Spoiled

The season has turned to nightly frost warnings, so I picked what was left in the vegetable patch. This year it was sorely tried. When I wasn't paying attention marauding deer ate most plants down to foot-high stems, then rabbits and squirrels devoured any new leaves and fruit. The eggplants were particular targets. Their leaves are hairy and I've read toxic to rabbits, but the cottontails don't seem to know that. Even the onion tops were cropped to the quick. I put up a garden fence which the big creatures knocked down and the little creatures chewed clean through. I've never seen the like. It's a marvel there was anything left for us. So what I just brought in may not be the most impressive last harvest ever, but it's not bad under the circumstances.



Speaking of marauders, while I wasn't paying attention DH got cold, helped himself to the accumulating pile of watch caps meant for the mitten tree, got squawked at, promised to wash them and put them back, and somehow managed to felt them. Plus he complained they're itchy. Sigh. Too bad, he's keeping them now.

Then, as we drove along Route 1, there was a sign. Literally.



Of course we stopped. Not least because if DH was raiding the charity bin, clearly, he needs a new knit cap of his own. The cobbler's children and all that. He picked the color and I insisted on the yarn, lovely Swans Island Organic Washable Aran. An evening's worth of very enjoyable knitting latter, DH had a hat knit to his specs. The good stuff always knits up quickly.



DH is happy with his new hat, but when I went back to knitting yarn ordinaire, it seemed itchy. Alas, I'm spoiled.

Return of the King

On Sunday I found out the Mitten Tree that I was so furiously knitting for (based on the assumption there would be an early deadline to allow time to sort, box, and ship items) will stay up through the New Year. Which means there's more time to knit, also ::cough:: more opportunities to become distracted. Right on cue, DH made big eyes at me.



So I restarted work on his hibernating manly scarf, a simple rectangle in King Charles Brocade. Considering it's his own fault the scarf was in time out, we'll see how long the restoration lasts.

Observer Effect

It's Epiphany and the revelation of the day is apparently there has been a discontinuity in the spacetime of my blogoverse, undetected by me but observable by others (thanks, Kelli). Not only would that seem to confirm empirically the existence of the Black Hole of Crafting, but also to imply I've already tumbled in.

Astrophysics tells us that by the time we observe something, the event is already in the past, possibly by billions of years. Quantum mechanics tells us that the very act of observation changes things. Both philosophy and accounting wrestle with issues of recency and priority. Me, I just blame the manvest.



Here it is on New Year's Day looking innocent, posing with dodecahedrons because of that which is stated chronologically later yet is logically prior: it is NaKniSweMoDo Project 1. The pattern is Peter Easy and the yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca, colorway 6287 Denim Mix.

Less than a week later, it has achieved the Vast Expanse o' Stockinette stage. Can anything stop the manvest? And, do I want to, even for (let us say) Distaff Day, tomorrow?

Event Horizon

The manvest is approaching the Vast Expanse o' Stockinette stage. (It's not nearly so purple-y in person.) There oughta be voice over by Leonard Nimoy proclaiming, "We are now entering the Black Hole of Crafting" or some such.



Not least because although DH seems to like his vest in progress, he's also made some new requests. Yaaaaaaaah!

Sweethearts

Queuing sweaters for NaKniSweMoDo but not casting on any has had its consequences, not least extreme pent up startitis. When I finished one of Juta's Stockings, I immediately cast on another sock as recommended. Excuse the muddy photo, it was raining (and freakishly warm) yesterday.



Gentle readers may observe that while tradition expects the second sock, the newcomer is a Sweetheart sock by Chrissy Gardiner. Sweetheart uses a modified staghorn cable similar to one on a sweater in queue – it's pretty in fingering on a sock but (surprise) I'm thinking maybe not so much in heavy worsted on a sweater.

   

A second surprise is I'm knitting exactly to pattern. At first I thought the 84-st cast on would be 'way too big, but the highly embossed cables draw in so much that every last stitch is needed. The front and back of the sock are delightfully different from each other (click to embiggen).

Inspired by the origami tree at the Natural History Museum, I folded some hearts for the Knitters for Obama holiday card swap. Thank you, Liana, for coordinating this excellent swap! There will be more pix of swap goodness to come.



I learned the origami heart as a money fold; these half-square hearts have a pictorial tutorial here. My teacher learned it from Toshi Ito, Lance's mother. So that's me > my origami teacher > Mrs. Ito > Judge Lance Ito > O. J. Simpson, back in the news. Strange.

DH noticed all the busyness with patterns and paper, looked sad, and demanded a mansweater. Sigh. Manknits have a decidedly poor history chez Jersey Knitter: the man mitts are put away "for later," the manly scarf is the "wrong size" and is hibernating until I can bring myself to ::cough:: frog it, and the cabled vest similarly got no love and really should be frogged. Sigh.

I've queued a his-n-hers design, Pine Tree Pullover and Pine Tree Cardigan by Linda Cyr (in VK Winter 1996/7), but I'm pretty sure additional resources will be needed stat. I'm thinking of adding Knitting for Him by Martin Storey and Wendy Baker to the modest library – suggestions are welcome.