Knitting & Crochet Blog Week - Day Five

Today's topic is location: where do I knit? I knit in lots of places. At home, I knit in my living room, usually while watching TV or fiddling on the computer. Sometimes I listen to audiobooks (although they have to be things that I've read before, because I don't have the wherewithal to process new information while I'm knitting). I also knit in my office at work, and I try to have a project that exists only to be worked on while I'm there. This usually only works for the first few weeks of the term, when nothing is due; about a week before the first assignment, the stream of students and emails will begin to pick up, and once that's done the assignments start to come in, and I'm caught up in an endless whirl of grading. Those first few weeks are pretty sweet, though; I'll buy myself a tea and take off my shoes, curl up in my oversized office chair and listen to music while my hands work.

I also knit at Girl Tuesday's house; we will watch whole seasons of tv shows together, and her cat will hop up on my lap and settle in. He's old enough that he doesn't mind that I knit around him, unlike Bad Cat, who is still enough of a kitten that he has these fits of "MEmeMEmeME" when he deigns to sit with me (plus the usually kitteny interest in the string part of knitting). Sometimes we will go out and knit at a coffeeshop downtown, where we attract interest from older women who have forgotten how much they like knitting, and who are amazed by the kinds of things that we make.

When my friend Jessica got married this past summer, I was one of her bridesmaids. I brought my knitting with me because I knew that on the day of, we would have lots of free time: weddings are often a case of "hurry up and wait" when you're in the wedding party. Plus, I was very nearly done my February Lady Sweater, and I really wanted to finish it. One of the nice things about weddings is that there are cameras everywhere, so I actually have a couple of pictures of myself in the process of knitting.

In short, I knit a lot of places. What about you?

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week - Day Four

Addendum: Upon further reflection, there is actually something I want to learn--or, more correctly, learn to do better. I want to learn to take better pictures of my knitting and my yarn. To that end, I'm looking at doing a few online digital photography classes this summer, and I am going to build myself a lightbox tomorrow. It's going to be awesome.

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week - Day 4

Today I am supposed to write about skills. One of the things I like about knitting is the acquisition of concrete skills that result in a concrete product. I think this is partially because English Studies is a fairly abstract field, in a lot of ways: I can write a paper, and people can read it, but chances are only a select few of them are going to have any real understanding of what I'm trying to say (and even then, some of those people are still thinking "and this helps the world how, exactly?"). But when I knit a hat, or a scarf, or a sweater, that's something tangible that people can understand. I also love that moment when something completely incomprehensible suddenly makes complete and utter sense.

I actually can't think of too many skills that I still need to acquite. There are some that I am sure I will try eventually, like entrelac, but for the moment my skill set is adequate for the things that I'm making. I would like to learn to do stranded colourwork better, though; as things currently stand, I can do it, but my gauge is so different from normal it's like I'm a different knitter.

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week - Day Three

I take a lot of inspiration from other knitters (which is probably true of most people who are on Ravelry or who belong to community knitting groups). Back when knitting was a solo endeavour for me, I tended to make a lot of mittens and felted purses. I still like making these things, but I have branched out a lot since then, and I think that's in large part because I have come in to contact with so many talented knitters. Seeing the things that they create makes me a better knitter because it allows to imagine and re-imagine the things that I might make.

Since the purpose of today's post is to highlight one great knitter in particular, I'm going to pick on my friend Sherrin, who goes by strangeangel on Ravelry. I met Sherrin as part of my MA cohort, when she kind of adopted me in the first few weeks of class. We didn't do nearly enough knitting together that year, but we have kept in touch in the nearly five years since we graduated. She is now busy being brilliant PhDwise at another university in southern Ontario, and I love looking at her project gallery on Rav. Not only is she tremendously skilled as a knitter, she has a great eye for colour and an even better eye for matching yarns with projects. I also admire her ability to actually finish her projects.

There's a lot of lovely things on Sherrin's Projects page, especially since she's discovered lace knitting, so I'll try to keep my favourite picks simple: I love her End of Papers Mitts, her first Aeolian shawl, Lions and Lopi and Stranding, Oh My!, her husband's Better Biker Boy, and, of course, Pasha.

Looking at her work always leaves me inspired--I only wish I'd been able to take better advantage of that when we lived in the same city.

into the great wide open

As part of my trip home on the weekend, I persuaded my mother to part with her DSLR camera for a few months so that I could learn to use it. Photography has been an interest of mine since I got to take a black and white photography class in my grade eleven year. We learned how to use SLR cameras and to process and print our own film. My parents bought me my own camera as a graduation present--an old 35mm Praktica, made in the German Democratic Republic. It suited me well, but eventually the light meter went on it (and the film counter never worked properly) and I got sucked into the world of digital point and shoot cameras. (Which is not a bad world to be in, per se, but it does make for some lazy photography.)

I've been pondering the purchase of a digital SLR for a while now, and I think this is the year to make it happen. I'm hoping that I can re-learn a lot of the stuff that I used to know about photography by using my mom's camera; if I can't, it will be good to know that before I blow $700ish on the Nikon D5000 that I have my eye on...

One of the appealing things about the university here is that there are a number of hiking trails behind the school. The very first weekend that I moved into the residence here back in 2000, my new roommates and I went on a hike to the waterfalls. We were led by a guy named Ben, who was tall and good looking and said things like, "You can trust me. I'm a geography major." (This was a lie. We definitely got lost at least once that day.) I had not been back on the trails since, until today. I convinced one of my co-workers to take a break from his article writing and enjoy the sunshine. Unfortunately, this rather backfired as it snowed for a good portion of our trek, but it was a very good time anyway. The waterfalls are not on a steep incline, but they do go on a good ways, and they are very rocky. I got to climb out along the rocks and stand in the middle of the falls, which was very cool.

I don't spend nearly enough time outside. Part of this is where I live--can you really blame me for hibernating during a Northern Ontario winter?--but part of it is my own nature, which likes the comfort of being inside. I need to change this, though. I can't even describe the way that I felt today, standing out on the rocks with the water rushing all around me. It was, for lack of a better word, amazing, and it was exactly what I needed--it cleared out my head for me, and I've been substantially more productive all day as a result.

I didn't get a lot of pictures because I was too busy looking at everything, and I'm not thrilled with the pictures that I did get. I have a lot to learn about photography. But it's a starting point.

Knit & Crochet Blog Week - Day 2

Today's post is supposed to be about a pattern to which I aspire. I am reasonably confident in my knitting skills, so this was a bit tricky to figure out. Don't get me wrong--there are definitely things that I don't know how to do,* and lots of skills that I still want to acquire, but one of the things that I like about knitting is that I know that, with enough patience and dedication, I will eventually figure it out.

The current project that has me intimidated is Jenna Wilson's beautiful Rogue sweater. Again, it's not that it involves things that I think I can't do; it's more just the sheer size of the project. I am also a little worried about the set-in sleeves, as I have struggled with those in the past. It is also a gift for my mother, so I need to do a good job on it.

I think I'm also a little intimidated by it because I had picked out the pattern for myself years and years ago when I was in grad school and one of my new knitting friends showed it to me. Just before Christmas last year, my mother started dropping the big hints about wanting a sweater with Celtic-style cables, going so far as to point out some sample sweaters at the local yarn store for me.** Unfortunately, these samples were...well, ugly, and I couldn't bear the idea of making something that large that I didn't find esthetically pleasing. I was honour-bound to show my mum Rogue, which, of course, she fell in love with right away.

I'm hoping to cast on later today. Wish me luck!

*For example, I don't know how to do a long tail cast on.
**Remember yesterday when I talked about how my mum knit 16 fair isle sweaters in one year? Yup, same mum. She just really wants me to knit the sweater for some reason.

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - Day One

I was taught to knit by my dad's mother when I was fairly young--perhaps about 8 or 9. My wee Scottish grandmother taught both Middle Sister and I at the same time, at her house in Peterborough, and I can remember the small, white, garter stitch square that I produced, and how much it bothered me that it was ridged. I had thought that I would produce something flat and beautiful, with rows of tiny Vs--I had no idea that stockingette would take work. My grandmothers were both quite crafty, although the impression that I have is that my dad's mother knit and crocheted exclusively, where my mum's mother did just about everything under the sun: knitting, crocheting, tatting, sewing, smocking, painting, everything.* One of them made this for one of us girls at some point:





I didn't stick with it, being fairly involved with a number of other creative endeavours (and, of course, having my nose permanently stuck in a book, which made doing anything else pretty difficult). In fact, I wouldn't pick it up again until the summer of 2000, when I started to work at the Historic Site Which Shall Not Be Named. For the first time in my life, a wholly Protestant work ethic asserted itself: I could not stand to be on site without something to do with my hands. I borrowed an Opinel knife, grabbed some kindling, and carved my own cedar knitting needles. (In case you were wondering, cedar is a singularly poor material to make knitting needles out of, as it is so soft that it breaks without much encouragement.) I sort of remembered how to knit from my grandmother's lessons, so I got someone else to cast on for me, and away I went. Even then, I didn't do much with it when I wasn't at work.

Three years after this, I asked Middle Sister what she wanted for Christmas, and she asked me to buy her a knitting book for beginners. As soon as I saw the cover for Stitch'n'Bitch, which has just been published, I knew it was exactly what she was looking for...what I didn't know is that it was what I was looking for, too. I began to knit more frequently, and to choose projects that were actual projects, and not just scarves. I realized quickly that all of the time I had spent knitting in the seventeenth century had led to a lot of creating my own stitches and ways for doing things: I had even figured out a way of purling backwards so that I didn't have to turn my knitting at the end of the row--I would just work back across it. Following patterns meant having to un-learn some of the things I had taught myself, because it made following patterns very difficult. I also wrap the wrong way, which meant that for the first few years that I knit, all of my stitches were twisted. (Rather than changing my wraps, I eventually figured out a way to accomodate for this; it's one of the reasons why my gauge is generally looser than the norm.) When I moved to Guelph to do my MA, I was faced with the reality of living alone in a city where I knew no one and nothing, and knitting became a solace from some of that loneliness. (It also eventually led to some friendships with the other people in my program--there were a lot of knitters that year.)

Knitting means something different to me now than it did back then, but that's the story of how I became a knitter.

*My mother also knits: she went through a fair isle sweater phase that outfitted us three girls, our cousins, and various friends of the family in beautiful pastel sweaters. However, she never really tried to get any of us to knit, perhaps because she is a leftie and all of us girls are right handed.

I Sing the Body Pathetic

I recently finished a cute, lace up cardigan from French Girl Knits called "Wrenna". I had to modify the pattern since I used a different yarn, but the end result is quite pleasing, and I was pretty excited to wear it today for the first time. The sweater is black, so I paired it with a pale lavender tank top, grey jeans, and grey ballet flats, and felt very pleased with myself for being so stylish. (I also only had a lavender ribbon to use for the lacing, so it worked quite well.) My hair is pretty much at the perfect length right now, and it has been behaving very nicely these last few weeks.


Then I got to work, and had two separate people ask me if I was pregnant. (If you are wondering, I am not.) I blame this squarely on the empire waist tank top: Empire waists do nothing for a shape like mine, because they fall in a way that emphasizes the widest part of my body while ignoring the parts that taper. Like my actual waist. It is a terrible look for me--I guess I thought that the inherent cuteness and good shape of the Wrenna would counteract the tank top. No such luck.


What's most surprising about this, I guess, is how upset I am as a result. I've done my fair share of feminist theory, and I know all about body politics and the like; I don't think you can be a feminist on the internet without coming in to contact with these ideas at some point or other. One of my favourite units to teach back in my high school teachin' days was the critical media studies unit on gender in the media. (Plus I'm a knitter, and there's nothing like being actively involved in making your own clothing to make you understand how totally arbitrary sizing and notions of body shape are.) I try my best to advocate accepting your body as it is, and acknowledging our cultural standards of beauty as problematic and unrealistic. I know how difficult popular culture makes navigating this world if you don't fit into these preconceived notions of what a woman's shape should be, but I guess I've always sort of thought that I was above all that.


It turns out I'm not above it at all. The pregnancy question has me obsessing over my weight. I keep wondering, Am I fat? I sneak glances at myself in the windows in the hallways at work; I examine my reflection in the mirrors in the washroom; I bemoan the lack of a full-length mirror at home where I can see my whole body.


I know I'm not fat. I know I'm not skinny, either, and I know that I really shouldn't weigh much less than what I weigh right now.* My body isn't shaped to be much smaller than it is right now: My hips are always going to be wide; I'm always going to be chesty; I am always going to be curvy. (I'm pretty sure this comes from my dad's family--the M----rs all have crazy metabolisms. Thanks a lot, Dad's genetic line!) I don't think my body is perfect (there are loads of things about it that I don't love, but that's another essay for another time) but there's certainly nothing wrong with it. So why, then, am I all in a tizzy over this idea that I look like I could be pregnant (which my mind has turned, by extention, into looking fat)?

It's just interesting to me, I guess, to come into such close contact with my own failings. I'm quite surprised that this upsets me that much, but it does. I don't know that I'd go quite so far as to call it hypocrisy on my part, but some days it really feels like the older I get, the more I discover that I keep falling short of the person I like to think that I am.

*I kept writing additional sentences to qualify this statement, about how I have winter weight and could stand to lose 5-10 lbs., but have opted to avoid saying those since I have a normal weight for my height/age and a normal BMI. Funny how even as I say that I'm happy with my body, I'm still nitpicking the details, isn't it?

I dreamed I was dying, as I so often do...

I really hate the way that I'm most productive when I have a lot to do. If there's only a little bit on my plate, I will procrastinate and dilly dally and even lollygag, but the minute I have seventeen nigh impossible tasks, I will get that shit done. For example, today I have: done laundry, marked 1/3 of my exams, cleaned three rooms, watched Napoleon Dynamite*, mapped out part of my upcoming conference paper, read the graphic novel adaptation of "I Am Legend" and taken a nap.

Once these exams are graded and I start tabulating final marks, I will be more or less done for the year, which is terrifying and exhilerating. I have high hopes for this summer. I usually find my time off from work to be really stressful. I like having things to do; I like having a sense of purpose. I dislike not making money; I dislike being left to my own devices all the time. It's ironic, I suppose, that the time of the year that most people look forward to the most is the one that sends me into a depressive state.

Thus, this summer, I have decided that I will have ambition, purpose, and clearly stated goals, so that I do not lose track of myself. The preliminary goal list looks something like this:

1. Knit my mom's Christmas present (Rogue sweater)
2. Knit Mat a pair of kilt hose
3. Design, make, and mail wedding invitations
4. Write script for graphic novel idea found in old notebook
5. Write script for own Cinema of the Awkward film
6. Prime and paint living room, spare room, craft room, and upstairs hallway
7. Grow tomatoes and/or herbs in backyard
8. Miscellaneous wedding planning activities
9. Sew new curtains for bathroom

I hope this is enough to keep me out of trouble. I spent most of last summer napping extensively on the couch because I felt so poorly, and I don't think that I can handle going down that road again.


*I still don't really get it

Consider the rock lobster

I had a very strange night last night. A local group holds poetry readings once a month, consisting of two chosen speakers and an open set. Last night's speakers were students from the Prose and Poetry Creative Writing courses up at the school. As I taught many of these students in my first year teaching here, I wanted to make the effort to go see them read.

The night began strangely, which should have told me it would end strangely. I had imagined, for some reason, that it began at seven, and arrived slightly belatedly at the bar. A sign on the front door told me it had been moved from the Classy Jazz Bar to the Generic British Pub down the road. Upon arriving at the Generic British Pub, I quickly realized that the event actually wasn't going to start for another hour.

The logical thing to do would have been to leave, perhaps drop in on a friend or a sister in the vicinity, or even get a coffee...but instead I decided to sit at the bar and have a pint. I wound up talking to a man the same age as my father for the better part of the hour; I know this because I asked him about the Masonic symbol on his fleece vest. (Masons are sworn to protect the chastity of the daughters of fellow Masons, so I figured I'd throw out the "My dad's the Past Master at his Lodge" line to head off the flirtatious direction of the conversation.) It wound up being a surprisingly interesting conversation; he told me that he disagreed with the Order of the Eastern Star because of their male-centric mandate.

Eventually people showed up; we went upstairs. Poems and prose were read--some very good, some not very good. A former NHL player showed up to read from his recently published book of hockey related poetry in the style of Robert Service. Everyone else drank beer; I had decided to drive so was abstaining. We [meaning me, Colleague, Friend of Colleague, Keen Student, and Girlfriend of Keen Student] eventually decided to move to the Generically Friendly Bar With Delicious Food, where we crammed ourselves into a very small booth.

As often happens in such situations, we wound up having about six different conversations simultaneously. Everything Colleague said came back to David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest at some point, which was quite funny--poetry, religion, hockey, destiny, depression, life at the tiny northern university. Colleague's friend is a documentary filmmaker, and we wound up having the most intense conversation--the kind you can only have with someone you've just met; the kind where one party is completely drunk and the other is stone sober.

The conversation was interesting. I had met Friend of Colleague a few days before at the year end social for our graduating students, and had sort of assumed that Friend of Colleague either wouldn't remember me or wouldn't like me, and had based my interaction with him on that. I tend to be flippant when I feel out of my depth in social settings; I also, unfortunately, think that I'm quite witty, which can be a bad combination. Friend of Colleague is very much the same. The unfortunate part is that everything we talked about was something that could only be discussed in earnest, so little by little, we needed to take down our defenses. I don't know that I've ever had such a long conversation with someone who uses language the way that I do, who constantly disassembles to avoid letting people in. And then, a propos of nothing, he said something to me that completely astounded me--and all of my defenses were gone. I don't know if that's ever happened to me before.

I don't often choose to speak about what I believe, but one of the things that I do believe is in purpose and order, and that wherever I go is where I am meant to be. Thus, I am left to wonder why I needed to hear someone say that right now...

Pride Goes Before A Fall

The original title of this post was "Ding dong, the witch is dead" but that seems a tad uncharitable, so I decided against it. Nonetheless...Helena Guergis, MP for the riding where I grew up, has resigned from her minor cabinet post, and been turfed from the Conservative caucus by the PM. He has also brought in the RCMP and the Conflict of Interest commissioner to investigate what he has called "serious allegations" against the "Honourable" Ms. Guergis. (It was especially awesome when he didn't bother to pronounce her name correctly.)

Helena has been in the news very frequently lately, what with her spectacular temper tantrum in the Charlottetown airport, the (unwarranted?) dismissal of DUI/cocaine possession charges against her husband*, and the fawning letters to the editor in her defense that turned out to be from people on her staff. It is presently unknown what the new allegations are (or even if they are new) but it's speculated that it might have something to do with either the circumstances of her mortgage on an $880 000 house in Ottawa, or with the strange behaviour of her husband (a former MP who was still using the Conservative party's logo on his business cards and website up until two days ago).

This is interesting for lots of reasons. First, the PM is pissed.** So pissed, in fact, that he actually voluntarily held a press conference, made a statement, and took questions from reporters--a surprising move given how tight lipped he is about everything else that goes in his government. This break from the usual cloak and dagger routine tells me that the allegations are very, very serious. Even more interestingly, the Conservative MPP for the adjacent riding, Garfield Dunlop,*** gave an interview this morning where he said that on Monday the opposition would be calling for the RCMP to tell the public exactly what the allegations were against Helena, and that they would be right to do so; that the public deserves to know what is going on in this situation.

Since I no longer live or vote in this riding, my interactions with Ms. Guergis have been fairly limited; she has shown up occasionally at local events like the Fall Fair and the Maple Syrup Festival, particularly in campaign years. The impression I have of her, from these public viewings, is one of arrogance and entitlement. Her whole family is actively involved in local politics (her cousin is the mayor, for example), and it will be interesting to see how their political fortunes fare in the next few years in relation to this. (It'll also be interesting to see if the pundits are right in predicting that Helena will hang on to her seat until she becomes eligible for her pension in June, and then resign as soon as she's guaranteed that sweet government money.)

*My dad has posited the theory that the charges were actually dismissed because Jaffar has turned informant.

**And he should be. He doesn't have a lot of women in his party to begin with, so it's not like he can afford to lose one--to say nothing of the fact that accountability and transparency has been the supposed cornerstone of his time in office. (Yes, I know this is debatable. Don't debate it with me.) He has also cut her a lot of slack in the past few months, and she's apparently taken that slack and tried to hang herself with it. I'd be mad too!

***This seems quite damning to me. Garfield is an acquaintance of my father's, and he is a stand up guy--he would not say things like this lightly.

Hippity hoppity

The Easter weekend was a busy one. Co-ordinating two families' worth of holiday time is challenge to begin with, which is further complicated by a) the fact that we live 3ish hours away from where our parents live, and b) our parents' families live between 1.5-3 hours away from our parents, in opposite directions. So this round, we had Friday dinner with Mat's parents, and a Sunday lunch with mine, and forewent the extended family. It was still quite busy, though, and not helped by the really gross head cold I came down with last week. I'm still not feeling great, but am vastly improved over Friday and Saturday.

We visited Burnett's and Struth, the kilt store, so Mat could try on jackets to go with his kilt. I was thoroughly unprepared for how dashing he would look. I'd seen him try on the kilt back in August when we bought it, but that was nothing compared to seeing him try it on with a tuxedo shirt and proper jacket. Oh my goodness, I am a lucky girl. His family thinks he's stupid for wearing a kilt when it's not his background, but it makes me really happy. (It makes my dad really happy too, though I think part of that can be attributed to the fact that my dad is no longer the only man in our family.)

I ordered my Flora Macdonald sash, and Mat picked out a sporran. We also checked out the kilt hose--they even have some handmade ones there, all knit in Scotland, with each label identifying the knitter and the place where they were knit. (Only $100 a pair, knit in worsted weight wool.) Still planning on making socks for Mat; still not fully reconciled to doing it in fingering weight. It will have to be sport or DK for sure. Summer knitting, here I come.

We also started our gift registry at Sears. Mat has a hard time with the registry: He thinks that we already have lots of stuff, and doesn't see the point in registring for more. I can understand his desire not to acquire more stuff (we do, after all, live in an 875 square foot house), but there are a couple of good reasons to do a registry. First, people are going to buy us presents regardless of whether we have a registry. Having one prevents us from receiving six blenders (at least in theory). Second, a lot of the stuff we do have is from when we were students, which means that it's old (a lot of my stuff was secondhand to begin with) and/or probably cheap (see: our microwave, which is decidedly wheezy and tempermental). As a result, I've been making a lot of the decisions on my own. It makes me a bit uncomfortable to do this--and it makes me feel a little bridezilla-y--but it's the only way it's going to get done.

I have devised a small game to amuse myself, in which I select totally inappropriate/silly things and tell Mat that I'm going to put them on the registry with the description of being "for him". So far the list consists of: the Koolatron Vending Machine Refrigerator, the Country Cats kitchen set, and the Koolatron Lunch Box Stove.

I don't think he thinks it's very funny, but I do. (And, it should be noted, I haven't actually registered for any of these things, nor will I.)

Living in the early to mid-90s dance party

I got to go out dancing this weekend for the first time in nearly a year. It was a marvellously good time: it was a dance for the local pride group. (Colloquially known as "the Big Gay Dance" to me and my sister.) The DJ was not quite to my taste, but she did track down the B52s' "Rock Lobster", leading to much hilarity as Mat took the dance floor. (Also: that song is much, much longer than I remember it being. And there's an alarm clock sound in it.)

There was also a drag show on Friday to raise money for the AIDS Committee, which was also a good time, but I am afraid that I must accept that I can no longer go out two nights in a row. (If, indeed, I ever could.)

I've lost that lovin' feeling

If you've seen my mojo, could you let me know where it is?

Yesterday started out quite well. I drove M to work, came home, scrubbed out the bathtub, cleaned up the counter, and reorganized the craft room. And then I was done--I didn't want to do any of the other twelve things that I could do, didn't want to do any of the dozens of things that I needed to do, and wound up just taking a nap on the couch while watching something idiotic on TV. It might even have been reality TV, that's how idiotic it was.

I frogged three projects that had been languishing for several months; I had finished a long time work in progress earlier in the week, and knitting it was such a dreadful experience that I think it might have killed knitting for me for a while. I've cast on about 6 other things over the last few days, only one of which has come to any kind of fruition (and this after I started with one set of needle, finished 3/4s of the hat, realized it would fit a beachball, and started over with a smaller needle, bringing me two full sizes below the recommended needle).

I hope I can get it figured out soon--I've got stuff to do. It's only been three months since Christmas, and I haven't even started my mom's sweater yet.

Reflections on the State of Poetry

We devoted the first six weeks of Intro to English Studies II to the study of poetry, and rounded out our consideration with a look at two Canadian poets and poems, both of which examine the role of poetry in the twentieth century. (The poems in question are A.M. Klein's "Portrait of the Poet as Landscape" and Irving Layton's "Whatever Else Poetry is Freedom".) Both seek to examine the state of poetry, particularly in Canada, with very different results. Klein rages against the obsolescence of poetry, which he describes as being like the fletcher's craft, where Layton paints the poet as a fool or buffoon.

For our last seminar, we asked the students to respond to Layton and Klein, to reflect on what they thought the state of poetry was, and on the role that poetry should play in English Studies at both the secondary and post-secondary levels. My students don't know what to make of poetry. They don't think it's dead, per se, but they don't know what to do with it. An educated person should know poetry, they agree. And music is poetry, but only sometimes. Only if it is real, or genuine, or has meaning behind it. They're reluctant to tell me how meaning is created--they just know. If meaning is conflated with authenticity, I ask, does that mean that Real Poetry must also be authentic to be meaningful? They're not sure, but a few of them wonder if that's why they don't like some of what we've studied. It doesn't mean anything to them.

They stare at me blankly when I tell them that I like poetry, that I even own books (plural!) of it. I hope that some of them leave this year with an understanding that poetry does something. That it makes you feel. Just like music can, only you have to work harder for ir.

I read a piece that a fourth year student submitted to our Creative Writing Exhibition. It was actually a prose piece, but it spoke of finding TS Eliot, and finding friends. One of the things that I miss most about undergrad si discovering poetry for the first time. I don't remember starting university with any particular love for poetry, but I do remember what it felt like to read some of those poems for the first time, the tiny frisson of excitement in my abdomen.

The poem I remember most from my first year of university is Wallace Steven's "Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird." I know that we read other things--"Goblin Market", some Atwood, some Auden--but it is Stevens that sticks in my mind, it is Stevens who made me think This Is Poetry for the first time. The poem does everything that it does so simply, but so well, while so actively defying linear interpretation. It was unlike anything I'd ever read before.

The next year was the British Literature survey year, which brought even more poetry: "Dover Beach," "The Waste Land," "Dulce Et Decorum Est", "The Pomegranate."

And into third year: "Sed Non Satiata," "The Lady's Dressing Room," "Brebeuf and his Brethren". Oh, and Prufrock.

Prufrock.

In a lot of ways, Prufrock is why I'm in English Studies. I'm not an Eliot scholar, nor even a poetry specialist, but Prufrock was a revelation to me. When I read it for the first time, it was the apex of everything that I was learning to love about poetry; for me, it manages to be both alpha and omega. Every time I write, I am not as good as Prufrock, but every time I write I have that summit to strive for.

As a teacher, I want to be the person who introduces someone to his or her Prufrock. I want to see someone realize that poetry is not in fact dead, or archaic; I want to see someone realize that poetry has both meaning and life, that there is somewhere to go from here.

Whatever else, poetry is freedom. (Words Layton's, but the comma is mine.) Writing poetry is freedom, but so is reading it.

Knitting history

While visiting my parents this past weekend, I recovered a piece of my family's knitting history: the duck vest. This was made for me by my mother or one of my grandmothers. (Mum isn't sure which; she thinks that it was her, or she thinks that she has the pattern for it somewhere.) It's made in a dreadful acrylic, of course (it was the 80s) but is really quite sweet otherwise (in a hideous 80s sort of way). There was an elephant vest to match, which featured an i-cord trunk on the front and a tail on the back.

Awesome.

Confessions of a Sleep Deprived Mind

To begin, I have to confess that I love awards shows. Yes, I know they are terrible and boring and generic and never as good as they were in the past. I know all these things to be true, but I still like to watch them. As I grow older, I find myself having to admit to more than a passing interest in fashion (which is something I would never have expected of myself, as I tend to dress like a bag lady who was given a shopping spree at Old Navy), so the costume aspect of it plays into my interest. I like the speeches, too. I used to love the musical segment of the Oscars--I still have fond memories of seeing Elliott Smith perform--and was quite disappointed to see that go by the wayside, even though we apparently still had time for James Taylor to wheeze his way through a Beatles song in spectacular MOR fashion.

Actually, the whole show was disappointing. Whither Chris Rock?

The morning after

I've borrowed the image above from BradCran.com because it is awesome. The IOC has such a weird relationship with women's sports and women in sports, and I think that they need to think very carefully about how they intend to handle that.

all the love that I've found

So far all of my prevaricating about how I feel about the Olympics, I have watched a lot of them these last few days. I've also enjoyed watching them, which has caught me off guard. I'm largely uninterested in sports at the best of times (with a few exceptions--baseball and curling), and we don't actually even have any sports channels in our satellite package, but it has been really exciting to watch a lot of the events. The highlight for me so far has been Joannie Rochette's figure skating. While she is obviously not in the same league as Yu Na Kim, she skated tremendously well, and did so under enormous emotional strain. (Her mother flew out from Quebec last week to see Joannie skate, and died of a heart attack a few days later.)

The Ravelympics haven't been so good to me. I finally figured out a pattern that I've been wanting to design for years now, but it hasn't come out as well as I'd hoped. I've got the first mitt blocking right now, and I'm hoping that will sort out some of my problems with my colourwork gauge.

I'm spending my Friday night putting the finishing touches on a paper proposal for an interdisciplinary conference on Eros. (Luce Irigaray is the keynote speaker. ZOMG.) We had a guest lecturer at the school yesterday afternoon lecturing on the cultural politics of the zombie narrative. Prior to the lecture, we watched David Cronenberg's Rabid (which is called Rage elsewhere), and now I have all of these ideas about motherhood, fertility, and the monstrous feminine in horror movies floating around in my head. (To say nothing of the geopolitical implications of what happens in Rabid...there's a whole paper on the FLQ crisis and French-English relations in Quebec in my head right now.) It figures that I am getting my academic mojo back shortly after having decided that a PhD is not in the foreseeable future.

If I could just find a good pattern for a hat in worsted weight yarn, I'd be away to the races.

come in from the cold

It has been a very interesting day around these parts. We were woken up this morning by the loud and incessant cawing of a murder of crows. There were about thirty of them in the tree on our front lawn, on the wires and the rooftops. If it weren't so cold out, I'd even go so far as to say that the darn things were having a hootenanny. What could possibly have so many birds all riled up at 6:30 in the morning? I asked myself. Then I slid my fingers through the slats in the Venetian blinds, and looked out at the yard.

This is what I saw:



The racket went on for a good hour or so until the owl took off, and all the crows just exploded behind him. It made me feel as though I was in a Hitchcock movie.

For this week's foray into new food territory, I decided to make some gyoza. The university held a food fest a few weeks ago, and I had some there that were just ridiculously good. They didn't seem as though they would be excessively difficult to make, so I snooped around to find a good recipe and wound up settling on an Anna Olson recipe. I only changed two things: first, I used lean ground pork instead of regular (it was all they had at the store), and second, I only put in about 125 grams of cabbage instead of a pound. I honestly don't know how they'd be with a full pound of cabbage in there. The little bit that I had was more than enough. It wound up making about 75 little dumplings, which are very tasty. (The other thing that I changed is that I've just been steaming them, not frying then steaming then frying.)

Not much progress to report on my Ravelympics knitting except that I've ripped out and started over again (so that I could go up a needle size). I'm pretty sure the third time's the charm, though; this gauge seems much more workable.

drink up, baby, and stay up all night

I've been visiting my mother for the last few days, and it has been absolutely wonderful. After spending an afternoon with a few friends and my mother, I departed for one of the girls' house armed with my knitting and a bottle of red wine. We wound up watching 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Women's Moguls on the Olympics, and the bottle of red wine was consumed entirely by me. It was interesting to revisit 2001, as it has been several years since I'd watched it last. I was quite surprised to learn that it is actually only 2h25 long, as I would have bet good money on it being more in the four hour range. It turns out that it only feels four hours long. My main memory from the last time I watched it was that I'd spent most of the film reflecting on how much George Lucas had cribbed visually from the set design of the spaceships. My main memory from this time will probably be that the ending is pretty incomprehensible when 3/4 of a bottle of red wine is inside you.

Post-red wine, my mum and I took a trip down to Toronto to visit her parents. My grandfather hasn't been well lately, so I was excited but apprehensive about seeing him. (He's 86, and has a number of health issues related to age, in addition to a recent diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis.) He had a really good day, though. He was chipper and full of jokes, and even agreed to come out of the house to visit a farming store. He doesn't remember my name, but he does remember who I am. (I blame my mother for giving me such an outlandish name.) ;) My gramma was in good spirits as well. She's not much younger than Grampa, but is in much better health. The responsibility of taking care of Grampa falls on her, and I imagine that can be very trying sometimes. They have been married for almost 60 years.

On the knitting front, I've been working on a pair of mittens for the Ravelympics. I don't want to post pictures until I've managed to knit a little more of them, so that the pattern is more visible. I've had to rip them out entirely once already due to gauge issues, but I think the end result will be worth it.

The best thing that I have done so far on reading week, aside from consuming a large amount of delicious sushi, is write a short story. It's the first thing I've written in almost six years, aside from a few snatches of very bad poetry. It's not any good, but it makes me so unbelievably happy to have written something again. Let's hope there is more to come.

Gearing up for the Ravelympics

Every competitor needs some swanky new clothing for competition. Sadly, the Ravelympics are not sponsored by HBC (and after this post, I can't really blame them for that.) Thus, I have taken it upon myself to create a new avatar for the next two weeks:



Let the games begin!

DVR Clearout I

My taping appetite has apparently exceeded my capacity to watch the things that I record, so today I decided to buckle down and watch a bunch of the stuff that I've been avoiding for a while. The Olympics are coming (perhaps you've heard?) and I anticipate that there will probably be a few events that I'll need to tape, so I want to make sure that I have room.

Part of the problem is that the kind of movie that I like (and like to tape, evidently) is the kind of movie that requires a certain frame of mind to watch: the PVR is currently full of Very Serious Films, that cannot simply be watched while I'm puttering around with other things. They need (and, arguably, deserve) my full attention. Anything that's a bit more fluffy gets watched quite quickly.

Thus far I've been successful in clearing out some CSI, Criminal Minds, and Star Trek: Voyager, but I also managed to watch The Pelican Brief, starring Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts, based on the Grisham novel of the same name. I'd watched and read The Pelican Brief years ago when they first came out (and yes, that would put me at about 11 or 12; my parents never restricted me as a reader). It was an interesting film to revisit. So much of the plot depends on conventions of film writing that are now dated and nearly obsolete. Cell phones, in particular, completely eliminate the "but how will I get ahold of you?" tension in the plot; Julia Roberts's character would have a much harder time going off the grid if the movie were written today. The ways in which the various characters are restricted (in terms of movement) by the need stay in contact with others is fascinating. In these days of email and instant communication, the idea of the hard copy of the actual Pelican Brief being passed around is also quite fascinating, as is the card catalogue/filing cabinet style research that Roberts and Washington do.

I'm not a huge Grisham fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I do find some of his work entertaining. It makes me kind of sad that what is actually a decent legal thriller is now more curious for its antique qualities than its plot.

the only thing that helps me pass the time away

It's the sixth week of the term, which puts us at the official halfway point for the year. On one hand, this is awesome, because it means that next week is the Spring Study Break, but on the other hand, I have come to the realization that I have only graded 10% of the work my students will submit to me this term, which means that the remaining 90% is still to come. Yikes.

I am making an effort to focus on the positive this term, which means that I am actually going to give myself a proper Spring Break. I had to grade my exams over the winter holidays, resulting in only 3 actual days off for me in the 2.5 weeks I had "off" work, and I am determined that I need a real break this time. This can only happy if I get a goodly chunk of work done before the break begins, of course. My plans are not especially grandiose: I am going home to see my mother, who is home alone currently, having been abandoned by my father (golfing in the States) and Youngest Sister (adventuring in New Zealand). She is talking about going to see my grandparents, maybe, and possibly doing some house painting. It will be nice to have a couple of truly relaxing, vegetative days in the middle of all of this craziness. (Once I finish grading my 125 essays, I have about 100 midterms to grade as well, with more on the way.)

On the knitting and wedding front, I just finished my wedding shawl. The pattern is called Feather Duster, and it is lovely, using ostrich lace for the repeats. The yarn is also lovely: I used a 2 ply fingering weight yarn in natural ivory from Misty Haven Alpacas, which is right outside of town. I picked it because I like the heft of fingering weight yarns in comparison with laceweights, and because the 2 ply fingering is made from Misty Haven's own alpaca herd. (Most of the yarns they carry are from an alpaca co-op, where all the members contribute fiber and then receive a proportionate amount of yarn.) Although it is a millspun yarn, it feels very much like a handspun, as the thickness varied from part to part. The fabric is likely the softest thing I've ever knit, and feels unbelievably luxurious. I cannot wait for my wedding dress to come in so that I can see the two of them together. The best part is that I made the whole shawl out of one skein--less than 400 yards. I'm ever so pleased with myself.

I've got socks on the needles right now, and I think I may actually have broken through my sock rut--I finished the first sock in three days, and am up to the gusset increases on the second already.

For this week's cooking challenge, I made Chicken Saltimbocca for supper. It actually came out really well--I even found a Marsala wine to make the sauce. The sauce, on its own, didn't taste especially good, but once it was on the chicken, it mellowed out the saltiness of the proscuitto and was generally quite tasty. I would definitely make it again.

Cowichan sweaters, HBC, and what I'm not knitting for Ravelympics

Regular commenter Castor Rouge has contributed the above photograph, taken at Ottawa's Winterlude festivities three years ago. It makes a good segue to the subject of today's blog, which manages to address a bunch of stuff that I've been pondering off and on for the last few months.

During the last [summer] Olympic games, Ravelry hosted the Ravelympics, in which various teams competed in different knitting related categories. Everyone cast on their projects during the opening ceremonies, and the first person finished in each category would "win". It's happening again this year, which is pretty cool. I'm competing on Team Three Irish Girls (for the yarn club I belong to). We have our own colourway, Sheepnuts, so called because...well...


(thanks to Kregarious for photo under Creative Commons license)

Anyhow. I was thinking about potential projects for Ravelympics, and I hit upon the idea of making a Cowichan-style sweater. In many ways, it would be the perfect project for the Vancouver Olympics: it would be uniquely Canadian; I could make it out of a heritage yarn, like Briggs and Little; it would be challenging but not intimidating; it would pay homage to the aboriginal people of British Columbia.

Unfortunately, when you're a critical theory person, these things are never so simple as that. At what point does pay homage become cultural appropriation? As a white person of British descent, would I simply be perpetuate the cycle of colonization? It doesn't help that these sweaters are already fraught with controversy in relation to this Olympic games. The Hudson's Bay Company (yes, the same company that used to trade blankets for beaver pelts) is the official clothing company for the Olympic games. As part of their collection for the Olympics, they have a sweater that they swear is *not* a Cowichan sweater. Local aboriginal groups are upset because HBC opted to contract out the sweater making rather than having aboriginal knitters make them, claiming that the Cowichans wouldn't be able to produce sweaters to HBC's strict standards. HBC also claims that their design isn't Cowichan:



I'll leave you to be the judge of that. I especially enjoyed the statement that HBC released:

It is a contemporary design inspired by a great fashion icon that is recognized as a knit sweater all across the country.

If you can tell me what "recognized as a knit sweater" means, exactly, I'd really like to hear it.

All of this is a longwinded way of saying that I'm probably just going to make a scarf rather than a sweater during the Olympics. Is there a way to mitigate that uncomfortable feeling of cultural appropriation?

Knitting, Cooking, Cleaning: The Life Domestic

It has been a busy few days here; when I haven't been thinking about the politics of knitting, I've been actually knitting. (Scary.) There's also been a lot of cooking and cleaning happening over here. Friends of ours are due to welcome a baby girl into the world in a few short days, so I've been working on a wee feather-and-fan sweater for her, and Mat and I are making up some food to take over. We've realized that we've been in a rut lately, so we're trying to be proactive in making changes in our lives.

I frequently try to tell my students that life is a learning process and that university is not necessarily about learning to identify the parts of sentences, but I tend to forget that myself. Living with my partner has meant a lot of learning for me. We have very different temperaments: he will brood where I will attack; he sleeps more than I do; he is much neater than I am. One of the things that I have learned about myself since we've moved in together is that if I don't plan my week out in advance, nothing gets done properly.

This never seemed to be an issue when I lived alone, but I think that's because I only ever had to worry about myself. If left to my own devices, I will often graze rather than eat properly, which just doesn't cut it when you need to feed someone else too. It also didn't matter when I cleaned the tub or did the dishes, or if I remembered to wash the sheets or vacuum. Add another person into the mix, though, and that does start to matter.

In the spirit of breaking out of my biggest rut, which is a food rut, I've decided to make one new recipe every week. This week's adventure in fooding will be a pork tenderloin with roasted potatoes.

Perhaps I've been going about it all wrong

The difficulties of hacking through the Gordian knot I've made of knitting and politics have been weighing on me; I've made little progress in terms of figuring out what I might like to make for the art show. It's the same crippling thought that has bogged up much of my creative writing for the last few years: everything I think of always seems so hopelessly derivative.

Then Karie passed on a link that has made me see that perhps the problem is not with me, but the way in which I am considering art as resistance and knitting as politics. Anna, of Knitting, Sex and God, writes:

What I have enjoyed about the 100 Objects series so far is that it is collapsing distinctions between ‘art’, ‘craft’, ‘tools’, ‘technology’, etc. The only criterion is that each object is an artefact – made by human beings. The semantic awkwardness there is significant – the words that easily slip in the structure of our language are ‘man-made’ – made by men, or with men representative of the whole of humanity. The whole traditional men/women, culture/nature division is particularly significant as regards ‘thingyness’, because men ‘make’ and women ‘generate’, men invent things and make decisions and get them done, whereas women give birth. Or the things that women make traditionally – textiles, food, domestic items – aren’t as valued as those of men: they are craft, not art; tools, not technology.

Feminism hasn’t always done as well as it might in trying to redress the neglect of ‘women’s things’: having diagnosed the culture/nature dualism, it has often wanted to choose one side of the divide rather than to dissolve it. So you have a disembodiedly intellectual kind of feminism that is dismissive of activities such as cooking or embroidery, versus the spiritual feminism saturated in the imagery of the natural, untouched by the social – moon, sea, soil, etc, speaking of ‘technology’ as the evil tool of patriarchy that has subjugated women and the earth. Or feminist reclamation of traditional female crafts has tended to romanticise them as being closer to the natural and part of women’s birth-giving capacities, rather than part of the general human project of negotiating the world through tools and objects that are useful and beautiful.

There's quite a lot going on there. To start with, Anna brings up the word "man-made" as significant; I would also add that the objects women produced are more often referred to as being "handmade," which is a term loaded with solipsisms, conjuring up images of macaroni picture frames and pinecone bird feeders on one hand, or expensive, "Fair Trade" wooden bowls carved in a Third World county on the other. Anna goes on to talk about the divide between intellectual vs. spiritual feminism, which in some ways reinforces this solipsism.

I think that I need to stop thinking about knitting as resistance in terms of capital P Politics, and start thinking about where knitting sits in terms of the politics of feminism, and in what ways my position as a [third wave] feminist and knitter resists, subverts, conforms, or defies this feminism.

alpacas uber alles

Castor Rouge has given me some food for thought in response to my last post about political knitting. (I will point out, though, that he likes my February Lady Sweater because of the buttons, which are Tudor Roses, and that he recognized them right away.)

I managed to sneak home this weekend, and it wound up being a very nice weekend. I had a nice long soak in my parents' bathtub, ate ridiculous amounts of sushi, and spent time knitting and talking with a good friend. I made good progress on a very sweet baby sweater, which I will hopefully finish before wee Abigail Autumn makes her way into the world.

On Friday, I was sitting on the couch and knitting, and my dad said to me, "Of all my daughters, you are not the one I would've thought to be the knitter." This was quite surprising to me. "Which of us did you think it would be?" I asked. "I'm not sure," he replied. "Just not you. But you really love it, don't you? You get it from your grandmother, though. Your great-grandmother too."

My dad's mother passed away when I was fourteen after a long battle with a number of illness, although I believe it came down to Hepatitis C and cirrhosis in the end. She taught me to knit years before that, and after making a few little things, I forgot all about it until I started working at The Historic Site Which Shall Not Be Named. It makes me very sad that she will never know how grateful I am for those early lessons, or see any of the things that I have made. I can still remember the first square I knit, in white yarn (probably acrylic), and how disappointed I was that it didn't look like "real" knitting. (It was garter stitch, and I thought it would or should look like stockinette.)

Part of the impetus to knit, for me, is that connection to the past. How does that connect to the politics of knitting? I'm not sure. I have a few more thoughts, but they will have to wait until tomorrow.

art as resistance

Every year for International Women's Week, one of the local galleries does a juried art show, usually inconjunction with the Gender Equality and Social Justice department here at the university. This year's theme is Art of Resistance, and I would really like to submit a knitted piece. Unfortunately, I just don't know what to submit.

Many knitters, all much smarter than I, do incredible politically minded projects--Rav had a whole group of "Knitters for Obama" who came up with some mindblowing ideas. The Body Count Mittens have always been a personal favourite of mine; since you finish the mittens on different dates, they will have different numbers on them, representing the number of casualties in the Iraq war. I considered doing Afghanistan mittens, but I don't know that I'd have access to the body count information, and I also don't want to simply re-tread ground others have already walked on. It's hard to justify knitting as a subversive act when you're following a pattern.

Poetry mittens are another option; perhaps with lines from Rich or Atwood? Cixous, even? But that still doesn't feel like it's quite enough.

Part of the problem is that I have very mixed feelings about the relationship between knitting and politics. In some ways, yes, it is very much about resistance: it is an act of reclamation. I reclaim my past (imagined?), participating in the culture of my ancestors. I create things by hand: every item that I make is something unique, something not created by a machine or in a sweatshop. It is labour but also love. I reclaim it as a feminist act: I knit because I choose to knit; I knit primarily for myself. The act of knitting is political because it destabilizes commonly encountered cultural attitudes about knitting and knitters.

The flip side is that it only does these things because of my class; is the reclamation of a working class profession as my upper middle class hobby really all that awesome, or just kind of bourgeois? Knitting isn't truly a matter of necessity for me; it is a luxury, and one I choose to pursue. Does the mere fact of choice problematize any arguments about reclamation?

Even if you want to ignore all of these, there are still the political issues that every knitter must face: body image and body politics; man vs. animal fibre; the environmental costs of plant fibres; neoconservatism (women who see knitting as a reclamation of traditional gender roles and values) vs. progressive liberalism (people who see knitting as an honourable craft); bargain vs. luxury yarns; local yarn stores vs. online stores; stash size as a measure of worth; the DIY esthetic; design and designers; community.

How can I turn all of that into a simple handmade garment?

The first week back at work was a busy one. The school physically shut down for two weeks, which complicated the return to work; the building was opened only an hour before my first class. It went well enough, though many of the students who failed part I are still somehow registered for part II, so I will have to do some wrangling with the Registrar's Office later this week.

Back in October I mentioned visiting the dermatologist, who wanted me to come back for a biopsy in December. I got the results a few days ago. The mole was pre-cancerous, which officially puts me in every single high risk group for skin cancer. I know that it isn't a big deal, as pre-cancerous is not at all the same as cancerous, but I am going to have to be really careful about staying out of the sun whenever possible, and watching my 300+ moles to make sure that they are not changing at all.

The great Stashdown of 2010 continues on; the wedding shawl is working out very well. The yarn is so soft and lovely. I also cast on a simple pair of handwarmers that I can wear at work, which I am making out of the handspun baby camel yarn that my mum bought for me on the Isle of Skye. I've never knit with handspun before, so it's quite neat that way. The yarn is so special that I want to keep the pattern quite simple, so I'm making up my own and I'm pleased with the way it's working out.

if she can't find you handsome...

My annual sinus cold has set in, just in time for the start of the school year, when I have to do lots of talking. Huzzah. Fortunately most of my students have had me before, so they know that this is not quite what I sound like or act like; I am hopeful that things will get better soon.

There are currently men in the kitchen doing manly things, which in this instance means "home renos while drinking beer." It's a bit scary. When we bought the house, it came with some appliances, including a very old refrigerator. The fridge lived in its own little alcove in the kitchen. When we replaced the fridge, we quickly discovered that old fridges are in fact quite small by comparison to their modern counterparts, and the new fridge did not fit into the alcove.

Fast forward a year and a half or so, and the men have decided to remove a portion of one wall to enlarge the space for the fridge to fit into. This necessitated power tools, a trip to Home Depot, and beer. Naturally. This is, apparently, how renovations work.

It actually worked out pretty well. The fridge seems quite happy in its new home. The cupboard above the fridge was out tea cupboard, and we had to clean it out so that the men could do their work. Sadly, this brought us to the realization of how much tea we own. (Mat would like to pretend that it is all mine, but frankly, that is a lie. Most of the black teas are mine, but there's a fair amount of green and rooibos that belong to him.) To give you an idea, we nearly filled a large Rubbermaid container with tea. I think it may be time for a tea purge soon enough.

In knitting news, I have begun work on my wedding shawl. The pattern uses an Ostrich lace pattern, which is just beautiful, and I'm knitting it in a local alpaca yarn from the Misty Haven Alpaca farm out in Corbeil. It's so beautiful and soft to work with. I was doing some googling this afternoon and came across a quaich with an inscription reading, "Of Earthly Joys, Thou Art My Choice." I quite like that.

into the future

It has been a surprising productive weekend around these parts. I finally finished all of my grading from last semester and submitted my final grades. (160 final exams x 30 minutes apiece to grade=80 hours of grading and a very sad grader.)
I cleaned up my craftroom (you can see my work table now! It's made of plastic) and cleaned up my bedroom. I've got laundry in both the washer and dryer. Best of all, there's a turkey in the oven. It's my very first turkey, and I really hope that it comes out okay. It smells pretty good.

I've joined a destashing game on Ravelry for the next few months in hopes of getting some projects done (and not buying more yarn!) I came out of Christmas with a skein of Fleece Artist's Scotian Silk and a skein of Handmaiden's Mini-Maiden, plus some yarn from a Harry Potter Quidditch swap. I am hoping that I will be able to go the next three months without adding any more to my stash (aside from my Three Irish Girls yarn of the month). I finished my first project of the year this morning: a little cozy for Richard Parker, my iPod, with an owl cable on it. Next up is finishing my hooded scarf, and not a moment too soon: it is cold here, and when it isn't cold, it's windchills in the -30s. Brrr.

The university opens back up tomorrow. My schedule this term is pretty good--I have Fridays off, and I finish at 12:30 on Thursdays, so I'm hoping that I will be able to make good use of my time and get some academic and creative work done. It's good to be ambitious.

New Year's was strange this year. The event itself wasn't strange, especially, but it was strange to reflect back on the last ten years of my life. The strangest thing was to think about NYE 2000. I spent it at a friend's house in the country with my high school friends. Of all the people that I saw that night, I talk to one semi-regularly now. So many things about me are so different now from what they were back then--I am very lucky to have had the opportunities and friendships that I have over the last ten years.

With Glowing Hearts

The Olympic Torch Relay rolled into North Bay last night, having made its way through the tiny village that is my hometown the day before. I went on the advice of one of my uncles. He is sarcastic and cynical, almost always dressed in black, and refuses to be photographed. He and my aunt once owned cats named Topper and Strummer after members of the Clash. So I figured that if he, of all people, was recommending the torch run as something to be seen, then it was worth seeing.

It was pretty commercialized, since Coca-Cola is a sponsor, but there was still lots of neat stuff--the live performances of musicians and acrobats, as well as several community groups. There were even fireworks at the end. My feet were pretty cold by the time that it was over, but that's what I get for wearing running shoes instead of proper boots.

I bought a new winter coat yesterday, after I finally admitted that the boiled wool peacoats that I adore (in a very pretentious, hipster way) are simply not warm enough to cut it in a northern Ontario winter. The coat I picked up is a skiing/snowboarding coat, and it attracted me initially because it has birds on it. (I am simple like that.) It also has a bajillion pockets (and armpit zippers for those days when I am skiing hard) and places to keep my electronic equipment. (Does anyone remember when coats were just coats? And your lift ticket went on the front zipper and it would fly up in your face for the whole night and you liked it? Those were simpler times, Gentle Reader.)

The best part is that it was a $200 coat on sale for $50. I do love a good bargain.

It's New Year's Eve, and I am spending it with the old roommates. I hope that it will be a good night. I really dislike New Year's - to me, it is the prom night of holidays: much ado about nothing, a night where anything could happen but nothing ever does.

Christmas Eve Eve

I am not grading exams right now. I should be, but I am not, because it manages to be both tedious and painful and I have developed seasonal ADD that prevents me from focusing my eyes on a single object for longer than twenty seconds.

It's totally a real medical condition, you guys. For real.

The Christmas shopping is all done, although I still have a few gifts to make, and mostly everything is wrapped and sitting in a laundry basket at the door, waiting to be taken away.

It's a bit too early to think about New Year's Resolutions, but I do want to think about the things I want to knit next year. So far, tentative knitting goals are include: 1) knitting ten sweaters (Rogue, Featherweight Cardigan, Coraline, Wrenna, St. James, Icelandic Star are all on the list so far--the really sick part is that I can knit all of these out of stash yarn). 2) My wedding shawl. 3) At least one project per month from my Three Irish Girls stash. 4) Socks. I love wearing handmade socks. I just don't particularly want to make them.

Take A Good Look At My Face

The school term finally ended on Wednesday, and I am still marking furiously to catch up to my students, who expect to get their essays back on Monday. They will then write the exam on Tuesday (at night!) and I will mark furiously to get it done before Christmas. Good thing I did not sign myself up for lots of Christmas knitting this year.

I did finish the one project I was really keen on: a Swallowtail Shawl for my grandmother. My grandfather has been very sick lately (and has just been diagnosed with a chronic lung condition) and my grandmother has been having a hard time, since she is his primary caretaker. She used to make all sorts of things: she knit, crocheted, sewed, smocked, etc. until her arthritis became too painful for her to continue. Her grandchildren definitely benefitted from all of this creativity, so I wanted to make her something to show her that I was thinking of he.



I also published my first pattern this week: The Celtic Moonrise Mittens are available for free on Ravelry, and I've already got an idea in mind for the next pattern, which will also be mittens. I had a lovely custom dyed merino-silk blend arrive in the mail this week that will be perfect for it.

Sometimes the knitting life is so much better than the real life. Although, in real life, I need to sing the praises of Vista Print. We ordered Save the Date announcements for the wedding on Monday night, and they were printed and at our house by noon on Thursday. The quality is really nice, and the prices were very reasonable. I have a calendar coming in the next few days, and I hope that the quality is as good.

The Joys of Being A Pet Owner

We've had Bad Cat for approximately 18 months now, and for the most part, he has been a delight, and our lives have been all the richer for his presence in our house. (Exceptions to this statement include his need to have someone awake with him when he's awake, his need to eat--or try to eat--everything, his cries of distress to arouse sympathy from the neighbours, his...odorous...contributions to the bathroom, some occasional scratching, and the time he ate a plant and vomited bright green on our duvet.)

This holiday season, Cat has decided to contribute to the family by helping with the decorations. Mat and I set up our tree yesterday, but didn't have a chance to start decorating it. The knitting guild is having a sale/trade table at our holiday party in a couple of weeks, and while I was evaluating what parts of the stash I could be persuaded to part with, I found the Dread Sock. As Bad Cat has recently expressed considerable enjoyment in the unravelling of half-knit socks, I broke the yarn and passed it on to him.

Mat worked a night shift last night, and I went out for a few hours to attend a silent auction in benefit of the local AIDS Committee (alas, I did not win anything). When I got home, I saw this:



On closer inspection, I could see this:


Needless to say, Bad Cat is very pleased with himself:


He's lucky he's cute.

And your bird can sing

I have spent the last hour playing The Beatles Rock Band and I have sung myself hoarse. It's marvellous! Sometimes I like to imagine a world where karaoke is made for people like me: slightly tone deaf, but with a love of music that makes up for. Someone who isn't interested in singing Top 40 hits. I want Crowded House Rock Band and Elliott Smith SingStar. I want to sing songs that actually mean something.

I miss the Albion Hotel in Guelph. I miss the jukebox, and the Strongbow (one of my least favourite things about this town is the total lack of cider on tap anywhere). I miss eating nachos and putting ten dollars of quarters in the jukebox and pissing other people off because the next ninety minutes of music were all mine and I was going to be drunk and enjoy every word out of that beautiful lighted box.

Today was a good day at the end of a long week. Mat went hunting for deer, which left me alone with a queen sized bed. There is something to be said for having a whole bed to yourself. He came back last night, as the hunting party reached their quota quite early in the week (and it was raining).

The winter Interweave came today, along with my skein of Dye For Glory yarn: Three Irish Girls' Father Time. It's beautiful and manly. I got it on Finley Fingering, which I'm quickly realizing is one of my favourite sock yarn bases. It's very squooshy.


I also grabbed a few snaps of some finished projects. First is Caitlin's birthday rpesent, the ubiquitous February Lady Sweater:



I also finished the Ripley hat from Whimsical Little Knits 2:



And I have cast on a Swallowtail Shawl as a gift for my gramma.

In which I participate in gratuitous acts of commerce

Ian and I took a trip over to Sudbury today to visit our favourite warehouse super store, Costco, and to take in the other shops. It was a productive, if funny, shopping day. I was quite excited to get a Friends and Family coupon for Old Navy worth 30% off the prices, and I picked up some sweaters and long sleeve Ts. Ian used it to buy baby clothes. It was quite touching to see him pick out the little pink dresses and sweaters. My favourite was the hooded fleece sleeper--it has ears on the hood.

I also managed to snag a new Roots hoodie from their new "We're Not the Official Clothiers of the Canadian Olympic Team Anymore, So We'll Just Happen to Come Out With a Canada-themed Line Right Before the Olympics" line. It has thumb holes in the cuffs, which I love. Hurray for warm hands.

Once we got home, I took a quick trip downtown to the new yarn store. It's been open for a few months now, and I haven't bought much there. The selection is great; I've just been broke/living under the delusion of 'stashbusting'. I needed to pick something up for a swap I'm doing, and this store carries Misty Haven Alpacas' yarns. (As my swap partner lives in the Netherlands, I thought it would be great to send her some local yarn.)

holding pattern

Gentle reader, the last few weeks have kicked my ass.

I managed to pick up the hinny, as we've taken to calling H1N1, somewhere, and while I have been better in every way that counts for about a week now, I'm still pretty tired and prone to taking naps whenever I can get away with it. The hinny was unpleasant: I was so miserable I didn't even want to knit. The worst part was the fever and chills. At one point, I was dressed in fleece pyjamas, wearing a housecoat, wrapped in a down-filled duvet, and wrapped in another blanket, and I still couldn't get warm.

Thankfully that is all in the past.

We had a beautiful day here today. It was sunny, and almost warm (about 11 Celsius); I raked some leaves in our backyard. The backyard is much bigger than I remember it being. (Our lot is 34'x125', so I know how big it is, but sometimes I forget what that actually means.) I really hope that next summer I can get my act together to give the backyard the TLC it needs, as it could be quite beautiful. Perhaps if it doesn't rain every other day next year.

I cast on my first knit sock in almost six months last week; I'm finding that my store bought socks are not cutting it in terms of keeping my feet warm. And it's not like I have a shortage of sock yarn...I was almost half finished my sock when I finally admitted that it was too small, and tore it out. Naturally, the excitement of yarn being frogged was too much for the cat to handle, and he grabbed the sock in his mouth and ran off with it. He managed to unravel it for me all around the kitchen and living room. He was having so much fun that I couldn't quite bring myself to stop him.

Now that I'm back in the land of the living, things should be more interesting around here.

drowning not waving

The first big markathon of the year has been underway for about two weeks now, and I am so close to being done I can taste it: I only have about 23 papers left to grade out of 173. I am also so close to being done that I am almost totally braindead. I have literally marked my way through three pencils. It's a wonder I can stand up right.

I've had almost no time for non-marking related activities, but I did manage to sneak down to Toronto to attend a baby shower for my cousin (who is first in our family to procreate) and to visit The Brides Project to try on wedding dresses. I had high hopes for The Brides Project (they sell donated dresses and then donate the proceeds to camps for children with cancer) but there really wasn't anything that tickled my fancy. Most of the dresses were too elaborate for my tastes. I tried on an Alfred Sung dress that was totally ridiculous: heavy, heavy satin, huge skirts, huge train, a sheer, beaded halter neck over a satin sweetheart neckline. It looked dreadful on me, but would have been fabulous on someone with the personality to carry it off.

Far from the shores of England

Yesterday was one of the best days I've had in a very, very long time. It's Fall Fair weekend here in the village, which means it's a time of parades and tractors and cows and oddly shaped vegetables. My father's Masonic Lodge was sponsoring a child identification program, and he had asked all of the sisters to volunteer for a few hours. It wound up being a lot more interesting and fun than I had thought.

When I was a child, child identification programs usually consisted of inky fingerprints on an index card. (Since our father was a police officer, all of the sisters have amazing fingerprinting technique--we were taught how to roll them out from a young age.) Child identification has changed pretty substantially in the 20 years since I was a child. The packages we put together yesterday consisted of digitally scanned fingerprints, digital photos, a short video clip of the child answering questions, a dental impression, and a DNA swab (along with their parents' information). The Masons were all quite impressed with our computer skills. It's good to know that when they aren't keeping the electric car down, they're actually doing good in their communities.

My dad took us (sisters + cousin) out for dinner to thank us for volunteering, and we went to the Wild Wing the next town over. I had never been to a Wild Wing before, and it was fantastic. I'm a fairly unadventurous sort, so I tried the medium wings and the Desperado wings (medium + maple). Youngest sister had something a dill sauce on top, which I was quite happy to skip. The wings were so good--just at the upper edge of what I can stand to eat, heatwise, and sharp and vinegary in taste. There was also ample celery, carrots, and blue cheese dip.

Youngest sister also managed to throw a bone right into my beer glass, because she is a jerk.

We had two pitchers of beer between the five of us (except me, who was driving and had her single glass of beer destroyed by an errant chicken wing), and my dad attempted to pass on the manly skill of how to pour a beer properly. This was less successful the more everyone drank, and we wound up telling stories of SOME of the stupid things that we had done as teenagers while drinking underage. Apparently, according to my dad, we were never quite as subtle about it as we wanted to think we were.

Mum comes home from Scotland today!

Alpacas Part II

Sadly there are no alpacas in this post, so if you only like things that are actually about alpacas, feel free to skip this one.

Remember that time I told you the story about the alpacas? Remember how, in the epilogue, I talked about my parents and their trip through Alberta's Badlands?

Well, I have something to show you.



These horses are just hanging out, doing horsey things.



These horses have just been yelled at: "Alpaca alpaca alpaca!"

What do you mean, it's only Wednesday?

It's been a busy week here in North Bay Rock City. The T-1 year countdown to the wedding is on as of last Friday, my special snowflakes handed in their first essay assignments to me, and it may (or may not) have snowed at some point in the last seven days. I did not personally witness any of this alleged snowing, so I am opting to believe that it didn't actually happen.

I did, however, break down and turn on the furnace a few days ago when I got home and the thermostat told me it was 14 degrees in the house. Brrr!

I also had an appointment with a dermatologist on Monday. My body is covered in moles--I easily have between 200-300 of them. (According to the US Cancer Institute, most people have between 10-40 moles.) I also fall into just about every category of risk for melanoma: fair skin and light hair, freckles, UV exposure and sunburns, having more than 50 moles, and having many dysplastic moles.

There's one mole on my arm that the doctor described as being "just wrong", so it's going to be biopsied in December, and in the meantime I am not to ever sunbathe again, ever, and to wear long sleeves and a hat when in the sun. I also get to check myself over every month to make sure that nothing's changed mole-wise.

Then today Mat was playing with the cat and asked, "Is it the cat's ear bleeding?" It wasn't, but there was a large red bump inside his ear, and another one where his eyebrow would be (if he was human. Do cats have eyebrows?) Thankfully, the vet was able to see us today, and my poor kitty has neurogenic dermatitis--basically, he's stressed out and it's manifesting itself in these sores on his skin. He was given a cortisone injection and is now on the road to recovery, so hopefully he'll be all better soon.

We also got him on a scale while we were there, and my wee beastie weighs a not-so-wee 16 lbs., 8 oz.

A sweater for Caitlin is on my needles currently. It's another February Lady, but I've done the yoke in Noro Yuzen (a wool/silk/mohair variegated) and the lace part in Berroco Inca Gold (a silk-merino cable spun). The Inca Gold is heavenly to knit with. The finished sweater will be unique, but hopefully in a way that suits Cait. (And hopefully it will be finished in time for her birthday next month.)