Adrift

For days I’ve been planning to take pictures of the snowdrift we have between the house and the garage. The changing winds resculpt it every day, and it does give the feeling of being lost at sea. The most important thing it does is block, over and over, the little sidewalk that goes from the porch to the cars. It’s happened so frequently that we’ve given up on it, and make our way through the snow via the “shortcut” we shovel from the base of the porch’s ramp directly to the driveway.

Late yesterday afternoon I glanced out the window and saw a dark figure leaping towards the house. It was my husband in his black suede jacket, nimbly bounding over/through the drift after toiling for many frigid minutes to repair the blower in his car. (Alas, the fix was merely temporary.)

The driveway has an underlayment of thick transparent ice; the field below us is covered with snow that looks like gentle waves lapping up at the edge of a lake, frozen in mid-lap.

Inside it’s still warm and wooly, and now is when I’m wishing I had started some really comfy adult-sized sweaters a few months ago. No such luck.

Here’s what’s on the needles:

1. Irish Hiking Scarf, in doomed yarn (long story), waiting for more doomed yarn, ultimate fate unknown
2. Kelp Forest Scarf, three repeats in, probably replacing the IHS as the Currach Club raffle item
3. Second Jacquard sock, waiting for the rest of the yarn
4. Packer Hat, waiting for me to pick up stitches and knit the brim
5. mystery giftknit for my IT guy

Yes…for those of you with detailed scorecards, I decided to frog the cute little Knit One Purl Two cap. When I experimented with the crown decreases I just didn’t like how it looked. Since it wasn’t sized to fit anyone in this household (as far as I could tell) I just frogged the thing, releasing some perfectly good Plymouth Galway in navy blue back into the yarnstream.

Other than knitting on Scarf One and Scarf Two, I’ve been watching Doctor Who, reading old Doctor Who paperbacks, watching Last Restaurant Standing, laughing my head off at Top Gear, and witnessing the probable decline in fortune of Robert Irvine, the hunkiest chef on television. (I’d still go out drinking with Bobby Flay, but come on!) It seems he may have, along with his commanding presence, a tendency to exaggerate his experiences. I’ve read Kitchen Confidential and I think part of Irvine’s actions may stem from cuisine culture, and the, um, cojones it takes to get ahead. And everything may have just taken on more steam than he wanted to give it. Just my own theory. Sigh.

Tonight we watched Dinner: Impossible with some trepidation (though the show was as good as always), and noticed with relief/amusement that the intro had changed. No longer does the voiceover claim he cooked for presidents, queens, and kings — there’s just a vague reference to “culinary challenges” and a new video treatment.

Blogland, Wisconsin, is all aquiver with the news that we’ll have two rockstar knitter visits in two months: Franklin Habit (AKA Panopticon) at Yellow Dog Knitting in Eau Claire in March, and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (AKA The Yarn Harlot) at Borders in Madison in late April. I’ll be out of state for Franklin’s visit (though Dale-Harriet has already scheduled her appointment), but you couldn’t keep me away from seeing and hearing the Harlot. Though, once I’m there, I’ll most likely be hiding in the shadows from paralyzing shyness. At events like this I usually end up running from the featured speaker and chumming it up with the staff. Somebody slap me!

Time to knit something. Anything.

Hunkering

We’re in the freezing rain stage of yet another winter storm. Pretty soon it will be changing to snow (as soon as the ice underlayment is complete), and I’ve heard we’re getting anywhere from 6 to 12 inches on top of all we already have.

I let some people know we had a big trip to make today, but that’s been postponed for a week. We are not going anywhere! I’ll try to take the best pictures I can from the house.

In other news, I’m looking for more Mystical Creations Yarn in wool/silk, the Stormy Sea colorway. I don’t think there’s any more out there (I’ve already e-mailed the dyer and someone on Ravelry), but it was worth a shot. Without more, the Irish Hiking Scarf won’t be long enough. I may have to rip it all out and re-knit it with only two cables.

Learning to Knit: Second generation

I taught my oldest son to knit tonight. I had to, there was a class project for the 100th day of school and they had to bring in something they had made with 100 items. (We had managed to bag ahead of time the 100 marshmallows to contribute to the class’s communal bucket of trail mix.)

My son himself suggested knitting. I swear, I swear I did not initiate this. But Sunday night was busy, and Monday night was busy, and last night we had a scout meeting, so it was tonight.

Did I mention that, due to all the snow days, this year’s 100th day did NOT fall on Mardis Gras, but is, in fact, tomorrow?

So. I set him up with yarn that wouldn’t split, and a pair of size 9 bamboo single points. By “set him up” I mean that I cast on 10 stitches and had him watch me knit while I recited “through the door, catch the sheep……” and he actually watched “Fairly Oddparents” while pretending to pay attention to me. But after a couple of rows, when he seemed to catch on, I started doing the knitting hand over hand. He wanted to hold the needles at the far end, as if they would explode/drop/shatter if he lessened his grip in the slightest, and he hadn’t noticed the need to scootch the live stitches toward the tips.

But with everything else going on (Mr. Beth out of town, three siblings squalling, and did I mention “Fairly Oddparents”?), the only thing I managed to pass on was my own beginner’s anxiety about knitting. His rage was priceless.

“Don’t touch the yarn, Jack! Don’t touch the yarn!!“

“Mom, Leenie’s completely unraveling the ball of yarn!”

“I am SO MAD!!!”

“ARRRRRGH!!!!!!“

So we took a break. While the kids ate their dinner I remembered an episode of Knitty Gritty where Vicki Howell sat on a playground swing in a fake flashback, doing finger knitting and making a superlong thin chain. Aha!

Ravelry. Forums. Search. “Finger Knitting.” Link to a Knitty article in the first post. Aha again!

I practiced with my own fingers first, to be sure this was really going to work. And it did.

[No, I didn't knit as a kid. I was hopeless with "girl stuff" as a child and much more comfortable playing kickball with the boys or chasing the girls with worms. Yes, worms. Ask my mother. My attempts at "cat's cradle" are embarrassing to recall. 'Nuff said.]

I told him what we were going to do and he thought it was amazing. KNIT with your FINGERS? WOW.

This time, we didn’t start until two siblings were asleep and the youngest was strapped into his high chair and numbed into sleep with music from the 70’s channel.

And it worked it worked it worked! I wound the yarn around his fingers, and he pulled the loops into place. There were some oddities I noticed later, with loops that weren’t secured into their neighbor loops, but by the time I suggested that the whole chain might fall apart if he pulled too hard in those places, he seemed finally at peace.

“Mom. It’s just for the first hundred days. It’s not like we’re making it for a famous actor like George Lucas.“

He was all jazzed when he bound it off, so I tucked the rest of the ball of yarn in with the chain. He wants to give lessons to everyone in his class.

“Do you think I should charge for the lessons? We’re going to need 18 balls of yarn….”
“No honey, I think the lessons should be free. And maybe you should teach one person at a time.”
“Okay. Thanks, you’re a wonderful mom.”

I can almost take the night off.

Naah, too much knitting to do. I finished a Valentine’s Day surprise knitgift for my mother — a square lap-sized afghan out of Red Heart Lite & Lofty in the Wine colorway. Mr. Beth got to deliver it to her in person today, as he’s in Columbus on business. She’s very happy with it — whew! (Finished it yesterday evening.)

I’m also working on another Irish Hiking Scarf, which will be a raffle item to benefit the Irish Currach Club of Milwaukee. It’s being made with handpainted wool/silk in a black-and-blues colorway that the dyer calls “Stormy Sky.” (Thanks Cathy-Cate for the gift of the yarn lo those many moons ago!) It’s a thick/thin yarn but I think the finished item will look very nice. I’m much more comfortable with the pattern now and I’m aiming for two repeats a day if at all possible, just to stay on track.

What else is there? It’s cold, there’s a bunch of snow on the ground, every politician is in Wisconsin this week to stump for themselves because we have a primary on the 19th, and I’m working my way through the 2006 season of Doctor Who. David Tennant is slowly growing on me, but not as quickly as the fellows from Top Gear on BBC America. We just can’t get enough of those guys!

I’m going to try to blog more often. But if I don’t blog, it’s probably because the kids have a snow day. Check the Weather Channel, I’m within the triangle of I-94 (Milwaukee to Madison), I-90 (Madison to Beloit) and I-43 (Beloit to Milwaukee).

Guest post: Sequel for Serenity

Today’s post comes by way of a hardcore fan of the Firefly TV series and Serenity, the followup movie after the series was cancelled. Whether you’re a knitter making a Jayne hat, or just a nut for everything Joss Whedon, take a look at this post and act according to your heart. Disclaimer: I haven’t seen a minute of the show or the movie, but I think the passion of someone who wants more of their favorite brilliant-but-cancelled show deserves a listen. Plus, I first heard about these shows via the Yarn Harlot, so there has to be something to it.

———

Calling All Browncoats!

In 2002, the Fox network debuted a revolutionary new dramatic series called Firefly. From the mind of Buffy creator Joss Whedon, Firefly was unlike anything ever before seen: part sci-fi, part western. And all extraordinary.

The show’s name derived from a class of transport ship; the “Firefly” class. One such ship, Serenity, serves a home to an eclectic crew of personalities as vivid as television has seen before or since: a war-hardened captain, a tough-as-nails second-in-command, her wisecracking pilot husband, a kind-hearted ship’s mechanic, a mercenary you’d want in a fight, a “bona fide Companion” (don’t ask), a preacher, a ship’s doctor, and his mysteries and deeply-troubled sister.

It is this crew that is the heart of Serenity; the heart of Firefly. There are no cliches here, no cardboard cut-outs, no stereotypes. These are people — real, living, breathing people — that care so deeply for one another that we, as audience, come to care for them just the same. There is hope, there is heartbreak, there is love. And, too, there is humor, with witty fast-paced dialog to match groundbreaking camera work and award-winning special effects.

Yet like many a revolutionary show, Firefly did not last, and was cancelled before the end of its first and only season.

But then something unexpected happened: The people who had watched the show, embraced it, loved it…they wouldn’t let it die. They couldn’t let it die. And in an unprecedented move, in 2005 Universal Pictures released a feature film based on a failed television show that didn’t even make it through its first season. The movie was called, simply, Serenity.

Since then, the fan base for Firefly/Serenity continues to grow; the fans proudly referring to themselves as “Browncoats” (one of many references to the show). And they want more of Serenity and her crew, more of Captain Mal and second-in-command Zoe, more of the mercenary man they call Jayne, more of ever-reasonable Companion Inara, more of ever-cheerful mechanic Kaylee, more of noble doctor Simon, and more of his deeply disturbed (and equally deadly) sister, River.

The fans won’t let Serenity die. More to the point, they can’t. They have embraced it, taken it into their hearts, brought Serenity’s crew into their homes.

Maybe you’re one of them, a Browncoat, an honorary member of Serenity’s crew. If you are, then snap to attention. The fight isn’t over. Serenity will fly again, but only if we do our part.

It starts with numbers. The suits in Hollywood need numbers to justify a sequel to Serenity. Two numbers are key: sales of the Serenity Collector’s Edition DVD, and participation in the Universal HD Forums Firefly message boards.

Signing up and participating on the Firefly boards is free. And, as an added bonus, you’ll get to interact with fellow Browncoats like you. Discuss the characters. Share favorite quotes. But most of all, simply make your presence known. Make it clear to Universal that we — the Browncoats, the fans of Firefly and Serenity — will never have enough of this story, that ship, these characters. Make it clear to Universal that they are sitting on a movie franchise gold mine with a built-in audience. It all starts by signing up, and again, it’s free:

http://boards.nbcuni.com/universalHD/index.php?showforum=4

The other key number Universal is looking at: sales figures for the Serenity Collector’s Edition DVD. If you loved the series but didn’t have time for the movie, here you will finally learn the true horrors that have burned up River Tam’s brain…horrors that the Alliance will kill to keep secret. And that’s just the beginning:

http://www.amazon.com/Serenity-Collectors-Nathan-Fillion/dp/B000Q9IZ5C/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1202242592&sr=8-1

Now is not the time to give up. Now, once again, is the time to fight. Fellow Browncoats, the fight is in our hands, and the first shot can be taken as simply as joining the forum linked to above. Join. Participate. Be heard. Be a Big Damn Hero. And together, we will see Serenity sail through the black, even if just for one more time.

Thundersnow, meet icequake

First, go read this.

Everyone back now? Good! Wasn’t that strange? We were way too far from Madison to feel or hear anything, but for me it’s just one more proof of Wisconsin’s 10,000 micro-ecosystems. I had never heard of this phenomenon until this morning.

Knitwise, this is just a quick hit until sometime later.

Packer Hat: finished the top, still weaving in the ends before working the brim. (Maybe the ladies at Knit Night will have some suggestions for that part, and I’m fully prepared to benefit from their collective wisdom.)

Craft store directory: added two more volunteers, and 40 more stores to put in the database. That probably brings the number of active stores to over 500. I actually had to switch binders for my contact information, since there was no way I was going to be able to fit another 40 pages in the current one.

Second jacquard sock: coming right along, thank you. I’m past the ribbing and about three inches into the leg. I don’t think I’ll need the rest of the yarn until Brandy’s well enough to send it, so that’s good news, too.

There’s a brand new Backyardigans episode on RIGHT NOW, so I have to go!

Oh yeah… later may be tomorrow, since there’s Late Night Knitting at the Sow’s Ear tonight. Woo-hoo!