Leonidas has made something. Chez Fibermom, we are always making something. All family members make things, whether it be archaic weaponry or modern jewelry, and I find it one of the most satisfying parts of life. So seeing someone begin dabbling in making stuff is exciting. Like seeing someone who has not previously been much of a reader get excited about a book. It is hard not to swarm around them pushing books into their hands. Or knitting needles, saws, and paintbrushes, as the case may be. Leonidas is fortunate to be off on the other side of the country, and therefore safe from me.

Our favorite xanga philosophers are debating the existence of objective reality, but I like this statement of The Craftsman Philosophy:

"Respect the earth, live in harmony with nature, spend time with your family, be good to your neighbor, and value the dedication, skill and care of the craftsman."

Doesn't that just about cover it? Well, obviously only for a certain sort of life. This is why it is not a strong contender for objective reality points. James Bond would totally not relate to this statement. On the other hand, James Bond is not himself a poster boy for objective reality, being fictional and all.

Here is Hopkins's neckband:

The variegated yarn gives false shading and makes it look as though it has an interesting shape, maybe a moebius strip, but it is actually just an ordinary neckband. I like getting the body completed before the sleeves so that any needed adjustments can be made. Doing all the parts separately and then putting them all together can lead to that "Oh, it'll be okay once I do the neckband" feeling, which can lead to the "Horrors! I'll have to frog the whole thing!" feeling. This way, you can be sure that the body of the sweater is as it should be, and adjust the sleeves accordingly.

I was poring over my assorted Fair Isle books in search of something triangular for my sleeves. Have you ever noticed how few Fair Isle designs are triangular? I was imagining something like this:

Wouldn't that be excellent? Upside down, of course, sort of growing up out of the cuff.  However, Fair Isle designs are bands, circles, or squares, never asymmetrical triangles. Nor can I see myself charting this pattern, or anything like it.

 I was looking at all sorts of designs, trying to find something really compatible with the patterns already on Hopkins, when it struck me that the variegations mean that the details of the patterns are ... hmm.. let's say subtle.  The overall effect is of a brick wall with moss growing on it. So it hardly matters what design I choose, and I can go with the general shape of the thing.

The fretwork which you see in the picture is from Alice Starmore's Roscrea, and the same sweater also uses a band of cornucopia shapes. I think that individual motifs from this pattern will give the asymmetry and roughly triangular shape I have in mind. If not, well, it's just a sleeve. I can always frog it.

SPRING BREAK!

Well, yes, it has been Spring Break for a couple of days now, but it only just hit me. I got up this morning, posted (there is knitting content below, if you were looking for some), made my husband's breakfast, started in on housework and thinking about going to the gym and mentally berating myself for not having accomplished more over the weekend and --- realized that I had the house to myself. The boys are both having sleepovers somewhere else. I do not have to drive anyone to school. I do not have to listen to any whining about whole grains for breakfast. I do not have to go anywhere for the next two nights. It is Spring Break!

So, yes, I will be going to work today, but I will not be doing any significant amounts of housework until Wednesday. I will do something then because that is the day that Pokey and The Emo King will be arriving. There is a third person coming, too, but I do not know her nickname, and since "Pokey and The Emo King" sounds like a band anyway, it can subsume this third person till I actually meet her.

For this morning, however, I will enjoy the lovely rainy day and the emerging Easter basket colors outside and the happy realization that I hardly accomplished anything over the weekend and won't be accomplishing much today either.

And I will not be doing any practicing of things I am averse to. Nor will I attempt to make any progress on my goals for the year. I shall sink into sloth for the week. Aside from working, of course, and feeding people, and my musical responsibilities for Holy Week, and getting my family's Easter celebration ready. Never mind. Spring Break is a frame of mind. Hawaiian shirts and margaritas all around!

In the book that I'm reading, the main character bemoans the fact that she spends too much time online contemplating " the personal musings of strangers who seemed convinced their every thought [was] worth her time." If she's talking about blogs, she is mistaken. I think most bloggers are writing for themselves and perhaps some small group of people. Unlike other kinds of writing (including, after all, novels -- and there are plenty of folks who don't consider books like Wolzien's to be worth their time, though of course I am not among them), blogs do not have to be marketable.

If I disagree with her on the question of blogger's motives, though, I have to agree that it is easy to spend too much time reading blogs. The knitting blogs are essentially practical; if I am thinking of making something (as, inspired by Voodoo920, I am considering the Sophie bag), I can use google to zip around the blogs of folks who have made it, and thus not only see plenty of example, but also find out what kinds of alterations others have made, the difficulties they have encountered, and so on.

But this is not all the blog-reading I do, is it? No, admittedly not. Even though I have resisted temptations to add to my subscriptions, I have all sorts of other blogs I feel I must read. I don't want to fall behind, after all. If you skip a few days, you can easily get lost, and then take more time backtracking through entries (and, on xanga, back and forth through discussions in the comment sections), and then you never will get your laundry done. I have to read my family's blogs, and the blogs of the people I have come to know as friends on xanga, and the blogs of the people they mention (so I'll understand the stories). And then I feel honor-bound to read the blogs in the rings I belong to.

While I have mastered the Yarn Ho! webring and am able to keep up with it fairly well (and I am told that sometimes people join a webring for the sake of having a funny name on their site, so I am no longer searching for fiber content where there clearly is none), I am still very far from being able to make it around the Knitting Bloggers ring. There are about 600 of us, so if I were to read about 3 a day, I could certainly make it through the ring in less than a year.

It is not so simple, though. For one thing, I do not seem to be able to keep track. That is, I may read three on one day, and then the next day I cannot recall where I was supposed to start again. I probably should not have admitted that. Then there is the linking problem. I start with my neighbor, and she links to someone, and they link to someone, and I have read three -- but not in order. If I always read three, but never in any order, what are the chances that I will actually make it around the ring? What's more, sometimes there are those lists on the side (someday I will have to get one of my kids to show me how to do that) and I recognize someone whom I have previously found amusing and off I go to read that person, and the available time is up. There I am, having to go to work and still not having read anyone new. So there may be someone out there on the other side of the ring whom I would really enjoy reading, and learn a lot from, but whom I will never read, because I never actually make it over to that side of the ring.

Now, I know that some of you can read blogs at work. I often suspect that those who read LOTS of blogs are doing this at your desk, with your hands ready on the button to make your screen look like you're working if someone comes in. I cannot do this. Sigh.

Well, I have finished the back of Hopkins and joined it to the front. I like to do this by binding off the two parts together. That is, you undo the bind-off of the front shoulder, put it onto a needle, and lay it next to the corresponding bit of the back shoulder. Holding the two needles together, you take a third needle and bind off, treating the two needles in your left hand as one. Some people call this a three-needle bind-off. It gives you a tidy and strong join at the shoulder, from the front (at right) or the back (below). The little hank of yarn is what had bound off the front shoulder. I will use it to sew the neckband facing.

Now you simply pick up the stitches for the neckband. I like a 1x1 rib for the neckband. I do the required number of rows, then reverse it, shifting from k1p1 to p1k1. Then I can fold it in half and sew it down, giving a much nicer edge than I would get by binding it off.

While I do the neckband, I will have to make some final decisions about the sleeves. I have done all the arithmetic, but I must decide whether to do plain gray sleeves (with variegated ribbing, of course) or whether to do some color work at the wrists. I am imagining something rather triangular in shape -- perhaps I am influenced here by Rogue, or by the flame-sleeve sweater in S&B Nation. Time to hie me around the knitting blogs to look at other people's color-work sleeves.

At the last minute, my husband decided to go with me to the concert, so I got to knit rather than drive. Would I otherwise have spent the night on an off-ramp gathering courage to drive home? We will never know.

I knitted Hopkins, of course, and so had the lovely serendipitous coincidence of having Hopkins with me when the choir sang the very poem -- "Pied Beauty" -- that Hopkins is named for. It was a setting by Gwynneth Walker, who is my new favorite current composer. If you click on her name, you can hear some of the pieces the choir sang last night. Her "Motherless Child" was my husband's favorite. And they sang a piece of Emily Dickenson's as well, and not to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas," either. It was nice to hear some modern things in among the classics.

Of course, the high point was getting to see and hear #2 daughter. We came home to a modest assortment of well-mannered teenagers, and I got up this morning and had Palm Sunday at my usual collection of churches.

Hopkins got named for Gerard Manley Hopkins, who wrote "Pied Beauty," because it is made of heathery and variegated yarn. I hope you will read the poem, because it is a lovely poem, and just the thing for a spring day. Is it spring where you live? Here, the dogwoods are blooming, daffodils and violets are blooming, the air is warm, and everyone is happy. This is also partly because it is spring break. As a university town, we are all able to enjoy the sense of freedom and relaxation that goes with spring break, even those of us who still go to work. My boys will be home, making messes and eating everything in sight, #2 daughter will be here on Wednesday, and so many people are out of town that there is a sort of general feeling that we who are left shouldn't make too much of an effort.

It is also Holy Week, which matters to you a lot or not at all, depending on your particular spiritual path. For church musicians, this is a mad week, even more so than Christmas ever can be, because it is compressed. We have Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Tennebrae, and then Easter. I have already done my solo for the week, though, so I am just one of the kids on the bus from now on.

I'm off to sit on the porch and enjoy the day.

Wow! That WJC choir is really, really good. And I'm not just saying that because I know some of them, either.

The bad thing about my anti-agoraphobia program is that it requires doing things to which I have an aversion. Lots of them. Just imagine if you had to do stuff you disliked doing, four days every week. Well, I realize that many people have this experience with their exercise program. But suppose you had to do things against which you had an unreasonable aversion -- that is, a degree of distress out of the normal response. As you can imagine, this is kind of messing up my life. I wake up every day dreading the unpleasant thing I have scheduled for myself.

The good thing is that I am getting lots of things done which I have procrastinated about doing. I now have an up-to-date drivers license, for example, and by noon I will have had a haircut. Also, the program is working. It is true that I am still dreading the "exercises," but I am doing them, and really not suffering from them unduly. Tonight I will be driving to an unfamiliar and distant location, on the freeway, alone. If it should snow, I will have a complete aversion experience. While I am not looking forward to doing this, I am going to do it, and I am expecting to find that it is not that bad. I look forward to finishing the program, so that I can quit building unpleasant things into my day, and I also look forward to being able to go to things I want to go to -- I do want to attend the concert tonight -- without having to go through anticipatory anxiety for weeks ahead. Not to mention the scariness of actually doing it. Even so, I have to admit that the prospect of doing this is causing me to enjoy my Saturday quite a bit less than I usually do.

Still, it is a beautiful day. Once I have been to the hairdresser and the meat market and the Co-op, and done the housework, I will have several hours in which to enjoy my book and knitting. Here is Hopkins. I have scrunched it up so that it will not be obvious that it continues to be a gray rectangle. You can only post just so many pictures of a gray rectangle, after all. It is very nice and soft, though, and perfect for knitting while reading.

I was looking back through my xanga to find where I had posted #2 daughter's evening wrap, for Bamboo Needles, who is wanting to make a simple, light shawl. (September 10th, 2004, in case you are looking for such a thing yourself). I could not help noticing how often I mention housework. Not because I have something significant to say about housework, but just as a sort of punctuation -- I am going to do it, or I have done it, or I am behind with it, or I am caught up with it.

This is of course one of the realities of life for a mom. Either you do housework, or you live in squalor. It reminded me of this song: "The Housewife's Lament." I don't know how old a song this is, but I remember when I learned it that the verse that really struck me was this one:

"Last night in my dreams I was stationed forever
On a far distant isle in the midst of the sea
My one chance of life was a ceaseless endeavor
To sweep off the waves as they swept over me"

Sometimes it seems that way, doesn't it?

 Here's Hopkins's back. There are several ways to make an entirely smooth edge on the armscye, none of which I am using here. Actually, I most often pick up the stitches and knit the sleeve down to the wrist, rather than making them in pieces and sewing them in, and that gives you the best possible join. But I am taking the "who's going to notice?" approach here and just knitting the stitches together at the edge. The stitch marker is there to show me when I have finished decreasing -- much simpler than counting repeatedly.

The reason that I am not bothering is that I am feeling slightly overwhelmed. I missed St. Patrick's day entirely. St. Patrick's Day should be greeted with a green table full of Irish breakfast foods -- barm brach, Irish soda bread (modified for healthiness), steel-cut oats, O'Brien potatoes, and the like. New pencils or other small green things and new Irish books are also supposed to be on the table. This did not happen. I did remorsefully serve chimichangas and green salad on green plates for dinner, and I made Rice Krispies Treats with green food coloring, but we all know that this is not how it should be.

Good Friday, Easter, and #1 son's birthday are all coming up in the next few weeks. I hope I will have things in better order by then.

Thanks to all of you who sent links for folklore programs! I am also still hoping for some personal testimonies. Why I hope this, I do not know. Have you noticed that many of us have a sort of superstitious idea about the internet? Many people, I know, imagine that they can buy and receive stuff with incredible speed over the internet, in spite of the fact that the items must still travel through space. Students often expect that they will be able to access all the information in existence on a particular subject merely by typing the word in at Google. And I have this idea that, among the two dozen people who come over to my xanga, there is bound to be one who knows someone who knows someone who is studying folklore, since all the world is linked together in a massive web of knowledge all across the globe. It's such a nice thought that I think I will not give it up, in spite of its essential implausibility.

Request for Help -- does that sound like I want you to invest money in Nigeria?

#1 son has determined that -- before becoming a professional drifter -- he would like to acquire a degree in folklore. Does your college, or a college known to you, have a program in folklore? Is it a good one? The closest one we know of is at Mizzou, which has the cutest possible name. Do you have any knowledge of this program, or indeed of this school? Do you know what a high school sophomore hoping to get a berth and a scholarship in a folklore program should spend his summer doing, in order to increase his chances?

I am hoping that the power of xanga will help us to find a likely spot for this worthy and deserving kid, so if you know anyone who might know the answers to any of these questions, please send them here. Thank you!

The Methodist choir had guests -- another Methodist choir. We are joining forces for Holy Week. Rehearsal in our town tonight and then, as one of their sopranos said, "You're coming to our house next week!" Except that I cannot get there because I work too late. So this was my last rehearsal of the Holy Week music, some of which I have seen only once before. We also had five new pieces given to us last night. We sang through them once or twice. However, there was no general despair or shock in the group. They seemed to find it quite usual. I brought my music home to practice.

The music is not difficult, and we don't really work much on dynamics or any of those details -- this is a relaxed group. We are singing one Robert Shaw piece (or at least we met it once, although we have not ever practiced it again), but the others are Twila Paris, arrangments of old hymns, and such. It is still not entirely clear to me what we are singing when, but since it is essentially a sing around the campfire kind of thing, I am going to be as relaxed about it as everyone else.

Hopkins is perking along. Having been to the dentist and a group meeting with the Gifted and Talented Coordinator, plus the usual classes and rehearsals, and of course work, I have not been able to knit as much as I would like. I also have not gotten to the gym or done the usual amount of housework or laundry. I will get the grocery shopping done today, at last. The quilt will just have to wait for the weekend.

This book was sitting in the room when I arrived early for Sunday School last week, so naturally I picked it up and started reading it. And, since I hadn't finished it before I left, I naturally had to take it home to finish it.

The Proverbs 31 Woman, or the Virtuous Woman -- or, as this author calls her -- the VW -- is the image of a perfect woman which you will find in the Bible. If you are not familiar with her, you may be in for a surprise. She is not stupid, submissive, or silent. She is strong, intelligent, wise, talented, brave, and hardworking. I find this an excellent role model for a woman. The perfect woman of modern American magazines and TV shows, by contrast, is thin, heavily made-up, sexually irresponsible, not very bright, and filled with angst. I will be glad to hear about it if you think I am wrong -- I don't watch all that much TV, after all -- but I think that my description about covers it.

This book is a light-hearted and humorous collection of little stories. Essentially, it takes the position that the VW may be impossible for us to live up to, but it doesn't matter, because our families and God will love us anyway.

I'm tired of this position. I mean, of course your family and God will love you anyway. Does that mean that it is okay to strive for thinness, a sufficiently made-up face, and a culturally acceptable level of sexual irresponsibility, and not for virtue, wisdom, and strength? I don't think so. And yet, even in churches and other popular sources of religious and ethical teaching, we get the message that being non-judgmental is the highest virtue of which we are capable, and that's what God is into, too. If we are lazy, materialistic, and selfish, well, that is just what we are like, and it's okay. It's natural.

Are we actually non-judgmental? Of course not. Listen to any group discussing others in an unguarded moment. The judgements may focus on style more than substance, but they are there. At best, we have a sort of moral laissez-faire which amounts to, "Oh, well, if he wants to screw up his life, it's none of my business." Is this really the most we can ask of ourselves?

C.S. Lewis wrote about how we compare ourselves with other people. We admire ourselves for being more humane than the people of the past, he said. But it is not reasonable of us to admire ourselves in comparison with crueler ages unless we are also willing to compare ourselves with their virtues. The medieval Europeans, while they were more cruel than we, were also much better at courage and chastity. If we consider how appalled we are by the cruelty of the people of the Middle Ages, then we can understand how appalled they would be by our softness and self-indulgence. That could give us a compassion and insight that might allow us to move toward actually being non-judgemental.

And possibly toward being courageous and chaste, as well. Our dog Toby is filled with original sin. We can tell that he knows what it means to be good, and that he wants to be good. He is happy when his people tell him he is good, and proud of himself when he manages it. But when an opportunity to be bad presents itself, we see him trying to make up his mind, just as in old cartoons the characters had a devil sitting on one shoulder and an angel on the other. And after a few seconds of inner struggle, he jumps to be bad. Every time.

We may be like this ourselves. It may be very hard, and perhaps impossible, for us to be wise and strong and good and brave on a regular basis. But I think it is worth the effort. The Wall Street Journal said not long ago that a person who wants to do good in the world should focus on making lots of money (their argument was not persuasive enough to be repeated here). It is a lot of trouble to do that, and a person determined to make lots of money has to give up a lot of other things in order to meet that goal. Is it less worthwhile to make an equal effort to reach moral or ethical goals? We do not really want future ages to remember us as a people who decided that doing right was too much trouble.