Mar2012 Randomness

Back in February, we went to Florida. The place I loved the most was the house. But when I left the house, my favourite spot was Universal's Islands of Adventure. That's where the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is, and where Suess Landing is. Wicked.

You'll recognize those trees from the book The Lorax. Not the movie. The book. Best book EVER. I've loved it for years and I often fancy myself the Lorax. As in, "I speak for the _______."

There we are holding hands, the Lorax and I.

This is the Onceler's house. You can tell from the sign at the top. At the speakers, you could hear the story being told. I listened quite a bit.

Words to live by, each and every one.

Onto topic number TWO. My darling hubby running in his first 5k race. It was a St. Patrick's Day race, so that should explain the kooks in funny outfits. Hubby's the one in the foreground, not wearing anything green. He finished in less than 25 minutes. Yay!

I bought this roving. It's the Darkhorse colourway from SweetGeorgia and I love it. I have split it into its sections and I'm trying to make it even and organized such that I can two-ply it and get really long colour changes in it, making for a lovely shawl of some sort. I don't spend too much time spinning at present, so the half a bobbin I have isn't getting me anywhere fast.

Oh, how could I forget? There was a Mickey hydro tower in Orlando. Too funny!

Just today, lovely hubby went to the fabric store to get some felt. Yes, he went to a fabric store. Better yet, he went alone. Can you imagine? Me neither. I asked him to get me a meter each of two cool fabrics. He went one better and got me five fabrics. I'm in love.

What do they want to be!?!?!? The first thought I had was an apron or two, but we'll have to see what other ideas I can come up with. The skulls on the purple fabric glow in the dark. Sweet, right?

Ladies, don't get left out of a moustache challenge

Why sit on the sidelines when you can join in? No, no, don't stop waxing, plucking or lasering ... knit a fake one!

This pattern comes to us from this site, and with a couple of edits I whipped up two 'staches within a couple hours on Sunday. Woohoo!

I'm voting for me to win the challenge that's going on at work. Who doesn't love a woman with a moustache?

Oh, and I made one for a smaller person and used fingering weight yarn instead of DK and it came out more right-sized.   :O)

Food Truck Bazaar ... oh my!

The girl running the Crepe Company food truck had a knitted hat on, so this post qualifies as random, and yet also knitting-related. And I bought a lot of yarn today, so there's another tie-in to this mostly-knitting/spinning-blog-which-sells-itself-as-"random".

Sooo many choices here at the Food Truck Bazaar in Orlando, Florida. The mall sucked, so we came out to the parking lot to watch the trucks roll in ... an hour early. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Look for details about what we bought after the pictures of the trucks.

As I said, these were all food trucks based in the Orlando area, and there may be sister trucks of the same name in other places. I won't provide links because they're all Googlable and the more you dig, the more you'll find.

Star-rating system:

***** AWESOME!
**** Pretty rad
*** Good
** Meh
* Boooooo!

Wicked Wiches (we saw them on the food network) ... Pamanti Brothers sandwich ****
Beard Papa (we've seen the in-mall version) ... Cookie creampuff with raspberry cream *****
Pupusa ... pork pupusa (el salvadorian) *****
Island BBQ ... jerk pork on coconut rice and beans with habanero sauce ****
La Empanada ... beef ****
Firehouse BBQ ... brisket sandwich *****
the batter bowl ... banana bread pudding *****
the batter bowl ... chocolate peanut butter push-pop cake (you have GOT to see this thing - it's ridiculously cute, and unfortunately, the kid popped it right onto the ground) *****
Melissa's Chicken and Waffles ... chicken and waffles with gravy AND syrup *****
Gourmet Flatbreads ... smack my swine flatbread pizza *****
Saigon Sizzle ... giant pork banh mi with extra veg (so nice of him to provide extra!) ***
The Crepe Company ... banana and nutella sweet crepe *****
Gastro Truck ... macaroni and cheese ****
Fork in the Road ... fried pickle spear ***
Yum Yum (they take pictures of all their Canadian customers, so look for our friends on their Facebook page) ... the dough-dough bird, s'mores please, peanut butter choco-rama, vanilla with butter cream ****

OH MY GOD, BLOGGER, HOW DID YOU EAT THAT MUCH!?!?!?!?   Well, I didn't. I had six friends along with me and we did a lot of sharing. We bought from a total of 15 trucks and it was all money well spent. Don't go to a Food Truck Bazaar on your own, dear readers.    :O)

Nanna's Toque

I needed a hat pattern and found one using the browser on my BlackBerry, but I found the small screen annoying and didn't like repeatedly having to zoom to read the pattern ... so I gave up on it and designed the toque myself. Yes, I could have solved the problem by going to my computer, but I had a couch tied to my butt and I couldn't move. Plus, designing the hat was fun.

I used wool/silk homespun in worsted weight. I used 4mm needles and sized this hat for a grown-ass woman, to quote the February Lady Sweater description. Gauge ... hmmmmm ... since it's homespun, it's not exactly even and I wouldn't want to guess. Maybe just follow your ball-band's recommended gauge.

It's a fun jaunt through a few stitch patterns, keeping things interesting on this quick knit.


The Stitches:

k - knit
p - purl
bamboo stitch - yarn over (yo), knit two, then pass the yo over the two knitted stitches
k2tog - knit two stitches together
p2tog - purl two stitches together


The Pattern:

Cast on 96 stitches and join to work in the round, placing a marker at the end of round.

Each round's instruction is for the entire round - e.g. Round 1 - purl all stitches in the round.

Rounds 1 - p
2 - k
3 - p
Rnds 4 - 7 - k
8 - 11 - p
12 - k
13 - bamboo
14 - k
15 - bamboo
16 - k
17 - 20 - p
21 - 25 - k
26 - 29 - p
30 - bamboo
31 - k
32 - bamboo
33 - knit
34 - bamboo
35 - *k10, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
36 - bamboo
37 - *k9, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
38 - bamboo
39 - *k8, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
40 - bamboo
41 - *k7, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
42 - bamboo
43 - *k6, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
44 - bamboo
45 - *k5, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
46 - p
47 - *p4, p2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
48 - p
49 - *p3, p2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
50 - k
51 - *k2, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
52 - k
53 - *k1, k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)
54 - k
55 - *k2tog (repeat from * to end of round)


The Finishing:

Cut yarn and draw through remaining stitches.

Weave in yarn ends.

Block lightly to flatten out the horizontal ribs a bit.

Put it on your head.

Catch-up time...

There are lots of things I want to show you.

Let's start with spinning. I bought this fibre - bfl - dyed by a local gal who used to work with my Mum:

I haven't spun it all, but I did attack in with a Christmas deadline to get enough for my Mum to have fun with. Here's one bobbin. Seriously, the thinnest I've ever spun:

That looks a bit dark. Here's the three-ply yarn, which, at three plies, was an amazing DK weight ... the thinnest yarn I've ever made (I was previously stuck in the worsted zone). So proud!

I farted around with some small projects like this mushroom (weighted in the stem with pennies) from Ysolda's Smith pattern:

And I cast on and finished Haruni, which was my first lace pattern ever. I did it in the bfl/silk homespun, which was about a worsted weight (of course). I had a bit of a goof-up about 20 rows in and I stayed up super-late trying to fix it rather than ripping it back ... and I totally fixed it. None the wiser, either. I think I can actually say that it's error-free now. And I'm in love with it. And I'm giving it away.

I'll post a full shawl photo another time. Too much now would be a spoiler to the giftee.  :O)