Kiss My Knits!

Not perfect, but much better. A wash and a cut for $15 not including tip at the Aveda Institute on South Boulevard. Well worth the price, but I had to really guide her. Even though I brought the picture to the right along with me to show her what I wanted, it came out fairly choppy. There were big blocks where you could see exactly where a large hunk of hair was cut. But we worked on it, and an hour after I walked in, it looked good. It’s a hairstylist school, I don’t expect her to have it flawless the first time, so no worries. She got a nice tip for her hard work.

My husband was called out of town unexpectedly, so things have been kind of hectic here this week. It wasn’t until I was sitting in the stylist’s chair that it occurred to me that this is a Girl Scout week. And the meeting is today. And I have nothing planned. I’m not adding any extra stress to my life while I’m flying solo with Em, so I’ve sent out an e-mail saying that unless someone else is able to step in, the meeting’s off. It’s short notice, so I’m not expecting miracles.

And actually, just now as I was writing that, I realized that no, we meet on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday, not every other Wednesday, sooo… there wasn’t supposed to be a meeting. I’m sending out a “never mind” e-mail now.

I’ve been backsliding on getting enough sleep this week, as you can no doubt tell. I’ll try to do better tonight.

Hey, Sunday dyers!

This is mystery Romney that was leftover after the session. We all thought it belonged to Illiane because she had to cut out early and nobody else remembered dyeing it.

Well, Illiane says it ain’t hers. Anybody else recognize it?

Dye day with pics!

It’s hard to wait to post pics, but necessary. Case in point: after we were all done, I took the dregs from the remaining mixed-up dye and poured it onto a couple of slivers of wool.

To the left, when wet, they looked questionable. Dried, they lightened up substantially. Interesting!

And so I wait for the overdyed stuff to dry before posting. Although it kills me.

A lot went on this weekend. Saturday morning, I hit a few yard sales on my way to the post office. I needed a few supplies for dyeing fiber on Sunday, and yard sales are gold mines for that sort of thing. I found a $1 enamel pot and a $2 extra wide crock pot marked “as-is.” Score! I plugged the crock pot in before I bought it, and it worked just fine. Here it is in action.



There was one other item I picked up, which I just couldn’t resist. These little ceramic saucers from a house a few blocks away. I probably wouldn’t have bought them if they weren’t marked “Made in Occupied Japan.” They were two dollars for the set of three, and one not pictured had a chip. But they are pretty, and they make me think about that time in America’s history. I chatted for a moment with the older couple holding the sale. I said I’d take them, and the wife said, “you’re breaking his heart!” It was a joke, but you could also tell that it really wasn’t. I promised to give them a good home. You just know there’s a story there, but I didn’t think to ask what it was until I was gone.



I spent most of Saturday running around being sure I had things – I’d rather not use our food steamer basket for the acid-dyed yarn, thank you – but that was fine. Since Em and my husband off having a blast at the Storytelling Festival of Carolina, I felt free to do whatever the heck I wanted without worrying about them. Sometimes that’s a good thing.

I did stay up late on Saturday, but still got up on Sunday morning for an abbreviated walk/run. Not quite up to usual standards – I’d classify this as “white zinfandel.” My knees are getting me some today, but I don’t know if it’s from the running or from standing up all day. We’ll see how they are tomorrow.


The hat I’d been working on has been ripped out and reborn as “My So-Called Scarf.” It’s a better use of the yarn, but I’m still not entirely sure it’s the best. Still thinking about it.

I have to wait for my fiber to dry before I can post pics and talk about the dyeing event. I’ll say this, though – it was fun!

Earlier this year, I laid off doing the Couch to 5K program for a while, but with the weather so nice, I was ready to start back up. After a week or so of walking 2 1/2 miles a day, I gave it a go today. I’m not dead, so that’s good! I am, however, as red as always. I’ve written about this before. It’s strictly a cosmetic issue, as near as I can tell.

I think from now on, I’m not going to use beats per minute as an indicator of how good a workout is. I’m going to use a color scale, like dentists do when bleaching your teeth. Today: strawberry syrup. Good workout!

Having my skin turn this red is probably bad for my complexion, but then, dying of health problems related to obesity would probably be even worse for it, so I can deal.

Flickr now allows uploading of video, so let’s try it out and see how it works. Is it visible?

This is my husband and daughter last night. Darling, this is not what they mean by “winding down for bedtime.”

Check out what Turtlegirl76 got me! This is 360 yards of “Luxury” sock yarn from Creatively Dyed Yarn in colorway Saranac Lake. The fiber content is 80% Merino, 10% Cashmere, 10% Nylon.

I met Dianne, who owns Creatively Dyed, when Turtlegirl76 and I went on a road trip to Greer to visit her yarn shop. That was before she shut her doors to concentrate exclusively on dyeing. She kept her shop open past business hours to show us some spinning tricks. Dianne is crazy talented and extremely nice. She’s also the hardest working woman in the yarn biz.

Turtlegirl points out that Saranac Lake is very close to her hometown in New York, which no doubt drew her to this particular skein. Thanks, Turtlegirl! It fits my color sense perfectly and it’ll make a gorgeous pair of socks. What a great belated birthday present!

In other yarn news, the Koolhaas is about to be unraveled. Here we see one pattern repeat done. This was not a good yarn choice. While lofty and beautiful, it’s too unevenly spun for cables to really pop. It’s also striping, which isn’t the look I was hoping for.

Instead, I think this will get made into My So-Called Scarf which I’ve been wanting to try. We’ll see how that goes.

In Jayne hat news, I’m working on mid-March orders now, so that’s going well. Can’t Stop The Serenity venues are getting their requests in, which is good since the wait is creeping back up and is at the seven week mark now. I want everyone to be cunningly hatted at these events, so I’ll keep plugging away!

I mentioned a medical mystery involving my mouth last week, and then I never followed up. Bad me. So here it is:

I have a weird taste in my mouth. It gets stronger and fades with the days, but it’s there. It’s kind of metallic, but not rusty like blood. It’s a little bitter and astringent as well. I have no clue what it is.

Last week when it was so strong that I kept thinking, “what is that taste and why won’t it go away?” every ten seconds, I made an appointment with the dentist. My teeth and gums look fine. He found nothing.

ETA: My husband says he hasn’t noticed any change in the quality of my breath, so whatever’s going on, it’s not manifesting itself that way.

I haven’t made any dietary changes. I’m not on any medications. I even discontinued my vitamins for a week to see if that did anything. I do have some dry mouth, but I don’t know if that’s a cause, or if it’s an effect – you know, like I keep swallowing to try to get this taste out so I have a dry mouth.

I decided to start keeping a diary of what I ingested (a depressing exercise) but nothing really turned up so I stopped. The taste seemed to diminish some, but today it’s back just as strong as ever. Last night we had takeout ribs and chocolate cake, because a) we had our IEP meeting yesterday and that always means headaches and stress all day so we decided to indulge, and b) we got our state tax refund and wanted to live the high life. So I guess I’ll start a food diary again, and this time I get to put down all the junk I ate yesterday. Swell.

My husband goes to the same dentist’s office I do. Different dentist, though. They usually don’t make the connection between us since we have different last names. I guess word got around of the medical mystery, because his dentist kept asking him all kinds of questions about whether I was still having the taste. Glad to know my mouth is water cooler material.

I guess the next step is to make a doctor’s appointment. I can’t think of any cause for this, and weird sensory changes should probably be checked out. Until then, if you see me making weird faces like a dog eating peanut butter, just ignore me.

I have a lot to write about, but my time’s been a bit limited lately. So, let’s throw in a little of this and a little of that!

–The newest thing to happen in our lives has been that this weekend, we finally, FINALLY got a new floor for the bathroom.

Here’s the flickr photo set of before, during, and after pictures. We really haven’t done much to improve the house since we bought it more than ten years ago, so a change like this is very exciting. We have other things to do in there, but this will at least keep the floor from actively rotting out, so it’s good to have it done.

—Turtlegirl76 now has me hooked on Dead Like Me, yet another brilliant but cancelled TV show. Thanks, Turtlegirl!

–I have finished sock one of the Rainbow socks. I always make them a bit short, so I knitted them a little longer this time and now I think they’re a little too long. Also, I CANNOT FIND MY SECOND SKEIN. I know exactly where I put it, because I made a mental “don’t lose this!” note, but I swear it’s not there now. Maybe I moved it unknowingly when shifting things around to make room for bathroom stuff in the bedroom while renovating. I don’t know. It’s making me a little crazy, though.

–I sold some sock yarn from my stash via Ravelry’s “for sale or trade” stash section. So pretty, but I’d had it for a year so I don’t know when I was going to use it. I’m going to put a couple of bulky skeins in there to further pare down my stash. Maybe I won’t lose any more yarn I actually NEED if there’s less total yarn.

–April is National Poetry month, so I brought home a library book of poems by Dean Koontz called The Paper Doorway. It inspired Emily to write this poem:

“Hannah, Hannah you are nice.
I think you really look like ice.
I make you beautiful wrup.
We’ll bake you in a pie and eat you up.”

My daughter tells me “wrup” means “afraid.” Click on the picture for a bigger view – you can see feet sticking out of the pie. Black eyeliner and Siouxie and the Banshees cannot be far behind.

That’s it for now. Got to get an Alaskan Browncoat’s hat up to the post office!

This big craft fair looks like fun. It seems a lot like the one Pat and Laura and I went to in Raleigh, but it’s in Pat’s hometown, Richmond.

I wish I could show up in her doorstep this weekend and drag her out to go shopping. I miss my friend.