Todays Post Brought to you by....

Zach.

Zachary would like you all to know that he loves his hockey socks.

They are:
-Very comfy
-"SOOOO warm"
-"feel like slippers!"
- "too nice, and too warm" to wear in everyday shoes.

 What a sweetie!

If you can't tell from the picture he's been pulling on the ankle of one in agony as he waits for his team to score. So at least we know they are getting worn a lot. Particularly during every playoff game the Washington Capitals play.

They are much loved.

I'm, quite honestly, all a twitter.



Now I just have to convince him he really DOES need more.
*evil laugh*

The fake sound of progress...

Today is one of THOSE days. If it could go wrong, it's probably already gone wrong....

My toilet is broken and leaking all over the floor. My ear infection decided to share and now I have an eye infection too. I have to go to approximately 8 dr's appointments this week, and make it in to work, and get a paper done....just BLARGH

BUT! all of this is okay, because, now go look closely at the sidebar, see the beast? look closely....

thats right, it's over halfway done. TAKE THAT BEAST....

I'd take a picture for you but I'm actually in class ignoring everything my crazy teacher says right now.

On the sad side.....I'm not counting the border (which will be EFFING HUGE) in that percentage/total. Mostly because I don't really know how much space that will take up on the percentage scale.

But that doesn't really matter.

Right?

Plugging along

If you look over on the side of the blog you may notice that there's been a small addition. I've listed, for your viewing pleasure, all my WIP's, on the wall of shame  progress tracker. :)

There is one item on this list that may not be a WIP for very much longer, and that is the Daisy Chain Blanket. Mostly beause it is boring, and I will likely NEVER use a cotton blanket. Thoughts? Anyone?

I have a test to study for, and a paper to write, so I will leave you with this thought:

If you frogged it, but didn't re-designate the yarn for some purpose, does it count as progress?

A handy little skill

So I've been diligently reading all your wonderful bloggies, and I'm noticing a trend. Must be the time of year? But you all seem to have a TON OF ENDS to weave in.

I think its time for me to share a little secret. You're wasting your time peoplez! You can be weaving in ends AS YOU KNIT (you can as you crochet, too, I'll 'splain, just'sec).

I'm sharing this little life-changing video with all of you because you've missed out, and I hate to see you all suffer so.

For the knittering:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dtkY0JU9WA&feature=player_embedded


For the crocheting:
I refer you to this handy dandy little article on Crochet Spot. Because, in the nature of saving time, why repost when someone's done the work? here you are:
Reduce that end weaving!

So stop hunting for all your darning needles! You don't need them until the very end! (or for splicing, if you're doing the one color thing, but this works just as well if you don't feel like a splice)

Happy crafting!

Make your own Grape Sheep

Courtesy of my little sweat shop Sam, you all now have a fun filled tutorial that will guide you through making your own little grape sheeps.

You can learn how I learned, by ordering one of these little kits: SHEEPS!

Or, if you have a bit of a fiber stash, you can just use whatcha got. Here's what you'll need.

Supplies:
Felting needle
Foam Safety Cube, a pile of dishcloths, or an old pillow
1-2 oz. of roving in a few colors, whatever you want the body to be (I used black), some white (for his little eyes, or you can just glue on some google eyes), and then the color for his "fur" (i used pink/purple/blue mohair locks)
Toothpick
Patience

As a small warning, the needle will poke through your bones, so be careful. It's sharp, and painful, and bad. Bad bad bad.....

Moving on.

Take some/most of your body colored roving, and divide it in half, as below (leave some bits out for your eyes later):

Pardon the black on black, i did what I could. Anyways, take one of these halves, set it aside.
Take your other half, and divide it in half again, these quarters (call them A and B) will become your head and your body.

To make the body, take either A or B, and roll it up into a ball around the toothpick, like so:

Remove the toothpick, place it on your foam/cloths/padding, take your felting needle, and go to town. Poke it to smithereens. This will take a while, but eventually the fibers will snag together and you will end up with a firm-ish little square/circle, etc, as below:

If you want to make a roundish bum/front half, drag some fibers across your corners and poke them in. Just play with it, you can really honestly do whatever makes you happy.









Taking portion B, repeat the felting process to make a head. Once you have 2 little lumpy firmish bits, attach the head to the body, like so:

Poke the head on using the felting needle until that little booger sticks. Honest, it will, eventually. Be patient! and try not to poke your little fingers!!!






Now set your terrier-looking bit aside, and grab your other half. Divde it in half length-wise (like drafting fiber, NOT LIKE ABOVE) then take your two halves, call them C and D and pull each of them apart into 3 pieces, using the first technique. You'll end up with 6 bits.

Using your toothpick to roll them up, make yourself 2 ears, attach them to the head. Then make yourself 4 legs, and attach them to the "body".


Now the eyes:
Take some white fibers, really just a few hairs, roll them into a ball, and then poke them onto the face where you want them until you get little white pancakes. Take a couple of fluffs of black, roll them into balls, and poke them into the white pancakes to make eyeballs! WHEE!

Fur: take your other color, and poke it LIGHTLY into the body so you get fluffy little sheep bits, and you get a Grape Sheep! TA DAA!!
Or christmas sheep, or blueberry sheep, or whatever strikes your fancy, see?

You know you want one. 

Email me with questions! I have faith!

PS- you really might want to get some band-aids, just in case, you know?

Promise: Fufilled

Pumpkin Palooza is officially OVER. *cue victory dance, loud music, much cheering*

It got a little desperate there at the end. The patterns I used are all either made up on the spot or borrowed from ravelry. Just look up "pumpkin" and go to town. Some are also available via google.

Leaves were a little tricky. Some are cut from felt, some are off of plastic pumpkin vine, and some are crochet or knit. Lily whipped up a little pattern that I will share with you all if you decide you want some pumpkiny leaves, it's down at the end after all the pictures.

I now give you: PUMPKINS! (click to embiggen)

 

 

 

Ta DAAAAAA!!!

If you want to know any specifics just ask, I'll be more than happy to share. I used a bunch of different fun orange and green yarns from Michael's, mostly Lion Brand Vanna's Choice. Also some bernat roving (SO FUN! GET SOME) and some more, god help us, LB Homespun.




Lily's leaf pattern::
1.     Using disappearing loop, make 3 sc, 1 hdc, 7 dc, 1 hdc, and 2 sc. Join last sc to first using sl.
2.     Ch 3, skip 2 in previous row, join with sl, [Ch 2, skip 1, sl]x3, Ch 3, skip 2, sl, then sl until you reach the first Ch 3
3.   In the first ch 3 loop [sc, 2 hdc, sc], repeat in first ch 2 loop, in second ch 2 loop [hdc, dc, tc, ch2, tc, dc, hdc], in the next ch 2 loop and ch3 loop [sc, 2 hdc, sc]

Possible Changes:

1. Using disappearing loop, make 3 sc, 1 hdc, 7 dc, 1 hdc, and 2 sc,  Join last sc to first using sl.

2. Ch 3, skip 2 in previous row, join with sl, [Ch 3, skip 1, sl]x3, Ch 3, skip 2, sl, then sl until you reach the first Ch 3 

3. In the first ch 3 loop [sc, 2 hdc, sc], in next loop [sc, 3 dc, sc], next loop [hdc, dc, tc, ch2, tc, dc, hdc], in the next loop [sc, 3 dc, sc], and last ch3 loop [sc, 2 hdc, sc]

5.    Sc around, with 3 sc in the ch 2 loop

Bold=change

My little sweat shop...

Sam asked for a grape sheep, I told him he had to learn to make it himself.

It took 2 hours and lots of coercing, but his sheep is done.

Pictures and tutorial tomorrow, I'm still churning out pumpkins/leaves like nobody's buisness.

I'd write more but the eyes, they are hurting. Since I'm so PFFFT today, I leave you with a little video for some amoosement.

If you're the touchy today, easily offended, or really don't think sex is all that funny (are you feeling well?)*, probably shouldn't click this. But if you have a good sense of humor, I'd say, have a small listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXzaVOk_Ydk

*Just kidding! love you all, I'm a little immature and am highly amused by the word fart, fart jokes, sex jokes, etc. Blame it on my poor taste. :)

And theeeeeeen....

There are lots of pumpkins

I hate orange.

I'm starting to sympathize with Cinderella's fairy godmother, in that pumpkins? Deserve to die, make them all carriages!

The baskets nearly full, and I have 2 blisters from speed crochet.

Now I just need to make about 8 zillion leaves and vines. I'm sooo looking forward to green.

Speaking of the basket. I took a fake leaf vine and brutally ripped strategically removed all the leaves from it, then I threaded it through the baskety openings, and forcefully crammed delicately placed the leaves back onto the little pokey outtie bits. I like it, what do you think?

Please disregard the state of affairs shown in that picture, it's been a pooty week on the health-news front. Stop giggling about that mess, Lillian. As an aside, HEY LOOK! I been lookin for that sock all over the floor for 10 minutes! I'd almost given up hope and figured I'd have to wear a matching pair! huffah!


hem hem. Off to make more magical pumpkins of pumpkiny goodness!

Fall hath sprung

At least at my house....Let me explain.

Me:: I had a little attack last night around 1 am...it's bad
Lily:: Attack?
Me:: Yes, you know, a "knit this not that" attack.
Lily:: haha. oh, one of those!
Me:: Yes, its bad. I blame the pumpkins
Lily:: Why did you start some pumpkins?

AHAHAHHAHHAH did I start some pumpkins. It looks like a pumpkin patch in my living room. There's green felt, fake leaves, a basket, orange yarn, fluff-n-stuff, about 800 leaf printouts...it's bad. You can't even tell I own a coffee table. If Zach were here, I'd get That Look. You know, the one that says "you need to call the therapist now, or I'm going to do it for you".

My mom asked for pumpkins around October time. Halloween is her favorite holiday. She wanted a little basket for to decorate the house.

Being so enthusiastic that someone had asked for something knit (you know this feeling, don't lie) I immediately agreed without thought to what I was setting myself up for. We went to Michael's, she picked a basket, and some skeins of orange yarn, and I started working. 3 pumpkins later I was bored, and walked away.

Well, it's not October anymore, and I still owe someone a huge ass basket of pumpkins.

I've emptied 2 bags of fluff-n-stuff. The basket isn't full yet.

I'm also getting a little sick of orange.

Anybody wana make some pumpkins?!

Sad Panda

I'm trying to...you might want to cover your ears if you're feeling sensitive....

Destash.

It's right up there in the four-letter word category.

It turns out I live in a teeny tiny, itty bitty, loud, no good, no space, apartment. It's quaint, I love it. But, the yarn that was all going to live in only one closet? Welllll, it's making it hard to get in and out of the house.

I decided that it was probably time to give some of it up for a better cause. Especially since I'm not really planning on USING it, I just like to look at it, and know its there. In the event of the apocalypse, or the wool-pocalypse, I MIGHT NEED IT! You never know. Yeah, it's cheap acrylic. Yeah, I hate it. SO WHAT! I MIGHT NEED IT.

(stop giggling mother, and put the phone down, you don't need to call a therapist, I am not a hoarder, and I'm getting rid of it, OKAY?!)

Well okay, I also had a little incident while hunting for a set of size 6 needles last night.

Truth be told, I don't need it all. Or one of about 7,000 other things that are on the dreaded LIST that I'm never going to finish for one reason or another. A lot of them are things I've just come to hate. While I'm more of a product than a process knitter, I've come to realize that just holding onto things in the event I might eventually maybe possibly could like them again is a little silly.

If anyone wants some yarn, holler. One knitters unloved stash is another's treasure, or whatever.

And the winner is!

A sincere "Thank you!" to everyone who played in the contest. You all had me laughing for hours. You also made me feel pretty special. It's nice to know your words get read by a few people. If you didn't win this time, don't despair, I will post a tutorial on how to make your own Grape Sheep! I'll also probably be having another contest next month. :)

The winner this time is: Paul
Who won with the following, most creative, story:
In efforts to fill the order from Santa for Xmas, you have had to ramp up production of your goods. You stay up all the time and make little sheep and other stuffed characters from movies and the like. However, due to a Red Bull fueled frenzy and working rage, you overproduced by 12% of the order. Knowing Santa all too well, you had to hide the excess as you realize that Santa will coerce you out of the excess at no additional cost by guilting you into submission. With your cupboards full of yarn and violent Russian porn, you had to shove 8,543 units into the A/C unit. Unfortunately, when Santa came he turned the unit on as he is fat and gets hot quite easily. To keep up appearances you said nothing, and the smell penetrated your house and settled. The same thing happened to your relative before they passed the torch onto you. 

The most simplistic, while still being funny was definitely: "Your relatives are sheeps in disguise"-Rogue Butterfly

Lots of you guessed carpet/bathroom related incidents, here's the scoop:

My unfortunate relatives happen to live in a very old house. It has wool carpet, and an old water cooler that's used for A/C. The old water cooler gets cleaned out with eucalyptus smelling soaps. But that's not the only source of the smell. They also have about 60 hunting trophies, many of which are sheep-like. These guys smell probably worse than the carpet does. But alas, as Sam pointed out, this is not the ONLY source of the wet fiber smell. Turns out the laundry room is barricaded off, hoarders style, and so all the clothes in there that got put in the washing machine 3 years ago? Still in the washing machine.

Makes you scared for me doesn't it?

More news on the knitting front tomorrow, but I'm trying to purge the stash of things I don't use anymore. At this point there's a lot of Lion Brand Homespun, anybody want a bunch of it?

Bad Advertising...

While playing on Facebook I noticed this little demon over in the side bar, where all the Advertisements are.







The accompanying phrase?

Become a social worker!

Yea, I don't see that happening. I like my soul just where it is.

I'm not real fond of vampires either.

Blog Prize

So you all know what you are competing for......Meet the grape sheep. :)

Remember, most creative can win too! If it makes you all feel better, my own family members couldn't guess the source of the smell. But they knew to whom the house belong-ed!

Real Quick

I'm laughing my behind end off at your guesses for the contest. Don't worry about me not being able to sit, I have lots of behind-end.

Here's a few hints to keep you all guessing:
They have no pets, and no handknits.
The air conditioning system in the house is treated with eucalyptus soaps, and is a water cooler.
It's not carpet.

I'm working diligently on whipping up a leetel grape sheep for the best guess!

I've finished my April Socks. The pictures, at this time, le suck. So you will have to be patient. Also, I'm out of town this weekend so if there's blog silence, blame Zach. He's that entertaining.

Remember, you have until Sunday to come up with something good!

Blogitis-Contest

Since I've started a leetel blog, I spent a lot of my time starting blog posts in my head. I came up with some pretty funny stuff yesterday...I just only get a few sentences then I kinda peter out. My favorite one, I'm still working on how to expand on this, is as follows:

"Guess what I learned today in graduate school? It is safe to assume, despite the fact that the person WROTE THE PAPER the class is reviewing 3 days ago, they have no idea what they are talking about. Not only that, but you are probably more informed than they are. Huffah, last minute googles!"

Yeah. My life is like that. Unfortunately that's pretty much all there is to say on the subject, unless I want to be mean (er). I dearly love the person but it was one of those "wow, I'm impressed you've survived this long in academia" type moments. If it were a student, I'd feel worse about it, but to be fair it was the professor.


What hit me at the bookstore? This one's more of an observation and less blog fodder:
"Holy smokes, they have a magazine for bloggers...what a waste of money."

If any of you use it, I apologize. Is it useful?

The little jewel that hit me last night, as I was blocking that woven scarf (not my best work, but it's done, and it's still pretty, if you can pretend you're not bothered by the little mistakes, still not showing it to you because I hate it and am giving it away to someone who won't) was as follows:

"HEY! I FINALLY IDENTIFIED THAT SMELL! DID YOU KNOW THAT (Insert name of relative's) HOUSE SMELLS JUST LIKE WET WOOL, EUCALAN, and COTTON?!"

Yeah it's smelled that way for 22 years, I'm pretty sure bringing it up now isn't going to help anything. That, and they're of an age where they're pretty set in their ways. It's probably the nature of their decorations that makes the house smell that way. But, as much as it totally icks me out, I still (mostly) love them (not just because I have to), and I'm not going to say anything (to them). I will probably share with my mother, who will then tease me about making her house smell like (insert name of smelly relatives house)'s place does.

Sam, if you're reading this, think grape sheep, and big bears. It totally smells like that doesn't it?

If you're not Sam (the odds are pretty good), and have ever Kool-aide dyed wool in the microwave? The house smells like that in the summer. Ah fond childhood memories.

It's very comforting to be able to have finally nailed the source of that particular....air freshener down. Things to take off the "I WANT" list when they try to foist their posessions off on you.

Let's have a little contest shall we?

Guess the actual source of the smell in my relative's house. Leave your guesses in the comments for this post. Whoever gets it right (or guesses the best, and by best I mean makes me laugh the hardest) get's a little needle-felted grape sheep that looks similar to this little dude:

You have until the 18th. As in it ends at 12AM the 17th. That way all you procrastinators can get your 10 cents in too. :) (No judgement, I'm getting my MS in procrastination)

Reaaadddyyyy? GO!

Tomato, Tomato

Or rather, tomato, toMAHto. (since you can't pick up my sarcastic inflection, or fancy European accent, I'll try to convey it through additional letters). Today was the day that that paper was due, and it's done, huffah, huzzah a thousand cheers. In all reality its due the 29th but I wanted to get it done before the presentation today.

I'm sure all of you remember class time filled with your colleague's (read: other students) presentations for their semester projects. It was, in short, painful. Not that they weren't qualified to be lecturing or anything, just that no one realllly wants to be up there giving a presentation, most of them don't reallllly know what they're on about, and most of them...well they can't speak in public for poot. I don't blame them, I totally get it, it's not a fear I have but it's a common thing, so I can see where it might be an issue on presentation day.

I'm not very good at listening to people speaking publicly, or lecturing, or whatever. This is due to my sick, twisted sense of humor getting the better of me all the time. For example, if you have ever seen "Talladega Nights", then hearing your pastor say "we celebrate christmas for the sweet lord baby jesus" you're pretty much guaranteed to get elbowed by your mother for giggling in church. Similarly, when the rabbi at someone's bah mitzvah says "we can feel jordan's manhood deep down in our kishka" (pardon my bad yiddish spelling) and you're brain goes from kishka directly to bum...well same thing happens.

This occured today. I'm going to share my experience with you. The kid kept saying "and for people who suffer from arth-a-rite-us" (read: arthritis with four syllables), and I kept having to pretend to be choking on my key-lime gum. I think the teacher hates me now, doesn't bode well for my future as she is my thesis advisor (well, hopefully, I still need to nail that little detail down) If you watch SNL religiously, you're already cackling. If you aren't this is what I kept picturing when he said the word: (the other videos are just funny, so watch anyways?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l26EYST7jjA

I think you'll appreciate it.

Uh oh....

Some of you may already notice, but it became apparent to me, at 2am last night, while on my third "paper break" (read procrastination fest), that I might have a teeensy tinsy problem.

It wasn't the swearing over the fact that I didn't weave fast enough that tipped me off. (Probably because I was simultaneously whipping up about a billion imaginary burgers in café world).

Nor was it the throwing down of a sock with the exclamation "stupid pattern!" (note: guess who's pattern it is. This guy's.)

It was the near break-down into tears and the attempt to decide who it was probably okay to call at 1:30 in the morning to talk about being unable to find the print out for a pattern, that tipped me off. This was something new, fun, worth my time, and definitely exciting. (NO, I am not capable of pulling said pattern up on the computer and printing it again darn it! I'd already printed the WHOLE PAGE once!)

I think I might have a knitting problem....

(Zach, stop laughing)

Goodies!

If you have ever been a poor(ish), struggling(ish) college student you know that there are a few things most poor, struggling college students will do a LOT for. It's rather disgraceful the lengths some will go to to achieve these things. We're talking purchasing gifts, providing underage people with liquor, staying up all night, dressing up in tin foil, (sometimes) fornicating, flirting with people you would normally suggest hygiene tips to, etc etc. The list is not necessarily long, but some of the things we will go to these lenghts to are as follows:

1) free food
2)  homecooked food (there is a huge difference between 1 and 2)
3) coupons for food
4) answers to homework problems
5) money
6) free gas
7) free t-shirts (are you sensing a particular word that excites us? give you a hint, its an f bomb!)

Most people know these things. Particularly people who coordinate and run events on the college campus. If they want students to come there will likely be a combination of at least 2 of the above, most commonly free food, and some sort of t-shirt. It's how we get wrangled in to things. Mostly because a lot of us don't see the 5-10-20 dollar cover fee as anything more than that. Thus, we are not getting a $20 t-shirt, we are getting a FREE t-shirt, for signing up.

This is how I got wrangled into what is known as the Pi-Mile.

To be fair, it's for a good cause, your free t-shirt money goes to a scholarship fund in the name of a former student who was killed in a car accident. They give you a little discount for signing up early, there's a raffle, with free food, free food before the race, a free t-shirt, and coupons for stores around town. (Are you starting to see the appeal?) All you have to do to get all these goodies (other than paying the registration fee) is walk/run/gallop/gallavant/push a stroller/etc etc etc a 3.14 mile long race course. For those of you who aren't gigantic math nerds, the mathematical constant, Pi, is equivalent to 3.14159265.... it goes on infinitely (this infinity things is fairly popular with circles) . If you don't speak stupid ass useless units miles, thats approximately 5.05 km.

I thought this sounded fun. (Okay, I really just wanted a free t-shirt and bragging rights.) So I talked Lily into signing up and going with me. To be fair, we did have fun. Even if there were 60mph winds (96kph) and it was 54 F  (12 C). I took Lily because I knew it would be fun, and that she would not carry my dragging ass,   put up with the incessant complaining be a good motivator. We did finish, it only 50 minutes! We were very proud. Okay I was very proud, Lily was just kinda amused that I was so revved up about the whole thing. Mostly because I finished all on my own and I didn't feel like I'd been hit by a MAC truck (having arthritis, one worries about that feeling). We were even chipper right up until the end, see?

An hour later, we got up from lunch, and I felt like my joints had been filled with cement. Apparently this is a sign of overdoing it with arthritis. I'd like arthritis to get on the indicator system to let me know when I've over-done something WHILE it's happening, not 3 hours later. Just throwing that out there. Someone could yell "take the golf-cart now" or I could start to get a little sore, or my legs could just give out. I don't really care, just some sort of warning would be nice. But I am fine now, post some advil and a nice hot bath and nice long nap.

Well okay, not totally fine, I'm a little emotionally traumatized about having to write a paper for class that I probably should have started when it was assigned in January. To be fair, I think I can probably finish it. Right after I finish blogging, stretching, eating, taking another bath, and maybe finishing my book.

Fine mom, I'm doing it, gosh.

It is more or less a miracle that I got up this morning and did what I did. Mostly because I kept Lily up knitting until 2am. Then she accidentally scared me awake several times during the night. When you live alone, and have a creaky house, the bathroom door moving "of its own accord" really will make you bolt right out of bed. So will someone coming in to tell you its 9am and its time to get up already you lazy bum buddy. To be fair, I'm blind as a bat, and Lily is vaguly the same colors as my father when a giant blur, so I was mostly just really confused as to how he'd gotten into my apartment, let alone what he wanted to wake me up for. It's okay, I didn't have a real heart attack, and we had a good laugh.

Anyways, before I head off to procrastinate one last little bit do my homework, I'd just like to show you some pictures from this morning:

 

 HA! I told you I got a free t-shirt. Bet you want one too, huh?

It's so FLUFFY!!!!!

And beautiful....If you haven't seen "Despicable Me", not only are you missing out, but you probably won't get this reference. Lily and I went to Build-A-Bear and I picked up this little guy:

He's pretty much fabulous. His name is Francis, and he is very fluffy. He is also a pen. We have decided that he has magical powers, powers of comfort.

We also found these little stuffed dogs, who are EXTREMELY fluffy. I don't know if they're suede, or some other sort of fabric, but they are most excellent. Mine's name is Beauregard. I love him dearly. He's my old stuff-dog, Alfred's, new boyfriend. They are doggy loves. I don't think dogs really worry about sexual preference, they just love each other. I'm sorry if you feel differently. But I think some of us could probably take a few pages from dogs. Just not the butt sniffing one. Not because we'd have to bend over, but because I highly doubt human butts are as clean as most doggy butts.

Enough about doggies. (I love them, passionately, forgive me). Last night we had a little impromptu spinning session. Lily learned a few things and made some pretty strings, see?

Lily don't read this part.

::in a conspiratorial whisper::
If she doesn't finish spinning it, I'm going to steal that stuff right out from under her and finish spinning it myself. I didn't like the colors until she spun it up, but now, I really wants it.

Okay Lily you can start reading again.

I also did some work on Robert's scarf. Mostly because he was teasing me about the fact that it's been like 2 months and it's still not done. I ran out of yarns on my shuttle, which meant I had to wind more on. I HATE winding yarn onto a shuttle. Its tedious, I always scrape my wrists somehow, and I never commit long enough. I tried to fit the cake through the opening of the weft....

But as you can tell, it didn't want to fit. Short of using up some AstroGlide, I don't think I could even smush it through there if I tried. As my brother is fond of reminding me, AstroGlide can be used to fit a Cadillac in a dog house. It's more likely the dog house for a St. Bernard, than a chihuahua, but they aren't specific, so it gives me hope for the possible uses.

I'm off to build a Lego bulldozer. And maybe make my unicorn, Francis, dance around. I might even knit and do some homework. We'll see!

Tomorrow's the 5k, I'm a little worried....wish me luck!

Ah blessed sleep

I have finally (thank the Lord Ambien, and any other responsible deity) slept for 14 hours. Straight. It was beautiful. I don't think I snuck out and shagged anybody, because I tied an impossible knot in my sweats and they were still on this morning. So that's something.

I have spun a smidgen more silk. Lily is here and wanted to know why there were orange fuzzies all over my coffee table. I feel like this doesn't need explaning, as much as I just need to hand her some silk and see how long it takes for ALL OF IT to stick to her basoomers, or other extremities. (I find silk has a basoomer affinity, strange that.) I have it all contained around an old snapple bottle. It's looking very acquiescent. No?

It still so very shiny and lovely. I only have 22 grams left to spin! (there was only one ounce to start with, I can't tell you what it is in american-ese.)

As an aside, I do wish they would sell more than 8 bottles of Snapple in a container, because I can kill that in about 2 hours. Maybe I just need to ease up on the snapple....






I promised to introduce you all to Owl-ette. It was supposed to be a coffee cozy. Instead its a candy-dish cozy. I love it. (As a side note, I'm grateful for that flash, as you could totally see down my tank in the reflection on the microwave)

I love his little beady eyes. They're fabulous, and butterscotchy, which is why I filled that dish with butter scotch. I almost took him to work, but I'm afraid someone might permanently borrow him, which would make me sad.

I also love that my microwave is red, but that's less relevant.


I am working on fishes, from the fish blanket of wonderfulness. This is the first one! EEE! I love the little fishy body hanging off my needles. (morbid, but true)

There was a rather strict warning about how if your gauge is off the fishies wont fit together. I didn't swatch, hope I guessed okay on the needles and everything. Or I will have a few sqiggly fishes. Oh well. Knit a little, live a little. Following patterns closely is for weenies who want to get the proper knitted object the first time.

Lily is doing jazz hands and declaring she will not be making any shawls for a while. HEr mother has also verboten blankets. I think I can maybe talk her into some fishes. Hehehe.

Also, I am making some fun socks, its my next design. It's going to be crazy beans. You'll love it.
Check out the color:

I also need to finish my paper on ballet shoes....hmmmm. For now I think I'll go have a leetle nap. Or maybe some fish. Or I did just get that yarn in the mail.....

::wanders off talking to self::

If you see me tonight....

Turn me around and send me back to bed.


Because I haven't really slept in about 3 days, the doctor called me in some sleeping pills. He said if the first one doesnt work in an hour take a second. I'm thrilled. YAY SLEEP. So I go pick up the magical pills of happy.

The pharmacist highlighted this little section for me to ponder over...I read it AFTER I had popped the first pill.


"After taking, you may get up out of bed while not being fully awake and do an activity that you do not know you are doing. The next morning you may not remember that you did anything during the night. Reported activities include: (note that these are only the reported ones)

-driving a car
-making and eating food
-talking on a phone
-sleep-walking"

ANNNNND, are you ready for this one?

"-having sex."

If I frisk any of you this evening, I'm sorry.

YOU KNOW WHAT?!?!?!

note to self...
you are in college. if you yell that at your professor after an exam, not only will you get "that look", but your mother will not be able to call and dig you out of yet another "situation" because you didn't keep your thought to yourself.

note to the professor?
DUDE. If you put something on the review sheet EIGHT TIMES, I will learn it. I promise. If you mention, in passing, a "fun" algorithim one can use in database searches for some archane amino acid thing, and suggest its just interesting, and not NEED TO KNOW INFO, I won't. I think this is pretty reasonable. I'm sorry you disagree, but I bet everyone gets that question wrong on the test. As a small side note? That "fun fact" was not worth 30 of 100 points. Just saying.

My sister says I use "dude" more and more frequently the angrier I get. Anyone else have this problem?
Dude.

If you're in a college class, you probably shouldn't inform your professor, prior to final grade submission, that just because he has an M.D. does not mean he can write an effective test. Heads up on that one, in case you run into this little problem.

In other news...I might've gone a little sock crazy? 5 new pairs in one evening is probably an indication of being too stressed.

I then put those down and did some spinning. I made it through 2 grams before I moved on. Pattern design at 2am is not suggested.

I finally gave up and did some weaving.

It may not look like much to you, but if you recall the last time you saw that I was at the beginning of the (omgneverending) goldenish colored section, I finished all the yellowy for the time being and am now to the blues. That amount you see there between the blue and the bottom yellow stripe? I wove about 2x that length.


If you are thinking about getting a loom, know this. It is not a "stash buster". It is a "space eater" and also a "big knitting distraction".  But it is really quite a bit of fun. I wouldn't give that floor space back for the world.

I'm off to see if I can catch some Zzzzzz's (yes, its spelled like that because you really hold that sound before you stick the s on, makes it sound like some sort of sickness, if you knit, you know). I haven't been to bed since yesterday...sorry if this is rambly-er than usual. and also for the made up words...and the worse than normal grammar. and the lack of using that shift button at the end here.

what was i doing?

oh yeah. sleep!

PS-if you don't read Franklin Habit, go look up muffatee. It's going to be my new swearword, I don't care if that's not the correct use.

PPS-if you didn't know, knitty is up.

PPPS-remind me to show you my new decoration, Owl-ette Koolaidsskin. Lily made him, I think you will like the use I put him to.

PPPPS-I hope, if I am ever depicted in yarn (cute laughter) that no one makes my nose this big:
Royal Wedding

Murphy...

one of those weeks where if it could go wrong, it will. Extra homework, extra test material, not getting enough sleep to function, having the flu...it's just like that.

I was trying to use socks to destress, but since this is the third version, and I've spent four hours trying to make them the right size, it wasn't really working. Gauge? Lies...just saying. I can do math, and I even triple checked with a calculator. But alas, they've now been ripped out thrice. This is their current state:

I'm realizing that I might need to start staging these photos in different places, as you only ever get my coffee table, and so you probably thing I'm some sort of terrible slob. I promise the rest of my house is really actually very tidy.

Anyways...I had reached a point last night were I just couldn't take it anymore. I'd tried drowning the stress in the bathtub, I'd exercised, I'd laid down for a little rest, I'd just made a list and worked through most of it...nothing was working. Then I looked up and......

I may or may not have pulled this out of the fiber basket...It's called "Ohhh! Shiny!! I WANT!"....1 oz of Mullberry silk. It really is shiny, and soft, and wonderful. Spinning is my ultimate destress, how hard is it to flick a spindle and watch magic happen.

Silk, is apparently, a real mother f!@#$%^& when it comes to simple spinning. Some things I learned? Only pull off a tidgen of it. Really, predrafing is probably a bad idea. Don't forget to put a towel down to wipe your hands on regularly, don't let go of it, and a static sheet for the dryer? Might be helpful. I'm more or less a beginning spinner, and have only ever messed with wool. Or other reasonable fibers. But, after a little fighting, some use of a lint remover, and a deep breath?

I think I might make it. Maybe....

Anyone a whiz on Hidden Markov Models?

I'm off to study, and maybe I'll spend my breaks perusing knitty. We'll see.

Quarterly Updates and Yarn Goodies

Quarterly Update:

Back when I started the blog I gave you all a little list of WIP's, to do's, etc etc on the yarn front. I keep track of all the stuff I have planned/started in a little excel sheet. Well, I felt like I was making ABSOLUTELY no progress, and Lily suggested that I give little updates on occasion to prove to myself/others that things really were getting done, even though it didn't feel like it.

So when we started, if you recall, there were approximately 40 things on the list, which wasn't really very accurate as I forgot several projects/planned things, but there you have it. Of those 40-ish things, 20 were WIP's. Which was a little bit overwhelming. Since January, I have finished 12 items from that list. YAY!

As of April 1st there are 43 items on the list. 17 of these are WIPs...and only 2 of them are new. Proving that a lot of those finished items were rather spur-of-the moment cast on projects, but what's a knitter to do, really? If inspiration hits, you'll go with it.

There are now only 5 blankets on the list. That's huge progress if you consider the time it takes to finish a blanket.

You'll be getting another update around July 1st.

In other news.....
Zach's Hockey socks are done done done! :) They make me very happy. I never realized how much larger his feet were than mine until seeing it in sock form...hmmm. But look, aren't they neat!

I'm wearing them right now, as my toes got cold and they were the handiest thing at the time. They look a little like some patriotic used condoms...Mostly because they're twice the size my feet are. (mens 10 vs mens 4) But anyways. I used up the whole skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted. I used my little drug scale (okay fine its a food scale, but I use it for yarn, and it measures in drug like increments, and my friend accused me of being a coke-head for having a scale to measure small amounts) to divide the skein in half, exactly. Then I knit on each sock until I was out of yarn! They're quite lovely, if I do say so myself.

In keeping with Socks-a-palooza April, I then went digging in the closet to find the second pair of socks I ever started. (Just for a little background, the first two pairs of socks I've started, I've never finished. They were educational for making toes, thats about as far as they've gotten.) These socks are also for Zach. I was just going to lay them on top of the pair I just finished for size purposes, but they looked like this:

No matter how I squished, pinned, or manipulated the little boogers, they didn't want to lay in any other way than something similar to a yarmulke. Or a weird flat ellipse thingie. Or whatever. I got really mad at them, and ripped them out, since I couldn't tell poot from them anyways, might as well start over! Then I had two balls of rather unsightly and probably difficult to use sock yarn...so I decided to have a little wind-party and turned them into yarn cakes.


After I finished with the yarn-cakery that results from having a ball winder (huffah for that little gizmo! and no Paul, you cannot reconfigure the gear ratio, I need it to work, I don't care if it doesn't go quickly enough for you) I looked on the floor and what did I find? Two little strange bobbin thingies:

These bad boys had been nested INSIDE the yarn. I'm at a loss to what they are for. I went on a google-fest, and I still have no ACUTAL answer. If the yarn is indeed Lang Jawoll it is most definitely reinforcement thread to use when making the toes/heels so they are sturdier. Which is just too neat. I don't actually know what the yarn is as I bought it 3 years ago and lost the ball bands. I do know that I got it at Purls Tuscon. I think it's probably likely that it is reinforcment thread no matter what the brand of yarn is but I have no clue. It was fun to have easter-egg style yarn though. I was totally not expecting to have a little surprise in the center of the skein. It made finding out at 1 am that I had a paper due at 8 am that much more bearable. Anyone know for sure what these little babies are?

If anyone is interested in a KAL, or CAL, or something other than Lily, you should email me (yarndependentmeATgmailDOTcom) and let me know! Send some fun projects you want to work on too, and I'll think a list of fun goodies up, so we can pick what we want to do together. If it's just 2 or 3 of us we can do a mini, no worries.

Anyways, I'm off to be all soc-u-pied (I stole that from an e-mag, I'm really not that clever), and wait for my Jimmy Beans Wool color of the month to show up. And maybe work on some homework. We'll see. Have a good day all!

PS- Is anyone else in the Colorado area having problems with the weather being 75°F, then snowing, then being 50°F?

Back to reality

Zach's gone home, le sad. So back to my normal life! I apologize for the blog silence, but it's hard to sit down and get anything done when Zach and I are running around being crazy kids.


His socks are closer to done:

There's one on the left and the other on the right. Neither are finished but they do fit, as you can see, and that one is very close to done! WOO HOO! It was originally a 56 stitch sock but after an emergency fitting I realized they were WAY TOO BIG and had to rip them out back down to a 48 stitch sock. But thankfully, the crisis was managed. Yay!

I removed the poll, because it was closed, but Socks-a-palooza won it for the April Projects. Let's see how long I can stick to that shall we? I have the red/white/blue pair of socks to finish up and then another pair for Zach. I might as well finish them both since I have a comparison pair now. Then I'll get back to socks for me. I'll probably continue to work on scarves in class, it's just easier that way. 

I've been thinking about doing a KAL or something here for all of us to show off our knitty goodness. How do people feel about that?

I'm off to work on some socks! 

Homework? What homework?