Double Helix

karmic interlude

I found this exchange on Danielle's blog, and followed it to Megin's, where I joined the fray:

Here's the generic version of the instructions:

The idea of the exchange is I will send a handmade gift to the first three people who leave a comment on this blog post requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet, and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog - this means you must have a blog, sorry blogless readers.

If you choose to receive something from me, there's an excellent chance that the gift will be a scarf, and almost no chance that the gift will be socks. I should also mention that if the rules of the game required a three month turnaround, there's little chance that I'd be a player.

Bring it on!

shoelaces

One Wednesday afternoon, PeachPit and I were in A Good Yarn for some emergency Kureyon so I could unabashedly copy Dave. While I was pondering, Peach Pit explored the shape sorter, improvised accessories for the Little People, screamed in terror as the very gentle store dog approached her, then transcended her fear and made friends with the fur person. During her peregrinations, she discovered Rowan Glimmer Print. Luckily, two shades of pink were on sale.

I like the effect, but the knitting feels just as you would expect knitting to feel with fine gauge cotton I-cord, minus the aglets.

anticlimax

As birthdays go, my forty-second was a bust, despite the efforts of my families and friends. My first mistake was working late the night before, ensuring too little sleep and a subsequent inclination to be maudlin. The weekend that followed, however, was lovely, and redeemed the disappointment.

The Word Contest

For the random draw, I assigned each entrant and word a number between 1 and 70 (see previous). Random.org generated the winner, who is Julie, with a fitting guess of fond, used as a noun.

Julie, what's your pleasure?

the big day

As I may have mentioned, I've been reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, an endlessly entertaining and labarynthine work. The plot sparkles with wit and masterful use of language. Newton and Leibniz are central characters, and their individual passions and shared rivalry drive a chunk of the plot. I find Stephenson's commentary about science and society delightful. To wit:

"As a sort of technologickal adventurer, Doctor, you are suffered, nay encouraged, to imbibe a sort of optimism that in other disciplines - such as finance - would be reckoned incompetence."

Nailed!

Anyway, if you are here throwing words around for the contest (or for any other reason), throw some birthday wishes my way! Wanna see how it's done? Check out this lovely and touching post. While you're there, click on the Cambridge Brain Trust link to find out about the top image.

amendment

Expanded rules for birthday contest:

• Marks for interesting linguistic observations
• Marks for words reflecting the quintessence of a foreign language.
  "Rimshot" strikes me as a good example for American English; the connotations well represent American style, the word itself lacks mellifluousness, and specifically contains and R which may be mangled.
• Marks for novel or obscure phrases
  My mother, for example, when torqued by our childhood demonstrations of entropy, would describe the mess as ranging from "asshole to appetite."
• One mark per person for accepting the challenge

A site called "FreeRice" was noted in the comments. Did someone lock up Condoleezza when I wasn't paying attention? Nope. It's all about building your vocabulary and ending hunger, and it's quite addictive. You have been warned.

While waiting to catch the last bus out of Longwood yesterday, I plowed through about 125 words, and learned quite a bit. The FreeRice vocabulary exercise involves a multiple choice quiz. In the table below, "deduced" indicates words for which I guessed correctly based on etymological cues. Without a list of possible synonyms, they would have been stumpers.

stumpers	deduced
cerumen, quintal, rill, pinnace, acicular, cicatrix, degust, thaumaturgy, fusil, claudication, sastruga, puissant, plectrum, gibbet, escutcheon, rostrum, imprecation , venesection, palfrey, espial, erumpent, transude, alary, tinea	caprine, shaitan, hyaloid, serval, trammel, affined, rive, pibroch, cracknel, edentulous, anemophilous, grimalkin, arenaceous, inanition, nabob, tarantism, pyrexia, declivity, manikin, ocellus, legerdemain, filiform, gorgonize

Back to the contest proper. Here's a running tally of entrants and words. Stumpers and other qualifying mots are picked out in red.

entrant	words
Liz (66)	omphaloskepsis (67)
Jenn C (64)	octothorpe (65)
Anne (60)	voussoir (61), xanthein (62), replevin (63)
Elizabeth (52)	truage (53), esne (54), sprang (55), naalbinding, tog (56), thel (57), blackwork (58), redwork (59)
BerlinBat (50)	commissure (51)
Brenda (45)	anisocoria (46), pinna, telangiectasia (47), antalgic (48), hypsodont (49)
Rebecca (39)	double stop (40), melisma (41), organum (42), enharmonic (43), hemiola (44)
I Hate Toast (37)	marshmallow * (38)
Emily (34)	quinquennium (35), armamentarium, He didn't take offense, ... * (36)
Dave (26)	rectopathic (27), geophilous (28), teratology (29), biduous (30), macarism (31), warison (32), effiguration (33)
Dorothy (21)	drite (22), virid, What's the machine? *(23), How's my lover? *(24), oleo *(25)
KRT (19)	symploce (20)
Kim (7)	clathrate, appagiatura (8), acciaccatura (9), ionian (10), dorian (11), phrygian (12), lydian (13), mixolydian (14), aeolian (15), locrian (16), passacaglia (17), arco (18), sacbut
Heather (5)	vug (6)
Julie (3)	fond (n.) (4)
Allison (1)	scutage (2)

* see comments for discourse

indulgence

Three days from now, I will turn 42, incidentally the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. I would just love it if you would come by on Friday and wish me many happy returns.

There's nothing like a contest for comment trawling. Numbers float my boat, but words do as well. Between now and midnight on Friday, leave me a word that you believe I might not be able to define. Stump me, and I will put you in the draw. Multiple entries are heartily encouraged, as the point is to delight in the discovery of new words.

On Sunday, I picked up some lovely sock yarn at Circles:

Only half is shown; the sister chromatids are off at the other end of the mitotic spindle. (That last bit of geekery is for Liz especially; others may relish, wince or ignore).

Winner may choose one colorway, including two skeins and sufficient for a pair of socks. If none of these speak to you, we will find something that does.

elf

This is my favorite kind of knitting: interpreting an established form (in this case, Elizabeth Zimmerman's Tomten Jacket).

While I like the idea of a cardigan (two sides separated by a demarcating motif in the middle), I am not so much for the inevitable punctuated straining. Consequently, there are mods.

The front panel and hood edging was knitted in three chunks.

First, stitches were picked up from bottom front left, round the top, and down to bottom front right. Four ridges were worked.

Second, the central chunk of stitches was moved to a holder, beginning and ending at sternum height. Each front panel was extended just a bit with one row of the fat fluffy pink stuff, then closed from the right side with a three needle bind off.

Third, the hood edging was knit in the round, picking up a few extra stitches at the base of the neck. (I might change this next time; the pink stitches look a little wonky.)

I had not originally intended to put so much of the furry stuff in the center panel and hood. By the time I got to those elements, however, predominantly furry yarn remained.

I used a provisional cast on for the lower edge, which allows edgings to be added when the garment is nearly finished. After adding some of the grey fur, which is absent from the body of the sweater, I finished the lower edge with a remnant remaining from my Mafghan squares. This project and that one will always share a connection.

you, too

One of my friends decided to knit fifty squares for the Pine Street Inn Knit-a-thon, then started to reconsider the proposition. As mentioned, I decided to dip my toe into the fray. Here they are!

Among others, these will get seamed into blankets beginning tomorrow at 10:00 am. If you haven't started yet, generating a square and getting it to the shelter on time is a bit unlikely. However, the knitting volunteers are also fund-raising as part of the project. Please consider making a donation, and know that the donation pages are open until the end of this year.

Homegirl ONE: Blue Alvarez
Homegirl TWO: That Girl Who Knits