Kiss My Knits!

The Joss’d podcast is up. If you want to skip ahead (not that I’m encouraging that!) to hear what I actually sound like, interviews me at about 43 minutes in.

For the record, I said that I knew nothing about Woolloomooloo, Australia, and it could be a hole for all I knew but I loved its name. I loved it, do you hear? I’ve looked it up since. It’s clearly not a hole. I did not mean to impugn the town of Woolloomooloo or the Australian nation. I even gave a shout-out to Aussie and his awesome artwork. Australians, please do not pelt me with boomerangs or kangaroo droppings.

Crap, I did it again.

Aside from me possibly causing an international incident, neither nor I sounded like morons, so I’ll count the interview a success. Thanks for the opportunity, !

You have to see the ferret-sized Jayne hat made by . She is also the creator of the Vinnland sock pattern which I’m working on intermittently now. So yeah, she rocks double hard.

New Joss Whedon show on FOX? Now I know what that earthquake in California was all about. I guess when Hell freezes over, it shakes the foundation here a little bit.

I’m watching, baby!

In Emily news, Halloween was a great success. Her ghost costume was well-received, and we saw more kids out this year than usual. Some of them, however, stepped out of cars driven by their parents, so I think the thing now must be for the parents to drive them around until they see a house with a porch light on, then let the little nippers out to ring the doorbell. Maybe I’m getting crotchety, but if you live in the neighborhood and there are houses within your view with the porch lights on, do a little legwork!

But I digress. Here’s Emily counting her haul. She only wanted to go to about six houses, which was fine with us. She looks so big. I don’t know what it is, but she’s just looked so grownup lately. Stop growing, baby mine! Emily’s favorite Halloween candy, by the way, is candy corn.


Today, mo’ knitting and packing of Jayne hat kits. Also, I need to do more Jayne peripheral stuff, like write notes and stamp padded mailers. It’s the little touches that count!

Glee! The yarn store called to say that my massive cones of earflap red are in. This means that I am finally fully stocked – and just before Christmas!

The Jayne hat mines are back in full production, baby! Woo!

Of course, the next six hats in line are all from other materials or in other colors. My yarn bounty will be for kits and I’ll get to knit with something besides orange. It’s a win win win!

Mr. Tvini: So, I’ve dropped 25 lbs, and my face really does look different. Then I got my hair cut, and EVERYONE is saying “Wow, your haircut makes you look so much younger” and “I didn’t recognize you with your hair cut.”

Poor guy can’t get any credit. He’s worked so hard and it’s really paid off, and all he gets is, “great haircut!” I am amused but sympathetic. Poor fella.

For those wondering, I haven’t run in about a week, what with the rain and now school being out, but I plan to start up again tomorrow. Yes, we’ll be back at week one.

Behold, Brownie vests for Emily’s multicultural little Brownie troop. Actually, they’re reversible – green on one side, brown on the other, so that the dolls can be either Brownies or Juniors. As you can see, two of them have bridged up to Juniors.

The one on the right was the first one I made, and it shows. To make these, I make two identical shapes with green and brown, sew them together at the edges except for one spot, then turn them inside out by pulling them through that one spot. Then I sew them around the edges again to keep them from being puffy, and seam them at the shoulders. On the one on the right, I didn’t think to make the point that I keep open behind the neck where it wouldn’t show, so her front edge is kind of sloppy. I don’t hear her complaining, though, and Emily is very happy, so good enough.

I let Emily run the sewing machine foot pedal on the straight sections. She did well. It’s a good introduction into how the machine works.

It was a long day of us running hither and yon, and her being super engaged, which means I’m worn out. Don’t get me wrong, we want her to be engaged, but I’m an introvert running on not enough sleep and it’s very tiring. Still, good day. I can’t complain.

I’ve had a recent upswing in orders from non-English-speaking countries. I’m getting some of those folks to send me their native currency, to be a fun learning tool for Emily to learn more about, say, Germany. I’d call them considerate strangers, but Browncoats aren’t really strangers now, are they?

I realized this evening that this is the first year I haven’t thought, “this could be the last year Emily is in mainstream classes.” I don’t want to jinx it, especially since they’re just starting multiplication, but for the first time I’m taking it as a given that she’ll be able to continue on in regular classes. She’ll just have all the many, many other standard pitfalls that kids in school have to deal with, that’s all.

Lord, I’m making myself more tired. Time to go to bed.

Just got out of a parent/teacher conference with Emily’s teacher. No breakdowns or meltdowns like last year, and good marks except in writing (she’s terse) and reading comprehension (“why” questions about stories are difficult in particular). Anything where she has to dig up words from within are hard. Think about the difference between reading a foreign language and speaking it. High marks in Social Studies and Science in particular. My girl’s crazy about space and the planets, and she’s really enjoying learning about geography and other countries.

This is the first year I’ve walked out of one of these conferences without a raging headache. Emily’s different than other kids, no doubt about it, and that’s fine… but this is the first conference where “different” hasn’t translated into “disruptive behavior.”

Of course, while I was typing this, we had a mini-meltdown over a frustrating task here at home, but that’s the exception rather than the rule. I’m still focusing on the positive. This was an extremely encouraging conference, and it felt great to walk out of there feeling hopeful rather than with a black cloud over my head. Keep up the good work, Boo!

Emily wants me to sew little Brownie vests for some of her dolls. She wants this so much that she dug out my sewing machine and lugged it over to me. “And be sure they fit right!” she adds. Fine, Edith Head. I explained we don’t have any brown fabric, but that since there’s no school tomorrow or Tuesday, we can go to the store tomorrow morning and get some. She was momentarily put out, but has accepted it now.

In other craft news, left is foot one of Vinnland. I’m really liking the way these look. I’ve drawn in four stitches at the ankle, and I may draw in another four for a total of 56 stitches. I’m a loose knitter.

Last night the party in Dragonrealms was still going at 2am when I went to bed. It’s the Gauntlet that makes them run so long. The Gauntlet is an arena-like fight to the death where creatures of increasing strength are released at intervals. One person fights at a time in a “kill or be killed” scenario. Nothin’ says ‘wedding’ like a battle to the death!

If someone is attending a wedding, they are involved enough in the game to know someone and garner an invitation, which means they’re involved enough to know how to fight well, which means they’re not going to quickly die in the Gauntlet. No, they’ll live to the bitter end, which means about 15 minutes per contestant. Last night I got pulled away to fix a slot machine during signups, and when I got back there had been more signups than I would have allowed had I been right there. I didn’t have the heart to turn everyone away. The last guy in line wasn’t able to go, because I really needed to shut things down (it was 1:30 am!), but I did give him some consolation booze. He took it in good grace.

The event went very smoothly, the couple was happy, and all the guests had a good time, so I can’t begrudge the late hour.

Emily and I are going to my aunt’s annual barbecue for boarders at her stables. It’s fun to see the horses. I won’t fall asleep on the road, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be a sparkling conversationalist. Pardon, gotta get more coffee!

This is my hand after I jumped up to see to Emily after I heard her crying in her room last night (she was fine). I was just about to sit down to dinner and had a clean fork in my hand, and tried to stick it handle-first into my back pocket as I went to her room. As you can see, I stabbed myself on the tines. I will spare you all a closeup.

Yes, it was stupid. No, I don’t know why I didn’t just set the fork down. People do weird stuff.

Anyway, no Jayne hat knitting today. I don’t want stray fibers getting in that.

However, clearly I can still type, so I’m on for helping out with a Dragonrealms wedding tonight.

Gotta run – Boo patrol.