A Strange Day

So last night I got under the covers at about 5 pm because I was cold, and I ended up sleeping until 8:30 this morning. Needless to say, everything since then has been a bit off. I am heartily glad that the holidays are over. All of the stuff is back in boxes and bins where it belongs, and the winter break for el futbol is finally over. This week, they re-ran some Serie A games, so I got to see all my boyfriends again, and later today they'll start giving us some new games. My mission in life, and my only goal for today, is to stay awake until bedtime so I can reset my sleep clock. So far, it isn't easy.

Now that the winter cardigan is done, I can in good conscience start the crimson cardigan. I hate doing sleeves, so this time I started with a sleeve and here is what there is so far:



Love love love. As I work with this yarn I can help but mutter little endearments to it. Good little yarn. Pretty yarn. So soft. So smooth. Not shedding at all. Love this yarn. Love love love. In July, when I'm still working on it, we'll see if I love it as much.


In my addled-oversleeped state, I was able to go round and round on a plain sock, and I finished Not The Man's socks, so they will be going to the Old Man soon.

And last weekend, I finished the Manos scarf. I worked this in two-row stripes: one solid row, one variegated row in a complementary color, 1x1 ribbing throughout. Interesting colors, but not quite right for me, so this will go off to someone else.

In other knitting news, the first sock of the July sock club socks is finished. It took more than half the skein, so I'll need another skein to finish the pair. This is not ideal. I like the pattern, however, and I'll probably use it again. In a few weeks, I'll get another sock club sock to work on, so that'll put me at July, July prime, September, November, and January. Way way behind, and not a single one depletes the stash. Plus my cookie box full of sock yarn remnants is full, so I need to do some mini socks in order to create storage space. For now, it's el futbol and the mindless stockinette in the round of the last brown beagle wubbie.

How Dirtbunny Copes with Tragedy

And so we here at Chez Nous are working on getting our heads around the idea of making Kirby into a three-legged dog in order to save his life. It is not a difficult decision. I don't know how much it is going to cost and I don't care. It is a very sad situation but the surgery must be done and that's all there is to it. And I am dealing. But first:

It took a while to get a photo of the May sock club socks that displayed the socks to advantage and simultaneously concealed from you how long it has been since I shaved my legs (my brother Patrick would be scandalized!). Here they are. All done and I like 'em.

Back to Kirby. The biopsy yesterday was a pretty big deal and he has a lot of stitches holding his incision together. He's on some serious painkillers and has spent the day looking like this:

You can almost hear him snoring, can't you? The Man stayed home with him today and I went to the office. On the way home from the office, I stopped at the LYS for some yarn therapy, the details of which I will share more fully later. One of the things I got was this:

That is my Special Sweetheart's Super Recovery Wubbie. I replaced the book that Yarn Bandit ate so I have my needles, pattern, and yarn ready to go. I will be casting on imminently. As I knit, I will be putting in as much love and good karma as any Dirtbunny can muster (it can be hard for Dirtbunnies to come up with positive energy) and I will convince myself that it is going to help Kirby recover quickly and safely, and it will give me somewhere to put my anger and sadness and grief that is not upside The Man's head because he's angry and sad too after all and deserves better. OK, so I just put that last sentence in another color because I wanted to see how long it was. It seemed a little long. It is. Fuck it. I'm a little scattered and it's only right that my sentences reflect that.

Old Friends, New Rules

We are moving on here Chez Nous to exciting new knitting projects, because the lame, boring ones are finished.

Here are some Man Mittens fashioned from leftover yarn. No they are not the same size. Custom-fit mittens for custom-designed Man hands.



Here is the purple cardigan. Plain stockinette stitch, saddle shoulders, and a plain garter stitch neckband. No buttons. Nice and heavy and warm. Of course, now that it's done, it's 70 degrees outside. It figures.

Beagle blanket. Some of that white stuff is lint from the dog beds, where the wubbie (as we now call it) has been enjoyed for two nights now. Some of that white stuff is the mattress peeking through lace.

I have only one project active now. Grey Man socks from leftover yarn. There is satisfaction to be obtained from using up leftovers. I get to feel frugal, and I get to free up space otherwise occupied by leftover yarn. The thing is, I have plenty of beautiful new yarn in the stash. Old yarn is boring, and I've been focused too much on it. New rule: only one leftover yarn project at a time. Because I am working the Grey Man Socks, that means my next project is a new yarn project.

No problem. Remember this? The October sock club sock. I have wound the yarn and read the lengthy advice about gauge and sizing (which has me quite confused about what I should do). I also have the December sock club sock and the January sock club sock to do. I am compulsive enough to have a need to work them in order. FIFO and all that. But, one of my knitting circle buddies is new to the sock club and is working the January sock. I am competitive enough to want to finish mine before she finishes hers. (Don't change what you're doing, Mel. This is my issue, not yours.)

This poses quite a dilemma for the Bunny. I am trying to be more flexible and less neurotic. Working October first means succumbing to the compulsive FIFO-ness side of me. Working January first means succumbing to the Memememememe! side of me. Both are neurotic. Perhaps the thing to do here is neither: start the December sock first. Of course, making a conscious decision after attaching so much importance and meaning to the various choices is in itself neurotic. I can't win.

By the way, when my December sock arrived, The Man mistook it for a Christmas present he ordered for me. Yup, it's yarn, I must have ordered this for her. He wrapped it and put it under the tree for me. It never occurred to him to actually look at it and notice that it wasn't the yarn he ordered, it wasn't from the yarn company he ordered from, and it had all sorts of sock club instructions and documentation accompanying it. Yarn is yarn. Muggle.

Goodbye Tofu Socks

The tofu socks are finished.


They are in The Man's Christmas stocking. The Man's Christmas stocking is nice and bulge-y. Bunny's stocking is empty. Bunny is harping on the fullness of The Man's stocking in the hopes that The Man will make the connection and realize that:

1. Bunny's stocking is empty.
2. Bunny wants something in her stocking.
3. No one else lives here.
4. If anything gets put in Bunny's stocking, The Man is going to have to do it.
5. By Christmas morning.

He's not a stupid man, but neither is he a subtle man.

Do you know what this means? It means that Bunny only has two projects going, beagle blanket and purple cardigan. I'd like to point out that just because you may be working both sides of a cardigan front simultaneously on the same needle from two balls of yarn in an attempt to ensure that they turn out symmetrical and the same size doesn't mean that this will actually happen unless you pay attention to what you are doing and alternate sides. If you just work the same side back and forth over and over, it will end up much larger than the untouched, unworked side. Then you'll have to do make-up rows and measure them and shit, which you hate, which is why you did it this way in the first place.

I am going into the stash to pick out something nice for myself, I am going to start some fair isle socks, and maybe I'll pull out some of the leftovers and do a hat or something that I can actually finish soon and feel like I accomplished something.