Knitting

Sushi, pie, sandwiches, potato chips...all cute:

I had read about this craftswoman in BUST a long time ago and then couldn't find any of her work for a while. Thanks Sheila Lennon by way of the Ms. blogroll!

I love burritos from Chipotle. I could eat them every day for lunch and dinner, and maybe breakfast too if they were to come out with a breakfast burrito. :-)

My friends are having babies faster than I can knit blankets and booties and stuff for them! Amanda, I'm working on something for little Milo now. I really hope you guys like it.

Welcome to the world, Zachary Paul. :-) We'll have your blanket done in a couple of days.

Right now I'm working on a stockinette square for a baby blanket:

and last night I just started a red scarf, also in stockinette. It's pretty narrow, and I'm going to use the whole skein of yarn to knit it--in other words, it's going to be very, VERY long. I want it to be as long as my charcoal gray ankle-length coat, this long, bright red train behind me and ahead of me, like I'm at the Oscars, heh. Okay, now everyone's thinking that's so narcissistic, but hey! I don't care. It's going to be an awesome scarf.

Andrea Porter has been a very good friend of mine since I was in 7th grade and she was in 8th. She is now living in Tuscaloosa and working on a Ph.D. in English at the University of Alabama. When I came into town (I live in Minnesota but am from Alabama, and I'm in Bama now visiting), I called her to see if she was coming to Florence anytime soon. She wasn't, so I told her I'd meet her halfway between Florence and Tuscaloosa. The halfway point was...Haleyville, AL. The emergency phone number 911 started there, as they proudly proclaim on a sign when you enter the town:

Haleyville: Where 911 Began.

Anyway, we met at the Hardee's in Haleyville and then went on to the Haleyville Diner, where we had some country vittles. After we ate, Andrea taught me how to purl, so now I can knit that stockinette square for the baby blanket. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, see this post. Andrea and I talked about dissertation ideas and all kinds of other stuff; it was a great visit. Andrea, if you're reading, I want to talk to you more often!

Oh, and a memory from childhood popped into my head today. I was driving past a sign that was advertising the Helen Keller Festival, and I thought of this time that I was in (I think) second grade. The teacher was talking about the Revolutionary War, the Lexington and Concorde battle. It was called "The Shot Heard 'Round the World." I promptly raised my hand, thinking I had something really smart and valuable to point out, and said, "But Helen Keller didn't hear it." The teacher got so angry! I know it wasn't a cool thing to say, but I wasn't trying to sass the teacher or be ableist. What I said was in earnest. Plus, Lexington and Concorde happened 100 years before Helen Keller was born. Ah, kids and the darndest things they say.

Gah! Turns out I didn't really know how to purl, so I wasn't stockinetting after all! Oh well, Aimee is going to have two garter-stitched squares and two stockinetted squares. In case you have no idea what garter stitching is, here's a pic:

Okay, so I just attended the most phenomenal talk by Victoria Vesna. She's a new media artist who has done all these beautiful projects. She was a great speaker too, very relaxed and funny. When she walked onstage, I was shocked at how young she was; I thought she looked far too young to be a department head and full professor. Anyway, she has done work that looks at bodies in networked spaces (Bodies INCorporated) and now she's working on a project about nanotechnology in the body. She is working with Katherine Hayles and nanoscientist Jim Gimzewski. I'm having trouble describing her work; you just have to see it! One thing her work makes me think of is the book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. If you haven't read it, it gives seven principles that help you to think like da Vinci. One was (don't know the exact spelling) arte-scienza: the recognition of how closely connected art and science are. Her work embodies that principle very well.

I was going to go to another session, but I'm tired and just wanted to come back to the hotel and chill and watch Comedy Central for a while. I think in a few minutes I'm going to get out my knitting. Now that I'm done with my presentations, I can finally knit...it's my reward. My current project, in collaboration with my friend Amy Patrick, is a baby blanket for our friend Aimee Whiteside (I feel comfortable calling it out like that; she's probably not reading this). She's due to give birth to a baby boy in July. The blanket we're making is with the same yellow and green yarn that we used to make Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch's baby's blanket. I'm working on a 15-inch by 15-inch green square. We're doing a stockinette stitch, which is supposed to look like this:

Mine doesn't though. It just looks like a regular garter stitch. Oh well. Off to knit!