Kiss My Knits!

Simucon Jayne 3
Originally uploaded by emisanboo

It’s not you, they are all listing to the side a little. This happens to many people at Simucon in the evening. This guy wore his hat all night. How he didn’t pass out from the heat, I don’t know. Hey, Jayne hat guy four! Write me – I didn’t catch you on Sunday, I owe you a hat!

Gwennddolynn
Originally uploaded by emisanboo

I know I’m mangling that character name. This is a player standing for judgement in the costume contest. I didn’t get a picture of Phii’s phenomenal costume, but I’m sure it will be plastered all over the internet.

The one pic I can’t believe I overlooked is one of Solomon, aka . Every time I saw him, he was in motion, being sure things ran smoothly. This guy was like a shark. Swim or die! His work paid off, everyone I saw was having a great time. He’s actually in this picture – barely. That’s the back of his head, the guy in the green shirt helping judge the contest.

Platinum chicken
Originally uploaded by emisanboo

That Simucon standby, the Platinum chicken, was another entry in the costume contest. Show off those drumsticks, you saucy pullet! The player in this costume never spoke a word, but was still quite communicative. As we shared an elevator, I commiserated with him, sillently, since he nevers spoke, sharing my tale of how I once had to dress in a giant penguin costume. The old joke punchline, “What, and give up show biz?” springs to mind.

Tyrathia’s laptop
Originally uploaded by emisanboo

This is DR player Tyrathia, whose Gemstone name eludes me. She’s gleefully clutching her new laptop, won in the raffle. The timing on this couldn’t have been better, since Tyrathia happened to have dropped her laptop a couple of hours earlier, taking a big chunk out of it. Tyrathia Need Laptop!

Tyrathia maintains the fabulous DR/GS/AOH/Modus resource site, DRFuturePast.

Spinning demo
Originally uploaded by emisanboo

This is the woman who did my ankle henna tattoo, half of a mother/daughter team working on them. I brought the wheel out a couple of nights, and she decided to take a turn on it. Harder than it looks! But she enjoyed it and kept at it, managing to spin up a couple of yards of yarn. Yay!

Regia bamboo socks WIP
Originally uploaded by emisanboo

I had to have one non-Jayne project to work on while I was on the road, so I cast on for some socks out of Regia bamboo. This is the garter stitch rib from Charlene Schurch. The stitch is mindlessly easy, and the yarn is quite soft.

I think that’s it for Simucon pics. Next time, the trip home!

I would like to update tonight, but Holiday Inn Express’s internet access apparently has decided to continually slam me into another window after a random period of time. Le sigh. I did manage to get new pics onto flickr, but posting them here is iffy tonight.

I’m in Crossville, TN, and had a great day. I’ll post about it another time. Tomorrow, back home – with maybe a stop at the Knoxville Zoo along the way. Whee!

Simucon henna tattoo
Originally uploaded by emisanboo

A Simucon attendee gets ready for a henna tattoo around her navel. Yes, all Dragonrealms players are this hot. I myself got two henna tattoos, one of a triangular design on my ankle and one of a ball of yarn pierced by two needles on my upper arm. Live to knit, knit to live! Woo!

Simucon Jayne 2
Originally uploaded by emisanboo

The second Jayne hat knitted over the weekend. She’s so excited – I seldom to get to see people in person get their hats, and the response has been very gratifying. See above comment, r.e. hotness of Dragonrealms players.

Side note, I stopped by Knitorious today for souvenir fiber, and apparently no sooner had I left than a Jayne hat kit customer came in, getting more yarn for more Jayne hats. The owner told her we’d just missed each other. I believe her e-mail to me was titled “AAAAAAAAARRGGHHH!!!” but with more capital A’s. I can’t believe we missed each other either! I wish we had time to meet. Well, maybe next year.

Settlers Sleeper
Originally uploaded by emisanboo

Settlers of Catan claims another victim in the Simucon game room. After a minute or two, this guy was out like a light. I can’t quite make out his lanyard color from the pic – he’s either a AOH player or possibly a GM. I’m thinking AOH player.

I took this while playing… uh… something. It was a card game involving gangsters. It was fun, but I had to check out in the middle to go do something. I never did get to play Settlers, which was the game of choice at the ‘Con, along with Order of the Stick and Munchkin. Naturally, Simucon fave Curses was played too.

More pics tomorrow!

…wish you were here!
Photos follow!

Angel Hair Koigu
Originally uploaded by emisanboo

For lo! The Tvini beheld the Koigu, and it was good.

I did pick up a souvenir at Angel Hair Yarn in Nashville, but it wasn’t the Koigu. I’ll show it to you later. Also, I got a line on a yarn/spinning shop in Murfreesboro called the Knaughty Knitter that I may try to hit on the way back.

I’m in St. Louis, resting in my hotel room because I foolish volunteered to guard the game room door from 11-1am. I forgot about the time zone chane. D’oh! I wonder how late Starbucks is open…

Greetings from beautiful downtown Knoxville! I am on the road to Simucon 2007.

I got a late start from Charlotte today because I wanted to send out one final Jayne hat (actually two together, but you get the gist) and because I realized at the last minute that while I did have a dress to wear to the keynote on Saturday night that fit me, my black shoes were like little vises on my feet. I had to go shoe shopping, and I figured it would be easier to do in Charlotte than to find a mall in St. Louis. Although I do know where all the good malls are there. Also between here and there. I love road trips.

Aaaanyway! A late start combined with rain in the Appalachians meant that my schedule was thrown off. I was going to stop by Earth Guild and Yarn Paradise in Asheville. Both closed at 6pm. I walked into Earth Guild at five minutes to six and the woman behind the counter nearly threw me out, but who can blame her? However, when I told her I just needed a bobbin for my Louet (true, although with more time I would have liked to browse) she was very kind about letting me stay. They didn’t have one, but I did pick up a drop spindle. Then we chatted nicely about types of wheels, a subject about which she apparently has very strong opinions. Fortunately we were in agreement on all points. Elitist shopclerk snobbery: it’s not just for comic book store nerds anymore.

Getting there at six was nice, though, because I got to hear all the music that the Basilica of St. Lawrence played. It was charming. Maybe I’ll get to hit the stores on the way back home.

I’m listening to Harry Potter and am up to chapter 6. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Emily and her father and a friend of his and his daughter have all arrived at the beach, where they have all been having a wonderful time together.

Tomorrow, I should arrive in Nashville just as the yarn stores attractions are opening. Then onward through Kentucky, Illinois, and into Missouri. Woo!

A couple of nights ago I dyed some wool, with an eye toward having it for my trip. I’m pleased with the results.

This is the first one I did. It came out paler than I expected, but I still like the way it looks. I was going to for something with a lot of white, so it’s not jarring. I don’t have a scale, but the guys at the post office are always amazed that I can estimate the weight of my Jayne hat boxes to the tenth of an ounce, so I’m going to estimate this at right around four ounces. In the closeup, you can see some felting and fuzzing around the edges. I believe this is because I mashed it down in the water when I was soaking it, and because I pushed the dye around too much during cold-painting. I set the dye with the “Saran-wrapped fiber sausage in a steamer on the stovetop” method.


The next morning, I decided to use up the remainder of the dye I had already laced with vinegar. I added more dye to beef up the saturation and also more black to mute the colors a bit. As you can no doubt tell, I’m a big fan of blue. I wanted a variety of complementary tones within the same family, and again, I wanted some white showing. I think (hope) this’ll make an interesteing variegation in the final spun product.

The blue wool isn’t as fuzzed and felted, since I learned from the previous day’s experience and handled it more gently. There’s still room for improvement in my handling procedures. Also, my daughter took the braids and put them over her head, Princess Leia-style, while she pranced around the house which didn’t do them any favors.

I’m really pleased with how these turned out for my first outing into dyeing unspun wool. I’ve got more white wool, so I’ve got more room to experiment. This was very satisfying, and I definitely want to do it again.

I’m always open to criticism or comment – I like learning and feedback!

I’ve been running all over town for the past few days getting things ready for the upcoming trip. One stop on Saturday was the yarn stash swap sponsored by Charlotte Yarn, our most excellent local yarn store. People bring the stuff in their closets that they want to get rid of, and exchange it for money or other yarn. I brought some stuff I thought folks would want, and I was right. I had just opened my container and hadn’t yet taken the yarn out, when the other swappers were on it like piranhas on a dead cow.

And so, a hundred-odd bucks heavier and some Cherry Tree Hill lighter, I hied me to Borders and spent the entire wad on audiobooks for the St. Louis trip. I picked up Harry Potter on CD, but didn’t notice it was 80 bucks until I was already out the door. Well, at 21 hours, I suppose that’s still some good bang for your buck. I also picked up two Alexander McCall Smith audiobooks and some iTunes, mainly 80’s stuff, which is good to sing along to when I’m starting to feel sleepy but am not quite at my hotel yet. Because I’m a mom, I also snagged some activity books for Emily, so she’ll have something to do in the hotel room in case it rains while they’re at the beach.

One non-trip-related purchase: The DVD set of The Critic. Jon Lovitz, this is my pledge to you: every time you beat up Andy Dick, I will purchase another one of your products. Deal? Deal.

I had purchased some spinning fiber from SakinaNeedles to use to teach others the wheel on the trip, but that was a while ago. Last week in a moment of weakness, I forgot it had been earmarked for that purpose and I started spinning it. Oops. I intended to order more, but let that slide until it was too late to have it delivered in time. And so, panicking, I started searching around for another source of fiber between here and there. A very nice woman in St. Louis who dyes for sale has offered to help me out, and I’m definitely taking her up on it. Even if I wind up not using it for teaching, it’ll be a great souvenir to bring home.


In the meantime, it suddenly occurred to me that duh, I do in fact have fiber. I have that giant bag that gave me in Raleigh! Yay! What’s more, I have the fiber dyeing kit from Hello Yarn that my husband got me for my birthday. Double yay! And so I’ll give you one guess what I was doing tonight. Yes, dyeing wool.


It’s cooling down in a pot on the stove now, so we’ll see how it looks tomorrow. It looked good being dyed, but you never know. I was going for a kind of random pattern that left a fair amount of white showing rather than wide bands of solid. This is my first time dyeing unspun wool. I’m not expecting miracles. Although I’ll take a miracle if it happens.

Tomorrow my daughter and I will be stopping by AAA to get a TripTik, as well as the usual stuff like speech therapy and going to the library. I know I have a million things to do, but the major stuff is taken care of. Now it’s mostly “what to pack” type stuff, and being sure all the really time-sensitive Jayne hats get shipped out in time. I knitted up one for Georgia today at a Browncoat picnic, so I think we’re looking good on that front, too. I haven’t been getting enough sleep because I’ve been doing more weddings this week. Tonight, I’ll try to catch up a little.

…she said, noticing it was midnight. Oh well. Good night!

I stepped on a piece of glass barefoot yesterday afternoon and had a heck of a time getting it back out of my foot. I slathered it in neosporin, covered by a antibiotic-infused bandaid within my allegedly antimicrobial Tofutsies sock. By this afternoon, it was really feeling bad. Not like “I stepped on some glass and dug in my foot with tweezers,” but more like “there’s still something stabby in there.” So after asking around for opinions on whether I should, since I was feeling kind of like a wimp for even considering it, I went to see the doctor today. He was skeptical that there was something in there, because the area was so small, but said “well, it won’t hurt anything if we make an incision and check.”

Easy for you to say, pal.

Anyway, that’s just what we did (after a shot of lidocaine to numb the area) and sure enough, you could hear the forceps clinking against glass. There was more in there than I thought. So he closed me back up, sent in the nurse with a shot against tetanus, and I was on my way. You know, it wasn’t pleasant, but I’m very grateful for modern medicine. In medieval times, that’s the kind of thing that could make you lose a foot.

In less gruesome news, my father very kindly gave me the gift that keeps on giving – cash! That will really help with the trip and the car. My dad’s such a sweetie. Thanks, Dad! Also, Mom watched Emily for a few hours this morning so I could run some errands. It was really helpful, since there’s so much prep work to do for a big trip. I’m feeling like I won’t have to run around too much at the last minute this year.

The one bugaboo is my hair. I can’t get in touch with my hairstylist. I’ve left a message with someone to give to her, which I can only hope she got. Right now I’ve got kind of a 70’s shag thing going on that won’t do. I hope she calls back – I’d rather go to her than, say, Supercuts.

All right, my daughter is running around the house naked saying it’s time for her bath, so I’m off!

My car’s in the shop to have a thousand tiny little things done. It needs aligning, an oil change, and apparently the driver’s side taillight is out. Which makes me feel like I dodged a bullet, because I also noticed it’s three months past time to get it inspected. Yeowch. Anyway, after this I should have a finely-tuned driving machine to take on my trip to St. Louis. I also got an estimate on replacing the left front quarter panel on my car, which has a huge dent, and apparently the quarter panel and wheel well will cost $577. So yeah, I’ll have a finely-tuned driving machine, but it’ll still have a dent for a while. I’m okay with that.

My husband got his very first pair of glasses yesterday. He’s been having headaches, which prompted a visit to the optometrist. Apparently the difference between with and without is very striking. As he says today while looking at his computer, “…the screen is MUCH easier to see now. But it kinda feels like I’m using some sort of scientific instrument that can only be properly used if you’re looking through these special glasses. Which, I guess I am, but it just seems weird.”

My husband is not a vain man, but I think it’s only natural to be concerned about how something like pieces of metal and glass perched on your face will change your appearance. Fortunately, he looks hot.

Fear: Reality:

Side note, do you know how hard it is to find pictures of hot geek celebrities in glasses? It’s a good look, men, embrace it!

Off to be sure everything for tonight’s DR party is in place. I’m helping out the lovely and talented GM Nhia with an event. It looks like a fun one – my favorite kind!

ETA: The garage called, and alignment, taillight, oil change, coolant flushes, timing belt and other 100K mile recommended preventative maintainence will run right at $700. This Simu trip is getting more expensive by the minute. Yeowch indeed. I’m need a “will knit for food” sign.