AI Season 10, Top 9 Performance, 04-06-11

Ryan, with his hair parted on the wrong side again, enters through the kids as they faux-dance. Note to Casey: Don't do that any more.

Randy is wearing a shiny, black vinyl jacket over a red tee. JLo is in a white slinky dress with gold zipper-like rib adornments. Steven Tyler is in a floaty shirt that looks like it's made form white, black, and teal snakeskin, if snakeskin was floaty.

Ryan warns us that Gwen Stefani has styled the girls tonight, using clothes from her Lamb design line.
Note to Ryan: That was not adequate preparation for the horrors that follow.

Steven Tyler takes us on a tour of James Brown's jacket, Michelle Phillips' caftan, Paul McCartney's Fab Four jacket, Elton John's whatever, Jimi Hendrix's tie-dye suit, and some wacko outfit from that Aerosmith group. Then he poses next to a bust of himself, sculpted in mid-scream. All of this leads to the fact that the kids are singing from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees.

#1. Jacob is worried about singing R&R. He rehearses Marvin Gaye's Let's Get it On, but then changes his mind, because, you know, that song is about... sex.... yeah, whoda thunk? Anyway, Jacob just can't bring himself to sing about... well... you know... so he changes to Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror, because singing a song made popular by a man who was accused of child molestation, multiple times, is better than singing about doing The Dirty. I wonder when in the process of choosing and rehearsing the first song, that he realized what those lyrics were describing. And then Jacob does a head-shot interview where he says, absolutely seriously, that if he ends up in the Bottom 3, it won't be because he made a mistake, or because he didn't sing the song well, it'll be because America can't look itself in the mirror. Yup, that's what he actually said- I rewound it just to make sure. And with that, I am done with Jacob.

#2. Haley has chosen Piece of My Heart. Many have tried Janis on this show, and in my opinion, only Crystal Bowersox has proven worthy. I suspect this is going to be a trainwreck. Haley struts out in what turns out to be the least awful Gwen Stefani ensemble of the evening: black leather skinny pants, stiletto heels, and a belted tunic with an irregular hem, which looks to be made from plaid flannel chiffon. Haley's performance style consists of a lot of emphatic marching and stomping, but she's doing  better with this song than I expected her to, though she's missing a lot of the notes, and that last one was painful. The judges love it, and while JLo appears to be handing out compliments, she says that Haley will be around "for a minute". No matter how I parse that, it's not a happy prediction.

#3. Casey starts out wanting to sing Sting's Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, but Jimmy Iovine and Will.i.am talk him out of it, saying that his rendition was too lounge-act. So Casey switches to a little CCR. He's wearing a gray shirt with a white collar, and a black vest. And he has the standing bass, while he sings Have You Ever Seen the Rain. I grin like an idiot throughout the performance, and I give Casey a Standing O right here in my living room. Seriously.

#4. Lauren is singing Natural Woman. Shouldn't there be a rule preventing high school girls from singing this song? I doubt Lauren even feels like a Natural Girl yet. Okay, let me take a stab at describing her personally-assembled Stefani outfit: Lauren is wearing black leggings and boots and a black tux-like jacket. Those parts are okay. But she's wearing the jacket over... oh my... is that a black and white strapless gingham jumper shorts set? I'm afraid so. The shorts are not only loose around the hips and rear, and gathered right across the thighs into tight cuffs (not a good look on anyone, but especially not a good look on Lauren), but the crotch is weirdly saggy, as though she's wearing a diaper underneath. And if that wasn't bad enough, Gwen evidently also took her own stab at Lauren's hair, which is weirdly complicated, with poorly executed French braids snaking from her temples to the back of her head. The top of her hair is swept back from her forehead into a high, curly pompadour that cascades down the back in more curls. The individual components are bad, but together, the hair and clothes are a disaster. Oh, the performance? Actually, Lauren is doing just fine with this song, which surprises me mightily. Not that she's doing well, but that I can hear her voice over the shorts.

#5. James, given the perfect opportunity to choose a mega-rocker song, decides to go with George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Jimmy Iovine and Will.i.am do everything they can to talk James out of it, but he holds steady. The Ghost of Adam Lambert starts out on The Stool of Seriousness, with a foggy spotlight. Wow, I didn't know that James had such a sweet voice. This performance showcases his tourette's more than the big rock numbers, but I doubt that matters. James had to fight to sing this song, but he was absolutely right. It's a lovely performance.

Let me take a moment here to say that Will.i.am is wearing some seriously confusing pants. The inseam appears to be fastened by large snaps. The entire inseam, snaps up and down the insides of both legs, like baby jammies. And the crotch, as with Lauren's poofy shorts, is weirdly baggy. Maybe Gwen Stefani designed these pants too.

#6. Scotty is a life-long Elvis fan, so of course, he's going to sing That's All Right Mama. There are very few Elvis songs that I can tolerate, and TARM is not one of them. I wish Scotty had chosen something by The Eagles instead. Oh well, our little Scotty is so much more comfortable on stage than he used to be, though he still sports that starboard list  Note to Scotty: Stand up straight, wontcha? Just once? Anyway, he's doing just fine with this song, and the girls who rush the stage to give him a mass hug, agree.

#7. The Hub describes Pia thusly: like listening to attractive paint dry. Pia has promised to liven things up with Tina Turner's River Deep, Mountain High. Oh my lordy, won't someone please make Gwen step away from the fabric table? Pia is wearing a strapless, blousy, capri jumpsuit made of a filmy leopard print fabric. She has wrapped her neck with multiple metal coils, and her hair is topped by a hair tumor, and then pulled back in a ponytail. Pia is singing notes, and stomping, and she has certainly sped things up, but fast or slow, she has absolutely no personality, and no connection to this, or any song.

#8. Stefano (who luckily, is a boy, and therefore isn't subjected to the Stefani House of Fashion, though he is wearing a sparkly silver neck tie). He's singing When a Man Loves a Woman. He begins in the very highest of his high range, but he eventually settles back down . Like Pia, he sings notes that might be technically correct, but he has no connection to the lyrics, and his struggle to keep his eyes open is obvious. Afterwards, he keeps licking his lips- I think he may be wearing lipstick.

#9. Only Paul is left, which is weird, since the last performance is generally expected to be the strongest of the evening. Paul chooses Folsom Prison Blues, which mystifies me even more than Paul existence on this show does. Iovine and Will.i.am tell Paul to go batshit crazy with the song, and Paul takes their advice. He is surely the peppiest murderer ever to watch a man in Reno die. He grins and jumps and dances throughout, and he lets someone else take a long guitar solo in the middle of the song.

We must have a lot of extra time tonight because Ryan literally jumps around with Paul for an uncomfortably long time before calling the rest of the kids out to the stage, where they dance around for a really long time too.

It was a pretty strong show tonight. My Top 3 are Casey, Lauren and James. My Bottom 3 are Pia, Paul, and Stefano. But I'd really like He Who Will No Longer Be Named to go home.

After the flood

The last time I ran outside here was October 18. I know the date because that was the day before I flew to North Carolina for SAFF. By the time I came home, I wasn't able to run anywhere. In fact, bronchitis/pneumonia kept me from moving more than three feet without coughing, for over a month. Since my recovery, I've done workouts on the treadmill six days a week, but still, I am in really terrible shape.

I've been waiting, first for the air to warm up, and second for the flood waters to recede, so I could run on my beloved park trail. I know that I won't be fit until I can run outside on a regular basis (make no mistake, treadmill workouts are real, but there is a difference between keeping up with the floor, and hauling your body yourself). Finally, yesterday, I was able to hit the trail.

It might be spring elsewhere, but here, the world is still brown. This is Turtle Creek (which runs behind our house). The waters have gone down, but the creek is still a long way out of its banks.

The debris shows the high water mark on this section of the path.

There's a hint of green in the grass- spring is coming.

Aaaawwwwww. Tiny baby pine cones.

Can you see the debris in the bushes on the left?

I'll bet you can guess the high water level.

The sumacs have survived floods in other years, but there is a lot of silt this time around. I hope they make it.

It looks like someone carefully wove cattail leaves in the branches.

It's a good thing that the benches are bolted down.

But whether spring has actually sprung or not, construction season has begun. The city is getting a new pool house. My boys spent half of their childhood at the pool (first as swimmers, then on the swim team, then as lifeguards), and I was a little sad to see the old pool house come down. But the new one will be lovely. It's supposed to be up and running by the time the pool opens for the season on Memorial Day. Since they just broke ground yesterday, I have my doubts. Luckily, I'll be able to see the day-by-day progress. Weather permitting.

Blue jean baby

I mentioned a post or two back, that I tend to overbuy anything connected with any of my obsessions (hence the Yarn Buying Moratorium of 18 months and counting, with still no appreciable difference in the stash levels). Well sometimes, it's a good thing that I stock up when I have the chance.

This is 262 yds of cotton yarn, spun with roving made from recycled blue jeans (plied with my usual commercial cotton strand). I don't know where I got the roving (sliver is the really nicely prepped stuff, this was regular roving- carded and aligned but not combed or smooth), and I have no idea what I paid for it, but I do remember that it was made entirely from shredded blue jeans. The roving still had tiny bits of darker blue threads in it (and here and there, a red thread). It spun up okay, though the yarn has its thick and thin places (well, all of my cotton yarns have thick and thin spots, but this one has more of them... mostly thick).

Last night, I spun up all of the denim roving that I had, and while I'm not looking to buy more (the Moratorium extends to spinning fiber too, as well it should), I did want to post some links to the recycled roving in case any of you want to give it a try.

Guess what? I couldn't find it anywhere. Not on eBay. Not on etsy. Not via Google or Yahoo. I barely found a mention of this stuff, much less any for sale, or any info on how it was made, or how to spin it. It's a Mystery Fiber, I guess. And evidently, I got the very last of it, purchased on a whim, and forgotten for years.

Yay me!

And after I put the wheel away for the night (I can only wrestle with cotton for so many hours before my body shuts down), I finished the slip-stitched honeycomb hat. I like how it came out, but it'll be more effective worked with a solid color for the purled rows.

Quickie Pattern for the Slip Stitch Honeycomb Hat (fits most medium size adult heads, and youth)
Size 3 needles, sportweight yarn (maybe 250 yds- I used leftovers so I don't know for sure).

CO 128 sts, join.
Rnd 1: K
Rnds 2-3: P
Rnd 4-7: *K 6, SL 2*, rep around
Rnds 8-9: P
Rnds 10-13: K 2, *SL2, K 6*, rep around, end K 4

Rep the HoneyComb Pattern for approx 4 1/2", ending with 2 P Rnds.
Next Rnd: Inc 2 sts (130 sts)
K even until brim  measures 5 3/4"
Dec Rnd 1: *K 11, K 2 tog*, rep around
Dec Rnd 2: K
Dec Rnd 3: *K 10, K 2 tog*, rep around
Dec Rnd 4: K
Continue decreasing, working 1 less st before the dec, every other rnd until 10 sts rem.
Cut tail, weave end through loops, tighten and tie off. Weave ends in, wash and block.

Cottoning to it

So, the cotton-spinning thing didn't go away overnight.

I actually found a tag in the bottom of this bag of sliver! This fiber came from Pollywogs Yarn and Fiber, and since they're based in New York, I assume that I bought it on eBay. I also assume that I bought it a long time ago, since the 7.6oz bag only cost $7.13. It's labeled as "Butterscotch Swirl".

I spun up two full bobbins of it, which I plied to a fine commercial cotton yarn. The pair came out to 328 yards of mostly fingering weight yarn (total weight 3.7 oz right now, but they're still damp. Cotton takes a long time to dry).

Once again, the color difference between the unspun fiber, and the spun/boiled/set fiber is pretty amazing. I suppose if one wanted the lighter color, one could leave the baking soda out of the water bath, but I do like the darker color, so I'm not sorry that it changed. My singles are still occasionally lumpy, but I'm getting better at the long draw.

I rooted around in the Cotton Corner of the Wool Room, and found this wonderful sliver- I am pretty sure that it's Pima cotton (unfortunately, there was no tag hidden inside the bag). It's incredibly soft and has a lovely lustre. I found it a bit tougher to spin, but that might be because I purposely tried to spin it heavier. Unlike every other fiber that goes on my wheel, cotton wants to be the size of sewing thread, and I have absolutely no use for yarn that fine (and I am far too lazy to spin up 4 or 5 bobbins to ply into a single yarn). I'm happy with the weight of this yarn- it's a bit heavier than the Butterscotch swirl. This is 186 yds. Though I did not add any baking soda to the water bath, there is still a distinct color difference post setting (and that's not from the plying strand, which is commercially produced white-white cotton).

I am really quite pleased with these yarns. I suspect they'll end up in a shawl eventually, since I am not interested in weaving. Nope. Not interested, even though I am teaching at a weaving retreat at the end of April. Not interested.

Pick a bale of cotton

A few years ago, I had the urge to spin cotton, and as with all of my obsessions, I overbought the raw materials- in this case, pounds of cotton sliver (which is pronounced SLY-ver), in lots of different natural shades. I was particularly intrigued with the Fox Fibre cottons- undyed cotton that grows in colors: brown, oatmeal, and green. I also somehow ended up with about 3lbs of natural brown cotton lint (ginned cotton fibers that have been carded but otherwise not prepared for spinning. I think it's mostly used in paper making), and an entire bale of ginned, uncarded white cotton that my friend Ann sent me from Arkansas.

The only problem in this scenario is that I swiftly learned that I don't like spinning cotton. Cotton has a very short staple (about 1/2", as opposed to the 2"-3" for angora, 2"-6" with wool, and often 6"+ with mohair), and therefore needs a lot of twist for the single to hold. And by a lot of twist, I mean a LOT of twist. My natural spinning mode is hard and tight (get your mind out of the gutter, Alan- those are legitimate yarn words), and even my default MO wasn't tight and hard enough. I had to adjust the ratios on my Ashford Joy, to the smallest groove on the flyer. And even so, my learning curve was steep, because in order to put that much twist into the cotton, I had to learn the long-draw, which is also not my default style.

I did not learn it well.

Anyway, as with many of my failed experiments, I sighed and shoved the materials back into a corner of my Wool Room (which did not appreciate the plant invasion, lemee tellya), reset the ratios on the wheel, and forgot about it. Until yesterday, when I again got the urge to spin cotton. Why not?, I thought. Maybe this time, I'll get the hang of it.

And you know what? After a half hour that consisted of many restarts and even more bad words, I did get the hang of it. My cotton single is lumpy, but lumpiness is part of the charm of handspun yarn, right?

 I chose a baggie with small amounts of several colors: white, oatmeal, green, and brown, and spun them all onto the same bobbin. I intended to Navajo 3-ply the yarn, but that didn't work, in a spectacular way. The yarn broke every 24" or so, and I invented a few new swear words before giving up on that notion. Instead, I plied the single to a very fine cotton yarn. That worked beautifully.

 Note the colors- off white, brown, and green.

 In order to set the twist of handspun cotton yarns, the yarn has to be boiled. In order to bring the colors out in naturally colored cotton, it has to be boiled in water with some baking soda added. The deepening of the colors was instant, and amazing to watch.

 The difference in the colors is amazing!

 It's just as well that the Navajo plying didn't work- look at how messy this is.

 Ah- much better. The large skein is 175 yards of slightly heavier than lace weight. It's still damp, so it'll weigh a bit less than the 1.7 ozs (which is what the scales said now).

I have another bobbin of singles ready to ply. This will probably boil out darker too. We'll soon see.

So, what am I going to do with all this handspun cotton yarn? Hell if I know. I don't like knitting with cotton.

Mostly wordless Saturday

Basil, parsley, chives, heirloom tomatoes

Shepherd's Harvest Class Signup is now open, and other stuff

The class signup for this year's Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival is now open. Go here to learn about the festival in general, and here for the full class list. This will be my first time at Shepherd's Harvest, but I've heard good things about the festival for years. On Saturday, I'm teaching a new class- All-Day Nordic Christmas Stocking, during which we will work on a stranded, toe-up Christmas Stocking, with an afterthought heel (the link has a pic). No prior sock knitting, or stranding experience is needed. You just have to be comfortable with knitting in the round. On Sunday morning, I'll be teaching my Writing Patterns for Publication class, which goes over formatting, submitting, photographing, and writing up patterns, and a lot more. No experience needed for that class either. I have heard a rumor about a booksigning in the afternoon on Sunday, but nothing firm on that yet. I'm excited to attend and teach, and I hope to see some of you there the weekend of May 7-8! And as always, the bad thing about teaching at these festivals is that I can't take classes myself. The roster is full of workshops I'd love to attend.

Speaking of going places- I've been invited back to SAFF, so I get to go to North Carolina in October again! Woohoo!

In between planning classes and trips, I've been doing a bit more knitting.

I finished the Opal Dumbledore socks. They turned out beautifully, if not particularly Dumbledoreish.

And I started another hat. I'm experimenting with a honeycomb slip-stitch pattern for the brim, and I'm using up more leftover yarns (this is old Knit Picks sportweight superwash sock yarn- discontinued long ago). I like how it's coming out. I plan to do the crown decreases in plain stockinette stitch. Next time, I'll work the purled rows in a contrasting color- that'll make those recesses pop.

But the biggest knitting project on my drawing board is a wedding shawl for The Wonderful Cassy, who is marrying Younger Son in July. I want to design and knit something spectacular for her- she has already expressed a preference for a rectangular shawl, and I'd like to incorporate some seashell/ocean design elements since the wedding will be in Oregon, at the beach. I'm excited about this undertaking, and since I'm not working on a lace book, or a shawl book, or any knitting book at all right now, I can share pictures as I work. It'll be an adventure!