If you lived here, you'd be warm by now.

If you were not human, that is. Because we cover everything with knitted objects. Ev-uh-ry-thing. Except our little human bodies. And then we wonder why our little human bodies are cold.

The three little kittens have nothing on this household. (By the way, these are Kate Gilbert's Gifted Mittens. Wicked easy. I added snow tires, though. Garter stitch ridge and flare, with a little bit of trim to match the kitty hood.)

Okay, so some of you in the southern regions of the planet are thinking, it's almost May, why is this woman's kid still wearing mittens? Is she one of those wackos who puts a snowsuit on her kid in July because she forgot to turn down the air conditioning? (I refuse to answer that. I don't have air conditioning.)

Because it is 10 degrees Celsius (that's 50 F. I can't think in Celsius. Oh, Developer, darling, make me a converter, please...). And it feels like it is at the freezing point outside. So my kid has cold hands and wants to know where her mittens are. The discussion in the car goes something like this (in kindergarten-level French on both sides. Don't worry, I won't torture you with that particular conversational feature):

Twinkletoes: Mamaaaaaaan, my hands are cold, I need my mittens...

Me: Where did you leave them?

Twinkletoes: Where did you put my mittens?

Me: No, where did you leave them?

Twinkletoes: You didn't give me my mittens and my hands are cold.

Me: Where did you leave your mittens, Twinkletoes?

Twinkletoes: Where are my mittens? You did something with my mittens and now my hands are cold.

Me: Twink, it is your responsibility to keep track of your mittens.

Twinkletoes: But Mamaaaaan, my hands are cold.

Me: I know, Twink. I heard you the third time.

Twinkletoes: So, Maman? where are my mittens?

Right here, kid. Right where you left them.

Clearly, we have way more than a mitten problem.

Although, there is one mitten problem we have that can be solved by making this pattern that Julia over at Moth Heaven has created for the Dulaan project.

Even if I don't make this for Dulaan, I'm planning on making it for Twinkletoes, with a liner inside, because we live in the land of frostbite and severe wind-chill warnings. One layer of mittenness is not enough when it is forty below zero. Which, at some point near that temperature, becomes the same damned thing in Celsius and Fahrenheit and we give up and stay home.

Julia's pattern is particularly wonderful for our other mitten problem, which is the act of getting the thumb into the right place in the mitten. We have a whole host of other thumb problems in this house, which I do not expect Julia to solve. But she neatly solves this particular thumb problem in her easy-access mitten pattern, via a widening at the thumb opening. No more front hallway struggles. Unless, of course, we just forget to put the damned things on.

Here is one reason, however, why it is sometimes good that we decorate objects with knitted items rather than go out in public wearing said objects:

Please, don't anyone tell the Henson family what she has done. It's too awful to contemplate.

My ex-mother-in-law made this for Twinkletoes. While I applaud her effort to use two needles to make a knit stitch, the ingredients are appalling. I tried to appreciate it, I really did. But you have to stand far away from it and squint to not be completely horrified.

For one thing, warmth was clearly not a consideration in the recipe for this particular item. It is made with a strand of crunchy white acrylic and a strand of blue eyelash something-or-other-which-is-not-yarn. For another, the two strands are so different from each other, they look like they are trying desperately to escape each other in every stitch. (If I were knitted together with a strand of eyelash whatever-it-is, I'd try to escape, too...).

The kicker is that this thing came with a nicely designed advertising tag on it, made by the artist. She's selling them. I was speechless. (That's rare.)

Excuse me for my disrespect of someone trying to learn the craft, and even someone trying to make a little cash with it (yeah, okay, I'm a bitch, and let's just try to forget that this is my ex-mother-in-law's version of craftsmanship...), but this thing looks like Cookie Monster being tortured on some medieval body-stretcher. You can practically hear him screaming, "Me did it! Me ate ALL the Pims cakes! Me admit everything, just stoppppp..."

Twinkletoes loves it. She thinks it makes a fabulous Barbie swing.

Ah, the Barbie problem. That, we'll save for another post.

April 30, 2005 12:25 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (6)  | Print

Houston, We Have Liftoff...

Welcome to the inaugural post of Fuzzy Logic. In which we discover that knitting bloggers will do everything short of waking their children in the middle of the night to pose in handknitted items in order to add colour to their first post. Oh, wait, I actually did do that...

Youpppiiiii! It's laaaate at niiiight!
My mother is a nutcaaaase! Nice sweater, though.

Ahem. Welcome to the inaugural post of Fuzzy Logic. In which we discover that knitting bloggers will do everything including waking their children in the middle of the night to pose in handknitted items...

My name is Lee Ann Balazuc and I knit. I do it somewhat obsessively. I also write. That, I do compulsively, sometimes in my sleep, and there is no help for me. Thank goodness for that, because I make a living doing it. Knitting, on the other hand, merely keeps me out of jail.

I have been wanting to blog for a long time, but I could not simply blog using a generic blogging software. This was not possible. Why? Because I am married to Spaceman Spiff.

He asked for this. And he's good.
One lesson, one hook, one sexy guy.
Two needles are next. Damn, I'm lucky.

Spiff is a Java Guru and Developer Extraordinaire. Therefore, although I have been telling friends, family, people in stores, and the lady on the corner near my kid's school who picks her teeth with a rolled-up newspaper, that I, Lee Ann Balazuc, am going to talk about knitting on a real live blog, it has not happened until today.

Today, Spiff gives me the gift of his programming talent, his intelligence, his impeccable sense of timing, and a healthy dose of humour, in the form of this blog. And I get to share with you, fellow knitters, this wonderful obsession with fiber and how to make it fit one's body. Hopefully without having to lie on the bed and take very deep breaths, thus forcing the zipper incrementally upward without catching the belly flab. And maybe without emitting offensive outbursts involving language my mother told me was patently wrong. I lay no guarantees on the latter. After all, I swear in several languages now that I am living in Québec. You have been warned, ostie.

Before I even got this far, I discovered that just by visiting blogs, a knitter could find kindred spirits and find herself surrounded by people who would support her through just about everything a person can go through. All while creating something wearable and having fun doing it. Therefore, I won't dedicate this first post to just one person, first teacher of knitting. I've come to find out that the knitting life goes far beyond the very first teacher, if you are very lucky. And as one of my favourite poets, the late great Lynda Hull, would have said, I'm a lucky bitch. I'm lucky because I found (1) the incredible group of women who learned to knit with me and got me through a winter in South Hadley, Massachusetts without playing hangman for real, (2) the equally incredible women who have taken me into their hilariously funny little group of knitting fools in Montréal while I build a second life, (3) the very generous knitbloggers who have given me skill-bending challenges, a laugh a minute, and their solid friendship, and (4) Spiff and Twinkletoes, the two best people in my life.

Let the blogging begin!

April 28, 2005 12:10 AM  | Permalink  | Comments (22)  | Print

This is a powertest

Blah blah blah try to break me

April 27, 2005 5:37 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (7)  | Print

New version available

Well...here we go then...Another version to test and I hope it will be ZE release candidate because it's time I break everything in the code and redo it again.

April 15, 2005 7:50 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Print

Mon petit atome, je t'aime...

Welcome back to your desk, love of my life :-)

April 12, 2005 1:30 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (1)  | Print

Take two and call me in the morning...

Let's spend the night together, wake up and draft forever....

April 11, 2005 3:59 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Print

Yeah yeah. Alright.

Let's spend the night together, wake up and draft forever....

April 10, 2005 10:08 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Print

This is only a draft. Well, okay, it mutated.

What? I'm just testing the draft function...so lower your expectations already...there are no photos of this process. There is, however, a post to say that voilà, the draft function now works. Remind me that I am never ever going to say "Woot" on my blog when I really mean "yesssssssss....this ROCKS..."

April 10, 2005 9:57 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Print

Test Trackback

Test TrackbackTest TrackbackTest TrackbackTest TrackbackTest Trackback

April 10, 2005 9:39 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Print