Something About a Skirt

Well, hello there!  It's been a while.  (Cue Barenaked Ladies' "One Week"?  My brain comes with its own soundtrack.)  That said, it's time for another edition of weekend knitting adventures, or misadventures as the case may be.  Because I have no other choice.  You see, I'm two days out from Happy Hour with my classmates/co-residents, and still "enjoying" the after-effects of a large sangria.  I suspect tequila was involved.

c.f. Douglas Adams' "My Favourite Tipples" if you really want a fun run-down of alcoholic beverages, but suffice it to say tequila and I don't get along and never have.  I remember tequila from my foreign study days in France when I was nineteen.  "Remember" being the operative word.  I have never made it to floor.  Unless you count giant margarita of doom (from the same restaurant, now I think of it) which had some other interesting players hiding in the mix.  No, tequila is the supernatural bitch of the liquor world, but instead of making me mystical (or unconscious), it creates the unfortunate combo of just uninhibited enough to act on regrettable impulses and just cogent enough to regret those actions.  Sometimes immediately.  And reach for other tipples to drown my guilt.

My mixer of choice is rum.  Rum is basically fermented sugar.  Coke is basically colored corn syrup.  The result is a sugar high that renders me incapable of acting older than about five.  Which is all right, I guess, if you're into birthday cakes and pin the tail on the donkey?

Vodka is a spirit.  Vodka mixes in everything.  I have nothing against vodka, but it's like the invisible robot server that disappears into an alcove unless you want to order something.  You can't have a proper conversation with it unless you really really try.  After a lot of vodka.

The less said about gin (and vermouth), the better.

Bourbon is my Southern gal at play.  I can't so much as imagine fruit pies, especially peach, without making for the Maker's Mark.  (Bourbon peach?  Pear "Waldorf"?  Well, I do declare.)  The only problem with bourbon is I can't drink it.  Highballs are tolerable but make me feel like a Steel Magnolias character.  And straight or on the rocks it's like consuming a mine shaft dripping with rain water. Um...yum?

On the opposite end of the whiskey scale is Scotch.  Ah, Scotch.  Smooth single-malts with names invoking peat bogs and Celtic ceremonies and who knows what else.  Scotch reminds me of my favorite ex-boyfriend: smart, complex, gregarious, a born storyteller with an accent equally at home in an old boys' club or a candle-lit bedroom.  Therein lies the problem.  I don't care if the colors do call up kindling or woodsmoke, an old flame is not the ghost you want haunting your liquor dreams.

Beer is fine.  Beer and I are friends.  Bros, if you will.  We don't go deeper than that.

Which is why I usually fall back on my old staple of wine.  Red, white, sangria (hey, the fruit adds antioxidants, amirite?), whatever we got.  I like the swirl of colors in the glass, the ceremony of drinking it, the complex flavorings you flatter yourself you've got the palate to pick out.  The only thing I don't like about wine is that if I don't pace myself judiciously with a glass of water between each trip to the bottle, I will get a migraine.  Immediately.  At least the water keeps me sober enough to knit and stay out of trouble, though, so nobody should complain.

Which brings me, finally, back around to my latest knit-with-a-glass-of-wine project.

This, friends, is Carnaby.  You may find the pattern (from knitty.com) here.  The yarn was a sort-of-birthday present from a classmate who actually had no idea when my birthday was but happened to own two skeins of bright red alpaca that reminded her of me.  Might've been the cherry-red wool coat I tended to sport in early winter before I gave up and went sleeping bag like everybody else.  #%*^ winter!  I'll shave my legs for a sight of greenery and a warm breeze.

In any case, the yarn was duly bestowed with a warning to avoid heavily textured patterns that might overshadow the natural beauty and softness of the alpaca.  But I was scarfed and cowled and hatted out, and I saw this beautiful skirt that called for pure wool, and I couldn't resist.  It even promises to work with the pills that will be forming on my proprioception-challenged bottom.

So far I've only been able to work on it while either nursing a glass of wine or suffering the after-effects of unexpected tequila.  But once anyone I may have offended starts talking to me again (...?), it's anyone's guess whether this gets put on the back burner.  There is also transcribing of washcloths to be done, because I have another wedding to craft for.  No, not my own, thanks.  Can't teach an old maid new tricks.  And seriously, read Douglas Adams.  "The Salmon of Doubt" is hysterically, thought-provokingly funny and doesn't have to try like I do.