Going to the Chapel. . .

This past weekend one of my friends got married in our college chapel back in Gettysburg, PA. I flew into Baltimore on Friday and took the train to where 2 other friends could pick me up after they got off of work. The train station where I got off is not a normal stop so you had to let the conductor know when you first got on. It was a cute little stop but definitely in the middle of nowhere, Maryland.

That night a group of us when out to a Spanish restaurant and played Dutch Blitz (a card game) into the wee hours of the morning. If you've never played Dutch Blitz or Nertz, I'd recommend that you try it as soon as possible! :)

Saturday morning, we went to breakfast and then tossed a frisbee around for a while. Then the morning was gone and we got ready to leave for the wedding.




All in all, a very fun time! Doesn't my friend look beautiful? The pictures of her dress don't do it justice. Everything seemed to go perfectly and the food, drink and music at the reception were great. I really want to find out what kind of champagne was served for the toast. Or maybe it was sparkling wine. My new favourite thing? An entire family who knows dances like the Lawnmower and Shopping Cart.

After the reception, a group of us went to the Pub for a drink. (This picture was obviously taken earlier in the day.)

After that, we went for food at the Lincoln Diner, a place fondly remembered by all. Even though they are limiting you to 45 minutes and 1 refill of coffee. Anywho.

Most everybody stayed in the hotel where the reception was held. So the next morning a group of us when to a local diner (that I definitely should have gone to when I was in school there!) for breakfast. We started splitting up after that, everyone going their different ways.

Three of us went on a short battlefield tour. It is great to take a tour from someone who is so enthusiastic about it and knows SO MUCH about all aspects of the battle and town. I really like learning about what happened between the battle and the current day. For instance, I didn't know that a trolley car used to run through the battlefield. Little facts like that make it really interesting. We "hiked" through some parts of Devil's Den. I use the word "hike" loosely because really we were just walking around. This is a picture of Devil's Den from Little Round Top.

Argh!!!!!!

Have you done a pattern that makes you want to throw your knitting across the room? I've been dreaming of doing stranded knitting recently what with tons of people's lovely FOs gracing the blog world. So I decided that I wanted to make a pair of Selbu Mittens (Rav link). They are pretty, stranded, and have snowflakes on them. What could be better?

First, I bought the yarn (jumping the gun, I know). Next, I ILL'ed the Folk Mittens book. Then, I checked to see if there was any errata for the Selbu mittens. There was. So I printed out the corrections. Next step was to CO for the mittens. Being a smart knitter (hahahahahahahaha), I decided to make detailed notes about what I was doing for the first mitten so I could replicate it exactly in the second. OK, everything is fine and the mitten is going well. Oh, wait.

When I reached the chart, it was like my brain couldn't translate what it was seeing. So the corrections state that you need to increase one stitch for the body pattern. Fine. But what about the 6 stitches of the border? Where do those come from? They are 6 additional stitches the instructions and chart don't say anything about. But I can fudge it and just add them. Everything is still somewhat OK.

But I could NOT figure out the thumb gores. Here is a picture of the corrected chart and thumb gores.

I just couldn't figure out where the thumb gore was supposed to start. Let's look at the purple outline. Does it start on the left or the right of the purple outline? Argh!

**ETA: I am an idiot. Yup, an idiot. I shouldn't have worried about the 6 stitches thing and the thumb gore so much. Over lunch, I realized that you just start doing the chart of the mittens (if you have the book, you can see the full chart or you could go here to see the corrected chart with the full pattern). When you reach the right side of the purple border, you do the three stitches of the gore chart rather than the 8 stitches in the middle of the purple. Does that make sense? That leaves you with 3 stitches left over which will be the 3 stitches of the other border. So you don't have to increase any stitches in order to make the border. Duh! I can't do these higher knitting problems.

Summing up pictures!

This is the new car. I'm still trying to figure out a good name for it. I can't even decide if it is a male or female car. My last one was definitely a guy. You can't tell the color really well in the picture. It is a very deep blue/purple that almost looks black.


Next up, Christmas fiber! Here is the various alpaca roving. The dark bags are full of unwashed roving. The light bag needs to have the guard hairs picked out (the guard hairs are what makes it scratchy). The one not in a bag is completely ready to go. I just have to get good enough at spinning to use it!


Next we have the alpaca yarn. I can't wait to do something with these yarns. It will be hard to choose the next project!


This is a picture of my Fun Fur Kitschmas Tree. OK, OK, I started it after Christmas but it will be ready for next year! It is made with bulky yarn and 2 strands of fun fur held together. As it so happens, I had 2 balls of green fun fur and some green bulky hanging around in the stash. It is so nice to be able to use some up. I forgot how much I hate working with fun fur. It goes everywhere and is impossible to see! It is mostly done and just needs to have the bottom crocheted and stuffed. Mom has some very tiny crocheted ornaments that would be the perfect size. I'll sew those on before stuffing it. This tree will probably end up as a Christmas present for someone that doesn't have room for an actual tree. Not sure who that person is yet but I'll have a whole year to find a recipient!


I've suddenly been on a fingerless glove jag. They are like popcorn or potato chips. You can't do just one pair! Must make more! As of right now, I've made 1 pairs of Fetching and am almost finished with 2 pairs of Mermaid fingerless gloves. Next up is probably a pair of Dashing. The best part of this jag? Christmas presents for next year.


And in the midst of knitting, I have been spinning. Does this look familiar?


It should because it is roving from Louet in the Violet colorway. I already spun up 8 oz of it and now have more! Though, now I am thinking that I might do something a little different with this bag. I Navajo plied the other 8 oz but I'm not sure if I want to do that with this 8 oz. No, I am thinking of plying this bunch with some white Louet instead. Hmmm, we'll see.

Summing up

So blogger is being evil and not letting me upload pictures in batches right now. Then I tried to upload them one-by-one and, after 3 pictures, won't upload anything else. I'll try again later.

Anywho, I've been AWOL for a while and a lot of things have happened recently! First off, Christmas! I had a wonderful fibery Christmas. Mom had visited a number of alpaca farms when they had their open houses during the fall. At a couple of different ones, she bought roving (both prepared and raw) and yarn for me. I just want to keep petting the roving! My Aunt found the 3rd Barbara Walker Treasury for me! I must have spent the entire afternoon looking through it. AND my aunt got me a subscription to Interweave Knits! I'm really excited about that!


It was a very nice Christmas. It didn't hurt that I took the 26th off and celebrated my own Boxing Day. I ended up with a 5 day weekend because the library was closed on the 24th, too. The last break I had was my studying abroad in July so it was really, really nice to have the time off. I got a lot of knitting and spinning done.

The next thing that happened was my friend's bachlorette party and New Year's Eve. My friend's party was in Baltimore, MD so I flew in on the morning of the 29th and stayed until New Year's Day. It was a great weekend! I got to catch up with people I haven't seen for a long time and we did a ton of fun things. We went to Howl at the Moon for the bachlorette party, a fantastic piano bar. On NYE, we went to a house party thrown by the man of honor's friends which was a lot of fun/craziness. The friends have a roof porch so we had an excellent view of the fireworks.


**ETA: The Heroes illusion scarf was very well received. I love it when people show your stuff off to others because they thought it was cool. That is definitely a way to make a knitter feel very good :)

So I got home on Tuesday afternoon and went to bed soon after (3 hours of sleep will do that to you). The next morning, I woke up with a killer head cold/fever/unpleasant feeling-ness. I went to work but felt all hot and shaky. So I went home and slept pretty much all day. I did some auto-pilot knitting but then at the end of the day (after making an entire purse) decided that the colors were ugly. So I'm going to frog that project and not even put it on my ravelry page. I have been gradually recovering from the head cold and today finally feel 95%.

On Friday the 4th, my friend on her way from St. Louis to back east stopped by for the weekend. Our house was pretty much dead center on her trip so it was the perfect place to stay. I loved being able to show someone around my hometown. Having gone to school in PA and living in OH means that no one from school has visited out here before this. (Well, I shouldn't say that. My friend from Baltimore did but he was only in Columbus and not in my town.) We saw all of the sites and ate at Brews, the pub in town with an EXTENSIVE beer list. We went to the North Market in Columbus and had fabulous Indian food and delectable ice cream (Holy crap! In looking up the link, I found that they ship the ice cream! Even if you don't think the flavours sound good, trust me, they are. The Pear Riesling is the best, though!). We even went riding!


I rode Cali and almost bounced right out of the saddle because her trot is so powerful. She definitely wore me out! I'm so out of shape. Anyways, I loved having the chance to catch up and hear about what my friend is doing. She even got to see where I work before she left for the second leg of her trip.

Next weekend is also going to be very busy. My friend's wedding is on Saturday so I'll be headed out east again. It is so hard to believe that it is already time for the wedding! Whew. I'm going to go through college-friend withdrawl after these three weeks are finished!

I'll do another post soon with some of my first FOs for 2008. Hopefully Blogger will let me upload pictures by then!

**ETA: I am an idiot! I forgot to write about the other important thing that happened recently! I got a car! It is a 2008 Honda Fit in Blackberry Pearl. I love this car. It is very fun to drive and very sporty. The pictures will be in another post.

RIP

I'll miss you, Car-y!

An Illusion of an FO?

Pattern: Heroes Illusion Scarf by Grad School Knitter
Yarn: Lamb's Pride, light grey and black (don't have the ball bands with the color names in front of me)

The symbol that shows up is from the tv show, Heroes, and means "God send." It shows up in all sorts of places in the show. This scarf is going to be a Christmas present for a friend that I am going to see this weekend. If he doesn't like it, I know a lot of other fans of the show who might like it.

I had never done any illusion knitting before this scarf. It is really fun! I liked tipping the scarf towards and away from me to see the pattern emerge. I probably spent almost as much time doing that as I did knitting it! :)


Pattern: Ice Queen from Knitty
Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze, Steel Grey (I think)

I finished the Ice Queen that I was working on. I did an interesting "interpretation" of a picot binding. Next time, I am going to read the directions more carefully and I will actually block it. It was a fun and quick pattern that was great for Christmas present knitting. I am going to have to make one for myself (with beads!) soon. I'm glad that the recipient likes it.

And finally, here is a picture of Lily from Christmas morning. She "loved" her handkerchief.

Holiday fun-ness and spinning

Here is a picture of my treat baking extravaganza.


I took the dog/horse treats out to the barn yesterday so I could have some test subjects. Let me tell you, they were very well received. The horses were giving me pitiful faces when they realized that there were no more treats coming. The dogs were salivating. Patches is a Great Dane. Great Danes don't like to exert themselves. I was holding the treats a little higher than elbow height when I was walking the dogs back to the pen. Patches was prancing next to me (usually he picks his way along) and making little jumps to try to get the treats. Aggie raced to the pen to sit down so she could get her treat as soon as possible. I definitely won't have to worry about the animals not liking the treats.

On to other holiday stuff! My mom really likes when we have guests around the holidays. That means that she is able to get them to do Christmas-y stuff like getting a tree, decorating cookies and making gingerbread houses. It is a lot harder to get Dad and me to do that kind of stuff. Anyway, here is the gingerbread house that my Japanese cousin, his girlfriend and I made on Wednesday night. Isn't it cute?

The wreath on the roof is adorable!


I've rebelled from Christmas gift knitting and decided to spin instead. I finished up the green roving from a local farm. The twist isn't set on it yet but I have to wait until we have a fire going in the woodburning stove. The yarn would never dry in our house otherwise. I'm pretty happy with the final result.


Then I started looking around in my roving stash to try to find something else to spin. (Sidenote: The roving stash seems to have grown since the last time I looked. Hmmmmm . . . .) What should I find but 8 oz of Louet roving called Violets. So I started to spin it up last night.


This stuff is pencil roving and is a lot of fun to spin. I'm amazed how quickly it is spinning up. This morning, I finished spinning 4 oz. of it before I went to work.


When I ply it, this yarn is probably going to be a fingering weight and is the most consistent thickness that I have done. I think it is the pencil roving.

I'm thinking the yarn might be perfect for a Clapotis or that new pattern, Jeanie. But, if I do Jeanie, that means getting another 8 oz of the roving because a) I would need 1350 yds for it b)I won't have enough yardage with the 8 oz I have now and c) Louet doesn't sell this roving in 4 oz balls. But then that means that I will have an additional 4 oz that I probably won't use for the pattern. Though I could use it for something else. Clapotis, however, needs 820 yds. Hmmmmm. We'll have to see once I get it all spun and plied. I apparently really want to do something with dropped stitches with this yarn.

Horse cookies!

I spent last night making dog/horse cookies. In total it was 4 batches of the recipe but I didn't count how many cookies that was. For two of the batches I used the dog bone cookie cutter and for the other two I used a flower-like, ripply circle cookie cutter. I figured that not everyone would be as amused as me by the dog bone shaped horse treats. They'd probably just be confused. I'll post a picture later because silly me forgot to pick up the camera when I was leaving the house.

I thought I would ply the roving I spun up the other day but all of my time was consumed by the treats. I wound the bobbin into a centre pull ball yesterday because I needed the bobbin and, for some reason, I really like plying off of a centre pull ball that I can hold in my hand. I'm strange, I know. This spinning attempt is really exciting for me because it should be a fingering weight (albeit a heavy fingering almost a sport weight) yarn. It is the finest and most consistently fine single that I have done so far.

Worked a little bit on a Christmas gift last night. I got the one that only needed the border finished yesterday during my break. The other isn't really a Christmas gift but might be if the person likes it. If not, I know two, make that three, other people who would like it. It is an illusion or shadow knitting design on a scarf. The pattern is really going fast and I like the way it is turning out. I thought I hated making scarves but it turns out it just needs to be more interesting than garter stitch or some other simple stitch pattern. Illusion knitting is the perfect solution.

And now, because I need a picture of some sort . . . .

(I love Picnik)

A day late

. . . and a dollar short. Isn't that the saying? I've been working on various Christmas presents. Meant to have one of them finished yesterday but didn't quite get it finished. Even after working on it all during the knitting guild meeting, I still have an inch left to bind off. Guess I will be sending that present rather than giving it in person.

I've also been on the search for dog/horse treat recipes. I call them dog/horse treats because the dogs will eat anything that the horses eat (and probably vice versa!). A few years ago, I made these horse treats with oatmeal, molassas, apple, and carrot in it and the horses and dogs LOVED them. Definitely the mugging-you-for-treats kind of love. It really amused me to feed the horses treats that were in the shape of dog bones. I thought that a batch of dog/horse treats would be a perfect gift for my friends who don't want "stuff" this year. They are trying to keep down the amount of stuff around the house and only want items that can be consumed. The only problem is that I couldn't find the recipe. No idea where I even found it because it wasn't in any of my cookbooks, even the Pony Club one. After much searching of the internet, I found a recipe called "Easier Horse Cookies" that seems to fit the bill. I'll have to make a batch tonight or tomorrow and wrap them up.

I have some exciting news! My friend is going to be making niddy noddies in his spare time. He has already arranged with Kim to sell some in her shop and I might be setting up an etsy shop for him. His niddy noddies are made out of cottonwood and are super light. For a non-spinner, non-knitter, non-fiber person, he is really getting into it! I'll post some pictures of his finished products soon.

Winter is back!

Yesterday, we got all sorts of pretty snow and then it rained for half of the day. This morning, however, it is snowing again. The horses are all prepared for winter storms with fuzzy coats and lots of hay. . . .



Java was exceedingly suspicious of me. He definitely thought I might ride him when I was out taking pictures. Capone (second picture) could care less. He had his entire head shoved into the middle of the hay bale.

I've sent off the majority of Christmas presents to friends and family. Aren't these dishcloths pretty? Now what do they remind me of? Hmmmmm . . . .


I haven't been spinning much recently. (Note to self: return wheel to rightful owner and get myself one.) All of my free time has been eaten up by making Christmas presents and work. On Wednesday, I went to the spinning guild meeting and started spinning up a storm again. My friend's mom gave me a lovely bag full of wool roving (as well as some llama that I haven't had a chance to play with yet) and I've made some real progress with spinning it up. I've been trying to get a heavier weight with it and it seems to be going pretty well. I then decided to spin up some of the other roving that I had around the house. I think that, once I ply this, it will be about fingering weight. I've been a lot more consistent with this batch.


I made the cat a little felted ball out of some of the roving. She usually loses interest in things after 5 seconds but it seems to hold her attention for a whole 10 or 15 seconds! Wow, impressive huh?



I think she is showing off for our house guests. My family just isn't interesting enough apparently.

Squee!

This day just got so much better! And we have clementines! Not that the small, sunny fruits can make a day much better but they sure can help.

Burnt out

Is it bad to feel burnt out by work on a midmorning Monday? It's like I've already been at work the entire week already. Rather that wallowing in a pit of despair, here are some FOs!

Madge from Knitty has been finished for a while now but this was the first chance I've had to take a picture. I took some of the hat actually on my head but those where so wildly amusing that I deleted them immediately!


I'm so proud of my first handspun project! I can truly say that I've made everything about this hat (except for designing it but whatever). *Sigh* I can remember when it was just a ball of roving. It's grown up so much ;)

I finished the beaded lace shawl and can't wait to block it. But that will have to wait until after Christmas . . .


I was going along so well on my Christmas knitting and then the new Knitty came out. It's like the catnip of the Internet knitting world. People flock to the site and start talking about how much they love it (or hate it). Most everyone's progress is halted for at least a few hours while the new patterns are being scoped out. I, like most people, fell in love with Jeanie and Ice Queen. Ice Queen was at least like a Christmas present that I was already going to make so I allowed myself to start on that one.

I've made it without beads even though the beads are so lovely. It just wouldn't be practical for the gift. I can't wait to make my own (preferably in green or blue) with the beads. The Kid Silk Haze is so light and ethereal.

Christmas knitting has been going well even with all of the distractions. I created a spreadsheet (yes, I am a dork, why do you ask?) for everyone for whom I am giving gifts. On it there are categories for what the gift is, if it has been completed and if it has been sent. A good portion of the gifts have been completed and, tomorrow, will be sent out as well. This amount of smugness shouldn't be allowed because something will come back to me and bite me in the ass. It is inevitable :)

Oh, and I forgot to say that, yes, I did get my paper done. It wasn't the most inspiring piece of work that I've ever done. I really liked the topic but just couldn't work myself up to writing it. Oh, well. Just have to finish the take-home final (easiest test ever) and this semester will be over. One more to go . . .

So close!

7 out of 10 pages with plenty more to write but now I'm worried that I will run out of time. (So what do I do? Blog about it. Bah! I need to work on time management skills!)

Hehe

If a person were like our OPAC she would have constant bed-hair and mismatching garments of clothing, and ask you specific questions in a language you don't quite understand. She would answer you in really long sentences, and often say things that have nothing to do with the subject. She's our friend for a while until she decides to burst into crying fits or ignore you completely. She would give you nothing, only point in various directions as an indicator of where things might be.

Electronic Resource By Any Other Name

Paper? What paper?

Once again I find myself needing to write a final paper for a class. So am I studiously reading literature on my chosen subject? Dutifully typing a rough draft? Mulling over my future words of wisdom? Ha! Yeah, right. I'm being distracted by the internet and Ravelry, instead.

The subject is a fascinating one and has so much information out there about it. See, the paper is supposed to be a "library trends" paper, discussing a trend that is changing the library world. I'm writing about the library catalog and how they should evolve using Web 2.0 tools. Those of you who remember my little catalog rant will understand why I am interested in this subject. I cannot, however, bring myself to concentrate on anything at the moment and really don't want to be reading any professional literature of any sort. Problem is that this paper is due on Thursday so I really can't put it off for much longer. Stupid school. Messing with my knitting time.

Car suggestions

Anyone have any suggestions for a car that doesn't cost too much, is automatic, good gas mileage, and is reliable? My car has bitten the dust and I need to get Mom's car back to her sometime.

In knitting news, I started my cousin's gift on Sunday, finished half of it, didn't work on it at all yesterday, worked on it this morning and am almost 75% through it (not counting all of the finishing). I love small projects!

In sewing news, I'm planning on making cloth shopping bags for Christmas presents. This morning I realized that I am an idiot and that I sewed the wrong pieces together and that is why they didn't look right. So after I finish homework tonight I will pick all of them apart and fix them. Next time I am paying closer attention!

People's Choice

Knitters! Let's skew the results!

Bad Blogger!

I've really been sporadic recently with my posting. I think it is the time of the year because I've been working on Christmas presents. Most of the people for whom I am making gifts probably don't read this blog but just in case, I don't want to post pictures of any of the projects. And having no pictures doesn't make for a very interesting post does it?

The week before Thanksgiving, Mom, Dad and I spent our free time frantically cleaning to get ready for our holiday guests. In addition, Mom made as much food ahead of time as it was humanly possible. Because one of my cousins is staying in my room, that meant it desperately needed to be cleaned. I have to confess that the last time it was clean was when I got back from England in August. I've just been throwing stuff in there then shutting the door really quickly. Well, last week I finally cleaned. Went through tons of junk mail, folded the clean laundry again and put it away, dusted, vacuumed, stacked the yarn and roving in the corner, hid all of the WIP bags (my ravelry page lies, I have so many more WIPs than I thought) so it wouldn't scare people, moved my desk around, put in the bed for my cousin and then contemplated cleaning off the aforementioned desk. As I was cleaning, I found a birthday present for a friend. Her birthday was in July. Hmmmmm.

So I packed that gift up, some things I had gotten for her in England, and her Christmas gift. While I was at it, I packed up Christmas gifts for another friend. Then yesterday Dad was running to the post office to mail another package so I gave mine to him. Ha! The day after Thanksgiving and I already have 2 presents sent out. I feel so smug that someone should really slap me.

Anyway, back to Thanksgiving. My aunt, uncle and two cousins (along with their dog) came to Ohio for the holiday. It's been tons of fun having everyone here. We've been playing board games and Wii games every night. Dad really got into the Cow Racing game. I took my cousins out to the barn yesterday and we rode the horses. Care was on Bo, Drew on Java, and I rode Capone. Java really looks thrilled when he is getting ridden. Callie hung out at the barn and waited patiently for everyone to get back.


We had a really good Thanksgiving dinner. We ate at 6 pm because another relative and her husband couldn't make it before 5. It was a very full house with all of the family and friends! Mom and Aunt Judy really pulled out all of the stops with the food production. Tons of Red Hot Apples, mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc. etc. I think we have more desserts than people. Soooooo many wonderful pies. I bought 2 (pumpkin and sweet potato) pies from a friend's husband. The sweet potato is absolutely wonderful.

In knitting news (non-Christmas presents), I started a Forest Canopy Shawl out of acrylic yarn that I found while cleaning my room. Seriously, I have no idea where this yarn came from. It just appeared in the one stash basket. There were 2 1/2 balls of it so I had enough for a very good sized shawl. Also in the clean-up, I found another Forest Canopy Shawl (that is what inspired the making of the second) made from acrylic which was the first shawl and first lace project that I had made. This shawl was a practice shawl so I could get used to the pattern and making lace before I made the pattern out of mohair. I just never blocked the acrylic shawl because there was a mistake in it and because, later when I knew something about lace, I really didn't like the finished project. As we all know, acrylic doesn't block well. So I did a bad thing and took both of these Forest Canopies out to the ironing board. Then I ironed the suckers and killed the acrylic so it would stay open. I actually managed to make the mistake mostly disappear in the blocking. That shawl might become a Christmas present if I start running out of time.

How does it sneak up every year?

Terry Pratchett

He spins! Owns 2 spinning wheels and had made his own drop spindle! And knits his own socks!!!! (And what does using 4 quotations mean, Pratchett fans?) I <3 Discworld and its author.



Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics)
created with QuizFarm.com
You scored as Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax

You are Granny Weatherwax! The most powerful witch on the Disc! You often use headology rather than actual spells, and are a very good witch, despite the fact that you sometimes wish you were a bad one. You play a mean game of Cripple Mr. Onion, and have a very powerful stare. By the way, you should really get that broom fixed!

Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax		69%
Carrot Ironfounderson		69%
Lord Havelock Vetinari		56%
The Librarian		56%
Gytha (Nanny) Ogg		56%
Greebo		56%
Death		50%
Commander Samuel Vimes		31%
Rincewind		25%
Cohen The Barbarian		13%

Pushing Daisies

If you haven't seen it yet, Pushing Daisies is on ABC. It airs Wednesdays at 8 pm in my area at least.

The show is hysterical, Jim Dale (narrator of the Harry Potter books) narrates it, and the private detective knits. He has made himself a very nice sweater vest and some very fetching gun cosies. Seriously, watch this show. I'm going to miss it tonight for the spinning guild meeting, though. So I'll have to watch it later. Just keep your fingers crossed that the writer's strike ends soon because there won't be any new episodes after Thanksgiving. I don't know if I will be able to stand that!

Catalog hatred

Have I mentioned how much I hate my library's catalog? Because it is awful. Seriously.

I'm trying to find one of the Gifts in a Jar books, the one with the one dish meals. Because I don't really want to buy it, I wanted to see if the library had a copy first. So I search by the title "Gifts in a Jar" because that is the title of the entire series, every book starts with those 4 words. I discovered that we only have 1 book and it is for making cookies. OK, fine. I do some more searching around (Subject Browse, Cookery: See Also Home Economics; Subject Browse, Gifts; Author searches). (By the way, these books are listed under one corporate author on one site and a completely different one on other sites.) I find after numerous searches and looks at bibliographic records that there are 2 more books in the Gifts in a Jar series in the library catalog. Do these books start with the title "Gifts in a Jar"? NO, of course not! That would be simple! I have no idea where the titles that are in the catalog actually came from because they aren't listed in the bibliographic information on any other website! Is the book that starts with the title "Gifts in a Jar" listed under the series "Gifts in a Jar"? NO! Does this make sense to anyone?! My eye is seriously twitching now.

Oh, and the 2 books? Neither of them were the one dish meals. All that work for nothing. I'm going to half.com. OK, my rant is over.

Garter Stitch Madness

So garter stitch can be the most wonderful thing you have ever done while you are sick. Or if you need a whole bunch of gifts really fast. I hadn't ever been bitten by the dishcloth bug until I found pictures of Amy Carpenter's Round Dishcloth on Ravelry. The short rows made the varigated yarn look so beautiful! Well, I ended up making 10 of them in 6 days. It was a little scary.


I can't wait till after Christmas to show you my plans for 4 of them. Let's just say that I have impressed even myself with the creativity with this one.

Another garter stitch project is baby bibs. I'm going to my cousin's baby shower this weekend so I'm racing to get 2 bibs done by then.


Making this one took 3 hours last night. I've now woven in the ends but still need to sew Velcro on to the tabs. The second bib should take no time at all, too.

In other news, I bought a drop spindle! I've been watching this etsy seller for a while and then they got chummed on Lime and Violet's Daily Chum. Well, I couldn't let there be a chance of them selling out of spindles, could I?


I haven't had time to play with it yet because I got sick and my coordination skills went bye bye. Can't wait though! And when I unpacked it, guess who had to "help" me with the tissue paper. I don't even know where she came from. Suddenly it was **poof** cat in the middle of the tissue paper. So helpful.


In other roving news, I couldn't resist this bag. No idea what the content is or the colorway. All I know is that it is from Louet. Oh, and that Kim is a crack dealer.


OOOOOO, pretty colors.

update

I feel like I haven't posted in forever! I'm really alive. I've just been sick for a week. Monday and Tuesday, I stayed home from work because I was so congested and my ear was hurting so much. Sleeping all day on Monday helped clear most of it up, thankfully. Went to the doctor yesterday and he gave me a prescription for a super powerful decongestant. Today, my throat is pretty sore but I feel soooooo much better.

Anyways, while I was sick, I did a lot of garter stitch projects but I will show you those pictures in another post. I didn't do any spinning because that was just too much to think about.

Week before last, however, I did a lot of spinning. My friend's mom sent me some nice wool roving and I spun it up as quickly as I could. I'm getting much happier with my consistency. There are far fewer uneven spots in this yarn. It came out to be 350 yards worth. What should I do with it now? I really like the tweedy effect of the two colors plied together.



I won a contest on Romancing the Yarn in the middle of October. I finally sat down and took a picture of the sock yarn. How did Barbara know which colors I would love? :) Thanks!

Not dead yet!

I'm still around (though sick and have temporarily lost my voice). I just haven't posted in a while. There has been knitting (mainly dishcloths (those things are addictive and easy!)). There have been pictures but I am lazy. I haven't been riding much but am going to try to this morning. Today is also the day for a meet-up of a couple of people who were in my class in England. Of course, I have no voice so this should be fun. Blah. But I can't wait to see them! Now I'm off to make tea and find clothing so I can go ride.