Holiday Knitting

That title is a lie...I am not doing any holiday knitting this year. Screw it - I'm just continuing to work on my own stuff. I'm finished with all my Christmas shopping - did most of it on etsy.com, and I'm really pleased with the stuff I picked out. Etsy never ceases to amaze me both in terms of the selection they have and the absolutely awesome people on there. Try feeling that good about your Wal-Mart purchases.

Right now, I'm knitting on a scarf and a pair of socks. I've been really getting into handpainted sock yarns lately. I really was only knitting in solids, because of all the crazy cabled Cookie A. patterns I'd been doing. The handpaints obscure the awesome pattern, but I've been digging around on ravelry for a while trying to find some nifty patterns for the handpaints. The pattern I'm working on at the moment is called Bellatrix. That's a Ravelry link (if you knit or crochet and you're not on there, you've been on the moon). It's mostly plain stockinette but with lots of on-purpose dropped stitches. I love dropping all those yarn over's off the needles. It keeps the pattern interesting, and it's coming along pretty quickly. The yarn is Misti Alpaca sock yarn in a really obnoxious bunch of colors - I love it. Also making a scarf out of Malabrigo silky merino DK but no time to talk about it now gotta go clean out cat boxes.

Slacker

Wow - so those WIP Wednesday things never seem to stay in my memory for very long.

I screwed up a whole row of my scarf and didn't notice it till a few rows later, so I'm procrastinating on ripping out 4 rows of 400+ stitches cause it's gonna suck.

Finished one sleeve on the February Lady Sweater and picked up stitches for second sleeve. So, not much farther to go on that project. I haven't been in the mood for knitting lately, though. I am on a reading jaunt. I read a self-help book that was kind of like "homework," and now I'm reading lots of poetry and a poetry how-to guide. I also ordered a ton of books from Amazon and went out and picked up a whole ton more in person. On top of that, I bought several magazines. Voracious. Reading.

So, knitting inevitably has to suffer.

Waking up with weird anxieties. I don't know what causes it, but it's not cool.

WIP Wednesday a smidgey early

I can never remember to make these posts on Wednesdays, so let's call it the Weekly WIP (although I am sure it will probably become biweekly then monthly then annually - you catch my drift).

I screwed up on the first sleeve of my February Lady Sweater. It's an easy fix, but I'm just not in the mood for it. I want loud colors and no pile of wool lying in my lap creating sweat. So, I've been reading Paper Towns (just finished it last night - don't like it as much as John Green's other books) and knitting on my Blooming Cotton Scarf cause it's got loud colors and it's not wool.



It's brighter in person. So yep. That's about it.

Also, I got some ink for my favorite fountain pen, and I think I might dig in and do some writing if I can settle my brain and body enough to do it.

The Green book led me to wanting some poetry in my life. So, I've been listening to the Writer's Almanac podcasts, and I picked up Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and Billy Collins's The Art of Drowning - the name of that one really appeals to me. Makes me think of The Piano and The Awakening - two stories that have always captivated me. Also bought a book of Poe's poetry. Bill and I are planning on reading poems to eachother at night instead of watching lame TV too late too often.

I am feeling kind of crummy today and in no mood to do any public speaking which is what is on the menu for this afternoon. Would rather go home and crawl up in a ball. My head aches.

Cake trials and tribs

OK - I am not a cake decorating person. I have now decided this. After looking at the zillions of Barbie cakes out there, I thought it would be a cinch but no no no. Not so.

I did succeed in making the cake, but it was not nearly as cool as I thought it was going to be. Oh well. I will order a cake next time and skip out on the stress.

It's not the worst cake ever, but it's still kind of lame. Oh wells. I tried. Amelia liked it, and it tasted pretty good.

Now I need to figure out what cake I want for my birthday. I am a buttercreme fan as I may have mentioned before. So, I'm going to go for a massive cake with lots of icing. That's the main requirement for any cake in my opinion.

Last week at a meeting at work, they had this awesome yummy cake, and I dropped my piece on the floor. Not cool.

That is all.

W.I.P. Wednesday!! (except on Thursday)

I have been working solely on my February Lady Sweater this past week. I stuck the Blooming Cotton Scarf in the closet, because I've been knitting on the move, and having a bajillion different colors of yarn doesn't work well as a travel project.

So, here is a picture of the sweater on the needles as it now stands - the sleeves are sitting on scrap yarn to go back and work later.

The color is way prettier in person that is looks in this picture which is kind of washed out because my camera sucks. I have been eyeballing digital SLR cameras lately, but jeezy peezy they cost like $600+ which I can not justify spending on a camera that I do not actually need.

I have been eating to much junk lately. Anyone who knows me very well knows that I have an insatiable appetite for buttercreme frosting. Can't get enough of it. I dream about it at night.

I have a meeting this afternoon and someone is retiring, so they have cake. I have my sights set on that corner piece covered in frosting and flowers.

And then I will feel guilty about eating it for the rest of the day.

This weekend is sure to be covered in buttercreme frosting, because Bill and I are going to experiment with making my niece a Barbie cake for her 6th birthday. If we can pull it off, she is going to FREAK. Do a quickie search of Google images or Flickr, and you will find tons of homemake Barbie cakes like this one I found on Flickr:



So anyway - frosting, knitting, cake-baking, and living life. That's what's going on my way.

Blue blue electric blue

Well orange actually.

In honor of a recent spate of water-hating, I am changing the color of my blog to the soothing color of orange juice. Water has been grossing me out lately. I usually drink gallons of it per day. Instead, I have been drinking Kool Aid and OJ. I have a fondness for the two ends of the OJ spectrum but not much love for anything in between.

I dig super cold OJ made from concentrated slime and poured over ice after you shake the hell out of it. I used to just scoop the concentrated frozen stuff out of the container and eat it when I was a kid. That fills me with nausea just thinking about it right now.

And I also love love love fresh squeezed. I don't have a juicer though, and that junk beez expensive.

In the world of knitting, I have been doing lots. Finished my first-ever sweater, and it's actually really cute. Also made a few pairs of crazy cabled socks, a capelet, bunches of cute slippers for Christmas presents (which I forgot to take pictures of before giving away), an annoyingly more complicated than I thought it would be Valentine's gift. I also finished up some of the hibernating projects from the closet - finished the mermaid gloves and monster slippers. Still have a couple of lingering hibernators, but I am in no mood to mess with them at the mo.

Right now I am working on the Blooming Cotton Scarf in its fiery red incarnation. It's kind of like the Ballband dishcloth from Mason Dixon Knitting with the colorwork done all with slipped stitches. Of course, the back of the scarf is gonna look like crap but whatevs.

Also working on a February Lady Sweater like everyone else. Mine is in a semi-solid deep bluish colorway from Dream in Color. I haven't taken any pictures of either of them. Maybe that will be my project for next Wednesday's W.I.P.