All I have to do

I’m composing this in a state of mild exhaustion after having shoveled the driveway between two rounds of un-forecast snow in my area. I had to drive yesterday morning to do grocery shopping and I must drive tomorrow to spend the day with friends I haven’t seen since their wedding two summers ago, so today was the day the shoveling had to be done.

The driveway-snow is compacted in places where (a) I drove in and out of the driveway and (b) the FedEx truck came to drop off a package which the driver chucked on the porch. I never received notification of delivery. We just found it there in its white bubble-mailer under the snow.

But I’m happy to report that I have made steady progress on my research project

A few months ago, I spoke with a faculty member in the History Department to get more information about a course he teaches to history majors. For context, I told him that I was planning to write a biography.

“All you really have to do,” he said, “is read well-written biographies, then look at how they structured them.” Since then I have checked out several [more] biographies [than I already have]. I haven’t yet read his recommendation Traitor to His Class, the 825-page H. W. Brands biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but as I read other biographies I’m examining them with new eyes.

I’m trying to notice when a biographer uses imagination to set a scene to draw the reader in, and when they step back and lay down fact after fact. I’m paying more attention to how they source their information, and how they treat other writers on the same subject as collaborators rather than competitors. I’m learning that “shared from an unpublished manuscript” in the Notes section reveals a friendly relationship between fellow researchers, and I am encouraged to reach out to other writers instead of prioritizing a dash to the finish line ahead of them.

For the sake of the research project, this week I checked out books on SF writer John Wyndham and a few more texts on the history of mathematics. I’m about two-thirds of the way through the charming biography Hidden Wyndham: Life, Love, Letters by Amy Binns, and I am making notes as I go. I am impressed by her deft handling of the narrative, how she gently shares her opinions and speculations when appropriate, and how she uses research about other subjects (George Orwell’s wife, for example) to provide historical context for her own subject.

The chapter I read yesterday spurred me to visit the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, which — as one might expect — is one of the most Amazing, Fantastic, and Startling rabbit-holes out there. I have visited the site before, but this time I saw more ways to explore and plunder cite it as part of my research. After resting up for a while, I’ll create an account and see what may be possible.

Also on my reading list are books about writing for an academic audience. I finished reading Elizabeth Rankin’s The Work of Writing: Insights and Strategies for Academics and Professionals and I’m now reading The Writer’s Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose by Helen Sword. Because I have so much else to read, I incorporate these books a chapter at a time, when I have time. Reading them in tiny chunks allows their lessons to resonate.

This evening I picked up the 1982 Gardner and Maier translation of Gilgamesh and read it straight through, consulting the notes only occasionally. After the text of the story is a 25-page section on the actual translation work that they did; I’ll pick it up on another day and see if it draws me in. (Not tonight, as I’m exhausted from helping to shovel the driveway. At least we got it done before the snow resumed.)

In all honesty, it will be good for me to know more about why Gardner and Maier made the translation and editing choices that they did before I go on to read someone else’s translation of the work.

The next translation on my list is Gilgamesh: A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell, published in 2004.

After a third translation by David Ferry, in a copy delightfully annotated by what seems to have been a Milwaukee high school student, I’ll be looking for a way to view the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Darmok.” If you have any tips on where or how I can find this, please leave them in the comments. That should close out the Gilgamesh section, unless someone in my department suggests a translation or movie or art exhibit or interpretive dance I simply must experience before I move on to the Mahabharata.

Knitwise, I have no knitting to report. I have browsed the patterns in one of my knitting books and paged through my binder filled with miscellaneous patterns (i.e., for objects that are not scarves, socks, or sweaters, which have their own pattern-binders), but nothing has of yet struck my fancy.

Maybe I’m reluctant to cast on for something new because I have been doing so much reading and writing (and typing) lately. I can’t do the knitting while I do the other things, and right now those other things seem more important.

Published in: on January 18, 2026 at 10:32 pm  Leave a Comment  
Tags: , , , , , ,

Another day, another book to read

It’s been a whirlwind of a week as I completed another house-sitting stint. Because I used my lunch break to drop in at my own house to pick the next day’s clothes (as well as anything I had forgotten to pack), I ended up driving in figure eights all week long. What was left of my free time after driving that many miles was used up by reading and journalling, after spending the working hours looking at papers and screens. As you might imagine, I slept well despite sharing a bedroom with four cats.

I took along one of the typewriters that is usually stored in my office, and used it for some freewriting about my research project. I was able to type about two pages a day, which will help me to keep this up as a habit even when I’m not house-sitting.

This is the seller’s photograph of the Royal Companion that I purchased last June. I didn’t realize until now that I haven’t done my own photo shoot yet of the sturdy little machine. It just needs a bit of cleaning; the typebars are dirty and the “g” typebar started out the week by being sticky. After a week of use, it’s doing better.

I took along one book for the Impossible Read: the 1982 John Gardner and Maier translation of Gilgamesh. Over the course of the week I was able to read their 39-page introduction to the work. Now that I am back at home base, as it were, I will start to read their actual work. After this book I have two more translations of Gilgamesh to read which should prove to be drastically different. The third version is one I purchased at a Goodwill store in Milwaukee after reading the outrageous annotations by its presumably high-school-age reader. I might upload some of those pages to share with you; it’s a hoot.

I did take along another book that was more aligned with my research project: Robert Louis Stevenson and the Fiction of Adventure (Robert Kiely, 1965). I had read the beginning of it before this week, and I was able to finish it before I headed home this morning. It gave me a lot to think about, including how it was structured. Now that I’m coming to grips with the idea that I’m actually going to write a book, I’m paying more attention to how other books are put together.

Of course, I took notes as I read it and now I have quotes to look up as well as other books and articles to read. It never ends. I just checked my shelves to find that I have “only” two more books on Stevenson checked out from the university library. And what does Robert Louis Stevenson have to do with the subject of my own research? I’m still discovering that. I may be able to make a connection between them that hasn’t made before, but I would have to read quite a lot more scholarship to know that for certain.

The spring term begins in the last week of January, and since I am enrolled in a course on the mathematics of voting, I will need to start reading that textbook and some associated reading as well. In addition to managing what happens in the department as the spring term begins.

If you have a fantastic book that you think I would enjoy reading, you may be right. And I might put it on my list. But don’t expect that I will be able to get to it anytime soon. No hard feelings?

Knitwise, I have no knitting to report — though I did receive a compliment on a scarf I wore to the grocery store last week. It was the pink and grey scarf I knitted from the leftovers of the shawl I was knitting in fall 2024. I failed to respond with a follow-up question, so I don’t know if the cashier was also a knitter.

Flashback to a year ago!

I do like this scarf, and it goes especially well with my grey winter coat. I have worn it quite often so far this winter.

Later this month, the former KnitCircus shop is having an open house to celebrate the space’s new life as a printmaking shop, Ugly Duckling Studio. They will have some remaining knitting-related items for sale, and I’d like to attend and see if they have a shawl kit I’ve been looking for. I am committed to attending an evening event in the opposite direction, so starting out by heading to Madison would make quite a long day of it. But I want to support them — so we’ll see. It’s not impossible.

Published in: on January 11, 2026 at 8:05 pm  Leave a Comment  
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Beyond the grey havens

Last week I watched all of the Lord of the Rings extended editions, which I had purchased one by one many years ago — from Walmart, if I recall correctly, which I might not. The second and third sets were still in the shrink wrap, and after unwrapping them I found that I had just missed out on an offer to purchase a custom slipcase for the three sets for only $5, by about twenty years. Oh well.

Obviously the movies could not have been completely faithful to the text of the books or they would still be playing. Over the course of the three films there were certainly parts that were left out entirely, parts that were tightened up a bit, and parts that were…curiously changed or added. But on the whole, I’m very glad that I included several of Tolkien’s works in my Impossible Read and included the Lord of the Rings movies after finally reading the books.

The next book in the Impossible Read is the Epic of Gilgamesh, and I have started reading the introduction to the translation done by John Gardner and John Maier in 1982 (which Gardner finished typing up just ten days before he died in a motorcycle accident). I have two more versions of Gilgamesh to tackle after that one, plus some YouTube material to provide any additional context I might desire by that point.

However. Marquette University happens to have the Tolkien Archives, and a visit there would be quite a way to commemorate all of my recent reading and viewing. So I’m looking into it.

I now have a good idea of how to organize the work of my research project. Then I happened to flip through the tiny notebook in which I’m recording my ideas, and I saw that I came to the exact same conclusion on November 19, 2025. I suppose that I have finally seconded my own motion and it’s okay to move forward with the plan. All in favor? The vote seems to be unanimous. Onward!

Part of my research work involves looking at the literary ancestors of the stories that my subject wrote, and I find myself in the genre of the adventure story. A few months ago I read King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard, and when I discovered that it was composed after Haggard read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, well, then, I had to read Treasure Island. My memory suggests that I read it for the first (and only) time in my sixth grade reading group. I’m not sure if we read the original text or something more watered down, but one of my readers (B?) may remember. (All I remember with any clarity is Jim Hawkins hiding in the apple barrel.)

One of my department members highly recommended that I watch the 1990 TNT movie version, and a few weeks ago he ran into my office and tossed it onto my desk. I’m pleased to report that I finally watched it this afternoon. It’s very faithful to the text, and how could you find an actor with more gravitas to play Long John Silver than Charlton Heston? Jim Hawkins is played well by Christian Bale. I don’t know why he looks like Odo on the cover of the DVD.

Of course, if Treasure Island has been screened, can Treasure Planet be far behind?

I will have other adventure stories popping up later in the course of my Impossible Read, and at the moment it does feel like I’m double dipping. But some of these tales are more important to read a little sooner for the sake of the project.

Next up is a scholarly work from 1965 that will discuss Robert Louis Stevenson and his relationship to adventure stories. I will be reading that book while I read Gilgamesh and while I read books on academic writing and editing.

The new typewriter and some newly reinforced habits have been very helpful towards keeping my project on my desk as well as on my mind. One of my goals has been to type about two pages a day. This is helping me regain some of the muscle strength in my fingers (electronic keyboards make typing much easier than it used to be!), and I have found that once I have gotten started the thoughts seem to keep flowing. Best of all, no nearby pets have been annoyed by my typing, which helps me to be able to keep it up. I don’t know why I’m so often anxious about making too much noise, but I am. And I really have to get over that. After I do, my piano and my saxophone will finally get used again.

Knitwise, I have finished the Universal Scarf and even woven in the [two] yarn-ends. The original plan was to knit two of these scarves with the reclaimed yarn from the herringbone scarf project, creating fraternal twins. Now that I’m on the verge of casting on for the second scarf I am having second thoughts.

What about a hat instead, to match the scarf? Or a pair of wrist warmers? I have about 88 grams of yarn to work with but my memory suggests that there are more balls of this same yarn and colorway somewhere in my stash. If I were to make something else with more of this yarn (probably 300 grams max), what could it be?

Published in: on January 4, 2026 at 9:10 pm  Leave a Comment  
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The Fourth Age

I have come to the end of Return of the King — and with it, the Lord of the Rings saga. Somewhere in the middle of the saga I realized that I had never actually read beyond the first book or so, so the actual ending of the story was new to me. After the book concluded I took a break for about 24 hours, then slowly made my way through Appendix A and some of the rest of the histories of Middle-Earth. That helped with my grief over saying farewell to several beloved characters. Now I’m looking for the time to start watching the Extended Editions of the movies.

While I work that out, I will also be trying to shore up my habits of daily writing and typing, to prepare for more Actual Writing to take place next year towards my research project. I do love research, but my project should become a writing project at some point. (I like writing, too — don’t I?)

So I’m basically trying to come up with a manageable workout schedule for writing. And I’m not looking for “what worked for James Michener” or “what works for Kristin Hannah” — I need to figure out what will work for me, because I’m the one who needs to do the work. Part of what will help is establishing an environment in which I can get right to work. Everything I need should be immediately available, not literally blocked by some of the lovely items I seem to keep for the sole purpose of making sure that I can’t get out of my own way.

This weekend I have been trying out some new arrangements of supplies, so that I will be able to record ideas or even do some writing whenever I have the opportunity. That’s in addition to enforcing regular, daily writing times in which I can either work on the project or just flush out some of the other thoughts that may be causing a creative blockage.

Ah, I’m full of ideas and grand designs, particularly when a new year is on the way. As Jackson Browne once said, “Don’t confront me with my failures. I have not forgotten them.” Just let me enjoy this wave of hopefulness and idealism while it lasts.

Knitwise, I have gotten to 60 repeats of the 4-row pattern on the Universal Scarf. This brings the scarf to approximately 42 inches. I did not weigh this yarn before I started the project, but I did try to separate the four balls of yarn into rough halves so I could make two scarves. So, after weighing this leftover amount of yarn and comparing it to the total weight of the yarn I set aside for the second scarf…I may be two-thirds of the way through this scarf. But I won’t really know until I get there. I’ll just knit when I can and measure it when it’s done. Then I can cast on for the fraternal twin.

No photo, because the scarf will look almost exactly the same except that it is slightly longer now. And it’s not worth clearing the dining room table just to do a one-photo shoot.

There’s no other knitting going on right now. Between baking for the holidays, having guests over, delivering cookies to friends, reading Tolkien, house-sitting and cat-sitting, and actually doing some work at work last week, I wouldn’t have time for it anyway.

I did have a moment when I thought I had tracked down a copy of Fellowship of the Knits…but alas, it was just a computer error that deceived many other fellow knitters. That book contains the pattern that I had wanted to do next. Without the pattern, I don’t know if I have enough stash yarn to plan for the project. So I will probably go back to my stash and WIP pile to see what I should pick up again. The Universal Scarf is a new project even though it’s made from the reclaimed yarn of a prior project. That means I should look at the WIPs next and see who gets to be completed.

Published in: on December 28, 2025 at 9:00 pm  Leave a Comment  
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Down with…something

I’m a little under the weather this weekend, and will try my best to take it easy this week. But I just had to show you the (ahem) vintage typewriter that I recently acquired. It’s a late 1965 Royal Safari, probably celebrating its 60th birthday about now, and it’s hard to believe the good condition it’s in. The seller didn’t know anything about its history or its former owner, but it seems to have been used lightly, tucked back in its case and set aside for several decades, then put out as decor just long enough to attract some dust to the type basket. But it works perfectly.

(Seller photo.)

With regard to my research project, last week I hauled nine copies of the same book back to the library. Each book was pretty heavy; I should have weighed them all together before I took them back, but I didn’t think of it. The next phase of the project will be to analyze the data that I gained from examining these copies, and writing an article about what I found — and didn’t find.

This weekend I read a post on Quora that made me realize that my Impossible Read has what you might call an elephant in the room — an invisible elephant. James Joyce’s Ulysses. The original poster was complaining about Ulysses…well, what they actually wrote concluded with, “Can somebody convince me this is not garbage?”

The OP also claimed that Ulysses was their book club’s selection of the month and they were more than halfway through, both of which seem incredibly unlikely, so they are probably just an untruthful troll. But the respondent answered so thoughtfully that I decided to add the book to my reading list. (After all, it’s already impossible, so why not?) He also recommended picking up The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses, which sounds as if it will help me quite a bit. When I get there, in roughly a decade.

I’m not sure when I should read it or which edition I should look for, but I’m open to suggestions. Anyway, it’s on the list now.

Right now I am two-thirds of the way through The Return of the King, so there is some hope that I will be able to finish it this week and start watching the extended versions of the movies before the end of the year. I may or may not cap off this extended Tolkien segment with a visit to the Tolkien archives at sort-of-nearby Marquette University.

After that, I will be on to three versions of Gilgamesh.

Knitwise, progress on the Universal Scarf has been, admittedly, intermittent. But I have completed 50 repeats, which is 200 rows. It’s just 18 stitches wide, so it’s quickly growing in length. Here it is, so far, at 37 inches long.

This is short, but I must stop now and get my rest. It’s time to sleep, perchance to dream.

Published in: on December 21, 2025 at 10:44 pm  Leave a Comment  
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The sins of the filmmakers

I’m please to share that today I started reading Return of the King for this section of the Impossible Read, and I hope (hope hope hope) it’s not too early to predict that I’ll be able to finish the book and start watching the movies over the holidays.

A friend suggested that, as I watch the movies, I keep track of the number of sins of omission (i.e., things in the books that were left out of the movies) and the sins of commission (i.e., things that were changed no no reason or for poor reasons). Which sins do you think will come out on top? And will there be sufficient penance?

There is probably an official or unofficial Lord of the Rings cookbook out there somewhere (actually, there seem to be several of them) with sufficient recipes to whip up for a watching party. But so far it seems as if I could do a fairly good job with apples, mushrooms, cheese, and beer on hand. I don’t think I want to prepare roasted rabbit, especially not over an open fire in the back yard.

The menu aside, Past Me prepared for just such a future watching party by purchasing the Extended Version Director’s Cut and All the Commentary and Extras slipcased DVD versions of the movies as soon as they came out. (Plus The Hobbit, which I chose not to re-read or re-view at this time.)

At the time the movies were released, I had not read or re-read the books. Now, I’m finally ready to move from one version of the story to the other. And all I need to do first is read 248 more pages.

The time is quickly approaching when I’ll need to return quite a few library books that I checked out — in August 2024 — for my research project. This weekend I made some progress on the work that I need to do with these books before they’re out of my hands.

Even though university library borrowing privileges are quite generous, all good things do come to an end and these books must go back again to their home libraries via the Inter-Library Loan process. In the next several days I’ll try to document every possible aspect of them before I must say farewell.

And the next step will be to try to write an article about my findings. I have decided to take the radical step of finding out what my findings actually are before I decide what kind of article I will write. (This seems more productive than coming up with the thesis now and hoping that my data will back it up.)

There are, of course, many other aspects of the project on which I can work. But so far, this “due date” has been the only looming external deadline. After the end of this month I’ll only be accountable to myself. (Uh-oh.)

Knitwise, so far I have completed 25 repeats (100 rows) on the Universal Scarf. After about 15 rows or so, I started to be able to “read” the fabric that was being created and just knit without having my eyes glued to the pattern on every row.

At 18 inches long.

Right now I’m trying to carve out enough knitting time to do five repeats in a sitting, and I’m not trying to do more than that. That’s enough time to get relaxed and get a chunk of knitting done — even if it’s just a small chunk. The way winter is going, I can knit this scarf and a fraternal twin and still be in scarf weather when I bind off the second one.

Published in: on December 14, 2025 at 9:24 pm  Leave a Comment  
Tags: , , , , , , ,

finis calculi mathematici

About halfway through this semester of sitting in on a calculus class, I realized that the first time I took a calculus class was exactly forty years ago. First of all, let me be clear that I’m not sure how that is even possible. Second of all, I actually didn’t need to take it then to fulfill my university math requirement and I didn’t need to take it (or revisit it) now.

The odd thing (or at least one of the odd things) is that if I had not taken the course 40 years ago and had the experience that I had, I surely would not have taken it again in Fall 2012 and attended a course in Fall 2025. Sometimes I just get myself in the position of trying to do something over and over until I get it “right.” Calculus seems to have been one of those things. But after this semester I think I will be able to walk away knowing that I have done my best to understand it.

Next semester I will be taking (for credit and a grade) a completely different kind of math course, and I’m already preparing to over-prepare for it.

With regard to the Impossible Read, I am currently three-fourths of the way through The Two Towers. I’m trying to read the text as slowly and carefully as I can, rather than racing through it for the sake of speed. In this book, that means I’m really feeling the chilly air, the rocky ground, the lack of food, and the air of great foreboding. I’m looking over my shoulder and listening very, very carefully.

I hope that I don’t jinx myself, but it may be possible that I will be able to finish all three books and watch all three movies over the course of the holiday season. Just putting it out there.

I have had to pick up the pace on my research project, since a large number of books that I checked out via Inter-Library Loan in the fall of 2024 are almost due to be returned to their home libraries. I seem to have come up with a good routine (JUST LAST WEEK) for evaluating the copies and documenting the things I’m looking for. Then they can all go back, and I’ll try to write an article about what I found (or didn’t find) in them. #ThrowsDownGauntlet

Knitwise, I have finished the Palm Frond scarf! A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I would be playing a little yarn chicken in order to make the most of my single cake of yarn. It was a little riskier than usual because the pattern has a ten-row repeat, something I really didn’t want to un-knit stitch by stitch if I guessed wrong about how much yarn I had left.

As I got closer to the end of the pattern, I started weighing the remaining yarn. Then I looked at my pattern notes and realized that I had also weighed the remaining yarn after the 16th repeat. I was missing the data from the next two repeats, but now I had an arithmetical series that could help me figure out how many more repeats I could do.

The twist is that, since the rows get longer in each repeat, the amount of yarn I use for the repeat gradually increases as well. So far my remainders measured 71 g, (missing), (missing), 48 g, and 39 g. After some fiddling around, my best guesses for the remainders were (in grams) 71, 64, 56, 48, and 39. The differences between each repeat — the amount of yarn I used — were about 7 g, 8 g, 8 g, 9 g, and 9 g. Then, lo and behold, the next remainder weighed in at 20 g, a difference of 10 g. If the pattern was correct, one more repeat would take another 10 g and the final section would take 11 g, which I wouldn’t have. That meant I only had enough yarn to do the final section, where I knit nine rows and then bound off the long edge.

So that’s what I did.

Easy knitting, a lovely soft yarn, and just two ends to weave in. I’d do it again, I tell you.

Now, back to the rehabbing of the KnitCircus Leaf Pile Leap yarn that I had recovered from the Jackson Square WIP. After looping it, wetting it, squeezing out the water, and hanging it from the shower curtain rod and weighing it down with a skillet, I got most of the kinks out of the yarn.

The rest of the yarn was still wound into a cake, where I wanted to leave it; for the next project I would be using Leaf Pile Leap starting with the yellow end of the colorway. So I removed the twist-ties from the loops of yarn that I had somewhat straightened out, and I wound that yarn onto the cake made of the darker end.

Then I kept going until the yarn was all wound onto the cake. This means that the ball of yarn will unwind from the outside for a while and then switch to the inside, but this shouldn’t make a functional difference.

So there it sits until I get the You Shawl Not Pass pattern. While I was moving some stash around last weekend I came across five skeins of a black mystery yarn that might be good for the body of the shawl. I have about 260 g of it, and I’ll have a couple of knitters in my workplace take a look at it and see if they think it will work for the project. If not, I’ll need to consult the pattern and (hold on to your hats) buy new yarn. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that!

I also decided to rip out a scarf that I knitted many years ago in a difficult (for me) herringbone pattern. I love the yarn but the pattern gave the scarf so much curl that it didn’t end up providing a lot of warmth. So over the course of several days I found the bind-off end — or near enough to it — and pulled out what had originally been four balls of yarn. Let me tell you, it was the best possible thing I could have been doing during the free practice and qualifying sessions for the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

I looked through my pattern binders, and the last pattern in my Scarf binder was one I had never used. It’s called Universal Scarf and was put out by Interweave Magazine many years ago. It looked like a perfect pattern to use for this yarn, especially since one of the attributes was that the end result would lie flat. Sold!

Here’s what it looks like so far, after five repeats.

Published in: on December 7, 2025 at 9:08 pm  Leave a Comment  
Tags: , , , , , ,

Warning: finished project ahead

I must admit that in the last week I have not made much progress on my research project. However, I can report that my knee is healing, my house is slightly more organized, and everything seems to be going well at work. Who could ask for anything more?

Over the weekend I have added more small “wins” to my total. I have completed a knitting project (see below), fixed a broken coffee machine, and…done a lot of household chores? Maybe I need to refocus on the project for a while. I did watch some YouTube videos on the history of Scotland, which is important background information for my project. Note to self: “Braveheart” is not historically accurate.

With regard to The Impossible Read, sometime last week I finished reading the “Helm’s Deep” chapter of The Two Towers. It was incredibly moving, and I regret that I haven’t found the time since then to move forward.

The hosts of Isengard roared, swaying this way and that, turning from fear to fear. Again the horn sounded from the tower. Down through the breach of the Dike charged the king’s company. Down from the hills leaped Erkenbrand, lord of Westfold. Down leaped Shadowfax, like a deer that runs surefooted in the mountains. The White Rider was upon them, and the terror of his coming filled the enemy with madness. The wild men fell on their faces before him. The Orcs reeled and screamed and cast aside both sword and spear. Like a black smoke driven by a mounting wind they fled. Wailing they passed under the waiting shadow of the trees, and from that shadow none ever came again.

After my report on my reading, describing it as “the trees were having none of it,” one of the instructors in my department remarked that that would make a terrific first line of a new piece of fiction. (Sure, in my copious free time….)

Knitwise, I have finished one project, gotten close to the end of a second one, and frogged a third.

The Cottontail scarf is finished! The pattern is actually the One-Row Handspun Scarf from The Yarn Harlot, and I have used it so many times that my hands don’t have to think about it any more. I came to the end of the knitting on Saturday afternoon while watching the (time delayed) qualifying sessions for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. I played a little yarn chicken at the end, and while it looks as if I could have squeezed out another row or two I really don’t mind.

In defiance of my mathematics-based predictions, the scarf has a finished length of 75 inches. The halfway mark is not at the row where I joined the second skein to the end of the first. Did one skein contain more yarn than the other? Did my gauge change as I worked on the project? I’m not sure.

After I give the scarf a gentle bath in wool wash and let it air dry, it will change length again and should be much softer.

I managed to work a couple more full repeats onto the Palm Frond scarf, and I also wound up the remaining yarn into a ball, as the cake had separated and I was concerned that I might end up with a big tangled mess.

Now, according to the pattern, which was written by the manufacturer of this yarn and specifically for this type of yarn, I should knit one more 10-row repeat and then loosely bind off all the stitches and then be done. This seems like quite a lot of yarn — 48 g — with which to do that, especially since the cake only weighed 140 g to begin with.

Tell you what. After I do the next repeat I will weigh the remaining yarn again and then weigh my options. I would sure like to use up as much of this yarn as possible on this project, since this is all I have. Looks like I’ll be playing yarn chicken again next week. I’ll keep you posted.

Now, on to the frogging. In Fall 2018 I purchased the Jackson Square shawl pattern and yarn from KnitCircus, and apparently I got right to it. I stopped knitting just before the lace section was about to start, and the pattern has been sitting in its project bag ever since.

Recently I pulled it out with the intention to pick up where I left off. But when I looked at the pattern I didn’t really understand the stitch pattern for the edging any more. (And the edging is kind of important.) I wasn’t sure how to go forward until I clicked on a link in an email from the former owners of KnitCircus (the owners of the former KnitCircus? it’s all a bit confusing) and saw a description of the “You Shawl Not Pass” shawl kit. The largest photograph showed the shawl knitted in black yarn and trimmed with Leaf Pile Leap, the very colorway I had used to start Jackson Square. And I knew what I was do with the yarn.

But first, I had to frog Jackson Square. I promised that I would document this part.

As far as I got, circa November 2018.

This photo is misleading, as photos of shawls on the needles always are. It looks like a triangle where the hypotenuse is on the needle and the angled sides have the eyelets. Off the needles, the eyelet row is actually the hypotenuse that wraps around the shoulders. But now it’s time to take this work off the needles, unfinished, and prepare it to be something else.

“Fly! Be free!” #GenX-callout

Okay, now that that’s done I am never ever ever putting that back on the needles again. And look at the texture that the yarn has taken on from being locked into that position for seven years.

forbidden ramen

So…now what? The next step would be to wind this yarn back up on a niddy noddy, wet it, hang it up, and stretch it back out by hanging a weight from it as it dried. And I did look through my stash and supplies, but I was unable to find my niddy noddy.

Looks like my niddy noddy…but isn’t.

Imagine a niddy noddy as your forearm when you have to wind up a length of rope or extension cord, and you wind it around your hand and then around your elbow and back up again to make a loop. That’s what this does, with a half twist.

In a pinch, you can wind yarn around the arms of your sweetheart. This gives you an opportunity for intimate conversation. I tried to find an etching of this, but was unsuccessful.

Anyway, this is the step I can’t document, as I could not figure out a way to take a photo of the yarn I had wound tightly around my forearm. I did find a couple of twist ties to secure parts of the loop before I rinsed it with cold water, hung it from a clothes hanger, and weighted it to pull the kinks out of the yarn the best I could.

It has been Lo-These-Many-Years since I have done this, so I don’t remember how I did it last time. Pretty sure I didn’t use my Revere Ware skillet to weigh down the yarn back then, but we do what we must because we can.

Published in: on November 23, 2025 at 9:00 pm  Leave a Comment  
Tags: , , , , , ,

Preparing for winter

It was a productive weekend in all sorts of ways, except for the amount of pleasure reading — sorry, Tolkien. But I am slowly making my way through The Two Towers. I’m not to Isengard yet, but a lot of folks are on their way.

Most of the work I did this weekend was in the house. Earlier this year — spring? summer? — I may have mentioned a cedar chest that we acquired when Eldest was able to unlock it for the previous owners. We didn’t necessarily want it, but we couldn’t find anyone we knew who wanted to have it. So we stowed it in the garage until this weekend.

Saturday was the last warm day that southern Wisconsin might have until…May. The high temperature dropped 20 degrees between Saturday and Sunday, and I have to assume that literally everyone I knew was spending Saturday doing those final chores before the approach of late fall and early winter. I can’t verify that because I was at home doing some of those very chores.

I had thought about using the chest in my bedroom, but it was a bit too wide for that. After I spent more time thinking about it, I saw that I could put it at the upstairs landing and use it to hold the extra blankets that we might need in the winter.

The only (!) problem was that the upstairs landing was already completely packed with all sorts of things. I would need to remove and triage all that, as well as vacuum the stairs and landing, before I could put the cedar chest there. Which was…dusty and needed to be cleaned inside and out.

It was a multi-phase process over the whole weekend, but on Saturday we were able to move the chest from the garage to the deck, where it could get a quick cleaning and dusting. While it aired out, I moved everything from the landing, treated and vacuumed the carpet, and started laundering the blankets that were being stored in boxes and bins. Before the sun set, we were able to put the chest in place.

Kind of invisible, isn’t it? That is a LOT of woodgrain. I thought about hanging something up behind the chest to break up the colors, but since there is an overhang that wouldn’t be the easiest thing to do. But I remembered that I had a metal quilt rack I was using downstairs.

And that’s kind of…blah. Maybe I have something else I can put there to break up the woodgrain and create some [calm] visual interest.

That’s more like it.

Since then I have refolded the quilt (which has one made for my grandmother, but not by me) so that it no longer shows a binding on one side and a fold on the other. And it now contains several freshly laundered blankets.

I’m still trying to figure out what to do with everything that had previously been stacked at the top of the stairs. But that’s a matter for another week (or so).

I’ve been doing more steady work on my research project. Right now I’m taking genealogical data gleaned by the prior biographer and using it to fill out family history and five-generation charts. This gives me a better way to visualize the family — or it will, when I can add all the members of the families to my records. The prior biographer had a habit of writing things like “she was about three years younger” or “he came from a large family” without actually specifying the birthdate or the number of siblings in question. I think I’ll need several sessions with the library’s Ancestry account before I can collect all the data that she didn’t share in her book. I realize that she was focused on our mutual research subject and the direct family lines, but I sure wish that I had access to her notes. I want to take a wider and more comprehensive view.

Last week I watched a Zoom webinar about a printing press that was donated to a museum. It had been used for decades in a family printing business, and the owners had kept copies of hundreds of the posters, invitations, and other items they had printed for their community. Recently, some graduate students reverse-engineered the picture of a vibrant multicultural and multilingual (English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Spanish) community from the events for which printing had been done.

I would like to do the same thing with genealogy to solve some minor mysteries in my research subject’s ancestors. Why were he and his siblings born in a small town in Scotland when his father had lived near London? Well, his mother’s family lived in this small town, and she had two sisters and probably a raft of cousins. Something about the structure of the extended family made this something sensible instead of unusual.

Knitwise, the rows of the Palm Frond scarf have gotten so wide that I only found time to knit full repeats on the weekend days. On both days, I knitted while watching YouTube videos about working with analog planning systems (shoutout to Rachelle In Theory). After knitting two more repeats I measured out the rest of the yarn, and only half the cake is left. But I also have just four 10-row repeats left before I bind off the project. That’s how quickly it’s getting wider. When I wear it, that width will become length… oh, forget it. I’ll just show you a picture.

I was a little bit more diligent at working on the Cottontail scarf this week than I was the week before. In the photo below I have folded the scarf at the halfway point, where I joined the second ball of yarn. Though I didn’t measure the work, you can see that I’m a bit more than 75 percent done. It’s not close-to-done enough to check my stash and see what I might work on next, but it’s close enough that I’ll have a warm scarf to wear while it’s still cold.

Published in: on November 16, 2025 at 11:04 pm  Leave a Comment  
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Knee deep

My banged-up knee is healing nicely a week later, at least as far as the skin is concerned. I have been avoiding stairs as much as possible but have been able to walk on level ground and some mild inclines. I never got a follow-up from Osteo or the physical therapy place as I expected, which I choose to interpret as a vote of confidence in my ability to heal myself. I have been rehabbing on my own and taking it very cautiously.

So far it’s been a pretty good injury for knitting and reading and journaling. And watching my dog pretend (apparently) to be a unicorn.

Monty is a … special dog.

I have been doing more thinking about my research project as well. As I commented earlier today to my friend Mary, a weekend seems just long enough to figure out how to do something but not long enough to actually do it. This time, what I have figured out how to do is a technique that I actually started doing years ago but did not take quite far enough: starting a commonplace book for each separate element of my project.

I watched a few YouTube videos (thanks, Rachelle In Theory) that kind of overlapped in their content but effectively demonstrated why this would be a particularly good idea for me to try. (Another good reason is that my materials and notes are literally all over the place, and bringing any sort of focus at all to the project would be beneficial.) I went to my home library, Unused Journals section, and removed two new bullet journals from their shrink wrap so I could dedicate them to this purpose. I searched the Internet for artwork to glue to their covers, and found great specimens. Unfortunately, the nice contrasting paper on which I would like to mount these illustrations is… at the top of the stairs.

Maybe I don’t really need to decorate the covers until next week.

In the Impossible Read, I so greatly enjoyed my journey through The Fellowship of the Ring that I immediately picked up the next book, The Two Towers, and read the first chapter.

Part of the fun of the Impossible Read is that when people find out what I am doing, they often suggest something else I should read, or watch, or hear. Last week Eldest suggested that I add The Count of Monte Cristo to my list, which runs about 1,275 pages. As my reading list is already long to the point of absurdity, I found no reason so say no. In fact, I added it and then threw in The Three Musketeers and Ivanhoe for good measure. The more, the merrier. While I’m at it I might as well add Les Miserables. After all, I already have a copy around here somewhere.

Even funnier is that I already own a copy of the last book on the list, which is Ready Player Two. By the time I get to that point, the last book on the list may actually be Ready Player Five.

Another friend suggested that I go on YouTube and find the video of Leonard Nimoy singing “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.” I cannot state strongly enough that you should under no circumstances actually do this, which is why I refuse to provide a link. If for some reason you cannot resist, perhaps the top comments on the video will provide some redemption for the experience. But really — do not do this, especially if you are younger than Generation X.

Knitwise, progress on both projects can now be characterized as “steady.” The Cottontail scarf is approximately 70 percent complete, by which I mean that I weighed the remaining yarn and did a tiny amount of mental calculation. There is no new photo of it, because it will look just the same as it did last week except that it is somewhat longer. I have lost count of how many scarves I have made with the Yarn Harlot’s One-Row Handspun Scarf pattern. I’ll take a photo after I bind it off and weave in the ends.

The Palm Frond scarf is a little harder to make steady progress on because after each 10-row repeat the stitch count increases by five. So all of those rows are getting longer and longer. For example, yesterday I thought I could knit a whole repeat while I watched the F1 Sprint race from Brazil. But it was only about 21 laps and I had to finish the repeat while watching the qualifying session for the main race. I am trying to do a whole repeat in a single sitting, but as the rows lengthen I may have to do partial repeats if I want to do just a little knitting every night.

By the math of the remaining yarn, this project is just over 25 percent of the way done.

I do have my next knitting project lined up as soon as I can get my hands on the pattern. It has a Lord of the Rings theme and I already have the exact yarn called for as the striking accent color. The only catch is that it was knitted into a half-finished project. So after I frog the project I may need to do a few things to the yarn to get the physical evidence of the old stitches out before I re-skein it. I haven’t done this in a while, so I will probably document the process for those of you who haven’t seen a niddy noddy in use before. (Yes, I have one. I have one of almost everything, and two each of the good stuff.)

Published in: on November 9, 2025 at 7:51 pm  Leave a Comment  
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Entries
Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started