Christmas Knitting is Knit...

Mint Chocolate Chip Hoody

Last night I finished up the sweater I was knitting for my sister... Just in time for her first Christmas in TEXAS. You'd think that someone who knits as fast as I do would be able to get this stuff knocked out in a timely manner, but no. I still finish a disappointingly large percentage of projects just in time for them to be mostly useless. Then again, with the current cold snap, and some of the overzealous air-conditioning I've experienced in the south, it's possible that the sweater might still come in handy. I'll text her and ask, but it'll ruin the surprise.

Look! Cables!

I'd give the sweater to my youngest sister who lives in Pittsburgh, but I picked out the colors for the sweater with my middle sister in mind, and the color choice would be a dead give-away as to what I did. (Youngest Sister is GAWTH, so things I pick out for her are primarily black-based, whereas Middle Sister is a vegetarian and dang-near a hippy, so I tend to pick out more earth-tony things for her.) I hate getting busted on re-purposing hand-made-procrastinated gifts, so I may as well just own up to it now. (Middle Sister has just sent back a txt stating rather emphatically that she can still use a sweater... So, Yay. Now I just have to finish up a gift for Moodles' cousin, Li'l G.)

All that aside, I'm still fairly pleased with how well this sweater knit up. It is (as usual) of my own design, and it seems to fit pretty well. The thing that I am the most pleased with is that I knit that thing top down (starting at the top of the hood) and managed to make it entirely seamless. I know how to do blanket stitching and kitchenering, but I hate it enough to spend hours designing my own patterns so that I never ever have to do it. The other thing I really hate is casting on, so I also do a fair amount of work making sure that I cast on the smallest number of stitches I possibly can for a given project. (Thus, the top down construction on all of my sweaters... you cast on far fewer stitches for a neck hole than you do a waist-line...)

Mint Sekanjabin

For all my student-minions, here at the office, I have whipped up and bottled a batch of mint sekanjabin syrup. Not being something that one typically encounters in modern America, I figured it might be something interesting for them to try. I mixed up a pitcher yesterday and left it in the office to see how it would be received, and they sucked it down like it had booze in it, so I imagine that the gift will be well received and a little different from the typical cakes, fudge, cookies, and candy one seems to accumulate in bulk during the holiday season. Plus, being mint flavored, it still seems to fit into the holiday theme without reminding me at all of drinking mouth-wash.

The Call of Cthulhu

Well.

It was a long weekend of not enough sleep and OMG SNOW. Since Grandpa K and Uncle M were coming down to visit (Cousin N bailed on us due to a sinus thing that made flying upsetting for him.) I made up three hats. I finished up Grandpa K's hat just in time on Saturday morning and presented it to him at breakfast. Moodles hadn't yet met him, and though she is just now starting to get a bit wary of strangers, she seemed quite pleased to accept another hat-wearer into her circle of acceptable bebe-Sherpas. (Pictures of Moodles with her Grandpa K will be forthcoming as soon as I have time to retrieve them off the Good Camera.)

Unfortunately, the weekend that we picked for Grandpa K to do a gig at the Knuckle Down Saloon was also the weekend of the first big blizzard of winter, and fiascoes ensued. Starting with Uncle M's rental car. For the drive from Minneapolis to Madison, Uncle M and Grandpa K rented a car, so that they would be sure to arrive safely, in a nice, reliable vehicle. Unfortunately, the rental company was not down with this plan, and they provided a car from Arizona that didn't even have all-weather-tires... Actually, it didn't even have tires with tread. So once Saturday's rain gave way to snow and ice, the rental got stuck at the bar, and it being the weekend, the rental company didn't have any locations that were readily available to come fetch the stuck car and exchange it for one that can move further than 4 inches in snow. While it wasn't terribly upsetting to have Grandpa K and Uncle M around for an extra two days, to make kissy face at Moodles, it did make getting around decidedly awkward... We routinely had one more person traveling than we had seats in the car, and Husband's Durango was in the shop over the weekend, which left us with the option of cramming everyone into my Spectra like a clown car, or begging Angus for a ride. Thankfully, Angus was quite accommodating and even came to pick up Moodles and Me for Grandpa K's show. (You can listen to the WORT radio interview of Grandpa K here. The interview and some songs from his more popular albums start at 0:59 minutes into the podcast and run to 1:23.)

Due to the blizzard, the show was sparsely, but enthusiastically attended. The other fellow that was scheduled to play sets in between Grandpa K's sets was unable to make it due to the weather, but no one seemed to mind. Grandpa K has promised to come back in the spring and do another show for Moodles when there's likely to be less inclement weather.


Speaking of Moodles, I swear to you, I haven't yet worked up to reading her H.P. Lovecraft at bedtime; however, she has still taught herself to make "Cthulhu face." I spent all day on Sunday trying to catch her at it with the video camera, but every time she sees me with it, she gets self conscious and stops. Eventually I had to prompt her to get her to do it for me on film, and then I was holding the camera sideways. So... The video is sideways, but I still think it's hilarious.

Going to Unreasonable Lengths:

Every person has three ranges of hair length:

1. The range at which they consider it "too short to be functional."
2. The range at which it is "just about right." ( Though no woman appears to be entirely satisfied with her hair, even at the "right" range.)
3. The range at which it is "entirely too much to handle."

Moodles chews a package of #7 round needles.

These ranges vary from person to person, and some people, much to their chagrin, don't seem to be genetically capable of producing enough hair to hit the "enough" range much less the "too much" category. Being half-Japanese, and therefore having received the "OMG, HAIR!!!" gene, this is not my problem. I have extra-ordinarily healthy hair growing in places I really wish it wouldn't, but lets not go into that.

For me, the "too short" range is anything above my shoulder blades - mostly because I am routinely too lazy to do anything with my hair, and if it is above my shoulder blades, my hair will not stay behind me when I lean forward. PLUS, my hair is naturally curly, and if I get too much above my shoulder blades, there isn't enough weight in my hair to keep it from turning into ringlets. Let me assure you, I am entirely too sarcastic and deadpan to run around looking like Shirley Temple.

The "just about right" range is anything between the bottom of my shoulder blades and the top of my belt. I have kept my hair about there for most of my life. As I mentioned, I am not entirely satisfied with my hair at that length, but I can do 80% of the things I want with my hair when it is that long. (I still can't do that neat "crown of braids" thing, though, because I have a big, fat head. I know. It's a terrible fate... However I have determined that having hair long enough for a braid crown puts me well into the "too much to handle" range...)

Because I haven't managed to get to the stylist since before Moodles was born, my hair is now in the "too much to handle" stage of growth, and it's making me a little insane. I am ok with "hair past my waist," as they say in the romance novels. I am NOT OK with "hair past my butt." This was underscored for me twice yesterday when a colleague mentioned my hair in a very complimentary way, and I brushed her off with a litany of complaints. (Sorry, D. What I meant to say was, "Thank you.") And again, when I got home from work and had a chance to shower and deep condition, because Mom kept the baby for an extra half hour, so I wouldn't have to worry about running out of the bathroom naked and covered in soap because Moodles found a way to destroy herself in an empty crib.

I know that at least half of you reading now hate me because I'm complaining about hair growth that you've been trying to achieve all your life, but let me tell you why hair past your butt sucks the big one:

1. You sit on it. Your dog sits on it. The stinky guy next to you on the bus sits on it. In all three situations you end up trapped. The dog will take advantage and lick your face until you asphyxiate. You PRAY that the stinky guy on the bus will only take advantage and talk your ear off, but you sometimes worry that he might also lick your face.
2. You have to un-tuck your hair from your pants every time you go to the bathroom. This wouldn't be as annoying if it wasn't winter and you weren't wearing a wool sweater. But because it is winter, and you are wearing a sweater, un-tucking your hair will generate enough static charge to shock the shit out of you when you reach for the stall door, and your hair will stand out around you like a three foot halo in all directions. If "hair by Vandegraph" is not a good look on you, you will be irritated for the next 20 minutes until the charge wears off... By then you will have to pee again... Rinse, repeat.
3. You have to be careful when you potty. I will leave those details to your imagination. Let me just sum up by saying that if you were formerly a braid chewer, the potential for utter grossness here might cure you of the habit forever.
4. This one is my favorite: Showering becomes disconcerting. Picture yourself in a nice, hot shower, deep conditioning your hair, because that's what Lady Godiva would want... When the time comes to rinse, you let down your luxurious locks from where they were piled on top of your head, sucking up all the lovely moisturizers... In the last two minutes on top of your head, those locks have become cold and clammy. Where do they go when you shake them out? They go right into the crack of your ass, that's where. Not cool. 

Hat for Matt. Needs to be blocked.

Problem #4 can repeat itself as you dry your hair with interesting and, at times, utterly humiliating variations. You lean forward and flip your hair upside down to towel it off, but then how do you get back into the upright position for take off? Especially if you happen to be preening in front of your newly minted boyfriend? You don't just wad it up and stand - no! You fling it up over your shoulder and arch your back majestically like a surfacing mermaid! And then... Oh... The horrors...

Arching your back makes your hair effectively a foot longer, which means that when it lands, it will go BETWEEN your legs (COLD! CLAMMY! AUGH!) and then up over your thigh. Because it is squeaky clean, it will STICK THERE AND NEVER COME OUT. I don't know if you've ever tried to balance in a position wherein your boobs are pointed at the sky, but it's quite difficult... Especially if it's not a position you intended to be in, in the first place. If you are a klutz like me, and start thrashing around like an idiot, this will cause you to fall over in an entirely ungraceful tangle of limbs and hair and land on your head. LOUDLY. At this point, you can only hope that your newly minted boyfriend is sensitive enough not to laugh at you when he comes to rescue you from your poorly planned attempt to be irresistible.

Not that that has ever happened to me... Ever.

Anyway, I need a haircut soon before I manage to injure myself.  Also, I made this hat last night for the imminent in-laws. Moodles helped.

Checking things off the list:

Or not.

I was hoping to cross off a few things from my "Things In Process" list... Instead, last night, I started an entirely new thing. A hat for one of my 3 male in-laws that are coming to visit this weekend. I will make two more with slightly different patterning and call it done.
I took this opportunity to use up some of the zillion yards of handspun wool I have lying around the house from the last time I went on a spinning bender. I used my dark natural grey and my white wool, and I'm fairly pleased with the results. I knit the largest size hat on the pattern, since I don't have anyone's measurements. I figure, if the hat is too big, they can wear it into the shower until it fits.... Yay, wool! And yes, those ear flaps do actually come out of the hat all together. Those are functional buttons you're looking at, yo! One gift down, eleventy more to go!

Honestly, I'm glad that that part of the evening went according to "plan," because it was that only part that did. When I left the office, my plan was to go home, pick up Em, do some work at the Bar, eat dinner with Eithni and Teffan, and then maybe make a set or two of hand warmers for the student-gifts. You know what they say about a plan only lasting until you first engage your opponent? Right. Last night, my opponent was Angus, who - though I love him with the nuggies normally reserved for brothers- has displayed an amazing ability to obliterate any semblance of "plan" through his very presence.

So my evening actually consisted of fixing the printer (Which the bebe had messed up by using it as a standing assist, thereby pressing all the buttons and re-setting the IP address to something useless...), ordering Thai food for Myself, Husband, and Angus, failing to get HD, due to stupid trees blocking the satellites, making the aforementioned hat, and watching the A-Team movie with the guys. It wasn't an unpleasant evening, but I still need to go down to the bar at some point to set the security feeds for unreasonable levels of networked convenience, rather than just CCTV... And I need to talk someone into cutting down a &*%# tree so that I can get some HD* TV.

*What truly irritates me is that I cannot solve this problem by switching satellite providers. Both Dish Network and DirecTV use the same satellites. In some ways, I feel that this defeats my freedom of choice. And don't tell me about Charter Cable. The rant I posted about their idiotic customer service is still in the top 10 things that come back if you Google "MightyJesse."

Things in Process:

Welcome to the holiday season! That time of year when I discover (while frantically cleaning my house before guests arrive) that I have 10,000 more things in-process than I thought. I had thought that maybe I should photograph them and post them for you so that the shame of unfinished projects would drive me to completion... Thus, I give you, the bullet points of half-assery: (If you check back later, I may update with more pictures after I get home tonight... You never know...)

• Mint chocolate chip hoody (knitting)

• Black embroidered jumper (hand embroidered, for Moodles, of course!)
• "I Poop Alot" onesie (hand embellished commercial onesie)

• New wool tunic (hand sewn with seam embellishments, for me)
• New wool tunic (hand sewn with seam embellishments, for Husband)
• New wool tunic (hand sewn with seam embellishments, for Moodles) 
• Flower diaper cover (Despite my ability to draft a diaper pattern for an adult, NO ONE needs to play that much Warcraft. This will be for Moodles. Duh.)

And then, the really, real reason I'm not posting all the pictures... Moodles was teething and clingy all weekend, so I didn't have much "spare time" for photography after attending the AWESOME variety show at the Knuckle Down Saloon on Friday night, and doing the usual 28,498,348,049 loads of laundry (OK, really it was 6, but it felt like more.)... Every sheet in the house was dirty, owing in part to Moodles' new passion for "finger-painting*."  (I was also supposed to attend Boar's Head, but due to being down a vehicle, and the sudden snow, I just wasn't feeling organized enough to obtain a ride, or talk Husband into a "ninja run" in my crappy car on un-plowed roads with 2 hours of sleep.... So we skipped it, because we'll be attending 12th Night, FOR SURE, due to our respective obligations at that event.)

* SUPER GROSS. Moodles used to just throw up and leave it at that. NOW, she throws up and smears it all over everything, in what she assures me is "art". As you can see by my use of quotation marks, I remain unconvinced...