Taking a break...

Since I don't have a light box handy, I placed the x-rays in the stairwell window. Study them carefully and you will discern images of my left lower leg, ankle, and foot. In extreme close-up, not possible here, you would notice the spiral fracture of the fibula, sustained when I gracelessly slid on wet grass in the garden five days ago, as I was walking too fast on an incline. Perhaps luckily, I have endured many more painful insults, as the medical world calls them:  natural childbirth, foot surgeries left and right, and several classic ailments of wymmen. This, by comparison, is a piece of stale cake.

For the next five weeks I will be clomping around in a black plastic-and-velcro boot that looks like part of a Power Rangers uniform. That is, unless I have to have surgery--a decision to be made by my nice young orthopedist, Dr. Keith Monchek, next week. Stay tuned.

In the meanwhile, I'm getting lots of knitting, writing, and reading done. My knitting goal now is to finish up several longterm UFOs. One is a particularly upsetting lace pattern that is both boring and uncooperative, the Oscilloscope Shawl. I think it's an attractive garment, and I'm doing it for a friend in pink (her color request). It is absolutely maddening to track correctly, though, and consequently there are a number of obvious mistakes in my work. No frogging for me...I want OUT of this shawl! Not to worry, however; I devised a clever way to camouflage the booboos, as shall be revealed in a future post. I wouldn't recommend this pattern to anyone, unless she is an extremely methodical (anal?) knitter.

Several readers have inquired as to the mysteries I photographed for this blog in July. The first photo of "What IS it?" is a turkey vulture that had been snacking on a dead chipmunk, deposited by Rufus the Tuxedo Cat, in my driveway. At the moment, I am not at liberty to enlighten you about the second mystery--the off-white knitted thingy--inspected by Alfie in the second photo, but like almost everything else in life (or at least in this blog), it too shall be revealed at a future date.

For those of you who read Interweave's Knitscene Magazine, check out my article on LYS in London, "Unexpected Delights," in the Fall issue just released, pages 8-10. As you may recall, I spent a happy few days there in January of this year.

Bessborough Gardens, London, in January! Notice how green it was!

Now all I'm wondering about is which of the many interesting and beautiful neighborhoods I visited has been victimized by the recent hoodlum rampages. There has been a movement among London knitters to counteract this despicable anarchic terrorism with knitted love. I've copied below a free pattern for your enjoyment and possible healing, if you are reading this in the UK, and here's the link to the website. To all of you, Londoners or not, I say: "Keep calm and carry on." That is the best thing to do in situations like this, and knitting is the way to the end.

Knit a London Lovedon Heart and set it free in the city

Norwegian knitter Kaja Marie Lereng Kvernbakken (one of our global Stitch Londoners out there in the world), recently made the OsLove knitted heart pattern to show love and support after the sad events in Norway. This week she has updated the pattern with two new hearts for London, the Lovedon Hearts Knitting Pattern.

Kaja Marie says “My hope is that you will use this pattern, tweak it as you wish, and make hearts, loads of them: To remember what happened in Oslo and on Utøya or anywhere else where a little bit of love is needed. Pin it close to your heart, give to a friend or a stranger, let it out in the wild as graffiti knitting, so that the heart can find whoever needs it. Knit it in any colour, with or without words, knit them and share them.”

Once the clean up is over and the knitting starts again we hope to see these little Lovedon hearts spreading the love.

Woolly hugs to you all. Let's hope that we can unpick the problems and start casting on new rows, where the dropped stitches and tangles in society (that means all of you looters, hackers, greedy banks and sneaky politicians included) are all put back on the needles the right way. Power to the Riot Wombles!

Epithalamion

A knitted wedding cake in honor of the Royal Nuptials, featured at London's All the Fun of the Fair.

Loe where she comes along with portly pace

          Lyke Phoebe from her chamber of the East,

          Arysing forth to run her mighty race,

          Clad all in white, that seemes a virgin best.

          So well it her beseemes that ye would weene

         Some angell she had beene.

         Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre,

          Sprinckled with perle, and perling flowres a tweene,

         Doe lyke a golden mantle her attyre,

          And being crowned with a girland greene,

          Seeme lyke some mayden Queene.

          Her modest eyes abashed to behold

          So many gazers, as on her do stare,

         Upon the lowly ground affixed are.

          Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold,

          But blush to heare her prayses sung so loud,

          So farre from being proud.

         Nathlesse doe ye still loud her prayses sing,

         That all the woods may answer and your eccho ring.

--Edmund Spenser, Epithalamion

Gentle readers,
Perhaps some of you, like me, will be glued to the tv starting tomorrow morning at 4 a.m. EDT.  An event such as the wedding of  Prince Wills and the iconically-named commoner Kate Middleton offers us six or so hours of nonstop knitting time, as well as inspirational pageantry. For those of you who work quickly, you might have a look at the patterns in Knit Your Own Royal Wedding by Fiona Goble (Ivy Press, 2011).

Whether or not you can spare the time tomorrow, the publisher's video will undoubtedly help you appreciate the seismic  event:

Yours, knitting regally,

smw

The well-dressed Ipad

The purchase of this Ipad, which is, to be perfectly honest, a non-essential gizmo that may not provide me with an enhanced quality of life (only time will tell), was rationalized thus:

1. my birthday is next month, so this is an early present to myself;
2. I am about to travel abroad and the Ipad is lighter and easier to haul around than my laptop.

I ordered the Ipad without the black encasement that you see in the photo because I was certain that to pay $39 for a relatively flimsy piece of plastic was a complete rip-off.  I ordered a $1 case (red, claims to be genuine leather) from a seller on Amazon.com. (If you click the link you'll see the price has gone up somewhat. Must have been my lucky dollar day back then!) A while later Amazon sent me an email saying they couldn't get in touch with the seller and couldn't ship the case. As my departure-to-London date was looming, I was seized with the utterly rational fear that my Ipad might get scratched in transit. By that time I was also ready to hurl the Ipad out the window, as its operation was driving me very quickly to the edge. Rather than scratch it in so violent a manner, I determined that I needed to do two things besides cracking open another bottle of vino:

1. Go to the "Genius Bar" [sic] at the Apple Store in the Providence Place Mall and have a consult with a tech person;
2. Knit my Ipad a sweater.

Fast forward to Thursday, January 6th:

I meet Jillian, a very proficient tech person, at the human zoo aka The Apple Store. She sits with me, creating a bubble of calm that envelops us both, for almost two hours as the masses swirl about us. She answers every single question on my extensive list, without overtly ridiculing or pitying me. Finally finished with Ipad 101, I ask her several questions pertaining to the superficial aspects of gadgetry, such as Ipad hygiene--how best to clean the smeary screen, a palimpsest of skin oil after a relatively brief period of usage?--(Jillian shows me a box of wipes, containing 20 cleansing applications of isopropyl alcohol, for a mere $15; I politely decline); and costumes (Jillian shows me a neoprene cover and the black velvety cover, both of which sell for between $35-$40.) I bite the bullet and buy the velvety cover. Perhaps I was emboldened to do this because of all the money I expected to save by cleaning Ipad's screen with an eighty-nine cent pint bottle of isopropyl alcohol.

Then I go home and begin knitting my Ipad a sweater. It is deliberately oversized, as I intend to felt it in the immediate future. I'm using Noro Kureyon--that is, I was using Noro Kureyon, but I ran out. So part of this sweater will be in a compatible yarn I select from my stash.

Time is flying, and I must return to my knitting, in order to finish before my departure date of 1/12.   And oh yes, Amazon sent me another email saying that the seller was located and my red leather one dollar Ipad case is on its way to me.

To be continued....

In the meanwhile, if any of my readers can recommend good LYS to visit in London, please do.