('specially my darling Canadians. Just 'cause you don't celebrate for the same reasons doesn't mean you shouldn't celebrate the 4th of July. Or Wednesday. Go have a drink.)
Let's see...
Got a spectacular dress for the Big Brown Shindig,† got my first little blue Tiffany box at said Shindig,‡ danced like a fiend, got to the office at 7:30,§ had an 80-minute massage at 10:00 and went home.
And got ready for the giant cap to the 40 days and 40 nights, which required a LOT of shopping¶ and cleanup. And building of patio furniture.
But I got it all done, despite all procrastination efforts to the contrary.
Many, many people came, there was more than enough food, I was loved and didn't drink much at all. How in the hell did that happen?
Sunday was our family dinner to celebrate my birthday. Sis-in-law not only purchased a large quantity of yarn from my gift registry# at Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack, she shepherded two very ill-behaved, very destructive nephews†† through the yarn buying process. I maintain the yarn fumes got to them.
Sis-in-law told the boys to pick out yarn they would like for a scarf and AntiM would knit the scarves for them.
Tallest, hairiest nephew picked this§§:
Crystal Palace Popcorn in Oranges-Cherries
It has been weird to knit so far. The ball band says, "wide range of gauges alone or as a knit-along yarn." Thinking I was being smart, I chose a needle about the same size as the popcorn bits.¶¶ I cast on until it looked... well, it looked like it was going to be about six inches wide, but I was using size 13 needles and there were already twenty stitches, so I threw caution to the wind and started swatching.## And ended up with something that appeared destined to slipcover the Mini. So I frogged.
Frogging popcorn? (*snarf*) Not so easy. Basic physics.
So I changed to size 11 needles and cast on ten stitches and swatched for a bit and came up with something that appeared destined to slipcover a toothpick. So I frogged.
No easier the second frog around.
The Popcorn rests for the moment. I will cast on fifteen later today and see how that pans out.
This is the yarn Dr. Doom picked out:
Muench Big Baby in Rainbow
Though Sis-in-law confided she wasn't sure it was actually his *favourite* per se, she was pretty sure it was the one he tore apart so she had to buy it so that's what his scarf would be made of.
Lucky Dr. Doom. It just so happens my friend Dave became the proud father to a (Nine! Pound! Six! Ounce!) baby girl (though with those stats, she may be older than we think) and I've dearly wanted to do the Big Baby feather-and-fan in those pretty girl colours for so long... so I told Sis-in-law I'd simply buy the appropriate number of rainbow balls††† for the new baby girl and find a more masculine colourway for Dr. Doom. I got him purples:
Sis-in-Law got me ten balls (all Sylvia had) of this:
Louisa Harding Fauve in #3 Ecru
With the welcome disclaimer that I could switch for a different colour. 'Cause AntiM don't do white all that well. It'd get all grubby while I was knitting it, then I'd get ketchup on it seconds after finishing the sweater. I'm thinking a pretty teal.
DK nation got me ten balls of this:
Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran in #6 Grass Green
Yummy, yummy, softsoftsoft. And such a pretty green.
Funny little side story: I wore just about nothing but black for, oh, fifteen years. I can still hear my college boyfriend saying, "It wouldn't hurt you to wear a colour once in awhile."
"What, you want me to wear a fuzzy pink sweater?" (utter disdain of all things pink and/or fuzzy in my tone.‡‡‡)
"Pink would be nice!" (exasperated)
Ah, if he could see me now.
Anyway...
Adding to this my personal procurement based on the giant bonus I got and my birthday discount from Sylvia, and I may have, in the last week, reached SABLE point.
No. NO. NONONO!!!
What am I saying?!
Not for years.
Or many more balls of yarn. Hanks of yarn. Skeins of yarn. SCADS of yarn.
That was just the FORTY talking.
You can stop laughing now. I may be old, but I'm not deaf yet.
I told you last week I got the lovely, lovely package from Crafty Fool, my beloved Secret Pal, and here it is:
Love the card:
Love the package (including, L-ish to R-ish: a brown photo album embroidered with paisleys perfect for project photos, CHOCOLATE,§§§ "Punk Knits," [long on my list], grow-your-own-vacation, YARN, patterns, Purell-on-a-keychain, a rose pendant and magnetic paper clips and notecards.)
Let's zoom in on a couple of items, shall we?
For anyone thinking of participating in the Secret Pal thing, I highly recommend the pattern and yarn thing. It's certainly not how I shop,¶¶¶ and that in itself makes it novel. But it also compels me to try new stuff (like knitting sweaters, which I'd always wanted to do but stalled out until Secret Pal sent the Green Gables kit my way. Yes, I'm still knitting it. Sleeve one is almost done and sleeve two shouldn't take too long. I know this is a very long parenthetic phrase, but I'm starting to get embarrassed over the state of my footnotes).
And for those of you scoring at home, Bag Lady Kathryn of the Drunken Knitters was with me when I met my NEW NEIGHBOUR today. I am SO EXCITED! Know why? That's right! 'Cause she's NOT THE MALE LADY!
Welcome to the neighbourhood, Nicki. Don't ever let anyone tell you you aren't the most beautiful thing in the townhomes.
†FOOTNOTE (crossed): 1) if I do say so myself, and 2) I call it my Hogwarts dress because it was way bigger inside than out. When I saw it on the hanger, I knew it was a size four they'd accidentally mis-marked. It not only fit, it was comfy.
Oh, and I bought a pair of Cole Haan peep-toe pumps with Nike Air technology in them. Gravity still wasn't on my toes's side, but they were ridiculously comfortable for all that.
And kinda "fuck me."
‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I always figured my first Tiffany box would come to me either from the hands of a passionate suitor or via one of those "fuck you, I'm doing for me," right-hand ring acts of self-congratulation.
I never figured it'd be at a corporate dinner.
§FOOTNOTE (swerved): It was so quiet even the crickets were listening for crickets.
¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): What do you do when you've filled up one shopping cart at Costco and you still think you need more?
#FOOTNOTE (pounded): All LYSs should have gift registries.
††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Sorry Sylvia! They're usually pretty good! Even Dr. Doom!
§§FOOTNOTE (very curvy): I stole all the yarn pictures off the web. My camera battery just died.
¶¶FOOTNOTE (how many paragraphs does one footnote need?): I may not be able to count to four, but I like to think my grasp of basic physics is pretty solid. Solid! Ha! Pun!
##FOOTNOTE (pounded all to hell): The kind of swatch that becomes a scarf if it turns out OK. Y'all know.
†††FOOTNOTE (triple-crossed? Really? Is this a record?): Rainbow balls. Heheheheh. I'm four and I'm a pervert.
‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (triple double!): For those of you Buffy fans out there, kinda like when Bizarro-World willow came to Buffy's Sunnydale and when she saw Willow's pink daisy sweater, she said, "Oh, look. I'm fuzzy." Same tone.
§§§FOOTNOTE (can you handle the curves?): Um... there used to be much more chocolate, but, um... well, I had a lot of housecleaning and patio furniture building and sometimes that goes smoother if I have a Scooby snack now and then. *ahem*
¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (dear gods, when will the paragraphs end?): How I shop for knitting usually takes the form of either, "Ooooh! Pretty book! Buy! Find yarn later!" or "Ooooh! Pretty yarn! Buy! Find pattern later!" While the former certainly works better than the latter (and facilitates LYS gift registry), neither one makes me make girl noises the way having the yarn and the pattern show up together does.
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