Best Panda Viewing

We have been "enjoying" uncommonly cold weather here in the ATL. Nearly every day this new year has been clear and beautiful and COLD. It is uncommon for us to have days that aren't above freezing, much less several in a row. And the meteorologists have mentioned the four-letter "s" word for Thursday. At least this should cut into the bug population for next summer.

11 December 2009 -- Mei Lan looking fabulous even while napping.

One of the upsides to this weather, besides the opportunity to wear your warmest knitted clothes with pride, is that this is panda weather! I haven't been to San Diego Zoo, but I've been to Memphis and National Zoo and talked to people who have been to San Diego. From what I can tell, the best panda viewing in the United States is right here in Grant Park. Visitors can get closer to the pandas than in Washington or San Diego and there are more pandas here than in Memphis. (After visiting Memphis, I am pretty sure their exhibit design is based on ZooAtlanta's.) So, why go view the zoo in this weather?

Pandas are always on exhibit. There is always at least one panda in the dayrooms or in the outdoor enclosures. During the summer, Yang Yang was often behind the scenes because it was too warm outside and there are only two dayrooms. But during the autumn and winter, there are some days when all four pandas, Mom, Dad, big sister, and little brother are on exhibit. (At left is Xi Lan, after climbing to the top.)

The zoo isn't crowded in the cold. This is particularly great if you are an adult panda fanatic. In the summertime, there are lots of families and children and it can be hard as an adult to get a good spot. Parents sometimes look at you unkindly, not realizing that you've waited 45 minutes to finally get a mostly-unobstructed view. Or folks don't always recognize that someone has made a special trip from a great distance. But in the winter, you can have the pandas all to yourself or nearly so.

This is also a great time to meet other panda fanatics. Only the true panda aficionados will hang out. And it is wonderful to hear the stories the docents or other panda fans can tell.

If you enjoy photography, it is much easier to get good photographs on these quiet, uncrowded winter days. If pandas are in the yards, then you don't even have the glare of glass. And if they are inside, there are fewer fingerprints on the glass because there are both fewer children in the zoo and because they are wearing mittens and gloves. (At right is Yang Yang, thoroughly involved in a meal, viewed through the glass. Yes, he was that close to me, with just the glass between us.)

One of my favorite memories of Mei Lan as a cub is from a cool winter morning. There were about half a dozen people watching her, all of us spread out enough not to interfere with each other, all of us with a good view of the action, and all of us with a camera of some kind, from my pocket digital to a SLR with zoom telephoto lens to a video recorder. It was early in the day, so there was just the quiet munching of a happy panda cracking her breakfast bamboo and the whispering whirring of the panda paparazzi recording her every move.

Lun Lun and Xi Lan -- like mother, like son.

And speaking of Miss Mei -- this month is your last chance to see her unless you plan to visit Chengdu yourself. She's nearly grown up and is about ready to go charm the young male pandas at the breeding center. Little brother Xi Lan is beginning to wean from Lun Lun and will soon be housed separately. So if you want to see Miss Mei or if you want to see interactions between Lun Lun and Xi Lan together, get thee down to the zoo pronto! And if you are a real over the top fan, there is a special super-deluxe panda nightcrawler program on 23 January.

One last note, many of the animals at ZooAtlanta are African species who are not on exhibit in the cooler weather. If you have another favorite critter, be sure to ask the folks at the front gate. They do a very good job of knowing what is and isn't out, or what will be out later as the day warms up, and they can assist you to make sure you'll know what to expect and where to find the best animal action.

Knitted Buttercup in the Round

Jolie’s recipe for Nicky Epstein’s Knitted Buttercup

This is a significant variation of the flower on page 22 of Knitted Flowers (New York: Sixth&Spring Books, 2006). The changes:

• specified cast on
• in the round not back and forth with seam
• centered and straight rather than slanted decreases
• threaded center rather than bound-off center
• bead instead of french knot
• felted instead of not felted

Nicky's design is probably easier for the novice knitter to execute, certainly less fussy on the decreases. If you have the book, try both her approach and mine and see what you think.

Use size 9mm/US 13 needles
Samples made with Cascade 220, color 8555 (black)
Yarn held double throughout
Each flower uses about 6-7 grams/13¼-15½ yards

Makes a 7-petal flower
Flower is worked in the round on double-pointed needles, two-circulars, or a magic loop.

Special techniques:
dec 5 into 1 (worked over a group of 5 stitches)= slip first stitch knitwise, slip second stitch knitwise, knit third stitch (middle stitch of the group); place middle stitch back on left needle and pass fourth stitch over middle stitch, slip middle stitch to right needle and pass second stitch over middle stitch, slip middle stitch to left needle and pass fifth stitch over middle stitch, slip middle stitch to right needle and pass first stitch over middle stitch. Adjust tension of middle stitch before proceeding.

centered double dec (worked over a group of 3 stitches) = slip first two stitches together knitwise, knit third stitch, pass first two stitches over.

Using crochet cast-on, cast-on 43 stitches.
Round 1: Knit first & last stitch of the cast-on together to join. Knit all remaining stitches in the round. (42 stitches total)
Round 2: *k1, yo, dec 5 into 1, yo; repeat from * across round. (28 stitches total)
Round 3: *k1, centered double dec; repeat from * across round. (14 stitches total)
Round 4: *k2tog; repeat across round. (7 stitches total)
To end: Break yarn. Thread yarn end into blunt needle. Run end through all 7 stitches. Pull tight. Run through all 7 stitches again. Run through first three or four of the seven. (Yarn has circled the 7 final stitches 2½ times.) Plunge end to back of work.

Thread needle with yarn end from cast-on. Weave end through stitches on back of work. Try to have end come out near center of flower.

You should end up with both yarn tails on the back and near the center of the flower. This is handy if you wish to use them to attach your flower to something.

My flowers were about 3½ inches across before felting and 2¾ inches after felting.

If you want to experiment with more or fewer petals, cast on 6 stitches per petal, plus one extra to join.

Add beads or knots in contrasting color to create centers. I used wooden beads from the local big box craft store.

More Making Do and Mending

In the process of chaos control this autumn, I did look around and items that needed a little love. Actually, I looked around to see what needed to be tossed or donated, and what needed just a little bit of my time. This Lantern Moon bag needed a little attention. I bought it some years back at Purly Gates. I liked it a lot, but the bamboo fractured on one side. (Another bag in the shop had the same problem.) This is a wonderful project bag for a small project, but it has also been a fabulous handbag. So I didn't want to throw it out.

The solution? Nicky Epstein to the rescue! I pulled out the copy of Knitted Flowers and began to browse. I decided that a few black felted flowers, artistically placed, could be just the thing to save this cute bag from the trash.

While I do like Knitted Flowers, I have to admit that this book is not without its flaws. There are no diagrams, just pictures of finished flowers. This means that you may be surprised when knitting the Five-Star Flower (page 100) that is featured on the cover and the directions have you making yarn-overs. You discover later that you thread the row of yarn-overs and pull tight. So you don't always have a clear sense of what shape you are making.

And while the pictures are nice, sometimes they are done so artistically and with such a shallow depth of field that flowers are blurry. A particular example is page 57, with the five versions of the Stellata Thistle. Three of the five versions are blurry in the photograph and two of those are cropped. Fortunately, it doesn't take long to knit up any of these items, so you can always knit and see what you get. Also be aware that many of these are knit back and forth on straight needles and then seamed.
I personally prefer to knit circular shapes in the round. If you are an inventive knitter, you can rewrite the patterns you like to match your needs.

For this project, I chose the Buttercup from pages 22-23. I re-wrote the pattern for knitting in the round. You can find it here. Basically, I used two strands and large needles to make a plain black flower. Because I planned to felt it, I worked it larger, looser, and more open. Oddly enough, knitting felts better if you make it looser and more open.

I'm purposely showing the finished flower at a different but proportional size. The unfelted flower was about 3.5 inches across. But the finished felted flower shrank to about 2.75 inches across. So my flowers are a little less than 80% (4/5ths) of their original size. By the way, I felted them simply by throwing them through the laundry with the regular load of wash. I did have a little trouble getting the felting started because I was using cold water. After allowing them to dry overnight, I used black sewing thread to attach the wooden beads from the local big box craft store. These beads were probably from JoAnn Etc. I've had them in my stash for several years. I don't know if you can still get them, but I'm sure you could find something similar. I attached the flowers to the bag using a hot melt glue gun. I was very generous with the glue, both to keep the flowers in place but also to keep the bamboo bag from continuing to fray apart.

I must admit -- I'm very pleased with the final product. I haven't used the bag yet, so experience will tell whether this fix is durable enough for use in the real world.