The blues

a.
Almost exactly a year ago, I was on Nusa Penida. This time of day, the rainstorms had rolled in and I was probably napping on the futon in Mark's kitchen house, swatting away flies from my bare ankles and cracking my eyes open when the others came home on their motorbikes, bringing bananas, rice, hundreds of tiny violet shallots and cooking oil stored in empty water bottles. The same empty water bottles that they sold arak in, the sweet, bitter bathtub-brewed hard liquor that was tolerable only after a Bintang beer or two.

One night we all huddled in the space between the metal gate and the inside of one of the family's cell phone shops, drinking Bintang and playing Mario Kart, all of the Indonesian boys smoking clove cigarettes and flirting with us American girls. I had a headache and went to bed early, but one of the boys walked me home and sat outside murmuring with my host family and drinking hot sweet tea while I unpeeled my sleeping bag and started my nightly battle with the heat and the bugs that drank my blood while I slept.

One afternoon instead of napping I listened to my headphones for the first time in three weeks. I stared at the geckos flickering around the ceiling and listened to Junior Wells sing a schoolgirl over to him with a harmonica and a voice that sounds like bourbon. I imagined the studio where he was singing so many years ago, stuffy and lit only by the tips of cigarettes, and felt very far away from home.

The blues will always sound a little like those afternoons, too, in the space between when the rain came in across the mountains and when the sun came out and lifted it out of the ground again.

b.
I'm knitting a scarf out of blue cashmere and sometimes forgetting for a moment there is no old army-green jacket hanging on my coat rack, no cold toes in bed, no more burritos eaten while shoeless on the rocks of a northern California beach even though it's too cold to go swimming. I keep little things - memories, letters, a bottle of sand, a length of fabric - and bring them out until they are creased and soft from handling.

Cashmere has memory but no strength, and needs no care to be soft. Sometimes it feels as if it will break apart in my hands, but it hasn't yet. And it looks like it will be a beautiful scarf when it grows up.

Weekends

For some reason, on weekends I really like to get dressed up. Maybe it's force of habit from the summer; since I worked in a lab with a lot of carbonized compounds, I had to wear a lab coat during the week, and wearing heels while working with solvents and assorted breakable and hot things is a total no-no. So it's fun to throw on a pair of heels and a skirt on the weekend and pretend like I'm not a student who eats the same kind of sandwich for lunch every day and dribbles coffee down the front of her shirt while rushing to work.


The skirt is from a vintage shop in Santa Cruz; the belt is a costume necklace of unknown origin mailed to me by my grandmother; the top is another find from Indonesia.

I also bought it at the market in Ubud, from a stall that seemed completely separate from whole crazy Bali market experience. At most stalls, the shopkeeper would come rushing up to you and start throwing scarves around your neck, or take your arm to show you a dress that they really wanted you to buy, all while insisting that they have it at a very special price. This shop was quiet; a woman sat at a sewing machine while her two young daughters played on the floor behind her, and her husband would tell you the price only if you asked about a certain item. There was no haggling down the price, which was strange considering that most things at the market are marked up by 100-300% and should be haggled down to about 50% of the original price at most. When I told the woman that I loved this shirt but the snaps in front would not quite close, she told me to come back in ten minutes. She let out a seam and made the shirt fit me for no extra charge. I think it ended up being about 20,000 rupiah, or $20, which was more expensive than most clothing in the market, but it was worth it.


Happy weekend!

Are you ready for Fall semester? 'Cause apparently, I am.

can has flickr meme?

The knitting has been quiet. Smith's commissioned me to make a scarf out of the lovely Debbie Bliss Chunky Donegal Tweed, so I whipped this up in about four days. It's still a little warm to think about a double-wrapped seed-stitch scarf of wool and angora, but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

You can see a peek of the cute little fringe here, along with the loveliness that is Smith's in the background. Seriously, this is one of my favorite yarn stores ever.


Also on the needles: the same damn things that have been on the needles for the past two months. Argh. I'm really itching to cast on something in my Handmaiden, but with three projects still in progress, I know I would get overwhelmed.

Luckily, as if you hadn't seen enough of them: clothes!

Top is a pale yellow lace Indonesian temple garment that I picked up in Ubud. I don't know how authentic it is, but it's beautifully made. And, with a strategically placed belt and a pair of high-waisted DKNY slacks, I was not called scandalous even once. (The front buttons over the chest and is open past the waist and the print is somewhat sheer, but I have yet to find a layer that works well under it, so I'm Carrie Bradshawing it up. Usually one would wear a sarong with this, and if I were really trying I would bust out one of mine and throw some fresh flowers in my hair, but hey)

Last but not least, see the handknit yellow sock?

Gosh, I'm a dork.

FO: Bali Socks (They Look Like Licorice, Hey!)

Bali socks! I started these the day before I left for Bali, thinking that I would probably finish them either on the plane, or on Nusa Penida. Well... that didn't happen on the way there. I get pretty airsick, so I ended up wearing a scopolamine patch that kept me knocked out. While on Nusa, it was so hot that I only finished one of the socks before totally giving up on wool. On the plane ride back, I had what ended up being a staph infection, and didn't feel much like knitting either way. Luckily, about a week after I got back, I decided to cast on for the second sock. It's just a plain sock with a short row heel to minimize the wacky striping that would happen with a heel flap and gusset.


These have been done for a few weeks now, but it wasn't until yesterday that I actually wove in the ends... now they're off to Smith's to be a store sample. I just wanted to model them before I said goodbye.

Final opinion? Super easy, super cute!

So, I went on vacation(ish)...

So, to begin with: Bali was amazing.

The first night after we flew into Denpasar, we stayed at a hotel called Puri Bebengan, in Ubud, Bali. We were all really tired, after 12 hours of flying and dealing with passports and new money. But that first night, driving to the hotel in the dark with the hot air blowing in through the windows of the van, Bali seemed magical. The unbelievable greenness of everything, the geckos on the walls and their strange clicks, the open rooms and damp gray sheets, and the stray cats and dogs that resided on the front stoop of almost every temple and store on the lane.


This is the bungalow that Becca and I shared on the first day of the trip. I woke up around 6 in the morning, when it was still pitch black outside. After the sun came up, I went out to the porch to see this:

At this point, I figured that if my backyard was this interesting, I might as well check out the rest of the place.


This pool was advertised on the front of the bungalows, but none of us were ever brave enough to actually jump in. When we returned to the hotel on the last day of our trip, I was sitting by the pool around midnight when I noticed an entire bush full of lightning bugs on the other side of the wall.

And this is the front lobby of the hotel. There's a little orange cat that came and hung out with us while we ate breakfast of banana pancakes and coffee. All of the animals on both Bali and Nusa Penida were not considered pets, so most of them were feral and mean. I noticed, though, that cats especially stay very small. This cat was the size of a normal 6-month old kitten, but I'm fairly sure it was full-grown.


After spending a day on Bali, we took a boat like this over to Nusa Penida. I'm not sure if this is the specific boat (probably not, since it's empty) but all of the boats we went on were about this size, fishing boats with big outriggers on the sides. The metal island out in the water is a diving station for Japanese tourists. It's slightly creepy-looking because every time we passed it, it was empty. As we learned, Nusa Penida is surrounded by coral reefs, sharks, and....


Oh hey, guys, dolphins! We got to see dolphins during a boat trip around the island, which was awesome. I've loved dolphins ever since I was a kid, so seeing a pod of bottlenoses made my inner five-year-old incredibly happy. But I'm jumping ahead.

We were picked up at the port on Nusa by a driver named Lindra and a guy named Maldi/Camang, who, along with a guy named Robet, ended up being our translators and guides for the rest of the trip. They drove us up to Mark's house, which was our kitchen and occasional medical facility for the rest of the trip.


The view from Mark's porch was pretty amazing.


The rain rolled in every morning around 10, although sometimes it held off until mid-afternoon. It usually only lasted a few hours, though, and then we could go swimming or go to the village. We soon learned that Bali time is heavily dependent on the weather.


One of the coolest things we got to do was go to temple ceremonies at the Hindu temples on the island. Although most of Indonesia is Muslim, Bali and Nusa Penida are Hindu, and there are many temple ceremonies to mark life and community events. We all bought sarongs and sashes at the market on Nusa, and got to participate in prayers. The community was very accepting of us, and one night we even toured the temples on the island with the young people from Tiagan, the village where we were staying.

Me in temple garments (minus sash - bad me!)


Starting on our third day on Nusa, we started staying with homestay families at night. I had a mixed experience, since I speak basically no Indonesian. I never felt as though I communicated very well, but it was incredibly interesting and humbling to sit, watch, and listen as families interacted and went about their daily chores. Every morning, my homestay mothers (we each stayed with 3 different families) would make me breakfast, usually consisting of mi (noodles) and break-your-face-sweet tea and some Bali cakes, which were little flower-shaped cakes filled with tapioca and chocolate and coffee flavoring. I settled into a routine where I went to bed around 9 pm every night and woke around 6 every morning.

Speaking of which, I should head to bed now, but I will have some more pictures and stories to share soon. Sorry for the delay, the semester just started and I'm still settling into my new responsibilities: 2 chemistry classes, 1 Japanese class, 10 hours of work, and teaching a knitting class - whew!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Goin' to Bali... Be Right Back

Magenta'd!

So I finished these over Christmas and worn them several times since then... oh man, these socks are awesome. The pattern is Nancy Bush's Gentleman's Fancy Sock pattern from Vintage Socks, which has become one of my favorite sock pattern books. I also invested in Knitting on the Road and the new Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarns book over the break. Both look pretty exciting, but I'm bringing just Knitting on the Road to Bali with me, since the name is appropriate. I also got some soft pink Malabrigo to make myself a Hat Fit for a Boyfriend, and a ton of delicious sock yarn. Man... I have a problem.


These socks took less than one ball of Schaefer Anne, and I would definitely knit them again, maybe in a different yarn. Perhaps I'll knit some for the Curmudgeon, since this pattern is much stretchier than the last one I attempted!

Anyhow... I will be in Indonesia for the next 3-odd weeks, and I'm leaving my computer at home. Hope everyone has a great January!

I feel silly for always doing this, but I knitted yet another thing for the Curmudgeon. The last one was a pair of socks that I never blogged (until now - hahah!) and that didn't actually end up fitting his feet. But this was a totally successful, super easy project. Behold, the Hat Fit for a Curmudgeon! I mean... Boyfriend!

Oh, did I mention that it's been snowing? It's been snowing. It's been a frustrating experience, especially since Seattle so seldom gets snow or extremely cold weather in the winter. Many people complain about how no one in Seattle knows how to drive in the snow - I know I don't! My car has been the Metro this week, and holy crap, kudos to them for showing up and driving up treacherous streets for us poor, stranded residents. Seattle drivers have to deal with a crapton of hills and an infrastructure that just isn't meant to be snowed upon, so it makes sense that it's hard for us to drive in the snow - and one of the main reasons that I don't. It will be the first white Christmas that I've had (ever, I think?), but I'll be pretty happy when it's gone.

Anyhow, knitting! This hat is the Hat Fit for a Boyfriend by Stephanieknits. It took one skein of Malabrigo worsted in the colorway Cypress. When I first bought it, I thought that it was black, but it's actually a very, very, very, very, very dark green. I made the body of the hat 9 inches instead of 5.5, because a foldover brim is nice in Ohio.

Yay fast and easy Christmas present!

And finally, the socks that were supposed to be for Graham:


I have recently become obsessed with Vintage Socks.


These socks took about 3 weeks on size 0 needles, which was a little longer than usual on a smaller needle. But the yarn is nice (Cascade Heritage) and the pattern is just about perfect. I have found, though, that I need to go up .25-.5 mm in needle size for all of the socks.


They kept my feet toasty in the snow going to Kirkland for shots yesterday. I still need to hit up REI for deet and a life jacket (wheeee!) but other than that, I have my clothes and shoes and holy crap, I'm going to Bali! My arm was sore all night from the typhoid shot, but it was really nice to get it over with. The family is now out in Ocean Shores for Christmas, and I'm busy knitting socks and wrapping presents.

Hope everyone has a merry Christmas, happy Hannukah, and a beautiful New Year!