Kiss My Knits!

I heard back from one of the Browncoats who wore her Jayne hat at the Browncoat Backup Bash. She says, in part:

“It was by far one of the superior Jayne hats there last weekend and I was proud to be the owner of it. Nathan Fillion complimented it in the bar when I met him. “That is a very cunning hat!” (ok, so not all that original but hey, he could have NOT said anything!).”

Eeeeeeeeee! Brush with fame! Eeeeeeeee! It was so nice of this person to write and tell me that. I’ve got so much stuff to do today, but my energy level just rose about a thousand percent.

And speaking of Nathan Fillion, looks like he’s got a new show that’s coming out. And Tim Minear is exec producer so that’s another point in its favor. It’s on FOX, so let’s hope that they don’t immediately cancel it as they’re prone to do.

At this point, everybody who I guaranteed a Jayne hat to by Christmas should have received one, and everybody who I said “well, probably, but no guarantees” has theirs in the mail. Woot!

Hats up for: AZ, Canada, and CA

So someone in posted about how they wanted to knit a beanie because they’d just started to go “no-poo” and didn’t want greasy-looking hair when they started their new job. No-poo is apparently the idea that you should stop using shampoo and start using baking soda and water, and sometimes rinsing with apple cider vinegar.

Honestly, it sounded like a bunch of hooey to me, but what the heck. I decided to give it a shot.

Following the instructions in that post and in the community, I mixed up my solution of baking soda as well as my apple cider rinse and stepped into the shower.

Pouring the baking soda on my hair, I worked it in as much as possible – it was rather runny – and let it sit. I kept my eyes closed because I didn’t want baking soda to run into my eyes. A little did run down my face to my mouth, but no big deal. It smelled like pretzels, and I like pretzels. However, my hair felt only minimally cleaner.

With great trepidation, I picked up the container of apple cider vinegar. I had diluted it, as I recalled science fair volcanos from my past. I had no desire for my skull to erupt. I poured the solution over my head slowly.

OH MY GOD THE STENCH.

I had forgotten how strong apple cider vinegar could smell. I rinsed with water afterward, several times. Finally, when I was down to an acceptable stink level, I felt my hair to determine whether it was clean. Answer: not really. I decided I did need to use a small amount of shampoo, since I was actually seeing people I knew that day. Even after the Garnier Fructis, my hair still smelled faintly of the vinegar. It might have been slightly softer, but then again, I could have been imagining it. I’m not sure.

So, summing up:

Pros: Better for the environment. Possibly slightly softer hair.

Cons: Ineffective. Makes head smell like Easter egg.

It’s possible that this works better with thick, curly, or kinky hair, none of which I have. That seems to be the prevailing wisdom in the community. As for me, I think I’m better off getting a tub of my favorite shampoo, Big from Lush, and not trying to balance bases and acids like a bathroom chemist. Lesson learned.

Every year, my mother’s side of the family gets together to bake and decorate cookies. This year, Emily’s Nana sent her a nifty shirt to wear. We forgot to bring a camera to the cookie bake, which is a shame, but here’s a picture of it. This is after the cookie bake, when she was both exhausted and hopped up on sugar, which explains the bouncing.

Her four second-cousins were there, ranging in age from 11 to 3. The older ones went outside to play while the three-year-old kept decorating cookies. Nine-year-old Ava asked Emily if she wanted to come. She did. They all played hide and seek. It’s Emily’s favorite game, even though she’s a little too enthusiastic to be very good at it. Her cousin Forrest walked by where she was hiding, and she called out, “who are you looking for?” Needless to say, he found her. She didn’t care, though, she was having fun.

The cookie bake was held at my Aunt Lynne’s. She has a big spread, just up the hill from her stables. There’s almost no traffic, and I knew that the other three kids played there all the time, so I made a conscious decision not to hover and to let them go out and play without interfering. I played up there all the time as a kid, so I was familiar with the layout and how safe it was. My mom watched them go out and said, “I think I’ll just go out and pet the dog.” They have a Bernese Mountain Dog, the same kind as we used to have, so we do like to pet her and think about our old girl. I think petting the dog was probably just secondary to watching Emily, which is fine.

Emily had a great time playing hide and seek and tag, and then came in to rest. She said, “Hannah and Ava and Forrest are coming in, too.” I said, “no, I think they’re staying outside to play.” She thought for a minute, then turned around and went back outside. This happened several times until they all decided to come in. I love this because it’s the first time that her desire to play and be social has overwhelmed her desire to come inside and decompress and calm down. And from what I saw, she was keeping up just fine. Those are some great kids.

She did very well with the social niceties, and is finally adding “excuse me” to her repertoire when she needs to get past someone. As we were leaving, she turned back at the door to tell Aunt Lynne, “Bye! Thank you for being with us!”

She slept like a log last night, to the point that she overslept and we were five minutes late for school this morning. Oh, well, it was a small price to pay.

We’re looking forward to seeing her other cousins on Friday at Nana and Grandpa’s house!

Am seriously considering moving to a flat $40 price including shipping for everyone in the world, as opposed to different tiers for different places, as of 2007. Still thinking it over. I still wouldn’t be making a living wage, so it’s not like it’s an outrageous price from my end, but there’s also the matter of people being used to spending $5 at WalMart for some piece of third-world-country mass-produced gao se and therefore possibly balking at the price.

I’ve finished all the “you’ll definitely get it by Christmas” orders and am working on those which either didn’t mention Christmas or which got a firm “maybe by Christmas.”

Had a great time at the yearly Christmas cookie bake. Am now, as we say in the South, plum tuckered out.

Will make a better post later.

I finished up an adult dino for a client and mailed it off today. These are always fun to do. I’m always tempted to keep them myself.

I also thought I’d try something new. Since Hancock Fabric was having a big sale, I picked up some fleece remnants from the bargain bin and stitched this up. It was a good learning project. The fit is dead on, but I need to change the way I stitch around the features. Also, the down-hanging teeth were a cute idea, but you can just catch them out of the corner of your vision and it’s freaky. The eyes need to be set down further, and I need to actually create a lining. It was a good first test project, though.

Emily: “What’s this?”
Me: “A hat. I thought it might be nice to try something different. I wanted it to look like a monster was eating my head. I think it’s kind of neat. Do you like it?”
Emily: “NO!”

Okay then. Back to the drawing board.

Hats up for: MN, MN, and CA

My daughter likes to make up words in her own language, “Emilese” and sometimes string together random syllables and ask if they’re words and what they mean. So earlier this week…

Her: Desayuno means “kitten” in Emilese!
Me: Really? You know, I believe that’s a Spanish word, too.
Her, impatiently: Yes, I know. It means breakfast.

Translation: “duh, Mom.” For the record, I do speak passable Spanish, and did freelance editing work at Canal de Noticias NBC before they went belly up. But to my child, it’s “duh, Mom.”

I love that she’s picking this stuff up at school. I only hope this doesn’t mean she’s eating kittens for breakfast.

A member of the NC Piedmont Browncoat organization posted up this account of the Firefly non-vention on their Yahoo group.

I know it wasn’t all sunshine and beagle puppies for everyone who went, but I love that so many people took Booster Entertainment’s lemons and made lemonade. Ironically, hearing about this kind of camaraderie has made me actually want to go to a convention – just not a Booster one!

Everybody else is doing it…

Xmas Stocking

leave a gift for Tvini your username: your gift: (30 characters or less) get your stocking

Emily: Mommy, I want you to knit me a sweater.

Me: Okay, do you know what color you want?

Emily: Um… yellow.

Me: All right. Is there any special design you want on it?

Emily: I want two girls. Being chased by a boy.

Me: … Okay, I’ll put you on the list of things to knit.

You’re killing me, kid. You’re killing me.

I have no clue if you’ll know what I’m talking about, but that’s probably par for the course.

There is a kind of whistle. It’s about an inch long, cylindrical, and the one I saw was made of metal. It is open-ended and has a disk inside with holes punched in it. When the user blows through one end, the disk rotates quickly and it makes a Vvvvvvvvvwweeeeee! sound of rising pitch. It’s like what you might hear when a clown slips on a banana peel.

My father had one when I was a kid. It was super-cool. I thought these might make a nice addition to the gifts we’re giving to the nieces and nephews this year. The aunts and uncles may not thank us, but such is life. If they’re not too expensive, I wanted to pick up a few.

The problem is that I have no clue what they’re called. Little help?