When you are in the middle of Andean plying, which you haven't done in at least a year and consequently wrap the singles way too tightly around your hand to the point that your middle finger turns an alarming shape of purple, don't worry - just grab the baby's handy ring-stacker and viola, instant nostepinne!
I've been actually bringing the camera along with me most of the time recently. Granted, it's because I've been taking lots of pictures of knitting techniques for the Knitty Keen blog, but the side benefit is pictures of the kids a little more often.
Here's the double rainbow we were lucky enough to see on Friday evening.
This definitely falls into something that is needed to live.
Sock Innovation: Knitting Techniques & Patterns for One-of-a-Kind Socks
Here's a nice little review of it.
Yay!
On the night before vacation would I be spending the last moments before going to bed uploading a disc of Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation into iTunes so I can put it on my iPod so we can have it playing on continuous loop in the hotel room while Michael sleeps. Since I spent many, many nights camped out on an air mattress sleeping next to him I chose something that I wanted to listen to and Sarah Vowell got the most air time. For easily the past year he's been listening to Assassination Vacation exclusively and demands that we "put Sarah on" each night before he goes to bed. So yes - anything you might want to know about the Lincoln, Garfield or McKinley assassinations - I'm your gal and Michael probably is too.
John, who has been doing night time wakings for at least the past year, says I have a lot to answer for.
I have found that listening to Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra on a continuous loop almost never fails to improve my mood. John left me his i-Pod this morning for just this purpose. After I got Michael on the bus and did my morning surfing, I took myself, some socks and the i-Pod up to Starbucks. I had a lovely cup of coffee and a very yummy bacon avocado wrap. After I finished eating, I lucked out and the comfy chairs became available, so I pulled out the second Green Scaly Sock, turned the volume up on the i-Pod and listed to Mr. Blue Sky for at least half a pattern repeat and then my regular mix until I was done the repeat.
I don't know if it was the music or my regular knitting speed, but I'm pretty impressed that I got 22 rounds of sock done in an hour. Right now I'm about 4 rounds away from starting the gusset and I only have a few rounds left before I start the 2x2 rib on the second Step Sock. By the end of the weekend, I may have two new pairs of socks! Of course, I have no shoes to wear with said socks, but I'm ordering myself another pair of Keen's this weekend so hopefully I'll be able to walk about in my ultra-cool socks. Frankly, I'm trying to get these done so I can use the Colinette Jitterbug I got last weekend. I'm still not sure what it's going to be yet - either Cookie A.'s Monkey or a pattern of my own design.
As per usual, I have a ton of stuff to wade through the next few days so I really have no business even thinking about sock knitting. I'll get some pics up tomorrow for a real Crafts Update. Thanks for reading and TTFN!
They messed with One Piece. New opening, almost all new American voice actors and new music. At least John was enjoying me yell, "What the F***?!?!" at the TV screen. I finally have the time to devote to watching it again at the start of a new story arc and they change everything on me. grumble, grumble, grumble...
I just checked the wait list and there are only 106 people ahead of me in line for Ravelry. One more thing with which to avoid doing what needs doing.
Left hand
Right Hand
Belly
I am planning on getting better quality henna and playing around with different essential oils as mordants to get better results. I also hope to be able to do the next ones right after Michael leaves for school in the morning so I can let it set all day and get deaper colors. The don't look too bad (if I do say so myself), but I know the can be better.
..and the henna is drying on my hands and belly as I type. Perfectionist that I am, I am reluctant to post pics because *I* think my work is a bit on the sloppy side (at least the back on my right hand is), but I know S will hunt me down if I don't post. I'll get the pics up in the morning - can't wait to see how Michael reacts.
John muttered under his breath several times about what a hippie I am. Now I just have to get some patchouli oil and we are set :P
In the beginning there was the wife and then there was was the yarn.
The wife looked upon the yarn and said, "I will use this yarn to make fine hand knits!"
The wife did knit with the yarn and it was good
And low there came a time when the wife visited a yarn shop and beheld a vast multitude of yarn.
The wife saw that she must posses this yarn, for it was yummy.
"I have not a pattern or needles with which to work this yarn!" cried the wife.
But then the wife saw that the yarn was on sale.
"I will buy this yarn and keep it until I find something to make with it, for it is a bargain" said the wife with great satisfaction.
And thus the stash was born.
The husband beheld the stash as it spread through the house.
"Wife," said the husband. "Could you put away some of the yarn?"
Did the husband not see the great number of things that she might wish to knit at any given time and how inconvenient it would be to have to go digging through any number of boxes to find that most yummy yarn? Could he not agree that she had to have so many projects on the needles at once because she had no idea what she might be in the mood to work upon that day?
The husband sighed, for this was why he loved her, but the stash was grating upon his nerves. The wife saw that the husband had a point and vowed to organize and go upon a yarn diet.
Months passed and the stash grew yet again for there were many great sales.
"Wife," he asked with great trepidation, "I cannot sit upon our sofa without poking myself with a knitting needle. Might you perhaps organize the stash?"
The wife saw that the husband had a point and vowed to organize the stash and go upon a yarn diet.
Months passed and the stash grew yet again for the wife had unlocked the secret to bringing forth socks.
"Wife," said the husband. "Our son cannot use the little table we bought for him because it is covered in great bins of yarn. Something must be done."
The wife vowed to do something about it this time.
Months passed and the stash grew yet again for the wife must have yarn that she may dye it with her own hands.
The husband just sighed for he knew not what to do.
The wife saw that the great festival of sheep and wool was nigh and that the stash must be tamed. It was with much cursing of Microsoft that the wife did create a database with which to catalog the stash. The yarn spun from wool hath been weighed and that of the cotton is next. Those fibers wrought from plastics will have to wait until after the great festival as will the upate of crafting that she hath promised many times.
I wrapped the sandwiches I made for John's lunch in wax paper (and very nicely, if I do say so myself). I also talked to him about making lunch bags out of some cotton and PUL I have upstairs although that is just another project to add to the ever growing pile.
I'm going to do some more decluttering upstairs today - I'm plannning on at least 25 things.
I am so absurdly pleased with myself for wrapping the sandwiches in waxed paper.
Michael is steadfastly refusing to nap, so I have to keep myself from going insane amuse myself somehow. Check out this little gem on Defective Yeti.
Cartoon Network's feed hiccupped at the end of Naruto tonight and I missed the last couple of minutes of the episode, filled with portents of what is to come and then had to expose myself to the spoilers on Wikipedia to find out what the hell happened in the last three minutes.
Of course, Viz will not have this storyline published until the fall with my luck. I am seriously tempted to start buying back issues of Shonen Jump. The next volume of Naruto isn't due until JUNE!!!! June, people. I have to wait three months. I can't help but think that this is some sort of conspiracy - they are doing this on purpose. Some exec at Viz is sitting in a high-backed leather chair, stroking a white Persian cat and laughing maniacly. Come to think of it, there are probably a few Cartoon Network execs in on the fun as well - or maybe Comcast has decided to screw with me.
Honest, tomorrow I will go back to being the mom who bakes and sews, tonight I am the rabid Naruto fan who is mightily pissed off that I had to expose myself to spoilers. I've know about the Wikipedia entries for ages - John has read all of them and sometimes exudes this smug, "I know what happens," vibe while I'm on the edge of my seat. There was a point where the Viz graphic novels were ahead of the show and I had to seriously consider if I wanted to find out what came next (I did buy it).
ARGH!!!!!
I'm going to bed.
...it has to be becaue Naruto is on in ten minutes and I have to see how they handle the Third Hokage's death. That sentence is so specific that it doesn't even need the qualifier that I am a huge geek.
First off, take a look at this. This was the present from Michael and John to the new baby. I'm a little chagrinned (if that is even a word)about this because I made a comment about how we expected babysitting as payment and later found out that everyone thought that I wanted S to babysit for us when it was we who want to watch her child. Oh well, not much can be done for it now.
Here are the pics - Istill haven't installed PSP on this yet so you'll have to deal with the crappy job Corell does on my very mediocre pictures.
I've been in a very strage place the past few days, stranger than the place I normally inhabit. Some knitting has been going on - in fact the Silky Sock socks just have 8 more rounds of single rib to go until I can weave in the ends and call them done. I made myself a Dreams Swatch scarf out of a lonely skein of red Cottonade on Wednesday while Michael didn't sleep. I'm about half-way done the second Noro legwarmer.
Actually, I've barely knitted the past two days, my mind and mood have been elsewhere. I can't really translate things to words, so I'm going to take a shower and capture Pokemon.
Gotta catch them all!
...and no, I haven't gotten around to changing the banner graphic so "sequitur" is spelled correctly.
It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Granted, I'm sure my code looks like crap - the fact that my variable list and CSS elements are all willy-nilly is grating a bit but for some reason Blogger does not like files that have been saved in Dreamweaver so it will be a bit before I clean up the code.
Blogger does have a handy feature that allows you to past HTML into a pop-up window so I could get all of those handy-dandy things like the buttons and such. It does all of the hard work for you and you can change it without having to edit the template code directly which is a nice feature. I also found a really cool link to Knitticisms with instructions on how to make your own progress bars. I don't know what possesed me to put Michael's sweater on there considering I haven't touched it in well over month, but there it is in all of my knitting ADD glory.
Now I just have to design the actual skin now that I've converted everything.
Oh, and this is the start of day 11 without cigarettes. When the counter in the sidebar reaches 0, I get to order my interchangeable needles - YAY!
I'm in the mood for a new skin and I really like some of the features they offer with the custom layout designer, I just don't like the templates themselves.
It's just going to be me, coffee, and xml tonight. Yes, I have a problem that this sounds like a fun evening to me.
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