But when I'm not working...

I've always had a love affair with the darkroom. I first started developing my own black and white in high school, under the guise of working for the school newspaper and yearbook. A guy I had a huge crush on taught me how to develop film and print photos using the enlarger, and I spent many happy hours in there, under the red light, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone. My first real job was doing shift-work in a large photo-processing plant the summer after my first year of college. Fun times.

I did a quick refresher black and white workshop last summer (whee! developing film on a warm August afternoon in the alley behind Queen Street in Toronto, the smell of drunk barf from the night before still lingering in the air... if you can develop film there, you can do it anywhere, I promise). I don't print my own, just develop the negs and scan them. Yay, technology! Progress! Maybe some day I'll play with doing my own colour film, but right now that's too fiddly for me.

When my long-time hobbyist photographer father-in-law heard that I was now developing my own black and white, he dug out and gave me a couple of his old film cameras (he went digital in the late 90s). They are wonderful things, and I love them. Here's a couple shots from the first few rolls I've run through his old Minolta Autocord II (all black and white are home-processed in Rodinol). I have another black and white roll from this camera drying right now, yay! (Upcoming post: the other adopted vintage camera, the 1946-47 Argus C3 Brick.)

There are two seasons in Toronto. "Cold" and "Patio Season"
(March 2012, Ilford HP5+ 400)

Shopping on Queen Street West
(March 2012, Ilford HP5+ 400)

Cherry Blossoms at U of T
(April 2012, Lomography CN400)

CN Tower in Redscale
(June 2012, Lomography Redscale
XR 50-200, shot@50iso)

When is a sock not really a sock?

Answer: When it's still in my stash, waiting to become what it wants to be.

I've knit my share of hats and scarves over the years. I've also knit afghan squares, a few bags, a t-shirt, a shrug and crocheted a sweater. I plan to knit some mittens and gloves soon with my handspun DorsetX. But there's one thing that I can't really find within me the excitement to knit, no matter how practical it may be or how many lovely patterns I admire. Try as I might, I cannot bring myself to be interested in knitting socks.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that I rarely wear socks myself. In the summer, I live in sandals. At home I have cozy slippers, at night my feet need to breathe. Even in the dead of winter, my stinky feet are quite often bare inside my toasty boots. My grandmother would probably think this makes me an uncouth heathen, but there it is. I like the idea of socks, but in practice, they just aren't me.

I recently found, if you can believe it, a pair of kneesocks that I received as a Christmas gift when I was fifteen. And how do I remember getting these socks as a Christmas gift over 20 years ago, you might wonder? Well, they are very very COOL socks, and were from a favourite Great-aunt who always sent the neatest gifts and I really like them. The kicker? (HA! Get it? Kick? HA!) The socks look like I got them a year or two ago. That is how little I wear socks. They also still fit. See?


On the left, one of the 20+ year-old socks from Aunt Ethel, in all its excellentness. On the right, another sock I've had since high school. Weren't the 80s grand? In the background, a hint of my work world: my well-loved English reference grammar.

So, when I was reorganizing the stash the other day, I was surprised to notice that I seem to have accumulated a surprising amount of sock yarn. Not all of it was a surprise: A couple years ago, a friend (thanks, Jenny!) brought me back some self-striping, washable sock yarn from Finland. I've eyed it for a while, never quite taking the plunge into sock-land, but its arrival nearly two years ago seemed to start a trend of accumulating sock stash.


Finnish sock yarn and Cat Foot: A study

The black Paton's Kroy Sock yarn also wasn't a surprise - it was 1/2 of the mix I used for the Shimmer shrug, and I still have 2 balls of it. However, shortly after I received the Finnish yarn, I seem to have been bitten by a sock bug, and I went out and bought several 40" Addi Turbo circs in sizes from 00 - 4 (since my beloved Denise needles only go down to size 5), as well as a book of sock patterns and some exceptionally soft sock-weight Lana Grosso. It's quite yummy, and I swatched up a tube on several sizes of the needles, but never committed to actually making a sock.



The short-lived sock fever faded last winter in favour of spinning, and I recently ripped out the tube swatch when I went through the WIP bag to reclaim needles.

Then a couple weeks ago, on a Mary Maxim run, I found a shelf of not only self-striping sock yarn, but self-patterning sock yarn. Several different brands, mostly imported from Germany (what's up with that? Since when did Germans corner the market on cool, self-patterning sock yarn?). OK, see, now these are just cool. I've been wanting to play with these for a while, so I thought I'd get one ball and try it out - but I couldn't help myself after I saw the brand called "Ja, Woll!" If you know any German, that will hopefully strike you as mildly amusing (and typical for German humour). So I got two balls.



When I go to pack up my new acquisition of the coolest-ever-sock-yarns-that-might-never-become-socks, and what do I find? Oh yes:



Fleece Artist hand-painted sock yarn and another, equally cool, self-striping yarn. OK, now this was a surprise. I had completely forgotten it - I have a vague memory of being in Lettuce Knit last year and asking about Blue Moon Fibre Arts Socks That Rock (they were sold out at the time), so maybe that's when the madness took hold? I don't think I bought them at the same time, either. Wow.

Add to this the three balls of Zephyr that I bought the Pennsic before last, and we reach the inevitable conclusion that I have way too much sock yarn and no desire to knit socks. What's a girl to do? And why do I want to go and buy more now?

It's a sickness, I tell you. I could knit hats with it, or many other things. But no - I'm saving the sock yarn for socks that I can't bring myself to start. Sigh.

An August Interlude

I've been home from Pennsic for a week now, and I still haven't totally unpacked the car. It's sad, really. In summary: It was hot. And then it rained. Wash, rinse, repeat. There are many new spinning toys and fibre-related things, and overall, it was a great time, although I came home a little sick (sometimes there just isn't enough hand sanitzer in the world) and then I passed it on to Daniel. Ooops.

I learned a song guaranteed to induce rain, I ate watermelon and drank lemonade every day, and I got to see my parents a little, but not so much that we got sick of each other. I played the recorder for dancers several evenings (still not very well, but I'm getting better) and walked a lot and worked a couple troll shifts and a first-aid shift in the dead of night and briefly drove a golf cart. My feet swelled to the size of stuffed sausages and have only begun to look their normal size the last couple days. I finished Harry Potter. My tent was magnificent and kept me high and dry.

Oh yes, and I bought a loom.

No, not THAT kind of loom. A conveniently portable 20" Rigid Heddle (Beka) with 3 heddles so that I can do multi-heddle work.

Daniel booked this past week off at the last minute to spend some time with me, which was exceedingly sweet and awesome, and now we both need to screw our heads on again and get back to work this week, because we are now poor.

I have a handful of pictures. Longer post later, after I find the camera and associated cables. And, you know, some energy.

In the meantime, enjoy the fruits of someone else's labours (thank you, person who shot this!) and enjoy listening to Wolgemut. I think I heard them in some form nearly every day, my favourite moments being during weaving classes, when they were warming up and practising around the corner from our A&S tent. It was like having a special soundtrack while several of us worked together, warping looms. Clicking on the video will take you to a YouTube page with several others.

This is not the song guaranteed to induce rain. That one, as you can imagine, must be used sparingly.

It's like being followed, only a little creepier

I don't know about you, but in my world, The Hoff (yes, one Avid-Day Assel-Hay Off-Hay) has come up at least once a day for the last week. How... odd. There's the chandelier/shaving/surgery incident. The (rumoured) Wimbledon incident. There's yet another horrific reality show which will never, ever see screen time on my television. There's the music videos and commercials, a few of which some kind soul has gathered together in one place. A few of those have made the rounds recently on some bulletin boards that I frequent.

Why have I noticed this, in particular, you might ask? What would possibly motivate me to post all of those links about, well, that guy? Memories, my friends. Memories.

My best friend in middle school was a Hoff fanatic. It was just... scary. Really terrifying. But I loved my friend. I was supportive. I bought her a Hoff button for her jacket once. It was a little freaky staying over at her house, with The Hoff staring down at me from the walls as I slept. Admittedly, I was one of the masses who watched Knight Rider with my family because, you know, the car was pretty cool. But Hoff fandom was, even then, beyond me.

One day, something in my friend snapped. She called me up, I went over to her house, and we slowly and methodically tore up all her Hoff pictures and poked each item into the open furnace. It was an exquisite moment. When we were done, I hugged her, and told her how proud I was of her. Later, her Mom made us pizza while we camped out in the basement and watched MTV all night.

It's the little things you remember.

When I spent some time in Germany in the 90s, I was horrified to see The Hoff in a number of shop windows. He had, God Help Me, albums. Plural. Apparently, The Hoff had quite the following. But I vowed never to find out why, at least, not voluntarily. A friend told me that Baywatch was quite popular, too. It mystified me, but I was already fighting enough culture shock, being away from home for the first time. I chalked it up to "One of those wierd German things," which is what all good exchange students do when they find a cultural phenomenon that they simply cannot grasp. People buy Hoff albums here. So be it. I collect albums recorded by current and former Star Trek cast members. Not because they are good music or that I listen to them regularly, mind you, but because they are occasionally hilarious. To each his own.

I put it out of my mind for a couple years after returning to North America. One night, during a bout of insomnia, I turned on the television. Baywatch was on. I grimaced, and hit the mute button while I dug around for the TV listings. Nothing was on. I got something to drink and sat back down to my stitching, forgetting to turn off the TV or change the channel. A little while later, I realized that I had been passively watching Baywatch for about 30 minutes with no sound. And here's the scary part, folks - I understood it completely. That's right, no sound was necessary in order to understand the show.

And then it occurred to me. Baywatch was the international language.

No wonder the world is so screwed up sometimes.

Someone pointed me to the reviews (all 1008!) of one of his (many) albums on Amazon. This is some funny, funny shit. Take, for example, this five-out-of-five review, or this one.

Did I say the world was screwed up? I take it back. Magic Eight Ball, what do you think?

*shakeshakeshake*

MEB says, "The song 'Hot Shot City' is particularly good."

Well, who am I to argue with Magic Eight Ball?

Beware the little red crosswalk man

My husband found this article this evening. It's like deja vu all over again!

A little background: For a little over 5 months (late February to early August) of 1993, I was an exchange student at Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany. It was a wonderful time. Marburg (another page of links here) is a lovely little German university town. It's full of students during the term, so there's plenty of things to do - movies, theatre, nightclubs, shopping... but it's also not a huge city, so it's not overwhelming. It's surrounded by hills, so there's fresh air and trees (dare I even say.. woods?) to hike around in. The Lahn River runs through the town, and there's a bike path that follows the river. You can even rent boats and paddle around. It also has a good amount of traditional German charm. There's a 13th century gothic church, a fully functioning and delightful Altstadt, complete with a picturesque Schloß, Rathaus (city hall) and more than a couple Kneipen (taverns). I heartily recommend Der Hinkelstein, in the Altstadt.

But I digress. Back to the article. I swear to you, this is the God's Honest Truth. Whatever you do, don't cross the street against the light, especially if there's a small child nearby. To quote the fourth paragraph of the above-linked article:

First, never ever cross against red in front of an impressionable child. At best, you'll get a nasty look from most of the adults present -- visually incriminating you for tempting little Heidi or little Franz into certain violent death next time he or she attempts to cross the street alone. An apparently uninvolved bystander may take it upon him or herself to launch into an indignant tirade at your expense. At worst, you could even get a stern talking to from a morally superior five-year-old.

People, I have witnessed this. Standing at a street corner in Marburg on a Saturday afternoon: myself, a youngish woman (mother?) with a small child, a middle-age woman (who did not appear to be with the young woman & child), and a male in his late teens or early 20s. Not a car in sight. The young man looks both ways and quickly sprints across the street against the decree of the little red crosswalk man -- and damned if the middle-age woman didn't immediately start loudly yelling out at him, "Oh, aren't you a good example to the child! You should know better!" (a rough translation). She continued her tirade until he was surely out of earshot.

Luckily for me, I was never the recepient of this kind of public embarassment. I was warned by a new friend (the American student who lived across the hall from me) shortly after my arrival in Marburg to not tempt the Germans to disobey the little red crosswalk man.

Ah, fond memories. Like Monty Python films and Star Trek: TNG dubbed into German. And celebrating 4th of July with 3 Brits. And introducing non-Americans to our dizzying variety of Girl Scout cookies. And the effect of hitting an umlaut key on a German keyboard when you're using a Telnet application. But those are other stories.

...in which there are pictures, and tales of yummy German cookies

Wahoo! I was finally able to get a couple days off in the last week, and I've managed to update some pictures, adding a not-so-recent stitching finish (the DragonKnot Bookmark. I'm particularly pleased with two of the hats.


The red one is Coronet, with some polka-dots (pulka-dots?) added in at the last minute to alleviate boredom. The white one is a hat of my own creation, using bits of the other three hats I finished: the rolled-up brim of one, the pointy-top of another. There's a little bobble pattern in the contrast band that you can't see very well in the picture, but it's there. Both were knit bottom-up using Magic Loop. I have an aversion to dpns that has been solved by a 52" Denise cable.

So now I'm spending the times when I'm not coding my various project data or nursing my neverending cold and a sore right hand (can't even begin to imagine what I did to that) working on Shimmer, of which I have two sleeves and the bottom of a back:


I don't even want to think about how many times I've ripped out a row of that lace pattern. Blah. And I'm not even at the decreases yet!

I'm still watching the second season of Land of the Lost on DVD, which has been positively addictive. And I'm trying to do some background variation theory reading for the paper I'm currently (supposed to be) rewriting. And spending some time with the husband, who miraculously got 5 days in a row off without meaning to (boss said no one, including she, needed to come in on Friday. Monday & Tuesday both stat holidays).

The most exciting thing on Christmas Day was the trip to Starbucks (I go there every day, really, but it's one of the few things open on Dec. 25, so that makes it special then). And so it goes. Boxing Day involved turkey and all the traditional sides, a really tasty chunk of Schinkenspeck, a box of Lebkuchen Herzen cookies of my very own (why yes, we did make a trip to our favourite German deli recently, why do you ask? She says with her mouth full...), and games of both Pirate's Cove and Goa with DH and some cousins at the in-laws. There are worse ways to spend a holiday Sunday afternoon.