Finishing with finishing

This is what comes of proclaiming yourself a “finishing queen.”

First of all one of my knitting coworkers, who is evidentially a knitter but not a finisher asked me sweetly if I would pretty please sew up the seams on something that she said she would “never” get around to finishing, but desperately wanted to wear. Since she bribed me with a bag of yarn (a trash bag full of yarn), I didn’t figure I could say “no.”

Secondly, the bizarre looking, and (I thought) unwearable hat that I thought was finished? The hat made out of about 20 different handspuns (everything from Australian wool, to Alpaca…my first feeble attempts as spinning silk are in this hat, the only fiber that didn’t make it in was the dreaded linen rope), with foot long dread locks (in as many different colors, mostly the odds and ends from various dye workshops)? Well apparently when Manimal told me that that was going to be his hat, he really meant it. I think I mentioned that the chapeau in question is rather top heavy? Yeah, so I’m going to knit a lining for it, on smaller gauge needles so that it might actually stand a chance of staying on his head….upshot? Not really finished after all. Grrr.

However! I did get more pictures of Viking Baby in the mail today…in these he is looking much more fierce, so I think there’s hope for the kid after all. All that organic food and breast milk might make a regular baby soft, but not Viking Baby…he’s gonna be a coastal raider one of these days.

And! I finished plying the free wool last night, so I will be washing it up and trying to figure out how much of it I have. (sidenote…weighing yarn on a bathroom scale is somewhat pointless, I have somewhere between 1½ and 2 pounds) I am looking for a nice cardigan pattern with a zipper front, a hood, and a lot of complicated cabling, but NO bobbles. Anyone? Anyone? I think I’m looking at a gauge of 5 or 6 stitches to the inch. Probably I will just end up making it up as I go along and inserting some of Elspeth Lavold’s wonderful “Viking Knitting Patterns” at random, per my usual.

I don’t know if anyone noticed, but it’s spring damn it! My cat has developed a severe case of cabin fever. She will run as fast as she can for 4 or 5 feet and then slam on the breaks, skidding into whatever wall or piece of furniture is in her way. Then she will attack her own tail, seem to realize after a few vicious chomps that it’s attatched to her ass and then nonchalantly bat at whatever dust maggot is in the vicinity as if to say “Don’t look at me, I’m just killing this dust maggot”…repeat 50 times a day. Our roommate recently moved out and the cat has taken to sitting in the middle of the empty room and yowling. Since it is entirely empty, it echoes as if she’s stuck down a well, very disconcerting.

But the other thing that happens in spring, is that I have to check on my seedlings every 15 minutes or so. “Yup, still there.” The first round of tomatoes are putting out true leaves and actually starting to look like tomatoes. Sometime soon I’m going to transplant them into their own little peat pots so that they can get nice big roots without having to compete with their neighbors. I keep thinking about putting them outside during the day, but March is a fickle month and whereas it was 70 degrees yesterday, today it is 40 and there is a threat of snow.

The other other thing that happens in Spring is that I start freaking out about The Pirate Party. That would be my 3rd annual 30th birthday party, the Buccaneer Bacchanal. That would be on May 20th. May 20th would be two months from next Monday! Argh! My costume will be fairly simple, and Manimal hates parties so he probably won’t go anyway, but Fink Rat takes this very seriously. She is our powder monkey, (the youngest member of the pirate crew who’s job it is to keep the gunners supplied with powder). Last year I fudged it by going the cut-off-jeans-and-striped-shirt route, but I don’t think she’s going to let me get away with that this year. The rotten thing about being me is that no matter how much I over plan for things I will still be running around at the last minute mumbling unintelligibly “where did I put the rum, has anyone seen my seam ripper, where’s Manimal with that plank.” Ah well.

Ragnar…procrastination is my pirate name.