Two hats

 Christopher’s earflap hat–he didn’t want braids or ties.  It is handspun superwash that I overdyed and then knit up.   My Boku hat to match my fingerless mitts.   I made a VERY slapdash light box.  I was too lazy to even cover all of the brown cardboard.  But, I do think it might have helped, so maybe I’ll make a “real” one.  This one was a bit too small.  I also need a “head” to photograph hats on.  Do you get those at a beauty-supply shop or someplace?  I don’t want to buy a wig to go on it, but the patterns that show the hat on a head always make it easier to figure out what it really looks like.   They ended the boil water advisory and sent the kids back to school yesterday!  But, then it was really cold and my NEW car wouldn’t start!  Had to get it jumped and then fool around with charging up the battery, which was boring.  Didn’t really want to go “someplace” and have it die again… 

UGH!

The kids were off on Friday last week.  Teacher workday.  They were off on Monday for MLK day.  They went to school on Tuesday.  Then a big water main busted downtown and they cancelled school for Wednesday and said if you lost water on Tuesday you had to boil.  We didn’t.  Yesterday MORE water pipes broke and they cancelled school again TODAY because we are still on a boil water and it is extended to EVERYONE.  So I got to spend my morning boiling and bleaching and supervising.  Was going to take Christopher to get his flu shot (somehow he hasn’t gotten his yet) and it started to freaking snow.  

My Mazda has the original (i.e., high performance but crappy on snow, says DH) tires and so I’m not sure I want to go out in it.  I know this is very wimpy.  Looks like the snow stopped.  Neighbor kid came over to play and is making me nuts.  So bossy and loud!  The kids like having him/her over, though…Sigh.

Anyhow, I think I’ll throw him out a bit after 2 pm and I can still take Christopher to get his flu shot before 3 pm.

I wanted to go buy some new yarn (and more hand gel and paper towels, etc etc etc), but I won’t drive all the way up to the AC Moore with snow with my silly tires.

 

Finished Christopher’s earflap hat yesterday.  Might post photo later. 

 

Yarn, handspun by me

The left is “spring tulips” that I did ages ago, but I like it.  Then “blue lagoon” from superwash.  Then the new yarn for Christopher’s hat, overdyed blue lagoon.  The one on the right is white superwash dyed with brown Wilton’s.  Evan wants that to be called “marmalade cat” because the rovings looked a lot like our orange cat.

Mitts for Christopher & he wants a hat…

When I finished my Maine Morning Mitts, my 6 year old son said he would like some.  This is the person living in my house most likely to actually wear/use something knitted for him, so I did it.  The Boku was a little too scratchy for him, so I used some handspun superwash that he thought was an acceptable combination of colors.

He has actually been wearing the mitts!

 

Yesterday it was COLD here (remember, I’m in WV, so this is a relative thing, but we went out to the movies and I couldn’t warm up…) so I was wearing my earflap hat around in the house and he said he would like one of those, too.  I would let him have mine, but it is Noro Kureyon and also too scratchy for him.  So I got out the remains of the yarn I’d made him mitts out of and reskeined it and partially over-dyed it with red food coloring.

MLK jr birthday

Happy Birthday Martin Luther King, Jr.{Help celebrate–listen to Performance Today’s King Celebration – including “Lift Every Voice & Sing”, which I love. }You had a wonderful dream!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEMXaTktUfA I’m sorry it hasn’t really happened yet, although we are closer than in the 1960s.Watch Robert Kennedy’s speech upon MLK’s death, too.My husband had a link with the video AND text of “I Have a Dream”

http://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

and Robert F. Kennedy on MLKs death

http://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfkonmlkdeath.html RFK’s speech was given in Indianapolis and apparently was the only city in the US where there were no riots that night.  Huntington, WV did have riots. 

Joined “macuwita sni” knitting group:

I haven’t started with a project for it yet, but it looks lovely and I wanted to add it to my blog.  Knitting with superwash seems like the best option–wool and washable.

 

Kary from the Knotty Sheep moderates the yahoo group, and these are the rules for the group

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/macuwitasni/

 This part is quoted from the Yahoo group:

 

“Macuwita sni” is a Lakota term which translates to: “I’m not cold”! The several thousand children of the Cheyenne River Sioux in South Dakota need our hand knitted wool sweaters!!!If you love to knit & want to open both your heart & stash to warm a child …. do join! There are no fees … no schedules …. no requirements – well, I guess wool yarn, a little time and a little mail money to send your creation to SD are the basics which you will need.Our focus is child sized clothing – size 2 -14. WOOL is WONDERFUL – although a wool/acrylic blend is OK as long as the concentration of wool to acrylic is higher. ~ (No cottons or 100% acrylics please!)~Please consider a larger size too. Yes – it may take a wee bit longer to knit & use a wee bit more yarn – but older children are sometimes over looked. Heck the style *is* oversized anyway!Got extra wool?? Maybe a hat … or mittens … or sox … or vest! This group is a work in progress … let us have fun & knit or crochet!! It would be wonderful if we heard “Macuwita sni ” yelled out, loud & clear!

Mitts for me

I just knit up the Maine Morning Mitts suggested in Mason Dixon. The first time I tried to post it didn’t work!  argh!  Anyhow, these were done with Plymouth Boku.  Now my younger son wants some, too.  I won’t make his with the Boku–a little too scratchy.  I’m going to use some handspun superwash for his.  I used fewer stitches (on mine) than suggested, because I have tiny wrists.  I sortof botched the thumbs, so don’t look too closely.  I am so jealous of the Yarn Harlot and her fast knitting!  I just taught myself to “pick” instead of throw for the knit stitch (inexplicably, I already purled with my left hand).  But after a whole weekend of knitting I can only do one small project, whereas she is finishing pairs of socks in one day.  Sigh. 

No more knitting for my husband.

I will not be (certainly not in the next year or two!) knitting anything for my husband.  There. He has asked me, previously, to knit him a fine gauge grey sweater.  I knew THAT would be a bad idea.  I’m not that great a sweater-knitter and he is too darned picky and I knew I would HATE him if I spent hundreds of hours knitting an expensive garment that he would never wear.  Call L.L. Bean or Land’s End, I said.   

Last year he was looking over my shoulder when I was browsing a Knit Picks catalog and said, oooh, can you get some of THAT yarn and make me a hat?  The yarn in question was alpaca/silk/wool.   He has worn it two or three times.    

I had several skeins of handspun that I was going through, selecting which to bring to the Guild Christmas party exchange.  He picks up one of the skeins and says, don’t give this one away, make me a hat from it.  Okay, I say.  I proceed to make the hat.  I finish the hat.  He puts hat on his head for approximately 3 seconds and says, too big, and it is too pink.  I nearly killed him!  He ASKED me to use this VERY YARN!  He didn’t even make a show of thinking about the hat!    

No more knitting for him.  Maybe ever. His FATHER said, earlier, that if DH didn’t like the hat, he’d take it.  Now I have to figure out whether I should send it off or not. 

Been reading & knitting…

Over the kids’ break, when I ought to have been organizing our back room into a “library” of sorts, I have been reading Mason Dixon and Yarn Harlot and Janet Evanovich books (Plum Lovin’ and Lean Mean Thirteen) and trying desperately to find the third Mistmantle book (Heir of Mistmantle – it is out, but our library is still “processing it” and I don’t want to shell out for the hardcover for $18, sigh).  And knitting… and some spinning…Oh, I also picked up a used copy of The Good Husband of Zebra Drive and started reading that.  And we’ve been watching Firefly after the kids go to bed–I got the boxed set for Christmas.Busy, busy, busy… :) 

Happy New Year!

I got the Fireside Footies done.  Actually, two pairs.  This is a horrible photo.  The footies felted a LOT and the other pair was supposed to be for my SIL, but maybe they will fit my 4-year-old niece…That photo was even worse.

 

I am very cavalier about felting/fulling and usually just stick ‘em in the washer in a lingerie bag and come back at the end.  Apparently it would have been a better plan to check on the footies after a few minutes.

 

Anyhow, now I’ve made 3 pair.  The first were for me.  The ones in the photo were from hand-blended hand-dyed wool & alpaca fiber handspun into yarn by me, knitted into the giant clown slippers as per Pippi’s pattern and felted. 

 

We had a nice, mostly quiet Christmas.  Santa managed to bring the “most needed” gifts for the boys.  Andrew’s parents came for a visit.  We hung out around the house.  On a walk in the neighborhood we saw TWO pileated woodpeckers in the same tree!!  The boys were supposed to go back to school today, but instead they had a snow day and have been out playing.

 

Last weekend we had our Guild meeting and in the fiber exchange I got some lovely rainbow roving and have started spinning it.  Working on the second sock from Tofuties.  Knitting a hat for DH out of handspun that is one single plyed with a strand of variegated wooly nylon thread.