Bad Blogger

I'm a baaad blogger! I sit here and grumble when the blogs I read are not updated on a daily basis, and then turn around and not post for a week. Shame, shame, shame. I'll try to be less judging of the time it takes for others to blog, especially when I'm the worst offender!

So, what have I been doing in place of blogging? Travelling? No. Working? A little. Housework? Definitely no. Knitting? Not as much as I'd like. Being lazy? BINGO!!! It's not like I haven't been on the computer. (Note the reference to others not blogging above.) I just haven't felt like thinking. I haven't even answered my e-mail in over a week. Sometimes it's nice to shut down for a little bit. Ya'know?







Well, to appease the blogging gods, here are some pictures. This is the yarn that I spun up about two weeks ago. It was my first attempt at navajo plying, and I think I knida like it. It's for sure not my most even yarn, but pretty all the same. It's also not the softest, but it was agood experiment. The navajo ply gives you alot more depth in texture and the color of this is very soothing. It's some border leceister(sp?) that I got off e-bay a while back. I saw they had some more lots of it listed. I might have to get a bit more. I haven't quite figure out the yarn ounce to roving ounce ratio yet. I know it depends on how you spin it, but there was 4 ounces of roving when I started, which, logically, would yield about 4 ounces of yarn. But I only got 78 yards of yarn. It doesn't make sense, since a 4 ounce ball of yarn would be quite a bit. Or maybe not. I've always had trouble converting weight measurements. Also, maybe you can't look at it that way until you're more consistent and all. I'm still pretty ignorant about the whole spinning thing.

I have also been knitting socks out of the million dollar sock yarn. It is yummy, yum, yum. Does every knitter have a sock going as a back up project? I have socks, socks , and more socks that need to have a mate or a kitchener to make them whole. The perfect project for my knitter's ADD. Plus it fits in my new GI-normous purse. I made sure before I bought it.

We had a great time in Georgia, although hardly enough. I think my kids are well on their way to accomplishing their goal of using every public restroom in America! I'm not kidding. They've never actually told me this is what they are doing, but it's obvious to me. Every store, restaraunt, etc. that we go to, they have to potty. Even if they just pottied at the last one ten minutes ago. We have seen many a bathroom. But the store that really gets 'em going is Lowe's. Don't ask me. All I know is that anytime we go to Lowe's, it's not 5 minutes before someboy's gotta potty.

Here they are at Smoky Mountain National Park, right after Aidan had to use the potty at the information office. This was probably one of the only eight times they got along on the whole trip, with 6 of the other times being when they were asleep. They have started the whole, "she's touching me", "he's copying me", "she's sticking her tongue out at me" routine. Aw, the joys of parenting.

Well, now I'm late for work. I'm a bad employee...but at least I'm no longer a bad blogger.

I've been a bad, bad girl

Yarn diet, schmarn diet, who said anything about a yarn diet? I'm afraid I may have to quit with the yarn diet, because I honestly think it makes me want to binge!!! I went to my LYS and bought million dollar sock yarn! See...

But it is sooo worth it. It's Mountain Colors and it's yummy. (I think it's that darn mohair, it's my new craving.) And it's sock yarn, so it doesn't really count, right? Right? RIGHT?!?! This was after my dip in the evil well of e-bay, which came today. Here's a picture with the other yarn for scale.
I have to say, I was a little disappointed by the size of this yarn. Yes, I read the listing when it said that there were only fifty yards, but I didn't realize it would be a miniature fifty yards. Man. What a let down from the high of my dirty e-bay buying episode. It really is like crack. :o
I also bought a skein of Sokkata yarn at my LYS for some cottony good socks. Yeah, like I needed more sock yarn. I've also done some spinning but the stinkin' picture loady thingy on Blogger is not working out very well for me tonight. I swear, it's not the operator. It's not the operator! Well, maybe it's the operator... more pics tomorrow....

AAARGHHH!! A Pirate I be

My pirate name is:

Mad Jenny Cash

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You're musical, and you've got a certain style if not flair. You'll do just fine. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

E.A.A.

...Hello, my name is Stefanie, and I'm an E-bay Addict. I never realized it was a problem until I hit bottom last week. Generally, I just browse the aisles, resisting the urge to click that buy-it-now button. And even when I do see an item, I play it cool. I'll bid a low amount as my maximum bid and if I lose, I lose. Not last week. The first step in my spiral downward was that I bid on something that ended while I was at work, where we just got high-speed internet access. I broke the cardinal sin- I played e-bay while I was at work. This is not the worst. I then proceeded to play bid and out-bid with some other E-bay addict up until the very last 2 minutes. I had the adrenaline pumping and my finger clicking that refresh button every 30 seconds! This turned my $.99 bargain into a $9.78 okay deal. But it wasn't like this was a one-of-a-kind item that I just had to have. It was the rush of the whole thing. The clicking to see if I was still on top. Man, I'm a fool. How could I have thought E-bay was harmless all this time? It's the crack of the internet. Yikes!
And what did I buy that was worth plunging into the perils of this realm? Yarn. Didn't you expect it to be feeding my other addiction? One skein of Lorna's Laces Angel Angora. I have no idea what I will do with only one skein, but it's mine. Dammit! Mine!

SUCCESS!!!!

I am brilliant! I wish anyway. Well, just got back from Gee-orgia and will have stories to tell later. Right now, I must sleep. That adventure in blogging drained my brain. ;p

Too hard, brain mushy...

So I'm trying to get the stinking picture to show up on the knitting blogs button on my sidebar. Here's the problem- I'm a computer idiot. And I've had no sleep. I now have the picture saved on my hard drive, but it is bmp, not jpeg, and my little hello thing is for jpeg. Aaargh! I'm gonna try this.
Yeah, now it's here, but how do I get it there? I think I need a knit break.

Too Busy to Sleep

Man, the past few days have been killing me. We are going out of town tomorrow, so I tried to squeeze 40 hours of work into Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. That on top of working my buns off to get a quilt done for my husband's friend before we leave and I'm frazzled! But it's done! And I managed to knit a little too. And spin. Although the pictures will have to wait for another day. Toodles!

YUCK! I just looked at my last blog post and the photos are horrendous! I apologize for any bleeding from the eyes that resulted from that post.

Spin, spin, spin

Here's my latest product...



And another view here-->





I don't have a whole lot because my dog decided that sheep might be tasty,
and since this smells like sheep, she'd like to give it a chew. Man, I was steaming! She did this to the last batch too, but I take the blame because I left it within reach. This time I had it hanging way up high on a plant hook on the back porch and she still managed to get it. I hope to spin up some more pretty soon, but, in the meantime, I couldn't help knitting up a swatch. I like it. Because of the small amount, I just had to go to the LYS and find something to go with it. I found some really nice kettle-dyed wool in just the right green...

I'm thinking a vest. As long as I can keep it away from my dog...

The End

The neverending baby blanket has ended! I'm speechless. It was like giving birth after a horrendously long and painful labor. It's finished, fine, finito, fin. Yippee!
Now who can I give it to?

Extra, Extra

The new Knitty is here! Lots of cool stuff, like I need more ideas for projects. And Miss Insubordiknit got published! I'm so happy for her, especially since she's working on getting the yarn shop up and running. Hopefully it will bring in some business.

I have been happily knitting on the neverending baby blanket. I think the end is actually in sight. Ihave less than 100 stitches left on my needle. Yippeee! I also got a super cool book about spinning from my LYS. She is getting ready to move to different location at the end of the month and she will be carrying wheels and having classes. Yeah! I'm so excited to have a resource around here. I also fondled as much of the yarn as I could without looking like a total perve, overall much fun was had. Tonight, since The Man is at work, I'm going to cast on for a vest for Abbey out of my very own homespun. I hope it works out well, I can hardly stand the suspense. (Okay, a bit of an exageration since I've been thinking about it for maybe a month now.)

I tried spinning some more last night, but the darn roving didn't want to hang onto itself. I think I took too much of a break. I was cruising along really well but I got sidetracked with baby stuff, and now it's like I lost my rhythym. Well, hopefully it will all come back. I've got alittle bit of singles ready to ply so I'm gonna do that tonight. Maybe that will trigger the memory of what to do.

Or maybe I'll just sleep.

Am I crazy?

So, now that I have purged the political demons for a week or so, I have turned much attention back to knittting pursuits. They say men think about sex every 3 minutes (or something like that), but I think about knitting! I dreamt of knitting last night. Charts and yarn and patterns danced through my head all night long. I need to buy a new purse, and I found myself judging them by how big of a project I can stuff inside. I feel like if I could only learn to type with my feet so my hands can be busy knitting, or learn to read a book while reading a pattern, I would be an abundantly happy person. This said, I don't need any help with excuses for stash building, but The Man decided to give me some. Admittedly, this was not on purpose. We (I) have a huge disorganized mess in our bedroom. Because it is a very large room (20x35 ft.), and our house has no real storage (it was built in 1900, before people needed closets), and it has a door that we can shut, it has become the dumping ground of all my future, current, past projects. Whenever we are having company, it all gets scurried away into our room and the door is shut on our horrid little secret. Now, I know this is a problem, and I have been working on it, but the solution is NOT to shove everything in a huge box and stick it in the attic. This is what I came home to one day. Hello!!!! I said, "You know, the best way to get me to buy more yarn is to hide the stuff I already have at the bottom of a box!" Well, he got the point and I've been working alone ever since. There are good moments and bad moments to that arrangement. I have made real progress, but I was also forced to mutter the words..."I promise, I won't start a new project until our room is clean". Oy! But, because of my knitting ADD, I have plenty of already started projects to keep me going. Like these...

This is cute bolero that I'm knitting in purple. I'm using Berroco Softwist and it's turning out well. The pieces need blocked before I can take a picture of them because the rrrrooooollllllll. A lot.


This is a baby blanket that is officially my longest running work in progress. I started it two years ago. Amazingly, my gauge is not terribly altered over the work period. Talk about endless knitting.


And this is baby Katie's cardi. Mostly done. Didn't like the garter stitch one, so I went back to a good old basic stockinette raglan. I was thinking of adding some duplicate stitch embellishments like flowers, but I'm kinda likin' the simplicity of it. But it definitely needs a hat.


And last, but not least, the Lacey Wave Shawl (is that the name?) from th Fall Vogue knitting. I am done with the body of it, partly because I only knit 58 inches instead of 64. Hey, that's taller than I am! Plus, I still need to add the borders, so that will add another 6-8 inches I think. Long enough anyways.

Well that all the adventures for now. Toodles.

WARNING...Not much knittin' round here

Sooo... I can't help but comment on the status of certain issues today. First, I second Jacey with a big ol' FUCK about Rehnquist. I can't believe that everybody's favorite pinhead gets to fill TWO spots on the one branch of government that actually reads the constitution. I'm worried about women's rights, I'm worried about gay rights, I'm worried about minority right, I'm worried about the rights of everyone in America! AAARGH!

And number two, right on Kanye West! Did anyone else get to hear "George Bush doesn't care about black people"? And I just know Chris Tucker wanted sooo badly to add his two cents, you could see it on his face! I think it is appalling the amount of time it took to work through the bureaucracies in this country just to get people in need some help. There were national guard units ready to deploy on SUNDAY, but they couldn't go anywhere until someone asked for them! Hello, like we couldn't see that they were needed? Not only that, but in order for guard units to go out their home state, they have to get permission from Washington! They couldn't have expedited this formality???? What the fuck is the matter with this country? And how about this little tidbit? I'm at my wit's end.

And, one more thing, about the whole gas price. First, maybe all of these natural disasters are Mother Earth's way of spanking her naughty children. You can only run around making a mess of the place for so long before she gets fed up and lashes out. Maybe, we should heed the warnings and clean up our acts. Yeah, gas is expensive, but maybe it will encourage all of us to USE LESS! My generation has been very fortunate that we have all that we want, hell, more than we want. No rationing here, it's all about waste and overuse. Hey, I'm guilty too. But I think we all need to stop and get a reality check. So you can't fill up your Hummer for under $100, so what. Serves you right for getting a vehicle so monstrous anyways. Let's all be thankful for what we have and not play "what if". Let's all do what we can to help, even if it means walking to the grocery, video store, etc.

Okay, rant's over.

But, I just gotta say, "refugee" means one seeking refuge. That includes Americans.

Toady, oops, Today

Today I officially became the mother of a kindergartener. WOW! I "celebrated" by seeing a city bus plow over a bus stop, buying donuts and eating too many, watching the horrible news on t.v., fighting in traffic for 25 minutes to pick up said kindergartener, who was actually on his way home via the bus, and buying knitting needles. Woohoo! I bought two size 2 24" circulars to try out with some socks. I'm working on the Friday Harbor pattern from "Knitting on the Road", and I'm not liking the results. But these look great, and they are being knitted on two circs. Well, the newly obnoxious kindergartener is yelling at his poor toothless kid sister (she had to have the front one pulled! Now she'll be my own "'lil Abner" for the next 3 years! AACK). More content after much drowning of age in pizza.

Mmmm...yarn