lady cobblestone.

So, I jumped right in to this project– although I had to account for the fact that it was designed for a man, using yarn thicker than mine. Namely:

Gauge swatched.

For a 33″ chest (allowing 1″ of ease), cast on 184 sts.

Knit straight up (no waist or bust shaping) to the armholes– a 20-row garter stitch border at the bottom (meaning, 10 garter ridges), and 14-stitch garter panels up the sides.

For the sleeves, I just worked:

x/52 = 184/176

using the proscribed CO amounts from the pattern in the denominators. That resulted in CO 54, with 10-ridge garter borders again. About an inch before the sleeve was as long as I wanted it, I worked:

inc. round: m1, k2, m1, k plain

alternating with plain rounds, ingesamt fünfmal.

To join, I put the underarm stitches on scrap yarn– 14 from each side panel on the body, and 14 from each arm, centered on the increases– 54 stitches in all– and here I am:

Otherwise, things are going well. I think there’s too much twist in the yarn– look at how diagonal the stitches in the arm are– but hopefully I can block that out. It’s also uneven (and unplied), so there are some scarily thin spots, which I’m sure will break the first time I wear it– although maybe it might felt slightly and hold itself together? One can only hope.

Next up: the garter yoke, and back-of-the-neck shortrows. woooo!

PS: got a letter from Seattle today.

PPS: in the Meno today, there was a brief discussion of Themistocles’ son being able to stand up straight on a horse, and throw javelins at the same time.

PPPS: the spinning wheel is gone. it was quite a conversation piece.

Plato.

Opening the July Anthropologie catalogue this afternoon, I saw, page 4, this quote:

Is is not the form that dictates the color, but the color that brings out the form. – Hans Hofmann

and immediately thought of what we’ve been reading in Greek:

εστω γαρ δη ημιν τουτο σχημα, ο μονον τυγχανει χροματι αει επομενον.

for, indeed, let this be shape, as far as we are concerned: that which alone happens to accompany color.

Initiative.

inanimum est enim omne, quod pulsu agitatur externo; quod autem est animal, id motu interiore et suo

Indeed, that is completely dead which moves by external compulsion; but that is alive, which moves by its own interior motion.

– Cicero, Somnium Scipionis

__________________________________

Initium ut esset, creatus est homo.

That there might be a beginning, man was created.

– St. Augustine, City of God (as pointed out by, who else, Hannah Arendt).

οι δενοι σαυροι

learning Greek, oftentimes all I can think about is dinosaurs.

Last Semester: δεινος, δεινη, δεινον

Deinonychus

And now, this semester: μεγας, μεγαλη, μεγα

Megalodon.

All this rain is killing me.

“Slyly Zeus created a thunderstorm, changed himself into a little cuckoo, and, pretending to be in distress, he flew into Hera’s arms for protection. She pitied the wet little bird and hugged it close to keep it warm, but all of a sudden she found herself holding mighty Zeus in her arms instead of the bird. Thus Zeus won Hera…”

– D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths

aeneid paper

“Confused by all these shifting images of ruin, Turnus stood astounded, staring and silent. In his deepest heart there surged tremendous shame and madness mixed with sorrow and love whipped on by frenzy and a courage aware of its own worth.” XII.886-891

RE: Not All Italians Are The Same, OR, Roman History = The Godfather

Francis Ford Coppola, I learned today in class, wanted to make a movie about the Catiline Conspiracy.

Etymologically Exciting

is when a word that comes from Latin is found in German, but not in English.

Namely:

“Cista” = “Kiste” = “Box”

Not All Italians Are The Same

But, reading about this:

and other, perhaps less overt, Roman political machinations (Byzantine, could we say? Machiavellian? they learned from the best) can only conjure the images of this:

Patron et clientela par excellence.

Proof.

This is exactly what I was talking about.

“Hey, Mona Lisa, come home / You know you can’t roam with Caesar.”

- Kanye West