I’m STILL getting tons & tons & tons of spam comments!! And now I’m not even notified when they come. I mean, I’m notified when a real person comments on my blog, but when these inhuman beings post their unwanted canned meat, it goes by unnoticed until I actually check. How is this? Do these things have some sort of super-hacking ability? Or… is it all a CONSPIRACY??? Someone on the inside is cavorting (okay, I guess that’s not exactly the right word, but whatev) with the beasts! We must go against them! BLOGGERS UNITE!!!!

(in a moderator’s office far, far away: “This girl is freakier than we thought. All that yarn must be going to her brain. Sigh…. I guess I’ve got to approve this…”)

I was KIPing today, knitting away at another pair of mittens made of some hideous greenish Lion Brand boucle.

I had forgotten what a menace boucle could be. Suddenly, the yarn began to morph into something else. Something - UGLY.

It got all tangly and knotty and icky! I had to unravel all the mitten and start winding the fiendish yarn into a ball. Which is not exactly as hip as KIP. I got some odd looks.

Sigh… I’ll have to work harder to finish those 7 mittens I need by the holidays…

And now, to entertain you while I knit insanely, Audrey the Actress performing a dramatization of the yarn incident! The Ugly Chair seemed a worthy backdrop.

“Oh, hello, blob of yarn!”

“Hm? What’s this, now?”

“Egad!”

*burp* (^-^)

No Audreys or blobs of yarn were harmed in the making of this filler.

It sure has been odd weather lately. Today was almost ninety degrees, and a couple days ago I almost had to put on a sweater! *dramatic gasp* Anyway, on that day I started a pair of mittens from this pretty and tacky Lion Brand Landscapes in Parfait. And today I finished them. Talk about bad timing…

But here they are, with Maria’s hideous paisley Ugly Chair as backdrop! I hope the combination didn’t make you gouge your eyes out, but don’t let paisley appearences fool you- it’s really a great knitting chair.

I’m not sure whether to sell them or give them away. Mittens aren’t really my thing, personally… I mean, it’s really impossible to knit with them on. Believe me, I’ve tried. *involuntary shudder*

One is just a tiny bit bigger than the other because I didn’t count rounds while knitting the hand.

Wait - did the novice knitter say rounds? Yes indeed, it’s my first time knitting with double-pointed needles! And it was really easy. True, it was a bit like wrestling half an octopus, but the needles were really great - this awesome smooth bamboo stuff. I’m so glad I guilted Maria into buying them for me!

Hmm, that yarn really looks way better in the ball than in the mittens…

Oh, did I mention? The pattern for these mittens was from Chicks With Sticks - It’s a Purl Thing! Sigh… what a lovely book…

That’s all for now - it’s supposed to be chilly tomorrow! I’ve got to get knitting!

Grrr… the novice knitter is angry. I finally got the digital camera from HECK to start working (after -cough- two months) only to find that all my pictures of The Pink Thing’s frogging were gone!! Waaahahahaaa… and they were really good pictures, too!

However, the novice knitter can never stay upset for long. Especially when there are great knitty things about!

Namely… the great Stitch D.C.!

Eeeeeeee!! Yarn store, yarn store, yarn store… *drools*

Stitch D.C. is this really great yarn store in, I hope you’ve guessed, Washington D.C. There are a bunch of them all over town. This one was in the artsy district of Georgetown, in a yellow building with a blue door. Cute! Yarn stores in NYC aren’t as cozy.

 Here is just a sampling of the goodies they offered!

The woman working there was knitting away on a pretty lavender sweater or something when we walked in. She was really nice and un-snobbish, unlike many yarn store attendants that shall not be named (you know who you are).

I, the lovely thrifty knitter, went straight to some bright red worsted-weight pure wool for the hat I promised I would knit Maria’s best friend. Then I splurged on this gorgeous hand-painted variegated purple wool that I had really been wanting. It’s called Malabrigo Aquarella Floresta (what a mouthful) and it’s hand-spun in Uruguay. Uruguay just sounds like somewhere where there’d be good yarn. Right? Right?

Afterwards, we went out to eat in this very cool Italian fusion restaurant. I ordered spaghetti bolognese because I didn’t remember what it was and so was quite disappointed when it turned out to be just ordinary spaghetti with meat sauce. However, it was good spaghetti with meat sauce! I KIP(knitting in public, duh)ed there and got some looks in varying degrees of approval and confusion from the tres chic diners. Hee hee. It pays to be a novice knitter.

 This was only the back room. The front room was even funkier!

So, if you ever find yourself in D.C. and have no idea what to do while you try to survive the ultra-conventional Monument Tour, check out Stitch D.C. for some monumental yarns!

Heh heh. Free advertising.

You heard the man.