Lotus Knits!

Sock Summit Recap

2009-08-11T20:57:00.009-04:00

I was not as prepared for the sheer exhaustion that I would encounter from being 3 time zones away from home and on my feet on a concrete floor all day! I really meant to take more pictures and blog like crazy, but um, that was NOT possible, much to my dismay. I'm still recovering in fact. I went to work today and well, let's just say I should have stayed home and slept. Everyone I encountered would have had a much better day!

Anyway, on to the recap!

Here's a picture of the finished booth:

Isn't it so cute? We had a 'backyard' theme with clothes wire and pins to hang the yarn with, picnic table fabric and a cute little bit of fabric from IKEA for the 'grass'. There were many comments on how fun and colorful the booth looked!

Things went well and we had a lot of fun and I have all of YOU to thank for it! Without you, this wouldn't have been possible; thank you so very, very much! <3Queen Bee. I really couldn't stop myself. It was the only real splurge, but seriously, I *needed* a new bag (har). Someday I will have some of their panniers for my bike. And there I go drooling again.
Fabric Depot was having a giant sale while we were there so I also scored some fabric. I could NOT pass by the Alexander Henry owls or the 'save the earth' canvas. I feel some cute projects coming on!

And finally, the yarn. I snagged the last two Zombie BBQ from the Loopy Ewe booth and got some gorgeous colorways from Blue Moon: Tlingit, a mill end of some variety, and ST2.

We did go to the Rav party and there are some great pics from that, but they're on another camera, so I'll get them in the next post.

Stay tuned for new colorways and some of the Pin Ups in the Etsy store!

Sock Summit Day 1

2009-08-07T00:49:00.002-04:00

Hello from the Sock Summit!

Things here are awesome, exhausting, wonderful, scary, and just plain WILD!

This is Cheryl and Darilee helping to finish setting up at the verylastminute. Seriously.

This is the line of knitters waiting for the market to open as we're racing to finish:

My mom took the one of all the knitters. I think she was a tad shocked.

Yesterday was super busy with lots of errand running, picking up boxes, setting up the booth, racing to IKEA for more stuff, and some how managing to fit in a visit to Queen Bee Creations where I found this gorgeous wallet. I've needed a new one for a while, and whoa, this was totally the one.

Since the market didn't start until 4:30 and today was my only day to do any site seeing, we drove up to Mt. Hood. Mom, Darilee, me, and Cheryl at 3000 or 4000 feet:

We tasted wine, shopped at a farmers market, and ate an incredibly refreshing lunch at a cute little bistro in an adorable little town called Hood River. A lot like Athens, only hipper.

And finally, me and Liz of Mackintosh Yarns just after the Opening Reception. We might have had a beer. And lots of laughs and few tears. Steph and Tina are hilarious together and told us all the story of how the Sock Summit came to be. Someone videotaped it, so I'm sure that will be up soon.

More pictures tomorrow! We're having a blast, but we're SO tired too!

Running to stand still

2009-07-31T13:22:00.004-04:00

Hi there! Long time no see! Or chat. Whatever!

I've spent the last month in 'dye, dye, dye, reskein, label, inventory' mode for the Sock Summit! Everything is finally out to the Portland area (thanks Stacey!) and I can relax! So I've taken this week as a breather, but Saturday I'll be dyeing the last colorway for the Mythos club and Nate will reskein it all while I'm away so it will go right out to club members the moment I get back. Yay! I'll have sign ups for a new club at the Summit and then I'll present it to you all when I get back!

In case you missed it on Ravelry, there's a Dye for Glory competition in which all Rav members can vote on skeins dyed by vendors at the Sock Summit! There are a TON of gorgeous colorways, so if you haven't gone to vote, please go. You won't be sorry (but your credit card might). Hurry, voting ends tomorrow!!

I dyed up a new line of colorways called Pin Ups using the cashmere/merino/nylon sock base (YUM!)! These are inspired by and named for classic and new pin up girls and I think there's a ton of room for fun and creativity with these colorways.

I submitted the following colorways in the Dye for Glory competition:

In Watercolors, I give you Marilyn:

In Tertiary, there's Hedy:

In Kettled we have Gypsy Rose:

Fun, eh? I love them all so much it was hard to pack them up and ship them to Portland. I also realized after packing that I didn't take pictures of the rest! But I'll do that as I unpack, promise. There are seven more and they're all really stunning! And there are more to come! The Etsy store is currently empty (it's so sad and lonely!) but whatever I have left from SS09 will go up right away and I'll be taking orders for everything that sells out.

I've also been knitting. I picked up the Ishbel pattern the other day and cast on right away. This is Dream in Color Smooshy in the In Vino Veritas colorway that I found at Stitches South a few months back. I think it's coming along nicely.

I've posted a few of my languishing WIPs on my Ravelry page. I've had them all in a basket for a while, so this week I sorted things out because the clutter was getting to me. There's at least one sweater that's almost finished and two more that need some love. I also cast on for another Shedir hat because I keep giving mine away! Then I have a pair of socks that I can't post because they're a surprise for my raffle winner. I'm to the heel on the first one though and it looks great!

I've also been doing a bit of impromptu baking. I found some GIGANTIC peaches at the farmer's market last weekend so I waited until they were super ripe, juicy, and a little squishy and cut them up for a big old fashioned peach cobbler. Oh. Em. Gee. It was sooo delicious. Not too sweet, just right.

It didnt' last 24 hours. Seriously.

Next week I'll be at the Sock Summit, and I plan to take TONS of pictures because I know so many folks can't make it. I hope to be updating daily here and on flickr so you can see the booth and the market, the World Record attempt, the Ravelry meetup, and the Luminary Panel. There's soooo much going on that I don't think I'll be able to make it everything, but I'm going to do my best!

I'm totally nervous, but really excited too! I can't believe it's here so fast! SQUEE!

dyeing and sewing and baking, oh my!

2009-06-14T22:58:00.005-04:00

I have maybe been a little busy.

Sorry this shot has to be in black and white, but there are a few skeins of club yarn at the top and it can't be seen yet! This pile of yarn to be wound represents about half of what I've dyed, which is about a third of what I plan to dye. Maybe a shade more. I hope Nate is saving up some podcasts to listen to, because he has a serious pile of work to do.

My mom will be here next week to help me out and I'm going to teach her how to dye as well. She's SO excited and I'm so grateful. We've needed to spend some time together for a while now and it will be great to see her. This might mean that I need to work hard on my summer class project before she comes so that I won't have to worry about it while she's here. Crap.

In sewing news, I kinda fell down at a store I found in Atlanta called Intown Quilters. Oh my hell at the deliciousness to be found within. Every Amy Butler fabric I've ever seen and some I must have missed, along with Heather Bailey, Anna Marie Horner, Michael Miller, Alexander Henry, Jay McCarroll, etc. with a capital E.

My friend Laura picked out this fat quarter collection of yummy lime green, black and white. We had both been eyeing it but there was just ONE. So she bought it and pulled out two that she wants me to make as bags for her and I get to keep the rest! IEEE!

These are the FQs that I bought myself. If I have time they'll become notions pouches for the Sock Summit, but if not, maybe they'll go in the etsy store.

And for the finale, I bought the fabric to make an Emmaline Apron. Holy whoa is that thing cute! And SEXY. I don't think anyone will miss me at the Sock Summit if I'm covered in lime green and teal. The sash and ties are a solid lime green, naturally. I've cut out all the pieces except the bias strips. That's blowing my mind for some reason. I'm going to start sewing tomorrow anyway. Heh.

On a final note, check out my first squash!!! We grilled it and a few others (store bought) with our very thick pork chops this weekend and it was SO delicious. I have one more that can be picked and I realized as I watered this evening that I have several little green roma tomatoes, so I'll be watching for those to grow and turn red.

My next garden pick will be the kale. It's long and curly and so gorgeous that I don't want to cut it, but it's time! I'm going to make Zuppa Toscana with it this week. YUM. I can hardly wait!

Since planting our garden we've become avid food blog readers. There's so much inspiration out there! It's a wonder I'm not gaining weight just reading them! A friend (Alison, who blogs here and dyes yarn here) pointed me to this one since we have the Breadmaker's Apprentice book and wow do I want to do this bread-along thing. Like we need that much bread in our house, seriously. Worst case scenario is that I could send it to friends right? Right?

Post-itis

2009-05-27T10:50:00.000-04:00

OH HI THERE!

I'm still alive, promise! And I am going to try to blog more because I really miss it!

Our dyeing for the Sock Summit is moving along slowly but surely. I found some spin issues with one of the yarns and have had to send it back, so that's totally got me freaked out, but more is coming and the dyeing will go on. Fingers crossed.

I'm also doing a bit of sewing too. I've almost forgotten how much I enjoy a productive sewing day. I'm working on some notions pouches and some cute little box bags for the Summit, and I hope to have some in the Etsy store eventually too.

Just the beginning of the notion bag pile which includes a ton of Amy Butler and some Kaffe Fassett:

A sample box bag:

I might accidentally have acquired a quilting bug this month. It is not unlike the swine flu. Except when it is. It caused me to trip and fall and buy jelly rolls of gorgeous fabric to make throw quilts for my couch. DARN. But they'll keep me warm, I keep saying to myself, and they'll be prettier than the ratty old blankets I've been using! Yeah, that's it.

Our garden has really taken off too! We have some gorgeous plants that are growing very well and, um, rather quickly. We already harvested our lettuce and chard and it was DELICIOUS.

This is our first squash flower. I took this last week and now we have about 12 more flowers. We might be overrun with squash pretty soon. Just a guess.

My friend, Caryn, gave us four more roma tomato plants. There was no room in the SFG so we planted them in their own pots. The one last one has a second squash plant in it as well.

Again, this picture was taken last week and I swear that squash plant has doubled in size since then. It's totally crowding out the tomato plant in the top left and overshadowing what's left of the chard on the right. The tiny green spots are all pepper plants and an eggplant. All growing a bit slowly, but it might be that the squash is sucking the life out of everything else.

Oh, and see the ant hill at the bottom? Right up there ^? They will not go away. I spray organic stuff and they just move over a bit. Fuckers.

In addition to growing our own food in these lean times, I've become a coupon whore. Publix has buy one get one free items every week, so I save up my coupons for stuff I need, then I go and raid their BOGO stuff. As evidenced below:

I spent $19.68 (stuff I didn't have coupons for, sadly) and saved $42.50. It's like winning the lottery!

Leave me a comment if you're interested in learning more!

Hope you're all having a great short week!

WINNERS!!

2009-05-01T09:27:00.001-04:00

I want to thank you all SO VERY MUCH for donating to my Sock Summit raffle! Thanks to you guys and some generous friends, Lotus Yarns will be in Portland for the Sock Summit in August!!!

I'm extremely excited though admittedly a little nervous. This will be my first show EVER and I'm traveling a long way to do it, but I think it will be tons of fun! At the very least I hope to meet some of you and make lots of new friends!

So, on to the winners shall we?

I set up a spreadsheet with all the donators listed the appropriate number of times for their donation, then I cut them all up and put them in a big old dye pot and had Nate act as my lovely assistant and draw names!

Oh hi. I printed really tiny and it's a really big dye pot. Har.

Ok, winners! Pretend there's a drumroll....

Prize #1 - One pair of socks, handknit by me for you! Janette Smith!!

Prize #2 - One skein of the Lotus Yarns Hydroponic colorway handdyed by me! Claire Eymin!!

Prize #3 - 10 skeins of Noro Kureyon in color 185, generously donated by allnoro.com! Kendyl Young!!

Prize #4 - One handsewn box bag in Amy Butler fabrics from the lovely Carrie! Courtney Denney!!

Prize #5 - 10 balls of Elspeth Lavold Calm Wool (003-ashes colorway), donated by Main Street Yarns! Lauren Botelle!!

Prize #6 - One skein of Wollmeise in the Wilder Mohn colorway donated by the fabulous Erica! Heidi!! (whom I do not have a last name for, sorry! but you were the only Heidi, so there's no confusion!)

Prize #7 - 8oz. tub of whipped Shea Butter donated by Kim! Kristen Rengren!!

Prize #8 - Blue Moon Fibers' SilkySocks in Lunasea, donated by Renee! Mary Rogovin!!

Prize #9 - Blue Moon Fibers Socks That Rock in Flower Power, also donated by Renee! Belinda Toby!!

Please email me with your shipping addresses, and Janette I'll need to get with you on a pattern and yarn!

Thanks again, everyone, for participating and helping me move to the next level. I really appreciate all of your love, support and encouragement!

More updates on the Sock Summit progress as I nail down decisions. I'm trying to keep it as frugal as possible and I'll also have cute little things that are NOT yarn at the booth. They are so cute but I'll blog about those later!

For now, I'm just so happy to be going that I squee at least once a day!!

xoxo

Blog Raffle!

2009-03-18T14:55:00.022-04:00

***This raffle will run through the end of April and I'll be drawing winners on MAY 1!!!***

Hi there. I'm interrupting this irregularly updated blog to bring you a contest for lots of yummy prizes!

Yarn type prizes. For yarn type folks. LIKE YOU. Yeah, you. Hi there. Did I tell you how hot you look today? Mhmmmmm.

So here's the situation. I've been invited to be a vendor at the Sock Summit in Portland, Oregon, in August. YAY! I'm super excited! This will be an incredible opportunity to get my name and company out there to more knitters and really make my dyeing business dreams come true! Dudes, this is SO BIG for me. I can't even put it into words what it means to be invited.

But I need your help. Things are very tight and getting there is going to be unbelievably hard on us financially. As in, I *can't* do it without help. I also work for a (broke as hell) state university that is threatening furloughs, which could make this impossible.

This is where the prizes come in!

Every $5 donation gets your name put into a big pot. At the end of the contest, I'll pull out names for the following prizes:

Prize #1 - One pair of socks, handknit by me for you!

Prize #2 - One skein of the Lotus Yarns Hydroponic colorway handdyed by me!

Prize #3 - 10 skeins of Noro Kureyon in color 185, generously donated by allnoro.com!

Prize #4 - One handsewn box bag in Amy Butler fabrics from the lovely Carrie!

Prize #5 - 10 balls of Elspeth Lavold Calm Wool (003-ashes colorway), donated by Main Street Yarns!

Prize #6 - One skein of Wollmeise in the Wilder Mohn colorway donated by the fabulous Erica! (p.s. I want to keep this REAL BAD.)

Prize #7 - 8oz. tub of whipped Shea Butter donated by Kim (who is starting her own biz venture as I type)!

Prize #8 - Blue Moon Fibers' SilkySocks in Lunasea, donated by Renee!

Prize #9 - Blue Moon Fibers Socks That Rock in Flower Power, also donated by Renee!

I'm working on a few more prizes, so keep checking back! If you'd like to raffle for something specific, please note it in the comments!

Thank you so very much for your donation. Your support means the world to me!

All donations over what I need will be divided equally and sent to my local homeless shelter and rape crisis center.

what i did on my spring break...

2009-03-07T18:17:00.004-05:00

Ok, so it's only the first official day of spring break, but I do still have to work so I got busy doing the things on the list in my head.

I've always wanted a garden, and now that time are a little tougher (or a lot!) for everyone, I decided to go for it. I want to be able to grow my own vegetables and have them available whenever I want right out of my own yard instead of from China (or wherever else they might be imported).

Unfortunately our yard is nothing but Georgia red clay. Grass doesn't even grow here willingly. And our 'yard' is not very big and mostly a hill. Not much room for a garden.

So I bought a book called Square Foot Gardening, read it last night, and then went to my local nursery and Lowes to get what we needed. We ended up having to call a friend to help us with the plywood because it wouldn't fit in our car! Thanks Jacob!

Nate and I picked some plants we know we'll use including 4 different kinds of HOT peppers (all Nate), carrots, squash, lettuce, parsnips, beets, eggplant, kale, swiss chard, onions, tomatoes, basil and marigolds (so pretty!).

Nate is a better box builder and general drill operator than me, so he took over building the box. It was super easy and we had it together in just a few minutes.

p.s. This is the flattest spot in our yard. Directly above is a hill and directly below is a slope that goes down another 20-30 feet to a creek. But we do have loads of trees, so it kind of makes up for it.

Then he attached the plywood bottom.

And we have a garden box! It's sitting on weed paper if you're curious. (not that kind of weed.)

And now for the fun part - mixing together the dirt! We started with blending the compost. At the very bottom is cow poo, then on the left side is mushroom compost and the darkest stuff is worm poo. Mmmm.

Then we added peat moss and vermiculite and stirred it all up.

Yay! Real dirt!

We filled up the box with dirt and added the lattice grids. The idea is that you plant each square foot with something different and the grid helps you divide up the box into equal squares. It's also super cute!

Finally, we have some seeds in the dirt and cute little markers so I know what the hell I'm looking at when I go out there. I was able to plant seven squares today and the rest have to be grown inside for a while.

In a few weeks I should have some super yummy vegetables! So. Excited.

Next up...painting my bathrooms! (not quite as exciting.)

A Few of My Favorite Things

2009-02-13T11:35:00.010-05:00

We are busy little bees over at Chez Lotus! I've gotten really slack about updating though because it's easier to just Twitter stuff quickly or bitch and moan on Ravelry. I know, I suck. :P

One of the things I'm working on is a website for Lotus Yarns (which I might have to rename because of some Chinese company, but maybe not...GRRR. we'll see). Learning Photoshop is fun and time consuming so I hope the final product will be made of awesome! So far I have a basic main page, but I'll be adding purchasing software (a store) and a gallery of colorways and finished products. Woot! None of this is online yet. Boo.

Speaking of shops, we've been working on a pretty serious shop local initiative, at least at our house. Athens itself has had a cute little "Shop Your ATH Off" slogan around town (pic here, thanks Bill!) and so we've joined in.

Shop local...why? For me it's about keeping money in my town if I can. That includes relatively big boxed stores (since they employ people who live here) AND locally owned shops. For Valentine's Day, Nate bought me some gorgeous opal earrings and a matching necklace from a super cute little downtown store. I bought him some books on baking bread from Borders and together we got a few baking supplies from another local store.

My sweetie made us whole wheat bagels, which is very time consuming and almost not worth the effort, but man are they tasty.

Another crazy thing I'm trying: Green smoothies. Call me nuts. They taste pretty good to me. The only downside is that the ladies on Ravelry are making me want blenders I can not afford. Le sigh.

And believe it or not, I AM KNITTING. I'm almost finished with this pair of socks in Shibui Sock Pebble (or Sand? I can't remember). The colorway is pretty but I really hate the pooling. Doesn't matter though, I'll be wearing them anyway since I've finally made toes that AREN'T square OR pointy. It's a knitting miracle.

I'm also working on two sweaters and a cowl, but I forgot to photograph them this week. Oops!

And before I forget - YARNY GIVEAWAY! Carrieoke is collecting donations for Athens Literacy Council and she's holding a drawing for handknit socks, a handknit cowl, and Lotus Yarns superwash fingering yarn in a CUSTOM COLORWAY made just for YOU! Sweet, eh?

Aside from Photoshopping and knitting, this is a new favorite thing. Add water, lemonade, or actual sweet tea and whoa. Not for the faint of heart. This will knock you on your ass if you're a lightweight like me. Whoops.

Another favorite thing? YARN. I culled my stash this week in preparation to anonymously give to the LSG RAK thing on Ravelry. I realized there were many things I loved and some of them will never see the light of day if I don't give them a better home. There's some Yarn Pirate, some Noro Kureyon Sock, several lace weight yarns, and a few things I've dyed myself. I'll miss you dear yarns, but now I have room for more. Ahem.

Finally, not a favorite thing:

Viral rashes. OMG with the itchies. More pictures here on flickr, this one in particular is very tame. I was sick with a pretty bad cold a few weeks ago and this is the aftermath. I've never had a rash like this before, so I freaked out a little and ran screaming and begging to my doctor to make it stop only to have him say, "I have no idea what this is". Thanks dude. He referred me to a dermatologist and I got a shot and two weeks worth of drugs. The swelling and itchiness is gone but the red spots remain for now. It's amazing how insane just itching can make a person. Whoa. I'm lucky I didn't hurt anyone.

Yarn Sale and Mythos Yarn Club!

2009-01-30T10:16:00.002-05:00

I have some yarn that needs a good home so I’ll be posting it on the Etsy store on SUNDAY. There are some ‘oops’ yarns, semisolids that never made it to the store, and stuff that didn’t sell for whatever reason. There are Louet semisolids that are still in BIG 1/2 lb. hanks that would be perfect for shawls. It’s also the very last of the Louet!

And now for the MYTHOS YARN CLUB!

This will be a 6 month yarn club starting in March and featuring some gorgeous high end yarns including a wool/silk blend, an alpaca/wool/silk blend, merino/bamboo, cashmere/merino/nylon, merino/seacell, and the merino/nylon/silk/silver blend (Aura)!! There will be fingering, sport, DK, and Worsted weights!

The theme is Mythological Women and while I haven’t chosen my muses yet (har), the semisolid and multi-tonal colorways will be an homage to goddesses, graces, fates, nymphs, and mortals. I’m So. Excited.

I’ll post paypal buttons on the blog on Sunday. You can pay for the entire 6 months at once or do a monthly subscription. The cost will be $35/month which includes your priority shipping and the club will run March - August.

Since this club will run longer than my others have, I’m only going to take about 20 subscriptions, so please set yours up as soon as you can!

Back from D.C.!

2009-01-21T22:15:00.003-05:00

On our way home from D.C., I had the realization that I really needed to write about our trip in as much detail as I can remember, lest I forget.

It was wonderful and inspiring, and though I would probably never do it again (at least not on a frigid January morning) it was an amazing day I’ll hold dear forever.

We spent several days in D.C. before Inauguration enjoying the growing stream of people, the media frenzy, a jaw-dropping number of police and armed escort caravans, along with the stunningly gorgeous museum offerings, archives, and architecture. It had been decades since either of us had been to our nation’s capitol, so we tried to take in as much as possible. We paid for it physically. We walked anywhere from 5-10 miles a day in the 20-30 degree weather and felt like very old people by dark. I’ve never been so thankful for ibuprofen in all my life. Every part of me was sore every single day.

Among the sites we walked past were the White House, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Capitol Hill, Library of Congress, Supreme Court, National Archives, Smithsonian Museums, Native American Museums, WWII Memorial, Vietnam Wall, Korean Memorial, and various other state buildings around the Mall. We spent time in the Natural History Museum, Native American Museum, National Archive, Air and Space Museum and at all the monuments on the Mall.

On the day of Inauguration, we awoke at 6 a.m. to chants of “Obama! Obama!” outside our hotel window. We booked a room at Hotel Harrington, one block off Pennsylvania (the parade route), two blocks from the White House and four blocks from the Mall. Outside our window was a security checkpoint and a lot of people were waiting there to enter the parade area. We got up at about 6:30 and turned on the television to realize that we were already running late and the Mall was filling up. We quickly showered, dressed and made our way into the crowded streets to grab a bagel and coffee and start walking. Wow it was cold. But everyone on the streets was in great spirits. Despite the lines and incredible crowds there was singing, chanting, laughing and loads of smiles.

We had watched the military, police and secret service erect barricades and block off streets the day before so we were prepared for a long walk to the Mall but it still took almost two hours to walk up and around the White House. We finally got as far as the Washington Monument at about 9 a.m. after a few miles of rerouting around the parade route and were forced to turn back as the streets had been closed and we couldn’t get any closer. After trying a few alternate options we resigned ourselves to settle in with a group of people who were sitting near a jumbo-tron between the Monument and the White House. This was the only frustrating part for me – I had intended to be much closer to the Capitol building, but it wasn’t to be. Once we introduced ourselves to the ladies behind us from Chicago and realized that they actually had tickets and could not get in, I realized that I could be a lot more frustrated and decided that if they could have a great attitude about our location, I could as well. Besides, we were ON THE MALL! It ultimately didn’t matter where or with whom - we were there, experiencing the entire event in the flesh with millions of other people who were so happy to be there with us.

It was easily the coldest day of my entire life, but once the Obama family arrived at the Capitol it didn’t matter anymore. Sore feet and legs, frozen toes, fingers and ears all ceased to exist as the moment arrived. As soon as he accepted the oath, everyone as far as we could see cheered, waved flags, jumped up and down, danced, cried, and hugged total strangers. The speech was wonderful and all around us people cheered and sang. When it was over, we both hugged the wonderful ladies behind us who had been so sweet and shared their stories with us. One of them had gone to school with Michelle back in Chicago, so this day meant a great deal to her. We wished them well and headed back to the warmth of our hotel, which took yet another two hours. Such big groups of people slammed shoulder to shoulder might normally cause a stampede, but people were wonderful about helping each other, even as much as calling out when a step was coming up (since no one could see anything) and helping others over barricades and down embankments. I feel lucky to have been amongst such good will and joy and it made me feel proud to be an American again.

As we heard later, there were absolutely no injuries or arrests associated with that day’s events. If only we can all carry this loving, helpful spirit forward with us for the next four years…

In all, we spent about 7 hours in the cold with 4 or so of those hours on the move. Afterwards we watched the parade on tv as we warmed up and took naps. It was worth every moment.

Happy 2009!

2008-12-31T20:16:00.005-05:00

Wow, what a month! I can't believe how insane it's been and how fast it's gone by.

The semester ended and I got all As, which is a surprise even to me. Work got nuts with all the end of the year stuff and xmas came and went (peacefully, mostly). I've been sick the last few days and my sweet puppy dog had his eye scratched on xmas day so we've been laying low the last few days.

This was the day after, right before we went to the vet. He's getting drops 3x a day and drugs 2x a day so he's looking a LOT better and the prognosis is very good. We're doing a lot of sleeping this week!

Regardless of the end, in all I think it's been a pretty good year!! The yarn business was great fun and I survived grad school (so far). I accomplished a pretty good number of things on my 101 List, but I doubt I'll get them all done. Several require a decent chunk of money and thanks to ye olde economy I don't have much to spare.

Nevermind though, let's get to the knitting. I've also been using the break to finish some knitting projects and here are the ones I got pics of.

Noro Striped Scarf:

Marian Cowl:
Both were pretty quick and easy and already get lots of wear.

I hope you all have a great start to the New Year! Thanks for being yourselves. Big hugs and kisses to you all! I'll be toasting to you from the warmth of my couch/sickbed/best-place-for-kitty-snuggles-ever!!!

(p.s. I've run across some yarn that never made it to the etsy store for some reason, so look out for a blow out sale coming soon!)

Knitta, can you spare some yarn? (charity knitting and contest in one!)

2008-12-01T20:31:00.003-05:00

Thanks for all the commiserating and well wishes, y'all! I'm doing good and my knitting carries on. Nate FINALLY asked for something too! An Obama hat for inauguration (hello, deadline), so I'll be casting on that project pretty soon.

But first, a good blogger friend needs some help. Anna is starting a wonderful charity knitting initiative and in knitting terms, participating will only take a minute and some scrap yarn. I know y'all have some of both. If I can do it, you can TOTALLY do it too!

The project aims to help out a local (to Anna) nursing home in need of some love and holiday cheer. Maybe next year we can all do the same for our own local nursing homes, but this year Anna and her granddad need our help.

Will you please donate a few hours, yards of yarn and stuffing to make a few ornaments? Need some motivation? How about a FREE skein of Lotus Yarns in your choice of colorway? Yup. The knitter who sends Anna the most ornaments by her birthday (Dec. 12) wins a free skein of yarn.

Ready? Set? KNIT!

Cast on Craziness

2008-11-27T00:00:00.006-05:00

Howdy! Merry Turkey Day and stuff(ing)! Hardy har. Ahem.

Yes, I'm a nerd, shush.

I hope you're all having a great holiday! My plan is to do as little as possible - mostly watching movies and knitting (shhh don't tell my mom). We won't do Thanksgiving until Saturday where we'll meet up with Nate's family for the UGA/Tech game, a birthday party, and a turkey dinner. Do it big, right?

I still knit, I swear. In fact, I've cast on so much stuff lately that I'm going to have to buy a new set of needles because I've run out of Denise cables. Knitpicks perhaps? I'd love to splurge and get the new Addis set, but I don't know that it would be a good investment at this moment, what with Christmas and traveling to DC on the horizon.

Wanna see what I've been working on? Seriously, somebody stop me. I think my castonitis might be a procrastination technique. Or maybe it's a way to channel my anxiety*. Whatever, it's not cool.

Witness.

I'm about to cast on for Transistion Gloves using these two Dream in Color colorways (Wisterious and Visual Purple), as soon as I can figure out how to buy the pattern.

I'm working on a 3x1 rib sock in some Shibui sock yarn that I couldn't walk away from at Knitch a few weeks ago.

Then there's the Men's Cashmere Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts for a friend in some Berroco Ultra Alpaca.

And a baby sweater (1st birthday) that's two weeks late and still needs sleeves in some Berroco Comfy (or something).

My momentarily-ripped-but-about-to-be-recast-on Hourglass Sweater (also from Last Minute Knitted Gifts) in Noro Cash Iroha. I don't know what I was drinking when I cast on the size 41. OHHAI. I'm barely a 37 bust. Jeebus. Regardless, I want this bad, so I'm starting again today.

And I'll be magically transforming this skein of Twinkle bulky into a moebius cowl this afternoon. Cause, you know, I totally need one. RIGHT NOW.

Nevermind this Purl Soho Scarf I've been working on for a few months.

There are also two pairs of socks in the works, and an alpaca hat I can't seem to find. I think my hands may have missed the knitting.

This is just too much. I have to finish something, right? Jeez.

Anyway, hope you all have a great holiday! The semester is almost over, so I'll be back soon!

*So I had a freak out day (or two) a few weeks ago and couldn't get myself under control and therefore went to the doctor to "discuss" anxiety meds. He gave me some. I am taking them. The first day I wasn't so sure. I felt extremely fucked up. The second day wasn't much better and I said forget it. I'd rather be freaked out all the time than feel like an insane person. A few days later I decided to give it another go. So far so good. Suffocating under the anxiety = bad. Breathing = good. I'm only able to take half a pill a day, and I discovered the hard way that even half a Xanax on a bad day is TOO MUCH. Maybe an eigth would be ok, but a half knocked me out for several hours. I can't be productive if I'm asleep. I'm absolutely fine though, I've just taken on WAY too much and I can't walk away from any of it. It will work itself out very soon.

We're Going to DC!!!!!

2008-11-06T18:53:00.007-05:00

I can hardly wait for Jan. 20th!

It's seriously taken a few days for this to sink in for me, but I'm SOOOO freaking happy about Obama's win on Tuesday!!! I think I might have political PTSD or something because at first I was just numb. I really couldn't believe it. Now I'm alternating between elation and tears. Sometimes both at the same time.

I know there's a lot of work ahead of us, but I'm ready and I'm working on a few ideas about how I want to contribute. I'm so full of hope right now, I can hardly stand myself. I feel like I can do anything! So I'm harnessing that energy for myself and I'm working on my own 75 day plan. Like I need more things to focus on, I know!

Some pics from the last few days:

Carrie and I canvassing on Sunday. We were so nervous, but people were GREAT and so happy to see us. Carrie's sporting her Sarah Palin glasses and I'm channeling Paris Hilton.

This sticker is seen on many a car in the Athens area. The man who owns Weaver D's (the restaurant that REM's Automatic for the People album is named for) had these printed up. Nate got one for his car and one extra.

The only newspapers I could find on Tuesday. Athens local paper, UGA campus paper and a USA today. Plus my stickers from volunteering and a left over door hanger from canvassing.

Tuesday I helped out at the Democratic HQ in town. I'm so proud to have worked with this campaign and the other folks involved. They were so full of love and hope. 10 or so local restaurants donated TONS of food for our canvassers, voter drivers and poll folks - I was blown away by the generosity!! This group of high school kids were especially enthusiastic and helpful. They can't even vote yet.

One guy had a great set of pictures playing over and over on his laptop. I Kinnear'd it.

I ordered some posters, buttons and shirts from the Obama store today and I'm thinking about putting together a collage or shadow box or something to preserve my cool stuff.

I can't even express what I'm feeling right now. So much love for everyone.

<3

Churning

2008-10-19T22:17:00.005-04:00

Cheryl and I got a fun inspiration this morning. Nate had been following some links online since he likes to find great new recipes and he came across this site. He shared the link with me, I shared the link with her, and we raced to the grocery store in search of organic heavy cream and some adventure.

We bought two cups (4 half pint cartons) of organic heavy cream and got started. We poured all four containers into the food processor and after about two minutes we had whipped cream!

Then we realized that we weren't going to get very far without a mixer, so we switched to a hand mixer. After a few minutes we got a slightly chunkier texture.

Then after about 5 more minutes of steady mixing, it suddenly happened. We had butter curds and buttermilk (which I was so fascinated by that I forgot to get a picture)! Here's the straining process...

And here's the resulting buttermilk! Nate's going to make biscuits this week. YUM.

Then we divided the butter into four balls, squeezed out the remaining milk and rinsed with cold water which supposedly helps it keep longer. This whole process took 10-15 minutes and was SUPER easy! I highly recommend trying it!

Next we cut herbs and mixed them into the four butter balls.

Sage:

Rosemary:

Fresh garlic:

And plain salted:

I will definitely be doing this again - in fact, I might never buy butter again. It's that good! I'd like to do a bit more experimentation and find the best blends of herbs and give little herbed butter balls at Christmas!

If you want to try this all you need is heavy cream, a mixer and a big bowl, and some herbs. Mix, add in herbs, then roll in wax or parchment paper and enjoy!

GO VOTE!

2008-10-15T14:12:00.005-04:00

Hi all! I know I've been a very negligent blogger, but not without good reason. I'm also switching from bloglines, which got WAY overcrowded for me, to google reader so hopefully I'll be able to keep up with blogs better now.

I'm still taking two grad classes, teaching a knitting class, and volunteering for Obama. I tried to squeeze in a half-marathon training too, but that quickly fell by the wayside. Instead I'm going run the 5k that day with Nate and our nieces. We'll have so much fun, but those girls are running cross country now and they're going to SMOKE us. I'm also dyeing yarn for the Big Ass Yarn Club (first shipment goes out this week!) and also for another sock club. Yes, I'm crazy. Nate helps out by making dinner and cleaning around the house so that I don't go completely insane. Clutter makes me nuts all by itself!

Needless to say, my knitting is falling through the cracks right now. But I'm working on a scarf because I'm an addict and I MUST get my fix.

It's the Purl scarf (Ravelry link) from Last Minute Knitted Gifts (love that book, this is my second Purl scarf) and I'm using Malabrigo in Damask, some sparkly Aura yarn that I dyed (not the color linked - more of a raspberry pink), and Rowan Kid Silk Night in a baby pink. Yes, I'm allergic to mohair. No, I don't care.

There is also possibly a sweater on the needles, but I'm a little too busy to photograph it. My hope is that it will be done by SAFF so I can wear it that weekend (Oct 25th) but erm...that might be ambitious considering everything else.

So, on to the subject of this post! You might not have noticed but I'm kinda politically active. Just a smidge though. I'm opinionated too. Anyway, if your state allows early voting, GO TAKE ADVANTAGE. Georgia has already had half a million people vote and there are still 8 days left! In my county alone 15% of all registered voters have done their civic duty and our Board of Elections sees 500 people EVERY DAY. I know cause I asked when I voted today. Crazy, eh?

I'm going out on Nov. 4th to my precinct's polling place and to the BOE to take pictures and see how crazy it's going to be. I'm a big nerd and I LOVE election day, but I don't really want to stand in line.

So if you're able, go vote!!! If for no other reason than to spare yourself the headache of standing in line! :) It's too important not to!

oh y'all, i ramble a lot...

2008-09-23T22:50:00.001-04:00

I am just teetering on the edge of insanity. It's a bit thrilling and also a little scary.

Because of all the things I'm trying to do at once (work, grad work, dyeing yarn like mad, volunteering for Obama, and sort of having a life sometimes), I'm being firmly reminded that my time management skills...um...well...they suck. I'd much rather read Ravelry or watch tv or knit than do actual work. So I've found a new best friend...

and here is a taste of my week...(it could be worse, but it's rough for someone who is used to 3 hour naps after work)

I did today's work so I'm chilling with the hubby, knitting, and watching a Kevin Smith DVD. A girl needs some dirty comedy now and again.

And next week, there's this...

Oh yay, I get to pay taxes again. I also need a haircut and we need to have some dude come out and tackle our treacherous lawn. He drove by the other day and stopped to give us a card. Nate went out and talked to him and when he came back in he said "what do you think was the give away that our lawn needs help? the 12 foot weeds coming up the hill?" Um. Yeah. If it were a flat yard, this would not be a problem. But it's a fairly serious hill and we....are lazy. I guess everyone has their 'thing' they don't like doing. Ours is yard work. And housework. And anything else that ends in work.

p.s. I have NO birthday plans. I'm so boring. Suggestions welcome. We tried to get tickets to see the Raconteurs in Atlanta but it's sold the fuck out. Grr.

We *have* worked up the guts to ride our bikes to work a few days a week though. The first time was last Friday and it was an experience. We bought some panniers for my bike and loaded up our work clothes, shoes, and random work stuff and took off. We were prepared for the hills. We were prepared for the scary bridge with no bike path and rude drivers. We were not prepared for the extra weight of the panniers and my lack of a decent breakfast. Big mistake. I barely made it up the last hill and when I got off the bike I was laughing, but not in a haha funny way, in a maniacal 'i think i might die now and i'm prolly gonna take you with me' way. Good times.

Today was much better. Less weight and better food in my belly for the work. The trip back is almost all uphill, but making it home feels so good. Then I stretch and shower and thank the heavens that I lived.

So, being busy kinda blows, but it beats being bored and I'm learning to multitask better than ever while working on cleansing my procrastination gene. I've had to give some things up too, including voice lessons and the 365 project, but it's for the best right now. Streamlining is good, as is being forced to do things when they need to get done. Amazing concept.

Hopefully I'll be able to blog more now that I'm so super organized. I'll definitely have a sneak peak of the Big Ass Yarn Club shipments at the very least. Those of you who are in the club - it looks awesome and I'm more than halfway done with the first shipment. I'm dyeing extra skeins for me cause I must have a scarf out of this stuff.

Is this thing on?

2008-09-10T21:19:00.001-04:00

OH HI!

I did *not* fall off the face of the earth, but it does kinda feel like I'm a few feet under and trying to dig out! I've been a bit of a hermit in certain areas (like not reading blogs - sorry y'all) and a little too prolific in other areas (hi plurk and ravelry and politics - let us not discuss it, i'm on an even keel today). Whoops. Work and school, teaching and dyeing - they're all fighting for control of my time, but I'm staying on top...mostly.

Maybe I can distract y'all from my slackerness with some YARN! I bought some new dyes last week and played around a little while working on Big Ass Yarn Club colorways.

Speak Easy - Herby green, eggplant purple, and a turquoise that goes from bright to light blue.
When I go to my happy place, these are the colors I tend to see lately.

Falling Away With You - my new favorite fall mix of colors. Pumpkin, plum, gold, and an earthy, brownish green.

Edge of the Deep Green Sea - two of my favorite new dyes together. A bright peacocky turquoise, which is not coming through very accurately here, and a dark forest green.

These will be up on Etsy in the next few hours!

Now that work and grad school have taken over my life, dyeing has become a real fun, creative outlet again! I love being inspired and I think the season change helps with that too. Summer's just too damn hot to be standing over a stove going 'hmm, what should I dye today?'.

In other news Nate and I will start riding our bikes to work for a couple of days next week. I am so nervous and excited all at once. It's not a super long ride (5 miles), but it's very hilly and sometimes drivers are assholes. Some stretches of street don't have bike lanes and whew that scares me. I'm excited about it though because at this point the only way for me to get exercise is to do it in the morning and um...that's not happening. If I make it my mode of transportation, I'll have no choice. We'll see how long I can make it last.

I hope you all are having a great September! Keep 9/11 in your hearts tomorrow and hug your loved ones.

(p.s. I'm going to see the Raconteurs at Variety Playout on my birthday (10/1) - anyone in the ATL wanna go?)

*big hugs*

Subscription Buttons are UP!

2008-08-15T08:18:00.002-04:00

Oh look, it's Friday! YAY!

Subscription buttons for the Big Ass Yarn Club are up on the sidebar! ---->

Happy Friday everyone!!

first rule of yarn club...

2008-08-13T14:13:00.007-04:00

Y'all. What a couple of weeks! After a month and a half of Deadsville at work, things are ramping up again very quickly. Nothing like a Monday slap in the face with a pile of work and loads of student questions. Not that I mind, it's just shocking. Last week I was the only person in the building after 3 p.m. and it was slow times. This week is in hyperdrive, heading toward Ludicrous Speed. I'm waiting for things to go plaid.

I start Instructional Design and Development graduate classes on Monday. Yay for a big title after my name when I'm done! "Instructional Designer". Sounds serious. And important. I'm excited (for the classes, not the title :P). So Mondays and Wednesdays I'll be in class after work, then on Tuesdays I'll be teaching knitting at the yarn store from 6-8. Busy. Little. Bee. I'll also be dyeing up yarn for the next club - see below!

For an uber-quick knitting update, I've finished the Shetland Triangle (rav links to my pictures) and I'm about half way through Hey Teach for the Ravelympics. I've cast on for the Bellatrix socks but they're starting to look like something I'd never wear so I'm reconsidering.

Last weekend I went to a great baby shower (congrats, Erin!) with LOADS of people and kids and yummy food. April and Herschel hosted - they are awesome, as is their little girl Paisley - love that name! p.s. Herschel, you too can be an internet celebrity. Carry on.

One last thing. (i'm really good at wrapping up two weeks of life into a couple of little paragraphs, no?) Last night Nate and I and some friends saw Gnarls Barkley at the 40 Watt. What a fun show!

And now for the club info!!!!!

I’m opening sign ups for The Big Ass Yarn Club on Friday, August 15^th! I'll close sign ups September 15th or whenever the club is full.

With this club you’ll be getting three monthly shipments (mid October, November, and December) of TWO big skeins of handdyed yarn. By the end you'll have two each of a superwash worsted, an alpaca worsted, and a superwash BULKY yarn. No skinny yarn here! And plenty of yardage for a big scarf, a hat and mitten set, or huge fluffy socks! Each shipment is $30 plus priority shipping and I'll have paypal buttons on the side bar on Friday so you can sign up right here.

I'll have two buttons again - one for the full amount of the club and one for three monthly installments. If you didn't participate in the Punk Rock Sock Club, and you sign up for the Big Ass Yarn Club, please shoot me an email with your name and shipping address. Digging through paypal for addresses last time was a nightmare so I created a database to make my life a little easier!

Thanks for playing along!!

how about a real update?

2008-07-28T15:31:00.001-04:00

Thanks for all the nice comments on the Central Park Hoodie! I really love it.

The last few weeks have been relatively stressful and my way of dealing with that stress is by doing as little as possible. Except the knitting and rampant tv watching, of course. I've been doing lots of that.

I have made a few life-altering decisions though, amist all of my 'doing nothing' and 'addictive thinking' and 'obsessive knitting'.

Here's a little rundown:

1. I've started training with Cheryl for a half marathon in November. I am officially insane.

2. I got a new bike with some of our stimulus money and once I'm totally confident in my riding skills and have tried the route a few times I'll be riding to work a few days a week. More evidence of my insanity.

3. I've grown tired of morning and afternoon sugar crashes (nutella smothered bagels will do that to you) so I'm trying the GI diet to see if I can help myself stave off diabetes and fatness. It's not very different from the competition diets I did a few years back so I know I can do it.

4. I've just signed up for Ravelympics and I'm doing THREE projects in 17 days. Bellatrix, Shetland Triangle and Hey,Teach. WTF am I thinking?!? Maybe this is a very dumb idea.

5. After many years of irritation I'm considering having my tonsils removed. When I'm sick, 90% of the time my throat is related and my tonsils are HUGE. I also get tonsil stones (do NOT click if you're squeamish - apologies for the extreme grossness) and they're a little painful and seriously nasty. Surgery scares the crap out of me because I visualize all the things they'll do to me while I'm out and it's hopefully much worse than reality. If insurance will cover it I'm going to look into the laser surgery. Less painful, but I'll also be awake. EEEEEK.

I think that's enough for now...

Hope your Monday is a good one!

Central Park Hoodie, part 2

2008-07-25T21:57:00.005-04:00

After being finished with the knitting for a little over a week, I've finally sewn on the buttons and completed the second Central Park Hoodie. And I *love* it. So soft and smooshy! I didn't even hate knitting the hood, and I was so sure I would.

Pattern: Central Park Hoodie
Yarn: Cascade Sierra (8 skeins)
Needle Size: US 6
Size Made: 40" bust

Usually I would make a size 36, but since this is cotton and not likely to stretch too much I knit the size 40 and used the US 6 needled throughout rather than switch to a larger needle for the body. I knit the body in one piece to the shoulders then knit the sleeves and set them in. The buttons are "reproduction vintage" that I found at JoAnn's.

Cool, eh?

I'm so pleased with the sizing. It's roomy enough and warm enough to really serve as a jacket for me, with room for a light sweater or heavy shirt underneath, which is usually all we really need around these parts. Yay for happily finished projects!!

p.s. you can sort of tell here - i got my hair cut super short again and it's very pixie-esque. i went to etsy and found this awesome seller and bought a few new funky hair clips for my cute little hair cut.

wanna see? (these are her pics, not mine)

Love!!

YAY!

2008-07-10T21:55:00.001-04:00

YAY!
Originally uploaded by LotusKnitter

I'm posting this from flickr just to see how it works out. Looks like I'll be a grad student again :D

purple tuesday

2008-07-08T21:40:00.002-04:00

I went back to the salon today. My purple highlights didn't take very well and they kinda went away. But now I have magenta/purpley colors so it's all good.

Plus, they gave me wine.

I guess I have a sort of purple fetish going on right now. I bought these shoes this week:

I think they have badass potential. Also I am a whore for some shoes. There. I said it.

This week I'm working on the last bit of the sock club and some new colorways for the shop. I maybe went a little purple crazy there too. I made some choices about new yarns to carry as well, but you won't see them until the fall!

On Friday I'll be seaming the shoulders and sleeves on the dread CPH. I really hate seaming/sewing. Really, really hate it. It's threatening to stop my progress. Blerg. I figure if I seam the shoulders now the sleeves will be easier and then I'll go ahead and pick up stitches for the button bands to get the misery over and done with. And it was moving so quickly...

purple haired freak

2008-07-01T12:23:00.001-04:00

I love pay day. This time I got my hair all purpled up. Well actually, it's black with subtle purple highlights. So subtle you can't even see them inside, which is perfect for work, but get me out in the sunlight and everyone around me starts doing double-takes. I'm totally in love with my new hair guy. He's straight, cute, tattooed, plays in a band, and just generally rocks.

Thursday, after the dye job: Boo. It's really impossible to photograph and looks more reddish brown here.

And inside, it's just black again.

Thursday night: Karen and I at 31 Flavors (see? it's really black!). Coffee ice cream makes for blurry pics.

I also stopped by the MAC counter again and got some yummy new eyeshadows. Beauty Marked is a dark black with red sparkles and Satin Taupe is a shimmery dark brown. I had a really hard time deciding what I wanted, cause I kinda wanted all of it.

This weekend was a bit nutty. Saturday consisted of an early morning blackberry picking party, IKEA, a wholesale yarn drop, and a pool party. Then Nate and I put my new computer desk together, which is similar but not exactly like the pic I posted last week. The top is the same but IKEA doesn't sell the white tressle legs anymore so I got bookcase-esque things. Pictures soon. We also got new dressers like Pam's (thanks for the idea!!), a new end table, and a metric shit ton of stuff to hang on the walls. Again, pictures soon.

Sunday was also insane but in a different way. A huge storm blew threw town and caused power outages everywhere. Lightening struck our neighbor's tree, which knocked it down and into the power lines, ripping the power lines and meter off her house. The power lines and pole collapsed and caught fire, which caused another pole to snap in half and also catch fire. Good times. So our power was went out for 6 hours just as I was about to dye yarn. Boo. If I had been a good blogger I would have raced over and taken pics, but I was a little afraid of the live electricity on the ground and thought maybe my life was worth more than a photo of poles on fire. Sorry.

One more thing: I started the 365 project today, woo! I joined a few flickr groups and added today's pic - my big eyeball.

I might be a little sleepy and in need of eyebrown maintenance.

(p.s. Happy birthday, Pete!!! You're not old, you're vintage!)

New Yarn Options?

2008-06-25T23:56:00.000-04:00

I've been looking at adding to my yarn bases lately, so I've begged for samples from a few places and some packs arrived today so I wanted to share with you guys! I got about 10 samples, but I picked the nicest and/or most practical choices. I like to try to stick with superwash yarns for ease of care, but two of the three choices are NOT superwash, so keep that in mind if it's something that's an issue. Let me know if any of these appeal to you! I'm not going to do a poll (way too tired tonight for that), so please leave a comment real quick with a yay or nay vote for each one.

#1 100% Superwash Merino, Bulky weight, 120 yds. This yarn is really soft and squishy. The twist is not super tight, which allows for some of that softness and I can already imagine it being an absolute dream to dye and knit with.

#2 60% Suri Alpaca/40% Merino, Worsted weight, 220 yds. Um. This is the first thing I pulled out of the box because my knitter sense went WILD. No wonder what with all that alpaca! Also very soft, but a little furry thanks to the alpaca content. I'd wear it though. And drool all over it.

#3 70% Merino/30% Cotton, Bulky weight, 170 yds. I'm not 100% sure about this one. The cotton ply makes the twist a bit uneven. It's cool looking though. It's soft and lofty, but I'm betting that the cotton strand that's plied with the wool isn't going to dye, so it might be...interesting looking. I'll dye up a snip and see. I'm open to it if y'all like it!

I'm still on the look out for a different fingering wool/nylon blend, but I'm pretty happy with the Louet fingering and I'll be offering their sport weight as soon as they have more in. I'm not quite as wild about their heavier weights because the twist is just SO tight to me. I've found a superwash worsted that I'm happy with, so I didnt' post it, but you'll see it soon enough. I'll probably dye up the occasional bulky or worsted for the shop, but I'm thinking they might just be optional bases for custom orders.

Input, please! Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

pretty new friends

2008-06-13T08:57:00.007-04:00

Oh hi! This is the first post from my new iMac. I *love love love* it. So much so that I don't want to download anything or create documents or even upload pictures. I want it all pretty in its pristine-ness for as long as possible. But since I have to break its cherry at some point, have a looksee!

It comes out of the box like they made it at Ikea. Flat keyboard, itty mouse and remote, cord and computer. Plug it in and go. One must make room for the requisite kitteh towels though so they can enjoy right along side. Molly approves. As much as she can approve of anything.

It's so shiny and pretty, I just want to pet it. The only negative here is the desk. The comp is too high for me at the top and too close to me at the bottom. I'm going to IKEA soon to have a look around. I'm thinking this desk would rock my socks.

Drool.

Oh! Also, my CPH is coming along. I'll be starting on the left front this evening, then the sleeves when I finish that. It fits perfectly too, at least according to my crazy try-on attempt. This project makes me so happy and I've no idea why. Maybe because it grows fast.

I'll also be dyeing some yarn for the shop this week. It's been way too long. I have some new fiber samples coming soon so I'll have some questions for y'all about what new yarns you'd like to see. I'm looking for a different wool/nylon base and a few other things, so your opinion will mean a lot. Look for pictures and a poll soon!

p.s. If you're a music whore like me, check out Musicovery. I like Pandora a lot, but this site fucking rocks. Set it to dark and calm and have an emo boo-hoo fest, or set it to energetic and light and kick ass through a workout. L.O.V.E.

Yummy Weekend

2008-06-11T23:10:00.002-04:00

It's always amazing to me how quickly weekends, holidays, and sick days can fly by, but work days, even when you enjoy what you do, can just drag on and on and on. I know this happens to everybody, but it always catches me off guard when it's suddenly Sunday night and I still have a ton of things to do to prepare myself for Monday. Thanks for sneaking up on me again, Monday. Love you.

This weekend was not quite as busy as the last, but I still managed to dye, wind, and package a ton of yarn for the Sock Club that's going out hopefully tomorrow, sell and package and ship my extremely heavy sewing/embroidery machine and all its accessories (YAY!), work on the Central Park Hoodie, and make a delicious meal that will feed us all week.

Meet Risotto with Wild Mushrooms and Peas from Tyler Florence's Real Kitchen cookbook. And my glass of Pinot Grigio. Yum. It was so good I had two.

A few years back Nate and I got into a routine of trying out recipes from the cookbooks we bought and making sure to only buy a book if it had a recipe we were POSITIVE we would make. This book is one of our favorites, along with Tyler's Eat This Book. We got incredibly lucky and found about five recipes that became instant favorites. This risotto is one of them.

Now, I don't really do mushrooms. I took some pretty heavy hitting botany classes in college and I have a healthy respect for fungi. I don't feel as though it belongs in my body (in general). However. This dish is so good, it was hard for me not to eat some for breakfast this morning. Granted, I do have to pick out the more obvious, larger mushrooms (portobello) since they don't cook down enough for me to wrap my brain around putting them in my mouth, but the sauce, peas and cheese make me so happy.

On the knitting front, I got to the armhole section on the CPH last week and I'm now working the fronts and back separately, which is kinda confusing at the moment, but I'll figure it all out.

"As the Knitting Grows." Would make a great soap opera title, eh?

I'm also working on a few swatch/shop samples for my LYS, Main Street Yarns and Fibers and making technique swatches for the knitting class I'm teaching this month. FUN! The best part is that I get to work with new yarn and knit little things I might not make for myself. Whee!

Have a great Monday!

The Blame-it-on-everyone-else Cardigan

2008-06-08T20:03:00.005-04:00

I took lots of pictures this weekend when I wasn't dyeing yarn that I can't show you, knitting, cleaning my bathrooms, throwing old stuff out, steam cleaning a chair, moving said chair up two flights of stairs, putting together a gym, playing WoW, and otherwise dealing with the ridiculous heat. I might have been a little busy.

I also might have ripped out some projects I can't bring myself to finish.

Lenore. (Sorry, Madge.) I love this yarn, love the pattern (not that I was doing the pattern stitches on the foot, but still), and yet I just can't work on teeny tiny yarn with teeny tiny needles right now. So I didn't rip, but I carefully stowed away for another day so it would stop staring at me from my knitting bag.

Socks I hadn't really started yet, with some Lorna's Laces in the Grumperina colorway. Same reason as the Lenores. The yarn is sooooo teeny. But soooo pretty. Another day.

I did NOT rip this pair. The yarn is Blue Moon's Little Bunny FooFoo in the medium weight (ahhh so nice). I've been trying new things with this pair of socks so I couldn't just rip them. I might put them away for a while instead.

Hello, short row garter stitch heel! So comfy. I learned this heel method in Lucy Neatby's class and it's so much faster and simpler than a heel flap.

As you can see, these are toe-up and I have so much yarn that I think they're going to be knee highs. I'll be working on these for a while. Love the way the colors are knitting up! No pooling! (It's all about the number of stitches cast on, seriously. When I do the increases for my calves I'll probably be singing a different tune.)

Instead of socks, I'll be knitting on this pretty regularly. I blame y'all since y'all were right, of course, so I finally cast on for the CPH in Cascade Sierra.

I started with the 36 bust size and about 3 inches into the ribbing I remembered that cotton doesn't stretch like wool does and that I'd had to make a rather large button band for my first CPH because it wouldn't close even with a fair bit of blocking. So I ripped and recast on the 40 bust size. It will be big, but I'm cool with that. Better big and comfy than too small.

I'm knitting the back and both fronts at the same time. Somewhat slow going (god I hate to purl big long rows), but hey, no seaming!

I'm about two more cable repeats beyond this. If all goes well I'll be finished with this by July. Sure it will be too damn hot to wear it, but I'll admire it (and pet it) and wait impatiently for October to roll around again.

It's refreshing to actually see some progress after an hour's worth of knitting! You guys were soooo right. I love this sweater.

SQUEE!!!!!!!

2008-06-05T11:23:00.003-04:00

YAY!

It's official. We're going to DC for the inauguration!!!!!!!! See my pretty hotel up there? It's less than a mile from the White House and the Mall.

Somebody pinch me. Holy shit.

On to fight another day

2008-06-03T11:40:00.000-04:00

Thanks so much for all the love, emails, comments and general good thoughts. Venting and talking with y'all made me feel so much better. It's good to know you're not alone in rough times, eh?

I've had an entire Tragic Cherry Woe Cake and it looks like I'm going to live. See?

I'm currently enjoying some chocolate from Germany (a gift from our graduate exchange student this year - she rules) and it's super rich and kind of hard to eat, but still very good. I'm sure I'll manage to choke it down.

Nom.

And then this little guy smiles at me every day...

Oh hi, I'm a cute little Pokemon.

And of course I'm listening to some great music on Pandora. Makes for happy times.

I brought a list of things that will make me happy to work with me today and so I'll be learning about my camera and knitting if I can ever stop being picky and just choose a project to cast on. If I hadn't already made the Central Park Hoodie, I'd have cast on today, but I'd like to do something different and yet I want another CPH. Oh, the drama. So I'm searching Ravelry in vain when in reality I should cast on the damn CPH and be done with it. Gosh.

Hope everyone's doing well this Tuesday. I'm going to indulge in something gross and greasy for lunch, but I'll work it off later (hopefully).

Blerg (a somewhat lame whinefest...please bring cheese)

2008-06-01T02:05:00.000-04:00

(ok. what follows is kinda emotional and sad and i don't do that often. or ever, probably. feel free to skip it entirely. do not, however, tell me to find jesus. done. not interested, but thanks. i'm human, and maybe not as nutty as i might sound. i'm hoping i feel better just by typing all this. scroll to the next post for knitting!)

I'm feeling way antisocial lately. It sucks. Because at the same time I wish I could just sit down with someone and turn off my filters and totally be myself and fucking vent. About whatever. I don't do that very often anymore except with Nate and he's awesome but we both know we can't be everything for each other. That's what friends and therapists are for. I have no idea what's wrong with me. I should probably just call my therapist, but that costs money. Blerg. And I don't do it here because...well, generally that's not what folks come here for. And it's my choice not to totally expose myself and be unedited all the time (or at all). I've experienced the ramifications and it's rarely fun. But fuck it, I feel like shit and I want to talk about it. If you don't like it, move on.

Usually I keep my emotions in check because it can be so easy for me to just *feel* everything. Everything I'm dealing with AND stuff people around me are dealing with. Sometimes it's overwhelming. I have to tune out and disconnect because I can't stand being so open and susceptible to other people and sometimes myself. This is exactly why I don't watch movies that make me cry. It's hard for me to recover. Like today I just sat on the floor and cried for about an hour. For no good reason. I had this visual of lying on a cold stone floor in a cave drawing circles with my fingers and feeling very numb. Kinda random but accurate. It's like I let one teeny tiny thing in and the whole fucking world collapsed. And now I have to dig myself out and rebuild and junk. Stupid metaphors.

I can't imagine how hard it would have been for me to really pursue acting. It's hard enough just to deal with myself some days. How horrible would it have been to have to live with a fucked up character for 3 months or more? I would have had to have therapy just to stay sane. And to stay myself. It's way too easy to get lost in someone else. I think that's what ultimately kept me away. The fear of losing myself.

It's the same way with voice lessons. I feel SO completely exposed. So I try to be perfect, then I'm told that it's ok to make mistakes so I can learn from them. But uh...no it's not ok, cause here I am, totally exposed AND sucking. Sure some of that is the perfectionist in me, but most of it is about being completely raw and out there. Thanks, but that's what walls are for.

Maybe that cave is not such a bad place. I feel like I'm missing something in my life right now, but I've no clue what it could be. Maybe I've just been disconnected for too long.

Finally finished!

2008-06-01T00:58:00.002-04:00

Oh hi. I have a new teeny tiny camera and I'm learning how to use it. The one I had from a few years ago was *impossible* and awful (Nikon something or other). I'm so glad I have a good one now (Canon Powershot SD1100). LOVE it. I'll still use my Rebel for yarn and other things, but this camera fits into my purse a lot better for every day camera needs. Like when I need to catch people doing something completely stupid. Or I'm just bored.

So I finished the Lelah Top while at the beach last weekend. Other than random sock knitting it's ALL the knitting I did the entire time, and I only had to finish the straps. So lazy.

Hi. I'm blurry sometimes.

I freaking love this top. Sure I had to rip and reknit three times to get the lace part long enough and then I got impatient and had to rework the boob section twice, but it was so worth it. I want to wear this thing every day. I used about 3 balls of Rowan Calmer by the end because of the lengthening and the straps, otherwise I would have stuck to my 2 ball projection. I found a brown ribbon at Michaels and wove it through tonight so I could go out and show off. I should probably block it, but eh, whatever.

Love!

still alive

2008-05-28T22:47:00.001-04:00

This damn song has been stuck in my head since Saturday. It's a newish song in Rock Band and we played the hell out of it while on vacation and ever since it is stuck. in. my. head. Not that I don't love it, but omg get out already. There's only so much room in my brain for these kinds of things.

I hope you all had a nice long weekend! I hate that vacations are never really long enough and the drive home always sucks, but otherwise it was a pleasant weekend for us and I'm only slightly sunburned (dear god I'm so white that I burn in one hour even with a shit ton of sunscreen on. bah.). I only did minimal knitting, but I finished the Lelah Top and worked hard on a pair of toe up socks. I was too busy enjoying the nothingness to actually take pictures, but I'll have some soon!

So while I wasn't knitting, I was reading. And I've come across a new obsession. Y'all already know that I'm a big old nerd. It should never be a surprise when I reveal the further depths of my nerdiness. And yet.

The first time I talked to someone reading a Harry Potter novel (the 3rd one, POA), I scoffed. In their face. About reading a children's book. Surely my literary tastes were greater and omg how old are you that you're reading a book for 12 year olds?!?! Ahem. She laughed at me and said "just wait." The next day she brought me her copy of Sorcerer's Stone and it was off to the races for me. Of course I had to apologize as I took it back to her the next week and went out and got books 2 and 3 for myself. Open mouth, insert foot, chew vigorously. Never again, I swore, would I take "young adult" literature for granted. Not that the first book was stellarly written, but I was certainly interested enough in the world to continue.

This weekend Carrie introduced me to Twilight. Again, my first thought was "but it's in the YA section...bleh." Wrong again. I ripped through that sucker on Saturday, then bought the second and third books the very next day. I'm started the third one last night and I'm halfway through today. You might say I'm a sucker for decent vampire fiction. Not shitty romance type fiction even though it IS a love story, but it has just enough of the gothic novel elements to keep me hooked. Damn it. I had sort of enjoyed having a life.

I could totally gush about the empathy I have for the main characters, but it's not pretty. I'll simply say that when I was 14 I totally would have been open to a sexy vampire stealing me away from my life and pledging his undying devotion FOREVER. I might have been a dark and melodramatic teenager. Shut up. (p.s. to the possible sexy vamps out there - i'm much older, less cute, and taken. forget about it.) Ahem.

OH! Back to my real life - the yarn from Louet for the second sock club shipment is shipping to me TOMORROW! Woo! I'm finishing up my wholesale orders this week and shipping those out this weekend so I can completely devote myself to the club without any procrastination guilt.

Also, thanks for all the podcast suggestions! I can't listen to "food" podcasts while I'm exercising because I'm weak and I'll just stop and go find something to eat, but I will listen while dyeing yarn (though the effect may be much the same).

Have a great week, y'all!

Keeping up with The List

2008-05-21T11:36:00.000-04:00

My 101 Things in 1001 Days list is feeling a bit daunting to me lately. I've set myself a LOT of long term goals, which would be out there anyway, but seeing them mocking me on the sidebar is a little disconcerting.

I've made some progress though and I'm really enjoying the process. Here's a bit of a run down:

Things I'm enjoying making progress on:
Reading - I'm a bit of a book nerd anyway, so this is a lot of fun. I have about 20 books going right now so I'll be able to finish this goal with no problem. Also, I've decided that once I'm finished with the last Harry Potter book (I'm 9/10ths of the way thru #7 for the 3rd time), there will be NO MORE reading them until I have kids old enough to give a shit. After book 6 I cursed Jo and swore 'never again' and I mean it. This time.

Trying something new every month - I'm really enjoying this. Even if it just means I buy weird shaped fruit at the grocery store. If it's new to me it counts.

Trying new recipes - We have sooooooo many cookbooks that this one is easy. Right now I'm kind of hooked on The Sneaky Chef. Reading cookbooks should totally count, but I'm not claiming them.

Things scaring me:
Everything to do with money - paying off credit cards, all the stuff I want to do for our house - it's all freaking me out right now cause my money will only go so far these days.

Things I need to find substitutes for:
Visit England - Again with the money. If the dollar weren't tanking so hard this might still be a possibility, but until further notice we're on the lookout for somewhere affordable to visit for our 5th anniversary next May. I'm thinking maybe a cruise to Mexico and Jamaica. A European cruise would ROCK, but I doubt it's in the budget. (p.s. there is no budget, which is probably why i have difficulty with that pesky credit card debt)

Things I have to start over:
Exercise and mediation. Boo. Weight loss and inches goals. Double boo. Part of this problem is that being on the treadmill can be sooo boring. I would drive somewhere to run but that doesn't seem efficient and I'm bored with my neighborhood or I'd just go outside. I think I need new podcasts. I really enjoy Pottercast (stfu), Lime & Violet and sometimes Stash and Burn. I really don't want any more knitting podcasts, but I can't think of anything else I'd want to listen to. If you have suggestions I'd LOVE to hear them!

I'm enjoying a DVD I bought and my running, but I definitely have a hard time doing it every single day. Though I've decided to train for a 10k next month so I guess I have to make it priority. Does a 10k count as two 5ks? I think it should.

**********

This weekend is our knitting/beach trip so I marked it off The List. I have to buy a bikini today and then clean my house. I do not want to do either. Bah. I'll have fun pictures when we get back though!

constantly contrary

2008-05-17T17:34:00.001-04:00

yarn, cops and berries...aka a competely random post

2008-05-15T11:08:00.004-04:00

Holy life suckage, batman.

I don't mean that my life sucks, I mean it has completely sucked me in, covered me in yarn and has finally spit me out again. I feel a little fuzzy in the brain and noodley in the appendages.

(forgive me, i was feeling prolific when I started this post, then I went to lunch and my motivation decided to stay downtown and window shop)

The first shipment of the Punk Rock Sock Club is out! I hope you guys like it! I'm dyeing a couple of wholesale orders while waiting for the rest of my sock club yarn to be delivered and then I'll be working on some new colorways for the etsy store. This weekend I'll mark down everything in the etsy store by 20%. The yarn is terribly bored just sitting in a box in my dining room and is begging to be knit into something gorgeous.

********

The cops are heavily patrolling my neighborhood for the next week or so. Nate's coworker who lives 5 doors down from us got BOTH their cars broken into on Monday night. Our dog woke us up at 3 a.m. that morning barking so loud and fierce I was sure he was going to jump through the window. I never did see whatever he saw, but I have a good idea that it might have been some hoodlums. Can I tell you how weird it is to have a cop car shining bright lights into my house at 1 a.m.? Yeah, I was still awake, but that doesn't make it less strange.

*********

Last weekend a few friends and I went to Washington Farms and picked strawberries. I managed to get quite a haul.

And then I made a cobbler, which tastes oddly like a sweetened strawberry jam sandwich.

But we ate it anyway. We also had strawberry shortcake, strawberry ice cream and fresh smoothies. I'll definitely be going back to the farm for more berries. In June and July they'll have blueberries and blackberries. Nom nom nom.

workin' for the weekend*

2008-05-05T12:16:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I just go completely off the deep end about something and must act on my impulses immediately. I think most southern folks call it a 'wild hair'. I can't call it that. My brain does crazy things with that imagery.

My front yard drives me completely insane. Usually it's a mild form of insanity, a sort of 'oh bother, stupid yard' and then I let it go. Not Friday. A bit of backstory: when we bought this house in December of 2006, we were concerned about erosion, since the house sits on a built up hill of red clay, which can often get really dry and simply wash away if you're not paying attention. So we amended our contract to include a shored up bed in front of the living room windows and a retaining wall. They did it without too much of a struggle. But they filled it full of red clay and rocks. Big ones. Bigger than my head. Sigh.

(if you've never seen red clay, this is it. it's red. it's clay. and not to say that my head is tiny. the rocks you see here are the little ones. the big ones got thrown into the woods, where all good rocks go to die. or get bigger, whatever they do.)

Well the escapade on Friday all began when I took out the dog after work. I took note that my two forlorn tulips (in another flower bed) that never bloomed were dying. Great. Two of the ten that I planted got leaves, then died. Not a bloom in site. This pissed me off, so I went to prune the first dying one and um...out came the bulb. Oops. So I dug around a bit and realized there were three bulbs in the ground and that my lonely little tulip had multiplied. I went over and somewhat gently pulled up the other lonely tulip and it had multiplied too! Whee!

I dug them all up and repotted them so they could grow and mingle and be friends. You can only see the tops of four of them, but there are about 6 more that were just bulbs.

I dug around the rest of the bed and the other tulip bulbs had all disintegrated. Boo. I still got ten for ten, but not in a way I had intended. Still, now I have a right mess in that particular bed. I'll deal with it next weekend.

Then I decided that I was tired of that icky flower bed under the living room windows. So I put on icky gardening clothes (not very different from my icky workout clothes from the day before) and made Nate go to Lowe's with me to get real dirt, fertilizer, a hoe, and some bushes. (Cause a girl needs her ho and bushes. Ahem.)

So I grabbed my ipod and dug and sang at the top of my lungs until it got dark. I'm quite sure this confirmed my neighbor's thoughts about my wackiness. But I'm a wimp and I didn't get very far. Wet clay is very heavy.

Saturday morning we got up and did the rest. We had to dig out two feet by two feet of red freaking clay, mix it up with dirt and fertilizer then put it back in. The rest of the clay will get mixed with more dirt and fertilizer to fill up the bed the tulips came out of. I might replant them or just get something else.

We now have three tiny knockout rose bushes, all of which have brand new blooms today. I hear they grow fast and furious, so I hope they'll just cover that whole area quickly. I hate all the ugly black waterproofing stuff and the shoddy concrete work. Just eww.

Later this week I'll go buy some edging stones to give it a border and make it really pretty.

The only downfall is that after this mania my back is completely out of whack. It was already hurting on Friday and my mild scoliosis was twinging something awful. It's a weak spot, but not in any detrimental way.

On Sunday I enjoyed Lucy Neatby's class at my LYS with my mother-in-law and her sister. We learned a few new toe and heel tricks and giggled a lot. I might also have said 'shit' a few too many times in polite company. But Lucy was wonderful and fascinating. She totally makes me want pink and purple hair.

*i know that song is not about working ON the weekend, but now it's stuck in my head. enjoy.

Friday is a free peach cobbler

2008-05-02T14:07:00.003-04:00

Monday, take note. This is how a day is supposed to behave. Gorgeous weather, good friends, free dessert.

Cheryl, Courtney and I had a delicious lunch today and half way through our meal the waiter brought over a FREE peach cobbler. Apparently someone else had ordered and then decided against it and he had overheard us talking about how yummy it would be. So he gave it to us. Sweet!

I may have done more than my fair share of cobbler gobbling.

And on a completely unrelated note...ow, my scoliosis.

holy crap there's knitting!

2008-04-29T22:48:00.001-04:00

For the record, the GRE did not slay me, I'm still here. Though I did sort of physically melt when I saw my score and realized that I do NOT have to retake it. WHEW. Thanks so much for all the encouragement!! I got an 1130, if you're curious, and I'm kinda kicking myself for not studying for the verbal section cause I could have rocked it a lot harder, but whatever, it's over.

My boss (who totally rules, btw) gave me the rest of the day off, so I had some Ben & Jerry's to celebrate and then took a lovely nap. Tonight I'm dyeing yarn and dancing around my kitchen while Nate plays GTA4.

So, how about some knitting? Remember the Aleita Shell? I totally love it, but my row gauge is different from the pattern, and it now requires math to work the proper number of decreases. I'm a over math for a little while, you know? I'll get back to this one later.

This is as far as I've gotten:

The separation for the bust V section:

I've also cast on for the Fern Fitted Shell with the Ella Rae Bamboo Silk (LOVE IT). Thanks, Nada, for the errata info! It's slow going but I blame the GRE, not the pattern.

And I cast on and have almost finished my Rowan Calmer Lelah too. I'm doing a racer back top rather than the tube top in the pattern, like this one. I hope it doesn't stretch too much. That would be counter productive. For me anyway.

I've also been working on some of my 101 things. I've found a great exercise/stretch/meditate routine that is refreshing and makes working out really rewarding. Now I need to get back to eating better to make all my hard work worth it!

Ok, back to dyeing! Have a great week!

Earth Day!

2008-04-22T12:15:00.002-04:00

Happy Earth Day, y'all!

Earth Day is one of my favorite days of the year and I think it should be a national holiday with a full day off to work in our communities, plant trees, and ride our bikes instead of driving.

This Earth Day I'll be turning off the television and my computers for the evening. I'm going to knit and study my GRE book. I'm also researching composting, since my current method is a little too backwoods to be called composting. It's called throw-the-scraps-in-the-woods-for-the-deer-to-eat, or redneck recycling. At least I'm not chucking my banana peels into the trash. I'm hoping for a banana tree some day. Seriously though, the only soil we have is red clay and it is incredibly NOT conducive to growing anything. I can't even make grass grow. Or tulips, though I hear they're difficult - doesn't leave me less than disappointed.

I know I've listed out all the things we do to stay green before, so I won't do it again but I'll add that we're considering biking to work thanks to $3.50/gallon gas prices. It literally goes up every single day. I'm not looking forward to 5 mile rides, but if we did it even one day a week we'd save gas and money. We're also considering planting a small garden and growing some of our own vegetables. Yum.

Are you doing anything special for Earth Day?

Lazy

2008-04-21T00:45:00.000-04:00

When things get really busy or stressful or overwhelming, I tend to get lazy about everything not involved in the stressful stuff. Like blogging. Knitting. Reading other folks' blogs. Replying to comments. Sorry, y'all, it's not you, it's me.

So to say that the GRE studying is stressing me out would be an understatement. If I hadn't already paid for the damn thing I'd just say fuck this and start breathing again. I'm sure in the end it's all going to be fine and the Kaplan Crash Course is helping me tremendously, but I'm so ready for this to be over.

I'm also dyeing yarn for the sock club and waiting (not so patiently) for the rest of the yarn to come. I'm not in any danger of not having enough yarn for May, but I want the rest of it right now, thankyouverymuch. With stress also comes a lack of patience and I don't have much of that to dole out as it is.

Moving on, I bought some wonderful yarn last week, and while I'm too lazy to take a picture, I need to share my knitting conquests, so tolerate it, mkay? I got some blue Linen Isle (0009) from Webs and I'm going to start a proper Aleita Shell with the suggested yarn just because I can. And I like blue. I also got some Ella Rae Bamboo Silk in the grass green colorway. I opened the package and realized that it wouldn't have mattered if I had gotten some hideous, nasty color, I would have loved it anyway. Soft, smooshy, and luxurious. I'm totally making some gorgeous tank out of it. I think it might be this one.

Ok. Sorry I'm totally phoning this one in. No stone throwing, mkay? (unless they are very yummy chocolaty stones, and in that case, gimme all you got.)

Sexy Clap

2008-04-13T20:01:00.008-04:00

Today was so gorgeous - it was one of those days you wish would last forever. Nate and I cleaned the house and took some pictures of my complete (mini) Clapotis!

This yarn is just so gorgeous, if I do say so myself. It's soft, warm, luxurious, and requires a little bit of dressing up just so you won't be completely outdone. It's hard to wear a yarn that really wears you.

Forgive the blur. Clearly I'm not the one taking that photo...

Dorky grin #1.

Dorky grin #2. What? This Clap makes a girl feel very rawr.

In other news, I crossed off an important list item yesterday. I got five new bras. I suddenly realized on Friday that all I was wearing were sports bras and not for good reasons. So I took some measurements then plugged those numbers into an online lingerie site, discovered I'm a 38C these days and went shopping. Technically I should be a D, but y'all, those are so huge on me. I don't even come close to filling them up. I think maybe I'm really a B+ or a C-. I tried the 36C, since I had always been a 36B (or so I thought) and those just don't work for me anymore. The 38 is much more comfortable, but it will take some getting used to.

I also finished a book and started three more. We watched the first few episodes of The Wire (my something new this month) and worked our asses off to find deductions to bring down our tax bill (it's not good). I dyed some Sock Club yarn (yay!) and we played WoW when we got bored (did I mention I'm gaming again? it's under control though).

Hope you'll had a great weekend! Watch out for falling objects on Monday.

Surreality

2008-04-07T14:00:00.001-04:00

Dear Monday, Thank you for getting your abuse out of the way first thing this morning. My would-have-been-yummy banana/peach breakfast smoothie looks lovely splattered all over me and the elevator floor. Let's go ahead and call it a day, shall we? Smoochies - Me

Now that that's out of the way...

Yesterday was glorious. I started the day headed to Knitch and the Harlot book signing with this:

A little heart in my mocha. It really put the whipped cream topping on my giddiness for the morning. Figures I'd get a smoothie smackdown the next day just to keep things "fair and balanced." Snerk.

Alison and I got to town late so we didn't do any other shopping and were really lucky to get seats somewhat near the stage. (Thanks KateyJ for taking better pics than I was getting!!) Katey and her clan sat right behind us and we all giggled through the entire talk. She even won some super expensive yarn, gave it a name and tucked it in her bra for safe keeping. That's my kinda gal.

Stephanie, doing her "Knitters, with sock" artwork.

I worked on my Clap, which is now long enough to start the decrease rows. Love. It. You still can't see the super bling factor here, but it's astonishingly shiny. I don't think I've ever gotten as many "oooh!"s as I did when I pulled this out of my bag. Then again, I usually knit alone and I can only do so much to entertain myself.

During the knit-in I got to meet some folks I've been talking to for a while, including Mary, Cate and Chickengoddess. Alma - your shawl was stunning. I still have no words. I ran into almost everyone I chatted with the last time Stephanie was around and met some lovely new faces too.

After the knit-in, we got to meet with Stephanie at last. Stephanie remembered me and my yarn, which totally shocked me. I might have gotten a tad giddy and inappropriately hugged her. Ahem. Sorry. I could blame the caffeine, but it's really the nerdiness.

I gave her a skein of the Aura (silvery) Bloodflowers and she had to stash it quickly so no one could steal it from her.

What? Where do you hide your stash?

I have no idea what I'm looking at in this pic. Der. Anyway, that's me, Stephanie, Alison and Mary! Alison and I got to have a nice chat with Mary over nachos and wine across the street, where Mary informed me that she has a degree in applied math. M - expect your phone to ring if I fail these practice GREs, mkay? (Speaking of the GRE: I'm scheduled to take it April 29th. Major fucking EEEEK over here.)

You can't see it in this pic, but I had on a pair of these earrings all day and wow did they get a lot of compliments. It made me giggle all day to be able to say "lick my sticks" repeatedly. Pam is working up a batch of earrings, so get them while you can!

I gotta say, it was a smidge weird to be somewhat famous for a day. I was really unprepared for so many people to know who I was and/or to have knit with my yarn. Even the ladies behind us in line to meet the Harlot were knitting socks in Fascination Street! So surreal.

I'm a wallflower at heart, so dealing with attention makes me a little awkward. And huggy. If I hugged anyone too much or too hard...sorry. At least I didn't stab you with my earrings.

Harlot weekend!

2008-04-04T23:10:00.000-04:00

I'm so excited about seeing the Harlot again this weekend!

Alison and I are driving in around 11, but we have super important yarn errands to run so we'll get to the Knitch area by 1. We plan to attend the Knit In, listen to the lovely Stephanie, then have a snack and some wine while waiting for the second signing. (which sounds a lot like the Second Coming to me, and I guess it sort of is - though not in any spiritual way.)

If any of you in the Atlanta area will be at the Harlot event on Sunday, shoot me a message and we'll hook up!

I'll be sure to take my camera, lots of knitting (including a possible FO - don't faint, y'all), and maybe a special yarn for le Harlot.

I'm really hoping to finish the Clapotis this weekend. I started a second ball of yarn, but it's really close to being finished I think.

I hope I can get a picture of this in some better light. It's truly gorgeous when it sparkles!

Closed!

2008-03-31T11:16:00.002-04:00

Just an FYI:

The sock club is closed! Thanks everyone, for participating! I'll be dyeing for the club starting this week. So. Excited.

Also, have y'all heard of Foxboro Hot Tubs? It's Green Day's "side project" and I might love them a little bit. You can hear the first song here (youtube) and it looks like you can download the song for free from their site if you click on the album.

This song is totally making my Monday bearable.

p.s. the GRE sucks ass. math makes me cry.

Saturday? Already?

2008-03-29T12:29:00.002-04:00

God, where did this week go? I haven't read blogs or knit (ok a little), or even managed to do laundry. Oh yeah, I'm studying for the GRE. And suffering from Pokemon addiction. I can't do math, but I can beat the shit out of some pokemons. Shouldn't that count for something?

I'm scheduling my GRE exam as soon as I get paid for April so that I can just get it over with. But y'all. I'm *worried*. I seriously haven't had any math since high school and when reviewing the "Basic Math" in my GRE study guide my brain shuts off, I become zombiesque (it's a word), and it just doesn't click with me. Solve for A? Fuck A. Somebody get me a drink! Granted, I don't have to do a phenomenal job to meet the program's requirements, but I'd like to not have to take it again.

I'm also working on The List (see the left sidebar) and I'm accomplishing a few things this weekend including:

- Recycling old cell phones
- Replacing the rest of our plain light bulbs with the CFC kind (the ones I can reach anyway)
- Cleaning out our filing cabinet, shredding old stuff and filing stuff that's hanging around
- Running my first 5k in 8 years. DONE!
- Recycling old comforters, etc, by giving to Goodwill

Did I mention that I love lists? And since Nate will be out of town this weekend I'll be able to get soooo much done. He's definitely a laziness enabler. And when he's gone he doesn't have to deal with my "must. clean. everything. right. now." mania and I don't have to feel like a bitch for making him help.

As it turns out though, some work crap yesterday has kept Nate at home (thanks so much Nigerian spammers, he's enjoying the fuck out of his weekend...'preciate it!) and he's just going to have to tolerate my craziness. Right after this nap.

Just to prove I did it, here's a pic from before the race this morning:

Oh hi. It's 7 a.m. and I bet you're all sleeping soundly while I'm about to run my ass off for 3 miles. Bitches. (p.s. it was a mental STRUGGLE to get my ass out of bed this morning. the freaking sun wasn't even up yet.)

And this is after. Awake and exhausted, but feeling really proud of myself. You can't see my running number here, but it was 385. Just for the record. I made the 3.2 miles in 40 minutes, which is not bad at all considering I totally forgot to factor the hilliness of Athens into my training. I ran most of it, but the three biggest hills kicked my ass and I had to walk them.

When I got home, my boy kitties were completely and utterly unphased by my return. Usually I get a greeting at the door, a third degree sniff, and some meows. Instead, they were obsessed with something else.

A squirrel had made its way onto our back porch and found the seeds that the birds drop from our feeder.

He's totally just staring at my kitties and eating a seed, like 'oh hi, stupid kittehs, you can't get me! muahahahha!' Fully aware that there is glass between himself and the big kitties and that he's totally safe. Mocking them. He could not be any closer to these poor tortured kitties. Then he starts to bathe his face and nibble at his fleas, all right in front of my boys. Once he realized that 'oh shit, there's a big human,' he took off and my kitties decided napping was more interesting.

Have a great weekend; I'm off to find a napping spot of my own.

New Extreme Sport: Nerdiness

2008-03-24T11:10:00.002-04:00

As y'all know, I'm all kinds of nerdy. I have lists. And those lists have lists and there are sublists to those lists. Below is the ultimate of all my lists. I'm using it to keep with with things I have to do anyway (like take the GRE) and help spur me into action on things I really want to do. I'll probably set up a separate blog for this, or I'll add it to my sidebar. I've found that so much can be learned about a person by reading their list: who they are now, what they want from life and from themselves, and ultimately who they hope to be in the next few years. It's a lovely concept.

And so, from Day One:

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple goals such as New Year's resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organizing and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

101 Goals in 1001 Days
Take a photography class
Take the GRE (by April 15th)
Apply to Masters program (by July 1)
Get a Masters degree
Visit England/France (March 09)
Visit Seattle (August 08)
Visit DC (hopefully Obama’s inauguration)
Paint bedrooms and bathrooms (0/4)
Run 5 5ks (0/5)
Limit soda to one per day for a month (0/30)
Cut all soda for one month (0/30)
Lose 15 lbs (0/15)
Meet inches goals by May 23 2008
Decorate my office space
Pay off my car (Aug 08)
Pay off my credit cards (0/4)
Install bamboo floors
Buy new living room furniture
Open an untouchable savings account
Arrange to transfer $100 to that account every month for a year (0/12)
Donate $2000 to my IRA (0/2000)
Organize my pictures on my computer
Put photos in frames and hang them
Fix master bathroom walls
Buy nothing for one week (0/7)
Bring lunch and breakfast to work for one month (0/30)
Audition for a musical
Exercise every day for a month (0/30)
Donate boxes of books
Sand and repaint the dresser
Buy new bedroom furniture
Audition for Knit Girl
Organize family tree info from Dad
Knit a sweater for Nate
Plant 2-3 bushes in my front yard
Make our mailbox area pretty (pavers, dirt, flowers/vine)
Meditate every day for 30 days (0/30)
Create a website from scratch
Knit a sweater I love (or 2)
Buy fresh produce from a local farmers market 5 times (0/5)
Go to Rhinebeck
Write our wills
Set up and fund an emergency account
Bring credit rating back up to the old number
Organize filing cabinets, file and shred irrelevant stuff
Landscape side and back yard
Pay off my student loan
Go to an opera
Practice voice 20 minutes every day for a month (0/30)
Sell sewing/embroidery machine
Find a good doctor who will listen to me
Read 50 books (0/50)
Knit only from stash for 2 months (0/2)
Try something new once a month (1/33)
Try 10 new recipes (2/10)
Plant two trees
Go to a gaming convention (August 08)
Finish rereading Harry Potter series
Make a photo album
Go to the eye doctor
Knit a shawl for my mom
Knit 10 pairs of socks (0/10)
Buy a pair of great comfortable heels
Get back in touch with 3 old friends
Do something nice for my mom just because
Learn to use Dreamweaver well
Learn to use Flash
Learn to use Fireworks
Learn to use Photoshop better
Buy 5 new bras (0/5)
Volunteer at a soup kitchen
Volunteer with the Athens Literacy Council
Do one thing each month from We Are What We Do (0/33)
Follow 10 suggestions from apartmenttherapy.com (0/10)
Follow 10 suggestions from unclutterer.com (0/10)
Do an action/adventure activity with Nate every weekend for 2 months (0/8)
Subscribe to Real Simple magazine
Eat locally for 2 weeks (0/14)
Visit 3 state parks in GA (0/3)
Eat all meals in for a month (0/30)
Switch from coffee to tea for one month (0/30)
Go to 2 visiting speaker lectures (0/2)
Give blood twice (0/2)
Get a passport
Make 10 vegan recipes (0/10)
Nix fast food for a month (0/30)
Get another tattoo
Clean and cover the gutters
Donate 3 knit items to charity (0/3)
Attend an IT/Tech convention (other than PAX)
Use only my reusable shopping bags at the grocery store for a month (0/30)
Organize the attic space
Teach someone to knit
Finish and send Pete’s hat
Go on a weekend spa retreat alone
Host a knitting retreat
Donate to Child's Play charity
Learn to crochet
Ride bikes 20 times for more than 5 miles each trip (0/20)
Dye and ship for the sock club (0/3)
Get pregnant
Celebrate!

(I'm 2 short since I noticed some duplicates, but y'all know me...I'll add them in due time.)

I've already started working on a few of these!

If you read through the list you can gather that Nate and I are going to a gaming convention in August. PAX to be exact. Seattle had better brace itself - the number of folks going to this convention almost doubles every year and I think they're expecting some 100k this year. I actually could care less about the gaming (ok a fraction of that is a lie), but I *really* want to see Seattle. If you have any Seattle travel tips, let me hear them! We'll be staying right next to the Convention Center and will have NO car, so I'd love to get some ideas on great places to eat and fun things we can walk to. Well, that *I* can walk to. I doubt I'll be able to drag Nate away from the gaming.

And to help me get my nerd on, Nate got me an early anniversary present:

The nerdiness knows no bounds.

happy freaking monday!

2008-03-17T22:18:00.001-04:00

Hi y'all!!

I hope you guys had a great weekend! Thanks so much to all of you who signed up for the Sock Club! There are still a few spots left, but they're going pretty fast, so if you haven't signed up yet you better get on it!

Last week was our Spring Break so I got most of the week off, though I was answering emails and doing little things here and there. Mostly Nate and I laid around the house sick with whatever the hell is going around this time. I'm glad to know it's not just me. Nate never gets sick, so to be ill twice this year already says there's something really icky lingering about.

On Saturday I decided I'd had enough. I woke up, declared myself well and set about cleaning my house (well ok, only the main floor - I'm classy like that) for a gaming party. Oh yes. A Gaming Party. Consisting of six mostly sober adults playing Rock Band with much fervor, then Super Smash Bros. with much yelling and superfast button mashing. Great fun was had. There will be more to come. (also, we covered some pretty interesting topics like diva cups, breastfeeding, ravelry, sewn up coochies, saggy boobs, two girls one cup (DO NOT ASK, hell don't even google), and quilting.)

I'm a bad blogger and didn't even take any pictures. Duh.

I also started watching John Adams and I'm in LOVE. It really puts the events of 1775 in perspective and is well told and touching. I just watched "Independence" and they're reading the Declaration on the steps of Independence Hall and I can't stop the tears. For what those men accomplished for us, and for what it's all become. Bittersweet, I guess. If I were a better writer I'd get all mushy on you, but alas.

Anyway, I've made some progress on the mini Clapotis. It's about half done I'd say.

And I spoiled myself last week with a big honkin' bag.

Holy shit is it huge, y'all. It dwarfs me! This is my knitting side...

This is the business side...

And of course, the creamy lipstick center.

Have a great week! I'll be trying not to overload my bag and commit suicide by big ass purse.

Sign Ups Open!

2008-03-14T23:59:00.002-04:00

Ok, the buttons are on the right!

You can sign up through April 15th, but I can't guarantee there will be spots left by then.

Thanks so much everyone, for making this so much fun for me, and for making it a reality. If you have questions or see a problem with the paypal buttons PLEASE let me know. This is my first time with this so be gentle.

:D

Punk Rock Sock Club!

2008-03-10T08:54:00.002-04:00

Hi y'all! I just wanted to fill you in on the theme and ideas behind the very first sock club! The Punk Rock Sock Club! I’ll be creating a colorway each month around album art from one band from each decade: the 70s, 80s, and 90s! Clash, Social Distortion, Green Day...I'm looking at you. I'm super excited about dyeing these up because some of the album art is really out there (some of it's very gray/black/white too, but I'm doing the colorful albums only)!

Again, the sign ups will be on the blog, NOT on etsy and you’ll be able to pay through paypal either all at once for the 3 month subscription or be billed monthly. The sidebar reservation buttons will go up Friday morning (the 15th)! ****Ok, this should have read Saturday the 15th, but I'm on the Dayquil and can't read a calendar. Let's split the difference and make it Friday night/Saturday morning at midnight EST. HA! Take that Dayquil!****

You'll be able to sign up through April 15th (or until the club sells out, whichever comes first) and the first package will ship on or around May 15th. You'll get 3 monthly shipments of a skein of yummy sock yarn, a bit of info about the colorway and the inspiration behind it, and a couple of little goodies as well. I'm not doing any major swag in order to keep the price to $30/month (includes priority shipping).

Whee! I’m so excited about dyeing for this club! It’s gonna rock.

Feel free to steal the above button, but please save it to your own server!

Oh, bitches.

2008-03-06T10:15:00.004-05:00

I'm so sorry. I've been reading WAY too much Project RunGay. I'm running around calling everyone "kittens" and "poodles" and "bitches". Told you I missed my gays.

Anyway, it's been one hella bad week. I'm so over being sick every two weeks. It's dumb. Now my allergies are joining in and I can barely keep my head from imploding. Makes me wish someone would create Dayquil you can inject directly into your veins. Bliss.

But I know no one really wants to hear about me feeling like warmed over shit all week. BORING. Excuse me while I go drain.

My highlight was last night's knitting with Courtney, Alison, Sarah, and Cheryl. We discussed knitted swiffer covers (awesome), politics, religion, the origin and assonance of the word 'asshat,' (which was so hilarious I had to leave the room to recover) and there might a been a little talk about Pandora and some boxes in there somewhere. Next time I'm taking a notebook and writing down all the quotable stuff. It was classic.

So, this is what the 'oh, bitches' is about:

The Cecilia Chemise from Stitch Diva. I think I might have to turn to the Dark Side for this top. I was unaware that crochet could be so cute and sexy...rawr.

Also, I finished my Entrelac Scarf in Noro Silk Garden! I think I like it best all wrapped and poofy around my neck.

Entrelac! Just look at all those cute little criss-crosses! Love.

I really adore the aqua color. I think I might sleep with this tonight...

Sock Club!

2008-03-01T21:23:00.003-05:00

Hi! I hope you're having a great Saturday! Mine has been wonderful, but we'll get to that in a minute.

First, the news you've all been hoping for! I'm opening sign ups for my first sock club on March 15th! You'll be able to sign up through April 15th (or until the club sells out, whichever comes first) and the first package will ship on or around May 15th. You'll get 3 monthly shipments of a skein of yummy sock yarn, a bit of info about the colorway and the inspiration behind it, and a couple of little goodies as well. I'm not doing any major swag in order to keep the price to $30/month (includes shipping).

Reserving your spot will be super easy. On the right hand sidebar you'll soon see two Paypal buttons. One will get you the full 3 months subscription and you'll pay all at once. For those of you on a yarn budget (like me) the second button will also get you all 3 months, but you'll be billed once a month instead of all at once. There will be a limited number of total subscriptions, so first come first served!

I'll release more details as we get closer!

Ok, on to my Saturday. Thanks to Throwdown with Bobby Flay, Nate decided we needed some badass chocolate chip cookies. I usually make my own badass cc cookies, but we decided to try something new and found a recipe online. OMG yum. We did all the mixing by hand with NO mixer (ow, thank the gods for electricity) and the texture was perfect.

Mmm yummy dough.
We made the cookies super large, and they're about 3 inches in diameter. I can only eat one at a time without going into a sugar coma. Not that I usually stuff three at a time into my mouth or anything. Ahem.

Later I met Karen at the MAC counter for my fabulous makeover. Holy shit did I buy a lot of stuff. I'm convinced they put as much "product" on you as possible so you'll feel compelled to Buy It All.

I managed to get out of there with as much colored stuff and fewer primers and enhancers than they would have liked. But hey, there's always next month's paycheck.

Eyeshadow. I got Fig 1, Star Violet, and Gleam. They're so pretty all blended together and they make my eyes really pop. I tire of hearing the word "pop" but it works here perfectly. If my eyes ever actually "pop" we're going to have a serious problem.

The second most awesome thing I got is the powder foundation. It goes on super light and smooth and barely feels like I'm wearing anything. Yet I look amazazing. Love it.

I also got concealer, moisturizer, and another lipstick. And that effectively kills my yarn budget this month. Of course, looking fabulous is far more important than yarn. Holy god, someone stop me.

p.s. There was a super cute little gay guy running around the MAC area working on faces and he totally made me miss having gay guys in my life. I need some adorable guys around me to tell me how fierce and fabulous I am (regardless of how silly that might be, shut up). Oh Christian, come home to mama.

Lipstick Stalking

2008-02-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

LIPSTICK!

Do y'all do this? I've found like 2 or 3 lipsticks that are great, perfect, wonderful, work-for-every-occasion colors for me, and now that I'm out of them, I can NOT find them again.

I hate going to WalMart or Kroger to look for lipsticks. I can't try them on, so I could buy 5 and it's possible that none of them look good. If I go to the cosmetics counter, I might get the right shade, but I've paid 4x as much and I've probably bought $80 worth of extra stuff. I'm a sucker for some cosmetic junk.

I just threw out 3 of my favorite lipsticks because I'd used them to within a millimeter of their lives. Two of them I bought the last time I was in LA (oh 5 years ago?) when I got to the hotel and realized I left my entire makeup bag at home. Smart. The other one is something I got in a freebie from Lancome. It's now discontinued, since that was probably 5 years ago too. Crap.

Guess I'm going to have to go make friends at the Bobbi Brown counter. I love her makeup. I don't wear foundation (too lazy) but their concealers and eye shadows rule. Maybe I should branch out a bit though. Any suggestions? Our mall is teeny, but we have Bobbi Brown, MAC, Lancome and Clinique counters. I could always drive to Atlanta too...mmmm Sephora.

NEWSFLASH!

Holy crap! My mom said she'd vote for Obama today. I think I left my jaw on the sidewalk when I was on the phone with her. The end times are surely near! My mom has always voted republican. Always. Even when it doesn't benefit her and even when she doesn't believe in it. Bizarre, I know. But the words out of her mouth were, "I will vote for Obama before I will vote for McCain...he's too scary." (Imagine my eyes popping out of their sockets here.) We talked for a good thirty minutes after that, and I believe her. I'm still in shock though.

KNITTING!

Here's the progress on my Aleita Shell. I'm really loving the Silky Wool, and I hope this thing is going to rock when I'm done. I've made some adjustments since my gauge is so different from the pattern. I've done the pattern decreases, but I've added two more sets at 5 inches into the shell for the waist. I'll do the increases for the bust at 8-8.5 inches and then start the bust detail.

See all that work? I have JUST added the second ball of yarn in this picture. Silky Wool goes a long way. The texture is so nice too. I think it will be light enough to wear through May or June with a cute little cami underneath.

A bit of a close up. Some of my stitches are kind of wonky, but it's a combination of me, my tension, and the yarn. It all blocks out though. Ask my swatch.

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Goodies! We like goodies! Oscars too!

2008-02-24T23:48:00.001-05:00

Thanks so much for the hair comments. I really love it more every day! I'm a geek, and I'm ok.

I'm watching the Oscars (holy god could Nikki Kidman BE wearing any more diamonds? also I might be doing a bit of random Oscar commenting. this might get long.) and blogging and trying to type through kitty love. See here:

Tristan is sleeping and making 'nom nom nom' noises on his absolute FAVORITE blanket, which is not to be washed ever lest he become extremely put out and have to sully it up again with his belly fur. Below is Molly (aka Somie, aka Bitchy Cat) who has decided I have better things to do than type. She's quite demanding and very selfish with her lap time. You take it graciously when she decides you're worthy.

I hope your weekend has been relaxing and/or productive. My weekend was great for getting goodies!

I got the cute little Piddly bag on the right (with the pink ribbon) from Jenn and Wendy at Piddleloop. Photo courtesy of their etsy store. They update every few weeks and it is a vicious feeding frenzy. I'm lucky I got a bag at all! This one is now holding my Clapotis which is slowly growing longer.

(Holy shit Marion Cotillard is gorgeous. Hate her. Also, damn her for being so cute with her acceptance speech.)

This little set of stitch markers and earrings came from Kate's etsy shop, Knitty K8. She was having a sweet little sale so I got lots of yummies. The turquoise markers are now on my Clapotis and they are PERFECT. Very lightweight and gorgeous to boot. The earrings went immediately in my ears. They are so stunning Nate even commented on them, and that's saying something!

Last but most certainly not least, Cher sent me the perfect pendant. A Buddha on a lotus flower!! Sweet! I had to run out and buy a chain to put it on, but it's not quite right so I'm still looking. I'm thinking maybe a hemp necklace would work better. It's just so perfect for me. Thanks again, Cher!

I've also done a LOT of knitting this weekend, but I need to take some pictures, so I'll update those later. I made some progress on the Clapotis and a ton of progress on the Aleita Shell. My yarn and gauge are different from the pattern, but I did some evil math and holy shit, it's working. The thing fits. It's lovely.

(The little couple who won for Best Song are SO FREAKING CUTE. I can hardly stand it. They brought the girl, Marketa?, back out for her very own acceptance speech. Adorable. Also, I still hate Cameron Diaz. Hideous prom dress.)

OH! I had a great conversation with my voice coach tonight. He said he wished that I went to his church so I could be in his choir. I replied, "uh...you don't really want me in a church choir, I'm a big ole atheist." He sorta chuckled and then said, "yeah you need that 'I got god' street cred up in here." HA!! I laughed so hard! We had a nice little conversation about religion and moved on. I seriously love this man more every week. Especially since he didn't try to kick me and run.

Next week I'll take a picture of the mural on the wall in the church. It's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. It makes absolutely no sense. On one side there's the men. They have a lion, lamb, and a dove. In the center is a cross, an angel, a gryphon, and a winged bull (oh yes). Then on the other side is the women, some fruit and roses, and then...a unicorn. And a dragon. Do what? There are unicorns and dragons in the bible? I must have missed the sci fi chapters. Blast.

(Oy the tribute to those who have passed always gets me. Love you Ingmar Bergman, Deborah Kerr, Heath Ledger.)

(Holy crap Diablo Cody won Original Screenplay for Juno! Love her Fred Flintstone dress and skull earrings. Bet they're real diamonds.)

(Oh, Helen Mirren. She's so divine and yet severe looking. Makes me think of a feminine Snape, but in a good way. Daniel Day Lewis is not half bad looking when he's not playing an insane person.)

(I know nothing about any of the movies nominated this year, but yay Joel and Ethan Coen. They tend toward awesomeness. Woo Denzel. He's still got it. Well shit, I guess I have to netflix No Country for Old Men now.)

Thus ends my lame ass Oscar yakking.

Have a great week!

Tabled!!

2008-02-21T19:33:00.000-05:00

HR 536 is TABLED! Woot! This is very good news. Now I can relax a little. And have a few drinks. And do a little 'we win motherfuckers!!' dance.

Ok, moving on.

Be very glad I didn't bombard your eyes with my foulness yesterday. I started a post titled "Shitty Shit Shit" and it all went downhill from there. I had woken up in a terrible mood, felt like my head was full of snot and then had to deal with stupid computer and printer issues ALL DAY LONG. You know how things are when you're in a bad mood. Everything seems to turn to oozy muck colored crap before your very eyes. Luckily things have worked out: the two programs I almost redrum'd with my bare-handed mouse are now speaking to each other and I'm getting a new printer/copier/scanner. Yay technology.

Then there was lovely, fun knit night and an eclipse. And it was good.

So, on to a better day! Which is apparently not going too well either. I brought my camera and laptop today so I could take a few pics and post some awesomeness. Then my camera battery died, thus thwarting me mightily. Alas, pictures will come later.

Fast forward to later.

I've been slowly but surely working on the Lenores (sans lace sections on the foot). I'm knitting these as part of a KAL of sorts and as part of a knitter's project. The deadline loometh and I need to get moving on these.

But I cast on for something new. Yes, another something new. With Silky Wool and I even swatched, washed, blocked and measured. It did not kill me. Then I did math. It also did not kill me (though it was a bit touch and go). I cast on for a size that will make the gauge fit me perfectly. Or there will be hell to pay, friends.

I tried to take better pictures of my hair, but this cut is so fierce it refuses to be properly photographed. This is the best I could get. And that's me about to scream expletives in my work bathroom.

Fierce, yet camera shy.

Short Weekend

2008-02-17T12:33:00.000-05:00

Weekends are always too short around here. I try to do too many things and then suddenly it's Sunday night and time to start all over. Bah.

One good thing accomplished this weekend was watching The Kingdom. Go rent it or Netflix it now. I learned more in the first two minutes of that movie than I have in watching the news about the war in the last 8 years. Explains a LOT.

I'm still working on all my knitting projects (two pairs of toe up socks and a Clapotis), but this is suddenly captivating me:

That's an Entrelac scarf in Noro Silk Garden. She is pretty and soft and I can't stop working on her. I'm half way through the second ball as of this morning, so what you see here is about a third of what I actually have done. Once I had the directions down, it was surprisingly easy. It's very exciting to watch the scarf grow and change colors. Then again, I'm easily amused.

Hope y'all are having a great weekend! I'll be pretending tomorrow is Tuesday.

Hey, I Think I Love You.

2008-02-14T16:28:00.003-05:00

From me (and my friends at xkcd) to you!

Now, go get your nerd on. Or whatever it is you do on days like this...

/nerd

Can't trust that day...

2008-02-11T19:54:00.000-05:00

Hello, Monday. Bite me.

Ahem, anyway.

According to bloglines I maybe lost a few subscribers due to the 'revealingness' of my last post. Guess ignorance really can be bliss, eh? S'ok, more atheistic free love orgies for me!* Now if someone could find me Nick Hexum and his little private island...(oh! according to wiki, his island is for sale!! anybody got $7 mil?)

Random aside: I've just realized that maybe I should have added an 8th thing to the last post: People who talk on their cell phones in a public bathroom make me militant. I really like my privacy and sometimes I'll seek out an isolated bathroom just to get it. Please do not take your friends/boyfriends/parents into the bathroom with you. Not only do I not like for *you* to hear me pee, I really dislike folks on the other end hearing me pee too. Yick.

Gosh I get sidetracked easily. I'm really here to demonstrate that the knitting is back on!

Last week I casted on two at a time toe-up Lenores in the STR Lenore colorway given to me as a gift (yum! and thanks super secret gifter *wink*):

Two at a time toe-up basic socks (there's no pattern just yet, so they might be plain old socks) in the STR Little Bunny Foo Foo colorway (double yum!):

And a mini Clapotis (in my own sparkly Aura yarn, dyed a super dark teal semisolid for myself):

If you look closely at the bottom right, you can see I've started dropping stitches. Also, OMG this is going to take FOREVER.

In addition to all this loveliness I am taking a class at my LYS and I'm starting on a secret project that I'll share with you when I'm done. It's a technique I've never tried before and um...one has to pay attention to the damn pattern or one has to frog multiple times. Which is no fun.

Care to venture a guess? :D

*I don't intend to offend, but if someone fails to see the humor then maybe I'm a crappy writer (always possible) or they need to unbunch the panties and just chill. I hear they make drugs for that.

Tagarific

2008-02-09T22:35:00.000-05:00

Thanks for all the commiseration on the whole fraud and money theft thing. It's not fun, but I think we got it all worked out now. The bank refunded Nate his money and is getting him a new card, and I have my car loan folks on the watch for the scammers. Idiots.

I got tagged by both Cami and Dfly for this meme. Do y'all really wanna know weird shit about me? Fine then. It's a shame I'm so freaking normal.

7 Semi-Interesting Things:

1. I hate for my food to touch on my plate, unless it's supposed to (think casseroles). Hate. Grosses me out. Each item is supposed to have its own distinct taste and if they touch, it ruins that. Blech.

2. I grew up Southern Baptist, then Episcopal. I'm pretty much an atheist now. Mostly because I need reason and factual evidence, not faith. I also think that organized religion will be the downfall of us all. (this isn't meant to turn into a debate or a flame issue, i dont expect everyone to agree with me and that's cool)

3. When I was 12 I smoked, drank, got high with friends at concerts, and ran away from home. I also used to cut myself, but I was a bit of a wimp about blood, so I didn't cut very deep and I don't have any scars. Making my parents proud was *such* a priority.

4. I almost failed 7th and 8th grades. See #3 for why. In the 9th grade we moved to another state and I immediately became a different person. Graduated high school with a 4.something in top 5% of my class. I was lucky to have some really great teachers who believed in me.

5. I secretly wanted to be a cheerleader from age 11 to 14 or so. I tried out every year but never made the team. Turns out I'm very uncoordinated under pressure.

6. I love to watch people and see what they do with their energy. (I learned this in acting classes.) I love to try to figure out what's going on in folks' heads just by watching them walk around and interact with others. Sometimes I can see when people are having an especially rough day by what they do or don't do with their physical energy. I wish I could see auras though, that would be pretty cool.

7. I'm so socially and politcally liberal, I should probably live on another planet and head a commune of psycho naked hippies. With Bono. Yeah. That would rock. We could build our houses out of hemp, grow organic gardens with the results of our compost heap, make our own clothes, have group therapy to explore our self awarness around a camp fire, and then the group sex.

What? Did I go too far?

I'm not much of a re-tagger, so if you'd like to play along tag yourself dude.

Drama

2008-02-08T09:21:00.000-05:00

Aside from the haircut, this has not been a spectacular week.

I have cast on 3 projects though, and that's all that is cheering me up today. More on those later.

Yesterday Nate discovered that someone had swiped his card and stolen his account information along with $700. I really want to know what was SO awesome at Walmart that was worth $700. Seriously. If you're going to steal from someone, go buy something fabulous.

Today I'm getting phone calls from my car loan company saying I haven't paid in 3 months. The 'representative' tells me an amount, which is quite random and not at all equal to 3 months payments, and that I owe December, January, and February. So I go online and pull all the receipts and confirmation numbers that show I've paid and I show NO outstanding balance. Still, she demands this random amount of money from me, by check over the phone. To which I reply, "um...no, fuck off," and hang up.

I'm calling the company to tell them about all this and give them the phone number the lady called from (residential in Tempe, AZ) so they can do whatever it is they do with shit like this.

My bigger concern is that this person has access to my car loan information. While she might not have everything, she has my cell phone number and that really bothers me.

Grrr. I hate people sometimes.

Yay for Voting! And New Hair!

2008-02-05T20:22:00.000-05:00

I voted early, which was very cool because there were very few people at the election office so it was super fast. If you voted today, good on you!

Nate and I have an interesting friend. Well, he's beyond interesting, but what I would say about him would be un-PC so I'll just leave it at "interesting." Today he went and voted for Hillary. He's from the other side of the fence. Why then, did he vote for her? Not because he likes her. Not because of her politics.

Because he wants to "see a good game."

My response? "..........."

Sigh.

Moving on to less frustrating subjects, let's discuss my hair.

Before 2 p.m. today it was black and shoulder length with long layers. I dug it, but I'm lazy so I would usually wear it up instead of fixing it all proper like.

After 2 p.m. it's magenta (oh, yes) and about an inch long in the back. Here's the rest:

Left side:

Right Side:

Whee! It's a *little* shorter than I wanted it, but in a week or two it will be perfection. I've played and styled it three times already. It looks best straightened and with some pomade type stuff.

When I first showed the picture of what I wanted to my hair dresser, she took one look a Posh and said "oh no, we are NOT going blonde," but once I made it clear that I only wanted the cut she squee'd out loud. She couldn't get on board with the black color and purple highlights, so we compromised with a dark brown/dark cherry mix. It is awesome.

:D

Goodbye Cruel World...

2008-02-03T22:24:00.000-05:00

I was having a great weekend full of crossing things off my lists like laundry, dishes, changing the sheets, getting my toes did, choosing a new haircut for Tuesday's visit to my rockin' hair salon (oh yes, I'm totally doing it), updating the Etsy store, packaging yarn, and accomplishing various other chores. I deserved a gold star even.

And then I picked up my knitting.

I started an innocent hat for a friend thinking, "oh I'll bust out this hat in a weekend, no problem!" I got to the decreases and put it on Nate's head for size comparison. It's too big. Riiiiiiiiiip. That's fine, I didn't really like that pattern anyway.

Then I moved on to my Hourglass Sweater. Nate says, "hmm, you know that looks like it might be too big for you." So I do a little measuring and what do you know? TOO FUCKING BIG.

Off to the deep end of the frog pond with the Pastaza. Do a cannonball in, would you?

I had gauge. I cast on the right number of stitches. Everything was going so well. But you could throw 40 lbs on me and that sweater still wouldn't fit.

Since I'm in the process of ripping things, I went ahead and ripped Nate's Cobblestone (too big...are you shocked?) and the UNeck Vest that's been languishing on the needles. That project actually fit (a bit too long though), but I got irritated by the top. I couldn't bring myself to take pics of the ripping of everything. It's too much to bear.

Clearly knitting and I need a break. Maybe I should stick to scarves. Those are hard to fuck up.

Or I'll cheat on knitting (ha! take that knitting!) with my voice practice, cause apparently that's something I'm good at. I added a lower octave tonight, bringing my total to 3. Sweet. The voice coach says my progress is "freaky fast," and I'll be having that compliment for desert every night this week.

But first, I need a lie down and some chocolate. And someone to hold me.

Merry Sunday!

2008-01-27T19:15:00.000-05:00

Hope you guys have had a great weekend. I'm not ready for Monday, but alas, it cometh anyway.

Thanks so very much for your thoughts regarding my last post. It's an issue that has always been important to me and now it's something I can actively fight for if necessary.

If you'd like to get involved, please check out Planned Parenthood. When/if I go protest in Atlanta, ya'll will hear ALL about it, rest assured.

In the meantime, let's get back to the knitting shall we?

I joined a little KAL on Ravelry, hosted by my blog buddies Marie, Mary, and Madge, and as part of this little KAL, I cast on and busted out a Shedir in less than a week.

Voila, just like that, Shedir. I feel all Emeril-esque. BAM!

And so now I have a pink Shedir to go with my pink jacket. Love!

Also capturing my love this evening is my big black kitteh.

Who really wishes you'd look away now.

My favorite part of him, aside from his soft lush belly is this:

His one black toe. All his other toes are pink. So freaking adorable.

p.s. OMG I totally have cool news! And maybe this is only exciting for me, but I just returned from my third voice lesson and I absolutely blew my instructor away. I've gone from virtually zero range to TWO full octaves including the high operatic C that (he says) people generally work really, really hard for. EEEK! Turns out all I needed was a little technique and some confidence! I'm directing myself toward musical theater, though he said if he had a say I'd train for opera. Holy shit, ya'll. Me. In the opera. The world must be tilting on its axis.

Good Grief

2008-01-23T23:31:00.000-05:00

There are few things that send me into an absolute rage. Ok that's a lie. There are lots of things cause I'm short tempered, but I get over most of them quickly.

But when legislators talk about restricting my personal rights, shit is gonna get ugly. I can't believe my state is up to this kind of crap. Cristina Page has an excellent article here. Not only are they trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, they want to BAN contraception. Nevermind if you need hormonal regulation, or you have endometriosis or you just plain don't want kids.

Oh really? Ok fine. When I get pregnant, tell me where to drop off the kids I'm not ready for yet.

And if I kept it (really "them", cause I'm way fertile) and it/they got sick and I couldn't afford insurance...well we're just all kinds of fucked now aren't we? It's ok if I can't keep them clothed, fed, and healthy, they're HERE.

And they want to call ME anti-family. Pish. No dahlings, it's called pro-common sense.

Auf'd

2008-01-22T15:53:00.000-05:00

Thanks so much to all of you who voted for our movie!!! I think we'll know the results by the end of the month.

I'm very sad today though. Granted I should be in an awesome mood ("Thank you, MOOD!" - sorry I had to) beacause I have a lot of cool stuff going on and work is easing up. But. We are canceling our cable today!!! It will be auf'ed. I'm so sad!! I was really hoping my shows would be back by now, but it's ridiculous to pay so much (don't ask, it's embarrassing) for crap reality tv for two whole months and possibly many more. I'll miss you Project Runway. And Janice Dickinson. And Make Me a Supermodel. And Paranormal State. And LA Ink. Le sigh.

There's always Netflix and the internet, right?

(I'll have some knitting pics soon, promise.)

Yarn is Up!

2008-01-20T19:48:00.000-05:00

If you're not on the mailing list you might not know.

Now you do!

The etsy store is updated with new colorways and some of your favorites.

I'm exhausted so I'm going to lay down and watch crap TV now and try to knit something. Ha. I forgot to take my vitamins most of this week. Combine that with a lot of stress and I'm not doing as well as I would like. But I'm eating good and forcing myself to take a little break so we'll see how that works.

Smoochies!

Calling ALL Readers, Friends, Family and Hobbits!

2008-01-17T13:51:00.000-05:00

That means YOU, my friend. I need your help. Remember a few months back where I was in a short little movie as a lesbian pizza girl? Well, it was all done as part of the National Film Challenge, and out of 180 or so teams, we made the top 16!!! A lot of teams who participate actually work in the film industry, but we're all a bunch of nutty regular folks so this is HUGE for us!

So please, please, please, please go the the site linked above and register and vote for our little film called "Machiste Nouveau: The Lost Loves of Laura LeVane" (you can watch it via this here link!) for the Audience Award. Winning means we get to show at Cinequest (a film festival), which would be so awesome.

Our lovely director sent us all a form letter and it cracked me up so I'm including it for your reading pleasure (and more information too). You can vote through Jan. 22nd at midnight EST. You do have to register through the site, but they won't sell your email addy or anything, it's just to keep the voting fair.

Please go register and vote for our film! I beg of you. For the love of all the yarn I dye for you...slaving over the steamy dye pot for hours at a time, getting pink and black and purple in the worn creases of my pruney hands...all for you. (Let me know if that worked and I'll keep using the "walked 5 miles barefoot in the snow uphill" approach! hehe :D)

And of course, thank you!!!

*******

"Dear Friend/Family Member/Long-Lost Cousin/Carpetbagger/Hobbit,

Recently I participated in a national filmmaking competition, The National Film Challenge. The objective of the competition was to write, shoot, edit, and score an entire short film from scratch in one weekend. The competition organizers provided each team with some key elements (genre, prop, character, and a line of dialogue) that are required to be incorporated into the final film. Almost 200 teams from around the country participated in this competition. It was actually 184 teams, but it sounds better when I say almost 200.

Making an entire film in one weekend is a difficult and exhausting task, but one in which my team (named Rational Spirit) tackled with great energy and enthusiasm. The experience was not unlike the March of the Penguins, only it was over in two days and much less cold.

Our film is titled "Machiste Nouveau: The Lost Loves of Laura LeVane" and it is throwback to the great silent films of the 20's and 30's, with a nod toward modern mainstream themes. I'm not exactly sure what that means either, but the director told me to say it.

It is with great pleasure that I tell you that our film was selected as one of the finalists in this competition. We are excited that out of almost 200 films (see, it does sound better!), our movie was chosen as one of the best by a team of judges comprised of 30 film industry professionals.

Now here is where I need a favor from you. Remember that time where I did that thing for you and you said one day I will return the favor and do a different thing for me? No? Well, it totally happened, so I need you to pay up now.

If you could, please take 5 minutes out of your day and visit this website:

http://filmchallenge.org/vote2007/

Watch our film and then take a moment to register and vote. In this particular case, I mean register to vote for the audience award for best film (Machiste Nouveau!), though if you have not registered to vote in the national elections, I would urge you to do that as well. An participating citizenry is the only way to ensure true democracy and plus you get a sticker!

The winner of the audience award voting will get to screen their film at the prestigious Cinequest Film Festival, which is a great honor. I mean, it's not a knighthood or anything, but it's a big deal to film folks such as myself.

It would mean a great deal to me if you would take a moment to do this. And if you do, I solemnly swear that I will never tell a soul about that other thing that happened that we said we would never talk about again, but that I might have had my fingers crossed behind my back when we agreed to that.

Thank you so much Friend/Family Member/Long-Lost Cousin/Carpetbagger/Hobbit! Your continued support means a great deal and I'm not just saying that because I want you to vote for our film. Really, that's only about 60, maybe 70 percent of the reason why I said that.

With best regards,

Me"

And miles to wind before I sleep...

2008-01-15T21:51:00.000-05:00

I spent today dyeing, drying, and reskeining lots of yarn, ordering more yarn and dye, and paying some medical bills for all my recent trips to various doctors. I'm generally feeling more energetic, but today has seriously worn me out.

Exhibit A:
This is only about a third of what's going out this weekend.

Some Hydroponic, chillin' in all it's green glory.

Tristan, getting ready for his run and some yarn going up the shop this weekend. Black and white so you can be surprised!

Much to your probable shock and awe, I have been knitting a tad.

Behold, some actual progress on the Hourglass Sweater. I've finished the decreases and am now on the second set of increases. It's good for mindless TV (of which there is MUCH lately - guilty pleasures include the Janice Dickinson show, Make Me a Supermodel, and PR - gotta love superficial drama!).

This is 2/3 of the Cherry Garcia neckwarmer in Malabrigo's Damask colorway. Love this little thing as it's so super quick and will only take me about 10 minutes to finish. This project is all Cher's fault. In a good way, of course.

Last but not least is the casualty of my castonitis. I've cast on and ripped a sock from the Trekking I bought at SAFF about twenty times. I can't pick a pattern I like and I can't decide between regular sized socks and knee highs. Knee highs on US1?!? I just don't know that i have it in me. But then I'll have SO much yarn left over if I don't. Grrrr.

I still want to knit everything I come across. Maybe this is all related to the reduced amount of caffeine and chocolate in my life. My brain says it's missing something and my first thought is "KNITTING!!".

Oh, I just remembered! I had my first voice lesson on Sunday. So. Much. Fun. I was literally terrified, but in about 30 mintues he explained all the parts of singing well enough that I was able to seriously belt some shit out (I took voice lessons when I was 13 but obviously I learned NOTHING). I barely even talk above a whisper sometimes so I really surprised myself. Fear conquered. Can't wait for more. And it turns out I'm not an alto, as I always thought, just a petrified soprano . We'll be working on that, cause me and Amy Lee have some dueling to do.

Oh yes, I'm that big a nerd

2008-01-10T21:00:00.000-05:00

Wow, just a week or so ago I couldn't be tempted to knit anything and now I have SERIOUS cast on-itis (it's a word, shush).

So I ran through my queue on Ravelry (hi, my name is Melanie and i'm an addict), and re-sorted everything. Now it's in order based on the top 10 things I'm about to work on (or already have on the needles, just sans pictures) and the yarn I plan to use. If I don't have the yarn yet I bumped them down a tad until I decide what I'm going to buy or dye.

Even my lists have lists. And this is why all those cute little planners never work for me. I really just need a sticky note. Or ten. You know.

In case you're curious, here's what my list looks like (you know I had to write it out). All but the top two are subject to rearrangement per my mood. I might decide I have to have Lady Eleanor RIGHT NOW and race to the yarn store. Let's hope not, I'm broke.

1. Blue Light Special - using Telemark, already cast on. Slowly working my way through the rows. Very slowly.

2. Hourglass - ripped the evil cotton denim, replaced with yummy Pastaza. Oh so soft and pretty! I've already turned the hem. It's working up SO fast and is stealing focus from the hat.

3. Hanami - I'm so dyeing something gorgeous on the Aura yarn (the one with the silver strands) for this one!!

4. Brea Bag - Got me some Ultra Alpaca all ready to be a sweet little cabled bag.

5. Foliage - My Malabrigo in a dusty pink is perfect for this hat, and hopefully a scarf to match.

6. Tangled Yoke Cardi - Have the Silky Tweed, but it might get dyed first.

7. Juno Regina - Still considering a yarn. May buy something, may dye something.

8. Lady Eleanor - Need yarn. Want Rowan Tapestry.

9. Clapotis - I know what yarn I want for this, but I can't justify the expense just yet.

10. Quant - Need yarn. Might get bumped up for the Fearless Knitting KAL, and cause it's cute.

Another Central Park Hoodie might get mixed in here. I have the yarn (Cascade Sierra) and it stares at me from the stash all intent on getting my attention.

It's almost Friday and I have 2 more colorways to dye and LOTS of yarn to reskein. Have a great weekend. You can guess what I'll be doing.

London Calling!

2008-01-07T08:59:00.000-05:00

ETA: Silvery yarn is now up at yarn4socks.com!!! Go check out Kiss Me!

I managed to dye 35 skeins of yarn on Saturday in about 8 hours straight. Which means I'm almost done! Well sort of. I have about that many more to do and then I can be done. Maybe.

Anyway, I need to order more dye and yarn this week, that's for sure. Sunday I had to rest because Saturday wore me out. I rested by doing laundry, changing sheets, organizing closets, buying and putting up new shower curtains, taking stuff to Goodwill, moving a few pieces of furniture and treating myself to a sushi lunch. Yeah I really need to get better at that rest thing. Nate said I'm worse than my gramma. And then he got walloped with a pillow. But she's still going stronger and faster than me at 75, so it's something to aspire to I guess.

Today's title is brought to you by Big Ben and Parliament (cue your recollection of European Vacation).

Nate and I have decided that for our fifth anniversary we'll do a little traveling. My home country is England, his is Ireland and France. The language barrier freaks him out a little, even though I know enough French to get us around, so England it is. Our plans are to spend a week there and see as much of the country and Ireland as possible. Nate's undying love for U2 drags him to Ireland while I'm just after some yarn, and scenery of course. What I really want to see is castles, palaces, and manors and LOTS of them. British Museum, Hadrian's Wall, Stonehenge, Tower of London, Hampton Court, Buckland Abbey (Sir Francis Drake is an ancestor), Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, Kensington, etc. Doubtful that I'll get all that in, but one can try.

We'll be heading there either late in 2008 or early 2009. Our anniversary is in May, but that's not the off season so we're going early. So! Excited! And then we'll have babies so the fams will STFU already.

On the health front, here's what I've learned so far:

1. Sugar bad. Especially in the form of Ghiardelli chocolate chips. Thanks PMS for making me reach for those. The aftershock headache/coma took 4 ibuprophen and a whole hour to conquer. I'm not cold-turkeying anything but I had a serious moment (or two) of weakness yesterday. Lesson learned.

2. More than 1 soda a day dehydrates me so much that the only cure is four very large glasses of water and several trips to the bathroom. I've limited myself to one soda, sometimes just a half, per day to help stave off the caffeine headaches. I'm eventually cutting it out completely.

3. Exercise good. Even just a 20 minute walk makes me feel great. I have energy all day. And lifting is even better. The weights are low but I feel the burn, baby. I'm down a whole inch and half a pound in a week and that rocks.

4. When you resolve to feel better, sometimes the hubby joins you. He's been getting on the treadmill every day this week and reminding me when I forget about workouts. It's part of his own agreement with himself. If he exercises every day for the next 30 days he gets to keep the PS3 he doesn't need. Hopefully he'll make it a habit since he hasn't been treating himself very well either.

5. Veggies are hard to eat when you don't want them. Normally I love me some veggies. This past week I could barely get them down. I think it was the 'must eat veggies' attitude. Switching to the 'I love veggies, mmmm' attitude and we'll see how that works.

Hope your pre-Tuesday is going well!

Working my ass off...

2008-01-05T13:31:00.000-05:00

Alrighty, since I seem to be neglectful of pictures lately, I've included several for you in this post. I didn't take my camera to anything Xmas related, and that was really dumb seeing as how that's where finished scarves were given out en masse. Ah well.

Today I'm seriously busting my ass in the kitchen dyeing up yarn. My intention (damned road to hell) was to dye it all up over my super long break from work, but as you can probably guess I mostly stayed sick. I'm finally feeling awesome this week and I'm eating mostly good and exercising daily, even getting in a touch of running. It's amazing how much better I feel and my body is cooperating with my adjustments now, which is helping tremendously. So anyway, I didn't get as much done over the holidays as I planned and now I'm dyeing like crazy to get stuff ready. Good times. I'm probably going to have to offer sexual favors to Nate so he'll wind yarn for me. Like he'd say no.

The yarn4socks.com order went out and should be up on their site soon, so go check it out! It's all silver and the custom pink colorway I dyed for them is rockin'!!
***ETA: The yarn is going up on Monday!

Oh yeah, pictures!

This is that Noro sock that I don't love. Well, I love the sock, not so much the yarn. I copied Stephanie's sock pattern, which is just an 8x2 rib, but I added 1x1 ribbing at the top and decreased to 7x2, 6x2, and 5x2 as I got closer to my teeny ankle. Hers looks better than mine and maybe they'll actually get worn.

Oh look! I started a Fair Isle hat! This is Blue Light Special, part of my self challenge per the Fearless Knitting KAL. I'm using KP's Telemark in blues, gray and cream. Love. It. It's easier than I though, other than the damn yarns tangling and spinning around each other.

And this is my cotton denim Hourglass Sweater. Can you sort of see the striping? That's where you can call me a dumbass. I had 10 balls of Elle True Blue, which is now discontinued and impossible to find. It's not enough for a sweater. So I bought some Rowan, which looked like it matched. It's close, but there won't be any cigar tokin' over here. So I'm alternating them and we'll see how crappy it looks in a few days. I only have 3 balls of the Rowan so I doubt the striping will last for the sweater, which sucks ass. Maybe I should have just done the sleeves or edging or something with the Rowan? I don't know, I just want my damn denim sweater. (Can you tell that blue has made its way back into my knitting?)

And what are all these lovely knitting project being photographed on? My brand new island from Ikea! Our previous "island" was a ghetto set up that was not working any more. This is MUCH better, though now I have to paint yarn on something else. Pay no attention to the crap in the background.

In other news, go check out the newest (#6) Knit Sibs podcast. They're having a contest, and I think they might like my yarn. Actually, I did a lot of blushing while listening to the podcast. Thanks so much for the mention, ladies!

Ok, back to dyeing. I'm trying REAL hard to finish the wholesale and have an etsy update by the 15th. Cross your fingers, eyes and toes. And call in sick for me, k?

2007 Review

2008-01-01T18:55:00.000-05:00

First, I hope you all had a nice holiday season!

(and p.s. this might be a long post)

What a year! I've done a lot of knitting, a ton of dyeing, and a ridiculous amount of life changing. Last December we bought a house, in April I quit my job which was a terrible move financially but the best choice for my sanity, I did a little job hopping over the summer, then landed an awesome job at the University and I'm still loving it (thanks Carrie!!!).

Last year I made some resolutions, and for the most part I've kept up with them.

They facts were these (I love it when Jim Dale says that on Pushing Daisies!!):

1. Stop letting my fear of failure hold me back.

I'm still working on this one, and I think it's a lifelong goal. This year I'm signing up for a photography class and voice lessons (egad!!).

2. This year I’m going to work toward making changes I’ll appreciate in the next 30 years. That includes: losing 15-20 lbs, making exercise a daily habit, eating healthier, drinking more water (and less diet soda), meditating, keeping an eye on my posture, and generally taking better care of myself. I’d like to run a few 5ks this year too.

I'm uh...still working on this one too. I had made some great exercise and weight loss progress before my unfortunate tangle with the evil stairs, and I'm not able to exercise much now, but I'm working back toward it when I'm not in pain. See below for more details on this.*

3. My goal is to read as many of my technique books as possible and incorporate more mastery into my knitting. I’m going to start with EZ’s Knitting without Tears, and Nancy Bush’s Knitting Vintage Socks. I’d like to get better at making socks, venture into fair isle, work on developing prettier cast on and bind off methods, learn to like seaming, and maybe try my hand at a lace shawl.

I've done quite well with this one. My socks now rock with little effort, I cast on a fair isle hat this week in prep for the Fearless Knitting KAL that started today, and I've learned a few new cast ons! I tried lace and it didn't like me much, but I have the Hanami Shawl all queued up in my head and just need to dye some yarn for it. Did I actually "read" my books? No. But I did glance through them. Once.

This year my goals are remarkably similar.

1. I want to keep getting better with my knitting and keep working hard on the dyeing business. I'm adding fair isle, intarsia, and entrelac to my skill set, and I might completely jump off the knitting ship with some steeking. Be prepared for lots of hair pulling and freaking the fuck out. Taking scissors to my knitting makes me a little weak kneed. I've no idea how the dyeing will go, but I'm hoping for the best.

2. *The most important thing I'm going to do though is to become very serious about taking care of my health. This year has been especially difficult health-wise, as I've literally been sick almost the entire time. My plan involves a strict diet, lots of vitamins, exercise and yoga. I have no choice. I want to be well. So I'm basically going to be treating myself like I have an autoimmune disorder since I can't stay well for long. I'm cutting out fast food, soda (omg), coffee, and white sugar while treating myself to yummy greens, good food and lots of water. I did this sort of thing when I went vegan for a few years in college and I think it might be the best thing for my body right now. I just have to start over and help my system heal.

Next week I'm going to an eye doctor to get prescriptions for a condition I've been ignoring (yeah I know, that's totally not helping), and I'm going to get myself back on track. If I have to take 15 pills a day to stay healthy, then fine. If it costs me $100 a month, ok. Whatever. It's the most important thing right now. And for some reason, I'm terrified. What if my grand plan doesn't work? The implications are that there's something bigger and uglier under the surface of all my symptoms and I just don't know that I'm prepared to face that. Ok, enough panicking and being irrational.

I'm also going to be re-strengthening myself with cardio and lifting weights. I have to start slow and with teeny weights, which is humbling since I used to be able to lift a pretty decent amount, but it only increases my resolve to get back what I had.

Moving on....I've been occupying my time this week with dyeing for as long as I can stand up and trying to find something to knit. Funny how when I'm faced with gift knitting I can think of eleventy billion things I'd rather be doing, but when I actually have an entire week off, I can't come up with ONE thing. Not one. I did cast on the Red Light Special hat and the Hourglass Sweater in a fit of "omg i must knit something or my brain might rot". Pictures to come! (p.s. I'm lame for not taking more pics, but hey, I'm on vacation!)

I'm not really pleased with the Noro sock yarn, so I've finished one sock but I'm totally unmotivated to start the second one. I don't dig the thick and thin parts, it's scratchy, and I have serious doubts as to how it's going to hold up through wear and tear. But the colors are fun.

So to distract me from my knitting frustration, I've been playing Rock Band. OMG. I've never had so much fun in all my life!! Nate plays the guitar and I sing and drum. I'm a fair singer (in privacy), so I can do most songs I know on hard, but the drumming is a BITCH. I'm having fun learning, and all the reviews basically say "woe to the drummer in this game" so I have to play on easy, but I can do fairly well at the medium setting on the easier songs. (p.s. I totally rock out Wave of Mutilation and Blitzkrieg Bop)

Ok, that post only took about a week to finish. Hope you're having a great New Years Day! Wish my mom happy birthday and junk! Probably shouldn't tell you how old she is, lest I want my own death on my head.

Also, just cause I had to share:

My dog doesn't like the holidays much. Hehehehehehe.

Happy New Year!

2007-12-31T19:46:00.000-05:00

I hope 2008 is filled with wonderful things for all of you!

Have a blast tonight! And enjoy some good football tomorrow.

(I'd say "go dawgs" but I think Hawaii should win. Don't throw things at me.)

On Christmas

2007-12-19T20:24:00.000-05:00

This is the first year that Nate and I have put up a Christmas tree. We have a few ornaments but rather than going out and buying more, we just got a really pretty garland and matching topper.

The tree is just so pretty in its simplicity, it might be my favorite tree ever. Just the garland and white lights. I love it! (He found this cranberry garland at Target. Love that store!)

I'm driving to my mom's house after work tomorrow to visit and deliver scarves, then I'm driving back home on Saturday for Nate's birthday on Sunday. His only wish every year is to not travel on his birthday, and since we don't have kids or a very long drive to our families homes I honor that wish if possible. All that changes the minute we have a child though, and he might have to do a little growing up and getting over it. But I'll still honor the "no red or green wrapping paper" on his birthday gifts.

We don't do a traditional Christmas at all. The only reason we have a tree is because it was free from our neighbor and I insisted we put it up now that we have one. Mostly out of tradition more than anything, since he's an atheist and I'm just not religious. The lights are pretty and they make me smile, so I think it's worth it!

We give each other gifts, but it's never a surprise and we don't wait until Christmas day to deliver. We got each other North Face jackets, and I bought him a very nice chef's knife for his birthday. No wrapping paper or surprise here, and everyone's happy.

Happy Holidays everyone! Have a great couple of days of rest and relaxation and try not to beat any relatives about the head. I know how hard this can be, but only do it if they *really* deserve it.

Smoochies!

p.s. I've added a little info about the mailing list on the left sidebar. If you'd like to join, just shoot me an email. The first one will go out in January!

Why does Theraflu have to taste like ass?

2007-12-16T12:13:00.000-05:00

I mean really. I'm drinking the stuff three times a day, I have a virtual BUFFET of Theraflu, and every single one tastes like ass. Not that I know what actual ass tastes like, but in my imagination, it's something really close to Theraflu.

This is all so irritating! Mentally I'm sharp, I'm geared up, I have lots of dyeing and fun things I want to do, and yet about 30 minutes into anything that requires standing and my body says, "oh really? yeah, i think you ought to sit down now, smartass".

So I get two or three skeins wound for my yarn4socks.com order and I'm out of commission for a few hours. They're getting about 20 skeins of the silver yarn, and an exclusive dark pink/purple semisolid called "Kiss Me x 3" (named for the Cure song, natch). And if for some reason they don't like it, I'll put it my shop, cause it is to DIE for. For you Canadians, I also have some of the silver yarn and some Louet going to The Sweet Sheep as soon as I feel well enough to stand over a dye pot. Then I have a ginormous order going to Knitch, again, as soon as I'm well.

At least I can knit while I'm sitting.

I could have been done with my Christmas knitting by now. But no. I got some of the Noro sock yarn and I got sucked into being a selfish knitter. I'm turning the heel on a very tall purply sock for ME. But look! It's green and purple and gray and pink and black and purple again! How could I not cast on?

I think I need to drag my knitting to a Barnes and Noble with a Starbucks inside just to get out of the house, cause I'm getting a little nutty being cooped inside for 3 days straight.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, ya'll! I'm going back to work tomorrow, hell or high fever!

Grrrr damn it

2007-12-13T22:01:00.000-05:00

I had such a fab weekend planned.

Two Christmas parties, both including insane amounts of yummies, tacky gifts (on purpose), and spiked punch (definitely on purpose). And now I have the stupid flu. Physically I feel better, thanks to my chiro therapy, but otherwise I'm pretty sure I got hit by a cross-campus bus around 7:30 this morning. (Read: my bones and joints don't hurt, but that's about all I have going for me.) So I'm OD'ing on vitamins and orange juice and waiting it out. When I get restless I dye yarn or knit.

Thanks for all the great comments on my scarves! I'll be sure to model them when I'm done, provided it's not a weave-ends-then-immediately-wrap scenario.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been getting tons of emails and etsy convos about my yarn, which is awesome, but I'm wondering if setting up a newsletter would be an easier way for me to communicate. What do you guys think? If I started a (totally voluntary) newsletter letting folks know about store updates, would you be interested? I have no idea how these things work either, so maybe a little insight would be helpful too.

Thoughts?

Oh look, it's Wednesday

2007-12-12T13:42:00.000-05:00

And I happen to have a WIP report for you (finally).

I'm only knitting three scarves for Christmas gifts this year. I finally got started on Nate's sister's scarf, the Woven Cables pattern in Sublime Yarns Cash/Merino/Silk DK.

I knit a good 3-4 inches further than this last night while watching the last few episodes of Prison Break (2nd season, I'm still catching up), then I discovered a miscrossed cable and had to rip back to about what you see here. Grr.

I only have 3 balls of this yarn (about 300 yards) and the pattern calls for 700 yards, so I'm only knitting one pattern repeat. I think I like it a little better than the original pattern. It's simpler, yet definitely wide enough to be a good fitting scarf. And the yarn is soooooo soft.

This is the One Row Scarf for my mom in Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed, in the Posie colorway. It's coming along. I'll probably use 2.5 balls of the yarn and it will be as long as I'd like it.

Also in the Silkroad is my step-dad's Irish Hiking Scarf. He's a very tall man, so this is taking forever. At least it's easy and nice to work with!

In other news, Nate and I did the bulk of our Christmas shopping on Monday. Shopping for girls who are 13 and 8 is no easy feat. When I was 13 all I wanted was heavy metal tapes (CDs were just a passing fad), Guess jeans, Swatch watches and black eye shadow. I was such a little rebel, har. I couldn't tell you what I wanted when I was 8. Probably lots of Barbies and a Cabbage Patch Kid. Gosh I feel old now.

Have a great Wednesday!

Ms. Boleyn if you're nasty...

2007-12-10T15:18:00.000-05:00

I found this little quiz over at the JollyEwe's blog, and it cracked me up. Then again, I have a strange fixation with all things 15th and 16th century England, so it's fitting.

Which of Henry VIII's wives are you?

this quiz was made by Lori Fury

p.s. Monday is half over! Yay!

And of course, world peace

2007-12-07T12:18:00.000-05:00

I feel like I won the Miss America pageant or something! And I didn't have to wear a bikini or do a choreographed dance! Believe me, I would not win any contests if those two things were requirements. The world is lucky that they never have to witness such a catastrophe.

It has been an overwhelming week, but I've survived the "Harlotting" as it were. I swore that I was just going to do the dyeing for my wholesale orders and chill out the rest of the month. But Stephanie had other plans, and I will gladly change my agenda for her. Seeing as how she came to see me in Atlanta and all. And I'm so grateful. Thanks Stephanie, and thanks to your hoard of readers. You guys rock!

So this weekend will be spent winding yarn and packing/shipping orders, which is awesome, wonderful and pleasantly unexpected. There are still a few skeins of yarn in the etsy store at 10% off with the codeword "Harlot". After that I'll be focusing entirely on my wholesale orders til January. I'm a one woman show and I have a full time job, so it's an interesting adventure!

In knitting news, I'm still (yes still) working on scarves for my parents. Not sure that I'm going to get to Nate's sister's scarf. I might just have to hand her the yarn and needles and show her how to knit it herself. Let's hope my time crunch isn't really that dramatic. I'm not sure "let me teach you to knit your own scarf" qualifies as a Christmas gift.

I know you're probably bored to tears without any pictures, but I just don't have any right now. I haven't been able to touch the knitting or the camera all week. I'll get to it this weekend.

In other news, I'm my new chiropractor's favorite patient.

1. I have to go 3x a week at $35/pop because my body won't hold the adjustments. Merry Xmas to her!
2. I nearly pass out at the sight of my own xrays. This is why I'm not a doctor.
3. I also might pass out if she adjusts my neck the manual way (with her hands). My little nervous system goes into "fight or flight," and uh...I'm a runner.

Today she called me Speshal. Can I get that written on my sash?

World Peace!

Ok Monday...

2007-12-03T14:49:00.000-05:00

I take it back.

This time.

Happy (in denial) Monday!

2007-12-03T10:51:00.000-05:00

(p.s. Back off Monday or I'll kick your ass. Or just refuse to leave the building, whatever.)

Hi! Hope everyone had a great weekend! Mine was somewhat relaxing, but mostly spent dyeing yarn and decorating a tree.

But I told ya'll I was knitting!

Madge introduced me to BMF's Raven colorways and I just fell in love with Korpii. Madge is devious like that. She shows you yummy yarn and just leaves you to drool and mindlessly order while your credit card screams. (Whether it's screaming in pleasure or pain, I'll leave to your own minds.) It was all I could do to resist the temptation to knit and I finally just gave in. This is your generic stockinette stitch sock pattern using the medium weight yarn and 52 stitches (I started with 60 and got icky pooling so I ripped and reduced the stitch count.) They are the most perfect socks I've ever knit. Turns out if you knit them back to back you can remember what you did and not have to write it down or fudge the second one!

Sexy black and purple, no pooling. Rawr.

This next picture is actually a sock I worked on back in Sept/Oct. I've had a few folks on Ravelry ask me for the pattern so I'm working on writing it all out. The cable is the Buckle Braid Cable pattern from Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs book. I love that book with an unexplainable ferocity. In fact, I thought it was missing for a few minutes and almost went into hysterics.

Yup that's my hand in there trying to stretch out the cables. Wish I had sock blockers right about now. The cable stitches and the knit border stitches are knit through the back loops to make them stand out more. I love that trick!

I'm also working on an Irish Hiking Scarf for my step-dad and a One Row Scarf for my mom (both in Jo Sharp Aran Tweed). I need to cast on for a scarf for Nate's sister but I don't have the right yarn. I'm probably going to have to dye something to make it the right yarn. She wants something green, and I have some natural colored Ultra Alpaca that would be perfect as a green semi-solid. I just don't know what scarf to knit. I'd like it to be a quick knit while looking somewhat complicated or sophisticated. I really like the Woven Cables and Inner Truth patterns. What do you guys think? Or should I pick something entirely different? I'm so indecisive.

In addition, I really want to knit the Urban Homesteader hat for myself!! I *need* a hat with ponytail AND pigtail holes! IEEEE! I love that it has buttons where you can close the parts you're not using. Ok, clearly it's time to confess. I'm not really 31. I'm still 5. And I need pigtails and a hat to go with them. And little flower buttons for the closures.

Have a lovely Monday (or as I'm now referring to it, pre-Tuesday)!

Final November contest winner!

2007-11-29T22:01:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday ya'll! I hope your week has been a good one! Thanks so much to all of you for participating in the contests this month. I'd like to make it a regular/monthly thing but maybe it will have to start in January, since December is going to be nuts for me.

I've got knitting to finish (I swear I'm knitting!) for Christmas and tons of yarn to dye for a shop or two. So everything you see up in the etsy store is ALL I HAVE through the end of the year. Please go get what you want NOW. I won't be able to do custom orders or restock the shop until some time in January. Unless you're really sweet and send prizes. Hehe.

We've got one final winner for the November contests, and I bet you'd like me to to ahead and get to it.

I grew up listening to bands like the Violent Femmes, and I feel it absolutely essential to include them in my work. This one is called Kiss Off, and it makes me giggle like a 12 year old!!

I hope you know this will go down on your permanent record...oh yeah!

Mmm yarny goodness! Two shades of pink, two shades of brown!

The winner this week is Elaine!

Congrats! Email me your addy and I send it out asap!

Ok, that's all I can handle today. My fall on Monday messed up my back and hips pretty good, and they were already in bad shape. I got adjusted yesterday and it almost made me pass out, which sucks, but is typical for me when I haven't been worked on in a few years. I feel pretty loopy and I have to go back today and Tuesday. Fun. But I'll feel better when it's over.

Have a great weekend!!

Dear Monday

2007-11-27T23:01:00.000-05:00

You are fired.

Why, you ask? Whatever have you done to deserve such a firing?

Because all wrongs happen on Monday (other days: don't try and break the streak, i like my catastrophes predictable mkay?), and it isn't just a "case of the Mondays," you do in fact actually suck.

Lucky for you I didn't crack any ribs, break my arms or legs or bust my head open this most recent Monday as you had me tumble ass first down a flight of wet, slippery marble stairs. In front of a bus load of people. All graceful like and soaking wet on a Monday morning. Thank you for your generosity, Monday, I should have expected as much.

It's almost as if the entire week saves up its punches until you roll around again. I think you do it on purpose. You hoard all the drama until it's your turn and then unleash your hell when I least expect it. Seriously, I manage to navigate those stairs in my rubber soled shoes on a regular basis. I'm not feeble, old or clumsy. I blame you, Monday. Kiss my ass for making me hold my germophobic hand over all nearby stair rails. No, I'm not going to touch them unless you make me. Other people don't wash their hands.

And no, you can't come back. Don't beg, lie, or make excuses. It just makes you look insincere, when we all know the incredible brute force of a fucked up Monday.

Don't slam your ass on the stairs on the way out.

On second thought, do. It's fun. Promise.

And we're back!

2007-11-26T09:51:00.000-05:00

Gosh, what a weekend! I hope yours was great! (I won't bore you with my Monday, which already sucks - yay for rain, boo for falling down stone stairs in it.)

My week/weekend was full of travel and lots of food. Most of Thursday was spent on the road. We drove to my dad's house in Alabama, had lunch and enjoyed family, then drove back to Georgia to my grandma's house. I've managed to screw up my back pretty good in the last week, so we stayed in a hotel rather than sleeping on an air bed. Friday included more good food, zero shopping, and driving back home. Saturday we slept in, then went to Nate's parent's house to eat and watch the UGA/Tech game (go dawgs!) and enjoy more family time. So we've seen all of our immediate family in 3 days. Crazy. No pics from the festivities cause I was too lazy to take many.

I also was made keenly aware of a few more things I'm really thankful for:

1. Good, affordable chiropractors - I've managed to tweak 2 muscles in my back last week, and of course everyone is closed.
2. Free massage therapy (close friend is a CMT, but now lives far far away) - Much needed, hard to afford.
3. Advair - It's amazing how you can depend on something you use every day and not realize it until you're out and your damn doctor's office is closed for the ENTIRE holiday week. I forget how bad my asthma is when I don't have this stuff.

Moving along! Sorry for not posting last week's winner on Friday. There was so much cooking, traveling, and trying hard not to feel like crap that I just wasn't up to it. Thanks so much to all of you for chiming in with your favorite things on Ravelry! It's fascinating to know what people's most loved parts are. Sorry if I didn't respond back to everyone, but now you know why!

Without further ado, our winner for last week's contest is:

Edina of KnitWithMe!

This pretty teal semisolid is called Prayers for Rain dyed on the Buddha superwash merino/nylon yarn. There will be two up in the shop later today! Edina, shoot me an email with your address and I'll send it out tomorrow!

And now, for the final contest question this month:

A few weeks back we discussed our knitting fears. This week I want to know what you LOVE to knit. Sweaters? Socks? Giant squid? Are there patterns you've knit more than once? Are there patterns you want to knit again but haven't gotten to yet?

Ya'll know the drill. Leave a comment answering the question before midnight on Thursday to enter. Mention it on your blog and refer folks for extra entries. This week's yarn is a painted colorway...and that's all I'm saying!

My favorite knits right now are socks. I have several in my queue, they're easy, quick, and portable. I also love hats and scarves for the same reason. I've knit Shedir 3 or so times, and the Irish Hiking Scarf twice. I want another Central Park Hoodie, but I haven't made time to knit it yet. I'd really like to work on more garments for myself and overcoming my shaping issues, which I suspect has more to do with how I feel about my shape than the actual garment shaping, but I digress.

Honestly I'm in a knitting funk at the moment. There are items I want to cast on, but I have gift knitting to do and I just don't feel like doing it! I did start and finish a pair of socks over the holiday but they're for me (shocking, I know). Pictures later this week.

One last note: I'm going to be adding a few things to the etsy store this week and then I'm done until next year. I have a ton of wholesale dyeing to do in December, so if you see something you like get it asap!

Have a great Monday (if it's possible)!

Week O' Thanks & Contest #3

2007-11-18T12:34:00.000-05:00

One Last Edit: I'm *not* going to draw on Friday. I'm too sick and I have too much to do, and I'm sorry! But I will draw and announce the winner on Monday with the last contest question. Have a great holiday, ya'll.

ETA: The Fearless Knitting KAL is up (though very rough)!

****If you're Jess or Casey, move along. This is not the blog you're looking for...****

I don't know about you guys, but this time of year makes me a real sap. I think it's good to be reminded of all the things we're truly grateful for as often as possible, though a full on holiday is a nice reminder too! It really irks me that Turkey Day gets pushed to the side in the commercialization of Christmas. This year, the decorations in our town were up at Labor Day. September 4th, people. Halloween barely had a chance, and Thanksgiving is relegated to "fall themed" dinner plates and napkins with turkeys on them. Lame.

Anyway, aside from all the usual stuff I'm thankful for this year (Nate, good friends, family, our furr babies, sanity, etc), I'm especially thankful for Ravelry. It's a place I visit several times a day, and I often spend hours reading the forums. I've been wanting to give back for a while, so I advertised on the site, though that helps me far more than it gives to Jess and Casey.

Some folks on the boards have cooked up something special here for Thanksgiving. Seriously, go check it out. There are cool avatars for Thanksgiving (or, Ravatars, if you will) and a special thank you thread and donation plan. The link above has all the info on how and when to donate for the special day. I plan to give, but no dollar amount would truly reflect the gift that Jess and Casey have given me. I love that site!

This week's question is: If you're on Ravelry, what are your three most favorite aspects, the things you're most grateful for? Communities/Groups? Forums? The Notebook? Pattern searches? If you're not on Ravelry, are you on the list? What do you hope to find when your invite comes?

As always, you have until Thursday night at midnight to comment (I know it's a holiday, so get your answer in early!) . Mention the contest on your blog and/or refer folks for extra entries. On Friday I'll randomly draw a winner and post a pic of the skein of yarn and the winner's name. No hints this time! Good luck!

My favorite things on Ravelry change pretty often. The ability to look at friends' queues makes me really happy. I love seeing what sparks another person's interest, and I'll often add things to my queue from other queues. I'm especially thankful for my own queue. God knows I'd never find anything or remember that I wanted to knit something without it.

I love the diversity of the groups and forums. I love that most issues rarely become inflammatory, but I also love reading about those that do (especially the Big Issues/Debate board...thanks Carrie, I'm totally addicted). I like that in general there's a feeling of good will and helpfulness in the forums. That feeling is a real gift, cause I know as well as ya'll do that shit can get ugly fast in a forum!

Most importantly, I'm thankful for Jess and Casey (and Bob too) for creating the site. It is truly an ingenious work of art, and even my networking hubby thinks it's pretty awesome. And it's hard to impress this man with computer stuff. Very hard.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone! Hug your families and furr babies for me!

Friday, Friday, Friday!

2007-11-15T12:15:00.000-05:00

Wow, thanks for to all of you who participated in this week's contest!

It seems like there were several themes to our knitting technique fears. Lots of you are intimidated by Fair Isle, entrelac, steeking, and socks!

I'm resolving to get over my entrelac, Fair Isle and steeking fears starting in 2008. I have too much personal and Christmas knitting to finish before then, but here's my plan: I'm going to choose a project for each of these three categories and I'm going to learn them in succession. Trial and error is fine, so is ripping back. I'm going to put the pressure on myself to learn these things by coming up with a goal, but at the same time I'm going to take the pressure off by relaxing, buying cheap yarn for the projects (or better, using stash), and not being worried about the outcome.

Don't we all feel some sort of desire to not only knit and learn new things, but to have everything we produce be fabulous? Maybe it's just me. I want everything that comes off my needles to be as glam and fab as possible, and I think that holds me back when it comes to new techniques. So in my learning processes with these new things, I'm letting go of the results. Beginners mind, right? If I hadn't done the exact same thing when I first started knitting I never would have gotten anywhere!

My question for you guys is this: If I start a KAL based on conquering knitting fears, would any of you be interested? Should I just focus on one technique or should it be a free for all?

I searched the interwebs for good places to start with each of these big fears and I've included some links to good places for information on getting started with each. I hope this helps some of you overcome your trepidations!

Fair Isle:
Knitting Help (video!)
Eunny's Tips & Tricks (awesome tips)
Headbands (cute small pattern, thanks Madge!)

Steeking:
Eunny's Steeking Chronicles (details)
Knitty's Steeking article (more details)
Jared's pictorial (great pictures)

Socks:
Silver's Sock Class (excellent online class)
Socks Compendium (great resource links)
Knitty's Socks 101 (excellent walkthru)

Entrelac:
Forest Path KAL (these ladies culled a lot of resources so I linked them directly)

And now, for the drumroll please.......

This week's winner is Kendyl!

Bet you'd like to see what you won, eh?

Walking With a Ghost!

It's a light silver semisolid, and in this instance it's dyed on a merino/silk/nylon silver yarn. YUM. Kendyl, email me your address and I'll have it out to you tomorrow!

I'll have some up in the Etsy shop today!

Have a great weekend!

A Day Trip and Contest Question #2

2007-11-12T07:30:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday! Hope your weekend was great. My Saturday was spent in gorgeous Helen, GA.

The weather was perfect and the photographic opportunities were numerous. I met my brother, sister-in-law and some friends, and we hiked up to Anna Ruby Falls to do a photography assignment for their class. I tagged along hoping to learn something. What I learned is that I need a photography class. And a tripod. I added a bunch of stuff to my Amazon wishlist today!

They were working on shutter speed and taught me a few tricks.

Here is my original picture:

And here's the same location after messing with my shutter speed. Pretty! (Don't ask about settings, I haven't the first clue.)

There were lots of folks around, but I was able to get a few shots with no one in them. This is the overlook bridge.

And this is the path leading up to the falls. So lovely.

And you can't have the mountains in fall without some gorgeous leaves.

Anna Ruby Falls and some more shutter speed action. Woo! If you click on the link above, you'll see what the falls *should* look like. At least there's some water, but this is so sad.

But still pretty.

Now, on to the knitting content! I've been working on Nate's Cobblestone sweater off and on and I'm just now on the 3rd ball of yarn. There isn't really much to photograph, so I haven't taken pics of it yet. Maybe when it grows some more. I have until his birthday, 2 days before Christmas, to finish and I think I'll make it. Nate loves it already and is practically standing over me while I'm knitting hoping it will be done soon. I update him on how many balls of yarn are left (13) and he gets a sort of sad face and walks away. Eventually, my love.

Unfortunately there are a few other projects demanding to be knit, and even more I'd love to cast on for in the middle of the night, totally exhausted and bound to screw it up, but that's how bad I want them on my needles. Some of them are a little intimidating though. By now I shouldn't ever be intimidated by knitting, but some projects make me drool and hesitate at the same time. I love a challenge and I want to try new things, but I'm also aware of my frustration level and my tendency to put a project into the basket o' shame when I reach my limit with a new technique (or sometimes just the pattern in general).

I've added two projects to my queue in Ravelry in the last few days in an attempt to try new things. The Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole is one of them. (Link goes to the fig and plum blog, since her photos are gorgeous.) I know I could totally rock some Entrelac (and rhyme in the process), but it freaks me out for some reason. I can't seem to wrap my brain around it. I know I could do it if I tried. But eek! All that picking up and sideways knitting!

Another is the Hanami Stole. I'd love to cast on for that thing right this second, provided I had the yarn, and knit just the Cherry Blossom section, but...I don't know what's stopping me. It's not that I can't or won't knit lace. It's a stunning pattern and I've bought, downloaded and printed it. I think it's my fear that I have no use for a stole/shawl/wrap sort of thing. And maybe that keeps me from starting Lady E also, except that I really don't have the yarn for either project. Oh darn, must go out to the LYS and fill up the stash again. Poo.

So my contest question this week is this:

Do you have any "dream" projects that you have trepidations about casting on? Does a new technique keep you from trying a pattern you love? Or do you just try everything, no matter what? Give an example!

Ok, leave a comment with your answer to enter to win this week's skein of yarn. You have until Thursday night at midnight! If you post about it on your blog you get an extra entry, and you get another every time you refer someone who mentions you.

This week's hint...it's a semisolid.

Good luck, and thanks for playing!

We Have a Winner!

2007-11-09T09:10:00.000-05:00

***ETA: Seven Nation is now up in the shop!***

First, thanks to everyone who entered the contest! It was a lot of fun reading your answers. There are so many gauge rebels out there! Who knew?

(also, thanks for all the well wishes. i'm looking for a new doc along with a chiropractor and massage therapist...i need lots of work, lol.)

I'll have a new question posted on Monday, so get ready for another fun contest and a new colorway!

Now, down to business. Using random.org's list randomizer, I plugged everyone in, plus their extra chances and the winner is....

Anna of Knitting Up a Storm!

Congrats, Anna! You've won a skein of Seven Nation Army! Email me your address and I'll send it right out!

This is a brand new colorway (props to Cher), and I'll have it up in the shop later today!

Also, I've fallen in love with my lightbox again. I got frustrated when I first made it, but I'm learning more about my camera (finally) and now it's a lot more fun! I'm going to go take pics of all the yarn I have dyed up and post the new pictures in the shop. Whee!

Have a great weekend everyone! I'll be in Helen, GA taking pictures with some friends and checking out the fall foliage! Oh...maybe I should cast on for my Foliage hat on the way...

Moving Forward, Awake

2007-11-06T11:12:00.000-05:00

***Thanks everyone who has entered so far! You have until Thursday at midnight to enter if you haven't yet!*****

There are no pictures or knitting in this post, sorry. I've been debating posting about this for over a month now, but I figured I'd feel better if I just got it out.

The last year or so has been kinda rough for me physically. The past 3-4 months have been especially difficult. I've been sick at least once a month, sometimes more often, and I've used all my sick days at all my jobs for the last 2 years, even going over into my vacation time. Lately I've been dragging so bad that even though I have the motivation to work out I can barely make it to the treadmill, much less walk on it. It's affected every part of my life, and it sucks.

Generally, I'm tired. All the time. I feel damn near narcoleptic. I also have severe allergy symptoms so I get upper respiratory infections pretty regularly. I'm prone to vicious colds and the flu. I tell Nate that if I had been a pioneer woman I wouldn't have lasted very long. And the 16th century, with all the plagues? No way I'd have made it to 30.

But I've been doing pretty well this month, and I'm glad for it. I get so tired of being sick. I worry that people think I'm making it up or it's all in my head. I wish. I've been keeping very good notes about *when* I'm sick and in what ways and I've got a pretty good little chart going. I took it to my regular doctor and he says things like "oh well, you have allergies, so you're going to be weaker sometimes and get sick often". Um, ok, but surely there's more? It isn't *just* a cold or an upper respiratory infection, often it's other strange occurrences (I might go into those later, but for now they're not relevant). He keeps prescribing allergy meds, but I'm immune to all of them. Shots don't do anything either.

I've had blood work done in the last 3 months and I'm not anemic, diabetic, or hypoglycemic. I get a decent amount of sleep every night, but I could easily nap for 2-3 hours every day. I'm tired a LOT. And while yes, there's a certain element of laziness to me, I'm rarely too lazy to dye yarn or knit. When you find me on the couch passively watching TV with NO KNITTING in my hands, something is VERY wrong.

The last time I felt like a normal person I had taken two huge vitamins, 3 omega fats pills, 2 green tea pills (caffeine!), a sudafed, an allergy pill (just in case), and had a nice cold 32 oz diet coke (more caffeine!!). That was breakfast. By lunch I felt like a million bucks. Sure my pee was neon green, but hey, I felt amazing! Well, awake at least, which was an improvement.

A few weeks ago I saw my obgyn for another opinion. I guessed that it's hormonal. She said that a hormone test would be inconclusive since they fluctuate all day long, and I'm on a pill so it would be very unusual for it not to be working properly. So they siphoned off some of my precious blood to do a few tests (I'm kinda protective of it, cause the evil needles wantses it all!).

Heard back from her in the last two weeks. I'm officially diagnosed with PMS (ok, there's a hint at those other symptoms). HAR! Who knew there was an actual diagnosis?!? And possibly PMDD. Oh dear god, I'm not that girl. I'm just sleepy! And a little grumpy sometimes.

There's also a severe B12 deficiency. B12?!?! That's it? A freaking vitamin? Um. Yes. But the deficiency can lead to anemia and it looks like my iron was on the low side this time. She also mentioned that maybe my body isn't absorbing the B12 I get regularly and it could be an intestinal issue. Yay. So she put me on a new BC pill for the crazies and a pretty serious vitamin dosage for the fatigue. I go back in 8 weeks to see if I'm making progress. If not, there may be scans of whatever variety on my intestines, and prozac for the wackiness. Sweet.

While it's good to have a better idea of what's going on with me, I'm so glad that thanks to my mega dose of vitamins and new BCP I'm starting to feel like a normal person again. It's like coming out of a 3 month long coma. I know I did things, like go to work and be somewhat social, and sometimes I could even get in a run or two, but man I feel like I slept through most of it.

I still want a nap some days, but I'd like to think that's normal. On Sunday I actually worked in the yard. I haven't done that since March! Then I exercised. I shocked myself with how much energy I had! Of course I took a nap later, but it was good while it lasted.

I'm looking forward to getting a run in today, and then dyeing massive amounts of yarn!

An FO and Contest Question #1

2007-11-05T07:45:00.000-05:00

And a very happy Monday to all of you! I tend to dislike Mondays, so I'll usually grab something caffeinated on the way in to work, read some email and blogs to wake myself up, and then get moving on to the actual work part of work. Today is different because I'll be in meetings all morning, and then I have to jaunt off to the lovely DMV to get my license renewed. Yay.

Before all that though, I have an FO to share. I finally finished my Socktoberfest project, though I'm a few days late.

Meet Tyrolean Stockings. These are my favorite socks EVER.

Forgive the blur. In my excitement I didn't really care about picture quality. Also, one sock is not actually taller than the other. Posing is not so important to me either.

The closeup is better!

These socks are wonderful. I still can't believe I made them. They just look so very cool. And the Swish Superwash is WARM.

Details:
Pattern: Tyrolean Stocking, Interweave Knits, Fall 2007.
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish Superwash (worsted) in Camel Heather, 3.5 skeins
Needles: Knit Picks Classic Circulars, US2.
Gauge: eh, whatever
Result: Super happy!

And now to the part you're really here for.

Here's the first question of the month. Leave a comment answering the question to be entered into Friday's drawing for a free skein of Lotus Yarn! Per your request, the prize will be a surprise until Friday! I'll give you a hint though...it's a new colorway. Feel free to post about the contest on your own blog. The more folks you send over, the more chances you get to win.

Question: You can see by my project details above that I don't always pay that much attention to gauge. How often do you knit a gauge swatch? Be honest now. Every time you plan a project? Do you wash and block too? Maybe you check your gauge on the fly. Cast on, knit for a while, then check and see how close you are, and rip out when you're way off. Or are you a 'fly by the seat of your pants' kind of knitter who never checks gauge. It will fit someone right?

Leave a comment with your answer!

good grief

2007-11-02T14:23:00.000-04:00

I'm having a very Charlie Brown sort of day, and I'm beginning to wonder if Lucy will let me pay a nickle for her services. If only all shrinks were so cheap. You get what you pay for though...

Yesterday Nate got his annual "Happy Birthday, pay your taxes" bill from the tag office, which made me realize that I never got one in September. So I raced out to my car to discover that indeed my tag is expired as of Halloween. Shit.

So today I get in my car to drive out to the dreaded tag office to relieve myself of $200. They ask for my license and insurance. Right. Those would be important. Managed to find my license. It too is expired. My insurance card is nowhere to be found. Dear gods, someone get me off the streets, I'm clearly an insane person who can't keep up with anything. Thankfully I don't have kids. They'd be jumping on a trampoline with scissors and eating candy with razorblades.

Paying better attention to my life might be a good course of action here. Ahem.

I'll start on Monday.

Positive Karma and a Contest

2007-11-01T13:14:00.000-04:00

First, I want to thank all of you who contributed to my Habitat for Humanity fund! Together we raised over $300!! You guys are great! Thank you so much!

November represents a time for us to be thankful. I'm thankful for so many things in my life, not the least of which is you guys! I've made so many great friends through this blog and Ravlery, and it's such a pleasure to get to know all of you. You enrich my life in ways you'll never know!

To honor your greatness, I'm going to hold a month-long contest. Each week of November (that's FOUR whole chances) I'm going to give away a skein of yarn! I'll ask a question on each Monday, you reply in the comments and I'll draw a winner on the following Friday. Easy enough, right?

The first week's contest question goes up on the 5th!

However, I have a question before we get started: Do you want to see what's up for grabs each week or would you like it to be a surprise?

Also, these were delivered to me at work today, because I'm awesome. And because a student made a very big mistake and this is the very expensive apology. Mostly cause I'm awesome though.

Enjoy your virtual flowers! Have a great Thursday!

MERRY HALLOWEEN!

2007-10-31T09:07:00.000-04:00

(grrrr. argh.)

I can't believe it's freaking Halloween already. This is my favorite time of year, but for some reason we didn't decorate or buy candy. I am going downtown tonight with some lovely ladies for drinks and costume watching. I'll probably be dressed as myself, as usual, cause I'm just that scary all on my own.

Last night I sat around after dyeing a ridiculous amount of yarn and watched Resident Evil in hopes of scaring myself. If I hadn't seen it 10 times it might have worked. Then I chose Wes Craven's Dracula. Also decidedly not scary. So I added some creepy stuff to my Netflix queue for when Nate is out of town next week. He hates scary movies, so I'll watch them in the dark by myself while he's gone. Or maybe with a friend. And lots of kitties.

I like Emily's movie suggestions here, but I always love to hear what other people like! I really enjoyed the Scream series, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I was about the same age as the actors at the time and everything they were doing was relevant to that time in my life. Except for the nutty serial killer.

What are your favorite scary movies? Gimme some Netflix fodder!

under construction

2007-10-30T11:34:00.000-04:00

pay no attention to the little html behind the curtain.

*ETA: Ok that's all I can handle for today. I'll add more blog links tomorrow. If you'd like me to link to your blog, leave me a comment.

Oh, and I had to share...

I was walking back to work from lunch when I saw this little accident. Looks like they tried to lift too much with the crane and the entire back end of the truck is off the ground. Smart.

SAFF You!

2007-10-28T22:57:00.000-04:00

Oh my, did we have a good time at SAFF! Anita, Steve and I cruised over to Asheville on Saturday morning and enjoyed the gorgeous day and glorious yarn! Some of it seriously tried to jump in my bag. I unfortunately had to return it to its booth. Next time I'll go with more money in hand!

As a SAFF virgin, I was a little stunned. And when I'm stunned I rarely act. It was all could do to walk around and drool while not running over anyone. Indeed, there was lots of drool. I didn't have much money to burn anyway, but I managed to purchase a Trekking colorway that immediately made me swoon and Cat Bordhi's new book. I'm kicking myself for not getting some Brooks Farm, but hey, a girl's gotta eat.

In addition to yarn, there were bun-buns (so soft you could barely feel the coat)...

llamas and alpacas (you talkin' to me?)...

and sheeps for the shearing...

And LOTS of Ravelers! I didn't catch everyone's name, mostly because in a crowd my inner hermit is trying to run for the hills and I become a little socially awkward (in my head at least), but this is Trillian42 on the floor in the shawl, ZKnitter in the corner chair, MeanGirl in the blue chair, SGeddes in green, and KnittingBetty in all black. (Thanks Jen, for filling in my gaps!)

Spinning ladies include funfairiegirl and turtlegirl, with a side order of bavgirl on the right.

And Jen was wearing her socks made in Lotus Yarns! I'm such a dork that I forgot to take a picture...figures.

It was great to meet so many familiar faces and I don't know that a meetup like this could have happened without Ravelry and the girls who organized. Thanks ya'll!

Now I must sleep. So tired.

Bubble Wrapped Hot Chicks (on a stick)*

2007-10-23T18:44:00.000-04:00

What an eventful weekend! On Saturday and Sunday, I got to be a lesbian pizza girl in a silent film. Cause, you know, every silent film needs its lesbian pizza girl. Then I got killed by bubble wrap! Whee!

Brooke on the left, me on the right. Resting in peace (and popping bubbles when no one's looking).

If you'd like to see the short film in it's entirety, click here. It's part of the National 48 Hour Film Festival. We were given the Silent Movie genre, and everyone had to use the Celebrity Impersonator character, bubblewrap, and the line "it's hard not to look". We are super goofy, and also tons of fun.

On Monday, I took a personal day and went to see the Dalai Lama speak at Centennial Olympic Park. I think I love him. He was so inspiring. He spoke of the path to inner peace, finding happiness through being compassionate and helping others, and how such deeds lead to exterior/international peace.

I kept giggling though, cause I'm soooo mature, and his cute little robes and cute little face made me think of Pooh Bear, which made me think of Pushing Daisies last week and the whole "Kick, Pooh, Kick!" scene.

In other news, this is the last full week for you to purchase yarn at my etsy store and contribute to the Habitat for Humanity fund! Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. I hope to have a nice big check to send come November 1! (I'll be adding a few more skeins later tonight when I get the energy!)

*not really "on a stick" per se, but congrats if you get the reference! yes i watched a lot of stand-up comedy as a teenager. also, i wonder how many google hits i'll get from that title? hehe.

I like brown. (aka WIP update)

2007-10-18T11:39:00.000-04:00

Or so my recent knitting would have you believe. Also, say hello to all my Christmas knitting. There will be no more. I have spoken, knitting goddess, here me now. There will be no more Christmas knitting other than these projects. The End. Amen. Etc. (ack! except for the hat for pete. i haven't forgotten, p. i swear. stop peering at me.)

Nate's Cobblestone. Round 2. First attempt had to be frogged because I can't read simple directions. And also because I should have swatched, apparently. This attempt will prove successful or I will burn 15 balls of Skye Tweed in effigy. Or shame it back into the stash for another project. One of those.

My step-dad's Irish Hiking Scarf in Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed. To sort-of-match the brown tweed hat he got last year. Oh shit, just remembered I have to make my mom a red one too. Guess I better revise the above "I have spoken" statement.

This is the enchanting and lovely Tyrolean Stocking in Knitpicks Swish. For me. It will probably take me until Christmas to finish these darn socks. And you can guess what's getting most of my attention. YUM.

And today I got this for my birthday from my boss, along with a gift card to Borders (woo!).
The sheep is from bossysfeltworks. She even has a cute little sheep bum, which I declined to photograph for the protection of the innocent. (p.s. iPhone camera is not too shabby!)

BBSHIP!!

Call Me a Convert

2007-10-16T21:08:00.000-04:00

Nate and I had a small fit of retail therapy on Saturday. We had been saving up to buy him a scooter for those days he needs to work late, and since it's finally decided to get cooler, we figured we'd wait until spring and reconsider.

We've been in a serious love/hate relationship with our Razr phones since we bought them a while back. They're too slim. They get dropped a LOT (especially mine). And I have a hard time hearing through the ear piece way too often.

So we indulged and bought iPhones.

They are super fun (a little *too* fun)! My only fear is crackberry-itis. I don't want to be addicted to my little black-screened friend here. There's no way I'll fill this thing up with music, movies, and podcasts, but Nate probably will fill his. I like to change my music out a lot, lest I get bored. And I still have my little blue shuffle for running. There's no way I could have this huge phone apparatus attached to me during a run. Sticking to my cute little clippy ipod for that chore.

I'm officially a gadget geek. As if there was any doubt.

Tomorrow there may be a little WIP Wednesday action around here...stay tuned!