Fessing up!

Okay Kim - I'm fessing up. I violated the Stashalong. I bought three hanks of Blossom so that I could use the yarn I have to make Eloise. My justification is: I didn't want to wait until after the Stashalong was over to try to find the matching dye lot. If you can find a matching dye lot I think you have to jump on it right away. Also, Blossom doesn't have a lot of pattern support. The jacket and Eloise are about it actually. So if I was going to get to use this yarn at all, it had to be Eloise and I needed the three hanks. I hope I will be forgiven and not hung out to dry in the Hall of Shame! Plus, Marina, AND Jessie said I could so if I'm in trouble it's their fault! (LOL)

Whew! Now that I got that off my chest....

I think I'm pretty close to finishing the knitting on the Alien Heads. I've got four heads already and I think I may stop at five. I am getting "running out of yarn fear" if I try to go for a sixth head AND some fringe. And since I DON'T DARE buy anymore yarn to finish off a longer scarf - five heads I think it will be. :)

Jenni said she felt like these carves take longer to knit then you might think. I'm finding it to be just the opposite. Once you get the hang of reading the chart you get in a groove and knit very quickly. Maybe all of my recent lace knitting has helped me to "get it" about reading charts. It's pretty much the same feel. Plus every other row is a plain knitting row so that helps it to be speedy.

Alice (is that you Alice over at Just a Few Skeins?) asks where I got this pattern. Well - this one is from Stitch and Bitch (the first one). But there are also several really cute skull and cross bones illusion scarf patterns just floating around out there for free on the internet. I have the yarn for one which I MAY cast on soon. These illusion scarves go so fast that one of them might end up being my contribution to the kids school auctions. If I can get all of this birthday knitting out of the way!

Carrie asks if I'm still reading The Perfect Prince by Anne Wroe. After getting over my astonishment that anyone even looks at my sidebar (I thought I was putting up all that decoration just for my own fun! But I'm glad SOMEONE is paying some attention! LOL) The answer is, Yes I'm still reading it. I had it for a long time without getting around to it as well but I knew I would be "in the mood" for it eventually. It is a strange book in terms of history books. It's not written the style that a history book normally is - it took a bit of getting used to. But I like the story. I am a big fan of Henry VII. He was so crafty and quirky. I think that not enough has been written about him - there is more to be told about the man who ended the Wars of the Roses! I studied him in a Tudor History class I took which was great fun.

Here is your Henry VII trivia for today:

Henry VII spied on EVERYONE. The courtiers all knew they were being spied on and they hated it - but what could they do? They still had to make nicey nice with the King while all the time being completely paranoid about what he might discover about them. Henry VII had a book in which he wrote down all of the info that he had gathered about the courtiers. They were all terrified of that book - were their names in it? What did he know about them? The King exploited this fear by making an open show of writing in the "secret" book.

Henry VII also had a pet monkey. Everyone, including his family, hated this monkey because it was completely spoiled. The King doted on the monkey and let the monkey do whatever it pleased. Naturally, the monkey had horrible manners. It bit several of the courtiers.

Imagine the general rejoicing there was on the day that the pet monkey ripped the King's "secret" book to shreds. That was the end of the "secret" book. The fate of the monkey remains unknown.