So The Rhine-O’s are home. And as always, it looks like they had a fantastic time. Now we SAFFholes are in the throes of fiber fever. Which explains why this post is all over the map. I, myself have gotten precious little done all week because I’m so keyed up. I would have been excited anyway, but now that La is coming back for a fiber reunion tour, I’m like a kid at christmas. I don’t even plan to buy anything-not saying I won’t, but I’m not looking for anything in particular. Nothing like a best friend coming to visit, a fiber festival, knitting parties and booze to make me cheerful. I even broke ice on the goat and bird water this morning without complaint. ICE. In freekin’ OCTOBER. In the south. Oh wait, that was a complaint, wasn’t it. Well ok, but it was ICE. Cold. Just sayin’.
Hey guess what? I knit. Who knew?
Exhibit A:
It’s the Irish Hiking Scarf pattern from Hello Yarn, knitted for the Red Scarf Project. Which is a project in which I very dearly believe. (Sorry, Norma, I just can’t tell Panera that I want to knit there. Our group had our first meeting in the local Panera and it was noisy, crowded, poorly lit and lacking in other comforts. That won’t stop me from knitting red scarves, though. ) I also have another red scarf nearly ready to bind off, but I figured why take a picture now when it’ll be done shortly-I’ll just do an FO shot later.
Exhibit B:
Fingerless Mitts from Garnstudio. Only I knit them in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran because I’m a rebel and I’ll never never be any good. Sorry the picture is so blown out by the sun. I have one that shows the colors better, but you can hardly see my dry, scaly skin in that one so how can I post it? If it upsets you, please be appeased by the fact that I took the pic of the purple mitts against my purple Beautyberry bush and pretend you can actually see the knitting without getting a migraine. I’ve decided I really like Fair Isle. This is nothing new, I’ve liked it since I learned to do it, but lately it seems to be the only knitting that I actually consider fun. I don’t know why that is. I don’t dislike other kinds of knitting, I’m just so……whelmed… with everything out there lately. Hopefully SAFF will get the mojo running.
Oh. I have a handy tip for you today. Yesterday I was dyeing yarn and I stained my hands red. No, the tip is not that you should wear gloves-though you should. Yeah, yeah, Scout, I know. I picked the skein up out of the rinse water one time and bam! Looked like I’d been working on a horror film and had my hands in fake blood for a couple of weeks. So I remembered this trick I learned on set and tried it out to see if it would work. I squirted a liberal dollop of shaving cream on my hands, rubbed it to give a nice thick coating all over both of them and let it sit for a couple minutes, lightly rubbing them together from time to time. When the foam had a slight tinge of pink, I rinsed and repeated. And lo and behold! Less pink. It wasn’t 100%, but it was a vast improvement. If you ever find you’ve :ahem: accidentally dyed your hands, try it. It works best with plain, unflavored Barbasol. I once used it to take fake blood out of an off-white carpet and I’ve been a believer ever since.
Now I must go and sip tea to cleanse my liver in preparation for the weekend.
