Kiss My Knits!

The list as it currently stands, by state/country:

1. MN
2. WI
3. CA
4. Ireland
5. IN
6. AK
7. Need address
8. NH
9. NE
10. OH
11. TX
12. GA
13. Ontario
14. MA
15. TX
16. Australia

I’m working pretty hard to keep the list short for the holidays. In theory these could all be done in four weeks. In practice life gets crazy around the holidays, so I’m not making any promises I might not be able to keep. The estimate at the moment is six weeks for new orders, and if someone’s hat gets done sooner, then it’ll be a wonderful holiday surprise.

MN’s just needs its pompom, and WI’s is halfway done. Back to the Jayne hat mines!

At left: The bad. The crockpot lid broke last time I moved it back into storage. Good thing it only cost two bucks.

At right: The good. It’s never too early for Spring! This should stripe up in an interesting pattern. I’m waiting for it to cool before I unwrap it. Sun Yellow has a tendency to separate, but I think it’s looking good so far.

Tonight is Knitting Guild night, and they’re having their annual holiday bash. They’re doing a white elephant swap. I’m hoping to make it, since I won’t be going to knitting night tomorrow night. After Guild tonight is D&D. So today goes from steaming yarn to burning Dwarves. Should be a nice full day!

FO: Holly Jolly socks
Yarn: Knitpicks Bare DK weight superwash merino handdyed by me
Pattern: Made up
Needles: US3/3.25mm
Gauge: 6.5 sts=1″


Notes:

Dyeing this yarn was a test run for my Yarnomatic ™. It’s basically a bunch of lengths of PVC pipe which I can combine in different ways, Tinkertoy style, to drape the yarn around in various configurations. This was one gigantic hank, longer than I am tall, acid dyed using cold pour and then steamed on the stovetop. I’m pleased with how this turned out. The color repeats are about 3 yards long for the red and a bit longer for the green. It striped up just as festively as I hoped. So festive, in fact, that it’s tough to get a good shot of the finished sock that doesn’t blow out the red and make the green look blue. The “in progress” one probably has the most accurate color.


This was knit toe-up starting with 20 stitches and increasing to 44. The heel was an afterthought heel, great for preserving the pattern in self-striping yarn. These took 160 yards. The ball band calls for a size 5 needle but I’m a loose knitter. I think I could have gotten away with knitting them on a 4, but I wanted them to be sturdy.

My daughter is enthralled with Christmas, so my father suggested this would make something nice for her. She agreed. The bad news is that she has big feet for a kid, at 9 inches long and 8.5 inches around. The good news is that she likes ankle socks. These are very thick and I think they’ll be good for sleeping and lazing around the house.

I’m thinking over what else I might like to do with 84 yards of Holly Jolly yarn.

A 24″ circular US3/3.25mm addi turbo knitting needle, sadly bent. I put my knitting down beside my recliner, leapt up, and apparently caught the needle between the footrest and the chair body when it slammed shut. Oops.

Another precious addi bites the dust. I’m hell on needles.

I have no idea what this means.

Emily wanted to know what the planetary symbols are, so that she could more easily identify the glow-in-the-dark planets on her ceiling. She decided not to have them orbit the sun anymore, but instead to move across her ceiling in a rough line as if she were looking up at them at night. Since she can’t rely on position to identify them now, she wanted to use the symbols which are painted on their southern poles.

I knew some but not all (I always screw up Jupiter and Saturn), and she wanted me to write them all down so we pulled up NASA’s page listing the symbols.

She looked at the page for a while and clicked around the “kid stuff” sections.

Her: N-A-S-A. What’s what?
Me: NASA? It’s the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA. It’s where the American astronauts work.
Her: Really?
Me: Yeah! NASA! There’s a base in Florida, and one in Texas. The astronauts and all the people who help the space shuttle go up work there.
Her: … REALLY??

Now I’m wondering if she thought astronauts were imaginary, like fairies and mermaids. I mean, she learned about the moon landing in school, and she can reel off the names of the most famous astronauts, and she tells us all the time she wants to be the first person to walk on the sun (ouch!). I even did a Brownie program involving space that used a handout on female astronauts. She should realize that yes, astronauts are out there. But her level of incredulity makes me wonder. Maybe she thought it was a “long time ago” thing, or maybe she didn’t realize there was a whole organization devoted to these things. Or maybe, way in the back of her mind, it really was in the same category as wizards and magic wands.

Yes, Virginia, there is an astronaut.

Knitting up my handdyed Holly Jolly yarn as thick socks for my daughter. 48 stitches on size 3, gauge is 6.5=1inch. It’s a bit dense on 3’s – if I were someone else, I’d take it to a 4 or 5. Stripes at this gauge are 6 rows long. I’m loving this and want to dye more ASAP.



It’s Thanksgiving. You can’t go wrong with the back o’ the can Libby’s recipe. ‘Nuff said!

I hope you and yours are having a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

ETA: My mom mentioned that my pie crust looked extraordinarily even. She’s right – I used a frozen crust this year! And let me tell you, that crust added nothing to the pie. I won’t be using storebought again. There’s a balance between timesaving and skimping, and this crust crossed over that line!

Em skips into the room.

Em: “Did you know that I have some cupcakes?”
Me: “You do?”
Em: “Yes. And they don’t have any cupcakes in China, so I’m giving them my cupcakes.”

Em skips out of the room.

I think I need to pick up a couple of cupcakes for Thanksgiving.

246 yards DK weight superwash wool, crockpot dyed with acid dyes. Base was blue left over from previous dye session. It was more kool-aid blue than I would have liked, so I softened it up. Pink was added to one side after blue had exhausted, then lilac added to other side after pink had exhausted.

Knitpicks ties its skeins tighter than I do, which resulted in the white around the ties where the dye didn’t penetrate. Note to self: retie Knitpicks yarn before dyeing.

That’s it for the hand dyes for now. I’ve still got a couple of skeins to do, but the holidays are upon us.

As for the Christmas yarn, my father suggested it would make something nice for Emily.

Me: “Grandpa thinks this would make something nice for you, like some Christmas socks.”
Mr. Tvini: “Do you think that should happen?”
Em: “Oh, yes!”

So there you have it. I’ll be casting on for Christmas socks for Em either tonight or tomorrow. Lest anybody think that it’ll mean less knitting for me, her feet are 9 inches long and 8.5 inches around. This means that she and her grandmother can share shoes. My girl’s a Sasquatch!

Today we’re off to the toy store for one more doll before the December toy drought begins. This is the one she’s picked out. She’s very excited by this and has actually drawn a “welcome” sign for the new doll which she has put on her bedroom door. We don’t buy new toys before the holidays, so by the time Christmas arrives, she’s buzzing around the tree like a hummingbird. Mwahahahaha…

There’s a session tonight, and I never did blog last week’s! Shame on me!

Here it is, if you’re interested.