Blah, blah, woof, woof.*

Ok, yeah, I know it’s been WAY too long since I posted. But a HELL of a lot has been going on. New servers, office construction, hell project, nasty cold, followed by random request from a good friend leading to……

A BRAND NEW JOB!

Indeed. It’s been a whirlwind month, folks, and while I do apologize for the severely long delay, there’s just been too much going on to stop and write. I’ll… uh… promise to at least attempt to do better on that front.

Anyway, I heart my new job. A lot. My coworkers kick ass, the commute is a million times easier and a HELL of a lot cheaper (and omfg full of crazy, smelly people!), and the company really seems to give a shit about their employees, which rocks.

In people watching news today, I got to watch a woman in 2.5″+ heels with a rolling laptop bag and a giant shopping bag from the Sharper Image do three blocks down a steep hill at a dead run. I was damn impressed. Me? I did two blocks in hiking boots with a laptop in a backpack and it damn near killed me. I don’t even think she was winded. And her ankles weren’t broken or anything. Totally amazing.

Ooh! And!
For all you kids waiting for wooden sock-in-progress needle holder thingies…. (tasty miso soup added for scale. or presentation. or something. go me with my new camera phone!)

The Techniviking has finally gotten all the bits together for his wood shop and started production! The two shown here are… uh… some exotic woods the names of which I’d never heard before and forgot before the food got to the table, and are his first run prototypes. More exotic woods and fancier turned bits to follow. They’re $25 for the plain ones, fancier ones will be priced as they’re done, but in the $28-40 range, depending on wood and stuff. 6″, 7″, 8″, and custom lengths are all options. Leave a comment or send an email to order yerself up some (but let’s not kill the poor boy right off the bat, k?).

Staggering off to bed now.

*quick! name that bad tv series!

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And yeah, that’s for me. My size, not for the kidlet. Mine! Mine I tell you! Mine! All mine!

It’s that particular level of obnoxious that has had my coworkers bursting out laughing in the middle of sentences all day. I heart my new sweater.

Also! I scored The Perfect Black Cashmere Cardigan, also $4. I do love me some Value Village.

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I give you Self Portrait Of Crazed Knitter In Car, circa… last fall sometime I think? Spring? Something.

So there. Your turn.

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I’m finally back. I’m exhausted. It was SO much more fun this time than the last time I went down, just because I knew a bunch of vendors and got to see a bunch of good friends I never get to see. OFFF 2004 was my very first fiber fest, and I went down solo, and really enjoyed it, but it was kind of lonely (and slightly overwhelming). This time I was prepared for the sensory overload, and I had a List with me (fat lot of good it did me, mind you, but I had it – mostly the problem was that only two of the four things on the list were actually available).

Many cute critters, some joyous allergy attacks, and lots of good time with wonderful folks. I have pics, but have to unpack and figure out where the camera landed before I can post those. Full report when I’ve slept and recovered.

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You know that nagging feeling you get when you leave for the weekend? That “I know I’ve forgotten something” feeling? And you know how it’s usually either a)imaginary or b)something utterly trivial? Um… Yeah.

I had that feeling when I left. I knew pretty soon after I left that I’d forgotten some yarn for my secret pal, but I was soooo sure there was something else.

And then it hit me.

Pants. And shirts. PANTS AND SHIRTS, PEOPLE. Ferfuxake. Spinning wheel? check. Knitting? Check. Bathing suit? check. Entire car full of probably unnecessary crap? check! 6 different spf’s of sunscreen? check! Pants and shirts? D’oh! Damn good thing there’s an Old Navy about every three miles, huh?

Aaaaaanyway. Oregon! Ahhh, Oregon.

I’m now here in lovely Oregon City, in a hotel room with some… uh… Very Vocal neighbors. And no, they’re not arguing, if’n you get my drift. With any luck they’re getting it out of the way now, and it won’t continue on through the night, as always seems to be my luck with hotel rooms.

ANYWAY! I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am, that I just had dinner with my secret pal! It was soooo cool to get to meet Lori and her husband and two very cute and charming daughters and have a VERY tasty Italian-ish dinner. So good. I really liked her in email, and it turns out she’s even more fun in person. The whole family was absolutely great. Much fun! (but DAMN I’m full) (but wild mushroom risotto with marinated-for-24-hours steak and grilled asparagus!).

And tomorrow and Sunday? OFFF!

Kim and Angela and Sam and Barb and Tina and Sheila and Jessica are all going to be here, and there will be more Socks That Rock than you can shake a stick at.

Now, if only the wireless here at the hotel were actually working so I could post this…

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No, these are not the photos you were looking for.

But oooh! Yummy handpainted sock yarn goodness, courtesy of Kirsten at Through The Loops (and I know you’re jealous of my consistently crap photography skills and inability to get any kind of lighting to ever work FOR me…):

And (no laughing, Lara), a genuine quilting injury (caught my arm on a pin while reaching across it, and rrrriiiiiiiiippppppppppp went the skin. Woot! And who knew it was that difficult to take a picture of your own forearm? Not I, certainly):

And, a truly rare (for me) good wildlife shot (mama seagull on the piling at the ferry dock – the babies are Not Cute anymore, sadly, but this picture makes me giggle):

That’s it for now. It’s been a tremendously fucked up couple of weeks, so not much has gotten done, and really, there’s just not much to tell. Things are picking back up and getting less crappy, so actual knitting content will return soon.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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!

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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.

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What?! I got tagged??? I’m generally not a meme person, but what the hell. I’m amused that someone actually tagged me for one, so here ya go.

5 Things always in my purse knitting bag: (I almost never carry a purse, and when I do, it’s usually full of knitting)

1. big, blue Leatherman multi-tool widget
2. 5 extra sets of sock needles (seriously. you never know when you’ll find sock yarn you HAVE TO cast on right this second. best to be prepared for that)
3. Sock yarn and/or socks in progress
4. Sunscreen
5. Checkbook (see #2)

5 Things always in my wallet:

1. Drivers license
2. Debit card
3. Insurance card
4. Picture of the Booger
5. Several fortune-cookie fortunes

5 Things always in my refrigerator: (these things are always in the fridge, which really ought to imply to you that I don’t eat them. I’m not nearly as healthy as this list (except #3) makes me look.

1. Eggs (we have chickens, so that one is a given)
2. Homemade jam
3. One scary, unnamed thing lurking in the back (you throw it out, it magically reappears)
4. Baby spinach
5. Yogurt

5 Things always in my closet:

1. Hand knit sweaters
2. Utilikilt
3. My secret stash of Coach purses
4. Non-hand-knit sweaters
5. Pants I can’t fit my fat arse into at the moment

5 Things always in my car:

1. Sunscreen
2. Bottles of water
3. Oh, hey, look! More knitting. What a shocker.
4. Hair elastics
5. iPod

5 Things always on my desk:

1. At least one dead or in the process of being repaired computer (it’s my job)
2. Melting iced soy mocha
3. Random computer parts and cables
4. Advil (vitamin I 4tw!)
5. Earth Goddess Essentials “Calm, Cool, & Collected” essential oil blend to keep me from crawling under my desk and melting down

5 People to tag

1. Erika (just because I know she’ll roll her eyes at this)
2. Angela
3. Lara (again with the eye rolling)
4. Kim
5. Devon (who does not knit (much) and doesn’t carry a purse either, but still, he’s usually game for the meme, so HA! Tag.)

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DAMN I love the internet. There’s so much wacky shit out there. Seriously.

Take seatguru.com for example. Who knew there was an entire website devoted to telling you which seats on which airlines and which airplane models are the sucky seats or the good seats. Now y’all know which seats to run for on Southwest… (well, except that they’re supposedly not doing that idiotic damn cattlecall no-seat-assignments-be-havin’ thing anymore)

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