It's poison, I tell you.

I have decided that politics is bad for me. Really bad.

I read the news that the chief justice of the US Supreme Court had a seizure, and my first reaction was, Maybe he'll have some horrible disease and have to step down.

I am ashamed. I am a terrible person. Politics has somehow sucked away the last trace of my humanity.

Besides, at this point Bush would just replace him with another sycophant who eats civil rights with his Cheerios in the morning.

Terrible. I am a terrible, terrible, terrible person. How did I turn into this?

How to mop a floor.

1. Run out of dishwasher detergent.
2. Substitute a small amount of regular liquid dish soap.
3. Use a dishwasher that randomly develops leaks every three months or so.
4. Have my luck, courtesy of our friend Murphy.
5. Use a mop to clean up the results.
6. Admire the nice, sparkly floor.

Tonight is the night for Harry Potter! Old Voldyface is going down. And both Harry and Dumbledore are coming out the other side alive. That is what I choose to believe. (But I think we'll either be saying farewell to Ron or Neville- and please, if there is any good left in the universe, let it be Neville. And not, like, Professor McGonagall or something.)

The celebration in my hometown starts in three hours! And to celebrate... a little poetry from Shakespeare and the Doctor...

Foul Carrionite spectors, cease your show
between the points 761 390!
Banish light and tinker’s cuss, I say to thee…
EXPELLIARMUS!

See you when I've finished the book, and finished crying.

Wanted: one clue-by-four

Here's a conversation I don't want to have again.

Me: "I need to schedule an appointment."
Doc: "Leave me a voicemail and I'll call you back."
Me: "I don't have a phone where you can call me back."
Doc: "I need a phone number where I can contact you."
Me: "...I wish I had one. Still can't help you."

Two days later...

Me: "I need to schedule an appointment with Doc."
Receptionist: "You need to leave a voicemail."
Me: "I can leave a voicemail, but Doc won't be able to call me back."
Receptionist: "Try us again in two hours."

Two hours later...

Receptionist: "Doc left me some possible appointment times."
Me: "I'll take the one that's not before dawn."
Receptionist: "Great. I'll let Doc know. I'll call you if there's a problem."
Me: "O...kay?"

One week later...

Receptionist: "There was a problem and we couldn't reach you. You need to reschedule."
Me: "How will we do that?"
Receptionist: "Leave Doc a voicemail, and you'll get a call back."
Me: "..."
Receptionist: "...Oh."
Me: "Can Doc send me an email?"
Receptionist: "Oh, no, the doctors can't do that. Privacy blah blah blah."
Me: "Well, how else is this going to work?"
Receptionist: "I... don't know. I guess I can take your email."

Two days later...

Doc (email): "I don't usually do email. Call my office for an appointment. I really need a contact number for you."
Me: "...Would you like to buy me a phone?"

Hymn in three parts

Part One: Reduce

It was the day for getting rid of things. I was ruthless. I was getting rid of t-shirts not just because they didn't fit or had holes but just because I do not need ten t-shirts. I don't.

I took out two garbage bags of clothes. I didn't even stop to count the things inside, because getting rid of a number was not the goal any more. (Plus I was afraid that in the process of counting I would rethink some of my purges.) The goal was not getting rid of things; it was just to have what I need, and no more.

I took the piles of clothes out, and when I was done, I walked in to my closet and sighed, "Thank God for the things I do not have!" And I meant it with all my heart.

Thank God that the poor will have their clothes back. Thank God that my mind is free from the deadly attachment I had to those souvenir shirts. Thank God that I am, for a moment, sure of myself without the support of my things.

Part Two: Reuse

What's a financially strapped would-be spinner to do? It hardly seemed like the right time for me to start up a new, potentially expensive hobby. I did not have a spinning wheel, a drop spindle, or even the correct supplies to make a drop spindle out of an old CD. More significantly, I did not have any fiber to spin.

Which is when I remembered the cheap little pillow, whose stuffing was trickling out of several growing holes.

When I want to do something, I do it. I don't let a little thing like being broke stop me.

Spindle? Leftover piece of dowel rod, plastic lid from a tub of oats, old CD, super glue. Fiber? Polyester stuffing- impossible to comb, incredibly short draw, dingy white. It's like spinning rainclouds. (And if I could do that, by the way, I'd have plenty of fiber, and those clouds would do more good than they are sitting in the sky pretending to think about raining.)

The results could charitably be described as slubby. Actually, they could charitably be described as yarn. But it's something. At least I'm not ruining good fiber on my first sad attempts. If I can spin this, I can spin anything. (My own hair is next on the list. From short draw to loooooong draw in one fell swoop. I promise, no one will get my knitted hair as a present.)

Part Three: Rethink

I hate patriotic "hymns". Hearing them in church makes me want to vomit spectacularly, all over the "hymn"-writer's shoes. I heard this week (maybe from Bruce Ware) that there are four major world religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Americanism. I concur, with tears.

But then I discovered a hymn in our old Cold War-era hymnal that made me rethink the "patriotic" hymn, from a guy who must have known the best and the worst of this country.

Thou Judge by whom each empire fell,
When pride of power o'ercame it,
Convict us now, if we rebel,
Our nation judge, and shame it.
In each sharp crisis, Lord, appear,
Forgive, and show our duty clear:
To serve thee by repentance.

Search, Lord, our spirits in thy sight,
In best and worst reveal us;
Shed on our souls a blaze of light,
And judge, that thou may'st heal us.
The present be our judgement day,
When all our lack thou dost survey:
Show us ourselves and save us.

Lo, fearing nought we come to thee,
Though by our fault confounded;
Though selfish, mean, and base we be,
Thy justice is unbounded:
So large, it nought but love requires,
And, judging, pardons, frees, inspires.
Deliver us from evil!

-Percy Dearmer, 1867-1936

Silence great and small

I saw the film Into Great Silence back when it was in town- what, a few months ago? The experience was nothing I'd ever experienced before, but I never was able to process it into anything I could share. Fortunately, Ponder Anew has a response that could just as well be mine.

Sound and silence move me in powerful ways. My brain responds to them. I need both in my life. But silence is incredibly difficult to come by, and when I finally find it, it's initially painful. The detox process for the sound addict is very, very uncomfortable.

It happens too often: I bombard myself with input. I start to get used to having music playing in the background, having the TV on when I do other things, listening to my books on tape instead of reading them. I get used to talking and talking, and listening to other people talk, and listening to many people talk very fast and all at once, and eventually my brain just wears out.

It's a crash. I have taken in so much and have processed so little of it that my brain simply runs out of memory. It refuses to take any more. I can only hear so much before I just can't hear any more.

Seeing Into Great Silence was like the first few days of being sober (I gather). For a few moments, the silence is nice. Then it's excruciating. It's not just the lack of sound but the visual silence, too: the review has it right when it says it's like watching a still life. A few minutes in, watching a statuesque monk at his prayers, and I started to get fidgety. Then I started to feel desperate. The temptation to move, to make some sound just to avoid being left with that awful, deafening silence, was overwhelming.

And then it got easier to bear, and easier, and eventually it even became refreshing. I even started to envy the monks, whose way of life gives them the liberty of not having to speak. Frankly, I'm still envious at times- when I'm interrupted at prayer, or when I know the only words I have are unkind, or when I'm just too overloaded to speak. There are so many times when I am socially obligated to make noise, when it would be better for me to let there be silence.

This is such a challenge for me, to allow myself some silence. It feels unproductive, awkward, inefficient. But it also, when I am in the midst of it, feels so fully human that it seems cruel to break it. How can I reclaim that freedom to be still, in the face of a supercharged, fast-moving world?

Well, whaddaya know?

The Ubiquitous Brown Plaid does have a name.

Now I can sleep at night.

Uh-oh.

Yarn Harlot!



I have a bone to pick with you.

A few days ago, on your blog, you shamelessly posted an image of the Baby Surprise Jacket, without giving any thought to how this might affect the welfare or safety of others.

My human, being equally thoughtless, made a brave attempt to knit the aforementioned jacket from the picture, without a pattern. While her efforts were admirable, and for a while there it actually looked like the finished product might fit a human infant, the end results were not pretty.

Not pretty at all.



Ms. Harlot, I am holding you responsible for my pain and suffering. Maybe next time you'll think before you post tempting, patternless garments on the internet.

Amusing the muse

You hear that?

That endless noise like cosmic giggles?

That's the knitting muse, laughing her head off as I knit the first row of a 250-stitch-wide afghan, only to realize I started knitting with the cast-on tail. Try to ignore the noise; she's probably going to be cackling for a while.

The Harry Potter House "Sweater" needs two more things:

A left armhole and a really good blocking. I promise, that picture is not distorted; it really is that wide. I also promise that I am definitely not that wide.

It turns out I didn't have anywhere near enough yarn to put sleeves on this thing. Turns out, I have just enough yarn to finish that armhole. Fortunately the pattern was written with unbelievably huge amounts of ease, so I'll be blocking that dubba-wide vest thing into something with recognizably human proportions. That's tonight's project: tomorrow, the show!

Speaking of things in odd shapes, would you believe that this...

...is a hat?

It's a pattern I'm test driving for the fiber arts ministry I'm hoping will get going in August. The pattern will come with beginner's kits:

... so that total newbies won't have to suffer through the misery of a garter stitch scarf. Unless they knit the largest size hat, which is roughly equivalent. Instead, they'll have something hat-like and not rectangular at the end, which is definitely more interesting than a scarf. That's the theory, anyway. I'm still, er, fine-tuning the pattern.


Meanwhile, on the Dark Side: the Death Star strikes again.


The one blanket just wasn't enough, so I pulled out all my [s]crap yarn and... ended up with another WIP that looks like a [s]crap yarn blanket. At least it's not bland.

And, as though I didn't already have way, way too many WIPs, the Silky Wool got Hooked.

I'm not even going to tell you what it is yet. Look at that. Look how lovely it is. I don't think you could make a bad project with that yarn. You could knit up a trash can cozy or crochet the world's strangest toilet lid cover, and the Silky Wool would be like, oh, I'm so glamorous in an understated and elegant way, I totally transform any tacky purpose you put me to into something noble and glorious.

Revere the wool. Pray that it never turns its powers against you.

Musings: Hospitality, Generosity, Opportunity

(With any luck, tomorrow will be the day for knitting pictures- possibly including one of the HP movie ensemble. Fake grafting of the House "Sweater" shoulders is in progress; neckline and armhole ribbing is scheduled for completion tomorrow, followed by a very long session of weaving in ends. If I have any strength left after that, you'll see pictures.)

For the first time in my life, I think, I have hit what I could fairly call "hard times". The past few months have taken their toll, and I sit at the end of them tired, sick, broke, and now without income. It's not a particularly pleasant place to be. These circumstances have, however, given me just the right amount of time for reflection.

I knew it would be best if I stayed in the same town while my medical issues sorted themselves out. This meant putting off my dreams of grad school or, alternatively, a short-term mission placement. My life was put on hold while my survival took center stage. I was disappointed. But finally, after months and months of tough times, God delivered his whack of the clue-by-four.

I'm starting to realize that having to give up my plans is not a setback: God's timing is best. It is an opportunity. I believe I have work left to do where I am, both for myself and for my community. What exactly that work is, I can't say. I'm still waiting for the Cruise Director to hand out the itinerary, if you catch my drift. But I am learning to trust and wait. It's not an easy lesson.

Meanwhile, I'm struggling to figure out how exactly one serves God while dirt poor. Maybe the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, but the lack of money sure makes it hard to serve God the way I want to. How can I show hospitality to people when I can't spare a can of condensed soup to feed them? How can I put in my two pennies in the offering plate when it's all I have to live on? How can I be generous when I owe people money and I could run out of food next week?

But in my good moments, I find joy again. When I'm at my best, rather than panicking about how to get things, I'm weeding things out of my life that aren't necessary. Extra blankets. Extra clothes. That second coat in my closet that belongs to the person who's shivering in the cold. (Well, not shivering today, maybe.) In some ways, this lean time is a blessing. I feel less cluttered; my purpose is in clearer focus. Not to sound too proud about it, because I'm only making meager beginnings, but I'm learning to throw away everything that separates me from Christ.

It's a fast of sorts, and I'm grateful for it. I have never been poor before, and though I'm not anywhere near real poverty yet, I feel like a layer of scales has fallen off my eyes. I'm just not quite sure what I'm looking at yet.

I do not fear change.

In fact, I embrace it to the point of undertaking it just for the heck of it. (It's the furniture-rearranging gene that was passed down from my grandmother.)

Today's significant changes are two in number and bloggy in nature. The big one first: I'm consolidating my blogs into one big blog. The old pages will stay up, but I won't be posting there any more. That means that this page will be Me HQ.

This move is totally contrary to my usual behavior, so I fully expect myself to feel a little wrong-footed when it comes to what goes in the blog. Enjoy the ride with me.

The second is that I am instituting a monthly Yarn Weigh-in, to occur at the end of each month. Mainly I've decided to do it this way because keeping a running total was slowing down my creative process (read: making me think before I cast on yet another WIP). I figure a yarn diet is like every other diet: you don't stand on the scale until you see the number you want. You try to do things that are better for you and check in at the scale periodically to see how it's going. Besides, it's way harder to keep track of every scrap of yarn I touch than it is to do a half-hour monthly inventory.

What am I working on now? Well, after the Bridal Shawl I discovered that working on a deadline, with daily goals, really helps me get moving. And since I already had a deadline in place- July 11- I did the math and realized that that leaves me ten days to finish my House sweater.

Ten days is not a whole lot of time.

I started setting daily goals, because if I left it with just a deadline, I'd be hating my needles and cursing my yarn at 11 pm on July 10. The daily goals are pretty steep, though. For instance, at the end, I set a goal to knit a sleeve each day.

Haha. Yeah, right.

Fortunately, I've left myself an escape clause. This is as much because of my knitting speed as because I think I'm going to run out of yarn, and because it's hot in July. This House sweater may end up being a House vest. I'll do ribbing instead of sleeves and call the thing good.

Giving myself a day or two to recover, I'll have another week to finish off some Quidditch socks to complete my book release ensemble for the party on July 21. I hope no one will blame me if after this, I refuse to ever knit anything again.

But the outfit will be awesome.

Deviant

First things first: I finished the gift knit, a shawl for Checkers' bridal shower.




I am enormously proud of this thing. I designed it all by me onesies. The yarn is Rowan Cashcotton (YUM!), and you see the cast off? That's a long chain crochet cast off. That's right, the c-word. I was a little nervous about this initially, but once I got going it was sort of addicting.

So I moved on to my first real crochet. (gasp! shock! horror!)

I started an afghan in single crochet, after which I realized that this was not all that much faster than knitting, and after all, the prime advantage of crochet was supposed to be speed. I frogged that, and then I remembered the first book my aunt had given me when attempting to trick me into crocheting: granny square afghans.



Feel the granny square love. I've started assembling them now, because the idea of sewing a hundred thousand granny squares together at once makes me woozy. There's no real pattern; I'm just putting them together in big blocks, and I'll organize them later.

Meanwhile, earthchick passed on some really fat baby yarn that had gotten passed on to her. I knew immediately what this had to be, so I pulled out my N-hook, and roughly 5 hours later:



It's Beth's star-shaped baby afghan, and my first crochet FO. Am I proud? Enormously.

I never thought I would learn to crochet. It's been six years since I first started trying to crochet, off and on, and I was sure I would never get beyond rectangles. Now I'm churning out crochet things like I've heard they're discontinuing Red Heart Super Saver (and why are all the crochet patterns I have written for that sad excuse for yarn?). It's addicting. It's crack for knitters.

There's just one major crochet drawback: When I went back to knitting, I started wrapping the yarn backward.