Angela Asks . . .

What do I call the cat?

Haha!

A round-about attempt to get at my secret identity!

I'm not telling.

Their names are very distinctive.

And while I'm fairly sure that they haven't made an appearance on the internet under their own names . . .

Well, one really never knows what a cat is up to out on MySpace.

I'm willing to reveal that they're both female, rescue kitties, relatively young adults and from the same litter.

(Gratuitous baby photo.)


I have occasionally thought that they should have blog nicknames. They keep popping up around here (they are obsessed with the knitting), and everyone else who does that has a blogname.

Most of their real-life nicknames seem inadequate for the purpose -- "cat," "the girls," "sweetie pie," "kiddo," "bullet" . . .

How do you all feel about "Bard" (black) and "Tollers" (siamese)?

You'll have to take my word that these codenames are entirely appropriate.

Unless one is going to be fussy about gender.

Susannah Asks . . .

How is it that I knit so quickly?

I haven't thought about this too deeply, so probably I can't give a proper answer.

And it isn't as though I hang out with many knitters in the physical world, so I don't really have the opportunity to compare my pace to the pace of others.

Not that I would.

(Or not that I would admit, anyway. I'm getting pretty good at pretending to myself that I'm not competitive in every freaking aspect of my life.)

But I do have three thoughts on the matter.

The first is that, pace aside and speaking only of productivity, I spend quite a lot of time knitting.

Everyone makes time to do the things they really enjoy doing. Some people spend time gardening, some people cook dinner for their family every night, some people sleep in on the weekends, some people go to temple every day, some people socialize, some people spend whatever time they need to look exquisite every day, some people exercize . . .

Most of those things, I just don't do them.

Or not very much.

I like knitting better.

Knitting is my default activity. If I'm watching the good box, I'm knitting. If I'm avoiding housework, I'm knitting. You get the picture.

If you are knitting all the time, it is hard to avoid being productive.

The second is practice. If you knit as much and as often as I do, you gain speed. It just sort of happens naturally.

The third, which I am less certain of as a contributing factor, is technique.

I knit funny.

I learned the basics of knitting years and years ago, watching my Mum. She was busy knitting something to an imminent deadline, and I wouldn't stop bugging her about teaching me to knit.

(I was wee, and what I wanted, I NEEDED. NOW. She must have been awfully frustrated!)

My recollection (which may or may not be accurate) is that she made a deal with me.

She would teach me how to cast on, and after that I could watch her and copy what she was doing as much as I liked, but she wouldn't help me any more than that until she finished her project. No help. No questions. SHUSH and let Mommy knit!

So she taught me the backwards loop cast on, and I guess from watching her and fiddling around a bit, I taught myself some semblance of knit and purl.

Until just two years ago, I thought no one else knitted like me. (Mum might have, but she stopped knitting for a good long while and doesn't really remember how she used to do it.)

I found patterns very confusing.

And I found it impossible to talk to others about knitting -- it was like I was speaking some other language.

I could see no difference between k2tog and SSK. I got the same result either way. I could not comprehend what was meant by "knitting through the back loop." How was that any different from normal knitting?

Now, thanks to knitting resources on the web, I know what I am about.

And I know that I am not alone.

How I knit is not particularly common, but it is common enough to have been given a name: Combined or Combination Knitting.

Knits are done in the same way as in Continental style (working yarn held in the left hand and "picked" through the previous stitch by the right needle).

Purls, though, are accomplished slightly differently. They are also "picked," as in Continental, but the working yarn is wrapped around the right needle in the alternate direction. This requires fewer and smaller moves, and so purls go much faster and more evenly. A drawback (and the source of almost all my knitting confusion) is that the resulting stitch is seated differently on the needle (some would say "twisted"), and this needs to be taken into account when working the next row.

For most applications, and particularly for plain stockinette and for flat ribbing, the combined knitting technique is the most efficient sequence of moves to get the job done.

It is not suited for all purposes, though. I have a hard time with it when working a purl stitch into a previous purl stitch -- e.g., when ribbing in the round or working seed stitch.

But now I know enough about which version of purl is likely to work best in which application (at least for me), and I switch it up accordingly.

Also, cabling without a needle is very helpful.

Yours,
A.K.

Little Did I Know

I've been tagged for the "Five Little Known Things" meme.

(Girl, when you tag someone, I think you're actually supposed to, you know, tag them. Not that I don't read your blog, so I guess it is all one, but still.)

This meme is actually pretty difficult.

For example, little known by whom?

By you all? Ya'll actually don't know a whole lot about me. So I could write almost anything, and it would have been previously little known to you.

To people who know me in the offline world? There, I'm pretty much an open book. (Empty. But open.)

Probably the only "little known" facts about me in "real life" deal with my knitting and this blog.

So, one of my five "little known facts" could be that I have an anonymous knitting blog. (Yes, the blog is not only anonymous, but also fairly secret.)

Another could be that I have a massive stash of yarn squirreled away in sundry boxes, bags, and closets.

Another could be that I regularly knit dishrags, of all things.

Each of those facts are pretty widely "little-known."

Not the sort of things that come up in everyday conversation. (At least not the boring sorts of conversations I generally participate in.)

But I don't think those tidbits are at all what you people are looking for.

You see where I am going with this.

Anyway.

Here's some stuff for you that maybe you know, maybe you don't, and maybe you "little know":

1.) I don't meme. I make an exception here because I memed once before, back when I was feeling weird, and I had the bad graces to tag Elaine. Turnabout is fair play. But I'm not tagging anyone else. (Stop the insanity!) I would meme, I suppose, if I weren't worried about letting slip my secret identity. Do you know how many times I have typed my actual, real name while "signing" emails from Anonyknits? I think I've caught them all before hitting "send," but can't be sure. Which brings us to

2.) I find maintaining my anonymity to be a very difficult proposition. I have my reasons for wanting to be anonymous. Not that they are all that. For example, this is not Julia Roberts' secret knitting blog. (Or is it?) But it is really difficult to not join in this or not do that because of the anonymity, or to have to make the decision in advance that I'm doing "x" as myself but "y" as Anonyknits. Someday the jig will be up, and I can't say I'm dreading it.

3.) This is the eleventy-first entry in this blog.

4.) I have an epileptic cat.

5.) Sometimes I think that maybe I knit too much.

That's all, folks!

Yet Another Silly Question

So, I've been thinking.

Is there a catalogue or index or whatever out there listing examples of hand-knitted (or crocheted, for that matter) objects in, er, "genre" fiction?

This is for a fermenting idea that may never happen and certainly isn't going to happen any time soon because it would require the purchase of a significant number of skeins of new yarn.

Anyway, I've looked. (Admittedly not too hard.) Didn't find one.

All I've come up with on my own are:

1.) Jayne's Hat
2.) The Doctor's Scarf*
3.) All that Harry Potter Knitting

[UPDATE: Hey, I think Thneeds also count, don't you?]

There has got to be more, but it really isn't coming to mind.

Completely unrelated, the Prime Rib scarf is just about done.

Only now I'm working on hats for Dulaan.

I find my lack of faith disturbing.

______________________________

*Probably this should go without saying, but for the sake of absolute clarity, here I refer to the real Doctor. Not the pretend one I hang out with.

Room Temperature Fire?!?

(My GOD, man, what's the POINT?!?)




RULES: "Each player of this game starts with the "6 weird things about you." People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says "you are tagged" in their comments and tell them to read your blog."

1.) I don't meme. No exceptions.

2.) I am disappointed at what I consider to be an extreme lack of weirdness in the confessions of those participating in the "6 weird things about you" meme.

3.) If a qualified professional tells me it's food, I'll eat it.

4.) Sometimes on my blog, I make stuff up. You know, just to be cagey. Keeps me on my toes.

5.) I like my dentist.

6.) Best Pizza Ever: anchovies, pineapple, jalepeno, artichoke hearts, fresh tomato. (Legendary!)

7.) I have made many of the classic beginners' mistakes, but I am proud to say I have never recruited a third gargoyle.

TAGGED: I tried tagging Sara Half-Elven, but her blog is not accepting comments. So: Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, and sorry!

More Fruit, No Knitting

The Tropical Dragon Fruit! (Tastes like chicken!):

(Actually tastes sorta, kinda like kiwi.)


Extremely magenta inside:

(The picture simply doesn't capture it.)


Fresh Figs! (These are good. Dried ones are yucky.):




Cross section!:




Extreme close up!:

(That's sorta gross, actually. Too "Dead Body Poking" for a knitting blog?)

World of Wacky Fruit

In the comments, Lainey enquires re the colourway numbers of the Noro used in the Lizard Ridge squares I've posted. Answer: Yes, I am mostly destashing, but I do have the ball bands around somewhere (and I wrote down somewhere else which square was from which skein). . . . When I get my act together, I'll update the blog with this info.

In the meantime, here is some distraction . . .

My local market has started stocking fruits never before seen! (At least not in these parts . . .) Here are some of the more mundane.

The tiniest apples in the world! (Penny for scale):





Raisins, still on the vine! (Unfortunately, these are excellent. This is unfortunate because they are way too expensive for everyday. Won't be putting these in any brown bags unless I win the lottery.):





Fresh Dates! (Who doesn't like their dates to be fresh?):

Bonus cross section:





Have you ever seen the like?

No Knitting For You Today

I am traveling, so that means no seaming. (I don't seam while traveling.)

And things have been busy, squiring people about. So although I have a lemon hat to tell you about, that will have to wait.

But very quickly, since "they" will be calling me again soon: I was at an aquarium today.

As it turns out, most fish are camera shy. Or, they're just too fast to be more than a colorful blur.

But this guy just sat next to the glass for minutes at a time, letting it all hang out:





And this little dude clearly wanted to be a movie star:





And my favorite "fish" of all time (I spent too long trying to get this one to cooperate), ye olde jellyfish: