Laugh if you must.

This is Wonder on Lee Ann's body.

Any questions?

Talk to me in five kilos. Maybe then, I won't feel like I'm a mutant. Because kids, right now, I'm a size 2 (despite all appearances to the contrary...). And yet, to fit into a medium-width (that's the third size up) One Skein Wonder, I have to be a size 0, max. And before we go any further, please note that I did get gauge. Again. But this pattern just refuses to fit anything but a stick or a seven year old.

In the OSW world, 2s are too big for prime time.
In my world, I needed two skeins, thanks.

It's also very inconvenient
to have tits and shoulders.
And it hurts to move my arms.
But the leaves are nice, eh?

Now, my husband, who is the thinnest man in the world, thinks I'm on the heavier side of normal. I'm not exactly pleased with the jiggly bits that have suddenly cropped up everywhere either, although I don't think that people who can eat ice cream and Choco-Leibniz biscuits before bedtime and be none the worse for jiggling have any right to mention my jiggly bits, unless it's to praise them. Metabolism is not a moral issue, buddy. You didn't eat the last biscuit, did you, darling?

It does, however, cause mutants like me to go out and buy things like exercise balls and a little thingy that is supposed to hold me in the proper position to develop abs of something a bit firmer than ice cream and Choco-Leibniz. I don't have the time to go to a gym, I don't have the money for a trainer, so Pilates, here I come. Again. Nice to see you, Madame Winsor, been a long time, you haven't aged a day. Bitch.

Anyway, let's set my mutant woes aside. I don't want to be labeled the whiner who can't fit into someone's pattern because of a deep love of Häagen-Dazs. However, my kid must be a size -40 or something, because the smallest size of the OSW looks terrific on her. She loves it so much that when I went to pick her up at at school on Friday afternoon, she was still wearing it. For a child who usually is in some state of undress by the end of the day, thanks to itchiness or hotness or sheer whinyness, this is nothing short of a miracle, still wearing something Maman made, at 17h. I'm almost glad it was too small for me. Almost. But we won't talk about how jealousy of one's seven-year-old child's skinniness is just plain shameful. You did not read that here. I'm happy it fits her. Really.

Here's the obligatory "Rachel" pose.

We like to call this one the "Reverse Rachel."

While we're talking about things that are a little hard to take off, if you haven't seen Franklin's astonishing circular near-disaster cum homage-to-icons-of-dance yet, go here and die laughing. That man is simply brilliant. Eat your heart out, Jules Feiffer.

And speaking of "just a little shrug...," my Rowan shrug, "Tara," is coming along, although I had to rip about two inches (ouuuuuuuch) after missing a yarnover somewhere about...well...two inches down.... Note to self: wine + lace knitting = whine + lace frogging. No photo, because, well, it's black and fuzzy and you saw it last time. Picture last time, only longer. It won't get interesting until I have to start the ribbed edge, and then it will look black and fuzzy and edged in rib. You have to admit, there's only so much "ooh" and "aah" the sleeve equivalent of a pushmi-pullyu can engender.

If it sounds like I'm in a bit of a funk, I am. A post-kid-birthday (she turned 7, we had a party at a ceramics café with seven other little girls, we lived through it without losing or killing any of them), rainy Monday, haven't spun a thing in weeks funk. I have nothing on the needles that completely thrills me (Tara's losing her shine, fast. Think endless sleeve. Makes you want to run out and make one, eh?). Everything recently off the needles makes me feel like I've eaten a bowl of lead balloons. Maybe I should go get me one of these, just to inject a little oomph into my body image (thanks go to Annie Modesitt for linking to this...it made my day). At the very least, it would serve as a distraction from those love handles, non?

Cheerier post next time is virtually guaranteed because I'm going to Vermont on Saturday, where I get to hang out with Norma and Juno and anyone else who plans to enable the hell out of me, fiberwise. I'm extremely excited. Believe it or not, I've never been to a fiber festival. My knitting group is also going, and making a weekend out of it, but I'm not that portable, thanks to early morning dance lessons for a certain little person....

Time to quit whining and go exercise. After all, I now have a proper set of balls—I may as well put them to good use, non?

Edited to Add: I've offended somebody with the word "mutant" and I would like to assure everyone that I do not consider people of larger sizes to be "mutated" in any way. I meant the exact opposite, in fact. I was making fun of myself in this ridiculously small thing I made, and making fun of the way patterns are sized for the minuscule among us. My point was that there was no way in hell anyone with an adult human body was going to get into the garment I made. I'm sorry to have offended the first commenter, but unfortunately I can't reach her to apologise and tell her what I really meant. So I'll apologise here and hope she understands.

September 26, 2005 12:44 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (36)  | Print