Thursdays are For What the Hell is This?

Trendsetter designer, Fayla Reiss, loves fringe. In fact the more multi-colored, sparkly stuff hanging off of a sweater the better. As illustrated in this sweater, the Multi-Yarns Oceans Jacket.


Click to make larger and more baffling.

Is there a sweater under all that stuff? I will forgo my usual Yeti comments because this sweater as much more a Swamp Thing vibe.

I have to say that it was tough to narrow this down to one selection. I have a feeling there will be more Fayla-filled Thursdays in the future.*

*Wow. How's that for alliterative?

Deja Hoos

I found a link to swimsuit designer Stephanie Hoos on Daily Candy. This design seemed eerily familiar.



So the choice is yours. Buy this one for $160 or knit your own. Or run screaming from the room.

First Fracture

My five year old took a spill on Sunday and hurt his hand. On Monday it had swelled up a lot and was very bruised. This morning it was still swollen and very hot to the touch. We got in to see the doctor this afternoon. Amazingly my son--never one to be compliant--was very well behaved during his exam and x-rays. They think he fractured one of the bones in his palm. He was given a splint made of some mysterious material that looks like cotton batting, only it heats up and turns hard as a rock, and an ace bandage. I thought he would tear it off immediately but he's discovered, within 15 minutes, that it makes a very loud sound when you tap it on stuff and that the sound drives mom crazy! Bonus. He also has begun talking to it like a hand puppet. His big brother was also very patient while we waited and waited and waited. He even entertained the patient by drawing Pokemon characters on a chalk board while the splint was applied.

Neither Wes or I have ever had any broken bones. I'm amazed that it took 7 years of mothering boys to have our first fracture.

I was also able to make some progress on a cursed sock while waiting for all the various doctors and technicians. More on this later.

Holy Crap!

Kate is the cover!



How hard does she rock?

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Meme In Pictures

Kay came up with this great meme using Google image searches.

The place I grew up:


The place I live now:


My name:


My grandmothers' names:



My favorite food:



My favorite drink:


My favorite song:


My favorite smell:


My favorite shoes:


**Updated: You can click on some of the pictures if you need a hint.**

Well That Sucked

I hustled myself to Starbucks to meet my knitbuds and no one showed up. I sat and knit alone for almost two hours. I finished my contribution to Pinku's pink hair accessory exchange. It seems that everyone else is just buying stuff and sending it off. I don't get that. I can buy my own hair accessories. I knit some. I made the Lacy Hair Tamers from the Subscriber Only section at Interweave Knits. They're designed by Veronik Avery (I'd link to her site but it's not up right now). They were quick and fun to knit.

Here is a horrific photo of them.

I used Cascade Fixation. The striping isn't quite as awful in real life but it does detract from the lace. Oh well.

Then I knit half a row of my Faroese shawl. I took probably thirty minutes trying to figure out where I left off. Even my row counter had gotten off since I last worked on this beast.

Hasty Post

I've had a busy weekend. There's lots I want to write about but not much time (going out knitting!).

I got my good to be girl surprise package in the mail on Friday. It was so adorable. Amy really went all out creating these packages to thank the readers of her blog for her one year anniversary. She has much better photos of all the goodies.

I finished the collar to Sam. I need to sew in the sleeves and the sleeve and side seams. Then I have to sew in a zipper. I haven't even found a zipper yet. Don't hold your breath.

I knit with a few great new yarns at work. Teseo is a very soft, loosely spun wool/microfiber blend. It self-stripes in four monochromatic color shifts. I knit up a one skein broken rib keyhole scarf for a shop sample. It knits up very quickly and the colors are really great.

Today I started a Bouton d'Or baby sweater using a 100% machine-washable wool called Norma. It has great texture and is really fuzzy and soft. I'm making a simple cabled cardigan. Unfortunately it was so quiet at work today I knit the entire back and one-quarter of the right front.

Speaking of work, the new website is up. It currently features a terrible photo of me pretending to learn how to knit from my wonderful co-worker Kristin. She's actually showing me how cool the Habu Textiles Shosenshi linen paper yarn is. And it is very cool.

Eek! Gotta go.

Thursdays are For What the Hell is This?

After making my Leaf Lace Pullover I am digging Teva Durham. But cruising around her site has left me a little stymied.

She has many a poncho, wrap and capelet, which we all know I don't like. But this one just pushed me over the edge.


Yes, the picture quality is this bad on her site

I think the look on the model's face says it all. "I fought valiantly for France but was still burned at the stake."

Must. Have. This.

Thanks to ljc for alerting us to a soon to be must have item.

One Step Forward...

I was this close to finishing the right front of Sam last night when I realized I had missed a decrease several rows down. I ripped it out. Hopefully I'll finish it today.

Last night I went out to dinner with my best friend. We do this every month since we never get to see one another any more. She walked to my house because we were planning on having dinner at a really good Italian restaurant a few blocks from my house. It was a gorgeous evening, clear, warm, lovely. We got to the restaurant and found that they are closed on Tuesdays. We had a laugh and decided to try a new place a little over a mile away. We walked and talked. We got to restaurant #2 and were told in the snottiest way possible that there was a two and a half hour wait! We turned around and walked out. We chuckled again. We decided to head over to a Cuban restaurant on the ship canal. It was another half mile. When we got there we discovered that they had gone out of business. We tried to chuckle. There is a very good Mexican place further in the direction we were heading that we like so we headed over there--another .8 miles. From half a block away we could see swarms of people outside the restaurant. Not a good sign. We couldn't even get inside to see how long the wait would be. There were at least 30 people milling around waiting. Now we laughed, from fatigue and famine, at our ridiculous fortune. We decided to head up to the U District and get food wherever we could find it. We crossed the street and saw a family that we all used to go to preschool with. We stopped and chatted a bit. We told them our tale of woe. They offered us a ride and we gladly accepted. They dropped us off at my friend's house. We hopped in her car and headed straight to our favorite spot. We had to wait for a table there too but consoled ourselves with guacamole and plaintain chips at the bar. We felt a lot less guilty about our dinner after all that walking.

I Dyed For Beauty

Last night I got the courage to attempt over-dyeing my cat puke colored sweater. I got Jacquard acid dyes in Emerald and Jet Black and hoped to combine into a dark forest green. My sweater weighed 22 ounces so if I wanted to dye at 2% solution I needed to use .44 ounces of dye powder. Then I said screw it and just started pouring. I used about 3/4 of the .5 ounces of the green and just a sprinkle of the black. I was afraid of adding too much black and ending up with a gray sweater.

I soaked the sweater.


I also soaked a little handspun in case there was a lot of dye leftover.


I got the vat of dye, water and vinegar up to 180°.


I added the sweater and swirled it gently. I didn't want to felt the sweater or damage it by stirring it too much in the pot. I let it sit for 30 minutes, keeping the pot at 180° and stirring occasionally. I pulled it out and burned my hands through my rubber gloves in the process. I hadn't thought this part out too well. How do you get a steaming hot, soaking wet sweater out of an enormous pot without burning yourself, stretching out the sweater or dyeing your entire kitchen green?

I tossed the handspun in to the leftover dye. See how light it is now?


I spun the sweater dry in my washing machine. And when this morning it looked like this.


As you can see it turned out very emerald green. It also did not dye evenly so there are splotches all over it. Still it's a lot better than when I started. And the line that ran across the torso is well camouflaged.

And here's the handspun.


Conclusion: Dyeing is fun.