Domestic Thursday: Two Socks and Some Beer

I'm in another sock rut, knitting-wise. My last non-sock knitting project (matching Blue Jays sweaters for my friend's pugs) had ended in tragedy, when I had battled through the intarsia only to find out that it was too small for her smallest dog.
So I knit some Hermione socks instead:

And now I'm partway through a pair of Eternal Spring socks from Knitty's last issue.

I'll return to the dog sweaters again sometime, but not until a few more pairs of socks, or maybe hats, have rebuilt my shattered self-confidence.

Of course, drowning your sorrows about failed sweaters requires something for the drowning, and this week it was Henderson Brewing's Radicle Wheat. A friend had left it at my place and judging from the label, this beer likes Toronto almost as much as Drake does. It's a nice wheat, particularly when I was drinking it last night, and the coriander shone brightly in the heat. Unfortunately, it turns out that "opened bottle shoved into the fridge" is not an ideal cellaring condition, and so the last inch I just knocked back wasn't quite as tasty. But that's what I deserve for not respecting the beer.

Power Knitting

It's the weekend, when my thoughts often turn to knitting. When it comes to the week, I'm either tired of lugging around knitting projects, only to open my bag and see that the needles have fallen out and I have a crowd of dropped stitches to pick up, or I'm just tired straight-up. Last week was the latter.

So far I've finished the body of that stupid cabled sweater I've started. Now I just have to do the sleeves.

As I contemplate what would motivate me to do the sleeves, which are just like the body except more annoying, I've cast on for birthday socks for a friend. They're the thing on top that has the same color scheme as a '70s rec room. Now, there's got to be something about that Monkey pattern. It seems to knit up 3x as fast as plain socks, probably because I feel like I have to finish at least one pattern repeat before putting them down. I cast on this morning and worked away while watching Network and in between cleaning up after Borschfest '10. Now I just have one and half pattern repeats to go before I turn the heel. I am knitter. Hear me roar.

Capital Bound

I'll be in Ottawa this weekend, visiting my esteemed (and unfortunately be-mulleted) brother. I haven't seen him for almost a year, since he went on a crazy adventure that took him from Ottawa to Korea, to Victoria, and then back again. Before I went, though, I just wanted to prove that the Monkey socks did get finished. I wore them yesterday, and they were perfectly fine socks. Although they made me hungry for cotton candy every time I looked at them.

See? I Knit.

Yes, this blurry mess was the best photo I could be assed to come up with. Give me a break, I'm cramming Homer, Dostoevsky, and Wim Wenders into my already at capacity brain. I'm beginning to feel a certain affinity for my perpetually blocked bathroom sink- I plunge and plunge (or read and read, watch and watch) and yet the water (or knowledge) sits there. Unmoving. Mocking me. Saying yo mama jokes. Occasionally turning blue.

How's that for an overstretched metaphor? I bitch out of love, though. These are my last few privileged months, of having nothing more trying than lazing my way through the (phallo and Western-centric) classics. Sometimes I wish I was a member of the idle rich a century and a half ago, spending my time reading Homeric Hymns in the original Greek and collecting butterflies. Instead, I am facing my complete incompatibility with the job market. Ew.

So, I've rediscovered knitting to calm the anxiety. It also makes me feel thrifty since I'm entertaining myself while knitting through stuff in the stash. These are Monkey Socks, started years after they swept the knitting community. The yarn is Lorna's Laces in Desert Flower, also from years ago. I feel bad that I left the yarn for so long. It hasn't pooled much, and has the loveliest hand. If I ever see a healthy bank account again, I'm definitely buying more. After I finish these, and a project so long in the making I'm ashamed to post it to this blog, I'm going to do something unusual. I'm going to start a project fairly close to the date the project was first posted, and write regular status updates to encourage myself to actually finish. I can't send another sweater to the orphanage of unfinished knits. It's full up.

Socks For November

Mismatched On Purpose Socks
As the Montreal cold sets in, a new pair of socks is always appreciated. These came from the yarn my fabulous sockpal sent for me. They're from the Regia Kaffe Fassett line that came out a few months ago, though they've been hibernating all lonely and unphotographed for a while. They're rather lovely, but the pattern is just the old stockinette standby with short row heel and decrease toe. Seriously, only two things make these worthy of mention. The fact that they're most assuredly not knit to match (one's Landscape Fire and one's Mirage Fire), and the lovely colours- that Fassett fellow sure knows colour. I do think I like the stripe versions of the colourways better though- they seem to become muddier when variegated.

As for the situation I mentioned a few posts back? That whole affairs of the hearts thing? Sweet Christ on a cracker, is that ever a disaster of DeMillean proportions. At least I have ascertained that I do, in fact, have a thing for him. However, I have also ascertained that I should not. I have also annoyed all of my friends by bombarding them with neurotic ramblings on this topic. Here's a sample conversation between the roomie and me:

"We're so awkward! He talks to me and never says anything about it! Then he doesn't talk to me at all! Then we have awkward, feeble conversation. But then we also have really interesting ones, too. I can't do this! I must delete AIM from my computer entirely so that I'm never encouraged to speak to him again. What am I doing? I can't concentrate on my studying! Why don't we have more alcohol in the house? Please, shoot me in the head, fearless roommate.
So.... enough about me. What's new with you? Wait, has he said anything about me?"

So, I have come up with an easy, three-step plan to end the madness.
1. Join more clubs and games. The brain can't obsess when it's listening to someone whinge about CKUT funding!
2. Hang out at places that are related to things I enjoy. At best, I can find someone cute who likes those things too. At worst, tomorrow I'll have some shiny new reading material from the Drawn and Quarterly store.
3. Bar it up. In spite of my looming financial insolvency, I can't think when I'm drunk. Plus, the potential for amusing, but poor, life choices is high.
In the event of none of these steps working, we move to the fail safe.
FS: I shoot myself in the head.

Protagi-green: Parts 1 and 2

Just try and make me care about global warming, you bastards.

Sometime, between July and August, my social conscience came out of hibernation. Thus, I present to you Protagi-green: Slowly Greening Marty, or How to Get that Self-Righteous Glow (In Many Steps). Each week I'll try to make at least one change that will reduce my impact on the environment, and the wee cuddly beasties that live there.

Change 1: Ditching the Plastic Bags.

Plastic bags are the devil. There's really no way of getting around it, plastic bags choke the environment, take forever to degrade, and are just plain ugly. However, those bastards are useful. They're light but strong, you don't have to remember to pack enough when you go grocery shopping, and they can be used again as disposable lunch bags and as cat poo disposal units. And everyone is keen to give you some. If I don't have your hands on an item and are desperately stuffing it in your reusable bag, the eager bag jockeys will put it in a plastic bag. Even if the only thing you couldn't fit in your cloth bag... was a bag of milk. Which comes with its own bag. But I don't blame them. They get paid dick all, they have to impress the boss, and they could be made redundant at any time if my local Provigo decides to follow the discount route and cut the amenity of the bagger. And dropping a snotty "Thanks, but I prefer *sniff* that you use my re-usable bag instead, it's better for our precious environment." is not an option, because that makes you a dick. So, my solution is to eagerly toss them a bag, with a friendly "Here's some bags! Thanks!" and help put some of the stuff in. They seem cool with that, it doesn't make me sound like an enviro-dick, and I've really cute down on my plastic bag use. I even backpacked my liquor home from the SAQ.

So, what bags have I been using? I had my eye on these, but they don't deliver to Canada, and it seemed wasteful when I already had a bunch of perfect grocery bags kicking around anyway. So, I use one of my flowery totes made from some wacky plasticized floral print fabric, or that President's Choice bag obnoxious Galen Weston wanted me to buy, all good choices for grocery shopping. The benefit to having reusable bags is that they offer the shoulder-slinging option that plastic bags so sorely. I also have that Everlasting Bagstopper waiting for straps so that it can be stuffed in my backpack for those impromptu purchases. Unfortunately, I'm having some cash flow issues, and I think I'll just have to steal parts from the old clothes that weren't good enough to make it to Value Village. Thrifty and ecologically responsible... yes. But hardly pretty.

Part 2: Green Mah Kitteh!

See that beast of a cat up there? That's what Pistache looks like. Pistache probably takes up a small country's worth of carbon emissions on his own. Because Herr Chubfat needs a special food, I can't really green his meals. He drinks tap water like the rest of us. What else am I supposed to do? Buy him locally-made, artisan-crafted, ecologically-sound ceramic food bowls? A bamboo litter box? Sometimes, things just go too far. So, my admission is that his litter box is a plastic behemoth from the local pet store, probably made in China. And his food bowls were from the Dollar Store, probably the product of some crazy lead-spewing Chinese factory. Because he's just crapping in the litter box, and any kind of nice bowls would be destroyed by my clumsiness. So, I can only green his litter. And thus we started to use Swheat Scoop. It isn't strip-mined from the earth, it still clumps, and it won't cause lung problems for my kitty. And Pistache surely doesn't need any more problems. Now, would looking into holistic pet dandruff fall under "taking it too far?" Pistache loves Kaffe Fasset socks.

Happy Indepence Day, American Swine! Here are your socks!

Just kidding my Southern brethren, I love you all. Especially my most beloved Midwest room mate, who has sadly abandoned our continent to have fun in Europe. I'm not madly jealous, oh no. See, I even finished her socks, because I'm a nice person like that.

I also finished my Mom's socks, which, in spite of being lovely, foamy, soft things I grew to hate after the nearly two months (heh) it took me to knit them. They became my lazy project, the thing I did a few rows of here and there while watching a movie or going somewhere in the car. Which, would seem like a recipe for completion, but it's really a recipe for ennui. Anyway, belated Mother's Day present: finally completed.
On the needles: my much-delayed Sockpal socks. Brigit, in Colinette Jitterbug. Let's hope these go quicker than my Mom's socks, so I won't be known as a total flake. Although, I kind of don't want to part with these. The deep shadings of blue, the vaguely Celtic feel... No! I refuse to give in! The socks will go to my sockpal, and they better damn well fit. But maybe if they don't... would it be too outré to send a SAS envelope in the package, just in case?

So, at work these people bring around random crap every now and then for you to purchase. Usually it involves a mildly frightening singing stuffed animal. This month featured a canine Barry White in a cummerbund. You start ordering one thing, and then to get the special deal on the cheaply-made discount item, you get more, until you have the singing animal lulling you to bed with its tinny song. I know. It happened to me this month. It started off innocuously enough. I was still a little burnt out from spending Canada Day in London (Ontario, alack), and decided I wanted a Sudoku. And then I saw a gardening book my mother would like. And well, I was just a few bucks short of making the rolling cooler, apparently for those days when lifting mid-sized soft cooler just seems too damn hard.
So, I bought the "Mapquest" road map atlas. Now, my brain may be feeble, but road atlas of North America + rolling cooler= road trip, yes? My arithmetic is correct, no? Road trip to Mexico with friends sounds fun to me. Margaritas, ahoy.

Tomorrow: Misadventures in Spinning and the Tank Top Chronicles.

The Stupid Week: Stupid Injuries

I went to meet up with some old friends (and their new friends) for Ultimate Frisbee and a Barbecue. I read Strangers on a Train instead of moving, because I'm allergic to sweat. My doctor just refuses to believe me. Anyway, despite remaining as immobile and lichen-like as possible, I woke up this morning with a sizable bruise on my leg. It doesn't hurt that much, it's just perplexing. Where did it come from? How did it get there? And what kind of story can I come up to explain it and impress my peers?

Something that's resolutely non-stupid are the pair of Jaywalkers I'm working on. The yarn is Regia 4-ply in "Calgary", and the colours remind me of the buckets of Gerber daisies you see outside of florists. Which is a good thing, because the recipient adores Gerber daisies. Ding ding ding, the lucky recipient is my beloved roommate. Although, she's making time in Italy and England this summer, while I'm a prisoner in my hometown, a place where bus ads about workplace safety are taken down because one mother found them too graphic, and the fight over the pesticide ban limps on. Clearly, I deserve the damn socks. Screw you, my beloved Minnesotan!

Alright, I'm being too hard on Guelph. The knitting store is nice, the people are fine, and the farmer's market is reassuringly crunchy. Also, the good salsa is close by. I still wouldn't say no to a rescue team though.

Drunk on Mint Julep Yarn

Last Friday, I had been getting tired of blogging about the same two projects. Fortunately, my boredom coincided with Mother's Day. And what better way to combine knitting, frugality, and daughterly devotion than a pair of hand-knit socks? My Mom wears all the socks I've made her religiously, even the pair that are accidentally different sizes. I decided to cast on for the Father and Son socks in the Fall'06 issue of Interweave Knits, since they have cables, a pattern with diagonal lines, all the things my Mother loves and that are easy enough to whip up. So, I cast on in some vintage Paton's Nylox 3-ply that had been marinating in the stash for a while. It was bought at a fly-by-night discount liquidation store that was open for all of a few months, a place where a stash of vintage 60s yarn appeared for some reason one day. A better daughter would have bought new yarn, or at least yarn of less... sketchy provenance. I learned my lesson when I realized, after the first chevron, that the yarn was just too damn thin for the pattern. It looked like hot, steamy ass, riddled with holes. I could have done the math and switched needles, but I told myself I couldn't spare time for math. I ripped it out, and decided to sacrifice some soft green Jawoll for my dear Mother. I had been saving it, selfishly, for a pair of delicate socks for myself, probably from Knitting Vintage Socks.

So, if my Mom is reading this, I hope we can both agree that this act of SELFLESS GENEROSITY makes up for all the hours of epidural-free labour I put you through, eh?

Because I love this yarn. Some people only knit with Koigu, and some swear by Lorna's Laces, but the Jawoll is for me. It's very soft, and delightfully squishy, and comes with an adorable spool of reinforcement thread in the middle of every skein. Those crafty and practical Germans. Now I don't want to give her the socks. Maybe I can give her some basic socks in Kroy and still call myself a devoted daughter... a week after mother's day, and with only 3/4 of a sock to show.

In all fairness though, I did start these only the night before I went to Toronto last Saturday. I got some knitting done on the bus, but the whole day was a rush. I went to H&M and clomped around the skinny and tall fashion queens, buying a seersucker halter dress and a white blouse. Then I met up with my friend Kat for bubble tea, and we went shopping some more. We went to Pages on Queen, where I bought some campus smut as a birthday present for a friend, and a Mother's Day card for my Mom. I had to go to Fluevog, of course, and there I tried on these Fiats, and couldn't help falling in love with them. Too bad they're way out of my price range, and the bank just won't give a loan for crimson patent leather flats. Then a bunch of other stores and lunch at the Rivoli, drinking Steamwhistle outside and being entertained by dancing Harajuku girl-wannabes. We went to Kensington Market, and I managed not to feed my vintage button addiction at Courage My Love. Kat bought vintage and new clothes, and I... looked at them. I even dragged her into Lettuce Knit, and (applaud my self-control here) only walked out with one Cookie A sock pattern, the German Stocking. I even remembered my Dad, and picked up an apple custard square for him at the bakery. Then I visited Kat's house over the Don Valley Parkway. After that, everything went Pete Tong, as the kids say, and after two hours of walking, half of which was spent being stupidly lost, I missed my bus by 15 minutes. Fifteen. Minutes. Just enough time to be famous, and just enough to have to leave an hour and a half later. If it had been VIA, I would have been able to catch the 8:00 train- when it lumbered in at 8:45.

So, not much knitting was finished as I stared out of my window at the 401, exhausted and wondering whether I should just move to Mississauga to make things easier. Then, a whole bunch of banal business throughout the week, including seeing Spider-Man 3, perhaps the most banal thing of all. Theaters: making the movie really loud will not detract from the reliance of the plot on the most useless butler of all time, Peter Parker's oily bangs of emo, and the general incoherency of every aspect of the movie. I've never been a huge fan of the Spider-Man series, but liked them well enough. This was a disappointment, however, and so much of it seemed like flailing on the director's part. Bruce Campbell's cameo as a french maitre d' overstays its welcome, shockingly proving that adding Campbell does not make everything better. It should, but it doesn't. Harry Osborn's character gave me whiplash with his constant reversal of mental health and motivation, largely represented by how much Scotch he swills. Both Bryce Dallas Howard and Kirsten Dunst get limited chances to act. Some of the fight scenes were fun, at least, and J. Jonah Jameson was still great. And hey- at least it was better than Batman and Robin. But that doesn't make things better for my green socks, abandoned and still only a sock after a whole week. At least I'll be able to show the finished log cabin baby blanket tomorrow, to take every one's mind off this sad state.

The Dead Socks and the Living

My beloved pair of Koigu Jaywalkers gave up their lives in the service of keeping my feet toasty yesterday. Look at that gaping heel- it's like another mouth! How did I manage not to notice it when I put them on? Can holes that large suddenly appear? Oh well, they gave me a good year of service, which isn't too bad for an all-wool sock that goes through the sock hell I put all of my socks through. My first pair of exciting socks, made in a wavy rib from a pattern in a one-off grocery store magazine, died two months ago. They too were all wool, a lovely copper and green handpaint from Shelridge Farms, so I guess we have proof of the longevity of wool blends, since my very first pair of socks is still going strong, even if they are getting a little thin in parts. However, I had them around for about two and a half years, so I guess the Shelridge superwash wool is a bit sturdier than whatever base yarn Koigu is using.

All of this is to say that, between the dead socks and the lonely singles, I need more handknit socks. Unfortunately, I've had sock ADD. Right now, there are no less than four socks on different needles. One of them is almost finished, it's just been waiting for the toe of the 2nd sock to be stitched together. Waiting... for months. I've got one twisted-rib cuff of the Ripple Weave socks from Fall 2006 Vogue complete in a pink Koigu, but I'm not sure if I'm all that keyed-up about that pattern right now. Then, there's a pair of denim-y self-striping socks I started over Christmas break, since the yarn was a present. But I think I'll finish these first, Broadripples in some Regia yarn whose name and colourway have been lost to time. I think the self-striping and the dork lace pattern work together here, and the colours remind me of a Swedish kindergarten. Like, they would paint the walls these colours, and seeing them would fill you with the calm satisfaction of knowing your child would be learning to live together in harmony and without prejudice, and only play with independently-produced, lo-tech, educational toys. After all, if they can get such bright colours to work together, what can't they do with your offspring? Plus, I really like the pattern. Simple, but just intriguing enough not to bore.