First half of holidays down

Went to my MIL's for dinner tonight. It went pretty well. I now know how to make twice-baked potatoes, which is kind of cool. I got to meet the new doggie who is very sweet. I also remembered how to smile my way through stuff that my husband's grandmother says.

I got there at about four. I had eaten breakfast, but not lunch since I was kind of in a fever pitch to get myself out and over to my in-laws. So I was chilling and hanging out. I had 1 cookie and 3 cubes of pumpernickel bread with spinach dip and my DH's grandmother makes the comment is "wow that girl can eat." For a second it took me right back to my maternal grandmother who used to put me on "diets" as a child and then proceed to stuff me as full of cookies and other stuff when my cousins were over. Go figure. But she hasn't been right for a while. The rest of it went well.

I just have my dad and grandmother tomorrow. That hopefully will go just as well.

Well, I'm off to watch Christmas Story at the moment. And work on a doily. Unfortunately the goddess afghan didn't get finished, but that's okay. I can leave it as a surprise for when they get back from their trip :)

Oh the weather outside is frightful ...

But we've got no fire to be delightful. Man. When you look on the weather channel's predictions online for your city and see, not heavy snow, but blizzard, damn. Weather map has a system lined up all the way to Michigan. Oh well. Lolita is being cancelled for the the weekend and we are going out to Bravo for my birthday (which isn't until the 22nd anyway, so no harm no foul). I have a husband who is playing Command and Conquer on his laptop like there is no tomorrow, watching Torchwood and Dr. Who. I have a cat cuddled on one half of my lap and the laptop balanced on the other with another cat behind my head. So, it's still kind of a good day :)

I think I may drag out the doily stuff. The afghans would keep me warm, but the doilies keep me a hair more interpersonal since they don't involve me yelling at people and critters to stop messing with it, damnit. LOL.

I've Got a Goddess Dripping Off My Hook :-)

Finally, I've come up with an afghan that I can give my MIL. The pattern is the Goddess afghan from Happy Yellow House. It's working up marvelously. It's mindless but looks complicated, which is awesome.



As you can see, it even has the Jack seal of approval. Don't mind the bed. I wasn't expecting him to jump in and pose.



Of course, I still have the idea of the the aran afghan. And now I'm wanting doilies. I don't know why because I have very little actual use for them, but damn I want to make the pretty lace again. It's one of my few skills that I haven't shown off yet ;-)

I'm a sucker for these, lol

Lets101 Quizzes - Quizzes for Fun

It's arrived ...

I just looked out the window at the first snow of the season that has stuck. Sigh. DH is not going to be happy. He's driving in tomorrow and will not want to be doing it in snow. Especially on a Sunday where they are a bit more ... ummm ... lackadaisical about plowing and salting. At least I made it home from SnB before it started. I really hate dealing with the first work day that involves snow. The entire city forgets that it knows how to deal with snow. Oh well.

Goddess afghan is still going well. I made it through the first repeat. Now I have about 20 more patterns rows before I come to another stripe. I'm working and watching my random selection of movies. I went and bought my library card out of hock today. I had $27 worth of fees. And what did I do? I got 3 more of the things that got it up that high in the first place. I got the 4oth anniversary edition of Sound of Music, Buffalo Girls, and the one I couldn't remember at SnB (much to my chagrin) The Covenant. Hopefully I will remember watching it after I have done so, lol.

We keep growing at SnB. We picked up 2 stragglers, one that I talked to last week and another one who showed up and much good conversation was had :) I also actually talked to the guy that we invariably are trying to oust from the couches. He's really nice, and now I feel incredibly bitchy about doing what I have been doing. Oh well. Such is my life. Miss Crabbypants Ragemuffin reporting for duty! ... LOL

And the last pattern wins!

Well, of course it does, lol. Once you have a winner you don't keep looking. But it looks like the Goddess afghan is a good one :)

Hooray! Off to work on it some more.

The spice must flow ...

Your Score: Cardamom

You scored 75% intoxication, 50% hotness, 50% complexity, and 25% craziness!

You are Cardamom!

Not many people know you. You're kind of sweet, subtle, and maybe even shy. You're definitely understated and totally underrated. But once people get to know you, they can't get enough. You touch some esoteric, ancient place deep inside people and they love you for it.

Link: The Which Spice Are You Test written by jodiesattva on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Blast from the past

Instead of crocheting I was digging around YouTube in search of music that I remembered from high school. When I was one of the arbiters of oddball music among my friends. When I wanted to kill my father because he changed my very carefully tuned car radio back to the local station whenever he worked on the car. I was driving a 1981 Ford Crown Victoria Ltd. that was a police cruiser in 1994 and listening to what became 107.9 The End (damn multimedia mogul bastards who changed the format ... grumble grumble grumble). Anyway, I remember loving this song. I'd embed it, but it appears that the record company has blocked it. I can't be too pissed since I found it. Anyway without further ado, if you wish to click through that is ... Material Issue's song Valerie.

I've got project ADD

I was gushing over that cable pattern. I loathe it in the yarn I have. It's too dark for the cables to show up well and if they don't, what's the point of all the work? So I'm frogging, yet again. So for those of you who are convinced that you are project polyamorists, then just look at me, lol.

I have a new plan. A scathingly brilliant idea. I always intended to make the Goddess afghan for my MIL. I think this is the universe trying to kick me in the butt again. So another 200 some chains tonight. Although with worsted weight and a K hook, I'm going to have to go up to an M hook on the chain. I made the discovery this week that I need to go up 2 hook sizes on the chain. Then I can just chain and don't have to concentrate on loose or tight. Hopefully I'll like this one and won't be looking for another pattern tomorrow.

I got my surprise this morning :) Two pounds of chocolate from Montana, lol. He's a sweetie. I just have to make sure not to make a huge pig out of myself. There really should be some for him when he comes home, lol.

Surprise!

Okay, so I get my present from DH in the morning. We forget to grab it from the semi and with a bag of laundry and 2 calzone boxes, he had enough on his lap.

I also finally managed to remember to bring the pattern in so maybe I can work on that while he's working on his podcast, when I'm not needed for voiceover work.

Anyway, this is my basically waving hi post. All the books that needed to be out by 11/29 are out and I'm kicking back for the night. Maybe watch some Iron Chef America :)

Serendipity again

The ripple is frogged. It was irritating and I kept adding stitches at the beginning so that it wasn't a straight edge. So I quit, I'm done with that one. So I went online to look up another pattern I'd seen so I could just print it and didn't have to pull the ballband off something else. As I was looking I noticed another pattern that looked really familiar. Except the other times I'd seen it, the only way it appeared to be available was with $50 of new yarn. The cabled afghan I've yammered about is a freebie here. And miracle of miracles, required the same amount of yarn. I'm really taking this as a sign now :)

So tonight, another chain in another hall. Okay, that sounds so much better in Evita, lol. Oh well. I have to run tidy up the house a bit. I'm getting DH back for a night ... with a present

Squee!

One more week ... a miscellany

One more week before the great grand push to get everything out for the year will be done. Woohoo! I just spent about 3 hours doing some work from home and I'm ready to kill. Hopefully my coworker won't find my comments too snarky. She's going to have a bird when she sees how much work needs done (and how much weird stuff appears to have happened that I don't think she can control).

Just when I thought I was safe, both of my parents called me today. Both fishing for info. Is there a way that I can get a caller ID unit that will allow me to forward their calls to other parent when I know they are going to do this to me? Sigh, gotta stop whining and worrying about this. Oh well.

Started on the ripple today. It's kind of a slow go, it is single crochet and single crochet in the back loop only. So basically it is a crochet rib ripple only with the ribbing following the ripple. I'll take a pic when I'm a little less into slamming thing around. I'm not really angry, just feeling pent up. Maybe I should have spent like Friday afternoon with my inlaws. I was genuinely enjoying myself (and I really didn't expect that).

Speaking of inlaws, I should start pestering my MIL to get reservations soon. She told me that she wanted an excuse to go somewhere for my birthday (and to blame it on me, lol). So I got this great grand idea. One Iron Chef, 2 area restaurants :D I talked her into taking me to Lolita for my birthday. Squee! His food seems a bit more down to earth than some I've seen, so hopefully I'll be okay. I've never done the fine dining thing in my life, so I figure the slightly more casual one would be the way to go. Yes, I've led a sheltered life, lol.

Anyway, time to ripple away what's left of the evening

4 lbs

Okay, so I'm nuts. I went out and bought the yarn I needed for the ripple that I was rambling about yesterday. It's crazy, but I'm taking the fact that the yarn that I picked was on sale as a sign that I'm supposed to be making it. I can't complain, yarn that normally sells for $6.99 was going for $4.59. Woot!

Off to chain 250, joy. :)

Actual crochet content ... lol

I love it when you are racing against the end of your skein and win. It was actually a little over 12" I had left of the yarn when I finished the row of blocks, but that is getting really really tight when you are doing tunisian crochet. Teehee!

Small things amuse me, what can I say?

I'm making incredible time on this afghan. I think taking it to the coffeeshop is really helping (when I don't spill on it that is).

I'm thinking I want to make an afghan for MIL for the winter holidays (I'd say Hanukkah, but I probably won't get it finished by then, even with the 7 extra days and giving it to her on the final day and besides, she'll call it her Xmas present anyway). I started working on one particular ripple that I've liked for a long time (it has alternating chevrons of openwork in the ripples), but it it irritated the hell out of me the first time and this time wasn't any different. So, as boring as it will be, I think I'm going to do a plain ripple (single crochet in the back loop only, yes I am indeed crazy). I even found the yarn color I want. I had a hell of a time finding the dark dark green I've used in the past, but in looking for it I found Caron pounders in leaf green. More character to the green :D So yayness. Although even attempting to do this sounds dangerously like an exercise in futility.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It went better than I thought. Only one uncomfortable moment where dad went fishing for info. Other than that, it was stories about movies and pets and general family news. Whew! I'm just amazed that for once I kept my mouth shut. But once I answered his question, it just would have gone on and on forever.

My SIL has cooled out ... a lot. She's kind of an oddball about food and I'm guessing she always will be, but that's okay. My nephew is utterly cute and provides much entertainment. Besides, what's not to love in a very enthusiastic excuse to watch Cars? Besides the oddball admission that I will watch the Thomas the Tank Engine series without the provocation of children, it went well. :)

Hope every one else had a great Thanksgiving too!

A letter

To the jackass that called me at 4 am:

I do not know Brittany. I don't want to. Why in the hell you were calling her at 4 am, I have no clue.

As for me telling you who I am, nu uh buster.

May you have a sleepless night over this, you idiot.

Sigh.

I'm so tired.

I want to work on my afghan, but screw it. I'm going to bed.

I'm fried ... how are you?

moar funny pictures

Picking and choosing Stitch Stirrers memes, lol

I was kind of at a loss for something to write today. I kinda took the day off from crafting and I have to mow the lawn tomorrow which means that I have to get into work early so I can leave early to have daylight to mow (joy!), so I can't stay up late (I will anyway, but that's beside the point). Anyway, the latest Stitch Stirrers prompt is come up with 10 things you are thankful for and I thought, how appropriate for this week. So, in no particular order and without further ado ...

1. Friends that are there for you through ... whatever.
2. Having family to complain about visiting (love even when they irritate the life out of me).
3. My husband, my great white rescuer from various forms of hell :).
4. My cats, the furry faces make the house much less lonely.
5. My house, it provides shelter even in all it's quirkiness.
6. My neighbors, without which my life would be less entertaining.
7. Chocolate, just 'cause.
8. My job without which none of this would be financed. (I kid, I like my job).
9. The skill and the free time to practice my hobbies.
10. Ravelry, enabler of my hobbies, lol.

Whew! I did it. Was almost afraid I wouldn't be able to. :)

Lazy Sunday

Yeah. I was going to do dishes, do laundry, get groceries, work more on the coffee-spill afghan (which is no worse for wear, yay!), and finish off the stuff I brought home from work to do.

What actually happened?

I slept until almost noon (I went to bed around 12:3o am), messed around on the internet, played with the cats, ate some pizza, and watched TV. Le sigh.

I suppose I better go finish up the work stuff before it gets to be midnight and I realize I have a couple of hours of work that HAS to be done.

:)

Just when I thought I could go out in public ...

I manage to dump about half of a large iced coffee on myself and the afghan I'm working on for my husband. Sigh. I got most of the coffee out at the coffee shop ... getting myself soaked while I was at it. I'm getting to test the colorfastness of the yarn a lot sooner than I expected. But it's RH so it's fine. I just took it out of the washer. So yayness! LOL, if you give Teesa a coffee, then she'll spill it, and lots of laundry will ensue.

I'm just waiting for the dryer to finish so that my itchy fingers can go back to working on it. :)

My swatch, let me show you it

I've been whining and complaining that I have a shawl/stole pattern roaming around in my head. I took a concrete step toward starting it and swatched the specialty stitch I want to use. It's a bit of a pain, but quite pretty. I'm a bit worried about drape though. However, right now I'm working it in yarn that would have gone into an afghan that I've given up on for the moment. Easy to replace. Anyway, without any further ado, thistle stitch.


It's a very textural stitch, and I'm planning on using it sparingly. It's kind of bizarre to be working them this close together. Thank heavens it is easier than it looks like. Now to plan the rest of it. There's probably going to be at least three more swatches before I start working out exactly what I want to do. At least it is forward motion. :)

Family ... sigh

Warning: this is another navel gazing day with no crafting.

So I have a choice for Thanksgiving. I can go to my inlaws, see my BIL and SIL with my adorable nephew and get poked to produce a granddaughter so my MIL has a matched set; or I can go to my grandmother's to get poked about my parent's impending divorce. Actually forget the or. I have to do both and I'm not entirely happy about it.

Grandma's pisses me off because I can feel them wanting me to choose sides. Especially since the whole list making process of what my mom wants out of the house happened last weekend. It wasn't pretty from what she said. So we'll see.

My MIL's isn't that bad per se. But I'll be damned if I actually know how to deal with my nephew. I've never gotten past his baptism party where my MIL had to ask SIL's permission to hold her grandson. Never mind that my SIL's sisters were toting the kid everywhere. I know she hates us all, but damn. Sigh. I know, it's whiny.

Well, it's the busy season, I should actually get some of the work I brought home done now.

In dreams begin responsibilities

Okay, I've had my U2 fix for the day. I love the song that the title is taken from, it just has so many quotes for so many occasions.

I just got a new book today, for April mostly it looks like. I've been clamoring for a book from "the other side" and now I got one. Woot! And I'm also going to be a liaison to the mothership (corporate HQ) for some things now too. Damn. It's almost scary. Okay, forget the almost. It's really weird though. I spent years having "jobs" and this one could turn into a career. Which was always the goal with the whole college thing, but, it always seemed really far away. And kind of scary that it took me until my early thirties to get there. Evidently, I have now arrived.

No snowflakes today. Have gone back to the afghan while I rebuild what !@#$ iTunes took away from me yesterday. Corrupted, my ass. It just wanted to delete every podcast I had. So I'm taking the opportunity to listen to a favorite from the beginning. Unfortunately, I lost all my placemarkers in all of my podiobooks. Grrrrrrr. It isn't the end of the world, just irritating me.

Okay, I give in ....

More snowflakes, unfinished since the store didn't have the yarn needles that I wanted. Sigh, but that's okay. So here's the pic :)


Not the best pic, but trying to fit six snowflakes, three of them big, was interesting but oh well. What I want now is some Glittalic. I got in touch with a friend of mine who is heading for a really crappy Christmas, so most of the snowflakes are probably going to her. But I found a pattern for popcorn stitch garland. So I think I'm going to make her some. It isn't a hell of a lot but I thought it might brighten her day a bit.

Ah well, off to watch Torchwood and make bumpers for DH's podcast.

Aiming to misbehave

I miss this show. The movie was great, but I miss the series. Hence, the YouTube goodie :)

Pleased with myself :)

So I managed to get through a dinner with my mom without any arguments. We came close, but only because she was convinced the restaurant was a family-style thing, which would have sucked. DH will eat very few vegetables and we try to avoid pork, so picking stuff out by committee had every feeling of a minefield. It was a buffet, thank goodness, and an excellent one. I got to give my mom a year's worth of presents, watch my husband corrupt a 12-year-old with sci-fi, and watch a grown man eat 2 plates of ice cream (not my DH, by the way, lol). It was worth driving to Smithville, even if we were grousing.

Crocheted snowflake creation continues apace. I would take a pic, but I'm starting to feel remiss for not working in my ends first, so there isn't one. Not to mention that I didn't realize there was a limit to the total amount of pics that can be posted for free on Blogger. Oh well. I'll link to Flickr when I run out.

I won the recording war today. DH wrote a flash fic and we were trying to record it. He was trying to direct me, which felt kind of stilted but didn't sound too bad. Then we listened to the playback and the way it sounded deleted so many IQ points it wasn't even funny. So he recorded it his way and I recorded it mine. He liked mine better. It's only a matter of time really before I start attempting to podcast for myself, lol. Then I can amaze/bore lots of people with the crochet stuff that I've taught myself over the years :)

So it has been a pretty productive weekend. Now I'm going to switch back to yarn for a while and work on the the afghan.

More snowflakes

And after I posted yesterday, I made these 3. Two snowflakes and an icicle. I'm on a roll with these, lol. Although I think I need another snowflake book because I'm not liking the other ones in the 101 snowflakes book at the moment. Oh well.


I'm using snowflakes to avoid today's other activity. I may blog about it later, but complaining about my mom complaining about having to go through the house in preparation for the whole divorce thing. I'm just hoping dinner is good.

It's November, you can't blame me :)

I've been thinking about doilies for a while now, but not really been in the mood to commit the time to the ones I love, which have a tendency to be huge. Although that would be helped if I didn't use size 10 thread when I'm supposed to use size 20, but these things happen, lol. Then I had a brainstorm. I do have a couple of books of fast doilies. So behold ....


My first snowflake in a couple of years. Totally unblocked, unstarched, and I haven't woven in the ends yet. But that's okay.

I mentioned making these to a coworker and she wanted to commission me. Only problem is, I can't promise that I can get a set amount done. I haven't done threadwork in, pretty much a year. I don't have problems with cotton dishclothes unless I'm really cranking on them, but damn, the little thread hurts the wrists somewhat. Also, snowflake patterns are usually made by word people. I love symbol crochet. You get such a better idea of exactly what's going on. And you won't get what happened to the other snowflake that I wanted to take a pic of. The instant I ripped it back, I figured out what I needed to do. Would have been so much faster with a diagram, but oh well. I can rebuild it, I have the technology :)

Random stuff

I keep seeing the 8 Random Things meme and since I'm kind of dry on stuff, I'm tagging myself. It will be more entertaining than my rant about driving in to work this morning. I'll spare you all that one (trust me, you are better off). So here goes.

1. I'm a quarter Irish and a quarter German. About the other half, I have no clue because no one will talk about my biological grandfather. Have to wonder what happened to force a divorce in the mid-40s.
2. I'm addicted to documentaries. I will watch the same ones over and over, especially if they scare me.
3. There are really only two scents of candles that I like lately, honeydew melon and ginger pumpkin. The melon is for summer and the ginger pumpkin is for fall and winter.
4. I was never a cat person until I got the two I have. Never liked 'em. Now I purposely try and get them to hop in bed with me, lol. And they like me better than my DH, who is a cat person.
5. I'm on the second generation of the latest Tamagotchi. Yes, I do know that I'm 31.
6. Until I married my husband, I had never left the country and barely left the state of Ohio. He took me to Toronto because that little fact about me drove him nuts.
7. The first car that I bought for myself (with help from my DH before we got married) was financed by a loan from his parents, one of the terms of which was that I marry him.
8. I used to watch baseball games just to irritate and confuse my father.

So there I am, in all my randomness :)

Celtic Horoscope

You Are A Cedar Tree

You are elegant yet unpretentious, modest yet vivacious. Attractive and friendly, you are full of imagination but might lack passion. You abhor vulgar people, and you don't like anything in excess. You have little more ambition than to live a calm life and enjoy nature. You create a content, peaceful atmosphere for others.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

Stacking turtles!

Okay, so I never spend money when they have the 10,000 Villages sale at work. I'm excellent at resisting. The thing is, I have this SIL and she's very earth and socially conscious. Then there were all these recalls of plastic kid's stuff for lead paint and small parts. Then, sitting on a back table in the lobby at work was this ....


The bright cloth stacking turtles! Aren't they cute? Fair trade and less chance of lead paint. I'll wait until next year to upgrade my nephew's Little People animals. So, it's official, the holiday shopping season is on. I'm just hoping that an almost 2 year-old little boy will like this (crosses fingers).

And wow, on the way to work this morning ... snow ... damn. I know it is about time, but wasn't expecting to see it for real. Now it's really windy and they are calling for possible accumulation tonight and tomorrow morning. Hopefully there isn't too much, it makes rush hour too interesting.

Ah well, enough doom and gloom. I give you as the final thought, my favorite of the turtles:

:)

It's funny ...

I used to get upset thinking about all the WIPs that I had. Now that I am whittling them down, I'm a wee bit frightened of not having 400 million projects over my head. Sigh, it never rains but it pours I guess, lol.

Of course, there really isn't any fear that I will be project deprived for long. I want to make my MIL an afghan, I want to make my nephew bath puppets, I want to make an afghan for my own bed, I want to try my hand at socks of some sort, and so on and so on and scooby dooby doo. Sorry, my brain works in oddly musical ways sometimes.

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything else, but I need to go looking for some sort of a pumpkin tealight holder or something. I really want to burn the ginger pumpkin tea lights I bought, but I only have the Hannukah tea light holders and it's a wee bit early for that one. Oh well, I'm sure I can come up with something :)

Sigh ...

I will not go into what I think of my cell phone company at the moment. So, I give you a list of stuff that I want to make for my nephew (instead of lead from China).

• Dragon bath puppet
• Frog and snake bath puppets
• Octopus bath mitt (can I do this on dpns? I didn't like it knitted flat)
  
• Slightly less scary bath mitt for my SIL :)

Anyone know of a good soap type stuff that I 2 year old boy might like that a mother with green sensibilities can stand? Just curious ....

Avalanches above ... business continues below

Sigh. My neighbors are throwing another one of their raucous outdoor parties. Oh well. Soon it will be cold enough to keep even their drunk butts inside.

I'm going to watch Gone with the Wind and work on the blanket some more. As for everyone else, a little frontier psychiatry :)

At last ... it has arrived

I have come to love CEI some days. About 2 o'clock this afternoon, we heard the characteristic sound of the HVAC shutting off which means, power outage! Anyone who has been in this building for any period of time recognizes the sound of silence that comes along with it, but the interns were confused, lol. So, silly that I am, I hung out and did a little bit of cleaning up only to have ... the power come back on before I was planning to leave. Oh well.

At least it is now the weekend and DH's laptop is now here finally. Yay! He was calling me twice a day to ask if it was here yet. And he's passing through town again this weekend so we may actually be able to get him all set up :) ... yayness!

Oooh and during the power outage, the swag box from the conference arrived. There was a really nice tote there, but I just recently bought the new knitting bag and there are not many that I know who'd carry a tote with a logo from a law firm on it. I got this little Korean box. Very pretty black box with an inlaid mother of pearl like pattern on the top. Looks like it was meant to hold a deck of cards, but I may use it to corral my jewelry from the kitties.

I'm feeling deliriously tired right now. I shouldn't considering how much I slept, but it was really broken sleep (a protesting stomache will do that to you). I think I'm off to crochet for a bit ... afghan ahoy!

I've evidently gone off the deep end ...

And in an attempt to possibly garner free stuff (maybe, lol), I have joined NaBloPoMo (aka National Blog Posting Month). So for all of November, you may get more lifey stuff with the crafty stuff. And today, since I am receiving an enraged DH back home today (he wants to be working, they grounded him for the day, sigh) I give you ... music.

Anyone who has had to sit next to me knows this is true of me :)

Happy Halloween!

Crochet Cable Scarf finished :)

Squee! It's done. I'm happy with how it turned out. Fortunately I listened to the little voice sitting next to me at the SnB group. I frogged a couple of repeats out of the scarf because I realized that, even though I love long scarves, knee length before the fringe was kind of silly. So now it falls to my knees with the fringe. I'm kind of restraining myself from starting another one instantaneously with another color of the failed Dr. Who scarf. But I think I'm going to do a basketweave one next. Don't worry, I'm not a scarf whore or anything. It will mostly likely get gifted or put in the charity shipment. No biggie.

I'm a bit of a process crocheter in case you couldn't tell. Of course, I'm being egged on a bit by the sheer giddy joy of removing myself from the "toilet paper cozy" crowd. Thank heavens. Sheesh. I had a bed doll when I was a kid. That was the closest I ever came to that. I've never understood the necessity for those and it pisses me off a bit that that is the first thing that people think of with crochet. Sigh. That's another soap box ... but now on to the pics.

I wanted nice arty front porch of my bungalow pics, unfortunately I lost the good light. I may try again tomorrow. For now, the couch with scarf.

This pic shows the color a bit better than the previous one. It's a bit washed out but it is close. I seriously love the cables. I want to mess around with other cable configurations now. I just need to get out my reference books. :)


Here's closeup of the edging. It is slipstitch with chain loops. A bit irritating and boring to do, but cute. It took more yarn than I thought as well. But worth it I think.



Man, I'm starting to miss Photoshop. I know, I know, it is extremely washed out, but at least you can see the chains.

I'm going back to Katie's wedding afghan tonight. Maybe the good mojo will return. But man am I going to have to stretch it out. I'm on the last row and then all I need to do is edge. Let's see if I can make it last a game. *fingers crossed*

High school nostalgia ... but in a good way for once

A friend of a friend made a mix tape where she pretended to be either a college DJ or Dr. Demento and included the song I'm embedding below. I loved it then and it still makes me smile. Three cheers to Lime & Violet for finding it, I've been looking for it for a long long time.

Cables .... the new obsession

I've been wanting to make this pattern for forever. It comes out of the Encyclopedia of Crochet by Donna Kooler. It has a matching tam, but somehow I don't think it will fit my cranium (it's like Sputnik, at least where most hats are concerned). The yarn is Mary Maxim Mellowspun in medium willow. It's more of an olive green than this picture shows with little flecks of almost warm brown. I think it's really pretty and it has the added benefit of making my eyes look even greener, an effect that I like a lot :)



I really like how these cables are turning out. It looks complicated but it is actually fairly simple once you understand the concept. And believe it or not, I have the repeat memorized already. Which is a good thing, since I find the written instruction in the book a little hard to follow. And for me charts don't work so well unless I've copied them and can write on them.

Also, in other news, after about a year of ownership, I figured out my camera and how to make my cables actually show up. Hooray for messing with the settings and d'oh! for not thinking about it sooner.

And now ... even though it is a bit late ... an FO

Yeah. Not late at night, but I took these pictures on September 17th. Yeah. I'm on top of the downloading off of my camera, right, lol.

The pink camo blankie is done at last :) It turned out nicely with very few ruffles from the edging, which is always good.

Anyway, on to the visual proof :)

Here's the finished afghan on a queen-sized bed. Length pretty much goes across the width. The afghan is about 39" wide.


I hemmed and hawed about edgings. I was going to do a shell edging to kinda counteract the camo, but changed my mind. Crab stitch it is!


I think it turned out well though :) Now I get to start another incarnation of cabled scarf for myself (and to show at the art show at work I hope).

Progress ... presented by ... Jack :)

The afghans that I've been yammering about have been proceeding apace. So much so that I may have FOs very soon. Especially on the pink camo. It's a little narrower than I thought so I'm not making it quite as long as originally planned. Besides, I want to edge this without having to buy a new skein if at all possible.


All it needs after today is the edging. Joy :)

This is the due at a December 2006 wedding afghan. Every time I get it out to work on it, I receive warm feet courtesy of Jack. I have to spread this one out to reevaluate the size. It's huge, it most likely covers the entirety of a queen size bed and is probably a load of laundry by itself. The funny thing is, I probably will have enough yarn to make Jack his own afghan, which he probably won't sleep on then, lol.

Road trip when this comes out anyone?

I love documentaries. Always have, probably always will. And who knows, maybe this one will come out at the Cedar-Lee or CIFF.

Life gets in the way

I've been bad lately. Haven't been to SnB in about 3 weeks due to Dragon*Con and DH coming home when I wasn't expecting him. I will most likely try to convince him that he wants to work on his novel for a few hours so I can sneak out. I feel like I've abandoned people and I'm craving some social time again. But that can be remedied fairly soon.

I have been keeping busy though. I started working on the pink camo afghan at home just to continue making progress (kind of miss the full skein per Saturday that I put on it at SnB), so that's continuing a pace.

I've also been working on the "airport" scarf. Which I have finally finished tonight. Woot! Behold the cable-y crocheted goodness.


It's an off white. I know it doesn't look like it. I sacrificed proper color for a decent pic of stitch definition. That and I took this photo at 10 pm. I like this pattern though. I may make another to work through some of the yarn I have hoarded. Although I keep thinking that if I added a line of front post double crochets (just a single one in the middle of the three single crochet that separate each cable) then I'd have a crocheted version of the Irish Hiking Scarf. Scary that I'm starting to think like this.

I'm currently on a yarn hunt. The shawl pattern I want to make is going to take something specialty and I need to swatch it out to have a hope in hell of coming close to yardage. Sigh. And the stuff I love the most is hand-painted in small batches (the Almaza here, I love this colorway. It's old-fashioned rose colors for a kind of cubist pattern of roses.) I'm also like the idea of perle cotton (I'd forgotten about this actually). The passion or tutti frutti colorway from here I think would look kinda gypsy-esque which is good for what I want. Why am I looking at laceweight cotton and tencel instead of wool or something? Because I want this for a costume, in Atlanta, at the end of August. Needs to be light. I may have to break down and get the perle cotton though. It will be the most economical I think (even though I love the other colorway).

But yeah, such is life while under the creativity stick. :)

Universe smacked me again ....

This time with the creative stick. I'm so blessed, but I feel so overwhelmed at the moment. My idea for the "great American novel" finally jelled in my head. I know how to get my characters into the pickle they need to be in for it to work. Joy! That has been kicking around for years now. Unfortunately, the muse hit me at work and I've been having a hard time concentrating, but writing out notes helped.

Second, after sitting for a couple of days in the podcasting track at Dragon*Con, I now want to make a podcast. A lifey, fibery, bloggy sort of thing. Now all I have to do is buy stuff and plan that. Hell, I already have the logo in my head. Which leads to ...

The shawl pattern I want to make. It is based on the logo of the podcast that I want to use. My favorite doodle, my cubist roses. I've been researching sock yarn colorways (and prices, ouchie!) to make that filet crochet shawl, just 'cause I wanted it for my costume for Dragon*Con next year :)

And also, the scarf I'm making. It occurred to me that the pattern could be easily modified to make a crochet version (at least kinda) of another well-loved scarf. Woot!

All of this has happened in the past few days. So no wonder I feel overwhelmed. And I forgot to mention that I'm editing my husband's novel at the moment. So busy ... must relax, but can't ... lol.

Off to do a bit more work before I'm out of here to obsess about my dentist appointment tomorrow morning (ugh).

Book meme :)

You're Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!

by Mark Twain

With an affinity for floating down the river, you see things in black
and white. The world is strange and new to you and the more you learn about it, the less
it makes sense. You probably speak with an accent and others have a hard time
understanding you and an even harder time taking you seriously. Nevertheless, your
adventurous spirit is admirable. You really like straw hats.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

I can't believe the news today ...

I've been promoted! Squee! They like me, they really like me ... lol.

Now I shall be expected to actually ... gulp ... know stuff. Oh wait, I already do.

I'm just being goofy. It's scarf time now, I swear, lol.

Atlanta -- Men in Kilts

I'm back from Dragoncon. For a girl who has never flown before the whole 4 planes in as many days thing is kind of dizzying. Unfortunately, I got paranoid about my carry on luggage. So I didn't pack my yarn. Sigh ... I was going to work on a 3 cabled crocheted scarf. Which would have been great since I spent a lot of time listening to the podcasting track of programming and had 4 hours to kill while my husband demo'ed a game. Oh well. Live and learn, especially with layovers at O'Hare.

But the truly horrible part is that I met a crocheter who was working on a Serafina shawl. The funny thing is that I recognized it from 7 feet away. I pissed off her husband by shanghaiing her to talk crafts, lol. Of course now we both kind of noticed the lack of crafts (besides costuming and 'bot building, both excellent pursuits), so I've been kicking around ways to remedy that. Lord help me I may start to podcast now, lol.

But my eyes are full, my brain is full, and my right ankle is the size of a baseball (not the best choice in shoes for walking between 3 hotels to see different things). I saw some gorgeous stuff (an Ent costume, gorgeous jewelry (my silver dream ter'angreal), a cavalcade of slave Leahs, and a totally awesome Jared from Labyrinth) and some truly horrifying things (mainly the male-pattern balding guy that had his hair in pigtails wearing a cheerleader outfit, one of the midriff baring ones). I also got my photo taken with Terry Moore as well as a couple of my Strangers in Paradise trade paperbacks signed. :D

There are tons of pics, but I don't have access yet, they are on my husband's camera. Next time I do this, I'm going to plan my luggage better, lol.

Okay, scarf time. I want this thing for the Red Scarf Project. :)

Confession time

My WIPs:

• Katie's Wedding afghan
• DH's afghan for the semi
• One Project Linus afghan
• one baby shower present

Not quite as bad as I thought. Then they announced an art/craft show at work. There was arm twisting I tell you, lol. But I'm going to put Bethanie's afghan in (rose filet afghan) and probably the candlelight doily. This is fine, these are already made. But I really want to show off. There is a complicated aran crochet scarf that I've been wanting to make. If I can finish it by mid-October, I'm putting it in. I'm such the masochist, LOL. Of course this is on top of the afghan I *should* be making as thank you to my MIL for cat-sitting.

I'm extremely proud of myself. I went out to dinner with a friend in downtown Cleveland. Not only did I manage to find reasonable parking, I did it on the night of an Indians game. You have to understand that I never go downtown by myself ever.

Must prepare more stuff now. Ta!

I'm not an addict, baby

So, umm, yeah. The outspoken crochet girl can knit. Surprise surprise I know, lol. I am self-taught, learned in high school from a big Reader's Digest book 'o many crafts (what embroidery I know comes from there as well). Knitting was actually the first craft my grandma tried to teach me. She sat me down with plastic needles and fuzzy white yarn. It didn't take, but then again fidgety, impatient eight-year-old + 2 plastic double points with no caps = knitting that slides right off the other end much to the irritation of both parties. So I stuck with crochet. Until recently.

My first intended knitting project was 2 Dr. Who scarves. One was supposed to be about 20' long and done in the season 16 colors. The other was supposed to be 28' and all white. I tried knitting them, I tried crocheting them. All the king's horses and all the king's men could not find enough psychedelic drugs to make me want to finish them. Seriously, this was a huge mistake, so they are not mentioned anymore. I may, however, eventually have a Dr. Who Babette, lol.

So then I found Garden Dishcloths to Knit. I was thinking I'd be all sneaking and convert them to tunisian crochet, until I rediscovered that it curls worse than regular stockinette in knitting. So I armed myself with my how to knit book and web sites and ... voila! The sunflower was born.



The sunflower is hard to see, the variegated yarn doesn't help I know, but damnit it is what I had and is interesting to me. I think it turned out fairly well.



My butterfly, actually in my head, hippy butterfly. Sugar and Cream buttercream variegated rocks my socks (even though it's too warm to wear socks, lol). I cranked this one out in a day. Until my arm started to ache from working with this all day. I forgot, cotton yarn does not like to give, and being a newbie, I was really cranking on the stitches still. Especially since I was attempting to NOT hold the left needle in my armpit. Weirdo habit from when I taught myself in high school, don't ask.



And the in progress hippy frog. I was working up to this one. The colors of the yarn match a friend's tattoo, so of course I had to make it for her :)

So, no, I'm not addicted to dishcloths or anything. I haven't been working on them at home to the exclusion of everything else (although, in my defense, a lapful of baby blankie is not pleasant in the heat and the dishcloths require no lap).

Wow, I guess I do design some ...

My husband has always bugged me about always following patterns. He tells me that with as long as I've been crafting I should make up my own patterns. I always scoffed, until I realized that I'm working on 2 blankets that are not in any pattern book. They are both gigantic modified dishcloths. In other words, I took a stitch pattern and ran with it. My beloved woven stitch that does such fun stuff with the pink camo yarn and also the Simply Soft variegated that I'm making the other blanket in. But seriously, it is a bit weird for me to think that no where out there did someone tell me to chain this many, do this stitch, and edge it this way. It's kinda cool.

Of course it has kind of sent my brain spinning. I have this plan to use my spare worsted weight cotton to make myself a kitchen rug. I have used a towel on the floor in front of the sink for ... 2 years now and I'm tired of it. I'm taking the natural cotton and mixing it with colors I have left over from the gigantic bag. It looks like one of those rectangular rag rugs in my head. We'll see what it looks like in real life.

And also my squiggle snake ... and recreating mom's squiggle clown. I've created a monster yet again, lol.

I'm off to attempt to cool off. I've been wanting to work on afghans, but it has been too stifling hot to do. I would work on knitting dishclothes, but it's so hot I get frustrated trying to purl. It's more work with my left hand than I am used to. I know I tension my yarn strangely when I crochet (in the fact that I don't really wrap it around my hand at all for tension, but I do when I attempt to knit, weird huh?).

All right ... of for coolness :)

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Pink Camo progress and bag porn :D

Been working on the pink camo blanket. One skein and a little bit more makes this much of the afghan (don't mind the sheets ... the bed is the easiest place to take the pics) ....


Here's the closeup of the pattern from the yarn (woven stitch) ...


I think it's looking good :)

And now ... for my new transport for this grand endeavor. You see, I found a bag that I really liked for $15 on Barnes and Noble's web site. So .... here's the bag in all its floral goodness.


Front pockets ....


Although I was disappointed in the size at first. I really thought this was small for what I wanted. That is until I started feeding yarn skeins into the interior pocket. This is a deceptive little bag ...


Six seven-ounce skeins of yarn. No problems closing it and it doesn't bleed all the space out of the front pockets. I am so impressed and so happy. I have been wanting this for so long, and swearing and plotting over Namaste bags, which I love the look of but can't afford in a million years. I know it's crazy to get this happy about a messenger bag, but wow, it's just so perfect. Now all I have to do is take it to work tomorrow to show it off to my coworkers who are demanding to see it and the afghans ... lol

Whee ... really fast yarn :)

I ordered the pink camo yarn on Wednesday, and on Friday after work, it was sitting on my porch. So I got started on the camo blanket. I'm hoping to put a shell edging, but I may change my mind and keep it simple and do crab stitch. I'm probably repeating myself, but oh well, lol.

I got through an entire skein of the yarn while at the coffee shop today. I almost thought I had the wrong place, but low and behold, about 4 pm a member of the stitching group showed and I got to hang out and show off what crocheted woven stitch does to camo yarn. I'm glad I gave up the ripple idea. This shows off the yarn so well. And it is really really soft, which at times is hard to find with a variegated yarn. So yay!

I'll post pics eventually, no worries.

*Waves Hi*

Welcome to the blog. Before anyone gets weirded out by the title, it's only a saga of evil when you get an evil idea to make a baby blankie out of pink camo yarn. And then proceed to spend $48 on the yarn to do so. Teehee, I have been wanting to make a mildly subversive baby blanket for so long and now I have my chance muwhahahahahah!

But I dub this my craft blog. To hide presents from possible recipients and to keep the fact that I'm sick of scarves out of the public eye. Personal reference, that, but very true.

Anyway, the blankie. Bernat Camouflage in pink is the yarn choice. I was going to make a ripple because I haven't done a ripple in ages, but I got to thinking that I might lose the camo effect of the yarn that way. And I've had really interesting results with the Project Linus blanket I'm making in Caron SS Baby Brights using the woven stitch. That stitch comes out fluffy and not too tight and it gives interesting patterns to any variegated yarn. It also gives that kind of pixelated, computerized look to the color mix. This means that the camo yarn should look a lot more like the computer-generated camo that the U.S. armed forces are currently using.

My only problem with the woven stitch that while the edges are neat, they are very plain. I have this theory about doing a shell edging, but we'll see. If it doesn't work out there is always crab stitch. Neat, tidy, and not anywhere near so bare. But enough plotting for the moment. :) I may actually be able to get the wedding afghan for my DH's cousin finished, since I should have had it finished in December 2006. It's cool enough to work on it and I have the desire to right now.