Celtic Cable

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Monday, August 30, 2010

A Knitting Room of One's Own ...

  
     With appropriate apologies to Virginia Woolf, of course. My next online-learning experience is Women Writers. Only two books! One of them is rather large, though. And, not only do I get to slog through "A Room of One's Own" for the second time, I get to read and discuss "The Yellow Wallpaper" for the third time! Or fourth ... I've been in three different colleges/universities since 2001, I can't always keep them straight. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a perennial feminist favorite, and very easy to write about, so it's in most lit classes.


     Now, I have nothing against Virginia Woolf, but for me, reading "A Room of One's Own" would be far more enjoyable without the very thing that critics laud it for -- the stream-of-consciousness rambling that is basically "I was asked this question about literature, so I'm going to the river to answer it, then I pondered a leaf, and then went to a library at a men's university where they wouldn't let me in because I was a woman." I like flights of fancy as much as the next person, but they make for difficult study, sometimes. Get to the point!


     The good thing about being assigned "The Yellow Wallpaper" yet again, is that I can recycle my essay from a couple of years ago (after I make sure I don't have the same professor, of course). Would I do that? Darn straight! I did it with "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and I'll do it again. Literature is timeless, it's our way of looking at it that changes.


     But, on to knitting. I started a new WIP to replace the FO'd socks ... the Arachne Alpaca Lace Ring by Cherle Oberle, from the Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders (one of my all-time favorite books). This is for a friend's birthday in October. It's knit out of the silk-merino I spun up a few weeks back. Oh, the link is for Ravelry members only, sorry! 




     And my toe-up socks are coming along, but they are bigger than my feet: 

 

     They had to have a certain number of stitches for the heel design; I had a choice of 28 or 32, and I chose poorly. My efforts to estimate gauge are about as successful as my ability to translate inches to yards without a computer program. 

     Gratuitous pet shot: 
 
At least they get along. Edgar put up with Petunia for about five minutes, then shoved her off with his back legs.
    
   Off to bed with me...I just drank a pot of chamomile tea and it's starting to kick in! Good night, everyone! And thanks for reading.

3 comments:

  1. Ah, The Yellow Wallpaper...now that brings back memories. It's funny how you will remember some stories and not others and that one caused such a large debate in my lit. class.

    I wish I had knitting back then to get me through all those courses.

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  2. As a former literature teacher, I highly encourage you to recycle your essay. After all, they are recycling their assignments!

    Lovely spun yarn, I have to say. Finding your blog has really inspired in me a new-found love of orange.

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  3. WWG: That one I remember because it was so obvious -- overbearing but fond husband slowly driving wife insane, no one listening to the wife because she was just a feeble woman ... and the baby was just a blip in the story, not even there.

    Laura: Thanks :-) that yarn was a dream to spin. I spun some on a drop spindle and the rest on the Kromski, and it was just a breeze. I find I like the blends with silk best. They're a bit slipperier, but they spin up so nicely!

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