Where’s that box?

Eek, it’s March already, and the Harlot will be here in late April. If you are the one with the HOT box, please e-mail me! I’d like that hat to get done in time to present it to her in Madison. I have moved since I started that project, and haven’t heard from anyone on the list in a while…. so I hope it hasn’t made its rounds and been delivered to the Dead Letter Office of Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

Another quickie…I started another blog. I know, having this and Backyardiknits and a Ravelry account just wasn’t enough, I just had to go and start Steele Knitting. I’ve updated my blogroll slightly so you can go check it out. (Or, since I went to all the trouble to make a link, you could just click on the link. Your choice.)

Knitting? Oh….nothing to report, and we’ll leave it at that.

Sympathy for the Harlot

It was like a fatal yarn storm. Here I was, just coming off a wool fest in my own backyard, and then the Harlot’s sock recipe episode was rerun on Knitty Gritty (which of course was when everyone called me and the kids melted down and Jack amused himself by pulling tape out of audio cassettes), and late at night I read the Harlot’s sad tale of being unable to use her credit card to buy yarn at a knitting fest.

I had my first Harlot dream last night! We were both at some big yarny event, and I was just going on and on about how wonderful she was to some other participant. Then finally I admitted that I had only just met her in person that day. (The other woman gave me a funny look.) Then I admitted I had only introduced myself to her just as “Beth,” not my real name, so she didn’t really know who I was.

She probably drifted away before I explained what I meant, or woke up. Muggle.

In other Harlot news, there were Brandy and I at the fest on Saturday, and she happened to mention she got a package she hadn’t been expecting. One of the things inside it was a pink hat. It took me way too long before I realized what she was talking about, and replied, “Oh, yeah, I cast on for that hat.” And mailed the box and everything in it.

That means the HOT box has gotten halfway across Wisconsin. Cathy, you’re next!

Spinwise, everyone was in bed and I thought I would give spinning a try. I knew the first few times would be frustrating, so I made myself ready for it and stayed patient. It turns out that that monofilament and spring and those funny hooks are what I need to create bobbin tension so the yarn will, uh, wind on as I make it. My spinning books didn’t help at all with that, but I had a PDF from Ashford of how to assemble the wheel, and it showed me what to do.

By the time I got to that point it was quite late, and I discovered I would need a much longer leader to help me get started. I would start treadling, and zoom! the leader would disappear through the orifice. I will try again tomorrow night using some Merino cross roving that Lauren sent me ages ago when she only had faint hopes of enabling me all the way to a spinning wheel. Little did she know…. or, more accurately, little did I know.

My mother just found out yesterday that I have a spinning wheel. Hi, Mom! I told you that you should read my blog!

On the rocks

The short version of yesterday is that everyone is okay. The tornadoes that touched down were either far to the west or somewhat to the north of us. We’ll be in that area, coincidentally, this afternoon, so I’ll take pictures if I see any remarkable damage. (At a resort in northwestern Wisconsin, a kayak was shoved through a tree.)

Here’s a sampling of what we got:

I was upstairs in the boys’ bedroom trying to get some pants on Jack when the hail started slamming into the house. It sounded like a thousand baseballs. Which was the size of the hail the next county over.

The sirens went off, and we went to my former craft room in the basement. The kids made up a name for themselves, but I’ll have to ask JC if he remembers what it was. I think it was “the shelter squad.”

Right now I have to prep all the little ones for the Last Day of School. Mr. Beth is here but he will be painting everything he can get to while I take the kids somewhere, anywhere.

If you have any tornado questions, comment away and I’ll answer them this afternoon. Meanwhile, here’s a progress shot of the IHS. The bottom isn’t really as ragged as it looks in this shot…but I do wish I had done a couple of rows of garter stitch before I started the pattern. Live and learn, I guess I can knit one on later.

HOT box update: Now really on the way to Holly in South Carolina!

Free pass

Now, usually, when I mention “free passes” I’m thinking of the husband/wife free passes that (in a good relationship) you offer to your spouse if that certain celebrity hottie strolls up. Just in case someone makes them an offer they can’t refuse, you give them that free pass and let them take advantage (or be taken advantage of, depending on how your fantasies go — I won’t pry) with no penalties from you.

In today’s case, however, I’m talking about actual free passes, for one-day admission to the Bead&Button Show in Milwaukee, June 8-10. I have two of them via my status as a small publisher (hey! I’m Media!), and I’m not attending the show this year.

So I’m giving them away. No trivia contest, no hoops to jump through, no elaborate swaps. Just post a comment to the effect that you want one or both of the passes. Like it or not, those dates are coming up quickly and I want to get them in the mail to someone who’s going to use them.

Check out the official site. It’s an amazing event and I swear I will go someday. Note that the site says the events is actually held June 3-10. That’s true: hundreds of classes in beading, lampwork, wirework, you-name-it, all start before June 8. The tickets I have are actually vouchers for free tickets, which will need to be presented at the Midwest Airlines Center box office.

You can’t get ’em if you don’t ask. So just ask!

In family news, Tommy is bulking up, Jack is telling jokes ( “Mama, I Colleen! Hahahaha!” ), Colleen is teaching everyone everything, and JC is counting down the days until the end of school. I am staring at the dishes, but they’re not doing anything. I think they got a message from the laundry pile — lie low and she won’t bother you.

Knitwise, I did some more of the ribbing for a Hufflepuff beanie while I watched Remington Steele last night. (“Vintage Steele,” highly recommended, with optional commentary by the script author.) I have less than a round before I can switch colors. I’m finding it next to impossible to read the black-yarn stitches I just made (did I purl that?) and only slightly easier to read the ones that are coming up. But I don’t think I’ve screwed it up yet. I still have a fraction of an inch of ribbing to go on the salt & pepper socks, and I’m about halfway down the heel flap of the second baby sock. Moebius lies unfinished.

Yarn dyeing pr0n:

Hey! Did I ever mention that my friend Lauren spun this up?

The Harlot On Tape box is now residing at 40° 42′ N, 73° 20′ W. It’s going Down South next … heads up, Holly!

Could this be the one?

We looked at five houses on Saturday. Saw three, took a break at the main city park in Beaver Dam, then saw two more. Of course the last house was the one we really liked.  The others had the space, but just not enough ready-to-move-into rooms in the right proportions. Not every child is going to have their own room, but we need to find the house with not only a nice master bedroom (our current one was previously used as a guestroom/playroom for a 4 year old), but a bedroom big enough for three boys who will be pretty darn big when fully grown, plus an adequate room for our diva daughter.  Of course, Beaver Dam is still pretty far from the Wonder Job — about as far away as we’re willing to live, unless we happen to find a $50 sheep farm somewhere. So we’re still looking, mostly in closer locations. But we’ll take another look at this one, and we’re bringing some more jaundiced eyes to help us look at it critically.

In the car I did two repeats on the Irish Hiking Scarf, and spotted a cabling error a long ways back that I am not going to try to fix. But I figured out how I did it — the dpn turned over while I was knitting the other stitches, so when I knitted off the dpn those stitches were in the wrong order. It still makes a cable, but only a knitter will notice that those three stitches don’t “flow” across the others. So I decided that when I slip those stitches in the future, I’ll make sure the text on the needle is right-reading. That way I can check to see I don’t flip it again.

I also worked on the Gryffindor beret on the way up and back. Yes, I decided since I had done two thin-stripe beanies and one wide-stripe beanie it was only fair to try the girly beret. Only problem is, I started running out of yarn. Plymouth doesn’t seem to make the gold color any more, but I had enough of that for this project and was running out of the burgundy! But this morning I found the burgundy-and-pink hat I made to experiment with dpns, and JC helped me frog it this morning to harvest the yarn. He’s happy (and now realizes knitting can be for boys), and I can now finish the beret.

We didn’t get to stop at a yarn store on the way there or back, which is a real bummer because the store in Columbus should be excellent. To make up for it, Mr. Beth stopped at Herrschners on the way home and let me run in “for eight seconds.” I came out with Hufflepuff colors of Plymouth Encore worsted, plus a size 1 circ to start a sweater for myself. He actually chided me for violating the Knit From Your Stash rules, but I would argue that since it’s for a continuing charity project and not for myself, it’s okay. (Note to husband: I do NOT have seven exemptions this year. I have been on probation since January 1 so I have been extra careful.) That means he’s paying attention, ladies. He also wants me to knit an afghan for him.

But I did look — in vain — for the purple sale yarn. 😦 I would have bought it, too.

Friday night (Saturday?) I got one column of T-shirt panels sewn up with their sashing, but the other nights were a bust. So I will try again tonight.

Oh yeah — I added a few more blogs to the Blogroll. (I didn’t take anything away.) And thanks, everyone, for the comments on the stitch markers! You know, of course, that you’re encouraging me to make more. God help me if I find any sheep charms to hang from the bottom; I won’t be able to keep from cranking them out then. I don’t wear jewelry, so…..

I can’t take it back, it’s already out there

And boom, the HOT box will be leaving Stevens Point today. I sent it out via a gift-basket shop, so it will look much cuter and cleverer than I could manage. And guess what, the lady who prepares the gift baskets is a knitter. The non-cyberspace variety, so she’s really tickled at this project. I promised to bring the box over to show her when it gets back to me.

There’s no new knitting to show, but maybe Pierce and I will get to work on something tonight. Oh wait…it’s Quilt Week. Well, I will take pictures of that. Aren’t sashing strips fascinating?

And I would like to issue an open invitation to Central Wisconsin knitters to visit the Portage County Cultural Festival on Saturday, May 5. There is so much going on, and it’s free, and I can’t even start to describe the whole shebang. But follow the link and maybe you’ll see that one of the features is a spinning demonstration by the wonderful people at Mielke’s Fiber Arts in Rudolph, from 10am to 5pm. I do not know them personally, yet, but they are the people I want to take spinning lessons from, and I want to go to the festival so I can watch the demo.

Unfortunately, that very date is one of the rare times that Mr. Beth’s work travel overlaps with my weekends with him, so I will be alone with the four kids all weekend, which makes going to something like this kind of… logistically challenging. So if you’re going or interested in going, maybe we could meet up and you could help me keep my kids in line meet my darling children. I’ll buy you lunch… and believe me, the lunch options at this event are staggeringly diverse, and all good. If you’re interested, just comment and I’ll get back to you.

Oh, and Monica? Thanks for keeping me honest, but I’m allowed to buy sock yarn. However, unless I start making socks with it, I won’t be able to justify it any more.