Kiss My Knits!

I’ve been running all over town for the past few days getting things ready for the upcoming trip. One stop on Saturday was the yarn stash swap sponsored by Charlotte Yarn, our most excellent local yarn store. People bring the stuff in their closets that they want to get rid of, and exchange it for money or other yarn. I brought some stuff I thought folks would want, and I was right. I had just opened my container and hadn’t yet taken the yarn out, when the other swappers were on it like piranhas on a dead cow.

And so, a hundred-odd bucks heavier and some Cherry Tree Hill lighter, I hied me to Borders and spent the entire wad on audiobooks for the St. Louis trip. I picked up Harry Potter on CD, but didn’t notice it was 80 bucks until I was already out the door. Well, at 21 hours, I suppose that’s still some good bang for your buck. I also picked up two Alexander McCall Smith audiobooks and some iTunes, mainly 80’s stuff, which is good to sing along to when I’m starting to feel sleepy but am not quite at my hotel yet. Because I’m a mom, I also snagged some activity books for Emily, so she’ll have something to do in the hotel room in case it rains while they’re at the beach.

One non-trip-related purchase: The DVD set of The Critic. Jon Lovitz, this is my pledge to you: every time you beat up Andy Dick, I will purchase another one of your products. Deal? Deal.

I had purchased some spinning fiber from SakinaNeedles to use to teach others the wheel on the trip, but that was a while ago. Last week in a moment of weakness, I forgot it had been earmarked for that purpose and I started spinning it. Oops. I intended to order more, but let that slide until it was too late to have it delivered in time. And so, panicking, I started searching around for another source of fiber between here and there. A very nice woman in St. Louis who dyes for sale has offered to help me out, and I’m definitely taking her up on it. Even if I wind up not using it for teaching, it’ll be a great souvenir to bring home.


In the meantime, it suddenly occurred to me that duh, I do in fact have fiber. I have that giant bag that gave me in Raleigh! Yay! What’s more, I have the fiber dyeing kit from Hello Yarn that my husband got me for my birthday. Double yay! And so I’ll give you one guess what I was doing tonight. Yes, dyeing wool.


It’s cooling down in a pot on the stove now, so we’ll see how it looks tomorrow. It looked good being dyed, but you never know. I was going for a kind of random pattern that left a fair amount of white showing rather than wide bands of solid. This is my first time dyeing unspun wool. I’m not expecting miracles. Although I’ll take a miracle if it happens.

Tomorrow my daughter and I will be stopping by AAA to get a TripTik, as well as the usual stuff like speech therapy and going to the library. I know I have a million things to do, but the major stuff is taken care of. Now it’s mostly “what to pack” type stuff, and being sure all the really time-sensitive Jayne hats get shipped out in time. I knitted up one for Georgia today at a Browncoat picnic, so I think we’re looking good on that front, too. I haven’t been getting enough sleep because I’ve been doing more weddings this week. Tonight, I’ll try to catch up a little.

…she said, noticing it was midnight. Oh well. Good night!

I stepped on a piece of glass barefoot yesterday afternoon and had a heck of a time getting it back out of my foot. I slathered it in neosporin, covered by a antibiotic-infused bandaid within my allegedly antimicrobial Tofutsies sock. By this afternoon, it was really feeling bad. Not like “I stepped on some glass and dug in my foot with tweezers,” but more like “there’s still something stabby in there.” So after asking around for opinions on whether I should, since I was feeling kind of like a wimp for even considering it, I went to see the doctor today. He was skeptical that there was something in there, because the area was so small, but said “well, it won’t hurt anything if we make an incision and check.”

Easy for you to say, pal.

Anyway, that’s just what we did (after a shot of lidocaine to numb the area) and sure enough, you could hear the forceps clinking against glass. There was more in there than I thought. So he closed me back up, sent in the nurse with a shot against tetanus, and I was on my way. You know, it wasn’t pleasant, but I’m very grateful for modern medicine. In medieval times, that’s the kind of thing that could make you lose a foot.

In less gruesome news, my father very kindly gave me the gift that keeps on giving – cash! That will really help with the trip and the car. My dad’s such a sweetie. Thanks, Dad! Also, Mom watched Emily for a few hours this morning so I could run some errands. It was really helpful, since there’s so much prep work to do for a big trip. I’m feeling like I won’t have to run around too much at the last minute this year.

The one bugaboo is my hair. I can’t get in touch with my hairstylist. I’ve left a message with someone to give to her, which I can only hope she got. Right now I’ve got kind of a 70’s shag thing going on that won’t do. I hope she calls back – I’d rather go to her than, say, Supercuts.

All right, my daughter is running around the house naked saying it’s time for her bath, so I’m off!

My car’s in the shop to have a thousand tiny little things done. It needs aligning, an oil change, and apparently the driver’s side taillight is out. Which makes me feel like I dodged a bullet, because I also noticed it’s three months past time to get it inspected. Yeowch. Anyway, after this I should have a finely-tuned driving machine to take on my trip to St. Louis. I also got an estimate on replacing the left front quarter panel on my car, which has a huge dent, and apparently the quarter panel and wheel well will cost $577. So yeah, I’ll have a finely-tuned driving machine, but it’ll still have a dent for a while. I’m okay with that.

My husband got his very first pair of glasses yesterday. He’s been having headaches, which prompted a visit to the optometrist. Apparently the difference between with and without is very striking. As he says today while looking at his computer, “…the screen is MUCH easier to see now. But it kinda feels like I’m using some sort of scientific instrument that can only be properly used if you’re looking through these special glasses. Which, I guess I am, but it just seems weird.”

My husband is not a vain man, but I think it’s only natural to be concerned about how something like pieces of metal and glass perched on your face will change your appearance. Fortunately, he looks hot.

Fear: Reality:

Side note, do you know how hard it is to find pictures of hot geek celebrities in glasses? It’s a good look, men, embrace it!

Off to be sure everything for tonight’s DR party is in place. I’m helping out the lovely and talented GM Nhia with an event. It looks like a fun one – my favorite kind!

ETA: The garage called, and alignment, taillight, oil change, coolant flushes, timing belt and other 100K mile recommended preventative maintainence will run right at $700. This Simu trip is getting more expensive by the minute. Yeowch indeed. I’m need a “will knit for food” sign.

In today’s bout of awesomeness, Jon Lovitz apparently laid the smackdown on Andy Dick. It seems that Lovitz blames Dick for giving Phil Hartman’s wife cocaine after her ten years of sobriety, thus sending her down the path that killed Phil, who was a dear friend of Lovitz’s. So he was already pissed at Dick, but then Dick rubbed salt in the wound by saying that he had put the “Hartman Hex” on Lovitz, and he would be the next to die. You know, I’m not normally one to advocate violence, but Jeez Louise. If anybody deserved what we here in the South would call “a good whuppin'” it was Andy Dick. In fact, this makes wonder if more of life’s problems could be solved by beating up Andy Dick.

I still miss Phil Hartman. Le sigh.

Today’s second bout of awesomeness is a webcomic which probably everybody already knew about but me, since it’s been going on for more than a year now. It’s “DM of the Rings”, the Lord of the Rings told as a AD&D campaign. So yeah, probably only funny if you’re a gamer geek. Fortunately, that’s me.

In Jayne hat news, I have once again denuded all yarn shops within a 60-mile radius of the proper shade of yellow yarn. (Heh. She said “denude.”) More is on its way from Lorien, an alpaca farm and yarn store in Candler, NC. Their prices are great and the owner has been quite responsive. Thanks for the yarn store tip, ! Brown Sheep will be spinning up more yellow and orange in SIX WEEKS so hopefully at that point my worries will be over again for a while. You’re killing me, Brown Sheep.

I suddenly realized today that I have a week until Simucon, so I need to do all the things I’ve been putting off, like get my tri-annual haircut and take the car in for a tuneup. I’m off to be busy!

It’s the perfect storm of Emily’s interests! Groovy Girl dolls AND Brownies! Damn you, Manhattan Toy! Because I’ve been mailing out badges and such this week, Emily’s taken a renewed interest in Scouts. I still have Scout paperwork to do to prepare for Fall, but at least I don’t have a bunch of little girls all waiting for their cookie badges, which were earned in April. We need to get the troop together this summer at least once for the girls bridging up to Juniors. Emily wants to have them all over to the house. I was thinking a more neutral location, but that’s just me.

Nothing terribly exciting to show, knitting-wise. It’s been all Jayne, all the time. Instead, let’s see another video, shall we?

In 1991 or 1992 (I want to say 1992) I did a contest with WSOC-TV wherein we would show a location from somewhere in our viewing area, and people would have to call in and name the location, and if they were the tenth caller they’d win. The “calling in” portion of the contest was not without its challenges – it was definitely a learning experience for our promotion manager. However, shooting the spots was great fun, since we got to go all over two states shooting landmarks like the Reed Gold Mine. This was one of two winnerspots we did for that contest. We would bring in a group of five winners at a time for economy’s sake. We didn’t do that for winnerspots at WJZY, and what I learned is that doing a good winnerspot is like doing a good DVD commentary – get a decent number of people in the studio at once. They loosen each other up and have more fun, and it shows.

15 years later, I’m not sure I remember this guy’s name. Either Lineburger or Tarlton. Regardless, he was a character, God love him. He came up with that schtick himself. I met the nicest people in that job.

Jayne hats up for: CA, OK, CA.

My husband took my daughter with him to see his folks, because a) it would be unthinkable to visit without the grandchild, and b) I was going crazy. I’ve had a good day. I washed those Tofutsies socks machine-wash warm and hung them to dry, and there was NO pilling. I road-tripped up to Davidson for some much-needed orange yarn and stopped by Summit Coffee for a cuppa joe. I swapped my Season One Buffy DVDs with Turtlegirl76 for her Deadwood Season Three DVDs. Can’t start watching them until the husband gets home, though.

I put on Season Two of Buffy and watched some of those while writing out more Jayne hat notes. I have to finish a hat tonight to stay on schedule – there are a fair number of folks wanting theirs in time for DragonCon and I’m doing my best to accomodate everyone. Since I’ll be at Simucon part of the preceding week, the schedule has to be adhered to.

I also got some QCs and wedding work done for DragonRealms. In working to de-clutter the house, I looked up and realized that I had something pretty large and unnecessary still around. This is the big white board that I used to use to keep track of all the DR weddings. Since we are no longer living in caves and hunting wooly mammoths, the white board has been replaced by various computer spreadsheets. I kind of hate to lose it, just for sentimental reasons.


Speaking of tools, here’s the yarn counter I made last week based on the design from Hello Yarn. Hopefully this will let me measure my kit yarn more precisely – although I’ll still be giving some overage – so I don’t have to raise prices. It’s actually short a component. It needs another silicon bracelet to go around the wheel to help guide the yarn. Right now I have to keep my fingers on one side of the wheel and stop the yarn from falling off. Also, it winds the yarn a little tighter than I’d like, so I wind it twice to take some of the tension off. All part of our quality service!

Note the bracelet I have chosen to use. Very appropriate for a Firefly/feminist operation.

Okay, back to the Jayne mines! Plus, School Hard is up on the Buffy DVDs! Woot!

Yarn: SWTC Tofutsies
Colorway: 722 Stand on Your Own Two Feet
Needles: Two circs in size 0 US (2mm)
Gauge: 9.5 stitches per inch.

These were toe up with a short row heel, my preferred method. Straight stockinette with a k2p2 rib for the leg. My flipper-like feet are 10 inches around, but my ankles are 8 inches around. Because of this, the body of the foot was 72 stitches wide, but I decreased to 64 for the leg. I could probably have done 68 for the foot and still been okay – these are almost too roomy. I still have about half a skein of Tofutsies left over, so I could easily make a pair of ankle socks from the remainder.

I’ve only worn them one day, but so far they seem durable and soft. I’d use this yarn again.

Am going crazy from being home all day as a mom. I love my child, Lord knows I do, but I’m still going a little stir-crazy. Emily’s taking swimming lessons in the afternoon this week and next week, so we’ve got that going, but our early July is pretty light on the summer camp stuff. I need to get more sleep, that’ll help.

I’ve put my 2004 knitting projects into Ravelry. I’ll start on 2005 at some point soon. I am omitting the hundreds of individual Jayne hats in favor of one single Jayne hat project that I’ve listed as ongoing from 2004 to the present.

Speaking of Jayne, I’m almost out of orange and the mill won’t be spinning more for another six weeks. You’re killing me, Brown Sheep, you’re killing me. More road trips are in my future.

The Tofutsies socks were finished tonight! They look good. I’ll post up pics soon. Speaking of posting pics, having to put things up on Ravelry means that I have to put my knitting pics up on flickr. I feel oddly exposed having them all out there.

Am doing Girl Scout paperwork, trying to find a new home for my two rising Juniors and merging with another troop. Also mailing out cookie badges. I have an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I’m overlooking something important, but I don’t know what, and something will go wrong this Fall. However, I did speak with the council membership coordinator tonight, and she gave me some info that gives me a place to go to get more in control of things.

Started to spin up the second half of the red fiber, but you know what? After spinning that gorgeous cormo/silk blend, I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for the red stuff. It was pretty, but just not so much fun to spin. Instead I moved on to the BFL I got from SakinaNeedles. Wow, is that stuff soft. Like buttah. I went to split it, and it fell apart into two perfect little slivers in my hand. Then four, then eight. Easy peasy. I’m still getting the hang of spinning it – I think I need to set my brake a little harder, I’m kind of uneven – but it’s just so soft. Did I mention that it’s soft?


I’m preserving the hard color breaks, so I think it will ply up pretty barber pole-y, but I’m okay with that. This is for fun. I’m going to order more to have for Simucon, since I think this will be fun for newer spinners.

Still recovering from staying up too late a few nights ago after getting the DVD transferred. Maybe I’ll put up another spot tomorrow.

Time for bed. Pics and vids another day.

Hats up for: NC, MO, CA

The third of a series of Next Gen spots. This must have been ’93 or ’94 since that’s when TNG was in its final season. Back in the days before Google, I had to schlep to every library and bookstore in town trying to find a book with a picture of Grant Wood’s American Gothic big enough to scan into the Quantel Paintbox, which back then was like a primitive version of Photoshop. And when I say scan in, I mean lay on a flat surface and photograph with a camera hooked into the machine.

Jeez, I sound like Grandpa Simpson. Of course, we did all wear onions on our belts, because that was the fashion.

The music was Michelle Shocked doing Arkansas Traveler.

My husband and I have been trying to de-clutter our lives, and one way we’re doing this is by getting rid of video tapes. However, some tapes we don’t want to get rid of, such as my old resume reels. Unfortunately, my master tapes are on MII, a format that never really came into its own in commercial use. It’s like the Beta of TV stations. Which is ironic, because Beta was industry standard when I was there. Also like Beta, MII was superior to the format which did come into wide use. Blu-Ray, pay attention! Never neglect marketing!

We were moving to a digital playback system when I left in ’99. I didn’t bother to put my stuff on a more easily accessible format because it never in a million years occurred to me that I wouldn’t be returning. It was simply an impossibility. Funny where life takes you, eh?

However, I did occasionally dup some stuff to VHS to bring home and review, and I did have my friend and former boss dub a few things to a tape for me after I left. Nice of him to do. So now, I’ve dumped a lot of my output onto the hard drive of our spiffy new recorder and made one master DVD. I’ll be making another copy for safekeeping.

From college, it’s got the crappy tape transfer of the B&W student film I edited, plus the Gunsmoke editing project every film student has had to do since the 50’s, plus a weird student video. Weird student videos are mandatory in college.

Professionally, there’s my intern work at WSOC-TV, and the stuff I did after I got hired as a producer there (hello, salary!). It’s got my editing from NBC News Channel, when I was freelancing overnights. It’s got the early stuff I did for WJZY, and my Hawaii 5-0 spot that got an Addy. There are a few later spots done after the advent of Photoshop and AfterEffects, when I could actually, you know, ADD GRAPHICS to my spots. I look at most of my stuff now and think “man, that would be so much better with graphics” but you can only do what you have the tools to do.

There are also a few production oddities that might appeal to geeks, like the slates for ST:TNG and DS9 from the original feeds, with Michael Dorn or Rene Aberjonois identifying the audio channels. There are also some production track only versions of the promos, which are great for pulling clean dialogue and effects out of. I’d love to send those to someone who would appreciate them, but I’m sure Paramount would put the smackdown on me for YouTubing them.

Anyway, I’m hoping to actually put up a few videos of what I did in the old days. It’s not exactly Gone with the Wind, but it’s not terrible TV either. Since rediscovering these, I keep having dreams that I’ve gone back to work in TV. They’re always good dreams. Well, we’ve already seen that life takes you where you don’t expect to go, so who knows what the future holds?