Author: Laura Conrad

Sweater Quest

my year of knitting dangerously

I was disappointed in this
book. I expected to be guided by an expert knitter through
the maze of possible information sources on patterns and yarns and
other knitting resources.

I got really mad when I read the denouement (Lana is what she’s
nicknamed the sweater for the year she spends knitting the
incredibly complex pattern):

Once Lana is bone dry, I strip off the machine-made cardigan I
have on and prepare for my first moments wearing her. It’s here
that I expect to feel rapture, when I can get away with ending
this story with a “Wearing Mary Tudor: priceless” line. Damn
the cliché. Here’s the kicker: my sweater, which cost hundreds
of both dollars and hours, doesn’t fit.

The sleeves are a good six inches too short. I can’t close
the front over my ample bust. My linebacker shoulders stretch
the collar too wide.

I can understand about the bust. I have an ample bust myself,
and I frequently find blouses that fit well in every other
dimension, but pucker when buttoned over the chest. It’s
usually not a problem with knit garments, but stranded knitting
(where two colors are used at once, and the unused color is
carried across the stitches of the other color) isn’t as
stretchy as other kinds of knitting, so I can easily imagine a
sweater planned perfectly for all the other dimensions not
buttoning over the chest.

I don’t have linebacker shoulders, so things that fit
otherwise are usually ok in the shoulders, but I can imagine it
being hard to get a given shape sweater to fit particularly
large shoulders.

But six inches of error in the sleeves is just wrong. The
sleeves in this pattern are knit down from the armholes, so if
they turn out to be six inches too short, you unravel the cuff
and knit some more pattern. Or if that’s too much work, you
make the cuffs 6 inches longer. It isn’t very much work
compared with all the other things she’s done for this book.

That being said, I did find out about Alice
Starmore, who is a very impressive designer. I’ve since
read both Aran
Knitting (from the library – it’s out of print) and Alice
Starmore’s book of Fair Isle Knitting (from Amazon –
knitting patterns take longer than the library loans you a book
for). I’ve reorganized my knitting needles and yarn stash, and
am working on a fair isle design incorporating a serpent for a
sofa pillow.

So my advice is to skip the middleman and read the knitting
books instead of the piece of hack writing about knitters and
knitting books by someone who isn’t really much of a knitter.
But it’s a fast read and does have some information about online
knitting resources that you might not find as easily in google.

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The Heretic

In general, having the world’s dominant language as your first
language is an advantage, but it does mean that you don’t
necessarily hear about writers in other languages who write books
you might be interested in.

In the case of Miguel Delibes, I never heard of him until I
read his obituary.
It said, “Known for his humble nature, his empathy for the poor
and a lifelong commitment to rural Spain and its traditions, he
wrote of sheepherders, cheese-makers, blacksmiths and hunters. His
characters are complex, often reflecting the cultural and
political struggles that followed the Spanish Civil War.”

This sounded like an author I would enjoy, and it also said,
“The last novel Mr. Delibes wrote before he was operated on for
colon cancer in 1998 — “El Hereje” (“The Heretic”) — is the one
he wanted to be remembered by…” so I took that one out of the
library.

It took me a while to get into it — at least in translation
the writing is a bit dry, and there are long lists of characters
who are mentioned by name before they’re described. But really,
if you wonder what life in Spain was like in the sixteenth
century, or what would cause you to become a Lutheran when you’d always been a
Catholic, I’ve never read anything remotely as good as this.

Here’s the description of the moment of becoming a
Lutheran:

One day in April, while Antón was blaring out an
ardent screech from the top of the little pedestal despite the
stubborn silence fo the surrounding fields, Pedro Cazalla
brutally, with no preparation whatsoever, told Cipriano there
was no purgatory. Even though he was seated, Salcedo reacted to
Cazalla’s harshness with a strange weakness in the knees and a
vertigo in the pit of his stomach. The priest looked carefully
at him out of the corner ofhis eye, waiting for his reaction.
He saw Cipriano turn pale, as he did the day they saw the frog,
and then try to straighten his legs in the tight space of the
hunting blind. Finally he muttered: “Th…this I cannot accept,
Pedro. It’s part of my childhood faith.”

They were inside the blind, sitting on hte bench, one next to
the other. Cazalla with his loaded shotgun between his legs,
both oblivious to the partridge. Cazalla spoke sweetly,
shrugging his shoulders: “It’s very hard, Cipriano, I understand
that, but we must be coherent within our faith. If we observe
the commandments, there is nothing for which we are not forgiven
thanks to Christ’s Passion.”

Salcedo looked as if he were going to burst into tears, such
was his desolation: “You are right, father,” he said at last,
“but with that revelation, you leave me forsaken.”

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Concert Announcement

The Walk for Hunger performers will be playing a slightly
expanded version of the Walk for Hunger program at the ALL Gallery, 246 Market St.,
Lowell, at 1:30 PM, Saturday, May 15. It will also be the first
day of Sharon
Levy‘s gallery show Earthly Connections
III.

There’s a flyer
for the concert. Please print it out and post it, especially if
you live in the Lowell area.

Schedule

This will probably mean that the first two Tuesdays in May will
be performers’ only meetings, and that dropin meetings of the
Cantabile Band will resume on May 18.

Black squirrel

You never used to see black squirrels in this part of the
world, but in the last 5 years or so, several have taken up
residence in my neighborhood. They’re a bit smaller than the more
usual grey squirrels. This one was in the park this morning.

[black squirrel]

Black Squirrel, April 3, 2010

Report on the March 31, 2010, meeting

We played:

Schedule

People who aren’t playing the Walk for Hunger should
remember that the rehearsals in April are limited to those who are
playing it. People who are playing should remember that the
Tuesday rehearsals are compulsory, and no longer “Drop in, come
when you feel like it, music will be provided.”

Report on the March 23, 2010, meeting

We played:

Schedule

Next week, March 31, will be a regular dropin meeting, at 7:45 PM at my place.
April meetings will be restricted to people playing the Walk for Hunger on May 2.

Garden pictures

In spite of the unusually warm weather we had most of the last
week, the garden is still only just getting started. Places
with more sun sprang into bloom some time ago, but our back yard
still thinks (correctly) that it’s March.

Here are what I think are going to be daffodils:

[daffodil buds]

Daffodil Buds, March 22, 2010

And here’s a crocus bud that pushed its way through a tough oak
leaf:

[crocus and oak leaf]

Crocus Bud and Oak Leaf, March 22, 2010

Report on the March 16, 2010, meeting

We played:

Schedule

There will be two more dropin meetings before we start formal
rehearsals for the Walk for
Hunger: March 23 and March 30, at 7:45 PM at my place.

In April the Tuesday meetings will be restricted to the people
playing the Walk. Dropin meetings will resume in May.

If you’re not playing with us, come and hear us on May 2,
between 10 and 3, on Greenough Boulevard across from the Cambridge
Cemetery.