Tilfeldigheter

The other day I was met by this sign when I got off the subway on my way to work:
Needless to say, I found it disturbingly hilarious on all sorts of levels. I had planed to write a long rant about evangelizing, but I think I'll just drop it, and let the poster speak for itself.

KE's good friend R had a phase of knitting that he's now come out of. When KE went to visit him yesterday he sent him home with bags of yarn! I was so thrilled--this almost never happens to me. I like getting random things that I would never have chosen myself--figuring out how to use them appropriately and aesthetically is always a really fun challenge. The poopy yarn that my Mom gave me last year ended up working up into one of my all time favorite sweaters, for example, so this is super fun and exciting! Here they are:

Even though this looks green it is really a nice dense brown with grayish undertones (color 7895, which, as I just discovered, is actually called "Dark Green." Go figure!). R started knitting something for his wife using three strands of it together, so the clump at the left will be hard to unravel! It's a total of 400 grams. This is actually totally something I would buy for myself, so I'm stoked. I'm thinking of maybe a pullover with a fair isle yoke in other colors like this Drops 108-10 pattern?

Then there's the stuff the I wouldn't pick out, but actually really like: it's a discontinued Garnstudio Drops yarn called Highlander. Unfortunately it has 10% nylon, which makes it a bit scratchy, but the colors are very fun, and since it's super bulky weight, the knitting up process will be quick, whatever I decide to do with it. R had two colors:

A salmon-y mix (number 14, 350 grams), which isn't really enough to make more than a vest. I am not a wearer of vests, since I have trouble with temperature regulation--I can feel cold and have sweaty armpits at the same time! The only Garnstudio vest pattern I could find that I came close to liking was this one, Drops 71-22. However, a perverse part of my personality finds this one (Drops 97-7) edged with fuzzy Puddel yarn strangely appealing.

The other color is a reddish-plum mix (number 15, 550 grams):

Love that color combination too. I had thought it was all one color at first, and had been hoping to make a sweater coat for my Mom (she loves those, and loves these colors), but alas there isn't enough. I think what I can make is this Drops 0-228 pullover.

I'm almost done with the body of the silky tweed sweater. I'm really liking the way it knits up (though the knitting in the back of stitches for the twisted rib is a hassle), and am much more enthusiastic about it than I was with the beige linen tunic. I think I may rip that out and use the yarn to make another tunic like the black one I knit this summer. I love the drape of that one and the floppy neck.

"Det er typisk norsk å være god"

Today I had a fun day at work. I am revising my article on Anne Holt's crime fiction based on suggestions from my editor. He suggested that I try to frame my analysis with some kind of anecdote that illustrates the issues at stake in the Holt books. I came across Gro Harlem Brundtland's famous slogan "It is typically Norwegian to be good" in a book I was skimming (Terje Tvedt's Verdensbilder og selvbilder: en humanitær stormakts intellektuelle historie from 2002) and that got me thinking that it would be a good idea to track down the source of the slogan to see if that might work to contextualize my article. I've heard the quote in many contexts over the years, but never really thought about its origins.

It turned out to be harder than you might think to find. Wikipedia listed it as being from Harlem Brundtland's 1992 New Year's speech, which is correct. But her speeches haven't been published in book form, and the reference librarian at the University of Oslo library had no idea where to find it. I was shocked! I called the Norwegian Labor party headquarters and they didn't have it. Neither did the Workers' Movement archives The archivist there suggested that I try the Norwegian Broadcasting System's library. The person there found it in a database called ATekst, which it turns out I have access to through the University of Oslo! I feel like storming over to that reference librarian and reading her the riot act, but of course I won't.

At any rate, I found the speech really interesting to read, and it fit perfectly as an introductory anecdote to my article, so I'm very pleased with today's work! Here's the section of the speech that the quote is from:

Norge har mange muligheter. Se til verkstedindustrien som har økt eksporten de seneste årene, til den positive utviklingen i reiselivet, til oljevirksomheten, skipsfarten vår og fiskerinæringen. Vi har mye å bygge videre på. Kværner - som har bedrifter mange steder i landet - fikk like før jul en stor kontrakt i skarp konkurranse med utenlandske selskaper. Dette viser at norsk kan og vil. Vi kan konkurrere både på pris og kvalitet. Fotballjentene, håndballjentene, skigutta og Oslofilharmonikerne hevder seg i verdenstoppen. På samme måte skal vi vise at norsk næringsliv klarer seg internasjonalt. Trenger vi et nytt slagord? Det er typisk norsk å være god.

Scary, huh? Especially coming from a social democrat. It shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone that Arbeiderpartiet went on to dismantle major elements of the welfare state throughout the course of the 1990s!

But of course all work and no knitting makes Kverulantinnen a dull girl. I've been "reknitting," which is to say now that our stuff is here I have access to my stash again, and I've decided to knit a new version of the Hourglass sweater from December in a smaller size. I've got the body done up to the armholes and one sleeve close to finished. It's a quickie!

Demotivert

This was a hard weekend for me, not because I did anything at all (I didn't), but because my lack of motivation and direction started to get me down. There have been a couple of tasks I desperately needed to accomplish, and I had put them off every day for over a week. These are things that need to be done right away, crucial things that pertain to our move, yet for some reason I couldn't bring myself to do them. I've been incredibly cranky, and have picked some really stupid fights (well not fights, but totally unnecessary spats over minutia) with poor, long suffering KE.

Finally, after a long talk with a very sympathetic KE, I got him to promise to nag (or shame) me into doing them yesterday. My prime motivation was the fact that there was a one-day-only yarn sale at one of the local shops. I know that's pathetic, but it took rewarding me with a trip to the shop to get me to do what I had to do. Unfortunately, the trip didn't turn out as fun as I would have liked. I had E with me, and a few minutes into browsing he peed his pants. Sigh. Toddlerdom.

What I did manage to buy was good old Sugar 'n' Cream for making dishcloths like these, only in off white. Very satisifying knitting, I must say, and the dishcloth it produces is really cool.


Otherwise, I'm slowly progressing on the "rillejakke." I have the peplum and back done, and have started on one of the fronts. It's starting to get awkward since it's all knitted together rather than sewn together at the end:


I got my package of buttons from the McCain campaign the other day (still waiting on the Democrats...). The one that has really given me pause is this one:

I'm flabbergasted. Apparently this is supposed to project a positive message about the fact that the Republican vice presidential candidate was a woman, but I just can't imagine a more denigrating way of expressing that! In a weird way this button completely infantilizes the candidate. It also expresses a weird exhuberance about the candidate's gender, as if that's the only thing that matters. I showed it to a bunch of friends at women's dinner last night, and they first thought it must be a button intended to make fun of the candidate. They were incredulous when I told them I had bought it from the GOP itself!

And finally, a couple of finished objects from last week: the turban hat from Folk Hats for my Mom's birthday, and then a little "child's hat" from Last Minute Knitted Gifts for a 2-year-old's birthday gift (obviously using the left over yarn from the turban). I have to say, I like the child's hat best: