The Inconsequential Blogger

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Waulking

It's very snowy outside today so I've been huddled indoors looking at knitting patterns available on the Internet. While doing so I came across this interesting video clip of a group of ladies waulking - or "hand finishing hand woven woolen cloth in the traditional way" while singing traditional, rhythmic songs.

Learn more at about waulking at this What is waulking? webpage.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Wintergreen

Last September I snapped this picture of a plant that my daughter and I came across during a walk in the woods:

I've recently come to realize that this is most likely wintergreen. This came to me while reading Blackberry Cove Herbal (which I heard about the other day over at The Witchen Kitchen Beginner Herbal website/blog):

I actually ordered some wintergreen from a catalogue a few years ago to plant in my yard as ground cover in a shady spot. Unfortunately the meek little wintergreen was taken over by another not-so-meek groundcover whichI planted nearby at the same time.

So now my daughter and I are planning to trek back into the woods on another adventure to see if we can find the wintergreen. Unfortunately we have a few inches of newfallen snow, which will make it hard to find the ground-hugging wintergreen. We'll have to wait until such a time as the snow melts, but the ground freezes again, so that we can avoid the swampy parts of the trek (and there are many).

So for now we must only dream of wintergreen and its inviting scent.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Double point needles and recorded books

No, this isn't a deep space docking station, it's an unfinished sock in the middle of being knitted:

Last summer I bought three skeins of yummy baby llama wool yarn with some birthday money intending, with my infinite skills, to turn it into socks. The yarn is sooo very soft. But not being armed with correctly sized double points in my knitting arsenal (which is otherwise well armed, I assure you, having inherited a plethora of pointed sticks from my great aunts), I tucked the yarn away.

But for Christmas my son presented me with a set of #5 double pointed knitting needles. Oh joy! And also a gift cart to Panera Bread (look out chocolate croissants, here I come).

Here is the second sock in progress with one of my very good helpers. She is especially helpful at the beginning of things when one must cast the starting stitches onto four different needles and then join the round without twisting:

Here is the first sock, which is already complete:

My other foot awaits its equally artful construction of llama wool (please don't look carefully enough to spot the mistakes in #1).

And what is it that I do to engage my mind while my hands are furiously knitting away at my socks? I listen to recorded books. Mostly young adult fare because that's what I (try to) write. Here are the books I'm listening to at present:

I went through The Magician's Apprentice and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe while working on sock #1. I am ashamed to admit that I've never read these books. Ever. But I did see the two movies (Narnia and Prince Caspian). The books were beautifully read by Kenneth Branagh and they guy who played Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet and John the Baptist in that Jesus movie (you know who I mean, right?). I can't remember who read which book, but I think I liked Mr. Branagh's reading best.

And as far as readings go, I would skip this rendition of The People of Sparks if I were you. I'm presently on disk 2 of The Sea of Trolls and the reading is pretty darn good. I haven't started Specials yet.

It would be fun to read for a recorded book. I always enjoyed reading to my kids when they were eensy, and when I read a small selection of one of my novels for a critique circle at a writer's conference once, everyone ga-ga-ed over my reading so much that I wasn't sure what they actually thought of the writing.

Ah well. Back to knitting!