Insubordiknit

Pan, Pam, and books

Because I'm all about bringing a little sunshine to your morning, I give you -- Little Bit Pan! He has not taken this off since the little faerie girls lent it to him. I'm going to sleep as Peter Pan! Couldn't you just eat him up!?

So, you may or may not have noticed that I haven't had much new stuff up in the shop these past 2 weeks. Well, I am spinning. Like. A. Fiend. It's just all sold already. Shops with big orders and then there's the fact that I'm spinning for Stitches East also, so there's very little to put up for sale. However, I'm going to put up a few every other week, I promise. I'm finally working on trickle down economics, yeah, so stay tuned!

I've knitted a ton too! I've got another FO that I'll get to in the next few days and yesterday I cast on for Little Bit's slip stich sweater. More on those soon.

Remeber a few weeks ago I asked for your book recommendations? Well, I've read several since then -- all 3 of the L.Lowery books -- so good, except I wanted them to be longer and deeper, not written for the teen set but you know...for me. Well written though, you know how there's some books that the language takes a front seat to the story and you sit agape at the skill (like anything by david foster wallace), and there's some books that the story is so good you overlook the shitty writing, and there's books like this, where the language dissapears behind the story. You hardley realize you're reading, it's just story. All 3 (the giver, gathering blue, the messenger are quick reads and if you know of a pre-teen/teen, hand 'em over!

Donna Tartt's Secret history was good. I mean, not a book that'll change your life or even stick with you for long after, but a good read, a really good read. It's one of those I stayed up late to finish but once it was done, it was done. You know? I just had to know how it ended, but once it did end, I didn't care anymore.

Ohhh, ohhh, I read The Life of Pi by Y. Martel. Hot damn! Read it! I loved it. Boy. Tiger. Lifeboat. What's not to love? It's the triumph of man, the triumph of animal, plus some ooey goooey parts!

Have you all read Lick my Sticks? Pam is so adorable. Look what she just made outta a yarn I sent her a while back! Cute! Only cuter if the pic had been of her hot little self!

Orangina

A finished object that I absolutely love! For those of you who don't know, this is orangina fromStefanie Japel of Glampyre and I knit it with the sexy knitter's kal. It was a simply delightful pattern to work, my first in lace, in fact. The pattern was easily memorized and was interesting yet mindless enough to knit while enjoying season 1 of Galactica on DVD. I used the rec'ed yarn, 4 balls of rowan 4-ply in a color most-not-me tutti-fruitti. But forget about how easy and fun it was to knit, how brilliantly simple the construction was, and instead just look how cute I look!

Orangina

Would you look at that! How do I have a finished object with all that podcasting going on? And not only a finished object, but a finished object that I absolutely love! For those of you who don't know, this is orangina fromStefanie Japel of Glampyre and I knit it with the sexy knitter's kal. It was a simply delightful pattern to work, my first in lace, in fact. The pattern was easily memorized and was interesting yet mindless enough to knit while enjoying season 1 of Galactica on DVD. I used the rec'ed yarn, 4 balls of rowan 4-ply in a color most-not-me tutti-fruitti. But forget about how easy and fun it was to knit, how brilliantly simple the construction was, and instead just look how cute I look!

Podcast done!

I don't have a button yet, but here it is! My podcast page, my first podcast and lotsa ways to subscribe.

Progress

Podcast. I've been so obsessed with it, trying to figure it all out and keep it from being as boring as spit. We'll see. I hope to have it up by tomorrow. Exciting, at least I think so. Gotta figure out the RSS bit, and if I wanna use lisbyn or not...So there's a reason I've not been all bloggy.

Do you listen to podcasts? If so, what are your favorites? Lately I've been hanging on every word or Brenda Dyne's. Oh, and Sage Trytle, of quirky nomads. Please, share! What do you like?

Another is that I really have been knitting. I'm so close to finishing everything I have on the needles. The Hoody is coming along swimingly, I've got everything done less the shaping at the top of both sleeves. So, you know, one more night of actual knitting and then in my mind I can call it done. But of course, that doesn't include the seaming, which I'm not so morally opposed to as others I know.

The Bea Arthur cocoon monstrosity is also almost done. I've got the sleeves totally done, including this wonderful 4 inch cuff in seedstitch out of the chartruese 2-ply handspun. I think it made the sleeves. I need to do some short row shaping around the inner edge before I begin the same seedstich band around the inner edge and collor, because as it stands now, it only reaches to the point of maximum protrusion. I need a bit more.

And happily, orangina is almost done as well. 2 more inches of ribbing and then a few easy seams.

I know this entry is quick and there's no pretty pictures to accompany but I've gotta get back to the newer technology -- podcasting. It's my new baby. Heh. Don't worry, I'll be back soon.

Oh another quick thing, for the summer, I'm decreasing the shop updates to every other monday. I'm still spinning as much, but I'm holding it back for Stitches East. So, no update this week, next monday -- good, good stuff. Over there is a button for my blog and/or yarnshop, if you're so inclined, download it and stick on your stuff!

Horny devil fairy

In place of actual content, I give you the self proclaimed horny devil fairy. No, really. Last weekend he ran around the fairy festival with those very words coming out of his little lips.

The shop is updated with lots of luxurious stuff, and lots of yardage. I'm not sure why, maybe because of the sadness that had me in it's grips, but I spun way more more traditional type yarns this week, and lots of it. One has over 800 yards, and a few around 400. Hmmm...grief affects a girl in strange ways. I also put up a few monster hat kits and I've got some saved back as I build a new Kpixie order.

And the knitting, I know I said...but I lied. Soon. Bill's been on a mini-tour and I haven't had much time to take pictures or get my head on straight. It's taken all my evening hours to get my new podcast in order! Yeah, a podcast, featuring me, with the voice of a drunk 5 year old. Should be up by Tuesday as soon as Bill hobbles into town. Man, how do single parents do it? Props. And now the van broke down in Mississippi and they're stuck. Heh, maybe it really was a bad idea to get a vanagon for free off craigslist and then try to take it on tour. Ya think?

Also, thanks for all the e-mails this week and last. I'm so terrible about returning words, it's not you, it's me...really. They mean so much and if I were a more, well, together person, I'd be able to tell each and every one of you in a private e-mail. As it stands, thanks.

Grief

Death, I've a lot of feelings about death. I've been thinking about it a lot lately. A close friend of my family died this past week. Not only a close friend but a close friend's son, the same person actually, just tied in many ways. I imagine the sadness his mother must feel and it hurts me in a place I can't quite name, like that itch that you feel in your back and it never occurs to you that the itch is actually on the back of your knee, the kneepit, so you never scratch there, and you go on itching. That's how I've felt this week, like I can't quite find the place where my sadness starts.

I suppose the place I could look, the most obvious, is simply the loss of a friend's life. The loss of youth. The loss of promise. The loss of his voice. The loss of how the section of his face from right above his lip to to the top of his glasses, looked.

The loss. Of course that's what I'm sad about. But If I look more, I see my own connection as a mother, to lose a child, I can't imagine it. Really, just can't imagine. Sometimes, when Bill is late or I don't know where he is, it takes me less than 2 minutes to run through exactly what I'd do, what I'd sell, who I'd stay with, where I'd move, how I'd make it, the scope of my sadness, which feels devasting, and I'm sure is not even nearly how terrible it would be. It's not that I don't love him. I do, so much, he's been my rock and touchstone for so long now, 10 years. He's put up with being married to a queer girl with lots and lots of quirks, and he loves me. But I can imagine it. I don't like to, but I can. I can not imagine losing my son. Just can't even do it. It's outside my mind, a non-thought. I would be empty. Lost. Perhaps even die. And so my deeper grief is with my friend, the mother of the friend that died. Her, I don't know how she's standing and I guess it's only by virtue of the fact that she has to.

Another conenction for me, one that is less tangible and further back, is my own father, who died when I was just walking. I don't really have grief about that. I never knew him and I ended up with a step-father that taught me so much and whom I love like there was never another. But there was another, and while I don't often think about him, lately I've been thinking about his death. Particularly how his death affected my 24 year old mother, who had me, a 2 year old, and my brother, 9. She also had to keep standing, I don't know how she did it either. And his mother, my grandma chobie, who is actually my grandma Chavela, but I could never say that so grandma chobie is all that she's ever been. She stood, with all of her great sadness. I saw that sadness each summer I went to visit them, everytime she looked at me. A part of her died, she told me. Not the part of her heart that held him, that part flourished, but some of the other parts, they died.

I've been wieghed down by all of this grief lately, their grief. I feel like maybe if I can carry some of it, they can stand, but I don't think it works that way. It's not like lifting a piano, the more people the less each has to bear. Grief is your own, no matter how many people share it, try to take it's burden, it just grows to accomodate. Thankfully, joy is the same way. and love. and memories.

Next up, knitting. I promise.

Family socks

It is on this morning, the day after a terrible, tragic accident that cruely ended something so full of promise and life, that I feel so strongly oriented towards my family. Last night I got the phone call with the news I could sense with the first muttered note. With hand over mouth I mumbled things not even worthy of being said the first time, things incoherent and meaningless. How stupid. How wasteful. Life doesn't know what it's missing. Stupid life. And beautiful. I put down my big, long projects and picked up something small, something less time between beginning and end but with a purpose and use. They match my favorite new shoes that my folks bought me a few weeks back. Fifty percent, meeting in the middle, like a family, with darkness all around. I don't know why that seems relevant. My own family hums in my ear and I weep for a family out there that's one light less.

This morning I wear my family socks, my family shoes and I hold my own boy in my lap, with the sun coming up, thankful...and sad...and joyous.