Hoggetown medieval faire again today!

Today is the first day of the second and final weekend of the faire and it looks a bit like a reprise of last Saturday’s weather. It’s dry out now, but rain is expected between noon and 6 p.m., with temps between 65 and 72 degrees F. It’s 64 now, about two hours before the gates open.

And it’s kids’ day, which means the hours are 9 am to 3 pm., with some of the more adult acts not performing today at all. Schools from surrounding counties will bus in tons of kids for the educational portion (historical school projects on display in a large barn, the only fixed structure being used for the faire) of the event. (We didn’t have this kind of field trip when I was coming up. I’m just sayin’.)

Then tomorrow should be cloudy and damp, with temps in the upper 50s, dropping on Saturday night to the upper 30s as a cold front pushes through. So Sunday this week may be a replay of last Sunday, weather-wise. Thank goodness for my space heater!

For now, I have to go hit the shower and transform myself into Cupcake. I’d love to chat at you longer, but I forgot until I wrote this post that the faire opens an hour earlier today, so I have an hour less time to get ready. Yikes!

Have a terrific Friday!

IOU a real post

In the meantime, how ’bout a few (fairly detailed) bullet points?

First, with thanks to those of you who wished me good weather for the weekend, a med faire update:

• It rained almost all day Saturday, at varying intensities, making for low attendance overall, but guaranteeing that the indoor spaces were pretty full for every performance. I stayed dry by staying in my performance space, a large tent dubbed “The Blue Boar Inn,” as much of the day as possible.

• It was cold and windy, but dry, all day Sunday. This made for a higher attendance, as people are more willing to get chilled than they are to get soaked. I again stayed in the Blue Boar Inn almost all day, this time by a space heater tucked behind the wooden “bar” in the tent. It was a fun, but frigid day. And if Cupcake of all people is frigid, you know it’s frakkin’ cold!

• I didn’t have a chance to knit at all. I did find a mysterious bag o’ goodies waiting for me when I got to the venue Saturday morning, I knew from the general squishiness and the metal needles poking through holes in the plastic that this was a knitting-related surprise. A note attached to the bag said, “Toni, Can you use these? Gayle” with a smiley face. (Thanks, Gayle!) Um, yeah, I bet I can think of some use for a sack of yarn! I didn’t open the bag until this morning and I’ve taken pix, but those are gonna have to wait for the “real post” I owe you.

Next, more knitting stuff:

* My only knitting progress since FO 5 has been to whipstitch the mitten caps to the back of the FIL fetching mitts. I did this on my break last night. Now all I have to do is make the convertible thumb covers and attach them. Plus I think I’m gonna knit two plain half-inch-wide strips from the Noro and attach one across the back of each mitt, so the mitten caps can be tucked out of the way when they mitts are being used as fingerless mitts. Sorry if that description is confusing; it’ll make perfect sense after they’re done. (I hope.)

Finally, in the real-life category:

• I missed 24 last night, what with being at work and all that, so I have no idea how Jack Bauer fared. And it’s too late now for me to watch it online, what with having to crash out in less than an hour if I want to get a decent chunk o’ snooze before work tonight.

• I hate these 12-hour shifts.

• Sigh.

• Yawn!

Hoggetown medieval faire today!

With rain. Possibly lots of rain. Hours of rain.

Thank goodness Cupcake is in a tent ‘most all day. A big dry tent.

Still, the rain tends to put a damper (pun intended) on attendance and, potentially, on frivolity and fun. Especially for the acts that perform in open air.

Ah, well, we’ll think of something. We always do.

(Yes, I’m taking some knitting. Of course. I take it every year. And one year I may actually get to knit some. Hey, it could happen.)

On the weather.com radar, the rain looks like it will move through by mid-afternoon, which will give the performance spaces and the paths a chance to dry up a bit before tomorrow’s faire.

Next up on the weather front (look, another pun!): cold. Lows around 40 F and highs around 55 F, with north winds.

Y’all come!

Baby hats on (a short) parade

As I have no progress on the FIL mitts to report or show, I’ll have to pander shamelessly to distract you with a few pictures of my past FOs, in this case baby hats on actual baby heads.

[Warning: Extreme cuteness follows. Check your biological clocks and take appropriate preventive measures before scrolling down. I cannot be responsible for any baby lust you may experience after even a short exposure to the "awwww!"]

First, here’s a photo of FO 1 for 2010, i.e., the first toddler beret, worn by Tocarria’s daughter. I don’t have her permission to post the darling girl’s name, so I won’t.

I told you to expect cute, didn't I?

Sorry that the picture is grainy. I pulled it off my e-mail and don’t have a higher resolution available. Still, so cute!! And thanks to Tocarria for sending it to me.

The second picture is an FO from June 2007. At least, that’s when I posted about it. When I made the nipple hat, which I originally described as the boobie hat, I had no recipient in mind and, indeed, it has waited for 2.5 years to be slipped on a baby’s sweet little head. Until this week.

Here is the nipple hat on Arianna, its new owner:

Sleeping baby in handknit hat? Irresistible!

I’m so glad I held onto the hat! It’s a version of the Twisted Pumpkin Hat in Alison Handel’s Charmed Knits. The nipple top, however, was my innovation, as I decided not to do the i-cord knot on top that the original pattern calls for.

My most recent FO, the mini waiting-room hat, is pictured below, in a photo I took last night.

Stirring, but not awake yet

The hat fits her perfectly and will probably be too small in a couple of weeks.

Now, lest you think this is, in fact, the waiting-room hat itself and not a smaller version and therefore not a separate FO, I have proof! No, not a photo of the two hats side by side. Rather, I give you a shot of the waiting-room hat on Arianna, taken just about a minute after the picture above.

See?

OK, maybe it's just a little too big...

I’m hoping it will fit her in a couple of months, like when the nipple hat is too small. Although winter may be over then in Florida. And it certainly won’t fit next winter, so it may become another, as-yet-unknown baby’s hat.

I’m not sure what I will be knitting next for the little princess, but I’m thinking something sweatery. As for the rest of the pink Bernat yarn (still almost half a skein!), I’m probably gonna make another toddler beret and give it to another coworker’s daughter, to replace a cap I made for her two years ago. I hear she still tries to wear it, even though it’s too small now. Clearly, she’s a young lady who is worthy of handknits. And such a person is always a joy to find and knit for, yes? Mais oui!

Grafting? Not so much.

I spent two hours yesterday fighting with the left FIL mitt cap, trying to figure out how to graft the damned thing closed, but I just couldn’t see what was happening while the stitches were on the needles. I must have started grafting and pulled out the first three (of only 8, FFS) pairs of stitches four times before I gave up on trying to do it with the needles in the way.

There had to be a better way. Surely. So I got creative.

To keep the stitches from twisting around, to prevent them from laddering down (unlikely with Noro, BTW) and to provide a visual contrast, I threaded a thin strand of yellow yarn through each side separately, then tried the grafting thing again.

It went better that time, although it still took three tries to get to the end of the row. Then I had to adjust the tension on the graft, so I could feel like my stitches looked like real stitches, if you know what I mean. By now, the yarn was getting fuzzy and I was afraid to keep dicking with it.

Still, it didn’t look right, but I was so tired and I had to go to bed, so I put it all away. Then I lay in bed and tried to figure out how to fix it again, ’cause the purl stitches in the middle of the row (one in front, one in back) made the fabric dip down in the center, like in this picture:

Um, yeah, that's not quite right.

Ignore the wonky lie of the stitches elsewhere. They’ll straighten out with proper blocking, surely. That tip, however? Not fixable without changing the purls to knits, at least for a few rows. Not by any method I could conceive as I lay not sleeping for a good 45 minutes after bedtime. Nope, not sleeping. Just thinking and scheming and plotting and, finally, cursing quite a bit, ’cause that graft was gonna have to come out. Frak it to Hades.

At work last night, I decided to try something different with the unfinished right mitt cap, to see how it would work before I resorted to tfarg-ing (that’s “graft” backward) the left cap. I shifted the stitches on the needle and laddered down 4 rows on the purls, switching them to knit stitches, to even out the top of the fabric. Then I flipped it inside out and poked the needle and yarn end down through the opening (between the live stitches) and grabbed a crochet hook. I used the hook to do a three-needle bindoff on the stitches, which took about 2 minutes and was easy-peasy.

Then I flipped the mitt cap right side out and checked to see how bad it looked. Here’s what I found:

By george, I think we've hit on something here!

Gaze upon the loveliness that is an inverted three-needle bindoff over all knit stitches! So pretty and regular and (dare I say it? I do!) easy. Even the tip, viewed straight on, looked just fine, probably because of the nature of this particular yarn. A smoother or finer yarn might not be as amenable to this particular application, but the Noro seems to like it just fine. (Whew!)

I spent a good 20 minutes or so picking out the graft from the left mitt cap, dropping the two purl stitches back 4 rows and making them knit stitches, then inverting and three-needle-binding off. Here’s the result:

Much better!

Again, please disregard the wonkiness at the bottom of the cap. Blocking and attaching it to the mitt itself should take care of that.

I don’t have time to stitch the caps to the mitts now, but I did pin them in place with a couple of stitch holders. Here’s a preview shot:

They're starting to look a lot like mittens!

I’ll tackle the attachment tonight on my break or in the morning after work.

Don’t ask about the thumbs. I haven’t figured that out yet. But I sure hope it turns out to be a lot less fussy than the caps were.

What are the odds?

My hands were full

You’d have thought that I’d have gotten a lot of knitting done these last three nights off, but you’d be wrong. On the first night, Tuesday, I was sick (with nothing contagious, but thank the goddess for Midol and ibuprofen), which was the only reason I was home. It was a work night, but I felt bad enough to call in sick for only the 5th time in 3.5 years. I took advantage of the night off to sleep late (like a good 2+ hours into my work shift), which helped immensely.

And when I awoke, I found the living room full of people: the BC19, Julie, Arianna, the BC19’s dad, and Shane. They were home from the hospital! Arianna was crying her frustration at that whole learning-to-nurse thing, and all three kitties were trying to figure out what the crying lump was. The rest of us were enchanted by that crying lump, but the cats were a bit alarmed: eyes wide, ears perked, noses twitching. Once Arianna latched on and consequently stopped crying, they just wanted to sniff her little head. So sweet!

The next few hours were spent busily not knitting. I supposed I could have cast on something simple, as the base FIL mitts were finished and I had yet to figure out how I was going to do the mitten caps, a task I wanted to tackle when not distracted by a beautiful baby and a room full of people. But I didn’t want to start anything new then, so I left my knitting bag in my bedroom and threw myself into being a doting (but not overbearing) Mimi. So much fun!

The last two nights I’ve taken my turn with Arianna mostly in the wee hours, when I’m up and rested anyway, which has let the new parents sleep a bit more than they might otherwise. I’ve kept her downstairs for several hours each night, holding her and kissing her little head and feeling the silk of her hair on my cheek. I haven’t wanted to put her down, in truth. When she has needed to nurse again, I’ve taken her upstairs to her mom and dad. She’s stayed with them after that feeding, so I’ve had some “me time,” too. Thus, my hands were free to do some knitting last night!

Before we get to the knitting, here’s a shot of the BC19 and Arianna, taken in the hospital shortly after her birth:

My baby's a daddy!

And here’s a photo of la petite princesse, taken yesterday:

Not everyone can pull of a hat with ears, ya know.

So sweet!

—

Did I say there was knitting? There was!

It took four attempts, but I think I’ve gotten the mitten caps and their decreases worked out, although I still have to graft the tips and figure out where and how I’m gonna attach them to the FIL Dashing mitts. Um, I’ve only ever grafted once, so I’ll be finding an online tutorial to keep me from ruining them at this late point give me some pointers.

Here’s how they look now:

It's only grafting, right? Right?! Gulp.

Wonder how they’ll look post-grafting and -blocking. And once they’re attached.

And, oh frak, I’ve still gotta figure out the thumb caps!

—

I looked over at the kitty boys sleeping on the futon a little while ago and was amused to see Chewie was crashed out with one paw sticking up into the air. He wasn’t reaching for anything, just had his paw extended upward. Check it out:

See the shadow behind his upraised paw? It’s totally just poking up into the air for no reason. He didn’t move it until after I’d taken four or five pictures with flash, then he rolled over and tucked it under his chin. Weirdo kitty!

—

OK, enough blather and procrastination. Time to tackle the grafting monster. Wish me luck!

—

Thanks to all of you who sent congratulations. I’ve shared them with the new parents and they send their appreciation, too.

Two and a half FOs

Here’s the year’s third FO, which I’m calling the Waiting Room Hat. (Details in the sidebar.) I knit it up in the wee hours of Sunday morning, while in the labor & delivery waiting room. Thus the name.

Ta-da!

Then this morning, I finished the thumb on the left FIL mitt and wove in the ends. I also knit the thumb on the right FIL mitt, but didn’t take a photo because the ends are still dangling.

Here’s the left mitt:

Again, ta-da!

Look how much nicer the finishing job on this thumb is than in the first go-’round. I was more careful with the corners, so there wouldn’t be gaps or unevenness there.

So that’s one and a half FOs. Ta-da!

As for the second FO, well, I helped get the finishing done this weekend, but I certainly can’t claim credit for the creation of this li’l work of art. Here’s my granddaughter, born Sunday morning, at a whopping 30 minutes old.

Arianna Marie on her birthday

And with that, I bid you good night. (Well, you know, night for me, day for you.) Mimi needs her rest.

Left mitt: reknit

Except for the thumb. Look for a picture in a few minutes.

[A few minutes later...]

This is much better, doncha think?

Oh, yes, so much better!

I’ll be adding the thumbs really soon, maybe tonight, as I’m off to the hospital, where Julie and the BC19 are in labor! Arianna should arrive within hours, and I’ll have a newborn baby picture in my next post.

Yikes, it’s time!

Gauge: an object lesson

Or: Why I like to knit two-at-a-time mitts, socks, sleeves, etc.

—

First things first: If you have not already, go donate to help those in Haiti whose lives were torn apart this week. However much money you may think you do not have, they definitely do not have… and to a greater extent than you will ever know. Pick your favorite charity from the many who are sending aid to the area and give. You may think your donation a pittance, but in a country where people live on less than $2/day in “normal” times, your smallest gift will still make a big difference. I wouldn’t presume to tell you what charity to choose, as that’s a personal choice, but I’m making mine to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins sans frontières.

—

Second things, well, second: I am much better. Thanks so much for your concern and well wishes. I’m still not 100 percent, as it’s only been 5 days since this cold hit, but I should be soon.

—

Now, on to the dreaded object lesson.

You will no doubt recall (or scroll down to see) the photo of the left FIL Dashing mitt. You may even recall that I had almost finished the right mitt when last I updated, but had not yet photographed my progress. Well, last night at work (on my break), I took this shot:

"Pardon me, sir, but your waste yarn is showing!"

A beautiful companion to the left mitt, don’t you think?

I thought so, too, until I put the two side by side to take a photo of the pair “so far”.

Here’s what the picture told me, in that undeniable and irrefutable way of photos: One of these things is not like the other.

Don’t believe me? Check it out:

Not a trick photo. Not a special effect. Sigh.

WTF, right?

I thought at first that the right mitt must have many more rows between the cable and the thumb hole than the left one, but careful (if not perfect) counting came up with 24 rows on each mitt, with 15 above the thumb holes. On each.

Again, you might ask (as I did), WTF?

If you could hold the two and compare the fabric, you’d figure it out pretty quickly: the left mitt is much denser, much tighter and therefore much smaller than the right.

I can only surmise that I was much more tense while knitting that first mitt, probably because I was one night sicker and wasn’t sure how far the yarn would go.  And I definitely didn’t want to run out without having enough yarn left over to attempt to make a “mitten cap” for the thing.

On the second one, when I knew from the amount left over on the left mitt that I would  in no way run out of yarn too soon, I relaxed and knit at a more natural gauge. (Well, more natural for me, anyway.)

The result? Um, yeah. I refer you to the photo above.

I considered trying to even the pair out by blocking the frak out of the left mitt, but finally decided the difference was too great to fix that way. Besides, my FIL might wash them sometime and wonder WTF happened, ya know?

I decided I’d have to do something more drastic. But what? I pondered and debated and thought and schemed and cursed a lot bit.  I finally decided to rip back the right mitt to the point under the waste yarn where it was the same length as the left mitt, row count be damned, then make the right mitt match the left mitt’s measurements, again row count be damned.

Cheating, right? Totally.

Justifiable, right? Maybe Totally.

A quick fix, right? Sort of Totally.

Here’s what the pair looked like post-ripping:

"But I thought you said you were gonna rip the right mitt...?"

How observant of you!

I did indeed rip the left (completed) mitt instead, to the row right below the cable cross.

“Why on earth…?” you may be asking yourself.

I just liked the looser fabric of the right mitt better. And I was worried that the smaller size might be too small for my FIL, as it fit me like a custom-knit glove (heh, heh), but I’m pretty sure his hands are wider and thicker than mine. (Most people’s are.)

From the point you see above, I knit an extra row before the doing the cable cross, to make it come out even with the cable cross on the right mitt. (A purist would have ripped to the cast-on and started over, but this girl hasn’t been pure in much of anything for a long, long time!) Then I knit another 5 rows before my break ended and I had to get back to work. (No new picture, sorry.)

I should have time tonight to finish the left mitt and the thumb on the right mitt, then to start fiddlin’ with the mitten caps. I’ll let you know how that works out, ‘kay?

Lesson I learned from this: Knit something else next time and wait until I have the materials on hand to knit both mitts at once! Never again, I tell you.

—

Now, I’m ff to bed. I’m doing a special work assignment tonight, going with a small team to work in a neighboring county’s communications center all night, so the regular employees can have the night off to spend with one another as they struggle to come to grips with the death of one of their sheriff’s office captains. He was killed yesterday afternoon in a shootout with a fleeing double-homicide suspect and I know this very small agency much be torn apart about it.

Public safety agencies become the employees’ extended families, sometimes dysfunctional families, but they’re our families and we suffer when something this horrible happens. The effect is magnified when the agency is as small as this one, in a largely rural county. Many times, the officers and dispatchers are from the same biological families (either by birth or by marriage) or they may have known each another all their lives, having gone to school together as kids, dated in high school, attended the birthday parties of one another’s children. The ripples from losing one person in such a tight group as this can swamp everyone.

To give them some time and space, our sheriff has authorized us to do this for as long as we are needed and, almost certainly, for the day of the captain’s memorial service/funeral. We wouldn’t want any of the dispatchers to not be able to attend because of work conflicts. To start the process, our agency sent a dayshift team over this morning and I’ll be going with the night crew this evening.

It’ll mean an hour’s less sleep today for me, but that’s a miniscule price to pay for the opportunity to help fellow telecommunicators in a way that no one not in this profession could.

Keep them, and the people of Haiti, in your thoughts and prayers. They can all surely use them.

G’nite.

FIL mitt, the left

Here’s where I stopped knitting last night, photographed a few minutes ago:

Dashing Still Life with Noro: Snapshot of a Project

I chose the Dashing pattern, which suits the gauge of the Noro Silk Garden. As you can see, I have modified the cuff section, making it with only one cable cross and that after row 16. Why? I was worried I might run out of yarn if I did the cuff as designed. Also I plan to fashion a mitten top on the mitt, attaching it on the back, plus a thumb capper, so my FIL can wear the set as actual mittens if he doesn’t want/need his fingers/thumbs exposed.

I’ll probably use the Podster Glove pattern for help with that, as it has those elements, albeit at a very different gauge than mine. Still, that pattern could give me some valuable insight into good convertible-mitten design. And I can use the help, ya know?

That full skein of Noro in the picture is a new purchase. I called my LYS yesterday morning and asked Barbara to set it aside for me (giving her 3 colorways as likely candidates, in case she was missing my first choice), then I sent the BC19 to pick it up for his poor sick mama. (Yes, it’s manipulative, I know, but a poor sick mama’s gotta do what a poor sick mama’s gotta do!)

Luckily, Barbara had the exact colorway and lot number I used on the first mitt. It’s color 244, lot B. I find that pretty amazing, as it’s been months and months since I bought the first skein. The knitting goddess must have been taking pity smiling on my current project! (All hail the knitting goddess!)

I haven’t started the right mitt yet, but I will after I finish this blog post. As it’s already after 4 a.m., I doubt I’ll get that mitt completed today. And after both mitts are finished, I’ll get on to the mitten/thumb toppers. And if worse comes to worst and I don’t like how they turn out, I can always remove those parts and still have a viable set of Dashing mitts. Gorgeous Dashing mitts, out of glorious Noro.

I love a win-win situation!

—

The pussnesses were less impressed with my productivity last night.

Here’s what Puffer was doing while I knit:

Ahhh, the electric blankie is on!

The furry boys? Oh, they were following Puffer’s example, albeit on a different blanket.

Don't they look like an impressionist painting? "Fur on Fake Flowers"

Such beauty is a joy to behold, even if it doesn’t compliment one’s knitting.

—

For the record, the low tonight was 25 F. It has warmed up to 30 F now, but the windchill is at 24 F. Brrrrrr!

Healthwise, my headcold kept me from sleeping well today. I managed a few two-hour naps, with awake breaks to drink something, put a cold pack on my head (to counter the headache that I always get when my sinuses are frakked up), let the kitty in the room, go tinkle, blow my nose. Not overly restful, and I am pretty pooped, even though I just got up 5 hours ago. Wish me luck getting some sleep later this morning and into the afternoon, as tonight’s a 12-hour work night.

I say “tonight’s a 12-hour work night” that like it’s something unusual, but my “normal” workshift is now 12 hours long, as of Jan 5. I just haven’t wrapped my brain all the way around that yet, I guess. Or my body, which still wants to go to sleep between 1-3 p.m. and sleep until 9:30. As I now work 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., this causes a bit of a conflict, to say the least. And getting sick now has not helped me adjust my inner clock, ’cause my body is on its own recuperating schedule and I am at its mercy.

On the positive side, where I always like to look, at least it’s still in my head and not in my chest. I do not have time for bronchitis or pneumonia or any of that crud. Let’s hope that resting and being kind to my body now prevent that sort of thing.

If you’ll excuse me now, I have a cup of hot tea to make and some knitting to cast on.

Stay warm and well!

—

[Updated to add: I got more done than I'd expected. The right mitt still needs a thumb, but it's otherwise finished. I'll post a picture in my next post, provided I remember to take one. Guess I'll have to figure out that mitten cap and thumb cap sooner than anticipated. Ah, well, off to bed. Wish me luck with that whole sleeping thing, kay? Thanks.]