A blog about my life, knitting, and other stuff.

April 30, 2009

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

We have a gold standard for WTHIS. A litmus test. I must say to myself each week, "It's bad but is it Carnivorous Poncho bad?" This week's selections truly are.

First the Swaddle Pod.



The baby looks peaceful enough not yet realizing that is being absorbed into the pod. Soon it's lifeforce will be consumed and it will grow to maturity. Which I imagine looks like this.



Both patterns available for download so you too can be an emotionless pod person.

"They're here already! You're next!"

April 28, 2009

Bullet Points

  1. GLMC: Still slowly working on it. I've separated off the sleeve stitches.


  2. Lamour: I'm knitting it in the round (the body at least) for now. I just finished the first lace repeat. Very simple and fun. It's been a while since I knit anything lacy.

  3. Running: I just "finished" week 5 of Couch to 5K. This is the week where the program goes nuts. You do 5 minute running segments the first day, 8 the next and then 20 on the third day! That did not happen for me. I tried but could not pull out a 20 minute run. I took it as a bad sign that while I attempted to run more than 8 minutes I actually thought to myself, "I wonder how often people die at the gym?" Instead I did 8 minute segments with a much shorter walking break (90 seconds). I think I will now switch over to the First Steps program which is the one I followed the last time I did this many moons ago.

  4. Birthdays: Thank you all for the birthday wishes. Wes surprised me with tickets to see Carrie Fisher's one-woman show, Wishful Drinking, which was very funny and lots of fun. This weekend we'll be celebrating his birthday and then older son's is in another two weeks.


That's all I can think of for now.

April 26, 2009

Bountiful Bohus



Pattern: Bountiful Bohus by Chrissy Gardiner from More Big Girl Knits
Yarn: Cascade 220 in 7822 with small amounts of 8010 and 8401 (?)
Needles: US5 and 7 Addi Turbos
Notes: I made only a few small changes to this pattern. First I made my steek five stitches wide instead of 10. I've knit several steeked sweaters in 220 and always found that a five stitch steek is plenty wide. I also knit about an extra inch in the main color after the colorwork pattern before the short row shaping for the back. I found the length from the underarm to the neckline was a little too shallow for me as written. I wish I had made the sleeves just a smidge shorter. They should be bracelet length but they're maybe a bit longer than that. Otherwise I think I will be wearing this one a lot.

April 24, 2009

Cut and Cast On

Bountiful Bohus is nearing the finish line. Yesterday I finished the body of the sweater, tried it on and found that the yoke was too shallow. I ripped back to the end of the colorwork and added some plain rounds then did the short row shaping and ribbing again. So today was steek day.



I've stitched, cut and picked up stitches. Just a few inches of ribbing to go and a little grafting under the arms and NaKniSweMoDo #7 is in the bag.

Which is why I started #8 last night.



Lamour from Rowan 44 in Knitpicks Elegance, gifted to me by a fellow camper several summers ago. This is also my Alpaca April project.

April 23, 2009

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

I know I'm going to get my hand slapped by the crocheters in the crowd. But lately I've been noticing a lot of crochet on Ravelry that has a troubling taste level, as they say on Project Runway.

From tiniest but most elaborate top ever...



to most risque belt presentation...



to pirate-themed...



What's going on? Where's the class? Where's the elegance? Then I saw this.



And my jaw dropped. Not as low as the model's bust though. As a busty person I can say from personal experience that this will not end well. Support, people, we need support!

April 22, 2009

A Bit of Muppety Fun

Shalom



Pattern: Shalom by Meghan McFarlane
Yarn: Kaya by Crystal Palace
Needles: US10.5 Clover Circulars
Notes: No changes at all. Fast, fun, easy. It looks very cute on the mannequin.

April 21, 2009

They Grow Up So Fast, Birthday Edition

My older son was poking around on Amazon a few weeks ago. He looked up and asked, "What your favorite gem again?" I told him it was blue topaz. He then pointed at the screen discreetly and asked Wes, "Can I get mom this for her birthday?" Wes told him not to worry about it and shooed him away. I asked to see what he wanted to get for me.



How cute, right? So guess what a very proud ten year old presented to me this morning? I'm wearing them right now and they are perfect. Wes was grumbling something about how now older son is a more thoughtful gift giver than he is.

April 19, 2009

Feeling...Crochet-ish?

Maybe with all the intense sweater knitting I've been doing my mind is starting to crave a change. I've been thinking about crocheting something. Maybe a Babette Blanket? I dug around on Ravelry and found several examples I like.


Click for more info on photos



Will I do it? I don't know. But it's fun to browse.

Whew!

funny pictures of dogs with captions

April 18, 2009

Chaos

Our youngest son is having his 9th birthday party tonight. There are little boys shrieking their heads off all over my house. You know that level of energy they get when they can only scream until they lose their freaking minds? That's where we are. It will be "bedtime" soon.

The sale at the shop was huge today. There is still a load of great yarns on clearance and all other yarns on sale all day Sunday at 20% off.

I am exhausted.

Also, Shalom is finished except for a little blocking and sewing on a button.

Tomorrow is pancake breakfast for party guests, back-to-back kid musical performances including a visit from the in-laws then, most likely, lapsing into a coma.

Doubleknit note: For some reason the latest podcast is not updating in iTunes. We are working on it. In the meantime you can always listen to it from the Doubleknit blog.

April 17, 2009

And a Knit1 Preview

It's here. I think I see more I like here than in the IK. But seriously, two pairs of knitted shorts. That's two too many in my book.

Interweave Summer Preview

It's up. You were all pretty lukewarm with the latest VK. Did IK do any better?

5th Anniversary Sale

The Fiber Gallery's 5th anniversary sale is this weekend. There is a ton of great yarns that will be available at 40% off. Really great yarns from Noro, Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Muench, Cascade, Brown Sheep...I could go on. And all non-clearance yarns are 20% off. If you're in the Seattle area you really should come.

Zippy Skippy



My Bountiful Bohus is really coming along. I should be knitting the yoke (the fun part) soon.

While this is a pretty quick knit, at work I've been making a super-sonic knit. I'm knitting Shalom in Crystal Palace Kaya for a shop model. Lightning fast! Bulky yarn, big needles and no sleeves! Shazaam! Sweater! It's knitting up so fast the last picture I took, a few days ago, was this.



Now I only have 7 rows left on the whole sweater. And only two ends to weave in. Kapow!

April 16, 2009

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

The January TNNA fashion show videos were finally was posted on YouTube. It's not all Thursday material but there is a lot of head-scratchers in there. If you have an hour and a half to kill you can check it out. There were, I believe, 89 items in the fashion show. It was a marathon.

But we finally have the infamous Trekking boxers on a real live, unfortunate man. Red diaper or baboon's butt? You decide. The fun starts at about 1:25.

April 14, 2009

Doubleknit #18

It's up.

The Knitting-Sex Ed Nexus

Coincidentally Perri Klass, the knitter (oh, and doctor), just wrote a NYT article about boys and sex ed.

April 12, 2009

Diminishing Ribs




Pattern: Diminishing Ribs by Andrea Pomerantz, Interweave Knits Spring '09
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora
Needles: US7 and 5 Addi Turbos
Notes: I wasn't crazy about the neckline of the sweater as written. It seemed too big and high in the front. I cast on for a smaller size and increased one stitch along the neck edges every right side row until the fronts had the correct number of stitches for my size. I mentioned in a previous post that the neckline on this sweater (it's top-down) was really loose and floppy. I switched down two needle sizes for all the ribbing on the sweater. I cut off the original collar when I finished the sweater and reknit it in the opposite direction also on a smaller needle. I threw a few decreases in along the back of the neck too. I could have decreased even a bit more since this yarn is very slack and heavy and will only stretch over time.

As Long as I'm Stirring the Pot

Last night after writing my blog post Wes and I sat down to watch the Oprah show about talking to children about sex. Anyone who knows me knows that I am very open and frank with my children about sex. Watching the show got me thinking several things.

1) My objection to the BK ad isn't about sex. I can talk to my kids about sex and sexuality until the cows come home.
2) When the Oprah show says "talking to your kids about sex" what they mean is "mothers talking to daughters about sex." As a mom and a dad with sons watching this show I thought they really missed the boat. It's not about just arming girls with information and confidence to they can defend themselves against the hordes of hormone-crazed boys who will endlessly come sniffing around. We should be sending the same message to boys and girls about intimacy, confidence and responsibility.
3) The most controversial part of the show was the suggestion by Laura Berman that mothers should talk to girls in their teens about masturbation. The audience went nuts. Would anyone have batted an eye if the suggestion was made to discuss masturbation with teenage boys? I don't really think so.

Coincidentally starting on Tuesday my older son will begin sex education at school. I'm really interested to see how it is approached and his reaction to it.

I will have a finished sweater to show you later today. I promise no more kids and sex talk for a while.

April 11, 2009

BK Follow Up

Okay so the reaction to this ad campaign seems to be breaking down along the lines of whether or not you have kids. Given that my kids don't watch commercial television I never imagined they'd be exposed to this ad. So it still seemed funny to me. Then today as I was leaving a restaurant after lunch with my children we walked past the TVs in the bar this ad happened to be on. Now I'm fairly angry. My children (boys, 9 and nearly-11) went insane.

"Oh my god! What was that?"
"Why are they measuring those women's butts?"
"Why are they showing those women's butts?"
"That's disgusting!"

I can't help but feel that I've done something right so far that my children are not accustomed or inured to the objectification of women. And I still stand by my original sentiment that, however fun a riff on Sir Mixalot is, selling children's items--whether to children or their parents--with scantily-clad women shaking their asses is inappropriate. I know my boys will continue to be bombarded with ladies in hot pants shaking their asses at them in an attempt to sell them things and I hope as they grow up they will remember how much this offends me. I hope it will offend them too.

April 10, 2009

They Grow Up So Fast

Today my youngest son turned nine. I brought cupcakes to school to celebrate. One of his classmates marched up to me, peered at the cupcakes and said, "Excuse me, is that homemade frosting?"
"Yes," I told him.
"Good," he replied.

Little pisher...

In Further WTF News

Am I the only person who hasn't seen this Burger King ad promoting Spongebob children's meals? Full of ass-shaking women in skimpy outfits dancing to a modified version of Baby Got Back? What the hell has the world come to that this okay?



(For the record, if this was just something aimed at adults I might find it kind of funny. But not for kids.)

April 9, 2009

Terrible Editing, No Yolk

WTF, Vogue? You got the designer's name wrong and spelled "yoke" as "yolk." You're a knitting magazine, right?

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

Just in time for Easter, Craftyhedgehog has just the perfect thing.





This is the same artist who created the dissected frog and rat (pattern available!). Unlike the previous two dissection pieces which take a universal childhood trauma and make it kind of cute, this piece takes a universally loved, cute childhood icon and slits him up the middle so children can gorge themselves on his innards.

April 6, 2009

Too Much Good Stuff

I can't take this Denyse Schmidt workshop in July because I'll be at knitting camp. Guess I don't really have anything to complain about.

Quick, While There's Time

Just a drive-by post before the shop opens.
I finished the body on Diminishing Ribs. The tubular bind off took forever. I'm very happy with the firmness of the rib due to using a needle two sizes smaller than called for. Not my usual floppy ribbing. One sleeve is half-way done. This should go pretty quickly from here.
Wes was away this weekend and there was great weather in Seattle. The boys and I spent a lot of time out and about. We went to the dog park and the playground, did shopping, had brunch. Lots of good mom-kid time. Now we're all very happy Wes is coming home.
I did day two of week three of Couch to 5k. Still feeling pretty good. Just had to really talk myself through the last 30 seconds of the last longer run section. I'm a little worried about week four. I may need to ease into it a bit.

April 5, 2009

Quite Possibly the Cutest Thing Ever


Puppets need puppets too. Via Craft

Wish I could needlefelt like that!

April 3, 2009

About That Knitting

I've been knitting away on my three sweater projects (Three? Seriously? Am I nuts?). Diminishing Ribs is going great guns now. I didn't take it to Vancouver with me because I thought all the fluttering tufts of angora would drive Wes insane in the car. I also didn't want to be so coated in angora that I appeared flocked. Instead I cast on for the body of my Bountiful Bohus. I got a whole whack done on that, as they say in Canada.



Here's Diminishing Ribs too.



I had a request on Ravelry to get some updated photos of the GLMC up.



In this shot you can see the front bands done Purl When You Can and the steek.



In this one you can see the line for the center back where the pattern is mirrored.

In other news our new sleeper sofa was delivered today. But it is too big to fit up our staircase despite our best efforts to measure!



It's like a furniture traffic jam in the living room now. That old loveseat that Isabella tore up and the old peach chair are going to be leaving. Very soon, I hope.

Baby Monkey

This video of a rare Francois Langur born at the Sydney Zoo raises an important question. Who knit the monkey a blanket?

April 2, 2009

Vogue Knitting Preview

I know many people have gotten the new VK already but the preview is finally up. What do you like?

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

Just in time for Thursday, new styles from the Upside-Down and Backwards collection. Wearing sweaters in their proper orientation is so last week.





Next week they'll be demonstrating it as conjoined legwarmers.