Last of the Heatwave

Heatwave Singles

We're back to 30°C weather, hopefully for the last time this year, so I think it's rather fitting I should have finished off the last of all the Shetland fiber (colourway: Heatwave) yesterday. I really just had to skein the rest of the singles up and finish them, but I made it in time to catch the heat again.

Leftover singles on the wheel

First were the leftover singles that I had on the bobbin, all 13g of it. I found it much easier to pull things off the niddy noddy when I had it at 2 yards as compared to the 1 yard length. Less room to maneuver with only 1 yard, I think.

Singles on the Houndesign Dali Lace drop spindle

As for this skein, weighing in at 17g (I lost quite a bit of the singles since they kept breaking on me while I wound this up), I finally pulled it off the spindle after probably a year or so? You can see all the different colours much better on this skein than any others though: that beautiful lilac-grey transitions into the mustard, before finally dissolving into a rusty brown. The original plan had been to keep all these colours separate for the wheel skein and then navajo it to keep the transitions, but my ability to navajo kept that idea at bay. Ah well. Next time.

Heatwave

Heatwave, fresh off the drying rack

Remember this NBK Shetland fiber that I purchased way back when? The blog says May 25, 2014. That's over 2 years that this has sat in my fiber stash. Granted, I don't actually spin as much as I would like myself to (in my ideal version of self, not in terms of free time), but this is still a bit ridiculous.

Tiny tiny skein

This is all leading up to say that I finally finished spinning the remainder of Heatwave on my Lendrum! It came up to a lot less than I expected (the finished skein is only 70g and has approximately 158 yards to it, in what I'm estimating at fingering/sport weight), but I'm glad that that's finally off my list! The spinning itself took very little time once I actually applied myself, and finished yarn came out pretty nicely if I do say so myself. The only issue was with the dye running - mostly reddish browns in the water - which I hope has been fixed with the healthy dose of citric acid that I added afterwards. I'm thinking of using it to make colourwork mittens.

Lendrum niddy noddy in pieces (1 & 2 yards)

Encouraged by how easily and quickly I spun this fiber up, I went and got myself a Lendrum niddy noddy - I had been using the backs of two chairs placed together up till now, and while it worked, I have to say they weren't optimal working conditions - as well as 1lb of Louet Black Norwegian Top. The fiber was an unplanned purchase, but I was so surprised at how incredibly dark the fiber was that I decided right then and there to spin and knit myself a black turtleneck (I've been reading At the Existentialist Cafe, and something about black turtlenecks being the quintessential existential sartorial choice just stuck).

Louet Black Norwegian Top x 2 = 1lb

A rather risible goal if you look at my track record: I've spun half a pound of Corriedale (2013), 100g of merino (2015), and 4oz of Shetland (above, 2016). Tack on some more bits of fiber here and there and you get the sum total of my spinning career. But I'm determined to make this work this time, since the fiber practically grabbed me and demanded to be made into a turtleneck once I saw it. Who am I to refuse? And so, I've purchased the conveniently on-sale Craftsy class, Drafting from Worsted to Woolen, in order to actually learn how to spin, since I've sort of just been doing it willy nilly thus far. (Everything after that Corriedale was spun using a short forward draw, essentially.)

It says Spelsau on the Louet website but why not say that instead of Norwegian?

So I'm aiming for a fingering-weight singles that's lofty and plush, since this yarn is incredibly soft and I'd like to keep that soft airy quality in the finished sweater. I'm leaning heavily towards spinning long draw on the fold, since I've spun up a sample that way as well as one using long draw with pre-drafted strips, and while both are overtwisted and the one spun on the fold is still drying and has yet to be knitted up, it kind of looks and feels lighter and all-around more like what I'd like it to be than the first sample.

And in the worst case scenario, even if I don't get a turtleneck out of this, at least I'll have learned something about spinning, right? Or one should hope.

August List

Not that this list is particularly august.

But I have been working at the list of library books at home this month, and my piles have been dwindling (hurrah!). My queue, on the other hand, has been ebbing and flowing from the limit (100), so I've been trying to free up pockets, which is how I queue everything up anyway: a bunch of items on a particular topic or theme at once, then a break, before another topic captures my interest.

1. Animal Wise by Virginia Morelli
• I talked about this at the beginning of the month in my other post.
2. Le Petit Prince (2015)
• GO WATCH THIS IMMEDIATELY. If you've already watched it, watch it again. And maybe a third time. I need to get my hands on my own copy.
3. The Son of a Certain Woman by Wayne Johnston
• I didn't need to read #5 to understand the use of irony here - Johnston practically hits you over the head with it, and then some. Which is great, actually. You expect so much more to go on at the ending; I didn't realize it was the end until I flipped the page. It starts off rather monotonously (for me at least, I didn't get hooked till about halfway through or so), but then there's all this foreshadowing to what is never actually in the novel. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't read it again.
4. Capture: Unravelling the Mystery of Mental Suffering by David A. Kessler
• Very largely anecdotal, which, after reading the books about animals and research on animals, specifically the view of anecdotes in research on animals, I couldn't really decide one way or another how I felt about it. That being said, I enjoyed the bit on David Foster Wallace especially, and the other little tidbits were also entertaining, though I wish there was more theory and it was more grounded in research specifically on the concept of capture as defined by the author. That being said, the notes section is incredibly extensive, and while I didn't make my way through them because I failed to look at the notes while I was reading (as perhaps a better reader might have done?), it all seemed a bit too much to catch up on all at the end for me. I flipped through them and saw they were very detailed and in depth, explaining concepts and theories brought up in the chapters, as well as what the author is referring to, say, when he refers to Jung.
5. How to Read Literature Like a Professor (Revised) by Thomas C. Foster
• "Time and time again, experience has shown that while I might be "just anyone", I'm definitely not "everyone". What I like, what I admire, what I dismiss, I can only find out by reading for myself" (Foster, 414) - yes!
• I very much enjoyed this both in terms of content and in terms of style - lively, engaging, and very easy to read. Although it was made painfully clear to me how much more practice I need in critically analyzing what I read, despite how much I might think I do read. Which makes it all the more sad, really. That simply means I don't put enough thought into it at all. Perhaps some revisiting is in order, notably of Sartre's works, which I haven't read since high school, though they resonated quite incredibly with me at the time. I might even argue that Sartre was what began my collection.
6. The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Inquiry into Human Freedom by John Gray
• Roadside Picnic referenced, and it's on my list? Love when that happens! Also, now I need to actually read Nietzsche and not give up on it.
7. Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan
• It's always interesting to read about the historical figures behind religions, as well as the political conditions out of which religions (and their leaders) arise. I wonder what the implications of the incredible difference between now and then for Christianity are, for believers? In the sense that it might be a touch difficult to reconcile these differences - assuming one would even want to reconcile them and not simply choose one or the other or something in between - and also in the sense that we should be armed with the full knowledge that even religion is not impervious to social conditions. Are the teachings still the Truth, or is it simply interpretation (especially given the ambiguous phrasings of passages in the Bible, different interpretations of which have created many schisms)?
8. The Club (2015)
9. Thinking in Numbers: On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math by Daniel Tammet
10. I Saw the Light (2015)
• I really wanted to become besotted with the movie. Which is not to say I didn't enjoy it, because I did, but not to the extent to which I would have liked. Whether that's due to my expectations or not is up in the air.
11. American Psycho (2000)
• ... So was that all his imagination? I mean, the whole pscyhopath description at the back of the DVD case didn't seem to fit with the character, so I was pretty confused throughout anyway, but it could have just all been planned by the director (or author? I'm not sure how closely the movie adaptation follows the novel inspiration). I mean, to begin with, I'm not too sure how it would work, having an "alternate psychopathic ego" (from IMDb website), considering the lack of empathy he'd need to have for this alternate ego, and how that would mesh with his regular old ego. But again, that's just me riffing off of the description.
12. A Beginner's Guide to Immortality: From Alchemy to Avatars by Marie Birmingham, illustrated by Josh Holinaty
• This was on the "new books" list on the library website, and it looked kind of fun, so I ordered it in - what a delight! I'm sure it doesn't go quite as in depth as a book on the quest for immortality could have done, but given that it's aimed at children, I think the author & illustrator did a heck of a job! Speaking of which, I love the illustrations.
• Interestingly enough, I read about Jeanne Calment, who lived to the ripe old age of 122, not too long ago! I wish there could have been space to put in some information about the leasing agreement she had for her property, because it's quite funny if you read it with a generous dash of ironic humour. Here's an article from the NYTimes, since I can't remember where I read about it originally.
13. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
• I realized halfway through or so that the author had inserted herself into the novel (talk about being dense!), since some of those footnotes were less "this is me, the distanced author with authority and knowledge over the material in the novel, telling you what this means or is about" so much as "this is me, the author-cum-character, telling you I searched up what this was and didn't find out definitively what Nao was referring to". And now I can't help wondering whether or not the À la Recherche du Temps Perdu journal & watch & letters were actually found, and whether the epilogue is not an actual message out to a Yasutani Naoko out there who had written and packaged everything and thrown it into the ocean (or perhaps simply off the same beach on that island?).
• I was tempted to purchase it before I read it, along with At the Existentialist Cafe (which I also held back on, below), but now I really do want a copy on my shelves!

And now, I usually don't just abandon books willy nilly after picking them up, but I aborted the effort for one title along the way, after getting almost to the end (I think I was over 3/4 of the way through):

1. What Should We Be Worried About? edited by John Brockman
• Not that any of these issues or possibilities aren't important, or that we shouldn't worry about any of it, but this simply didn't resonate with me in the least. One of the short essays, however, did. I forget what it was called, but it said something to this effect: what we should worry about is that Edge is asking some of the foremost thinkers to answer this question (i.e. what should we be worried about?) as opposed to employing their smarts to actually producing suggestions that can be implemented and rewarding a winner based on their solution to a world problem. 100% agreed.

Working on:

1. Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel
2. The Grapes of Math by Alex Bellos
3. If This is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck: Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm
4. At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell
• I was very tempted to purchase this book while idling around at Indigo, but remembered we have a copy at the library. So far, it seems like it would be worth the purchase though.

Although speaking of books I've been thinking of purchasing, here are a couple more I've been holding back on. I'm probably going to see whether I can track down the two Natsume Soseki ones at a used bookstore somewhere, especially considering how much Light and Dark is (though I would totally shell that out for Natsume Soseki).

1. The Art of Joy by Goliarda Sapienza
• Haven't actually a clue what it's about really, but it was on sale for $5 (how is the hardcover on sale and the paperback version not though?) and although it's kind of a tome and I already have way too many books for my bookshelf to comfortably house, I've added it to my eternally unfulfilled shopping cart on the Chapters/Indigo website. Eternally unfulfilled only because there are books that have been sitting there for months. (Even more sitting in my wishlist for a further eternity.)
2. Light and Dark by Natsume Soseki
• Because Natsume Soseki.
3. The Miner by Natsume Soseki
• Ditto.

On the topic of books & shelves and my poor bookshelf that's probably over capacity, I'm seriously thinking about adding another Billy to my life. (At least, I think the one I already have is a Billy... you never really know with items that are so old...) I just need to measure & make sure it would fit, and decide whether or not to get rid of my desk - the unequivocal answer to which should be YES, considering it's really just storage space for me right now, and has been for many many years now. I don't believe I ever used it for homework, or much else, after elementary school, to be honest - after which I can probably both set up my floor loom in my room as well as purchase another bookcase. Wouldn't that be swell! Sandy (the loom) & two Billies.

That Roll of Film I Forgot About (About That Bird)

What kind of bird is this?

I panicked a bit yesterday when I saw the slip for picking up my film along a ledge at home, dated for August 10. What if they'd gotten rid of it already? My film's with the store, so I would never be able to reprint those! So I immediately got my brother to pick up the package for me, having pretty much forgotten already what was on this roll of film apart from some foggy shots of the city, and was pleasantly surprised to see this bird again when I looked through the prints.

Taking flight - look at those beautiful wings!

I have no idea what kind of bird this is, but it was on the street one day some months ago, I believe. It refused to move too far from the center of the street despite urging by a couple of children, though cars coming in spotted it and slowed down, swerving slowly around it.

Beautiful patterning, completely symmetrical

As you might have surmised, this is really just a horror story waiting to happen, so I'll just get to it: a car came into the street way faster than it was supposed to be going for a street like ours, and ran the bird over, leaving an explosion of feathers in its wake, never stopping - not even slowing - and the poor bird flapping its one wing against the ground as it spun in circles.

I didn't take any photos of the mess left behind, but both the remnants and the blood stayed caked on the road for a while until the next great rainfall, which washed away the remnants.

No sense of self-preservation

What really surprised me though was the bird's complete lack of self-preservation! It never strayed too far from where it was (in danger), only flew when we charged at it to get it out of the way in order to scare it away from the actual danger, and didn't seem to be scared of cars at all. Like I said, it was a tragedy waiting to happen: thank goodness those children had gone when it happened.

The remainder of the photos to come in another post, since I wanted to give this bird a bit of attention. Also, what type of bird is this?

The Year of...

Majas Mamelucker by Maja Karlsson

Woolen undergarments, apparently. First the Summer Bralette (blogged here & here), then these Majas Mamelucker (both by the same designer) - what's next? (There are a lot of vintage woolen undergarment patterns floating about...)

Seams? What seams?

The Majas Mamelucker pattern was quite easy to follow, after the translation process and figuring out what was what. (Mods are listed below.) The resulting shorts are very comfortable, as you might expect, although I'm having some fitting issues concerning the crotch area. I actually suspect that it might be because my gauge is off (surprise surprise), though it was close enough that I threw caution to the wind, even knowing the one size pattern would come out a little large... but that's what the ribbing's for, isn't it? Anyway, they're only slightly loose, and even that might just be because I prefer more skin-tight shorts if they're going to be worn under any other clothing. The crotch piece is a couple of stitches too wide though, so I would suggest either removing 5-6 stitches or so from the crotch area (and redistributing to the sides) or not increasing those 5-6 stitches in the front/back pieces in the first place. The ribbing does a great job in terms of fit, and you really don't even need that many stitches if you fall under the size listed.

No modeled pictures because they're short and I haven't a clue what to pair them with. They're also - in case you haven't noticed - super high-waisted, which is great for winter! Next time though, I would make the waist even higher - maybe knit 2~4" more of ribbing, so that when they fold down, they're still at the natural waist.

Look at that waist!

Now, mods:

1. None, really, except for knitting the entire thing in pieces because I wanted to use my Wellington Fibers 30/70 Mohair/Wool, which wasn't enough for the entire piece. So I decided to colourblock the shorts with some Araucania Ranco, which meant knitting the sides & the front/back pieces separately after the waist ribbing. Then I kitchenered them together before doing the ribbing for the legs.
2. My gauge was off, but by a small enough fraction that I just forged ahead anyway, especially since I knew the ribbing would pull in enough for the shorts to stay up.

Ghost Photos! (Not.)

At a temple, no less.

None of these are ghost photos (that I know of!), but I'm surprised anything came out of this roll at all. Some of these shots were taken at Nam San Wai, so I know for sure which roll of film this is: the one I thought never rolled on properly. When I rewound the film, after going way beyond 36, I only had to wind a couple of revolutions before the film was off the other side, so clearly it never took, right? And yet pretty much the entire roll contains photos of Hong Kong! Because I thought nothing took, I put the film in once again and, as luck would have it, shot everything at the wrong ISO (it was a 100 ISO film - I shot at 400 by accident), which is where the ghostly effects are coming from. Funny how things work out, since everything would have been too dark if I had shot at the correct settings. Now. I have no idea when I took the above shots. I usually try to avoid shooting people, so the fact that there's someone at the foreground is very odd.

Who are you? I think I know where this is, but I don't remember taking this shot...

It's really interesting to see how, without any planning whatsoever, the double exposures still came out pretty well. I suppose it's because I take photos according to some sort of rules or guidelines? Not really consciously, but I have a certain aesthetic and I follow it most of the time.

Intersecting lines

The trees are where the other trees are at, parting around where the bridge meets the ground!

Probably because of the number of times I tried to get the film to catch, and the number of times it went through the camera, some of the shots are in noticeably rough shape. It's also really grainy, in addition to the fogginess that I'm getting all around. Not the crisp red that this redscale has offered before.

Funnily enough, even two shots with different orientations work out well together! The lighter layer was taken in Canada for sure, though I can't really make out where exactly, and the main image is in HK. You can see the damage on the film in this one, though they're not scratches since they came out almost white (something must have been blocking the light on the film when they were being printed). Unless the plastic cover's scratched? I kind of just threw it into my bag after all. I'd like to think the imperfection adds to the effect.

Downstairs at ah por's

What's that ghostly figure in the center?

A variety of sweets. I don't even remember what we got, just the old lady that asked us to share with her after we paid.

This one's odd, because at first glance I thought the bright part was a reflection, and the white wisps clouds. Note how there's no sun on the "right" side of the "reflection". And the clouds? Probably damage to the film, though I'm not sure what. It might be dirt, actually, since no light, or very little, got through when it printed. I'm actually really happy with how this roll turned out, all in all. It's a good mix of where I came from and where I am now, a small, unintended negotiation.

Now ain't that lovely?

We Should All Be Feminists.. and other July reads

Note: None of the below pictured books have been read. None of them are the additions to my July list. Not a single one.

A fraction of what I have on my physical & written queue

There's been rather an influx of books on my bookshelf these past number of months. Some come on recommendation & on loan from friends - Roadside Picnic, After Dark, and The Virgin Blue - but most of these are pretty recent purchases, both new and used. I splurged on the Natsume Soseki & Osamu Dazai section to the left, but everything from A Little Book of Language, excepting the three mentioned above, are from used bookstores and donations to the library. I'm actually more than a little excited to read these - essays on the secondary colours? I'm game! Too bad they didn't have the first collection of essays on primary colours though. An entire book about laughter? YES! On romantic mythology? Jung? Sartre? All down my alley. And of course, an entire book dedicated to exploring those imaginary existences such as the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause didn't stand a chance of getting left behind by me - but the sheer volume of these pages is starting to weigh down on me (and perhaps more importantly my bookshelf, poor thing). The good news is that I'm reading, though! The bad news, of course, is that what I am reading these days consist entirely of library material (I have discovered Overdrive, through which I can borrow e-materials via my library. While it's not ideal, as I already spend more than enough hours staring at a screen, occasions where I would sit in front of a computer doing not much else anyway have been cropping up more and more frequently - and will likely continue to do so - so I may as well do something more productive with that time. I've also been searching up residencies and calls for applications, in addition to briefly glancing at masters programs for library studies.)

On the topic of library books, I have a couple more to add to the July list of reads:

1. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Please read this! It's a short essay and not in the least intimidating (as I instinctively think when I think "feminist text"), being in fact very approachable.
2. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
3. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
• Almost too brief for me. I'd like to point you towards this interactive website supplement to the book though!
4. Naked Statistics by Charles Wheelan
• "All else equal, it's better not to be a low-status baboon, which is a point I try to make to my children as often as possible, particularly my son" (Wheelan 207). Why particularly your son and not your daughter also? I admit I didn't read this book in-depth because pretty much of all of it was a review for me (I took stats for psychology and only just wrote my thesis this year, so it's still relatively fresh), but unless there was something about job strain being more of an issue for males that I happened to have missed out on, I don't see why not tell that to the daughter also.
• More probable real-life examples would have made the book better - it would have made it easier to see how stats can be, and is, applied in the real world - than using some of the fantastical examples (the missing bus the only one I can think of right now) that were in fact used. If I didn't have any interest in stats and was willing to give it a chance through this book, this one time, I would probably come away from it very far from enamoured.

And this just today, to start August off.

1. Animal Wise by Virginia Morell
• The tiny parrotlets' chattering as conversation sounds delightful! And I think it's absolutely wonderful that it's beyond our comprehension, which is not to say we should stop studying it or keep ignorant so much as that despite how intelligent we believe ourselves to be as humans, so much of the rest of the natural world eludes our understanding.
• Also, fish feel pain, especially around the mouth area. Have fun fishing!