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.
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.
Oh, I love your cable gauntlets!
Slurple. Oh no, trivia facts! I love trivia facts. Stewardesses. Hey. You’re right. But you knew that, you know everything!
Comment by Carrie K — October 25, 2006 @ 8:33 pm
Did you know that Laura Bush killed a classmate when she was 17 years old in a car accident? It’s true – look it up at one of those urban myth sites if you don’t believe me.
Comment by Nicole — October 26, 2006 @ 1:00 am
Was the reseracher who invented the microwave a woman? I can’t remember what I read about that any more.
The fingerless gloves are lovely! Just the right length.
Comment by Marina — October 26, 2006 @ 7:24 am
re: Churchill’s birth: it may have been in a ladies’ during a dance, but it _was_ a ladies’ in Blenheim Palace. Not all ladies’ are created equal, eh?
Love the gloves. Inspiration to finish a mate to my poor singleton!
Comment by Mike Smith — October 26, 2006 @ 8:10 am
I knew everything when I was a teenager. Love those mitts! it’s like finding a treasure, an almost FO!
Comment by Carol — October 26, 2006 @ 10:59 am
Hey, I made Eric’s Glovettes! But I used Socks That Rock and #1 dpn and altered the pattern (it was easy). I loved making them — see here http://www.kmkat.typepad.com on the 9/24/06 entry. Yours look like they have that slight twist in them, too; I guess that is just a feature of the cabled design.
“If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.” I’ve seen this factoid before, and every time I think about how the men and women would have to be reproducing while they stood in line. Hmmm.
Comment by kmkat — October 27, 2006 @ 2:54 pm
Susan and Sally… I am sending out this S.O.S to those in the knitting world, that I deem to be the highest ranking officials. Kind of like Generals in the army of yarn… or maybe the Dalia Lama of knits… anyway… you are both so totally up there that I feel inclined to pose this really idiotic question… but considering I am a lowly type deck swabber in the knitting universe… my interest outweighs my shame… so here goes.
I am knitting JESS by Anna Bell
the instructions begin with “with yarn held double throughout, cast on ..,.”
does this mean I use two skeins at a time throughtout the project? I know this is probably something I should be able to figure out myself…. but remember… I am still below deck 🙂
If you find it in your kind wonder generous selves to respond.. I am forever grateful!
Michelle
Comment by Michelle — October 28, 2006 @ 9:30 am
General Sally reporting. Yes. You are correct. In other words, the yarn they chose to use is too thin to get the gauge unless you hold two strands together while you knit. Sometimes you do this for gauge, sometimes for effect. For example, I like to hold Kid Silk Haze with another yarn to add the softness and fuzz. But see, your instincts were right.
Comment by surly — October 28, 2006 @ 9:36 am