Not for lack of trying

I got some pictures taken finally yesterday and tried to get them posted but there was some problem with Blogger. 

While I was working on some stuff yesterday, I was watching some old movies.  One of them was a really weird movie called, "The Villain Still Pursued Her."  Came out in 1940 with people like Alan Mowbray, Buster Keaton, and Margaret Hamilton (the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz movie).  If you click on the link above, you'll see a plot description but the better description is at the bottom of the page with the User Review.  This is a satire on the melodramatic dramas out there and is so bad that it's hysterical - by the way, it's bad on purpose.  Basically, every moment that could be overacted is overacted and every contrivance is used, all the way from the beginning of the movie which finds a newly widowed mother and her beautiful daughter discussing how their husband/father had left them with little money and the mortgage is coming due.  The slimey lawyer tries to convince them that the land owner is going to kick them out.  In reality, he is trying to get the beautiful daughter to marry him.  Fast forward to the daughter finding out that the handsome young land owner is kind and marries him.  On the wedding day, the young man declares that he never drinks and the new young wife says, that's great because no lips that have touched the demon liquor will ever touch my lips.  The lawyer realizes this is his in and tricks the young man into taking a drink, which turns him into a raging alcoholic.  And it continues from there.   Definitely worth a viewing if you're up for a laugh.

In getting ready for the Heritage Knitting Retreat, I decided I should probably get my silk beaded purse finished.  This is one of those projects that started out just to try out how the Gudebrod silk would work in a 19th century reproduction purse that would have originally used silk thread.  I learned a lot experimenting with the materials for this project.  Things like sizing for silk thread.  A is small, FFF is large (FFF is like smaller fingering weight).  "A" is thin, like thread thin, really thin.

I love the feel of the silk with the beads and would highly recommend you trying it if you have any desire to knit a beaded purse.  The thread is softer than mercerized cotton and accommodates the beads much more easily, although it will go a little hinky if it snags on a bead.  It only happend to me once and I used almost an entire tube of 11/0 beads.  It wasn't too bad, just not something that happens with the mercerized cotton. 

I've been working for quite a while on spinning a truely lace-weight yarn out of some Blue-faced Leicester.  It was my first project on my Fricke wheel and it's been a whole lot of spinning.  A.Whole.Lot.of.Spinning.  Now part of this roving has been spun on my Ashford drop spindle (which I've currently lost sight of - I know it's here somewhere) but the majority of it has been worked on the wheel.  I have no idea what the yardage is going to be but I suspect it's going to be in the neighborhood of about 1,200 yards.  1,200 yards is actually 2,400 yards plus plying so it's really 3,600 yards of spinning.  Like I said, a bunch of spinning. 

It's also been quite the learning experience.  Even though BFL is a longer stapled wool, when you're spinning this finely, it takes a whole lot more twist in the singles than you realize.  I've hit patches where I obviously didn't have enough twist in the singles.  It would be interesting to know what happened during those periods of spinning to make me not be paying enough attention. 

I haven't posted anything yet about the cotton roving I bought from the Woolery booth in Lexington.  The color is called Terra Cotta.  It's dyed, not one of the natural colors, but I'm thinking I may ply it with the natural coyote color.  The natural colors darken when you finish them and I think it might look nice with this.  I've been spinning this on the fastest whorl of my Kromski Minstrel using my own modified version of the long draw.  I find this modified version to be much easier to control than a proper long draw.  I'm sure it's just because I haven't practiced enough with it but this seems to work fine for what I'm doing.  Here's the start of the bobbin.  I'm not spinning it super, super fine but it should work out to a heavier lace weight sort of yarn.  I'm wondering if I can actually get enough spun for a summer top before it gets cold again.  That's my challenge, should I choose to accept it.  And will I accept it?  I'll let you know along about September time : ).

The Best of the Worst

I have a new favorite worst movie of all times. I know it will show how behind the curve I am but I just discovered that you can get video podcasts from iTunes. I came across one called “Matinee Movies” which has provided me the most amusement I’ve had for ages. First there was “Luck of the Irish” or some such. Then there was “Dr. Kildare’s Strange Case” where he discusses providing insulin shock therapy to a man who’s mentally deranged (the proof of which is a whole different discussion).

But the cream of the crop has been a movie that barely even deserves the designation as a ‘B’ movie called “The Horrors of Spider Island.” It’s a 1962 cross between SciFi and Beach Barbi Bingo. It starts out with Gary and his lovely assistant Georgia auditioning dancers for a troop going to Singapore. Considering all one ‘dancer’ does to audition is to take off her dress, you can imagine how impressive this dance troop is. Her name, by the way, is Babs and you want to keep an eye out for her because she’s involved in the most memorable line of the whole movie a little later on.

Anyway, on the flight to Singapore, the plane crashes (of course) and they bob around in the lifeboat (hair, clothing and heels in tact) until they come across an island. Big Gary, strapping young man that he is and without his shirt, has to carry all of the poor helpless ladies ashore. But at least he does it without disturbing above mentioned hair, clothing and heels. They gather strength to explore the island and come across a cabin which contains, much to their horror (thus the title – get it?) a dead man caught in a giant spider web (get it?). As they read his diary they realize he was on this remote island mining for uranium. Now Gary had already guessed there must be uranium so he’s a smart joe (not to be confused with Joe – he comes later).

The women recover enough to get into bikinis (or maybe it was just underwear – I don’t know what 1962 underwear looks like) and make passes at Gary. Georgia, Gary’s assistant and love interest, catches him kissing one of the girls and he walks off with the professor’s gun to cool his heels. On his travels he comes across a giant spider (title – get it?) and shoots it. But somehow, in shooting it, he becomes a spider man (but not in the good way). Spiders, evidently, don’t wear shirts but they do have hairy faces and fangs (looked a bit like a werewolf spider, actually).

The girls just don’t know what to do. They’re helpless and stalk around the island not knowing what to do. But don’t worry. They won’t be alone for long.

Unbeknownst to the girls, 2 research assistants (Joe and Bob) get dropped off at the island to assist the professor in his research. We discover that the research ship is going to pick them up 2 days later but don’t worry, they’ve brought plenty of supplies, including a case of whiskey. Sounds like some sort of research, doesn’t it? Imagine their surprise when they discover the professor has been killed by some giant spider but the island is populated by this randy bunch of beautiful women with no man to protect them. I haven’t yet mentioned the groovy music but this was the early ‘60s and the music will have you moving.

I’m going to just sum up to say they dance and carouse and drink whiskey until one of the men falls for the ‘innocent’ Ann. Babs (remember her? the sometimes stripper?) tries to lure him with her wily ways but he resists her. Ann doesn’t know this until Babs tells her which results in the best line of the movie: “Is it really true, Babs?” Really, that’s the best line. Honest.

It winds up with the spider man chasing Gladys to her death and then the women chasing the spider man with torches into the bog because there is a bog on this remote tropical island (who knew?). The spider man sinks into the bog and the research ship comes and picks everyone up and the rest of them live happily ever after. I’m just assuming the ever after. They didn’t say that, I’m just sure it must be after surviving a downed ship in the ocean, days on a raft and the Horror of Spider Island.

I’ve got a couple of things to post about today

One is to say, I’m writing this from the wonderful land of Texas! Home to let my mother spoil me for my birthday!! It was so comforting to see all the Texas license plates and Whataburgers and wild flowers on the side of the road. It’ll always feel like home and for some weird reason I’ve been so homesick lately.

Another is about a dvd and a couple of movies I watched this weekend.

Several months ago, I heard about Portuguese style knitting. Being the lover of any new piece of information, I started poking around to see what I could find about it. There were a couple of videos on YouTube but not great quality. In my research I found a Yahoo Group called knitting with crochet hook. The description talked about knitting with “the amazing needle” and “Portuguese knitting.” Sounded interesting so I joined up and began reading the input of some very creative folks and learned a little bit more. I believe it was on this group that I heard about Andrea Wong who is a Portuguese lady living in Ohio who does a lot of teaching and teaches how to knit in the Portuguese style with regular needles. Oh yeah, the Portuguese needles, the best I can understand, are pointed at one end and have a crochet-type hook at the other end (please forgive me if this isn’t correct).

On Andrea’s web site she has an instructional dvd as well as the shoulder pin used to help tension the yarn in this style. I ordered the dvd but never had time to watch it until this weekend. What a wonderful resource – every new knitter should have this video. I thought it would just be about the knit/purl stitches for the Portuguese style. It’s so much more than that. She also covers increases, decreases, a variety of cast ons and bind offs. She has different techniques and tips. Wonderful! The explanations she gives are very simple and clear and the video shots of her working the stitches is very clear and she actually repeats the movements enough that you really get a sense of what she’s doing and lets you follow along.

With her instructions, I found it extremely easy to pick up how to work the stitches and how to combine them for ribbing, etc. The purl stitch is the easiest you’ll ever come across. If you have any wrist problems, you definitely want to check this style out because there’s no throwing, there’s not twisting. It’s all done with a flick of the thumb! For anyone who has seen Donna Druchunas’ book, Ethnic Knits, this is very, very similar to the Andean style Donna talks about. Must have been a conquistadorian export. Donna’s got a great bag pattern in her book using the Andean style along with a very cool bind off edging.

I found fascinating (and she’s not paying me to say any of this!!) her demonstration of how easy it is to knit with beads in this style AND how much easier to do color work. She’s actually combined the Portuguese and the Continental styles to make color work a breeze. One strand is tensioned off the pin on your shoulder (or yarn around your neck – although this can be a little uncomfortable unless you’ve got some material under the strand) and is knit in the Portuguese style. The other color is held in the left hand and is worked as for Continental knitting. How clever is that! I’m totally going to use that next time I do my Danish Skrå-Trøyer sweater (ha!!).

Speaking of Danish, let me just mention two movies I saw this weekend that I highly recommend – both great for a good cry:
Danish movie called Kinamand. After a man’s wife leaves him, he begins eating each night at the Chinese Restaurant across the road (on first night he orders a Number 1, second night a Number 2, etc. through the whole movie). It’s through the friendships he makes here that he finds things happening to him and in him that he never could have imagined.

French moved called Sequins. A young girl who’s found herself pregnant, decides to follow her passion – embroidery (but what I know as Tambour embroidery). She begins working with a lady in her village that had at one time worked with the large fashion houses in Paris. Her son has recently been killed in a motorcycle accident and the two of them find reasons for life in their journey together. (Sounds really saccharine, I know but it’s the most succinct way I could think to describe it.)

Watching for the Knitting

I was just reading some posts on a Ravelry group about watching for the knitting. Have you ever watched a movie just to see the knitting in it? There are a number of lists of movies that show people knitting (such as this one) but there are some great movies where the characters wear the most amazing knitwear.

I had the experience with the British television series MI-5 (Spooks in its real life) where I fell in love with the sweater the character Adam Carter wears. He wears it in several different episodes so the actor obviously really liked it, too. It’s a dark green chunky sweater that I’ve decided (after quite a lot of freezing frame and sitting directly in front of the screen!) is a fisherman’s or brioche stitch. The stitch and needle size gave it lots of texture and it had nice cables running up the raglan sleeves. I even made my version of it although I never was quite happy with the starting of the cables.

One of the posters talked about the sweater and matching socks that Gene Kelly wore in “Singing in the Rain”. You know I never even clued into that but I’m off to watch the movie again tonight (“Whadya think I am? Dumb or something?” “I make more money than…Calvin Coolidge…put together!” I could go on all day!)

Wouldn't it be fun to have a design-along to work out the patterns for these?

Have you noticed any other movie or tv knits that intrigue you?