theraineysisters knitting and so much more

October 25, 2006

From Sally — Look Ma, No Fingers

Filed under: Back Story,Gallery — surly @ 6:05 pm

Yes, I’m alive (for those who were wondering.) And I’ve even been doing a little bit of knitting despite being very busy with personal and other issues. I picked up a small project I had started a long time ago and never finished. It was such a small project I had actually misplaced it! I had been working on some fingerless gloves out of a very nice, earthy yarn I bought one year at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. The yarn has a homespun look and feel and it’s very soft. I bought it to make Eric’s Glovelets, a pattern from Green Mountain Spinnery. As is often the case with me, I rushed home and knit one beautiful little glovelet and then got distracted by something else and didn’t get back to it right away. So, I came across the orphan glovelet and its twin (which had a cuff but nothing else) yesterday and decided to just finish the poor things. Here is a lovely photo taken with my webcam (I’m still having camera issues). The gloves hadn’t been blocked yet, nor had the ends been woven in. They therefore don’t look as lovely in these pictures as they do in real life. They are happily drying now and look much better. It’s amazing what soaking does to yarn; this particular yarn really bloomed and a lot of the irregularities from the hand spinning really evened out. If I remember, I’ll take a better picture when they’re dry.

As you can see, I deliberately kept the glovelets quite short so that I could use my fingers easily while wearing them.

Now for something completely different and not related to knitting.

SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING?

A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.

A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

A snail can sleep for three years.

Al Capone’s business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.

Almonds are a member of the peach family.

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10.

“Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt.”

February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights.

It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.

Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag.

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite..

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

“Stewardesses” is the longest word typed with only the left hand and “lollipop” with your right.

The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.

The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

The sentence: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every letter of the alphabet.

The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.

The words ‘racecar,’ ‘kayak’ and ‘level’ are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

There are more chickens than people in the world.

There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: “abstemious” and “facetious.”

There’s no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewable Vitamins.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks; otherwise it will digest itself.

Now you know everything.

March 23, 2006

From Sally — Koigu Toreador Jacket

Filed under: Gallery — Sally @ 10:15 am

I thought I’d share my (finally) finished Toreador jacket. For those of you unfamiliar with this pattern, it’s made of seemingly endless mitered squares knitted together. There is no seaming, except at the sides and underarm. All of the squares are picked up from each other.

I made a few minor changes to the pattern. I lengthened both the sleeves and the body. The original pattern is very cropped, and I felt that it was a little too cropped on me. Also, I felt that it rode up slightly in the back (I was fortunate enough to be able to try on a model in the size I was planning to knit). To solve that problem, I added a row of small squares in the “main” color to the front and a row of large squares in the main color to the back. In the second photo, you can see how I “bridged” the difference with a triangle (which mimics the triangles inserted at the sides to shape the underarm).

It was a fun pattern to knit and I love knitting with Koigu yarns. But it was kind of a slog. I love wearing it, though.

First, here is a not very good photograph of the front. (Clicking will enlarge)

And here is the side detail:

March 22, 2006

From Sally — Venetian Hat

Filed under: Gallery,The Venetian Hat — Sally @ 5:39 pm

I’m not quite sure how to describe this hat. While walking our dogs in a neighborhood park yesterday, a friend mentioned an “unusual” hat she had acquired one cold day in Venice. She couldn’t quite describe it — for good reason. Although she said it was knitted, it looks crocheted to me. According to my friend, whose anonymity I’m protecting, it drew stares even in Venice. It’s not an item for the faint of heart to wear. (My daughter agreed to model it; then again she suffered a minor head injury on her bicycle this afternoon.)

Without further ado (the photographs can be enlarged by clicking):

Sorry — I don’t have the pattern.

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