Archives for June 2006

Duct Tape Dummy

Published on 21 Jun 2006 at 10:15 pm. 22 Comments.
Filed under Favorites, Uncategorized.

 

 

First things first, it seems Charlene wants to add something to yesterday’s post. She added it in the comments, but I figured I’d just put it here for ease of use.

From Charlene:

“Did Stitchy also mention a guy in his late 70’s beat us by about 10 minutes? We were much closer to death that day than he’s ever been. We couldn’t even win the raffle at the end…”

~ahem~ no, Chuckles, as I matter of fact I didn’t mention us getting out asses thoroughly kicked by a 70something-year-old man, nor did I bring up our stunning defeat at the raffle. I also didn’t tell them that you could only name 6 of the 8 Red Sox players on the raffle sheet for the Red Sox tickets. I mean, who doesn’t have Trott Nixon’s image burned into their mind? (ok, I knew the name, but I thought he was a rodeo guy or something. You know, like Tuff Hedeman.). And that other guy – whatsisname. Pfffft. So yes, we did good by showing up and eventually finishing. But everything in between? Well, we’ll do better next time.

And now on to something from a couple of weeks ago. Wendy had a Duct Tape Dummy party where we were invited to wrap ourselves and each other in duct tape, then snip each other out of our new shiny adhesive shirts. Sounds pretty kinky, eh? Well, I have to believe that somewhere, there’s a fetish for this kind of thing, there just has to be. Hey, you. The one who found this blog entry by using some keywords about your duct tape fetish, is this really a huge scene? Don’t be shy. I know this is a knitting blog and all, but we’re curious. Do tell. But tell in the comments.

Anyhoo, I brought all the necessary equipment to have Dummy Debbie made up, but I chickened out at the last minute. I ended up helping Ben and Cheryl do theirs. It was fun, like making a mummy without all that pomp and circumstance or the mess of coptic jars and brain hooks.

When I got home, Jon was disappointed that I didn’t have a carapace of myself for his amusement. Really disappointed. So much so that he insisted on making one right then. So pretty much as soon as I got home from the party, we got to work. I made sure he understood that this would not become a regular “thing”, so not to get too attached to the process, if you know what I mean. It took a while, but eventually, I ended up with this:

 

I immediately regretted telling Jon to just let the tape follow the curves, for follow it did. Check out the frontal pooching. Yikes! Is that a sack of ham sandwiches in your shirt or did you just eat a sack of ham sandwiches? But I must say, it’s an accurate representation of yours truly. It’s kind of hard to tell with the tripod stand and fake head and all. Here, maybe this will give you better scale.

 

 

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAA! Never let it be said that my husband does not indulge me. He was rushing out of the house the other morning when I needed pictures of this thing and he kept refusing to put it on (although he had put it on a few times before and seemed to like having his own set of boobs all to himself). He finally relented and is now totally nerve-wracked that I’m about to post it. Hee hee.

 

Honey? I’m posting it. Right . . . . NOW! Too late, there’s no going back on this one!

 

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Hurt's So Good. No, wait, it just hurts.

Published on 20 Jun 2006 at 12:36 am. 15 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.

 

 

The human body is truly a wondrous thing. It’s like a state-of-the-art battery that’s recharged simply by providing nourishment and rest. With proper care, you can make it stronger by depleting and recharging it regularly. Experts agree that it actually gets better with each rigorous use.

Usually.

But I gotta tell ya’, we’re gonna have to go looking through all the remote controls and flashlights to find a new Stitchy battery because I. Am. Beat.

Last week, my best girl-friend, Charlene, and I partook in not one, but two 5K-ish road races. The first one was on Thursday evening in downtown Boston. It was the annual JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge. The course went from the Boston Common to Kenmore Square and back. It was a gorgeous night, the weather couldn’t have been better. I remember walking that route all the time when I first landed in Boston for school. Even though Kenmore Square has changed a lot, it felt like it was just yesterday. In actuality, it’s been about 6,875 yesterdays. !!  Anyway, my company gave out three prizes for the top three finishers running for our team and guess what? I won third place! Can you believe it? Wait, you can’t? Well, what if I told you that only three people from our company showed up to participate? Ah, makes much more sense now, right? I kind of fell off my workout bandwagon and wasn’t able to run even half the time, at one point a guy in a motorized wheelchair passed us. We overtook him later, but it wasn’t easy. I’m glad I participated, though. It was good to get out there and read all those corporate t-shirts. One said “We’re running our assets off!” It really was like a t-shirt competition. And now I have 25 bucks to spend at Best Buy!

And then Saturday morning, we did the Chelsea River Revel 5k. It started at 10:30 and was already 90 degrees by then. If you read the description of the course here, you’ll notice the words “up” and “hill” in close proximity. Twice. And not a single mention of “shade”. So, out of about 55 runners, I came in dead last. Charlene beat me by half a second. Seriously, she was recorded at .5 seconds faster than me. It kind of made me wish I had pushed myself more at the Corporate Challenge because the weather had been so good. This was just torturous. And for the last 15 minutes or so, we were the ones the police had to follow on their motorcycles. Towards the end, they started to encourage us, but I can only assume it was because their nether regions had been cooking on a high heat for about 40 minutes and they just wanted us to hurry the hell up so they could pull their roasted loins off their bikes. Afterwards, there was a little fair on the Meridian Street bridge and we treated ourselves to homemade empanadas, which are just like a spinach salad, except they’re fried pastry dough filled with spicy meat or tangy cheese. We had one of each because we decided we had earned them.

In the end, it took about 43 minutes for the Chelsea race (3.1 miles) and maybe 50 for the Boston one (3.5 miles). About a 15 minute mile, which is exactly what we thought we’d do. I’ll definitely do others and plan to keep working on my mad jogging skillz. But I need a couple of days to be able to walk straight first.

But for now, I need to go to sleep.


 

Read ‘Hurt's So Good. No, wait, it just hurts.’

Flashback!

Published on 8 Jun 2006 at 12:01 am. 12 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized.

 ~sigh~ Another rainy day.

Let’s take a little trip back in time to another rainy day, shall we?

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This year’s New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival is but a soggy memory. Many posts about it have already been posted, shoes have finally dried out and I’ve moved on to a whole new set of crappy-weather sniffles. For all intents and purposes, it’s done. Over. A silk/cashmere blend that has slipped through the nimble fingers of time. But what time cannot hold onto, a giant plastic bin can. Check it.

My goal this year was to avoid buying green and purple everything. It was a success of sorts. See if if you can spot this year’s color scheme.

First up – wool sock yarn from Dorchester Farms. I can’t seem to find a website for them, but I love that there’s a farm in Dorchester. It’s not exactly . . . farmland. I also love that that it’s referred to as “Dot”, Dorchester Ave is “Dot Ave”, even. And they do have a pretty good zoo. We had our company party there once, it was great fun. One time, a young gorilla named “Little Joe” escaped from there and attacked someone at a nearby bus stop.  Craziness. Great yarn!

 

And here is some soft wool/silk spun by the “Unlikely Shepherd”, Tim Benjamin. That’s a drawing of him on the card. Seriously, he’s a biker dude with a long beard. My mom told him she liked it and he said “So do the goats! They nibble on it sometimes.” He works at Kelly Corner Farm, which looks like a wonderful place. A dream come true, even. Here, click this. You’ll be happy you did.


 

And here was the deal of the day. It’s about 1600 yards of New Zealand wool from Pollywogs for 17 bucks! W00t! It’s a little scratchier than I normally go for, bit I think these colors will make a good jackety sweater thing that won’t touch my skin ever. 

 

And here is one of my splurges. It’s a wool/mohair blend from Still River Mill. They’re known more for processing fiber, but I couldn’t pass this stuff up. It’s one of those things that’s hard to photograph. It has that cool, smooth texture of mohair that I can’t resist. And the color is amazing. Indoors, it looks black, but when you hold it in sunlight, the rich blue glistens through. Gorgeous stuff. It’s going to be a wrap sort of thing.

 

And of course, I had to stop off at Maple Creek Farms. They were in a building near the entrance and I almost missed them. They don’t seem to have a website, but that’s ok. I can wait for festival season to stock up. The thicker one is a superwash wool that’s going to become something for my impending niece! I’m thinking a little hooded blanket, but who knows. Maybe a kickin’ dress would be good, too.

The other one is a Merino/silk blend. It’s the same yarn I used for my first Clapotis and I just can’t say enough good things about it. The drape is amazing, it’s a tactile delight, and I think no matter what it turns into, it will be fantastic. Seriously, get some of this stuff. It even smells really good.

 

And the swag was not limited to yarn. Nope. I actually made an amazing score towards the end of the day Saturday. I spied with my vintage-seeking eye a basket of old pattern books. It was like eBay right there in front of me! They were priced individually, and of course I asked how much for the whole kit and caboodle. The lovely woman at the booth said “I dunno. How much do you want to pay?” I made an offer, she lowered it and we thanked each other profusely. She wanted to get them out of her house and I wanted to get them into mine.

 

While I was there, I bought some raffle tickets and a couple of days later, found that I won not one, but two of the items they were raffling off! There were two skein of natural yarn from Kitefield Farm and some wool/angora batting. Not sure where that’s from, but I love the hot pink.

 

So not a bad haul, eh? We had a great time, despite the biblical weather. It was Mother’s Day, so I went with my mom and dad. My dad got a huge kick out of learning how silk is rendered from the cocoons and he chatted up a few of the guys who made spinning wheels. When he was young, he worked with the big industrial loom at a textile mill, so when he saw a big wooden loom, he sat right down behind it and explained what all the pieces were and how it all worked. I think my mom was afraid that he was going to break it and they’d have to take it home with them. He probably would have like that, actually. He and my mom worked together in a sweater mill called Pandora when they first met. I was born to knit.

My mom didn’t end up buying any yarn, despite the beautiful things she’s been making lately. Like this Sophie bag.

 

How beautiful is this? She added the embroidery and a little loop on the side to hold your glasses. Lately, she’s fallen for the seductive lure of the quilt and spends more time with her sewing machine than with her knitting needles. And, well, I have an admission to make.

So have I.

Y’see, my mom got a new sewing machine and gave me her old one. It’s just like knitting a sweater, only the fabric is already made and you don’t have to seam it by hand! Neat! And because I didn’t feel like farting around all small time, I started by making a cute little tank top with darts and pleats and interfacing, oh my. I know how clothes are put together. Well, mostly I do. Jon had to help me at one point, if you can believe that. Yes, Jon, my husband. He noticed a glaring error and helped me work it out. He’s much better at visualizing how things are constructed. My mom also helped me alter the shirt when I was done with it and realized that the inexplicable pleats in the back made me look like an Elizabethan fat-ass. It’s much better now. See?

 

Whew! Look at that. An entire week’s worth of posting in one convenient, easy to use post. I’ll make my way to Mother’s Day, you’ll see.

 

Read ‘Flashback!’