Borderline Savage

Date Dilemma

I met a wonderful man in the summer of 2010 and by the time fall rolled around, it was too late. I was in a serious relationship with a man who loves football, the one and only major sport that I really do not like. You'd think that I would have avoided that issue by dating a man who grew up in Central America, where futbol is soccer, not American football. But no, I had to find myself a man who fully embraces American football and doesn't follow soccer any more.

He's a good guy and football addiction isn't the worst thing that could happen, so I had to suck it up. We made a deal - I will sit with him and knit (or read, but usually knit) while he watches football, and he will be happy for my presence without expecting me to watch, understand, or care about the game. It works for both of us. We can spend time together and chat while doing something we each like to do. I even started a football knitting project. The problem is, I never finished the project. Once he noticed that I could knit, my football project was tossed aside and I set about knitting boyfriend socks. (Of course, I have yet to photograph them, but they were done by February 2011.) And then I picked up all sorts of other knitting projects and my poor football 2010 project languished. However, due to a recent bout of finishitis (not evidenced here or on Ravelry), I found myself ready to pick up the football project. I present to you the Senor Ardilla Mitten:

It's pretty, no? These are the Squirrel Sampler Mittens by Adrian Bizilia. The outer layer is Harrisville Designs New England Shetland in two shades of gray. The inside is going to be rose alpaca. I am at the very top of this mitten now, almost ready to start the lining. My boyfriend (now fiance) has implored me to knit him another pair of socks, and I will do that, but I will pick the mittens up again after that.

The problem is, the first mitten says 2010 on it. What do I put on the second mitten? I could put 2012, for the year I (hopefully) finish the mittens. I could put my initials, but they are not really suited to block lettering, so that won't be really nice looking. I've looked through the Ravelry projects and people seem to have done quite a few different things with the mittens, but nothing really strikes me as the thing that I want to do. 

Looking at the other projects on Ravelry has made me realize I have monster hands. There are all sorts of project notes from people who said the mittens were too big, and they were knitting the smaller sizes. I'm making the very largest size (and my gauge is spot on!!!), and it's the perfect width for me, though a bit long. It's actually a bit of a novelty to have mittens that are long for me.

So, opinions, please about what to put on the second mitten. . .

Knitting? Yeah I still do it on occasion.

While my knitting output is greatly diminished I do still knit every once in awhile. I just rarely finish anything. I started the year off well though by finishing yet another pair of Fetching:

Yes, I know the ends are woven in, don't be judgemental. They will be at some point today. 

I'm also working on another Calorimetry (Susan says I am the Queen of Calorimetry since I've made so many). I actually got into such a rhythm that I kept going on the short rows far too long. I tried to rip it back but I got lost and ended up ripping the whole damn thing out. Its coming along nicely now though:

For those of you wondering. I still have not finished the wedding afghan.  Most of the knitting is done, its the seaming that I'm procrastinating on. Then something happened. I laid it out for a photo shoot this morning and discovered a problem:

Do you see it? Try now:

Sigh. Now I have to rip out that seam and re-do it.  Ettiquette says a wedding gift can be given anytime in the first year but this is getting ridiculous.

Susan now has me hooked on Downton Abbey. I did indeed take the quiz she linked to and was very pleased with my result:

You are John Bates, valet to Lord Grantham. You probably have a secret identity or are lying about your past to someone you care about, but at least you feel really bad about it. On the plus side, you’re loyal and hardworking, and you’d never rat anyone out to the boss, even when they really deserve it. Noble and a bit mysterious, you’re a genuinely decent person – and everyone’s wondering when you’re just going to tell that nice Anna girl how you feel.

First FO of 2012

I'm having a bout of finishitis lately, so let's all enjoy it while it lasts. I present the Gryffindor House Scarf. This was my go-to mindless knitting project this summer. This scarf is one very, very long tube, so I experimented with different types of jogless jogs on the stripes and I must say that I didn't care for any of them and abandoned my search for the perfect jogless jog. The beginning/end of each round comes at the side "seam" anyway, so it all works out just fine.

Although the actual knitting of the scarf is pretty much mindless, it is a lot more knitting that I thought it would be, and this is a bit on the heavy side for a scarf. I finished the actually knitting in November, then put off giving the scarf a bath and properly blocking it. Once that was done, I put off adding the fringe for another month and a half, until today. I'm ashamed to admit, it took less than an hour to cut and attach all 150+ pieces of fringe.

The princess loved the scarf. She had really wanted it. (Believe me, I wouldn't have come up with the idea of knitting almost six feet of giant tube scarf on my own!) I didn't take any close up photos of it because, well, it does have a bit of yellow lab hair on it. . . just one more thing that will discourage me from properly blocking knitted items. I block them on the floor, and although I do have blocking pads, let's face it, the dog is near the floor and when his fur swirls around, it comes to land on the floor. . . and on top of whatever I might be blocking. It's rather discouraging after all of the storage of yarn in plastic totes and the efforts made to keep WIP's properly bagged up to avoid unnecessary contact with pet fur. C'est la vie.

I do wish I had a closer photograph of the fringe, because I did a lot of thinking about it while I was attaching it today. Other than trimming  a couple of overly long pieces of fringe, I left the rest of it to be more or less the right length. This is a handmade scarf. It shouldn't have factory perfect fringe. To be honest, I was also a bit afraid that once I started evening out and trimming the fringe, I would end up trimming it all off. I had horrible visions of the haircut my mom gave me when I was about eight. I had very long hair and, though she said she was just going to trim an inch or two, she couldn't get my hair straight and ended up cutting off over six inches in her attempts to make it even. To this day, I'm still not sure whether she's really lousy at cutting hair or whether she did this on purpose as a way to get my hair shorter without actually telling me up front.

Families are a funny thing. I've been very much enjoying the family (Should I say household? It's much more inclusive.) at Downton Abbey. I completely missed this show when it first aired, but the internet is full of knitters who are obsessed with it, so when I discovered that Season Two was about to air, I streamed the first season on Netflix and was all caught up in a couple of days. Now, I am among the faithful who watch it as PBS releases new episodes. And now I've got Nancy watching.

I considered it my duty to let Nancy know what she was missing with Downton Abbey. She, who has turned me on to Leverage and almost any book written by Philippa Gregory, among other things, just couldn't miss out on this show.  And I am adding this link to one of those Which Downton Abbey Character Are You? quizzes. In a true sign that blogging is so yesterday, there is not one single share option that will give the HTML for the result for a blogger to use. So, take my word for it, I'm Lady Sybil Crawley. And here's what it says about that:

You are Lady Sybil Crawley. The youngest daughter of Lord Grantham, you’re compassionate, strong, and really concerned about social justice. You’d also like to be able to vote. The bravest and most idealistic member of your family, you’re the most likely to end up at a political rally, try and help a servant to a better job, or scandalize your sisters by wearing pants to a party.

So, let me ask Nancy and anyone else who wants to play, which is your Downton Abbey personality?