for sale

want to help me out of crushing poverty?

hand-crocheted of hand-spun and commercial yarn. tested in -20 wind chill conditions.

$45.

jacqueminot.etsy.com

warnken

oof, apologies for the blurry.

finally! finally! i cast-on for the zetor scarf from jatta soheltaa.

[tangential side-note - i lived in finland for a bit during university and am always! tickled to see finnish. ravelry is chock-full of super talented finns! what's up with that? shouldn't sweden be up in arms in a knitting race?!]

i bought this yarn, peria kid mohair, while in london, at the very beautiful and very cozy loop, in islington.

unfortunately, i had forgotten my camera that day, but it was very grey, rainy and chilly, i suppose a typical english day. loop was the first stop on the yarn tour 08, in which i first ventured to islington [a charming and quaint part of london], then out to the no-mans-land surrounding the handweavers studio in blackhorses [lots of petrol stops, shabby mechanics shops].

peria is ok. i am always on the look for subsitutes for kid silk haze, which, quite frankly, is ridiculously overpriced. k1c2's douceur et soie is pretty close to it, and pretty affordable, but i've only ever seen it at halcyon, i think. peria's a little thicker, and 100% mohair. i have to say i am not the biggest fan. it's uber sticky and tangly, which tries my patience, and sheds like a motherfucker. should have known.

oh well, the color is beautiful [it's the top one, fyi], and the scarf will be named warnken, in the honor of ms. emma warnken johnson, whom we stayed with in london, most likely past our welcome. in addition to living in london, ms. johnson is particularly fond of that shade of mustard yellow, and it never fails to remind me of her.

interests, as seen at the british museum.

after popping into the british museum for a couple of hours and only three rooms, i realized that all the pictures i took fall into four categories. who wants a crappy reflected picture of the rosetta stone anyway when you could have a crappy reflected picture of stuff no one finds interesting and you're the only one photographing it? no one.

this means that none of your friends will want to look at your british museum pictures because they are "boring". oh well.

me, i like fiber working.

that, sir, is a fine-looking warp-weighted loom.

also, i enjoy spinning.


on to clothing, #2

the musem had dozens of these - intricate diadems and headdresses. very inspiring.

another interesting motif that was spread out over clothing depictions and silverware was the swaztika. i had no idea that the classical world used it - i was aware of the indus use - but emma told me that they discussed the motif in a beck class once. interesting.

the original gladiator sandal.
interest #3. geeky classical stuff. above, a stele involving a mithraic sentator. i quoted this stele in my honors thesis and got a little giddy in the museum. again, not interesting to most.


this is fucking neat. it's the second oldest surviving piece of virgil, and scholars think it was written as either a practice piece or in a repetitive way for memory. the piece quoted is 2.601,

"non tibi Tyndaridis facies inuisa Lacaenae
culpatusue Paris, diuum inclementia, diuum
has euertit opes sternitque a culmine Troiam."

or, as fairclough translates,

"Know that it is not the hated face of the Laconian woman, daughter of Tyndareus, it is not Paris that is to blame; but the gods, the relentless gods, overturn this wealth and make Troy topple from her pinnacle."

neat!

4. food. [tangentially, mosaics.] [and apparently, just mollusks and the like]

what a nice thing to have on your kitchen floor.

this i like too, because you could just look down and be all like hey! those are tasty animals.

this is fucking neat! it's a colander. a strainer, from roman gaul. NEAT.


COMING UP: we go to an old crow medicine show, hyde gardens and have friends for dinner. THRILLING.