Snake Surly

Last weekend when we were visting the parentals, Ethan inexplicably came running out of the house bare bean buck naked. I figure this photo will be used either by his parents to keep him in line during his teens, or by Ethan himself when he runs for office as a sort of "I was born a poor black butt white child" human interest story.

Anyway, I’m the auntie and I get to post this on the Internets.

I got my order of yarn from Webs today. Yum yum yum. I got a couple of balls of the ever-popular (around here, anyway) Lana Grossa 127 Print, one in a lovely watermelon-pink and the other in a juicy tangeriney color. I also got some Blue Sky Organic Cotton and some Artyarns Supermerino. Since I’m so in love with their Ultramerino, I thought I’d try this, since it’s superwash. I got color 104, and the picture on Webs’ site doesn’t even come close to doing it justice.

I’ve been making plain ‘ol socks from a super easy pattern in Weekend Knitting, which I like because it calls for worsted-weight yarn on US6 and US7 needles. I got the Blue Sky cotton in the hopes of making Rob a pair of socks (He apparently hates wool. He claims that Artyarns Ultramerino is "scratchy". Clearly is a "lunatic"), but I’m not sure it’ll work for this. It’s on the chubby side of worsted. But I’ll give it a try. Of course, I must use the Supermerino first. It’s laying on the table shrieking "Knit me! Knit me! Hurry up and finish that sock you’re working on! Knit me ! Now!" Really, it’s deafening.

Backyard Leaves has seven pattern repeats completed, if anybody cares.

Okay, so I’m getting ready to go to see the Mouse. I’ve got some unsolved problems.

1. what to wear. I tend to suffer from chubby girl thigh chafe. I can’t wear skirts without serious thigh coverage underneath. Lycra bike shorts are best, tights suck. I could just go ahead and wear jeans, but I get kinda hot in them. Also, all of my jeans look much better with heels.

1.5 blister prevention. I ALWAYS get blisters at Disneyland. One trick is to change shoes halfway through the day. I’ll have to see how far away my hotel is. The leading shoe contenders are my new brown Clarks Mary Janes, my crappy paint-covered Doc Marten Mary Janes, and my saddle shoes. Also in consideration are my old Aerosoles heels.

2. travel route. I could take 101 to Hollister and then across to Los Banos and onto I-5. I could also go out to Stockton and then down that way. Google maps, Disneyland.com and Yahoo! maps all suggest the first option. Mapquest likes the second, which is ten miles longer. Interestingly, there’s a fairly significant disparity in estimated trip time. The route suggested by Mapquest is just under 6 hours. For the other route (and the directions are identical) Yahoo! maps says 6 hours, Google maps says 5 1/2, and Disney says 6 1/2!  I guess Disney figures you have a lot of kids and are going to stop a lot and Google figures you’re a hipster in a fast car.

3. most important - what am I taking with me to knit at the park? It needs to be small and simple. I was thinking socks might be nice, but I really do have to concentrate when it comes to heels and toes, and all those DPNs are just asking to get lost. I can make a hat in my sleep, but again with the DPNs. I’ll probably wind up with a scarf of some kind. Maybe another Misty Garden? That was a super easy pattern to memorize. I was planning on making another, but I was going to use my Alchemy Promise  mohair. There’s no way in hell I’m using that. It fuses like crazy and I don’t want something that will be hard to tink if I have to. I have 200 meters of Noro Lily Multi that I’ve been dying to use. What could I make with that?

Whatever it is, it has to be happy, since it’s for the Down With Mr. X KAL. Any suggestions, gentle readers?

We’re having spring cleaning at Chez Christ today. I’m taking a coffee break.

As I’m posting this, I’m wearing my old red cableknit Gap sweater. I thought I’d put it on one last time before I tossed it. I used to wear it all the time. One day I was coming downstairs (this is when I lived in The House of Comfortable Shoes) with a bowl of nice hot oatmeal and I tripped on the stairs and went tumbling down, oatmeal and all. I learned two things about nice hot oatmeal that day. The first is that it causes serious pain when it makes contact with your skin. The second is that it is very, very difficult to get out of thick cableknit sweaters.

There’s a bunch of stuff that’s going in the garbage pile, namely my entire wardrobe from 1990-1998. There is no good reason to keep hanging onto this stuff, but it hurts to throw it out. Like the little size six (size six! I can’t believe I was ever that small) cream-colored eyelet dress that I wore to my bridal shower (the one with my family at the Four Seasons, not the one with my girlfriends at the Queen Mary Teahouse where Britta and I got into a scone fight). And the black taffeta skirt I bought to wear on my very first blindish internet date (on which I wound up having good fantastic sex for the first time). And my denim Minnie Mouse jumper which I used to wear constantly until I was mistaken for a pregnant woman in it - twice.

Okay, coffee’s done, back to disposing of my 20’s.

Okay, I don’t want to woof myself, but I think my mysterious stitch count problem has been solved. On row five, there’s a yarnover right before a purl stitch. That doesn’t create a hole if you yarnover in the front then purl. So I decided to purl with the yarn in back. It was a backwards yarnover. Was that the right thing to do? It made my stitch count work out, so I guess so. Also, who knew that putting in a stitch marker in a seemingly random place would make it easier to work the pattern? Also, huge thanks to Kathy for the "p1, k1 in same st" advice. That was way helpful.

Now I’m on row 14 and I can see the leaves (of the backyard variety) taking shape. Of course, I just noticed that about five rows back I did a row of purling where I should have knitted (or the other way around). Part of me thinks "this is going to be the part of the scarf where it will rest against the back of your neck and nobody will ever, ever see it. Just keep working." The obsessive-compulsive part of me is shrieking "Are you kidding? If you ever finish this thing, that mistake is going to leap out at you every time you look at the scarf and you’ll be really crabby. You’re only 14 rows in and you figured out the problem."

I will have some more coffee and think about this for a minute.

Yeah, these photos were taken in October 2001. I just got around to scanning them today. So sue me. I’m still recovering from the hangover.

Oddly enough, the morning after this event, we went to "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire", and I got on  and almost got to the grand prize round even though I was still feeling really drunk and surly. I was probably the snarkiest contestant they’d ever had. The host didn’t know what to do with me.

That was a really good trip to Disneyland. It’s nuts that we all haven’t been since then.

One of the (myriad) problems of being me is that sometimes when I get an idea into my head it gets stuck real bad and if it doesn’t get resolved to my satisfaction I just go apeshit.

Well, two days ago I decided that I NEED to be at Disneyland on the 5th of May. Every time I see the commercial (not that I watch commercials) where the little doggies are going through the castle gates and they’re playing "So This Is Love", I burst into tears. This is a really bad sign. I gotta be there.

I don’t care that it’s a five hour drive or that I’ll have to stay at one of the cheeseball off-campus hotels. It’s going to be packed with die-hards - an absolute zoo, but I don’t care. I’m going, and that’s all there is to it.

I felt like I had too many knitting projects going at once, so I decided to do something about it.

1. Branching Out was finished in the car yesterday and given to my mom as a birthday present.
2. I finished the doggie thing for Troy. I wove in the ends but didn’t trim them in case it doesn’t fit the doggie and I need to fix it.
3. Kate Gilbert’s Shining Star hat is finito. I think she thinks I have a really long head. I only did four of the final pattern repeats (before the cuff), and it’s still really long. Maybe it’ll be better when it’s blocked. But dang, I’m pretty proud of it.

Then I was like "crap, I don’t have anything to knit."

4. I had this moment of "Well, if Kathy can have such a resounding success with her VPC, the LEAST I can try is at least the Shapely Tank."  Yeah, well, it isn’t going very well. (I don’t know what I was thinking, she’s a much better knitter than I am.) One side of the short-rowed front is a freaking vision to behold that makes me swoon, and the other is, um, a little holey. If I wasn’t such a control freak, I’d frog it, but GOD, I hate casting on 103 stitches.
4.5. I finally frogged that stupid tunic sweater I started in January (and abandoned shortly after) because I wanted to use the Silky Wool to make the Shapely Tank.
5. I worked on the Stupid Goddamned Black Cashmere Lace Scarf for a little while even though my HE was H’ing. And behold, I made a mistake somewhere and I can’t find it. If I have to frog this thing, I’ll do it while jumping off the roof.
6. I was going to make another pair of socks with that yummy Artyarns Supermerino (in another color) for my mommy. Rob is in Las Vegas overnight, so there’s nobody to help me wind yarn. I decided to do it myself (which I’ve done before obviously, with varying results), and of course I made a GIGANTIC mess of it and spent the better part of an episode of Law&Order untangling it. Then I was, naturally, unwilling to knit with it, just out of spite.
7. Worst of all, I do NOT understand the "p1, k1 in same st" instruction in the Backyard Leaves pattern. Since it appears in the second row of the pattern, I’m sure not getting very far.

So…

8. I’m making a really boring hat out of Filatura 127 Print.

maybe i should just go to bed.

This weekend was a flurry of activity. Friday I actually left the house. I went to the yarn store "just to get some needles". Ha ha. They didn’t have any size US1 or US2 dpns, so I decided to get the yarn for Backyard Leaves. I was about to get some Lana Grossa Merino (not the 2000, but the next size up), but then I was seduced by Adrienne Vittadini’s Trina, in terracotta. I swatched it a little that night, and it’s just delicious.

Then Rob called and roped me into going to La Fiesta with Robin and Paul (which turned out to be Robin, Paul, Aaron and Brian, but who’s counting?). Since I was Vicodin-free, I had me some delicious margaritas. When we got home, Troy stopped by with CHOCOLATE and we worked on some theatre stuff.

Yesterday we got up at the butt crack and went up to see the parentals for early mom’s birthday, which was lovely. Mom and dad are selling the house to Betsy and Joe and are moving out into their new gigantic trailer. Dang, it was nice. I’ve lived in smaller apartments.

Today we had our first read-through of ‘Miracle Worker’. The theatre was in use, so we all crammed into my living room. It was pretty great. It’s gonna be a kickass show.

Of course, all of this activity has tuckered me out. Now I need a nice long snooze.