Counters and Executions
Helpful Knitting Content: Observe my "new" counter (it's actually old; I only just started using it, though):
It's a little Susan Bates number, which I've pulled out of my knitting box because the usual counters I use -- which fit on the needles -- take up too much space in the project I'm working on at the moment. In order to use this counter, one moves little white pegs from one numbered hole to another.
So far things are going fine. I've kept track of the decreases on the sleeves for the Colinette "Love It" cardigan. I have not actually lost any of the little white pegs (the child has rescued some of them from the floor, true, but they DID get rescued before the vacuum found them).
Mostly I have been able to use this counter because I have not read the directions. I looked at the red hole-embellished part, I observed how the holes were numbered, I stuck pegs in the holes. This is much the best method.
Had I tried to read the directions, this is what I would have found:
As each row of the "pattern" is completed, move a peg over one hole. When the 10th row is reached, however, two pegs are used until the twelve rows of the "pattern" are finished. (12 rows of knitting completed, Fig. 3) When the 13th row is finished, (Row 1 of the "pattern") the peg will be placed in hole #1 and the counting begins over again. (Fig.4)
The other side's in French. It's no better.
So watch out. If you buy one of these things, or find one in your knitting supply stash, do NOT attempt to read the directions. Sam had to go sit down and rest, just on account of having taken a picture of them.
As for non-knitting content: Today is the anniversary of the deaths of Sacco and Vanzetti. We mark it by having Italian food for dinner -- polenta with bolognese sauce this year -- and praying for all those now on death row, and for the executioners as well.
And we remember especially, and with great gratitude and fondness, the man who executed Sacco and Vanzetti, who came to be opposed to the death penalty, and whose great fear was that some of the very many people he executed had been innocent -- we know now that some of them almost certainly were. In the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, both may have been innocent; it's highly likely that Vanzetti was.
As for our personal connection to this deeply American moral quagmire -- we like to be grateful that when the executioner's house was bombed, nobody got hurt, not just on general principles, since we're opposed, as a family, to anybody getting his or her house pulled down around his or her ears -- but also on specific principles, since the executioner's oldest daughter was my grandmother.
It's a little Susan Bates number, which I've pulled out of my knitting box because the usual counters I use -- which fit on the needles -- take up too much space in the project I'm working on at the moment. In order to use this counter, one moves little white pegs from one numbered hole to another.
So far things are going fine. I've kept track of the decreases on the sleeves for the Colinette "Love It" cardigan. I have not actually lost any of the little white pegs (the child has rescued some of them from the floor, true, but they DID get rescued before the vacuum found them).
Mostly I have been able to use this counter because I have not read the directions. I looked at the red hole-embellished part, I observed how the holes were numbered, I stuck pegs in the holes. This is much the best method.
Had I tried to read the directions, this is what I would have found:
As each row of the "pattern" is completed, move a peg over one hole. When the 10th row is reached, however, two pegs are used until the twelve rows of the "pattern" are finished. (12 rows of knitting completed, Fig. 3) When the 13th row is finished, (Row 1 of the "pattern") the peg will be placed in hole #1 and the counting begins over again. (Fig.4)
The other side's in French. It's no better.
So watch out. If you buy one of these things, or find one in your knitting supply stash, do NOT attempt to read the directions. Sam had to go sit down and rest, just on account of having taken a picture of them.
As for non-knitting content: Today is the anniversary of the deaths of Sacco and Vanzetti. We mark it by having Italian food for dinner -- polenta with bolognese sauce this year -- and praying for all those now on death row, and for the executioners as well.
And we remember especially, and with great gratitude and fondness, the man who executed Sacco and Vanzetti, who came to be opposed to the death penalty, and whose great fear was that some of the very many people he executed had been innocent -- we know now that some of them almost certainly were. In the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, both may have been innocent; it's highly likely that Vanzetti was.
As for our personal connection to this deeply American moral quagmire -- we like to be grateful that when the executioner's house was bombed, nobody got hurt, not just on general principles, since we're opposed, as a family, to anybody getting his or her house pulled down around his or her ears -- but also on specific principles, since the executioner's oldest daughter was my grandmother.
<< Home