Knititude

Raiding Junior's Closet

 Razziando l'armadio dei figli!

With two sons*, I always thought I would miss out on the joys of having daughters "borrow" items from my closet-- and perhaps returning the favor.

Con due figli maschi*, pensavo sempre di perdere le gioie di avere figlie, coloro che potrebbero prendere a prestito le cose dal mio armadio-- ed anche di perdere la possibilita' di prendere a prestito le loro cose.

 But maybe I was too quick to call Florin a "child's" vest; I was looking at it the other day, and thought, "I wonder if that would fit me."  And the result?  Not bad; not bad at all!

Pero', forse ero troppo affrettata quando chiamavo il Florin un gile' dei bambini; lo stavo guardando l'altro giorno, e pensavo, "Mi chiedo se quello mi starebbe bene."  Niente male; niente male affatto!

*I do have two grown stepdaughters, but somehow I doubt that raiding their closets would do anything to endear me to them (hi Carmen!).

*Ho due figliastre grandi, ma dubito che di razziare i loro armadi mi renderebbe caro a loro.

Sailboat Knitting: The Sequel

Last August during our annual sailboat trip I was working on Sorelle; this year, the as-yet-to-be-named top-down raglan pullover (Tilli Tomas Fil de la Mer) is still torturing me, although I have finally got the sleeve worked out, and hope to finish soon.   As you can see from the calm water and lack of sails (and the fact that I am letting $$ worth of yarn and hours of labor sit there untethered), there was very little wind the day I took this photo.

 I saw this gorgeous swift at the Nantucket Whaling Museum-- while at sea, whalers apparently spent their ample free time creating gifts for their womenfolk out of whalebone.  Note the carved fist that forms the base-- with wedding ring, no less!  (Was this a message to the wife to remember her marriage vows during her husband's long absences?!)

And below, a little fellow we met on the beach (no worries, he was returned safely to the water).

Birthday Loot

I don't tend to get a lot of knitterly gifts-- not to worry, I purchase plenty of yarn and needles and books and knotions for myself!  I did get this cool T-shirt from my sister last year....   Anyway, this year for my birthday I was lucky enough to receive two skeins of this lovely cashmere yarn, in colorway "Cape Sky," hand dyed in a lobster pot, no less!!  And with them came the cutest birthday card ever; AND, a couple of days later, I received a "Daily Dose of Fiber" Ravelry shirt in the mail (haven't yet gotten a photo of that).  Thanks Carmen!

Breaking radio silence

I think this has been the longest time I've gone without posting since starting this blog.  The time just slipped away:  somewhere between leaving Italy for the summer, arriving back in the U.S., and taking care of various home- and family-related needs, suddenly, it became July.  I haven't done a great deal of knitting either, although I have made an important step in regard to my future designing and knitting (or perhaps non-knitting) life:  I've hired a test knitter.  I'm anxiously awaiting the results, but in fact there's probably no turning back:  I just want to design more things than I can possibly knit with my own two hands.

Near future plans:  by the time the kids are back in school, there are several things I want to accomplish, design-wise.  I want to write up designs for a hat or two; and for a child's vest with which I hope to kill two birds with one stone (surely there's a kinder way to express this sentiment!), namely create something personal for my two sons, for whom I've neither knit nor designed in the past almost-two-years, and create a design which will be relatively quick and fun to knit.  I want to work up various submissions including one for Twist Collective, which to me is an intriguing and exciting twist on the online knitting magazine.  I want to finish my top-down raglan sweater using Tilli Tomas Fil de la Mer, on which I am slowly progressing; I didn't take any photos of the four different neckline treatments I tried, or the three different sleeve cuff ideas I had, but next post:  photos of what still remains. 

The Invasion of the Tomas Swatches

With each of my last few projects, the number of swatches I have done has steadily increased (I hope this trend doesn't continue!).  I've done multiple swatches for different reasons; for my project for an upcoming issue of Vogue Knitting, it was to find different stitch patterns that played well together, while for Etrusca, it was to find an assortment of yarns in different gauges that could be substituted for the Karabella Empire Silk I used-- and to choose among several stitch patterns.  The swatches pictured here are for the next project I hope to turn into a pattern for sale:  a top-down* (my first!!) raglan pullover using Tilli Tomas Fil de la Mer, a lovely, lovely yarn.  By the way, I'm NOT planning to incorporate all of these stitch patterns into one garment.

On a COMPLETELY different topic, I read in some trashy magazine at the gym that various actresses have "girl crushes" on Angelina Jolie, and I thought, "Hmm.  To each her own, I guess."  Then I wondered who my girl crush would be, and having recently seen A Bridge to Terabithia, Zooey Deschanel came to mind.  Then I saw this article about her recent CD release; in the article she is called a "crafty girl" who knits and crochets.  OK, found my girl crush.  Who's yours?!

*Knitting From the Top by Barbara Walker is a great book, but I kinda wish they'd update that cover photo.

Superstitious, anyone?

I heard my song today!  (Meaning the song mentioned here.) 

Superstizioso?  Ho sentito la mia canzone-- la canzone cio che parlo qui.

On ITALIAN radio!  RAI/Radio Due, to be precise.  Not only would it be played (I'm guessing) extremely rarely on Italian radio, but I only listen to the radio consistently while I'm in the car.  This must be an especially powerful positive omen!  I know this is weird, but as soon as I heard the opening bars, a drab, dreary day seemed brighter.

Sulla radio italiana!  RAI/Radio Due, di essere preciso.  Non solo sarebbe suonata (sto indovinando) molto raramente sulla radio italiana, ma anche di solito ascolto la radio solamente quando sono in macchina.  Questo deve essere un buon augurio molto forte!  So che questo e' strano, ma appena che ascoltavo le sbarrette prime, un giorno tetro sembrava piu lucido.   

Enlightenment where you least expect it.

Chiarimento dove si non lo aspetta.

I don't really enjoy going to the gym, but I do it anyway.  Not only for the obvious reasons, but because here in Italy, it's educational.  I can practice my Italian with my fellow exercisers and watch the very best of American television, dubbed and rebroadcast on Italian TV.  Unfortunately I can't listen to the dubbed dialogue because the audio is never loud enough, but at least I've become reacquainted with The Fall Guy, Dharma & Greg, the Happy Days gang, Hope & Faith, Jon & Ponch from CHiPs....

Veramente non mi piace andare alla palestra, pero' lo faccio.  Non solamente per le ragioni evidente, ma anche perche' qui in Italia, e' educativo.   Posso esercitare il mio italiano con i miei compagni di esercizio e guardare il proprio meglio  di televisione americana, doppiato e trasmesso ancora sulla TV italiana.  Purtroppo non posso ascoltare  il dialogo doppiato perche' l'audio non e' mai abbastanza forte, ma al minimo mi sono riconosciuto di The Fall Guy, Dharma & Greg, il gruppo di Happy Days, Hope & Faith, Jon & Ponch di ChiPs....

Well.  Stream-of-consciousness:  "Looks like the Happy Days gang has relocated en masse to the beach...I didn't know Fonzie could waterski!  He's not very good at it, though, and the leather jacket looks ridiculous with those baby blue...what are those, boxer shorts?!  Is that a...a shark?!  What kind of f&%#ing nonsense is that?!"  And then I realized I was watching the famous Jump the Shark episode!

Allora.  Corrente di coscienza:  "Mi sembra che il gruppo di Happy Days si abbia trasferito intero sulla spiaggia...non sapevo che Fonzie potrebbe praticare lo sci nautico!  Non e' molto bravo, pero', e la giacca di cuoio mi pare ridicolo con quella azzurra...che cos'e, biancheria intima?!  E quello, e' un...un squalo?!  Che cavolo e' questa sciocchezza?!"  E poi mi sono accorto che stavo guardando l'episodio famoso Jump the Shark!

My other obsession

I believe in a multi-pronged approach to language learning-- hence not only do I have a weekly Italian lesson, but I listen to Radio Italia ("solo musica italiana") and Italian talk radio in the car (having exhausted all of my language lesson CDs); watch subtitled movies, both Italian- and foreign-made/dubbed; visit LearnItalianpod.com; read "parallel text" short stories (with the original Italian on one page and English translation on the opposite page); and probably most important, try to make conversation with the dry cleaner, the waiter, the landlord, the kid who helps out at the gym, the other mothers at the bar*....  So I must be fluent by now, right?

To understand why my answer is "no", one need only glance at the photo:  my constant companion, the compact Webster's, has "over 30,000 entries," while that coffee table beast under it contains over 2800 PAGES!  Even taking into account that half of those entries and pages are English-to-Italian, mamma mia!  (Yes, Italians really do say that.)  What's that?  Aren't many English and Italian words virtually identical, with common Latin roots, you ask?  Excellent/eccellente question!  Aggression/aggressione, incredible/incredibile, irritable/irritabilita', persistent/persistente, etc./ecc.  However, many words are completely different, and some which seem similar (and may even have a common Latin root), are nevertheless completely different in meaning:  genitori does not mean genitals, but parents.  Not to mention the verbs...that Barron's is invaluable, with all 14 tenses of 1st, 2nd, & 3rd person singular and plural fully conjugated.  +Sigh+...I love that book.   

A few errors that my, uh, friend has actually made:

• Ordering spaghetti with dick (spaghetti con cazzo) instead of with mussels (con cozze)
• asking a saleslady in a shoe store if they have any whores (zoccole) instead of clogs (zoccoli)
• telling someone "See you in nine years (nove anni)" instead of in the new year (nuovo anno)
• ordering a cow (vacca) instead of a vodka (properly pronounced "vohdeka" with emphasis on the "oh")

*Conjures up visions of knocking back a shot or two after dropping the kids off in the morning, no?  While it's true that the bar is just up the street from the school, and does contain a few slot machines and perhaps a drunk (ubriaco, not ebraico) or two, for the moms it's just caffe' e chiacchiera (coffee & chitchat).

Some Monday morning cuteness

I meant to link to this page awhile back (found thanks to the TS).   Never hurts to have a little cuteness with your coffee ("a little" being the operative words here).

(So much fun to search through your own ancient blog post archives: I found this, and this, and oh yes, this; I never did celebrate my 2nd blogiversary, back in November).

The hats that didn't happen

I had reluctantly decided not to bring my Wyvern Wrap along during our various holiday junkets, reasoning that a cashmere-blend sweater was not ideal travel-- (nor warm weather) knitting.  Instead I brought a nice muted Italian merino from Lana Gatto, purchased for hat swatching, along with a couple of beach-glass green skeins of Alchemy Synchronicity, which I also thought would make a lovely hat.  I did manage to catalogue the U.S. division of my stash for Ravelry, in the process finding a couple of skeins of aquamarine Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino--fine hat material. 

However, I haven't knit a stitch in the last two weeks.  But that's OK!  Because I'm looking forward to dabbling in hats, tweaking my tweedy colorwork (also found another stashed ball of Skye Tweed), and a couple of other things after our return to Italy this Friday, and besides--sometimes you just have to put the needles aside and take the kids to the zoo*.

Happy New Year!

*Palm Beach Zoo--the otter enclosure, and an unknown reptilian gent.  Or lady.