Knititude

Easter parade

 

Or a parade of bunnies, anyway. I managed to finish this baby pullover over this past (school vacation) week-- knitting poolside! The yarn is Rowan Wool Cotton, a DK weight blend of, yes, wool and cotton. I fell in love with this yarn as I knitted-- it is very soft yet seems durable, and the colors are gentle and lovely. I was hoping to have the pattern done well before Easter, but that didn't happen; no matter, as I also had bunnies on the brain because this is the Chinese Year of the Rabbit.

Another knitter on Twitter

Inspired by some fellow designers who are on Twitter (Connie, Melissa,Ysolda, Gudrun, Annie, to name a few), I decided that it was time to give tweeting a try. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the Twitter name "knititude"was already taken! After some consideration, I thought that "sferruzza" ("she knits" in Italian) would be a fun name-- you guessed it, already taken. Fine, I thought. I would just go with ayhahn: A for Angela, Y for my middle name, and my last name. ALREADY TAKEN. This is the problem with being a late adopter. So I finally settled on aymhahn: A for Angela, YM for my hyphenated Chinese middle name, and my last name. So follow me on Twitter as aymhahn! (Someday I will figure out how to put one of those Twitter buttons on my website.)

Of whales and swifts

Last week I visited the New Bedford Whaling Museum for the first time, as a chaperone on a school field trip. Really interesting, and the exhibits were very well done. They had a right whale skeleton on display-- typical for a natural history type of museum, right? But they also had photos and text explaining that the whale, a pregnant female, had collided with a ship, and the ship propeller had cut off one of her tail flukes, causing her to bleed to death in a short period of time. The skeleton of the 10-month-old fetus was also on display, suspended under the mother's skeleton. I was so impressed by how seriously and maturely our group of 2nd graders responded to this sad story! 

Anyway, the whaling industry of the 19th and early 20th centuries was fascinating; now that we have electricity, and fossil fuels, and plastics, it's difficult to really grasp just how important whale products were in those years. Pictured are several swifts make with whalebone and whale ivory-- usually crafted by whalers as gifts for the women in their lives.