"The Easter Bunny Hates You"

Sylvia is still too young to get excited about holidays, much less understand the cultural traditions and myths behind them. But it will be a long, long time before Jan and I let her watch this video.

I laughed my head off the first time I saw this a long time ago. I just stumbled upon it again tonight, and I laughed my head off again. A good chuckle like this is a great way to cap off a weekend.

The Easter Bunny: kickin' tail and taking names.

How nerdy am I?

Well now we know.



(Jan just took this test and scored a 92. Holy cow. There is no hope for our daughter. With these two parents, a house full of twenty-sided dice and Star Wars Lego kits [X-wing fighter, anyone?], and near-constant exposure to Simpsons references, she's got a good chance at scoring high on this test herself when she's older!)

Model behavior

I persuaded Sylvia to model the Carrot Top hat. And by "persuaded" I mean "plopped it on her head, where it stayed for a whole two seconds before she took it off." Fortunately, I had the camera ready!

Another hat

I finished the hat that's a companion to the one I finished last week. This is the Carrot Top hat from Knit Hats! (edited by Gwen Steege). I started it on double-pointed needles, then switched to a Denise circular toward the end. It's a fun pattern: it goes from the top down, so it's easily adapted for a child or an adult. I used the same yarn in this one as I used in the Slip-a-Color hat. This hat is for my friend Aaron, and the other is for his wife, Angie. Matching hats are fun, but these different styles should help avoid cute overload. I'll be seeing Angie and Aaron in a week and a half (more than enough time to weave in the ends), and hopefully I'll get a picture of them wearing their new headgear!

Blackout

Today is Friday.

On Tuesday evening, right before Sylvia was about to go for her bath, a huge summer storm came through our area. It had all the big effects: thunder, lightning, pouring rain, and hurricane-force winds. Our power went out for about six hours, which was mildly inconvenient but not too traumatic. We thought about skipping Sylvia's bath that night, but it's an important part of her bedtime ritual. Plus she loves baths. So we set up lots of candles in the bathroom.

I didn't realize how lucky we were until the next morning, when I went grocery shopping and found myself in a nearly deserted store. Nearly all of the other customers I saw were buying ice and jugs of water, because their power was still out. There were downed trees and fallen limbs on all the roads, and many traffic lights weren't working yet.

This morning Sylvia and I made a quick trip to a nearby grocery store (not the huge one we went to earlier in the week) to pick up a few things we'd forgotten on Wednesday. The refrigerator and freezer shelves were practically empty, though I saw lots of employees busily restocking them. Turns out that store didn't get power back until last night--they were out for two whole days. They had to throw away all of their perishable items. The scope of that waste just boggles the mind. But they had no choice: all of that stuff went bad.

We definitely take for granted a life with electricity. It wasn't all that long ago, though, that people didn't have power: no television, no electric lights, no cordless telephones, no refrigerators, no microwave ovens, no washing machines. (And of course there are still people who live in parts of the world where electric power is either scarce or nonexistent.) They managed, though--partly, I think, by adjusting their schedules and patterns to be more in tune with natural processes. Cooking, cleaning, crafting, reading, working--it was all done by sunlight or firelight or not at all.

People often have a romantic idealization of "the good old days," and although I do enjoy camping and hiking and roughing it from time to time, I am definitely grateful for electric lights and central air conditioning. During the blackout, I tried knitting by candlelight for a while, but it was too difficult to see what I was doing (and this was with worsted-weight yarn, which isn't all that tiny!). After a few minutes, I gave up and went to sleep early--which was surely better for my eyes.

Another finished project

Two in one week? Holy cow! I'm on a roll!

This is the Slip-a-Color hat from Knit Hats! (edited by Gwen Steege). It's the first thing I've made with my new Denise needles (which are fabulous), and it was remarkably easy. I used four different colors of Lamb's Pride worsted, and the color change within each row is achieved by slipping stitches. This pattern was so easy that I was actually able to knit and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer without messing up the pattern.

This hat (and another that I've just started) are gifts for two friends who will be visiting in two weeks. They live in eastern Washington, which can get pretty cold, and they are both fun-loving happy people. So I hope these funky-colored hats will keep them nice and toasty during the winter.

Snakes on a Hat!

As promised, here's the skinny on my latest finished object. It is without a doubt the strangest thing I have ever knit: it's a hat that makes the wearer look like Medusa.

It was designed as a hat for a bald baby, and because Sylvia has been hair-challenged most of her life (she's just starting to leave the "bald baby" category), I thought this hat would be cute on her. And it is! Of course, she's still in "I don't want anything on my head" mode these days, so I was lucky to snap this photo before the hat was unceremoniously tossed to the floor. (She's also demonstrating a healthy dose of common sense, too: who in their right mind would wear a wool hat when it's 97 degrees outside with sauna-like humidity?)

I did check gauge for this--I swear I did--but somehow things went wonky anyway. About halfway through, I realized that the hat was turning out way too big for a baby's head. The snakes are easy to make but are pretty time consuming, so I didn't want to frog this and start over. So I figured I'd plug on and end up with an adult-sized hat. The hat doesn't look nearly as cute on a grown-up as it does on a baby, though. But it ended up being not as large as I thought, so Sylvia might be able to wear it after all--if not this winter, then next year. If she will tolerate headgear by then, that is.

If she wears this hat when we travel by air during the winter, then we can say "Snakes on a Hat on a Plane!" Samuel L. Jackson would be proud, I'm sure. (For the non-geeks out there, here's the reference. Ohhhhh, yeah.)

Maggi and Bruce ROCK!

Maggi and Bruce are two very excellent friends of mine who got married a couple of weeks ago. Maggi used to work with Jan (and she also recommended the inn where he and I got married), and she and Bruce now live a day's drive to the south of us, so we don't get to see them as often as we'd like. Fortunately, their wedding was in our area (where Maggi's mom lives).

To help them celebrate the occasion, Jan baked a wedding cake for them, and I took pictures of the ceremony and reception. I know this blog is "officially" about Marsha and her knitting, but let me just take a moment to describe this amazing cake. It was a twelve-inch genoise, soaked in a vanilla-rum syrup, and covered with buttercream and coconut flakes. (Jan thought these tropical flavors would complement the Hawaiian shirts the happy couple wore for their wedding.) The decorations were in blue, which is Maggi's favorite color. And as a surprise, Jan added a little snail (edible--though made of gum paste, which isn't too tasty) to the garden, because Maggi has a "thing" for snails. (To call it an obsession isn't coming close.) Needless to say, the cake was beautiful and delicious! Boy, I sure could go for a piece of that right now...

As for the photos: I'm not a professional photographer, but sometimes I get lucky and manage to snap some decent photos. My photographic philosophy is "Take as many pictures as you possibly can...and you're bound to end up with at least a few keepers." Quantity leads to quality. Anyway, Maggi reads this blog regularly, and after reading about my knitless Fourth of July weekend, decided to send me a set of Denise needles as a thank-you gift for the photography. At least, that's her official story. Part of me suspects she just felt really sorry for me and sent me the needles so I'd quit whining about them and instead write something interesting for once in here.

She told me a couple of days ago that the needles were en route, so I've been watching the mailbox since then. They arrived today--what a perfect way to start the weekend! As you can see, Sylvia found them pretty interesting. And what fabulous timing, too: I just finished one item (more on that later when I have pictures to share), and tonight I plan to use my new needles to start a new project. Hooray! Thanks, Maggi and Bruce!

Brand spankin' new

So this morning, in a fit of work-avoidance, I decided to tweak the look of my blog. At first I thought I'd just add in the nifty little avatar I created yesterday. How do you like it? (What? You mean you don't take your pet dragon for walks in the park?)

Then I figured, "Hey, while I'm here, why don't I take a look at the other templates?" The tan-blue-green one I've been using since last fall is nice, but my eyes were wanting a change. So I found this one, called Scribe, which is delightfully parchment-y.

So then, after making that change, I thought, "Wow! This is easy! Let's see what else I can do!" I started poking around in the HTML coding and...well, that's when I messed things up. Fortunately, Jan was able to fix everything; he also put in the buttons on the left for adding this blog to your RSS feed or Google Reader (use those if you want to be notified the minute I post something earth-shatteringly sublime...or mind-bogglingly dull). Hooray for Jan!

Who?

Did I say "want"? Excuse me, I meant "need." Yes, I need to make this project.

Yup, it's a Dr. Who scarf. The Tom Baker one, of course (the best one!). All those Harry Potty school scarves are just tacky ripoffs of this, the original and best super-long multicolored scarf!

I was doing some work (freelance editing) this evening and something I read made me think of the Dr. Who scarf, so I immediately googled* it and found a few patterns. Most of them seemed pretty much the same. It was interesting to read some of the "design notes" by the pattern authors--stuff to the effect of "I watched the show nine million times in order to figure out the exact sequence of colors and rows."

*(Here's a sign of how nerdy I am: I'm putting a footnote in a blog post.) As of yesterday (7 July), "google" is now listed in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. It's listed as a transitive verb (thank goodness) and, as happens to proper nouns that become generic in this sense, is lowercase in this sense.

Well, that settles that!

A few days ago I posted about trying to decide between getting a set of Denise needles or a set of Options needles. After I wrote that, I starting thinking, "Hey, maybe I don't need either of those. After all, I already have many, many needles in different sizes. Maybe at this point I should just buy individual needles as I need them."

And then we took a trip out of town: a three-hour car ride to Jan's mom's place for a couple of days. I like to knit while traveling--both during the journey itself and while I'm at the destination (usually while sitting around chatting with friends and relatives). It's a way to multitask creatively while still fully participating in socializing.

Saturday afternoon, before we left home, I decided on what project to bring (a jester hat for a friend who's having a baby in a few months--it's a simple pattern that doesn't require much concentration, so I can still talk to people and baby-wrangle as needed). I packed a small tote bag with the yarn and set of circular needles I thought I'd need for the project. I even packed two skeins of yarn--one of worsted for the body of the hat, and one of Fun Fur that I thought might make a nice border (but after knitting one round, I realized that the long lash on this yarn would dangle near the eyes and surely drive any baby nuts). After a few tries, I realized two things: I had the wrong size circular needle (too long!) for the hat, and I had the wrong size needles (too small!) for anything else.

So this means that for the rest of the trip--and the return journey, mostly on uninspiring highways and parkways in New Jersey--I am knitless. Now, if I had a set of Denise interchangeable needles with me, this wouldn't have happened... So you can see the obvious conclusion to this drama: as soon as my knitting budget allows, I'm going to invest in some Denise needles!

More SP8 goodness

The big package I received from my SP8 last month included two smaller packages that she indicated were to be opened later, one in July and one in August.

Well, it's the first day of July (I missed my "rabbit rabbit" opportunity, though, 'cause Sylvia woke up around 3 a.m., and Jan and I had a half-asleep conversation about it)! I agonized for a few minutes over whether to open "New skill" or "New technique" first and opted for the latter. (I should take this opportunity to point out that, though I am very tempted to open the other package, I will be good and wait until August.)

The "new technique" my SP8 sent me is a shawl pattern! It's Field of Flowers from Fiber Trends--and it's definitely a new technique for me. My SP8's timing is great, because lately I've been thinking about giving lace knitting a try but haven't been sure about where to begin. And now I have everything I need to get started, because she also included three balls of a beautiful brown-green yarn. It doesn't have any labels, so I'm hoping my SP8 tells me about it. (Hint! Hint!)

Here's a close-up picture of the yarn. The green is a sort of asparagus-fern color, and the brown has a bit of an orange cast to it. Earthy colors--just what I like. I am really looking forward to working with this, but I have to admit to feeling slightly intimidated by the pattern. It calls for a crocheted provisional cast on and a grafted edging, both of which I've never done before. I've seen them in lots of patterns and thought, "This looks tricky...I think I'll learn how to do this later" and then found something else to knit. I guess "later" is now! Good thing I have access to a very knowledgeable--and helpful--group of knitters to help me when I get stuck!

Thanks, SP8!