Puttin' On the Dog

...or rather, taking it off!

I was given a bag of fabric by a friend. Cute fabric. Horsey fabric. But this friend not only likes horses: she likes dogs. And there was dog hair all over that fabric! So I zigzagged the edges and threw it in the wash. And the dryer. (Fingers crossed.) And I took it out and found--you guessed it, dog hair and plenty of it. Was I going to have to give this away and hope that someone who loved dogs would find a use for it? No! Lint roller to the rescue! I've had a masking tape style one for years and this was just the ticket.(Kind of like this one.) It took a lot of tape to rescue the fabric, but I was successful in the end. Yay!

But wait, there's more! I have another tip for you today: remember learning Roman numerals and wondering what in the world you were ever going to use that knowledge for? Turns out it was for quilting! Thanks to Marianne via AppleCheeks for this:

When a quilter needs to keep her blocks in numerical order, she can use her pins:

Straight pin means I

Flower pin means V

Safety pin means X

See the examples below:

1

I

2

II

3

III

4

IV

5

V

10

X

Your Opinion Wanted

Or, "HEEEELLLLP!"
In the spirit of reduce-->reuse-->recycle, I have decided not to throw out this purse simply because the handle has gone all ratty and is no longer presentable in public. I took off the handles with the aid of my trusty seam ripper and scissors and then went through the stash. As I have nothing that really matches the apricot fabric in the bag itself, I found three fabrics that coordinate well. However, I am having trouble deciding. Should I use this one? We'll call it Swirly-whirly. Or this one? We'll call it Tan Toychest. Or this one? We'll call it Rose Posey.

Further details: the fabric isn't pieced: it's all one banded fabric. The cross-hatching is quilting. The zippers are very dark green. It's French, but I bought it at the mall. (half-price, less than $20, I think.)And there's news of the Prideful and Prejudiced socks: I worked about 5 rows of the toe and had to rip out. Somehow, I decided to go my own way for finishing the toe instead of, oh, reading the instructions. I dislike frogging. It's somehow sad to take out work. Although I have heard it said that frogging is simply part of knitting, expected and meditational in its own way. Pfff.

But I got to it and finished the pair! The toes do indeed match although there's a teensy mistake. But I won't tell if you don't.

Sock it to Me!

Prideful and Prejudiced received some attention last night. The Man of the Place got a French movie with subtitles, A Secret. (If you'd like to see a French take on the holocaust, this is pretty interesting, but as my man said, "I guess there aren't any really happy holocaust movies.") Seeing as how I had to look at the screen almost constantly if I wanted to understand the conversations, I needed a sock in which the pattern would read:

*k, repeat from *

In other words, just knit. So I did. I'm not far off from my green toe now.Socks for Cutting Hair are moving right along. I finished reading Mansfield Park, and knit a lot on these socks during the reading. By the way, the whole book is slow until the last 50 pages. Then it picks up. I've now just started Emma: my goal of reading all six of Miss Austen's published novels this year is half done! And the Beach Dwarves are about to turn the second heel (a little further along than the picture shows). They require a bit more attention than the other two at this point. Non-investment, older TV works very well. Back in 1970, they still used a lot of verbal exposition, so I've been "watching" Alias Smith and Jones on Hulu to keep me company while I work on 'em.

I know. It's weird. All my socks are at about the same point.

Desperately Seeking Stupid

I have been knitting like a machine on the colorwork portion of this sock. This is the second sock, by the way. There's a reason for this machine-like dedication: every knitting project I've got involves something that I'm usually good at, but sometimes like to avoid:

thinking

That's one of the things I like about certain knitting projects: they're brainless. Sure, when I was a novice knitter, it took attention and patience. But now the simple stockinette (just one knit stitch, over and over and over again) holds no challenge. It's like smoking, I think. It gives me something to do with my hands and calms my mind. I can do that while standing in line or watching tv or chatting with a local scientist. This one will get to the brainless part pretty soon, but not soon enough for my taste!

Speaking of progress, I like to keep track of my socks by percentage. I think I was doing it before I found Ravelry, but their personal project pages encourage the practice. This is how I break it down:

• 10% Cuff (often brainless)
• 10% Leg (if it's just a sockie with no leg, this is a freebie!)
• 10% Heel and gusset (where the sock skinnies down)
• 10% Foot (often brainless)
• 10% Toe and weaving in ends
• 50% repeat for other sock

So you Ravelry folk, how do you break it down? I'm curious.Also, I've been helping Tiny with a costume for Comic Con. This pic is really not helpful, but we're calling the style SteamGoth. Maybe she'll let me get more pictures as the project goes along.

Proof of Intelligence

Tiny made marshmallows. "Made 'em?" you ask. "You mean roasted 'em, right?" Wrong. Absolutely, wonderfully, scrumptiously wrong. She made 'em. From scratch.

"How do they taste?" you ask. Oh, have I got the answer for you. Imagine marshmallows are a fruit. You've only ever had the marshmallows from the produce section, the ones they picked before they were ripe so they could be piled in a refrigerated truck and driven 500 miles to a packing plant where they were handled, graded, sorted, and boxed. Then driven again to your grocery store, unpacked, and displayed. Now imagine you're in a marshmallow grove. You reach up to choose a marshmallow that is perfectly ripe, untouched, and fresh as the morning. You bite. That's what they taste like.

Want the recipe? Here's the link. I suggest you memorize it. That way, you can, by reproducing these gems of fluffy joy, prove to the aliens that abduct you that humans should be regarded as a superior intelligence and not destroyed for making films like Superbad. (apologies if you liked Superbad--no, really, if you liked Superbad, I'm soooo sorry. But being able to make marshmallows should make up for that.)

And, oh, yeah, I finished the first Prideful and Prejudiced sock. It fits great. I didn't realize the toe was gonna be green!

Stash Enhancement

Sunday found me in Los Angeles with two of my knitting friends. We were on a quest: Stash Enhancement. We needed yarn. Lots of yarn. We got yarn. Lots of yarn. There was a sale. A really good sale. And Scout saw a TV star: Ron Livingston. (He starred in Office Space--and he'll be in The Time Traveller's Wife!) And I saw his back. Twice.

I've finished sock one in Socks for Cutting Hair. He tried it on and said it was a perfect fit. Oh, boy. Maybe someday sock two will be finished. Not today, though. I've been enamored of my first pair of toe-up socks! The pattern is called Red Dwarf Socks, so I'm calling 'em Beach Dwarf. Mom was having surgery yesterday, so I was knitting while waiting. (So wonderful to have something to pass the time!) I tried the heel twice and got so stuck. So I got online and found the Knitty Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula and it helped me right through the heel. Yay! (Mom's gonna be there a while, so I figure I'll get a lot of knitting done.)

I tried the exercise and knit thing today. I went for a walk and, after about an hour, pulled out my Pride and Prejudice socks. I really was able to get about 4 or 5 rows done. Cool, huh. Of course, I bet I got a few double-takes from the neighbors.

Zombie Crayonzox are Done!

A Message from Our Resident Pastry Chef

When I got home today, there was a cryptic note on the counter, written in Tiny's hand. It read,

"Eat cookies!"

I looked around. No cookies. It is an interesting injunction, though. Would make a nice start on a To Do List. Or perhaps as an insult: "Eat warm cookies, you imperialist dog!" You know, if people used this kind of epithet, the world would be quite a different place.

Now, on to the needlework! I finished the top (below) and back (not pictured) for "Star in the East." It's a prayer quilt for Pat. She's undergoing treatment for metastasized cancer. If it's in your practice to pray, please pray for healing, pain relief, strength to endure, and comfort & encouragement.

And now for something completely different...

A new Photo Tutorial: The Magical Magnetic Pincushion

It has been brought to my attention that I use a technique when sewing that is unusual, but time-saving. I use a magnetic pincushion and position it behind the pass-through arm of the sewing machine. This one is red. You can just see it in the picture.

As I'm sewing, I pull out the pin just before it goes under the foot (sewing over pins leads to bent needles!) using my middle finger by the advent of spreading my fingers out (Jazz hands!)Then I flick it toward the pincushion, which (usually) catches it. All this time, I barely slow down in my sewing.I don't worry about those pins that miss the pincushion. Later, I will flip over the pincushion and hover it over them and they'll just leap right on. Then I can put the pincushion back in place.

I keep another magnetic pincushion in the place where I'm doing my pinning. (That one's purple and camera-shy.) When that one starts to look empty, I switch them out, moving the purple to the back of the sewing machine and the red to the pinning area.

I'm not sure if I figured this out myself or someone showed me. If it was you, thanks!

Ice Cream!

This is how I hope I look to strangers. Somebody peaceful, knitting serenity into life. Not that crazy lady, spending 20 hours making a blessed sock!
I've been out to La Jolla. I figure I live so close, I may as well enjoy it. If you look to the right in the frame, you can just make out a surfer that I was watching. He had a couple of good rides, standing for about five seconds per. It was so pretty and so peaceful and, for once, this little palisade was clean of birdie, um, attention.

On the home front, I finally got the motivation to finish Funky Frogs of Looove. I made the label and sewed it on. Yes, that's all it took to finish it.Is that why it's been languishing unfinished? I hear you ask. Ahem. Um. I, uh, I... think I hear the ice cream man. Who's up for ice cream?

I'd Like to Use a Lifeline

... actually I wouldn't. A lifeline is there if you get in trouble, right? According to Mirriam-Webster it is

"a line used for saving or preserving life."

In other words, it's good to know it's there, but having to use it means you're in trouble. Now the new definition of a lifeline (or new to me, anyway):

a strand of fiber threaded through a row of a knitted project so that, if the
knitter gets lost or makes a mistake, can unravel back to that row and begin
from there, rather than the very start.

I've heard that dental floss is recommended for this purpose. So I decided to use a lifeline in my first lace project: a square for an afghan. I knew that it would be best to use a thicker floss, so I went through the tiny floss containers from the dentist. Fine, extra fine, super fine... the only standard width floss I have is mint. So now I have minty-fresh lace. Eh! How can that be bad? Happily I never had to frog back to the lifeline, but it sure was nice to know it was there. Did I mention the minty-fresh part?