And now a KYOAMPi update

Finally sat down and knit the last few rows of KYOAMPI Clue Two (Corn), except I lie, and didn't knit the very last row before the increase because I figured when I dropped something it'd be easier to pick up a row of plain stockinette stitch than a row with yarn overs and decreases ... which proved true. Bleah. After much fussing and grumbling, I managed to get this semi-anticlimactic photo:



Not even going to try for the "Surfer Girl" reconstruction (pic) tonight, I think. ;) But someday I'll post a bunch of recon pictures. (Anyone know if it's possible to go in and add keywords or categories to your Blogger posts so you can find them all more easily later? How the heck do you do it?)

Mohair?

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Mohair.You are a warm and fuzzy type who works well with others, doing your share without being too weighty. You can be stubborn and absolutely refuse to change your position once it is set, but that's okay since you are good at covering up your mistakes.
Take this quiz!








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I was mohair the first time, but changing one answer transformed me into mercerized cotton.

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Mercerized Cotton.You are always very crisp and neat. You are very playful and are happiest while outdoors in the sunshine. You are sometimes accused of splitting hairs, but in the end people find you pretty easy to live with.
Take this quiz!








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Neither one of those seems particularly "I'm always right and rah rah world peace" (that being an option on one of the questions), but oooookay? ;)

Status update: dull run-down type stuff

Sooo, for personal reference...

Last night I did a random shirt recon -- dug around in an old bag of clothes my sister gave me a while ago that I took with this sort of thing in mind, and picked out a "Surfer Girl" shirt to cut up and make into a summery type top.

Today I knit part of a hanging-type dishcloth that I'm making mostly because we need one and because I obsessively start new projects. ;) No progress on any of the other knitty things.

I also did another recon today: turned a "Girlie" t-shirt into a sporty skirt, with the help of a few other t-shirts for trim and such. Definitely in the established Me style of Random Strips Pieced Together for Contrast, which you can semi-see in the sleeves of this costume:



  


(Which I have thumbnailed because I'm too lazy to go and upload a version of that picture at a reduced size just to post here.)

Yesterday I also made up some lickety-split "background papers" for a swap (meaning I had completely forgotten I'd signed up for the swap and had been ignoring all the reminders till the hostess emailed me personally to see if I was "still in"):



...which I sent in a cute painted envelope:



(Yes, that is also my cute little foot in the shot, because I used the viewfinder and not the viewscreen when taking the picture.)

I even managed to bind all my mini-books and remember that I hadn't gotten the swap hostess's address, so I emailed her; but perhaps she doesn't want me participating any more since I objected to her phrasing in an email where she objected to something I couldn't tell Gmail was perpetuating (because Gmail is efficient like that and hides stuff like the subject lines of replies by default). ;) Anyway, mini-books, bound!



But I have been a bad girl and have not worked on any mail art or altered art or swap packages today, although I did poke at a couple of swaps yesterday before deciding that they still need some padding (in terms of Fun Stuffs) before I send them out. But for some reason I'm being mildly laid back about those deadlines at the moment; I can stress over them if I think about them too long, but they're not inherently bugging me like deadlines sometimes do.

I'm sure I'll work on something else tonight, anyway, and possibly when my camera batteries are charged again I'll post some images to accompany my boring status update [done!].

More -alongs!

Ooo, a crewel-along! That sounds interesting. I'll save it here so I can't lose the link ... ;)

Progress = slow

One yoga sock is done, and the latest KYOAMPi clues have been posted while I'm still in the last few rows of the Clue 2 pattern. Oops! Oh, well, I'll catch up. I am at least working on my mini-books and should have them out in the next couple of days ... and then I'll be making hand-made paper covers for a 'zine collaboration project and finishing up the layout for my article. I'm also apparently joining the Project Spectrum Spinalong -- I was planning on spinning something for Project Spectrum participation anyway, sooo ... ;)

Oh, the pinkness...

I don't know why, but when I saw this yarn at Jo-Ann I just had to buy it to make a washcloth out of:



I think I'm sending this one as part of a swap, not as a RAK. I may even put off the RAK ones until after I've done my deadlined projects ... though that way lie UFOs.

Attack of the washcloths!

They're taking over! I've discovered that I can get two washcloths out of a 2 oz. ball of worsted weight cotton yarn, which, indeed, means I've knit two washcloths in the past day or so, and am halfway through another as I type. Who went today and bought six balls of worsted weight cotton? Certes, not I!

...I lie. Le sigh. ;)

And I'm planning on knitting at least two more for RAKs and swaps. And then maybe I'll knit one for me.

Funny thing, about everything I've knit recently has been circular. The Pi shawl, these washcloths, even the socks if you count them as circular because they're tubes. (Not that I'm done with them yet. I currently have half of one sock, too. But at least I got past the bizarre instructions in the pattern...) When I knit that dishcloth, that'll nip that in the bud, but I may not get to that until next month, so I could still call this the month of knitting circles.

And all this washcloth knitting has made me think: hey, I should knit seven washcloths in the colors of the chakras, decorate them with beads, and string them all together in the proper chakra order as a decoration!

Because yeah. I really need to knit more washcloths right now. ;D

Dang me, dang me, dang me...

Cool art: bags and books

Here's a cool Japanese bag that's re-usable and a neat-looking piece of art. Hmmm ... I should find instructions on how to make those things. ;)

And hey, if you need something to fill your Furoshiki with, how about some altered art? At the bottom of this news summary, this blurb appears:

The NYT reports on an innovative way the Portland Public Library in Maine has decided to recycle unwanted books. Rather than merely throwing them away, the library partnered up with the Maine College of Art and had artists create works of art from the discarded books. For example, one artist took a book titled Feeding the Brain and cut out the middle and filled it with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Almost all the 186 alteredbooks can now be checked out from the library.

Which almost no artist I've talked to has been really enthused about ... unless you count me as an artist and give me points for talking to myself. ;) But I'm sort of street-art, I love the idea of recycling "throwaway" books this way, and I love the idea of bringing altered art for free to anyone who wants to enjoy it, and this feels like one big, completely free mail art event on a grander scale. (Plus, hey, it helps make people aware that old "trash" can be made into beautiful, enjoyable things, and that's super.) Some people fear their art might be damaged by use if lent out, but personally, I'd rather have my art used and shared and experienced, and risk whatever happenstance damage might come its way, than "protect" my art and restrict it only to other altered artists and the few people I could potentially reach with my smallish "real life" social circle. IMO, those who visit the library are more likely to understand and respect altered art than random yahoos at a football game, for instance, or even than the husbands and boyfriends of many of the altered artists I know ... ;) And after all, who's going to check art out except people who are interested in art, to begin with? That's a potential altered artist right there, and if I have to pay the "price" of letting my art go out into the world and risk "damage" (which I like to think of as natural wear and tear, since I like my altered art to be tactile and touched anyway), then I'd be happy to. After all, it's not like I can't protect the art I want to protect, and choose which pieces are sturdy enough to be carried home in someone's bag. And also after all, well, it's art. It's for sharing. And it was made from pieces of paper and glue and old buttons and the ideas in my heart and head. I'll make more! If I were determined to protect my art, I wouldn't be a mail artist at all...

...but I am sort of wishy-washy street-artish. I'd much rather lend my art from the library (who will keep track of it!) than leave it out in the Florida sun and rain and wind, too. ;)

Not that I'm obsessed right now

But I'm going for the world record for the number of blog posts in one day. ;P Wrapping a yarn ball with little gift inclusions is the coolest idea. I should try that for someone on RAK Wish List or bday_packages who asks for yarn...

In other news, I'm having another Impetuous Knitting Project moment. I'm part of the way through a pair of socks for my Sock Hop swap partner. Technically, I've already sent her a package that meets the stated requirements for the swap, but ... I really wanted to knit her some socks, no matter how cool those Pink Panther socks really are. ;) There's just a dearth of sock yarn around here, and the closest LYS is mildly expensive and run by a semi-bitchy lady who doesn't have the same color palette tastes as I have so while I often love the yarn itself I have trouble finding the colors I really want. I also wanted to make the knit socks either fantasy-themed or yoga-themed because said swap partner likes those things and so do I and I thought it'd be cool. But the lack of sock yarn and the lack of a fun pattern stymied me, so I sent the store-bought socks. Then along came the yoga socks!

So now I'm making a pair currently in some olive green I had left over from making Virginia's seed stitch scarf last year. (See? I'm trying to use up my stash now! I admit I did have thoughts of going and buying some fun, brightly colored yarn, but I exerted some discipline and made do with what I have. I hope my Sock Hop partner doesn't mind. I think green is rather yoga-ish anyway.)

And while I'm at it, I may try to combine the Pincushion Challenge with a swap and make a pin cushion for my indie secret pal swap partner. There, that's how you do seventeen things at once -- you combine them so you get points across the board for just doing four or five projects.

Ha, ha, ha ... just four or five...

Uh-oh; new online 'zine addiction

Just discovered Spun Magazine. So in addition to Knitty (the latest issue of which I still have not read; for some reason I didn't get the notification in my box that said it was ready...) and the print mags, I'll have to start scanning this one for good patterns. Ack. I am bombarded by knitting ideas. Must ... rescue ... UFOs...

Project Spectrum: yummy!

Ooo, a fun color-themed project. Maybe I'll think of this when I do some of my insane high-speed crafting. Next month is green, too, which will be a nice excuse to use up some of the piles of green roving I have sitting around...

One down, seventeen to go

My first washcloth, voila:



After I finished it, apparently I felt like I needed yet more to knit. Then I discovered that Someone's birthday is coming up -- someone I've been planning to knit some socks for ever since she sent me some Good Stuff for my birthday. Cackle! So I just put in my third order to KnitPicks in a couple of months (and no end in sight; I'll probably put in yet another when I figure out what I'm making as a baby present for a friend in Portugal), and not just for the socks, oh no, certainly not just for the socks. Because I was a good girl and am using KnitPicks's Two at Once, Toe-Up sock pattern, which is free, I am allowed to splurge on another sock pattern, the Almost Argyle one, which intrigues me because I always liked Argyle socks...

But all socky goodness aside, I also ordered some yarn for purposes of knitting the Branching Out leaf lace scarf which appears in an issue of Knitty. I really did kind of want to knit some lacy socks, since Said Person explicitly invites all sorts of socks and includes lacy ones, but I'm contenting myself with the lace scarf for now. Perhaps for Christmas I shall do the lace socks. ;)

In any case, that's two more projects in the queue. This Pi shawl knitting thing seems to have broken my lace block, though we'll see when I try to go back and knit something else in lace, won't we...

It'll be especially funny when I go back after I finish the KYOAMPi (::crosses fingers::) and realize I've knit a lace shawl in lace-weight yarn (which I've also never used before), using not one, but FIVE charts. Ack! Sayeth she who didn't even really know how to read a chart before she did the KYOAMPi! Next thing you know, I'll be knitting Fair Isle.

Still haven't washed those fleeces. La la laaaa. Still haven't started those mini-books. La la laaaa. I did pick up some paint chips today for the covers, at least. And I do have my theme picked out. Now I just have to, like, bind them and make the art and stuff. ::rolls eyes:: Yeah. Just. ;)

Funky jewelry, spinny samples

(It's almost like the title to a bad romance novel?)

Here's a better photo of that funky jewelry from yesterday:



The person I'm trading with likes! Yayyy! I'm still going to make at least one more pair of dangly earrings, I think.

I also sent a photo of the sample handspun mini-skeins to the person who might buy some from me. Here's hoping she likes, too. (::crosses fingers::) Here are all the mini-skeins (including those for the trade, the paper portion of which is still drying) sitting in their lovely, elite, yarn-only colander, which I tried steam blocking them in. (Note the requisite tea in the bottom left corner of the shot. This is actually some of Anne at LiberTeas's Creamy Irish Breakfast ... If you like tea, you ought to check her out. ;) ::plug plug::)



Last but not least, I started a washcloth for a bath-themed swap -- my first washcloth ever, but at least I understand the short-row technique thanks to all those corkscrew scarves I made. ;) (Two? It seems like a lot more, somehow...) It's looking pretty cute, actually, and I might have to make one for me ... Also worked on the KYOAMPi at last. I'd better put a lifeline in sometime soon or I'm going to end up screwing up the last row and having to rip everything out again when I notice at the last second before Clue 3 is posted that something's wrong.

On Baxil Standard Time

It's still the 22nd, so that's the day I mean when I say "today." (Meaning, I haven't gone to sleep yet so even though the calendar says it's the 23rd, it's the 22nd to me.)

Today: I...

Sorted some fleeces...



...and didn't sort others. (I'm washing the latest Columbia before I do anything with it. It's a bit too mucky for me not to ... and the Shetland didn't look like it needed much sorting, or if it does, I can't tell how to do it with the dirt on the fleece. The llama really needs to be shaken thoroughly on a screen or something before I wash it all because there's no use in washing it if all the VM is just going to get washed and stay in with the fiber ... but I did sort the Corriedale? ;)) In other fibery news, I even spun all the samples I said I would spin, and earlier in the day I tried steam blocking for the first time. I'm going to do some more steam blocking tomorrow on those samples.

Also tried to reconstruct a shirt...



...and got almost all the way done, but was ultimately too lazy to overlock the side seams yet again because I'm so dang small and the fabric is so dang stretchy. It's now a tube top. Exciting. I have a pile of other t-shirts to reconstruct that will hopefully be more original.

Then I worked on the jewelry for a trade on Etsy, so that now I have one funkychunkypinkandorange yarn necklace with loopies, a pair of pink and purple berrylike earrings that I actually think I would wear if they were mine and I had anything they matched even vaguely, and one of the few strung necklaces I've ever done in my life, and I wonder if this one will fit the bill of Fun and Funky and Wild. (I always have that problem with stringing. I'll get better at it ... someday?) All of it is currently stuffed in half of a largish Easter Egg tin I found at the thrift store:



I'm not sure i'm going to work on the KYOAMPi tonight, even though I'd like to. I have to sleep sometime, though it'd be easier convincing myself to sleep and do things tomorrow if I knew I'd actually bother waking up in the morning when I don't "have" to, thus enabling myself to actually do things tomorrow. ;)

Now, off to waffle over whether to work on it or stay up even more insanely late doing something else!

Flying sheep!

I just have to save this link, because it contains a little flying sheep in a picture full of little furiously running sheep. It's too funny for me not to save. And this time, I've even remembered to note whose blog I stole it from. ;D

Have spun up a bunch of the Spring Misty and some teeny bits of other random wools for trade (I keep calling it a RAK but it's really a trade; sigh! Brain not functioning!). This brings the grand total of handspuns for the trade to three, plus three non-handspun yarns, plus about five sheets of marbled paper (color photocopies of the originals). Somehow I feel like that's not enough, so I may dig through the stash and see what other fluffies I can bear to part with in exchange for a neat-sounding book on an "enchanted" castle. It's 64 pages, an oversized paperback (I think with color photos, or maybe the entire thing is color, dunno), but five dollars' worth (estimating by the photocopy price) of marbled paper and a teeny bit of handspun yarn (~3 yards green and pink crazyfluffy wool, ~1.5 yards blue semicrazyfluffy Romney, and 6ish? yards of pink and purple Merino) doesn't seem like enough for a cool book...

Okay, I've now added ~2.5 yards of tussah silk (mostly natural colored, but it does have a little dye in it, mostly very light tints of gold and burgundy) plied with light turquoise thread.

...and now (much later, after I come back and realize I never did post this post ;)), I've made some paper to include in the trade. Whew. I feel better. ;D

(Still need to set the twist in those yarns, though, and spin those samples...!)

More fiber happiness (another episode of As the Stash Grows)

Before I forget, must post a crappy but still-existent pic of the fluffies that arrived from High Prairie Fibers today:



If you click the link to High Prairie up there, it'll take you to the page with My Precious Fibers on it -- that aqua stuff (Day's End 028 aqua blues, to be precise) is marked "sold" 'cause it's MINE now! ;) You can see that their photo looks rather different from mine, but I have pretty bad lighting in here right now. (Must ... set ... up ... studio lighting...) The white is 8 oz. of Ile de France X Dorset roving, and I might try to keep my paws off it to save for the dyeing exchange.

Yay!

Now I'm going to go sharpen the "top" (technically I can switch it around any which way) end of my new CD spindle and work up some more of Isis's Spring Misty Merino to get warmed up for playing with other fibers. I've been kinda bleahh for the past couple of days (hint: "kinda bleahh" is an understatement ;D) and it's been hard to convince myself to do something fun and easy like spinning, especially something as fun and easy as spinning small amounts of yarn. So I'm going to say spinning the Spring Misty is for me (hence I shall be selfish and permit myself to do it), and then when I feel in the spinny groove I'll work on the sample yarns and the RAK yarn I well-intentionedly promised to people. I will deliver, too, just not as fast as *I* would have liked. But life does that sort of thing, and probably the recipients were expecting things to be delivered in this more human, less-Silver time frame anyway. Ah, well.

There's a color of commercial yarn named for us!

I'm irrationally excited by the fact that there's a color of ONline Linie 114 - Space yarn that's named after Tampa. I found it on Elann.com just now and I think that's Too Cool. Yayyyy. *wallows in the coolness of having a color of tropical-themed yarn named after a city she used to live in and still lives right by*

See? Someone else thinks of my area of Florida as deserving of tropical exotic status, too. ;D It's not just my crazy brain that considers portions of Florida part of the Caribbean more than part of the South...

KYOAMPi: re-do

Here's KYOAMPi v2:



I ripped the entire thing and re-did most of the "pre-clue" portion at the eye doctor today while waiting for my mother to be done with her appointment; and then I did through the clue (I chose option C: the 3x3 leaf) tonight, mostly before the second clue was posted. And then I spent like an hour writing and sending rejection letters and cleaning up the files section of the submissions group and other such adminly things ... Always a good way to make sure my brain is fried before I have to stare at tiny strings for further brain-fryage points. ;) The lace portion of the shawl isn't really visible in that shot, and I do have a shot of it, but it's not very exciting right now, I promise. Anyway, I did fulfill my Knitting in Public obligation for this week at least.

I also washed up some brown llama and am waiting for it to dry on a drying rack in the bathtub, so I can spin up some samples for doll hair.

The next few days shall contain: sample spinning, RAK spinning, mini-books for a swap, hopefully put-togetherage of more RAK packages, and continued knitting on the KYOAMPi. Whee.

Giganto list of knitted UFOs

Since I haven't gone all cool yet and customized my blog template, I'm just going to try to list my unfinished knitted objects here. I keep thinking of new projects that would be "awesome" to do, but then I immediately think, But there are all those things I haven't finished yet! So in the spirit of "use what I have" month (which I came across in someone else's blog and forgot to bookmark to give credit -- oops!), I'm nudging myself toward a "use up what I have" flavored version, that is -- use up the stash I have sitting in reserve specifically for those UFOs. I don't know about anyone else, but my yarns get "assigned" to a bag with their respective project and I very rarely steal the yarn from one project for another unless I'm seriously considering abandoning the original project entirely. Sometimes I refuse to steal the needles out of a project for fear of turning it into an abandoned project because I don't feel like slipping the stitches off whatever they're on and back onto the needle I want to use. (I already have at least one of those sitting around...) So: UFOs.

Capelet thing from Winter 2006 issue of I think k.1
Knit trash can (might scrap it -- ha, ha ... -- if I decide on a more efficient/more pleasing way to make a trash can for the bathroom)
Wool pirate hat to be felted and dyed
Lace Zenlike sweater thing from one of last year's magazines
Blue Licorice and sparkly white vest from first issue of k.1
Arbitrary green cropped sweater thing I started to use up some of the Wool-Ease leftovers stash
Purple Adamas shawl
KYOAMPi garden shawl
Purple chenille fingerless gloves, of which I have one sans cuff
"Magic" stretchy furry scarf

That list looks kind of short. [Note: It looks better, in the sense of more accurate, now after adding the last two items. ;)] Maybe mentally I'm including things I haven't started yet, like...

Baby present for Liliana
Brioche stitch scarf for a RAK
Corkscrew scarf for myself
Some arbitrary summer sweater for WI trip
Another interesting knit object for indie swap
Various socks for Ben (possibly Elizabeth Zimmermann's moccasin socks to start with)
Socks for an LJ person who shall remain nameless
The Really Nameless Secret Project for someone on a Yahoogroup who must definitely remain nameless ;)
Virginia's chenille and cable scarf v.2 (technically I already finished this, but I'm going to re-make it since the original got stolen ... sigh -- but at least I know it was attractive enough to steal *rolls eyes*)

I just had this random idea that I should make another pair of the fingerless gloves in an olivey green with long shaped seed stitch cuffs. Oyyyy. Because I need another project in progress. ;)

Oh, well, at least I can rest assured I'm not the only crazy knitter in the world who has eight million things going at once.

Thrift store art revamp challenge

There's a challenge going on at Craftster involving taking a piece of horrid thrift store art and revamping (I like to think of it as "rescuing") it into something theoretically better. This is my victim:



Not as horrid as some I've seen, but horrid enough. It looks somewhat more horrid in person than in the picture; the wood is that light, somewhat yellowy, possibly pine-ish color that annoys me so much (although I know that's a personal preference of mine for non-yellowish colors). And it was 99¢, which was also good for me. ;) I think I'm going to stick with some or most of the basic lines (I do like the idea of the "starry" diamondy pattern on the frame area), but add colors and embellishments. I may even attempt to make it into something functional, although I'm not sure yet what a ten by eighteen (or so, at a guess) semi-decorative piece of wood should be made into in a more useful incarnation.

Awww, a mini sweater!

It's actually an egg cozy, and the pattern's from Melanie Falick's Weekend Knitting. I made it as part of a swap package for a Swapbot swap. (Apparently I'm trying to see how many times I can use the word "swap" in one sentence.) The person I'm swapping with likes mini things, and I figured I'd probably never have a chance to use this particular pattern again (unless I take up eating softboiled eggs?), so I went for it! The yarn is actually really cute as a sweater. It kind of makes me want to make a full-sized piece of clothing out of it. Darn you, cute mini sweater, for planting the seeds of another UFO!

And in another random note

I'll be playing with the template for the next few weeks, probably, since I like giganto pictures, and yaddayaddayadda. But it doesn't matter anyway since no one but me will read this, right? ;D

KYOAMPi muckiness and Columbia fluffies

I said earlier that I actually cast on my KYOAMPi shawl and was working on it -- amazing, and all that jazz. I should have added right then that I'd probably end up ripping it out again since that's what always happens when things seem to be going unusually well. Case in point:



That's the inside of the my KYOAMPi shawl...



...or wait! Is that the inside? Who can tell? (Particularly since it looks like a little green lace Millennium Falcon, and if that isn't distracting, what is?)

Because, see, at one point after I ripped everything out to the lifeline, handed it to the Significant Other (who has been designated the Official Stitch Put-Back-Onner for when I have to rip), and then came back to it ... I was knitting in the wrong direction. Like, so wrong that from that point on I was knitting purl bumps to the outside instead of the inside. (And I wondered why the lace pattern looked so weird...) Normally when I'm knitting in the round and have to rip back I'm magically smart and don't do this (okay, probably it has something to do with the nature of knitting lace in the round ;)), but of course usually I'm rushing and ignoring everything but my knitting as opposed to doing a leisurely knit-along between other projects. So now I'm going to end up ripping the entire thing out to the beginning and starting over from the cast on, because of course I moved the lifeline up and I'm probably going to be too "lazy" to figure out a logical place to rip back to, and where it corresponds to the pattern. I'm sure it's possible, I just probably won't feel like thinking about it that much. ;) Plus I have this niggling feeling there are imperfections I "should" fix, anyway. But maybe I'll get lucky and decide to go look up the instructions I came across the other day that say how to run a line needle through your knitting before you rip back (I've tried it before and I'm just too darned unwilling to pay that much attention, most of the time; but no duh I don't always pay attention to my knitting, or I wouldn't do things like knitting twelve rows inside-out before being sure I really was doing it).

Oh, well. I don't really mind the ripping out part. Mostly I'll be sad because I think the lace pattern would have been neat and pretty and this was my very first lace knitted in the round.

But at least I finally got some of my First Fleece processed through to its just-pre-spinning form:



(There's flash reflection in that photo; the balls of combed top are actually greener than that, though not as green as the yet-uncombed stuff in the background, which was dyed with a different ... yeah, yeah, flavor of Kool-Aid ... ;)) It's some Columbia wool I bought off eBay, and it came looking like this:



I had no idea what to expect it would look like once I had it combed, but it was AWESOME to comb and I love those little smooth fluffy ball-nest things I got out of it. But I also loved the Cotswold I got off eBay that Forced me to buy a set of wool combs, which came looking like this:



And now looks like this:



(Those white balls in the front are ... either Border Leicester or English Leicester [er, if those really are different and my brain isn't using its zoniness as an excuse to make things up], a sample that was kindly included with the combs.)

I guess I just really like processing wool. ;) The Cotswold and the Columbia behave completely differently (duh!) and I loves! Loves loves loves!

Also: signed up for a dyeing exchange on one of my spinny lists, and today I became the new owner of the Costume_Closet Yahoogroup because the original owner has decided she needs to simplify her life. I've been helping out as a mod for a while and I happened to be the first person to email her when she asked who wanted to take over ... She called it Kismet and was happy, so I'm willing to go along with it. ;D Yay! Costumey goodness! Now maybe I'll actually organize some of those things I was thinking it would be cool to do on that list, but which I didn't want to bother the owner with because I knew she was busy...

And now I've made up for the previous dearth of images. Feast or famine around here, but I guess I always do do that swinging between extremes thing.

FIBER ADDICT!

I need to stop buying fiber. Dear God I am a fiber fiend.

[This has been a public service announcement from the Crystal Will Someday Take Over the World Fund-Raising Association.]

The Mystery Pi Shawl grows / image famine

Those subjects are actually related.

Tangent: I need to stop thinking of this blog as some kind of vehicle for communicating with other people RIGHT NOW. It's not that it isn't; I just shouldn't think about it like that. It makes me write differently and I Don't Like It Dangit.

On the other hand, I've had like three hours of sleep (all right, a little more, but I should get some credit for prolonged sleep deprivation anyway) lately because of Random Projectage, which is some excuse for incoherence and disconnected subjects.

Okay, anyway. I was going to say, I actually have cast on the Knit Your Own Adventure Mystery Pi Shawl (I'd use the abbreviation but it takes me less time to type the entire thing out than to think long enough to remember the abbreviation), so I'm not completely slacking for once, but I haven't taken any photos of it because right now it's a vaguely sacklike amoeba-ish green shape on some double-pointed needles, and I'm too lazy to go and arrange it to take a good picture of it, much less try to get decent lighting. And here we see one of the reasons why I haven't bothered doing this Exciting Blog of My Life thing that everyone else has been doing for years, now. I did the "oooo, cameras are nifty!" thing in high school with my clicky camera and learning to develop and print my own black and white film and photos, and digital cameras are neat, and all, but they're too easy. I always put easy things off. I spurn easy things. It's not intentional, but I think it must be related to doing things for myself. Those projects for me and not Required For Someone Else always get put off almost till I can't help but do them because I'm so fricking bored and everything else is actually finished for once.

(And you know how much that's likely to happen.)

Plus, I'm simultaneously too lazy to go dig out the camera, plug it in, wait for it to show up on the desktop, and then have to beat down iPhoto because I still haven't figured out how to make it stop opening every time I plug in the camera. And that's not even counting time I don't feel like spending playing with the photos themselves and the way they display in the blog, in order for me to be satisfied with the entire thing. If this blog is for me, then lazy it shall be!

(And it is.) So far this "blog" (I hesitate to even give it the name although it's on Blogger, since it's pretty sub-par compared to everyone else's nifty picked-at super-improved linkful blogs) is living up to my expectations of being image-thin, as opposed to image-heavy, as they seem to say so often on Craftster. And who wants to read my blather without pretties to go along with them? Anyone? This is the Internet. People like visual pretties, right?

So I expect like nobody to ever read this past once or twice. It really is my reference blog. Mwah to those of you who bother and who accept me with the grace, compassion, humor, sisterhood (or brotherhood), and enthusiasm I desire. Woo.

An entire pound! Of tea and spinning fiber

Gosh. I just came across another blog post (someone else's, obviously ;)) that contained the words "an entire frickin' pound of roving."

I feel like my friend Hayley did when someone on the Internet applied the words "copious [or was it excessive?] amounts of tea" to three or four cups a day. Hayley is British. Hayley casually sends me tea in three-quarters-of-a-pound amounts. Hayley knows the meaning of copious/excessive amounts of tea. ;) But after all, they sell tea in half pound packages there (those are the somewhat pitifully small ones) and know that's liable to disappear in a couple of weeks ... or less if you havef flatmates who share (or "borrow" ;)).

And thanks to my lovelylovely fiber addiction and my still-growing stash of (say) fifteen to twenty pounds of fiber, I now find the idea of "an ENTIRE pound!" of roving sort of hysterically hilarious. ;) I really need some glass jars to stash my stash in, and then I can arrange it on a shelf and take a photograph of it. It's starting to be kind of like my tea hoard, except that I don't find spinning fiber at the supermarket and compulsively buy a box because I haven't had that flavor before.

...drat. ;)

Choose Your Own Adventure Mystery Pi Shawl Clue One!

The title of this post is going to be longer than the entry. ;) Yay! The first "clue" is posted! Now to decide between "super newbie easy," "easy mindless lace," and "easy but less mindless lace" difficulties -- that's the first three options. The fourth option (a flower pattern) looks intimidating to my anti-lace-empathic brain, and anyway, I like leaves (the third option) better than flowers. Hmm ... choices, choices. Hopefully I'll get to cast this on tonight. So glad the knit-along people are night owls. ;D

Corkscrew scarves!

One more UFO off the radar! It's Julie's Kool-Aid-dyed pink variegated corkscrew scarf (pattern care of the lovely Loop-d-Loop, which I think wins the Most Items Knitted From a Single Book in a Short Span of Time award for me so far):



It's hanging out with Morgan's blue corkscrew scarf, as yet unsent although long finished, because corkscrew scarves like to be together when they can. Both are in Jo-Ann yarns (I think Bellezza Collection, and the pink is wool/cotton possibly by the name of Dolcetto).

I was also going to post a semi-tutorial on how to make combed top (or at least how I make combed top), but I've chickened out during the final proofreading.

Current Project I Should Be Working On But Am Not: Mother's dress for the sister's recital. But I did cut all the pieces for the mock-up yesterday. *cough*

Next up on the radar: my first knit-along, with the kindly and wise knitters of EZasPi. Yes, my first knit-along will be of a Pi shawl. Lace and I are going to war.

Coming soon!

I've been thinking of doing this for a few days, now, so I might as well buckle down and do it ... but for now there's Nothing of Interest here. Really. Nothing. Nothing at all. No blather. No insanity. Nothing!

FYI, this is probably going to be my Craft Blog of Personal Reference, meaning I'm going to write stuff down here that I know I'll forget and/or lose otherwise. Don' 'spect the most interesting commentary on craftiness in the world -- I do the "entertaining other people" thing (on purpose) elsewhere. ;) Dis be for me!

Mwah.