bunny not included

Just to prove I still knit - this is #1 of 2 baby hats I'm knitting for my mother's friend, who is having twin boys. My mother is expecting me to knit plain little caps. HA! This is the "Accordian hat" from Baby Beanies in LionBrand Cotton-Ease. The second hat will be reversed - stockinette in blue, garter bits in green.


The rest of my knitting projects - a stole, socks, etc. - are scattered about, waiting for me to sit with them and play.

Last Sunday, Stanley Newman visited our Ravelry knitting group. I'd just read Crossworld by Marc Romano, a funny book about the author's experiences with Serious Puzzlers at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, so I had lots of questions - but I didn't ask many because Newman himself was so fascinating, and so fascinated by what he was seeing. How does this fluff turn into yarn? How does it change colour? I rarely meet anyone whose curiosity sparkles so. What a delight!

The book inspired me to wonder how many knitters are also fans of crossword puzzles. One important skill for good puzzle-solvers, says Romano, is "pattern recognition," the ability to know what comes next in the grid. Isn't that similar to reading one's knitting? - recognizing the pattern? Romano also writes about "thinking associatively" : "to recognize and sort together within your memory things that belong to the same category or order of things." Memorizing a pattern, or knowing just by looking where the next cable twist belongs is a form of sorting stitches and the sense of the textile, don't you think?

(And,as OfTroy pointed out, "text" and "textile" are etymologically related. If you follow the link and visit her, ignore her little jab. I was not annoyed, only impressed. As always. So there.)

One more thought: Romano discusses the affinity that scientists and musicians have for crossword puzzles. It occurs to me that poets are the ultimate in associative thinkers. Associative thought is a pretty good description of metaphor...

even more baby hats - and an insomniac's random thoughts

Caps to the Capital will be getting a basket STUFFED with baby hats from the library!

Here are three more of mine - I just can't stop making them. No matter what you do, they are adorable.








Insomnia produces random thoughts. Here's my latest:
I do not garden, for so many reasons that they bore even me, and heaven knows I'm not a celebrity.

Even so, I can't help but wish that someone would name a rose after me.
(A tea rose, for sure. Maybe silvery-white to glow in the moonlight. And entirely hypo-allergenic...)

what I did on my blogging vacation

I'm still here. Scattered & apprehensive about some things, but here.

Since I last wrote, the leaves have been blazing orange and gold despite some peculiarly warm days that fooled one of our rhododendrons into blooming. The wild bunnies have been confused as well. Should they be in their frightened-prey-animals-in-cold-weather mode, or their lackadaisical-summer-mode where they scamper fearlessly to the Carrot Giver? Yesterday, I saw a bumblebee wandering around the shrubs. Very, very odd.

On Sunday, I became a spinner. If you're on Ravelry, you can see my spinning gurani's comments here. She believes in a racial memory that blooms when you re-create an ancient fibre art, such as spinning. I was hopeless and clumsy and confused at first, when I was aping her movements. Literally, they were making no sense. But-- when I switched hands (pinched with my right hand and held the fibre with my left), it became natural and easy - and fun!

My gurani, you see, is entirely right-handed, whereas I was born sinistral and got, well, switched. I needed to find my own balance. Moments like this can lead into genetic, metaphysical, or Jungian speculations about whether some kinesthetic knowledge has been passed down in our bodies, bypassing our brains entirely, or whether the collective unconscious, and its myths and archetypes, are more literal than we usually believe. Perhaps my hands re-enacted the movements of Clotho because she once was a mortal woman ...





Penny gave me a hug - a beautiful, perfect shoulder shawl, a hug just when I needed it most. It's soft and pretty and gentle, and it makes me happy even when I just see it folded on my shelf. (I think she's going to blog about it tomorrow...)

I sent off my second hat for Save the Children. This one is so cute you could bite it: Baby Conehead. The pattern gets a little fiddly on top (MEPS!), but it's a great pattern for using up little spoonsful of Sugar/Peaches/Cream/Creme. Very soft, very cute, and very washable.

Reading: sporatic, except for Vanity Fair, which is more fun than you can imagine, and an audiobook of To The Lighthouse, which never disappoints. Up soon will be Cassandra and Jane by Jill Pitkeathly, Jane Austen: a Life by Carol Shields, and some poetry. Robert Frost, perhaps. Seems fitting.

the VP debate; or, look here, another hat!

The Debate:

I love Joe Biden. Tonight, I thought he was deliberate, appropriate, respectful, intelligent, and very much "in the moment." I thought she was mechanical, slick, over-rehearsed, callous, and grandiose. So, why was I surprised when Pat Buchanan that Biden lost the debate because he was boring and too factual?

The Questions:
Since when are facts boring? Since when do we want our vice presidents to be perky dolls who say the same inane stuff every time you pull the string? Since when do we allow debaters to say they are not going to answer questions the way their opponents or the moderator want them answered? Since when do moderators fail to ask useful follow-up questions, such as "are you going to answer the question, or are we all just wasting our time here?" Why do I care what Pat Buchanan thinks, anyway?

(Did I mention that I love Joe Biden? )

Here's another hat. This one is for Save the Children. I knitted it while I watched the debate. Therefore, I did not eat chocolate, gnaw off all of my fingernails and some of John's, or spill hot tea in my lap. Knitting is good.

a bunny bell!

I haven't been doing too many swaps lately, but I couldn't resist one on Ravelry, and I must show you what Darbyrose sent me. In addition to beautiful yarn, she sent me the book I've been dying to read, and the cutest bell ever -- a bunny bell! Thank you, Darbyrose!



I also promised to show you a f.o.

This is the "seamless baby kimono" I knitted for baby Narjis. I used heart-shaped buttons instead of the ties in the original pattern, and KnitPicks Shine Sport in Crocus. (Note the quotation marks around "seamless baby kimono." Narjis is not, as far as I know, a seamless baby.)(Edited: thanks, Carrie. Narjis is, indeed, seamless.)

A little bib is on its way, too. Knitting for babies is so satisfying! You get to knit little things that don't take forever to finish, and you get to imagine the little baby wearing the little things. It could become addictive.

I'm reading my pre-pub copy of The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry. Turn on your speakers when you visit the website. Then run out and get the book. It's amazing.