Look Ma!

As promised, My So Called Scarf in all its glory!

First, a close up of the stitch pattern:





And here it is graciously modeled, by yours truly:



Don't I so look the part of a Starlet?!? It's the plain white Hanes t-shirt. It exudes sexy. And it's totally screaming, "Unattainable!"

I must admit, that while I LOVE this scarf, I do not love the way the yarn worked and sort of made its own vertical stripes like the painfully obvious brown one in the above shot. Next time (and there will be a next time, when I live somewhere that it actually gets cold for more than two weeks), I will do the smart knitter's trick and knit two rows at a time with each of the two skeins of yarn required for the project, so that my coloring patterns are a bit more random and a lot less stripy.

Regardless, this is now a Finished Christmas Gift for my aunt (sorry mom, you turned up your nose!), who was deprived of a scarf last year because of time restrictions and my limited abilities. She watched me finish it over Thanksgiving and said in my ear, "It's worth the wait."

I'll take that complement and run with it!

A Starlet? Me?

Yeah ok, that might work. I kinda figured I'd get The Whore though.



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Saw this quiz on Priestess of Nothing and could not resist!

Visually Stunned

Ok, I see this (clicky on Cabling with out a Cable needle, and thank you Grumperina, you may have renewed my interest in cables). And I'm working it out in my head. But you know, I'm just going to have to DO IT for it to really make sense.

And Trellis is totally screwing with my head by doing the "slip 2 to cable needle, purl one" thing. How does this work if I want to do it without the cable needle? I'm flummoxed. Any thoughts?

So Called Booga

Ah, Thanksgiving. Usually a time for, well, thanks. And family. And lots of food. Lots.

My family is, well, a little different. Oh there was plenty of food. All ten of us ate for two whole days and still had plenty left over. And we were thankful for it, and for each other.

So why is it that I'm ready to go back home in about an hour, even after a seven hour drive? Maybe it's the subtle guilt trips from the step-dad about not visiting often enough. Maybe it's the not-so-subtle guilt trips from grandma for never being good enough. But it's not just me, that particular guilt trip applies to everyone. Maybe it's the unhappiness that pervades my older brother's every fiber, from his pending divorce (which we can all see, but he can't) to his constant physical misery. Maybe it's my aunt's sad emotionally abusive marriage that everyone acknowledges but she refuses to leave.

But, I don't drive home despite all the white elephants having one hell of a tea party in my parent's living room. Despite the constant references to my black sheep status for having tattoos and piercings and standing up for myself by divorcing my first (alcoholic) husband and marrying someone I really love. Despite the fact that I want to scream for everyone to just be honest with each other and deal with all the issues that we all know about but won't discuss.

I stay because I love them, despite their flaws and blindnesses. If we were all married, well, I'd probably get a divorce. But still. Family is family, and I can do the best I can for them by loving them unconditionally. By honoring their choices and not criticizing them. By smiling knowingly when they beg me not to get any more tattoos or move to Colorado, or to please hurry up and have children (ahem, no thanks, not on your life....yet).

And instead of expressing my frustrations to their fullest extent, I thank the universe for everything I can think of (including my slightly disfunctional family), and especially those things that I believe are possible. Because you don't have anything if you don't have hopes and dreams. And family is just a bunch of people around a table without being grateful for them, regardless of everything else.


And now some knitting!

This is Booga, pre-felting, pre-assembly:








This is Booga, post felting and assembly:






Not too shabby, eh? It's not actually as crooked or asymmetrical as it appears, I just suck at taking pics. I even had one of myself, but...erm...yeah, it was scrapped immediately!

Upcoming posts include the completed scarf, which will now go to my aunt, a competition plan, some yarnporn, and the unabashed beating of my internal editor, who I'm nicknaming Bree Van de Camp. You'll meet her soon enough, though you can probably guess what kind of psycho prude she is.

Hmm...

Now where did those pictures go?

I know I took some...oh yes, there they are. Still on my camera. Which has a deadish battery.

However, I did take some lovely (well ok not really "lovely") pictures of my current projects and I'll get them up soon.

In other news, I've finished the Booga Bag and it's blocking and drying, then I'll attach the straps, take another picture and give it away! I realized my friend Karen would absolutley adore the colors, far more than I would anyway, so another Christmas gift complete! Maybe I'll make that one again because it was really easy and next time I'll pick some colors I like working with. But, I will not use Noro again. Maybe a Noro other than the suggested Kureyon. I don't have very sensitive hands, but they just did not agree with the wool and the texture of the Noro. I have some lovely Lamb's Pride bulky in a pink, purple and green that might also work.

Uh oh...my list of knitting projects just grew by one...

Coming to a Holiday gift near you...

So I'm about half way done with the holiday knitting, considering that there isn't very much to do.

I'm working on Trellis from Knitty.com for my one year old neice. It's about that pastel green color too, in a very soft 100% cotton that I love working with. The work is pretty easy, once I increased the size of the chart so I could read it. When I do sit down to work on it, I try to do a few rows at a time so I can see some progress. Ok honestly though, probably closer to about 25% done on this one...about two repeats into the back section, which yes, is the FIRST section. I know I know, stop gaming, and start knitting or that little girl is gonna freeze!

I will, on maybe a long weekend or something. Oh Thanksgiving is coming...plenty of time!! Tralala.

And then there's My So Called Scarf . For my mom.Or myself...I'll decide when I'm done! I got the same gorgeous colors of Manos del Uraguay as mentioned in the pattern quite by accident. My sweet hubby picked up the skein at the yarn store and went "ooooh this one!!!", so I bought two and got started. Novice me did not know that with hand dyed yarn you should knit two rows from each ball to keep things even. *sigh* No way I'm ripping that thing out now! It really is beautiful, even if one side is a shade darker than the other!

And then there is dear sock attempt #1. He is now swimming in the frog pond, and my lovely Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Juniper is back in a nice ball begging to be used on a better first sock pattern. Or a better brain, whichever comes first. Dibs on the pattern.

I really do want to try a sock. Really. But damn, that first attempt just wasn't even fun. Until I got to the heel. Now that was cool. And then it was over. Again, I need a good pattern or to learn not to read from two patterns at once. *lightbulb*

OH! And like any good blogger, I will have pictures up soon :) And technically, this site is very much under construction. Look for a new banner and links this weekend!

And so it begins...

Hmm. This blog is about so many things. I can't promise to be witty and I can't promise to post every day. This is as much a place for me to keep up with myself, as it is for others to keep up with me.

Some of the topics covered here will be:

1. knitting (should I ever really finish anything good)
2. figure competitions (should I ever get to the stage, damn it - shooting for March/April 2006)
3. writing (I did major in journalism...I think)
4. and whatever else I think of on any given day.

Today, I'm a little flustered and feeling the need to write.

But I'm not going to. I'm funky like that. Sometimes it's better to stew in that flusteredness (a word? it is now!) and really create something profound rather than just toss it up and out there. Words are funny that way.

Sometimes the unedited sounds delicious. Sometimes it's just junk. Today it would have been. And a bit too detailed for a few folks to handle, hence this edit.

And that's enough from this little southern belle. If you could call me that. Southern, yes, but only because I still have an accent...sort of. Belle, well, not so much really.

Southern bitch is more like it. But that's a band. A band that rocks.