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  • thoughts on Mohammad Yunus’ Banker to the Poor

    When I started reading Mohammad Yunus’ Banker to the Poor  I was immediately struck by how little the poor people who are helped by the Grameen Bank needed to help themselves build a better life.  Of course I was also struck by the ways in which these same people find themselves locked into a cycle which they have no way to escape, unless someone will lend them a hand (or a little money).  After reading the first couple of chapters I had to put the book down and think about it a few days.  The same thing happened when I read Nickeled and Dimed  by Barbara Ehrenreich and actually, although the situations are different and the countries and the status of our poor and nearly poor people, there are very strong similarities in that in both cases the people about whom I was reading were locked into a self-perpetuating system that will never allow them to break free and become self-sufficient.

    Both books opened my eyes to things that I never really thought about.  Oh I knew the poor existed.  Who does not?  But I never thought much about why they were poor, or how they could stop being poor, except for the standard pap that we all tell ourselves.  But much of the standard pap is wrong.

    I have never been poor.  It is highly unlikely that I ever would be — I was born with too many advantages.  But Yunus is right in that there is no reason on earth why anyone should be poor, so poor that they cannot provide shelter, food, clothing, and health for their families.  Granted not everyone may be rich, and not everyone even wants to be rich.  This rethinking of my basic assumptions is tiring work.  I am sure it is worthwhile in the end.  If we all managed to do it, how much better would the world be?

    At the end of the book, there were so many ideas and beliefs I was overwhelmed.  I took pages of notes.  I cannot condense them into a smaller space.  Yunus is revolutionary and whether one agrees with him or not, his goals are admirable.  To achieve them would require a complete restructuring of human society.

    At the moment I will leave you with these two quotes:

    Poverty does not belong in a civilized society. pp 236

    and
    Charity is not a solution to poverty.  Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor.  Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about those of the poor.  It appeases our consciences      pp237.

    There are many more profound, more thought-provoking, and more controversial statements.  At the moment, this strikes me as the gist of the matter. 

    Now, how do we change the world?

  • Thursday Swatch Day

    Thursday is usually the busiest day in my week and I tend to feel rather hassled by the end and eager to collapse in the creative social wonder that is Thursday night knitting group. 

    Now I do realize that part of what makes Thursday crazy is just my own impetus to get everything done so that I can get to knitting night and my own obsessive personality that makes me think I need to leave a full dinner at the ready for my spouse before I go — a meal that I am not going to eat because I am never hungry at 5:30 or 6, the time I would have to eat before leaving for knitting.  Goodness, the "day" is rarely done before 7 and dinner is usually around 8 except on those days when G comes in late when he tends to eat around 10:30. 

    When I think about this I realize that this is why I sometimes feel harried, and why I wonder how other people get so many creative things accomplished.  Goodness I am just starting to cook when most of my friends are done with their dishes and are settling down for the evening.  If I am in front of the TV by 10 (or the computer for that matter) I figure it is a good day.

    But back to knitting.

    Yesterday I took a personal day.  I was supposed to be in Tucson, where it is warm and in the 70’s during the day, but we canceled our trip and although the rest of the week has been fully rescheduled Thursday was not.  I thought I would spend the day at home, knitting, sewing, and generally relaxing and then I would head out to knitting group.

    It did not work out that way.  I did knit.  I finished Bombolo and pictures will hopefully come soon.  And I worked on my swatch for the cashmere cardigan.  And I worked on my swatch for the cashmere cardigan…….

    I do wonder how people manage to knit garments without gauge swatches.  I know people like that.  I could never do it.  I have been lucky lately, have knitted several sweaters in a row where I got gauge in one or two tries.  Not so the Karabella super cashmere.

    First swatch with the needle size recommended for the pattern adaptation using this yarn.  The results were way to big — 5×5 instead of 4×4.  Hmm.

    Down two needle sizes, from US 9 to US 7.   A slight improvement 4.75 x 4.75.

    At this point I am really having trouble believing that I need to go down two more sizes, that is unusual even for me.  But I do.

    Another bad result on size 5 Addi turbos:  3.5 x 3.5 and it looks and feels tight.  I decide the difference is not entirely in the needles but in the fact that I am probably tense.  I must be tense because my hands hurt and my fingers are clenched up like little bird claws. 

    Time to go to the gym followed by a trip to the office and to the mall to check out the lingerie department at the new Macy’s.  I am hoping that Macy’s sells better quality bras than Feline’s did (they do) and that I will find something that fits because my size has changed and I am currently desperate to get out of my chest-binding device long before I get home most days.   Success.  Home

    I make a lovely soup for dinner combining some carrot tops, and a bunch of celery and parsley that have frozen in my crisper tray with chicken stock and a few other odd vegetables.

    While the soup is cooking I work on the swatch.  I really want to finish this before I go to knitting group because I don’t want to carry my entire needle collection and I am beginning to feel that the case is hopeless.  I try size US 6.  The results are 4.25 x 4.25.

    Bah!

    I consider rewriting the pattern for this gauge, but there is some part of me that refuses to give in so easily.  It is time to go to knitting but I am feeling really pissed at knitting right then, and frazzled because there is still a bunch of stuff that was left piled up the day before when G was home that I haven’t gotten to yet, and it is cold outside.

    I am good at making excuses.  And I know that when I am feeling particularly frazzled I tend to want the world to go away so I can just deal. This isn’t always a good plan, as I can isolate myself which makes me feel more frazzled, but last night it worked.  So I curled up with a cup of tea and finished my novel — Almayer’s Folly by Joseph Conrad.  And then I did laundry and cleaned out the freezer and then I picked up those pesky size 5 needles and knitted my swatch, again. 

    Perfect.

    Browncahsmere

    Now that the knitting is in balance, life is balance and we can move forward. Which is good, because given how the day has started, it’s going to be a long one.

  • Matilda waits for her new home

    Matilda2_1
    Matilda is getting a new home and she is very excited about the prospect.  Unfortunately I have been slow at finishing up the planning stages of the sewing room closet and have not yet ordered the components or hardware and so she must wait.

    Matilda has had no real home of her own since her stand broke.  This was not her fault, as she is based on me (built from a cast) and is rather unbalanced (like her mother).  When the stand was mounted in the physical center of her base, this was not the center of her weight, but even when we calculated where her true center might lie, we found that a slight brushing up would be enough to send her to the floor.  Alas her stand was broken in many places and she has been relegated to moving from table to table, surface to surface, with no real place to call  her own.

    This is about to change, as I have created a cubby in the new closet shelving system just for her.  It will be a place where she can stay and also a place where she is readily available whenever I wish to work with her.  She can easily be brought out of the closet and onto the sewing table, and since her new spot is just about 5 feet from my sewing machine and easily accessible, she will always be at the ready.  She is thrilled, if a little impatient.

    Here is a rough plan for the ends of the closet.  IYou can’t really see the details as I am still working from the original pencil sketch, but you can see that Matilda has her place. I  am still working out the hardware details, but it is looking like it is going to work:

    Closetplanpreliminary1

  • Blue Socks

    Well I finished the pink and blue bombolo sweater last Thursday and I STILL haven’t gotten it sewn together.  As a result I will not allow myself to start on the lovely dark brown cashmere, because once that luscious yarn starts to run through my fingers I am a gonner I’ll tell you, a gonner. 

    Actually knitting has only been done in snippets or on trains.  Seaming is not an appropriate train activity. Large volumes of cashmere might not be an appropriate train activity either as the Metro North Hudson Line trains leave much to be desired; they are a trial to be endured rather than a welcome sanctuary at the end of a long day.  There are times when I can definitely understand why the majority of my friends would rather drive to NYC than take the train, and there have been times when I would agree with them.

    So I have been working on the socks, the ultimately portable project, and I have been enjoying the knitting, except for one tense period when I discovered I had dropped a stitch I could barely see 5 rows back and had to attempt to pick it up.  Mission accomplished and progress continues, albeit slowly.  AT 9 stitches and 15 rows per inch, this is not my fastest project.  But it is calming even in snippets.

    I just love it when the sock finally is done beyond the heel and it looks like a sock:
    Bluesock1

    I tried a different technique with the wraps on the short row heels and I am not sure I like the look of the line they created.  But then I couldn’t see to do my normal method so that wasn’t going to happen.  Remember "perfect is the enemy of good" and all in all I am happy with the sock so far.  I love the way the self striping yarn worked so perfectly in the heel, almost as if I had planned it.

    Meanwhile, I am hoping for a quiet evening at home and a chance to sew up the sweater and start something new.

  • Marfy Pattern Order

    Following an inquiry on Stitcher’s Guild I decided to post the actual Marfy patterns I have ordered.  If you are coming here from Stitcher’s Guild, this may prove to be repetitious.

    I ordered 5 patterns, which seems like pretty few, not that I always order more (although I have — no fear of excess here) and I have ordered fewer in some seasons,  but that the competition for those slots was pretty slim.  Spring clothes are not my favorites by any means.

    I ordered three blouses.  This is the first one. I took this photo of a page in the magazine; it may not be as nice as the later photos which are all courtesy of Marfy .

    Marfy1298

    I like this rather loosely gathered blouse primarily because of the double gathers and it does, to me, at least look more "Renaissance or Roman" as described by the Marfy catalog than "peasant blouse".  It would be lovely in a lightweight silk knit and I can see it in a softly draped woven as well. Boho may be going out for next year, but I think this kind of shape always comes back and strikes me as the perfect kind of thing for summer afternoons by the pool, even when it is no longer fashionable for more formal events.

    My first thought on seeing this blouse was how lovely it would look in a light, almost platinum gray silk double georgette with satin bands.  I also imagine it with illusion sewing in the shoulders between the straps, although I realize that this does pose a bit of an engineering challenge from the way it looks like the blouse is designed.  I will have to look at the pieces.  It may be a silly idea, ultimately abandoned, and I don’t own pale gray illusion (does it exist?).  But at the moment the idea still lives in my head and must be pursued further.

    The remaining photos are, as stated earlier, all courtesy of the Marfy website .

    II have long loved blouses more than knit tops and for years I survived on those treasured silk blouses from previous times (decades?) and gradually succumbed to the lure of the knit top.  Knits are more sleek, but blouses to me feel more feminine.  And perhaps because of my scoliosis, I always feel that I look better in a blouse if I am not wearing a jacket, than I do in a tee or knit shell. 

    At any rate, my old blouse supply is dwindling and it is time for a restocking.  Perhaps I am more confident now, or just more of a fuddy duddy, but if blouses go out again, they will probably not make a similar exit from my wardrobe.

    Marfy1251This blouse,  Marfy 1251, is a lovely classic blouse shape that I know will look good on me.  I purchased the pattern because of the ruffled drape on one collar.  Yes I probably could have reproduced it.  But Marfy patterns are so well cut that I don’t mind buying a different shape, and this one is slightly different than those Marfy patterns I already own.

    The ruffle may or may not be an issue.  I am afraid of dragging it through my soup, but I do like the look.  A compromise may be reached. With or without the ruffle, it remains a classic.

    Marfy1297b

    You might notice that this is the blouse shown on the cover of the Marfy catalog.  I loved it right away.  Twist tops have been ubiquitous and perhaps I don’t need another, but the description describes it as being used for a knit or a woven and I can really imagine this in a soft summer voile or lawn or a soft silk print.

    I know the style will look good on me from the front and back view, all I really care about.  I will have to lengthen it, and perhaps sew that center seam closed a little further — I am no longer at the age where I feel that navel exposure is appropriate.  It may be a little low cut, but it may not be, only a muslin will tell. 

    I could probably avoid the gathers below the bust from the profile view, but then I don’t really care about the profile view anymore.  I finally came to terms  with the idea that I am rather egg shaped, at whatever weight, even at my really skinniest, I was never one who "disappearance" when turned sideways.  This may be to my scoliosis and the fusion, which, I am told "pushed my organs forward" or it may just be my basic anatomy.    Deciding to "embrace my inner egg" was one of the best decisions of my life, and saved me a ton of worry and dissatisfaction.

    Marfy1246_1
    I ordered this jacket pattern because of the interesting seaming and the stand-up collar.  I am almost always swayed by stand up collars, just as I am swayed by wide standaway collars, both looks that flatter me.  I am also very tempted by different variations on seams and darts.  It is these details of sewing that hold my constant attention and I find fascinating.

    Sporty in this picture, this is also a very versatile jacket shape that could look very different, depending on the fabric used.

    But then, most people would look at two jackets made in wildly different fabrics and never realize they were made from the same pattern.  I suppose that would be an argument for owning only one jacket pattern.  But it doesn’t work for me.

    I also ordered a skirt pattern:

    Marfy1281
    Which could be sporty as described in a cotton or twill or could be quite elegnant in a crepe.

  • Muslin done and Patterns ordered

    Well I have been working on my Marfy muslin in bits and pieces this week.  Basically, as a recap, since I started this long ago,  in August, so I could decide what size patterns to order from the fall Marfy catalog then I got sidetracked.

    I originally thought I needed a 44 or 46 and I traced off a 44 pattern.  That is where I stopped.    I was partially correct in that I am going to order a 44 for most patterns based on the upper bodice.  I am currently between a 44 and a 42 in that area and must taper out at the bust and below.  I must also taper out at the shoulders, but if I make a bigger size I have way too much fabric in the upper chest and the alterations are more difficult.

    I have been through a few tracings here (I am working with a blouse
    pattern from the fall issue, and so far the 44 seems to be a little
    easier to work with.  It may be possible that, on a princess seamed
    garment where the princess seams go down from the shoulder I might want
    to work with a 42; that muslin example worked pretty well, but I think
    for now and future work I can work from the 44 pretty easiliy. 

    Technically I am smaller than a 42  in the right upper bust and a 44 on the left, with a corresponding difference in sizes in the back.  But the 44 seems easy enough to work from.  I suppose I am getting more and more accustomed to the fact that no pattern is going to fit all of me at any size I may be or dream of being so I just pick a size and hope for the best.  Most of the Marfy patterns are being ordered in a 44, but a pattern that has a more critical detail in the right shoulder area is being ordered in a size 42.  I have done this king of thing before, in bottoms as well.  In skirts and pants I have my average pattern size, which is actually the averaging of the 4 different sizes the four quadrants of my body happens to be.  Sometimes I order the average, sometimes I order the size to fit the most difficult part, and I have been known, on occasion to order two of certain patterns, just to make life easier.  Thank goodness for half-price sales for the US big 4 pattern companies, and multi-size patterns.  This particular problem hasn’t come up for Marfy yet.

    So confidence boosted, I placed my Marfy pattern order.  There are only 4 patterns from the spring book, two are blouses.  I also ordered several patterns from the fall issue.

  • What’s Next?

    Let’s see, the first sleeve took about 3 hours to knit.  I have barely started the second but it is possible that I will finish it tonight at knitting group.  Even if I don’t quite manage, I sometimes tend to get distracted after all, it will be terribly close to being finished and will not be adequate a project to accompany me down to NYC tomorrow night.  I guess the poor languishing blue socks will be called into train duty, which is fine, I do enjoy knitting them, I have just been completely smitten with the pink stuff.

    But this brings us back to that looming question of What’s Next?  As I mentioned I did have a plan, and I have managed to pretty much reconstruct it.    Since temptation calls right now I had best commit, as best I can at any rate.

    Supercashmere

    Next up on the schedule is this luscious deep brown Super Cashmere from Karabella.  It was purchased with the intention of knitting the vest pictured from the Autumn 2006 Vogue Knitting, except that the plan is to add sleeves and make it into a jacket.  The
    yarn was purchased with that intention in mind, and I thought that the nice people at L’Atelier , from whom I purchased said yarn had also written a modification to the pattern which accommodate the sleeves.  I am not finding that at the moment, but it is probably around somewhere.  I also purchased buttons, but they are not in the bag with the yarn, a most unusual occurrence, so I must assume that the pattern and the buttons have run off together and will be found lurking in some dark and quiet corner.  There is probably not enough time to search tonight before knitting so I will have to look tomorrow before we head in to the city, if only so I can call L’Atelier and see if they can fax me the pattern.    I could, of course, draft my own sleeve, pattern, but in the immortal words of Bartleby the Scrivner, "I would prefer not to".

    Colinette

    The second project on my list involves this truly scrumptious teal-green yarn from Colinette.  I do know which pattern I have planned to make with the yarn (it is a Gedifra pattern) but I am having second thoughts about the substitution.  This yarn might be a tad finer than the recommended yarn and it may or may not work out.  Given my current state of uncertainty, I have decided to leave the pattern a surprise, since there are several patterns for which this yarn is a likely candidate,  and will wait and let the yarn tell me what to do.    This is a bit of an adventure for me as I tend to be one who is more inclined to try and force the yarn to my will before I so gracefully yield to its preferences.   Nonetheless, the green mohair is definitely on the horizon.

    Finally, the third upcoming project is the VK winter cover sweater:
    Vk_cover_sweaternorah_gaughan_1

    I have not yet decided on yarn but Aurora 8 is one of the possibilities floating around my head.  At the moment I am also toying with a color decision.  Originally I envisioned it in a light color as it reminds me of snowflakes on the model, but later in discussing it with Liana I also started thinking about making it in a dark color for a more tailored look over a fitted dress or suit.  The current mental images waver between lilac and another deep brown, but this is still very much up to debate and likely to change as soon as I start looking at my stash and available yarns.

    Of course there may be socks, scarves, or other simple mindless projects thrown in to the mix as circumstances require.  But at least I  have a plan.

  • New Verena

    The new Verena arrived:

    Verena20071_006

    It is not my favorite issue, but there are still several things I want to knit.  It seems, that generally speaking, that I am more of a fall knitter than a summer knitter, at least in terms of the kinds of things I fall in love with and hope to knit, not in terms of when I do the knitting.  These two are my favorites so far:

    Verena20071_007

    Verena20071_008

    Not that these are going to get made up right away, but then I haven’t knit any of the Verena patterns yet.  Must do that.

    At the moment I am not sure what I MUST do.  With the ongoing reconfiguration of the sewing room closet there are a few piles of yarn that are temporarily displaced.  They had not been forgotten, but they were also not directly in my line of sight and therefore not in my daily thoughts.  There certainly is something to that old adage about "out of sight out of mind" and its corollary as well.  As it is, each time I walk by a pretty pile of yarn residing in some temporary resting place I am lured to fondle it and dream of future sweaters.   Keeping my mind on the task at hand is proving difficult, as I am constantly being lulled by the siren song of multiple yarns.

    Supposedly I have a plan of things I want to knit.  I don’t remember what that plan is right at the moment.  Did I write it down?  I’m not sure.  My brain is increasingly befuddled.  There are several tempting piles of yarn waiting to go back in the closet, or onto my needles, whichever happens first.  The results remain undecided.

  • Patrones

    It was just another day and another stop at the post office.

    But I got a slip to stop by the desk.  I had registered mail.  Who would be sending me registered mail?  I wasn’t expecting anything.  I have a Container Store order on its way, but that will come to the house via UPS.  I am expecting some fabric from the SG Benefit Auction, but that is not going to come registered mail.  My curiosity was piqued, but I figured it was just some boring office-related document.

    But no.

    This is what I got instead:

    Patrones2007

    As soon as Laura brought it up to the counter and scanned in the label I started to smile.  An involuntary "Oh wow!" escaped my lips.

    I almost danced to the car.

    Unfortunately there were a few more errands before I returned home.  I managed not to rip the package open in the car. 

    I managed not to rip it open the moment I walked in the house.

    But eventually I did, and this is what I found:

    Patrones2007enero My Christmas present from G was a subscription to Patrones, airmail from Spain, but he didn’t fill out the on line subscription form until after Christmas, even though he told me that was what he was getting me.  We thought it would start with the February issue.  Usually subscriptions take longer than that to get started in the good old USA, but then Spain is a little different apparently, and the January issue arrived, and it is still January, although just barely.

    I’m glad I hadn’t bought it on ebay yet.  But then I hadn’t seen this issue on ebay yet.

    There are lots of cute patterns and I fully intend to make good use of this lovely and thoughtful gift.

    But now I have to go ogle cute patterns and dream of things that may soon come to pass.

  • Tightening down on CAFE

    I didn’t watch the President’s State of the Union Address.  I didn’t really read about it afterwards either, although I did read the headlines.  I just pretty much ignored the whole thing.  I didn’t expect a lot. I did expect a goodly amount of criticism and "disappointment" among the critics, who surely were looking to be disappointed anyway.  Perhaps I was just tired of the whole thing.  The President is there, he is not going away right away but he is going away eventually.  Get over it.  If you aren’t happy, start working on what will make you happy.  There seems to be little point in the contitued disappointment in a lame duck president.

    And so I totally missed the fact that President Bush had proposed stricter CAFE regulations.  It doesn’t sound like much but remember that even 4% a year can add up to signficant improvement over the course of only a few years.  Vehicular MPG rates have stagnated for years, in fact the average is higher now than it was in 1987, before the environmental lobby let CAFE slide in order to win some other political fight in congress.  I have long felt this was a big mistake, a mistake made worse by the fact that it seemed so small at the time (MPG for Alaska?) but the greatest part of US oil dependence is due to transportation and cars are a significant part of that total.  Americans own and drive far more cars today than they did 20 years ago, and those cars are bigger and less fuel-efficient.  If fuel-efficiency standards had been getting tighter for the last 20 years, the US would not be as dependent on oil-producing nations as we are today.

    I don’t know why the press had made so little of this and dismissed it as not enough.  It isn’t enough, but nothing is going to be enough.  But lots of small steps taken in sequence will help.  Or is it that we don’t want to admit that we never should have fallen off the automobile fuel efficiency bandwagon to begin with, and admitting that it is important means that leltting it slide was a mistake to begin with.  It is hard to say "I was wrong" especially when the person who got it right has gotten so many other things about the environment wrong. Sometimes hope springs up from the most unexpected places.  Embrace it when it arises.

    Read about it here.  I think they are right on the money.