Strange Things...

Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Knitters of all skill levels! I have officially run out of things to talk about (or may just be shell-shocked, hard to tell). Lots of stuff has been happening lately: new job, long-lost relatives, and that creepy dude that stopped me on the street and told me that he had some psychic in Mexicali do a tarot card reading on me because he had a dream about me. Like I'd want some weirdo running a metaphysical background check on me, jackass.

Ahem, anyway. In the spirit of odd things (and because it's my turn), I will now perform the 7 random fact about you meme:

First, da rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post rules. Check
2. Share 7 facts about yourself, some random and some weird
3. Tag 7 people at the end of post and list their names
4. Let them know they were tagged by a comment on their blog

Ready?

Fact #1: I am lactose-intolerant. Lactose-intolerant in the way that just looking at that brie at the party makes my tummy swell up and I begin emitting unlady-like sounds. The first person who comes up with a decent soy-based brie gets the stash. All of it.

Fact #2: I have a big butt. Now, now, don't start arguing with me unless you've tried buying jeans with me. Of course, it's magnificence has diminished since I gave up dairy (see Fact#1), but not as much as other parts of me have diminished. No, it's in for the long haul.

Fact #3: I have extra teeth. I told my new dentist that I had a wisdom tooth removed a few years back. Would you believe that she started arguing with me about it? Then she got my x-rays and stopped arguing; turns out I have another tooth that grew in sideways along my jaw. Just wait until the archaeologists find me!

Fact #4: I figured out purling in my sleep. Honest! For years I tried and failed to figure out purling from the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Needlework (how I learned to knit, by the way), but it was all for naught. So I didn't knit much because patterns would want me to purl and I just couldn't. Then one morning I sat up in bed, woke up my now-husboy, and said "Purling is just knitting backwards!" Life hasn't been the same since.

Fact #5: I wore black chucks to the prom. Both times. I added laces that matched the dress, but the rest was pure Converse comfort. It also gave my dates a chance to be taller than me for once.

Fact #6: I am married to an enabler. Yes, he buys me yarn. No, you can't have him.

Fact #7: One of my legs is shorter than the other. Not bad enough that I need to buy special shoes or anything, but enough so that my clothes hang funny and people can tell if I tip them off. It's one of my many excuses for not jogging and makes me wonder about all those sprained ankles I had as a kid...

So, there you go. I'm totally not tagging anyone (sorry rules) because everyone has already done this already. Of course, if you haven't gotten to it yet, please be my guest.

And no, you still can't have him.

Exile

I hate blogging so infrequently; I feel like Inigo Montoya: "Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up." Instead of being succinct and clever I end up rushing through trying to fit it all in. Well folks, it ain't gonna get much better, cuz I got a new job out of town. It's a great opportunity, but I will only be home on the weekends, so until I break down and get myself a laptop, the blogging will have to wait until I'm home.

Not that I've got much to blog about. I've been very careful trying to heal up the ligament I pulled working on the DUCK project, so there has been no knitting for nearly a week. I'm having a hell of a time trying to figure out how to be "normal". It's just not me...

Oh, the Husboy and I went to the LA County Fair:

A really huge bull, sock added for scale.

(You didn't honestly think that I'd leave my sock at home just because I'm broken?)

This is where wool comes from!

We made a point of perusing the knitting competition entries. The Husboy has insisted that I enter next year, but I don't know. I'm awfully attached to my amateur status...

Medic!

I was walking around work yesterday afternoon and, as is my custom, began to complain to anyone who I could corner in order to do so. In fact, the only unusual part of yesterday, other than the little bit of rain we got, was that I was complaining about my elbow instead of being tired or crabby. Upon my returning home from a hard day of whining, I completely forgot about my elbow and settled in with my hardcore vampire smut and the slowly materializing DUCK sweater.


I've been getting a lot done the last day or so, due in part to the fact that the smut I am currently reading is in hardback form and can be persuaded to lie flat and think of England while I multitask.

Unfortunately, all this (un)adulterated knitting left its mark as a throbbing in my right arm that I didn't really notice until I went out to go fetch the Husboy so he would not have to walk in the rain. So no knitting for the next few days while I wait for the heating pad, ice, and pain-relievers to do their magic. You'd think I'd be super-pissed, but I'm not. The Husboy and I have the next few days off together, so I wouldn't be able to DUCK anyway.

And I finished my book.

Birthday Knitting

And, just so you don't all think I spend ALL my time hiding things from my husband and losing the ability to read simple knitting directions, I would like it known that the very next day (after much sleeping and apologizing on both sides), we slipped away to a magical birthday weekend for the HusBoy. After I escaped work on Sunday I met him and, uhm, our family for lunch at the Crab Pot. The restaurant, coincidentally, is directly down the road from the Alamitos Bay Yarn Company. I must point out that it was the HusBoy's idea to go check out the yarn shop, I just didn't object to hard. I even got a prezzie out of it.

Really, was I supposed to say no to clearance yarn? Especially when it will go with the Noro in the stash? Heaven forbid!

We then checked into a nice hotel in Anaheim and spent the rest of the day and the next carousing through the Magic Kingdom.

If you get the itch to go to Disneyland, I can't suggest a better time than a September weekday. The only ride we spent more than 20 minutes waiting for was the updated Submarine ride.

It was a good 20 minutes spent, I think. The Birthday-HusBoy pointed out that several of the bored children (and a few parents) were absolutely fascinated with the knitting. One little girl went so far as to ask how it worked. I explained that you used the one stick to pull a new loop through an old loop on the other stick (it was better with the visuals, honest) and that all the loops added onto each other like a spiral staircase. This seemed to satisfy her question, though she continued to stare at my progress throughout the line.

The ride was cute and I got some great pictures, but the most amazing thing was that the HusBoy told me that he loves it when I knit in lines at the park and knit in public in general because I'm doing something so impressive and that he loves watching me work the yarn.

Ain't I lucky?

The Whore and the Harlot

Okay, maybe I'm being a little harsh, but I have certainly been taking and taking and taking from the community, not the behavior of an upstanding citizen. No Siree-Bob. I've been lurking, not commenting, not posting, nothing. Well, things are going to change around here. This Wounded little knitter will not let her dwindling readership and the knitting community as a whole down! As this blog is my witness, I will try not to be a blog whore anymore!!!

Whew, channelling Scarlett O'Hara wears me out. Where was I? Oh yes, the turning over of a new bloggerly leaf (again). First, I visited all my regular blogs and left at least one comment. Then I decided to divulge the secret of the DUCK Project. Now, I'm going to pretend that everything is normal and gush about the Harlot (I can call her "Harlot"; We're cool like that).

Hey look! A Yarn Harlot!

The Yarn Harlot and her publicist were kind enough to have her swing by my neck of the woods for a talk! And I somehow got the time off of work to actually attend! And the exclamation points just keep coming!

I've been around groups of knitters before, but to watch the hands of nearly everyone in the room fluttering away in silence was downright eerie. It was like watching a fly-trap full of moths try to fly away. I bet if someone was sitting behind me and had me in the view of the floor I would have been fluttering away as well... My fluttering hands finished up the latest Husboy sock while the Harlot was talking about CHOKE.



Another wonder of the many wonders of the day had the HusBoy's work releasing him into my custody for the afternoon, which means that the second seat that I didn't think I'd need, I ended up needing. The HusBoy said that the other significant others that got "dragged" there were giving him sympathetic looks on our way to our seats. He may not like admitting it but he's read her first book and laughed throughout.

On the Harlot's blog entry about the day we're the two heads back lit against the window. As much as I'd like to lie and say that we were this cheerful through the whole thing. The talk was lovely and Stephanie was as terrified and clever and wonderful as I could have possibly hoped, but once she was done speaking and the millions and millions of knitters that had attended all tried to mill around and get out one door, my exhausted insomniac self and the antsy husband were not this picture of marital bliss.

If I had been able to find the washcloth I had knitted for her (found this morning behind a nightstand) or could think of something intelligible to say, I would have happily stood in line forever. As it was, I could barely string enough words together to tell my increasingly irritable husband where he could shove the horse he rode in on and get us out of the auditorium. I may or may not have started sobbing on the train ride home about not being able to remember how many stitches to cast on for his second sock. I may be getting past the age where I can function with less than three hours of sleep a night for a week. Thank goodness for tolerant people who love you and will escort your crabby ass home and put you to bed.

I still feel bad that I didn't get a chance to get my books signed or tell her how much she's impacted my life and my knitterly sense of empowerment and well-being, but I figure that a thank-you card with a palm-tree dishcloth might just do the trick after all.

The Naked DUCK

It came to me the other night in a merciless bout of insomnia: The Husboy doesn't read the blog unless prompted, so if I can keep from prompting him, I can talk about the DUCK project!

Ahem. When I first started frequenting knitting websites and blogs I read an article on Knitty about the dreaded Sweater Curse. I thought this was hysterical and told the then Boy about the story. From then on he refused to even talk about my knitting him a sweater (though apparently socks didn't count). A few years passed, as they do. As soon as the wedding plans were cemented and it looked like I was too invested to back out of the whole thing, the Husboy started talking about my finally being able to knit him a sweater.

I can' t say that I was terribly surprised that he was suddenly coveting a hand knit sweater, even if just to prove that no measly garment could ruin our now legally-binding relationship. What surprised me is that now I didn't want to talk about it. When someone at work would talk about wanting a sweater, Husboy would promptly inform them that he was next in the sweater line. I started thinking of knitting an aran or gansey or something else that would take months of math and planning, years if I stretched it out. Then the root of the problem came to me:

What if I make him look like a dork?

How will we take it if the fruits of months of meticulous labor make him look like a chubby five-year old whose mother dressed him funny? Would he wear it anyway? Would I let him? Would our marriage survive this horrific fashion disaster?

I guess we're going to find out, because, as if your blind grandmother couldn't tell by now, the DUCK project is going to be a sweater for the HusBoy, knit behind his back and (hopefully) completely without his knowledge. I've taken his measurements off of a sweater whose fit looks quite fetching on him, picked the pattern, bought the yarn:

swatched and started knitting. Let's just hope I can keep from falling asleep with my knitting in my lap before he comes home at night. Wish me luck!

DUCK!

My plan to end the knitting boycott has grown into Operation DUCK - Deep Under-Cover Knitting. See, I want to knit up a surprise for someone who is a regular part of my life and, once in a while, peruses the blog. This means that I won't be able to leave this project lying about the house or yap on about it here. I know it's a bummer, with me being all secretive and all, so I will endeavor to be as amusing as possible to make up for it. I will also make a point of taking pictures so I can share in all the goodness once the trap, I mean, surprise has been sprung.

Happy Knitting!

On Hiatus

I'm not sure what happened, but somewhere during the heatwave I lost my knitting mojo. No knitting, no reading blogs, nuttin. I've gone back to my oldest past time of trying to read everything in the public library, but don't worry my stitchin' brethren, for I believe I have found the cure to this ailment:

Yarn shoppin'!

Socks!

It's too hot for a proper post, or for the bad Tom Lehrer parody I was planning, so here are some socks!

Koigu Harvest - Done

Boy's Striped Socks, just started.

Reptilian Lace Socks, one down, one to go.

Laundry, clockwise from the top left:

Pomatomus, Boy's Cashmere Socks, Vine Lace Socks, & Koigu Harvest again.