what the well dressed Scottish gentleman will be wearing...

(as modelled by Aphrodite, in drag).

It's done! And - minus the double Moebius shoulder!


Here are the buttons I picked out for it...and I even managed to sew them on in a stright line!

Specs:
Pattern: Brioche Man's Vest (from the Best of Interweave Knits - pattern by Erica Alexander)
Yarn: Knitpicks CotLin (70% cotton, 30% linen) - colour is Nightfall
Needle Size: 3.00 mm, 3.75 mm, 4.0 mm
Buttons: from MacFab

Notes:
- a very enjoyable and quick knit. The pattern is great with minimal seaming (although I did manage to screw up one part of the seaming job).
- I really liked working with the CotLin - and the price was right at $2.50/skein! JJ reports that it is very comfortable and light to wear.
- I would definetely work with the brioche rib stitch again.
- I made a couple of modifications to the pattern... instead of working the buttonband and armhole trim seperately then seaming as suggested, I picked up stitches and then knitted these using K2 p2 rib (8 rows for the buttonband and four rows for the armhole trim).

Here is a photo of the proud recipient wearing it at the party we went to last night...

I know, I know, not the best photo. Will have to get a better one and post it eventually. But just to show - it fits perfectly!!

(What did I wear to the party, by the way? I was festooned in my Modern Straitjacket, of course.

Isn't it festive? (Sadly, if there is a photo of me wearing it last night, I don't know it. I always take my camera to these things then am too busy socialising to actually take it out. And, from the results with JJ's photo above, this is probably a good thing, no?

I should also mention that I didn't have the moustache going last night. I didn't want to scare the kiddies.)

Other activities before I started partying: I got a good start on the Tilted Duster pattern.


This is Rowan All Seasons Cotton in a discontinued (and I think never actually sold by them directly) colourway called "Seaspray". Just the thing to banish the winter blues! I might actually be able to get this done before next Monday when we leave for our trip...! Loving it so far.

Today, off to the shops. I will be taking my extra sharp Addi Lace needles to fight my way through the crowds...all in the holiday spirit, of course!

This seems a good time to wish a very happy birthday to my younger brother - the creator of the postmodern Santa depicted above. Many happy returns, V, and lang may yer lum reek!

Other notables born on this day include Dame Judi Dench, John Milton and Broderick Crawford. So - V is in very good company!

Happy Sunday!

Ribbed... for her pleasure?

Just when you've left the baby at the sitter's and think you've got some privacy...

I guess Quack and Daisy like the feel of this CotLin as much as I do!!!

This is the Brioche Rib Vest (from The Best of Interweave Knits) - a true Bespoke by Brouhaha piece, commissioned by:
JJ... light of my life, apple of my eye, etc.

(Having said that, I made him buy the yarn and some for me besides. He repaid me by picking the colour that I had bought for myself instead of the bland old Oatmeal that I had intended for this vest. I knew I shouldn't have given him any options... and here I thought that Scottish people liked oatmeal!!)

I very much like this pattern, although I have to say it doesn't much look like that in the pattern book (the yarn is of a completely different composition). This is the right side:

... and this is the wrong side.
Perversely, I actually prefer the "wrong" side to the right. I will, however, let JJ pick whichever he prefers before starting on the front sections... nice of me, eh?

Even more perversely, I got a big kick out of posing my little duckies on top of it while JJ was watching "Kidnapped" with Michael Caine for the seventh or eighth time (too many bagpipes for my taste, but each to his own...).

JJ did not actually notice what I was doing with this until I was almost finished. I knew he had noticed, though (or perhaps he was just distracted by my cackling uproariously), when I heard that trademark sigh, followed by:

JJ: What exactly are they doin', then?

KB: Makin' sweet lurve...

JJ (with his usual sagacity) seemed to ignore this response - until 10 minutes later when he saw the last photo above loaded onto the computer...

JJ: Lassie, why are these ducks screwin' on top of my sweater, anyway?

KB: They're not screwing on top of your sweater, they're just cuddling... (scrolled forward to the first photo)...see, here they're not just cuddling, though.

(long pause)

JJ: I don't know what to do with ye. Yer a wee horror. And a bampot. What is this fascination with rrrrubber ducks, anyway?

KB: I don't know, I must have had a deprived childhood or something.

JJ: Nonononono... that's yer excuse for buying all that chewin' gum and blowin' bubbles and breakin' them! That can't be yer excuse as well for this nonsense.

KB: Why not?

Silence. Then:

JJ: Look, Ah'm just trying to watch my video, OK? So behave. Stop muckin' aboot with those duckies. Gi'us peace!!

KB: You said "duckies"!!! hee hee hee

JJ: (deep sigh, then turns up the volume on the TV).

Puir wee JJ. He has a great deal to put up with, living with a wee bampot like me!

Must sign off now. I want to do a swatch for another sweater before I leave for work. It's amazing I ever manage to get to work, actually...

Oh, and in parting: today apparently is the birthday of 1976 - Michalis Kakiouzis. Who is he? A Greek basketball player. I always get a big laugh when I think about Greek basketball teams. Even thought I am Greek-Canadian, the only Greek of my acquaintance that appears anywhere near tall enough to actually play pro basketball is Takis here:
Maybe when he's not blowing his own horn, he's practicing to be the next addition to the Toronto Raptors! (I suspect he'd have to lose the skirt and the pompoms to get anywhere with that ambition, thought).

Hey...

KB: JJ, did you know that they have pro basketball teams in Greece?

JJ: Really?... what do they call that, then... the PeeWee League?

heh heh heh. The JB household is never short on comedy, I tell you!

bad teeth day

Well, it's Monday again - time for me to get off my lazy @$$ and back to work.

It's been a fairly productive weekend on the crafting front - I've finished knitting my Mason-Dixon Knitting miniature series (packed it in after 7). They are still waiting to be mounted.

After making the executive decision that I did not need nine miniatures, I then decided it would be a fantastic idea to make a scarf from the remaindered yarn. So I started that:

This is how far I got because I became completely bored with the scarf. I am knitting it horizontally - thus, there are about 2 milion stitches cast on to a 2.75mm 47" long needle! See?

Whose bright idea was that again?

So - I ended up casting on for a vest for JJ that I had been putting off (after all, it's not for me!).

This will be the Man's Brioche Vest by Erica Alexander, found in The Best of Interweave Knits or the Winter 2003 edition of Interweave Knits mag. I could not find a full photo of it on line - even on Ravelry! Surely I can't be the first person to make this vest!

Anyway, so far it's a lot more fun to knit than that blasted scarf!

I also did some work on my feudalism altered book project, which is coming along nicely, and ordered a load of beads from Earthfaire.

No big news otherwise from the weekend - however, I have a little pet peeve to share. When I popped into the smoke shop yesterday to grab some smokes, I got stuck behind a woman who was dickering with the guy in the store about her own cigarette purchase. Specifically, she was insisting that she not be given a cigarette package with the
bad teeth on it. This meant that he had to rip open two other cartons of cigarettes before he could locate one, which had this label instead:
(Please note that I am not refraining from showing you the bad teeth warning because it is ugly. Rather, it is copyrighted - or so says Health Canada anyway.)

Now, I must say that I had thought all that fuss about the "bad teeth" warning had died down, although I seem to remember this being a fuss for a lot of people when they first came out with these warnings (which cover half the pack, mind you!). I ended up having quite a bit of time to ruminate over this, as - just when I thought the "say no to a bad smile" woman hauled out a sheaf of lotto forms and decided she needed 98 6/49 tickets. 98! That costs $196!! And the 6/49 draw is twice a week!

Anyway, I really don't get the insistence on refusing to buy a pack of smokes based on the
Anti-Smoking warning label. I mean, is this how narcissistic we are as a people?

"Oh, smoking causes lung cancer. Oh well. If I continue to smoke, I'll end up on a ventilator in hospital? Fair enough. Cigarettes have cyanide and formaldehyde in it?

Well, everyone knows it's the tar that's bad for you. And I'm destroying other people's lives with my second hand smoke? That's their problem. And what if my kids mimic me and start smoking, ensuring a tragic premature death? Well, I'll be dead by then of lung cancer or emphysema anyway, so I won't be around to see it.

"Hold on - you're telling me I'm going to have an unsightly smile...?!?!!?!"

Really. It seems to me that if Health Canada were really serious about getting people to quit smoking, they would scrap all of the other warning labels and force the tobacco manufacturers to use the bad teeth warning. Or, better yet, force smokers to go and sit in a room filled with photos of people with gum disease for three or four days. I just hope that they let me know in advance so that I can start up a company to market fancy cigarette cases!!!!

Actually, when they first came out with these big photographic warnings on the smoke packs, parody labels were being sold practically everywhere, with such bon mots as "Smoking Makes You Hoark Up Brown Chunks" and "Smoking Makes You Smell Like an Ashtray". I don't know whatever happened to those, but it strikes me that those types of messages would be a better deterrent than the threat of lung cancer.

This, although it may appear to be a parody, is not one:


And how did you guess that this one is my personal favourite?

A very happy Monday to you... and in parting, I'll just note that the NHL celebrates its 90th anniversary today! It started up with five Canadian teams only - the Montreal Canadiens (fondly known as "Habs" today), Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto Arenas.