Two Cookies, no fat

You really can’t listen to anything I say. When I say I won’t post in November because I’m writing, well that’s a lie. Because once I announce anything to the World that automagically kills it. My life is amazing like that. I can’t post a book I’m reading on Goodreads or I suddenly become illiterate. I can’t tell you all about upcoming projects or I’ll probably accidentally set fire to all my yarn or something. *ohdeargodnoknockonwood*

I have a sweet internet buddy who I’m friends with on Ravelry. She made some super sexy mitts so I messaged her and when she messaged back she asked, still no wips?

Well crap, I guess not. Everything I’ve worked on has been dormant or it’s super quick and not really a work in progress so much as just happening. However I did finally bind off on a new sock and it was a new technique and everything. Elizabeth Zimmerman’s sewn bind off. Which I heard from Michelle, the sock queen, is a good way to bind off your toe up socks. Who knew?

Leaving me with two Cookie A. socks. Both without mates and they’re probably not going to get them any time soon. On the left is Rick, which I started this summer but got bummed out on. On the right is my recently finished Hedera. While I love the pattern and I love the Cherry Tree Hill yarn, I don’t think the two sit well with each other.

Plus the two together make me think of Christmas and the knitting I should do for that which makes me want to barf.

Also thanks a lot Fall for making the sun go away so early so I can’t get any good pictures outside anymore.

I did finish my first gift… but it’s for my mom and since she’s kind of picky about things, I probably won’t give it to her since it’s huge and she’s tiny and she probably won’t like it. FAIL.

Since I’ve never seen my mom wear a hat in the Winter, I decided to make her a head band. Well I restarted this sucker a few times because it was HUUUUGGGGGEEE. Even modified it’s still freaking gigantic. However, the Malabrigo was nice to work with, despite it being wool and the pattern is cool: Calorimetry. That is, if you’re into huge ass head bands. Which I think I kind of am. Huh.

ex-werewolves and murder bags

So, I don’t know if you’d call me a last minute person but I definitely seem to be lately. We knew our friends were having a party like a ridiculous amount of time in advance and we knew they had really planned out their costumes. However we didn’t decide what we wanted to be until Thursday of last week. Which basically left Friday to go out and get stuff for our costumes. Then I had to stitch up a mask and bing bang boom, we had Halloween costumes. Kinda.

John went as a werewolf that had turned back into a human. Or himself after he gets angry and takes it out on his clothes. I mean, really guys, he’s so very angry and serious because Halloween is definitely serious business.

Are you guys serious yet? Because he’d hate to have to go all werewolf angry on the cute floral pillow in the background that Jessica made. It was our friends Jessica and Joey who had the party and they went as Travis Touchdown and Sylvia Christel (from No More Heroes). So here’s a picture for reference.

Here they are:

I was loading my pictures into iPhoto and I realized that man, I really do suck at taking pictures lately. I didn’t have any of my costume! I didn’t take very many of the other people at the party. Mostly because I didn’t know them so I didn’t want a bunch of pictures of strangers. Especially photos of random strangers boobs. Because one girl who was there was all about showing everyone her boobs. Which, I guess that’s cool?

Pretty lame of me for sure. The next day I had John take some pictures of me though. I went as Dr. Henry Killinger from the Venture Bros. Here’s a reference:

Here’s me being a tool/dork/nerd:

There are some more pictures at my flickr. Hope everyone had an awesome Halloween!

 

Tiny things for teacup humans

Looks like I’ve dropped the ball again. Here it is a week into October, the best month yet of the year and I haven’t done much to keep you up, bloggy. Sorry about that! This is also going to disappoint you but I probably won’t be posting at all in November, unless it’s to say that I’ve dropped out of NaNoWriMo. Although let’s be honest- the odds are pretty good that I’ll drop out. Because unlike Dave from Hell’s Kitchen, I am a quitter. If my wrist gets mangled in some sort of horrible tiger taming experiment gone wrong you can bet you’re ass I won’t be throwing scallops into a pan the next day. You hear me Dave??

Yeah, he’s starting to get it.

There are some projects though that are so tiny and adorable that you’d be a terrible human being if you didn’t finish them.

Saartje’s Bootees.[rav link]

I enjoyed making these. Of course John did all the work of picking out the yarn, the pattern and even going through some buttons I just inherited from a friend who moved out of town… I still knit them though, I swear! Plus I’m glad he picked the Shi Bui that I hated in grown up sock form (due to ugly gross pooling) because it’s too sweet in tiny baby shoe form.

I’m really happy with how they turned out and it’s got me thinking about some other left over sock yarn I’m about to have. Do you know what else I have laying around? Freaking apples.

A whole delicious box full of apples. We went apple picking last weekend and it was nice and relaxing. Weekends are kind of kick ass lately.

Speaking of John, two nights ago his damn cat was wailing the whole night. (No, my cat was not being mean to her. Why would you assume that? No my eyes are not shifty either, they’re just my eyes.) Then last night he was up tossing and turning because his elbows hurt.

No really, what in the hell are you supposed to do for hurt elbows? I’m at a loss here.

Crazy Awesome Weekend!

My weekend started out with a bang! On Friday I got to go see the Flaming Lips. I am getting really pumped for their new release Embryonic. I especially like Convinced of the Hex.

Their opening got me pumped. It’s been a long time since I’ve been that excited at a concert.

They played all the songs I wanted them to and then a few songs I hadn’t realized I’d wanted them to.

Of course, with a Friday like that my Saturday was pretty lame. Shelving books all day is especially boring after a sweet concert. However to make up for that, my Sunday was pretty freaking awesome since I went to A Wool Gathering. (You might remember it from before?) I got there via rocket car, Julie’s rocket car that can and does go faster than the speed of sound. We sonic boom’d our way there for sure.

When I wasn’t watching the herding dogs be wicked cool I was falling in love with angora bunnies again. While that was happening, Julie was having a Stevie Wonder moment with her yarn.

Isn’t she lovely?

I really can’t stop myself.

cherry poppin socks

Before I ran off to join the circus I actually finished some knitting. Lately though, me saying I finished anything sounds like a damn dirty lie. It would probably sound more realistic if I told you I stole these from somebody who was incapacitated, which is what I actually did.

Spring Forward in some beautiful and amazing Malabrigo sock. I freaking love these socks!

Although I kind of jumped the shark on them. See, I was so excited because I tried out some new techniques on these. I made them using magic loop, which I’d never done. I did them toe up! Two at a time even. See, I had one skein of Malabrigo so I didn’t know how much yarn I really had or how long I could make them. So doing two at a time made sense, otherwise it would suck if I made one really long sock and then ran out of yarn for the second and had a midget sock. It would be like when Eric and Bill interact:

I think I would have resented the midget sock. Much like I resent Bill.

I also (thanks to Julie) made a short row heel! Which was really nice and I think I might be a convert.

So I was super excited about these socks because I felt like I achieved so much with them. In my haste I cast off and foolishly wove in the ends for the first sock. Because what could go wrong, right? Well it was soooopa tight. That k1tbl, p1 ribbing just doesn’t work with my calves that are what? Freakishly huge? Too big to wear boots anyways. (However I believe most, if not all boots are made for people with tiny children legs. These are people I’m not friends with because that’s just creepy. I’d rather have man legs than tiny children legs.)

Anyways, it was tight. I was disheartened. It took me a long time to pick them back up and fix them. Which made me realize: knitting has shown me that I’m not a fixer. If it’s broken, who cares? I sure as hell don’t.

So yeah: pattern, super awesome. Yarn, super nice. Together… I think it looks like water. I like it when my knitting comes together like that.

On your toes yet? I am!

I’m in love with these which leads to a very lame post. Knitting needs more angst than just “oh I love you so much knitting, let me tell you how much I love you.” I’m sorry, I’ll try to deliver with like a sweater or a puppet or something.

Portland

While we were on vacation we randomly took a trip to Portland. Which was awesome because we got to check out Powell’s Books. A bookstore that’s the size of a whole city block. That’s where I picked up these babies:

Most of which were used. I pretty much confined myself to one room. It wasn’t until we were leaving that I noticed the knitting wing and John and Alison had to reel me back to reality. Speaking of Alison, she was our tour guide for Portland. Which rocked! Because of her we rode the light rail and street cars all over the city.

She also humored us in our tourist need to try Voodoo Doughnuts. They are to doughnuts what Jeni’s is to ice cream. So if that question comes up on the SAT you know the answer.

Don’t they all look deliciously weird? It was a great side trip to a fun trip in general. Both me and John enjoyed Portland a lot, even though he was starting to get the flu. Which, if you’re keeping score that makes him 2 for 2 on getting sick on vacation this year.

Anyways, Portland is fun, donuts are awesome and I could have spent a whole week just browsing at Powell’s.

I think the next place we want to travel to is Texas. What do you guys think?

More Seattle

Were you hoping for more Seattle? I hope so! If not, IGNORE ME.

(I can’t time stamp that video and it’s kind of long- the link is better to watch.)

So, we went to PAX and guess what? Got the pax plague. Yay, thanks West Coast, it was nice meeting you too. Well at least I also got to meet the prince.

Before the convention though I had John come up with something to do on Thursday since we didn’t have anything planned. Here he is in our cool room using their awesome wireless that worked on the first go, which was a nice change.

His plan? Drive around the Olympic Peninsula and check out different yarn shops. Which led to this interaction:

John: Forks? That’s a funny name for a town.

3 hours later.

Me: Wait, did you say Forks? I thought that was the made up town in Twilight.

John: Yeah right, that ho has never had an original idea in her life, of course it’s a real place.

Me: No way, there’s no way that exists.

Which led to:

Well now I know and that’s worth… something I guess.

Anyways, back to Pax. John got to check out Global Agenda, which he freaking loved, so I was glad for that. He talked to one of the artists for a good long time and we went back several times during the weekend.

My favorite game was definitely Scribblenauts. Although I was sad when my unicorn got humped to death by my minotaur.

But yeah, besides trying to kill us (which it still might succeed) Seattle was okay. Now here are my WTF moments towards it:

1) The crows. There were crows everywhere. I wasn’t expecting that. It was kind of creepy, like we were in some sort of gothic novel.

2) The traffic was bonkers. Sure you think you’re being nice when we all get to an intersection that’s an ‘all way’ stop and you wave me forward. Everyone wanted to do that “you go” “no you go” “no YOU go” bullshit. You’re not being nice, you’re pissing me off- how about we observe the traffic law and whoever has the right of way goes, fair enough? Heh, I think traffic school instructor Julie is rubbing off on me. Plus there were a lot of five-way stops and I’m used to the typical four way stop. There was a lot of John yelling “turn left- no the other farther left- crap!”

3) The food. It was expensive. Like we always paid at least $10 more and we got a lot less. Which I get it, that’s why the Midwest is fat. Still, if I’m paying more and getting less I’m feeling a little burned.

4) Another traffic WTF: on side streets cars could park whatever direction they felt like. So a lot of times I freaked out thinking I was on a one way street but people just all parked their cars the same direction. Or they’d be all haphazard one way, the other, however they felt.

Now you know how I really feel. (Besides crappy that is. *coughdie*)

(Taken outside the EMP/SFM, which was pretty sweet. We got free comic books and I got to explore Arrakis.)

Up next: Portland!

Magical Mystery Tour

I’m not one to look for constant affirmation about my life (ha! such a lie) but I really think you should all give me a pat on the back. It’s not like I actually blog when I’m sitting around at home doing nothing- no I wait until I’m on vacation (which I am right now!) to give you a blog post that is rife with these run-on sentences. I’m sure you’re as pumped as I am. :p

Here we are! You can kind of see the space needle in the background which means one thing: we’re in SPACE!

We’ve been in Space two days so far (starting the 3rd here soon) and I’ve got to say, not so impressed with Space. Although yesterday we went on a tour and I was impressed with the aquarium.

I think I watched sea otters so long I blacked out. It was awesome.

We also went on an Underground Tour, which was hilarious and informative. However, since I lost the charger for the newer camera I only have the old camera, which is not a fan of working in dark places.

Anyways, there was a fire and when Seattle rebuilt they built up, to the “second story” as the tour guide put it to solve their sewage problem. He also told us how a lot of their money early on came from a Madame Lou. I guess when an early census was done, there were 25,000 people living in Seattle and on one street or area there were 2,500 women… who all listed their occupation as ’seamstress’.  Madame Lou came in and classied the ladies up. When she died she left a quarter of a million dollars to the city… which that kind of donation hadn’t been matched until Bill Gates started feeling generous. However she doesn’t get much respect in history because of her creative sewing skills.

We had lunch at a park, which was cool. (Although part of my complaint, which I’ll tell you about in the next post probably.) Then we went to Ballard Locks. Where there are a couple signs warning you to beware the fish stairs.

Anyways, the rest of my pictures are in my Seattle set on flickr. Check it!

Aw, nuts.

So I’ll step right up and admit it: I used to really like watching Hogan Knows Best. (Have I already admitted that here before? Because I’m getting the strangest feeling of déjà vu… but that could be from when I went to that Hogans Anonymous support group.) Of course it’s bad to admit that now, what with the Hogan family all in shambles.

However the one thing that I always wondered about was how those episodes always followed a theme. I mean, it wasn’t like a day or a week in the Hogan family’s life. It was like ‘the Hogans remodel the kitchen’ and then Brooke would write a song about kitchens and Nick would do like a kitchen sink full of drugs and make stoner kitchen jokes. Linda would find some weird kind of unrelated crazy kitchen themed activity for them all to do and Hulk would sulk about it but in the end he’d do it and have a good time.

So yeah, to abruptly switch gears here. I went to the Franklin Park Conservatory last week to meet with my knitting group. (It’s free after 5pm the first Wednesday of the month, so if you live in Columbus you should check it out! No excuse not to now.) Anyways, people probably thought I was nuts because Art (or at least the high brow art stuff) cracks me up. It’s laugh out loud funny to me. Because everyone is all about Chihuly… which is cool or whatever. To me (remember, I’m crazy) it’s goofy. Case in point:

Sure, throw some blown glass into a boat and call it a day.

Don’t forget the big ole balls that are scattered pretty much everywhere.

It was a really fun time knitting. I haven’t been knitting much at all this summer. Which is pretty depressing and would explain the absence of sweet knitting content. It’s not that I don’t still love it. In fact, I had this crazy scheme about three weeks or so ago that I would whip up some socks and get them done real quick and show you. Of course, since I’m nuts I was going to do all of these cool techniques I’ve never done before and yet still get them done in a week. Like toe up, two at a time, magic loop…

The two at a time was because I had one ball of malabrigo, (such amazing yarn!) and it would be the easiest way of figuring out how long I could make the socks. So I wouldn’t run out an inch away from the end of the second one. Which is also the reason for going toe up, once you pass the heel you can just go up as long as the yarn takes you.

Er, yeah, that heel part. Whoops. I’d never done toe up but I figured I could wing it. I was feeling pretty confident until I got to the heel when I realized “aw nuts, I don’t know how the hell to turn the heel on a toe up sock.” That’s where the socks have been for the past two weeks now. I mean, I blew through them at first. That stupid heel road block is such a killer though. A friend told me that short row heels are the best to do for toe ups. I’ve never done one and my first attempt failed pretty miserably. So it’s back to being lame for me.

Sorry I failed you socks. At least I’m really proud of the toes:

Pretty neat.

So yeah, I did go grocery shopping today and I bet at this point you can all guess what I was ecstatic to find at Trader Joe’s. Yep, that’s right:

**Seriously though, how did the Hogan Knows Best editors do it for so many shows? This is only my second themed post and dang. I’m over it.

Messy things

It looks like a bomb went off in our living room. I won’t show you photos because you’ll think that we’re filthy people who live in squalor. What happened? The attic needed to be cleaned out. I don’t mean like look around, move some boxes here or there and say it’s cleaned out. I mean get one of those giant trash bins and lets quit hanging onto a bunch of crap we don’t need. Because we really don’t need it.

Sometimes (I hate to be a buster but) that’s how I feel about lace. Sure it’s pretty and I like it but do I really need it? How often am I going to find myself at a lace extravaganza where people will go “oh darling, I simply adore your lace.” It’s nice, I’m glad I’ve finally finished mine and everything but what the crap am I going to do with it now?

Besides stare at it and see every rookie beginner mistake I made. I’m not a perfectionist and that’s why I think lace isn’t for me. Especially since this lace was such a mess. I probably won’t completely write it off, I mean, there will always be something ‘lacy’ on the needles I’m sure but not this full-fledged-lace-weight-six-charts-hieroglyphics lace. (On Addi lace needles no less, what the crap was I thinking? The sheer investment in those needles requires me to knit something else that will probably make me want to pull out my hair. Yikes.)

At least it’s behaving in this picture.

That’s right lace, don’t make me beat you.

Anyways, have I mentioned a bajillion times how much I love mail? Because I really love it. Or at least when I get something cool in it and not something lame like a bill. Although I’m totally cool with getting a bill if something sweet comes in the mail along with it. Well not too long ago these showed up in my mailbox:

Geisha doll and lady ninja. I’m pretty sure they’re on the run (against the ninja’s wishes) and they need a place to lay low and strategize against whatever evil opressors are after them. I don’t ask too many questions since it’s pretty much not worth it- neither of them talk much.

In other “news” there’s a place here that opened up that sells hot dogs, called Dirty Franks. We went and checked it out with our friends who are super enthusiastic about both hot dogs and trying new places:

I tried a chili dog and a classy lady with tots. It surprised me that I’ve lived my whole life without eating something that was named ‘classy lady’. I was really glad that got remedied in hot dog form.

Look at all that messy cheese!

So I know it’s been a while guys and you’re like, really? That’s all I get? Some wonky lace and pictures of hot dogs? Well I barely got that going since flickr keeps being all like “hey! I hate you! Especially your pictures of stupid hot dogs.”

I’m here and everything, life happens. Which I’m sure we all agree on that. I bet I won’t be gone as long again and next time I might even have pictures of hamburgers.