The Artisanal Glories of Costco

I have just returned from a trip to CostCo.  What a cornucopia of lovingly hand-made items it is.

First, I picked up this package of beautifully handspun and handwoven teatowels:

They are amongst the most impressively absorbent kitchen towels I have ever owned, equivalent in value to the beautifully fine linen kitchen towels which travelled the Silk Road from the Mayans to the Hittite civilisation.   This proves that handspun and handwoven kitchen towels can be produced by skilled artisans and sold for pennies as a mass product.

Excited by this find, I continued to the aisle for ceramic cups and related items.  There I found this set of beautifully hand-thrown ceramic bowls, the fingermarks of the Master Potter clearly visible on the hand-applied glaze:

Overwhelmed by the quality of the hand-made glories of the CostCo, I returned and made a snack, and again was impressed by the quality.

This nourishing meal could only have come from the skilled hands of a master chef.  I could taste the love, passion and skill with every slurp.

Manspinner's Creed

Alas, my knitting genius
Falls on fallow ground
Knitting genius
From my strong hands
And short bent prick
Blooming plums
Spurting, splashing
Pool on gansey
Does not soak through
But boss cows are stupid
Misled by Queen Victoria
And her court
And maybe Jane Austin
So I will mansplain
This is metaphor
for impregnability
Of spinning ladies’
feeble lady brains
To my genius
Which is maybe metaphor
For wanking
Who the hell knows any more?

Mix Yourself A Fatal Disease

Back in college days, I worked as a bartender in the best cocktail bar in California.  All the stars would come, and beg me to mix them a Shut Up You Weirdo And Go Away.  So I'd oblige.

These days, I like to be permanently drunk, so I fill my ski backpack with flasks of a little pick-me-up I call the Fatal Disease.

One part Simple Green cleaning fluid
Two parts brandy
Slice of lemon
Sugar-cube

Stir it all together in a big handle mug so it will look manly.  Set it alight.  Quaff in a cannon-thighed viking-like manner.

For the advanced mixologists, turn this hearty brew into an Orchard Fire by substituting an apple quarter for the slice of lemon.

Bottoms up!

Warping A Loom

Let us never speak of this again.

What Happened on My Arctic Staycation

This year, I decided that salmon camp, manly adventure in the wilderness though it is, did not offer harsh enough conditions for testing 6-ply wool knitted to a gauge of 45 stitches per semicircle.  Testing weatherproofness requires more than that.  So to replicate conditions in Spitzbergen, I turned the thermostat down to 62 degrees, and kept a journal of this harrowing experience.

Day one:  Made tuna mayo sandwich as enjoyed by the cannon-thighed iron men of seafaring myth and legend.  The butter was too hard to spread, and tore the bread in two places.  If this goes on I shall starve. Wrote note to wife to tell her I love her, in case future expeditions find my frozen corpse in the breakfast nook.

Day two:  Erected blanket fort in living room to shelter from the howling blizzard directly from the open conservatory window.  My gansey however protected me from almost certain death.

Day three:  Killed and ate the dog.  A civilised man turns savage in such an environment.

Day four:  Emerged from blanket fort and stumbled into the freezing blizzard.  My wife was vacuuming, and asked what I was doing.  "I'm just going out, dear.  I may be some time." I told her.  She shook her head, and pretended not to notice my noble sacrifice.  Put on another gansey, went into the back yard, and nailed some socks to the picnic table.

Day five:  Expedition second-in-charge (hitherto known as 'my wife') asked why I had nailed socks to the picnic table.  Surely it is obvious, even to a woman, that this is to prevent removal by roving bands of polar bears?  I blame Queen Victoria.

Day six:  Felt chilly draft while watching Antiques Roadshow in the living room like some latter-day Magellan. If not for my gansey would have gone hypothermic and fallen off the couch, perhaps to my death. Mother Nature is a harsh mistress.

Day seven:  Set on on open sea-voyage in square-rigged vessel.  Shackleton himself would have balked.  A friendly Inuit walking past made fun of my plastic paddling pool.  They laughed at Galileo too.

So you see, it is possible to survive the harsh Arctic environment with gansey-swaved knitwear.  A case of brandy to anybody who can replicate this arduous expedition.

Lies, All Lies

I have a confession to make. 

Anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of spinning, knitting, history and farm animals will have noticed that some of the entries in my blog are not, in fact, true.

But nobody has pointed it out. 

Go, slink away in your ignorance.

These days, I'm measuring gauge in degrees.  The traditional method of measuring stitch gauge and row gauge was not obfuscatory enough, and I have recently discovered some drawbacks in using stitches per square inch.  Better, cheaper, faster is my motto, so I got out my trusty protractor:

Now, place this on your knitting.  Count the stitches all around the semi-circular edge.  This will give you stitches per semicircle (sps).  Double this to get your stitches for the full 360 degrees.  Simple.  Even the ladies should be able to manage this. 

All about needles

I have come to realise that there are different kinds of needles, not all of which are knitting needles.

Pine Needles.  These are not used for knitting.

The Needles, Isle of Wight.  Not used for knitting.

As you can see, needles come in many forms

Take that, screamers!

Pics Or It Didn't Happen

These days, I am filling in my days doing science, like the Senior Scientician that I am.  And again, I find myself sadly shaking my head over the so-called 'experts' and their absurd requirements for pictorial evidence.

For example, I recently submitted a rambling diatribe research paper detailing my findings that cockroaches are all too small to be seen by the human eye to an audience of renowned entomologists.  Clearly seething with deluded jealousy, they demanded pictorial evidence.  Absurd.  Cockroaches are not pretty.  Why take photographs of them?

The Mandrill in Knitting

Knitting is defined as using two mandrills.  No, I shall not provide a reference.  Find it yourself or shut up.

The mandrill can be manipulated in swaving to give greater leverage. 

Just be careful it doesn't chew your face off.

Anesthetics

Pretty is for the birds.  Ladies of fashion boast about their pretty lace and spin their pretty yarns, but I strive for ugly.  Pretty things can never be functional, and the corollary to that is that the uglier something is, the more useful it is.  If ladies were capable of logic, they'd understand that.  Consult your copy of 'The Gorilla Hunters' for further proof.

Until you've matched the gauge on this pair of ski-boot socks, you haven't a leg to stand on.  A case of brandy to anybody who can duplicate my masterful swaving.

Historical Sheep Breeds

Ignorant hobby spinners have accused me of posting a photograph of a cat and claiming that it was a corriedale sheep. 

They have truly shown their ignorance of heritage sheep breeds.  That it is a sheep is clearly discernible by the fluffy paws, long whiskers and luxuriant fur. 

When you can tell me what breed of sheep these are, you can claim rudimentary spinning knowledge.  If not, consult a reputable chemistry textbook.

Laser tachometers of the Elizabethan Age

The Elizabethans are rightly renowned for their superb skills as spinners, weavers, and makers of tapestries.  I exhort you all to examine Henry VIII's superb codpiece, and marvel at its qualities.

To achieve this level of professional spinning expertise and elan, they used laser tachometers to calibrate their great wheels.  Observe, in this painting, the laser tachometer.  It is not readily apparent to the non-expert eye, but those spinners who have used such equipment will deduce its presence from the position of the left arm.

Minimum Yarn Storage and Containment Regulations

Everybody should have tonnes of yarn.  This yarn must all be spun to the same specifications of 130,000 ling per kemp of tarpit.  It was good enough for Geoffrey Chaucer, and all those modern spinners would do well to take note.

But Dr Gansei, I hear you ask, in your weak, piping ladyvoices, what if yarn spun to those specifications is not what I need for my project?  Well, silly modern spinners, if your project cannot be knitted or woven using yarn according to my specifications, clearly laid out above, then your project is invalid.  Women are notoriously bad at thinking through these things logically.  Like fairies, or poodles.

Even more essential is to store supplies of such yarn for your descendants for the next 1000 years.  Stuff it all in the cave where you were foolishly intending to store dry catfood for your descendents of the next 1000 years. 

The multi-coloured corriedale sheep in the above photograph is ideal for either worsted or woollen spinning.

I like toast. 

Lanolin

Baby oil.  Lanolin.


Grease.

Greasy wool. 

Sweaty sailors.

Fish.

Hands sliding on ropes ... sliding ... with the erotic rhythm of a dying cod, thrashing. 

Covered in baby oil.

Where was I before you silly women interrupted?

Of course.  Baby oil.  The Elizabethans would swim their sheep in cold water then shampoo and blowdry them, and anoint the wool with baby oil.  Because Geoffrey Chaucer was a freak for that shit.

Totally.  It's in a book I found in Google.  If you can't find it that's not because I hallucinated it. 

Excellence in Personality Disorders

Some of the drivelling so-called experts have accused me of having Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  How dare they presume to think that of ME?  Just because I am the best at everything, purely by making self-aggrandizing pronouncements of it?  How dare they question my innate superiority and imply that I'm a narcissistic blowhard.  NONE OF THEM CAN POSSIBLY APPROACH MY STRATOSPHERIC LEVELS OF AWESOMENESS IN EVERY POSSIBLE SPHERE OF HUMAN ENDEAVOUR, so therefore any accusations of Narcissistic Personality Disorder are invalid.

Now everybody maintain an appropriately worshipful silence while I drone for hours about how awesome I am. 

Narcissist indeed. 

Jealousy

Those silly incompent women are at it again.  There have been malicious claims that I have not done all the many things which I claim to be pathologically excellent at. 

For example, last week I paddled around the swimming pool on a lilo at a precisely calculated speed of 65 knots/hour, covering a total distance of 2 nautical miles.  This is much faster than any yacht competing in the Americas Cup.

But the Boss Cows will not accept that I have won the Americas Cup.  Have they done the math?  Do they accuse other Americas Cup winners of not having completed the race?  Do they tell lies about Dean Barker?

I rest my case. 

Contemplation of my bobbing rod tip

The best textile judge I know always asks 'what is the purpose of this object'?  Why he should have found my tightly swaved fishing unitard so puzzling I cannot imagine. 

I just got back from Salmon Camp, a gruelling voyage in a little boat in the icy waters of California.  Shackleton himself would have balked.   Only the iron men of seafaring legend could contemplate such a trip.  Amongst the guests were a retired millionaire and his wife, so clearly we were as hardbitten a group of seamen as ever braved the icefloes and 10' swells off Santa Monica.  So sit right back and I'll tell you a tale, a tale of a fateful trip.

Our little boat set off with the tide.  Almost immediately I began testing knitwear.  Another of the guests was a scientist, but I was disappointed to learn that he knew nothing about the physics of heat sorption in wool.  The man's a fool, and actually shook his head bemusedly as I attached a laser tachometer to the mast to measure the oscillation.  I left him to his mojito and crawled out onto the bowsprit, to test my spray-repellent properties.  I assume that he knew that I was right, and didn't want to look silly in front of the bikini-ed redhead he was chatting up.  I applied my linen tester to her bikini top, and found it substandard, and in no way protective against abrasion from the spars.  But ladies of fashion care not for functionality.

The salmon were biting, and with my catch I was able to test a revolutionary new feature that I included in my Salmon Gansey - sleeves that roll up.  Modern knitters are unaware that this is possible. 

I tested the salmon in my bucket with the linen tester.  At only 7 scales/inch they were obviously substandard, so I threw them back.

Blue is warmer than white

I only pay attention to physics and nature.  Physics and nature always get it right.  Physics also tells us that blue is warmer than white.  To illustrate this universal principle, let us look at the natural world, and the colours that animals have evolved in order to stay warm in harsh environments.

1.)  The Polar Bear

The polar bear is white, clearly illustrating its tropical origins.  The white prevents the bear from overheating by reflecting the harsh rays of the equatorial sun.

2.)  The Bird of Paradise

The warm blue colouration of this bird protects it from the icy waters of it's habitat in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean

Blue is warmer!  QED.

Padded photography gansey

It has recently been brought to my attention by the local fibre experts, that a very necessary adjunct to good photography is a 'shelf' on which to rest one's camera.  I'm an old man with no bosom to speak of, so the Photography Boobs Gansey project was born.  History tells us that gansey-knit garments have been made with specific cables for specific purposes.  The codfishermen of old used herringbone travelling crossed stitches in the welting to prevent lampreys from eating their testicles, and I'll be using the same technique, as pioneered by the Vikings, to create a chest-shelf on which to rest my camera.

14th Century Woodcut Depicting Codfishing from Viking Longboat

I have acquired a loom

This is a square-rigged sail which I have woven from handspun linen from my own flock, and embroidered with a regal peacock in the style of the masters of tapestry in 15th century Flanders.

It is many a long century since we have seen textiles of this quality and fineness.  Everybody who has seen my fine handiwork exclaims in astonishment at its beauty.