2007 Knitting Triumphs

2007 Knitting Triumphs, originally uploaded by swandive00.

I find it unlikely that I will finish the pants' hat before 2008, so a bit prematurely, here's the collage of what i finished in 2007.

Noticeably absent (at least to me) is Coachella, which although finished looks like crap on me and will be frogged soon enough.

I love knitting, I just have less time to do it. I guess being unemployed for 9 months after grad school spoiled me for all the time for yarn and needles that I had come to expect for myself.

I also put Ms. Marigold in there twice because I wanted to have a somewhat even mosaic and I like the half-drunk picture.

Hooray for knitting! And click through the pic for details!

hello? bloggy mojo? are you there?

Every so often The Pants will say to me, "you haven't been blogging lately. It's been a while since your last post."

Ain't that the truth.

Not to mention, the only thing that's been keeping me going lately is the ability to post pictures. But since the demise of my sad camera that I was so excited for when I bought it in NYC, even though I couldn't stand the damn thing, my blogivation has been waning and waning.

But I'm not ready to make a public declaration that I Am Quitting The Blog, so I'm going to post when I want about what I want.

Oh wait, I did that anyway.

However, here is my news for today:

I am doing Christmas baking
I have no Christmas tree
I made butter today with cream from Eastern Market
I made in in an early Christmas present from The Pants' Dad (thanks again!)
Ernie is laying on the floor, as is his S.O.P.
Pants and I are going to the movies tonight
I am knitting legwarmers (1.2 down, 0.8 to go!)
I am knitting the Pants' Autobot hat (doubleknit, 3.0mm needles, very slow)
I am taking next week off entirely, and going in on New Year's Eve (seriously?!)

I sort of miss the conception of blogging, but don't have the motivation.

But, dude. I made butter.

Skin Ship

Skin Ships, originally uploaded by swandive00.

Here's the last picture my camera took before crapping out. The dreaded (and it turns out almost urban legend in nature) E18 message came up.

I may need to get a new camera. :(

Although I hate my camera, so that's not the worst thing ever. But it's annoying.

My favorite flavor

My favorite flavor, originally uploaded by swandive00.

"A fine combination of crunchy malt-puffs and chocolate."

(this post is also known as any excuse to create a crunk tag.)

Ernie is 8

Ernie is 8, originally uploaded by swandive00.

Eight years ago tonight in November, a hairless blind puppy was born on a horse farm in Winterville, Georgia.

Seven weeks after that, I took him home, and named him Ernie. Since then, he's driven to wherever I've gotten an inkling to move (Georgia to Maine via Ithaca, NY; Maine to California; California to Colorado; Colorado to California where he lived with the Pants and his family; California to the District of Columbia where he lives today.) He's been too rowdy for words, peed in excitement before my friends, played fetch with my mom, delighted and intimidated my dad, and maybe bitten one or two along the way. I have been less than ideal of a friend to him sometimes (he just wanted to play, I just wanted to knit...) for such a sweet, silly high energy mutt. But he's never been anything but extremely devoted and loyal to me.

So today, Ernest P. Givens XVIII (Not his real last name), in honor of you eighth birthday, you are presented with a bacon double cheeseburger, a Nerf basketball backboard, and an unlimited amount of belly rubs.

Ernie gives thanks

Ernie gives thanks for a blurry dinner, originally uploaded by swandive00.

I am a day late and a dollar short. In saying happy Thanksgiving and that I am very thankful.

I started off yesterday taking pictures of my Very First Thanksgiving Dinner that I have ever made. I took pictures of the turkey in process, of the roasting pan with a Built In Rack, of the gluten-free bread (which may or may not have been gluten free...) for the gluten-free stuffing.

However. And there always seems to be a however. I lost my enthusiasm with the blinding migraine that forced me to push away my dinner for fear of tossing my cookies. I did, however take a picture of the spoiled dog's thanksgiving dinner because his begging paid off in the form of turkey, gravy and mashed potatoes on top of his kibble.

And because I went to bed at 8:30 last night after a mid-morning migraine nap that lasted 4 hours, I've been up since 2 am. Today, I am still thankful, and doing laundry and getting ready to pack for my 10 day business trip to Tokyo.

On my Tokyo agenda: Sushi, yarn shopping, avoiding chikan, and I suppose working.

I'm bringing my camera, I'm bringing yarn for the flights. Here's to hoping my needles aren't confiscated.

Things that are good and girly but good nonetheless

• First and foremost, Maryam is coming to town today!!
• We are going to eat Ethiopian food and Persian food and laugh and knit and...
• Have an Anne of Green Gables (The Kevin Sullivan flavor) movie marathon with Pandles.
  
• I finally got a new bedspread and sheet set to replace my polyester "Quick! I just moved to town and it's snowing and I need sheets and a bedspread!" The new one is cotton. And polka dotty. And brownandgreen. And it's from Target. And I am pleased. I also got a mattress pad. The mattress pad is not pictured. And it is wrinkly because I haven't washed it yet and I can't be arsed.
  
  
  
• Ernie is wearing a batman (well Bacardi) bandanna so that he can fight crime.
  

I swatched Ravelry

I swatched Ravelry, originally uploaded by swandive00.

Yay Beta shirts!

Seriously?!

It's November 8 and Starbucks has already gotten rid of the Pumpkin Spice Latte in favor of the Christmas drinks? Two weeks before Thanksgiving?

And they're not even letting the Pumpkin Spice syrup run out like they normally do?

Edited to add: I totally wrote a complaint to Starbucks. I am a nerd.

Tagging

I was tagged for a meme. I'm never tagged, but frequently participate if I'm out of blogfodder. But this time, I was tagged by the lovely lovely CiCi.

7 Random Facts! Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. (truth be told, I'm unlikely to tag. Because many, many people have been tagged for this. And because I have very few friends.)

1. I have intermittent fits of domesticity. I love to cook (frequently off-the-cuff, sometimes using a recipe as a bit of a guide), bake (frequently from a recipe, but rarely measuring things smaller than a tablespoon), knit (duh), sometimes sew, sometimes plan how to decorate a home space (but I suck at this) and have fleeting fantasies of being a farm wife. However, with an exception to the cooking and knitting, these things rarely stick longer than a week or two (rarely) or a few hours (more likely). But I really wanted to learn how to can this summer. I didn't have time.
   
2. I've reached a point where if I sleep for longer than about 7.5 hours in a row I have a blazing headache when I awake. So on weekends I frequently have blazing headaches. In fact, I sort of don't love this Fall Back weekend because I wound up awake at 5:30 on a Sunday morning with a blazing headache because I went to bed at 10 pm last night. My grandfather on my mom's side had a similar problem.
   
3. I love puzzles, especially visual spatial puzzles. Jigsaw, horseshoe, 3-d puzzles. I find the solving of puzzles to be very satisfying and soothing. People hate finding giant knots in yarn, but I will spend days and days working on a single knot because it's relaxing to see how all those threads intersect and unravel them. That being said, I've never had the interest to figure out a Rubik's Cube and never fiddled with one for longer than about 30 seconds.
   
4. I love being Catholic. I'm rarely good at it, but I love it nonetheless.
5. I have never really liked Starbucks coffee. That being said, the Pumpkin Spice latte appears to have been created by Satan to be the Best Beverage Ever. Also, Starbucks coffee, which I think tastes burned, has ruined me for all other coffees now... I always think they taste funny if they're not Starbucks. Yet somehow, the cafeteria at work has found a way to make their Starbucks coffee taste like donkey feet, so I will usually stop at Au Bon Pain for coffee in the mornings unless I suck it up and go to Starbucks for a Pumpkin Spice Latte.
6. I get the "Freeeeeeeeeeee credit report dot com!" jingle stuck in my head a TON. Crap. There it is again.
   
7. I think I'm the funniest person, like ever. If you don't then I will punch you in the face. See? That sounds fun! Ha ha! (I'm going to add as an addendum to this item that I'm also a giant dork, and if you like to laugh at giant dorks, I'm your gal)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm out!

wait! come back!

Dear person who came here searching "Moby Dick Gluten Free",

YES! You can eat gluten-free at Moby Dick. Get the kabob plates (I have experience with the chicken and ground beef kabobs) with rice, ask for no bread and you should be fine.

Hopefully you'll come back!!

Did you know that Englebert Humperdinck wrote an opera called Hänsel und Gretel?

I have a lovely friend. She is a panda. She really is. See? This is her baby brother. He's 2, but I swear he outweighs her by like349091023 times.

Approximately.

So, anyhow, she recently moved to DC. Like, 2 months ago recently.

There has been much hanging out, much fun, much growing pains and culture shock associated with said move. And I didn't talk much about it, 'cause, see, I forget to blog. I could go into my sad, sad story about how I sit in front of a computer all day, yada yada, but really, I just come home, cook dinner, chill with the Pants, and do various nerdy things like watch Law and Order in syndication or play Starcraft do other completely cool things.

cough.

Anyhow! Panda! So she asked if I'd make her a hat and I told her to get in line. You know, because I have a line of greedy knitting. Followed by a line of things Pants has requested of me. And his Autobot hat, while it will be freaking cool, has taken a while to fudge the pattern, and Panda found the pattern she liked and the yarn she liked, and I sat down and hardly even blinked and then it was done! (Dear Hats, Love you! Heather)

So, Lo! Gretel (Ravelry) was born.



Started and Finished: October 2007
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool Ease in Green Heather
Needles: 5.0mm (US8) KnitPicks Options
Size: Standard Tam (a.k.a. Medium)
Mods: Nada dude
Notes: yay! Pretty! Hat! Cables!

Here are some more pics taken in fits of ridiculousness at the Moby Dick's House of Kabob (yeah, baby!) in Dupont Circle.

and some that I took one morning before 7 am because Dang I felt cute that day.

It is in Panda's custody now. Fare thee well, Gretel. Keep her head warm or I'll kick you in the (hat)shins!

yawning and wagging.

yawning and wagging., originally uploaded by swandive00.

I haven't been to the blog in a while. I bought Ernie a ninja costume for halloween because he's a ninja. It both pleases him and fills him with ennui.

I finished a hat for pei lo mein/pandles, and there are flickr pics but I haven't the time right now.

Cop-out blogging!!

i could go crazy on a night like tonight

i'm having major issues with the refusal of fall to take hold... this weekend? the initiation of fall weekend where the pants, the panda, and the... [um, doesn't have a webbername]friend and i will trek to the mysterious, wild and wooly land of west virginia (appalachian music? love it! also there are no laws regulating religious snake handling there!) for to pluck ripened apples from the tree, partake of freshly pressed cider, buy pumpkins for breads and cookies and pasta, traverse a corn maze and play on a pirate ship.

all of these are activities to be conducted in jeans, hiking boots, and cozy hand-knit sweaters.

but people? it's supposed to be 91 degrees in harpers ferry this weekend. the mornings are foggy, the nights have the chill of the ultimate surrender of summer... but it's too freakin' hot and humid during the day.

i'm trying my hardest, i'm doing my best to hasten autumn along, though. i'm baking, knitting, and even finishing things!

for instance, my back-to-school u-neck vest? that's done, and i've even worn it to work.



whoops. see what happens when you try to take FO shots at 7 am on a Monday morning? you get backlit crappy shots. here's a poorly photoshopped version showin' off the details:



i really like this vest. for a few reasons. one of which is i figured out how to work in short row shaping even though the bust is in a patterned stitch! can you tell?



yeah, didn't think so. i even planned out doing an edit so you could see them. unfortunately i couldn't find them so i approximated...



the only other modification i made (other than saying "meh, i'm not really getting gauge, i'll just keep knitting anyway!" and having it sort of miraculously work) was to just do a single set of purl rows around the arm holes... i tried one of the arms with the double rows to match all the other sets of two, but it made the shoulders too wide.

i also made the body a few inches longer because i'm just like that.

i have another quick and dirty FO... calorimetry. i cast on during dinner before seeing the yarn harlot, i cast off a about a half hour before she wrapped up her talk. quick, cute, warm!



i used a leftover button from the knitted corset top...



and photographed myself in it, with the omnipresent dogbutt sneaking into the shot



made with lion wool in teal on size 7 needles... mods? i cast on 104 stitches instead of 120. i knew i wanted to cast on fewer, but didn't know how much so i cast on with the twisted german cast on until i ran out of yarn. 104 stitches it was.

and it worked!

if only i needed warm things in this darned heat...

shhh...

don't be too noisy, because you might wake me up and i may actually post something...

although i have a few things to blog about, including directions for playing War and Whist, the great Yaymee reunification project of 2007, two FOs (!!), and upcoming autumn shenanigans including a pirate ship and a corn maze.

also, this is just for my reference: when making a single batch of Nestle's toll house cookies with gluten free flour, 3/4 tsp of xanthan gum is just about perfect.

i love my life

Single side of an actual conversation

Pants:

If humans were to become extinct and meerkats were to rise and evolve and take the place of humans as the dominant life form on Earth, they’d have a really hard time creating space shuttles because everything they’d make would be SO TINY. I mean if dinosaurs weren’t extinct and had created space shuttles, they’d be heavy, but huge and have tons of thrust, but meerkat shuttles would be little and so easily blown off course.

Why are you laughing at me?

my mom is funny

from a recent email:

We had lightning a couple of nights ago, then a few good crashes of thunder (I do believe that a bunch of Rhinos is also known as a crash).

that panda...

pei lo mein's so vain, she probably thinks this song is about her.

ETA: she has confirmed that in fact, she KNOWS this song is about her.

falling, falling

it's september in the lovely capital, and it's still in the mid-90s. i'm ready for fall, people! so to hasten it, i'm still chugging forth on my back-to-school u-neck vest (wow! hyphens!) and am about 2/3 of the way through the body. pictures would be dull, so there are none.

the pei lo mein is getting settled, and when we were leaving a grocery store today i had a completely great one-liner blog post to put up, but have completely forgotten it. panda, do you remember what it was?

in helping her procure a mattress upon which to sleep, i rolled in beds where many have rolled before. that's actually pretty gross and i feel more than a little skeeved out about that, having just typed that. and one mattress store went so far as to advertise that you will be sleep-free until 2010 (or that 2010 will be sleep-free year). either way, the sign made me giggle at first glance. she did not purchase this store's mattresses. partially because that's a less than ringing endorsement and mostly because it was pricey.

the pants is a funny pants who utters sentences like "YOU ARE A RABBIT" not hoping for a response, or even acknowledgement which makes me happy. therefore i bought a pizza pan in which to bake him homemade pizza... mmm... pizza.

for the past year, the bloggobug has been limited and it continues - so my posts are going to be knitting related, sarcastic, cop-out, or just plain boring like this one.

p.s. i sort of wish i lived in boston. for many reasons, but right now i refer to this place.

thanks, steve

it's early. or late.

either way, i can't tell because i wish i were still asleep. but i digress, because look! knitting!

here's some stuff i made:
everlasting bagstopper



pomatomus socks


(as well as how they dyed my needles blue)

back-to-school u-neck vest


i finished the knitting on the UO circular shrug too, but it's not quite big enough so i'm deciding what to do about that.

i'm dull, i'm sorry.

in really excellent news..

butterstick, originally uploaded by swandive00.

...i am terribly pleased to announce the relocation of the panda, better known as pei lo mein, as the newest resident of the district of columbia!

okay, so what if someone else moved her since she got here thursday night that i don't know about? i don't care about them, i care about the panda!

welcome panda - it's been a rough move for any number of reasons, but i'm so glad you're here. let's drink to you going back to being normally whelmed. you know, like we're in europe.

vignette

my coworker, holding a bag of cool ranch doritos: "these are my second favorite brand of potato chips"

heatherfeather: "even though there are no potatoes in there?"

coworker: "...yes?"

hf: ...

coworker: "heh... i guess you'll laugh at me if i tell you my favorite brand is fritos."

thanks for clearing that up

Katharine McPhee:
"Men are sexy, but I always think of women being more sexy than men, in a different kind of way."

source

preppy and evidently half drunk

preppy and evidently half drunk, originally uploaded by swandive00.

i knitted my vest! and it makes me look preppy, especially with this hairstyle.

but i'll be darned if i don't look drunk, too.

Hey Denvertype peeps

Anyone want to buy a bordello-red couch and matching easy chair?

There's no point in me shipping it out to DC as it would cost more than I paid for it and it's just waiting for a new home in my gracious aunt's basement...

It is featured prominently here. Non-smoking house, dog-filled house (however he's never been ON it)

Come on! Buy my stuff!

please? :)

an early morning exchange

[scene: au bon pain at l'enfant plaza, waiting for caffeination]

au bon pain girl: next please.

heatherfeather: hi, may i have a medium iced coffee please?

abpg: that will be $1.72. [hands me paper cup, sleeve, and lid]

hf: i'm sorry, can i have an iced coffee please?

abpg: i charged you for iced coffee.

hf: ...

abpg:...

hf: um, can i have a cold cup with ice then? do i fill it myself at the coffee pots, like the hot coffee?

abpg: i CHARGED you for an iced coffee. [pushes paper cup, sleeve and lid toward me]

hf (increasingly confused, as the item that would decrease confusion was the item in question): but i don't want hot coffee, i wanted cold coffee.

abpg: oh, you wanted it cold?

hf: yes?

abpg: i thought you just wanted to pay for an iced coffee.* [gets plastic cup, fills to the brim with iced coffee] oops. did you want me to put ice in this?


ETA: this is my second favorite coffee foible... my first is here.
*which is more expensive than hot coffee. yes please, charge me more for hot coffee!

[blank]

for those of you here for the yarn...

we have some knitting updates! some good, some not so good.

let's start with the not so good.

coachella... ah, how i coveted thee from the moment the new knitty came out... you didn't work with the first yarn, so i hoped you'd work with the second. that'd be a big no. you cling where i don't want to be clung. that's basically my problem with you. i love the pattern, the ingenuity of the design, the presented mods for short row bust shaping. but see how i scowl because of you?



anyhow, made with 4 sk of patons katrina in ocean on 4.0mm and 5.0mm needles over about 2 weeks. i didn't even bother to weave in the ends because i'm-a-just gonna frog you and retry a bevin tank.

onward to happier times.

like the everlasting bagstopper! yes, look how green and environmentally conscious i am! yeah, no, not really. i just wanted a stretchy cotton bag in which to carry my groceries on the bus. i need the plastic bags for poop disposal. in case you need clarification, that's DOG poop disposal. anyhow, i haven't bought the twill tape for the handles yet... next weekend i believe. knit of peaches n creme (or sugar n creme, i can't really remember, and they're basically the same. sturdy, no-nonsense dishcloth cotton) on 6.5mm and 4.0mm needles. done in 2 colors because i ran out of blue and didn't feel like buying more when i have half a ton of the stuff in my cabinet. not because i'm a UCLA fan. the only mod is that i didn't do the spirally lace pattern, i cross-bred it with the climbing trellis lace pattern and alternated directions every 6 rows.



lastly, the newb. here is the UO circular shrug that started its craze on figandplum a few years ago. jess even called me brilliant. it was ultimately brought to life by committee on craftster and can be found on peonyknits for free. i started it last night and am up to here:



i'm using the kiparoo farms celtic lace 100% organic peruvian cotton. the yarn comes in 3 solid colors, and 3 ragg colorways, but the cotton is undyed - it grows those shades. mine's in a babysoft lodeny greeny color. i have 650 yards of the stuff... here's to hoping that on 6.5mm needles that will be enough. the yarn comes in two 325 yard hanks.

i'm thinking of knitting as much as i can from the first half and starting the second half from the bottom and joining them in the middle so i get as much as i can out of the hanks.

i love love love this yarn - it's the softest cotton i have ever felt in my whole life, ever.

in other news, i'm starting to try combination knitting to see if can even out my stitches and rows. if you don't know what i'm talking about, google away my friends... i've officially run out of blogging steam.

every time

no matter the quiz, no matter the questions, it comes out this way each time...

You Are 50% Left Brained, 50% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning.Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others.If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic.Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility.Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way.If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art.Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Are You Right or Left Brained?

in other news...

i got the fall interweave knits yesterday...

in love love love with the tangled yoke cardigan, mirepoix bodice, and cobblestone.

if only a big pile of cash for yarn came in the mail too...

quietly, quietly

i am feeling underwhelmed with blogging. many things going on. alternately good and not so good.

work is very good lately.

my uncle passed away on monday from lung cancer.

panda lo mein got a job in DC and will be moving here in the next month.

calling panda lo mein "butterstick" is also good.

not going home for my uncle's funeral is not so good.

the mosquitoes also suck.

i miss my dad this week. well, i miss him all the time, but much more keenly this week.

labyrinth will be playing in a local theater next week. (patrick just did a post on david bowie's codpiece.)

ernie is a good dog. clover is a good cat.

mmm... cheeri-o-eye!

cheeriohead2, originally uploaded by swandive00.

i'm still saying "look eye, ernie, always look eye" whenever i see the dog thanks to the pants training him to look eye when you say look eye.

he does not close eye on command however.

mr. miyagi, how we need you!

look eye, always look eye!

i had a fabulous weekend which included the following:

1. magical pei lo mein, butterstick herself!
2. cheap vending machine glitter temporary tattoos!
3. moby dick!
4. buying HP7 (and having butterstick buy me HP4 which i've never owned but is my favorite!)
5. the madness of downtown silver spring all gussied up as diagon alley (and people who think HP costume contests include dressing up as slooty witches) with a florian fortescue's, leaky cauldron and flourish and blotts. okay that part wasn't the most fun, but it was...er, something.
6. going kayaking on the potomac again at thompson boat center. (note to self, i'm not good at sharing responsibility and tasks in a double kayak. next time, pants and i will get separate kayaks)
7. getting a GOOD PEDI for the first time since i've been here. and! it's cheaper than any other place i've gone here! and! they did such a good job...
8. eating an amazingly yummy dinner at rosemary's thyme bistro in dupont circle (be forewarned, the bartender has a heavy hand, which led to me ordering then returning an orange martini, then getting a sprite).
9. watching the karate kid on DVD, purchased from the sale bin at giant.
10. brunch at the diner in adams morgan.
11. shopping for suits at filene's basement.
12. dairy queen

i have rekindled pomatomus, the second sock as well as cast on for elisa's nest tote. i cast off coachella, but need to weave in ends. i don't like it that much. booooooooo...

autotag!

i'm tagging myself for the 8 random things because i want to. rules:

Here are the rules:

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

ready?

1. i love new england. it's the part of the country that i crave like a food. i love the weather, the architecture, the people, the landscapes. i love the smells, the sights, the sounds. whether it's central massachusetts, costal maine, or the mountains of vermont, i love it all. from about mid-july (when the summer really starts to suck, no matter where i am living), i begin to crave the smells of autumn...woodstoves, turning leaves, crisp air, the beginning of the biting winter winds.
2. i love the snow. i love watching it fall, hearing the expanding silence of the landscape, watching ernie gambol like a goat in it. that being said, i loathe driving in it - especially when i lived in colorado with rear wheel drive and would fishtail all over the place.
3. last night pants and i were discussing nerdy stuff like matriarchal passage of culture and cultural identification with the maternal side. although i'm equally irish and filipino, i identify much more strongly with my maternal (the irish) side. however my two go-to comfort foods are filipino.
4. my left armpit gets stinkier than my right. just thought you'd want to know.
5. i don't mind clutter. i can live in clutter. i do prefer it to be tidy, but the clutter doesn't bother me, and i tend to let it slide in that direction. that being said, i'm totally skeeved out by unclean sinks (kitchen or bathroom), toilets, and showers. my shower in denver was revolting because of its construction and was never fully clean and i thought it was uber-disgusting. but i had to shower in it because i lived there for 2.5 years, and um, read #4.
6. i am afraid of roaches and crickets. like, barf at the sight of them afraid. and there are tons of crickets in my neighborhood. once, i made the pants kill a cricket (okay, i make him kill all the crickets. if he's not there, i live in oblivion and pretend they're not in the house and make him kill them once he IS there), and before he could, ernie licked the cricket which made him too soggy to leap erratically and therefore much easier to kill. ernie is gross. but awesome.
7. i am getting weenier as i get older. the idea of rollercoasters sounds painful and more excitement (a.k.a. fear) than it's worth. especially the waiting in line. extra especially if it's the waiting in line for 5 hours for viper like we did when it first opened like 18 years ago.
8. santa fe is the one place that could possibly ever make me give up my adoration of new england.

nothing to see here...

so the most recent flickr pics i posted were of my yarn stash.

i bought a bookcase to store said yarn, plus pretty glass doors from IKEA this weekend... pics later when i'm organized.

also? this weekend pants and i went kayaking on the potomac - superfun, i have a touch of a tan now finally.

lastly, it's pei lo mein this weekend, version 3.0! hurrah for pei lo mein!

yes, i'm a dork

You scored as Albus Dumbledore, You are Albus Dumbledore. Calm, perceptive, forgiving, and wise beyond your years. Albus Dumbledore 78% Neville Longbottom 63% Bellatrix Lestrange 63% Severus Snape 59% Luna Lovegood 59% Remus Lupin 56% Harry Potter 53% Sirius Black 50% Hermione Granger 47% Lord Voldemort 44% Ron Weasley 44% Draco Malfoy 44% Oliver Wood 38% Percy Weasley 38% Harry Potter Character Combatibility Test created with QuizFarm.com

i'm a little concerned at the #3 person i'm most compatible with however... but i love #1 and #2.

round and round and round i go (or, two sides become one)

i cast on for bevin on saturday night. this is a tank i've had on my to-knit list for 2 years, and finally got around to reassigning the yarn (patons katrina) from the now-frogged honeymoon cami.

i did about 8 rounds before noticing i had twisted the cast-on making a möbius strip. i frogged, re-cast and very carefully joined it for knitting in the round so it wouldn't be twisted.

this morning on the bus (only 10 minutes into the 50 minute commute! on which i will be without knitting and without book, but thankfully not without iPod), on round 13 i noticed the freaking cast-on was twisted. again.

grumble, grumble...

Google AdSense is scary

so i was checking my email this morning and lo! Google AdSense comes up with something very interesting.

Here's the close-up.


seriously google? i don't want to buy that.

light a candle, blow it out

happy birthday daddy. you would be 61 today. i still miss you every day.

bug bites

i'm really having quite a case of project start-itis...

tonight in addition to working on pomatomus, i want to cast on for bevin and the cropped leaf tie cardigan.*

*both will be with recycled yarns. bevin will be in the patons katrina from the ill-fated honeymoon cami and the celtic lace cotton from the coachella experiment for the cardigan.

rebellion to tyrants is obedience to god

it's been lovely. the weather has been gorgeous, and the company spectacular. pants and i continued our explorations of this interesting, fascinating city, taking the bus to independence and 14th, walking around the tidal basin to the jefferson memorial... it's an impressive memorial, and always reminds me of the mammoth cheese, which i either love or hate. i can't tell.

today, we walked around my neighborhood, looking for a pedestrian entrance to rock creek park. there's gotta be one - there are people running in it all the time! alas, not today. i could look at that lovely little link to the park above, but where's the fun in that? we were going to picnic out in warrenton today, but decided to stay nearer to home.

for the 4th, i need to steel my nerves as i believe we're going to the national mall... billions of people sitting around. pants has done it once before, and i think i should do it once... i'm slightly anxious, but it should be fun! just to make this not the world's most boring blog post, i'll put in a finished knit. yay! this one was quick and purty and a good way to use the copious amount of cherry tree hill supersock leftover from my liar socks.

FO Report
pattern: dream swatch head wrap by wendy from knit and tonic
started: june 23
finished: july 1
needles: addi turbo 3.75mm (US5)
yarn: cherry tree hill supersock* in peacock
mods: um, gauge? other than that, none.
notes: purty! sort of a dull and fiddly knit, but it's only 24 stitches in a row so it moves quickly!

here's the artsy/blurry shot

*also, i love this yarn. i'm using a skein to make a pomatomus, too. wanna see the WIP picture? also? it's dyeing my needles and fingers blue. smurf!

gather 'round children

actually, don't gather 'round... there's not going to be much in the way of storytime.

i finished isabella, i don't love her - too short in the body AGAIN. stupid chestiness, making shirts that are long enough for normal humans WAY TOO SHORT on me... not many pictures.

i'm knitting and knitting, going to and from work, and basking in the glory that is 94 degree weather with 71% humidity.

at least i have straight hair.

a tale of laughter, a tale of swearing

isabella is almost completely seamed. i took such care with finishing her... in fact, i've never been so careful in finishing a handknit before.

i beautifully matress stitched the left side seam.

i tried 6 different ways of finishing the shoulder seam, to finally settle on grafting them, even though the stitches are bound off, seaming the right side and the left side.

i mattress stitched the right seam to see, that oh crap. i have NO idea how but the right front side up to the arm hole is about 1" longer than the right back side up to the armhole. it's also 1" longer than the left front and the left back. WTF? seriously?

it's been put aside for now until i can figure out if i'm going to ungraft the shoulder seam and reknit the entire right front or if i'm over it and will just mattress stitch somewhat lumpily and get them to be the same length come hell or high water.

it might be the latter.

this one is gonna be a letdown

i'm finished knitting isabella! woot!

well, that's not quite true, because i have to seam the sides and shoulders, then do the picot armhole trim. and i have to wait for the top to finish drying (it's in the room with the ceiling fan and the dehumidifier because, um, hello, this is DC and it's not the mojave desert or denver where there's usually single digit humidity and the majority of my knits have air-dried in about 4 minutes) to do that. but!

i got a final skein of DB cathay from knit happens (thanks holly!) this weekend and you can't even really see where i changed yarn. you want pictures? well, okay, but this was before i got the final skein, so it'll probably be an FO post in the next few days anyway...

and just because? here's mckenzie the jersey calf that pants and i met at kiparoo farm studio

the entire text of an email i sent yesterday

"i learned that sheep can see colors but will react in fear the first time they see a new color.

i'd name my donkey rufus. actually, it'd be duke rufus crunchable mcwiggins, but rufus for short."

whatever else happens

do not ever click on this link.

an open letter

dear woman wearing a white linen miniskirt with the waistband rolled down so it sat really low around your hips barely covering your crack as well as navy blue panties with red polka dots under your sheer, aforementioned white linen skirt,

do i really have to say anything else?

fondly,
heatherfeather

the mystery unraveled

even though they are massively overwhelmed by the response, casey and jess have posted a sneak peek at ravelry. it appears that many (including myself) have both underexplained ravelry, and gushed so much love for it that their 1000 beta testers have turned into a queue of 6000 people waiting and waiting and waiting for their invites (some with pitchforks and torches).

this is a baby belonging to casey and jess - it's free, but things like this cost a lot of money. servers, bandwidth, domain... and it's a huge, complex, beautiful site that would have taken a team of developers charging thousands and thousands of dollars to put out on the webbernets. take a look around, sign up for the queue if you have it within you to wait patiently! a common misconception is that you may need to have a blog to use it well, but that's not true! you can integrate your blog if you want, but if you don't have one (coughalpineflowercough) and want a way to keep track of your stash, your projects, your FO stats it's great for you too!

but be nice - this is such a project of love built by people who have full-time jobs who are dealing with real life, including a recent death of a family member. they can't confirm that you're on the queue, they don't pick people they like better to sign up. it's an amazing site and brilliant in design. it will really add to the world of the knitting webbernets.

sweet marigold (wah wah wah)

finished.

i have an FO report on ravelry which evidently you can't see since it's a membership community.

here's the screenshot for y'all of the report:

here are my pattern notes:

so it's finished. i finished it yesterday, crocheting the armholes, omitting the ruffles.

and it was SO tight and inelastic because i am a remedial crocheter. so i ripped that back and did 4 rows of the k2p2 ribbing.

because i was too lazy to learn the k2p2 tubular bind off, on the last row before binding off, i added 1 stitch between the k stitches, making it k3p2 for that row, and bound off with a 5.0mm needle. i bound off the neckline and the armholes with that too, without adding the extra stitch.

it's fine. i don't love it, mostly because of the yarn. and now that i'm actually wearing the alpaca with a spaghetti strap tank underneath it i find it ITCHY. so maybe it's an autumn vest before it gets cold cold? eh...

picnic

this weekend, pants and i went on a picnic in the virginia countryside.

we brought a new picnic cooler, a matching picnic blanket, gourmet cheeses, grapes, cherries, apples, and hamburgers.

we also saw pirates 3 which made me very sad, but wasn't as awful as people are saying.

we also had mongolian bbq.

we also hung out and did nothing much.

i almost finished ms. marigold (i crocheted the armholes, ripped them, and am now in the process of putting a k2p2 ribbing instead)

my mom sent me the jordana paige knitter's satchel in ocean blue.

and i turned 30.

it was an excellent weekend.

knitting on the bus

after about 2 weeks of knitting almost exclusively on the bus and metro (although some in front of shear genius) i'm almost done with the body of ms. marigold - i am going to do about another 1/2" of stockinette before i do the 2" of 2x2 ribbing. then all that's left is the neckline ribbing and finishing the arm holes. i've decided against the armhole ruffles because, well, i'm not really an armhole ruffle sorta gal, so i'll either do 2 rows of crochet around them to finish them (which is appealing because it's fast. it's unappealing because i suck at crochet) or knit them in 2x2 rib, like jodi did.

we'll also soon see the folly of having a new alpaca (aka HOT AS THE SUN) sweater vest for the humid days of eastern seaboard summers... it may have been smarter to do this in cotton...

in other news, i'm still spending STUPID amounts of time on ravelry (how i heart thee! get in the queue if you're not already - they're getting their invites out slowly but surely!) and will hopefulyl have a cabinet to store my yarn in soon. when i get that i'll be able to inventory my stash (egad...) and assign some yarn for projects.

in other, other news, i turn 30 on sunday. yeesh.

knit list

Bold for stuff you’ve done, italics for stuff you plan to do one day, and normal for stuff you’re not planning on doing. (filched from emily)

Afghan/Blanket (baby)
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Domino knitting (modular knitting)
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with your own handspun yarn (have to learn to spin first)
Slippers
Graffiti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Continental Knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book (you never know...)
Scarf
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Button holes
Knitting with alpaca (My hands are still tingling!)
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dying with plant colors
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cozies…)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars
Olympic knitting
Knitting with someone else’s handspun yarn
Knitting with DPNs
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit
Bobbles
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dyeing yarn
Steeks
Knitting art
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener BO
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards
Machine knitting
Knitting with self-patterning/self-striping/variegating yarn
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mitts/arm warmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair (why?)
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

holy crow!

it's been 10 days since my last update? well, i've been a busy monkey lately... between work and sleep and knitting and whatnot...

anyhow, for lack of anything interesting to say (still), here's a WIP pic of ms. marigold, in the lovely, almost entirely unphotographable frog tree alpaca sport:

for those of you who are suckers for the supermacro shots, here's a close up of the almost unphotographable stitch definition (upon closer inspection, i can't tell where the focus is or if it's just that fuzzy in person)!

this yarn is hairy. i said it, it's seriously fuzzy and it has heather hair, ernie fur, and probably some catty and moses fur (since i bought it off of jess who frogged it from her usmp), too!

at any rate, i'm about 2.5" past the neckline join, and have about 10" of stockinette followed by 2" of 2x2 ribbing, the decision of to ruffle or not to ruffle, the neckline finishing, and the armhole finishing.

we'll see if this ever gets finished...

if i had hours every day of free time...

i'd spend it uploading everything i've ever knitted to ravelry.

i got my invitation last night, and was planning to go to bed around 9 (i've been supasleepy, yo) and wound up awake until about 11, adding my '07 projects. i still have my '06, '05, my stash, my queue, and all the browsings of yarn subs and FOs of patterns i want to do.

i love you, ravelry. (they're still rolling out invitations - if you signed up but didn't get your invite yet, just wait... they'll get there!)

i didn't spend a nickel

i didn't. not one thin dime on yarn, roving, spindles, sheep.... at the maryland sheep and wool festival. don't belive me? ask the sheep.



see? however, i may have eaten lamb while there. however, semaphoria knows well my inappropriate food choices (i.e. eating lobster after watching the little mermaid).

going and frolicking amongst the ruminants really made me want to start knitting more again. i'm figuring out how to balance work, commute, home finally, and am ready to start my craftiness. so i cast on for ms. marigold in the long-neglected frog tree alpaca i bought from jess half a lifetime ago and started 3 different projects on, subsequently frogging each. i don't even know if i'll like it in this pattern - i think the color's a little dark.

what's interesting is that i'm just not feeling the blogging mojo lately. unless i finish a knittin' project. i think that by necessity this is turning into a knitblog. which isn't terrible, but it is what it is. i've been blogging since late 2003 or so, and i feel like i'm more invigorated by living my life than by talking about it. so in the meantime there are some pics, not a ton, here.

of my favorites, the fluffy bunny and the lambs not on leashes following their leashed mama.

i'm feelin' socksy...

FO report

pattern: embossed leaves from interweave knits, winter 2005 by mona schmidt
yarn: lang yarns jawoll superwash, 2 skeins in some sorta pinky color
needles: brittany birch 2.75mm (US2) dpns
start date: i have no idea, but it was many moons ago
end date: 5/1/07? i don't really know that either...
mods: i did an actual tubular cast-on, and a slip stitch heel
notes: the pattern's lovely - i love the star toe finishing the leaves in the pattern. the yarn? well, i payed $3.40 per skein at closeknit, and didn't love it at all. it's not squashy, it's sorta rough. but the color's pretty. i had frogged and restarted this yarn 4945143901823 times so it got sorta grimy, so i washed it before photographing it. so it gets grimy, but it cleans up well!

anyhow, for all the pics, click on the mosaic!

cinco de mayo bbq tonight, maryland sheep and wool festival tomorrow - pics to come!

the best pants in the world

because on saturday he's going to go with me to.... MSW! (i told him there'd be bunnies there).

so goes the year of the niner

it's not until tomorrow, but happy birthday darlin'. i hope we can catch up in the city next month!

i love you!

Giant Florist?!?!

Giant Florist?!?!, originally uploaded by swandive00.

1. Jump on his or her toe until your presence is noticed.
2. Speak loudly so the sound carries all the way up there.
3. Order hardy blooms that won't be crushed by your giant florist's enormous fingers and less than optimal dexterity for handling tiny buds.
4. No checks, please.

soap. glorious soap.

cymbals have quite an aftertaste

You Are Animal

A complete lunatic, you're operating on 100% animal instincts.You thrive on uncontrolled energy, and you're downright scary.But you sure can beat a good drum."Kill! Kill!"

The Muppet Personality Test

(thanks to neal for the link)