Mossy Cottage Knits

Mrff.

No postings on Friday or next week, Dear Readers. We will be winging our way to California for a bout of Surreal Meet-Ups with Complete Strangers Who Share Our My Love of Knitting and for, of course, the Wedding of the Year, and then we will happily be playing hostesses to Rachael and Lala as they, in turn, swoop through our neck of the woods. I’m not sure Seattle is ready for this… News at 11.

(Remember my description of “Princeton Hugs" (me) vs. “Italian Hugs” (them)? Well, pray for me, Dear Readers, because, since TMK grew up in San Jose and still has molto famiglia there, I will be descending smack-dab into the “Land of Scary-Big, Bone-Crushing Italian Hugs.” I just hope my spine is strong enough to stand up to those arbitrarily administered, vertebrae-splintering squeezes.

On a brighter note, I do not believe I will be encountering any of the dreaded Cheek-Pinching Aunties, whom even TMK fears. Go near her cheeks with your fingers held in pinch position, and she will blanch and flee from the room. (Truth: TMK very rarely gets mad at me but if I make the cheek-pinching gesture at her, she goes all Exorcist on me, no lie.) And TMK, do not, now, immediately call every member of your famiglia enorme and tell them to pinch my cheeks when they see me. I know how your mind works.)

While we’re gone, Frankie will be staying at “Doggie Disneyland,” otherwise known as her dog-walker’s house. We just pray that when we pick her up again, she has as much of her schnozz as she had when we dropped her off. But we will love her all the same, even if all she can say is, “Mrff.” (TMK, are you thinking “Travels with Charlie?” I know I am.)

On the knitting front, I finished all the pieces for the Wing and a Prayer Sweater, so called because it’s a crapshoot whether I have enough of either of the yarns I picked to knit it with, a reassuringly huge ball of jewel-toned Wool Pak and a less-reassuring half-ball of purple Encore for the ribbing. I now know I had enough of the Wool Pak, thank you, Jesus; now the question is just the Encore, since I have the neckband and ribbing still to go.

(The purple is a much darker, grapier purple than the photo shows, and the variegated colors are much more jewel-toned. They are both, in a word, yummy.)

In the meantime, however, I have been mightily distracted by the most fun yarn I’ve ever knit with, this stuff handspun by Melinda:

This yarn is an outrageously kicky and giddy combination of super-bright variegated neon and a luscious, dark plum, dark liver-brown color. I am absolutely convinced that anything made out of this yarn will make the Mongolians go weak at the knees.

I don’t want to waste any of this yarn, and it demands of me that I knit Just the Right Thing, so first I knit The Tentative Beginnings of a Hat...

...which ended up too small, even by Mongolian orphanage and kindergarten standards—and would have used up just the wrong amount of yarn, leaving me with too much yardage to throw away with a clear conscience, yet not enough to knit something else—so I frogged it, bethought me of knitting a scarf, but decided it was just that-much too scratchy for one’s tender neck skin, and am now thinking, mittens, yes, definitely mittens.

I do believe this is the only ball of yarn I have carried around with me for no reason other than that it makes me happy. If you’ve seen Wendy’s entry about her cat carrying around a piece of Styrofoam, then you understand how I feel about this yarn.

Toodlepipski until later, chums!

(P.S. Pam reports that all of the Prince Edward Island yarn has found new homes. Thanks for everyone who helped take the yarn off of her hands! Now, you Chicagoans, hie ye to Becca’s Knit-In!)

Posted by Ryan at March 29, 2006 10:56 AM