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Old News
I am a terrible mother.
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How ’bout them caramel apples?
It will not rot your teeth.
Materials:
- Worsted weight yarn in caramel color (CC), apple color (AC), and stick color (SC). I used Wool-Ease.
- US4 dpns (set of 5)
- Polyfil or other stuffing
- Yarn needle
With CC, CO 4 st and knit I-cord for 3 inches.
Without turning work, kfb into each st (8 st total). Arrange over 4 needles (2 st per needle) and join to knit in the round.
Round 1: K1, kfb (3 st per needle, 12 st total).
Rounds 2-6: On each needle, k to last st, kfb. End with 8 st per needle, 32 st total.
Rounds 7-10: Knit plain.
Rounds 11-18: On each needle, k to last 2 st, k2tog.
With 6 st per needle (24 st total), break CC and change to AC.
End with 2 st per needle, 8 st total. Tie off or weave in ends from color change.
Stuff the apple firmly. Break AC and change to SC.
Round 19: K2tog (4 st total), knitting st onto one needle. Tie off or weave in ends from color change.
Knit I-cord for 2 inches. Break yarn, thread tail through live stitches, pull tight and weave in end.
Use yarn tail to tack the first bit of I-cord into a circle, to make a base for the caramel apple.
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Let the orange be orange
And that’s a lot of orange.
I had to bring the yarn in a little sooner than I wanted because it started to rain, but on the whole, I’m happy with how it turned out–there are some blank spots where the yarn was tied into skeins, but I’m just calling that Character and moving on. There’s a good bit of variation in the green, and some lighter-to-darker variation in the orange.
The yarn will take a while to dry, I think. If I’m smart (no guarantee) I’ll knit up a little wristband or something to see if the color will rub off if it’s made into a hat or something. I wouldn’t mind doing some kind of colorwork with the two yarns–carrots or canaries on a field of green?
Badventures in Dyeing
As with many other things, there is a Correct way to dye yarn, and then there’s chucking some yarn in a bucket with a color to see what comes out.
It’s common among knitters to have many UFOs–UnFinished Objects–and that dark corner where the UFOs pile up is Area 51. I pulled out my Area 51 bucket and found a shawl and a sweater, both in wool, both showing a bit of bug damage (I think my area is more prone to carpet beetles than moths; I haven’t actually seen anything I’d call a wool-chewing bug, but sometimes holes happen).
Yarn, half-knit
After I unravelled the shawl and a sweater, I had two large hanks of yarn, one off-white and one an oatmeal color. It wasn’t exactly free yarn, since I’d paid for it, but it’s yarn I didn’t expect to use again. Amortized yarn. Freed yarn. And somewhere deep in the back of my closet I had three boxes of Easter egg dye, of indeterminate age.
I also had adequate supervision.
If you dye things correctly, you know how hot the water should be, how much vinegar to use–that’s only for using household dyes like Kool-Aid and Wilton colors, though, real official acid dyes are a whole other level of complexity. I used hot tap water with an undetermined quantity of vinegar, and chucked in the egg dye tablets.
Yum.
The idea is that you let the yarn soak in the dye until the water is clear, so you know all the dye has gone into the yarn.
Spaghetti!
The white yarn got put into a pot with the red, yellow, and orange tabs, and the oatmeal yarn got put into a pot with the blues and greens.
BRAIIIIINS.
I covered the pots with plastic wrap and put them outside where it’s warm. The dye had sunk to the bottom of the pots so I gave them a bit of a stir…I’m not entirely sure how this is going to turn out.
Tennessee orange is a distinct possibility.
My yarn is bagged up, now, to avoid further bug damage or at least keep it contained.
I have a surfeit of yarn.
The skein of yarn that had been in the Area 51 bin didn’t show any damage, but it got a prophylactic baking just in case.
…it’s what’s for dinner!
Once a year, during employee appreciation week at my library, we play a Family Feud type game. Would you like to give us the answers to our questions?
Our survey is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ovgj9t9w8UmWM3rpQkuUz5_uwDYfhit7y6OT9JKZJww/viewform
Thank you! the theme is superheroes in movies, television, and comic books, but you don’t have to know a lot about them to answer questions.
This is the draft of our congratulations! you’re nominated for a major award! certificates. Bunny Watson gets a lot of awards during the drafting phase.
Thanks for your help, everybody!
Morning haiku
Edward at my knee
And Gypsy at my ankle
Sorry kids gotta pee
I’ve been using “on the bed at the same time” as a benchmark for cat amicability–of course it’s been cold, but I’m taking it as a win.
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AAAIIIIIEEEEE!!!!!!
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Scary things from history
Angry bombs
Why is this scary? because it turns atomic bombing into a game. This is from a current exhibit at our special collections library, about living in the atomic age.
I find this scary, too–it’s a book of cutouts to help you plan your bomb shelter, but the way the people are displayed it reminds me of the shadows of Hiroshima. I don’t have a picture of the civil defense guide that advises you, if you’re out on the street when The Bomb hits, that you should lay in the gutter with a newspaper over your face.
This is from the annual women’s history month display. I find this scary because the proper goose is marked with the British broad arrow, which marked prisoner’s uniforms, so this is referring (I think) to the suffragists in prisons. (“Propagander” is pretty clever, though.)
The colors of the womens’ movement were green, white, and purple–the exhibit mixes U. S. and British artifacts, though, so I don’t know if those colors were used in both countries or only in Britain.
There are lots of cat items. I don’t know if it’s cats = cute or women = cats. Some years there’s a Votes for Women teacup on display–it’s one of my favorite things but it’s not out this year.
Whenever I look at things in a museum I always ask, “Could I knit that?” (<–shallow. Whatever.) That shawl on the cat on the left looks easy enough. The cat on the right?
I am familiar with that expression.
Actually Gypsy and Edward are doing pretty well together. Gypsy has no truck with Edward’s RUN AND JUMP style of play, and there’s a bit of hissing when personal spaces intersect, but this morning Gypsy was on the couch and Edward was in my lap, so that was nice.
On Gypsy’s right are my Oscar night projects, Thork and the Cork of Misrule.
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Last night there was staring
I brought Edward into Gypsystan. I left the door open all night but there didn’t seem to be any osmosis between the worlds.
I STARE AT YOU
NO I STARE AT YOU
Everything went well until I accidentally pinched Gypsy’s paw in the lid of the cedar chest when I was looking for a sweater. I am revealed as an ogre and her only hope is to be taken quickly when the eatings begin.
Ogre. I knew it.
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Peg of Tilling Does Some Knitting 