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Knitting and Crochet Pop Culture

Bowl Day!

It’s Puppy Bowl Day!

Sadly I don’t have cable, so I have to wait for Puppy Bowl and Kitten Halftime Show to go online before I can enjoy cute balls of fluff running around like miniature lunatics, but still–Puppy Bowl Day!

Right now I’m trying to decide if I’m going to the yarn sale at Unwind. Do I really need yarn? Possibly. Will I find yarn I like there? Unknown. I’m a little off on natural fiber yarns at the moment, given that the alpaca sampler blanket I’d made for my mom (and took back after she died) now has three ginormous moth holes in it. Fuckin’ moths. But it might still be worth it to head over there and see what kind of quality synthetics they might have. I still have to make something for my two 2011 pay-it-forwards—a little meme that was on Facebook in January, offering homemade gifts to five people who agreed to do the same for five people. Of course, only two were willing to commit to paying it forward, but that works for me, since I like making stuff for other people. I just have to decide what I’m going to make, and perhaps a yarn sale is exactly the place to shop for ideas.

I still plan to be back in time for the Superbowl commercials, though.

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Knitting and Crochet

Hailey’s comet

I finally finished it!

Crochet star-shaped blanket

I’ve been working on this blanket for my niece Hailey since September 2008. Although really, it’s been sitting in my WIP pile for probably two years of that, just waiting for the final border and the ends weaved in. (I really hate weaving ends.)

The final motivating push happened last month because I was going to actually *meet* Hailey in person for the first time. See, my brother’s family lives several states away, and, since I suck, I haven’t visited in at least ten years. (It’s a long and boring story.) But last week they came to L.A. for a family vacation, so I pulled out the blanket, steeled my resolve, and weaved those damned ends for my wee niece. And it was such a pleasure to finally present it to her while she was still (mostly) small enough to enjoy it! 😀

The pattern is Beth’s Little Star Afghan, and the yarn is Bernat’s Satin Solids.

Hailey and her mom cuddle up under the starry blanket

(Cross-posted with knitting.polgara.net)

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Blogs Links News Travel

Six months in 500 words or less

May 1st?? May freakin’ first?!!! Wow, someone needs to kick my ass. Let’s see if I can summarize the past holy-wow-six months.

May:
TroubleBad news first: My cat Trouble died. It was a terrible terrible thing, and I still blame myself for being too busy to take her to the vet sooner. She spent almost a week in the vet hospital before she passed, and I visited her every day. I wasn’t with her when she died, arriving about 30 minutes too late. 🙁

June:
Was the “official” photographer for a meet and greet fan event with Nick Brendon.

IMG_6450Got a new friend for Jack–this is Dr. Zeva Tinycat, although she’s no longer quite this tiny, as she eats like the shelter cat she was. She’s two and a half, loves string and meowing a lot, doesn’t like people food, and bounces on the stomachs of my houseguests when they sleep on the couch.

Started seeing a therapist. She’s cool, albeit expensive. The expense adds a little to my stress, but I feel it’s the one thing I can’t really talk about with her.

July:
Spot of my perfect momentDrove out to Zion National Park in Utah by myself and spent a couple of days hiking. It was an incredible experience. The park was beautiful, and being on my own and beholden to none was very freeing. Next time, though, I’d rather share the beauty with someone–and the little travelled trail I’d discovered.

August:
For my birthday I got my first ever kidney stone. Yeah, it sucked donkey balls. It hit two days before, at work. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, where my boss hung out with me until I was released (and it was *his* birthday). Spent the rest of the week on my couch in much pain. Bonus, I still have two more stones hanging out in my kidneys that could drop at any time. Yay.

September:
IMG_8398Spent nine days at Disney World with nine friends and relatives to celebrate my sister’s 40th birthday. We had a BLAST! Seriously, one of my best vacations ever.

October:
Work project kicked into high gear and the stress became the center of my life. Not the greatest month ever. However, I did make it to Carnaval in West Hollywood for the first time in about seven years, so that was cool. It’s still just as fun and crazy as I remember. And I spent four hours on a Saturday helping to assemble holiday boxes to send to troops in I believe Afghanistan. That was cool.

So now it’s November. The work project is still in progress and still stressful, but should be launching in a week and a half. Unfortunately it coincides with a Fitness Challenge being held at the work-site gym, where eight teams of eight are competing to lose the most (percentage-wise) in seven weeks. I’m blogging my progress with that little event over here, but I must say, not being able to eat chocolate when I’m stressed is doing bad things to my general disposition.

I’ve been crocheting this whole time. All summer I’d work on granny squares–boring, basic squares, each made from a full ball of Plymouth Encore. I now have 20 squares that need to be joined into a blanket. Don’t know when that’ll be happening. I also made one ginormous granny square blanket for my sister’s birthday.

IMG_8734

So that’s the past six months in a nutshell. Hopefully it won’t be another six months before my next update. 🙂

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Blogs Knitting and Crochet Pop Culture

Ravelry? Oh yeah, I remember Ravelry!

MandrillI just added my first project to Ravelry since forever–the lime green and tangerine Fun Fur scarf that I should be finishing sometime tonight. (No pics yet.) It’s my first knitted project since I don’t even know when; I’ve been mainlining the crochet lately (although not nearly as obsessively as before the tendonitis incident, sadly).

I still haven’t finished Hailey’s Comet blanket–I paused for too long and can’t remember how I was doing the join, and so far have been too lazy to reverse engineer it–so instead I’ve been working on slouchy puffy hats. I did one in red (too bright!), and one in red and pink variegated with white puffs (my sis didn’t like the way the white puffs looked), and my current wip is subtly variegated purple. (None have been blocked yet, so they’re not DONE done.) But I was missing the needles, and I hadn’t made a scarf in about a year, so, when I got a JoAnn gift card for Christmas, I used it for four balls of Fun Fur specifically for this scarf (turns out it only needs two), plus two balls of Cha Cha? Moda Dea? I can’t remember, a vaguely feathery eyelash yarn in pink and orange; plus two balls of the Patons I’ve been using for the slouchy hats (my friend Suzy coveted my pink cammo hat when I was in NYC, so I plan to make a matching one for her).

ION, I’ve also been reading a lot more, in my attempt to read more books before April 1, 2009 than I did between April 1, 2007 and March 31, 2008 (see my LibraryThing for the lists). I’ve been on a supernatural kick (big surprise) and practically inhaled the Twilight books over Christmas (please don’t judge me), then moved on to Sherrilyn Kenyon (no judging!) and the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris (judge me all you want here, I love these). Unfortunately I’ve been buying too many new books and not reading enough from my TBR shelf, so my current rule is that I can’t read two books in a row from the same series. It’s not working perfectly yet–in fact, I don’t see a single book that I’ve read in the last three quarters that came from the TBR shelf–but hopefully it’ll slow me down before I gobble up the rest of the Sookie books (I’ve only read two so far).

For some reason I’ve been very uninterested in DVDs lately. This is most unlike me and I’m not sure what that’s about, but I really need to put my Netflix on hold until it passes–I’ve been holding onto the same two dvds for about three months now, while still paying the monthly fees. Very bad.

Finally, I have to share this website I found, which I’m probably the last person to learn about: ZenHabits.net. I *heart* it so. It has all kinds of good advice on all kinds of different topics. Check it out!

Oh, and finally finally, here’s a video I took at the L.A. Zoo a couple of weeks ago, of a Koala and her baby. Enjoy!

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As time goes by


WIP: Hailey’s Comet

Wow, have I been lax! My most sincere apologies for not updating for two freakin’ months. I tend to forget that I actually do have some readers.

The last time I posted, I mentioned the horror of finding out the yarn I was using–Bernat Satin in Palm green–had been discontinued. Well, Decherd Needleworks sent me their last four skeins, and right quick too, so they are ROCK STARS. Unfortunately (through no fault of theirs!) I’ve become distracted from the star afghan and have instead been making puffy slouchy hats, as they are easier to carry around now that the afghan is so big, and the pattern is easy to remember. I made one in variegated pinks and reds with the puff-stitch rows in cream and another a solid bright red. (No pics yet, but soon!)

Another “unfortunately” is that I couldn’t get my act together enough this season to make something for the annual charity auction at the company holiday party (it was last night). And from what I saw, many of the usual knitters and crocheters that donate each year also had a hard time coming up with something this time, as the pickings were slim for yarn items (fortunately the slack was covered by the paint-inclined artists).

Things are sucking all over this time around, not a great way to end 2008. Is it too early for new year’s resolutions? ‘Cause I’m thinking 2009 needs to have more knitting, more crocheting, and more blogging. And maybe a site redesign–the pink is starting to wear thin.

And as for the past two months, allow me to nutshell that for ya: painted a wall in the living room; went to a wedding on Jekyll Island, GA, and had a great time; psyched about the results of the presidential election; bought a laptop (green! I named it Lorne); went to D.C. for a conference and had a great time; knee is healing slowly but steadily; cats stopped like their food and we’ve been taste-testing for the past month; had a great Thanksgiving with lots of bourbon-flavored sides; and I intend to have a great Christmas. And to post more. 🙂