iPods and shawls.
This is unexpected.
I own three iPods. I am not normally a techie person who must have the latest of everything and thus ends up with multiples. I still don't have a cell phone, except for the Russian one that won't work here but which is useful for traveling overseas. My TV is more than 10 years old. So was my "stereo," which was one of those all-in-one jobbies that doesn't even deserve the name stereo, really, until I donated it a couple of weeks ago since I never hooked it up here, since I've just been listening to all my music through my computer.
But three iPods. I still have my original iPod, which I thought had died until it came back to life after a good thwacking. So now it lives in my glove compartment so I can listen to it in the car. Then I have the super fancy iPod Touch, which is my carry with iPod, and which I really like a lot, except for one thing--you can't shuffle music by album on it, which is a problem for listening to classical music. But, whatever.
And I have the in-between purchase, an iPod shuffle, which is currently getting good use as I try to go for walks... well, not everyday, but more days than not. I've built up a huge backlog of podcasts in iTunes, so I'm listening to those on the shuffle during walks. This is occasionally problematic, because a lot of the podcasts are funny, and so I burst out laughing as I walk.
Today I was listening to an episode of Fresh Air in which Terry Gross was interviewing Ray Davies, of the Kinks. Now, sometimes I like her interviews, but this one featured a bit of annoying Terry, in which she makes long rambling comments and vaguely turns them into questions by ending with a variation on "do you think so, too." (This, by the way, is something I try very hard not to do at academic conferences, because A LOT of people do and it's often very, very annoying.)
So this time, she went on about the many levels on which one song could be understood, "do you agree?", and Ray Davies paused, and then said something like "absolutely... I meant it on all those levels... " and then went on to babble a bit more about not intellectualizing his writing process.
And I couldn't not think of Nigel Tufnel. This is in large part because of his recent reappearance to discuss theories about Stonehenge, the first of which is here.
Anyway. I also own a fair number of shawls, in large part because they're kind of fun to make. There's no worry about whether something's going to fit--if it's a little small, it's a scarf! if it's a little big, it's dramatic!--and yet there's often some really interesting construction going on, at least in a lot of traditional styles.
This one's pretty basic, a big rectangle that's almost only ribbing, with a bit of fringe, but, wow, I found this a surprisingly satisfying knit. The pattern's shockingly simple, only ribbing with a cable row every twelve rows. That's essentially it. But it ends up so pretty!
Here it is, blocking. I used quite fine alpaca--somewhere between fingering and lace weights, I think, on fairly large needles (9s). The pattern (by Lily Chin, originally in Vogue Knitting, now in Vogue Knitting American Collection) calls for a mohair, I think, but this worked for a heavier shawl.
The only modification I made was to cast off about 10 inches short of what the pattern called for. This worked out well, because it grew quite a bit in length during blocking (which should probably be expected with ribbing) and is still longer than the original dimensions (72 inches).
And then I added fringe. It didn't seem quite finished to me without it, somehow. I'm not normally a huge fringe person, but somehow I really wanted fringe on this. And so... here it is, a double knotted fringe (I trimmed up the ends after everything had dried).
Sadly, it turns out that black's hard to photograph well. I tried some dramatic shots using the timer of my camera, and... ech.
(Admittedly, this is partially because my neighbor was out on her deck, and I felt a bit self-conscious being as hammy an amateur model as seems to be necessary to get some decent pictures.)
And I tried to take a picture with my computer's built in camera, but nothing doing there, either--just a big black blob.
So, until I figure that out, this is it. A mightily satisfying knit.
This is unexpected.
I own three iPods. I am not normally a techie person who must have the latest of everything and thus ends up with multiples. I still don't have a cell phone, except for the Russian one that won't work here but which is useful for traveling overseas. My TV is more than 10 years old. So was my "stereo," which was one of those all-in-one jobbies that doesn't even deserve the name stereo, really, until I donated it a couple of weeks ago since I never hooked it up here, since I've just been listening to all my music through my computer.
But three iPods. I still have my original iPod, which I thought had died until it came back to life after a good thwacking. So now it lives in my glove compartment so I can listen to it in the car. Then I have the super fancy iPod Touch, which is my carry with iPod, and which I really like a lot, except for one thing--you can't shuffle music by album on it, which is a problem for listening to classical music. But, whatever.
And I have the in-between purchase, an iPod shuffle, which is currently getting good use as I try to go for walks... well, not everyday, but more days than not. I've built up a huge backlog of podcasts in iTunes, so I'm listening to those on the shuffle during walks. This is occasionally problematic, because a lot of the podcasts are funny, and so I burst out laughing as I walk.
Today I was listening to an episode of Fresh Air in which Terry Gross was interviewing Ray Davies, of the Kinks. Now, sometimes I like her interviews, but this one featured a bit of annoying Terry, in which she makes long rambling comments and vaguely turns them into questions by ending with a variation on "do you think so, too." (This, by the way, is something I try very hard not to do at academic conferences, because A LOT of people do and it's often very, very annoying.)
So this time, she went on about the many levels on which one song could be understood, "do you agree?", and Ray Davies paused, and then said something like "absolutely... I meant it on all those levels... " and then went on to babble a bit more about not intellectualizing his writing process.
And I couldn't not think of Nigel Tufnel. This is in large part because of his recent reappearance to discuss theories about Stonehenge, the first of which is here.
Anyway. I also own a fair number of shawls, in large part because they're kind of fun to make. There's no worry about whether something's going to fit--if it's a little small, it's a scarf! if it's a little big, it's dramatic!--and yet there's often some really interesting construction going on, at least in a lot of traditional styles.
This one's pretty basic, a big rectangle that's almost only ribbing, with a bit of fringe, but, wow, I found this a surprisingly satisfying knit. The pattern's shockingly simple, only ribbing with a cable row every twelve rows. That's essentially it. But it ends up so pretty!
Here it is, blocking. I used quite fine alpaca--somewhere between fingering and lace weights, I think, on fairly large needles (9s). The pattern (by Lily Chin, originally in Vogue Knitting, now in Vogue Knitting American Collection) calls for a mohair, I think, but this worked for a heavier shawl.
The only modification I made was to cast off about 10 inches short of what the pattern called for. This worked out well, because it grew quite a bit in length during blocking (which should probably be expected with ribbing) and is still longer than the original dimensions (72 inches).
And then I added fringe. It didn't seem quite finished to me without it, somehow. I'm not normally a huge fringe person, but somehow I really wanted fringe on this. And so... here it is, a double knotted fringe (I trimmed up the ends after everything had dried).
Sadly, it turns out that black's hard to photograph well. I tried some dramatic shots using the timer of my camera, and... ech.
(Admittedly, this is partially because my neighbor was out on her deck, and I felt a bit self-conscious being as hammy an amateur model as seems to be necessary to get some decent pictures.)
And I tried to take a picture with my computer's built in camera, but nothing doing there, either--just a big black blob.
So, until I figure that out, this is it. A mightily satisfying knit.
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