Kiss My Knits!

Emily lost another tooth last night, this one on the top right as you look at her. She knew it was loose, but in contrast to last time, she didn’t make a big fuss. She was eating, it came out, she put it in her tooth box, and came back to tell me the tooth fairy was coming tonight before I knew anything had even happened. Okay then!

I had to go out to a Girl Scout council meeting last night, so I wasn’t there when she went to bed. However, Steve asked her if she’d rather put her tooth box in the hall so the tooth fairy wouldn’t have to come into her room. Her highness doesn’t like to be disturbed at night. So that’s what they did. I was pretty tired when I finally came to bed. The tooth fairy came and did put a coin in her box, but when Emily woke up, the tooth was on the bathroom counter. Oops! We decided that probably the tooth fairy had to use the potty and accidentally left it. We figured she’d be back to get it later.

On the Brownie front, I decided it would be better to do the animals badge in the Spring, when there was a chance of, you know, actually SEEING some animals. Instead we’re doing “People are Talking.” Considering my daughter’s issues, this’ll be interesting!

What we’ll do.

Tomorrow night I think we’ll work on the “animals” try-it. There are some good ideas for activities. However, since our troop is two merged troops, I thought I’d try to throw in a new activity. To that end, I’m going to rename the game sleeping pirate to “cat and mouse” and talk briefly about predators and prey before we play. Then they’ll be cats trying to get the mouse, instead of pirates trying to get the treasure. I don’t know if NC kids are familiar with sleeping pirate or not. We’ll see.

If I had a little more notice, I’d say that the Carolina Alpaca Festival would be an excellent field trip for the girls. I’m actually a little nervous about field trips, since that’s new territory. Hm.

When I told my husband I was going to play sleeping pirate with the girls, my jokester husband, who has played many games with our family, said, “You’re going to teach them to cheat??” I said, “No, we’re not playing like my mom!” Now, my mom doesn’t cheat at party games like “Mother May I?” She just seizes upon the chaos around her to sneak a little closer to her target. It’s simply a creative interpretation of the rules which she uses to her own advantage, that’s all!

And speaking of Mom, who hopefully is still speaking to me after reading that, I’ve shanghaied my first family member into helping with Brownies! Yay! My mom will be coming to the next meeting on the 28th to help with the Write Away Try-It, since she is a newspaper editor. I think it’ll be interesting for the girls to have a guest speaker.

I have many, many errands to run today, and a girl scout council meeting tonight, so I’m off!

So remember the skein of handpainted yarn I got at Yarns Forever in Greenville a while back? It was self-striping, but I didn’t realize that until after I bought it and read the designer’s blog. I decided to knit up a swatch today.



SO! PRETTY!

That’s some nice crisp striping! This recommended needle size on the label was 1-3, which seemed a little small to me, but I gave it a go. This swatch is on 3’s, and I got 6 stitches per inch. On those needles, it makes a pretty dense fabric. I think you could go up to a size six needle, easy, although I’d want to swatch it first. The base yarn is listed as “worsted” on several sellers’ sites. I had been thinking “gloves” for this, but depending on how deep the stripes are on a wider garment, this might make a good yarn for a baby sweater. It’s so pretty, I’m not sure what I’ll do with it. I’m open to suggestion!

I do know that this dyer will be selling her stuff at the alpaca festival this weekend, and I am there, baby!

Yammering about dyeing and barnyard animals. Bonus pic of my dad!

Done!

Pattern: Crusoe from Knitty
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM, colorway P123 dye lot 231. It looks like P123 varies widely from skein to skein.
Needles: #1 DPN
Gauge: 7 sts per inch

Changes: I mainly wear long pants, and thought that the rolled cuff in the original pattern might be too bulky under my jeans. I changed it to a k2p2 ribbing. I also cast on 64 stitches instead of the recommended 48 and adjusted all the math accordingly.

Notes: I started #1 in November and worked on it intermittently. They were both carried around in my purse while I worked on them, and they’ve already fuzzed up some. Last summer I knitted my mom some socks out of Koigu, and looking at them a couple of months ago, they’re also fuzzing up some inside the heel and on other areas of wear. Those were knitted on 3’s, and I thought a tighter gauge this time might help, but apparently not. Is this just a characteristic of Koigu, a result of being toted around for too long, or some other mystery factor that I’m introducing?

Fuzzing aside, the yarn is very soft. I nearly wiped out walking on my kitchen floor when I put them on. Also, I’m seriously considering a trip to the Wide Shoe Warehouse to pick up some really colorful pedal-pusher type sneakers to show these off.

The pattern was clear and easy, and the author is right that this is a good use for super-bright or busy sock yarns to help break them up a bit. I’d knit these again.

Well, I’ll say this. There’s nothing like reading a book on cholera to put a little food poisoning in perspective.

My day, my planned evening, and a monkey head.

My daughter: “Today, a new girl came to class in the cafeteria! But we had to be very quiet in the cafeteria so she would appear. And she did! Her name was Elizabeth. She went to my class. And then a backpack appeared on her back!”

Further questioning reveals that her new classmate Elizabeth has black hair, a red shirt, and green pants. Hmm… where have I heard that before…

I’m so thrilled that she loves her doll enough to turn it into a new imaginary classmate. It makes all the trouble worthwhile.

Although I wonder if this means I’ll have to knit her a backpack.

My birthday is on Friday, and my husband got a mysterious package from Hello Yarn today.

Hmmm…

Just when I needed a little lift, I got one!

You may recall that I knitted a scarf for the Red Scarf Project. Well, by so doing, I was also entered into a drawing for a prize. And I won! The prize arrived today.

It’s a beautiful skein of handpainted yarn from http://www.scoutsswag.com . 400 yards of worsted merino goodness, in colors that I think are very festive and valentiney. With 400 yards, if I paired it with some of the leftover Cascade 220 in my stash, I’d definitely have enough to knit a sweater for Emily. Wasn’t Scout generous to donate this? I’m definitely thinking of her site next time I need a gift for a knitter.

I do something nice, and lo and behold, I get something nice in return. Yay, karma!