Atlatls in the news: Pennsylvania May Let Hunters Use Prehistoric Weapon  Hot damn!  I think that’s our very own atlatl-Bob they’re talking to.  Hooo-weeeee.  He makes the darts and atlatls we all use.  And he’s also been known to be a flax-pusher. 

Atlatls in the hollers: Scott kills one mean box  Hot damn!  That cardboard box never saw it coming.  Thanks to Mike and Tara for the film.  I was too busy staring and knitting to take any movies. 

And, if you’re so inclined, take a look at the poetry book club Rachel and I are gearing up to start: Eating Poetry.  Um, there are no atlatls involved, but the poetry promises to be good, and we are likely to learn a thing or two about a thing or two.  And we’re starting with Nuala and Berryman.  So hot damn all over again. 

Three small things:

Soon-to-be-felted Booties for a soon-to-be-born baby:

I don’t actually know the baby’s gender, but I figured this was a pretty blue for a child who is likely to have blue eyes.  And the whole "so precious we must dress you to blend in with the sky so the evil spirits don’t snatch you" thing  seems equally apt for girls, in my world.  These will be felted soon, but I’m not sure how soon.   I think some more yarn from the stash wants to turn into felted booties and slippers for kidlets.  I’m trying to be a good little green and wait until I have more stuff to felt before I fire up the washer. 

Auntie Wainright’s gloves for me:


A Kiparoo Farm pattern knitted from their fabulous Evening Myst yarn.  The color here isn’t accurate–it’s much bluer in real life.  This is a fun pattern, what with the picot edging and the band of ribbing to snug the wrist up.  The yarn is so silky and shiny and lovely I can’t decide whether to knit it or pet it.  Good thing I like it, since I have two sweaters’ worth. 

And it’s my first blog-iversary.  One whole year.  Thanks for making it so fun.

This little tableau earned me some good-natured razzing.  I matched my knitting again, as I am want to do, when we went out to knit in public last night.  See, Tara gave me that bag for my birthday, and I was already knitting both of those pairs of socks: the multi-colored socks are my KPPPM Jaywalker socks, and the solid pair are some uber-heavy hiking socks out of Peace Fleece.  And the bag matched all of the socks, and just happened to be the perfect project bag for socks, so the socks moved in and together the socks and the bag reset my wardrobe plans somewhere in my secret, hidden girly-girl brain. 

And then suddenly there was the teal silk sweater and the brown suede fitted jacket and the brown silk/linen embroidered skirt, which I had to wear one more time before Indian Summer ended.   And the handmade fish-mouth knitting basket to carry the goods,  of course.  You know how it is.  And with that ensemble, a girl needs to wear some soft brown Mary Janes and a nice amber necklace.  And, really, it’s all about matching my eyes.  Well, my right eye.  Which is blue and brown, doncha know.  A righteous combination if ever there was one.  Rare-ish, and cool, a nevus.  Though–you get this one for free–don’t try to pick up a girl with eyes like mine by comparing her to a husky.  I promise that it will not help you pull.  But I digress.   

This is all a long, drawn out way of saying the Jaywalker Socks are done.  Finis.  Have been since Monday.  Socktoberfest ended a week late for me, but I think that’s ok for a girl with two jobs.  Sorry for the flash: dark comes early these days. 

Summing up: Grumperina’s Jaywalker pattern, knit without alteration in Koigu KPPPM in a teal and brown colorway.  This is the first time I’ve used Koigu KPPPM, and it was nice to work with.  I’ll reserve full judgment on the yarn until I see how the socks hold up.  This is the first time I’ve really wanted to own sock-blockers, because I think I could get a much better photo if I had some.  This is a fun pattern to knit–there is enough going on to keep the knitter interested, but no annoying holey lace to end up being uncomfortable under shoes.  The pattern does help keep the sock from sliding down the leg, which is a nice touch.  I’m a sucker for Mountain Colors Bearfoot, and it gets floppy between washings because the mohair content is so high.  I even have some on hand.  Imagine that.   

Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter by Stephanie Pearl McPhee.

I knew I would love this book.  I had no idea how much I would love this book until I got to "The Cardigan Letter".  That’s when I got a little obsessive.  I knew going in that the author was a more experienced knitter than I, and that she was a witty, entertaining writer.  I didn’t know she would make me shake with silent laughter while I was trying to let my husband sleep, or that she would make me bawl (also while I was trying to let my poor husband sleep).  All of the stories are good, a few are heartbreaking.  I think I actually like those best, because I really do see handcrafts as deeply healing.  Read the book.  I shouldn’t have to convince any of you who knit, certainly.  And the rest of you should just take my word for it.  You won’t be disappointed. 

Welcome to eating poetry, a place to read and discuss poetry with others who embrace verse that’s worth reading.  We’re not looking at doggerel, we’re not looking at Freshman lit texts, we’re looking at the good stuff.  It won’t all be pretty, and it won’t all be easy. We’ll cover a new volume of poetry each month. 

Our first two books are  Pharaoh’s Daughter by Nuala N. Dhomhnaill and The Dream Songs by John Berryman.   If you want to join in the discussion, get the books and get to reading.  We’ll welcome other members, though it’s just Rachel and me here at the start.  If you’re interested in participating, drop us a line. 

Updatey-goodness: Brigid’s Samhain photos rock.  And they provide evidence of ruana-finishing fun. 

Last weekend, while many of the Knitters Review folks were retreating to the not-terribly-far-away Graves Mountain, we assorted nuts went to the wilds near Charlottesville to celebrate Samhain; the Celtic New Year and the original holiday upon which Halloween was founded. 

This was probably our last year at this particular site, which is making me a little teary because it’s the locus of so many great memories and it is truly a wonderful place.  But when the owners change their minds about the alcohol policy after you’ve already signed a contract, paid, and set up an encampment; and then start blathering about running a "family campground" as if we’re all baby-eaters because we brought some beer; and then fetch the beleaguered local cops to interrupt us during dinner and demand that we pour out or remove a keg of Guinness because they want something to get into a pissing contest about. . . well.  New Year is a good time to initiate change, right?  John the Farrier has an amazing site waiting for us, and there are already some serious public works projects underway.  The ground is broken, the corner posts have been raised, and I’m thinking about what sort of felt rug a long-hall will need.  And where I’ll find all the red sheep.  And if maybe I can convince the Farrier that he really needs to keep sheep there for me. 

Anyway, we had unseasonably warm weather, and the kidlets were in fine form.  You know, the kids in our "anti-family" group.  Rona’s dad is a photographer, and she is a natural model. 


Too bad I have this baby-eating habit.  She’s too big to be baked up in a pasty now, and I’ve promised her folks I won’t cook and eat her and all, but  . . . but . . .  but look at those cheeks.  Good thing she has a stick.  And that she has that laugh of hers, which erase any evil thoughts in a large radius around her.  Still not eating Rona, Yorkses.  Don’t worry.  Even though The Man thinks I will.  And that I have a tail.  And maybe horns.

Skylar and Mia are also safe from the stove, though they too look delicious.   


Mia is offering me the little bit of hiking stick she still has after letting one dog after another chew on it.  I guess our dogs are anti-family too.  Not at all annoyed, me. 

Once the drama was done and done, we had a lovely weekend.  The Bridies went over like gangbusters.  Jeremy promised to research the hybridization of a Bridie tree, after recovering from his shock at learning that Bridies are a rare commodity and that even tall, lanky, starving teenagers were limited to two.  We also had sauerbraten and apple pies and a delicious pork and pumpkin stew and and and.  Not all at once, mind you. 

And of course there was some singing, some stick-fighting, some spinning–even by kidlets!, some creek-swimming, a bit of guffawing, a mess of atlatl throwing, a bunch of hunker-hausen, and maybe a rather large fire.  Ooh, and three of us ganged up on Olwyn and taught her to knit!  Woot!  And I got around to finishing this:

Hanging a bit strangely draped over the curtain rod there is the ruana I’ve been working on for ages.  It’s not actually uneven, I promise.  It’s just being uppity.  It’s composed almost entirely of leftovers from other projects.  I purchased three balls of yarn in a colorway that seemed to unite most of my scraps and just worked away on it here and there.  I’m still not quite sure whether or not I own it, though it’s very warm and pretty darn soft.   I have some fear that if I give it away it won’t be cared for properly and will turn into a partially-felted nightmare.  But I also don’t think I’d ever wear it.  Which then leads me to question why I’m knitting away on an alpaca lace shawl that I’ll also never wear.  Am I the victim of some strange mind-control experiment foisted upon me by a non-knitter who loves shawls? And if I am, how will I ever break free?

So . . . Bridies for Samhain.  Samhain is a Pie Holiday after all.  Practically a campaign slogan, right?  Not that I’m running for anything.  Nor am I volunteering for anything.  I’m like an anti-volunteer over here, trying to shuck tasks as quickly as possible.  Anyway, we’re leaving for Samhain tomorrow and . . .

I can’t find any puff pastry.  Craptastic.  I love all y’all, but I don’t know if I have the strempts to make four pounds of puff pastry by hand tonight.  Anyone know if there’s a puff pastry fairy I can call on?

Yay!  Cancel all that scaredy-talk up there.  The Safeway had puff pastry, so, um, Safeway must have employed the Pastry Fairy sometime between last night and this afternoon.  Isn’t that good to know!  I may have gone a little overboard, but it was like finding gold.  Six pounds of gold, to be exact.  Now with the math:

six pounds of pastry
six pounds of beef
four medium (pronounced meee-jum, of course) onions
secret herbs and spices
real gosh darn seasalt from Anglesey
Lanea’s Bridie fu (as yet unmeasurable by Science)
+ three hours of hard labor (divided by good new stove and silpats)
___________________________________________________
108 Bridies
– dinner for Lanea and Skutai
___________________________________________________
104 Bridies

Friends.  That is a record.  And look at them:

Those aren’t even the prettiest–they were just first out of the oven.

I could claim that my friends like me because I’m nice, or because I am witty.  But looking at my kitchen right now, I’m convinced it’s the Bridies.   Mountains of lovely Bridies.  And I think I’m ok with that.  I mean, I’d date me for the Bridies, especially if I brought me some HP sauce to have with the Bridies.  Add some Fraoch Heather Ale and I might even marry myself.

Sweeney’s Flight by Seamus Heaney and Rachel Giese.  This book pairs sections of Heaney’s translation of Buile Suibhne Sweeney Astray with black and white photographs of Donegal by Rachel Giese (now Rachel Brown).  It’s been out of print for a while now, so I was thrilled when Powells found me a copy a few weeks ago.  I somehow managed to keep my paws off of it until Halloween.  For once I display willpower.  But once I opened it, it was all over. 

Poetry and black and white photography share a special connection in my head.  I don’t know when the link formed, but I know that each art’s interest in compression and precision raises the hairs on the back of my neck.  Each art, done correctly, results in something akin to religious ecstasy.  For someone with a fractured belief system like mine, such art allows me to get closer to faith than I otherwise could.  Connecting poetry and photography to Irish mythology forces my reaction that much closer to apotheosis.  So yeah, I wanted this book.  It lives with Triur Ban and An Leabhar Mor on an imaginary alter-like book table in my mind. 

Heaney reworked parts of his translation, and happily the entire text is included in the back of the book, so those who have not yet read Heaney’s Sweeney Astray have it all here.  I don’t think Sweeney’s Flight works if you don’t read the full text–this isn’t meant to be just another coffee table book.  So if you’re lucky enough to get hold of a copy, do yourself a favor and read the full text.  I’m always both excited and jealous to read Heaney’s translations, because he’s one of the precious few who are getting to do what I wish I could for a living.  Thankfully, he’s doing it so very well.  Buile Suibhne tells the story of a seventh-century pagan Ulster King who is cursed with madness by a bishop.  T.S. Eliot, Neil Gaiman, and Flann O’Brien have all used Sweeney in their work.  The tale is generally considered to be the most poetic of any of the old Irish texts, and many translators and writers play at trying to do it justice.  Heaney cracked it in the 1970s, and I don’t know who can match him.

Noodling for Flatheads: Moonshine, Monster Catfish, and Other Southern Comforts by Burkhard Bilger.

I grabbed this book from my to-read shelf when I did because I needed a hard-cover to take with me to a web design class, so I could prop the book open with my wallet and knit while reading.  Serendipitous, that.   It’s a very fun read.  The book is a collection of essays about underground hobbies and interests practiced throughout the south, many of which are maligned as redneck or hillbilly pursuits.  The author seeks out and interviews moonshiners, raccoon hunters, squirrel-eaters, Soul-Food cooks, frog-breeders, Rolley Holers (those are folks who play a cool form of marbles), and cock-fighters. 

The first essay is indeed about Noodling for Catfish, which has to be one of the most bull-headed, dangerous, and ancient methods of fishing we goofy apes have developed.  Noodlers use their fingers as bait, locating a nesting male catfish tending his fertilized eggs, and then taunting him until he strikes at their arm.  Apparently good noodlers can limit the amount of injury a fish does to their arm, but I’m sure lots of these fishermen (and they are generally men) have some hard-earned scars from the sport.  Bilger manages to interview the noodlers respectfully and does end up risking his own arms in a fishing outing.  More power to him, I guess.  I found this essay and a documentary on Noodling really fascinating.  I’m not sure why.  I guess we kooks just like each other. 

The book works because Bilger is respectful of all of the folks he interviews.  He walks into these underground communities without any prejudice.  He’s willing to find out from his subjects why they do what they do.  It was a bit tough for me to read about the cock-fights, and I’m sure some readers would be put off by the raccoon and squirrel hunting.  I made sure not to discuss the sections on the more exotic (or is it less exotic?) eating habits with anyone in my class, lest folks find their own lunches less appealing.  The chapter on Moonshiners was the best of the bunch: Bilger rides with both the Shiners and the Revenuers out to get them, and displays all with wit and sensitivity.  And does indeed drink some shine with each crowd.  If nothing else, I finished this book wanting to see some folks play Rolley Hole. 

It’s all about the good, the bad, and the goopy around here.

Let me start with the good.  The Socktoberfest socks are lovely to knit, and the finished sock is comfortable and warm.

The bad is that we apparently have some sort of appliance-related curse.  First, our furnace died on Thursday.  And though we know what part we need to replace, Scott hasn’t been able to find one in a store yet, and we can’t get anyone out to the house to fix the furnace until November 7th.  There may be a lot of cold between now and then, but it certainly won’t be the kind of cold folks in West Virginia and the Northeast are experiencing.  I’m glad that it happened in October and not February, because our current level of cold makes this an annoyance and requires us to bundle up, but doesn’t risk our pipes or our safety.  Consequently, I’m knitting on the ruana a lot these days, because it is essentially a blanket at the moment.  See–it’s full of Crazy Lanea.


But the furnace was just the first appliance problem.  Yesterday I met the Black Screen of Death.   My computer could not rouse itself, and it picked a bad time for illness, what with all of the party planning and festival work going on around here.  For the first time, our dog hurt the computer and the cat was innocent*.  Kayo’s fur gummed up the works.  Lots of dismantling and vacuuming was required.  Scott fixed everything.  Except for the  vacuum, which started smoking while it was sucking out the Kayo-fur.  Three appliances in three days.  Ugh.  I will not be touching my kitchen-aid or my sewing machine for a while, I’ll tell you that.

Luckily, appliances are not generally required for blocking sweaters.  Here is Rose, quasi-finished:

She looks fore-shortened because, well, I’m short and it’s hard to photograph sweaters that are on the table.  The neck is still dangerously low (Scott says it’s fine), so I think I’ll go around with at least one more row of crocheted edging.  I dread that.  The lace looks great:

What does not look great, even post-block, is the stockinette.  Either my swatch lied and this needed smaller needles, or the curse has affected DK Soft’s bloom (is yarn an appliance?) or I suddenly turned into a crap knitter.  I’ve been advised to put her away for a while and not do anything rash . . . but we all know I’ll probably give Rose away to someone who will be less demanding of her.  It is in my nature. 

And the goopy?  It’s Pumpkin time, baby!

My friend Tara’s dad makes these amazing pumpkins.  And he taught Tara how to do it when she was a kid, and Tara taught me (thanks Tara!).  And I have two Halloween parties today, so I thought it was time to make another lovely pumpkin.  Wanna learn?  Ok, I’ll show ya. 

Get a pumpkin, a design, and some scary dentist’s tools.  You’ll also need something to scoop the seeds out, something to thin out part of the inside of the pumpkin, and something to cut the top off with.  And a sharpie.  And maybe an exacto knife.  And a latte would help.  This whole process took me about an hour and a half.  Oh, and if you don’t have any sort of appliance curse, you could use a dremel and it would be much easier and faster.  No matter what tools you decide to use, please be careful, work slowly, and don’t cut yourself.

I’m putting the festival’s logo on the pumpkin, since we’re having our volunteer appreciation party today.  This is actually not a great design as-is, because the lines are pretty fine in the knots and spirals.  Tara or her Dad could do this, I betcha, but I’m still a novice. 
So, tape your design template onto the pumpkin:


And take either a pin or an awl or an exacto knife and start tracing the design through the paper onto the pumpkin by making tiny little dots or slices.  This will shred your template (Martha would never tell you that), so you should be prepared to do some freehand work and to blot up the water that the pumpkin weeps. 

Then you’ll take off your design and start carving your design in earnest.  You’ll have to decide whether you want the image to be worked in the positive or the negative.  Here, I’m leaving the orange skin for the negative and removing it for the positive, cuz I’ve only got a little bit of time to do this in.  And you’ll notice that I’m not cutting through the pumpkin–I’m just cutting through the outer skin. 


Believe it or not, sharpie ink will come off of pumpkin skin if you don’t let it sit too long, so if you need to trace over some parts of the design to make it easier to see the design, go for it.  Just make sure you wipe the ink away within about 10 minutes or so.   Once I’ve cut the outline, it’s time to start gouging out the skin.

Here fishy fishy!  This will send chunks of pumpkin skin flying around the room, so be prepared.  Here is what I had after about a half-hour:

And here’s the completed design:

Now we go from detail work to scut work.  Cut the top off:

(Scott did it for me . . . something about "no time for stitches today, crazy girl").  If you plan to light the pumpkin with a candle rather than some little electric light, be sure to make a hole for airflow, or you’ll either have to keep relighting the candle or you’ll burn your pumpkin down.  Don’t laugh, I’ve seen it happen.   And if it happens in or near a house or a forest . . . well, just cut a hole, please, and don’t burn the pumpkin or anything else down. 

Now clean out the seeds and goop inside (and toast the seeds, if you’re so inclined), and get out something to thin the pumpkin with.  I’m using these potter’s tools:

Because they work pretty well and are significantly less likely to cut me than most knives we own.  The thinner the pumpkin behind your design is, the brighter it will glow when lit–spend some time on this.
Whoda-thunkit?  The dog likes pumpkin:


I was wondering why he was bugging me.  The things you learn when you adopt an adult dog . . .

Et voila, a Potomac Celtic Festival jack-o-lantern:


It took a little over an hour, and I know it will be the only one like it on the block or at either party.   I would love to see what someone with better carving-fu could do. 

Have a great Halloween and/or Samhain everyone.

*Scath once threw a printer to the ground and smashed it to bits, and another time he poured apple juice into my laptop while I was writing my senior thesis, and another time he tried really hard to have a hairball on my keyboard, but I as quicker than he, just that once.  The cat hates computers, and he’s not hesitant to kill them whenever he gets a chance.