Flying Saucer

That's what Phillip called it when he saw the Noro beret drying on a dinner plate.  He's not wrong:

It borders on unnatural, how much time I spend looking for weird household items for blocking.  I am the self-proclaimed Crown Princess of Making Weird Towel Shapes to Block Stuff With.  As a late-stage convert (I only began to understand the importance of blocking a couple of years ago), I have become a Blocking Zealot.  It's lame how long it took me to get a clue about blocking, having trained as a tailor.  Tailoring requires more than just a little steaming, thwacking, molding and otherwise sculpting of fabric, so you would think that knowledge would be more easily transferable to knitting.  But it wasn't until I had to study and write about it for the Master Knitter program that I really gathered brains.  Now I love to do it so much that no knitted item is safe, and no household implement, non-porus surface, or passing pet is sacred.  I'll block anything on anything.  My personal best was a combination of 6 washcloths and 2 balloons for a lace shrug with puffy sleeves.  Wish I'd had the presence to take a picture that time.

But back to the hat:  My kids are fighting over who gets it, which I take as a good sign.  I think it's okay as a first attempt, and I learned a lot about self-striping Noro.  There are things I will do differently next time, like chart a bigger, clearer motif.  I also would engineer a more interesting pattern for the crown.  I think I will also choose 2 really different colorways when I do this again, rather than two ends of the same skein.  I did myself no favors by going cheap on that one.  (Note To Self:  Since when are you scared to spend Money on Yarn?)  What I really enjoyed about this project was not having any idea what to expect as the colors changed on me.  I did not know what a control freak I am with regard to color.  I kept having to tell myself not to break the yarn and felt in a new color - MADE myself trust the progression of what was on the skein, just to see if I could stand it.  And I did!  I even was surprised by how much I liked some of the combinations that happened, notably yellow and burgundy.  These are two shades I almost never work with, and certainly not together.  But in context of the small space of a hat, I really liked the area where it happened.

Tomorrow I head for the garden spot that is Tacoma, Washington, for the Madrona Retreat therein.  I am so amped I can hardly keep it together.  My goal is to post on all four days, so stay tuned for reports on my adventures.  Reminders not to paint "Madrona Or Bust" on my car are probably needed.

In unrelated news, one of the projects has been cut from my book, and I am completely devastated.  I thought my skin was much thicker than that, but apparently not.  It's like loosing a toe.  I will live, but I think I will always miss it.  The good news is that the outcast project is going to be featured on my episode of Knitting Daily TV, whose theme, I'm told, will be "Fun With Color".  I think it will also be offered as a free pattern via the Knitting Daily Pattern Store, so it's future is by no means doomed.  Watch for it next November.  In the meantime I plan to Get Over It.  Knitting, after all, is not for weenies.  And wallowing in despair messes up your hair.
 

Just Plain Snotty

A big thank you to those who advised me on my next project.  I went with the cozy cables, thinking that if Murphy's Law prevails, then the sun will come out, which would be nice, and if it doesn't, then I will still have cozy cables to enjoy.  Then I got sick.  A raspy stinkin' chest cold, with loss of voice and the whole maryanne.  And my rewrites, which I naively thought were done, all came back to be re-re-written.  Again.  And our house, along with Phillip's car were vandalized.  Don't know why us -  just one of those things, I guess.  The car is not drivable, which means that Phillip is riding my motorcycle to work, so let's hope my the cozy cable choice does cause the sun to come out: nothing yuckier than riding a motorcycle in the cold cold rain.  I promise to post with a better vibe next time, but I didn't want my devoted following to think I vanished.  Thanks for checking in!

Scientific Experiment

It all started last year at this time, when my daughter invited nine of her closest friends over for a birthday sleepover.  Everything was going great until the day before the party, when I got a gnarly case of Strep Throat.  Yeah, I know:  I think that one was Mother of the Year award number 6.  Rather than cancel/ruin Lindsay's party, Phillip bravely threw himself on the grenade and hosted all 10 little girls down in the living room, while I convalesced in an upstairs bedroom.  It worked, in that nobody came down with my crud.  It also entitled Phillip to some massive Karmic Payback.

In the interest of fair play, I handled this year's little girl birthday party SOLO.  We had a sleepover at a local hotel (the kind with a swimming pool and breakfast buffet - I may be slow, but I'm not dumb), while Phillip stayed home, grinning smugly to himself.

The girls were very well-behaved.  What you may not know about 10-year-old girls is that however demure and mannerly they may be in their normal habitat, when exposed to members of their own species, they become VOCAL.  And by that, I mean LOUD.  Way. Loud.  And High-Pitched.  There are some 10-year-old girls that only dogs can hear.

When you take the same 10-year-old LOUD girls to an acoustically perfect indoor swimming pool enclosure, you are setting yourself up for auditory discomfort.  When you stay in said enclosure with them for (I am not kidding) 3.5 hours, you are going to experience some temporary ringing at best, and permanent hearing damage, at worst. 

That's where the Scientific Experiment comes in:  As knitters, we are all familiar of the soothing and restorative powers of our work.  I wondered, (around the time my ears began to bleed) could knitting actually distract me from physical pain, as well as irritation?  Could working on a sweater relieve the discomfort inflicted by squealing little girls in a tiled pool room?  What choice did I have, but to try? My Observations:

Hour 1:    Okay, this is not so bad.  As long as I can keep the rhythm of my stitches consistent, the racket does, in fact, recede a bit from my focus.  Drop a stitch, however, and all bets are off.  Man, are they loud.  How can so much noise come out of such small people?

Hour 2:    My prediction was that by this point I would have half a sleeve, and the sound level would have receded from my consciousness to a dull roar.  Instead, I have 1/4 of a sleeve, and a headache.

Hour 3:    Things are looking up:  Either the small mermaids are beginning to tire/become hoarse, or I have begun to experience hearing loss.  I still only have 1/4 of a sleeve, having stopped to serve drinks and snacks.  Feeding them was probably a tactical error, in terms of their energy levels.

Hour 3.5:  I have triumphantly arrived at the end of the party.  Or at least that's what the clock says.  Extracting the reluctant merry-makers from the pool remains to be seen.

Overall, I would say that the party was a success.  The experiment proved that while nothing short of tarmac-approved airport hearing protection would have been appropriate, the knitting did help keep my nerves intact.  As a bonus, while Phillip was still somewhat smug, he was extremely sympathetic to my pain, and even poured me wine when I got home. 

Karmic Debt Settled.

Mischief Managed.

Sorry, what did you say?