So, I said last month I would make an update before the start of Tournament 5 of Nerd Wars. Yes, today is now May 31st..... I took a bit of a sabbatical from knitting. Each Tournament of Nerd Wars is three months long. Most everyone peeters out a bit by the time the third month rolls around. I figured it would be a good idea to take a break mentally and physically. I have finished up some things, which is good.
I went back to dishcloths, its so easy for me to just grab some cotton and churn out the patterns I have memorized. I did do a nice one that will be given to my MIL. She is here in New York visiting her father, the husbands grandfather, who was diagnosed with a very rare cancer two months ago. She goes back to Illinois in the middle of June, so I may make her a few more things for her new kitchen. Most of these dishcloths are from a while ago, the round ones needed to be seamed which is my vice, I hate seaming. I just put it off until I have a pile that bugs me more than the seaming. Then, once I get a pile of cloths done. I feel like I actually accomplished something. I knit most of these at work, as dishcloths are the easiest and smallest thing to keep with me. The one on the very bottom is Crocus and the three orange ones are to go with the one I made for the Klimt challenge in R2 of T4. The pink ones and the green/brown ones are made from REAL Peaches and Cream, as in its Elmore Pisgah P&C. Those will be hidden away somewhere for me or for my very very close relatives. There were two more in this pile, but I already gifted two round green ones to my mother for her Anniversary/Birthday/Mother's Day gift. All three of those events happen within the same week or so of May.
Here's a better picture of the Crocus Dishcloth. I should probably block it so the lace pattern shows up better. In hindsight, I probably should have used a solid, but I love these colors. Apart from finishing dishcloths I have made one thing this month. I have finished the knitting on a oven mitt that still needs to be felted. It will be my first felting attempt in fact. Here's what it looks like now.
I need to weave in the remaining ends and then visit my parents. I've decided to do the felting there since all I have here are quarter activated apartment washing machines. I cant control the cycles how I want to and, call me cheap, but I don't want to pay to felt one oven mitt. The dark blue is actually darker than this IRL, so I don't want to put real clothes or anything with the mitt in case the colors run. I also would prefer to do this in the privacy of my parents house in case it turns into an utter disaster. I think my Mom will enjoy watching the process anyway. Although she used to knit, I'm pretty sure she never felted anything intentionally or otherwise. Since she knit for us kids, she used acrylic exclusively. Anytime she knit with wool, it was something she did on commission that she never saw (or washed) again.
I am planning on doing a dissertation for T5. I really need to finish that poor cursed Hermione Mitten so that I can have my US5's back for the sock I plan to do for said dissertation. Also, it would probably be a good idea to finish that mitten for the sake of finishing it since I started the first one in November of last year and the hat that the mittens match was finished in May of last year. It seems logical to get a set done within a year, right? What I really need to do is finish the shrug I started last May. That, to date, has been my most expensive project. I should be wearing all that money and showing it off! Don't get me wrong I don't regret getting the yarn or anything, I love the colors and the shiny fuzziness of it. I need to find the motivation to do it. Its so pretty and will turn heads, I know it. Its not even a difficult pattern, I just need to DO IT.
Since this blog is supposed to be about Sci-fi too... in other news I have found Farscape! It shouldn't have taken me this long, but it did. I have an obsession with Ben Browder now. I had and appreciation before, when I knew him only as Cam Mitchell on Stargate, but now... Now, I want to have this man's babies.... okay I don't actually want to have any one's babies but you get my meaning that way. I really like John Crichton, the humor, the "earth lingo", the muscles, everything. I'm into season 2 now. Its gotten darker but all the interrelationships are really starting to develop. Its fun and interesting and not like the stuff I normally get obsessed with. I tend to go for happier shows. Star Trek, although I loved Enterprise for its unstartreklike darkness, so it is logical. Stargate is much happier, even Atlantis. I didn't like SGU, but I may give it another try now. From what little I saw of it there was alot of in-fighting and I despise petty in-fighting, especially when death is on the line... no seriously, the atmosphere is depleting, lets keep arguing about which faction should be in charge.... I deal with that too much in real life so I don't want to see it in my de-stressing off time too.
In funny other news, the other weekend when we took over my parents house, my husband found out first hand why grease fires are dangerous. Also the incident reiterated the adage that when grilling fire extinguishers should be near by. No one was hurt or anything, except the poor grill. One of the burners doesn't work now, and the temperature gauge most likely will never recover. It went into the red area and then kept going and went around again. It was hot fire...
This is after he put the fire out with the extinguisher. I knew something was wrong when the smoke turned from normal grill smoke to think blue smoke. He turned off the burners but the fire kept burning a little. We thought it would go out on its own, but it had moved to the front where the burner wiring is, that's when it started clicking like it was trying to light itself. I was getting ready to run like heck. Hubs grabbed the extinguisher and luckily the clicking stopped once all the fire was out. Like I said only three of the four burners works correctly now, but the grill sure is clean. The grease fire burnt all the built up crud off of everything. (Its actually our grill but its at my parents house so they use it, but don't clean it, much to the dismay of my ODC hubs) Now that its all clean, we've been using tin foil on the racks so it stays that way. Moral of my story... ahem, think Smokey the Bear voice here, "Always keep your grill clean to prevent grease fires, and embarrassing blog posts." Alrighty that's it for me...
Happy crafting!
-Q
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