The Thrifty Knitter

Go look at Laurenn’s show pictures! I’ll be cropping some of them to show costume detail (and so I can stick them in ravelry, of course), and I’ll try to send out programs to my knitting helpers next week.

Yay! It was really wonderful, but so much work, so I’m relieved it’s over. And I was thrilled at how fun and saucy the ladies made it.

Sadly, the unraveling dress thing didn’t work out–too much trouble/not enough time for them to mess with, which was disappointing, but what can you do?

If any other burlesque ladies out there want to give it a go, let me know. I’d really love to actually see it work out. You need to have a helper to unravel it, and you have to haul ass unraveling and be committed to reknitting and working out the timing. But if you could do it, it would be a super twirly spectacle. I think it’s totally doable in the span of a song if your unraveler is pulling solid the whole time. I could provide a finished dress, an explanation of how it works, and the pattern to reknit so you can practice. It’s only 30 st for the apron and 60 in the round (increasing to about 80, tops), so it’s superfast to reknit.

Now that that’s over, I’m doing gift knitting. It was part of the stashalong KAL within a KAL, but I’ve been ousted for not posting an update last week, boo. But the gifts still need making, so knit them I will. And because I’m feeling needy after my nixing, I just asked to join the Zimmermania KAL, as one of the gifts is an EZ.

I’m really thrilled with the yarns I got in the Webs cone sale! I will be making lots of machine-knit cotton blankets and probably some hand-knit rugs. We always need more blankets around here. And I’ll be making Ron a sweater of brown donegal tweed. Probably a round raglan, my favorite. I’ve been promising him a sweater forever. I swear I’m not afraid of the sweater curse; just scattered and selfish.

Just realized I neglected to post this over the weekend! Please help us spread the word & post this on your site! (Thanks to Laurenn McCubbin for the poster! We’ll have them for sale at the show!)

I love the Naughty Needles Burlesque “costumes” that will actually be able to make it into my normal wardrobe afterwards. Here’s one. It’s for the schoolgirl act, but it turned out awfully cute!

Here’s a closeup of the button placket, which I really love:

Plus the buttons are awfully cute. I know I’ll wear the cardigan plenty. I’m less sure of whether I’ll wear the skirt, as it’s a bit short. it’s got three little inset “pleats,” one in the center & one on either side, and the back is flat and closes with button. Originally, I thought it would have two wide panels at the sides, two narrow panels at the front and back center, and four pleats. But somehow the math of the fabric and how it stretches in real life never quite jibe, so I had to ditch a whole large panel to keep it from being gargantuan.

So instead of a side button closure, I steeked the back with a crocheted steek. The I knit on a little placket and some button loops. The girl wearing it in the show is tiny, so I can make it close nice and tight for her, then move the buttons for myself afterwards.

Here’s the crocheted steek, which I learned here. I’ve seen instructions that look more like a slip stitch, but this is a single crochet. And you just work the sc through half of the stitch you’ll be cutting and half it’s adjacent neighbor. I started at the top and looped down, then back up to the edge again.

Then you just cut right down the middle, along the ladders you’d be using if you were doing a mattress stitch.

Here’s a shot that shows the wrong side, too:

Very tidy! I have to admit, I was shocked it worked. I was skeptical enough to try it on a swatch first. When that worked, I tried it on kind of a crappy sweater experiment. The knitting was too loose, and it didn’t work well and threatened to pull loose and fray, so I abandoned it. I think this is best for a snug gauge. But I also I think if you had some kind of application without any pressure (or if you were felting), you could even just leave this as your finished edge. But when you pick up, you do it on the next row down from the steek, so you’re knot tugging at the edging holding your cut stitches together. I’ll get a shot of the button closure when I sew on the buttons to fit Taylor next Wednesday.

I also finally sewed the buttons (pearl buttons with metal shanks–too reflective to see in the sunlight) onto the nun sweater for the show. It turned out too tight, but I figure it only has to stay on for a few minutes. I think it will be a good unbuttoned sweater (with the collar folded down) for me to wear after the show. It’s way too scratchy to wear without a shirt, so it’s fine that I can’t button it without looking like a sausage that’s been grilled til the skin bursts.

Well, crap. Another month has ended without my sewing the buttons on several big WIP, so my final 3-month stashalong total has fallen short of my 4500g goal with just 3976g eliminated, even though I have at least another couple pounds off the needles. But they don’t count as FOs until they’re completely ready to wear. At least I can get a headstart on July.

Tonight I finished a very cute cheerleader-type skirt with a handsome steeked button placket in back. It’s awfully cute, but sadly probably a little too short for me to wear in real life unless I suddenly start cutting out the bonbons and exercising. And I’m sleeve seams away and buttons away from its matching cardigan. Got a lot finished this weekend, despite wasting ages dealing with the flooding basement again. Though after the hell that was the first big flood, I’m counting my blessings about this one, which rated more on the level of big pain in the ass than existential depression. My mom was in town visiting, so she helped a lot, and we rewarded ourselves with shrimp cocktail, fried snackies, and big margaritas (one each! moderation, looky-looky! a perk of having to drive 20 minutes to a margarita) in Osage. I worked on my button placket while we sipped our cocktails, then had to take a nap the second we got home, as I’m now unaccustomed to mid-day margaritas and even one makes it naptime. (Ron’s friend Jesse calls beer “sleepy pop,” about the cutest name ever. I guess margaritas are my sleepy slush, which doesn’t sound nearly as adorable. Maybe because it sounds like a drunkard slurry “sleepy lush”?)

I’m going to go hit those seams and pick out some buttons! Productivity, thy name is Nikol!

Just added these to my destashaganza:

Well, not yet, but it will be. At this point, I’m way past overkill on the fiber bake. This afternoon, I’m going to try to dump my Bikram CDs to my ipod,  get my yoga on, then crank up a window fan to exhaust out all the hot air, vacuum like crazy, and organize all my fabulous newly-sterile fiber. Yay! Hopefully, tomorrow we can go get the freezer and put it up in Home Ec.

Then I need to make a list of all my outstanding Naughty Needles Burlesque projects. In the end, I decided to do the rest of it myself, because I’m shit at managing volunteers, and with the mail and everything else, there were just too many variables. Control freaks no like variables. So tonight, my plan is to re-sort all the costumes, finish anything that’s almost finished (buttons on the nun outfit, I’m looking at you!), and make a big scary to do list of all the huge projects I’ve inevitably forgotten, as is my way.

And then I will be knitting my ass off.

I’m all revved up after revisiting Getting Things Done, and I’m filled with a completely unrealistic surge of productive optimism. Hooray!  I’m also vowing not to touch maddeningly addictive ravelry again until I’ve got my today’s list done. So there!

Between updating my destash tally and cataloging my stash in ravelry, I decided to destash a bit.

I’ve got to cross some things off my list before I mosey over to the other half of my stash cupboard, where I may find some more goners. If I were more industrious/had more time, I’d make all that Tibet into a blanket. Hm. That’s super tempting.

eta: I’ve just been relieved of the temptation, thank goodness. I have too many imaginary projects as it is!

I guess I just had to be patient and wait for the sun to help it reach critical mass. It’s at least 105. I started to get the vapors (not really, but who wants to stand around in a hot room like a jackass all day?) at 105.1 and headed out with a whoo hoo! I’m going to check back in a couple of hours, and if it’s just as hot or hotter, we’ll be in business!

Yay! It’s working! Now I don’t have to haul a bazillion bags of wool back and forth, nor sort through 4 dozen boxes, picking out fabric. And I’m genuinely considering doing a little Bikram sesh if I can find my CDs. It’s been forever and my back is bugging me today.

Took another picture of my latest handspun, since I can’t stop admiring it. I know I’ve already posted it like a hundred times, but now that it’s been washed, it’s fluffy wuffy and very well balanced. Look! Fluffy wuffy!

So I submitted a pattern to magknits a couple of months ago, and they allegedly wanted to use it, but since I sent it in, I can’t seem to get any confirmation from them and it’s making me all antys-pantsy stalkery. I did have some email burps with them, so maybe it’s just a technical problem, but jeez. I totally have that what-if-all-my-friends-are-only-pretending-to-like me insecurity now.

I’m still waiting for my idiotic brilliant hot room plan to materialize, but when I checked this morning, it was still in the 90s. According to this, you need at least 100 degrees to kill all stages. Since I can’t actually find any bugs, practically speaking, that means I should either use the appropriate temperature for imaginary insects (annoyingly, not listed), or eggs (2 days at 99, 1 day at 102, or 4 hours at 04). Or it looks like 2 days at 100 would achieve 100% mortality for all stages as well, so maybe that’s what I’ll strive for.

But I’m wasting way too much electricity, so if I can’t get the room to 100 by this afternoon, I’m moving everything to a little tiny room and baking it in there. That’s a less desirable option, because that would mean going through all my fabric as well, which would be tedious (and hot).

The trouble with treating a theoretical problem versus an observable problem is that you have to be utterly thorough, otherwise it’s pointless. The other trouble with treating a theoretical problem is that you start to feel like a crazy person. I mean, I’m in the throes of the fiber equivalent of acute hypochondria. What’s next? I get rabies shots because Sugarfoot scratched me and take quinine because I got a mosquito bite? This is clearly a new form of procrastination, but I can’t seem to stop. I must dominate the imaginary moths! They will feel my wrath!