Something that is actually knitty

In spite of the name of this site, a lot of stuff goes on around here that has nothing to do with knitting, but today I bring you ACTUAL KNITTING!

(Please embiggen the image at left for more detail)

Beginning at the right, the creamy-colored, hat-looking thing on top of the clear plastic jar is 2 balls (~50g) of KnitPicks Bare sock yarn, knit double-stranded into a dye blank.  I’m experimenting with some leftovers from last year’s kilt hose to see if I like the idea of the twice-knit sock blank.  I plan to employ Dyeing Kids, Inc. (the Sonars) and their state-of-the art Kool-ade dyeing methodologies to make some nifty, matchy, multi-colored socks.  We’ll see how it goes.  

In the center is a real-life Knitty pattern, the Lace Ribbon Scarf, knit with some J. Knits Superwash Me - Light Sock in the San Jose colorway.  I love this yarn.  I made a Swan Lake Mystery Stole (a la Melanie Falick) with it to great effect. I’ve knit a couple of feet of ribbon, and plan to continue until I run out of yarn, which I estimate will be in another foot or so.  This was my traveling project during our summer tour of Texas and New Mexico this year.  It’s a great car project.  The lace pattern is simple enough to memorize, but not so simple that I get bored with it.  I love the way it zigs and zags.  

To the left is my Checkerboard Scarf pattern from the Purl Bee with KnitPicks Gloss Lace in the Celery colorway.  It doesn’t make me want to eat celery, but I love this yarn too.  The silk and wool blend gives a lovely definition to the lace and is soft on the hands.  This lace is a step up, skill-wise, from the ribbon, but not so much that I feel bonkers when I knit it.  I haven’t made much progress on this one this summer, but it’s there, and I will return to it soon. 

Apparently I’m in a lacy, scarfy mood these days because when I finish one of these things, I hope to join the millions of other brilliant knitters in the world and finally make my own Clapotis.  

And doesn’t everyone in South Texas have an empty Tim Horton’s coffee can lying around the back yard?

Sailing

We’ve lived near the Gulf of Mexico for more than four years now, though we didn’t come here for the water.  We have great beaches within a short drive in several directions.  The Gulf of Mexico affords opportunities to fish, sail, kitesurf, bum on the beach, or any other water/wind/sand combination you might come up with.  Of course, the Gulf of Mexico is also the stomping ground for hurricanes now and again, but that’s another story.  

We live this close to the sand and the water, but we don’t spend much time at the beach.  We go to the beach a few times a year, usually when we have out-of-town visitors who want to poke their toes in the sand and collect a few shells.  Up until recently, we’d never been sailing here.  In fact, I’m not sure if any of us have ever been sailing. 

Some friends of ours live a much more coastal lifestyle.  They live on the beach, ocean kayak, windsurf, sail, and have a tight connection to the water here.  When they called one morning and asked if we wanted to go sailing, we jumped at the opportunity.  Ok, most of us jumped.  Sonar X4 was less than thrilled at the prospect, and was anxious and cautious throughout our sailing adventure.  The other guys looked like they were born to be on the water.  

L to R: Sonar X4, Sonar X6, our friend the Honorary Sonar, and Sonar X9 (Look at the hair on that one. Gorgeous.) (Photo by Carrie Robertson)We sailed in a sheltered area because the wind was pretty strong.  After a few passes, we dropped anchor and swam to a little barrier island.  This was both the  most fun and the most frightening part of the day for me because I’m not a great swimmer.  The moment before we got into the water was also Sonar X4’s peak panic moment and we thought perhaps he was trying to drown his dad as we swam.

I’m happy to say that I’m a better swimmer than I realized and no one drowned.  We came home with a sunny glow (ok, I was a tiny bit sunburned), and covered in salt, but we had so much fun.  Sonar X9 would like you to know that he now wants to learn how to sail.  No, I’m not buying him a boat.  

L to R: Partner, Sonar x4, Sonar X9, Moi, and Sonar X6, with the wind in our eyes. (Photo by Carrie Robertson)

Three Sonars and a Slip & Slide

File this under ‘What We Did on a Friday Night.’

Run! Write! Make!

Growing up, I was not an athletic kid.  I was a tiny, scrawny, little white girl.  I could not hit a ball, I could not run very far, I never lasted very long in dodgeball.  I played no sports.  My closest brush with athleticism was in high school marching band, where I learned to march backwards while holding crash cymbals steady for a snare drummer to play.  (Don’t laugh.  Those cymbals are heavy and we did it in the New Mexico heat.  In hideous cream and brown polyester uniforms and plastic egg-shell hats.)

I will be 36 later this year and the desire to keep my body fit and healthy presses on me.  Simultaneously, the effort to keep my body fit and healthy seems to rise exponentially.  I’m not interested in joining any sports, and my options are limited there anyway.  I’m not interested in anything that requires an investment of equipment or a membership pressure.  I have found, however, that I really love to run.  I feel good when I run.  Unfortunately, the first thing to go when my schedule gets busy is my daily run.  So I tend to run in fits and starts.  Running regularly for a few weeks or months, and then not at all for months.  Sometimes I’m derailed by the general mayhem of family life.  Once I was knocked off track by the flu.  

A few weeks ago at the library, I found a copy of Haruki Murakami’s memoir-ish book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.  I’d not read any of his work before, but was led to him in my quest to read through some magical realism this summer.  I haven’t read any more magical realism since I suffered through Love in the Time of Cholera (I’ll save my ennui with that one for another post perhaps), but Murakami’s personal tale of writing and running gave me a swift kick in the butt on two counts.  

For Murakami, running and writing work together.  He does not write when he runs or even particularly think about ideas.  But it seems that running gives him an absence of thought and an ability to focus that increases his ability to focus on writing.  By training to run (and he is a serious runner of marathons and triathalons) he is a more focused writer when he is writing.

In spite of the particularly harsh and dry summer we are experiencing here in the Coastal Bend of Texas, I have been running five or six days a week for the past two weeks.  Since I haven’t run for months, I’m back to doing interval work to build up my stamina.  I’m up to half-running, half-walking a little more than two miles a day and it feels great.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever build up to a marathon, but if I could continuously run a few miles a day, without being sidetracked for months at a time, I’d feel very proud. 

Running is hard and it is hot and I get sweaty and dirty and funky.  But I’ve been injury-free so far, and working my body just feels so good.  I am more physically tired, but it is a satisfying tired.  Now that I’ve settled into a running rhythm, and my body is getting stronger and I am less worried about injuring myself, my mind is free to wander as I run.  Mostly it wanders into empty spaces.  Thoughts do come to me as I go, worries sometimes plague me.  But in running, I find that I can embrace meditative thought more effectively than I’ve ever been able to in other ways.  The thoughts and worries don’t linger.  They float by me like clouds, and I am able to consider them dispassionately, letting them pass without clinging to them.  At other times my mind wanders to the beat, counting the steps, predicting my tempo, comparing the beat of my heart to the thump of my shoes.  

And I’m learning (or rather reminded), slowly, that I need balance in my life.  Everything feels better when I’m running.  Everything feels better when I’m writing.  Everything feels better when I’m crafting.  But all three of those things have to work together somehow.  When one of those things drops out of my life for a while, the other two tend to disappear as well.  

Besides blogging a little bit more often again, I can’t say that I’m actually writing again.  But I’m getting closer.  I’m working the balance.  The writing notebook is on the desk again.  A few ideas have been scribbled in it, and the more I run, the more the ideas come to me.  The more ideas for writing I get, the more crafty ideas I get and the more enthusiastic I get about running each morning.  

I’m chasing my activities around in a circle.  I just have to keep them all moving in a positive direction, moving with balance in mind. 

Pork-upine Primer

More freaky food fun this week. 

I first saw this Spaghetti Dog creation over at Plum Pudding, but have since found it elsewhere.  Many of the pics around the net seem to come from this Russian blog.  

First, cut up your favorite dog (tofu dogs, hot dogs, sausage dogs, whatever).  I cut each of our dogs into four pieces.  Then jam uncooked spaghetti into every dog bit.  This is a little tedious.  Give yourself 15-20 minutes to do a standard eight-dog package.  Dextrous children should be enlisted to help in this step, unless they are easily frustrated by the breaking of spaghetti.  Yes, expect much breakage until you get the hang of the jabbing.  But save the broken bits and toss them into the pot with everything else.  

Spaghetti jabbed into hot dog segments, before cooking

This is my regular spaghetti pot (why yes, it does have only one handle, adds to the cooking excitement), but it might have been easier to get them all in the pan at once if I’d used my bigger pot.  I would not expect to reach al dente perfection in this recipe.  If I tried this again, I’d cut the hot dogs into smaller pieces so that the pasta embedded in the dog could cook better.  We had chewy pasta inside our dogs.  

Trying to pile the dogs into the boiling water

We tossed in extra noodles for those in the family who are not partial to eating dogs.  

The cooked spaghetti dogs, draining

We did have fun with our space-creature-looking dinner.  A more sausage-y dog, paired with a hearty sauce was quite tasty.  A more basic hot dog with the pasta sounds a lot less appetizing to me.  

A single spaghetti dog on a plate, prior to sauceWith sauce, these dogs are a teensy bit awkward to eat.  Expect the children to want to twirl the dogs around, thus splattering sauce around the room.  Also expect extra splatters while you figure out how to get the dogs and noodles into your mouth.  Be sure to embiggen the photos to get all the gory detail.