Parrot House

Those Lazy Days of Summer ... and Fall ... and Winter ... and Spring ...

I remember going to Girl Scout camp in the summer when I was in grade school and junior high. It was like being in another world for two weeks, with different food, different rules, life mostly out-of-doors, sleeping in cabins or under the stars, mosquito bites and dirty hair and cold showers once a week. New tribes of friends formed. We had girl-crushes on counselors.

I was allowed to take the family's Kodak Instamatic camera to camp. It was newfangled; the flash was built right in and you didn't have to carry flashbulbs (those somewhat-scary bulbs you plugged in with a cuplike reflector behind, and when the bulb went off -- which it didn't always, some of them being "duds" -- there was a loud "pop!" and you stood blinking with bright blue spots before your eyes.

Then there was the wait while you sent your film off to Brown Photo in a special envelope. A week or two later, your black-and-white pictures would arrive (color wasn't widely available yet, and was expensive) along with the negatives. You'd open the packet with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Would they be good? Or would you have 12 or 24 or 36 pictures of your thumb or the inside of your duffel bag?

Now, of course, we have instant access to photos. Digital cameras let us see our shots immediately, and we can print them at home. So there should be no reason why photos are not readily available, right?

Ah, but you would be underestimating my laziness if you agreed with that. I would have been blogging so much more if only I could rouse myself from my stupor and open up the camera, pull out the memory card, put it in the card reader, plug the card reader into my computer, and upload the photos.

The moon must be in a beneficial phase, because I took these pictures (above) and then proceeded straight to the computer and did the do.

The project is called Parrot House, and it's from Lavish Lace by Carol Rasmussen Noble and Cheryl Potter ... sort of. There is what I believe to be an error in the pattern, and there's a bit I didn't like, so I changed it a little. But it's essentially the same big scarf / wrap. I'm doing it in Araucania Nature Wool Chunky, which I love. It's springy and meaty and easy to knit with. I'm enjoying knitting the project immensely, now that I've got past the difficulties in the pattern. The pattern is fairly easy to memorize, too, so it's good TV knitting.

Overall, I'm not pleased with the book Lavish Lace. The first project I knit from the book, Frost Flowers, had multiple pattern errors. I had to write to Martingale Press twice to report all the errors I found. Now, as I said, in Parrot House, there was also an error. Though I've gone back to the Martingale website multiple times, there are no more errata posted. It makes me reluctant to knit any more designs from this book without demanding a proofreader's fee.

Also, because the projects are lace done in variegated yarns, they seem to work best not only in the specific yarn and colorway photographed, but in some cases, in a particular Potluck dye lot which can never be found again. (The authors are the creative team behind Cherry Tree Hill yarns, and the projects are designed in these yarns.) It's very difficult to find the exact yarn that will work for a given project. There is much discussion in the book about how the yarns and colorways were chosen for the designs, but it only serves to convince me that it's best to stick to those exact yarns / colors.

I nearly drove myself to the Nut House (not the Parrot House) finding yarn that would work for this project. The scarf in the book was done in a Potluck (i.e. one-of-a-kind) Worsted Six-Pack. Every Worsted Six-Pack I considered would have been too busy for this cabled lace pattern. (In fact, I'm not sure I even like the one they chose for the book). The Araucania Nature Wool Chunky is working well, but not until I scoured my LYS and the Internet to get enough hanks in the correct color, which, of course, seems now to have been discontinued or at any rate seems to be unavailable.

That is my rant for today. Now I'm going to sink back into my couch like the true Potato that I am and knit. (Ahhhh ...)

Ahhh ...vacation ...

I spent the past week at Arrowwood Resort in Alexandria, MN sitting by the pool, looking at Lake Darling, swimming, reading, knitting, playing with my favorite 6-year-old, and eating about six meals a day. The onion rings at the cafe at the resort are excellent, and I ate a lot of them. The extra weight will help with flotation, I'm sure.

My mango Crocs enjoyed paddling in the foam at the edge of Lake Darling.

That squished blue ball of yarn you see under my arm in the photo above is going to be a sample baby sweater for my Lola Baby Bolero class (see the Classes tab at www.borealisyarn.com). This blue one will be an adapted, more "boy-looking"version with a straight bottom front instead of the curved fronts for the more girly version. The red one in the store is the original version with the curved fronts. The adaptation will be only available in my class as an addendum to the original pattern; you can't knit the whole sweater from the addendum.

I brought Shadow Shawl #3 with me to the lake, but as it needs some ripping and re-knitting, I didn't work on it. Not the most relaxing thing to bring on vacation, in retrospect.

I went to the State Fair yesterday and looked at all the knitwear in the Creative Activities building. Congrats to Katie and Jean and Paul for their awards. (Jean: you was robbed on the yellow/green/etc. shawl).

I've now eaten my annual quota of cheese curds, footlong hot dogs (OK, my sister and I shared one, so I guess I only had 6 inches), Pronto Pups, and other good-and-good-for-you foods. Some random Fair hints:

1. Go to Dino's Gyros if you want to sit down to eat. Yesterday there were about 75 people waiting to get into the Whatsis Dining Hall, but Dino's was mostly empty. And their gyros are really good.

2. Warning: the big hunk of bacon on a stick thing that's been hyped this year is maple bacon. Ewwwww .... at least to my taste. I'm a traditionalist when it comes to bacon and the sweet stuff should stay on its own stick.

3. Both the DFL booth and the Obama booth were rather disappointing; we were looking for bumper stickers or car magnets but all the Obama booth had were t-shirts, cardboard rally signs, and buttons. The DFL booth had even less Obama stuff. I'd say they really missed an opportunity. If you're tired, hot, grumpy with humanity, and at the end of your Fair visit, don't walk for blocks to visit the Obama booth, as we did. It's out of the way, hard to find, and about the size of a lemonade stand.

4. OK, cows give milk, but why is the Moo Booth situated in the stink zone of the Dairy Barn? Just as I don't like sweet stuff on my bacon, I don't really like to smell manure while I'm eating ice cream.

5. Park and Ride. We do it every year and it's awesome. The lot across the street from the 4th St. Ramp at the U of M (near 4th St. and 17th Ave.) is free and the bus ride takes under 10 min. There's no waiting for a bus, usually.

6. There's a horrible, loud, Hammond Organ machine in the Creative Activities Building this year. However, it only runs for about 5 minutes every hour. (Otherwise, I would have had to run out screaming in front of a Clydesdale.)

Maybe now that it is starting to feel a little more like fall I'll be knitting more ... ?

Fall classes

My fall classes will be posted on www.borealisyarn.com by August 25.

My planned classes are:

How to read a pattern (1 session)

How to fix mistakes (1 session)

Lola Baby Bolero (2 sessions)

Two toe-up socks at a time on the Magic Loop (3 sessions)

I don't have dates yet; check on the Borealis website or at the store.

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My favorite recent quote from my favorite soon-to-be-six-year-old:

We were driving past a gas station at which the workers were changing the price sign. I thought she might enjoy looking at the workers manipulating the magnetic numbers with their long pole, so I pointed this out to her. Her reply: "Don't you worry. Al Franken is going to take care of all of that for us."

Blahhhg

What can I say? I am, and have been, mostly uninspired all summer. I have finished a few unremarkable projects. Unremarkable, although I will just remark that one was another "One-Skein Nancy Shawl" in the Frida Kahlo colorway, and the other was the KPS "Easy Lace Poncho" (feather-and-fan lace done in the round on big needles) which is hanging up in the store. Both will be very nice to wear, but neither was particularly pulse-pounding to work on.

Well, the poncho may or may not be wearable once it's finished its stint as a store model, only because a lace poncho done in DK weight yarn on size 15 needles was not meant to be displayed on a hanger. Let's just say it will be the first ankle-length, formal poncho I've ever seen.

I'm putting together my class schedule for the fall, which should be available at the store and on the Borealisyarn.com website in a couple weeks. I'm thinking these classes may fill quickly, as we'll be getting a lot of extra attention to our store and website because of the temporary satellite store we'll be sharing in downtown St. Paul with a bunch of other yarn stores. (See Borealisyarn.com for more details.) It's at 4th and Cedar, and will be there for a few weeks, to coincide with the RNC.

If you're of the Democratic persuasion, you can always wear a pinch-on foil hat downtown to block the Republican rays.

If you have some time for reading this summer, read "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle", an amazing novel that I got lost in for days. (You can find reviews online that are better and more complete than what I could write).

I'm just finishing "My Sister, My Love" by Joyce Carol Oates, a darkly satirical (and disturbing, though riveting) novel that's about a family, and a murder case, that is much like the JonBenet Ramsey case. Though I didn't get sucked into too much of the JonBenet crap that was purveyed in the mass media, and therefore didn't read it in the hopes of finding out more about that case, it does raise some very disturbing questions about modern American culture. The only problem is that I may have to take about a week-long bath after I'm finished reading it.

In between these two books, I read Paula Deen's memoir "It Ain't all About the Cookin'" and Sandra Lee's memoir. I don't especially like either of these women's TV persona, nor do I like their cooking shows or recipes, but I often like to read cheesy As-Told-To memoirs. It's sort of like literary slumming. After reading the books, I have a lot of respect for both of these women, and the strength they had to overcome bad situations and succeed on their own terms. I still don't like their shows, but I don't think I'll make fun of them anymore.

The clock is now ticking down to State Fair (Fate Stair) time. (No, I haven't ever submitted anything to the Fair, and have no current intentions to. Why? I just can't be bothered.) And my sister B. and I are beginning to salivate for ... PRONTAGE! Yes, we are devotees of the Pronto Pup and stolid (and solid) opponents of the disgusting corndog. Why, Pronto Pups are Tempura Tube Steaks while corndogs are only coated weenies. And plus (also), corndogs are gross and just wrong and Pronto Pups are perfecta-mundo, especially with lots of mustard.

See you at the Seed Art display!

Logy mode

Not a lot of knitting is getting done here in tropical Columbia Heights. With the temperature and dewpoint up, my personal setting is set to 'logy' and the speed to 'slow'. I've been trying to find things to do that can be undertaken in my earth-sheltered (aka basement) digs without moving around much.

I did start that Norwegian mitten. I got about 1/2" into the thumb gusset before the heat took over. Somehow, it's not appealing to knit a winter item with a sturdy wool in 90 degree heat. Go figure.

In the meantime, I'm plodding away on the red cotton hoodie. It doesn't look photogenic at the moment, as it's all bunched up on a circular needle. So, hey, what a good excuse to not take a picture.

I survived the Jamboree and carnival rides without puking, although it was close. I braved one of those rides that goes in a big circle, while meanwhile your individual car whirls around. Then, as if that weren't diabolical enough, every once in a while, the arm that your car is on dips disastrously so that your stomach and other major organs are launched up against your uvula (look it up).

The whole fam damily went on a Happy Family Outing at the MN Zoo on the Fourth. Favorite Child was excited about seeing the big cats. Since the zoo exhibits are set up to be as much like the animals' natural habitats as possible, it's often hard to see the animals, or if you do, you see at most a leg protruding from a hiding spot or a hint of stripes amongst the leaves. So, after much walking, we took the monorail ride, from which it was also not possible to see a lot of animals, although from a different angle. Finally, a magnificent tiger came into view. "Look! Look!" we said to the child. "It's the tiger! The tiger!" However, at that moment, F.C. was absorbed in studying a bug on the outside of the glass of the opposite window, and could not be enticed, or even physically forced, to look away from it. I guess her parents should start saving for entomologist school.

Ennui

OK, I'm trying a new tactic.

I have been blogging only sporadically because I feel I owe it to you, dear reader, to see a picture of something every time I post. And then I get caught up in other priorities and don't do anything.

So, screw that.

Hello to shorter and more regular (I hope) posts, I hope, and (regrettably) fewer pictures.

The warmer weather overwhelms me with ennui. Ever since I can remember I feel "hot and itchy" and uncomfortable all summer -- just ask my mother, who had to put up with my incessant whining when I was a child. In Minnesotan, this is called "feeling logy". I've been extremely logy these past couple weeks, slumping around the house or slouching on a chair like a beached whale. Bleah.

This weekend is Columbia Heights' annual Jamboree. The parade was last night. There were Shriners in little boat-cars, unicyclists, clowns, high school marching bands, politicians, a bagpipe band, and lots of middle-aged guys driving by in cars with ambiguous hand-lettered signs so that one wondered: Yes, but who exactly is Joe Schmo, why is he riding past waving, and why am I supposed to care?

Lots of the organizations represented threw cheap candy, and I got beaned really hard by a Starlite Mint.

This afternoon I'm taking Favorite Child to the carnival where we can get pukey on all sorts of rinky-dink rides before the fireworks tonight, if the rain holds off.

I hope to start an adult-sized Norwegian mitten this morning before all the hilarity begins. I took Arnhild Hillesland's Norwegian mitten class last weekend at Borealis Yarns. The class was thorough, informative, exhausting, and Arnhild is a great teacher and lovely person. My class mitten was a bit of a mess, but I feel confident that the "real" mitten will be fine. I might even get around to posting a picture if I finish it and it looks OK!

Forgotten but not gone

Ever had one of those days when it was all you could do just to cope with daily life, much less do any of the things you should have been doing or wanted to do? Well, I've been having one of those days every day since my last post.

No, there's been no tornado, cancer, screaming meemies, or crisis of any kind. Just, you know: life.

I have been spending a lot of time with Favorite Child, now that she's graduated kindergarten. Today's activity was making a worm hotel. If you would like to make one of these with your own favortive child, here's the recipe:

YOU WILL NEED:

Clear cylindrical-shaped plastic container with a large mouth. One gallon is a good size.

Fresh soil from your garden, dry or slightly moist but not wet or muddy.

Sand.

A couple handfuls of grass and 3-4 fresh leaves of any type.

Up to 10 earthworms.

MAKING THE HOTEL:

Put a 1" layer of sand in the bottom of the container.

Put a 2" layer of soil over this.

Alternate layers of sand and soil until the container is nearly full, ending with a layer of soil.

Put the leaves and grass on top.

Spray LIGHTLY with water to just moisten the top layer of soil.

Add worms.

Cover with a layer of plastic film and secure this with a rubber band. PUNCTURE HOLES so your guests can breathe.

Find something that will surround the hotel and keep it dark while still leaving the top open to the air. You can open up the top and bottom of a cardboard box and slip it down over the jar like a sleeve. Or you can build a surround with black poster board.

Place the hotel in the basement or other cool, dark place. (Ours is in an unused dog kennel in the basement within its surround).

Within a day or two you should be able to look along the sides of your hotel and see the guests making tunnels and doing other wormy things.

Refresh the salad for the worms each evening and spritz with water at the same time. Try to limit the amount of time you expose the guests to the light. They don't like it! And is that any way to treat a guest?

HINT FOR FINDING WORMS: Early in the day, before it gets hot, run your garden hose on one spot in the lawn next to a sidewalk until the ground is saturated. At a certain point, the worms will come to the surface to get away from the water. Get a good grip on 'em ... they are wily, slippery little guys.

KNITTING? OH, YEAH. THAT.

I suppose I've been knitting a few things, though I haven't acheived finish-age on many since the silent auction extravaganza. I have put the striped Simply Shetland wrap aside for the moment, as we have no A/C and it's been warmish this week.

I started the Harebell Lace Fichu from Victorian Lace Today, and found it extremely challenging. (When they say "Experienced" they mean it). That is on hold until the mood takes me again, or until I turn brilliant overnight. My friend Karen finished hers in a few weeks and was wearing it already, Ms. Smarty-Pants.

I mostly finished a sort-of pair of Mermaid Socks (or at least my take on them) from Cool Socks Warm Feet by Lucy Neatby. See the picture above when it's posted. In so doing, I re-injured my sock-knitting overuse injury, which results in a very sore and bunched-up trapezius muscle. So I have been taking it pretty easy for a few weeks trying to let that calm down.

However, I did start a KPS neck-down cardigan. I'm going to put a hood and pockets on it, and put a zipper in. I'm doing it in cranberry Fantasy Naturale. Sort of a classic Red Hooded Sweatshirt deal.

AND ... I actually have a day off at Borealis that coincides with a class that's being taught by Arnhild Hillesland. I'll be learning about Norwegian Mittens. I've done these before, but because I'm self-taught, I look forward to doing them the "real" way.

Happy Summer Solstice!