Falling in love with cables

Remember back last winter when I knit those green thumb gloves and complained about the cables? I found the whole process so fiddly and annoying - juggling the cable needle along with everything else, keeping track of whether it went in back or in front, how much punishment I felt like the yarn itself was taking…

Now… I LOVE IT.

Forgive my elderly grandmother posture

I'm lapping myself here… this is actually the second of two cabled sweater projects I knit this summer, but I don't have pictures of the other one yet. That other sweater was knit with fingering yarn on size 4s, and by the time I was done with it I had decided I was going to take a break from knitting for a bit to focus on other pursuits (writing a book, say). Then I got my first whiff of autumn. NOPE.

The pattern is the Marylebone Sweater from Bristol Ivy. I forget, I'm sorry to say, where I first came across it, though I regularly troll Brooklyn Tweed patterns on Ravelry. I've had several chunky cardigans lined up for a while, but after finishing my other sweater I was raring for cables, and this pattern delivered!

CABLES

I wish I could have used Brooklyn Tweed yarn (I'm dying to use it for something!) but my local yarn store doesn't carry the Loft line. And, frankly, I shouldn't be spending that kind of money anyway! I went to what's becoming my standard (Knitwit is their flagship store, after all!) - Quince & Co. It's nice wool, fairly affordable and available in many colors. This is the Osprey (aran weight) in Sage. I tried to branch out - I came really, really close to going with a bold chartreuse - but in the end I folded and stayed in my dedicated colorway. I don't think I CAN own enough garments in dusty blue.

Of course, my hair is covering the cool construction

I LOVED this pattern. I've gotten confident enough in my knitting that when trying something new, I feel like with a little poking I'll be able to sort it out. This sweater was no different. It's a totally new-to-me construction (uh, I say this, but this is the first cardigan I've ever made). It's all knit in one - the shoulders are turned like sock heels and then the sleeves are knit flat from the shoulder, so the only seaming on the whole sweater is to sew up the sleeves! This lets the cable pattern flow up the back, across the shoulders and down the arms without breaking. Sometimes I worry about the mental state of the people who write these patterns. Just - HOW. I had a couple of WTF moments around the shoulder area, but a bit of frogging and contemplation sorted everything out.  It fits a bit differently than I expected, in that it fits PERFECTLY when I expected it to be slouchy. I can't complain about perfection, though!

This sweater has quickly become the most-worn handknit I've ever made. These pictures are from last weekend, when my husband and I made an impromptu trip to my alma mater in Vermont, my first time back since I graduated nine years ago. This is pretty much the most perfect time of year to go to southern Vermont! The tree covered Green Mountains on our drive up Rt. 9 looked like giant orange-gold cauliflower.

My pockets are a bit slapdash. But the buttons are spruce!

I'm a knitter-while-watching-tv, and have a longstanding belief that what I knit is imbued with the power of what I've watched. For example, I binged the entirety of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine while making my sister an afghan that turned out AMAZING. This sweater was knit to a combo of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Stranger Things, and… presidential debates. The jury's out on its spiritual provenance! I'm pretty sure, though, that I'll be knitting a few more of these. Maybe in daring chartreuse?
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Leslie Crusher Sweater: A Wesley Redux

Oops, what a break I took there! I truly didn't mean to be so long, but life intervened… for one thing, I got a job! Yes, like the responsible 31-year-old I am, I now work part-time in a Whole Foods bakery. It's actually one of the most stress-free, fun jobs I've had, and I get to be around delicious treats all the time! Tomorrow, for example, I'm going to spend 4 hours learning how to frost cupcakes!

The downside of my job is that I have to wear a white chef's coat, sneakers, and (UGH) a baseball cap at all times. Any clothing/accessory creativity goes out the window! So on my days off, I've taken to dressing a little more colorfully than normal.

The good news about my long break is that I have a serious backlog of finished objects to report! It's been a very knitty summer - knitting, after all, being the best way to procrastinate from doing important things (like, oh, writing a book). And finally, as it's mid-October, we've had what seems to be our cold snap. The past few days have definitely been jacket weather and while the summer was glorious, I am SO READY. Bring on the snow!!!

But first:


Back in the early days of the year, Will and I splurged spectacularly on three-day passes to the 50th anniversary Star Trek convention in New York. We're both huge fans (my engagement ring is a sterling silver Enterprise!) and I'd never been to a convention. We assembled costumes - for my birthday Will gave me a reproduction of Saavik's away team coat from The Wrath of Khan, a garment I have always coveted! I figured with some heavy makeup I could do a passable Kirstie Alley (though, unpopular opinion time, I much prefer Robin Curtis. I WILL FIGHT YOU).

Then, about two weeks before the convention, I came across this vintage knitting pattern:



The stripes spoke to me. They whispered gently, madly into my ear: "This would make a great Wesley sweater…"

I've made a Wesley sweater before. Years ago, for our second Christmas together, I improvised Will a sweater from a simple raglan pattern combined with a shoulder-pattern chart that some other blessed nerd had uploaded to the internets. The sweater is awesome, but of course, Will never wears it. I had forgotten, in my maker lust, that he's one of those nerds to whom screen-accuracy is golden. Luckily, I am not of a bitter temperament, and I've gotten plenty of use out of the sweater myself! (In fact, I got engaged in it!)

In 2014, on my way (unknowingly) to get engaged!

The fact remains, though, that it's a men's sweater, and I've always meant to make myself one to my own measurements. I'd never planned to do a retro twist on the concept, but once the idea was lodged in my brain, I couldn't let it go.

The update: 2016

As I said, I had this idea about two weeks before we left, and I feverishly cast on. I ended up staying up late to knit after work and waking up early to do more of the same. I took my needles to work and knitted during my lunch break! I ended up bringing the WIP to the convention with me and knitted as we walked around! Yes, if you were at the convention on that Saturday, you may have seen a fully-costumed Saavik draped in yarn. Jonathan Frakes did - we had a lovely conversation about it. His wife is a knitter! He clearly thought I was insane. In that moment, frankly, I was.

Knitting cleverly concealed in tote bag! But you can't hide the glint of insanity.

Anyway, that's all to say that as Will got dressed on Sunday morning for the last day of the convention, I wove in all my ends and put on the finished product! Due to the vintage and femme nature of the sweater, I went for a 30s look, and dubbed this the "Leslie Crusher sweater." For those not obsessed with Star Trek lore, Gene Roddenberry originally imagined the precocious teen on the Enterprise as a girl named Leslie. He later changed the character to our beloved Wesley, patterned on himself as a teen.




I got tons of compliments on the sweater, all from women about my age. It was great fun to make and then wear something that so perfectly melded all my interests, in the one place where people would actually get it!



The pattern is the vintage Bertha Sweater, uploaded for free by the wonderful Subversive Femme. I used Quince & Co. because I was trying to stay budget-conscious, but it worked wonderfully! I did have to stitch the Bertha yoke down to the bodice, and it still rolls up a bit, but it was such a rush job that I think it would be easy to perfect it.

The next time I wear this, I'll make one update: I want to alter my Starfleet comm badge into a vintage-style brooch, with plenty of rhinestones!
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Movies So Far: 2016

There hasn't been too much going on in my house fiber-wise this month; I'm trying to do more painting, and that's taking up some of my time, and I still have a moratorium on yarn-buying, which takes some of the fun out of it! I am taking a long plane trip on Sunday, so I'll cast on some socks in preparation for that.

Though movie-going seems like it ought to be another luxury on the chopping-block, I can't resist seeing some films in theaters! The communal experience is part of it to me, as well as the overwhelming, focusing darkness. Too often these days the communality means loud whispering and the darkness is pierced by the glare of phones - but those things don't really bother me (they drive my husband CRAZY).

So far in 2016, we've seen:

Room - I'd been wanting to see this for months. I haven't read the book, though I'd like to. It was wonderful and I want Brie Larson to win best actress. The escape sequence was one of the tenser moments I've ever experienced in a theater, even though the trailer gave away their success!

The Hateful Eight - god, I feel so conflicted about Tarantino! First off - I didn't like this movie one bit. It was unbelievably nasty purely for the sake of being nasty. That being said - Tarantino has an incredible stable of actors and gets the most delicious performances out of them. Watching Walter Goggins and my beloved Kurt Russell roll that dialogue out of their mouths was like eating a bite of perfect steak. And the dialogue itself - Tarantino uses language to its fullest potential. But it all added up to a bunch of nothing. I was disappointed. He has the ability - he could be doing ANYTHING. But he's hindered by this petty white-man-from-the-90s sensibility! Get over yourself, guy. Go watch some Michael Powell movies and get back on track.

Starship Troopers Rifftrax and The Room Rifftrax - obviously not new releases. We try to hit up the Fathom Events Rifftrax screenings whenever we can, because it's so fun to experience in a room full of people! These were both rescreenings of live events they already did, and in fact we'd already seen The Room riff when it originally aired, but we have a chronic condition where we CANNOT pass up a Room screening. Starship Troopers was, as always, a terrible movie, and the riffs weren't great either. At least my husband got two chances to bust out his Joel jumpsuit.

Deadpool - I loved it. Of course - everybody loved it! It was fun, it was irreverent, it got a great performance out of RYAN REYNOLDS who hasn't done anything worthwhile since Harold and Kumar! I've enjoyed this whole superhero boom, but it was fun to see the piss taken out of it. Of course, someday this bubble will burst. But Deadpool managed to (lovingly) mock the tradition while also belonging to it.

Roar - we saw this a few nights ago at an art gallery, as opposed to a traditional theater. I've been wanting to see this for a long, long time - ever since I saw the Life magazine photo spread of young Melanie Griffith swimming in her pool with a fully grown lion and cuddling up to him in bed. The situation, if you don't know - Melanie Griffith's mother, the lovely Tippi Hedren, was married for a time to Noel Marshall. They adopted a lion who lived with them in their California home. They developed a story based on Hedren's time shooting films in Africa. Eventually, over the course of four years, they shot an INSANE movie starring themselves, the teenaged Griffith, and two of Marshall's sons, about a family who lives with upwards of 100 wild cats of every species in their giant cat-toy home in Africa (I don't think they ever specify a country). Over 70 crew members were injured during the shoot, including DP Jan De Bont (future director of classics Speed and Twister) who was scalped. The movie is INSANE. There is practically no story, but it's worth it just for the spectacle of humans rolling around on the ground and tussling with giant creatures who could kill them at any time.

There are quite a few other movies I'd like to see in the next few weeks - Spotlight, Hail Caesar, Brooklyn. I'm not really looking forward to Batman V Superman but of course I'll see it. Sadly, this coming Sunday I will miss the Oscars for the first time IN MY LIFE because I'll be on a plane flying to a friend's wedding! I know the Academy Awards are stupid and at this point (this year especially) offensive, but I always enjoy making an evening of it. Oh well! I guess I don't have to feel guilty about missing most of this year's prestige pictures!

Trash Doilies

Now for something a bit unconventional:



One of my prevailing interests is incorporating non-art objects or subjects into art. In this case, we're talking craft and trash! I am an inveterate doily-maker; 99 Little Doilies is my bible, but at this point I'm just riffing.

I wouldn't call myself a hoarder by any stretch, but it's hard to deny when I reveal that I've had several boxes of these teabag packets knocking around for years, the tea long since drunk. This shade of blue is my absolute favorite color, and I've kept these around mainly as color swatches, though I thought they might get a second life sometime.

The idea here, I think, is that eventually I'll have enough of these doilies crocheted up that I can connect them into one big wall hanging. It's a meditation on color and material. Sorry, that's my art school education shining through - one must find the meaning! I do believe that, actually, but I think it's important to recognize the ridiculous in art theory!

Pictured: my 1.4 mm needle and my sad fingernails.

If this comes together, I have a second one in mind - I've been collecting my husband's Big Red bottle caps for a few years now...

Our baby

He doesn't yet realize that yarn is a toy. I'm guessing that will last until .5 seconds after I break out the drop spindle.

(and hey, in case you were wondering, that IS a crocheted dalek behind him!)

Green Thumb Mittens

I'm a plant killer. I should get that right out of the way, because these mittens are a lie! I can't even keep a spider plant alive. Anyway… mittens!



Now that I live in the cold north, I'm having so much fun knitting things that I'll actually get a chance to use! The other day I got very covetous of the mittens I saw on Wool & Wheel's blog. Since I'm trying not to spend money right now, I scoured Ravelry for a similar, but free, pattern. I came up with Eugenia's Mittens. (Though I'm saving Grove in my pattern folder for when I have the funds!)



The pattern's a little wackily written, but I found it easy enough to follow as a novice mittener (and a fairly new cabler). I still don't like cables, but they're not the worst thing in the world. And once again, I was amazed at how quickly a project knits up when you're using size 7 needles! The world of socks has really warped my mind. I shortened the cuffs a bit because I was afraid of running out of yarn - and as a matter of fact, that's exactly what happened!

I'm still working through stash yarn, but luckily I had this beautiful dried-lavender Brooklyn Tweed. It's the first time I've knitted with this brand - I've been lusting after it for MONTHS, and so I bought a skein of Shelter (colorway Blanket Fort - what a great name!) before the holidays without a project in mind just to see how it knit up. Oh, I love it! It's got a bit of scratch to it - I wouldn't use it for a cowl - but it's incredibly light and squishy, and of course the color variation is to die for. There was quite a bit of vegetable matter, but I kind of like that! It felt like what I would like to spin, if I ever get good enough. 



Of course, my skein didn't go quite far enough, so I had to improvise on the thumbs. Since I didn't have anything remotely matchy color-wise, I decided to have fun with it. I had a bit of green Quince & Co. Owl left over from a hat I made my sister, and texture-wise, it's almost identical! (a little softer.) I can't decide if the end result is ugly or awesome, but I'm pleased with it!

I have a few more fibery things in the works - I took a drop spindle class last week, which was amazing (I'll write about it soon) and it finally got me in the mood to sort out my Country Craftsman wheel, which I've never been able to get working! As of a few days ago, it's spinning like a slightly rickety charm - so more on that soon as well! In the meantime, I'm off to pick up the newest member of my family - A CAT.

SLIPPER SOCKS! MEDIUM!

I hope you've all seen that classic scene from one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time? If you haven't, go seek it out. 

Our house is uncarpeted and 100+ years old, and all the warmth seems to seep out of my feet every morning when I come downstairs. I was in desperate need of some slipper socks!



I'm taking a small break from buying yarn, so I dug through my stash and found this nice bulky-ish 100% wool by the Sheep Shop Yarn Company. I have NO idea where I got it, but I have two skeins - one in blues, and the other in these nice gardeny pinks. It's wonderfully soft singles, made in Uruguay. Certainly not appropriate for socks - it's far too soft and fuzzy - but these will never see the outdoors or the inside of a shoe.



I scanned through slipper sock patterns on Ravelry and liked the looks of this one. I made a few alterations - I sized up to a size 8 needle to make gauge, I lengthened the cuff to 2", and I did an anatomical toe because my feet are quite wedge-shaped! I read a few comments complaining about the overly pointy toe, so I stopped when I had 12 stitches left and kitchenered. I'm quite happy with the result! They aren't sock-like, really - they wouldn't stand up to much of a beating - but they kept my feet warm as I surfed the internet this morning, and as I wrote this post. And they were incredibly quick knits - I cast on yesterday morning and wove in the ends as I watched tv that evening!

I might go back to a size 7 needle if I make a second pair - they could be a little tighter without issue - and I also might make the cuff a bit taller, just to keep my ankles warm.



We left D.C. just in time to miss all the fun, it seems. We didn't get any snow this weekend, but we still have quite a bit on the ground from our last storm. For now, that will have to do - but I can't wait to get really clobbered!

Pillow Madness

My mom gave me a sewing machine for my birthday last year, but I didn't have any room to set it up in our jam-packed apartment. It sat sadly in its box for almost a year while I dreamt of a simple hand-sewn wardrobe and no trips to H&M and Old Navy ever, ever again. 

Finally, in my studio in our new home, my dream could become a reality! I put myself to work with something simple, since it had been about 20 years since I'd touched a sewing machine - sewing curtains for the many, many un-shuttered windows in our house.  Next thing I knew, I had been bitten by the sewing bug, HARD.

Besides curtains, I've made several basic garments at this point (Lotta Jansdotter's book has been a godsend!). But this week I finally got round to a problem in my living room: a distinct lack of squish.



When we moved, I scoured all the local antique and thrift stores, and found a collection of living room furniture that fills me with delight every morning when I come downstairs. A pink wing-back chair, a dark blue fainting couch (I have ALWAYS wanted a fainting couch!) and a fabulous chartreuse squared-off sofa. They all have dark wood accents which pull them together, and they are all somewhat understuffed (or, in the case of the squared sofa, completely uncontoured to the human form). They scream for pillows. As of this week, I had finally collected enough pillow forms and somewhat complimentary fabrics to make my dream a reality.

I used this envelope pillowcase tutorial, which was incredibly simple and helpful. It took me only a few hours over two days to churn out what feels like a very excessive amount of pillows!

I didn't make the Zac pillow - it was a gift from an understanding friend!

I had so much fun making pillows that I'm considering starting my own pillow empire. As good a way as any to make my millions, right?

SQUISHINESS FOR ALL.

New Year

I love the turnover of the year.  A constant in my childhood was my parents' raucous neighborhood New Year's Eve party, an annual bacchanal that, of course, became tamer with every year I grew closer to drinking age. As a kid, the night was a rare occasion where my brother, sister, best friends and I got to roam wild - navigating the strangely loud and happy adults all around us, venturing down to our basement to play bumper pool or get a chance at my dad's dartboard, which was shut up for the rest of the year. I was always vaguely aware that the grown-ups around me were drunk (at least), but I don't think it ever occurred to us to try to sneak alcohol. 

The best part of the night was always when it devolved (or evolved?) into music. Neither of my parents are particularly musical, but almost all of their friends are. By midnight there were always at least eight people, and often more like 15, gathered around my great-grandmother's practice piano, producing what I still consider the best live music I've ever heard. There were two lynchpins - a brilliant pianist and an amazing singer/guitarist - and then a hodgepodge of other players: several more guitars, maracas, a washboard tie, and on lucky years, a mandolin.

I've spent almost all my 30 New Years Eve's in this fashion: sitting on my parents' stairs, listening to their friends fill the house with the Beatles, the Traveling Wilburys, the Grateful Dead. Every year I reflect on the passage of time and the accordion effect that happens when you have an annual moment of synchronicity. I can compare this December 31st effortlessly to the one in 1999, because I'm sitting in the same place, having almost the same experience - and wow, how much I have changed.

I got married last year, and all the people singing around the piano were there. So was my husband, of course, and this was the first year that he also sat next to me on the stairs and heard the music play. I don't think he quite got it- and it's possible that the music isn't that good, that the piano won't stay in tune, that the singers keep forgetting the lyrics - this is all true. I tried to videotape the performance once, and the playback just wasn't the same. It's the moment, and it's me. It has to be enjoyed and then savored - hopefully just until next year. But who knows? Every year, I feel so lucky to be back there, to have one more chance. 

I didn't mean for this to get so melancholy! I've been feeling so inspired lately to DO things. I've started painting again - I've been getting the house in order - I'm on the second heel of my first post-holiday socks. 

I think it will be a good year.

Butternut Squash Winter Salad

I'm heading out of town for the holidays, which is a great excuse to clean out my fridge. I won't describe the horrors I encountered therein, but they were many and disgusting. On the upside, I realized that I had all the ingredients for this delicious salad, which my mom introduced me to last winter. 

Perfect Butternut Squash and Arugula Salad

(with pomegranate seeds and feta!)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and drizzle with olive oil. 

Peel and slice one butternut squash into uniform chunks. I like to peel the squash while it's whole with a sharp knife, but that might be because my vegetable peeler is wimpy.  Toss the chunks in the olive oil on the baking sheet.

In a small bowl, mix a few glugs of maple syrup (about 2 Tb) with a few shakes of cumin. Brush mixture over the butternut squash pieces and place baking sheet in oven.

After 10 minutes, take out the squash, flip the pieces, and brush them again. Bake for another 10 minutes, or until soft and starting to caramelize.

While squash cooks, wash arugula (I always skip this because I am lazy/Trader Joe's arugula seems pretty clean) and arrange on a serving platter. Crumble as much feta cheese as you want over the arugula. Sprinkle with pomegranate seeds or dried cranberries.*

When squash is cooked, arrange the pieces over the arugula. 

Drizzle with your dressing of choice and dig in! (I ALWAYS use Cardini's because

 it is the only dressing that matters, but there are several recipes floating around the internet for homemade vinaigrettes and such!)

*note: I have always used cranberries in this recipe, but I happened to buy a cheap pomegranate and thought I'd try it. It was delicious! I was excited to try a trick I read in an Ottolenghi cookbook: apparently if you whack the back of the pomegranate with a wooden spoon, the seeds will fall right out! Spoiler alert: this did not work. Maybe I wasn't whacking hard enough. I picked them out with my fingers, pretending to be Persephone the whole time, of course.

I don't even want to admit how much I eat this salad. I struggle through non-winter-squash months. If it wasn't for summer tomatoes, I don't know what I'd do!

Culinary Judaism

In college I trained myself to stay awake until midnight, at least, but I'm usually in bed soon after, and I have a blessed ability to fall asleep quickly and easily. I never realized what a gift this was until I met my husband, who routinely stays up until 3 or 4 in the morning and then can't sleep once he forces himself to get in bed. Sometimes, during those creepy dark hours when he's the only one awake, kept company only by our Tom Servo and Crow robots, he gets weird cravings.

Yesterday at the grocery store, he confessed that the night before, he had been tormented by visions of matzoh ball soup. That was all I needed to hear to go into full-blown culinary jew mode.

I'm technically Jewish on my mother's side, but I'm about as secular as you can get. I identify strongly with my heritage on a cultural level, but I've only been inside a synagogue to attend a funeral, and when my family connects with our practicing relatives to celebrate Passover Seder, I usually embarrassingly mispronounce something like charoses. I didn't even remember to light Hanukah candles this year! 

The food, though? I've got that covered. (Not gefilte fish. Are you crazy?) When it comes to the basics, I lean pretty heavily on Smitten Kitchen and her delicious latke recipe. I double it because 12? That's not enough. I also use her matzoh ball recipe for the balls themselves, which are always deliciously fluffy (I double those, too). But I've never pulled it together to make my own chicken stock - I'm still embarrassingly squeamish around raw chicken carcasses. I'll get over it someday! 

This time, I hopped over to another recipe - Orangette's simple chicken soup. I made this recipe as written a few weeks ago (I even found a chayote, which I'd never heard of, in our southern Maine Hannaford's!) and it was really, really good. I liked the unfinicky simplicity of throwing the chicken pieces right into the pot and cooking them with the soup, so I borrowed that technique here.

Julia's Assemblage Matzoh ball soup:

Follow instructions to make Smitten Kitchen's matzoh ball batter. Refrigerate for half an hour while getting the stock on the stove. Put a separate pot of water on to boil to cook the balls.

Put skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs in a soup pot (I used 4 thighs). Cover with chicken stock, making sure chicken is covered by several inches (think about how much soup you want in the end, and remember that the volume of chicken will be reduced when you remove the bones). I use Better than Bouillon.

While stock is heating, peel and slice 2-3 carrots and 2 stalks of celery. 

Bring stock to a boil, then reduce to simmer. Add carrots and celery. Simmer for 40 minutes, skimming off scum and foam that come to the surface.

Once the soup is simmering, pull out the refrigerated matzoh batter. Form balls as directed by Smitten Kitchen and drop into the bubbling pot (gently!). They should be done cooking at the same time as your soup.

After 40 minutes, pull out chicken. Shred meat, discarding the gross bones and skin. Add meat back to pot. At this point, if you like noodles in your matzoh ball soup, add them! (wide egg noodles are best!)

Cook until noodles are done, about 8-10 minutes. 
Your matzoh balls should be done now, too.

Ladle in matzoh balls. DEVOUR.

Forgive the cell phone picture - we were too hungry to be elegant!

I made my latkes first, because they're easy to keep warm in the oven. Eaten with sour cream and applesauce in front of the Democratic Debate - heaven! And this morning I had a few more, topped with Molly Wizenberg's seven-minute egg. It doesn't get better than that.

Drop Stitch Cowl

I've decided that since my blog is super-secret and no one knows it exists, no harm will be done by posting some of the holiday projects I'm excited about! 

On our honeymoon this summer, my husband and I went to Wales. In the spirit of transparency, one of the main draws for me was the promise of sheep, wool, and spinning. And sheep we saw!

We also saw a lot of spinning, although it was mainly of the mechanized variety - Wales is speckled with historical textile factories. I left Will in the car more than once to dive into a world of depressing history! (the textile industry was routinely not great to women.) I would love to do a longer post later on the factories I saw. 

Yarn, though, was surprisingly scarce, and the few shops I found were stocked with lots of novelty and acrylic yarns in baby colors. I have nothing against synthetic yarn, but I was hoping that the absurd density of sheep would translate into more delicious stuff! Luckily, we spent a few nights in the town of Dolgellau. The town center is a warren of old stone buildings and cobblestone streets. It's the most fairytale, semi-bizarre place I've ever been. Every building is a little old factory! 

Tucked along one of those narrow, twisty streets was a little yarn shop called Knit One. And hidden in that yarn shop was the yarn I was looking for! Welsh-made, 100% wool, soft… and the most WACKY shades of neon I had ever seen. I bought two skeins. 

So I've had this awesome art yarn in my stash since June, and I've been afraid to touch it! It was TOO BEAUTIFUL, too full of feelings, and also I don't have much experience with bulky yarn. But then I realized I wanted to make something special for my mom this Christmas! She elevated mom-hood to an art form this year - she was my wedding planner extraordinaire, and on top of that reached new heights in her own textile art (she's a fabric dyer and art quilter, though those words hardly articulate what she creates). 

I started and frogged many, many different patterns. I knew I had to do a cowl based on my yardage, but I had trouble finding a pattern that would show off the yarn to its best advantage. The lucky combination was size 15 needles and this drop stitch cowl pattern. It was easy, fast (REALLY fast after months of nothing but sock knitting!) and I love how it turned out! The long dropped stitches were ideal for showing off the variegated weight of the yarn.  It's squishy and neon and I don't want to give it away! But I will, because I love my mom!

It is a REALLY weird feeling jumping from size 1 needles to size 15. It's like having stupid toddler hands.

Holiday

I've been incredibly industrious and crafty lately, but unfortunately all the yarn fruits of my labor must remain hidden for the time being, as they're gifts for people I love. Even though no one knows this blog actually exists, it still seems like tempting fate to toss up pictures!

I will say that everyone should go to Ravelry and drop $5 on this Feminist Killjoy hat. It's amazing. I can't wait to see it on the recipient's head, and I'm already planning to make another for myself. (I would recommend adding some repeats at the brim and the crown - the prototype I made was pretty shallow.)

I made cassoulet last night. It's one of my all-time favorite dishes (probably because it's replete with duck, for which I have an all-consuming passion) but I had long considered it way too complex for home-cooking. This recipe, which I found through David Lebovitz, convinced me otherwise. I couldn't even track down duck fat (and this in a city with a RESTAURANT called Duckfat!) and it was still the MOST delicious thing that has ever come out of my kitchen. I'm heating leftovers for breakfast as we speak. I have a lot of leftovers because my husband refuses to eat beans. MORE FOR ME.

TRANSITION

Have you all seen Holiday? The third-best-well-known Katharine Hepburn/Cary Grant team-up is less aggressively brilliant than their most famous outing, The Philadelphia Story, and less bonkers than the almost exhausting Bringing up Baby.  It's absolutely wonderful.

First of all, this poster is quite misleading! Million dollars aside… one of the most fun things about this movie is that, against type, Cary Grant is playing something close to what he actually was - a working-class guy. (A working class guy who can do back-handsprings, which former acrobat Grant actually did!) He's worked his way up with a flair for business, and is on the verge of making that promised million, but Johnny Case is not the cultured man-about-town that we're so used to seeing Grant excel at. When we meet him, he's arriving at his fiancé's house for the first time. He assumes that she's a maid in the giant mansion, and is both delighted and weirded out when he realizes that she's a daughter of a household with a full staff and an elevator. 

It's a very small story, really - a couple gets engaged and then finds out if they actually like each other. But there are so many layers, mainly expressed through the diverse characters. Besides Grant, you've got Edward Everett Horton as his best friend, a middle-class professor (it's quite fun to see Horton in a non-bumbling role!). Lew Ayres is completely heartbreaking as the baby brother of the millionaire family, who stumbles about in a drunken stupor to avoid his reality as a disappointment to his authoritarian father. And then, of course, there's Katharine Hepburn as the black sheep of the family. 

It's funny to look back on, given that Hepburn is the Meryl Streep of Hollywood's golden age, but in 1938 she was still famously considered "box office poison." The label would not be rescinded until 1940's The Philadelphia Story, where she sent up her icy, snobbish persona to great effect. Hepburn had, of course, an undeniable personality that stamped itself on every role she played. Her authoritative bearing, her exaggerated transatlantic accent, her high cheekbones - she was arrogant! Many people found it hard to swallow. In retrospect, she is a force of nature. 

She struggled to escape the inescapable. In 1937's Stage Door, she played a rich girl who wants to act and assumes it's easy. It's an unlikeable role, not helped by the fact that in the end she achieves her goal through the death of the movie's sweetest character! In 1938, the same year as Holiday, she played against type in Bringing Up Baby, which is now seen as a perfect example of screwball comedy. It was a huge critical and commercial failure at the time. Personally, it's not one of my favorites - Hepburn is brilliant, but I find her chattering character exhausting! 

So she had tried two extremes - playing her persona to the hilt, and tossing it aside completely. In Holiday she did something subtler. Her character is to the manor born, but dissatisfied with her privilege. She's a prisoner in a golden cage. It could come off as "poor little rich girl" but instead it works - maybe because Hepburn felt herself to be in a similar trap.

In 1938, America was still feeling the effects of the Great Depression, which wouldn't entirely fade until war production ramped up a few years later. It was perhaps a daring choice to make a movie about unhappy rich people. Not that there weren't movies about the rich - the depression years were filled with escapist fantasies (several of the Fred and Ginger movies come to mind). Stranger, though, was a movie that posited that a poor man was in fact happier and better than a rich one, and that money would not buy happiness. Audiences without enough to eat, who would presumably identify with Cary Grant and his friends, were asked also to feel sympathy for Lew Ayres and Katharine Hepburn, who had an elevator in their home but no love, no joy. It's a nice grey scale of characterization that gives depth to what could be a lightweight comedy (though we still get the cartoonishly avaricious rich in the persons of Grant's fiancé and her father).

To a modern viewer, it works. But although the film was critically lauded, it didn't make money - contemporaries still didn't like Hepburn. Her next professional move was to leave RKO and Hollywood to star in Broadway in the play The Philadelphia Story, written especially for her. She didn't make another movie until she starred in the movie adaptation of that play, two years later. The rest is history.

A few notes: 

Lew Ayres, most well-known from All Quiet on the Western Front, is completely heartbreaking in this film as the depressed, drunken brother who doesn't have the willpower to escape his misery. When World War II broke out a few years after Holiday, Ayres registered as a conscientious objector - his work on All Quiet had exposed him to the horrors of war. He served as a medic in the Pacific theater, but public opinion was vicious. His career was irreparably damaged. 

Fun fact to offset this horrible story: He was briefly married to Ginger Rogers!

Holiday was directed by George Cukor, a giant of classic Hollywood, who was one of Katharine Hepburn's champions. By 1938, Cukor had already directed her in Little Women and Sylvia Scarlett (the latter with Cary Grant). He would go on to helm many of her collaborations with Spencer Tracy, as well as that little tour de force, The Philadelphia Story. Cukor was famous for being great with actors, particularly women. He should get a lot of credit for continuing to champion Hepburn when most of Hollywood had turned away. He deserves his own article!

I feel like I've mentioned The Philadelphia Story more than Holiday in this essay! It's hard to get away from it when writing about Katharine Hepburn, and especially her collaborations with Cary Grant. Its importance in film history aside, it's a perfect movie that I'll write about one day when I'm feeling brave. 

A last note: Cary Grant's Johnny Case seals a business deal over the course of the movie that nets him a tidy sum. He decides to retire on the profits, because he'd rather enjoy life as a young man and go back to work when he's old. He is 30. I will just say that his decision reads very differently to me, also 30, than it did when I first saw this movie a decade ago. Also, this sort of undercuts the movie's thesis that money can't buy happiness. Guess what - it does!! It's WORKING that stinks, duh.

Despite this movie being called Holiday (and my writing about it in December) it's not a Christmas movie (although it does take place over the New Year). The holiday of the title refers to Johnny's dream of a life on holiday. Nevertheless, it's wonderful holiday viewing! It's heartwarming, funny, and you get to see Cary Grant do acrobatics (and, at one point, a routine where Hepburn somersaults off his shoulders from standing height. It's very impressive!). What more do you need?