I Might Be Crazy, part 2

Before sallyknit arrived to teach Connie and me how to knit Papillon, I got my yarn out, untwisted the skein, and put it on the swift.  

But the yarn had been so badly skeined that I couldn't wind it. It turned into this:

Feza Yarns Uneek fingering

I can't even...

So I pulled out the second skein and decided to wait for whoever arrived first to help me wind it. Poor Connie was the first victim  guest. She and I tried to wind the second skein, but it was as badly skeined as the first.

Now it looks like this, after three of us tried to wind it by hand:

I knitted with a small bit of yarn that we could untangle, and dH has been working on the rest for hours. He always cleans up the kitchen after dinner, but I offered to do that if he preferred to continue on the yarn untangling project.

He said that was a good deal.

No, it wasn't.  

Hours to go before he sleeps.  

I Might Be Crazy

Today, I am starting this project:

Not in these colors, but this is what it will (maybe?) look like when (if?) I finish it. I am totally intimidated by the pattern---lots and lots and LOTS of short rows, which means paying very close attention to the instructions and doing a lot of counting.  

It is the Butterfly/Papillon and in a moment of yarn fumes intoxication, I bought the kit at SAFF. So did several others of the group. We had vowed to not buy the first thing we saw that we loved, that we would wander the entire event and THEN decide what we really wanted to make. The Butterfly/Papillon kit was the first thing we saw. 

sallyknit has somehow already figured out the pattern, is not intimidated in the least by short rows, and has volunteered to teach a couple of us how to make it. So later today, I will, I hope, learn how to make this.

Thank you sallyknit!!!


AND, as a bonus, while the knitters are here, dH is starting a bathroom demo project.  oh yay.

There will be dust. And I hate dust. He is thrilled because he "needed" to buy a new toy, a reciprocating saw. Which will make dust. And---BONUS---noise. 

Pray for us knitters.

Yes I Am!

Well, probably. I'm PROBABLY knitting a sweater that won't fit me. 



I'm finally using the Brooklyn Tweed Shelter that I bought a few years ago. I had picked a pattern and very dutifully made several gauge swatches, washed them, dried them, and measured them. I picked the needle size that was supposed to give me the correct gauge, and....

that swatch lied!!! I started over and decided that I didn't even like the pattern. And it had short rows and that put me over the edge. Why struggle to work on something that I wouldn't even want to wear when I presumably finished it?


Over the years, I've considered one pattern, then another, then another, and finally found this:

It's The Weekender by Andrea Mowry and it's probably a quick knit (size 8 needles, worsted weight Shelter), and because it's boxy, it should fit. Someone.

I didn't knit a gauge swatch because a. they lie, and b. I didn't want to.

SO, my working theory is that it WILL fit someone, if not me, then one of my daughters or one of my granddaughters.

And the yarn will stop nagging at me from the yarn closet.  

NONONONONONONO

These are Fugglers:

The reason I know that these ugly things exist is that my younger daughter suggested that I make some using THE REAL BABY TEETH my husband has saved.

Because Fugglers are made using REAL TEETH! Or really good fake ones, depending on the source. According to the interwebs.  

Either way, nononononono!

Saving baby teeth apparently skips a generation in our family. When my husband's grandmother died, the family discovered that she had kept her children's teeth. Ick.

Her daughter, my husband's mother, did not save teeth. My husband did.

Again, ick.

My older daughter, mother of four children, said that she had started out saving teeth, but then lost track of where she was keeping each child's teeth and ended up with a pouch of random teeth so she gave up and tossed them out. So a skipped generation.

I fear that my poor grandchildren are doomed. They will save their children's teeth in little packets in their top dresser drawers. And make Fugglers? I hope not.