2012 FO #3!

It's March and I have officially completed my third project of the year.  I am also behind schedule by six projects.  


See, at the beginning of the year I made this list.  It wasn't New Year's Resolutions.  It was more than that.  It was like, a 12-month agenda.  A long-term to-do list.  A 2012 Vision.  I left it at work today, so I can't go into much detail right now, but sufficed to say I planned on completing 3 FOs (Finished Objects) per month throughout 2012.  Furthermore, at least one of those FOs each month had to be a pair of socks.  


What?  I want more hand-knit socks.  So sue me.  


Today at lunch, as I was weaving in the ends of Missie's Wrist Warmers, it dawned on me just how far behind I already am (33% to plan year-to-date, ugh).


So then I made a list of My SOs (Started Objects):


1.  Munchkin Socks (a.k.a. Skyp to Oz socks) - started 2012
2.  Hedgerow Socks - started 2011
3.  Brown Sweater (a.k.a. SockSweater) - started 2008
4.  Cream Baby Sweater - started 2011
5.  Green Baby Blanket - started 2011
6.  Pink Baby Blanket (this one has a fun story to it - remind me to tell it sometime) - started in 2009? 2010?
7.  Crochet Afghan (mauve) - started in 2004? 2005?
8.  Knit Afghan - started in 2007?
9.  Crochet Baby Blanket - started in 2003? 2004?
10.  Green Vest - started in 2007? 2008?
11.  Thrummed Mittens - started in 2011
12.  Green - or were they blue? - socks - no idea when I started these
13.  "Poodle" scarf - no idea when I started this


S.O.S. is right.  I'm swimming (sinking?) in SOs!


As you can see, I am actually well on my way to finishing 9 objets d'art by the end of March.  I just have to get moving on all my WIPs (works in progress)!  


Which should come first?  What do you think, first in, first out (FIFO)?  Last in, first out (LIFO)?


(That was shout-out to all my accounting peeps out there)


So hopefully before I start ANYTHING NEW I will finish some of the pieces that have been sitting in various baskets and bins (packages, boxes, and bags), yearning for completion for, in some cases, nearly a decade.


Wow.  I am old.


Back to Missie's Wrist Warmers.  Remember how I told you I had a friend offer to barter with me for a pair of wrist warmers?  That was Missie.  She has perfect timing, because just this past Saturday I got an exciting little package in the mail from the Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, IA.  Yes, that Decorah.  It contained the following:

One packet of Green Husk Tomatillo seeds:

One packet of Flame Lettuce seeds:

One packet of Grandpa Admire's Lettuce seeds:

One packet of Beam's Yellow Pear Tomato seeds:

(which I am SO excited to try)


AND


(my favorite)


One packet of Isis Candy Cherry Tomato seeds:

Just looking at this picture takes me back to my childhood.  I cannot tell you the last time I had a legit cherry tomato.  For years and years and years I've had grape tomatoes, which are fine.  They're ok.  But they do not, by any means, compare to home-grown cherry tomatoes.  I CAN'T WAIT for the harvest!!!


So today, after weaving in all the ends, and attaching a cute little label, I mailed off Missie's Wrist Warmers in exchange:

If you look closely you'll see that my nom de plume has replaced my Christian name.  It's magic!

Yes, I'm shamelessly flashing the *bling*.  Diamonds are, in my case, a girl's very close friend - so close, in fact that I am rarely separated from them.  Only when they are sitting in the cleaning solution while I shower.  If I am getting clean, my diamonds should also get clean.


Diamonds ... diamonds ... hmm.  Diamonds.  Sounds like a segue to me:

I used a diamond pattern in Missie's Wrist Warmers, because it's pretty.

Congratulations, Missie, it's twins!


The palms are exactly identical to the backs:

For simplicity's sake.  Both to the knitter and the wearer.  Who wants to fumble around trying to figure out which is left and which is right?  In this case, they're both right.


(See what I did there?)


If I could go back and change one thing, after looking at these photos, I'd alter the thumb somehow.  Not sure what I could do differently ... it just looks very bulky.


If I could change two things, I'd reconfigure the gussets.  As much as I like the seed/British moss stitch, I think if I had done the entire gusset in stockinette it would have looked more ... tailored.


I hope Missie likes them.  I'll give a full report when I hear!  I'll also give a full report on the upcoming veggie crop.  Yay!


Mrs. Pi

Thing Of Joy, Them On The Green

The new VW Passat commercial (misheard Elton John lyrics) has brought a concept into the spotlight that is ... well, you could say it's a bit of a family tradition.  My life has been seriously littered with things misheard (nothing tragic, though).  A few years ago, the topic of "misheard lyrics" came up in discussion at work, and days later (ironically, Alanis? No: coincidentally) a friend of mine had the following word come up on her page-a-day calendar:

mon·de·green [mon-di-green]

noun

a word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of a word or phrase that has been heard.

Compare eggcorn.

See also malapropism.

Origin:
1954; coined by Sylvia Wright, U.S. writer, from the line laid him on the green,  interpreted as Lady Mondegreen,  in a Scottish ballad

(entry copied from here)

So there's an official word for it.  I'm sorry, Sylvia Wright, but you're Wrong.  The word shouldn't be "Mondegreen" but "Aminthankin" and I'll tell you why.

Some of my earliest (and fondest) memories involve my family, sitting down to dinner at the dining room table.  It was round, with leaves that made it ovalish.  It was a medium-brown wood, with awesome clawed feet and, here-and-there, the odd coffee mug ring or scratch on its wise old tabletop.  This was a time when it was neither shunned nor surprising to find an ashtray on the table - full, or just lightly dusted with cigarette ash, having just been emptied into the garbage, but not washed.  The dining set had chairs with spindly rungs.  Once, a rung broke off and henceforth became a "sword".  I specifically remember one of my two sisters, M, requesting that I play the part of Battle Cat to her He-man, so she could sit on my back, stretch the rung high into the air, and yell "By the Power of Greyskull..."

In fact, another day, that table held our family's first two cats - sister tabby kittens from perhaps a friend's cat's litter?  We had just gotten them, and were discussing names.  I think I was in the neighborhood of 3 years old.  However, despite the fact that it was nearly 27 years ago, I clearly recall M, then 5, soberly suggesting "Thing One" and "Thing Two" (from The Cat In The Hat).  Looking back, it would've made more sense to suggest Little Cat A and Little Cat B. We compromised and landed on Cleo and Tracy.  

A little while later, Tracy "ran off" ... an incident that would haunt me for years to come.  All we found was her little blue collar, and somehow my pre-K brain deduced that she must be out there, somewhere, waiting for us to find her, like a game of hide-and-seek.  Many hours I spent searching for Tracy, under the ruse of exploring the woods behind our house.  Strange that a kid should have a secret obsession like that ... but then again, I never claimed to be normal.

And I digress.  Back to the dining room table, around which we sat to eat dinner each and every night, preceded by a short prayer of Grace: "God is good, God is great, Aminthankin for our food.  Amen."  It's what I heard.  It's what I said.  Thankfully, and to the great relief of my immortal soul, I did not misinterpret Aminthankin as some lesser god, the provider of Kraft Mac & Cheese and Oscar Meyer wienies, to whom we'd also pray before eating.  Nope, I didn't know what Aminthankin meant, and I didn't really give it much thought.  It was a ritual.  A habit.  It came as naturally as turning off the lights before I left a room (if you know my father, you'd understand).  

Aminthankin: "And we thank Him ..."

And then there's another memory.  I can't have been much older.  We were riding in the car ... perhaps back from Grandma's house ... I was sitting in the middle seat of my dad's blue VW Jetta (in a time before cross-chest belts in the middle seat) leaning over, chin on palms and elbows on knees, so my head was between my parents in the front.  And Neil Diamond was playing.  And I was marginally amused by the fact that he was singing about "Reverend Blue Jeans".  Who is Reverend Blue Jeans?  Whoever he is, he sounds like a pretty good guy to me.

Reverend Blue Jeans: "Forever In Blue Jeans"

Again, when I was around this same age, M had a small pink radio/cassette player, with one speaker and a long antenna.  [Confession: I may or may not have broken this antenna and never told her.  I will consider my immortal soul free and clear of this 25-year-old burden]  I used to sit with that radio for hours, listening to Barry Manilow's Even Now tape (it was bright blue - ah, who am I kidding it is bright blue, I still have it), both sides, on the closest thing to "neverending repeat" there was in the 80s: *[play, flip the tape, play, flip the tape], repeat from * indefinitely.  My favorite song off that album was Copacabana, and I struggled to understand lyrics describing concepts completely foreign to my 4-year-old mind.  This one isn't as drastic, but endearing nonetheless.

She lost her - you bet - she lost her Tony: "She lost her youth and she lost her Tony"

Before you go accusing my parents of neglecting my ears, please understand that I was not alone.  Let me share just a few of my father's gems, either misheard or knowingly replaced.

There's a bathroom on the right: "There's a bad moon on the rise" 

(I still maintain that Dad made that one up, and everyone else is copying him)

Doctor Scholl's Chicken: "General Tso's Chicken"

In 1814, we took a little trip, along with Col. Mustard down the mighty Mississipp: "Along with Col. Jackson"

(there are additional, colorful lyrics about eating beans and passing gas, but I won't dignify them with reproduction)

Toe-Jam Football: Oh, wait.  Those were actual lyrics.

So really, I claim genetics.  Thank you, Dad ... for "the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me" (Alanis Morrissette).

Mrs. Pi