Psychedelic Snake eye!!!

The other day, I showed you a picture of a half finished blue thing. Well it turns out, ganiggle is a cheater, but she did guess right. It's Celtic Memories, the bag pattern that she designed. I'm making it out of knit picks Wool of the Andes in arctic pool heather. Here's another pic of it with the buttons I got the other day at my lys. They're celtic knot buttons. I think they'll look awesome with it.

So lately, I have had the WORST possible case of "Startitis." Be careful, it's very contagious. In the past week, I cast on for Celtic Memories... and at least 4 other projects. I say at least because... well one of them has disappeared. I may never know what it was.... I honestly forget. Oh well. :) So, I cast on for my Better Bucket hat from the other day... but had to frog it. You know that rule, join, being careful not to twist? Yeah well... I think I overlooked that or something. It was twisted, and I didn't notice until... well, let's just say I should have noticed by the time I did.

I also cast on for my first pair of socks for the Summer of Socks 08. I'm making Wendy's Cabletini socks, (pdf) with my ONline supersock stuff that I got a while back. Here's what it looks like so far.

The colors are more intense than that. Think eye-searing. They're BRIGHT. I LOVE them. Check out the toe, as viewed from the end. If you're creative enough...

That becomes a psychedelic snake eye! Awesome!

I also cast on for a pair of Spirogyra's from knitty. I'm using Lorna's Laces shepherd sport in tickled pink. I'm loving these. The pattern is really easy to memorize. The only thing I hate is doing a yo at the beginning of a needle. That just irks me. But I like the way it looks so...
And last but not least, I cast on today for a pair of gloves by Zortified from the fgf group, to test knit them for him. They're called "Notwoven Fingerless Mitts." I love this pattern. It's very clear, and quick! I did all of this today!

I am to the end of the thumb gusset, which means I am about done. Dave wanted fingers for his mitts, and I can't put them in these because it would be too thick, being worsted weight, so... If he doesn't like them, I guess I'll keep them. :) It'll offset some of those other bright bright colors I'm working with. The yarn is Knit picks wool of the Andes in arctic dove heather.

Oh yeah, and I also am doing a Gryffindor Swap (holy linkage batman!! Sorry ganiggle... you're contagious too apparently...). I think my partner will be extremely happy with what she's getting. I hope at least. :)

Next time, on "Yarn Mafia." We find out just what, exactly, M is for.... Stay tuned!!

Without knitting, you're just another primate

Hey, look, new stuff! First, my order from the Loopy Ewe came in already! I just ordered it... I think Wednesday? That's just awesome!

That's a skein of malabrigo in velvet grapes, a keychain sized sock blocker, and a loopy stitch marker (that last one was a free gift.) I'm soooo excited to start my better bucket hat (ravelry linkage). I hate the way it looks there, but check out this one. I love it, and I'm about to wind my skein into a ball now just so I can get started. :)

Also, I got one of these...

So that I can make icord without all the work. I love the way they look, but I HATE knitting them, so it becomes waaaay too much work. Maybe I can teach Dave to do it and HE can make the icord for me... :) I tried it out, and it works ok, there's just a learning curve to it.

And it's a new project. If you can guess what it is you win! What do you win? Why, congratulations of course! ;) Have a good evening!!

How do you spell cannibal?

L is for... Library! Ya know, that place where I get all of my books? I've been spending way too much time reading lately, not enough writing or knitting...

So that is, from the bottom up... Circus of the damned by Laurell K Hamilton (LKH), Knitted Toys, Mistral's Kiss by LKH, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee casts off, The Lunatic Cafe by LKH, Obsidian Butterfly by LKH, A lick of frost by LKH (am I sensing a theme?), The oxford companion to Fairy Tales, Three "how to" kinds of books on writing, Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austin, Stitch and Bitch Nation, Stitch and Bitch, Strange Candy by LKH, Blue Moon by LKH, and some book by Hannah Howell (I never read it and I took it back to the library already). Wow, that's a lot of books. The only one I'm not interested in is the Hannah Howell one. All the LKH one's are read already (I took this picture right before Vacation. Wow that's... a lot of books to have read...). So yeah. :) Way too much time reading. Must go knit now. As soon as I'm done with Obsidian Butterfly...

I've figured out that the ballons are too subtle

I'm Baaaaaaack!!!!!!! I'm so so happy to be home. You have NO idea. Incredibly happy. I loved Tennessee but... dear god, all the mountains... and the family... it was just too much. It was a really wonderful vacation though. I loved it. It was fantastic. I'm adding the pics to my myspace page, if you have a myspace add me and you can see them. If not... well, I'm going to be putting them somewhere else too. Flickr doesn't have room for all 118 pics so maybe photobucket. We'll see. In any case, here's a preview.

Some mountains...
More mountains. (This one taken from atop a dirt hill that will soon be another cabin...)

And the place I spent a lot of my time (the swing).

I got lots of souvenirs, but no souvenir yarn. I couldn't find anyplace that sold yarn. It was horrible. I did get some nifty beads though.

And, I know, I'm short with the word thing, but here's a picture of what I did with my summer vacation. I learned to knit and read... and made good of it.

Confusion, hallucination... my kind of drug!

No knitting content. I'm knitting but I'm not taking pictures of anything lately. I have a baby sweater otn that just needs the last bit of the button band and then the finishing and it'll be done. And I'm keeping up with Krystal in our KAL even though I've only been working on my blanket in fits and starts. So anyway, in lieu of actual knitting content I thought I'd do a cool little meme I picked up off of someone else's blog. Here's how it works:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker).

the questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What is one thing you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.




1. A Little Lake, 2. Vegetarian Tacos even meat-eaters will love!, 3. Welcome to Hell, Bring your own bottled water., 4. ♫ YO Yo yo, there's no place like a green penthouse... so i told the genie i wanted to be well hung. ^o^ ♫ nah... wildlife from singapore♫, 5. Zac Hanson Walks With Fans, 6. Untitled, 7. - Middle-Earth? -, 8. oreo chocolate cake, 9. family day out, 10. Picture 006, 11. Knitter, 12. On being picky and fussy and colour obsessed


(note: I changed question #10 a little and I also cheated cause that's my photo but who cares. That's the only answer to that question I could think of that I could find a picture of. lol)

I look like I have some sort of hairy octopus on my head

Hey guys. Just a quick post before bed (what? Me? In bed before 4 am?? *gasp*). I'm going to bed early because we're leaving tomorrow morning for Gatlinburg, Tennessee for a week with my husband's family. So, no posting for me until I get back, but maybe Angie will? Don't give her a hard time though, she's going through a rough patch right now. Think happy thoughts for her, k?

So, I promised knitting. I started a log-cabin baby blanket-along with Angie. We're both about at the same place right now, but we all know she'll kick my little behind. Not only can she knit faster than me, but she's like a garter stitch making queen! I didn't think I would like this blanket, but I'm LOVING it right now. I can't get enough of it. I started it Wednesday. Here it is so far...

I'm using Lion Brand cotton ease (so is she...) in Snow, Lime, Taupe, and Violet, and without thinking about it, I set my colors up to look exactly like the one in the Mason-Dixon Knitting Book. It's going to be BIG and I'm VERY happy about that.

Other knitting news, I can't take a picture because it's already packed, but I'm almost done with my first Eden in the real yarn, and I hope I finish them so I can wear them in the mountains!

Anyway, I'm getting off of here so I can go to bed now. See you guys in a week!!!

Oh by the way... look at what my husband did to my poor dog!!!

Nah, monkeys are too hard...

Hey guys, I'm stealing a blog post idea from Melanie at Pink Lemon Twist and doing a meme from the point of view of Storm... mainly him because Lily is taking so much of my time that he feels left out. (There has been knitting. Tune in tomorrow. Hopefully.)

So, here it is! :)

What were you doing 10 years ago?

10 human years ago? I wasn't born yet. 10 doggie years ago I was... hmm... living here without that stupid cat that hisses at me... and playing with Mattie!

What are 5 things on your To Do List for today, in no particular order?

1. Chase Mattie around the house
   
2. Pick up something for mommy (she drops stuff all the time)
   
3. Play fetch with my duck skin (It's not a real duck skin... I just tore the intestines out of my stuffed duck)
   
4. Beg for food at dinner and maybe get a scrap
   
5. Eat all of my food and all of Mattie's food, and then see if I can reach Lily's food to eat that too.
   

What are some snacks you enjoy?

Doggie cookies, chips, leftovers from dinner, cat food, and the stuffing of stuffed toys.

What would you do if you were a millionaire?

Duh! Buy the ocean! So I can swim in it allllllll day!!

List the places you've lived:

1. Presque Isle, Maine
2. Reynoldsburg, Ohio

Hey, everyone let their dog do a doggie meme! It's fun!! :)

It'll slip right into that milk jug

Hey guys, what's up? Want to know what's up here? YARN! I've gotten so much yarn in the past two days... fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a very fun ride. :) Jumping right into it... 9after a brief pause to wonder about the metaphor... if we're wearing seat belts, how are we jumping? hmm..)

This is the yarn I got yesterday from knitpicks. (The idea just occurred to me that most people don't like to share every little yarn purchase. Well... isn't that just sad. I mean, don't we all like to see what everyone else got?) Anyway, From top left to bottom right, that's gloss in the woodland sage colorway, for my Edens; Wool of the Andes in arctic pool heather and dove heather, for my Celtic Memories bag (I couldn't decide which to get, so I got both.); and then shine sport, in sky and river, for Sheldon. Yes, a blue turtle. I know. Turtles are green. Moving on...

This is today's yarn acquisition. Is that the right word? Anyway... lets do it like this. Start at the left and then go across the top, the middle, and the bottom. Lorna's Laces shepherd sport, two skeins, one in tickled pink and one in Devon (I'm not sure what I'm making with these... probably fingerless gloves); a skein of OnLine supersocke 100... which I had never heard of but I loooove the bright colors. Click the picture to make it bigger and check out those colors. So bright. Next is a ball of Noro Sock, color 180. I like the colors, but I don't know how much I like the base yarn. But curiosity killed the... wait, I'm not a cat. Anyway...

Next, you on the next row, is a ball of patons sws in natural earth. For no reason other than to have it. I have a bit of a problem when it comes to this yarn... Next to that is four balls of cotton ease, in violet, lime, snow, and taupe, for a log cabin baby blanket-along Angie and I are going to do. And then, finally, a skein of BRIGHT blue cascade 220. Phew. That's... a LOT of yarn. No... that's a LOT of linking! Ahhh! :) I obviously have had a bad week and needed to spend all of my money on yarn. What else would I spend it on though, really?

Other than buying yarn, I have been knitting some. I even finished a cuff for Eden yesterday. See?

Well, that's just part of it. You'll have to take my word for it that it's done though. I love this yarn. So pretty. I'm in love with the color.

And also, I can't come up with anything for the ABC-along for J, so, I'm skipping it. I'll come back to it soon. I promise. I do have a K though.

K is for... Krystal! Duh! :)

I need two skeins of yarn and a hooker

Hello there, peeps! What's cookin? Not much here. Mostly just more reading. I'm trying to read the Anita Blake series in record time. The series is so. good. I love it. But in my free (read: non reading) time, I did manage to finish the two fishies, which are now lost to the wilderness (read: my apartment mid spring cleaning). I stuffed one with a crinkley ball and some stuffing and the other with cat nip and some stuffing. She definitely likes the cat nip.

But of course, she loves everything. Her current favorite past time? Trying to get me kicked out of my apartment. (We're only allowed two pets. She makes number 3.)

But, she really likes the window sill, so... what are you going to do? :) Anyway, I also finished Eden number one. Sort of. Here it is pre leaf cuff.

And the palm...

And after sewing on the cuff (which wasn't NEARLY as hard as I'd imagined. Really. In fact, it was much much harder to knit the 10 rows of ribbing. But then, I hate k1p1...)

The problem? The cuff is a little too small. Which ruins the way it fits. It's ok though. I'm going to unattach it, and make another one with one more leaf. Or maybe with size 3 needles. I don't know. But I do know that it would fit if my arm was smaller. But it's not. So... there ya go. It's ok though, I'll fix it. Later. Sometime. Now, cross your fingers and hope my yarn gets here tomorrow so I can start the real gloves. :)