Kiss My Knits!

Had great fun over at Jane Prater’s house on Sunday. She hosted a spin-in, so the house was packed with wheels, wool, and people. I got to try out someone’s drum carder, which was a nice new experience to have.

Jane Prater is my former eighth grade English teacher. I ran into her again as an adult in a local yarn store. Turns out she’s a master knitter. We’re both adults now and have similar temperaments and hippie leanings, but she never lets me forget that I was once a 14-year-old in her class, one who wasn’t always perfect. That’s okay; giving people a hard time is another thing we have in common.

I did more yesterday than I should have to make up for Saturday’s inactivity due to illness. Em didn’t have a great day on Saturday, so I wanted to be sure on Sunday that we worked on times tables and that she got out and about. All the running around town has me tired today. Of course, it’s not 7am yet, so there’s still time to wake up and have an excellent day.

Feeling under the weather today, with a sore throat, headache, and fatigue. Bad day for the first sickness of the season – a dear friend is having a birthday party today, but I don’t dare go because I don’t want to get her sick. “Happy birthday! Here’s the flu!”

I’m taking a quick shower in the hopes that it’ll energize me. My wonderful husband has gone out for fast food Chinese at my request. We all have our own comfort foods.

Thinking about casting on a new knitting project just for me, since I don’t want to germ up anybody’s Jayne hat, but somehow I’m having trouble figuring out what I should do. I’m mainly lying in bed reading and periodically realizing that I haven’t actually registered the last page or so. The illness has me a bit foggy. Oh well. If this is the worst that happens all year, then I’ll count myself lucky.

I am very fortunate to have some really fantastic people in my life. Many of them, I’ve met through knitting. One of the coolest is Turtlegirl76. We clicked pretty quickly when we met. We’re both quick-witted, we’re both geeky, and of course we both knit. Turtlegirl turned me on to Deadwood (which I highly recommend) and I turned her on to Firefly.

Behold! The Jaynetrelac socks!

We got off to an earlier start this morning, allowing me to put Em’s hair up in four braids as she requested. On the way to school, the sun was just rising as it began to sprinkle, and a beautiful vivid rainbow arced all the way across the sky. One end looked like it touched down about where my father lives (that’s him with me and the squirrel in the previous post) and the other landed right behind Em’s school. It was gorgeous, and all the teachers were excited.

Hopefully it’s a good omen of a great day.

ETA: Now it’s stopped raining and is still cool enough to run. I feel like if I talk more about how great this day is going then something ironic will have to happen, like me getting hit by a bus. Watch this space for me in traction!

I got Em to school a few minutes late this morning. She’s very self-motivated and gets ready quite well on her own, she just did everything a few minutes later than usual today. I signed her in at the office and she went straight to the media center instead of to her class. Late for the first day of work! Unfortunately, she gets that from me. Oh well.

Even though we were running a little late, Em did ask me to put her hair in a high ponytail, and she did put on earrings. Em doesn’t actually have pierced ears, but I have some stick-on bindis leftover from my booth at Simucon a few years ago. She has taken to sticking them to her earlobes. Voila! Instant earrings.

We mentioned to Em that the president was going to be speaking today through the internet to their class. Em figured that “It must be about the multiplication sundaes!” That’s the level of importance that the sundaes have to her. The president is going to address the nation about them. Or, as my husband says, that’s the level of importance the president has – he’s been elevated in her mind to speaking about something as important as the precious sundaes.

I suppose it’s possible that Em will be the lead-in to the president. Again, my husband points out that that should be nationally, not just schoolwide. I’ll bet if the parents objecting to the speech knew that in addition to hearing Obama, they’d get to hear Em, they’d change their tune. Of course I will admit that it is remotely possible that as Em’s mother, I have a slightly inflated sense of her importance on the national political scene. Maybe. Possibly.

I can hear it now… “My fellow ice creamericans…”

FO: Fruit Loop
Pattern: Fruit Loop from PixiePurls.com
Needles: #2US/2.75mm
Yarn: Hempathy by Elsebeth Lavold
Ravelry project page


Notes: This was a cute little project and a nice way to try out Hempathy, a yarn I’d been wanting to try. I added a seed stitch border to prevent rolling, but I guess I didn’t do enough rows because it still flips a bit.

I’m normally a loose knitter. In fact, I was so confident in my loose gauge that I didn’t check it until the bottom half was almost done. The pattern calls for 22 sts = 4″ and I got 28 sts = 4″. Blocking brought that back down to 26. I’m glad I didn’t make the smallest size.

It was a challenge to block, as well. I wound up turning over a cereal canister and using that. The straps weren’t stretched with the body, so it looks a little floppy in the back view, but that was easily taken care of.

This was a fairly easy pattern and I’d make it again, but next time I’d go up a needle size.

I got this sweater late last year as part of a sweater/skirt combo so she’d have something dressy she could wear in the wintertime. I got it in a the size she was growing into so that she might be able to wear it this year, too. However, she’s grown out of that size and into a new one. Check the sleeve length. My girl’s a little filly who’s all limbs.

She and I went to the Matthews Alive! Festival yesterday. It was hot. To quote Biloxi Blues, It was like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of hot. We only brought 20 bucks with us, and I had to ration that out so we’d be able to buy a drink after riding the rides.

Our first ride was a spinning strawberry. You sit inside, and there’s a wheel in the center that you can turn to make the strawberry spin more. We sat with two twelve-year-old boys determined to reach terminal velocity. I felt like we were training for the space program. Also, I felt nauseous. Em seemed okay, so I didn’t say anything. I mean, I was a 40-year-old woman riding in a spinning strawberry. I kind of felt like it was really the kids’ world and I was just sitting in it. Fortunately the guy came to get us out last so I got to recover instead of stepping out and falling on my face from dizziness.

Em also rode on a bouncy ride with the slowest moving line I’ve ever seen. It was awful, but of course once we were in line, we had to stick it out. After her turn was done, I asked her how it was.

Em: “It was okay.”
Me: “Was it worth the wait?”
Em: “No, not really.”

Oh well. I hate to say that I spent $2.25 and got sunburn for nothing, so let’s call it a learning experience.

Today’s day off will be spent watching TV, returning a pair of shoes to Nordstrom (I got a second pair that, on further reflection, wasn’t quite right for me), going out to the Greenway, and trying on the new winter clothes I bought. Let’s hope she doesn’t put on another growth spurt between now and this afternoon.