String Notes

Yesterday was a really good day for melting.

The sun is out for the fourth day in a row. I’m liking March so far. Sunlight, warmth… my mood is so much better. I would probably even have snowdrops, if they weren’t under here.

The front flowerbed is by the front walk so that it can be admired several times a day. But it’s also the only place to put all the snow from the front walk, and we’ve had a lot this year. Most of the yard is melting out, but this pile has a way to go.

Would it be weird to shovel my flower bed? I could put the snow back on the sidewalk…

I spent Friday night curled up on the couch with a pile of books working on a big research project. This made me very content. Nick called me a “knowledge-based life form” last week, and I think he may be onto something. Anyway, I mentioned online that I was happily ensconced with my reference materials and a tin of book darts. Judging from the replies, many of my friends have never heard of these invaluable items. This must be remedied!

This is my stack of books at the end of the evening. If you look closely at the edges, you can see, oh, maybe 50 book darts marking places I need to refer to later. They don’t add any appreciable bulk, they don’t move or fall out, the cat can’t remove them.

One side has a little pointer so I can mark the exact line of interest. They make acceptable bookmarks, but nothing beats them for this kind of extensive survey project.

(Note: sticky notes leave adhesive residue in your books, and it’s acidic — please don’t use them in library books or books you care about because the paper will eventually degrade. And if I catch you putting sticky notes in my books, you’d better be prepared to prove that they are archival-grade!)

Best of all, I can buy them by the hundreds!

I woke up this morning to an entirely unexpected sight.

The weather forecast predicted rain, but instead we got the fluffy wet snow that vanishes from the roads but sticks to everything else.

It glued itself to the trees, piled up on the branches, decorated everything in sight.

What’s been going on around here? I’ve been writing a lot. I will have an article on Snartemo tablet weaving in the next issue of TWIST. Yet another reason you should subscribe if you don’t already. I’ve been working on my class for the Complex Weavers seminar. I haven’t been doing much weaving, but I’ve been thinking a lot about weaving. I’ve come up with a new way to teach beginners – anyone want to have me out for a workshop?

I reorganized the Stringpage Supplies catalog and added a bunch of new items. I try not to use this blog as a venue for self-promotion very often, but there are some pretty new things there, and more to come.

I finished the second sleeve of the neverending cardigan and started on one of the front panels. Maybe next winter…

I went to an SCA event in February for the first time in a while. I stepped into a side room where one of the most important SCA ceremonies was taking place, and there was a poppet on the display table!

News about the 2010 Textilforum is starting to appear. It will be in South Tyrol, 6-12 September. It sounds like great fun, just like the first one, but I just can’t manage a trans-Atlantic trip every year. Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets.

This is probably of interest to nobody but me, but it’s my blog and I want to share.

I cross a very busy intersection twice a day on my travels to and from work. Last night, for the first time, the crossing had actual pedestrian crossing lights with the walk and don’t walk figure. It makes me very happy when my tax money is put to good use.

And one last thing: some remarkably lovely Dutch books. I saved this to send to Laura, since she’s interested in bookbinding, but I thought I might as well share with all of you.

I continue to be fascinated with the icicles as they disappear and reform. Soon the roof will be clean and there will be no more.

This morning the sky was not blue, but instead the color of snow. It’s warm here, so all that’s descending is rain. I want it to be spring, but this is damp and miserable.

Couldn’t that be something in a petri dish, or swimming on a slide of pond water under the microscope?

The lady with the afghan at knit night was very pleased with the information I passed on to her. She’s an experienced knitter, so I think she should be able to come up with the pattern. Thank you all for the help!

Snow turns into ice, and ice turns into water.

Carving and shaping itself into biological seemings.

Pattern and form, light and shadow.

After a few warmish days, my house looks like this.

It is kind of pretty, but not so good for my gutters.

Some of you admired the snow-cake on the patio table. Well, it proved to be too much for the poor old thing. Nick had that table before I started dating him, so it’s been a very long time. (And no, I have no idea why we moved it cross-country twice.)

The glass top is still fine because it landed in a snowdrift, but one of the tubular steel feet bent or broke. I like having a glass table in the courtyard, because unlike the very common plastic ones I can dye on it without staining. I have priorities you know.

After that first day of discomfiture, the dog remembered that he liked snow – bouncing, running, playing. The hip medicines have been excellent – he no longer limps at all after that sort of exertion, but Grendel is an old dog and needs lots of couch time to recover.

Morgan demands equal time.

I got some good things in the mail this week. They will keep me entertained if we get snowed in again.

I haven’t yet done more than skim through Sara’s book, and haven’t even unwrapped Abby’s DVDs, but will report back after I’ve spent more time with them. I’d kind of like to read Abby’s spindle book before watching the DVDs, but my copy still hasn’t shown up.

We haven’t come up with the printed pattern yet, though there have been some good suggestions for magazines to try that I’ll pass on to the lady with the afghan.

Marie and I have been trying to reverse-engineer it on the LJ echo of that post. Here’s the close-up as a refresher (click for big, and I can post a really big one if anyone is interested).

She came up with this video for raspberry stitch.

That’s the right basic idea, though this one has the bobbles in columns rather than such a strong diagonal. I found directions for knitting chevrons, complete with the zig-zag edge.

Now we just need to link the bobble with the chevron to get the chevron pattern continuing across the sections.

In other news, it’s snowing. But nothing like it is in Baltimore. Many things are closed, but I’m still at work.

A lady brought an afghan to knitting night. She’d knitted it years ago and now wanted to make another one, but had lost the pattern. Can anyone help identify the pattern/book/magazine?

A quick search of Ravelry didn’t find anything with both the bobbles and the slanted stitches (forming the attractive pointed edge).

What do you think?

Snomageddon! SnOMG!!

It all started innocuously enough, steady but light flakes descending, barely even sticking.

The forecast only called for 4-8 inches, and they’ve been wildly overestimating all winter. I thought we might get 6 – that would be fun. I had no plans for the day that required leaving the house.

But that’s what it looked like when I got up this morning. Six inches? Not quite.

Fourteen? That’s some serious snow for this part of the world. If only it had fallen on a weekday…

This man is my hero. He lives two houses one side of me, and when it snows heavily he likes to go out and snow-blow the walks for the lady who lives on the other side of me. So he just clears half the block, down and back. I told him how wonderful he was. Then I went across the street to help out the poor unsuspecting man who moved here with his wife and infant from Florida. He told me that he had no idea that driveway length was something to consider when choosing a house…

Morgan finds this all fascinating, as long as he doesn’t have to go in too deep. Padding around the edges is quite interesting.

The dog was excited until he discovered that the snow was deep enough to reach his belly. Then he just asked to come inside. We couldn’t convince him to venture out far enough to pee until late afternoon, and even then he just slunk off into the bushes where there wasn’t so much snow. He feels the same way about water: wading is great fun, but water should not be more than ankle-deep.

It’s getting dark now, but the sun came out and it turned into a beautiful bright day. Still no urge to go anywhere, though, nor are the roads in very good shape. Which is fine since I have plenty to do at home.

Though I might have to take a break to celebrate the snowpocalypse by baking chocolate chip cookies.

My dog is dual-coated! (Click for bigger.)

See the tog and thel?

Okay, not really, exactly, quite. But it’s a neat photo.

In other news, Ernest Shackleton’s whiskey has been recovered from the Antarctic. Apparently some of the bottles are still intact.

In other other news, it’s snowing.