Cimorene

We got a cold snap last night and a few millimeters of snow. It looks like the grass is coated in powdered sugar. Downstairs is still quite warm - 17° in the kitchen at lunchtime - but after I fed the cats at 7:00 am I went back to bed with a wool sweater on and I never got hot enough to take it off.

It's so nice to see Wax enjoying her fandom so much. She's had two objectively bad TV shows that she was super fannish about since the last time I had a fandom. I do like IWTV enough to get that excited about, but it still wouldn't be like her fandoms (911 and Roswell before that) because I can't get that into reading it (I have read some, but I didn't settle in) and wouldn't be able to write it.

The last fandom I was able to get into reading was Stranger Things 4 Steve/Eddie a couple of years ago, but that was also not quite the full fannish experience, because I wasn't as into the canon. I look over at her and see her chatting with people and reading furiously, and I remember that, and feel happy for her... but sad for myself.

She's even excited about Heated Rivalry - and I am too! But not nearly as much. I guess it feels more like I'm enjoying it as a member of slash fandom, and I'm keeping abreast of what's happening and getting the references, but, as I said once before... I am enjoying the show, which is good and well made, without really liking the characters very much, or the plot.

I was talking to Wax about this, and the absence of uncritical joy that I used to engage with in my 20s, and she diagnosed that I need to "open up my hating heart". I'm hating a lot more than I did when I was younger, it's true. The thing is that I don't know how to do that.

Anyway... I'm working on the second of the three triplet sweaters now, after Wax knitted most of the body of it. I finished the first sweater, after having to knit the first sleeve entirely twice - or rather knitting to the cuff beffore starting over - and now the same thing has happened with the second sweater. It's boring stockinette though, unlike the first sweater, and with very black yarn, so in order to count stitches and decreases I have to have a lamp pointing at it. Sigh.

Wearing wool boot socks over your normal socks is standard in winter. For this purpose it doesn't matter how rough or itchy the socks are.

But wearing warm and cozy socks against the skin is different. It's best if they are wool because of its superior warmth, breathability, and anti-smelly properties, but not every sock yarn is good for the purpose. For instance, the popular Schachenmeyer Regia Pairfect, dyed to make two identical socks including the self-striping Pride socks, is a bit scratchy.

Merino "luxury" sock yarns are pretty popular - merino being the finest and least scratchy of sheep wools - especially hand-dyed ones, which were so trendy about ten years ago that small dyeing businesses were springing up like mushrooms and ill-advised ugly projects made with spatter-dyed wools (it looks fine on socks but the colors do unfortunate things on sweaters and other large canvases) were similarly all over Ravelry. Merino is smooth and silky, but it feels a little like cotton because the fiber is so fine and so tightly spun, so as a result the socks are not fuzzy or cozy.

Alpaca is the best fiber to add the fuzziness to a cozy sock, but it's not as stretchy and elastic as sheep's wool. Wool socks made without elastic already don't always stay up well, depending on a lot of factors, but alpaca by itself is limper, so the challenge is how to blend alpaca and sheep's wool.

I have raved in the past about the sock wool Spøt by Sandnes, which made wonderfully fuzzy thick socks and is now discontinued. But their elasticity was so bad that they couldn't be worn out at all.

My newest socks are made with Drops Nord, another alpaca blend, which I am currently very happy with. It's 45% alpaca, so it's likely that the texture of the fabric makes a big difference. My socks are cabled, and that might be holding their shape. Ribbed and stockinette socks are the worst at staying up.

Medium Man is a large size. It has more fabric in it than Small Woman (the size of me). It doesn't have more fabric than a sweater for waxjism, but she is too warm-blooded to wear sweaters really, so the last time I knitted one for her was over 10 years ago.

It's a lot of knitting. It's going. There are setbacks.

There are gauge issues. And challenges of imagination.

( Knitting Talk )

I have a long-term To-Do list, and last week I got this list down to two items, one of which was oiling the sewing machine so I don't really count it, and took myself quite by surprise. You wouldn't think that would be possible, and yet I found myself unexpectedly with Only One Thing On The To-Do List.

And I said to myself "Wow, this thing won't take that long! I will probably finish it quickly and easily tomorrow!" (I still haven't finished it.)

Only then the next day I woke up with a whole long list of things I suddenly needed to do first: clean the counter, paint my nails, have a bunny photoshoot, sweep the bunny cages, ink my italic pens and photograph sample writing. I thought vaguely in there, "Maybe I won't get it done today, but soon!" Except then I finished all those things in the day and also finished reading the book I was closest to the end of. (If I'd just done the last thing on the list instead of reading, I'd've finished after all.)

And that's when it occurred to me that I've been putting off the tasks on this To-Do list not simply because they are difficult or intimidating, but to avoid finishing my To-Do list.

At the end of the To-Do list lie all the other things that I should do, but don't know how to start! (Like removing a lot of wallpaper, because I've already tried several ways that don't work that well. We probably need to build scaffolding, which isn't something we are at all qualified to build.) Even worse, items like "Find more social activities and make more friends" are down there! They're things with a sense of 'should' but with no obvious first steps or convenient handles for executive function to get hold of.

What's more, I realized that I would never even have realized this (that I was trying not to finish the To-Do list) if I hadn't hurt my shoulder and had to stop knitting.

Because all this winter I've been furiously occupying myself with knitting, knitting itself has been serving me as a bottomless To-Do list.

This To-Do list dysfunction also means that anything I don't urgently or impulsively do at once - anything which then lands on the list - is in danger of being indefinitely procrastinated, even if there's nothing inherently difficult or anxiety-causing about it (like buying another batch of ebooks, so actually the list now has two things besides oiling the sewing machine again).

(Not G)IP! After years and probably a hundred attempts to draw a version of my old default icon that I liked better than the original, last week I succeeded! I've wanted for a few years now to replace the vintage photo of Helen Kane that I've been using as a default since probably 2008ish?, but I would always get hung up at the last minute in a panic of identity crisis: how will anybody recognize me without a teal side-eyeing profile? (I have a constant urge to make my pixel Art Deco radio my default, but I just can't stand the strain of it being non-teal and not giving side-eye. But I wouldn't like it as much if I made it teal and gave it eyes!!!! It's a dilemma.)

Karar i arbeit. (This means "men at work" in a weird western Finland Swedish hick dialect and is the title of a song by Kaj, the Finland-Swedish band that Sweden are sending to Eurovision this year. And it's what waxjism has started saying anytime it is remotely relevant, I guess because it sounds funny to her.) The diggers are back this morning digging up the rest of the intersection next to our house. They dug up most of it in February and replaced some pipes, but then they've left it and most of the street below covered in compacted gravel since. The longer they leave it there, the likelier that our plumber will manage to get the digger guy to do the digging he needs to do to fix our pipe before they repave the road (not calling people back apparently applies also to contractors and not just to end customers! Great!), so I guess that's good. Possibly this development is bad, in fact (like what if they just keep going until they finish and then immediately start paving?). The cats like watching out the window though, and that's always cute.

At least a few flowers! All the maples are blossoming now, like little chartreuse pom-poms everywhere. Very cute. Possibly my favorite tree decoration. Lilies have been coming up, but nothing else but our daffodils is blooming yet, not even our tulips (there are some tulips open in town, in much sunnier spots, but our yard has a great deal of shade from tall trees around it).

Knitting for Niblings (they grow up so fast): The triplets I used to help bottle feed when they were born are turning eighteen this month and one of them is working this summer at a bar here in town, so has sought permission to crash at our place in the event he misses the late bus. They are basically adults!!!! Full-sized people!!! I mean he's been taller than me for a couple of years already, but still. Also this means I guess it's time to make them Adulthood Sweaters, but they're all the same age. (We made their older sister a nice sweater for her 18th birthday under the theory that she was now for the first time unlikely to outgrow it quickly.) (We did make her a sweater when she was a small child once but we never managed to make sweaters for the triplets because of this three-at-once issue. Not that they minded: it would be hard to find better-connected small children and they were always drowning in so many presents and party guests that they wouldn't notice our presence or absence.) So I'm thinking we will give them cards explaining that we will make them each the sweaters of their choosing now, but one after the other (Wax has tentatively agreed to this but she's probably forgotten by now because the discussion was a couple of weeks ago). It's summer anyway, so it's not like anybody will be in a rush for a sweater. And with any luck they will choose things that are easier to make than the long allover-cable mohair-and-merino cardigan Wax made for their sister. And I guess we need some kind of smaller symbolic present to go with the cards, but baking is out because their birthday party always features more sugary desserts than can be eaten. But also my shoulder still hurts (slightly, intermittently) and I still haven't called the doctor (or done the other stuff on that list from ten days ago. It was too scary and I froze up and didn't know where to start! Maybe I can start now, idk). So I couldn't start knitting right away anyway.

Fandom drama update, secondhand: I also forgot to mention that the two-week hiatus in Wax's fandom (911) ended and last week the new episode went up! And, as she and I expected, ( 911 spoilers... lol... ).

Reading Old Stuff: I made another attempt to read Le Morte d'Arthur and didn't get very far yet. The narrative voice is just incredibly dull! I did read the introductions to the Standard Ebooks edition with great interest, and obtained this list of sources which I hadn't heard before: "the great bulk of the work has been traced chapter by chapter to the "Merlin" of Robert de Boron and his successors (Bks. I-IV), the English metrical romance La Morte Arthur of the Thornton manuscript (Bk. V), the French romances of Tristan (Bks. VIII-X) and of Launcelot (Bks. VI, XI-XIX), and lastly to the English prose Morte Arthur of Harley MS. 2252 (Bks. XVIII, XX, XXI)." Having read Robert de Boron's "Merlin", the beginning of Le Morte d'Arthur is recognizable and also startlingly less interesting and fun to read. I looked up the English metrical and prose "Morte"s mentioned here and concluded that they didn't sound very fun either, although perhaps I will try them soon. Also started William Morris's translation of Grettis saga, and contrary to Morris's transports about characterization and poetry in the introduction, so far it is just wading through a lot of run-on sentences of geneology and short summaries of who attacked/burned and looted someone's house, just like the other Icelandic sagas I've attempted to read in the past. Amazing to think this in any way could represent a story designed to be told orally to a live audience who were supposed to not be falling asleep or getting up and leaving.

I picked a shawl pattern (Laulu by Sari Nordlund but bigger, in thinner yarn, with different edging) that's covered all over with cables and lace for my 900+ meters of jelly bean green wool (this was my replacement idea for how to use this color that I love, after deciding against a hat) (the yarn color is actually named for green marmalade balls, a Finnish traditional candy, in Danish, the original language. They are called vihreitä kuulia in Finnish).


a little before the halfway point

I guess I just wasn't realistically picturing how much longer it takes to knit each square inch in cables than just in lace. I have spent so many hours on this shawl. I've been working on it for twelve days, probably an average of six hours a day, and I'm only about two thirds finished.

I need to finish because I have the wool for a cardigan and a fair isle vest waiting. And on Easter we get to buy some more natural unbleached local yarn from Stentorp.

I have been sneezing on average about once per day the last week or so, so there must really be something around that's irritating my nose, just not that badly anymore. It could be the tree, I guess. I took the ornaments off on the 6th per Finnish tradition, but Wax has yet to carry it outside.

I seem to have estimated the socks wrong again. Wax is now wearing the original leftovers socks (from Daddy's hat) and I knitted one sock with the leftovers from them, but it did not use enough of the leftover yarn (too many stripes of Arwetta in between). I am making the second sock mismatched in the hope of using as much of the yarn as possible. I can't bear to waste it because it's really lovely soft and silky merino sock yarn (Scheepjes Downtown).

I should have made a hooded sweater before now, though. My neck and ears are always cold. But I can't promote another project ahead of the next Fair Isle vest I've been planning, so I'll have to get by tying shawls around my head and neck a bit longer.

Actually I've been so focused on knitting lately that it's almost my fandom. I'm not even watching tv at the same time, lately, just listening to David Mitchell's radio show. (I got a bit further in my Star Trek rewatch before getting stuck on the episode where Starfleet tries to order Data to be dissected and Picard has to sue. It causes too much anxiety, but I didn't want to skip ahead.)

Supplementary information to a few past posts:

1. Peppermint (candycanes) update: we actually found candy canes, on the 23rd, in a supermarket we had already looked in. They were manufactured in China and are kind of crappy (I bought some). The full size candy canes, an entire box, were all pre-broken into a bunch of pieces in the wrapper. The small candy canes are out of proportion and like... almost U-shaped, and too fat, and insteaad of being wrapped normally they're each in a little clear plastic envelope. All of them are pink and white instead of red and white and they don't taste that great. I will try getting the peppermint drops from that place in Sweden where they invented them perhaps next year.

2. Cat update: Tristana refused to sleep with me in the bed for three nights after the night when BIL's cats were kept in our bedroom, but she is back now. Behavior wise, she seems about the same as before all the visitors arrived. No further progress, but hanging out fairly close to the gate (when she is activated and before she gets too cold and has to go huddle inside someone's blankets or clothing or a radiator tent).

3. Sneezing update: I tried rinsing my sinuses with two of those little tiny individually sealed packets of sterile saline solution and it worked really well! I've never had such a dramatic affliction to test them on before, though. I only had two more sneezing spells after. So I guess I had inhaled some kind of physical irritant. I do not have a cold.

4. Knitting update: I have been knitting the same sweater since about 20 Dec. I've wanted a brioche sweater for a long time, but brioche uses twice as much yarn over the same yardage and twice as much time to execute because you knit each row twice. This is a benefit for some things obviously and a problem for others! IMO, it's a peerless fabric for scarf/shawl to wrap around my neck in the winter, but sweaters risk being too warm, obviously. I am trying Drops Air, an Aran-weight blown yarn that is fuzzy and hairy (mostly baby alpaca and merino). I've been meaning to try it for years and never quite got around to it. The key point is that a blown yarn is made with a very fine knitted tube of synthetic fiber as an armature and the natural fibers are attached to this, so it has the ability to be much lighter and cooler than a traditional yarn of its circumference, because it's hollow. It remains to be seen whether it will be too hot or not. I had trouble with the pattern and had to decide how I wanted to make the sleeves for myself as a result, and this meant a lot of knitting and frogging and knitting again on the first sleeve. I hate knitting sleeves and I decided to knit this sleeve in the round, which I hate even more because it's a little tube (I have mostly knitted sleeves back and forth and then sewn up the underarm seam afterwards in the past few years, and I am happy with that procedure, but I didn't want to try it with brioche because of the complications introduced by the double thickness of yarn). So what with having to knit twice as many rows, I was kind of trapped in an endless sleeve through the whole armpit between Christmas and New Year's. I initially bound off the body before doing the sleeves, according to pattern instructions, and for no earthy good reason I actually used the Italian or sewn bind-off as recommended by the pattern when usually I never bother with that; and then after I made the sleeves I was like, why did I do that? I want this sweater to be longer than usual, if anything, and I spent basically an entire day unsewing that bindoff with a crochet hook and frogging the bottom ribbing back so I could make it longer. But I am almost actually done now.

By "it" I of course mean the cursed purple yarn that I have just finished making into its fourth and final form.

My cursed sweater post from November 2022 covers all the mishaps in the first and second sweater incarnations of this yarn. After all of that, this second incarnation got frogged because the toggle closures, while cute, left it with gaps because the button bands weren't deep enough, and it got tight over the hips due to not enough increases but I didn't have enough yarn to redo it and add room there, plus I had already run out of pockets, plus I really WANTED it to have a hood.

The third incarnation was an attempt at a saddle-shoulder pullover and I just quit because I wasn't feeling it. I don't think it would have been a good color for the pattern I picked, anyway. About 10% of a sweater was sitting in a Ziploc bag since spring of 2023 along with all the remaining balls of it.

I weighed the remaining yarn to estimate the yardage and realized that there was no longer enough of it to make a sweater with sleeves, so I picked a sweater vest pattern I liked. It had bobbles and I was excited for the result.

Unfortunately I didn't notice until I had finished weaving in all the ends this evening that I forgot one entire horizontal repeat of the lace pattern on the back of the vest, making the back narrower than the front so that the sleeve holes pulled in awkwardly, like a racerback. The vest isn't too small, but it looks too stupid to wear. And since it's a horizontal repeat, I'd have to start over from scratch - there's no way to fix it.

I staggered into the livingroom with my discovery, dazed, to tell waxjism.

"Well, now we have to burn it," she said. "It's definitely cursed."

"But curses aren't real," I said. "It can't actually be cursed! How does this keep happening?"

My sister summed it up, "On the one hand I don't believe in curses but on the other hand it's clearly cursed."

Wax admitted that curses are not real, but pointed out that the pattern is incontrovertible evidence. Even if the curse is actually a psychological effect on me, it's clearly not safe for me to try to knit anything else with it. "Get some different purple yarn to make the purple hoodie that you want," she said.

I ordered some yarn for a holiday sweater today and also some replacement fingering wool to finish a second Fair Isle vest after that, but I was so excited about knitting yesterday and the day before that I kept putting off ordering the yarn, so I don't have it yet. I have had vague thoughts of gathering up leftover scraps to make a stashbuster random-striped zigzag sweater (a vague Missoni copycat), but I'm not sure it would be safe to use the remainder of this cursed yarn in it, even though it's the right gauge.

We will not actually be burning it because wool has a natural resistance to burning. It would be difficult to to do. I suppose I'll actually put it in the trash (where it would be burned to produce electricity). Or maybe use it as a cat bed or something.

You know, other people are like "Oh, autumn, time for ghosts and blah blah spooky and orange and red leaves and pumpkin spice", but for knitters it's the season for emotionally craving a whole bunch of sweaters and every day or so getting a brand new idea for a sweater you need.

My new cowl/turtleneck sweater with pockets is blocking and then I can weave in the ends and I'm a third of the way into a purple waistcoat with bobbles. In the past few weeks I've decided all these contradictory plans for my next sweater:

• a 2nd fair isle waistcoat with the pattern I bought last spring (Starnkeeker by Kate Davies)


• the pullover hoodie my sister made for her visit here (Traveler hoodie by Andrea Mowry) in peach like my favorite cotton hoodie


• the gray zipper jacket I've been meaning to make for years (Monte Rosa by Isabell Kraemer, with modifications)


• a pullover with Sandnes Garn Peer Gynt in that lovely cream and natural tweed, 2523


• I should finally make a sweater in Drops Air (but what?)