In The Garden Living an RPG Life

I missed getting a photo of the little lady behaving in a very lady-like fashion.  My original photo of the finished piece looked so small.  Little Lady lets me see it the right size.  Both of the girls seemed to like how the doily feels.  All this brings me happiness with a success.  I still have to get the closing seam right, and edit the pattern.  Then, it will be really finished.  Already I’m looking for the next experiments.  Or should I call them adventures.

It looks like a piece of toast.  And it’s mostly done.  I’ve got to take out the join one more time.  I didn’t use a provisional cast on so it looks awkward.  For an experiment, I’m happy with it and I learned a lot from the both the design process and the knitting.  For example, the piece used two skeins of yarn.  It took one whole skein, with maybe a yard left over, to go around the edge.  I’m going to let it sit for a little while before I write up any more about it.  For me it’s more about process, about working out the structure and building the template.  I seem to like mindless design.

Ok.  I say that but it’s not true.  I want to know how and why something is done.  Maybe that’s where the designing comes into it.  I’m trying to figure those things out by doing them.

I’ve been trying to answer questions on Ravelry based on the little knitting experience I have. The biggest knitting challenge for me is lace knitting. This project, the lap doily, has taught me a couple of things. The first thing is to be fearless using stitch markers.

I kept telling myself, every time I knitted this pattern, that it’s short and I should be able to remember what to do. It’s four rows. It’s two sections of four or five stitches depending on which section I’m looking at. What’s the problem? Well, after losing the stitches in the second part I gave in and put in a stitch marker. That small act helped me keep my place and see what I was knitting into. Which was the second thing I learned from this.

I know that reading the knitting is important. It’s easier when it’s knit and purl stitches and stockinette. It’s harder when it’s lace or lacy knitting. The distinction is determined by whether or not there is a plain/non-design row between the design row. In both cases the knitting is into pattern stitches and these are the ones I learned to pay attention to. My lesson came from the yarn over on the previous row. I finally remembered that the second stitch in the second part of the pattern, the one that I kept losing stitches from, is always the yarn over. That yarn over is the key stitch for me. Once I got that, I could always find and recover my lost (usually forgotten to make) stitch.

I don’t know if this detail is going into the story, though.  This pattern, well the edging on the doily, is what Pod and Yohn are knitting.

Our local SnB has granted usefulness and softness status to my design attempt at a lap doily. It was judged soft and nice by women for whom these criteria are relevant. Having never been one for whom comforting my child was an important consideration, I defer to those in the know.

I got to explain my process. I started with the directions from Mary Thomas’ book on knitting and let the pattern develop from swatching.  I found out that I was not alone exploring how patterns develop. I haven’t yet written out the process my knittiing took, but I do know that it started out on single pointed needles and became a lap doily from there. What happened in between is probably the stuff knitting legend is created from

“She’s given up. She’s been holding up pretty well until this. Now, she’s just given up.” I said, “She’s seeing the holes not the spaces.” There has been a breech in the material of her life and till now she’ s been looking through the breech and seeing saw the future moving through it and being shaped by it a particular way. This “way” was seen as the kind of change that could be seen as opportunity, a path. Now, though, she saw the opening as a space, an emptiness. She was seeing that something has been taken away.

In knitting it is the spaces that give the fabric it’s purpose. It is the spaces that hold or release heat, light. It is the rising of fabric and the falling of spaces that create texture. Knitting is space wrapped in fiber. Lace is light bound by it.

It turns out that writing this year’s novel is being fueled by knitting. I’ve put several projects on needles and so far two of them are contributing—no, three—are contributing directly to the shape of the story. The first project, the lap doily, was the subject of a knitting lesson. The second project, the previously mentioned wedding scarf, is the subject of a main character’s frustration with her own process. Swatching as a necessary part of the design process is also a major part of the story. One pattern will combine with music to become source for secret codes.

Because I didn’t have to work tonight I got to visit the other group of knitters that meet to stitch. And tell stories. Just as I had with the first group, I made a connection with a knitter who is also a techie. This one is in the KnitML group and we had a minor geekasm talking. Ok, so I was doing the talking and being jubilant. It’s how I am. I also got to tell stories about podcasts and other online knitterly events. The best part of meeting knitters these days is seeing their projects, and especially their yarn.

I’ve been listening to LimeNViolet, finally. I’ve had the podcasts on my computer for a while but, I had to be in the right mood to listen. I’m so glad I did. Listen to it, that is. They are rowdy and bawdy and so much people I’d love to be eavesdropping on. Which is what the podcast sounds like. I totally got off on listening to the duo opening a box from Germany. Or perusing, and squealing well into pin-the-needle zone, over yarn online. Oh, and stash enhancement? I got that from them also. Need. More. Yarn.

I got to be part of Franklin Habit’s 1000 Knitters project in Sacramento today taking photos of local knitters. It took me a long time to get to the site since I don’t follow directions well.

This is my very good excuse for not writing today. I got to talk about my podcast essay with him and share my excitement about a new development. Not directly a result of the podcast, but from my continuing investigation of my grandmother’s appearances on the ‘net. An exciting–maybe overexciting–day.

It feels like a friend has moved off to work from just hanging out at the coffee shop. I guess when they go off beta status it will feel like they’ve got married and had kids or something. Oh well. It had to grow up sometime.

Meanwhile, I’ve got to get noveling. And to start I’m posting the beginning of a scene I wrote a month or so ago to make sure I was connected to writing this year’s novel. I was worried because I didn’t feel anything, yet. Writing this told me I was doing Ok. Still in touch.

The Spider’s Tale

“Don’t you even care?” He throws the wineskin across the narrow room. She watches, wine hazed, as the grape stain spreads along the strands of white thread.
“Here I am, wracking my mind to honor this woman, this stranger who has given us so much and you…” He turns to her finally, all traces of his high purpose gone from his face. His eyes bead into black stones, his mouth crepes, ruffles into slathering worms. His voice scrapes across her skin.
“And you, you drunken sloth! What do you do all day? When you’re not muttering at those sticks and that mess of string–”
His arm spears at the dripping mass.
“You stagger around this hovel I have to call home. Do you have any idea–?” He is now talking to the sky again. she bundles up the thread and carries it outside. He will not notice her again.
“–what I have to put up with? If it’s not this slattern, it’s those lazy players! What am I to do?”