The Outer Limits

The Outer Limits has been released and is now available on Ravelry!  Shalimar Yarns will have kit's to make The Outer Limits at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival this weekend.  They will also be carrying the Oktoberfest, Ribbon Street Cowl and Frost in Bloom patterns along with the yarn's to make them. If you are in the area, be sure to stop by the booth.  Andy and I will be there and are really looking forward to meeting you.

 

The Outer Limits is a super fun knit and makes a great gift. Knit it in your school colors, favorite team colors or to coordinate with your winter coat. The pattern is addictive so you may find that you have knit a whole bunch of them and have your holiday knitting done ahead of time!

The pattern requires 210 yards of each color of Breathless. One skein of Breathless in each color will make two hats. You could make them identical, or reverse the colors on the second hat.

Laurie was so kind to test knit this pattern for me.  This is her adorable grand daughter who I think may have a future in modeling!

 My morning was full of surprises including an email from John Warley asking if he could write about me on his blog.  If you have a moment hop on over to his blog and check it out. I just finished his book, Bethesda's Child.  Not only is it a great read, but it has a surprise ending which I really enjoyed. I really think the blog post he wrote is to shame me into starting his socks and sending them to him.  There is nothing like calling a knitter out in public!

The Dance of Spider Lunacy

There is nothing I find more terrifying than a spider.  I love scary movies and can watch them by myself in the dark.  Want to go through a haunted house?  No problem, I'll go and will even go through them ahead of you if you don't like to go first.  Put a tiny eight legged monster within ten feet of me and I turn into a shrieking lunatic.  The larger the spider, the louder I scream.  So the other morning when I went outside and nearly walked into a web that was more than two feet across I completely panicked.  And when the spider that made the web scuttled onto it with it's creepy legs and bounded around in a threatening manner I nearly lost my shit had a hard time keeping it together.  I slammed the sliding door (this is possible, who knew?!) grabbed a broom and a can of wasp killer.  If it kills wasps, it should be good for other bugs, right?  The can also guaranteed to shoot from as far away as twenty feet.  Broom in my left hand and wasp killer in my right, I went onto the deck and fired away.  First lesson that should be learned, wasp killer does not work on spiders.  The second is when you spray an insect that can shoot a web out of it's behind it's not necessarily the best way to go.  I'm spraying away and the spider starts swinging back and forth on a new web from it's behind and it's getting closer and closer to me.  I spray more and more wasp spray now wishing that I had gone with my original idea of a can of hair spray and a lighter.  I am now trapped in a corner of the deck while the spider from hell is swaying closer and closer.  The can of wasp spray is nearly empty and there is a puddle of it under where the spiderweb is. When the spray runs out, the spider lands on the deck and starts creeping around.  I scream like a little girl and start beating the heck out of it with the broom.  I'm swearing and screaming and beating at something that can't be seen from a distance.  So of course one of the neighbors was outside and saw the Dance of Spider Lunacy.  Of course they saw because what I haven't mentioned was that I was also in my pajamas.  It doesn't get much better than this.

Now the spider has had an entire can of wasp spray on it and is now being beaten to death with a broom.  What is the worst possible thing that could happen and go wrong here?  Yes, that's right the spider got away.  He managed to scuttle between the deck boards and was then no where to be found.  I looked all over.  Andy looked when he came home.  We figured that the spider must have died and all would be well.  That would be the logical thing to think and obviously the best case scenario.  As luck would have it, this morning I went out to take a few pictures of The Outer Limits hat before I send one of them off to Kyle.  Not only is there a new web the size of Manhattan on the lilac bush, but now there is an even bigger one on top of the pergola.  It's so large that part of it is connected to the birch tree growing next to the pergola.  The spider was in it and I swear he was laughing at me.  I doubt they make more than one web so I think he must have invited his friends and now there is an entire colony of them living out there.  I am sure they are conspiring to attack us while we sit on the new patio in the dark.  Little do they know that tonight when Andy comes home, it's going to be our Take Back The Patio night.  I'm heading to Home Depot for some spider spray in a little while.  

 I kept feeling like they might be crawling on me or plotting revenge, but I was able to take a few pictures of The Outer Limits without being attacked by the spider. The one's on the left and right are in Breathless Blue Raspberry and Ore.  The one in the middle is Breathless Love Potion and Ore. It's a really fun pattern and one skein of each color can make two hats.  Laurie has been test knitting the pattern and should have a picture to share soon.