Did I mention I like scarves?

I have been working on a pattern, yes I am designing a pattern.  I got a little bogged down in the process and had to put it down to clear my mind.  I cast around and with a little stash diving and a wonderful new knitting book I found just the thing.  If you remember I went to the Midwest Fiberfest last summer ( http://tempestinapot.blogspot.com/2010/07/midwest-fiber-folk-art-fair.html ).  I bought some crazy thick and thin merino yarn from some sweet ladies hailing from Minnesota. It was in fact taking a lot of space up in my pie safe o' yarn.  I knew from fairly early on I wanted to make a scarf out of the yarn.

Flash forward to my new book. Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders by Judith Durant.  The book is brilliant, packed with patterns for gloves, bags, scarves, shawls, lamp shades, and of course socks.  There is a Noro scarf that I am so going to knit.  Anyway, the "19th-Century Honeycomb Stitch Scarf" caused my little felted heart to go pitter-pat.  It was exactly the pattern I wanted for my thick and thin yarn.

My first cast on was on 9 straight needles and it was just to tight.  I frogged my first attempt and pulled out the big guns, a set of 11s.  I also decreased the cast on by 7 stitches.  In four short nights I had a new, wildly garish scarf.  I am in love with the silly thing.  Trust me you can't miss me flying my new green scarf, I love scarves.

Smitten by Fingerless Mitts

One mitt from each of Bob and Greg's pair

I learned to knit because I wanted to make myself a pair of fingerless mitts.  I bought the yarn and the pattern for the mitts, but I have yet to actually use that yarn to make those mitts.  However, I have knitted lots of fingerless mitts over the last three years. 

My beautiful wife modeling Barb's pair

This year our household has been the fingerless mitts knitting factory.  Using a pattern from a ballband of Artful Yarns I have made five pairs that I have given away.  My wife however is dropping pairs off her needles, like leaves from a tree.

Mom's Pair

She has tweaked the pattern and worked it into her own.  She actually gave me pointers on how to attach the gusset to the rest of the mitt.  Yesterday I nearly tripped over a big bag of mitts in her living room.  Sometimes it is good to share a home with another knitter.

Kim's Pair

The Letter

Dear Friends,

My fortune cookie tonight read, "You have a charming way with words.  Write a letter this week."  The advice of a cookie seemed like a reason to write a small missive to you.  I feel cookies don't lie.  I say that to you and then I remember that I did have a cookie lie to me once.

A sad tale of losing cookie confidence that has marked me as a person who will in fact spit out a cookie in front of a room full of people.  So let me begin with once upon a knit night I showed up at my usual tardy, last half hour.  Now the women and men I knit with are some awesome bakers.  If I see a plastic container on a table with napkins, I know goodness is to be had.  On the table was just such a container and some of the most perfect looking snicker doodles I have ever seen.  My inner cookie monster was about to put her face into the container and eat some cookies.  I waited, was polite, and took only one.  Cookie conversation swirled around me as a generous bite settled on my tongue.

Okay, there is something you should know, I really don't like most tropical fruits.  The most heinous of the bunch is bananas followed closely by pineapples.  I don't even like the smell of either of those fruits.  It may be a character flaw, but I will not deny my abhorrence of these things.  This truth revealed, I sat there with a mouth full of pineapple flavored cookie growing in my mouth.  Talking around the cookie, I asked the room, "Whaa kinda cooookie is this?"

"Pineapple cake batter," the proud baker said.

The group must have registered the complete look of disgust on my face, because a chorus of, "Just spit it out." went around the room. 

I felt bad,  but I just could not bring myself to swallow.  With a mumbled "Esqoose me," I spit the cookie into the napkin and ran from the room to get a drink of something to wash the horrid taste of pineapple out of my mouth.

The moral of this story is always ask before biting into any cookie, pineapple cake batter could be hidden in even the most delicious looking morsel.  The moral could also be forget the fortune, this letter is not charming. Or maybe the moral is skip the fortune and stick with the lottery numbers on the back (2 7 22 33 46 47).

Sincerely,

Tempesttea

Cool Friends

I think I have some really cool friends.  My wonderful photographer friend, Sungazing, ( http://tempestinapot.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-look-or-showing-off-my-fiestware.html ) has sold some of her photos for the covers of books.  Two to be exact.  One of the photos was snatched up by  Random House and used for the cover of Kelley Armstrong's Industrial Magic. 

I think what gets me so excited about the cover is that the photo is one of personal favorites.  A couple of years ago I was so excited by the photo she gave me a framed copy of the image.  The image of the leg with the chess pieces makes me think about an adult Alice going through the looking glass.  The photo is sexy and intelligent.  I also wonder how the hell did she take the photo and keep those chess pieces from falling off her leg? 

Friday night I was at Borders and I kept seeing Sungazing's leg everywhere.  I just kept thinking I know that sexy leg.  I bought my own copy, not even because I want to read the book, but because Sungazing is so cool. Her other cover for the Pigman and Me   
( http://www.flickr.com/photos/sungazing/5094293141/ ) is out but I have yet to find a copy.  Pretty soon bookstores everywhere will be show casing her sexy gams.  You go Sungazing!

Tempest in a Pot of Reality

Thursday is always my favorite night of the week.  As I have mentioned before my Beloved Cuz and I always get together and spend some time together having dinner, knitting, and enjoying each others' company (http://tempestinapot.blogspot.com/2009/11/day-fivegratitude.html ).  Over time we have stumbled into all kinds wonderful things.  Tonight it was reality TV!  No kidding when we showed up at one of the coffee houses we frequent they were filming a reality show for HGTV.  Bright lights, lots of extraneous people, and cameras littered around the otherwise subdued setting.

I know, you think I am exaggerating, but the producer, Heather, made us sign a release to be part of the video landscape.  The reality show was about people buying their first home.  Apparently, they are filming a whole season of the show in St. Louis.  Beloved Cuz and I were kind of excited to have something different happen on our Thursday.

So it was lights, camera, action and here we are trapped as knitting background props.  I am not worrying about how my hair looks or whether I am making a stupid face.  No I am worrying if someone will see this episode and critique my knitting.  Will someone see my knit front back and think, "Oh my god, why is that woman strangling her Cascade Magnum?"

I was glad when the filming stopped so we could pack up and leave.  I was also surprised reality TV was not that real.  They made the couple repeat their surprise on the contract offer four times, it felt forced.  It was also weird to see these men shouldering around heavy cameras and zooming in on the couple through a pastry case.  I am not even sure what the name of show is and I will not be on the lookout for my debut.  However, my final comment on the whole thing is if you see a woman strangling her Cascade Magnum on a reality show, please be kind, you may know her.

Fiestaware or the Multi-Colored Monkey on My Back

Being the woman with the multi-colored fiestaware monkey on my back literally ( http://tempestinapot.blogspot.com/search?q=fiestaware+tattoo ) it is not surprising that I get excited everytime a new color is put out by the good people at Homer Laughlin.  This fall the new color is the aptly named Paprika. I am not a warm hues kind of girl, but you know it is a color I don't have. 

Paprika Tower of Fiestaware

Excited I went to my favorite place to buy fiestaware, Cornucopia in Kirkwood ( http://www.kitchencopia.com/ ).  I went alone with intent to buy some colored dinnerware.  I was not disappointed.  I bought a paprika mini disk pitcher, gusto bowl, and a fruit bowl to add to my rainbow collection of dishes.  I am going to ask my mom for a place setting of the paprika for Christmas.

Paprika Mini Disk Pitcher Joins the Herd

I also found a new addition to the fiesta family, a jam jar.  Forget the fact that I don't routinely keep jam in a special jar.  You know I had to have one.  I even bought the new design in the last new color, lemon grass.  I left the store poorer, but with a bag full of pretty pieces of pottery going to a good home at my house. 

Lemon Grass Jam Jar

Rockin' the Blue Sky Alpaca

I love the color green, I find it really hard to resist anything in a showy, bright green and one day I found myself fondling this very supple, chunky, blue sky alpaca in the most beautiful shade of green.  In a fit of green envy I bought 5 skeins of the yarn.  I knew I wanted to knit a beret with the yarn, but it took me forever to find just the right pattern (OK nine months), bulky beret from Vogue.  Once I had the pattern and the yarn I needed the time. 

Last week the trifecta of knitting goodness came together and I knitted out the beret of my dreams. Surprisingly I was left with two extra skeins of alpaca.  I thought, whatever shall I knit?  Inspiration came in the stitch pattern on the beret.  The bulky beret pattern had a twisted cable stitch, very easy and a whole lot of fun (if you get off on knitting).  I decided on a gaiter with a twisted cable pattern to match the beret.  I busted the gaiter out in record time and was left with a little more than half a skein left.

I thought if only I had a little more I could make wristwarmers.  I abstained from going to the yarn store and putting myself further into a yarn debt.  Instead I decided to try and knit little mitts.  Okay, bulky little mitts.  After a few false starts I came up with silly mitts to match the whole ensemble. 

I am so kitted out for cold weather, I am thinking I should move to Minnesota.  And in the end I was left with maybe a yard of the Blue Sky Alpaca.  In my attempt to use up all the yarn I almost (almost) made a tassel to go on the top of my beret.  Good sense prevailed and instead I put the dab of yarn in my pot of stray pieces.  I may one day decide something else needs a tassel.