spinnity knits

What I did on my vacation + Rosemary shortbread

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:51:31 PDT

Hi Knitters!

I've been "away" lately. Managing my contractor work life @ Symantec has been a big learning curve for me since October and I don't expect that to change much now that they've hired me as a regular employee, starting May 18th. Church choir meeting on Wednesday nights this year means I'm missing all the Santa Clara Knitting Meetup nights and I even missed a knitting guild last week. Booo!

So what *have* I been doing? Well, May 9 thru May 17 spouse-man and I were on walkabout with our very good friends from Milkwaukee. We drove north to the far northeastern corner of California (no, there there really isn't anything there - it was great). From there, we headed into Oregon for a visit to the High Desert Museum and a weekend in Ashland at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Phew! Our friends sent me a thank-you note that I am blatantly stealing from their note to tell you what we did:

... This was our longest vacation to date - it had everything, too: mountains, waterfalls, theater (second row!) duck (live and on plate), more theater, falafel, prairie falcons, jalapeno cheese curls, Sid's Water Hole's fried chicken and JoJo's, early morning birding, veggie box greens, moving furniture, high end shopping, business socks, modern architecture, badger petting, red naped sapsuckers, lava beds, petroglyphs, jazz piano + bass, Vietnamese food, lots of life birds, way too much cheese, late night discussions, Star Trek, wine flight, rainbows, microbreweries, sock knitting, Shakespeare, mosquitoes, kitties, Dr. Horrible, Ave Maria, fava bean puree, vast changes in climactic zones, post-theater discussion and, well, being with y'all!

Oh yes, S&R, it was a fabulous week. Thank you so much for coming to California to make it all possible!

Honestly, it was a startlingly successful vacation for the amount of planning that went into it, AND we got to spend 10 days on the road with our friends, meeting up with AWiz & the Wiz knitter in Ashland to top it all off.

Meanwhile, the thing that finally drove me to post on the blog today was the crazy search I go through every time I want to make rosemary pine nut shortbread. Well, this time, I'm getting SMART. If I post the recipe here, then I won't be able to lose it anymore. Hah! I'll fix your wagon, Internet! Just try messing with me again! Hmm.. maybe I shouldn't have said that.

Anyway, here's the rosemary pine nut bars, a recipe we found in our Two Small Farms CSA newsletter in June 2008. Quick & easy - try it!

Tuscan Rosemary and Pine Nut Bars,
here is that old recipe from the L.A. Times Food Section 8/11/99—Julia
¼ cup pine nuts, roasted
½ Cup butter, cut in 10 pieces
½ cup powdered sugar
1 TBS chopped fresh rosemary
1 cup flour
Melt butter. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, rosemaryand pine nuts. Stir in flour to make dough; it will be stiff. Pat dough evenly into ungreased 8-inch square baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees until golden and firm at edges, about 20
minutes. Cool pan on rack about 2 minutes, then use sharp knife to cut bars into 16 squares. Let cool in pan at least 10 minutes before removing with small spatula

ONE Tropical Mer-tini...

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:55:06 PDT

ONE Tropical Mer-tini
Originally uploaded by spinnity

... is not a pair. Round 1 of the Sock Madness closed yesterday, and I've been so busy with work that I didn't even manage to knit the assigned pair of socks in two full weeks of life. I finished both up to the heels within the contest period, but work interfered with finishing the heels by 3 pm Thursday. Sad, sad, sad.

But they are still nice socks, so I am marching on to finish them. I wanted to share this photo of the first sock all finished, so I could show you the unusual heel flap.

In this sock, you knit the entire tube of the sock, close up the toe, and then come back to fill in the great big empty triangle where the heel goes. The last move is to take live stitches from the sole and live stitches from the heel and graft them together!

The pattern was fun to knit and creatively designed. It definitely fit the bill for sock madness, by making us excecute several unusual maneuvers (German twisted cast-on, the large chart, a modified toe, and the dreaded afterthought heel flap heel).

I think it could be refined by graphing the quilt pattern on knitter's graph pape to make the Drunkard's Path quilt blocks come out square instead of rectangular. I bet that would also soften the tendency of the purl sections to pooch out around the ankle a bit.

Anyway, that's it, I'm booted out of the Sock Madness and I'm liberated to go knit other things. Bill has an owl kit next on his knitting docket and I'm responsible for the wing parts. And I think I could maybe get my Early Spring socks finished to wear to Easter services. Green, the color of hope, right?

March 14 - 20: the week in photos

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 01:26:24 PDT

First veggie box of the year!
By spinnity

It's really feeling like spring around here. And it's not just the weather -- so much is going on, it's like everyone's energy has woken up after the long winter sleep. These photos give you a flavor of the week.

First up: The veggie box is back! The Two Small Farms CSA made it's first delivery this week: flowers, fennel, kale, carrots, napa cabbage, parsnips, beets, spring mix, parsley and green garlic. The flowers were the most beautiful bouquet we've ever seen from the CSA and the fennel, orange and arugula salad was a fabulous first receipe on Wednesday night. On Friday, we munched up half a head of napa cabbage in Sesame Noodles with Napa Cabbage. Mmmm, peanutty.

And of course, as I mentioned last week, Spring means Madness: March Madness & Sock Madness.

Abandoned Mer-tini
By spinnity

The first Sock Madness pattern, called Tropical Mer-tini, came out very early Thursday morning.

The design is inspired by the Drunkard's Path quilt block and comes with a photo of a nice blue martini-style drink. I wanted to stick with the blue theme and I had some great yarn in stash to work with. Socks That Rock mediumweight, in a great color called Star Sapphire

I knit 4 inches of cuff using my first choice of yarn, and decided it was just not going to work. Too big, too floppy. Curses! And to rub salt in my wounds, Illinois lost their first round game to Western Kentucky. Grrrr!

Sock Madness 3, Round 1
By spinnity

Friday, a full 36 hours after the pattern came out, I cast on again - this time with a thinner yarn and size 0 needles in another lovely blue - "Pacific" Artisan Sock yarn from Hazel Knits. I knit through the evening basketball games - two squeakers featuring Big Ten teams (Go Wisconsin!) and I've caught up to my first sock. Sigh.

I'm way behind the fastest knitters in my division at this point. But this is the weight of yarn and the size 0's are the right choice and the new yarn is beautiful. You can look to see whether I make it into the top 40 knitters in my division here on the Division 2 - Great Knitspectations - scoreboard.

Rock Star gets a new keyboard
By spinnity

The last update on the week - the Roger Steen Band, featuring our very own Janice and my multi-talented spouse-man, Bill Walker are playing TONIGHT at the Quarter Note bar in Santa Clara, just off Lawrence Expressway near Central, at 9 pm. To get ready for tonight's show, Bill sorta casually "picked up" a brand new Nord Stage EX to extend the range of available keyboard sounds.

[EDITED TO ADD... ]Whoops - I nearly forgot spin-in last Saturday! We had 4 wheel spinners, 2 spindle spinners, 2 knitters, and 2 onlookers at the spin-in, which was a great turnout on what had looked like a slow day. I had met a needleloca from Sunnyvale at Stitches & invited her to join us - and she brought delicious artichoke fritata to keep us energized all afternoon, mmmm! Around 5:30, we had a real treat when Seltsame & her fiance M. stopped by. M. tried a little bit of spinning - with terrible fiber I offered him.

Emy plies!
By spinnity

And just *look* at Emy's plied yarn, in perfect Emy purple! Spindle spun, spindle plied and look how happy it makes her. Way to go, Emy.

There you have it. A busy week of veggies, knitting, basketball, music and spinning. Oh, and work. And not enough sleep!

Jeni was here!

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:55:34 PDT

Can you spot the crazy one?
Originally uploaded by spinnity

Here are a few photos from the March 5th Bobaknit - The Return of Jeni. Anyone who has knit much with Noro will recognize the crazy gleam in her eye caused by the kinks building up in the yarn while making a 450 st crochet chain. Talk about fun!

It sure was nice to see Jeni and the Bobas, who I don't get out to see often enough. And I wasn't the only long-lost boba to show up:

Time for the Madness

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:52:31 PDT

Oh March, how I love you.

In one week, on March 19, both the NCAA mens's college basketball tournament and the annual Sock Madness competition will begin. And there I'll be: watching basketball, knitting, possibly even drinking a beer.

Not familiar? Let me explain.

NCAA tournament: college basketball teams, including my beloved Illinois, travel to distant venues to compete in a field of 65 teams to become national champions. The tournament takes three weekend to go from the first game to the championship. On the first two days, 64 teams play 32 single elimination games, then over the weekend, they play 16 more games. Dudes, that's a lot of basketball on TV. A.k.a., knitting time!

Sock Madness: A friendly competition in a field of 200 knitters to see who can knit their socks the fastest. Signups closed a week ago and the divisions were posted yesterday. I'm in Division 2. Last year, I made 3 great pairs of socks during Sock Madness, but I was out in Round 3 and sat on the sidelines while the remaining knitters battled it out. In May, MKSmiles eventually won the contest in Round 7. The patterns were really fun last year -- I'd still like to go back & knit some of those socks from last year's contest.

But now it's 2009 and time for Sock Madness 3 and a whole new set of patterns. My plan is that the combination of basketball on TV and the goad of the competition will result in 3 new pairs of socks this spring. Because in spring, a knitter's fancy turns to thoughts of socks. Wish me luck!

Check it.

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:33:38 PST

Stitches 2009 : The Thursday night haul
by spinnity

Look! A lot of unplanned purchases obtained Thursday night at Stitches West. Best items: Felted owl kit selected by Bill for us to knit together and Malabrigo sock yarn in multiple colors -- for testing knitting a Janice design.

Here's a closer photo of the garter ribbed mitts I'm working on -- bought the yarn at 7:30 and by 8;30 I was knitting away at dinner with my knitting pals, Jo, her mom Joyce, she-who-is-not-named, Ms Mel, and Bill the knitting spouse.

Village Spinners & Weavers - quick mitts>

Getting up early tomorrow for Cotton Spinning

Honk if you love Stitches!

(Emy -- that's your shirt under the haul. Call me! Or tell me where to find you Friday.)

Expedition plan for Stitches

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:43:22 PST

Following Janice's lead, as I do in so many things, I'm mapping out a plan for my four days at Stitches West. You've heard of Stitches, right? The big knitting conference? Starts tomorrow, right here in my home town? Yeah, I thought so.

Of course we've been preparing for months now -- we signed up for classes in October, bought our homework supplies and did our swatches (you *are* done, right?). We printed the marketplace map & circled our favorites. And of course the local knitting guild hand-crafted Sheepy Shirts just for the occasion. Mine's pink!

And now we are Down To It! Just 24 hours left until the excitement begins. My Stitches West 2009 plan includes:

Thursday night: Market Preview! Starts at 5, but I'll be late, coming straight from work. I'm excited that my newly minted knitting husband and our out-of-town guest, Ms Mel of Stick Chick Knits, will also be perusing the market with me. We're headed to late dinner at Tomatina when the market closes at 8.

Friday: Classes! My first is an all-day event: "Spinning Cotton for Knitting" with Eileen Hallman - something I've never tried! I wonder if they sell used charkhas at Stitches? In the evening, I'm supporting the Husband Hobby by eating delicious Cajun food and knitting through his jazz gig at the Gumbo Jumbo in San Jose. (I am *not* responsible for their tragic web site. Food's good,though!) Music starts at 9 pm.

Saturday: Being helpful! I'm working in the the Fiber Fiend booth #832 all morning. In the afternoon, I'm off to "Beyond Basic Buttons (and other excuses for playing with yarn)" with Christine Bylsma.

Sunday: Creativity! My classes wrap up Sunday morning with "Designing Embroiedery on Knitting" with the prolific creative genius of embellishment, Nicky Epstein. In the afternoon I get to see my beloved sis-in-law, who has been extra busy with family caregiving this last month and deserves some yarn therapy to restore the soul. We'll be in the market from 11:30 until close.

My class list is lighter than usual, and I'm feeling sort of unsettled, like I'm missing something. I'm especially wondering why I didn't sign up for that Danish Skrå-trøjer class. Two whole days of Beth! What was I thinking, turning that down??

I guess I'll have to fill the void with extra shopping! It's all about the smaller vendors and getting to touch that beautiful yarn in person. Mmmmm, yarn. I tried to find vendors I wanted to see that weren't on Janice's list... but she's pretty much got it covered (plus links to the maps, the $2 off coupon, really, a whole Stitches Survival Guide. go have a look!).

Hope to see you at the show!

omg, omg, he made me a hat

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:44:39 PST

He made me a hat
Originally uploaded by spinnity

Knitters, look! My spouse-man made me a hat for Valentine's Day!

Here's the story. In November, Bill asked me to teach him how to knit. So I found a random yarn from the stash with a sort of manly look and figured out how many stitches it might take to make a hat in man size. i showed him how to cast on and how to knit and got him started knitting in the round.

I love a hat with a rolled edge and I think this type of project is a perfect beginner knitter. There's a long cast on, longer than a scarf, which gives them a fighting chance of remembering the motion later, and a good long section of Nothing But Knit. Ok, there's a bit of trauma at the end, but the finished product makes up for the drama.

By the time the hat was done, Bill had practiced

long-tail cast on
knitting in the round
changing colors (when we figured out that the yarn would run out before the hat did)
slip-slip-knit decreases
using double pointed needles
threading a needle with yarn (HINT: fold the yarn over the eye of the needle & pinch it tight. Slip the needle out and you have a nicely folded sharp edge which should go through the eye easy as pie.)
and weaving in ends

The only kvetching came in the last 6 rounds when we had to switch to DPNs. Yes, it's true, I made my husband knit on DPNs for his first knitting project. Not only that, but I concealed the looming inevitability of DPNs from him for, lo, five full inches of knitted hat. He was a bit honked off about those size 9 sticks, and let's face it, they are awkward at that size, but he pushed through and made perfect decreases.

Somewhere around the stripe we figured out that the hat would not turn out man sized, after all. Like everyone else in this family, Bill turns out to be a tight knitter... at least for now. He says when I handed the needles back to him after fixing something, it always felt much looser. Anyway, tight gauge means a smaller hat, which means I win!

Since it was clear by now that the hat was for me, what better plan than to finish it up for Valentine's Day? Bill ran the finishing yarn through the last stitches on Saturday after the monthly gathering of spinners. After conquering the final decreases on DPNs, he threaded his needle & wove in the ends. Ta-dah!

The hat is a tad small on me, but I love it, of course. After all, the yarn came from *my* stash, right? And who doesn't love a hat knit by the spouse??

Bill and I did the calculations for a mirror image hat - orange with a thin blue stripe - in his size on Saturday, but he hasn't started yet. Next time you see him, ask him how his own hat is coming along!

Big smoochies, dahlinks, thank you for the hat!

The January That Was

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:13:36 PST

Hi knitters,

It's time for one of those summary posts where I jot down notes about what happened over the last month, since I didn't blog each event as it happened. Don't worry -- it's a summary, so it won't take long!

Jan 4: Saw The Arabian Nights at Berkeley Rep on a double date with my brother & sis-in-law. Fabulous stories, inventively, dancingly staged, with a bleak reminder of how many of those stories took place in Baghdad. It slew me.

Jan 6 and 7: Had a birthday and decided to ditch choir rehearsal so I could attend the first Knitting Meetup of the year and lots of new members showed up, like these two:

Jan 8: Saw Beowlf: 1,000 Years of Baggage on its final Bay Area performance. Loved the dancing girls, the Dragon and poor unaware Beowulf. The on-stage orchestra was fabulous, though I thought the sound mix was not quite right. Wish everyone in our group had liked it as much as I did.

Jan 10: Had our first spin-in of 2009 and ate our fair share of Appleflappen to placate the Alpine goddess Perchta, who comes in the dark of the year to inspect your spindle, to make sure all your flax has been spun off. Took some photos to represent our 2008 spinning output, in case Perchta needs extra proof. Love you, spinners!

Jan 8- 13: Worked on a larger sized version of The Fiber Fiend's Corsica sweater - I've posted a lot of notes at ravelry, if you are curious. Here's a sleeve -- and I think even the photo showing how soft & snuggly this sweater in Rowan Cocoon will be:

Jan 19: You already know about the Sheepy Shirts we made for Knitspiration knitting guild, from my previous post. I finally finished painting the extra shirts about two weeks after the guild night. Here are the four shirts I painted - one for me, one for my mom, and two are surprise gifts:

(Don't worry, Lisa... I don't have a photo of your shirt, but it *is* black.)

After that, I think work must have intervened. I can't remember any cool events to report on, so I'll close with a sneak peak at February....

Feb 1: While the rest of the nation ate nachos and watched the Steelers win their sixth Superbowl... I was here:

(see those white sheep waaaay in the background?) looking at this:

That's a pretty good month, eh?

Sheepy shirts!

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:19:57 PST

Stencil sheep
By spinnity

Oh, hi there... is it 2009 already? A month past my last blog entry? Two weeks past my birthday? Inauguration day already (Can I get a witness!?!)?

Wow, time flies. There are so many serious, funny and relevant things I could have blogged about, but instead: "Look, sheepy shirts! Awww!"

These two shirts, and seven more I might be able to find on the 'net, are the output of our 8 knitting guild participants stencilling their hearts out Monday night. Our goal was to create shirts we can wear at Stitches West next month to represent the Knitspiration knitting guild of Silicon Valley.

It was our first guild meeting of the new year and our very creative Amy / spinalcat gave us all instruction in how to make contact paper stencils. We stencilled the sheep design onto shirts - old shirts from home and new $2 t-shirts from Michael's. I don't think any of us except Amy had ever stencilled before, so this was a fun and easy stretch beyond knitting for us.

If you are interested in stencilling a one-off shirt, Amy has a nice tutorial on her blog about how to make your own design into a stencil. The supplies for this project cost about $2 (for a new t-shirt) plus $1.50 per paint color plus the price of an Xacto knife and some grubbing around in the recycle paper box for cardboard. You can save the $2 by using an old shirt in your collection.

Knitspiration Guild a-stencilling
By spinnity

Besides the shirts, there was another big payoff for me and my musical spouse-o. We cleaned up the garage so the knitters would have space to mess with paint. You do *not* know how amazing this is. It has been 4 solid years since we last parked a car in this garage.

All it took was a bunch of trash removal, some stuff dropped off at Computer Recycling, and a Goodwill run, Bill can now reach the Hammond organ stored in the garage. It might be time for an actual garage band experience here at Chez Spinnity.

Special thanks to Jasmine, Pam, Amy & Janice for helping cut out extra stencils for members who could not attend. Janice couldn't make Monday's meeting, so she came over tonight to paint her shirt -- I love how it came out and I'm sure she'll have photos soon.

Squeeeeee! I'm in knitty!

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:09:20 PST

Ardea twined mitts
Originally uploaded by spinnity

Oh knitters, I'm wagging my tail like crazy today. My first published pattern appears in the Winter 2008 Issue of knitty: Larus and Ardea fingerless mitts in twined knitting.

This turns out to be another thing I'm grateful to the Knitspiration knitting guild for... if I hadn't taught the lesson twined knitting this summer, I wouldn't have developed this original pattern and Janice wouldn't have nudged me to submit it to knitty.

So thanks, guild members, thanks Janice. Thanks, of course, to Bill who shot all the photos. And thanks to knitty for publishing it! Working with the technical editor to get the pattern ship-shape was really helpful. I can't wait to see if anyone knits these and whether it's a challenge to learn twined knitting from the online resources available.

If you'd like to see all the photos of the mitts in one place, I've posted a photo set at Flickr

Squeeeee!

All thanks to knitting guild

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:46:08 PST

Spiral Cable Chemo Cap
Originally uploaded by spinnity

About 10 days before Thanksgiving, Margit Sage, the Fiber Fiend, came to teach our Knitspiration knitting guild how to move cables across the surface of a fabric, using her latest design, the Spiral Cabled Chemo Cap.

Yesterday, I noticed that spinalcat had posted a photo of her finished hat (she picked the one with bobbles) and it reminded me to post mine, too. And here it is - the Morfar hat.

I am just thrilled with the way this pattern looks with my own super bright green yarn. The yarn was dyed at the Fiber Fiend studio during our October guild meeting. Two guild months, two cool new experiences.

In fact... I learned a lot in 2008 and pushed myself to do new things because of the guild. Our calendar of topics definitely influenced my knitting, so I'm taking a moment today to be thankful for the guild.

Because of my local knitting guild, I tried out some new slip stitch patterns, practiced several new lace cast-ons, and dyed my own very bright colorways. (Next time, I should sign up for "Add sophistication to your color choices").

I also taught two of the lessons - one on twined knitting and one on slip stitch patterns used to combine different weights & types of yarn into interesting and subtle fabric.

This was my third year in the guild and my third year as an officer. In November, we elected new officers and I am not one of them. This is a bit hard for me, since I was really enjoying organizing things, but I'm really excited to have energetic new officers taking over. I'm really looking forward to our next two topics -

December 15 - Will your Dream Sweater Fit? Will it flatter?
January 19 - Make your own stencils

I can't make it to Fit Night, which is too bad. Sweater fit is a real issue for me. I'm hoping Lori will give me private lessons as I work my way through Corsica over the coming month. But I'm really keen on the stencils and another year of guildiness.

Trip report: Olema knitting retreat with BBR

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:52:58 PST

Scottish Gloves

Two weeks ago, Bill and I spent a long weekend in Olema at the Olema Inn, from November 12-16. I was lured to the Inn by their knitting retreat -- a series of classes with Beth Brown-Reinsel. Bill spent the days out in beautiful Marin county fall landscapes, taking photos of birds. At night we dined together with the rest of the knitters on organic, free-range, and delicious comestibles at the Inn. Can you say, "perfect vacation"? I sure can.

Wednesday and Thursday, Beth taught a two-day class on Scottish Sanquhar gloves to seven knitters, all engaging and capable companions. Friday we had a day off for sight-seeing (well... birding, if the truth be told) in the Pt. Reyes area. Saturday the knitting was back on with Norwegian mittens and Sunday we learned techniques for designing and executing Seamless Arans.

Between the knitting, we were served breakfast, morning snack, lunch, an afternoon coffee break, and dinner by the Olema Inn. That was a *bunch* of delicious calories. I will call special attention to the green leaf salad with duck breast, the breakfast selection of fruits and cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery, and the grilled cheese of gruyere on brioche.

I've got a bunch of photos to show you, but first I have to spend a moment going goo-goo eyed over Beth Brown-Reinsel, who taught all 4 days of the retreat.

What I love most about Beth is her ability to turn any form of ethnic knitting into a set of building blocks (Legos?) so we lesser mortals can assemble edgings, motifs, knitting techniques, and color choices that are within a related ethnic context. If anyone has read her wonderful book Knitting Ganseys, you know that book is exactly like a toolkit for designing your own gansey through a series of lessons on a mini-sweater. That's her genius: breaking a knitting tradition down into learnable bits.

Of course, once you learn the techniques, you can assemble them however you want, but knowing what makes an Aran an Aran, or what makes a Norwegian mitten Norwegian, and not Latvian is hugely useful.

The handout for the two-day Sanquhar gloves class, for instance, tells how to knit a swatch on 3 needle sizes, cut it open, measure the gauge and determine your cast-on (divisible by 4, since the multiple ribbing options are all 4 st repeats). That was our homework. In class, we learned that most gloves have a salt & pepper band separating the rib from the hand, where you can insert initials or a date. Then we chose two pattern motifs from three sizes of boxes based on gauge and hand size. We learned the traditional counts of boxes for each row of the hand and how to make the cutest possible gusset for the thumb. By the end of the second day, we were knitting our three-sided fingers. (Or casting on the second mitt, for the one knitter who elected to make mitts instead of gloves. See the cute edging she added to finish off her maroon & grey Kauni mitt? Gorgeous!)

The point is: having gone through this class, I could make any number of gloves, or mitts or mittens, all different, all in the right sizes, all very traditional-looking... or I could use the same techniques one or two at a time to spice up an entirely different mitten. This is the kind of class I love - a toolbox completely focused on one aspect of knitting which can be unpacked and reused elsewhere. The handouts, the preparation, the way she led us down the path... these are the reasons I love taking classes with Beth Brown-Reinsel.

I hope any of you locals here in Santa Clara who get the chance will take some of Beth's classes at Stitches West (Feb 26 - March 1, 2009) where she will be teaching Norwegian Purl, Fair Isle Tams and 12 full hours on the Danish Skrå-trøjer.

And now... the rest of the photos. Except I can't find the Norwegian mitten.

Sanquhar glove in progress - check out the cute gusset for the thumb and the little pyramids for the finger tips. I'm itching to finish the last two fingers and wear these for real:

Seamless Aran mini sweater - a sampler of Aran stitches and seamless assembly techniques.

Door prize! I forgot to mention the door prizes - we all got to choose from a smorgasbord of prizes. I elected to play the role of yarn ho and grabbed this basket of hand-dyed yarn from the Coastal Artisans shop in Bolinas.

And here's a question for the audience. What *is* this? This weird carving was on all three pieces of the bedroom set at the Olema Inn. I have given this shape a name... I'd love to know in the comments what you would name this, if you found it over your head at night.

The only thing that would have made the weekend better was knowing one of my knitting companions. I'm really hoping somebody from the south bay knitting contingent will come with me next year to the 2009 retreat. Pleeeease?

A hard week and then it was over.

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:14:10 PST

Arlie at the vet
Originally uploaded by spinnity

Hi knitters,

There are many stories I wanted to tell you over the last few months... some I even took the photos for and started writing in my head, but putting them into a useful narrative always got confusing. I'm interrupting my blog procrastination in honor of Arlie, my very favorite kitty, who died last week on November 8th.

Bill and I are really having a sad time with the loss of Miss Arlie. We've been so insulated from death in our lives - our parents & granny are still with us. Arlie is the first of our cats to ever get sick, let alone die. And we feel terrible about her last week, which involved a lot of intervention and attempts to jumpstart her digestive system. Poor kitty. She really told us at the end that she was D.O.N.E. *sniff*

Arlie Barley Pudding and Pie Parker was about 15 months old when she came to us in November 1995, so she was 14 years old. We wrote these Ten Good Things About Arlie to remember her best attributes.

1. Arlie had an M between her eyes, bull's eyes on her flanks, and a short, bent tail that tapered to the end. She had soft, thick fur and a tawny undercoat. She had four black paws.

2. Arlie always came to visit anyone sitting quietly, especially if the bathroom door was open.

3. Arlie liked to meet new kitties, like Peanut and Benny, Squeaky and her adopted siblings Jasper and Sierra. She was hopeful and positive that each new kitty would be her friend.

4. Arlie spent a lot of time with shy or quiet people. She made sure they had someone to interact with in large groups.

5. Arlie could find a rubber band anywhere in the house. Nom, nom, rubber bands, mmmmm. She was persistent.

6. Arlie was good company for sick people and took especially good care of Mary after surgery.

7. Arlie's stubby little tail was very active and expressive, waving around to indicate interest or vexation. "Who am I?" Nan asked us once, wiggling her thumb above her closed fist. "Arlie!"

8. Arlie asked people to play with her by bringing a toy (mrrrow, mrrrow!) late at night or sitting near the toy she wanted to play with and looking Very Intently at the people. But she never nagged or made a scene. Just hoped.

9. Arlie picked her own scratching post - the wooden X frame of the laundry hamper. She used it vigorously and covered the floor with splinters.

10. Arlie liked to sleep in her special chosen spots: the back of the purple chair in the sun, on the settle in her kitty hat, on the bed on top of the purple blanket.

Our very good, very empathetic, very socialble kitty is now buried in the back yard and we miss her so so much. We are grateful to everyone who reached out to mourn with us. Even though Arlie was just a kitty, she was a big part of our lives. Good kitty. Good-bye.

[See some of Bill's photos of Arlie the love bug over here.]

How I spent my equinox

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:59:55 PDT

Monday, September 22, was the autumnal equinox, that half-light, half-dark day which marks the beginning of fall. Did you celebrate? Maybe swap from your summertime door decoration to a harvest theme? Cast on a lovely fall sweater?

Well I spent the autumnal equinox doing one of my competitive birdwatching events - a birding "big day" in San Mateo County. That was Monday and today is Thursday. I think I've almost recovered.

I've mentioned these odd pursuits before - a birding "big day" is an attempt to see as many birds as possible in a single 24-hour period, usually in a specific county. Many birding big day competitions are fundraisers for environmental organizations. Ours was part of the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory's California Fall Challenge - so if you want to donate anything to support bird conservation science in the SF Bay, just click on over.

To run a big day, you get a team of people (me, the spouse-o, our friend Bob) and a location (San Mateo County) and a date (September 22). You plan a route through the county which maximizes the different types of birds you will run into. Our route had about 14 different stops from the "sea watch" at Pigeon Point lighthouse to a manky little pond behind the Nob Hill market in Redwood Shores. Once you have your route, you have to scout the area you want to bird so you know what to expect at each location -- which is why you didn't see me online Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday before the equinox. I was "in the field". Scouting also helps in planning your snack and bathroom options carefully, so you never have to stop birding on the big day.

It's traditional to name your big day team. Ours is called "MBB Overdrive", for our initials (Mary, Bill and Bob). This gives us license to make an iPod playlist of 70's classic rock schnulzers to play on the road between stops. We favor songs that reflect the urgency, craziness and time-compressed nature of our adventure. Think of BTO's "Takin' care of business", Steve Miller's "Fly like an eagle", Boston's "More than a feeling". Of course our playlist begins at our rendezvous point with the Chariots of Fire theme, to get us fired up for our big race. (Playlist suggestions always welcome!)

Then the planning is done and it's time to run the big day. On Monday, we get up at 2:30 in the morning, drove down to Pescadero and went out listening for owls in the dark on cold country roads (4 species heard in and near Butano State Park. And no rangers!). We then spent every hour of daylight (7:15 to 7:15... the equinox, remember?) looking for more birds, hitting our fourteen locations and keeping an eye on the clock. We had fabulous weather - clear skies, very light wind and a high at the coast around 72. This may have helped with the seabirds, but may have hurt with little dickeybird migrants.

No one monitors our results - big day sighting are on the honor system - so you'll just have to believe me when I say our total for September 22 was 129 different bird species, which is 48.134% of the 268 species recognized as occurring in SM. You can read the rest our trip report at birdWalker.

This result is "good" but not "great". Winning teams in the California Fall Challenge big day contest usually get over 50% of the county total for the county they are birding, so no prizes for us this year. Looking at the birding mailing lists after we got home, we found that other birders saw an additional 7 species in locations we were at, but didn't walk far enough into. Didn't walk far enough?? Dammit dammit dammit! This only makes us eager for next fall and our next chance to run this route.

On Tuesday, when I was released from birding duties, I spent a couple hours finishing up some unfinished projects from the Black Sheep Gathering and my recent trip to the TKGA Fall Knit & Crochet Show in Portland. Look for more knitting and less birding content in the next installment of spinnity knits.

Underdog (from the wayback machine)

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:04:08 PDT

Underdog!
by spinnity

Did I mention this little episode? The Underdog incident? Perhaps I glossed over it in hopes no one would find out, but the photos are too fabulous to keep under wraps. So, even thought this event is 3 weeks old, here goes:

Someone important to me had a significant birthday in August. And asked us all to dress up as superheroes for his party. Wow, fun, you say, a costume party! Bah humbug, says I. I really couldn't get into it. I didn't want to wear a superhero-snug costume and I wasn't coming up with any creative ideas for alternative heros, like "Can Always Find The Matching Lid Guy" or "Ennui girl" so I was way behind on party prep. But it really was the only thing he wanted for a birthday present. The day of the party, I had this idea: Underdog.

Underdog is lovable and schlubby. No one expects taut abs and beautiful cleavage from Underdog! And he has a theme song, which is singable by anyone. Perfect.

The hubs and I made a shopping list and ran around town collecting a red sweatshirt, red shorts, red baseball socks, felt to make a U and ears, and nose paint. For him, we made a similar list to collect Aquaman parts, including the stretchy yellow belt that just *makes* the outfit. We had so much fun dashing in and out of stores on a deadline (party at 4:30!) and constructing our insignia.

Underdog @ the party
by spinnity

I'm giving you two photos from party day - me and hubs with the Birthday Boy up above, and all of the guests in our party costumes at the Pump It Up bouncy house party place down here. (All the other party groups that day seemed to be between 4 and 7 years old. Our party ranged from 4 months to retirement age and we bounced pretty hard. I still have the bruises to prove it.) I honestly had a blast dressed up in my ridiculous Underdog suit. And you are hereby authorized to remind me of that next time I'm being a poop about a costume party.

If you can... will you please?

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:58:34 PDT

On Monday I did something I should do more often. I left the house.

There's been a bit too much of the stay-at-home, "yes these are my jammies, thank you for asking" life lately, especially during the day. I have been working on some knitting projects and some web site updates, which give me no real reason to step outside the door.

Monday I was lured from my cave by Chelsea of the Santa Clara knitting meetup who has local knowledge of Santa Cruz. At our Wednesday knit night, she recruited me and Jasmine for a road trip to visit yarn shops "over the hill". Chelsea, Jasmine, baby O and I met up at my place and started off going the wrong direction -- we stopped by the Stanford Blood Center to make a little deposit. Feeling highly virtuous, we got back in Chelsea's car and headed out. I was seaming like a madwoman all the way over curvy Highway 17, because I had a mission.

I wanted to wear my new orange sweater to lunch. The "Lots of Options" top from The Knit Stitch in Rowan All Seasons Cotton was knit fully a year ago, seamed, ends woven in, buttons attached... and then I couldn't bring myself to wear it. It was a bit too wide and a bit too short and a bit too low in the armholes, and all of that we could overlook if the button bands hadn't gapped like the gap they warn you about on the London tube - "Mind the gap! Mind the gap! Stand clear of the doors, please!". Over Labor Day weekend, the bobaknit gang gave me a suggestion for fixing my doomed object: sew the button bands shut. That'll fix those gaps! Genius. Let me at it!

So I seamed both edges of the button bands front and back, using the project yarn, in the car, faster than I have ever seamed anything before. And I wove in the last of the ends just as we reached the parking lot. It's normal to dress next to your car, right? With the bands sewn shut, the Lots of Options top is a much better fit - a little of the width was taken up into the sewn-up bands, so it's a little less wide. I like the drape a lot. [Sorry about the lack of photos - I need some daylight to take them and will post ASAP]

Our lunch spot in Aptos was Gayle's Bakery - I should say "the legendary Gayle's Bakery" - where we ate baked goods and healthy lunch fare. My Fiestaware plate and my apricot galette matched my new orange top quite nicely!

After lunch, we made it to two of our three target yarn shops, starting with The Yarn Place, conveniently across the street from Gayle's. We allowed ourselves an extended prowl through their Noro-rich offerings and let the time slip away a bit. Eeek - is that the time? Must rush!

With our Yarn Place purchases wrapped up, we sped through town to get to the Golden Fleece before closing time. Golden Fleece has Kauni in stock and some nice organic and natural yarns, including Ranch Alpaca which looks really yummy.

Overall, I consider this a very successful day of field research. We have to do it again, gals! Maybe we can hit the third shop -- the Swift Stitch -- next time.

And now, a word from our author
I sort of glossed over the blood donation at the beginning of our trip, but I would like to make a serious plea to anyone out there who is able to donate: Would you please make a donation this month?

End-of-summer is always a tough time for our nation's blood supplies, since the captive donor groups (otherwise known as college students) are off-campus and probably not donating. Everyone is on vacation and civic-mindedness is temporarily forgotten at the beach.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of 9/11. September 2001 was a time when Americans banded together to give blood in response to a crisis. Maybe you were you one of those donors. Are you still donating regularly? If not, maybe this anniversary is a good time to renew (or start) your commitment.

Call your local blood bank and get yer butt in there. In the south bay, that means the American Red Cross in San Jose or the Stanford Blood Center. Both are great facilities with easy access and great support and appreciation for donors. If you haven't donated before, would you consider it, please? Your donation could mean the world to someone in the hospital right now.

I'm spinnity, and I endorse this message.

Summer Limpets means Ravelimpets

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 03:14:42 PDT

Hi knitters

The Olympics! They're here! And WOW, do they demand a lot of time... especially if you have a DVR.

Bill and I kind of love the Olympics. We have a special nickname for them - we call them "Limpets". In the real world, small-l limpets are little marine snail creatures, but it makes us giggle to have a mollusk nickname for this super-serious, emotional event with national pride at stake. "Awww, the Limpets. Aren't they cute?"

We're not particular about our Limpets. We'll watch summer or winter Limpets with equal enthusiasm. We aren't even all that picky about which events we watch. Beach volleyball? Sure! Greco-Roman wrestling? Why not? Women's soccer? Absolutely! We watch late into the night. We cram in a few events over breakfast. And this year, while we watch -- I knit. Because I have to. Because I am in the game!

Yes, I am competing in the knitting world's biggest competition of the year: the ravelympics. Or, if you are me, the "ravelimpets". Yes, I know I'm weird.

If you are not a member of the knitting web site ravelry, all you need to know is that "ravelympics" was invented this summer as a knitting event which runs parallel to the Summer Olympics. Each knitter is asked to challenge themselves with a difficult knitting project/task and identify it in their ravelry project list. We are then allowed to cast on when the Olympic flame is lit and work until the closing ceremonies wrap up the show on August 24. That's 17 days to complete a challenging knitting project.

Or, if you are me... 12 days.

Due to events beyond my control (a contract knitting gig which needed to be finished on Monday), I wasn't able to start competing until Tuesday -- 5 days into the ravelympic period. This means I missed the kickoff party my team (What up, Team Bobaknit?) held on Friday. I had to form my own cast on party tonight by inviting Janice over to watch me start my project and munch up my organic veggies.

So what am I knitting? Swatches. 16 swatches. And a hat.

But not just any swatches! No, these special swatches are the knitting assignments for the Master Knitter program which I have been intending to complete for Some Time Now. In fact, I knit most of the swatches in 2005, but I wasn't happy with my results. Since then I've done more reading and have learned more about what will pass the judging. I'm starting the whole project over, with new yarn, different needles (smaller - so my seed stitch will be dense enough) and the current instructions.

Today, I knit ONE swatch. Here it is, still on the needles, next to an older false start at the same swatch:

Look closely and you might be able to spot the split stitch on one edge, about halfway down. Riii-ii-iiip and reknit, and bingo: one down. 15 swatches + 1 hat to go. For successful completion, I need to have 10 swatches done at my halfway point, which is Monday. In Limpet-speak, that would be my split time.

"To keep her medal hopes alive, spinnity will have to dig deep to get to 10 swatches by the halfway point. Can she do it?"

Summer airplane knitting report

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:00:19 PDT

Departure lounge
By spinnity

Tuesday I had a very long travel day back from my visit to the nieces in Florida (Bye bye Sarah, bye Alison! Hang in there, Susan, only two more weeks!).

My plan was to fire the starting gun in the Orlando departure lounge and see how far I could get on a single knitting project in a long day of travel - a little over 10 hours to get from Orlando to San Jose. Remind me to get a non-stop next time, ok?

The chosen project is the "Via Diagonale" purse from Spring 2008 knitty. [Rav project link] My mom and I are both knitting Diagonale purses this summer in a cross-timezone mother-daughter knitalong. The knitalong was my idea - see, I'm monitoring the mailing list of a yarn shop in Urbana called "Klose Knit" and I saw that their monthly knitting group is knitting this purse. "A-HA!" I thought. This is how I will hook my mom into going to a knitting group, by starting with the project the group in her home town is knitting! It's a super-cute little purse, so even if it doesn't rope her into meeting people (are you listening, Mother?), at least we'll have cute purses. Hers: cranberry and tan. Mine: Brown and light orange.

I got all my supplies and pattern ready the night before, which was very smart, because I discovered my pattern printout had the section heading: Slip Stitch Pattern and then skipped right to the photo of the purse. No stitch pattern! Oh no! Was the page set up for legal size paper when I printed? I had my computer with me, but no printer, so I stayed up a little later than usual writing out the row by row instructions from knitty. I would not say it was my neatest handwriting. Then I sat back, concerned. How on earth was I going to keep track of these rows? Why didn't the pattern include a chart, for heaven's sake? I went looking and found the designer has published a chart for the Via Diagonale stitch pattern. Hurray! But that meant staying up even later to copy out the dang chart. Sigh.

Afternoon over Chicago
By spinnity

First leg Uneventful flight with minor delays from Orlando to O'Hare, lovely view of Lake Michigan and the high-rise apartment buildings on the north end of Lake Shore Drive casting long afternoon shadows. [Google map link to the bend at the end of Lake Shore Drive which you can see in my photo, just south of the big wide beach. I hope at least one of you will click that link, since I wasted 45 minutes finding a map to match my photo. Talk about a waste of knitting time!] I knit the entire flight and finished one repeat of the pattern.

Layover in O'Hare
By spinnity

Layover In Chicago, I took advantage of the Central Timezone to phone my mum and tell her that I was working on the purse. She's way ahead of me, with 7.5 inches finished already. We plan to line these purses when she comes to visit, um, on Friday this week. :-) So I need to keep cranking I've only got about 1.25 inches so far. The pattern is starting to be visible in the knitting. It is sort of like pointillism or newspaper photographs, because when you get too close, you can't see the pattern at all, just the dots of the two colors. You have to hold it back a bit to see the diagonal lines.

Second leg Even though the second flight was longer, I got less knitting time, due to a nap attack around 11 pm Eastern time. Even better... during my nap, one of my balls of yarn escaped out of my knitting bag in row 16 and rolled merrily up the aisle into first class. I didn't notice. When I woke up, I kept right on knitting, until the seat belt sign went off. Then about 15 people stepped on my yarn when they got up into the aisle and I had to stop knitting until everyone cleared the aisle and I rolled up the TEN YARDS of yarn that had unwound as the ball took up position under row 7. Next time I'll use something other than a torn paper shopping bag to keep my yarn in!

Arrival - this is how far I got
By spinnity

(I cheated and took this picture in the morning instead of at the airport.) Our experiment shows that I knit 3 pattern repeats, for 3" of purse body in 10 hours of travel. It's about 28" in circumference, which makes 76 square inches knit. The bag is 192 stitches around, or roughly "3x a sock". I figure I can multiply "purse length" x3 for a good estimate of potential sock progress on the next trip.

And I've got 6.5 more inches to knit to finish this puppy off by the time Mom arrives, so it's back to the knitting for me! I can't wait to see if I make more or less progress by the hour at home with all my distractions around me. I'll bring the purse to knitting meetup tonight. I hope to see some of you there and hear all about your summer travel knitting!

Lucky mountain sock update

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 18:36:45 PDT

All Blues, sock number two
By spinnity

Just realized that I've left the story of the lucky mountain socks hanging, again. Whoops! If you recall, I started spinning this two-ply yarn in February, decided on a design for Husband Socks in March, made a somewhat valiant attempt to finish the spinning in May for our big birding trip to the Sierra, and then took the yet-unfinished spinning to Florida in June when my niece was baptised. (Spinning was a big hit, by the way. When I arrived in Florida this week, 3-year old Sarah asked me if I brought that turny thing with me. The seed has been planted.)

Well, an invitation from my friend Margot to visit her house in the hills by San Jose at the end of June turned out to be the end of the spinning. I had carted my Lendurm spinning wheel up to her place for an evening of spinning, but I had been switching between the regular head and the plying head earlier in the week and ended up leaving the both at home. Luckily, I had the spindle and the last lot of Fiber Fiend roving in a spare project bag in the car and made short work of the 30 grams I needed to spin up. I plied from a center pull ball the next day and turned back to the knitting.

Tuesday morning this week, I flung the 4" cuff of the second sock into my carryon bag and on the very brief 4 mile drive to the airport, I wound that last bit of yarn off the spindle into a ball. Just barely made it before the nice TSA people shooed us away from the curb! Two airplane flights plus a Dorothy Sayers novel on the iPod later... I've gotten round the heel. I'm now ensconced in the house of nieces in Orlando, squeezing rounds of sock out between babysitting and mother's helper tasks.

Sarah's salon
By W.F. Walker

Nieces are a big distraction from knitting, so I've had to invent a game called "At the Salon", where 3-year-old Sarah combs and "styles" my hair while I knit. Just like at the real salon, eh? (I believe I have a photo of that activity from an earlier trip... I'll go hunt that up and post it here shortly.) [ETA the photo I mentioned of of Sarah's salon, from January]

Also along on my trip are the 4 skeins of Tahki Cotton Classic for my Via Diagonale knit-along with my mom. We're both aiming to have the knitting of this cute little purse done by the time Mom arrives in CA for a visit on the 18th. And I've got a bit of contract knitting... and a little twined knitting project for our upcoming guild meeting where I will be teaching twined knitting.

Even though all three of those projects are more urgently needed than these socks... wool socks? In 95 degree heat?? ... they are the only project I have eyes for right now. I just can't wait to add in the last ball of yarn in about 3 rows and get these puppies finished. Mmmm, woolly socks! Whoops, that's a niece crying in the next room! Gotta dash!

Spindle-us interruptus

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:12:59 PDT

All Blues, sock one
Originally uploaded by spinnity

Hi knitters! In my theater review of "Northanger Abbey", I mentioned the socks I am spinning & knitting for the spouse-o. This project is going in fits & starts - big bursts of energy put into spinning for a day or three, then a flurry of knitting, then a long slow ramp up to making myself spin the next lump.

As you may recall, the first lump of fiber was spun at-and-after Stitches West in February. Fine & dandy. The next big push came in early April, when I had nailed down the stitch pattern & knew what I was spinning for. Then in May, I had a frenzy of spinning in a moment of delusion, thinking I was going to have these socks done for our Sierra birding trip. Well, um, no. We did have a lovely 3 days in the mountains - see Bill's flickr set "Sierra Workshop 2008".

Even after the mountain trip, I kept a bit of momentum going - I was working on this yarn at our May 31 Spin In at my house, which resulted in some rather funny photos and my favorite spinning sentence ever: "Here, Bill, grab this and run!" as my center pull ball collapsed on itself in a big overly twisted knotty mess. Despite moments on the brink, I think I have enough yarn spun to get the second sock just past the heel turn. But the sock project has been languishing in the tote bag for two weeks.

Five spindles worth of sock yarn have so far gone into these socks - I've been knitting each little bunch as I produce it. This is probably going to result in somewhat different yarn in different sections.

I'm packing today for a weekend jaunt to Orlando for my second niece's baptism and I'm thinking... socks! Do I dare take the handspun sock project? I'm guessing I would run out of yarn on my plane ride to Orlando tomorrow, and then what?

So the question before us is: do I take my spindle & fiber to Orlando? Or do I take a second sock project and work on that while I'm away from home & get back to the spindling when I return? Maybe you'd like to vote?

Pros of travel spinning : arms away from the body, no sticky body parts during humid Orlando days. Family will think it's super weird, so that's a plus. 3 yr old niece is likely to enjoy the spectacle. I would love to see these socks finished!

Cons: have to stand up. have to avoid the dog, who might find spinning too exciting. Might not make any progress and every ounce counts these days in airline baggage!

What do you think??

Take the poll

Free Poll by Blog Flux

Jane Austen fans: get thee to the Pear Avenue Theatre

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:25:19 PDT

Any Jane Austen fans out there? I suspect that among a crowd of smart knitters, we will find a few Jane-ites. Well, this post is for you, dear Readers. The non-fan is welcome to pass along and come back for the next post wherein we will discuss the production of spindle-spun socks. Today's post is going to be all about your big chance to see creative live theater.

Ok, Jane fans: I highly recommend that you see the current production at the Pear Avenue Theatre, which is a "word-for-word" or "Nicholas Nickelby"-style adaptation of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. Last Friday I was privileged to attend the premiere of this adaptation by Diane Tasca, directed by my genius sister-in-law, Rebecca Ennals and I loved it.

The style of the adaptation is to retain as much of Austen's text as possible, just as she wrote it. The characters address one another using the lines from the book. For instance, Annamarie MacLeod, playing Catherine, might say "Catherine addressed her friend, asking her if Isabel did not wish to sample the cheese?" And then Melissa Quine, playing Isabel, might respond while shaking her head or turning away, "But Isabel was highly agitated and did not seem inclined to take any refreshment." (No, those are not real lines, I made them up. But you get the idea.)

Now it is true, I have a family connection to this show. But I am not selling you a bill of goods. The Pear is a fantastic little theater and hires quality actors who work their butts off in this small space. And Rebecca has a super-power as a director for doing more with less. I think her focus on the emotion and story helps actors connect with the emotions of a text by stripping extraneous stuff away (extra costume pieces, props, set pieces) quite intentionally so that the staging uses the simple elements left to really enliven the story being told.

In the case of Northanger Abbey, the movable portions of the set and props are limited to 1 chair, 2 benches, a desk, and some books. There might have been fans... is that a prop or costume? .. but not much else. When needed, the books become letters being delivered, the benches become a carriage or a bed, or the chairs along the wall in the Upper Rooms in Bath. And for the audience, having fewer "things" on stage really draws your attention to the connections & interactions of the people, where the chewy center of the play is to be found.

The small cast has to take on many roles each to make the show go, so you will see the actors change their costume pieces to become a middle-aged mother instead of an earnest young woman, for instance. The use of third-person speech helps you keep track of who they are after each change, but the actors do a marvellous job of conveying their personality as they become different people. I especially loved how well Martin Gagen managed to distinguish three middle-aged men as completely separate characters. I'm only singling him out because he had a pretty big challenge in making us see three different men who would generally be played by character actors in a BBC adaptation and might be hard to distinguish, even when played by different men. His doting father to Catherine and stern, status-conscious General were so clearly individual that you find yourself waiting for the other cast members to come out for their bows.

So go see it! Now! Show runs weekends now through June 8.

In summary:

What is it: New adaptation of Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
Where is it: Pear Avenue Theatre in Mountain View, near Shoreline and 101
Why should you go: Loving adaptation, beautifully acted by a small cast making the most of the simple set and the emotions of the story. A delight to be so close to the actors in this small space. A moving portrait of a young woman leaving the delicious world of fantasy for the nourishing world of real love. And it's funny! Don't just take my word for it - read the comments of other theater goers at Artsopolis and a nice article in the Metro about the importance of the Bay Area's small theaters

My new disguise

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:03:10 PDT

Claralund
Originally uploaded by spinnity

HI knitters,

I'll be poking my head up out of the silence to offer an update on several unfinished stories I left you with in April (Sock Madness, Texas birding photo quiz results, contract knitting + recent knitting gatherings), but today I just wanted to show you my new favorite sweater - my Pentecost Klaralund.

I have wanted to knit this sweater in this color for three years - since I saw Jeni the Knitist in hers at Stitches West 2005. What a great color, what a great use of rectangles + simple stitch pattterns to give a slightly shaped sweater. I bought the pattern and the yarn. I printed the errata. But I was shy about making a twinsy sweater to look *exactly* like the Knitist (with longer hair). Well guess what? Within 8 hours of finishing this sweater, I have already been mistaken for Jeni! My disguise is *perfect*! Bwahahahahahaha!

My Klaralund [rav link] has been on the needles since last fall - October, I think. I finished all the pieces before Stitches West & then got distracted two seams shy of a finished sweater. On May 10th, it suddenly occurred to me that if I sewed up those last two seams, I could wear this sweater to the Pentecost service at church (red for the spirit, don't ya know). One late night seaming session + a few drangling ends later, I had a new sweater! I've named it Pentecost in honor of the color, the season, and the spirit. I think it's the first sweater I've finished for myself since the horrible Summer of Cotton when I knit two lovely sweaters that came out all the wrong size.

Anyway, after church I wore this sweater to Purlescence when I dropped in for Tea & Sympathy. Another knitter who came in after me said "Hey, there's that sweater I have been following around Trader Joe's!" Uh... haven't been in Trader Joe's since finishing the sweater. But I know the Knitist frequents that shop, since she brings yummy snacks from TJ's to our monthly spinning gathering. Only 8 hours into the life of my sweater, it's already working. No one will be able to tell us apart!

I fell kinda bad for Jeni, whose iconic look I've stolen (sorry, Jeni!), but not sorry enough to stop wearing my new favorite sweater - except this week when it has suddenly been in the upper 90's and way too hot to be swathed in wool. But I have a plan - I'll be taking it with me to the Sierra next weekend where I will be the only Klaralund in Plumas county. That & the summer heat should mean that it will be at least September before Jeni and I show up at a party in the same outfit.

Further updates Real Soon Now

Texas bird photo tour update

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:11:59 PDT

Photographer vs. Cactus
Originally uploaded by spinnity

Texas is working us pretty hard! Click through to my
Texas photos on flickr to see a few "scenics" from the funnier moments of our trip.

It's Thursday night. Since arriving last Saturday evening, we have been to both units of the Martin Refuge (private refuge for photography, with a dozen or more separate photo blinds maintained year round with water, feed, & hidey bushes so the birds get used to being up close), Frontera Audubon twice, Allen William's back yard habitat / refuge in Pharr twice, Estero Llano Grande in Weslaco, and the Edinburg Scenic Wetlands.

Oh! And the Inn at El Canelo ranch. And a friend's yard to see parrots. And the sod farms in rural Weslaco. That's nine separate locations, some an hour or more apart.

We've been outside, in the car, or in our hotel room for 90% of every day, with short lunch & dinner breaks. Three cheers for Taco Palenque!

We've logged at least 70 new "year birds" for 2008 (only one life bird - the Red-crowned Parrot) and enjoyed ourselves immensely, but we are all starting to look like Bill does in this photo. A little bedraggled. A little fried. A little "stick a fork in 'em, they're done".

But wait! We've got two and a half days to go! Tomorrow we're off to Laguna Atascosa NWR in the morning and South Padre Island nature preserve (also known as the convention center!) in the afternoon, to see some migrants, some coastal birds, some new habitat.

Saturday we are making a pilgrimage to Sabal Palm Grove, which may become forever inaccessible if the Border Fence is built. I'll be posting a whole essay on that topic later, but for now, we are going to go pay our respects to this little oasis which may be bulldozed or permanently walled off from the U.S., in case we never get to see it again.

Sunday, if American Airlines manages to get their grounded planes back in the air, we're flying home around 5 pm, so we get to bird in the morning before we go.

You can keep up with our adventures in Texas by visiting Bill's Texas 2008 flickr photo set. Bill posts a few photos every night - I am busy knitting on Sock Madness, Round 3, so I can't really post for the next couple days.

Oh yes. This is what we crazy birding / photography people think of as a vacation. We're having an absolute blast in Texas! See you all soon.

Edited to add: P.S. - I have read the answers to my photo quiz - thanks for playing along. Everyone is sort of close, so I have to do some judging. Which will have to wait til I'm home. But I haven't forgotten you and your prize, oh contestants. We'll just have to wait til Monday for a winner.

Vacation photo quiz

noreply@blogger.com (spinnity) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:18:27 PDT

A Birder's Story
Originally uploaded by spinnity

Hi knitters,

I skipped blogging last week during Round 2 of the Sock Madness to save my strength for knitting. I finished in time to qualify for Round 3, and I'll post more about my new Reversai socks shortly. Short version: I love them. I love the Hazel Knits yarn. I love this contest.

For today, I am posting one photo which summarizes my vacation so far. The only thing missing is a representation of our airline flight. After I took the photo, I thought of the perfect symbol that I should have included: the TSA notice that they have been inside your bags.

From this photo, I hope you can figure out where I am, why I am there, why I lost an hour at lunch (hint: see the orange key fob), why I have spare time on my hands to knit socks during the vacation, and what I am doing tonight. If you are Janice, maybe you can figure out how far I've gotten on those Early Spring socks since last we met.

If you want to guess at the answers to any of these questions, leave a comment here or on Flickr.. with a comment box, if you like. The first person who answers all 5 questions right will win a skien of Hazel Knits Artisan Sock. (That's a pretty tasty wager, you say? Well, I am willing to take the risk because I doubt you will get them all right. But y'all are sure welcome to try!)

I'll post some notes tomorrow with some more attractive photos of my vacation and sock progress. See you soon!