Memorial Day 2020 a Week Later

One week later, and I feel OBE yet again. Memorial Day weekend roundabout Exit 151 was somber and intermittently rainy, with the long shadow of covid19 looming over the unofficial start of summer. Many of the traditional observances at veterans cemeteries were simplified and restricted to family members with passes and face coverings, and some of the first-of-the-summer holiday revels took on political overtones, becoming either cautiously mannered or defiantly raucous. The grinding partisanship often didn't seem to leave much room for appeals to empathy and decency.

By grim coincidence the tally of confirmed covid19 deaths in the U.S. neared 100,000 during the holiday weekend, prompting the astonishing Sunday, May 24, 2020 New York Times front page shown to the right. It's a list of names with brief obituaries of 1,000 people known to have died of covid19 in the time since the epidemic began in the U.S., less than four months. Add in the unidentified deaths to the ceaselessly growing total, and it would take over 100 pages to list them all. As the headline reads, the loss is incalculable.

It seems to me one of the better ways to honor the memory of so many dead is to keep on keeping on with the single method that is proven effective: social distancing. Attempts to foster natural herd immunity, as in Sweden, have failed, at a high human cost. Many antibody tests have proven not reliable as a guide for personal behavior or public policy. Efforts to invent a safe and effective vaccine continue, as they should, although in the U.S. opinions on taking a vaccine are evenly split between Yes and No/Not Sure. The search for safe and effective treatments also continues. Overall, there are reasons for optimism and reasons for pessimism.

At the close of the holiday weekend came two incidents that pulled another veil off the reality of racism in the U.S. First, a white woman in Central Park got into a verbal argument with a black man, threatened to call the police on him, and indeed summoned police with a false story he was threatening her. He recorded the encounter, which went viral, with many consequences and much spilled ink.

The evening of Memorial Day, George Floyd died while in police custody in Minneapolis. Peaceful protests gave way to violence and looting, and documented concerns that white agents provocateurs like Umbrella Man and others from outside the Twin Cities had come to pursue violent agendas of their own. The protests, violence, and suspicions spread quickly to other cities amid pleas for calm from city and state officials and a flight from responsibility at the top.

As deadly serious as all this is, I am reminded that continued existence IS resistance. So I completed a pair of socks, Waterlily by Sivia Harding, in time to qualify for April/May SKA.



With so much going on, it's my first foot of 2020, and that will have to be enough.

Overtaken By Epidemic

'Way back whenever, a mere six weeks or so ago, this post started as a Sock Madness post. I had CO the SM14 qualifier on a train somewhere between Chicago and New York and had every intention of competing. Things seemed auspicious: by the most synchronous of synchronicities, the qualifying pattern was Wohin? by the ever-creative Caoua Coffee, a delight of clever technique (gentle readers know how I love technique). Wohin?, a lied in the Schubert song cycle "Die schöne Müllerin" (Op. 25, D. 795), translates to something like Where to?



Little did I suspect that the first week of March was to be the last Before Coronavirus (at least that we currently know of in this region) and the Land of Where To so far has been a place of constantly feeling O.B.E..

One sign of the times is the Times itself – here's a week of headlines for March 16-21, 2020, when reality began to sink in. Ordinarily the New York Times doesn't do full, six-column headlines all that often, so a solid week of them is unsettling all by itself. Then there's the subject of those headlines: the public health crisis and the economic crisis touched off by the novel coronavirus and the disease it causes, covid19, and the leadership crisis in response. So much of grave import has happened that it seems frivolous to note, even on a knitting blog, that there hasn't been much knitting going on at casa Jersey Knitter.



Instead there have been many adjustments big and small, some bewildering in their rapidity and increasing severity. BC, I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show and, AC, I was too occupied to blog about it. Branch Brook Park was closed during cherryblossom season, along with schools and nonessential businesses. (Including malls. In New Jersey.) Spring elections were rescheduled or shifted to vote by mail. Restaurants were limited to take-out or delivery only. Supermarkets were required to limit the number of customers in the store; some placed one-way arrows to direct traffic in the aisles and sneeze guards at the registers; customers were required to wear face masks and gloves – some say food stores should move to curbside pickup and home delivery only. Although online ordering is so swamped, shopping at Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods is by invitation only. I learned about social distancing and flattening the curve and how to wash hands (for at least 20 seconds, with plenty of suds).



With all the adjustments come all the feels. So many feels. Gabrielle Treanor's "3 Stages of Pandemic Response" has it about right, except instead of making steady progress through the stages, I tend to pingpong back and forth between levels.



In the pinch, some turn to activism. There's a shortage of PPE for healthcare workers and first responders and others, so I've been sewing DIY facial masks. Other crafters have been turning out parts for face shields using 3D printers and other fabricators. Still others – small groups of apparently well-funded of counter-majority populists – have been protesting stay-at-home orders... some wore hazmat suits and masks, some didn't, some toted guns, some "displayed swastikas ironically," and then there's the Operation Gridlock folks who were blocked by healthcare workers in scrubs. There's a politician who wants "to put on our big boy and big girl pants" and choose to cause people die, there's a candidate for office who looks like a zombie, and it feels like we are living in a failed state.

Whew.



After all that, I cast on another sock, Waterlily Socks by Sivia Harding. It's got a bit o' everything: beads, small cables, lace. The yarn is Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock, colorway Sapphire. I've stopped worrying about Where To? It's one small consolation in a world turned up to eleven.

Submerged

It's taken almost all of October to find the right pattern for this lovely sock yarn, and I'm still not completely convinced, but for SKA October/November purposes, here goes: a repeat of Simple Skyp Sock by Adrienne Ku, with a beaded CO in memory of Adrienne Fong aka bellybuttonknits.



The yarn, Three Irish Girls Adorn Luxe, colorway Big Bang, is so beautifully cosmic, very nice, although the yarn is not quite as sproingy as I prefer. As part of the memorial sock-along tribute to BBK, I tried knitting up a replacement for my worn tabi-toed Send in the Clowns, didn't like it. Tried Kilauea, didn't like that either. Then I traveled too much, liked that some but didn't like the excess, and I saw Waterlicht, an immersive laser light installation in Manhattan.



My poor digicam was not up to the task of capturing the experience, and when I left I found myself feeling oddly rested yet similarly without words to describe it. The installation was lovely, numinous, wheelchair and family friendly, and well done – one never felt crowded or rushed, there were nice places to sit and contemplate, and helpful ushers with glow sticks to show the way. For all that, I overheard a young art critic sagely opine, "This is very cool, but also kind of boring." Well, the line to get in eventually wrapped around three sides of a city block. What I liked best, I think, was how one's sense of the city never really went away.



The sense of rising waters also never quite goes away. So many coastal communities along the Eastern seaboard are experiencing an increase in sunny day flooding, or street flooding from normal tidal action, not caused by unusually powerful storms or even king tides. Indeed, the projections suggest what have been the worst inundations in past will soon simply be the new normal, most of the time. Having slogged through the aftermath of hurricanes and nor'easters and bomb cyclones, even as Western states experiences worse and worse fire seasons, I'm looking for solutions. Of course it's ironic I've been traveling too much when my perennial favorite solution is carbon avoidance, especially transit avoided carbon, but one has to start somewhere.

Tabi or Not Tabi?

Gentle readers, behold what happens when one attempts to finish a pair of socks during a week of legislative drama but several months have intervened between sock the first and sock the second, one has a roaring headache, and one has forgotten what one was doing. The pair in question: a shortie, beaded-cuff version of Send in the Clowns by Adrienne Fong. I CO on Inauguration Day and finally BO last night. As it happens, it was not for the first time, for the socks or for another failed attempt to repeal Obamacare.



Oops. Happily, fixing a toe is no big deal. I just picked up stitches, unpicked the graft...



... frogged back, and reconditioned the yarn. (That mushroom-cloud-like tangle seems like a fitting image for this crazy week.) The yarn, Scout's Swag 100% Superwash Merino, colorway Ballooney, was my very first club yarn, from way back in November 2007. It's lovely to knit with and comfortable to wear, but sadly is not durable.



My formula of 36% sts for the big toe and 64% sts for the rest worked out to 24 sts for the big toe and 40 sts for the rest when I re-knit a tabi toe.



That's better.

Unruffled

Now where was I before being distracted by those squirrels... right, modifying my Sweet Nuttins. I enjoyed knitting them in all their bells and whistles glory – interminable German Twisted CO! ruffles! cables! lace! beads! patterned heel flap! patterned gussets! – but I usually wear mid-calf socks under trousers, and I knew the ruffle would fidget me. So I unpicked it.

First, I picked up stitches using dpns, then frogged back. Or rather I unpicked back, as ribbing doesn't exactly zip out when frogged backwards. I suppose that means there's no gorffing in knitting.



The unpicking process was rather hard on the yarn, Lorna's Laces Solemate, which is very soft and prone to splitting and pilling. Initially I'd thought about knitting a longer cuff, but after seeing how frizzed the yarn had gotten, decided to bind off using Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy BO instead. That made the unruffled sock somewhat shorter than the ruffled sock. JSSBO flares slightly, but not nearly as much as the original ruffle.



After more unpicking, I had a pair ruffle-free yet still sweet Sweet Nuttins. It's too hot right now, but I'm looking forward to wearing them when it's cooler.



It occurred to me that this Adrienne Fong pattern knocked me out of Sock Madness 10 and another of her patterns, Sockdolager, knocked me out of Sock Madness 7. More accurately, it's the usual busyness and travel that do it... unless... unless it's the Curse of the Belly Button!

I Got Nuttins

It finally stopped raining roundabout Exit 151, and I finally finished my Sweet Nuttins – ahead of the Sock Madness Round 4 deadline but 35 minutes too late to earn a spot to advance to Round 5. I even had the requisite late night, bad light FO photo.



When better light dawned, I took a modestly better photo to show off the socks' ruffled cuff, cables, lace, and patterned gusset. I don't know why the yarn (Lorna's Laces Solemate, colorway 809 Midway) looks so very different under different lighting conditions.



Shortly thereafter the new pattern for Round 5 dropped, and the competition went on without me. Which left me free to modify the pattern and put my stash in order, up next. Edited to add: Squirrel!

Bit O' Everything

Round 4 of Sock Madness started with a bang – the specs announcement and the pattern drop happened in quick succession! The pattern is Sweet Nuttins by Adrienne Fong. It's got a bit o' everything.

There's an interminable German Twisted Cast On, also known as the Old Norwegian CO. I was starting to feel like an Old Norwegian with this one, and so was my yarn. The extra twist in the CO was un-plying the soft yarn I'm using, Lorna's Laces Solemate. I misplaced the band, so don't know the colorway. Edited to add: Ravelry remembers! The colorway is 809 Midway.



The interminable CO in due course turns into a ruffle. As I usually wear handmade socks with pants, I'd rather not have ruffles on my midcalf socks. When this round is over, I plan to remove it. After the ruffle comes beads. I hated the beads I'd selected, so had to rush to the store to find more suitable ones. I like these, which to me are reminiscent of blueberries amid swirling vanilla ice cream.



Not to mention there's cables and lace, an interminable patterned eye of partridge heel flap, and patterned gussets. But that's for next time. *knitknitknitknit*

Ahead of the Storm

The alarming weather forecast for tomorrow is for pelting rain and 70 mph (113 kph) winds. That's bound to do some damage, so I rushed out to Branch Brook Park for a hurried look at the cherry blossoms lest I miss this year's show entirely. The main season bloomers were just shy of peak bloom. If you can't see this year's show in person, try Cherry Blossom Cam.



Inspired by jooan's wee socks, I knit a wee Rose & Thorn sock, using the fussy beaded CO, Quatrefoil Eyelet (in Treasury 1) and twist sts for the roses and thorns, eye of partridge French heel, and wedge toe. Note to self: for a wee sock, it's better to knit a plain heel flap rather than a slip-st flap, which pulls in too much for the reduced scale. I think I'm going to attach the wee sock to my purse.



Here's hoping everyone in the path of the storm stays safe and sound. See you on the other side.

Ecce Socks

Roundabout Exit 151 several sacred holidays are also common secular holidays. Yesterday, Good Friday, is one of them. For me, day off = FO. Ecce [Latin, Behold] Sock Madness glory, Rose & Thorn Socks by Ronni Smith! Worked in a mystery pink yarn from stash, they're a perfect fit on my Frankenfeet, which is a rare thing for a competition pattern.



It turned out the beaded cast on is about equally complicated on circular needles as it is on double-pointed needles. After trying the former and becoming frustrated with dangling wires, I gave up and reverted to trusty dpns. Here's the beady picot cuff before folding.



After folding and joining, some beads went askew.



It sometimes took considerable fiddling to get them astraight. It's better to knit carefully, even if slowly, and to get it right the first time rather than to have to stop for corrective measures.



Alas, I was knitting in such haste, I forgot to weave in the cast-on tail before finishing joining the cuff. Oh well, I wove it in later.



The pattern calls for an eye of partridge French heel and a wedge toe, my favorites for fit. The only mod I made, allowable under competition rules, was to lengthen the foot with three rounds of stockinette before starting the toe. I also double-dipped with March Sockdown, cable challenge. Happiness!

Meanwhile, at church I was voluntold to read the liturgy for the 12th Station of the Cross ("Jesus dies on the cross") for Good Friday. High churchy ritual generally doesn't do much for me, but perhaps others derive value and benefit from it. I hope so. It's not a draw for me, it also doesn't stop me from attending, but on the whole I'd rather stick to my knitting.

Round Two Already

Yesterday was the first day of spring (in this hemisphere); roundabout Exit 151 it snowed overnight, just a dusting. I didn't really notice as the second pattern for Sock Madness dropped: Rose & Thorn Socks by Ronni Smith. After the usual dithering over yarn and beads, I got to work.

The pattern has a touching backstory and features a beaded version of Judy's Magic Cast On wherein the beads symbolize small drops of blood from the thorns. The process ought to be straightforward.



Except it's not, especially not on double-pointed needles. For the love of yarn, DO NOT USE DPNs for this pattern, at least not until the cuff is hemmed. And once the cuff is hemmed, it's helpful to place an BOR marker. Ask me how I know all that.



Once past the beaded CO and hemmed picot cuff, the pattern settles down. One measure of that is there are finished pairs already. Gah. I can't keep up with that, and have given up trying. Instead, I'm going to use this pattern to double dip with March Sockdown, because I can. knitknitknitknit

Still

Sorry for the long radio silence, I'm still here, still knitting, still blogging after another prolonged stint of being elsewhere, not knitting, and not blogging. All I can say is there's no place like home for the holidays, not to mention it would be really, really nice if I could stay still for a while.

With all the to-ing and fro-ing I neglected to post the FO photo for my Owl Sock's. It was a fun knit, and I'm glad I finally made some hartshorn cable owls. I'm equally happy my owls are on socks rather than on a larger garment. (YMMV, of course.) One reason I love to knit socks is the opportunity to try out patterns on a small scale, and the subsequent discovery scale matters.



Back in October I optimistically joined NaKniSweMo, a November knit-along. But I did a lot of traveling in November (and early December), and so swatched a lot but never really cast on. The plan was to knit a Striped Raglan Sleeve Sweater by Cheryl Kubat. The pattern indulges my inordinate love of Noro, and I hope to knit the sweater some day soon.

Sometime after November turned into December I cast on a sock for December Sockdown, By the Seine River by Dona Knits using Regia Design Line Jazz Color by Erika Knight, colorway Kind of Blue.



In my mind the sock was intended as a tribute or hommage to the victims and survivors of the November 13 terror attacks in Paris. Horrifying to relate, before I cast on there were jarring incidents of mass violence closer to home – so many that one can speak of repeated exposure, terror management theory, and "How Terror Hardens Us." Apparently it's not by imparting a strong desire to learn useful survival skills, but by irrationally reinforcing existing prejudice and hatred. I wonder if that applies to other kinds of trauma as well and if one simply gets swept along helplessly or if it's even possible to resist unreason by standing still.

Those Kacha Questions

Ordinarily I think of travel as a pleasure and privilege, but, astonishing to relate, not only is there such a thing as too much travel, there has been entirely too much of too much roundabout Exit 151. I'm exhausted, but am throwing down this post in order to avoid some gotcha questions of the sort that make one very tired indeed.

At least while traveling I started another sock, Cranberry Biscotti by Elizabeth Sullivan, worked in Spud & Chloë Fine, colors Clementine, Bumble Bee, and Popcorn. It's for October Sockdown, so I have 'til the end of November to finish.



Which meant somewhat less progress than hoped-for on my airplane Owl Sock's. I hope to finish the pair by tomorrow to qualify for September Sockdown.



Despite using a Kacha-Kacha, the socks don't match. My Kacha-Kacha has always been reliable before. It's as if... as if... as if Obi-Wan Kenobi didn't help. Oh the enormity!

Airplane Knitting

Been on airplanes, knitting Owl Sock's by Coral Bale using Classic Elite Yarns Alpaca Sox for September Sockdown. Those are amethysts (sorta) that are their eyes.



It's a fun pattern, lovely yarn, although may I say that greengrocer's apostrophe makes me cringe. Can't help it. More in a bit.

First Friday

Happy New Year! Roundabout casa Jersey Knitter it seems especially auspicious that 2015 is the Year of the Sheep. In Japan the New Year's postage stamp depicts a knitter sheep that has finished the scarf it was making 12 years ago. May that bode well for the many UFOs buzzing around Area 151!

Photo credit: AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama.

Indeed, encouraged by that example, I dug out an, er, vintage UFO, the wee beaded bag from ::cough:: September 2006 and finished it with an I-cord strap and a beaded edging around the flap. It felt wonderfully right, as if I'd never put it down. Behold, the first FO of the new year (with NJ quarter for scale)!



It seems to me one shouldn't hoard such good karma for oneself. Accordingly, I left the wee bag by BAB for Free Art Friday Montclair (#fafmtclr), a local version of a global scavenger hunt. A lot of FAF pieces involve graphic arts, but I thought an objet could add a touch of whimsy to the day. It does seem as if some FAF scavengers take things a bit too seriously, as if the goal is having rather than finding. That said, if you find the wee bag, take it if you wish – it's free. Or, leave it to brighten someone else's day.

July Spin

I dag er vi alle norske.
Much of the past weekend was consumed with serious news from Norway, from the Washington beltway, and about the intense hot weather. At risk of seeming trivial, I note Sunday also was the conclusion of the Tour de France, and so also the Tour de Fleece. Roundabout Exit 151 there was a bit of a temperature break, so I loaded my bike trunk with my TdF loot – a total of 281 yds 2-ply fingering Blue Suede Shoes, a sample skein of pink beaded DK, an undetermined quantity of singles on the spinning spindle, a bare plying spindle, and a bottle of champagne – and ventured outside for a photo session.



My goal this year was to spin every day. I worked on the beautiful Crown Mountain Farms roving that was my incomplete 2009 TdF project. The bundle of roving is smaller now, but (slow spindler that I am) there's still plenty left unspun.



I did spin every day, although along the way I was distracted by a video on spinning beaded singles posted by dragonyady. Ordinarily I would have spun singles, added beads, and plied – simplicity – but it seemed worth at least trying the technique.

First, you use a dental floss threader to place beads on tufts of roving as if they were yarn. I used some Kool-Aid dyed Finn.



Then you spin away, adding the tufts as you go. The process is rather cumbersome on a spindle, but it locks the beads firmly in place on the singles.



The beads seemed a bit twee at first, but I started to like them – their translucency reminds me of pomegranate seeds. I decided to ply the yarn back on itself just to see if it could be done. It can, and the results are attractive enough, but it's a pain to do on a spindle. I suspect the technique is best suited for spinners who want beaded singles – I don't see myself using it very often, but I'm glad I tried it.



And I'm glad I spun along during this year's Tour de Fleece. Earlier in the year the many doping scandals had me feeling quite negative about the Tour de France. As it turned out, this year's TdFr was a compelling one and, hopefully, a clean one, but I probably wouldn't have followed it had I not been spinning along. So an extra-big merci goes to the TdFl organizers, who did a superb job as always.

There's been a break in the heat wave roundabout Exit 151. Ahhhh! Now if only Congress would turn down the temperature, tune out the spin machines, and agree on legislation to avert the ever nearer, wholly avoidable, politically manufactured, but very real threats to the domestic and global economies. But I worry that their brand of July spinning is only devolving into something stupid that will inflict grave and lasting damage. It's going to be a long week – next Tuesday, August 2, is the stated deadline for raising the federal debt limit.

Pink Watch

After the March weather reverted to roaring like a lion (that'll learn me to complain about an early thaw!), after floods, after divers other spring surprises, it's finally time for the pink watch. A few months ago I bought a fancy heart rate monitor from pknit. She suggested I put it to use immediately, but the notion of shoveling snow in the zone was so depressing I put it away instead. Here it is, ready to go.



Branch Brook Park is also ready to show off – this year Newark Restaurant Week coincides with the Cherry Blossom Festival. There's even a Bloom Season Barometer in front of the visitors center that indicates that at the moment the majority of the trees in Cherryblossomland are: Budding.



I suppose the barometer is a useful thing, although perhaps it would be better placed on the website or even at the entrances to the park... because if one is at the visitor center in the middle of the park, one can determine the condition of the trees for oneself by direct observation.



Which is not meant as a complaint, merely a constructive suggestion. While buds may lack the charm of blossoms, forward-looking optimists are happy to see them. And I never tire of scouting the park for the early bloomers, which have a delicate grace all their own.



Pity the same cannot be said of my knitting. I started this SKA January Mystery Sock and, alas, am bored. The beads, the STR Raven Clan colorway, the goth girl vibe – they bore me.



Sigh. It's time to think pink.

Au Clair de la Lune

It must be the moon phase. Last Saturday in a fit of over-confidence, I tried to spin a sample skein of feather yarn, using marabou down. Never mind that other attempts to spin down have ended ignominiously. Feather down has the added joy of being, um, downy – in the aggregate the fiendish little strands may look white, but individually they are translucent, at times almost invisible and, even more problematic, happy to fly away on the least puff of air... to alight upon dark surfaces at a later time. I gave up and beaded the skein to emulate the full moon.



There still was time for the finished sample skein to join the victory mound watching the finish of the Tour de France in Paris. Look, it's the Arc de Triomphe!



In an attempt to harness that lunar energy for good, I cast on (::cough:: for the third time) a Piscean Sock. This one is modified to fit my Frankenfeet: cuff-down, flap heel, some jiggering of the stitch count. It's my July Sockdown! sock.



And I started pondering the possibilities for the 4! Ounce! Challenge!, a spin-knit-pattern-write-along. I'll be spinning this Spunky Eclectic Light BFL, in the Zodiac colorway Virgo. The base fiber is not white or cream, but a warm gray-brown, which gives heathery depth to the handpainting.



The quantity of fiber/yarn for the challenge – four ounces (113 g) or less – suggests some standard one skein projects: scarf, cowl, hat, mitts, shawlette, socks. Then there's the nonstandard project. Not my style, but I suppose if other projects merit handspun, perhaps it does too, at least by the light of a full moon.