Randomly, on a Wednesday

  1. I finished the cowl that I was knitting, after several runs at it, and a mistake or two concerning gauge. (Note to self, still always knit a swatch, no matter how cocky and experienced  you feel.)

cowl peek 2017-02-22

2. I am home from Madrona, and it was, as always, the event that fills my cup for the year to come. Wonderful moments with teachers I love, students I miss, and vendors that make me give them all my money.

3. I gave them lots of money. (Hello Creative with Clay, I’m looking right at you and my new salt and pepper shakers.)

4. A big chunk of my hair is purple. I can’t talk about why, because it has to do with the Teacher Talent Show for Charity that I host, together with Lucy Neatby, and mutiny. On the upside, the show raised more than $12 000 for the Global Fund for Women, MSF, and Heifer International. That’s worth purple hair. (Also, Lucy? It’s not washing out like you said it would.)

5. The blanket proceeds apace. I’m halfway through the centre. I need to get a move on.

blanketcentrehalf 2017-02-22

6. I accidentally gave a whack of money to Habu Textiles, which is both unavoidable and normal. I also accidentally started knitting the kit I bought, but I’m putting it down. (It’s silk and paper. I can’t even.)

whoopshabu 2017-02-22

7. I’ve got to knit that blanket.

8. I leave for the West Coast Knitters Guild on Friday. (I think there are still a few spots.)

9. There’s no point in trying to fix the jet lag. If I stay messed up, I’ll be bang on for Friday.

88 thoughts on “Randomly, on a Wednesday

    • yeah, we definitely need a picture of the purple hair please! we don’t need to know why (though I’m sure we’d love to) but we do need to see 🙂

      • Agreed. Also, dark colours or blended colours can sometimes stain your hair. Try washing with some dish soap to get it to move.

        And ahh, so many wonderful things.

        • Sometimes even just a clarifying shampoo once or twice will do it. I am silver-blonde-white haired and I made the mistake of coloring with dark purple mousse once.

          • Yeah, dark color sometimes overstay their welcome. I used a “temporary” black dye for a Goth Halloween outfit one year. It was a reputable name and I got the dye on sale…which took some of the sting out when I had to get it professionally colored to return to natural. I would also suggest working on the removal AFTER your upcoming trip…especially the dish soap as it can leave your hair very dry (as in “been there”!)

      • Yes, we really want to see our beloved Harlot with purple hair! If it lingers too long, you could overdye it with a usual human color. You’d look smashing ginger.
        I’m trying t finish a sock. I’m on sock island. My nephew wears size 15 shoes and loves hand knit socks. But they sure take a while to knit. It’s a good thing I love him.
        Julie in San Diego

    • I am late to the party, I’m 60 started knitting about 10 years ago, and at some point ran into one of your books. I now own most of them, can’t be sure they are mostly in storage as we moved and have no book shelves for our small library of 2000+ books. Anyway earlier this year I decided to go back to the start of your blog and read it all! Today I read April 10 2006, the day with the new unhemmed pants and the falling zipper, and I wanted to share with you this tip I know of … Slip a keyring, or if all you have is a paper clip that might work too, or a really big ring stitch marker… you get the idea, slip in in that hole in the zipper pull and when you are zipped button the pants through the ring, I think you could do that with a paper clip somehow. Anyway, hope to meet you some day. Come back to Maine! I went to the Freeport Spa this weekend and wore my shawl that I made with your help from Knitting Rules! Thanks for everything! ToniAnne

  1. You know Australia is not that much firer than your west coast, and we’d rustle up a bunch of Guilds and shops that would host you ….. Just saying 😉

    • I’ll be there as will members of my knitting group in Melbourne – I’ll make sure of it. Around the time of the Bendigo wool show?

    • And your New Zealand fans can assist – it’s only a short 3 hour hop to Melbourne. Willing to be general dogsbody/chief cook and bottle washer for the Harlot!

    • ‘nuther vote for Melbourne. Perfect weather for knitting and wearing knitting, lots of vegetarians and vegans. We can take you to the Healesville Sanctuary to see the awesome Wedgetail Eagle flyover just metres from your head. Australia is metric so you won’t even have to convert yards to metres!

  2. Temporary dye washes out of straight hair, curly ethnic girl hair like you have may mean a grow out. Our niece’s hair is curly like yours. The purple Kool Aid dye sucked right in. Finally got trimmed out about five years later! Hope you have better success getting it out than our Faye did!

        • Many ethnitcities have curly hair, and straight hair. Let’s be kind and not automatically assume she meant anything negative by her comment.

          • I’m Irish and my curly hair is “celtic-ethinic” I suppose. Or as my mum used to say, “I ate all my bread crusts” (which makes one’s hair curly – when you’re 5, that is). heehee

          • I did not mean anything negative. All I meant is that she appears to have the same type of hair as my nieces, the only two to inherit the wild curly Irish hair, which requires different maintenance than their cousin’s. I like seeing pictures of Stephanie because her hair looks just like the girls and it makes me smile. Which is why I left a comment, meant as a tease that the color may not wash out for awhile.

  3. One more for the Purple Hair Brigade. Pretty please?

    Also, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the silk and paper. Habu always tempts me and I always chicken out. How does it feel on your fingers as you knit? What kind of fabric do you get?

  4. The cowl is lovely, and the blanket is amazingly beautiful. I’m curious about the eventual destiny of the Habu… and living vicariously, because I still have not knit a stitch since… well, I don’t know when… although I did a bit of frogging. I really need to get a mindless project on the needles, just to have something going, but that would involve counting, and I don’t feel up to counting (lazy when distracted by other things like sick kids and unfinished proposals).

    • Just make a scarf … cast on til you’re bored of casting on, then start knitting … if you didn’t get bored for a long time pop in some decreases and it’ll be a shawl!

  5. The cowl is lovely, and the blanket looks very interesting — even before blocking!

    Purple hair, huh? Does Joe like it? If he does, you might have to keep it purple!

  6. I want a picture! Try washing the purple with blue Dawn soap – it works well at stripping colour. If you do that though I recommend getting a protein heavy conditioner to soak with after.

  7. If you take requests, please make suggestions for consistent NUPPS. I’m attempting a shawl and it looks like a demented Estonian woman did it… at least I’m finally getting in the right place amidst the yos and sk2togsls.

    • This might count as cheating, but: I keep a tiny crochet hook handy, and then when I have to pull that stitch back through all of those (5 or 7 or??) loops, I catch it with the crochet hook, pull it through with NO TROUBLE AT ALL, and then pop the remaining stitch back onto my knitting needle. If you can stand the ethics, it’s a sure-fire stress-decreased!! =)

  8. I have to say this: are you really taking advice from Lucy Neatby on how to remove colour from hair??! Not to be too direct about it, but when was the last time any of us saw Lucy WITHOUT pink and/or purple in her hair??! It looks awesome on her, and always makes me smile, but it does not give me any confidence that she has developed any skills on removal, or even admits that it might be important to some! =)

  9. I have been thinking of going the pirple route also but need to take Passport photos first LOL. Depends on what Lucy used as to the staying power. My husband went to Lucy’s house to pick up some yarn for me a few years ago and she is lovely. Wish I could have been at Madrona. Too far away.

  10. #9!! That’s about right…You may be my “spirit animal”.
    And I’d love to see your purple hair. Nice cowl, lovely blankie-in-progress! Do you use lifelines? I kinda thought I saw one, and I know just how time-saving those are (but please don’t ask me how I know).

  11. I saw you with your purple hair and thought it was a lovely way to cover up the (how do I say this politely) incoming gray. Goes so well with your natural brown, a very nice, subtle effect. Enjoy it!

    • Ooo, no! Don’t cover the incoming gray! I like it! I actually quit putting dye on my hair and let it grow out. I now have a beautiful head on healthy, silvery salt and pepper shoulder length hair! No more chemicals, no more spending hours and money trying to cover it.

      You should see it sparkle in the sun!!! LOVE!!

      Oh, and more money for YARN!

  12. When you see me in April, I’ll have purple hair. It will take a couple of weeks to wash out if it wasn’t a permanent set. Mine is semi permanent and ‘bleeds’ daily (but only in the shower).

  13. Looking forward to seeing you on Friday. And purple hair rocks. I currently have some of my hair blue. I find purple fades really quickly.

  14. Oh, the pit which is Habu-temptation. Remember the stainless steel? The question, and it’s not entirely personal, is have you ever completed a Habu project? Not saying it isn’t inspirational. Just asking.

  15. That baby blanket it going to be wonderful! And I’m so curious to hear more about the silk/paper yarn. (And I really wanted to see the purple hair. Purple is my favorite color.)

  16. ” I accidentally gave a whack of money to Habu Textiles”

    Been there, done that, forgot to get my t-shirt on the way out! LOL

    And another vote for pics of the hair! (Says the woman who is accidentally bright pinkish/purple having grabbed her daughters keep-my-hair-purple-between-salon-visits shampoo in the shower…..)

  17. I agree about Madrona! It was my first time and I loved it!! Can’t wait for next year. Thank you for taking one for the team. 😉 I really liked the cowl you were wearing on the last day and hope to see that pattern too!

  18. Love, love, love Madrona! So much good knitting there. And I may have spent some money with Creative with Clay. And fallen in love with a Pocket Wheel. Yikes. My first ever wheel spinning; I was gobsmacked when it worked!

    Thanks for taking one for the team. And for not picking me and my scissors…

  19. It’s lovely, but I don’t think that’s a blanket you’re knitting for baby. I think it’s a baby shawl. Which is fine. But after that, you might need to knit a blanket! Thick, squishy garter stitch in bright colors.

  20. This design is steller! You certainly know how to keep a reader amused.

    Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved to start my own blog
    (well, almost…HaHa!) Excellent job. I really loved what you had
    to say, and more than that, how you presented it. Too cool!

  21. I had a wash-out purple streak put in my hair last September. It’s now the end of February and it’s still there. Which is great ’cause I LOVE it! But is not a good selling point for the whole “semi-permanent washes out” nature of the coloring.
    I believe it set more in my hair because it’s curly, speckled through with grey, and a little coarse/porous… which, I’m afraid, does not bode well for your own wash our possibilities…
    (don’t be sad, I think it looks great in the photo on IG)

  22. EVERY time I time in to read your blog I am reminded why I love it and am impressed at how fast and even and awesome your knitting is! Sigh! Maybe if I practiced more! So excited to be heading to a knitting retreat in Orillia in April. My first ever! Friends! Yarn! Wine! KNITTING! Maybe it will move me in your amazing skills direction!

  23. At Stitches today someone was telling me about how wonderful Madrona is; that Stitches is too, but Madrona is smaller and more personal and their favorite.

    I would think ’70’s appliance colors would be more your thing; does anybody sell avocado green hair dye?

  24. The speed and efficiency class at Madrona was excellent. Incidentally the hour I got home after the weekend, I sliced up my right thumb pad on broken glass, and the only knitting I could do for a couple of days was the lever knitting you taught! Talk about forced practice – got some serious ribbing done. As for the purple hair, I had a feeling when Lucy put the gloves on that she had that the color was going to be there a while. Trust me folks, it did happen, but having not come into the city until right before the Friday class, believe me, like Vegas, what happened Thursday night stays on Thursday night; no one’s talking! Looking forward to 2018!

  25. I have to laugh at myself – maybe I should get my eyes examined. I was sitting in the Rotunda knitting on Friday and saw you pass by – you were kindly walking arm in arm with an elderly lady escorting her somewhere when I saw you and I NEVER noticed that your hair was purple – it wasn’t until a couple of days later that someone mentioned that your hair was purple!!!

    You are going to love your new salt and pepper shakers. Charan is a treasure. I saw a post on the Churchmouse group thread of ravelry that told him that you had posted about purchasing salt and pepper shakers from him, and he is tickled to death – I am guessing that he is still beaming.

  26. Things that make me ridiculously happy: I saw the Thursday night talent show at Madrona. I know the sisters who ran the Habu booth at the Marketplace.

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