Thursday, September 28, 2006

It's crappy picture day!

When will I learn to use the freaking delay button on my camera? when? I tried. I really tried. I didn't actually find the manual or go online, but I pushed a LOT of buttons after finding the timer button. It is just a little too smart for me today. So, you get a crappy picture of what is working up to be quite a smart-looking sweater. It is turning out a bit loose, but I think it's ok. I'm just hoping the wool in the silky wool will help hold the stitches and not let it stretch out too much more. Maybe I'll even toss it in the dryer for a few minutes just to see what happens..... maybe not. I'll try to wear it as is first. no worries. The lace is cool, the knitting in the round just FLIES off the needles. It's like an obsession for me. I can't wait to finish up the sleeves and WEAR it! I still need to do the neckline so it'll be a low sweater worn over a tank top. I'm really enjoying knitting with the silky wool as well. STILL can't believe I got it for $5/skein. I heart webs!



I promise to take a GOOD picture once the sweater is completed. I'd SO SO SO recommend this sweater to make, I did do some frogging on the lace band the first few rounds and then again on the first 2 rounds of the sleeve band, but that was because I am Mentally Lace Challenged, not because it was difficult. I think it's the easiest lace pattern I've ever done. Then I started thinking, hm, if I had to frog over and over on THIS thing, WTF was I doing jumping in on all those big ass lace shawl projects a couple of months ago??? Ah well. I don't think I've ever done anything the easy way. Life would've been much too boring. I just call it "taking the scenic route" whether we miss a few turns in the car and end up in the wrong part of town, or whether I miss a few stitches and I end up on the wrong side of the pattern.

THE BET IS ON....
I'm losing my connection to Blogger this am, so here's the nutshell version of the story. Never, ever make a bet when you're getting tipsy and mouthy. I can either win $2500 or lose $500 AND have to mow the grass with a crappy old push mower WHILE MY BOYFRIEND (and most likely the neighbors as well) sit in the driveway drinking a beer ALL SUMMER LONG. Bet is that I will or will not get to my target weight by March 1, 2006. If I get there earlier, I get the $$ then. I don't have to MAINTAIN the weight, I just have to be there for one moment that is witnessed by us both.

After shaking on the bet, I've since GAINED four pounds. nice. Jeff's sure he'll win because I OCCASIONALLY put things off until the very last minute and then run around like crazy for a few days. I don't know WHERE he got that idea. Wish me luck people.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Weebles Wobble but they don't fall down



GAWD I used to love my weeble wobbles when I was a kid! This is what my cousin brought me from his job fair. Just what a bunch of computer techy 21 year olds would want, huh? A WEEBLE WOBBLE CLOCK!!! I totally love it! It does actually weeble and wobble around and everything. Everybody needs one. I love that boy. I'll feed him for a week for this one.

I got SO SO SO much knitting done on my skb sweater it freaked me out. I'd happily freak you out as well, but don't want to take the damn thing off the needles to try it on, so I'm just doing the hold-it-up-in-front-of-the-body-and-squint sizing. I'm sure it'll be fine. I was more sure of this last night after 2 glasses of wine than in the bright light of day, but I'm starting the bottom 10 rows of the body, so if it doesn't fit now, what's 10 more rows? (does anyone else hear the darth vader music going on in your head too now? duh...duh...duh..........duh....duh...duh) What was the line..."I've got a baaaaad feeling about this." repeated by almost everyone in the original Star Wars movie? Can you guess what we've been watching around here lately? It's such fun to share those amazingly cool movies of our youth with my own kids. LOVE that. I think I'll wait a few more years for the Indiana Jones movies to ward off potential nightmares of snakes, melting faces, etc.

Hope to have a sweater body that FITS to try on for the camera tonight or tomorrow. I went out to the old square part of Independence yesterday morning while work's computer system was down (don't you just HATE that? Forced free time?) and wandered around Knitcraft. I bought almost no yarn (since I must already have enough in the stash for 3 stash hoarding knitters) but some boring black and charcoal sock yarn for Jeff and a few really cute patterns and about 6 magazines from the $1 basket including a few good Knitters, a Rebecca, and some crochet mags as well. I spent much of the afternoon reading and dreaming and drooling over new project ideas.

I'd been looking for a sweater pattern to make for each of my children since the children of knitters SHOULD in fact, WEAR items made by their mothers if their mothers weren't so busy knitting things for THEMSELVES. I wandered and perused all through hundreds of patterns for TWO HOURS, saw a few cute things, but nothing just right. Then I found it. The Wonderful Wallaby!



The Wonderful Wallaby is the ultimate hooded sweater for all members of the family from the tiniest to the largest. I had to laugh out loud. I had totally forgotten about the Wallaby. An amazing lady named Camille was the one who tried to tell me this was the perfect sweater for my chilren long ago. I believe I snorted tropical iced tea out of my nose (literally) when she told me I'd be making this someday and would think of her and know she was wise. (She was also a bit of a smartass so this was said with attitude.) At the time I was a VERY beginning knitter, only able to make scarves and felted bags. I made a LOT of scarves and a LOT of felted bags and two tank tops that were the most unattractive things on the face of the earth. She also encouraged (aka gently bullied) me into teaching some of the friends I brought along to the knit group how to knit ON MY OWN after she showed me how to teach others. I thought she was insane. I have since taught my daughter and at least 8 other women how to become a part of this amazing cult of knitters. You were right Camille, you were wise. I think the sweaters are going to be even more special now. For a woman I didn't know for a very long time, you sure made a big impression on me. Your love of the craft, of the fibers, of the people we knit for, but mostly for each other. You were always accepting of others, full of joy and made me feel happy just by sitting and knitting with you. Meeting you at your old knit group on Wed. nights really forced me to get out of my little shell and start making friends again, which inspired me to make the knitting blog, which helped me make even more friends. I have had just enjoyed the hell out of myself since I've started knitting. Thanks for everything and I miss you.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Happy Homemaker Strikes Again

Last night an actual dinner was served at my house. Chili in the crockpot, scalloped potatoes (I'd never made them before and they were the yummiest things I've ever eaten. I amaze myself. I truly do.), fruit, beer bread (brought by my sister-in-law) and spinach dip with a bottle of wine brought by my dad mom's angel food cake. mmmmmmmmm. I love getting family together! My little nephew Charlie is turning ONE YEAR OLD next week. My younger brother that lives in Naples, FL is coming back into town for a second job interview and is coming to the house Friday night, so I may just have to bake up some scalloped potatoes again. Seriously, me, a potato peeler, spices and casserole dishes. Who'd of thunk it? I've now made about 10 dinners that have all turned out good. I may even have to get out my old fake pearls and start vacuuming in heels. That oughta scare the crap out of Jeff, huh?

Speaking of JOB INTERVIEWS....Jeff is now gainfully employed. After his "summer sabbatical" he is working!!!! Whew. It was a long time from March to September. He is one of those SMART people that have SAVINGS set aside for just such an occurance, so he made it through ok financially, but it was getting to the end of the emergency fund and I was getting just a titch nervous that he never would work again. Then I was stressing because he was offered a job and ACCEPTED said job with a great stable company but kept putting them off and trying to get through the interview process with the new company and I was so worried he'd not get both jobs because of it, but it all worked out just perfectly and he even got out of the original job on good terms. He's working with a company he loves and doing what he loves (sales) so can have the flexibility he needs. YEAH for Jeff!!

Here's a shot of the simple knitted bodice, I'm 2 repeats into the lace band. I'm hoping this thing will fit ok. I did the cursed taking a million stitches off the needles and onto waste yarn and trying it on thing, but I still just can't really tell. The picture's pretty boring, but I hope it shapes up as pretty as the others I've seen on the sexyknitters blog.



My little bit o' Maui for the day...




There's a good clearance sale going on at AnneTaintor's site. Click the pic below to get to her stuff. I'm thinking I need more note cards. And how much fun would a grab bag of magnets be?

Friday, September 22, 2006

Why Knitting and watching Dawn of the Dead don't mix right before bed...

Seriously freaky dreams people. Remember the big ol' zombie movie? You had to get rid of their heads to stop them and you couldn't get bitten or you became zombies too? Well, I woke up this morning with my heart pounding after dreaming of having to hit freaky zombies over the head with two sledgehammers that resembled those big ass Lion Brand size 50 knitting needles while they were trying to EAT my thumb. WHY the thumb? I'm sure it was because when the film got more intense, my knitting went even faster. I was a BLUR of additurbos just cranking out the start to my simple knitted bodice. The start is almost a no-brainer....knit to 1 stitch before each marker, kfb, slip marker, kfb, knit to next marker.... until it's big enough to join. I'm now 2 rows from getting to try it on and see if I need to make the smaler size or not. I hardly had to think, and could just KNIT KNIT KNIT! My thumb is STILL achy from too much fast knitting. ick. Giant metal knitting needles through zombie heads isn't a pretty picture. ick. Just got another visual from the dream...crawling out of a drainage ditch after impaling 2 zombies. ick. Can't you just see the next big horror flick?

When knitters attack....be afraid...be...very...afraid!

Maui for the day... the mighty surfers!






Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Thanks Amanda, I should get blogging again!

Whew, has it really almost been a week? cripes! Time flies when you're going senile!

I've been KNITTING honest and truly! Remember those two big ass skeins of hand-dyed cotton I got back at the Studio sale and then just crammed into my stash? One of them is on its way to becoming another Sizzle. It's the multi-colored thing on the left in the pic. What else would I start with the cold days of fall upon us but another sleeveless summer tank? Next to it is the start of the Simple Knitted Bodice that I'm making out of Silky Tweed, this silk, cotton and merino blend that I got on MAJOR closeout sale from webs. I'm doing color #16 and the long-sleeved verson, which is a dusty blue-ish tealish color, not quite as bright as it shows up on the computer. OH MY GOD $4.49/ball. It was my first purchase from webs and I'm a TOTAL believer. FAST shipping, great quality yarn, CHEAP price, it's a keeper. I've also almost run out of yarn on Joey's socks. I decided I don't freaking CARE what Jeff thinks about the colors not being "manly" enough. The kid is SIX years old and still wears what his momma tells him to. Joey loves them and that's enough for me. dammit. Besides, what's not manly about blue, brown and grey for cripes sakes?



What else has been going on, um, nothing. Quite boring around here really.

I did take the kids on an adventure to the side of a busy overpass of I-435 to collect wild sunflowers. If you're gonna do this, make SURE to take a big ol' trash bag along. There are some SERIOUSLY creepy critters crawling around on the damn things. I did have that, but I wish I would've had gardening gloves to boot since some of them had not only creepy crawly things, but also some prickly stems! ALSO don't wear flip flops with no socks as that pretty road-side green isn't short friendly grass, but one to three foot high weeds to wade through and I almost stepped on a SNAKE!!! ICK. Anyway, we got a system going. Mom made a LOT of noise to scare away any other snakes or animals and then I knocked the crap out of the bushy plant, then chopped off some long stems and handed them to Joey, who ran them out to Beth holding the big trash bag. Then we went hopping and stomping and yelling to the next bush. Do the arranging OUTDOORS since you WILL bring home more bees, moths, spiders, ants and other various critters. You will. trust me on this one. After arranged, it went on the table in our screened-in porch to be enjoyed OUTDOORS and much anti-itch cream went onto our legs where we fed the bug population of southern johnson county. Sunflowers really are my favorite flower in the world.

Back when I lived in a mud hovel in the armpit of America (East of Albuquerque in the middle of nowhere) we lived on this dirt/clay/mudpit of a road just past "tire man" and some trailers. I was getting tired of the dirt and spiders and clay and nothingness, so I found some wild flowers growing near the foothills and transplanted them. Most of them died, except for the glorious bushy HUGE wild sunflowers. They took off and became this unbelievably beautiful border all along both sides of the dirt road. My neighbors HATED them and HATED me for it. Such lovely memories I have of the place with its black widow infestation in our crawl space.... I do love New Mexico, just not the little spot where I lived with the ex. I'd go for long walks in the mountains, all over Albuquerque and loved Santa Fe and Taos.



Your Maui for the day shots are of this big old Banyan Tree. The travel books said it's the largest living thing on all the islands. It was larger than a city block and unreal. The roots come down from the tree and end up forming more trunks all connected into this one tree.



Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Sizzlin along....

Gonna do it. Gonna have to. Sizzle #2. I'm drowning in a sea of cotton yarn and since the sexy knitters knitalong is doing BOTH of my very favoritestest sweaters, I'm gonna do BOTH! MAN I get hit with startitis in the fall! (just turned the heel on Joey's 2nd sock, trying REALLY hard to make myself finish it before starting anything else.) The second knitalong is the simple knitted bodice, can we say YUM-MMM-MEEE? Yes please. I can't afford the tilli thomas silk yarn, so I ordered Silky Tweed in a teal-looking color and paid $4.49 PER BALL at Webs and am so excited I just can't even see straight.

OK, looking back at that last post title, I realize I should have said the TECHNIQUE from knitty was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, um, not my honey sticking his belly and man-boobs out into the size c coconut top. sorry. :) I'm so glad he doesn't show any interest in my "silly knitting computer thing".

Dose of Maui for the day.... Joey on the snorkeling ride catamaran boat and can we say Miss Diva?



Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen

Man, I love it when the new Knitty is up. Seriously. Then I get all aflutter with each month's issue of Magknits. *sigh* Sweaters are calling my name from both mags. Hurry up crochetme, it's time for you to crank out a new issue too dammit!

I want to try the extreme knitting written up in the new knitty. Holy crapamighty that would be unREAL to be able to pull one sock out from the other one while knitting on dpns. It absolutely boggles my mind. I can see unbelievable amounts of chocolate, cursing and mike's hard limeades being consumed in the pursuit of this amazing feat with pointy sticks. Seriously, who figures out things like that?

Today's taste of Maui...."Never fear, Coconut-man is here!"



They sell those damn coconuts in sizes A, B, C, D and DD. This is what happens when you go shopping after happy hour.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Jaywalkin' through the pineapples...

SO, we're back! OH MY GAWD you can't imagine how amazing our trip was! I think I'll just add a few pictures for the rest of my life so you can all see them. Please let me know when you get tired of them, seriously, we came back with over 200 photos. We haven't even gotten the kids' digital camera emptied out or the disposable back from the store yet. We absolutely had a vacation that the children and us adults will be able to look back on whenever times ahead get tough. I'm making a scrapbook for each of the kids, a grandma/pa one, photos for a few aunts & my bros & a few cousins and one big ol' whammy of a scrapbook for us. (not the REAL scrapbooks, don't get all excited people, I found little acid-free archival whatever books you can SLIDE your pics in and little journal lines next to them so I can actually FINISH it.) I have a bad history with beginning to scrapbook...I think I completed all of 4 pages before my head exploded.

ANYWAY, trip in a nutshell, AFTER the first day, it was unfreakingbelievable. The first day did suck a bit. We had a stretch limo ride to the airport, wonderful flights, including the big one from Dallas to Maui where we were treated like KINGS and Joey got to wear the captain's hat the entire trip, got one of the last minivans available as the car rental agency totally overbooked everything, then sat in said minivan for SEVEN HOURS trying to get through the shut down roads to our hotels. Rental cars were overheating right and left, we were SO SO SO lucky to have an almost new rental and one that the kids could spread out in and sleep a bit. There was a forest fire at the TOP of the mountain far, far away from the highway, but they weren't letting anyone through. By the time we finally got through (100 cars every 30 minutes moved about 1/2 mile), the fire was about, oh, 15 FREAKING FEET from our van. I was a bit nervous, developed 3 big ol' zits including one that sat right in the middle of my chin and we named him Bubba, but Jeff said he could see the water, if we needed to, we'd grab the kids and run down the hill. nice. We made it to the hotel at midnight Maui time, we'd been awake for about 27 hours and were quite loopy. They then closed the roads for another half day, so we were VERY lucky to get through. After that, it was paradise!

Tiny knitting note-- I finished one Jaywalker sock which fits and one and a half socks for Joey. Beth's will be cast on soon. I only knitted on the plane and in the minivan for the 7 hours. I did NO knitting the rest of the week. It felt weird, but I guess I needed a vacation from that as well.

Best vacation of my life! Here's a few highlights.








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