Antepenultimate Toe

Recent experiments in the Evil Genius lab have caused me to contemplate sock toes. My "Go To" toe remains the Just Start Knitting toe, but it's less than ideal in some situations.

I recently encountered the Knitting Swede's Rounded Toe. This is a great method; because the increases aren't stacked on top of one another, it eliminates the visible band, producing a smoother fabric. Because the increase rate is faster than usual -- 8 increases in 3 rounds instead of 4 -- the resulting toe is shorter than most. If you have short toes, you might prefer that.

I wanted something a little longer, so borrowing the Knitting Swede's method of offsetting the increases, I started working from an earlier experiment that produces a toe-up version of the Francie sock. This is the result:

While working on this, I knew it wouldn't be the "Ultimate Toe." I was thinking of it as the "Penultimate Toe," but I still think it falls somewhat short of the mark. Here, then, are the instructions for the...

ANTEPENULTIMATE SOCK TOE

Turkish Cast-on 8. Knit 1.5 rounds (16 sts total).

Begin toe increases:

1. k1, yo, k6, yo, k1; repeat for top of sock (20 sts total)
2. k1, ktbl, k1, yo, k4, yo, k1, k-twist*, k1; repeat (24 sts total)
3. k1, yo, k2, ktbl, k4, k-twist, k2, yo, k1; repeat (28 sts total)
4. k1, ktbl, k1, yo, k8, yo, k1, k-twist, k1; repeat (32 sts total)
5. k3, ktbl, k8, k-twist, k3; repeat (32 sts total)

Begin alternate increase rows.

1. k1, yo, k14, yo, k1; repeat for top of sock (36 sts)
2. [and all even rounds] knit, twisting the yarnovers as established
3. k3, yo, k12, yo, k3; repeat (40 sts)
5. k5, yo, k10, yo, k5; repeat (44 sts)
7. k7. yo, k8, yo, k7; repeat (48 sts)
9. k9, yo, k6, yo, k9; repeat (52 sts)
11. k11, yo, k4, yo, k11; repeat (56 sts)
13. k13, yo, k2, yo, k13; repeat (60 sts)
    

I wasn't quite up to my desired circumference at this point, so I continued adding increases to the sides of the sock, as the Knitting Swede does.

15. k1, yo, k28, yo, k1 (64 sts)
17. k3, yo, k26, yo, k3 (68 sts)
    

---

* k-twist: Slip next stitch knitwise onto the right needle, changing its mount. Slip the stitch back to the left needle purlwise; the front leg of the stitch now lies in back of the needle while the back leg of the stitch comes down the front of the needle. Knit the back leg like it's a normal stitch, which further twists it to the right.

Kindling

I like ebooks. I was so blown-away by CLEVNET's pioneering work into this field, I helped get them an award for their innovation. It was revolutionary: sitting in my office 140 miles from Cleveland hours before the library opened, I could check out a book and download it to my PocketPC.

It was a joy to read books on my first PocketPC, the HP Jornada. When held in the palm of my right hand, it had a little rocker switch just below my middle finger which activated the page turn.

I did have some problems. There was a learning curve to set up all the necessary programs and get the content and digital license transferred to my device. And once on a trip when I changed timezones on my PDA, I was locked out of my book, even after I changed the time back.

My next PocketPC wasn't as ebook-friendly. The Compaq iPaq didn't have the nicely placed rocker switch, and my hand would cramp trying to hold the device so that my thumb could operate the little pad that changed pages. New formats were coming out, sparking more technical issues with installations and updates. It seemed like every time I checked out an ebook, I was starting from scratch, as if it were my first time. (This, by the way, is what I was referring to in a Columbus Dispatch story about ebooks -- the reporter quotes me saying "digital-content arms race," when what I said was "digital rights management arms race.")

Since then, most of my ebook battles have been with digital audiobooks. I long ago reached the conclusion that it is significantly easier to steal digital content than it is to borrow it legally, a fact that will always make it nearly impossible for public libraries to matter very much in the ebook world. And even though my library offers the de riguer access to an ebook collection, little of it works with my iPhone, and I end up using iTunes or the iPhone's Kindle App.

A month ago, I came home from a long, late day at work to discover an Amazon Kindle on pillow. The sweetest man in the world bought it for me with his income tax refund. I plugged it in, entered my Amazon i.d., and in seconds the book I was reading on my iPhone was synced to the Kindle (it even got me directly to the last page I'd been reading).

What do I think of it? I pretty much agree with everything Charles McGrath said in the NY Times this week. I love it, but it has some flaws. My three favorite things about the Kindle?

1. I can buy a book (or just download a sample) at 10:30 p.m. when I'm settling into bed to read before sleeping.
2. I can prop the Kindle on a cushion and read while knitting, turning pages with the push of a button.
3. The Kindle, as others have pointed out, is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

You just can't call it a bus

I'm having a hard time getting worked up over the California Supreme Court upholding Prop 8. I try to be sympathetic: there is a rejection here, a refusal to recognize the legitimacy of our love. But the whole "separate but equal" posturing just doesn't cut it with me.

The NY Times cites Loyola law professor Karl M. Manheim's argument that, by claiming the word "marriage" is only symbolic, the decision "is like telling black people that sitting in the back of the bus is not important as long as the front and the back of the bus arrive at the same time." No, it's like telling black people that they can sit anywhere on the large, motor vehicle public transport system; they just can't call it a bus.

May I remind my brothers and sisters in California that in Ohio we are not allowed on this metaphorical public transport at all. Not just buses, but anything that approximates "the design, qualities, significance or effect of" buses is barred to us. The long game must be to make sure that anyone can ride. And when that happens, people will tire of saying "large, motor vehicle public transportation system" and call it "bus" for simplicity.

I don't mean to minimize the blow to those for whom the "M" word means something beyond the sets of legal rights, but maybe those rights are more important than what we call them? Marriage schmarriage: let Mike make medical decisions for me and inherit my stuff.

Sock Genius Fail

If I don't shape up, I'm going to be forced to relinquish my claim as the Evil Sock Genius. I keep knitting beautiful socks that don't fit human feet.

EXHIBIT A: These socks were to be a Mother's Day present. I called them "Enelram," a toe-up adaptation of Cookie A's Marlene socks. They seemed fantastic until I finished the first one and discovered that it was an inch too long in the foot -- or would be, if you could pull the tight thing on in the first place.



EXHIBIT B: Figuring the problem was with my heel strategy, I decided to suck it up and follow the pattern. It made no difference. Only with much tugging and swearing could these socks be pulled on.

The problem, of course, is gauge. The pattern clearly specifies 24 stitches to 4 inches. (I would argue, however, that "6 stitches per inch" is more clear). I didn't notice that these socks need thicker yarn and bigger needles than usual. In my defense, a 68-72 stitch circumference normally indicates the yarn and needles I was using.

EXHIBITS C-F: These are prototypes for a pattern I'm working on (more about this later). I have ripped back and reknit the heels repeatedly, trying 4 different heel strategies. During this process, I had to admit that my numbers for the Evil Genius Sock are just wrong. Maybe they work on a plain stockinette sock, but like Exhibit A above, with a patterned instep they produce a sock that is both too long and too tight across the arch and heel. The 4th attempt finally produced something acceptable, but even that falls short of perfect.

The Evil Sock Genius pattern will have to undergo some serious revision. But first, I need to figure out what I'm going to do for Mother's Day.

Again and again

I can't stop knitting these bears.

It bears repeating: I hate to sew

This probably falls into the category of "crappy, homemade gift" rather than "lovely, hand-crafted gift." But as soon as I saw this pattern, I knew I had to make one.


Fun to knit up; hateful to sew. I had particular trouble around the head, so his face came out squashy and oddly crunched on one side. But by putting his face on crooked (embroidery = more stupid sewing) I managed to make him look like his head is cocked sideways in a curious attitude.

The designer put out a somewhat simpler pattern for a smaller version, and I might try that. It lacks the silly toes, and maybe the head will come out a better shape.

Thinking Thin

I used to be too skinny. When I started college, I was a shade over 6 feet tall and weighed a shade under 125 pounds. That has gradually ticked upward, until 25 years later, my BMI flirts at the upper edge of the recommended range.

I had started to enumerate the reasons why I think this is so, but it boils down to this: I eat too much, and I exercise too little. Why I do (or do not) these things is irrelevant.

So I checked this book out of the library. It's largely made up of motivational fluff, but it's peppered with a bit of science, some pseudo-science, and this very sound advice: eat what you want when you're hungry; slow down and mindfully enjoy what you eat; stop eating when you think you're full. The book includes a CD with a half-hour hypnotic induction session in which McKenna growls in your ears, urging you to visualize yourself thinner, happier, healthier. (Seriously, McKenna's voice is very, very deep, and at times it's like he's croaking. But it's also kind sexy).

I'll give it a couple weeks, and we'll see how it goes. If nothing else, I believe that mindful attention to what I'm doing is always a good thing.

Dodger, 1995-2009

Evil Genius Heel Replacement

As I mentioned, my aunt had worn through the heel bottom of her favorite pair of socks. I got inspired yesterday to try fixing them: although the original socks were knit cuff-down, I figured I could fix them using the heel turn method from my toe-up Evil Genius Socks.

I ran a circular needle through the stitches along one side of the heel flap, across the bottom, then up the other side of the flap. I purled back across those stitches with my replacement yarn, and then followed the Evil Genius Lessons to turn a new heel and work a new flap.

I had to modify the instructions slightly, since I couldn't work the complete sock round to pick up up my wraps (I just left the wraps in place). I grafted the top of the new flap to the bottom of the old cuff, then cut and unraveled the old heel.

It's not perfect. Obviously, the pretty, pale blue sock now has a drab, gray flap stuck on the back of it. (Still, it coordinates better than all the other options I considered at the yarn shop). I'm sure it won't be as comfortable as before.

Both socks began to unravel in unexpected places once I was finished, so I had to do some emergency suturing to keep things together. I expect that there are other areas where the old yarn will work loose from the new heel.

Still, it was worth a try. I'm really rather proud to have figured this out, and amazed that it worked as well as it did. It's probably not permanent (and I hope my family doesn't expect me to make a habit of such repair jobs), but I think it will squeeze a little more life out of these socks.

Mike's new blog

While I barely post often enough to sustain this blog, Mike has three: Moviepalace, Mixed Media Playroom, and now Twitterface. When I set up "Michael's MoviePalace" back in 2001 as a class project for liberry skool, I never dreamed it would stay so strong or that he'd branch out.

Twitterface is Mike's first random blog: all the stuff he wants to say that he can't fit on Twitter or a Facebook status update, and which doesn't fit the topic foci on his other two blogs. His latest post is about the chicken tikka masala we had for dinner last night:

My only complaint is that the smell of curry powder stays in the house for days. But there are never leftovers. Of course, Don & I rarely leave leftovers of anything. We had a mediocre Gewürztraminer with dinner; it's hard to find a really good one these days.

Good meal, bad wine, and after a cup of coffee I fell asleep watching Animal Crackers (and slept for more than 9 hours last night). Pretty nice life.

On the popularity of knitted fandom

I may be knitting the most gorgeous pair of socks I've ever made.

They're for my aunt. Her favorite pair of socks developed a nasty hole in one heel. So I thought I'd knit her a new pair of lacy socks, and experiment with a heel flap on the bottom to see if she liked that. The instep lace pattern is a design from the now defunct Socktopia.net. It's called Kaylee, after the character on Firefly/Serenity because the central lace motif looks a bit like fireflies.

The designer created many sock patterns inspired by and named after characters with fan-followings (Firefly, Harry Potter, etc.). I can see how that it is an attention grabber -- last month, Wash's Sweater had 15,446 page views. I've gotten email inquiries about finding a knitter-for-hire to make one, and about including the pattern in a proposed book of Whedon-inspired knitting designs.

It got me thinking: what if I miniaturized the big cable from the Wash Sweater to make it sock sized? People might actually buy it!

Early experiments have been mixed. At left, you see a sample of the latest plan, which uses a single line of traveling slipped stitches to sketch out the cable motif. It's not bad, but the fabric it creates seems a little stiff. The advantage is that it requires no purling. I want to try some experiments with traveling twisted stitches over a purl background, and see if that makes something people are more likely to want to wear.

CleanQuest 2009

Last year, I took a week's vacation and called it a Cleaning Sabbatical. It was grueling but immensely satisfying. I had some small hope that my work would propel us into a generally more ordered existence, but old habits die hard. A year later, there's still a storage container crammed with stuff to go to Goodwill, and clutter has once again claimed the perimeters of our home and begun to creep across the floors and up the bookcases.

My goals this year are more modest: at the end of the week, I would like to have the carpet steam-cleaned. But before strangers are allowed in (indeed, before anyone but our dearest friends can come in) everything needs to be picked up from the floor of every carpeted room.

This won't be a complete sabbatical. This a crucial time for a few projects at work, and I expect I'll have to go in for a few meetings. But I'm determined to do something productive every day.

So welcome, readers, to CleanQuest 2009.

One hour hence

Variation on a Theme by Rilke
by Denise Levertov

A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

My Pinky

There's a discussion on the Ravelry Men Who Knit group about knitting too tightly, with guys talking about whether they wrap the working yarn through their fingers. I wrap the working yarn around my pinky, as you can tell in this detail from my Halloween costume:


Here's what the black rubber gloves are hiding: my pinky is actually quite misshapen.

I noticed my crooked pinky when I was about 10. I had trouble spreading my hand beyond an octave in piano lessons, and I had trouble pressing the keys on my saxophone that would let me hit the lowest notes. Beyond that, it's never really bothered me. It doesn't hurt (although I do remember a couple occasions when it has been mysteriously numb), and with the rest of my fingers relaxed and curled, it's not really noticable. I think it might even help with my typing (as long as I don't have one of those nasty "ergonomic" keyboards).

My mom's parents both had gnarled fingers, my grandmother from arthritis and my grandfather from a childhood accident that crippled his hands. In some ways, my grandfather's hands are how my family came to be. As capable as he was, his hands kept him out of the war (he tried to conceal them when volunteering, but they were discovered, and he was declared 4F). He stayed home then, and married my grandmother; my mother is from that small generation of Americans born during World War II. Even though my grandfather's hands were shaped as if his middle fingers were glued to his palms, Grandma used to say there was nothing he couldn't do with them. He could fix anything, work with tangles of electric wire, even tie flies.

When I was a baby, he used to sit with me out in the kitchen, telling me that I'd have a private rocketship to take my dates up to the moon, and that he would buy my condoms. He died when I was only 10 months old, when he was younger than I am now, so I don't have any memories of him. But I have his name, probably his hair, and possibly his little finger...

...which is perfectly shaped for adjusting the tension of your yarn when knitting.

Shoe Protest

The Maliki government in Iraq said that the throwing of shoes at President Bush was a "shameful, savage act." Certainly Muntader al-Zaidi should suffer some minor penalty for his attempted assault. But "savage?" The NY Times reports:

Mr. Zaidi was subdued by a fellow journalist and then beaten by members of the prime minister’s security detail, who hauled him out of the room in his white socks. Mr. Zaidi’s cries could be heard from a nearby room as the news conference continued. [emphasis added]

Not his "shouts" or his "protests" -- his "cries." So who's the savage in this story?

Sweater = Sloth

Have I mentioned that I'm the laziest man alive? I've got some good ideas for blog essays -- commentary about on-line identity creation, for example, or musings about how magical our apartment would seem if described by someone from the Middle Ages (lightning harnessed in the walls, levers that bring water of any temperature into three different rooms) -- but when faced with the choice of either putting these thoughts into words or doing nothing, I choose sloth.

Here's evidence of how lazy I am:


Some of you are thinking, "You knit a whole sweater in 19 days!? You call that lazy?" Yep, 19 days of sitting on my butt. That's the dirty secret of gorgeous, prolific knitting: it's tangible evidence that the maker has done little else. (Still, win-win for me; I indulge my slothful ways, and wind up with a beautiful sweater).

It was super-easy, too. It's my third seamless hybrid sweater, so I've pretty much got this pattern down. Time for a challenge. When I finished knitting and writing up Wash's Sweater, I was eager to find a new fanboy knitting project. This week, Pushing Daisies came through for me with two sweater possibilities:


I'll have to wait until the series comes out on DVD to grab good pictures of the sweaters, but it looks like a great project for long, snowy weekends.

Grow up, old man

Yesterday, I finished listening to Maze of Bones, the first installment in Scholastic's The 39 Clues series, which the publisher hopes will help keep sales up now that the Harry Potter series has concluded.

It's not bad, certainly better than author Rick Riordan's other series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which I found ghastly and unreadable. To be fair, I started it after working through all of Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider books, which I loved. Riordan oversees the story arc, but he is only one of the writers that Scholastic is using to churn out the 10 book series in 2 years.

Time magazine described the series thusly: "If you forcibly interbred Lemony Snicket and National Treasure and chose the most viable of their mutant offspring, you might come up with something like The 39 Clues." Orphans Dan and Amy Cahill discover at their grandmother's funeral that their family is old and powerful, including seemingly all of the major figures of history. The will sends them off on a dangerous worldwide quest to track down the 39 Clues and find the Cahill Treasure, the secret of the family's power.

I found it interesting enough to create an account on The 39 Clues website. I felt a bit creepy scrolling all the way down to 1964 to select my birth year, but the site doesn't seem to be judging me. It asked me a series of questions to determine which Hogwarts house branch of the Cahill family I belong to.


I'm guessing it was a close call between this scientific branch and the Janus branch of artists and performers.

The second book in the series comes out today.

Look what I got

New license plates arrived today:

But that's not the exciting news. The picture of this license plate was taken and sent with my new iPhone!

Idiot forgets knitting, makes do

Is anyone else thrown off by the timing of Thanksgiving this year? I intended to spend the week of Thanksgiving with my sister in Maine. Instead, I booked my flight for the week before. I have continued to confuse dates (when rescheduling a haircut, when signing out for the week on my work intranet, etc.)

I can't blame my date confusion for this blunder though: I left on vacation without my messenger bag. This means I brought no knitting with me on the trip (or books, but I had an extra book in my suitcase). I don't think I've flown without a knitting project since 2000. So a trip to the knitting shops was called for, and long story short:


The yarn is Halcyon's Botanica, a line I've never noticed before. It has beautiful stitch definition and an attractive pallet. My plan is to knit a mostly plain, olive-colored sweater, with a few maize-colored stripes for accent.

Downeast Maine is lovely this week: cold but sunny. The cold gives me an excuse to wear thick, handknit sweaters, and I'm looking forward to being able to wear sweaters like this one in progress on days like today.

Sock Updates

No posts since Halloween? Clearly, I'm too lazy and boring to sustain a blog.

Here's the current sock in progress:


Standard fare, following my own Lesser Evil sock instructions and adding a simple but elegant twist on the usual cuff ribbing.

After finishing my Francie socks, I hunkered down for a bit in my secret lab to figure out how to clone that pattern from the toe-up. Turns out that it's not too hard:

But that experiment lies abandoned because, while the Francie sock looks cool, the truth is you can feel the ridges on the soles of your feet, which I know will drive most of my loved ones crazy. I even suspect that in this particular yarn I'm using, the socks will quickly leave blisters. I'm evil because my sock genius will overpower you, not because I actually want to inflict physical, sock-based harm.