slightly more in the vertical direction, so I just threw caution to the wind and threw the hat in the washing machine. Actually I made Manimal throw the hat in the washing machine since I couldn't look.

When I pulled it out of the dryer it had shrunk rather more than the swatch and at first I thought I had made a hat for one of his daughters, but the silk content in the yarn made it so that it wasn't locked as tightly as a 100% wool would be and after stretching it out on my special hat blocker...er...Manimal's head, it turned into a rather normal sized, if slightly bell shaped, hat!! Magical.

Zane was speechless...although he said that he was speechless so I'm not sure how speechless he really was. But he was wearing it when I left the restaurant, although I'm not sure how long he'll last wearing a winter hat and working over a hot grill.

And on a completely random note: as I came into work this morning a couple of women were measuring off the booth spaces for the East Lansing Art Festival, which freaked me out for a second until I counted days and still came up with 16. 16 days you crazies! I don't even know what I'm going to use as a tent yet and your measuring out spaces. Argh.

And Victor, when you graduate from Dental School I'll make you a bloody molar hat, so there's some incentive for you.

Ragnar...fair isle, I just love that stuff!

I finished something...sorta.

and I'm pretty freakin' proud of myself if I do say so. Most Lansingers will recognize that logo as belonging to our quintessential breakfast place on the North Side, The Golden Harvest. "North Lansing Against the World," shiver me timbers and make that over easy with extra bacon. I swear I was eating there before the logo changed to incorporate the Skull and crossed eating utensils, because of the food of course. The pirate theme is just a big ol' bonus. And over the years of eating there I've become friends with the owner. I made him some fancy curtains, he refuses to charge me for my breakfast, our kids play together, and every once in awhile when neither of us is working we might do something out in the real world, although frankly I can't remember the last time that happened. Anyway, he had a birthday a couple of weeks ago. I had just finished another "we call them pirates," and was on a fair isle kick. So, armed with some "knitters" graph paper, and some silky wool, I knit furiously for 4 or 5 days and this hat sprung fully formed from my needles, like Athena from the skull of Zeus.

There's only one teeny tiny little problem:
Yes kiddies, that's what happens when you swatch with one yarn and then switch to another for the final project. That's the difference between 9 rows per inch and 7 rows per inch. Turns out that those 2 rows per inch add up rather dramatically, and if only I'd left some eye holes it would be a nifty G.H. themed ski-mask.

So I think I'm going to give it to him anyway, but keep tweaking the design so that it might someday fit a human being as opposed to a mutant with a long cylindrical head.

This is the hat as modeled by Manimal as it might be worn on a normal head.It seems to lose something....

Ragnar...swatch twice, silly pirate.

Things I haven't blogged about...

But really meant to.
Really.

1. My new spinning wheel. Her name is Victoria, she comes from Louet and she lives in a swanky back pack. I have a crush.

2. My new sweater. It's not actually for me. I think the reason I've been cursed with sweaters lately is because I'm just not meant to have a sweater. So I'm knitting for Rat Girl. It's the "Little Red Riding Hoody" from the DomiKnitrix, and I probably should have read the pattern first because it's got A LOT of crazy shaping details, including bust darts, and Rat Girl doesn't have a bust so it might look a little odd on her...but I'm up to the armpits and I'm not turning back now. It's actually lots of fun to knit something that detailed. I used stitch markers! Me, I know I can't believe it either.

3. Quilting Classes...I'm going to be teaching them at Woven Art, starting sometime this summer. I'm quite excited about this, but a little over whelmed. I'd like to teach it as a series of 6 classes that will take someone from being a complete beginner and (with luck) end up with a machine quilted, bound and finished masterpiece. This seems optimistic, but I think it can be done. Anybody who has ever wanted to quilt but hasn't taken the plunge? Tell me what you want in a quilting class, your guidance will be appreciated.

4. Lots and lots of other things...but I've been distracted.

What have I been distracted by? You suspected that this might be going somewhere didn't you? I'm not half so subtle as I think I am.

We are FINALLY renovating our house.

We bought this piece o' shit about 6 years ago, because the price was right and it hadn't yet fallen apart to the point where we wouldn't live in it. We would both live in a tent though, so that's really not saying much. In fact, our young tenant refers to it as "the yert." We have done very little to it since then, because we knew that at some point this day would come and we would tear out EVERYTHING, and I do mean everything, so what would be the point of fixing it? The problem has be exacerbated by my tendency to sledge-hammer on the walls when I've been having bad days, and to invite my friends to do so after we've had a few brews, so many of the living room walls have been stripped of their dry wall and some are down to studs.

I don't scrapbook and I'm not really a picture taker, but it seems to me that I would enjoy looking back on this in my dotage...perhaps so I can demonstrate to my grand-children "see, I've always been insane." My family also has a long history of construction, my father's family runs a third generation construction company, and my parents built their first house, so I wanted to document the project in a form that could be shared with them...even though this means that they will know the full extent of our squalor.

I'm not ready to clean up this blog into a family friendly format however, and I need to keep this area "house project" free, so that I have a refuge from sawdust and city planning office bureaucracy. Instead I am starting a new blog! Because, you know, it's hard enough for me to keep this one updated, so if I have two then it will be better...right? Yeah...right. Anyway, I hope to see you all over at "the house of straw" where you will (hopefully) be able to see my house transformed from a pile of shit, into a wonderful home where we can invite our family and friends without embarrassment.

Ragnar...she quilts, she sledge hammers on her house.

Panic Defeated By Process By Way of Pins

Remember awhile ago when I was bitching about the subjectivity and selection process of Art Fair Juries, and how it was like high school and all that nonsense?

Well it turns out that the application is just the beginning and the real panic starts when you get in. I'm 44 days out from my first big fair of the season and I'm starting to wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, wondering to whom I should address the sacrifices to insure good weather, having those giving-a-speech-in-your-underwear nightmares, except in my case its more like showing up for the set up and realizing that I forgot to pack my artwork...yeah. Anyway, I'm coming out of the closet as a big worry wort.

This is my brain on Art.



So how does one defeat the pre-fest panic? I'm trying the keepin' on keepin' on cure. Lucky for me my process is suitably fussy and intricate.



This is what I do when I get a couple of hours to myself and can stake out in my studio...which has two lovely new shelves, in a completely off subject digression....









First I draw a picture....yes it has a hole in it, most of my quilts have holes in them...this is an 8 inch block, it's will eventually be bound and probably framed as a tiny little piece of artwork.









Then I cut it apart, and I think to myself: what the hell was I thinking? And I reach into my big pile of fabric and pick out pieces that I like that I hope will go well together.










For better or worse....the colors are picked







And I tack the pattern pieces down with masking tape, because it doesn't leave any sticky and it doesn't distort the fabric like pins do. The pins come later. I mark the seams with a fine point permanent marker, I don't like chalk, it wipes off. The only time I use chalk is if the fabric is so light that the marker will show through, or if the fabric is too dark to show the black marker.

Then I cut them out.

And then comes the pins. Lots and lots of pins, and lots of clipping around those curves so there's a prayer of them laying flat after they're sewn.










And here it is partially sewn together.












And more pins pins pins.

And if I've been very fussy, and marked all my seams at a perfect 1/4 inch, and more importantly sewn them at a perfect 1/4 inch, then when all is said and done, I get this:

Ta Da!!

Now I just have to do that about 50 more times and I should be all set for the art fair...after I get them matted and framed and get my display put together, and and and...I think I need to start another square.

Ragnar...Quilt like a Pirate.

Computery Angst....

So it became apparent last week that the baby elephant laptop was not serving it's function. And when I say function I mean, the only thing that we expected of the damn thing was to find it's way onto the internet once in awhile, and we even bought it a little wireless card of it's very own so that it could do that...we stored nothing on this computer. We did not play games on it, we did not store music or pictures on it....nothing, because it's a 10 year old baby elephant, and we didn't want to stress it out. I even tried to be sympathetic when it ate my blog entries by crashing before I could post them....which is why I haven't been keeping up my end of the "update the blog more often" contract that I have with myself. I have been updating the blog damn it...just not posting.

Actually I'm about to recreate one of those eaten entries right now, to demonstrate why it is that the baby elephant is going to the elephant grave yard.

Daughter creature brought home a disk with a partially typed school paper on it, saying that because of computer problems in her classroom she'd been unable to type it up during school, but that technically it was past due. Simple enough perhaps, but about two months ago the word processor disappeared from the laptop. Poof. Not there anymore, not even an icon on the desktop that didn't click to anywhere. So we had to go down to the internet cafe and buy time at $1 per 15 minutes so that she could type up her paper. Not only that, but when we get to the internet cafe their fancy shmancy computers don't have floppy drives. I boot up the trusty (or untrusty) as the case maybe, laptop, which promptly dies because it's little battery holds no juice. I had to crawl under the desk next to us and plug it in so that I could boot up the school floppy disk, email her partially typed paper to myself, and then open it on the cafe computer so that she could finish it....which then had to be emailed back to myself so that we could save it and she could take it to school to print it out, because, oh yeah, the cafe printer was broken. Of course it was. So Rat Girl typed...slowly at $1 per 15 minutes....and I blogged.

Slight digression...there is a role playing group/club/swarm? what's the collective noun for a bunch of gamers? that meet at the cafe on Sunday nights. I never really got into organized roleplaying myself, I never even owned my own dice, but I did hang out with gamers in my black lipstick and tattered silk days, so I feel like I have some idea of what it's all about. Now, correct me if I've been wrong all these years, but isn't the whole idea to enter this imaginary place where you get to be a sexy ass kicking elf with lavender colored eyes and the ability to levitate anyone who messes with you? Or even a scary sewer dwelling vampire that's uglier than any creature has the right to be but can magic their victims minds into doing whatever it wants them to? Big guns, big tits, and role your D12 to see if you actually hit the guy? Right? Have I been laboring under some misapprehension all these years? Here is an actual quote from the game in progress while Rat Girl was working on her paper:

"So you're waiting in line at the post office, but it doesn't open for another 1/2 an hour, what are you going to do?"

"Well, I guess I could try to talk to some of the other people waiting in line at the post office."

"And what about us? We just went to pick up some bagels, should we just meet them back at the house?"

Excuse me but, what? If that's your fantasy life then dudes, you should trade places with me because I get to do all sorts of cool shit. Here are a list of the super exciting things that I get to do on an almost daily basis.

Pick up child from school.

Return library books.

Wash dishes, and or prepare food.

Scoop the cat litter.

Put gas in one or the other of the vehicles.

Prepare after school snacks.

Run errands...the excitement just never ends!

But returning to Daughter Creature and the school project. She got it all typed and formatted and everything, and we even got it saved back onto her floppy disk. I the time that she'd been working another computer user had sat down next to him and I had to ask him to move so that I could crawl under his desk and unplug my computer...he was very nice about it. But when I got the computer moved to another spot in the cafe and plugged back in, it had crashed and the blog entry was lost.

And then when I tried to reboot it the wireless card wouldn't work, the networking utility crashed the computer about 10 times in a row.

So anyway. We got to get a new computer. Actually we got the oldest, cheapest model that we could find on sale because they wanted it out of their store so that they could put nicer newer more expensive things on the shelf, but we bought it at a store, and it came in a box. I'm very excited.

See! A picture that I took with my phone and then posted directly to the blog! Previously I would have had to take out the memory card and put it in the special card reader. That doesn't seem like such a big deal, but trust me, it's like some kind of miracle.

Ragnar....happy computer owner.

Cable prep, and a happy moment in the fabric store.

As you may or may not be aware, Fiona Ellis is coming to Woven Art in May. She is the author of the book "Inspired Cable Knits," which inspired my eternal "Vikon" sweater (which is coming along, coming along, thanks for asking). I am really picky about knitting patterns, so when I say that this is a lovely book that's the equivalent of a normal person hopping up and down with knitting fever. The inestimable Harlot reviewed it when it first came out, and is much more eloquent on the subject than I am.

So I'm sure that you're all going to get on the phone as soon as you're done reading this, and reserve your spot in her class. Here's the thing though, you really should be quasi comfortable with cables if you're going to get the most bang for your knitting dollar. Nancy asked me if I would teach a cable prep class in April so that everyone who wants to take Fiona's classes will have the skills they need. I'm happy to announce that I finished the sample this morning! So here it is:
Please forgive my crappy corkboard. The purse is about 6" square, just big enough for a wallet or an impluse yarn buy. Here's a picture of the back, which is really more representational of what we will be doing in class.For those of you who haven't been seduced by cables, let me assure you that this is a simple one. The class is only 3 hours long, and I promise you'll be cabling along like a pro by the end of it. The decreases on the flap are a little complicated, but if you get to that point and are intimidated by it, then you can continue it as a lovely Aran scarf...you'll get more practice that way anyway. So here's hoping that I see you all on April 15th at 1:00.

Random:

I had to stop at the big box fabric store yesterday to buy some matching thread for a quilt that I'm binding. There might be people who can go into a fabric store and buy a spool of thread without looking around, but I am not one of them. I had to make a detour in the quilting section and look what I saw:A whole shelf full of skull fabric! I estimate that I've got until next summer to stock up on fabric, since after Pirates mach III comes out this skull/pirate mania is going to die a sudden death. But isn't it exciting that it's there for stocking up on?

Ragnar...stash the skulls while you can.

Resurrection of a sweater...

I tried to work on Celtic, really I did.

I did the knitting from two skeins thing so that instead of one line between the two colors there are now lots of lines between the two colors...no that's not fair, it's nice and blended and I'm going to leave it that way. I'm also going to blend in all the new skeins so as to prevent this from happening again...and these are rather short skeins so that's going to be a lot of blending. Whinge whinge...sorry. So I was all set to fall back in love with my beautiful sweater when I noticed It (capital letter is deliberate...). It is one of those mistakes that plague the distracted aran knitter...yes, it's too horrible to contemplate but there it was, a miscrossed cable....and what's worse, a miscrossed cable in the middle of all that blending. Pah! Excuse the crappy photo, but who can take the effort to take a nice photo of a mistake? Cable knitting is like weaving. They're supposed to go over-under-over-under, not over-over like the one in the photo. However Nancy absolved me from caring about it, so I'm ignoring it. It's going to be the mistake that no one but me will notice, but that I will compulsively point out to people. So I blithely continued on...failing to refer to the cable chart since I'm an old pro and know all about cable knitting...except I forgot this was a particularly picky cable pattern and has lots of hidden little increases...so then I got to tear out again. I worked on it for three hours at the knit-in yesterday and made a total progress of 4 rows. Bugger bugger. Back in the bag with you, you bastard.

So instead I'm concentrating on the "Inspired by Inspired Cable Knits" "Vicon" sweater. You may remember Vicon as the "free wool" (imagine a bunch of unwashed hippy kids with signs reading "free the wool!") sweater. Quick summary, the wool was free, I started spinning it before I had a spinning wheel...I like three ply better than two ply because I'm a masochist...and three years later... Look! It's a spindle full of three ply handspun, possibly the last spindle full of three ply handspun...although I've jinxed that because I said it in public. I've learned a lot about spinning during this sweater, I have many skeins of free wool that are spun, but can not be used in this sweater because they aren't to gauge...who knew?

And here's a skein ready to be taken off the swift and washed. I don't have a niddy noddy, not because I don't want one, who wouldn't want something called a niddy noddy, but because everytime I go to buy one I think...niddy noddy or 8 more ounces of merino? But I stole this fancy swift from a friend who never uses it...technically I'm storing it for her...but basically I stole it. We call it "the space swift" and someday it will get a post of it's own. Notice how I calculated the exact surface area of the table that needed to be cleared and cleared not a centimeter more? That's my version of good housekeeping.

Two Skeins! Ready for washing....

Forgive me for wallowing in this, but it's just so damn exciting when there is yarn for this sweater. That's the problem. I knit manically on it when I have yarn, and then I run out of yarn and spin for three months while the sweater languishes in it's box. I do have hope that this will be the last of it though. These two skeins should finish the last sweater, and then I'll block it, and sew it all together...there's still the hood, but I think I'll be able to knit that out of some of the finer spun wool that couldn't be used in the body of the sweater. I'm sort of anxious to finish it, since Fiona Ellis, author of the book that inspired the sweater is coming to woven art in May. I don't think I'll show it to her since I used a different cable pattern, and had to totally redesign the sweater, but it is basically her pattern, and I'd like to have it done before I meet her.












Washed and dried...and actually I meant to post this last week so I've already started knitting again....spot on gauge thank you very much, and I think I'm breaking my bad habit of over spinning since this yarn seems a bit fluffier than the last bunch. I was prevented from posting earlier because of an impromptu road trip...Manimal and I went out to Connecticut last weekend to pick up a robot...

Ragnar...fresh out of witty taglines.

Time Out...

A few weeks ago I was knitting with a friend and I asked her about a sweater that I had seen her working on. "That sweater is on time out" she said. That is a perfect way to describe it.

I noticed awhile ago that I had no handknit sweaters and immediately started on one...and then another one. Then I started working at a yarn store and was looking through the Rowan "magazine" (hell of a magazine) and saw this sweater, irresistable...and I'm going to look just like this nordic princess in it when it's done. But the first sweater is on time out until I spin more yarn, the second sweater is on time out until I frog a few rows and fix the problem with the pattern, and the third sweater is on time out because of an evil dye-lot problem. I felt good enough about myself that I disected the insane cable chart for this sweater (reduce 6 stitches in one stitch...sure, nothing easier you crazy English knit-nazis) that I just can't find the enthusiasm to reknit one whole repeat even though there is a very distinct color difference in my last two balls of yarn, even though they came from the same dyelot...grrr.

So now, not only do I still not have a handknit sweater, I don't have anything to knit. Oh sure, I've knit a few hats, and I knit some samples for the store, but those don't count. Anything that you can knit in three hours doesn't count as a project. It's something to do instead of twiddling your thumbs or bouncing your foot up and down.

Now, the old Ragnar would have just started another sweater unrepentant yarn whore that she was, but the new mature Ragnar (did I mention that none of these time out sweaters have skulls on them...not a one) knows that having four unfinished sweaters is prohibitively ridiculous. So here's the question, how do you bring a sweater out of time out?

Any suggestions?

Ragnar...practically a yarn monk.

I'm not wasting time in the cafe....

I'm answering work related email! Right. Yeah, that sounds like a good excuse.

So, as promised here is a picture of the needle organizers that I've been making lately. Lots of pockets for circular needles, 10 double point pockets, two of them oversized to fit those mega needles that make hats fly so quickly.

And as further evidence that I need to uphold my end of this blogging thing, there was only ONE entry in the piracy/knitting lymeric contest.

Ragnar was a knitter of legacy,

Whose needles were guided by pirates;

she sung high dum diddle,

And played on the fiddle,

And knit a web of conspiracy.

And Jiggy, I don't know what planet you are living on but Legacy and Pirates don't ryhmn. Legacy and Piracy do thou, so I'm editing you and squeaking you in. Next time I see you, you can pick out a needle holder, and get rid of that tattered old ziplock bag that you've been toting around for years.

Ragnar...she knits, she sews, she wastes time in the cafe.

An introduction, a thanks, an anniversary, and a resolution...

I have a policy of pseudonyms on this here blog oh mine. Yeah, my birth certificate doesn't say "Ragnar" and my family isn't actually called "Manimal" and "Rat Girl," my friends aren't named "Jiggy" and "Dready." This gives me a chance to post embarassing stories about myself and the people in my life without too much fear of retribution. I'm going to break that policy for a few minutes so that I can rave about a wonderful person and her wonderful yarn store. I've touched on this in previous posts, but the time has come to put it all out in the open.

The store is called "Woven Art" which is a rather odd name for a knitting shop, but this is so much more than a yarn store. The proprietor, who I am pleased to call my friend, Nancy McRay, is dedicated to all things fiber art, and her store, while well stocked with wonderful yarn, books and knitting supplies, is also an art gallery, a weaving studio, and a textile art education center. As a newish knitter (can you believe that I've only been at this for 3 years? Yikes...), former costume designer, quilter, and basic fiber art wannabe, is it any wonder that I consider this store to be my second home? Add to that the fact that Nancy has supported me through my transition from hobbiest to artist by giving me a space to show my work, and offering me advice and support when I bitch and moan about the subjectiveness of art fairs and jurors, and you'll further understand my enthusiasm.

Mien gott, Ragnar is getting downright sappy. Sorry folks, that's just how it has to be.

Anyway, I'm downright tickled to introduce you all to Nancy. She has recently joined us in the blogosphere, and you can find lots of knitting pics, and (oh happy day!!) pictures of her hand-dyed yarn. Did I fail to mention that she dyes a large percentage of the yarn that she sells? Every Monday new gorgeous colors. I hate to expose myself as a "conservative" knitter, but in my book you can't beat the Kona Superwash. It's merino, washable, and Nancy will dye it any color you could possibly imagine....nirvana. So click on over and welcome her to our little world.

So that's the introduction, and now a brief thanks. I wanted to give a shout-out to Jen Stafford over at the Domi-KNIT-rix. Awhile ago she linked to the skull shrug post and I haven't had a chance to return the favor. If you haven't had a chance to check out her new book, then you are in for a treat. If you hurry you might be able to finish one of her "heart" pillows in time for valentine's day. I'm not in favor of candy hearts in general, but one that says "bite me" is okay in my book.

And thinking about candy hearts made me think about last year when I posted a link to the candy heart generator and Jiggy and I had a ton of fun making nasty candy hearts. My favorite is still "suck pig" I don't know what it means, but it just looks wrong on a little candy heart. And that made me realize that I have been at this for more than a year....even though my posting frequency has gone down to something closer to once a month than my beginning, enthusiastic once a day. I don't know why, but it makes me happy. I still haven't edited my links (I will...someday), but gosh dern it, I'm not a newbie anymore. Hurrah! So in honor of my anniversary, I would like to offer you bleaders one of my knitting needle organizers. I wasn't really prepared for this post, since it just occured to me today that I would be posting it, so I can't show you a picture, but I'll try to post one soon. They are very cool, with lots of pockets and funky batik fabrics and stuff. Unfortunately I don't have any left with skulls on them.

So if you are interested in getting a knitting needle organizer of your very own, hand crafted by Ragnar and featuring neato batik fabrics all you have to do is compose a lymeric that includes the words: "knitting" and "piracy." And I will pick my favorite one and send the author a nifty needle case. Righto? And because you will all want to take your time with this one you have until next Monday, which is the 19th.

And that leads into my "resolution." This is on the order of those New Years Resolutions that are so popular, but which I never uphold. This is a new blogging year resolution.

I, Ragnar, hereby resolve that I will update my blog more often. That I will not post those "sorry, this is all I have time for" posts any longer. I have a nifty phone that takes pictures of things, and an old laptop that weighs as much as a baby elephant, but which will pick up internet signals...like from the cafe 5 blocks away from my house, so I have no excuses not to post pictures of the things that I am knitting, sewing, or otherwise crafting upon. Therefore I will not shirk....or rather I will shirk less, my duty as a blogger.

I look forward to reading you, and being read by you in the next year.
And I look forward to reading your lymerics.

Ragnar...see, I can be as sappy and sentimental as the next pirate.

Just another popularity contest...

So. I know that I've been whining a lot lately about being busy, and my show, and being chained to my sewing machine like a child laborer in a Nike sweat shop, and that's got to be getting repetative so I will stop now. Instead I will whine about Art Shows, and application deadlines and how it's really unfair that I have to spend so much time fucking around with slides and cameras and how even though it should be about the quality of your artwork, it really isn't. It's about how good of a photographer you can hire to shoot your photos for you (in my case, I can't even afford to hire myself...) and who you know and and...okay sorry.

But really. I just spent a week, more or less, running hither and thither borrowing cameras and equipment that I have no idea how to use so that I can take photos that are going to be projected up on a wall for about 5 seconds in front of a jury of people who don't know me, and who don't care about me, but never the less are going to decide my fate. And all the other photos that get projected up onto that wall will have been taken by professionals that the other artists hired to make there shit look better than mine. It'll be like going to the prom in a dress made by my crazy blind aunt instead of one that was bought off the rack at the department store that I can't even afford to go in, let alone shop at. It'll be like highschool all over again, and they won't see that I'm a good person, they're just going to judge me by my appearance and they're all going to hate me. And, and, and, adding insult to injury, I have to pay application fees for every show I want to try for. It's like the lottery.

Uhm. Sorry again. Maybe I'm a little tense. Maybe I should take a pill.

It's really much nicer in person. This photo is a little gritty, although much nicer than it would have been had I been on my own. Thanks much to Hippy-Jen who came down to the gallery yesterday and spent 3 hours helping me figure out how to photograph things that are under glass so that you don't have weird reflections on them....and then, after I tortured her for three hours, she bought me dinner. Gosh it's nice to have friends who don't back away from you saying things like "Just calm down Ragnar, you survived High School, you'll get through this. Why don't you sit down here for a second while I get the nice men in the white coats to put you in that nice padded room."

Ragnar...30 year old high school reject

Just when I think I'm getting tired of piracy...

I find out that I can coast in the wake of my neighbors wireless connection.

Arrgh!

That's right, when the wind is southernly, the sun is shining and the sails are at half mast I can just eek out enough signal to post a blog entry from the lazy boy in my livingroom. So far this has happened twice.

Just so you all know, I'm going to be shop sitting at Woven Art while Nancy is out of town, and I'd love to have company if anyone wants to come by and knit with me. I'm working Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Tuesday and the following Wednesday, so if anyone is in the neighborhood it would be nice to have knitting buddies.

And...the show is up. I spent last week sleeping until noon and doing all the domesticy bullshit that I didn't get to do while I was chained to the sewing machine. I baked bread. I made many tasty dinners. It was a lovely vacation, but I think I'm ready to face the studio once again.

I have no idea how long the wind will be blowing in the right direction for me to maintain signal strength so I'm signing off now, more experimentation is needed to find the exact angle for piracy....perhaps I'll become a more regular blogger!

Ragnar...signal pirate.

Stress Monkey....

I'm not sure why it is that no matter how much time I have to accomplish a given task, it is impossible for me to get anything done until the last 15 minutes. I scheduled this show about 8 months ago, and here it is, a two weeks before d-day and I am officially a stress monkey. You would think that I could create enough artwork in 8 months to fill a moderately sized gallery...and I half made a lot of stuff...but half made stuff doesn't really fly with gallery owners. They sort of like it to be finished, signed, and ready to hang. You'd think that these creative types would be a little more flexible, but no. I feel like I'm working in an art factory, because all of the fun creative stuff is done and all that's left is boring finishing stuff. Hard to get excited about sewing on binding for 8 hours a day.

But those deadlines are powerful strong motivators, and I'm supposed to start hanging quilts on walls during the first week of January, and I know that somehow it will all work out. The work is supposed to be hung by the first Sunday in January, but the "opening" or "reception" or whatever you want to call it (you know the day where I sit in the corner and drink wine and growl at people who want to ask me questions about "my work," why is it that all of the vocabulary words that are related to art are so damn pretentious?) isn't until February 4th, so you have plenty of time to come down and check it out.

And if you aren't interested in art, you could just come down and visit, since the "gallery" is also a "yarn shop," and isn't that a perfectly matched business pairing? I have a new "sort of job" if you can call hanging out in a yarn shop a "job," since isn't that what I would be doing anyway? Anyway, the owner is being nice enough to let me babysit her yarn once a week, so even if you could give a shit less about my "aahhhart" you could come by and keep me company on wednesdays and I will show you where all the most snuggleable yarn is. So clickety clickety, and the address is at the bottom of the page. Also, you'll notice that Fiona Ellis of "Inspired Cable Knits" is going to be coming....my heart is all aflutter.

Really I will post more often when stress monkey season is over....promise.

Ragnar...aaahhrtist daaaahhhling.

The ship's cat...

So you can't have a pirate ship without a cat, and apparently you can't have a blog without posting tons of pictures of your cat...hopefully doing cute things like playing with yarn or sleeping in strange poses. Therefore I am cementing my "blogger" persona by admitting that I actually own a cat. Her name is Splash...you know, like the sound a cat makes when you throw it overboard....nevermind.

The only problem is that she doesn't really do cute things. She sort of menaces in a feline sort of way. She has this vulture like posture, hunched up as if she's about to strike...and she has a strange affinity for anything that's made out of yarn. She doesn't play with yarn, barring the few times that she's turned the living room into a spiderweb by knocking balls of yarn off the table while we sleep our innocent slumber.


See? Here she is gaurding a pair of mittens.

Notice the look in her eye? The "these mittens? Maybe if you wanna trade me for that thumb you're not using..." look. If any knitted item lays in a horizontal position for more than about 30 seconds it has to be reclaimed from the beast.

Here's a little photo essay about the last sweater I knitted...those of you who want to see the sweater will have to visit it at the local yarn shop, as it's a sample for the class that I'm teaching there. (shameless plug, I wanted to call it "pimp your sweater but the proprietor thought that might give some of the white haired old ladies heart palpitaitions, so it's called "Increase your bling" or something like that, basically it's adding cables to things. You should all take it because cables are fun. end of shameless plug.)
Ooo...on that last one you can sort of see the skull and crossbones that I knit into the back so that everyone would know that the sweater was knit by a pirate. In retrospect it was amazing that I actually finished the sweater since I had to knit a row, move the cat, knit a row...and when the feline doesn't sit on my project she sits on my tools...

Okay, well, the last photo was of my cat laying on my needlecase, but blogger is a BOOGER and it won't upload. Grr. Is it any wonder that I never update my blog?

Ragnar, cat wrangler, blogger hater...

Knitting Evangelism

I have a deep and incurable character flaw. I think that not only is it possible for everyone to knit, but that they would be happier if they did, and I do everything in my power to bring the power of knitting to every man, woman, child and genetically modified animal with opposable thumbs that I encounter. I have considered making up "learn to knit" kits with cheap needles and little balls of yarn so that when people come up to me and say "I wish I could do that," I can whip them out and say "Well now you can!" In fact the only thing that has prevented me from going through with it is that I can't stand the idea of someone learning how to knit on crappy needles and I can't afford better. Maybe I should write to Scacel and tell them that I could supply them with an endless supply of new knitters if they would supply me with several dozen pairs of 16" #8 needles...no better not, they might take me up on it.

Anyway, I have a friend...let's call her the terminal non-knitter, who blurted out within 10 minutes of meeting me (in a bar...where I was knitting a baby sweater for the viking nephew) that she was "not a fiber arts kind of person." She then went on to describe all of her fiber arts mishaps, how she's only used a sewing machine twice but has managed to sew through her finger, and break a needle which hit her in the cheek an inch below her eye. And about the repeated attempts that her mother has made to bring her over into the ranks of the knit-enabled, and how she finally gave up saying "maybe you're just not cut out for this..." So I of course thought to myself..."we'll see, we'll see...I give you 2 months before you're begging for it."

She held out though 5 months into our friendship she still hadn't so much as picked up a ball of yarn. It wasn't until I got her really drunk and let her wear the dreadlock hat that she finally broke down and said: "so how hard is it to make one of these things." Before she could sober up/change her mind I whisked her over to the LYS and loaded her up with yarn and needles and started her on her first swatch.

It's been three weeks now, and she has three inches of ribbing on a circular needle that is going to start sprouting little i-cords at any moment. I don't have to tell you how proud I am, I'm sure you can see the sparkle in my eye. There is only one problem.

She's having so much knitting related stress that I'm worried about her health. I think she suffers from the notion that if she doesn't hold on to her needles as hard as possible that the whole thing will unravel into a tangled mess of yarn that looks like something the cat chucked-up, and so she gets hand cramps. She's having dreams about being chased by giant knitting needles that "keep doing the wrong thing." I told her to take her ribbing off the needles and try it on the other day and she nearly had a heart attack...two heart attacks really, one after I made a throw away comment about how I thought the work she'd done so far "looked a little big," and one as she was slipping the needles out seeing all the loose stitches hanging out looking oh-so-frightening and unravelable. I'm torn basically. It makes me all gooey to see someone working on their first project, but at the same time I'm questioning a basically held belief...that being that everyone's life would be improved with the addition of some wool and a pair of needles.

I'm giving her another month and if she doesn't relax, I'm taking the needles away.

Ragnar...knitting cult recruiter

Snakes on a hat...actual knitting, with pictures!!

So, I think I may have mentioned these hats that I've been making for a couple of years now...the neigh upon unwearable dreadlock hats? I think my obsession with dreadlocks stems from the fact that I could never actually commit to such a lifestyle changing hairdo..but they look so damn cool! So instead I wear strange hats. Like this..see? Oooo...Ragnar what long eyelashes you have....are you wearing mascara? The better to look in the photoshoot my dear. What photoshoot is that Ragnar? Well you see, I get so many comments (some of them even positive) when I wear the medusa/ravergrrl/dreadtastic hats that I decided I would write up the damn pattern and submit it for publication in an online knitting magazine...which will not be named here. It will not be named because in spite of the fact that I even wore make-up for the photoshoot (thanks very much to hippy-Jen for the fabulous photos) I received a very gracious "thanks but no-thanks" from the editor yesterday, and this is not a slam on knitty (oops!) post, 'cause they can pubish what they like, right? But the fact remains that I have now written a pattern for this neigh upon unwearable hat, and have to decide what to do with it.

This first thing that I realized is that since I don't follow patterns I have no idea how to write patterns, so I have no idea if this hat is actually knitable, or if I just have made so many of them at this point that I could make them in my sleep. So....anybody want to be a pattern tester? I've taught several people how to knit with this as their first project, so I don't think it's that hard, basically I just want to know if my instructions make sense, and if all the decreases line up in the right spot, etc.
And if you have any plane trips coming up soon you can knit it on the plane, and then you'll have snakes on a hat on a plane.....ooooooooo.

Ragnar...as yet unpublished.