Step Into My Thimble

Hey! It’s knitting content. This is about the purple cardigan I’m making which is an altered version of the cardie from Hip to Knit.*

At 3.5 stitches to the inch, it’s going fast. It is handspun yarn from Ebay and it’s definitely homemade. Lots of plant bits, lanolin…but it doesn’t smell and it’s very dense. It will probably be more of a jacket when it’s done, but I planned on that.

I decided to have a simple cable going up the two front pieces just for variety.

And Stanley…I hear somebody is using his picture as their screen saver! What a popular little guy.

Hello to my Secret Pal (3) who tells me she lives in Latin America and the post office wanted to charge $80 to send me something! Just send a postcard–it’s not worth that expense.

Tonight is a bonus KIP since it’s the fifth Thursday. I’ll be there!

*Anybody else getting sick of the word “hip” used to describe modern knitting and crochet patterns? I don’t really know why, it just bugs me.

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Oh and how can I forget ANTM? Since the site doesn’t say how they schedule the eliminations, I didn’t know that yesterday they were going to cut two people. I had voted Leah off, and I think Betty picked Magdalena. If that’s right, then we BOTH got the first cut correct!

The best line of the night was when one judge said Kristi looked like she fell off the back of a dairy truck.

Rodney’s in on the game too. He decided to tally how many times each of the girls cry. But with one caveat: If they all cry, then it cancels out. It’s all a bunch of ridiculous drama, and it makes me wonder how long Tyra can keep it up before the series devolves into complete trash. (Yeah I know, it already is.)

Over the weekend I got a lot done fixing up this web site. Some of my long term readers might remember the server disaster that happened in May, right before Rodney and I got married, and if you look at the Archives links you’ll see that there’s a big gap between October, 2003 and June, 2004. Well, the gaps haven’t been filled in yet, but all the old posts leading up to October, 2003, have been restored and all the links fixed up.

I also added a whole ton of stuff to my galleries, not the least of which is my animated GIF of the seeminly endless Shriners parade I attended in Kansas a long time ago. I totally want one of those mini ATVs. Can you see me riding it down the Eisenhower to work? And popping wheelies? I probably better wait until I can get a fez to go with it.

Can I just admit one disgusting secret about myself? Without being completely hated? OK.

I like America’s Next Top Model.

Actually I hate it too, if it’s possible to do both simultaneously.

I never really got into reality TV when it was the new thing, but so MUCH TV is reality TV now that if you’re going to watch TV at all, you really can’t avoid it. And this show is one of the few I actually watch. I’d take a Pioneer Quest or a Manor House any day of the week, but the “good” PBS ones just aren’t on as often.

I recently discovered that my employee Betty is equally obsessed with the show (or ANTM, as we fans like to call it), and was as eagerly anticipating the start of the third season as I was. If there’s anyone else in my circle of friends, they haven’t admitted it yet. It’s OK, take your time…

As a response to the ubiquitous football pools that happen around the office, Betty and I decided to have an ANTM pool. There really aren’t any stakes, maybe just a ball of yarn or something, but we have brackets.

Anything to make the day go by better in Ye Olde Basement Archives.

It is pretty hard to fill out the entire thing though, because unlike sports teams, these girls don’t have any reputation or precedent to help us base our decisions on. We don’t know who their coaches have been for the last year, we don’t know who’s injured (OK except for that legally blind girl), we don’t have a century of ANTM competition to give us a guiding sense of the “sport.”

Right now, my ball of yarn is on Yaya.

Now that I have that out of my system, at least until the next episode comes on, I can tell you about my knitting.

I’ve had some handspun, hand-dyed Ebay yarn in the stash for a while. It took a long time to steep (you know what I’m talking about, Monica and Lynette). I have decided to make the cardigan from Hip to Knit. Except I have to alter the pattern significantly because my harn is way more bulky than the Manos in the book. It’s my first time to overhaul a pattern, but so far I think it’s going well. We’ll see when we get to the set-in sleeves.

I decided to put cables up the front pieces just for excitement. Here’s my swatch:

And on that note, we’re on a long walk to the theater to see the movie “Hero” and have a picnic of Whole Foods salad bar stuff. Lovely weather!

I made thin-crust pizza yesterday. It was very tasty! My favorite crust recipe comes from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, which is so basic and American, but seldom lets us down.

Here’s a before picture…

Mine (two little ones, one for last night and one for later) had zucchini, artichoke hearts, and fresh basil leaves on it. Yum!

And for Rodney, proscuitto, mushrooms and basil too. See how it looked coming out of the oven:

Ordinarily I just use leftover spaghetti sauce for the pizza, but this time we bought Pastorelli “Real Gourmet” pizza sauce, and it was very good.

And what does any Chicagoan need with their pizza on the last evening of summer? A Cub Can of course!

For the answer to the Felix La Poubelle thing, read on…
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I am knitting something as a surprise right now. And I’m very very lazy in other areas of life now too, so I don’t have much to post.

Here is a photo of my cat from the vault:

He’s a handsome little fellow, isn’t he? This is my favorite picture of him, ever. And he just happens to have some Brittany walnut needles next to him.

Stanley is about ten years old. He’s a stray that I rescued after watching him cross the busy street in front of my house one too many times. I always wonder about who his mom was or if he has brothers and sisters that look like him. Who knows?