It has been a long time since I showed you an impressionistic shot from the toy camera. Here you can see the Windblown Shadows quilt, with the completed center and the first border, reposing over the back of the couch. Well, no you can't see it. The black and white thing at the top is a cat. The apparent halo surrounding the cat is entirely misleading. She is an essentially selfish and rather naughty cat. You can't see that, any more than you can see the quilt.

And that is a shame because it is a thing of beauty. The colors -- the eucalyptus green with the soft rose and yellow shades, and then the surprise of the tea-dyed sheet music print border echoing the shading of the trees in the vineyard print as well as the sheet music print in a wine shade -- well, I'm sorry you can't see it. Here, though, is a detail, stray threads and innacurate corners and all.

I am piecing a second border, and then there will be a solid border of the sheet music print, and finally a border of the eucalyptus green to complete it. Or possibly a deep border of the green and a narrow binding in the sheet music, set on the bias. It will be tough to decide.

Some other things have been decided, though.

Here is the fall choral piece I am going to be working on: Vaughn Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem. La Bella and Egypt say that the director of the Master Chorale is a lot of fun, so I'm going to give it a go. There are about 100 in the group. I have never sung with such a large choir, so that all by itself will be a new experience. And I am an enormous fan of Ralph Vaughn Williams, and I have friends in the choir, so it should be a pleasure all around.

That is Monday nights. Party Girl and I will be returning to our Tuesday night class, and of course Wednesday night is always church choir practice. This is quite enough excitement for a slightly agoraphobic woman of my age.

Actually, I know a woman who is a bit older than I who goes out dancing most nights, but she is single. That makes a difference.

My husband goes out with his fellow ex-pats a couple of nights a week. They play pool. My husband has trophies for his skill at billiards, and owns these pretty cues that you can't quite see on the right. I stay home on those nights, to be with the kids, but frankly the kids go out a lot themselves these days. Thursday and Sunday nights are our family nights in.

The mornings are scheduled, too. I get up early to have my tea, read the news, and IM my daughter. Then I feed everyone, do the housework, drive #2 son to school, go to the gym, and come home to get ready for work. On the 29th I will begin the HGP, which will consume the remaining time before I leave for work.

You will notice that I am not complaining. I could not do all the things I want to do, and also have a pleasant home life, if I didn't schedule everything. And I have come to experience the routines as rituals instead of mere routines, with the meditative pleasure that word implies instead of the irritation of sameness.

But after summer, it is a bit like putting shoes on when you have been barefoot all weekend -- you want to put them on, but your feet still don't feel quite at ease at first, do they? Today, the last day before the return to the school year schedule, I intend to enjoy a final uncommitted stretch of time. (Oh, of course I am going to church, and the boys have supply lists to shop for, but apart from that ---) I shall be piecing a quilt instead of climbing a tree, but I will still strive to remember what summer means to children.  To save up a bit of that feeling, as we capture summer berries in a jar of jam.

For the past week, I have been waking up at 2:17 am. Insomnia is a fairly normal response to having a bit of stress in your life, so I am not surprised by the waking up. But I am surprised by the precision of it. I am not a precise person, as I have admitted before. But I have a digital clock, so I know that my insomnia kicks in at precisely 2:17 every morning. Apparently, the part of my brain which is in charge of stress has a little precision available to it. Why should this precision not be available for the part of my brain which is in charge of making points on the triangles in my quilts, or following the lace pattern exactly?

Actually, my lace is looking pretty good, as you may or may not be able to see here. I tried to pin it out a bit on a handkerchief, but it preferred to crumple the handkerchief rather than stretching out to show you its pattern. Lace is like that. It hides its gloriosity until it is all finished and blocked, and then you can see it. It must think it is a butterfly or something. Conceptually, lace is rather impressive, since it is a process of knitting extra space into your piece in one spot and then taking it away in another spot. In this manner, you keep your piece from getting bigger, but manipulate the space into patterns as it comes and goes.  Sounds rather grand put like that, doesn't it?

Two repeats of a complex lace pattern, which is what we have here, could still be an edging. If you reach this point and want to quit, it is still a possibility. This is the point of no return, though. If you go beyond this, then you have a fabric, not an edging, and will have to soldier on.

Speaking of soldiering on, it has come to my attention that not everyone has gone back to school yet. I was talking yesterday with a lady from Pennsylvania who assured me that the children of the Frozen North aren't in school yet, and The Water Jar has a bit of summer break to go over there on the west coast as well.

Those of you who are still on holiday have a bounden duty to the rest of us: you must squeeze in some extra fun and relaxation for us. An extra hour of Ultimate Frisbee for Oklahoma, an extra mai tai for the parents and teachers of Missouri, an additional afternoon on the beach reading trashy novels for Arkansas, an extra barbeque for Tennessee, some added nap time for Louisiana. You owe it to us.

School begins today. The boys seem a little excited, mostly about seeing their friends. We are expecting things to be calmer at work, so much so that I have a lunch date with Egypt and La Bella, so I guess I'm getting to see my friends, too. Starting school on a Friday makes it seem sort of provisional, though. I don't really intend to get back to my school-year schedule till next week.

We have considered back to school from the standpoint of the teachers, the kids, and the parents. But we have not yet looked at it from the viewpoint of the two creatures at our house who are perhaps most gravely affected, and yet have the least control of or understanding of the situation: the dogs.

In summer, a dog's life is pleasant. People are home all the time, they are always playing, and the dog is always welcome to join in.

 

 

 

 

 

When they do go someplace in the summer, the people often take the dog along. And we are not talking about trips to the vet, here, but about hiking and walking and the farmer's market and swimming and playing in the park. 

 

Even when no one is going anywhere or doing anything much, the dogs have kids to bear them company. Lots of lying around and eating take place, including lying about immodestly without having Daddy say "No belly!" and lying on the furniture without having Mama say "Off!" The kids really know how dogs like to do.

With the beginning of school, however, the dogs are in their crates for most of each day, with no people to play with at all. Nothing interesting happens. Nobody eats things or drops food around. In fact, there is no food except at meal times.

Are we sad yet?

I think the dogs get used to it after a bit. It is even possible that they remember "Oh, yes. This is what happens before it gets cold. They'll come back later. We might as well go to sleep. Sigh."

But I know that it is difficult for them. They don't even have any advance warning, what with being unable to read the calendar or understand our conversations. It is just a sudden change in their schedules.

For all the students out there: enjoy the beginning of school, including your new clothes and school supplies. I hope you have an intellectually stimulating teacher or two, that you meet interesting new people  (even perhaps a new romance, as long as it doesn't interfere with your schoolwork), and that your dog adjusts well.

If you should find yourself having dental work, then you could do worse than take the advice which The Princess gave me: ignore the dentist entirely. I explained that I had been advised to do so, and then just read all the way through the procedure.

Once the Novocain wore off, however, I found myself somewhat surprised by the amount of pain involved. So along about 3:00, at The Empress's urging, I followed the instructions the dentist had given me, to "take it easy." The Empress assured me that she has never taken pain medication following dental work, but I was a wimp. I went home, took the stuff, and went to bed.

This is why it was particularly nice that when I got home I found in my mailbox the copy of Interweave Knits that Manda sent to me.

There are lots of nice sweaters and jackets in this issue, in a wide range of sizes. In fact, there is a good variety overall -- different yarns, different levels of difficulty, classic and trendy. One project which I found particularly intriguing is a seamless cabled sweater with most of the shaping done by changing needle sizes. There were further cable projects in the shape of classic socks and a vest, a lovely ballet wrap sweater, and a men's sweater with an intriguing new stitch pattern.

Not that I need any new projects right now. But if you are lying in bed, drugged, you need something pretty to look at.

This book introduces Lucrezia Borgia as a detective, trying to clear her own name of the suspicion of poisoning by finding the true culprit.

Roberta Gellis, while she probably lives off the proceeds of her famed bodice-rippers, has written a number of good historical novels. Romance or history, she always specializes in competent, sensible, down-to-earth heroines. Since Lucrezia Borgia, unless she was in fact a skilled poisoner and political raptor, is not known to have had any particular skills, Gellis is having a little trouble with her. A competent, down-to-earth Lucrezia Borgia is a little hard to pull off. She ends up rather dull, if nothing else.

However, knitting needles have entered the picture -- hidden knitting needles, no less, in a carriage. Doubtless the plot will thicken.

Yesterday, when I came home, I was not certain whether my husband would have gotten back from driving our kid to college yet.

I drove up and saw Fiona the dog on the porch. Knowing that #1 son was at work and #2 son at a friend's house, I thought that my husband might be home -- but the boys could have left her out on the porch to enjoy the fine day. The garage was closed, so I couldn't see whether my car was back (they had driven in it). When I entered the house, though, I immediately smelled rice and hot peppers, so I knew that he was home. Of such homely things are our memories made.

He had also persuaded the boys to clean their bedrooms before leaving. On the left, #2 daughter's room during the summer -- it transforms into #2 son's during the school year. Ont he right, #1 son's room, which he shares with #2 son (and the travelling sleepover crew) during the summer. I would not want you to think that I had exaggerated the degree of messiness my children stoop to in the summer.

But my husband told them to clean the rooms before they left. #2 son called me at work to say that he was leaving. "I totally cleaned my room," he assured me. "It's awesome."

And that was the truth. All summer long I have pleaded and reasoned and cajoled, and even thrown the occasional hissy fit, as these bedrooms sank into filth and squalor. My husband has only to make a gentle suggestion and they immediately clean up. Is that fair?

I bet Lucrezia Borgia didn't have that problem.

#2 daughter heads off to school today. Not actually in an ocean liner like this, although that would be glamorous. My husband is driving her up, and then turning around and coming right back.

This is the official end of summer. Even though we are in the dog days, as far as weather is concerned, summer as a season is over. We will live through the remaining days of Back to School, and then go right ahead and have fall in defiance of the weather.

Here is the Lotus shawl. You can see the front at the top of the picture and the back at the bottom, but you can't really see it clearly enough to matter. The left front of Brooklyn is finished. So at the dentist today, will I work on the epic knitting or cast on for the right front? Decisions, decisions.

I have made it through the Knitting Bloggers webring, so I now know everyone out there. A final few more suggestions for your reading pleasure:

Mossy Cottage Knits

Schmeebot

All Tangled Up

Threadbared

Our back-to-school ritual is being a little compressed and altered this year.

There are normally two parts: the shopping trip, and the First Day breakfast. The shopping trip consists of breakfast out, followed by the purchasing of school supplies and clothing. We  accomplished most of the shopping yesterday, including the all-important Measuring of the Feet. I think that new shoes are so completely a requirement for school that the kids probably could not even attend if they did not have new shoes. We no longer buy an entire new wardrobe for back-to-school, however, because the boys outgrow theirs at an alarming rate, so we just get a couple of things at a time. And they don't even get their supply lists now until the first day of classes, so that also has to wait. #2 daughter's school shopping is of course hundreds of dollars worth of college textbooks, for which I simply get the bill.

The ceremonial breakfast on the first day of school includes a special breakfast, a table decorated with silly stuff, and cups full of pens and pencils. Here we have the silly decorations and cups full of pencils -- but no breakfast. This is because it is not the first day of school yet. That won't be till Friday. But #2 daughter is leaving tomorrow. And today we are going out to breakfast. So no breakfast on the table. But we didn't want her to feel left out, so we are having the silly stuff anyway. Then the breakfast out, and then she has to go to work while the boys and I continue our shopping. I think the whole back-to-school ritual at our house is becoming outdated. Soon it will be purely vestigial -- new shoes and pencils in their coffee cups.

Although yesterday was largely about shopping, I did manage to get a bit of knitting done. Here is the left front of Brooklyn, getting as long as the back. You can see why I rarely show pictures of Brooklyn. It is dull. With the stockinette rolling as it does, you cannot even see the shape -- which is, after all, pretty dull itself. My grandmother would never knit anything in dark colors, even if that was what the recipient really wanted, because it was just too dull. If you wanted a sweater from her, you had better like turquoise or orange. But often the things that are really fun to knit or interesting to post are not what a person actually wants to wear. So here is Brooklyn, dull or not, on its way to becoming a handsome track jacket for handsome #1 son. He is disappointed that it will not be completed in time for the first day of school, but I am sure he will get over it, especially since it will be 90 degrees out on that day.

Now, I have something else to say about Back to School. Over at Feebeeglee's, where I could not comment on it (some quirk of my computer, I suspect), there was a post about the separation of families. That is, in traditional societies, families stayed together and worked together. Now, the kids go off to school separately and the parents go off to their separate jobs. This is rather sad. I have many happy memories of my days as a stay-at-home homeschooling mom, working alongside my husband and children in the garden and in our home. We still relied on my husband's income from his job in town, though.

I work with a family -- That Man and The Empress are husband and wife and The Princess is their daughter -- and The Poster Queen and I have often speculated that we might not enjoy working all day with our husbands. We would have fewer topics of conversation in the evening, it seems to us, and less of a respite from work, when we needed a respite. Less of a respite from home, too, if we ever felt we neded one. Just less variety overall.

#2 daughter and #1 son work together. #1 daughter worked in the same doctor's office where they now are, and I suppose #2 son will do the same when he is ready for a student job. We turn out a consistently good product around here, so there seems to be no reason for the dynasty to fall. They enjoy it.

So I was thinking about that, and then there was a conversation in the choir room at church on parents and back-to-school. The choir is full of teachers, and they were expressing the common belief that parents look forward to getting rid of their kids and are "ecstatic" at sending them back to school all day so they can get them out of the house. This is widely believed, I know, but it has never been true for me. I am at work while they are at school, so I can't exactly say that I miss them, but it is nice, in the summer, to be able to have lunch with my children. I certainly never think, "Oh, goodie! I can get rid of my kids now!"

Does anyone?

So yesterday, along about midafternoon, #2 daughter showed up at the store with a pizza-sized chocolate chip cookie and iced tea.

You understand, all of us workers are whole grains and fresh produce eaters. We had salmon and lentils for lunch.

Did we turn up our noses at the chocolate and caffeine? By no means. We all ate little bits. The Empress pointed out that no one had cut a proper piece, but instead we had all carved off little snippets. The Princess said that as long as you didn't take an actual piece, it didn't count. I am not certain that lipids are subject to geometry in this way.

The health benefits of chocolate are well documented. And there is evidence that chocolate makes people -- especially women -- feel good, too. But the enormous improvement in our collective mood following the consumption of a little chocolate and caffeine was -- well, perhaps a little beyond rational explanation.

Perhaps not, though. The cookie said, "Well Done!" on it. It was cheering to think that someone cared enough about us to go to all that trouble, just to encourage us. Has anyone checked to see whether chocolate has mood-enhancing effects independent of how it is acquired?

All this made me think about whining. I try hard not to whine too much, especially during August when whining seems more natural than usual, but sailing through the knitting blogs as I have been has made me think a lot about whining.

Friends, there is a whole lot of whining going on out in knitting blogland.

I do not include in this the people who use their blogs to chronicle their cancer treatments, nor those whose blogs focus on sociopolitical  Weltschmertz (like "pants," this is another good word from Sushi for Beginners). I am talking about good old-fashioned self-centered whining.

Now I think that there are two valid points of view on this matter. First, these blogs are our journals, our diaries even, and if we can't whine here, then where can we whine? Our friends and families sure don't want to hear us carry on about how some yarn splits or the phone company wasn't helpful. It's our blog, and we can whine if we want to. People who don't want to see girls swearing about knitting needles can go somewhere else, that's all.

The other viewpoint is that we are in public, and don't we know how to behave? If even our friends do not want to hear about every passing dissatisfaction, why should strangers who dropped by in hopes of seeing some cool knitting be subjected to them?  If you feel a little delicate, you can write about it privately someplace. And if you feel hard done by whenever you receive the universal thump, then you should get over it. In private.

I'm offering you alternatives here.

I also offer you some bloggers who are amusing about the vicissitudes of their lives. No whining in any of these.

She just walks around with it is another of those knitting blogs with no visible knitting content. It is also another of the growing genre of knitting blogs by single adult women living in moderate misery. It is a good example.

Crazy Aunt Purl shouldn't be on this list because I've mentioned her before, but she is certainly the funniest of the afore-mentioned genre.

I don't think that The Knitting Curmudgeon is in the webring, so maybe she shouldn't be on the list either. But she is sort of the matriarch of the bad-tempered knitters. It seems rude to leave her off. She also has interesting and unusual takes on knitting topics.

Creative Soul Confessions writes bravely and with a lot more self-disclosure than I ever do. I got caught up in her adventures. She doesn't post very much -- fair warning -- but she has a nice gallery.

Dilettante Debutante isn't dealing with much in the way of vicissitudes, but has a nice turn of phrase for ladylike disdain. This is rare, these days, so why not celebrate it? She also has actual knitting content.

Grumperina is a xangan like us. She gives you the choice of her very grumpy life blog (truthfully, there is some whining going on there) or her merely slightly grumpy knitting blog with lots of nice pictures. You can choose according to your mood of the day. This is quite considerate, isn't it?

And I must refer you to someone else not in the webring: Mrs. Pilkington Knits.  She is not writing about her troubles, either. I mention her just because there is so much interesting stuff over there.

I am not working today. In fact, today and tomorrow should be an oasis of pleasantness. Tuesday, #2 daughter leaves to resume college life and I must take #2 son to the dentist, Wednesday I have a root canal scheduled, Thursday #1 son wants to go try his drivers test again and if he doesn't succeed, we will have to deal with complex transportation problems, and all these things take place against a backdrop of continuing Back to School. But today and tomorrow are days off, to be spent getting our own Back to School preparations done. Without whining.

Here is the Lotus shawl,with a hat. Well, sort of.

Actually, what we have is one full repeat of Lotus stitch. That's about 17 rows.And it is sitting on my sewing box, because a couple of inches of lace doesn't look like much on its own. And I was about to pin it out. And the pins are in the sewing box. I don't know. It was a whim.

I have stretched out a bit of it here so you can see it a little better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thing about lace is that, should you reach this point and decide that you can't bear the thought of the dozens, nay hundreds, of further repeats needed before you actually have a shawl, you can quit here. You have a perfectly good edging. Bind it off and sew it on your pillowcases.

Although what I have is a gray fur edging. Some bedrooms might look good with pillowcases edged in gray fur, but not mine. Still, it is a possibility.

I do not intend to quit. I like this stitch pattern very much, and I love the yarn (Possum Laceweight from Cherry Tree Hill). Brooklyn, my zombie knitting project, is progressing nicely, so this epic knitting project can take forever and I won't mind a bit.

You will notice that I have a marker placed every ten stitches. This is a standard piece of lace knitting advice which I initially ignored. When I finished the first repeat of the pattern the first time, I found that I had dropped two stitches, which naturally destroyed the pattern. I had to frog it and start over. This time I used stitch markers. They allow me to count the stitches regularly and thus catch a dropped stitch before it becomes a big problem.

Bear in mind that on a complicated lace like this one, the markers will not always mark the beginning and end of a repeat. If you look at the stitch pattern, and there are things like "P2" and "K4" in front of the asterisk, then your stitch markers will sometimes be in the middle of the stitch repeat, but they will still be handy. You may also not always have the same number of stitches there, since some laces increase on one row and decrease it back out on another. The stitch markers are still helpful, but don't expect more of them than they can deliver.

If you want to knit some lace and haven't done much before, look for stitch patterns with all the fancy stuff on one side. The directions for these will say something like "Row 2 and all wrong side rows: purl." There are even some lovely old laces with three rows of stockinette and then a single fancy row.

I am still zooming through the knitting blogs before going to work (and yes, I am working today, day number seven this week). I have come upon several of the Yarn Ho!s by now, and it is nice -- like running into somebody from your neighborhood while out of town. I am not going to review you guys, though. I want to introduce you to some new reads.

So much fiber is not one which I can recommend for your reading pleasure, because I don't understand much of it. Hacking CSS? Tweaking the template? Podcasts? Could be fascinating, for all I know. Still, the photo albums are quite inspiring, and she shares charts and stuff, too. Being unable to make my blog do anything, I am also impressed by the organization of her blog.

Every word's a purl is written by a reporter. She knits, she tells us about her knitting, but what I like best about this blog is that her life is entirely different from mine. Oh, yes, you could say that about most of the bloggers, I suppose. But here she is, leading an interesting urban single girl life peppered with mayhem and violence and snakes, wearing dresses made from Strawberry Shortcake sheets, and giving interesting glimpses of all this.

Nake-id Knits is always entertaining. Her work is varied and skillful, and she links to news that I would surely never hear about if I didn't read her blog.

My to-do list before work today includes a visit to the butcher. My local butcher has something which he calls a "Variety Freezer Bundle": 25 pounds of assorted white-paper-wrapped things to throw into your freezer. You can then, on any harried day, pull some white rectangle out of the freezer and fling it into the slow cooker with some sauce or put a little note on it asking your husband to cook it, and be assured of having protein on the table come dinnertime. I should have done this before  Back to School began -- it would have saved us from some distinctly scratchy meals.

The problem with the Variety Freezer Bundle is that it is so manly. With #2 daughter returning to school on Tuesday, this is perhaps not a bad thing. My household will revert to being all guys but me. However, I am not usually one to grill a chop or roast a big piece of animal carcass. Meat at my table is usually in slivers of some kind amongst the vegetables. Some day, when I gather up the courage, I will ask the butcher to create a Ladylike Freezer Bundle consisting of boneless chicken breasts, stir-fry steaks, fish, and ham slices. For the sake of family harmony through the remainder of the Back to School season, though, I will be very thankful for the Variety Freezer Bundle.

Off I go.

There we were, four people and a dog, in a space not more than six feet square, surrounded by ravening teachers, when ---

Wait, I'll start at the beginning. Or near it, when #2 daughter strolled in with pizza for lunch. As we passed the laminator, I said, "The laminator looks a little off.... Maybe it's my eyes." I felt a little silly, and we went on to the breakroom.

The Empress thought she'd adjust the laminator cart, and pushed it a little, at which point the wheel broke and the cart began to topple. She caught the laminator, and called me, and That Man and I got the laminator down onto the floor. I went back to lunch. The Empress and That Man took the wheels off the cart and attempted to put the laminator back onto the once more stable cart.

The fools! They should have called me. Who lifts weights around here?

Anyway, the laminator slipped and part of it broke. I joined back in the fray at this point, and we got it back onto the cart and taped the broken bit onto it. It now makes a high-pitched squeal, a sort of eldritch shriek, whenever anyone uses it. It was in continuous use from 9:45 am to 2:58 pm, with no break except for its own breakage. And by then -- but I am getting ahead of myself.

The keening of the laminator was an interesting counterpoint to the screaming of the children. There is a school of thought which holds that it was Mrs. H's eldest pushing Mrs. P's youngest around in her stroller at top speed while the baby screamed in terror, that it was this that really started off the mob screaming of the children. I think it may have been the laminator. I know that I was standing there at the computer checking people out, with the screaming of the children, the banshee-like wail of the laminator, and the twelfth repetition of "You Must Remember This" on the stereo, feeling as though I must be getting a little insight into what Hell sounds like.

The Princess and I were just keeping our heads down, scanning pile after pile of posters and trimmers and calendar pieces, when the UPS man came in. He was searching in vain for someone besides us to sign his forms, but had to give in and make his way through the clots of customers. He announced that he had brought Mavalus Tape.

"I know you ladies all want to kiss him," I called out, "but I'm afraid he's married!" I was of course referring to the global shortage of Mavalus Tape which has been plaguing us all during this Back to School.

I should have been quiet, though, and not let the word get out. We were inundated with people wanting Mavalus Tape. The lines grew longer. I was just keying in six rolls for Mrs. S when the South computer quit responding.

The Princess had stepped back from her computer for a breather, so I hopped across to the North machine and typed in the magic code MAV1001. Nothing. The screens of both machines remained frozen.

We restarted the computers. I tried to come up with snappy repartee to distract the customers from the ever-lengthening lines of teachers slavering over the prospect of Mavalus Tape at last. The machines got back up and running -- and still did not work. The Empress and That Man fled to the back to check with the mothership. The Princess and I smiled inanely and shoved games at people in a further attempt to distract them. Then the word came from headquarters -- the server had crashed.

The Princess and I started in with manual tickets. Most people had dozens of items, so we were writing it all and calculating and refusing to meet anyone's eyes. The Empress and That Man were reinstalling the system in the back room.

At last the computers came back up. That Man and The Empress returned to the front lines, along with The Dog. The lines shrank. The marathon laminator left and took some of the children with her. The Princess, The Empress, and I repaired to the break room, leaving That Man and The Dog to hold off the hordes, and recruited our strength with slugs of iced tea.

By the time the Poster Queen arrived after her day at the school where she teaches, things were back to normal. Or what passes for normal in August.

Except for the high-pitched whine of the laminator.