To address a few comments over the last few days:
- I do not accomplish this stuff and retain my sanity, with a two year old in the house. Who ever said I was sane? (Seriously, though, the Goober's as good a two year old as you'll ever find.) Multi-tasking is actually good for my pain management; there's some fancy psychological name for it, but basically it amounts to not sitting around, thinking 'gosh, my arm hurts'. So in that respect, the more distractions, the better.
- Sekhmet isn't exactly named after the Egyptian goddess. She's named after a cat in a series of books (the Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters; the first book of the series that mentions Sekhmet is "Seeing a Large Cat") that was named after the Egyptian goddess. Which is kind of hair-splitting, but there you go. There are all kinds of cats in the books, all named after Egyptian dieties (the main characters are Egyptologists), and I'd always planned to name a cat Bastet, if I ever got a cat, after a cat in the books. But when I got this beast, she was more like the Sekhmet, in the books, so... here we go. Then I found out she's such a bitch she deserves the name, anyway.
- We thought we peeled all the stickers off the Goober before bed time last night, but of course they keep turning up. I found a couple on my blanket this morning, and while we were out at the Air Force base today, she turned around and she had one stuck to her arm (probably still there from yesterday) and another on the butt of her dress, which she hadn't had on yesterday (no idea).
- I found a photo of a carbon fiber sitting on top of a human hair.
Not sure if the carbon fibers I'm dealing with are EXACTLY the same as that (that one was made for industrial purposes, mine is made from carbonized bamboo fiber by the older, Thomas Edison method - skip down to the 8th paragraph, or more general info about carbon fiber here), but it gives you a good idea what I'm dealing with. I'm plying the stuff today, but there will be no more drafting or pre-drafting for a while; my GOOD hand (at least good in comparison to the bum hand) is having muscle spasams from spinning two bobbins of the stuff yesterday. At least now, seeing that photo, I understand why the damn stuff is invisible. The husbeast is already muttering about damage to the vacuum cleaner.
It is acting like silk, once spun and plied. Major drape, no real 'memory', very dense. No freaking idea how I'll knit this up and make it look masculine. But I've got enough to spin an estimated 2400 yards... anyone got any ideas? I'm thinking plain old raglan pullover in half-brioche rib. With a beer chaser.
7 comments:
If I ever get another cat, it'll be a The Cat Bastet. My cat Amelia Peabody is at the moment dashing about in the rain, presumably sans parasol, looking for small defenceless creatures to help into the afterlife.
I am out of bathtub books, and rather than go buy a new one, I'm going to re-read the early Amelia's. Thanks! (Bathtub books must be lightweight paperbacks and not borrowed, because they sometimes get wet.)
The stealth sweater should be as simple as possible because that sucker is gonna be HEAVY! I would suggest top down raglan pullover with a few widely-spaced purl ribs for knitting interest.
Or you might start with just a vest, and if you feel like it, add on sleeves.
If you are still in the mood to answer questions I have another for you. Why do light coloured yarns seem to show flaws more than dark coloured yarns?
Holy cow, I must have missed the part where you said it was actually carbon fiber! I thought that was just your very apt name for the colorway. Dang, that's going to be one organic sweater!
I love the name Sekhmet for a cat, as the Amelia Peabody books are such fun. Her cats absolutely know who runs the house.
Some serious texturing and small needles to beef it up, is all I can think!!!
I've always loved Sekhmet's name--but I have no idea what we'll name our next cat. My daughter's cat, Gordie, got a Batman tag for his collar, so we've been calling him 'Commissioner Gordon' for a week!
I'm watching this carbon-fiber project with fascination. Who knew such stuff existed? "Stealth" is the perfect name for it.
I've seen sites about knitting with cat hair...arghh. Much as I love my cats...
Sekhmet is such a great cat name. Mine are Claudia (named by my son), Paco (named by my daughter), and Walter, who was supposed to be Clarence, but when we got to the animal shelter to find him, he was so obviously Walter that there was no messing with that.(Then my kids grew up & left home, leaving the cats behind, of course.)
As to Amelia Peabody's definition of "Sekhmet", given that the writer is an Egyptologist, I'll take that as law!
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