Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! The Fall 2005 issue of Interweave Knits is on the stands (yes, already), so I was, of course, compelled to immediately buy it.

Alas. It is teh suck as it were. There are a couple of patterns in it that are *almost* tempting, and yet, not. And the rest of it? Meh. At best. Go here and see for yourself.

See? Toldja. Here’s my (abbreviated) thoughts project by project:
Brioche Helmet Hat - probably one of the few things I’ll end up making.
Bukly Brioche Raglan - Um, no. Too bulky, too long, too heavy, too something.
Cable Cascade Pullover - Oooh! A super warm butthugger! Not. Good.
Rib & Cable Socks - Yet another perfectly acceptable but not exciting sock pattern.
Cabled Shrug - You could drive a tractor up those sleeves. Nothing about this one looks practical or really wearable.
Canteen Bag - Again: eh. Another felted purse. Yawn.
Chenille Cutaway Jacket - I kind of like the lines of this one. Kind of. Hate chenille, though, so it’s hard for me to look past that and see it in something more wearable.
Drop Stitch Cardigan - Big fat EH. Looks like something you’d find in Knitter’s or InKnits. Chunky! Fast! Shapeless!
Felted Floral Collar - Um, wtf? Would anyone actually wear this thing? Seriously? Yes, felting is all the rage right now, as are those god-awful capelets, but please. Puh-LEEZE. (the model, on the other hand, is all kinds of cute)
Weekend Getaway Satchel - Surprise, surpise, more felted stuff. Almost cute, but weird, impractical, difficult to get your crap in and out of shape. Alas.
Greek Pullover - Another of the ‘close but not quite’ pieces. I kind of like it, I kind of don’t. Maybe if I were 6′ tall and flat chested it would appeal more. Not sure.
Braided Blues - Weirdly shaped - the sleeves look really narrow, and the body looks really long. Not a look that works on the human body, really. Beyond that, it’s fine. Not great, not ‘oh my god I need to make that’ wonderful, just whatever.
Union Square Market Sweater - Another ‘close but not quite’ sweater. I kind of like the neckline, but know it probably wouldn’t work on me. I loathe bell sleeves more than almost anything, but that’s just a personal issue. They work on a lot of people, just not me. No way no how. I probably won’t end up making this one either.
Veste Everest - It’s a vest. I don’t do vests. ‘Nuff said.
Blissful Jacket - Um… No. Nothing appealing about that one at all.
Fair Isle Hoodie & Cardigan - Oh dear god no. No no no no no. Run away. Run away! Gah. The stuff bad dreams are made of. Right up there with clowns. In fact…
Vintage Inspired Jacket - GAH. The original piece that this was modelled after was WONDERFUL. As a knit jacket it Does. Not. Work. And the Beyond The Basics article that follows? Have you read her book about designing knitwear? No? Take that article and stretch it out to a couple hundred pages and you’ve got the idea. Yes? Then you’ve heard all this before and really probably don’t care how she swatches a billion times. There’s no useful design information there to speak of, really. Yes, color and texture and interesting edgings. How about structure, kids? We’d like some of that.
Textured Coat - BWAH HA HA HA HA! Oooh! Lumpy! Tres chic!
Essential Indulgence - Another one that I kind of almost like, but… not enough to make, methinks. Alas.
Suede Vest - This is a joke, right? Really. Why on earth would anyone make this? It’s horrendous. Skinny little top part with extra hip-widening action! Could she look any worse? She’s so cute, and yet this makes her look excessively misshapen. Tragic. Absolutely tragic.
Fair Isle Skirt - Eh. Almost cute, but… I’m thinking that unless you’re a size 4 or smaller this would be a terrible mistake to apply to your ass. I could be wrong, but I’m thinking it would make anyone look a LOT wider than they really are.
Fur Trimmed Wrap - Another terrible waste of cashmere. Cashmere and fake fur novelty yarn should never, ever, under any circumstances be used in the same project. Ever. Ditch the evil novelty yarn trim and it might work. Might.

And, people, please. The poncho thing? Let’s go over it one more time. They were ugly in the 70’s, they’re ugly now. Clear? Ok. So stop already. Please.

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Last year our raspberry bushes produced all of 5 berries. Total. This year? Berries-o-rama. O and I picked a butt ton of berries this morning and made some jam. 17 jars of it to be specific. Now, granted, not all of that is straight raspberry. I found some really lovely peaches at the store when we went (the first time) to get lemons, so there is some raspberry, some peach, and lots of raspberry/peach. Yummeh!

See?
   

I think a few of the jars were hiding from the camera, but you get the idea. And aren’t those new Ball jars THE SHIT??? You know which ones I’m talking about. The wonderful little flat lookin’ ones with the silver lids? I love them, other than the fact that they do not stack well. At all. Serious design flaw there, but my god they’re pretty. And the bottom picture? That was me taking the picture from a funny angle. The jars aren’t really leaning nearly as much as they look like they are in that picture. I swear.

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Holy crap! It actually fits! And she didn’t outgrow it before she got it. Will wonders never cease?

Here’s the sproglet IN her Rogue. Not bad for having kid-measured measurements and winging the gauge to get it small enough to fit her.

From the front (note the lovely 2-sizes too big pants that are still too short, not that you can see that part, but that’s why the pants are soooo baggy):

And from the side, with the hood up:

I’m all kinds of happy about it, and she totally loves it. w00t!

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Since I’m way too tired to even try to think of anything even mildly witty to say about anything right now, I’ll just give you pictures.

First up, the second Apricot cardi, still not in apricot ‘cos that would look like shit on me. Instead, in basic black cashmere. Revel in my picture taking abilities and the amount of detail you can see here. Woo!

And another view of it, included only because the angle at which it was taken makes it look incredibly vast:

And the promised picture of the fugly roving spun up into some not-so-ugly yarn, which isn’t *quite* this bright, but I couldn’t get a picture of the actual amount of brightness, so deal:

Followed by one crap-ass picture of the mostly finished sock for Barb’s impending baby:

And, just for kicks, one pic of the chrysalis I found in the garden a couple of weeks ago. It was wiggly when I found it, alas, it wiggles no more:

So there.

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I know, I know. I didn’t even bother to mention that I had started another Apricot, and yet, I did, and I just finished it. It still needs blocking and some buttons, but all the rest is done. In yummy, yummy black cashmere. Damn shame it’s 70 some odd degrees out there right now. And no, y’all aren’t getting a picture of this one yet, ‘cos that would require me to go find a tank top to put on under it, since right now it would be, uh, standard euro knitting magazine style with nipples poking through the eyelets, and while I love y’all, I aint goin’ there, not even for you. Sorry.

I’ll go get some buttons for it and get it blocking, and then I’ll take some pictures of it. Along with the spun-up ugly, and the teeny little sweater that I made for Calli’s little one (which I’m sure she’s outgrown by now, so I’ll start something new and even cuter for her and stockpile this for the next baby girl that comes along). Oh, and there’s a sock too. A teeeeeeny little cable front sock in Koigu.

Yeah, I know… I’ve been all kinds of suckful about the updates lately. Lame as hell, I know. I’m sorry. Tonight I will take pictures. I will I will I will. Might even get them posted tonight. We shall see.

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Ok, ok, so it’s not a race. And for the most part we didn’t even go all that fast. But we did rally, yessiree bob.

This past weekend was the 2005 No Alibi, which we did not come even close to winning, but I’m pretty sure we had more fun than any of the winning teams did. So there. Neener neener.

Squagel turned out to be a DAMN fine rally partner, and did DAMN well for having never rallied before EVER IN HIS WHOLE LIFE. We put his poooor 2002 Jetta to more of a test than I think the engineers at Volkswagon had ever intended it to be put through, and it did pretty damn well. Other than the end of the day Saturday, when the air filter was so clogged with dust that we had precious little in the way of acceleration.

There were some VERY hairy roads, including one road that drops about 3000 feet in .8 mile. It was REALLY narrow, had frightening exposure on both sides, and is, apparently, used by school busses during the winter, and was made of nicely potholed dirt and loose gravel. Serious as a heart attack.

This year there’s been a LOT more rain than in previous years, so most of the route was unbelievably lush and green (it was still dusty like you wouldn’t believe though).

I think the best, though, was during one of the last legs, we were totally running sooo close to perfect time, and were coming down a hill on a wide gravel road with a speed limit of 50. We were going 46 or so, and about 100 yards ahead of us three little kids on quad runners pull out into the middle of the road. One of them stopped on the far side of the road, the other two jumped off their quad and started PULLING it backwards all the way across the road. We slowed to almost a stop not knowing what they were doing or if they were going to be out of the way by the time we got there. The two on the right finally got their quad pulled far enough off the road for us to pass. Which we did. Slow like, with the kids waving at us.
Now. These kids? The oldest of the three couldn’t have been more than 6. SIX. The other two? Four or so. Parents? Nowhere to be seen. So thee kids under the age of 7 on fucking quad runners playing in TRAFFIC. Public road, speed limit 50.
I didn’t think too much more about it until we got to the end and found out that the mother of said kids BITCHED OUT THE RALLY MASTER about the incident. The hell? Parental responsibility? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? The rallymaster seemed amused by it, and ‘talked’ to us about it, as he had promised the Stupid Woman he would, and we all agreed that we had slowed to a reasonable point and not endangered the stupid little unsupervised children, but COME ON! If you’re letting your kids play on motor vehicles in traffic, you have NO right to get upset when cars come down that road. None. It’s almost as bad as this one.

Want some pictures of the whole weekend? Of course you do! Too bad! No, there are a few… But only a few:
The dust on our car at the end of day 1:

The dust tracks we were leaving behind when we were going slow:

One of the GREEN green fields we drove through:

And, last but not least, my favorite of all the stickers on any of the rally cars. There is one of these on each side of the roof, right above the doors on another of the Team D cars.

Click on the picture to read the text

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My level of surprise at the results of the spinning up of the fugly roving would elicit a “well coat me in butter and throw me into a French prison!” from our fabulous graphics guy Tony. Seriously.

You remember fugly, dontcha?

Ok, so I’m the Queen of Slack these days and haven’t bothered to take a picture of it spun up, but I really kind of like the way it turned out. I spun it a little thicker than I usually spin, so it’s about a… maybe heavy worsted weight? ish? and there isn’t all that much of it, but who woulda guessed? (yeah, yeah, a couple of you, I know)

I’ll get pics of it up maybe tonight, if I can muster the energy to get up off my fat ass and take a picture of it. We shall see.

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