Stylin'

Devil is starting to assert her own, individual fashion sense. She went off to daycare this morning wearing:

1) Dora panties
2) a pink and yellow floral print "dress" (for dress, read: nightgown)
3) Dora sneakers
4) about 42 Dora band-aids from the (almost empty) box that was purchased at 6:30 pm last night. And she insists that "Mama, I'm not using them all up!" Yeah, right.

This entire ensemble was pronounced "Cool!" Unfortunately no blackmail material pictures were obtained, but I suspect there will be a repeat performance in the not-too distant future. Three year olds are fun!

Remember me?

I apologize for the lack of posting these days. I'm in the midst of writing a 5 year grant proposal and enjoying life as a single mom for a bit, so in the evenings my free time is taken up by knitting to Buffy Season 4 and not so much by the computer. But it will soon be over.

I actually have two mostly-FOs to blog about: I finished Devil's skirt, but need to get some ribbon for the drawstring and finish the finishing (my favorite part!). I've also finished the top-down interpretation of the Summertime Tunic, but that piece also requires finishing (darning in all those damned ends!) and, surprisingly enough, some ribbon for the straps. My excursions to anything that might be vaguely called a sewing store in Houston have been pretty much limited to Michael's and JoAnne's, neither of which have great ribbon selections. Does anyone have any good ribbon sources in Houston?

In order to distract you from the lack of posting and FOs, I'd like to introduce you to my new long-term (reeeeeeeally long-term) project: The Sock Yarn Blanket.

This absolutely crazy lady (and I mean that in the best possible way) looked at her pile of sock yarn scraps and decided to knit a mitered square blanket with them. Seems like a good way to use up that pesky few grams of sock yarn that always seem to be hanging around after you finish a pair of socks, right? Right I thought. So off I went.

And that's when I realized that, while I have a bunch of sock yarn scraps, I don't really have that many. So this project is going to take me a really really long time to complete. I'm not doing a full sized blanket (I am not that nucking futs yet) - mine is going to be a kid's blanket, probably for Scud*, and will end up being approximately 28 x 40 inches. Here's the schematic:

Instead of doing garter stitch squares, I'm doing mine in stockinette, so I'm planning a garter stitch border around the edge to keep the thing from curling too much. Plus some kind of soft fleecy backing so I don't have to weave in all those ends (per E's suggestion at my Wednesday knitting group).

Here's my somewhat slow progress to date:

Is there any chance I'll finish this before Boo leaves for college? Anyone have any leftover sock yarns lying around that they'd like to donate? I'll send you good chocolate...

* I've decided this is Boo's new nickname following a trip to the zoo on Mother's Day. She wants to walk everywhere now instead of being held, but her attention wanders quite a bit so she weaves all over the place. And more often then not, misses her target. Truly entertaining unless you're in a crowd and she starts bouncing off people's legs!

Mama, are those cars?

There are lots of downsides to living in Houston, starting (and ending I guess) with the weather from about the end of March through November. This year we've gotten lucky weather-wise, and yesterday we ventured out in the first 100+ heat index days to partake of a Houston tradition - Art Car.

Now I'm annoyed that we never went before - it was incredible (and, as Ironman pointed out, something that would not be out of place in Brattleboro) and far outside the normal Houston scene.

There were dog cars (which the girls loved),

and all sorts of SE Texas critters. Like an alligator,

A cockroach,

A chicken,

And a redneck in an outhouse.

Then we had the political statements. First off, the M-Peach car,

And then a not-really-work-safe favorite, the Missile Dick Chicks,

complete with erect figurehead, and preceded down the road by these two fellows:

The crowning glory were the bumpstickers they were displaying "Cheney-Satan, 08".

The grand winner was The Lady of Transportation, a truly impressive contraption.

Those are VW Bug hoods up there at the top

My two favorites were The Sashimi Tabernacle Choir,

240+ singing fish and lobsters, who all moved in unison as the car went down the road

and, of course, The Yarn Car.

More photos here for anyone who is interested. Next post: some type of finished object, I promise!

5/12/08 ETA: Tom Jones, curator of the Art Car Museum here in Houston, was killed in a tragic car accident early Sunday morning following the parade and festivities. Read more here. Thank you Tom for such a wonderful event and for bringing more beauty and joy to the streets.

Parallels

I realized this morning that I'm basically knitting the same thing twice - the Summertime Tunic (top-down version) for me, and Devil's sock yarn skirt. Both simple tubes of endless stockinette (but soothing!), and in both cases I'm planning on dressing up the bottom edge with a simple lace pattern. I'm getting close to the lace stage on both of them, so I've been pouring over pattern books and the few stitch dictionaries I have for the past couple of nights trying to find some ideas.



I've found something that I think I like for the TDST (top-down Summertime Tunic) - it's basically a rib pattern with a bunch of yarn overs and a k3tog thrown in for good measure.

Interweave subscription card for contrast

So far it seems to be working out ok. I was thinking about increasing to allow a little extra hip room, but with this stretchy rib I don't think I'm going to need it.

Devil's skirt made great progress today (2x1+ hour bus rides, but 1 hr SnB at lunchtime made for several inches of striping). I didn't expect the stripes on this to be so wide - imagine how wide they'd be on half the stitches in a sock! - but I am going to have enough yarn, which was a small worry in the back of my mind.


Picot edging on top hem

I have a couple of candidates for a bottom border to mull over and decide on - she goes back and forth between "I want leaves Mama!" to "Just some pattern is ok". Tough audience! I'm hoping that both of these will join the FO parade in the next week or so, but we all know that predictions like that have a way of blowing up on me. But since I'm not knitting socks at the moment, something else has got to get done, right?

How was your weekend?

Mine was just lovely, thank you. For whatever bizarro reason, spring in Houston this year has been absolutely beyond gorgeous - the hot, humid weather has held off for a surprisingly long time, giving us (fairly) cool, dry mornings and nice evenings to spend out on the porch watching the kiddos romp around in the kiddie pool and the sand box making a mess.

Race report: race went well, for the most part. The swim was pretty good, the bike was excellant, and the run was only ok (mostly because I was pushing the bike pretty hard). I had a good time, and managed to keep upright on the bike, which has been my downfall in the past. Interesting things of note: many more silly looking aero helmets, and many fewer disc wheels then I've seen at past races. It's funny what people choose to spend their money on - almost as funny as the folks who are however many pounds overweight arguing at great length over the relative contribution of 200 grams from Ultegra versus Dura Ace. But that's a rant for another post (or not).

My wrist is feeling much better (Must.Keep.Tape.On.Nine.More.Days.Aaaaaaaaaaargh!), but I'm in the midst of the multi-WIP-wasteland - several things on the needles, all of which have seen progress in the last little while, but none of which are particularly photographically interesting. Devil's little sock yarn skirt (Rav link) is cruising along, but there's only so much progress you can show day-to-day when it takes 10 rows to get an inch. The Summertime tunic is in the same straits - it gets less attention since it's not bus knitting, but 200+ stitches/row in stockinette takes a while to get anywhere. I've got one skein left after the one I'm currently working on, and I'm hoping when I start it, I'll be far enough down the body so I can start some lace for the bottom section. Of course, that requires that I pick out some lace pattern to use, which requires actually attention/thought about what I want, and that motivation seems few and far between these days.

After the massive sock explosion of the last month, I'm loath to cast on any new ones, but I have a pair that have been languishing in the last stages of finishing for going on two years now. Is it cheating if I finish those off and use them for this month's contribution?

Finally, the North Roe shawl continues to be lovely and engaging to knit, I'm really enjoying the striping, and the way the lace looks blocked out. But (and there's always a but). I'm going to run out of yarn. Which means that I'll have to spin some more. Which is not really a problem except that it means pulling out the rest of the top, laying it out, finding the right color repeat, excising that section of top, splitting/predrafting/whatever it was I did last time around, and then spinning some more laceweight. Again with the lacking of motivation.

Who knows when all these things will get done? Although the lack of in progress reporting should theoretically lead to an explosion of FO posts, right?

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Speaking of progress reports:

Finished
Firestarter socks
Spiral Boot socks
Verdant laceweight

In progress:
Summertime tunic
Devil's sock yarn skirt
Basalt tank revisited
North Roe shawl

I promise I'll have pictures next time.