Couldn’t resist one more post, and then back to blog break. I’m on holiday in Southern California, and recently visited Encinitas, home of Tony Hawk, more skateboarders than you could shake a stick (ha) at, and a really laid-back place all-round.
Here’s my Encinitas ride:
Encinitas ride
And here’s my ride at the yarn shop:
My ride at the yarn shop
Life’s good.
In times of trouble n strife, I’m a comfort food person. Chocolate, thanks. And tea. (If the stars have aligned, I will have a cup of chocolate caramel chai on hand, a gift from my Mom, who sends it from the U.S. periodically.)
But today, because I have had four shots of novocaine in order to get three teeth drilled, I require comfort knitting. And possibly comfort soup. Tomorrow, the same — three more teeth. Hopefully less novocaine. All up, eight teeth need(ed) fixing. I won’t get into the whys and wherefores except to say that yes, I do actually look after my teeth and no, I don’t swill Coke all day long.
Maybe it’s the comfort food. It’s also to do with my (un)lucky dip in the gene pool. (Thanks Mom! And by the way, I’m out of chocolate caramel chai…)
In any case, I am going to finally knit up either the Suzie Horne yarn that’s been hanging on my wall for over a year or the Wendy Dennis yarn that’s been hanging on my wall for over a year. Not sure yet. Probably the Wendy Dennis — it has silk in it. Extra comfortable knitting. And it will make a nice new Clapotis, which is lovely comfort knitting. Haven’t made one in a few years. Dropping stitches will be nice.
Knitting has its hot topics. I don’t mean just straights vs circulars. There’s mulesing, if you really want to throw a firecracker into the lobby.
For the non-wool-aware reading, mulesing is the removal of folds of skin from around a merino lamb’s bum. It’s done with special shears, usually without anaesthetic (unless the lamb is 6 months or older). It protects the sheep from flystrike, which occurs when flies lay eggs in the dags of poo and wool in that area. (Fly eggs, as you probably do know, lead to maggots, and maggots eat the sheep’s flesh, leaving it susceptible to toxemia, septaecemia, anorexia and death.) The industry has committed to find alternatives to mulesing and end this practice by 2010.
Meantime, PETA is leading a push not just against mulesing but also the wool from it, and large companies (Hugo Boss, Benetton, Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, etc) are boycotting Australian wool because of it. More here.
It does not surprise me in the least that a corporation would leap at the chance to source wool from much cheaper sources (China, Africa, South America). This lets them appear ethical and get a better bargain. As a bonus, they may even reap some publicity for supporting a popular cause! (Check out Adidas, announcing their boycott even though they don’t even use Australian wool.) Seriously, how great is that? If you were a CEO, you’d do it too.
But if you’re reading here, you’re more likely to be a knitter. What are your options if you want avoid mulesed wool? You could throw your support behind PETA to boycott Australian wool. Here’s another, better option: don’t buy mulesed wool.
There are plenty of small wool growers in Australia who don’t (and haven’t ever) mulesed their sheep, and they seriously need the support of knitters here and worldwide if their businesses are to survive.
Some of these businesses are based near Australian cities and suburbs (Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth) so anyone who wants to can also buy a product with a small carbon footprint, if they are so inclined. Buyers can also talk directly with the people who grow the wool about the practices they use on their farms. (I know one grower who is a vegetarian and names her sheep — all 100-ish of them — so if you wanted to know about balancing the requirements of farming with ethical treatment of animals, she’d be a good one to talk to.)
Lastly, the thing that I find really astounding here is that PETA is happily giving mega-corporations an excuse to shift their business to countries that have poor track records for human rights including low pay and poor conditions for human workers — not to mention a great deal less public scrutiny in their wool industry.
You — yes, you, anyone — can download a free code of practice document on sheep welfare in Australia, and if you are inclined to boycott, I encourage you to do so, and read the appendix on mulesing so you know what you’re boycotting. (Care to point me towards similar transparency in China?)
I always loved the way Richard Hatch bowed out of the Survivor All-Star series, almost gleefully announcing, “I’ve been bamboozled!”
Me too! Been bamboozled by a knitting pattern! After all this time, all that yarn under the bridge, you’d think I’d know better. Nup. I’ve definitely lost the battle with this wrap (far right) by Tom Scott, who says he likes to think about the women he’s designing for.
Wonder what does he think when he’s designing? (That bag lady I passed on the way to the studio—so inspiring!)
The little number I knitted was very tempting, but I should have known better. The reverse stocking stitch sans selvedge. The way the sample clings to the model yet the pattern completely lacks shaping—clothespegs up the back, anyone? And the back waist, well, the less said about that the better. (Tommy, baby, you lied to me!)
What was I thinking, carrying on this long with it? I dunno. I’ve got to be a bit compulsive about finishing projects before I start new ones. Wanted to polish it off and have a stylin’ new sweater for me this winter. Not to be. Must get on knitting husband and child garments before the weather warms up.
It breaks my heart to see what is happening over in Geelong with the ‘imminent’ closure of the wool scour serving so many of the small wool producers in this country, not to mention every rare fibre producer (hello alpaca!).
I can all too easily imagine the bean-counting consultative logic behind the decision — very much a ‘let them eat cake’ attitude: oh, just ship your bloody fibre overseas for processing.
But good lordy, how stupid/selfish/narrow-minded do the bean counters have to be to shut this scour? No scour > no need for processing > closure of mills and manufacturing facilities > loss of thousands of jobs, permanent loss of skills … this is a stretch, I know, but sometimes I see a glimpse of a parallel in China’s Cultural Revolution, y’know? Let’s make sure we decimate our skills base, now. And then let’s send the work to China, I hear they need the jobs over there.
I had a rant to my husband the other night — as I sat at my spinning wheel, which seems to get my mind humming along — about the way government infrastructure and reporting has disabled the human capital of a particular primary industry group that I work with. The constant increase in government requirements — which are arcane and terribly confusing — takes researchers away from research, not to mention growers away from growing, and puts them to work as government lackeys, filling out forms and following rules, which must then be administrated by a growing number of … governent lackeys.
Oh, it would be amusing if only it weren’t so serious.
Let’s talk about this industry’s levy, too. It’s structured just like the wool industry levy.
Growers pay a research & development levy based on their harvest. The government body known as the Levies Revenue Service collects the levy, and the LRS is the only group (apparently) who knows who all the levy payers are, and they will not reveal this information. Privacy act or somesuch.
The downside of this lack of information about who the levy payers are *also* prevents anyone from getting them together as a whole body to talk about *their* money and what’s being done with it. Isn’t that a neat trick? (Oh, no, we can’t tell you who you are, that’s private. Very Joseph Heller.)
So, I wonder how the talks went yesterday regarding the closure of the CSIRO scour? I admit I’m not hopeful because over the last several years, the government has gotten ever more deaf/blind/dumb towards the enormous difficulties of being a grower and I just don’t see that changing. They shut the scour once a year ago and it’s really just dumb luck that’s kept it open — CSIRO handled it so badly that they were forced to reopen.
And yet because this closure will kill the Australian coloured wool and rare fibre industry, I’m hopeful that someone in power will see the light. Or maybe they’ll take this last chance to snuff it out.
I met M-H, aka WittyKnitter (or the Sydney Godmother?), and her partner the other night. I love it when ‘knitting friends’ (as my kids call them) come to Adelaide! We get to be all proud of our little town and its lovely offerings (like Good Life’s organic pizzas and Wilkie Estate’s organic wines on this particular occasion) and of course I get to drag out my knitting and bore my family silly. (M-H is lucky in this respect, as Sandra is a knitter too.)
We had a great time, ate well, laughed lots and kids behaved reasonably well. And for non-knitters reading, here’s where the story ends for you. Here’s where you’ll start to get bored silly.
Sandra had left her knitting in their apartment but M-H had hers (some fetchingly simple toe-ups in Lorna’s Laces Pioneer colourway — you don’t need to do much but knit that stuff to make it look sweet) and I had with me 1 3/4 Merino Bambino bedsocks for my daughter.
Mine are top-downs, and as we compared heels/toes (as you do), M-H pointed out that although our short-row toes looked similar, hers used a version called the Sherman toe, which I’d never seen. They were a bit neater-looking and — for me this was the kicker — they don’t require that crazy purl-three-together-through-back-loops manoeuvre that I’d been using. (I mean, I love the short-row toe, but *that* I could definitely do without.)
So, fast-forward about two hours, and I’m home in front of the computer, having looked up this how-you-call-it, Sherman toe (with pictures here) and I’m finishing off the socks without any yarnovers. Wow. Simple. Sweet. The nice thing, for me, is that you can (as with Priscilla Gibson-Roberts’ version) work them with top down socks. This is good as I still prefer an elastic cast-on to a sewn cast-off (which I find finicky to work and, more important, never feels as good to wear).
From this picture, I don’t think you can pick the diff. Think I’ve got me a new technique! Thanks M-H.
I knitted through the heatwave. Yes I did. Only socks (small) and my shetland lace shawl (light), and I finally sewed up a project (flat on table, no skin contact). So, no sweat! ; )
Two of those project are done, and what landmarks they are for me. The first one is the Wine and Roses bolero, which I cast on in December 2005 (yep, you read that right) in the car on the way down to Aldinga for a holiday the week before Christmas, about two weeks after Yarn 1 came out. I was test knitting for Yarn 2. Fortunately there was another one in the works, finished on time by another tester (Sophie, who reluctantly served as the garment’s model in Yarn 2, with absolutely lovely results. Take a look back and see what I mean — she looks every bit as elegant as Cate Blanchett). Getting this one off the needles was a real memory ride and a boost to the confidence (Except that I’ve gained/lost/gained again a few kilos that mean I’m not real comfortable wearing it. Ah well, maybe after Easter — chocolate! hot cross buns! — I’ll do something about it.)
The other project was cast on a year later, in January 2007, during a holiday at a beach house on Lake 
Alexandrina. I was in a very different state of mind, probably already thinking how well over my head the whole Yarn thing was getting. I carried an entire flock’s worth of wool in the car and then couldn’t decide what to cast on when I got there. I don’t know why I thought a large, square, lace shawl was the thing, but I cast on, and carried on…and on…and on…until I finally cast off last week during my daughter’s swimming lesson — one day after the heatwave broke. She was able (and willing!) to wrap up in it and model straight after drying off. With a different dress on, she’d look just like a wee little Scottish sprog, too.
So the knitting dam has burst, I think — I’m so close to finishing many projects, and no longer feeling pent-up and anxious about casting on anew. Maybe now I’ll finally get to some of those knitted gifts I’ve wanted to do for so long…
Late last week my order arrived from Book Depository (in 8 working days!), and there was also some surprise hand-dyed Patonyle from ms gusset. The gusset yarn colourway absolutely has me over the moon: semi-solid yarn in beautiful autumn reds, russets, cranberry colors. And the name? Why, Little Red Hen, of course! (How flattering is *that*?)
I’m also very excited about the books, which are three sewing titles. I still find sewing very mysterious — new terms, new techniques and the seductively steamy smell of warm fabric. So I needed some guidance, and for that, I inevitably turn to books.
Simple Sewing by Lotta Jansdotter looked like a stunning book, and it is. Lovely simple-looking projects, and so far, the instructions seem clear to me. Some of the reviews I read also liked the fact that it included full-size patterns where patterns were necessary.
Francesca Denhartog’s Sew What! is full of no-pattern skirts, and since I still love and wear the one skirt I ever made, I thought this title was a good bet. It is a fun book, well organised, and has good basic info on garment construction, so I’m excited about that one too.
Lastly, there’s Vogue Sewing, which struck me as possibly the Montse Stanley of sewing books, and upon perusal, it may just be. (It also has an unexpectedly lovely watercolour illustration on the cover!)
I’m really happy with the selection. What sewing books and magazines do you like (all seven of you*)? Books? Mags? Websites? Are you one of those lucky people who grew up sewing at your mamma’s knee? Tell me. And don’t worry, I’m not going to start a sewing magazine, so all your secrets are safe with me. ; )
Did you think I’d gone away? No, just a little busy. I don’t really know if I could go without blogging anymore, so I hope I didn’t seem too ‘tell me you love me’ last post. It’s just, y’know, once you start cleaning house and getting rid of things, it’s tempting to just keep it going.
But I am a lifelong journal-keeper, and while my blank books generally stay that way, I still need that outlet. The benefit of being public is that it keeps me from getting too interested in gazing at my own navel (not that it’s all that easy to see anymore anyway).
In the interim since last post, I finished a Shawl Collar from Knitting New Scarves (and woo hoo, check out those muffin tops or better yet, don’t), cast on a new Hailstone jumper, and am plugging away still on a shetland shawl and assorted other ufos.
In other news, I also got myself into the printmaking grad degree at Uni SA, so that will bring a new facet to the blog come March…
Did you think I’d gone away? No, just a little busy. I don’t really know if I could go without blogging anymore, so I hope I didn’t seem too ‘tell me you love me’ last post. It’s just, y’know, once you start cleaning house and getting rid of things, it’s tempting to just keep it going.
But I am a lifelong journal-keeper, and while my blank books generally stay that way, I still need that outlet. The benefit of being public is that it keeps me from getting too interested in gazing at my own navel (not that it’s all that easy to see anymore anyway).
In the interim since last post, I finished a Shawl Collar from Knitting New Scarves (and woo hoo, check out those muffin tops or better yet, don’t), cast on a new Hailstone jumper, and am plugging away still on a shetland shawl and assorted other ufos.
In other news, I also got myself into the printmaking grad degree at Uni SA, so that will bring a new facet to the blog come March…
