Here we are again

It has been a year, my friends, (if any of you are still checking in on this blog) since I posted here. I'm afraid events grabbed me by the...something and rattled my brains, my emotions, my energy, my orientation into another dimension where there was no blogging.

I check in every single day on this blog, and have done all year. The faces of the people in the last post wearing my pussyhats smile on me every day as I use the bloglist sidebar to see what new posts are available on the blogs I follow. Fortunately, most of these have not been affected by the same paralysis. The Yarn Harlot has blogged through the sudden loss of her mother and its aftermath.  Kate Davies has created a new yarn line that she is about to launch to the world. Mason Dixon has created new knitting challenges; Gale Zucker has kept on taking great photos; Dottie at the Net Loft is working on another knitfest in Cordova AK---you can check it all out on that list on the right-hand side just as easily as I can do it for you here. Easier, in fact.

I have had blog paralysis, but not knitting paralysis. Indeed, as admonished by Saint Elizabeth Zimmerman I have "knit on with confidence and hope through all crises." The Resist mitts, 3 Wild Cowls, the Cockatoo Scarf, the Red Larus sweater, a Wonder Woman shawl, and incredibly crazy Monkey Blanket, and a whole lot more that you can dig up for yourself, if you're interested, on my Ravelry page.

And now here we are a year later, a year that has been as awful as we feared, and yet a year that has shaken a resistance into action and will mark the anniversary with a main march in Nevada and sister marches all over the nation and world. Yes, even one in Anchorage, Alaska.

Hats On! Forward March!

The weather was terrible, driving was atrocious, but we put our pussyhats on in Anchorage, Alaska and did it anyway. We went downtown in our thousands to manifest our unity and our resistance to the promises of the incoming president.

It was beyond exciting to see that the Pussyhat Project succeeded exactly like the wild dream of its creators--a sea of pink not only in Washington, but nearly everywhere in the nation and abroad that people gathered in the name of tolerance, inclusion, and human rights. The hats were a wonderful symbol of our reasons for being there--handmade, very individual, and yet expressing the same theme. It made me so proud to be a participant.

When I sent hats to Washington, I included a tag with information the wearers could use to communicate with me. I got lovely responses that included pictures. Here are a few:

And then there was this family who got two of their four hats from me:

Closer to home, there were friends who made and wore their own hats:

And friends and family near and far who got their hats from my pile:

 
As wonderful as it was to physically be a part of such a (dare I say?) huge event, we would be kidding ourselves if we thought that our mere presence would budge the incoming program. Next comes the hard graft of working to minimize the damage being done, and to make this aberration in the arc of progress as short as possible.

None of us can do it all, but all of us can do something. Find a place to invest your effort, find others to help, and never let up. There will be causes that need your time and money, lawsuits to file, candidates at all levels to support, representatives now in place who need their feet held to the fire. One easy place to start is the 10 Actions in 100 Days, an immediate offshoot of the march. Or contact organizations like National Immigration Project, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU. The pussyhat is now a thinking cap and a warrior's helmet!

Heavenly Net Loft

I recently made an extremely brief trip to Cordova, Alaska, and fulfilled a longtime ambition of visiting the Net Loft handcraft store there. Not just a visit, but a one-woman private browse. Wow. If this place isn't heaven, it's at least the waiting room. Such a stupendous store in such a remote place!

I first made the acquaintance of the Net Loft when I was scouring the internet for the last skein or two that I needed to complete my Winter Sunset cardigan. I tried them all--local stores, the giant web sites--nada. Then I saw this little place down at the bottom of my search. Cordova, Alaska? It's not even on the road system. Still, I had to try or abandon the whole project. Of course, you know the end of the story. They had my 2 skeins, saved my sweater, and were super nice into the bargain.

Then this spring I heard about an utterly fantastic knitfest being held at the Knit Loft in June. It's over now, but if you're quick, the info is still up on the web here. It wasn't just a little weekend do with a big name instructor; the list was full of knitting superstars: Bonnie Marie Burns, Donna Druchunas, Gudrun Johnston, and Mary Jane Mucklestone, to name a few. And there were more, some lesser known and some local, but all very very talented. Nor was it just sitting and knitting for a week. There were early morning walks; there were hikes and art tours; there was special yoga for knitters; there was weaving, spinning, felting, needlefelting, and more, and more, and more! You can see why I was seriously put out that I heard of this so late when all my travel time and budget for the year was committed elsewhere.

When I made my visit, Dotty, the principal organizer of the whole thing, was still recovering from it all. How does such a genius and major maven recharge her batteries? By taking herself to Shetland for Shetland Wool Week, of course!

But back to my browse. I took some pictures, but there are more and better ones on their web site here. Seriously. Click that link and at least watch the slideshow. Besides some stunning Alaska scenery, you will also glimpse some of their yarn displays, and let me tell you their yarns are truly unique.

Three Irish Girls dyes a whole lot of custom colorways just for them. Some reflect the scenery, the rocks, berries, and animals. Some reproduce exactly the colors and pattern of watercolor paintings by local artists. Here's a sample, and here and here.

And then there's the local librarian who dyes yarns in colorways inspired by books.  Skeins in the Stacks even have Dewey Decimal-inspired numbers indicating weight. And the Peter Pan color actually twinkles with fairy dust!

Snow Capped Yarns are works of art created by local dyer Shelly Kocan. The seasons, the landscape and its inhabitants all inspire her. There's a special range of New Zealand yarns in big skeins. There are selections of international brands like Shetland's Jamieson & Smith and Dale from Norway.

There's beautiful and unique jewelry, chocolates, teas, cards, knitting bags, fiber for spinning... If this were the waiting room for heaven, you just might have so much fun that you'd never actually go in!

On the right above is one of my eventual purchases, a big skein of New Zealand dk called "Copper Sunset", not reproduced here true to color, but good-looking this way, too. In daylight it's fuschia and a very rusty brown. Gorgeous!

One more thing to show you. Across the street from the store is the city library and museum. The anchor outside has been very thoroughly yarnbombed. (7-year-old grandson added for scale.)

Intentionally off the beaten path and definitely worth the journey!

Not Mad, Just a Slightly Eccectric Hatter

Lately it's been all hats all the time around here. I've got a friend who needs some hats, and the Hats for Huts deadline is coming up. Lessee what we've got so far:

 

A beret made of yak yarn, a kit from GotYarn.com. Details here. This is a real beauty; the pattern was easy to understand and follow; the amount of yarn was just enough. And oh my goodness--when you wash and block the hat the yarn does indeed bloom to a fuzzy softness that would make little baby kittens feel like sandpaper! Yak is one of those fibers that is really extra warm for its weight. (Well, it would have to be, wouldn't it, to keep yaks warm on the Tibetan plateau.) Perfect for a sophisticated Alaskan head.

Next, we have the 100% Alaskan hat:

Details here. Made entirely of Alaska-sourced wool, dyed with entirely Alaskan snow, and topped with "8 stars of gold". Not visible is the fact that it's double around the sides, giving extra warmth and wind protection for Alaska ears. This one is destined for the Hats for Huts auction.

What else do we have in the Slightly Eccentric But Not Mad Hatter's shop? A couple more in process. The Brain Hat is ready for the application of the cortex to the cap. Actually, it looks at this stage more like a pile of innards. Has the brain spilled its guts? Or maybe it's a confused and extremely clumsy octopus?

All that i-cord has to be pinned on and then attached in some kind of a brain-like fashion. A bit daunting, to be honest. (After all this knitting, will I really be able to make it look like a brain?) Fun words gleaned from perusing lots of brain diagrams--the ridges are called gyri; the valleys between are suculi. I'm donating my brain not to Science, but to Hats for Huts.

And here we have most of a Mountain Hat. No prize for guessing it's also a Hat for Huts.

Pattern is one of Deborah Tomasello's multi-color masterpieces, Snow-Capped Mountains. It's a somewhat loose interpretation, as I had the prescribed yarn, but not in the exact shades. And no grey until I found some late in the game and duplicate-stitched it in. Washing and blocking will tell the final tale.

Blockage

Front and back of dark Fassett stripe sweater are done and blocking:

I never get tired of looking at how well the colors in this thing blend and shift. And even more so on the purl side, as the piece on the right shows. Hmmm...maybe I need to find a reverse stockinette stitch pattern for this stuff....? And before you ask, both pieces are the same size. The camera lens has distorted the one on the right. Compare the grid sizes.

I'm proceeding on both sleeves at the same time in order to avoid Second Sleeve Syndrome (Like Second Sock, only bigger) and to have the best chance of 2 sleeves that are the same size, shape, and length.

And notice how I slyly managed to show off the bumper tomato harvest? Every year, the unheated Alaska tomato grower has to pick a cutoff date for literally cutting all the tomatoes off the vines, ripe or not. Daylight is shrinking (only a week to equinox), the weather is rainy and cool, and we come to face the fact (reminded by yellowing leaves) that those babies are never going to blush on the vine. But tomatoes have a secret. Everything they need to be red tomatoes is sealed up inside green tomatoes, so all they need is to come inside the house and hang out in a shallow basket for a while until they get around to reaching their carmine potential. They even are kind enough not to ripen all at once, so we may be eating fresh homegrown tomatoes for over a month! Let's have another look and revel in the delights of salads to come:

One more thing--the most prolific plant was not any of those I nurtured from seeds and planted in big deck containers. The winner was an afterthought nursery start called Tumbler plopped in a hanging pot. On a per-yard-of-vine basis it whupped the Sunchocola, Scotia, Beaverlodge, and Fourth of July all to pieces! And their flavor is incomparable!

A Day in the Life

What a difference a day makes to a mushroom. Remember this little beauty?

 A day later it was this:

Mushrooms--you just can't help lichen 'em!

Plain Sailing

Just plain stockinette on the Sixareen Cape from here on out. All the fair isle is done, and it looks pretty good even in its unblocked state. The moss stitch border looks a bit frilly and flip-uppy, but I'll have to wait for the blocking magic to see if it's really going to be a problem.

And I think I promised you a look at the dark Fassett stripe sweater.

This was the best approximation of the color that I could get with the light available. The pattern is this one, in the prescribed yarns, but with less contrast than you see in the woman's model. I used Regia Hand Dye Effect Night Tones and Random Stripe 2903. The yarns look very much alike at first, but they have slightly different textures and one has long gradual color changes, while the other has shorter color shifts. It makes for fascinating if subtle color play that you really have to appreciate up close and in person. Maybe before I'm done I'll find the right light and setting. And no, that's not the shape. It's not blocked, so the sides are curled up. In places you can see the light through it, so you see what a light layer it will be, and a good friend of many of my turtlenecks this winter.

And just for fun, here's what's happening all over the Alaska woods right now--mushrooms!

There are many others, but the most numerous and photogenic are the amanita/fly agaric/fairy toadstools/call-them-what-you-will cartoon 'shrooms. They're the most colorful, bright red when they're young, and covered in mad white dots. They're also poisonous, so nothing eats them. Once in a while a bird or a squirrel will take one up in a tree and then leave it there when it figures out it's no good.

Almost cool enough to make you believe in gnomes, isn't it?

Stripes and Texture

Nothing world-shaking going on around here in the ol' knitting basket. Just steady progress on the Fassett stripe sweater and sixareen cape. The back of the sweater is done and blocked, so I took it outside to try to capture the beauty of its colors.

Even cloudy daylight doesn't do it justice. The reds are too orangey and the contrast with the dark gem tones aren't captured very well. Not even when you get up close:

But here's an amusing thing, and it's red, too! If you are familiar with Alaska, you know that instead of spring, we have a season called breakup. Snow melts, ice on bodies of water breaks up (could that have anything to do with the name of the season???), nothing's growing yet, and in some places the water, mud, and dead grass form a slurry that sticks to everything. Behold a car that has captured the quintessence of breakup:

There's so much to love, from the bungee cord trunk latch and duct tape-and-cellophane taillight to the crisp and tidy way the essential windows were cleaned, leaving the back windows and body coating completely undisturbed. Missing wing mirror is a nice extra touch. This, my friends, is breakup in automobile form!

Art is where you find it. Take a close look at the even-ness and wonder of the mud-grass melange. It has a special mucky textural beauty that you never see on the flanks of a shiny Los Angeles Cadillac convertible.

Happy breakup, everybody! May it be nasty, brutish, and short. And then bring on the flowers and midnight sun!

Eight Stars of Gold on a Hat of Blue...

Alaska Punk, may it be to you...

The third hat for the Hats for Huts auction. An Alaska Flag style hat based on the Pretty in Punk book mohawks. Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride Bulky yarn, 'cuz it's the feltin'-est. Colors M-79 Blue Boy and VM-240 Prairie Goldenrod, if you're interested. I've made this pattern a couple of times, and the LP works out just perfectly. Shrinks the right amount, and the mohawk fringe stands up beautifully. When I made a previous one of these, I embroidered the stars on. This time I bought some plastic ones and fabric-glued them on. The Sparkle looks great in the sunlight!

And the model? Willa Cather at the library. Chosen for the assignment because her domelike head was perfect for the shape of the hat.