The Thrifty Knitter

Every time I start congratulating myself for being clever clever clever, it always, always, turns out that I’m not.

And yet I keep convincing myself that I am (further evidence I’m wrong).

I had this vision of, oh, I don’t know, cranking up the heat in a couple of hours to produce a sweltering furnace of a room that no stage of moth could survive. Here I must point out that I could find no evidence of moths anywhere–but I’m like a freaking dog with a bone when I get a notion.

A really dumb dog with a gross rancid bone that’s probably going to make it throw up all over the carpet.

I thought I’d put in a couple of space heaters, and by nightfall, I’d be standing in a sauna, tossing back my head with an evil laugh, arms outstretched in a gesture of extravagant victory, sneering at any stupid, stupid eggs that would dare enter the realm of such a genius.

But instead, it’s like 95 in there, and the stronger heater won’t even run because it has a thermostat that makes it go off when it hits 90.

And I’m that big dummy again who can’t understand why her egg always breaks in the egg drop.

You know that Simpsons where they go to Itchy and Scratchyland? The parade of robots marches by and one of them opens up his head to reveal all the circuits and wires and Marge says “Look, Homer! You see all that stuff in there? That’s why your robots never worked!” I’m building robots with Homer.

I’m going to go knit something really simple and try to pretend I’m not a complete double lame-o donkey dick. Watch me fuck that up, too.

See? See! My paranoia is completely founded, and once again, has saved the day.

I’m totally religious/paranoid (as a lapsed Catholic, that’s kind of interchangeable for me) about sealing up and isolating any new fiber I take in, and I’m especially suspicious of unprocessed fiber. A couple months ago, I got some raw alpaca and sealed it up in one of those giant ziplock bags and set it aside from my other stuff.

Today I decide to wash some up for alpaca batts, and lo and behold, what do I see but moths! Luckily, there were no holes in the bag–I pressed on it and the seal held tight–so I’m confident it was contained. I chucked the bag out (and I will be asking for a refund) and monkey-picked all my other fiber, which is also all sealed up, and everything’s fine, thank god.

But paranoia has long been my ally, so to be absolutely safe, I’m sealing up the room with space heaters and going all Bikram its ass. All stages of moth (eggs, larvae, pupae, moth) are toast in four hours at 104 degrees, so I’m heating the room to 106 or so for a good 24 hours. Shazaam, assholes!

(If it were late July and I closed the windows, I could probably rack up 106 without a heater–it’s a very sunny room. That, and the cold winters, are probably a big reason behind my luck avoiding moths thus far.)

I’m also instituting a UK-style quarantine plan on each and every bit if fiber that comes in from now on–even the uber-processed commercial stuff. My Yarn School gear is on its way, so it will be the first batch subjected to my new arctic quarantine. I’m bringing over the chest freezer from Eskridge and everything new will get a couple days at room temperature, followed by a shocking week of unmolested deep freeze action before it gets to join the other fiber. 72 hours at zero is lethal, so a week at 5 – 10 below seems like a pleasing degree of overkill. Not that it matters this time of year, but in the winter, the pre-freezing warm stint is critical–it’s the sudden, shocking freeze that’s killing, which is why moths is a naturally cold habitat can adjust and overwinter–and also why a regular household fridge/freezer isn’t always cold enough to kill.

So I won’t be making any batts today, but I will be wiping away all of my doubts and fears, which is an even happier pursuit.

And maybe I’ll even practice a little yoga in there, as long as it’s all hot.

I’m kind of tempted to drag all my yarn into the hot room, too, and let it stew as well, but my yarn is in my bedroom, and pretty constantly monitored, so I wouldn’t really classify it as at-risk. Hm. But that would give me a good excuse to catalog my stash for ravelry and reorganize everything….

Today’s hot. We haven’t yet hit that tipping point where it’s hotter inside than out, but I can feel it coming. I’ve already put in a few of the window fans in an effort to forestall that point, and I need to get all the portable fans situated to keep things moving. Too bad I’m not a big math nerd, because then I’d calculate the optimum positioning. There are a lot of useful things I could do if I were a big math nerd. Sigh.

So I’m trying to psyche myself up to go make a bunch of etsy batts, although I wonder if I’ll sell many as it gets hotter and the appeal of handling wool diminishes (plus the number of wooly festivals increase).

Oh shit! Which reminds me! I’ve got yarn in the washer!

This yarn makes my mouth water. I covet this, too.

My original plan was for a little abbreviated pullover vest out of this stripy handspun I made. But a couple inches in, I realized I had twisted my work before joining. Instead of ripping it back (I’d already ripped the yarn once, and I’m trying to be more civilized about frogging handspun), I figured I’d use it as an opportunity to try steeks. And so my pullover is now a cardigan. Or, not really, because cardigans have sleeves. A button-front vest. Is there a special name for that?

I’m going to steek the collar, too, so the stripes line up. I decided I didn’t care about the stripes matching up between the front and back. Put another way, I didn’t really think about it until I’d already worked several rows.

The collar will be a deep square, so I’m thinking the proper thing is to BO the neckline, then on the next row, CO an extra stitch over the BO, right? You use two stitches on either side to secure your shit, and one to cut across. Right?

I’m going to try a crocheted steek, even though I do have a sewing machine. Because it looks interesting.

Still need to give it a nice, hot soak.

Sugarfoot is recovering from illness, so I’ve been holing up in my room with her and various craft projects. I’m keeping her separated from the other cat so that I can neurotically monitor her food and water intake, which is vexingly low, especially since I’m pretty ignorant about cats–but I called the emergency vet for reassurance, and she was on fluids for almost 24 hours straight, so she’s probably not dehydrated.

Tonight I finished the half a pound of 2ply I started plying on Sunday. I really do think it might be enough for a bulky little cardigan, especially if I plan to trim it in commercial yarn.

I also frogged and reknit the harem girl top. Now it has a firm casing on either end for the straps, and garter casing trim along the top and bottom in sparkly red. Originally, the ties when through eyelets and it was trimmed in green, but the green did something ugly to the gold, and the red makes it pop. Plus, it looks a lot better with the little jacket and fez.

Yikes. I real life, neither of these burns your retinas. Tonight’s obviously WEIRD LIGHTING night.

Tomorrow, my big plan is to make a mountain of batts. I want to make a bunch with natural colored alpaca and bright colors. And maybe some grandfatherly batts with natural gray wools. And if I’m feeling industrious, I’ll pack up some balls of the polwarth top I finally got back and send them to last year’s yarn school peeps. And if I’m feeling REALLY industrious, I’ll unpack and assemble the 4 wheels I’ve been avoiding, and reassemble the one with the warped flywheel, because its replacement arrived today.

Yup, the creepy factor is high on the dollbaby head, but it was the only appropriately sized head-shaped thing I could find. I’m pleased with the overall shape and the little nubby horns and the button mod, but my knitting was kind of sloppy and loose.

You can see how stupidly loose on the back. I shouldn’t use the Norwegian purl for stockinette. It looks ugly and sloppy. I know this, and yet I do it all the time & then hate myself for it later.

Anyway, I’m going to soak it and then run it through a hot dryer and see what happens. I’m not too confident, since it’s a 50/50 cotton/acrylic blend. But who knows? I wanted a little extra something for the package I’m sending Angele. I really should make her something, too. I’m sure it’s all baby presents from now on out. Oh, and I think I missed her birthday. Shit. It was last month and I can’t remember whether I called.