The Inexorable Mouths of Snails

Waves arms

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 20:17:00 GMT

I'm over here again!

G+ is getting ready to sunset, so I'm posting mostly here and MeWe now.

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Not dead!

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 20:34:10 GMT

If you are following me here and I used to follow you on lj, or I know you from other sites, please comment below. Comments are screened so only I will see them, if you are concerned about privacy.

I will try to post more. I may have the time for some longform blogging again.

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Saffron's shawl, part 5: finally some progress

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 02:14:24 GMT

A wonderful friend gave me my own set of the DVDs. Between that, and our dvd player and tv, I have an updated list of things I've observed about the shawl. A lot of this post is aggregated from a couple of posts on the thread over at BDK on Ravelry.

I had little success the last time (I have a whole card full of photos that really don’t give me much info), and having the DVD set (I had it on my DVR which isn’t really HD) and an okay little DVD player with digital upconvert and a really good ZOOM made a huge difference. I also put a fresh projector bulb in my digital projector tv, and that helped a lot.

I took a whole bunch of photos with my phone, because, of course, the battery was dead in BOTH decent cameras. Between fiddling with brightness/contrast on the tv and saturation on the phone, I got a couple of really decent shots of the back of the shawl. For blurry phone pictures of highly zoomed almost pixelated paused DVD video.. Argh.
I’ve spent hours pausing and zooming and inspecting the still images of the first 15-20 minutes of the ep and I’m pretty sure of several things about it.

it is for sure a top-down traditional (starts from the center of the long edge) mitred triangle
it has a double-eyelet border knit on or into the long edge
the pattern is a vertical open-chevrons-in-stripes pattern, with repeats of three chevrons and a wider solid chevron marking the ends of the repeats
there is a solid “stripe” between the chevron motifs that is 2-4 stitches wide
the chevrons point down and echo the border points
the openwork chevrons are made with 7 eyelets, with one at the point
the angle of the pattern when viewed from the back is not 45 degrees, so it’s probably a slightly shaped triangle/butterfly if laid out flat
it has a knitted on bottom border that is in pattern (the points of the border line up with the points of the chevron motifs creating an illusion that the border is not knit on)
there appear to be 15 21 points, including the three points of the triangle
that means there are 15 21 tassels or fringes (since there are so few, I am calling them tassels)
the tassels are tied on and appear to be made with 2 or 3 strands doubled over, and the length is not equal (or they are very worn and have attenuated and been torn over time)
it is made with a large singleply (like lamb’s pride worsted) or a very smooth/worn multi-ply
it is probably a wool or wool blend yarn, because the shawl looks like it has fulled a little bit due to age/wear or possibly deliberately during washing/blocking to stabilize the pattern (since it is so large)

I’ve ordered 2 different wool yarns from Webs to make the shawl. One of them is bound to be a better fit than the other: Nashua Handkints Creative Focus Chunky in ~~Copper~~ Carmine and Nashua Handkints Creative Focus Worsted in Brick.

Hope this makes things that I think I’m seeing clearer, I scanned some of my notes (not nearly all, just the most relevant ones).

Overview of my notes:

This is the scarf I made for the firefly-themed swap I was in recently, and which really helped with working out the borders and she spacing of the motifs:

Here’s an incomplete (doesn’t include the foundation row that the two halves point out from - it’s grafted in the middle) chart for the scarf above:

and rough charted notes from making the scarf (NOT the shawl!) for the corner of the sideways worked border (purl rows aren’t shown):

SO, that's where we are at this point.

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Writing: Brain exercises, The Glass Wheel

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:30:59 GMT

I think I know what I need to do to get this percolating properly in my head to make a real story of it.

I'm going to rewrite it, from memory, as it might have been told in may times and places, with and without Christianization, with and without Victorian santizing, with and without fairies or demons or angels. With both the spindle and the wheel, perhaps without a spindle entirely, if I write a version set in a country that reels silk. As if I were collecting all the versions of the story, like a folklorist.

Maybe, somewhere, in all of that, i might find the larger story I intend to write about the Glass Wheel.

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Writing: a synthesized folktale, part of a fragmentary larger story

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:28:37 GMT

This is part of a larger story, inspired by this incredible glass spinning wheel I saw online several years ago. The larger story is not anywhere near complete, and even the names of the characters and the time I want to set it in are in flux. I have descended into research. As I quite like research, I tend to wallow in it and thus avoid the actual work of assembling anything from it.

It is set in a fictional town in Occitania, some time in a nearly 500 year period. Right now it's sitting in the early Renaissance. Kind of. Maybe it needs to be in a sort of dreamtime. I'm not sure. Right now all I really have is a mass of notes, historical, cultural and linguistic research, a small note I found about a spinning Madonna in Catalunya, a picture of the glass spinning wheel and this fragment. This is really a manufactured fairy tale with heavy Christian influences, befitting the location and time.

Story below the cut. Critique welcome, I'm kind of at an impasse.( Read more )

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Can I go back to bed?

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:28:16 GMT

Today is already a day that can only be improved by setting my own hair on fire.

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Camping In

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:31:28 GMT

Today, it is hot. It is a Lying Around sort of day. Husband is out, doing Star Wars Geeky things up in the LA area and I am home with the Monkeys.

So: Wading pool is filled, beach balls are filled up, patio is clean (did that yesterday), and our 10x10ish hexagonal dome tent is set up in the living room with pillows and a small table in it, for the boys to watch movies from and play in.

I am doing Other Things, but I plan to get out the campstove and cook hotdogs on it on the patio for dinner.

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So, It's that day again.

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 22:12:55 GMT

I was awakened this morning at about 8:45 by the emergency notification PA system broadcasting Taps, followed by a pause (moment of silence, I have to assume), and a man's voice saying "So. Here we are."

This is a new development in the observation of a national day of mourning, as the PA system in question wasn't used for this last year, and did not exist before that.

Instead of making me think of the tragedy in question, this instead made me think of other, similar, tragedies and how they were affected by the available news coverage of their relative times/places. The Lusitania, Pearl Harbor (most similar ideology-wise), the Hindenburg (probably closest in character, news-coverage-wise), the Titanic, the 1906 earthquake, Loma Prieta, the Tsunami. All of which are horrible either in body count or sheer destruction, and all of which were watched as closely as possible by the news.

Hindenburg is most similar, coverage-wise, because it was covered almost-live on the radio. People who heard it broadcast felt as though they were there, with all the horror and helplessness that came with it. I have also thought on Pearl Harbor, and how we have long since stopped widely observing a day of mourning for that event. I have to wonder if it is not so much the freshness of the currently mourned tragedy as the fact that nearly everyone with a television in this hemisphere watched it as it happened, and many throughout the world did as well. And that every year, for week surrounding the official day of mourning, we collectively reopen the wound by rebroadcasting all the footage available, with more retrospective coverage tacked one for good measure.

I don't think it's that we won't let it become history, or I hope it's not that. I think it's awful to keep it SO fresh for so long. It disrupts the healing process. Human beings are capable of healing and going on, and we tell stories, but never before in our history has it been possible to completely relive a collective traumatic experience (however vicarious) of this magnitude. For most of us, what we need to heal is the acute sense that we witnessed a horror and did not a single thing to save all those people. The fact that we could not have, any of us, even if we had been right beside the EMS personnel who died trying to do exactly that, means nothing. The distance that seperated all of us from the event means nothing.

We still feel the guilt. We still feel the sorrow. We still feel the helplessness. We keep peeling the scab and it will never heal in a good way if we do that. The intolerance that is rampant currently, the fetishization of a mythical Other and a mythical Us, are the largest symptoms of this emotional scar we keep working at. Knowledge is good. This? This isn't. This is propaganda. It cheapens the memory, by preventing it from becoming one.

My point, I suppose, is that I don't think rebroadcasting the crashes and the collapse to those who already saw them too many times is good for any of us. A better memorial would be a reading of names, a showing of faces, a memorial service with representatives of all faiths and perhaps eulogies for those who died who chose not to practice a faith.

And maybe, just maybe, stop trying to make it a scar on all of our psyches. It's there, we will never forget. The honorable, sensitive thing to do is to stop hurting everyone annually for ratings.

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The fitness slog has begun.

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 23:07:05 GMT

Today was the first of hopefully many days of working out with my new exercise partner. We mostly stretched and did some time on the bikes.

Things to note:

I have forgotten how to use the weight machines I used to use regularly. Sigh.

I also am more flabby after a year and more of recovering from an awful ankle thingy than I had hoped, even with my yoga and crunches that I sporadically commit to. Must work on that.

My heart rate wasn't too terribly bad during the bike ride, for having turned into a bucket of shapeless ooze while recuperating, so there's hope.

Yay!

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When nothing is watchable...

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:38:57 GMT

...but you want to watch SOMETHING, then it's always fun to heckle it.

We are currently watching and MST3K-style heckling Conan the Destroyer and his shiny silver leather underpants.

"You can tell I'm in charge because I'm wearing the Most Exceedingly Uncomfortable and Awkward Hat. Also, I have a cape, that looks like I bought it off a folding table at a Grateful Dead show."

"I hump this statue when nobody is looking. Watch me rub it for dramatic effect!"

There has been some "I has a Stik!" in reference to Grace Jones, as well.

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Too weird. Too weird. Too weird.

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:31:55 GMT

Unexpected crossover of the day - Something*Positive/Curious George. REALLY.

I am watching an episode of Curious George (I didn't turn off the tv after the kids went to school) in which George carries around, then eats, a pink, melty, ice cream sculpture that looks EXACTLY like ChooChooBear. At the end of it everyone is eating big lumps of pink choochoobear icecream while the head smiles away on a plate.

D:

I'm afraid.

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Posting from dreamwidth

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:56:49 GMT

Account ported, please comment over at dreamwidth as all future comments will be disabled at lj.

Thanks!

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