I don't understand Dickens

Based on this suggestion: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=9380399&postID=849460249831069589 and my sister's ringing endorsement, I bought the DVD for Bleak House starring Gillian Anderson.

I like Jane Austen as much as anyone else though I've always had a hard time reading Dickens. But I thought, maybe watching it will be different, by which I mean better. After all, it's a series by Masterpiece Theater. It's got to be good, right? And I can crochet on my Babette blanket.

I watched the first half and I have to say I don't understand half of what's going on or why. Mostly the why. For example:

Why did John Jarndyce agree to take 3 complete strangers into his household at Bleak House?
Why did he make one of them his housekeeper out of the blue?
As much as I like Esther, said housekeeper, 3 different men have fallen in love with her within the first three hours.
Why are complete strangers confiding their innermost hopes and thoughts to one another soon after meeting?

What I do understand:
The case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce is dragging on forever because there are multiple wills and a large fortune (and Bleak House) at stake. Which John Jarndyce 's brother committed suicide over.
Secret love affairs, babies born out of wedlock, marriages for status, drugs. That's drama no matter what century.

I'm hoping watching the second half will make more sense. But if Masterpiece Theater can't make me like Dickens, then nothing will.

Speaking of TV drama, I've been watching the Great Food Truck Race on Food Network. So far there have been 2 episodes and both times Nom Nom truck has won. Has me totally craving banh mi sandwiches.

The Woman King and Four of the Final Five

Progress shot of my Babette blanket. I'm using black as the final round of each square. I really like how the oranges really pop. Makes me think of the juicies vs blahs rule discussed in the first Mason-Dixon Knitting book, about the miter square blanket. You need blah colors like tan, taupe, moss, etc for the juicy colors like lime, fushia, orange, etc to pop against.

I've been watching Leverage for the commentary and listening to the Battlestar Galactica podcasts. I love the discussion about how they decided to tell the story they told.

I finished BSG season 3 and have seen four of the final five cylons revealed. I knew who they were already, since I read up on them on Wikipedia. Still, it was very interesting to see how it happened.

I also watched the Woman King, widely cited as one of the worst episodes. That's all I knew about it, but based on the title, I assumed it had something to do with President Laura Roslin. It was about the ethnic discrimination against the Sagitarrons and was actually Hel0-centric.

In the podcast commentary, Ron Moore mentioned that he wanted BSG to break new ground and that this episode didn't do that. On the other hand, the Leverage commentaries say "you may call it a trope, I call it a time honored storytelling device."

I liked it anyway because it showed more about the different cultures on the different colonies. I'm a sociologist working with refugees and immigrants from every continent (other Antartica), so culture is very interesting to me. That's what makes Caprica appealing to me.

Also liked the episode "Dirty Hands" which discussed class issues in the colonies and one the ships. And it was written by Jane Espenson who wrote for Buffy, Firefly and now produces Caprica and Warehouse 13.

The BSG podcast mentioned that The Woman King was supposed to be Dualla-focused but became Helo-focused. Dirty Hands was supposed to be Dualla-focused but became Tyrol-focused. I am really disappointed by the way Dualla is treated. Moore talks about her in the commentary as being a very important character but that's not what we see in the way she's actually treated and shown in the episodes.

Even so, all in all, I think BSG ended season three strongly. Just got Razor today from Netflix but will watch it tomorrow, as I work some more on Babette. If only I could do this every day...

Babette

It is hot and humid in Atlanta. I have airconditioning and ceiling fan going. Therefore I have decided it's the perfect time to start a wool blanket.

What you see here is all the machine washable, worsted weight wool I have:

5 skeins cream

13 small balls of varying sizes in orange

8 balls red

5 balls purplish red

7 skeins green

4 skeins light blue

5 balls cornflower blue

4 balls medium blue

11 skeins dark blues

2 skeins brown

8 skeins black

Brands include Knitpicks, Phildar, Knitting Fever, Patons, Lang, Muskoka, and Lion Brand. Some I bought, others were given to me from my friends late mother's stash.

At bottom are strips of blues and greens from previous attempts to make a superwash blanket.

This time I will be making a crochet Babette blanket. I haven't finished the cotton stripy blanket yet, but the experience of dealing with all those ends to weave in drove me nuts. I'm knitting a hem to encase all those ends.

The beauty of crochet is that ends get encased in the crochet as I go along. Crochet also uses up a lot of yarn and I have a lot of yarn to use.

I've been wanting to make a Babette blanket for a long time and now that I have so much superwash wool, it's time to do it.

Honorine and Babette

I've finished crocheting the squares for the orange and ivory baby blanket. There are 36 and I just barely had enough of the orange to finish. I frogged the swatches I had to get enough yarn.

Now all that remains is sewing them up and adding a border. And waiting for the baby. However, the baby girl (not mine) isn't born yet, so the blanket is nameless. And I just found out someone else had a baby boy, so of course I'm thinking, another baby blanket to make!

I've cast on for Honorine, using KnitPicks CotLin in Moroccan Red. When I got the box last week, the red made me swoon. Okay, not literally, but I was very happy with it. I swatched with size 6 US and size 5 US and size 6 gave me gauge (22 sts = 4 inches). However, after washing and blocking, the yarn expanded and the size 6 US swatch now turns out to be 20.5 sts to 4 inches.

What to do? Should I go with the pre-washed gauge and cast on the number of stitches for my bust size, or go with the after washing gauge and cast on the number for the smaller bust size and rely on washing to make it grow to my size?

I've also decided to knit it in the round and omit the lace insert for modesty. Actually, I don't want to have to wear a camisole underneath. It's just too warm in Atlanta most of the time to need it. This involved more math, as the lace insert uses a different yarn, with a different gauge which I had to convert to my washed CotLin gauge. In the end, I chose to go with the smallest size and cast on 180 stitches. Here's hoping this works!

Crocheting the orange and ivory really got me into the crochet groove. I've been eyeing Babette by Kathy Merrick from Interweave Crochet 2006 and there are lots of great pics on Flickr. I also have Glorious Patchwork by Kaffe Fassett (love his stuff!). The quilt on the cover was the inspiration for Babette.

But most of my yarn is not machine washable and there's no way I'm going to hand wash an afghan. Really now, people.

However, in flipping through Glorious Patchwork, I found a few quilts that I could convert into knitting or crocheting. After the orange and ivory blanket is done, I'll do some swatching and we'll see what comes of it.

However, it'll have to go the end of the line behind Husband's afghan, Honorine, Brother-in-law's vest -- for winter holiday or his January birthday, the Sandy cardigan from Big Girl Knits for Ma -- needs to be done by Chinese New Year next year, and fixing Sister's Bi-colored Cables sweater. I probably just need to reknit the sleeves. And the collar.

But for now, I will just enjoy going round and round on Honorine, my portable, mindless knitting.