Knitting -- non-curling edges

If you've been following this part of my blog, you already know some ways to keep edges on your knitting from curling up.

One is the standard ribbing for hems, cuffs, and necks on pullovers.

Another is the edging I gave you for armholes on sleeveless tees, which also works for the neck edging on a vee-neck.

With Shetland lace shawls, you generally do a center portion, a border, and an edging. The edging will curl unless you block it. Blocking works for everything, but sometimes you just want to bind off and wear immediately.

One method is utterly simple and works for the long edges of rectangular lace. It gives you the option of later attaching an edging or border, without sacrificing any of the lace motifs.
Once you have established the short edge (which I discuss next), k2, work your motifs across, and k2.
Do a k2 on the outside of every row, not just the rightside rows.
If you do attach a border or edging later, you will pick up in the middle of these two stitches.

When I was knitting dishcloths, one of the patterns taught me another no-curl edge, the seed stitch. A 4-stitch or 4-row seed stitch edging will resist curling until you can get around to blocking.

So for your short edge, cable on the number of stitches you need.
Now do k1/p1 across.
IF YOU HAVE AN EVEN NUMBER OF STITCHES, then on each subsequent row, whatever was the last stitch you made, repeat it as the first stitch and then alternate across.
If you have an odd number of stitches, then on each subsequent row, whatever was the last stitch you made, do the other one as the first stitch.
You wind up with
x o x o x o x o
o x o x o x o x
x o x o x o x o
o x o x o x o x

When you start your pattern, you can do the same at the start and end of each row. Make sure each stitch in your x-stitch border is the opposite of the one below it.

Seed stitch does not have the sturdy look of ribbing so it's more suitable to fingering weight yarn. Use it as a hem for a fingering weight lace coverup for a swimsuit, or for a fingering weight sleeveless tee.

You could possibly use it in something with Fair Isle motifs and introduce the colors of your motifs into the x's or o's in the seed stitch. I'm also considering it for an all-seed stitch top to use up leftovers from a project I have going on right now.

So here's the edge of a stole with seed stitch, the side with the K2, and the lace motif Shetland Old Shale.

This completes my suite of lace: a fingering weight stole to throw over a sleeveless tee after dark in late spring or early autumn; a sport weight stole for early spring or late autumn; a worsted weight stole that I throw on when I go out to put water in the birdbath on winter mornings; and a worsted weight shawl I snuggle into on winter nights.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 3:5-6, oblique modality (3)

Genesis 3:5-6

 

ה כִּ֚י יֹדֵ֣עַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים כִּ֗י בְּיוֹם֙ אֲכָלְכֶ֣ם מִמֶּ֔נּוּ וְנִפְקְח֖וּ עֵֽינֵיכֶ֑ם וִֽהְיִיתֶם֙ כֵּֽאלֹהִ֔ים יֹֽדְעֵ֖י ט֥וֹב וָרָֽע:

ו וַתֵּ֣רֶא הָֽאִשָּׁ֡ה כִּ֣י טוֹב֩ הָעֵ֨ץ לְמַֽאֲכָ֜ל וְכִ֧י תַֽאֲוָה־ה֣וּא לָֽעֵינַ֗יִם וְנֶחְמָ֤ד הָעֵץ֙ לְהַשְׂכִּ֔יל וַתִּקַּ֥ח מִפִּרְי֖וֹ וַתֹּאכַ֑ל וַתִּתֵּ֧ן גַּם־לְאִישָׁ֛הּ עִמָּ֖הּ וַיֹּאכַֽל:

 

Translation: For Gd knows that on the day of your eating from it, your eyes will be opened; from then on you will be like Gd, knowers of good and evil.

The woman must have seen that the tree was good for food, and an attraction to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for enlightening, so she took some of its fruit and ate; she gave also to her man with her and he ate.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

נִפְקְחוּ	Shall be opened
עֵינֵיכֶם	Your eyes
עֵינַיִם	eyes
תַאֲוָה	Desire
נֶחְמָד	pleasant
לְהַשְׂכִּיל	enlightening

 

Verse 5 has the third form of modality discussed in Dr. Cook’s dissertation, it’s v’nifq’chu. Notice the vav. The verb is not imperfect, it’s perfect aspect; the nun is from the nifal.

 

This is oblique modality. It takes something people generally know or agree on in the main clause, or something that actually happened, and tries to get the other person to believe something else.

 

In this case the serpent is telling the woman that when she eats from the tree, she will perceive things she never did before. This makes the midrashic comment about pushing her against the tree even more important, almost like there is a missing verse about it. Once he does that, and she doesn’t die, she would easily believe that eating won’t kill her.

 

The snake does one more thing typical when somebody is trying to get you to disobey. He implies that Gd is holding out on Adam and Chavvah. Gd didn’t tell them that they would be even more like Gd once they ate.

 

And that points back at the k’dmutenu of the creation narrative. In that case, the likeness with Gd was Shabbat observance. Now it’s knowing good and evil.

 

This is one more thing in which people are like Gd but angels are not. Angels have absolutely no concept of good or evil. When Gd tells them, “do this” they don’t even think, they just do it.

 

This also fits in with Olrik’s principles. In the creation narrative, there were two ways people were like Gd, b’tselem and b’dmut. Now they have a third opportunity -- to know good and evil, like Him. Three is a strong magic number throughout Torah and on into the rest of classic Jewish literature.

 

The Law of Three link means these two narratives were created in the same culture and had conceptual ties to each other, but because they have different goals, they are not the same narrative or different versions of the same concept.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 3:2-4, negated duplicate conditional

Genesis 3:2-4

 

ב וַתֹּ֥אמֶר הָֽאִשָּׁ֖ה אֶל־הַנָּחָ֑שׁ מִפְּרִ֥י עֵץ־הַגָּ֖ן נֹאכֵֽל:

ג וּמִפְּרִ֣י הָעֵץ֘ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּתוֹךְ־הַגָּן֒ אָמַ֣ר אֱלֹהִ֗ים לֹ֤א תֹֽאכְלוּ֙ מִמֶּ֔נּוּ וְלֹ֥א תִגְּע֖וּ בּ֑וֹ פֶּ֖ן תְּמֻתֽוּן:

ד וַיֹּ֥אמֶר הַנָּחָ֖שׁ אֶל־הָֽאִשָּׁ֑ה לֹא־מ֖וֹת תְּמֻתֽוּן:

 

Translation:     The woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the garden tree we may eat.

But from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, Gd said: you shall not eat from it, or touch it: pen t’mutun. 

The serpent said to the woman: lo mot t’mutun.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

תִגְּעוּ	touch
פֶּן	lest

 

T’mutun is important grammar.

 

This is an uncertainty epistemic. We had certainty epistemics which use phenomena, perceptible things, as evidence for the truth of what is being said.

 

But death is not perceptible.

 

What’s more, nobody has ever died before, in the experience of either the woman or the serpent.

 

So the woman really isn’t sure that she has the straight dope.

 

What the serpent says is even more subtle and proves that he was watching Gd’s every conversation with Adam as well as Chavvah. He uses a duplicate conditional. He’s saying that there is no due process that will kill them.

 

There is a similar structure in Exodus 34:7, naqeh lo yinaqeh. What’s the difference between them?

 

In Exodus, the thrust of the statement is that there is no due process for declaring somebody innocent. That’s true in American law as well. Courts can convict or they can say “the prosecution/plaintiff hasn’t proven its case so we can’t record that the defendant was convicted.” Usually the defendant’s attorney will then go on the evening news and say “my client was found innocent” but that’s false.

 

But here we have lo before the duplicate conditional, and it’s connected to the mot that is the aspectless verb, and there’s even a little curve under mot that hooks it to the lo but the t’mutun is just hanging out there on its own.
 

As far as I know, there’s nothing else like this in Tannakh; if you find it, email me. But if I had to guess I would the serpent as saying, it’s not that there is no due process for killing them, it’s that Gd was lying when He said there was such a thing as dying.

 

In fact what has really happened is, the serpent knows Gd said not to eat, but he also knows that the “not touching” part, the woman has made up. So now he knows that if he proves she won’t die from touching the tree, she’ll also eat from it. And midrash does indeed say that at this point he pushed her against the tree, and the rest followed.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 3:1, the serpent

Genesis 3:1

 

ג א וְהַנָּחָשׁ֙ הָיָ֣ה עָר֔וּם מִכֹּל֙ חַיַּ֣ת הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשָׂ֖ה יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֑ים וַיֹּ֨אמֶר֙ אֶל־הָ֣אִשָּׁ֔ה אַ֚ף כִּֽי־אָמַ֣ר אֱלֹהִ֔ים לֹ֣א תֹֽאכְל֔וּ מִכֹּ֖ל עֵ֥ץ הַגָּֽן:

 

Translation:     But the nachash was shrewd beyond every wild animal that the Lord Gd had made; he said to the woman “…even though Gd has said, you don’t eat from every tree of the garden?”

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

אַף	Even though
עָרוּם	shrewd
נָּחָשׁ	serpent

 

You never in your life imagined that this verse could be translated like that so let’s go through it.

 

1.         Remember, mi can mean “beyond”. It’s pretty obvious that the serpent would have to be smarter than all the other wild animals to talk and to understand what Gd told the people about the trees.

2.         Notice that arum has the identical letters to erom except that there’s a plural ending on erom in the previous verse.  This will become important later when this root shows up again.

3.         Yes, there’s a zaqef on elohim, marking that phrase off from the other clause.

 

So whatever these two were saying before is missing, but we get the clue that the woman mis-quoted Gd. The serpent thinks that Gd told them they could eat from every tree, but he has noticed that they don’t do that. So he is implying that the people aren’t obeying Gd.

 

Now, what about that “but”. What is this in contrast to?

 

Well, Torah is full of what I call sidebars. They’re all crucial but they’re not part of the straight line of the story. In a sense, there’s an arrow that points from where we said that Adam found no ezer among the animals, to this verse. Sort of, “if Adam had really wanted to, he could have found a companion in the serpent, who was shrewder than all the other wild animals. But that wasn’t really his natural counterpart. So Gd created woman, and now the jealous serpent is bugging her.”

 

Midrash Breshit Rabbah 99:11 has it the other way around. Now that Gd has created woman, the serpent is the only one without an ezer. Midrash Breshit Rabbah 18:6 says he saw them consummating their marriage (about which more later) and got jealous and wanted her for himself. This discussion was supposed to pry her loose from Adam.

 

So I’m following the grammar and trop, not the midrash, and since I’m a yachid (just one person) you don’t have to agree with me on the meaning.

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:25, hitpael binyan

Genesis 2:25

 

כה וַיִּֽהְי֤וּ שְׁנֵיהֶם֙ עֲרוּמִּ֔ים הָֽאָדָ֖ם וְאִשְׁתּ֑וֹ וְלֹ֖א יִתְבּשָֽׁשׁוּ:

 

Translation:     The two of them were naked, the man and his wife; they did not shame each other.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

שְׁנֵיהֶם	The two of them
עֲרוּמִּים	naked
לֹא	No, not
יִתְבּשָׁשׁוּ	Shame each other

 

Here we have a famous binyan, the hitpael.  It is used for reciprocity or mutuality; it is also used for a special case of reciprocity,  reflexivity.  Later, we will see that it is used for continuous action and therefore is the flip side of piel which is used for punctuated repetition. And it is used for motion back and forth in opposite directions.

 

Binyan: hitpael

Aspect: imperfect

Verb root: bosh, בוֹשׁ

 

This is one of those ayin vav verbs that drops the vav and doubles the last letter in piel and it also does it in hitpael.

 

Also  like piel, hitpael geminates the middle root letter.  However, as you’re about to see, that middle letter might not be vav.

 

As with piel, the aspectless gerundive is the same for both uses.

הִתְבַּייֵּשׁ

This is the imperfect aspect.

 

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אֶתְבַּייֵּשׁ	נִתְבַּייֵּשׁ	First
תִּתְבַּייֵּשׁ	תִּתְבַּייְּשׁוּ	Second/masculine
תִּתְבַּייְּשִׁי	תִּתְבַּייֵּשְׁנָה	Second/feminine
יִתְבַּייֵּשׁ	יִתְבַּייְּשׁוּ	Third/masculine
תִּתְבַּייֵּשׁ	תִּתְבַּייֵּשְׁנָה	Third/feminine

 

This is the perfect aspect.

 

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
הִתְבַּייַּשְׁתִּי	הִתְבַּייַּשְׁנוּ	First
הִתְבַּייַּשְׁתָּ	הִתְבַייַּשְׁתֶּם	Second/masculine
הִתְבַּייַּשְׁתְּ	הִתְבַּייַּשְׁתֶּן	Second/feminine
הִתְבַּייֵּשׁ	הִתְבַּייְּשׁוּ	Third/masculine
הִתְבַּייְּשָׁה		Third/feminine

 

This is progressive aspect.

 

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
מִתְבַּייֵּשׁ	מִתְבַּייְּשִׁים	First
מִתְבַּייֶּשֶׁת	מִתבַּייְּשׁוֹת	Second/masculine

 

 

But teacher, you’re saying, that’s not what  the verse has.  It has a long “o”, two shins, and a qamats under one of the shins.

 

The form in this verse is another one of those anomalies.  I’ll talk about what this might mean at the end of the course, because I have three examples later in Torah that may indicate chronological development in use of vowels.

 

The point of this being hitpael is that Adam and his wife did not call each other embarrassing names over being naked. That’s the mutuality issue all over.

 

21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 2:24, oblique modality (2)

I apologize, I don't know why I didn't post this on Thursday. You will get another lesson this Thursday.

Genesis 2:24

 

כד עַל־כֵּן֙ יַֽעֲזָב־אִ֔ישׁ אֶת־אָבִ֖יו וְאֶת־אִמּ֑וֹ וְדָבַ֣ק בְּאִשְׁתּ֔וֹ וְהָי֖וּ לְבָשָׂ֥ר אֶחָֽד:

 

Translation:     Therefore a man abandons his father and his mother; so that he sticks to his wife, from then on they become one flesh.

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

יַעֲזָב	leave
אָבִיו	His father
אִמּוֹ	His mother
דָבַק	Stick to

 

There are two zaqefs in this verse and notice that the first one comes after another of those curves. The curve is called qadma and it is conjunctive.

 

The other zaqef comes after a word marked underneath by a right-angle pointing toward the end of the verse. This is another conjunctive trop called munach.

 

The first zaqef separates the man from his parents, just like the word yaazav does. He’s the one responsible for making a new unit with his wife, and he is responsible for supporting his wife.

 

Note that yaazav is an anomalous form. The normal imperfect aspect is yaazov. When I say “anomalous”, I mean that there’s no other example in Torah and so I’m not sure if it has a special meaning. There’s an example in Chronicles I 16:37 which means, not to abandon, but to have a purpose in separating somebody out as special, namely setting aside Asaf and his brothers because they will be serving the ark of the covenant. So parents are special in a man’s life, but he has to put them on one side because it’s his wife with whom he forms the new family.

 

There are lots of one-off forms in Tannakh. It’s no use saying that they are mistakes of some kind or other. Tannakh existed using its current grammar before the Babylonian Captivity. It’s probably true to say that anomalous forms only occur once in the text, but they were actually part of a complex grammar that people used on the street without thinking about it. Since we only have one example, we don’t know what they meant when they used it. 

 

Now notice the v’davaq. This is another case of oblique modality, which I introduced in verse 2:6. Remember, the pattern is main clause in imperfect aspect, subordinate clause in vav plus perfect aspect. Most of the time, there will be an etnach between them, as there is here.

 

In this verse we have an effect clause. If a man puts his parents on one side when he marries, then he can cling to his wife so that they become truly united.

 

In other words, her in-laws have the power to ruin the marriage and it’s her husband’s job to prevent that by sticking up for her against his parents.