A Bluestocking Knits

These were finished in a bit of a rush, before the hot weather hits and I don’t even want to think about thick wool — the Log Cabin Socks, my first project from Handknit Holidays by Melanie Falick, despite my having owned the book for over a year now.  I must confess that I did not particularly enjoy making these socks.  It’s my first experience with Cork, so I will reserve judgement on it until I knit it at a more reasonable gauge, but here I felt like I was trying to beat it into submission — not the experience one wants with one’s knitting.  It didn’t help, to be sure, that my Surina bamboo needles have splits in the tips (again!), so kept catching and splitting the wool.

I was also, like quite a lot of the knitters who have already made these socks, a bit perturbed at the difference between the instructions and the photograph.  Directions for the heel flap don’t mention leaving out the last few cables, but I just worked the sts as established after Row 18 of the chart, instead of switching to the second cable portion.  I’ve heard that the book has rather a lot of errors (there is an errata page from the publisher), but luckily the only other one that I noticed was more one of clarity than actual error: the last part of the heel turn should be something like "Rep Rows 1 and 2 three (four) times, omitting final K1 in last rep of Row 1, and final P1 in last rep of Row 2."  The heel was a bit wonky, but I suppose that’s due more to the gargantuosity of Cork than anything else.

I had the morning to myself for finishing, and so I thought this movie would be appropriate —

Log cabins and all, don’t you know.  "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" has really grown on me.  I was a bit bored by it when I first saw it, but I’ve come to appreciate its rustic charms.  My feminist hackles raise a bit, of course, but there is enough in the characters to counter most of that!  Howard Keel is wonderful enough to make me think that I would have married him on the spot, too!  And I like that Milly knows her own mind well enough to take the risk, but is spunky enough (in the best possible way) to stand up to Adam when she needs to.  I don’t need to say anything — well, not very much, anyway! — about how terrific the dancing is, as the barn-raising number alone is enough to guarantee the movie its place in musical-comedy history, but the music is fabulous too, beautiful Gene de Paul/Johnny Mercer tunes that leave me humming them for days.

The accompanying documentary on the single-disc DVD has some interesting tidbits and interviews, as well.  Sometimes I find the behind-the-scenes information so distracting that I don’t enjoy the movie as much as I would like to — which I found to be the case in some of the "Lord of the Rings" movies, for instance — but here it’s just fun.  One of the brothers, for instance, was played by a non-dancer, such an intimidating thing in the company of Jacques d’Amboise and Russ Tamblyn, et al., that you can see him around the musical numbers but not actually in them, so we have a good time Benjamin-spotting during the dances — "look, he’s on the other side now! oh, sitting down!".  (Reminds me of the little girl in the "Seventy-Six Trombones" number in "The Music Man" who obviously had trouble remembering the steps, as she’s watching the feet of the other little girl.  Poor thing! I sympathize whole-heartedly.)

"Bless your beautiful hide,
Wherever you may be!
We ain’t met yet
But I’m willin’ to bet
You’re the girl for me!"