I've got mail: Day 6 & 7

I've caught that cold that everyone else in the tri-state area seems to have, so I've fallen behind on my swap blogging duties. My copilot was kind enough to snap some photos for me while I languish on the couch. I present Day 6 and 7 combined:


Mmmm delicious Tar Heel coffee....


I was perplexed by these at first...then I realized they were handmade magnets. Very clever!


And some buttons. I LOVE buttons. Probably unhealthily so. It's my cross to bear.

And so concludes my coverage of the Blog Hub Swap. Another big thanks to Sara for an awesome parcel! If you'd like to check out the reaction of the gal who received my package, you can find her here. She is graciously pretending to like the crap that I sent her.

I've got mail: Day 5

I'm not much of a weekend blogger, so I saved my musings on my 5th and 6th packages from the Blog Hub Swap for weekdays (I didn't wait to open them, of course). Day 5, holy smokes. I sequestered myself in the pantry for the ritual unwrapping (as one does), as the goodies were revealed I'm pretty sure unintelligible noises starting coming out of my mouth; then I came bursting out, waving a skein in each hand and demanding, "Look at this LOOK AT THIS!!!" to a baffled copilot.


Sock yarn from New Zealand, in the possum-merino blend I raved about during the Knit and Crochet Blog Week.

You know how sometimes people get so excited on the internet that they can't seem to reliably hit the shift-key? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111!!!!!!!!!!1!!!1 Yeah, it was kind of like that. I LOVE this stuff. It's so airy and lightweight, yet so warm! And better yet, it reminds me of the wonderful time I spent in NZ on my honeymoon.

(Total sidenote: Listening to Bob and Tom last week, they mentioned a news story about a New Zealand school that was getting heat for sponsoring a "possum throwing" contest. It was pretty much exactly what you would imagine from the name. Apparently PETA was not happy.)

Speaking of honeymoons and spouses and such, I've also been working over the past few days on a little project to help keep my copilot warm. (Second sidenote: I'm totally comfortable referring to him as my husband at this point--it's been over a year--but using the term copilot still amuses me.) Last winter, I bought some sock yarn for myself and the copilot from a neat little shop in Truckee, CA called Lake Tahoe Yarn Company. I had every intention of turning them into socks, then somehow my skein turned into this, and inspired by that, I guess, I decided to make his into gloves as well. He's not all about the fancy-shmancy stuff, so the pattern is straightforward and simple.

He hadn't been home to try on the work-in-progress until I was halfway through the index finger (thumb completed), but as soon as he did, it was clear that the thumb wasn't in the correct place. Indeed, it gave him some artificial webbing between his thumb and index finger. Unconvinced by my claims that it would help his swimming abilities, he requested a modified fit. As I unraveled the work there were numerous apologies for the inconvenience, and I may have amped up the drama a bit with some theatrical sighing, but this is part of the appeal of knitting for me. You have the ability to create something that uniquely fits. And it looks great:


His conclusion: "It's so weird...I've never had a pair of gloves that actually fit my fingers before." That right there is one of the big reasons that knitting is so sweet.

I've got mail: Day 4

Holy flippin' huge needles, Batman!


My favorite brand of needles, Takumi Bamboo, in a whopping size 15 for the slippers project. And of course, an accompanying tube of puff paint for the treads (my swap partner is a clever girl).

I've got mail: Day 3

Today's package: a squishy, soft wool yarn that fills me with warm feelings. And, it's cleverly matched with a pattern for felted slippers. I've been wanting to try felting for a while now, so I am all over this. I'm also starting to feel that the package I've put together is inadequate...but it's all ready to go, to be sent out later today (or tomorrow, depending upon the level of procrastination).



I put everything on a high shelf for safekeeping, and made a run to the local pet supplies store on the next block to restock on dog food and chew sticks. I literally ran. I didn't think that anything was in the dog zone, but I was taking no chances.

Now, you guys are going to think that I'm a complete moron at this point (when is she going to learn???), but I swear, he couldn't reach this shelf before and his front leg is broken in like twelve (OK three, but still) places. But see for yourself...



Flippin' crippled Houdini managed to find and bust into the yarn package. I'm pretty sure he can smell yarn at this point. I was mortified. The yarn is fine, but it's all disheveled and doesn't represent the true glory of htNevele. Very fortunately, I happened to treat myself to a skein of the same yarn, but in a different color. Phew!

I've got mail: Day 2

I can't seem to find my camera's memory card to visually document my second item. I've been teetering on the edge of meltdown this week (and crud, it's only Wed.). I don't like to bring negativity to the interwebs (Jebus knows it has enough of that already), but well, look:


Don't you give me the stink eye. You wouldn't be in the cone of shame if you didn't consistently try to chew off your stabilizer.

Sammy had surgery last Friday (9 hours of it) to try to correct a gap in his elbow joint that developed as a result of some puppyhood injury that occurred before we adopted him. The red thing on his (shaven and kind of ridiculous looking) left leg is a skeletal fixator to try to stretch out his bone. We have to keep the pins clean and change his bandages daily-a two person job-and my copilot learned at the last minute that he had to go out to the client site for work. The client site in Seattle. So, I'm sequestered with ol' cripple and tending for him mostly solo, with some wonderful help from one of my friends with the bandage changing. If you're reading this, YOU'RE A LIFESAVER.

But the swap package could not have arrived at a better time. Every time I get too stressed out, I can go in the pantry and treat myself to a little knitting surprise. Last night it was a copy of the fall issue of Interweave Knits--I love having books with patterns, so why in the world have I never looked into knitting magazines? It's perfect! It also has a sweet hat pattern that calls for my Malabrigo yarn. I was thinking hat...

I've got mail: Day 1

While I was away attending Mystery Wedding last weekend, a package arrived for me. My copilot went down to check the mail the evening we returned home, with parting words from me, "Why bother? We never get anything good anyway." Next time I'm going to try, "Why bother? Daniel Craig is never down there waiting to make out with me."

My blog swap partner is the lovely Sara of North Carolina. You can check out her exploits at Wool Durham. Lovely stuff!

I kind of wanted to open everything.


But I resisted, and obediently followed the numbering on the items. Item #1 contained sheer awesomeness:


OK, so I've heard a lot about this stuff. It seems like people wet their pants and/or will exchange their firstborns over Malabrigo yarn, so I'm pumped to see for myself what the fuss is about! It is quite soft....

Adventures in blocking

Confession: I'm terrible at blocking my knitted work. Explanation for my non-knitted readers - blocking is a 'finishing' process for a knitted item. When you knit something by hand, the stresses in the fabric may not be entirely equal; this can result in curling, twisting, and any other number of unfortunate side effects that can make your lovely item look like a wrinkled old piece of garbage. Blocking usually involves wetting the item with water, pinning it in the desired finished dimensions, and letting it dry. Doesn't this seem like a stupid part of the knitting process to be bad at? Does anyone else consistently have trouble with blocking, or is it just me??

I came to a sudden realization last Wednesday: the wedding that I was knitting Mystery Wedding Project for was only three days away. Now I'd long given up on getting MWP done in time, but I did want to finish my shawl so I could show off the hand-knits a little bit. All I needed to do was block.

I collected some advice from some of the ladies in the shawl-KAL, and based on their suggestions a (half-baked) plan began to brew - instead of using a million pins, I would make a wire frame. First, I picked up some low-gauge stainless steel wire from the local hardware store:


I washed the heck out of it, since it probably had residual oil and grime from the production process. I couldn't resist playing with it a little bit:


Fun for a girl and a boy! And a dog, apparently.
The first setback was the fact that the wire did not want to keep any shape but a coil. I applied my materials engineering knowledge to something useful (for once): the wire needed to be 'work hardened' before it would be useful. Basically, work hardening is the concept that a metal becomes stronger when you do 'work' on it.

In this case, I used my hands to bend the wire back and forth, and when those got tired:


Wrenches! I used the wrenches to pull small sections of the wire straight. With the wire primed, I bent it into a rectangle measuring 60" x 20". I fed the shawl onto the frame in a 'running stitch' style - basically passing the wire over/under the selvage stitches:


Voila!


I did break down and use a few pins to hold the frame steady.


I moistened the fabric using a spray bottle filled with water. It dried within the course of a few hours.

Did it work? It did!


I couldn't really believe I had produced something so delicate (me = bull in a china shop).

Would I do it again? I would, but with the caveat that I'm really glad that I don't have to do the work hardening of the wire again--it took a while, and if I was to do it again, I would work with the wire long before I was ready to actually block the shawl, just to break up the tedium a little bit.