Getting A Grip On (En)Tangle(ment)z

Did I mention I had joined the Girl Scouts last fall?

I innocently took The Girlio to a meeting and ended up a collateral registrant, and... well... now we're up to our ears in cookie sales, pursuing the Bronze Award, and fundraising for an early May trip to San Francisco. There, C and seven other Seattle Juniors from her troop are joining 5,000 Girl Scouts to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge for their Bridging Ceremony. Our girls are working as a team to raise the $745 travel cost per person. They made great progress doing holiday gift-wrapping at Barnes & Noble. Today they're selling home-made or -baked items at the region's Annual Meeting.

C and I are very proud of our contribution to the fundraising efforts:

That's right, we designed and made those cute little hair ribbon things otherwise known as

Feast your eyes on the fruits of our labor. Three days of my life, to be exact. Thursday through Saturday of last week. Thursday went something like this: Woke up at 4am stressing about what we would make. Tossed. Turned. Tossed some more.

Got out of bed at 6:30am to surf the web for inspiration before the kids woke up. Having been a Girl Scout fewer than six months, I didn't have a clue what was done or not done or cool or not cool. The heat was on!

Then I discovered that the Girl Scouts licensed cute fabrics designed by Robert Kaufman. I could do something with that! But what?

Four ideas emerged based upon my research: Sit-Upons, Pledge Money Purses, String Backpacks, and Pony O's. Pony O's seemed the most manageable and the most salable -- and I hadn't seen anything like them out there specific to Girl Scouts. Yes!

Teachers at C's school were to have a professional development day on Friday. Since that meant she would be home with me the next day, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for us to assemble everything. I located the closest local store carrying the fabric and ran over to pick up supplies so we could start working as early as possible the next day.

I also had to pull out both of my sewing machines and open them up for repairs. Neither was working, and I knew it. I diagnosed the older one and ordered some parts for repair. Fortunately, I was able to put the newer one back into working order so we could use it right away. And use it we did!

Captains of the Industrial Revolution would have been impressed by the brilliance of the mass-production assembly line we set up in our living room.

Even though the cute little beads are hidden by the way I've secured all the bands, I love how these Pony O's look en masse!

It took a day longer than I had hoped, but by Saturday evening we had cranked out a total of 36 C & Z Original Girl Scout Pony O's. Wooo - hoooo! Of course C selected two to keep, so we're actually selling 34.

These are some seriously well-crafted Pony O's, too. We used the sewing machine to stitch fabric tubes from the Girl Scouts fabric, which we then turned right-side-out. She was a miracle of fiddly fabric-turning stamina! Catherine carefully assessed which color ribbons went with which color fabric... then which color band... then which color bead. The ribbon ends were neatly trimmed and sealed. And the whole was assembled and finish stitched by hand.

If you think that was the hard part, think again. We still had to figure out how to display them! The girls have about 20 different types of items to sell on a single little table, so space would be at a premium. We knew we had to go vertical. Six days passed before we figured out a simple, doable solution:

If you guessed "shoe tree," you're correct! C made a great sign. I figured out how to rig it to stand up nicely.

C practiced assembling and disassembling it all so things will go smoothly at the sale. Then she practiced her sales pitch and her best "How could you possibly say no to me?" look. Again, success:

She has every reason to be proud of all her work! We got out of a fundraising idea tangle, and we can help 34 lucky girls keep their hair tangle-free stylishly while participating in all their Girl Scout activities!

My fingers are super-duper crossed. These fundraisers are challenging in so many ways, and it would be nice to make another big step toward the girls' goal. Anyone want to order some for their own little Girl Scouts? Let me know! Leftovers will be posted for sale on Etsy Sunday, and we'd be happy to make more if they all sell at today's meeting.

Accidental Bunny

It's a boy!

Friends of ours had a baby last April. I've been a little overdue on finishing his knitted gift, but I finally wrapped it up on December 23 and gave it to him Christmas Eve.

Pattern: Baby Brofsky's Baby Bunny, a shop pattern from Churchmouse Yarns & Teas

(not available online)

Started: Fall 2009 by my then 9-year-old daughter

Progress: Knitting completed by me in Spring 2010

Completed: December 23, 2010

Gifted: December 24, 2010

Materials: Rowan Handknit Cotton, shade 327

Needles: US 4 - 3.5 mm

I'm a sucker for the view from behind!

In all honesty, I never had any intention of even buying this bunny pattern and yarn, let alone knitting it myself. On a trip to Churchmouse Yarns & Teas on Bainbridge Island last fall, my daughter blackmailed me (with promises of good behavior) into purchasing the yarn and pattern. She assured me she would knit the project to completion, and for some reason -- despite the fact that she has never ever completed one single knitting project -- I caved.

She got through the head and about to the neck on one side (the back side) before she got distracted. Poor little bunny lingered, unfinished, until spring. When the neighbors' little guy came along, I knew just the thing to give him! I finished the knitting on an afternoon drive to the Tenino Vintage Motorcycle Rally with my family... and then with our move and the progress towards adopting a little guy of our own, I, too, got distracted and bunny lingered longer.

Call it shame, embarrassment, desperation -- I finally finished so I could make the bunny a present to Wes (now 8 months old) on Christmas Eve.

Wes's response? Put the bunny in his mouth. He likes it!

I like it, too. Although I have to admit being less than fond of knitting with cotton. I miss the sproinginess of wool.

The pictures were shot hastily before we rushed off to the Christmas Eve party, and I'm afraid they betray that hastiness in their quality. Bummer!

I would have made a second bunny for our own new little guy here. Sadly, the pattern uses just a little more than half the skein of Rowan. I won't be able to eek out anther bunny at full-size, but perhaps I'll take a chance on reducing the pattern a little bit.

Sometimes The Bear Gets You

My high-school Latin teacher used to say, "Sometimes you get the bear; sometimes the bear gets you!" Imagine this fiber was the bear:


It royally kicked my butt on the spinning wheel. I can't begin to tell you how much trouble I had spinning this stuff. It's one of the mystery fibers I picked up from A New Yarn — so soft that I originally wondered if it might not be something like camel. (Okay, if you've worked with camel and looked at the picture and thought, "What on earth was she thinking?!" because you know at a glance it's not camel, please cut me some slack — I'm totally just feeling my way through this mystery fiber thing right now.)

I did eventually get it all spun into singles and plied into this skein:


We have here 80 yards — spun mostly 2-ply, with the last dozen yards spun Navajo 3-ply. I figured it'd given me so much trouble that it probably wouldn't be worth much as an addition to my stash, so why not make the 3-ply experiment? A day later, while petting the finished product and trying to figure out what I would make from it, something about the texture reminded me of... could it be...????


A trip to the Weaving Works confirmed it. This stuff isn't wool at all. It's cotton. No wonder it kicked my butt all over the place! I'm amazed it came out as well as it did.

I call the yarn "Red Bear" — because this one got me!

Migraine Prescription

I cast on this dishcloth to work when my hands don’t want to be idle but my head and eyes ache too much for anything more intricate. So far, it’s a match made in heaven. I knit as slowly or as quickly as I like, and I don’t even have to look at my hands if I don’t want to!



The pattern is called Chinese Waves, and you can find it free online here. The fabric is as-promised: nice and thick. We’ll see how it functions when wet.

The Assassination of Jesse James Dishcloth

Pattern: eLoomanator's Diagonal Knit Dishcloth (on Ravelry here)
Started: February 2, 2008
Completed: February 5, 2008
Materials: Lion Brand Lion Cotton Solid
Needles: US 6 / 4.0 mm

I started knitting this dishcloth while watching The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Ford may only have fired one bullet to put the unarmed bandit down, but he then went on a performance tour, re-enacting the event with his brother more than 800 times for public consumption. With all the holes in the middle of this bright red cloth, I thought it a fitting metaphor for the notoriously celebrated murder of the outlaw America loved.

It would have been finished the next day, but I made a mistake in the center panel and had to rip back a few rows. Just didn’t feel like doing it right away. Then I couldn’t quite figure out the fix and it took me awhile to get back on track.



The cloth is done. I’m not 100% thrilled with it because of some gauge issues. It’s important to knit very loosely at the beginning because the center panel is quite loose!