The Loopweaver: A Blog

The best laid plans...

2011-04-05T16:08:00.000-04:00

Dad's been destashing his apartment a bit, and I've been given a few things as a result. I had intended to get a post up about some of them today, but instead I've been over on LibraryThing. They released a shiny new toy to the site's "beta testers" -- really a semiofficial group of members who get to try out new features before the official roll-out, in order to make sure they're not half baked. (If you're on LT and want to get in on said group, you can send me a private message on my profile and I'll see if I can get you in. And if you're already a member of that group, you'll know that the feature in question is this one.)

LibraryThing has released a second toy to the usership in general. This particular toy -- discussed in this post on the site's blog -- is the integration of Lexiles with the site and with user catalogs. I'm neither a library nor a school, and it would be shinier to those institutions than it is to me, but this feature has already sparked quite a bit of discussion since it was made public around 11 this morning. I, of course, promptly went to see what my highest-Lexile book is (The Devil in the Shape of a Woman by Carol F. Karlsen, you can see the detail page here). And I wasn't the only person to do so, either: there's already at least one discussion thread discussing where our highest ranked books fall. The results can be fun, since apparently the people behind Lexiles use vocabulary and sentence structure to assign Lexiles, but pay little to no attention to things like subject matter or concepts. Some of the results are a bit odd, to say the least, and have earned a bit of laugh-and-point.

Well, back to the discussions. And the laughing and pointing.

Happy April!

2011-04-01T11:27:00.001-04:00

I have yet to think of any really good, yet safe (and safe-for-work) pranks and or hoaxes of my own, so I'll share two of my favorites -- both of which started with the BBC.

The first, of course is classic. The video below is a bit fuzzy, but a better one can be seen here.

Another good BBC hoax, narrated by Monty Python member Terry Jones, features Adélie penguins that have learned how to fly -- and migrate.

Obligatory Linkage
Wikipedia articles: April Fool's Day, Spaghetti Trees and Flying Penguins.
Youtube clips of the spaghetti harvest, available in fuzzy or not fuzzy
Youtube clip of the flying penguins

Duly Noted: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

2011-03-25T17:08:00.001-04:00

(Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Some six months ago, a post in this department noted the fiftieth anniversary of a relatively unknown tragedy in Park Slope. Today's post marks the 100th anniversary of another tragedy, but one you've likely heard of: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire -- often held up as a catalyst for workplace safety laws, and as a prime example of why measures such as fire drills are necessary.

The fire killed 146 workers -- most of then young women -- at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which occupied the top three floors of the ten-story Asch Building on the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street, just off Washington Square. It started in a wastebasket on the eighth floor, and spread quickly, growing so quickly that it was out of control before anyone had much chance to control it in the first place.

Remains of the fire
escape (NY Times)

One worker on the eighth floor placed a call to the tenth floor, but no call alerted those on the ninth floor. One of the NY Times articles says this is because the worker who received the call on the tenth floor did not hang up the phone, but I think in von Drehle's book it said that the ninth floor did not have a phone. Either way, most of those on the eighth and tenth floors escaped, while many of the 250 workers on the ninth were not so fortunate. Some made their way down the fire escape before it collapsed -- and indeed, in photos of its twisted remains, the fire escape looks rickety and hardly of much use in evacuating a crowded workplace in a fire. Many of those who escaped by means other than the stairs did so by way of the freight elevators; Joseph Zito and Gaspar Mortillalo, who ran the elevators, risked their own lives to save as many as they could, until the elevators failed.

Further reading
David von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America
Leon Stein, The Triangle Fire

Links
Article on Wikipedia
Blog posts from The Bowery Boys:
- "Some Basic Information" (Feb. 28)
- "Where they lived" (Mar. 24)
Posts from the New York Times City Room blog:
- "A Half-Hour of Horror" (Mar. 21)
- "The Building Survives" (Mar. 22)
- "A Frontier in Photojournalism" (Mar. 23)
- "Liberating Clothing Made in Confinement" (Mar. 22)
Blog post from the New-York Historical Society
Blog post from Ephemeral New York, on Zito and Mortillalo
Information from About.com Women's History

Duly Noted: Susan B. Anthony's birthday

2011-02-15T09:00:00.039-05:00

Susan B. Anthony, photographed by
Napoleon Sarony (Wikimedia Commons)

Activist Susan Brownell Anthony was born on February 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts. Besides being depicted on the $1 coin that was replaced by the Sacajawea dollar, she is best known for her work to promote women's right to vote. She worked most often with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with whom she founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association.

Sadly, at her death in 1906, women still had the vote in only a few states; the Nineteenth Amendment, guaranteeing women the vote nationally, was not ratified until 1920.

Links:
Author page on LibraryThing
Legacy Library on LibraryThing
Article on Wikipedia

Duly Noted: Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

2011-01-28T15:02:00.000-05:00

(This is a bit of a drive-by posting, since it's already 3 and I don't have time at the moment to write up more than a summary and a link list.)

Twenty-five years ago, the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated a minute and change after lift-off, killing its seven-person crew. It had been cold the night before, and predictions were for temperature near freezing at the time of the launch; the low temperature caused the failure of an O-ring on the shuttle's solid rocket booster. Engineers for one of NASA's contractors expressed concern about proceeding with the launch under the weather conditions forecast, but were overruled. The launch went forward, and the O-ring's failure allowed heated, pressurized gas to escape and damage certain hardware.

Links:
Wikipedia has an article about the launch. Sub-articles include:
-- Space Shuttle Challenger launch decision
-- STS-51-L Mission timeline
Detroit Free Press coverage: 25 years ago today: Space shuttle Challenger explodes
Space.com article: Challenger Shuttle Disaster at 25: NASA Recalls Darkest Moments
New York Times coverage from 1986:
-- The Shuttle Explosion: Suddenly, Flash of Fear Dashes Watchers' Hopes
-- Thousands Watch a Rain of Debris

Duly Noted: US Airways flight 1549's unusual runway

2011-01-15T09:00:00.086-05:00

About a month ago, another Duly Noted post detailed the 50th anniversary of a nasty plane crash. Today's airliner story has a much happier ending (provided, of course, you aren't a Canada goose).

Two years ago, on January 15, 2009, a US Airways flight left LaGuardia Airport for Charlotte, North Carolina. On its way up, however, its two engines each inhaled a Canada goose*, causing both to lose power.** Unable to get the plane safely back to LaGuardia (or, for that matter, to any airport), pilot Chesley Sullenberger instead chose to land the plane on, of all things, a tidal estuary.*** The landing can only be described as successful: all 155 people aboard the plane survived, with only five serious injuries.

Notes:
* There are, apparently, a lot of geese who live at and around LaGuardia, and who pose a threat to the aircraft that come and go. I found a reference to at least one other such incident on the first page of results from a quick Google search. If you'd like to read more, the same search also brought up this article from CBS News and this press release from the City, both from the middle of last year.

** I'm not sure if it would have been possible to safely limp back to a proper runway with a single working engine, but I assume as much from the fact that everything I've read or heard about the incident make a point of saying that both engines were knocked out.
*** Before you start complaining that the Hudson is a river, let me point out that lower Hudson is indeed a tidal estuary. Check out the second paragraph of this section of the Wikipedia article.

Links:
Yesterday's New York Times article.
Further coverage from the NYT's City Room.
The inevitable Wikipedia article.

Duly Noted: Joan of Arc's (supposed) birthday

2011-01-06T09:00:00.071-05:00

A late-15th century depiction of Joan
of Arc. (Wikimedia Commons)

January 6, 1412, is the date legend gives for Joan of Arc's birth. It probably wasn't, though: it would have been common knowledge in fifteenth century Europe that January 6th was the feast of the Epiphany, and as Joan interpreted the voices she heard as guidance on a divine mission, she would not have failed to make the connection had her birthday actually fallen on the traditional date.

Today, Joan of Arc is remembered more for her death at the stake in 1431 than she is for her earlier achievements: she led the campaign to raise the siege of Orléans and participated in enabling the Dauphin to his coronation in Reims in 1429.

Recommended reading:

Régine Pernoud, Joan of Arc: Her Story.

Marina Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism.

Links:

Article on Wikipedia
Short bio & link lists on About.com

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T00:01:00.014-05:00

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to min’?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o’ lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

Have a happy new year, good reader, and hopefully a more prosperous one for all of us than the last has been.

(Complete text of Robert Burns's poem can be found at Project Gutenberg.)

Photo: Accumulated

2010-12-30T13:43:00.003-05:00

"Accumulated" (Flickr)

Unless you've been sleeping since Christmas Day, you'll have heard about the blizzard that dumped a whole bunch of snow on the northeastern United States last weekend. I had a snow day on Monday -- which was really a no-brainer since the nearest subway line wasn't running and there was no way in hell I was going to make it to the next-nearest. (Turned out there was no way in hell I would have made it even to the nonfunctional nearest line, but I didn't find that out until I went out for a few groceries.)

So, I took a picture of the snow that built up on the windowboxes out back. Just to give you a sense of scale, each of those boxes is about two feet long and maybe five inches high -- and the snow, as you can see, is taller than the boxes. And just to give you a sense of magnitude, behind those windowboxes is the only side that isn't sheltered.

Duly Noted: Jane Austen's birthday

2010-12-16T16:08:00.004-05:00

Just a drive-by posting to say that novelist Jane Austen was born today in 1775.

(Links: Jane Austen on LibraryThing and Wikipedia)

Duly Noted: Plane Crash in Park Slope

2010-12-16T14:37:00.004-05:00

If you also read Brownstoner, you might have seen that Green-Wood Cemetery will be unveiling a memorial today to the 134 people killed when two airplanes collided off of Staten Island. The wreckage of one, La Guardia-bound TWA Flight 266, landed on Staten Island (1) near where the collision occurred; the other plane, United Airlines Flight 826, bound for International Airport (now JFK), crashed at the intersection of 7th Avenue and Sterling Place in Park Slope.

Of the passengers and crew on those two flights, only one survived the initial crash. But that survivor -- an 11-year-old boy who had been thrown into a snowbank -- later died; half a dozen people on the ground were also killed.

Weather conditions at the time of the collision were what could be called, at best, sketchy: it had snowed earlier, and rain and fog still lingered (2). And while neither flight had reported any mechanical problems, but the United flight was apparently having trouble with its navigational receivers. Either way, it had strayed a dozen miles off course and into that of the TWA flight.

Witnesses speculated that the United flight's pilots were attempting an emergency landing in Prospect Park. On the face of it, it's not an unreasonable supposition, since the park is only a few blocks away from the crash site at Stirling Place and 7th Avenue, but it's uncertain whether the pilots still had control of the plane.

Further reading:
Wikipedia has an article about the crash; the "References" section contains a few sources not linked to here.

In addition, the New York Times has been running a series of articles about the anniversary.

"A Collision in the Clouds" (December 12)
"How It Happened" (December 14)
"Scarred Roofs and Jet Parts" (December 15)
"Sights and Sounds" (December 16)
"50 Years Later, Traces of an Air Crash Linger in Rusty Metal, and Memories" (December 12)
"The Neighborhood in 1960" (December 13)
"The Boy Who Fell From the Sky" (December 16)
"A Little Brother Remembers" (December 16)

The last two articles are about Stephen Baltz, the 11-year-old who survived the initial crash, but died a day later.

Additional stuff:
Brooklyn Public Library's "Brooklynology" blog had a post about the crash, as seen through one photographer's lens; it had not worked its way through my feed reader when I initially published this post.

... I mean it this time

2010-12-13T13:09:00.003-05:00

Holy crap, has it been a year?

Well, at least now I have access to a working computer with working internet access while here at work. My ISP at home isn't playing too nice (which for them isn't exactly unexpected), and my browser is arguing with my system. At least there's something I can do about one of those problems.

And yes, I will be back soon! In fact, I have part of a Duly Noted typed which I expect to get out this week. If you don't see it by Thursday -- the anniversary in question -- you can probably assume that I've caught my third bug in under a month.

Getting my Act Together Again

2009-11-08T16:20:00.002-05:00

It's been a while, mostly because:

I discovered FaceBook.
There were some slowness issues on one of the computers I used. (Note the use of the past tense.)
This was followed by total failures of both computers that I used a lot, including (perhaps fortunately so, in this case) the one that had been slow. Both have now been replaced.

More news is forthcoming, and I'll see if I can figure out how to schedule some Duly Noteds or something to keep this kind of thing from happening so dramatically again.

Duly Noted: Evacuation Day

2008-11-25T17:04:00.003-05:00

On November 25, 1783, British troops left New York City, which they had occupied since 1776.

Links:
Entry for The Battle of Brooklyn in this blog's Duly Noted section
Wikipedia article about Evacuation Day
Wikipedia article describing the history of New York during this period (and section of the main article detailing the city's history)

Duly Noted: Accession of Elizabeth I

2008-11-17T17:09:00.003-05:00

I realize I still haven't posted about Rhinebeck a month ago (long story), but I'll just note that November 17 is the anniversary of the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, 450 years ago today.

Links:
Elizabeth I on Who2
Elizabeth I on Wikipedia

A Long Day

2008-10-18T22:50:00.003-04:00

I woke up very early this morning -- alarmingly so, even -- to make a 7AM bus. (When I left the house this morning, it was still as much dark as it was light. In October. In New York City.) The bus was heading up to the fiber festival up in Rhinebeck, a good two and a half hours from here. I got back at 8:30 or so, and if I was a little tired then, I'm that much more so now that I'm off my feet and am no longer running on excitement and fiber fumes.

I fully intend to write up a longer post tomorrow, but in the meantime, two photos. First, there's a picture of yarn (in small form to hide the vague blurriness):

And second, a much better picture of some of the foliage up there, which is beginning to seriously turn:

This one is better viewed large and on black.

Photo: two sheep

2008-10-17T13:48:00.002-04:00

I went to a fleece festival in Ringoes, New Jersey, earlier this month, and have been too lazy to post about it until now -- now that I'm heading off to the huge festival tomorrow, that is. Here's one of the pictures that turned out well:

With the prospect of my first trip to Rhinebeck, I kept my purchases to what I think of as a minimum, buying two skeins of yarn (a worsted-weight ringspun and a laceweight, both hand-dyed), a blue roving, some mohair to blend with something, and a pair of spinning magazines. But more on that will have to wait until my computer figures itself out and starts behaving itself again.

News off the Blogs: This can't be good.

2008-10-17T12:03:00.003-04:00

I've been cleaning up my feed reader lately, and found an unlikely item in a Gowanus Lounge post from Monday. A Dutch sub was spotted off Bay Ridge.

The Dutch did manage to reclaim New York/New Amsterdam for a while not long after they first lost it to the British back in the 17th century, but it didn't stick. I can't imagine they think they'd be getting back at the Brits now though. (We took care of that ourselves with a revolution. And if memory serves, the Dutch were, along with the French and Spanish, quick to recognize us as a separate entity.)

Link: Things Are Bad: Dutch Submarine Stalking Bay Ridge

Yarn Harlot on Tour!

2008-10-14T21:04:00.006-04:00

The Yarn Harlot (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee) is currently on a tour which tonight brought her to my neighborhood Barnes and Noble. She spoke, and read a little from her most recent book, Free Range Knitter.

Really, she talked as much about publishing as she did about knitting, often sticking to the overlap of knitting and publishing/blogging. Things like she's learned not to say that she writes/blogs about knitting if she can at all avoid it: somehow writing/blogging about knitting is automatically not a "real" book/blog to many. (I think people who think a book/blog about knitting isn't a "real" book/blog need to be stabbed repeatedly with sock needles, cut up, carded and spun.)

The whole thing had a vaguely This American Life sensibility to it. I wonder if Ira Glass would be willing to extend the "American" part to include Canadians.

And there were the obligatory photos-of-crowd-with-Sock she posts on her blog -- and, apparently, sends to her mom. I'll come back with the link to her post when she gets it up. And if you're familiar with her blog, you'll know she posts sometimes posts pictures of people with their knitting. Quite a few people tonight took pictures of her with our knitting. I offered her a choice of two projects and she suggested both:

One's a scarf, using the "Ostrich Plumes" pattern from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns. The other is the "Silk Purse" pattern (in wool) from Véronik Avery's Knitting Classic Style. And the ~~junk~~ stuff on the left's mine, but I was practically tied to it and couldn't put it anywhere.

UPDATE:
Pearl-McPhee's blog post about this stop is up. It can be found here.

News off the Blogs: Parrot Residency Expands

2008-10-06T13:54:00.003-04:00

According to a Gowanus Lounge post today, the famous wild-parrot population has expanded recently -- into new territory and new kinds of parrots in one fell swoop. I concur that the new parrot does not look like the pictures I've seen of monk parrots (the kind that have been building nests near Brooklyn College). And this is the first I've heard of parrots loose in Carroll Gardens.

Video: Shakespeare's Who's On First

2008-09-19T16:08:00.001-04:00

This funny video is a Shakespearean edition of the Abbot and Costello routine "Who's On First".

Extreme Plying

2008-09-15T09:35:00.003-04:00

This weekend, with the help of a Google search and some how-tos, I picked up a new skill: Andean plying. For those who don't spin, Andean plying is a neat way to turn a single skein of handspun into a single skein of two-ply handspun, using nothing more than a drop spindle and your left hand. The problem happens when you've got more than a little yardage to ply. There are some pictures in this post from the Bumbling Bees blog illustrating what happened to someone else with a yardage problem. By the time I got finished winding my singles around my hand, it was damn near impossible to see the finger I looped them around -- even on the neater second skein I plied yesterday. That finger still hurts.

The upside is that I have a 60-odd-yard skein on my niddy-noddy, and a second skein on my plying spindle, still waiting to be wound off.

Duly Noted: The Battle of Brooklyn

2008-08-27T15:38:00.005-04:00

Today is the 232nd anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn, also called the Battle of Long Island. (It's a little busy here at the office today so I won't go into detail, but I bookmarked the following a while ago.)

Further Reading:
Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York, and
David McCullough, 1776.

Links:
"Battle of Long Island" on Wikipedia
Articles can also be found here and here.

Sidebar:
Gowanus Lounge reports on a possible location of a burial ground from this battle. See post for details.

News: Madrid plane crash kills nearly 150

2008-08-20T16:50:00.003-04:00

A plane crashed during takeoff at Madrid's international airport. Of more than 170 passengers and crew, only about 28 have survived. The death toll still varies by source, but most put the number at around 150.

Links:
New York Times: Nearly 150 Are Dead in Madrid Plane Crash
CNN: Madrid plane crash kills dozens, and Plane in Madrid crash a 'workhorse'
AP: 149 dead in plane crash at Madrid airport
BBC: Many dead in Madrid plane crash
International Herald Tribune: About 150 killed leaving Madrid on Spanair flight

News off the Blogs: Battle of Brooklyn stuff

2008-08-15T10:16:00.002-04:00

Gowanus Lounge has a pair of posts about events to commemorate the Battle of Brooklyn (also called the Battle of Long Island). One post lists a bunch of events; a second post appeared this week with information about further events at The Old Stone House.

More information about the Battle of Brooklyn/Long Island can be found on Wikipedia, GL's post the first also posted this link about the battle.

Duly Noted: the Wonder Wheel and another pair of 8's

2008-08-08T16:13:00.003-04:00

According to a post on the Gowanus Lounge, the Wonder Wheel, the famous ferris wheel in Coney Island, turns 88. This double-8 day is in addition to that other event of the day -- the start of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

News: Earthquake Hits Southern California

2008-07-29T15:53:00.003-04:00

An earthquake hit southern California today. It was centered near Chino Hills, not too far from L.A. Initial estimates put the quake's magnitude at a 5.8; several sources say that it's since been reduced to 5.4. So far the sources I've seen are reporting no injuries.

Coverage:
The New York Times
CNN
Reuters
Washington Post
The BBC

Photos (as promised) of Yesterday's Knitting

2008-07-29T15:02:00.004-04:00

Yesterday afternoon I reported that I was nearly finished with a pair of armwarmers. I finished them yesterday, and took pictures. They're a bit fuzzy (the photos, that is), but if you're on Ravelry, you can check the project page there in a week or two: hopefully I'll have some better shots up by then.

In fact, though I took three pictures that made it as far as my Flickr photostream, there's really only one photo in which you can get any sense of what these things look like:

The pattern, Alexandra Tinsley's "Salad Wristers" (from Presents Knits) is knit as directed, except that I worked the first five rows in knit 1, purl 1 ribbing. I used Cascade 220 in Charcoal Gray for this pair, but I expect to make more -- this is a great pattern to be knitting when you expect to be waiting around a bit, but not for extended periods at one go.

Links:
Project page on Ravelry
"Salad Wristers" pattern
"Salad Wristers" pattern on Ravelry
Cascade 220 on Ravelry
Cascade 220 on Yarndex.com

Duly Noted: NASA is 50!

2008-07-29T11:31:00.004-04:00

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, was formed on July 29, 1958. (As with the anniversary of Beatrix Potter's birth -- mentioned yesterday -- Google has a special logo.)

Linkage:
NASA's home page.
NASA on Wikipedia.

A Pint-Sized Sweater (and some other stuff)

2008-07-28T15:11:00.004-04:00

Back at the beginning of June, I told you I'd gotten the yarn for my knitting circle's first-ever Knit-Along. We chose Elizabeth Zimmerman's "Baby Surprise Jacket" through a complicated (read: messy) process involving several rounds of voting on two different websites. While I don't yet have the ends woven in or the buttons sewn on, the sweater is, essentially, done. The yarn pooled nicely, don't you think?

In a week or two, we'll be starting our next knit-along. The pattern, the Foliage hat from Knitty's Fall 2007 issue, came in a close second in the voting. (The pattern was my first choice; details on why can be found in this post from late May.)

Among my other knitting updates, I'm within a row of binding off a pair of ruffled armwarmers (pictures to follow within a few days). I printed out the pattern last month, shortly before I left for Seattle, and finally got them started three weeks ago. And now, after a false start involving the wrong cast-on method and too-small needles, I'm nearly done. I'll tell you more about them when I post the photography.

Duly Noted: Beatrix Potter's birthday

2008-07-28T11:11:00.004-04:00

Author Beatrix Potter was born on July 28, 1866. Her books, mainly (entirely?) for children, featured such charecters as Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.

Links:
Beatrix Potter on LibraryThing.
Beatrix Potter on Wikipedia.

Update (3:50 PM): Who2's Editorial blog has a post featuring the graphic Google has on their homepage today. (That graphic is how I found out about the anniversary.)

Travel Video: SushiCone

2008-07-18T13:53:00.002-04:00

As much as I'd like to get back into the swing of blogging things, the computer I'm sitting at is having one of its paroxysms of what can best be described as navel-gazing. I'll just post another Seattle video and let it get on its way.

Travel video: When Fish Fly

2008-06-26T23:27:00.002-04:00

One of the things I saw in Seattle was the flying fish (also known as the fish toss) at the Pike Place Market. It's practically a required sight, but a lot of fun. I managed to figure out how the video function on my camera worked and got this clip.

The neat thing about the fish toss is that the entire staff gets in on the noise. The camera is meant for still photos, so the sound's crappy, but you can still hear them.

I'll keep posting stuff as I get it uploaded, which is easier now that I'm back. So keep watching this space.

A Few Words about Seattle

2008-06-17T18:27:00.003-04:00

Today's post comes to you from the 10th-floor reading room at the Seattle Public Library's central branch. The building is a funny-looking lumpy-looking thing that makes for interesting architecture, but doesn't get as much use as one might hope (especially if there's a librarian in the family). Here's a photo of a tiny little corner of it:

That photo is the best I've got up on Flickr yet, but I'll be putting more up when I next get a chance. The complete photoset can be found here.

I've only had a few days here, but I spent them exploring. Downtown was a bit quieter than I thought it might be, but then it's mostly offices and I'm used to Herald Square. I also looked around Pioneer Square and stopped by Elliott Bay Books -- which is definitely worth a visit if you have any interest in books. And I managed to get to Pike Place Market to see the fish toss there (the fish toss may be easily identified by the crowd of tourists, but is worth waiting to see). I haven't forgotten the yarn, either, and stopped by one highly recommended store this morning and have another on the agenda for tomorrow.

The weather so far has not been what I expected. We arrived late Saturday (I kept thinking it was the wee hours of Sunday); since then, today has been the closest we've seen to stereotypical Seattle skies. Sunday and Monday we had beautiful weather, and the clouds are breaking up -- making it rather difficult to see what I'm typing, with all the sunshine pouring through all that glass. It stays light much later than I'd have thought, I figure because Seattle is (I think) farther north. The sun doesn't set until 9-ish. That's 9pm, Pacific Daylight Time.

That's about all I can fit in at the moment, but I'll post more eventually. Even if it isn't until I get back.

Taking it On the Road

2008-06-13T14:08:00.004-04:00

I'll be leaving town tomorrow. Not for good, mind you -- just for a week or so. Mom has a conference in Seattle, and she's letting me tag along. (Apparently, I would be cheap. Mom said something having enough points to cover my airfare, and the hotel room would only cost, what, $10 more a night?) We'll even have a few days left over to dash up to Vancouver.

However, tomorrow is also World Wide Knit in Public Day; the fact that we're leaving tomorrow is that I'm going to have to improvize knitting in public. I won't be able to participate in the festivities here in New York (as I will be packing and heading to the airport), and we won't land until the events in Seattle are over (and we'll both be wiped). That said, I did think to go to the TSA website and print out some of their information. Knitting implements are indeed allowed on planes -- I highlited the line that says so -- which means I should have no trouble whatsoever participating in my one-knitter celebration: World Wide Knit in Airport Day.

I also thought to post a message on Ravelry asking for yarn-store recommendations in the Seattle group. I got a few of these before the thread spiralled into a discussion of elevators. In all honesty, however, that was probably my own damn fault: when someone said something about downtown Seattle being flat and someone else disagreed, I piped up that flat and nearly flat are all the same to me because I live in a walk-up. Well, threadjackings happen, and are usually no less unplanned.

In my rush to get stuff printed, I also made sure I ran off a pattern or two, including the one for Salad Wristers (available from Presents Knits). I'm still working on the Baby Surprise jacket I'm knitting (mostly) with my knitting circle, of course, but I'm not exactly betting the yarn stash that Mom and/or her employer sprang for seats with elbow room.

That's about all I'll spit out at the moment, but watch this blog: I'll be bringing a computer with me, and finding wi-fi in Seattle should be, I'm told, no problem.

More wooly goodness

2008-06-05T14:15:00.003-04:00

Tonight my knitting circle is beginning our first knit-along. Despite my objections to a larger project and/or one for a very specific type of recipient (and my stated preference for a small project that is not especially difficult and has no confusing assembly issues), the final winner was Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket which has acquired both a following and a shorthand name ("BSJ"). The fact that it's acquired a following doesn't mean much in itself: Fetching has a following as well, but only got a single vote in the final round of voting, if memory serves. But still.

I must say that my recommended pattern, Foliage, was only a few votes behind the BSJ when the results were in. I'll probably be starting a knit-along for that pattern as soon as this one gets finished. Anyone who can knit an amoeba and turn it into a baby jacket has no reason to complain about a mere hat. So what if it's a lace hat? It's not like it's a difficult lace pattern.

Despite my general lack of babies to knit for (there's only one baby in the family, and she lives several time zones away) -- which probably means I should be sticking to gender-neuteral colors -- I did buy a yarn in a colorway that is clearly better suited to one kind of baby than the other. The photo, of course, doesn't do it justice. I fell in love with the colorway and actually sent one of the staffers downstairs for the second skein I needed (believe you me, I wouldn't normally do that).

The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in "Vera", and contains a bit more of the dark brown than one might think from the photo. There are 225 yards to a skein, which is on the high end. And yes, it's incredibly soft and, of course, superwash. We'll see how it looks knitted (I tend to use yarns with only one color to them). Stay tuned for photos.

Sign Gone Missing

2008-05-24T19:22:00.004-04:00

Earlier this afternoon, I noticed that the post office on Seventh Avenue between Second and Third Streets in Park Slope is missing its sign. The most likely reason I can come up with is that it's being replaced, but personally, I'd much rather they used the money they're spending on a sign to clean up the interior.

Duly Noted and/or News off the Blogs: More on the Birthday Bridge Festivities

2008-05-24T16:47:00.002-04:00

Gowanus Lounge has several more posts about this weekend's bridge festivities. These include two posts about the fireworks Thursday night, one containing a video, and another containing a photo gallery. It's a bit late in the day for the post about today's events to be of much use, but keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow's (and possibly Monday's).

Also posted are an account of the actual opening, 125 years ago today, and a special "Brooklinks" post which, like the post you are reading now, contains links to other Bridge-party links.

Though not specific to the bridge which bears the borough's name, another post mentions that Brooklyn has, apparently, shrunk.

Electioneering

2008-05-22T20:51:00.003-04:00

I just posted the final poll to select a pattern for my knitting circle's first knit-along. (Members will be getting an e-mail about it as soon as I have a link for this post. Non-members may join by clicking on the big red and white thing at left.) After an extended period of nominations and preliminary voting, the finalists are:

I've already knit three of these patterns. As I mentioned last week, I've managed to crank out three Foliages (among other things) since January. I've also shown off one pair of Fetchings I knit with leftovers from the first of the hats -- the third pair of that pattern I've made. A second also uses Cascade 220 in an unidentified shade of blue (I lost its ID tag); a third uses Road to China, a very shed-prone yarn from The Fibre Company.

I even knit a Calorimetry a while back:

Of the five finalists, I'm partial to these three. My logic is that the other two are more likely to cause trouble. The Baby Surprise sweater is a large project for a first knit-along (and not as simple as it looks, apparently), and not all of us have babies at hand to show off our knitting skill. And socks are something that seem to require a lot of attention on the first pair, attention we don't necessarily want to lavish on something at the moment.

Fetching, on the other hand, is a tiny project (heck, I knit up a pair using leftovers) and requires nothing more advanced than double-pointeds and a few cable rounds. Foliage, my personal favorite, takes some attention and a circular needle, but is still reasonably small -- especially if you go for the version with the bulkier yarn. Calorimetry runs big and will need some raveling and tweaking (even if you have the gauge specified), but again, it's small and simple and a fairly painless introduction to short rows.

So, my advice is this: vote Foliage. If you don't feel up to that pattern, vote Fetching (or perhaps Calorimetry, if you don't mind adjusting to size).

Duly Noted: Happy 125th birthday, Brooklyn Bridge

2008-05-22T10:54:00.002-04:00

Just a quick post, to point out that there are celebrations this weekend for the 125th birthday of the Brooklyn Bridge, kicking off tonight with a concert featuring (of course) the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Festivities also include films, walking tours, and other lectures and performances.

Further links:
* Gowanus Lounge included several bridge links in today's edition of their "Brooklinks" column.
* The New York Times has an website includes this article about the bridge (which includes the link I posted in the first paragraph).
* And there is a Wikipedia article about the bridge. But you already knew that.

On the Needles -- a trio again, but of scarves

2008-05-21T14:44:00.002-04:00

Scarf, close-up
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

It's about time I posted projects in progress, and not just the ones I got done. At right is the scarf I'm working on now. (In fact, it's in my lap as I type this.) The pattern is variously called "Feather and Fan" or "Old Shale." It's a popular pattern which can be found all over the web -- though I got it from Barbara G. Walker's upbiquitous A Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

I have a few more scarves that are at various stages approaching completion. Two of them are meant to illustrate stitch patterns -- from that same Walker book -- on Ravelry. The first of these, my "Cloverleaf Eyelet Miniscarf" (using the "Cloverleaf Eyelet" pattern) can barely be called in progress, as all that's left is to sew on a button and weave in two yarn tails. A picture of it at an earlier stage:

My third in-progress scarf is near enough to being finished that I'm not bringing it to the office for fear of being cought without knitting. I've had to troubleshoot it a few too many times recently, anyway. I'm calling it my "Trellisleaf Scarf," a shortened version of "Trellis-Framed Leaf Pattern" the name of the stitch.

Links:
Plumberry Stripes scarf, on Ravelry
Feather and Fan Stitch, or Old Shale, on Ravelry
Cloverleaf Eyelet Miniscarf, on Ravelry
Cloverleaf Eyelet pattern, on Ravelry
Trellisleaf Scarf, on Ravelry
Trellis-Framed Leaf Pattern, on Ravelry
Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, on Ravelry
Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, on LibraryThing

Photo: Face

2008-05-20T13:00:00.003-04:00

A sculptural decoration on what used to be John Jay High School in Park Slope. I'm not sure if it's supposed to represent something, but I didn't exactly research it, either.

Knitting coverage continued: Leftovers

2008-05-16T14:07:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I promised to tell you what I did with the leftovers from those three hats. The short answer is that I made a pair of gloves, and three swatches to test stitch patterns. The long answer -- that is, the illustrated one -- is as follows.

The brown Foliage hat only used half a skein of Cascade 220. I used the other half to make a pair of fingerless mitts. The pattern, which appears on Knitty, is called "Fetching."

Neither of the other two hats left enough yarn for much in the way of obviously-useful projects. Instead, I knit up swatches from the two stitch dictionaries I have. The point of these is threefold. First, I get the hang of a new pattern; with said hang I also get some idea of the relative difficulty of various patterns. Second, should I decide to keep the swatch, I end up with a record of the properties of different patterns. Most of the time, I remember to make a note of the pattern, yarn, and needle size I used: I have a bunch of file cards I've cut in half and put holes through for just this kind of tagging. Third and finally, I've joined the effort to enter these patterns into Ravelry's database; if I'm entering the pattern into the database, I feel I ought to at least make some effort at illustrating them.

I made three swatches with the leftovers from my hats: the "Vertical Lace Trellis" pattern from Barbara G. Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, and the "Larkspurs" and "Little Lace Diamonds" patterns from the Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns.

I made the "Vertical Lace Trellis" swatch using leftovers from the green foliage. I had a very hard time getting photographing it.

I made the "Larkspurs" pattern using the rest of the Cascade 220 from the green Foliage (and the swatch above). This is how it looks unblocked:

As you can probably guess by the photo below, the "Little Lace Diamonds" swatch with the leftovers from the blue hat. This swatch is also unblocked. I hope to get blocking wires soon: this promises to look even better once I've gotten it to shape.

Links:
Projects:
My brown Fetchings, on Ravelry
My green Vertical Lace Trellis swatch, on Ravelry
My green Larkspurs swatch, on Ravelry
My blue Little Lace Diamonds swatch, on Ravelry

Patterns:
"Fetching" pattern, on Knitty
"Fetching" pattern, on Ravelry
"Vertical Lace Trellis" pattern, on Ravelry
"Larkspurs" pattern, on Ravelry
"Little Lace Diamonds" pattern, on Ravelry

Books:
A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on LibraryThing
A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on Ravelry
Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns on LibraryThing
Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns on Ravelry

Photo: Orchid

2008-05-15T13:42:00.002-04:00

Orchid
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

"My office has an orchid, its..."

It's... Well, it's blooming, even if I haven't fully thought through how I'd rewrite the Oscar Mayer jingle. It bloomed about six months ago, and I got some really good photos of it then, too.

Partial knitting coverage -- three hats

2008-05-15T11:06:00.003-04:00

It's probably about time I covered some of what I knit in that multimonth absence. For lack of a better starting point, I'll begin with the hat pattern I knit from in triplicate.

The hats, all made using the "Foliage" pattern in last fall's issue of Knitty, are as follows.

The first was knit strictly to the pattern using Cascade 220 Superwash in brown. I don't have a picture of me in the hat, so I'm stuck posting a photo of my knitting in the hat:

Bear with me while I skip ahead to the third hat. It was more or less squarely knit to pattern, using the version for thicker yarns. The only change was neccessitated by the fact that my gauge tends to be short as well as fat (the latter often meaning I have to use smaller needles than is normally suggested; this is, I think, the source of the shortness). All I did was repeat the dozen-row repeat a third time beween crown and ribbing.

The second hat was also knit in Cascade 220 Superwash (like the first), but in green. But while the brown was perfectly content as an ordinary Foliage, the green wanted to be a slightly looser version. I started on needles a size larger than I used for the brown hat, then changed to needles yet another size bigger at the point in the crown chart where those knitting the big-yarn version would depart for the hat body. I knit the leaf lace an extra time through, before doing an extra half-repeat back in the original needles and going on to the ribbing. Believe me it sounds worse than it is, and it came out well:

That's the hats. Stay tuned to hear what I did with the leftovers!

Links:
"Foliage" pattern on Knitty
"Foliage" pattern on Ravelry
The brown version, on Ravelry
The blue version, on Ravelry
The green version, on Ravelry

Signs of Misdirection

2008-05-14T11:33:00.003-04:00

I have a thing for signs. Especially signs that seem to say something they don't mean. Or, alternatively, have been modified to say something they don't mean. I've seen a few posted on Gownus Lounge recently. One features a sign with a misspelling which, like confusing its and it's (and inventing its'), leaves the capabilities of the sign's poster open to debate. Another sign was merely bent, but in such a way that could very easily create confusion.

Similarly, I spotted a few such signs on my own. One of them suggests that East 90th Street and Madison Avenue is not an intersection, but a single street.

Another sign was deliberately modified, to create a similar effect I'm calling the "all paths lead to 10th Ave":

My contribution to the rash of misspelled stuff is this sign, in front of a soup store that is now (perhaps fortunately) long closed.

But I'll close with a few messed-up one-way signs. (I once saw one that was pointing straight up. As in vertical. If only I hadn't been in a moving car at the time!)

I'm back!

2008-05-08T14:25:00.003-04:00

I'm back after neglecting my blog for an extended period. As a re-inaugural cange, I've put in a new quote at the bottom of the page. I expect to come up with a few good tidbits to post while this computer continues to recover from a virus scan that lasted a good hour and a half.

Knitting Pattern: Not-Exactly-Garter-Stitch Scarf

2008-01-23T16:39:00.002-05:00

Green Stockinette Stripes
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

This scarf was literally my first full project. The stockinette and reverse stockinette stitch sections are small enough to keep the scarf from rolling, but it's not as boring as ordinary garter stitch. Sooner or later, I'll create the "neckwarmer" version.

Here's the pattern:

Not-Exactly-Garter-Stitch Scarf
Easy Stockinette/Reverse Stockinette Scarf

Yarn: GGH Savanna (50 g, 80 yds), 2 skeins. I have no idea what the color is, besides "green" -- I knit this scarf several years ago and no longer have the band.
Gauge: 4¼ sts = 1” in St st on U.S. size 9 (5.5 mm) needles
Needles: U.S. size 9 (5.5 mm), 1 pair

Pattern:
Cast on 20 stitches. Work three rows stockinette stitch and three rows reverse stockinette stitch as follows:

Row 1: Knit
Row 2: Purl
Row 3: Knit
Row 4: Knit
Row 5: Purl
Row 6: Knit

Work this pattern until scarf is the desired length, ending on a Row 3 or a Row 6.

Bind off all stitches.

Links:
* The pattern page on Ravelry.
* My version of it, also on Ravelry.

Was that really a month?

2008-01-23T15:57:00.000-05:00

Well, I successfully managed to lose track of my own blog for a full month. Initially, it was the whole Christmas giftmaking mess, but that was shortly followed by world events. Without anything "relevent" to say, I decided to keep my trap shut. (And kept it shut for a month.)

In knitting news, I recently listed the Susan Mitts pattern from my previous post on Ravelry. Half a dozen people have favorited them and, unbelievably, someone else has started their own pair. I also finished the cabled scarf I was working on. Here's a newer photo of it:

I started another scarf, and just to be brave in my knitting, it's a lace pattern knit in a nylon/mohair blend. It isn't even an existing scarf pattern, but a stitch pattern: the "Openwork Leaf Pattern" from Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I perched it on a hat perched on a soda bottle for this photo:

Anyway, here's to being back in the saddle.

Links:
* Susan Mitts pattern on Ravelry
* My grey cabled scarf, which I'm calling "Pewter Bells", also on Ravelry.
* "Mohair & Lace" scarf on Ravelry
* "Openwork Leaf Pattern" on Ravelry
* Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on Ravelry
* Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns on LibraryThing

Knitting Pattern: Susan wristwarmers

2007-12-22T11:04:00.001-05:00

Here's a free pattern for wristwarmers I knit for my mother, and they're named for her.

Susan

Easy Ribbed Mitts

Yarn: ▪ Blue Sky Alpacas Worsted Hand Dyes (100 g, 109 yds; 50% alpaca, 50% merino) in color #2000 Red; 1 skein.

Gauge: 4 sts = 1” in Rib Pattern on size 10 needles

Needles: U.S. size 10 (6mm), 1 set of 4 double-pointed needles (dpn)

Rib Pattern: *K2, P1, K1, P1. Repeat from *

Left Mitt:

Cast on 30 stitches. Distribute over 3 size 10 dpn. Join for working in the round.

Knit 1 round.

Work in Rib Pattern until piece measures 4” from cast-on edge.

Next round: K1. Using waste yarn, K5; return these to the left-hand needle. With working yarn, cont in Rib Pattern until piece measures 6” from cast-on edge.

Bind off all stitches.

Thumb: Remove waste yarn and place live stitches on 2 dpn. K 5 sts from bottom needle; (M1) twice. K 6 sts from top needle; (M1) twice. K 1 rnd even. BO all sts.

Right Mitt:

Work as for Left Mitt, except working the round with the thumb opening as follows:

(K2, P1, K1, P1) four times, K2, P1, K1. Using waste yarn, K5; return these to the left-hand needle. Continue as for Left Mitt.

Photo: I committed a funny.

2007-12-11T13:17:00.001-05:00

Be careful what you put your drink next to.
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

I haven't posted in a couple days, so I'll make sure there's something new by posting this bit of accidental visual humor I committed last night. I got a cup of hot chocolate on the way to a doctor's appointment, and put it down on a table when I got there so that I could take off my coat. I just didn't look at just what the magazines were first.

Mere News: Buy in Brooklyn is the talk of the borough

2007-12-07T11:36:00.000-05:00

I just found three more items with a Buy in Brooklyn connection on my Google News page -- and no, I didn't do a search for them.

The Brooklyn Paper has a story today about the Snowflake Celebration. (The article also references the Umbrella Experiment briefly.)

And speaking of the Umbrella Experiment, The New York Times has a pair of stories about them. One, dated November 30th, gives a good chunk of background. The second, dated December 2nd, is more of a progress report.

News off the Blogs: Two Links

2007-12-07T10:19:00.000-05:00

Two Links off The Gowanus Lounge to report this morning.

The first item, "Park Slope Snowflake Celebration Update," notes that many of Park Slope's retailers will be participating in the Brooklyn neighborhood's first Snowflake Celebration on the 13th (website here). Many will be open late and offer discounts just for this one event. The whole thing is organized by Buy in Brooklyn, who are also behind The Great Umbrella Experiment (Link 1; Link 2).

The second item is a "Bklink" subtitled "F Train Gets C's & D's." The line does just that, as reported on the 2nd Avenue Sagas blog.

News off the Blogs: Quick update on Ikea story

2007-12-06T11:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, in the Red Hook Ikea Special, one of the links mentioned sunken barges.

Today, The Gowanus Lounge has posted art. See it at "Fun With Boats: Sunken Red Hook Barges."

Scarves, one red and one gray

2007-12-06T11:03:00.000-05:00

As I said on Tuesday, I got that lace scarf finished. It's 57 inches long in finished length. Here's the promised photo of the completed scarf (I'll post one of it being worn by its intended recipient when I get ahold of such a shot):

I'm working on another scarf, but not the lace stashbuster I mentioned a while back. I found a lovely merino/cotton/nylon blend when I went to show off the last scarf at the yarn store. The gauge swatch looked like this:

The pattern I'm using is called "Irish Hiking Scarf" and is available from Hello Yarn. It's a fairly popular pattern on Ravelry: with just under a thousand made by Ravelry members, it's currently in the top ten (if only barely). For those of you who aren't on Ravelry, the pattern is available for free here.

Here's the obligatory photo. It's a detail of two of the cables (though this shot seems to have come out light).

News off the Blogs: Red Hook Ikea Special

2007-12-05T16:04:00.000-05:00

Today's Gowanus Lounge posts finally showed up on my reader, including three about the Ikea that's eventually coming to Red Hook. From what it looks like, either 1) somebody screwed up massively, 2) several people screwed up with remarkable timing, and/or 3) somebody really wants to pull a fast one on us. The current multi-mess largely boils down to a failure to notify appropriate local organizations with enough time to respond, with a fair amount of questionable sense of historic preservation thrown in.

Posts from The Gowanas Lounge:

News off the Blogs: Brooklyn Photos edition

2007-12-05T11:32:00.000-05:00

There are two posts of Brooklyn photos today on the Brit in Brooklyn blog.

I'm not sure if the first of the two was taken in Brooklyn, but given the sign on the front of the facade shown, I'm not too certain how necessary the rest of the building was.

The second post has two photos of the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, with a short architectural-history note.

New feature: QuoteFoot

2007-12-04T21:25:00.001-05:00

I've been adding to the sides of left-hand column of my blog's page every so often. I've tweaked the text colors once or twice. But I haven't said anything about it because it's been under construction. In fact, that left-hand column is still under construction, and I may tweak the colors again at some point in the future.

But this one I will announce, as the bottom of the page isn't somewhere people would look to see a blogger's chosen content. I've installed a box at the bottom of the page that I'm calling the QuoteFoot. The etymology is simple enough: it's a footer and it contains a quote. I'll be getting most of the quotes I use from The Quotations Page, though for no other reason than that they make a Google gadget.

And yes, I will be changing them periodically. And no, it's not a feed, so I've actually chosen the quote myself.

Finished!

2007-12-04T17:11:00.000-05:00

I've got my red lace gift scarf in my lap as I type this. I'm on the last row before binding off; I'm working on that row while waiting for stuff to load. Except for weaving in the tails, I'll be done by the time I get home from work. I'll post photos as soon as I have them available.

Still not sure what I'll do next though.

News off the Blogs

2007-12-03T13:37:00.000-05:00

If you're wondering why so much of my News off the Blogs posts contain so much from The Gowanus Lounge, there's a simple reason for it: TGL posts so dang much. I've weeded things down a bit since my last News off the Blogs, and still have nine posts from today and yesterday. That said, here's some more stuff.

Yesterday's "Brooklinks" post includes the following:
* A historic Bensonhurst cemetary needs a little caring for (especially compared with other equally historic cemetaries like Green-Wood), according to a New York Times article.
* The Great Umbrella Experiment continues to gain notice in another New York Times article.

Today's "Brooklinks" post includes:
* A really old (as in 1873) map of Flatbush, posted on the Flatbush Gardiner's blog.
* The DEP did the large-scale equivalent of spraying Lysol to cover up a nasty odor, reported by the New York Daily News.
* Several links to snow stuff, which for space reasons I won't repost here.

More snow pictures can be found on the post "Ah, Brooklyn's First Snow".

Anyone looking to adopt a dog ought to take a look at this post.

There are three photos of the sky over Williamsburg, which are worth taking a look at. They are posted individually:
* Part 1.
* Part 2.
* Part 3.

Video: "Nora: Practice Makes Purr-fect"

2007-12-02T21:28:00.000-05:00

A video of a piano-playing cat.

There's also a sequel.

Photos: It must be December

2007-12-02T17:10:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, it was bitterly cold. Bitterly cold. Despite this, I took this picture:

We even woke up to snow this morning. Compare the picture above to these I took today:

Photo: Lattice detail

2007-12-01T10:41:00.001-05:00

Lattice detail
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

OK, here's another photo from the Cloisters. It's a detail of a stained glass window they have there -- I'd write more about it if I had the info in front of me.

Progress!

2007-11-30T16:48:00.000-05:00

I just measured that red lace scarf I'm knitting at 52 inches. That's four-foot-four. Yes, that said four-foot-four. I still have plenty of yarn left, though without access to my little yarn scale, I won't be able to tell you how much. Anyway, here's a photo from earlier in the week:

I'm looking into what else I can knit, possibly for other gifts. Even if I can't figure out who to give stuff to, I have plenty of other stuff to knit, now that I have all that new yarn. I made several "Yo! Drop It!" scarves from Stitch 'N Bitch Nation before I knew the "correct" way of making a yarnover (I went backwards), but I might do another of those. I've also been looking at some free patterns linked to in Ravelry: two from Knitty but some others from other blogs. On the theory of one good ~~plug~~ turn deserving another, I'll list a few of them here.

I'm always short of hats, and that's where the Knitty patterns come in. I might make the "Urchin" hat in that fuzzy yarn I got on Wednesday.
I also kinda like the "Foliage" hats, but I'm not sure I have a good yarn for either of them.
I like the Pumpkin in-the-round pattern from the blog Mummble-Jummble2. While I think that fluffy orange yarn from earlier this week might work, I don't have a fluffy green. Maybe I'll find a pair of good feltable yarns somewhere or other.
The first of two scarves I'm posting is the "Irish Hiking Scarf" from Hello Yarn. This is another project waiting for good yarn, but I have some ideas...
The other scarf is the "Easy Lace Stashbuster Scarf" from the Hockey Mom Knits blog. Having read the pattern through, it looks highly adaptable with little effort -- which is a definite plus, since often enough I can't leave a pattern alone.

So what will I end up doing? If the gauge work for the "Urchin" hat in that fuzzy yarn, I might make a hat & scarf set using that pattern and the Stashbuster. I might do the Hiking Scarf in, say, that chenille. But on the other hand, there's a good chance I'll do something else entirely.

News off the Blogs

2007-11-30T10:29:00.000-05:00

Two days' worth of "Brooklinks" posts on The Gowanus Lounge produced a pair of links between them that I'll repeat here.

Yesterday's edition included a link demonstrating that congestion pricing really ain't so bad for those of us in Brooklyn.

Today's edition included a reference to another blog's post. Brooklyn's famous parrots. Here's one source for more info.

Photo: Crocuses at the Cloisters

2007-11-29T22:41:00.001-05:00

Crocuses at the Cloisters
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

I haven't said a thing here all day, so yet again I'm falling back on a photo. I took this at the Cloisters in the Manhattan panhandle. Despite being so far north, it really isn't all that hard to get there: the A stops at 190th Street, and take the elevator to street level. From there it's a pleasant enough walk through the park , though I'd recommend waiting for the M4 bus if there's any reason whatsoever to think the ground may have any weather-related slipperiness. There is an especially steep set of stairs along the way from the station to the museum, which would be particularly nasty with a coating of rain/snow/ice. The trip takes maybe an hour and a half from Park Slope, maybe a little longer if they're screwing with the subway service.

Yarn Overkill

2007-11-28T22:41:00.000-05:00

Along with all the other members of the Park Slope Knitting Circle, I received an e-mail from its organizer the other day about Smiley's Yarn's Manhattan Sale. For those of you readers unfamiliar with Smiley's, they offer yarns for cheap. Granted' it's not the high-end deluxe stuff, but it isn't exactly the kind of bargain-basement yarn of questionable fiber content one might associate with the word "cheap" either. What there is a lot of is good, mid-range stuff: companies like Bernat, Patons, Red Heart, and Lion Brand are all well-represented here.

Now, this is the first time I've bought from Smiley's. Why? Mostly because they're somewhere out in Queens, and I don't know my way around Queens. So when I heard about the Manhattan Sale I pretty much knew I was going quicker than you can say "yarn sale." (I even considered calling in 'sick' to work.) For $85 and the modest effort of traipsing up to Columbus Circle after work (half a block from Herald Square), I waddled home with ten balls of Adriafil Felis, ten more of Lucci Yarn Whisper, nine skeins of Lion Brand's Lion Chenille Print, and three balls of Lion Brand Trellis in each of three colors. It took up two-thirds of a garbage bag. Here's what the haul looked like on the dining-room table:

Not bad for $85 and an extra subway fare. Not bad at all. (Better pictures will come when I decide what the hell I'm going to do with all this yarn.)

Photo: Park Slope, Late Fall

2007-11-28T16:32:00.001-05:00

Park Slope, Late Fall
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

I've been quieter than usual today, so perhaps it's time for another foliage photo. I took this one over the weekend and finally got around to uploading it yesterday. It promptly got a comment: so promptly, in fact, that the uploader was still thinking, and hadn't registered that the photo was fully uploaded.

But I would have liked this shot, even if someone hadn't commented so quickly.

News off the Blogs

2007-11-28T11:26:00.001-05:00

It's been quiet this morning, so I'll just forward this tidbit:

In an entry subtitled "Queens Kitten Defects to Greenpoint," The Gowanus Lounge reports that the "Queensboro Kitten" - found wandering the 59th Street Bridge earlier this month - has been adopted. TGL quoted a longer New York Shitty post, which includes photos and a link to the announcement of the kitty's being found.

Today's Brooklinks post has a few entries I find of moderate interest, but a really nice photo.

Photo: Montreal Foliage and the Marché Bonsecours

2007-11-27T17:35:00.001-05:00

Montreal Foliage and the Marché Bonsecours
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

As I said earlier this afternoon, I discovered a disappointing, if simple, error in my knitting and had to undo a day’s work. As an ego boost, I decided to post this photo. It's one of the most popular ones I've uploaded -- Scout says it reached #30 in Flickr's Explore -- and has been blogged by Urban Nature.

I took this picture in Montreal in October of 2006, when I turned my one week of vacation into a week and a half, courtesy of a Columbus Day return to New York. The foliage was early (something to do with a wet summer), and I took Amtrak up there. Spending a day on an Amtrak train is no worse than going through airport security, and the view is often better. Especially when that view is the Hudson Valley in October.

Lace trauma

2007-11-27T15:24:00.000-05:00

It was bound to happen some time or other; when it did, I was surprised by how simple it was, and how easy to prevent.

I made a noticable mistake on my knitting and kept on going for a good three or four inches.

Sometime yesterday evening (or maybe this morning, but I doubt it), I either added or left out a row. In other words, I worked a pattern repeat of four rows as either three or five rows. This might not be too bad if the front and back weren't noticably different, but as it was I had to pull out a day's work to fix the problem.

Really, it's not so much the mistake that gets me. It's that 1) this happened before I spliced on that third ball of yarn, so I now have a huge tangle instead of a moderate one, and 2) it's a whole day's work. I suppose it could be worse, though: the yarn I'm using isn't one that's hard to unravel - it came out easily, in fact, unlike that mohair that spat a needle and didn't drop a stitch.

Here's to an ounce of prevention.

The Scarf Lengthens...

2007-11-27T11:38:00.001-05:00

I measured my scarf last night at 39", and have done some more knitting since. I've just spit-spliced on the last of the three balls of yarn - a process that sounds a lot less disgusting than it really is.

News off the Blogs: Good News for Brooklyn

2007-11-27T10:38:00.000-05:00

Among the items in a recent "Brooklinks" post, The Gowanus Lounge posted two I thought I'd forward.

The first item originates off a Bay Ridge Blog post yesterday: several trees were recently planted to replace ones lost in this summer's tornado. (Yes, we actually had one of those in Brooklyn, remember?)

The second item comes from a newspaper, rather than a blog. The Daily News reports that Brooklyn residents had the best vocabularies in a test administered in Times Square, beating all four of the other boroughs and a special "tourist" category.

Video: "The Last Knit"

2007-11-26T19:11:00.000-05:00

I'll test YouTube's embedding function and post this animation:

Photo: Potted Plants, St-Guilhem Cloister

2007-11-26T10:36:00.001-05:00

Potted Plants, St-Guilhem Cloister
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

I got an e-mail this morning that this photo was shortlisted for inclusion on Schmap.com's guide to New York City. I agree that it's a decent shot, but I'm a little surprised that they went for this one and not, say, the double capital I took in this same part of The Cloisters.

The full list of my Cloisters photos can be found in a Flickr set.

Shots they passed over include:

Photo: The Foliage is Up Late.

2007-11-24T19:22:00.001-05:00

Girl Scout Tree
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

I took this photo yesterday in Cranford, New Jersey. Like many trees across the region, it still has leaves -- an unusual occurrence around here for this late in November. The trees in Brooklyn are noticeably barer this afternoon than they were a day before, due in all likelihood to the wind we had, there was still a good amount of color still up.

Very Quick Knitting Update

2007-11-24T19:06:00.000-05:00

So far in my blog I've discussed two of my knits-in-progress. It's been a few days so it's now time for an update.

The lace scarf I introduced on Wednesday has doubled in length since I posted about it, from a piece of Victorianesque lace to something actually resembling a scarf. I've spliced on the second ball of yarn (of three).

Tuesday's Sweater, which stayed home from the Thanksgiving festivities, has been mostly through the knitting phase all week. In the name of visible progress, I'll be putting in a few seams for the parts that I've already done. Once I get that damn button back on my coat.

Book Review: Andrew Y. Grant's Nearly Human

2007-11-24T15:37:00.001-05:00

I'm a member of LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. Just before the holiday I reviewed Andrew Y. Grant's Nearly Human: The Gorilla's Guide to Good Living.

Andrew Y. Grant's Nearly Human is an entertaining exploration of the many similarities between people and gorillas. It's a quick read -- I finished it in a week or so at an hour a day (and I am not the only non-skimmer in the immediate family). The text is liberally illustrated with black-and-white drawings, many of gorillas in very "human" poses captioned with text of one might be saying to the other.

Though the text is concise, the book is certainly not light on content. There is an appendix describing, for example, the differences between the different subspecies in greater detail than the earlier text. And though the gorilla is endangered, Grant keeps a generally calm -- even upbeat -- tone through most of the book, and provodes a list of conservation groups (with links) for those interested in helping out. There's also a thourough bibliography giving chapter-by-chapter references.

Caveat: I had an advanced reader's copy, which contained many, many typoes and used a very annoying Courieresque typeface. The index and a good portion of the art were also clearly missing (with "art to come" placeholders); I hope that the errors and the typeface were fixed when the index and art were put in.

Links:
* Nearly Human on LibraryThing.
* Permalink for my review there.
* Early Reviewers discussion group.

Photo: Swan Detail, Prospect Park Brooklyn

2007-11-21T15:24:00.001-05:00

Swan Detail, Prospect Park Brooklyn
Originally uploaded by JGNY

One more post today, and then I'll shut up. But as I think this is a damn good photo, I thought I'd blog it anyway. Uploaded to Flickr by JGNY.

Under the River and Past the Malls

2007-11-21T12:01:00.000-05:00

Like many people, I will be traveling today in advance of Thanksgiving. In my case, instead of crowds at the airport it will be crowds at the train station: I'm going one state over, to New Jersey. I am not looking forward to the number of people I will be ~~fighting~~ trying to fight to get there. The Population density at Manhattan's Penn Station is high enough during a normal rush hour, and many more people than usual will be trying to get to the far side of the Hudson. What's more, my "weapons" as such are more of a hinderance than a help: a big leather bag which won't stay where I put it, a ratty green tote bag, and one six-inch cheesecake.

I hope we close early.

As a pragmatic decision, I decided not to bring the "Nevis" cardigan I talked about yesterday. It's grown too big and requires five balls of yarn in three colors, a chart, and directions in British (I knit in American, and there are some subtle differences that require translation). In it's place is a scarf I'm knitting as a gift. (Its Ravelry page is here: I doubt the scarf's recipient will sign up before said recipient has the scarf.) It measured 7½" wide yesterday afternoon, at which point the progress was:

The pattern is Jo Sharp's "Misty Garden" and comes from a book called Scarf Style, published by Interweave Press. I'm using a chubbier yarn than the tiny mohair used in the original. It comes out bigger but the effects of the stitch pattern are still the same. Yarnovers create holes; the holes happen at the same place in every row, creating a column of eyelets:

Since yarnovers increase the number of stitches in a row, you gotta add some decreases if you want to keep the width stable. Like the yarnovers, these are grouped. The result is a festoon-like hem:

The whole thing is light and fluffy, and someone commented to me that it's "Victorian" in appearance. (I agree.)

I like this pattern. I'll have to make one for myself.

News off the Blogs

2007-11-21T10:32:00.000-05:00

The first bit of news to forward is that LibraryThing's user tagging system has been the subject of academic study. Further information can be found here.

The Gowanus Lounge has reported the following:

* Item 1: The Great Umbrella Experiment, in which Park Slope stores offer loaner umberellas to those caught without (these are bright yellow umbrellas with a "Buy in Brooklyn" logo) appears to be succeding. They're being borrowed and, perhaps surprisingly to those among us inclined towards cynicism, the umbrellas are being returned.

* Item 2 (public service announcement): If you live in Fort Greene or Park Slope and have electronics to get rid of, there are upcoming days to have them recycled.

* Item 3: I would highly recommend checking out the beautiful photo of Greenwood Cemetary linked to at left.

Fair Isle

2007-11-20T19:52:00.000-05:00

Since posting that year-old book review, I thought it might be a good idea to show off what I've been doing more recently. This includes a lot of knitting. I can keep an eye on whatever computer I'm waiting for. And knitting is portable, so I can do it on the subway if there's a enough room. (A little less room and I read, and I read over lunch since I can't knit and eat at the same time. Between lunch and rush hour, I get enough reading done to write a review now and then.)

At any rate, on to my current non-gift project, a fair isle cardigan. The pattern is from Kim Hargraves' A Season's Tale (links below). She calls it "Nevis." Though it comes in a plain version, I'm doing (as I said) the fair isle kind. I've also swapped three merino yarns for the three tweedy ones used in the original pattern. The blue is a lovely worsted yarn put out by Malabrigo. The gray is a yarn called "Extra" put out by Filtes King (this yarn has, unfortunately, apparently been discontinued). These two are used double. The third yarn, the maroon, is a thicker version of the Extra, called "Super."

Here's the hem of the left sleeve:

I've got that sleeve finished. And the back and both fronts (left and right). I'm mostly done with the other sleeve, too -- I'm up to the color work at the yoke, which looks like this (only with better lighting):

So that's what else I've been doing with my time.

Links:
* A Season's Tale on Ravelry.
* A Season's Tale on LibraryThing.
* Yarns on Ravelry: Malabrigo Worsted, Filtes King Extra, Filtes King Super.
* My project on Ravelry.

Book Review: Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror

2007-11-20T16:55:00.001-05:00

I thought I'd get the ball rolling with a book review. I originally wrote it in July of 2006 for Amazon.com (review link), and have since posted it to LibraryThing (review link). Since this isn't its first posting, I'll post it here as a quote.

Tuchman's book presents a thourough, redable account of the fourteenth century and its major events (the Black Death and the start of the Hundred Years' War, for starters). While a few of the details of medieval life included in the book have inevitably been superceded by more recent research, this is more than made up for by the book's many strong points.

Tuchman's prose is clear and far from textbook-like, but without seeming to make a point of it, and her decision to follow the life of one of the more important participants in many of the century's numerous wars/battles/etc. unifies the narration much more than would be possible otherwise. She also draws enough comparisons to more recent history (many from the two World Wars) to explain how and why events unfolded.

Given the book's length (it took me several weeks to read, despite reading over lunch and a good-sized commute) I can't really recommend it to someone who really wants to know about particular events of the 1300s. Many good books have been written about both the Hundred Years' War and Black Death. But if you're looking for a history of the century as a whole, rather than just the plague or the war, this is a good book.

Introductory Stuff

2007-11-19T14:26:00.000-05:00

I'll probably be posting fairly intermittantly for a while -- certainly more intermittantly than I mean to. But I'll just give an introductory description of my blog for a paragraph or two.

I've made a few false starts in Blogworld, mostly because I had gotten it into my head that I should be blogging only one kind of thing per blog. I could do book reviews, yak about knitting, and post photos, but each would have to have its own blog. Thankfully, I've gotten over that, which means now I can get going.

So, if my blog isn't about a something-in-particular, what is it about? Well, just about everything. And just about anything. If I have something to say, I'll say it. Knitting, book reviews, movies, art, rants on life in general (and all its insanity). Nobody says you have to read my blog, and I'm certainly not going to try to make you.

So here goes.