zee sweataire, she ees sad

Slumped over in her dejection. "But I tried so hard!" she cries sobbing. Yes, my darling, I know. I know. The fault dear sweater, lies not in you. The fault is mine. Alas I trusted too much in the early fit. But it will be ok, I promise. You will soon be lounging luxuriously in your red chair in your golden gloriousness.

See the needles already in place to start up again? I will not fail you. You shall, again, be the saucy thing you once were.



"Yes," she says proudly. "I will."

digit's story

This is in keeping with fur baby friday. Please click here and read Digit's story. I have added a link on my sidebar to the drawing set up to help defray his vet expenses (which are going to be very high). Please consider donating.

Quite a plucky little cat.

fur baby friday

Behold the Queen. This is Jenger (pronounced Ginger). Today is all about her.

When we were still living in Texas my daughter, a second grader, and I were taking a walk around our neighborhood. As we were walking down the street I heard someone holler at us. We looked up and a friend was waving at us to come on up to her apartment. This was the mother of a friend of my daughter. We went on up and stayed awhile. They had cats. They had a *lot* of cats. So many that she said they had to get rid of one. A kitten. She called her "the baby" because, well, she was. This beautiful little aloof kitten that all the other cats were trying to impress. Even then she had "IT".

Oh, it was so sad she said. They were going to have to take this kitten to the pound. I agreed. That was indeed sad. Why not try a shelter? Surely that would be better. No, no. It was going to be the pound. So sad. Well, we stayed a little longer with my daughter all over this kitten. This aloof (oh so sad) kitten. Before we left, I told my friend to contact me before taking the kitten to the pound. You know, just ... call me. No promises.

My daughter and I walked back slowly to the house and by the time we got home I announced that I was making an executive decision. I informed my husband we were going back for the kitten.

Yeah. "Sucker" was stamped on my forehead. I'm pretty sure of that.

Well, we drove over and on the way back I insisted on holding the kitten even though my daughter begged. I knew this would be the last chance for me to do so. Once we got home I informed my daughter that this was her kitten. All hers. They have been fast friends ever since. She can do things with that cat that no one else can. She announced the name of the kitten was Ginger. Some time later, she wrote on her blackboard "I love Jenger". "So who's Jenger?" I asked, pronouncing it like it looks.

That was how I came to find out that Ginger can be spelled more than one way by a little girl pure of heart and filled with love.



Thus ends this "tail" of Queen Jenger, the Beloved.

and the frogging begins

There will be pictures when the frogging is more impressive. Right now, since I have to go SO far back (heh) I'm gong with the as painless as possible frogging method explained by two left needles.

just because you can doesn't mean you should

PART 1

Picture this. Tall kinda greasy older guy with his hair plastered down around his head wearing slacks and ...shudder... a black fishnet tank top and nothing under it. Just be grateful this isn't picture day. You know, just because the day is hot you don't have to visit this visual assault on the rest of us. Like the poem says "it's the folks out in front that you jar*". I'm just saying.

PART 2

I've always wanted to say to the beggars on the street when they say "do you have  any spare change?" "Why, yes I do. Thank you for asking." But, I won't.

PART 3

Well, then again, maybe you should. Thanks to loralie.

* As a beauty I'm not a great star. There are others more handsome by far. But my face, I don't mind it, for I am behind it. It's the folks out in front that I jar.

pictures! we got your pictures right here!

Ahhhhhh. Picture time.





My finished fingerless mitts modeled by my lovely daughter (her manicure was *much* nicer than mine). The yarn is from a Canadian eBay seller (sheepgal54). She does some amazing stuff. I was enthralled with the yarn and the way the various colors came together and worked together. The cable down the front really stood out.



Here is view showing the front and back and one with a closeup of the yarn showing the stitch definition. This is (I'm winging it here) a 2 ply with multi-colored space-dyed wool. I would guess the weight to be about a worsted. Nice.





Here's a lap throw I'm working on using Crayon yarn from Knit Picks. This yarn is sooooo soft it should be illegal. Even though it is 100% cotton it doesn't hurt my hands the way most 100% cotton does. Definitely a pleasure to work with. It's one of those knits that I'll keep coming back to when I need something simple. No deadline either, which makes it nice. Garter stitch all the way and I'm loving it.

The dish rag! The dish rag! This is my practice dish rag for dish rag tag


Remember when I mentioned the top-down sweater I started? The one I'll need to frog?

Check out this saucy little wench all relaxing on the red chair there. So pleased with herself.




Check out that cable action. Oh yeah, baby. You know you like it.




And get a load of that color work!


Shame it's going to get ripped right up the to armholes. Darn dirty shame.

Just keep repeating "It's the process... it's the process"

of rags and tags

Pictures of the before and after on the sweater coming soon.

I finished my first ever dish rag yesterday and it is now proudly draped on the kitchen faucet. It went a little slower than I thought it would. The cotton wasn't as hard on my hands as I feared though so that's a good thing. I did straight garter stitch and used Sugar and Cream in two colors (Cornflower blue [83] and Buttercream [222]) doing two rows each all the way through. It was really pretty! I should have gotten a picture of that as well.

Eh. I need to get used to doing the picture thing.