Jun
12
Rain
Filed Under Life | 3 Comments
Completely stolen from a facebook post
I concede Longfellow’s point “The best thing one can do when it is raining , is to let it rain.”
May
31
Delphiniums in a Window Box
Filed Under Life, Love | 2 Comments
Happy Sunday morning, thought I would share this with you all…and wonder if it’s OK to reprint. So, I’ll credit it well…from The New York Times
Every sunrise, even strangers’ eye.
Not necessarily swans, even crows,
even the evening fusillade of bats.
That place where the creek goes underground,
how many weeks before I see you again?
Stacks of books, every page, characters’
rages and poets’ strange contraptions
of syntax and song, every song
even when there isn’t one.
Every thistle, splinter, butterfly
over the drainage ditches. Every stray.
Did you see the meteor shower?
Did it feel like something swallowed?
Every question, conversation
even with almost nothing, cricket, cloud,
because of you I’m talking to crickets, clouds,
confiding in a cat. Everyone says,
Come to your senses, and I do, of you.
Every touch electric, every taste you,
every smell, even burning sugar, every
cry and laugh. Toothpicked samples
at the farmers’ market, every melon,
plum, I come undone, undone.
-Dean Young
May
14
It Begins
Filed Under MSKR 09 | 7 Comments
Here I sit, wondering if I’m going to be able to stand doing nothing for the next 2 hours. I’ve prepped, and packed and made lists and checked lists* and have nothing to do for the next two hours but think.
I don’t want to make too much out of an isolated event…but it is quite true that one year ago, at the Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat 2008, that my life completely changed. A year of perspective really helped me get a grasp on the real damage my “relationship” was doing to me–to my self esteem, to my health, to my spirit. And I won’t play the victim, either. Nothing is taken from us that we don’t give. But, my heart, mind and spirit were reopened at the retreat last year. And here I am, pacing the floor, waiting until it’s OK to leave and drive down the Mass Pike to, hopefully, experience another amazing weekend.
For me, I can’t imagine that this weekend will come anywhere near the highs I experienced last year and since then. I am quite changed. I am single. I met, fell in love, and had my heart broken by a terrific (if unavailable) guy. I lost almost 40 pounds. I realize that to try to expect this year’s retreat to live up to last years is unrealistic. What I’m looking forward to is returning to the scene where it all began to change.
There are moments you remember all your life. There are moments you wait for and dream of all you life
Last year’s event was truly one of those moments.
So, I’m here…ready to go. I will leave early because I left the “square” for the Easton Mountain afghan at the shop (even thought it was on one of the many lists I prepared!!!!!) and I want to stop by a store and pick up some water and munchies to go along with the beer I’m bringing (shhhh…it’s not encouraged.) I will then pick up hizKNITS from the Albany airport…and get a great big hug from this dear, dear friend who I only get to see twice a year. Being my roomie at the retreat, we plan lots of catch-up time and silliness!
So, stay tuned. I hope to provide lots of pictures and stories. But I may choose not to take time from the event to do do this. Depends… I may just do recaps when I get home. But either way, you’ll be kept informed.
I’m trying very hard not to look too far to the end of the retreat. I am planning a slight detour on the way home Sunday…if you will allow me that New Bedford is only a slight detour on the way back from Albany to Boston! Use your imagination!
May
7
I Might be Getting Gage
Filed Under Life | 6 Comments
No, that’s not a typo. Been chatting with a guy and he wanted to meet me. We planned a date for Friday (tomorrow) night, but he wanted to meet me and drove up from New Bedford to meet me here at the shop. It might seem old-fashioned, but it was so sweet that he showed up with these!
Little things like this matter to me…a LOT. Cute, accomplished, attentive, single…and thinks I’m “adorable.” I think I could get used to this
May
7
File Under WTF
Filed Under WTF | 6 Comments
On Make Me a Supermodel, they were doing naked photo shoots, with small accessories…Amanda explained that she’s really “open” with her son because she doesn’t want him to become, “no offense” gay when he gets older…so she’s always naked around the house.
Yup, that’s how it happens. Us gay boys never saw naked women and poof…we turned gay.
Ignorance…Wow!
May
4
The Boyfriend Sock
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Started some time ago, I finally finished my pair of the Boyfriend Sock.
I am in love with Classic Elite’s Alpaca Sox and was intrigued by the Boyfriend Sock pattern. Generally I’m a “cuff down” sock knitter. So I thought I would change things up and do a toe-up. I used Judy’s Magical cast on (which I love, love, love) and proceeded. I knew I didn’t want to knit a short-row heel. I’m not a big fan. I remember learning about the Andersson heel back at the Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat — Queer Joe taught that class and I’ve been wanting to use the technique. I recommend it highly.
It’s still cool enough for me to wear these and I’m really looking forward to wearing them! Here are the pictures.
Hope you had a good weekend!
Apr
28
The Time of Your Life by William Saroyan (1939) - an excerpt
In the time of your life, live — so that in good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches.
Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption.
In the time of your life, live — so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.
Apr
24
Uh Oh…
Filed Under Life | 3 Comments
Wow, last week flew by without a post from the Soapbox. Alas, what with Twitter and Facebook, there’s not a lot left for this page.
I’ve got to get some pictures up of things I’m knitting. They include an item to be included in Julie Turjoman’s upcoming book, Brave New Knits. I’ve finished the design phase, now I’m writing the pattern…ugh. I have such admiration for people who write patterns. There is an art to being concise yet giving sufficient information. I wonder as I write, whether the reader/knitter is a beginner or more advanced and whether I should spell everything out. I suppose more is better and it can be edited. But the pressure is on to put on paper what I did on the needles. You should see my “notes!” LOL.
I’m working on a “shop” project intended as something to inspire customers. It’s based on the idea behind the design by Samantha Roshak, Shawl that Jazz. Rather than use certain fixed points used as decorative increase points, she uses unwrapped turns for shaping. Pretty clever. Although, I’m using a much thicker yarn, bigger needles the idea is hers.
I’ve got just a little bit left on the Boyfriend Socks…and still no pictures.
Each project designated for a certain knitting time. The shawl, I knit at the shop; the socks are my commuter knitting; and at home I work on the “secret” project…it takes more attention. But lately, haven’t had the brain power. Perhaps with a day off on Sunday I can power through it.
So, last weekend was a liver-buster! My friend, Joel, was in town from the Netherlands and we had a great time out and about. This weekend is desolate by comparison. My boy, James, turned 8 on Sunday…sigh. What a wonderful little boy, but they grow up in a blink.
I think I’m going to just stay in and watch the Red Sox/Yankess game and knit a bit…I sense it’s going to be an early night!
Barbra is on TV tomorrow. Taped coverage of her concert from a few years ago. I went to see this concert when she was here in Boston. And, I can’t wait to relive it while watching.
So, now you’re caught up. I feel better.
Apr
13
Drooping Elm Leaf Cowl
Filed Under Knitting, Life | 2 Comments
Cowls, cowls, cowls, I see them all over the place on Ravelry, mostly cold-weather cowls but lighter-weight lacy cowls are showing up too. I’ve been wondering what to do with Louisa Harding’s Mulberry, an over-looked, but lovely yarn. I found a lovely pattern in Babara Walkers First Treasury, Drooping Elm Leaf. So I thought I’d combine them and knit up a cowl. But I have never taken a flat lace pattern and knitted it in the round. “Couldn’t be hard,” I thought. There were a few things that I had to get my head around first, and I thought I would share them here.
I really like using The Knit Foundry’s Knit Visualizer. If you’re looking for a charting software, I really like this. I have an older version and it has some limitations, but I hear that the newest version is better still. But, it does come at a price. I found a great on-line charting software by following a link that a Face Book friend posted. It can be found here.
So, what I found is this. Generally patterns written to be knitted “flat” have an extra stitch or even two that aren’t part of the pattern repeat. When converting to knitting in the round, remove that stitch from your pattern. The trickiest part is the “wrong side” rows…when converting these rows, you not only have to change all knits to purls and purls to knits but you have to reverse the direction in which these are knitted. For example, if the pattern reads, K4, P3, K3, P2….you convert it to K2, P3, K4, P4…got it?
After wrestling through this, I found that Knitting Daily did a tutorial on this already. Might have been smarter to do some googling first, eh? LOL.
So, in the end, I learned something valuable and ended up with this beautiful (I think) cowl.
I hope you all had a happy “holiday” weekend, whichever holiday you celebrate (or don’t). Soon, I’m off to New Hampshire for some rest and relaxation with the little ones.
Apr
6
Gauge Success!~ Plus Crow’s Feet!
Filed Under Knitting | 6 Comments
At the advice of some wonderful people in the knitting community, I decided to knit something to find the optimum gauge for my glorious Cormo Worsted yarn that I purchased from the Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm. Rather than try to find the gauge by knitting a flat swatch or using Meg Swansen’s technique for approximating a knitted-in-the-round-swatch, without actually knitting in the round. But when I took the gauge and cast on for the sweater, I got a completely different result. It was frustrating. I didn’t want to knit a sleeve…since I almost always knit both sleeves at once. So, taking Elizabeth Zimmermann’s advice, I knit a hat. I think I found the right gauge. 6 sts/1″ using a US 3.
Where did those crows feet come from?
More images
Ohhhh…serious pose!
Stay tuned for the birth of a sweater!
keep looking »