Yarn Badness, but in a good way

What I mean is, the characters the colorways are based on are bad. They yarn is excellent yumminess! This here yarn is Debbie Pelt, and exclusive colorway for the yarn club, from Fresh From The Cauldron. (Please note my nice Southern-ism of "this here". Ahem.) Ms. Pelt is a very nasty, conniving werewolf in Charliane Harris' Southern vampire mysteries. But, she is a lovely, lovely colorway. I'm a bit sad I only ordered one of her. She is on a silk sock base and is very nice to pet. Fortunately, this Ms. Pelt has no teeth or claws, just yummy squishiness.

Then there's the Volturi. Another club exclusive, based on the Volturi in the Twilight saga. (Yes. I read it. My favorite comment on it so far is: I cried when I read it because I could feel part of my brain dying. It wasn't that bad, but it did hurt sometimes.) The Volturi are dyed up on a Silver Sock base, so lots of nice sparkles, like all those Twilight vamps in the sunshine. I think my photo did a better job of highlighting the sparkle than the colors, but the colors are lovely too.

I still have no idea what my lovely vamp yarns will grow up to be, but they are looking all nice sitting in their little basket together. I'm browsing lots of patterns, and a few have caught my attention, but since I'm not ready to cast anything on yet, I'm not too worried.

I have turned the dreaded heel (not that I really dread them) and have made a few rows' progress into the foot of the Bellatrix socks (sorry, no pics today). Sadly, I must get two more fish hats done (for the cafeteria lady and her DH) by the 19th. These really go so quickly. You know, if you actually sit down and knit. Funny how that works.

She has requested red/white/blue hats, so I thought I'd do one with red fins/lips and the other with blue fins/lips. That way they can tell them apart if one of them drops the hats into a pile of fish. They apparently fish competitively, so the hats will be load of funs for them. I'm making these out of Cascade superwash, so they can clean them up if needed.


Here is the gaping maw of the first hat. I'm now about halfway through the body. I've increased the number of stitches I cast on (from 90 to 110) to better accomodate a grown-up head. I was not hitting gauge for the original, but it didn't matter too much for the kids. It does matter for adults.

I'm loaded up a bunch of movies to stream from Netflix (on my Xbox), but I've been too distracted by reading lately. This past week I completed The Dracula Dossier, Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog, Heaven Preserve Us, Bloodline and Bloodline Book Two: The Reckoning. I think that's it. Sister Pelagia and the Dossier were the slower going books. Both done in a more 19th ce style, with footnotes, and the Pelagia had all the Russian names to slow me down. Still, all were a great read. I also started the Maltese Falcon, but had to return it (no renewals as it was a book club sort of thing at the library). I have Hammit around somewhere, so I shall probably track it down at a later date.

The most noticable effect of all the reading is a tendency to lapse into a more formal late 19th - early 20th century sort of vocabulary/wording. Anyone else do this? I'm so sensitive to accents & manners of speech, I pick them up quickly. Such a geek! It was made all the worse, I suspect, by watching A Midsummer Night's Dream yesterday afternoon. I'd better go read something more "normal" quickly. My kids will be quite desperate for a dictionary at this rate, and my newly-turned 7 year old hasn't tried using one before. I guess there's a nice project for us this summer. Learn to use a dictionary. What kid wouldn't want to do that? lol