SuperEggplant

The ever clever Bonne Marie has discovered a way of minimizing the trials of sleeve hell–knit them first. This is what she has one do for Gigi. Yup, get ’em over with first, and it won’t hurt as much! I would have finished the 2nd sleeve last night, but I passed out on the sofa while knitting to Law & Order’s season finale. I missed the send off for Lenny Brisco and everything!

Hey, I have an IDEA. What do you all think if I have a gallery of crazy slippers and dishrag scrubbies? If you’re interested, send me photos of your slips and scrubs along with any pertinent or anecdotal info, and I’ll post it in the gallery (please note that I probably won’t have a gallery if there doesn’t seem to be much interest).

Leave it to cancer-fighting Megan to send me this link to Japanese dishrag heaven. Be careful, though–I don’t know about you, but seeing all the beautiful dishrags nearly caused me to lose control of my bladder! Apparently there are two Japanese gals in NYC knitting cute dishrag after cute dishrag after cute dishrag. Maybe I can buy one dishrag for each plate I own …

I had been waiting excitedly for my order of Noro Fuji yarn to arrive, and today Pete the UPS guy brought it. Unfortunately, the color scheme I got does not, in my estimation, resemble the color (#104) on the site:

The colors are rather muted and not the crazy clown colors I wanted. What I thought would be orange is a faded peach, the pink is actually more of a toned down raspberry color, the hot red is more of a subtle orange red, and the vivid grass green is a soft teal. The store does not take returns or do exchanges, but that’s okay. I will learn to like it! It will be my first experience with Noro. The Fuji is a blend of 60% cotton, 20% wool, 18% acrylic, and 2% nylon. Interesting, huh?
On a completely different note, has anyone out there ever taken Stugeron for motion sickness? How did you do on it? Peter launched his sailboat this weekend, and I told him I would make another attempt to join him. I’ve tried dramamine and bonine and those little pressure point wristbands, but nothing works. I tried the patch once, but it was old, and I didn’t put it on far enough in advance. Anyway, any suggestions or anecdotes would be appreciated.

After the ungraceful disaster, I decided to knit something fun and quick. I hereby present the crazy slips:

Thanks to Nancy for her grandmother’s wonderful pattern. I used various cheapo cottons and some stash remnants. These will be perfect for summer! The pom poms were kind of tough, and I realized they aren’t the most practical adornments for slippers that will be washed frequently. I’m thinking maybe attaching them with velcro or little pins so they will be removable might be the ticket.

Let me tell you the story of Grace, a sweet little sweater that innocently fell into the wrong hands. Very wrong hands.
The Good:
– The decision to use Lion Brand Imagine, a very modestly priced acrylic/mohair blend, was a wise one. You only need two skeins!
– Remember the grossly sloping sides on the lower front? Well, I frogged and knit more gradual slopes, and the front pieces matched up just fine and dandy
– Silvia made a really cute Grace
The Bad:
– Gauge! AGH! Can’t! Get! Gauge! To! Save! My! Life! Getting gauge is pretty important for a multi-sloped-edge sweater such as Grace
– Really dreadful job at seaming together the pieces, plus a lot of my stitches came out rather deformed
– After spending the entire evening seaming the front pieces together and attaching the front to the back, then knitting the garter stitch neckband, I was ready to knit the armhole edging. I pulled the thing on over my head to see where to put the armholes and noticed that the neckline plunged. It didn’t plunge sexily like Silvia’s; no, it drooped down near my bellybutton! The upper front pieces were WAY TOO LONG.
The Ugly:

(It looks way more ridiculous on, but I couldn’t bring myself to photograph it. I did mark the approximate navel location, though)
So what’s to become of Grace? Who knows. I was going to throw it in the trash (I don’t think the recycling truck will accept it), but I suppose there are some other options:
– Peter could use it as a scrubbie for washing his boat or car
– It’s pretty bright, so maybe it could double as a reflective safety vest
– No, I can’t really give it away, because I don’t know anyone who is 7 feet tall who would wear it. Also, I did a poor knitting job, and it would be too embarrassing to gift it
– Frog it (though do you KNOW what a pain it is to rip out fuzzy yarn?) and try again in the fall

Where is Will Shortz* when you need him? I finished knitting up all the pieces for Grace (from the spring 04 knitty), but they don’t look like they will match up neatly.

I tried to do the math to make it work, but this must be a pattern where getting the correct gauge is critical (or having a functioning brain might help, too). Anyway, I am going to rip back the lower front piece and make the slope less severe, and that should work, hopefully. The color is so bright that it’s sort of making me see spots.
*Will Shortz is the puzzlemaster on NPR‘s Weekend Edition Sunday. How I love to listen to his puzzles! He is also the editor of Games Magazine or something.
TO THOSE IN NYC–Cancer-fighting Megan is out in NYC right now, and I think she’s free to play a bit on Friday. She is staying in Brooklyn. If anyone is interested in doing coffee or something (she’s not a knitter), please contact me, and I can put you in touch with her.

Okay, peeps, I finally seamed up Split Personality:

Amazingly, it fits quite well (my stuff usually comes out a surprise size). The photo isn’t that great, unfortunately, since I’m wearing a PUMA t-shirt under the sweater, so you can see the red of the shirt and the white of the logo. Oops. Anyway, the pattern is sweater #13 from the latest Rebecca (#27). It was a quick knit and quite fun. I had to significantly shorten both the body and sleeves. The yarn I used, Schoeller Stahl CECIL, a cotton/acrylic blend that I bought from elann, was not the best choice. It’s rather drapey and heavy, and the sweater would probably benefit from a more lightweight, sproingy yarn. But, there you have it.
DISHRAG NEWS: Noriko posted a link to a Japanese site with instructions (warning: it’s a PDF file) on how to make the neato dishrags I mentioned a few days ago. Well, the fabulous Gwen took it upon herself to figure out the pattern and whip up a FREE PATTERN (also a PDF) to share with everyone. Don’t you want to go thank her?