Cashmere, Alpaca, and Cookies.

The first paragraph shall be called "Link Overkill": Two balls of Panache and two of Andean Treasure, both in Moss. In real life the colors are a bit closer which is good since they're going into the same project: Elizabeth by Kate Gilbert. Erika's Christmas present. I can't wait to start working with this beautiful stuff, though in retrospect I wish I'd ordered Suri Dream instead of one of them. I think it would have worked better with the pattern. Alas, that's not to be. Well, maybe I kinda want to order some Suri Dream anyway for another project but if I do that Red Todd Kidd might just kill me in my sleep. Probably by suffocating me with the yarn. Which may not be a bad way to go if it's Suri Dream... Anyway, as you can see I also got some wool wash that comes very highly recommended. I'm excited about it. Being excited by a laundry product is a little scary but I'll work through it. Anyway, I mostly bought it to wash Wavy with before it goes to RTK's grandma. I'd like to see if the yarn blooms and softens a bit plus I want to make sure it's clean and nice not to mention free of excess dyes. I don't think I'll block it though because I have a feeling Wavy won't want to be blocked. It's a "don't pin me down!" type of scarf. I like getting stuff in the mail. Uh... So... I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies last night. What a mistake! They're SO GOOD. I think I weigh 20 extra lbs today. Want the recipe? No, you really don't because then you'll weigh 20 more lbs tomorrow. Oh okay here it is (you see when I go in the kitchen for the recipe I can get another cookie): Super Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies by Firefighter Mariano Elias Jr. (this came off a fireman calendar) 1/2 C Peanut Butter 3/4 C Butter (softened) 1/2 C Brown Sugar 1/2 C Sugar 1 Egg 1/2 tsp Vanilla 1 1/4 C Flour 1/2 tsp Baking Soda 1/4 tsp Salt 1/2 C Chocolate Chips Beat P. Butter, Butter, Sugars, Egg, and Vanilla together until well blended. Stir together dry ingredients. Stir dry ingredients slowly into butter mixture until well mixed. Fold in Chocolate Chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonful on ungreased cookie sheet (preferably parchment lined but it's okay not to use it) approx. 2" apart. Bake 12-15 minutes at 375F, then allow to cool for 2 min before removing to baking rack. Makes 3 dozen.

A first glimpse at Shame

I've finished the first leg of the Overalls of Shame. I know it doesn't look like a whole leg but remember, they're hot pants. It's taking me longer than I expected because it's been FREAKING FREEZING in my house. I had to get metal needles for this project because they were out of Clovers in size 10 at the Michael's I dragged RTK (Red Todd Kidd) to and I wasn't about to suggest going to a second Michael's the day after Thanksgiving. So one pair of red Boye needles and one pair of shiny silver Susan Bates. I've discovered I like the SB needles, the cords are excellent. I just wish they didn't suck all the heat from my hands and make me feel as though they're made ice and that my hands will never again find warmth but like I said, the cords are nice. And now I have two links for you that are almost as crazy as the Overalls. This one is to an article I accidentally found yesterday, nevermind why, you have to read through the first page AND the second page. The first page orients you to what it's about and the second page will crack you up. I almost stopped reading before the second page but later I was curious and went back and it was totally worth it. I was laughing out loud. You can find the article here: Historically Significant Tampons. And in case you miss the link in the article, the link to the site of the guy being interviewed (yep, it's a guy) is here: The Museum of Menstruation. Seriously it's funny.

Thanksgiving+Craft Faire+FO=Happy

The 3lbs of M&Ms my SP sent are gone. Can you believe that? I think my brother ate most of them. I put a pretty good dent in 'em but I think he ate most of them. But on to business. Thanksgiving weekend was nice. Red Todd Kidd was off from school the whole weekend and got off work early on Friday so we got to see him. Yipee! We did your normal family stuff Thanksgiving day and just kinda hung around the rest of the weekend. We went to a craft faire on Saturday where I got a little Christmas shopping done and we discovered that Chickie Mama doesn't care much for country music. Evidence to the left. Friday afternoon we got a visit from some relative that live in LA and they brought presents for the kids. The little scarf In the pic was one of the gifts. It's really cute, beaded knitting. There's a little hat crocheted to match. Oh I'll just post another pic. Hang on. Okay there. It was the first one you saw. I also discovered that some people will make anything out of anything and try to sell it to you for ungodly amounts of money. Don't get me wrong, some of the stuff was awesome like the stepstool/ironingboard/chair for $150 but there were also some pretty awful things like the tie-dye booth. I also came across this Christmas stocking made of cow hide. I can't decide whether it's awesome or awful. I'm leaning toward awesome but the woman wanted $55 for it, $65 if you wanted your name on it. I guess it's better than the loofah encased in soap but at least that I could afford. There was woman there selling these beautiful king size quilts with shams for $295. Can you believe that? These were fairly intricate quilts and yes, they were done on a sewing macine but still, that's less than you'd pay in a department store for a "quilt" that was mass produced. Gratuitous photo of my kid with a sheep: In knitting news I finally completed Wavy and have started the Overalls of Shame. Yes, that's right, I'm working on them. They will be completed before Christmas. I've done a provisional cast on, as suggested by one of you, so that I can go back and add Fun Fur cuffs when the fur arrives. I've got to say the Magic Stripes is awful. I really don't like this colorway. I guess I'm just not the type of perdon who needs a denim/white/red/baby blue/brown self striping yarn. Silly me. Anyway, about Wavy: It was done with Paton's Merino courtesy of Zknitter. I decided to add a fringe to the ends but beaded it so it'd be a little different. I'm really hoping that the recipiant likes it (my dh's grandmother).

A bit cheerier, perhaps.

Yeah, some good stuff happened. My (large extended) family isn't drawing names for a Christmas gift exchange this year. That really helps us out considering how broke we are. One of my cousins, Hawkeye, was sorely disapointed about it so we've decided to do a mini Secret Santa between the girl cousins. There are only five of us so I'm not sure how secret it will be. The rules are (because we're all broke): 1) You have to make your gift. 2) You have to use either things you already have or spend no more than $10. You know what this means don't you, oh faithful 3 readers or so? Overalls of Shame. The time has come. It has been ordained. Other good stuff that happened this weekend: -Went out with friends on Saturday night (best part was when we got lost). All in all it was probably one of the worst night out ever but since it was still out, I'm not going to complain (much). -Saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We even got a 15 minute intermission when the power went out. Delightful. But the movie was good, I got to see some good close ups to the scarf (I'd alter the pattern if I ever had to make another), and again I was out of the house. But the best thing that happened this weekend was I got a package frommy Hoilday Secret Pal! She seems to know me well. It included: Three hanks of 100% Alpaca in green, grey, and black. A hank of some orange sparkley yarn (wool, silk, alpaca, sparkle blend) already earmarked for an Ipod cozy for my sister who will love and cherish any orange sparkly object. The movie Incubus, starring a pre-Star Trek William Shatner and filmed in Esperanto, it's a horror movie. I can't wait to watch it, I don't even know where she found this thing. I'm sure it's going to be AWESOMELY bad. It was mentioned briefly in a bad movie thread on knitty and I said I'd love to get my hands on it, that's some good detective work, SP! She also sent me s Crocheting for Dummies and some crochet hooks so I can (hopefully) finally learn to crochet. I got a three pound bag of plain M&Ms, one of my favorite candies (must have cost a fortune to mail!). A Lantern Moon sheep tape measure which my son has named "Chompy, like the goat," I have no idea what he's talking about but it's cute anyway. She sent me Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac, which as much as I've read has been informative and amusing. Oh and a mixed CD that is spookily well made, I like all the songs. Lastly and not in the picture was a box of Hershey's Goodnight Kiss Hot chocolate mix, I don't know if she knows I boycott Nestle to the best of my ability or not but I though it was awesome that she found some non-Neslte hot chocolate! I usually have to hunt pretty hard or buy gourmet (Godiva is awesome, Ghriardelli not quite so good, Land-o-Lakes is good but don't mix it with milk, only water). And that, friends was my sweet, sweet Holiday SP haul. Hard to be bitchy with all that great stuff starin' at me. Okay, I'm off to finish Wavy so I can start on the Overalls of Shame. I have vowed to finish Wavy first. My sister has kindly agreed to let me put off the Harry Potter scarf until all my Christmas knitting is done, I think because she wants to see those overalls just as badly as you all do. EDIT: Oh yeah, the card my SP sent with the monkey on it. On the outside it says: "Know what day it is?" and inside it says: "Neither do I." In case anyone was wondering.

About that shirt...

So I decided there are probably a lot of people who need a shirt declaring there undying devotion to creating more and more unfinished objects. Want one? Go to my new Cafe Press store and grab one up. http://www.cafepress.com/stuffityped

My Motto

Lately my motto seems to be either "I quit" or "I'm almost halfway done." Seriously, look over at my progress bars there. Go ahead, I'll wait. Okay now that you're back, do you notice how many of them have changed into simpler projects or dissapeared entirely? I threw the Garish Sock in the trash, by the way. I think that was the best place for it. What was left of the yarn that was usable went to my little brother's school in a big bag of craft donations. Well, just had a lovely conversation with Red Todd Kidd. Why do people keep expecting things from me? I just dissapoint them. I think I need to get a bunch of t-shirts printed that say: "I finish nothing. Ever. The more important it is the less likely I am to finish it. The more you push on me the more I'll resent you and the less likey that I'll finish it. I won't finish it. Ever." Then I'll wear them everyday. That way I don't have to keep having conversations with people about finishing things, you know unless they've called and can't see the shirt. I think that kinda changes the motto from before, eh? New motto: "I'm not going to finish it." Doesn't matter what "it" is, chances are it won't be done. Oh, the self loathing. I'm so cheery and uplifting today. I think I need to go read Aloha and Oreos and come back. Keohinani always has some crazy antics that make me laugh. I'll be right back. Hee-hee. She makes her yarn talk. Ahem. Okay, here's the knitting part: I called my sister last night and told her there was no way I was going to be able to finish the Harry Potter scarf by Friday. She wasn't mad or dissapointed which was a relief. I promised to have it done for her as soon as I could so she could still get some use out of it before it's 80 degrees out again. On a related note, I have decided that if I ever think it's a good idea to knit a seven foot scarf in the round again there will be an absolute MAXIMUM of 75 stitches, 90 is just stupid. After talking to my sister I decided it was time to drag out Wavy (man did it feel lighter than air after the HPM-Harry Potter Monster). I could NOT figure out where I was in the pattern so I guessed and not only was I wrong but I didn't realize it for about 15-20 rows. So then I ripped back past where I started to the last place that I could be certain of, the end of the last pattern repeat, and started from there. An hour later I was back where I started. We'll see if I do any actual knitting on it today. Or on anything else, really. Why bother? I won't finish it.

Lagging

I'm not even halfway done with the scarf. My fingers were hurting yesterday and I could only manage about 12 rounds before I gave up. I'm going to throw myself into it today but the likelyhood of finishing is becoming ever slimmer. I promise more interesting blogging next week. Promise.

Hold everything!

Harry Potter comes out when?!? You see, I thought it was coming out in the middle of December, not Friday. I have completed exactly three pattern repeats out of 14 on the Harry Potter scarf. Everything will be on hold this week while I'm knitting like mad. Quick edit to add the photo over there. I know it looks like four pattern repeats are completed but the first 27 rounds don't count, the pattern repeats start at the first yellow stripe.

Revived

My knitting zest has returned; any day now a package will arrive with the final components required for The Overalls of Shame. I have the pattern. I have the Glitterspun. I have almost allof the Magic Stripes. All I'm waiting on is a little package from Seven with the rest of the Magic Stripes and I'm good to go. It'd be nice to add some Fun Fur to the thigh area but I can live without it. Oh, the atrocity of it all. [cue evil laugh] I've been cheerfully knitting away on my sister's Harry Potter PoA scarf in my anticipation. Aside from a minor rant about the cheap-ass quality of the cheap-ass yarn I'm using it's been smooth sailing. I've made it through a whopping two pattern repeats! Hey, cut me some slack, the thing is 90 stitches in the round on size 8s it takes awhile to get through the 38 rounds in one pattern repeat, at least there's no purling. If you were calculating in your head it all comes out to 53,210 stitches not including the three needle bind off on both ends. The of course there will be the fringe. Can you tell that this isn't my favorite project? All in all I'm in a better mood today. But can it last? [cue music: dum DUM DUUUUM!]

Crappily we roll along.

My brother's wombat had to be one section of a totem pole. I think it turned out alright. He was amazed at all the craft stuff I had. I was kind of amazed too. I need to get rid of some crap. I think I'm going to start a new project today. One I don't alreay hate. Maybe a nice quick easy hat. Something to get me going again. Something that's not a Harry Potter scarf. I wish I had something good in my stash. Sigh. Things continue to suck around here. Some really bad things have been going down lately that I can't really discuss. Sufice to say that my dad's business parter is a thief and we'll be suffering the consequences. (For those that don't know, my husband, my kids, and I are living with my parents while my husband finishes school. He's gone from 7am to 10-11pm everyday and I needed some help.) Hey look at the cute kids! Aren't they sweet? They're dancing. Okay, I'm off to find a project. Wish me luck, I'm going to need it I think. One more thing, if you haven't checked out Aloha and Oreos you should. My little Hawaian knit-blogging, wrestling, ice-cream-loving, two-sock-at-once-knitting friend is hilarious and everyone should read her blog.

Novel? What novel? Quick look over there!

Soooooooooo. If you'd like to know how I'm doing on my novel the answer is poorly. I haven't worked on it at all since day two. I haven't been knitting either. I think that my brain is forcing me away from anything that I love and am trying to kill because I've attached a deadline to it. Come December 1st I'll have a hundred great novel ideas and December 26th I'll be an unstoppable knitting deamon but for right now I'm slacking off. I haven't been entirely unproductive. I went to the duty free this weekend for cheap booze. I ran through a couple of Spanish lessons on my brand new Rosetta Stone software. I haven't learned anything useful yet but if a guy falls off a horse anywhere I can sure as hell tell you about it. Wait I think I just forgot how to say fall(ing). Crap. No wait I remember, it's ball I can never remember. You know what's really great? On Lesson 1 on the Arabic Rosetta Stone thing they have you learning the name of an animal that you can't really see the head of in the picture. It might be a goat, I don't know. So you spend all this time and effort trying to figure out how to say and correctly choose this animal that you can't really see. Okay maybe it's not really great but it is funny. Anyway, Rosetta Stone seems to be a really great (and this time I don't mean funny I actually mean really great) program. If you get a chance to try it out you should. They have a free online demo on their website. Okay time to go, I have to help my brother make a wombat.

KHAN!

So here's the start of the Harry Potter scarf. I've made it through a whopping ONE pattern repeat. This thing is ungodly boring. It doesn't helpthat I really don't care about Harry Potter. The worst part of all is that it's being made of the lowest quality of all acryilic yarns. Actually that's not entirely true, the yellow is a different brand that I actually like but the burgandy is itchy and awful. I covered the labels in the pic I uploaded to protect those with delicate sensibilities. Funny story about this picture. Or rather, painful accident story about this picture. Just after I took this I took a step backward and tripped over an armchair. It's not like it moved or anything, I knew it was there, I was just out of it. Since my hands were tangled it the camera strap I fell flat on my back. Like a very short tree being chopped down. As soon as I hit the ground both of the kids came running over... to jump on me. So my back hurts now. Especially the spot where the fat seam in my cheap-ass Walmart jeans bruised me. I have finally come to terms with the fact that I will not be able to knit either Elizabeth I scarf before Christmas. I'm really sad about this because I really think both intended recipiants would have really liked them. I guess there's always next year, it's not like yarn goes bad. I do have some good news though, my mom decided she'd rather give a Bubby to Erin and Lauren instead of a sheep and a llama. A Bubby takes me two days, the llamas and sheep take at least three. In all honesty I'm in a total knitting funk. I don't want to knit ANY of the things I should be working on. I want a new project. I want something I get to keep. To date I have only made myself ONE thing. Ever. My felted boots. That's it. I want a Lady Elanore Entrelac Stole (I keep gazing longingly at it in my copy of Scarf Style)! I want a Greek Pullover! I want something made out of Andean Treasure! I want hats! I want toknit whatever I want and not have any deadlines!!! I was looking through Loop-d-Loop the other day. Why? Why must I look in pattern books. I should know by now there will ALWAYS be something I want? Now I need that book and a HUGE yarn budget. Knit Pixie changed their name to Kpixie, I'm sure you've heard, until I found out about this I had never visited their site. Now there's a bunch of stuff on there I want. Like this headwrap thing. When would I EVER wear that? Never that's when. But I've gone and gawked at it several times over the last couple days. Just like this hat by the same designer. Baby Girldoesn't need that. Plus it looks like a pain to make. But it's SO cuuuuute! I also found a sweater I think Red Todd Kidd might actually wear and like. The thing is it would cost a fortune to make but since it's hempit would last forever. It would also take forever to make. Damn you Kpixie! (I'm screaming this in a Shatner, Wrath of Khan kind of way:) KPIXIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I must hate myself.

Seriously. I started a Harry Potter scarf for my sister. I had her buy the yarn, I was going to show her how to do it but then all of the sudden I was just making it. I don't know how it happened but it did. I guess what with writing the novel and all that other stuff going on I just didn't have enough to do. I was just starting to get my life back. No more Halloween costumes, no more birthday stuff, just the usual Christmas I-want-to-kill-myself rush coming. Nothing that doesn't happen every year, you know. But NO I have to write a novel and get a bunch of new projects. What a freaking idiot. If I could clone me I wouldn't even use my clone to do half the work I would just have her slap me because that's what I really need. To slap myself back into reality. There's a special plateau of crazy that I've just ascended to isn't there?

Today I started on a great journey...

NaNoWriMo started today. I had trouble getting my first day's words hammered out because I was faced with almost constant interruptions. But after 12 hours, I have my daily quota of 1,667 words commited to paper. For this novel I've chosen the simple tale of two friends faced with alien invasion as they do their laundry. I think it will be called Stripmall. I know it willbe better suited to a B-movie than a novel. Maybe someday it will be both. I've posted the start of it on the NaNoWriMo blog, if anyone cares to read it. Just remember it's about quantity not quality, people.