Insubordiknit

March on the white house!

That's Bullshit
Get off it
This war is for profit
violence and occupation
can not lead to liberation

The protest kicked ass, and kicked my ass. Feet tired, soul spent. They're saying that there was more than 100,000 people there. That's 100,000 people that think that what our government is doing is fucked. Heh. Speaking of fucked, or rather, the way that saying it, hearing it, or reading it, makes some folks feel umcomfortable, I saw/heard more people over 60 using the ol' curs-y words at this protest than ever in my fucking life. Leave it to (the) president to bring out words people didn't even know they had. I saw an older man, mid 60's, manicured beard following the well-bred contour of his face, and wearing a spiffy sweater vest chanting

1, 2, 3, 4
we don't want your fucking war
5, 6, 7, 8
organize and smash the state.

His wife looked agahst, then shruged, then joined in. The age/class/race range was pretty phenom. Though it's not one of my favorite chants, marching with Little Bit, next to people old enough to be my grandparents wearing comfortable pumps, and punks young enough to still be trying the old cut and paste bit on their IDs, and chanting this is what democracy looks like got me all choked up. Seriously, after the first 3, 4 times, I couldn't get it out with out that thick, sharp feeling in my throat. It was beautiful in a generation-spanning, galvanizing way. Much like a Jonathon Richman concert except I went home to the realization that this country is more than those 100,000 people, instead of going home to dream of little naked, dancing Jonathon Richmans. Bah.

Favorite sign. Check it. It's the sign in the middle and it says L. Bush wears Satan's pearl necklace. Heh.

Little Bit might have been the most photographed thing at the march. What you can't see in the pics of him I have here are the throngs of cameras next to, and behind me. Everyone's a sucker for a kid ready to smash the motherfucking system!

The first pic up at the top is him playing the bucket drums that b-ill carried and banged on. This pic is the drum some youngster punk gave him after seeing it. Solidarity rocks.

yarnshop up-didly-dated

Yarnshop update, with bigger lots (read, 240-500 yards each!) and lots more shark attack! And if nobody buys lilliput lillipad within the week, I'm making the yoke vest out of loop d loop with it!

Autumn strikes, with soy-gurt and knit

We celebrated the beginning of Autumn. The Good Gourd, which rolls to kids houses with fall-glee and presents in tow, dropped in to take a look at the amazing painting Little Bit and I did. He, LB, not the Gourd, painted all of the actual objects, I just helped him color it all in. In case you're wondering, the Good Gourd, which is pictured in the above painting, is much like the Spring Fairy but rounder, full of roastable seeds, and well, a bit more confusing. We're not a religious people so we celebrate the seasons, and we do it in a particularly wacky way. The Good Gourd brought the Little Bit a freakin' trampoline, breaking out of the usual low-key, homemade presents mold. I'm not sure how he afforded it but there it is, all big and bouncy. He loves it, we bounced all day, or as long as my cardiovascular would allow, which is about 10 minutes before I require a rest of as much time. With it, 'm sure to be down to 15lbs in no time flat.

Oh yeah, just a glimpse of how cool my son (who is insisting on both a unicorn horn, and pig tails lately) is, there's a shelf in our frig that he can reach and is filled with yummies he gets to eat when he wants and on his own. One such thing that's usually on the shelf is several flavors of soy yogurt. Today he told me that he really liked the new flavor we got but that he was a bit somber that it didn't taste like what it was supposed to green bean and flower. Heh. It's vanilla but the picture looks remarkably like a long green bean and yellow flower. What got me was that he looked at that picture, decided that it was green bean and flower and thought, mmmm...green bean and flower yogurt, I better eat that one!.

He's my little biscuit head.

And in knitting news, which I know has been sparser than hamhocks in vegan bean soup, here's what I've been working on. It's actually seamed up now, though the zipper isn't in, nor is the neck on yet. i was going to submit is somewhere, but decided to just post the pattern on my site, all free-like. If you look closely, you can kinda see the diamonds on the front panels (the lighter green). It's super cool and I'm excited to wear it every freakin' day. Also, it's all my own handspun! Rock.

Update!

oh, by the way, the shopity shop shop is updated!

cherry trees and youth

This world. Bah. I get so frusterated, so often. Here's a little story that happened a few weeks ago. B-ill, I and the little bit were at a park that's walking distance from our house. The Bit was playing on the slides, B-ill and I on the giant termite/wood chip pile, watching with the joy that is known to parents observing the hope they have for the world, in the grace of a child.

Not 30 yards from the uneven bars is a huge cherry tree. We've made pie from that tree. We've gone on flashlight walks and picked night cherries. It's already a part of Little Bit's childhood.

And up on bikes come 4 kids, not older than 11, maybe much younger, anything over LB's age and I'm ignorant of the intricacies. They're hanging under the tree. The cherry tree. So there they are, rukusing, 1 boy, 3 girls. They must have just recently (hopefully) learned the words and phrases fuck you, fucking bitch, shut the fuck up, and several other variations containing those key words. You get the idea. So by this time the Little Bit has joined us on the mound and is asking why those kids are so mean.

They I realize that they've got lighters and one little girl is working hard to get the green tree to catch fire. Then it dawns on me that the day before LB and I were hanging out at the park and 3 boys told us that they'd just put out a fire in the trashcan on the other side of the school, that they'd seen a girl set it on fire. Then I hear the girl scream,

It's on fire! Ahhhhh! I did that! I set that on fire! Me, I did it. It's on fire!!

And indeed it was on fire. Just a bit. The boy ran over to put it out and B-ill marched over with a determanance I usually have in those situations, like earlier this summer, when I kicked the proverbial ass of 5 boys who were beating up a little kid, and the jerky big sister of the victim, egging them on. Jerk-off. So, B-ill stepped up this time, with out even thinking. The girl saw him coming and tossed her lighter behind her while B-ill went to the boy

gimme the lighter

and they did. There was a moment of confusion. Strange to have authority, ya know? I could see Bill look a bit surprised and half expected him to follow it with

uh...what else ya got? ha.

Instead he told them that if anything else caught on fire, he'd find where they lived and talk to their parents and the cops.

As they got on their bikes and rode off, the girl screamed back that she wanted her lighter back...blah blah blah.

LB didn't understand, any of it. Not the meaness, not the fire, not the yelling.

Then B-ill and I started feeling regret. Like what kind of good did it really do? I mean really? I half expected those kids' parents to show up on our way home and wanna kick our asses. Or our house to be burnt down in the near future. Or something more sinister and terrible. I started to fear. Not just about this case in particular, but more about the state of the world and how people are raising their children in response to, or is it the other way around?

Like the world is so tough and mean and ugly that they've gotta weed out of their children any bit of compassion, conscience, and innocence, just so they can make it. Of course, any fool can see that logic, but any person, of the less-foolish variety can see how it also breaks the fuck down. Foster the natural, and it is natural, compassion and goodness in children and the world gets less ugly. Less scary. Less terrible.

And for fucks sake, leave my cherry tree alone!

yarnhead and squarewords

Hubba hubba. Does my yarnhead turn you on? Heh. I will make this yarny bit work. I'm feeling a bit higher and not just because we got to lead the magical creatures parade to the neighborhood fair today. Yep, all marchy and stompy and magical, we were right behind the fire engine and we rocked those 3 blocks!

Nope, I'm feeling better all around. Givin' it time, workin' hard, makin' secret plans. A few people let me know that they'd love to see handspun in larger quantity, and that is what my original plan was, so I'm gonna start (though it's too late this week) doing some larger lots, maybe 200-500 yards.

As for Studio Saturdays...
Have I mentioned my cutie little elfie Design I teacher. He's just adorable. I wanna tweak his nose and have him dance around me making little clucking sounds. And his class rocks! I wish I had the project we did last week but he collected it. I'll post it when I get it back. However, I do have this week's assignment. Which was to make a bunch of thumbnails of 4 black squares on one white square that represent 10 different words. Then you choose your best 6 thumbs and did larger one, but still only 4 inch by 4 inch. The black squares could be any size and overlap or be cropped on the edge. Then we were supposed to mount 2 on 3 pieces of bristol board, either using a thick black boarder of paper, or a thin border ruled off by pen, and the word written under. Hem. Lots of explaination, eh?

Here's mine. Do they evoke? Invoke? Revoke? Revolt?

The words are, from left to right, top to bottom -- playful, falling, bold, order, lonely, and congested. You may have to click on the pic to be able to really see.

Glum

While I try to keep this outta here, and I may even delete this later -- I'm feeling kinda low. A bit depressed. Wierd and achey and well, just down. I'm sure, well, I hope, that it'll last just a short time, but still. Feh. The world is depressing and, so often, ugly. I want so bad to spin and sell, and knit and design. I want it so bad but I've no idea how to do that whole marketing thing. The pattern on Knitty really helped for about four days. I sold ALOT of yarn in those four days. But since, not so much. I'm thinking about taking an ad out in bust. Or swathing myself in handspun and running otherwise naked through downtown. Not that this is all about the yarn. I don't think. It's just a thing. Everything. You know.

Bah. Who wants to read this crap?! Next time I put fingers to keys, I'll try not to be so glum.

SP6, I'm finally a joiner!

1. Are you a yarn snob (do you prefer higher quality and/or natural fibers)? Do you avoid Red Heart and Lion Brand? Or is it all the same to you?
I suppose I am. I didn't mean to be, promise. When I first started knitting I bought like 50 dollars worth of red heart, no dye lot, unfortunately I still have most of it. Spinning has spoiled me.

2. Do you spin? Crochet?
I spin like the dickens, or I dick like the spinnins! either way, I make some freakin' yarn!

3. Do you have any allergies? (smoke, pets, fibers, perfume, etc.)
I might as well be allergic to smoke, it's that bad for me. I miss CA for that very reason, no smoky bars! I also dislike perfumy smells. ick.

4. How long have you been knitting?
Since the beginning of this year. hehe. Short, I know, but it's not the size of the wave, it's the motion in the ocean, baby!

5. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
Nope. am I supposed to? I didn't know people did that, I get on it someday when I've got an extra minute, or 10.

6. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products etc.)
hmmm...food-y smells, woody smells, deep smells, nothing floral, or too pretty.

7. Do you have a sweet tooth?
No, I have a whole mouth full of sweet teeth! I love sweets! But I am vegan so there's that. But I do love them! Dark chocolate, dried sugar-less mango, cookies, anything sweet and vegan and I'm all over it like I was all over my stolen picture of nate minnis in highschool!

8. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do?
I'm a crafty gal but I'm not devoted to any other craft like I am to the fibers, oh jeez how I love the fibers, I shower with them, you know. Ok, not really, I make them wait outside the shower so they don't felt, but they do get to watch.

9. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)
I'm an ipod fiend and I love lotsa different music, some I haven't even heard yet. Some of my current favorites are: Jets to Brazil (I've got quite a thing for blake schwarzenbach), Tom Waits, Nellie McKay, Mary Prankster.

10. What's your favorite color? Or--do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can't stand?
I'm an equal opportunity colorist, though i'm a bit happy about pink/red/orange lately.

11. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
I've got a bit of a boy, three and a half, and a hairy dog named bettina.

12. What are your life dreams? (really stretching it here, I know)
Oh geez, to have my pre-pregnancy boobs back, to make a yarny living, and for the world to shift so that my boy to never has to see the ugliness. Not in that order.

13. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with?
homespun! anything with interesting colors and nice, natural fibers. I especially like plant fibers, though not so much cotton.

14. What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
splitty cotton and acrylic. I also won't use silk, unless it's that stuff that's harvested from what live silk worms left behind, that's okay.

15. What is/are your current knitting obsession/s?
I think knitting is my current knitting obsession. I'm a broad, broad.

16. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
sweaters, tanks, and socks! things you can't buy at old navy.

17. What are you knitting right now?
Wouldn't you like to know! ha. I'm trying desperately to get a secret knitting project done for submission. I've also got some other design-y ideas, I'm on a design kick, i suppose.

18. What do you think about ponchos?
You know, I don't hate them like many would suppose. I can see the functionability of them. I don't have any, never knit one and have only seen a few that I like. I will probably have one with they loose a bit of popularity, just like nate minnis!

19. Do you prefer straight or circular needles?
Circ, all the way! (umm...ciculars, not circumcisism, that's just not cool).

20. Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
I like aluminun, though the new bryspun circs are pretty nice too. Though I've got tons of small sizes, and lots of big ones too. I'm a big short on the middle sizes, 5-9s.

21. Are you a sock knitter?
yep! socks soar of 2 circs!

22. How did you learn to knit?
self-taught.

23. How old is your oldest UFO?
I don't really have any. I tend to have 3-6 projects going at once and I always finish, it's like books, can't leave them half read, I'm a bit funny that way.

24. What is your favorite animated character or a favorite animal/bird?
I have no reply to this.

25. What is your favorite holiday?
Winter holiday.

26. Is there anything that you collect
fiber. ha. And although I'm not really a collector, I LOVE, like, fucking love, Buffy! I've got all the seasons on dvd but season 6.

27. What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
vogue knitting, interweave knits and spinoff, cast on (by default) I wish I had ROWAN, but sadly, no.

28. Any books out there you are dying to get your hands on?
yep, the pluckyfluff book, and alden amos's bible of spinning (my pal natasha swears by it and she's sooo cool!).

29. Any patterns you have been coveting, but haven't bought for one reason or another??
can't think of one.

Yarn shop update

Consider the yarn shop updated! This one is my favorites this week, though some of the 2-ply merinos call to me with thier softy goodness.

Also, I wanted to add that I've heard of several people out there busy knitting up hipster. If that is indeed true, and the scared, insecure girly in me says it can't be, please send me a pic when you're through, or if you run across one in your on-line perusal. I'm clearly gonna be one of those girls with a gallery of things people have knit from my patterns - ha, just another reason for people to call me one of those girls.

Typical art 101

Studio Saturdays with Jacey.

This week in my Art 101, I did what every art 101 student should do, I drew plants. and hands. and feet. and more plants.

Drawing class this week was very cool, and very cardiovascular. After a haunting look from all the perfectly drawn eyes (including eyelashes) of most of everybody else's blind contour self portraits (yeah jodi, you think i cheated, i think some of them actually had eyeliner on!) we moved on to gesture drawing. Two models shifting poses every 30 seconds while we sketched and erased, sketched and erased. It was great fun, though I may have been the only one to think so. Then we moved on to plants scenes, typical art student fare, eh? Still gesture drawing with my Prof. changing their postions. Then on to more detailed drawings from the gesture drawings. and on. and on.

For my weekend assignment, I had to arrange 2 plants, sketch them from 3 different views, pick one, do a blind contour of it on newsprint half as big as me. Then switch to slightly nicer paper (same biggie size) and do a gesture drawing followed by some detailing of it. She wanted to be able to see lines more than just the drawing, it's history, if you will. I like that idea. Below are my drawings, first the blind contour (which didn't translate to the computer well), then the other (which I'm proud of as my first real-life-like-ish drawing). I'd like to draw your attention to the single detail that makes me happy -- in the left drawing, to the far right, right about in the middle, one of the leaves of the ivy is backwards. I didn't know I could do that shit!

I also did a few hands and feet in my sketch book, we've gotta have 50 of each by the end. Here's a few of the ones I liked -- my feet (yeah, i know), and b-ill's hand abstraction.

Yarn update tomorrow, lotso knitting tonight. Speed knitting, in fact. Secret speed knitting.

Knitty liked me!

Heya! lookit me, all on knitty and shit! My first published pattern! go check it out and try, try, try to forget about the extreme dorkiness of my last post, I know! what the hell was I thinking? you can't do an accent by just adding z to the first letter of randomly selected words, but hey, that's how I do it in real life too!. To my credit, that's really how the woman on the phone pronounced it, and not because she spoke a different dialect or anything, she was using that forcable tone, you know the one, like I should be adopting her way of pronounciation, Ten-zel. It rubbed me, and not in that feel-good way.

Yeah, so the new fall knitty is up with some lovely stuff, including my hipster pouch! here's a few pictures in case you don't wanna go to all the massive trouble of clicking you mouse. Oh yeah, the one on the right was the first one I did, it's a bit different. I've also done one with a J on it but haven't taken pictures.

Hipster

Pattern at knitty fall/05.

Evolution of veggie yarn (as told my michel from GG)

Ze veggie yarn begins in a tub, a tub like anyother tub, but ze different tub, ze veggie tub. Ze veggie fiber is more zifficult to dye, or perhaps just zifferent. Zifferent dyes, zifferent prozess, indeed. I zoak, I dye, I wrap, I wait. I wait 48 hours to azzow a good zet of colours.

Ze fiber up for for zpinning today is Tencel, apparantly to be spoken with a bit of a funny inflection, according to ze woman on ze phone. Ten-Zel. Ten-zel, after being dyed, resembles a blob of pretty uh, I can not zay ze word. All fluffy and mezzy. Observe.

Howevah, much to my zurprise, with no comb or card, it spins all smoove and lovely. Zes, I had to add some zik and zin sections only to make it zook less perfect. Who wants their yarn all perfect? Not ze, could you imagine the looks I'd get with my funny accent and perfect yarn. No Zanks.

After I spun two bobbins of ze Ten-zel, I plied zem together (zough looser than I thought, but I wanted zem balanced, you know?). And ze most lovely, shiny, smooth, zilky yarn emerged. A yarn you can wash and dry, and muzerfuckin iron.

oh zes, jacey zould like me to zay, if you ordered yarn zesterday, ze peach fuz and ze forbidden forest. It's been zent, but your e-mail is not zetting her tell you. Zank you.

Blind contour in need of chiropractor

click for a closer look

That's my first assignment in my Drawing 101 class. It's a blind contour self-portrait. In case you, like me last week, don't know what that is, I'll describe what I did -- I set up a full length mirror, placed it next to my paper, looked at my reflection in the mirror but never looked at the paper (the blind part) and drew the contours of my body. You see why I need a chiropractor, right?I had to stop a few times, take a break, etc. during those times I looked at my paper jsut to get a starting point, then began blind again. As you can see, the face was a bit easier, all smooshed up like it is. The body had a few problems. I think I've 2 sets of knees, and did you see my feet? yikes!

I'm joining the lovely and talented Jodi Green in these Saturday studio postings (shhh...pretend it's saturday, okay?) Take a look at her studio, her self portraits are amazing, and opposed to mine, actually resemble her. My own studio is a room we've been using as a family art room since we moved into this house. We thought it was important for a kid to have access to all different art supplies/projects at all times, so that he could respond to whatever vision was inside of him. Most of the art in the latter pic is by him, except for the watermelon watercolor, we did that together.

Do Something

So, you've all heard of this huge natural disaster, right? and then the man-made on that quickly followed? I don't have a Tv so many of the images, I've been spared, it's own kind of backwards privilege, yeah? The radio stories leave my eyes puffy and the internet news leave my fists clenched. I haven't talked about it, nor do I really plan to here, except just to say:

Get involved. Do something to help. Then do something else. Then do something to tear down this system that we've stood by and let become, it can't be rebuilt, it's gotta go.

Shit, I just heard that rehnquist is dead. Now bush's got another chance to make his lawless, renegade, compassionless creedo a lasting part of this uh...land of the brave. Here's hoping he's not got the political capital to push through Thomas or Scalia and here's to knowing that he does. Fuck.

In the world that is immediately mine, far from too much water and a fucked up president, it was dye day. It's all still hangin' on the porch (it's now 6 am) and I with my fingers crossed that some little yellow finch doesn't decide to take up reisidence. I did 3 lbs, hoping that'll last me at least 2 weeks. These dye days have gotta get further apart, hot and long as they are. I also did some vegetable fiber, 2 lbs of bamboo, ramie, tencel, and soy silk. They're hiding out in their own plastic tub, counting the minutes until their debut.

I'd have secret and obtuse visions of hidden knitting to show but just realized a substantial part of the covert project, somehow, got knit on the wrong circ. needle. How the hell does that happen, you ask? It takes much skill. It takes less skill to rip it all out. Argh. Knitting news soon. Really, though it is a bit slower lately, school is kicking knitting's ass.

Ye oldee yarne shoppee.eeee.e

Ye olde yarne shopeee. eeee. ee. is open and set up for biznas! Yay! It's actually been ready for a few days but apprehension and a wierd sort of nervousness gripped me like a child's arm as I left for drawing class. I just couldn't do it. I kept coming up withe other changes for it, changes that would stall, and stall, and stall. Hmmm...Finally I acquiesced, let go of my fear, pried the childs surprisingly vice-grip-like hand off, and said b-ill, take it live!.

That's not to say there's not a few more things I coulda hemmed and hawed about. The cute-y little buttons (one for my blog and one for my yarn page) are not up, and niether is the very important news that I'll be updating with new yarns every sunday. Also, it's new so please be patient while I work out any buggies, there's sure to be some. Just leave me a comment or e-mail me iffin' you see/have any.

Heh. Notice that I waited until bloglines was down and that sexy plummer was wooing us all. Baby steps. Toe in the water.

Also, since it's 6 am and I just woke up, here's the dream I was having not 5 minutes ago:

I was on a school outting. We (about 10 of us, varied ages etc) were walking toward the edge of a concrete embankment, under an overpass. As we approached, I saw some bubbles coming from under the surface. As it emerged and I could tell it was a dolphin, I yelled to the others. The dolphin dipped it large majestic head from the water, looked at us with rubbery eyes and we could all see the innate intelligence. Got any food? it squeked in a demanding sort of way. I remembered we had some pizza and old melon )non-aerated, like it'd been in a fruit cup far too long) and ran the 30 feet back to the middle of the asphalt where, apparantly, we kept such treasures. When I returned, the dolphins friend, a brown bear, had joined the wait. I started with the melon, you know, fruit, nature etc. They didn't care for it. The pizza was a big hit. The bear was half outta the water for the next piece while the dolphin munched daintily. Someone in the group said thier eating like crazy and the dolphin stopped and repeated was I crazy before this? was I crazy before this? was I crazy before this? in that kind of monotone, girl-interrupted way. Then he/she shook it off, gave a firm NO to itself and proceeded to finish the pizza.

Heh. yeah, check out the yarn shop and let me know what you think!