July 14, 2003
Requiem for a Ball
Remember my posting about the cheap-o Victorian gazing ball made out of one of Frankie’s plastic balls? The original photo as a reminder:
And here, a new photo, showing the remains of the Victorian gazing ball after one encounter too many with something sharp.
Now that her ball is in this shape, Frankie's favorite thing to do is “kill” it by shaking it viciously to snap its little purple plastic ball neck. All she really succeeds in doing is beating herself quite smartly about the face. Needless to say, we encourage her to do this as much as possible because, well, we get some good laughs at her expense.
Knitting Knews
Not much to report in the knitting area. I did discover that I had stirred up some mild but intriguing controversy with my comments about knitting with plastic. No regrets, though. I learned some things I might otherwise never have learned, and was exposed to some amazingly creative things I might never otherwise have been exposed to!
Saturday night I did some knitting on the toe of the Opal Brazil sock while I was watching a movie in the dark with K and some friends. When it came time to turn out the lights, I assured and reassured everyone that, heck, yeah, I could knit in the dark, no problem. When the lights came back on again, the new section I had knit was unrecognizable as part of a sock. Shhhhhhhh. Don't tell!
Dyeing Dyegest
True to my word, I went and clipped large wads of parsley off the parsley plant. Not so true to my word, I also cut right through one of K’s plastic drip watering tubes. I got The Look.
When I put the hot water on the parsley, unlike the other steeping plants which just look like, well, plants in water, the parsley, being delicate and edible and herby-y and all, immediately metamorphosed into parsley soup. As I do with all my steeping plants, I put the bowl of parsley soup in K’s garage. By the next morning, her garage smelled as if someone had tried to conserve retail space by combining an Italian restaurant with an auto body shop.
Dye-wise, this story has an unsatisfying ending. I got no color from the parsley, just that same light yellow I got from the foxglove. At first, I thought the light yellow was a cool, unique color but now I know it's plant code for "neener, neener."