You Ain’t Just Whistlin’ Dixie

All this talk about language was really just paving the way for me to talk about my true love: knitting, and by extension the language of knitting. Yes, you read correctly, I said the “language of knitting.”

How, one might ask, can she honestly say with a straight face that knitting is a language? Well, I have a few facts to present in my defense:

1. Go to any knitting club/circle (mine is held every Friday night at my local yarn store, or LYS as we say, here in Anchorage); and you will find a group of women ranging from early teens to the twilight years sitting around laughing and contentedly clacking away at one project or another. Then suddenly one may break through the laughter, slamming down her knitting and with a frustrated growl cry, “I have been knitting two together! I did the yarn over then knit two together purl wise and slipped the next stitch and somehow I have still been decreasing by a stitch every row. aaarrrrrg!”

At this point all the knitters, no matter the age or station will share a commiserating sigh, set aside their projects and lean in to attempt a translation of the instructions arguing good naturedly over how exactly the original knitter continued to decrease when she was supposed to have the same stitches at the beginning of the row as at the end…Most likely the conversation will deteriorate into the philisophical realm of making the object “her own”, weather it is worth it to always follow the instructions and what exactly is meant by slip one stitch.

2. I dare even of you non-knitters to sit down and tell me what the following is saying:

On your DPNs CO 12 sts devide among the 4 DPNs

Join to work in round

Row 1: K

Row 2: *K1, yo, pm, K1, yo, K1* repeat from * -20 sts

Row 3: K

Row 4: *K to marker, yo, slip marker, K1, yo, K to end of needle* repeat to end of row

Repeat rnds: 3 &4 18 times untill you have 172 sts (43 sts per dpn)

K 1 round BO.

Now Auntie Em could sit here and tell you what that all means but really where’s the fun in that? I will tell you that it is a simpler pattern. Here is what one of these looks like when its done.

one of the squares to my barn raising quilt

3. There are entire books, shows, radio programs,, letters and more written in this language and conversely on podcastes how to understand and learn this language.

and fianally

4. It is a live language, not only are women and men speaking this on a daily bases, but it is an evolving and ever changing organism. Adapting itself, creating new slangs and definitions everyday.

Now if you are still not convinced let me share a couple videos with you. One is of a fascinating language found in the Spanish Alps and I call it fondly “the Whistling Language” and the other is an example, or proof if you will, of the “Knitting Language.”

and for the “Knitting Language,” here is the translation for K2tog:

What’s Going On?

So last week I held ya’ll off by telling you I would share the whole adventure with you this week with pictures and now I come clean:

the weekend on my adventure started out simply and enjoyably enough when the ladies from my church got together for our annual camping trip. I had suggested we head to Trail Lake about 25 miles from the little town of Seward and off we went. I was driving the van from my print shop and thus carrying the bulk of the equipment.

Making it to Trail Lake in safety and realtive comfort, we set up camp and I immediatly set my sites on a trump around the lake. Gathering most of the ladies with me we were off.

Trail Lake is a beautiful study of man and nature. Glacier fed the water is a silvery grey and so dense that the eye cannot penetrate; and the river feeding the lake is so furocious and strong that the shore is a graveyard for entire spruce and evergreen trees ripped completly away from their home turf by the roots. Bleached that perfect ghost white that only another drift wood refugee can attain, the shoreline resembled a line of ghostly apperations.

If one looked across the imposing lake you would see the beautiful deep green of a forested mountain, but to the left only blackened remains of a once equally lush forest resides. Here to it is like unto a grave yard only this time what I imagine the site of a battle to resemble. Blackened statues point skyward, while small shoots of green make their own way heavenward. Finally to the right, just peeking through the treeline is mans contribution to the scene, the Seward Highway. when superimposed on the rest of the scene it struck me as odd and in some way funny: Mother nature’s grey river next to mans grey river, both teaming with rushing, struggling life.

When we got back to camp, my friend Anna, who had stayed behind to protect everything from being kidnapped by bears, informed me that my rear tire had all of a sudden let loose a torrent of air and was now well on its way to being flat. After an instence investigation, we all concurred that the valve had busted and since I did not have a spare tire, I was driven out to a cell reception area and called my boss, who just happens to be my father as well, to let him know of our delema. It was as follows:

do I

1. try to make it back home on the tire as is
2. take it into Seward and hope for a auto shop to be open on the weekend during the hieght of fishing season,
3. get a ride with someone else back to town or
4. fly on a wing and a prayer.

I opted for option 2 which meant the next morning found me loosing out on the hike and limping into Seward where I found not one place in town to be open or even a mechanic within ten miles of the shoreline….

I think I will make you wait with baited breath for the next installment of dun-du-DA “What’s Going On?”

On My Needles

This week, I was ill for a day and thus I was able to crank out 13 inches of my brothers, re-knit vest. I am a little concerned though because of all the alterations I made I am not confidant that I have enough skeins to see me through, and Rowan yarn has discontinued this line. I rushed to my good friends at my LYS “Far North Yarn Co.” and put them on the hunt to see if their Rowan rep. could track down a few more skeins of my Rowan Tweed in the colorway and dye lot that I am working with.