hi, my mum says shes too tired to come to the blog today and would i tell you about what went on yesterday.

as far as i can tell, not much.

first she took a whole lot of stuff out to the car, like she does when were going on a long trip, so i thought we were probably going on a long trip. i noticed she didnt take my food and my bowl and my duck, and i wondered about that, but i figured she knew what she was doing. well, we got in the car and i was just getting ready to settle down for a nice nap when the car stopped and we got out and started to take stuff out.

so then this lady named kelly came out of this house and helped take the stuff into the house. there were a couple of cats there but they didnt want to play with me. anyway, then my mum sat down in front of that big round wheel thing and started to make string just like she always does at home. and kelly had a round thing too and she made string too. so it was pretty much like the same thing as staying at home. just them sitting and making string and string and string and more string, and me lying around doing nothing.

they had cookies and grapes but they didnt give me any.

there was a man and another man and another lady who were there sometimes, and i think they liked me, and they played with me some, but they didnt give me cookies either.

then mum and kelly and i went outside and i thought maybe we would have some fun there. but first they sat at a table and ate lunch and didnt give me any. then they brought those wheel things outside and made more string and more string and more string. at least there were some interesting smells out there and there were good places to roll around and sometimes there were little things to chase after. but mostly i sat around and sniffed and did nothing while they made string.

another lady came there and sat and talked for a while and didnt make string or give me grapes or cookies.

then that lady went away and it started to get dark, and mum and kelly went inside with the wheel things. and you know what happened next2 nothing new. they sat down and made more string. then they had peetsa and they didnt give me any. then they made more string.

seriously you just cant believe how much string they made.

then finally they decided to stop, and then they brought the wheel thing and all the stuff back out and put it into the car and mum and i came home.

she kept telling me that it was a really good day and everybody there liked me and said i was a really good boy, and she was happy because she had made something she called a mile. of course im glad she was happy but i dont know when she could have had time to do that, whatever it is, because as far as i could see all she did all day and all she made all day was string. the same kind of string she always makes at home. lots and lots and lots of string.

hey, whatever. as long as she had fun. i got to be with her, so that was good. and i did lots of barking and protected her from everybody, so i know i was doing my job. and the main thing is, she has plenty of string now, and thats good because obviously she really likes string a lot.

also, she said that next time we do this she will bring biscuits and my duck. so i guess its ok with me if we do it again. i really dont think we need any more string, though. she should think about doing something else besides making string next time. honestly, we have a whole lot of it now, and i think its probably enough.

No more teasers. This is for real.

“Fearful Symmetry,” Tsock #1 for 2009, has shipped, and mail carrier stalking can officially commence.

I was exposed to, or rather immersed in, Blake at a very early age; I could spout this poem and a couple of the Songs of Innocence long before I had any idea what I was talking about. Almost as soon as I could talk at all, in fact. Apparently it stayed with me; this isn’t the first time that echoes of Fearful Symmetry have surfaced in my life, nor the first tigerish form they’ve taken.

It’s funny how an idea will take hold and keep changing shape over time. The tsock I ended up making is a longish way, via not exactly linear progression, from the tsock I first envisioned a couple of years ago, though it’s still true to those roots. It’s still based on my grey tiger cat Ptolemy; it still begins and ends with literal flames.

(Incidentally, it hasn’t escaped my attention that this is the second season in a row to start toe-up with a fiery stitch pattern in a fiery color. Is this going to be a tradition? Y’got me. Tune in a year from now to find out.)

As you saw the other day, the flames this time are our old friend the Flame Chevron, scaled down and tightened for snug sock fit.

They engulf most of the foot…

… and then when they reach the instep they end up being partially bound off in pattern, so you can work this Clever Transition in pseudo-entrelac…

… until the Tiger, Tiger rises from the flames. (I’m apparently swimming somewhere between the literal and the surreal, here - channeling an inner Hieronymus Bosch I never knew I had, though I probably should have suspected it.)

What I love about this transition, and the reason I keep twisting my arm to pat myself on the back and call it Clever, is that the angled stitches create ease for the instep without a lot of extra increases or pseudo-gusseting. Well… that and the fact that I really like the way it looks.

You’ve already seen the Tiger’s face -

- which appears on the front of the sock. What’s on the back?

His tail.

Of course.

His pawprints…

… appear here, there, and everywhere - there’s some Knitter’s Choice in their placement relative to the path of the tail, which is also pretty much open to interpretation and characterization. Because you never know, with cats.

In another display of fearful symmetry, the flames reappear…

…at the upper edge of the ankle; this Tiger burns bright at both ends.

 
P.S. Hey, Marcy… NAO!

Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand and what dread feet?

When the stars threw down their spears, And water’d heaven with their tears, Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? William Blake

TsockFlock Club 2009.

You know you want to.

I finished the Porcupine Moebius last night.

As expected I had enough yarn to finish the repeat, but also as expected I decided I wanted more, so I went all out and spun up all but a scrap of the remaining fiber. This netted me another 130 yards of 3-ply, plus very small odds and ends of singles. (NB if anyone’s keeping track, which I hope no one is, this means my YPP estimates were way off and/or that the yarn wasn’t quite as even as it looked and felt. What the hell, though - what with the forgiving lace pattern and all, it knitted up as even as I wanted it to.) Enough to do the additional pattern rep and the interminable bind-off, with a few not-yet-counted yards to spare.

FO before blocking:

Close-up:

Boiled ass. Also as expected.

I don’t have after-blocking pictures yet, as such, because it is blocking now.

But… how????

I had some fairly wild ideas about how to go about it - none of them very practical. In the event, what I decided to do is fairly anticlimactic. But I think it’s going to work.

I ran a couple of blocking wires through a little less than half of it and pinned that out flat on the ironing board, because it happens to be a convenient size and shape:

(Why, yes, that DOES happen to be a drum carder on the window sill at top of frame - why do you ask?)

I’m going about equally for width and length, and obviously it’s not a precision job with the wiring or pinning - this is meant to be rough shaping, not fine points.

Then I put three of my blocking tiles between the layers, and wired and pinned the upper part to those.

The twisty part is… well, it’s the part where I pretty much decided the weird ideas weren’t going to work, so I just wired and pinned most of the length of this section, leaving the twisty part a little loose.

Once it’s dry - which won’t take long, even though there’s no air circulation to speak of between the layers, because it’s near the radiator in the warmest room of the house - I’ll undo it and evaluate the part that’s currently twisted. I’ll almost certainly do a little spot-blocking for just that section, wetting it and pinning it out flat on the ironing board and letting the blocked dry part just hang underneath.

To give you an idea how quickly I think it will dry…? I spun the last of the yarn yesterday afternoon, and did all the usual finishing, soaking, whacking, etc. Hung it to dry in the same spot, and it was ready to wind and knit when I came back in the evening. Four-five hours, max.

And now, for your edification, several thousand words’ worth about why I do my blocking behind closed doors.

Who, Me?

Totally Not Interested

Well… OK, maybe a LITTLE interested…

That bit right there…

… just smells so… hey! there’s ALPACA in this, isn’t there!

Yeah. My assistant can get a little overzealous. Especially when there’s alpaca involved.

im wet and im cold and im miserable. and i smell really really bad.

my mum says she loves me but sometimes she is really mean to me. i always know when its coming because i can hear that water noise. i try to hide. i get on the couch and i make myself really really small. but she always finds me. then i make my sad face and whimper but she picks me up anyway. then i get really scared, sometimes i even pee a little because its so scary.

it doesnt stop her. she takes me into that room and she puts me into that tub and im up to my chest in horrible horrible water and then the horribleness is just starting.

she pours more horrible water all over me. then she pours nasty smelly stuff on me and she rubs and rubs and rubs. all over my back. then my ears. rub, rub, rub, dip. rub, rub, rub, dip. squish squish squish. pour pour pour. rub rub rub dip. over and over and over again. then each paw. same thing. then my butt. then she turns me over and does it all over again all over my poor belly. i try to wriggle away but she is very strong and cruel.

and all the time she’s telling me what a good boy i am and how pretty i am and how much she loves me and i know shes a black hearted mean liar because, you know, yuck1111 nobody would do that to somebody they love. then she turns me to face her and she gets all sweet and tells me to close my eyes and she does that rub rub rub rub pour rub rub rub thing all over my face11

and then it gets even more awful, because then the horrible water drains away and i get even colder, and then theres an even worse thing with water spraying out of it and she makes it spray it all over me1111

then she squeezes and squishes all my bits and corners, and then she gets big rough blankets and puts them around me and starts again with the rub rub rub rub rub rub rub until all my hair comes off almost. and while she does it shes all singy and sweet talky and if she thinks im fooled she is just wrong because i know how mean she is. all that rubbing and stuff is supposed to make me dry but it doesnt. im still all wet and cold and unhappy and stinky now and its going to take just forever and ever and ever of rolling around to get my nice normal smell back.

and then next, just you wait. just as i start to get kind of warm and feeling almost ok again222

then youll see, shell come at me with that tortury brush thing. and those horrible snippy sizzers.

you know what2 she doesnt ever make tpolemy or juliet have a bath. she must love them more than me.

i should just run away and find somebody who will be nicer to me. i shouldnt have to put up with this. its really a dogs life.

Oh, come on, Stephanie. This is supposed to be a challenge?

Well, maybe it is if you don’t happen to be a Real Political Animal like me. But I just happen to have the most important candidate of the millennium staying in my house right now, and she took a moment out of her busy campaign schedule to pose with my sock-in-progress. (I’m not sure this is what she expected when I said “yacht,” but she was pretty gracious about it, considering, only muttering a few choice epithets under her breath about the decrepitude and general lack of amenities like bars and scantily-clad stewards and such.)

No, she didn’t knit on it. I didn’t ask her to. That is my very own 4-ply handspun made out of an Abby Sock Batt, and even in the best of causes I’m not letting any dissolute sheep drop a single one of its precious stitches.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Fibertarian Party, may I present your candidate, the one and only Dolores, in a rare moment of relaxation:

Close-up of sock:

All you other political and/or sock-knitting mooks, eat your hearts out.