Hideous Knitting 101

Alright, it's time for another exciting installment of Hideous Knitting 101. Today's fashion faux pas is...this...thing:

So my reaction upon seeing this on Ravelry the other day was, "What the fuck?" And after a couple of days thinking about it, my reaction to the above knitted "garment" is still, "What the fuck?" The fact that 4 people "favorited" this stupid thing is a scary indicator that mental illness is now an airborne disease. This pattern, which, BTW, is called "Boyle Apron," comes from a new book called Maggie's Ireland: Designer Knits on Location---a book of the most absurd knitting patterns I have seen in a long time. Not since Loop-d-Loop have I laid eyes upon such nightmares. Want to see a few more? How about this:



Or this apparent Irish tribute to Rabbis?



Or this equally stellar candidate for the "What the fuck" awards? I *think* it's a shawl:


Yes, all these disasters from ONE book. And there are MORE. Lots more. Anyway, back to the Boyle Apron...

Hideous Knitting 101 report card:
Style: F I don't even know. I mean seriously. It's a thing that you cover your crotch with? I remain.
Fit: D First of all, how does this thing, you know, stay on? I can only assume that you tie it on. Second, it has NO purpose whatsoever. Why would you spend the time and money to knit yourself an apron, if you intend to USE it as an apron? Foul. I doubt anybody really would use this as an actual apron. So are we to assume that one would knit this solely for decorative purposes? Uh huh. Sure. I'm going to guess that this is a pricey thing to knit, since they indicated some brand of Irish linen to make it.
Color(s): D WHAT colors? In fact, nothing in the entire book is in any color but tan, brown, beige, white, ivory or navy blue.
Yarn: B Maggi's Knits Irish Linen: 52% cotton, 48% linen. Worsted weight. 126 yards per ball. (Um...Made in Spain!?!? WTF!?) Natural fibers are always a plus. The yarn does come in more colors than just shades of brown, so that's nice. This yarn runs about $8 a ball. Not terrible, but be prepared to spend $48 to knit a useless crotch flap.
Execution: C- It's a long rectangle with some textured squares and some other squares in a different color. Whoop-de-do. Not visually interesting nor awe-inspiring from a technique standpoint. Just...don't make this. Ever. If I see anyone wearing one of these, I will have to bitch-slap them.

It's Official!

Cat #6 is named Orson.

Thoroughly Insane...

...on many accounts, not least of which is knitting.

On Friday I decided to knit something for my friend Yuko. She's leaving the USA in July (maybe for good) to go to Southeast Asia (I think Cambodia) to work with Team Boravuth, a group that promotes child education. She's a very sweet, kind, lovely person. All who know her will miss her terribly, but we understand that the work she will be doing is very important.

So I wanted to make her something very nice. Where she's going, I doubt hats and scarves would get much use. Dishcloths/washcloths? Meh. So impersonal! I decided to make her a tank top. I searched on Ravelry for some patterns and decided on this one. I just so happened to have 6 skeins of Patons Grace yarn in a light pink color, which would be perfect both for Yuko and for this pattern. I grabbed the yarn and cast on. I have knit 2 of the 3 bottom repeats so far. It seems to be going ok. Size looks good. Yuko is easy to knit for; she's quite petite. So small is always a good bet.

Ok, well sounds good so far right? Why does this make me insane? Well, we're having a farewell party for her in June. Yeah...so...will I get this done by June?? I realize that it's not even May yet, but I am a SLOW knitter.

I will be spending several days in North Carolina, visiting my sister in early May. Maybe this will be a good opportunity to work on this. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

And for the second bit...

Allow me to present to you cat number 6:



Come on, y'all. How could anyone resist such a face? Here's the short story:

On Saturday, Todd and I were in PetSmart buying supplies for the other beasts. I asked if we could walk by the shelter cats to say hello, which is something we often do. And this cat was there. He just looked up at me and I died in a fire. I went in and held him for a little and just knew that he needed to come live with us. We filed the application and we picked him up last night.

Details:

He's 4 or 5. We checked his teeth to be sure that he wasn't really like 17. He's a Snowshoe mix with light blue eyes. He only has 3 toes on each of his front paws, which actually looks really adorable! He's fairly large, but not enormous. I think he weighs 13 pounds. He's super chatty, very "chirpy," friendly and lovable --- very lovable. He likes the other cats, even though they aren't too fond of him yet. Well, Titus is fine with him and, believe it or not, so is Sophie. But the other three (particularly Fi Fi and Luna) aren't happy. Give it a couple of days though, and he'll start smelling like the rest of them and I think all will be O.K.

He had the most GOD-AWFUL name that could ever be given to a pet ever: Sudoku. I have NO idea who decided that would be a good name for him. But it's got to go.

So what to name him? We're still tossing around some options, which include the following:



Orson, Caesar, Henry, Wolfgang, Ivan, Oscar, Julius, Ash, Teddy, Vulcan, Cupid, Kuma, and Todd's offering...


Lando Catrissian.



But I don't know if any of these names really suit him. Although Lando Catrissian isn't half-bad! I was pretty much dead set on either Orson or Henry when I first started thinking of names for this little guy. Any one of those up there is most certainly better than Sudoku! RETCH.

On the way from the car to my office today a name suddenly occurred to me. One which was perfect for his personality and his look and which would fit in really well with the names of his siblings.

So what do you folks think of...


Romeo?











And don't you just lurve his widdle feets??? Me likely. :-)

Wednesday Check-In

So I just wanted to report that my WW weigh-in yesterday showed a .4 gain. Grrr. Not disastrous, but still annoying. It's obvious that I cannot waiver AT ALL from the prescribed set of daily points I am allowed. We're supposed to get 35 "flex points" a week to use (or not use) at our discretion. Yeah if I get anywhere NEAR using them, I don't lose a thing and this week showed the half-pound gain. :-(

Someone at work told me about watching the Biggest Loser or that she saw a magazine article about a woman and her fiance who went on the show. The woman lost 107 pounds in 6 months. W.T.F.? So that's like 18 pounds a month. That's insane. Of course, she had a nutritionist and personal trainer with her all the time. So that explains a lot. But how is this woman going to cope with that? I mean, after the personal trainer goes away (which he will because, hey, he goes where the TV show sends him) and the nutritionist too, what will happen to her? How can someone sustain that kind of extreme weight loss over just a 6-month period? It's really setting people up to fail. And that makes me sad.

So really, I can't complain about my 5 pounds a month loss.

Anyway, enough of that.

Todd told me last night about a woman named Susan Boyle who appeared on Britain's Got Talent and how she brought the house down. I hadn't heard about it. On our local news radio channel this morning they talked about her too. I asked Todd to find me a link to the performance so I could see what the big deal was all about.

OH. MY. DOG.

Grab a tissue box and enjoy:

Susan Boyle

Tonight is Lost and I am looking forward to it, as usual!

The Great Shoe Purge of 2009

To be soon followed (hopefully) by the merciless razing of the spring wardrobe!

Anyway, for those of you who don't use Facebook or know me on there, I wanted to mention here that this past weekend I did a major purge of my shoes.

Here's the problem with me and shoes. Well, ok, with me and every frickin' thing:

Firstly, I. like. stuff. I can't help it; it's in my nature. Secondly, shoes are more complicated than one might think. In fact, let me explain what caused the Great Purge.

Back in 2000 (or possibly 1999 URK) I bought a pair of heeled, loafer-ish shoes to wear with pants. They were black patent leather and had just the right heel height and heel thickness that I like. They looked nice and fit great. As you may well imagine, wearing these shoes over the course of 9 years or so caused them to wear the hell out. This wear and tear actually started to show in, say, 2003. So sometime in 2003 or 2004 I decided that I needed to buy a replacement for these shoes. I bought something. Meh. Not ideal. A few months go by and I bought another pair of shoes. These are worse than the other replacement pair. A year goes by, and I bought another pair.... You can see the trend here? So what ends up happening, in many cases, is that I end up with 4 pairs of shoes, when really it should be one. AND I never actually got rid of that FIRST pair. I'd say that over the last 15 years or so, one out of every 10 pairs of shoes I have ever bought have been ones that I love to wear and are my "go to" shoes for specific occasions. The rest just accumulate in my closets, plotting my demise.

Well my loafer buddies REALLY had to go. The soles had deep gouges in them and the heels were worn down. The stitching on the top was coming undone and fraying badly. They looked like I took them out of a trash heap. I couldn't in good conscious purchase any more shoes until I seriously took stock of what I had and got rid of the crap.

Here's the result:

8 pairs are going to Goodwill (Several of these I NEVER wore. One pair, I don't even remember buying.)
1 pair went to Donna because they were too big for me. AND...
23 pairs went into the trash.

Yes...TWENTY-THREE.

So all told, I purged 32 pairs of shoes from my closets. That's a lot o' shoes.

I did, however, purchase 6 pairs of shoes over the weekend to replace what got thrown out. I think for me I have to start choosing quality over quantity with shoes. I can't buy the $15 shoes at Target or Payless anymore. I'm not saying I'm going to start spending $400 on a pair of shoes. I can't (and won't) do that. But $60, yeah. This is what's nice about stores like Famous Footwear. You can buy $75-$100 shoes for $40-$60. So that's what I did. I'm so looking forward to my new purchases! These, these and these in particular.