Remembering: To say “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit” as soon as I woke up on 1 March.
Reading: Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed. This book is about naked mole rats, so even though it’s by an author whose other work I find fairly unimpressive, I was pretty sure I’d love this one before I even cracked the cover. In this tale, one naked mole rat who likes to wear clothes is criticized by other naked mole rats who think that clothes are weird and that everyone should be naked. In the end, they all agree that it’s okay to have different perspectives on clothing. The best part is that the book doesn’t fall back onto a trite ending in which everyone is wearing clothes. There are still plenty of naked naked mole rats around!
Watching: All of Red Dwarf (the original version, not the let’s-cut-some-material-to-make-room-for-more-special-effects version that came out a few years ago) from start to finish. I love this show.
Resisting: An urge to call people who annoy me “smeghead.”
Speaking of smegheads: I’ve noticed that whenever I send an e-mail to my senators and congressional representative, the only one who requires a “prove you’re not spam” test on the submission form is the one Republican in the bunch. I wonder if this party-line divide is true elsewhere or just in my district.
Not caring about: The Olympics. In short, the Olympics are now nothing more than a huge expression of nationalism and competitions that are more between technologies than between skilled humans. How many millions of dollars go into, say, getting the strap attachment on a helmet just so in order to cut down on wind drag by 0.00000005 percent? It just seems like such a waste of money and effort to me.
Chuckling: About this joke: “Two cats decided to have a swimming contest across the English Channel. One was an English cat called One Two Three. The other was a French cat called Un Deux Trois. One Two Three cat won the race. Un Deux Trois cat sank. “
Remember that Baktus scarf I made last fall of two not-quite-full skeins of Koigu? Sylvia has taken to wearing it–which is great, because it’s the perfect size for her.
During last month’s heavy snowfalls, she spent a lot of time playing outside in the snow. Her pre-play preparations including putting on four layers of clothes* and finishing up with this scarf. After one outside excursion she came back inside only to discover that the scarf was missing. We looked in the yard and even revisited the small hill on the next street (where we’d tried sledding that day) but didn’t find it. Sylvia was a bit unhappy, but I was fairly certain the scarf was somewhere in the yard and would turn up eventually.
Lo and behold, as Jan and I were building a castle (complete with a snow bench long enough for all three of us!) in the front yard a week later, look what we found!
__________
*I know this may seem like overkill, but she’s not shoveling (and therefore not building up a lot of heat), and she does spend most of her time sitting or lying on the snow (so waterproofness is key).
Time to MARCH FORTH, everyone!
(I just love this date every year.)
Early in February I signed up to participate in a swap hosted by Leah at Our Yellow House. I’ve been off swaps for a few years now–mostly because most of them are really huge and focused on the stuff rather than on the connection. But this one appealed to me because it’s a one-to-one swap (so you’re matched with one other person), and because participants aren’t allowed to spend any money. Yup, that’s right: you need to work with what you have, and send four things that meet certain descriptions.
I was matched with Melinda, who is unfortunately blogless. We’ve been writing back and forth, and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know her. What an interesting person! Maybe one day if she starts a blog you’ll get to discover her wonderfulness for yourself; until then, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Her package for me arrived last week. We didn’t even have to mail stuff until the end of the month, so its early arrival was a pleasant surprise.
Everything in here was handmade by Melinda. The little book (she knows about bookbinding–how cool is that?) has several pages with pockets at the beginning. I think this may become my new knitting notebook! At the bottom right is a sewn coffee-cup cozy that I know will come in handy. And at the bottom right?
This is what it looks like opened up. It’s a reusable sandwich wrap! I have been wanting one of these since I first started seeing them online a few years ago. My usual MO is to wash out and reuse ziploc bags until they fall apart, but I like this option much better.
Thanks, Melinda! My package to you went out in yesterday’s mail–I hope you like it!
…is finished. I cast off a few days ago and have been wearing it pretty much nonstop every since. I love this sweater.
You may recall that I had some issues with the sleeves at first. But I sorted those out and reknit them lickity split.
The body knit up quickly, too (gotta love that round-and-round mindless knitting)–not least because I did much of it while (re)watching one of the greatest television series ever made, Red Dwarf.
The lesson I learned during Round One of the Sleeves was “trust the pattern.” (You’d think I’d have already known this, since I’ve knit three other Wallabies in the past…) For the most part, I followed the pattern exactly. Here are my mods:
I extended the ribbing on the sleeves from 3″ to 5″. I also made the sleeves a few inches longer than the pattern specified. I did this because my arms are longer than average in relation to the rest of my body, and I really hate having too-short sleeves. The extra ribbing gives me the option of pulling the sleeve down over the palms of my hands or of folding them back over themselves to get them out of the way tidily.
I wanted something that would contract a bit more than K1P1, so I used K2P2 ribbing around the wrists.
Because I do not like sweaters than bind at the waist, I did not do the called-for ribbing at the beginning of the body. Instead, I started right in with the stockinette, figuring I could do something else with it later. Although I like the look of the rolled hem at the bottom, I don’t like how it feels–whenever I lean back or lie down, I feel a bump on my lower back. So I’ll be changing this to a tidier hem like the one I knit on Sylvia’s second Wallaby.
Using a rolled hem instead of ribbing meant I needed to knit the body a bit longer (unless I wanted the bottom of the sweater to end at my belly button!).
I’m also not a hood-wearer, so I opted to skip the hood and knit the garter collar instead. I very much like how this turned out!
So now my family has matching Wallabies! (Jan has one, and Sylvia has not one but two.) Yes, a family portrait is in order some time soon…
While my friend Beth was secretly knitting a pincushion for me, my friend Katie was secretly knitting this tea cozy for me. Or not so secretly, as the case may be: she actually worked on it while she was sitting in my house, but lied her head off and told me it was for herself. She even lied when she blogged about it, too!
So imagine my surprise when Katie came over a few days ago and handed me this:
Of course I had to test it immediately (on a pot of Darjeeling). It fits perfectly–and actually did keep the tea warm a lot longer!
I am so lucky!
(Project 363 | 2010: 22 February)
Guess what happened again yesterday?
(I love how rhododendron leaves curl up when it’s really cold outside.) Fortunately, only about an inch fell this time.
We’ve been busy with crafty stuff around here, partly because of being snowbound. We do go out to play in the snow, but after a while it’s time to come inside to get warm and enjoy some hot chocolate and do some inside stuff for a while. The other day, Sylvia and I build a nest: I hot-glued together some pieces of craft felt into a bowl-ish shape, and she filled it with lengths of yarn. Then she asked me to make a bird for her, so I made up this one:
I’m in the home stretch of the Wonderful Wallaby I’m knitting for myself–working on the neck placket now (woot!). I’ve decided not to knit the hood. The result won’t be an exact match to the hooded Wallabies I’ve knit for Sylvia and Jan, but I know I will never wear the hood, so there’s no point in wasting yarn and time on it. I expect to finish up this sweater in the next few days. In the meantime, I’ve been wearing a sweater that I finished during the summer…and just now realize that I never wrote about here.
It’s a simple bottom-up in-the-round raglan knit in Wool of the Woods. It’s very toasty and has a buttoned opening on the front-left raglan seam. (Because the neckline is so wide, I don’t ever need to unbutton the sweater to get it on or off.) My favorite part? The buttons:
I bought these buttons when Sylvia was maybe a year old. They are pewter, and I bought two of each of the five designs, thinking they would be so adorable on a sweater for her. Unfortunately, they are rather heavy–too heavy for a fine knit. They work well on this raglan seam, though; because it’s on an angle, I think that helps prevent the buttons from sagging.
I totally agree with Scalzi: Grover is indeed the Best Muppet Ever.
For all that we have about three feet of snow on the ground (it was more, but it’s settled over the past few days), it’s not particularly sticky stuff. I really wanted to make a snowman today, so I had to wing it.
First I made a huge mound for the body. Then I got lucky and found a very compacted chunk for the head. Jan and Sylvia helped with the decorations: an old scarf, gloves from the 2002 NYC Marathon (no, I wasn’t in it, but I was there to watch my brother-in-law race, and Nike reps handed these gloves out to spectators), a wool hat that was made in Afghanistan but bought in Oregon twelve years ago, gumball buttons, and an acorn smile. They raided the recycling bin in the garage for the eyes and nose.
I like to imagine that he’s standing in our front yard yelling, “I’m number one! I’m number one!” to all passersby.
(Project 365 | 2010: 14 February)
Yesterday morning around 8:30 a.m., I had just finished breakfast and was thinking about suiting up to go outside to shovel the six inches of snow that had fallen since I’d last shoveled, and Sylvia said, “I think someone is here.” I looked outside the window and sure enough, my friend Beth was here. She also happens to live in my neighborhood and enjoys a good walk, so she was here on foot.
And not empty-handed. Look what she brought:
I’d posted the pattern last month, and Beth then took it upon herself to knit one for me. And see that little button on the top? She handpainted a little bee on it! (My family has a thing for bees. And hedgehogs. And cheetahs.)
I love it. I can’t wait to get a new sewing project going so I can use it!
(Project 365 | 2010: 12 February)
