Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Tax the Rich

 

Movie Monday

 

Cornell West, who can bloviate at times, got it right recently when he said that Obama was a disaster, but Romney would be a catastrophe. The difference to me is that Obama will defend social programs in his second term (that is, if he doesn't get a veto proof Republican Congress) as long as maintaining them will not hurt capitalism while Romney will gleefully wield his red pen and slash away at them. In spite of all the false accusations calling Obama everything from Muslim to Marxist, he can proudly claim to have saved capitalism as the 1% know and love it in his first four years. Not much of a legacy to his scores of 2008 progressive/liberal supporters but it'll look great on his resume if and when he ever enters the corporate world.

 

Marijuana criminalization, Julian Assange/Bradley Manning, abridgement of the Bill of Rights..... it's a very long list I'm thinking about as I decide if this November I'm going to vote for a presidential candidate. (No, in spite of my disappointment my option was never Romney.)

 

Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston (2010) is the movie I saw this week. It only got a 5 on IMDb and looking through professional critics, it didn't fare much better with them.

 

I've always found the fashion world extremely frivolous but it is also a most reliable gauge for understanding capitalism. Fashion will produce any kind of product as long as it has a buying public. Frivolous? Unnecessary? Practically unwearable? What? They worry? The goal is that consumer base. Produce it. Create the demand. Sell it. Retire it. Produce again. Create another demand........ Like last year, when I read that pink was the new black. In the billion dollar fashion world that may be. Not in the world where we mere mortals live.

 

In spite of the faults critics find with Ultrasuede, intentionally or unintentionally, it shows viewers the 1970s with its drugs, sex, and wild living which got chronicled on the evening news and helped bring forward an opposition which coalesced into the fundamentalist right we "enjoy" today. Although the hi-jinks portrayed in this film may not have visited the US heartland, places like Studio 54 in NYC were located in the media center of the world and that's what got reported on the evening news. Ultrasuede, while centered around Halston's rise and fall, presents fully a life style which unfortunately became the warning metaphor for what a society would look like if it were ruled by the "left." 

 

So, if you ever ask: How did the right get so entrenched that it wields such a mighty moral sword on the political stage today? take a look at Ultrasuede and see the 1970s as portrayed on TV. A lot of it wasn't a pretty sight.

 

There are two section of Ultrasuede which got highlighted in my brain. One is when someone is explaining Halston's genius by saying that he would put the fabric on the floor, visualize the final garment and just cut. The narrator then said something like: I wish Halston had spent the time telling how he was able to do this but he was more interested in telling about all the famous people who bought his clothes. While I don't like high fashion, Halston started out with sleek, minimalist designs. They were probably all cut on the bias (more expensive; uses more fabric) so they draped well on most figures. I would like to know today how he did it, not whom he dressed.

 

The second section is peppered throughout the end of the film, first when Halston sells the rights to his name to Norton Simon. He apparently was the first designer to license himself. I'm sure he made scads of money, (he spent scads of money; apparently $100.000 yearly for flowers) but as time went on he found he sold him soul to the devil and he wasn't getting it back. Then came deals with J.C. Penney and others. Selling out for money only gets you money and for a creative person, that's the death knell. The life style of drugs, parties, fame and sex didn't help this boy from Iowa either. 

You can watch Ultraseude on two levels: a cautionary tale for creative people and the world before the fundamentalist right came to power. Maybe not a great documentary, but archivally important.

 

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Tax the Rich

 

Knitting Friday

 

The Diet: Well, I think that 1/2 hour a day on the treadmill is helping to firm the fat. That's the good news. Now, the struggle will be to remove the fat, firm or not. I'm thinking about going on a very, very low carb diet. I know in the long run then don't work but right now, I'm only looking at short term. OK, revised plan: eating nothing with a carb percentage in the 20s or more. To be continued.......

 

The weather has turned slightly dryer and cooler so I got out all my summer tops (I know that's pretty stupid since I should be getting out my fall/winter tops but then for some reason I always clean closets when I'm having a party) and pulled out the hems on five of them plus frogged two completely. One was a cardi which I never wore and I'm remaking as a top; the other is a light wool (not really summer) top in fingering. It's not because I'm losing weight. I've always work fingering weight tops on 120 stitches for the body on US 9 needles, but this one is way too big around the waist. So I recast on 100 stitches for the body and that should work. What all these alternations have taught me is that top down knitting is the way to go. There was no way I would have been able to rework the waists on these tops if I had to take them apart in pieces. 

 

I still haven't finished a shawl with the new modified pattern I post last week since those top alternations kept me busy. Unfortunately, I'm not anywhere close to being finished so pictures will be a while in coming.

 

Two weeks ago, I mentioned the Emily Ocker's cast on method. A very good video on it can be found here:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U65eywy044g 

 

I used this video to teach myself this method. Why do you need this method of cast on? Well, if you are only going to knit flat forever, you don't. But all sock, hat, mitten and glove knitters would benefit from learning it. Plus in MMario's Yahoo Group where he so generously presents probably over 100 free shawl patterns, so many of them start "Cast on 8 stitches. Join."

I have always found that when working a small cast on which must be joined I have to sit at the table (working horizontally on the table top so no stitches fall from the DPNs) with a crochet hook. Now, the EO method does use a crochet hook but in such a way that when you finally pull the yarn end to close the beginning hole, all the stitches are flat and smooth, unlike my easy-to-feel, raised crocheted cast on loop.

 

#1 Pictured DPN = your finger

I have added a few pictures to the video since the beginning confused me slightly. Picture #1 shows your finger (as played by a DPN) with the yarn end on the bottom and your working yarn on top. 

#2 Yarn end goes R; working yarn to L

Picture #2 shows where your yarn should be as you start to wrap a loop around your finger. (My picture #2 is wrong in that based on picture #1, your working yarn should go over your finger, not under - sorry, I just saw that. But you do see where the yarns go.)

 

At about .25, the video has you making the loop around your finger. It's not clear, but you are making the loop with your working yarn. So taking the top yarn from #1, bring in to the the bottom over your finger then around your finger, back to front, so that you will have two loops on your finger with the yarn positioned as in picture #2. You'll have two ends hanging down, the yarn end on the right and the working end on the right. 

 

.25 to .31 in the video shows this well, but he says something like: Make sure that the tail end of your yarn is closer to your hand. That confused me for a while because he really meant to say: Make sure that the tail end of your yarn is closer to your finger tips. (To the right.)

From .31 to 1.49, the video is great showing you how to make your beginning  crochet stitches. In fact by 1.49, you could take the loop from your finger and work it as a stand-alone but practice a few times before you try this.

#3 Loop "standing" without your finger

Picture #3 shows a few more stitches in the loop than 1.49 on the video, but you can see that I've removed my finger and the loop is very defined.

 

 

By now, if you've worked some samples as you watched the video, it should be smooth sailing to the end.

 

Just remember that every stitch on the hook starts with the hook going under the loop, and pulling through the yarn to put one stitch on the hook,. Then you bring your hook over

#4 Stitches on DPNs

the loop to grab the yarn  and bring that yarn over your loop and through the stitch you just put on your hook. Then one stitch is completed.

 

In picture #4, you see the stitches from the hook (obviously with different yarn) now on DPNS. You're looking down at the loop/hole you made with the hook and you won't close this for a while. 

#5 Hole is closed

In picture #5, I just pulled the tail end of the yarn to close up the hole. Believe me, it was breeze, once I mastered the EO cast on to knit on the DPNs. No more hugging the table to make sure I didn't twist everything into a mobius. And, no more bumpy loop at the cast on.

#6 Ready to rip out

Finally picture #6, a side view of my sample. Hole closed with yarn end on the left and no needles on the "free" stitches on the right because my sample example is done and I'm ready to rip it out. Talk about a compulsive frogger!

 

Hope these pictures helped. Enjoy working the Emily Ocker cast on. See you next week.

 

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Tax the Rich

 

Website Wednesday

 

Once in my teens, I went to a party where the conversation was predominately about trains and it was before my knitting days so my face probably showed my inner boredom and driving home with this guy, he turned to me and said: You know, not everyone is interested in trains.

 

Which brings me to my website pick:

 

http://9wows.com/  

 

and once again you get to look at, what I consider, Wow pictures. But just like my introduction, I get it that you may not be inspired as I am when I see these pictures nor wish to spend any time contemplating life, the world, the whole nine yards, as you look at these magnificent places. I get it; but I'm still going to be on the lookout for great picture sites.

 

And keeping with my passions:

 

http://listfave.com/  

 

More lists! You know how I love annotated lists and you get a lion's share here. Plus, it looks easy as pie for you to submit your own list. A lot of the lists are prepared by the webmaster, Raja, and the text he prepares to accompany each picture looks factual. Of course, when you're reading the "10 Top" of anything, the judgment is subjective; but the pictures draw you in and if you read the text, you won't leave without learning something. Now, that's a bargain! Plus, it's nice to find a site for which its founder has a passion.

 

Just two fun sites today but, hey, it's summer in the US. Enjoy.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Tax the Rich

 

 Movie Monday

After the Gracchi brothers were assassinated in 2 BCE, Rome lost all vestiges of democratic/representative government. Oh, the charade of "electing" an emperor was continued for a while and that emperor would throw crumbs to the poor when social discontent was high but the reality was that reform measures to help the less fortunate were history and absolute power was held in the hands of the very rich who basically only had to appease their "private" army, the Roman legions, until the fall of the Roman empire in the 476 CE.

 

It looks like the 2012 US presidential election may be a time when this country might be honestly compared to Rome at the time of the Gracchi. (I usually see a stronger comparison to Spain in the 16th century.) However, I think that all the years that Americans have been told that their best interests were always served when capitalism was vigorously defended has taken its toll and we are way past the tipping point for caring about our less fortunate citizens.

 

Just like those medieval farmers whose thoughts I ponder as they looked up from their fields to see Mongol hordes descending; the barbarians are now at our gate. But unlike that toiling farmer who could not control his fate, we are to blame. Unlike Theoden facing the orcs at Helms Deep, we can't ask: How did it come to this?  It came to this because we, as a society, allowed it. Whether it was ignoring Jimmy Carter ringing the alarm bell decades ago or the OWers' largely ignored, brutally put-down, recent protests, we walked away from the challenge of protecting the social contract. It was easy to do and we were so very busy with our private lives. Pretty depressing times ahead, I'm afraid. I think I need to find a Manichaean for a good (or evil) talk. 

 

http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_top100films.htm

 

OK, back to the movies. No reviews this week but click on the outdated list above for a list of  the top 100 films. I said "outdated" because a British VIP list now puts Vertigo as the #1 movie in the world, beating out Citizen Kane. That's a mistake for while I think Hitchcock is a superior director (even his inferior Topaz has great touches like the conversation you see but can't hear), Citizen Kane, like the work of the much earlier D. W. Griffith, was a break-through movie. Welles did things as a director which had never been done. Plus, it told a damn good story. 

 

Looking at the top ten movies, I've seen them all and I'll still take issue with 2001. What a slow, boring movie (it also always pops up in my movie package so I'm sure I'm in the minority.) While I can understand the excruciatingly slow pace in space since space astronauts always seem to move so deliberately, those damn apes at the opening were on earth!. I was so frustrated with that pace I was ready to grab the rock and bean one of them just to move the plot along.

 

The site says of itself: They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? should be viewed primarily as a cinematic traffic cop. In other words, we'll guide you in the direction of each director's best work (both from our own perspective and also from a critical-acclaim perspective).

 

I like the fact that in the top 10 films, 4 are foreign films. And a fantastic plus is all the links: to Amazon (you don't have to buy, just read reviews) and to other reviewers' thoughts on the film. This site, with all its links, will provide you with weeks, if not months, of reading. I know it's not Website Wednesday but I'll steal a phrase from it: This site is worth many return visits. Enjoy.

 

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Tax the Rich

 

Knitting Friday -  The Shawl Pattern, Crocheted Version

The Nameless Shawl, the slightly crescent crocheted version (which I love, though nameless, because you work to length and then to width so if you don't have enough yarn you get a scarf and not a visit to the frog pond):

Background: This shawl is made up of loops or "little boxes" with sides of double crochet or a chain 3 and each top and bottom as a chain 5. If you use a large hook and thin yarn, you'll get large loops. If you use a smaller hook, the loops will be smaller and you'll probably have a warmer shawl. I've made these shawls for summer wear over tanks and camis with crochet thread using an E hook and using a K hook.  In the  winter, using wool and wrapped around your neck, they can be as warm as thermal. Below the directions, I have pictures to explain what might be tricky if you're working your first shawl.

Abbreviations: Ch = chain; DC = double crochet; SC = single crochet; T = turn

Hook and Yarn Choice: See above but work #1 and #2 below in the Foundation Row section with a hook at least one size larger than the one used for the rest of the shawl.

Cast On: Ch a multiple of 5 ch + 8 ch. (I do a Ch 38  for 30 + 8.) 

Foundation Row: Use larger hook
1.  In the 13th ch from the hook make a DC.  (The 13 chains make the bottom of  a loop [5 ch], the side of a loop [3 ch] and top [5 ch]. The DC you make forms the last side of the loop.)
2.  *Ch 5 and work a DC in each 5th chain to the end*.  (6 loops) 

Pattern Row w/ Increases to Length:  Use your regular hook
1.  T. (Mark this row as your RS. On this row, the beginning yarn hangs on the right side of the row.)
2.  [ Ch 8 (= 1 DC and 5 ch)  and work a DC into the first loop. Ch 5 and work a DC into the same loop. (2 DC in first loop.)
3.  Continue *Ch 5 and make one DC in each loop* across to the last loop.
4.  At the last loop: *Ch 5 and work a DC in last loop, 2xs*] (2 DC in last loop.)
5.  T and work every row as stated in [#2, #3, and #4.]
6.  Continue working this row until your shawl is long enough. Be sure to end ready to work a RS row.

To remember in Pattern Row w/Increases to Length section:
1. Every row begins with Ch 8 but for the rest of the row, you work Ch 5.
2. Increases occur at the beginning of the row only. That's why you have to work a RS row and a WS row for the pattern (even though it's the same row) in order to keep the increases balanced.
3. You know you're at the last loop because every last loop ends with a ch 8, not a ch 5. You should be able to tell the difference. Use a movable marker if you can't.

Pattern  to Width: No Increase Section

1. From the RS: [Ch 8 and work one DC in the first loop.
2.  *Ch 5 and work one DC in each loop across, even the last loop.* T]
3.  Repeat [# 1& #2]  to your desired width. End with your RS facing.

To remember in Pattern to Width section:
1. Every row begins with a ch 8 but uses a ch 5 for the rest of the row.
2. There is only one DC in each loop; no increases;

3. Use a movable marker on the first and last loops of every row though the Ch 8 should remind you that you're at the last loop.

4. Count the number of loops in your first row. This number shouldn't change.

That's it. You can wear the shawl as is or work an edging around the whole shawl or just the bottom. Depending on the type of yarn I use, sometimes I block this shawl, sometimes I don't.

 

Pictures:

#1 The CO

#2 The Foundation Row

 

 

#3 Increases

#4 More increases

#5 No increase section

 

1. This is the CO of a multiple of 5 ch + 8 ch. The blue yarn shows the 13th chain from the hook.

2. The foundation row with the blue yarn hanging shows where you made your first DC in the 13th chain from the hook. When you flip the foundation row over to start the next row, you will be crocheting on the RS.

3. The blue row is your first increase row. Count the loops in the foundation row (6.) In the blue row you get 8 and in the top white row you get 10. You've made 4 "balanced increases.The beginning yarn is on the RS so you are ready to work a RS row.

4. More increases. If you can enlarge this picture, you'll see three pennies in loops on both sides. They show that you must work a RS and a WS row before you get your 4 balanced increases. (Two pennies in the beginning loop for increase loops. One penny in the last loop for no increase - even though both the first loop have two DCs worked into them.) You can see the crescent shape forming. Notice I forgot to mark my RS row. 

 5. I've started to crochet the No Increase section. I've marked the first and last loops with long blue yarn and if you count the loops on the blue yarn row and the top row, you'll find the loops are the same number. You can also see that the edges of the shawl don't curve like picture #4 anymore.

 

Final thoughts: 

1. The top of the shawl (by the blue row #5) come out a bit rather than making the perfect top of a crescent.  You can block this into "line" or just turn it over for a small "collar" under your hair.

2. A real plus feature of this shawl is that the ends are less wide than the body. Great for folding over and securing with a shawl pin; less bulk and it stays on my shoulders.

3. I just started making this shawl with a Ch 8 at the beginning of each row. Before I just used a Ch 5 and this made the top of the shawl definitely tighter than the bottom (which was easy for finding the difference.) I'm hoping this change will loosen things up a bit and may even change the shape from slightly crescent to almost rectangle. When I get my first revised shawl done, I'll post a picture.

4. A knitted version of this shawl in garter is OTN right now. As soon  as I'm finished I'll post this version. (Not necessarily in garter but knitted rather than crocheted.) 

5. And really important, please tell me if I've made any mistakes with the pattern. Thanks.

 

Enjoy.

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Tax the Rich

 

Website Wednesday

 

Yesterday, I waited over 1 1/2 hours for the boy at Kumon since they do not let you go until they see that you have mastered a concept and he has hit the wall with re-grouping mixed numbers in subtraction problems. He told me that they only touched on regrouping at the very end of 5th grade in school during the time everyone was getting excused to practice for the last big assembly program. But it obviously has to be mastered by 6th grade because his  6th grade summer math packet has a lot of regrouping problems. Re-grouping is writing numbers a different way, for those of you who, like me, had forgotten this math concept. In a mixed number subtraction problem when the upstairs numerator is smaller than the downstairs numerator after you give both fractions a common denominator, you would borrow 1 from the upstairs whole number and rewrite it as a fraction. In the problem 3 3/5 - 1 4/5 you would rewrite 3 3/5 as 2 + 5/5 + 3/5. Then you would have the problem 2 8/5 - 1 4/5 which you can subtract easily.

 

Anyway, he's in the classroom working away and I have the iPad and I'm reading from my Great Book app - for a very long time. If you have an iPad, I strongly recommend you download the Great Books app (Books HD). It costs $2.99 and I think I mentioned that some users grouse about having to pay for public domain books. Since I really like their format and the ability to increase font size, that doesn't bother me. The latest upgrade adds a lot of public domain 20th century books, (I rewarded? punished? myself by starting Joyce's Ulysses yesterday.), and maybe some 21st century books also since I saw Obama's inaugural speech. Plus, this update has added audio books. I am psyched!

 

All this leads me to my website pick of public domain books today:

 

http://manybooks.net/ 

 

which has an easy to remember title: Many Books. You can take a look at the About page but this is pretty much a WYSIWYG site though occasional updates can be found on Twitter. They feature Books of the Week on the main page and clicking the left side bar will get you into genres which interest you.

I like their format. You get the essentials on the book (knowing it's an English translation is a real plus for me), an excerpt, usually some user viewers and then a right bar asking you so choose how you want to download your selection. What could be simpler?

 

Talking about English translations, click Languages for more language options. Or click on New Titles for up-to-date additions. Also, a nice feature is the clickable link to LibriVox if the book is available in audio form.

So I guess I really have two picks this week: iPad Books HD (Click on App Store, categories, then Books HD) and PC great books at Many Books. Both are great (sorry for the overused word) choices. Enjoy.

Final Note: The iPad does have a free app of great books but you're talking 60 books for free and 23,000+ books for $2.99. You may not have noticed in my blogs but I can be a cheap bastard; however, even I would spring the $2.99 for Books HD.

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Tax the Rich

 

Movie Monday

 

This is the anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, Japan and the day after another terrorist killed a group of people in the US. Others have tread this ground with polemics more wisely than I can but unfortunately all this just adds to the many examples that tell me our species may be fatally flawed. But thinking a lot about the evolutionary crap-shoot which endows some homo sapiens to think through this absurdity called human existence, I had a minor epiphany. You know those beavers who are always building dams? Well, who says they are? Us? The observing "other" species who is not the actual specie doing the work? So I looked at those dams again and realized that beavers are not building dams, they're just gnawing wood and dumping the used wood in the stream bed. Building dams, my eye! This is their "bellying up to the bar" and then smashing their glasses on the floor under them

 

On to the movies: Let me do a long overdue, review of Dogville  and Manderlay; basically so I can delete them from my recorder. Both are directed by Lars von Trier who also directed Melancholia . I had major problems reviewing these movies because I first thought they were book ends of the human condition as A History of Violence and Eastern Promises are. (AHOV - bad man trying to be good and EP - good man having to be bad.) But they are not that and yet they do tell the human story.

 

First, there's a tremendous "visual" problem for me with both movies since in the earlier movie, Dogville (2003), Nicole Kidman plays Grace, the mob boss's daughter and the focal character. This is chronologically followed by Manderlay (2005) with visually younger Bryce Dallas Howard as the older Grace. I don't know if you needed the same actor in both movies but the age difference "jarred" the movies apart for me so I couldn't see Manderlay as continuing the story of the Grace I knew from Dogville. They are still very good movies though the "Our Town" sets, while catchy in Dogville, appeared more strained by Manderlay. By that movie, it felt like von Trier was having function follow form which makes the artificiality more glaring.

 

A short summary of what happens in these movies: Grace, the daughter of a powerful mob boss flees him into remote Dogville, Colorado where, through no fault on her part, her relations with the townspeople deteriorate harshly to a brutal denouement. Finally accepting rescue from Dogville by her father, they and the mob travel on to Alabama where Grace discovers a plantation stuck in the time of US slavery. Deciding to stay behind to "make things right" with some mob muscle as back-up, Grace gets an unexpected lesson in how the world should work versus how it really does.

 

You can see the continuation of Grace's Christ-figure role from Dogville into Manderlay. If you accept that the Caan/Dafoe mob boss characters in each movie represent the angry, vengeful god of old, then you can find a connection between both movies as Grace, daughter of this god, wandering her forty days in the wilderness of  Dogville and Manderlay. However, it's pretty obvious that von Trier's main purpose in Manderlay is holding US racial problems up to glaring light; always a provocative theme when done well, and it is here.

 

OK, I've come this far, so let me really stretch my thoughts to breaking. Finally, we have von Trier's Melancholia (2011) which is the story of the end of our planet. Has von Trier morphed Grace into Justine here? Could Justine, who is obviously mentally unstable, be the damaged Grace after her psyche-shattering experiences in Dogville and Manderlay? With these three movies is von Trier saying: The world is absurd and can and will damage you beyond repair. But you must do the best job of living as you can. And then is he visualizing this statement when it is Justine, the most damaged and least stable member of her family, who calmly accepts their fate and is the comforting influence for the others?

 

And that folks, is why I can't give up on movies. How they are presented as an art form angers me often  and you must sift through a lot of dross to get to any gems. But they are an art form like a painting or a book which inspires you to look beyond the obvious; and it's not always the message the artist had in mind which you take away from his work.

 

You don't have to enjoy Dogville or Manderlay, or even Melancholia, they may even make you uncomfortable, but they are all well worth your viewing and thinking.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Tax the Rich

Knitting Friday

I thought I would post some progress about my latest diet on occasional Fridays. Sort of like a periodic pep talk to myself. Well, I'd like to report: no progress so far. OK, I think my face looks a little leaner but the skirt which didn't fit two weeks ago, still doesn't. I'm adding 1/2 hour of treadmill exercise every day I can but not really changing my diet except not to grab "just one pretzel" between meals. For some reason, in the last week, ice cream has played a more prominent place in my diet than I would like. (Yeah, I know, someone is holding me down and shoving ice cream in my mouth.) Let's see where that is going to lead me.

Two strands of crochet cotton

On to knitting. First, at right is one of my ubiquitous tops but this one is done in 2 strands of crochet cotton so we're talking about medium lace weight. I'm knitting it on US10 in a K one row and *YO, K2tog* the second row in the round. It's that second row which is going make this fit because when you're done it looks so small; but does it stretch! I'm making this because I love lace yarn but I just don't have the patience, nor the talent, to knit successfully with it. Crochet is a different story but I would love to knit a lace weight top and finish it in my lifetime. It looks like two strands of lace will work but as Caesar said as he crossed the Rubicon: The die is cast. Once I join two strands, there is no going back.

Unblocked

Blocked

Remember the unblocked shawl on the left from last week? Here it is blocked in a difficult-to-see picture on the right. The final shape is a slightly wonky crescent (here, the bottom of shawl is at the top) which is 72" long, 32" wide at the center and 10" wide at the ends, which makes for easy tying and adding a shawl pin. All these shawls have a personality of their own for some reason. This one reminds me of knitting with straw. 

And finally, remember I said that in the picture on the left the top of the picture is the top of the shawl? Now, that looks real wonky! It looks slightly better in the right picture after blocking but not much. 

To modify the wonkiness, I've changed the cast on. Before, I used to start these shawls with CO 5 and single crochet into the first chain from the hook to form a loop. Turn, then basically just work a  *chain 5, sc in loop* across adding two loops in a previous loop at the ends for increases when necessary until you're finished.

Top of shawl folded down

Now I chain 30 in a slightly larger hook than will use in the body of the shawl and work my first double crochet (not single crochet) for a loop in the 10th chain from the hook. Then I chain 5 and work a double crochet in every 5th chain across which eliminates much of the point you see in the picture on the left because I end up with a 5 loop base rather than a 1 loop base. (I'm sure this cast-on row could be tweaked even more.)

At the right, you can see the same shawl where I folded over the top to make a small collar.  Another change I use now is to make the loops with a double crochet rather than a single crochet. This makes a fish net look. If you don't like this look, you can still use a single crochet which adds more substance. Of course, my problem is that I never know how much yarn I have and a double crochet makes a larger shawl faster.

Lately, I've been making this pattern in crochet but it works in knit also. (The instructions can be found in a previous Knitting Friday and next week, I'll reprint my revised pattern.)

I really want to add this shawl to the Small Shawl patterns forum at Ravelry for free. It's a small "thank you" for all the free stuff I get there. Unfortunately, I want to make sure it's perfect before I do since, after looking at all the beautiful free patterns available, my pattern is really the very poor relative the table.

Next week: The revised pattern for the shawl above.

Two weeks from now: Some helpful (I hope) hints on beginning the Emily Ocker's Cast On. This is a fantastic CO for circular knitting like round shawls, hats or socks.

See you then. Happy knitting.

 

  

Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Tax the Rich

Website Wednesday

Gore Vidal died. He was an essayist when essays came with the personality of the writer and the personality of the writer blasted to his audience through the medium of TV and was not hidden within the anonymity of blogs as it can be today.

The Washington Post quotes that Vidal wanted to be remembered as the “the person who wrote the best sentences of his time.” He may very well be but those who saw him during his lifetime will always remember the dry, patrician speech cadence with which he delivered these best sentences.

I don't think I would invite Vidal to a dinner party as a convivial guest. I rather see him ensconced as the Sibyl in a cave where those wishing enlightenment traveled. And Vidal's enlightenment would never come from society's well-traveled path. He did speak truth to power unmoved by the inevitable discomfort that always brings.

Be sure to read his essays; he was a master.

In keeping with Vidal's legacy, let's start with this quirky website:

http://www.123inspiration.com/fallen-princesses-by-dina-goldstein/

I didn't get all the reference to the fairy tale princesses in these pictures but the first one of Snow White was a big clue as to what to expect. I guess you could say it's just another take on the old adage: fairy tales are only make believe. But it's very cleverly and, at times, uncomfortably (Rapunzel) done.

Be sure to click Categories on the top bar for more interesting pictures; but this page was what caught my interest.

OK, I didn't mean this to become a paean to quirkiness but try this site:

http://www.nickmom.com/blog/ 


and click on Top 9 Lists.


You know those "mom" sites where you get 10 Ways To Make Your Child Eat Broccoli  or Summer Fun In The Heat? Well, this ain't it. Here you get funny lists of what not to do with kids. Example: watching them play sports and really thinking: This kid sucks. This is the antithesis of those good parenting sites so it's fun for parents and non-parents. Click around for their Viral Videos and other stuff. I don't know if it's kid friendly though I do know you shouldn't tell your kid he sucks.

And finally, something a little more uplifting:
 
http://www.thatonerule.com/

People get to submit one rule, one line. You get inspirational, insightful, pithy, sardonic...... The most current rule, #1722 is: Never lose hope in love. Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your Prince. And the first rule submitted, #1, is: Trust your instincts and always follow your heart.

OK, I know I'm a cynic but there are times in everyone's life, and probably many times, when solace is found in cliches. And you don't have to scroll long for truisms like rule #6: Being size 0 will not make him like you. And if it does, he's a dick.

I like to read these rules because you're looking at 1700+ people who condensed a belief system into a single sentence. Now, that's interesting reading.

Enjoy the sites. I'm heading to find my book of Vidal's essays. See you next week.