Monday, March 31, 2008

Shhhhh It's a Secret

I finally got around to working on the Secret of Bad Nauheim over the weekend. Here's a picture of clue one.

Yep that's my very high tech way of keeping my place in the charts. It's an old rusty cookie sheet with magnets to hold the paper on and mark the row I'm on. Impressive right?

Anyways it's turning out really pretty so far. I'm knitting with one strand of cobweb weight wool and one strand of laceweight cashmere/wool blend from Forestgreener, an Ebay yarn vendor. That's my fave place to buy laceweight. I am not one for variegated lace usually, so the stuff there is perfect, plus it comes in 2000 yd cones. That's a lot of knitting without joining and I've done some rather large lace pieces late.

I hope to have the second clue completed before clue 2 of Mystic Waters comes out. Wish me luck!

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Thanks Easser Bunny (Bawk Bawk)

I guess maybe I'm the only one that remembers that Old Cadbury Egg commercial.

Speaking of Easter bunnies. Look at what the EB (my mom) brought the Chief. It was tucked into the bottom of his basket.

His idea of the new flavored water craze is to pour some bourbon over a couple ice cubes. Thanks Easser Bunny! (I got some very pretty color changing garnet earrings which I'll picture sometime soon)

Now brace yourselves. I watched Oprah this week for two days and she had a special on hoarding. This lady had a house completely full to the brim with stuff. I started to worry about my stash, so I'm selling a portion of it. This is probably somewhere between 25% and 35% of my stash. It's not my favorite thing to sell stash, but really how much can one person knit?



I am also selling a big pile of books.


I've also got a knitting photo. I am STILL working on the Tiny Toes socks. I have frogged twice. Normally I am not a big frogger, I notice problems fairly early (typically) or I fix stuff "on the fly" or whatever, but everything I've tried so far on these socks has just been so very wrong. First I started knitting embossed leaves out of this yarn. Big mistake. You kind of lost some of the beauty of the leaf pattern and some of the beauty of the yarn too so basically I managed to take a gorgeous pattern and an equally gorgeous yarn and rob BOTH of some of their beauty. You can't buy that kind of screw up talent, folks.

Next I had read about the afterthought heel on the Harlot's blog, and some of the lady's in my knitting group were talking about them. I was intrigued, but when I read it on the Harlot, I really didn't understand. So I started asking these ladies some questions and decided to try it myself. I started a toe up sock with a Turkish CO but I didn't knit NEARLY far enough before I put in the waste yarn for the heel. I went all the way to picking up the stitches and then realized, um, this sock was way fricking too small. Hello Frogging My Old Frienddddddddddddd.

This time it's right, and I am working on the ribbing. I have never had a sock take me this long before. Good thing they're going to be very very purty.

Friday, March 28, 2008

You can always depend on Oscar Wilde

For a Happy ending. I watched this one recently.

A Good Woman

It's a rework of Lady Windemere's fan set in the 1930s. It was so good. I just about sobbed at the end, but not because it was so sad.

Dear Oscar Wilde,

You are just barely behind Jane Austen on my "Bam loves a Happy Ending" list. If only you would have made your female characters just a little bit deeper, you would be number one.

Oh well, I guess nobody can win them all. You had a good run right?

Love Always,

Bams

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Who me? Fickle?

Ok so the shawl I'm working on is always the most beautiful I've ever done. I dunno why!!

This one is Mystic Light. It is made from hand dyed, handspun (by my own two mitts) tussah silk. It is all in shades of red/orange/pink to try and approximate a really beautiful sunset.

I am so very thrilled with this design. It is absolutely beautiful.



Being Bammers (which isn't easy by the way) I am already worried about whether or not I have enough yarn. The designer said she used approx 710 yds (650m) of yarn. I did figure that I had about 820 yds, so I should be fine, but I am a worrier, so there ya go.

Hey have a nice thursday!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Ooooo oooooo

The first clue of Mystic Light came out today. it is going to be GORGEOUS. I have a goal of finishing the first clue today and I will post a photo tomorrow.

I have no really exciting photos of new knitting, but I do have a secret. I'm bi







Bi-Crafty that is! I can knit and crochet. In fact I crocheted a tablecloth for my mom once. When I had finished, I figured out that it had more than three miles of crochet cotton in it. Ah memories.

Anywho, number five mentioned that he really wanted slippers. Personally I don't think they are too gorgeous, but he really loves them. The soles are some handspun I had left from a pair of socks (doubled) and the tops are Paton's tweedy wool (also doubled). They are supposed to look like moccasins.

Maybe my crochet is just rusty??!! I hope that's all it is. Oh and I hadn't woven the ends in at photo time.



Monday night I went to Knit Nite and mostly worked on spinning the gray polypay. I also have one row left on the penultimate chart for Wings of a Dream so I'm making progress, but it would just be pictures of the same stuff over and over :S. come back tomorrow for something new woo hoo!

Monday, March 24, 2008

Babay time!

You guys I am almost on the last chart for Wings of a Dream. After i confessed to being scared, I got over it. The second wing is about 80% done which means I am SO DANG CLOSE.

This week I should have a pic.

We also had a 14th bday party for number 3. 14 is a really unfortunate age, is it not? Enough said.

We got time with Smidge.


Also, we created our first LOLZ, so come and vote on it! You do have to clidk on it to vote, and to see the whole thing. Unfortunately, blogger trims it, but it says "Lonely Egg, Contemplaitz Ending it all"

funny pictures
moar funny pictures

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Can you say Equinox!

Well i dont have much knitting to show. I'm still working on the same old (gray) spinning, but I have passed the halfway mark. I am on the ribbing on my first Tiny Toes sock, and I have not worked on Wings of a Dream because i am afraid to start the second wing. THERE NOW I HAVE CONFESSED. I AM AFRAID!



Whew that was freeing. And now some poetry:


Ode to the Daffodil Nubbins I Found in my Yard Today

Today Spring is born
bringing with it many riches,
which is why I'm so glad
to see you sons of bitches

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Unrelated Information

Hey I have spinning to show. Guess what color it is!!??


wow, the two people who read this blog are good guessers. It's gray. I have finished spinning a second bobbin of singles and will hopefully ply them today.

I also have the Tiny Toes sock going. I'm doing my first afterthought heel. Almost to the point of putting in the row of waste yarn.


Also, this is seriously something a lot of knitter will probably want to know. At the beginning of this year, my mom let me borrow something for reading in bed while visiting my sister. It's so you can just shut it off and go right to sleep instead of getting up to turn out the light when you're done. I bought myself a pair of them and normally I carry one in my sock bag. She noticed it was not in my sock bag necessities photo. Well I let the kids borrow mine in the car and DIDN'T GET THEM BACK!!!

I found them this morning, and I know what Santa will be leaving in some stockings this Christmas. If you like to knit in the car, get one. You will love it.


It's an LED ear light. It is on a little swivel so you can point it right at your knitting and you won't bother the driver with the light if you're in the car. I let the kids use them to read in the car. Hey, anything to keep them from asking how much longer :S.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Lost sleep

I went to Knit Nite last night (laughed a lot and had a great time) and finished my Mystic Light swatch. It is done with my own handspun silk yarn on size 7 needles. I will be going up one needle size as my swatch was just a little bit small both ways. I probably could have blocked it to the larger size, but I think I might like one size larger needle anyway. I am very happy with the way the yarn is knitting up and had originally intended to overdye it once it's complete, but now I think I might like it as is. We'll see!


So last night, I didn't sleep that much, but not because I had caffeine at Knit night. See, I love horror movies and books. I do get scared, but I love them. Both of my parents have said, "I don't know how you can watch all this scary stuff!" Heck, I don't know either. Anyway last night I was lying in bed and not able to sleep largely because my sinuses are a bit crazy with the thaw we're having (yes I said THAW again! Woo!) So I decided that I'd get out of bed and read on the couch so as not to keep my better half awake. Plus, reading usually puts me out fairly quickly. Right now I'm reading Lost Boy, Lost Girl by Peter Straub. This is the fourth book of his I have read. Now up to this point, I would think I could read ten or twenty pages and go right to sleep but this MOFO is getting S C A R Y!!!! I was sitting on the couch in my own living room contemplating the need to check on number 5 and with my heart pounding (if only slightly) and I had spaghetti arms. (apparently spaghetti arms is a term only I use and means that I get weak arms when scared, grossed out, or laughing hard) Clearly I give this book two thumbs wayyyyyyyy up, but it is not conducive to sleep. I finally got back in bed with the Chief at about 1:15 (freezing my buns off) and finally fell asleep around 1:30. The point is, if you LIKE scary, get it. It's great!

Monday, March 17, 2008

Kiss me!

I'm Irish! And a Patricia, so I figure it's practically MY DAY! Number 5 was festive today. He's also wearing milk on his chin from breakfast! (No charge for that extra entertainment) I didn't notice until he was already gone, so I couldn't take a new one. Oh well, such is the life of a nine year old.



I can't take pics of some of my latest FOs, but once someone opens her Birthday present, I can show them. I wonder who that could be hmmmm.

soooooooo, in lieu of those photos, I started a sock on Saturday during a dance competition for number 4. She is in the Hip Hop and Tap competitive troupes this year. Both numbers got Platinum, and I was happy to see that the girls in her dance academy did not look like tiny hookers. Lots of those places dress them up like tiny vegas showgirls and I find it very disconcerting and in certain cases, downright upsetting.

Anyhoo, I decided to take a photo of exactly what I carry in my sock bag (and my sock bag).

The sock bag is one I got at a flea market for $1 during a camping trip with The Chief awhile back. The sock is Interlacements tiny toes (can't find the label for the colorway) and it is soooooooooo lovely to knit with. I also have sticky notes, in case I need to keep count of something with hashmarks, a cable needle, a stitch holder, a big old needle for weaving in ends, an eraser (that's actually for keeping my needle from going through the lining fabric), a little bitty scissors, and a pink retractable fine point sharpie. This is the stuff that never leaves the bag. I'm always curious what other knitters find indespensable.

Still spinning the gray polypay and working on a poem for the tiny toes. By the time the socks are done, I oughta have it ready for you :)

Thursday, March 13, 2008

He Who has Mad Computer Skillz

I may be the poet in the family, but The Chief is the brains of the operation. My computer has been driving me INFRICKINGSANE for about two months. There was some crappy device driver error crashing windows, until finally, the little POS dumped altogether. Now being me, I had all these ideas of what was wrong.

The Chief somehow (like magic man, I'm not kiddin) persuaded my recovery disks to work. (he said words like reformat, disk, drive, stuff like that). He did some diddly magicky stuff to my hard drive and VOILA.

Sucker works now.

Gaze upon his braininess (pretend he's not eating)


I think hé's the smartest and wonderfulest in the world.
I'm spinning 8 ounces of gray polypay. It's kind of weird. The staple is really short, but its so crimpy that it just grabs more fiber without a problem. I'm gonna navaho ply it, so I'm spinning a very thin single. I'm almost done with the first bobbin. Let me summarize: I am staring at thin gray yarn for like a long long time.


To reward myself when it's done, I've picked out something really fun to spin. It's Suffolk.


It's making me spend more time on the gray than i would if I didn't have something really fun to spin after. I know what you're thinking, and yes, Tony Robbins could take a lesson from me in motivation. I know what motivates the psychotic spinner mind like nobody else, baby.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

I'm no Shakespeare

Oh wool, how I do love thee
You come in pretty colors, or even better, natural shades that can be spun as is or overdyed

Black as night

lovely light tan

and all shades of gray

You warm up my feet, as well as my day
I love you so much, I cheered when I bought
twenty five pounds of you, for hey, not a lot.

Glittens are almost done
They are from hand dyed Shetland. I dyed them with number 4 and the glittens are for her. The photos are a little washed out, but the colors are gorgeous. purple, green and aqua. There should be enough left for me to have some gloves too.



Don't be jealous of my mad poetry skillz. Poetry is the new rap, ya know.

Monday, March 10, 2008

March socks for a March


My mom's maiden name is March, so it's only fitting that she get the March socks from the Sock a Month KAL I'm participating in. These are knit using the toe-up sock recipe from Fleegle's blog. They are knit from fam-dyed, Shetland roving. It's my first sock yarn, but the second pair from this batch. I think I still have enough left for fingerless gloves, so that's gonna happen soon.

We also dyed some roving this weekend. We experimented with Kool-Aid this time. I don't think it'll be my first choice, but it's fun to do with the family and it was super cheap. I paid $.60/doz packets at Aldi. Here are the results.


We used grape, lemon/lime and berry (blue) for this one. It reminds me of hyacinths and lilacs because it has all different shades of pink/purple/green. We used some salt in the water to stabilize the purple and it really helped.

On this one we used some yellow food coloring to get the yellow because we didn't have lemon kool-aid. ut we also used more lemon/lime and more of the berry for the blue. It's very pretty and I can't wait to spin it. It's BFL again and that stuff just spins beautifully.

I know I promised some photos of the stash enhancement, soon!

Friday, March 7, 2008

Prepare to crap

Ok, so I mentioned that I was going to spin up that BFL. Before I did, I divided it in half the long way. Here's my rationale: I figure, divide in half the long way, spin up two plies, starting with opposite ends, then ply together. That way, you should have something that repeats in corresponding stripes starting at each end and going towards the middle.

One little problem: when you are spinning 300-400 yds of singles, you are bound to have some variation that will cause it to not match up when you get to the other end. Like maybe one will be 10 or more yards longer, that's not a big variation in the scheme of 300+ yds right? That would throw off my striping scheme completely, but I figured I'd give it a shot.

No shit, people, this is the true, if I'm lyin, I'm dyin end of the two singles when plied together.



That is a difference of less than three fricking inches. Over the course of 300+ yards, that is just a miracle. It'll never happen again, but I sure am enjoying it since it happened this time.

Here's a pic of the finished skein, and one of the spinning as it began. This stuff was really beautiful to spin.



I scored today bigtime too. I bought 25 pounds of Shetland roving off a lady in a nearby town for $100. I'll post some photos of the stash enhancement later.

yay me!

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

What day is it anyway?

Yesterday I woke up with really burny eyes and a stuffy head. I believe its just allergies from a thaw (yes MFers! I said a THAW! Brief, but anyway thank God). I did finish spinning the silk tussah roving that I dyed a month or so ago. I'm glad its done.

I promised a photo of the mittens I designed to match the Unoriginal Hat that I made for myself. I love them. Gee it's too darn bad that the weather is not going to provide us with any mitten weather until next winter (said very loudly to give the universe an idea of what I want)



Want to see what I'm spinning next? It's hand dyed (by me) Blue Faced Leicester. The holy grail of wool spinning (at least in my eyes). I really don't want to mess it up. It's only four ounces so the plan is socks. It's not exactly what I had intended to get with the dyeing, but it still turned out absolutely beautiful. The blues and greens are right, but the red, no so much. Oh well. I have discovered that it doesn't pay to be afraid because even the mistakes are absolutely stunning.


I think I'm going to do a bit more dyeing this weekend. come back and see!

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Lazy Tuesday

I woke up feeling a little under the weather this morning so here's my lazy blog post.


Your Score: Harry Potter


Don't fight it...it is who you are!



You are old scar-head himself! Congratulations! You aim to solve the world's problems and avenge your parents deaths. Good for you.

Link: The Mega Harry Potter Character Test written by lucky_dip on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test
View My Profile(lucky_dip)

Monday, March 3, 2008

Home again

Well we made our trip. We were actually in Lancaster, OH for most of it, although it was a bit of a whirlwind. I brought you the highlights:

We saw art:

You may have to click on that to blow it up and see the true . . uhhhhh. . . artistry.

There was fine dining:

We saw the local sights:

There was family belonging to the Chief:

There was cake and marriage (which was very sweet):


There was tequila (not pictured) which I uncharacteristically did numerous shots of while goading others (also uncharacteristically) to do shots as well. Mercifully, there was no upchucking.

But most importantly, there was Smidge:

Smidge,

and more Smidge:

There was knitting too. I'll show ya tomorrow.