E is for...

Enabling!

This could also be E for enthusiasm, but enabling covers so much more! According to dictionary.com, to enable is to

1. to make able; give power, means, competence, or ability to; authorize: This document will enable him to pass through the enemy lines unmolested.
2. to make possible or easy: Aeronautics enables us to overcome great distances.
3. to make ready; equip (often used in combination): Web-enabled cell phones.

Think of this in the knitting context. Knitters (and crafters in general, I think) are big sharers of information, technique, ideas, opinion, what-have-you. Websites like Ravelry and Crafster thrive because of this! And how many people have you struck up a conversation with based on yarn colors, yarn choice, technique questions? These are perfect strangers in the aisle at a LYS or Micheal's or on a bus ride or waiting in line at the DMV or pharmacy, but a bit of KIP-ing and you are getting new knowledge or sharing your own quite readily. Probably also getting part of their life story, while you're at it :)

And then there is also the addiction-feeding sense of enabling too, isn't there? Are you really gonna turn down those skeins of gorgeous hand-dyed yarn when you have a friend oohing and aahing there with you? It becomes so much easier to justify that purchase and see that stash grow when you have someone looking at the yarn with the same mindset!

For me personally, this post falls at a particularly enabling time! I just got back from Stitches, so had a fellow fiber fanatic to browse with in Market, and tons of really experienced knitters to learn from both as instructors and fellow class mates. And yes, Sarah and I probably were bad influences on each other at Market :) That's her above with her new spinning wheel. I'm below there with two of my instructors, Melissa Leapman (L) and Edie Eckman (R). I had two classes from each and learned so much!

And then back home, we've gotten Mom knitting again! Mom used to knit a bit before we were born, but then Anne and I came along, and the knitting kinda fell by the wayside. In fact, one of the yarns in my stash (not yet inventoried on Ravelry, as I've no idea how to catalog it) is a kids sweater, partially completed, that she had been working on! Anyway, she's been hitting up the yarn shop where Anne works part-time when Anne comes into town to visit and on one trip was admiring a scarf one of the ladies had been working on. From what I gather, it's a simple sock yarn knit-in-the-round pattern for a scarf that lets you show off all those lovely sock yarns you have stored up. For Mom, it was a great project for her to (as she put it) "get back on the horse." So, that's the picture up there that she sent of her scarf. She's been trucking along on it, as has about 6 inches or so left. Yay for Mom! Yay for Anne and I being good influences! (We got her into caving the same way, come to think of it!)

Stitches!

Awesomeness!! Really, what more can I say?

Sarah and I had a blast all week. Lots of knitting and non-knitting related fun! Sarah was laughing all week at being starstruck by the knitting celebrities. Like designers we are fond of - I love both Melissa Leapman's cables books, for example, and was able to get her to sign both! (She's got 2 color reference books coming out this year, that I might have to take a look at too!) And from the tech-savvy knitting world, several podcasters were present, and Joan Schroeder who any KnitLister recognizes as a wealth of techincal information. With Sarah below is Dr Jenna, who hosts one of the podcasts that Sarah's a big fan of. So, yes, the knitting world does have celebrities too.

First priority, though - classes! I had some fun classes (playing with self-striping yarn), expanding my knowledge on my stronger points (cabling, etc), and then I had a few that just worried me heading into them! Like this one: I learned to crochet!! Had two classes on it, actually. That's me and Edie Eckman, my instructor with my first bit of crochet! The white is the crochet, if you can't tell. The class was Crochet for Knitters, so we focused on crochet as borders and edgings off of a knit sample. I'd never really had an instructor for crochet, and being a lefty, I'd had some difficulty translating instructions to my hands. Basically, if you took away one of my needles, I created a giant knot, and not an ordered crochet-type knot, but just a knot. But now, I actually have made crochet stitches! I still have a hard time getting it started, from chain stitch to a piece I can work with, but once it's big enough to hold, I do alright.

And steeking! That was my second intimidating subject. Just the thought of spending all that time and effort and money creating something so involved, and then cutting into it... Well, I successfully steeked my sample piece in class, so I do know that I can do it! However, I'm still nervous about it :) Our instructor said that she had a friend who would have a steeking party when she had a piece ready to cut. Basically, everyone gather, have a glass of wine, and offer moral support as she cut open her knitting! I think, if I can get into another class or two (maybe not at Stitches, but at a LYS, if we can get moved near one), I will feel ready for it, and I still feel like I'd like to do a practice piece in cheap yarn, but I do feel a bit less nervous! The pattern that I really wanted to learn to steek for is More Stripes from Knitty, but I really couldn't bring myself to try the pattern until I'd had someone explain carefully how to steek first. So, I think I'm getting more ready for it now - might see that vest in my projects sometime soon!

This class below is my self-striping yarns class, one of my non-intimidating fun classes. Sandi Rossman (far right) was the instructor. First time I learned to miter! The strip of squares below shows my first efforts, and gotta say, LOVE them now! They are so simple, and so impressive looking, especially in the striping yarns. And they have that lovely feel of completion. It's not 3 ft of stockinette in a sweater, but a 30 row section, and then oh, you're done again! You just do it over and over ;) Left that class with several projects added to my queue playing with miters, including a scarf (probably Lorna's Laces, lovely self-striping fun that it is) and the Sock Yarn Blanket of Craziness, as I think of it. Granted, the sock blankie will be several years down the road, so that I can have the space and enough sock yarn accumulated to do it, but it's certainly on my queue now :)

Brought home a lot too. And my lovely little car still had space! I love my Pitbull :) (yeah, that's the car's nickname - don't know if I've mentioned that). It was really nice wandering Market at Stitches, and seeing all the lovely yarns and toys. Got a chance to handle a lot of yarns, so that when I order online as we often do out here, I know what I'm getting. And Zach even let me off my yarn moratorium for the trip! Isn't he sweet? Even better, he was away from post when I got back from Stitches, so he didn't even see how much yarn I brought back! Bwa ha ha! One of the best moments of the whole trip was seeing the security guard at the post gate glance in the car's back seat as they always do, and seeing his eyebrows go way up as he was trying not to look so surprised at all the yarn behind us (the biggest bag of Sarah's haul was right behind the driver's seat, so he definitely had a lot to raise his eyebrows for!) Funniest part, although he saw the biggest bag from where he was standing, he didn't see all of it! Can you imagine his look if he DID see how much yarn these two girls were bringing back home? Made us chuckle :)

We hit up a LYS in Campbell too. As if we hadn't had enough yarn shopping, right? We kinda have LYS here, but "local" for the High Desert means an hour and a half away for one shop, and 2 hours to another. And both have very nice staff, absolutely lovely ladies, but the one 2 hours away is a bit small, and the one closer to us is just not organized the way our minds think. You know how that goes. We like it, but it's just not the type of place that's as, I dunno, inspiring, to our minds. So we were thrilled to find a good sized yarn store in Campbell that DID work the way our minds do - Green Planet Yarns. Definitely worth the stop, if you're in the area. They had a good section on non-wool fibers too (cotton, bamboo, silk, etc) including one I hadn't seen before, sugar cane! This stuff is so silky, so drapey! And it comes in some lovely pastel colorways (the one I picked up was roses and greys). I had an impulse buy right there :) First banana fiber yarn, now sugar cane! It's too hot for much wool here, so I'm definitely having much fun trying alternative yarns. I think milk fibers will be my next crazy yarn to try...

And we had lots of non-knitting related fun too! We were in a city again! We ate like pigs... I mean, kings! Really, breakfast and lunch were always very sensible, but dinner (if not provided by the conference) was on us, so we took full advantage of being in a city again. Sushi, Thai, good Italian... we were thrilled. That's what a vacation's for though, right? See and do things you can't do at home? It was funny though - the doorman as we were arriving was chatting and asked if we'd ever been to Santa Clara before. We said no, and he (as a local) said something along the lines of "It's not much." I guess from his point of view, it's more suburb-y than San Francisco, just to the north, but from where we were coming from, it was perfect! Restaurants, stores, greenery, weather...! What more could you ask for?

And the conference center and hotel in Santa Clara were right at an access point for a bike/running trail system. That was an unexpected bonus! I had several mornings outside running along the trail, which parallels a stream and joins into a city park. Running outside, with moisture in the air, and birds and squirrels and snails out and about... It was a lovely surprise! I thought I'd just be running on the treadmill in the hotel, but instead, trail!

And as a final silliness, penguins! There was a nail art person at Market too, among all the other stands. She's a swimmer, too! So we chatted and got our nails done. Sarah got some flowers and pictures of her two dogs, and I got two penguins :) The girl's sister loves penguins too, and hadn't heard of Tacky the Penguin yet, so I spread the word! The final touch? One of the girls on the team I coach saw my nails when we got back and said they were cute. And if an 11 year old girl approves, they must be cute, right? Oh, the shirt that they are posing with below was one of my Christmas presents from Zach. He does know his girl, doesn't he?

I'm particularly fond of muffins!

One of my favorite plays EVER. In this case, it's the 1952 film version. Here you go: The Importance of Being Earnest.

The story centers around two young men, John Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, as they each pose as a fictional man (Earnest) to escape social obligations and win the girl they love. Chock-full of social commentary of marriage and Victorian society, and filled to the brim with wonderful one-liners.

One of my favorite plays of all time, as I said. Oscar Wilde is a genius, and this is one of his best. The first time I saw it was at the Wells Theater in Norfolk, with the local stage company putting on a production. The family went and saw it, and then I went again to see it with my best friend, who STILL reminds me of Algernon, even after all these years (we've known each other since we were 14). Glib, sarcastic, wrapped up in himself but still somewhat concerned about others, always eating, and inordinately fond of muffins... yup, that's him.

Since we all know the source material is wonderful, any comments to be made really deal with the cast here, which was a total score!

I really like Michael Redgrave in the lead role. He was suitable stiff and pompous without being irritating. A genuine John Worthing. John is a harder role to play, now that I watch it again you're the straight man to so many good lines from Lady Bracknell or Algie, so it could be so easy to overdo it. The only downside would be his age (early 40s) but that is a minor objection. Joan Greenwood (who I had only seen as an old lady in Miss Marple's At Bertram's Hotel) is beautiful as Gwendolyn - arch, calculating and yet somehow innocent. I had seen her in Kind Hearts and Coronets as well, in a similar sort of role, and she plays they beautifully! I hadn't realized that Margaret Rutherford had played Miss Prism either! So perfect for that role.

Dame Edith Evans is absolutely splendid. There's a reason that she owned this part for so much of the 20th century. How many other people could put so much inflection into "A handbag?" I was very excited when I found a down-loadable version of the play on emusic.com in their books section. She, of course, was Lady Bracknell, and John Gielgud was John (Earnest) Worthing. Very exciting find indeed.

Thinking of casting, as I was looking up for the movie poster online for this post, I found pictures from a 1993 production of Earnest. Maggie Smith as Lady Bracknell and Richard E Grant as Algie. Not filmed, only the stage production, but Man, I would have loved to see that one!

Overall: 5 of 5. As much as I love Colin Firth and Judy Dench, this beats the newer version by far. Definitely one for the shelf. God bless you, Criterion Collection!

Stitches!!!

We're off today! Back in a week :)

D is for...

Dishcloths!

In 2008, I participated in the monthly dishcloth KAL. I ended up with a lot of dishcloths. :) I also found that I liked making them! This particular one was the last one of the year, and I actually made two of them, since I liked the pattern so much. The picture is simply because I like back-lit lace, where you can see the pattern.

Why I liked them? The dishcloths are good portable projects, you can use them to practice stitch patterns, and can be pretty instant gratification (even the bigger dishcloths, like I like). I haven't actively participated in the KAL last year or this, because the 20-something dishcloths I made in 2008 are still holding out for us. I do occasionally make one though, if there's a particularly pretty pattern or something I like. When this batch of dishcloths wears out, I'll do the KAL challenge again and make a whole new batch for our kitchen.

So, yes, D is for Dishcloths. Not exciting, very practical, like the dishcloth itself :p

Review: Avatar

What's this? Two new movies in a month?? Incredible things are happening! Namely, the post theater is getting movies I actually want to see on the big screen, and showing them at a time I can get there. That's pretty incredible, actually! This time it's Avatar, which we only saw last night, to that's why the review is Tuesday not Monday this week :)

Plot: One of these incredibly hyped movies of the past few months, so it'll be just a few sentences for those few who haven't kept up on recent releases. Jake Sully is a paraplegic former Marine who is transported to the far away planet of Pandora, inhabited by the Na'vi race (very tall blue humanoids). Pandora is a rich undeveloped world holding promising wealth in natural resources. Jake is filling in on a mission following the death of his brother, who was supposed to participate in research on Pandora as part of the Avatar program. The Avatars are Na'vi-human hybrids which link to a human driver, like a remote control, so that humans can move about the planet and interact with the native Na'vi. Jake gets pulled into conflicts arising from the differing goals of researcher Grace Augustine, corporate miner Parker Selfridge, and militant security head Quartich. And of course, falls in love with beautiful Neytiri, a Na'vi princess. Tested loyalties, life-changing decisions, and epic battles follow.

The acting was pretty decent. I like Sigourney Weaver. She plays a good strong, intelligent heroine, so it's always nice to see her on screen. And Sam Worthington is looking like a good lead actor in the making. Another reason I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and see the new Clash of the Titans, I suppose :)

The only real objection we (Zach and I) had in the casting was Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge, the bureaucrat in charge of all the human operations on Pandora. Not that he did a bad job - actually he plays the spineless, weak and rather oily characters pretty well - but he just looks too young for the character. He's about 36 himself, and has those big eyes and round cheeks so he looks even younger. To be in charge of such a big operation, all the mining and research and security and support personnel, he just needed to be a bit older. And there are plenty of oily, spineless, weak character actors in the 45-55 age range who would have suited the role a bit better. Not a major objection, but it really did strike both Zach and I each time his character came on screen, "Is this guy really old enough for this job?"

The story was completely unoriginal. As Anne put it, "It's Fern Gully with a budget." The human male, the female from the race in touch with Nature and who will take over as spiritual leader of the tribe, the evil human invaders bent on destruction of the trees that the female's race hold sacred. Even the male from the native race who is supposed to pair with the female and thus views the human as a rival but eventually comes to accept him. And the "twists" that come along are all tapped out fully. Like riding the red pterodactyl thing (whose Na'vi name I'm not even going to try to spell here!). Anyone who didn't see that coming is either under the age of 13 (and below the age rating for the movie anyway) or fully subscribes to the I-completely-turn-off-my-mind-to-watch-movies school of thought. And no, I'm not even going to put that way down below as a spoiler, it was that well foreshadowed! :)

There were several parts of the movie that were... well, irritating. The prayers and such for a creature killed in a hunt were focused on, but when hundreds of Na'vi die in the battles and such, it's all kind of glossed over. Seemed odd. And the anti-militaristic vibe was incredibly heavy-handed, almost comical at times how it was soooo over-the-top. I realize that Hollywood almost seems to be running out of villains sometimes, the way they focus on the military. Any soldier/Marine/futuristic military member is either the pure-hearted hero with the letter to send back to Ma and Pa on the farm during the last climactic battle, or a maniacal power-hungry nutcase bent on world destruction. But, as Zach and I were talking about after the movie, the strong military with imperialist policies (even if only commercial imperialism and not actual colonies) will always provide opportunities for villainy in stories. Goes back to ancient Greece, and will continue as long as there is any imbalance in power or situation. Human nature. It was very interesting watching the movie in an on-post theater, where there were a bunch of folk watching the film in uniform, and wondering what they were thinking of it.

But really, no one is watching this movie for plot. It's all about the visuals! That huge budget they were working with was certainly put to use. Pure eye candy! I loved the dusk scenes personally, all the dark blues and greens with the glowing bugs and plants there for contrast. Very pretty. And the detail is incredible. Like seeing pupils dilate when the Na'vi join with any of the animals, or when the human drivers are pulled out of their avatars back into the human bodies. It's a subtle detail that makes it seem much more realistic. This movie did right what frustrated me so in Beowulf - a good acting cast put to use even with the CGI animation. The Beowulf animation left the facial expressions less, well, expressive. These animated characters were much more detailed in that respect. And the detail in the surroundings as well, even down to leave blown up when the birds or planes or whatever land or take off. Very detailed. And the fact that it's a lush, beautiful world that they are designing doesn't hurt :)

Funny thing about the visuals, too - better fight choreography than in the average live-action movie nowadays! The creators were obviously so proud of their work that they didn't do all of the cut-scene fight filming the way so many live action movies are done nowadays (Bourne 2 and 3, anyone?). I did get a little tired of the stag leaps that the Na'vi kept doing, but other than that it was really nice to was clearer animated fights in this movie than in many live-action movies that have come out recently. :)

Overall: 4 of 5. Unoriginal story and heavy-handed message wrapped in visually stunning and technically marvelous package. Overall, fun but don't expect too much thought or surprise - just let your eyes enjoy! Would love to see the extras on the DVD about how it was all done :)

Knitting odds'n'ends

I am finding that with homework for Stitches, I am reverting to old habits. Namely, procrastination by productivity! You know, doing laundry instead of writing that essay. This time, I'm avoiding doing all my boring swatches for my homework by doing other knitting!

The Runner's Companion I finished last week or so only used maybe 1/3 of the ball of Fixation, so I thought I'd use the rest of the ball to make the Provence Summer Breeze headband from Classic Elite Yarns. That in turn only used a little bit of the ball, so I still have about 1/3 of it left! Will have to find another tiny project to use up that last little bit :) The headband though is a very quick knit. I think the whole thing took less than two movies worth, but the provisional cast on and the grafting at the end (both of which I'm slow at) took some time because I had to look up instructions and remind myself how to do them :)

This is a picture of the headband while it was still blocking. There's something about the years of bio classes in me that saw this all pinned open as something akin to an earthworm dissection. I can't believe that I see that, but there it is. Haven't ever seen that on any of my other projects while they are blocking, but this time, with the long straight shape and the two dozen pins opening it up... you can see where I'm coming from. No? Oh dear...

Here it is once the blocking is finished, and it's actually on my head. Less earthworm-y looking :)

The other little distraction project I've worked on is a pair of Yoga Socks (available as a free Ravelry download). There are actually several different pairs of yoga socks on Ravelry - I was making the ones by Justine Turner. I've really enjoyed being able to take yoga again, now that I'm not working, but the aerobics room where the class meets can get a little chilly. Once we warm up it's fine, but on the more stretching-heavy classes (as opposed to a more intense power yoga class) it can take a little longer to warm up and in a barefoot class, you can tell! So, I'm giving these socks a try, to see if they help. Something nice and simple, so they'll knit up quick. Even if they don't work like I want, they won't have taken up much yarn or time. I've got one done now, save weaving in the ends, so when I get the other done, I'll let you know how they work :)

The last project was the Cloud Bolero, which wasn't really a distraction project, but a quick-knit, almost-instant-gratification project. Well, it was supposed to be. I kept dropping a stitch near the top, right after the sleeves started. On some projects that isn't a big deal, but with this being a top-down lace pattern, any stitch mess-ups I have would be right up at the top where everyone looks, not like under the arm or at the hem or someplace else less visible. So, I frogged and reworked. Ran a lot of lifelines the second time 'round and made sure to count my stitches very regularly, and no problems!

For Cloud, I used two skeins of Lion Brand Homespun, which I know will pill a bit, but it drapes nicely and I had the two skeins left over from two different projects. Same colorway, different dye-lot, of course! So I got to play with the two rows alternating method of hiding different dye-lots. Gives it a very subtle striping, which I like. :) To make the longer version of the shrug (which I saw several people do on Ravelry, and I really liked) I ended up using all of the two skeins. Good stash-buster project, I guess! I don't have any pictures yet , since Zach hasn't been around to take pictures of me IN it (the finished piece itself doesn't look like much if it's not on someone), so pictures will come when I get a chance.