Tuesday, July 24, 2007

death & marriage

Lloyd Alexander died last week. He was pretty old, but I'm feeling slightly heartbroken anyway. I adored his books as a child - not only the Prydain Chronicles, but other, lesser known ones as well. Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen. The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha. The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastien. The Wizard in the Tree. Even his translation of Sartre's Nausea: the Wall & Other Stories. These all brought new worlds to life for me, for legions of youngsters back in the '70s and '80s. A couple years ago, now, Maia and I began re-reading the Prydain books, trading them back and forth between her floor and mine, until she left not only our building but the entire city of New York for Anchorage, leaving, too, her copies of the books behind.

Also, a law acknowledging same-sex partnerships took effect in the great State of Washington today.

Also, I made my first swatch yesterday. Unfortunately the swatch turned out slightly bigger than it should have, meaning that my gauge is slightly off. Even more unfortunately, I knitted it on the smallest pair of knitting needles that I own. So the finished garment, amongst all of its other mistakes, will be oddly sized. Luckily babies tend to be oddly sized, too, so maybe it'll turn out okay regardless. One can always hope.


2 comments:

cdc said...

congrats on your first swatch -- it looks lovely! if you haven't already, try washing (and drying) your swatch the same way the sweater will be washed, and check the gauge again...if it's still too big, maybe i have smaller needles you can borrow! or maybe the pattern can be tweaked a little so it works with the gauge you're getting...

Maia said...

I'm trying to figure out a way to incorporate The Prydain Companion into my thesis -- at least into the annotated bibliography.