Friday Night Live

On Friday night, T and I actually went to a live show at a little dive bar in SLC.  One of his coworkers was playing bass and invited us.  It's the first time I've been to see a show since grad school, I think.  T had got up at 3:30 am as usual for work that morning, so he had a Five-Hour Energy around 8 pm to make sure he would be awake for the show.  I thought I could make it okay, even though they were due to go on stage about the same time I usually hit the hay.

We had to drive around the block twice to find the bar, because it was so tiny.  We walked into a very small space that was completely plastered with posters and stickers, walls, poles, and ceiling.  It reminded me of the bar we used to go to in Moscow, ID, John's Alley.  But then I looked around a little bit more and realized this was truly a dive.  There were three bottles behind the bar -- Jack Daniels, Jagermeister, and cheap vodka.  There were two kinds of beer to choose from -- Pabst in a regular can, or in a tallboy.  Period.  T ordered and Jack and coke for himself, and a screwdriver for me.  Once we took a sip, we realized that he had lightly-flavored soda, and I had a glass of OJ.

T's coworker was in the opening band.  We chatted with him and an engineer from the office who had come along as well to hear him play.  He let us know that they hadn't played out in well over a year, and he didn't have high hopes for the show.  He asked if we had earplugs, and T asked, "Are you that bad?!"  He laughed and said, no, it was just going to be really loud.

By the time the opening band started there were about 20-30 people in the bar.  As soon as they started playing, about 10 people dashed out the back door and onto the back patio -- I didn't want to know what they were going to be doing out there.  And the bass player was right -- it was REALLY loud.  They played grunge-y 90s rock, which was just fine by me, but the sound was badly balanced -- you could barely hear the vocals over the bass and guitar.  But they were having a good time up there -- the guitar player was singing for all he was worth, the bass player was rocking out onstage, and the drummer was playing with his eyes closed half the time, putting all he had into it.

When they were done with their set, the bass played came back to chat with us.  He was worried about one song they played that they hadn't practiced, where he had to come in on vocals.  He thought he might have been off pitch -- we let him know we couldn't hear him anyway, so it didn't matter!  Once the next band was setting up, T and I headed home.

While it was nice to be out for once, it kinda confirmed how old we've gotten.  Our ears were ringing, we were both stone-cold sober, and we were ready to head home at 11 pm.  Once we got home, T claimed he wasn't tired at all, and I was feeling pretty awake, so we turned on the TV.  We were both falling asleep on the couch within a half hour.  So much for being young and wild!

Comments and Attacks

I'm not a very prolific blogger, and the people who read my blog tend to be friends and acquaintances, not strangers who stumble across me on the Internet.  But I have my blog set to approve comments, mostly as a way to try and weed out spam.

So, as I was closing down my old blog, Arch and Crafts, I checked my dashboard there and saw that I had a comment that was waiting for me to do something with it.  It was from a total stranger, and they disagreed with my post.  It was from a while back, an analysis of a birth control ad that was on the air at the time.  The woman who commented thought that this was a frivolous thing to complain about, and felt that the issues her generation had to deal with were more important, and that I was giving feminists a bad name.  And she closed her comment by calling me a b*tch.

I read the comment, a little surprised, and then I had to decide: do I approve or delete it?

I believe very strongly in the rights afforded to us by the First Amendment -- everyone had the right to her own opinion, and the right to express it publically.  So would I be censoring my blog if I deleted the comment?  Shouldn't I hit "approve" in the interest of full disclosure, if nothing else?  If I deleted the comment, would it be because I didn't want anyone to criticize me?

On the other hand, I also believe in civil discourse and respect for others.  And that final word was neither civil, nor respectful.  She had called me a name -- a childish, and, dare I say, stereotyped name for a woman that many feminists would hesitate in using -- which was unnecessary and hurtful.  The comment didn't strike me as the thoughtful analysis of a fellow feminist, posted in order to begin a dialogue.  It looked as though it was posted by someone who delights in spewing vitriol and bile all over the Internet, taking out her aggression on strangers.  Heck, this could be a teenaged boy commenting, for all I knew.

And, to be honest, the name calling hurt.  So, on the basis of that last word, I deleted the comment.  I justified my action by telling myself that I was done with that blog, and therefore no further communication with its readers was necessary.

But now I am feeling a little bit guilty.  I wouldn't delete posts that friends who disagree with me might make on my Facebook page.  Why should I treat a stranger who is visiting my blog any differently?

So now I'm torn.  Did I do the right thing?  What do you do when people flame your blog posts?

A Hat for a Friend

A friend of mine, C, has been going through a hard time recently, because her mom is sick.  She is going through chemo, and my friend put a request out asking for hats for her mom.  She listed some of her mom's favorite colors, and I didn't have anything good in my stash, so I went out looking for new yarn.
C said her mom liked sea green, rose pink, and "violets" -- I assumed the S on the end was a typo -- and was a fan of anything flower-colored.  I saw a line of yarn, Lion Brand's Amazing, that mimics the color shifts of Noru's hand-dyed wool yarn in 100% acrylic.  I know, the yarn snobs out there are asking me, why on earth are you buying acrylic yarn for someone?  Well, when it comes to hats, I like to use acrylic.  Cotton doesn't have the stretch or give that you need in a hat, bamboo and silk are too expensive, and I don't like to knit hats out of wool because you never know if someone is allergic to it.  I'm allergic, and can't wear wool hats, no matter how warm and luscious they are, otherwise I'm scratching at my forehead all day.  So I hunted through to find a color combination I liked, and settled on one that reminded me of flowers.  Once I had picked it and saw that the color name was "violets," I knew I had the perfect yarn.

Next was finding the perfect pattern.  I hunted around online and settled on a pattern for a mohair hat that I kinda liked.  The Amazing yarn had a fuzzy-ish quality to it that I thought would work with this pattern.  However, the pattern (as most on the Head Huggers site) didn't have a gauge.  It called for fingerling mohair yarn on size 8 needles, and I had worsted-weight yarn.  I tried a swatch on size 8s, but decided I'd rather go for an airier knit, so I switched up to size 11 needles.  I went to my trusty pattern book, checked my gauge, and went for a 21 inch circumference on the hat.  I started with very loose tension, and the way it bunched up on the circular needles, it felt like it was going to be huge.  After I had knit several inches, it was clear that it was going to be huge, so I ripped it out and started again, casting on 10 less stitches this time.  It felt a little better, and I made sure to keep more tension as I knit.  With those fat needles, the knitting was still plenty loose, resulting in a pretty floppy hat.  The pattern called for a loopy flower to go on the top of the hat, but I looked through the flower patterns on the site, and found a different one I liked better.  The way you knit it is pretty cool -- you do the tips of each of 5 petals separately, leaving them on the needle but cutting the yarn and casting on a new petal each time.  Then, instead of cutting the yarn on the last petal, you knit across all 5 petals, and then start decreasing, bringing them all to a center point.  You also knit the ends of the tails in as you go, so there's no weaving-in to do at the end -- very handy!  The examples they used were pressed or blocked to flatten them, but I liked the 3-D effect of the curly petals, so I skipped that step.  Then you sew three beads into the center of the flower.  I went through my bead collection and found three mother of pearl chunks that I used instead -- they are less delicate, but I like the iridescence, and I like the contrast of square beads on the soft, curled petals.

Anyway, here's what it looks like all done.

The finished hat

Close-up of the flower -- the mother-of-pearl looks better in real life, I promise!

I think it's still too big, but hopefully it's not too deep, since the flower will make it difficult to roll the brim.  Now I just need to send it off, and I hope C's mom likes it!

Have you made a chemo cap before?  Do you have a pattern that you like?

Knitting for Kiddos

It seems as though almost everyone I know is pregnant or just had a baby.  This means I have been knitting some baby gifts.  I love baby gifts, because they allow me to knit something small that goes quickly, and they usually allow me to try something new.

I found a pattern a few years back for a baby buddy inchworm pillow that looked adorable.  I figured it was knit in the round, based on the picture, and that it would be a quick project.  The pattern even says you can make it in a day.

Well, it was a LONG day.

This was one of the more challenging projects I've taken on in quite a while.  It turns out, you knit the top from the middle out, with a lot of shaping to get the curve right, and then you knit the bottom, reversing the shaping so it matches.  I never use the right gauge, and while I adjusted the length correctly, I didn't adjust the width, so mine looks a lot more like a classic neck pillow than the original.  Then the pattern says to sew the two halves together using mattress stitch.  I had to find a demo on YouTube, which was extremely helpful, and it looked like a pretty straightforward stitch.  Until I realized that it is designed to match up two pieces of knitting side-by side, and going around the perimeter of the pillow I was mostly joining at a diagonal, or end-to-end.  I did my best, but it took FOREVER to do all the sewing correctly.  Once that was done and he was stuffed, I still had to knit a two-yard-long I-cord and sew IT in place -- once the cord was done, at least the sewing went quickly.  And then I embroidered on the face and added the antennae.  Fortunately, when he was done, he was cute enough for all of the hassle to be worth it!

See how many angles I had to deal with?

But such a cute face when he's done!

I have another friend who has two daughters, E who is three, and A who is almost a year old.  I missed the little one's birth, and I decided to send presents to both of them, so I made each of them a hat and a toy.

The first hat was for E, and it was made with a terrycloth yarn that was extremely difficult to work with, only because I couldn't see any of my stitches.  I have made enough hats that I usually whip one out without a pattern, but I couldn't see my gauge, couldn't see my decreases -- couldn't see anything!  I still think it came out pretty cute, with a pointed tip.

Then I made another pattern I found a while back, Spud and Chloe's Ribbit.  This pattern didn't have a specified gauge, and I must have chosen yarn that was thinner than recommended, because mine came out smaller than theirs.  You are supposed to be able to insert a tennis ball into the body so that he can bounce, but I don't think mine was big enough to fit one.  So I just filled him with stuffing, which is another option.  I also did the hands and feet differently than the pattern suggests.  They have you make a large pocket at the end of the arms, then knit individual bobbles for the fingers and toes.  I decided to stuff the pocket, and then, since I had 12 stitches to work with, I did three 4-stitch I-cords for the fingers and toes.  I like the look of them, even though they don't really mimic webbed feet.  I also took some of the remaining terrycloth yarn and made him a hat to match the one I'd knit for E.

Ribbit in his hat

And next to the hat he matches

For A, I decided to use some super soft and silky yarn that I've had on hand for quite a while.  As usual, I just got started on the hat with ribbing, and kept going.  Halfway up, I decided to do a version of the two pompom hat that is so adorable, but I put tassels on the tips instead of pompoms.  I think it came out quite well.  I just hope it fits!  That's part of why I stuck with the ribbing all the way to the top, actually -- so the hat would be a bit expandable, if necessary.

A's tassel hat

Rather than making another character with a matching hat, I decided to use one of the patterns from a new book I just got from my wonderful boss at the herp society.  It's called Toys to Knit by Tracy Chapman, and the patterns are really unbelievably adorable.  The finger puppets looked like a good idea, so I made those for A.  The patterns are for a mouse and an octopus, but I think I might try to make some other critters in the future.  It would be a great way to use up all the little odds and ends of scrap yarn I have in my stash.  The patterns call for fingering yarn, but I did just fine using worsted weight.  Strangely, these weren't knit in the round either, so I got to use my mattress stitch again to do the seams, which worked very well in the right context.  For the octopus's arms, because I was using a heavier cotton yarn, I went with 4 stitches wide instead of 5, which I think was a good choice, since the arms just barely fit.  But I think the mouse's huge, curly ears are adorable.

Smiley octopus

Mr. Mousie

Finger puppets in action!

I hope that both moms and kids like their little gifts!

What are sme of your favorite baby gifts?