Kiss My Knits!

It looks like I’m going to be in this week’s Creative Loafing in Charlotte. Shelton Drum at Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find gave them my name as a long-time female customer. I was interviewed for an article about Free Comics Day, and the interviewer seemed pleased. The issue comes out on Wednesday, I believe.

If you’re in Charlotte, pick up a copy to see if I come off sounding like the biggest nerd in the world.

Knitted up some of the cuff on the Tofutsies sock. Now I think I’ll have to put it aside – again – because there are things I need to make for other people. Sweaters, slippers, and of course, paid orders.

After looking again at the waistline on Emily’s sweater, I think I may just scratch the hills and make it a straight green/blue delineation. I’m undecided. Either way, the green does need to be higher. Of course, since she hasn’t asked about it or mentioned it at all, maybe I can put that off a little longer. Not too long, though. This kid ain’t getting any shorter.


I have a couple of purses for a lady in Huntersville in my queue. I am really not looking forward to these. I have to make tons of i-cord and sew plastic pony beads around the flap. Neither is what I’d choose to do, given my druthers. However, I told her I’d do it, so I will. Apparently the original purse was knit by a little old lady in Davidson who has since passed on who sold these at craft fairs. My client bought one, and her sisters have been admiring it ever since. She decided to get some for her sisters, so they could all have them. It was a nice story, and looking at the purse I could see it wasn’t rocket science, so I agreed to recreate it. Since I initially took this commission last summer (she ordered several, she picks them up every now and then) I’ve gotten more firm about saying no to commissions I don’t think will be enjoyable.

I made another teeny tiny project, this one weaving instead of knitting. It’s pretty cute. I can’t show it to you yet because it’s about to be stuffed into the jar o’ joy. Why was this jar so hard for me to fill? I am terribly late in getting this out, so today will be devoted partially to mailing things!

Long-time readers know that I have a habit of destroying my Mac keyboards by spilling liquid into them. Well, I’ve gone multi-platform! While my husband was mowing the lawn, I managed to get about a teaspoon of coffee into his laptop, ruining it. Go me!

This is a Bad Thing, since the laptop is what he uses to dial in to work in the event they have a problem, preventing him from having to drive all the way uptown and fix it on site. So basically, he’s boned. Sorry, honey. If his workplace won’t spring for one, well, there’s always our tax refund.

In other news, I decided to try my hand at crochet. Behold the tiny, fuzzy, badly photographed flower I made. I’d snag a book from the library, but our local library is closed to have its roof repaired so it’ll be a pain in the keister to get one. Next time I’ll use a smoother yarn than mohair so I can see what I’m doing. Of course, I can already knit flowers all right, so maybe I’ll do that for the project I need. I just thought it might be fun to learn a new skill. I wonder what size needles one would use to knit sewing thread with. Hmm…

We’re not going to the thingie tomorrow. I spoke with my mom, who made a good point: she said she was trying to think of how she would feel if she heard later that the troop leader had taken her own daughter but not mine. I think I’d be angry. I still feel guilty for not going, but I don’t see what else I could have done.

I had another thought. We paid for this out of troop money. I’d be willing to bet that if the parents had had to pay for this out of pocket, the outcome would have been different. But that’s neither here nor there!

Cribbed from :

Okay, maybe I don’t want to sell myself, but shouldn’t I at least be getting royalties or something?

I’m cancelling outdoor day. I made some calls, and nobody has returned them yet. One of my parents – the parent of the sweetest Brownie I’ve got – had to know this morning so she could make other childcare arrangements. In the absence of any info, I had to say we weren’t doing it. I’ll send out e-mail now.

Thanks, guys, you made me feel better about this. I may actually wind up taking Emily anyway!

Well, my Brownie co-leader seems to have mono. She’s not well enough to go to work, let alone schlep all the way out to the wilderness with a bunch of grammar school kids. This creates a problem, because my car isn’t exactly an SUV. I can fit three girls in it. Also, for safety’s sake, I need another adult to help supervise.

I put out an e-mail this evening saying another parent would have to join me or else we’d have to cancel. So far, no parent can do it. Add to that that additional girls are now cancelling, and we may not be doing the thingie on Saturday. I wonder if it would be horrible to just take my own daughter out there if I can’t get another adult. This would actually be ideal, since we could cut out when Emily got overwhelmed, and take things at our own pace. Or, I could potentially fit another couple of girls in my car, and it would be within the safety ratio to watch three girls. Maybe we’ll get more cancellations, because I don’t want to play favorites, and I don’t want it to be like “you told my daughter no, but you took your own.” I don’t know whether that’s ethical or whether I’m just being overcautious.

I have one mom who needs to know by tomorrow morning whether we’re doing it or not so she can make appropriate plans. Well, we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Well, it’s official. Drive has been cancelled after only four episodes. I had read that producer Tim Minear had plotted out a 13-episode story arc on the theory that his shows tend to get cancelled so he should probably find a way to wrap it up for the fans, just in case. And then he didn’t even get his 13 episodes. He’s quite talented, he just needs a better outlet for his talent than the FOX network. And of course, I feel for Nathan Fillion, who has the talent, looks, and charisma to be a huge star, but seems to be a genuinely nice guy. I’m still hoping he gets his big mainstream break.

Emily had a dentist appointment yesterday. One cavity. This time it’s not because of poor brushing, but because of weak enamel on a tooth. I choose to view this as a step in the right direction, as it means that we have the brushing under better control now. Emily has a baby tooth in front that could fall out any day, and she was paranoid that the dentist was going to pull it or knock it out. No worries, it’s still hanging in there – barely.

In my last entry, I mentioned I was under the weather. My husband took Emily to school by himself that day (normally we both do). Apparently Emily told him that when she got home, she would also feel sick in her tummy. That afternoon, sure enough, she ran into the bathroom. When she came back out, she said, “Oh no! I have spots!” As you can see in the pic, she had taken a ball point pen and given herself chicken pox. Then she went to bed and made her pouty “sick face” to really sell it. Heh. You’ll be relieved to know that a washcloth and some water cured the chicken pox later that night.


I finally got around to ripping back the heel of the Tofutsies sock and turning it again. It looks much better now. It just needed a few less rows in the body of the foot. For the leg, I’m thinking probably just a simple k2p2 rib. The yarn is so busy that any elaborate stitch pattern would be lost in the color.

Emily was out sick yesterday, so I’m a day behind on kit orders. I’ll be sending those out today. Also up today, hopefully finding out whether my co-leader will be well enough to join us on this Saturday’s Brownie Outdoor Skills Day. Yikes!

Hats up for: CA, NC, Ireland.

In which Tvini goes to a concert, dragging along her child, and takes pictures.

Lots going on. Hubby installed a new ceiling fan, I went out to dinner Friday night with the Bedlam Bards and ran into a guy I knew in high school, am working on new business cards, took Emily to her first bar on Sunday, had to fill out CARS and GARS autism testing forms for Emily this morning, and more and more and more.

What I don’t have is time to update properly. I’ll try to do so later.

In the meantime, here’s Boo at the bar. Salud!

“I’m not as think as you think I am. Wait, what?”

Every now and then I something in the newspaper that strikes me just the right way. A few years back, it was the entertainingly written story of a local man who had saved someone else from a fire. He was a one-legged man living in a trailer park, watching Maury and drinking a beer at 10 in the morning, when he heard shouts. He strapped on his leg and ran to the rescue. Something about the way the story was written about this jobless, legless, buzzed trailer-park guy caught me in the funny bone, and I laughed as I read it, even while I felt a great affection for this guy.

So this week comes the story of Miss America 1944, who lives in a farm in Kentucky. She saw her dog go into a building where thieves had previously stolen some of her farm equipment. She went to investigate. And here, I must quote from the AP article.

Ramey said the man told her he would leave. “I said, ‘Oh, no you won’t,’ and I shot their tires so they couldn’t leave,” Ramey said.

“I didn’t even think twice. I just went and di it,” she said. “If they’d even dared come close to me, they’d be 6 feet under by now.”

Then she flagged down a motorist to call 911. I can just picture the look on the thief’s face as this little old lady went all Dirty Harry on him. I imagine it was unexpected, to say the least. To quote Ms. Ramey in the Kentucky Enquirer, “He was probably wetting his pants.”

Favorite line of the story is the last one.

“I’m trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another,” she said.

Like this kind of thing happens to her all the time, and it’s starting to get annoying. Go, feisty lady!