Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Scrummy Yummy

If yarn were drugs then my personal heroin would be Artyarns cashmere. It's not the softest cashmere, it's not the most expensive or most luxe. Nonetheless, it tickles my fancy and I love me some Artyarns cashmere. Douse it in a poison green color and DAYUM!



Several months ago when Zazu started knitting up a scarf in poison green Artyarns cashmere ... well, I was green. With envy. Not nausea. It is a good heroin. It does me right. Anywho, I (of course) was going to be a big ole copy cat and get me some of my own smack pronto. Only it was not for sale. ANYWHERE. Not where Zazu bought it. Not on the internet. Not nowhere. Now you have to understand, I SEARCHED. At first, I checked the store. I figured it would be there. But it wasn't. And the proprietor thought I might have been delusional as she had no recollection of the yarn. Then I looked on the internet. Nothin'. Then on Artyarns site. Nope. I finally deduced that the color was 131 and that Artyarns didn't do cashmere in that color anymore. Which was nice to know but not the least bit useful as I was trying to acquire some.



So I did what any unself respecting junkie would do, I drooled all over Zazu's scarf and rubbed on it whenever I could. Every time I saw her I would ask about my scarf. I would fluff it and smell it and dream of abducting it. In the end, whether it was my puppy dog eyes, or the foam at my mouth, when Zazu finished her scarf she promptly gave me her leftovers (and oddly enough didn't tell me that now I could shut the hell up! Which is a sign that she is not only very generous, but also patient as I may have been a teeny bit annoying.)



Once I had the scrummy yummy goodness in my hot little hands I wasn't sure what to do with it. I knew I wanted to used EVERY LAST bit so a proper pattern probably wasn't gonna do since I didn't know how much I had. And then Zazu stepped up again with a pattern for a child's neck warmer from Knitting to Go. When you think about it, this is a great idea, as you can't give a baby a scarf because of the whole choking/hanging hazard. I mean, I'd feel pretty bad if I knit my child a method of death. That would be no good.



The pattern is a four stitch repeat of purl three, knit one, and it is knit in the round. As I am lazy and would rather knit, I knit it inside out and did knit three, purl one. When I was done I flipped it and, Voila! The pattern does have specs and measurements, but I seriously wanted to knit until I was almost out of yarn so I did my own thing. When I thought I used as much as I could, I used the EZ sewn bind off and then weaved in my end. My end was kind of long but I was not going to cut the yarn ... MUST USE ALL OF YUMMY YARN. So the tail, it weaves in for a complete round. As in, all the way around. It's all good though.

Once LB's melon is too big to get the neckwarmer over, I plan to rip this out and do something else. For myself. Maybe by then I will have a yarn meter measurer and can find out how much I have. Or maybe I will just make up my own thing as I go.



Yarn: Artyarns, Cashmere 5, Color CS131, Zazu's leftovers
Needles: two Susan Bates Circ, size 3.75 mm (US 5)
Pattern: Based on the neckwarmer in Knitting to Go
Modifications: Used my own number of stitches.
Time: One month.
Care: No idea.

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Happy New Year

I made black-eyed peas to ring in the new year, like I usually do. This year I went with a Texas Caviar recipe which has black-eyed peas and black beans. It was delish and gone within a day so sorry, no pictures. Instead, a question. How is it that the child I carried in my womb for nine months during which time we ate boatloads of refried beans, black beans, and garbanzo beans, the child who was called The Bean and Lady Bean, doesn't like beans?