Friday, November 24, 2006

Cheese, Gromit!

Yes. I confessed in my last post "My Life. My Blog" about my weakness for cheese. I love cheese. There. I don't mind saying it and having everyone (anyone?) read it. I love clumps of curdled, bacteria-laden milk products. I especially love it if they are goat milk products. And I love knitting. (Shhh. I actually love knitting more, but don't let the friendly hordes of micro flora in my reefer know.) Now the two have come together in a most gratifying way. How can that be, you ask? Is she knitting with mozzarella strings? No, no. You see that little button on the sidebar? The one that says "meathead"? Well, I present for your viewing pleasure, the Cheesehead! Ta Da!



Thou meathead, thou hat,
Sprung forth from my needles,
O object of my creation,
Though thou wert designed by another,
Yet still thou art mine entirely, forsooth
I did dream of thee with thy wee felted vermin
Attached.

Thou meathead, thou hat,
Thy decreases curvaceous,
Thy gauge Oh! so bulky,
Thou hast made of me a finisher,
Tho' still my cast-ons do outweigh
I become more truly a Knitter with thy seaming
Completed.

I am inordinately proud of this, this, really pointy hat! Why? Why am I so intensely pleased about this? Perhaps because it was SO quick to make, or perhaps because I'm just so in love with the mouse. It's all hairy. I shall call the hat Cheesehead I: Vermont Cheddar. Cheeseheads II and III are forthcoming. I had planned to have them all done before posting about them, but after the delight of felting that little mouse, I couldn't hold back. I think we need a closeup of the mouse.


Project Specs for Vermont Cheddar
Patterns: meathead hat--Larissa of Stitch Marker; mouse--my own

Yarns: hat--Lamb's Pride Bulky in sun yellow and I used all but 3 yards of the skein; mouse--KnitPicks Suri Dream in sandstorm

Needles: hat--US size 15 straights; mouse--US size 7 straights

Likes: Super quick to knit (2 hours maybe? too many interruptions to know) and dang it, that point is cute. The pattern was a breeze. I had so much fun making the mouse. It was my first intentionally felted item and I'll cherish the memory of its drowned little carcass swirling around in the pot on my stove. I used a couple of jet black seed beads for eyes and some black fishing line (Fireline) for the whiskers.

Dislikes: Hmmm. None! I do usually prefer knitting hats in the round, but I don't have double points in the right size--knitting it flat was fine because seaming it was such a quick job.

Oh, and no, I'm not from Wisconsin, although I hear it's lovely. Nor have I ever been to a Packers game or worn a cheese wedge-shaped block of foam on my head. The closest I have come was a Browns/Chargers game in San Diego in 1993. After a thrilling overtime victory by the Brownies, my husband did, indeed, eat a dog biscuit offered to him by a member of the Dawg Pound.

Holy Toledo! I hear the milk truck. Yep, there go the empty bottles...(clunking) and there are the 5 half-gallons of 1%. This means I have officially stayed up WAY too late. In my defence, darling PeeWee has been waking up screaming every half-hour. Either she's having chemo nightmares again, or the pumpkin pie is not sitting well. I don't think it's the latter. She has been trending toward better sleep patterns, but something has set her back tonight. Sometimes it's easier just to stay up rather than get in and out and in and out and in and out of bed. I usually take her to bed with me around 4 AM on nights like these. Eric is such a light sleeper that once PeeWee is in our bed, he's done sleeping. More than you wanted to know...oh well. It's my blog and I like it. Wow, look at me being all sassy. Didn't know I had it in me, did you? (Don't answer that, Beans.) (Beans is my sister.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOVE the mouse!

pamela wynne said...

This is so freaking precious. I love it. I want to squeeze it.

Anonymous said...

So cute! Now I'm craving cheese... although that's hardly a rare occurrence.

Anonymous said...

First, you can felt on the stovetop? Please, please, please tell me how.

Second, you have a milk man? There are still milkmen working somewhere in the world delivering milk? I'm floored and wondering if you were kidding.

Third, the hat is absolutely, positively, fantastic. I adore the mouse, the stitching, the design, the color, the name, everything. It's one terrific hat.