Chickenlips Knitting

Sharon's dilemma:
Haiku are all good. Which one
will win the Koigu?

First of all, thanks to everyone who submitted haiku. Ranging from the droll to the ethereal to the outright solicitous, all are delightfully clever, and I had a tough time selecting just one winner. The haiku I received via email, I've posted in the comments, so they can all be read and enjoyed.

Now let's get to it. Here's the second runner-up:

Chicken lips chilly?
Two pointy sticks and a string:
Koigu nose warmer
-from Judy

First runner-up:

"honey, stop crying"
doesn't he get it? handspun
socks in the dryer
-from Lynn

And the winner:

Bury me in yarn.
Balls, skeins, hanks...oh, the pleasure;
I can die happy.
-from Rebecca

Congratulations, Rebecca! As soon as I have your mailing address, I'll send the Koigu right out to you.

Y' know, I enjoyed this contest so much that I'd like to do another one, maybe next month so there will still be time to make holiday gifts. What the hey, we could give captions a try, it ought to be a hoot. Watch this space for details--I try to blog at least once a week. I'll also announce a contest on Yahoo Portland SnB.

Thanks again to all who participated--we here at Chickenlips appreciate your readership!

Productive Labor Day Weekend

In terms of finishing projects, that is. The "Really Cool" Socks are done, washed, dried, and put away in my Rubbermaid bin of gifts waiting to be given. I began those on the weekend of Black Sheep Gathering, so they took about 2.5 months to complete.

*sigh* See why I need to destash?

This is also finished:



This came from a Patons Beehive booklet of children's patterns from the early 1960's--love those retro pattern books, I've got a '61 Bernat Mohair book with a cardigan-wearing guy smoking a cigarette! Maybe we could use that for our caption contest. The skirt is a 5 x 2 wide-rib, knit in Araucania Nature Wool (2 hanks for a size 6, which is pretty teeny,) and on size 5 needles. The elastic casing is a slipstitch which creates the knit fabric on both sides, making it easier to finish--no knitting a turning row, then having to stitch it down. It was nice to be able to just sew the side seams, run the elastic thru, tack it together, and badda-bing, be back on the street.

The intended recipient is a very special little girl--the daughter of a knitting buddy--who has the same birthday as me. Late October, 1st decan of Scorpio, that would be. The child is turning 4, which means that on the day she was born, I was visiting Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima and then going to Miyajima to try to forget about the A-bomb.

Of course, what's a skirt without a sweater to go with it? Determined as I am to continue destashing, rather than run out and buy yet more yarn, I cast on for a little girl's cardigan in Vogue Vintage Knits, using Silky Wool. To be honest, I'm not loving it, for the following reasons: a) the yarn seems too fine-gauge. Even knitting it on size 3 needles for the ribbing, I'm getting too much space between and within the stitches; and 2) it just doesn't have the "feel" I expect for the ribbing of a child's cardi. So, I'm going to scrap the whole vintage-cardigan thing--I hate doing buttonholes anyway!