rawr. Grizzly Bear. (rawr love.)

I found this and fell in love. Just wanted to share.

My mess and gifts.

See this mess? This is the area that is normally so inspiring for me. Well, needless to say, in this chaotic state it leaves much to be desired. Reorganizing this mess is definitely on my to-do list. Hopefully soon. I am doing quite a bit of knitting right now but that is no excuse for it to look like this. :(

I got presents in the mail today. :) Presents from my good friend myklia who is such a sweetheart! On to the goods...

LOVELY yarn. I can't believe how soft this 100% acrylic yarn is! I am usually a really big yarn snob but this stuff has melted my snobby heart. The first is a Halloween inspired colorway and the second is what we are calling 'super hero' because well, it looks like you put a bunch of super heroes in a blender and mixed them all up. Hows that for imagery?

She was also a doll and sent me some FABULOUS craft felt. I am obsessed with craft felt lately and I have never seen these textured sheets before!! LOVE them! (hmm... what can I make with these????) Thank You Jeanette!

My Grandmother.

My Grandmother passed away on October 30, 2009 and I just wanted to share some photos that I found in one of her many boxes that were given to me. There are so many refreshed memories in this box, these three photos are just a brief sampling of the woman that she was.

I miss her very much. I had the opportunity to say my goodbye last week and the following day she suffered another stroke and was left completely unresponsive. I am so Thankful for taking that hour just to sit with her and enjoy her brief moments of lucidity.

Love. Take a moment today and think of someone and do something, say something, just for them to let them know how you cherish their impact on your life.


Photo 1: My brother, myself, Grandma. (Guessing 1994?)
Photo 2: Myself, Grandma (1998)
Photo 3: My Grandma holding my brother, I am standing. (1983)

NaKnitMo

a.k.a. National Knit Month. NaKnitMo is a group that I belong to on Ravelry see group: NaKnitMo
which in the month of November, each member strives to meet their number of stitches knit goals. It is a knitter's version of the National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo where novelists are striving for a 50,000 word goal.

Well, I am not a writer. Pretty obvious right??? Since I have fewer than 20 blog posts and only 6 (WONDERFUL) followers. I don't really have a lot to say and even less patience putting it down. But, I am quite fond of knitting. AND the Holidays are quickly approaching. I have some holiday knitting that I need to get cracking on. What better incentive?

If you feel like joining, GREAT! If not, feel free to cheer me on. I plan on updating my ravelry projects page with finished objects for this and hopefully this blog.

Happy Knitting!!

p.s. This is my first attempt at a ticker... please forgive me if this doesn't update.

Information for Swap Partners

Hi! I have seen so many other posts like this and always appreciated knowing that someone took the time for their partners to get this all down in one place for easy reference.

Allergies:

• Alpaca. This is a very serious allergy for me. I cannot have anything with any amount of alpaca fibers in it.
  
• Nickle. I am allergic to most metals but nickle being the usual trigger of reactions. I have been known to have problems with sterling silver and stainless steel too. Because of these allergies, I rarely wear jewelery even if it is beaded because I just never got into the routine of doing so.
  
• Not allergies but bothersome just the same: Cigarette smoke and synthetic fragrances. These can trigger migraines.

Colors:

• LOVE: Olive, eggplant, rust, mustard, jewel tones and I LOVE browns. I wear a lot of earth and rich jewel tones.
• PASS: I am not a fan of pastels. Especially pink. I like to say that I am allergic to pink. ;-)

Supplies:
Supplies are always a safe bet for me.

• I am currently obsessed with anything relating to felt. So, craft felt be it wool or synthetic, wool yarn for fulling, roving for needle felting would all be welcome with open arms.
• Yarn: I am a yarnie and will always be a yarnie. I find myself using more wool these days but would welcome almost any blend except fun fur types or alpaca blends of course.
• Sizzix dies: I recently purchased a sizzix bigkick machine and would love it if anyone has any dies to share.
  
• Paper: This ties in with the above information. Any scrapbooking paper.
  

Well, this is a start. I hope this helps someone. I will probably add a similar post sometime soon. Until then, Happy Swapping!

The Purple Potato Experiment

Last Tuesday, after work, I visited one of our local Farmer's Markets. It is a great time of year to do so as many of the vegetables are reaching their peak. I picked up some sweet corn, carrots, onions, an eggplant and something new... Purple Potatoes! These were a new sighting for me! Turns out not so new for other people. Well... I wondered what I would do with these. I wanted to try something that might highlight the purpleness of them. Purpleness? Like how I just made that word up?
Above: Washed and waiting to be peeled. Bellow: Peeled and waiting to be grated. Yes, they are purple throughout.
I wanted to show how pretty it looked as I grated them. Just one tip though. Don't wear a white shirt while doing this. The juices from the potato sprayed my white shirt while grating and now I have a purple polka dotted white shirt. Bummer.
I had 8 or so medium sized potatoes. I added 2 eggs, salt and pepper, and enough flour to create a pancake batter like consistency. It might have been a 1/2 c. or so. I just spooned it in until it seemed right.Naturally, I don't have any photos of the cooking phase but I heated a griddle on medium and then added some butter before spooning a bit of the mixture onto the hot pan. Fry them up, flip, press down and let other side crisp up a bit. I added onions in only some of these as I am the only one that likes onions. But they added so much flavor, I definitely recommend the addition. As you see, the purple fades to an unappetizing gray. Um, they look like meat pancakes. A bit disappointing. Oh well. They still tasted pretty darn good.

Christmas... #$@%&^^%#$@##$%#$$##

Yeah, so back in May when I was all confident that I would not procrastinate this year and maybe actually get something done early this year, I posted a countdown. I have periodically posted on Facebook and Twitter with reminders of '_ _ _ days left till Christmas' (119 days in case you were wondering) in hopes that I could motivate others and myself to accomplish some crafting early so we can all sit back, pound down the nog and hang out with the yule log.

Well, here we are, 119 days in case you missed it above, the kids are getting ready for school and this is the only thing that I have accomplished so far:A pattern that I purchased from etsy. A lovely flap mitten made with fingering weight yarn. Since taking this picture I am finished up to the knuckle and working on the thumb. I hope to CO the finger flap section soon... although when, I do not know since I need to work on some swap stuff. I really just need to stop swapping.

And just for fun. My bowl of felt fruit acumulated from the felt fruit swap I participated in. The cat has stolen the kiwi, lemon, grapes, peach slices and most of the strawberries. The bowl is looking pretty pathetic. Who would have known that cats would like to bat around felt so much? Wish I could catch her in the act and snap a picture of it.





(...119 days....)

Jurrasic Fight Club

I could survive for 1 minute, 3 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor


booyah. ;-)

Update: MP3 is victorious! (well, somewhat.)

So, I tried the whole, trying to dry up oil from inside of a MP3 player in a bag of rice thing... to no avail. Well, I take that back. I guess it kind of worked. Or maybe just worked a little? Whatever. It plays, doesn't seem to be getting too warm, holds a charge. The only signs that something happened to the device are slight oil marks on the screen itself. Whatever type of screen a 8GB Microsoft Zune has in the first place.


The light/ white spots you see are oil deposits/blobs or just what is still wet inside of the player. I have no idea. I was contemplating trying to figure out how to open up this bad boy but... um, yeah, I know I would never get it back together again.

So for the meantime, I have a working MP3 player. For how long? Who knows.

Silk Drops VS MP3 Player

See this bottle? This little 4 fl.oz. bottle of destruction is what we are calling it from this day forward. I love this stuff. Normally. Found it at Sally Beauty Supply. It is ION brand Silk Drops and I use it on my hair as a de-tangler. Works fabulously. No residue, doesn't weigh it down and I even use it on dry skin. And it is relatively cheap. ($7.99 for this bottle but it really goes a loooooooong way!)

Okay, this post isn't about this product's benifits or how much I love the stuff. It is about my husband's MP3 player meeting its untimely death after a brief run in with this stuff. We left the house and came home to find it sitting in a puddle of this oily liquid. Not good. After much huffing and puffing and storming around the house, I ended up forking over my MP3 since it was 'my' stuff that did the damage. oh well, no biggie really since I rarely ever used mine.

I then remembered about the 'rice' trick for drying out cell phones and other electronics when they get wet. I know it works for drying up water... but will it work for an oil based liquid? Who knows. Worth a try though. Not like this thing could get any more broken by putting it in rice.


So, here goes nothing. I will update you in a few days with hopefully positive results. Eh, or maybe I will be letting you know that I just wasted a bag of delicious basmati rice. Oh well, here goes nothing.

I totally suck!!

Oh my goodness! I really suck! My dear friend myklia (Jeanette) sent me a FABULOUS surprise in my last package from the TSS (Traveling Scarf Swap) on craftster. Some gorgeous yarn. It is 154 yards of Hand Dyed, 100% pima cotton. Gorgeous, squishy and soft. And the color is not true in either of these pictures! (I suck!) It is not pastelie like the first one but a lot more saturated then the second. If you ever happen along 'Araucania' brand pima cotton yarn, give it a squeeze.

I was going to make myself a hat with it, but alas, my knitting is too tight and this yarn was not meant to be my hat. Well, at least not the pattern that I was considering. I am open to suggestions!

KnitPicks Prize

Happy Saturday everyone! On WWKIP (World Wide Knit in Public) Day Tina from Knitpicks.com was offering up a fabulous contest. Guess her location from her hints. Well, I was the first to guess correctly! She was at Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, Oregon. My package from knit picks arrived in the mail today.


The goods: One set of Harmony Cable needles, One set of 6inch double point needles for sock knitting and two skeins of Knit Picks 'Imagination' yarn in the Seven Dwarves colorway which is very pretty and very squishy! A little better picture of the yarn:


Thanks to Tina, Twitter and Knitpicks for the wonderful prize! It is so nice receiving things in the mail that are not bills. :)

To cool or not to cool...

This is my air conditioner as of June 15, 2009 at 6:22pm. Notice the lovely plastic and duct tape? It is still covered and in its 'winter' state. (This is my apartment complex's idea of winterizing.) I hope to keep it this way until, well... hopefully all summer long. This is the year that I am going to try to find alternate, less energy consuming ways to keep myself and my family cooler. Well, at least go as long as humanly possible without turning this beast on. It will be tough but I am ready for the challenge.

At this point last year, I had already uncovered, cleaned, vacuumed the vents, plugged in, and even turned it on. This spring has been exceptionally cooler so it is still all bundled up in plastic. I know that I will turn it on at some point this summer but am hoping it will be just for short periods of time and not for weeks at a time like last year. (and the year before, and the year before that....)

I look forward to the fall and my electric bill not being as shocking as in years past.

100 things

Here it is, inspired by my friend Jeanette, 100 things about me. Probably more then you would ever want or care to know, but here it is, nonetheless.

These are listed in no particular order. Just a bunch of random likes, dislikes, interests and thoughts. I hope you enjoy and if you post a list of 100 about yourself, please leave me a comment with a link to yours.

1. I really don't like talking about myself.
2. I love knitting.
3. I drink way too much coffee.
4. I have 3 children. (All boys)
5. I cannot have anymore children as another pregnancy could kill me.
6. My favorite color right now is eggplant.
7. I have never eaten an eggplant.
8. I am allergic to alpaca, morphine, dogs, bees, and some other medications.
9. I have serious sensitivities to a lot of different foods.
10. I get really bad headaches very often.
11. I suffer from ocular migraines and temporarily lose vision as a result.
12. Portishead is my all time favorite band.
13. I used to be a smoker.
14. I want to go back to school.
15. My favorite movie is Beaches.
16. I am a yarn snob.
17. Malabrigo is my current yarn obsession.
18. I am a huge procrastinator.
19. I hate being late.
20. Retinitis Pigmentosa runs in my family and will most likely affect me or my children.
21. I wish I was a vegetarian.
22. I read all of the time.
23. Favorite book: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
24. I am in love with Severus Snape.
25. Obviously.
26. My eyes are grey/blue. More grey then blue.
27. I have no idea which is right: grey? gray?
28. I wish I could unplug my life.
29. Twitter has consumed way too much of my time.
30. I bake sourdough bread.
31. I hate those Japanese beetles that look like ladybugs.
32. The color pink makes me anxious.
33. The thought of eating at Qdoba makes me physically ill.
34. I think I am a super-taster. I can usually pinpoint distinct flavors in dishes.
35. I do not eat fast food.
36. I really like running and wish I would get out there and do it more often.
37. I have yet to run my first race.
38. I sing all the time. (when no one is around to hear me.)
39. I would never sing karaoke.
40. I have one tattoo.
41. I do not know why my natural hair color is.
42. I have a crush on David Letterman.
43. I also have a crush on Conan.
44. Jay Leno does nothing for me.
45. Superpower I wish I had: Ability to fly.
46. I want to learn how to play the violin.
47. I am allergic to most metal and can't wear jewelery.
48. I have one cat. She is fricken awesome. Such a lover.
49. I love to give to others.
50. I donate blood.

Okay, that is enough of that. I will finish this list another day. This was not that easy to compile but was quick enough once I got going. Thanks for reading.

Handmade Gift Ideas; Christmas 2009

Okay, so If you know me or follow me on twitter, you know that I am counting down to Christmas. This is due to the fact that I plan on giving a "Handmade Christmas" this year. And, well, Hopefully for the years to follow.

I am finishing up the craft swaps that I am involved with on craftster.org and then crafting for myself and my holiday recipients. I have started brainstorming. I guess, before I continue to brainstorm, I need to figure out who is on my giving list this year. So, really, who has been naughty and who has been nice this year? And then I also need to figure in a couple variable gifts... teachers, someone I may not have met yet, the babies of my friends that are expected this year and what charity(carities) I hope to donate to... You get the drift.

I do already have a few ideas. I plan on knitting a pair of cashmere fingerless flap mittens for my dear friend Maureen. I have a pattern for a knit hermit crab that I want to work up for my husband. I also want to make heat bags for my somewhat distant family members that I only see on Christmas. An aunt dropped some hints that she *loves* knit washcloths... so that may be on the agenda as well. We'll see.

I already have a lot on my plate, but that is why I am starting early. All of the above mentioned crafts are completely doable, providing that I allow myself the time. I will update my progress as it comes. (With photos, of course!!)

Christmas in May?!?!

Well, It is official. I have started thinking about Christmas 2009. This will be the year that almost all of the gifts I give will be handmade. Hopefully, I will be able to accomplish all of my gift giving without buying anything but supplies or items that are handmade but maybe not by me. (Thank god for etsy!!!)

I am finishing up the swaps that I am currently involved with on craftster and then the only crafting I will be doing will either be for myself or for my loved ones for their holiday surprises. Not sure if I will be detailing what I am giving for gifts here... maybe I will and maybe I won't.

test

Um, yeah. As the title suggests, this is just a test. Myklia's blog has started to inspire me to write my own...

lets see how long this lasts...