Toooo long...

Not sure why, but I've been very unmotivated to post. Maybe it's because I'm fairly certain that virtually no one reads my blog; feels a bit like talking to myself, and I don't feel the need to post the crazy conversations I have with myself! Still, not posting is guarranteed to lose me any readers I do have...vicious circle, really.

Anyway, I'm not complaining, just explaining my absence. I've another FO to post, but it's needing to be blocked and photoed. One more tick on the list of Christmas knitting. I'm hoping to post by this evening, so I'll give you details then. Needless to say, I'm very pleased the result!

Also, I've added quite a few blogs to the right. They are all great, and worth reading. The fabulously funny Neglecting My Kids, and absolutely STUNNING knitting of See Eunny Knit, the hilarious Yorkie....take a looksee and enjoy!

The past few days I've had company at home; hubs was home with what appears to have been a fun case of rotavirus, acquired - it would seem - from our dear nephew, T-bear. T had something funny with his tummy on Sunday at church, hubs held him for awhile, then passed him on to Grampy (my FIL) as we went to leave. Found out yesterday afternoon that Grampy, the WebMaster (my BIL, T's pops) had all come down with symptoms similar to hubs'. So I'm quite glad that lilAuntie didn't feel the need to hold or even really touch T-bear. I love you, little man, but I'm all too happy to skip the entiritis, thanks.

Take care, all, and remember to keep your fluids and electolytes up!

A bunch-a stuff

Some things that make me happy:

1. Watching my puppy watch tv. Movies, shows (especially Buffy) and football, she likes to watch with me, and it just cracks me up every time.

2. Onions. They're yummy. I like them.

3. A good rain. It's been crappy raining here for days. I don't want grey and wet, I want rain I can here thrumming against windows, not just dripping from eaves. I like a good rain, preferably with a little electrical action in there, just for kicks.

4. Having finally found my beading pliers, I am happy playing with beads again. It's been too long.

5. My sleeping puppy. With her eyes all closed and peaceful, and her feet all twitchy because she's dreaming some crazy, active dream.

6. My puppy sleeping with me. I've trained her - unintentially - to serve as both a toddler and a teddy bear. She likes to sleep right up against me, under my arm when I'm sleeping on my side. She's my little bear.

7. A perfect pointe. When I'm dancing and I can feel my foot just perfectly pointed in 3rd rear aerial, or while I'm shedding or backstepping, and especially in rocks...makes me happy.

8. When my puppy plays be herself. She throws her ball for herself, then she watches it, and chases it across the room. Precious.

9. When she tries to play with the dog in the piano. We don't have a dog stuffed in our piano, it's highly polished and she can see herself reflected. Poor thing doesn't understand why that mean ol' dog won't play along.

10. Singing. Almost anything, almost anytime.

11. When hubs cleans the kitchen, or anything, for that matter. It's nice.

12. My nephew. He's a cool little dude, and at 7 months, finds most things amusing. The walls of my living room, very funny. His cat, hilarious. My fingers, another good joke. He's a blast.

13. A newly repainted room. I also don't mind the process, unless it takes a third coat. By then I'm ready for the job to be done, and I've started getting tetchy about doing it.

14. My baguettes (that is NOT some icky euphemism). Hubs and I like the French bread I bake better than the baguettes from the bakery. Go me!

15. Silk. I love sewing with silk. I'd sew exclusively with silk if I could. Dupioni's such a breeze. Gorgeous.

16. New yarn. Starting a new ball of a yarn I've never used for a new project. Except when the centre-pull starts kicking my ass. That makes me angry. Hubs can attest to the rage.

17. Teaching people something when they want to learn. Trying to teach people something when they can't be bothered trying to learn, however, is in the Top Ten of list of Things that Enrage Me. Hear that Leah, Chelsea? Yeah, that means you!

18. Christmas decorations. The importance of Christmas is church, but decorating my home, lights and garlands and a tree everywhere: that keeps the party going from Sunday to Sunday. It is a birthday!

Might as well make this an even 20...

19. Snow. It's pretty. And it lets me wear sweaters every day.

20. A good silly laugh with hubs. We are ridiculous people, very silly, often childish. But it's fun, and we're happy that way, so there. I'm not ready to be boring (ok, I'm kind of boring, but this is the absolute limit of my boringness; I am going NO further into boring).

Fun with wires!

I'm not sure why my camera is doing it, but it's taking crappy pictures and pixelating everything. Oh, right, I use my mobile for pics. Maybe some day I'll get a nice digital SLR. And maybe someday I'll wake up a perfect size 2 without ever trying. Ha.

So I do apologise for the image quality. But I promised pics, no matter how bad.

Ok, the felted purse. Here are the tiny flowers on the front of the purse. They sort of wind up the body of the bag and onto the flap. I think it's pretty:

And a section of the funkier embroidery on the strap:


And look what I found!
So I've been playing with wire! I made these:
Fancy beaded stitch markers! Some for the SIL, and some will go to my sp (hee hee, they aren't pictured, in case you're reading this; you won't know if it was me!) I'll pick up some jump rings, and get started on some pretty beaded pattern row markers a la Turtlegirl. Thanks for the specs, Cristi!

I have other things I've thought of to post, silly puppy observations, mostly, and comments on the heinous nature of suburbia. But I need to end this habit of the middle of the night posts. I'm beat.

In the time between posts...

I've played with my washing machine, and totally completed one Christmas gift. A few posts ago I listed all the holiday knitting I have planned. It seemed like a very long list. Now, I think it's not too long, but I may still revise it. Why? Because I want to felt EVERYTHING.

I finished the purse for sis (Patons Classic in Dark grey) complete with very long i-cord strap. (You ever knitted several feet of 10 st i-cord? It is NO FUN.) It was ready to be felted.

I also had this pair of mittens that were Christmas-gifted to me by a good friend several years ago. The were handknit in Nepal of wool and bits of sari-silk (lovely bright coloured silk with a purpley-blue yarn). They have never fit properly. I have very small hands (child-sized, almost) and one-size-fits-all mittens are always just too big. The gauge was pretty loose, too, and let the wind in, so I thought, "Hey, why not felt them, too?!" I was actually pretty disappointed that I hadn't thought of it earlier.

Sooo, the purse and the mittens went into the woolite wash bag, and into a very hot wash with two pairs of jeans I don't care about too much. After squidging around in there for about 15-20 minutes, I had a fabulously felted purse, and two muuuch smaller mittens. They looked too small. Oh. Dear.

(Further backstory: this is the second pair of these mittens this friend has given me. I managed to lose one of the first pair, and when she asked if I liked wearing them, I explained the mitten tragedy, and the following Christmas - pair number two! So shrinking the second pair beyond wearing them would be very unfortunate.)

But I'd forgotten that my hands are silly and tiny, and the mittens are a brilliant fit. Perfect. I put a plastic cup in the cuff of each mitten to make sure I could still get my hands in, and a day later, dry, felted mitts.

The purse, though, is unbelievable. It's super. I embroidered little flowers onto the body of the bag, and swirls, spirals, squiggles, moons, and more little flowers, along the length of the strap, using the peacock blue wool I used for the edgeing on that cardigan I knit last month.

It. Is. Beautiful.

So what can I felt next? I'm thinking potholders, maybe in fun shapes (like letters to spell out 'FOOD') or a little pocket book (I've been meaning to get a cool one).

I've just gotten myself a cool new obsession!

Ooh, and pics to follow tomorrow!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it...oh, it stopped already

Those streaky white things in those two pics are snowflakes. Yay! In time for the beginning of the 2006 Winter Cheer/Spring Is Here SP (we'll be leaning towards the Winter Cheer theme up here!).

I've frogged the hat completely, and started again, but I'm feeling quite discouraged. I think I may need a break from the thing, and spend some time on something for which I have a pattern, to save myself the stress (is there anything more irritating than thinking that all the work you're putting into a project will amount to diddly?).

If I could only find my jewellery pliers (nice slender round-tipped jobbies) I could get started on some stitch markers. Bah again, to post-moving chaos.

But, oooh, pretty snow!

Boo!

Here's to Hallowe'en, and the official beginning of the Retail Christmas Season! (*sarcasm*)

Guess who didn't get off her ass early enough to get a pumpkin? Yeeeah...
But I figure a squash is a squash, and the first jack-o-lanterns were carved out of turnips, so why not? Lucky the Basics market had a ginormous box of Acorn Squash for 50 cents a piece. So I got three...


These suckers were surprisingly hard to carve! They're as thick as pumpkins, but much smaller, so carving through them was tricky. But they looked cute, I think, in a spooky way.


And Wembley got into the Hallowe'en spirit. She got her ballet on, as you can see...


Off to teach some kids to make noise with their feet. I'm out.