I had a blast at Crafty Friday. Yay!
Cody found my digital camera in one of my project bags. Yay!
He found it when it fell out onto the garage floor when he was bringing my project bag in from the car. Boo!
The camera's still ok. Yay!

I was ubergirly last night. Yay!
I dyed my own hair dark strawberry blondish. Yay!
I used that cool depilitory Veet squeegee stuff on my legs and underarms. Yay!
I missed a spot and found a "soul patch" smack in the front middle of my ankle. Boo!
I also got a chemical burn on the underside of my left upper arm. Boo!
I found some neosporin for the healing and found some monistat topical cream (the stuff that comes in a little tube for numbing your hooha before the internal medicine works) for numbing the pain. Yay?
We got some real medicine and bandages today. Yay!
I don't make much of a girly girl do I? Yay.

We finally made it to Trader Joe's today! Yay!
It was unbelievably crowded. Boo!
They have good pet food. Yay!
It was comparatively cheap with higher quality than Smiths. Yay!
We didn't buy a whole lot else. Boo!
We did get a pot of daisies...Yay!

To bring to my mother-in-law when we went for a visit this afternoon. Boo?
We got free haircuts from the mom-in-law! Yay!
The father-in-law and I did not argue about politics once. Yay!
He made a compliment (I think) about Cody looking like "the president" after his haircut. Boo
I joked "Ok Cody now you have to make a face that's simultaneously dumb and smug!" Yay!
My mother-in-law gave me free Tupperware! Yay!
Alas, we did not get a free meal. Boo!
But I did finish the second ugg baby bootie. Yay!

My Tivo DVR thingie is acting up. Boo!
But it taped the new episode of Huff. Yay!
I'm going to go watch it now so this post is ending soon. Boo!
And eat some hummus and Pitas from Trader Joe's. Yay!
But first I'm going to show you all these photos. Boo? Yay?

Here are the long-awaited Noro Stash photos.

All the Noro
with bonus puppy lying in the dirt!

Silk Garden

Kureyon

Iro

Cash Iroha

Transitions

With bonus Fiesta Yarns porn!

La Boheme and Gelato in "African Violet"

Kokopelli in Turqoise Trail and Watermark in Taos

La Boheme and Chamisa in Arizona

This is a neat handpainted yarn from a local artist in the East Mountains, Robin Pascal. I used her yarn to make the craaaaazy scarf.

And this is my current Project Spectrum project yarn. I'm in the second repeat on the front of my Sprout tunic with this Giotto yarn. I'm going to use this pretty gold Fiesta La Luz silk for something this month as well.

And this is the puppy wearing the glam punk rock neckwarmer

Hello!

Just a quick post because I want to go work on my second cabled sock. But I was planning on adding this to my Etsy shop and wanted to give you guys a chance to reserve it.

This is probably the last of my March pink/red project spectrum items. Oddly, I never got my planned project spectrum projects going. But I made a bunch I hadn't planned. So this is a pink superwash merino spun randomly with white tencel. Meaning it's washable and will not felt. And shiny

notice: zee yarn has now been sold!

With a complete lack of creativity I'm calling it Frosted Pink Lipstick. Cody wanted to call it Earthworm Primavera. Don't worry he got the geeeeroooooss look.

It's bulky to superbulky in weight
330.24 yards
30.00 US Dollars plus 4.00 shipping (shipping only if you're not in my knitting group, of course)
Leave a comment if you want to grab it first! I'll wait until Friday to put it in the shop.

Speaking of my knitting group, we had a great surprise party for Jamie's birthday at Seasons last night. She loved the super secret yarn I made in her favorite colors :) Ramona took some great photos that really capture the fun and overall bawdy mood (even without any dancing nekkid men). You still have a little time to go wish her a happy birthday. She's a great, smart, hyper, hilarious, friendly woman who could get the earth to turn backwards if she thought it should. I'm very, very glad to have met her and so thankful she started the Stitch n Bitch here last year. Without her I never would've met all these amazing women that are good at prying me out of the house even when I feel grumpy and hermitlike. Which can be pretty often.

Ok, off to knit on the cabled sock.

You're going to love this. Seriously this thing rawks. Remember when I talked about that crazy light-sensitive yarn? Well, I knit a fun set of armwarmers and had just enough yarn leftover for a neckwarmer / headband thing. So here they are in natural light.

Sure they're funky and slubby and soft with some cool pink fuzzy stripes. But wait! Can you see the little clear beads? There are a few in that photo. Hmm let me show them again!

Can you see them now? Yeah! They have color now because they change colors in the sun. The yarn is also plied with this tiny little string that's white in natural light and turns a subtle pink in the sun too. And the fuzzy stuff in the pink parts. It glows in the dark. This yarn is seriously bad ass.

Here's the neckwarmer / headband.

And a couple of pretentious art school poses.

Hey, do you know how hard it is to take a photo of your arm and head at the same time?

Remember how I have a busy street and a bunch of construction just on the other side of my backyard wall? Imagine the kind of looks I get when I do little photo sessions like this. Yes. Sometimes they honk.

I think they just particularly liked my extremely old black leather clogs / pink and blue argyle happy bunny pajama bottoms / red shelf bra tank / shizniftle punky glam armwarmer and headband ensemble today.

And yes! I will post a pattern for this! Very soon! Now go worship Reenie (and Angela too!) for making this unbelievable yarn possible. Buy some yarn! Because, amazingly, I'm still doing pretty well on this yarn diet thing but I think someone should buy it so why not you?

Hmm well I was hoping to post some lovely photos of Cody's frankenstein fuzzyfeet all fulled and shaped. But, er, it didn't work out. I overfelted them and now neither of us can get the tighter manos heel around our ankles. So if anyone with tiny feet, like a women's size 6 or so, wants some very unique wool slippers let me know. Or I'm just going to cut them into strips and do something else with them.

The good part is I have something else to post about. And it even falls into the Project Spectrum category! It's yarn! Yay! I'm getting back into the spinning! And let me say, I'm really glad. Spinning is so calming and I'm always really proud of what I come up with. This time it was some great 50% merino 50% tencel that I'd picked up from Winderwood farms last fall. I spun it thin enough to feel comfortable plying it.

So I borrowed Beverly's giganto plying head from her lendrum wheel while she's out of town and made a pretty big batch of two ply. 294.12 yards to be exact. Although I have some more on one bobbin that I'm going to try Andean plying or maybe just wind half of it into a ball and ply it that way. So there'll probably be about 315 - 325 yards altogether. Not bad.

edited (again) -

I ended up winding the remaining single ply into a center pull ball and plied from the center and outer edge of the ball. That's a nifty little process I'd heard about from the people at sheep to shawl last year. I learned so much that day. Much more than just how to spin with a wheel.

Anyway, there was more than I estimated for that second skein - 39.56 yards! So the total yardage is 333.68.

I wound the plied yarn into a skein using my trusty Goko swift this morning.

What I love about my Goko is it's so unique. It makes just winding or unwinding a skein a pretty little sculpture. Those Japanese really know from the aethetic don't they?

The tencel really made the shades of pink and orange shine. They're like silk. But softer. And shinier. And silkworm friendly. The colors and the shine made me think of fabrics from India. So I'm calling it Bombay Dreams.

The bad news is Beverly has first dibs on this yarn. The good news is if she doesn't want it I'll be happy to sell it to you.

edit: Now if Miss Beverly doesn't want it Miss Pamela will buy it. Yay!

Send me an email or leave a comment if you're interested. I'll let you know when she decides and we can work out a bill on paypal or a special listing on etsy or something. I'll be selling it for 60 US dollars. That will include the yarn I'm going to be plying today so that will be 333.68 yards for 60 dollars - that's less than 20 cents (17 cents to be exact) per yard. It winds out at about 10 wraps per inch - worsted to heavy worsted weight.

This stuff is so pretty. And shiny. Did I say how happy I am to be spinning again?

Also, I've been knitting the little ugg baby booties for a pregnant cousin-in-law. Ramona gave me the yarn that was leftover from knitting hers. And I did go ahead and buy some more so I could be sure I had enough for the hat too. I finished one bootie last night and these things are huge. If I do it again I'm going down a needle size or two.

I'm glad Chloe won. Not only because she was "anyone but Santino" but because I really like her model. She has such a unique look I've been rooting for her all season. I think it's fun to see untraditional looking people model. Makes me think that even normal people might be able to wear those clothes too. Which is why I really like the models from the Interweave magazines. Some are pear-shaped or have big shoulders. Some even have *gasp* bellies! Models with bellies not modelling fat girl clothes! Whoda thunk it?

Lots of photos. Lots.

First we have my third installment of Yarn Stash Appreciation Sunday. This week? Amazing handspun yarn (usually) bought from the artists themselves.

There are closeup photos in the Flickr Set so I'll just briefly tell you about each yarn. Clockwise starting from the top left: Two hanks Raspberry Tea by Maisy Day from Hello Yarn, Three different yarns (Pink thick and thin, blue thin, Santa Fe Rainbow thick and thin) from Sandstone Ranch.
Bottom Row from the right: Three big skeins of yarn (two green, one pink) from the Jitterbug shawl kit from Hello Yarn, in the bottom left corner are three skeins of lovely wool and silk from Greenwood Fiberworks, and above that is the unbelievable light sensitive yarn from Material Whirled.

Aren't they beautiful? I highly recommend each and every one of those spinners. And yes, there seems to be an awful lot of pink there. This wasn't exactly done on poipose but I certainly don't think it hoits.

Next, I finished the little collar project for Winter. I ended up just sewing the fabric inside and not making it a collar cover - just a collar itself. We never use her collar for the leash anyway, we always use a halter for that.

It's soft and it fits her nicely.

Oh, and here's something else I finished last night..

Yep! Finished my Jaywalkers! I even sewed the ends in. Go me!

Even though I made them a good bit taller than the original pattern, I still only used one skein of that Cherry Tree Hill Birches. Less than a yard to spare but just one skein. Which means I can make another pair of socks in this fun color.

Now, there's this backyard meme going around but to be honest. You really don't want to see my backyard. It used to have trees (that had to be cut down due to a fungus or something), and it had a big yard of grass with built-in sprinklers. But we both believe that having a yard is both a pain in the ass and completely an irresponsible thing to do in the desert so now it's mostly dirt with weeds and a lot of dog poop. So I'm going to show the parts of my backyard that I like.

This gargoyle that guards our back door.

Our only remaining full-sized tree

And this.

No, not the arroyo drainage construction that's been going on behind our house since last May. Nor the gross red wooden fence. But my little desert savannah camoflage dog.

Of course she makes the den pretty fun too

If you're curious about what the rest of the house looks like (with a few changes since this was made in early 2002) check out my eerily accurate Sims recreation of our house.

Technically it's not Friday but I'm a rebel...Here are some photos of the finished shawl. Still not blocked but I know you won't mind.

I can't properly describe how much I enjoyed knitting this. Or really how much I enjoy knitting with anything I buy from Adrian's shop. Her sense of color and great visual sense of using simple patterns to enhance the beauty of her (and Sarah's) handspun yarn is unsurpassed. I don't say that lightly either. I may be a new knitter but I've been studying color all my life. And I always find something truly desirable to knit with in her shop updates. You might notice that I had this knitting project interrupted for a few months. But you might also notice that I bought another kit in the meantime. The prices might seem a bit high if you're unfamiliar with the usual cost of handspun yarn - but it's important to consider how much wool is actually being used in the thicker yarns. Believe me, if you love unique and soft yarn it's totally worth it.

Cody said that I haven't taken enough photos of Winter with my knitting lately. So here's a gratuitous dog being tortured by knitting photo.

Don't let that hounddog face fool you. She loves the attention. And she was happily eating a greenie about three minutes after this photo was taken.

I started my besotted scarf but things got a little sloppy. So to get back into the practice of knitting cables I've been knitting a collar for Winter. Regular collars tend to rub on her short fur so I've been making one that can cover a new one. The idea is based on this necklace and I'm using some old mercerized cotton that I bought at a local store where 80s yarn went to die, or be bought for a dollar a skein by a newbie knitter.

It's knit on US size 4s and will be sewn into a tube using some fabric on the back then slipped onto a collar.

Technically since it's pink it fits into Project Spectrum right?

And isn't it sad that we've recently lost both The Old Man from A Christmas Story (as well as Kolchak The Night Stalker) and The Artful Dodger from Oliver (also in that terrifying show HR Puffinstuff)? What great guys they were.

then I have to go give the dog her heartworm meds and cast on my besotted scarf!

I had fun at the snb tonight. Lots of people were there! There were quilting ladies and a few people I never even got a chance to introduce myself to. And I finally got to meet Adam! The notorious guy knitter of Albuquerque! This guy has fierce knitting skills yo. That intarsia blanket he made (for his THIRD knitting project) is great! And he entertained the crazy punk knitters among us (Swatches? We don't need no stinking swatches!) with all his swatching, swatch-felting, measuring, and pages of design notes for his bag. It will be the perfect size of course. But all the notes were kind of cute. These engineers. They so funny.

Several of us brought our knits of shame tonight. Beverly had her crazy fair isle vest. Lauren had an amazing fair isle sweater and an intarsia bag. I had my Pumpkin Patch Shawl and Devan Sweater. The sweater was all knotted up in the extra yarn. It was a bit mess. But the shawl was a pleasure to pick up and knit again. I might even finish that one soon. And I turned the heel on my second Jaywalker sock tonight. YAY!

Project Runway fans might enjoy parts one and two of an interview Out.com did with Tim Gunn. I had no idea he was a practicing sculptor AND worked at the Corcoran Gallery in DC before moving to Parsons!

It took me a few days to feel like knitting again. I would pick a project up sometimes and absentmindedly do a few rows but my heart wasn't in it. I was mostly eating spicy mashed potatoes from Popeyes and watching Tivo. We all have our ways of coping right? The good part is I did get a little housecleaning done. And lots of cuddles from the kitties and Winter. It's funny to say this but they knew something was up with Mom and were all trying to comfort me in their own ways.

Yesterday I officially got back into the knitting groove. While I haven't finished my second Jaywalker sock (almost to the heel) I decided to just pick up my UFOlympic Clappy and see how the rhythm went on working with it again. I hadn't knit a stitch on that thing since September? October? A long time in my knitting world.

I had Tivoed the opening ceremonies so I was a good little UFOlympic knitalonger and started working on le clap while watching almost four hours of pyrotechnics and people in silly outfits. That's probably disrespectful but I had a very hard time not giggling at such odd and melodramatic spectacles as people on ice skates with big flamethowers on their backs shooting fire off the tops of their heads. It was like a weird version of Starlight Express, which is plenty wierd by itself.

The people who formed images like the skiier and the dove were neat though. And, of course, Pavarotti singing Puccini., well I could've watched that all night. I'm enjoying all the footage of Italy as well. I never got that far north when I was there but I did see some snow in Venice. Strangely I have not caught much of the actual sports. Like a complete girl I like the figure skating and that's about it.

But tonight and tomorrow night, I'm sorry but olympics be damned. Westminster's on and that's what I'm watching! I've enjoyed watching it since 1991 when I had a week to decide whether I wanted to stay in Birmingham and go to school or move to Australia with my parents. Even when I didn't have a purebreed dog, nor any real interest to own one, I've watched it. Now that I have a ridgeback that's had a few cousins win best of breed (one even won best of hounds!) you bet your bippy I'm watching. So me and my clap will be doing that this evening. Winter will probably watch a bit too before taking a nap. She watches the screen when I'm watching shows with dogs on them.

As far as progress on clappypants I'm doing pretty well. I'm on my third skein of six and I just finished repeat number five of twelve in the straight section. So I'm about halfway. At this rate I'll be finishing it this week and have time to finish my Jays before the closing ceremony (which will probably be just as elaborate and fiery but I will try to refrain from giggling).

I haven't taken any photos in a few weeks so I don't have images of the superlong airy scarf I knit for my mil or the oddball fuzzyfeet I'm working on for Cody. Or progress on clapster. I'll get some today before I get any work done.

I did officially sign up for Project Spectrum yesterday and just for fun made a few buttons for it, mostly because I hadn't seen any designs with a color wheel and I thought that would be neat. Feel free to take them.

I don't mind hotlinking from my site (I have a very generous host and lots of space I even survived being boingboinged with an audio file and didn't even make a dent in my bandwidth) so if you don't have a lot of space or have trouble working with graphics you offically have my permission to hotlink these buttons. Just these buttons. And just hotlinking from my site my site mmkay? I made different sizes for each too.

Broadway Marquee Style


Painterly Colorwheels




Partdridge Family Bus



Some medication trademark image-looking design with a colorwheel

Enjoy!