Sasha's Top 10: Valentine's Day Roundup

Valentine's Day is less than a week away, and boy I've been surfing Pinterest like I have a room full of baby furniture that I don't want to assemble!  Or something.

Anyway, I'll be the first to admit, there's a lot about Valentine's Day that makes me gag.  I don't go in for artificial sugar, y'know?  Food coloring, heart vomit and sparkly, glittery, "LOOKIT HOW IN LURVE WE ARE, SHNOOPY SHNOOPY!" are really not my thing.  That said, it can be a fun excuse to show a certain someone or someones in your life how much they mean to you - said someones to include significant others, children, good friends, cats or even thy sweet self.  Also chocolate.  There is SO MUCH CHOCOLATE lying around this time of year, and that can only be a good thing.

So I've compiled a collection of Valentine's Day ideas that I actually quite enjoy.  I think there's something for everyone here, so I hope that no matter who you are or who you're with, you'll find something you can enjoy here.

Cherry Cordial Cupcakes, by Lemon Sugar

These decadent cupcakes are perfect for you, your sweetie or your best friend.  They're impressive to look at, easy to make, and Lemon Sugar lays out the whole recipe for you.

Chocolate Raspberry Cups, by The Frugal Girls

Step-by-step instructions on how to create your own edible chocolate cups, to fill with whatever kind of berries or deliciousness you want, really.  Or you could spend lots of money for the same thing at Godiva.  I vote handmade, of course!

Chocolate-Dipped Clementine Hearts, from Premeditated Leftovers

If, like me, you're actually capable of getting sick of all the ooey-gooey sugary crap you have to wade through this time of year, this simple technique will be just the thing!  Easy, and healthy and bite-sized!  The darker the chocolate you use, the more anti-oxidants you get, you know.

DIY Fingerprint Heart Print, by Restoration Beauty

An easy, personalized gift - perfect if you have kids, or are in a polyamorous group relationship.

Hot Chocolate Bar, by Clean and Scentsible

Oh man, I would TOTALLY have my husband, who shall remain nameless, wake up to this on Valentine's Day!  If Valentine's Day weren't on a workday this year.  Instead, I think I shall blunder around trying to put clothes on right-side-out before the sun rises and save this for another year (and the idea for another holiday!)

Pretty much the best Valentine's Day cards ever, by Castle McQuaid

No really, you have GOT to check out this guy's Etsy shop.  There are many more cards where these came from, each one as geeky and great as the last!  I don't care what you think of Valentine's Day, if Yoda Cupid and Heart-Throb Lando don't make you smile, then man...I can't help you.

Shakespeare Chalkboard Printables, by Mad in Crafts

I love these printables.  Lovelovelove them!  They're cute without being cutsey, they're literary and they really mean something.  If you don't know how to express your love, you can't go wrong letting the bard do it for you, with these free printables.

Dried Strawberries, by The Worldwide Gourmet

Another quick, healthy snack that still gets the "look, we're going for pink things that are vaguely heart shaped and sweet" thing across.

Burlap Valentine Wreath, by The September Tree

I love this wreath, because it fits the theme with a nod to the lingering winter.  

More Unusually Awesome Valentine's Day Cards, by Landeelu

These free printable cards say things like "You are pretty much my favorite husband," and "You're the one I want to be next to when you're on your computer and I'm on mine."  They're awesome cuz they're true!

The Little Things

I don't know what kind of flower this is, but now the entire dining room smells of it! My boyfriend, who will remain nameless, rescued this bloom from the sidewalk and wore it in his lapel on the bus ride home. He presented it to my roommate when we got home, who showed it to The Kiddo (her son, the most adorable and mercifully mild-mannered 6-month-old I have ever encountered). I think it's a more extreme smell than he's used to because his eyes got reeeeeeeally wiiiiiiiiide. Tiny kids are fun to watch when they first encounter things we take for granted. We had a pretty respectable thunder-storm this afternoon, and he stared out the window fascinated by the rain for as long as someone was willing to hold him near it. Kid's got good taste in nature.

My Favorite Springtime Color

My favorite springtime color is black. Just look at it!

It's been raining here for the past few days, punctuated by nice mild, sunny days. As a result, the trees and the grass are the kind of vibrant green that only fully develops in the rain, and flowers are popping out all over the place. Tulips and daffodils and these little purple things that I suspect are crocuses, but I'm not gonna lie, I actually don't know what a crocus is.

Amidst all of this glorious color, we have patches of rich black. The bark of a wet tree, the black soil out of which the new flowers have emerged. The night sky, deeper and darker than before after a few seconds of sudden, lightening-strike day.

The black is life-giving, and sets off the richness of the brighter springtime colors. But it's beautiful in its own right. It's rich, it's moist, it's velvety, and it has a life of its own. Within the black are sparkling droplets of water, storm clouds a slightly lighter black than the sky at night, texture and variation. It captures shades of brown and blue and even green and pulls them into the dark, fathomless realm of black.

On and Off the Needles

Did you think I meant that I'm on and off the needles? Because that would have been a hilariously inaccurate misconstrual! I am very much on the needles. On them like a drug. Here's what's off, though:

That's my Foliage. I wore it on the bus this morning, and who should step onto the bus as I sat in my morning fog but some random stranger wearing the same hat in a nice, warm yellow! I was delighted, and kept awkwardly trying to catch her eye to flash her my "Hey, we have the same hat which is cooler because we both obviously made the hats as well!" smile, but to no avail. She never looked at me, and I started to feel weird and stalkerish, so I gave up. It was a bit of a let-down, in the end. Now for what's on my needles:

Meet "Bluebonnets." If this turns out as nicely as I think it will, I may offer it for sale. We'll see. It's going to be a headband with two lacy bluebonnets knit down its length. This should be a great beginner lace project, and a really quick knit. I'm knitting it in Paton's bamboo/silk blend. It's shiny and slippery and smooth and silky and I'm really falling in love with the idea of bamboo yarn, not just from an ecological standpoint, but from a purely aesthetic one as well.

I have a number of larger-scale projects in the planning and knitting stages as well, but I can't tell you about them yet. Rest assured, I am smiling coyly as I type this.

IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO BE SPRING!!!

Did you hear that, nature??? I know you did because I got to wear short-sleeves today! w00t!!!

Today and yesterday have been in the 50s, and I've been wearing a skirt! I have never been so excited about skirts as I am now, on the tail-end of my first Wisconsin winter. It's been sunny in the afternoons with hints of rain to come. The piles of snow in everyone's yards are slowly decomposing and disappearing, leaving moist, black mud behind. There are no flowers yet by a long shot, but I can hear birds now, and I know that rich, thick mud has life starting to stir buried deep down beneath what I can see.

This morning was grey and mild and moist - the wind at the busstop was like silk on my cheek, not claws of ice. It made me feel Springy and happy, so I put on a skirt with boots and my polka-dotted tights! I traipsed into lecture feeling girly and bright, only to have a friend point out to me that I was clad entirely in shades of black and grey. Which was true. AND I DIDN'T CARE BECAUSE I HAD POLKA DOTS!!!

This is how Spring begins. The white fades to grey, leaving black on the ground before any color can emerge. But it's warm, and there's life and you're happy that it's finally starting to thaw. And this afternoon, my arms got to feel the wind for the first time in MONTHS!!!

Is this sketchy? I think this is sketchy.

I saw a wonderful hat on the bus this morning, so I sneakily snapped a photo of it with my phone. Is posting it here the sketchiest thing I could possibly do? I kinda think it is.
I've tried to crop it to minimize the presence of innocent bystanders and anything remotely identifying about the woman...even though it was snapped from the back anyway, and the most identifying feature she had going on this morning was definitely her amazingly wonderful hat. Amazingly wonderful hat lady, if you read this, please know that in my heart of hearts, I do respect your privacy and anonymity, and I admire the buhjeezus out of your taste in hats! :-)

It looks a lot more blah than it did in person. Less soft, the colors less rich. But still. It made my bus ride.

I'm going to make a quilt! I swear!

I mentioned earlier that I thought I'd make a quilt. I still think I'll make a quilt. I've always been interested in quilts - they're nice, they're cozy, they're homey, they can be quite beautiful, and they seem like they have the potential to be a staggeringly creative undertaking.

Until recently, I had never even considered making one. Not because quilts are something that "little old ladies" make (although I still find myself stifling a defensive response to that imagined objection whenever my intention to quilt comes up). Rather, quilts have always struck me as impossibly intricate. As a child, the mother of my best friend was a quilter, and I remember seeing her...quilting apparatus. She had this...rack of some sort with her quilt arranged in a certain way stretched out over it. There are...patterns to understand, construction methods to discern, ways of doing things to divine, traditions to bear in mind...add to all of this the fact that sewing has never been my forte. I can sew a garment, but there will be much yelling and flinging of fabric before all is said and done (I've stopped short of flinging the scissors...for now).

Quilting is one of the topics discussed in Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Domesticity. She doesn't offer patterns or step-by-step guides, but she presents it as something that's accessible. She makes it seem simple, she lays out the theory behind it, and she encourages you to just go out and try it. I have to tell you, I got really jazzed and excited when I read through this. I've worked out in my head what I need to do, what materials I'll need, how I'll construct and assemble my quilt. I haven't gotten started yet, but I'm no longer intimidated by the mechanics of quilting! I can do this!

So the other day, I went fabric shopping. I didn't get anything - it was more of a reconnaissance mission. Now I'm intimidated again. Jane Brocket is an avowed color person. She likes bright, contrasting colors, that's what gets her aesthetic juices flowing. I like color as much as the next girl, but I'm much more of a texture person. When I knit, I'll go with cables over stripes. Give me one, rich, lovely color and then let me drown in the subtle variations that texture creates.

So, of course, quilting is all about color. Go to the quilting section of your local fabric store, and you'll see bolts upon bolts of bright, loud, colorful cotton prints waiting to be sliced up and jumbled together in a cacophony of comfort. It makes my head spin. I love color - I love what people do with color, but it's just not how my brain works.

What about a velvet quilt? Or a silk quilt? Can I find enough complimentary solid colors of silk in one place to make a quilt? And can I then acquire enough of said silk to make a quilt without selling a kidney?

Things to think about before I begin. I'd like to get started soon, as I'd love to have a nice, new quilt on my bed in lieu of my comforter when the weather starts to warm up. I just...need to get better at fabric shopping.

*(The images in this post were created by my boyfriend, who shall remain nameless, based on images I chose that represent colors I like. It is his talent you see, and my awesome taste in individual colors).

The Economics of Knitting Part 2

Yarn
When I first started knitting, back in college, it was with...like...Lion Brand and Red Heart acrylic stuff. The cheapest stuff I could get my hands on, essentially. Since then, I'm afraid I've developed rather more expensive tastes in yarn. This wasn't such a problem back when I was working full time, but now that I'm back to being a broke-ass student, well...yeah.

I'd say that my strongest preference when it comes to yarn is natural fibers. I realize this is somewhat arbitrary. There are some nice synthetic blends out there. It's part a crunchy-granola thing, and part the fact that I grew up in The Land of Spontaneous Brush Fires, not far from The Land of Spontaneous Hurricanes, where we have a deep appreciation for the miracle that is 100% cotton. But cotton isn't all that's good and pure in this world. Natural fibers in general breathe better than synthetics, and even in winter, when you're wearing layer upon warm layer, acrylics will make you sweat when wool won't.

I'd like to be even pickier in my yarn selection. I'd like to buy more locally produced fiber, wool from manufacturers with documented humane standards of treating their animals. I'd like to buy organic cotton and yarn dyed with the environment in mind. There's lots of locally, responsibly produced wool to be had in my area, and some gorgeous hand-painted artisan yarns. I'd like to focus on these, to help my community and vote with my dollar, but damnit, I can't afford to.

Not only can I not afford to, being a responsible consumer sometimes seems like an impossibly daunting task. A lot of people are faced with unacceptable choices - if there's not much locally produced organic produce to be had, for example, your decision to buy organic might send a message to the industry that buying local isn't important to you. If you want to buy locally, you may be sending the message that there's no demand for organic produce. Industry can spin your economic vote to further restrict your choices, if it's in its own financial best interests, and that is so frustrating when I think about it. I'm lucky, in that I live in an area in which I can buy my produce at farmer's markets and, during the right time of year, not spend any more than I would at the grocery store. Locally produced wool, however, is still beyond the reach of my wallet.

So...unfortunately, regarding this area of the economics of knitting, I just don't have any answers. I'm not going to give up my knitting because I can't afford to be as responsible a consumer as I'd like. That's not going to happen. I'm obviously not going to give up my graduate studies so that I can make enough to afford all-natural, organic, humane, locally-produced yarn. And I'm not going to start knitting with cheap-ass acrylics, which frankly, for all I know, could be environmentally destructive to manufacture (I really don't know. If you do - comment!).

It goes back to my reasons for knitting. It's a sensual experience. If I hate the yarn I'm using, I won't enjoy it enough to continue. But I also hate the idea of spending more than I would for a store-bought garment. I can pretty much knit small things, hats and scarves and whatnot, for considerably less than what I'd pay in a store, but I start to get diminishing financial returns when I move up to, say, sweaters. Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and pay through the nose for what you love. But I will not pay ~$100 for a sweater no matter how nice Rowan Cocoon is!

So I continue to bargain hunt. Every once in a while, you'll find some nice, yummy wool in a gorgeous color for $6 a generous skein, and then you buy those puppies up! I'm going to start looking in thrift stores for sweaters to frog - we'll see how that goes, I'll post about it here when I get around to it. Gift cards to yarn stores allow me to splurge. Felting being all the rage these days, the big yarn companies are coming out with more 100% wool yarns, so if I'm knitting, oh, say, a blitz of Christmas gifts, I can actually find wool that's worthy, nice and not too expensive at my local big-box fabric store. I'd still rather support local businesses and...y'know...shop in a store that feels like a store and not a warehouse.

The Economics of Knitting Part 1

Why I Knit
I knit for 4 main reasons, at least...4 that I've been able to think of just now.



1) Relaxation: If you've read Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, you may remember that when Morgaine spins, she enters into a sort of trance state. I'm not saying I have visions when I knit, but it is definitely a meditative experience. When I knit, it gives my mind a chance to wander, to passively mull over things that are on it, rather than actively stressing about them. As my mind wanders undirected, it often finds paths that wouldn't have occurred to me in a more deliberate, active frame of mind.

2) Luxury: Leaving aside, for a moment, the delicious things you can get as a result of knitting, knitting is a pleasing sensual activity. Yarn is nice. It comes in pretty colors, yummy textures, it feels good in your hands and it looks luscious as the fabric you're creating grows like some living thing into whatever shape and pattern you've chosen for it. Yarn is soft and pretty and good.

3) Creativity and control: Once you get the hang of it, making things for yourself ensures that what you end up with is exactly what you want. I don't have to spend lots of money on a beautiful scarf that's kind of itchy, or a wonderful sweater that fits not quite just right. Fine, shaping and fit is something I'm still in the process of mastering, but in a materialistic sense, knitting and making things makes you the master of your own fate. This is where my reasons for knitting really intersect with my reasons for making things in general. If I want legwarmers to match my hat perfectly, then I shall have them! If I want carbonara that won't kill my boyfriend, who shall remain nameless, with cholesterol, then I shall leave out the egg yolks! If I want a pot-holder that matches both the mustard yellow of the kitchen counter and the avocado green of the stove top, I shall make it so! Creativity is liberating.

4) Saving money: As you may have deduced elsewhere on this blog, I am a broke-ass graduate student. Saving money is, for me, a necessity, but that doesn't mean I can't still have nice things in my life. I can knit myself a matching hat and scarf pair that's nicer and cheaper than one I'd find at, say, The Gap. I can make really great shirts and skirts out of old t-shirts that I never wear (more on that when it warms up outside). I can't afford to eat out much, but that doesn't mean I can't afford to eat well at home.

I know that I won't always be a broke-ass graduate student. At some point, I'll have the degree and the job and the house and the disposable income. At this point, I expect my first two reasons for knitting to really start conflicting with the last two - actually, more just #2 with #4. I think, however, that even then I'll value knitting as a means of saving money, and not just out of habit.

As much as I like pretty things, I have a definite anti-consumerist streak in me. I like showing "The Man," "The Powers That Be," "The Gods of Capitalism," or whomever that I am not a slave to the market, that I don't need what they're selling, that I can do perfectly well for myself. There are, of course, limits to this. I'm not about to run off and start homesteading. But I take pride and a subversive glee in not being a predictable consumer. If a company wants my money, they're going to have to put some effort into it, and not treat me like a non-existent generic member of my demographic. Give me real options, or I will make my own!

The next two installments of this series on the economics of knitting will deal with being a responsible consumer within this framework - because even as an independent, unpredictable consumer, I am still a consumer of yarn, of materials, of patterns, of ideas. But it will always boil down to why I knit.

Tea and Toast...or Why I Don't So Much Do Cozies

Sometimes, thank God, luxury is cheap. Particularly now that it's cold, I like to make myself tea and toast in the afternoon when I get back home from class. Lunch is wearing off about that point, and I'm cold and could use a subtle caffeine hit. In addition to fairly low levels of caffeine, tea contains l-theanine, a sedative compound naturally found in the body. This makes tea, in my experience, the perfect after-school drink. It relaxes you while it revives you. It won't make you feel wired and jittery, and it won't lead to a caffeine crash later on. And then what's not to like about sourdough toast with honey and blueberry jam? Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Quick and easy and cheap and yum.

I really like my teapot. It's a nice cobalt blue that I think sets off my dishes nicely, and it holds enough for you to have tea even when you're not alone! I really like using it, and this is why I'm never going to knit a tea cozy. It's not that I object to cozies themselves (although I have heard from admitted tea snobs that they "stew the tea." I'm not 100% sure what that means). But why would I want to hide such a nice thing as my teapot behind some flouncy, squooshy dish-sweater?

I avoid tea cozies for the same reason I avoid tablecloths. My roommates have a really nice dining-room table made out of rich, dark wood. Why would you want to cover that up? I love the look of wood (although what you see pictured is "birch veneer," courtesy of Ikea. It's fake, but I still like the look of it). I suppose if you happen to prefer the look of lace to the look of wood, it would make sense to strew your surfaces with doilies and cloths. I prefer the surfaces themselves. I love the texture you can see in a smooth piece of wood. I love the way the light plays off of the shiny surface of my teapot. I guess I could go for a table-runner, as long as it didn't detract from the look of the wood.

There seems to be a cozy-craze afoot in the world of knitting at present. If you look hard enough, you can find a pattern for a knitted object that will fit nicely around anything. That just seems a bit excessive to me. Maybe it's just that my aesthetic happens not to involve covering things, but can't we think of something useful to knit? Is a layer of yarn really going to protect your iPod if you drop it on the sidewalk? Is your decoratively floral box of kleenexes really so hideous that it needs its own ruffly sweater? I thought I'd seen the cozy-craze at its worst when I found this ice-cream pint cozy, but then an image flashed into my head: I'm blundering toward the freezer in the dead of night. I need ice-cream. All I want is to stand next to the freezer blearily devouring ice-cream from the carton, but my hands...dear Gods, I can't feel my hands!!! That sweet, treacherous ice-cream has frozen them completely numb. So I'm willing to admit that the ice-cream pint cozy is absolute genius.

This cozy-craze is delightfully expressed by the character Emerson Cod in the shamefully canceled series "Pushing Daisies." Emerson is a tough, cynical PI with a heart of stone. He is also a stress-knitter. His office is filled with objects wearing little object-sweaters - there is a file-holder cozy, a pencil-holder cozy, he even tucks wads of cash away in a drawer, lovingly arranged in little green money cozies. It's the juxtaposition inherent in this image that tickles me. It's why I get a kick out of knitting a sweater on the bus with my rapier leaning against my seat. And it's why I am so pleased that this motorcycle cozy exists!

Angry, Sword-Wielding Feminist Seeks Peaceful Spot to Knit

Hi, I'm Sasha. I like swords, Star Wars, Russian literature and knitting.

I'm a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison working on my Ph.D. in Slavic languages. I have very little free time and even less money. I rent a room from a wonderful family whose decor I would describe as...unapologetially 70s. Alright, it's not their decor per se, but they haven't quite gotten around to ripping out all of the blue carpet yet. My boyfriend, who shall remain nameless, is in his last year of law school in a different state. The two of us look forward to buying a house, shacking up and, with the help of a bit of disposable income, making said shack a home. With the job market the way it is, it's lookin' like I'll be staying in my rented room for a few more years.

For Christmas, my mother gave me Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Domesticity. I love it! I'm at the point, both in my knitting and in my cooking, where inspiration is at least as valuable to me as straight-up "how tos," and I found this book to be very inspiring. Lush, even. Perhaps a bit heavy on the pink for my taste, but it's really Brocket's appreciation of the value, both sensual and emotional, of domestic creativity that strikes a chord in me.

So my reaction to Liz Hunt's review in The Daily Telegraph was one of surprise...and then surprise at my surprise. Hunt, through exasperated sarcasm, accuses Brocket of popularizing yet another set of "impossible standards [for] the rest of womankind via beautifully illustrated books and websites." I must admit, from time to time I myself fall into the trap that seems to ensnare Hunt.

Let's face it: I'm young, I'm broke, I can't even set up a home with my boyfriend, who shall continue to remain nameless. I live in a rented room - I can't splash brightly colored paint all over my walls to brighten up my living space. I don't have an expensive digital camera with which to take gloriously luxurious pictures of my finished projects. I certainly don't have time to bake all the damned time.

But then Jesus, who does? How many of us actually are, as Hunt describes them, "women who have done the career bit and, looking around for a new diversion and cushioned by private income or a wealthy husband or generous alimony, target the home and impose impossible standards on the rest of womankind via beautifully illustrated books and websites." Who really has the kind of time to create a home as airy, as peaceful, as lush as Jane Brocket's? Who are these women? And how on God's green earth will I ever find the time or the money to make my home the bright, cheery, welcoming haven that I see in all of these beautiful pictures?

Decades ago, women in America were relegated to this domestic sphere whether they liked it or not. They had the time, and some of them had the money, but they had little choice. And they too, through the spread of television in particular, had impossible standards to live up to. Then the feminist movement blasted out a place for women in the workforce. It wasn't easy, but women could find productive, fulfilling, rewarding work outside the home, if that's where their interests lay. And for a while, the worst thing that an energetic, intelligent, educated woman could do was to chain herself to the home in defiance of her new, hard-won freedom.

The craft movement is a sign of things changing yet again. Women, by baking, quilting, gardening, knitting and most of all by being proud of their work, are reclaiming parts of our femininity that had been devalued. Men, by finding the same delight in the same pursuits, are showing that traditional concepts of femininity are not dirty or shameful. Just as I can put on a suit, grab a sword and go conquor the world, a man can knit an afghan to enrich his home. Creation and domesticity are empowering. I learned to knit at Wellesley, for Chrissakes!

But now it's in the media. Now we have books of inspiration - or standards - published by women with means far beyond those of most of us. My stockinette will never be that even. I will never get this damned bulb to sprout. I will never be able to afford a house that would ever look like that. And who the hell quilts? I have blue carpet, and it's not going anywhere. Is this liberating development yet another set of impossible standards - new shackles for my hypothetical daughters to break?

Every time we break through the walls of what defines feminity, we set up another, newer, shinier set of walls, but they're just as constricting. So fuck it. My home, my little room, is going to be every bit as gorgeous as Jane Brocket's, blue carpet and all. Because I effing said so. I can't afford much, but that's one reason I love making things: doing for myself. I will make this the home I want it to be. It's not going to look like anyone else's, and that's what will make it perfect. That's what will make it mine.

I'm done looking outside myself for standards to live up to. There's inspiration, and then there are standards. Inspiration is at its most delightfully surprising when it comes from outside of you. Standards, to have any validity, must come from within you. I will be inspired by Jane Brocket's books and blog and beautiful photographs, as she intended, but I will never expect to resemble her. I will not be knitting tea cozies, but I do think I'll make a quilt. I will stay in this rented room, but I will be home. In place of my boyfriend, who shall remain nameless, I will live with my hilariously blue carpet. I will make this room a haven. A place of warmth, of comfort, of ease, of beauty. And I will do it on my terms - less pink, more swords!

If anyone ever follows this blog, I hope it inspires you to do the same. Not to embrace my undoubtedly quirky esthetic, nor my necessarily frugal budget, nor my giddily rabid feminist ideals, nor my insistant use of the words "nor" and "whom," but to redefine, to destroy entirely the standards that my gender - that both genders - have been duped into falling short of. I like knitting, and I like fighting, and I have blue carpet, and that just freaking rules.


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