The OoS make a classroom appearance

A quick aside about the picture: I searched and searched and couldn't find a pic of Edina for some reason. I know I have several I just can freaking find them. Instead of a recent picture I offer up to you this picture of us at a high school formal. Oddly the nicknames I've chosen to obscure the identities of those therein are mostly actual nicknames from high school. In fact four of them. You can guess if you want. My good freind Edina*, lover of all things kitchy, decided to do her informative speech in her Speech Class on knitting. This was mostly so she could spend her spring break sitting around my house learning to knit so she can eventually make purses. Edina loves purses. LOVES them. If she were stranded on a desert island and could only have one thing, she'd totally take her purse. At least she'd have about 12 lighters in it... I'm getting off the subject. Anyway, Edina decided to do her speech on knitting. She's going to discuss a bit of the history, a breif how to, and dispell some common misconceptions. She intends to do all of this while wearing the Overalls of Shame. She explained to me that in order to punch up a speech she thought others might find dull she needed something to grab their attention so we called up my cousin and got the okay to take the OoS on an outing. This will be video taped. Which brings me to my big question: Does anyone know how turn a VHS clip into something I can puit on my computer to share with the lot of you? Because this just seems too good to pass up. *Name has been changed to reflect the true character of the subject.

More from the Overalls of Shame

Welcome to my blog pictoral essay of the Overalls of Shame being recieved. I hope you enjoy it. I'm not great at following directions. Anticipation. Initial shock. Totally baffled. Still baffled. Then Aunt Blondie jumped in to try to explain it since she had seen them a couple days before. Finally she figured it out. This is Irie reading all the emails I got from everyone who wants to be part of the world tour. She's pretty excited about that, I think. And here's Irie and I together. See, she still likes me. Though she may be plotting revenge...

The moment you've all been waiting for.

That's right, it's time. Here they are in all thier flabberghasticity. That's my new word. And the back: And a close up of the top: Here's a detail of the buttons I used. Not good. Here's a good shot of the back straps. Look at all that Bernat Disco. A very bad ass indeed. Now this is where I stopped caring about quality and, if you can believe it, how these things looked. Yep it's where I just tied the old ball of yarn tothe new ball and kept right on going. I just wanted to be DONE! Consequently most of the ends were knotted in some way rather than woven in. Forgive my crappy craftsmanship but I didn't actually want to look at these ugly things anymore. I'm only human! Project Details: Pattern: Overall Shorts (#33) Knit.1 Spring 2005 Yarn: Lion Brand Magic Stripes in Denim Stripe, Bernat Disco in some sort of awful brown, an unlabeled orange fur yarn, and Lion Brand Fun Fur in I lost the ball band so let's call it Bright Fucking Yellow. Notes: Even without trying this pattern is a disaster but when you are trying, lordy, lordy.

Sneek Peek

I'm done with the knitting and am doing the finishing today. Tomorrow's blog entry will be pictures of the Overalls of Shame in thier full flabberghasting glory. For you today I have a sneek peek. A sneek peek of the project that my little brother said, "If someone gave me those I'd throw up on them and then I'd run to the bathroom and cry," about. Yeah, they're as bad as we all thought.

A first glimpse at Shame

I've finished the first leg of the Overalls of Shame. I know it doesn't look like a whole leg but remember, they're hot pants. It's taking me longer than I expected because it's been FREAKING FREEZING in my house. I had to get metal needles for this project because they were out of Clovers in size 10 at the Michael's I dragged RTK (Red Todd Kidd) to and I wasn't about to suggest going to a second Michael's the day after Thanksgiving. So one pair of red Boye needles and one pair of shiny silver Susan Bates. I've discovered I like the SB needles, the cords are excellent. I just wish they didn't suck all the heat from my hands and make me feel as though they're made ice and that my hands will never again find warmth but like I said, the cords are nice. And now I have two links for you that are almost as crazy as the Overalls. This one is to an article I accidentally found yesterday, nevermind why, you have to read through the first page AND the second page. The first page orients you to what it's about and the second page will crack you up. I almost stopped reading before the second page but later I was curious and went back and it was totally worth it. I was laughing out loud. You can find the article here: Historically Significant Tampons. And in case you miss the link in the article, the link to the site of the guy being interviewed (yep, it's a guy) is here: The Museum of Menstruation. Seriously it's funny.

A bit cheerier, perhaps.

Yeah, some good stuff happened. My (large extended) family isn't drawing names for a Christmas gift exchange this year. That really helps us out considering how broke we are. One of my cousins, Hawkeye, was sorely disapointed about it so we've decided to do a mini Secret Santa between the girl cousins. There are only five of us so I'm not sure how secret it will be. The rules are (because we're all broke): 1) You have to make your gift. 2) You have to use either things you already have or spend no more than $10. You know what this means don't you, oh faithful 3 readers or so? Overalls of Shame. The time has come. It has been ordained. Other good stuff that happened this weekend: -Went out with friends on Saturday night (best part was when we got lost). All in all it was probably one of the worst night out ever but since it was still out, I'm not going to complain (much). -Saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We even got a 15 minute intermission when the power went out. Delightful. But the movie was good, I got to see some good close ups to the scarf (I'd alter the pattern if I ever had to make another), and again I was out of the house. But the best thing that happened this weekend was I got a package frommy Hoilday Secret Pal! She seems to know me well. It included: Three hanks of 100% Alpaca in green, grey, and black. A hank of some orange sparkley yarn (wool, silk, alpaca, sparkle blend) already earmarked for an Ipod cozy for my sister who will love and cherish any orange sparkly object. The movie Incubus, starring a pre-Star Trek William Shatner and filmed in Esperanto, it's a horror movie. I can't wait to watch it, I don't even know where she found this thing. I'm sure it's going to be AWESOMELY bad. It was mentioned briefly in a bad movie thread on knitty and I said I'd love to get my hands on it, that's some good detective work, SP! She also sent me s Crocheting for Dummies and some crochet hooks so I can (hopefully) finally learn to crochet. I got a three pound bag of plain M&Ms, one of my favorite candies (must have cost a fortune to mail!). A Lantern Moon sheep tape measure which my son has named "Chompy, like the goat," I have no idea what he's talking about but it's cute anyway. She sent me Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac, which as much as I've read has been informative and amusing. Oh and a mixed CD that is spookily well made, I like all the songs. Lastly and not in the picture was a box of Hershey's Goodnight Kiss Hot chocolate mix, I don't know if she knows I boycott Nestle to the best of my ability or not but I though it was awesome that she found some non-Neslte hot chocolate! I usually have to hunt pretty hard or buy gourmet (Godiva is awesome, Ghriardelli not quite so good, Land-o-Lakes is good but don't mix it with milk, only water). And that, friends was my sweet, sweet Holiday SP haul. Hard to be bitchy with all that great stuff starin' at me. Okay, I'm off to finish Wavy so I can start on the Overalls of Shame. I have vowed to finish Wavy first. My sister has kindly agreed to let me put off the Harry Potter scarf until all my Christmas knitting is done, I think because she wants to see those overalls just as badly as you all do. EDIT: Oh yeah, the card my SP sent with the monkey on it. On the outside it says: "Know what day it is?" and inside it says: "Neither do I." In case anyone was wondering.

Revived

My knitting zest has returned; any day now a package will arrive with the final components required for The Overalls of Shame. I have the pattern. I have the Glitterspun. I have almost allof the Magic Stripes. All I'm waiting on is a little package from Seven with the rest of the Magic Stripes and I'm good to go. It'd be nice to add some Fun Fur to the thigh area but I can live without it. Oh, the atrocity of it all. [cue evil laugh] I've been cheerfully knitting away on my sister's Harry Potter PoA scarf in my anticipation. Aside from a minor rant about the cheap-ass quality of the cheap-ass yarn I'm using it's been smooth sailing. I've made it through a whopping two pattern repeats! Hey, cut me some slack, the thing is 90 stitches in the round on size 8s it takes awhile to get through the 38 rounds in one pattern repeat, at least there's no purling. If you were calculating in your head it all comes out to 53,210 stitches not including the three needle bind off on both ends. The of course there will be the fringe. Can you tell that this isn't my favorite project? All in all I'm in a better mood today. But can it last? [cue music: dum DUM DUUUUM!]

Overalls of Shame and Cemetary Hopping

The knitter's nightmare, The Overalls of Shame as they've been dubbed in prominant circles (yes, the knittyboard is a prominant circle because I like to feel important), are going to be knitted by an actual person other than the designer. That brave soul is me. They are the gag gift to end all gag gifts and I can't take it any longer. After MONTHS of looking at them all over the internet I broke down and swapped for the magazine that had the pattern. It arrived just yesterday and it was everything I had ever hoped for. The downer in this project is that I can't afford the yarn for them, I really can't afford any non-Christmas gift yarn at all which is why all my new projects over there are Christmas gifts. But those awesome knittyheads with senses of humor as dark as mine heard my plea and are sending me their extra balls of Glitterspun, Magic Stripes, and even some Fun Fur for trim. What that means is that these things are going to be about a thousand colors and trimmed at the thighs (and possibly the straps) with Fun Fur, and you thought they couldn't get any uglier. You were wrong. So very wrong. Which brings me to the question everyone has been asking, "Sarah, why would you spend time and effort on these hideous things? Is there something wrong with you?" Yes, something is wrong with me, perhaps even a multitude of things, but that's not why I want to do this. I'm doing this for some very special relatives of mine. My best girls in the world. My sister and my three girl cousins (one of which isn't in this picture, she had to stay home that night). Yes, that's right I'm doing this because I know that then I will win the ongoing gag gift competition between myself and said relatives. Previous gifts have included a Learn to do the Macerena video, a candle in the shape of a shriner monkey, a t-shirt beset with bows and a scrawled with a magic marker stating, "My favorite relative gave me this shirt." We're strange people, we know. We knew that the night we went all over town looking for cemeteries to spook ourselves out. The one from the picture is in Old Town San Diego, the famous grave of Yankee Jim, in fact. Really it was a fun night despite the fact that nothing spooky happened. We did have a few moments of panic in the middle of nowhere when we thought we might run out of gas. It just seems a shame that I missed the big scare a few weeks before: my sister had dropped me off at home and was taking the girls back to her place when they drove past this thing. It wasn't all well lit at the time and passing it at 45 miles an hour all they knew was that something large and inhuman was looming over the road. Ah, to be scared by a lawn ornament. I miss the best stuff. So anyway, I'm going to make the Overalls of Shame. It's going to be awesome.