Beautiful and Depressing

Someone posted the link below on a list I read:

Which shows a truly magnificaent ornithopter in flight.  I looked further down the page and spotted the Air Jelly:

And then I wrote this to the list:

I have to tell you that my response is two-fold -- first of all, I am charmed and inspired.

My other response is to want to weep and then visit every single ueber-fanatical fundamentalist church, the US congress, and the RNC headquarters and beat every last son-of-a-b*tch into jelly with a sledgehammer for letting their greed, selfishness, resistance to science, and complete, overwhelming lack of true vision deprive us of being the ones to produce things as beautiful and inspiring on a regular basis. I don't begrudge it to Germany, but I am soul-stressingly sad that we don't do this kind of thing any more, or often, because we have dismantled everything that would have made it possible -- from a national sense of wonder about natural science to an education system that would prepare our children to create magnificent things, and we can't even seem to find it in ourselves to tell ourselves the truth anymore. It crushes me. It f*cking crushes me.

My husband and I would have given our eye teeth and then some, to be a part of that in our younger days. Our children, despite brains and dreams, have little chance, due to shitty preparation and an even shittier political (ie funding and infrastructural support) climate, of being able to participate in the genesis of mechanical/technical wonders.

Where's my goddamned sledgehammer?

Stashbusting Continues

I have picked up the crochet hook in order to bust some more stash.  Here's a circular shawl, the pattern for which is here: 

Done in discontinued Lion Bran AlPaKa, about 12 skeins 50 grams each.  Works up quickly and busts the stash.

Then I looked in my basket, shown in a prior post, and noticed that I had a lot of ugly yarn ends -- they looked fine as accents for whatever I used them for, but they were murky or boring or just butt ugly all on their own and even lumped together in a basket.  So, they had to turn into something.  Something masculine, given the general dark tones.  So here is my mostly wool Butt Ugly Granny Square Afghan:

Strangely, or maybe not, one of my sons has already declared it "Awesome".  I did include 3 50 gram skeins of Herrschner's house brand black acrylic and 2 100 gram skeins of black Encore in the finishing, but for washing and warmth purposes, it's still (Butt Ugly) wool.

I am currently working on one with what seems to me to have the charm of a bulldog puppy -- a little ugly but cute, with screaming red, bowling alley gold, and a nice mocha (of which I am a couple skeins short for a sweater, but there's enough for edging each square), which might turn out comparatively presentable.

Yes, the J sized hook is getting a workout, but the stash is noticeably diminishing!

Hiatus?

I have been absent for a long time. In a few months, I will provide excuses if anyone cares, but mostly, I’ve been incredibly busy working as an independent lay advocate for disabled children. It’s exhausting and rewarding, and there are far too few of us.

But, I have certainly not stopped knitting! It’s my meditation, my Xanax, my Paxil, my whatever. Unless I have a very tricky or very badly written pattern I’m working from, it soothes me, and I need that every day.

Here are some of the things I’ve been doing:

Here’s a sock yarn afghan in mitered squares (don’t know if I shared this one before):

Here’s a felted red hat and an attempt at a Little Red Hen tea cozy, which looks more like the Loch Ness Monster. I’m still debating about whether or not to make it a long-necked chicken or add fearsome sea monster attributes instead. I’m leaning towards monster.

A very effective tea cozy from a pattern called Nanny Meier’s Tea Cozy . It was a little annoying to work on.

A Charlotte’s Web shawl.

Yet another sock yarn afghan made in long strips for my youngest son, who is holding it up. It really is even, you know how kids are about stuff like this…

I have significantly de-stashed – donating nearly all of my acrylic and/or unloved yarn (17 garbage bags full)

Which left this, plus a chest of drawers full of yarn.

And then there are socks. Always. Socks are my travel project – for waiting in line, in offices, at knitting gatherings – they’re small, they are fun to work on, and they are impressive when bristling with double-pointed needles.

In Chroma yarn…

In Continuum yarn…

There have been a lot more, but I just didn’t remember to take pictures.

I am hoping that as work levels out I can take time to post a little more often than once every couple of years (egad).

I am also on Ravelry, as BoS, but mostly I just hang out there occasionally and goggle at patterns.