I love Dolly Parton

As Dolly Parton once put it, "I'm busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kickin' contest."  Does anyone remember what movie it was when she uttered that line?  Anyone???

Also, does anyone else remember how Sesame Street had a character named Polly Darton?  Coincidence...I think not!

Anyhoo...take a gander at this:

I was fortunate to see some real live yarn bombing in Carrboro a couple weekends ago.  I didn't even catch all the tags, but you can see more pictures at the Great Yarns/Yarns Etc website (http://www.yarnsetc.com/). 

The yarn bombing will remain up for another couple of weeks...it has been so awesome to see it, and to hear everyone's glee, knitter or not, at beholding it.  My phone rang a few times with friends of mine calling to exclaim about it.  And these are non-knitters.  Isn't that cool?

Another bit of excitement was last week as well.

On in North Carolina can you have cold rain, sleet, and snow one night, and then warm into the 70s by the weekend.  But it sure made my son very happy to play in this, and it made me feel very happy that his mittens finally were not just "for show".  He wears them eeeeeeeverywhere.  Seriously.  

Another gem is also available at your friendly neighborhood yarn store:

Jane, ninja knitting goddess in residence at Yarns Etc, creates these beautiful bags, complete with gorgeous lining, warm wooden handles, and each are capable of inviting the envy of all your friends.  I can't tell which one I like best, and I have been giving them some serious attention. 

Bright colors are shining on needles...spring is coming our way!

And some lovely, bright, cheerful yarns made an entrance at Yarns Etc.

Oh, I'll just help you...um...sort through all that.



I'd like one of each, please.



Rowan, why must you taunt me, looking so glamorous on the shelf? We are destined to be together, oh yes....





Does anyone else feel like some Skittles right 'bout now?

And, last but not least, I have this to show you, too:

Viva La Sock!!!  All hail the mighty sock!!!

....

....pause....

....

Now I'm gonna knit the other one!

Right after the weather does another 180, my daughter's double ear infection (the sequel) dissipates, and my laundry either stops multiplying or becomes sentient enough to get a job and start contributing around here.  Ew, that's a weird thought.

Anyway, totally feeling like a one-legged man in a butt-kickin' contest.  Thank you, Ms. Parton.  You do turn a phrase quite well.  See you next week!





Blue Slip

 

When I was younger, I would forget things quite a lot.  Important stuff in the kid world, actually.  Library books, homework for fourth grade (I did that one a lot), the dreaded "blue slips" that the missed homework required me to take home.  I forgot stuff all over the place.  It didn't take much to make the old vinyl record in my head skip a track.  I would spend a fair bit of the time overcompensating by coming up with excuses.  Sometimes they were pretty lame ("I dunno where I left it") and sometimes they were a bit outlandish ("It's not my fault!  This huge wind came out of nowhere and my backpack was unzipped, and..."). 

"What does this have to do with knitting?" you ask.

Well.  Which would you rather hear? 

A) Lame:  I kept thinking I had more time this week for knitting than I really did, so I putzed around a lot with boring stuff like laundry and trying to "defrag" my computer so it wouldn't run out of disk space and therefore I didn't get to the toe of the Relevé Socks.

or

B) Outlandish:  I meant to do the socks all the way.  By golly, I was going to knit both of them and then I'd have TWO done and wouldn't that be great?  Except I still haven't finished knitting my son's preschool teachers' Christmas arm warmers and I'm dying a slow death from diffuse guilt over it so I finally cracked open that project and knit on it, even though I am so. over. them.  The arm warmers.  Not the teachers.  Don't be crazy, teachers are the future, guys.  So then I was behind on many things, not just the socks, and I decided that the best thing to do would be to watch a bit of TV, and maybe clean out the walk-in closet in my bedroom....and...um....sit down and have peace talks with the clothes moths.  They would learn to like tofu instead of wool and silk and stuff, and they could have my tofu and I'll take their woolly snacks.  But then the peace talks broke down and we busted out our laser guns and I just barely escaped with my life.  But hey, the walk-in closet is looking pretty dang spectacular.



Why do you taunt me, moth? 



Ugh. 

I confess, you got me.  Hand me my blue slip.  I'm in trouble.

I did not knit on the socks, and I cannot, for the life of me, come up with a reason other than the fact that my mental vinyl record skipped.  I really really really like them.  The color, the yarn (give me a rebel yell if y'all love some Shibui), the pattern is phenomenal, pretty, beautifully done.  The instep is going swimmingly.  It's just on pause.  I haven't hardly knit on anything else, either.  Knitter fail.  Give me a second blue slip, will ya?

So, bearing that in mind, I will now show you some pictures of something I have finished, blocked, and photographed.  So you can't yank my knitter's card, ok?  Ok???



Here is my Pi Shawl, knit in Kauni Effektgarn in (surprise, surprise) Rainbow colorway.  It sure does stand out on a gray, rainy day.

I feel like I just got done knitting a Starburst candy.  It's fun, colorful (to put it mildly) and was a nice, easy, meditative knit. 

Sometimes things like this happen.  Sometimes I do not get a chance to knit, and my mind ends up pining for it, turning around in circles like a dog chasing its tail.  Fortunately, knitting never decomposes, never drops its stitches and tinks itself (unless my daughter gets ahold of it).  It will wait for me, patiently, until I can get back to it, pick it up, and do what I love best.  It will not be resentful if I forget, willfully or accidentally.  I love that about this craft, and all things yarny. 

The Game Is Afoot!

I swear the weather yesterday made me feel like I'd been transported to London...cold and dreary. If some fog had rolled in, I would have donned some tweed, pulled out a pipe, and released the hounds.  Today looks much nicer out.

I'm boogying along, however, having done the heel flap and picking up the stitches along it for the gusset.  The heel flap is a nice one, with slipped stitches providing some extra sturdy protection.  It's so nice to have something soft and green to remind me that spring is coming soon.  Especially in North Carolina!  

One problem I used to run into when picking up stitches along a heel flap was that those particular stitches seemed extra stretchy and would lead to a "laddered" look around the heel flap.  Not exactly what I was looking for.  I now knit into the back of the heel flap stitches, which twists them and closes the spaces that gap between them.  If you're running into that problem, give this solution a try.

Turning the heel shows off a particularly nice "V" heel. 

In other news, I am slowly but steadily working on another project.  I have been hankering for a cabled sweater, so here is my progress so far on scratching that particular knitterly itch:

This is Gwendolyn, designed by Fiona Ellis.  I'm enjoying getting a crash course in allll kinds of cabling action.  I've almost completed the back, and I'm in love with it.  I'm also getting a fierce craving for pretzels every time I pull it out to work on it....can't figure out why.  Mmmm, pretzels. 

Where are the pretzels?  I put them around here somewhere....