Chickenlips Knitting

It's that time again, getting ready for back to school! Look who's about to begin her senior year.

Senior year of high school, that is! What a bombshell, no? Miss Girl here has always been in a hurry to grow up, and has loved makeup since she was tiny. She is a talented makeup artist, and not only directs and performs in a local cast of Rocky Horror Picture Show but also does makeup for most of the principal cast members before each show. Here she's borrowing Rose McGowan's look from Planet Terror.

We've got an appointment for fancy senior pictures next week, something I insisted on. For her part, she just wants to get school over with, but it's a milestone and I want to mark the occasion (and wow the grandmas) with nice pictures. But of course we first had to have a bit of a power struggle. She balked about it until she found out she should come to the photo shoot in full makeup and bring a minimum of 5 outfits! Now it doesn't seem like an ordeal at all.

Ruminations of the political kind



I try to avoid being overtly political on my blog, because while I don't think the CIA or Homeland Security Dept. spends a lot of time perusing the average, run of the mill knitting blog, I've always got the businesswoman part of my persona lurking, and of course mixing business with politics or religion is a no-no. However, I'll out myself as a lifelong Democrat--I grew up in Massachusetts, what do you expect?!--and along with everybody else, I was very surprised at the Republican choice of vice presidential running mate. She's accomplished a great deal, but someone better dispatch a team of gay men to give her an appearance makeover, stat! Remember Will Smith in "Men In Black"? "Get someone in here to redecorate, 'cause...damn!" I know I'm being snarky. It's just that the Sophia Loren collection eyewear and platform sandals don't cut it, now that she's on the world stage!



Seriously, though, I think the choice of Sarah Palin is McCain rolling the dice, trying to attract votes from Hillary Clinton's supporters who aren't completely behind Obama. I'm not the world's greatest wordsmith, so I hope I say this right: for McCain, the choice of a female VP running mate seems like tokenism to me. I don't see anything progressive about putting a woman in the second highest political office in the country, when she is bound to a political agenda that challenges women's rights. A female vice president in a Republican administration, and no amount of rhetoric can convince me it won't be a continuation of Bush's policies or worse, will have no bearing on the Iraq war or deterrent to possible war with other nations. It gives me a feeling of "so what?"



I hate being pessimistic, so I'm going to change the subject to yarn, which always makes me feel better.



Good news and pretty colors



I had myself quite the yarny week. Stitchjones acquired a new customer: Knit Divas in St. Helens, OR. It's a very cool shop. After the Knit and Crochet Guild of America show--which is the week after next, gulp!--I'll dye up their order. I'm still trying to dye up as much yarn and fiber as possible for this show. The neat thing is, though, that without an order in hand, it gives me license to be experimental. Today I had some exciting colorways in the steamer, and I'll try to remember to take photos for the blog since they're not going up on Etsy.



Gotta love those custom dye requests! They often end up becoming hit colorways.

This is "Olive Bar", handpainted on sock weight, created for Judy, inventor of Judy's Magic Cast On. And whoa, wouldja look at this!

No, I didn't design or knit it, but isn't it fabulous? I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. This is a sock design by a very talented lady named Kasha who I "met" on Ravelry. Her Rav ID is "Kashadilla". The yarn is Stitchjones "I'm With The Band" which was inspired by a custom dye for Flutter, o queen of mine!

Kasha's design will be published and marketed as part of Stitchjones' growing line of patterns. We need a kickass name for the design, so I'd love to get your suggestions. To me, the colorway says "heavy metal babe" which is how I came up with its name. Let's make this fun. I tell you what: if your suggestion becomes the name of the design, I'll send you both the pattern and a skein of the yarn. Pretty good huh? Fire away!

It's past midnight and my eyelids are getting droopy, so I'm off to beddy bye. I may nip down to the State Fair tomorrow, if it's still going on that is. My knitting and spinning buddies have been down their demonstrating their arts, and it just sounds like a pleasant place to be.