Mark Twain's Birthday

Roughing It, the classic Western travelogue which Mark Twain wrote over 100 years ago, is timelessly funny. Chapters 31 through 33, especially, are always guaranteed to bring tears of laughter to my eyes. Every time. Without fail! (Click the link above then go to page 213 for the start of this particular passage.) I read these chapters every November 30, to celebrate my birthday — which I just happen to share with Samuel Langhorne Clemens himself. Yep. Jonathan Swift, Winston Churchill, Dick Clark, Shirley Chisolm, and Billy Idol, too. Happy Birthday to us!

Pumpkin Goes Wild

Last night, about an hour after letting Canasta in and out for her evening numbers, I heard a scratching at the front door. When I opened it to see what the commotion was all about, in rushed Pumpkin, who had been our best behaved cat. Evidently she sneaked out under cover of darkness to roll around naked in cold, wet muck. Her underbelly and backside were covered with yuck and sandpapery leaves. Above are her before and after grooming pictures. Pumpkin was found 3 years ago in a big round bale of hay at a friend's horse barn. She was the size of a pom-pom, and definitely too young to be weaned. The vet assured us she'd always have "issues." But so far her only quirk is this: she hides under the bed blankets whenever she hears a lawn mower. She's grown into a healthy, glamorous long-haired beauty, who, up until now, has had complete disdain for all things outdoorsy!

Another World

Just found this kiddie astronomy text from 1930 in a thrift store. The illustrations are great: a biplane to the moon! After I got this I had a weird dream that combined Fair Isle knitting with a map to the stars. Knitting as a space travel device! How about a sci-fi story based on that premise? Maybe I'd have time to write it if I'd just quit knitting and blogging!

Thanksgiving Fair Isle

I knit this yesterday while everyone was snoozing in front of the football games after eating too much. I love knitting Fair Isle! It's like magic, the way a sequence of numbers becomes a colorful pattern. Fair Isle is one of those knitting hurdles, like lace, that I never thought I'd be able to jump, but by starting small with a hat it somehow became not only possible but enjoyable!

Sneak Peek

Lucky FInd Gazette #13 will be coming out around my birthday November 30, give or take a month. This issue will be different from previous ones; it will only feature one amazing thrift store score, seen from 13 different angles, instead of the usual smorgasbord of 13 unrelated items. After #13, Lucky FInd Gazette will switch to a quarterly publication schedule. Look for the next one, Spring 2008, around the vernal equinox.

9 Things I Learned in 90 Days

1. When I blog about knitting, I don't blog about junk. This was supposed to be a junk blog, but I have 24 knitting entries to 29 junk/thrift store score/doodad entries. I became obsessed with knitting 2 weeks into the blogathon, so that's why equal time was given to yarn. But there are at least ten million knitting blogs which post better (in the sense of nobler, finer, funnier, and more technical) things about yarn than I do. I will still show off my finished woolly projects, because all that work demands some fanfare, but from now on the junk entries will outweigh the knitting entries by at least 4 to 1.
2. I don't like yarn that smells like sheep stink, and neither does my husband. As a corollary to this truth, wool that smells the most like a barnyard is also the most expensive.
3. The Pursuit of Junk can be one Path to Enlightenment.
4. It's annoying when you spend a ton of time and money on a handknit sweater, and it doesn't looks as good on as something bought off the Wal-Mart clearance racks.
5. Junk is funnier than yarn, except when the yarn turns into something Hideously Ugly.
6. Sewing takes a fraction of the time of knitting, costs 1,000 times less, and usually results in a more wearable item.
7. Junk is Everywhere. You just have to Keep Your Eye Out.
8. Chihuahuas and cats are cuter than junk.
9. Never buy terry cloth tea towels that smell like 50 years worth of tobacco smoke, no matter how attractive the design. The stale cigarette butt smell is even harder to remove than sheep stink (see #2 above.)

Blogathon

My self-imposed 90 day blogathon comes to a close tomorrow. I'll be puffing over the finish line. Soon I can blog like a normal person, i.e., whenever the hell I feel like it, which will probably be closer to 2 or 3 days a week. Quality will then reassert itself over quantity.

Gotcha

Here's what I just got at the local Salvation Army Family Store in Florissant: a scribbled on paperback from 1970 called Twice-Knit Knitting, which is full of ugly pictures of twice-knits that "Can't run! Can't Unravel! Can't Snag!" but look about as comfortable to wear as sheet metal; a sad-eyed, big-eyed boxed wax angel ornament which still smells faintly of that quintessentail 70s perfume, Heaven Scent; a quilling kit; a bunch of old plastic hair curler pins (good for knit pinning); a cast-iron owl-shaped doodad; two metal file boxes (for that far-away dream day when I'll actually get organized); a package of miniature plastic trees; and a primer from 1964 on how to paint and wallpaper. Not a bad haul, but nothing worth scanning.

Cat Thoughts

I always know what Bigfoot is thinking. "Aren't I handsome?" and "I'm a pretty darn good knitter!" and "When are you going to take a picture of my good side?"

Dog Thoughts

Doesn't Canasta look thoughful in this picture? I always wonder what she's thinking about when she has this expression on her face. Some of her expressions are much easier to read than others. For instance, I always know when she's thinking "I have to pee!" or "Gimme some food!" But in the photo above she could be thinking about anything: Polish experimental theater, as described in My Dinner with André, the classic art house movie we both watched for the first time a few nights ago, or the strange barnyard scent of the poncho she's leaning against, or belly rubs of days gone by.

Tale of a Hideously Ugly "Purse"

Does anyone remember The (Hideously Ugly) Skull Bonnet? (Shudder!) Well, I sawed away the exposed bone and made a Hideously Ugly Purse out of it. I can't think of anyone to give it to — why would I give a friend or family member something so yucky? And I'm not keeping it! Does anyone out there want to give it a home? (Someday soon, they may be starting a section at the local Goodwill for all of my failed knitting experiments.) This thing might be useful as a hot water bottle cover, if you don't mind extra scratchy wool next to your skin. Or you could use it to collect rocks with, but the rocks would have to be small enough to slide down its narrow neck. Okay, you could collect gravel with it. The knitting commandants say that you should let the yarn speak to you and tell you what it wants to be. Obviously this Noro Kureyon quite willfully wanted to be something Hideously Ugly, because everytime I put it on needles it just sort of made itself. Bluhhh!

Sunday Is....

now Jean Harlow Film Star Card day. And why not? In this card, Miss Harlow looks like she tied one on the night before, and is so hungover she can scarcely hold up her platinum head. Poor baby.

Needles

These lovely Needle Books were found at the Missouri Council for the Blind thrift store on Olive. This place is crammed full of junk, most of it unworthy of mention. But the great thing about quantity is the odds: you will find at least one thing to bring home. But are you willing to wade through the crud? I junk by mood. Some days, crud-wading is an exciting adventure; other days my gift of psychometry makes it a chorus of too many sad auras. Right before I scored these, I'd been to the dollar store to buy 12 pairs of reading glasses — all of which I will have lost by next month — so a foray into a thrift store benefiting the blind seemed like a good idea. And obviously it was. (I need a 2.50+ reading glass magnification to thread a needle these days, but that's all right now, because I just purchased 2 new pairs in addition to my 10 1.50+ readers.)

Game Bird

Took a walk through the park in the fantastic weather yesterday and saw some sort of game bird which, as a non-birdwatcher, I couldn't identify — but it looked something like the fowl above.

Hot Sake

Very yummy night eating sushi. Too drunk on hot sake to say more.

The Owl Sweater

After knitting 3 gift ponchos in a row, I decided that the planned Owl Cape needed to grow sleeves and become a sweater. Since I got a pile of Rowan Country #658 in Willow on sale (and after all those ponchos have the gauge of this yarn down pat), I decided to try my hands at a knit-from-the-top-down raglan pullover, using Maggie Righetti's Sweater Design in Plain English as a guide. Basically, her plain English boils down to: "Just use your common sense and knit the damn thing!" That sort of non-instruction suits my ornery Aquarius Rising brain fine. I sweated a little at the sleeve separation stage, but all turned out great! The garment fits beautifully, thanks to my secret patented bust shaping technique (no short rows involved). And the yarnover increases left lovely eyelets to thread an Owl Plaque bolo tie through. Now I just have to sew up the underarms, put the sleeves on dpns, and work decreases to the wrist. After that, I'll start slogging away at my sorely neglected Mushroom Sweater. But I doubt I'll ever work from the bottom up again. It's too much fun trying on the sweater as you go, and really keeps the motivation to finish high.

Pantsuits

By following Day 7, Week 2 of the 4 Week Beauty and Charm Course (see yesterday's post), "Set your wardrobe up elegantly and you'll look more elegant," I made a huge discovery: I don't have a single pantsuit! Jackets — check — pants — check, but none matches the other. So after I sew up a cape, I'm making one of the long-sleeved pantsuits above, though not in orange plaid, 1972's Fabric of the Year. My grandmother had about a thousand of these, in the same style, all made up in mill-end double-knit pastels. She could have used this very pattern! So far, my fabric stash still outbulks my yarn stash: I've got so much fabric to choose from, it may take a while to decide what kind to use. I think a vintage op-art barkcloth print would be quite stunning and now, though perhaps not quiet enough for anything but Resort Wear. Will keep you "posted."

Bandbox-Fresh

I bet everyone is wondering how I'm doing with the 4 Week Beauty and Charm Course as prescribed by Anita Colby's Beauty Book. Well, let's just say the course may take me a year or more to finish. But tonight I will Clean Out The Closet, because, as Ms. Colby rhetorically asks: "Your aim is to be a well-groomed, band-box fresh, spic-and-spandy girl isn't it? Hats fresh as daisies, gloves whiter than snow, suits brushed and pressed, nylons flawless, shoes gleaming." My suit isn't pressed, but my newest poncho (of 3!) is freshly blocked! (And PU, that Rowan Country yarn smells like the Elephant House when steamed.)

Stardust

Jean Harlow is one of my favorite movie stars. Check her out in the 1932 gem Red Dust, where she plays a Saigon hooker named Vantine opposite Clark Gable's manly Indochine rubber planter. Classic Movies were so much classier before the Hays Code squelched reality.

Exercise Regime

Pool is the perfect exercise for toning the hard-to-work elbow muscle. Lift those beer bottles and cues! And again!

Commemoratio omnium Fidelium Defunctorum

What do you think of when you think of El Dia de los Muertos, The Day of the Dead? Skulls, of course! Usually human in shape and made of sugar. But today let's celebrate All Soul's Day by talking about one of the coolest documentaries I've seen in a long time: Ray Bandar: A Life With Skulls. This 30 minute panorama "exploring science, art, and eccentricity" is a must-see for anyone interested in collecting, obsession, nature, and oddballs! And who is not interested in all of the above? No one reading this blog, I'm sure. The director, Beth Cataldo, is a friend of mine who lives in San Francisco and has always been a prism for the baroquely weird. In Ray Bandar she's found a perfect subject for her slant on life. Ray's a retired science teacher who's been cutting off the heads of faithfully departed beached marine animals for at least 50 years, and his exhibit of collected skulls recently filled a few halls at the California Academy of Sciences, where he's a field associate in the Ornithology and Mammalogy department. This is a man who knows how to accumulate! His home — filled with elephant pelvises, coiled rattlesnake skeltons, assorted witch doctor paraphenalia, and skulls, skulls, skulls — reminds me of the basement of the St. Louis Art Museum. That's where the tribal art collection lurks: primitive masks whose baleful blank gazes make jungle drums pound hectically in your ears. Western science is a thin veneer for stranger impulses in this documentary, which gave me a new appreciation for both the sculptural beauty of bones and the cleansing power of beetles!

Hail, All Hallowed Ones!

I was baptised Catholic, but since childhood my religious beliefs have become more catholic. I like to celebrate November 1 not only as All Saint's Day, but also as the Celtic New Year. This is the day I think about my top 3 goals for the year ahead. #1 on the list is Do More Yoga. Yoga makes me feel like I'm flying, which is a good counter-balance to the gravitational pull of #2: Knit More Stuff. (I think it's important to include a goal you know you're going to actually accomplish!) #3 is Save Our Junk. I get kind of sick of junk from time to time (like now), and the accumulation of it is not something an aspiring neophyte yogini should even consider. Someday soon, along with pescatarianism, I'm going to have to give junk up. But I still feel that it holds some key to understanding the mysteries of human spirit and culture, if only I just think about it hard enough. Junk is my mandala. So for the next year and a day, anyway, I won't quit the mission of Lucky Find Gazette, even though I'm more than past ready to unload all my salvage work on eBay!