inventory time!

Fall Knitting Inventory!

1) Campus Scarf in O-Wool Classic for my buddyfriend
2) BADASS CABLED TWEED CAPE
3) Cabled cowl in frog tree alpaca worsted
4) Boneyard scarf for the little brotherface. I am picturing him biking all around town in it, keepin' warm.
5) Ozark Opulent hat and scarflet set for Miss KT.

Also I still need to sew the buttons onto my Owly sweater, in O-Wool Bulky (love [10000]).

All this gift knitting and none of it is Christmas presents. It's all just-because. I probably should have thought ahead.

FACT: If you barely knit anything at all for a whole year, your wrist will get better. It's Hooray! I can knit again. And I am, like a madwoman.

I haven't been blogging because 1) I haven't been knitting and 2) I have been writing other things. I've been putting my writing energy into my writing group, making stories. But things are looking up and I'm starting to think I've got enough juice to knit and blog and do stories too.

I'm still designing patterns too, working on new stuff that I'm excited about. Plus running WonderKnit and waitressing on the weekends...it really sounds like a lot when you put it on paper. I guess it is a lot, and I'm tired a lot, but mainly, I'm happy. :)

babies get blankets

This baby blanket is going to be really hard. I’m trying to make it look like an undersea wonderland! I got this yarn, it’s blue and green. Not, like, baby blue and baby green, but royal blue and bright lime green. The first row is a purl row, it’s a green row. I’m going to do another green row next, and then some blue rows. It’s going to be skinny green stripes and fat blue stripes. But the tricky part is, I’d like it to be kind of wavy, like scalloped all the way through. But if I did that, then the fish would to be really hard to knit. These imaginary fish are a dusty, mustard yellow color. I’m going to have to sacrifice either the fish or the waves, I think.

The blanket is for my friend. He isn’t born yet. I’m pretty sure he’s a he. His mom got those crazy high resolution ultrasounds, and you can tell the baby has his dad’s nose. You can tell it from INSIDE her stomach. That’s nutty. In one of the pictures, he has his foot in his mouth. That baby is in there, eatin’ feet. So I am making him a wool blanket, even though he’s going to be born in July. It will keep til winter.

Babies are nuts. I want one pretty bad, but they’re also kind of horrifying. When this one gets born, I’m going to watch his parents very closely and see how it affects their lives. They’re my kind of people, so maybe I can do it too. I’m knitting for their baby because he’s new, and because I love them, but also because babies should have stuff made by hand, just for them, while they’re incubating. This baby doesn’t even need blankets, his great grandmother made him some before he was even dreamed of, before his mom met his dad, before she died. And isn’t that wonderful? So he has blankets, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have a fishy blanket. Yet!

I cast on 160 stitches. This will make the blanket about 50 inches wide. I don’t even know if that’s the right size for a baby blanket. I know literally nothing about babies. A couple weeks ago these people asked my friend to baby-sit their baby in a pinch. She brought the baby to my shop, and we sat there looking at it and talking to it like it was an adult, and just handing it things to keep it amused. We gave him some crochet swatches, and a lip gloss, and a ball of yarn. We tried to let him crawl around on the floor but he kept trying to go outside. We were comically inept with the baby. We just kept looking at him like, man. What do we do with this? Maybe we should hand him something. Here, baby.

Once, when she tried to change his diaper, he was really squirmy, and he hit his head on the floor and cried, and then it was like, OH NO we probably killed the baby. He recovered pretty quickly, though. Babies are tough.

The little dude that’s on his way will be tough. His mom and dad are seriously tough. His mom has this badass tattoo of a unicorn and a rainbow. It’s giant, and the unicorn looks like it would kick your ass in a second. A few weeks ago his dad got punched in the face by a fat girl at 3 AM in the Cluck U chicken. He texted me and said “I think I’m in love.” These are his parents. This baby is going to be a rad baby. I’ve got 4 weeks to make him a rad blanket. With fishes on it. I'll post the results! If it ends up nice, I'll write up a pattern for you guys.

Fridays

If you ever wonder how your waitress feels when she gets off work at the end of the night, take a look at my groceries from Friday night circa 1 AM.

Yeah, that's a by-God mozzarella log. And an US Weekly. What? I grabbed that salad for balance. It's fine.

Scarftowne

Mostly-reclamation scarf. Artyarns worsted! I've been looking at this beautiful yellow yarn for, literally, YEARS. Finally made something with it! It's pretty! I LOVE this scarf.

green stuff

I'm, like, really into these things right now.



I'm going through 2 boxes a week. I'm eatin' them right now. As we speak. As I blog. DAMN PITA CHIPS YOU LOOKIN GOOD.


Reclamation Scarf. Artyarns supermerino. 2 balls. Shoot, I'll wear it.

This weekend I went home to the farm for a few days to celebrate a couple things. One was my cousin Frank's 18th birthday. He was recently named Prom King, and he's about to graduate. We're pretty proud of him!

I also wanted to spend Mother's Day with my mom. And I needed to get away for a couple days, anyway. So we went to see A Little Night Music, which was just fantastic. I'd never seen it. Most of the time was spent just hanging out on the farm though. Here is spring on the farm, in photos.

Max and Phil. When you've got cookies, Max (the black one) does a sweet Stevie Wonder impression.

These guys want carrots like I want pita chips.

The Guinea Foul: Vinnie and Minnie. If they get separated for any reason they FREAK OUT.

Dogs.

Cows.

Familytown.

Green.

Luv,
Bruce

You know what the goat means...

Ok, so listen to this shit.

I've been sick this week. I've got that stupid cold that's going around. Cough, cough, cough. It sucks. So I didn't go out Monday night, and I rested all day Tuesday, and by the time Tuesday evening rolled around I was going stir crazy. Still coughing, still sick, but stir crazy. Matt was out tearing up the town with Mr. Cabbage, so I was home alone, watching Rachel Maddow and knitting. It actually sounds like a nice night, under normal circumstances. But I was bored. So I called up KT and she said she'd come over and have a glass of wine and entertain me. Then the Science Pirate turned up! So I was rich in buddies.

We sat on the porch chatting. The Science Pirate left, Matt turned up, and so it was KT, Matt, and I having a leisurely time on the porch. Between 4 of us, we killed a single bottle of wine. Sober Sallies. We were on a pretty solid gossip train when a COP CAR rolled up on the corner.

You heard me.

We stared, bemused, from one another to the cop car. The cop just sat in the car for about 5 minutes, looking at his clipboard and talking on his radio, so that we thought he was maybe just doing some paperwork. Finally, though, he got out of the car, walked hesitantly across my lawn, and said, in a rather embarassed tone, "hey, um, we got a call...about noise. Was there anyone else on your street outside making noise tonight?"

We told him no. He continued, "Ok, well, someone said there were people yelling and screaming and laughing loud and stuff out here...so I guess just...try and keep it down?"

We were like, um, ok. And then he left.

The cop spent 5 minutes in his car making sure he was at the right place. Because, you know, where's the wild party? He was actually embarassed to tell us to shut up because we were 3 people talking at normal volume before 1 AM. But here is the kicker, for me: whoever called the cops on us involved the authorities before speaking to us. Which is, where I come from, way, way WAAAAAAAAAAY ruder than hanging out on your porch.

This is the second time this has happened. The first time was the very night we moved in. I think a few things about this.

1. I think the childish, rude asshole who has called the police on me twice, without doing me the courtesy of speaking to me to my face, lives two doors down. I think he is the same guy who is the only one on the block who doesn't say hi. The one who has only ever spoken to me to say, "you can't park there." The one who's wife is really, really friendly. Professor Umbridge friendly. Right after the first noise complaint, she said to me with a saccharine smile "We have to get up really early, so it's nice that it's such a quiet neighborhood. Isn't this a lovely neighborhood? It's always JUST. LIKE. THIS." These people are, just coincidentally, the only people over 35 on the block.

2. I think it might be personal. Because it is not AT ALL unusual for people to be talking and laughing on their porches late into the night. Unless we're all getting the cops called on us all the time, I find it odd that it's happened to me twice now.

3. I think this nefarious douchebag uses the police as a warning. Like, I think that he called the cops the first night we moved in to show us, hey new neighbors, I'm the boss of the neighborhood. I think that he called them last night to remind us, as we enter porch season, that he's still a dick so we'd better stay in line.

4. OH MY GOD it is SO RUDE to call the police on someone without personally speaking to them first. Also, he should get cited for wasting police time. Also, if you're going to live in the city AT ALL, much less less than 2 miles from campus in a neighborhood full of young people, you should maybe learn to live with conversation level noise. Also, WTF?

So anyway, as soon as I get home tonight I'm going around and knocking on all my neighbors' doors to ask them if they called the cops. I am pretty sure I know who it was, but I'd like to individually bitch to everyone on the block about the tyranny of this single dick.

My nearest and dearest are rolling their eyes right now, having seen me riled up like this before.

In these situations, Matt usually says "let me do the talking," because he's Mr. Lawyer, while I tend to get all trailer park on people. But I literally CANNOT RESTRAIN MYSELF. Like the time back in DC when, due to a laundry-room disagreement, I stood outside our neighbor's door banging on it and yelling "I KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE I CAN HEAR YOUR TV NOW COME OUT HERE AND TALK TO ME LIKE A GODDAMN ADULT!!!" While Matt stood behind me with his face in his hands. Heh.

Or the time our roof was leaking in DC and I left a voice mail for our landlord that said something like "CRAIG, this is LIBBY and our roof is LEAKING AND YOU NEED TO BE MORE ACCESSABLE THIS IS AN EMERGENCY AND I WILL MARCH DOWN TO THE ESCROW OFFICE RIGHT NOW you are a LAWYER you know PERFECTLY WELL what your RESPONSIBILITIES ARE as a LANDLORD...." and I kept going until Matt took the phone away from me.

But I know that is probably not the best way to be, especially since these people just LOVE to call the police, so tonight I'll try and bite my tongue and let Matt lawyer them up.

But really. Gets my goat.

Bruce

May day!

Today, a list.

1) I have always hated brushing my teeth because toothpaste is gross. Blech. When I moved out of the sticks and into the city at age 18, I discovered natural toothpaste from the hippie store, and it kind of changed my life. Tom's of Maine! It isn't sweet. No chemicals. When I have to use, like, Crest or something it is always completely overwhelming to my palate.

So it is with no great chagrin that I present to you my new favorite lip gloss, Cover Girl Wetslicks Amazemint. It's made in cooperation with Crest. It sort of smells and tastes like toothpaste.

Yeah, that's a blurry picture of my lip gloss reclining on some crochet swatches. What?

I now have at least 4 colors of it. It's like 6 bucks at the drug store. My favorite is the purpley one. Purple was the big lip gloss color for Summer 2007. I don't know what the big lip gloss color is for Spring 2009 is...I've sort of refused to let purple die. But this ice blue one is cool...it's not blue on, just shiny and frosty.

2) I've had a kind of crummy week. Nothing awful has happened, I'm just kind of tired and burned out. I've been working really hard and I think I need a break. The early part of the week was just a series of irritations, essentially. I'm sorry to everyone I yelled at (cringe). The wife's a little high strung. On Wednesday I sort of flipped out for a minute and cried, which is really, like, not my thing.

After my little crying jag, I was g-chatting up my buddy Mr. Hix back in the District, and happened to mention my bad mood. About an hour later, I was sitting on the couch in the shop, knitting away on a trendy, hip triangular scarf (knitted hipster bandana. All the cool kids are making them). I saw a young man coming up the street with a lovely vase of flowers, and I thought, in a rather lackluster way, "He got his girlfriend flowers. How nice." (Sometimes the Princess Sunshine part of my personality gets tired, but I still try and go through the motions.)

Then I saw how he was heading towards the shop and I thought, "huh, maybe he is the delivery guy. Maybe he's about to deliver those flowers to me! Chuh. Yeah, right. Hmph. I'm sure that's going to fucking happen. Any fucking second now." (Look, I know my Aunt Jean reads this and everything so I should watch my mouth, but I am duty bound to write honestly. I dropped the F bomb in that moment. Mentally. Don't be mad, Aunt Jean.)

Anyway...But then.......

!! The flower man came on in and said kind of hesitantly "I'm supposed to deliver these to....the WonderKnit Gals." They were from Mr. Hix! He sent me flowers because I told him I was sad. Well, they're really for all of us. He addressed them to "the Wonderknit gals and their rad customers." So they're not just for me. But they really cheered me up! Thery're on the table here in the shop, brightenin' up the joint.

Then my mom and Matt both did really nice things to cheer me up too, and I went to bed early, readin' a nice book and thinkin' contentedly of how lucky I am. I still need a vacation, but if I've got this kind of support network, I can handle it. Lucky Duck.

3) Hey, if your number is in my phone, there's a pretty good chance you've gotten a text from me, after midnight, that says something like, "Psidobmaly Karaoke. Matbe tomorrow eat Lunch but hasnnome boyss right noaw. Kt and Brax are stupd." So anyway, here's this website. It's my favorite right now. You can send them your drunk texts and they'll post them.

4) http://doihavepigflu.com/ hahahahaha!

5) My shop's fulla boys eatin' cookies.

6) I guess that's about all I got.

Luv,
Bruce