attack of the toddler, or why you should never leave anya unsupervised with a writing implement

This little stinker...



...armed herself with a Crayola marker and wandered over to the futon, where the pieces of my almost-finished Millefiori cardigan were blocking.



When I saw the artwork all over the ribbing of the left front and one of the sleeves, I knew she was the culprit. She's so dang cute, it was hard to stay mad for long.

Good thing they are WASHABLE markers. A gentle wash and soak in the sink took care of it.



If all goes well, I'll have an FO for you soon!

birthday socks

Sorry for the relative blog-silence, but I've got a good reason: my dad's birthday is today, and he happens to be one of those non-knitters who really and truly appreciates a hand-knit gift. That might have something to do with the fact that he's been married to my mother for more than 30 years, and she is quite the hand-crafter herself, though my dad is a DIYer in his own right. He's done some beautiful woodworking, and I remember him taking on a lot of home improvement projects when I was a kid. In fact, I assumed that all adults just somehow knew how to do things like put up drywall, wire a new outlet, and install ceiling fans. (I'm afraid that particular quality didn't end up in my genetic make-up. Unfortunately for me and Stu, we are equally inept at such things.)

The man appreciates good hand work, is what I'm saying. So I took a couple weeks off from the other projects I had going to make him a pair of socks.



I won't knit just any man a pair of socks, you see. Knitting a pair of socks is a time investment anyway, and knitting a pair of socks for a grown man takes that much extra.



The yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy. I splurged and bought 2 skeins to make sure there was enough. I don't regret it, either, because it is soft and gorgeous and getting the extra means there is plenty leftover to make myself a pair.
The pattern: A vintage find from my friend Judy, who is in her 70s and once shared some decades-old Vogue Knitting magazines with our knitting group. She generously let us borrow them long enough to copy the patterns we liked, and one of the designs I liked was a collection of sock patterns for the whole family.
Modifications: I only followed the pattern for about half the cuff. I didn't read the whole thing pattern starting (yeah, I know), and it was only after I was several inches along that I realized it called for a 13" cuff and required so many calf decreases it would have been far too tight for a man's foot. So I quit decreasing early and winged the rest. Let's hope they fit; dad received the socks today and says he likes them, but I don't think he's tried them on yet, so the jury's still out!

By the by, my dad shares a birthday with Shakespeare, so why don't I slap another poem on this post before National Poetry Month is done?

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

wait wait!

Fans of the NPR show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, check out the video link on the website. Mo Rocca got a sweater! (And Franklin Habit gets his first public radio appearance, too).

ETA: Thanks to my brother Joe for the link. I am a fan of the show, but it airs in the middle of the day on Saturday, when we're usually pretty busy with kid stuff, so I don't get to listen as often as I'd like.

poetry month, part 2

I guess it is just me, then. No matter.



E.E. Cummings

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.

Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.

Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.

Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.

Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.

Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.

Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.

Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.

Four tell stags at a green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.

poetry month, part 1

Did you know April is National Poetry Month? Well, it is. I am no great reader of poetry, I have to confess. When it comes to reading, good, clean prose is more my style. As a collaborative pianist, however, I have worked with a lot of singers and learned a lot of vocal repertoire, which means I have encountered quite a lot of poetry in that context. And while I am not so interested in plain old poems, I am fascinated by text setting: poetry set to music. In fact, I wrote my dissertation on that very topic (various settings of E.E. Cummings, and by the way, YES you should capitalize his initials).



So, in honor of National Poetry Month, I will share a few of my favorites with you. Granted, this is partly because slow progress on that Millefiori cardigan and a secret birthday project means I don't have much actual knitting to show you at the moment. But it's also because all the fun I'm having dyeing yarn in bright spring colors for whatever reason has brought to mind some of the texts I've encountered in my musical life, and I think it's kind of interesting (or maybe a little weird?) to tie it together.

This last batch of yarn I dyed came out a completely different color than I'd imagined. I was going for a smoky rose and ended up with bright lilac purple. That's completely fine. I like the color it turned out, and so, apparently, does Anya!



Lilacs are definitely a spring flower. They bloom sometime in May here in Wisconsin, and when they do, you can smell their wonderful smell from blocks away. We don't have any in our yard, but they thrive around the neighborhood, and I love them.



Lilacs always make me think of that Walt Whitman poem, When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd. It's a very sad, poem, actually. It's all about death and was written as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman grieved. It's also very long, which is why I'm not reprinting it here, just giving you the link. There's a setting of this poem by George Crumb in his cycle Apparition for soprano and piano, which I performed with a wonderful singer friend and fellow post-doctoral musician named Julia. Crumb is known for extended techniques, which means using musical instruments in non-traditional ways. For Apparition, I did a lot inside the piano, like strumming, plucking strings, dampening with my fingertips, and finding (and marking!) harmonics. Crumb is very tall and can reach inside of a grand piano while sitting; I am not so tall, so I had to do a lot of sitting and standing. It felt very choreographed. When done well, it's quite an effective piece.



What about you? Does knitting bring any poems to your mind? Or is it just me?

i'm having waaay too much fun with this

moving on

Last week at my knitting group, one of our number announced that her husband got a new job, so she and her family will be moving to North Carolina before the summer's out. Today, another knitting friend of mine told us that she and her husband sold their house the day they put it on the market and will be moving somewhere south (perhaps Indiana where her daughter lives, or perhaps Kentucky to a nicer city but still close to her daughter) by the end of June.

"Why are you all leaving me?!" I want to say. Of course I know why. New jobs, proximity to family. Warmer weather is a plus. (Dude, Wisconsin SUCKS right now. It got up to 50 today and felt downright balmy compared to the miserably cold temps we've been having.)

When Daniel was born, I kind of lost my footing, socially. I was still a grad student, but hardly ever on campus, and I lost touch with most of my friends. Shortly after Daniel was born, I was wandering around a local yarn shop in a postpartum haze and stumbled upon an informal knitting group. They invited me to join them, so I did. I kept showing up, and they didn't seem to mind, and by now I would say some of them are my closest friends.

These women, it's not like their friendship with me would keep them here. I know they're happy to have these life opportunities, even if they'll be sad to leave Madison. But I will certainly miss them. For the past three years, the women in my knitting group have been an anchor to my sanity. They are funny, smart, capable, caring people who somehow find me interesting.

I'm not moping just yet. It's not quite time to say good-bye. Not everyone is leaving, and I still have a couple months with A and J before they move. We'll have to make the most of it.

blanket blessing

When our friend Rachel was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer, Steph and Katie organized a group on Facebook to make a community blanket for her. I helped with the planning and sewing up, and I contributed a couple pieces as well. Our instructions were to knit a 36" strip in any width with worsted weight cotton or cotton blend in bright colors.



We thought we'd end up with a small lap blanket, the right size for curling up to read a book or watch TV.



We weren't expecting to make a tent.



But that's okay. The more blanket, the more love, right?



I so loved the blessing Renee posted for her Afghans for Afghans blankets, I'm reprinting it here. (Hope you don't mind, Renee!) I think it's beautiful and speaks to people at various - how do I say this? - points on the religious spectrum.

Blessing of the Blankets

Blessed be the hands that have touched life:
Hands that bring forth new life in lands far away,
Hands of mothers who nurture new life in hard places with warm hearts,
Blessed be the works of your hands.

Blessed be the hands that have touched life:
Hands that teach young ones how to read and add,
Hands that create a thirst for knowledge and minds for learning
Blessed be the works of your hands.

Blessed be the hands that have touched life:
Hands that generously give of their time and talents to those that they do not know
Hands that seek peace in a time of war,
Blessed be the works of your hands.

Blessed be the hands that have touched life:
Hands that stitch by stitch link humanity together across the continents
Hands that create beautiful garments of warmth for cold nights
Blessed be the works of your hands.
This we pray in the name of the Creating God. Amen.

new addiction

My new addiction is dyeing sock yarn with Kool-Aid. It's crazy! I mean, I don't even knit socks that often and there are actually a lot of things about hand-dyeing that don't excite me one bit. I hate self-striping yarns and I'm not a big fan of wild variegated colors, and those are two things that lots of knitters love about hand-dyed sock yarn. I do enjoy the subtle kettle-dyed look, though, and there's just something fun about dumping drink mix into a pot of water and making pretty yarn out of it.

Also, so far Daniel doesn't realize that Kool-Aid is something that can be mixed with sugar and drunk. He thinks it's just for making yarn and coloring play-doh, and that's just fine with me. In fact, the orange skein in the picture below was a mix of orange and lemonade in exact imitation of some kool-aid play-doh we made at Steph's house last week after the original batch got too much cat hair on it. (Ewww).



Here are a few things I've learned about dyeing with Kool-Aid:

1. Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade is a horrid aqua/turquoise color.
2. It can not be fixed with a dash of Black Cherry.
3. In fact, said mixture looks like ass.
4. But if you overdye it with many packets of grape, it will turn into a lovely, lovely deep burgundy. (That got left at Steph's place, so you'll just have to imagine how pretty it is because we didn't get a picture.)
5. It's easier to have success with the red/orange family than blue/purple. I don't know if it's my fault or the Kool-Aid's; I'm still pretty new at this.





I don't know exactly what I'll do with all this yarn I'm dyeing. If I can get good colors I may give the yarn itself as gifts to my knitting friends come their birthdays. Some of it I'll use myself. I have no interest in selling it on Etsy or anything like that. The nice thing about dyeing sock yarn is that you don't need to do that much at once and crazy colors are okay. Fun, even.