Corrupting the Young

You want to. You know you do. The urge to twist and warp little minds is just something no one can control.

It starts with your own kids; quietly and by stealth, so no one notices. But one day they're knitting squares to make into Herbie

& Reg,

garter stitch dogs extraordinaire from Kids Learn to Knit, or little hats for charity

and the next thing you know, they're knitting something secret for somebody who might read the blog



and giving you Bambi eyes for a skein of hand dyed sock yarn that they swear that they are going to knit up themselves (just as soon as I pick a pattern from your pattern stash, mom, honest).

But that's not enough. You find yourself letting small kids hang out with you and try stitches while they wait in line to go to gym (awesome crowd control method when everyone is five years old and under). The only problem there is that you don't get the satisfaction of total corruption. There's only time, due to the sheer number of small people, for a quick dip into the pool of degenerate behavior.

So, you turn to other outlets. Namely, the kids of your friends.

It's great.

You talk them into making Nigel, the late night owl (another Kids Learn to Knit cutie) with a bribe of their very own kitty cat-headed needles and uber-bright variegated yarn.

You slyly offer to reteach some other friends' daughter how to knit,

then point out that bamboo needles work better with the yarn she has chosen. And after she drags her father to the local yarn shop to get the needles (where she and your own daughter, who's gone along to make sure dad doesn't duck out, also purchase several skeins of two color cottons) you score the ultimate in knitting corruption.

Nothing's better than a kid in a skeleton t-shirt picking up a skein. Absolutely. Nothing. And all because he had the audacity to say (after the girls were safely out of the house), "That doesn't look hard to do."

By the time the girls had returned, he had picked up enough speed with the needles to have finished the bookmark his sister had started and was experimenting with different ways to make knitting "more efficient." You realize you may have to email him Hardcore, from Knitty, just to keep him going.

But you don't have to do it all. Really. Because before you know it, they're knitting without you.

The corruption never ends. Just think of who could be next...

(you thought it was going to be a picture of you, Thing One, didn't you?)

Going Postal

I think the post office is out to get me. I strongly suspect demonic possession.

Seriously.

At first, I thought it was confined to international postal transactions. I mean, it wasn't unusual to receive a box from loved ones across the pond that came home looking like this:

All that were holding those packages together was the tape and the good will of postal people in countries the to which the boxes had never been addressed (though they somehow ended up in places like Romania anyway).

I'm sure the postal demon gnashed its little teeth at said goodwill undoing all of its careful package mangling planning and vowed its revenge on nice people.

Because slowly, sneakily, the little imp has begun to do funny things with even Stateside mailings. It took advantage of me when I went on a bit of a yarn & supplies spree and ordered several things all within days of each other.

It didn't do it without first creating a false sense of security. It let me receive this yarn from Rikes Wollmaus in Germany for the Baby Surprise Jacket for little Lief.

(Note the German postmark and remember how far it travelled...)

Then it let me receive this bag from Spunky Eclectic

and this DVD from School House Press.

Three good deliveries in a row. I should have known it was too good to last.

It was with the Afghan and cro-hooks from Turn of the Century that the postal demon struck with its full, malevolent fury.

Bill, from Turn of the Century, does exquisite work, and when I asked about him on Rav, I received glowing reviews about his customer service as well.

I found the page of regular crochet hooks first and just sat staring at them, stupefied by their beauty. The PD took note of that; I'm sure it did. Had I been paying attention, I would have heard its little snigger then.

But no, I blithely got hold of Bill and found out that in addition to cro-hooks and regular hooks, Bill did do Afghan hooks as well (found on the Odds 'n' Ends page) and we worked out what I would need.

I tried to pay via Paypal, but the PD had obviously coerced Paypal's demon into assisting, because Paypal didn't work. Bill discovered there were some updates he needed to do. I suggested a money order, promptly went out and got one, and rather tardily sent it out (because I'm like that). Still, it was only a few days behind the Rikes Wollmaus payment, you know?

Due to my own negligence, I tried to be patient whilst waiting for my order. (And all of you who know me can quit snorting with laughter over that sentence. Because I did. Really.)

Still, Turn of the Century is in Ohio. I live only a few states from Ohio, as opposed to one large ocean and several other countries away from Germany. So when I received the above mentioned BSJ yarn before the hooks, I have to admit I sensed a not-so-divine presence at work in my life. I sent Bill a polite email. The email bounced back. Puzzled, I resent from another address. I received a prompt reply stating that he had not received my email informing him that payment had been sent (even the email demon works for PD, apparently), nor had he received the payment itself. I sent a "but I sent it!" reply. He sent back a, "but I still haven't received it, so sorry" email in return. (There were other emails--several--but as they were of a similar vein, I won't bore you any more than I already have.)

Poor Bill. Between missing emails and missing payments, I wouldn't have blamed him if he thought he was dealing with a psycho crochet hook stalker. Finally, I offered to pay via the now working just fine Paypal the next day and trust that if the money order ever appeared, he would cash it and return the funds to me. He assured me that he would.

Er, the next day I got busy. It's that prompt decision followed by tardy action bit that I mentioned above.

And the PD chortled, guffawed, and then roared triumphant laughter.

I mean, really. What a git, you know?

The next day I seated myself before the computer in defiance of the PD, determined that I would not only successfully submit a Paypal order, but that I would somehow get word of it to Bill, subversive demon network or no subversive demon network.

Then I opened my email, and saw this:

GUESS WHAT!!!!

The money order finally showed up. A bit worse for wear, but intact. I should be able to get the hooks in Wednesday's Priority Mail. I will email after they are in the mail.

So, approximately three days after I received this email (and three weeks after the yarn came from Germany) I received these (the cro-hook is in its black carrying case; don't ask me why I did took the pic that way. I just did):

And the box wasn't even dented.

Back at ya, PD.

(And for everyone out there wondering, yes, I did send the money order to the correct address. I know this because I asked Bill and he confirmed that I had. So quit laughing, J. I mean it.)

Trading One Stick for Another

The retreat didn't make me homesick after all.

True, there are lots of trees, just like in Maine. But they are different trees (well, some of them, anyway). There are more birch than I was used to in southern Maine (though farther north in Maine there are some nice stands of them). More deciduous and less evergreen. More...something. I don't know how to describe it. The best I can say is that they shared the same sense of isolation, even if they did not give it to me in the same way.

There were two cabins at the retreat. One was the main house, the other this:

I stole the newly made window seat in the above bay window for my bed

so I could fall asleep watching the moonlight on the water. And when I woke up to see this:

I knew that I hadn't chosen wrongly in ignoring the bedrooms. I let the fog lift a little, since I hadn't paddled this lake before and didn't know what to expect. Then I slipped into the mist.

The lake was smallish and comfortable.

I didn't get close to the loons, but I saw this eagle when it was in flight. (Jean took the wonderful picture of it.)

Probably the freakiest thing was being able to paddle in this:

(Well, really, the night looked more like this

but either Jean or Deanne did something cool with the filter on the shot that one of them took, so I just had to add the blue night pic as well. In reality, it was as inky black as you see above.)

There is no way you would catch me paddling on a lake in Maine in the dark, no matter how good the moonlight (Oh all right, maybe I would paddle during full moon on a lake I knew well. Maybe.).

In Maine there are these things called boulders. In the lakes. Sometimes scraping the kayak bottom if you misjudge the depth of the water when looking down into it. So night-time kayaking in Maine (for people like me, anyway) is a no-no.

The other big difference in the lakes is the amount of vegetation. The bottom of Maine lakes look like this (unless there is milfoil present)

while here I found plants like this:

and this:

and this:

and even more in the still water over by the beaver dam.*

I have to say that I actually felt pretty content to have traded this stick

for this one.

(Besides, I got crochet time in while lazing on the end of the dock in the late afternoon sun, so all is well.)

*Note to anyone paddling late at night on a beaver-inhabited lake. The loud, crashing splash you may hear while paddling by yourself on the darkest part of the lake is not the entry of a crazed moose into the water, intent upon kayak attacking, nor is the belly flop of an inordinately large bear mistaking you for a floating snack. It's simply one fat beaver slapping his tail on the water.

Little twit about scared me to death, let me tell you.

Temptation Resisted (Not)

(Note: There are some backed up blogs waiting to appear. I was on the road and then in a cabin in Maine without Internet access. So welcome to the world of blog catch up! The blog is very happy to have more to say.)

For the record, it's not breaking your promise to yourself not to try a new hook/technique until you've finished bunny projects if you think of a project for the bunny that involves the hook, right?

Right. Glad we got that cleared up.

Besides, now C's bunny will also have a fetching crocheted rectangle for a cute bunny blanket.

The fact that I've totally fallen for Tunisian crochet is NOT the main reason for making the bunny a blanket. Just because I'm finding the idea that all the crochet stitches end up on the hook






and then off the hook






totally enamoring (don't ask me why) doesn't mean that influenced my decision.


We'll ignore the fact that I love the basket weave look of the front of the fabric





and the almost knitted look of the back, because that's just a happy side effect of making C happy.






Yes, all this enjoyment and happiness is purely for C's benefit. (But for the record? Bobbles are the devil's own invention. They are evil, evil, evil and I absolutely loathe making them. The fact that all my bobbles look like knotted rats' whiskers has nothing to do with my perceptions of them, I promise you.)

Off to teacher's retreat. More later.

City Sheep & General Rambles

I don't know where this particular breed of sheep hails from, as Thing 2 sent the pictures on to me, but I sooo want some!




(Methinks you can click to embiggen. If so, you definitely should.)



But hey, these are the only sheep I can see getting past the neighbors in the metro area without them complaining that loud, bleaty animals are keeping them up nights (though they'd be quieter than a dog AND would keep my grass trimmed). I mean, I'd be cutting my coat to fit the cloth, right? Right.


And right now I should be knitting up a storm for baby/toddler presents when we go back out to Maine at the end of the month. Cecelia's bunny has only a bit of a dress done, nothing else. Lief's BSJ yarn just arrived from Germany (and not at the address at which I am now residing so must touch base and try to get it--sigh) so I've not cast on so much as a stitch and end of the month is heading up to smack me in the face right quick. Basically, much to get done.


But what am I doing? Figuring out the layout of my new classroom (in my head, mind you), attempting to avoid throwing all the knitting to the wind completely and trying out my new Tunisian crochet hooks (just arrived after a long and harrowing trip, but that's another post), realizing that now that I'm back on a good connection I really have nothing interesting to post (Irony, irony; though if I started that baby blanket with the new hooks I could. Gah! Must. Resist. Temptation.) and counting down the days until teacher retreat, which happens to be on a lake away up north. That idea is making me and my kayak very, very happy.



I don't care if the kayak has nothing to do with lesson plans. It wants to go, so it's going. No one in their right minds will be up at 6:00 a.m. to lesson plan anyway (and if they are, then I'm going to seriously freak) so the kayak and I will be free to hit the water.

Everyone says farther north looks more like home (Maine). I wonder if that will be a relief to city-bound me or if it will make me homesick?

Oh, that's a question I really don't need to ponder. Someone tell me from where those sheep hail (knowing my luck, AT & T owns them) and meanwhile, I'm back to knitting a bunny skirt...

To Craft or Not to Craft

That is the question. Whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and spinnings of outrageous acrylic...

Oh wait. Shakespeare again. Well, sort of. (I've gotta quit that. Sorry.)

I've been channeling Hamlet a bit today. I guess I've hit an existential yarn person moment.

Recently I read that New Zealanders spin up possum yarn; evidently they have a lot of those little suckers out in the wild.

Me being me, I had, after reading, this picture of a possum, struggling back to its compatriots, saying, "Oy, it was taniwha, bro, I'm telling you. There were these bright eyes, and then a stinging pain, and next thing I know, I'm back here nuddy, ay! And when I checked my watch? Bro, two hours had passed that I don't remember."

All very Gary Larsonesque, I know.

My next thought was to ring up my NZ friend and ask her about the yarn. I mean, if those poor possums were going to suffer post traumatic stress disorder, the least I could do would be to knit a little memorial to their happier, more innocent days, although why anyone would want to use a possum's fur for yarn was beyond me.

It turns out that I had been picturing this:



which, as most any crafter would tell you, does not look like it spins up yarn that will have the yarnistas ohhing and ahhing anytime soon. I mean, what would Clara Parkes say?

But that is the American Opossum. We may shorten the name to possum, but it's nothing like the New Zealand Possum. A bit of web trolling took me to the Supreme Merino Possum website, where I found (and use with permission) this:



and Pam, the helpful lady who answered my email when I asked if I could use their picture, also sent me this:



taken up close and personal in her friend's back yard.

Clearly, there is a distinct difference in the quality of the fur. New Zealand possum reminds me of the fur of my beloved former pet chinchilla, Trillian. American possums just look like walking Brillo pads.

While reading through the Supreme Merino Possum website, I also discovered how the fur is harvested. Suffice to say that little dude won't be heading back to his compatriots to tell of his otherworldly experience.

The possum isn't killed simply for profit, though. Apparently the possum is an invasive species, introduced from Australia, and has a population of 70 million. Imagine 70 million deer (or, God help us, 70 million moose) packed into an area slightly smaller than the state of Wyoming.

So the possum, while adorable in photos, is wrecking havoc on New Zealand's local flora and bird populations, as there is no predator to keep the possum numbers in check. The possums eat the vegetation that the birds need and, in some cases, the eggs and the chicks of the birds as well. The Kiwi Conservation Club website, while geared toward kids, does a good job of giving examples of just how much damage 70 million possums can do.

This means man is having to become the predator. And we all know what we're like when we go predator.

I have to admit that normally I prefer my yarn to just be sheared or plucked off an animal that walks off feeling both more comfortable and a little indignant that someone interrupted its grazing. However, NZers probably won't turn to sustainably harvesting the wool (i.e. turn the little guys and gals into farm animals) until there is enough demand for the wool to encourage trapping, which would reduce their numbers to the point that it might justify permitting people to maintain them in a farm and hand-pluck environment. And I question whether they would be able to do that. Can possums be corralled effectively? They're seriously good climbers. They don't look like they'd be too keen on the plucking, either.

Thus, I run smack into the age old environmental argument; cull the overpopulated species that we introduced in the first place to save threatened species, or take a hands off, let nature take its course approach?

People seem less willing to do the latter when the overpopulated species is a non-native, be it plant or animal; ask any Mainer or Minnesotan to tell you about milfoil, an invasive aquatic plant which is killing local aquatic plants and fishes in our lakes. I've seen firsthand the damage that milfoil does (not to mention that kayaking through milfoil is like paddling through watery salad). However, people don't seem to face as much of a moral dilemma if said invasive species is a plant. No one protests at salad bars, after all, despite the fact that plants are clearly living entities, just as we are. And Things 1, 3 and 4 excepted, there are no meatarians out there that I know of.

The possums, moreover, will be trapped whether I buy the yarn or not. And as I am an amalgamation many pragmatic races, part of me feels that if the possum is going to be killed, it seems wasteful to not make use of a fur with properties that seem to make it almost as desirable as quivit; like quivit, it is hand plucked and both tout the heat retaining qualities of the fibers.

Still, like Hamlet, I waiver. To purchase, or not to purchase.

I could understand my scruples if I were a vegetarian, but although I prefer non-meat meals, I definitely do eat meat. And, farmer's daughter that I am, I do so with no real qualms, although I'm hoping to get to the point where I order my meat from someone who raises it naturally as my father did rather than factory-farm style. So why, when I obviously know an animal will be killed to be eaten, do I have more misgivings about an animal that would be killed to be worn, especially when I know they'll be trapped anyway, and that even trapping their numbers down to manageability won't threaten them with extinction?

It's unfortunate that one of man's goofs (Let's introduce this species to a land where its never been seen! It'll be great!) means that animals that did nothing other than live and do their normal animal thing of eating are having to die. But overpopulation causes its own problems. By the time the food supply is eradicated to the point that the possum population crashes, New Zealand will have lost many amazing species to oblivion.

Let Hamlet waffle. I'm saving up my pennies for some yarn. Maybe I'll help save other amazing creatures while I'm at it.

So Maybe The Blog (Okay, The Blog's Writer) Was A Tad Optimistic

I never realized how long ten minutes could be, until the computer I was using froze on one screen for that long. Repeatedly.

It all began when Things 1-4 began their summer bacchanal of fast food and parade candy,



endless days at the pool



and nights way later than thought possible in winter.



Throw in some cool designer clothes at sale prices their mother can never find and fried retinas from so many movies and video games,



and their little lives are more or less complete.

Yes, that's right. They'd gone to the grandparents.



The mother, left on her own and about to begin looking for houses, was feeling a bit odd. How does one cook for just one person? A friend of hers from work suggested, that, as her Things were gone, and the friend's teen Thing was also gone, the lone mommy should come and hang out. Then there would be two for which to cook (there hasn't been really; we were optimistic there) and lone mommy could explore the northern and western burbs as well.

Sounded good. Actually, it's been great. Lone mommy has been having a blast. (Note to children: never leave your parents unattended.)

However, the internet connection left a little to be desired. It froze so much lone mommy started checking the weather to see if a strange front was moving through. And that was just on email. Forget opening files or posting pictures.

No problem, lone mommy thought. She'd use the weekend time to keep up with the blog.

Ha. Like that worked. Enter lone mommy trying to catch up with 183 unanswered emails, field calls from Things who oddly enough thought her still in charge even when hours away and being unable to find excuses to stay home when her friends said, "It must be lonely without the kids. Why don't we______?" all while making time to get lost in unfamiliar burbs because she was trying to sneak peaks at what's for sale in areas she fancied?

Notice the blog didn't even make it into that last sentence, let alone any of the weekend time lone mommy tried to give it. Nap time at work was out as well, because 1) work was fuzzy about how many jpgs can be downloaded on their computers and 2) one tiny guy is not real into napping. So nap time has devolved into one shining moment of respite while he briefly snoozes, followed by an hour and a half of playing let's-find-ways-to-keep-Cash-on-his-cot-and-quiet-so-everyone-else-can-sleep. A most thrilling game. Really. (The staff strongly suspects this child's inherent adorableness is a survival trait given to him by the angels in order to offset his amazing capacity for mischievousness, but that's another story...).

But now lone mommy has narrowed down the housing options and has things like appointments with a (gasp) realtor. (He has GPS. That is good.) So here she is with weekend time AND a happy internet connection (it pays to offer to water the plants of people who are gone). She has picture permission from one yarn website, public domain clip art, and a blog-in-waiting in the Drafts folder. She's even finding time to knit and crochet again (amazing what an I-must-get-this-stuff-done-before-we-go-to-visit deadline will do for one).

Exit optimism. Enter posts.

(Well, she hopes anyway. Especially since this little blog is a master of bugging her when ignored.)