Best Quote I Heard All Day
I like flowers, I also like children, but I do not chop their heads and keep them in bowls of water around the house.--George Bernard Shaw


No flowers--improvise.

Warp Speed, Mr. Scott
Too many bad puns to be made, no? Well, bite me, I'll keep making 'em.

In any case, I actually spent my weekend spinning silk, finishing up one sock, and winding the warp for the kitchen towels I'm making for Ted and me. Much to my everlasting chagrin, it would seem that young Buster, the cat-in-training, decided to take a chunk out of the blueberry cotton cone, so it will have to be the weft and the magenta the warp. No matter.

490 fucking threads. After doing half of them, I decided that putting all 490 on the warping board would be too much, so I'm making two warp chains. One is done, the other half-finished. By this weekend, I'll be ready to sley and thread the chains.

Nota bene: Sley means putting the threads through the reed slots, threading means putting them through the heddles that are connected to the shafts. Just so you know.

Warping is a huge pain in the ass but I'm bound and determined to discipline myself and use the old sock adage: When you've finished the first sock, start the second immediately.

When I've finished weaving these towels, I'm going to start another warp immediately. That way, I'll keep up on my weaving and maybe learn something.

Big Socks
Making a man's sock in size 13 is no laughing matter. It just goes on forever. But I actually did finish this last night and started its mate, so I'll have it done in a few days. If I focus on only socks, I can usually whip out a pair in four or five days. However, there is the Lavold sleeve to start, so this will get done when it gets done.

The bad thing about making socks for men with large feet is that you need two of the 100-gram balls because one is not enough. So my thoughts for this pattern are: Make a kid's size too, father and son socks. Works for me.

Spring Vague
I picked Vogue Knitting up yesterday along with the new Handwoven (excellent issue on overshot, by the way, for those interested).

Now you know I'm not going to buy it if it doesn't have some redeeming articles and designs. This issue, albeit a spring one, which season I generally don't care for, had several good things in it, to whit:

• A new Surplice Baby Surprise Jacket that Meg found in one of EZ's journals
  
• Some good buttonholes from Meg
• Some nice lace garments
• An interview with Maie Landra
  
• Always Lee Ann's Made in Canada column, which is usually the only thing worth reading
  

The rest left me underwhelmed but most of it was not ugly, just boring. Although there were two absolutely hideous garments but I'll let you figure out which ones they are.

The cover garment is an amazing lace dress by Shirley Paden.

Now, I generally eschew knitted dresses in general for obvious reasons: hem droop and baggy-ass syndrome. A 1978 effort done in fingering weight yarn (and incidentally, included the cat's paw lace motif used in Paden's dress) taught me much about knitting dresses. The knitting needs to be firm and you need to find a shape that ain't gonna turn you into a Fat Bottom Girl.

However, this dress is just beautiful and designed in such a way that you need not fear baggy-ass and who cares if the hem drops?

As designed, it's suitable for a 20-something. But you could easily lengthen it. I would do so and knit it in black. Unfortunately, the largest bust size is 40. That sure ain't me, Ms. Tit-o-licious.

In any case, I couldn't be bothered making this, unless Liz suddenly decides the punk look is out and she wants to emulate Barbie. That ain't gonna happen. But Liz is about the only person I know who could pull this dress off.

Hot Tuna
Is there nothing worse than a tuna melt? I'm downstairs making lunch a half-hour ago and was ruminating on my method of preparing tuna for a sandwich.

As you know, I rarely, if ever, put up recipes on this blog, although I love to cook. But I do make tunafish rather oddly. Here's what I do, keeping in mind that all ingredients other than the fish are eyeballed.

Mar's Basic Tuna Sandwich
1 can Progresso tunafish
small amount of mayo
equal portion of ketchup
Gold's Extra Hot horseradish
chopped onion (optional, but provides flavor that celery doesn't have)

And then there's my weird Japanese-Chinese tunafish:

Mar's Weird Japanese-Chinese Tuna Sandwich
1 can Progresso tunafish
small amount of mayo
equal portion of hoisin sauce
wasabi
chopped scallion.

Somehow, I think a Tex-Mex version would be completely revolting and certainly not rare and handy.

Bon appetit, as she used to say.