JessaLu Knits (and Spins!)

Archive for November, 2007

…brought to you by summer, camping and the fact I’m hungry and considering making a s’more in the microwave. Also, there’s nothing photogenic around the house right now (I’m pissed at Jazz, she chewed my FREAKING LL Bean slipper so it’s unwearable which makes her WAY far from cute to me right now):

I also can’t see very well right this second since, for reasons unbeknownst to my conscious mind, my subconscious mind decided it would be a good idea to ram a mascara wand into my right eye about five minutes ago. Maybe it’s trying to tell me something, like my eyelashes shouldn’t be brown. What the hell is it about mascara application, anyway? You’re hovering millimeters from your eyeball with a pointy stick thinking, “must…be…careful…” and then WHAM your internal wiring has a hiccup and you have Maybelline black/brown on your cornea, your eye is watering all over the place and you have to re-do the whole freaking concealer process.

ouch.

to get in on the PIF goodness.

The latest craze to hit the blogosphere – Pay it Forward. I got in on it through Bev and now here I am posting to offer to PIF to the first three people to leave a comment on this post requesting to be a recipient of a piece of handcrafted goodness made by yours truly. I can’t promise you’ll get it quickly but I can promise you’ll get it within the next 6 months (if I say 365 days like others have, you guys will be waiting for a looong time since I’m the Queen of Procrastination (and RR is my King)).

The only catch is that you have to post this same pledge on your own blogs – so those that remain blogless cannot participate (sorry guys).

So what are you waiting for? You might get handspun if yer lucky! ;o)

…happened over this past long weekend.

Thanksgiving…happened. Everyone told me it was fine and I know I sound pretty annoying when I talk about it but I was beyond disappointed with my dry turkey and burned stuffing. I’ve been doing this for at least 12 years now, you’d think I’d have it down. I’m consoling myself with the knowledge that RR’s deep-fried turkey was moist and delicious so our guests were able to combine his with my bone-dry offering so it was hardly noticeable. What did I learn from this experience? I won’t be in such a hurry to put the thing in the oven next year and I’m done with 20+lb birds. Done.

On the plus side, it made great soup (I started with this recipe – and then messed with it):

In my defense, I was jarred out of a lovely dreamless sleep in the pre-dawn hours by the freaking fire pager. The dispatcher announced that there was a car accident and where – I put two and two together immediately, RR was a bit slower. Someone lost control of their car on the way to work at the end of our driveway:

See the car 2nd from the right in the picture? That’s my Jeep. I told you RR was a bit slow in figuring out where the accident was. ;o) This lovely wake up call messed me up for the rest of the day – I was not prepared to be up at 6 (I didn’t go to sleep the night before until about 3ish).

Okay, whining is over.

Next, the spinning!

Remember this (on the left)?

After spinning all 8oz for (what felt like) 100 years, it became 750+ yards of Navajo plied fingering weight:

Two skeins since I couldn’t fit it all onto the Sonata plying head. One skein is 200+ and the other 550+ yards. Just as I was finishing up with the plying, Kelli aka Knitter Bunny brought these to my attention. She said they knit up quickly so I thought I’d give them a try – guess what, she’s right! Even with Thanksgiving, I finished these up in a couple of nights of knitting while watching TV:

Pattern: Serpentine Mitts by Miriam Felton (free pattern).

You can see my Ravelry project page here.

Yarn: My handspun – Crown Mountain Farms pencil roving in Amethyst spun to a 3-ply fingering weight. (I’m pretty sure I still have enough left for matching socks)

Needle: Knitpicks classic circular size 2.5mm

Thoughts: I like this pattern, it was fun and quick to knit. You think they’ll be too tight, but if you follow the directions and measure (and trust the designer) they fit like a glove. (no pun intended…) This was also my first thumb gusset – it was easy! Go knit a pair! ;o)