My Friends went to BSG and all I Got...

Was a bunch of great STR!


Thanks Tina and Ang!
And you thought I was gonna say a t-shirt. Sheesh


Angela was also helping me get this tank done. I know, I know, it's not done. But I leave for Olds in two days and won't be back till the 8th, so take what you can get. It's going to look a lot better when the lace is blocked out.


Yesterday was a bumper fibre day around here. This huge batch of Kauni arrived from the Nederlands. Lucky for me that I found it before a certain someone blogged about it, and got it easily. It's probably the toughest yarn to get on the planet by now. If I didn't like it so much, I'd entertain bids so I could enlarge the Stash room.


There's been a lot of stuff going on around here lately, but most of it's not that interesting. Unless you count my daily meltdowns as interesting. And this top is a result of me not being able to concentrate on anything but Olds prep. Nice mindless summer (not that we've had summer yet) knitting. It'll be a short-sleeved top at some point. If I don't get it done by tomorrow, that point will be waaaay in the future. I still have to make up a bunch of itty bitty skeins for dyeing. Joy. I LOVE labelling dozens of teensy skeins. Just LOVE it.


I had to resort to alternative storage in the Stash room. But it works. See that stuff at the bottom of the pic? That's FLOOR. You heard me FLOOR. I had started to doubt that floor existed in there. The new Kauni and STR have taken up temporary (hopefully temporary) residence on the couch in the living room. They're very pretty. They may become a design feature that I add to every now and then...

And there's one in the spotlight

he don't look right to me
get him up against the wall


What an amazing show. The sound was superb and Waters was bang on.
I hadn't realized just how influential his lyrics were for me until last night. The stage was set up with a large vid screen as the backdrop and he made very good use of it. Images of war, people in need, greed, pollution and the Palestinian wall were flashed behind him throughout the show and the predominant lighting color was red. It really brought home the sad fact that songs he wrote 25 and even 35 years ago are still very current. Our political situation hasn't changed, only the faces have. Very sobering.
The Fletcher Memorial Home actually made me tear up.
I had The Final Cut in constant play when it first came out. I knew the songs by heart and apparently still do. It was one of the things that made me realize we weren't getting the full story on the nightly news. And it made me very angry. That hasn't changed either. We still don't get the truth and it still pisses me off.
I hope the message wasn't totally lost on the twenty-somethings at the show.


The man's 63 and he still kicks ass.
I'd see him again in a heartbeat.

Watermark

This week I drowned.
At the Monday morning Fat Losers meeting, the leader asked me if I found my knitting relaxing. She backed away hastily when the manic laughter started.
I didn't make the deadline for the design sample.
I had to send a 3/4 done garment to BSG for Blue Moon. I don't even have a picture.
I can't even use the excuse that zombies ate my brain.
Anyone who knows me will know that this is killing me and making me feel like a giant loser. The only hope I have is that Angela will knit on it like a mad fiend and get it done (or more done) by the time she arrives. She's ever so nice and it helps that it's in her size so she can even wear it if it's finished.
I have everything crossable crossed. The eyes are starting to make me a little dizzy.

But, life goes on and I still get to do cool things even though I botched the deadline.
Tomorrow night the monkey and I are going to this:


It's the monkey's favorite (after Wish You Were Here, but Waters isn't doing that one so the monkey will just have to suck it up).
No progress pics for anything this week. If anyone asks me why I will smack them. Hard.
Just the doggy in his happy place. Sand between his pads and a piece of stinky crab ready to eat.


A side note for anyone wondering about the Olds course I keep ranting about.
It's a six year Master Spinner program done through Olds college in Alberta. Here's more info.

Zombies Bad

This is going to be my last post. Thank god I barricaded the windows. They've managed to break the glass, but still can't get in. I've moved as much food and water as I can up into the attic, and the pets too. The power has flickered and surged a few times, but still seems to be holding. I don't think it'll last much longer.
Still trying to reach anyone on my cell, but no luck. The signal went down for a while and I think I'm switching through a different tower now.
The bastards have dragged stuff out of my stash onto the lawn and are trying to eat the fibre!
Hopefully, I'll be able to hold out in the attic until some sort of help arrives. I spray painted an SOS on the roof earlier. Wish I had a shotgun. All I have is a baseball bat. It'll have to do.
If this infection simulation is even close to accurate, we are all very screwed.
Good luck everyone. See you on the other side.

Only Canadian zombies polite?

This can't be a good sign.
The zombies around here are getting more aggressive, but it still doesn't seem to be a big problem. I've boarded up the windows. Thank god for nailguns. Had to use it on some of the neighbors.
Still have power, but there's an awful lot of moaning on the radio and snow on the tv.
Don't know how long I'll be able to hole up in here.
Whenever I connect with anyone on my cell, all I get is moaning and requests for, "braiiiiiiins".
May have to use the nailgun on myself.

I told you this would happen

It was only a matter of time.
The zombie's are here and they want our brains.
I've been warning the monkey that this was gonna happen for years now. Damn fool wouldn't listen and has now joined the legions of the shuffling undead. Like there weren't enough zombie programmers already. For that matter, how the hell are we going to tell them apart from the rest? Half the time I only get a sort of mumbling grunt out of him when I ask him a question. Hmm. Maybe he's been a zombie for years and I just didn't notice.
I managed to get a good stock of raw meat in before things got really bad. For the most part, the zombies have been quite polite so far. They knock on the door, ask, "can I has brayns?" and leave quietly when I give them some meat. Most even say, "thanks you".
I did catch one trying to bite Loki in the backyard, but I chased him with a baseball bat and he ran away after the neighbor's cat. You really do have to be careful to stay out of biting range, they don't seem to be able to help themselves.
I think the biggest problem is going to be the bits of people just sort of rotting in the streets. It's a bit of a health risk. The city's trying to keep up with the clean up, but a large part of their staff has been zombified and they have a poor work ethic. Not to mention how easily distracted they are by anyone walking by with a largish head.
I wonder if a certain fast food restaurant will come out with a Mc Brain meal...

Pay no Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

So. This week has been much better. It wasn't hard to have a better week. Unfortunately, I wasn't alone in my misery, seems the blue moon screwed with a lot of people. Hopefully the crazies are back in their cages now and we can all pretend it didn't happen. Lalalalalala
Yesterday, this arrived via my cheerful parcel guy:


Knitter's Tea Swap goodness from Lorena!
I think we were separated at birth. One of her recent posts shows some of her spinning and it's the same stuff that arrived for me yesterday. It's a little twilight zoney.
The package she sent kicks ass. I'm sitting here writing this, eating toast with key lime jelly on it! Squeeeee!
But I digress.
She sent much good loose tea, fibre in colours I love, a skein of sock yarn that's a great kermit green and really shiny, chocolate (always a good thing around here), Gator napkins, a pin from Disneyworld, cat toys and treats, wonderful citrus smelling bath stuff, two jars of jelly (the post office brutally murdered one jar, we gave it a small service), giant mug, tea book aaaaaaand one of those very cool Adagio Ingenuitea thingys.
Right after I took the pic of bounty, I gave the cats the catnip mice. The mice promptly disappeared. The cats were lying on the bed when I tossed the mice at them and they were still lying on the bed when I came back in half an hour, but the mice were gone. It bothered me when we went to bed, especially since Spike seemed to have popped a vein and gone completely batshit crazy, but we had a peaceful night. The mice are still MIA.
The Ingenuitea does not come with instructions. I looked at it, thought, "hey, it must be totally simple if there aren't directions". Apparently not simple enough. Me, being the brain trust I can occassionally be, wound up with boiling water, vaguely tea flavoured, all over the counter. Doh. The light clicked on for the second attempt. It works great and I spent ten minutes this morning trying to decide if it was too gimpy of me to use teabags in it, just because I want to use it.
Thanks Lorena! I'm mailing your stuff tomorrow. Be afraid.
This week was very productive for a change. I turned some of this cotton roving:


Into these cotton skeins:


I now officially have enough yardage (metrage?) for level 5. I still have to spin the rest of it so I have enough for a project for level 5, but that doesn't have to be done by the 28th of this month. It can wait. Yay!
I dyed this:


With these and some alum:


I transformed my living room from spinning hell (and no, I don't let the monkey see things like this):


Into a finished spinning level notebook (just look how tidy):


These have yet to be transformed, but I thought I'd share some retail fibre therapy.


Yup, that's yet another spindle. Wanna make somethin' of it? The vast quantities of the same colour fibre will be sweaters. Probably for me.
And the last tranformation on this week's pile is me. I have once again joined Fat Losers. Pray for me.
PS: It's a Lemur and the russian spindles are from Viking Santa and I don't know how to use them yet.

Warning: Contains Language Some may Consider Offensive

You have been warned.
This has been what I generally call a "fuck me gently with a chainsaw week".
A lot of running around.
A lot of hurry up and wait.
A lot of not getting important things done.
All leading up to it being friday and me screaming, "FUCK!!!!".
And yet, here I sit blogging, when I should be spinning *argh* cotton.
Can you say AVOIDANCE, boys and girls? 'Course you can.
This cannot continue or I will be doomed. Doooooomed.


So. With very little getting done around here, this is all I've got to show for my past week. The socks on the left are the pair that Angela gave me. Yay for socks for me that I didn't make! Thanks Ang.
The other three (yeah, I know, I have two feet. You're sooooo funny) I made. There's only one blue one as I ran out of yarn halfway through the other sock. FYI, 100g is NOT always enough for a pair of socks. Fuck. More fibre is on it's way to remedy this little problem.


Behold the joy that is retail therapy. I'm sparing you the sight of the yarn version of retail therapy that arrived today. It just wouldn't be fair to taunt people like that. This is a fimo spindle from Sdlinky on ebay. It spins surprisingly well and it's pretty. Can't beat that with a big stick.


Holly said this little guy gave her nightmares. I think he's just the fleshy version of my week. Any guesses as to what he is?