If you’re going to San Francisco…

I’m going to San Francisco! Tomorrow, in fact, for the National Science Teachers Association conference. I’ve been furiously browsing the schedule to figure out what sessions will be best for me to go to, but I was delighted to find quite a few sessions that focus on mollusks! There are not one but two sessions about squid dissection, one about the Queen Conch Research Refuge Ranch (which there doesn’t seem to be information about online), and one about seashell taxonomy. Weirdly I also can’t link to the individual sessions, but in any case I’ll report back if I make it to any of these. I’m hoping my proximity to the Pacific Ocean may also facilitate a mollusk encounter of some fashion. And, holy cow, am I going to eat a burrito while I’m there.

During my flights and downtime, I hope I’ll finish these mittens I’ve been knitting. Snaily!

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London folks: Get thee to the Natural History Museum

Even though I already know how to knit, I would totally attend this event if I could.

STITCH A SQUID

I’ve often thought a problem with learning to knit is the tendency to make people start with a scarf, which is actually a very advanced project. It requires the knitter to have a lot of stamina and tolerance for a pattern that doesn’t change up at points. This is what’s so great about socks, the make a 90-degree turn in the middle and have to taper to a toe at one end! But a tiny squid! What a great idea.

Photo: Lauren O’Farrell (Stitch London)

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Making mollusks: inaugural knitting post

Anyone who knows me knows I knit. A lot. So naturally the knitting and the mollusks have to comingle to some degree. While I would never wholesale devote my knitting to mollusk-related projects, I’m happy to pick one up now and again. The first I have to share with you is a pair of socks.

I enjoy making socks out of self-patterning German socks yarns, because the resulting socks are very durable and my simple mind is amused by how the pattern emerges as I’m knitting the socks. The first pair I did with Opal sock yarn were these tiger-striped beauties.

According to their website,

Opal donates proceeds from the sale of this yarn to foundations that save habitat from development and clear-cutting.

which is lovely. Wish they’d tell me where, but whatevs. The point is I saw this yarn existed and I knew I had to have it:

NUDIBRANCH YARN. Love it, bought it, knit the socks. In case your German is rusty, that word means “high wire artist.” What that has to do with nudibranchs or rainforests is anyone’s guess. And by the way, nudibranchs don’t live in the rainforest, so their place in this sock yarn series has me a bit befuddled, but the next yarn in the series, set to come out next month, has snow leopard-inspired yarn, so I’m not going to complain. Here are the socks I knit, on my very own feet:

The yarn is a little more sedate than the nudibranch that inspired it, which is probably for the best when it comes to making a wearable item. But here’s another lovely picture of the nudibranch that these socks vaguely resemble.

Nudibranchs might be my favorite mollusks, so you will be seeing much more of them around these parts.

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