Love in Every Stitch

The owner of Absalom the Destroyer is still having a rough time physically. My reaction to that is to knit her things and worry a lot. You can guess which one is more productive.

It is a testament of my love for her that one of those knit things is a pair of kneesocks in her favorite colorway. Miles and miles of ribbed kneesocks.

Drops Long Socks (mine ravelled here),

knit in Felici Fingering in the (discontinued) Groovy colorway 

I'm still searching for the perfect kneesock pattern. I'm excited for her to try these on because I think I may have nailed it. It has an extra-long heel flap and gusset to better fit her foot. It has 80 stitches at the top in a k3, p2 pattern. After a million miles, it decreases down to 64 stitches in k2, p2. I did the decrease over two rounds about an inch apart. Decreasing 16 stitches at once seemed a recipe for weirdness. I honestly didn't follow the pattern except for the stitch count. I just did my normal heel flap, gusset, and toe. If it's not broken...

Once those were done, I was still avoiding the blue sweater and decided to reknit the Fightin' Words fingerless gloves. They were too small to be really comfortable for my friend, and she had requested another pair.

I made the cuff longer than the pattern states and added four more patterned rounds to the top. I count it a victory that I remembered to switch needle sizes every time I was supposed to do so. (It's a lot.) I love these and still may make a pair of mittens for me at some point.

Fightin' Words (mine ravelled here),

knit in leftovers--a mystery black 

and Knitpicks Chroma fingering in (discontinued) Roller Skate colorway

I may not be able to fix what ails her, but I'll do my best to keep her warm.

Thanks but no!

Recently a very dear friend send me an e-mail:

We're getting Mom and Dad's house ready for their 60th Wedding Anniversary Party on Sep 6. The house should look pretty good in time for the millions of people to arrive. I didn't send you an invitation because I love you. You're welcome.

It is so fanstasic to have people who know me well enough to know that, while I love them very, very, very much, the idea of going to a party crowded with strangers makes me want to crawl under my bed until the event passes.

Rebecca Lynch has made an app for "introjis," which are emojis for introverts. You can find them here. It's one of the few kickstarters I've supported. She gets me.

"Not going, but thanks for the invitation!"

copyright Rebecca Lynch--buy the app here (Android) or here (Apple)

Embroidery for Lynn

Yesterday was my dear friend Lynn's birthday. I gave her two pieces.

Sometimes you need to gently remind people about the importance of interpersonal communication.

This is more polite than yelling, "If you don't turn off that phone, I'm going to smash it into tiny bits."

Lynn IS magic. I hope this reminds her that I know it, too.

Lynn, I'm really grateful to have you in my life. Happy birthday!

In Which We Meet Violet

Through the magic of the Internet, I met Katie. She's an excellent friend. One of her amazing traits is that she can knit and crochet. She is, in fact, bicraftual. In a clear illustration of her awesomeness, she offered to crochet the pieces necessary to make a happypotamus (these pieces shall henceforth be known as "hippo bits").

My end of the bargain was to sew the hippo bits together and fully assemble said hippos. I would send one back to Katie.

Katie then realized that hippo bits are a tedious pain in the ass. She finished mine anyway because she is awesome. Hers is on hold.

first pieces!

I started assembling last week.

hippo bum!

After I sewed all the pieces, I gave it a soak. The hippo had been through a lot and needed a bit of spa time. (The floating bits in this picture are the two ears and the final nose patch that gets attached after all the stuffing happens.)

The pattern recommends using glass or plastic eyes with a little hook on the end. I didn't have these and didn't want to buy 100 eyes--I don't make that many things that require eyes--so I used the pair I had left from when I knit my sister a teddy bear. They had posts that pushed into washer thingies (technical term).

Trying to do it once the hippo was completely sewn made me want to kill people, so I did a little surgery and took out a seam around the eyes. Then Andrew muscled the eyes into place.

The hippo, now finished, sprang to life on the dining room table. This made Nocturne the cat furious as she gets in trouble for being on the table.

So we went outside.

She visited the stokesia...

...and the coneflowers...

...played hide and go seek...

...reveled in getting to be a hippo on a bird's back rather than the usual other way around...

...contemplated living in one of my planters--to be fair, she looked great with that mix of colors...

...hung out in the hydrangeas...

...checked out some petunias...

...and ended her afternoon smelling some coleus.

Her name is Violet, and she is beautiful.

Friendsgiving 2014

Before:

After:

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Day Trip

Unbeknownst to me, Rachel snapped this picture of me while we were shopping at Simply Socks Yarn Company in late June. It makes me smile.

Huh. Did I not blog about this trip? Why not?

We took a random Tuesday off, drove to Fort Wayne and had a lovely day. We went to Simply Socks, four or five different thrift stores, and DeBrand chocolate.

Our favorite thrift shop was the Dove's Nest Thrift Shop. It had fabulous things, like this hat and scarf:

and a selection of books that had not been approved by the staff.

I bought a small green glass vase for 50 cents, a couple Avon cologne bottles in the shape of a Mustang and Thunderbird, some presents, and two vintage purses ($7 total for both purses). I'm quite sad I don't live closer to that store. I don't particularly enjoy shopping, but I enjoyed that place a lot... except for the purse area which had a CD on loop singing a horrible song over and over and over--something about "spirit to spirit." I wanted to roundkick that stereo until it died and then smash the CD into tiny pieces. I'm fairly sure that was not the reaction the artist was hoping for.

I've said it before, but if you're anywhere near Fort Wayne, Indiana, go to Simply Socks Yarn Company. You'll need to check their website to see when they're open for visitors, and you'll need to plan on spending an hour or two. Then head over to the Dove's Nest Thrift Shop and finish the day with chocolate. Perfect!

City Market Catacombs

On Saturday, a group of us did a little sightseeing in our own city, visiting the catacombs below Indy's City Market (tour info here).

The remaining above-ground portion of Tomlimson Hall

Tomlinson Hall was a two-story structure with the catacombs underneath. It was built in the 1880s and burned down in 1958. It was a large space; the second floor was an auditorium that could seat 3,500. Nobody seems to know what the catacombs were used for, but perhaps it was storage for the market vendors.

Most of the catacombs looked like this:

But there were a few surprises, such as a bicycle:

a circle of chairs that I'm pretty sure is used for a ghost support group:

and a brick that anyone my age recognizes immediately from watching Scooby Doo:

I'm sure if you press on that brick, a secret door opens. Sadly, it was in the arch over our heads, so we didn't get to try it out.

After the tour, we went into City Market for lunch. It's quite beautiful and wasn't swamped on Saturday like it is during the week.

 Windows in City Market

Delicious!

Stripy Magic

I have a very good friend, Lynn. She's magic, as I've already mentioned. In February, I made her some special socks.



 

Linaria Bipartita, blogged here

 

It was special yarn, and I had some left over. I asked if she'd like stripy fingerless gloves, and she said she would. I weighed the yarn, split it into two parts, and started knitting. I paired it with a sparkly black since she's magic. Magic sparkles.

 

In a Hanukah-like miracle, I had enough yarn to continue the striping all the way up each mitt.

 



Elphaba Mitts (mine raveled here),

knit in Juno Fiber Arts Buffy Sock, Wistful colorway

and Knit Picks Stroll Glimmer, Black colorway

 

This pattern reminds me of the Jaywalker sock pattern, which I like a lot. I like the way it makes the edging interesting, and it gets more pronounced with a bit of blocking.

 

 

Children's Museum

Saturday we celebrated a good friend's birthday. He wanted to go to the Children's Museum to see their Superhero exhibit. I hadn't been for a long time.

Our Children's Museum is awesome. This is the outside.

Inside, there's a giant Dave Chihuly glass tower sculpture (because nothing says "children" like "glass" apparently). It's stunning. To get a sense of scale, each of those horizontal levels you see behind the tower are different floors of the museum. The tower is 43 feet tall and has more than 3200 pieces of blown glass in it.

The superhero exhibit was pretty small, but cool. There were tons of comics.

Andrew and I decided we needed this on our carpet at home.

I was able to design my own superhero. I've already thought a lot about what my superpower would be. I would like to be able to fly, but even more than that, I'd like to be able to encourage plants to grow. I'd be like Poison Ivy from Batman, but nicer.

There also was an extensive dinosaur/dragon display.

There were several dioramas that made no sense to me. Here, dinosaurs are at a juice bar manned by Hello Kitty. Why? I have no idea.

They also had a Hot Wheels exhibit. This car was designed for a 40th anniversary of one of their designers. It's covered in blue diamonds.

This is us! I love our group of friends very, very much. I much prefer visiting the Children's Museum with them than with children.

Lost

My favorite person to talk knitting with isn't a knitter.  Rachel has a profound love of knitwear, and she's a joy to knit for.*

As happens, she experienced a mitten tragedy.  Her sorrow was profound...

... and unnecessary.  I'm going to knit her another, and I'm happy to do it.  All that's left is to hope that a person missing her right hand found the mitten and believes it is a gift from the universe.

*I know it should be "with whom to talk knitting" and "a joy for whom to knit", but you have to admit that sounds ridiculous.  Stupid grammar.

Mental Floss!

Yesterday evening Brandy and I went to the Mental Floss Trivia Show.  Here is a smattering of the things we learned:

• Mr. T and Teddy Roosevelt both had photographic memories.
• An opossum has 13 nipples.
• There were 7 Police Academy Movies.
• Bill Clinton sent a grand total of 2 e-mails while in office.
• The Wonderbra was originally sold by Sara Lee.
• Dick Cheney worked as an intern for Ted Kennedy.  (Well, sort of.)
• Hawaiian Punch was originally served as an ice cream topping.

We had a nice time, and I came home with this t-shirt:

Brandy got this one:

She also was given a t-shirt for fixing the co-founder's audio issue from the audience.  Her power is great.

If you don't currently read Mental Floss, you should start.  I'm not just saying that because of the t-shirts.