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Posts Tagged ‘jayne’

Converting the world, one Browncoat at a time.

December 20th, 2007 12 comments

E-mail from today:

“…WHY did you not sit me down, tie me up and force me to watch this before today???

And so, another Browncoat is born. Amen!

ETA: I might as well make this a proper post.

I just got the list of Emily’s spelling words for tomorrow. They start out okay but get hard pretty quickly. It starts out with cosmos and pecan, but then quickly progresses to muumuu, enzyme, perquisite, hircine, and mucilaginous. Yikes. We went over some, but she spelled “decoy” as “decoi” so I don’t know how this will go. Well, it’ll be a character-building experience.

I’ve gotten exactly one cuff on the fuzzyfeet done. I wound up running quite a few errands this morning instead. I have an eBay purchase to ship that wouldn’t fit in any of my boxes here at home, and I really wanted to get that out as soon as possible.

Now I’m watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer with my daughter while I consider whether to do an afterthought “bullseye” heel on the slippers instead of sticking to the pattern. That heel looked pretty darned good on these socks.

Tonight if we’ve got the cash I want to hit the Vietnamese place up the street. There are some spring rolls calling my name!

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Busy busy.

December 19th, 2007 4 comments

Emily’s back in school. She got up and took her own temperature and reported to us what it was. She’s still sniffling and coughing, but I don’t think she’s contagious and she really, really wants to get back to school. She says her friends miss her. I’ll bet she’s right.

Email to jaynehat.com is still getting through only sporadically. This is troublesome, because I just ordered a thousand more business cards with that address (thanks again for Li’l Jayne, ). The first set of cards went fast. The next set will be double-sided, with care info on the reverse.

The DNS issues with our various sites should be resolved soon. I worry that someone who ordered two months ago will try to write me and it’ll bounce, and that person will think I’ve vanished. Let’s keep a happy thought and hope that doesn’t happen.

I had planned to make a long post this morning about visiting my in-laws and how I taught all the kids in the family to finger-knit, or more accurately, to finger-crochet. Then I suddenly realized that I had neglected to make a Christmas gift for my kid’s teacher. So now I need to have three hats and a pair of Fuzzyfeet finished by Friday. This isn’t counting the packages that need to go out. So much for the long post. Maybe if I make good time this morning, or if Em stays in school all day, I’ll have time for more fun stuff.

On tap next: watching Superman Doomsday and knitting like the wind!

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Thank you, !

December 17th, 2007 4 comments
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No coffee and no internet make Tvini something something.

December 16th, 2007 8 comments
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Sock-eating carpet

December 12th, 2007 2 comments
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Jaynes and stuff

December 6th, 2007 22 comments

I’m considering discontinuing the kits for a week or so. I want to be sure as many of my existing hat orders as possible are knit up in time for Christmas. It looks like there’ll be no problem getting everybody who should get one by Christmas theirs, but I’d like to get more people done. I find I can either spend my time in the mornings winding yarn or I can spend it knitting.

And speaking of knitting Jayne hats, here are two more in the Berroco Ultra Alpaca. The orange one isn’t as bright as this picture makes it look. In doing these, I have come to love Berroco Ultra Alpaca. There’s a broad color range at a reasonable price, it’s easy on the hands, and it works up smooth and neat. Definitely a winner. Down side: when I hold it doubled, there’s not quite enough for a 23 and 24 inch size from one skein. I’m waiting for delivery of more olive green and more dijon yellow. I paid out the wazoo for expedited delivery, so it should be here in the next day or so. It better. This is one of those “get there by Christmas” orders I was talking about.

For those who had expressed interest in the Superman/other big name trade paperback graphic novels, I wound up sending many of them as part of a care package to a platoon in Afghanistan via Books For Soldiers. Sorry, guys, they need them more than you or I do. I get the impression that most of the volunteers who send stuff aren’t into comics and sci-fi and so I see a lot of requests for comics go unfilled. I’ve had some good experiences with www.booksforsoldiers.com so it’s something I’m happy to do.

And speaking of happy, my friend Laura is in town! Yay! I’m going to see her today! Double yay! I got, like, five hours sleep last night but I’m still perky and excited about this. I may crash by noon, but for now… yay!

Oh! Let me clarify something. Apparently I worded something badly on my “giving thanks” post a while back. Several people have asked me if my friend is recently divorced and moving to start a new life. I think this is because of the “moving alone under difficult circumstances” wording. No. She’s married and happy, it’s just that her husband moved down first to start his new job. I may have mentioned this before, but they met through us, as she was maid of honor and he was best man at our wedding. Tvini wedding mojo cannot be overcome! These two are locked in! No escape! Mwahahahaaaaa!

Don’t look at me like that. I’m allowed to cackle maniacally on my own blog if I want.

Jayne hats up next for: Dubuque, Chicago, and Cincinnati. Go Midwest Browncoats!

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Stitch Markers

November 29th, 2007 24 comments

A few weeks ago, I mentioned on the Joss’d podcast that I had something new in the works for WearWithStyle that I hadn’t shown yet – Firefly stitch markers. Well, here they are!

These are displayed on a size 5 needle. I can vary the size of the jump rings to fit different sized needles. The materials are ink on clear plastic, with silver. I’m still experimenting with what looks best and which designs I want to include. However, I’ve worked out some kinks, like the neatest way to round the corners and which sealer looks and works the best. You don’t want your stitch marker to smudge, after all.



The sets pictured are beta, combining sealers and techniques as I learn. And what did I learn today? When you spray acrylic sealer on Shrinky Dinks in 45 degree weather, they crack. But not right away, when you’d notice, no they wait to crack until you’ve walked back into the house and are merrily working on more, unaware that it’s pointless to continue. The ones from the set that I did today, I consider useless. Pressing on the crack in the leaf caused it to break almost in half. Bleah. Well, live and learn.


I’m doing other sets besides Firefly. For instance, I like the inspirational set at left. And there are some cute Christmas ones, pictured at right before and after shrinking. Unfortunately, after they were put out to be sealed, they cracked, as you can see in this picture. Le sigh.


Lest you think it’s all sweetness and light and puppies and rainbows here at WearWithStyle, here are some naughty ones I experimented with. When you look at the pic, remember, they may be small but it’s not the size, it’s how you use it. (Actual size pic here.)

Aaaaanywho, that’s what’s going on in the non-knitting crafting world over here. In knitting news, Emily’s doll has its head and one leg completed. Jayne hats continue. Two more kits are ready to go out today. And that’s my day!


ETA:Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica. The Office fans among you will get this. The prank referenced is about 7:20 in. Unfortunately, I don’t get Sci-Fi, so I don’t watch Battlestar Galactica, so I have to rely upon my memories of the old show, which I didn’t really watch. That graphic’s probably pretty weak. What else could I do to represent Battlestar Galactica?

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Stuff’n’such

November 28th, 2007 2 comments

At left: one of the best things about winter. Ahhh…

Speaking of orange, remember those two huge 4 pound cones I got in October? I’m down to about half of one cone. It’s going fast this time of year. I ordered more a few weeks ago, but God knows when that’ll come in. Brown Sheep, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

On a completely unrelated note, my lymph nodes are all swollen up. Well, not ALL swollen up, but definitely more so than usual. I don’t seem to be running a fever, and I feel fine, soo… go figure. I’ve had this happen mysteriously before, and it worried the doctor, who ran all kinds of tests and freaked me way the hell out, and then they just kind of… mysteriously went back down again. I suppose I shouldn’t be complacent, but I guess my body just periodically conducts some kind of systems test. I have no clue why.

If this were a TV drama, you’d be reading this post while sad music played behind you, dressed in nice clothes because you’d just come from my funeral, shaking your head at the injustice of it all. “If only she’d known,” you’d say.

Well, enough of that. I have hats to knit and Clementines to eat. Also, Emily’s surfing the Camp GroovyGirls website, and she wants me to play with her.

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Meh.

November 27th, 2007 No comments

Across the Pacific was okay. It was a mish-mosh of various Bogey movies thrown together. The tough as nails character named Rick, the obese villain by Sydney Greenstreet, etc. It was good, but man, it was a product of its times. The Japanese do not come off well in this.

I had to keep reminding myself that this was made in wartime. So when the female lead makes a point of saying that if you look really closely, they don’t all look alike, I didn’t roll my eyes completely out of my head. Only partly. Then there was the coke-bottle glasses super-Americanized character, who of course turned out to be Evil with a capital E in the end. Well, I guess that’ll put you more at ease with the then-current internment camp policy. Of course, since the Japanese were considered a security threat, many of the Asian characters were played by Chinese actors.

Keep repeating: wartime… 1942… product of its times…

Interesting side note, apparently this was originally written about plans to bomb Pearl Harbor, not the Panama Canal. Then the Japanese actually DID bomb Pearl Harbor. One of the principals involved in the picture described it as “creepy” which is surely understating things.

However, social issues aside, this was good but not a classic. All the elements were there, but it wasn’t a classic. For better bang for your buck, go rent Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon and make a night of it.

Shipped out two kits and a hat yesterday. Today, I need to pack up two more kits and finish up the second blue Jayne hat. This one fits much better. Now I’m contemplating ripping out the old one and casting on four fewer stitches. I’d rather redo it than send it out loose. Darn my craftsman’s pride!

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Atsa lotta Jaynes

November 26th, 2007 18 comments

As of this morning, the Jayne hat line is up to nine weeks and could go up to ten at any moment. Someone ordering now might not get their Jayne hat until February. Yowch. I’ll give you one guess as to what I’ll be doing this morning. Hint: it involves yarn.

And while we’re on the subject of Jayne hats, check out this fantastic package I got from a Browncoat in Germany! When placing his order, he asked if there was anything from Germany I might like to have. I of course mentioned currency, and that if he wanted to put anything else in, my daughter loved candy.

This was truly above and beyond! He even arranged the Euros so that it was easy to tell the different denominations at a glance. I swear, Browncoats are the best people. I told him we didn’t need to worry about payment, this was payment enough.

As if this weren’t enough, he’s also sending a second package with a bottle of beer for my husband. My husband, in return, is bottling up his current offering, so we can send him an American Pale Ale. I’m sure he’s familiar with the type, but my husband is feeling very good about this particular brew. I tell you, nice guys abound in my life.

By the way, many thanks to everyone who’s donated currency so far. Rupees, Bahamian quarters, yen, shillings… this stuff is super cool. Today I’ll be taking pics of each individual set that I’ve gotten so I will remember who gets what back when it’s all over.

Okay, I’m hitting the grocery store, then watching Across the Pacific with Humphrey Bogart. Based on this 1943 review, I expect great things.

Needless to say, I’ll also be knitting like the wind! Woo!

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