Less than a mile..

My sister lives less than a mile from me.
I forgot my camera battery charger when I was there last.
When I was there last, was Christmas.

We have been too busy to find
a time for me to get it when she is there.
Or for her to drop it by to me.

I see her husband more than I see her....but
he is our realtor, and we are desperate to find land.

So...I see my realtor brother in law ( yeah..I write it ALL out, and my kid isn't my DD either.)a lot more than I do his lovely wife...
My beautiful muralist sister is extremely busy.

So...

this is why I dont have pics to show lately!

And why I cant show you what I found yesterday.
I went to a local store here where they sell everything
from pharmaceuticals to goat milk cheese to clothes...and cheap.

I saw that they had sweaters and other knits, so
I looked at the seams of some.
Most were natural fibers...wool, cotton..and
some silk/angora/wool blend knit skirts.
And they had good seams for unraveling
( hand finished with mattress stitch as opposed to serged)..

and there was a sign saying "ALL clothing 99 cents"!

I got a GIANT sapphire blue wool sweater...
seriously..it was big on me, and I wear an 18.
It was marked size small...but it was enormous, and
it is cable knit..so a ton of yarn in that thing...and
it has a large cowl neck!
I estimate that it is maybe ...hmmm...4000 yards
of fingering weight wool...
At 4.5 per 220 a yard ball...it would have cost more
than 80 dollars.

I then also bought the silk/angora/wool blend
skirts...4 of them.
lets say also about 4000 yards? At say 7 dollars
a ball that is 220 yards? 127 dollars.

But I paid 5 dollars..for all of it!

The down side?
The skirts while coming apart fairly easily,
are made of two strands of very fine yarn, held together.
Makes it kind of fussy.
Also, while the skirts are unworn..I am
guessing the skirts have been alive for awhile. The yarn inside of the waistband is much brighter....if you can call any of it bright.
The two strands are a shell pink and a grey held together.
The overall effect is...kind of beige.
It has to be dyed. I don't do beige.

eh...who the fuck cares.

I was on the phone while writing this
trying to reschedule an appointment for
Donna, to have her hearing checked.
We all have the flu...and all of us have earaches.
I thought rescheduling was the right thing.
Only to find out that they can't get her in until APRIL.
I tried to go ahead and keep today's
appointment because SHE CANT HEAR!
But the lady said she had canceled it
already...and it couldn't be undone.
I just started crying...and I can't seem to stop.
I have failed my child.
I just dont really deserve children.

I'm not mean...wait..it's about yarn...don't leave!

well..not in your most basic way, I'm not mean.
I do have a problem with snobs, idiots, graspers, takers, molesters...etc...

but I don't like to hurt people..and I
try to see all sides to a situation.

Anyways..
I won an Ebay auction the last week...week
before...whatever.
I sent my payment within their alotted
time, and was clear in communication.

They sent me something that looked quite
unlike what was pictured
on the auction page.

It IS the same color...and that's about
where the similarity ends.

The texture is COMPLETELY different.
They showed a yarn in a cool brown that was
nubbly, and loopy.
I recieved a smooth cabled yarn.

It really don't like cabled yarn.

They also said it was wool.
It is wool wrapped with a fine strand of some
manmade fiber.
burn test also says it is a blend. It melted instead
of left ash
AND it smelled like hair.

I waited and wrote to then before just leaving my feedback.
I let them know all of the reason's I wasn't happy.
I also let them know I was keeping the yarn.
I just wanted to hear their side before I made my feedback.

They DID reply, addressing only one concern...
not responding to others...especially why it was represented as all wool, and why it looks completely different from pictured.

In the end I left a nuetral feedback explainging the problems briefly.

Why do I feel like a big meany?


In other news..I made a new blog.

What's with me lately..

I am not the best knitter in the world...but
 lately my work has been really loose and sloppy.
That ribbing is a disgrace...and ...bleh...the whole thing
looks like crap.
I think I will frog it and go down a size or two in needles.
The wool is sooo pretty.
Look at that color!
It is kind of  overly crisp in hand and not very soft...
and the store had one ball.
So I thought it would be great for mittens for Donna.
It doesn't look it, but that's a really tiny mitten.
She almost never can wear store bought ones,
since her hands so so small.
I knit for about a size 3 year old...tried it on her
while she was napping.
One thing I can say....the mitten fits perfectly.





Um..I painted some...



 

childhood fantasies

"You wanna a peice of meat!?"

That has been a sorce of giggles for a few years now.
Ever since Becca thought that the phrase being parodied 
by a cartoon character was that instead of "You want a peice of me?!"

She would shout that at me when i would tell her to pick up
her toys or any other undesirable maternal command.

I have never been very tolerant of her challenges to my
authority...but that one was just plain funny...
especially since she was dead serious... black eyes flashing..

"You wanna a piece of meat!?"

She'd get so mad when I would start laughing and request a steak.

Anyways...that's the tough girl phrase in our house, as far as the girl's are concerned...
They still aren't quite sure why it makes me laugh.

I bought Becca something today that she has been begging for.
Wings..

They flutter and play a tune while strapped onto the child's back.
She has been so ill, I thought a bit of cheering up was in order.

So...if you buy it for one child...you buy it both.

Donna has had a blast with hers.
She put them on and went fluttering and tearing through the house.
She came around the circle formed by hallway, livingroom, and dining room...stopped, said "GRRRRR!"
Then with wings doing their angelic dance, and heavenly tunes along side of the wing action, she says...
"You wanna piece of meat!?"

Becca was pleased...played with hers some...but feels too crappy to indulge in any wild childhood fantasies.
She took them off after a few moments, and asked when she would be 4'9"
Maybe she wants to grow bigger than the cold that is living in her nose and chest.

At least she didn't ask me this time what would happen if someone put a flower down the toilet.

In other news.


I have added to my stash...I have added ribbon yarn.
pretty ribbon yarn that makes me feel all tingly.

And no..I am not a yarn snob...Lion Brand is good enough for me.
I dont mind any yarn...so long as it isn't crispy.
That super sparkly stuff ( greens and purples) IS crispy...and wasn't cheap even marked half off of list. Bill had a great idea.
I was going to use it as a bag...he offered the suggestion of making a long "sash" that could be a scarf or a belt...or a whatever.
He probably wants to tie me up with it.
One can only hope. ;)

Oopsy...I should leave out any and all BDSM references, shouldn't I?
Nah....if you can't handle it, go to another blog.
I am the submissive knitter. And I bet I'm not the only one.

And yeah..I'm not all that submissive in everyday life.
Go figure.

Hey..it was free..

Mom gave me the ball of yarn from Joann's called "shaggy". I wasn't too crazy about it..still am not, but it was free yarn!
I made my daughter a scarf in 2 hours too!( first time I ever actually used those size 17 needles...it was weird.)The scarf is the last pic because I'm stupid...so there.
Also pictured is part of my other daughters costume...she's going to be a poodle.
Also a pic of another cat sweater...I won that yarn.10 balls of Phoenix by...ummm...I dont recall but at list price it was about 100.00 worth of yarn that I won! I combined it with knitpics palette to give more body to the fabric..

So..that completes our novelty yarn fashions for the family show.

In other news...I taught my husband to knit the other day.
In even more other news. I will be at Michaels tomorrow teaching people to knit for Warm Up America!

They were on sale..

those ten balls of sock yarn I bought yesterday...were 50 percent off.

The 12 balls of wool were not..and I did only mean to get 10.

The sock yarn and that fluffy stuff were completely unplanned..but does sock yarn at 50 percent off, and pink fluffy stuff that was cheap even at regular price, really count?

You betcha!

I have a significantly enhanced stash baby..and I love it!

When I told my husband that I may have spent a bit too much on yarn he just said "Oh?"

Me spending too much on anything is sort of a novelty.


I am working on a hat for a contest at the knit out the mid-ohio knitter guild is ..what's the word..doing?

I have frogged it a total of about 5 times..but only once entirely..I think I am about to completely frog it again..seems too small..
And yes, I did a guage swatch..in stockinette....

if only that was what I was knitting the hat in..

Well..I have finished all but the toe of Becca's Magic splotch sock..I do both toes at the same time. This way my urge for an FO stays with me. That yarn sure is..big for sock yarn..all in all..it is about the worst sock that I have ever made..but..here it is.

I got some much nicer yarn..Parade from knitpicks. I think they should have named it "mermaid". It goes so well with the pic that I have been working on.

Ms Mermiad isn't done yet so technically, noone is supposed to be seeing her. So you saw nothing here..ok. I would have to kill you other wise.
ok

I also got a knitting bag..I LOVE this thing. It's huge. It's clear. It's fully packed.



ok..this is prime knitting time that I'm cutting into by farting around on the internet. ( "The kids are in bed..hurry..knit! They'll be up in about 10 hours!" )
Sweaters for hairless cats dont knit themselves. ( It's a swap thing)

magic splotches

ugh..I wrote this whole thing out and then when I was about to finish up..Opera 9 beta crashed and I couldn't recover my post.
That's what I get for using two betas to blog, I suppose.

Anyways..I was talking about Lion Brand Magic Stripes.
I LOVE the colors..they are all so cute.
But the yarn has issues that mean it will be fine for socks for me and the girl people in my family..Bill doesn't do..stripes..magic or otherwise...
but it will not be good for the light verticle striped sweater that I have always wanted to knit for myself.
It is for one thing..rough. I have heard it softens after washing...I was thinking some hair conditioner.And it IS reasonable for socks if you knit at a guage of 28 stitches per 4 inches or less..for shits and giggles I guaged with a size 1 US and it was a bit unfriendly feeling.

But the bigger problem is in the dying. I have twice in a short amount of yarn used found undyed spaces mid stripe..and there are splotches and flecks from where the yarn of one stripe colored area touched another.
This makes it look like you are knitted in a splotch in the cases of bigger areas..and dirty when knitted up when it was just a small fleck.

I now am coming to the pic part..and will copy and paste this text. The crashing in the last attempt for pic uploading related, I am sure.



The above is a sock for Becca and my multi needle playing around swatch..NOT a guage swatch..just fooling with the yarn.
I frogged the sock, and started with another pattern that had fewer typos and mistakes in it. ( funny how someone SEEMS to be so clever until you actually READ what they wrote..but that is another issue..one I will not eleaborate upon, because I dont believe in being nasty for nasty sake.) I also was kind of astounded at how poorly I knitted the ribbing and couldn't live with such uneveness..and people would know for all enternity that I knitted that.
Anyways..see that splotch..and the kind of dirty look?

That's why for the sweater I always wanted..I will keeping searching for a self striping yarn..or just do it the less magical..old fashioned way..intarsia verticle stripes or sideways as I would do if using the self striping yarn..The world wouldn't end. I just like the less yarn and bulk with the self striping.
I also wonder..if I knitted the stuff up and down..would the stripes be cut short..and I would have kind of jagged irregular stripes? Worth playing with I think.

by the way..still waiting for my knitpicks order..oddly enough, it is taking some time. I live in the same area as they are located and assume that is why I always recieved pretty quick. But they just did send out yesterday, and FedEx hasnt even dropped it off to the US postal service yet.
This is upposed to be a time saving method..maybe just money saving..dont know. I qualified for the free shipping ( my order was well over 40 dollars. *blush* so if knitpicks can save themselves some money this way, I'm ok with that.

oooo!!

 I just ordered a bunch of yarn and needles ( bamboo DPN's! Sizes 4,5,6,7  I have little ones) and bags from knitpicks.com

several types of self striping sock yarn
wool of the Andes in ...um..it's not called black ( I am eventually going to MAKE my dream bag..felted and lined.)
and some cream colored sock yarn

and get this..I am even going to make something for..me!