Gryffindor scarves and failure

IMG_1413Don’t lie. We’ve all done it. We’ve all imagined ourselves running through the brick wall between Platform 9 and 10 of King’s Cross to find ourselves on a mystical train that takes us through unnamed hills and meadows and feeds us chocolate frogs and as much candy as we want until at last we get to a hugely elaborate castle (claimed to be hundreds of years old but shows no sign of structural decay or architectural weakness) where they serve us as much food and dessert as we want (say what you will about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but the real threat to wizards everywhere is untreated diabetes) and then after everyone’s eaten we’re sitting on a stool wearing a huge dusty talking hat and praying we get sorted into the right House. And though J.K. Rowling attempted to portray the houses as separate yet equal, each house having particular strengths that the others lack, there’s definitely a hierarchy of “BEST HOUSE EVER” to “I’d rather be a Squib.” To break it down for you, Gryffindor is clearly the best, where you get to break the rules, go on cool adventures, and pull swords out of hats, and Slytherin is clearly the worst, where everyone’s hair is greasy and your friends have last names like Crabbe and Goyle. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are somewhere in the middle, depending on whether you’d prefer being a glorified nerd or essentially classified as “miscellaneous.”

All this to say, when it comes to Harry Potter, we’re all fans. So what better way to attract people to the world of knitting than by making a Harry Potter themed scarf!

Thus ends my introduction to my Gryffindor scarf. It took me forever to write because I know there are tons of you Pottermore Nazis out there waiting for me to miss a factoid about the elaborate world of wizardry, but oh well. If you see a mistake, please try to forgive and forget. Or, if you’d prefer, Obliviate (I even did it in italics the way it’s done in the books, so that really should work)

Anyway, to bring this back to the Muggle world, as I was waiting for my last skein of yarn to come in so I could finish my fair isle sweater, I decided to knit a quick scarf with a pattern I’ve been wanting to try out. And since I’m notoriously bad at picking matching colors, I just went with a color scheme that has already been approved by society as a whole. And so, one visit to my local yarn store and 3.5 sermons (I was listening, I promise) later…

IMG_1418I would like all of you to meet my Harry Potter inspired circle scarf! First, some obligatory specs on this Gryffindor garb:

Though most circle scarves are knit in a round, this one was not. I knit this back and forth width-wise, using a provisional cast-on and sealing the ends with a kitchener stitch. The diagonal stripes comes from increasing one side while decreasing the other. I always wondered how people were able to knit slanted patterns. As it turns out, it’s not that hard! I used Berroco Vintage yarn because of their unique wool/nylon blend, so it has the soft, warm touch of a sheep and the silky, stretchy feel of… stuff that’s made out of nylon. All in all, this was probably one of my better projects.

Before all of you Mugglenetters start casting hexes (Protego!) on me, let me first say that I am in no way trying to rival the knitting prowess of Mrs. Weasley (heaven forbid I even dream of such a thing). But you have to admit, if she had made her kids something like this instead of those monochromatic sweaters of hers, the Weasley kids probably wouldn’t have gotten quite so much flack at school. I also like to think that Emma Watson would pick this scarf for Hermione when in wardrobe (a knitter can dream, can’t he?).

Now, as many of you may know, I was recently offered a part-time job, which I eagerly accepted. But, as many of you do not know, I am currently part-time jobless (don’t worry, I’m still full-time job-ful!) because, as it turns out, I am terrible at said job. How did I figure this out? Because apparently said job offer came with a simulation test to make sure you were ready for the real deal (basically the Kobayashi Maru but a million times harder), and I failed said simulation test and therefore did not get the job. I failed. Miserably. And when I say I failed, I don’t mean a foible, or a faux pas, or a gaffe, or a blunder, mishap, booboo (starting to run out of synonyms), or error. I mean really fail. The M. Night Shyamalan production of Avatar kind of fail. The, “My MCAT’s tomorrow?!” fail (On behalf of the American Association of Medical Colleges, I would like you all to please take this time to double check your MCAT registration date). I’m talking about the kid in junior high (I believe his name was Elmer…) whose mom made him run for student body giving a speech in front of the whole school and then freezing so badly that even the bullies felt sorry for him. That kind of failing. During my simulation, I even estimated the value of the contents of my backpack so I’d know how much I would’ve lost (other than my dignity) if I had ran out of the room then and there.

Needless to say, I came home with a pulverized ego and my pride in critical condition. So, what does a mature man of 22 do when met with failure? Well, first I drowned my sorrows in an entire tub of hummus and watched, like, 10 straight episodes of Nikita (don’t judge. Maggie Q doesn’t receive nearly as much credit as she deserves), but that isn’t really a part of my story or add in any way to the lesson I’m trying to teach. The real story started the next day. I woke up at 10am. I watched Law and Order and predicted who the criminal was (which is something I’m good at), then I played a Chopin etude (Which is something I… used to be good at), then I went cafeing (which I, basically, was born to do), where I knit (which is something I’m good at) and read a book that required the appreciation of intricate language and metaphor (which is something I’m- well, you get the point by now). And then it was 11:30am. I was bored, and had run out of stuff that I’m good at to do. So I went back home and sang Pink’s “Just Give Me A Reason” (Pink’s part, in her register, of course), had a good laugh looking at my old medicine-ball-rice-bunny-gone-horribly-wrong (always a good source of humility/nightmares), and then lost a game of QuizCross (it’s free. download it. add me: djuelam).

Okay, I was never one for leaving subtle messages about the deeper meanings of life (I’ll leave that to the writers of The Wire), so I’ll just come out and say it. Life’s no fun without things going horribly, horribly wrong. Wait, let me rephrase that. Life is boring if everything goes right all the time. Sure, doing what you’re good at is rewarding and develops your natural talents, but it’s your mistakes that give you perspective and a reason to push on. Plus, they’re also just plain funny (in due time, of course). But more importantly, they’re unavoidabel.

IMG_1421Notice anything weird about this picture? As it turns out, the scarf is on the mannequin backwards. Yes, that’s right, this is actually Mandy’s (that’s her name. Mandy the mannequin) back, with her bust facing the opposite direction (no wonder I got so many looks when I was taking these pictures outside of my house…). See?! I mess up all the time, even when it comes to things I spend so much time on (I literally spent half an hour arranging this scarf on Mandy. Her armlessness and lack of head made it really hard for the scarf to stay on.). And, like it or not (I’ll like it, you probably will not), you do too. All we can do is be brave enough (wait for the mind blowing connection that I’m about to make) to face them as they are, learn from them, and recognize that our mistakes shape us just as much as our successes, if not more so.

As a fictional wise hat once told me:

“…Said Slytherin, ‘I’ll take just those whose ancestry is purest’.

Said Ravenclaw, I’ll take those whose intelligence is surest.’

Said Gryffindor, ‘I’ll take all those with brave deeds to their name.’

Said Hufflepuff, ‘I’ll take the lot and treat them just the same.’”

- The Sorting Hat, somewhere in the 5th book I think.

Harry knew he belonged in Gryffindor when he produced the sword of Godric Gryffindor himself in a time of need. And for me, well, who’s to say that Godric didn’t have a trendy striped circle scarf as well?

***The fear of public speaking is called glossophobia.

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by dakniellam on June 1, 2013  •  Permalink
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Norwegian baby hats and wanderlust

IMG_1400It’s fair to say that ever since I started that fair isle sweater I’ve been having a bit of intarsia insanity. Not only does it improve ambiknitting (that would be, “knitting Continental and Western at the same time” according to the OED), but fair isle knitting also forms incredibly intricate, difficult-looking patterns that are actually just done in garter stitch the whole way through! And you all know how much I love to be thought of as much more talented than I actually am. So, for the past several weeks, I have been scouring Ravelry, looking for the perfect multicolored Scandinavian knit. And suddenly, out of the blue (sent by Odin himself), I landed upon this little knugget:

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IMG_1384They’re Norwegian fair isle baby hats! Okay, in all fairness (wow, I really need to stop using that word), I am not entirely sure that these hats are Norwegian in origin (HA. think about it…), but the designer of this hat says they are so I’m going to take her word for it. Anyway, if you’re a rookie knitter like me looking to pass yourself off as mildy to moderately skilled, definitely check out her site. Not only is the pattern super easy, but it only uses two colors, so you don’t have to break your wallet to buy 10 different skeins of yarn just to use a fraction of each. Also, this hat knits really quickly. I’m talking a matter of hours (depending on your love of Ice T playing a New York cop, you could finish this within three episodes of Law and Order, four if it’s a special one and the cast of Law and Order: CI or Without a Trace guest star as themselves). True, that’s mainly because these hats are small enough to only fit babies and small cantaloupes, but with such an amazing pattern like this, you just can’t stop yourself from making them!

I wanted to provide you guys with pictures of how they look on an actual baby (mainly to attract the large community of internet users that Google “cute babies” to my blog), but, alas, I am without child. I considered asking random parent-child pairs from outside my house to model my hats for me, but after receiving a dirty look at Fenton’s the other day for touching a baby’s foot (from the mother, not the baby… in case that needed any clarifying), I decided against it. So, since I am currently deficient one infant, I used an appropriate (though infinitely more useful) substitute: a small mixing bowl!

IMG_1395C’mon, you have to admit it. Besides the fact that his head would be halfway through an ottoman, this could very well be a baby wearing my hat. I actually went through several different options (saucepan, box of granola, bag of granola, tupperware of granola…) before I arrived at one that worked. For those of you who are curious, that is a 1 quart ceramic mixing bowl (approximately the volume of a baby’s cranium, I’d assume) and perfect for modeling baby knitted head garments when no babies are at your disposal.

So, as most of you may know, this blog is strictly speaking a knitting blog (with some bad pukns and self-aggrandizement thrown in for good measure). I’m not one for DIY life tips (except using those plastic bread clips as cord organizers. ingenius.), fancy cooking recipes (though for a time I was smitten), or fitness videos (okay I did blogilates ONCE and it didn’t even count because I could only last the first 3 minutes). I like to keep things simple and just have knitting be the common thread throughout my blog.

However, recently I’ve been developing a sweet tooth for travel and am considering taking a long, incredibly impulsive trip to somewhere in the world where I can’t see the Bay Bridge. This exploratory impetus took me somewhat by surprise, but looking back, I can see how it’s been slowly gaining momentum. In the past few months, I’ve developed habits such as looking up costs of random flights (Budapest –> Ukraine for $232.89. book it.), trying to list every country with my friend via text (I’ve always wanted to be that guy who could fill in Burkina Faso and Niue in Sporcle), and figuring out where in my room I could fit a massive world map. And, like most money-minded post-grads planning on embarking to an unknown land for an extended period of time, my first concern about this trip was masculiknity (that’s how I refer to my blog in my head. telling much?). Well, fear not, gentle readers. I won’t turn this blog into a series of hi-def photos of horizons and waterfalls that make you wish you were out living and not stuck at work staring at a computer screen. Pinterest does enough of that. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what will happen. Maybe I’ll leave à la Julia Roberts and Eat, Pray, Love around the world (I have no idea what I just said, but the reference seemed appropriate). Or perhaps this will be a trip of self discovery and I’ll blog about how I learned who I truly am and what my purpose on this world is (nah, I’m way too self-actualized for that). Ooh, or maybe this could be a bucket list kind of trip where I write about doing all the things I’ve always been too afraid to do (like eating dairy before 10am or trying Sriracha).

On second thought, I’ll probably just go to Norway and see what their hats look like.

***Niue, an independent island country in the South Pacific Ocean, was the world’s first in making wireless internet free and readily available throughout the entire nation.

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by dakniellam on May 19, 2013  •  Permalink
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Fair Isle Sweaters (part 1) and the Devil

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Just as a feeble, juvenile caterpillar emerges from its homey cocoon, metamorphosed into an ever more elegant being, mature in stature and character and with nature’s art pressed precisely upon its wings, so have I, after several months… decided to write again after studying for my MCAT.  I know, lame excuse and a completely inaccurate juxtaposition, but that’s all I got.

For the past four months or so I’ve essentially closed myself off to the outside world in preparation of this daunting test, and I’ve purposely staved off this blog as a measure of discipline, because I knew if I started writing I wouldn’t stop, and then knitting would literally be the downfall of my (future) career.  But seeing as today is the day before my exam, and everyone recommends to take this day to relax and alleviate any nerves building up, I’ve decided to indulge myself with every vice imaginable, including writing this MCAT eve post!

***Water coming out of a shower head causes the air on one side of the shower curtain to move uniformly and relatively faster compared to the other side.  This increase in air velocity, in accordance with Bernoulli’s principle, corresponds to a decrease in air pressure, explaining the phenomenon of why shower curtains always blow inward, towards the water.  This also explains how planes fly.

Although I’d suspended my blogging, I found it impossible to stop knitting.  My fingers just felt lazy and dumb without a proper thread wrapped around them.  Fortunately, I’ve had a huge project to work on that’s lasted me almost 5 months now:

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It’s a fair isle sweater!  I spent a good two weeks trying to determine whether or not I was skilled enough to even attempt such a thing, but when my friend asked me to make her one, I just thought it had to be fate and decided to give it a go!  However, not only is this my first fair isle sweater attempt, but it’s also an original pattern of mine! (Sorry, three ! in a row.  I’ll try to stop!  Whoops, I mean, I’ll try to stop.)  Now, I’ve never designed something as elaborate as a sweater before, so I wasn’t quite sure where to start.  I did know that architects usually start a house by drawing it all out on paper using a lot of numbers for dimensions, and since this sweater is a house of sorts (a house for the… bosom?), I decided to pretend to be an arknitect for a couple hours and try my hand at drawing up some schemaknits.

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IMG_1377These were the basic motifs I wanted, and I had an idea of a template sweater stitch count, so most of the work was spent trying to find the least common denominator for all the different patterns.  Oh yeah, and straight lines.  I spent a lot of time making really nice straight lines because it made me feel like a legit knitter (legitter?).  Finally, after I determined the size of each pattern and how many times it would repeat, I made a drawn (roughly) to scale sweater so I could compare what I made with my plan each step of the way.  Here’s everything put together:

IMG_1376Sometimes I like to think that this is what Michelangelo did before painting the Sistine Chapel, or what Martha Stewart does before she turns a cardboard box into an oven (no lie).

And for those of you comparing my drawings with my actual sweater, don’t bother.  I changed the pattern as I went along, because I learned that fair isle knitting with more than two colors is very very hard.  You have to be able to carry multiple strands with the same tension the entire way, and it was just more than my own two hands could handle.  Perhaps future projects will show more variety.  On the plus side, all of this fair isle knitting has taught me to knit western and continental style fluently (for you knokn-knitters out there, that’s comparable to being able to write with both hands at the same time.  kind of.), which has always been a secret (as it should be) dream of mine!

As most of you have noticed from my pictures and the suggestive title, this sweater is still a work in progress.  Apparently, the city of San Francisco is suffering a shortage of Berocco Vintage yarn no. 5112 (not nearly as bad as the Karabella cashmere crash of ’94, but reminiscent of the Lorna’s Laces DK drought of ’05), forcing me to a halt until stores get restocked.  But rest assured, as soon as I get my hands on that yarn, I’ll finish up this sweater and have more complete pictures for all of you, maybe even with someone wearing it!

***The two common types of treatment for HIV are nucleoside analogs (e.g. 3TC), which prevent viral genome replication, thus lowering viral genome concentrations in the plasma, and protease inhibitors (e.g. indinavir), which block the cleavage of necessary viral proteins.

To tell you the truth, me running out of yarn was actually the best thing for me.  I’d go even so far as to say that it was divine intervention by God to keep me focused on the task at hand.  You see, about a month ago, I started to get really tired of studying and could tell that apathy was creeping over me.  And in that period of weakness, I could see the Devil’s work all around me, turning seemingly innocuous things into worldly temptations.  But just as Jesus denied Satan three times in his isolation in the wilderness, I, too, denied (well, it was more like “not yet”) him on, well, several different occasions.  And I wasn’t really isolated, either, but, um, you get the picture.  Wow, these analogies are hard.

In any case, the following are the ways in which the Devil attempted to steer me off the straight and narrow in the passing weeks.  It is important to remember that I say these things not to attest to the power of evil, whose very acknowledgement contributes to the furthering of its agenda, but to warn others of the possible forms in which evil’s work may come.  And for those who read what comes next without a guarded heart and mind, may God have mercy on your soul.

1. Candy Crush

Seriously, anyone who’s had anything worth doing will tell you that this game makes a 5 minute task take an hour.  Often times in my own studies I would forego another physics passage just to try again to clear all the jelly in 15 moves (impossible, right?!).  But the genius in its allure isn’t that it’s a stress-free version of Bejeweled or that you can compare your level with Facebook friends; it’s the fact that the combination of different bonuses are so gratifying that you can’t get enough.  For example, one stripey will clear either a row or column, but swapping two stripeys will clear both the row and the column of intersection.  What’s even better is the wrapped candy, which, when swapped with a stripey, will create a STRIPEY (read as: mega stripey) which clears several rows and columns.  Think that’s it?  Think again.  Swap a chocolate ball and stripey you turn all of that type of candy into stripeys, crushing rows and columns all over the place, and swap a chocolate ball with a wrapped candy and you get this huge bomb like things that can wipe out an entire quadrant.  One time, I had a dream that I swapped two chocolate balls, and the effect of the combination was so powerful that it woke me up.

Anyway, bottom line: Candy Crush is the ultimate efficiency killer.  I’m not sure where they designed those shiny little jellies, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be serving them in Hell.

2. Extroverts

Okay, this may be more specific to MCAT studying, which usually occurs in one’s early to mid 20′s and involves several hours of isolated studying, but there’s nothing that can keep you from studying more than when your extroverted friend texts you, asking to hang out.  And you think you can do it just this once and it won’t seriously impact you all that much, right?  WRONG.  You go hang out with your extrovert friend one night, and for you, that’s enough for a week or so.  But for them, they want more, and now that you’ve hung out with them once, they’ll think you can go out all the time, so they keep texting and calling, guilt tripping you and making you feel like a recluse for rejecting their invites.  But stay strong, for the Lord is with you, and I’m pretty sure Satan was an E… STP.

3. Videos like this

After I realized almost every act of every talent show across the world was on Youtube, I found myself searching: “singing emotional inspirational audition” (one of the lower points in my life).  That’s when I knew the Devil had me right where he wanted me.  But c’mon, how is she not amazing?

***In circular motion, the primary force one feels is directed inward (i.e. centripetal force).  The force one feels pushing outward (i.e. centrifugal force) is non-existent, and arises from a mass continually resisting a changing acceleration.

Truthfully, major studying is probably best done alone.  I used to think I could be like Akeelah and the Bee and have random people on the street quiz me on my way to work, but sadly, the real world isn’t like that, and Laurence Fishburne isn’t my study coach/father figure.  Nope, good ‘ol fashion hard work and discipline at the cost of social wellness seems to be the best method as of yet.  So, for those of you in the thick of studying, stop reading my blog and get back to work.  Oh yeah, I also wish you the best of luck, and I’ll see you on the other side.

***If stranded at sea with nothing to eat or drink, the best way to hydrate oneself is to perform an enema, forcing sea water up the rectum and into the large intestines.  Unlike the small intestines, the large intestines will absorb water, but not salt.  Drinking the sea water will result in death by dehydration.

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by dakniellam on April 26, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by dakniellam on April 26, 2013

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Christmas presents and more Christmas presents

In case any of you were wondering why I’ve been so absent this Advent season, it hasn’t been because of a lack of knitting.  Rather, most of the projects I’ve been working on have been Christmas presents, and in an effort to preserve the holiday spirit (…or perhaps the Christmas presence?), I’ve held my tongue thus far.  But, since Christmas is already in full swing, I will open the floodgate that is my mouth and verbally regurgitate/graphically blast you with all of my knittings for the past few weeks.

1. Chromosome 18IMG_1167I first would like to say that I had no intention of making a chromosomal Christmas present.  It all started when I tried to knit tiny gnomes for all my friends.  As you can tell from all of my gnomeless friends, I failed miserably from the beginning.  What you see above is the head, body, and legs of a partially knit knome.  I know, it doesn’t look like much.  There’s no neck and everything’s all disproportionate.  I was supposed to knit arms and a hat and attach them, but we all know it would’ve been a lost cause.  So, I abandoned all further attempts, but not without taking a quick picture for all of my karyotypic connoisseurs, who will readily recognize my fail gnome as most resemblant to chromosome 18.

2. Christmas present present

IMG_1177No, I’m not being repetitively redundant, I meant to say “present” twice.  You see, after failing so badly at knitting gnomes, I decided to give myself a little ego boost by playing a game I call, “I could make that,”  in which I scroll through Etsy pages pointing to various things saying, “I could make that.”  And about 3 pages in, I saw tiny knitted Christmas presents with little faces on them, and unlike the past 50 items I had just claimed to be able to make, I put my needles where my mouth was and actually made them.  And what you see above is the finished product.  I didn’t think I could pull off a cute face in the corner, so I just knit a loop at the top so it could be hung as a Christmas ornament or on one’s rear view mirror.

There was something else I wanted to say about this… oh yeah #imsometa.

3. Herringbone cowl… again

IMG_1161I know by now you are tired of hearing me praise the name of the Herringbone stitch yet again, but c’mon, how are you not still amazed at how cool this stitch looks?!  Okay, fine, enough with the Herringbone, I’ll move on.

Technically, this wasn’t a present because I received money for it, but in the spirit of the holidays, I made sure to mix in an extra portion of love and care between my knits and purls (excuse me while I throw up a little bit).

4. Mens slouchy beanie revisited

IMG_1163Before you leave this blog to recheck Facebook for the 20th time thinking that I’m just posting pictures of things I’ve already made in the past, let me say that this beanie is a revised version of the mens beanie that I wrote about a few months back.  After making a handful of normal beanies, I was approached by someone (for the sake of confidentiality let’s just call her Zoe Tamaki) who solicited me (I really need to figure out another word for that) to make her a beanie, but with less slouch.  As it turns out, it’s okay for guys to wear beanies with a bunch of room on the top and just let it sit up there, but not for girls.  So, I went back to the blocking board and revised the pattern to decrease the slouch by 25%, and what you see above is what I came up with.  To clarify, this beanie you see is just a test balloon, made with some leftover yarn to determine if the pattern would work or not.  Pics of the actual thing soon to come.  Bated breath is expected of all readers.

5. Reindeer hand warmers

IMG_1277Admit it, you can’t go through the holidays without knitting something fair isle, so I picked out this easy hand warmer pattern, slapped a red reindeer on it and BAM! Instant Christmas present.  These hand warmers are a part of my Christmas present for my sisters (one for each of them), and I prepared an entire sentimental speech in which I explained that no matter how far apart they were from each other, they could look at their respective hand warmer and know that somewhere out there, its complement would be warming the opposite hand of the other sister.  But, if you’ll look at the picture above closely, you’ll notice that these two hand warmers are identical (i.e. these are two right handed hand warmers).  I didn’t even notice this until I tried both on before wrapping them.  So, with my metaphor being completely shot and knowing that a single hand warmer is completely useless by itself, I essentially gave my sisters a picture of a reindeer.

6. Complementary miniature pillows (aka an attempt at restoring my shattered metaphor)

IMG_1274Since I was determined to deliver this “two parts of a whole” metaphor (but mostly since I had extra yarn of both colors), I went on to make matching pillows that, when put together, ask, “Where my stitches at?”

First off, let me say that my sisters find this pun incredibly hilarious and not at all crude, so no one hate on me for alluding to the idea that I would ever call my sisters “stitches” (which I wouldn’t, by the way, but even if I did my sisters would find this pun incredibly hilarious and not at all crude, so don’t hate on me for, well, yeah, everything I just said).  I also stole this catch phrase from the front page of Ravelry, whose webmasters, it turns out, have a surprising amount of sass.

And here are my sisters with their pillows, their faces glowing with the joy and love that comes from being filled with the Christmas spirit.

IMG_1304There they are.  The two best stitches a brother could ask for.

Mm, still not too sure on the appropriateness of that statement, so before you leave me hate comments, know that I wrote that with the utmost reservation.

7. Anthropologie headband

IMG_1284For those of you who stuck with me reading this post to the very end, I congratulate you/worry about your social life and present to you a headband styled after Anthropologie’s braided headwrap.  It’s a pretty basic cable connected in a round, but I followed a pattern (with some minor adjustments) nonetheless just to be careful.  These headwraps are actually pretty simple to make, so hit me up if you a) would like one and b) know me (criterion b is mainly to prevent any awkward interactions).

Well, that’s everything I’ve made!  I won’t share any stories of Christmas miracles, anecdotes of being a male knitter, or particularly funny social situations I’ve placed myself in because you’re probably tired of reading and would like to go back to enjoying the holidays, but thank you all for your time and your literate minds for perusing my writing.  My blog greatly appreciates the attention.  And if it means anything, I consider all of you my stitches.  You’re welcome.

***Chromosome 18 contains between 300 and 400 genes, and defects of this chromosome can lead to disorders such as Edwards syndrome and selective mutism.

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by dakniellam on December 25, 2012  •  Permalink
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Totoro and mitten ornaments

Everyone, I would like to introduce you to my newest addition to my (l)amigurumi creations: Totoro!  This 5-inch piece of anime comes from Haruki (no that’s the author) Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, a movie about a little girl and, well, a big smiley animal that rides around silently on a tiny spinning top.  It gets creepy if you think about it too much, so just enjoy the plushiness.  To be completely honest, I am not a diehard Totoro fan with the life-sized Totoro doll and other such paraphernalia.  I actually only saw the movie once, and it scared me (making this doll was a big step for me) because of the creepy smile (if you’ll notice, I’ve made the Totoro without a mouth.  It no longer has any power over me.), but I know people go crazy for this kind of stuff, so I bit the poly-fiber stuffing filled bullet and did the best I could.

These pictures are purely for those who want a full 360 (360 plus 45 in the z direction to be exact) close-up of my tiny Totoro.  See, no misplaced stitches or ungainly seams!  For those of you who are scouring my pictures, trying to figure out how I made this so you can go off and copy it and make your own and tell everyone that you made up the pattern (as I often do), you will have a hard time finding my cast-on row because, there is no cast-on row. (For those of you thinking Kung Fu Panda, I’m right there with you.  For those of you thinking The Matrix, …eh, not quite as good but still a valid association.)

When I first started this project, I decided to create as few seams as possible because I suck at sewing up seams evenly, and the resulting shape is always lopsided with a huge, noticeable line running along its side like someone who’s received brain surgery (coughselfshoutoutcough).  So, I searched the cyber-libraries of possible cast-ons from the Turkish cast-on to the Old Norwegian cast-on and all the way to Elizabeth Zimmermann’s cast-on.  For those of you who need some brushing up on early 20th century knitting history, Elizabeth Zimmermann was a revolutionary knitter (oxymoron?) during the WWII era who apparently was really really good at casting yarn onto a needle.

Anyway, I ultimately found the perfect casting-on technique for my seamophobia: the provisional cast-on.  As per usual, I’m too lazy to actually create my own tutorials, so I’ll just point you to the one I used.  The provisional cast-on essentially casts the yarn onto a piece of scrap yarn, which you can later replace with another needle and, voilà, you can knit from both directions!  In the case of Totoro up there, the provisional cast-on allowed me to knit the front and back simultaneously, and then, to avoid even more seams, I kitchener-ed the ends together to form a smooth Totoro-loop.  Alas, the time came when I had to sew the front and back together on each side, but you have to admit, two seams are better than four.

After finishing this project, while I was contemplating what fantastical scenario I should throw myself into to produce a mind-blowing anecdote to recount here in written form (sad but true), a serendipitous, dignity-saving miracle fell into my lap in the form of my aunt (My aunt didn’t actually fall into my lap, the miracle metaphorically did.) and her inability to knit.  She had planned to learn how to knit awhile back and even bought the yarn for it, but she never found the time, and so graciously gave the unused yarn to me.  And what was the consequence of putting free yarn into the hands of a knitter with nothing interesting in his life to blog about?

Baby mittens/Mitten ornaments!  There wasn’t enough yarn in one color to make a set of regular sized mittens, so, in honor of the upcoming holidays, I made miniature sized mittens that can be used as ornaments on a Christmas tree, stocked in a stuffing, or even hung on a wall or door to winter-ify the home.

If you have a small infant (of which I am lacking at the moment) these mittens could also be for them!  The connecting I-cord prevents you from losing one of these little guys under a seat cushion, but will still give your baby some latitudinal range of motion.

Moment of transparency here: This might be my first creation where my first words after finishing it were, “Dude this is so freaking adorable.”  No lie.  I was even considering pinning this on Pinterest (except I don’t have a Pinterest, of course…).  Can’t you just see these kind of impractically small mittens on someone’s pinboard (is that what they’re called?)?

Okay, it just turned Thanksgiving around 5 minutes ago, and I would find it somewhat sad if I spent a lot of time alone in my room trying to think of a good pun including the word “mitten”, so I won’t belabor the point.  (knittin’ mittens!)

If you like what you see, the Totoro and mittens will be available for sale on my etsy soon.  So, while everyone else may be out running like headless chickens on black Friday (or contrastingly lazily lying on their sofas on cyber Monday), you can relax at home with a pair of my mittens wrapped cozily around approximately two of your fingers.

***Among her many contributions to American knitting, Elizabeth Zimmermann was a big proponent of re-introducing the Continental style of knitting back to the U.S., which had become less popular in previous years due to its association with Germany during WWII.

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by dakniellam on November 22, 2012  •  Permalink
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Dinosaur hats and public bus rides

The ordinarily gentle Megalosaurus myronius is threatened by a foreign presence and bares her razor sharp teeth as a maternal instinct to protect her young.

This is my roommate, Myron, doing what he does best around the apartment: looking like a dinosaur. I know none of us have ever seen an actual dinosaur, but let’s be honest, he looks like something straight out of Land Before Time. And before you all start judging me, let me just say that Myron is totally fine with the comparison. He understands that he has the bone structure of a Brontosaurus. He even embraces it (well, not the Land Before Time crack, I’m pretty sure he’ll hate me for that). So much so that he had me knit him a dinosaur costume for Halloween!

Now, as much as I would love to express my creativity through a knitted dinosaur onesie, I have neither the time nor the vast quantities of yarn required to make a 6 foot tall knitted jumpsuit. So, after a heated argument and some tears (Myron really wanted a onesie), we finally decided on just the dinosaur hat, with Myron acting out the rest of the outfit.

Only after she has been given huge quantities of tranquilizers is one safe enough to near the elegant Megalosaurus myronius and admire its majestic beauty.

You might ask why these pictures are black and white. Well, the lighting was really bad because I had to take these shots moments before Myron left for a trip to Japan (funnier men than I would have a dozen Godzilla jokes ready to go. Alas, if only my wit were as sharp is theirs.), so I just got what I could take. Here’s a picture of what the hat actually looks like, though:

Does the hat strike anyone as familiar? If so, then congratulations for remembering my very first post ever! This dinosaur hat is essentially an augmented version of my deerstalker hat! With some minor adjustments, I eliminated the ribbing border and increased the circumference by a few inches, and ta-da! You have yourself a baseline for any animal hat you can think of. For a dinosaur hat, I decided to knit tiny triangles for the spikes and then crochet a matching border around the brim to make this hat slightly more fashionable.

Quick tip for all you knitters out there: If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend learning the basics of crocheting. Not only is it a fun and easy alternative to knitting, but it makes for nice, even borders, since knit cast-ons and cast-offs can sometimes look messy. Also, for severe cases of “oh my god I dropped a gazillion stitches!” crocheting provides an easy way of picking up stitches vertically!

I know grey/blue isn’t the first color scheme that comes to mind when one thinks of dinosaurs, but my roommate wanted something wearable in public when he went to Asia (again, Godzilla jokes are failing me), so I chose these colors, making this dinosaur hat approximately 35% ‘dinosaur’ and 65% ‘hat’.

At last, the Megalosaurus myronius lowers her primal defenses, no longer seeing the foreigner as a threat, and returns to nursing her young.

I am what you could classify as a two-timing knitter.  I’m not monogamous, like other knitters who will sit on their porches for hours just enjoying the act of knitting, reveling in the process (one can only dream). No, I’m more like a married man with a mistress.  I have my own routines and responsibilities to take care of, but I like to dabble with the double-pointed needles (knitting an affair-isle sweater, perhaps? eh? eh? Pretty good, right?) when I can, because it makes me feel alive and vigorous again (just go with me on this).  I never just knit to knit, because I always have more important things to do like school or work.  So, I’m forced to carry my stash with me at all times, and grab a quick few rows on the bus on my way to work.  And this arrangement would work out perfectly if it weren’t for one thing: Public transportation through Oakland at 8pm is where crazy happens.

I’ve definitely had to become more cautious about when it’s safe to pull out a project I’m working on.  There are just some people who you know will snap your needles in half (is it sad that this is an actual fear of mine?) if given the chance.  Fortunately, as of now, I’ve only had to endure awkward stares from high school students and slurred encouragements from overaged drunks.

But the “crazy” I was referring to two paragraphs prior manifested itself around a month ago.  I was taking the bus home, minding my own knitting, and this lady with a bike gets on.  I immediately put my knitting away, not because I feared for my needles or anything, but because I knew some crazy stuff was about to go down and I didn’t want to miss it. And sure enough, a few stops later, she tells the bus driver to stop, gets out, takes the bike, lifts it over her head, and then chucks it onto the lawn of a house I’m pretty sure was not hers.  She then gets back on the bus and says to the driver, “Drive.”

Now, I later learned that she was actually returning her bike to her brother, who was going to pick it up from the corner that she dropped it off on.  Why she had to deliver the bike à la The Hulk I have no idea, but nevertheless, crazy, right?

All this to say, there are hazards to holding your extracurriculars on a public bus, whether it be evil needle snappers or lady bike throwers.  But, what can I say?  I have to squeeze in my guilty knitting somewhere.  I say, as long as my boss doesn’t find out about my evenings with a $5 crochet hook, then I should be fine.

*** “Baba O’Riley,” often mistakenly called “Teenage Wasteland,” is a song performed by the English band, The Who.  It comes from a combination of Meher Baba and Terry Riley, the song’s two influences.

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by dakniellam on November 9, 2012  •  Permalink
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Adso Hand Warmers and Breaking Bad

So I’ve decided to take a hiatus from knitting circle scarves and turn my attention towards hand warmers (which are circle scarves for your wrists). I know my sartorial sense is a bit lacking, but from what I understand, hand warmers are a mildly trendy, somewhat hipster, poor man’s version of gloves. They don’t cover the individual fingers, allowing full range of motion for all of your dexterous endeavors as well as eliminating all of that handedness nonsense. Basically these serve as an extra set of sleeves, useful for when the ones that came with the shirt you’re wearing don’t seem to be making the cut.

Since the general schematic for knitting hand warmers is pretty simple (i.e. essentially knitting a tube), I decided to use this opportunity to integrate my creative imagination (redundant?) and advanced mathematics. Yes, you’ve read (in between the lines) correctly. The hand warmers you see above are my own original pattern! Yeah, I know they may not look like much, but it’s actually quite challenging to get the dimensions correct and to guesstimate how high and how medial to put the thumb hole such that the pattern runs along the top of the hand.  And ultimately, after several tries (I have a bag of misshapen hand warmers if any of you want to yarn bomb something), I’m proud of this sizable achievement. So much so that I’ve named these hand warmers after the humble narrator in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (if any of you are looking to read a book with page-long sentences and full conversations in Latin, this is a must). To those of you who haven’t yet/don’t care to/don’t want to read The Name of the Rose, Adso is this meek 14th century Italian monk (For some reason, I see him played by Jack Black in my head.) who assists his shrewd and forward thinking master, William (played by Sherlock Holmes played by Robert Downey Jr.) in solving a series of murders in an Italian monastery. An exciting read (especially if you say all of Adso’s lines as if it were Jack Black in School of Rock).

Now an inside look at these hand warmers doing what they do best:

Okay, now stop. I’m assuming that around 20% of you don’t know why we’re stopping while the other 80% are preparing to lose all respect for me. So, to dispel the huge knitted elephant in this shared virtual space, I’ll just come out and say it: Yes, those are my hands. These hand warmers were not intended to be unisex, but due to the lack of access to female hands and the convenient availability of my own hands, I sucked it up, moisturized, waited for my entire apartment to clear out, and wore the hand warmers like a man. I did my best to make the pictures as ambiguous as possible (there’s only so much the ‘Retouch’ feature on iPhoto can do), using a low depth of field and increasing exposure, but in the end, what can I say, my hands are 100% guy.

Oh yeah, and here’s one more picture of me trying to get a cliche blogging-in-the-fall picture:

I think most people do this holding an apple, or leaves, or a small puppy, but all I had at the time was a red onion I bought from Safeway. I’m pretty sure by this point I was telling myself, “Just find anything to hold that will distract from my wrinkly fingers.”

I know what you’re thinking. Should’ve gone with the puppy.

For those of you who have known about my knitting from its humble beginnings of garter stitch scarves and bullet shaped hats, you will notice with these hand warmers that I’ve come a long ways.  And I can honestly say that over the years of dropped stitches and accidental felting, I have become a moderately skilled knitter.  And for the longest time, I thought that it was my improvement in knitting that kept me so kaptivated with yarn work.  However, as I learned recently, this is not the case.  Kase.

A few weeks ago, on my way home from work, I stopped by a local Michael’s to pick up some yarn for a project I wanted to start.  It was almost closing time, so there were only a few other customers in the store with me.  I was browsing the yarn selection when I overheard this mother and daughter discussing what yarn to buy behind me.

“This one’s so soft, we should get it!” the daughter said.

“You’re right, it would make a great sweater!” answered the mother.

I turned around and looked at the yarn that they’re talking about. You guessed it: Red Heart Super Saver. To be completely honest it was a softer version of their usual acrylic, but it wasn’t much better. A million things popped into my mind at that moment: Did they know they were using 100% acrylic to make a sweater? Would they prefer wool? And if so, Peruvian Highland or Merino?  Do they want superwash, or are they okay with hand washing it?  What’s the gauge they’re expecting? Do they have the right weight? Worsted? DK? Sport?

Then it hit me. Breaking Bad.

I started watching Breaking Bad (The stress on the ‘”Bad.”  I’ve heard people recently say “Breaking Bad,” and that just sounds weird) around a month ago and now I spend 10 minutes after each episode curled up on my bed crying (on the inside, of course).  It’s a depressing show, but it’s oddly addictive. For those of you who don’t watch, it’s about a high-school-teacher-turned methamphetamine manufacturer extraordinaire and the rapid downward spiraling of all things good in his life.   The usual drugs, sex, and violence occur, but there’s this one scene in particular that really stuck with me. Walter White (the aforementioned meth manufacturer) is shopping at a supermarket late at night when he sees a kid buying supplies for a meth lab (Those of you who watch the show know what I’m talking about and are getting anticipatory goosebumps).  Walt, who is trying to forget his felonious side job for the sake of his family, cannot control himself (a common problem for Walt) and approaches the kid later in the parking lot and says with bone-chilling coolness, “Stay out of my territory.”

Ooh, that was good.

And it was in that moment, standing in the yarn corner of Michael’s at 8pm, that I realized how much I wanted to say the very same thing to that mother and daughter, and in fact, to all knitters in the East Bay.  I was Heise(k)nberg.

Now, I’ll be the first to say that it only takes a quick inspection of my work to determine that I am not a “knitter extraordinaire” (that class of people would be strictly reserved for continental-knitting, porch-sitting, octogenarians).  And I know there are tons of people out there who have enough knitting knowledge to put my blog to shame.  Moreover, and unfortunately so, I admit to having skeins over skeins of Red Heart Super Saver yarn stuffed away in my closet.  So, you might ask, if I am no knitting prodigy, why then do I identify so much with Walter White?

There is something about having a talent that no one expects you to have that makes you want to excel in that area all the more.  This secret ambition may be motivated by public attention or personal arrogance (clearly not me.  On an unrelated note, continue to check out my etsy as I will be posting new items for sale shortly.) or perhaps it’s a “stick it to the man” attitude.  I’m not self actualized enough to discern the exact nature of my own motivations, but I do know that this is why I so fervently knit.  And this also why Walter White can’t stay away from cooking meth.  We do it because no one would ever expect it from us.

I know it’s a long jump from the land of gentle knitters to the meth labs of Albuquerque, New Mexico, but I’m not gonna lie.  Somedays, when I’m sitting on the bus getting ready to work on a dinosaur hat, it feels like I’m about to push a pound of crystal.

***The 2011 film, Like Crazy, was filmed entirely without a script using only a Canon DSLR camera.  The budget did not exceed $250,000.

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by dakniellam on October 25, 2012  •  Permalink
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Fair Isle hats and updates

I have just finished my very first fair isle knit project! Well, my first legitimate fair isle knit project, that is (I don’t count knitting words onto half rests true fair isle knitting). Before I go any further, I must give credit to whom credit is due. I received this pattern here, making a few minor adjustments of my own. Firstly, I used a tubular cast on for 1×1 ribbing instead of the traditional long tail cast on. Not only does this give a thick, professional, and elastic edge, but it also essentially eliminates the cast on row, so the entire work seems seamless. Secondly, the original pattern calls for a color gradient from black to grey. I, on the other hand (due to artistic license and a lack of resources) chose to use the scrap yarn from the scrap yarn I used to make my Drusilla scoop neck sweater to make a simple two colored fair isle knit cap. Lastly, the original pattern was designed for a young child (presumably the author’s daughter). And since I have/am not a young child, I had to bump up the pattern a few needle sizes larger.

I think I’ve probably said this before, but “fair isle knitting” is a very misleading name. When most people think of fair isle knitting, they think of a highly complex task reserved only for the wealthy elite who happen to live on some exotic mystical island off the coast of England where all they do is knit llamas and teddy bears onto sweaters. Well, be intimidated no longer! It’s actually really simple and very intuitive. There are tons of instructional videos on youtube, and this hat is a great project to try out fair isle knitting for the first time. And as a bonus, it helps you get rid of small amounts of scrap yarn you keep accumulating. So, go and start a fair isle frenzy! As encouragement, here’s a picture very similar to the one above, but just a lot closer:

I must admit, though, this was in many ways an impulse knit. I didn’t scour the interweb looking for cool patterns and I didn’t have really nice yarn I wanted to use. I kind of just saw this pattern online, had some spare yarn to use up, and spent half of season 1 of Downton Abbey knitting this hat (on that note, by looks: Sybil, Mary, Edith; by personality: Edith, Sybil, Mary). So, I don’t have a cool story behind this project, but if any of you are looking for a warm, wintry hat in the middle of September, hit me up.

Oh yeah, as a fair warning to my fair isle hat wearers, if you wear this hat you may or may not be matching with 6 year olds whose mothers used the same pattern as me.

While I may not have much to say about this hat, I do have some updates for you reliable readers regarding my previous posts.

Firstly, I finished the black Herringbone cowl, which I made from recycled yarn (for a whopping 9.3% of the cost of my original cowl made from new yarn). I’d like to think that the finished product came to around the same quality.

(I apologize for the awkward posing of the scarf. I was trying to put it in its native conformation). This one is still up for grabs, so if you want it, let me know!

Secondly, with regards to the Martha Stewart knitting contest, I am sad to say that I did not place. Dorothy Jane and I are both saddened at the news, but I think she’s taking it the hardest. I will be starting a petition in the near future to rally support for my appeal and to force Martha Stewart herself to recognize my work. More on that to come. Probably not.

On a happier note, it turns out I’m famous! As I mentioned in a previous post, I attended a comedy show that was being filmed and hopefully sold to Comedy Central for a televised release. And what do you know, two months later, I see it on television! So what’s the first thing I do? I go through all possible clips of the show I can find on youtube and search the brief panning shots of the audience to pick out my face. Do I realize that I’m essentially watching the same comedy routine multiple times? Yes, but I’m a huge proponent of the “pics or it didn’t happen” theory, so this is a priority one for me.

I’m a little hesitant about going into detail about who this particular comedian is, only because her humor is of the vulgar variety and, despite the fact that I’m a grown 22 year old man, I fear the judgment of my peers. But, in an attempt to be transparent with you all (and to prove to you that I’m not making this all up), I will tell you that it was Amy Schumer who I saw.

Oh yeah, on to the famous part. Look! It’s me!

Were you expecting a close-up face shot? Well, as it turns out, they reserve those shots for the hot white people sitting in the front row. But I’m around 65% sure that that’s me in the picture. It’s around where I was sitting, and he does look Asian (which was a rarity in that particular population). For those of you hard pressed for more evidence, unfortunately, the full performance still hasn’t been pirated onto Youtube yet. But don’t worry, as soon as it is I’ll be sure to analyze the entire show. I think I have around 45% of the show memorized already.

I apologize for going a little bit hyperlink-happy today, I– whoops, there I go again.

***Fair isle knitting is a knitting technique named after a small island north of Scotland and first became popular when the Prince of Wales starting wearing fair isle sweater vests in 1921.

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by dakniellam on September 7, 2012  •  Permalink
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Herringbone cowls and 10-year-old boys

Despite the ever increasing hype over knitting (and yarn work in general), knitters receive a lot of flack for what they make. Things are either too small, too large, too tacky, too impractical, too inappropriate (I think this just goes for the knit bikini), etc. And during these past few months, the chief complaint we worsted-weight weavers receive is that everything we make is too hot. And I understand.  I mean, summertime is not the best season to be dressed in head to foot alpaca. But thankfully, we are heading towards a season that I consider a perennial purler’s paradise. Firstly, as fall approaches, the weather gets a bit cooler, permitting people to wear light knit scarves and cardigans. Secondly, this is the perfect time to start on that long list of Christmas knits you planned on making for your family!  Believe me when I tell you that the fall season is a knitter’s knirvana.  You can literally knit anything, chunky or light, and either wear it yourself or give it away as a Christmas present.

So, to start off this hurrah for hand-made garments (sorry, running low on alliterations), I present you to my very first knit cowl:

Okay, fine, it’s actually just a circle scarf (Technically, cowls are worn covering the head, whereas scarves and shawls are worn around the shoulders, and wraps and throws are worn around the upper body. Oh yeah and saris are worn around the waist.).  If you can’t tell, I was going for a really nice, huge, plush circle scarf that will essentially swallow your entire face.

Now tell me that doesn’t look face-swallowing.

This Herringbone cowl is comprised of a single stitch (none other than the Herringbone stitch), and you can find the pattern I used here. The thing about the Herringbone stitch that I like so much is that it’s very distinct from any other knitting stitches. For one, you can’t see any obvious knits or purls, which can sometimes look tacky on scarves (especially if they’re uneven). Moreover, each stitch is doubly knit (read the pattern for details), making this cowl incredibly thick and warm around the neck. Also, the fact that the backside of this cowl has just a nice of a pattern as the front doesn’t hurt.

Alas, there is one downside to this otherwise ideal cowl. It was not made from recycled yarn. Yes, indeed, the Earth wept every time I knit a round, but I swear I have a good reason. As it turns out, for the past few months, I have actually been training to fill the shoes of my colleague who will be leaving at the end of the month (Just like in MIB, except that my colleague looks nothing like Tommy Lee Jones). So, as a gesture of thanks, I decided to pull out all the stops and knit her something out of virgin yarn.  I understand that this is a distinct gesture of gratitude; Some people would organize a goodbye party, others would write letters or bake cookies, and heck, some would even just say thank you. But that’s a bit forward for my general take on how to approach life, so I think I’ll stick to random knitted presents left on their desk at the end of the day.

And as a side note, I’m making another one of these scarves but in black, so let me know if you’re interested.

For those of you who have seen me often these past few days (aka mom), you’ll know that I actually finished this cowl around two weeks ago, but just haven’t been able to write a post about it until now. Why, you ask? Oh, how considerate of you to inquire while simultaneously switching seamlessly to my subsequent subject.

This past week, I was a counselor at Camp Kesem, a free summer camp for children whose parents have/had cancer. So, for 144 straight hours I, along with seven other counselors, was a Yellow Meteor, taking care of sixteen 10-year-olds as they rock climbed, canoed, swam, and arched (sorry, couldn’t think of a paralleling past participle for “do archery”). Now, these activities are moderately rigorous and challenging, but the real battle for me occurred at 9:30pm each night, when me and two other brave souls were trapped in a cabin with nine 10-year-old boys. As a 22-year-old, I have a limited number of elementary school friends and know little about them, which put me at a great disadvantage when dealing with these kids. But over the week, I was able to make some key observations about my campers.  So, if you plan on befriending a 10-year-old boy in the near future, or perhaps birthing one, please read on.

Wait. I just previewed what I wrote and realized that it’s been a long time since you’ve looked at a picture.

There you go.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah…

1. farts. I know what you’re thinking: “Of course 10-year-old boys love it when people fart.  That’s obvious!” Well, wrong. Kids don’t love it when people fart. They love farts. And it’s more than just thinking farting is funny. They just love the concept of a flatulence event in its entirety. The first night in the cabin, there was a full 5 minutes without any intervening dialogue devoted to the making of farting noises. And when I say farting noises, I don’t mean amateur sounds made with your armpits. I’m talking about well rehearsed hand positions and very specific air stream mechanisms.  These kids practically winded themselves making these sounds.  I swear there must be something on their tiny little prepubescent Y chromosomes that wire them this way.

2. bedtime is a battle. The actual falling to sleep is rather simple and occurs in a matter of seconds.  The challenge comes in getting the boys to realize that they’re about to go to sleep.  I first decided to give them a few minutes to sit quietly in their beds reading.  This would calm them down and prepare them for sleep, I thought.  Wrong.  The sustained visual stimulation that light brings only riles the boys back up.  So then I kill the lights and lie in my bunk, hoping that we can all drift into sleep together.  Wrong.  Deprived of visual cues, the kids grasp at any auditory stimuli they can find to keep them cruising on consciousness.  Ironically enough, it’s the sound of snoring that does this.  One kid starts snoring, the rest start laughing, the sleeping kid wakes up, and we’re back at square 1.  Finally, I do the only thing that works when dealing with society’s most uncooperative citizens:  I walk back and forth along their bunks like a jail warden, looking each one in the eye, daring them to defy me.

3. strong. Despite the fact that these kids are less than half my age, I have witnessed incredible strength and courage in them that I don’t even see in myself.  Having the word “cancer” appear in the context of our conversations felt uncomfortably unnatural, and it should be.  There is just something wrong about that.  It’s not fair for a 10-year-old to have “lymphoma” roll off their tongue so easily or to know what a “glioblastoma” is.  These are grown-up concepts that belong in a grown-up world.  But this past week I’ve seen these kids display a paradoxical maturity by choosing to be a kid.  I realized that things like loving farts and resisting bedtimes isn’t inherent to any child, it’s a choice.  Most children don’t have much to choose from, but to these campers, who have been presented with the full, unadulterated truth about their families, a childhood is something that must be fought for constantly.   And I’m proud to admit that up to the very last day of camp, I was dragging each and every one of my campers to bed amidst a symphony of flatulence.

***The word “kesem” (קסם) is the Hebrew word for “magic.”

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by dakniellam on August 22, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by dakniellam on August 22, 2012

http://masculiknity.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/herringbone-cowls-and-10-year-old-boys/

Grandmother vests and Hollywood moments

A week ago, a mysterious package (taking the form of a used Safeway bag) arrived at my doorstep (actually handed to me by my aunt), unbeknownst to me (completely beknownst to me).  What lay within was a blast from the past: one of my grandmother’s old knitting projects.  I immediately noticed how good the yarn was, so, like any efficient knitter, I unraveled the project and blocked the yarn for one of my own creations.  If you believe what I just wrote, I pity you and that cold, vacuous space in your chest.  In actuality, this vest meant a great deal to me and my family.  My father’s mother, who lived with us since I was born, was an avid knitter of vests that are only seen in a very specific population.  If you’ve ever been to a red egg and ginger party or a twelve course banquet ending with red bean soup, you know the type of crowd I’m talking about.  These are the women who’ve given birth in the rice paddies of China and returned to work the same day (or so they say).  They’ve stowed away in tiny rowboats for days hiding from the Japanese and made herbal remedies from almost any animate object imaginable (and have been so kind as to feed these remedies to later generations).  These are the type of people who don’t believe in the carrying capacity of a public transportation vehicle and who sell jewelry and television sets when they’re not being hair dressers.  You know never to walk between these people and the walls of an alleyway because 9 times out of 10 they’ll shoot a 30 miles per hour snot-bullet at you using just the force of their breath (and the 1 time out of 10 you get by unscathed is an indication of mercy rather than inaccuracy).  To them, the price tag is only a suggestion and it’s never too late to hustle a few dimes out of some chump in mah jong.  They’re the type of women who like to name their children Wilson and Wellington and Cheston and Nixon.  They are, in technical terms, “old Chinatown ladies,” and my grandmother was a shining example (Except for the pawn broker/barber thing.  That’s just the lady who cuts my hair/sells me watches.).

Anyway, my grandmother knit all the way until old age caught up to her, and, unfortunately, she had long since stopped knitting when I finally discovered my yen for yarn (I was debating between this, “need to knit,” “passion to purl,” and “itch to stitch.”  It was a tough call.).  And, now that she’s gone, I realize that this unfinished vest is the last thing I have that really connects us (besides the 25% of DNA we share).  Her “final project” (It most likely was not her last project, but please grant me this romanticized allowance.) was essentially a secret language we shared.  She had left the work mid-row, almost inviting me to analyze her stitching and to learn her pattern.  She tied colored yarn around where the pockets, buttons, and neckline should be, as if she were telling me, “And make sure to pick up this many stitches here…and don’t forget about that…”  I can honestly say that finishing this vest has been one of the most enjoyable knitting experiences I’ve had.

“Able to cable.”  That’s a good one, too.

Okay, now onto the knitting specifics.  First, here’s a better picture of exactly what my grandmother left me:

While trying to figure out what kind of stitch my grandmother was using, I learned that she was an incredible knitter.  No joke.  Every knit and purl is knit and purled exactly the same. It’s so even it doesn’t even need blocking (dare I say a word against blocking).  And it wasn’t just me who saw the quality of her work.  I received more compliments while working on this one item than I have on anything else I’ve made.  A man even prophesied over me while I was making this (Apparently, God will stitch up my heart as I stitch up this vest.).  My grandmother’s knitting was better and holier than mine.  Well, eventually I somewhat figured out what stitch she was using and made a good enough guess to finish the back panel of the vest.  After that, all that was left to do was sew the front and back together, add edging to the neckline and arm holes, and knit the pockets.  The latter was new to me, but because of my grandmother’s ghostly guidance, I figured out a way to make it work.

So, if you plan on knitting pockets, here’s the way my grandmother did it (I’ll call this the Joyce method):  Save the desired width of stitches onto a piece of scrap yarn.  When knitting the following row, cast on the amount of stitches that you set aside.  After you’ve finished the project, pick up the stitches that you saved and knit in stockinette until length is twice the desired depth of the pocket.  Then, fold this flap up so the working edge matches up to where you first picked up the stitches.  Finally, pick up the same amount of stitches on the row of stitches that you cast on (this should be the row above the stitches that you originally set aside), and use the kitchener stitch to graft them together.  Block to receive the appropriate shape of the pocket.

After employing the Joyce method for both pockets, as well as some light blocking, here’s what I ended up with:

To be honest, when I initially saw the unfinished vest, I wasn’t thinking about what a sweet gesture to my family finishing it would be.  Instead, I thought about how many movies have this exact same plot.  Well, not exactly the same, but you have to admit, finding this gem is basically a watered down version of countless major Hollywood films.  For example, Wanted: James Mcavoy takes down the organization that his father died trying to destroy.  Mulan: Mulan brings honor to her family by taking her father’s role in the army.  John Carter: John Carter leaves his nephew a journal, which the nephew uses to learn about his uncle’s history and ultimately send Taylor Kitsch back to Mars.  The Italian Job: Charlize Theron joins her deceased father’s old team and plays the same role as master safe cracker in order to take down his murderer.  Holes: Shia Labeouf has to fulfill the promise that his great-great-grandfather made to Eartha Kitt in order for the curse to be lifted.  Need I go on?  Well, I will, because I have one more left on my list.  Harry Potter (the entire franchise): Harry takes down the evil wizard that his parents died trying to kill (kind of like Wanted, but without Morgan Freeman).

As you can see, my story didn’t quite end up unfolding in the same manner as these.  Instead, mine took an alternate path used by a lesser number of multigenerational, heart-warming dramas that is often shown on Lifetime. In these films, the protagonist is forced to interact with an older relative, but, after initial reluctance, learns that they are not so different after all and comes to understand the value of family and tradition.  Sound familiar?  Well, not to me, because I don’t watch Lifetime.

I apologize, though.  I really tried to make my life tell a more gripping story through this vest.  But I just couldn’t find the Fraternity to my Wesley Gibson, the Huns to my Imperial Army, a Steve to my Stella, a Madame Zeroni to my– well, you get the point.

***Red egg and ginger parties are thrown for newborns at around 1 month of age because, traditionally, when the infant mortality rate was very high, a baby at this age had good chances of living to adulthood.

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by dakniellam on August 8, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by dakniellam on August 8, 2012

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