Green with Envy

I was really trying to find a good post title for today, but nothing was really coming through. Some days inspiration just seems to come out, and other days you come up with titles like Green with Envy when you're spinning some green superwash roving. Anyways, here's what I've spun up so far. I may be red/green colorblind, but thanks to the coating on my glasses, I can see a little shading in greens again. This green is just green, but I love the color. I think it looks like the same green that Wendy is using in Cromarty, but my eyes could be fooling me. I love that this yarn will be a superwash wool. I haven't gotten the hang of spinning sock-weight yarn yet, but depending on how this stuff looks plied, I very well may have to learn.

Forgive the blurriness of this picture. It was 6:30 this morning and dark and I couldn't wait for the camera to take five hours to try to find something to focus on. I think it shows the color pretty well, even if the picture looks dark to me. I'll probably be spinning some more of this tonight while catching up on Heroes which I am horribly behind on.

One of the simple pleasures in life was plugging the TV back on in the bedroom and finding out that I can actually get the local NBC channel without an external antenna. I know how to program this TV, so all I need now is a blank tape and I will be able to watch Days of Our Lives again. That is one of my guilty pleasures. I take great joy in watching this soap :oP

Anyways, nothing terribly exciting to report on for the nightie. I'm almost to the waist decreases, so I'm a little over half way done with the front panel. I'm hoping to get most of it done tonight so that I can finish it on Thursday or Friday and get some good pictures of it this weekend. I think I'm going to be posting Poker Stud on the knitting vault since no one from MagKnits seems to want to get back to me despite several emails and pictures. I just mostly want to get it out on the internet so that anyone looking for something like that can have a pattern. Oh well.

Knit on...

The Culprit

This was the problem with the electric system of my house all along. You can't tell it from this picture, but there is a ton of dust and the side of this outlet is all charred and burned from where it has sparked up the past few times I have tried to use it. The electrician came out during my lunch break yesterday and fixed it. Last night, I studied and read in the bedroom with my space heater on and was very relaxed knowing that the house shouldn't burn down and that I could use my little massaging back rest while reading in the bedroom again.

I didn't get much knitting done because of having to study for my midterm that's in less than 2 hours. I should probably go over it some more, but I'd rather blog right now. Here's the nightie in progress. Nothing has changed on the poor sock: It's about 12 inches long now. Four more inches of mindless stockinette and then some decreases. Once those are done, I have to work on my wrap and turns for short rowing some bust darts. I have not had much luck in my attempts at short rows for some reason. I seem to be able to grasp everything else, but wrap and turn just gives me fits. Oh well, I'll try again for this project!

Yeah, I should go study...

Knit on...

How to Clean A Fleece in 100 Easy Steps!

Or how I cleaned a fleece this weekend. I decided that my next spinning project should be to prepare and work with the whole fleece that I won from Stone's Throw Artisans a while back, shortly after buying my wheel. I saw some tutorials online and decided I would give the washing machine method a shot. Step one, take fleece and put it into a pillow case:

Tie the case shut and stuff pillow cases (this was a big fleece) into the washing machine and fill up the tub with cold water. Add some wool wash and let it soak for a while:

Put the washer setting on the spin cycle and drain the water and soap. Repeat this a few times until the fleece doesn't make the water turn yicky (about three times for me, but I'm sure that will vary). Once the fleece is free from the grease, then spread it out either outside if it's warm and sunny, or wherever you have space, such as the basement floor for me:

I set up a fan to help dry the fleece a little faster. Let your fleece dry completely then prepare it however you want from there (drum carder, mill, hand cards, flick cards, combs, etc). I'll show you my flick carding once the fleece dries in 100 days :oP

DBF and I went to a golf show this weekend since we had free tickets and there was this alluring promise of a free club to all who came. That claim was bogus since you had to have a card to claim your free club online andpay 20 bucks shipping, but they had no more cards. Oh well, we still looked around and then walked over to an SCA event. SCA is an interesting group of people sometimes. You get those who do it for fun, then you have those who take it so seriously that they can get a little freakish at times (i'm a gamer, so it takes a LOT for me to consider someone freakish). We decided to take a look around and I of course spotted a spinner, working on this neon yellow wool. I go over there and try to talk to her and she wasn't very friendly. I told her that I spin too and that I use an Ashford wheel. She sort of chuckles and says, "Oh no, I use good wheels."

...

Even if I don't think a wheel is the best around, I still don't say that my wheel is better than your wheel. Generally people in the crafty world are nice. This chick was just downright mean and rude. So, I politely complimented her on her drafting techniques then moved away. DBF was surprised since he thought I would chat for a while with her. He was even pissed when I told him what she said. Oh well, one bad person doesn't mean that all are like that.

I did a little more knitting this weekend on the nightie:

It's getting there. I have to actually study for a test tonight, so I doubt there will be much knitting going on today except to break up the monotony of studying.

Knit on...

The Blessing Continues

Yeah, so I go home around 2 yesterday to meet the electrician so that I can keep my house from burning down and he "fixes" the problem. After playing poker and plying the rest of the blue merino-mohair blend, I decided I should go to bed. But first, I need to plug in my cell phone charger. I do that and sparks come flying out again and kill the electricity to that end of the house. Now I have to call the electrician again. Oh well. Here's some yarny photos for you:

I went to Stones Throw Artisans yesterday after dealing with the electrician and bought two balls of sock yarn and a flick carder with my gift certificate. I was happy. The top is opal obviously in UK blue and white, so I decided I had to get that. The bottom is Sockotta cotton/wool blend yarn which I have never worked with before, so decided I should give it a try. The flick carder is an Ashford and I can't wait to start preparing the fleece which is my next spinning project.

Speaking of spinning, I finished up the blue merino-mohair blend that Emily gave me:

It's not quite that dark actually. It's got more purple and green in there than the picture shows. Here's a couple of close ups:

It's 2-ply just like the white merino kid mohair blend that Erica gave me. I'm excited, trying to plan what these two yarns will become. They're very soft, so it can definitely be a next to skin item.

Knit on...

Another Blessing Comes My Way

While reading Chicken Soup for the Traveller's Soul, I came across a little story about a woman who was working with Mother Teresa. She was the one who had to inform the Mother that things may not be going according to plan. She would tell about the problems, one by one, until they were all out. After a few months on the job, the Mother told her that she sure uses the word problem a lot. Perhaps she should find another word. When the woman tried to come up with another word for problem, all she could think about was words that were considered even worse. So the Mother chimes in and tells her perhaps she should call them blessings since even problems can be blessings.

I had another "blessing" smack me in the face last night. After getting home from work, I go into the bedroom to change clothes and turn on the light. When I do, sparks come flying out of the electrical socket near my closet (and all my yarn!). The lights dim and flicker and finally go dead, leaving smoke coming out of the socket. Great, my house is going to catch on fire, I think. So, I put in a call to my grandparents asking if Grandpa could come over and help me figure out which breaker to turn off so that my house won't suddenly burst into flames in the middle of the night. We figure out which breaker it is after some trial and error (I was uber paranoid that I would lose all power and once again lose all the food in the damn fridge) and get the electricity cut off to that end of the house. Now I have to alert the home owners that once again something has decided to bless us.

I did do some knitting and spinning last night though. Mostly I spun. I did a pattern repeat on the nightie then decided that I needed a break from knitting, so I brought out the spinning wheel. Here's the nightie in progress:

And for fun, here's how much traffic there has been since Monday:

I'm still fascinated with this yarn. Good pick, Kim! Here's the fiber in progress picture:

I ended up spinning up the rest of this bobbin and about half of another one. I'm a little over half way done with the roving that Emily gave me for Christmas. It's spinning up really nice and it'll make about two skeins worth of yarn, so not too bad. I forgot what it was like to spin with really good fiber (been spinning up that red roving crummy cheapo stuff) and it just flows as nicely as can be. Really makes a huge difference. Now, if I can ever finish up this nightie, I can start making something out of this handspun. This blue will be going with the white that Erica sent me for my birthday since they are both merino/mohair blend yarns.

Gotta go email the owners about the little blessing last night. I'm sure they will see it as that...

Knit on...

Half Way There

I'm half way done with the Mason Dixon Knitting After Dark Nightie now. I also made a very important decision last night on what color the straps should be. I knew I didn't want them to be black and wanted some color, so I rummaged through my bra drawer to see if there were any that were ready to be recommissioned into something else and lo and behold, there was the hot pink bra that fit me several years ago, but now squishes and begs to be made into something else. Hot pink straps on a black nightie. I think it'll work out perfectly. Here's the back of the nightgown: I was slightly off somewhere on the top border and instead of ripping, I decided it was only something that I would notice or that a knitter thouroughly inspecting the nightie would notice. It was also 10 and I needed to get my butt to bed, so if I get ambitious, I'll fix it. Here's a close up of the top border and it's slight wonkiness: I'm getting kind of tired of this WIP not photographing particularly well. I know that taking pictures of black objects with a white background is difficult, but my little digital camera just doesn't seem to be able to handle it. I'll crack out the SLR for the final pictures and take them on film so that I can adjust settings to get a good picture of it.

I was tickled to death when I saw that Ann posted a comment on yesterday's post. Yes, THAT Ann. I was so tickled in fact, that I drug my fellow knitter/coworker into the bathroom (male geologists just do not understand what we get all excited about when it comes to sticks and string) and told her that I had a post from Ann on my blog. She was equally as excited I think.

Anyways, I spent last night knitting and then crashing. I also had to give some thought as to what to give up for Lent this year. I'm a Southern Baptist, but our pastor is an ex-Catholic who encourages us to follow the liturgical calendar. I decided on ice cream for Lent this year. I'll miss it and it'll be hard, but it'll also be good for me too I think.

Knit on...

Edited on 3/29/07 to add this:

Pocket Queens Stab You With Knitting Needles

OK, so as you may have gathered from the title of today's post, I played poker last night. But first, let's see some WIP action here:

Mason Dixon After Dark Nightgown, a little over 1/2 way done for the back panel. I'm almost done with the waist decreases and then will go to the top border of the pattern. My favorite part about this nightgown?

The vine lace pattern at the bottom. I don't know why I am so giggly about this, but I am. Perhaps I have been without sock knitting too long?

Maybe not. Last night I broke my New Years Resolution to only knit on things that were currently on the needles. I decided to go play poker in the league and I couldn't take the nightgown to work on since I need to count rows and decrease and then increase, and then go start working a lace border for the top, so I needed something mindless to take with me. All the projects on the needles currently are anything but mindless. The nightgown is the least involved of everything right now. So, I broke down, grabbed the ball of Opal Chameleon yarn that Kim gave me for my birthday this past year, and started a new sock. This is my new car sock (I've been dying for something to do while I sit in traffic after work) and new poker sock until I get to more mindless stockinette on the nightgown.

You'll notice that the needles used are metal. I have been using Brittany Birch needles for a while now, and I do like them, but I think I have warped at least two of them nearly beyond repair (nearly I said, I will be trying to unwarp them soon). I have always liked to knit socks with metal needles, but my Susan Bates sock needles were wearing so that the stitches would not flow well. So, I ordered this:

Those of you who have a set, recognize this right away. This is the KnitPicks options needle set with the case. I'm in love with these needles by the way. They are sharp, smooth, and the yarn flows just like an Addi would let it flow. While I was ordering the set, I decided to try some of their size 1 DPNs. They are wonderful. They're as sharp as the Bates needles, less flimsy, and they have that Addi coating on them which makes knitting on the sock very easy. Go buy some, they're well worth it.

Anyways, I played poker and worked on the sock. I finished the cuff even though I was out of the tournament before 9 last night. I made it to final table and was definitely the short stack of the bunch. I look down on the second hand of the final table and I see pocket queens. Thinking this might be the time to push, I go all in. Everyone folds except the big chip stack. He has KJ off suit. I'm concerned about that over he has on me. Flop comes up 7 7 J. We both have two pair. Turn is a 2, no help to either one. River...

Curse the river, he hits his K and I'm out of the tourney. Blah. Oh well, I got some good knitting time in even if it was short. I went home and crashed since I was really tired from very little sleep on Sunday after having to vacate the house to the owners for the evening. I was back in my own bed last night and I slept really well.

I also finished up that red roving this weekend and I think I promised a picture of it yesterday, so here it is:

I had a few singles of it left, so I unwound them and had them sitting on the floor. Next thing I know, they're here:

Spooky decided that she needed a nest and drug the singles into her cage and piled them up. Then she flopped on them like it was her little bed. It was cute, but if she touches the good stuff like that, there will be hell to pay...

Knit on...

The Curse of the Peanut Butter

OK, so on Tuesday, before the reports came out on Wednesday about the bad batch of peanut butter, I ate some of my Peter Pan crunchy peanut butter. I didn't get sick, but I checked the jar and saw it was part of that 2111 batch, so I tossed it. Come Thursday evening, I start having stomach problems. Friday, I'm in full bacterial body cleanse mode and I grab the jar of peanut butter out of the trash to bring to the doctor today since she said that would be a good idea, but she was 99.9% sure that I had been affected by salmonella. Yeah for me...

I'm better now, just made for a miserable Friday. I'm staring at the offending jar right now which will be taken to the doctor as soon as her office opens in another little bit. Aside from being sick on Friday, the rest of the weekend was good. Saturday DBF and I watched UK play and that was a downer. Three losses in a row...blah. Then we played a marathon of Magic to test out a new deck that we built together and saw that it kicks arse and is able to beat just about any deck out there except maybe counter burn. Give it a little tweaking and that may be taken care of too! After the marathon, we decided to go catch a movie, but when we got out there to drive to the movie, it was a little icier than we thought it would be, so we decided to stay home and play some more Magic! It was a pretty relaxing day anyways.

Sunday I had to vacate the house so that the owners could stay there for the night and leave today. I don't particularly like to vacate the house since I have to a) clean and b) put away anything I don't want the kids or the adults to mess with. One of these things is the spinning wheel which while small, still is clunky to move around. After vacating, we went to go see Pan's Labyrinth. This is a very good movie, but much more graphic than I thought it would be. It was kind of fun to listen to the Spanish and see what all I could pick up on since that was my language of choosing back in college. I could pick up words here and there, but it was hard to pick up full sentences and concepts. Luckilly, it has subtitles :oP

Knitting-wise, I am to the waist decreases on the nightgown. My computer is at the house still, else I would have taken pictures and posted them today. You'll get some tomorrow when I can download some pictures. I also finally finished the rest of the red roving and can now figure out what to do with it. I think it might be enough to make a pair of mittens and either a scarf or a hat. Maybe it'll be enough to do all three, but I doubt it. We'll see. Next up is the blue merino-kid mohair blend that I intend to use as accents for the roving that Erica sent me for my birthday which is already spun up and taunting me and begging me to use it daily :oP

There you have my weekend in a nutshell. More knitting content tomorrow.

Knit on...

Where Did That Come From?

Can someone please explain where the massive migrain came from that hit me at 5:30 last night? It wasn't a dull roar, it was a full-fledged jet powered roar that lasted until around 10 PM after six tylenol and two ice packs...Sheesh. Needless to say, not much knitting was done last night, but I did do a little spinning before the damn headache hit. No pictures though. That flash would have been the death of me I think. Instead, remember those pretty roses that DBF gave me on Saturday? Here they are in full bloom now:

They have really filled out the vase now and look really pretty. Unfortunately, today they are starting to die off, but they are still really pretty.

Hope everyone has a good weekend. Me, I'm thinking I don't want to go to weight watchers tomorrow morning...

Knit on...

An FO, a WIP, and Some Yarn

First, here is the most basic FO I think I have ever put up on this blog: a crocheted facecloth made out of cotton chenille yarn, all in double crochet

It's just a plain old square, but it's soft and Kathy will hopefully like it. It was for Valentine's Day for her, but we both missed work yesterday, so she'll get it today. I waited forever for AAA to come and pop the lock on my car (five hours I believe I waited from the time I got through to them to the time they arrived), so I ended up just skipping work and running some errands. The local co-op had owner discount days, so I went and stocked up on tofu and other co-opish things. I also knit. I'm at 12 inches on the nightgown now. I forgot how horribly this thing photographs for me in the mornings:

It looks nice, just use your imagination in this photo. I'll try to get a better picture of it when I can. Maybe tonight if I'm ambitious enough after poker. I also spun some yarn yesterday, trying to use up the rest of the red roving I have lying around. I may do some more spinning tonight before poker so that I can use up some more. I'm almost done with it. Here's the two skeins I spun up last night:

I do like this colorway, I'm just getting tired of the red roving. It doesn't feel nice when spinning and it has a tendency to slub up really bad. That's why it is called seconds though. It was produced in a dying mis-hap and it is sold considerably cheaper than regular grade A roving. Like 12 bucks a pound cheap. But it's almost done finally. Then the question becomes, what in the hell do I do with this?

Knit on...

Happy Valentine's Day

Hello from home today. I would be at work, but we had freezing rain last night and the lock mechanism in my car is frozen shut and no blowdryer or boiling water seems to want to work on it right now. So instead, I'm sitting in the house, coughing up a lung, and knitting. Can't beat it, I know, but still, it's aggravating when your car is broken, at least temporarily.

But Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. Hope you have a wonderful day today. Today, I would like to talk a little about DBF.

His picture is a few posts down, holding the foot spa. I would post another picture, but dial-up and blogger don't seem to like each other when it comes to uploading pictures.

DBF and I met over three years ago in a card shop. I saw cards and dice and wanted to know what he and a few other people were playing. Turns out it was the Star Wars TCG from Wizards. I played his cousin first and utterly crushed him (a secret tactic used to get new players hooked on games), then moved on to DBF. I got to see a card that made it in nearly every dark side deck I played...Nexu. DBF crushed me. I was pissed, but that's just because I'm competitive. I wanted to go build my own decks and come back next week and beat them all.

Next week was Origins and they all left. I was desperate to play (as they all could tell by my constant emailings) and when they finally made it back, DBF wasn't there. He had to work...I was sad because I wanted to beat him with my new deck :oP The week after, we played and he still beat me, but I was getting better. The next week is when fate struck us.

I was supposed to go to Shakespear in the Park to see Robin Hood (I know, it's not Shakespear, but I didn't design the thing...) with my friend Erica. She called me up while we were playing cards and said her mother had been crushed by a horse and she had to go be with her in the hospital. I was just glad her mom was OK and told her that we could go to the next one. I came back in and relayed the info to the guys and said, well, I really wanted to see Robin Hood, but I'm just glad her mom is OK. DBF piped up then and said, I'll go with you.

That was our first date in July of 2003. It was a fun evening and it was great company. I really liked him a lot. The next week, he was gone on a photography outing and we talked on the phone a lot (he just now told me that he had a huge bill because of that! I would have helped him pay it!). The rest, shall we say, is history. We've been through good times and bad, deaths in both families, owning a store together, and many more things. I love him more today than I ever have and that love continues to grow more and more each day. I wish we could spend Valentine's Day together tonight, but he has to go to work. Now, if I can get my car lock to open, I may just have to go surprise him and give him a big hug and a kiss before he goes to work.

Stupid car lock, you better get moving. If not, I'm calling AAA on you...

Have a great evening everyone. I intend to spin some red roving into yarn tonight and look at the gorgeous roses that DBF gave me this weekend. They have gotten so big since then and they look even prettier than the day he gave them to me!

Knit on...

Some Poker, Some Knitting, Some Sleep

I was dragging all day yesterday. I don't know why I was so tired, aside from the fact that I think I'm sick again. It just seems like it's been one right after another this year. Hopefully this will be the last one. I'm not sick enough to stay home though, so I got home, took a quick nap, ate some noodles and valentine's day turtles and went to poker.

I played four hands all night. Yep, 4. I won 3 out of the 4 which is what allowed me to finish 5 last night. First big hand, I had pocket Ks and had two callers. Flop is all low and I bet and they call. Turn is low, I bet, they call. River is low and I have two pair now, so I go all in and they both call with their A high...WTF? They called an all-in bet with an A high? And one of the guys was the points leader at the league...don't they know that I have to have something to go all-in on? Oh well, I took their chips and sat back, knitting, until I hit pocket Qs. One person bets, I say I have to raise above that and she flips her cards thinking that I have folded. She had AQ, so I could have won that hand anyways, but I got a free set of chips because of it since she automatically had to fold to my raise after doing that. I showed her I had Qs and I think she was glad she had to fold. Third hand, I have KJ and flop a straight, so I bet two times the big blind and everyone folds. Cowards! Fourth hand I have K 10 and hit top pair on the board and go all in (short stacked as of this point courtesy of the blinds). The guy had flopped a straight, a low one, but a straight and I was out. On the bright side, I got this much knitting done:

All five inches of lace done, two inches of stockinette done, it's moving along! I'll be knitting on it more tonight at SnB or poker, depends on if anyone wants to stitch tonight.

Knit on...

Of Roses and Coughing

So this weekend DBF and I celebrated Velentine's Day since he has to work on Wednesday evening. We exchanged gifts (I got FF3 and gorgeous roses, he got a foot spa with some epsom salt and a 2G flash drive), went out to eat at one of our favorite Chinese buffets in town, and watched the UK/UF game. UK almost came back there at the end. If we hit that last shot, I think we could have beaten them in overtime. Stupid buzzer...

Anyways, here are the gifts being modelled by two gorgeous people :oP

I hadn't opened FF3 yet, else I would have been holding it here too. He hid it in the box of turles he gave me. Sneaky guy...And a close-up of the roses:Oh, and I also managed to get in some knitting this weekend too. This thing is rediculous to try to photograph right now since it's lace, and we all know what lace does when you don't have it nicely blocked:

Mason Dixon After Dark Nightgown, about 2.5 inches done on the lace part. The lace is so simple that the pattern can be memorized and it turns into mindless knitting which is nice on the weekends.

DBF started coughing up a storm Saturday night and some on Sunday. I'm really hoping that he's not getting sick again. He just came off the antibiotics from the last round, so hopefully it's not doing the rebound thing. I woke up this morning coughing, so I'm hoping that I haven't caught the thing either. Maybe mine was just from the dry air courtesy of the space heater last night. Hopefully.

Knit on...

Some General Musings

I drove home from work yesterday and was getting so fed up with the drivers ahead of me. These two people were trying to carry on a conversation between two moving vehicles in rush-hour traffic. I love how sometimes humanity can burp up stupidity like that. I started to daydream about what they were yelling to each other about (it was cold and I'd be damned before I rolled down my window) and of course, I drifted to knitting.

Car One: "Dude, have you been able to figure out provisional cast-on yet?"

Car Two: "Yeah, man, it's simple really. I'm not doing anything important right now, let me show you while I drive..."

Ok, it's dumb, I admit it, but it kept me from ramming into them with my tank of a pre-oil embargo days car.

I get home and watch the news after fixing vegetarian tacos for dinner and saw that Anna Nicole Smith died. Why when they said that was I surprised? I know she was young, but dear Lord, think of all the chemicals that had to be in that system. It was probably TrimSpa that set her over the edge after all...

I stole DBF's new scarf last night and went to play poker. I got a lot of looks at the scarf from the players there since they had all watched me knit the thing while playing. One new guy even asked how much I would charge to make him one. I told him it would be around 75 bucks because of the cost of materials and the amount of time it would take and frankly the fact that I didn't want to make another one of these right now. They all just laughed. Now I am making an ankle-length sweater for someone at the league, but she is paying me for it and I want a new designing challenge and something I can maybe get published later on. Anyways...

I also pulled cards for a few new Magic decks last night. If DBF is able to pull cards today, we'll probably play some if he isn't too tired. The poor guy busts his ass during the week at a crappy job, so he can call the shots on the weekends depending on how tired he is. That's it for today. I'm going to re-cast on the After Dark Nightgown from Mason Dixon Knitting since I was working on that before I realized I was purling wrong and I want it to be as consistent as possible.

Knit on...

Throw Some Confetti My Way!

It's done and it's almost ready to wear finally. I seamed like the wind last night on the poker scarf and got it all tassled and everything. I just hit one small snag...the pattern rolls since seaming made it into a tube. It doesn's roll up, but rather the colorwork will rotate to the side and frankly, I don't like this at all. It's supposed to be flat after all.

Enter the quick solution. This is what's great about tubes, you can hide ends in them. What I did was take little pieces of gray yarn and slip them through both layers and tie them in a knot in the back. Then I threaded the ends into the center of the scarf and you can't even tell. This will keep it from taking any other shape aside from flat and it makes the colorwork really pop out in my opinion. You can't even see the knot on the scarf's back, so all is well. I don't know if there is any other way to get this thing to work without doing that. Anyone have any suggestions about that?

It has very short fringe by the way since I didn't think DBF would like really long dangly things on his scarf. The fringe is about 2 inches. in red, black, and gray alpaca. Have I mentioned that I love how this scarf turned out?

Knit on...

How About Some Knitting Content?

The scarf is almost done, but I ran out of yarn...

It's only like 2-3 more inches...I could be done with that in 20 minutes, but no, I'm out of yarn...So, today at lunch, I am going to trudge down the icy sidewalks and make my way to ReBelle to buy more yarn and finish the thing. I even brought my crochet hook so that I could start seaming it up once I get the rest of it knit. Spooky was a cat in a previous life, I firmly believe it...She likes yarn and she likes to play in boxes. See?

I didn't stick her in there either. She just hops in, runs around inside of it, then hops back out. Every now and then I'll find her in the kitchen just sitting in there all curled up. It's quite cute. Tonight I may not do much knitting, but I will finish the scarf. The reason? This:

Still sorting.

Knit on...

Friggin' Fraggin' Stupid CD

Ok, so I took pictures last night of DBF's scarf. No, I didn't finish it, but I am damn close. I have two inches left on the back panel which should take me less than 30 minutes to finish, but I ran into a tiny little snag....

I ran out of gray yarn...

So I'll be off to ReBelle tomorrow at lunch to pick up another skein of gray alpaca so I can finish up the scarf tomorrow night. I would go over there today, but I have my class and I have to make up time from last week and missing on Friday. Blah.

I had really cool pictures of the scarf and Spooky even modelled it for me (She's a fun rabbit), but the CD that I burned them on apparently was full, so it didn't really burn them. The program had said it was fine, but obviously it wasn't. That's how it goes sometimes though I guess. I'll have plenty of pictures tomorrow once I re-burn the CD.

So now I need to finish pulling cards for a new Magic deck or two. DBF has this funny deck idea that I think could be fun to play (not play against...), so I need to come up with some good decks to try out. I'm working on a Black/White kind of solar pox-ish deck and a Red/White Akroma's Blink deck. We'll see how both of them work out in playtesting.

Anyways, I wound two skeins of black Euroflax into balls last night. Any guess what the next thing to be completed is? I'll give you a hint, it's in Mason Dixon Knitting...

Knit on...

Guess What?

Remember how I had hoped I wasn't getting sick? Surprise, I was! Actually, I had a UTI, so it wasn't so much sick as it was just feeling miserable, but anyways, it's over now. I ended up leaving work early on Thursday, staying home on Friday, and sacking out the rest of the weekend with my bottle of cranberry juice cocktail.

I got all my Magic cards sorted except for Planar Chaos which I only opened on Saturday since I wanted to open the boxes with DBF (if you are a couple who plays Magic, you'd understand). We watched UK beat Arkansas which was nice then opened packs. I also knit some and I'm about six inches away from being done with DBF's poker scarf. It's getting there and I'm looking forward to finishing it up so I can see what the finished product looks like and just how much blocking the sucker needs.

Anyways, I'm coming in to work early all this week to make up time, so hopefully I'll remember to take pictures the night before and not be skimpy this week while I make up the time.

Knit on...

Cardboard Crack

Today, DBF and I get our hands on the cardboard crack that is Magic: the Gathering. Planar Chaos will arrive this morning and I will think about the cards all day. I almost called in today because I was so freaking cold this morning that I didn't want to leave the nice warm bedroom (God I love space heaters!), but I knew that I needed to come in and not waste a sick day on that. I felt a little off this morning too for some reason. I really hope that I have not caught the dumb cold that's been going around the office.

Honestly, if you are sick, please do not force yourself to come in to work and share your germs. People are sick enough from the mold in the building, much less any viruses or bacteria that you may want to help spread. I do not care to know what they are, so please, stay home. This job is very good about letting you make up time if you are out of sick days, so please, stay home and let me bank up mine so that I can take time off when I need to and not just keep hovering at my three sick days that never seem to grow into anything more than that...

Knitting-wise, I knit some more on the back of the poker scarf. I think it's around 3 feet, so I'm getting close to being half-way done. I'll be playing poker tonight unless I start feeling worse (don't know if it's a cold or if it's just funk from shivering most of the night since I can't afford to turn up the heat) or know for sure if this is a cold, so I'll be knitting then. Hopefully I can get another 6 inches to a foot done tonight. Looks like I won't meet my goal of finishing it before Planar Chaos arrives, but hell, do I really ever make any of my goals? I finished the Knitting Olympics two weeks late just because I didn't want to knit some nights :oP

Knit on...