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

June 28, 2012

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

With adequate water and sunshine your baby bonnet will grow from this...



to this in no time!



In case you're curious, baby bonnets shed their feathers within the first few months.

June 27, 2012

TNNA 2012

As always, I had an amazing five days of meeting people, seeing friends, buying yarn, etc. Mango Moon had a contest this year. They gave out 100 pedometers and offered a prize to the person who logged the most steps during the show. I wasn't concerned about winning but we really curious to see just how much walking I did during the show.


22534 steps. That's from 10 AM on Saturday until about 1 PM on Monday. That's about 12 miles, I think. Oh, and I won. By 5000 steps. I really do get around.

I can't share photos of what I saw but I will tell you what I thought was great in no particular order.
  • The Sincere Sheep. My favorite vendor from the last Sock Summit, Sincere Sheep offers interesting and unusual base yarns naturally dyed in gorgeous colors.
  • Sweet Georgia. I've been reading Felicia's blog for years. I remember someone bringing a skein of her yarn to Purlygirls maybe 6 years ago and coveting it. Her bases look luscious, her colors are deep and vibrant, and her booth display was top-notch.
  • Blue Sky Alpacas Royal Petites. These sumptuous little nibbles of yarn are delightfully packaged and are supported by a line of faux-vintage patterns. Each one has an illustration of a smashing 50s-era stylista sporting hand-knit accessories. The patterns all use only 1-2 skeins of this delicious little yarn. (Their other new yarn, Metalico, is also drop-dead gorgeous. You have to touch it to understand how amazing it is.)
  • Schacht. This Colorado-based loom and spinning wheel company partnered with about 20 yarn companies and created a unique display for each of their booths featuring their yarns woven on a 10" Cricket Loom. The displays were beautiful and the amount of work was staggering. Plus it was like an Easter egg hunt at the show. I looked through every booth to see if they had a loom with their yarn on it. Schacht also has a new 15" Cricket loom which I may just need to get for myself...

There was so much more but those are a few off the top of my head!

June 20, 2012

The Final Detail



After tearing the house apart for an hour I have located my TNNA namebadge. I am now ready to go to Columbus (on a 5:53 AM flight but OHMYGOD I can't even talk about that right now). See you all next week!

June 19, 2012

Sanity Check

I took Cria to Purlygirls last night and told everyone my idea about cutting the bottom off above the pockets, knitting then grafting it back on and they all told me I was crazy. So I ripped it back to above the pockets. Onward!

June 17, 2012

When In Doubt Start a New Sweater

I'm still undecided about how best to deal with Cria. Thanks to all of you who weighed in on my options. So I started a new sweater! Gnarled Oak by Alana Dakos was at the top of my queue and after going down an astonishing three needles sizes I was able to get gauge with this Baruffa I over-dyed way back in 2009. Fingers crossed for an uneventful knit.

June 15, 2012

Poop

I just bound off the second sleeve for Cria. This sweater is turning into a disaster. I bound off the body last night. Can anyone tell me why I didn't measure it before starting the bottom edging? Because I really should have. Then I would have known that my sweater is 2.5" too short! So what now? I thought about cutting off the edging, knitting another 2.5" then grafting it back on or reknitting it, whichever feels less masochistic at the time. Then I thought about the pocket placement. If I lengthen the body but leave the pockets as is they'll be kind of high up. So plan B was to take off everything below the pocket placement (you create two openings when you knit the body), knit 2.5", then graft that whole mess back on. Besides the hideous amount of grafting, plan B also means that the 2.5" of stockinette I knit in the middle of the sweater might stick out like a sore thumb since this is hand-dyed yarn. It might look really obvious that something happened in that area beyond what is sure to be some mighty uneven grafting going all the way around the sweater. I'm stuck. I'm defeated. What tiny amount of knitting mojo I had just drifted away. Poop.

In other exciting news, I got home tonight with the kids. Older Son's job is to feed the dogs and pick up all the dog poop in the yard. The poop goes into a bucket in the sideyard through a big gated fence. I was doodling on my computer when I thought, "Gee, the dogs have been awfully quiet." I peered into the yard and didn't see them. I opened the door and saw the side gate sitting wide open and the dogs were gone. I screamed for Older Son as I grabbed my shoes. I threw open the front door and Isabella, who had been waiting dutifully (or perhaps lazily) on the porch trotted inside. I was still putting on my shoes as I ran down the front step yelling for George. I had no idea how long they had been gone or how far he could have gotten. Before I made it down the stairs I heard a woman call out from across the street, "Are you looking for your dog?"

"Yes!"

"She's right here." (Not very observant but a kindly good Samaritan.)

I ran down the block and across the street to see George on a leash being held by a woman in conversation with a Parking Enforcement officer. It turns out that our phone number had worn off of George's tag but the PE officer does dog rescue and had her own leash with her and a microchip scanner (!) so they were in the process of getting our number from George's chip when I came out. I thanked them over and over and swore to get him a fresh tag. George, I believe, thinks this was the BEST NIGHT EVER.

The moral of the story is make sure your pets are microchipped and never trust a 14 year old to do anything right.

June 14, 2012

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

Anyone who has ever spent any small amount of time with a baby or toddler knows one thing. Babies hate shoes. They hate socks even more. Their little-life's work is to contort, kick and grab until those suckers come off. Bonus points if the foot-covering slips off when the caretaker isn't looking and gets lost forever. Is there a parent who hasn't come home with a kid missing a shoe? I doubt it.

So why, oh why, would anyone want to make these.



How many people does it take to hold down the wriggling baby to then thread that little cord around the baby's second toe? Three? Four? My heart-rate is elevated just imagining the struggle.

I thought, "What a ridiculous and unnecessary object! What could be more useless?" Then Ravelry gave me the answer. The adult version decorated with soda can tabs, of course! That couldn't be the most unsightly and potentially dangerous foot decoration out there but it's close.



It does serve as a good summer reminder to make sure your Tetanus vaccine is up to date.

June 12, 2012

June 9, 2012

A Busy, Yucky Week

Oh friends, what a busy, yucky, annoying week I've had.

Sunday: I knew it was a bad sign when I spent all of my Mad Men viewing time (Did you see it?! Oh my God.)ripping out several inches of Cria. I had missed one set of increases and it had to be done. But I've already been feeling utterly defeated by the pace of my knitting and this was another kick in the shins. I've made steady progress on it all week and now have about 35 more rows to go on the body. The sleeves are short so thank goodness for that.

Monday: Work and Purlygirls. We had a nice group including some new people. It was great.

Tuesday: I got stuck late at work because a co-worker forgot she was supposed to cover for someone else. Wes had been planning on feeding the kids before I got home anyway then taking Older Son to an information night for his new high school. Yes, I will have a high schooler in September. It is unbelievable. I come into the house and find that Younger Son has not been fed and head straight to the kitchen. I step in a huge puddle of water which is streaming out of the dishwasher. I assume something is blocked and shut it while cursing and laying down towels. Then I use the bathroom. Something about the way the toilet flushed made me feel that something was wrong. I walked out of the bathroom in time to hear a huge sputtering, gurgling sound coming from the kitchen sink. Of course, our sewer line is backed up. Lots of frantic texting back and forth with Wes and I put in a call to Roto-Rooter. We spend a night and morning using as little water as possible and not flushing the toilets. Ew.

Wednesday: Work, where there are toilets that flush. Roto-Rooter comes and informs Wes that the problem is a lot larger than just clearing out the sewer line. They spend the day digging an enormous pit in our front yard and collecting a heart-stopping sum of money. I skip the Knitters Guild meeting to collapse at home where toilets can now be flushed but there is still a giant hole in the yard.

Thursday: There is still a giant hole. I go to work. I race home from work early and pick up Younger Son from after-school care. Older Son is home and dressed for his big, final orchestra concert of middle school in which he is one of two graduating students performing a solo with the full orchestra. But first I have to take Younger Son to an ice cream social for his new middle school. Then we head to the concert, already in progress. Older Son performs beautifully and the kids in his orchestra perform an extra piece that they have practiced on their own time as a thank you gift to their amazingly wonderful teacher. She has been at the school for two years, her first two years of teaching, and is now losing her job to be replaced by a more tenured staff member in the Seattle school district. It's a terrible loss for the school and the kids are all very disappointed so there were speeches and gifts and the concert ran extremely late.

Friday: There is still a giant hole and the Roto-Rooter guys are supposed to come back to fill it. I meet with a friend for coffee. Yay! I do a little mindless shopping and errand-running. Yay! Wes, who worked from home waiting for the the Roto-Rooter guys, offers to pick up Younger Son from school. Yay! The Roto-Rooter guys don't come. I take a huge nap. We have a quick dinner then all go see Moonrise Kingdom together. If you like Wes Anderson you will like this film. If you dislike Wes Anderson you will hate this film. I happen to love Wes Anderson and found this vintage-steeped, fairy tale of youth, rebellion and young love completely and utterly charming, hilarious and beautiful. Though the film is tremendously stylized, like most of Wes Anderson's work, there was an emotional truth that really touched me. The kids both enjoyed it a lot too. The film is PG-13 but I don't think kids under 12, unless they are emotionally precocious, will get into it.

Saturday: Giant hole, who know when it will be fixed/filled. Wes was busy all day. I ran the kids to music lessons, did a bunch of laundry and dusting (killer day, right?) then took another giant nap. I have gotten into a vicious cycle now of staying up really late then napping because I'm tired then staying up late because I've napped. I need to pull myself together.

So there you go. My busy, yucky but ultimately really boring week.

June 7, 2012

Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?

This week's post has nothing to do with the knits. They are fine knits. Maybe even a little dull. I have no bone to pick with the knits. The styling and posing of the model however...







These models must be representing the epidemic of Bangles-itis that struck in the 80s. You know that ailment that makes it impossible to relax your arms after spending hours walking like an Egyptian. Oh my God, totally. Barf me out. Gag me with a spoon.


June 3, 2012

Shaking My Head

‎Wes broke a sconce in our bedroom a few years ago. He finally decided to locate a replacement for it so he took down a second, matching sconce to bring to the lighting store. Then dropped it on the floor.