Episode 112 Myth or Truth?

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This episode is sponsored by my Longaberger Home Business and Quince & Co.  The folks at Quince & Co produce a line of thoughtfully conceived yarns in an historic spinnery in the state of Maine.  The wool comes from Merino, Rambouillet, and Columbia sheep raised west of the Mississippi River.  You will find that Quince & Co 100% wool is a living fiber, beautiful, practical, sustainable, and affordable. Find them at www.quinceandco.com

You can find my Longaberger Home Business at www.longaberger.com/paula.  If you wish to be on my email preferred customer list, please send me an email at paulaef@aol.com with your name, mailing address, and phone.

I enjoy your feedback, comments on the blog, and questions.  Feel free to write to me at Paulaef@aol.com or on Ravelry as PrairiePiper.

Pipeliner Notes

Thanks to everyone who was in touch with me in the past week. I also want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes on Sunday.  Thank you very much.  This might be a good time to say that I generally don’t talk about gifts on the show until I use them or if the item comes up in the natural course of things.

I read a post from Michelle, Hapi2run.  You can read her lovely post here.

Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Events:

Ellison Bay KAL will start on January 1 or thereabouts and I’ll be posting a schedule so you can complete the shawl in little bites.  This seemed to work well on the Hyla Brook KAL and makes the project manageable.  You will need 3 skeins of Quince & Co Chickadee or the equivalent in a sport weight yarn.  The Ravelry Group thread is here.

Knitting Pipeline Retreat  April 26-27, 2013 with optional loosely structured day on April 25^th.  Signups will be announced in a few months.

Nature Notes

Remember Bertie the Bat in Florida?  Karin wrote that Bertie is back in the shed as of Thanksgiving.  We’ve had unusually balmy weather for December. We haven’t even had snow yet and it is December 6^th.  I’m sure most people are not complaining about that but it does seem a little odd when it is in the 60’s, nearly 70 degrees F as it was on December 2.  We still have lots of birds at the feeders even though the weather is mild.  Right now I am watching a female cardinal, a nuthatch, chickadees, goldfinches, purple finches, and a tufted titmouse at the feeder while a red bellied woodpecker looks for insects in a tree.  He occasionally flies to the feeder for a few sunflower seeds and then goes back to bob upwards along the trunk of the locust tree.  I told you that locust tree is a bird magnet with it’s bark full of insects and a knot that holds water. A blue jay is waiting to fly to the platform feeder.  He cocks his head and then decides to fly away.  I’m so glad to be seeing blue jays now after they took a hit with the West Nile Virus.  A bit deeper into the woods a hairy woodpecker is diligently pecking at the bark on a snag. Snags are dead and rotting trees that are still standing.  They may not look that pretty to us but they are rich for birds and other wildlife. There is no longer any green out in the woods except for patches of moss.  We have a path to our compost pile that is mostly moss.  At first we tried to vary our route to the compost so we wouldn’t wear a path but later gave up and decided that a path was a good thing.  There is so much activity at the feeders today that I would suspect a sudden weather change.  The birds seem to know when a storm system is coming through but I don’t think one is predicted.

Last week I talked about the pronounciation of Henry David Thoreu’s last name but it is hard to say it with the accent on the first syllable.  I found this information on a site.

The Thoreau Society

A note on pronouncing the name Thoreau: in determining the way in which to pronounce his name, it seems best to bow to the authority of those who knew the Thoreau Family well. Edward Emerson, the son of Ralph Waldo Emerson, is very clear. In a letter to Dr. Loring Holmes Dodd, October 11, 1918, he wrote: "We always called my friend Thó-row, the h sounded, and accent on the first syllable." [The Goddard Biblio Log, Spring 1973, p. 7]

From A WINTER WALK

We sleep, and at length awake to the still reality of a

winter morning . The snow lies warm as cotton or down

upon the window-sill ; the broadened sash and frosted

panes admit a dim and private light, which enhances

the snug cheer within. The stillness of the morning is

impressive. The floor creaks under our feet as we move

toward the window to look abroad through some clear space over the fields . We see the roofs stand under their

snow burden . From the eaves and fences hang stalactites

of snow, and in the yard stand stalagmites covering

some concealed core. The trees and shrubs rear white

arms to the slay on every side, and where were walls and

fences, we see fantastic forms stretching in frolic gambols

across the dusky landscape, as if Nature had strewn her

fresh designs over the fields by night as models for man's

art. 

Needle Notes

Herbivore by Stephen West/Westknits  Sept 2009 published. $6.00.

I used size 3 needle. Wonderland Dyeworks fingering weight in Ocean Cliff colorway. Purchased at Sock Summit 2011.  Earthy tones with an overall impression of green.

 

Sock Yarn Blanket by Shelley Kang. I’m calling it my Kindness of Knitters Blanket. 

In case you missed last week you can still send scraps of sock yarn to me for my KKB.

Knitting Pipeline, Box 549 Washington IL 61571

Progress Report. Started Nov 13 so after 3 weeks I have 58 blocks.  I did stick with the 31 stitch block.  Each week I will have a blog post on the yarn I have received and post photos with tags of the knitted blocks with Pipeliners names.  Just first block knitted from each.  This week joining Charr and Beewing are Goldybear, SeashoreSharon, and Jpeled. Thank you again, Friends.  This is so much fun.

Blogger insists on rotating this photo.  Sorry, Beewing!

Pretty yarn from SeaShoreSharon.

 

Andy’s Sweater.  Started on Dec 1, 2012  Saturday.

Usually start with a sleeve and I did on this sweater also.

 

Using EZ’s percentage system and Quince & Co Lark in the Sabine colorway.  The Quince & Co Lark is a dream to knit with.  Feels like a different base than Chickadee.  Maybe not as soft but still very squishy and a fiber pleasure.

Come into the Blethering Room for a Bit

Lila and Claudine’s Advent Scarf 2012

Advent Scarf 2012 Pattern

Sometimes we need something to help us slow down during the holidays. Too often it is hurry up that we hear. I suppose you could call this a KALM: Knit Along Meditation. I am not aware of anything else like this on Ravelry so I wanted to share it with you.

What about those words that you look up, once, twice, or maybe five times, and you still can’t remember the definition?  This was a topic on one of the episodes of the podcast A Way with Words.  One of those words for me is eponymous.

This morning I read in the paper:

Brian Setzer rocked the forefront of two musical revivals, thumping out 80’s rockabilly as leader of the Stray Cats and blasting out ‘90’s swing with his eponymous orchestra.

: of, relating to, or being the person or thing for whom or which something is named : of, relating to, or being an eponym

Now that I know what eponymous means, I am not so sure I like the word.  Isn’t it just better to say or write the actual name or at least say “named after” or “of the same name”.  What do you think?  What are words that you cannot remember the definition of?

Myth or Truth?

Note from Cperrine=cindi from Wheaton

Another myth I have heard is that crochet takes 3 times more yarn (or twice as much yarn) than knitting. (some stitches can take more yarn but not 3 times - more like 1/3 more and a lot of it depends on the pattern, yarn, hook, etc. etc.)

Does Crochet use more yarn than knitting?

The Inner Child Crochet  (beware… if there is a militant crocheter then this might be it)

I've heard it over and over. Crocheting is so much thicker and stiffer than knitting. Crochet is so much boxier than knitting. Crocheting takes so much more yarn than knitting. Although some of this is just plain wrong (crochet does NOT use three times the yarn knitting does, thanks, at worst only a third more when all else is equal), all of these comparisons hold knitting up as the standard to which we should aspire.

Top 8 Reasons Why Crochet is Better than Knitting  1. Crocheting takes 30% more yarn than knitting. While some might view this as a disadvantage, I view it as a positive. Any compulsive crafter would have to agree. The bigger dent you make in your overwhelming yarn stash at one time, the better.

The official word at Knitting Pipeline is that it is a myth that crochet uses twice the amount (or a third) as knitting.

In the Pipeline

Knitting

For Good Hat by Meghan Williams of The Stockinette Zombies. Thank you Cori, irockknits.

Susan B Anderson KAL for SSK.

Listening

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (2nd book of The HungerGames)

Pandora. George Winston Winter channel

Watching

Art Science Nature Knit by Natalie aka coolwaterhotsun on Ravelry.  Podcaster Tribute in Rap form. Quirky and knowledgable at the same time.

Game of Thrones on Netflix. Quite graphic at times…just warning you if you are sensitive to these things. We’re on episode 3 and we’re not exactly hooked but we’re engaged enough to stay with it.

Reading.  The hard copy versions…

Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal

Susan Elia MacNeals blog

The Walk by Richard Paul Evans. Fiction that seems like non-fiction

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt. Highly recommended.  Probably one of my favorite books of this year.

Have a great week.  Haste ye back and Hold your knitting close.

Magnatune Relaxing Classical

www.magnatune.com

 Medieval and Traditional Carols, Chansons and Festive Dances" by In Nova Cantica Carols and chansons from the 13th - 17th Centuries for dancing, festivities and mayhem . Track one. Psallite Unigenito