A random act of knitting....

I may have started a bi-regional gang war. In the midst of the dancing (a la West Side story because, really, can you see knitters knifing each other?!) I'd like to point out that I said that I thought the Mile Highers *almost* had the East Coast Sharpies beat. That said...pull out the dance moves.

I'm still trying to catch up here. The bags were unpacked tonight and laundry started. But, all of that is boring - so I'll spare you.

For entertainment, here are three things knitting related that caught my attention today.

Exhibit A - This post by Dooce. I thoroughly enjoy Heather's sense of humor. However, she's stepped over the knitting line. Thinking that knitting and bingo go hand in hand. Harumf. I know she receives buckets of mail that contains not nice things. I will simply send a wicked bad ass dance move her way and forgive her because the poop jokes redeem her.

Exhibit B - This link found via Mighty Goods. Yes, this looks EXACTLY like a sweater I knit earlier this year for baby Neala and Yes it is Lion Brand Boucle AND Yes it is selling for $43?! So strange. I personally wonder about the cost verses the quality of yarn. Then I wonder if that's not enough because, unless it was knit on a machine, it did take some time. Mostly, I wonder how the hell they got the yarn to not pool.

Exhibit C - Deb Macomber who wrote a novel about a yarn shop (? is this right?!), or at least has her novels in more than one yarn store that I've been to. (one is titled, A Good Yarn.) Is the Keynote Speaker at a Romance Novel Convention in Reno (via Bookslut.) This quote from the article cracks my shit up..."Macomber is the keynote speaker at the convention, which features workshops on how to use firefighter lingo, how to pick book-cover art, using swords and sword fights in a story line and how to make your villain a sociopath or psychopath." Teeheheee, I want to know how to use firefighter lingo. This blog would so rock it out with some of that sprinkled in.

Phew.

We're home! Our trip was incredible. Pictures and travelogue to follow. Not only was this our vacation for the year - it was also a 1 year anniversary celebration. Rob and I are old fuddy-duddy's now. One year down, a life time to go. I couldn't be happier.

Go stompers.

It's going to take me awhile to dig out of this pile of horse shit called "Welcome Home from your vacation, here are all the things that *almost* exploded while you left. Now that you're here - lets tap in to a bit of that OCD."

In the meantime, I have one thing to say: Those Mile High Knitters are Crazzzyyyy. I almost think they have the East Coast Sharpies beat.



Dude - don't you SO want to knit with these broads?! There are a few missing from this picture. Aside from our hostess, I spent the most time with Wanda - who really was a blast...why did she leave early?

And of course - my new girlfriend:



Cathi totally rocked my world. Genuine, welcoming, fabulous cook with two little offspring that you could eat for all their cuteness. Oh yah, and that sense of humor? Spot on. We could do some serious nerd damage, the two of us.

Buttons, boootooons, BUTTons.

Knitting Wendys - here is a proto type for a button for the ring. What do you think - yah or ney. Obviously, if we choose it - I'll shrink it up a bit. ;)




In other news....

Husband and I are taking a whole week off of work to make the following trip to Boulder, CO. We'll be doing it by plane.

We're going to spend time with these fools...



My best friend and her husband. Juli and I have known each other since we were 12, about 17 years. Chad and I have known each other since he met Juli. We are ALL convinced that Chad and I were meant to be married and Juli and Rob were meant to be married. This is due to the fact that Chad and I are exactly the same person. And vice-versa. Except Chad doesn't knit and Juli can't sing. Those are the only differences. I suppose I should thank Juli for kindly preparing me for a life with my mate. Thanks Jam!

We will spend a week here. This is your opportunity to voice interesting/compelling places to visit while there. Rob has never been, I have a bunch of times. I truly can't wait to see his face when we get up to Estes Park. It's going to be great. We are going to go camping (where we will poop in a hole), we are going to meet up with some great friends from high school (one of which is a heavily tattooed tattoo artist who I adore and haven't seen in YEARS), and we will hit all of the fun Boudler/Denver places. We are going to celebrate our first anniversary!!


Most importantly, I get to meet the Mile High Knitters and this young lady...



Yes I stole this from her site and yes I saved it on my own server. Yo! I bet she loves me for it. *grin*

I just spend about 8 hours looking through our digital pictures trying to find proof that Cathi and I will get along - just- fine. I have about 8,000 photos of me doing the same pose. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you're my parents) they were taken in the age before digital cameras. However, I feel as though another isn't too far off into my future. Because really, what girl can resist grabbing her boobs and sending a kiss off to the world?

Now everyone reassure Cathi that I am completely normal while I go and sharpen my Sharpies.

It's a Girl!

We are all babies all the time here at The Bookish Girl.


Welcome Isabella Maria

Born: July 6th, 11:18 pm 6lbs 8 oz, 19.5"

She is the baby of my great friend Steph, a roommate from college. If you check back to this post you can see how Baby Bella looked in utero. Little Bean.

It will be awhile before she will fit into her hand knit sweater. I should get a move on and knit up some newborn goodies.

Your heartstrings can rest a bit. As-far-as-I-know there are no babies due for at least 6 months. Apparently my friends were getting a bit busy last fall. Must have been in the water.

It's a Boy!

I have to say that Baby Neala has some stiff competition for the cutest baby alive.

Welcome Noah Michael to the world.



Born: July 3rd, 8:30 pm; 8 lbs 7 oz, 21 inches

The full head of hair kills me.

In honor of Rob and our neighbor Guillaume's birthdays we had a BBQ this past wekend. The byline for the party was: "Doing our best to improve Franco-American relations." Guillaume is french and Rob is Kentuckian.

Jeannette, Guillaume's wife, put together the evites. They began with this quote:

"Redefining the role of the United States from enablers to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace from the peacekeepers in going to be an assignment." President Bush at his ranch in Crawford Texas on January 12, 2001

Well, I must say we did our best to keep the peace here - Drink, Drink, Eat, Eat. We sang happy birthday in three languages and the yard echoed with many more. We had a fabulous time.



My girl Neala likes to party all the time.


To my point - Jess (Baby Noah's mom) came by the party with her husband Alan. Alan is one of Rob's boyfriends (yes! he has more than one, really two - Elisa's man is his other.) As it turns out Jess was in labor! Albeit early labor, but labor all the same. Mr Noah came into the world a mere 22 hours later. Poor Jess.

Noah is, of course, greeted by a hand knit sweater.




The pattern is Blue Sky Alpaca’s Three Piece Baby Set. I used the called for yarn, Blue Sky Organic Cotton. I really liked the yarn, although it did shed a bit. The pattern was easy-peasy. Notice how small the arm opening is? Not happy with that. Means I'm going to have to RIP out what I seamed and reknit.

Notice a theme here at The Bookish Girl?!

Number 40 - Come on Down!!!

You girls rock. You all are the picture of support and encouragement. Forced to look past the intial crap crap of the project with your encouragement I have looked to the bright-side.



The other side that is. Not bad for a first-timer, eh? Catholic girls start much too late.

I'll focus on the details of the crap crap later. I tried a few different graphing methods, I had missed the Knitty article. Thank you for the recommendations. I first tried KnitPro, initially seen on el Masono y la Dixona (huge thanks to Kay and Kellee who helped me track down the long forgotten link.) Problem with this - I couldn't get the size I wanted AND there was a lot of gray matter in the way. The gray matter is the hard part. I couldn't quite get my head to figure out if the edges of the letters, shades of gray, should be stitched or not.

From there I went to gauge specific graph paper (a bow to Colleen who keeps this stuff on her website, so I don't have to.) Layering this over a printed out "bookish" on the window (pictured yeterday) proved to be the ticket to ride. Surprisingly this worked out the best. I stitched from this chart, make split second judgements on the fly with yarn in hand. I wronged myself there. Alas, I think I have all the letters worked to my liking. I just have to rip the whole damn think and put a stitch or two between the letters. That and add a bit of size to the whole thang.

What I learned:

1 - Intarsia isn't too hard. It's a pain in the ass. It takes forever. You're bound to strangle yourself in the tangles. But it isn't the hardest thing I've ever done. Like lace. Intarsia I can get a breath in every few minutes. Lace. Well, lace may cause me to smoother myself.
2 - Get bobbins for your yarn (see #1)
3 - Don't spend an entire day on one word. You will begin to see a ghost kissing a fish while convincing yourself that the word really is spelled B-O-O-K-I-S-H.
4 - Next time the husband picks a nickname for me remind him that, in the supreme act of dorkiness, I will most likely end up knitting it on something. This fact should really weigh heavily on the heart of his imagination. Maybe D-O-R-K would have done? It's shorter.

How do you spell relief from a knitting headache?



Jeeves and Will Shortz. (see #4 above)


The Random Number Table has spoken. I closed my eyes, swirled my cursor across the screen and*** number 40 come on down***. The 40th comment on the Boookish post is Ms. Kay. Kay - email me (bookishwendy at that fabulous place known as gmail dot come) your address and I'll send you a package.

It's alive...

All I can stay is that you all are whore's for a Star. I haven't gotten the official count in but it looks as though C was the wiener. The font name is "Eight-track". H and F - whose font names I'll have to add later - were not far behind the count.



I've started graphing and swatching (read: spending a whole day teaching myself intarsia, only to knit the entire word into the actual t-shirt in order to come to the realization that there is plenty of "room for improvement".) I hate room for improvement. It harkens memories of classrooms with brightly colored walls and snot-filled kids with a teacher who is just an inch this side of sanity, enough to know that, "Better luck next time" isn't an appropriate response to a shitty job.

I think I have the style of the font translated into the stitches. The first problem is size, they need to be a bit bigger. The second problem is spacing - they are way too close together. I thought about embroidering a border around each letter. I even tried it. Better luck next time.


I can't say I'm loving the process. I did at first. I thought about putting up a little tutorial. It just takes so damn long. It's difficult for me to breath right while stitching the letters. I forget to take a breath. It's really not good for the mental health. I'll have to go into training before I start again. Dive school or something.



Oh, I may have or may not have gone shopping for a certain Bookish Contest.

Weiner announced tomorrow.