Swine Flu

Just kidding.

I am on break from a conference where I am really getting my nerd on (remind to tell you about spatial data and the problems it poses for confidentiality), and it turns out people still need books and stuff, so I will make this quick.

I know it seems like sewing has taken over everything, but I have, in fact been knitting. Indeed, I have finished the Shetland Triangle:

Pretty, huh?

The act of blocking* is not my favorite thing to do, but it is transformative:

From this:

To this:

with just some water, wire and pins.

*For the non-knitters: blocking is the use of water or steam to shape a piece of fabric. It can be as simple as soaking a finished sweater and laying it flat to dry, to meticulously stretching and pinning out a round shawl bit by bit and tapping it gently with steam. This was not quite so meticulous: I soaked it, rolled it in a towel to get most of the water out, threaded some large gauge wire through the top to keep it straight and then pinned out each point (and because it was fairly dry by the time I'd finished, I sprayed it with water). Natural fibers have, to greater or lesser degree, memory: once unpinned, the shawl stays pretty much in the pinned out state. If I need to wash the shawl, I will need to pin it out again, but maybe not so aggressively.

That is all. Back to the conference.