Fiber Dreams

I’m a couple days late for “B” and the ABC Along. Sigh.

I’m still feeling a bit blue about the blue Mingus sock. I haven’t done a thing with it since I tried it on late last week, and it was, uh, a bit tough to tug over my heel. I really don’t want to rip all that perfectly good knitting out, but may have to. I’m taking it to the knitting get together tonight, so Kristie can browbeat me into ripping it back and starting over on larger needles in person. Like I know I should. I don’t want to finish the thing to find that it’s impossible to wear it.

The ends haven’t been woven in yet, but I finished up the first blue Illusions sock on Friday evening. At least I think it was Friday. The weekend was a bit of a blur. I ran into one of those frustrating knitting things on Friday. I measured the sock, and measured it again, and measured it once more just to be sure. Worked the toe decreases, and the.sock.was.too.short. How does that happen? I don’t think I’ll ever know.

So I ripped back the toe, knit another couple of rounds, and this time actually put the thing on my foot. To find it’s the same.length.as.before. So I knit another entire pattern repeat of eight more rows. Put it on my foot again, and again it’s.the.same.length.as.before. So I knit another eight rows. And it’s still the same length. What? Does the sock think it’s Houdini or something? Pulling these magic tricks?

I finally gave up, hoping that the sock was actually the right length, and knit the toe again. It seemed to work this time. I think. At least my toes don’t scrunch up when I put the sock on. I decided it was safe to graft the toe. I used a new (to me) grafting method, hoping I’d get better results. Jury’s out. It was easier, since I didn’t have to dig around for a large sewing needle, but I still got bumps at the starting and ending stitches. Bummer. Why can’t I do this? Hrmph.

We have no idea how we got on the list, but we did, and were invited, so we went to an opening at a small art gallery, Space on Spurgeon, in Santa Ana’s revitalized area on Saturday evening. It was fun. The artist whose work was being featured, Dirk Hagner, does prints off of large woodblocks. Large. Like five feet across or more. They’re fabulous. He does the initial cuts, prints off a limited number of pages, then changes the block, paints a different color on it, and puts another layer on the original sheets… over and over until he’s “done.” Dave’s favorite piece is the portrait of Tilman Riemenschneider. It’s fabulous. I love it, too.

My favorite, which actually sort of surprised me given the subject matter, is 2 Dead Finches. This one’s an etching rather than a woodcut. The subtitle is “Momo did it,” and on the right side of the piece, about a third of the way up from the bottom you’ll see a little cat. One “Momo” by name. Yup. Momo killed the finches and left them for Dirk to find. Wasn’t he a nice kitty, leaving a present like that? Being an artist, instead of just picking up the dead birds and throwing them in the trash, Dirk tied them up by the feet, and drew them. On wood. In relief. And ran off some prints. I’d love to have one. This one isn’t anywhere near as large as the other, maybe a couple of feet high. The detail is exquisite. You should see those feathers. Beautiful.

Dirk wasn’t the only artist whose work was in the gallery. We made our way upstairs after a bit, enjoyed seeing paintings by other artists, eventually to the back room where we met Mickey, and saw some of her jewelry and glass work. We ended up talking to Mickey for about an hour. It seemed like every time we turned a corner in the conversation there was something else we were all interested in. It was marvelous fun. Her stuff is beautiful, too. I especially liked a red glass landscape that’s similar to this one.

Our next door neighbors have some marvelous friends, a number of whom we’ve met on various occasions. One couple invited us to their Superbowl party yesterday. We were far from the first ones to get there, but a fair number of folks trickled in for a while. And who trickles in a short while later but Mickey! Yes. Mickey. From the art show. You could have knocked all three of us over with a feather. So funny.

I have more knitting to share with you, but I think I’ll wait for another day soon, break it up a bit. Maybe for “C” I can come up with a post that isn’t quite so pathetic as far as keeping with an alphabet theme. Gads.

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