Laboring away

This day that we celebrate with friends and family began in the late nineteenth century. It's origins come from Peter McGuire, a piano shop apprentice in New York. At nights, he educated himself and hung out with a bunch of progressive types who were starting to think that this all day, all night, low/no pay, whoever-heard-of-health-insurance way of life was pretty dumb. In 1872, he joined about 100,000 other like-minded souls and marched. (A time-honored way of saying "to show you how pissed we are we're going to walk around in a big group and intimidate the heck out of you til you give us what we deserve.)

Anyway, over the course of the next 10 years, he was labeled a "disturber of the public peace" and eventually wore out his welcome in NYC and headed west, settling in St Louis, Mo. There he fell in with some hammer-weilding, nail-spitting types and organized a carpenters union. He was even set up as General Secretary of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. On Sept. 5, 1882, the first Labor Day was held and the organized labor movement took off like a shot from there.

Today, I honor this marvel of the power of the masses by asserting my right to do Jack Shit. Except for one thing, does Jack Shit mean really doing nothing? or taking advantage of this time to focus on something I feel compelled to do? Like knitting.

Well, regardless, the latter is what I did this weekend. Lots of it. Unfortunately, I really didn't work on new projects, I worked to shut my hubby up. I've got these dang blankets that know matter how much I wish, just won't finish themselves. He wants them out of the house and knows that left to my own devices, I'll just keep starting new projects never finishing the old ones.





Well, I did finish one project, but it wasn't a blanket. It was Kitty Pi. Based on Elizabeth Zimmerman's Pi shawl (math, yay! starting with a few stitches on dpn, knit 3.141579 rows (rounded off), inc 1 everystitch, knit 2*3.141579 rows rounded off, inc again, next its 3*pi, etc.). Kitty Pi is a felted round basket-y thang that theoretically my cats will hang out in. Well, not yet at least. It's my first felted project and I learned something kind of important: Cast off LOOSELY -- very loosely. Hubster and I each had a grip on the edge of it and were pulling it to try and loosen it up. Then I wrestled with trying to stuff a "form" to help shape it. It dried off a bit and is now liberally laced with catnap in hopes of enticing a cat to its orange depths. I'll let you know.

Now, I attempt to complete Grimace (sp?) (pics later). Grimace is this big, pale purple mostrosity of a baby blanket. I tried making the pattern myself. Not bad at all really. Definitely some things I would change, but the biggest issue is the conversion of gauge to size of desired project. This baby blanket is more the size of a large throw. Ah, vell. It's for my sister's baby. It's from me, it'll be there by the time the baby is born (12 days), she'll love it. That's what sisters are for.

More later.
Cia-cia!