Kiss My Knits!

I tried to get to bed early last night, then at 10pm NBC started showing episodes of the Office that I’d never seen. When I did get to sleep, I tossed and turned and had weird dreams. In the one I was having when I woke up, I was in a comedy review in Scotland with Justin Timberlake and Meryl Streep. We were bombing. Yeah, I don’t know what it means either. Except that I’m definitely getting more coffee later.

I really need to knit another hat tonight, but don’t think I’ll have time, with unforeseen Dragonrealms commitments. Mustn’t… fall… behind!

Not because I’m trying to be grabby, but more to remind myself of things I actually want when I have disposable income, it’s time for another installment of…

Stuff I Want.

Well, Emily’s doll is no longer NSFW. I firmed up the neck some, too. Upon seeing her clothed doll, Emily quickly reminded me that she still needs a red shirt and green pants, so clearly she’s still very interested in it. She loves the hair in particular. The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn for the pants and shirt. I’ve only got much thinner yarn, but it looks like it will double up to the correct size. I’ll outfit her as as time allows – I don’t want to fall behind on the Jayne hats. Mid-December orders are in production now.

We had Brownies last night. This was a good meeting for me because I didn’t have to do anything. Well, that’s not really true. The girls were making name tags, and I spent the afternoon cutting large sheets of foam into appropriately sized rectangles. By the way, a cutting mat and rotary blade meant for fabric work GREAT for this. Goes through the foam easier than cutting a pizza.

I also brought the leftover glitter from last meeting’s hand-washing activity. We used most of it up. Well, when I say “we used most of it up” I mean that we used some of it, and an equal amount got spilled on the table and floor. Note the glue sticks. The one at far right of the pic is how they normally look. The ones at left have been to used to make name tags, then they apparently visited Mardi Gras. Girl Scouts always leave a place cleaner than they found it, but it was only through Herculean effort that we got most of the glitter cleaned up. It was like a grisly crime scene where Tinkerbell was the victim. I almost got much neater glitter glue (glue with the glitter already embedded in it that rolls on rather than pouring) at Michael’s, but decided it was too expensive. When you factor in cleanup time, though, it would have worked out about even.

Because I had to stay until we were all cleaned up, we didn’t leave until after 7:30. Emily’s normal bedtime is around 7, and she’s got math testing today. Let’s hope that all works out okay. I also didn’t get to the stitch-in at Books-A-Million until well after 9pm, so I’m running a little low on energy myself today. Fortunately, I saved last night’s coffee. It’s about to go in the microwave, then I’m ready to face the day!

Also, Girl Scout cookie sales are now on. Time to get a little Thin Mint action! Woo!

As backdrop to this post, you must hear the extremely funny exchange which occurred last week between my daughter and husband.

Emily padded into the den from the computer room and asked,”Dad, what’s my e-mail address?” My husband told her and she padded back into the computer room.

A minute later, she came back to the den and asked, “Dad, what’s my address?” He told her (she knows this, I guess she forgot) and she went back to the computer room.

Another minute went by and she came back into the den. “Dad, what’s my credit card number?”

Yikes! Also, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

So he got up to see what she was doing. Then he came and got me. She was trying to order mini Loonette and Molly clown dolls online. I’m guessing she picked the minis because they said “SPECIAL” beside them, and to her, “special” means “cool” and not “on sale.” Loonette and Molly are characters on Big Comfy Couch, a TV show she enjoys. They’re a little clown girl and her clown doll. We’ve already gone over my daughter’s love of clowns, so really, you couldn’t ask for a show more tailored to her.

So we looked at the screen and saw they they were only ten bucks. I knew she’d been wanting dolls of these two for weeks, and I said, “You know what? Sure. Why not. Let’s do it.” She had already been making noises about me knitting them, so we might as well head that off at the pass.

The dolls arrived today, to extreme excitement. Right now she’s on the floor in the den with her dolls, watching the show, which we’ve got some tapes of.


I have a feeling my newly knit doll just lost a LOT of desirability. Maybe she’ll come back to it. If not, well, that’s the fickle nature of youth. At least she’s having a better afternoon than she had a morning!

Night fright, naked toys, and forgetful merchants. We’ve got pics of live nude dollz dollz dollz!

No school today, so it’s me and the Boo. Hubby went to work late, since he had to go to the doctor again. His bandage is much smaller, so his finger is less protected, and apparently he banged the bejeebers out of it on the steering wheel this morning.

Worked on the doll some more. The button to the right is the button that my daughter chose as a belly button. I actually stayed up rather late working on this, because I decided the head was way too flat on the top, probably because I revised the pattern and… uh… apparently viewed the neck portion as the crown portion and therefore closed it off. Honestly, the pattern wasn’t very clear on what was what. Anyway, since Emily had already seen the head fully knitted, I decided I’d rather stay up late re-knitting it than have her come in in the morning to an unravelled head. I paid for that decision this morning, when my husband couldn’t find his antibiotics and got me up earlier than I would have liked to see if I’d done anything with them. We won’t go into the antics that ensued, but suffice to say that I’d just dug through the outside garbage when he discovered that they were in his jacket pocket. It’s funnier now than it was through my sleep haze.

I’ve been working on the second sock on and off. It’s been so cold I’ve thought of putting it aside to work on gloves instead. Somewhere, I managed to lose another #1 DPN. Hopefully no one will find it by sitting on it. Ouch.

Otherwise, it’s been a slow day. Ran out of ink and paper, had to run to Office Depot for more, as I’ve got more kits to go out and I’m guessing it would be good to, you know, include a pattern. We’re going to speech therapy later today, so we’ll hit the post office before that.

Hats up next for: TX, IA, and WA.

Definitely early to sleep for me tonight.

Well, the day took a bit of a turn, and hopefully anyone whose hat or kit was supposed to go out today will understand the shipping delay. The hubby had an infected hangnail a couple of days ago that turned into paronychia, and it got worse. And worse. He finally made a doctor’s appointment yesterday for Monday (quite an admission of pain for him), but by last night the infection was progressing so quickly that he was in agony and clearly couldn’t make it that long. After consulting our insurance’s nurse hotline (wanted to be covered in case there were questions later) we decided to go to an urgent care facility today. My mom watched Emily since we didn’t know how long we’d be. (Thanks, Mom!)

By this morning, the hubby’s finger looked positively medieval, like something described in a historical medical document, right between “boils” and “buboes.” He had it seen to, and says that that process was the worst pain he’s ever experienced. The doctor did admit that his finger looked pretty far gone. The hubby said that had he known ahead of time it was going to be that bad, he would have asked to be knocked out. He had the good grace to volunteer that it wasn’t like bearing our child, but was still awful. Having seen it, I believe him.

With the pain relieved, he took great delight in showing it to me, with the other fingers folded down of course. As he says, “I’m Italian! I need this finger!” His mother chimes in with “You live in Charlotte, you’ll need that finger to drive.” After dropping him off at home, I picked our daughter up and we ran bunches of errands that were just as much about keeping her away from him and his poor beleaguered finger as they were about getting things we needed. While out, we picked up the Nightlife expansion pack for Sims 2 so that she’d have a computer game to keep her occupied. She really didn’t need it, but I didn’t want her diving into Daddy’s arms, and having a new toy which had to be played in another room worked out just fine.

Speaking of new toys, you may recall that my daughter asked me to knit her a Bratz doll a while back, which, NO. In my personal opinion, those dolls are too made up, too scantily dressed, and too adult for her. I did offer to knit her a doll, although it wouldn’t be a Bratz doll. She was totally on board. She decided it should have black hair and blue eyes, and a red shirt and green skirt. So that’s what I’m making for her. This is based on a pattern in Tracy Chapman’s “Toys to Knit.”

Emily saw the individual pieces yesterday and got very excited, running to her table to get her crayons. Here’s her artist’s rendering of what the finished product will look like.

I make no promises, but I’ll do my best!

And now, to bed. We have to visit the doctor again tomorrow morning. Whee!

Red Scarf
Yarn: Lamb’s Pride Burly Spun in Strawberry Patch
Needles: Size 13
Pattern: brioche rib over 12 stitches for approx 68 inches
Notes: I could have widened this to 15 stitches or lengthened it considerably and still had yarn left over.

This was for the Red Scarf project, so it needed to be fairly gender neutral since I don’t know who the recipient will be. My husband thinks it looks a bit more masculine than strictly neutral. I’d wear it, but then, I’m not known for my strong feminine streak. I got the yarn at a half-off bulky yarn sale at Knit One, Stitch Too in Huntersville, NC. It’s been in my stash since last summer, so I’m glad to have the chance to put it to good use.

Ever since I made a hat in brioche stitch, I’ve wanted to use it again, so this was a good opportunity. It’s thick and reversible, two good qualities in a warm scarf.


I made a little video of myself knitting one row so that people can see the motions. It’s very easy to do, but when I first read the instructions, it took me a bit to get the gist of what the author was saying, so maybe this will help someone who’s a visual learner. Brioche rib is a good choice to help reduce pooling in space-dyed yarns. (Forgive the site name super on the video, you never know what a Browncoat might stumble across. Visibility, you know!)

I’ll enjoy thinking of this scarf around the neck of a college student somewhere. I hope it keeps them warm, in many senses of the word.

Or unfinished objects, for those non-knitters.

Yarn! At left is 350 yards of hand-dyed goodness from Yarns Forever in Greenville, SC. She sells her stuff online at Creatively Dyed Yarn. I didn’t realize when I bought it that it was self-striping, but I’m actually pleased to know that. I’m anxious to see how this will knit up.

After realizing the other day that I only had the mittens at right, this will likely become gloves for me. The mittens are in a single fromSerendipity in South America. It’s absolutely butter soft, but pills like crazy. The same mittens, one year on and they weren’t worn that much over the year.

Made some progress on the second Crusoe sock. I’ve turned the heel and am working on the gusset. It reminds me of a mouth ready to gobble something up. A bit creepy, really. I’m enjoying these, but my next pair will definitely be out of something less explosively bright.


I had a hank of Lamb’s Pride Burly Spun in Strawberry Patch, so I decided to cast on for an offering for the Red Scarf project, run by the Orphan Foundation of America. LJ buddy has been championing this cause.

This is a batch of scarves sent out in January to kids in college who have aged out of the foster care system. These kids have beaten nearly insurmountable obstacles to actually make it to college, and just having a little care package to say “someone out there is thinking of you, keep it up!” can make a big difference. I’m doing a chunky scarf which would work for a guy or a gal. It’s in brioche stitch, which is a good choice to prevent pooling in a space-dyed yarn like this. I’m a bit worried that it’s too thick and will be too rigid to flop nicely around the neck, so I’m trying to decide whether to go up to size 15 needles instead of the 13s I’m using. It looks like there’ll be plenty left over, so maybe I’ll pair the remainder up with some black I’ve got left over from this hat for another bulky project.


Time to do another load of laundry, then off to the great outdoors. Sorry, Midwest, but it’s 69 degrees and absolutely gorgeous out, and I’m taking my daughter somewhere to play if it kills us both. It’s just too beautiful a day to spend in front of the computer!

In which I go to my first ‘meet the author’ at my local comic book store.