Decisions, decisions

In lieu of actual blogging content, which seems to have gone missing lately for various reasons, I'm asking opinions.

I'm doing a mystery knit along, a semicircle shawl in two colors. It's the first I've done from this designer but I have a few friends I trust who trust her designs so I said what the heck.

I could use some input choosing colors. I have no idea how the colors are going to play in the shawl, whether it will be stripes or what. I'm a little nervous about that as I have never done real color work. It does say to go for contrast in the yarns.

This is Yarntini sock and Wollmeise 100%. The purple is a bit more purple than shows in the photo and they are a good match in texture and intensity.



This is Life in Lilt sock yarn and Sanguine Gryphon Eidos. Again, a pretty good textural and tonal match.



This is Madeline Tosh sock and Crazy 4 Dyeing swanky sock. The tosh is a tad more tightly twisted and the C4D is a wee bit shinier but I still think they play well together.



I don't know how to feel about these two but I kept putting them together and going "hmmm". Tosh and Sundara sock.



This is Wollmeise Twin and Turtle Cove sock. They are actually a bit further apart in shading than you can tell by the photo and while the Turtle Cove is slightly fuzzier and less tightly twisted, I think they'd work.



And finally, just for the heck of it, two Dream in Color Starrys.



So. What do you think?

Edited to add this photo taken this morning in natural light. Not helpful at all as they all look good, IMO.

A trip to south India

Of course, had we actually gone to south India, we would be much warmer. The high tomorrow is expected to be ten degrees fahrenheit, which I don't think happens too much in Mumbai.

Anyway. Bob took me to dinner at Udipi tonight, because I was sad and depressed and angry that my mother and my daughters were celebrating younger daughter's birthday without me. I was not invited. Bob was off today but had to get a root canal, which is a heck of a way to spend a rare Monday off for him but what has to be done, has to be done. And it's very close to us, just down the road, which is a big bonus.

Udipi is all vegetarian. The protein is found in the beans, lentils, chickpeas, and paneer. I have never left there hungry and I'm a pretty dedicated carnivore. So don't let the lack of meat dissuade you.

We started off with the assorted appetizer platter which was delicious and gone in record time. I even ate one of the chili peppers, which I don't usually but I needed something spicy to drive away the coldness in my heart today. We also got a puffy bread, batura, without the chickpea dip because we were already loading the table up pretty good.



Honestly get some powdered sugar on there and you'd have the next big taste sensation at local fairs. It's fabulous.

Bob got a paneer curry, I can't remember what it was called and neither can he, but it was delicious.



The rice is cooked to perfection. Just salty enough. The curry was sweet and spicy and contained delicious fresh paneer in big chunks, vegetables, and sultanas.

I caved to habit in my time of crisis and got paneer dosa, my favorite thing there.



The sauces were all very good, as usual. My favorite is the tamarind curry sauce that came with the appetizer, and the pachada raita, a yogurt dish with vegetables that you can get as a side dish. It comes with some foods, like Bob's curry.

Honestly I can't recommend this place enough. The food is sensational. The decor is basic, as is the service, but they're working on improving things there. Even if you just swing by for takeout, it's totally worth finding it.

Udipi is currently closed on Tuesdays, and using a credit card has a $15 minimum.

Insomnia mittens

We are not having the best week here at Chez Buttercup. My pain levels have been off the charts. I'm having trouble sleeping. Bob found out they are ending his job and starting a new one with a lower rate of pay, that he will have to apply for along with everyone else, then he broke a crown, then broke a rivet on his new jeans. At least the jeans can be exchanged. I woke up at 530 this morning, just after my normal "get up for work" time and could not go back to sleep, so I got the wheel and a bag of batts out and did some spinning.

Remember these batts?


I got them from the Indie Knit and Spin show back in November. I thought they'd be a nice relaxing chunky funky project and I was right. Once I figured out how to spin chunky on my wheel again, that is. That was a departure for me. I had to put the big whorl on and adjust stuff over and over until I got it working but once I did, that five ounces went through like water.



I ended up with about 130 yards of a squishy two ply. And of course, me being me, I had to knit it up right away into mittens.



I had hoped to get mittens and a hat out of it but I think I'm going to have to finish the hat with a different yarn. I have it started but there's enough left for a largish brim and that's about it. It'll be fine though, I have a couple of yarns in mind that will make a nice main hat body.

Mittens are a great project for using fun funky chunky handspun. This is the third time I've made this type of mitten and I love them all. In fact I am sad I lost one of my psychedelic clown barf mittens because those were my favorites. I'm still hoping it'll turn up. That might be a good project for next year's holiday gifting though, chunky hat and mitten sets from some of these cool batts and mix and match fiber I have around here.

I didn't really use a pattern for the mittens, just cast on 18 and knitted 1x1 rib in the round for about an inch and a half on size eleven circulars, then increased 4 and knitted to where the thumb goes, knitted two, cast off three, knitted around and when I got back to where I cast off, I cast on three using the backward loop, then continued. After finishing the mitten (decrease to five stitches on each side then grafted), I picked up eight stitches on the thumbhole and knitted the thumb. The whole project took less than two hours.

This is definitely the fastest I've gone from fiber to finished object-about eight hours in all including a break to cook breakfast.

I also spun this, last weekend in fact but didn't blog about it yet.



It was a roving from Tintagel Farms, merino, alpaca, mohair blend with a wee bit of sparkle. I did a three ply worsted and had close to twelve ounces, but only got about 430 yards out of it. Disappointing, I was hoping to make enough to get a short sleeved sweater. Had I known I would have gone for fingering weight because that would have been produced enough yardage. You live and learn, I guess.



The yarn is quite pretty, I think.

My daughter's sweater is moving along. It's in the endless stockinette phase now so there's really nothing new to show. I don't think I'll have any trouble getting it finished in time for her birthday.

The Trouble With Tony: a latecomer's thoughts on a classic show

I am the last person in the world to see "The Sopranos", HBO's six year mega multi award winning mob series. I have an app on my phone that shows HBO movies and series and it helps me stay out of the internet rabbit hole at work if I have a distraction, so I decided to find out what all the fuss is about.

There's a lot to like. The basic premise is compelling. A mob boss seeks therapy to deal with anxiety. His family is just like any affluent American family, but with extortion, drug dealing, and murder mixed in. His kids are smart asses. He cheats on his wife. He has barbecues and presides over the grill with a smile and a chain of hot sausage ready to go. Much of the writing is amazing and some of the scenes are unforgettable in humor and heartbreak, sometimes at the same time.



Christopher's intervention, one of the funniest things I've ever seen on TV.



Uncle Junior breaks Tony's heart. I literally had tears rolling down my face after this.

You kind of have to know the characters to appreciate these to the fullest but the thought is there even if you've never seen the show. There were some very talented people working on this, but despite that there are some huge problems with the show.

I grew up in a relatively close-knit Italian family, so I was prepared for the racism, the misogyny, the homophobia. From the characters. And it's there, no mistake. The kind of thing I grew up with. Things you can blame on ignorance or upbringing. Things you can kinda understand. But that's not all. The underlying racism is appalling. Racism written into the script. Not the characters. All the black characters being hood types, drug dealers, thieves, stupid, vain, crack whores. There are maybe one or two non-hoodlum stereotype black characters on the first five and a half seasons. And those are thin attractive women. There is a black preacher who is running a scam ripping off his own neighborhood. A community organizer ripping off HUD and the people he is supposed to be serving. And countless junkies, thieves, and the like, talking in cliches, dressing in stereotypes, and behaving like the worst nightmares of white america. I understand the gangsters see black america this way but the writers make a conscious choice to portray this as reality within the show, and it's really not OK.

It got to the point for me that I got seriously pissed off and it's only my own stubborn streak that has me willing to finish the show. I'm almost to the end and I want to see how it ends now.

Most of the female characters are not especially nuanced either. There is a general lack of diversity and quite a bit of tokenism. (Ginny Sack? Check.) The homophobia is frightening and sad but the gay characters on the show are likewise heavily stereotyped.

So I'm going to finish it because I've come too far, but it's really sad that something so insulting to African Americans, women, and GLBT folks goes down in history as one of the all time great shows.

Just to finish on a good note, Dominic Chianese singing, in another beautiful scene.




Translation- Core 'Ngrato
Ungrateful Heart

Caterina, Caterina, why do you say those bitter words?
Why do you speak and torment my heart, Caterina?
Don't forget, I gave you my heart, Caterina,
don't forget.

Caterina, Caterina, why do you come and say those words that hurt me so much?
You don't think of my pain,
you don't think, you don't care.

Ungrateful heart,
you have stolen my life.
Everything is finished
and you don't care any more!

Catarí', Catarí'
you do not know that even in church
I bring my prayers to God, Catari.
And I recount my confession to the priest: "I am suffering
from such a great love."

I'm suffering,
I'm suffering from not knowing your love,
I'm suffering a sorrow that tortures my soul.
And I confess, that the Holy Mother
spoke to me: "My son, let it be, let it be."

I don't understand people

This has been an interesting week. I am one of a team of moderators for the feminist group on Ravelry and we had a disturbance. A long-time member of the group was proven to be using two sock puppets (fake accounts) to weave a long, convoluted drama about all sorts of horrible things happening to one of the fake accounts. The whole sordid tale got a lot of attention and sympathy on another group and when the perpetrator was finally shut down there, she tried to take it to the feminist group, who were alerted to possible shenanigans. The shenanigans were then proven to have taken place by the tech admins of the site who confirmed all three accounts were coming from the same computer. This is a person who has been on the site over five years. She spun this story over a couple of years in a way that even though the details started to get very strange and the whole thing started to smell, a lot of folks were loath to believe it was all made up because they had so much invested emotionally. It's pretty sick. I don't understand what makes a person do such things. She plead mental illness of course, citing "depression or DID" but that's bullshit. It was attention whoring at its worst, no doubt some form of mental issue but that is no excuse for hurting people to the degree she did.

Sunday we celebrated birthdays.

I made lasagna and we had a good cake. I felt bad though because I kinda got sucky presents for both my mom and Bob because I was broke.

I'm knitting.

That's another Warriston sweater, this one for my elder daughter.

And a pair of socks.


For me, an improvised pattern of double eyelet rib and 1x1 ribbing. It's been slow going this week though because my hands have been really bad. I am not sure if it's the weather, the stress, the neuropathy, or something else entirely but I have been so sleepy and freezing cold-my hands especially. I feel like I can't get enough rest but when I lay down, I can't get comfortable. Add to that I've had terrible stomach trouble all week due to stupidly letting myself run out of probiotics and you have a recipe for fun.

I'm also having somewhat of a problem communicating with my younger daughter. I hope we can work it out. It's not been going very well lately.

Anyway, here's a kitten, and I'll update again when I can type more comfortably.

I love the way he lets his tongue stick out a little.

So long, 2012.

2012 was a better year in a lot of ways than 2011. For me anyway. Some of the high and low points...

I got to go to two major fiber festivals, and not just day trips, weekends away with my daughter. We had fun, got closer, and met some terrific people. She's a top notch traveling companion.

Bob lost his job then got a better one. We are still waiting to see how the whole Postal Carrier thing will work out as he is still awaiting his 90 day review, but I feel optimistic. The downside is, it's an incredibly demanding job physically and he is gone six days a week at it. That led to a lot of stress and frustration for me when I didn't have transportation and there were big question marks about getting home some nights. It's also taking a physical toll on him. He's no spring chicken and this much walking is very taxing.

My health has been awful. The neuropathy is getting worse all the time and I have more frequent episodes of tinnitus, as well as increased hearing loss. I feel like things started to improve somewhat towards the end of the year, though, so maybe that trend will continue.

Spent some quality time with my elder daughter. She's very busy with school and work so getting time with her is rare and special. The same is becoming true of my younger daughter. She has moved out and is very busy with school and student teaching so I'm not seeing as much of her.

I did a lot of good spinning and some good knitting, too. I also got a loom and learned to weave.

Not sure if this was a positive or not but I got into some different alcoholic libations. Visited the best beer store I've ever been to (in Poughkeepsie). Also started trying to learn more about wine, French wine in particular. I shouldn't drink but there are a lot of things I shouldn't do that I actually don't do, so it probably evens out. Plus, I don't drink to excess. A couple of nights a week Bob and I will have a beer or a bottle of wine with dinner. Thats's about it.

Here's a few photos from the year in review.



My first knit of 2012. Also my closest brush with internet fame as this has been shared all over and pinned quite a bit on pinterest.



In February, my mother, my daughter, Bob, and I all went to see drag queens. Three generations. I wish I'd gotten someone to take our picture. We had a blast though. The tall blonde queen in purple is Alaska, the significant other of Ru Paul's Drag Race season 4 winner, and a contestant on season 5 herself. Can't wait to see how she does!



In March, I spun this gorgeous gradient yarn for a specific project.



In April, we went to see Lena in a murder mystery dinner theater thing. It was a hoot.



In May, we went to Maryland Sheep and Wool, where we had a great time and Anna and I both got sunburned. And we saw these four hour old lambs.



in June, I finished the project I spun that yarn for.



July was the Tour de Fleece.



In August, we added a new family member. He has had us enthralled ever since.



In September, I chaired my last Western PA Mensa Regional gathering, a mostly thankless task that sucked the joy out of my summer several years running. I'm happy to see the back of it.



October was Rhinebeck, mostly good except the part where someone I thought was my friend was cold and distant and cut me twice. I'm over it, though, and I had a good time for the majority of the weekend. I hope to take Bob someday.



November was our epic dinner at Paris 66. I reviewed it here. November is also the month I challenged myself to post a blog entry every day that month, and I succeeded, much to my surprise.



December is when this happened, and also when I bought myself a car. But it's not over yet, so who knows.



Hope you all have a terrific new year's eve, enjoy the day tomorrow, and have a wonderful year in 2013. I'm not normally one for resolutions but I'm going to try as hard as I can to keep this house in better order.

Stracciatella alla Fritz

Lunchtime leftovers on Christmas eve at work.

I love making soup in the wintertime, but I don’t always have time to make it all from scratch. This recipe yields a delicious hearty egg drop soup in about a half an hour.

Ingredients
Low sodium or salt free vegetable soup broth, 8 cups. (you can also use chicken or beef. I use veg because I always have some on hand.)
1 small square package frozen spinach
Two eggs
2-4 oz grated cheese. I use a blend of pecorino romano and parmesan.
¼ cup orzo, acine di pepe, pastine, or other small pasta if desired.
Fresh ground black pepper
Tablespoon dehydrated onions
Pinch of oregano

Bring the soup base and spinach to a low boil. If you’re using pasta, add it here and stir well. Beat eggs and add grated cheese. Slowly drip the combined eggs and cheese into the soup, stirring all the while. When all has been added, cover and simmer until broth begins to clear. (it will probably still remain somewhat cloudy-don’t worry about it, it’s still good.) Add onions, pepper, and oregano to taste. You can add salt if you need to but you probably won’t, as the cheese will add salt flavor to the soup. Cover and keep on a low heat until ready to eat.

That’s it! It’s delicious and so easy.

Eve of Destruction

Finally Christmas eve is here. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to finish Bob's socks. He will get them for his birthday. Everything else is wrapped and divided and ready to distribute. I've even started feeling despondent to get that out of the way.



I did some more weaving projects.

This scarf was made from a warp of handspun sparkly green stuff and a weft of some neat Noro ribbon yarn.



Two more sets of tea towels.




And a scarf for a former supervisor. (knitted, not woven)




So that pretty much wraps up my holiday gifting. I also took better pictures of the rainbowy scarf.




All in all I think things are ok.

Oh, I also got myself a present. Just a little one.


2006 Cadillac DTS. It's a grampa car. I needed a car I could drive, and this is a good, reliable, safe car. I hate having car payments again but what are you going to do.

Hope everyone who reads this has a great day tomorrow, whether you celebrate it or not. I plan to relax and enjoy as much as possible.

Shortest day, longest night

I am not a religious person. I'm not particularly spiritual either, not any more. Pain and practicality and life experience have made me extremely skeptical and pragmatic. But I still like winter solstice.

Science makes this the shortest day of the year. The days start to get longer, but not warmer yet, we continue angling away from the sun though our distance changes to allow more light. Or some combination of the above. I'm no scientist. But it's the beginning of the official winter season, and importantly for me, the end of deepening dark.




We also got snow today. Not much. (certainly not as much as in the above picture.)

It's a stark, gloomy time of year. It makes me gloomy. Almost as gloomy as national events the past week or so have made me.



I make no effort to disguise how I feel about the unfettered acquisition of firearms. I don't like guns. I don't like gun nuts. People who go on and on about their second amendment rights make me profoundly uneasy and I prefer not to be around those with that mindset. It was disheartening how many people I saw on facebook and in the real world both worried about how the tragic deaths of 28 people in Newtown would jeopardize their unfettered access to firearms. I do not need such people in my life.

Today their spokesperson, the lovely Mr LaPierre, proposed a registry of mentally ill people and armed guards in schools. I don't want to share a planet with people who think this way. I really don't. Mental illness is already so stigmatized and access to care is so hard for those even able and willing to seek it. Mentally ill people are far, far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.

But no, we mustn't limit unfettered access to whatever firearms these people require for their elaborate "freedom" fantasies. The dead children? just collateral damage.

Sorry I'm so rambly. I guess I'm waiting for the light.

Santa week

This is santa week at our house, the week when all the stuff I ordered for gifts begins to arrive on our doorstep. As usual, I fear I haven't bought enough, or that I've forgotten someone. And always, I have to struggle to find room in everyone's stockings, and usually leave an auxiliary stocking pile beside it.

Week after next weekend is baking at my mom's. My cousin Jessica and I have been doing the big baking, the italian nut rolls and cookies and honey balls. My mom makes a few dozen other cookies. It's a lot of work but totally worth it.

Even though I'm an atheist, I love this time of year and get excited about giving out presents. This year will be nicer than last year because I've been able to get gifts for both of my kids. Last year I was trying to figure out if I was ever going to see my older daughter again.

We had lunch today, it was nice. She needs a camera to take pictures of her paintings so I gave her my DSLR. I haven't been using it as much as I want due to lack of opportunity. For the meantime I'll use my phone. I had this fantasy of someday making a living or a name for myself through photography. I love taking pictures and trying to show other people how I see the world. But while I do have talent, I don't have knowledge or craftsmanship to become a "real" photographer. I'm trying to let go of things that aren't serving me mentally and that's one of them. I get stuck between making myself miserable lamenting the things I wanted to do with my life and trying to move forward and enjoy what is real and doable here and now. I will admit though that handing over that camera hurt. I'll get it back someday though and I am happy it will be getting use helping someone I love do what they want and need to do.

A lifelong problem for me is a lack of sticktuitiveness. I have talents. Photography, music, writing. What I don't have, in any of those things, is education, but more importantly I also don't have dedication, the ability to apply myself, the drive to practice and practice and practice and just get up every damn day and do it. Maybe I've had ADD or something all my life, I don't know. Maybe I'm just lazy and unmotivated. At my age, it doesn't much matter. I need to find peace with who I am and where my life is now, not lament what it could have been.

I had a nice glass of beaujolais with dinner, a ham sandwich, chips, and some leftover cole slaw. Bob is at a Beatles thing at a local radio station. I really liked the wine. It was mercifully uncomplicated. I will be drinking more of this in the future.

Higgs has his operation tomorrow, so keep a happy thought for my good boy that he comes through it safe and sound.


Oh, I finished the rainbow scarf.

Learning, Leaning, yearning.

It's always a challenge for someone my age to learn a new craft. I've been weaving some and it's a humbling experience. So many small factors can lead to disaster.

Case in point. I've made quite a few dishcloths and noticed this tendency towards leaning at the end of the weave, but it was slight enough that when the finished piece was removed from the loom, tied off, and washed, no problems. When you get into something longer, though, like a scarf, it becomes a problem.

I did a black warp with a black and sparkly gold weft that ended up a disaster because of this. I thought I had the warp on a bit unevenly and started this rainbow gradient scarf being careful to have everything evenly tensioned and in the middle of the loom, not more threads on one side than the other. It started off fine, but when I got closer to the end, I had this.



That's a mess. I asked around on Facebook and Ravelry, got some good advice, and spent part of the weekend unweaving a big portion of the piece so I could start over, concentrating on correcting my technique. The basic problem was I was pulling the weft yarn too flat across the bottom, and also leaning the heddle a little every time I brought it down to beat. After a long piece, it built up to a pronounced lean. It's way better now.



I hope when I take it off the loom, there's not a huge obvious place where I restarted it. I hope washing it will even things out. I love this yarn and the idea of the piece and I'd hate to waste it. But if it ends up wasted, it will have been a valuable learning experience. Lesson learned. You don't actually know how to weave yet, slow down and take your time, pay attention to what you're doing, and get it right.

I took the cutest cat picture this weekend. What do you think?


I swear that cat is so damn photogenic.