Chausette

Isn't that a beautiful word? Something a princess would be named in a fairy tale.

Princess Chausette and the Ten Dancing Piggies

This is why I love the French language. The most mundane things become desireable and lovely simply by letting them roll off the tongue. Much like knitting, I think. What seems rather drab and everyday can become beautiful through the application of pattern or luscious fiber or simply attention to each stitch.

Which brings me to show off my Christmas yarn! No, it's not red and green. I asked for sock yarn for Christmas, and Boy! Did my family come through!
From left to right the new cast members are:

1. Serendipity from Stricken Smitten
2. T.C.O. from Sugarbee Studios
3. The French Lieutenant's Woman from White Oak Studios
4. Kaylee from Christina Marie Potter
5. Wood Elves from Enchanted Knoll Farm

News from the Sock War Front: I'm still alive and waiting for socks in progress. There's an icky person posting on the bulletin board there, so we have been taught about the "Ignore User" button. (Just one of those folks who likes to stir up trouble.) There are about 155 still alive.

Oh, and Princess Chausette? In English, that would be Princess Sock. I'll still to French and go knit my chausettes.

News from the Sock War Front

We started with 203 international knitters. We are now at 183 still knitting.
As luck is with me, my target received her fuzzy death yesterday. Her target (who should be my new target) is already dead. But she had already fired her weapons... hmmm, I see a blank look on your face. Let's try a visual breakdown: The little red arrows show you who is knitting for whom. In this diagram, I'm knitting for Maisy. She's got her socks, so she's out. She also knocked out her target, Tanya. Sam becomes my new target and I can finish the socks already started by Tanya. Meanwhile, Rabble has been knitting for me. However, before she could finish, her assassin took her out of the game. Now the circle looks like this: Glyn is gunning for me and I'm going after Sam. Not only that, in order to take out our new targets, we have to finish the socks already in process. So we have to wait for the mail. This is where luck comes into play.

But, it's not like I'm just gonna sit on the porch, waiting for the post. Hardly! A creative gal's gotta create, right? I've been making more zipper pouches:

front

back

front

back

front (back is just plain)

Not only that, I've been making more progress on my Iron Knitter socks, Banshee Braids. I expect to finish Sock #1 today and begin Sock #2.

Oh, and the Man of the Place has a neat-looking spider bite. I just went to check on him: "My thumb is still fat, but that's about it." We think it was a black widow. Turns out it's not as bad as we thought when we were kids.

Bombs Away!

Yes, indeedy, I have completed the Flaming Purple Death Socks and sent them to my target. Now, I just have to wait. And wait. Ooh, hold on--I can check the tracking number.... feh, in transit. Of course, the scariest part is checking the mailbox. I don't know if my assassin--we'll call her X--has finished and mailed my death socks or is just casting on. That's really the scenario I'm hoping for. Or maybe she just got a promotion and is so busy all she can do when she gets home is eat a Lean Cuisine and hit the sheets.
In the meantime the Iron Knitter competition has begun. From the same evil geniuses who brought you Sock Wars comes Iron Knitter! This one involves solving puzzles and knitting what? More socks. The pattern's called Soxual Persuasion. (Tee-hee!) It's a good combo of intense patterning and plain knitting. I'm using a yarn called Banshee and I think it's looking like braids, so I'm calling this project Banshee Braids socks.I'm about halfway down the leg. When I finish the pair and post it to Ravelry, I get the next set of clues. I'm such a sucker for games.

It Begins

Sock Wars has come. This is its fifth year and I'm competing. Here's an article from the Wall Street Journal to give you a little more info. I'd tell you myself but I'm still in the trenches. Gotta go... knit for my very life!

The Big Tidy-Up

When I was a girl, my mom bought me a book. I'm not sure if she thought it was funny or just a very strong message. It's called The Big Tidy Up. It's about a little girl with a very very very messy room. I vaguely remember something about a lollipop stuck to her bathrobe. Ennywho, things get worse and worse until she finally decides to tidy up. Guess where all this is leading? Yup! A big tidy-up of my own. Yes, the studio has gotten out of control so I took matters into my own hands (as though somebody else has been sneaking in messing up the room!). No, it's not particularly dirty--although there was some dust--but no lollipops stuck to my sewing machine. Just piles and piles of piles and piles. I took it all out and into the living room. (Sorry, Honey.) There I organized it. One section of the room for the yarn, one for the fabric, and a long table for everything else. Once I got the fabric and yarn out of the mix, everything else fell into place. Books went on a shelf (go figure!), receipts went into a designated sorting box, patterns got filed, and stuff got put away! It feels great. I'm still not totally done: gotta sort out the yarn still and put away the fabric but even some of that has happened.

...and in creative news
Check out my Mumy Bear. It's another bear for the Mother Bear Project. I made it to look like Bill Mumy who played Will Robinson in the classic sci-fi series, Lost in Space. (You know, "Danger, Will Robinson!")
And a small disclaimer: I know there's a smudge on the picture. My lens is scratched. The good news is that the carpet I used for my background is clean.

Babylon and On

Hello, my friend! It's 2010, if the calendar makers are to be believed. I am grateful for another January 1st. We rang in the New Year, or maybe ran off the old, with family and friends. A little champagne to celebrate and some black-eyed peas for good luck. There's a tradition of eating black-eyed peas on New Year's that goes all the way back to ancient Babylon. It's supposed to bring prosperity and, in this climate, my Hoppin' John didn't go begging. Still, there were leftovers so I had some for breakfast. I think that put me in the way to have a great day. That, and the fact that my Prayer Quilt Ministry was resuming today. Here's what it's like: we use a large downstairs room in the church. Tables and chairs are set out for us. We open the closet and get out

1. extension cords
2. ginormous ironing boards
3. 2 irons
4. 4 cutting mats
5. a selection of rulers and cutters
6. whatever fabric we need
7. notions boxes (thread, needles, blades, extra tools)

It goes about six hours and the ladies show up as their schedules allow. Many of us want to be there for the whole time. Applecheeks, our glorious leader, usually gets there a little early to set up. And then there's the food. Oh, there's always some kind of candy-nut mix, and somebody usually brings in fruit, sometimes a lunchie kinda thing like sandwiches or casserole, cheese, chips, and often an experimental something gooey somebody was trying out the recipe for. We talk about anything and everything, keeping it away from gossip but all other subjects are available for discussion. Sometimes a little venting and commiseration is important, but a lot of stories and advice and laughter happens. We pray for each other. And eat. Oh, yeah, and we work on prayer quilts, too. If there's time.

Throughout this post you may have noticed some pictures. These are zipper pouches I am now making and selling. These two were custom-made for a local customer. But I've got more!

Christmas Gift Revealed!

I couldn't blog about this because Tiny is just too darn smart. She may not read this blog often, but she would if I posted her gift. From the TV series, Firefly, comes this Jayne hat. Tiny admired mine, and kept walking away with it, so I knew just what to make for her Christmas gift. She and I both discovered the show this year, and we've reached fangirl status, I think. And yes, the hat looks kind of unfashionable and goofy. Now picture it on the toughest tough you can imagine. After receiving it in a box from his mother, he wears it through much of the series. You gotta love a man who appreciates his mama. Quotable line: "A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything."

and in other news...

Dr. Gemma, host of the Cogknitive Podcast, has started a KAL (that's Knit-A-Long, and yes, there's also a crochet version). It's about the Mother Bear Project. To quote their site:

The Mother Bear Project is dedicated to providing comfort and hope to children
affected by HIV/AIDS in emerging nations, by giving them a gift of love in the
form of a hand-knit or crocheted bear. The simple gift of a hand-knit bear
with a tag signed by the knitter has touched children with the message that they
are unconditionally loved.

So, the goal is to knit one or more of these bears for this terrif charity. Each bear made and sent gets you an entry in a drawing. Cool, huh? If you'd like to join, here's the Ravelry link.

I finished this little girl at Panera this morning. I'm calling her Caprica Bear because she's kind of a tribute to an iconic sci-fi character.

We're having our annual New Year's Eve Game Night. I've got to get cooking and cleaning. Stop by if you're in the area!

Hurry Up and Wait

I dunno if I told you that I was involved in a speed knitting game about a month ago. I was waiting with bated breath when the pattern was released, yarn in hand. I knitted like a demon until I...

1. ran out of yarn
2. got beat out by my competitor.

So I put it aside until I had time to find more yarn (hence the black thumbs) and knit on it. Time was found to finish 'em today. I think that puts me dead last in the whole speed knitting thing. Meh.

and thanks to Katie, my very willing hand model today at SD Central Knitters. What delicate little hands, huh?

The Color Your Mother Warned You About

The color red is dangerous. We all know this. That's why they make stoplights red: "Whoa! Hold on, there, pardner!" And stop signs: "This is a dangerous place; pay attention." And a gal in a red dress--we know she's out to get our man. (Not me, though. When I'm wearing red, it just means I'm a very nice person who happens to be wearing red today and that has no bearing on the fact that I wore a short red dress when I was playing a hot chica in a murder mystery. None whatsoever.) But the point I was trying to make before I ran off to tangent-ville is that red is trouble. And the trouble with fiber is, it bleeds. I know other colors bleed, too, but red is too often the culprit. So we wash our red fabrics before we put 'em into a quilt. We stabilize the color in embroidery floss as best we can. We even avoid it in our dishes because there's some kind of radioactive chemical in it that will turn us all into intelligent cockroaches or something, according to the Man of the Place. (Hmmm, maybe I wasn't really paying attention. Ya think?)

So I was a understandably concerned about this red cotton stria. I decided to knit up the sweater first and face that problem later, but before I attached the WHITE flower. So, here's what I did: I put it in a bath of cool water and Orvus Quilt Soap. Soaked it for a few minutes and, get this: the water didn't even turn light pink! Shock the monkey, was I surprised!

Then I attached the flower, the bobble buttons, and the stem for a big hooray!And here's the payoff:No,wait Sweetie, hold still for the camera:Good enough! That's about as still as a healthy sixteen-month old can get. She's so worth the knitting.

Dessert!

The green fairy is giving away a pound cake, jelly roll, and pattern. It's happening on Tuesday, so hurry up and go get 'em!

Oh. You thought I meant a cake cake and a jelly roll with real jelly, huh? Nope. It's a quilting term. They cut and stack a variety of fabrics in a certain way (i.e. a cake or a roll) and give 'em tempting names. Trust me, it works.

Now, let me see, preheat the oven to 350 degrees...