Katydid Knits

I have a black thumb.  Notoriously so.  I once killed a cactus.  I forgot it was in a prop cabinet for a show and it got left there.  This, however, is a garden I think I can handle:

The latest Rockin’ Sock Club shipment.  The colorway is “Garden Daze”, and I really like it – I see green and yellow peppers, eggplant, tomatoes… The pattern is very cute – simple, but attractive.

I’ll admit, though, that I’m confused by the sticker.  Anyone want to clue me in?  I’m assuming if I kept up with the STR group on Rav I’d probably know, but I don’t, so I’m baffled.

July 23rd, 2009 | Tags: BMFA Rockin' Sock Club | Category: Misc. | Comments (10)

This happens on a regular basis, true, but in this case I’m referring to one particular instance involving one particular friend.

Backstory: Around Easter, penny_karma had been grumbling about her inability to locate Cadbury Mini Eggs.  I happened to be in my local Target right after Easter, and found a crap-ton of them on uber-clearance.  So, I hooked her up.  In return, she promised me something very nifty that she had seen at the St. Louis Science Center.  Last Tuesday, that something arrived.  With friends.

The something cool (officially) are the shot glasses.  Yes, they have carabiners on the side.  We thought they’d be a complete hoot for EdFest.  However, she also sent me other goodies – 6 skeins of Moda Dea Eden in “Fig Leaf” (Anyone else find that combo amusing?  Eden… Fig leaf…), a set of Star Trek PEZ dispensers (which Kris has claimed and are now displayed on his desk), a set of yarn-pr0n-themed coasters, and some Sexy Motherpucker lip gloss.  (And we’ll not discuss the non-photographed item, k Sarah?)

Oh, and Sarah?  I have a Plan for the yarn, by the way.  I think you’ll approve.    You rock, woman, you really do.  One of these days, I swear!

ETA: OK, OK.  I should have known better than to mention it.  I was hoping to avoid scary search referrals.    The item not appearing in the photo is a certain feminine product with an “inspirational message” on the wrapper.  I believe PK has ranted about them in the past, but I can’t find the post.  Mine says “Practice your victory speech”.

July 22nd, 2009 | Tags: Friends, Gifts | Category: Misc. | Comments (8)

Ok, so, how many of you immediately thought “Avon calling!” at that?

Just me?  Oh, well.  Anyway, that was my intention.  This is just a quickie post to help out my dear friend Mindy.  She has just started selling Avon products.  What you may not realize (I didn’t, until recently) is that your Avon lady no longer needs to live in your neighborhood, near enough to drop off your purchases.  You can order from her website and have them shipped directly to you.

So, just in case any of you are looking for some goodies from Avon, I thought I’d pass along Mindy’s info.  You can order from her website here, and help out an awesome woman, a fantastic mom to two great kids, and a fellow knitter.

July 12th, 2009 | Tags: Friends | Category: Misc. | Comments (6)

I skeined up the merino-silk yesterday.

Ended up with just under the 8oz. I started with – looks like I only lost maybe 1/8oz to “whoops”es, which is nice!

Gave it a nice bath, and then let it lie in the sun for a bit to dry.

I’ve got about 179 yards, and it seems to be averaging around 15 WPI.  I’m pretty pleased with it. And yes, the color is pretty accurate in these, other than the drying picture. Yarn’s still wet in that one, so it looks darker than it really is.

Just have to decide what it wants to be.  One of these days, I’m going to pick the project, and spin for it.  Of course, that assumes I can spin deliberately enough to DO that… 

July 9th, 2009 | Tags: Spinning | Category: Misc. | Comments (9)

Or, more accurately, the calendar.

Snagged from CBear and Poops…

IN YOUR SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL…
1. Did you date someone from your school? Yes.  Two someones, actually.  And I’m still in touch with both of them.

2. Did you car pool to school? I didn’t drive until my sophomore year of college, but I had friends in my neighborhood who were lovely enough to drive me. 

3. What kind of car did you have? Uh… see above.

4. What kind of car do you have now? Kaylee!  My purple Honda Fit! 

5. Its Sunday night…where are you now? Heh.  I’m writing this to publish later, so amusingly it IS Sunday night right now.  Anyway, right now I’m in my craft room.  Usually, I’m in the living room with Kris, unless it’s tech week for a show, which would mean we’d be at the Bowie Playhouse.

6. It is Sunday night…where were you then? Probably at home doing homework.  Maybe with some friends there working together.

7. What kind of job did you have in high school? I worked at Long John Silver’s the summer before my senior year, but that was it.  Mom and Dad were of the opinion that school WAS my job at that point, and I appreciate that.

8. What kind of job do you do now? I’m a homemaker.  I cook, I clean, I shop, I pay bills… all very exciting stuff.

9. Were you a party animal? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Uh, no.

10. Were you considered a flirt? I don’t think so, but since I found out a few years back that I was some sort of cult leader, who knows?

11. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? I was in chorus from 7th grade through junior year, but couldn’t schedule it as a senior due to conflicts.  So, I helped out with the marching band instead – I was on the squad that carried the American flag for pre-game and parades, and we did the equipment changes for the colorguard, majorettes, and rhythmettes during halftime.

12. Were you a nerd? Pretty much, yeah.  But I was happy being one, and I had like-minded friends, so I never felt like an outcast or anything.

13. Did you get suspended or expelled? See #9.

14. Can you sing the fight song? If someone started it, I could probably join in, but I am blanking at the moment.

15. Who was your favorite teacher? Back then, I’d have said Mr. Scarcelli, who taught trig and calculus, but the more I look back on it, I realize that as much as I did love him, Miss Bowman, my English teacher, was equally amazing.  I was REALLY lucky to have both of them junior AND senior years.

16. Where did you sit during lunch? Uh… in the cafeteria?  We weren’t allowed to eat outside or anything like that.

17. What was your school’s full name? Penn Hills Senior High School.

18. When did you graduate? 1991

19. What was your school mascot? The Indians.  In recent years, though, they’ve changed it to “Big Red” to be a little more culturally sensitive.  That was always part of the nickname anyway, so it doesn’t really bother me.

20. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Oh, HELL no.  I am glad to be back in touch with a lot of people (Yay Facebook!), but senior year sucked massively on a LOT of levels.

21. Did you have fun at Prom? Yes, although I also spent a lot of time trying to restrain myself from killing my date, who was not exactly being awesome that night.  (Don’t go to the prom with your ex-boyfriend when you’ve started dating someone else.  Awkward!)

22. Do you still talk to the person you went to Prom with? Yup!  Although I talk to his wife (who I STILL haven’t met) more. 

23. Are you planning on going to your next reunion? Absolutely!

24. Do you still talk to people from school? Yup!  Thank goodness for Facebook – I’ve found a TON of people in the last year.

25. School Colors? Red and gold.

26. What celebrities came from your high school? There was a guy in my class who played football for a year or two (Tom Tumulty – nice guy, for as much as I knew him, anyway), but years before me was a guy named Kevin Peter Hall.  No one knows the name, but he played the Predator in Predator, Harry in Harry and the Hendersons, and was Dr. Lincoln on “Misfits of Science”.  VERY tall man.  Sadly, he died of AIDS-related complications the year I graduated.

27. Did you play a sport? Uh, no.  Me = not an athlete.

28. What was your favorite club? Drama!  This should surprise no one…

29. What class or teacher did you fear? I can’t really say I “feared” any class, but I really, really didn’t like gym.  I still, almost 20 years later, have nightmares that I didn’t dress often enough for gym and therefore won’t graduate.

30. What class was your favorite? Senior year, probably calculus.  See, I TOLD you I was a nerd!

July 8th, 2009 | Tags: Memes | Category: Misc. | Comments (3)

So, last spring, I did some test-crocheting for my friend Mary Beth Temple.  I was working on squares for a booklet she had written, to be published by Leisure Arts.  Fast forward to about a month ago, and MBT blogged that her book was out.  My (signed!) copy arrived while I was in Omaha.

See that afghan on the cover?  That’s the one I did!  Well, I did the squares – MBT assembled it and did the border.  Can I tell you what a neat feeling that is?

It’s a great booklet – crocheted afghans based on quilt square patterns!  And lest you think all crocheted afghans are in acrylic, the one I worked on was done in Cascade 220.  It’s got to be awesomely snuggly now that it’s assembled.  The book has 8 different patterns, plus a bunch of stitch pattern and block ideas, and a cd so you can design your own.  Congrats, Mary Beth, on a great booklet!

Oh, and I decided to go with the two-ply, since that was pretty much the overwhelming response.  I plyed it up last night while Kris was stuck at work (until midnight – ugh) to a soundtrack ot two old favorite movies – The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and Girls Just Want to Have Fun.  (Why yes, I DO have a stash of “Movies for nights when Kris isn’t here”. )  I now have a very full bobbin.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, especially because I wasn’t paying attention when I started and was plying my two S-twist singles with MORE S-twist.  Not so good.

I hadn’t gotten TOO far when I caught that, so I pulled it back off the bobbin and respun it going the right way, so it’s all fixed.

And yeah, you guys are probably right about the pattern.  I’m going to work on getting the pictures done and writing it up.  Of course, the earliest I can submit it is for the winter issue, so it’s going to be quite a while before you see it.  Thanks for pushing me not to chicken out. 

July 7th, 2009 | Tags: Crochet, Friends, Spinning | Category: Misc. | Comments (5)

Apparently, I’ve decided to work my way through the shawl patterns that start with “I”.  First Ishbel, now this.  What’s next? 

I cast on this morning, and it’s moving quickly. I’ve decided to make it larger than the pattern calls for, because I’ve got lots of the yarn. We’ll see if I stick to that when I get to that point, though.

The yarn is 80% alpaca – 20% silk from Ellen’s Half-Pint Farm. I bought two hanks at Stitches East in 2007, planning to make Icarus, but when I got home and checked the yardage, I was juuuuuust short. Luckily, I saw her the next weekend at Rhinebeck, and she had another hank from the same batch. Yay! It’s lovely yarn – really soft with a nice halo – although it’s splitting a little bit. Nothing I can’t handle.

July 6th, 2009 | Tags: Knitting, WIPs | Category: Misc. | Comments (5)

Well, more like an opinion poll, really.  I finished spinning up that merino-silk that you saw a few days ago (erm… ok, more like almost two weeks).  So, I have two nicely full bobbins.

I just can’t decide what to do from here.  I can leave it as a VERY fine singles, but I think it’s overspun for that and will make me CRAZY, although I’ll have tons of yardage.  Alternately, I can ply the two bobbins together, and still have a nice laceweight-ish yarn.  Finally, I could chain-ply it to a three-ply, and have a fingering-ish weight.  See what you guys think:

Left to right, that’s the single, a two-ply, and a three-ply.  Obviously, it’s a pretty inexact representation, because it’s from the end of one bobbin, but it should give you an idea.  Thoughts?

Also, I need an opinion on something else.  See, I designed a shawl.  And I finished knitting it up about two weeks ago.  I don’t have pictures of it yet, but you haven’t seen it here because I’ve been debating whether I should submit it to Knitty (eek!), or self-publish it.  It got a lovely response from the girls up at Large Marge’s when I unveiled it at the book club meeting, and it even won the “True Love” prize (my very own Dread Pirate Roberts action figure.  ).  The thing that is making me hesitate about submitting (aside from lack of self-confidence) it is that it’s a pi shawl, and there was just one in the Spring issue. So, I’ll take thoughts on that as well.  I will say that if I self-publish, it’s not going to be a free pattern, just FYI.

July 5th, 2009 | Tags: Knitting, Spinning | Category: Misc. | Comments (11)

Well, here she is. The lovely Ishbel in her subtly sparkly glory.The yarn is Blue Heron Rayon Metallic in “Bluegrass”.

The pattern is an utter dream – I really loved knitting it.I started out doing the small version because I wasn’t sure if I had enough yarn for the larger option. Shortly after I started the lace section, I created one of my traditional spreadsheets to figure out how far I was along. I realized after weighing the yarn remaining that I had enough to do the larger. So, I hybridized – the small version of the stockinette with the large version of the lace.

The yarn has fabulous drape, and I loved knitting it. That’s probably why it only took me 8 days from start to finish.

*Edited to tweak the arrangement and add the second photo.  First post was a trial post-by-phone, since the plugin I was using to do that has ceased to function correctly.

July 4th, 2009 | Category: Misc. | Comments (8)