Kung Fu Knitting

My latest project

2009-07-08T14:41:00.004-06:00

I've been working on a really big project lately, but I didn't want to show it until making a good start. The Amazing E helped with getting it started, and has been supportive and helpful during the last 10 weeks of working on it.

Here is the result of our hard work up til now.
You can see here the little arms, the cute button nose, and the giant head. So it takes after both of us.

What's Jeremy Clark-Erskine up to now?

2009-06-30T10:14:00.002-06:00

As some of you know, Jeremy Clark-Erskine is a convicted identity fraud artist who sneaked into my life about three years ago. I believe he stole my credit cards and car in an attempt to flee to Canada after escaping from jail in Indianapolis. Since then he's been accused of pulling off some serious fraud in Canada, and was eventually sent back to Indiana to serve out the rest of his sentence. Canada sent him back without prosecuting him for the thousands of dollars in theft and fraud I'm told he committed. Oh yeah, and my local police completely dropped the ball on prosecuting him.

Well, he served his sentence, but then was charged with escape. He served a few months for that, and was released last summer. Then early this year I was contacted by a very confused woman who had been dating him at the time of his last arrest. She was completely innocent in what he did, and she told me about his latest caper. I don't know that I should relate it all here, but it was an elaborate scam against a large corporation that she said got him new clothes and a long stay in a fancy hotel. He was arrested and convicted of some crime related to theft, even though I understand that he also commited a number of other crimes. The sentence passed was two years. He served three months and was just paroled. Really, this multiple felon was paroled after serving three months of a two year sentence.

So why bring him up again? Two reasons. One is that I got a flurry of hits to this blog today from private and government servers in Indianapolis. I would guess that he's been arrested again or some damn thing. I hope so. The other reason is that I contacted the Indiana Department of Correction in the last week to let them know that a bug in their system makes it hard for the public to find out the status of this guy's incarceration. After all, Jeremy has a lot of victims who would like to know when he's out of jail and if he's complying with parole. When I contacted them, I encountered a complete idiot who could not find his records, claimed he'd never been in an Indiana jail, and got nasty when I was finally able to pull them up and sent her the link to the record. Once again, the State of Indiana proves its incompetence when dealing with this guy.

So Erskine's out there. I know he's been paroled, but since the morons who are supposed to be keeping track of him can't seem to, I do not know if he's complying with parole or on the run again. If you know what's up with this guy, send me a comment. I don't have to publish it, if you ask me not to. My motives here are to see to it that people get him charged for the crimes he commits so he spends as much time as possible in jail.

If you are his latest victim and looking for information, first please go to the police and cooperate with the prosecution. Second, don't believe anything he's told you and don't blame yourself for whatever he did.

Jeremy Clark-Erskine is a convicted con artist. One arresting officer I've spoken to called him "a real predator." I personally have spoken to nearly a dozen people he's scammed in the last ten years. The aliases he uses that I know of are Jeremy Erskine, Jeremiah Clark, and Duncan McDonald. He is from Indiana, but has claimed to be from Canada, Boston, Ireland, and Scotland. For grins, here's his picture:

Silk Aeolian Shawl

2009-06-14T16:11:00.004-06:00

In an amazing feat of knitting monogamy, I knitted this shawl in just over a month.
Pattern: Aeolian Shawl from the Spring 2009 Knitty
Yarn: Rock Creek Yarn Silk Lace
Needles: Knitpicks circular size 3.
Start Date: May 9, 2009
Finished: June 12, 2009

Notes: I added two repeats of the yucca chart and a repeat of the agave chart, so this is a hybrid of the two sizes. The size 8 glass seed beads where added using a crochet hook I made from the wire inside a twist tie.

It rains a lot in Maryland

2009-05-26T11:13:00.003-06:00

First of all, thank you to Creative Crocheter. She once again identified one of the plants growing in my yard.

Like I was saying. It rains a lot in Maryland. At least compared to Chicago. It rains here at all times of the year, often for hours or days at a time. In fact, it's raining now, and will be for four more days. All the rain here has several effects for homeowners.

The nice thing the rain does for us is cause lots of things to grow outdoors. There's more stuff popping up now, like this weed in my yard. Right now the property is covered in strawberries. But they're the wild kind that don't taste like anything. Believe me, I ate them. At least they're pretty.

The peas are pea-ing.
And the roses are making an early show.
The other thing that all this rain does is back up into basements. We woke up to that this morning. The water probably came out of the sump pump pit, and if it did we're covered. But today we're working really hard to make sure things (like mold) don't start growing indoors, too.

Proving that I do things other than knitting

2009-05-20T07:36:00.003-06:00

It being summer and all, we figured that we needed some sort of window treatments in the bedroom. You know, it cuts back on sleeping time to have daylight streaming into the room before 6am. So off to the fabric store E and I went.

I told E I could do it, even if I'd never made any type of curtain before. He picked the fabric, a striped blue silk dupioni; I picked the design. After working forever to get the hardware properly installed, there is a working Roman shade on one of the two bedroom windows.
Perhaps I'll even make the second one before the days start getting shorter.

More beauty this week

2009-05-17T14:45:00.002-06:00

Nothing really new popped up for a little while, so I didn't stretch things here by taking pictures of wilting flowers. But today there are some nice things to show around the new house.

Last weekend, the Amazing E planted me a new garden. We decided on what will eventually be an informal perennial garden based on one my grandma had, plus some other things that attract butterflies and hummingbirds. This weekend the plants are staring to take root. This project will probably go on for a year or two more, but we have a start now. There is a pretty dark red flower that smells good; I don't remember the name. He also planted a butterfly bush, yarrow, a coneflower, and some flowering thyme and other low lying plants. Eventually, I would like some black eye susans, more coneflowers, and astilbe. Planting in the back yard turned out to be a challenge because a previous owner had an above ground pool back there. There's at least a foot of sand in the back yard, so we have to put soil wherever we plant.

There was also another azalea that bloomed. This one is a really nice pink.Then there is the mystery purple flower. I'm pretty sure these are from a bulb patch on the side of the house.
Lastly, an iris bloomed this week. Some others are making buds. I can't wait to see what they look like.
I also have an update on the mystery coral colored flowers. Those of you who guessed flowering quince must be right. This week it has little fruit on it.

There ought to be more soon; E and I are looking forward to it.

My Masterpiece

2009-05-13T13:14:00.004-06:00

I'm jumping ahead of myself a little, but I can't resist. Rock Creek Yarn's silk spinner only gets about 300 grams of this yarn to me per week, but I've been saving it up and dying it for the Sedalia Fiber Festival this weekend. It's the previously mentions Silk Lace yarn. Now I've got 8 one hundred gram skeins for the show. There would have been more, but the Cherry Blossom Festival Sale was wildly successful for this yarn. Thanks for that.

I have to say something. I love this yarn. Really. For lace yarn, it's very strong. And soft. And shiny. Pretty soon a picture of an in progress project will show up here. But I've been working lately at dyeing up this super special yarn, and I'm in love. Take a peek at an "unofficial" picture taken just now with my iphone.

FO: +3 Red Socks of Doom

2009-05-09T22:22:00.004-06:00

I'm actually quite pleased with these socks. They fit great, they're pretty, and the yarn feels really nice. If you recall, I started these socks back on November 30, 2007 in a fit of nerves over my wedding. It was the next day, so what did I do? Cast on socks of course. Since then, they've moved with me three times, gotten lost several times, and have had their needles repurposed more than once. Why +3 Red Socks of Doom? The beautiful lace killed my hands.

These socks were made according to Cookie A's Hedera pattern, which is available free on Knitty. They were knitted on size 1.5 DPN's out of Mountian Colors Bearfoot Yarn in a varigated red. I will be knitting socks from this yarn again someday.

Very pretty. Very dangerous.

Um.

2009-05-06T11:18:00.003-06:00

They're Pantaloonies. They're made of sock yarn. Um. I don't think I have anything else to say.

Name that yarn!

2009-05-05T11:50:00.002-06:00

So I've been dying this yarn mostly in Cherry Blossom for a while now. Until this time, it's only been available from my silk spinner in very small quantities. But now he's sending me several pounds. It's super pretty and the customers love it. Right now, it's just named Silk Lace. This is a lace weight yarn. It's 100% mulberry silk with great sheen and drape. The yarn is 2/20 count, that's two very thin plies spun together. I put it up in skeins of at least 100 grams, over 1000 yards. The best thing about it is that it's really strong, so you don't have to worry about breaking it when pulling out points on a fancy shawl.

But I don't know what to call it, and it's so fancy it needs a fancy name. Any ideas?

What's poppin up in the yard this week? May 1 edition

2009-05-01T15:56:00.002-06:00

We bought a house that had previously been owned by a gardener. Signs around the property, like built in flower boxes, raised beds, an insulated shed, and hanging basket hooks everywhere, pointed to this. Talking to the neighbors confirmed it. There's stuff growing everywhere. In fact, we feel like we really have to spend this year watching what comes up before we think about what we might like to do with the yard. It's really full of stuff, and new things are coming up all the time.

I didn't have the foresight to start doing this a month ago, so we've missed the mountains of jonquils that came up about the time we moved in. Then we had a dwarf crabapple tree and an ornamental cherry tree bloom. For a while we had a bush in the front yard with little yellow flowers. E was smart enough to name it; I was not smart enough to remember. Last week the tulips made a brief showing. It's too bad tulips bloom for about three minutes before the petals fall off.

It seems that people in the DC area have an obsession with blooming trees and shrubs. There are magnolias, dogwoods, azaleas, and of course cherry trees blooming everywhere. I can't remember anything on this level going on in Chicago.

This week we have more flowering shrubs and trees.

The weird looking bushes in random places turned out to be azeleas. It's a good thing I didn't dig them up.
Then there's this little tree next to the house. Turns out to be a cute dogwood.
Lastly, this is a crazy flowering tree in the back of the back yard. Don't know what it is, but it has flowers.

Bat Shawl!

2009-05-01T14:45:00.003-06:00

Okay. I'm not sure there is such a pattern. But I did knit the Icarus Shawl. It was a jump-on-the-bandwagon thing. Some of the other kids were doing it, so I did too.

This project was started on January 22 and finished on April, 16. I really wanted to do it all in one go and wear it to my friend's wedding in Chicago. It was finished on time, but it wasn't done in one go. I got bitten by the quilting bug and put the knitting down for an entire month.

The yarn is an awesome fawn colored laceweight made from silk and yak from Skaska Designs.

Fiber Alert!

2009-04-29T12:30:00.001-06:00

Goodness!

Maryland Sheep and Wool is this weekend. I'm totally not prepared to shop for yarn. I mean, you need a list, a plan, and a team to do this festival.

Have not knitted a thing in three weeks.

2009-04-05T18:43:00.001-06:00

Send help.

All's well that ends well

2009-03-20T03:17:00.003-06:00

The closing was at 4pm on Wednesday. Our heroes spent an hour signing papers to find out that the government form still was no where to be seen. It would still be another 24 hours before they could take possession.

But they got the house!

Act 4 continues

2009-03-16T09:22:00.002-06:00

A message just came through.

4pm.

It did not say what day.

Act 4 continues

2009-03-16T09:04:00.002-06:00

In Act 4 of the saga of closing on the house, we last saw our heroes sitting on their hands waiting to hear that the government form had been filled out by the loan officer and sent into NeverNeverLand, where the actual settlement seems to at once constantly yet never taking place.

Wwwwelllll....

The last time we checked, Kung Fu Knitter saw signs that it was Friday afternoon in the real world. In the alternate universe they're trapped in, cryptic messages had been seen profesying that the hidden and mystical "Tuesday" would be the date of settlement.

Our heroes had had it up to HERE! with all of it, so the Amazing E got on the phone with the COO of the loan company and demanded a real time that the closing would happen. After actually raising his voice at E, "Tuesday" was renamed "Monday, We promise!"

Just then, a booming voice declared "Tuesday is Tuesday, and Tuesday is the day for the settlement." Oh well.

Remembering how to sew

2009-03-13T12:35:00.002-06:00

When I was a child my mother taught me to sew. I haven't touched a machine in decades, so I'm really proud of this. It's my first quilt top and I finished it today.

House closing saga

2009-03-13T08:27:00.007-06:00

I'll not get into all the gory details, but the house closing has gone berserk.

The first act was the comedy of "Paint the House." This happened when our lender sent an appraiser out to the house one week before closing. She did the appraisal, which fortunately came out higher than our purchase price. However, she said she would not sign off on closing until our heroes painted the cracking paint. Enclosed in the package was a photo of cracked paint on the front porch and instructions to "sand, prime, and paint" this area. We also learn that hiring a painter will cost us a couple hundred dollars and require getting bids. With only a week to go, there is no time for a bidding process, so Kung Fu Knitter asks if she can paint, and is granted permission. She arrives at the house to discover that she must repaint two large railings on the porch and the outside of all the windows. Thank goodness there is no second floor. So she bravely sands off the peeling paint from all these areas, applies two coats of primer, and puts on one coat of paint. It takes two afternoons. The heroes let the loan officer know that the painting is done.

Now for "Re-Re-Appraisal." In this act, the appraiser appears to hold up the house closing. Apparently she did not get out to the house for her Friday appointment until late Monday, two days before closing. On Tuesday it is discovered that she will not sign off on the closing because chips of paint were left in the grass. Now, it's late in the day and the young couple is supposed to be at the Rabbi's for a Purim dinner that night. They can't go over there on a paint chip hunt, so the wonderful realtor swoops in and does it. Wednesday, the day of closing, the appraiser is sent back to the property, finds a lack of paint chips, and signs off. But it's too late. Everyone is irate, but our loan officer assures everyone that we'll close the next day. 2pm.

During intermission, the Kung-Fu knitter receives a request for bids on new appliances from the loan officer. Oh yeah, he forgot to tell anyone about about that. So Kung Fu Knitter flies around Maryland near the speed of light gathering and faxing said bids.

In the third act our heroes, the Knitter and Amazing E, are swept away to a place where the laws of time do not apply. The act opens Wednesday night when the loan officer says that he's working late and sending off the paperwork for closing the next day. According to him, everything is"clear to close." When he's contacted on Thursday morning to verify that he'd send off the package, he seems to reply in the affirmative. He has done everything that he has to to get to the settlement. It is at this point that time stops moving linearly. This odd phenomenon is first detected when the Amazing E receives a message that the title company does not have the loan officer's package. But he sent it already, right? Hmm. Someone calls said officer, and asks "WTF? We thought you said it was sent." He replies with something like "Well, yeah. But I can't do it now. Our system locks me out after noon for sending the papers." Someone's clock reads 11:55. Kung Fu Knitter becomes dizzy from the temporal dissonance and begins to sew furiously, almost as a nervous tick. The loan officer continues, "We never could have closed today. Government form A$&W!P* is not filled out. That will take at least two business days for all parties (including him) to look at and sign off on." It's not as if he didn't know about that form before time went out of whack, but in the great whirlwind of time it will hold up the closing until Tuesday if we ever return to the normal spacetime continuum. As the act closes, a great shout of disbelief is heard all over Maryland, this one louder than the one heard after the paint chip thing.

Seeing as how time is all messed up, we are assured that act five is written before act four, and has a happy ending with the young couple happy in their house. It's just thatno one knows at what point the final act will be revealed by the universe. It has happened, is constantly in progress, and has not yet come to pass.

In the fourth act, the heroes sit on their hands. They are not aware of the passage of time, and wonder if they will regain sensibility like Rip Van Winkle, several decades older. Or perhaps they will be returned to a time before they met. While they cannot directly observe the passage of time, they see signs that it's moving forward for others. For example, Kung Fu Knitter just received an email from the Rabbi and the Chabad house informing her that Shabbat is coming soon and that she should light the candles at 6:54 this evening.

So they sit, and wait, and wonder at what moment "Tuesday" will arrive.

So much happiness, so little time

2009-03-03T08:59:00.002-06:00

Please excuse me for the lack of reading material here. February was full of fun and happiness, March will have even more.

Let's see. February. Yeah, the first half was all about house hunting. Then there was the Vegas trip where I got to see my sister, the Beautiful E and her guy. After that, there was the Wisconsin bachelorette weekend for my girl in Mokena. And then Tzurriz had her baby! I just got home from the very long trip for all of that last night. Whew.

So this week I'll be packing up the apartment. Next weekend the Amazing E hope to get back to Chicago for the bris of Tzurriz's baby. And then back here for closing on the 11th. One and a half weeks of house cleaning later, we'll be back in Chicago for my graduation. After that, we return to Maryland for the official move to the new house, which must be completed by the end of March.

In the mean time, there has been yarny progress. A pair of socks was finished, as was a hat for an Israeli soldier. Icarus is also nearly done. Aaaaand. The mystery box from Scotland arrived. I'll try for pictures soon.

Take care and stay tuned.

More about the house

2009-02-12T17:03:00.002-06:00

The Amazing E and I finally got in for the inspection today. Everything is fine. We're taking it. Here are some pictures.

About the house...

2009-02-08T15:15:00.002-06:00

You want to know about the house? Well, I'm gonna tell you.

The house is in a neighborhood called Kemp Mill in Silver Spring. It's a brick rambler. This is a type of house like a ranch. The main house structure has a big living room with a fire place, a dining room, a moderately sized kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. The kitchen has a one room addition off the back. The basement is the whole size of the house and is fully finished with a rec room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a workroom. The attic is accessible by stairs and is semi-finished. It's big enough so you can walk around up there. One other cool thing is that the yard is great. We think that the previous owner was big into gardening. They did a great job making the outside of the house look nice.

Home Sweet Home

2009-02-05T14:38:00.003-06:00

The Amazing E and I have been in house hunting craziness for the last couple of weeks. Today we got word that a house is ours.

YAAAAYYY!

Baby cables and big ones too

2009-01-26T07:46:00.004-06:00

It wouldn't fit in the fancy schmancy light box, but I finally got a picture of this finished object. Baby Cables and Big Ones Too took me about 33 days to knit on size 5 needles with 10 skeins of Debbie Bliss cotton Cashmere. I really enjoyed knitting it. The pattern is knitting top down in all one piece. No seaming!
Eh. Maybe I'll see about a better picture one day.

Frogged already

2009-01-22T14:46:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I was stricken by startitis. You see, Mandy posted photos of her newest FO on her blog. Realizing that I had the book with the pattern and some great yarn. The yarn is a fawn colored laceweight blend of yak and silk from Shaska Designs. I also have a great desire to do a laceweight lace project. I've never finished one. But Mandy inspired me. Icarus looks like one I might be able to do.

So I cast on and worked on it. And just now ripped it out. I missed a major concept in the first chart. Oh well. It was only one day's work.