Giant Bag Devours Girl! Film at 11!

Oh, no! Can this girl be saved? She is struggling with an enormous knitted bag!!




Whew! She appears to be unharmed by this traumatic experience.




My friend Lisa is knitting a Modular Felted Tote, inspired by Susan Rainey's tote.

The pattern is available at The Yarnery in St. Paul: 651-222-5793, and is designed by Theresa Gaffey (who is probably a long-lost relation, or at least I like to think so, since my maiden name is Gaffney).

I'm sure we'd all like to see the bag in its felted state (probably it is less likely to devour her kids now), and perhaps Lisa will send me some pix.

Waving Lace Socks

They're done!

I love these socks.



Eye of Partridge heel, with stitches picked up "the pretty way" (oops, blurry photo, sorry):



Hooray for this great pattern!



Notes:

Waving Lace Socks, from "Favorite Socks"
Fleece Artist Merino yarn, "Marine" colorway. This is a very pretty combination of mostly blue, with purple and green (which don't really show in the pix but give it a rich tone).
Knitpicks #1 circs, Magic Loop-style
Eye of Partridge heel, stitches picked up "the pretty way" (thanks, Grumperina!)
"Rescue yarnovers" (thanks, June)!
Toe -- I did NOT go down to 6 stitches per needle before grafting, since that results in elf toes, but to 10 stitches per needle, and per Cat Bordhi, I lift each end stitch over the next stitch on the needle as I go.

These are the socks that Lorri saw me knitting and that inspired her to ask for socks. But for Lorri, I plan to make the Embossed Leaves socks in a nice green variegated colorway. I can't wait!

Pride 2007

My whole family took part in the 2007 San Francisco Pride Parade last Sunday! My brother and his husband were Grand Marshals! Everyone in both of their immediate families was there in spirit to support them. Most everyone was there physically, also. Lots of cousins, too!

Here I am with my Mom, ready to take part in the Parade! My cousin Wes is here, too.




Here's DD with her younger cousin, sitting in as grand marshals while everything gets set up:




And here are the Grand Marshals themselves! That's my brother Stuart on the right, his husband John on the left:



Subtle outfits, huh??

They are two of many grand marshals, actually, but they are the ones who were elected by the community:




Here are two other grand marshals:




Lots of others were getting ready:



Nice knitted scarf, dude!




Last minute adjustments to the Marriage Equality float:




And we're off!




Here's the grand marshals, with another of my brothers and DD walking alongside:




Our sign -- there were indeed 4 generations of my family there (but my camera ate my pix of the very youngest generation):




This was my view for a lot of the parade:



See the giant pink triangle on Twin Peaks, way in the background? They put that up every year for Pride weekend.


The crowds were enormous!






More interesting costumes:






The TV interview:




And it's all over:






The end:

Because.

Well, I didn't win the drawing for front-row seats at next year's 8th grade graduation. Darn.

But in other respects, the 8th grade graduation dance chaperone gig was a hoot. I think (knock on wood) I have escaped catching my friend's cold, despite the fact that the noise level required us to lean over and talk loudly into one another's ears in order to converse. And we always have lots to talk about.

The adult chaperones worked in pairs, rotating through various stations around the middle school gym, inside and outside. There were more than 20 of us, quite enough to prevent any nonsense. Although none was really in the offing. These are generally pretty good kids.

The principal, in our pre-dance briefing, assured us that the worst things that had happened during his 5-year tenure were that they had once, during the pre-dance "sweep" of the school, confiscated alcohol hidden in the boys' bathroom, and he had once had to tell a slow-dancing boy to move his hands above the girl's waist.

The worst thing that we had to deal with was a couple who clearly wanted to go in the corner and neck. I simply moved a lot closer to that corner and gave them a big smile. They went back to the dance floor. The principal had his eye on them all evening also.

Overall, the kids were cute and innocent and sweet. The DJ had a lot of ways to get them having a good time, such as tossing beach balls onto the dance floor, with a small volleyball-type net being held up, so the kids could bat the balls back and forth over it. A lot of the dancing was solo or group dancing rather than couples, and for the majority of the evening, the majority of the girls were on one side of the floor and a majority of the boys were on the other.

A cute slide show had been put together with pix of a lot of the kids when they were much younger, and pix from this last year. They were all given CD's of it to keep at the end of the evening. Good thing my DD was only finishing 7th grade, I would have been bawling if those were her class-mates.

All in all, much more fun than I thought, and a good glimpse into what middle schoolers are like at a dance. I'm glad I did it.

Why??

I'm off at 8:00 p.m. to chaperon the 8th grade graduation dance. They recommended that we bring earplugs, fer heaven's sake. After we signed up, of course. I didn't think to ask when I volunteered how long the dance lasted. It only lasts until 11, but that is past my bedtime, if I can help it.

Note to self: Quit volunteering for stuff, already.

Self: C'mon, your friend asked you to do this, and we might win the drawing for front-row seats for next year's graduation. Which we want, right?

Me: Let the 8th grade parents do it.

Self: Ri-i-ight, the 8th graders really want to go to a dance chaperoned by their parents. As if.

Me: And you know I don't really like the company of some of these other parents.

Self: Yeah, but you get to be buddied with your friend around the corner.

Me: Who emailed me today to tell me she has a bad cold. But we can't wimp out or risk the wrath of the 7th grade organizing parent. And she is terrifying.

Self: C'mon, it could be fun.

Me: In your dreams. Whine. And I can't even knit. Whine. And I am NOT volunteering to stay and clean up afterwards.

Self: Fine. Whatever.

I just hope I don't see anything too scary. Vomit. Freak-dancing. Necking 8th graders. Ick.

Red Scarf Red Alert!!

The 2008 Red Scarf Project is apparently going to be held in 2007. Interesting choice, but they have good reasons.

Stay tuned here for more.

Would you, could you, in a box?

Here, scrunched up on the scanner bed as if jammed in an invisible box like a mime, is my nearly-done first Waving Lace Sock:



It looks much better on, and I don't think it looks half bad here. I love this sock. This is going to be the best-looking sock I have made yet, if I do say so myself.

Last week was Crazy Week at our house, but I didn't read the memo announcing that until late the week before. I looked at my calendar -- meetings or school concert every night, followed by a weekend of camping with the Girl Scouts. Yikes!

Well, we got through it all just fine and while there's still some clean-up yet to do from the camping trip, everything went great.

I nearly had to cancel this camping trip. Four girls were going, and the parents of the other 3 girls (and my DH) all had obligations that prevented them from coming. I needed another adult to go. Not just because this is the GS safety rule and generally a good idea -- but I couldn't even get the girls and our stuff there by myself, even in our SUV. There's just a leetle too much stuff involved in cooking and camping the GS way, sometimes.

We were rescued at the last moment by the leader of another Troop. Her girls are older and don't like to camp so much any more. She misses it. She was happy to come along. Yay, Lorri!

Lorri saw me knitting this sock while we were there and admired it greatly. She even offered to pay me to knit her socks like this. I was very flattered, but politely declined -- that would take all of the fun out of it, I said.

Later I thought through the math -- thanks to the Sock-in-a-Day Challenge, I now know that it take me about 13 hours to knit a single sock. That would make 26 hours for a pair, since I know for a fact that Lorri has the full complement of two feet. Let's say, just for grins, that I would knit these socks for $10 an hour. (Let's not drag my day job and what that pays into this, that doesn't really have much bearing.) The yarn cost about $20. Let's see, $20 for materials, plus $10 an hour times 26 hours = $280. What?!! No one in their right mind would pay that for a pair of socks! Not, I have to say, even for socks as beauteous as these are going to be.

Would you knit socks for pay? And if you would, how much would you charge? What about sweaters? Hats? Scarves? Face it, any of these things we knit can be bought for less than we make them for (if we disregard their unique character and craftsmanship for a moment), and when you cay buy socks for a few dollars or less, why would anyone pay hundreds?

On the other hand, Lorri did save this trip in a very real sense. And I think the time may well come when I would happily knit her a pair of socks as a gift. Because that is a different matter entirely. Don't you think?