Finally caught up on taking photos of finished objects. I’ve uploaded 42 images today. All knitting related. Yarr. So to avoid killing your browser (which I’ll be risking anyway) I’ll try to only post the highlights. There are still a bunch though.

Click on the photos to go to the set page and see a bunch of other stuff.

Handspun Mohair Scarf

La Boheme Nouveau Poncho

Rayon Boucle Shoulder Scarf

knit mini socks and mitten xmas ornaments

a stuffed chenille pumpkin toy for the nephew

a bunch of dishcloths

Many Handspun Yarn Photos

People think I’m kidding about the magical New Mexico sun. Oh no. Everything I knit and spin looks 78% better in the sun here. It really makes colors pop.

I’ve been going back and forth on this for weeks now and we finally decided not to go to the Taos Wool Festival. I’ve spent entirely too much on fiber related stuff this year anyway (oh and um this) and we have visiting niece and nephew obligations. And I want to see my Saturday knitting group ladies. With the way Cody’s work schedule has been the last few weeks I haven’t been able to get to knitting groups nearly as often as I’d like. So we weighed the pros and cons and decided not to go. Maybe next year.

I’ll try to get balloon fiesta photos this weekend. But I usually forget.

Speaking of fiestas, I don’t quite understand the attitude of people who move here then get indignant about the Hispanic influences of a state called New Mexico. Yes, festivals will be called fiestas here. Because fiesta means festival. I don’t see people complaining about the overuse of the word festival. I just don’t get why people would want to complain about that. It just seems like going to Boston and complaining about having clam chowder on the menu in every restaurant. Awfully silly.

Since I haven’t gotten the mt blogrolling plugin working properly since the upgrade (because I’d much rather spend my leisure time reading weblogs or knitting or spinning not futzing around with code) this is what I’m working on atm.

I’ll probably be updating this a lot. Please scroll down for new posts.

Items for sale in the CraftRevolution Etsy Shop

felted desert spring bamboo handled purse
Ziggy Zaggy Scarf

PeskyMac’s items up for sale
Olive Heather handspun yarn
Castle Stone handspun yarn

Also, Whitters is knitting stuff to order to benefit the Red Cross and Petsmart’s hurricane relief fund!

I’m bumping the rest down into the extended entry.
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I’ve been getting a whole lot of hits from sites that mention that ipod bra idea I drew up last year. Most of them seem to be written in languages I don’t know so I have no idea if they’re saying you can buy your ipod bra from me or if they just think it’s funny. But I’ve been getting many hits related to the bra.

I really did consider making one of those giant t-shirts where if you wore it you would look like you were wearing my pink ipod bra. Or even making a real ipod bra. But I just haven’t felt like being sued by Apple lately.

In any case I saw the banners for this year’s boobiethon and just could not resist.

Hope no one minds but I really couldn’t help myself.

Today it’s been 970 days since my last cigarette.

2 years 7 months 3 weeks 5 days 3 hours and 40 minutes

33,922 cigarettes I haven’t smoked

$5,936.35 I haven’t spent on cigarettes (I smoked expensive American Spirits)

3m 3w 5d 18:50 life saved (all according to the QuitTime program I still run on my computer)

I work very hard to not be an obnoxious ex-smoker to people who are still smoking, not say stupid things or be a general pain in the ass. But at the same time I am very, very proud of this accomplishment. It took three tries to finally have it stick. The longest time I’d quit before this was eight months.

This was probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my life. I’m not even exaggerating. I had started smoking at fourteen at boarding school. I quit at thirty-one. By then I’d smoked for about sixteen years. Don’t even want to think about how many cigarettes or “life not saved” Quittimer would calculate for that.

If you’re curious this is what worked for me. I’m certainly not saying it’s the only way to do it. I was on a combination of prescriptions for Wellbutrin, Zoloft, my thyroid meds (of course), and I used the nicotine patch. I started with the highest dose of Nicoderm CQ. I found that the clear ones stuck better. I didn’t even complete the cycle with the patches. One day I forgot to put one on and just kept forgetting.

I honestly believe it was the Wellbutrin and the patches that did the trick. Cody couldn’t take the Wellbutrin and had a relapse with the smoking for six months (meanie that I am I made him go outside). Then he actually got addicted to the patches. He would wear more than one at a time, changing them after twelve hours. He used the patches for a year and a half. But we got him off of them too. Now we’re both nicotine free.

When I first quit smoking I ate approximately 10 thousand Salsa flavored sunflower seeds and went through about two cases of coke per week to counteract all that salt. I quit both of those a few months later. Now I stick to diet sodas with the occasional sonic drink. I’m not counting starbucks coffee drinks right now.

Yes I gained weight. I’ve since lost it and more and gained it all back. I’ll probably be doing that the rest of my life. I’d been doing that anyway even when I was a smoker.

But at least I’m not always thinking about when I’ll get to smoke next. Or have to worry about whether or not I have enough cigarettes to make it through the night. Or get so stressed on airplanes because I can’t smoke. Or make my mother cringe every time I have to go smoke on their back porch when I visit.

We went to the fair yesterday and Cody took lots of photos while I spent hours on end at Sheep to Shawl. On the way home I rented a spinning wheel from Village Wools.

These are my favorites from the batch

here in the us we fry whatever will stay still long enough to be dipped in batter

the incredibly patient sheep to shawl spinning demonstrators

The spinning wheel I’ve rented for the next two weeks (at a very reasonable ten dollars a week!) is the exact same one the lady in the middle is working on. It’s a Lendrum Double Treadle Foldup. This is pretty much the wheel we’ve decided to buy someday.

I’ve been wondering just how accurate that Rum and Monkey compatibility test was and its been long enough that I couldn’t remember what I’d answered before. So I just took it. And I’m 98% compatible with myself.

Yes I’m avoiding having to actually fix this mt installation, which seems to promise a lot of comment functions that don’t seem to work. I’m annoyed.

I do not like the new look of itunes and it is too late to take the dog to the dog park tonight so she won’t get to go until Wednesday now.

I wish the construction that’s been going on behind our house since MAY would just finish already.

Great NYT article discussing her early days in Paris and how Graham Greene outed her. Agism, sexism, media hype, and the everliving double standard.

In case you’re wondering, I’m fine, my knitting is fine, as are all the pets, the husband, the bank accounts, and most of our sanity. I’ve been fighting a cold, working on gift knitting, and not wanting to sit in the office much.

I’ve been knitting washcloths for that Cloths for Katrina Yahoo Group I mentioned earlier and came up with a fun pattern especially for New Orleans.

In case you can’t tell, it’s a Fleur de Lis which is an image often associated with the French Quarter and also happens to be the symbol for the NO Football team, The Saints. It took a few tries to get it the right proportions but I think this version worked out pretty well. The image was kind of hard to capture since I finished this one after dark and the lighting in our house is fairly dark. I’ll try to get some daylight shots in the magical NM sun in the morning before knitting group.

This is a pretty easy pattern (despite how complex it might look at first) and a really quick knit (it takes me a little under two hours per cloth) if you’re in the mood to feel a quick sense of accomplishment - some days that just needs to be done.

So here’s the pattern all written out:

Reversible Fleur de Lis washcloth (doc) (pdf)

Yarn: I used Lion Cotton, a worsted weight cotton from Lion Brand but any kitchen cotton type yarn like Lily’s Sugar n Cream or that WalMart brand Peaches n Cream should work fine. I’ve found it’s a lot easier to see the pattern using a solid color.

Needles: I used Crystal Palace bamboos US size 6 but use whatever you’re comfortable with. I recommend a 6, 7, or 8.

Gauge: Doesn’t really matter. The number of stitches for the finished object will be 30 stitches wide and 36 rows tall. The size of the finished cloth depends on the yarn, needle size, and your tension.

CO 30 stitches (the garter border is written into the pattern)

Knit every stitch first three rows (garter stitch border)
4: K3 P11 K2 P 11 K3
5: K14 P2 K14
6: K3 P10 K4 P10 K3
7: K9 P3 K1 P4 K1 P3 K9
8: K3 P5 K14 P5 K3
9: K7 P6 K1 P2 K1 P6 K7
10: K3 P4 K3 P2 K1 P1 K2 P1 K1 P2 K3 P4 K3
11: K7 P2 K4 P4 K4 P2 K7
12: K3 P9 K6 P9 K3
13: K12 P6 K12
14: K3 P2 K2 P6 K4 P6 K2 P2 K3
15: K5 P2 K6 P4 K6 P2 K5
16: K3 P1 K3 P5 K6 P5 K3 P1 K3
17: K3 P4 K4 P8 K4 P4 K3
18: K8 P2 K10 P2 K8
19: K3 P24 K3
20: K30
21: K4 P22 K4
22: K3 P2 K6 P1 K6 P1 K6 P2 K3
23: K6 P4 K2 P6 K2 P4 K6
24: K3 P8 K8 P8 K3
25: K10 P10 K10
26: K3 P7 K10 P7 K3
27: K10 P10 K10
28: K3 P8 K8 P8 K3
29: K12 P6 K12
30: K3 P10 K4 P10 K3
31: K13 P4 K13
32: K3 P11 K2 P11 K3
33: K14 P2 K14
Knit every stitch the last three rows (garter border)

Bind off!

Buy some bars of soap and send an email to the yahoo group leaders that you have a set ready to mail!

If you prefer knitting from a chart here’s the charted image:

Yes it’s a little taller than wide but trust me it looks better that way.

The 3 stitch/row garter border is written into the chart. Knit every stitch of the first and last three rows. Then knit the first and last three stitches of each row, otherwise work in stockinette and knit or purl the dark area depending on what side you’re on. The neat part is its reversible.

See?

Let me know if you catch a mistake!

Copyright info:

Feel free to share the pattern just please include this post’s address in the post or printout in case I need to update with a correction!

You are ABSOLUTELY given permission to knit and sell washcloths made from this pattern pattern as long as the money is going to benefit a charity. I’d really prefer one for Katrina survivors right now. Please let me know if you do because I might like to knit a few for it!

These are a few other videos I made of the hedgehog. They’re much smaller than the other ones.

The first one is to illustrate how she stiffens her quills because she’s usually so relaxed when I take her out that people don’t get to see it. She gets cranky when she thinks she’s in the tube but still gets touched. Believe me, they can get a lot stiffer than this but it’s interesting to show how she controls how much the quills poke out by stiffening her skin.

Stiffening Quills (2.46 megs)

The other is just of her standing around sniffing at the air.

Sniff (11 megs)

Oh and here’s a silly badly lit video of winter’s wagging tail.

Wag Wag (4.97 megs)