A New Sweater For Idget

Rob says Idget looks ready for the Ivy League in this sweater. I made it with the yarn I had left over from the socks I made Rob a couple of years ago.

Just in Time for Summer

When I showed Rob the pattern for MK Carroll's Matilda hat, he said, "That looks like a hat you would lose."

He had a point. When we drove across country to see my family for Christmas two years ago, I left a very similar brown cloche in a pool hall in Memphis. In a strange twist, I found the exact same hat two days later at the French Market in New Orleans, only to leave it in a restaurant when we got back to Los Angeles.

Undeterred, I ordered enough black yarn last summer to make one for my business partner and one for me. I finished hers in a week, but as of March, I hadn't even cast on the one for me. I just couldn't bring myself to knit it in black. Brown is my color of choice for a cloche and I'd knit mine in brown no matter how much it tempted fate.

I had some chunky alpaca laying around that I'd been meaning to find a use for. I knit it on larger needles and used black to attach the brim to the top, for a slightly different aesthetic. I felted it slightly and will post pix of the final product once I get Rob to snap one of me wearing it.

I have a pretty tight tension, so the edge of the brim rolled a bit, but it worked itself out in the felting process! One bummer is that I ran out of brown a few rows before the brim was done. I used black for those last rows instead and wear the black patch over one ear. Surprisingly, it doesn't look like a mistake!

"Model" Dog

Here's Idget modeling the sweater I designed for him. Rob calls it his fag sweater because I made the neck so big it slides down for an "off-the-shoulder" look. Oops!

I made one for Toaster, too, but he has a heavier coat and doesn't get as cold as Idget, so he rarely wears it. I'll dress him up some time soon so I can get a picture up here.

And by the way, don't let Idget's, "I'm cute, yet suave" expression fool you. Ten minutes before I snapped this, I'd come home to find he'd gotten into the recycling bin, shredded a milk carton and pooped on the couch. Sigh.

Our Daily Bread

Today Rob's Facebook status was that he was waiting for me to drag my ass out of bed so we could go to the farmer's market. He took this photo to prove we did eventually make it.

Here's what we got: eggs, bell peppers in two colors, onions, broccoli, carrots, turnips, heirloom tomato (yes, just one), satsuma tangerines, mushrooms, baguette and, in the very back, a bison brisket I plan to brine for our Christmas dinner. Yum!

It Tastes of the Earth

I made homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream for a potluck.

Instead of using extract, I cut mint from our garden and steeped it in the cream. Rob was impressed. However, when it was time to eat it, he only had two bites. Everyone else cleared their plate. Someone pointed out he wasn't eating his ice cream and he replied, "It tastes of the earth."

Later, he said that was the politest way he could find to say it tasted like the dirt the mint plant grows in.

Really, Rob? How often do you taste the dirt in our front yard???

Scarf Season Part 2

Still trudging along on Dad's scarf. I've been working on this for almost two months and I am BARELY halfway done. Yikes! I wanted to make a spring sweater using these needles, but I don't think that will be happening. Good thing Christmas is still 9 months away!

Now that I'm on Ravelry, I've been reading about other people's experiences with this pattern. A lot of them found it tedious as well. Part of me wishes I knew that before I began, but I'm not sure reading about the frustrations of others would have deterred me from taking a stab at this -- my ego usually thinks I am not susceptible to the same issues as mere mortals!

What's worse, is I'm not even sure if this going to look good when it's done. I used a different yarn and the herringbone pattern is barely visible in it. Also, one row of stitches looks completely funky and I have NO idea why. When I look at them closely, they appear to all be slipped and knitted correctly, but for some reason that particular row looks like a run in a pair of panty hose. Ugh! Other ravelers say blocking does wonders for this pattern. I've always skipped blocking, but I'll give it a try this time. After all the hours I've invested in this, I've got to somehow find a way to make it look presentable!

The slow progress of this project has totally gotten me down. To get a sense of accomplishment, I decided set it aside for a while and start a scarf for my Dad's wife, Barb,. It's knitted with Misti Alpaca, on 9's instead of 10's to create a denser, warmer scarf. Rob says it looks like television static. After I got done being mad at him for that, I decided he was right. Hopefully, Barb will like it. I asked my Dad for her favorite colors and he thought she'd like a mix of grays. Then again, I asked my Dad for color advice. That may have been mistake number one!