Read All About It!

I have just been notified by the editors of MenKnit that my submission for their Spring Issue was accepted. I am particularly excited as this will be my first published "design" ever! Of course, y'all will just have to wait until it comes out to see what it is...

Hide the sheep!

Well, I did it.

I found a round-trip ticket from Long Island/Islip to Midway for under $100 on Southwest and I realized that I could swoop in and out of town without taking a day off work, so I will be making my debut at Stitches Midwest. If I only I can fit into that damn debutante gown now...

The high point of my trip will be meeting Jon and Franklin, finally. Something tells me that we won't stop laughing all weekend.

I am registered for Embraceable Lace with Galina Khmeleva on Friday and Norwegian Mittens with Beth Brown-Reinsel on Saturday.

The Wolverinas eventually wore me down. They kept telling me how much fun it was to knit lace and how all the cool kids were doing it. (If OxyContin is White Trash Heroin, then Lace must be Queer Crack!) So, I figured that I might as well submit to the inevitable and learn from the best.

As for the Norwegian Mittens, it will be a very personal experience for me. One of the few things that I inherited from my Icelandic grandmother is a pair of mittens that she knit herself in a traditional Norwegian pattern. I have always wanted to make a pair of my own. My grandfather was Norwegian and I will be meeting relatives that I didn't even know existed until earlier this year when I travel there for my birthday in December. Something tells me that those mittens that I knit will be presented proudly to a distant cousin who will be playing host and tour guide on that trip.

All I know is that Chicago will never be the same. Those poor Midwestern housewives won't know what hit them when the Knitting Heathers make their entrance...

And Franklin better keep Dolores under lock and key for the weekend. If I had my way, I'd take her to Man's Country or the back room of the Cell Block, strap her to a spinning wheel, and "fleece" her until she calls me "Daa-aa-aa-dy!"

So, who else is going? And what classes are y'all taking?

Rainy Days

Today is a gloomy Saturday out here on Long Island. The kind of day that encourages you to stay indoors and focus on either housecleaning or introspection or both.

I had planned on playing softball today, but with all games being cancelled, my day all of a sudden had no purpose. Monte and I still have to decide whether we want to see a Bollywood concert tonight out on Long Island or go into the city and shake our groove thangs at Fur Ball. Knowing us, we will probably stay in unless I can get us going later today.

There has been no news on the knitting front. Sometimes you need a break from being creative. Of course, I may have been put off by Rocky getting a hold of my (most expensive) 9.0mm addiTurbos (imagine jagged teeth marks in the cord), as well as half of a skein of my Alchemy Bamboo, which is now horribly tangled. When forces are conspiring against you, you get the message and put the needles down for awhile.

I should really be doing some spring cleaning and reorganize my closet and chest of drawers. Then, I really should start organizing the office, so I have a clean space to work at. Of course, I should also go to the gym, but we all know how that is going to turn out...

We went to the GOAL Dinner/Dance last night. GOAL is the support group for gay and lesbian police officers/court officers/criminal justice professionals, which sounds sexy, but really isn't. I know some guys who get all hot and bothered at the thought of a man in uniform, but for most of us, it's just a job. I saw a lot of old friends and networked with some of the representatives from the other fraternal organizations. The best part of the evening was the shopping for an outfit I did during the afternoon. I used to be a real clothes horse, but now, I don't really have many occasions to dress up anymore. I picked up a Polo Ralph Lauren striped shirt, a matching Nautica tie (both in blue and pink stripes), a pair of very comfortable Dockers (42/30: Danger, Will Robinson!), a tan Oscar de la Renta blazer, Calvin Klein socks, and a pair of brown Kenneth Cole shoes. I got many nice comments on my outfit; I guess I still clean up real good, especially after a haircut.

I also haven't had a lot of time online this week, since I have been focusing on reading and sleeping. Just trying to catch up on the blogs and Cast-on. Maybe I'll pick up the pointy sticks and work a few rows...

New Features

Seeing as I didn't really have anything much to say, other than "I hope you all had a wonderful Easter or Pesach!", I thought that I would point out some new features on the blog. On the sidebar, we have three new additions: "On the Big Screen" refers to recent movies that we have seen on DVD on our big-ass 60" television, complete with 6.1 home theatre. (Seriously, one of the best things we ever got after each other and the cabin.) "On the Night Stand" are a sampling of the books and magazines that I am working through right now. Monte and I are both voracious readers; he's doing it now: Dune: The Machine Crusades, I believe. "On the Turntables" are recent CD selections that have either found their way into the Jeep Grand Cherokee or on the living room stereo. The Bob Mould hasn't left the car all week; same with the new Sigur Ros, but inside only. (Don't want to pass out while driving!)

You think my yarn purchases are out of control? I have had lots of practice at Barnes and Noble, trust me. What do I have to show for it? A wall of CDs, a guest room (actually, every room) filled with books, and a DVD collection that is growing exponentially. Two competing addictions actually help to assuage the guilt from spending too much by transferring my fetishism from one site to another. (I'll take any justifications that I can get!) The ironic thing is that both Monte and I really aren't all that materialistic; we just like a few select things and we focus our efforts on them. You just need to check out our landscaping and our closets to see that we don't have to keep up with everything.

I have also tried to organize my blogroll and sign up with various sites like Bloglines and Technorati, but the more I work through them, the more confused I become. It is interesting, however, to find out who is linking to your site, especially if they are strangers. I guess being a gay NYPD cop who knits is something of a novelty to most people. Seems pretty normal in my world.

And how was your weekend?

Mathematical knitting

I am finding that I am so busy during the work week that I tend to blog primarily on weekends. Of course, as a cop, my weekends can vary with the "Needs of the Department". I am working now in Crime Analysis with Fridays and Saturdays off. The new job is going very well, with the only complaint possibly being the early hours. Waking up with the birds at 4:00 a.m. has been a little challenging for me; however, I am already enjoying the early Summer afternoons...

After finishing the Camel Toe Hat on Friday, I began in earnest on my Fish Tale Socks in Alchemy Bamboo on Saturday. (Seeing the progress that Sean has been making on his Bamboo scarf inspired me to get going on them.) I spent all day getting acquainted with my new Size 2 addiTurbo 12" circular needles and had gone through about 3 repeats of the pattern when I noticed that I had somehow offset the pattern by 1 stitch about halfway down. Instead of trying to rip back and pick up all of the teeny, tiny stitches, I decided to just frog it all and start over. One entire day lost, but some small amount of knowledge gained.

Sunday was the start of my work week and it was such a glorious, sunny day that I met Monte in the city at the Dugout. We hadn't been to the local bear bar for the Sunday Soiree in quite some time, so it was nice to run into old friends and flirt with new ones. I then dragged the patient husband to The Point for the return of Boyz Night Out. Organized by the friendly and accommodating Berhan, this knitting circle was quite possibly the first time that I have ever felt totally comfortable in a LYS. I met a great group of predominantly gay guys who were quite welcoming and entertaining. We even kicked out some women who had wandered into the store inadvertently. My Camel Toe Hat got a great reception and I decided to cast on another hat instead of trying to focus on my first attempt at lace again.

I finished my Permutations Hat on Monday night. Here are a few photos:







When I first saw this Debbie Bliss Soho in the LYS, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had to buy 2 skeins of it for a yet-to-be-determined hat. I had been itching to cast it on for some time now and after the Camel Toe Hat I finally had some ideas of what to do with it. Since it was already variegated, I thought about making stripes, not of different colors, but of textures. I started with 90 sts on 6.0 mm 16" circs and did 12 rows of K3, P3 rib. I had then intended to do 12 rows each of purl, knit, purl, knit, purl and decreasing knit. Along the way, I started to think about mathematical systems and set theory, which changed my plans, of course.

I have always been fascinated with mathematics, in spite of the fact that I have never studied the subject formally beyond high-school algebra. I envy people who have had the opportunity to immerse themselves in calculus. I have daydreamed while poring over graduate-level course offerings, even though I really have no idea what differential equations or combinatorics are. Everything I have learned about mathematics has come from on-the-job training in my prior life as a music theorist. My mind immediately understands the concepts of set theory and group theory, even if I can't prove anything or even follow the many formulae involved.

So, in this hat, I settled on working with 3 different stitch patterns (purl=1, knit=2, K3,P3 rib=3) and started off trying to work through each and every permutation of this triad in three-row intervals. (If and when you see my pattern for Menknit, you will begin to understand my knitting obsessions.) There are 6 possible permutations of any 3 objects: 123, 132, 213, 231, 312, and 321. (I think the formula is n! (or n factorial) where n is the number of objects, but then again, I just know this intuitvely, so 3!=3x2x1=6.

Now, I love this Debbie Bliss wool because it feels to me like I am knitting with my beloved Lopi, except that the color changes with each stitch. It is a different experience from Noro, in that the new colors come so frequently. It seemed as each new stitch elicited an appreciative "ooh" from my lips. Unfortunately for this project, it also knits up way too fast. I started with a progressive rolling positive sub-cycle (123, 231, 312) and had planned to end with its reverse/inverse/converse (132, 321, 213) before the decreasing rounds. I quickly realized that I would run out of rows (and yarn) before I could complete all 6 permutations, so I ended up working only the first 3 three-row patterns or sets.

Some notes on my compositional decisions: The 12 rows of rib are "3". The permutation cycle begins with "1". The decreasing rounds were to be "2". Hence all 3 unique elements were to have defined structurally important locations in the hat. (Can you see the music theorist in me coming out?) The last 2 elements of a set were repeated as the first 2 elements of the next set, except for the middle two sets, which incorporated nested mirror inversions around "2". I also contemplated the potential for recursivity at higher levels of structure (while knitting!) by using each complete permutation cycle as the beginning element of a larger, unfolding permutation cycle. Maybe I'll try that with 3 or 4 different colors for a sweater someday. I won't bore you any further by spelling it out here...

Imagine my surprise when I was surfing knitblogs today and found a whole subcategory of mathematical knitblogs! I went from Franklin to Lee Ann to Sarah-Marie and that is when I found my calling as a knitting designer. On those pages, I even found a scarf that was based on the exact same idea as my Permutations hat, although they did manage to go and finish all 6 possible permutations. I discovered that my hat made use of group theory, where the group S₃ acts on the triple (P, K, K3P3 rib). Honey, I'm home!

Because I ended the hat early, I had to do the decreasing rounds in purl so as not to encroach upon the permutation cycle and turn the hat inside out, which I could do because each pattern was invertible with its converse. I was surprised to discover that my now-purl stitches before the knitted decreasing rounds created an edging to the hat and lent a pillbox shape to it. I was also pleased to see that this effect disappears when the hat is worn. What I have learned from my experiments this month is that hats make excellent opportunites for case study, much like an artist's sketches before the undertaking of masterpieces.

Short postscript on the bobble: The next day, Rocky got a hold of the hat and even though Monte said the hat was fine, I sensed something was wrong when I saw 1 tiny loop protruding from the top. Sure enough, Rocky had made a solitary cut in the wool and so, I ripped back until the hole was uniform, picked up the 45sts and decreased anew. I have been knitting long enough now that I knew what needed to be done and devised a plan to deal with the mini-crisis without shipping the puppy off to boarding school and ripping the whole thing out. I decided to commemorate this event by adding a bobble reminiscent of the buttons on top of baseball hats and with which Rocky is fascinated (read=chews) as well. The bobble is from page 55 of the fantastic new book "Mason-Dixon Knitting" and gives the hat a sort of Chinese flair when at rest. I immediately scooped up the book when I saw the mathematically-based log cabin blanket on page 67. Can't wait to delve into the Woolly Thoughts website!

Deconstructed knitting

It all started off so well. And then it just went horribly wrong. But wrong in a good way. Wrong in a "Don't even ask me for the pattern, 'cuz even I don't know what I did."

This is what happens when you simply let knitting happen. This is what happens when you listen to all of Philip Glass's Music in Twelve Parts in one sitting. And you knit through it. And you change your pattern when the music changes. And then you just go with what you've started. And then you add a heel flap at the top of your hat. I mean, why not?

This is deconstructed knitting. If Derrida worked with yarn instead of words, this is what he would come up with. Actually, it's probably more Kristeva than Derrida. Knitting before language. Knitting as a representation of the Semiotic, before the Symbolic (and the Real) ruined knitting for all of us.

I give you my Camel Toe hat.



Let's see if I can remember some of what I did. The heel flap. What was I thinking? I picked up 8 sts on either side and basically ran out of yarn by the time I got through the decreases. Oh well, it gives the hat its name.



From the back, you can see all of the holes and slipped stitches. I was knitting buttonholes and drawing yarn through them for motion.



The top view shows what happens when you loop yarn in order to knit with the same color in a variegated pattern for a particular section. Also what happens when you knit holding three strands at a time.



A side view shows the camel toe in profile, with the gussets unfortunately hidden. It also highlights my favorite purled topography on the hat.



An unexpectedly cool shot of an unexpected cool hat. And to think it all started with Queer Joe and his faux rib hat. I just couldn't do another plain hat, even if it did have a repeating pattern.

KnitDad has written about how hard it is for him to just let loose and knit. I feel that it is both the mathematical aspect and the structure of knitting that attracts many male knitters. And it is hard for many of us to let go of all that and simply play with our yarn.

Don't take yourself too seriously. Have fun with your needles. Who cares about what it's going to look like when you are done? We have enough deadlines and expectations and standards in our lives. Perfection is highly overrated.

So how was your week?

I had a very interesting week as I have been transitioning from one job to another at the precinct. Of course, I am training my replacement at the same time as I am trying to figure out my new workload. Suffice to say, busy days with no time to knit on meal. That doesn't mean that I haven't been getting any work done. I present another hat.



This is how I like to picture Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk DK, not as a tangled mess in the dog kennel. (I actually attempted to disentangle that abomination, but decided after an hour of unproductive TV watching that I could afford to buy more yarn if I needed to. After all, life is too short for yarn nests.) The hat is for a softball teammate who requested a simple hat in blood orange. I eschewed the ribbing to give it a porkpie look and made it shorter than I am comfortable with in order to maintain that look. I think that I am happy with it, especially as it is so delicate.

Of course, I have another hat on the way.



I found a loophole in my personal stash acquisition clause. A skein of yarn does not become classified as stash if I knit it within 24 hours of its purchase. Therefore, this lovely Claudia Handpainted Chunky is totally legit. Note to Queer Joe: If you feel like someone in the universe is cursing you right now, it's only me as it was you who gave me the idea to do this hat in faux rib. Who knew something so easy could be so annoying?

Of course, my crankiness could be a result of me making it through to Day 4 of Skoal withdrawal. I have been dipping tobacco for more years than I can remember. However, with my mother going into the hospital this week back home with emphysema, I decided that enough was enough. I was up to a can every two days, so think of all the money (and teeth) that I will save. Marilyn really is all angels and kittens compared to me this week!

I almost forgot. I took Monte into the city yesterday for a noon-hour concert with Coldplay. Yeah, that's right: me and Monte and maybe two hundred people in a small club interacting with Chris and Jonny from Coldplay. We chatted, we laughed, we pathetically requested songs from the back of the room. I could have even sung with them onstage if I could remember lyrics. They are both very down-to-earth, so it was worth the trip in just to see them both as people instead of FREAKING ROCKSTARS! Just one more reason why I love living around New York City. (I won the tickets from a radio station and when they post pictures, I'll post pictures.)

So how was your week?

Not for the faint of heart...

I have to warn you. What you are about to see will turn the stomach of any hardcore knitter. It may cause you to break down and cry at the mere sight of it. Do NOT scroll down if you are easily upset, emotionally unstable, or eating breakfast. I take no responsibility for any lingering depressions or recurring nightmares that may result from the viewing of this photo.

Seriously, turn away from the screen. Now.

This could scar you for life. Really.

Why are you still scrolling down?

You must be some kind of sick bastard.

You are mesmerized by accident scenes.

Fire fascinates you.

Your friends think that you are seriously disturbed.

This is your last chance to move on to the next blog.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Here is what happens when you leave your knitting out around a rottweiler puppy who thinks that everything is a chew toy. Note the complete severance of the plastic connecting the circular needles. Also note the destruction (and probable digestion) of the bamboo tips of same circular needles. I may never be able to touch alpaca silk without feeling a twinge of remorse. Debbie Bliss may never let me knit with her yarn again. What's even worse is that Rocky keeps taking it out of the trash and hiding it in his kennel. I can't even give it a decent burial.

Of course, I could just use this misfortune as justification to visit my LYS. Hope they still have the same dye lot...

I'm too funky for this frou-frou!

At last it can be revealed! Jon's "F*** the government; I ain't giving them S***!" presents. I had to wait for the package to arrive in Colorado before I could inflict them on the world. Jon gave me only two restrictions: Nothing too funky and nothing too frou-frou! So, of course, I had to find the definitive examples of both!

Sean and I picked them out for him last weekend and we had so much fun laughing at some of the hideous yarns out there. Little did Jon know that I had already posted his presents for everyone to see. (It's called steganography, bitch. Look it up!)



I love this photo so much that I just had to post it again. In it, we have the only Schaeffer yarn that truly reflected Jon's personality.



I was torn between this and "Andrea", which is a lovely looped mohair, but at 600yds, "Nancy" was a much better value and described Jon perfectly. (He asked for enough for a complete project and I tried to satisfy this demand with this yarn. What a pushy bottom!) The stunning colorway is called Toni Morrison, for reasons unbeknownst to me.



Sean and I joked that our "Beloved" Jon can channel his inner African-American lesbian while he knits it up. After all, he is already good at sticking it to the man...

The final selection was a last-minute whim on my part. I just couldn't resist it when I saw the name of it: Disco Lights!



It is a lovely natural silk product with, wait for it...SEQUINS! For anyone who has seen pictures of Jon in drag, you know that sequins are a fake girl's best friend. (I refer you to his blog without any directions from me. The curious among you will find them. I can't be held responsible for any psychological damage that results upon the viewing of said items. Personally, I think he looks FIERCE!) Woolcott and Co. does carry another, similar yarn by Tilli Tomas with real Swarovski crystals in place of the sequins, but at $130 for a 50g skein, I don't know of a single drag queen who could afford them. Besides, I could just imagine the blood that would result from a real crystal scarf! Seriously, they'll put anything in yarn these days!

So there you have it. Nothing more funky than Toni Morrison and nothing more frou-frou than sequins. Jon was scared to open the package, but he told me that after putting on his Haz-Mat suit (he's kinky like that), he finally did and loves them. He's already got projects planned for them, including a tube top out of the Disco Lights...

My God, Sean! What have we wrought upon the world? A knit tube top with sequins!

Gentle readers, please accept my humblest apologies. Another horrible design for knitty.com!