Hello First Grade

Today is Isobel's first day of first grade.


















Henry is wandering the house wondering,
"Belle, Belle, Belle?"














Me, too.

R.I.P sweet Nooty-face

Amy's sweet bunny Newton died today. She was 12 & loved every second of her life.

September 13, 2005, 9pmET, Fox

He's back.
We've missed you Hugh

Last night I dreamed.....

Target & Trader Joe's opened combined stores.
Sigh.

The madness continues

Carla & I are taking a class from Brandon Mably next month. He of this kind of work: In-tar-zee-a.
















I stepped on that slippery slope & now, hell in handbasket or Highway to Hell if you want to
have that ditty

(or this Diddy, no longer P.Diddy)


stuck in your head. You can thank me later.









I am utterly losing my mind. I have Fall fever. I am cleaning the core of the house - junk drawers, closets - no dusting or vacuuming for me - I cleaned the shower grout with bleach and a frigging toothbrush.

While I'm rambling, I'll just go here.

CAUTION: rant on religion

Can someone tell me the demographic breakdown as to why Discovery Kids is the place to hawk Christian media products?

Between Trading Spaces Boys vs. Girls ( which I love because their kids come in all colors- though they're all rich) and Jeff Corwin (the feral member of the Fab 5)
my kids are treated to ads for the CDs Worship Jamz and God Rocks! And advertising for the particularly nerfarious Veggie Tales:

"Saturday Morning Fun with Sunday Morning Values"

Nope didn't make it up - it's their marketing hook.

I really, really object to having religion & God marketed to my kids.
Really. Fucking. Object.
Especially since there seems to be only one religion of choice for these godfearin' marketeers.
I sure don't see B-Boy Buddha laying it down anywhere between 6-9 pm on a cable channel near you.

Before y'all flame my shiny, wide, atheist ass - everyone has the right to believe what they want, just keep it away from my kids (and my body, schools, government - but that's another soapbox). Again: Everyone has the right to believe what they want -





And I believe I'll have another drink.

Love spinning, hate my yarn

Here are my rovings from the Lynne Vogel workshop. They are paired with little spun samples of the roving plied on itself. Foul. Do not dig the barber pole/marled effect at all. I don't like it in millspun yarn & not in handspun either.








My choices to correct this crime against personal aesthetics?
Learn to love Navajo plying
Dye the yarn after I spin

How do I prepare fiber to make tweed yarn?
My guess is to card little bits of other yarns into fiber then spin.

The Dark Side

I've order the yarn to do a project in intarsia.
Insert silent scream here.
The project that lured me to this dark and scary place?
A shawl by Pricilla Gibson Roberts from Handknit Holidays:

It's knit from Mountain Colors Bearfoot. I ordered it from Fuzzy Mabel Sunday & it shipped today.









Handknit Holidays is the latest book from Melanie Falick













I have a pattern in it, too. A scarf, of course.

Energized Singles

Cool, no? Here's wher eI've been for four days. Spinning and knitting a ruffled wristlet out of energized singles.
Energized singles are singles used right after they are spun, before they are set or plyed and told to behave. They bias all by their lonesome. You've got to use the yarn within the first 48, maybe 72 hours. If you wait 4 days they don't bias at all. Kathryn Alexander is the queen mama of energized singles and my new pal, mind expanding mentor and groovy goddess, Lynne Vogel makes amazing bags and sweaters out of them.





Here's what it looks like in action. The fiber is Lynne's Fairy Queen colorway in Merino/Tussah (ahhhhhhhh). It's spun to about 24 wpi, knit about 7 st per inch. How much did I use?
.25 oz. No shit.
I looooooove it. Carla are you done with your bag yet?

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's ......Super Dyer

Took an amazing, mind bending workshop with the super rockstar- fabulous Lynne Vogel for the past 3 days with Miss Carla Jean, wanna-be cloud skirt wearer and super workshop arranger. I learned all kinds of stuff - the most instantly satisfying was yesterday's dye day. Here're the fruits of Carla & my labors:

Sweet, no? We dyed almost a pound of rovings in 1& 2 oz clumps.
We laughed a lot & possible broke into a dance or two.

I learned so much this weekend as part of the class and as my own dorky sidelines.
About color & plying.
Andean & Navajo plying.
Color blending.
I've overcome my freakish fear of changing my drive band & learned how to tie a mean leader. I've entered the obsessive land of energized singles. My brain is exhausted in the best possible way. And now I get to spin my half of all of that gorgeousness up there.
If you ever get a chance to take a workshop with Lynne Vogel run, do not walk, to worship at her feet. Even just looking at her finished work is mind expanding. Most importantly she will teach you that everythig, even a well placed fart, will felt your wet roving.

Let me get this straight.....

Some people are unhappy with Amy and me about the subtitle to our forthcoming knitting book:
Big Girl Knits: 30 Big, Bold Projects Shaped for Real Women with Real Curves

So far I've been silent. Not that it doesn't hurt being accused of beind size-ist, when that's the whole reason we're actually doing this book. The REALs in the title refer to inclsuion by way of exisitence, along the lines of these definitions:

#1 Being or occurring in fact or actuality; having verifiable existence: real objects; a real illness.
#2 True and actual; not imaginary, alleged, or ideal: real people, not ghosts; a film based on real life.

Fat girls are dying to be included in this big old knitting party that's been going on for years - last year 200 knitting books came out - even if half of them were not grown up type garments. So 100 books of women's pattern books (not including leaflets, or Rowan style, not sold through books store books). How many of those books did Fat Girls get? Out of 100 books Fat Girls got 1. And it was a book of reprints from Family Circle Knitting magazine. And that was a good year for Fat Girl knitting books.

If that isn't exclusionary, mean, heartless (etc. etc.) I don't know what is.

I also like the second def of real up there where it says : not imaginary, alleged, or ideal.
We just are. Like every other shaped women. We're just asking for some damned patterns to knit.

I was kidnapped by Aliens and taken to

Pseudo- Bavaria!





Not only that, I was forced to


stay at a water-park hotel












look at people in Ye Olde Timey costumes












and go to the "the world's largest Christmas store"






I need a vacation from our 2 -day vacation.
Isobel dubbed it "the best time I've ever had in my life!"







I did manage to score some yarn and a taco Christmas ornament.
Anyone know who Ami-Knit is? Her colors are gorgeous.









Yes, I said taco.

The Devil went down to Chuckie's

There was begging. I caved. We're going to the place of the devil today. You know, that place that kids love. The place that's so loud your teeth hurt. The place you never leave your kids alone. The place that will host your kid's birthday party. A party where your kid will never actually interact will any of the kids they invited.

A haiku expressing my deepest seniments:

birthday number six

mouse-man is satan

where'd they hide the booze

Worst book ever.
Made Debbie Macomber look like
A.S. Byatt.
I want my brain cells back.

I Blame the Patriarchy

Don't you?
No, this time it's a blog that Steph turned me onto. A little food, a little bitching about the government, a little bitching about stupid people everywhere - all wrapped up in a tangy, hilarious writing style.
My favorite? The coining of the word fucktarded. This woman is a genius.

ISBN number: 0307336603

Big Girl Knits is on Amazon!!!!!!

Amy & I at the Random House/Clarkson Potter offices in NY, moments before going for celebratory drinks. Guinness all around!
(Mocked-up giant cover was for Book Expo America.)

Somehow I'm raising them right?

Henry now has a Harry Potter song - Hawy Potta, Hawy

Potta, Hawy Potta & is beginning the long road of
throw down tantrums with, you guessed it, the HP
movies.
The other night he wouldn't eat his dinner, he lay on the
floor shrieking waving a HP movie at me.
I played it, he sat transfixed for 30+ minutes & ate
his dinner on the couch.
Am I raising a serial killer? Or a future D&D freak
who will live in my basement until he's 50?


Isobel read me Green Eggs and Ham. She's 6. I cried.
While the small one is a Tazmanian Devil,
this one is and always has been
emotional, & now she's getting intense.
She has spent the last week doing pretty much nothing else but
drawing. Manga-style, Ed Emberly-style ,hooray for the library &
their resources because mama still draws stick figures.
She's also decided she wants to be on the gymnastics team & spends
a portion of each day with her feet in the air & in my face.
We now have a portion of the day where "feet must remain on the floor".
coincidentally it occurs at the same time as Guinness-time.
Intense, I can understand. Intense and focused eludes me.


Looky, looky:






Orange, chunky, alpaca.........................