scifiknitter

Two projects are featured here. One has been done for a while, but I didn't have a good picture of it on its recipient. The other project is one I finished yesterday, just in time to give it away. The Studly Lace Scarf This project is a combination of a pattern I liked and a hank of yarn I happened to have in my stash. The pattern was a dropped-stitch basketweave scarf in the spring/summer 2009 issue of Vogue Knitting, and was designed by Laura Bryant. The magazine shows it as a wide scarf, almost a shawl, in a delicate pink. The pattern has a cool feature: you deliberately drop certain stitches and let them run down from the top to the bottom of the scarf. A dreaded mistake is transformed into a design element. The yarn I had was dark, shot through with yellow, reds and greens - a very different feeling. I also had only one skein. I decided to make the scarf narrower than designed, to make sure it would be as long as possible. I also knew that as much as I liked it as I was knitti...

Did you feel the earth shift at 9 PM on Tuesday night? Because the techtonic plate of the politics in the town I live in shifted when the polls closed. Tuesday was primary night in New York, and there was only one race on the primary slate here: Republican candidate for Town Council. Three candidates were running, and the two getting the most votes would get to be on the ballot in November and would go on to almost certain victory. The candidates: - The woman who is a farmer and a county worker who has served on the Town Council for almost 8 years. She has been a sensible member of the board. - The newcomer, a woman who belongs to one of the two fire departments and who first ran a few years ago as a write-in. This time she did her legwork, and filed a Republican petition, got the Democratic nomination at the caucus, and filed an independent petition to boot. - The grande dame (EDIT: from the French, meaning "great lady") of our town's politics. This candidate is 88 year...

It's kind of nice when things work out as well as hoped. It started with a message: "So when are you going to invite me to go sailing on Minuet?" Which made me realize that a real-life invitation was in order to my digital friend Sharkey . After some date juggling back and forth, we settled on a plan: a sailing trip to Kingston, Ontario and the Limestone City Blues Festiva l. Sharkey arrived on Thursday evening, and he was - ta da! - just like I pictured him! Of course, there have been some messages, some videos and a couple of phone calls along the way to flesh out his self-portrayal in pixel form. He had less to go on, mostly words both written and verbal, but I am happy to say that I portray myself honestly, and I was much as he expected. The mystery man in all this was R., who neither blogs nor reads blogs. I've filled him in from time to time with information about the friendships I have made in my on-line world, but they are my world and my friendships. And Shar...