Kiss My Knits!

“I believe I saw a flare…uh!
I didn’t move at all with my best friend SARAH”

“I believe I saw a flare…uh!
going to the art room with my friend Clara”

“I belive I saw a flare…uh!
going to the lunch room with my friend Tara.”

That’s a crutch that Clara has, by the way. Pulitzer, here we come!

I’m in danger of falling behind again, so I’ll do my best to post an update tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a taste:

[21:31] Torkal: “Easy pickings. We should deal with them.”
[21:32] Vaeldriil: (Note to Heather for the log — Notice what Torkal just said. It’ll probably be really funny later)

Good call, Vaeldriil. Good call.

I’m a pacifist, but I might have had to punch that guy’s lights out. I know a gal in Canada who wore her Jayne hat to a Harry Potter screening and had it stolen – maybe it’s the same serial Jayne hat jackass who is roaming the northern plains. Ugh.

It just goes to show, even is 99.9% of a fandom is awesome, there’s always that .1% you’ve got to watch out for. I do, however, like that is viewing this as the first in a line of adventures that her Jayne hat will bring her. That’s the spirit!

Browncoat fan movie (it looks like it’s going to be bigger and better than “fan movie” implies) is looking for extras. Details here.

Since I’m still a week behind and we’re playing tonight, this seems like a good time to get caught up.

This week was pretty uneventful. We spent much of our time allocating slots for our newly attained 3rd level. We brought the hostages back to town without being waylaid. We bought equipment. I was ensconced in my Snuggie of Sleep +3 and couldn’t stay awake long enough to finish up buying gear, so I said my goodnights and headed out. After all, we were pretty much done for the night, and early, even! We were in town, shopping, appraising loot, pretty harmless, right?

You forget who we’re talking about.

As everybody gathers in town, Aleanghi identifies various magical items while we wind down.

Torkal: “Fine. I also have this thing…”
(He is referring to a small idol in the shape of an owlbear which we found during our search of the footlockers last time)
Torkal: Torkal shakes his idol and listens to it.
Aleanghi: Aleangi ponders.
GM: GM rolled 1 20-sided die: 16
Aleanghi: “I’m not sure if it’d even be something I’d be able to identify, but I could try if you wished.”
GM: As Torkal shakes his idol, an owlbear is summoned….
Torkal: Torkal appears to be shocked.
GM: roll a d20
Torkal: “WHAT THE–?!”
Aleanghi: Aleangi blinks. “I don’t think I need to now…”
Torkal: Torkal rolled 1 20-sided die: 13
GM: The owl bear is not happy.
Aleanghi: Oh lordy. We were SO FREAKING CLOSE TO DONE.
Torkal: Let’s do this NEXT TIME.
Veracity: Way to GO, Torkal!!
Aleanghi: You had to shake a damned IDOL right before we end?

As my husband put it, “What did they think was going to happen? An owlbear genie would appear and grant them all three wishes?”

A battle ensues in town, our intrepid group against the owlbear. It’s pretty singleminded in its attacks on Torkal, but that doesn’t mean that nobody else gets hurt. As usual, there’s some friendly fire, with Veracity shooting Aleanghi and assorted other shenanigans. Finally, mortally wounded, it grapples Torkal.

Veracity: So brave! With its dying breath and its last strength it tries to savage the dwarf who shook it into existence….

Finally, finally, it dies. We all breathe a sigh of relief and call it a night. I, of course, know nothing of this until I see the log, because my Snuggie put me to sleep. When I left I thought we were all having a lovely day of shopping, not summoning monsters in the middle of town.

Aleanghi: Tvini’s gonna die laughing when she gets the log and sees what happened.

Right you are, Aleanghi. Right you are.

flames, monsters, double entedres… this session has it all. And it’s LONG, people, so get a drink and settle in.

Had a lovely time yesterday at Jetsyknits’ home, where a group of us got together to sit by the fire and spin wool into yarn. Meanwhile, the menfolk went out and hunted bear for the coming winter. Okay, maybe not, but it does sound rather colonial.

I hadn’t spun in a while, except occasionally on Pat’s fiber. I think it’s because I can’t bear the thought of actually finishing that fiber up. So I decided instead to start fresh with a bag of fiber I got on the way back from St. Louis in 2007. If you were around then, you may remember the post about Murfreesboro, TN and the wonderful people I met and the great time I had during my oh-so-brief trip through town. This was the Three Bags Full wool that I got from The Knaughty Knitter.

This spun up quick! After about an hour and a quarter, there was only about 1/3 of the bump left. There are a few reasons for that.

One, I always find myself spinning up about dk weight. That just seems to be what my hands go to by default. This time, the fiber had such a rustic quality that it seemed to want a little more heft to it, so I tried to spin thicker. Naturally it went faster. It’s mildly uneven in thickness, since if I let myself stop thinking about it, I started pulling less fiber into the yarn and it thinned out. Fortunately, the fiber has so much character that it doesn’t really matter.

Two, this fiber had a lot of silk noils and bits of tussah. There was really no point in going for a nice uniform texture, because it was going to be bumpy no matter what I did. Might as well go with it.

I also have a tendency to underspin, so this time I cranked up the twist, which may not have been so necessary with a thicker yarn, but was still fun to do.

Here it is spun up. After this photo, I sat down and spun up the rest, and it pretty much filled the bobbin. It’s still on the bobbin, because I cannot decide whether I should ply it or not. Opinions?

I also can’t decide what I should knit with it. It’s got such a great rustic character that it could go a lot of ways. You really wouldn’t have to design a busy stitch pattern to let it shine, this yarn would do a lot of work for you.

I should also mention that Jetsyknits’ husband sells gorgeous drop spindles on etsy and I look forward to seeing him put some new ones up. But no pressure. Ahem.

Anyway. Jet, I had a great time. Thanks for having us over. I think this got some of my spinning mojo back. And that’s good, because I don’t have enough other things to do with my time.

Oh, wait…

I never had that hair, but I did have those glasses in the 80s. Now I may have to buy some gold pants. Or better still, CRAFT some gold pants!