Wow. What happened to my day? Let’s take it from the top, shall we?

First up there was the chickens going off at some unholy hour this morning, leading me to the realization that the Booger was already up and downstairs watching Buffy.

Got up, threw on my favorite pj bottoms and a thermal shirt, grabbed the pieces of Angela’s new wheel and headed for the basement.

Ooh! Coffee! Back up the stairs I go. Coffee made, back down the stairs. This concludes the exercise portion of today’s program.

Get the Rose put together and adjusted to suit, bust out with 4oz of alpaca from Winderwood Farms and spin for the first time in weeks. Numerous episodes of Buffy go by. Woo! 122yds of 2-ply pretty pretty pretty alpaca yarn!

Realize my ass is totally asleep.

I think there was some breakfast in there somewhere.

Switch to another wheel and some baby camel/silk blend.

Avoid the dirty looks from Booger and Critter Boy as they pull strands of silk out of their sandwiches at lunch.

Have the sinking suspicion that the ball of camel/silk is actually getting bigger and not smaller as I spin.

More spinning, more food.

OMFG. It’s 10:30 and I’m still in my pj’s.

Really? What more could you ask of a Saturday?

Heading back to the Seattle Knitting Expo tomorrow morning on my way to drop the Booger off. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll run into more folk I know. And maybe if you’re lucky I’ll have pictures to show for it.

4 Comments | In: General | | #

Oh, crap. Nevermind. I totally forgot what I was going to say.

Yes, it’s been one of *those* days…

3 Comments | In: General | | #

This is why lace knitting is so magical.

You knit and knit and knit and you end up with this lumpy blob, like so:

And then you get it wet and pin it out (or, as Sivia instructs you to do with this one: “block it severely”), and you get this:

Pure magic. I do love me some lace.

And up close, just ‘cos I know you’d want to see it:

Project specs:
Pattern: Diamond Fantasy Shawl by Sivia Harding
Yarn: Fleece Artist Merino in marine colorway (used most of the 750 yd skein)
Started: Friday night, April 7, 2006
Finished: Saturday morning, April 22, 2006
Finished Dimensions: 76″ wide x 44″ long (pinned out dimensions - I’m sure that it will shrink a little bit when I unpin it, though)

And no, I haven’t accomplished anything on any of the rest of my projects in the last two weeks. Tomorrow I have every intention of spending some quality sock-knitting time and some quality spinning time. So there.

5 Comments | In: General | | #

There’s nothing like starting your day by having to rip out 16 looooong rows of lacey knitting. Dammit. Good thing I had the lifelines in there. I think now that I’m on chart repeat 8 of 10 I’ll have to start putting them in more often and not just at the end of each chart. This morning I was on row 16 (the chart is a 20 row repeat) of repeat 8, and had to rip back to the lifeline. Grrr. Alas. Teaches me patience and perseverance. Or something.

2 Comments | In: General | | #

Ok, I know. I’m late with this. But! I did it! Hello! Photos!

Here goes (in absolutely no particular order):

First up we have my new current OCD obsession, Bunny In The Garden. It’s done 1 over 1 on… (I think) 36 count linen. Might be 32. Either way? Crazyness.:

Then, we have the current project for Melissa, the Diamond Fantasy shawl in Fleece Artist merino (which doesn’t feel like merino to anyone who has felt it yet - we all think it may be a mis-marked skein with some silk in it? something)

Next up is a pair of Lacy Scallops socks in Blue Moon Socks That Rock in Fire On The Mountain:

And then my pretty pretty pretty new tools from Fred Hatton. Custom made for me, even. Birdseye maple, which is one of my favorite woods:
0

Followed by my current drag-it-around-everywhere-knit-without-thinking-about-it project - a Leaf Lace Shawl in Fleece Artist superwash merino in…. Cosmic Dawn?:

And my “oh fuck” moment of the day - this is how I found the above project when I pulled it out of my bag this morning:

The beginnings of yet another sock in Lorna’s Laces, colorway unknown but wonderful:

The beginnings of yet another sock (’cos you can’t have too many socks, right?) in Lisa Souza Sock! in Pacific. I think this one is going to be Potawhatchamacallit from Knitty if I ever get past the damn 1×1 ribbing:

Pink! Stripey! Socks! This was the project where I discovered that self-striping sock yarn is Fun.

And, lastly, one sock each from two pairs of recently finished socks. The dark one is from Knitting Vintage Socks, the light one is from a recent Interweave Knits. Both are in Trekking XXL, which is wonderful stuff, although the dark one has gotten FUZZY like you wouldn’t believe. Alas. They get worn. A LOT.

4 Comments | In: General | | #

Because there are things out there that just amuse the everlovin’ hell out of me, and I should share.

I’m not sure why I keep reading this blog. I’m not vegan, and not likely to ever be vegan (see below), but there’s something absurdly appealing about the chronicles of someone’s daily lunch. And really? Some of the stuff she puts in the lunch box sounds damn tasty.

Stuffed poo! Slugmonkey! Stuffed crazy. Gotta love that. Main page here.

Mmm, bacon tastes good! Sugar tastes good! Two great tastes that taste great together? You bet! Candied bacon! Spicy candied bacon! Candied bacon and eggs! Yay! Bacon!

Duct tape evening bags!

The latest in idiotic shit to put on your pimp sled. (I really wish I could find the original link that Wade sent me for these. It was hysterical how Totally Seriously they were taking this product. Alas.)

Holy crap! Lions!

And, of course, the ever popular Llama, Llama, Duck

more to come as I find them.

Ooh! And! I found my camera, and I’ve located the battery charger, so tonight! Tonight, people, there will be photos! Woot!

2 Comments | In: General | | #

…how you can start a project with one yarn, and it will take FOREVER to make any progress and the whole thing just seems to be utter hateful torture, but then you put it away for a while and start it again later with a different yarn and OMFG! The progress! Holy crap! Puppies and rainbows and unicorns!

That, my friends? Has been my exact experience with the Leaf Lace Shawl. First started in… dunno, some nice, soft, grey/green merino. Every. Stitch. Was. Torture. Every one. I couldn’t memorize the pattern to save my life (and if you’ve knit this shawl, you know there’s no excuse for that one), I couldn’t seem to make progress, I just couldn’t make it work. Period. I restarted it Sunday night in some yummy, yummy, omgcan’tgetenoughofit Fleece Artist 2/6 merino, and whoosh! I’m almost at the half way point, and I really haven’t had all that much time to knit this week.

Hated it passionately the first time around, loving it intensely this time around. Go figure.

3 Comments | In: General | | #

Why yes! I am still alive! I do, mind you, seem to be broken.

At some point in the past two weeks I managed to separate my sacro-iliac joint. You would think I would have noticed that happening, but I can’t pinpoint the moment I did it, so my guess would be either a)early onset dementia or b)I was asleep. I’m not sure which of those two options is the better one, really. But yeah. The joint came apart, and when it went back together, it went back…. wrong. Really wrong. So for the past week and a half + I’ve been gimping around, waffling somewhere between “I should be wearing a plaid shirt, pants that come up to my armpits, and suspenders with my belt” and “Don’t even think about moving my due date AGAIN and trying to convince me that I’m not two weeks overdue already!*”. It’s pathetic, really, since I’m neither that old nor pregnant.

This, of course, would be my lame-ass excuse as to why I haven’t posted. Or taken pictures. I have been knitting, though. Finished two patterned bags from Handknit Holidays for Melissa for her shop (Links to which I aint got. Deal.), and a pair of socks from my first skein of self-striping yarn. Those were damn fun and knit up mighty quick, all things considered. All things like my total lack of attention span.

I didn’t manage to take pictures of the bags before I sent them back to Melissa, but the socks (along with the other two pairs I’ve finished recently) are still here, and maybe tomorrow night I’ll get around to taking pictures of them. MAYBE.

Now you know.

*they did that to me not just once but TWICE when I was preggers with Booger. Bastards.

2 Comments | In: General, knit-o-rama | | #