Marchin' along

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Apple Basket! I hope you have had a great week; my week has whooshed by and now all of a sudden, it is Sunday again.

The sun is shining and actually warming everything; it feels like spring is around the corner – and my laundry is drying outside and not in the dryer! That I have been waiting for; the clothes become so much nicer and fresher, and I much prefer using the wind and sun rather than electricity.

Now that the big stuff is dealt with (lol), let’s get on to today’s business: we have a bit of literary history – no, don’t go away, it is quite interesting – and, of course, the knitting talk.

The Apple of the Week:

I am currently working with Jason and the Argonautika; hence the tale from last week, and hence this week’s offering, as well. ‘My’ version of the epos is the Hellenistic one, written by the scholarly poet Apollonius of Rhodes, who worked at the great Library in Alexandria in the 3^rd century BCE.

The story of Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece is ancient, at least as old as the other big compendium of sailors’ yarns that we know of, the Odyssey. And like the stories in the Odyssey – and the Iliad, for that matter – this story was told orally, by professional story tellers, for centuries before ever being written down. In fact, the Greeks had no alphabet with which to write their stories until about the middle of the 8^th century BCE; and the war with Troy depicted in the Iliad took place around 1200 BCE. Quite a gap, in which the story can unfold and be embellished.

To recap: the Iliad tells of a war in which a band of Greek kings and noblemen (and their soldiers, who are incidental to the story, if not the battle) lay siege to and finally, after ten years, conquer the city of Troy, situated by the Hellespont in modern-day Turkey. This is an epic tale of battle and loss, of the horrors of war to the civilian population and to the warriors themselves; there are good guys as well as bad guys on both sides of the conflict. And tragic love stories.

After the war, the Greek kings sail back to their homelands and their families; the Odyssey tells of Odysseus, whose voyage back to Ithaka ends up taking ten years – on top of the ten years he spent at Troy. So this story is of a boy trying to become a man without ever having known his illustrious father: Odysseus’ son who was newborn when he went away. And a wife who is deemed a widow and pressed to remarry. And a man who just wants to go home instead of spending eternity with a sexy goddess. For the fun of it, we get a bunch of tall tales about sea monsters and man-eating giants and whatnot; everything there to explain how Odysseus managed to lose the 600 men he had with him when he left Troy.

The Argonautika is the story of a boy who goes out to slay the dragon, win the treasure and the princess, and return home a man. And we get the sailors’ yarns as well: some of the same places are visited by both Jason and Odysseus. This story takes place about a generation before the war at Troy: the fathers of several of the heroes we know from the Iliad, are part of the crew on the Argo; among them Peleus, the father of Akhilles.

All of these stories were well-known to the Greeks, both audience, story tellers, writers, playwrights, and eventually readers. Parts of stories and back stories were utilised when the theatre was invented in the 6^th and 5^th centuries BCE; these tragedies worked much as modern day film versions of fairy tales: everybody knows the story and how it ends, and so the interesting part is how it is going to be told this time, what spin will be put on it.

And so, when Apollonius gets his hands on the story in the 3^rd century BCE, he knows that his readers will know it well: everybody knows the Homeric epics and the tragedies and the other poems, including those that have since been lost. Everybody knows what happens after the events of the quest; when Medea is being all girly and weepy, it is supposed to creep you out, because you know that later, she will murder her own children to get back at Jason for dumping her.

It’s like with the Star Wars films: when Obi-Wan Kenobi casually says to Anakin ‘You’re going to be the death of me’ in film no. 2, Attack of the Clones, it works because everybody has known for decades that Anakin as Darth Vader will actually kill Obi-Wan in film no. 4, A New Hope.

So, Apollonius can put his own spin on a classic heroic tale, adapting it to the modern tastes. And Hellenistic tastes were surprisingly modern: this version of Jason is reluctant to be a straight-up hero and a leader, he is regularly assailed by doubts and fears, he prefers to charm and persuade and to use his sex appeal to further his cause.

Added to that, it is clear that the voyage and the quest is the result of a group effort rather than of one man directing his minions. Odysseus is without doubt the leader of his men, the one who thinks and comes up with solutions – and the only one who survives.

That approach doesn’t work anymore in the Hellenistic world: the Homeric heroes are all upper class, Bronze Age noblemen, and the common soldiers are largely ignored or at least unnamed. The 6^th and 5^th century tragedies performed in the young democracy of Athens feature kings and noblemen from ancient stories, much like our fairy tales; but the morale of the tragedies affects everybody, and they often deal with dilemmas faced by ordinary citizens, such as the conflict between loyalty to the state and loyalty to the family or, if you wish, clan.

In the time of Apollonius, people are no longer participants in the rule of a city state, a polis, they are subjects under a king who may be quite distant, both geographically and socially; and so, the ability to cooperate and function in a group is stressed. Jason could never have gone it alone; he relies on the skills and support of his crew – who even, at the outset, did not look to him as leader. They chose Herakles, the mighty hero, who politely declined the honour and effectively made the others accept Jason for the job.

So it goes.

The Knitting:

I feel like the Blues Riffs socks should be renamed the Forever Socks – or maybe, in keeping with the music theme, The End Socks after the (ironically) interminable song by The Doors.

It has taken me more than a month to complete the first sock, frogging or rather tinking back in three places: on the foot below the gusset, the entire heel, and a bit on the leg. And that was after I re-knit the toe on smaller needles to get my stitch gauge right.

Going through the project gallery for this pattern, the Riff Socks by Lise Brackbill, on Ravelry, I found that I am not the only one with problems here: many comments include phrases like ‘the heel is huge’, ‘turned out too big’, ‘had to rip back / pull out / frog’. So, apparently, the designer’s gauge, particularly the row gauge, is tighter than most knitters’. Something to be aware of: the row gauge is quite important with these socks.

Anyway, on Thursday I cast off the first sock and tried it on Victor’s foot – and it fits perfectly! Oh, the relief and joy. He didn’t want to take it off again. And it is a very handsome sock – which of course is why I am knitting them in the first place – the diamonds formed by the twisted stitches running up the sock are elegant, and the X on the back of the heel seems to hug his Achilles tendon (and it does need a bit of TLC right now: he just took up running).

Having been plugging along on the same three projects for what feels like weeks and weeks, I really need to finish something. And to start something new: I am getting fed up with my projects page on Ravelry looking the same every time I open it – which I do daily, as if it may have magically changed since yesterday ... like the new brilliant feature, the Patterns Highlights page with all the new stuff that you may enjoy. I love this – in the same way that I love a box of chocolates: sweet, sweet temptation combined with a severe test of my abilities to prioritise and restrain myself.

So I decided to focus on the Splendid Striped Cowl by the lovely Martine of the iMake podcast and get it off the needles. It is a good take-along knit: it takes next to no concentration and is quick to stuff back in the bag, sitting as it is on just a circular needle (not like a handful of dpns that need to be organised and secured), so a couple of waiting rooms and a couple of episodes of The Wire later, the knitting part was done. Unpicking the provisional cast-on, grafting the ends of the strip, and weaving in yarn ends got done in between other stuff. And voila! a lovely, warm cowl.

Of course, the weather is beginning to resemble spring right now; a lot of it is due to the light returning, which I always really feel around my birthday. This doesn’t mean, though, that it’s not still cold outside, and it may well stay cold for another month. So, woolly knits are still quite relevant to my quality of life.

After getting the Splendid Cowl out of the way (this is sounding like I don’t like the cowl, but I do!), I could return to the sleeve of the Juniper jumper (try saying – or typing – that ten times fast!), that was sitting around moping and feeling neglected.

A guitar café concert on Thursday evening got the sleeve moving along – and reminded me that I had been working on the body of that same jumper during the Wayne Siegel concert exactly two weeks previously. Yikes.

Tip of the Day: do not leave unfinished projects lying around for weeks, if you want to feel like you are accomplishing something.

Having nearly finished the first sleeve, I realised something that I should probably have thought of earlier: as I am working with a sport weight or light DK yarn (the Rowanspun DK) on a pattern that is written for a worsted weight, my row gauge obviously does not match the presumed gauge. So, my intervals between decreases down the sleeve (12 rounds, as stated) are smaller than they are supposed to be. I tried the jumper on at once – and luckily, it was okay. The sleeve fits nicely; it is a bit snug, but then, I find floppy sleeves annoying and impractical, so all is well on that front.

And I am now working on the second sleeve ... the end is in sight.

My Pomona, the pattern for which is now up on Ravelry.

Not surprisingly, I have a gazillion projects that I want to cast on, both winter stuff and summer stuff; this time of year it becomes really difficult to decide what to knit. The sunshine calls for lacy cotton or bamboo cardigans; the temperature says socks and that hat I was contemplating. Maybe I could do one of each in parallel ... hmm, that’s an idea. We’ll see.

So, that’s it for this week – I am going out for a walk in the lovely sunshine :o)

I hope you have a wonderful week, be it spring-like or not in your region. Keep happy, keep healthy, keep crafting!

Stash

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Apple Basket!

Right now, an all too well-known winter holiday song comes to mind, because the weather outside is truly frightful: the snow is pelting down, the temperature is just above freezing for the first time in weeks, so everything is thawing and wet and sloshy, and our usual westerly wind is blowing in from the North Sea and causing all this havoc.

All in all, the perfect excuse to stay indoors to read, and write, and knit (after being out for a bit, of course, to enjoy the indoors all the more). This week, I will be musing on the concept of The Stash from several points of view, and of course, there is an update on my knitting.

Apple of the Week:

Around this time of year, usually in January, renowned podcaster Brenda Dayne performs her annual ‘airing of the stash’; a procedure in which she takes out all of her stash to review it. In the latest airing I heard about, she used the phrases from the Ravelry forum buttons: ‘educational’, ‘interesting’, ‘funny’, ‘agree’, ‘disagree’, and ‘love’ to categorise the various yarns and to decide what to keep and what not to keep.

Now, I do not have a ritual like that; I do look through my stash from time to time, re-evaluating and invariably getting rid of some of it. But I have been thinking about stash recently, prompted, probably, by the whole revision & renewal mindset surrounding the New Year. And by a recent thread on Ravelry, in which a knitter sought support to curb – or maybe justify – her yarn purchases. She did, it must be said, receive advice to hold off a bit and remember that next season’s colours and next year’s yarns will be at least as beautiful as the ones she is buying now; as well as encouragement to indulge and enjoy. One fellow knitter linked to her own stash, which is – huge. She has over 900 (yes, nine hundred) entries, and not just a skein of this, a skein of that; there are 20 skeins of this and 50 skeins of that. This woman has truly reached SABLE and does not seem to consider not buying yarn ever again.

SABLE is one of those acronyms that I would never have known were it not for Ravelry; S.A.B.L.E. stands for Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy, meaning that you have more yarn than you could possibly knit (or crochet) with during the rest of your expectable life span. There is, of course, a group for this on Ravelry; I joined it when I realised how many miles of yarn I had, even though I have not technically reached SABLE. With the yarn I have and the rate at which I have been knitting (though I must say, the amount I knit in 2012 was exceptional), I could use up all my stash in 5 or 6 years – and I do intend to live longer than that. That would entail, obviously, that I do not buy any yarn in that period, and that is not, shall we say, entirely realistic.

But I do intend to use the yarn I have, and I know that I can; the notion of intentionally (or maybe unintentionally) building so large a stash that you have no chance of ever getting through it seems, well, strange and somewhat disturbing. On MochimochiLand are pictures from one lady’s yarn room, which seems to be about half the size of my house. This kind of stashing is a form of hoarding, the gathering of a multitude of objects that eventually drown you out and take over your home and your life, be they skeins of yarn or old newspapers, typewriters or a car in the dining room.

Now, I would never say that every knitter with a stash is as obsessive as the Collyer brothers, maybe best known from E. L. Doctorow’s novel about them, Homer & Langley. It makes a lot of sense to have at least some yarn in the house; if you have nothing beyond what you are currently knitting with, you have to make sure to finish your project within the opening hours of your LYS or else wait, before you can start a new one. And some people do that quite happily, I know; my mother is one. But then, she doesn’t knit much. I like having the next yarn within reach (sometimes literally) when I’m about halfway through a project, and for that, a certain stash is indispensible.

I sometimes struggle with guilt over my stash: have I needlessly tied up resources in boxes under my bed, because I lacked the willpower to resist buying something pretty that I didn’t really need? Why can’t I judge the rate at which I actually knit, so that I don’t buy yarn to knit ten projects in the time that I could realistically make three or four?

This is when I implicitly accuse myself of being no better than a hoarder – and maybe even worse: hoarding is, I believe, now acknowledged as a psychiatric disorder, and so hoarders are not to be considered weak-willed, but sick. Unlike the rest of us, who should just stop buying.

But then, I think of something I want to make and realise that I have just the right yarn for it; or I hit upon something like the Tribbles, and all the kilos of bulky cotton are redeemed (lol) – and so, my stash becomes a proper stash: a resource like the nuts in a squirrel’s tree, instead of a slightly shameful burden.

But there is a whole other way to view yarn stashing. After all, who would accuse art collectors of hoarding? Some people collect paintings or sculptures, others collect beautiful and soft skeins that give at least as much pleasure. Seen in this light, a displayed yarn stash – and lots of people do this by placing their yarn on shelves or in glass-fronted cupboards – is just another way of displaying your wealth; a recognised act in most societies.

Hilary Mantel talks of the people in the times of Henry VIII ‘wearing their wealth on their backs’, furs and silk brocades, dyed with the expensive dyes of the day and embroidered with gold & silver threads, beads and pearls. Nowadays, it’s Philippe Patek watches and Chanel handbags, Armani suits and Manolo Blahniks. Same thing.

A not uncommon way for a society to display wealth has been to make offerings to the god(s); in Peru, they used to throw great quantities of gold into a lake, giving rise to the legend of El Dorado, the land of gold. Comparable to this is the custom of grave-offerings, giving the dead an amount of rich gifts to take to the next world (beyond merely personal effects, which is another matter): gold (again), horses, slaves, weapons, &c. A ship for a Viking lord.

Another form of culturally sanctioned and even encouraged money wasting is the custom of giving cut-off flowers on every occasion. Admittedly, flowers are pretty, and our fondness for them probably stems from a primordial need to be around plant life; but these flowers will invariably wilt and die in the space of few days from the cutting and giving.

Compared to this, yarn actually makes a lot of sense.

But I digress; returning to the topic of displaying wealth, we have looked at investments in beautiful objects to enjoy – and show off to visitors – at wearing your wealth, and at proving affluence by throwing away valuables. I am assuming, here, that the gods and the dead are oblivious to gifts; you may disagree, and that is entirely up to you.

Giving to the living is yet another chance to demonstrate how much you have; only a month ago, we had the great annual ritual of exchanging items, of assessing the proper value according to the recipient’s status and the relationship between giver and receiver. This, unsurprisingly, led to a host of threads on Ravelry, discussions on how to compare time spent hand-crafting and money spent buying. I will not go into that here; as you know, I made almost all my presents (which I won’t be doing again, but never mind about that now).

The value of a gift can depend primarily on either the affection felt by the giver for the recipient or the wish to show wealth; as such, gift-giving can be highly competitive and designed to oblige the recipient, if not downright humiliate him. Less aggressively, mutual gift-giving can be a bonding act.

In the Bronze Age Hellas of Homer, lords and kings travelling to far places form inheritable bonds of friendship when visiting each other. In those days, there were no inns, so everybody depended on staying at someone else’s home for the duration; and so, the rules of hospitality were clear: a stranger arriving at your door must be invited in, given a bath and a meal – and then, not before, you can ask him who he is and what he is doing there. When he leaves, you give him gifts; weapons, silverware, cloth and other valuables are frequently mentioned.

All of this ritual demonstrates your superiority over your environs: in the face of a possible threat, you open your home and feed the stranger, thus showing him both your house (including servants and guards) and your abundance of food, and the gifts are merely examples of your surplus. This serves a double purpose: if the stranger is above board, you have made an ally; if he was sussing you out, you have shown your strength and warned him off.

So, the notion of having a surplus, a stash, to act as an insurance against hard times, is important, whatever your social status may be; in The Secret River by Kate Grenville, the protagonist’s idea of wealth is having ‘a loaf in the cupboard’.

A stash of yarn can be many things: a disorganised and ever expanding mass; an insurance against lack, if some day you have no money to buy yarn (and that can happen to any of us in these times of economic uncertainty); a way to show off the riches you have accumulated; or a personal treasure trove to cherish and dive into for inspiration and joy.

The Knitting:

I have joined a story tellers’ club and went to my first meeting last Monday, bringing my knitting, of course. After introductions, a song and improvisation using story cubes, it was time for the telling of prepared stories; I snuck out my knitting, all the while making sure to pay attention to the teller (I didn’t want to be impolite, of course, but no worries: old school story tellers are familiar with the concept of crafting while listening), and got quite a bit of sleeve done. And with stocking stitch in the round, I was glad of the fairy tales to keep me entertained.

Well, my Georgia cardigan is practically finished now; all I need to do is find and sew on buttons and block it. It does need blocking, as the edges roll like they were paid to do it. So, more and better pics will be coming next week.

I have started a new pair of socks for Victor; he wears his Watson socks all the time and misses them when they need washing once in a while (he wears them over cotton socks, so they don’t have to be washed all that often). Anyway, I came across a pattern for these Riff Socks, created for the designer’s guitar playing son – perfect, no? The socks have twisted stitches travelling in X’s up along the instep and leg; so we have a discreet pattern, with some interest for the knitter, and the very appropriate name. I am calling this pair Blues Riffs, because – well, they are blue. And blues guitar is a thing.

So, I made the toe and a bit of the instep pattern and got a sneaking suspicion that it was too big; my gauge was off, anyway: 30 stitches to 10 cm instead of 34, and even though he has big feet, they are not bigger than the given XL sock size. A try-on confirmed it; and I will be starting again on 2 mm dpns instead of 2.5 mm. Luckily, I have the KnitPro cubic dpns in both 2.5 and 2 mm, courtesy of my sister :o)

With the ongoing cold weather (though the frost has lifted, it is now windy and thus still quite nippy) I have really been enjoying my flip-top mittens and the not having to take them off to do stuff. The fingers are a bit long, as they come nearly up to my fingertips, and that is a bit unpractical. Note for next time. And I may add a button and loop to keep the hood in place when it is off the fingers, so it doesn’t flap about. But all in all, they are very useful; I love tucking my fingertips inside the hood – it feels extra cosy.

But I need a new hat: a warm one that does not squash my hair. I have rather long hair, and I hate having it all flat and frizzy from wearing a woollen hat. On the other hand, I hate freezing my brains, too.

So, I shopped around on Ravelry and found a handful of hats I would like to make; I chose a quick one to start with, and voila: the Fern hat (or the beginning of one, at least). 

This is a very easy hat, top down, with 8 eyelet increases on every other round until the brim is large enough. Easy peasy. The pattern is the Eyelet Swirl Hat by Meg Myers – at least two of the hats that caught my eye in this search are by her.

In a fit of startitis I cast on for another jumper (or sweater, if you prefer the American term); this time, the driftwood by Isabell Kraemer (Rav link), a free Ravelry download. This is a top down Henley with contiguous sleeves that look like set-in sleeves; it makes for some quite interesting and at first somewhat incomprehensible increases at the shoulders. The trick is to just go with it and trust the pattern, which is very well written.

The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn and 4.5 mm needles; I have to be different, so I am using Rowanspun DK that is actually more like a sport weight, and 3.25 mm needles. Guess what: my gauge is off. So to get the pattern size XS, I am going by the numbers for size L, hoping that my calculations are right. I’ll give you an update on that next week.

I have been wanting to make a jumper with this yarn for quite a while: back in 2005, my sister and were in London and found it on sale at Liberty’s. (The colour in the yarn photo is more true to life than the wip photo.) 

We each bought a pack of 10 skeins, and I made a jumper with half of mine. I still wear this jumper nearly every day (only at home when nobody is around), even though it is rather shapeless by now and too big since I lost weight. But now, it seems, I have found a new jumper to replace the old, worn out one.

Well, this is it for this week; I hope you have a great week and come back next time!

Until then:

Happy Knitting!

The Answer

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Basket once again! I hope you have had a great week and, if you’re in Denmark and have kids, that you have enjoyed the vacation. I have; being not actually working, I haven’t had time ‘off’, but it has been good not hauling the boys out of bed and off to school every morning. And something tells me they enjoyed it, too ...

I did dye a bunch of yarn, I’ve been knitting (of course), played with my sister’s little ones – oh, and went to a new knitting group. More about that later.

Now, this was supposed to go out yesterday (Sunday) at the latest; hence the title (last week was week 42 in the calendar; have you noticed, by the way, that Mulder’s apartment number is 42? That cannot be a coincidence) – and then life happened. I’ve been writing bits and pieces over the course of the week; I usually make a Word document and then copy it into Blogger, it’s easier to work with. So, I was going to continue the tale of Penelope and her wiles, and then the text somehow morphed into an explanation of hubris, and I wanted to use Oedipus Rex as an example (in addition to the knitting bit) – but jumping from the Odyssey to Oedipus and back again seemed rather messy, so I’m saving the hubris for next time. Assuming, of course, that the gods allow me a next time :o)

So here goes the

Apple of the Week:

We discussed last time the way Penelope keeps the suitors at bay with her weaving; this time, we will look at the way she greets her returning husband.

The situation in the home is this: Penelope’s ruse has been discovered, and the suitors are pushing for her to make a decision. Telemakhos has gone away for a week or two to try to find some news about his missing father; to do something towards becoming a man rather than just staying at home with the women, as he has done all through his childhood. The suitors set an ambush for him, but their plans are thwarted. Still, events are in motion.

Bronze age axe head (from salimbeti.com)

Penelope decides (Homer tells us that Athene puts the idea to her, but remember, ‘Athene’ is Penelope’s own clever mind talking to her) to have a competition: she does not want to marry just anybody, she will tell the suitors, but only the man who can string Odysseus’ bow and shoot an arrow through 12 axes lined up on the floor. This is no easy task: back in the day, only Odysseus himself could string the bow and shoot that straight with it.

At this point, Telemakhos returns safe and sound from his travels, bringing with him an old beggar he has met in the country – Odysseus, of course, who thus sneaks into his own home to get the lay of the land, observe the suitors and gauge the fidelity of his wife. The suitors mock him, the beggar who is already there does not appreciate the competition and is sent off with a thrashing, Penelope shows up, looking lovelier than ever, and reminds everybody of their duty towards the poor. So far, so good. No surprises there.

Oh, and while she is at it, Penelope reminds the suitors of their gentlemanly honour (while all they can think of is sex) and so their duty to give a lady some pretties – and they immediately send off home for jewellery and fine clothes. Go, girl!

In the evening, Penelope requests a talk with the beggar to see if he has news of Odysseus; he (who claims to be the bastard son of a lord from Crete) says that met him long ago and even describes the clothes that Penelope made for him. She weeps a bit and then tells him of a dream she has had: an eagle swooped down from the rooftop and killed her flock of geese, and she wept for them in the dream. Don’t worry, the beggar says, this means that your husband is coming home to kill the suitors (but why would she weep for them?). Next, she divulges her plan for the competition and is commended by the old man.

Now, the big question in this section of the story is whether Penelope sees through the disguise of Odysseus: does she suspect or know that it is him sitting there? I think she does. I think that she is almost certain that her husband is back, cleverly disguised, and knows that he has his reasons to be so. They are playing a game to lure each other out: he needs to know if her loyalty has shifted – and she needs to be absolutely certain that this man really is the Odysseus whom she has not seen in twenty years. There is too much at stake for both of them to risk accepting each other at face value: if Penelope has found a new lover, Odysseus is a dead man walking; and if she throws herself at the wrong man, her reputation is shot, and her fortune in ruins. So they circle around each other carefully, giving convoluted messages. There is no reason, for instance, to think that any old man passing through is a reliable interpreter of dreams: Penelope wants to see if he has anything useful to say about it. Which he does. And then she can warn him of the upcoming competition.

The next morning, Penelope demurely draws her veil up over her face before addressing the suitors: she has decided how to decide on her new husband. The bow is produced and the axes lined up (which by the way tells us that the floor of Odysseus’ house is made of dirt). The suitors try and fail to string the bow, the beggar tries and succeeds, Odysseus reveals himself and kills them all, including the 12 ‘unfaithful’ maids, yada, yada.

Anyway, later – after the cleaning up after the carnage and a much-needed bath for Odysseus – Penelope is invited downstairs again to officially meet her husband; and she is cold. She keeps her distance, claiming to be unsure of his identity, while Telemakhos is jumping up and down like a kid in frustration with her. Finally, she relents and tells this stranger who claims to her husband that he can spend the night in Odysseus’ bed: she will have the servants put it out into the hall for him. Odysseus is flabbergasted: he carved this bed himself out of the trunk of an olive tree, still attached to the roots, and built the bedroom around it. How could it be moved? And so, he passes the final test – because apparently nobody but Odysseus himself and Penelope knew about the properties of the bed.

So, all in all, we must conclude that Penelope really is both clever and strong: were it not for her, Odysseus’ property and life would be lost to a lesser man. She keeps going for years and years and then, on top of that, keeps her cool under pressure to protect herself, her son, her status – and her love, let’s not forget that.

During the vacation week, I have been watching quite a few dvds. Victor and I went through the whole of X Files (over a few weeks, though), threw in Season 4 of CSI, and then followed Thomas’ repeated demands recommendations to watch Firefly & Serenity. And a good thing we did! Joss Whedon-fun all around.

We knew, of course, several of the actors from other stuff. Nathan Fillion from Buffy (scary), Gina Torres from Angel (scary), Alan Tudyk from A Knight’s Tale (not so scary), and Adam Baldwin from X Files (scary again).

So, coming straight on top of X Files, the beginning of it was a bit weird: ‘Knowle Rohrer’ appearing with big guns and being not altogether trustworthy, and then the guy who gave up years of his life and a promising career to find and rescue his sister from an evil government conspiracy to experiment on her. Hmm.

Anyway, great show; I highly recommend it :o) And now I know the provenance of the ‘I’ll be in my bunk’-phrase that I’ve heard so often on Knit1Geek2 ...

For those of you who have not come across it: this is a one-season, one-movie TV show about, well, space cowboys. Nothing like Cowboys and Aliens – for one thing, there are no aliens – more the classic western featuring bank robbers, smugglers, gun fights, saloons and whores, cattle, isolated settlements and all that. In space, on and between various planets and moons that have been terraformed (possibly by Weyland-Yutani, by the way). The ship, captained by Nathan Fillion’s character, is a Firefly class ‘boat’ named Serenity; hence the titles.

True to any Joss Whedon-show, we get the strong female characters, the sarcasm and one-liners in the face of death, the killing off of at least one central character (don’t worry, I won’t say who), the band of very different and not always compatible people who nevertheless stick together and defend each other against the bad guys.

Knitting heritage

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had several occasions for reflection. Well, I have that in any week, of course, but these have been connected reflections, so to speak.

At Sunday knitting group two weeks ago, the little old lady there, the one with the not blue, but jet-black hair (and eyebrows) and the pastel-coloured acrylic knitting suddenly says: ‘My mother died when I was nine. So my father was alone with the four of us for a few years, and me being the eldest, he taught me to knit socks, so I could knit them for my brothers.’

How do you even begin to respond to that? This must have been in the 30’s or 40’s, in a time when people died of things we have mostly forgotten; and in a time when some skills were ubiquitous that now are mostly forgotten.

A couple of days later I was proudly showing my seamless Watson sock toe to my mum (no, I haven’t outgrown that need), and she says: ‘My mother could do that.’ Well, of course she could, and my father’s mother as well, and probably everybody who knitted socks, including the father of the black-haired lady, who must have been not much older than my grandparents, come to think of it.

A lot of knowledge about techniques and materials and how to treat or not treat them was common knowledge once, imparted as an integral part of bringing up your children. There are so many little – or big – things in cooking, cleaning, how to get particular spots off, you name it, that I do not know, and then my mum will say, again: ‘My mother knew this.’ I can’t help thinking about the abundance of knowledge I might have got from my grandmothers, if I had thought to ask for it.

This old knowledge, these same techniques, are now put on the internet and dubbed ‘magic’ or ‘surprising’ – and they do seem like magic when you come across them for the first time.

This makes me sad and happy at the same time: knowledge shouldn’t be forgotten, it should be kept alive and thriving – but then, that is what the internet does. And in the absence of an extended family filled with aunts and grandmothers – and uncles and grandfathers – to teach us all the skills, we modern crafters turn to our extended virtual family for help and guidance. Ravelry, for one thing, is an invaluable source of patterns, techniques, tips & tricks, yarns, ideas, and general chat about knitting, and crochet, and dyeing, and ... you name it.

The Knitting:

Now, what have I been up to knitting-wise?

Well, the Hitchhiker with the beaded teeth (that does sound a bit silly, doesn’t it?) is coming along nicely; I’ve been working on it while reading the first Discworld novel, thus mixing Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett for a big slice of crazy pie :o)

And the o w l s is done – well, nearly, I still have to sew on 18 more beads for eyes ... So, I did it top-down which meant reversing the pattern; I gave the short row shaping at the back of the neck a lot of thought and afterwards realised that I could probably have looked it up in, say, Modern Top-down Knitting. Ah, well, my brain can always do with a little exercise.

The owls chart itself was pretty straightforward; I ended up doing two extra sets of decreases and increases on the back to get the snug fit; and the length is just fine. Not very long, but fine. And then, all that remained were the 34 owl eyes.

So the next logical step was of course to cast on an Owl Cowl using the same chart, with 100 stitches / 10 owls. It will be a Christmas present for my cousin who loves green – and owls, I hope!

In honour of the season, I made a handful of pumpkins using hand-dyed yarn – finally, a use for the madder orange! The pattern is the Jack be Little, found for free on Ravelry. I made two big ones with an aran weight wool from Greenland and three littlies with fingering weight wool; you can see the size difference in the pic.

And I am working on a pair of socks for Thomas: Bowties are Cool by SheepytimeKnits, also found for free on Ravelry. Gotta love Ravelry. And those little bowties are so much fun to knit!

I think that’s it – no, wait, I did a bit on my Carnaby skirt on Thursday, when I went to the new knitting group. The group itself is not new; it meets at a LYS, Garnshoppen (which, not surprisingly, means The Yarn Shop), once a month. Nice, friendly people, some new chat; I didn’t say much, perhaps, just getting to know people – again, all women. But I’ll go again; the boys will have to get used to me going out once in a while.

And that really is it for this week – or rather, last week, it being Monday and all. I will be back later this week with updates on knitting and life and the bit about hubris. Until then: have a great time; I hope your autumn isn’t drowning you, as it seems to be trying to do here (and they’re threatening frost this week!).

Happy knitting!

A Smart Cookie

Hello, everybody, and welcome again to the Apple Basket. This week, I have an actual Apple of the Week for you! I realised that it has been way too long; there have been slivers and bits, but not a proper Apple. But fear not, it’s coming! After all, it is my duty to provide health, strength, and longevity to all :o)

I will also give you, of course, an update on the Knitting and some musings on dyeing. I am desperately trying to get as much dyeing done as I can, before winter sets in and my workshop freezes over. Well, gets too cold for comfort, anyway.

I have mentioned before that I listen to the CraftLit podcast with the fabulous Heather Ordover – I am continually amazed at the amount of work that she does: teaching, home schooling, writing, researching, podcasting, knitting, spinning, weaving, dyeing, ... Wow. Anyway, I have lived under a rock until – well, pretty much until I discovered Ravelry and through that a whole new world of crafting-related activity, not least podcasts. So, in May this year (I think) I started listening to CraftLit, ‘the podcast for crafters who like books’, from the very beginning in 2006 – because greedy me wants All. The. Books. With Heather’s commentary, too. This podcast is brilliant.

This week, I finished listening to Tristan and Isolde, the Medieval romance of star-crossed lovers. Very sad, very tragic. But also very reminiscent of the Odyssey: the whole oral story-telling tradition, the travelling and monster-fighting hero – and, as Heather points out, the heroine who is ‘a smart cookie’. Towards the end of the story, Tristan returns home in disguise (like Odysseus, by the by), and Isolde pulls off some very clever scheming to keep Tristan – and herself – from being killed.

And I, of course, being a classicist, had to note that there is a precedent for this female cleverness and guile: Penelope, the wife of Odysseus. Now, Odysseus is famous for being clever, wily, and always able to sweet-talk himself into and out of all sorts of trouble. But his wife is his match, make no mistake about that. She is crafty. There are several instances of this in the Odyssey; I will give you one this week and another one next week.

The Apple of the Week:

We all know the basic storyline, right? Odysseus goes off to Troy, leaving his wife and newborn son behind. After ten years of war, he sets out on his journey back home – which also ends up taking ten years, mainly because he gets on the wrong side of Poseidon by blinding his son, the Cyclops. And having the god of the seas as your enemy can seriously hamper your sailing. So Odysseus and his men are blown off course, meet various monsters, giants, and sorceresses, suffer shipwreck and hardships, until finally only Odysseus himself is left.

We may note here that he left Troy with twelve ships, each crewed by 50 men. Not an outstanding record for an officer, losing 600 men on the way. But, we can blame the gods. Or Fate.

Anyway, after the final shipwreck, Odysseus is rescued by the goddess Kalypso, who keeps him on her island for seven years (so much for ‘toiling on the seas’ for ten years!) and would have kept him forever as her immortal husband, had Zeus allowed it. Or Fate. But no, Odysseus is supposed to go home. So, off he goes again in a little boat, suffers shipwreck – or boatwreck, in this case – is rescued by a princess, tells his tale to the court on her island and is sent off home laden with gifts.

Back on Ithaka, he is reunited with his son, disguises himself – with the help of Athene – as an old beggar, and sneaks into his ... well, palace is too grand a word ... homestead to kill off all the suitors who are competing to marry his wife. He wins the battle, obviously – with the help of Athene – and is reunited with Penelope. A happy ending for a great hero.

I know this is a very quick and somewhat flippant telling of the tale. Bear with me, please: even attempting to give a comprehensive analysis would keep us here all week. And if you don’t know the story and the above is all gibberish: go read it! Seriously, this is a great story in itself, apart from being the inspiration for lots of later stories and literature; this is one of the founding tales of European mental history. So read the book.

Meanwhile, Penelope is left at home to manage the household and to bring up their son, not knowing when or, indeed, if her husband is coming back. Ten years pass, and news of the end of the Trojan war reach even the remote island. But no Odysseus. And in these days long before Skype or facebook or even a reliable postal service, news only travel with sailors and merchants who may happen to have heard some third or fourth-hand rumour. So still, she knows nothing of his fate, and still, she waits, patiently and loyally.

After a further six years, the local nobles decide that the chief ought to have been back by now, if he is coming back at all, so they begin to move in on the assumed widow. This is not only, and not even mainly, because she is a good-looking woman (though she is: all high-born individuals are good-looking) – they want Odysseus’ title, his power and position.

Penelope does not want to marry again; her heart belongs to Odysseus, her home is Odysseus’, she has her son and her life here, and re-marrying would mean not only getting a new husband, but having to move to a new house, a new set of in-laws and rules, a new position. As Odysseus’ wife, she is at the top of the social order – and being left to take care of everything for so many years means that she is also left to make the decisions and run the place. And she is not stupid: she is very capable of managing.

So, she does what she can to keep the suitors at bay. She tells them that, before she can leave the house of Odysseus, she feels obliged to weave a shroud for her father-in-law. Now Laërtes, the father of Odysseus, is not dead yet, but he is liable to die at some point in the not too distant future; he is old, weighed down by the prolonged absence of his son and the sorrow of his wife’s death (Odysseus’ mother died from the grief of missing him) and has taken to living in a little cottage in the country instead of reclaiming his place as head of the household, while Odysseus is away.

Anyway, Penelope claims this filial responsibility, which the suitors cannot argue with – she is a dutiful woman, which in and of itself is part of her merits. And Penelope weaves: every day, she weaves a length of the shroud – and every night, she unpicks her work so as to not finish it. She keeps this up for three years. Yes, you heard me: three whole years of weaving and unpicking, before one of her maids gives away the game and her ruse is exposed.

I have a few comments here as to how this can be: either these suitors are exceptionally dumb, which they are not; or they know nothing whatsoever about weaving and how long it is supposed to take, which on a practical level seems unlikely, given that all of them have grown up with mothers and sisters and maids who did these things; or they are blinded by some divine intervention and so incapable of judging the passage of time in correlation to the weaving. This seems more probable: the suitors are repeatedly described as being hubristic, and in the latter part of the narrative, Athene at one point forces them to laugh until their jaws nearly break, thus condemning themselves further.

The important thing to remember here is that this divine blinding of the suitors does not in any way detract from the value of Penelope’s ruse. The Greek gods of the Odyssey help those who are worthy of it, those who help themselves. It may be useful to regard the gods as manifestations of inner traits and skills; so that when we are told of Athene putting an idea into somebody’s heart (these people think with their hearts; the notion of the brain being responsible for anything comes centuries later), we may view Athene as a personification of that person’s reason or wisdom.

The same goes for the role of Fate: sometimes we are told that something is foretold or fated – like the homecoming of Odysseus and the killing of the suitors – but at the same time, the suitors are still guilty of wrongdoing. They deserve their fate; the foretelling of some event or other is no excuse.

As for the maids: we are told at one point that Odysseus’ household has 50 maids, 12 of which are ‘unfaithful’, i.e. sleeping with – or being raped by, Bronze Age mentality doesn’t really distinguish – the suitors. The numbers themselves are obviously not to be taken at face value: 50 means ‘many’ and twelve is a much used number for a band of people.

We may imagine that relations are formed between some maids and some suitors or their people, over the nearly four years of presence in Odysseus’ house, and that the betrayal of Penelope’s secret is pillow talk.

‘But they are wooing Penelope!’ I hear you cry. ‘How can they be sleeping with other women?!’ Well, Bronze Age mentality again: a man has his needs – and they are obviously not being met by Penelope. Odysseus is getting something, too, out there; remember Kalypso who wanted to keep him? And before that seven-year ‘indenture’, he and the at-that-point-remaining men of his crew hung out with the sorceress Kirke for a year.  Ancient sexual morality is a case of double standards, if there ever was one. Penelope was hailed all through antiquity for being the ultimate Good Wife, for waiting faithfully and chastely, until her lawfully wedded husband came back to her.

Of course, there are practical reasons behind this morality (even though we can and should argue with those, as well): the society was patriarchal; inheritance of property, fortune, position etc went from father to son – and the only way of being sure about who is the father of whom is to control the sexuality of the womenfolk. It has been this way from the invention of social hierarchy until – well, the invention of birth control. It would be so much easier to let inheritance work through the female line. After all, there is seldom any doubt as to who the mother of a child is, right?

But I digress.

With her weaving ruse exposed, Penelope is pushed to make a choice between her suitors ... and that will be our topic next week.

But now to something completely different –

The Knitting:

I have finished a couple of things since last week:

The Watson socks for Victor! He is wearing them at this very moment, and they look so much better on his feet than while they were flat. I made a few changes to the pattern – all recorded in my project notes on Ravelry. I reversed the cables on one side of the foot to mirror the others; it was either that or reverse all the cables on one sock so that the socks would mirror each other. What can I say, I’m particular about those things. Also, I made fewer increases in the gusset and decreased a few stitches above the heel, all to avoid the sock growing too large.

Everything turned out fine in the end, with not too much Second Sock Syndrome along the way. SSS usually hits me when I’m just over halfway done on the first sock, after the heel: I still have a ways to go on either the foot or the leg, depending on the direction – and there is a whole other sock to do after that.

But I suppose this is just a variant of my regular getting-bored-with-a-project-after-a-while. There comes a point in every project – for me, at least – when the initial excitement is wearing off, and there is still a long way to go before it begins to resemble something that might actually be something. If it has a stitch pattern, I’m thinking ‘I know this repeat already, give me something new! A new colour, increases or, even better, decreases, anything!’

This is one reason I always have multiple projects on the needles, so I can put the temporarily boring thing down and do something else. I am no Penelope ... no, wrong analogy; that would be more like letting a wip hibernate and not knit for a very long time. Shudder.

Anyway, I also finished my Hitchhiker – and I love it! It has just the right size for a scarf, and the ends stay where they are supposed to, when I wear it ‘cowboy-style’. I don’t know if it’s the slight curve on the hypotenuse that does it, but the ends hang down in front and don’t stray to the back or anything. Great.

I decided to make one for my mum for Christmas. I know, I said I was going to do the Wisteria Arbor shawl ... let this be a lesson to you: do not ever believe I have finished changing my mind and am actually going to do what I say I’m going to do, until I am doing it. There is reasoning behind this decision; there has to be, I have to explain to myself that it is not a cop-out to knit a garter scarf instead of a lace shawl ... so A: I made her a Haruni for her birthday in June, so I’ve done the lace thing, and B: the denser fabric is better for winter. I have actually cast on and knit 4 teeth, so you can safely believe in this project; I’m beading the tips to add a bit of interest, both in the making and in the wearing.

And I cast on the owls! After some measuring and swatching and counting and calculating, I’m doing a top-down, sleeveless version. That way, I’m sure to have enough yarn – if I run a bit short, the vest will be a bit short, but so am I, so that’s okay :o) And the owls are so cute ...

The dyeing is happening – so far; I am feeling the cold out there today, squeezing water out of skeins that have soaked overnight ... I want to get as much as possible done now, before winter sets in.

And I want to play with colours and colour combinations; but I can easily dye much more than I can knit with, and I can’t really justify the expense in it – after all, I wouldn’t go out and just buy 10 skeins of sock yarn for no reason. 

So, I’m toying with thoughts of selling hand-dyed yarns: that way, I can enjoy the process without adding hugely to my stash or going broke.

I don’t want to be one of those people who ‘dye three skeins of yarn and open an Etsy shop,’ as someone put it; but I think I’ll try it out. If I can get the habit to support itself, that’s fine. If not, I’ll have to cut back, at least until I’ve learnt some more.

Anywho, I’ll let you know how it goes ...

That’s all for this week – thank you so much for stopping by once again, and I hope you have a great week!

My boys are home from school next week, so we are already relaxing and watching Firefly; I will be going to a new-to-me knitting group on Thursday – and hopefully, the weather will behave, so we can get a few of those glorious, shining autumn days when the sun lights up the trees in their multitudes of colours against a deep blue sky ...

Take care, and Happy Knitting!