Chicken Tragedy, Butt Surgery and Other Tasteful Subjects

Ah, so here I am updating after long last. It has been one hell of a ride, folks. Where to start? Well, let's just dive right in, shall we?

First, not long after I posted about the pullets, my hub and I awoke to an empty cage. Door wide open, no signs of struggle or carnage, but no pullets anywhere to be found. We still don't know whether it was vandalism, animals or not fastening the door well enough the night before, but them chicks is gone. When I'm up to it, I'll be getting at least one more hen, probably closer to equal size with Ophelia so they can go in together from the start. One thing for sure, the Eglu is secure.

Second, there's the whole "when I'm up to it" thing. Well over a month ago I started having trouble with the tailbone area hurting like hell. Eventually it was obvious I needed to seek medical help, so off to the doctor I went. That's when I learned a new term. Pilonidal Tract, to be exact. Um, don't do any google image searches if you don't have a serious amount of intestinal fortitude. Ok, now that I know you are all going off to look at gross pictures, I'll give you a minute.

Fun, eh? And surgery was the only way to deal with this for me. And yes, it isn't butt surgery, strictly speaking (thank God!) but it's close enough, let me tell you. So last Thursday I had surgery and I'm actually doing better than I thought I might. Sitting, and therefore driving are still out of the question, but I can stand like a champion.

The biggest improvement I had hoped for was in my general health and energy levels. You see, for years I had weird problems with my immune system, and had often so little energy that even though I personally don't hold with the whole Chronic Fatigue thing (no hatemail, please) at the same time I was starting to think I had it. Which was a tough little conundrum for yours truly. And there was no explanation for why my body reacted as it did to stressors and illnesses, but it was acting like I was immune compromised and would throw off all sorts of other crazy reactions. Now we think that I had a low level infection in my PT for years, and my body was constantly trying to fight off something it couldn't get to, leading to my immune system conking out and all the fatigue.

I have to say that aside from issues with the incision itself (just the usual post surgical stuff) I feel better constitutionally than I've felt in a looooooooooong time. I'm not hoping for a miracle or anything, but even if I stay where I am now, after this heals completely I'm way ahead of where I was. And I really expect to get better. So we shall see.

Yesterday was the first day I knit in a long while. I'm currently working on a pair of Embossed Leaves (rav) socks in the Bugga! Blue Orchard Bee colorway, which got put way on hold when I started feeling really bad with the abcess. I haven't even updated my Ravelry page yet, but I'm just taking things one at a time. Right now I am blogging from our secondary computer which I can stand at, but none of my pictures are on this computer so I will have to post pics later.

Anyway, I just wanted to pop in and give you all a little status report. Ophelia is hanging in there, still laying eggs for us, the postman is still delivering yarn, and I'm getting better every day. Hang in there, I should be fully operational shortly, then I'll have lotus pictures to share as well.

You may all post butt jokes in the comments now.

Gang of Four

I have 3 new handmaidens. The old one is not pleased.

Even chickengoddesses have to live and learn. And I have learned. The answer to the question of introducing new pullets to a single old hen is, um, don't do it.

You see, I have been intending to get Ophelia new friends since Gladys was killed, years ago. And probably had I done it then while she was still young it would have been fine. But not so now. I brought home 3 pullets today and tossed them in with the best of intentions. At first, they were acting like one big happy family. Then I noticed that Ophelia had started pacing and talking a lot. Whole lots. She started getting kinda schizo with the pacing and talking to herself, but was still largely leaving the pullets alone. Then she started pecking them, but only like a warning, and only when they came near her. I had hoped that this was as far as it would go, but sadly I was wrong. About the time my husband came home for lunch she had started seeking them out like some kind of chicken terminator. The littlest one found shelter between the roosting bars and the floor where she could just fit, but she couldn't stay there forever. The other two were getting bloodied and I had to do something, so I pulled Ophelia out and put her in the bathroom while I ran out and borrowed an old rabbit cage from a friend. It will definitely do for now. So now everyone is separate and safe, until the new girls get big enough to go in with Ophelia.

Originally I had named my chickens Gladys and Ophelia because those were the names my sister and I would assume as children when we played dress up at my Gram's house. But now that there's only Ophelia, I have decided to go with the theme of Shakespearean females, and after today sticking with the tragic ones seems only right. So here's Juliet (the white one), Desdemona (the black and white one) and Cleopatra (mostly black) in their first blog appearance, with Ophelia being angry, which is what she does best today. Any guesses how long before she starts laying again?

Saucy Jack

I have to tell you that the one thing you really don't want to announce on a blog is that you are going to name something. While you are writing it, the idea is just popping into your head and flowing out you fingers. And, largely, bypassing the rational thought centers of your brain. Next thing you know, it's out there and folks are commenting and now expecting some sort of greatness. And while I can't say it was well thought out at the beginning, the knitting machine bailed me out by giving itself a name worthy of your expectations. So now I and my newly working friend will show you our stuff.

First, meet Jack. Jack is a Studio SK360 from some time back in the 80s. The SK360 is a standard gauge machine. That means needle spacing is 4.5mm, also referred to as pitch. It handles fingering weight yarns (a range of sizes, probably up to a thin DK weight) best. For those of you who have or have seen the Bond Incredible Sweater machines or Ultimate Sweater Machines they have a pitch of 8 and handle worsted best. Mid gauge machines would really handle DK and sport weight best. Fine gauge machines would knit very fine yarns and threads. There are bulky machines as well. I have 2 Bond ISMs as well.

The SK360 is a manual machine. This means there are no onboard or integrated electronics. It has a punchcard reader and a knit radar built in (the integrated knit radar is, I think, unique to this machine. Otherwise it is sold separately as an attachment). Punch cards provide a mechanical method of knitting limited designs singly or repeated in either colorwork or in lace type patterns. The knit radar "reads" a schematic of the garment and tells you when to do the shaping. I am not fooling with either of these things right now. I don't know enough about them and I don't need them for this first project.

My machine came with lots of accessories. I believe it in fact came with all the accessories you could get for this model. I have a ribber, which is a second bed of opposing needles which would allow you to knit and purl simultaneously. Otherwise, ribbing on a single bed requires you stop every few rows, drop the desired stitches, then latch them back up in the correct orientation. It is a royal pain in the butt if you have lots of ribbing to do, or if you're on a standard gauge machine.

The best thing about machines? They're fast. I swatched Socks that Rock lightweight for gauge on 3 different settings. It took me about 10 minutes, and I was really distracted.
Here is your typical machine knitted swatch. What this swatch says is that the gauge I want with this yarn, 8st per inch, I can get with the carriage set to 6 (See the little eyelets above each sample? That's how you tell.) . It also told me that I had a bent needle 5 needles to the right of zero, which I replaced. If you look you can see the column of slipped stitch mess.

Armed with this knowledge and this book I prepare the machine to cast on for a sock. Today I am not using the ribber, but am going to knit it with a picot edge, top down.

Open a new window for Pandora. Check. Carriage dial set to 6, phasers set on stun. Go!

Note to self. For this sock, the hem is 6 rows, knit a 7th and make eyelets every other stitch, reset row counter to 0 and knit to 61 rows. This is where we are now.

And if we peek behind, you can see the picot edge hem behind the waste knitting.
And now the heel. I'm going to shortrow down to 12 stitches, then back up. Here we go...

And back up...
Heel!
Now a zillion more rows all over for the foot. As I'm knitting this I see that I will not need anywhere near as many rows and the calculations suggest. I cut it to 61 and I still may have a large sock. Well, we will see after all is said and done. So here we are with the toe done. Boy, these are going to be some psychedelic socks!
And the sock on waste yarn off the machine...
Lets get this seamed up and see what we have!
A large sock! But it is a sock!

My thoughts on this whole thing.

1. Machine knit swatches are dirty lying bastards just like hand knit ones!
2. The seam is not objectionable at all and can be done better with more practice.
3. The heel is too deep and the foot too big, but these are easy adjustments and I'd have the perfect sock!

I hope you have enjoyed this brief look into my crazy day of machine knitting. Me and Jack are getting to be better friends all the time. Oh, and I hope you guessed his name by now, it is...

Wait for it....

Jack the Ribber!

Stitches South, the third

So, while I am swatching madly on the machine I thought more yarn would be a nice distraction. But before that, I am going to take a moment to share a few observations regarding vendors.

This is the first fiber expo I have attended, but it is hardly the first time I have experienced this format. I have been to dealer's rooms at SciFi and anime conventions, and even been through the halls of swag at professional venues. I was surprised at some of what I encountered at Stitches.

The setup of your booth should not be so packed with stuff it blockades the customer from actually entering and continuing to browse. It should be inviting. If all you did was sit hidden and dejected in the rear of a booth like this, it is no surprise you did not do well.

If there are two people working a booth, one of them should excuse themselves from the non buying chatty customer who is only seeking attention to help the new customer who has been seriously trying to catch someone's attention BEFORE she leaves the booth. Following after me as I walk away and asking if there was something I needed help with after I wasted 10 minutes of my time trying to catch someones' eye will always result is me telling you, no, I didn't need help. You have lost a sale. I will find what I need somewhere else, because I can, even if it was your display that sold me on the item. You have lost my business.

I was also surprised at the amount of snarking I overheard from other vendors, loudly telling customers why not to shop at another particular booth. If I am not trying to eavesdrop and still hear you, I might ultimately take your advice, but I add your booth to the list as well. Except for ease of availability, there was nothing there I couldn't find somewhere else. People, this is the 21st century. Thanks to the internet, the world is my LYS.

Lastly (and I'll mention that although I did not patronize the booths I am referring to above I did eventually buy something from these last although they came close) if you are dealing in limited unrepeatable colorways, you might want to be more up front about it. I asked if there was a kit in the color of the model. I was simply told no. Then I asked if there would be anymore in the future. Again, the no. Then I had a question regarding a pattern, which I was told was not available separately outside of a kit that didn't come in any of the colorways I was interested in. Could I get any of what I wanted and they repeatedly did not have later from a website or something? I'm happy to do that. No. Were they trying to run me off?

The disturbing thing about the array of vendors at Stitches was that there were a larger number of negative experiences than I have ever come across before. I don't know if anyone else found this, but I sure did.

Excellent vendors did abound, though and they got my money. Boy did they. Aside from Gryphon, I dropped a bit of cash at Tess Designer Yarns. I did not merely buy yarn there, I bought the night itself...

There is no way I will ever get this color to photograph just right, so I'm not going to try. It just looks like the sky at night where there is no moon, just a few clouds glowing somehow. I love it. I'd better, I bought lots.

Next is the totally fun Zauberball


which is a really long change color shifting yarn. In Germany you can even get Zauberball Crazy, but those are not yet here. I have one Crazy coming from Germany at some point. I like the idea of color changes long enough to still use complicated stitch patterns and not obscure either the pattern or the colors.

There's more, but this will be it for now. Friday I should have a tutorial of sorts on machine knitting for you, right now it's back to swatching for me!

Stitches South, part deux, the director's cut extended version

What I didn't expect to find at Stitches was machine knitting stuff. But lo and behold, a booth I passed like 90 times without even looking (for some weird reason) suddenly manifested on my 91st pass, and there was Fran's Knitting Boutique, all full of knitting machines and machine related stuff. You could have knocked me over with a hank of Bugga!

Many years ago I bought a used knitting machine on ebay. I know, I know, but it really was a good deal, was an excellent model year and came with every accessory ever made for it, all for a low price when compared to buying new.

The first problem was that it was in Oregon, and I have never been anywhere near Oregon, so shipping was going to be the dealbreaker. But then I found out a friend was going to visit family in Oregon the very next month and would be within reasonable driving distance and didn't mind picking it up for me and bringing it back home with them.

If that isn't a clear message from God telling me sure, go ahead and buy a used knitting machine sight unseen on ebay, well, I don't know what is. Now, the Old Testament is really clear on what happens to people who don't obey, so I bought it. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

And everything went without a hitch and in a little over a month, I had a Studio 360 machine with a ribber and all the extra stuff you could ever have for it, and I had no idea what to do with it. So it kinda sat.

Then I found a local KM dealer and got with her and had the machine cleaned and serviced and got some basic lessons on the main bed and went home and did almost nothing with it. So I put it in storage for a while, so it could age to perfection. Ahem. Meanwhile, the dealer seemed to magically go poof! and disappeared, so I lost what support I had for the machine. Things looked bleak for my future in machine knitting.

Then, when that Rowan issue came out with the Kaffe Fassett Kidsilk Haze extravaganza of stockinette, I thought, hey, what a great project for the machine! Mostly because I hate the thought of miles of stockinette. And it worked great. But I never even began to figure out all the features much less started trying to understand the ribber, which I didn't seem to be able to even hook up. I chalked it up to ignorance and when the project was over, back into storage the machine went.

But Kim was busy catching the machine knitting bug, and I offered to lend her the machine and all it's accessories so she could take a class in KM stuff, figuring when she came back I'd pick her brain. That was when I found out the second problem.

The ribber was bent.

That would explain a lot, though, and when I got the machine back I rather sadly packed it all up for storage, possibly this time for good. Until I saw Julia's blog (go check out the awesome spinning wheel her father made for her!). She knits socks on her machine. Excuse me, I could knit socks on the machine? Why hasn't anyone told me this? (Why didn't I think of it myself? Ssh, we're not going there).

So now it was important for me to have a functioning machine with a ribber. And there was nothing I could find on the internet or in the phone book or anything that could point me in the right direction. Till Stitches, and Fran. Who sold me a new sponge bar and gave me the courage to have my husband take a hammer to the ribber bed. Seriously.

Do you know how many people at a fiber convention will stop you and ask you what you have if you walk around the vendors room carrying a sponge bar for a knitting machine? I am seriously thinking about carrying one routinely at every fiber event I go to from now on. Vendors came out of their booths to stop me and ask me what I was carrying. It was freaky. At one point a really nice lady came directly up to me and said,"That's a sponge bar for a knitting machine! You have a knitting machine! So do I!". There was a desperate edge to her voice. I realized that I had just met another lost and frustrated knitting machine owner with no support system. I gave her my contact info, I hope she gets in touch with me.

But yeah, tons of people who previously had limited their conversation with me to "excuse me" all of a sudden were consumed with curiosity. It isn't even that special looking.

Anyway, where all this longwindedness is going is that I just spent an entire day with my machine and John and I actually fixed the damned thing! I can rib! I can knit in the round! In the round! I can do other stuff I don't even understand enough to name now! And all I keep hearing in my head is James Earl Jones's voice saying,

"Now witness the power...


...of this fully armed...


...and operational battle station."

It's like owning the death star of knitting machines. I may have to name it.

Stitches South, Installment the First

In spite of illness I finally made it to Stitches South today. There would be tons more pictures except photography and such were not allowed. Highlights were Rick Mondragons' leopard pants (once seen, some things cannot be unseen), a cavalcade of bizarre sparkly knits, having a lovely conversation with Lisa Souza and finding the one item which is apparently THE icebreaker for a knitting/fiber show. For todays installment, though, I will share with you my triumph, indeed, the reason that about 30 minutes in I could have packed up and called it a good day and gone home happy. That would be the Bugga!

In the foreground is the Blue Orchard Bee colorway, in the back is Blue Morpho.

And here in front is Orange Assassin Bug, followed by Hologram Moth (I bought two of those) and bringing up the rear is Scarlet-Winged Lichen Moth.

And they glow, people, they just glow. I have never successfully snagged any Bugga! at all during any of the Sanguine Gryphon's updates, so being able to touch sweater quantities of all the colorways was almost too much for me. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it yet, but I really don't care. Whatever I do will look spectacular because of the amazing depth of color of this yarn.

More new stash tomorrow!

It's All Good

Now that I've gotten THAT out of my system, we can return to our regularly scheduled madness.

Ok, entrelac. Yes, I'm gonna talk about it some more. But it's ok, just wait. I gave it a truly fair shot. I knit it until I was actually becoming proficient at it, and it's actually very simple, if fiddly. Now, projects like the Forest Path Stole are demystified, and I feel confident that I will be able to encounter entrelac projects in the future in a spirit of opennness, judging them on their own merit and not just reacting to the entrelac portion of the technique. See? Nobody died.

I did, however, finish the cuff of one sock before pulling the needles out and making the calm and reasonable decision to trash the project. And you know what? In the end it was not the entrelac that got me (although entrelac in socks is skirting the edge of madness) but the yarn. Noro sock yarn. Sucks for socks. That is all.

Meanwhile, I have been in a cooldown period over Shipwreck, during which time I thought I'd just order the undyed yarn and use the shipping time as a waiting period before casting it on again. I charted out Madiera directly from Barbara Walker no. 1 and cast on. I haven't gotten too far because I've had to work for the past 4 days, but what I've got, I love, love, love.
I probably won't get too far before the weekend either, because today's my only day off and I have to clean The Horde's room. They have been in apocalypse mode now for a few weeks, and they are hoarding seed and hiding it everywhere. So cages are a mess, and hams need their health checks (So cute! Everything about them is so cute!) Tonight Happy Goth and I will be watching the second half of Veer Zaara and drinking beer and knitting. See? It's all good.

The White Hot Fury of a Thousand Burning Suns

One of the things I like most about myself is my ability to stick with something even when it isn't what I originally signed on for. Some call it integrity, some call it stubbornness. Some call it marriage, but I call it (for lack of a better term which would more aptly describe the hidden evil within) entrelac.

Ok, it is tomorrow, and there is no burning of wool, no wailing and gnashing of teeth. There is, however, a slowly growing sock whose every stitch is imbued with pure unadulterated hatred.

I am human, I say, possibly the highest form of life on this planet, I say, and I am superior to mere yarn and therefore I will triumph. I say. This will not beat me. I have a brain, and cells and protoplasm and I can operate computers and cook and make stained glass windows for crying out loud. I can make these socks. And I will.

Last night for the first time in 15 years of marriage my husband came the closest he has ever come (possibly in both his marriages) to instant divorce. He was watching me struggle with this, this thing I am knitting, and he said: "I know it's giving you trouble, but it's pretty". Ok, that didn't get him in trouble, it was when he went on to say: "So when you are finished, you have to knit another one, right?". Instant divorce. No judge would blame me. My jaw actually dropped when he said that, and I just stared at him. Just stared. Then I merely said, "Gee, thanks, honey". He may never know how close he came to losing me in that moment.

Enter my best friend. Who apparently wanted a divorce as well, because when I told her about what the husband had said, she said: "You know what would be really funny? If you knit both the socks and then your cats ate them". Apparently, this is what I need friends for. Divorce, I tell you.

So now I'm just knitting out of shear bloody-mindedness. I will have these socks because they are awesome. I may be friendless, divorced and alone, but I'll have these socks, dammit.

Just thought you'd all like an update on my progress. I'll take a picture with the blaze of my fury stops interfering with the camera.

When a Shipwreck becomes a Trainwreck.

Well, all my talk of project monogamy is total tosh. As soon as Knitty released its latest issue I had cast on the Shipwreck Shawl with stash yarn and got beads together for it. It was not going to be a perfect attempt, the yarn I had was already dyed green, but it was the right stuff, Knit Picks Gloss, which is the same base yarn and I was going to overdye it with the blue and black and hope for the best. I thought it fortuitous that I had a chance to use up the Gloss, I had purchased it for Thermal originally. Only after swatching for Thermal did I realize that I hated knitting that stitch pattern and the thought of having an entire sweater in that pattern made me cringe. So I ripped back my swatch and cast on and had instant success. St. Brigid went into what I was sure would be a quick hibernation. I was flying through the pattern. Until the Madiera chart section.

I would hardly consider myself an expert knitter. Usually, when a pattern or chart isn't working, it's my fault, and earlier projects taught me the errors of knitting hubris when it comes to lace patterns, so I figured the reason this chart wasn't working out was me. But for some reason, I plowed ahead, and I got through the first section of leaves on common sense. It was then that I had a brief conversation with Janice, who told me the chart was borked and that she had brought this up on Ravelry and the new charts fixed the problem. So I downloaded the new charts, which were different, and proceeded to get so confused I asked her to call me, feeling mere email exchanges weren't going to be good enough. Starting the second set of leaves, the chart seemed weird again, but she said to trust the charts, and I did. It wasn't perfect, but it turned out ok, and I got all the way to the tips of the leaves before things went horribly, horribly wrong again. I had thought I was clear, but no. Completely frustrated, I got out the original pattern in BW1 and charted the thing out myself from her instructions and lo, there was a chart that looked like it would work. So I ripped back to the center of the pattern and started again. Only now I was two stitches short. Somewhere. I could not for the life of me figure out which repeat lost stitches, and thought I saw a few rows down a problem, so I ripped some more.

After a certain point, there is no point anymore, so the whole thing has been frogged. I decided to take a break for a while before I revisited Shipwreck (which I have almost renamed Trainwreck). So did I pick St. B up and go back to cable heaven? Heck no, I cast on these socks. I have been obsessing over them ever since Pat put them on her blog, and although I have up till now been avoiding entrelac as if it were the plague, I figured the beauty of these would give me the intestinal fortitude needed to face entrelac.

OMGWTFBBQ11!!eleventyjillion! I hate it. I HATE IT! NO PROJECT CAN BE WORTH THIS! This is why people go postal, entrelac is, and I'm nearly there. I have never considered harming myself in anyway UP TILL NOW. There was a moment I really contemplated sticking a dpn in my eye BECAUSE SURELY IT WOULD BE MORE FUN THAN ENTRELAC!!!!!!!!!!

No, I haven't ripped it out yet. I'm going to sleep on this, and see how it works out in the morning. To be fair and all. Mostly to cover my ass so I can honestly say I gave it a fair shot before burning the whole freaking thing ritually. Those of you out there who actually LIKE entrelac, what is the secret? I can knit backwards, yeah I am doing that, so it isn't even more horrible like it would be if I had to turn and purl after every 6 freaking stitches. Where's the magic here?

Tomorrows episode: How to clear the smoke of burning wool out of your house fast enough to prevent your fire alarm from going off.

A More Refined Distraction

It is hard for me to pick between spring and fall for my favorite time of the year. Coming from New Orleans, they're both so new to me. The real charm of spring to me is when the cherry trees begin to bloom.
There is something so delicate and graceful about these blooms that charm me to distraction.
So many shades of pale pink, ethereal in their massed glory.
The bark is so dark in contrast to the ghostly color of the flowers.

My favorite haiku sums up my ultimate spring experience:

The cherry blossom
So lovely, so Japanese
Oh God am I drunk