I don't envy you, but don't worry-- I've got plenty of other deadly sins to work with.

It's becoming almost redundant, but I am very grateful for a renewal of the spirit, though I find my feelings even harder to explain than usual. All I can say is that I get pretty in love with my life sometimes. It's probably not the best in the world, but I love it all the same.

Spin to win!

I made my first balanced 2-ply yarn last night. No really, this shit is awesome. (and will soon be followed by pictures.)

In other words, my spinning class has rocked and I have rocked it right back. Compared to my fellow students, I kind of felt like I was cheating. In fact, when it came time to discuss our experience spinning at home and do our show-and-tell, I wanted to crawl under my chair.

Having spent the last year occasionally playing with a drop spindle, I already had a lot of practice at the drafting part (ie, the kind of tricky part.) So I had a bit less trouble with some of the basics and got to use the class to adapt my skills to a wheel. Consequently, I tiny bit more to show for my work. And if there's one thing I don't like, it's a show-off. Luckily, the ladies in the class were very sweet and wanted to see what I'd come up with.

Because we had to postpone the second session, I've had two extra weeks to play with the shop wheel I was using and spent my time doing experiments. I spun some merino and merino/silk blends to test out the difference between different fibers, tried to my first attempt at plying the merino and silk blend (it failed miserably), and made the Noro Knockoff pictured earlier.
Now I get to test out the Ashford Kiwi for another week or so, which is awesome since I was looking at buying one. However, I just found a gorgeous Majacraft that I might actually be able to afford!

For now, it's all about plaing with a double treadle. I plan to spin more silk.

The meteorologists were finally right for a change. By the time I left work, it was sunny and warm and actually felt like May. As I drove home, I got all nostalgic, remembering how, starting right about this time of year, we'd have "porch parties" when it got too warm and too nice to stay inside, but going somewhere else felt like such a chore. So Eric and Shannon and Myra and I, along with a revolving cast of characters in the form of various friends, would hang out on the stoop in front of the apartment, drinking blender drinks and watching the day fade.

I no longer have a porch, or even much of a stoop, or quite frankly anything that resembles a good sitting spot,* but the impromptu barbecue tonight felt like one of those times. Nothing renews the spirit after a shitty couple of days (more on this later) like raspberry dacquiris, fresh grilled corn on the cob, and sitting around the table telling funny stories. Thank God spring/summer is finally here.

*We have been known to use the parking lot a time or two. Meh, atleast I have a really pretty welcome mat.

No stashing for Jilly.

I am kicking myself for not budgeting for NW Handspun Yarns Mother's Day Sale. 20% off everything? Why oh why does it have to be this weekend? So instead, I've been focusing on the great things about the last few days.

Some favorite things of today:

• Potato Bread Rolls from BreadFarm. I made it to the farmer's market too late to get a loaf yesterday, but the rolls are just the perfect portion of potato bread-y goodness.


• The new yarn I spun Friday night. I had picked up four or so coordinating colors of New Zealand wool last time I was at NW Handspun, so I divided each color in half (so that I can possibly get two skeins that are similar in pattern) and spun each color in succession, throwing some reddish orange I already had in for smooth transitions. I'm calling it my Noro KnockOff.


• The sun is, if not shining, atleast making an effort. That's about all one can ask for in Northwest Washington, especially after last night's torrential downpour.


• Basil plants, ready for the repotting.
• Yarn from the lovely girls at Spin Cycle. I picked up a hank of Rusted Rainbow to test out gauge. The bad news: It's not going to work for Knitty's Cathode, like I'd been deluding myself into. I probably should have read the patter first. The good news: I love it so much I'm definetely going to be making a sweater out of it anyway.
• The Manos del Uruguay hat I managed to make in one slow day at work. A bit big, since I just cast on and went to town, but it should felt down a tiny bit and be perfect for this cold spring that won't seem to end.
• Listening to a ska album from about five years ago that I loved, but had since forgotten about. (for those interested, it's Catch 22--Keasbey Nights.)
• Getting to spend Mother's Day with my mommy. We're going to dinner tonight for prime rib and giant hunks of chocolate cake. She won't be getting her present until tomorrow though, because I haven't had time to pick it up. She asked for a candy thermometer, a specific one that she found at Target, and I haven't had the time and sanity required to brave the mall. So she'll be getting it tomorrow.

Man, I am one lucky girl if I have that many things to be happy about!

Mantra time.

It took some serious self control, but I managed to come home without stopping to buy yarn for the Lace Skirt with Bows that I SO don't need to be knitting right now. I can only chalk it partway up to will power, though. Truth be told, I skipped lunch earlier today and was far too hungry to bother trekking across town for anything that wasn't food.

Instead, I'm just going to continue my spinning practice while repeating to myself "you must finish your projects" over and over. I might intersperse round of "no new yarn" in there as well.

Happy Wednesday.

The only pictures I can ever seem to get of Gus are when I'm holding a treat in my hand, which is why they always feature him sitting, trying to look his most obedient and sweet. Otherwise, they all either come out with him looking the other way at something, or (90% of the time) as a giant blur because he's hyperactive and can't sit still for more than two and a half seconds.

I was just trying to capture the post-bath cuteness. He tends to get all fluffy.

I'm thinking of getting him a tiny blue t-shirt and making him the unofficial mascot of Eric's softball team, the UltraSonics. (By the way, the name has absolutely nothing to do with the soon-to-be-not-in-Seattle Sonics, and everything to do with the company he works for. They do ultrasonic testing, go figure.) I scoped out the first game tonight, and it looks like dogs are totally cool to come to games.

As for tonight's game, it was pretty fun despite the fact that they got their butts handed to them. After a while, I lost track of the final score, but that's probably for the best. Fact is, it wasn't pretty. In the UltraSonics defense, everybody on the team is currently on 60-hour work schedules and full team practices have been impossible to come by. Nonetheless, I have hope for next week.

The only real drawback, other than watching the team get stomped? Bellingham's experiencing a pretty cold spring, one that has even included snow, as documented by Steph. By the end of the game, even with three layers, my fingers and toes were still pretty numb.

Although IT SHOULDN'T BE THIS FUCKING COLD, I knew exactly what to do. Which is why, despite my resolution to finish some projects before I start any new ones, I'm halfway through the first in a pair of new armwarmers. Pretty simple-- 2x2 rib cuff, stockinette for about an inch and a half, and for slightly added warmth at the pulse point, with maybe a bit of visual interest given Noro's color changes, a two-row combo:

Row 1: sl1, k1

Row 2: k1, sl1

Herringbone without the double stranding. Next Wednesday's game is gonna be sweet. You know, assuming we fix our issues at first base and start hitting towards the gap.

We won't stop until somebody calls the cops

The borrowed spinning wheel is looming, staring at me, waiting for me to finish my spinning homework. I think I know what I'm going to be doing with atleast part of my Sunday. I've still got a bit to get done before my next class on Monday. Thusfar I've really enjoyed spinning, but hanging out with friends I haven't seen much trumped sitting in my room. It's almost embarrasing to realize you've barely talked to people that live less than 30 yards away from you.

Yesterday pretty productive, as far as days off go. I got pictures taken of last weekends dyeing experiments. I'm pretty happy with most of those-- I tested out frosting colors in earnest (the first time was kind of half-assed and didn't go well at all) and "overdyed" some less-than-spectacular Kool Aid yarn. I also found that I LOVE Ashford's purple dye, despite it not really being purple. I'm hoping I have enough left to dye up a sweater's worth of yarn. I'm thinking it might lend itself to a Wicked sweater, or atleast something wicked-esque.

I also got the front of Baby's First Tattoo pinned up and set aside, and the back is about done with just a few decreases left before it gets set aside for sleeves. With any luck, this thing might be done while Wyatt is still small enough to wear it! (Then again, I cheated and started knitting the 1 year old size for my five month old brother.)

Now if I can just fortify myself long enough to finish Rambling Rose, I'll be set!

Spin me right round, baby. Or alternately, UFO diet.

I gave up. We bought a new battery charger tonight. Which means I will probably find the old one tomorrow. Meh.

Either way, I've been itching to document some recent stuff, including the finished Pomatomus socks that will be en route to Hawaii as soon as they are photographed. My Aunt Tena is terribly excited. Heck, she doesn't know that she's getting a ginormous jar of her favorite fireweed honey (which isn't available on the island) with her socks. One would think that since my mom sends her honey on a semi-regular basis, her socks would be a suprise instead of the other way around, but that's what happens when my mom offers to have me make things for people before informing me about it.

Also on the list is my first spinning wheel yarn! I went to the first night of my two-Monday class last night, and although I was about 20 minutes late (I thought I was coming in early for my 5:30 class, not late for a 5:00), things went pretty smoothly after that. Since I've done a bit of drop spindling before taking the class, the drafting part came rather quickly. Now I'm just working out the tricky bit with the foot pedal. I've got about 8 ounces of homework before I go back next week and do the scary part--- plying.

With the addition of spinning homework and a glut of recently started projects, I find myself having to go back on my new project embargo. I can sort of justify the Robin's Egg Blue Hat, and Anticraft's Flowers on a Grave hat, as they both went pretty quickly. But now I've also started Vixen from Sensual Knits (which on size 4's is going to take a while), and the yoke-less Rambling Rose peices are starting to give me dirty looks.

I do have to wipe one currently languishing project off the slate, though. Now that the weather's trying to get better, I decided to go back to the Orbit Lace project I set down last fall. I knew I was going to have to rip back a bit after messing up the lace pattern, but then I saw it-- a discolored spot about the shape of a silver dollar. Suddenly, it all came flooding back, and I was hit with the horrible memory of sitting in coffee shop and having someone spill their coffee onto the table in front of me. Apparently, it hadn't just spilled onto the front of my knitting bag like I thought. No, it spill inside, onto my long-suffering, half finished bamboo lace t-shirt-like-thingy that was nestled right on top.

Secretly, I'm a little glad to be given the excuse to rip back and fix a couple of things I wasn't entirely wild about, but right now I still kind of hate other people a little bit.

How did I get by before the technology age?

Dear magical stuff-hiding house elves,

I would greatly like to be able to find my battery charger now. The "no featured photo"s on my ravelry are really starting to bug the crap out of me. Also, how am I supposed to take more unnecessary pictures of Gus if I have no camera?

If said battery charger could be returned to the last place I saw it, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Signed, me.

Focus, Jilly, focus!

I had to take a break and refortify myself before I could get myself to face that second scallop cuff on the Rambling Rose Cardigan, but managed to get it done while watching The Tudors with the awesome Stephanie and her awesome mom. There was, however, much cursing and untangling involved.

I've been having lots of false starts lately. I started a Rutabaga bag from Knitscene, then ripped it out when I a)messed up the mesh pattern and b) decided I didn't particularly like that pattern anyway. A quick glance through a stitch dictionary should fix both problems, maybe even in time for the next trip to the farmer's market. I won't be a moment too soon-- that giant jar of honey I bought last time was a looking a bit awkward shoved into my purse.

Shortly therafter I knit one of the fronts for "Baby's First Tattoo" (from SnB Nation), but lost interest after the first eighteen hours. I will probably be going back to that one, as I managed to get a fair amount done in that short day and a half-- one front is already finished, with the motif intarsia-ed (so not a word, although it really should be) instead of the duplicate stitch called for, and I've started the decreases on the second front with only a little to go. Plus, I deliberately started making it according to the pattern in order to force myself to have some seaming practice, so I can't really back out now. I decided to be realistic though-- I'm making the 1-year-old size for my 4-month-old brother.

But now I find myself eyeballing other patterns, buying buttons for the Robin's Egg Blue Hat, thinking long and hard about whether I am a beret person, and working out the math for converting Knitty's Azure socks into a pair of armwarmers.

Is there some sort of medication I should be taking for this?

It wasn't until about three seconds after I dropped the yarn in the pot of dye that I remembered Samurai Knitter's experience with purples. It seems I am now left with something that looks somewhere between magenta and violet, though I'll probably have a better idea once it's dry. At the moment though, the only word I can think to describe it is "ultraviolet".

Thankfully, it was only a small hank of some of my handspun that I was using for an experiment (do two different colors of undyed fiber come out the same color?) , but I think the addition of a dye that is notorious for breaking down and making crazy colors might just affect my results. Ah well.

So that's what my carpet looks like!

We have this little problem, the boy and I. I own quite a lot of clothes and my closets have a slight tendency to explode (especially when I'm having trouble deciding what to wear), and although I am stellar at getting organized, I always find it challenging to stay that way. In my defense, our old apartment had so little storage that Eric and I shared a closet about the size of a doorway and, despite our exhaustive efforts to defy the laws of physics, there was only so much room to use before things went all 'splody. But in our current house, with its Wall O' Closet, there really is no excuse for this.

To add to that, Eric has a slight habit of dumping out laundry onto the nearest flat surface when he needs a basket or simply pulling what he currently needs straight out of the laundry instead of putting it all away.

Together, we are an incredibly dangerous combination.

It took a few hours, a load or two of laundry, lots of folding, and an embarrasing amount of vacuuming (I still have yet to understand how the dog manages to shed twice his weight in fur) but our bedroom is finally starting to feel like somewhere I wouldn't mind spending more time in. In the process, I managed to cull about a garbage bag-full of clothes I no longer need. Now I'll always be able to find that one item of clothing that disappears right when I want to wear it, and my kinda ugly but ultra comfy chair that I like to sit and read in? I can actually sit and read in it!

Hell, we can even hang out in here with the dog when we're not all sleeping, something we couldn't do before. (I also have a habit of not always emptying my pockets before I take my pants off, and Gus ALWAYS manages to find that one stray bit of change that falls out. It's really not fun to have to pry coins out of your dogs mouth.)

Woohoo! I have a bedroom I like again!

Now to tackle the office.......tomorrow.

Seriously, tequila lime salsa is the best thing ever. I've spent the last four days eaten meals based around it. It's just that good.

Apparently it still exists.

I woke up yesterday, my day off, looked out the window, and saw the sunshine. I then rolled over and went back to sleep for another hour. In a place that gets very little sun for most of the year, it felt like true decadence.

Once I was up and moving about I had a rather good day, although only marginally productive. I got a bill or two paid, then decided I was done with responsibility until tomorrow. So we went for a drive.

Stephanie and I visited a cashmere goat farm that sits just outside of town. I drive by their sign, a cut-out of a goat with a handpainted sign and an arrow underneath it, about once a week or so and decided that yesterday was the day to finally venture out and find it. We chatted with the man that has the farm, and I came to realize that I am not a good enough spinner yet to afford $18-ounce fiber, but we will definetely be returning at a later date.

After that, we wandered aimlessly around the county, enjoying the weather. I even found a yarn shop I didn't know existed, alongside a county road between Bellingham and the next town over. I managed to get out of their with only one skein, a test subject for dyeing. After that it was down to NW Handspun Yarns to wind up the rest of my yarn for the Rambling Rose Cardigan, followed by some knitting and movies. I'm guessing tonight may be a repeat of that last part-- we rented Sweeney Todd.

Would it be considered cheating that I used my laptop (only on battery backup) during Earth Hour?

So much past inside my present....

It took a few hours, but I think my stomach has finally started speaking to me again after all the awful things I did to it yesterday.

Our dear friend Ryan is leaving The Black Drop and, in the not-so-distant future, Bellingham and 'round these parts nobody goes anywhere without a proper send-off. So we had the (second) Deep Fry Party*, where everyone brings anything they're brave enough to batter up and dip in oil. There were too many items to list everything, but some of the notable mentions included the customary cheese wiz-filled corn dogs, shrimp and bacon won tons, Snickers (my contribution), Oreos, Nutella and peanut butter sandwiches, and a concoction Arianne came up with-- macaroni and cheese encased in garlic cheese biscuit dough**. The best however, occurred after we left in the form of deep-fried Tums.

As is also customary, there were also quite a few shenanigans, including the wearing of unitards. Poor Eric, who had been at home sleeping and was only there to ferry me home, got a little caught in the middle of all of it, though he never had to actually wear the unitard. He was a damn good sport about the whole thing, however.


On the knitting front, I've made some decisions. After a slight color change, I've decided that the Rambling Rose Cardigan is the next sweater project, in part due to the fact that I could get the yarn for that one soonest***. I'm also testing out another yarn for my brother's Baby's First Tattoo cardigan. I'm trying out bamboo, but I fear it's going to be too.... the best word I can come up with is "slinky."

I'm kind of grabbing at straws with that one, as nothing I've seen in fingering weight has been able to meet all of the requirements. I wouldn't think it would be that hard to find something in solid, non-wierd colors that doesn't require massive jumping through hoops to care for, and yet here I am testing out a bamboo yarn that will make my baby brother look like he's wearing a satin smoking jacket or something.


* -- There's good stories behind why we've all done this to ourselves not once but twice. I prefer to live inthe now, though.
** --These eventually became known as "Cheese Fists" and were incredibly yummy.
*** --Is that even a word?

No linking for me!

So far in the last two days I have made two swatches for Fitted Knits' Textured Tunic and figured out what color and yarn I want, knitted part of a left from for Interweave Knit's Rambling Rose Cardigan (minus the bottom scallop, not sure I like it), am rethinking a yarn idea for FK's Carie Cropped Cardigan, and am about two seconds away from starting a swatch for Dominitrix's Little Red Riding Hoodie.

Think I might be ready for another sweater, now that my Nameless Cardigan is nearly finished?

So I have this tiny little idea, but I'm keeping it to myself for now because, after doing a bit of online searching, it doesn't look like anyone else has done it, atleast in the way I want to. This could be for one of three reasons:

Either a) it's a ridiculous and stupid idea or
b) people have tried it and found it to be more hassle than it's worth or
c) I have an awesome brain.

Either way, some experimenting is in order, but it may have to wait until I have space for my sewing machine in my still-in-progress office/craft room. It's currently residing under a stack of airplane models the boyfriend bought and hasn't looked at since.

I suppose instead of sitting here searching my way through the intarweb, I should be getting back to tackling things on my always overstuffed "Day Off To-Do List." It includes things like putting the second coat of paint on my bathroom and doing about six loads of laundry, and all before Knit Night.... or possibly after.

Another one bites the dust...

Mom's tea cozy is finally done, though I'm pretty embarrased that it took me this long. All the darn thing needed was a drawstring. So a little Plymouth Happy Feet and two feet of i-cord later, it now resides in its rightful place on my mom's little teapot (it's only a three or four cupper.)

....which makes me think a progress check is in order. To revisit the previous list, I had:



-one finished sock with no match make that three socks needing matches

-one knee sock that's pretty much only a legwarmer at the moment I've decided I wasn't too fond of my wierd attempt at calf shaping, and wouldn't be able to recreate it for the second sock even if I liked it, so this one's being ripped out. It took seeing it on a list for me to finally bite the bullet and admit defeat.

-a cardigan that's missing a sleeve and buttons-- I got about halfway through the second sleeve last night, so this one could be ready for blocking soon.

-a pullover that actually has two sleeves but still needs to be sewn up

-tea cozy without the drawstring required to cozy it up Done!

-a mitten without a thumb

-a blanket that's currently about the size of two place mats and

-a scarf that is about 5 feet too short--- Still about four and a half feet to go



Looking at it like that, I actually start to feel like I might have accomplished something. However, is it enough to justify the fact that I'm swatching for yet another new project?

Idiosyncrasies and compulsive behavior

A quick Ravelry search has revealed that most people aren't nearly as bothered by the fact that the pattern in Pomatomus goes the same direction for both socks as I am.