TinyPants

Warning: The graphic images in this blog post may be disturbing to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Penélopê (Πηνελόπη) is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and so is eventually rejoined with him. Her name (which happens to be close to the Greek word for “duck”) is usually understood to combine the Greek word for “web” or “woof” (πηνη / pene), and the word for “eye” or “face” (ωψ / ōps), which is most appropriate for a weaver of cunning whose motivation is hard to decipher.^[1]

Earlier this week, I noticed we had an unwanted house guest.

wifey: Could you do something about the huge spider making its home in the kitchen window?

In retrospect, I see that I may have been duped. I don’t know who Ryan Fiedler is (the source for this wikipedia article), but I see now that he’s probably a spider. He and his little buddies were probably all cheering each other on as they typed this one out. No, no, no! Write helpless. That’s sure to get them tearing up! “Their only concern seems to be to find and return to their own web”? Yeah, good one! Very Oliver Twist! Oh, write “not known to bite frequently“, that way we cover our asses when we bite the crap out of them one night as they sleep. “Tolerating their presence in human homes is beneficial.” I’m sorry, did that article just tell me what to do?!

Admittedly, I am now quite fascinated by her. I check up on her every morning, making sure she has some food in her web. We had a little bit of a fight earlier this week when I cut her web down a bit and sucked up her old scraps with the vacuum. She hid for most of the day behind the blinds, but by the evening she was out in the open fixing up her web.

I’ve laid down the law, though, and said she can only stay until I see an egg sac.

Penelope’s home, in the top left corner of our kitchen window.

The good work Penelope’s been doing.

Penelope.

Penelope fixing her web after I broke part of it.

Uh, yes. I photograph my spider using a $65 piece of plastic.

Penelope and moth.

The name Tiny Pants originated when my husband began to do my laundry. Now, I’m not a *tiny* person. I am diminutive in stature (5′1″), but my hips do measure almost a metre around. I’m not fat, but you don’t necessarily want to slit your wrists when you see me walking down the street in a short skirt. In fact, I don’t even wear short skirts. I don’t know what happened to my bloodline, but this Polish girl definitely got the short, stubby end of the leg gene. That said, when hubby holds up my pants after they’ve been washed and dryed, they do look, well, small.

You’re an adult only on a technicality, huh?

But now, Tiny Pants the Blog has a new mascot.

I finished my sewing class this week, and this was our last assignment. A sample-size pair of shorts! Dig that elastic waist!

Here are some more assignments:

And just because I wear skirts more than I wear pants, here’s half a skirt I had to make.

Sixteen samples in total, and I’m walking away with an A. I think that’s pretty good.

In other news (in short):

• I entered my first two races. I’ll be running the 5 Peaks 5k at Albion Hills on September 13th, and the 10 k ZooRun on October 18th. I’m pretty nervous, but I’m setting myself up for a challenge. I signed up for the 5k because it’s a trail run about the distance that I normally do. If it ends up being easy, then I have the 10k to challenge me. If it ends up being harder than I expected, I have 4 weeks to get myself into shape for the Zoo. Wish me luck!
• I finally finished Joanna’s Christmas present — a Hemlock Ring Lap Blanket. I’m very happy with the outcome. I’ll post pictures as soon as I can sneak into her apartment to snap some.
• Update on Enjoy Life Granola: Either the stuff at Noah’s Health Foods is fresher, or I found a flavour that is actually good: Cranapple Crunch.

On the needles:

Finished: a reuseable Swiffer cover from Strange Yarns.

And now, the audience participation part of the blog. (Are you still with me?)

So I’m working on the Chevron Hand Towel from Mason-Dixon Knitting. Let’s just say, this is definitely not the easiest pattern to follow. The errata on the website is still wrong, so I’ve been improvising, and now I need your help. The towel is supposed to look like this:

Fairly even stripes, with garter stitch in between. If you read the directions wrong (as I did), you may get something like this:

Alternating stripes, but no garter ridge.

This is mine:

So, I think I’m okay with the lack of the garter ridge (I’ll just add that next time I make this towel), but what do you think about the stripes? I was feeling it would be too contrasty to have the stripes of even width, so I shortened the white row, and elongated the teal. Now, should I continue in teal all the way to the end and make the towel symmetrical with a thin white stripe at the other end? Or should I do something crazy and have random white stripes of various widths along the towel? What do you think?

• Next update: Soy you wanna give up milk.