Kiss My Knits!

This was a report about a misspelling in a room’s text:

REPORT: Typo in last sentance here.

Talk about irony. Hee!

Back at last from the in-laws. A pleasant time, as always, but the last bit was loud and chaotic. In fact, it was chaotic enough that I apparently mis-knitted an entire row of Shedir and will have to rip back. I couldn’t do so in the car because by the time we got out of there, it was already dark.

I got a copy of Barbara Walker’s Treasury of Knitting Patterns from my mother-in-law, so I thought I’d try out some stitch patterns in the car, but it was too dark to even see the pages. Instead I decided to amuse myself by trying to knit a design out of yarn-overs strictly by touch. I’ll generously say that it needs work. Well, at least it was quiet in the car, so that was restful. I’ll figure Shedir out tomorrow.

Emily got Christmas presents from her grandparents and cousins. From her cousins, she got two Ty girls, so it’s just as well Santa decided they were an okay gift and brought them, because she would have gotten some anyway and then Santa would have looked like a piker. Yeesh. Anyway, now she’s got four, so she’s well on her way to a collection. And believe me, with her autism driving her toward a desire for full sets and completeness, she’s a natural-born collector.

We’re all tired now. As for me, first thing tomorrow I’ll have to hit the office store – my printer cartridge ran out of ink and I need to print out more patterns. Now that I have the pattern in a nice tidy pdf (thanks, knitter Dave from the Apple store), I want to take it to a print shop and get a quote on having a bunch printed for me. I have a feeling that four pages, full color, front and back, on index card stock is going to be a little pricey. I’d like to do a redesign into a booklet form, but I don’t really have time. Besides, this pattern works really, really well in its current form. I wouldn’t want to shrink the type or pictures too much. Until the holidays are over, I guess I’ll stick with my ink jet.

There are things I want to do in Dragonrealms before the festival closes, but I’m having trouble making time. Em goes back to school on Wednesday, so maybe I can sneak in a few things if all goes well.

Until tomorrow, I leave you with this picture of Emily borrowing her cousin’s Christmas gift – a Hannah Montana wig. Emily now wants one. Well, her ambition is to be a rock star, so I suppose it’s only natural. Just call her Emily Tennessee!

Okay, I guess I did have a little time to post!

A couple of weekends ago, I went down to my in-laws. This is the first year the nieces and nephews have shown an interest in knitting themselves, as opposed to just requesting finished items which I have no intention of making, because I’ve made them enough things, thanks. I taught them how to knit and finger-knit (crocheting using your index finger instead of a hook) and they stayed up until about 11:30 at night, making chains and small swatches and generally having fun.

They used Jayne hat yarn, because that’s what I had on hand. I also had a little Berroco Ultra Alpaca too, so they got to use that. If I’d realized this was going to happen, I would have brought extra yarn and needles. I did have my size 10 1/2 DPNs which are normally used for closing off the tops of the hats, so there were enough needles to go around. Since I’ll be seeing these kids again on Sunday, I’ll bring some spare needles and yarn, just in case.



One of the best exchanges of the evening came from this little fella, eleven years old but looking to the future.

T: This is going to get me a girlfriend!
Me: Oh?
T: Yeah! I’ll be talking with some other guys, and they’ll say, “well, I bought my girlfriend a sweater.” And I’ll be able to say, “well, I KNIT my girlfriend a sweater!”

You know, that could actually work. Good thinking, buddy! Here’s hoping these kids keep it up!

I have this really nice long post I want to make, but I have no time for the next few days.

So, for now, I have a question! My hands are super-dry. Do you have a favorite moisturizer? Lavender makes my head hurt, but aside from that, I’m open to any suggestion!

I didn’t get to show off my cool new shoes last night, since I was the only one at knitting group. That’s unless you count the guy with the cell phone turned up to 11 talking about religion in Spanish. Making lemons out of lemonade, I decided I could eavesdrop and brush up on my Spanish. Unfortunately, I remembered a lot more than I thought, and then really wished I could tune this guy back out. It was all “la fuerza sagrada” and “el Senor” about fifty bazillion times in a row. Serves me right for eavesdropping.

Did I mention that he occasionally burst into song and also made sound effects as he talked? I was doing okay until the guy he was talking to started singing “Hello” by Lionel Richie. Then I had to hide my face and concentrate really hard to avoid laughing.

Anyway, here’s the thing. When he finally lost connection with his buddy – because this guy was not going to hang up voluntarily – he powered up YouTube on his laptop and started playing music videos and singing along with them. This was in the cafe section of our local Books-a-Million.

Am I wrong in thinking that this is just poor netiquette? I mean, it’s one thing to be super loud and annoying on your cell phone, because at least then you’re talking to someone, and I can accept that maybe you have hearing loss and need it cranked up that high. But having the volume up on your laptop in public? That’s bad manners, right? It’s a new area of etiquette, I know, but that’s bad form, isn’t it?

Anyway, because there was nobody there last night, and I couldn’t get the Rowan Calmer I needed to start the Shedir hat, I decided to turn the heel on my Vinnland socks. I need to kind of watch what I’m doing when I do that, and I didn’t have to maintain eye contact with anyone, so it was a good project to work on. Unfortunately, the guy was so distracting that I carried the back of the heel in plain stockinette up higher on the second foot than on the first. Oops. I know nobody will notice this but me, but they’re for me, so that kind of does matter. I’ll be ripping back about four rows at some point.

The closest supplier I found for the Calmer is Davidson, about 30 minutes away from here. I actually have some Calmer, but it’s in a denim blue and my sister-in-law asked for “earth tones” so I have to pick up more. Looks like a road trip today!

Reminder! For a limited time, a $25 donation to my kid’s school gets you a Jayne hat, saving you $11! For kits, make a $25 donation for a kit with needles or $15 donation for a standard kit, for discounts of $9 and $2 respectively. Help kids AND save money? It doesn’t get shinier than that! Woo!

Note: the wait for a finished hat is still eight weeks long. Sorry, not much I can do about that. But you’ll still have the warm glow that comes from giving to keep you warm while you wait for your cunning hat.

Apparently the holidays upped my niceness quotient, because now I’m up to #3 if you search for “nice lady” on Google. Nicest lady, here I come!

The dragon baby hat is done, as you can see. I’ll bring it to my knitting group tonight, since a couple of our members were keen to see it.

I’m putting aside a couple of non-Jayne projects to make a chemo cap that a relative just asked for for a friend of hers. She’s requested Shedir. Of course, she has no idea how much trouble that pattern is, but compared with having cancer, knitting that hat is a piece of cake. I’ll pick up the yarn today and get started. I’m happy I can help someone in this way.

Hey, does that move me up to #2 nicest lady? No? Darn!

Merry Christmas, one and all! I hope you are all enjoying your day! Reporting on the material side of things, Emily had several items she was hoping to get but didn’t think she would. She got them, so that was great for her. And yes, she did get two Ty Girlz from Santa. The way she said “Santa is real” on her way to bed last night kind of made us think this might be the beginning of the end, so we wanted Santa to have a big showing this year, just in case.

She also got some unexpected things, like a karaoke machine from Grandma (“It’s so beautiful!”) and the Wizard of Oz on DVD from Grandpa, which she’s already watching. You know it’s a hit if she put aside her other toys to watch it. She just watched Bert Lahr’s big “King of the Forest” musical number and said, “Wow!”

Another unexpected hit was the glow-in-the-dark solar system we got for her. It’s currently hanging from the ceiling. Emily loves space, but I don’t want to just get her educational things. We need not have worried. Not only is it the solar system, which she loves, but it also provides another light source to illuminate any monsters which might be in her closet.

Steve got this super-cool monster movie calendar from the Museum of Modern Art. Emily started to pick out a Wizard of Oz calendar, then I said, “remember, we want to get something Daddy will like, not just us, since it’s for him.” She instantly picked this out. My husband LOVES old monster and sci-fi B movies. Emily could not have chosen a more perfect gift. I have no idea how she did this, since for obvious reasons we don’t let our sensitive eight-year-old watch things like “The Brain That Would Not Die.”

Emily apparently decided early on that I needed to have a pair of shoes. And that’s how I wound up with these little babies. Can you her me squealing? Apparently there’s one store in Charlotte that sells them, and they only sell them in men’s sizes. Fortunately, I have a pair of black Converse high tops so he was able to get the size fro those, since they’re apparently also men’s shoes. The clerk told my husband, “Now, you might want to get her a pair of really cool socks to wear with these.” My husband informed her that I knit my own. Ha. Take that! I can’t believe my husband went to a mall near Christmastime for me. What a guy! I’m thrilled.

More than the things we receive, of course, Christmas is about the things we share. Steve and I have already mangled “New York New York” on the karaoke machine together. Here’s hoping you and the ones you love make many happy memories of your own today.

Me: Man, that hot cocoa with peppermint schnapps was really good last night. Is it bad to go to the ABC store on Christmas Eve?
Husband: Not if you’re buying peppermint schnapps. If you’re buying tequila, that’s a different story.

Good point.