Stephieface

I think I just figured out why I always thought my parents were weird as I was growing up… I mean aside from the fact that they just are…. it must have been hard for them really with what I discovered today.

Today, I put Muppets in Space (VHS, not DVD) in for the Flying Diaperinis to watch. Mind you, had it been a DVD I would have scooted past the commercials and whatnot straight to the menu- but with tapes you just let it play. They had the before movie commercials and previews, and it was then that I saw one I had seen a few times before other movies…. the Stuart Little Movie preview. For some reason, the preview was bothering me…. not like a bad bother, but more like a bother that something is there that I should notice but don’t know what. It was then that I saw it, the thing that was bothering me that I had not known before….. Stuart Little’s Dad is the same guy who plays House,MD. Its weird knowing one of your favorite rude TV buttholes is a prominent figure in children’s entertainment… at least regarding interspecies adoption movies.

So back to knitting, I finished my Knitted Lacy Round Cloth and I only had a little bit left. I discovered that the first’s lack of two last points was due to a somewhat already depleted skein of Peaches & Cream. I made another starting with a new skein and was able to pull out a 18 pointer with mad leftover. See?I neglected to photograph the “mad leftover”, but I assure you there is a good bit left… enough for a Stephieface style Soap Saver if I so wished:
As well, because of Chez Stephieface’s lack of non icky washcloths, I started setting up shop to make more, step one of which was buying one of those huge 1lb cones of Peaches & Cream (like this, although this is not my pic)Mine is in the “Daisy Ombre” which has whites and yellows like the Soap Saver above. However, knitting off a knitting machine destined cone isn’t really my style- not to mention impossible for quick portability. So I broke the big cone down into smaller cakes with Caitho and got this: If you would, imagine a 6th cake in there stacked with all the rest and not already dented with knitting. Deal wise, I have to say it was better overall buying the 1lb cone than the individual little 2oz balls… even at Walmart. Downside, you are stuck with 6 cakes of one color. Upside, its 6 cakes that you got cheaper than buying 6 balls. Future plan- get together with other cotton yarn buyers and each chip in $6 or so, buy a couple of the 1lb cones, cake them, and distribute the different colored cakes amongst the chippers so there is variety and no one is stuck with 6 cakes of one color (unless they REALLY like that color).

In my last post, Kelley left this comment:
“The Lacy Round Cloth is beautiful; seeing that kind of thing inspires me to learn to knit. I am so impressed by the number of bloggers who can knit, and I feel left out of the trend! It just seems too involved for my crafting capabilities. I do the occasional cross stitch, but that is much simpler.

About a year ago, I went to Michael’s and I purchased one of those children’s “learn to crochet” kits. I figured that was the place to start, right? I was completely overwhelmed by the complexity of it all by about step 3 of the illustrated instructions. I’m waiting for my dignity to recover before I set foot in a craft store again!”

Its not that involved, but of course I would say that- I’ve been doing it a bit. I started with the Boye “I Taught Myself To Knit” kit from Walmart for $10 (they have a crochet one too). Couple things about the kit, it gave me darn near everything I would ever need to knit (except yarn) all in one kit, and the 10″ needles that came in the kit (set of size 6 and8) are still by far my favoritest needles I own and are like knitting with butter. I have no idea why stand alone (not in kit) Boye needles aren’t this spiffy, but whatever. While this kit taught me to cast on and do the knit stitch (I promptly lost the booklet and it took me two years to discover how to purl) it was easy enough to follow (and I still have every single accessory that comes in the kit- just no book). Also in the good and valuable category is the Debbie Stoller Stitch’nBitch books, which were filled with a good bit of info.
And for those people who do knit already, go check out Kelley’s blog- you’ll love it…. I promise.

The Mister mocked me yesterday upon learning that I went thru the TV schedule and wrote down the shows of worth and taped it to my calender… he just doesn’t understand how much I hate flipping and the fact I can’t remember crap about network TV, aside from Numb3rs and Farscape. Humph……. Misters.

So, a few posts ago, I mention how I am participating in the Craftster sponsored Terry Pratchett’s Discworld: Hogfather Swap. And although interrupted by that thing called Halloween, I have jumped head first (Do you know how many times I typed ‘Dived’ and it gave me the shivers?) and really started to get to.
I already know one thing I am going to make, as my partner asked for it specifically (teeming with glee it appeared, that she scored the partner who wrote the DEATH of Rats Knitted Toy Pattern). I was trying to decide what the other items would be that I would be making. Here is what is required:
“…We will be crafting at least 2 medium items, and I would suggest throwing in 2 or more small crafted/non-crafted items (although this is up for discussion with your partner)…”

In some ways its better than some of the other swaps I have been in, in that those swaps required at least 1 large item, a medium item, and some small items. On the Craftster site, the size of the item is directly relative to the amount of hours it took to make (and try as I might, I can’t find the link to the post where I saw that). What is funny is that for me, pretty much every item is a large or biggish medium item (if we go by shear number of hours). I don’t mind though, I pretty much threw that post out of my head at the very get go of my swapping career, favoring my own complexity based scale. Basically, it determines the size of the item by how involved the it is in the making for me. The more involved, the bigger the item. So, it sort of accomodates for the things I make (since I knit for alot of the swaps), that although may take many hours in knitting, because they are relatively easy are considered smaller items in comparison to something that I have to actually pay attention to or it will… I don’t know… explode. If in its making I cuss more than a sailor… it is a big item. The sliding cuss scale also works, if the number of hours scale doesn’t work for you either.

Ha! I found it! Took me forever but … Ha!
By Time
-Big=3 or more hours
-Medium=2 or more hours
-Little=2 or less hours

By Size
-Big=A shawl, a shirt, a skirt, a set of jewelry with four to five items, a purse
-Medium= one single necklace or bracelet, a scarf
-Small- Earrings, stickers, wallets, pouches, bookmarks

By Price
-Big= $30 or more
-Medium=$10-$30 dollars
-Small=$10 or less

But, again, most of these scales don’t work for me.

So anyways, this is what I have been up to presently (and it relates to all the above):This is the Knitted Lacy Round Cloth by Rhonda K. White. I plan on using the pattern on something for the swap, but I wanted to try out the pattern first. That’s a wee handy dandy ball of Sugar ‘n Cream Cotton from Walmart on size 8 needles (the pattern calls for size 7, but I enjoy throwing caution to the wind). I am doing that knitter’s thing where it looks like you won’t have enough yarn to finish, so you knit faster trying to beat it. As I have said many times before, I am a foolish mortal. The pattern itself is pretty easy, with each pattern repeat making 2 points, you make 18 points altogether. That’s how far I got in about 2.5 hours, so its a pretty speedy knit too. After the experiment, this baby is gonna be used as a facecloth for yours truly (since all of our washcloths have these weird colored marker fingerprints on them… which strangely enough are not from the Flying Diaperinis but their father and his gameroom).

You like that? Actual Knitting Content… Oh yeah…

ETA: So I finished the Knitted Lacy Round Cloth…
I’m actually missing a repeat, I only have 16 points and not 18…. but this is why:
This was all I had left when I got near the end, plus the bits I cut off after I wove in ends. I’m not sure if the Sugar ‘n Cream ball I started was brandy new or not, but if you get one of those $1.30 balls from Walmart, you have enough for at least a 16 point cloth. So there you go.

ETAA: I am a dork, the yarn I was using was Peaches ‘n Cream cotton, which I am not sure if its different than Sugar ‘n Cream, but there you go.

Last night, the inlaws called me up last minute and invited myself and the Flying Diaperinis to the circus (appropo with a name like the Flying Diaperinis), so four adults and 3 kids piled into my Father In Law’s SUV and headed off downtown to watch the Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus. I haven’t watched a circus since I was a kid, and the Ringling Bros circus really hasn’t changed much since- save that the Gunther Gable guy who was their animal trainer is no longer with them (instead there is a little latin man who shouts “Hay Sucar” at the completion of every trick with a tiger), and there were less dark moments. I think that people who are scared of circuses and circus related things (like clowns) were children when I was, and went to the circus where you sat in the dark, alot, with one lone spotlight on whatever was going on. And while the death defying was at a minimum (is it me or were they always chancing death back in the day?) it was still no less exciting.
They had a troupe of Mongolian acrobats at which Sam kept screaming “Ninjas!”, elephants at which TJ kept screaming “elafance!”, and Bello the clown at which Zach kept screaming “Bello!”. So as you can tell a good time was had by all.
They even had there a clown that made me think of Zeeppo, but getting a picture of him was hard.
A clown in a kilt.

So, last night (in case you were in a cave) was Halloween. Now, I have no idea about the outside world- but here in Pittsburgh neighborhoods choose when they will hold Halloween…. so some places Trick or Treated on Saturday, some Sunday, and then you have my inlaw’s neighborhood who are a bunch of purists… only the actual holiday will do. So last night (after a day of sewing up costumes in a last minute rush) we suited up the monkeys (all three) and headed out for a night of candy harvesting. Oh yes, we were quite a sight with two pirates and a mini parrot. Oh we were indeed a sight considering it rained.

Oh yes, it rained- and my kids are so hardcore they opted to Trick or Treat anyways knowing they would get soaked… and us their equally Halloween hardcore parents were totally okay with that, and totally willing to go along with them.

Maybe it was the rain, but there was a serious lack of porchlights on- there weren’t even any “help yourself” bowls on the porches. On the other hand, there weren’t that many Trick or Treaters out either, only the serious harvesters like ourselves were out and about. It was not uncommon for our little troop to reach a door, knock while Sam screams “trick or treat” at the top of his now 4-year-old lungs, someone answers, then reveals how we were the first or third people to be there the whole night. Mind you, trick or treating “night” was from 6pm-8pm.

Do you remember Halloween when you were a kid? When I was a kid it was an all night event, not “just barely longer than a movie”. It was not uncommon for there to still be kids out past 9, or for the most diehard 10. And we started at 5. Of course, this was in Manassas Virginia, where there are more than a hundred townhomes shoved in a 2 block area. That’s not counting the stand alone houses across the street. You hit your own complex first (that’s 44 houses for me, provided everyone had their porchlight on), then you hit the complex next door (13 or so townhomes [I'm guessing here since I can't remember the exact number]), then you hit up the complex across the street from that (which has more townhomes than I can remember, well over 60 I think) and then checked the time when you got to the creek. If you still had time, you hit up the next complex of 20 or so townhouses across the creek where an old neighbor had moved to, crossed the street and hit 2 streets or so of that townhouse complex before you started to think it was getting late- but not until after you cajoled Jon Wingo into dumping the rest of his family’s give out bucket into your bag. Then you hauled home your loot.

This year, I think we may have hit….. 20 houses maybe? The payoff though, for trick or treating in the rain was insane…. we came home with a stuffed full 35 gallon trash bag of candy…. and that was after we sent home a portion with the stepmonkey, and after we paid off the third adult spotter with a good sized bag of booty. Not bad for a 20 house 2 hours if you ask me.

By the way, a parrot costume takes 8.5 hours to make
(including the beak hat missing from this picture)you know, just in case you were wondering.

I switched up the look for now so that Severina can read my site again.