The Saga of a Knitting Project, or Why I Don't Knit Wedding Presents Anymore

by Terri

Note: unlike Ariela, my creative skills did not manifest in an ability to draw with any proficiency. While this post will be liberally illustrated with photographs, it will not contain chibis.

Back in 2008, two of my best friends announced that they were engaged and would be getting married the following June. I was asked to be a groomsmaid. Ariela was making their ketubah, and I was going to knit them a beautiful heirloom afghan. At that point, I'd been knitting pretty steadily for around 3 years. I'd made socks, a much smaller blanket than I was planning, scarves, hats, and a lace shawl. I'd even designed a fingerless mitt pattern.

I was going to use pattern squares from The Great American Aran Afghan book and alternate them with some plain stitch pattern squares. I was going to borrow a technique from the blanket I'd already knit and get myself out of having to sew every square together. It was a brilliant plan, and the blanket would be ready by their wedding. 

HAH.

Image shows one of the plain squares in progress. It is a dark blue yarn, knit in seed stitch.

I started knitting the afghan in October of 2008, after confirming colors with the recipients. I was chugging along on a project that I had no idea was biting off way more than I could chew. Initially, the afghan was going to have 5 strips of 4 squares each. I'd done a little swatching, so I knew how to get a one foot square from the yarn and needle size I thought would work for all the squares* in the plain blue squares. I was working from cable charts that I wasn't entirely sure how to read, and disregarding actual pattern instructions willy nilly.** 

It's now too long ago to remember exactly why I slowed down the work. My personal life was kind of a mess, I was working full time and beginning to start part time community college. The notes in my Ravelry project page are sparse. I just know that Josh & Liz were married on June 28, 2009 and that the afghan was far from finished. I have a note saying that I needed to get working on the afghan again from December 2010. By then, they'd been married for a year. I think I had finished one strip of 4 squares.

In February of 2011, I got engaged. Both Liz & Josh were going to be in our wedding. By March of that year, I'd picked up the afghan knitting again, thinking that it would be a good "thank you for being in our wedding party/2 year anniversary gift." I finished a second strip and attached that to the first so I could have an idea of what the thing was actually going to look like. That was when I should have noticed that ignoring how I was measuring things was going to make the project hard to fit together, but the bulldozer in me decided it was all going to be FINE. It's a good thing I didn't plan on knitting anything for my actual wedding that August, since wedding planning basically ate my life. 

Ariela and Benjamin's afghan in progress on a lovely sunny day in New York City.

Every so often, I would pull out the afghan and knit a couple of rows. It bored me at that point. I would joke with Josh & Liz that it would be done for their "X anniversary." When Liz went to California to do her PhD and Josh had to stay behind in New York City, I told them that it would be done by the time they were living in the same city again (giving me a three year window for Liz's coursework to be completed), or at the very least before their first child was born. In the interim, I cast on and completed another wedding blanket - this one for Ariela and her husband. In contrast to the epic afghift, this one only took just over a year to complete.*** In 2013, I got pregnant with my daughter, and then baby knitting consumed my entire brain. Then my daughter was born, and I had no brain left to think about knitting anymore.

Image shows afghan as of August 18, 2015. It is composed of three strips of 4 squares each. 8 of those squares are blue seed stitch, 8 of those squares are green (the light is very yellow saturated, but I promise they're green) in various cable patterns.

In 2015, I decided to do a project running around on social media called #yearofmaking. I would dedicate more efforts into my various projects and finish some of the things lying around my baskets, documenting the process along the way. I decided that this would be the year I finished knitting that damn afghan. The fact that Liz had moved back to New York to write her dissertation and they were expecting a baby may have motivated some of those decisions.

I'm not a monogamous knitter by nature. I have a big problem with startitis, and people did persist in having kids that year that needed wee baby sweaters. But by August 2015, I had finished the third afghan strip. I seamed it with the other two and realized that If I made the entire afghan as I'd originally planned it, It would be huge. And that I had no interest in doing that. So culled two pattern squares from the 4 left in the initial project plan and decided that they would be it. And to my credit, I did finish the afghan by September 21, 2015. Well, I finished knitting it anyway. And I got a baby sweater done for Josh & Liz too.

The thing about knitting a project this big is that just finishing the knitting isn't enough. The picture accompanying this paragraph demonstrates this to significant effect. The edges are really funny looking, pulling in in some places and puckering out in others. The pattern squares aren't the same size as each other, let alone all the plain squares. There are yarn ends all over the place from changing colors and balls of yarn. In order to turn that mess into something that would look respectable on someone else's couch, you need to employ the magic of blocking.

The afghan as of September 21, 2015. All of the pieces are knit, seamed together and edged in crochet.

Image shows me holding a very small steamer over the afghan all pinned out on our IKEA sofa bed in the bed position. This is what one kind of blocking looks like. 

Depending on the size of your project, blocking can be simple or it can be complicated. When I block a pair of fingerless mitts, I dunk them in the sink with some wool wash, wring them out, then lay them out on a dish drying mat until they are dry and ready to go. A baby sweater can take the same dunk, but needs to be wrapped up in a hand towel and then stomped on to get the bulk of the water. As you increase size and various elements of complexity, wet blocking stays relatively simple, but you start needing bigger surfaces to dry the project on.**** With a shawl, you often have to pin it into the correct shape while wet so that it drys in that shape.

With something as big as this afghan, I'd have needed to soak it in the bathtub for it to get properly wet. And it still needed a huge surface to dry on. Also, since the edges were so weird, it would need to be severely pinned in place to ensure that they would dry straight. And in our first Boston apartment, we didn't have any space that big. We did have a futon, but ever since setting up the crib in our daughter's room, it stayed a couch. There was also a desk in that room, so it was hard to open the futon. And our little baby was no longer a lump that would stay put. She was mobile and inquisitive. I honestly didn't know where I would be able to block the afghan. So it sat in a box for almost another year.

December 20, 2016. The afghan is seamed, edged, blocked, and all the ends are woven in. 8 years after casting on, the afghan is done. It is 4 squares by 4 squares.

When we moved to our new apartment in July of 2016, we got a third bedroom. We purchased the IKEA sofa bed the previous tenants had in that room, put our big heavy desk in there, moved all my yarn in, and made it the office/craft room. It would also be the spare bedroom for when we had guests stay over. 

We unpacked the house, got rid of the boxes, and still I had a box labeled "Hibernating WIPs***** and Josh & Liz's afghan." It never seemed the right time to deal with the monster. 

In December, we had some good friends stay over. I was unmaking the bed from their stay and noticed the box in the corner. I decided that I would just take care of the afghan right then and there. I pinned out the blanket so that it covered most of the bed's surface. I plugged in my teeny handheld steamer and ran it over and over the afghan, relaxing the stitches with the warm water vapor. I let it sit drying for over a day. And when I unpinned it, it stayed basically the same shape. I sewed in all the loose yarn ends and trimmed them. On December 20, 2016, the afghan was finally finished. I wrapped it, put it in a box, and mailed it off to Josh & Liz, where it now sits on their couch.

The afghan in its correct home, only 7 years too late.

I learned a number of things knitting this afghan. Here are some of them, though this is not an exhaustive list:

• The definition of "portable" is malleable and really means "anything that will fit in my messenger bag."
• I hate crochet, but I can do it smoothly enough, and now know how to turn corners.
• I can fix cable mistakes from the wrong side of the knitting
• When I began the project, I vastly underestimated this particular undertaking
• There isn't much I won't do for friends. Introduce them to the love of their lives, crochet, shackle myself to a seemingly unending project...
• Two rounds of single crochet around 16 square feet will use most of a 50 gram ball of yarn.
• No matter how much I love you, I'm getting something from your registry as your wedding present.******

Now that it's done, I am trying to reassure myself that I'll never take on something this ridiculous again. Check back with me in a few years to see how that went, OK?

*SPOILER ALERT: I was wrong

**This wasn't the first time, and it sure wouldn't be the last time

***I thought that this project was much more reasonable. It was a single pattern, knit from the center out. I still wound up hating it.

****And bigger towels to wring the project out with

*****Works In Progress

******This is why there is a line in the Fiber Artists Oath that says "I pledge to be honest with myself about my production speed and remember that it really is okay to give even very beloved people a gift other than a handmade Something."

Judaism in Dialog with SFF Fandom

by Ariela

On Saturday, January 14, I sat on a panel at Arisia entitled "Judaism's Influence on SFF." The irony of the timing aside, the room was packed beyond capacity and it went very well. The last question the moderator, Michael Burstein, posed was not about SFF stories, but about fandom, namely "How has Judaism influenced your fandom?" This is the substance of my answer, expanded slightly and with added context.

Judaism has influenced almost every aspect of my life, and fandom is no exception to that rule. In fact, I sometime refer to Judaism as my first and primary fandom.

The Jewish culture in which I grew up bears some striking resemblances to fannish culture, and perhaps it prepared me to move into fandom by dint of familiarity. For context, I grew up in an observant but gender egalitarian household in Boston. My parents are Ashkenazi, meaning we are of Eastern European descent, as were the communities in which we lived and participated, though not all of our communities were gender egalitarian.

Here is a short, non-exclusive list of things from my Jewish upbringing that is also true for fandom:

Part of the Oz VeHadar edition of the Babylonian Talmud. Image from zolsefer.co.il.

• Books. Books books books. Did I mention books?
• Learning the contents of those books well is not only encouraged, it is a means of accruing social status. People who can cite wide swaths of text to back up their opinions are given social points. Points, too, for being able to recite large portions of text from memory.
• Books are also used for social display. More books is better, and buying expensive multivolume sets of Talmud and Codes is considered a laudable expenditure.
• Debate is an enormous part of the Jewish body of texts, and is still enthusiastically practiced today. Debate over minutiae is encouraged and debate over ridiculous hypotheticals is practically an art form. Again, social status awarded to those with the best arguments, eloquence a plus.
• It's expensive. Kosher food is expensive. Jewish education is expensive. All those books are expensive. More money makes participation easier.

So Judaism made fandom more accessible to me through familiarity. But what about the other way around? Has fandom enhanced my Judaism?

I have not found that my personal observance or my spiritual life has been advanced by my fandom. However, I have discovered that fandom is a wonderful vehicle to explain my Judaism to my fannish friends.

Being an observant Jew means that Judaism affects almost everything about my life. From taking the holidays off work to saying a blessing each time after I use the bathroom, Judaism is not just something I think about but something I am actively doing all day, every day. For friends who mostly grew up with some flavor of Christianity, whether they adhere to it or not, this isn't something that's easy to process. To them I explain, Rabbinic Judaism is a 2000 year long LARP.

This sounds like a flippant thing to say, but bear with me; I say it in all respect with the intent to convey some of the important aspects of how living an observant Jewish life is a lens through which we view the world. Also, here is the disclaimer about this being an analogy and not being or trying to be a perfect representation of Judaism.

Rabbinic Judaism is not the Judaism described in the Torah. In this analogy, the Torah is more like the list of books that you see when you open a DnD manual, the ones that you loved so much you want to participate in them, the ones that inspired you to start playing but don't actually give you any mechanics by which to play.

Our first attempt at a set of rules was the Mishnah. Like the first edition of DnD, it was incomplete and buggy. (In fact, it wasn't actually a rulebook at all, but a selection of legal discussions, in the course of which some laws are decided. Details, details.) No one uses it now, but it was the place where the project started. The rulebooks expanded out from there, the Gemara, the Commentaries, and then out to the Codes. Along the way we get significant geographic variations in our rules, as well as extensive discussion about said rules ranging from polite to vitriolic. The flame wars, ooooh, the flame wars we have.

Where the comparison really becomes useful is to explain how we use these laws to govern our daily lives. Halacha, Jewish law, is our world mechanics.

Take, for example, the prohibition on mixing milk with meat. On the surface that sounds simple enough. But what counts as mixing? Answer: we have rules for that! Let's say you accidentally get something meaty into your dairy dish, doesn't matter how. By Jewish law, it's okay to eat as long as you cannot taste the meat in the dish. But what if you taste it and discover that you can taste the meat? Then you will have violated the law? The obvious solution might be to find a trusty Gentile friend, who has no such prohibition, and ask them. But what if you have no trusty Gentile friend available? For much of Jewish history, we couldn't count on having non-Jewish neighbors who would be friendly or accessible, so a heuristic was developed: if you have a liquid dairy dish, as long as the meaty thing that was accidentally dripped in comprises less than 1/60th of the total volume, you can assume that it doesn't affect the taste. There are different rules for solids. Being hot or spicy is also taken into account. There's a whole decision tree. Are you starting to see the parallels between this and rolling a Diplomacy check when trying to convince the guard to let you into the city?

Extrapolate from here. Whenever I run into a situation where Jewish law applies, which is extremely often, this is the sort of check I run in my head. We have Jewish law on business, ethics, food, charity, clothes (there is a preferred order of operations for putting on shoes with laces). These are the mechanics by which I engage world.

Of course the purpose of a LARP is for everyone to have fun and the purpose of Jewish law is for people to lead a moral life in accordance with the commandments of G-d and improve the world. The analogy only goes so far and the ethical monotheism component of Judaism is neither trivial nor optional. But when trying to explain to my fannish friends how Judaism influences my life when I am not having theological discussions, it's a useful analogy to make.

Ben Zoma said: Who is wise? One who learns from every person.
-Ethics of the Fathers 4:1

Well, That Was A Thing

by Terri

Image shows all of our art neatly hung on its pegboard display. There is quite a lot of it.

As we said back on January 9, Ariela and I were both at Arisia this year. I attended* panels, went to a party, spent way too much money on really fun things, had some awesome conversations with Ursula Vernon (the writer Guest of Honor), and we both had a stake in the Art Show.

This year, Arisia completely changed their art show format. In past years, pieces were entered at a starting auction price with a "quick sale" price option.** If you wanted to sell multiples of your work, you had to put them in a separate area of the show referred to as Print Shop. This format is largely a holdover from when most of the art brought to a show like this was original pieces, rather than print reproductions. There's still a whole lot of original art at these shows, but since quality prints have become much more accessible to a small-scale artist, it's less common to bring your original paintings.***

The new format did away with auctions altogether, with every piece of that was art for sale entered at a fixed price. Multiples of any piece were permitted. This means that if you are primarily a print based artist, you could bring up to 10 of anything you could fit into the panel space you paid for. We brought a couple of some pieces, more of others, mostly as a test run to see what would actually sell at Arisia. Last year (with the auction format), only two pieces from a single panel full of art sold. This year... Well, they say a picture is worth 1,000 words, so have a picture of what the display looked like before we checked out.

Image shows Ariela in her chibi outfit next to two panels of mostly empty pegboard. There are a few pieces of art (and lots of greeting cards), but most of what you see is brown.

In retrospect, I should have seen this coming when art starting growing legs and money during the Friday night reception for convention staff and Guests of Honor. At various points during the weekend, I would wander into the Art Show to "be nervous at the art." This was my shorthand for going into the display, straightening things and surreptitiously counting what we'd sold. Every time I went in, there was less art to be nervous at. By Sunday, we had 5 or 6 prints left (and lots of greeting cards). We had brought 74 pieces of art (this includes the cards). By Monday morning checkout, we had sold 38 pieces, mostly prints.****

We are still somewhat stunned at the results of this. The con crud hit both of us hard enough that the sheer jumping up and down for joy has not yet been able to happen. But I'm starting to make plans for us to be at other art shows, and both Ariela and I have some confidence that people actually want our art and will pay us money for it. That this isn't just a pipe dream, but a viable business proposition. We thank everyone who bought a piece or told someone that they should buy a piece for helping us know this.

See you next year!

*This being the 4th year of having a certain Small Human at the convention, but only the second year having her in the convention's full time babysitting, actually getting out and doing the things I wanted to do was kind of a novelty.

**Rather like eBay's "Buy It Now" pricing on auctions.

***For one thing, the prints take up way less space and transport far more easily.

****It turns out that people in the Northeast want Valentine's Day cards and cards telling people to take care of themselves, but not much else. People in the Midwest are nicer and like sending cards for all sorts of occasions. 

New Product: Police Box Mizrach (מזרח טרדיס)

by Terri

Have you been searching for the right piece of art to indicate your love of a certain Doctor? No matter which one is yours, his iconic Police Box can guide your prayers in the right direction.

How it came to be:

Since the Jewish diasporas began in 8th-6th century BCE, Jews have been turning towards Jerusalem and the site of the Temple Mount there to pray. Much of the diaspora has sent Jews westward of Israel, and thus that means facing east.* Typically a synagogue will put the aron (cabinet containing the Torah scrolls) on the eastern wall to remind the congregants which direction to face during prayer. But in a home, especially modern apartments which don't always have windows in the right places, intuiting which direction is east can be difficult.

Thus a decorative, yet functional piece of art came into existence - the mizrach/מזרח.** Usually containing the Hebrew word, it is a pretty thing that you put on the eastern wall to let you know which way to face while praying.*** Many of them feature pictures of Jerusalem, for the obvious reason.

Ariela had been wanting to do a geeky mizrach for a while but was stymied as to how. Inspiration struck in a most unexpected form: at a shiva minyan, one of the mourners was wearing a Karen Hallion t-shirt, and it suddenly occurred to Ariela that perhaps a certain Police Box-shaped object might visit Jerusalem.

The Police Box Mizrach will be available in two sizes: 8" x 10" and 11" x 14" (matted dimensions) for $30 and $45 respectively.

*Of course now we can live in really cold climates, and are often more northeast than actually due east. Someday you can ask me about shenanigans involving prayer in Poland.

**The Hebrew word for east. Pronounced miz (like a married woman keeping her maiden name) rakh (cheerleading RAH with that guttural sound at the end)

***Of course, it doesn't have to be the eastern wall. Our friend Liz embroidered the Hebrew word tzafon/צפון (north) with a decorative border and framed it. You can find east if you know due north. Pedantry can be fun.

Back on Wednesday

by Ariela

Terri and I are in the throes of the final day of Arisia and expect to be Ded of Con this evening. We will be back on Wednesday with our January product release.

Ariela is a bit drained.

Will we see you at Arisia?

by Ariela

Arisia Logo

For the first time since the official founding of Geek Calligraphy, Terri and I will both be at the same con! We will both be attending Arisia later this week, January 13-16 at the Westin Boston Waterfront.

Much of our website inventory will be hanging in the Art Show, so if you have had your eye on a piece of art but didn't want to pay shipping, stop in and see if one is to be had! While all the prints on our site come matted, some will come framed at the art show. There is also a bonus, con-only piece.

We can't fit one of everything or all sizes of everything in the show, but we will have a bunch of stock with us that isn't hung. Please tweet at us @GeekCalligraphy or text us at 805-399-2244 if you would like to ask if we have something not on display. Be aware that we will not answer on Friday night or Saturday until 6:30pm, though, due to Sabbath observance. (Arisia's art show gets its money from panel fees rather than commissions, so we are not shorting the con any money. We wouldn't do that.)

Con Schedule

Mark your schedules!

I will be sitting on a number of panels at Arisia this year.

Friday, 8:30 PM:  Practical Considerations for Costumers
Room: Douglas (3W)
Panel # 310
Our panel of veteran costumers talk about everything from pockets, to footwear, to how to wear your badge in character. They'll address costume and prop transport and storage, ways to increase your own personal comfort in costume, and safety tips for costuming in crowds.

Saturday, 10:00 AM: Funding Your Muse
Room: Marina 3 (2E)
Panel # 541
We all dream of making a living doing what we love. How do you make your art profitable without losing your inspiration? Several artists who have managed it talk about choosing a direction that satisfies both needs.

Saturday, 1:00 PM: Judaism's Influence on SFF
Room: Adams (3W)
Panel # 621
Jewish theology and culture permeates science fiction across all mediums. What effect has Judaism had on the development of SF/F and fandom in general?

Saturday, 10:00 PM: Consulting & Contracting:How To Make (For) Money
Room: Marina 3 (2E)
Panel # 533

Sunday, 10:00 AM: Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make Fantasy
Room: Marina 2 (2E)
Panel # 172
From Susan Pevensie's lipstick to fan-hate for Sansa Stark, feminine characters often get shortchanged by fantasy authors and fans alike, losing out in comparison with the Strong Female Protagonist archetype. Why does this happen? Which feminine characters manage to succeed against this stereotype? Is the trend changing, and why?

There are Friday Night Services at Arisia this year that are open to anyone who wishes to attend. They will be held at 5:30pm in Alcott (3W). We will both be in attendance.

And you can always tweet at us (we just won't be looking at Twitter from Friday afternoon to Saturday at 5:30pm).

Can't wait to see you there!

ETA: The official Art Show Opening reception will be at 10pm on Friday night, and we will both be there, wearing green and purple to match our company colors. Come say hi!