Sunday, October 31, 2004
IT NEVER ENDS!
God has a sense of humor. Take it from me. God, full of immortal wisdom, loves to look at us and chuckle as we often do at middle school students. "Oh, what were they THINKING?"
I switched the strap to two double-pointed needles so that it wasn't on the longer size 3's. It was starting to feel like knitting with two yardsticks. Very skinny yardsticks.
I'm thinking that it's possible to knit one row, unknit one row without noticing on the dpn's. Every time I pin the strap to the base and throw it over my shoulder, it's too short. I think "only another 3 inches." Knit three inches, same story. Varying amounts of stretch? Possibly. God looking at my goal of finishing by the weekend and chuckling? Definitely. Even with the extra hour of time due to daylight savings time, no go.
I still have a few hours before Jen comes to take me out for drinks and jazz. I was hoping to have it done by then. I still might. Only three more inches to go.
Saturday, October 30, 2004
For the Children
See Fatigue’s bottom.
Finished bottom! Finished!
See Fatigue’s strap.
Pretty strap, pretty.
See Seminarian contemplate the subtle nuances and discrepancies between these two pieces. The beauty in the simple utilitarianism of the base, the subtle hints at socialist leanings. The sophistication of the strap, how it makes a startlingly bourgeois contrast to the entirety of the bag. The last thing the Seminarian wants is a philosophically incongruent piece. Plus, the cabling is taking a really long-ass time and Fatigue has Seminarian fatigued to the point of nausea.
See Seminarian gleefully bind off hideously bourgeois strap to make a bookmark and start doing 12 more inches of plain garterstitch.
Yay, Seminarian! Yay!
Fatigue will be conquered by the end of the weekend!
Friday, October 29, 2004
Aftermath
Unfortunately, I took no pictures of knitting at Katie's. I'm still in denial of the fact that I'm a knitting nerd, and I think that pulling out my camera in front of a bunch of people and say, "do you mind if I...? It's for my blog," wouldn't help matters much.
The choosing of a project of your initial entry into a stitch n bitch is crucial. You don't want to take something so hard that it appears that you're showing off, yet it is important to accurately portray your skills so as to place you correctly in the hierarchy of knitters. On a less political scale, you want to take something that doesn't require you to cross your eyes in concentration on every row. It's a social occasion, one that requires you to talk, to converse, which is much more difficult when your tongue is sticking out from focus. Ok, maybe I'm the only one who does that.
I decided to take Justin's Momscarf. The cable shows that I'm unafraid to...well...cable, but is simple enough and I've been working on it long enough that I'm very comfortable with the pattern and can tell within half a row if there's a problem brewing.
When I arrived, Katie told me that everyone cancelled in the past 24 hours, but she wanted to catch up with me. I haven't seen her since I moved in in late August. We talked and knitted for three and a half hours! She's still working on projects I recognized from Baltimore and couldn't hide her brimming pride at the fact that she taught ME how to knit. :-D
The ball on Justin's Momscarf had shrunken quite a bit from its original unwieldy state when I wound two skeins into one ball bigger than my head. And with the help of Heavenly Creatures, and early Peter Jackson film this morning, I'm proud to present...anouther FO!! (Insert Dramatic Fanfare here.)
Please excuse the bad haircut. It was only $12.
Tee Hee! I give it two thumbs up! I wonder if she will.
Blatant attempt/failure to disguise my hideous double chin.
I'm in a conquering mood...what shall I conquer next?
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Knitting Knight and Homeful Hopes
Hey, I didn't come up with the cheesy alliteration, at least for the first part. :-)
I've been invited to a Knitting Knight (yes, that's how the hostess spelled it) on Thursday. The gal who actually taught me to knit lives in Hyde Park, just a coupla blocks away. We've been trying to get together for a little while now, but to no avail. Hob-knobbing with her stylish friends holding sangria with my $12 haircut just didn't seem like a lot of fun, but if I had YARN in my hands...well that's an entirely different situation. Thursday night at 8! Yay! I'll get pictures, if I can seem cool doing it.
I'm not gonna post til Friday, sorry folks. I have a paper due Thursday and three classes for which I've done no reading/studying for before it's due. Crunch time. Why am I writing now? Because I just woke up and my eyes aren't open enough to sufficiently focus on Hebrew vowel points.
Why didn't I get anything done during "reading week"? I've never used reading week to catch up, to get ahead. I was basking in the glow of being in Pittsburgh. I didn't realize how much I missed everything. I miss seeing men in black fedoras was tallises hanging below their coats walking to the synagogue. I miss the hills. I miss Justin most.
There's a woman who lives across the hall. She's been married for two years now. Her husband is in New Orleans and she is in Chicago, and there they will stay for the next three years, seeing each other at holidays, odd weekend visits.
I've been in the critical stages of homesickness since I got back. I skipped Hebrew on Monday and considered skipping Pilgrimage in Faithfulness last night (but didn't). I don't want to leave the comfort and familiarity of my room. I feel like I'm Jennifer Connelly in "The Labyrinth." There's a scene in the goblin world where she enters a garbage dump and gets told to enter a room. When she opens the door, she discovers it's her room at home. She closes the door and you can just tell she thinks she's woken up from the dream, that she's safe back at home, the dream or the adventure or whatever, is over. She's so convinced, that the audience (meaning me when I was 10 and finally saw the Labyrinth) is convinced as well. Until one of the garbage pickers comes in, pretty much crashing the whole illusion. I feel like my room here is familiar. I can knit here, I have pictures of people I love here, I can watch the same movies here that I do at home. As soon as I open the door, though, the reality that I'm 8 hours from anyone I love comes crashing down on me. I hate when that happens.
So I asked this woman across the hall (she's only 27 or so) how she does it while we were in PIF last night. "You need to be absolutely certain that this is where you want to be. You need to believe it with all your heart that you belong here. That's the only thing that keeps me going."
I guess that's my problem. I know deep down that this is where I'm supposed to be. I love that we can discuss the negative impact of globalization on the "least of these" and not get shouted down by an angry chorus of "What are you, a communist?" But do I really "need" to be anywhere specific for seminary? I was extremely unhappy in Pittsburgh, I know that. I would go to class with that cold water in the stomach feeling, knowing that I was going to have no support when the discussion got heated. I know that academically, formatively, it wasn't the place for me. I was going to leave Pittsburgh hating the Pauline Epistles (which I hate already) which are the cornerstone of American Christianity (not the gospels, yeah, chew on that one). I was going to leave Pittsburgh with the sense that the only concrete mission (meaning where you actually help people with material needs) was to be done internationally, and only to people who were already Christians. In other words, you can build a church in Kenya for an impoverished Christian community, but get that stinky homeless man away from the seminary gates. Yes, the seminary had gates, big iron ones with walls 8 feet high.
Deep down, I know that this is the right place for me. Deep down, I know I'll fall in love with the place just like I did with Kenyon. Right now, though...I miss Justin. I've had that taste, first at seminary in Pittsburgh, and then the six months from March to August, of what it's like to be in the same city with him, to not have to schedule weekend visits and make room for him during Thanksgiving & Christmas breaks. When we first started dating, we had to do that whole juggling thing. But we didn't know each other as we do now, we didn't care about each other as much, we didn't love each other as much. Now that we've been together six years, I think it seems nonsensical to both of us to be apart. But he has a job that he loves, and I think he knows in his heart "that Pittsburgh is where he's supposed to be right now."
And Chicago is where I'm supposed to be right now.
I swear, these entries will get upbeat at some point. I swear!
Random Surfiness:
Just had to share. Reminds me of some sort of Monty Python sketch.
This was so accurate, it's scary. The descriptions...again, so accurate, it's scary.
I am a hybrid of: Girl Next Door Progressive Girl Click on the pictures below to read more:
|
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Busy
It would have been good if I had gotten any non-knitting work done during "Reading Week," like some actual reading.
I'm having trouble getting back into the groove. I think I am just in love with sitting around all day, stitching something up, and discovering that I've got a foot of work done at the end of the hour/movie/day. I love it. I wish I could do this for a living. But I'm not that talented, not that skilled with design, not that fast!
I look at "progress" pictures on other blogs and am just amazed. A front/back sweater panel in A DAY? I mean, if I spent an entire eight hours knitting, I'd maybe have a quarter, tops. And they all have jobs. Yeah, real jobs. Maybe. I think every knitblogger out there is either a student or a free-lance writer.
Anyway, the week of "progress"
Jacquard Sock: None. oops.
Justin's Momscarf: I added a good 2 feet to this. I maybe have a skein of yarn left on the ball to get through, which means it's two-thirds of the way done.
Samwise: Samwise was actually yesterday's big success story. Here I must take the time to post a picture.
I actually got to bind off and finish the decreases for the armholes. Keep in mind, I've never done a sweater before. This is all new. I'm curious to see how it will turn out, and I'm really glad I'm using Lamb's Pride Cheapy. A lot of work invested, but the work is fun. As a poor seminary student, parting with money is the hard part.
McFatigue: McFatigue has been the real success story of Reading Week. The bag itself is finished, the buttons bought, and I'm doing pretty well on the cable pattern for the strap. Here's a hint, if you ever undertake the "slip-stitch method" for the edges of anything. The first stitch in the row, slip as if you KNIT it. Then, ALWAYS purl the last stitch of the row. It doesn't matter what the stitch before is, or what you think the pattern should be.
Farmer's Market Bag: Too difficult to follow the Fair Isle/Intarsia pattern while watching the West Wing (Christmas please!), but I did manage to TINK it all the way back and start over going around right to left. One small step for normal knitters, a huge giant, wonderful victory for me.
Knitty has it's "bonus pattern" up for the fall issue. There are actually four patterns, all inspired by Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I encourage you to check it out in the "patterns" section.
Have a good day all!
Thursday, October 21, 2004
At the Doctor's
My grandfather was a GP back in the years right after WWII in Elizabeth, PA. His office was in the basement and it seemed like he delivered a lot of babies. He was famous in the area until his death. I had a social studies teacher tell me that he blames my grandfather for the pain of his polio vaccination. The folks at church still call him "Doc," even after his death. My grandfather was the only one to call him "Jim."
The horrible thing about being the granddaughter of a 1940's -1950's doctor is the horrible home remedies. Sweat out a fever, got a cold, sit on the toilet. Everything could be solved with a BM and regularity was the ultimate sign of health. He died of colon cancer several years ago, and when diagnosed, he told the oncologist, "Now, I don't know if I believe you, because to be perfectly honest...I'm a stool watcher and I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary." My mother who was sitting there with them almost fell out of her chair trying not to laugh.
So I guess you could say that my view of doctors have always been black and white. Either they were going to tell me to sit on the toilet and then go wrap up in 80 electric blankets, or they were going to tell me in that cold clinical voice that I needed to lose weight, or that I walked incorrectly, or that I was done growing. Never good news.
My mother took my brother and I together to the pediatricians until my brother was about 10 or so. I remember that the examination table had two great cubby holes and we'd always hide underneath them and try to scare the doctor when he came in. We'd actually FIGHT over who went first! I remember when my mother had cut herself on a rusty hanging basket full of flowers, back when the hangers were made out of metal, not plastic. My brother and I had our appointments the next day, so instead of running to the emergency room for a tetanus shot, or scheduling her own appointment, she just mentioned it as a "by the way" to the doctor, and gave her a tetanus shot before we left. Think the HMO today would have let him do that? Yeah, I don't think so.
So I took Samwise and Fatigue to the pediatrician's yesterday.
I was expecting the worst. While I love Pittsburgh Knit and Bead, I'm far from a regular. It's too far away, and I'm not 100% keen on their yarn selection. But despite it's distance from my house, it IS the closest knitting store, and it IS right down the street from Justin's. When I first started going there, I thought they were a little rude, always asking you for help, kind of hovering. Then I read on a blog by one of their employees that they have major theft problems. Not a skein here or there, but whole sweaters worth of yarn disappear. So now when I go in, I greet them, look them in the eye, try not to take in a big bag, and tell them what I need.
First, I had to pass through the admitting nurse because the doctor was on the phone. I laid Samwise on the examination table. She poked, prodded, flipped Samwise over several times while I explained the problem. "You can see it at the top there and it just seems to be getting worse. I can't figure out what's causing it. Is he going to be alright?" She looked up at me with a look of grim earnestness on her face. "I think this is a problem for Tanya." Uh oh. You ever call back for test results and have the woman on the phone say, "I'm sorry, can you hold? The doctor would like to speak to you about this."
I decided to distract myself by looking for buttons McFatigue. I decided to change the name of my "square of knitstitch" as Stacie called him. He's going to look more Scottish with his new strap.
The big black one is for the actual closure. It's stone, I think, rough hewn, very cool. What's that other button?
When you have an army colored messenger bag, I think it's a requisite that it have a Che button on it. I'm not sure where it will go, probably just for decoration. But being the good McCormick student I am, I couldn't pass it up. Yes, I have socialist leanings. Call the FBI.
The doc got off the phone and the nurse called her over. Her hands were much gentler. She gave an interested, but not too panicked "hmm" when she examined the cable, and then, like all good doctors do, began to look for other symptoms. "Ah," she said, in such a matter-of-fact tone that I emitted a sigh of relief. "Here's your problem."
"You see how when you go from doing a purl stitch to a knit stitch [the left hand arrow], things are very tight and even? But when you go from a knit stitch to a purl stitch [right hand arrow], things look much different [she should have said sloppy, but she didn't. I love her for that]. You're too loose when you do that. See?" She pointed out every column where I went from knitting to purling, INCLUDING at the end of the cable section. Son of a gun! Tension!
Now at this point, I was really feeling like a novice moron. She looked up at me with kind eyes and said, "Don't worry about it, it's a common mistake. It's something that, if you were to take our master's knitting class, which you absolutely DON'T need, by the way, that's something they look for. Just try and tighten up those stitches from here on in."
Now, I can't tell how good of a job I'm doing. I think only time will tell. But since I learned Photoshop today, I figured I'd show you the old cables and the new one. I think the new one is much tighter, just my humble opinion.
She said with a smile, "Can I help you with anything else?" and just like my mother in need of a tetanus shot, I said, "Actually, yeah."
I don't know if you looked at the pattern from Knitty yesterday, but if you did, you'd notice an...unaccounted for situation. "Note: The first and last stitches are selvedge stitches and are not included in the cable pattern. Use the slip-stitch method."
Wha? I could find directions nowhere on the internet for this yesterday morning. McFatigue needed some help too. She explained the problem to me, and then showed me this adorable infant cardigan that actually used the pattern for its edging.
Crisis averted.
I felt like I owed her a yarn purchase. Yeah, I know. But I have no health insurance for my knitting projects. Now if Bush really wanted my vote, he'd come up with that type of program. Yarn pics later, like when I get back to Chicago. I like Photoshop, but it's a pain.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Dessert: God's Manna for the 21st Century
After half a box of Thin Mints, some reflection on the plights of others, a slice of raspberry jelly roll, some LOOOONG talks, and the realization that I'm facing a problem that has been diagnosed, (and some Gullifty's Turtle Cheesecake), I feel much better this morning. It also means that I'm unable to get back to sleep after Justin's 6:30 AM departure for work because of all the sugar still running through my veins, I decided to let you all know about it. Hope I didn't worry any of you, friend or stranger alike. It's sometimes comforting to know that I'm not getting 200 hits a day.
Knitting news: I decided, while I was packing, to break some rules in the voting, seeing as that's not a new practice in this country. I thought it was in the election season spirit. :-) So I brought 5 projects. To make it seem like I was following the rules, I've only really been working on three of them. I brought: Fatigue, Jaquard "Go Sox!" (even though they're blue), Samwise, Justin's Momscarf, and the Farmer's Market Bag. But I don't want to touch Samwise until his Dr.'s appointment (today at noon) and I forgot the support yarn for the "Go Sox!" so I don't want to start the heel.
The good news is that I finally have the Farmer's Market Bag under way! Yay!
I am a bit embarrassed, actually. I haven't really done much knitting here so far. I did get a lot done on Justin's Momscarf at Knitting Sunday. But I really haven't had the time (ironically) that I have at seminary to sit and knit. I'd rather look Justin in the eye when I talk to him, I think, and knitting by feel takes too much concentration (as does the Farmer's Market Bag).
The great success of the week has been Fatigue. :-) There's nothing that a new picture could tell you, I'm sad to say. Fatigue's main body is about an inch (that's like 40 rows, ugh) from being finished, but I think I may have finally found something to solve the monotony problem of the overall design.
God bless Knitty for so many wonderful ideas!
I think you can gather that cables are my new favorite thing. Yes, I'm an addict. No cable too challenging! Well, this might be...at least at this point in time. My plan is to scrap the directions that I have for the strap of Fatigue ("CO 12, K 12 for 36 inches" makes you scream with excitement, doesn't it?), and use the directions stated above. I'm going to try to do the cabled edging and sew that on as well. Hopefully, with the help of the West Wing, I'll be able to start some cabling by the end of the week.
The Dr.'s office also sells great buttons, so I may have to find a great Celtic looking button for Fatigue as well. Would that be like taking an extra lollypop or pretzel rod for the kid who DIDN'T have to endure the Dr.'s? What did you pediatrician's office give out? Drs. Watkins and Diamond gave a lollypop in the office and a pretzel rod at the door. Sugar and salt. Yum.
We end where we began, then. The incredible curing powers of sugar.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
So yeah, it's been a bad coupla days.
I'll tell you right now, this has nothing to do with knitting. Looking for progress on projects? Looking for new yarn acquisitions? Looking for exciting yarn fieldtrips? Look to the blogs on the right. Apparently there was a big sheep and wool festival this weekend that was sort of a Mecca for knitbloggers, so they all have lots of experiences to talk about.
I, on the other hand, am stuck in Pittsburgh wondering about my life. I'm confused about a lot of things, relationships, what God wants for my life, what I want for my life. Are those the same thing? Why do people feel that NOT telling someone something important is different than lying? Why do I insist on being a "paranoid nudnick" (thanks Toby Ziegler) and needing to know everything? Why do I go looking for answers? Why am I so unable to trust? Why can't I just walk away, stay at my house all week? Why do I need to work things out? Why have I hung in there so long to begin with? Why can't I get it out of my mind, the wretching noise I know I heard? Or did I make it up? Why would I make up ONE MORE FRIGGIN THING TO WORRY ABOUT? Why I can't I stop feeling that cold splash in the pit of my stomach that makes me shake and cry or otherwise stare at the wall with my hand over my mouth in utter disbelief? Why do I have to be here? Do you know how hard it is for me to deal with new people, or those people, when I'm stable? When I'm in a GOOD mood? When I'm NOT falling apart on the inside from doubt, mistrust, horror, terror and crippling fear?
I HATE THIS! GOD, WHY THE FUCK DID YOU PUT ME HERE??? WHY THE FUCK DID YOU PUT THIS IN MY LIFE??? JUST MAKE IT STOP AND TAKE IT AWAY!!!!
I can't take this anymore, I can't do this anymore!
There is no way that I'm going to be able to have a normal conversation with any of the 20 people I'm supposed to be to see this week. If it didn't mean stranding someone here with nowhere to go, I'd leave right now. Just gather up my things and go and never look back. Never talk about it again, never have to live through another event again, never have to acknowledge things, be supportive when I get lies and silence in return.
So now this is out there, for all of you to see and infer what you like. I'm going to take a shower and then watch Fahrenheit 9/11 to cheer me up before lunch at 1.
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Suprise!
I'm at home watching the dogs while my dad is out in Philadelphia visiting the rest of the family.
Here are the boys, Robby in the green, James in blue, chillin out on the quilt I made for Sammy. Alas, I do not know what to make these gorgeous babies...all four of them! Quilts just take tooo long.
They were on Oprah yesterday, and I just have to link you to the little article my brother wrote about it. Yeah, and who taught Geana how to knit? Who was the one who gave her the gift of a simple activity to do while on complete, bathroom-only bedrest for a month? Celine Dion said on the program, "wow! what a great idea! I wish someone would teach me how to knit!" To which Oprah said, "Me too! I wonder who taught Geana how to knit? If only she lived in Chicago." Well, that wasn't REALLY their reaction. But it was in my fantasy world.
Goin down to South Park to take a walk, maybe go to Trax to pick out punkins for the front stoop. Have a good day, all.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Well, Shit
This is humbling.
Samwise is going, cause that project is the only one that got voted on. The other two are up to me, I guess.
Justin's Momscarf, because I haven't touched it in awhile and it needs done by Christmas.
I think that I'm going to take the Jaquard socks too, because I would like to finish them and have snuggly socks to wear BEFORE it gets frigid here. And according to the forecast, frigidity starts this weekend.
Thanks to everyone who participated. In other words, thanks Stacie. I really appreciate it. :-)
See you Monday, Stacie.
Teaching
As a pastor, I recognize that I'll be doing a lot of teaching. Teaching the communicance class, possibly teaching a Sunday School class or leading a Bible study. Teaching is different than preaching. Although I don't know how, something about books, I'm sure. I don't learn that til next year.
Earlier this week, while procrastinating, I went across the hall to the apartment of Bea. Bea and several other ladies went with me to The Knitting Workshop over the weekend. Bea crochets. She has no idea how to knit, but wants to learn. So when I went over to Bea's apartment the other afternoon, I had no idea that her knitting roommate, Laura, had not yet taught Bea the ways of the two sticks. Bea was about to start crocheting, but I said, "do you want me to teach you?" "Yes! Please do!" Really, that's how it went down, like out of an Austin novel, but with fewer words. (Not a big Austin fan.)
I ran back across the hall and fetched my Red Heart turquoise variegated, dubbed my "teaching yarn" and some size 8's and ran back. Bea had her stuff all ready to go, fresh ball of Colinette from the Knitting Workshop and size 10s at the ready. (Seminarian digression: You ever get into a pattern of typing things, like there's a word you use in papers or at work all the time, so when you start typing that word, your fingers go on auto pilot. Yeah, I spelled "workshop" as "worship" and had to delete it twice!)
I taught her the long-tail cast-on which she picked up much more quickly than I did! And then I went about teaching her the knit stitch. Now, there are some people who might crucify me for this, but I didn't teach her how to hold her yarn right off the bat. My mother tried to teach me that way and I gave up within two rows. I couldn't do it, the yarn wasn't moving smoothly through my sausage fingers, and my tension was so tight, it made every following row a knit-mare. Oh man, the pun-ishment, the PUN-ishment! So when I tried to learn the second time, my teacher sagely said, "they say you should hold it this way, but how you hold your yarn will come naturally for how it feels comfortable for you as you get faster and want to stop picking up the yarn for every stitch. Just don't pull the stitches tight after each one, and you'll develop your own style.
I sat there watching Bea, picking up and putting down the yarn with each stitch, and worried, as I did with Justin, that she'll never develop her own way of holding the yarn. I knit away at my Red Heart gauge swatch, and looked up again at the end of the row. Bea, from her years of crochet, had naturally started letting the yarn flow over her left finger, and was picking it up with her right hand needle. Yes that's right, she had taught herself how to knit continental style, while I thought all the time I was teaching her the English method. It's amazing, the adaptability of humans, I tell ya!
It just goes to show you. "It's AAALWAYS somthin'." I guess this should be a good lesson for me. No matter how much I will be teaching people in the future, they will always take their own spin on things, they will always use what I teach them as a supplement to their past experience and may not simply adopt everything I say in total. The important thing is to leave them room to do this and not insist that they come out of a lesson thinking exactly the way I think and doing things in the exact way that I do them. Let us pray...sorry, that's what we pastors/pastors in training say after reading/writing/saying a paragraph like that. Just sounds so much like a sermon closer.
I'll put up the results of the vote on the projects (scroll down two entries or so if you haven't visited in awhile) after 5 CT tonight. After that, don't count on another post til at least Monday FROM PITTSBURGH!!! YAY! I'm hoping to steal time on Justin's computer while I'm there. The pictures may be few and far between as I'll be away from my own software, but I promise to make an effort.
Until later tonight!
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Cables and Candidates
Samwise the Sweater is coming along apace thanks to a brand new study method: Knit a row for every 5 pages you read for class.
Since I read over a hundred pages for PIF (Pilgrimage in Faithfulness) yesterday (yay me!), I got to do a full cable length last night while watching the PBS Frontline about the two presidential candidates.
One thing I can say about both of them, they don't really change. Bush has always been a shoot from the hip, gut reaction cowboy. Kerry has always been pro-war, but anti-wrong-war, careful what I do cause I might run for president some-day type. He's a thinker, that's for sure. Never makes a quick decision, but really explains himself too much. Good program. Check your local PBS listings for repeat times, or, as the link will tell you, watch it ONLINE starting October 15th. And don't forget to vote in the regular election too!
Back to knitting. Samwise is almost 12" now, but I'm concerned that he's gonna get thrown into the "problem I don't know how to solve so I'm gonna give up" heap. Man, I need to find a better way to describe things. If anyone can help me out with this, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, you better vote for him, because Samwise needs a trip to a knitting specialist (which is right down the street from Justin's place!).
I don't know if you can even see the problem accurately. Here's an extreme closeup.
You can really notice it up at the top. The right hand side of the cable is tight, all the way up the sides, but the left side peters out before the next cable has a chance to intercept it. It looks ok from a distance, I guess, but it's just one of those things that's going to bug me, or it'll possibly get worse as the thing stretches out. It looks like I need to add another cable in there somewhere, but I'm not a pattern designer. I don't know these things intuitively yet. On the right, I'm holding the stitches to the back when I cable, on the left, I'm holding them to the front. Is it possible that this is causing less tension and therefore less "piling" on the left? Yeah, Samwise needs a checkup before I go any further.
THE VOTE
I'm trusting you're all procrastinators like me. :-) Vote today! No leader thus far other than the ones in my head. Simply click on the little purple banner that says "No Comments" and leave a comment. Hell, it can even be anonymous. I don't mind.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Let's All Pull Together, People!
I know you're out there, I can hear you breathin'. I really need you to help me make a big decision. I'm going to Pittsburgh for a week (Plus a knitting Sunday! YAY!). I'm going to be holed up in Justin's apartment for much of the time while he's at work. Yes, I'll be doing a lot of course work because it IS reading week, but part of that course work includes watching both seasons of the West Wing for an ethics paper. This is one of those moments that you really love your liberal school. :-D
I need to decide what projects to take with me. Like I said, I know you're out there. I also want to figure out approximately how many people read this schtuff I put out there. That's my ulterior motive. I know Norma does (thanks Norma!). I know Ginge is lurking cause she's addicted and she doesn't know why. Yup, you're outed babe, to all your friends.
So anyway, leave me a comment with your top three choices for what I should take. All three will be treated equally in the initial tally, but I will put weight on what placement in the event of a tie or if I don't like the way the tally comes out. Hey, blogger's prerogative.
Here they are, in no particular order...the nominees for the Pittsburgh trip:
The Farmer's Market Bag (needs to be done by Christmas so that I can felt it when I go home)
Samwise the Sweater (i'm having an issue with the cable and Pgh. Knit and Bead is within WALKING distance!)
Momscarf (Christmas, but I'm flying on it so far)
Justin's Momscarf (Christmas)
http://knit.blogspot.com/2004/06/all-laced-up.html
Wavy Lace Socks
This guy's partner. I must confess a certain soft spot for the Jaquard socks. I never get around to them, but I need new socks and I see the finished one in my sock drawer every day, guilting me.
Fatigue. The name says it all.
Ok, those are the nominees. The polls will close THURSDAY at 5 PM, when I finally have time to start packing. You can tell I'm biased, but that's why I need help. What do you want to see finished up? Which project do you feel bad for? Which one has you excited. Take all things into consideration when you vote. In the immortal words of some Chicago guy: Vote your conscience, vote often.
Monday, October 11, 2004
Bad week for the diet
Not only has it been a big church weekend for this seminarian, but a big knitting weekend as well.
The diet got flung out the window with excessive force (hey man, I showed restraint though!). It’s like Thanksgiving or Christmas. It’s a matter of moderation. If you starve yourself completely, you’re never going to stick with it.
Here’s the skinny:
My stash contains some trouble spots.
This Lion Brand Wool-Ease Sportweight, fo instance. It comes to over a 1000 yards, not quite enough for a sweater for me, too much for anything else but a poncho (and I have a moral qualm with ponchos). It’s been cast on for a scarf and two sweaters that have been ripped back to nothing. Thursday night, I cast-on for a third sweater using this troublesome acrylic/wool blend.
I specifically bought cheap yarn for my first sweater, even though the pattern is called "Cablewise Cashmere Sweater". I don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on something I probably won’t like. But there was a difference with this casting-on moment. I decided to order more yarn. Yes, that’s right. I ordered two more skeins of this LionBrand…stuff. Diet broken for a can of Spam. Am I a yarn snob? Yes, yes I am. However, I view it as a way to get rid of these three other skeins which would otherwise continue to sit in my stash and confound me for a reason to use them on something there's an outside chance I'll wear.
Because I don't know what Cablewise means, and because I think he would approve, being a guy who values important things and lives cheaply, I hereby dub this new sweater, The Samwise Sweater.
That’s just the start of my weekend. : -) Fellow Stitchin Seminarian, Jenny, talked me into (yes, she twisted my arm and gave me a brushburn to get me there) going to Arcadia Knitting again. I didn’t splurge, but I wasn’t as good as the last time. I bought a pair of circular size 7’s for the new sweater so that it will not be crammed onto my straight size 7’s, giving my wrists hell from supporting the weight. I also bought…
washcloth material. Linen and chenille, couldn’t be more different in texture. The linen feels like twine, like I could tie a Christmas tree to my car with it. I was assured numerous times that, like my linene sheets, it will soften with washing. And when did I develop a thing for purple?
Yes, I know. New projects. But they’re small ones. Three washcloths. Perhaps for someone for Christmas. This is the breaking of the diet for an extra serving of mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving.
However, the worst was yet to come. Oh my sweet Lord, the temptation I endured! Saturday, a group of us went to The Knitting Workshop in Lincoln Park. On some bulletin board I visited on the internet, somebody said that Arcadia Knitting is the best store in the area. I think this person is biased toward stores that organize yarn according to color, something that frustrates me. Arcadia is very nice, don’t get me wrong. It’s staff is friendly, not pushy, not snobby. But it’s small, cramped, yarn packed onto about a dozen wire shelves. If you want to look at books, you have to cram yourself into a back corner and you can tell the proprietors are worried that you’ve disappeared for so long.
If Arcadia is built into a row-house, The Knitting Workshop is built into one of those 1900’s urban mansions. High ceilings, big windows that let in tons of natural light, shelves built into every wall, baskets and bowls filled with yarn organized by brand and type (yay!). It’s open and it just keeps going back and back! Luckily, I went in with a specific goal, or I would have been dead on arrival. They had to Rowan felted tweed I used on a scarf for my dad last Christmas which was just…wow. It’s the scarf that all others must follow. I was blessed in that I was looking for two specific items. This is a training technique of Weight Watchers: plan ahead, know what you’re willing to splurge on, and truly appreciate it. I was looking for the Tibetan Silk yarn that everyone’s talking about, that’s made from the recycled silk saris, and I was looking for yarn for my mother’s Christmas gift, a scarf and possibly a hat or gloves to match. “No wool. I don’t like scratchy.” You can tell my mother knit in the 60’s from stuff she got at Murphy’s. So I found this:
Five balls of it, and that’s her Christmas present. There is wool in it, but I've been rubbing it up against my face and neck all weekend, and can't feel any scratchiness. This is breaking the diet for the triple chocolate cheesecake that you’ve been anticipating for a week.
Oh, don’t look at me that way! Have you seen how much work I’ve done on it since SATURDAY??
Yeah, that's an 18" ruler! Uh huh! Yeah! Something with a deadline! Praise the Lord!
What happened to the Farmer’s Market Bag? The verdict is in, I have to TINK about 5 rows and start over again. It’s crushed my dedication.
Paper Purging
I apologize, but there's only one knitting reference in the whole of this entry. Knitting comes tomorrow, or perhaps later this evening. It's been a big knitting weekend too. :-)
When I was very little, I learned a bit of a nursery rhyme, either in Sunday School, or from someone in my family. You may know it too. “This is the church, this is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people.” Yeah, how many of you did the hand motions in your head? Where you turn your hands inside out so that your fingers look like people all wriggling in their pews?
Do you think kids still learn that rhyme today? If they do, I bet they ask a lot of questions. I bet the kids who attend the churches I went to this weekend look up at their parents and ask, “Daddy, what’s a steeple? How come our church doesn’t have one?” I bet the kids who go to my home church, and many like it ask, “Mommy, where are all the people? How come our church doesn’t have any people?”
I went to 3 churches in 18 hours this weekend. Not for my own amusement, no, it was for a class. I don’t want you all thinking I’ve somehow lost my sanity. One last night, and two this morning, starting at 7:15 AM, but you really had to be there before 7 if you wanted to be guaranteed a seat. Then a two hour nap at 1. None of the buildings had steeples. None of them fed me spiritual food that I was familiar with. All of them filled me, but in very different ways.
Saturday night I went to Willow Creek Community Church. Sarah, this name should be familiar to you. Look it up in that Seeker Church book we had to read for Sociology of Religion. If you left me to check out their website, I bet you’re reading this sentence an hour later than when you started. The rest of you are so intrigued now that you’re going to the website right now. That’s ok. I’ll wait. I pulled into the parking lot of that building, and I thought I was pulling into a business complex. Ample landscaping that all looked very manicured, signs like those at the mall, guiding you to the major department store parking lots. Signs on the lampposts to remind you where you parked (I was in D-3). The inside is more difficult to describe. I got there very early, like an hour early, to check the place out. It was very similar to a shopping mall without the commerce. Perhaps an empty airport would be a better way to describe it. Taupe stone floors, taupe walls, those large chairs like you find in Panera Bread or Barnes and Noble these days. Flat screen televisions on the wall with a continuously running slideshow of announcements playing. There is a little coffee bar identical to one you’d find at Borders or Starbucks, a balcony bookstore that overlooks a gigantic foodcourt (but with only a small smoothie/coffee bar to feed people…strange). It seemed to be a place that wanted to emulate a mall, but didn’t want to go overboard on the commerce.
This is by design. Willow Creek is a “Seeker Church,” a church that wants to cater to the thousands of affluent, upper-middle class Euro-Americans who would rather sit at home and watch Tim Russert or take their kids to soccer practice than go through the hassle of getting dressed up to go to a boring place where they get yelled at by judgemental people for at least an hour.
Willow Creek successfully reads the community in which it finds itself. It is the culture whose religious leaders are Dr. Phil and Oprah, whose God is the amorphous, generic creator who is constantly showering His (yes His) blessings on America, whose church is the television and the internet and the GAP, and whose Great Commandment is “Teach to Gospel of Dr. Phil. Take only your credit cards, your SUV’s, and the spirit of Individualism that drives each and every one of us to succeed.”
This is my community. This is my context. I think Dr. Phil makes a lot of good sense, even if he is a tad self-absorbed. I enjoyed the time I spent at Willow Creek. I was enraged a bit by the narrow-mindedness of the bookstore, but have seen the same thing at the Family Bookstore in Century Square all of my life. I was in shock worshipping in an auditorium that seats more than all but the largest of auditoriums in Pittsburgh. But I enjoyed it. I raised my hands in praise, knew all the songs, was moved by the drama, laughed at the sermon, was surrounded by people who looked like me, talked like me, dressed like me.
And I’m an introvert. So the fact that the only person I had two words for the entire time I was there was the woman in the coffee shop who took my order for a turkey pesto sandwich on cranberry walnut bread with a side of sliced melon. Yeah, even the food sounds white and suburban.
Contrast that to Trinity United Church of Christ. Another website that intrigues. Read the first sentence in the “about us” section. This is a church that, like I said, I had to go to the 7:15 service so that I could even get in the door for there being so many people. I was the ONLY and I mean THE ONLY white person in a crowd of thousands. That was an experience, let me tell you. You know what the funny thing is, though. Despite the color difference, the difference in the preaching, ALL the differences in the style of worship, I felt more welcomed and at home there than at Willow Creek. I didn’t feel entertained. I felt like I was participating in the unbridled praise that the congregation was offering to God. There was an intrinsic sense of community that I felt within the first 5 minutes of praise time. I shared a pew, not wide lumbar support armrest flanked stadium seating. They were pews, padded pews, but still pews, and they were all on the same level as one another. In the balcony, they were on a grade, I think.
Now, I’ll be honest, at first no one sat even close to me, no one said hi to me. They were all greeting each other and it was obvious that people who sat close to each other knew each other, had their friends in their section, and sat pretty much in their section every week. I’m sure they were thinking, “who’s this white girl who’s in Miss Edna’s seat?” But when passing the peace, I got hugged like everyone else, not just a handshake. When it was time to pray, we held hands and gave each other prayer requests along the pew and when I was asked to stand up in an auditorium of thousands of people as a visitor, I was greeted enthusiastically by everyone around me. The Benediction at Trinity is not a pastor raising her hands and somberly blessing the congregation, it’s everyone joining hands and singing,
I need you, you need me;
We're all a part of God's body.
Stand with me agree with me;
We're all a part of God's body.
It is His will that every need be supplied;
You are important to me,
I need you to survive.
You are important to me,
I need you to survive.
I pray for you, you pray for me;
I love you, I need you to survive.
I won't harm you with words from my mouth;
I love you, I need you to survive.
And by that point in the 2 hour long service, I felt it. I think everyone in the room felt it. People were still singing that song as we left the church. What the sermon was about was really of little importance. It was about keeping your convictions, acting on those convictions, and letting compassion guide those convictions.
Trinity understands its community context in the same way Willow Creek does, but it’s a very different culture. It’s a culture that is gaining pride in itself, that seeks unity, that is working beyond the “the paper bag test,” that is beginning to celebrate its heritage. I saw more individuals in the bright colors of African clothing than I’ve even seen. It was…to use a childish, 50’s word…neat. It was really neat.
Knitting reference in 5 seconds!The difficulty I had with Willow Creek is that the church is called to be a prophetic voice through the example of Jesus. Jesus was a prophetic voice against the societal institutions of his time that separated one from another, that exploited people: the Holiness Code in Leviticus, the Temple system of taxation (read the story of the widow with two copper coins in Mark sometime, it’s not about giving all that you have). Anyway, if you look at Willow Creek, they’re doing an admirable job of reading the culture in which they find themselves and appealing to it. At the same time, however, I have to ask if it’s a culture that Jesus would be supporting or speaking against. It’s a culture that stresses individuality. they’re doing an admirable job of reading the culture in which they find themselves and appealing to it. At the same time, however, I have to ask if it’s a culture that Jesus would be supporting or speaking against. It’s a culture that stresses individuality. You sit in separate seats and really can go through a whole service as an entirely anonymous entity. I even took out my knitting while waiting for things to start, and nobody commented! I know! I was insulted. :-) The messages you hear (not a sermon!) all apply directly to your individual life and not to the community. Should the church be concerned with giving practical advise to its members? Absolutely. Should you sacrifice the message of world improvement and community impact for that? Absolutely not.
Willow Creek sees itself as offering an alternative to the “worldly culture” that it finds itself in. Rather than being barraged by sexual images from television, music, movies, etc., we’ll barrage you with sexual images from the Song of Solomon. Rather than spending your money on such works of sin as The Da Vinci Code and the Harry Potter series, spend your money on Christian fiction, Christian music, Christian self-help books. Finally, don’t go to Dr. Phil or a therapist for your advice, come to us. We’ll tell you basically the same stuff, but throw in that God deems it so. I can see some of you raising your eyebrows at that. Either, “aren’t therapists helpful? You’re not comparing all therapists to Dr. Phil who’s not even a trained psychologist, are you???” or “surely Willow Creek doesn’t say the same thing as Dr. Phil!” In answer to the first question, no, I’m just drawing a line between secular psychological help, and sacred psychological help.
In answer to the second question: I think I’ve mentioned that the message was on marital intimacy, right? Here are my sermon notes: ways marital intimacy is threatened: fatigue, past history (like abuse), ongoing problems, unrealistic expectations, male/female differences (visual vs. emotional stimulation, etc.). ways to save marital intimacy: commitment to communication about sex and non-sex issues, nonsexual touching, men need to get involved in the lives of their wives, women need to affirm and appreciate the stuff that their husbands DO do, find mutual recreational activities, have an attitude of giving in the bedroom à sex is two people giving selflessly, not two people “getting
some”-thing.
I watched a LOT of Dr. Phil when I was in Baltimore, and I think that in his various conversations with people, I’ve heard every one of these points.
Willow Creek is good at offering alternatives to the “worldly culture,” but they’re still an integral part of the spending and individualism that, in my mind, make American culture so worldly (read sinful) to begin with.
Community at Willow Creek develops in small groups outside of the church. Sacraments are celebrated…at least communion is, not at one of the weekend services, but at a midweek large-scale Bible study about which I can find very little info on the web. But at the weekend service, it was advertised as “BYOB,” Bring Your Own Bible (chuckle chuckle chuckle). “We won’t be putting the scriptures up on the screen like we do here.” Communion is done at a place where the church leaders know that everyone is dedicated enough to own a Bible and willing to do an in depth study of it, and also willing to come to the building during the week. While something about this irks me (perhaps it’s the insider/outsider message that comes with it…you’re not “IN” until you come to our secret Wednesday night meeting, perhaps it’s that Seekers never get to see the church as a community, just their small groups), I really can’t imagine Willow Creek doing things any other way. The Eucharist would be really off putting to a lot of “seekers,” and really difficult to sit through serving that many people. It’s also too special to risk someone who may not have any idea what’s going on to say, “ooh, cranberry walnut bread. Do you have any cream cheese to go with it?” Sorry, that was below the belt. I don’t know what kind of bread Willow Creek uses for communion.
I haven’t mentioned the third church yet. It was drastically different from the other two. St. Benedict the African – East. It’s a Roman Catholic Church, it’s a predominantly African American area, predominantly African American congregation. The building is new, and I think that’s why the professor wanted us to go there. It’s designed to highlight African heritage. It’s built like an African hut, in the round with arched beams. There’s a lot of natural light and large leafed palm like trees PLANTED around the edges of the congregation (like in a mall). All of the chairs that folks sit in, the Gospel Book, crucifix, candle holders, all have an African flavor. The art on the walls all depict Jesus, Virgin Mary, Holy Family as African.
Here’s the problem: The priest is white, there were about a dozen nuns in a congregation of about 200 (tops) – all white. In other words, authority figures = white. No white members of the congregation other than myself and a giant 30 person college class on a field trip, and we were obviously visitors. The music consisted of spirituals and gospel music (complete with a 70’s Hammond organ. YES! Think of the Doors’ music.), but it seemed like the only people who wanted to (were allowed to?) sway, dance and move were in the choir. Everyone else was pretty solemn, especially after Trinity. Everything had the impression that a group of well-intentioned, liberal white folks (like myself) got together and decided that they wanted to revitalize this poor parish on the south side of Chicago. They brain-stormed to make the place more “African,” and invested the money to do so. But it was still white folks dictating how the African Americans should be worshipping. I’d hate to think that’s what happened, but I have a sneaking suspicion.
Hey, thanks for hanging in there for all of this purging. I have a paper due and I wanted to get some thoughts down.
Next week, I’m hoping to find the Triple Rock Baptist Church so that I can hear the Rev. Cleophus James. (tell me what I’m talking about and you’ll have my adoration)
Thursday, October 7, 2004
For my friends
Gotta run to class in less than an hour, but I just wanted to let you all know about this. Some of my friends are as big of Harry Potter nuts as I am. However, because I don't think they read nearly as many knitblogs as I do, I thought I should give them a heads-up about this knit-a-long, where a group of crazy knitters all knit the same thing at the same time and compare notes. I can't join at this time because of the diet, but it's on my list. Thought you might want your own Harry Potter sweaters. And if you're more of a Weasley fan, there's a chart out there for an R rather than an H. :-)
http://www.yarnwarehouse.com/newcheckout/items_overseas3.htm
Monday, October 4, 2004
Hebrew, Intarsia Dyslexia, and the Cubs
It’s been a busy weekend! Such a curse, so much that I want to write about, but because there’s so much to write about, I don’t have time to write about it because I have to get other things done! Oy. Right now I’m procrastinating from the Hebrew homework for a class that I have in about 2 hours. Le Chaim, right?
I think Hebrew is the source of numerous problems for me. I find it fascinating to learn all of the diverse meanings for words that we often think of in only one way because King James decided that it be translated that one way. However, you also have to learn all of the little jots and tittles that go along with it. Did you know that that is a Hebrew phrase? A “tittle” is the millimeter long bit of writing on the Hebrew letter Beth that distinguishes it from the letter Kaph. Yeah, tittles are important.
So Hebrew is causing loss of eyesight, loss of sanity, and difficulties in knitting. No no, not in terms of time. I feel like I have plenty of time to knit (for some reason, seminary isn’t that challenging academically). Hebrew is causing a problem in technique.
“Proof!” I hear you say. “Where’s the proof?” Note the following side by side comparison. 
On the left, the color chart for the Weekend Knitting Farmer’s Market Bag. On the right, a small sample of my Hebrew homework. This is my first intarsia project, I should note. I’ve never done this before. I’m also the kind of person who launches right in, directions be damned. (Also, there weren’t that many directions given. “Work 29 rows of color pattern twice.” Thank you, oh omniscient author!) So I at least had the sense to look up color charts in my two favorite skill books, Stitch N Bitch and Bible & Ethics and the Christian Life. No wait, sorry, that’s for the paper I just finished writing, it’s under the stack here somewhere…they look the same, cut me some slack. Ah yes, Knitting in Plain English. Both of these sources have proven wonderful before this weekend.
They both give instructions for how to read a chart for flat knitting, (do odd rows R to L, even rows L to R) but not in the round. :-( Before Hebrew I would have had no problem with this. I probably would have forged ahead, directionless, doing every row L to R, and everything would turn out fine and I would continue my life in ignorant bliss. However, because of Hebrew (compare the two pictures above again), I started reading the pattern R to L, got 4 rows in, laughed at myself for reading the pattern like Hebrew, then thought “shit, NOW what?” and started over going L to R. Now I’m 6 rows in, I think things look fine, but there’s still that nagging voice in my head, “Stitch N’ Bitch said you should do odd rows (which we all know are the RS ones) R to L. Since all of the rows are RS, shouldn’t you do them all R to L?” I’ve written to about.com, but no response yet.
Six rows of muddled intarsia is all I got done this weekend. Why?
Justin’s been here! Yay! Christmas! Because the boy knits, we embarked on the one hour train ride up north to Arcadia Knitting, mostly guilt free for dragging him along. He simply doesn’t have the love affair with yarn that I do, but I think he understands. I was very good, bought NOTHING. The yarn diet is still intact! The local Pittsburgh yarn store never seems to have any of the recommended yarns for patterns. It was neat to finally see what Rowan and Berroco, etc. labels look like, to finally see that Phildar that everyone keeps talking about. I've made plans to return with a fellow stitchin seminarian this Friday. I don't know what my resolve will be at that point. It depends when the rent bill comes.
Arcadia is just a couple of stops away from Wrigley Field. 
We thought the cubs were playing at 1 and that we would be able to freely walk around Wrigleyville absorbing the sights without getting manhandled. Wrigley Field has always been a dream of Justin’s (and every baseball fan’s, I think) to visit. One of those things that you check off on the “things to do with my life” list. The Cubs only had this weekend’s games left in the season, and they were all sold out because of this big wild card playoff race so we said we’d go to a game in the spring.
As we were walking around looking for a place to grab a hot dog for lunch, this guy mutters, “need tickets?” Justin said, “the next guy who does that, I’m gonna go fishing, see how much they’re going for for a game as important as today’s.” Ten feet later, “need tickets?” For scalped tickets, for a game this big to the Cubs season, for seats this good, they were pretty cheap. We hadn’t planned on going to the game, and for those of you who don’t know him, Justin is not the most spontaneous person in the world. You know you aren’t, hon, but you know I love you for it. ;-) So the guy quotes the price, Justin looks at me, goes ten bucks lower, the guy refuses, Justin looks at me, I shrug, say, “I don’t care, if you want em…” “Ok, we’ll take em.” Shock. Utter shock. Decision made, on the spot, no vacillation, no doubt. Boom, done. Let me tell you, ladies, that is sexy. I love this man. Justin, not the scalper. I can see the knitters' eyes glazing over with all the baseball talk, so I will interrupt with another picture.
I just have to say,my knitting posture is MUCH better than hers. But then again, I haven’t been worn down by life or the Cubs almost making it to the World Series for the past 80 bagillion years on my shoulders. I'm also much more demure...and my thighs are bigger...much...bigger. The jaquard socks got some work done on the train and while I made Justin take a picture of me knitting next to a statue that we saw on Navy Pier cause I'm just...well...nuts.
I also have to shamelessly plug my brother and sister-in-law's new website. If you'll remember back in the day, I was knitting baby hats for all the quads. They're starting to come home from the hospital now, and so I guess that in all of their free time, Kurt and Geana have decided to start a webpage/blog. Check out the most up to date pictures and updates at www.morrisquads.com.
Enjoy.
P.S. Justin got a cold here on Saturday night and I think that I might be coming down with it too. Two papers in two days and a cold. I apologize in advance if I neglect you guys.
[Archives]
Search entries:
