The Harvard Knitting Project

sad and happy in cambridge

2007-09-03T21:34:00.000-07:00

sadly, I have no digital camera still, and therefore no photos of my own of my roadtrip (lots on my travelling companion's camera!). also sadly, a few of my knitting needles are wandering aimlessly around the driveaway car I just drove cross-country, and will be very hard to retrieve.

happily, I made it to cambridge with relatively few mishaps and without overdrawing my bank account! (that's a first for any major vacation of mine). also happily, I bought some really fun, semi-variegated orange-ish yarn at Ewe Can Knit in Pittsburgh (which is a cool store and an even cooler city), destined to be a scarf for Hannukah or Xmas for some lovely manly friend of mine.

finished but for finishing:
1. my knee highs!
2. a very fun cozy... pics next time!
3. my brea bag
4. fi's loop-d-loop gloves (cheating here, actually, because I still have to knit 1 thumb)
5. one of my travelling companion's super cool birthday socks! the other one is not even begun. soon, though!

loved (in no particular order): little towns outside boulder, pittsburgh, hanging out with my parents' friends, tribeca, the george washington bridge, highway 1, burbank, visiting my brother, the grand canyon (especially talking about furries and fluffers and so on in french and bambara with my friend on her birthday while we hiked!), santa fe, ann arbor.

hated: nebraska, the ridiculous toll roads on the east coast, getting hit while parked by some asshole at night in DC, getting pulled over, having such a full car, going to target and wal-mart today, having to capture a cockroach in winthrop house.

also, I am very sad that the roadtrip is over, happy to have a few plans for the next year, sad to no longer be in arcata with my good friends, happy to be in cambridge with other good friends, sad to have to stick my nose to the grindstone, happy that I get to choose so much of that grindstone, sad to have to apply for fellowships, and very very happy to get to write a million very exciting letters in the next few days.

and that's about it!

crafting in my backyard

2007-08-10T15:32:00.000-07:00

This is what I'm doing instead of reading Sartre on this beautiful summer day:

no sock blockers?

no problem!

i feel so clever.

actually, I think you can blame The Decemberists. I just started listening to them, and they're making me cleverer than I really am.

This is a really cute little victorian lace sock (from the six sox knitalong, which I just joined), knitted toe up in elann.com baby alpaca silk yarn, with a picot bind-off. phew! I was supposed to sell it and its so-far-hypothetical mate to my mom for her friend's three-year-old, but she felt the price was too high ($20? for your daughter? psh), so I'm going to make her some plain stockinette socks and see if I can sell these on etsy instead. I love my little sock blocker.... if you can't tell from the pictures, I traced the outline of the sock onto the back of an old spiral-bound notebook, and then just cut it out.... now it just needs to be waterproofed. I think covering it with packing tape will do the trick, but I'm not sure.

In other news...

my mom bought me this yarn from Solutions*
because I only have ugly purses
and she wants me to knit
a new, non-ugly one.

* Solutions: Arcata’s Environmentally Sound Products Store 928 9th St. Arcata, CA 95521. (707) 822-6972. They have no website.

It's destined to become an eco-friendly Brea Bag. Good road trip knitting, I think! (I'm driving from Arcata to Boston with a friend, starting on the 20th)

So, that's the knitting news. Now I'm off to Redwood Park to knit purple little stockinette socks for a three-year-old, bask in the sunlight, and, maybe, read Sartre. Happy knitting!

wow!

2007-08-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

I started an etsy shop, finally. phew! Fiona, I promise not to become an annoying hipster who sells silly plastic earrings. I don't promise not to become an annoying hipster who wears silly plastic earrings, though. ;) anyway, although the vast majority of my knitting is still gift knitting, some of the stuff is in the shop! Here I am! (that's http://www.annemerteacozy.etsy.com), in case the link doesn't work for some reason. Anyway, I'm very sorry, dear blog, for not posting in so long, but I have to go work on Sartre and the Victorian Lace socks (which I'm doing toe-up in a child's size).
See you soon!

this is just to say...

2007-05-20T13:04:00.000-07:00

blogging will recommence in earnest after finals. Sneak preview:

*vibrator cozies
*enough debbie bliss silk alpaca to knit a shrug for a friend, from said friend's mom
*STR kneesocks
*socks galore, actually
*sweaters?

until then, bonne tricotage!

frogging the non-knitting stuff

2007-04-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

So I am not doing super-great.

I mean, blah blah blah, two science classes is too many science classes in a single semester, taking the Critique of Pure Reason was crazy (I love the professor but I have no love for Kant), yadda yadda yadda. I'm not shaping up to be a good student right now. Also, there's your run of the mill problems with interpersonal crap that I don't want to get into on the internet, but the upshot is that I feel like it's time for some kind of big, radical change.

I mean, I guess I'm having a little mini-identity crisis, but there are some good things about it. On the school front, for instance, I've realized that cutting-edge metaphysics is perhaps not for me in the way that I had thought it was for me... it's very exciting to read and all, but I don't actually enjoy doing the cutting-edge metaphysics, I guess, so I'm refocusing myself onto Sartre and memory and phenomenology because, let's face it, it's incredibly satisfying in a way that metaphysics and philosophy of science just can't be for me.

And then there's the knitting....

I've told myself that if I can get my crap together finishing up homework and midterms and also apply for an internship at McSweeny's before monday, I can order yarn and pattern for the sweater I want to make (isn't it pretty?).

Whoah. A sweater. Crazy.

I mean, not that I don't love socks anymore:

I wish I could make these knee-highs but I'm afraid I'm going to run out of yarn. The yarn is Socks that Rock, the colorway is Downpour, and I bought it in Seattle over spring break. Yum. I keep frogging bits of it to prolong the joy, because it's not often (read: never) that I decide to plunk down twenty-one dollars for a skein of sock yarn.

In other news, Craftlit is amazing, and I'm trying to work up the courage to listen to Turn of the Screw.

one monkey don't stop the show

2007-03-01T12:15:00.000-08:00

So I fell off the blogging wagon for a while. So what? I've been knitting!

I broke my crappy digital camera, though, while travelling, and I have a ton of homework, so this was just a post to convince myself to post. More later, when roomie gets home and I can hijack her camera... though I may just switch back to the Asahi Pentax (ca. '71) single-lens reflex, because I do love it so.

That photo up there is me and the shmee and polly the cat in my native land (Arcata!), using a futon and some towels to block a 6-ft plus lacey scarf I knitted out of the Noro Kureyon fiona gave me for Christmas... sadly, it was my first attempt at blocking, so I stupidly blocked it with the smooth side of the stockinette up... so
it curled right up again soon. BOOO.
Hopefully the "extra-long, extra-narrow" college bed will work for blocking attempt no. 2!

I am doing a strange thing.

2007-01-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

It all started like this...

I have an ugly sweater.

I have an ugly sweater made of beautiful yarn.

It cost two dollars, several years ago, at Vintage Avenger in Arcata, CA.

Its brand name is Geiger, and I kind of bought it just for the cool metal thing that says "Geiger". I was into Geiger counters at the time. I had bought an old one for my mom for christmas.

Judging by its ugliness, it was made circa 1985, but was still in perfect condition.

Details: sleeves about 3 times the size of my arms (and they are not tiny arms), also too long. Body too short. weird poofiness from shoulders down to too-tight, too-high waistband.

It did have lovely buttons, though. And the yarn! It's 67% wool, 17% mohair, and 16% acrylic. And it is SO SOFT! And those colors... it's a short of red/purple/black blend, but not variagated --- I think it's one strand of purple/red and one strand of a very dark blue or purple. Very fine. Almost small enough to be fingering weight.

I HATE this sweater.

And I LOVE this yarn.

So I am doing a strange thing.

I am chopping this sweater into pieces (sleeve, sleeve, body) and ripping the yarn out. Now, because it's steeked and the seams are machine sewn, I end up with a TON of pieces of yarn, between 1 and a half and 3 feet long each.

My floor is covered with little bits of purple mohair.

And I'm BY GOD going to knit me a new sweater. Probably from this pattern. Though with full-length sleeves and no stripes, obviously. I am a no-stripe gal. Pluswise, where would I ever find a contrasting color worthy of this yarn?

Color photos forthcoming, as soon as I get a paycheck or sell off some possessions or something and the moratorium on buying things like camera batteries (and *sniff* yarn) ends.

Also to come: socks from very vintage (and very tiny) yarn, socks for my Shmeeble (read: boyfriend), perfect fingerless mitts for mom, and other exciting items!

back from home

2007-01-03T20:50:00.000-08:00

all right, well, I survived the horrible redeye and am back to lounging in my dorm room. Roomie is sadly not home. Hi roomie! I miss you! The Boy is working at the homeless shelter tonight. So I am all alone with my computer and I am armed with pointy sticks.

In knitting news, I did the thing I told myself I wouldn't do.

I gave away most of my knitted gifts without taking photos.

That's right. There is no photographic record of the most epic wee ninja in the world, of the Most Happy Wristwarmers, or of the variation socks for dear Tessa (which I am afraid will not fit her, though if they do, they will look lovely poking up from her clogs), or of the dried-mango bag for cheyenne. So sad!

Well, instead I'm just goint to work on the second teva durham loop-d-loop glove, and reflect on this photo. It's of Moonstone beach, and is from a facebook group about my hometown. It had this caption: "Moonstone beach is the beach."

So true. To an extent this is true of all towns, but especially so with Arcata: Moonstone beach is THE beach. The Plaza is THE plaza. The Co-Op is THE grocery store. Redwood Community Forest is THE forest. And of course, Los Bagels are THE bagels. beaches, plazas, groceries, forests, bagels. These things are defined by Moonstone, Co-Op, Arcata plaza, Los Bagels, the redwoods. Nothing else will measure up and I'm sorry to say that unless I move back home, I'll spend the rest of my life saying
"Forest? You think that's a forest? Back home we had forests."
"Beach? You think that's a beach? Back home we had beaches."

and so on. Between that and the knitting, it seems there is no way I can escape being insufferable?

knonstop knittage!

2006-12-28T11:48:00.000-08:00

Guys! Guys!

Knitting is addictive! Somebody call the DEA. Seriously.

Okay, so I finished one teva durham loopdloop glove, one sock, one twinkletoe. That's in addition to the wee ninja, the dadsocks, and the momsock. I haven't even started the wristwarmers for my friend at Hampshire. And what happens?

Darn that fiona, she gives me three skeins of Noro Kureyon color no. 150, which is seriously the most beautiful and my most favoritest of colorways. And what did I do? Like a fool, I started knitting it. (Fool! Fool! I hear you cry)

Still no camera, but I started a "phases of the moon" scarf (which is nice, but I am designing it on the fly, so it's not, like, all Teva Durham or whatever). It's about 4 feet long. What it is, is a bunch of repeats of a lace (or rather, "giant hole", because can you really call it lace if you're knitting it on size 7 needles?) circle with various degrees of crescent, from a solid circle (new moon) to a full-of-holes circle (full moon), and then back again. I finished the waxing and am well into the waning. It's a very skinny scarf, though it will hopefully be a little less skinnny after blocking (you should see this thing roll!), and I hope it will be long long long.

And oh yeah, it's my first scarf EVARR. I always thought they were too boring for me.

Boring! Hah! Not when it's got the phases of the moon in it!

And after this, I'm going to knit Binary for my roomie. :) In lovely neon acrylic colors. Lovely, lovely, lovely. $1.50 a skein at Long's drugs. HAH!

2006-12-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

Oh. My. God. Holiday knitting.

(sorry for the lack of photos, camera battery needs replacing)

So far, I have

1. completed momsocks (!)
2. completed dadsocks (!)
3. a "wee ninja" (which I did on the fly, with only a photo as my guide) which only needs to be pieced together and stuffed.
4. one "twinkletoe." Which is not quite finished. I HATE knitting these things. Stupid cotton-acrylic blend. But I did accidentally buy some US 5 bamooo needless that I LOVE to knit them with.
5. one loop-d-loop glove for wich I have cast on and not yet begun knitting (BLAH)
6. a pair of toe-up socks inspired by these, which I have not even BEGUN
and
7. a pair of wristwarmers that I haven't decided whether or not to knit them yet.

Luckily the twinkletoes and the toe-up socks and the imaginary wristwarmers only have to be finished before I get back to boston, not before the 25th. PHEW!

Now, back to knitting! While knitting that ninja and twinkletoe, by the way, I flew through most of Desperate Housewives, Season 1. I just have one disc left. QUALITY SHOW!

now go! drink eggnog, eat latkes, and dance around the solstice fire, my little dears. It is winter here, even if it (sniff) isn't in massachussetts.

2006-12-15T08:37:00.000-08:00

Hey knitting (and non-knitting) sweeties,

This is the season of giving. No matter what culture you're from, as long as you're in this hemisphere, this is the season for giving. Why? Because it gets cold. It gets dark. People get sad. People get sick. People need help.

Also, if you celebrate some religio-cultural-commercial holiday that involves gift-giving, there's that too. (SO MANY CHRISTMAS/SOLSTICE KNITTING PROJECTS TO FINISH AUGH!!!)

Mischa and I were talking about charity knitting the other day. We're not big on it. We think it's pretty inefficient. And kind of twee (myself, I'm nostalgic for the days of British RAF knitting. I'm a little bit twee and lame myself).

And this is why we love Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Tricoteuses Sans Frontieres (that's Knitters Without Borders). The mission statement is basically "if you can afford yarn and coffee, you should donate to MSF" (Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders). She's keeping a running tally of the amount of money that knitters donate to MSF, and count is currently $121,712 (since January '05). She's just issued a winter challenge to double that sum. Read about it on her blog.

Seriously guys, why not? I mean, I'm an HFAI gal all the way and I'm frequently very short on cash, but I have a good work-study job (two, actually) and I'm definitely a luxury knitter, as are most of us. I also have been known to go to Toscanini's and buy a cappuccino or a croissant (is anyone else going to miss Toscanini's as much as I am in the next 6 months? WAAAH!), or to felipe's, unos, noch's, etc. when I don't particularly need to. I'm going to lop off a chunk of my budget this month and put it in the pool. Do it too! You know you want to. :)

US people can donate here
Canadians can donate here
other countries can donate here

There are lots of other ways to help out right now, too. If you're in Harvard Square/Cambridge/Boston and you're not leaving just yet, the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter really needs winter break volunteers. I know it hasn't been very cold yet this winter, but the chill and snow will come, and people will need warm food and a place to sleep. You can help out with that. You might also think about donating your time, money, and/or clothing to Rosie's Place. And I'll leave the myriad other ways to make a difference up to you creative readers. Please comment if you have a particularly good idea. Spork, can you leave a comment about microloans?

Much love,

Annemarie

PS. Second Dadsock is minutes away from completion!

PPS. Anyone else FREAKED OUT by the weather we're having? Climate Change: NOT A JOKE. Turn of your lights. Turn down your heaters. Unplug those chargers that aren't connected to anything. As Brenda Dayne of Cast On would say: "Remember: if you're cold, put on a sweater. That's what they're for."

comments

2006-12-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

stupid blogger.

it had a default setting that only blogger members could comment.

but I discovered it and fixed it.

Please comment if you feel like it! You know I love you. ;)

Hats Galore! (for the HCWC Sunday knitters)

2006-12-07T00:28:00.000-08:00

Hats are amazing! (But also amazingly addictive, so be warned). Here is my...

Basic hat recipe for beginners:

Knit a gauge swatch, using your intended yarn and needles. A swatch is a 4x4 inch (ish) square. Measure it to see how many stitches it is per inch. (To count stitches, count the little triangles you see. I'll try to get a picture up at some point.)

Measure your head or the head of the intentded recipient. Multiply the number of inches per head by the number of stitches per inch. Cast on this many stitches. :)

Divide your stitches evenly between 3 needles if you have a total of 4 dpns, or between 4 needles if you have a total of 5 dpns. If you have a circular needle, you're already good to go.

Join the stitches in the round. To do this, knit the first stitch you cast on. It should now be "knitted on to" the last stitch you cast on. (I don't know how to explain this better. If you have thoughts, leave a comment). You should now have a "round" of stitches, either on dpns or all the way around your circular needle.

Continue knitting ad infinitum in any pattern you choose (stockinette, ribbing, seed stitch, etc.). You will be knitting all the way around your round over and over again forever. Eventually you should have knit 4 or 5 inches of fabric. At this point you should pause and take a deep breath and maybe have a meal or go to the bathroom or something. ;)

Now begin your decreases. There are lots of different ways of decreasing, but the most straightforward is probably to simply knit 4 or 5 stitches, then k2tog, and repeat over and over again.

When you're left with somewhere between 12 and 8 stitches, you're done. Well, almost done.

What you should do now is NOT cast off. I repeat... DO NOT cast off. Instead, cut the yarn off several inches from the knitting with the work still on the needles. Now take a yarn/tapestry/darning needle (or whatever it's called), and thread the yarn through it. Now thread the yarn through the remaining stitches and pull tight.

Ok, NOW you're done.

Weave in your ends. Wrap prettily if you're giving it away.

TIPS:
1. if you started out using a circular, you'll need to switch to dpns at some point during the decreases.

2. Near the end of your first round, MAKE SURE THE KNITTING DOESN'T HAVE A TWIST IN IT! trust me, you don't want to knit 3 inches and then realize you're knitting the amazing non-functional moebius strip hat.

3. When knitting a hat, I find it fun to look at patterns just for certain aspects, for example, the decrease pattern, the earflaps, the colorwork, etc. This actually applies to all pattern-reading, I think, but it's especially simple in hats.

4. Stitch patterns such as ribbing and seed stitch will, as Mischa pointed out, make your hat MUCH warmer

5. Make sure your hat is long enough for your head! I said 4-5 inches, but that's variable, of course. Last year I tried to knit myself an earflap hat with a very limited amount of yarn and what I ended up with was basically an oversized yarmulke with funny triangles hanging off it. BLECCH.

6. If your hat isn't long enough or isn't wide enough or both, give it to a small child. :)

7. If you don't wear hats, you should still knit them. Here's why: newborns, especially premature newborns, all over the country are in need of hats! We recently got this link forwarded to us. It's about knitting caps to keep babies warm and hence decrease infant mortality! Save The Children

8. PLEASE comment if you have additional notes/tips/whatever about hat knitting! :)

Here are some cool hat patterns from Knitty.com:

Basic hat that bald guys apparently like
Cable-band hat
Winter Sport Hat
Basic hat with cool color patern
VERY wearable earflap hat (or "chullo")!
Only for the terminally dorky: Klein Bottle Hat (Wikipedia Klein Bottle Entry)

The photos are of a hat I designed for my friend Kirk. I call it the "Zig Zag Helmet Hat" (to be worn while fighting the good fight, heh heh), and one of these days I'm going to write up the pattern. The cool swirly thing (decrease pattern) was stolen from "Swell," the chullo in knitty that I linked to above.

Happy knitting!

warning: extreme valley-speak and dorkitude!

2006-12-06T23:50:00.000-08:00

So I was, like, sitting in philosophy tutorial? and we were, like, talking about memory and stuff? I mean, the fundamental problem is, like, that it's impossible to hold up the memory-image to the original sensation which is (supposedly) being remembered so as to, like, compare them, y'know?

And I was knitting the second Dadsock, because Sean Kelly* is, like, totally the man and stuff, and doesn't mind (apparently) me knitting in tutorial on his big comfy couch while I drink rooibos tea out of my bitchin' Harvard Women's Center mug and talk Russell. And I was thinking... remember when I had all those issues with the color pattern? (It didn't stop with Heidegger, by the way)

Well, I don't remember fucking up the color pattern, but later I notice that I've fucked it up and sometimes have trouble figuring out how exactly the fuckage worked, but then I, like, rip it out, right? And I re-knit it. Hence, like, so, I've obliterated the fuckup, right? WRONG! There was certainly a fuckup, but I A. have no memory of fucking anything up, and B. have no more yarnly evidence of said fuckup.

So it's, like, totally the same problem, y'know? Philosophy is bitchin'. Rad. Totally.

*This is the Princeton site because Kelly's brand new at harvard and his harvard webpage currently blows. It doesn't have any research or CV or anything on it, just a little bio. Plus I love the dorky photo!

UPDATE!

2006-12-03T19:16:00.000-08:00

Bear's name is Warren. As in Goldfarb.

kavita and bear!

2006-12-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

Sooo... I finally gave Kavita her bear! Aren't they cute together? Bear (still no name) looks a little distorted in this photo. Kavita does too...oh well.

A little on the making of Bear:

I'm not really sure how I feel about the pattern I used. It was free, and I got it from an afternoon of intense google-searching for a bear that was actually three-dimensional (had a muzzle and feet, basically). I really didn't like the way the garter-stitch muzzle looked, so I ripped it out and did it again in stockinette, but other than that it was a pretty good pattern, I suppose. The feet are a little too pointy, maybe. It suggested putting buttons at the joints for the articulated arms and legs, which upon reflection would have been good, but I just couldn't find any I liked! Kavita didn't seem to mind the lack of buttons, though. And this way it's child-safe, anyway. :) The only real complaint I have is that this pattern doesn't follow what Dan W. calls the "cardinal rule of teddy bears": for cuteness, the head must be about 40% the size of the body. :)

Let me just say that putting together a teddy bear is HARD! it's tough to get the stuffing in right, and even tougher to get the limbs on effectively. The ears turned out a little lopsided, because I'm not totally anal, but I think they're kind of cute that way. Nor do the back seams line up. (hello! The hole at the bottom of the head is SMALLER than the hole at the top of the body! How are they supposed to line up?)

All in all, though, this teddy bear was a totally positive experience. I was kind of freaked out by his disconnected body parts while I was knitting him, but when I was done I totally identified with him. It was nice to see his smiling face, to knit his little sweater, and to show him off all the time. I'm going to miss the little guy. Enjoy him, Kavita!

making a niche

2006-11-30T16:40:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the comments, spork and aurora! :D

So, in addition to knitting compulsively, I have this other unfortunate and clutter-making response to stress...

as you can see now that I have photos up, I bring an inordinate amount of stuff back to school with me every time I go home because I think it will make the dorm a nicer, more relaxing place to be.

You know what? It does! But I've been so busy trying to put the room together that I've had almost ZERO time to knit. Also, dadsock no. 2 has been frustrating: I had to frog 22 rows of herringbone color pattern because I messed up! waah! At first I couldn't figure out why it happened: the first sock went off without a hitch! Then I realized. I was trying to read, and later discuss, HEIDEGGER while I knit the beginning of the sock. Frankly, I don't think anyone can be expected to knit anything beautiful while reading about how Angst causes the Da-sein to be "held out into" Das Nicht. aaaaauugh! I'm really looking forward to next week, when HRP will be discussing Husserl, Heidegger's teacher, over brunch in Jordan Hall of Pforzheimer House, at which lovely gathering I shall NOT try to knit. :)

I've made a decision, though, which is that I'm going to submit the Noro Sweater Pattern, which remains unwritten so far but well-dreamed, to MagKnits. Cross your fingers for me. If they take it, they'll buy the rest of the yarn (!!!). Now, wouldn't that be pleasant?

In other news, I think I'm going to try to use up all that hideous yarn I bought when I was younger. The purple and pink stuff. From when I thought I wanted a purple-and-pink striped sweater. I kind of like the purple stuff...I'm thinking I'll knit the Mason-Dixon Knitting "perfect sweater". The only trouble is that I'm afraid I don't have enough of the purple...I may in fact have to resort to pink stripes...horrors! Maybe I'll knit it for someone else. Someone I don't like. But who don't I like? Dilemmas, dilemmas... I'll just have to reexamine the stash.

Well, when this mess is cleaned up, anyway. My suitcase is blocking Rachel's path to the bathroom.

manifest

2006-11-26T14:14:00.000-08:00

I may not have gotten around to it, but I am in favor of a manifesto.

This isn't just "The Knitting Project" for a reason. It's the "Harvard Knitting Project" because, since I came to harvard, I've been living what I think of as the anti-lifestyle (or the anti-mindful lifestyle, the anti-knitting lifestyle, whatever). You wake up in the morning if you have a morning class and in the afternoon if you don't, having gone to sleep no earlier than 2, and frequently later than 4. You go to class, come back, eat in the dining hall if you have time, study as much as you are able in your sleep-deprivation-addled state, hopefully find the time to hang out (usually just with your significant other and/or roommates and/or people you run into in the dining hall or laundry room), study more, work at your work-study job if you are me, probably go to rehearsal or other extracurricular obligation, procratsinate a lot, and study as much as possible. At the beginning of this year I reached a point of critical burnout.

I also have reached a critical stash point.

Late last academic year, after knitting a wave-patterned chulo for my boyfriend for christmas, I realized I really missed knitting, and sent off to my parents for yarn. It arrived in boxes and, during their annual frequent-credit-card-flyer's-miles visit, in suitcases. I kept it in my typewriter case. I kept it in my dresser drawers. I finally got a big plastic tub for it during moveout. I knitted two hats, using the yarn I spun when I was in grade school and some noro silk garden. I knitted five inches of an ill-fated cardigan out of ugly purple tweed (which is still sitting at the bottom of the box), and I spent most of the spring and summer working on disgustingly hip fingerless gloves using brown sock yarn and some of that trendy recycled sari silk yarn, until I realized I'd knitted two right gloves, and ripped them out in a fit of pique (R.I.P. in a tangled mess). I was still stressed. I was NOT in the knitting groove.

Then I discovered Mason-Dixon Knitting. I think I read like half the archives in two weeks. Coincidentally, while I was devouring the blog, I was staying with Kay Gardiner's niece Rachel B., who is one of the two Rachels who live in my suite at Harvard... though Rachel doesn't know the first thing about knitting and I didn't figure out the relation until later.

What I had been knitting the most, up till that point, and selling (!), was rocket-shaped, multi-colored vibrator cozies. But in August, Rachel B. commissioned me to knit her some flip-top mittens (which are fingerless gloves underneath and mittens on top). I bought some FANTASTIC black wool (RB is a stern minimalist) and set to work, using a combination of knucks and broad street mittens, but knitting them as one piece, picking up stitches from the back of the hand, because I hate sewing. They were a total joy. Interesting, full of new techniques and knitting theory to learn, and everyone thought they were just the coolest, and asked me to knit them some. I knit a pair of pink knucks for Celine, editor-in-chief of the Harvard Review of Philosophy, and modified fetching for the fabulous Professor Alison Simmons.

I learned to knit socks from the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Rules, which has obviously changed my life. I started using patterns from time to time. I think the biggest change in my knitting universe and universe as a whole, though, is that I started taking requests.

Knitting for my friends, to their specifications, makes a surprisingly big difference. With so many requests, I'm thinking about knitting all the time, and thinking creatively about it. I'm branching out (I learned to do increases! WHOAH...) in technique, color, and pattern. I still love hats, but I have broken free from their tyranny. :)

Knitting at Harvard is different from knitting anywhere else. It's the perfect break from the academic whirlwind --- not too complicated, just two stitches, a knit and a purl. It MAKES SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL. Knitting is the only way I've found to make beauty at Harvard. I've written things that are models of concision, models of precision. There is whimsy here, even in class, but it's buried amid so many rows and rows of people taking themselves way too seriously that it's hard to find. Everything sticks. Everything's harder than it ought to be. Knitting, though, just slips through my fingers: click, click, click, click, and soon the whole ball is gone and I've got a perfect little object, ready for finishing and giving away.

So that's why I knit here. And that's why I teach knitting. Spread the soft, wooly love.

Plus, unless I get this stash shrunk, it's going to eat New York.

I hope there's somebody reading out there, and I hope you had a wonderful thanksgiving.

socks for EVAH

2006-11-26T11:14:00.000-08:00

So I've been home for thanksgiving (hooray!) and I've been knitting a LOT...(and not doing my homework a LOT)...

1. The momsocks are finished (and lovely, if I do say so. Great pattern --- knitty's "straitlaced"). I put them on while I was at Tessa's place in Santa Cruz and it took so much willpower to take them off again! I think she's going to love them...I left them at home though, wrapped in some paper, so I hope she's not feeling nosy.

2. One dadsock is finished. I have to get more black Baby Ull (from norway!) before I can knit the other one. They're "red herring" from knitty, in case you hadn't noticed, and while I really liked the way the colorwork ended up looking, it got really monotonous after about 6 inches (the pattern calls for 9.5 in of leg, I knit 8.5 because I just couldn't go on with it...). I didn't use the recommended yarn, and I used two different yarns for the different colors, which may have been a mistake. I did do a gauge swatch, but I didn't end up making any modifications because my gauge was just a little biggeer than the pattern's, and my dad's feet are pretty big. The sock came out wonky, though... they're going to need a lot of blocking. I've never blocked before! I guess now is as good a time as any to start.

3. Kavita's teddy bear. My first teddy. Vintage garage-sale brown wool. GORGEOUS. SO GORGEOUS! I am so happy with this bear, I almost want to keep it! But I'm not going to post a picture until I give it to her.

In other news, what is up with this whole knitting-socks-on-two-circulars thing? A woman on the plane saw me knitting the momsocks on dpns (I would never DREAM of purchasing two circulars when I have perfectly good size 2 dpns already) and was really surprised. She said she'd only ever seen or heard of people knitting socks on two circulars. What gives?! when did this trend start? Does the 2-circular method produce better socks, or is the public just deadly afraid of dpns? Persnally, I love my pointy sticks. Bendy sticks just don't do it for me.

SOCKS SOCKS SOCKS SOCKS SOCKS! Knit socks, everybody!

the crimson and the zig-zag helmet

2006-11-11T09:05:00.000-08:00

Well, the Crimson thinks knitting is a good example of anti-feminist backsliding...or something...(article)...but they're wrong, right? Right!

Anyway. Momsock no. 1 is finished and momsock no. 2 has been begun! And in my spare time, I knitted the Fantastic Zig-Zag Helmet Hat for my friend Kirk. I like it so much that I'm going to write up the pattern, wheeeeeeeeee! Also, taught Kavita to knit mitred squares. Despite the fact that I've never knit a mitred square. Ever. WHOA.

Up there's a picture of Kavita knitting a the first square of her blanket! I'll post a picture of the ZIG ZAG HAT (I am waaay too excited about this hat) when I take one I actually like...

Noro, the Women's Center, lost wallets, Plato

2006-11-06T13:33:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Harvard Knitting Project.

Yesterday, Mischa (a fabulous diva boy, and master swatcher) and I held the first-ever Harvard knitting circle in the Women's Center. We're not crazy about the message that a knitting circle held in the Women's Center, but they're buying us yarn and whatnot, and they seem really enthusiastic, so we left our reservations behind and plunged into the project, and so far it seems like a success! Cookies, hot chocolate, and some crocheted flowers...we even had a decent turnout of non-female-identified folk. And I'm crazy about cheap bulky Lion's Pride yarn. It looks fantastic in seed stitch, as Carolyn proved (photos forthcoming!)

As it turns out, it wasn't the first-ever Harvard knitting circle. There used to be something called the Harvard Neighbors, back in the day (Gazette article), the fabulous Amy Spoering held a Lowell House knitting circle a few years back, and there's a great little group through PBHA called "Stitch in Time", who teach knitting at Rosie's Place once a week, and also donate stuff they knit to UniLu's Harvard Square Homeless Shelter (I'm planning on joining them --- drop a line if you'd like to join up, too!)

Anyway. The circle was a predictable mix of girly girls and the queer community. But it was great fun and there are a few category three knitters (angsty philosophers) planning on coming next week.

In other news, I can't find my wallet ANYWHERE! Granted, my dorm is kind of a pit that eats everything, but this lack of wallet is really stressing me out. So, instead of working on my Parmenides presentation and paper (due tomorrow!), I have turned to the legendary Noro. I bought two skeins of Kochoran 10 (lime, grey, denim) last year for no apparent reason, because it reminded me of home (trees, fog, ocean). It's screaming "sweater," and so I guess I'll just have to buy a couple more skeins! I took out the ol' US no. 7 circular on which I knitted my first and only sweater back in prepubescent days, and started to swatch. And let me say....

This stuff is a dream! It knits up into big luscious stitches, and even on metal needles (which I kind of hate) it has a wonderful soft grip to it. I haven't swatched enough to see how the variagation works, but the blue is just beautiful! I've decided that this will be my first formally self-patterned sweater, so I'm sure I'll be blogging extensively about that. But really, there is no tranquilizer like Noro for an anxious Harvard crybaby like me. Mt. Auburn hospital bills be damned, Parmenides be damned, finding my wallet be damned, wool/mohair/angora blends are the important things in life!

Actually, when I went to Lamont last night to escape my knitting fingers and the CastOn on my iTunes (and ran into Mischa, whaddaya know), I did legit enjoy working on the Parmenides. It is such a nitty-gritty dialogue...and it's been a while since I really dug in to anything besides Sartre. It's a unique dialogue, because it features an eighteen-year-old Socrates as the interolocutor, and pre-Socratic giant Parmenides taking the role that Socrates usually takes. It contains pretty much all the standard objections to the theory of forms, and remains unresolved at the end. I'm always reminded of Wittgenstein in this Plato course, and as with the Philosophical Investigations, it's best not to try to make everything here fit into a beautiful, self-consistent piece --- it's not. It's a mess (like the backside of Fair Isle, hahahahahahaha). The regresses seem kind of facile, stuff like this -- if each large thing contains a part of the Large itself, then the Large must be divided and each part of the Large must contain a portion of the Small, because it is smaller than the whole of the Large. Likewise, the whole of the Small contains some largeness, because it is larger than the portions of the Small contained within small thing. So obviously there's some kind of problem -- but there is just such a total lack of solution. Not feeling very articulate at the moment. Maybe I'll do some more Plato blogging after dinner, or tomorrow. But I best leave it here for now.

In other news, the momsocks are coming along great!

and I can't wait until I figure out this whole photo thing...