New York Minknit

I had high hopes for this cowl. I knit it in a week and a half from my own design, and in my mind, I was like “I’m gong to submit it to Knitty! To Classic Elite! It’s going to be the next Clapotis! This is my big knitting break!!!”

Instantly give yourself a knitted turkey neck with this fabulous new product!

Then I put it on. All the cables scroonch down so it looks like Medusa neck, and knitted worms are wiggling around my neck. Blech.

It looks better from the side. Oh well, I’m still going to wear it in the fall, because it will be useful, but I am not offering a pattern, because let’s face it, this one is kind of a loser.

Pattern: My own–this is a couple of repeats of a really pretty dropped stitch cable pattern from The New Knitting Stitch Library, by Lesley Stansfield.

Yarn: This is Wool Bam Boo, from Classic Elite, in the color Sachet. It is a really nice yarn–I could see a nice spring sweater made from it, soft and smooth. Quite drape-y though. One ball, $11, from Knitty City.

Needles: Clover bamboo 9″ circular in size 5.

Project started/finished: Started July 8, 2009, finished July 19, 2009. Only a week and a half…until Gorgon neck.

Project notes: I didn’t swatch, and this project took the entire ball of yarn. What I learned is that if you want to make a cowl with cables, make it a little shorter and with less drapey yarn, so the cables don’t smush down into weird shapes. I kind of knew I should make it a little shorter, but I wanted the vertical repeats to be symmetrical, hence the extra length.

Pattern: My own. They’re not really a pattern, just basic socks with a bit of ribbing. These are toe-up, with a short row heel. The body of the sock is *k2, p1, k4, p1,* repeat as necessary. Finish with k1, p1 rib. I used More Sensational Socks as a guide, but they’re pretty basic.

Yarn: Bonkers Sock Kit, color Flamingo. This yarn was a Christmas gift from Adam’s mom–I think she and Adam bought it at Yarn Barn, in Lawrence, Kansas.

Needles: Inox size 2 DPNs.

Project started/finished: Started December 3, 2008 or so, and finished July 13, 2009. I developed major second sock syndrome on these socks, but when I finally buckled down, I knit the second sock in two weeks.

Project notes: I like these socks a lot–the colorway knit up nicely, I think. I have another pair of thicker, wooly socks (as opposed to the smoother superwash wool of some of my other socks), the Spiral Socks, that are super-cozy in the winter. I find that the non-superwash wool, knit on bigger needles, result in socks that a little less sturdy, but cozier, for socks.

It has been a cool summer, though it has been hot this week. Anyway, last week, it was vaguely chilly enough to trot out the Noro shawlette. I have been finishing up some knitting, so I’ll have more pictures soon, but I have to answer some emails and get ready for another couple of terrifying hours of driving with my latest driving teacher who likes to tell me morbid stories of horrible car accidents and deaths, all because someone did not “ANTICIPATE!!”

I have a driver’s license, but I never drove regularly, so I never really was comfortable driving a car, so I have been using my time off (*cough* funemployment *cough*)to take some intensive driving lessons in my neighborhood.

A bit of back story: When I learned to drive in my 20s*, here in New York’s Chinatown, I was taught by this man I called “The Driving Guru,” and who was the best driving teacher ever. His name was Steve, and he was actually a year or two younger than me, and he was the world’s calmest dude. He taught me completely in Chinese, and only spoke in Ye Olden Chinese Confucius-like epigrams–like if I didn’t slow down for pigeons, he would say, “Each life has its own worth, and we must respect the life of each living being,” and when I gave him grief about giving me different advice on different days, he said, “Each situation has its own solution, and we must honor the uniqueness of each,” etc. Once, I was freaking out on one of Chinatown’s narrow streets, and Steve assured me that nothing would ever happen while he was in the car, and I believed him. We almost never spoke about our personal lives–I can only remember one instance where he randomly asked me the English words for how to order different kinds of eggs (scrambled, sunny-side up, over medium, hard-boiled, etc.), which is hardly personal. Anyway, I knew he used to be a long-distance truck driver, and sadly, when it came time to relearn, Steve had moved to California to return the long-distance driving.

*I had a learner’s permit at 15, like a normal red-blooded American, but somehow I fell off the learning on-ramp and never got a license until my 20s.

(I have also found there is a small subset of people, namely neurotic New York women writers, who learn to drive as adults, and who tend form strange attachments to their driving teachers. I chalk it up to the intimacy of spending so much time in a small space with a man who has so much control over your life, and spending A LOT of time with him on a regular basis. See The Nation‘s Katha Pollitt’s essay “Learning to Drive,” Vanity Fair‘s Amy Fine Collins’s “Vroom at the Top,” and songwriter Suzanne Vega’s, “Street Legal, Finally.” As a neurotic New York woman writer myself, who was, um, driving-chellenged,  I was always especially aware of these articles, and kept a metal talley of the many famous non-drivers I would hear about, like Studs Terkel, who I would always trot out, when people rolled their eyes at my lack of driving skills.)

Anyway, I have two new driving teachers, neither of whom I love, but they are intense in their own ways. I have been going on the highway and Northern Boulevard (a hellish boulevard here in Queens, filled with what my California driver’s ed teacher would have called “The Final Factor”: unloading trucks, people talking on their cell phones, children dashing out into the street, Totally Insane Youth driving sports cars in terrible ways, aggressive people who like to yell at me, etc.) while listening to my driving teacher explain about (1) her first arranged marriage to an abusive drunkard; (2) her only child, who lives in India, and their tortured relationship, which is so complex that it’s like a Faulkner and V.S. Naipaul novel rolled into one, combining issues of class, family, immigration, emigration, and patriarchy; (3) her second marriage to a Pakistani man (I have a small personal interest in The Partition, based on my fondness for arranged marriage novels, and when she mentioned this Southeastern Asian Romeo-and-Juliet Indian-and-Pakistani pairing in her life, I was vaguely fascinated); (4) her plans to quit her driving teaching career of 16 years to work for the MTA (the NY transit authority); and (5) the differences between America and other countries.

I was a history major, I’m a writer, and I grew up in an immigrant family, so I am always at least a little interested in how immigrants view America and Americans, and especially how women perceive America. But I have to say that there were times in the past week that I have been like, “While I am fascinated by your complex immigrant story, I am also about to be killed by being smushed between a fruit truck and the M60 bus on Northern Boulevard! What should I do!?” I am not always sure that my personal StoryCorps experience has been beneficial to my driving skills. But I have finished my current stint with this teacher, and begin tomorrow with my other teacher, who is an old-school dude (read: mildly sexist and fond of saying things of his students like, “Well, she wore the pants in that family and he wore the dress if you know what I mean, haha,” which I would normally find kind of offensive, but have decided to accept to improve my driving skills) who has been teaching for 40 years. I will report back after I am done.

On a positive note, I think I’m actually a fairly decent beginning driver now. None of my driving teachers are believers in positive reinforcement. (I think “positive reinforcement” might be an American philosophy, and since all of my teachers have been immigrants, they believe in the tough love stance. Or as my current teacher said, “When we compliment students, then they think they are doing well, and then they stop learning!” I inwardly groaned, remembering my various aborted stints at Chinese school, where teachers are always quick to rank students and point out your failures.) But as an American who grew up in woo-woo San Francisco, I am big on positive reinforcement, so I have taken to saying things like, “Aren’t I doing so well? Did you notice how great I was on the highway?” which makes my teacher laugh. I told her that I needed to be complimented (who cares if I’m fishing?) and she was like, “um, I don’t do that, but okay.” The truth is that driving isn’t so difficult, and though I was kind of mentally stressed about it for a while, I finally was like, if I can knit an entire sweater, I think I can learn to drive.

Last week, a friend of mine who has season tickets to the Cyclones (the farm team for the New York Mets) out at Coney Island, invited us out to watch a game with her. I recently saw a game at the Mets’ new Citi Field (which replaced Shea Stadium) and I was surprised by how close we were to the field at the Cyclones–definitely a more intimate experience than at Citi Field, though I liked the new Citi Field as well. It’s a beautiful environment out at Coney though–you can see the Parachute Jump from the World’s Fair in the background of this photo, which adds a nice nostalgic touch to the game.

I don’t know what it’s been like in the rest of the country, but this summer has been the year of non-stop summer rain in New York. Like EVERY DAY. I think we need to build an ark soon.

Here’s my latest second sock. I like knitting socks because they have definite stopping points…knittttttttttt and then the heel, turn the heel, and then knittttttttt the rest of the sock. Rinse and repeat. And you’re done! Whereas other projects sometimes seem a little endless. I knit lots of my socks of the subway, where people like to talk to each other about my sock knitting all of the time. Especially older women–they’re always telling their family members how they, too, can knit socks. I’m like living history on the subway. Maybe I should charge to watch me on the subway! Hah!

We came back from our annual trip to the Jersey Shore yesterday and it rained (a lot), but fortunately, not for the whole time. I turned the heel on the sock on the bus going down to the shore, and on one of the first days of downpour, we went bowling (photo 1). We did walk along the beach (photo 2) and bike ride, but we didn’t lounge on the beach, because it was basically mud. It was kind of a San Francisco-esque beach experience, one might say. We also went on the boardwalk, where this somewhat odd paintball shooting booth is a strange Rorschach test for the American psyche–in the past it has had “Shoot the terrorist” as a come-on for passersby, and this year, I think it had a mannequin of Dick Cheney (?). I’m not totally sure this is Dick Cheney, and I’m not sure I understand what his role is as advertising–is he a possible paintball shooter or a possible paintball shooter target? It was all strangely unclear to me.

We also went to a Ye Olde Time village called Cold Spring, (picture 4) which had various people in olde time clothing chatting about spinning (!), printing, farming, etc. I have to say that some of the people who worked there, were, ahem, a bit curmudgeonly, which led me to the belief that in Ye Olden Times, everyone was a grouch. We did love the printing guy though–he was cheerful and had a lot of interesting info, and showed us how to set lead type. Due to either an emphasis on colonial times in elementary school or my own personal interest in crafts, I think I actually knew a lot of the rather vague information dispensed at the village. Also, I think many of the skills demonstrated at the village are still being used today, which made the whole Ye Olden vibe a bit false. (That might be the point, I’m not sure–you know, living history and all.) When I was a kid, my dad used to occasionally take me to watch the Chinese newspaper being typeset, which, at the time, was still set using lead type, like in Ye Olden Times, and I took Intaglio in college, so I was familiar with the basics of the press. Adam even has a small press at home that he occasionally letterpresses with, so though that was definitely the most interesting stop in the village, it was not so novel. The “handicrafts” stop, was, obviously, a process (knitting!) familiar to me. The woodshop was run by a somewhat suspect tour guide, a young man whose thumb was wrapped in a giant bandage, which made Adam and I wonder if he really had any skills. My high school actually required wood shop, metal shop, and machine shop, as classes, and though I was pretty bad at all of the shop classes, even I could tell that our guide (a) had no chisel skills and (b) seemed a little anxious around a pedal-powered scroll saw. We will not speak of the tinmaker.

I think I might also have a rather large store of vague Ye Olde Time knowledge from a devoted reading of the Little House on the Prairie series (1870s-ish), The Great Brain series (end of the 19th century), and All of Kind Family series (1910s) as a kid. Visiting Cold Spring further convinced me that I would have hated life as a Ye Olde farmer, and would have rather made it as a city person, if possible. (I think in The Great Brain, the narrator’s dad was a newspaper editor/printer, and I have no idea what the parents did in All of a Kind Family, but at least the kids got to go roller skating and ice cream eating, whereas Little House on the Prairie was all crow-chasing and lard-hoarding. Lizzie Skurnick over at Jezebel, with her hilarious Fine Lines series, describes the Little House books as “frontier porn for the underaged.”) Adam was all, “Well, you could have knit all the time,” but I pointed out that it wouldn’t have been a fun hobby, but instead a horrible toil, where I would have been forced to knit socks for my many many children and husband non-stop as I stirred my lard soap day in and day out or something. Or hoped to scrape by with bits of gristle as a crotchety old spinster. (I recently read an Edith Wharton short story where a couple men were mourning a great beauty who had grown aged and grey in her dottage, and then I came across the shocking line that said something like, “At 32, her best days were far behind her,” and I was like, whoa, clearly I would have been put out to pasture in some old knitting hut in Ye Olden Times, since I am SO OLD.)

Anyway, back to the sock.

Pattern: Monkey, by Cookie A., in Knitty

Yarn: Toe Jamz, by Happy Hands, from Just 4 Ewe in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Color: Secret Garden. Price: $22. Each skein has a TON of yardage–450 yards. I had a lot left over. Enough to make a third sock, probably. Maybe even a second pair.

Needles: Size 0 9″ Hiya Hiya, and regular size 0 DPNs from Susan Batees for casting on, the heel, and the toe.

Project started/finished: March 9, finished June 25–so three months, since I had second sock syndrome for about a month in the middle there.

Modifications: Well, I knit these on a tiny circular needle, and I did a different cuff (regular ribbing instead of twisted ribbing), heel (short-row instead of flap), and toe (round instead of standard), but the body of the sock is the same. Since the ENTIRE online knitting community has knit these socks, I don’t really need to say a lot about the pattern except that it’s fun! And easy to memorize!

Photo shoot notes: The completed socks were shot in Cape May, NJ, in front of a WWII fire tower and on the beach.

We went to the High Line at night last week. (The High Line is a new elevated park built on the remnants of an old elevated railroad track in downtown Manhattan.) It’s quite beautiful and currently stretches from the Meatpacking District down to about 20th Street or so.)

Walking down the High Line makes Manhattan look like 1960s Hong Kong or Rio or something, especially with the new addition of The Standard, which looks totally retro (even though it’s new) and perches over the High Line. The ceilings in the hotel rooms look like they’re made of wood, which looks quite chic when you’re looking at the rooms. It’s straight out of a Wong Kar Wai or Wes Anderson movie. (I told Adam that I thought those two should collaborate and he made a horrible face, since he thinks Wes Anderson is twee. But they ARE both very stylized filmmakers.) The High Line is totally calling out for some atmospheric music in your head. Also good for hipster dates. And free!

Traveling sock went to visit, too! (All photos by Adam, as usual.)

Adam looked down at my sock the other day and said. “Those colors are HIDEOUS.” Whatever–as my friend pointed out yesterday, I bought these truly hideous white T-strap Birkenstocks ten years ago, and they have since become the height of fashion. (She was like “God, people are still wearing those horrible shoes you bought in 2000.”) I have an eye for hideousness that crosses the line into cool. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.

I’ve been reading, and  though I actually (and occasionally) review books for money in real life, I am not a great book reviewer on my blog. Generally, I just read books and absorb them and that’s it. Though my friend recommended reading The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, which I’ve owned for a couple of years (it was a gift) and I never read it. I was like, “Oh, I was worried it would be one of those ethnic identity books that I am not very into,” and she said, “No, it’s written in the culture of nerds, in NERDESE.” Apparently, the whole book is all about Lord of the Rings, so I will retrieve that book and read it this week, while the Hobbits are fresh in my mind. Same friend firmly vetoed Twilight, claiming it ruins your brain, even though she read all three. As I am not particularly into vampires (though I do enjoy a high school romance), I think I am safe.

Anyway, this week, I read America America, by Ethan Canin, which was kind of a crappier version of All the King’s Men. I understand that novelists–particularly male novelists–are fond of these epic, sweeping “And lo, this is America!”-kind of books, but they don’t always work out. I should write not-so-enthusiastic flap copy for books. America America could be described as:

*crappy All the King’s Men

* Primary Colors, but in the ’70s

* The Emperor of Ocean Park, but with white people!

I guess I secretly do read a lot of these political campaign books. I actually have read another Ethan Canin book–For Kings and Planets, and there were definite similarities between the two books. Both books are very into class and moving from the lower-middle class into the upper-middle class, a topic I do find interesting, but Canin is always so obvious about these issues I find his writing a little frustrating. Plus, I think in his efforts to ennoble the working class, he ends up being condescending. Whenever novelists start singing the praises of the working man, I groan, because I know that it’s all downhill prep-school  envy from there on out. Personally, I prefer my class warfare hidden within romantic machinations, hence my deep allegiance to Gossip Girl.

I finished The Return of the King yesterday.  Anyhow, I did not become a Lord of the Rings mega-nerd, though I do now like to refer to people as X, son of Y, which is how everyone is ever introduced in LOTR. Anyway, this book was less like King Arthur stuff, as I had assumed it would be, and more like the Iliad/Odyssey, though somewhat reversed–the first two books are the odyssey part, and the third is the Iliad part.  It was really just one big war/journey book(s), with lots and lots of lineage-talk. By the time I got to book three, which is all lamentations of lands lost and children slain, I was like, okaaay, I know, I read the Iliad. (I’m actually much more familiar with the Iliad than the Odyssey, though I had to read both in college, because in fifth grade, we read some kind of abbreviated version of the Iliad and then had to draw our own illustrated version of the story, which kind of helps stick it in your brain.)

I have no knitting news. Sorry.