* Pebbles & Sunshine *

Yesterday, I sat down to learn short rows via Nona’s short row experiment. The idea is pretty simple: Knit the same short row swatch three times except using a different method for each; first the wrapped stitch method, second the yarn over method, and finally the Japanese method (or catch method as it’s called in Monste Stanley’s Knitter’s Handbook). Compare the results.

Around the knitting elite, it’s generally accepted that the less western and more foreign the technique, the better the results, so I wasn’t surprised when Nona ranked the Japanese method best, the yarn over next, and the wrapped stitch the worst for both ease of execution and smooth results. As a knitting geek who espouses top down sweaters, toe up socks, and seamless everythings, I’m no wallflower when it comes to flouting convention. So I snuggled up with a ball of yarn and happily looked forward to yet another esoteric technique and proof of its superiority.

What I got was not at all what I expected. After doing the experiment twice, I had a completely different ranking than Nona and the rest of the knitting world. The first time, I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Perhaps it’s because I’m not familiar with the yarn over and Japanese methods,” I thought. “Or maybe it’s the differing tension. The yarn over swatch is a bit looser.” I reknit them the next day, carefully keeping my tension on the tight side. To no avail. Finally in desperation, I submitted the swatches to my techie husband, thinking that perhaps my emotionality was biasing my judgment. After examining the swatches, my husband tossed back the yarn over swatch with “Well, this one’s easily the worst.” The other two were close, but after another moment, he handed me the Japanese swatch with “This one’s runner-up,” and finally the wrapped stitch, “And this one’s the best.” My conclusions exactly.

Wrapped stitch, Japanese, yarn over, in that order. Who would’ve thought? To shake things up even more, I found the wrapped stitch the easiest to execute — simply pop the wrap onto the needle and knit or purl it together with the next stitch; super simple, super straightforward. The yarn over was alright once you got the hang of it, though you had to perform a fancy little contortion on the purl side involving slipping knitwise and purling through the back loop. The Japanese was the most awkward, with pins hanging every which way. It required me to drop a needle to fiddle with the pins, which slowed me down considerably. (Now if you do it the way PGR describes in Knitting in the Old Way, you don’t use pins; but I wouldn’t recommend it for first-timers as it’s rather hard to see which loop you’re supposed to pick up — been there, done that, had ugly results to show for it.)

Not to say that there weren’t advantages to the losers. I liked that the pins on the Japanese method visually marked the gaps I needed to close; on the other methods I’d sometimes miss a wrap or a yarn over. As for the yarn over method, the advantage is purely emotional: I’m addicted to lace and therefore yarn overs. To think that they can be used in short rows too … well, that’s just peachy.

So, final conclusions? I’ll probably keep the wrapped stitch and Japanese methods around. The yarn over method, though fun, will probably be retired on account of its mediocre results.

One thing that I’d like to explore is which method works better when you have to turn twice in the same spot, such as a short row toe or heel. Does the wrapped stitch still trump? Or will one of the others win a dark horse victory?

Finally, here’s a photo of my swatches. Recall that we made our judgements based on both sight and touch.

Wrapped Stitch, Japanese, Yarn Over

As you can see, the yarn over swatch is a bit of a mess; it’s a clear last place. The wrapped stitch and Japanese are very close. The Japanese is a little nicer on the knit side (below the diagonal), but the wrapped stitch is smoother on the purl side (above the diagonal). What ultimately made the difference was the feel: The wrapped stitch felt smoother; the Japanese swatch had hard little bumps where the gaps were closed.

I think the Japanese method produced slightly better visual results, but considering the extra hassle and dubious benefits, I’ll probably just stick with the wrapped stitch for most things.

There is a myth that homeschoolers are socially inept. I know this is a myth because my husband busts it wide open. His social skills far outstrip mine which, forged in the blazing fires of public school, are supposed to resemble steel. The reality is more like styrofoam. In our family, my husband manages all the PR.

One fine sunny day, I was lamenting my public awkwardness to my husband. Being a very proactive man, Spencer encouraged me to do something about it. He suggested I read Dale Carnegie’s classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People, citing it as a big inspiration in his life.

“Well, I don’t want any friends. And I don’t want to influence anyone.” I was pretty grumpy that day.

“O-oh.” He looked bemused. “Then read it to find out what not to do. You wouldn’t want to get popular by accident now, would you.”

Now there was a good thought! I hijacked the volume from my parents’ bookshelf, and currently it is laying by my bed, half read.

This is actually my second go-around with this book. I forayed two or three chapters into it as a teenager but failed miserably to apply it to my life. This was because I approached it as a skin-deep remedy. That doesn’t work here. Unlike a lot of self-help concepts that pretend to be profound but are really quite shallow, this book strikes me as the opposite. Carnegie’s recommendations read like a simple dos and don’ts list, but they require a depth of sincerity that can’t be faked.

Now, a half decade older and (hopefully) wiser, I see this book more for the remarkable volume it is. In a lot of ways, it feels like the practical side to Jesus’s teachings. Where Jesus tells us what to be, Carnegie tells us how being these things would manifest itself in our social life in particular. I imagine Christ did these things effortlessly; He was an awfully popular fellow.

“Can’t you just go through the motions?” you might ask. Well, theoretically, I don’t see why not. But I can’t imagine anyone succeeding. After all, it is awfully hard to act unselfish for a prolonged time without being unselfish. I mean, I suppose that it is entirely possible that Mother Theresa was really a selfish brat, but simply went through the motions … all her life … Hmmm, you see my point?

So I hope to finish this book sometime. I will of course use it to cement my curmudgeonly solitude. Except for dear Spencer; I suppose I could wield a principle or two … but just on him. In the meantime, I highly recommend it. Not only is it a gem of advice, it also very well written, with that clarity and charm unique to old books. Hopefully, it will help you become the best-liked person in the room. And in the event you’re hoping to make enemies, if applied in reverse, it can help you do that too.

Bok choy is simply the best vegetable ever created. When stir-fried with salt, it is crunchy, mild, and faintly sweet — delicious! Bok choy is such a staple in Chinese cuisine that its name, qing cai, translates to “green vegetable.” It’s a favorite of my mother’s — and now one of mine.

I can eat an entire head of bok choy in a morning. It’s just that good. But I have to say, I haven’t the faintest how vegetarians stay satiated because I’m always hungry again within an hour. For me, it just takes meat.

LA traffic is legendary, and the longer I live here the more I understand why.

I didn’t used to drive much. In fact, I was one of those wives who tried to wheedle her husband into driving her everywhere. I just didn’t like it behind the wheel. After we moved to LA, necessity dictated that I learn to cart myself places; so I reluctantly picked up the car keys and headed out into the mayhem.

Learning LA traffic was harrowing to be sure, but actually easier than I’d anticipated. Thanks to low-carbing, my concentration was greatly improved — and not a moment too soon! It took every bit I could muster to get into driving, but eventually I got the hang of it. My husband even called me a good driver! Not bad, eh?

It might just be my imagination, but it seems like traffic is getting worse as the summer months approach. Until recently, the worse that happened was I would get lost. I might get beeped at once or twice a week, which may sound like a lot for you town-dwellers, but when you’re trying to juggle four lanes packed with cars, a thick crowd of pedestrians, and a large bus blocking half the road, you just make mistakes. By and large, I find most LA drivers to be generous and forgiving. People understand that everyone’s in the same boat and try to be kind.

These days, however, I’ve been encountering what seems like a rash of nasty drivers. They’re aggressive and unyielding. They’re also brittle: If you offend them in the least, they whiz by you honking and waving their arms at you like you’re stupid. I notice they’re all Hispanic, which surprises me because they’ve always struck me as a mellow and amiable bunch. I don’t know why so many are a terror on the road! Anyway, it’s been pretty hard on me. Yesterday, I arrived at the supermarket in tears! When I’m tired and stressed at the end of the day, it’s just too much to have someone not only honking at you but making rude gestures as well. For the first time in my life, I find myself getting road rage, shouting and honking back. I’m quite ashamed of myself! On top of it all, the hurt tends to stay with me the rest of the day — every time I picture their jeering faces, I get upset again.

Now I know I’m by no means a great driver; I make plenty of mistakes. But that’s the way things go around here. I get cut off all the time by some poor fellow getting around a stopped bus; I just step on the brake and try to be generous. Certainly many drivers have been generous to me. I don’t understand why some people feel the need to express their every emotional nuance on the horn. But that’s city life for you: It only takes a few obnoxious people to ruin it for the many.

In any case, my brief episodes of road rage scare me because there’s too much at stake when you’re behind the wheel to get angry. Hopefully I can get that under control and get over my newfound paranoia for driving through the Hispanic sector of town, especially since I shop at a great little Mexican grocery that I’d hate to give up!

A few other thoughts about driving in Los Angeles:

1. Always take the freeway. In town roads are not all they’re cracked up to be. On an in town road, you average barely 10 mph what with all the stoplights. The freeway would have to be crawling before you do that badly.

2. That said, make liberal use of Sigalert. It’s a live map of LA freeways, and it can save your rear!

3. Nothing is a rectangle. Roads here are more crooked than politicians. Also, every other street is named Glendale; don’t get your hopes up that they’re actually connected!

4. Tune into KUSC, FM 91.5, the classical station here. It’ll keep you sane. Plus they have an anti-road rage “car tune” every day at 5 PM. Maybe they have one in the mornings too, but I’m never awake to hear it. :)

5. Try not to get road rage. Speaking from experience, it’s really not worth it! But if you do, don’t beat yourself up too much. It happens to the best of us. Just try to do better next time.

6. Take a deep breath, and good luck!

There are a one or two things in my life without which I get weirdly restless. One of these is musical instruments. The other is knitting. You think I would’ve learned by now not to deprive myself of either and especially not both. But that is exactly what I have done for the last few months. No wonder I found myself moody and depressed for two weeks straight recently. After some urging from my husband, I roused myself from my despondence and dug out the lace scarf I’d been working on. I picked up the needles and — voila! — felt better immediately!

I had started this scarf last spring as my first major undertaking in knitting lace. A tricky business, to be sure! but  beautiful enough that it’s worth the herculean effort. The pattern is a wide-bordered scarf from Victorian Lace Today — a beautiful collection! After a summer’s effort and one border, I put it away for several months.

It’s done in an inexpensive acrylic Red Heart yarn, the best attribute of which is its crisp white color, which is especially pleasing against my Asian skin tone. The sad thing about it is that since it’s acrylic, it won’t block when I’m done. Blocking is what gives lace its breathtaking beauty, so many would say that it’s a waste to knit lace with a yarn that won’t block. I’m a bit torn as to whether to start over with a wool yarn. It’ll be prettier that way. Then again, acrylic is indestructible, resulting in a lower-maintenance scarf that I’ll be more likely to wear. I’ll probably end up finishing it with what I have and doing future projects with better yarn. It’s good practice anyway.

So here it is so far:

Here’s a shot with back light, which always does lace favors:

Not bad for a first endeavor. If you’re wondering what it’s supposed to look like when it’s done (and blocked as, alas, this one shall never be), I scared up a few pictures. The left picture is from the book. The other two are finished projects by other knitters. I encourage you to click on them as they’re very impressive up close, especially the right-most picture.

(Disclaimer! I’m a very new blogger! I’m not sure what the rules/etiquette/copyright laws are on using other people’s pictures. This blog is a modest, mostly unread little thing and all I’m doing is offering praise, so hopefully I don’t upset anyone. Just in case, I’ll have it known that I grabbed the project pictures from the Victorian Lace Today Knitalong, so go visit them for me. There’s tons of beautiful projects there. It’ll be worth your while!)

By the way, in my search for pictures of the completed scarf, I came across several knitters who called this pattern a quick, easy knit! I’m amused and flabbergasted. It’s true that this is simple as lace goes — just peek into A Gathering of Lace and check out the multi-page charts (!) — but the vast majority of knitters I know are knit, purl, yarn-over sorts and would never even dream of doing lace. So to those who can whip up this scarf up in a jiffy, I’m impressed! You’re a much better knitter than I!

I’ve done it! I made my first puchase from Victoria’s Secret. See? Here’s that signature pretty pink shopping bag vying for space with my purse and cd collection.

I’m so very pleased by its presence. I was walking around the mall with my purchase when it hit me that I looked just like all the other women carrying that lovely pink bag — feminine and with a secret (Victoria’s presumably ^^).

My purchase wasn’t big, just two bras. Mine were getting so ratty, I finally resigned myself to the usual hair-ripping bra shopping experience. Enter a revolutionary idea: “Why don’t I go upscale this time? Let’s just peek in at Victoria’s.” A pleasant half hour later, I walked out with the best-fitting bras of my life.

I grew up not thinking much about my undergarments. No one saw them anyway. We were a weird family there for a while: Forty-something mom bought everything at Victoria’s Secret while her teenage daughter wore granny-pants from Wal-Mart. (Okay, bikini-style Fruit of the Loom. Not quite granny, but still.) I was an unusually frugal teen and didn’t see any point in spending a fortune on my underthings. After that, I got crazy religious and conservative for a while and thought that anything that even hinted at the existence of sexuality was to be strictly avoided. I’m better now, thankfully.

My introduction to lingerie has been more or less gradual. Five months ago, I bought The Lingerie Handbook, as delightfully pink as my little shopping bag. It’s a gem! I can’t resist giving a quick plug for it: Ladies, if you’re at all fashion-consciousness, go and treat yourself to it. It’s only $6 on Amazon! Honestly, I’d recommend it if it were $15. In 186 gorgeous glossy pages, Ms. Apsan walks you through all of the lingerie you’ll ever need to look and feel great in your clothes, from the right bra and panties for the outfit all the way to how to buy leggings. Do you know the difference between tights and pantyhose? I didn’t until I read this. Everything under the sun is here. I had a blast reading through it and learned a lot!

Ever since the book, I’ve kept an eye out for lingerie. But for various reasons (tight finances, moving cross country, new diet) I never took the plunge. Sure, I grabbed a few lacy items off the racks at Wally World. But I figured I’d wait until I was happier with my figure to put out the big bucks. Well, I’ve changed my thinking a bit since then:

1. As slow as my weight loss is going, I can’t put my life on hold until I get my new figure. Who knows when that’ll be?

2. I might get pregnant and stall weight loss for a year at a time anyway. I’m not going to put off a family just to fit into a slinky black dress, nice as it sounds. Life is bigger than that.

3. I need bras NOW. Yeah I know there’s a thousand things changing in my life — I’m losing weight, I could get pregnant — but that doesn’t fix my present predicament.

I took the plunge. Honestly? It didn’t hurt nearly as much in the wallet as I’d anticipated. I spent $50 total — that’s $25 each. Sure, it’s a tad more than Wal-Mart but it’s not a bit higher than JCPenney’s and the quality, not to mention the service, outstrips them both by far. What can I say? I’m a convert. I’m never going back.

I’m losing weight! It’s painfully slow, but it’s visible: My face has definitely slimmed. It might seem like a small victory, but when nothing else seems to be moving much, it’s something. As for my waist, I’ve lost something like 2 inches, though I’m always nervous stating progress by the tape measure — it’s so easy to “gain” or “lose” a half inch by shifting every so slightly. My clothes don’t fit much differently though, so no exultations there. :(

I know. Perhaps I should just buy a scale. But it seems like one more thing that I have to find a home for in our tiny studio apartment. And it might be yet another reminder of my slow progress. I’m naturally impatient to be dropping faster. It seems like everyone else on a low-carb diet is losing ten pounds a month. It hardly seems fair! :) However, I have to remind myself that I gained all this weight at about 6 pounds a year — that’s only a half pound a month — so I suppose it’s only natural that I lose it slowly too.

Also, my body probably has a lot of internal strife to settle before it can tackle the external things. My health has been pretty out of whack for many years, so it’s got its work cut out for it. I must say, it’s doing marvelously. I’m actually starting to feel normal now, which is not something I could boast for most of a decade. For one, my thirst is behaving normally now. Where before I would get serious headaches if I wasn’t constantly sipping water, now I simply drink a big glass two or three times a day and don’t think about it the rest of the time — just like regular people! :) That means I have much more stamina and besides, it’s just plain convenient not to have to carry gallons of fluid with me everywhere I go. This happy development is probably the result of thinner blood, which I noticed last menstrual cycle. That’s actually a known effect of low-carbing. Hyperinsulinemia thickens the blood, eventually producing clots and arteriosclerosis and all that nasty stuff; low-carbing reverses the effect. I’m quite grateful: Thick blood runs on my father’s side, and my uncle died of it in his forties. I may have been saved from an untimely death — well, by that cause anyway.

Isn’t it cool to experience the natural benefits of low-carb living? I’m thrilled to be part of the norm. I’ve identified with the abnormal 0.1% on health issues for so long, it seems absurd to me that I’m now one of the crowd. It’s great!

One big new thing: About a month ago, I changed my low-carb approach to the Paleo Diet. I’m reluctant to say I’ve gone off of Protein Power because I love the Eades and their books, but that’s sort of the truth of it. The carb counting was getting too high maintenance. Plus I wasn’t dropping weight very fast, the reason for which I encountered in Protein Power Lifeplan:  I was consuming too many calories. According to the Eades, people of small stature often have this problem, the main culprits being cream, nut butters, and cheese. Well I was getting sick of all the excess dairy I’d been consuming anyway, so after some thought and perusal of Loren Cordain’s The Paleo Diet, I switched over.

What is the Paleo Diet? It ends up being a low-carb diet, but sort of indirectly. The idea is to eat only what a Paleolithic person would have eaten. Of course it’s strictly impossible, but we can approximate. The rules are simple: You can have all the meat, fish, eggs, non-starchy vegetables, and fruit you want. You cannot have dairy, grains, beans, or starchy vegetables (think potatoes, plantains, cassava, etc.). And it’s as simple as that. No calorie or carb counting. Just do’s and dont’s.

Of course, what’s a starchy vegetable? Some are obvious like the ones I’ve listed above, but veggies follow a gradient and, as far as I know, there’s not a strict cut-off point. So I still do some carb look-ups. Another good heuristic is to ask the question, “Could it be consumed raw?” the motivation being that our Paleo ancestors didn’t cook their food (could be wrong about that; I’m not a huge anthropology buff). Did you know that raw potatoes contain toxins and can make you quite sick? Beans too, which is another reason they’re ruled out besides being quite starchy. By the way, I want to clarify that you don’t have to eat your food raw, you just have to check that it can be eaten raw.

Anyway, the simplicity of the diet works well for me. It also effectively keeps my calories low. Since I’ve gone on it, the weight’s been coming off faster (which is to say that now I can actually tell I’m losing — not bad, eh?). I probably consume more carbs now, but mostly in the form of fruits and vegetables that have a low glycemic index and therefore stimulate less insulin release (the mother of all evil!). I say mostly because I’m actually not following this diet strictly. I still eat whey protein powder, the occasional slice of low-carb bread, and once in a very long while a stick of cheese. Still, I stay pretty much on target.

(I feel obliged to mention that I’ve not actually read The Paleo Diet, only skimmed it in the bookstore, so this information by no means represents the diet in full — merely the concept. I’m definitely not following it to the T. For one, Cordain prohibits the use of salt and vinegar; I still enjoy these quite liberally.)

One more new thing in my life that pertains somewhat to low-carbing (boy a lot happens in two months, eh?). My husband and I are trying for a baby! No positive news yet, but it could come any minute. Which is why I spent a feverish week looking for information about low-carbing during pregnancy. I started out with only a few scraps of information. The Eades advise you to shift to maintenance ASAP if you find out you’re pregnant but don’t explain why. I was also vaguely aware that many doctors will glare daggers at you if you attempt to low-carb through pregnancy; but then again, I don’t trust traditional doctors anymore. See where they got me?

Anyway, I couldn’t find any miracle articles that exhaustively explained things, but I did turn up one or two helpful resources. First, a low-carb pregnancy success story from a woman named Dawn — very encouraging. The other is a Yahoo group, PregnantAtkids, which I joined. (Yes, that’s spelled right: Atkids.) It’s a support group for low-carb pregnancy. You have to be trying to conceive, pregnant, or breastfeeding; women only. There are a lot of recipes and articles there, and a lot of women with tips and stories to share. One thing I learned there is that low-carbing increases your fertility! Interesting huh? Granted it’s only anecdotal, but more than one woman on that site has PCOS, yet has several children. Evidently this is considered something of a miracle.

At this point, I’m set on low-carbing throughout pregnancy. I never really doubted it. My diet feels rich and full — not at all a “diet” in the usual sense or “unbalanced” as many nutritionists would call it. I also feel wonderful; I can’t imagine feeling so healthy if low-carb were as drastically bad for you as modern nutrition would have you think. So when I decide to low-carb throughout pregnancy, I don’t make that decision grimly on principle but with immense joy and relief.

Well, that’s all folks. I’ll update you when there’s something to report. Really, I’m going to try to be better about writing more often. :)