I made stuff. Lots of stuff.

My road trip dissolved into the ether of unrealized dreams. Alas, it was not to be. So anyway, I actually do knit. In fact my lack of blogging has been because of a tremendous amount of knitting. As evidence I will now submit pictures of what I've been up to as well as a few pictures of FOs I hadn't gotten around to posting for some odd reason even though I finished them MONTHS ago. As always, click on the pictures for larger versions. First up we have Unbiased done in Patons Soy Wool Stripes that was a gift for Irie for her graduation. I have made Unbiased twice before in sari silk and have yet to really perfect this pattern. I have intentions to line this for Irie at my earliest convenience which will be sometime around 2022 when Lola graduates from high school. Anywho, the vital stats: Patons SWS. Britany Birch needles in size 8. Pattern alterations: Only increased to 5.5 inches so I'd have a narrower deeper bag. I actually did the whole purse in two days, in between casting off Entrelac's first sock and casting on the second. Lastly, when you seem this up in the weird order that I did you actually get something that looks like a giant goofy bra for a minute. Next up we have the Socks I'm knitting for Entrelac (Pattern from Folk Socks by Nancy Bush). I have finished the first one and am starting to panic that they don't fit so the sock you see here will be wining its way out to Texas for a fitting to ease my mind or make me cry depending on the outcome. At least it's cute, right? It's my first bit of Fair Isle type work and I'm in no hurry do do anything more ambitious. I'm very pleased with the way the first one has turned out and I'm hoping Entrelac really likes them when they're all done. She and I both live in the country's "No Sock Zone" but knitted socks are just too tempting. I love contrasting toes, they make your feet look smaller. And now the last two little projects I had been forgetting to post: Dashing and My So Called Scarf (which I have had bookmarked for years with nary the right yarn nor occasion) both out of Lorna's Laces Shepard Worsted in Mineshaft and both for my friend GK. I actually knit these up for him when he was going through a really hard time and had no heat in his house (he's in Pennsylvania). By the time I finished them it was spring and he had heat again. I've had these stuffed in a care package box that I keep forgetting to finish filling and mail. If only it were the thought that counted, eh? The scarf was done on size 11 Britany birch needles and only one glaring error was made. I didn't fix it so if you feel like it you can stare until you find it, it'll be like a really uninteresting Where's Waldo picture only instead of a cute drawing you're searching for my failure! Who could deny the fun of that? The wristies were done on Clover bamboo needles in size 7. I actually finished these up at the San Diego knitty meet up. Pomegranate has pics of them somewhere I think, I had forgotten my camera. I apologize for the shitty photos. I know pics of FOs just lying about really suck but I have no model today, Iman didn't show up and they gave Tyra her own show and I just didn't feel like trying to track down Kate Moss or Fabio because she's annoying and he's always trying to take stuff from the shoots.

At least 7.5 random things about California.

I challenged Bezzie and now I shall have to make good on my deal. 1) The Center of the World is in Felicity, California. I have never been there durring hours when it's open but Edina and I have climbed to the top of it and also pulled open the double doors to get inside after hours. They made those things lock into each other but not bolt into the ground, if you yank hard enough they just come open. Of course, they may have fixed that by now and it's not like there's anything inside it to take or anything so maybe they weren't worried about it. Eh, here's a photo from a postcard that some guy got on his trip. I have no idea if that girl got the duck at The Center of the World or if they just have a random duck walker or something. It's a weird place, who knows. 2) The largest and oldest wooden building in California is the Hotel Del Coronado on the island of Coronado here in San Diego county. It is also the second oldest remaining Victorian resort in the world. One time my buddy Dan and I wandered around the Del for several hours while he pretended to be a tourist of undefined Eastern European or Germanic origin. He kept shouting about shoddy American beer ("I have been in your country three weeks and have not yet been drunk! What is this piss you call beer!?") and asking people if they knew where they sold hot nuts (The Del used to sell hot roasted peanuts but must have stopped sometime before that particular trip). Also, most locals refer to it as The Del as opposed to The Coronado, which make no linguistiacal sense really. 3) This is a real street sign that is used on numerous freeways around San Diego. A huge deal was made of these things when they first went up and people from other states have told me they don't believe that these are really up on I-5. I see three of them on my way to drop off my husband at work every morning. In the 27 years I've been alive I have never actually seen anyone running across the freeway. Ever. 3.5) If California's economic size were measured by itself to other countries, it would rank the 7th largest economy in the world. 4.5) The U.S. Open Sandcastle Competition is held annualy in my hometown of Imperial Beach, California. Imperial Beach is considered to have some of the best sand in the counrty. I find this amusing since the beach has been eroding like crazy for the past 10 years. There's like half as much beach now as there was when I was a kid. If I owned a beach front home I'd be pretty worried. Anyway, after the competition the sand on the beach is totally displaced and for two days while it washes back out to normal it creates two sets of breakers in the water with a big, calm area in between like a swimming pool. The picture at right is actually from the amature division of last year's contest. The winning team for the main contest sculpted a giant hand holding a royal flush that was way detailed. Those people are nuts! 5.5) No one seems to know where the word California actually originated but everyone seems to have an opinion about it. (Wikipedia has a fairly good article about it.) Personally, I like the idea that it was a slam on Hernan Cortes. I find it amusing. 6.5) The only one of California's 21 Missions I have ever been to is Mission San Francisco Solano, the final mission built by the Spanish and the one farthest away from where I live. The first mission was Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala it's right here in town and though I've been by it a number of times I'm pretty sure I've never gone in. Churches wig me out and they still actually use the mission as a church. It is beautiful though, check out the picture over there. They also have a legend that if you hear the mission bells in the middle of the night you shouldn't follow them because you'll never return. You know, good old follow the bells to your death stories. Which will take me to the last fact... 7.5) According to the Travel Channel's show America's Most Haunted the U.S. government actually keeps a list of the most haunted places in our country. The number one house on that list is Whaley House in San Diego's Old Town area. If you stop through town, I'll take you there. Afterward we can go over to the Haunted Coldstone down the street. Okay, so Coldstone isn't haunted but we say it is since it's located in between Whaley House and the graveyard where Yankee Jim is burried. Although there's plenty of skepticism to go around, I have to admit there are many weird things that go on in that locale. Not the least of which being that if you park your car over the grave markers in the road (the cemetary line was moved back ages ago and some of the graves are under the paved road, there are small brass plaques simply stating "Grave Site" where graves have been paved over) your car won't start. It doesn't always happen and it doesn't happen to everyone but it happens just enough to be really odd. The photo below is of my sister Shaniqua and my cousins Irie and Hawkeye at Yankee Jim's grave. And thus ends my 7.5 facts about California that are mostly about San Diego since that's where I'm from. Since I mostly talked about SoCal, I think CPurl17 should tell us about NorCal. On the knitting front, I'm working on a pair of socks for Entrelac that I will show you just as soon as I'm sure they're looking right. Lastly, my baby girl is THREE years old today. Yikes!

More from the Overalls of Shame

Welcome to my blog pictoral essay of the Overalls of Shame being recieved. I hope you enjoy it. I'm not great at following directions. Anticipation. Initial shock. Totally baffled. Still baffled. Then Aunt Blondie jumped in to try to explain it since she had seen them a couple days before. Finally she figured it out. This is Irie reading all the emails I got from everyone who wants to be part of the world tour. She's pretty excited about that, I think. And here's Irie and I together. See, she still likes me. Though she may be plotting revenge...

Overalls of Shame and Cemetary Hopping

The knitter's nightmare, The Overalls of Shame as they've been dubbed in prominant circles (yes, the knittyboard is a prominant circle because I like to feel important), are going to be knitted by an actual person other than the designer. That brave soul is me. They are the gag gift to end all gag gifts and I can't take it any longer. After MONTHS of looking at them all over the internet I broke down and swapped for the magazine that had the pattern. It arrived just yesterday and it was everything I had ever hoped for. The downer in this project is that I can't afford the yarn for them, I really can't afford any non-Christmas gift yarn at all which is why all my new projects over there are Christmas gifts. But those awesome knittyheads with senses of humor as dark as mine heard my plea and are sending me their extra balls of Glitterspun, Magic Stripes, and even some Fun Fur for trim. What that means is that these things are going to be about a thousand colors and trimmed at the thighs (and possibly the straps) with Fun Fur, and you thought they couldn't get any uglier. You were wrong. So very wrong. Which brings me to the question everyone has been asking, "Sarah, why would you spend time and effort on these hideous things? Is there something wrong with you?" Yes, something is wrong with me, perhaps even a multitude of things, but that's not why I want to do this. I'm doing this for some very special relatives of mine. My best girls in the world. My sister and my three girl cousins (one of which isn't in this picture, she had to stay home that night). Yes, that's right I'm doing this because I know that then I will win the ongoing gag gift competition between myself and said relatives. Previous gifts have included a Learn to do the Macerena video, a candle in the shape of a shriner monkey, a t-shirt beset with bows and a scrawled with a magic marker stating, "My favorite relative gave me this shirt." We're strange people, we know. We knew that the night we went all over town looking for cemeteries to spook ourselves out. The one from the picture is in Old Town San Diego, the famous grave of Yankee Jim, in fact. Really it was a fun night despite the fact that nothing spooky happened. We did have a few moments of panic in the middle of nowhere when we thought we might run out of gas. It just seems a shame that I missed the big scare a few weeks before: my sister had dropped me off at home and was taking the girls back to her place when they drove past this thing. It wasn't all well lit at the time and passing it at 45 miles an hour all they knew was that something large and inhuman was looming over the road. Ah, to be scared by a lawn ornament. I miss the best stuff. So anyway, I'm going to make the Overalls of Shame. It's going to be awesome.