Annie Knits

Auntie McRanty Pants Rides Again!

I'd show you pictures of the merino/yak mix I plied yesterday, but I'd have to wade through electricians and carpenters and plastic sheeting to get to daughter's camera since mine is on the fritz.  Suffice to say that it's soooffffttt.   Looks crunchy, in that rustic Lopi kind of way, but it's super, close-to-the-skin soft.

Plus, I have rants to get out of my system, and that's more productive. 

First, why can't I get that shhhhing in my headphones to stop so I can write and listen to music with no words and drown out the country music and commercials coming from the electrician's radio in the other room?  It's enough to put me over the edge.

Second, for what possible reason would my local paper publish a picture of a black man in KKK garb taunting our mayor on its front page above the fold in the city edition, but put just a cropped version of that picture, sans KKK guy, on the front page of the suburban edition.  Are they trying to foment racial anger?  Did the editors make a conscious decision to inflame city dwellers with that picture and think that maybe suburbanites wouldn't really care about downtown goings on?  On my list of things to do is contact the ombudsman of our esteemed media outlet and ask these exact questions.  Out of towners might wonder why there was a picture of a black man wearing KKK garb on the front page of our paper.  Um.  Yeah.  There was a kerfuffle downtown where a bunch of protesters taunted and shouted down and disrupted the MLK event at which our white mayor was a speaker.  The protesters, mostly black, think our mayor has behaved badly toward a black former fire chief.  Maybe there are grounds for the protest (I haven't kept up with that story), but I do think  that the rude nature of the shouting and the downright offensive nature of the guy evoking the KKK and their lynchings and violence was not exactly in the spirit of Dr. King's message or his legacy.  That said, I guess it's news, but how come it's only news here in the urban part of our metro area?  Just sayin'.

Third, Dear Daughter wants to go to the Jonas Brothers concert here next month.  Questionable taste notwithstanding (**grin**), we got online at precisely the moment the tickets were to go on sale and my Metrotix account was perfectly up to date, but when we clicked on the tickets at the appointed time, we were blocked.  Next click, the tickets were sold out.  Within the minute that they were to go on sale.  But, to my astonishment, there were tickets available within 5 minutes on a ticket scalping site, TicketsNow, for -- get this -- 10 times the face value, sometimes more!  That quickly those slimebags had snagged all of the tickets and were scalping them, legally I guess, to us.  Lovely.  Well, I'm not paying that markup.  I know that the artists or the venue aren't getting that money.  Why should scalpers?  If you are one of the parents out there who are supporting this horrible practice so that your kids can get these tickets, shame on you.  Really. You're probably the ones  who pulled up with your 7-year-old to High School Musical at the Fox last month in a stretch Hummer Limousine. What are you going to do for her wedding?  Or you're the lady I sat next to at the Hannah Montana concert with a 4-year-old in a Hannah wig in your lap sucking her thumb and sleeping because it was after 9 when the second set started!   And if you have that much disposable income, really, I know of  several places that could really use a hand up.   (BTW, we got tickets to both of those shows because we are subscribers or season ticket holders and got a heads up ahead of time... otherwise, I'd have experienced this scam much earlier.)  I'm composing a letter to my city and state representatives concerning this topic. 

I do have other things burning a hole in my panties.  They are school and traffic related, though, so they can wait for another day.  Plus... you've heard them before.  **grin again**

Did You Ever Just Want To...

• Kick your children right out into the cold?  Because they know that, every school day of their lives, they get up at 6:30 a.m. and we all leave for school at 7:15 a.m.  This time frame does not waver.  It does not change.  It is the same every day.  So why do then, dear readers, do children act perplexed and personally affronted when you start to bellow around 7:20 a.m.?  Why do they whine, "I thought you were waiting for me!"  or  "I didn't know we were ready to leave!" or "Could you just wait a minute, Mom?  I'm busy!"  or "Did someone pack me a lunch?"  Yes, right out to the street, I say.  Right out to the curb.  Growl.
• Spin.  'Cause it's all I ever want to do.  Witness.  (Ignore the time stamps on these pictures -- we inserted a new battery and voila!  Wrong times on everything and no way to fix it.  No way that we want to take the time to learn that is...)This is Adrian's soy silk and wool blend.  You saw it in a bag last time I posted.  I've got about 270 yards of this soft and yummy stuff.  I'm thinking a neck warmer.    Here are singles of my Christmas yak and merino blend and of Rachel's Dance Mistress BFL.  I'm having a blast exploring how different fibers and blends spin up.  Now.  Would someone please post all of this to the NaSpMoMo group on Ravelry.  'Cause I'm definitely spinning my fingers off this month, and loving it.  But I really have not been making time to post new stuff to Ravelry.  The Flicker learning curve is kicking my hiney.
• Knit like the wind!  We are having a knitalong at the shop for the Kauni Cardigan.  Sandy has ordered tons of the Effektgarn (and sold out of tons too) and round about 20 of us are knitting versions of this stranded cardigan.  We're meeting Friday nights to work out the kinks.  See mine hanging in the shop?   It's alongside of Fiona's Icarus.  Gorgeous.  (Rachel took this picture and posted it.  Rachel is a way better blogger than I am.)  Here is my Kauni Cardigan Version 2.0:  Modifications?  Well, colorways for starters.  I'm using colors EV and EM instead of the rainbow.  Um, who needs two of those?  That's not to say that you do not need one.  Also, I've taken 4 stitch tall peeries from the Traditional Fair Isle  Knitting book by Sheila McGregor and I'm dropping them in instead of using the square pattern throughout.  I'm thinking kind of controlled random here -- she's got two entire pages of these little guys and I'll just pick and choose according to my mood.  Maybe, gasp, the sleeves won't even match.  Who knows.  What I kept were the 6 rows of straight knitting between each pattern.  Whew.  I was worried that the colors would read Christmas but they don't so far.  Even if they do... I like Christmas.  Also, I did two inches of 2x2 corrugated ribbing, rather than 1.5 inches of 1x1.  Me likey.
• Knit some more!    I made quite a bit of progress on this twirley scarf out of my handspun while getting 3RD PLACE!! at a trivia night on Saturday.  This is our team's personal best, and we could've won if Bridgett's little one hadn't had a fever.  We tanked on the Pope round and she would have known them all.  Darn kid fevers!  (M is fine now -- I'm not that cold hearted.  She danced down the aisle for kid's liturgy on Sunday... cutest thing ever.  Really.)  I bet Lucia would have been good too.  Darn her living in Connecticut  Massachusetts!
• Move into a hotel where you have a chance at clean and peace and quiet?     This is the current state of my living/dining room.  Yesterday, Mark and the guys (as I am fond of calling them) used a saw and a jack hammer to dig out that channel you see running across the room.  Hmm.  "Dig" is a pleasant sounding word which implies gardening and bucolic, satisfying scraping sounds.  "Dig" is the wrong word for what happened inside my house yesterday.  "Pummel" is wrong too.  "Blast" is a little too quick for yesterday's 3 hour marathon metallic banging, stone-smashing, saw-blade screeching, foundation shaking event.  It was at the very least unpleasant.  The dogs are full of dust as this is an area that is hard to block off as it has the bedrooms and the bathrooms in it.  End date?  March 31st.  But it will be lovely.  Patience.
• Believe in the supernatural.  'Cause here is the picture I took not two seconds before the one above:  Haven't you seen all those Discovery Channel and Sci Fi Channel shows where they prove places are haunted using pictures with orbs just like these?!

Way to Go, Girls!

Sheesh.  I went and read this and now my bloglines are up to like 867 New Items.  This happens to me every year -- I'm not sure what it will take for me to learn the lesson.  Do not follow every link these girls lay before me!

Yesterday's knitting was limited to nearly completing a pair of fetching mitts out of my hand spun.  Dance Mistress tencel blend to be more specific. 

And I learned a lesson.  The gauge of the item one knits from the beginning of the skein of hand spun yarn can vary widely from the gauge of the item one knits from the middle of the skein of hand spun yarn.  Case in point.  You be the judge.

You might say, "But you must have knit a different number of rounds between cabling!"

To which I'd say, "Nope."

And the stitch gauge isn't even that different.  It's row gauge.  Spun tighter, maybe?  Plied tighter?  Does that influence row gauge and not stitch gauge?  It's a mystery to me. 

Oh, I'll wear them regardless, because they are wicked soft and warm warm warm.  My hands have been cold for days on end now.  I've taken to wearing husband's sweatshirts so I can pull the sleeves down over my freezing fists.  Now I have Mardi Gras colored mitts to wear.  Almost.  I'll finish that thumb and weave in ends after this post.  And I still have some wonky hand spun to make into something.  Like 50 yards or so including what's yet to be plied up.  What else should I make?  By tomorrow?  I'm thinking Caliometry.  Or a third mitt that just might match one of the two I have...

Speaking of tomorrow.  It's January 6th... Epiphany ... you know, the beginning of Carnival Season.  Which culminates in Fat Tuesday.  Which is followed by Ash Wednesday.  Which means another season of Lent.  Which means 40 Days For Others.  I think I'll start a blog for it this year.  Anyone have any charity knitting they want to accomplish?  I already have two sweaters, a scarf, and two hats to throw in the ring.

This year I'll knit for the St. Vincent de Paul Church homeless outreach.  They like real wool for their contributions.  Dennis tells me that wool is warmer, and his recipients don't tend to wash, or even keep their stuff year to year.  "They don't have cabinets to keep it in, you know, " he said.   

Um, he's right.  So.  Wool it will be.  Hats mostly is what he needs.  But he'll take any knits.  They have lots of men, but can distribute items to families as well.  They also take bedrolls -- quilted and knit.  So we can piece knit or sewn squares for bedrolls too.  I'm contemplating asking for squares... give me some time to figure that out, k?  Anyone else want to knit for charity this winter?

And What Fibery Things Have I been Up To?

You get three guesses.  And two of those don't count.

      

My nephew got me this Crown Mountain Farms yak and merino roving for Christmas (I provided his mom with the web site and said anything fun to spin!).  He came over on New Year's Day to help spin it up.

It's working up to be a pretty rustic single with slubs of what I think are the yak (the dark brown stuff) as it spins totally differently from the merino.  That's not a bad thing.  I'll ply  two together, I think, for a soft kind of rag wool effect. 

This is exactly as it appears -- I joined Adrien's fiber club and here is the Dec. 07 installment.  It's a lovely, soft soy silk wool blend.  I can hardly wait to get my hands in this, let me tell you.  Anyone else spun it yet?

And here are the Rachel rovings.  From the top left:  Dance Mistress superwash bfl, Helebore superwash bfl, "Couldn't hit the side of a..." tencel blend, and Dance Mistress tencel blend. 

Her concern about the tencel and how it would spin prompted me to use my first free morning in weeks thusly:

This crummy shot doesn't show the shineyness of it, but the colors are pretty good.  Rachel felt like it kept breaking when she dyed it and was worried it would behave in the same manner on the wheel.  I did not have that problem at all -- 'cause as you can see I've removed my tensioner all together.  It wants to be rather thicker than I've been spinning my wools, but ... well ... duh.  It's not wool.  I kind of really like it.  I'm nearly done with the three pieces she gave me to play with.  Maybe I'll have it worked up into something fun by the party on Sunday. 

Oh, all right.  There has indeed been knitting.  The Hemlock is done and gifted.  I need to sort around and find the pictures.  This swirly scarf, though, is my current obsession.  It's out of my own spun yarn.  Which I heart.

Rachel's roving again, and neither of us can remember the name of it.  Something Dyeabolical, I'm sure.  I like how this scarf shows the yarn shading through color combinations.   It is soft and it makes me happy.  And that is what counts after all.

Hello.... Hello...? Anyone Out There, Still?

Yeah.  Sorry about that. 

I knew I would have neither the time nor the inclination to post here over the holidays, and I was right. 

But I've been keeping up with you ... mostly ... and there are a lot of numbery things floating around out there!  Resolutions, tallies, pounds and calories.  I'm good with none of those.  But I do have a few holiday numbers for you.  And oddly enough, they provide kind of a quirky glimpse into our past few weeks.

• 7  --  Trays of California Clementines consumed on the premises since December 23rd.
• 50  --   Panera Bread Bowls filled with soup here since Sunday.
• 2.4 -- Feet I have knitted of the Scarf Style swirly scarf out of my handspun.  Pictures to follow.  Yum.
• 3 -- Bottles of half drunk wine sitting on my counter (the white is really good and I should refrigerate that.)
• 4 -- pounds of butter purchased since December 23rd.
• 1/2 -- pounds of butter left in the fridge.
• 1 -- Wii tracked down and purchased.
• 16 or so -- ounces of roving purchased from Rachel today.
• 6 -- bags of baby carrots purchased and consumed since December 23rd.
• 27.6 -- pounds of raw meat scraps purchased to raw feed the dogs since December 23rd.
• 3 -- pans of brownies baked since Christmas Day.
• 1 -- red union suit complete with back flap purchased by special request for hubbster's Christmas -- very funny playing Wii sports on Christmas morning.  Get that image out of your head...
• 2 -- batches of gingerbread cookies baked and consumed.
• 3 -- batches of sugar cookies baked and consumed.
• 2 -- pie crusts in my fridge for the pumpkin pies I never got around to baking.
• 3.5 -- vacuum bags filled and tossed in the course of cleaning up for company over and over.  Too much dog hair in this house!
• 8 -- new Sur la Table Christmas plates with matching salad plates and mugs lined up in my cabinet -- they are red and lovely.
• 1 -- scraggedly kitchen towel left in the kitchen towel drawer... I need to do laundry.

My numbers speak of friends and family in my house.  Such a fun and frenetic holiday season this year!

I hope yours was what you wanted it to be too!  See you tomorrow!

Oh, and one more thing.  Deborah and Rachel are throwing a great Mardi Gras Kick Off party Sunday at the shop.  Come on down and suck you some heads!