I’m a bit late in posting this, and I still don’t have pictures yet, but I got my KSKS package, and lo, it was Good. Really really good. My KSKS pal has ESP, y’all. Serious.

The bag (which kicks so much booty it’s in my car at the moment filled with all the crap that’s usually in my other two (three?) knitting bags) is not only cute, but it has this fantastic Japanese fabric lining with more pockets than you can shake a stick at. And I love me some pockets.

And the bag came FILLED with goodies! A VERY cool sock pattern written Just For Me (I’m half way through a second repeat of the 28 row stitch pattern at the moment *cough-shirking responsibilities-cough*), and some sooooper yummy Cherry Tree Hill SOLID (getout!) in a most tasty green. And a new Chibi, and a crochet hook (damn handy size for picking up those dropped stitches while knitting in the drive through at starschmucks, which I seem to do a lot of), a pen and notebook (how have I lived this long without a notebook in my bag? oh, right, the backs of ferry receipts, which explains why I can’t ever find my damn notes), one of those crazy little Clover clicky row counters (CLICKY!CLICKY!CLICKY!CLICKY!CLICKY!CLICKY!CLICKY!CLICKY!CLICKY! - the cats hate me now), a measuring tape (damn fine timing there since my chicken tape is on walkabout and is nowhere to be found. It’s probably on tour with all of Stephanie’s tapes, damn them), and, the kicker, SILLY JAPANESE CANDY! Any of you who know me well know that I have this not terribly secret yet not often talked about deeeeeep love of silly Japanese candy. LOVE. It.

So yay! KSKS goodness! Thank you Jess! I have to say I’ve been VERY lucky to have been blessed with such great pals in the swaps I’ve done so far. VERY lucky.

And on that note, please take a moment and go read Dave’s piece about swaps. He totally hits the nail on the head, at least for me. I learned a lot, I got inspired, and I got to try some stuff I’d never done before. And on top of that I got to make some new friends and connect with people I’d never have met otherwise. And that’s some good shit.

2 Comments | In: General | | #

So.. Yeah. Look at me go with the finding of the camera and the charging of the battery and the taking of pictures. Hoo-ee.

With no further ado then, photos:

Since our house gets enough sun through the skylights during the day to get the temperature up well into the 90’s on a warm day, I made some covers for the skylights to help keep things a bit cooler. The hallway (worst offender by far - and no, the ceiling isn’t green, it’s white, no clue why the camera thinks it’s green):

And the kitchen:

Pie pr0n! Spinach:

and O’s made-completely-from-scratch rhubarb pie:

The finished top of Lara’s quilt:

The beginning of the Must Have Cardi sleeve for Melissa:

The O Ripple socks in STR in Fire on the Mountain:

And on the feet (those should have been my feet, mind you, but I cannot resist the pleading of the child):

And, finally, the SP8 reveal package I got from my Secret Pal Michelle (and look! she even wrapped it in beetle paper! See how perfect she is???):

And the OMG yummy baby alpaca lace weight hand dyed by her (three pics, so you can fully wallow in your jealousy):

Thank you again Michelle for being such a great Secret Pal!

8 Comments | In: General | | #

I got The Big Reveal package from my secret pal last night! Once again, she TOTALLY hit the nail on the head with the so-perfect-for-me goodies, including an absolutely GORGEOUS skein of dyed-by-her yumminess in colors that… omg. SO perfect. And! Because y’all *know* I needed another hobby (shutUP! I did too), she sent me a bobbin lace starter kit! Woot! I’ve been eyeing those for over a year now.

So, please, go check out Michelle’s blog, and take a moment to say hello to my rockin’ secret pal!

And Michelle? THANK YOU!!! And I totally can’t wait to see the critter pix!

I have many pictures to upload as soon as the booger relinquishes my computer and I figure out where I set my camera down.

Oh, and on a totally unrelated note, Lara? Your quilt top is done, and if you’re very very very lucky it will be all quilty and headed north with Ang next week.

1 Comment | In: General | | #

You’re on your own for figuring out what the post title *should* have been. I’m too tired and, franky, too lazy to do it for you this time.

It’s Saturday. I haven’t posted in AGES. Life kind of jumped up and got right the hell in the way. But it’s not as though I haven’t been busy. Busy little beaver, that’s me.

I’ll get around to some actual knitting content at some point, maybe even this weekend, but first, a nostalgic and thoughtful interlude.

Last weekend I spent the ENTIRE weekend in the kitchen. Barefoot if you must know. Our apple tree is on its “OMG! Must feed the entire world!” year again, and that means a million apples (ok, maybe only 3,000, but still, that’s a metric fuckton of apples for one little “family”). And then we found out that our neighbors in the rental house have a peach tree out front, which was laden down with fruit, and the neighbors? They HATE peaches. Wacky, I know. So there were several pounds of peaches. And my fabulous office-mate’s plum tree is apparently on the same cycle as our apple tree, so there were many pounds of plums to deal with too.

So I cooked, and I canned. I made apple sauce (24 jars), and apple pies to freeze (uh… lots), and 4 peach cobblers to freeze, and 12 jars of apple butter, and 16 jars of plum-lemon jam. And while I was doing all this, and thoroughly enjoying it, mind you, I kept thinking about my grandma Borghild. She was the one did all the canning. I spent my summers with her when I was a kid, with all my cousins running around. I was the token City Kid. And I was mocked heartily for that. (And once or twice shot with a bb gun and at least once with an arrow. Those country kids are a HOOT to play with, I tellya).

Ahh, but this is where it gets amusing. I don’t see much of my cousins. I’ll be seeing several of them next month at my cousin Tristan’s wedding (! how can he POSSIBLY be old enough to not only get married but to PILOT COMMERCIAL PLANES???). As soon as they were all old enough, they RAN for the city and never looked back. I don’t think a one of them could show you how to can something. Or spin. Or knit. Or any of the other farmwifey stuff I do now. I’m the one does the crafty stuff, the one with the chickens (granted, they’re city chickens, but they are live, egg-laying, noisy little monsters nonetheless), and the one who spends summers laying food away for winter. In beautiful glass Ball jars. Just like my grandma did. She and I may never have really made peace with each other, but it’s times like these that I actually feel close to her.

I love it when the world comes full circle. Don’t you?

5 Comments | In: General | | #

More than you ever wanted to know about rainbows and other atmospheric optics(science 4tw!)

And The Snowsuit Effort, which is not a charity to knit for as the name might suggest, but a photo blog from the Detroit area. Absolutely amazing portraits.

Comments Off | In: General | | #

I got another package from my totally rockin’ SP8 pal. InDEED. Of course, I have no photos yet (tonight? maybe?), but wow. Again. Wow.

TWELVE skeins of Rowan 4-ply goodness. I love that stuff. Six different colors, so I’m totally thinking some fair isle something. Not sure yet, but now that I have the goods, I can actually do something with all those color patterns I’ve been lusting after.
More PEZ! I do love me some PEZ.
Mini Chicklets. Of the gum variety, thankfully.
And two super amazing books: Unexpected Knitting and Knitting Nature. I’m not sure there’s anything in either book I’ll end up making (but maybe, there’s some really fascinating construction going on in both), but the science and the techniques and the thinking-outside-the-box and the looking at knitting from TOTALLY different perspectives make both of these books just as cool as I thought they might be. Even if I don’t end up making any of the projects, I will definitely have learned something and am totally in love with both of the books.
Ooh! And chocolate WITH coffee on it. What more could you ask for?

Thanks again, Super Secret Pal! I’m all atwitter!

1 Comment | In: General | | #

Sheesh!

It’s been super crazy, and with the heat we were having, my computer decided to misbehave, so I haven’t even had the ability to post. Stupid computer.

But yeah. I’ve got yet another amazing and wonderful box full of goodies from my secret pal to show you. I’ve got some finished socks to show you. And some sewing stuff to show you. And some spinach pie pr0n of my own to show you (and if you haven’t already gone and made Lara’s spinach pie, GET IN THE KITCHEN AND MAKE SOME PIE. Seriously. It’s *that* good.) And some actual knitting progress to show you. Oh! And even some spinning to show. I’ve been kind of productive since the temperature dropped. It’s been nice.

What I can show you, though, is the bag for my Knit Sock Kit Swap pal. It’s currently being filled To The Brim with socky stuff in preparation for being shipped out to Some Place Not Here.

as usual, enclicken to embiggen

I should, hopefully, be able to actually take some photos for you tonight and get them posted. Hold your breath. Keep your fingers crossed. I don’t know if it will help or not, but the image amuses me to no end.

4 Comments | In: General | | #