The Midnight Knitter: 2010

A Day in the Life

I woke up this morning feeling like PDiddy. I'm taking creative license in assuming that he feels like a groggy teenager who would rather stick bamboo shoots under his fingernails than go to school. Prom was generally successful, and I'm still exhausted from toting around the 10 pounds of hairspray that held my hair together for four hours. I'm working on a baby blanket that kept me up 'till midnight--that and watching House reruns--and it's a really simple basketweave pattern (k5, p5, k5, p5...50 sts for five rows and alternate for five rows and repeat to desired length) that looks precious. PS- does Ke$ha even know what Mick Jagger looks like?

So my mom and I decided to do a diet cleanse before prom, since the dress I'm borrowing is about two sizes too small for me. I'll need more than Crisco and fishing twine to fit into this baby. But I'm really in the mood to wear something like this. I doubt I'd have to survive on steamed cabbage and whey shakes for a week to make the hamburger dress work. Now accepting votes for my next wild knit project--I've run out of crazy ideas so it's time to ask the audience.

I have an audience, right?

Happy Easter!

The newly released Ipad sounds a little sketchy at best. Personally, I was under the impression that Tampax and Apple teamed up to make some sort of digitized feminine hygiene product. Like I said--sketchy.

Anyway, Happy Easter. I'll be spending this holiday knitting a pale green beanie for my trip to France. Should be the same color as my Monkey Punk Rock Backpack. Not terribly exciting, but I'll be spending time with the family and working on my vegetable garden as well. I think we're going to paque eggs this year, should be fun. Joyeux Paques!

Owl mittens, sweaters, etc.

Finished the Owl Mittens, thank goodness--I just have to buy a tapestry needle small enough to thread yarn through the buttonholes of 1/8th inch pearl buttons for the eyes. Just started an Anthropologie inspired capelet from the Winter '05 Catalog to match my Easter dress.

Currently having a bit of trouble with the sleeves, I think I'm just not used to the raglan pattern, though it seems moderately simple...We'll see how that turns out. Turns out I was nominated out of the 200 some odd seniors as one of the top three 'Wittiest' students. Clearly my peers were strapped for options if my name got tossed in the hat.

Senior Favorites

I feel like Senior Favorites are just another way to tell me how unpopular I am. And how unnatural it is that I only leave my room on Church holidays and days when Walmart has a sale on yarn.

Are You Calling Me Fat?

A Day in the Life of a Garbanzo Bean [Rough Draft of my Autobiography]

Monday, March 22, 2010
I've come down with the worst case of senioritis I've ever imagined. Despite persistent efforts to study this weekend, I was forced, by nature of my affliction, to skip around in the sunshine and plant a patio vegetable garden--I enjoy pretending that I'm a hobbit. Anyway, it came to pass this morning that my dog--a rather largish black lab--had a bit of a tussle with a possum sometime in the wee hours. Rather than abandon the task of disposing of the monster to my father or, better yet, my thirteen year old brother who id genetically engineered to enjoy the sight of mangled corpses, I, the seventeen year old girl, was asked to bury the poor ole' chap while my father supervised with the flashlight [since it was still dark out] And, as I laboriously crafted a trench for the lad, I pondered the strange reversal of roles that was taking place--that I should have to tote such a weighty carcass into its earthen casket and give the pest a proper sendoff. Not that I wasn't proud; just call me the Possum Slayer. Since it is Monday, however, I had little time to gloat over my conquest of the dratted thing before time constraints forced me to school [The Dreaded Institution, Via Della Rosa, etc.] where a friend and I discussed the semblance between Keira Knightley, Gandalf the Grey, and a Shetland Pony. More to come--it's only 10 AM. Suffice it to say I'll have more news by High Tea. Pip, pip, cheerio.

As always, a hectic weekend--even with an extra day to sit n' knit. I spent some time in touch with my inner pioneer this Sunday by revitalizing our terribly lacking patio. There's something enormously satisfying in chowing down on rosemary bread that comes from your very own rosemary. ['romarin', comme les français]. I'm also working on a pot of patio tomatoes and I sprinkled wildflower seeds around the clever looking design that I arranged with a broken-beyond-repair pot that had one foot in the dumpster. After I finished playing Anne of Green Gables, I sat down to finish my long-overdue fleur de lis project and listen to some Melody Gardot with a glass of lemonade. Ah, springtime.

My next project--owl mittens. I'll get to work on this this afternoon at the fair and South Pacific. I think I'm assisting in the face painting booth. Unfortunately, I don't know how to paint faces...

So last night I was unfortunately roused from my sleep by what appeared to be an ear infection--upon waking up not in head splitting pain, I think it's just fluid trapped in my ear. I've been working on a Celtic scarf for nearly a week now and I've hit something of a standstill. On a lighter note, I'm looking forward to watching South Pacific this weekend and wishing I was in the 1940s as a nurse. Kudos to all my friends who will be performing--break a leg for me.

My brain is about to fall out of my left ear. I have so much to do this week/weekend it's almost inconceivable. Almost. But I still found time to finish the demanded Shark Mittens for this precious little boy [who has just been eaten by a chocolate doughnut] and go to a friend's presentation and write a twelve page research paper and replant my rosemary and get killer rope burn from my dog's leash and go to a St. Patty's Day parade and break the bank by spending more than my monthly earning on a Pokemon Nintendo video game for said precious little child who has my heart wrapped around his little finger. All this while battling my biannual head cold and trying to plan around application deadlines and work commitments, etc. etc. etc.

I'm feeling rather like a frumious Bandersnatch tonight. As soon as I got home from school, Nicholas gave me his cutest face and demanded Shark Mittens. How could I say no to this look? Also, having trouble editing pictures, so they all look ridiculously large and I look like one of those people who posts on their blog with ridiculously large pictures. A word about Abby Rice and how she eats pasta.
Gentle reader, I know not if you are familiar with the feeding habits of an octopus but I have to imagine the two are something akin. According to extensive internet perusal, octopi seek their prey using visual and tactile cues to trap wary Nemos and Dorys with their tentacles. Rather comparable to Abby Rice's tongue, because from what I've witnessed of this appendage snatching pasta out of thin air, I might imagine it to be somewhat like the octopi luring its prey into strangulation and certain death.

As The Annual Baton Rouge St. Patty's Day festivities draw near, I've found myself inundated with clever knitting patterns that I plan on finishing for the Parade and the holiday itself. Also, I've been craving a bit of Nana's famous Irish Soda bread for a tea party. I'll invite the Mad Hatter and his ilk--I'm sure Johnny Depp would enjoy such a Frabjous Day.

I want to spend a year of my life going from Domrémy, Lorraine to Rouen and charting the journey of Joan of Arc. According to some shady records that I've looked over, she first saw St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret at the age of 12 then traveled to Robert de Braudricourt for permission to lead the Siege of Orleans at age 16. Approx. a year later--according to a letter written in 1429--she was granted an escort to Chinon to visit Charles VII. In April 1429, she was subjected to tests at Poitiers to ensure that she was not a sorceress. Once it was confirmed that she was not of the devil, she was sent to aid in the Siege, which was successful only two months after her arrival, comparable to the five months of cautious French leadership that had left the situation in stalemate. Following this victory, she reclaimed the fortress of Saint Augustins with the aid of only one captain. The Maid of Orleans then formulated plans to push the Burgundians back from Reims. On the 16th of July, the city gates were opened in Reims and the Dauphin's coronation was the next day. After minor action at La-Charité-sur-Loire in December, Joan moved to Compiègne at the decree of Charles VII, where she was captured in a skirmish in April of 1430 and held for costly ransom at Vermandois and the Burgundian town of Arras. She was moved to Rouen and was killed a year later by the decree of the Bishop Cauchon of Beauvais {it's very little surprise that his name, in French, means 'pig'} on to 30th of May, 1431 at the stake.
In summation of that tediously long backstory, I would like to travel the life of Joan of Arc for a year--living simply with nothing more than a backpack, enough money to provide for hostels and simple country meals, some good hiking boots, a bike maybe. Or a stallion that I could ride into battle. We'll see.

Say hello to Maxine the Meowing Shark. She enjoys long walks on the beach and eating small mammals.

...but I've finally finished one of the two mittens that I'd planned to have finished by Friday. The likelihood of that happening is slim at best. It looks a bit like one of these so far--haven't added the mouth, fins, eyes, etc. and didn't get a chance to take a picture, so I just pulled this one off the internet. I was having a bit of trouble transferring the stitches onto the holder and re-CingO stitches onto the dpn. Also, I abandoned the Kitchener stitch halfway through and decided that it would be a better idea--for the sake of my sanity--to just thread some spare yarn through the remaining stitches and seam them together. All together, I'm exceedingly impressed with myself. Having undergone the rite of passage of creating a mitten, I can now call myself an advanced knitter.

**Thanks to my aunt, my boss, and my boss's mother for the mental help during The Great Mitten Escapade**and also my boyfriend for talking me off the ledge at various intervals during this project**

I've abandoned the legwarmers for a bit of a challenge--these fanged little beauties. A friend planning on college-ing in North Carolina will need them for the long winter. And nothing keeps fingers warm better than precious predators.

Nowadays I'm seeing less and less of the cable knit sweater dresses that always get me thinking ["hey, I could do that"]. But, as winter rears the last of its very ugly head, it makes me wonder what I could possibly knit for spring. I can't put away the needles and take an eight month hiatus, as I had planned, because our trip to France always leaves me in desperate need of lace knit sweaters and scarves to accent the suitcase full of luggage that I am allotted. A shawl, perhaps? Any ideas?

This is the beginning of a legwarmer that was going to compliment my new booties. We'll see how that goes.

Finally finished the two precious little dog sweaters--don't they look awesome? Currently experimenting with leg warmers to match my new dress because the weather decided to take another sudden dip and my spring frock is now completely ridiculous given the below-freezing sleet that is relentlessly pounding BR. I spent this weekend planting rosemary and reading Julie and Julia {I would highly recommend it to anyone who needs a quick laugh} and learning how to use double pointed needles, so expect some mittens in the next few weeks to justify the hours spent in front of youtube videos trying to get the yarn to twist correctly.

Universally productive week--managed to finish mom's fleur de lis pattern for the front of her backpack and finished two dog sweaters with an intarsia fleur de lis on the front of each. [guess it's really popular because of dem Saints] Managed to avoid financial catastrophe in Hobby Lobby on the yarn aisle--I was thoroughly prepared to lay down my monthly earnings on a few skeins of Patons, but I held out until my bimonthly shopping excursion to get a springy dress. The weather outside is frightful, but bikinis and floral patterns are just around the corner. Best put away the legwarmers I just started working on and whip out the tanning oil.

Hey, guys. Whasup? I've gotten a request from the lovely and charming Abagail Rice that I start a blog about my creations. I guess it was the intarsia monkey backpack that got everyone so hyped up about the idea. Not sure why. Simple pattern for 'Punk Rock Backpack' in Stitch 'n Bitch. My current WIP (work in progress, for all you non-knitters) is a pair of dog sweaters sporting a black and gold fleur de lis (Geaux Saints!) for a lady working in the office. Best of luck, I'm improving heavily on the pattern, but I'll post it as soon as I see that it actually fits something canine sized. Peace out, girl scouts.

A Day in the Life

Spider Solitaire

Happy Easter!

Owl mittens, sweaters, etc.

Senior Favorites

The Possum Slayer/ Mortician

Are You Calling Me Fat?

The Pioneer Woman Knitz

Owl Mittens

Ear Infection

Crazyhectic

Little Brothers, Pasta, Jabberwocky

Erin go braugh

My next project:

Say hello to my little friend.

It only took seven hours...

Jaws

Spring?

Dog Sweaters

Fleur de Lis

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