Smoke on the Water

In December 1971, the rock band Deep Purple set about trying to record an album in Geneva, Switzerland.  But before they were able to get started, disaster struck.  Disaster in the form of a flare gun and a Frank Zappa concert. 

In August 2010, the TSMK family set about trying to enjoy a vacation.  But before we were even able to get started.  Disaster struck.  Fires erupted throughout the region - with one burning just 5 miles from our cabin. 

Coincidence?  Hard to say - although I'm confident that Zappa was nowhere nearby.

Ok.  Perhaps disaster is overstating it a bit.  Perhaps inconvenience is more apt.  Nevertheless, there was indeed smoke on the water.  

 

But no matter.  For we were not trying to record Machine Head.  We were simply looking to relax.  Spend some time together and with family.  And perhaps make a few new friends.  Friends like this guy. 

In all, our trip was wonderful.  I spent much of it playing with the boys, fondling Molly and playing with fiber.  In terms of the fiber, there was much knitting to do, and a fair amount of picking wool out on a back deck overlooking a creek. 

But the high point of my daily fiber intake happened on our last full day - when I got a chance to try out my father's Majacraft Rose spinning wheel.  I carded some of the wool I'd brought along on the trip - made five rolags, and set to work.

I'd never used a double-treadle wheel before - and was astonished at the difference it seemed to make in my spinning.  There was just a lot more control, and I was able to draft down to a cobweb weight yarn with relative ease.  Too cool.  Of course, I now have a bit of a case of wheel lust - but that should pass in a week or two of working on my Ashford single-treadle Traveller.  Right?  Right?

In terms of knitting - well I made a lot of progress on a certain stole that will be featured prominently in a few future posts.  And I made a hat.

Specifically, I made a hat during the trip out to Idaho.  Mrs. TSMK was kind enough to drive, which allowed me time to concentrate on making a hat for my youngest nephew: GE.  There's nothing fancy here, but I rather like the result.  And, as it is made of machine washable yarn - perfect for a little guy.  I call it GE's 300-Mile Hat.

The construction is very simple - and you can probably figure it out just from looking at the product.  But here it is anyway in case it is helpful.

1. Cast on 112 stitches of main color yarn (MC) using a knitted cast on and dpns.  Join (being careful not to twist).
2. Knit one row in stockinette stitch (SS).
3. Join contrasting color yarn (CC) and work in K1 (MC) P1 (CC) rib for two rows.
4. Work SS in MC for 3 rows.
5. Work in CC for 3 rows.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for desired length before decreases - ending with 3 rows of MC.
7. Using CC, [K5, K2tog] to end of row.  96 stitches remain.  Knit 2 more rows of CC in SS.
8. Repeat step 4.
9. Using CC, [K4, K2tog] to end of row.  80 stitches remain.  Knit 2 more rows of CC in SS.
10. Repeat step 4.
11. Using CC, [K3, K2tog] to end of row.  64 stitches remain.  Knit 2 more rows of CC in SS.
12. Repeat step 4.
13. Using CC, [K2, K2tog] to end of row.  48 stitches remain.  Knit 2 more rows of CC in SS.
14. Repeat step 4.
15. Using CC, [K1, K2tog] to end of row.  32 stitches remain.  Knit 2 more rows of CC in SS.
16. Repeat step 4.
17. Using CC, [K2tog] to end of row.  16 stitches remain.  Knit 2 more rows of CC in SS.
18. Repeat step 4.
19. Using CC, [K2tog] to end of row.  8 stitches remain.  Knit 2 more rows of CC in SS.
20. Repeat step 4.
21. Using CC, [K2tog] to end of row.  4 stitches remain.  Knit 2 more rows of CC in SS.
22. Cut yarn (MC and CC), draw through live stitches and pull tight.
23. Weave in ends.
24. Give to Child.

I'd like to tell you the gauge that I used, but I didn't try for any specific gauge.  Instead, I just tried to make a hat that I thought would fit GE in a few months, when he's 6-7 months old and the weather turns cold.  So I wanted something with a circumference of about 17.5 inches and a fairly dense knit.  I achieved that using Berroco Comfort DK and U.S. size 4 double-points.  If you decide to make something similar - take the time to futz about and do a swatch or two.  Your gauge could be (and probably is) different than mine.

~TSMK

Go East Young Man

Here in our strange little corner of the world, summer is already beginning to slip into fall.  I know this because the hipsters riding their fixed gear bicycles along first avenue are starting to sport the occasional jaunty scarf.

And like most mammals I am not immune to these cycles of nature.  Just this afternoon, while enjoying my ridiculously overpriced cup of french press coffee and pondering the existential predicament that is the life of a man who is a corporate finance lawyer and yet has several albums by Rage Against the Machine on his iPod, I found my thoughts drifting toward wool.  Specifically, I found myself wishing I had more time to spin it into yarn, and more time to make things from it.



Clearly, a vacation was in order.  Luckily, the entire TSMK family has had one planned for some time. 

And so, after putting the children to bed this evening, Mrs. TSMK and I set about packing for an excursion.  Well, actually we set about trying to decipher a passage of the owner's manual of Mrs. TSMK's car as it described the "simple" method of removing a middle-row seat.  But, once feeling quite accomplished at the fact that two people with 6 years of post-graduate education between them were able to remove a single seat in a half-hour, we set about packing.

We're heading out tomorrow for a week in the mountains in Idaho, and I couldn't be more excited.  In addition to visiting family, I'm bringing along an entire bag of fleece, along with my hand carders and a drop spindle.  And of course quite a bit of knitting.

But my attention will not be solely focused on fiber, however.  Mrs. TSMK has kindly allowed me permission to bring along my girlfriend on this excursion.  Yes.  You heard me right.  I'm going on vacation with Mrs. TSMK and my girlfriend, Molly. 

[Note: Molly is pictured at right - a Gold Tone White Ladye banjo.  I highly recommend that you avoid suggesting a vacation with your spouse and your significant other unless your significant other is similarly described.]

What's more, we're bringing all of our children.  Even the furry ones.

And so, I say farewell for a week.

But before I go, let me offer a few gratuitous pictures of yarn.  Specifically, this is yarn that found its way to the post office today - being shipped off to my Red-headed Minion.  She indicated she'd like some handspun.  So I'm sending her a skein of my most recently spun stuff.  But just in case she also wants to receive some decent stuff, I'm sending her a skein of handspun 50/50 cashmere and silk that I found at a local guild sale last year, along with two skeins of one of my favorite commercial yarns - GGH Kid Melange.    Hopefully, she'll make something awesome with one or more of these, and then share the photos so that we can all appreciate her work.

~TSMK

A Five Dollar Box of Guilt

This past weekend, several of our neighbors had a garage sale. It was one of those multi-family, take over the cul-de-sac kind of events – complete with a lemonade stand. Our own children chose a bake sale, and cleverly convinced Mrs. TSMK to purchase their raw materials and make their inventory. This is a fantastic business model, as it effectively reduces their cost of goods sold to $0.

I did not participate in the garage sale, although I did chaperone the bake sale for a period of time. I brought out a camping chair, and sat behind the young entrepreneurs offering reminders of how to make change. And picking wool. A lot of wool in fact. I’m about one bag through my original three bags full, and am starting to get the hang of it. Of course, I’ve since become some sort of a magnet for free fleece, so I have a long way to go before I’ll catch up with my inventory.

Like many (I hope), I occasionally find myself overwhelmed with the things I want to do, the things I need to do and the things I feel like I should do. Turning the fleece into usable yarn falls somewhere within intersection of things I want to do and things I feel like I should do. It isn’t exactly a need, but there is nevertheless a psychic cost to allowing the fleece to sit unattended. It is, in essence, a large, somewhat scratch and sheep-smelling albatross around my neck. And so, it feels good to be making headway on the fleece. More on that in posts ahead.

Anyway, I bring up the garage sale because while sitting there, minding my own business, picking my wool and fielding the occasional question from curious onlookers, one of my neighbors (“Fred”) approached me with a box. A reasonably large box, it was stuffed to the brim with yarn. Some of the yarn was crocheted into the start of something. Some of the yarn was still in skeins.

Fred offered up the box, complete with all contents, for $5. After a raised an eyebrow, he started to explain. When he and his wife (“Wilma”) were dating, she had begun to make him a blanket. As they dated, she worked on it from time to time. But ultimately, when they married, Wilma lost interest. Laughing, he suggested that perhaps she’d figured she didn’t need to finish the blanket because she’d already achieved her objective in making it – convincing him to stick around.

But Fred and Wilma had married about ten years ago. And ever since then, Wilma had been moving the box around from house to house, closet to closet, and feeling vaguely guilty about not finishing the project that whole time. Now, finally, it was time to let go of the project.

I bought the box, of course.  At 197 yards per skein, thirteen skeins in the box and a total purchase price of $5, this works out to roughly 5 yards per cent.  I'm too cheap to pass up that good of a deal.  But after buying it, I started thinking about the story told me, and of Wilma's decision to let go of the project.  This is a huge deal.

I know because I recently released an albatross of my own. She was a 1976 Alfa Romeo Spider that I’d had since college. Her name was Cecilia. Mrs. TSMK and I drove her all over the place for years, even left our wedding reception in her. She was fun, and fickle, and perhaps the most absurdly impractical car you could own. Back home in Florida, she made some sense. Here in the Pacific Northwest, however, she leaked like a sieve any time it rained (which is of course about 270 days a year). And she didn’t like to start. And she didn’t have a back seat.

I loved her. And I carried her with me from Florida to Washington, D.C., and then to our current home. Over the better part of two decades I held on to that gorgeous piece of steadily rusting sexiness.

But when she ran she didn’t run well. And often she didn’t run at all. So just a few weeks ago I said goodbye to Cecilia and sold her to a fellow from Portland who has the time and energy and disposable cash to make her lovely again. I miss her tremendously. But if I’m honest I also feel an immense sense of relief. I’ve removed one item from my list of things that I feel like I should do – restoring Cecilia. There are plenty of items remaining in that list, but again – it feels good to make headway.

~TSMK

On the Nature of Aging

This morning, I awoke to find that my ankle was sore. Not too uncomfortable, just a bit of a twinge. And, like many things, this caused me to begin thinking. Oh, I try to avoid it whenever possible – but more often than not I will end up thinking anyway – if only to think about how I shouldn’t be thinking quite so much.

This morning, my thoughts centered around aging. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but in that kind of inexorable march kind of way. Time is something you simply can’t stop, and no matter how many times you watch Through the Wormhole: with Morgan Freeman, you’re always going to end up in the same place.  The best you can hope for is to simply slow down your perception of time. Like by moving to Hell, drifting into a coma or perhaps wandering across the event horizon of a black hole.

But back to my ankle. It was sore because I’ve been trying to disprove an adage. Something about geriatric canines and novel tomfoolery. You see, around four years ago, I received an extraordinary birthday present: my first skateboard. Actually, it wasn’t just any skateboard. It was a super-mega-cool tricked out Arbor Pin longboard. It has a Koa veneer deck, ABEC 3 bearings, crazy grippy wheels and is 46” long. It is, in essence, the skateboard equivalent of Christina Hendricks. Beautiful, with curves in all the right places, and yet inexplicably enjoyable to be around (or so it seems – I’ve never actually had the opportunity to meet Ms. Hendricks).

I didn’t really ride Ms. Hendricks much after receiving her. She was fun, but I didn’t have much in the way of company when I rode her. And if I’m going to fall off something, I like knowing that there’s someone around to run for help. So she sat in the corner.

And then something remarkable happened. My oldest son grew. And grew. And grew some more. In fact, he’s still growing. And while this was happening, my middle guy grew as well. And now I have two sons who think that skateboarding is cool and they want to do it with me. And one who doesn’t quite yet know what to think of a skateboard, but who seems to enjoy the ride.

So now I’m back to learning to ride Ms. Hendricks. And it is making my ankle hurt. So you see an old dog can learn a new trick – it just might require ibuprofen.

The skateboarding isn’t the only new trick in my repertoire, however. I’m pleased to say that I’ve been spinning, and it is getting easier. I finished my first spool of hand-sheared, hand-washed, hand-carded, hand-spun woolen yarn last week. It is usable, but there is clearly room for improvement. I finished the second spool last night, and will set the twist tonight. It is more even than the first spool – so hopefully I’m getting better. Now if I could just find a way to do a G-turn on Ms. Hendricks. . .

~TSMK

On the Nature of Desire

Since man first stumbled out of caves and looked up at the night sky, he has spent much of his time in quiet contemplation, and occasionally in quite noisy contemplation, of certain irrefutable facts.

First, that there are certain things that a man wants to possess in abundance. Like comfortable briefs, natural yarn, excellent hats and odd musical instruments, one seems to never have quite enough of things in this category.

Second, that there are some things which although man thinks he might like to possess them in abundance, you really shouldn’t enjoy more than one at a time. Girlfriends and wives fall into this category, as do cigars and Cadbury Kreme-Eggs. You enjoy more than one of any of these in a single sitting, and you’re asking for trouble.

Third, that there are some things which although man thinks he might like to possess them, he should actually stay as far away as possible. Consider, for example, the image of Angelina Jolie, clad in a leather bikini and riding a fine Italian motorcycle with a knife strapped to her bare calf and a machine gun across her back. Now at first thought, this seems intriguing. She is, after all, stunningly beautiful. And provocatively dressed. And riding an object of lust in its own right. But is there any doubt that Ms. Jolie – clad in that fashion and armed to the teeth – is probably only moments away from unleashing some form of mayhem? If you had the opportunity to know her on that afternoon, is there any doubt that you would end up dead or horribly maimed? And is it really worth it? Well?  Ok, maybe that was a bad example.

Fourth, that there are some things that man simply shouldn’t possess or allow to exist. For example, at a local fairgrounds, they’re now serving deep-fried butter. Seriously. Think about that for a moment. Deep. Fried. Butter. Is there any doubt that this is a bad idea?

Most things are relatively easily placed within one of these four categories. Occasionally, you find something that overlaps two or more categories. Thankfully, one man crawled out of his cave in the late 1800s and came up with a way for the rest of us to keep track.

Recently, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this Venn Diagram of Desirability (“VDD”). Even with this helpful device, it is hard to keep track of exactly what goes where.

Suppose, for example, you had a bunch of wool in your house. Waiting to be spun into yarn. And you didn’t really know how to spin yarn that was worth a damn. And further suppose that you learned of another cache of wool. Partly cleaned. Partly in need of cleaning. All about to be thrown out. Where, exactly, would that fit on the VDD?

Without knowing precisely where to put it (and therefore whether to rescue the wool), I consulted the stars. Or, more properly, I consulted my guide in all such matters of conscience, His Holiness, the All-knowing Echidna Who Sits at the Center of the Universe. He has a name, but it was revealed to me in confidence and so I’m not at liberty to disclose.

In any event, His Holiness explained to me that free wool fits in the upper left quadrant of the VDD. And therefore I should claim it.

Now if His Holiness would only help me get better at spinning.



~TSMK

Three Bags Full

I read recently, that law enforcement agencies in several states were quite upset about the apparently overt use of Craigslist for all manner of debauchery - but specifically for the advertising and solicitation of prostitution.

Now personally, I've always liked Craigslist. Not specifically because of its 21st century approach to the world's oldest profession, but generally because it seems to be a very efficient market and a convenient forum for bringing local buyers and sellers into contact. It was through a Craigslist ad that I found two of my motorcycles. One I bought two summers ago, and then subsequently sold last summer to acquire another I'd found on Craigslist (although I've regretted that second transaction ever since). Also, the site provides an interesting and seemingly anonymous forum for people to speak their minds - occasionally with hysterical results. All in all, I've been a Craigslist fan. But now, I'm starting to think that the apoplectic attorneys general may actually have a point. This is a forum most foul.

Three days ago, I was scanning the free items that were posted in the local Craigslist site. About halfway down the first page, something caught my eye: fleece. Specifically, the raw fleece from eight sheep. According to the posting, the owner simply wanted to get rid of the stuff. This was quite a conundrum.

For several weeks, I'd been considering buying a spinning wheel from my friend S ("SoD") K. She'd bought it some years before, and had lost interest in spinning (although she still knits like a Scandihoovian fiend). The price was good, and I was sorely tempted. I'd even gone so far as to make inquiries of a few local farms as to whether they ever sold their fleece. So far, I'd struck out on those inquiries - but that was OK because it meant I had a good excuse not to get the wheel - thereby hurtling myself headlong into a another series of projects.

But now, with fleece seemingly throwing itself at me like I can only imagine is the case for the ladies (and gentlemen, no doubt) of the evening on a different portion of the site. . . well what was a fellow to do?

I responded to the post. All was not yet lost. "Maybe they'll already be taken."

They weren't already taken. The nice lady who answered my email told me that she'd received a number of inquiries, and was thinking of dividing it up among those who'd responded. She gave me her address, and I told her I'd swing by that evening.

So, the entire TSMK clan piled into the car that night, and made its way out to the farm - which was only about 10 miles from our house. When we arrived, there were piles of plastic bags - the kind you might use to line an enormous trash can - covering most of the front walk. Each bag was stuffed to the brim with fleece.

We chatted briefly, and she told me that there was only one other person who was coming, and that I should take half the bags. A quick scan told me that half the bags on the walk wouldn't all fit in the car. So, we opted for three. Three bags full.

One of the bags is filled with creamy white virgin lambswool. A second is filled with fleece that is almost entirely black. The last has variegated wool ranging from graphite in color to a dark brown. Even raw, greasy from lanolin, reeking of sheep and riddled with all manner of vegetable matter, dirt and unmentionable detritus, this is gorgeous stuff.

Maybe this is the right time to mention that I do not know anything about processing wool or spinning. I plan to pick up the wheel this weekend. In the meantime, I have begun processing the fleece. I picked as much of the plants (etc.) out of about 1/3 of one of the bags, and washed that portion. At the moment, it's drying on Mrs. TSMK's dining room table. She says it looks like the most impressive "Furminator" commercial you could imagine. (http://www.furminator.com/) In addition, I've picked up some hand carders and have begun practicing. The Youtube videos make it look very easy. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp_fIc5lCuk) They lie. It isn't easy. Still, I think it will come with practice.

Then, of course, there's the actual spinning. I've played a bit with a top whorl drop spindle, with mixed results. Youtube exhibitionists notwithstanding, I'm thinking about taking a lesson. Maybe I can find someone to teach me on Craigslist. . .

-TSMK