It’s Curtains for You!

Because the only thing more boring than reading about a slowly expanding pink and yellow circle is blogging about a slowly expanding pink and yellow circle…it’s time for curtains! Yesterday Greg had me take up the legs of his new uniform because he accidentally got longs in the excitement of buying them. Yeah. I said excitement. They just became available, and it was like some sort of military Harry Potter release. There were crowds, long lines, shortages, confusion, and now the cool kids who got all of their uniform items before Military Clothing sold out get to wear them to work and make their less fortunate friends say, “Dang it! I knew I should have gone over there as soon as I got off work…”

But anyway. I was up there with the sewing machine and I decided to finish the curtains for the dining room (that I started last November). Since they are no more and no less than hemmed rectangles with rod pockets, I’d like to present ‘Creative Ways to Make Your Rectangular Curtains Look Fancy.’ Incidentally, this helps keep the kids from ripping the curtain rods out of the wall, too.

There are actually tons of ways that you can tuck and twist your curtains to make them stay up and look different. Most of them look pretty silly. More could be done, I’m sure, if you were willing to use ribbons or ties or something, but I’m too lazy for that. I only found two ways to tuck the curtain up that looked cool and didn’t use anything but the curtain rod to keep them there. First up is the way that Greg likes better. To achieve this look, pick a point in the center of the panel, about eight inches above the windowsill. Grab it, pull it out towards you, and allow the rest of the curtain to fall from it. Tuck this peak over and behind the curtain rod, and enjoy your new look. (It always takes me a few tries to get this to look the way I like.)

This second way is the one I prefer. Hold one side (side a) of your curtain panel, level with the windowsill, and draw it across to the other side of the window (side b). Keeping your hold on side a, begin pulling it up towards the rod. Make sure you keep from dragging side b up with you - a few tugs to keep it going straight down usually suffice. Stop about six to eight inches below the curtain rod, and tuck your handful over and behind the rod to secure. Pretty, right?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this edition of ‘Creative Ways to Make Your Rectangular Curtains Look Fancy.’ Maybe I’ll sew the valances sometime before we move out of this house. Haha.

Happy Birthday

My little Charlie is a big boy.

May he always be so happy. He knew exactly what to do with his cake, by the way. I remember on Max’s first birthday, he just sort of poked at it tentatively at first. Too funny. Siiiiigh. Babies. Always growing up.

P.S. - Mom, if you have Dad message me, I can send him lots and lots of pictures.

Plain and Simple

This baby afghan is going sooo much more smoothly than the last one (yes, this one is also my own design). The only problem I’ve had so far is that since it’s worked in double crochet and I’m so used to working with single crochet, my calculations for proportion were off a bit. No biggie. Anyway, as you can see, progress has been made.

In other news, I finished a project for Max - a helmet! We got him a little toy motorcycle for his birthday last month, and ever since he’s been making off with bits of Greg’s gear to go ‘riding’ with. (See, mom? Proper usage of safety equipment, instilled early.) He has his own little gloves, and any pair of shoes will do for boots as far as he’s concerned, but for a helmet we had nothing. We tried letting him play with one of Greg’s old ones, but as you might expect, they were too big and too hard and too heavy to be very safe toys. I decided that it would be pretty easy to crochet a helmet - at least helmet-like enough to satisfy a three-year-old.

I would have been right, too, but I ignored something that should have been posted on a sign with big red letters. Three year olds make terrible head models. Seriously. If you’ve ever tried to get a three year old to stand still while you try to fit something on them that covers their whole head (and not in a ’sack’ kind of way, but in a ‘this needs to sit over certain places’ kind of way) you will understand when I tell you that after asking, then coaxing, then bribing, and then finally contemplating the use of some sort of sedative (perhaps delivered through a blowgun; I’ve always wanted one of those) to get my child to stand still enough for me to work on something that was supposed to be a treat for him to begin with…I gave up. The only reason it’s actually finished is that about three days after I put it away I was sitting in my usual crocheting spot, working on the baby blanket, and Max asked for his helmet. At this point all I had left to do was fashion some side inserts and sew them in (and weave in the ends), and his patience lasted that long. So finished it is! I’m not really that pleased with it, to be honest with you. (Max really likes it though, so it’s possible that I’ll make another attempt.) It fits strangely, and - no, that’s it. It fits strangely, because it’s not shaped right. It could have been much better if I had a blowgun.

It is Finished -

Let us never speak of it again.

It’s not the best picture of it, but the fact that I’m not only finished making it but also finished blogging and/or caring about it fills me with glee. I didn’t actually hand it off to anybody yesterday, but that part should be easily dispensed with next week.

I decided to jump right into the next church-baby-afghan (you know, to try and make it look like it didn’t take me two months to make the first one) and I’m going with something a little bit simpler.

Aaaaaaaaaaaah. There’s going to be a bit more to the design by the time it’s finished,of course, but there’s such beauty in smooth, uncomplicated stitches that’s much more suitable to this yarn than the torturous and time-consuming design I tried with the last one. It makes me happy. I think this afghan and I are going to get along much better.

More Yarn Shopping

I’ve been so busy this week that I haven’t been able to get much crafting done. What’s the best solution for that? More supplies! I went over to Yarnivore today to spend some money (woo!) and pick up some yarn. Melanie was helpful as ever, and perfectly willing to help me decide how to spend my recreational yarn budget. After some browsing, and some wandering, and my first experience sniffing yarn (look, I’ve heard that people do that, and Melanie encouraged me…) I picked out some beautiful yarn.

Plymouth Baby Alpaca Brush. They had an entire skein knitted up and dangling from the display; it was incredibly persuasive. Melanie and I tried to figure out how many skeins I would need to make a sweater (so as to entirely swathe myself in it) and arrived at an estimate of 10. That felt too expensive to me, so I bought 5. Surely, I thought, I can make half a sweater’s worth of something fantastic? I also bought four balls of wool:

I have a great idea for a crocheted child’s/man’s sweater, and I thought I’d try it out in Charlie or Max’s size - to see if Greg would wear one - before I made one for him. Not that he’s picky, or anything. (*cough* NOT! *cough*) I love him anyway. And I think he’ll like it. I also picked up a copy of the Crocheter’s Handy Guide to Yarn Requirement, which I have been eying online for quite some time. It seems like it would be useful. I have plans to visit Yarnivore off and on of the the few months we’re going to be here, still. I need to stock up, you know!

Now I’m off to watch Scrubs with Greg and see if I can finish weaving in the ends on that Sheepghan! If I can finish it tonight I can give it to someone at church tomorrow (for those of you who don’t remember from my post on my old blog, I’m making these afghans for babies born at church) and have its dark presence out of my house. Haha.

Talking about the weather

So, it rained here yesterday. It rained a lot. We got hit by a ‘tropical depression,’ and apparently there’s a hurricane headed our way. We’re fine, by the way (mom…) but there was some absolute insanity yesterday at Greg’s work. If you’d like to see…click on the picture. (I’ve been really busy, I set up the page for him last night )

Drudgery

As that hot mess, the Infernal Sheepghan, lumbers off the hook to its messy and unsatisfactory end, I am reminded of a few things. Like, say, a mangy border collie. Or a balding shag rug. Gollum’s hairdo? The point I am trying to make is this: heaven help me, there are a lot of ends. I couldn’t quite capture the full horror of them with my camera:

In fact, I was unable to get a photo without a baby in it. Quit smiling, Charlie, Mommy’s trying to be grumpy. Just to see if I was being unreasonable, I counted: there are almost 40 ends on one side, and there appears to be a similar amount on the other side as well. Erk.

Charlie tried it out, and it passed the peek-a-boo test. I suppose it will do. I just want to say again, for the record, that I am never, ever, doing one of these again. Never.

While I was getting ready to tear my hair out over the slow and torturous progress I was making on the Sheepghan, I started a new project that gave relief through its simplicity: Greg’s scarf.

For those of you that don’t recall, I’m using Plymouth Indiecita’s Alpaca Boucle that I bought at Yarnivore - Greg picked it out himself. I checked out the yarn on Ravelry, and one of the few people that had used it for a project had made a garter stitch scarf out of it. While the boucle obscures a great deal of the stitch definition, you can still see a bit - like drawing lines in dry sand. Garter stitch, therefore, made fuzzy ridges. I really didn’t like the look of it, so I decided to use stockinette. In an attempt to keep it from rolling up I’ve edged it in garter stitch, but for the most part it is plain, simple, stockinette. Greg loves it.

Men.

Bothering Knit Picks

To: KP Suggestions
Subject: New Yarn Suggestion

I was yarn shopping on ebay a while back and ran across someone who was selling undyed alpaca. It came in the most astonishing range of colors - chocolate, tan, camel, gray, black, white, cream, charcoal…if you’ve never considered a natural alpaca yarn in varying colors, I would beg you to do so. It looked wonderful.

Plus, if you didn’t have to dye it, it could be cheaper, right? Right?

Thanks for reading,
Melissa

To: Melissa Mall
Subject: Re: New Yarn Suggestion

Dear Melissa,

Thank you for the suggestion. We will take it into consideration.

Sincerely,
Jasmine
Knit Picks Customer Service
1-800-574-1323

If you care to lend your voice to my petition - or you have a suggestion of your own! - you can contact Knit Picks and let them know at suggestions@knitpicks.com. Answering these emails has got to be a fun job.

The Weekend Update

Wow, I really did a lot of things over the weekend; this is going to be long (but illustrated)! First: pray for mercy from -

PUSS

- in boots. I’m absolutely thrilled with the way that this came out. The directions were really specific - she even told you where and how to embroider the face, and how many stitches to leave between the eyes. I am even more impressed with the pattern than I was last week. At the same time, I can’t foresee ever having the desire to make this particular pattern again, just because it was so much work. I think that’s totally fine, though. Why would I need another one? If I ever want to do that much work again, I’ll make a different toy.

Anyway, while I was slogging through the feathers (harder than they look) I decided to give my poor, tired fingers a break and work on Hedera. My goodness, what a change! The Gloss is a pleasure to work with under normal circumstances, and having just come from an unusually scratchy color of Red Heart worked at a gauge much tighter than Red Heart should ever be forced to go, the silk and merino was a delicious treat. I’ve finished the gusset decreases and am now knitting along through the foot. It’s while doing this that I had an epiphany about so-called “TV knitting.” I’ve heard some socks referred to before as perfect TV knitting, and I always thought that meant something so plain and boring that you could do it without looking at it. As it turns out, what it really means is ’something just complicated enough that you have to give it half your attention, but repetitive enough that it quickly ceases to be entertaining enough to keep all of it.’ That’s the real secret, and now I think I know what to do to get my socks done. Er, at least one of them.

I was distracted from Hedera, however, because I got a package from Knit Picks!

I got the Options set of interchangeable needles, Volume Two of the Vogue Knitting Stitchionary (it’s cables!), and a set of wooden cable needles. I haven’t cabled anything in a long while; I’d say it’s about time, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately I don’t have anything cabled slated to begin in the near future, but with me, you never know! Especially since I am now all set to knit cables in any size I like…

This weekend also represented a blogging first: I was recognized. At church on Sunday I was chasing Charlie through the halls (as per usual) when I got stopped by a friendly looking woman carrying a squirming toddler of her own.

“Is your name Melissa?” she asked.

“Uh, yes,” I answered. (This is not really unusual at church, since I spend most of my time in the hall. I think that if you asked half of the women if they knew who Melissa Mall was, they would say, “Who?” and the other half would say, “You know, that quiet young woman who spends all of Sunday school chasing her baby through the halls.” To which they would reply, “Oh. Wait, which one?” It’s like the park out there.)

“I read your blog!” she said, erupting into a big grin. “I just left you a comment the other day, about the BDU pants?” It was none other than regular commenter Gabbi! (Sorry, I know you have a blog, but I can’t find the link to it. If you want me to put it in here, just send it to me!)

She was really nice, and we had fun chatting for a while before we each got dragged off by our respective child. It was a strange experience: I met someone for the first time that I already ‘knew’ (at least a little). That’s one of the greatest possibilities of the internet. I’m hoping that Ravelry will open up before we move to Japan, because once it’s open to everyone there will be a lot of people on there, and maybe I can make some new fiber-friends before we even get there!

Speaking of Ravelry…another thing that it’s good for is reminding you of the projects you’ve already started. Every time I went to my projects page, there it was - staring at me balefully, the incomplete, multi-colored acrylic monstrosity that haunts me. Yes, I am referring to the Infernal Sheepghan. I don’t like it (to put it mildly). I’m pleased with the result I’m getting, but the process is so fraught with difficulty, and errors, and snarls of five or so different strands of yarn that I never, ever, want to try it again.

Last night I pulled it out of the box where I stuffed it a few weeks ago to assess the damages. After unsnarling my yarn, I ripped out three rows of work, unsnarled the resulting kinky mess, and took it downstairs to be worked on. With excruciatingly close attention to where the color changes go, progress is being made -

but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it. I committed to make these baby afghans, I’m shamefully behind, and now I’m just trying to finish the darn thing so I can whip out something easier.

Good Morning!

No pictures today, but lots to talk about. Things are going very well with Puss in Boots. The actual knitting is very simple (broken in places by difficult or laborious - but not complex - sections. Last night, for instance, I knit the brim of his hat. To do this you use a double strand of yarn on the same little needles. It certainly produces a stiff piece of work, but at the cost of sore fingers and a stiff hand next morning.) and with each piece I add Puss becomes utterly more charming. There are all of these little, simple details that really just make the design, and demonstrate even more clearly Jean Greenhowe’s creative genius. I appreciate how hard it can be as a designer to create something that is both visually appealing and simple for others to reproduce, but she has absolutely done it.

My only complaint (what, aside from sore fingers?) is that the entire thing is knit flat and then seamed! I understand that to be a traditional method, but you’d think that someone who makes so many toys would have adopted tricks to make her job easier. Who knows. Maybe she gets a kick out of seaming. It would not be any trouble at all to convert the majority to the round, but I decided to follow the pattern, as written, in order to assimilate the technique. If I make another of her designs - a distinct possibility, cast into doubt only by my tendency to dash off and design everything I make on the fly - I will be carefully converting to the round to save myself a lot of work as well as a lot of purling.

For those of you who’ve expressed an interest, the pattern is written for DK yarn on size 2 needles. Since I have neither DK nor size 2s (er, that’s not quite true. I do have two balls of this, and a set of size 2 Knit Picks dpns. But stay with me, here.) I used worsted and size 3s, of which I had both a set of straights and a recently purchased set of dpns. It seems to be working well.

I watched The Princess Bride last night with the boys, and Charlie kept turning off the television. He’s got a thing these days for pushing buttons - he especially likes to turn off the computer monitor, but only if someone is using it. Anyway, near the end I stopped turning it back on and just listened while I knit. It was really enjoyable. Since I was home alone for a while after the boys went to bed, so I decided to see if I could dig up an audiobook to keep me company. I went over to Librivox.org, a site I’d bookmarked a while back but never used, to see what I could find. It’s really an amazing website; volunteers read books that are in the public domain, and you can access the recordings for free online. Rather like Project Gutenberg, but audio. Anyway, I stumbled across recordings of The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang. I’d never heard of the book before, but now I’m in love with it - it’s a collection of fairy tales (some familiar, some new to me) that makes fantastic listening. I’m going to buy the book, and probably some of his others - I do love fairy tales.