Sylvia's Last Stand

Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack is no more. The last truck took its last load this morning.

Posh will forever be the place I found knitters. People to knit with. Social knitting. Competitive knitting. Supportive knitting. Showing off knitting.




Women who can always be counted on to ooh and aah over Nathan's package.†

[SUMMARY: It's fibrelicious!‡]

Posh will forever be the place I learned about mail order chickens§ from Marybeth.




Without Posh, I might still be knitting endless scarves every football season¶... and endless baby blankets in the spaces in between.

I might never have met Bonnie# or Kate†† or Leslie...




...or (gods forbid) Genius Sarah. Who would hit me on the arm and say, "I have a question," all the way through baseball playoffs and untangle my yarn for me when I got too eager and couldn't wait until I got home to winder and swift and muddled it all up at Drunken Knitting?




Or Meg. Meg of the Mini Cooper and the motorcycle and the intense, funny intelligence. Or Heather, whose baby shower continued my knack for walking in on big, happy Posh parties.




Or Leslie, self-professed skincare whore and funny, erudite knitting writer.




Or Natalie, who makes me spit wine out my nose laughing.




Or Liza-Spelled-Lisa who accidentally got married, then accidentally adopted a second child.




Or Rosie who loves perfume, or Ligia who is an Capital-E-Educator and lives around the corner from me.




[SUMMARY: These are the people in my neighbourhood.‡‡]

It's the end of a soft, many-plied, colourful, beautiful era.

XOXOXOXO, Sylvia. It'll be sad knowing I can't just drop by on a random Friday afternoon.

See you around.

[SUMMARY: *sniffle*]

Don't ask how much I spent at the moving sale.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Oh, look what I did. Now he feels violated and I feel twelve. heheheheheh

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): And I'm not just talking about Nathan's package.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Thus continues the Summer of the Chickens. By the way, Marybeth says the chickens would, indeed, look fetching in sweater vests, but if we want to knit them we have to do it fast -- and I'm guessing not get too attached to the results -- because the chicks have already doubled in size.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): College boyfriends, high school friends, roommates... nobody was safe from the annual football scarf, twelve feet long, double-thick and ten inches wide. heheheheh. Sorry... had a moment.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Who is new, but noteworthy and has, in fact, cut her hair since this photo (just in case you see her around town).

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Who talks more than I do and gets captioned in the footnotes for it.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Y'know... my *spiritual* neighbourhood. The family you choose. The next-door neighbours of my soul. People who certainly deserve better photography than I've given them here.

Lorenzo Saves a Barfly

Some days, a meme is just what I need.

Structure.

Guidance.

Further validation† of my presence on the innernets.

The Honest Scrap Award is simple:

Say 10 honest things about yourself, pass it on to seven people. Lorenzo Laurie tagged me.

Now, Laurie's cat was the honest scrap in her blog. Does this mean, I wondered, that I should have Quill, the Cat for Scale, do this? Or should I do it?‡

Being much like King Solomon,§ I decided to do five Quill honest scraps and five me honest scraps. The lucky souls I tag can interpret the rules any way they choose.

Quill:

1. Despite the fact that I regularly rake the door jamb of the powder room, my claws are too long.

2. I can't eat canned food without getting a whole glob of it on my nose.

3. I don't get the fascination with yarn, but circular needles are the best kitty toy ever.

4. She makes me jump for treats. Secretly, I like it.

5. I'm mostly deaf, so I can't hear when you say, "No!"

Marin:

1. Despite the fact that I regularly chip them on work files, knitting, spontaneously while driving... my claws are too long.

2. I can't eat lunch without leaving a memento of the occasion on my shirt.¶

3. I don't know why anybody would knit with anything but circular needles. They're the best knitting invention ever.

4. I pretend that making the cat jump for treats is a training exercise. Secretly, I feel wicked# doing it.

5. I am fully capable of slipping into a knitting-/reading-/thinking-/gazing-induced trance, so I can't hear you when you say, "No!"

OK, who wants it? Nathan -- take a break from perfumery? Tani†† -- you never do any of these things. Jayne -- ditto. Patrick would be funny if he actually did it, but will probably sneer at the whole idea of being tagged. Ally, we haven't done this in the longest time. Sylvia can answer for the House of Fuzzy Crack‡‡ if she wants. And... The Pollyannas.§§


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Something I need deeply and on a daily basis.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Know how I have a book problem? Some of my book problem is a subset of my research problem. If I can't be a saint by the time I die, my Plan B is to know everything. So, yeah, I researched the issue.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): In my own mind.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Horizontal surface, dontcha know.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): And sometimes a little guilty. He's 18 -- I probably have no non-sadistic reason for trying to make any an old cat learn any new tricks.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Whose blog is a biiiiig secret.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): If I can do my fuzzy-wuzzy, she can do her fuzzy-wuzzy.

§§FOOTNOTE (two Pollyannas in one!): Who I am now conveniently counting as one, but who can do a tag-team response, maybe including their respective cats.

Sticks 'n' Stitches 'n' Nephews 'n' Bitches

It was a busy weekend, what with angsting over missing mail and all.†

[SUMMARY: Got your bitches right here.]

Mostly, you're getting pictures. I shot my blabber wad‡ on bitching about the USPS. And, as always, 1 picture = 1000 words.§

Saturday, I played the role of sole volunteer to Mya's Queen of this year's Sticks 'n' Stitches.¶

Sylvia# and her two boys came...




...Brother and Dr. Doom each brought a friend††...




...and people knit.‡‡




[SUMMARY: Still a knitblog!]

Oh, yeah. There was hockey too...




...and quite a bit of it,§§ but the Avs didn't win.¶¶

Hey! You know what else is in the greater downtown area?






How long has it been since we had a good, old-fashioned crane slurp?##

Tomorrow: What I did on Super Bowl Sunday (abridged)†††


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): If your yarn was missing, you'd angst too.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): *giggle* Blabber wad. It's fun to say and it sounds funny. Blabber wad.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Over 6000 words today alone. That's dedication to the cause.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Next year, I will be in charge.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Knitting related.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I didn't get pictures of their friends.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): And I took blurry photos of them.

§§FOOTNOTE (double toe loop!): Seven goals between the two teams.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (club footed hockey players): Damned Ducks have always had our number. And by "our," I mean, "the Avalanche's"

##FOOTNOTE (like girder frames soaring high): Too long, far too long.

†††FOOTNOTE (holy...): For the sake of the children and several political careers.

Long Time No

A B C D knitter?

L M N O knitter.

S M R a knitter.

C D yarn?

[SUMMARY: Paraphrasing.]

You'd think I wasn't diligently knitting every night and planning social events around Tuesday's Drunken Knitting and Saturday morning's Reveille Knitting.† You'd think I hadn't seen a new skein of yarn since the old year.

No, no. I understand. It's my fault and I take full responsibility. But despite all appearances, I've been busy as a beaver‡ behind the scenes.

F'rinstance, I'm almost through my stint as a Black Bunny Fibers yarn club member. Perhaps you remember the purple laceweight from a couple of months ago. Well, there have been two installments since then:




Black Bunny Chunky 100% Falkland wool in a vibrant turquoise semi-solid called Icicle.§ The above is a little over-exposed, but a surprisingly close representation of the colour in real life. If you average the vibrancy above with the variegation below, you've got a pretty good idea.




We had a white elephant exchange at one of the hundred and twelve office Christmas parties last month and I snagged Apollo here. My bust may not be as big as Franklin's,¶ but I think it's as artistically viable.#

I plan to knit stuff for it.††

Anyway... more yarn:




Isn't it pretty? Its colour name is Restoration. Look at those browns and purples and corals in with that nice New England red.




Nearly 500 yards of 75/25 superwash wool/polyamide. Appropriately enough, I'll probably use it for one of the patterns from Carol Jean's‡‡ latest publication.§§

[SUMMARY: It's Carol Sulcowski Thursday.]

Well, until we get to the FO part of the post.

Here is my sheep-like, follow-the-herd contribution to the Cult of the Stripe:




I call it the Chypre Scarf, in honour of my recent education¶¶ in both the ways## and pronunciations††† of the perfume category known as chypre.‡‡‡

Let's see... 1.5 skeins each Noro Silk Garden numbers 239 and 249 on Size 7 needles.

It still needs to be washed and blocked,§§§ but the knitting and weaving parts are all complete. When all is said and done, it will be 5.5 or 6 inches wide and a little over six feet long.

I couldn't be happier with the subtle, elegant flow of colours. I was paralysed by choice at the Noro rack at Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack, but Kris jumped in and helped me and she is my hero for the day.

[SUMMARY: I get by with a little help from my friends.]

I'm still working on the Purple Prose scarf,¶¶¶ started a Baby Surprise Jacket### and hope to begin a six-at-once sock-knitting experiment in the near future. I am also the volunteer for Sticks 'n' Stitches again this year.††††

[SUMMARY: Still a knitblog!]

Today's offering was brought to you by the letters DK and FO, and by the numbers 239, 249 and 7.

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

Today's perfume review started out to be Fracas by Robert Piguet. Because my brain is about two hours behind the rest of me until after noon, I forgot I have two versions of this perfume (the original and the current), which I purposely got so I could do a compare-and-contrast review of it. Them. Whatever.

So I'm going to hold off, but I thought it might be an interesting educational bit for those who have never thought of it: many perfumes go through numerous changes in their lifetimes. A 1940 vintage Joy may be entirely different -- almost unrecognisable -- from its 2009 namesake.

This is due in part to availability and price of components, but also because some ingredients have been found to be allergens or toxins as time and science go by. Coming from the other end of that road, strictures have become tighter on what exactly constitutes a toxin or an allergen.

If Chanel No. 5 or Mitsouko just doesn't smell like it did when your mother wore it when you were a child, it's not necessarily just you -- it could actually be a whole new scent.

[SUMMARY: Time changes things, perfume is fleeting, I may find this way more interesting than you do.]


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Not its official name. That's what I call it because it gets me out of bed before noon on Saturday. Besides, it sounds like "Ravelry" and that's kinda cool.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Easy, Kim.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Or maybe Icicles. I don't know if Carol planned on one icicle or many icicles when she started that project.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Yeah, it's a link to Carol's blog, but her picture of Franklin's bust was readily available. And it's not totally inapt since we are talking about Carol and awful lot.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Without the pictures, that's a marvelously strange sentiment.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I am just that kind of dork. When I was in the sixth grade, I knit a matching scarf and fin-cap set for a rubber shark. I have *always* been just that kind of dork.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Yes, I call her Carol Jean. She knows me mostly as the dink who couldn't press the right PayPal button, yet I feel comfortable enough to call her Carol Jean. Come to think of it, I'm not sure where I got the Jean. Hell, her middle initial may not even be J.

§§FOOTNOTE (back to Carol Jean): Thus:




¶¶FOOTNOTE (little graduates, all in a row): Thanks to a very patient Nathan, who didn't laugh directly at me even once.

##FOOTNOTE (pounding it into my thick skull): Like where it's Cyprus, not cypress. There's a big difference -- totally different directions.

†††FOOTNOTE (put a tack in that one): Sheep-er or Sheep-ra, as opposed to "chai-per," which is what I was saying prior.

1) Isn't that a nice pun for a knitted object?
2) Sheep-ra, Princess of Power! I've wanted to do that for ages.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (thinking outside the boxes): Usually with citrus and usually a woody note usually from oakmoss, plus amber and sometimes sandalwood. It's not hard science.

§§§FOOTNOTE (swish it in the water...): Just a little blocking. Mostly to disquise the lumpy bits on the edges from carrying new yarn up the side.

¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (one step forward, two steps back): I finished 12 of 16 repeats... then frogged back to 10. I finished 10 and 11 and am now gathering strength to go back to the beginning of 10 again. I've actually knit seven Purple Prose scarves. It's just that they didn't all make it out of childhood.

###FOOTNOTE (bam!bam!bam!): For not-evil future stepsister-in-law.

††††FOOTNOTE (dear gods, it's four): Day game on Saturday, January 31st. You don't have to knit or crochet, but it couldn't hurt. Get your tickets!

Secret Pal 12 Question 13...

...and, um, 14 through 17, apparently.

If you were told you could never again buy yarn, would would your last yarn purchase be?

Sheesh, I dunno. The anxiety I feel over that question† is somewhat mitigated by the comfort of knowing just how much yarn I have at home.‡

I'm not sure what the spirit of the question is -- do the PTB want to know what one single yarn I would buy? Or just how excessive and/or logical I would become?

If someone said, "Marin, all the yarn shops are closing tomorrow and they wouldn't take your money anyway," I'd buy a bunch of laceweight§ -- probably some nice alpaca and cashmere¶; a bunch of sweaters' worth# of nice wool and Therapi††; Shibui, Noro and Red Rocks Fiber Works sock yarn.

If you were told you could never knit again, what would be the last thing you’d knit??

I'd probably tackle a big, gorgeous lace shawl with an edging and all kinds of stuff I've been reading about but never got around to.

In a given year, how many times do you buy yarn?

There is no way to answer that question. My yarn-buying habits have no rhyme, reason, season or schedule. Which makes them not habits, I guess.

Who thought up this question? Do you know anyone who can answer that effectively?‡‡

And what is your favorite place to buy yarn from? A festival? A shop? Online? Dish your favorite places!§§

Knit Picks and Elann for when I need basic yarns.¶¶ Posh## for almost everything else, with the occasional forays into Knit/Purl or etsy shops for exotic yarn that makes me feel good 'cause it shows up in the mail and makes going to the mailbox worthwhile.

Lastly, with Fall in full swing in many areas, what is the one thing you look forward to most?

Pumpkins.

Pumpkin bread, pumpkin beer, pumpkin pie, pumpkin spices, pumpkin seeds, jack o' lanterns...
*************

We slacked off ever so slightly last week, but we did our push up assessment and I did 24@ good push ups.%

Of course, my partner in crime did thirty-fucking-five first round of the third week when she only had to do twenty-five... show off.^

Competition may be good for some of us. I plan to do thirty-five in my last set tonight just to show her.&

*************
I actually have several perfumes saved up in my spreadsheet,††† all sniffed and sussed and ready to present to you.

Without further ado...

French Love - Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (Bewitching Brews, the Conjure Bag)

Marin says: Non-descript floral and very bright fruit. I'm going to stop saying "kool-aid" and find some other synthetic, neon fruit analog. Perhaps jello? There's always room for jello.‡‡‡

It gets considerably duller in the roll-out (such as it is),§§§ with a sweet, slightly powdery density... and still a hint of jello.

BPAL says: A warm, soft, sexual blend.¶¶¶ Sweet and alluring. Used to entice new lovers and add an aura of temptation and carnal sin to your environment.###

Hans says: That's pretty floral. And kinda like kool-aid.††††


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Why? What have you heard?

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Lots. Lots of yarn. So much it has its own replacement value under my contents insurance.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Big, fancy projects, satisfyingly large yardage numbers.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Thin should be elegant. If it's just thin for the sake of thin, it's like fucking an ironing board. Hmmmmm... maybe that doesn't apply to yarn as well as it does to people.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Sweaters are big projects and if I changed my mind, I could use the yarn for several scarves and hats.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Yarn of rocks!

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I don't want to meet that person. He or she is too tightly wound for my floppy little world.

§§FOOTNOTE (turn it around): This had two exclamation points. Drove me crazy. Journalism taught me the only reason to use multiple bangs is for comic effect. I don't think this is funny.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (one foot in front of the other): Solid colour, worsted weight, probably superwash.

##FOOTNOTE (goin' to the pound): Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): 24!

I know what I said about exclamation points. I have always been a self-serving grammar hypocrite.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): I am a complete stickler for form and distance. I think I did 27, but couldn't keep my butt out of the last three.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): Another tangent: I started giggling because my college boyfriend (oddly, the same one that used to use the ironing board line quoted above... it's a big day for the college boyfriend) used to say, "Show off! Do some push ups... it'll go away" whenever I'd best him on something. Yes, that's a dick joke.

&FOOTNOTE (ampersanded): Nyah-nyah-nyah.

†††FOOTNOTE (three! Three beautiful crosses! Mwahahahaha! *kkkchh* *EeeEeeEee*[lightning and bats - it works better in person]): Yes, there's a spreadsheet.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (I've been working on the railroad): Tangent: At a housewarming party this weekend, some of my old-line guy friends were talking about a guy's night out. Somewhere along the line, my name came up.

"Hey, if I'm invited, I'll be there."

"Of course," said Jack, "You're like jello. There's always room for Marin."

"Awww. That's really nice."

"Oh, he says that about you a lot," said Jen, Jack's wife. "Marin is like jello. We always have room for Marin."

Made my whole week.

§§§FOOTNOTE (180... 360... 540?): I'm fine-tuning my terminology. Not necessarily to fit terminology standards, but for my own thought process. See, most things you put on your wrist in the name of scent will change over time. Bits will fade. Some fade faster than other. I think of roll-out as an almost architectural exercise by the author of the perfume: it changes over time, but it is built to change -- probably in a particular way. It isn't just a matter of subtracting one note after the other until there's only the stickiest scent left. The oils tend to have that "survival of the fittest" deletion of elements, rather than what I think of as a true roll-out.

¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (footprints): WHAT?!

###FOOTNOTE (pound it... make it 'splode): At least you know why I bought it in the first place. I'm always looking to entice new lovers and add an aura of temptation and carnal sin to my environment.

††††FOOTNOTE (is this a record?): In case you think this has become overly-collaborative, there is a very strict code we follow in huffing scents: I grab a bunch of samples and put them on my desk at work. I pull those names from my spreadsheet and put them on a separate page with no notes or reviews to guide me. Hans and I pick from that list randomly. I put the stuff on and write my review. I take it to Hans and note his review. The object of the game is for both Hans and I to come up with our own uninfluenced assessments.

Sometimes, "kool-aid" is the only term that works.

Guess What?

TTHFCIF

Birthday Season continues.

Sylvia, purveyor of fuzzy crack, made this set of project bags of fabric she ordered just for me.

'Cause I'm special.†




Best. Birthday. Ever.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Not like "take the short bus to the yarn store" special. Special special.

I'll Have a Blue Christmas

Or Flag Day.

Or birthday.

Or 4th of July.

The blue rolls on.

[SUMMARY: Airless rut or unprecedented level of consistency? You decide.]

First, I've more or less made peace with the awful raffia silk. It's still splitty as a cheerleader, but I've had some practice and it's knitting pretty smoothly. It weighs about as much as an apple pip, but I have faith it will be a lovely accessory† when it's all done and blocked.




Have I mentioned lately how much I love lace? Something like this‡ is just interesting enough to be... interesting,§ but easy enough for TiVi.

Under the auspices of full disclosure, I should note that roughly three seconds after I snapped this shot, the ball of yarn bounded off its perch and bounced on the deck, rolling under the railing and into the rain gutter.

Could've been worse; could've fallen to the alley.

[SUMMARY: Optimist dork.]

Also? I'm working that second ball now.

[SUMMARY: And still twelve.]

I cast on Sunday night¶ -- yet another blue-ish thing -- for Sebring, by Dolce Handknits.#



The Drunken Knitters decided to KAL this... oh, probably two months ago. While I'm lagging, I know Bag Lady Kathryn was two rows in and ready to frog and Genius Sarah didn't like the gauge and was going to frog, so I may not be the wet blanket on the project it appeared I was going to be.




For the record, since this photo was taken, I have knit another six rounds.††

Also for the record, the pattern calls for 6.75 stitches/inch‡‡ and this gives me 6/in, so I went down to a small, which makes me inordinately happy, artificial though it may be.

Also for the record, that's Knit Picks Shine Sport, which I'm kinda loving, and that kinda scares me. It's cotton/modal. I have been pretty vocal about my dislike of plant fibres, but this one doesn't seem to be hurting my hands the way I'd anticipated.

[SUMMARY: Bonus!]

Also for the record?% I already made a mistake on the lace panel on one side, but I figure nobody will notice, so I ain't frogging.

You see why I had to put that after the "bonus!" gloat.

Next!

Following my usual MO,§§ I fondled this at Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack for about three months before settling on a pattern to justify its purchase:




Just in case you can't see the ongoing blue theme...




Another plant fibre, by the way, but a very interesting texture. Oddly silky for as bumpy as it looks. I'm just dying to see how it knits up.

I suspect the lace motif on the bottom of the tank will be mostly lost in the pebbly bits.

I suspect I don't care.

[SUMMARY: All about the journey.]

Some of you may recognise this as yarn the Harlot recently touted.

Thus, I assume some of you may be terribly jealous and impressed¶¶ at my next blue acquisition.

When I told Sylvia I was having surgery, she decided to give me an extra-special get well gift##:




What do Fiona Ellis,††† the Yarn Harlot and your dear ol' AntiM have in common?

Fiona Ellis has a skein.

The Yarn Harlot has a skein.

I have a skein.

You don't have any.

[SUMMARY: Nya-nya-n-nya-nahhhh.]

Y'all know how much I love exclusive, one-of-a-kind, limited edition, get-it-while-it's-hot stuff. More important, Sylvia knows how much I love exclusive, one-of-a-kind, limited edition, get-it-while-it's-hot stuff.

[SUMMARY: Usual MO.]

And I'm not counting this as fuss. Besides, if fuss comes in the form of silky wool, I may see if I can have open heart surgery next month.

SUMMARY: Still a knitblog!


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Cute Christopher, late of Patrick Carroll's (I'm sure we'll get to that story when he opens his new bar in July), dropped by last night and saw me knitting the fluffly little thing. "That's a for-looks scarf, isn't it? I'm from Minnesota. Scarves like that don't make much sense to me."

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): k1, yo *k3, k2tog, yo* k2tog... purl on the other side... all with a three-stitch knit selvedge

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Wow. Too many lolcats: "Interesting cat is interesting."

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): You may ask yourself, "How many blue projects does one knitter need?" You may ask yourself, "Where is my beautiful red?" You may ask yourself, "How did I get to this place?"

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Yeah, we love her touseled, provocative pose and snarly face too. There may be a mass snarly-touseled-provocative picture once we all finish our tanks.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): At 240 stitches per round, I want full credit.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): ?!?

%FOOTNOTE (percented): I have quite a record with this tank already.

§§FOOTNOTE (yo, k1, yo): Or is that redundant?

¶¶FOOTNOTE (I spy -- hey, they look like periscopes to me): Please?

##FOOTNOTE (all those extra pounds...): She also called me a brat for not telling her exactly when I was having surgery, but I can be pretty laid back about the name-calling in the presence of silk and wool. 'Specially blue silk and wool. She let me pick my own colour. I picked blue. Did I mention the blue phase?

†††FOOTNOTE (Arlington): Who did a sweater workshop at Syl's last weekend. Syl treats her celeb guests right. Y'know... like the Yarn Harlot, Fiona Ellis and me.

Blue Period†

Knitting. Ah, yes. Despite all lack of evidence, I still dance with yarn.

I've done a little picking on Brother's Father's Day Arrrgyles, deconstructing them so I can re-do them in a way that makes sense.

But it's not all about the tearing down. Or even the rebuilding.‡

I've been doing a little creating too.§

[SUMMARY: Not claiming god status, just proving I'm still a knitter.]

These little blue blobs¶ are Malabrigo Slippers from Coco Knits.

They are knit of Malabrigo# in... um... blue,†† size 8 needles. The pattern is pretty cool, with no seaming.

I can tell you from experience, however, that you can't put the toe of the upper over the heel of the sole and hope it will all work out.‡‡




As you can probably see, I haven't woven in the ends yet, and these could use a little blocking.§§ Also, I'm going to put the little acorn embellishment on them.¶¶ But you get the general idea.##




So that's one project.

[SUMMARY: Now on to the bonus round.]

Oh, dear. Sylvia is bad. In a good way. Bad for me. Sort of.

I just couldn't resist. It's Alchemy's Silken Straw.

I'm pretty sure a camera% can't do justice to the colour or the shiny.




It's absolutely stunning in person. It feels oddly like raffia††† -- dry and smooth, but not at all silky.

I bought it mostly because I was dying to see how it knits up.




[SUMMARY: Ass.]

It's pretty enough, but what a colossal pain. The tape structure completely disintegrates with the slightest handling, devolving into a dozen or so fine threads, each with a mind of its own.^

You can see one of the escapees in this picture.




Silken Straw and I started out on the wrong foot, granted.

I bought it from Syl on Drunken Knitting night,‡‡‡ along with size 5 Addis because I had to start knitting *right now*. Couldn't wait for a swift and a winder.§§§ So I laid the hank out neatly on the table and within minutes, I had embarked on an adventure in physics that defied patience.

I actually had to chew the yarn apart at one point because it had looped in on itself and somehow gotten spun one side between random, running silken threads...

But I finished. Ended up with two balls,¶¶¶ but I finished.

And I cast on.

As tight as I knit, the size 5 needles were too big. So I frogged it all and cast on with size 4 needles when I got home. I now speculate that the fours the yarn calls for are too big.

Part of it is my own ineptitude. I have twice lost stitches with no evidence of how. No drops, no runs, no odd lumps, no misplaced yarnovers. Just one less stitch than I actually need to do the lace pattern.

The first time, I frogged. Oh, I tried to tink, but those tiny, rebellious threads thwarted me.

The second time, I said, "fuck it"### and just made a new stitch. It's barely noticable. We'll see if I can maintain long enough to finish this scarf.

[SUMMARY: We are counting on my patience and good will here. *snarf*]

By the way? It knits up... oddly. It's dry, but not rough. It has no drape at all because it has no weight. I'm still dying to find out what it does when there's a couple of feet of knitting instead of just the few inches I've been able to manage so far.

Heh.

Balls.

Inches.

Heheheh.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Which is kinda funny because I'm actually on my period. I know Brother won't laugh, but y'all chicas should chuckle a little. And if not, well... I think I'm funny.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Why do I suddenly want to play with Legos?

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): As much as you can give me credit for creating when I'm following someone else's pattern.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): For my grandmother, whose feet have grown from a dainty size 4 to what seems to be an embarrassing size 5. I wish I'd thought to get a picture of my big ol' paws next to them (Cat for Scale was asleep upstairs) so you could get a real idea of the Barbie-esque nature of these shoes.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Duh.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): No, really... duh.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): You're rolling your eyes with the duh of it all, aren't you?

§§FOOTNOTE (knit... purl...): I'm not sure how to do that. I think stuffing them with washcloths when they're damp is the way to go.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (headless chickens): Red. Red acorns.

##FOOTNOTE (two... two... two pounds in one!): Which is, "Marin is still knitting."

%FOOTNOTE (percented): At least my camera.

†††FOOTNOTE (triple-crossed? Really?): Not that raffia is that odd, but silk generally shouldn't feel like raffia.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): This little silk thread went to market, this little silk thread stayed home...

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (all in a row...): Which may have been my first problem.

§§§FOOTNOTE (we have the beginnings of i-cord here): I'm not sure whether beer exacerbated the winding problem or helped calm me down when it all went pear-shaped.

¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (triple play!): Go ahead. I'll wait here while you finish giggling.

###FOOTNOTE (big numbers): Out loud. To the cat.

Sylvia, Big Time

Did you see today's Yarn Harlot?

Did you see the lovely scarf she made?

Did you happen to notice the yarn for the lovely scarf came from my dear friend Sylvia,† of Posh, a Yarn Boutique (bka Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack) fame?

I get a degree closer to Kevin Bacon every day.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Love you, Syl! *mwah!* Have your people call my people!

2% of Your RDA of Fibre

I love this hat. I want to make my own version.




That dip in the bottom is a brim.† Pat says it keep it from pushing his glasses off his nose.‡

Mostly I like the zig-zag of the columns of stitches. Anybody know how to do that? Do you suppose it's like single-stitch cables where you knit the second stitch, then the first stitch?




[SUMMARY: Pat's hat. Flat hat. Hat off Pat. Pat that hat.]

Guess what I'm doing this afternoon?§

I'm helping Sylvia with a needle felting class at Posh.¶ The Front Range Knitting Guild or Group or something like that is coming on a field trip and I'm going to help.#

[SUMMARY: Still a knitblog!]


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Now, now... don't call Pat a dip. He's not even *wearing* the hat.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Pat also didn't bat an eye at me immortalising his hat. He fully gets that I want to make my own. Yay, Pat.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Go on, guess. I'll wait here.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): You know... because of my mad needle felting skillz.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Well, I plan to help. I may be no help at all. I may be useless. Worse... I may just get completely in the way. But I certainly intend to help. Ah, the road to hell...

All New! All Fibre!

Knitting. Ah, there is knitting to be had. Knitting to be bad.†

First, I was taken out rather unceremoniously‡ in Hat Attack. At least I reached my stated goal not to go out in the first round.




This is the hat that killed me, gleefully knit by Ravelry's llamamama. She also sent some lovely Scharfenberger's dark dark chocolate, so that helped take the sting out. Also? Cat for Scale LURVES this hat. He nuzzles and burrows and gets this dopey look on his face. I'm pretty sure the hat is 100% wool, but he's treating it the way he treats alpaca.

[SUMMARY: Like mother, like son.]

On the other end of the fibre spectrum, I finished a birthday present for SusieQ, intrepid manager/bartender at the Coral Room. I told her I'd like to knit her a scarf. She said she wanted rainbow and she said she's allergic to wool.

Off to Michael's and the five-pound wad of crayon-coloured acrylic!

I knitted this out of Caron Simply Soft worsted, two strands held together, then used the double-stranding to sort of blend the colours. Two strands of red, then one red and one orange, then two strands of orange, then one orange and one yellow, etc.

She loves it and I have enough yarn left over to keep the nephews in stuff until they're too old for rainbows.§




[SUMMARY: You can use cheap acrylic for good or evil. I choose good.]

When I got the Noro sock yarn, I was all hype for an attempt at making Lizard Ridge socks. Of course, Lizard Ridge uses short rows, so -- of course -- it can't be knit in the round. So I knitted and knitted and knitted and no Lizard bumps were evident.




I sighed, determined maybe the colour repeats were too long or too short and frogged back to the heel, where I started knitting stockinette and simply enjoying the fading of one colour into the other.

Raise your hand if you see the problem.¶

I never switched to the other end of the ball of Noro. Like you're supposed to@ in the middle of every Lizardy pattern repeat. This is KEY in getting the Lizard Ridge to Lizard Ridge.

Ah, well. I still have the other ball of Noro sock yarn. I'll do that one right and let you know how it all goes.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of the Noro socks from a couple of weeks ago. As you can see, the colour changes are starting to catch up with each other and soon we will be able to see that the socks are not only related, but definitely from the same run of yarn.




[SUMMARY: Dork dork dork dork dork.]

Meanwhile, back at the other socks...

Don't despair, Brother. I fully intend to have last year's Father's Day present done before this Father's Day.




I have to admit to having dorked these as well. I've been blithely knitting long with the 80-stitch Arrrgyle pattern, not realising until a couple of days ago that each diamond is 40 stitches across and the whole pattern spans 80 stitches. Ah, well. I'm going to have to re-chart the skull and crossbones, but I don't think I'll frog the twenty rows of intarsia# to make it right.

Call it a modifcation to the design. Call it a deliberate one, if it's OK with you.

[SUMMARY: *ahem*]

And ANOTHER dork moment in Marin's knitting: Sylvia, Grand Purveyor of Fuzzy Crack, got the Schaefer Yarn catalog and in a moment of wool fume-induced euphoria, we decided to do a Mr. Greenjeans KAL.

What we didn't know at the time was that Schaefer only dyes in batches of ten or twelve, so if you don't order ten or twelve,†† you have to wait until someone else orders enough to make a full batch.

Two months later, I was kinda climbing the walls, dreaming of my greengreengreen yarn, stroking my size 8s in eager anticipation‡‡... and I came up with a brilliant idea: Ravelry.

Surely, a plea to the Ravelers could dig up someone dying§§ to own their own collection of Rafael¶¶ yarn.

Within a couple of hours of posting my plight, Sylvia emailed to say my yarn had showed up. Apparently, they dyed so much for TNNA or Stitches or one of those big fibre fests that they could send my yarn.




Isn't it... green?

I knit a gauge swatch and found I'm getting 5 stitches to the inch instead of the 4.5 the pattern calls for. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise, since I'm apparently a tight knitter, but I've never NOT gotten gauge before. And it was on my gorgeous new Colonial rosewood needles, so I didn't want to switch needle sizes, so...

I did some math. And I had already had a little heartburn over the sizing, not quite wanting the small and not quite wanting the medium. Turns out if I knit at 5 stitches per inch and knit like I'm knitting a large, it'll come out between a medium and a small,% which seems just about perfect to me.

NOTE: Keep this little story in mind. It'll turn up again in a few minutes. You might laugh.

Friday, in the Sheridan airport, I finished "Making Money," so I cast on Greenjeans and started knitting.

I find top-down raglan construction a little magical, the way the increases line up all smooth and neat...




...and, given my adventure in Maths Land, the magic of begin able to try it on before it's finished so I don't knit a whole freakin' sweater before I find out it's all wrong.

I dropped by Sylvia's on Saturday and discovered I'd done the knitting equivalent of starting in on dinner before everybody has their food. I've never been in a KAL where anybody actually AL'd. Everybody just kinda goes their own way, occasionally asking questions or sorting out pattern translation issues.

Oops.

But I'm so intrigued and so stoked I can't stop. I don't knit it a lot, not obsessively, but I've added nine or ten rows to what you see here.

Sylvia gets her yarn very soon. I'm trying to be good.

[SUMMARY: I lied in the footnotes. It doesn't just sound cool, I *am* knitting to be bad.]

Let's move from WIPs to USOs,## shall we?

Partly because I'm a notorious joiner and partly because I want to learn how to do the leaves because they might fit in with a scarf I'm half-assedly designing, I ordered the Vintage sock kit.




I truly love the way the pattern is printed on heavy paper, on half sheets††† and held with a ring. I'm tempted to go get the whole thing laminated to keep it pristine.

Next, I became enamoured of the Silk Ribbed Camisole from Vintage Knits, so I went in search of the perfect yarn to make my own.

I came up with this:




The deep, rich red -- poorly represented here -- will be edged with the mossy green. The problem? It is a completely different gauge than the yarn called for in the pattern.

For the record? The yarn called for in the pattern is discontinued. I *had* to improvise.

So I spent one night in Sheridan at the little hotel writing desk with a calculator and a notebook, revamping the pattern to (hopefully) fit the fibre.

NOTE: Keep this little story in mind. It'll turn up again in a few minutes. You might laugh.

I've never ordered from elann.com before, but I found their new collections so exciting and afordable I decided to give them a whirl to knit the monkey version of the Punk Rock Backpack‡‡‡ from Stitch 'n' Bitch for Dr. Doom's birthday.




I'm a little worried the two browns aren't different enough. I guess we'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

Meanwhile, in tracking down the right yarn for Stacey for her part in the Black Valentine thingie, I ran across some Shibui sock yarn I needed. No, I didn't *want* it, I *needed* it.





Isn't it lovely and soft and beachy? It's called Pebble, but I'm going to love it and hug it and name it George.

And I FINALLY got some Black Bunny yarn. For ages, I've been visiting every time I see Carol is updating, and I always show up a little late, when there are colours I already sort of have or only laceweight left or something.

But this time, oh, this time was special. This is a bamboo/merino sock yarn and it feels as misty soft as it looks. The colour is Bamboo Shoots and it is now named George II.




I got all turned on by Eunny Jang's Ladylike Gloves and went looking for fun yarn to knit them and came across this Habu silk.




I have no idea if it will work properly, but I think it's hellacool, so I'll give it the old college try.

Last, but not least, I got this gorgeous creature at Sylvia's. It's Red Rocks Fiber Works Aspen Sock in Artichoke.

One of these^ is going to eca for *her* participation in the Black Valentine thingie.





I've been waiting for something good for the Waterfall Sock pattern I bought from Knit Spot last summer, and I think this is it.

[SUMMARY: Superconsumer! Just doing my part to boost our flagging economy! Just wait 'til the dyes come in this week!]

Now, let's chat a little about my sudden surge into the world of mathematics and knitting.

WHAT THE HELL DO I THINK I'M DOING? Do we remember who we are talking about? Little-miss-can't-count-to-four wants to re-size whole patterns? I fear a fiery, fiery crash is in the offing.

You wanna know something funny? I was invited to join a Ravelry group called Woolly Thoughts Fans, dedicated to geeky mathematical knitting pursuits (pis, Fibonaccis, etc). It's kinda like when I get penis enlargement offers and I wonder who these people have been talking to that I'm on their mailing list.

I joined, of course.§§§

And I'll let y'all know how that all goes.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): OK, not really, but I like the way it sounds.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Mostly 'cause I was in Sheridan. Y'all know if I'd gone to the mailbox last Wednesday and found a hat, there would have been... lots of words. Plenty of ceremony. Histrionics.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Ooooh... dagger through the heart! Maybe one will be gay and will never completely outgrow rainbows.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Stacey, I'm pretty sure this is the point where you call me a hot mess and I can do naught but agree.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): And by, "you," I mean, "I."

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Yeah, this picture is a couple of weeks old too. I've been thinking of you guys for weeks and setting up to give you knit-it-and-make-it-all-better.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Four. We each ordered four.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): That's what she said!

§§FOOTNOTE (wound up like a skein of sock yarn): No pun intended. OK, maybe a little.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (gophers): It was in the kids' yarn section, so I think it's probably named after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): I think.

##FOOTNOTE (pounded like a dollar): UnStarted Objects.

†††FOOTNOTE (cross my blog and hope to dye): I fold all my patterns in half anyway.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (in stitches!): Hereafter ever dubbed "Monkey Pack."

^FOOTNOTE (careted): Yes, I bought two. I'd already named mine George III... how could I let it go?

§§§FOOTNOTE (a veritable jacuzzi): Don't laugh. It could happen to you.