Stephieface

I was reading Crazy Aunt Pearl before church today and it really got me to remembering my life. I was even inspired to comment. In her post she talks about her neighbors next door, the yellers, people who she can hear yelling inside their home. This got me thinking about places I used to live and how I have lived next to yellers quite consistently.

In my early 20′s I lived in a small suburb of Pittsburgh called Bridgeville, its a quiet peaceful little town that makes you think you’re living in a small town when you are conveniently located 15 minutes from downtown. It was peaceful, quiet, and everyone was polite. I used to live next to the Catholic school, so the most racket I had in a day was the kids walking back and forth to school. I lived in a brick duplex house at the end of a turn around alleydrive kind of street. Everything was so peaceful that I even planned on raising my then someday children there.

Then Steve and Fucking Jade moved in next door.

My landlords used to live in the other side of the duplex so it was a surprise when they movied out and rented out the other side. The new tenants were Steve and his wife/girlfriend Fucking Jade. I honestly believe that F’ing Jade was her god given name as I never heard her referred to as anything other than that, and never heard the Jade without the F’ing before it… it’s true. Within a week of moving in they started arguing and such. This became a problem for me as in a duplex you have a single wall seperating the two homes. I could hear them walking up and down their steps and moving around their kitchen. What was worse was that if I sat in my bathroom I could hear everything that was going on next door as if it were in my own home…. their bathroom and my bathroom were seperated only by the back of the medicine cabinet (I had discovered this after I first moved in and I had thought there was somebody in my bathroom when I came home and heard noises… so I called the cops only to discover it was my landlady in her own apartment looking for aspirin). So week two found them arguing at 2am and still arguing at 7am when I had to wake up, needless to say I slept terribly. They continued to argue well past when I left, as reported to me by my then roomate, Timmy Etch-a-sketch. The next night the same thing happened, and the next night, and the next night. So that well into the beginning of week 3, Timmy and I were suffering from lack of sleep because Steve and F’ing Jade were having “issues”. By the fourth night of constant all night arguing, we could no longer take it anymore and called the cops.

It was quiet for a week or so and then it would start again. It actually escalated to people being pushed against the walls and screaming. I ended up calling the cops on average about 3 times a month. One night there was throwing of people against walls, her screaming for the cops, him screaming she broke his glasses, her screaming he was hurting her arm, then him screaming that she stabbed him with scissors. Needless to say I called the cops. Then the next night it would start all over again. Frustrated, Timmy and I set up my radio in the bathroom… perched it on the sink facing the medicine cabinet, turned it to max volume, and played U2′s “With Or Without You” for 3 hours straight. When we turned it off it was quiet for the rest of the night.

One day, Timmy and I were doing the let’s- yell- an- entire- conversation- from- different- rooms- on- different- floors- rather- than- get- off- our- asses- and- get- in- the- same -room- thing ( I was 23… what do you want from me?), then Timmy left to go to work and I was home alone. I was in my room sewing (which was awesome at the time since if I was sewing I couldn’t hear anything but the machine and whatever came out of my CD player headphones) and my doorbell rang. So I went downstairs and answered…. it was the cops!! They asked if I was okay and that there were reports that I was being abused and was screaming for help. If you can imagine I was standing there, holding my pug dog, all by myself in the house and I was reportedly being abused. I told the cops that I was fine, it was just me and the dog, and that they were welcome to search my house to see that I was indeed alone. I did admit that Timmy and I had yelled to each other from seperate floors earlier but that was hours ago. My immediate thoughts were that Steve and F’ing jade had called the cops in revenge since its a big deal in the neighborhood if the cops show up at your door. So while his partner searched through my house for signs of abuse and a man to provide the abuse, the cop I was talking to called back to the station only to discover………. they went to the wrong apartment. I was 709B, they had wanted 709A which was……………….[insert drumroll here]……………..Steve and F’ing Jade’s apartment. Apparently, since I couldn’t hear anything over the CD player and sewing machine one of my neighbors called the cops that Steve and F’ing Jade were once again stabbing each other.

A month later I moved out of that apartment.

A year later I move to wear I am living now, but that is a story for another day…. highlights to include:
The dead old lady next door
Marital Disharmony in the house behind me
The Inner City Hillbillies
and Stephieface’s new rules of cop calling.

So last night, free of the house and children in an auspicious miscommunication with the in laws (I had asked for the monkeys to be watched for a few hours and they had thought I asked for the monkeys to be kept overnight) the Mister and I decided to go catch a flick……. together. I know! Nuts right? I honestly cannot remember the last film we saw together at the same time… it may have been Hitch.
Last night the Mister and I went and saw…… Clerks II.

It was….. in a word…… HILARIOUS. I AM going to own this when it comes out on DVD. It was worth it for Mr. Pillowpants the Tunnel Troll alone…. seriously.

Now, as my kids are still at my inlaws I have no idea why I am awake right now. I could very well have happily slept in, not having any miniature speed bumps in the bed to keep me from rolling over or having covers…. but yet, here I am.

There isn’t going to be a whole lot of current project posting since I’ve been making stuff for a swap…. the Pimp My Craftster Username Swap. All I can say is that I am insuring that my partner gets useable stuff.

So… I have also been considering joining a Knitting group here in Pittsburgh. Yup, you see that correctly as considering and not having done so. Here is where in today’s post I discuss why I am so lame. World Wide Knit In Public Day was proof of how nervous the idea makes me. I was terrified. I will not talk about how knitters are solitary creatures in the wild and blah blah blah. I am saying now, I never leave my house voluntarily. If I had the extra income to have groceries delivered to my home, new in theatre movies played in my livingroom, the yarn fairy made frequent visits, and a neighborhood where online purchased clothes wouldn’t be stolen off my porch I would never ever leave my house. So, the idea of leaving my comfort zone of homeness to go out and be with people I don’t know is terrifying. Am I a giant chicken? Yes! Does the idea of socializing with complete strangers strike me with such intense fear that I could upchuck? Hell yes! Should I get out of the house? Possibly. Will I do it? Maybe. I’ll commit to nothing.

I watched the Libertine the other night…… NOT a knitting movie…… NOT a movie for monkeys of any age regardless if they are too young to remember it… NOT a movie you watch with someone of the opposite sex in the early stages of relationshiphood. The movie itself was okay. The Prologue was awesome…. I watched that and I was like, “Hell yeah! This movie is going to be kick ass!” and then I watched the movie. It started out really good but about halfway through it started to drop and the end was confusing if not depressing. You were left saying “Huh? What? But Why?”. At the end they don’t tell you important stuff, like why the actress suddenly spurned him in a 180 type turn, what the hell was wrong with him, and what happened in 6 months that he went from Johnny Depp hotness to notness. The back of the box says:
“… At the depths of ruin, the rebel seeks redemption on his own terms….”
Yeah… not really. BUT they do adequately portray the time with none of the romanticisms… it was dirty, disgusting, and ooky…. so there is that. Maybe my answers lie in the deleted scenes. I didn’t like anyone in this film, something I think should happen to keep an audience enthralled and interested. I think the movie was lost to me in the park scene…. I mean come on….. Mass Naked Writhing 70′s Orgy in the Park On a Tree. Where’s Mr Pillowpants the Tunnel Troll when you need him?

People often ask when they phone…. “So how are things at your house?” and I say all exhasperated like “My house is a freaking circus!”. They chuckle softly at my pain and say in the you-are-such-an-overexaggerator-Stephieface-tone, “Aww? The boys getting the best of you today?” and I scream “No! Its a freaking circus!”. Then they totally disregard what I say and continue with how boys are so active and blah blah blah……………………

People…. when I say my house is a freaking circus…. I seriously mean it. Today I have photographic proof!! I will totally pass over how they use food to paint themselves as clowns, and the assorted animal noises they produce throughout the day….. and instead I will go straight to acrobatics and deeds of daring do!

Mostly this can all be attributed to the Middle Monkey, Sam, who frequently tears apart our living room to use as his couch cushion major construction site. Today he built a gymnastics ramp and preceded to do tricks.

The first trick does not invlove the ramp but is no less daring… I present to you….. the Wacky Wall Walker:

Sing it with me!!! “Spider Sam, Spider Sam….. does whatever a spider can……………”

Next he did forward rolls across his ramp that sadly no matter how much I tried I could not get a photo of. I have lots of pictures of befores and lots of afters, but no pictures of that exciting middle part where all the magic happens.

Then he decided that he would dive. Its nice that our carpeting was once a pretty blue so that he could imagine he was diving in the ocean. So first he offered prayers to The Almighty for a safe diving session:

Then he leaps, making sure to smile for the camera in an awkward photo oppurtunity:
To land with his head a mere two inches from the opposite wall!

Much like the forward rolls…. he does this trick where he walks up the wall then does a flip over the arm of the couch landing on couch proper that I also could not photograph no matter how hard, how late, or how early I tried to the press the button.

What else do the amazing Flying Diaperinis have in store for you? Find out next time….same Stephieface time…. same Stephieface channel……………..

Currently I am working on a sewn version of the Raggin Wagon Pouch. My intent is to sell them in my shop so that LARPer gals, who invetiably are always riding the wagon at events, can carry their things with them in their bags instead of having to run back and forth to their cabins. Having LARPed for 12 years I’ve had to do that run and it isn’t fun, especially when you are on one side of a camp and your cabin where your things are is on the other. But yes, as you see I totally admit to geekness…. I’ll even take my self depriciation one step further and post pictures:

This is me, as you can see I’m throwing the horns to show my coolness, note my scrunched up nose and sticky out tongue… this supposedly adds to the coolness points.

This is me in gypsy gear, I kind of dug this look since I jingled pretty much wherever I walked and having your walk’s hip sways emphasized by jingles makes a girl feel sexah….. I have no idea why but there you go.

This is me and a pic of my pocket, otherwise known as my cleavage, and known to the Mister as The National bank of Steph. You see me here where a black leather corset (nice!)…. I know, I know, though geeky I do look hawt…. don’t think I didn’t use this to my advantage at the time.

Here’s a wee tiny pic of me in a very simple chemise and bodice. Apparently I really dug wearing chokers back then. Believe it or not though this is a touched up photo. The reason for the unearthly glow to my skin is that in the real pic there is a man’s elbow with a white shirt in front of me and the sun just reflected off it. I managed to copy and paste one side of my body to the other… aren’t I good? Heck I’ll even add the original pic

So there you go, proof of my geekiness.

So an update on the Brain Pan Appointment…… so I took the Littlest Monkey back to the neurosurgeon for a check up. Everything is a-ok. My concern was not that he had a wee little acorn head, but that something important was being squished. The doctors assured me that he was fine, his brain pan is still growing (its when it stops growing that there will be a problem) and he’s good everywhere else. This is a relief and knowing that he may just have to avoid buzz cuts in the future makes me feel alot better.

I signed up for another Craftster swap, I’m a bit stymied though. I signed up for the ‘Pimp My Craftster Username Swap” where you -as the name suggests- make crafts that invlove the person’s username. My partner is jaybirdiscrafty. Aside from the obvious bird related ideas….. anyone?

I made my 2nd shop sale this week and just returned from mailing it off. Its very exciting. Though it was only $3 I think I’m pretty lucky. I mean considering that I only opened the shop the weekend of the 4th and its only been 15 days having two sales….. Wee I am quite excited!

I really have no idea what to write about now… how lame is that?

Hmmmm…. Oh I know…..

Recently on the Crazy Aunt Purl site there was a post where they discuss the problems with the Modern American Male. Now this whole thing had me peturbed for a few days in which I pretty much ranted in a crazy woman way at any person insane enough to step inside my home. Not Purl mind you, I love Laurie, but some of the comments just pissed me off to no end. This is because of a couple reasons:
1. I have all male friends. Any female influences in my life are family or my friends via the internet….. no lie…. my world is comprised of all man-ness
2. I am the mother of 3 boys and I will be damned if any bitchy woman will ever be nasty with them. (“As God as my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!” kind of thing, you know).
3. I have dated my fair share of men… good, bad, nice, not nice, cute, homely

I do not find issue with the article to begin with, hardly. I’ve been the frustratingly dateless girl. My issue was with all the women posting what I sum up as basically:
The reason I am lonely is because all men suck. Men should treat me like a queen and jump through whatever hoops I put forth to them. I don’t care what their excuses are, they’re men- they all lie, they all cheat, and they are all not to be trusted. I would be better off as a lesbian because men these days are not worth my time.

So I will address the things that enangered me, you will see:
1. For every woman who said she would be better off as a lesbian… I hope she was being truthful because women outnumber men 3:1 throughout most of North America. There is going to have to be some serious switching of teams because frankly there aren’t enough men to go around.
2. Men asking women out to hang vs. actual dates. Now, I don’t know about you… but there are methods of denial that alot of women employ that frankly, if I were a man, would push me to asking for informal get togethers. things like:
a) Laughing at the man who just asked you out because he is overweight/bald/nerdy to his face
b) The tried and trusty “Giving of the False Phone Number” which I’m sure does nothing for his ego, especially if the woman was extra mean and gave him the number to a Male Sexual Dysfunction hotline as her own (I’ve seen it done… in person!)
c) Acting catty to the man who just asked for a date because he (the basest lifeform of ugliness and baldiness) dared ask you out, and being offended that he did so
d) Stating “I have a boyfriend” then slobbering all over the next bad boy hotness to walk by
e) Continuously dumping the nice, funny, sweet guy for the hot bad guy who treats us like crap but looks like he’s straight from a Soap Opera and/or rides a motorcycle… of course I can’t list them all but you are getting the idea.
3. That men as a species spontaneously all at once decided to be bad dates

I left alot out because I think that rants should be ranty, but not standing on a street corner screaming at the passerbys with a sandwich board and propaganda kind of ranty.

I think that alot of women who commented overlooked the fact that alot of things wrong with man are because of woman. Seriously before you go bitching about how awful all men are, own up to your own handiwork. I know quite a few men who are pretty much what the women described they wanted and yet they are single. One or two may be slightly overweight, one is Canadian (you can’t pick where you are born okay?! ;P), one is overweight, one is so smart that you can’t help but feel dumb around him, and one is just tired of being bossed around by girls. Yet they are all gentlemenly, nice, sweet, funny guys. Why are they single? Again one or two may be slightly overweight, one is overweight, one has kids, one works alot, and one is easily bossed around by the fairer sex. I think its unfair for these women to judge men as they do when I know for certain that some sort of global reaction would be raised if it were men talking about women.
I believe in dating karma which is basically, “If I want to be accepted for all my faults, flaws, and fancies I have to be willing to the same for others.” or in laywoman’s terms:
If I want him to overlook that I have a huge ass I should overlook his bald spot.

Because, huge asses and blad spots aside, we all want to be loved and wanted…. and its no one’s fault but your own if you are lonely. Just saying.

PS. And if you were curious me and Mr Stephieface were:
“If I want him to overlook my huge ass, I should overlook that he apparently has hairy sasquatch somewhere in his past ancestry” <—– Look at that total honesty!!

Earlier today I was Blog flipping….. this is when I am tired fom just waking up and start reading all the blogs I have bookmarked one by one. Yesterday I passed by Vaguely Urban’s site (she is on vacation, but posts little ‘keep you paying attention’ posts while she’s on the road) and I came across her post on dreams. She describes the dreams she has most often and invites her readers to post the same. While I did not post there, I will of course post it here.
See, my dreams are usually quite odd. There is no standing at the front of the class in my underwear, nor is there any dreams of being chased by dogs. My dreams are scarily mouth related. I do have the dream where, for whatever reason, all my teeth fall out … one right after the other (as often described by others, “like chiclets”) so that when I wake from this dream I immediately run to the bathroom and brush my teeth…. no lie. But that dream is nothing, its not the worst dream I ever have.
The worst dream I ever have invloves styrofoam.
I can never remember how it starts but I always know how it will go. Regardless of the dream setup, this dream finds me feeling sick……. or if not sick at least a little off. I feel something weird in my mouth and spit it out to discover that I’m somehow regurgitating styrofoam pellets…..

You know the cheap ass filling for equally cheap ass carnival toys, except since I’m throwing it up its all wet and feeling all moisty pellety in my mouth. So I spit it out, and then my mouth fills again and again… sometimes I choke, but usually I spit. Now before you go thinking this is some weird Freudian dream of epicly sexual porportions (I know you are going there, because that would be the first place I would go to), this dream only comes about when I am really stressed…. and I totally doubt that my subconcious is suggesting I act like a porn star to relieve anxiety.
By far though, the dreams I have while pregnant are the most entertaining in their retelling. Like the dream where Mr Stephieface was wearing a Drunken Master wig and a fishing hat while ….. well…. I can’t say that I should post what he was doing, save to say that it invloves him spinning parts of my anatomy like they were double dutch jumping ropes with a very concentrating look on his face.

In other news, I gave two of the monkeys haircuts yesterday. The Mister said to buzz em bald, and while I could not actually buzz them bald I did buzz them enough to look like…. as my friend Bob who stopped by last night so frankly put it….’hey there little cancer patient.’ After I shaved the Monkeys (hehehehe I have always wanted to use that phrase… odd…. I know) I became possesed. Something took me over and I did something quite dumb. I’m not overly incensed with feeling dumbness, but I do feel the odd twinge of regret… but only a twinge.
I cut my own hair.
Oh god! I know! No, I don’t hate myself… really. My hair had just gotten too long. Past my bra strap is usually my indicator of too longess, partly because I wear grandma bras and if hair goes past the bottom seam of a grandma bra… that’s long. But in honesty I couldn’t do anything with it. I couldn’t wear it down because it would get caught under my purse strap, fall into dish water/mop water/or *shudder* diapers, it took alot of conditioner to condition it and even more shampoo to shampoo it, and after a point there is only so many ways you can wear it up which I was doing all the time. I once had a hairdresser tell me that for my hair to get better in condition I would have to wear it down every once in a while, but I really couldn’t. So, I pulled my hair back into a ponytail (a very low ponytail mind you) and cut off about 10 inches- give or take. The back of my hair falls between my shoulders, which if far more managable. The front is longer than the back and I am totally fine with that… in fact I prefer it. Its nice that I can finally brush my hair without having to know yoga positions or have a past vocation in carnival contortionism.
Sam the Middle Monkey saw the ponytail of cut off hair in the trash and screamed. “Mommy, mommy your hair is in the garbage!” (yes my three year old says grabage and not trash). What is entertaining is that the Mister still hasn’t noticed.
If I can get the computer and the camera to talk (they are having a lovers’ spat) I’ll post a pic.

Same pic……….. now with writing!

So, earlier this week I received a letter of import. You know know its a letter of import because there are already grease stains on it (Murphy’s Law of Important Documents: you will ALWAYS spill something on it). If you have read this blog long enough (or are really bored and read all the past posts) you may recall that in January I had to take TJ, the Littlest Monkey, to a neurosurgeon at Children’s Hospital because his head is decidely acorn shaped…. or really he has a triangle head complete with edges and corners…. I swear to God, the picture doesn’t show it well but there are honestly edges on his dome piece.
Visit one mainly consisted of me and TJ sitting in a room filled with children with different and obviously worse head shapes. While this might sound entirely narcisstic on my part, there is cause for worry. Some head shape deformities come from the skull fusing together too soon and too badly. Some children require surgery, some require special skull shaping helmets, and some need nothing at all. Our very liberal friend Ben went to this same surgeon when he was a tot for whatever reason he went to him for and Ben is completely healthy in a totally alive and kicking way. So I’m not too scared. The surgeon looked TJ over and said that he should be fine and nothing extra would be required. He advised that I should return back with him for a check up just to make sure.
What has me worried is that, at least to me and the Mister, TJ’s head has gotten flatter and more triangular rather than rounding itself out. So, although my appointment is not until Monday, I have reflooded with every worry I held before the first visit. In any case, rather than sit around and worry myself sick about things I have no control over…… I shall speak on other things.

Yesterday I made my very first Etsy sale! I was starting to worry for a bit that I may never make one at all and the whole shop idea was an excercise in futility. I was advised by some other Craftsters that I should charge more for my stuff (they thought my prices were ridiculously low), but then again I know that the Etsy shop is more or less funding whatever I may want to do for enjoyment (like buying more yarn) rather than paying for a new car. I also know that a good portion of my customers will be poor college students… why on earth would I price things so that the people who would buy them won’t be able to afford them? I’m all for earning some income and doing slightly better than breaking even, but everyone wants nice things they can afford…. even people who can’t afford to budget the Cartoon Network channel into their cable package. Here are some things that are in my shop ( or really here are all but one of the things I currently have in there). I carry a BOG purse everyday if you wondered. I do indeed use the very things I make.



Weeeee…. aren’t you proud?

So yesterday, being Sunday, was laundry day. And as mentioned previously many times- my Sansa, I feared, would not be joining me after its inauspicious little swim. As my quest drew nearer I began to fret. In a completely last ditch effort to restore the last vestiges of my anti-freak shield, with a small prayer to whatever MP3 gods there may be in this life….. I changed the battery.

LIFE!!!

Indeed, my wee little Sansa started with its happy blue glow of workingness!

So now, this new developement has inspired me to knit a holder for my Sansa with a belt loop, so that should I put my Sansa in my back pocket again I can use the belt loop and insure that it doesn’t go for another dip.

Why I had not initially thought of changing the battery I shall never know.

In other news, I found this site… the Oracle of Bacon… where you can type in any celebrity’s name and it will give you how many degrees of seperation there are between that celebrity and Kevin Bacon….. and how and who they are connected through. I have discovered from this site that the average degrees are 2 (like Orlando Bloom has a rating of 2. Orlando was in LoTR with Sean Austin who was in White Water Summer with ……. Kevin Bacon) and the rarities are the degrees which require more jumps. Check it out and play with it…. its a fun little time waster.

I’ve also been looking up secret hotties. Everyone who knows me well, knows that I have the mad extreme hots for Gerard Butler (oh Gerry… you were the hottest Phantom and/or Beowulf EVER), as well as previously mentioned David Krumholtz.
My newest fascination though lies in the secret hottie. The hottie of ….. my god how could I have not seen this before?! Why did they hide this obvious hotness from me?! And other assorted exclamations that require multiple punctuation.
Secret Hottie #1 Craig Parker…
Don’t know who Craig Parker is? He was Haldir in Lord of the Rings

Even though I found him very droolable in the movie, for whatever reason I somehow stumbled across a site about him to discover that he looks like this:

Oh Craig, you devilish secret hottie you.
I think it all comes down to for me, that men look sexiest when they look like men.

Now Craig…. Craig was easy…. its people like Secret Hottie #2 you have to keep your eye out for:
Secret Hottie #2 Andy Hallett, otherwise known as Lorne of the Whedonvurse known as Angel

Green never really did it for me… but enter Andy into the super change-o-matic phone booth of Supermaness and you have…….

Secret Hottieness.

Now before you go thinking that this entire post is going to be about celebrity hotties (which it could, but I digress). I’m going to be adding more things to the shop soon, so keep an eye out. AND an Update…. remember how my downstairs neighbor moved away and left all that stuff around our house? Well on trash day my landlord was painting the porch and the trash guys came… initially they say they won’t take it all, but after he gave them a $50 incentive you can believe my house no longer looks like a disaster area.

And, I just have to say that Cartoon Network has the best roadside Billboards… “Clowns Hate Tangelos”…. you bet they do…. oh yes, you bet they do.

ETA: because I’m too lazy to make a new post… this yarn is a MUST have and if you are the certain kind of person who likes to charitably buy yarn for cute sarcastic knitters, I would very much like this requiredly Pittsburgh yarn. Thanks!

First and foremost the obligatory blogthing quiz results:

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

So, I sat around needing a project this past weekend and decided to knit a headband. Why? Why not? So I delved into the mysteries of yarn overs and k2tog’s and came up with this …. The Summer Of Luck Headband (because the design looks like four leaf clovers to me when blocked within an inch of its life, but not so much when you wear it… go fig):
The pattern is thus:

Materials:
size 7 straight knitting needles (I used 2 DPNs so it could be a pocket project)
One of those wee skeins of Peaches & Cream cotton from Walmart ( I used ‘faded denim” or something, it was the blue varigated one)

CO 11 stitches
Knit 2 rows is Moss/Seed (k1, p1, k1, p1………)
R1: Knit all the way across
R2: This and all WS rows not in Moss/Seed- P1, K9, P1
R3: Knit all the way across
R5: K5, YO, K2tog, K4
R7: K4, YO, K2tog, YO, K2tog, K3
R9: K5, YO, K2tog, K4
R10: This and all WS rows not in Moss/Seed- P1, K9, P1

Repeat rows 1-10 until headband goes almost around your head with a 3inch gap
Knit 2 rows in Moss/Seed Stitch

*K2tog, K1, P1 until 3 sts remain, K1, K2tog
No decreases on WS rows
K2tog, K1, P1 until 3 sts remain, K1 K2tog
Continue descreases until you have 5 stitches remaining
K2tog, P1, K2tog
Remember no decreases on WS rows
K3together
K1, for as long as you would like you tie to be
BO
On other end of headband PU 11 sts, repeat directions from *

Weave in ends
I put knots at the end of my ties, but its not required.
Block enough to make headband lay flat.

You can do things like add beads, sequins, or whatever to embellish your headband. Tie on and enjoy your summer.

I’m off to do laundry today and as I am Sansaless I am sure that something of a freakish and hilarious nature will ensue… stay tuned.

Okay, let’s face it… Menstruation blows… hardcore. And, just so everyone knows now, when I am old and living in a facility I will hate the changing of my poopy old person diapers with just as much hatred as I currently hold for riding the raggin’ wagon. I’m warning you all now.

In any case, probably one of the worse things about the whole menstruation thing is that you have to carry things with you wherever you go, so that your purse turns into the veritable grown up diaper bag. AND, if you are anything like me after 5-7 days of misery you often forget to remove said things from your purse….. only to have them later attack desk clerks like ninjas. On top of a new mini series of “When Feminine Hygiene Products Attack”, there is nothing I hate more than going out and while out having to go tend to things. Why? I carry an enormous bag… so I have to:
1. Take enormous bag with me and everyone either knows what I am doing -or- think I am stealing the salt, pepper, and ketchup.
2. Remove thing from purse and carry it embarassingly to the bathroom while trying to keep it hidden, but knowing I am sucking at it.

So what’s a bitchy gal to do?

Face it all with equal amounts of bitchiness that I dole out to husbands, friends, neighbors, and random passerbys……… which creates:

A lovely delightful roll up pouch to store the vile things in. It is a roll up pouch by the way, not a tampon cozy… I knit NO cozies. Pattern will follow soonly, so keep watching this space. BUT that is not all… oh no…. If I must continuously face this each month, I have decided I shall do it with my own style and sense of humor. So, emblazoned on the back of the pouch is this:

Oh yeah, I went there.

As promised, here comes a pattern. On projects like this I work very organically, this means that I just knit and go and oft times can’t remember what I did. I did note down what I was doing until a point…. then I went crazy with completing in leu of actual notation. Am I making excuses for being lame? Of course! So there you go.

Here is the chart for the vampire bit on the back. Any 12block x 12block image would fit nicely on this, if you just have to not have the vamp.
I embroidered the blood drop on after it was all done, you can do that however you like.

CO 30 sts
Knit 3 rows in Moss/Seed Stitch
Then Knit 22 rows in Stockinette
Weave in a waste line
Knit 5 rows of Stockinette
Weave in another waste line (these waste lines determine the bottom of the pouch. If you want yours to be deeper add a few more rows of stockinette)
Knit 5 more rows of stockinette
Now, knit 9 stitches and start first line of vamp pattern from bottom up, knit 9 stitches
Do this for whole vamp pattern
Knit 5 rows of stockinette
Knit 2 rows of Moss/Seed St
BO
Embroider on blood drip for vamp face
Weave in ends
Fold in half, bringing the Moss/Seed stitch edges together
Sew down sides
This is the tricky part (tricky because I can’t explain it well), pinch the bottom corner of the pouch flat using the side seam you just made as a marker to denote the center of the resulting triangle. Now, sew across the “bottom” of this triangle using the waste yarns as starting and ending points for your seam. Fold the triangle up against the side seam and stitch it flat to the side seam. Make sure you do this for both sides. Remove waste yarn.
Pick up 20 stitches on the edge with the face
Knit in Stockinette. Now this is important… about here is where I stopped paying attention…. BUT… this is where your own personal likes come in. Do you only use tampons? Are you a pad girl? Knit this flap to accomadate what you actually use (no sense in knitting more than you have to). It helps to actually have some things handy for measuring and remember to include space so it can fold nicely (like an inch or two in between pads and tampons is good). Make sure that the right side of the stockinette stitch is facing the same direction as on the pouch. V’s on the V side and ~ on the ~ side.
Once you have knit the flap to meet your needs finish off with 2 rows of Moss/Seed stitch and BO
Using an “G” crochet needle I single crocheted around the edge of the flap so that it would lay flat.

CO 11 stitches and knit in whatever stitch you like for however long you need. Stockinette works good for tampons and moss/seed st ends with stockinette middle is good for pads. Remember to accomadate for space, meaning if you intend to slide a tampon in the holder, make sure its going to fit. BO. Sew down in appropriate places.

On face edge again on the outside of the folding flap pick up 11 stitches and knit in Moss/Seed stitch to make strap for button. Shove your things in their appropriate holders, fold it up, and keep them there so you can measure for button strap accuracy. Make a button hole however you deem is appropraite (I used BO 5 or 6 stitches and CO 5 or 6 stitches on the next row). Now, I made decreases every now and again to give a rounded edge (I ended and BO when I got to 5 or 6 stitches) , you can do the same or keep it squarish…. its up to you.

Add button… me, I used to a snakeprint button (you can’t really see it snakeprintness in the pics…. but its there) to keep with its attitude.

Weave in ends
Do a final check over

Voila you are done… now go eat some chocolate and read a Cosmo… you earned it.