Kiss My Knits!

The good: Shedir is done! So that’s one more project off the list of things I owe people. It turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself. It took about 1.1 balls of Rowan Calmer, the nicest artificial fiber you’ll ever work with. This one went much faster than the first one I made. I keep thinking this cable pattern would look great on a baby sweater or on a pair of socks.

(P.S. – Turtlegirl76, I was right. There’s an error on row 63 of the pattern. It is indeed missing an asterisk. Thanks for checking for me!



The bad: I knocked out some stitch marker parts, and apparently it’s not the temperature that makes them crack, it’s the spray varnish I favor. These were sprayed in my kitchen with the home thermostat set to 70 degrees (I was taking no chances). Crack city! That’s unfortunate, because it’s much quicker to spray them than to brush them. So I suppose I need to figure out whether it’s this particular substance that causes them to crack, or the act of spraying them at all. These seem solid enough, so I can probably still use them, after I test them to be sure they’re okay.

The ugly: Look at what my camera is doing! It’s been doing this for a while, but I thought maybe it was an issue with having a low battery. No such luck; the battery was fine when this picture was taken. I have to sit patiently and wait for it to clear and then try to snap my picture before it gets all pink and wiggly again. As you can see, I failed in the picture to the right.

We’ve had our little Canon Elph SD100 for several years now and it’s always worked well. Hopefully it’ll hang in there a little longer and we can use it until it doesn’t run anymore. Just like we do our cars!

The Awesome? My dad and his friend Ellyn. After my mini-freakout the other day, they volunteered to come over and watch Emily tonight so that Steve and I could go out. Right now we’re thinking we’ll go see Juno, depending on when showtimes are. Really, though, just getting out to go anywhere is a blessing. Thanks so much, Dad and Ellyn!

Time to go out and run all the errands that keep the household running semi-smoothly. Later, y’all!

ETA: Serenity earrings, actual size. They’re for a teenager. 🙂

At left: pumpkin pancakes make things better.

At right: “Only takes one ball of yarn” my eye.

You remember I posted a few days ago asking for suggestions for moisturizers? Well, took matters into her own hands. Look at what I got in the mail! It’s a Burt’s Bees Hand Repair Kit! Yay! It comes with Shea Butter Hand Repair Creme, Beeswax & Banana Hand Creme, Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme, and a pair of cotton gloves with bees on them. Too cool.

So far I’ve used the beeswax and banana creme and the lemon butter cuticle creme. The beeswax and banana creme really does smell like bananas. I felt like I was slathering pudding on my hands, in a good way. The smell quickly vanished, and it really does feel great. I love the way the lemon butter cuticle stuff smells too. Mmmm… lemons.

Thanks again, !

I was zipping along confidently on the Shedir hat without bothering to look at the pattern. My overconfidence was my undoing, as I apparently purled two stitches together at one point when I wasn’t looking and didn’t notice it for four rows. D’oh! I did a passable fix with a crochet hook. Unfortunately, passable isn’t perfect, and it was bothering me, so I decided I had to rip back and fix it properly. Let me tell you, with all the cables, this hat is a pain in the neck to un-knit. I’ve gone past the mistake and am ready to starting knitting forward again, but I’ve lost a lot of enthusiasm for this project. Doesn’t really matter, though, it has to be done, so I’ll suck it up and keep going.

Yesterday’s hair got more and more questionable as the day went on, finally degenerating into a Peter Tork style pageboy by bedtime. Today it looks like… well, it looks like I need a haircut. Back to square one. I want my 2006 hair back!

On the other hand, perhaps complaining about my hair while knitting a chemo cap is a bit ungrateful. So I’ll live with it for now, and be happy for what I’ve got.

Folks took me up on the Donors Choose challenge to the tune of $315 smackers, so I think I’ll keep it rolling a while longer. I’m thrilled that this has worked out so well.

I realized there’s an “art to wear” badge for Brownies, meaning if we string our shrinky dinks on a piece of yarn, we’re filling part of a Try-It requirement.

Shedir’s about halfway done. It’s going much faster than the last one. I’m doing it entirely without a cable needle, which is new for me. It’s always good to learn new things. I did notice a mistake two rows back… but let’s not think about that until after breakfast.

The weather forecast includes possible snow flurries by tonight, and I always get excited about snow. To celebrate, if time permits, I think I’ll make myself pumpkin pancakes.

I’ve got so much to do, and about a million packages to mail out, but still. Wishes are horses, and I’m eating steak today!

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!

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!

Finished up Shedir! Details under cut.

Hi, Jesus! Long time no see!

You remember that thing you did a while back with the loaves and fishes? Do you do that with yarn? Because I’m getting awfully close to the end, and I bought this yarn a long time ago so I don’t know if I can get more in the same dye lot, and I’m really nervous about how tight this is going to be.

If you could just kind of make about 20 more yards appear at the end of my skein, that’d be great. Ten yards, even, I don’t want to be greedy.

Thanks for your consideration,
Tvini

Yesterday I wove in ends on Branching Out from Knitty. It’ll still need to be blocked. Blocking will give it a little length, but it’s meant to be shortish. However, the person it’s going to is also short, so it all works out just fine. Will post pics when it’s been blocked to its final glory.

In an effort to get a little of my hat-knitter cred back, I worked on Shedir (also from Knitty) and have started the decreases for the crown. This is a great pattern. It’s not exactly mindless knitting, at least for me, but it does only use one ball of Rowan Calmer, and it feels very soft and springy. It’s designed as a chemo cap, but my only friend in chemo no longer needs a scalp-hugger. Now, see, , if you weren’t so inconsiderate as to regrow your own hair, I might have given this to you. Instead, I think I’ll keep it. Nyah.

I may finish this hat tonight, and start back up with commission work tomorrow. The Sci-Fi network is running a Firefly marathon on Monday, Sept 18th, which may mean a little uptick in orders. Got to be fresh for more Jayney goodness!

Time to turn in, but I haven’t updated in a couple of days, so the high points!

Yarn and knitting