Kiss My Knits!

A study in contrasts:

The person for whom I knit this sweater never even acknowledged receiving it. No more knits for them.

writes a wonderful glowing post about the legwarmers that I knitted for her little girl. MANY, MANY KNITS FOR HER.

The moral is to always say thank you.

Thanks, Angelfly, you totally made my day.

Em’s been telling us all week that she has a winter program at school tonight. The school sent something home about it too that I didn’t look at too closely, since I thought I knew all about it already. Today I found out that the winter program is actually for fifth graders. Em’s in fourth grade, and their program will be later in the season.

Apparently Em just wanted to be in tonight’s program so badly that she was telling us (and everybody) that she was going to be in it. I finally figured it out when she wrote “FIFTH GRADE PROGRAM” in her planner and then told me she was the only fourth grader in it. I then asked her to tell me the truth, because I needed to know so I knew whether to take her up there early, was she going to be in the program? She started backtracking. “Well, it might be true. I might be in it. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be in it.” We finally got down to the truth. You wouldn’t think a kid with autism who has trouble with language would have such a desire to be on the stage, but she really does.

She really wants to go up and watch the fifth grade program. That’ll be tricky, since we’ve got math this afternoon and homework tonight. The program is at 6:15 and she’s usually tuckered out and ready for bed by 8. However, she really, really wants to go, so if we can make the timing work, I’ll get the joy of going up and watching a bunch of 10-year-olds whom I don’t know perform “Hot Cross Buns” on the recorder.

The things we do for our children.

ETA: It wasn’t that bad. Also, they gave out raffle tickets to students. Em got hers, and put it in my pocket and didn’t want to look at it. Then when they started calling the numbers, she very dejectedly said, “I don’t want to win anything.” Then midway through they called out her number. She shot out of her chair as if she’d been fired from a gun. She walked doublespeed up the aisle to claim her prize, a yellow plastic water bottle.

Em doesn’t like uncertainty and disappointment, so she always steels herself for the worst. But secretly, inside, she always hopes for the best. That’s my girl.

This week’s superlong wrapup of a superlong D&D session.

The list proceeds apace. At this point, everybody who was promised a hat by Christmas has had theirs mailed to them, and now I’m working on the people from mid-November who I told might get theirs by Christmas. That’s a good feeling.

Unfortunately, I’m still having to turn kit orders away. I have enough earflap red for my current finished hat customers, but not enough to supply everyone who wants a kit. I’m still waiting for a big shipment from the mill. I placed this order in July and they’ve only just spun up the color that I need. They spin each color a couple of times a year, and while I still had plenty in July and thought it would carry me through, I thought they’d be spinning more in October. Apparently I misjudged. I’ve been getting skeins piecemeal from other suppliers.

The last word from the mill was that they spun it late last week and shipped it, but it went to the wrong address. They say it should arrive today. We all know what the mail is like around Christmas, so I’m not counting my yarn cones until they’re hatched.

All I want is 6000 yards of earflap red yarn. Is that so wrong?

ETA: later this day, my red came in. Yay!

Here we are, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Team Lassiter! We’ve boarded the train and are ready to go! At the very first station, however, we make a misstep. The early stations only have one or two items to get, but we opted to get off and try for them anyway. This was a crucial mistake, points-wise, as it meant we’d be late getting to the meaty stations uptown that had quite a few photos for more points. Eh, whatever, we were there to have fun.

The other thing that got us, points-wise, was that we went out of our way to take creative but more time-consuming pictures. Apparently some of the other teams took pictures without ever getting off the train which honestly never occurred to us. It kind of felt like if we were going to be taking the picture, we should get up and go take the picture. That’s not to disparage the other teams, understand, but this was our particular mindset. As a result, we lost time by doing things like the picture to the right. If you’re going to take a picture of an upside down Italian, then clearly you need an upside down team member.



However, I do not consider this to be a bad thing. We had a fantastic team, and we had a fantastic time. I’m pleased with our “quality over quantity” approach to the photos.

So how’d we do? Team Lassiter took third place out of three teams competing. Here’s our prize: The Thoroughbred of Sin. It was hard to eat with that horrible death whinny.

This was a blast. I would absolutely do this again.

I’m very excited to be going out with the Charlotte Browncoat community this afternoon. One of our members, Tanya, is twenty kinds of clever and put together an event for us.

It’s called The Train Job. It’s a photo scavenger hunt centered around Charlotte’s new LYNX light rail system. We’ve all been assigned to teams, and we’re going to meet at 1pm at the furthest Lynx station, out on I-485, and buy round trip tickets. We’ll be given assignments of things along the line that we have to try to photograph. Then we’ll all meet uptown and compare what we’ve got to declare a winner. Maximum predicted running time: three hours.

I’m on Team Lassiter. Tanya has assigned us so that all teams have at least one person with a digital camera and one person who knows the South Boulevard corridor. I think we’ve got two people who know the area. I’m one of them. We’re all supposed to have cell phones, but mine’s on the fritz, so hopefully I won’t get separated from the group. If I do, well, it’s not like I’ll be stranded. I’ll be right next to a train.

If you’re a local Browncoat who wants to participate, y’all come. I’m sure we could squeeze some more people onto the teams. It’s only supposed to get up to 47 degrees today, so I’ll be bundled within an inch of my life, but it’s never too cold for thrilling heroics! Plus I’ll be knitting Jayne hats on the train between stops to maximize productivity and Browncoat spirit. I think this’ll be fun!

Those repeats are definitely longer than I meant for them to be. I’m sure it’s partly because I was thinking “sock” when this only has about 2/3 of the stitches that an adult sock would.

I’m not pleased with this yarn for this application. This would work better as a scarf, hat, or possibly but not ideally socks. I’ll probably dye another batch in these same colors but with shorter repeats. Well, it was the first time using the Yarnomatic ™ in this configuration, so I’ll chalk it up to a learning experience.

ETA: Of course, with 600 stitches per repeat, I could also use it to make a really busy Baby Surprise Jacket and then foist it off on some unsuspecting new parent. Mwahahahaaaa…

Then again, given my lack of time, maybe I should just frog what I’ve done and sell the yarn on ravelry.

Can you tell I’m a little punchy? Tvini need coffee.

Em: “HO HO HO!”
Me: “Santa? Is that you?”
Em: “Yes! It is me!”
Me: “Do you have anything for me? I’ve been good all year long.”
Em: “You have? Youv’e been good all year long?”
Me: “Yes!”
Em, matter of factly: “That is false. You have not been good all year long. That’s false.”
Me: “Well… I’ve tried!”
Em: “Hm.”

Wow. Tough crowd.

In other news, Em is still wearing those Christmas socks. I shudder to think what her feet will smell like when I’m finally able to peel them off.