Spring cleaning (part 2: the niddy noddy)

Oh boy, was I excited Sunday morning at the prospect of a project that combined knitting and a home improvement store! I recalled from a ravelry forum that a niddy noddy could be constructed cheaply from PVC pipe and fittings. I was referred to the following directions on the doctor dirt blog, which I only now see are accessible from Wikipedia as well.

Armed with no more than an idea of what I wanted, I headed off for the ridiculously hard to get to home improvement store that hides behind the Crew Stadium and Ohio State Fairgrounds. (Sidenote: Kenny Rogers and Blue Oyster Cult will both make appearances at this year's fair - not to be missed.)

I procured 5' of 1" PVC piping and two T-connector-thingies for a grand total of $2.93. Not bad, I thought.
...until I got home and realized I had no way to cut the pipe to the desired lengths. So back to the drawing board, and ultimately back to the home improvement store to get more help which came in the embarrasingly simple form of an employee with a hacksaw. Then- assembly.
Finally, winding a sweater's worth of yarn into skeins.Next weekend: part 3 - washing and dyeing.

Spring cleaning (part 1: Saturday)

The weather this weekend was sunny and lovely. A perfect weekend for a project. Saturday, I chose to peruse two local thrift stores looking for sweaters to frog, dye and recycle. I settled on two men's sweaters, both 100% wool and moderately ugly. Perfect. One sweater I chose was a medium oatmeal men's pullover (originally from J. Crew during a mid-90's lapse in style, I gather). This sweater met my goals for the weekend project best.
I started by ripping the seams and dismantling into the sleeves, front and back. I wound these pieces into odd-sized balls as I ripped, to avoid massive tangling. Below are represented the largest and smallest.The tiny off-colored one is from an unfortunate stripe detail from the chest. I saved it because I think it could be used for color testing when I dye, or stripes (fancy that) for some future project. In fact, dyeing the oatmeal and the off-white with the same dye mix might result in two tones of the same color, which could look really nice.

To dye these balls, I would need to skein them and to properly do this, I felt I needed (yes, needed) a niddy noddy. Hold your breath for part 2: Sunday - niddy noddy day.

Bon voyage!

To prepare for the departure of the fella, I thought a little Aussie motif was in order.

I'll have a lot of time on my hands to knit some dandy little dishclothes or the like.

You need this.

Here are instructions to make a hanging circular needle organizer out of jeans. U2 poster optional.

My throat hurts

I've had a sore throat for about a day. Any time this happens, I tend to wonder if the cause is bad lab practice... How embarrassing to make myself sick (and a good thing I don't work on anthrax (shout out: Bacillus anthracis). Of course, this is a ridiculous train of thought, as we all know the primary cause of a sore throat is viral infection.

"Ah, but what about strep throat!?" says you, (and rightly so) as I work on a streptococcal species. However, strep throat is not caused by my favorite bacteria, Streptococcus pneumoniae, but instead by Group A Strep (GAS), Streptococcus pyogenes.

Go ahead, have a read, get sore-throat-smarter. I'll have a tea.