Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The last two weeks

For the last two weeks, I abandoned all (both) my projects to work on something different. The Teeny Tiny Government Entity has a charity drive every year and this year, instead of canned food, they went for hats, gloves, mittens, and scarves for a local domestic violence shelter. So the first thing I did was go on a yarn crawl. The second thing I did was fix The Man's new Liverpool FC sweater which he had just taken out of the package and put on and worn happily for no more than five minutes when The Paw of Demand took a swipe at him and he ended up with this:



Only I fixed it and it looks a lot better now.

The third thing I did was cast on a ribbed scarf from some new yarn. The fourth thing I did was dig through Ye Olde Yarne to see if I had anything I could use to make hats, gloves, mittens, and scarves for kids and adults. The fifth thing I did was set myself a ridiculous and unrealistic goal, and the sixth thing I did was knit a frenzy of hats, mittens, and scarves. No gloves. Gloves are a pain.


At the end of the two weeks, which is only about 4% of the knitting year, I had these new yarn items (plus one more pair of mittens I finished after the photo shoot):



and these Ye Olde Yarne mittens.


Now I have the mitten pattern memorized. Did you know that if you knit mittens at a slightly tighter gauge than you would ordinarily use for that particular yarn, you will end up with a thicker, denser, and warmer mitten? Well, you will.
The trip through the stash was a worthwhile exercise. I got it a little more organized--now all the Cascade 220 is together and all the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran is together and all the little odd bits have been identified and categorized so I have a better idea of what there is. I had three little mini-balls of leftover green JelliBeenz that became one pair of mittens, and leftover Debbie Bliss in green, white, and black that became mittens. See what I did there? I used up six whole leftover balls of Ye Olde Yarne! I cannot tell you how satisfying that was. Upshot: I got to use up Ye Olde Yarne, I got to go on a yarn crawl, I got to spend two weeks whipping through small projects and actually finishing things in less than a month, I got to knit (don't forget that--knitting is pretty much the high point of my existence right now), and because I got to do all of those selfish fun things that I would happily do anyway for no particular reason, some kids will have warm hands this winter.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The man is a liverpool supporter?

Onslow almost asked for a marriage annulment when, on their wedding night, Daisy revealed that she was a "Liverpool supporter". (OK, you have to be an old WBEG watcher to get this reference.) Are you sure he really is not just taken by the colors. He sounds like he is more of a Spurs man. So what is it?

Anonymous said...

Is The Man happy that the Spurs rallied from down two to advance to the round of 32 in the Uefa Cup? Or am I wrong in guessing he is a Spurs supporter?

Anonymous said...

I admire the Spurs, especially their recent success under the charismatic if possibly alcoholic Harry Redknapp, but wouldn't call myself a supporter. Count me in as a Spurs fellow traveller!

Anonymous said...

What do you think of the Spurs chances against Shakhtar Donetsk on Feb 17?

Anonymous said...

A possible last minute Christmas gift for THE MAN is the Spurs hip flask with the team logo which currently on sale at half price.

It should serve its purpose equally well in the US although you Yanks seem to lack the tradition of trashing cities following fixtures that we have.

Dirtbunny said...

Actually, we do trash cities following sporting events, at least sometimes. The Turtle, for example, is well-known inside the beltway for wrecking College Park after important basketball victories. Not that there is much to wreck in College Park (if it didn't have "college" in it's name, you wouldn't know there was a "university" there). However, one year, the revellers set a bonfire under some power lines that burned down a telephone pole and managed to knock out power to a good-sized chunk of Suburban Maryland. That is only one of many, many reasons to avoid Maryland.

I get a kick out of European futbol stadiums. My favorites are the Italian ones with the big plexiglass wall separating the fans from the pitch. Someone will score a goal and run around behind the advertisements to the wall, and the players and fans will beat on the wall like visitors and inmates trying to get at each other on a visiting day when no conjugals are allowed.

Anonymous said...

Is THAT what Del Piero is trying to do when he scores? Er, yuck.

Anonymous said...

The only town in the US I have ever read as having victory celebrations that become unusual is Morgantown (sic). But when I mentioned this to my Yank friends in the City they said that the people there were unusual bacause of their genetic makeup and there was nowhere else in the US like it. Are you suggesting that there are other areas of genetic anomalies the US?