Hide the yarn, Sarah's on the loose.

Soooooo. I decided to make Crumpets for Lola Beans' birthday. Very cute. I thought to myself, hey, I have some DK weight yarn around here. Turns out it was KP Merino Style in Storm. Didn't much care for it for Miss Beans so I thought I'd over-dye it and make it sort of a verigated purple. Did I mention I've never dyed anything before? Well, inexperience has never stopped me from jumping into the wading pool head first before so I gathered up some Kool-Aid packets and went to town. It didn't go as I had hoped. Then I decided I'd try something just for you, my readers. In the history of knitbloggers I have never heard of anyone trying to bleach a bad dye job and re-dye it (like I've done to my poor hair in the past). So I have four (yes four) skeins of Merino style sitting in a bleach soak in the sink as I type this. I'm afraid to go look at it's progress. Okay, it's time, I'll keep you posted. Edit: So far it doesn't look much different but it's wet. One of the skeins is a bit greenish now. The rest look a tad lighter but like I said, they're still wet. I don't know if it was the bleach or the fact that I rung them out (because I don't care that much anymore) but they did full slightly. I ran my fingers through them a bit and they're fine now. They're hanging in the garage to dry. I'm off to shop for back up yarn. Toodles.

The Muppets rule

You Are Fozzie Bear "Wocka! Wocka!" You're the life of the party, and you love making people crack up. If only your routine didn't always bomb! You may find more groans than laughs, but always keep the jokes coming. The Muppet Personality Test I took it twice, the first time I got Animal.

Punkrawker86

My thoughts are with the family of Miss Megan after her rather sudden departure from the land of the living yesterday. She was a very sweet girl with a kind word for everyone and a generous heart. It's so strange to deal with death in such an abstract way, I've never met Megan in the real world, I don't think I've ever even seen her picture, but I conversed with her at least once a week through the knittyboard and nearly everywhere I look today there are little reminders of her (she sent me a truckload during holiday SP). I wish her well wherever she's moved on to and I'll think of her whenever I pick up the fabulous bag she made me, watch Incubus, or try in vain to crochet. What's particularly odd is that I just this morning picked up some of the yarn she sent me to make something for a friend who's dad also died yesterday.

Stretching it out

Forget it, blogger hates me. Find the pictures HERE and HERE. Ahem. MAY THE UNHOLY WRATH OF MAUDE BE VISITED UPON WHATEVER INFIDEL IS SUPPOSED TO MAINTAIN BLOGGER PICTURES AND TORMENT HIM/HER UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THEY TURN IT INTO A FUNCTIONING UTILITY! So, ultimately what I'm saying is check back later for pictures. As mentioned in my last post I finished things. That is, more than one thing. So here's the other thing I finished: a purse. It's my own design (you can probably tell because it's not that great) and if I had it to do over it would be much wider and possibly longer. I think it looks out of balance with the handles. Since I gave it away to someone I barely knew I don't care too much though. The cable came out of the Viking Knits book I got recently. I do like the cable very much and it was fun. Except that one part where I crossed all the cables the wrong direction and didn't notice until an entire repeat later and actually went back and fixed it. That part wasn't to fun. Oh! I'm totally excited about this, my mom's freind recently took up knitting after many years of not knitting (how lame am I writing this morning?) but she used to knit. She comes over for little stuff sometimes like advice on how to do certain things or for me to show her something she's forgotten how to do. Anyway, last week she came over because her bind off on a hat was unravelling and I actually helped her fix it! I know that may sound king of stupid but considering that I'm the type of person who throws a small project away when it all goes wrong (and a large project will just get stashed away for YEARS until someone else finds it and throws it away) I thought this was rather a large accomplishment. I have skills! Dear Maude, I may actually be pretty good at this stuff. Okay, that was too far. P.S. How awesome is my tag?

I finished things!

Two whole knit projects DONE! As my four year old would say, "BOOYAH!" We've been VERY busy. Last week I had two knit projects to finish (and start) but also we had out of town guests (guess who the projects were for). I have TONS of pictures to share so I'm going to have to spread it out since blogger takes forever to load pictures. Today I shall give you the Saga of the Alien. So I decided to make a Kate for Tonka and Cathrine the Great's little boy but I didn't want it to be girly so I decided not to do the stripes, I'd just make it blue. Also, I didn't have any safety eyes so I had to just embroider a face (if you can call it that). Lastly the blue yarn I had wasn't worsted weight it was dk so I went down a needle size and hoped. As it turned out, Kate didn't end up Kate. What I ended up with looked more like a little alien so that's what I made him. Antenna instead of ears. But my poor little alien had another problem, his skin was see through! You could see his stuffing! Now that wouldn't do at all, so I decided to help him by taking him to a special alien skin fortifying clinic called My Kitchen where he could be fixed. First my little alien friend had to be fitted to the proper sized treatment tub. After several tries we found the perfect one just for him (an ex-potato pan). And he seemed pretty excited about starting his treatment, well that is until he realized that we were going to fillthat treatment tub with boiling water and a bit of woolwash (just a bit to kill any alien diseases he might be carrying). He wasn't to sure about that (the hot tub not the disease control). Our little friend was brave though and soon hopped right into the tub where he discovered that hot tubs are fun! He was happy to hang out in there for a few minutes while I went to go get him a medicinal margarita. True that at that time of the day he should have had some other medicinal "m" product... Ahem, anyway. He had to spend quite some time in that hot tub and I think he fell asleep in there. Good thing he doesn't need to breathe because he slipped right under the water and took a nap! Or he may have passed out from his medicinal margaritas... Uh, are aliens supposed to drink tequila? Oh well, too late now. After awhile it was time for step two of the treatment: a quick rinse so that he was cool enough for his human helpers to move him with their hands instead of tongs which, by the way, are not the best way to move heavy, wet, boiling-hot wool aliens. Human handlers should instead proceed to the sink with the tub in hand and dump the whole thing into the sink without ever attempting to manipulate the alien as they will have plenty of oppertunity to do so after he's cooled to a point where he will not scald you. Perhaps this human should have read the handbook. Oh well, next time. So, quick shower to rinse out the disinfectant (Kookaburra Wool Wash), to cool him back down, and sober up the little drunken lout. Just look at him! What a sloppy, sloppy drunk. Lying there all passed out in the sauna (uh, scroll back up a sec, see drunk as a skunk), limp as a rag doll. Tsk-tsk. Can't hold his liquor at all, that one. And on to the next, and final, phase of treatment: the sauna. Now this treatment facility has a very state of the art Kenmore sauna with a tumble or no tumble option. Since this little guy had opted not to have a fuzzy coat, we chose the tumble-free option and he sat very happily in there for a good two to three hours. Woolly (woolley? wooley? Seems like there should be an 'e'. Eh, I'm to lazy to look it up some one will comment about it, I'm sure) aliens take a LONG time to dry! But it was all worth it in the long run because his skin was beautiful when we were all done. Nice and tight and firm but no felting in sight! Congratulations little alien friend, you are a translucent freak no longer.

Erg! Blogger!

I got halfway through my very long and very amusing post about boiling an alien and blogger won't upload the second half of my pictures. Just know that I'm trying to upload them and finish today's post. Perhaps in a while it'll stop having a fit at me.

THANK YOU SP!

A great big thanks to my SP who sent me a very full package from the UK. It arrived yesterday. Here it is in all it's glory! I'd say more but it took me over a half hour just to get blogger to upload these photos. So My SP is great! And now on to the package and contents.

Half-assing my way through life

It's going to be another week of scant posts. NO! Not scat posts, scant posts, meaning few and far between. Maude, get your mind out of the gutter. I have out of town guests coming. I'm so excited! My son's godfather (who is one of the main factors that got Red Todd Kidd and I together) and his wife are coming for a visit. Now I'm faced with a conundrum: he goes by a nickname so when I blog about him do I use his nickname or do I make up a new nickname? I actually have a couple of people I've never nicknamed on my blog because, well, I don't really know. Wow, anonymity is hard. Eh, I'll just go with Tonka. Anyway, Tonka and his wife, (uh... name for her, I need a name for her...crap I'm really stuck here...) Cathrine the Great, their son, and Tonka's mom are coming out for a visit. I haven't seen him in four years and I haven't seen Cathrine the Great in three. Plus since they're coming a bunch of our other friends are coming too: Fuzzy Tail and her boy toy, Stripes, as well as The Single Letter and Kaylee. I'm totally excited, can you tell? The point of me telling you all this was to let you know that I'm not going to be around much. Especially since it's going to be The Single Letter's AND Tonka's mom's birthday while they're here so I'm baking two cakes and trying to quickly make one of those little cable knit purses that everyone has made. Oh, but I can't just follow the easy pattern, noooooooo. I had to decide to pull a cable out of my new Viking Knits book and try that. I'm about to go rip it out and start over to add some extra selvedge. Why do I do this to myself? Sometimes I think someone should just strangle be with my circs and take my stash. (The picture above is The Single Letter and Fuzzy Tail from a couple years ago)

Vegas baby, Vegas

Three years ago today I was in Vegas getting married. It rained. It also hailed and flash flooded. Some would call that a sign, I call it Worst Road Rage Ever. It was a series of mishaps from start to finish. Apart from the inclement weather, we also faced an overbookage nightmare in that the Nascar race was there that weekend and there were NO hotel rooms in the entire vicinity. Seriously. We managed to nab a place after several hours of searching, it was sub par to say the least. They had painted over the windows instead of putting up curtains, it was made of cinder block, and every single channel on the tv was blocked out (which we figured out by using a bobby pin to flip the channels since the thing had no buttons). I mean, why even have one? All four of us (Myself, Red Todd Kidd, The Single Letter, and Fuzzy Tail) had to stay in that one room since there were no others. Oh, actually I forgot the first mishap of all (before we even left San Diego): Red Todd Kidd's ring. I couldn't get one. He wanted white gold, he wears a 12. I went to every damn department store in town and nothing (they don't stock that size but if I oredered it it could be in on Monday). I hit two pawn shops, no luck. Finally, I went to this weird jewelry shop near my old apartment that leaves their Christmas lights up all year. They sell estate jewelry and I thought I might get lucky. They didn't have anything BUT they had just gotten a bunch of stuff at an estate sale and hadn't gone through it yet. I told them I was desperate and I'd help them look. Awesome as they were, they pulled out a cart of tubs of unsorted, bagged, jewelry and three of us sat down and started searching. They found one yellow gold size 12 which was as close as anyone has gotten to what I was looking for. The owner told me to buy the ring and to come in when we got back from Vegas and he'd have a white gold size 12 waiting for me, even swap (not quite even actually, he gave me free engraving so in his ring it says, "Vegas baby, Vegas 3-01-2003"). Which is exactly what I did. Then there was the wedding itself. We couldn't get an Elvis since the whole city was fabulously crowded with Nascar fans getting hitched. What we ended up with was a female minister who was from somewhere in the UK. I couldn't place her since her speech was so slurred because she was hammered. She actually started singing about rainbows in the middle of the vows. The four of us were trying really hard not to laugh since at that point we thought we might actually show people the tape of our wedding someday. In truth, I only bust the thing out for a good laugh at parties once everyone's had a few. Don't we all look lovely in that photo? You would not believe how bright it was in that place. Talk about your Land of the Midnight Sun. And it was WHITE. Consequently the photos are washed out. Badly. To top it off we look like some weird gothic/rockabilly something. It was a total coincidence that we were all in black. Hell, I wanted a red dress. The only dress I could get that fit on short notice was that black one. I'm actually wearing platform shoes that make me seven inches taller because the dress was WAY too long (it was still just grazing the floor). But we did managed to get married. We did have a lot of great laughs. We did garner strange looks from rednecks as we blared the country cover version of Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice" as we cruised through Vegas. And that freinds, is what really matters.