Gah.

Is ignorance bliss? No, Magnus is bliss. Sorry, I've got that commercial stuck in my head and it won't go away. It doesn't help that it's Kevin Spacey doing the voice over (he's one of my favorite actors) or that I find myself giggling over the "Magnus is bliss" line.

I have it running through my head because through various levels of misadventure, willful ignorance and an inability to realize there are questions I should be asking when information is not forthcoming, I had to replace my tires today, 50,000 miles early, to the tune of nearly $500. Ow. Sort of makes my whine about spending $27 on yarn two weeks ago look a bit cheeseparing, doesn't it? At least now I know about proper tire maintenance (mostly) and can be careful with these tires. Considering (yet another thing I learned today, oh, the learning experiences, they just roll on in, don't they) my car has a specialized suspension which means I can only put one brand/one style of tire on my car successfully, I also know that, in four or five years or so, I will have to spend another $500 on the same damn tires. Fabulous. Oh, well. Forewarned is forearmed!

So, whatever. I've dismissed it now from my world and move on. I actually finished a project last week! Huzzah! I actually made the scarf for Nieceling's competitions. It ended up being nearly 10' long and about 5" wide (yes, ten feet long, five inches wide), and the colors actually work well together, I think. I used two skeins of I Love This Yarn!--one called Tangelo Stripes (sorry, no linky on that site) and the other is Navy Tweed. For the scarf, I used one strand of each color knit together on a US 35 circular, cast on 7 stitches then just knit in garter stitch for, well, nearly 10 feet. The fringe is about 10 inches all told, so a little over 9 feet of garter stitch. Fringed it up and voila! Scarf. I had a lot of yarn left after that (over half of each skein) so I did mitts. Garter stitch rectangles with the doubled up yarn on size 13 US needles, seamed up the sides with a hole left for the thumb and then I picked up stitches at the bottom and did a ruffle on each one, so I can fold them over and have a draft catcher at the edge of my sleeve. After all that, I still had a lot of yarn left, so I doubled up again for an inch of 2 x 2 rib on the 13s, then started striping on the body of the hat, alternating colors (still on 13s, so the knit got nice and loose.) Knit for six or so stripes straight (so it makes a tube), seam it up, fold the corners of the seam in to the center and plopped a bobble on top. At that point I had finally (FINALLY) used up all the yarn, except for about three feet that was in chunks because it was ends that had been snipped off after being tied off for whatever reasons there might be.

Maybe it's a little overboard, but the colors are non-specific enough that I can just wear the hat and scarf together as a set and no one need know. Anyway, here's my Ravelry project shot and an extra shot of the hat:


You know, I really like that Tangelo Stripe yarn. Very pretty colors. The colors work well together, though, and I think you get the gist of blue and orange and white pretty well. The yellow may be a bit of a distraction, but eh. It's not obnoxious or anything.

I haven't heard what the Nieceling's reaction is to the set, apparently she had one. I just hope she doesn't think her auntie has gone stalker or something. I figure, hey, my high school experience was such that I didn't get to enjoy school spirit at ball games and the like (I went, to be sure--I like football--, I was just one of those jaded, cynical hipsters who was too cool to cheer) so I get to have a little rah-rah-rah now.

Is that so bad of me? :-)