Nope

"Rebellions are built on hope."
     -- Cassian Andor, "Rogue One"

"Rebellions are built on nope."
     -- me, commenting on a certain parody election/inaugural poster

Anyone who's ever chafed at a particularly exacting recipe or brushed aside a pattern as mere guidelines might agree with me on this one. Sometimes you just aren't feeling it, and that's the beginning of...something at least. For example, last weekend I broke out the Death Star measuring set (you heard me, that's no moon!) and a bucket of limes.

In my defense, the limes were on sale, and sometimes you wanna take out your frustrations on a sleeve of graham crackers. But I always balk at the idea of separating eggs. Not because it's particularly difficult once you get the hang of it, mind, but more because I usually end up with a carton of leftover egg whites and there's only so much I know to do with meringue.




So also knowing me, balking at the idea of waste in my totally overpriced Manhattan kitchen, I tried to cook up something with the leftover bits. Unfortunately this means that for every glorious specimen of Smitten Kitchen key lime pie...

...ta-da!...




You get these sad, flat little crisps consisting of a little too much lime juice and an uneven trip to the innards of my oven. One day these will not have suffered in vain.










But in any case, while I was mourning the loss of my dignity over these meringue--wafers?--it did get me thinking of dishcloths again. Meaning once keeping-my-wits-(lighting)-sharp lace and cable shawl is off the needles...

...I'm gonna do me a set of "Nope." Maybe. If I'm feeling it. Because lace is hard and a little subversion is good for the soul. Also somebody else is welcome to my slogan if you can use it because I'm a minority woman on a single salary with rent to pay and a cat to feed, so I'd like to keep working thanks.

Belated Christmas Presents and Ringing in the New Year

Hello. Don't mind me. Unless you want to know what I've been up to, of course.

The short version is I've been making things. You know, in between my day job and holiday shenanigans and family dinners. Which means giant Christmas shawl of doom (well, it is in Christmas colors, and even the Sandra Cisneros poem it's based on makes mention of Christmas Eve) is finally up on Ravelry, about a week past my intended deadline. You may find it here. I intended to put up a slightly sentimental slightly bitter Dear Ex letter here to go with it, but you know what? I've been a little bit distracted lately. By goings-on in the "Star Wars" universe, if you must know. I am a geek, and old enough to admit it freely.

So instead I have pictures to pique your curiosity.

Finished shawl, looking like the giant fruitcake blanket it is. Some people write songs or, well, actually do things with their lives. I knit lace. Rather like Mme Defarge. Well, I mean, I also lace perfectly good apple cider caramels with scotch and gift them to people. When you can't find a decent Advent calendar in the States, am I right? If you do want to make your own, the recipe I used is here, and I spiked my half batch with 2 tablespoons of Black Bottle to get the balance just right. But we were talking lace shawls.

This is a close-up of the pine stitch. Admittedly it's the most abstract of the stitches. The stars actually look like stars (or at least I think they look like Union Jacks, which are sort of like stars, right?) and the ladders are ladders and the winding trails wind. But still, you can't have a holiday pattern from a Georgia girl and not have pine in some form or another, so here it is.

And here's the shawl draped over a couch cushion with a book of Sandra Cisneros poems (though not, I will point out, the one containing the poem in question).











Now, ordinarily at this point I would find something snarky to say about relationships and starting fresh or something. But really, for every one salient point I make, Carrie Fisher has probably made about 15, so look her up if you will. Meanwhile I'm going back to drooling over Cassian Andor from "Rogue One." Ironically, in the aftermath of 2016, that in itself seems like an act of defiance.

What do I know? I'm just a knitter!