Reviving the Blog

 I've been out of the blog world for a while now (mumble something nine years), but with the current Ravelry debacle and the fact that I've been doing more sewing means that I'd like to have somewhere to track my projects. I don't know how much I'm going to keep up with it, but we'll see. One of the things I always appreciated about Ravelry is the ability to look at other people's projects - seeing a pattern on multiple bodies (some similar to my own) was always helpful for deciding whether or not to buy a pattern. It highlighted what kinds of issues there might be in the pattern as written, and what kind of style modifications I might want to do. Seeing other people's project photos and notes definitely encouraged me to post my own - a way to give back to the community I got so much from. I'll miss that. But right now I can't support a company that knowingly endangers users and refuses to do anything about it. So new things will go here. Maybe people searching for similar projects will find it useful. 

I've decided that the best thing to do is start fresh, with a new blog. Mostly because it will be easier to manage my blogger account now that Google owns Blogger (and half the world). So I'll now be at An Engineer's Guide to Handwork for the forseeable.

The Burren

Last weekend we did a little exploring in County Clare. API, the program I'm in Ireland with, organized a tour. We went to the Cliffs of Moher, Ailwee Caves, and the Burren. We were on the bus most of the day, but the country side is beautiful. I would love to go back some time, with more time to explore. The burren is an area of exposed lime stone, with rocky hillsides and fertile valleys. Ancient stone walls crisscross the landscape, cutting it up into small fields with a few sheep or cows in each.

A castle we stopped to look at:

Me at the Cliffs:

An excavated portal tomb:

A neolithic ring fort or "fairy ring":

I've been living in Ireland for a week now. I'm studying abroad at the National University of Ireland in Galway. I ended up here almost by accident - I knew I wanted to study abroad, and I didn't want to take extra time to graduate. I had to find a place where I could take the three civil engineering classes I needed for my major, with a program approved by the UNH study abroad office, and in a location where I would be willing to live for five months (the last one was pretty easy).

I needed three civil classes, which meant I had to find a school on pretty much the same schedule as UNH. I needed Soil Mechanics, Structures, and Wastewater, all in the same place. Edinburgh had some, but no soil mechanics. Manchester only offered a more advanced structures class. Somewhere in Australia might have worked, but flights are so expensive and none of the schools I could find were quite right. NUI Galway wasn't quite the only option, but it was clearly the best. Now that I'm here it's hard to imagine being anywhere else.

I'm living in a student apartment complex about a 20 minute walk from the University, with three other girls from the program and a Spanish guy. Every morning I leave and head up the hill - away from the shopping center and the rotary. I walk by a field with ponies, old and new stone walls. If I look carefully between the houses across the street I can see Menlo Castle in the distance. I cut across a bit of marshy grass by the river, climb up to the road, hop the gardrail, and cross the River Corrib towards campus. It's a beautiful walk, misty or clear.

A Short Detour into Food

It's been a long time since I've posted, but I'm back. I have done some knitting, but mostly a lot of cooking. I'm working at a summer camp in Canada at the moment, and I have been in charge of the kitchen. I arrived a week ago, and immediately made dinner for 25 people. Since then I've been cooking at least one meal every day.

I went up to Langskib and made roast chicken for a Waldorf group, and fried eggs for breakfast. Back at Northwaters, I was only cooking occasionally, and for 12 people or so. I made Indian twice (in a row, but at the request of my boss), with dahl and potato-spinach and rice. I cooked corn chowder for lunch, with sandwhich fixings, and made tacos for dinner. This morning we had pancakes and boiled eggs and bacon for breakfast, and black bean soup (with chickpeas - I've been using up the wintered-over cans), also bagles. For dinner we're having lasagna and zucchini.

The hardest part about cooking for the masses is knowing how much people are going to eat. I hate having a ton of leftovers, and food going to waste, but I want to make sure everyone gets enough to eat. I thought that getting everything done on time would be a problem, but it hasn't been so far.

I play rugby for the club team at my school, and in the spring we often have to practice at 6 AM, because there's snow outside and not a lot of room inside. I have 8 o'clock classes every day, and generally this means that I go directly from practice to class. The first couple of times I did this, I just put sweatpants on over my shorts and sneakers. But I quickly realized that I wasn't comfortable sitting in class in gym clothes. I never go to class in my pajamas, or in sweatpants. The most casual I get is jeans and a t-shirt. There might not be a whole lot of difference between sweatpants and jeans, but in my mind I am not prepared for class if I haven't put on real pants first.

I recently ran across this quote by Theodore Dalrymple in In Character:

For many years I believed that how a man dressed was unimportant; it was the man within that counted, not the man without. My belief excused me for being myself rather scruffily dressed, which was very easy and convenient for me in terms of effort required. But I now think that I was mistaken, for it does not follow from the fact that outward appearance is not all-important that it is of no importance at all.

The small matter of cleaning one's shoes, for example, is not one of vanity alone, though of course it can be carried on to the point of vanity and even obsession and fetish. It is, rather, a discipline and a small sign that one is prepared to go to some trouble for the good opinion and satisfaction of others. It is a recognition that one lives in a social world. That is why total informality of dress is a sign of advancing egotism.

That is exactly how I feel. If I can't be bothered to get dressed before going to class what does that say about my opinion of the class, my professor, and my fellow students? I respect them, and the least I can do is put on a proper pair of pants before showing up in class. A professor wouldn't teach a class in sweats, we as students owe them the same respect.

On a completely different note - I am almost done with my sweater. I have finished all the pieces and cut the steek, now I just need to assemble it and figure out some kind of closure. I'm thinking maybe a knitted on band and collar, with mitered corners, but I want the collar to be green, and I'm not sure if having the band green too would be weird looking. We shall see.

Once apon a time in France

Well, I'm back at school now. I have been for three weeks, actually, but my course load being what it is I've been a bit busy. I missed the first week of class, which really wasn't much of an issue. I was caught up in a week or so, though Chemistry is still kicking my butt. It's not so much that I don't expect to do well, it's just that it's a lot of work.

The rest of my time in France was pretty good, though I am never going anywhere without a cell phone again. Mine doesn't work, and I didn't bother to get one because I was only there for a month, but it was really difficult to meet up with people without being able to call. It wasn't the end of the world, but it made me appreciate how much easier it is to meet people when they are always on the other end of their phone. Must have been hard back in the day before cell phones.

Back at school means being back at swing, which is lovely. We had a dance just last weekend, and I got a whole lot of swing music for my computer. We had a big stack of CDs in the office, and I took them home and ripped them to itunes, then put them on a thumb drive and brought them to the dance. I now have 300 MB of swing, and my ipod is nearly full.

Vizille

On Monday afternoon I went on a mini excursion to the nearby town of Vizille. It's half an hour away by bus, and has a château with a museum of the French Revolution inside. The château was quite interesting, some of the rooms were set up, others contained displays of various revolution artifacts. The château itself was at one time a residence of the president of France, and Charles de Gaul hosted some set of foreign visitors there. The château itself is worth a visit, but the garden was really spectacular, even covered in snow. There are formal hedges and flowerbeds, a water feature with a fountain and many little arched bridges, and ducks. A path runs all the way around the small park, through stands of trees with benches and tables. It would be a lovely place to go in the summer, with a sketch book and picnic lunch. Actually, Grenoble in general would be nice in the summer - all the parks in the city center, and hiking in the mountains.

The Château

France-ness

So here I am in France, without ever photographing and posting about my Christmas knitting. There wasn't a whole lot of it, but enough to warant a post with pictures surely. I produced a scarf from Knitted Lace of Estonia for my sister - the peacock and leaf scarf, except much longer and in white angora. For my brother I made a pair of socks, in blue with a knit two, purl one, one seedstitch, purl one rib (which was very successful) with a green cuff. I also made a document carrying bag for my dad out of green leaf-patterned brocade.

I'm staying in Grenoble for the next month and studying French at the CUEF (Centre Universitaire d'Etudes Françaises). I'm living with a host family in the center of grenoble; right in the old city. I take the tram to class every day - the stop is a block or so away, and I have a 20 minute ride.

The tram is pretty awesome. It runs on electricity, and is very quiet. There are wires overhead, but only two except at intersections. The rails are set into the pavement, and cars drive over them all the time. Because the electricity is in wires overhead, there is no third rail like the subway, and people step onto the tracks and cross over. Even when the tracks are separated from the road there is no barrier of any kind - at the station you just walk to the other side to change direction.

I forgot my camera (I don't know how - I walked right by it when I left) so there will likely be no pictures, but I'll still be able to post discriptions.

A Catalog of Shoes

I live in a quite small dorm room. It's a single, which means it's just me and my stuff in a 10.5 feet by 8.5 feet room. It's not very big, but I mostly manage to fit everything in reasonably well. I find myself hampered in this attempt by all the shoes I own.

They are:

one pair black character shoes
one pair gold character shoes (spray painted)
one pair black leather pumps
one pair black ballet slippers
one pair gold ballet slippers
one pair low-top eco-sneaks
one pair converse high tops
one pair flip-flops
one pair running shoes
one pair rugby boots (with large metal cleats)
one pair neoprene winter boots
one pair cow boy boots
one pair brown leather ankle boots
and one pair slippers (red, boiled wool)

Exhibit A: 15 pairs of shoes

On the benifits of gettting dressed up and going somewhere

Last Saturday was the Hepcats Swing Club annual winter dance. Compaq Big Band played. It was lots of fun. We all got dressed up and went out dancing, in the snow. I wore a bright green silk dress that I made last spring, and gold shoes.


Getting dressed up is fun, even if it's just to go to a small dance where some people will show up in fancy dresses or shirts and ties, and others will be in jeans and a tank top. What other people are wearing really doesn't matter.

It was snowing for most of the evening, and by the time we walked back to the dorm. Heavy, wet snow that clung to everything it touched and layered on the trees and bushes and telephone wires.

Thanksgiving Sewing

I got very little knitting done this Thanksgiving, mostly because I was too busy working for my mother. I was home for most of a week, and spent the first weekend cutting out and starting a muslin for a dress shirt. I had to go back to school for classes on Monday and Tuesday, but I had intended to come home and work on Wednesday. I figured I could make the final draft, as it were, in a day and where it to Thanksgiving. Not so much.

It turned out my mother (who I love dearly) needed me and my sewing machine all day on Wednesday to finish covering new cushions for a danish chair belonging to a friend, which she had promised by Thanksgiving. It consisted of wrapping the foam cushion forms in dacron fluff and muslin, sewing them on, and then creating removable covers. The covers were in a thick, loose-weave upholstery fabric, with piping around all the edges. I got to make the piping. I'm not quite sure what she would have done if I had not been home to work on them, but they would not have been done by Thanksgiving. (My showing up in the nick of time clearly makes me a Big Damn Hero)

I spent most of Friday and Saturday working with my mom at the Craft Fair, we ran the food. There was ham, egg, and tuna salad sandwiches, hot dogs, and pupkin soup. We worked for 5 hours or so each day, and it was pretty easy. I knew I was going to be doing that, though I hadn't quite realized how exhausted I would be by the end of the week. In all, it was not exactly the relaxing vacation I had in mind.

My life was eaten by:

So, for the past two weeks or so I have hardly had time to think.

The reasons are:

• Fluid Mechanics: I am taking Fluid Mechanics for honors, and it ate my brain (but maybe when I finish the CAD renditions I'll post them)
• French: Presentation (on Chartres Cathedral), quiz, the like. It's hard!
  
• Technical writing: final team project.
• I got the flu, and was sick for 48 hours or so.
  
• First Saturday Contra Dance in Peterborough New Hampshire
• Intermittent bits of knitting (new project, will show soon)
• Harry Dresden, wizard private investigator

But I have gotten a fair amount of knitting done. I started the sleeve of my sweater, but sort of got distracted, and I'm not entirely happy with how it turned out. I may try again and knit the patterned part inside out to keep the floats loose.



The offending sleeve. It's a bit too tight in the pattern, and I think it loosens too fast.

Charleston Game

One of the other things I do when avoiding studying (besides knitting) is swing dance. My school has a Swing Club, we meet every week for an hour lesson and an hour (or so) of free dancing. Swing dance is a couple's dance, and comes in three general types. East Coast Swing has a six count basic, and is danced to any 4 beat music. It is often what people learn first, and is also called Jitterbug. Lindy Hop has an eight count basic, and is the main social dance everywhere. West Coast is a variant on Lindy, it has many of the same moves, but is danced to more latin-type music, rather than the jazz favored by Lindy.

The lessons have now moved on from East Coast Swing to Lindy Hop, which is much more fun. Lindy is a dance that was invented in the 20s and 30s, and is generally danced to jazz music, though anything with a good 4/4 time works (I'm partial to Buddy Holly). Charleston is what came before Swing, and Lindy incorporates a lot of Charleston moves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=339ixMtHrVk&feature=related

This evening during the free dance, a bunch of us started playing "the Charleston game". This is a game invented by a couple of the club members (who have now graduated, sadly), where Charleston is danced in a big group, but with variations all done together. The signals are given on the back rock step, and then the front kick is changed into something else - a stomp, two stomps, a freeze, something like that. From across the room, it looks like telepathy. An entire group of people are all Charlestoning at the same time, with variations, all in sync. And it's not choreographed, except on the fly. Lots of fun.

This afternoon I spent 3 1/2 hours watching an informational video on identifying bankfull width in streams. Bankfull width is the level at which the stream fills its banks, but doesn't quite spill over onto the floodplain. It's useful in stream restoration. But the upshot of watching this video was that I had 3 1/2 hours sitting staring at my computer screen, knitting. I finished the body of my sweater, and grafted the shoulders. I even wove in all the ends. Now all that's left to do is cut up the middle (you can see where it is folded over in the picture). I'm really pleased, so far.

The Sweater.

Armhole Fitting

I went home last weekend, and was able to figure out what to do next on the sweater. I was wrong - I didn't get the pattern from Elizabeth Zimmerman, it was from Knitting in the Old Way, by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. It uses the percentage system, but gives more exact directions for different shapes and styles. I chose the "fitted sweater", which is a modification of the "fitted vest". I added a fitted waist and a square neck, with a steek so I can cut it up the front.

The armhole shaping turned out to be very easy - cast off one stitch on either side of the front every other round. The neck shaping consisted of casting off 20 stitches on either side of the steek, it will be about 8 inches wide. It has sloped shoulders, which means a short turn row or two at the top of the shoulders. I'm not sure how many, I'll have to look at the two sides together once I've finished the back. I'm working the front above the armholes back and forth, because since it's plain there's no reason not to. I've already finished the front - on to the back! Maybe I'll get to the sleeves before next week.

Sweater doodles

Also, my design process. Yes, it is the back of an envelope.

Percentage blues

The cardigan that is currently my only real project is based on the percentage system worked out by Elizabeth Zimmerman (knitting goddess). It is based on the fitted sweater, which involves inset sleeves and armhole shaping. My problem is that I have reached the armholes, and do not have the directions for figuring out how the shaping works. The decreases on the body have to match the shaping in the sleeve so they fit together correctly, without puffing or pinning my arms to my sides. I'm sure it will be lovely eventually, and I like the way a fitted sweater looks - it's a little more dressy than the classic drop shoulder. But it's frustrating to get up to the armhole and realize you can't continue.

I've been so busy in the past week I've barely had time to knit at all, and most of that while watching the few TV shows I follow. I watch Bones regularly, and Castle (mostly for Nathan Fillion), and House occasionally. The only way I can really justify it is if I'm accomplishing something on my knitting in the process. It allows me to put my feet up for an hour and not think about all the homework or exams I'll have to go back to shortly. I had three exams within a 24 hour period, which sort of killed my entire life for the week preceding. But I'm done for the moment, and we have a three day weekend, so life is looking good.

Why I Love Fall

Fall has always been my favorite season. It's colorful, and bright, and crisp. Even when it's cold or rainy, I love it. Once, in elementary school, the teacher asked us what the saddest season was. I said winter, because everything is cold and dead and blue. She insisted that it was fall, because everything is dying, and that winter is not as sad because everything is already dead.
To me, fall has always seemed like one last party before winter. The wind whips the brightly colored leaves into the air, swirling them around and around. The skies are clear and bright, bluer than they are at any other time. Clouds are light and high in the clean, crisp air. Even when it rains, and everything is grey except the sad, washed out leaves, I still like it. Better than the muddy swamp of spring, anyway.
It's been cold the last couple days, and it feels like fall has really hit us. It doesn't last long, and I plan to enjoy it while I can.

The Sweater

Right now I have only one major knitting project actually on the needles. (I have a couple others that are merely yarn and an idea) It is a cardigan, the first I have ever attempted. I found the yarn in a bag in my mom's stash - she bought it because there was enough for a sweater and it was on sale.




Yarn: Kid Classic Mohair, body in purple, patterning in green and brown.
Gauge: between 4.5 and 5 to the inch (all kinds of fun, let me tell you). I'm knitting tighter in pattern than plain, which is not surprising, but makes for interesting math.
Pattern: I'm making it up as I go along. It's based on the Elizabeth Zimmerman cardigan percentages, with a square neckline. We'll see how it goes, could get pretty interesting when I get to arm hole shaping and the like.
Color Pattern: borrowed from one of the sweaters in Poetry in Stitches (wonderful book). I reversed and flipped it so the leaves will alternate around.

The cardigan is steeked down the center, which means that when I'm done I'll have to cut it open. I've done it before, but it's always a little nerve wracking to take the scissors to something you just spent a significant amount of time on.

Old Project, Complete

So while my Saturday was totally unproductive from a schoolwork perspective, I did finish a project that has been waiting around for a spare hour since last spring. The project: a tapestry bag, in a size I've been feeling the lack of lately. There wasn't much left to do - just finish sewing on the handles and install the pocket. It's a copy of a canvas bag I've had for years - the original was red with black handles, and had a picture of a sewing machine on the pocket with the legend "Women's Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society." It was the perfect size - the handles are long enough to go from hand to elbow, for ease of wearing on the shoulder, it's wide enough and not too tall. But it's really too worn out to carry without complete reconstruction, so I decided to make a replacement.



The new bag is made out of a sort of brocade/tapystry kind of material, the handles are plain cloth tape, the kind that is used on the seats of Shaker chairs. It's a little less sturdy then the original, but that might not be bad. I might add a lining with some inside pockets, there is some stranding behind the weave, which could catch on things. Regardless, I'm very pleased, and it will be nice to have a bag with just enough room for a notebook or two and my knitting.

Inside of bag