Nails vs. Cars

Remember how i told you that Paul likes to sneak little phrases into our conversation to let me know that he has read the blog?  Well, after the last post, I've seen a lot of eye rolling and heard a lot of "and that's all I have to say about that", after just about every conversation.  And, he has seriously weighed in about my disappointment with my nail polish from my Soakbox kit.

About that....
I'm disappointed with the nail polish in my Soakbox kit!  Here I was, all excited to bring you a beautiful picture with my "matching" nail polish and fingerless mitts.  Can you see where this is going?  I finished my mitts the other day and soaked them in the Soak woolwash ("Celebration" flavor):

By the way, if you ever wondered why to wash whites and colors separately.....

That's why.

Then laid them out to dry in front of the wood stove so they would dry lickety split:

....which they did.
Then I lotioned my hands with the Soak "Celebration" hand lotion from the Soakbox and painted my nails.  Three coats.  As I was painting the first coat, I was thinking, "This looks kinda bright."  So I put another coat on.  It was still bright but a little darker.  A third coat did not make it much darker.  I ended up with this:

Ok, this picture doesn't show it terribly well, but it's a bright red, not a maroon, like the yarn.  Now, I'm not so disillusioned to think that the colors would match exactly.  But, I have had other nail polish in the past that was a darker, marroon-y red that would match better. (ooh, my very favorite dark red color was an OPI color called Vampire State Building - loved it!) This was just too very bright red.  Bleh.

Here's where Paul weighed in, as he took pictures of my hands:
Paul: "Well, did you use the right base color?...  I don't think I can get both your hands in the picture. Oh wait, there we go."
Me: "What?"
Paul: "You need to use the right base color, like a gray.....  Ok, nope, you won't be able to see the chip in the nail on your left hand."
Me:  "What?"
Paul: quiet...
Me: "There is no base color!  If you use a base, it's clear!  What are you talking about?????"
Paul: "When I painted my car, I used a gray primer and then at least six coats of the Kandy Brandywine color to get it to be the right color."
Me: "I'm not putting six coats of nailpolish on my nails." (that would take ten. years. to dry)
Me: "And there is no base color!"
We moved on.  There was no getting past the whole painting-nails-is-not-the-same-as-painting-a-car-you're-an-engineer-and-that's-why-you-think-that thing.

We figured out that the nail polish bottle looks darker:

And you can usually go by the bottle, I would say.  Although, I'm not a nail polish expert.   Suffice it to say, it wasn't what I envisioned but I'm happy with my mitts nonetheless (oh yeah, did you see my mitts????  I love, Love, LOVE them!!!!).   Ok, now I'm really moving on....

In Other Knitting News:
I had to show you these pictures of Karen, whom I met with several times at The Spinning Room yarn shop to help her with the seaming of her sweater.  She started knitting it a year ago, and put it down during the summer months because it was just too dang hot to work with.  We puzzled over several different ways of putting it together (since the inside collar would be flipped to the outside and same with the button bands when she would wear it unbuttoned); tried different sewing up techniques, undid them, tried them again.  Here she is doing the last bit of sewing up of the neck:

And here she is in her finished sweater!

She was extremely excited to have finished it (except for the buttons! But, she's not like me - I'm sure she'll get them right on there.) and it looked wonderful on her!

And I forgot to show you the quickie mobius cowl I made for a class I'll be teaching at the shop:

This is the Easy Mobius Cowl made with Debbie Bliss Riva, a bulky wool blend yarn.  Nice, soft, wooly yarn that turned out beautifully in this pattern. (It only took me 2 1/2 hours to make this!)

In Book News
I finished Sharp Objects: A Novel by Gillian Flynn.  It's a little hard for me to describe how I liked this book.  The story line of the mystery involved in the book really drew me in (and the author's writing is excellent).  BUT.  The main character in the book, a woman sent to her hometown by her newspaper to cover the story of the deaths of two young girls, made me so uncomfortable.  She has a lot of issues, stemming from a pretty terrible childhood in this hometown, which tend to get her into some trouble.  I felt on edge thinking and anticipating that some of the rather disturbing things she was doing was going to get her into trouble.  (so part of it is that issue I have with suspenseful situations... ) I guess that's another plug for the author's writing style -- I didn't want to put it down....but I had to put it down sometimes because some of it was a little disturbing.  And I think it gave me a bad dream one night when i was reading it right before bed!  Overall I really liked it and would recommend it.  So, Gillian Flynn is 2 for 2 -- off to look up and see if she has any other books...

And Finally
The last holdout:

This tree will not drop it's leaves!  It's been nice to continue seeing the pretty orange-y red-ish colors amidst the black/brown of all the other empty trees (in the background).  There is a tree the same size, 10 feet from this one, that we got at the same time, and it's leaves were gone weeks ago.  I guess this one's trying to hold on to fall.  Meanwhile, it's only 37 degrees here today.