Knitting with Rock Stars or Mason Dixon Does Nashville

Oh yes, that is my cousin and I cozying up to the wonderful knitters, Ann Shayne(on left) and Kay Gardiner(on right), the writers of Mason-Dixon Knitting. My beloved cuz and I took a road trip to Nashville with the express purpose of meeting these ladies. We both agreed that before Cuz spawns her newest project, baby Deuce, we should do something fun together. We decide, Nashville here we come. Tennessee does this wonderful thing once a year called the Southern Festival of Books. Over 250 authors went to downtown Nashville for a weekend to schill their books and see their fans. It was awesome. Books were everywhere, people selling books, giving away books, talking about books, and signing books.

These lovely ladies from Mason-Dixon filled a court room full of knitters and their families to talk about their newest book, Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines. They passed around knitted items from the book and engaged all of us in the story of how knitting led them into the odyssey that became http://www.masondixonknitting.com/ . They made me laugh and feel good about my own knitting adventure. I had the added bonus of meeting knitters from all over the state of Tennessee, we talked yarn, projects, and techniques. We were instant friends ready to just sit and knit together as we got to know one another. Above is the talented Tara (on left) and Lindsey (on right) who had projects that made me lust after their skill. Tara particularly touched my heart when she told me she taught herself to knit during a time in her life when she was very unhappy. I thought, I know that story. Everyone was so welcoming.
Ann and Kay were so approachable and excited to meet the twoseme who drove from St Louis to meet them (See: http://www.masondixonknitting.com/archives/2008_10.html#002517 for proof, Tempesttea in her 15 minutes of knitting fame). Kay especially made me feel less like the neophyte knitter and one of the crowd when we both pulled out our knitting and found stitches had jumped right off our needles and we had to quickly save our respective projects. I also really liked that Kay wore my favorite color and was knitting something in the same beautiful shade.
It was just wonderful, this was just the medicine I needed for my soul this weekend. Thank you to all the wonderful Tennessee knitters who opened their knitting bags and hearts to the chubby girls from St Louis.

Knit Masterpiece

Okay for the non-knitters this is a knitty-knit-knit post, and for the knitters this is the oh-my-god when is she going to stop flapping this throw in our faces kind of post. Please indulge me today, I need the little victory right now. Last summer I bought 5 skeins of this Noro Silk Garden. I spent a couple of months hoping I would stumble across a cache of a few more to make myself this awesome Lady Eleanor wrap. Well I may have stumbled, but no yarn turned up and I decided Lady E was a little above my knit abilities. So 5 skeins of Noro languished in my stash. I thought some project will present itself.

Enter my friend Debbie. Debbie has been sick, the last couple of years and has recently moved to New Town in St Charles. When she saw me knitting she hinted that she would like a throw for her new digs. I caught the hint, actually I would have been in another state to have not caught that suggestion. So I thought, hmmm, I do have that Noro and Christmas is coming. But still I did not have enough for a throw. Again the yarn went back to languishing.
Then I picked up a copy of Mason Dixon Knits and drooled over their mitre square afghan. I drooled some more and then a bulb went off over my head . Finally, a purpose for the Noro Yarn. I picked up more yarn in a complimentary color. I scoured through some other mitre square patterns and started knitting. Then I made a mistake and had to pull out three squares. Then I made some more mistakes and pulled out a few more squares. Slowly it started to come together before me. People would stop me as I knit at Borders, Knitorous, Ornesto's just to droll over the throw. But something wasn't quite right I needed an edge to pull it all together and more yarn in black had to be purchased. I learned to crochet to do the edging. I discovered I don't like crochet as much as knitting, but...

I present to date my most beautiful knitted project. The throw isn't perfect. I can point to all my mistakes, but I am reveling in just how beautiful it turned out. It is 42 inches by 48 inches and just yummy to touch. Come Christmas, I am going to have a little trouble letting go of this baby. I hope Debbie loves it as much as I do.

The streets were dark...

I found this crazy quote website called http://www.thinkexist.com/ . I was thinking about Raymond Chandler quotes and found a few I like:

The streets were dark with something more than night.

She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.

I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you don't need a gun, you had better take one along that worked.

I am still thinking about the feeling in the hip pocket. Does he mean his wallet, or his gun, or his guy part. I will be thinking about that one for a while.

I also the first quote's suggestion there is a texture of evil in the darkness.

The quotes were suggested to me by the Martin Scorsese's 5 part documentary auspiciously titled, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. He presented a section on film noir and Chandler, naturally, came up. I like film noir and of course being a bit obsessive I had to go to the web and do some research on Chandler.

The whole concept of a documentary on what Scorsese thinks of films is just a tad narcissistic, but hey he has made a fortune on his visions of the world and I have not so maybe I am just being a bit self-righteous. I have only watched the first two episodes and found them horribly dry, but I am hoping it will get better. I think I would like the series more if he had profiled his own movies. I do like his gangster films and I am intrigued on his inspiration for some of his characters. Regardless the commitment on my part has been made to finish the series so I can return it to the library by Wednesday. Bring on the caffeine.

Strange Folk Festival

Saturday I went to the Strange Folk Festival in O'Fallon IL to see my friend and yarn mentor, Rachel's table she set up to sell yarn. The beautiful weather and the desire to shop at an alternative Kraft fair, hopefully devoid of tole painted teddy bears, my crew and I crossed the river. I am amazingly good at not getting lost on the west side of the Mississippi River. People call me and ask for directions. But as soon as I cross that river I get lost. The lost where you can't find yourself on a map and you have to stop at a creepy farm house and ask for directions kind of lost. So of course I was tasked with getting us there because once 18 years ago I had been in O'Fallon IL. We did get lost, but a quick stop at a gas station put us on our way to the Strange Folk Festival. Surprise, we were 15 minutes early and they weren't quite ready for the Missouri contingent of neophyte knitters and random friend.
Early or not I found said Dyeabolical Yarn Mistress at her table selling her wares of yummy dyed yarns. She sat surrounded by riots of color that made me want to sit and knit them all up in to amazing garments (okay this is the fantasy section of the blog). Rachel was happy to see us and was showing off her new colorways. I felt kind of cool standing next to the hip indie dyer, while others crowded to her table and fondled her yarn. Then she gave us the look, like go busy yourself minions and we scampered off to look at other fun stuff. It is considered bad form to take photos of others designs so I can only regalia you dear reader with the variety of things I saw. I saw zombie dolls, brass knuckle quilts, reusable flannel sandwich wraps, bullet casing necklaces, lamb soaps, llamas, spinning wheels, vintage tie dog collars, pottery, and my favorite a day of the dead porn bedroom suite. Whew! There were a lot things there wanting my non-existent funds.
I only bought the lamb soap, lavender bath scrub, woman in corset photo, and of course Dyeabolical yarn (etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5101528). I tried to purchase Dyeabolical Yarn Mistress' hubby, but he was busy spinning yarn. So I left him with a lipstick marked cheek and left. It was a fun morning and I definitely putting the event on the calender for next year.
And then there was swag, lots of swag. For being one of the first 100 Strange Folk to show up we got bags for our bootie. The bags had the usually business fliers and cards, boring. But it also had other freebies like soap, notepads, buttons, fabric, tape measure/level, stickers, magazines, decals, temp tattoos, postcards, bead hangy things, and iron on transfers. I spent this morning digging through the swag. The green skull print fabric is my favorite, who knows what I will do with it. I haven't heard how Dyeabolical did, but it looked good when we left. End critque of the event for me, way worth the trip across the Mississippi.

Monogamy

Awhile back I taught Bianca Clue (name changed to protect someone I am sure) to knit. When you think of someone knitting an imagine of her does not come to mind. Actually, I wonder what comes to most lay people's (aka non-knitters) minds when I say knitter. Do they see little, old, grey-haired ladies in rocking chairs with long needles and skeins of horrific red heart yarn around them? Okay Bianca looks more like she would be comfortable at Lowe's than surrounded by loads of fluffy yarn. But lately I have seen her doing just that buying up yarn and talking the knitting lingo like a pro. "I couldn't decided if I wanted to do the garter stitch on 3 or 6s, but the gauge was so much nicer on the 6s." And, "I love how soft this yarn is." And my favorite, "I saw this yarn yesterday at the LYS (Local Yarn Store) and it was so cool, I thought about it all night." She is in the thick of it hook, yarn, and needles.

However, I am concerned she is starting projects like mad, scarves, afghans, Christmas projects, etc. I must admit it frightens me. Personally, it frightens me to have too many projects on the needles, I want to work on one project, complete it and then start another one. I believe in being monogamous to my projects, dammit! But this is the tragedy of the situation, though Bianca is starting projects right and left she is getting them done. The squares from her afghan project are literally falling off her size 15 needles. The scarves are seemingly growning instantly in front of my eyes. And don't get me started on how quickly the other projects are coming together for Bianca. As she sews in her ends, she ponders aloud at what next feat of extreme knitting she is going to tackle in the next hour. In other words Bianca is knitting with the ferocity of a demon and I am left in the dust knitting my single project, lapped.

The End of an Obsession

Recently, I have been obsessed with Simon Schama and the work he did with BBC and the History Channel. I watched both The Power of Art (8 episodes) and The History of Britain (15 episodes) back to back. I stumbled across the first series by accident at the library. I really liked how in POA he approached each artist via one of their great paintings and how that masterpiece effected the world of art. He showcased: Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Goh, Picasso, and Rothko. I especially liked the Caravaggio and Bernini episodes since I knew nothing about either artist. I also found the Van Goh program to be my favorite. The actor who portrayed Vincent really brought the story to life by reading some of the touching letters the artist wrote to his brother Theo.
Silly me I clicked to the bonus feature and found an interview with Schama. He said after The History of Britain BBC let him do whatever he wanted and POA was the end result. Back to the library catalog I went and found five volumes would have to be requested. Off I went clicking in my requests.

With my most recent knitting project I sat and watched the series over the last couple of weeks (more like 5 weeks). I was surprised at how little I actually knew about British History. It upset me, anglophile that I am, the amazing amount of events Schama discusses in HOB which was new to me. I am no slouch on this subject, I especially like the Tudor/Stuart period, but even that episode had nuggets of facts that I had never heard before. I also really liked how Schama would taunt the viewer with their ignorance, pointing out the many myths that have been internalized as truth. The thesis that most shocked was that the British Empire was really more of an accidental empire. Overall Britain wanted consumers for their goods not really lands to conquer and control. Schama presentation rivals that of Anthony Bourdain full of snark and anger. And low and behold I was rattling on last night at a dinner party about how much I liked these series and Schama and one of my friends reminded me that he had written Citizen, about the French Revolution. Oops, I had read this in college for my French Revolution & Napoleonic Era Class. I obviously was not over-whelmed by Schama writing. Sadly, like many, I am much impressed by watching my history instead of reading it.

Displaying my Passion

This month I put up a display on knitting for the library in which I work. I was overall pleased with the outcome. I used lots of knitting things like needles, yarns, books, and of course some beautiful projects. I hit up my knitting tribe of friends for examples of various types of knitting.
Fiona loaned me this very stunning felted entrelac bag. I am love this bright and fun bag that gives me at least one reason to smile everyday at work for the next month. This photo does not do justice to the display. The book of knitting with the yarn and needles is very cute and appears as if the bag is ready to go to a knit night at a moments notice.

My friend Scott loaned me this bold striped sweater. It has been difficult to get it to pop in the display because it is so dark and the cabinet so poorly lit, but after this photo we put a white background which really made it stand out. Already I have had a few little boys come ask if a "Dude" really knitted this sweater. I say of course and one boy commented, "I want to knit me one like that."
Lenora, what can one say, but these or gorgeous sweaters, one lace, one Gansey are so amazing. I revel in the skill of these designs. Two knitters have mentioned how beautiful they are and how much they long to make a garment that stunning. Rachel made me feel very special by gracing me with a loan from her stash of personally hand-dyed Dyeabolical Yarn (http://stlrachelknits.blogspot.com/) along with some examples of roving and fleece. Tammy's socks and Amy's tea cozy are also big hits. I am proud to be so entrusted with all of these treasured items.

The woman who volunteers once a month to teach a beginning knitting class, June, was thrilled by the display. She gushed about the items and we talked about each one individually and the wonderful people who made them. It was a bright spot in a very overcast day. June even confided in me that the reason she learned to knit was so she would look really smart when people see her knitting. I like the idea. I knit for so many reasons, but now I have one more reason, I look very smart when I knit. So please excuse me I am going to practice looking like a genius.