Adventures in Felting…

My adventures in felting began when my husband machine washed and dried a Harrisville highland wool Viking sweater I had spent 6 weeks knitting. Yes, it is a sad story. I will give you a minute to compose yourself.

I saw a picture of a throw made from recycled sweaters in Natural Home magazine, and felted up a few more sweaters, cut them up, and made a throw which I like very much. Later, I made a couple of Christmas gifts by knitting and then felting. These have been my felting successes. They have something in common: all of them started out as nice ordinary knitting (the gifts were 5 stitches to the inch in the first place) and were then felted just to make that good thick non-stretchy fabric out of them. It didn’t really matter what size they ended up, and the shapes were determined either before or after the felting.

In between these felting successes, however, I also had a great felting failure. I bought the ubiquitous felted clogs pattern and some Lamb’s Pride and knitted up a couple of gargantuan slippers. You can see from their size relative to the chair how enormous they were, and they were in an enormous gauge, too, about 2.5 to the inch — very loose and floppy.

I felted them. Note that, while both are clogs, and each is fine in its own way, they are absolutely not a pair.

They are probably destined to be cut up and sewn into something. although I still imagine that I might make a third, hoping that it will match one of the first two.

However, before I try that, I intend to make a new pair. This time I will use a different pattern. I will pay close attention, stopping to count stitches and generally to be as knitting-geek-like as I can. I will take notes on which choices I made when there were choices in the pattern. I will read all the information on felting, so that I will have the science of it clear in my mind. Then I will felt them carefully, stopping the machine every few minutes to check on them.

In order to do all this precise work, I will have to take on some other personality. In Don’t Point That Thing at Me, a character is described as having “only two personalities.” I have only one, myself, so I was a little confused by that. But my personality is not suited to counting, or to following directions exactly. I will seek out some precise and capable alter-ego. Clearly, a pirate is not what’s needed here. I will have to become someone like Natalie http://knitting.xaviermusketeer.com/ , who is more precise about her knit-washing than I am about my knitting, and has perhaps the only non-frilling DNA scarf in existence. Or like my Aunt Perfect, who has no dust behind her piano, even when she is out of town. I mention these two ladies because both are also happy and fun. I don’t want to channel someone like the author of Another Knitting Blog http://mimoknits.typepad.com/ , who does beautiful work, but seems to be rather depressed all the time. After all, you never know when you might get stuck with the other personality you have borrowed for the nonce.

I am making the new clogs in a wonderful sea green, in the Classic Wool which feels so good to work with. This way, even if I fail miserably and end up only with more scraps for coasters, I will still enjoy the process. I am getting on with my second DNA scarf, which is in a finer yarn than the first and so is being a somewhat different experience. And I have one day left to devote to cleaning and baking and such before Mary Alice arrives tonight. My mother always told me, the goal in housework is not to make it look as though you have just cleaned, but to make it look as though you always clean. Since I actually do clean on a regular basis, I am mostly just having to deal with the inevitable evidences of daily life, plus those areas that tend to get overlooked — well, by me, at least. When I bring in that new personality to help me with the clogs, I may find that she is the kind of person who mops the laundry room floor regularly.

My blood test turned out badly, even though as Erehyns put it, I studied hard. I am waiting to be called into the principal’s office — I mean, the doctor’s. It is tempting to conclude that, since six months of health food and gym visits made my numbers worse, I should switch to a regimen of rich foods and lolling about, but that is probably not the case.

I also have visitors coming this weekend. My old college friend, for one thing. She has always been called by a nickname, so I will call her by her real name here, and no one will know who I mean. Mary Alice and I have not seen each other for a couple of decades. So we will have a lot of catching up to do. I am not having any high school reunion-type worries about being successful enough or looking good enough (Mary Alice and I can both be “Been there, done that” about our looks), but I have other qualms. For one thing, this is a woman who lives by herself. How will she adapt to life among the Wild Things? For another, she lives in Pasadena, a city with a song about it. We have plenty of bucolic charm here, but will the farmers’ market and the grist mill be excitement enough? And of course, Mary Alice knows way too much about me.

The other exciting thing is that #2 daughter is coming down with a couple of friends. I am so pleased that Mary Alice will be able to meet her, and I always enjoy meeting her friends, too. I think there will have to be some serious grocery shopping, though.

Here is #2 son with his homemade bow and arrow. It was while tidying up his room for Mary Alice last night that I discovered that the curtain rod had been made into arrows. I think she might want curtains even if he doesn’t, so I will have to go and get a new curtain rod. I thought we had some extras hanging around, but evidently there was a great need for arrows…We have plenty of handmade archaic weaponry on hand, though the trebuchet was damaged in the last rainstorm. With five guys in the house, it may be repaired and put to use. Would that be as exciting as life in Pasadena?

In the midst of all this, I have gotten the second DNA scarf well under way, but nothing more than that. Not even one full repeat of the pattern yet. And it is frilling. Ah, well.

I cannot eat or drink anything this morning, because I am going to have blood work done. And then I have to go directly to work. I get up four and a half hours before I start work, so that is four and a half hours during which I should have had a cup of tea and will not have done so. I obviously cannot be expected to say anything clever or even remotely interesting under these circumstances. I also will not be able to go to the gym, that is clear. I am tired of cleaning my house, day after day, only to find it completely trashed again by the time I get home from work (I am bad-tempered and whiny before I have my tea). What is more, xanga is not in a picture- or book-showing mood today, so I cannot show you the things I had planned to discuss this morning.

Given all this, it is clear that my only choice is to get everyone else out of the house and then knit until time to go to the doctor.

We like to make our own stuff at our house. We grow our own vegetables, knit our own woolies, and bake our own bread. We believe that old adage: “He who cuts his own wood gets warm twice.” So it was only a matter of time before we made our own soap.

We started with the melt-and-pour type, where all the chemistry is done and you get to do the art part: colors, scents, shapes, et al. Then #1 daughter sent me a book about making liquid soaps with lye and coconut oil. The names were so alluring: “Hawaaian Islands Shampoo,” “Summertime Smoothie,” “Mist Pine Barrens.”

People who have known me for a long time — my mother, The Empress — tried to dissuade me. Activities involving dangerous chemicals and requiring precision seemed to them not to be suited to my temperament. I tried to get #2 daughter to join me in the undertaking. “What,” she demanded, “in our previous association gives you the impression that I would do that sort of thing?” But the glamor of it was upon me.

I asked around among people who knew about lye. A chemist of my aquaintance allowed as how it was better not to drink it. My brother said that, in his experience, it was important to have water on hand in case you threw your machine parts into the vat of lye with too much of a splash. Not intending to ingest or splash the stuff, I felt reassured.

I asked some chemical engineering students. They were scornful. “That’s not dangerous,” they said witheringly. “They sell that in the grocery store.” An eyebrow raised, a bit of a sneer. I couldn’t blow up my house or kill myself or anything? I persisted. They were amused. “YOU couldn’t blow up your house,” they smirked, implying either that such things took intensive training, or that I obviously didn’t have what it took to cause real mayhem.

So I bought some lye. Some oils. I put on rubber gloves. I read the directions very carefully and put the lye into a tall glass container. I added the water. I waited for something to happen: swirling, smoking, maybe a little ominous crackling? In fact, absolutely nothing happened. I went on with the recipe. Still, nothing happened. I was supposed to stir it steadily till something happened.

I do not have any talent for repetition. I am easily bored. So I stirred for a while. Then I went and got a book and tried to read while I stirred (I read while I knit, I read on the Stairmaster, but I couldn’t read while stirring with any enjoyment). I put the stuff in an old crockpot and went off and did something else, coming back now and then to stir.

They tell you soapmaking is dangerous, but they do not tell you how very tedious it is. After four days, I had a lot of rather cloudy soap. I was disappointed. I diluted it, I buffered it, I scented it with jasmine, I sequestered it. It still did not look like the pictures. I was afraid to use it. I had visions of pouring it into the bathtub, stepping in, and ending up with no skin. After a few months, during which the soap in its jars in my pantry did strange layering and produced odd skins on the tops of the jars, I decided to try it to clean my kitchen.  

This is not what the soap was for. It was supposed to be a luxurious bubble bath. But I will tell you that it is a most luxurious cleaning solution. Most cleaning solutions are made from detergent, a handy substance discovered during one of the world wars when oils were in short supply. The discovery that something like soap could be made with used petroleum products was a great thing. But detergent scented with Highland Potpourri is not a patch on real coconut oil soap with jasmine oil. If you have to clean, you might as well have something nice to clean with.

I am looking back on this experience because I am thinking about trying it again. I still have lye and coconut oil. It is about time for me to make soap again — I do a lot in the fall for holiday gifts. I have a lot more felting to do, and I have a fancy to use oakmoss soap to do it. And, hey, I didn’t hurt myself last time. Caveman Chemistry (http://cavemanchemistry.com/ ) has a section explaining the chemistry of soap. (There is also a section on fibers). Perhaps with more background, I would be able to produce a nicer soap. Perhaps I will have the discipline to stir more constantly. Perhaps I can talk my boys into helping me, or at least keeping me amused while I stir.

If not, I will at least have more nice cleaning solution.

Possession is for Book Club; La Bella told me that it reminded her of graduate school and she was afraid some of the ladies would hate it, but I’m enjoying it enormously.

As is so often the case, the things I notice in my reading depend on what else I am reading at the same time. Having just read Alice Starmore’s comment in the introduction to her Celtic Collection that Celtic art is a matter of the tension between order and chaos, I have seen that very point arise repeatedly in Possession. Order shows up as a marker for neurosis, for anger, for rather unpleasant  sexual interactions. But it also shows up as a sign of competence, serenity, and a feeling of being at home. People clear up graves, clean books, moon over the organization of desks. And in the next scene, disorder and dirt are dwelt on in astounding and even implausible detail.

I suppose I also notice this recurrent motif because I have the same tension in my own life — though admittedly not to that extent. But the desire for order and the peace attendant upon it wars with the desire for spontaneous fun. On one side is routine housework, wholesome food, to-do lists, regular visits to the gym. This is the road to health and happiness. On the other side is spontaneous fun, doing what you feel like at the moment, and the temporary pleasures of sloth and gluttony. We know it is better to let all things be done decently and in order, but what happened to the weekend?

Ideally, of course, one would have servants providing the order, so that one could provide all the spontaneity. If this works for you, then you have Jeeves, Bunter, or a mother or wife looking after you, you lucky thing.

Yesterday I put the borders on the throw, baked, cleaned out closets, drove the boys hither and yon, sang Duke Ellington and Tommy Dorsey in church, and enjoyed the lovely fall day. How can I feel overwhelmed when so much of what I have on my to-do list involves lounging on the couch with a lap full of wool, reading?

When I have time, I will embroider around the edge of the outer border, which is I suppose more of a binding than a border.

It is back into the eighties today, which removes the sense of urgency from the wool throw, but we will like it when it gets cold again, and it is always good to recycle things.

Yesterday, while driving to the bakery, I heard a snippet of a story on NPR. “It’s not that bad,” the storyteller said. “I know it sounds bad in the pit of your stomach, but that’s mostly the acoustics.”

Holding that thought, I completed all my errands, thoroughly cleaned three rooms, finished my book and the Christmas gift I was knitting, and made sauerkraut for dinner, over the protests of my sons.

It was cool enough to enjoy the boiled wool throw I made from recycled sweaters in the summer. I was idly musing on a joke Dweezy told last year. A state trooper sees a woman driving along, knitting all the while. He zooms up to her and shouts “PULL OVER!” “No, she shouts back,” it’s a cardigan!”

That’s when I remembered a couple of pure wool cardies in the Salvation Army box. Frayed cuffs and little holes had forced me to get them out of the closets, but they would make great borders for the throw. So I felted them up and cut them in strips, and I will sew them on today. I am still sorry that the cables in the pink and blue fabrics disappeared into a slight general texture and the Fair Isle cardigan melded into a vague stripey mush of color, but the throw will be very cosy.

And the scraps made an absolutely perfect coaster. The search for the perfect coaster, the Philosopher’s Coaster, may not be one of the most important things you will think about today. However, the discovery of a solution to any of life’s little problems is worth celebrating. How many coasters are absorbent, firm enough to support the cup properly, heatproof, attractive, and free? This one will also give you a use for your old Backstreet Boys CDs, or the many many CD-ROMs that come in your mailbox urging you to change your internet provider. You can make one yourself. Here’s how: I took scraps from the felted fabric and a discarded CD, cut circles just to fit the CD, and blanket stitched them around the edges, with the CD inside.

I intend to pull out the bag of felted scraps and make some more, too. There is also the throw to sew up, the Hallowe’en table runner, the second DNA scarf, which is currently just an inch or two on the needles, the funny hat #2 daughter requested, a dozen Christmas gifts yet to make, 5 more rooms to clean, and — never mind. We all have more to do than time to do it in, don’t we? I also must go to my dad’s booth at the art fair, take the boys shopping, and get to church on time. So perhaps I should get off the computer and to work.

Don’t Point That Thing at Me was recommended by Gidget at her knitting blog: http://gidget.typepad.com/gidget_casts_on/ . I am always grateful for a good book recommendation. This book was compared with Wodehouse (the author even does so himself, internally), but really reminds me more of Donleavy: depraved, but witty. While I avoid the depraved in real life, I have no aversion to a little depravity on paper, as long as it is combined with wit.

I know that all of you grabbed your needles and zipped right over to read the Saki story I suggested to you a couple of days ago. So here is a treasure trove of stuff you can read online while knitting, with no need to prop the book open: http://www.bartleby.com/hc/ . This is really quite an exciting link, because it includes important classic works, from Aristophanes to Dante to Poe (so you can judge whether Saki or Poe is the better Hallowe’en short story read) and onward. You want to re-read Vanity Fair before you see the movie, I feel sure.

Exciting though this is (yes, it is), I don’t really like to read fiction online. Nonf iction, including blogs, can be enjoyed thoroughly on a screen, I think, but fiction requires curling up with. And in this weather, a nice fire and a spot of tea. But I don’t know where my copy of Vanity Fair has gotten to, and I want to re-read it before I see the movie, so I may try to be modern and read it online. I have started the second DNA scarf, and it might be more convenient to work on while reading online. Fortunately, I also have an all-stockinette Christmas gift on the needles. I switched to it last night when Don’t Point got interesting.

The one currently being knitted is at the top of the picture on the right. The completed, felted one — same pattern, same yarn, different shade of blue – is at the bottom of the picture. Since these are gifts, they naturally must remain unidentifiable geometric shapes, in case a recipient might read this.

But why pretend that I will have lots of leisure for knitting and reading today? Although it is Saturday and not a workday for me, I have a long list of things to do. I have to clean the house thoroughly for the houseguest who will arrive on Friday, and I have a whole bunch of errands to run, beginning with getting doughnuts for the houseguests who stayed last night. I promised I would do so if they didn’t force me to take them out last night and buy sodas and chips, both of which are against my principles. (So are doughnuts, but at least I can get them freshly-made at the local bakery.) So they accepted my deal, and got my husband to buy their evening junk food for them. They will go far.

We often have houseguests here. There is the Floating Sleepover, which goes on all summer long and most weekends during the year. This involves #2 son and his best friends since grade school, Falcon and Pinky. They sometimes include some other members of the gang, but these three are usually together. Even on some weekdays — it is usually explained to me that Falcon’s or Pinky’s mother is gone and he needs a place to stay. This sounds so sad, given that they are all only 8th graders, but both of the moms in question have gotten divorced over the course of the years, so it may be true. When #2 son is staying over at one of the other guy’s houses, we always have to keep track of whether it is mom’s or dad’s house.

The current houseguests are #1 son’s friends. The record for us is 15 in the house at one time, the night before #1 daughter’s wedding. #2 daughter had brought a quartet of singers down with her, and #1 daughter gave up her bed to the soprano. This seemed courteous at the time, but the groom-to-be came in after his bachelor party to tell his bride-to-be that he loved her, startling the little soprano quite a bit. A couple of hours later, the dog leapt up onto the bed, also to tell her he loved her, but probably by licking her face. The soprano gave up and got up and went to early church with us, doubtless to give thanks for her survival. Staying at our house does not usually expose people to drunken sailors and mad dogs, but that soprano has never come back.

The upcoming houseguest is actually a friend of mine from college, whom I have not seen in 20 years. This is very exciting. Obviously I have to clean the house and lay in some groceries.

It is now 5:00 am. If I drink up my tea quickly and get right to work, I could have most of my housework done by the time the boys wake up, clamoring for doughnuts, and all of the errands done before lunch. Then this afternoon could be devoted to reading and knitting.

Here is the completed Paris-Match along with the completed DNA:

Yes, I am savoring the word “completed.”

I intend to begin DNA #2 today. It took one month to make the first one, and I have two months till Christmas, so I expect to be able to finish all three that I have planned.

“What is it with pirates?” I have been asked. How can otherwise reasonable people consider International Talk Like a Pirate Day an important observance? What can cause half a dozen respectable matrons (on a bus, no less), having amicably disagreed on city planning and crochet patterns, to reach consensus on the appeal of pirates? How can a bunch of dangerous criminals reach iconic status? (I feel sure that these elaborations express the inner meaning of the original query.)

First, it is not about real pirates. Historically, real pirates were cruel, bloodthirsty, filthy, uneducated, and brutish. Modern real pirates are criminals plain and simple. No, we are talking about Gilbert and Sullivan pirates, Renaissance Faire pirates, Errol Flynn, Rex Smith, Kevin Kline, Orlando Bloom. That kind of pirate.

Second, it is not about sex. No, really. We would find the same charm in actually being a pirate, given a safe, clean ship. Men like pirates, too. When I asked That Man what he thought the appeal of pirates stemmed from, he started waving his arms and using a declamatory voice. “They’re Romantic!” he said. “Adventurous!” By the time he got to “Swashbuckling,” I could see the sword in his hand.

Pirates are not respectable. But this is not the central point of their charm. After all, bikers are not respectable. Nor are gangsters, drug dealers, or pimps, and I promise you that very few nice girls cherish any soft spot for them. Pirates are slightly dangerous, but they have excellent vocabularies (Gilbert and Sullivan, remember? We are not really talking about Calico Jack here) and dress well. They have talents: swinging on ropes is not as easy as they make it look. They sing and dance, while looking rascally and insouciant. Insouciance is a big part of it. Sang-froid is good, too. They are devil-may-care and fun-loving, but extremely cool. Pirates are never stricken with angst. They don’t worry. They are not concerned with how others perceive them. They are lazy, in an appealing way that is more relaxation than sloth. Someone must wash and press their shirts, since they are always snowy white, but pirates are never careful with them. They do not clean house, mow lawns, pay bills, or count carbs. There is no fussiness about a pirate.

If you want to develop piratical charm, go for the devil-may-care attitude. Appear to be having more fun than anyone else, perhaps because you know things they do not know. Like maybe where the treasure is buried. Look as though you might cause trouble of a pleasant kind, while being courteous and suave.

You cannot marry a pirate, though. I do not say that you should not do so, but that it is not possible. Take the experience of #1 daughter. She fully intended to marry a pirate. She had planned since she was a little girl to be married on a pirate ship. She was going to swing down from the riggings and marry — Errol Flynn, I guess.

So she dated a fellow who was devil-may-care and fun-loving. He sang and danced, had a large vocabulary, and did not do angst. He was very cool. He took the little boys to the graveyard on Hallowe’en. He went to sea (or at least joined the Navy). He was born in the Caribbean and took her to South Carolina to live after they were wed — both major pirate locations. He looks more like Errol Flynn than most guys you meet. You really could say that she did her best to marry a pirate.

However, he is becoming a nuclear chemist and steadily paying off his student loans. He is still cool, but he is not a pirate. Is the moral of this story that you should not choose pirates who went to the High School for Math and Science? No. The moral of the story is this: pirates are strictly fantasy. That is their charm. They are not available for real life. Just like fairy gold, which turns to dust if you try to take it into the mortal world.

(Errol Flynn wasn’t really a pirate, either. Check out Son-in-Law’s picture here: http://rosalyne.4t.com/custom2.html if you want to judge the resemblance for yourself. I provide Flynn’s picture, to the left, for comparison purposes.)

And, as Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirate King put it, as near as I can remember: “I do not say much for our profession, but compared with respectability, it is comparatively honest.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that Bhutan has given up the Gross Domestic Product measure in favor of “gross national happiness.” They have taken four “pillars of happiness” — sustainable economic development, care for the environment, promotion of national culture, and good governance — and focussed on making the citizenry happier. In the process, they have accomplished a number of measurable good things, including longer life spans and lower infant mortality. I would find this a very appealing platform, myself.

An economist from British Columbia argued against this approach, saying that increasing GDP automatically increases happiness. Economics neophytes may not realize that GDP is a measure of how much is spent. So if a hurricane destroys your house and you have to repair it, or tuition increases and you go into debt for it, then the GDP goes up. Neophyte or no, it is clear that there really isn’t a one-to-one correspondence between GDP and happiness. And the WSJ pointed out that the U.S. GDP has risen, with no accompanying rise in well-being. Indeed, in a study of overall happiness in 81 nations, we were #15, after Mexico, Ireland, and top-ranking Puerto Rico, among other less-prosperous places.We were, however, way ahead of Bulgaria and Zimbabwe.

I intend to do my part to increase happiness, however, by offering help with a common knitting dilemma. If you do not have this dilemma, you can go on your way rejoicing, knowing that there is at least one problem you do not have. And if you do have this problem, you will  find it solved.

Do you hate and fear double-pointed needles? Many knitters do. They will do mad things like knit mittens on the flat just to avoid them, completely ignoring the fact that they will have to wear mittens with seams for years instead of taking a little time to get used to dps. If you are among this sad group, it is probably for one of the following reasons:

1. The stitches tend to slip off the needles. True. Do not stick this knitting in your purse and head off somewhere. Let it sit quietly at home, where the stitches won’t fall off. Or you can invest in little plugs to put on the ends of your needles when you are not at work on it. Or in a second set of dps in your chosen size, and use more needles. While this helps with the slipping-off part, it also can lead to more trouble with the second problem:

2. They are pointy. Indeed, there are lots of points, more than if you are using a circular needle or long straight ones. But truly, no one ever gets seriously hurt by their dps. It just hasn’t ever happened. You are more likely to be hit by lightning or bitten by a shark. So quit worrying about that. If you find it really scary, switch to bamboo. Those are just as pointy, but they look less dangerous.

3. You think they will leave gaps in your knitting between the needles. I say you think this, because I use them all the time and have never had gaps in my knitting. Some people solve this problem, if it is one, by knitting the first stitch on each needle tightly. However, unless you are making socks by a method requiring you to keep a certain number of stitches on each needle, you can eliminate all worry over this by changing the number of stitches on each needle as you go around. Just knit a couple more or a couple fewer onto each needle, each row. This causes you to stop and start with each needle differently each time, leaving no chance for a row of holes where the needles meet. You may find this a liberating experience.

There. Aren’t you happier already?

Actually, the scoop on happiness is that it is not about our circumstances. A long-term study of happiness began with 3-year-old children, evaluating each for their overall level of happiness. Then the study followed them throughout their lives. Whether they won the lottery or became paraplegic, one thing was clear: changes in their circumstances affected their overall levels of happiness only briefly. Soon, they returned to the same basic level of happiness they had had all along.

This is obviously good news for those of us who are generally happy. We can be sure, when we are miserable, that it won’t last. Those of us who are generally not very happy can perhaps give up searching for happiness and settle in to be truly useful. Or brilliant. Or whatever is within our capacity. And thus find satisfaction, if not a sunny disposition.