Ah, I apologize, grow. It was porkpal who made that unkind suggestion....but perhaps she is unaware of my deep need to blend into the background--preferably sans hat.
Moxon--caterpillars do not hide under rocks...don't be silly. Grubs hide under rocks...and nice little Southern Royalists who may have a hat if they so desire, but might prefer one unique to their own quirky temperament and in a color other than chartreuse?
Where's Catscan?
Grownut! I am sure no one here wishes to hold a candle to dear Moxon. That would be cruel. It is just that sort of thoughtless behaviour that will give the Forum (seen world wide by poultry lovers everywhere) a bad name. Put it out of your thoughts and we will speak of it no more.
As for Claire's putative sizzle--I think ZZ and silkiechick were the mutant feather mavens. I may be wrong....my luck with frizzles, let alone, sizzles, is zip.
Well, I still think my goose is nice.
I await ZZ's opinion on my s(fr)izzle.
I have found my next pattern. Of course, you'd have to be on Ravelry to see it. And all the other patterns in my queue. There are such lovely sock patterns. on. Ravelry. Catscan.
Your goose is very nice, Moxon...why is he called "Slappy"? I cannot have geese....
Ravelry? Where have I heard of that before? I think I'll just go on line and take a little look......
He is called Slappy because that is the noise his feet make when he walks around in the general vicinity of the duck and goose play pool, because the ground is usually wet, and his enormous feet make a slapping noise on the ground. it's very endearing, truly. I think you could add a goose to your basement flock.
Ravelry....of course....I am WhisperingAcres.
I do wonder what the Caterpillar was smoking in that hookah, then. I suspect some form of opium, since opium dens were not in such a distant past at the time that Charles Dodson was writing. And YOU may not be Sixties but I am.
I have no opinion on frizzles or sizzles, sticking mainly to dual-purpose birds as I do. However, your goose is lovely, Claire. We have only two Toulouse and one Chinese left, and I fear that the Chinese will go the way of all flesh come butchering time this fall since he has lost his mate. Talk about adding insult to injury....
Claire, that hat is fated for you, and would be far more lovely and a propos than that serpentine confection you are modeling in that photograph!
Shhhh! We need to back off on the hat lest we unduly harass our valued member. In the future perhaps the subject can be approached more obliquely. It has merit.
As for the caterpillar I always felt that Like Sherlock Holmes his hookah did indeed contain opium - but then many of Alice's acquaintances were quite strange without apparent chemical enhancement, so who knows...
Well goodness gracious, how audacious. She said my elf hat was serpentine! Oh! Ohhhh! The pain!!!
I'm glad you like my goose though! :-) I hatched him from a mailed egg and he was the only 1 of 4 that made it. He doesn't make much noise, which is why I think it's a "he" because my male ducks don't make much noise either.
My favourite member of the Alice entourage is the white rabbit.
I love geese; they have such high opinions of themselves! I don't have a good place to keep them or an adequate excuse to create such, but I do admire yours.
Porkpal, but what about the mushroom... Was it Jefferson Airplane who sang "One to make you larger, and another to make you small - Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall"? They obviously recognized that there was some mind-altering going on.
Did I mention a hat? I don't recall any hat! Geese, perhaps, but no, the subject of hats has never crossed my lips. Someone must be hallucinating. Mushrooms, anyone? Claire, I think I hear your goose and your knitting calling. Or your goose honking and your knitting clicking? Or your goose clicking and your knitting honking? Hat? What hat?
Leslie
I keep thinking I hear people talking about hats, but then it sort of disappears. I must have spent too much time in the sun today. I'm just going to sit here and spin.
Serpent!
Does anyone remember the pigeon calling Alice a serpent and accusing her of eating eggs in Alice in Wonderland--it was just after the caterpillar?
Here it is....Serpent!
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/metastuff/wonder/ch5.html
And I don't remember a hookah in Sherlock Holmes--although it sounds very likely. I do remember "Quick, Watson the needle!" and the Seven Percent Solution--with Nicol Williamson--an extra-ordinary actor.
Just scuttling back to Ravelry.....
gah! Was that one Jefferson Airplane?! I'm still traumatized by the "Go ask Alice" video from Jr. High...
Well...I think this thread gives ample evidence...one does not need to use any of the mind altering substances mentioned...one merely takes an innocent peek at the poultry forum here at DG and suddenly the world is all melty and Mandelbrot-y....I'm still bleary from the last bit...;p
yessss....
Hmmm....lookin' at Ravelry, there was a "Catwicks" and an "Alicynwonderland" joined today....do you know anything about either of those, Catscan?
Did you look at my queue? Did you see the Queen Anne's Lace Scarf?
oh....wow....Queen Anne's Lace Scarf???..........ummmm...
Here's a picture of one that somebody made. It's not my picture but it is from a Ravelry user.
Nope--I am "catatonia".....scary, huh?
Haven't looked at anything yet--too immobilized by the wonder of it all. You look nice, though.
Going back....
I haven't decided what colour/type of yarn to use yet. There are over 640 Rav users who have made it and posted photos of it, so lots of different "looks" to choose from!
Lovely, but looks suspiciously like crochet....you wouldn't be indulging in that AGAIN would you? Looping and pulling rather than mastering the noble purl? Tch...Tch..Tch.....
Really like the pattern. Think I'd want it all one color, or close anyway, to really show off the stitches...
i have "friended" you. :-)
You could go to the patterns tab and type in "socks" under the search, and you might be there all night looking at the results.
I have joined 3 of the "swap" groups and am having fun with that part too. it's very addictive.
We mustn't let our own insecurities about crochet warp our perspective so much that we develop random TCHs now, must we...lol...tch, tch...
I do BOTH and have any number of incomplete projects to prove it...good grief, Charlie Brown!!
Catscan, I must await your tutorial.....I need to keep crocheting in the meantime to keep my fingers warm and prepped for purling.
{{is purling still really giving you fits, Claire?}}
I'm sorry Grownut, did you say something? No, I didn't think you did. Right then. Sorry to have disturbed you, under your large rock, from which you so carefully observe the world around you and of course you would never, ever make snide comments about anyone's knitting inabilities....would you now....no of course not....not that I'm even implying anyone here has knitting inabilities. On the contrary, I'm sure we're all quite expert knitters, aren't we now. Yes yes, indeedy doodle we are. :-P
I must admit (hangs head) that my first attempt at crocheting resulted in a baby bonnet that would fit Joseph Merrick with room to spare.
This may have created an unreasonable prejudice against crocheting...this and the piles of partially completed 1970 colour spectrum granny squares... and a crib blanket that fits a California King mattress.
I seem to have gauge issues.....
I wasn't going to tell you that there are 27 pages worth of patterns for crocheted socks, but in view of your very humble gesture regarding your own crochet issues, I don't feel so bad doing so now. Maybe I could even crochet divine socks for you?
Ha. I can start anything....finishing is what I simply can't master. Sorry!!
Didn't in any way mean to be snide...well...Catsy was so after the crochet thing...but...well I try to behave it just doesn't come naturally to me...
umm. Put the needles nose to nose. With the empty needle (assuming the start of a row) SPEAR that first loop, make sure the point of the spear comes out on the side closest to your body and the yarn is also on your side and not t'other one. Now consider that you've stabbed that poor inoffensive loop in the shoulder. Put the yarn over his shoulder and around the offending spear. Hold firmly to avoid harming them poor loops any further. Now. Lift the poor lil guy's head (the first loop) over that bit of yarn over his shoulder and off the offending spear altogether. And let him drop. Purllittleguy...
Dunno if that was altogether unnecessary, unhelpful, unwelcome, un....precisely HOW bad have I been here?? Perhaps I'm better offgrovelling under my rock....
OMG your description of purling is priceless. I was off feeding Marshmallow her evening bottle....didn't see it come up. That is too funny. I will try it tomorrow. See, every time I do it, I get this long length of yarn between my needles, that gets longer and longer, and it ends up being like about a foot long, between the needles, and I'm quite sure that's not right....
Um, if anyone thought I was being serious when I told Grow she was being snide, those persons should hereby return their "silly club" badges to me and do something entirely silly to earn them back.
Grownut does not have the capacity to be snide.
Moxon does not have the capacity to purl. Yet. But she will, dang gummmit!!!!
It is after 11 pm, Marshmallow and I must retire....(here is a pic of us this morning when we woke up)
Awww....Everybody needs one!
You instructions were entirely accurate, grow....Were I not so traumatized by my unwise confession of crochet inadequacy, I would pitch in with my own translation...the problem with purling is, having learned to knit, the novice practitioner must unlearn the movements and replace them with far less sensible ones.
Okay, I will try...a little.
1) Hold the knitting before you, knitted stitches on needle in left hand, free needle in right hand. Deep breath...
2) Point the left needle with its stitches straight up. Plunge the dangerously pointy right needle down into the first stitch, making sure that it emerges in front of the knitted material. You right needle is now pinned between the left needle and its first loop of yarn. You may level off the needles here....
3) Holding the free yarn in your right hand (we are doing it English style here) and approaching the protruding right needle from the front, loop the yarn over the protruding needle and down behind it, then back toward you. This puts a loop over the needle so that it has both the original stitch and the new loop on it.
4) You now want to pull the new loop backwards through the first stitch....now you have only the new stitch on the right needle and the yarn tail is coming out toward you.
5) Pull the new loop to the right and that will pull original stitch up and off the left needle. The new loop is now the stitch on the right needle.
Repeat ad infinitum...or nauseum, depending on whether it worked or not.
You will adjust the movements to be comfortable for you--everyone knits in a unique way...no one I know actually holds the left needle straight up--but it makes it easier to describe.
I want to sleep with the sheepes! I hate Moxon...she has everything!
This message was edited Aug 2, 2009 12:45 AM
Aha, and that's if you don't knit European style, as I do, having been taught at her knee as a wee one by my Hungarian granny. I somehow do an extra twist, as well, resulting in a lovely texture. But alas, carpal tunnel syndrome has had its way with me and I knit no longer. (Huge sobs)
I once knitted half a sweater with that extra twist. Took a break and COULD NOT figure out how to do anything but a normal purl. Six months before I got it.
(I do it the way Catsy says, but I'm a lefty and couldn't remember whether it was standard or left-handed that I was doing)
Claire --it sounds a bit like you are not being quite merciless enough with the 'over the shoulder' yarn. Once over the shoulder it should go round the spear and come out the bottom and towards your right thumb. Kinda like stabilizing the spear with a firmly held piece so you can free the poor, inoffensive first loop. I seem to remember vast expanses of space between my needles when I first tried the purling thing. And I believe the fix was to keep the yarn on the side of the needle I was knitting onto. (onto which blahblah...) If I keep the yarn on the left I just stretch more with every purl...infuriating as I have to use about #3 needles to knit a 7 gauge anyway.....horrible saggy-baggys!
g_g ---that weird purl thing I did...it was going through the BACK portion of the loop and doing it on the 'away' side rather than the side towards my body. Resulted in a beautiful crossed look to the front loops. But nobody knew where it came from until I accidentally purled wrong one day...
This message was edited Aug 2, 2009 8:25 AM
Marshmallow Cuddle-Pillow is scrummy!! Too cute for words.
Catsy ---think the hardest thing about crochet is to pick your political affiliation and stick to it. Hold your credo (er, stitches) firmly in one hand and work either the right side only or the left side only, depending. A little right and a little left mixed together make for horrors...
Grownut, that's exactly how I purl - I think. I knitted a beautiful heathery blue sweater for myself when in college, and it had the loveliest texture. For some reason I ditched it when going through a house-cleaning and I've kicked myself ever since.
I bought a gorgeous heavy handknit sweater in France a few years ago from a woman who raised her own sheep. It had a similar look to my old one although the colors were a natural beige-ish. The woman who knitted it was German, so maybe that twist came from there.
No one could figure out what I had done for the longest time. But I LOVE that texture. The cross tightens it just enough to help my loose knitting and it's a really subtle effect. Stupid sweater was totally out of style and I'd outgrown my choice (more to the point for me!!) by the time I figured out how to finish knitting it though. Never did get worn much...