Kiss My Knits!

You may remember the ill-fated rainbow fish hat which looked like a particularly colorful yarmulke.

I decided to give it another go, but with a different pattern. So here’s the result. I’d like to try this hat again, but on 11s instead of 13s to make it a bit snugger. Plus the end that got woven in on the rim (you can see it over my right ear) looks sloppy. I wove it in on the inside, but of course it’s stockinette stitch so it rolls up… which means it’s really on the outside. Oops!

Down side: The stash didn’t actually get reduced, because I have plenty of both yarns left over, just in slightly smaller quantities. I need to use stuff up!

Okay, that’s it. I’m on a yarn diet. I cannot buy any more yarn until May. Yeah, that’s only eleven days, but still!

I’m spending way too much money on yarn and have projects stacked up. The only yarn I could really use that I don’t have is Lamb’s Pride bulky in Onyx, but really, that can wait.

Yeah, it can wait.

Is it May yet?

How about now?

Gad, I’m pathetic.

Filched from Khaman!

LiveJournal Trading Cards Free Account Edition Tvini User Number: 1997988 Date Created:2004-01-25 Number of Posts: 75 Tvini traces her DR goddesshood back to 1997, and her real-life goddesshood back to birth. She is a bleeding-heart liberal and one of a long line of writers on her mother’s side of the family. Strengths: Flexible, kind, patient, possesses a great sense of humor and keen wit, years of GM experience give her great improvisational skills. Weaknesses: Tends to procrastinate, spends too much money, stays up too late then complains about lack of sleep, kills player characters at random. Special Skills: Spanish (rusty), Feminism (not rusty), Classical Piano, Cabana Boy creation. Weapons: Silver tongue of flaying, red sharpie of QC +1, Dual cats (projectile), dozens of knitting needles. Stupid Goddess Trick: Tvini once tried to lift a car out of a stairwell. It didn’t work. Some goddess.

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http://www.googlism.com/

G’wan. Stick in your name. See what google thinks of you.

According to googlism:

tvini is extremely hard
tvini is next

Ooookay then!

I didn’t pick anything ending earlier than tomorrow.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=36599&item=8100043299&rd=1

Froth from Cherry Tree Hill normally retails for 36 bucks a skein. At 500 yards on a skein, this would make about five scarves or some really cool shawls. Two skeins would make a medium to large sweater. Right now the bidding’s at about a buck and a half, and this person has two skeins (two separate auctions). I found a cool sweater pattern and almost bid on both skeins, and then decided that this sweater, knit in tan loopy yarn, would make me look like I had skinned and sewn up a terrier. You may have better luck.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3105&item=8100743531&rd=1

400 yards of scarf or afghan yarn for 5 bucks? You can’t beat that with a stick.

I wonder how these two would go together:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3105&item=8100351184&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=36596&item=8100350335&rd=1

This one’s an okay deal – I just am about twelve years old and love the way they called it “doo doo.”
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3105&item=8101014912&rd=1

Yes, I am easily amused.

http://www.lordofthepeeps.com/

Edited to add: http://www.geocities.com/sotto-voce/news1012.html

Man, I gotta start getting more sleep.

Why are the beautiful ones so difficult to deal with? It’s like they know they’re pretty, so we’ll put up with the snarling and twisting and… wait, are we still talking about yarn?

So I decided it was about time for me to make something for myself, and I had a hank of Mango Moon sari silk in my stash. This was one of those that I picked up and put down about five times at the yarn store, because man, was it beautiful, but it was also expensive! But then, it’s hand-spun by village women in Nepal from recycled sari silk. I reckon it would be expensive. Finally I applied my rule, “if you pick it up more than three times, you’ll think about it at home until it drives you insane, so go ahead and get it.”

It comes on a big hank. I do have a ball winder at home, but I don’t have a swift. No problem, there’s always the time-honored traditional way of winding yarn into a ball from a hank, the one you’ve seen in so many cartoons. The one where you make someone sit there with a big loop of yarn on his hands while you wind it off of them. It worked fine for the Classic Elite Waterspun(the link is a slightly different version of the yarn) that I was going to pair with it, so it ought to work fine with the sari silk, right? Right?

Wrong.

The yarn had a wonderful smell of hay and animals (no, really, it was great!) when I first opened up the hank. I could really picture some woman in Nepal at her wheel, bringing together different pieces of silk. Sadly, I did not have the same ease in pulling it back apart. After three hours of making my poor husband sit with yarn around his hands, I had managed to de-tangle about half the hank onto a ball. Here’s the rest. We’ll try again on a night when he doesn’t have a paper due.

However, I did go ahead and knit a hat out of the half that did wind up. And here it is! I love it. Finally something for myself, right? Right?

Wrong again.

Literally, ONE SECOND after I’d finished putting the tassel on, my daughter saw it and said, “It’s not finished!” I said, “no, it’s finished.” She grabbed it and said, “This is a hat for Emily!” and she won’t take it off. Ah, well. Maybe someday I’ll get to keep something. 🙂

(2008 note – she did give this up pretty quckly. The hat eventually made its way to Simucon and went home with the lovely and talented GM Alnilam.)

Behold! “The Tessima!”

Loosely based on the Sophie, but with obvious differences to account for Tessima’s need for a bigger bag (this is about 8X10) with mondo flair. Plus she sent me the really cool red Fizz and I just HAD to use it in a bag.

The other wool yarns are Ruby Red and Onyx in Lamb’s Pride worsted, which is a blend of 85% wool and 15% mohair to give it a nice sheen and little bit of fuzziness. The Lamb’s Pride felts like a dream, by the way. This only had to go through the machine once, with another little 5 minute spin for good measure.

Before starting the bag, I knit up a sample swatch with various yarns and then felted the swatch to determine how much it would shrink, and how well the various yarns would keep their pizzazz. As is often the case, the novelty yarns caused the swatch to flare slightly, so I worked some extra decreases into the bag to account for this. It still didn’t get very small near the top (I wasn’t sure whether it would or not until I pulled it out of the machine) so I’ve sewn in a narrow strip of male velcro, so that it doesn’t gape, and a wide strip of female velcro onto the opposite interior side so that the male velcro won’t grab the wool too much. We know how grabby the male of any variety can be.

I’m not giving away secrets by posting it, since she’s already seen a pic of it. So all that remains is to pop it in the mail after the holidays.

This bag was, frankly, a lot of work, since I had to keep switching colors and was also carrying along a double strand of the Fizz with the red. I think just weaving in all the ends was the worst part. At one point I renamed it “The PITA.” Still, I got a lot of ideas for Simucon bags. Tessima will have to tell me if the Velcro works, so I know whether to ever do that again.

I’m already on to the next project! Whee!

Q: Aren’t you being a bit hasty in rejecting my item?

A: Maybe! So let me go ahead and get a well-reasoned, insightful, rational second opinion from some other GMs.
GM opinions.

1: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says:
“…is concerned. Slam its tail in the door of the milk truck, and…” Me Talk Pretty One Day by Davis Sedaris, waiting to become a bookcrossing book.

2: Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?: a half of a bagel.

3: What is the last thing you watched on TV?: “Heart of Gold” from the Firefly DVD collection.

4: WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what the time is: 12:15

5: Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?: 12:11

6: With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?: cars from the busy road we live on.

7: When did you last step outside? what were you doing?: Two minutes ago, to pick up the mail. We got a package for my daughter from her grandmother. It contains the stuffed animals my daughter accidentally left at Nana’s on her last visit.

8: Before you came to this website, what did you look at? http://www.tomatonation.com

9: What are you wearing?: Loose black pants, a loose knit (not by me) burgundy top, ankle socks and tan canvas sneakers.

10: Did you dream last night? Yes.

11: When did you last laugh? hard? A half hour ago. I was sending a care package to Jadzia, and when the post office guy stamped the box, it totally caved in. We riffed on the yarn engulfing the post office when the box went through the machine. But being nice and having a good attitude got the guy to take it in back and re-pack it for me. Yay!

12: What is on the walls of the room you are in?: a large world map, an Appalachian Trail calendar, a white board with the names of all my wedding couples and their various states checked off, a poster of a Camille Pissarro print, a picture of myself and my husband, and my two Addy awards. Go me!

13: Seen anything weird lately?: My daughter stacked a small plastic goat on top of a small plastic polar bear. The polar bear represents a troll to her, for the Three Billy Goats Gruff. In this house, it doesn’t qualify as weird, but I suppose it does in the real world.

14: What do you think of this quiz?: It’s interesting, and a bit stream of consciousness-y.

15: What is the last film you saw?: Hidalgo. That Viggo sure is easy on the eyes.

16: If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?: I’d pay off our debts, mortgage, car, put some money away for my daughter’s college, give some money to relatives who need it, etc. I’m afraid I’m a very practical person about money these days. What do they say? “Time ain’t money if all you got is time.”

17: Tell me something about you that I don’t know: I thought my husband was a total idiot the first time I met him.

18: If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?: Free education for everyone.

19: Do you like to dance?: Yes. I look like I’m having a seizure, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it less.

20: Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?: Emily. Although we almost went with Molly.

21: Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?: Alexander? Ross? Daniel? Cuthbert? I have no clue.

22: Would you ever consider living abroad?: Sure, if they had proper resources for my child – and if I were a multi-millionaire as above so that I could jet back whenever I wanted to. But truth to tell, I like the place I live.

23: Will you pass on this survey?: Sure!