Uh yeah, I needed another hobby

Since I have oh so much time and never really enough to do, I have decided to try my hand at basketry.
You can all stop laughing now. I am doing this voluntarily, they have not finally come to take me away. Stop. Laughing.
After five weeks of great instruction with Irene (she taught me to spin as well, multitalented lady), this is what I have so far:


The start of an Appalachian egg basket (it's already been mentioned that those must be some big ass eggs), a little wall basket and two little rectangular ones. The tiny rectangle basket isn't quite done yet.
There's been knitting going on as usual. I've actually been working through some of the stuff I got at Madrona. It's been pretty much instant gratification knitting, hats, socks, bags, etc. I still have to get back to the spinning homework, but now that the cotton I have to spin up for dyeing in level 5, I don't have any excuses. And time's running out.


Must go spin and do research!

SP9 The Big Reveal

Sadly, I am frequently the one you all know. Gotta love the look on the non-tardy owl though, can't you almost hear the, "aw fer cripes sakes"?


My Secret Pal was Maggie. She disects seals. There are pics. No. She's not some sort of weird seal serial killer, she's a vet student. Her blog has lots o' pics. Go check it out. She sent me this great fibre from a local mill. It's mystery mill ends and the colour and feel of this stuff is wonderful. Once again I wish for touch'o'vision. I plan to spin it woolen to keep it fluffy and soft and make something fluffy and soft with it. No idea what yet, but I've been dying to spin with this stuff since it arrived and I haven't been able to because of other stuff that had a deadline. I've had to put it out of my line of sight (and feel) so I could stay focused and not be tempted.


This is the last of the vacation pics as I was unable to get a photo of the body bag coming off the ship when we landed in Miami. Now THAT would have been an interesting picture!
You'll just have to settle for the happy monkey and his new friend the stingray. I don't think I've ever seen the monkey so happy and relaxed. And I have to tell you guys, stingrays are the coolest things ever! They are incredibly gentle and the underside of them feels like velvet. The top side is a bit like elephant hide. This one was very happy to just be supported in our arms and look at us. This stingray place is on an atoll just off Nassau in the Bahamas. They have about ten female stingrays and breed them. The 'rays have all been debarbed and have a fairly large ocean pen to roam around in.
This was easily one of the neatest things we did on the trip.

To Whom it May Concern

Dear Sirs/ Madam,
Please add 4 to 6 hours to every day. As I am currently falling behind at approximately that rate, I think this would help me stay afloat.
I promise to not use any of this most precious "found" time for anything as trivial as sleep or say maintaining a thin pretense of sanity.
Thank you for your attention.

Madrona

Last weekend was Madrona Fiberfest in Tacoma. Lynne and I drove down on Thurday night and spent the next four days taking classes, eating (lots of good Thai food and martinis), catching up with friends, making new friends and of course, SHOPPING.
Yup. I bought a little bit of fibre. BFL, merino, silk, cashmere, the usual suspects. Check out those batts! I got them from this lady who was very nice, but kept bringing more stuff that was nearly impossible to resist. By day two, we were openly comparing the vendors to crack dealers. "Here little girl, the first bit is free, tell your friends." Insert evil laugh here.


Purchased a small amount of yarn as well. Blue Moon was the first booth to decimate my cash supply, but others quickly joined the fray. I'm nothing if not consistant.


I only bought the two Spindlewood spindles on the left at Madrona, and yes, one of them is square. I did notice. It spins really well despite it's obvious deformity. The two spindles on the right were waiting for me on Monday night. They're the now infamous Bosworths, a featherweight in really deeply coloured pink ivory and ebony and a moosie. They are exquisite. And they're actually here. Amazing.


The other nifty thing waiting for me on Monday was this package from my SpintoKnit pal. It's a large skein of very soft spindle spun merino/silk and some nice teas. I think the yarn needs to be a scarf. Many thanks to the nice person who sent it!


And if you've stuck with this post to the bitter end, here's a pic of the guy who drove our troop carrier (you read that right) in the Dominican Republic. We stopped in a sugar cane field and he whipped out a rather large knife to cut some for us to try. The Dominican Republic was an interesting place. Sugar is their main product for export followed very far behind by rum. Our tour took us to the back of a cafe where two people were making cigars, through huge cane fields and out to a refinery. Every time we stopped, we had to drink some rum. So basically, they got a bunch of tourists loaded and then put them on a boat that felt like it would sink at any moment. Exciting! I especially liked guessing which drunken tourist would puke first. Fortunately, no one did. Not even me. And we made it back to the cruise ship without having to swim for it. A nice and somewhat surprising bonus.

Last week was very productive.
Things were dyed:
Like this merino/silk for Holly.
Things were knit:
A pair of plain old socks in superwash merino.
Things were reknit:
It's the right size now and we're not to speak of this again.
This is the beach I enhanced my dose of skin cancer on in St Maarten. No one needs to ask why I want to live there anymore do they? Okay, except for the half-naked (as in only swimsuit bottoms) aging tourists, it's pretty much paradise. Be happy I spared you the view of the very large old man wearing nothing but a bright orange string thong that greeted our arrival.

Oh! I almost forgot. Chrissy had posted this on her blog a while back and I think everyone needs to see it. It's real. I know, I couldn't believe it either, but apparently it was made in New Zealand last year and is looking for distribution. I could not stop laughing. Enjoy.

Got Gauge?

I don't. I am an idiot. I got cocky and didn't swatch and now I have the joy of reknitting the sweater that I had pretty much finished last week.
Crap.

Some retail therapy occurred in the recent past in the form of the CTH New Years Sale, a trip to a sort of local YS and spindle enabling via Kerry. The spindles are a Beeswing and Satinwood Lizzie and a Mahogany and Purpleheart Emily. Both are from Adam 's Woodshop.


After five days at sea with nothing at all around us except half naked europeans and flying fish, we docked in Guadeluope. This island is technically part of France, so I got to subject people to what I remembered of school french. We bought lots of spices and some beautiful fresh fruit and wandered around the town a little. It was off-season there, so it was very quiet. We did go on a tour here to a nature preserve.
The brochure said, "Suspended walkways allow you to wander through the canopy, from one tree to the next at a height of at least 15 metres aboove the ground." This was the reality:


Being tethered by two carabieners to cables so you can inch your way along a pair of 1 x4s didn't seem very condusive to "wandering". Not to mention the fact that a have a fear of heights and spent the entire time staring at my feet so I wouldn't plunge off the tiny pieces of wood to my certain and surely embarrassingly slow death.

Snow, WIP and some FOs

New new year is already almost two weeks in and I'm behind. How does this happen?! I'm always doing stuff, so how am I so behind? WTF!?! But it's not all bad so far. The monkey finally said, "uncle" and gave up his old beater. This is his new baby. He loves it more than me I suspect. He gets this sappy grin on his face every time he looks at it.
And while dealing with car salesmen was not a treat, it was fun to tell one of them that the monkey's only stipulation was that it be blue. The salesman only paused for a moment, but it was a fun moment.


I have managed to get a few things done. I've got my Second Sock Syndrome package ready to mail. I used STR in the light weight and Sivia's Reptilian Lace pattern from Knitty. My pal wanted to try knitting socks on two circs, hope she likes the colours. Sorry,but I can't remember what that colourway is called. I've also got the first skein for the Spin to knit swap done. I used some Targhee roving that had been dyed in red, purple and brown and spun it to a light DK. That parcel will be ready for mailing by Saturday.


Here's the Kochoran hoodie finally sewn up. This sucker's been sitting on the arm of the couch for over a week. I just didn't want to do it. I have no idea why. I love this sweater. It's huge, soft and really warm, things that I desperately need since it decided to snow again yesterday. I hate snow! St Maarten here I come!


And on the needles right now is the Trinity pullover from CTH in potluck bulky. Weird pattern, it's knit from cuff to cuff and then picked up and knit down for the front and back. It's working up very fast and despite big shade variations in the skeins, it doesn't seem to show in the knitting. Should have it done by Monday. Wonder how long it'll sit on th earm of my chair before I sew it up...


The second stop on our cruise was Tenerife in the Canary Islands. We were a little thrown when we arrived as we'd both expected a quaint tropical island, but it's a modern bustling city. We didn't have a scheduled tour here and spent the first part of the day wandering around. We found a public market and bought spices and fruit and then used my pathetic spanish to take a cab to the other side of the island to a place called "La Casa del los Balconies".
La Casa is a tourist spot where they've restored one of the old houses to the way it was when the missionaries were there. It's sort of like a museum complete with mildly creepy mannequins playing house in the rooms. It was a bit of a disappointment, but the view of the ocean and the volcano from there was great! The cabbie was really nice and took us on a site-seeing tour of that side of the island. Banana plantations, black sand beaches and wild poinsettias everywhere. It's a really pretty place. This pic of the Tenerife parliament building and an old fort called the Black Castle. It's kind of a neat contrast with the ultra modern and the very old side by side.

SSSSwap

I think this will be the last swap I join for a little while. It is pretty brilliant though, just knit the first sock and send the rest of the stuff on to it's new home. I have no trouble at all making one sock!
Sorry guys, this is yet another questionnaire. A more interesting post tomorrow, involving FOs and the monkeys new wheels.
1. What are you favorite sock yarns?
Trekking ombres, STR, pretty much anything hand-dyed and I'd like to try the new Colinette jitterbug (Kerry, you're such an enabler!)
2. What are your least favorite sock yarns? Anything you just cannot use? I have a rather extreme dislike of acylic for socks and I'm not fond of alpaca for socks either. Don't get me wrong, I love alpaca, I just don't think it wears well for socks and I do WEAR my socks.
3. What method do you prefer to use (DPN's, 2 circs, 1 circ, etc.) I use four dpns. I've tried the other methods and I always go back to four dpns. Creature of habit.
4. Is there any method that you cannot use? Haven't found one yet.
5. What are you favorite colors? Blues, burgundies, purples and anything in-between. Not big on yellow or orange.
6. Are you a beginner, intermediate, or more advanced sock knitter? I guess fairly advanced.
7. Any other info you want to share (such as other likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc) I don't like cooked tomatos or boy bands.
8. Last, but not least, what are your sock measurements? 7.5

Happy New Year!

We spent Christmas Eve on Vancouver Island with my brothers and their families. It was really nice that we could all be together to catch up and exchange gifts. Not to mention to totally spoil the niece! Little bugger's growing at an insane rate and giggles if you so much as look at her. That's a pic of Aurora and Aunt Tiffany.
The monkey and I spent Christmas day together and were going to cook a ham, but were so full of all the crap we'd munched on by noon that we decided to have it Boxing Day. That worked out well and I like the different set of leftovers we can make with ham. Quiche, pea soup, ham and eggs are a nice change from turkey sandwiches and turkey soup.


I've basically spent the last week watching dvds, reading and knitting on the couch. I may have to have my butt sugically removed from it by tomorrow afternoon. My jammies and I are very good friends. I've relegated real clothes (you know anything that involves underwear and socks) to just for dog walks and company. I'm starting to understand the appeal of hermitry.
I have removed a couple of knitting projects from my stash. That's a Jean Wong design hat and a pair of cabled wristlets. They're sitting on my weeklong knitting indulgence, Noro Kochoran hoodie. Mindless, pretty, soft and warm, exactly what I want my comfy couch holiday knitting to be. I won't have it done tonight, but it's pretty close.


The travelogue continues in Barcelona! This was the second day of our cruise and the first stop. We'd had enough of bus tours and decided to just wander around shopping and site-seeing. That's a pic of the Olympic rings in the main harbour. We wandered along the shore and then up the main drag which consisted of two lanes each way with a large boulevard up the middle which was full of little kiosks selling everything from handcrafts to chipmunks. Yeah, I said chipmunks. We stood in front of that kiosk pondering for quite a while!
We found a large open air produce market as well. The monkey and I always wind up in grocery stores and public markets whenever we travel. We find the coolest stuff in them and local produce in foreign countries is so cool. We bought some clementines (I really wish they imported them out here) and dried fruit and really amazing handmade chocolates. People were wonderfully patient with my rudimentary spanish.
We only had a few hours on shore and decided to ride the elevator up the statue in the main square before we went back to the boat. This is the view of the street I just described from the top of the statue:


And yes, I am completely aware of the monkey's obsession with climbing things. At least this one had an elevator!

Crap! I'm old.

I remember when I was in my last year of high school doing the mental math to see how old I'd be in 2000 and thinking, "damn, I'll be really old." I also remember how ancient I thought my dad was on his 40th birthday. Sorry dad, I was 15, what can I say? If it's any consolation, it seems that the older I get, the less ancient you seem to be to me.
So I turned 40 yesterday. I'm having a little trouble with this. I mean, I still get IDed on a fairly regular basis and the ladies at Safeway still call me "miss", so WTF? Oh well, I guess I'll get used to it in time to turn 50. I refuse to even discuss that inevitability. Lalalalalalalalala I can't hear you!
But, dispite the number, it was a really good birthday. I was taken out for delicious meals, given yarn, sent flowers and just generally spoilt rotten. I loved it. Today is a bit sucky. What with the having to make my own food and all.
These are flowers my dad sent:


Aren't they pretty? And those are pussywillows! How cool is that? Thanks dad!
And my SP sent me a birthday parcel too. It's all made locally in her area. There's a very pretty tealight holder (that will be very handy when our power goes out again), some yummy apricot jam, chocolate dipped orange rind, some jasmine soap, and chocolate crackling elves. The elves are chocolate filled with pop rocks. They amuse me no end. Must find more, everyone I know needs to have some of these. If you can eat them without grinning, there's something wrong with you.
Thanks for the super pressie SP! You have excellent timing.


The travelogue continues with our short stop in Pisa before we boarded the cruise ship. We only had 45minutes in Pisa and sadly, it wasn't long enough for us to go up the leaning tower. But we walked around it and the Duomo and Baptistry as well. When you round the stone wall that surrounds Pisa this is what you see:


It's incredibly beautiful. I was really surprised at the size of the tower. I had always thought it was huge, but as you can see, it's not that tall. Still impressive and will last now that they've reinforced and shored it up. Hopefully we'll make it back there to climb the tower someday.
That was our last day in Italy and I have a fun fact: apparently, you cannot buy Dante in italian in Italy. I went in almost every bookstore we found and no go. We found Dante in spanish, german and english, but no italian. Figure that one out.

Sienna

The third stop on our trip was Sienna. This was easily one of my favorite places. It's a small medieval town completely surrounded by a large stone wall. Cars are not allowed in Sienna unless you live there and have permission, so the bus dropped us of outside the wall and we walked down through the curved streets to the main square.
The central square slopes down to a castle and is shaped liked a scallop shell. Twice a year horses are raced around the outside of the square bareback. Since the rules are fairly vague, the jockeys are allowed to push each other and often fall off their mounts. Ergo, the first horse across the finish line wins the race, whether he still has a rider or not!
The streets form circles around the square and it's pretty easy to get lost. To preserve the feel of Sienna, all wiring has been run underground, so it still looks mostly as it did hundreds of years ago. We cimbed the bell tower (400 odd steps, the monkey is a bit of a sadist) and had an amazing view of the surrounding countryside.
I found a wool shop in Sienna! Italian yarns at at amazing prices. Pretty sure I peed a little. The poor man running the shop must have thought I was mad. Trying to ask for certain colours in my very stilted Italian and probably looking very much like I'd gone rabid. The monkey couldn't wipe the grin off my face for the rest of the day. The other ladies on the tour were showing off the lovely designer scarves and bags they'd purchased and I would proudly hold open my bag of yarn for them to see. Yup, lots of people think I'm crazy. I've learned to live with it.


And just so no one thinks it's all about the holiday and there's no fibre content any more:


FOs! Bday present socks for a friend and a scarf for SIL. It's okay, both pressies are not surprises.

Since it's the season for gifts and sometimes they're kinda interesting, I give you a short meme:
1) the oddest gift you have ever received (not asked for): bright yellow lacey lingerie from my parents
2) the oddest gift you ever asked for: a large chunk of exotic hardwood and fret wire
3) the oddest gift you ever gave: adult diapers
4) the worst gift you ever got: gift card for a video store we don't have in our area

In case the meme failed to bring a smile, I give you this list on friendship that SIL sent me. I was going to forward it on to my email list, but I thought I'd share it with everyone here instead. Enjoy!
1. When you are sad -- I will help you get drunk and plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad!
2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you!
3. When you smile -- I will know you finally got some!
4. When you are scared -- I will rag on you about it every chance I get.
5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining.
6. When you are confused -- I will use little words.
7. When you are sick -- Stay the hell away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have.
8. When you fall -- I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass!  (I thought you were dancing!)
9. This is my oath..... I pledge it to the end. "Why?" you may ask; "because you are my friend".
Remember... A good friend will help you move... A REALLY good friend will help you move a body... Let me know if you ever need me to bring a shovel.

Friendship is like peeing in your pants, everyone can see it, but only you can feel the true warmth!

WWLWA Pt 2

Day 2 The Vatican
The Vatican is an entity unto itself. It's really a separate country within the city of Rome. It has it's own police, work force and postal system. Regular Romans must get permission to spend any length of time there. It is completely surrounded by a huge wall with video surveillance. We had a tour guide for the morning and I really wish that we had just gone through the museum on our own. It's vast and I don't think we saw more than a tenth of it. We literally raced through beautiful statues, maps and tapestries. I have quite a few blurred photos of the fabulous ceilings throughout the maze of corridors that leads to the Sistine Chapel.
We were able to spend a little bit of time in the Sistine Chapel and what struck me first was how very small it is. I always pictured it as this huge space with an incredibly ornate ceiling, but it's tiny. The ceiling is amazing and with the recent restoration, the bright colors are almost overwhelming. We were hustled out of there and on to St Peter's. I was struck by the overwhelming display of art and wealth. I'm still not sure what to make of it. The only thing that really felt like it belonged there was the Pieta.
We decided to climb to the top of the cupola in St Peter's. After another stimulating round of "try to find the helpful Italian" (45 minutes that took!), we get in the line to climb the 300 and some odd stairs. Now. You can take an elevator to the base of the dome and then climb, or you can take the stairs. We're stupid. We took the stairs. Please keep in mind that the 340 stairs are just the ones in the cupola. They don't actually tell you how many stairs there are to get up to the cupola. I lost count. We'll just leave it at lots. So by the time we get to the base of the dome, we feel like death on a plate. We take a small breather and then forge on to the dome. The dome is two layers., the inner one with the frescoes that you can see from the inside of the cathedral and the outer one that you can see from almost everywhere in Rome. The stairs wind their way up between the two layers. The distance between the layers gets smaller as you go up. A lot smaller. You cannot change your mind. You have to go up one side and down the other. This is not a good place for anyone with even mild claustrophobia. But, we made it and here's the view of the square from the top of the dome:

See those dark metal things on the side of the dome? Those are candle holders. At some point in history some poor schmuck had to climb out there put candles on those things! Talk about your bad jobs.
We left the Vatican in the early afternoon after visiting the grotto that holds the tombs of past popes. A very strange and beautiful place.
We crossed the Tiber to find food and wound up having pizza in a little outdoor cafe. Took another crazy roman cab back to the hotel so we could crash before setting off for Sienna the next day.

Meanwhile, back in the here and now, the monkey and I have caved and put up a tree. Neither of us was feeling very Christmasy and there was nowhere to put the presents. So voila, tree!

Things we learned while abroad Pt1

We're back! Believe it or not, it was really great to finally be home. We had a very interesting and mostly fun trip, but in the end, there's no place like home. Even if you have to come home from the Bahamas to a foot of snow and below freezing temperatures.
These next few posts are gonna be huge and I don't want to send everyone into mini comas, so I'm going to break up the pics into sections and do it over three or four posts. Nobody wants to see 400 pics of places they aren't familiar with, so I'm just going to pick a few of my faves and hope you like them too.
I'll start in Rome, where finally landed after 36 hours of travelling to discover that our room wasn't ready and we had to sit through an hour of tour orientation. Keep in mind, we haven't slept, we've have had very little to eat and what we did have was plane food. All we wanted to do was grab some food, shower and collapse on nearest flat surface. So instead, we sit through orientation that once again makes me understand the importance of the two week waiting period to get a handgun. When it's over I ask the ladies running the tour if we have a room yet. Nope. No room. And strangely now we can't find our luggage. When we ask where it is, they tell us that it's in our room. We tell them that's great and ask for the keys to our room. They tell us we don't have a room yet. I won't go on here as this conversation went on like this for about 5 minutes and I couldn't find a handy brick to bonk myself over the head with anywhere. It felt like the Italian version of Who's on First. The monkey finally gave up on the tour ladies and talked to the front desk and got us a room key. Guess what awaited us in room. No really, guess. NOTHING! No bags. At this point even the charming even-tempered monkey is cursing. He goes back down to the lobby (pretty sure he was afraid I still had enough strength to commit grievous bodily harm upon the tour guides) and finds our luggage in a hallway at the back of the hotel. I think the tour guide told him it wasn't ready yet. How he managed not to slap her by this point is beyond me.
Day 1, Ancient Rome
Now when we booked this tour they listed off all the things we would see in each place. What they neglected to tell us is that they really mean "see". We drove past them at 60k in a bus. A bus that I managed to throw up in for about 30 minutes, missing part of the tour. The monkey and I are not totally old yet and in reasonable physical condition, so we spent our free time really exploring and going into the places that we'd passed by on the bus. We walked all around the People's Square, the Forum, Pantheon and the Coliseum. It was great. Rome is very interesting as all of the ancient buildings are in the midst of a large and fairly modern city. The size of the old temples was awesome. Incredible to think that they were built with no machines. Everything was stone and brick overlayed with marble and beautifully carved.


We took a cab back to the hotel that night because we so tired and it was a very Roman experience. Roman streets are very narrow and the cars are very small, but there's tons of them. Almost all the cars have scrapes along the sides and numerous dents. We found out why. Italians are insane. Our cabbie had a smoke in one hand and his cell in the other, he passed stopped traffic by driving down the centre line into oncoming traffic and would turn around to say apparently hilarious things to us in rapid fire Italian at about 100k. We managed to catch the words "Mario Andretti" and "Ferrarri". It sounds scary but it was actually fun and really gave a bit of a feel for the city.

And Jen, you're the winner of the blog contest. Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of yarn from Florence, rum from St Maaten, olive oil from Sienna, sugar from Guadeloupe, a leather bracelet from Tenerife, a key chain from the Bahamas and a lovely Costa cruise lines floaty ship pen. Contact me through my hotmail address so I can send you your loot.


Any guesses as to what this sock represents? If you said the amount of knitting I did in the past three weeks, you're right. Sad isn't it. But I read 5 books. Do I get any points for that?

Ciao bellas

Well, this is it. We leave at an obscenely early hour on Saturday so tomorrow will be spent packing and getting together last minute stuff we'd almost forgot. Or, in my case, freaking out. But I think we're okay. The clothes are finished. I managed to find things to dress up the monkey. And the ipod is almost loaded. I still have to try to figure what can and cannot go in the carry-ons, but that shouldn't take long. What will take a while is me pondering how I can threaten an airplane with eyeshadow.
While I'm off touring ancient Rome and basking in the sun on exotic isles, the blog will likely not be updated. Nobody wants to come home to a three week old post that has no comments. So here's the deal: I will make sure to pick up a few extra weird and wonderful goodies on my travels and will offer them up as prizes. It'll be a random drawing from all the people that comment on this post. Make 'em interesting folks, I'm not pretty when I'm bored!
And as a final note, Sock Wars will end while I'm away. This makes me truly happy. I offed three people with Socks of Doom and will hopefully be dead with my very own pair of socks by the time I get home. I made it into the last hundred alive out of almost eight hundred and a very nice assassin in the UK said she was off to buy yarn for my impending doom today. Hooray! I can't understand why no one wanted to kill me, seems like any number of people around here would line up for that opportunity...

PS: The skeins in the pic are beast and BFL. I haven't been able to concentrate on my knitting much lately so I've been spinning up pretty coloured stuff from my stash. There's another 100g of BFL in reds, browns and purples on the wheel now and I'll ply it off before we leave. I'm really enjoying the sort of tweedy, stripey things these rovings are creating when I ply them back on themselves. It reminds me of the Trekking ombres. With 100g, I can make socks or a couple of hats or mitts, wrist warmers, the list goes on.

SP Goodies!

My SP for this round sent me this cool kitty basket for Halloween. You'll have to take my word for it that it was full of treats when it arrived. In fact, there were so many little chocolate bars in it that I didn't find the Satsuma body butter for three days! It was a pretty nice surprise when we ate down that far. So, many thanks to my SP and I love the card!


This is the pretty mystery beast fibre currently on the wheel and here is the tequila sunrise stuff plyed, but not washed:


I think I might make a couple of the hats from a previous post with it.


And this, this my friends is the motherlovin' charkha. Not only did it arrive safe and sound, but no duty! This is a very nice change after the chain of unpleasant events earlier this week. In fact, other than the yucky cold I have right now (which has turned me into a sneezy oozing mess) things are actually better.
We don't have plane tickets, but at least we have the flight info. The flights aren't great, but we get to Rome in time which was starting to look kinda doubtful. The monkey even got us seats together for all but one of the flights. And no, the travel agancy had NOT booked us seats. Thanks to the quick-thinking monkey that little disaster was averted.
My dress clothes are almost done. We had to add a fitting, but there's still lots of time and the ladies at Bernardi's (sorry, no website) doing the work have been wonderful. I can't believe anyone would ever buy a ready-made dress when you can have the dress of your dreams handmade for so little. These ladies have been simply amazing and they make you feel really good.
Some of you have expressed concern over me being gone so long and not having anything to do. Not to fear! I have wound off enough yarn for two stoles, assembled the beads for a peyote bag, bought 9 books, and I'm considering taking a cross-stitch as well. Pretty sure that'll keep me covered for three weeks. Especially since I plan to take the Italian lessons offered on the ship. The monkey also got me an 8G ipod and I've spent the last couple of weeks transferring every cd I own (around 300) onto it. Should keep me going.
And oh yeah, enough sock yarn for two pairs for knitting on the plane. I'm open to suggestions from those of you who still think I'll be bored...

Happy Halloween!

Loki has been very touched by all the concern expressed over his enlarged heart. He wanted everyone to know that he's not letting it slow him down at all and offered to model for today's blog to let you all know he's doing well.
Loki thought it would be fun to dress up like a cat for Halloween, so I made him the Kitty helmet from Stitch and Bitch. It was a very quick knit. I started it last night and finished it around lunchtime today.


This past weekend was a whirlwind of family. The monkey's brother and his family stopped by for a couple of days and we went over to Victoria to see the new niece, Aurora. Got a great pic of the monkey and the baby. She seems to find the monkey highly amusing.
We're still on plane ticket watch around here. No sign of them yet. Stress levels are reaching Big Bird alert. Funny thing though, the travel agency sent us a lovely form to fill out regarding our thoughts as to their performance. Since we will be needing this vacation more than ever after dealing with these morons, we'll be sure to fill it out and send it back promptly. Not that it will do any good. Perhaps we need to send a more convincing message. Maybe I'll send Guido around to "talk" to them. He just looooves to chat!

Warning: Rant to follow

Life lately has been a little more nausea inducing than usual.
The monkey is taking me on an amazing holiday next month. We start in Italy and then cruise to Barcelona and down through the Canaries, Dominican Republic and then end in Ft Lauderdale. Sounds great, right? Yeah, it would be except for a few small problems.
1. The travel company has yet to send out out plane tickets. We leave in two weeks and I am a little on the anal-retentive side. Give me another week and I'll be looking for someone's head on a plate. I expect the hyperventilating to start any time now.
2. The travel company sent us a notice about our trip to Northern Europe in May. Since we're not planning to go to Northern Europe in May, but rather southern Italy in November, I was a little concerned. Where it says, "a little concerned", in the previous sentence please insert the words, "ready to send hot firey death to every travel agent involved in this debacle".
3. The travel company ignored our wishes about cabin placement and put us, "where ever".
4. Our beloved doggy has severe congestive heart failure. This means he has a REALLY enlarged hert and has to be on meds for the rest of his life. We are fairly upset. He doesn't seem to care at all. We only found out yesterday.
5. Cruises are fancy. VERY FANCY. Again, this likely doesn't sound like a bad thing to most people, but the monkey and I live in jeans and tees. We've had to drop a bundle on clothes just so we'll be able to eat dinner on the ship. It's not a huge problem, but one we didn't forsee and oh, did I mention we leave in two weeks?!
6. The monkey has had to work an extra two days this month and is pretty stressed.
7. The in-laws arrive tomorrow (they didn't bother to say when, just sometime friday). to spend the night and we're supposed to leave Saturday morning to visit the new niece.
8. Mothereffing sock wars. WTF was I thinking when I joined this giant clusterf#$? Why won't it just end? If no one's killed me off by the end of next week, I am committing ritual suicide by sock. Enough already! It's been poorly executed and not even mildly moderated and I will never do this again. There's a special place in hell for people who cause things like this to happen. I think it entails knittng the same pilly ball of scritchy acrylic for all eternity.
The travel stuff wouldn't be so bad if the agency would just answer our questions (or the phone at all) and give us straight answers or at least pretend to know wtf is going on. It been pretty frustrating. I'm having some dress clothes made because it's just too bloody hard to find party dresses at this time of year. Now I just have to find some khakis and a sport jacket for the monkey.
I've had the hair cut and coloured. I've got the makeup and necessities situation in hand. Passports are up to date. Bills will be paid up. And all the usual stuff is on the lists. Yeah, I said LISTS. I'm mildly anal- retentive remember? And okay, maybe a little compulsive, but I don't like surprises. Especially surprises like, "you don't have anywhere to stay in Rome, SURPRISE!".
I can totally live without that.
And hey, I almost forgot, the charkha is actually in transit. The bloody thing finally shipped. Of course, that's all that shipped. No spare spindles, no pre-ordered drop spindles or charkha carry bag. It took two days and six emails just to sort that charming mess out. So, after all was said and done, I decided to be happy that the charkha shipped and not hold my breath on the rest of the stuff. If it comes great, if it doesn't, you'll all hear about it and the company I dealt with. Did I mention that I was a little vindictive?
And to soften the rant for all of you who stuck with it to this point, a pic of the Gem with it's new goodies:


That's Winderwood BFL on there. I'm doing a 2 ply double knit. It reminds of tequila sunrises. Maybe I'll go have one now.

Warm Monkey

I finally finished the Monkey's Kureyon sweater and he was even willing to model it! I've knit him quite a few sweaters over the years, most of them don't get worn. Not only did he put this one on, he wore it for the rest of the evening. I think he likes it.
In other knitting news, I'm knitting another Sock Wars weapon. I've waited for two weeks for an incomplete weapon to arrive from my last victim, but it hasn't arrived yet. So I got permission from my next victim to make her SOD from scratch. I chose some Fleece Artist BFL in muddy purples and pinks and it looks great. I have enough for at least two pairs of socks, so I may commit sock suicide.
I've got the back of the Wanderlust Hoodie done and the front is on the needles.

My package from Penny, my Tea Swap Pal arrived this week. She sent me some green tea with jasmine (one's from Israel and it's really good), a ball of Trekking in colors I love, a little graph paper notebook, some raspberry filled chocolates and a pretty little bag she made for me. It's been fun emailling with Penny as she wants to learn to spindle and is going to Rhinebeck. One of these years I wanna go to Rhinebeck.
On the spinning front, Lynne ordered some stuff to help me get the Gem working more to my liking and I can't believe the HUGE difference it made. I switched the regular whorl for the fast one, the regular flyer for the lace one and the bobbins for baby bobbins. Thing spins like a dream now. I no longer feel like I'm on a hamster wheel when Im treadling. It's awesome. Totally smooth, fast and just damn nice. I used to tolerate this wheel because it was the best of the portable wheels I'd tried, but now, I actually like it. It's going to make classes much more enjoyable.

the horror, the horror...

So, I order this yarn off ebay from Uruguay. On my monitor, it looks pretty good. Burgundy, deep green and gold. It's cheap and I can certainly live with the colors. When it arrives, I am faced with this:


A fair bit of swearing ensued.
I tucked it away and pulled it out every so often to try to convince myself it wasn't that bad. It's been a year now and I remain unconvinced. It still makes my butt clench so hard that it moves three inches up my back. Not a happy reaction. A couple of days ago I decided, "screw it, I'll just sell it off cheap". Today I decided, "hell, may as well try dyeing it". Figured it couldn't hurt. If I still didn't like it, I could sell it, if I liked it, well, yay.


I like it.
This I also like:

I can't stop listening to it. I've made the monkey listen to it more than once. I don't think he's quite as enamoured as I am. He's more classic rock or contemporary (insert small involuntary shudder here) rock. But it reminds me of 70's Alice Cooper. I now have a warm squishy spot in my heart for Rob Zombie.
Perhaps he'd like to be my new monkey. Hey, a girl can dream.
Anthea, this is for you:


A few handspun, handknit hats for your sale. More to come. Hope you like 'em.