Guitar Hero

So I finished† the Guitar Hero Sweater,‡ only a month late.§

[SUMMARY: Go AntiM! Take your excuses with you!]






It looks lovely and serene sitting there on the hanger, doesn't it? But we all know you can't get the real sense of a guitar sweater without seeing it on its intended owner.

[SUMMARY: Quiet moments are fleeting.]

Tallest, Hairiest Nephew¶ knows the rules established long ago by his father: you have to take one nice picture...




...so you can get to the squirrely shot.#




My favourites may be the unguarded moments, like when the nephew is concentrating REALLY HARD†† on the solo from "Come As You Are."‡‡




[SUMMARY: It's hard to pose when you're focusing that hard.]


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): If you don't count the fact that I had to take it back and make the sleeves looser and longer, which only took a couple of hours.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): And posting it, posting knitting, just like I promised last week when I was begging money. A good saint-in-waiting always keeps her promises.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): I had a hand injury and the sun was in my eyes and it didn't get cold enough for a sweater until last week anyway.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Now that the mohawk is gone, he's back to Tallest and Hairiest.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Totally punk, no?

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I can't believe he missed the tongue-sticking-out gene.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): He has the hook totally nailed, but the solo takes his undivided attention.

Tuesday, Tuesday... la laa la l-la laaaaaa

I played hooky yesterday. It was marvelous.

For some reason, sitting around knitting and reading and communing with the North 40 is just so much better when I realise Hans is in the office working.

*************

You know what those 13 little stars mean... we're going to lick the pig!

*************

This is not my story to tell, but I feel I must relate it anyway.† Many of you don't know Mary Beth and most of you weren't there when she was telling it. I feel I would be remiss if I didn't spread the word.

Wherever you live, there's a good chance the question of urban chicken coops has come up recently. I thought it was that way in Denver because of recent changes to city ordinances, but it turns out it's just part of this big push toward organic self-sufficiency.

Anyway, Mary Beth is going to raise chickens. Which takes a lot of paperwork and governmental meddling.

First, she had to be issued the application from Community Planning and Development and Neighborhood Inspection Services. The completed application was then filed with Animal Control.

Somewhere in here, she bult a chicken coop which apparently rivals the Ritz Carlton and Mary Beth wants to move into it herself and maybe let the chickens have the run of her house.

Animal Control did a home visit to see that the chickens would be clean, comfortable and pest-free. She was approved for six chickens, a feat only slightly less bureaucratically arduous than fostering a human child.

THEN she paid $50 for a chicken permit.‡

Finally, she ordered -- I love this part -- an assortment of chicks.% Which come by post. From mypetchicken.com.

Getting on the Internet and ordering the six chicken assortment and "mypetchicken-dot-com" made me so happy. Some days, just knowing things *exist* out there is totally happy-making.

*************

You will all be delighted to know the sleeves of the guitar sweater for TFN's birthday are on their holders§ and I'm roaring down the sweater body with speed and something approaching accuracy.

Intarsia also makes me happy.¶ Frankly, I'm usually not that big on the look of a lot of it, but it's engaging knitting, the kind where time flies.

*************

I'm beginning to think the new Big Girl Phone may be too much phone for me.

I'm wondering if I want to be *that* connected. Ah, well. I signed a contract. I'll live with it for a couple of years and probably become one of those asshole people who can't leave her phone alone for two minutes and insists on texting at her own wedding.#

It does take nice pictures, doesn't it?

*************

My father is getting married August 22nd. I am in charge of two things: the music for the wedding itself†† and the food‡‡ for the "bachelor party"§§ the night before.

I'm kinda hoping I get some ripe tomatoes from my garden before then.¶¶

*************

Speaking of gardening, did you know cucumbers don't put out big root systems? They have to be watered more frequently than, say, tomatoes or peppers because they won't go looking for the water, you have to take the water to them.##

This was a lesson hard-learned. I lost many baby cucumbers††† before I read that particular bit of cucumber wisdom.

*************

[SARAH! DON'T LOOK! AVERT YOUR EYES!]

Hammacher-Schlemmer apparently heard from my nephews about my spider preferences. They sent me an email about this today.




I'm assuming Batman is posing under the spider arbour rather than Spiderman because he's better colour-coordinated...?

*************

No. 4: Diagonal - Gareth Pugh & Emilie Coppermann (Part 4 in the series)@

Marin says: Dill! Seconds of dill, then off to a very close-to-the-skin, very warm woody scent that could be a spice or richer floral tempered by a delicate amber. I certainly like it, which is good since nobody else is likely to know it's there.

For the record, I put this on mid-afternoon and the next morning I still had a very steady amber/musk finish clinging to my wrists. This would be great for long meeting days when I don't necessarily want to be remembered for my perfume, but I may still need surreptitious sniff during water breaks to boost morale.

Six Scents says: "Contrast, ambiguity, duality. Gareth Pugh said about his style: "it's a struggle between lightness and darkness." this is what I tried to translate in this perfume. The contrast between different raw materials, masculine and feminine, rough and smooth, dark and light, fresh and sensual." - Emilie Coppermann, Perfumer

Ingredients: Dill,$ Black Pepper, Nutmeg, Palissander, Black Tea, Amyris, White Amber,$ Musk.$

Hans says: Well, now, that smells like some kind of food. Mushroom? Fried mushroom? Actually, it doesn't smell like mushroom at all, but I'm sticking with it.

*************

Speaking of Hans, he went to his college roommate's wedding this weekend. The photographer had a ring of lights thing set up, so the wedding guests took turns seeing who could take the best cheesy prom photo.



I believe Hans and Trav‡‡‡ win.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): If nothing else, it's the foundation for this whole pig-licking and I couldn't very well leave it out.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Annual. $50 a year for a chicken permit. You have to pay $50 every year for your chicken permit. By "you," I mean, "Mary Beth." I just love saying "chicken permit."

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Apparently, chicks can live without food through the first 72 hours after they hatch so they can be packed up in boxes and mailed.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): In the grand tradition of circus knitting, I am going to attempt to knit both sleeves at once on two circular needles, in situ. I see no reason it can't be done. Speaking of circus knitting, did you see some guy at Sock Summit was knitting seven pairs at once? Hmph. Been there, done that -- way ahead of you, big guy. I guess if SOME OF US had just gutted up and gone to Sock Summit, we could be famous for our Xtreme Knitting too.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): And intarsia in the round makes me feel like a superhero.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): This is not an immediate danger, just an example.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): The temptation to abuse this power is fierce. I could do two hours of very pointed songs. I won't, of course... the Electric Slide will almost undoubtedly feature, but I *could* propagandise.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I'm thinking a couple of homemade pizzas, a big ol' salad, some finger food in case a poker game breaks out and a cherry pie made from cherries I picked myself. Hi! Remember me? Susie F. Homemaker?

§§FOOTNOTE (backhanded bachelor party): In quotes because, as Brother said, "You have to have some kind of activity, but clearly we won't be making the bachelor do shots of Jager until he barfs, and the standard substitutes (like paintball) probably won't work..." There will, of course, be no naked girls. Or boys. Or porn of any kind. So it's not so much a bachelor party as a "get Dad from underfoot so the evil stepsister doesn't kill him before the wedding" gig.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (round, ripe tomatoes on the vine): Not quite so much because I'm looking for quality ingredients as I'd like to show off.

##FOOTNOTE (cucumber trellis): Thank you, Dr. Science!

†††FOOTNOTE (stake the cucumbers!): Very sad -- they go dark brown and crispy.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): You should go check out Nathan's pictures of the packaging. Kinda freaky, in a skully-good sort of way.

$FOOTNOTE (on the money!): And if I weren't so lazy at the moment, I'd Google "palissander" to see if it might qualify as "woody."

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (long and winding road): Trav is a friend of the groom's from out of town. Hans found him delightful.

A Tale of Three Sweaters

I figure I should leap in after a prolonged absence with knitting. 'Cause knitting still makes it all better, right?

[SUMMARY: Behold the awesome power of knitting.†]

So I checked with eBeth on what the Tallest Fuzziest‡ Nephew might like, knit-wise, for his ninth birthday.§

He loved the sweater last year, so I'm making him a new one this year. This time, I'm going raglan so I don't have to block and piece and sew and be an hour late to dinner again.

This:



is the graphic from a bag in Greetings From the Knit Café, which I've turned on end and graphed for the sweater. In a fit of creative malaise, I'm going with roughly the same colours in Cascade 220.¶

Turns out kids' sizing is a little weird. Or my pattern sizing was a little weird. Or maybe a charming amalgam# of the two.

To make a long story short, I ended up knitting a 34" chest, which seems ENORMOUS, vis-a-vis my makes-Kate-Moss-look-like-a-Russian-women's-shotput-champion nephew.

The first time I cast on, I did it under the auspices of a size 12, which is a 28" chest on my chart.

So I frogged.

[SUMMARY: Say goodbye to Sweater One.%]

I cast on again, placing my B markers for the center front increases and my A markers for the raglan sleeve increases. I roared through seven inches of sweater by Sunday evening.

[SUMMARY: I have superpowers.††]

The growing smugness I felt at having mastered some version of intarsia in the round‡‡ should've been a BIG clue as to where my hubris was leading me.§§

When I picked it up Monday evening, I heard a tiny *ping*, a delicate warning bell somewhere in the back of my head.

I knit a round.

*ping*

I knit another.

*PING"

I mused as to why one would remove the B markers, per the instructions, when one still had to do the raglan increases every other round...

*PINGDAMNIT!*

That was the sound of me finally realising I'd been increasing at the B markers for the raglan and ignoring the raglan sleeve increases entirely. One-fourth of a sweater... unusable.

[SUMMARY: Ask not for whom the brain pings.]

So I frogged it, a much harder task with two balls¶¶ and a couple of intarsia strands hanging around.

Last night, I cast on for the last time.##

[SUMMARY: Say hello to Sweater Three.]

If this one doesn't work out, the kid is getting a potholder.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): And pay no attention to the Marin behind the curtain!

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): He shaved off the mohawk. I told him he has to stop changing hairstyles now so I don't have to find a new name for him every week. First person who points out the folly of using wild and mutable hair as the basis for a lasting nickname gets it in the nose.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): August 29.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Superwash, of course. Providing hand-wash-only sweaters for a nine-year-old is a good way to never be invited back.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): This is my favourite word today: amalgam.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Which was going to happen anyway, because I'd just realised I had, for the first time in my entire knitting career, TWISTED THE STITCHES WHEN I JOINED IN THE ROUND. This sweater is cursed.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): When the radioactive kitten bit me (which really happened, other than the radioactive part... probably), I really was hoping for the ability to climb drapes or lick my own ears or even just sleep wherever I wanted. I guess if some fascination for string is the extent of it, at least I'm no worse off than I was before.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Actually, doing intarsia in the round successfully makes me feel like a superhero.

§§FOOTNOTE (the twisting vines of hubris): One's hubris can get one in such trouble.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (two balls... heheheh): *Beavisgiggle*

##FOOTNOTE (two pounds - my head hitting the wall and the wall hitting my head): Other than realising when I joined in the round after the neck increases I forgot to cast on the other 13 stitches... but I don't think I'll have to frog for that. Just go back a couple of rows. This sweater is definitely cursed.