[Insert catchy title]

I'd give you guys a catchy title, but I don't have one.

I've been sick with the same damn cold for about a month now. Although since it's only coughing and the occasional stuffed up nose, I'm more inclined to think that alien babies are breeding in my lungs. Either that or it's TB and I'll die any day now.....alien babies sound like a better option at this point.

I'll be starting up running again tomorrow. I didn't want to "cold" getting worse by going into the increasingly cold weather, but since it doesn't seem to be going away I'll say screw it, and get back into my routine. I'm starting to feel horribly fat and lazy anyways.
I was all the way up to week 6 already (which was kicking my ass), but I think I'll have to scale it back down to week 3 so my lazy little self can play catch up. There is no way I can start back up at 20min non-stop running after not going at all for three weeks. It's just not going to happen.

In more knitterly news, I haven't knitted a damn stitch since September. I just can't be bothered. Not when there is spinning to be done.

Handspun single, Peruvian Wool.

My personal challenge right now is to see just how thin I can get my singles (single strand of hand spun yarn, before you twist them together). So far I'm getting this. I'm not sure if I can get it any finer then this.

Ashford Traveler Spinning Wheel

Mom and I took a trip to a local yarn shop who rents out their spinning wheels. I'm renting an Ashford Traveler (pictured on the right) for the next 2 weeks, and am in love with the little thing. Although it could be that I'm just over the moon happy with having a wheel to play with. It's not the one that I have my heart set on buying, but it's nice to get to practice and play with one for a while. So far I'm working my way through three different types of roving. I'll upload pictures eventually, once I have more then a single skein to show off. xD

You know, this post had a semi purpose behind it when I started, but that purpose has completely escaped me....

Washington, a spinners limbo

I obviously live in the wrong state when it comes to spinning.
As advised by other spinners I called around to yarn shops to see if any of them carried spinning wheels. Only a few of them did. So I picked the closest one (still an hour and a half car ride), and went to try some out. There were only three that were up my ally because they're small and compact or fold up. Now of course I'm waffling between two of them, because at $600 and above per wheel, I want the most bang for my buck, so to speak. I received a bunch of great pro/con advice from other spinners and a few of them suggested I look into renting or borrowing a wheel. So I called just about every shop around the western side of Washington, and not a single one of them rents out their wheels. Not.A.One. How the hell is that even possible?!
So like I said, I obviously live in the wrong state...either that or these other spinners that have rented wheels to try them out live in a different dimension. That is the only explanation I have.

I'm doing it for the baby!

My best friend  managed to get herself knocked up by a complete knobhead. I don't mind her boyfriend as a person, I do however mind him as her boyfriend; if that makes sense at all. And while my initial reaction was a mix of "Yay you're having a baby!" and "Oh god, you're having a baby..." I figured I would knit for the little bugger anyways, no matter what her ultimate decision would be (there was a lot of waffling going on for a while). Hence the title.

When she found out I was one of the first three people she phoned to share the news with. Now since I have knitted for my other friend when she had her first baby (and then was a complete failure on finishing her second child's blanket) I decided I would get started on Cierra's baby blanket right away. Since gender was not yet determined I had a smorgasbord of colors to choose from. There is a 9 block blanket pattern I have been wanting to knit since '06 and figured it was as good a time as any to knit it. And in the last 4 months since her announcement I have finished exactly....less then 1/9th of the blanket. I'm about one inch short on block number one.

Now I know that my friend is having a baby girl and so I want to go and buy mostly girly colors...but then I wouldn't know what to do with the 4 skeins of primary colors I have sitting in my basket. So for now I'll put my nose to the grindstone as they say, and will finish this blanket...hopefully before little Leah Irene turns 20. 

My 5k progress is going quite a bit better, if anyone cares. I'm done with week 4 now, which quite frankly kicked my butt all week long. The running portions are getting much longer (we're up to two 5 minute sets now!) and the walking portion might as well not be there at all.

I had to skip Saturday's run because I was too busy with other things and by the time I would have been able to it was already getting dark. And I for one would like to avoid running in the dark, in the woods, where crazed ax murders might lurk. So I ran today instead. Mind you, it's Washington so our weather has turned to complete shit in the last week and it was gray and damp all day. Looking outside I figured if I ran now (it was 4:40pm) I would be able to beat the clouds before they decided to rain. Yeah....I was so wrong. It started while I was running. And stopped raining all together when I was done. (hey, I was already soaked, there was no point in stopping before the podcast was done). Leave it to me to pick the only rainy 30 minutes of the day to go running in.

On my way to 5k (running that is)

I've taken up jogging.

Now this wouldn't seem strange to most people. Some might even give me the thumbs up and say "Good for you! Jogging is good exercise!" But those people weren't my friends in high school, or in my gym class. I hate running...or jogging. With a passion. Unless something is chasing me, I don't run. And even then I'd find a blunt object to defend myself with first before I start running. Which really put a dent in my Gym grade because I would always be one of the last people to finish a mile at the end of the year (after slacking all year while others "worked their way up" to a decent time). During my Senior year my teacher looked at me one day and asked if I was "actually going to try today"
"Nope," came my reply as I did a pathetic jog past him (it was more of a fast walk really). See, I hate running.

Which makes my decision to start jogging every other day a strange one. But I realized as I was furiously knitting away on a simple sock, stabbing into each little stitch as if it could convey my frustration to my husband (which is didn't) that I had to find a different means of venting. I can only bitch at my friends so long before they get annoyed with me after all. And I'd run out of yarn soon.

So far it's going pretty well. I downloaded a few running podcasts from iTunes onto my iPod and they make the jogging much more bearable. I also discovered the PodRunner Intervals series which switches back and forth between walking and jogging for 30 minutes (which makes me cover about 2 miles). It's designed to get me running 5k (or 3 miles) at the end of the 10 week series. I'm determined to get there. What's funny is that I used to walk 3 miles to work every day. And then it was almost 2 miles from work to my Mom's (she was nice enough to give me a ride back home if she had errands to run in town). So 5 miles every day, 5 days a week, for 6 months would make you think this would be no problem...yeah, right.

My Mom snickers every time I mention my jogging, and my Mother-in-law usually just arches an eyebrow and goes "Well what do you expect?" when I mention that it's hard to breath, or that my legs are achy. The loving support of these people is staggering. *insert heavy sarcasm*

I love/hate roving

Since I started spinning I've come across a whole new world filled with gadgets, and tools, and fiber, and people, and squishyness. I've also come across a new love/hate relationship. This time with roving...the stuff you spin into yarn.

So far (I've only been doing this for a year, so don't quote me) I've established that there are two kinds of roving; batts and roving/top. Basically with one the roving has been processed into one long string and then braided so it stays together (top), and with the other one the roving has been processed into one large sheet (batt). And I hate batts. With a passion. Like, you guys don't even know, man.

The braids are easy to pull apart once you've upbraided them. You pull a chunk off, separate it into smaller sections and away you go. The batt however is so much more cumbersome, in my opinion. You have to unfold them damn thing and suddenly it's 4 times its size, then you pull a section off with stray bits of roving flying every which fucking way. And stuffing the thing back into its bag in any sort of dignified manner pretty much goes out the window too since it fluffs up the second it hits air -- at least that is the way it seemed to me.

I have a purple batt of roving laying around here right now, and I keep putting it off because it annoys the crap out of me. I had roving in my coffee for Christ sake! Not cool. Plus it's on my Turkish spindle, where the shaft was unfortunately snapped. Which reminds me I should e-mail KnitPicks and see if I can buy a replacement shaft.

Teal Twist

In other news, I finally got around to taking pretty pictures of the yarns I have spun up so far. So here, have some pictures.
The teal on the left is the Corriedale I received from KnitPicks. It was interesting to work with. The fibers didn't draft out as nicely as I had first thought they would. It's also a bit scratchy, so I'll mostly be making a hat out of it I think (oh wait...I mentioned this before, didn't I?) Sadly the Louet Dyed Corriedale's are no longer available as 4oz bags. Now they come in these packs of 8 1/4oz samples. Which would be great...if they would offer the actual rovings as well! But no....why would be be accommodating like that?
 

Pair-o-keet

The roving on the left is from that lovely etsy shop, to-ply-fiberarts. It's a Merino/Tencel blend and was incredibly fun to spin. Although the tencel was rather slippery so suddenly I'd pull the fiber apart and have this tiny sliver of spun yarn. You can't really see it in this picture but it's also rather shiny. Which make taking picture in the sunlight rather interesting. It also isn't plied together very tightly, which I could kick myself for. But I figured that pair with something equally loose, it will look great. I hope
 

Goldenrod

And then you have the luscious orange...thing on the side of there.  It's another one of to-ply's rovings and came in a top that changed from creamy yellow into deep orange and back again. I loved working with this fiber. It's 100% polwarth and drafted out so smoothly I was kind of sad to see it go. xD
So far it's one of my mom's favorites and every time she sees it she attempts to steal it from me.

Speaking of my Mother, she purchased some 100% merino from to-ply that she wanted me to spin up for her. She totally forgot about it though and came across it again just yesterday. I see no downside to that. I get to play with fiber, get better at spinning, and she get's a yarn that is exactly the weight she wants it to be. It's pretty much a win-win me thinks.

Summer update

It'll have to be the readers digest version of an update though. There is too much to cover other wise.

After the family left on Thursday I spent the day laying around doing not much of anything. But it was nice to not have to check with the family if anyone needed the bathroom before taking a shower, and that I could simply walk from one end of the house to the other in my undies when I was getting dressed and forgot something. I think that cat enjoyed the peace and quiet too. She pretty much slept most of the day or curled up in my lap. It was a lovely 4 days.

On Friday night I received a text from my friend Diana asking if I wanted to go with her and Irma (my friends mom) to see a band. And even though I had to be up by 5am the next morning to head to Sock Summit I went with them. I didn't get back to the house until like 2:30, and didn't go to sleep until like 3:30. So with only an hour and a half of sleep under my belt I took a shower, got coffee, got dressed and then walked to the bus stop to meet my Mom so we could head to the train station and go to Sock Summit down in Oregon. It was a very, very long Saturday for me. I ended up falling asleep on the train actually. Which wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't been opposite these two "interesting" men. Talk about awkward.

Sock Summit was a blast though. We got to meet some of the ladies from Ravelry, and proudly wore our Minion hats for one of them. The inside joke with that is that my Mom is knitforfoods (Rav name) Minion and that I'm my Mom's minion. So Kelley's Mini-Minion? We walked around the market place, bought yarn and roving, I got to try out a spinning wheel again and did much better this time around. So much better in fact that mom is thinking about buying me one at the Madrona Fiber Festival in February. The festival is conveniently located in Tacoma (although the name makes me think of the Midwest) so we'll probably make another day trip out of it. On Sunday I did nothing again. Just walked around in my PJ's.

Monday marked the beginning of my Texas adventure, and quite frankly I have never been this exhausted on Vacation before. Ever. I won't give you all the horrible I-wanna-hit-you-with-a-blunt-object details, but it all started on Monday when DH wouldn't stop calling me while I was at the airport! Cierra had picked me up late from my house, so when DH called the first time I was in the car and couldn't hear him. Told him I'd call him back inside the airport. Call 2 came through as I was in the checked baggage line after I had texted him that I had agreed to be on the "later flight" list. I didn't know the family had plans already for that afternoon and that I couldn't fly in later. Call 3 came in as I was hustling up the security line. Call 4 (this time for FIL) came in as I hurried across the terminal to get to my gate. Until then I had already picked up said "Not now!" and hung back up. FIL informed me that I could not be on a later flight. They had plans to see the Alamo and so I needed to fly in on time, so to please tell the front desk to take me off the list. Done. Call 5 came as I was talking to said front desk ladies. Call 6 came in as I was sitting at the gate, taking a deep breath, and pretending that the family wasn't stressing me out. I let that call go to voice mail too. Then I got a text from SIL who wanted to confirm I would be on time. I said yes, and that was the end of it.

After a relatively easy going flight (although my tummy did not enjoy descending into Austin) I was swept away into Grandmother Cardwell's car (she drives like she has a death wish), arrived at the Alamo, was hurried around, got stressed out and fed up when people were arguing back and forth about going here and there, and by the time I finally was able to eat something (did I mention I hadn't eaten in 15 hours by then?) I was ready to slap people. I dread to think how short I was with our poor waitress.

The rest of the 10 days was pretty much the same. Between the constant driving around and the bickering between DH, SIL, and BIL, I'm sure I got a gray hair or two somewhere. On the bright side I ended up with a great little tan because I spent most of my time outside away from them.

Second Day we went to Seaworld. And since we got there in the early hours we managed to do everything. Third day we stayed at a cabin resort where I lounged by the pool all day long and wadded in the nearby river when the others napped. Day four and five saw us mostly on the road, going from one place to another and then to another. It was a great, crammed 4 hour drive either direction. We spent the next three days on the lake, where I got to go tubing for the first time ever. It's a ton of fun, and once I went out on my own (before I'd gone with SIL and DH) they had to work to toss me off. Working out pays off after all. =) On day nine MIL, FIL, SIL, one of Brandon's Uncles and Aunt, and I visited two vineyards were we did wine tastings. We bought two Orange Muscato's from Vineyard #1, and a Port from Vineyard #2. Delicious.

I now also know that Brandon's family is friggen huge. I think I met like 30 people during the Short family reunion and according to MIL that's not even all of them. O.O Is it too late to change my mind about being married?

Oh Sunday...

That is all I could think of tonight as I curled up on the couch with a glass of Merlot, my knitting and the TV remote to watch TrueBlood; I was very excited when season one came out as I had read the first book, but as time passes I find the show is starting to get stupid. But I digress.

Remember how I said "What else can possibly go wrong?" in yesterday's entry? Yeah, I ended up sewing on one of the sleeves inside out. So that bring my grand total of screw ups on the single baby cardie to like 15 I think. But it's finally done and I've moved on to the second one. I'm hoping this one will go with less issues. I'll be modifying the pattern just a tiny bit too because frankly I hate the way the shoulder seems looks on the first one. So I'll be keeping the stitches on scrap yarn so I can kitchener them together later. And this time I'll be sewing the left and right borders to left/right pieces a few rows in. None of this fiddle with it and try to make it work stuff. On the bright side Suzie loved the cardie and even the ladies at the yarn shop liked it. So that's always a plus. Oh! and as luck would have it, the shop only has one skein of the yarn I'm using left. So yay! for having all the yarn I need and then some. Suzie wants me to make hats if there is enough yarn left...I think I can manage that somehow. Or more socks...whichever.

Aside from going to the yarn shop we stopped by Shipwreck beads, mostly so my Mom and Suzie could get beads for shawls and scarfs and whatever else they use them in. As I was looking around, getting steadily bored and overwhelmed by the sheer size of the place, I decided that maybe I should get myself some new beads for the sock design I made. You know, the one I have to re-design 'cause the stitches aren't doing what I want them to? Yeah, that one. The beads I'm using now are clear so they would show up in the knitting, the new ones are milky and feel like they have a matte finish on them. These ones will certainly show up in the knitting.

And we ended the day with a little road trip through the middle of no where (well, it felt like that to me because it was a back road going through farms and forested areas) to avoid the huge back up on I-5. It might have taken us longer to get back home but the scenery was pretty. We spotted a large sign that said "Cherries, $1.00 a bucket" and chirped that we wanted some cherries, please. We passed three more signs and still saw no stall on the side of the street. At this point my sister demanded to know where the hell the cherries were and I chimed in with "You know what, they can keep their bucket of lies!" It all went down hill from there. We blame it on the lack of food in our systems....delusional with hunger we were. But we finally found the blasted cherries and purchased at least $10 all together; and they were delicious! totally worth the wait.

The family is leaving for Texas on Thursday...in just 2 days! *blissful sigh* That means 4 days of it just being me in the house, by myself, with the cat....although one of those days I'm going to Sock Summit (insert excited internal squeal here) so the cat will have the house to herself for a whole day. I might lock her up in her room though so she doesn't get into a ton of trouble and make a huge mess; that is something I certainly wouldn't want to come home to. And then it's off to Texas myself to meet up with the chaoticness that is my family. I wonder if I could convince the pilots to just drop me of in like Arizona....hmm....

Halfway to the finishline!

(For some reason this entry was marked as draft, so it was never posted for you guys. It's about the horribleness that was those two baby cardigans I knitted last August.)

Yeah, I'm halfway to the finish line, meaning I have almost one cardigan finished all the way. That is if the damned thing start behaving itself. Oh yeah, when I said "baby cardigan, that will be easy!" I was definitely speaking too soon. This thing has had more mistakes in it then a first graders math paper. Here is what I all messed up on!

• Cast on the wrong amount of stitches for the back 3 times,
• mess up shoulder & neck shaping on back,
• add neck shaping onto arm hole shaping on left front, undo it,
• cast on right front with wrong needle size,
• knit one more row with smaller size then I am supposed to,
• cast on wrong amount of stitches for sleeve 1,
• knit one sleeve more often then the other,
• don't pay attention to what decreases I'm doing,
• tink back both sleeves because of messed up shoulder shaping,
• undo sleeve 1 all together,
• mess up on final shaping again anyways,
• knit too many rows for left border,
• forget to put in button holes for right border,
• knit not enough rows for right border,
• pick up and knit too many stitches for neck band
• pick up and knit 22 of those neckband stitches with a randomly long end thread,
• then knit 2 rows with said random long end.

Oh yeah, this cardigan had just been a walk in the friggen park! And to think I have a whole another cardigan to go.
Oh, did I mention that I also miscalculated the amount of yarn I need for both, so now I'm having to go back to the yarn shop with the lady that commissioned them (alright, so that's not so bad, after all it is a yarn shop) so we can buy another skein.

Honestly it can't get worst from here.

Spoke to soon

I was asked by a family friend to knit two baby cardigans for a friend of hers. No problem! I thought. They're for babies, hence they are small and easy to make. WRONG!

I have come to the sleeve part of the first cardigan and figured to save myself time I would knit them at the same time. In hindsight that was a bad idea. Instructions say to "Work 41 rows, inc 1 sts at each end of 5th and every following 18th row." I should have 50sts in the end. So I started knitting, then realized that I might want to start marking off my rows so I know when I need to increase. After a bit I counted my rows in my knitting only to realize that without paying attention I had knitted on sleeve 1 more then sleeve 2. Easy enough fix; I just had to knit the same rows on sleeve 2 and I'd be okay. Mind you, this happened like 3 times. I finally had all my increases done, and was told to "work without further increases until pieces measures 6inch" Done! At this point I was feeling confident and proud. I could totally get everything knitted tonight. Totally.

Then I was supposed to decreases one stitch on each end of the next 8 rows for the shoulder shaping. I should have 34 stitches on the needles afterwards. I lost track of my decreases and figured that as long as I was doing one decrease at each end I could just count stitches and figure out where I was. Yeah....sleeve 1 contained 31 stitches and sleeve 2 contained 36 stitches. Now I'm feeling a bit frustrated, and decided to just tink back each sleeve until I get back to 50 sts, and I'll do the decreases again. Which brings us to now....sleeve 1 (which is the one that has been tinked back already) now has 43 stitches...and I have tinked back all the decrease rounds. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY OTHER 7 STITCHES?! I can only assume that aliens took them away. The same aliens that keep drinking my beer, 'cause I had a full bottle when I last blinked.

Going to Texas!

The family is going to Texas at the end of the month for Grandpa Cardwell's 80th birthday. Because I have other, pressing, engagements up here, I will be joining the family on the 1st of August (well didn't that sound posh?). Mind you, this other pressing engagement is Sock Summit '11 down in Oregon. Hey, I will not miss out on my first ever knitting convention just because the man is turning 80, with one foot halfway in the grave. At least I'm going...that is the important part, right?

Now with a 3.5 hour flight looming in my near future the first thing I looked up was whether I was allowed to have knitting on the plane with me. And I'm happy to say that yes I am. =D I'm thinking I'll take a sock with me on my double point bamboo needles. They are 5" long, rounded on the end, and since they are a size 2 they are so flimsy that the wrong grip could snap them. If anyone feels threatened by that I'll be happy to point out the nearest pen/pencil...that will probably do more damage then my tiny needles. Then again realizing that would require someone to apply logic, and how often do people do that, hmm?

I'm rather excited to be going actually. I've never been to Texas before (I've never actually left Washington to be honest) and from what I've been told our tentative schedule is pretty friggen full for when we are there. Between visiting family (yaaay =.= ) and going to random attractions, I'm not sure if I'll get a moment to breath' let lone a moment to knit. On the bright side I'll come back with a serious tan hopefully...that is the plan at least.

As of right now I'm also spending my time knitting a lot of baby things. Not for myself mind you, but for all the people that are breeding like rabbits. I swear everyone I know is either pregnant right now or having babies. It's crazy! But so far I'm only knitting for one of my friends (the other baby stuff is commission work). I'm rather glad most of my other friends don't know about my knitting; otherwise I might be up to my eyeballs in request for baby stuff. And then I'd have to sound like a bitch when I tell people "NO! No more babies!"

*Zombie noises*

That would be me coming back from the dead, so to speak. It's been forever since I last posted and my Mom pointed it out so I figured I would post something.

Something.

My work here is done.

But in all semi-seriousness (this is the internet after all) nothing much has been going on around here. Aside from work, and husband getting discharged from the National Guard (it's a long story) and then getting a regular job, and the lack of sheep in our back yard, and the best friend getting pregnant, and nearly the entire family turning another year older (we have 6 birthdays from March - June), and me being 23yrs old now, and the family leaving me alone for 2 weeks at the end of July so they can visit the family in Texas. See, nothing much going on at all.

I've been slowly getting my WIP basket emptied. I finished the Candle Flame scarf that has been sitting at the bottom of my basket since last April. And here it is. I was going to knit on it when I'm at home, since it' s lace and the thought of working on a lace scarf around a 2yr old terrified me, but it was surprisingly easy to transport and work on; especially when that 2yr old was napping.
The yarn is from dyeforsock1965.




I also spun my way through 3 different rovings. One is the "Aqua" from Knit Picks. The yarn is a bit scratchy so I think I'll make a pretty hat with it; since there is only about 300 yrds of it anyways. I also spun up lovely roving called Parakeet and Hearthfire that were purchased from toplyfiberarts on etsy. I'd share pictures but my stupid T-mobile account won't let me access my photo album for some reason. On my new spindle (a Turkish spindle that my Mom got me for my birthday) is a pretty purple merino/bamboo blend from KnitPicks. It's interesting to work with because sometimes it drafts out faster then I expect so the plied yarn is super thin and I have to undo it to add more roving. But I'm liking it so far. The spindle is interesting to use as well.

On a completely random note: I was flipping through an old Woman's Health magazine the other day and they had a little section called '8 fat fighting secrets' or something like that. Basically it was situations that make you eat more and how you can get around them. Like apparently when we buy in bulk, we also tend to eat more within the first 8 days because there is so much food available (that would explain my in laws =) ). So the magazines tip is to divide your bulk purchases up and stash the extra away; one of those 'out of sight out of mind' kind of things.
And the situation/solution that really caught my attention was one about an office candy dish. They said to put it out of reach if it's on your desk, or put it on a shelve, or better yet get rid of it.
Basically the logic behind their solution was that if it the candy is out of reach, you'll be too lazy to get up and get it; unlike if it was right by your fingers.
........Have these people met me? Do they know how determined I am when there is candy that I like in a room? Having to get up and work for the candy would be my justification for eating it in the first place! After all I have to get up, walk over, reach all the way up there, and then walk all the way back over to my desk. I'm burning those calories man!

Her name shall be PETUNIA!

In case I haven't mentioned this before, or if I have and you just don't want to backtrack my blog (gods knows I don't), let me fill you in:

I started spinning last year and now that I've gotten decent enough on a drop spindle to produce mostly even single, I want a spinning wheel so I can spin up more then maybe half an ounce at a time (did I mentioned that I always manage to make lace weight singles so a wheel would be awesome?). And then I decided that the next most logical step after a spinning wheel is a Sheep. One of those miniature ones. Like a patio cow. Small enough to be kept in the back yard 'cause it's the size of a dog, yet large enough that it gives me a decent amount of fiber. I.Want.A.Sheep.

I yet again told the husband today that I want a sheep. And that one or way another I will get one. He's part of the national guard and I said: "Watch, you'll be send over-seas for one of those little 6 month tours like your Dad did and when you come back there will be a tiny sheep in the backyard. And her name shall be Petunia!"

So there you have it. I shall buy a miniature sheep and her name shall be Petunia and she shall live in my backyard and I will be a happy spinner. =D

Got a KnittyNoddy from my Mom not too long ago. I hadn't used it yet because I didn't have anything to ply laying around, but then I remembered my wonderful Silk and went ahead got to it. And boy, how did I ever live without one of those? The happy Silk now has it's twist set and is laying with it's brother and sister in my stash. Never to be used for anything. Cause I can't remember where I got the roving, how much I got, what exactly the blend is, or even when I got it. So I don't think I'll be able to get more of it. Plus it's Silk! it deserves to be put into a shadow box with a large label reading "I did that!" I'm still amazed that I managed to produce nice, even yarn without destroying the roving completely.

On the top whirl right now is a lovely "aqua" colored Corriedale from KnitPicks. I say "aqua" because to me it looks more like dark teal. And on the bottom whirl is the roving my Mom bought from an etsy shop. I can't remember what it's called or even what fiber content it is. But it's wonderful. Hopefully I'll have enough spun up by this weekend to show off to you guys.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to read up on potential Petunia candidates.

It's around here somewhere....

Scissors, Missing.
Knitting pattern, Missing.
Food for Frog, Missing.
Cat, Missing.

That should probably be my hint that I need to clean my room up. Even if the tripping and hopping about that my family does when they enter is highly amusing to watch. I s'pose I shouldn't make too much fun of their efforts to not step on my things, but it's hard not to.

I seem to have out knitted myself a little too. Not in the "whoa that is so cool!" sense but the "meh, I can't be bothered" sense. I'm tired of the projects I have laying around, but I don't feel like starting something new. Although I've signed myself up for another Swap, so I'll be starting something new soon because of it. This time it's a Sock Survival Kit Swap. Basically we'll be sending our partner little things that would help them survive knitting a difficult sock pattern. Like chocolate, or tea to calm the nerves, maybe even something that would compliment the pattern or finished sock, etc. It should be fun.

Katie's baby boys isn't born yet, which is a good thing 'cause his blanket isn't finished yet. xD I'm horrible about knitting for babies I've realized. One would think that a measly blanket could be accomplished in 9 months. Yeah, not when I'm the one knitting it. Ben's blanket was given to him nearly a month after his was born, and unless I get some serious progress on it this week (I'm off work until Wednesday), then his little brothers blanket will probably share the same fate. I told Katie that Jack can't be born yet 'cause his blanket isn't done. "Oh yeah," she said. "I'll be sure to let him know he can't come out yet..." Something tells me she was being sarcastic.

I can only take so much!

I can now sing you the "Happy Birthday" song from the Sunny Side up show, the "Good night" song from the Good Night show, and the theme songs to Cailiou, Monster Club House, Elmo's World, Kipper, and Monkey See Monkey Do. I can also dance the Potty Dance for you, and hum along to several of the Wiggles song. In other words I watch too much Sprout channel! O.O

It's the only thing that the Mom wants her kids to watch. Because "there are bad cartoons out there." You know the ones born on the wrong side of the track, with a cigarette dangling between their lips, those cartoons. (=.=) I can understand where she is coming from, but serliously? There are bits of information in my head that I, a 22yr old woman without children, should not know....like the whole sprout channel line up! And the best part is that Pierce doesn't even pay attention to it most of the time. It's background noise. Background noise that get's stuck in your head after a while.

My work hasn't left me with a whole lot of knitting time either. I pretty much finished most of the things on my WIP list, and haven't had the time to start anything new...which is depressing. 'Cause I realized today that I need not only more gloves but also another hat or two.

It snowed here yesterday. I'm super thrilled. I think I'm the only grown up that danced down the street when it was snowing, making random foot print patterns in the already settled stuff, and throwing snow balls at street signs. And all while "running errands" (more like finding stuff to do so I could spend time outside). The snow is still outside which is great, although the temp has also dropped so much that it's not really fun anymore. Will post pictures eventually.

I was going to share something else with you lot, but for the world of me I can't remember what it was. Oh well. I'm sure it will come back to me at like 3 in the morning and I'll go "That was it!" and I'll be determined to post about it later, only to forget again. 'Cause I'm just that good.

Cardican't

Yeah, this cardigan is absolutely the most awful thing I have ever knitted. There is no other way to describe it. Not in the sense that it looks horrible, but more in the sense that putting it together is proving to be harder to do then shifting the Continents back into Pangaea.

My sleeves are longer then both back and front. So now I'm having to scrunch, and staple, and threaten the wool for it to co-operate. As it is, only one side is actually matching up...after I practically put a pleat into it. Do you know how strange a single pleat in a sleeve looks?
And then there is the side seam. It looks wonderful, until you tug on it a little and then BAM! there is my seam showing. Like a damn game of peek-a-boo. Where's the stitching? there it is!
But my sleeve seam looks wonderful according to my Mom, so there is that I suppose.

Tomorrow I'm taking the whole thing over to my Mom's so that she can look at it, and help me/fix it.

But the more I look at this orange disaster in my lap, the more I'm realizing that it's really not so bad. Honestly. If I only tug here, and sew that down, and pin here, and add a button there, and tape it here, and apply the flame thrower here, I'm sure it will look great. *goes to look for chainsaw*

To Vlog or not to Vlog

So I spent a good chunk of my time on YouTube (mostly to run music in the background), and sometimes I check on my subscriptions, mostly when one of the more amusing people posts a new video. And whenever I watch Vlogs I can't help but think "I can do that." Especially what the more basic people do. You know, sit in front of a Webcam and talk. I can do that. As a matter of fact I like talking about myself and things that generally annoy me...like the world...and people.
But then I keep thinking that I probably sound funnier in text form (if I go by what my Mom says). And let's face it, I have trouble uploading photo's sometimes. I don't even want to know what would happen if I uploaded a 3min video.

In knitterly news: The Cardigan I started last year is still not done. Don't judge me! I just can't be arsed to finish it. xD All the pieces are blocked and I started sewing it together, but I'm horrible about sticking to something even slightly boring...so I stopped after the first side. I'm sure it will be finished by the end of the month...maybe.

My convertible mitten pattern isn't up yet, mostly because my mother hasn't sent me the pictures we took with her camera. Yeah, remember those pictures Mom? the ones I kind of need? But I'm thinking that for testing sake I'll use the pictures I took (the ones that have my bedroom floor with all it's messy glory as the background) and I'll swap the pictures out when it's time to sell the pattern.

Work goes well. Pierce and I take a small walk just about every day. For the last few days it's been really rainy so there are usually puddles around when we take our walk. And I let him run through them. Which is one of the cutest things I have seen in a long time. He's 19 months old and at first he stood in the middle of a puddle, staring down at this rain boots like he was going to be sucked in or something. So apparently Mommy doesn't let him puddle jump...which is a shame. Now he will shout "Puh'le!!" (not sure how to spell his awkward pronunciation), pull me over and slosh through it. We still haven't gotten to full on jumping yet...but I'm working on it. =D

Le Update

Whenever I'm done with work on Fridays the song "Proud Mary" by Tina Turner pops into my head. Mostly because of the line "working for the man every night and day". Which makes no sense cause the rest of the song is like about dinners, and southern states, and rivers, and fish, and boats...or something like that. But that's the song that pops into my head every time I walk to ma momma's.

Did I mention before that I walk from my job to my Mom's? it's a lovely 25 min walk. If it's not raining. Otherwise it turns into a 25 min struggle with my umbrella and my bags, and my hair (which is usually trying to strangle me by then). And by then I'm so pissed off that I'm just waiting for a car to hit me so I can beat the driver into the ground.
Did I also mention that sometimes I have to walk from my house? that turns the whole trek into an hour. Do you people realize how creepy my "city" is at 6am? It's all dark and there are creepy people driving their creepy cars. Like o.m.g ya'll don't even know. I usually walk with my umbrella extended so I can wail away if someone attacks me...not that my little mini (does that make it a micro umbrella?) umbrella would do me any good...but it's the thought that counts.

Speaking of thoughts that count. A while ago I spun up some yarn and I handed the first skein to my Mom 'cause I have no real use for it. And she made a glove out of it! It looks so spiffy. Now I juts have to provide her with the second skein so that she can make a second glove to go with the first one. She said that she's all uber proud of me and the yarn, which is awshome. I made a second skein but it was like a lot thinner then the first one. So I'm going to ply that skein together with another one of my singles and see if that makes it thick enough....I'm thinking I'll just add single ply's until it works out for me. So my Mom is going to get like a 13ply fingering weight yarn...that should be fun for her.

Otherwise I haven't knitted nearly as much as I would like. Mostly because whenever I sit down to knit more then a single needle for a sock (had to switch to DPNS for this patterns, shoot me now), Pierce makes little whining noises to get my attention so that he can show me something ridiculous, like the fridge. Or the shrubbery growing outside his parents apartment. Oh the joys of being a Nanny. =﹏=

And aside from being part of "Frog it/Finish" it and "11 FG's in 2011" on my FingerlessGloves group on ravelry, I also decided to post the "Pay It Forward" status on my facebook, which is this lovely little thing: (please disregard the suddenly much smaller text, I have no idea what happened there)

Pay it Forward 2011:
I promise to personally deliver or mail something handmade to the
first 5 people who leave a comment here. They must in turn post this and send/deliver something they make to the first 5 people who comment on their status. The rules are that it must be handmade by you and it must be sent to your 5 people sometime in... 2011.

Yeah, I'm crazy like that. Although thankfully no one aside from my Sister-in-Law has commented so far so maybe I won't actually have to do anything. *small cheer*

New Years update! and random video

Yes, I know we're only a few days into 2011, but so far quite a few great things have happened to me.

1. The husband finally got a job. He works as a security guard and although I don't get to spend a whole lot of time with him now (aside from sleeping and I don't count that), I'm happy that he gets off his butt every day.
2. I have a job now too! I'm a nanny for two wonderful children. The pay sucks (the parents are using DSHS, so that is the rate I'm getting paid 'cause they can't afford anything else) but the kids are great, so I'm kind of overlooking it. Plus it's still money I wouldn't otherwise have. So who am I to complain?
3. Husband will hopefully get his basic training date this weekend while at his national guard weekend. If not, Imma be calling people and heads will be rollin' 'cause I ain't puttin' up with this sh*t no mo'. (Imagine that bit with the head-bobbing-pursed-lips-finger-wagging thing that some people do.)
4. My second glove design actually worked out! Aside from the finger decrease...but that's a minor technicality. Have a picture... And yes, they are convertible mitts...and I suppose if one didn't like that, one could always leave the flip-top off and just make fingerless gloves.
   I'm hoping I'll have the pattern tested by people sometime this coming up week, so it will be available for purchase this coming up weekend. At least that is my plan.

My Mommy is thinking about (well, more like going through with) making a fingerless glove book. I'm uber proud of her for that. =3 And Imma be helping with some of the secret test knits for her.

Aside from the above mentioned, I can't think of anything else...OH! I've been talking with my Father on a near weekly basis now thanks to Skype. For those of you who don't knows (which would be everyone I s'pose since my friends don't read this. And if you are, come out of hiding and comment damn it!) my Papa lives in Germany. So I haven't seen him in 10 years. And while we have e-mailed each other on a semi-regular basis, actually hearing his voice, and seeing his face (he's gotten old!) is something totally different and wonderful and I'm pretty sure I grinned like a lunatic the first time we used Skype. But that's okay because when it comes to my parents I'm like a 5 year old on the inside, so there. =P

And with that I leave you on this note.

Happy New Year!

I'm only a little bit late on that one.

So, the new year is already off to a good stat. =3 All my Christmas knitting was done on time, Husband finally has a job and he loves it; he's a security guard for UPS., and I have a tentative job as a Nanny for two very wonderful children. I say tentative because there is a bit of an issue with payment. But we'll work it out.

On Ravelry a lot of people are doing some form of 11-in-2011. Basically people are knitting/crocheting 11 items of some the same kind (scarfs, hats, sweaters, socks, etc). And guess who's jumped onto that bandwagon? *raises hand* I'll be doing 11 Fingerless gloves. Which is great, because I need to get 2 of them out of the way a.s.a.p since they are belated Christmas gifts. But yeah...with only 11 to worry about, I'll probably end up knocking them out of the park by March...and then I'll have to find something else to do. OH! maybe I'll find a 11-socks-in-2011. I'm sure there has to be one somewhere.

And I'll let you know about my latest convertible mitten design. It looks great so far, I just can't decided on what kind of flip top I want to put on. A lot of the convertible mitts that I see hide the pattern once you flip the top over to use your fingers. I don't like that. So I was thinking of just putting the pattern on both sides of the top...but then there would be a lace pattern on the fingers when you put the flip-top over your hand....
Decisions, decisions.
Meh, I'll figure it out.