And pretty socks all in a row

Well, not really all in a row, but pretty nonetheless. At least pretty from my point of view. Since I don't have any current knitting to show you this week, I thought I would entertain you with some completed knitting. I washed a bunch of hand-knit socks today, as you can see. There they are, all hanging out to dry. Since you can't really see them very well in this all-in-one photo...You can see them in close-ups. There are Opals and Regias and Sockottas with a few Kroy, Stahl Socka and Lorna's Laces thrown in for good measure. There's a pair made out of a yarn from a now-defunct company called Ozyarn. Here's another close-up. This one has some Mountain Colors in it. It also contains one of my oldest pairs still in circulation -the teal pair in the center top with blue, purple and yellow blotches.Nothing too interesting below. The same old Opals and Regias and Stahl Socka. At top right, the grey, red and yellow pair, is of the same vintage as the teal pair in the photo above. This photo has a pair of Meilenweits in it. There are toe-ups and top downs and almost every heel variation imaginable. The really sad or not-so-sad part is that I still have a few pairs that weren't in this batch. Sad because it smacks of conspicuous consumption to have so many pairs of hand-knit socks. The not-so-sad part is that I have so many lovely pairs. I love my hand-knit socks and some of these pairs are true veterans. They are getting close to a decade old and are still providing yeoman service.

No knitting this week

I seem to be in a non-knitting mood this week. It is partially due to being tired. My knitting schedule calls for things that need a bit of concentration. I have to pick up bands for DH's vest. I have to knit a bunch of swatches that either involve following directions exactly or working my way through some new ideas of my own. I've been coming home very tired and wanting to knit but unable to concentrate enough to work on any of them.

Tonight I am going to bed early and reading National Geographic till I fall asleep. I have been catching up on my magazine reading lately. I had 6-7 months of National Geographic collected without reading. I usually read them cover to cover. So I knuckled down a few weeks ago and started reading them instead of reading books. I am almost all caught up. I only have one left. I love National Geographic because the content is so diverse. I've read about Jamestown (history), sacred cave paintings in India (art), gorillas and bulldog ants (biology), and Pakistan (history and geography). My wastebasket of a mind loves this stuff.

Maybe my next post will actually be about knitting

Yin and Yang

Yesterday I visited an acquaintance, who may end up being a friend. She is a knitter and quilter and we share a lot in common in some ways. Her mother was also a teacher, as was mine. We spent a lot of time discussing our creative outlets but as I was talking to her, I mentioned some of my co-workers and friends who are very talented artists and craftspeople of various kinds.

One is a fabulous embroiderer and quilter whose work spans machine embroidery and hand embroidery. She also quilts art garments and quilts and decorates quizzical cakes. Another, who is now in California after retirement, quilted amazing quilts and entered them in national shows. She is also a black belt in karate and the quilt she made her sensei when she got her black belt was inspirational. There are many knitters and quilters, but also jewelry makers. Two of my students at work learned to knit because they wanted to make knitted garments for their dolls. They make dolls, outfit them down to the shoes and jewelry, and enter them in competition. Then there are the photographers and painters.

All of these are women who began life as engineers and mathematicians and programmers. There are some history and music majors but also physicists. This year's Women's History month theme is Women's Art: Women's Vision. [For those outside the US, March has been designated as Women's History Month in the USA]. I can't think of a better way to celebrate the many facets of women than through their art and creativity.

On the subject of i-cord

There it is! All finished except for some neatening that this perfectionist must do. I don't like the way the i-cord handles look like on the inside. They are all puffy and pulled in where the sts are. So I will get some wide grosgrain ribbon and sew it on over the handles on the inside to neaten it up. My grandmother taught me that the inside of the work should be as neat as the outside and I still tend to abide by that teaching.

The garter st bottom pieces felted much better than other garter st that I've felted. You can't see the sts at all in this bag. But the i-cord handles did not felt as much. You can see sts there.

As for the i-cord, I think I like it much better when I'm done. It is not fun to knit for me. I like the way it looks on the bag but I really dislike knitting it. However, I don't think I'm a big fan of the braided i-cord handles. I love the way the garter st handles on my first bag feel. They are cushion-y and comfortable. At first glance, these don't feel as comfortable but time will tell. They aren't uncomfortable.

With no planning at all, this bag is going to be the correct size for toting lunch to work. If I decide to use that, I'll have to make a removable liner or tie up my lunch in a furoshiki, which would also serve as a napkin. Otherwise, leaky bits will end up staining the bag.

On a completely different note, I am trying Marmite. I've always been intrigued by it and have wanted to try it. A discussion on Ravelry as to whether Marmite was preferred over Vegemite pushed me over the top and I bought some yesterday. I've eaten it twice. I spread a thin layer on WASA Light Rye Crispbread, topped it with a wedge of Laughing Cow Light Garlic and Herb cheese and another slice of the crispbread spread with a thin layer of Marmite. So far, I like it. It adds some saltiness and complexity to the mixture and seems to keep the cheese from soaking into the crispbread, which is a positive thing when you are bringing the sandwich to work.

And miles to knit before I sleep

Robert Frost's immortal words were echoing in my head this week as I knitted i-cord - miles and miles of i-cord. First I had to do the i-cord bind off on the top of the bag. Then I had to knit the attached i-cord on the bottom of the bag. Then I had to knit 3 separate strands of i-cord to make the braided handles. OK, it really wasn't miles but it felt like it, especially because I only have circulars in the US 10.75 (7 mm) needles I was using. So I had to transfer the sts from the right to the left needle after each row instead of sliding which is much faster. But I finished it last night.
After the i-cord, I decided to knit a second bottom. If you remember, I wanted to use a Bag-E-Bottom to reinforce the base. I was thinking about this and I thought that just dropping it in the bottom was not going to work. It would slide around and fall out. So I knit a second bottom and crocheted it on three sides (2 short and 1 long) to the bottom of the bag on the inside. After the felting, I inserted the Bag-E-Bottom into the pocket formed by the two bottoms and let it dry. The bag was slightly smaller than the Bag-E-Bottom, but it will be fine after it dries. Here's a photo of the bag and the unattached handles drying. I felted them last night. The ends of the braid came undone as I had only knotted the tails together thinking they'd felt themselves together. But apparently they came undone before the felting so the braids had unraveled. But the i-cord felted so I just re-braided it and held them closed with clothespins to dry. When I sew them on the bag, they'll stay together.

I hate trying to find something to shape the bag around. I used cereal boxes and a zipper plastic bag box covered in plastic. But I could have used something slightly bigger. You can see how the bag curves in at the sides. It should work itself out but if I had a box or two that would make the felt stretch slightly, it would have been better. No flash used for these photos. It is taken in natural light so I guess it is pretty close to the correct colors but it looks lighter than the real life bag.

Interestingly, I made my first felted bag as an up-scale lunch tote and spent a lot of time working out the sizing - only to fail miserably. It was too big. I use it as a knitting tote. That is the one I photographed with the yarn originally. This one - which was designed to fit the Bag-E-Bottom - is going to be almost perfect for the lunch tote. With the reinforced bottom, it should work well. But all that after the class is over.

Faith

There are some things in knitting that take faith. I taught a sock class this weekend and grafting is one of them. I had to keep repeating to my students to take the instructions one at a time, not to worry about how sloppy it looks and have faith that it would work out. We had the same conversation about turning heels. That takes faith too. The instructions don't make sense, the thing looks like a mess when you are in the middle of it and it feels as if there must be a mistake somewhere. But when you are done, voila! there is a heel!

I think felting and i-cord take faith too. I-cord always looks like a mess for the first few rows. I am attaching i-cord to my felted bag this week. I did an i-cord bind-off on the top and am now working attached i-cord around the bottom - like a cording. Once that is done, it is time for the handles. I looked for handles at the LYS but I couldn't find any that looked just right. The dyed leather ones were nice but the color was just off and so I didn't like the effect. I am planning on taking Nancy's advice and making braided i-cord handles. I hope I have the patience to finish it. I don't like knitting i-cord all that much although I like the effect of the i-cord once it is done. The colors on this are wacky because of the flash. It is much darker but the flash shows the pattern more effectively. This looks like candy while the original is very ethnic and much more intense and darker in color.I also finished the Tapestry vest on Sunday. I worked on the front on Saturday in the car on the way to the Met and over to Penn Station in Newark and back home. Fronts of vests go so much faster than the backs! Anyway, I finished the shoulder shaping and joined the shoulders using a 3-needle BO on Sunday. Now I have to work the armhole and neck bands but the bag comes first.As an aside, did you know there was a Penn Station in Newark? We were prepared to pick up my daughter at the Penn Station in New York but she called and said she had dis-embarked from the train at Newark because she thought it was Penn Station. Fortunately, the two are only about 10 miles apart and the Lincoln Tunnel and the New Jersey Turnpike were not backed up. So we drove over and picked her up.

The Gates of Paradise were spectacular. It was so nice to get up close and personal with them and see all the details. I didn't realize that they had 3 different levels of perspective/distance in each one. There is a foreground where the figures are almost 3 dimensional; a middle distance where they are carved in some relief; and a distant perspective where they are almost 2 dimensional. Yet, there is texture and detail even in the distant perspective. You can see that in the Genesis one. God is giving life to Adam in the foreground. See how 3 dimensional God is in the lower left corner. Eve is being created from Adam in the middle distance in the center of the panel and the Temptation of Adam and Eve is in the distance just above the creation of Adam. Their departure from Eden is also in the foreground on the lower right. You can't see it in this photo but the snake coiled around the tree has wonderful texture on its skin.

We also saw the Age of Rembrandt at the Met and one on European clocks and watches. They were really really nice although the Rembrandt exhibit was crowded. I want to take this opportunity to tell you that the Metropolitan Museum of Art isn't just about paintings. There are Egyptian mummies, a Japanese tea garden, a Tuscan courtyard, a Frank Lloyd Wright room and lots of carvings and furniture and musical instruments, jewelry and armor in it. There is even a Costume Institute that has fashion. In fact, to relate it to blogging, the current exhibit at the Costume Institute is blog.mode where one is encouraged to blog one's reactions to the fashion on display. All in all, the Met is one of my favorite places in the world to visit. I am lucky that I can go there often and I go there at least once a year. The only places that are similar that I'd love to live near are the British Museum and the Louvre.

Ode to my ESW

Do you remember my telling you that I was walking out in the dark and dreaming about how wonderful my ESW would be?

ESW , how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways
I wear you at home
I wear you in the car
I wear you on the couch
I wear you on my walk

You are so soft
You are so snuggly
You are so warm,
and touchable that
I cannot imagine
living without you

The past few days have been very cold. I went for my lunch time walk on Wed and today when it was in the teens Fahrenheit outside with the wind-chill factor. I was bundled up in my ESW under my coat and I really enjoyed my walk.

My only problem is static. It gets very static-y.

I leave you with an updated photo of the vest I am making out of Rowan Tapestry. The back is done and I'm ready to start the front. I'll post a pic of the bag early next week.
Tomorrow I hope to be seeing the Gates of Paradise exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I saw the doors for the first time in Florence a few years ago and I knew they were copies. So it is exciting to see some of the originals.