Books. Knitting. Organization.
The blog today will divide itself into two sections. That's the sort of day it is. Organized. Purposeful.
First,
As probably a couple of you know, the new Harry Potter is due in soon. Ours, having been ordered in advance from Amazon, will be in later than the ones you get to buy if you're even now camping out over at the Barnes and Noble. Nevertheless, it's coming in a bit too early. After we finished up The Hobbit (how I love to watch medievalists entertain 6-year-old children), we started in on Little Women -- we're in a classics sort of mood these days. We can't possibly finish up with Marmee and Jo before Harry gets here, so we've agreed that when Mr. Potter arrives, we'll be taking a temporary break from Alcott. But we're slightly regretful, for though Little Women is short on thrilling plot (Amy's pickled limes get confiscated! Meg twists her ankle at the dance!), it's nevertheless compelling -- this due entirely to character. The child, though male and living 150 years in their future, is extremely interested in the lives of the girls. He's been hearing the adventures of Harry Potter since he was a baby, though, and owns a magnificent wizard's robe of velvet and satin, sewn for him by his doting mother, and so the New England Transcendentalists will indeed go by the wall when the new volume arrives.
As for the adults of the household, we're nearly done with the giant Rereading the Alexandrian Quartet Project. Sam finished up a couple of weeks ago, and I'm almost done with Clea. How did we get into this?
Oh, I remember. I'd been explaining to Sam the wonderfulness of Gerald Durrell, and he'd been reading Gerald's hilarious accounts of growing up on Corfu, collecting exotic animals, and annoying his older brother Larry, and that got us interested in reading Gerald's biography, which we did, and one of the many interesting aspects of the biography was the constant helpfulness of Gerald's older brother Larry, who, though he made fun of the animals, was consistently supportive of Gerald's writing, and even told people that Gerald was a better writer than he was, which seemed to us to be astoundingly charitable, or modest, one or the other, especially coming from somebody who'd written The Alexandrian Quartet, and then we wondered why we never heard anybody talking about The Alexandrian Quartet anymore (turns out it's just cause no one we knew was rereading it; there's a thriving Durrell business out there), and we wondered if we'd still think it was astounding if we reread it, and so we did, and we do. It's certainly dated now, but the intricate structure is still just as satisfying as it ever was, back when he invented it.
The pile of books by my bed has gotten so big I can hardly get out -- it's always like this in early summer. Things pile up, literally. Throughout the school year I'm reading, oh, yes, I'm reading, but mostly essays and books concerning whatever I'm supposed to be writing about in any given week, or I'm rereading things I'm teaching. The Alexandrian Quartet -- now there was an extravagance. That's how I know it's summer.
Now, on to
Recently I came across a blog entry written by one of the young knitters (and alas, I didn't bookmark it -- it was only later that I knew I wanted to write about it) who was bemoaning the lack of trendy, stylish Fair Isle patterns. She pointed out, quite rightly, that all the Fair Isle sweater patterns she sees are boxy and old-fashioned looking, and unsuitable for such as she.
Yep. They are.
Now, this doesn't bother me; I'm very happy wearing boxy old-fashioned things (but then, I'm ancient, and unstylish), so I'm not going to be fixing this problem. But if one wanted to design trendy, non-boxy fashions in Fair Isle, one would come up against a difficulty inherent in the material itself. This is that the designs are created by carrying two yarns at once, at the back of the fabric, and knitting from one or the other yarn according to the color pattern desired. And this is made easy (or easier; I understand that some of you are still wrassling Fair Isles) by the fact that one is knitting in the round (which is, in reality, knitting in a spiral), so that the front of the work is ALWAYS what one is looking at, so the pattern is visible. Now, one could shape the fabric, even while knitting in the round, by using increases and decreases, as one does, in a simple fashion, on the sleeves. And one can also shape the fabric by using steeks, as one does not just when making a cardigan, or creating space for the sleeves to fit in, but also at the back of the neck, sometimes (on more sophisticated patterns, such as those done by the Starmores). But this is a hassle. So patterns that use these techniques are ONLY going to be invented by people to whom the shaping is Very Important. Not me.
Of course, it's also possible to shape two-color stranding by knitting, not in classic Fair Isle technique, but by working back-and-forth. Here's an example:
Here, on a "Catherine Parr" cuff, the back-and-forth stranding is not actually a Big Pain in the B**t, because it's limited. Even the larger borders for the front and the back of the sweater aren't boring; they move pretty quickly, and the pattern isn't so complicated that one constantly makes mistakes.
But it would be very tiresome indeed to do this for the course of an entire sweater. You'd have to be very committed to the design.
Still, I expect to see such designs in the future.
I leave you with that; it's a normal, average sort of summer day around here. Dad and child in the park over in the batting cage. Mom off to write about what Margery Kempe looks like if you examine her from the point of view of Teresa's Interior Castle. You know. The usual.
First,
Books
As probably a couple of you know, the new Harry Potter is due in soon. Ours, having been ordered in advance from Amazon, will be in later than the ones you get to buy if you're even now camping out over at the Barnes and Noble. Nevertheless, it's coming in a bit too early. After we finished up The Hobbit (how I love to watch medievalists entertain 6-year-old children), we started in on Little Women -- we're in a classics sort of mood these days. We can't possibly finish up with Marmee and Jo before Harry gets here, so we've agreed that when Mr. Potter arrives, we'll be taking a temporary break from Alcott. But we're slightly regretful, for though Little Women is short on thrilling plot (Amy's pickled limes get confiscated! Meg twists her ankle at the dance!), it's nevertheless compelling -- this due entirely to character. The child, though male and living 150 years in their future, is extremely interested in the lives of the girls. He's been hearing the adventures of Harry Potter since he was a baby, though, and owns a magnificent wizard's robe of velvet and satin, sewn for him by his doting mother, and so the New England Transcendentalists will indeed go by the wall when the new volume arrives.
As for the adults of the household, we're nearly done with the giant Rereading the Alexandrian Quartet Project. Sam finished up a couple of weeks ago, and I'm almost done with Clea. How did we get into this?
Oh, I remember. I'd been explaining to Sam the wonderfulness of Gerald Durrell, and he'd been reading Gerald's hilarious accounts of growing up on Corfu, collecting exotic animals, and annoying his older brother Larry, and that got us interested in reading Gerald's biography, which we did, and one of the many interesting aspects of the biography was the constant helpfulness of Gerald's older brother Larry, who, though he made fun of the animals, was consistently supportive of Gerald's writing, and even told people that Gerald was a better writer than he was, which seemed to us to be astoundingly charitable, or modest, one or the other, especially coming from somebody who'd written The Alexandrian Quartet, and then we wondered why we never heard anybody talking about The Alexandrian Quartet anymore (turns out it's just cause no one we knew was rereading it; there's a thriving Durrell business out there), and we wondered if we'd still think it was astounding if we reread it, and so we did, and we do. It's certainly dated now, but the intricate structure is still just as satisfying as it ever was, back when he invented it.
The pile of books by my bed has gotten so big I can hardly get out -- it's always like this in early summer. Things pile up, literally. Throughout the school year I'm reading, oh, yes, I'm reading, but mostly essays and books concerning whatever I'm supposed to be writing about in any given week, or I'm rereading things I'm teaching. The Alexandrian Quartet -- now there was an extravagance. That's how I know it's summer.
Now, on to
Knitting
Recently I came across a blog entry written by one of the young knitters (and alas, I didn't bookmark it -- it was only later that I knew I wanted to write about it) who was bemoaning the lack of trendy, stylish Fair Isle patterns. She pointed out, quite rightly, that all the Fair Isle sweater patterns she sees are boxy and old-fashioned looking, and unsuitable for such as she.
Yep. They are.
Now, this doesn't bother me; I'm very happy wearing boxy old-fashioned things (but then, I'm ancient, and unstylish), so I'm not going to be fixing this problem. But if one wanted to design trendy, non-boxy fashions in Fair Isle, one would come up against a difficulty inherent in the material itself. This is that the designs are created by carrying two yarns at once, at the back of the fabric, and knitting from one or the other yarn according to the color pattern desired. And this is made easy (or easier; I understand that some of you are still wrassling Fair Isles) by the fact that one is knitting in the round (which is, in reality, knitting in a spiral), so that the front of the work is ALWAYS what one is looking at, so the pattern is visible. Now, one could shape the fabric, even while knitting in the round, by using increases and decreases, as one does, in a simple fashion, on the sleeves. And one can also shape the fabric by using steeks, as one does not just when making a cardigan, or creating space for the sleeves to fit in, but also at the back of the neck, sometimes (on more sophisticated patterns, such as those done by the Starmores). But this is a hassle. So patterns that use these techniques are ONLY going to be invented by people to whom the shaping is Very Important. Not me.
Of course, it's also possible to shape two-color stranding by knitting, not in classic Fair Isle technique, but by working back-and-forth. Here's an example:
Here, on a "Catherine Parr" cuff, the back-and-forth stranding is not actually a Big Pain in the B**t, because it's limited. Even the larger borders for the front and the back of the sweater aren't boring; they move pretty quickly, and the pattern isn't so complicated that one constantly makes mistakes.
But it would be very tiresome indeed to do this for the course of an entire sweater. You'd have to be very committed to the design.
Still, I expect to see such designs in the future.
I leave you with that; it's a normal, average sort of summer day around here. Dad and child in the park over in the batting cage. Mom off to write about what Margery Kempe looks like if you examine her from the point of view of Teresa's Interior Castle. You know. The usual.
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