I posted a link to my previous post to the knitting email loops that I follow: knitlist, knittingnovices and knittingincanada. I got great feedback on the little game I came up with for truly random knitting, so I posted a link to it over on the sidebar over there–>

The Official Knitting Game. Enjoy!

So before my knitting teacher left for an emergency to Florida (a real one, not an “I need a beach, bad!” one), she’d knitted one of those throws where you use a mix of yarns. It used a combination of knit rows and purl rows to create an interesting texture, not to mention yarns ranging from mohair to ribbon, plus cutting the yarn at the end of each row gives ready-made fringe. She asked us to go around the store and pull out colors we liked, and to try to work a scarf like that ourselves.

These are the yarns I chose. I call it my Winter Icicles Scarf (I know, lame name):

From left to right, clockwise, starting from the large gray pouf, they are:

1. Schachenmayr nomotta Hair (light smoky gray, 65% mohair/35% acrylic),

2. Katia Flash Print (navy edged ribbon with silvery slashed centers that go from ice blue to purple, 50% cotton/40% polyamide/10% nylon),

3. Estelle Pearl (light to medium blue with a gold filament running through and skinny, soft, short “eyelashes”, 30% merino wool/43% polyamide/27% acrylic)

4. (center ball) Lana Gatto Crystal (silver icicles just like tinsel on a Xmas tree, 63% viscose/20% polyamide/17% polyester)

5. Schachenmayr nomotta Novellara (also a ribbon with slashed centers, this time a muted range from gray through blue with some bright blue spots, 35% new wool/35% polyamide/30% acrylic)

6. Katia Ingenua (darker gray-mauve, 78% mohair/13% polyamide/9% wool)

I love the yarns, and the colors, and am looking forwards to having a blue scarf to wrap around my blond head to show off my blue eyes. But- I’m a bit of a control freak. I know. That rumble of the earth you just felt? Caused by my entire family and friends doing a collective gasp. I admit it. I like being in control.

Theoretically I could do what Nicole (knitting teacher) suggested: put the balls in a bag and just reach in at the end of each row. This leaves me with a problem. Unless I decide to knit while wearing gloves, I know I can tell the difference by feel between the yarns. I can at least identify which 2 are the mohairs, which 2 are the ribbons, which 1 is the tinsel and which 1 soft ball is the golden fleck one. I know myself. I will be utterly incapable of reaching in and pulling a random ball out. I will most likely end up deciding which ball I want, and going by feel to pull that ball out, purely accidentally of course.

The second problem I have is that we are supposed to just knit or purl a row at random, to create an interesting look and see how the rows play off each other. Again, I can’t do this. (See above re: control freakiness).

So I came up with a great idea. I’m claiming it as my idea for the moment unless someone points me to a source who came up with this first (I’m sure someone did). If not, than it’s mine mine mine!

I call it the Vegas scarf. (As an aside: am I truly surprised I named the scarf after the place two of my favorite shows occur? CSI and Las Vegas are cool shows. Now if only they would make a Law & Order: Las Vegas I would be in heaven. As an aside to my aside: am I the only one who would be thrilled with weekly TV consisting only of CSI and Law & Order-type shows? In any incarnation? I’d even give up my reality TV for that! -Sorry for the rumble again folks. That was the collective gasp again.)

I rambled, let me start over. I call it the Vegas scarf. Why? ‘Cus it embodies the stakes of chance, fate and luck. Tools needed: 1 die and 1 coin. Beginning to see how this will work? This is how I will knit this scarf. Before I begin I will assign each skein to a number on the die. (Possibly I already did above). I will then assign (for example) heads = knit and tails = purl.

Step 1: Roll the die, get a number, cast on with that ball, cut ends leaving 4″ tail.

Step 2: Roll the die, get a number, grab that ball. Toss the coin, get a side, tells me to knit or purl that row. Follow the directions of fate across the row, cut ends leaving 4″ tail.

Step 3: Repeat step 2 for scarf.

Step 4: Roll the die, get a number, grab that ball, bind off, cut ends leaving 4″ tail.

Voila! A completely random scarf that fulfils my need for control while leaving things totally up to chance! The cool thing is that no 2 scarves will ever be alike! (Uh- if anyone ever manages to make 2 scarves exactly alike by this method, run, don’t walk to your nearest casino or depanneur and play blackjack or buy a lottery ticket or something, ‘cus that’s freaky!)

I’ll post pics as I have stuff to post. I’d love to see pics of any scarves anyone else makes with this method. If I get a bunch of pics eventually I’ll make a page for them.

Yah, I admit, it was kinda stupid, and not knitting or even crafty-related at all. So it’s out.

I don’t have much to show or share lately ‘cus I’ve been working like mad on holiday gifties that are supposed to be surprises. I can show a bit from Sunday though.

This, in one of my favorite knitting pictures EVER, is the Knitting Goddess blessing my knitting and protecting it from harm…

…which is a really good thing ‘cus a moment later the knitting was in mortal danger. (What you can’t quite see in the pic is the large NO SMOKING WARNING DANGER sign on the wall of propane tanks right behind Yannick- and just a foot away from me.) Luckily, no knitting was hurt. Thank you Knitting Gods!

I hope so, anyways. Today I felt my first such project, a kinda-booga-bag. I had to play around with the pattern ‘cus it was too short, and the intended recipient doesn’t like bags that don’t close. I’m going to add a zipper once its felted, so I grafted the i-cord to each of the two ends pre-felting, to have the bag/handles in one piece. I hope I can figure felting out. I hope my washing machine is easy on me.

Once this is done I can let it dry for a few days and rush like mad to finish thrummed mitten #2 before Saturday when we’re getting together for Hanukah and I need to gift them to my dad. I was going to have him try one on pretending it was for Yannick, but if he doesn’t like them, I’d rather not know in advance.

p.s. I’ve done away with the dictionary words…it felt stupid.

u.t. and i. send or come out in a jet.- n. jet. [orig. uncertain]

Wow. I honestly did not know that spirt was a word. As such, I feel I have no obligation to make it fit into my post. Yep, changing the rules as I see fit people. My blog.

Has this ever happened to someone else? I was brushing my hair earlier, and ran my fingers through ‘cus a) I have really, really long hair, and b) due to said longness, it tends to break a bit when I brush it and I’d rather catch broken pieces now than try to pull them off my clothes. I don’t know how or what I did, but when I looked at my hand the hair was PERFECTLY shaped like a thrum! Yes, I actually entertained the thought of a pair of mittens. No, I threw out the hair and will go bang my head against a wall for a few minutes to get rid of the thought.

Be amused. Be afraid. Be very, very sad for me.

n. worthiness, excellence, claim to respect; honorable office or title; stateliness, gravity.- dig’nify u.t. give dignity to.-dig’nified a. stately, majestic.- dig’nitary n. holder of high office. [L. dignitas-dignus, worthy]

Oh like I could pretend to be. When this whole post was to show you where I was spotted knitting yesterday.

Yes, I knit at Reno Depot, while waiting for paint for my father.

Yes, I knit during our weekly card game. If you had 6′ of i-cord to knit, you’d fit it in where you could too. (Oh, and for those who can’t read the score on the pad, that was Julie and I kicking Rich and Yannick’s a$$es until they cheated. Yes, I said it. No one manages to deal themselves the A, K, Q, J, 9, 6, 4, 3 of spades without cheating. Richard, I’m talking to you.)

n. worthiness, excellence, claim to respect; honorable office or title; stateliness, gravity.- dig’nify u.t. give dignity to.-dig’nified a. stately, majestic.- dig’nitary n. holder of high office. [L. dignitas-dignus, worthy]

Oh like I could pretend to be. When this whole post was to show you where I was spotted knitting yesterday.

Yes, I knit at Reno Depot, while waiting for paint for my father.

Yes, I knit during our weekly card game. If you had 6′ of i-cord to knit, you’d fit it in where you could too. (Oh, and for those who can’t read the score on the pad, that was Julie and I kicking Rich and Yannick’s a$$es until they cheated. Yes, I said it. No one manages to deal themselves the A, K, Q, J, 9, 6, 4, 3 of spades without cheating. Richard, I’m talking to you.)

n. worthiness, excellence, claim to respect; honorable office or title; stateliness, gravity.- dig’nify u.t. give dignity to.-dig’nified a. stately, majestic.- dig’nitary n. holder of high office. [L. dignitas-dignus, worthy]

Oh like I could pretend to be. When this whole post was to show you where I was spotted knitting yesterday.

Yes, I knit at Reno Depot, while waiting for paint for my father.

Yes, I knit during our weekly card game. If you had 6′ of i-cord to knit, you’d fit it in where you could too. (Oh, and for those who can’t read the score on the pad, that was Julie and I kicking Rich and Yannick’s a$$es until they cheated. Yes, I said it. No one manages to deal themselves the A, K, Q, J, 9, 6, 4, 3 of spades without cheating. Richard, I’m talking to you.)

n. worthiness, excellence, claim to respect; honorable office or title; stateliness, gravity.- dig’nify u.t. give dignity to.-dig’nified a. stately, majestic.- dig’nitary n. holder of high office. [L. dignitas-dignus, worthy]

Oh like I could pretend to be. When this whole post was to show you where I was spotted knitting yesterday.

Yes, I knit at Reno Depot, while waiting for paint for my father.

Yes, I knit during our weekly card game. If you had 6′ of i-cord to knit, you’d fit it in where you could too. (Oh, and for those who can’t read the score on the pad, that was Julie and I kicking Rich and Yannick’s a$$es until they cheated. Yes, I said it. No one manages to deal themselves the A, K, Q, J, 9, 6, 4, 3 of spades without cheating. Richard, I’m talking to you.)

u.t. fasten to, attach.- af’fix n. addition. esp. to a word, as a suffix or prefix. [L. affigere, affix-, fix to]

(Amend to “fixation” and it soooooo fits.)

I’d like to talk about dreams, if I may. I’ll pause for any complaints…none? Good.

A few nights ago I dreamt that I was teaching my 17 year old sister how to cross stitch. I don’t know why this occurred…it’s not cocurrent with anything in real life, anyone knows 17 year olds don’t do much, and cross stitching isn’t one of the few things they’ll tolerate. [Aside to Laura: I’m just kidding. I know you do TONS of things. You are forever busy, and I apologize for saying you don’t do anything. What? She can’t hear me? She’s still sleeping? Ok, someone tell her when she gets up.] In this dream, she brought me a piece of Aida that she was working on. To her credit, she’d done something really cool with it, that I can picture her actually doing in real life (if, again, cross stitching was something a 17 year old would do). She’d painted the fabric first with the image she wanted, and was stitching over the little squares just for a subtle effect. It looked good, and I was impressed that she’d come up with it on her own. (Does anyone else find it strange that I’m impressed with my sister for something my brain made up that she did?) I can only image that this dream means I’d like to get her interested in my hobbies (even though I haven’t cross stitched since April) or that I’d like to spend more time with her. [Aside to Laura: This means you!]

Last night’s dream needs no interpretation. You know Oprah’s Favorite Things Show? Let’s just say that in this dream I was there, and it was Oprah’s Favorite Knitting Things Show. There were needles. There was yarn. The wools! The colors! It was a dream come true! There were passes for the entire audience to the next Stitches (which I think is a crafty cruise). I don’t know when it actually takes place, but Oprah had us all chanting “8 days in May!” over and over. People were fainting. I think I swooned a few times. And all I kept thinking is “see, I just admitted on my blog that I’m addicted, and now I’m here, this is perfect!”.

And then I woke up.

Let me just say that reality has never come crashing down on me in such a dissappointing way since the dream I had when I was 8 that Christopher Reeve proposed to me. (Bygones. Let’s not speak of this again).

Sigh.