Pink Eye

Oh, we don't spoil the Nieceling at all. Witness what she got for Halloween:

No, she hasn't really got pink eye. She got red contacts. So she could go all crazy fangurl over Twilight and go Halloween'ing with her friends as Bella. I'd worry about her taste in literature if she weren't so self aware about the whole thing. I complained to her that it was written like bad fanfic by a 12 year old girl and she (quite reasonably) pointed out that she's a 13 year old girl, so it's just right. Le sigh. If she weren't so reasonable, I'd have more ease giving her direction. Then again, at 13 I, too, was most intractable when it came to reading materials. I suppose all we can do is give her her head and trust in her intelligence.

I'm sure she'll move on to the classics (ie, Tolkein, Scott Card, I'd say L'Engle, but she's already gone through that phase) soon.

In the meanwhile, I've finished my first self-written pattern.

A jabot! Don't ask me why, but I was having a miserable time a week ago, and thought to myself, Self, I want ruffles. Not girly ruffles, but the kind of ruffles worn by men in frock coat and knee hose (a crime, it is, that the fashion went out for men to wear knee hose and heels--they have such lovely calves, by and large, and to hide them in long trousers is most heinous). So I made a jabot. The brooch is a thrift store find from a friend, originally intended to hold my ruana closed. The ruana is a pain in the keister to wear (it's too big and drapey and tends to get shut in doors, so I typically use it at home, now), so I'm glad I found a use for the brooch. It hides the spot where the band is grafted together and the ruffles start. It's going to have matching gloves and hat, when I can get around to it.

I made it in two different parts--a band (2 1/2" wide) that goes around the neck and will have two buttons so I can wear it alone as a neck scarf, and then the jabot that loops over the band and hangs down in three ruffles (two in the knitting, but the bottom one was so wide, I folded it over and knitted the edges down to make the middle ruffle).

This is it, on. Pre-brooch, but you can't see the join from this angle.

I think it will work really well with my pea coat, covering up the open neck without being a big, bulky scarf around my neck. I hate wads of cloth around my neck. I'm a bit strange that way.

And for your random dose of cute:

He seems to be doing better, knock wood. Not peeing as much, not drinking as much and dragging me all around creation when we go Walkabout. He loves the cold, being as his people evolved in the Arctic. I hates the cold, I does, but...eh. His tail gets to tight and curly, his step so high and proud, I can't drag him home too soon!