I've started a new piece of knitted lace

This one is my “mindless” piece: it’s a commercially spun laceweight alpaca yarn (Misti Alpaca) that I’m knitting up out of a Japanese pattern. It’s a pentagonal shawl, with a pentagonal peony repeated six times (one center motif and five pentagons surrounding it). I may knit the whole shawl, or I may just knit the first motif. Or I may knit the first motif straight out of the book, then try my own variations for the others. Haven’t decided.

I’m not especially interested in coming out with the world’s most beautiful shawl–I want to understand Japanese knitting and I want to see how one knits a pentagon. If I can figure those out, I’ll be happy even if the shawl itself is a mangled mess. 🙂

I’ve also decided that I will probably restart my “tiger lily” shawl in a commercial yarn…the space-dyed-roving stripes are coming out beautifully, but they are so strong visually that they are going to overwhelm the knitting pattern, I think. So I think I will redo it with white silk yarn, then handpaint it once it’s finished. I’d handspin all the white yarn except that I really don’t have time to do that, work, and the book project…so I may wind up sticking with commercially spun stuff. (I wish I could find a small spinning mill capable of spinning super-laceweight yarn. Unfortunately the finest they spin seems to be about 3000 yards per pound, which is really quite thick for my tastes.)

Finally, I’ve started transcribing tapes again for the book on Lifecycle. I bought one of those little transcription machines with a foot pedal, and it’s made transcription SO much easier…to the point where it’s almost relaxing. I had been typing furiously trying to keep up with the tape (and always failing, of course)–now it’s easy to back up, rewind, pause, etc.

Still, it’s very slow going. I type at 110 words per minute, which is pretty darned fast, but it’s still taking over three hours to transcribe one hour of tape. With 80 hours of interviews, I may be at this for awhile.

Pride tomorrow. I have to be out of the house by 8am to make it up to my friend’s place in time: they want to see Dykes on Bikes, the butch leather dykes on motorcycles–but since Dykes on Bikes traditionally leads the parade, that means getting up early. I’m not complaining–AIDS Lifecycle is traditionally third in the parade (after Dykes on Bikes and Mikes on Bikes (the gay answer to Dykes on Bikes), so it means I’ll get a chance to see ALC. 🙂

I’m really looking forward to it–Pride is probably the biggest event in SF all year, and it is damn impressive. The entire city turns out for it.

I’ve given up on the Hawaiian orchid origami (the instructions are abysmal), but am trying to fold a lobster and a squid (cuttlefish).

Tien