Someone over in the knitting community just got an antique sock knitting machine. Here’s what one does.
I desperately require one of these for my continued existence on this planet. You may leave it in a box on the front stoop. Thank you.
I’ve been feeding the cats of the lady across the street for the last couple of weeks while she’s been up in the mountains.
Her house is the biggest sty ever. Really, it’s like one of those places you read about, where there are two bedrooms filled with crap, and a path to a bed in a third that has half a sheet partly covering a bare mattress. We won’t even discuss the kitchen. If it weren’t an invasion of her prvacy, I would totally post pics.
But hey! If she wants to live in a fire hazard, that’s not my business. She has two kids who visit her regularly, she still holds a job, and there are people who can step in and say “this is crazy!” if they want.
No, that’s not what bothers me. What bothers me is that she has FLEAS. Fleas which are now hungry, after two weeks of no human host, and which assault me every time I go in the door. Obviously I didn’t realize this when I agreed to brave the filth and feed the cats.
Aside from my desire to not go to Simucon with flea-bitten legs, I really, really do not want to bring more vermin back into my house. We already apparently have a mouse which has taken up residence in our kitchen. I’ll be getting Hav-A-Hart traps today. No fleas! No! Fleas!
I’m dreading going over to that house this morning. Ew. Just… ew.
For my daughter’s birthday, she wanted to have a party at “My Gym” with all her classmates. Most of them speak Spanish as their first language, so I dutifully sent out invitations with my phone number, directions, etc., in English with a Spanish translation at the bottom. My Spanish isn’t great, but it’s existent. We also invited some cousins she has here in town. We got no RSVPs except from her kindergarten teacher, who was going to bring her son. We rented out “My Gym” for a party, a three hour block of time at a cost of several hundred dollars. We bought a cake, ice cream, and punch.
You know who showed up? Yep, nobody but the teacher and her kid. It was my daughter, all alone with the music blaring, and me and my husband and my parents, and the kindergarten teacher with her toddler. And none of her friends.
Saddest. thing. Ever.
But kids are resilient. She went outside a number of times during the first half hour looking for folks, but she got over it before 45 minutes were up. We explained to her that her friends wanted to come, but they couldn’t. Most of them didn’t have cars. (Actually, we think that’s true, 75% of her classmates are from Latin America and according to the teacher don’t have a lot of money. I don’t even know if the concept of RSVP – though I didn’t use that term – is universal. Also, this was the day before the pope died, and we think some were probably going to Mass.) We decided that what the hell, we had three hours booked, it’s not like they could suddenly find another birthday party to fit in, so we’d use the place, by gum. And we did. God bless the folks at “My Gym,” they really made sure she had a good time. They offered to halve the fee, but I didn’t feel right doing that since if we hadn’t been there, they definitely could have booked another party that would have paid them full fee – and they did work their keisters off.
That was around April 1st.
Tonight, I got a call from the mother of one of the other kids in Emily’s class. She spoke only Spanish, but I managed to communicate with her well enough to establish that she wanted to know if, because they’re doing some kind of kindergarten graduation thing tomorrow, we were supposed to bring our kids in at 9 when the ceremony started, or bring them in at 7 as usual. I was able to get across the correct info.
I could not figure out why she was calling me, when I’ve never spoken to her before in my life, don’t speak Spanish as well as most of the other parents, and our kids don’t have any special bond besides attending the same class.
Then I realized – she must have kept the invitation which had my phone number on it, and I guess I was the only parent whose phone number she knew.
She kept the invitation from mid-March until now.
1) I admire her resourcefulness in thinking of that resource and utilizing it.
2) I am angry that she chose to not breathe a word about not attending my kid’s party.
3) I am pleased that I was able to summon enough Spanish to communicate with this woman.
4) I’m just damn pissed at the world in general, because my kid is trying to reach out to others but doesn’t know how, and the world isn’t making it any easier.
Time for bed.
The Jayne hats proceed apace.
Hats completed: 5
Okay, people were interested in the last weird crafty thing I posted here, so I’ll keep up the trend. Crossposting to
Here’s another attempt at dyeing yarn with Wilton’s icing dyes. Same colors on the ends as before – cornflower blue and delphinium blue – but this time rose pink in the middle. It’s a bit bright, and reminds me of all the bicentennial stuff that came out when I was a kid in ’76. This marks the second batch of yarn I’ve dyed and then said, “Okay, now what the hell am I going to do with it?”
I posted about dyeing my first batch in this post and thought I’d show the process of dyeing it. This will be old hat to you experienced hands, but those of us who are still scrabbling for a clue may enjoy it. 🙂
Process of dyeing the first batch
Because we get a fair number of questions about how much an item felts vertically and horizontally, I thought I’d post up a swatch that I did this morning preparatory to doing a felted bag for my kid’s kindergarten teacher.
The lovely and talented GM Nhia has made some upgrades to the Orchid Lagoon wedding area, including a fishing pier and a beach for building sandcastles. Buckets and shovels are available for purchase at a very reasonable price. Go Nhia! I’m very excited by this, and by other things we have in the works.
In other news, I was sick as a dog over the weekend, with the hubby taking over all child-care duties so that I could lie in bed lie the pathetic bump on a log that I was. I’m still hacking pretty good, but the holiday’s over, so I have to get back to work.
I’m swatching for the kindergarten teacher’s big felted purse. I always want to swatch when I’m using a new kind of novelty yarn, because you never know what’ll get ruined in the hot water wash. She’s elaborated that she wants a fairly large one with a shoulder strap, but kicky and fun, probably bright pink, with some kind of fur. I like felting, so that’ll be fun, if time-consuming. I’ll be alterating working on that with working on the hats for a bit. I didn’t get much knitting done over the weekend – I would knit a row, then drop the needles in my lap like it was just the biggest effort in the world for me to knit anymore. Sickness blows.
My secret pal has not contacted me, nor have I heard back from the one I’ll be sending things to. I’m hoping my mails aren’t being labeled as spam. It’s only been two days, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.
Hats completed: 4.7
I got my Secret Pal 5 info today. For those not in the know, this is a knitting swap among strangers. Looks like my giftee and I share a geographical connection, but I haven’t looked at her info to check for more details.
Now I have to put more knitting content up here, so my pal won’t check and go, “What’s this DR stuff? Where’s the yarn?”
I swear, I really do knit things other than the same hat over and over. Next on the needles, after finishing this hat, my kid’s kindergarten teacher has requested a felted bag. Something bright and pink and kicky with fuzzy parts. I’m slightly ahead of schedule on the hats, so the guys in England won’t be short-changed.
I swear, I’ll get to that pair of socks I want to make someday. Sigh.
And so, I look forward to thinking about what I can send to my pal, and also to the pleasures of Simucon, and avoid thinking about the Jerry-sized hole that’ll be there.
Hats completed: 3.8.
They start out fine, as an innocent query for information, then somehow turn to torturing players. Every time. It’s amazing.
