Garden of Alla Shawl

This shawl reminds me of Alla Nazimova, the great silent film star who at one time owned a mansion on Sunset Boulevard called The Garden of Alla, where parties of incredible gin-soaked debauchery were thrown with abandon. I'm not sure why this shawl reminds me of her. The saturated Russian icon colors? The vaguely Eastern motif? (Fountain Lace, Barbara Walker #2.) Anyway, I was getting slightly bored of knitting the Leafy Lace Capelet, so I turned to this. My new plan is to work on one project per week, then switch to something else of different texture, color, and construction. Every time I'm down to just two projects, I'll allow myself to cast on another. Ideally, this will keep the unfinished business bin from overflowing, while also keeping my enthusiasm high. PS: Done on August 31. I love skinny yarn now, but things sure go faster with the fatter stuff. I plan to start generating .pdfs of my shawl patterns, so fellow knitters who don't like graph paper as much as I do can have a crack at them. (Software must first arrive.)

Vaudeville Thrills

These are two of my favorite books, and I would never have been fortunate enough to read them if I didn't have my little junking problem. (So maybe it's not a problem after all, she says as she stares apprehensively at the dangerously tottering piles all around her.) Each tells the story of a traveling showman: Charles A. Taylor, who practically invented the Snidely Whiplash School of Melodrama, and Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham, a comic who got his start in carnival "gilly" shows and had a major influence on Laugh-In era comedians like Flip Wilson. Different men, similar atmosphere. You get such a great sense of old timey showbiz from these two tales, and an exihilirating sense of freedom and adventure from the sagas of their vagabond lives on the road. Here Come The Judge! smells faintly of its previous owner's catbox, and I've read Blood and Thunder so often the paper is curling off its flimsy spine, but these are two of my most treasured finds, ever.

Tobacco Silks

One of my favorite things to stumble across at postcard shows, flea markets, etc, is old tobacco silks, like the one featured above. These came with the tobacco the menfolk would buy, way back in the Gilded Age. Sometimes the womenfolk would turn them into quilts and such. I haven't touched a ciggie since my wild youth. But sometimes I crave a puff, though I now find knitting much more addictive than I ever found smoking. And it's not as stinky, unless you're knitting up some Rowan "Country," which is by far the most odiferous yarn I have ever smelled. Speaking of knitting, I've just joined ravelry, code name "luckyfind", so hopefully I can steer this blog back towards its intended purpose, i.e. the celebration of junk. I'll bore on about my fiber projects over there, where someone's more likely to be interested!

Happy Birthday, Little Blog

One year ago today, I sent forth my first post, The Moolah Mug. The images above are related to it. Can you tell how? Thank you, little blog, for giving me so much pleasure over the course of this past twelvemonth!

The Total Look

Here I am back in exile, on the wrong side of the river. Only a churlish malcontent could be ungrateful for my fabulous life, but I sure do miss red brick and city sights: old hippies in sombreros cruising Chouteau in vintage Ford Fairlanes, young loft rats nursing their hangovers with French presses in sidewalk cafés, the babble of many nations at Soulard Market, etc. Don't make me cry! Oh, sure, it could be worse: I could be living in that outer ring of Hell known as Chesterfield instead of in this natural beauty spot, but sometimes a girl just feels like whining. I was able to download one of my favorite songs (500 Miles Away From Home by Bobby Bare) this weekend to remind me of my homesickness:
"Can't remember when I ate
It's just thumb and walk and wait
And I'm still five hundred miles away from home
If my luck had been just right
I'd be with them all tonight
But I'm still five hundred miles away from home
Away from home, away from home
Cold and tired and all alone
Yes, I'm five hundred miles away from home."
I'm actually only 35 miles away, and neither cold nor alone. Plus, there's always knitting to soothe my rusticated soul. Gotta make those Pear and Trellis stockings!

Sun Dog

My husband and I are spending the weekend in the city. Here's what I miss about living in the city: everything. I can't say I miss WiFi, because when we moved away, there was no such thing. But now that I'm using it, I don't know how I've ever lived without it. I took advantage of our access here and downloaded about a million songs in less than a minute last night. The Alton area where we now live has miserable connection options, so Make Hay While The Sun Shines, as we hayseeds say. Our darling blue chihuahua is staying with my folks, soaking up the rays, as we drink coffee and plot the course of our urbanity. Soulard for people watching, Forest Park for picknicking and art appreciation, random strolling to gawk at all the cool architecture we never took for granted, even when we lived here, and no knitting!

Automatic Knitting

You may have heard of the Automatic Writing practiced by Surrealists and Mediums while in a trance state. Well, I have just experienced Automatic Knitting. After I wound up the lace weight yarn I recently acquired, I thought I'd just tuck the ball away for a gloomy winter day. But its spirit possessed me and before I even realized what was happening, this leafy capelet started growing on my needles! I didn't even have a pattern for the lace stitch: I saw it in an ad for elann.com in the latest (Fall) issue of Vogue Knitting, and my hands concocted a chart of their own accord! And then I "misread" (i.e, barely skimmed) the instructions for the EZ Pie Are Square Shawl and got this more rounded object. The increases are in perfect concord with the super-easy (as in: "Why do anything on the purl side when there are so many patterns that don't require you to?") yet gorgeous lace. Is this beauty an accident? Or did a Good Knitting Fairy infiltrate my fingers? Edged in the fluffy acid-green Kidsilk Haze, I know this shawl will become the favorite item I've created to date. It's so much more fun to knit without stern instructions, because every new stitch becomes an adventure: what will happen next?

Wildly Unwilling

The last thing I needed to do was to plop (another) box full of books onto the heaps of hoard in the Junk Dungeon. But the Alton Public Library was having a 10¢ sale, so really, how could I resist? All of my organizational efforts have been scattered back into the abyss of chaos as I pour over the dozens of 70s era needlecraft magazines, and re-read old familiar paperbacks like this featured Barbara Cartland. When I was in my early teens, my grandmother Ophelia used to force-feed me this crap. I think she hoped the guidelines therein would help me bag a Belted Earl. Did you know Barbara Cartland was Princess Di's step-grandma? Her daughter Raine snared Earl Spencer, so I guess her man-trap principles worked. But back then I thought the Barbara Cartland heroines were lame. They all had ET eyes and spoke in breathless ellipses: "Oh...my Lord..you shouldn't..." Now that I'm older I appreciate how the ideals of the British Empire are upheld in every story. But "Oh...my Lord...am I hating housework..." I'm sure Barbara never taught Raine how to cook or clean. "Never learn to cook or clean, because then they'll expect you to." The worst part is, I can't even blame the mess on my husband, because he confines his slop to one small corner of the bedroom. Whereas I...

Snake Skein

The top photo is of the newest member of our menagerie, Little Joe Brown. He's a brown snake, and hasn't much moved from that spot in our hydrangea bushes for three weeks. He eats worms and bugs. Cute lil feller! Of course, snakes remind me of yarn now. The second photo is of 1.5 hours worth of winding up the Dyeabolical lace weight yarn I recently bought off etsy. It's posed next to some Rowan Kidsilk to give you an idea of its "pop." When I saw it I immediately envisioned an EZ "Pie Are Square" shawl with "Pear and Trellis" lace panels. That project is at the back of the queue: I plan on starting it in January when my eyes need brite green! Bottom pix: finished Sea Shawl. It's definitely the best thing I've ever designed. When I actually take the time to plan things carefully out, it works okay. But I'm an impatient half-ass, so I don't always do as I should. If I ever knit another Elm Leaf Shawl, I'd continue half the pattern up, closer to the center. I wish I could knit as fast as I can dream!

Tropical Splendour

I just got a new computer, so I'm trolling my old one for forgotten images to post. Found one! Makes me want strap on my own sarong and head to the nearest Tiki Bar for some Singapore Slings and Crab Rangoon!

House of Vintage Wallpaper

When I was growing up we used to hang out in a remote part of the Missouri Ozarks every summer. The bug sounds out now always remind me of that magical place. There was no TV, a party line phone, and no pavement anywhere. We got around by retired Army Jeep. There were springs all over the place, pouring out of fern-dripping dolomite bluffs, and where there are springs in Karst Topography, there are also caves. After one caving expedition we came out into the setting sunlight of a cozy hollow and onto the overgrown property of what had once been a working farm. The small abandoned farmhouse there is still my ultimate dream home. The floors and fireplace in the kitchen were flagstone, the roof was tin, the once white clapboard exterior was liberally festooned with gingerbread. The spring house out back was made of limestone, the perfect off-grid refrigerator. People used to know how to live "green" with such class. The walls inside this darling fixer-upper were covered with the most beautiful of vintage wallpapers, now stained and peeling, but so evocative of another simpler, happier, more beautiful world. Vintage wallpaper remains my time travel mandala of choice.

Sea Shawl

Top-down triangle shawls are so satisfying to knit. You can design them yourself with regular old graph paper and a good stitch dictionary, and after a few rows muscle memory kicks in and the going is mindless. I love mindless, especially when preceded by the mildly sweaty geometry of charting. This is the shawl I'm making for my friend Mary in Maine. I hope she doesn't just throw it into a corner and let the dogs sleep on it like she has with other items of apparel I've made for her in the past. Hear that, Mar? Neither housekeeping nor materialism is her forté! But I've known her since we were both 13, so I can't get mad if she doesn't treat objects with the idol worship I do. Because I know who she is by now. Anyway, this post is a record of what this shawl looks like pre-blocked. I can't wait to see the magic of water open it up. Only 50 more rows to go! Special bonus: gratuitous Bridget picture.