*waves*

 Oh, dear. Just not into this blogging 'thing' lately, I'm afraid. :(

Can't say it's for any particular reason either, other than general 'winter has gone on MUCH MUCH TOO LONG now' malaise that is probably affecting almost all of us in the northern hemisphere. Busy with work, yes, as always, but things are moving along as normal otherwise. 

Figured I should get in here before TOO much time goes by and I forget how to do it all together. Plus, I had a stack of  this hanging around that I'd like to put away:

Blogging or no blogging, I still pile finished things up to be photographed. It's like they aren't TRULY done unless their existence has been logged online in some fashion. That's a little sad, I think. I mean we DID 'exist' in our pre-online lives, didn't we? (And you can just shush if you are reading this and too young to have ever had a chance at a pre-online life, ok? We do not like young whippersnappers poking at our older selves. lol) 

Thanks to some tv-binge-watching (both seasons of House of Cards in EIGHT days! Eight!) I've actually been plugging right along on a bunch of things. Most of the individual photos I went for came out cringe-inducing awful though. Grrrrr. I only managed to take a decent picture of my newest pillow finishes:

Sadly, I did not put these 'together' in time for the holiday this year but I did finish STITCHING them in time. That has to count for.............something? I could only dig up two other appropriate smalls for this holiday so I figured it well past time I did a few more. The heart pattern is from a designer I saw on Etsy and the other two are freebies from The Primitive Hare. Used random scraps of linen and bits and bobs of lace and what not that I could scrounge out of my craft closet. 

I'll have to retake the photos of Most Hated Socks Ever and my L*K stockings. :)

I'm going to end this with another clover pic. A day late, of course, but I have a sweet spot for this holiday. For one, it's ridiculously easy to celebrate (wear green!) and comes with really tasty food and, two, I just plain ole like the color green. We need more fun, color-based holidays! :)

Ahhhh....fall.

 (not my pic but I couldn't resist saving it) 

October is usually one of my favorites months. I love the chilly weather and all the colorful leaves and fall festivals to attend. (It doesn't hurt that the Stitches East aka Yarn Mecca is also in October.) And, of course, there is Halloween.

Walk in Putnam, CT last Sunday.

This one is off to a bit of a slow start. I've been limiting my computer and crafty times because I've had a terrible case of trigger finger in my left hand for the past 4 weeks or so. It's caused (for me) by too much bead making. I can knit for an hour and have no problems but after 15 minutes of bead making, my middle finger starts getting tight and, another 15 minutes in it starts 'clicking' like an off/on switch, eventually getting so constricted I need to use my OTHER hand to straighten it out for the next couple hours or so. It's not particularly painful really - more annoying than anything else. Especially when trying to sleep. (You tend to keep waking up and having to straighten it out.) I kept it taped up for a few weeks whenever I wasn't working and that has helped. It's still bothering me when I'm working but it's settling down fairly quickly after I'm done for the day vs. being cranky 24/7. So that's good!

Biking here in town yesterday.

The husband is still building his brand spanky-new uber-big shed. Or was. Until he fell off the ladder last week. Broken rib(s). Hard to tell if it's one or two. (And one ass cheek that looks like a rotten banana. lol) So now he has a month off work to heal. (He offered to do a light duty position but they declined. Guess they only do that when you get hurt at work. Oh well. So much for trying NOT to be a '47% moocher'. Bring on the disability checks! lol) So he's pretty miserable at the moment. Can't work on his shed and can't go bike riding with me, etc. He's getting a lot of reading done. *snort*

Fancy-pants panorama from in town

It *IS* Walktober though so I'm still dragging him out of the house with me for some daily exercise. Even shuffling around for a half hour or whatever is better than sitting around the house all day. Between that and picking up all his chores, things are busy, busy, busy! Looking forward to taking a day off for the Stitches East show this weekend, I tell you WHAT. 

IMMA GONNA GET MY YARN ON.

Bullet: DODGED.

As in, I was sweating bullets when that October Surprise aka SNOWMAGEDDEN passed through here this weekend because I was *sure* the power would go out, given how many damaged trees there are now from that pesky Irene. It flickered enough to keep us in a state of anxiety about it but crisis averted! WHEW. This should be the last one we sweat through too because the electrician is finally coming this week to wire up a generator all 'proper like' so we will, at the very least, be able to keep the fridge and water running for future outages, which is all I really need to keep me happy. Unspoiled food and toilet privileges and I can live like a king  queen. :)

It's good too because I had SO MUCH work to do this weekend if I hadn't been able to get to it a total nervous breakdown would have imminent. Exhibit A:

Beads made this weekend. As in, the last two days. 

TWO. DAYS. 

(There are at least 400 beads there, believe it or not. *I* believe it because I've lived it but you? You might have some doubt.) 

My left hand is BUSTED like woah now though. Sorry sorry state it's in. I was cleaning and stringing them for over an hour and had to walk away because my left hand isn't working any more. (So I went on to...........photo taking and TYPING UP a blog post...........because *THAT* will surely help things. *eye roll*) I'm hoping two Advil get it 'back' enough in the next hour or two because I have to start digging into another stack of orders this afternoon. I'm down with the whole 'making hay while the sun is shining' thing re: working a lot a lot a lot.............. until my left hand stops actually working because the muscles on the top of my hand are busted from twirling mandrels for umpteen million hours. (Unlike over-knitting, which targets my right hand, I can't be going WHOOPSIE and dropping 1000 degree hot-like-FIYAHHHH things in my lap when working because of numbness. Doesn't work.....not without some serious burning of shit.......or skin.) So we'll see how this week goes. Worst case scenario I'm calling a time out, closing up shop, and taking a week or two off. I could use a break so it won't be the worst thing ever. :)

Anyhoo, I'm now going to show you some things that totally doesn't jib with the hand issues of above but 1) the mitten knitting all took place the weekend before and 2) 97% of the sock knitting took place earlier last week i.e. I've done nothing at all this weekend, knitting-wise. So trust me - I'm not compounding the issue the last few days like a fool. :)

So yeah. I finished the second of the big giant Man Mittens started in September in preparation for last week's Stitches East:

Yay! One pair of unfinished mittens done, one more to tackle.

And mad love was given to a an ever-hopeful thought of finishing up some October socks. (Pattern: Monkey!)

Outlook now: dark and cloudy given my numb hand. But I managed to get 3/4ers of the way through two-at-a-time socks so I made good progress before the shut down.

Also making me sad:

OH NOES!!

My favorite pair of socks, with both heels found to be held together by nothing more than magic dust and a prayer. The stitches seem to be, quite literally, held together by nothing more than a whisper. It's like watching a slo-mo train wreck. You know it's going to blow out and turn into a raveling mess at some point real soon but it's going to taunt me in the meantime until it happens.

I feel certain a new heel could be put on by picking up the stitches where the heel turns but I'm not sure I have the stomach for such fiddliness at the moment. I have to contemplate things for awhile and come up with a plan of attack. The rest of the socks are in such good shape, tossing them, at this point is just NOT an option. 0_o

Edit to add: Ravelry says I finished those socks in Feb. 2009. So nearly three years of wearing them once a week for 5 months a year (they really are my favs).........yeah, I can see why the heels are blown out. Plus, note to self: STOP 'SKATING' AROUND ON THE WOOD FLOORS ALL THE TIME LIKE A BIG IDIOT.)

Halloweenie Stitchies!

...ignoring the fact that I was too busy to notice it's been over a week since I last posted.........*cough*

The fall leaves are terrible this year - truly terrible. They just dry up, turn brown, and fall. Not a single tree here has a color other than "hello, I'm dead-deady-dead" brown. It's kinda sad actually. (Is this because of the late summer storms and flood of rain? I have no idea, to be honest.) Oh well. There is always next year, right? 

Mmmmm! APPLES.

 One thing that is not terrible are the apple trees. They got hit hard by Irene, of course, but there are still plenty of apples for the picking. 

I love this place we go to nearby in Pomfret because the trees are short enough to walk up to and pick apples. (The places we always went to when I was a kid required some sort of long stick with a can/catch basket/clawed hand type of contraption for picking. It took coordination and patience, man!) We over-picked for 2 people - as usual. Twenty+ pounds! Might not sound like a lot to some but I, uhhhh, don't really bake. Cook, yes - practically every day of the week. Bake? Not so much with that. I think it was probably sometime around 2009 the last time I made a batch of cookies. I can usually put together a fairly decent apple crisp or dutch apple pie (provided I BUY pre-made crust, of course) so I just need to get around to doing that. I've been eating 2 apples a day since we went picking and I *might* just run of apples though before I actually get around to baking any. *snort*

Did anybody else fall under the spell of this booklet that was released last month?

Well, looky that! I guess I did because I managed to start AND finish a few projects from it within the last few weeks.  Gotta love a pattern that only calls for 4 different colors to work all of the projects. They just whip up lickety-split that way!

My first attempt at the Halloween piece though was...............not good. I had in mind to use some zig-zag trim I bought to use on my Death by Candy piece, as a sort of 'practice session' for figuring it out. (I am good at some things but straight up sewing is NOT one of them.)

Hmm. FAIL.

I basted the zig-zag down first so it wouldn't move around when sewing it to the rest of the place and.........it still did that. Some zig-zag areas were higher than others and the corners were so bunchy and icky it was painful. Back to the drawing board with this idea, I guess. I might have to shoot an email to Vonda to get some tips on this kind of finish. At least I was able to salvage the stitching part with some careful ripping and have enough to sew it into a tiny needle minder. So all was not lost. WHEW. :)

State of the Stash.

But first......

I know I said I wasn't going to do any more new Halloween items but someone asked for an owl for Halloween so..............

Who am I resist such a thing? I am weak in the face of Halloween requests. :)

(A few other, non-Halloween things, have also been posted, btw.)

Well...................we made an attempt to go through my poor stash stuff this weekend and here is what I was able to save:

Yep. One lonely little bag of snowflake buttons. *sigh*

Everything else was tossed. All of my Crescent Color threads, the silks/Watercolors/Waterlillies/etc, metallics, floss bags, extra DMC I had in a bag, a box of new DMC colors that I had never gotten around to wrapping on cards, a box of the DMC linen collection..........*sad*

Could have been worse, I guess. At least my DMC was in separate boxes so that was safe. I don't even want to think about having to replace an entire collection of DMC. (Heeeeee heeeeeeee hooooooo! Oh god no.) 

And if this had happened this time last year all of my WDW and GAST threads would have been in there too. (Those collections have gotten large enough that they had to be moved to their own storage box.)  

I wasn't even able to save the plastic container everything was originally in. 

Now this I really don't understand. You think some harsh detergent/Nature's Miracle/Simple Green combo would be enough to clean hard plastic............and you would be wrong. lol All of the stuff I lost was in floss bags which were closed, didn't even get wet, and they were still disgusting. WTF?

Oh well. I reordered the Crescent Colors and a couple other things that I use all the time (don't ask me how much that cost) as a super-early birthday/Xmas present to myself and the rest I will just reorder if/when I ever get to the project that I originally bought them for. On the bright side, it will fun going through a whole ton of new threads once that order comes in. :|

 I have plenty of cats left to get all up in my business but, thankfully, I've never had any problems with my Himmies. *crosses fingers*

Though they *do* like to help you do pretty much everything you want to do without them around.

Seriously guys? It's a bag of buttons. And a camera.  So not that interesting! lol

He might actually be sitting on the buttons at this point. But I let him because he was sitting pretty for a quick photo. :)

OMG. Guys.

I don't even.

It's like what?

Head is broken.

Panic attack.

I just don't even understand.

Was expecting to be sad about having to say good bye to Nitwit (we did end up putting her down yesterday morning) and then...............something happened later in the day and it was like a record needle scratch and now I'm instantly over it. Snap. Sadness gone. 

Things had been bad with her since January but, up until the last 5-6 weeks, things had been manageable. They were manageable. There were Rules and as long as you followed the Rules, thing were fine 98% of the time. 

Rule #1: do not leave anything on the floor in the bathrooms. Not a terribly difficult rule as far as rules go, you know? If you forgot to pick up the rug after showering or whatever and it got peed on, well, that was your fault as that was a clear violation of the Rules. Why the bathrooms and not, say, the kitchen, where there are also throw rugs and various things on the floor (like, say, cloth grocery bags after a big shopping trip) at certain times? I don't know. I DIDN'T MAKE THE RULES. I was just expected to follow them.

Rule#2: things laid on top of the hamper or on the bedroom floors was a sure path to Badness. Why the hamper and not, say, the bed? (Or couches.) Again: I don't know. Not the rule maker, just the rule follower. (Personally, I was just glad that the bed and the couches were off limits for some unknown, anonymous reason and didn't probe it too much. Though, having said that, if they hadn't of been off limits this whole 'situation' would have ended many, many months ago, KWIM?)

Things only got 'real' a short while ago when suddenly the Rules seemed to have changed overnight and it was like, welllll, not so much with these new Rules. The new Rules were not going to cut it. They included: my brand new office chair, a wood sitting chair with a fabric seat and pretty much any/all cat beds in the house. New Rules = BAD. So, after more blood tests/xrays/medicine, she was sequestered in the guest room for a week (nearly fabric less at the moment as I threw the full sized bed out when we did the floors in June, with plans to get a smaller one in the future) to see if the new Rules were permanent or not. 

Turns out, after a couple weeks try out, the new Rules were permanent and that was unmanageable for a house that we, like, actually like to live in so we find ourselves up to date with things. And then I went to go pull a few threads out of my big Craftable blue/rubbermaid-like container and discovered it was full of pee. 

And then my head broke and I had a massive can't speak-walking in circles-staring at the wall-panic attack that lasted, ohhhh..................well it should be over soon at any rate. Any minute now. *tap*tap*tap* 

Yeah. I mean.................what? I just don't even. Understand? It's plastic. And.........what? It holds: all of my linen, all of my DMC and about half of my specialty fibers (of which I have a CONSIDERABLE stash). And other stuff? Like.........other stuff? AND MY HEAD IS BROKEN. I can not wrap my head around the magnitude of how to clean this up. Vinegar baths followed by........something? And keeping track of what is what? Uncoiling 312341234123 wrapped skeins or leaving them wrapped? Or? ...?....? And what about non color-fast items? Metallics? Silks????

Strangely enough (and luckily enough?), the linen all seems fine. I don't mean fine in that sense that I'm trying to talk myself INTO it being fine either. I mean *actually* fine. I checked it with a black light, my nose, extreme inspection under a bright light. It was in the top of the compartment, which is removable and I *do* take it off sometimes when I'm laying pieces out in the living room to figure out what I want to use. I went through it like that one night about 4 weeks ago, which is certainly within the 'new Rules' period, when starting a new project so I suppose it's possible she jumped into the box in the 1.74 hours that the top was off of it?

I'm still not 100% on the condition of the DMC. Those are in four tackle boxes so closed boxes inside a closed box (meta anyone?)............it should be fine but I can't make a definitive decision on that until it's been away from the stuff that is So Clearly NOT Fine for a few days. I'm seeing shadows inside of shadows on top of more shadows right now until I'm cross-eyed and pie-eyed and can not trust my judgement. (Because my first thoughts? THROW IT ALL AWAY. All twenty years of it. And find a NEW HOBBY. lol)

It's just the rest of it. You can't just throw it in the wash. Or use harsh detergents on it with out stripping the color out. Or ?? The best I can come up with at the moment is possibly a clothes line type assembly line maybe? String the skein, then the bag, repeat with all, etc. and then dip each one through a series of vinegar/Nature's Miracle/I don't know what? individually and hang it up to dry? At least that way the bags will be with the floss and I can tell what is what. Otherwise maybe take a picture of each one before taking it out of the floss bag to sort it all out later? (I have no hopes that the stuff inside the floss bags is fine because those 'bags' have two holes in them for threading on split rings, you know? And it's............wow. Covered. Sticky. And it's all.......All baaaaaaaaaaad.)

I fully expect half of y'all to not really understand what the big deal is about but the rest of you will know. You know. A quart of rancid pee poured on your stash? Worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars? A stash that is not easily cleaned *or* replaced? Oh yes, YOU know my horror. 0_o 

**********************

You know it's funny (though not really in that HAHAHA type of way) because I did a post on my Livejournal a few weeks ago about, what I thought at the time, was possibly the grossest thing to ever happen inside my house in my entire life. I didn't mention it here but the bathroom fan downstairs, uhhh, killed a large mouse and we didn't realize why it was clunking at the time until a week later* when, oh, maggots and maggoty flies started dropping from the ceiling. Like a lot. Of maggots. From the ceiling. Dropping and dropping and dropping. Will it stop? Looks like no. Dropping and dropping. While we took turns staring at it and running around in circles screaming like little girls. That's, like, horror show gross.But in retrospect, sooooooooo much easier to get my head around than this. *THAT* was easy to clean. *THIS*............I just don't even.

*Obviously, there was strong odor for a couple days too but we looked and looked for the source and couldn't find it. We thought it possible something had gotten into the chimney? It never occurred to us to look inside the fan, you know? Who would think of that?!?

Stay safe peoples!

To anyone in the path of Irene this weekend.

This, uh, would include us. lol
 
It's supposed to go over us sometime tomorrow morning with tropical storm status - not hurricane strength - but we'll see how much that difference means to all the trees hanging over our house, eh? o_0

I fully expect flooding of some sort in my basement at any rate because of the torrential rain. As long as it's not enough to hit the tiny carpeted area down there, I can deal with it though. It's when I have to work in a soggy, dead-froggy smelling work area and run the rug cleaner to suck it up hour after hour after hour that I start to lose my mind.

That said, I'm ever hopeful that we already hit our patch of 'bad luck' for the weekend when he lost the brakes on his car going to work yesterday. I mean, I'm already out $1,000 and the storm hasn't even hit yet so karma should be on our side? :)

In related news, I think our upcoming vacation is canceled. Boo hoo. :( We were planning to go to DC for 5 days but since we made those plans:

1) We noticed that was the week of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. (I was just looking at it as *our* 20th anniversary week at first, you know?) Hello extra security!
2) They got hit with an earthquake and some things we usually visit are now in flux down there.
3) The car we were going to take to drive down there just lost it's brakes in a dramatic 'oh my 2@#$@# god' type of way. (Note: this car has VERY VERY little miles on it so this was an odd thing.)
4) The car repairs are costing pretty much *exactly* what our hotel costs were going to be.
4) They are getting hit with a hurricane.
5) We are getting hit with a hurricane.

I'm kinda slow but...............I *think* the universe is trying to tell us something. lol

(I WAS going to run a special for the web site this weekend but seeing as I'm not sure if I'll have power come Monday morning to actually WORK on order, that will have to wait until the storm - literally - clears.)

Boo Hoo Hoo. I haz a sad.

A moment of silence, please, for my dearly departed kiln:

8/2002 - 8/2011

Oh, I'm sure he will rise from the dead at some point when I can track down a couple new parts for him but for now he's DOA, having quit on me (of course) when I was smack-dab in the middle of a huge stack of orders. *sigh*

So I am kiln-less at the moment and awaiting a whole new one to find it's way to me hopefully within a week. It took some honest-to-god pitiful begging on my part to find someone who could build me another one *this* weekend because no one but no one has these babies sitting on a shelf ready to go, it seems. It's kind of nauseating to see '2-4 weeks to ship' over and over and over again when you need one like, OMG YESTERDAY. So I have week off from bead making while things are in motion and I think I need it to help alleviate my stress levels.

Anyhoo. I have grand plans for my upcoming 'unemployment' aka forced unpaid vacation like:

• catching up on six months/eight inch high stacks of paperwork. *ahem*
• work on the site/Etsy in regards to Halloween/Xmas stuff so it's ready to go when the new kiln is here
• no-excuses-anymore regular exercise.
• no-excuses-anymore down and dirty housecleaning
• track down some parts for the broken kiln so I will have a back-up in the future
• oh, and all the usual not-at-all productive type things in the larger sense like knitting, finally finishing the Dance with Dragons book, etc.

 First up in the non-productive type thing is to finish this pair of mittens I started this week:

I think I had planned for these to be a Xmas gift for the hubby last year but he ended up with just the skeins of yarn in his stocking. Heh. On the bright side, I am now on schedule to make a grand debut of them for *this* year's Xmas stocking. :)

And my personal 2011 Sock challenge socks for July are fini so it's time to cast on for a pair for August. (I'm thinking a pair of candy-corn-ish striped pair of Jaywalkers. Mmm.) The yarn - Lornes Laces - and pattern - Boysenberry Yo - are exclusive to the Cookie A Sock Club and were a fun knit.Vaguely reminiscent of a feather-and-fan pattern.

I can't tell you HOW MUCH I am enjoying this sock club this year. I've joined a bunch of sock clubs over the years and this is the first one where I have not only used the yarn/patterns as they came in but I've used them TOGETHER. Usually you like the yarn but not the pattern or you don't like how they look together, but this one has been just perfect with each shipment. I think we just have one more shipment to go, in November, and then it's done. *sad*

Good news/Bad news

Good news: Knitpicks new Chroma yarns knits up quite beautifully. It's a great alternative to the (to me) scratchy, splitty Noro yarns that have similiar gradient coloring.

Bad news: I knit these in a size large for him, he wore them the other day, washed them and.............HOLY FRAKKIN' SHRINKAGE. :( I didn't notice the tag said 'hand wash', *ahem*, and all our knit socks go in the machine wash. (In a lingerie bag, always cold water, line dry. It works fine for MOST of the things I knit.) Needless to say, they no longer fit him. I have two more skeins of this, in the Fossil color, I will now *not* be turning into socks like planned. Grrrr!

Somewhat Good News: they still fit *me* fine (yay for having small feet!) but I really owed him a pair of socks and after knitting for two weeks on something for him..................I *still* owe him a pair of socks. *sigh*

(I seem to be having a small run of bad knitting mojo in 2011. Pfffft. Happily, my glass mojo and stitching mojo are still healthy. *knock on wood*)

BLIZZARD?

We didn't get no stinking blizzard! I am disappoint!!

After days of hand wringing and sky's gonna fall weather predictions, I wanted some EPIC STORMING, man!

We did get some snow (my driveway is  yet to be uncovered in there somewhere) but it was just your regular ol' snowstorm. Pfffftttt. Where's the fun in that?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The husband's car needs a new transmission part to the not so FA LA LA LA LA tune of $1600...and his car is not really worth fixing for that much. (It's basically just a workhorse for commuting a long distance. There's no point in having a really nice second car............it would be a huge waste of money.)

Ok, so uhhhhhhhh............worst month ever for this to happen? (Especially because on top of Xmas, this month also brings the renewal of our house/car insurance.)

Oh well. I'm still thankful because 1) $200 might be enough to cobble it together for a couple more months (*crosses fingers*) so we can shop carefully for the best used car deal in the meantime vs. having to buy the first thing we come across  and 2) he can always take my car to work for the time being if needed (to say I rarely use it myself is an understatement! heee heee hooo hoo! me? driving???).

He's been stressing over it these past two days and I had to remind him that we went through a period oh-so-long-ago when we first lived together where we had exactly ZERO money to our name and I drove a 15 year old $300 P.O.S. big ugly snot green car with NO FREAKING REVERSE and a plastic, taped in back window............FOR TWO YEARS!

(Did I mention it had NO REVERSE? That was..............interesting. :))

(And I needed a big fluffy pillow to help me see over the steering wheel because I'm teeny tiny.)

(And someone stole the equally P.O.S analog radio out of it...........right before they left an empty bottle of liquor under the front tire.........and a big pile of sick-up. *sigh* That was such a great neighborhood! Pfffft.)

Now that's car troubles. I think what we have now is closer to 'car annoyances'. lol

Gah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Emails, etc. may be delayed as my computer is totally totally FUBARed today.
(I'm currently on my husband's netbook, which is not set up for my email or printing - which is ok for internet browsing, not so great for doing my bead biz stuff. *sigh*)

My pc user profile was corrupted and I'm finding out now that having only one user account on your pc is a bad idea. Because if you corrupt your administrator account, well, you are in deep do-do. OH HAI THERE, YOU COULDN'T HAVE FOUND A WAY TO GET THIS INTO MY HEAD SOMEHOW LIKE YEARSSSSSSSSSSS AGO??????????
I thought having only one user account meant that my marriage was 'open' and very trusting because we had no need to hide anything from one another so OF COURSE we only needed one computer 'user'. My passwords are his passwords and la la la aren't we all modern and Share-y McShare-atons and shit? WHOOPS. BAD ME. Now I get to try and recreate everything from scratch from the last 2 years from when we bought this computer. *le sigh* (Because seemingly easy copy/paste/restore/backup functions don't seem to be working. Nothing ever goes as it should when it comes to computer problems though, right? That's par for the course. lol)

Oh well, I'm off to browse pretty stitchy/yarny pr0n blogs while waiting for a seemingly endless check disk thingy to finish in an attempt to sooth my soul before I have to start trying to repair stuff again. Wish me luck! :)

Oh hello my old friend EPIC FAIL. It's been far too long inbetween visits...

You know? You never can tell what's going to happen with a yarn when it gets wet. For the most part, it turns out softer, loftier, and with a better 'hang' or drape. And sometimes, it goes bad. Really bad. Really really bad.
This would be one of the bad times hitting me square in the face.

Do these look fine to you?

 How about in this pic?

 One more just for good measure.

These *were* a normal sized pair of socks and then I washed them and they stretched... and stretched... and stretched.. All on their own mind you - I wasn't pulling on them or anything. So what *was* a normal sized foot length is now Clown Foot size. Shaq-sized. Frankstein-length. It's just...................ridiculous. Big floppy loose flapping sized length. I literally laughed until I cried when I first saw what was happening.

(And uhhh, one foot might be longer than the other too but that might be because I knit on them when I was really sick. *ahem* I swear the length problem in general was not my fault because he tried them on before I washed them and they fit like a glove, albeit with one a TINY bit longer than the other.)

Oh well. If you're not FAILING, then you're not KNITTING. Just gotta shake it off like a prize fighter and get ready for the next hit. lol Overall it's a fairly easy thing to fix. I can either unravel it back 3-4 inches and reknit the toe entirely or cut the toe off neatly, put it on DPNS, unravel the foot some, and then graft the two back together. I'm usually a champ at grafting so I'm thinking the latter will do it.

Bright Idea/Epic Fail #938383

In which I 'save money' by trying to find  something locally (to save on shipping, you know) and end up spending way more than I would have if I had just shopped the internets. /sigh

Case in point #1:
Just Cross Stitch October magazine (the one with the Halloween ornaments)
There are no local needlework shops within a hundred miles of here (slight exaggeration but anything over an hour away ceases to be 'local', yes?) so a' trekking we went to find it because I didn't want to spend $6 shipping on a $6 item. I didn't find that issue but I found the Xmas ornament preview one so that's good but we drove here (Michaels), there (quest for a craft store listed in Google but seemingly invisible to the naked eye in real life), and everywhere (Barnes & Noble, ding ding ding! winner!) for it, spending more in gas than the shipping would have cost? lol  And now we have to go back to Barnes & Noble for the issue I ACTUALLY wanted at some later date. *head slap*

Case in point #2:
Trek to the (yayyyy!) local yarn shop for a new circular needle because I didn't want to pay $4 shipping from Knitpicks on a $5 item. Shopping locally is good anyway, right? Sure it is. Until you go in for one circular and end up walking out with 1) a circular needle that cost twice as much as the Knitpicks one and 2) with 2 skeins of yarn. /sigh

I couldn't resist the sherbert-y colors of the Zino striping and the Malabrigo skein is something I already have ONE skein of, which is great for socks, but now with TWO skeins I can whip it up into a great big ole scarf (or shawl) instead. (And with a side-by-side comparison, they seem to match pretty well, which is lucky! If it didn't match up, I was just going to alternate skeins. There are no hard color changes in this colorway so I figured it would work out either way.)

Wallet: Empty
Me: Failed but happy because LOOK AT THE PRETTIES! WEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Happy Friday everyone. :)

Another summer week that just flew right by. It's just crazy how fast this summer seems to be going by. :( At least the heat/humidity let up some this week so we're not all wilting like wilty things. lol

How adorable is this?

Little House Needleworks - Fresh Watermelon

I've seen this stitched up on many, many other blogs and I've loved them all so I finally got around to doing one up for myself. Most of this stitching was done last month pre-shawl obsession, I only had the watermelons and the vine on the left to finish it up this week. And, of course, I totally hosed the vine part. So par for the course. lol So_close_to_finishing only to be outdone with EPIC FAIL. I put in an extra repeat in the middle by accident so the top of the vine ended up a little higher than it should. Honestly? I don't really care. It's one of those weeks. I could have gone back and fixed it but I figured, you know what? It's a random-freaking-vine and I'm going to embrace my RANDOMNESS. So it's missing a small green leaf at the top...................Maybe I like it BETTER THIS WAY, ok? (Edit: I just noticed I'm missing about 9 squares of white on one of the flowers. Now that I *will* go back and fix tonight before I forget!)

A lot of people wonder how I get so many projects done and here is the not-so-secret secret: it's because I have a husband who goes to bed early (and I do mean EARLY - 8pm) four nights a week because of his work schedule. (Up at 1-2am.) I don't go to bed until after midnight so that is a lot of 'quiet' time going on in this house at night. lol So what else is there to do? I can't do housework. I can't operate exercise machines. I can't bake/cook. (I really do hate having a house where the bedrooms are on the main floor with everything else. Everything you do is NOISY.) So what do you have left: tv related activities, things you can do during the tv related activities like knitting, etc., computer related activities, reading related activities, and, I suppose, drinking yourself silly. (Hint: I have about 1-2 drinks per year so that one is not a real activity. lol) I like to keep myself busy so that's how stuff gets done.You just never know what I'm actually in the mood for though. I went through a serious knitting related drought earlier this year but that seems to be over for the moment. The Fair is coming up and if I'm going to enter anything to be judged I gotta get moving! :)

Getting back to normal this week.

Or should I say back to the new normal...or would that be the start of the new normal because if it's new then how can you go back to it? OMG MY HEAD HURTS ALREADY. lol

Thank you everyone for your kind messages and emails. My husband reads my web site too so he too read them over and sends his thanks.  It was a difficult week. Not as difficult in some ways as I thought it might be but downright awful in other ways. Nothing insurmountable with a little time and patience though. :)

To that end it was back to work yesterday so I should have some new beads posted for sale at some point this week. We made a bit of a change to my working area which is causing me some headaches (not literal headaches, just major aggravation) and made me a little less than productive yesterday so that was UGH. He probably won't be able to try to fix things until tomorrow so I'll just have to grin and bear it for another day. I had the bright idea to switch out the falling-apart chair mat with a piece of plywood to save money because I end up replacing those damn mats *all* the time and the size I need to protect my work area is not very small so the mats are expensive. Yes, I get to write them off on my taxes, which is a good thing, but sometimes I just don't want to spend all that cash on the same item, again and again and again. (And I have to have something because I do drop things here and there and dropping hot glass on a floor, as one might imagine, results in ugly burn marks. Who knew right?) So I thought maybe a piece of wood would be better because, theoretically, it should last forever. And it would be fine if my chair didn't fall off the back like KLUNK every time I got up to put a bead in the kiln, and my elbows weren't at different heights because it raised up one of my tables but not the other and I could actually SEE the psi gauge on my oxygen concentrator (which also got raised up and now I can't see it) because it does fluctuate a bit as I'm working and I need to adjust that and MAYBE I JUST DON'T LIKE CHANGE VERY MUCH, OK? lol I've had things a certain way since 2004 and OMG I MIGHT DIE NOW BECAUSE IT'S ALL DIFFERENT.

*ahem* Or not. There is a plan to make things better so it will work out soon. Just feel free to ignore me in the meantime. :)

Ok, who else has finished The Passage because I need to pick your brain a tiny bit about something that happened at the end. I read it one way, thought about it some, reread it, and now I'm not sure what I think. Ultimately it doesn't matter because it will/won't work itself out in next books, which will give me a definitive answer.......at some point. /shrug

Holllllly heck I don't know where this week has gone. :(

Just POOF! and it's suddenly Friday? I need to make a to-do list for next week, methinks, so I don't get off track again and lose another week to the nothings. lol

Notable things for the week:

OMG NEW HP TRAILER.

What? You didn't watch this obsessively ten times in a row? Oh, maybe it was just me. lolol I even watched it a couple times on my tv to get the full 42-inch HD effect (because all hail the TiVo wireless service that streams all sorts of internets). I don't even know why I get so excited about these trailers because the movie is never ever even close as good as the books. I KNOW THIS and yet I still get excited. There is FiendFyre! And Shell Cottage! Walk in the Forest! Snake in a Old Lady! UGH. Is it November yet? lol

Hey, if someone's cell phone accidentally pants-dials you what do you do? Ignore it? Think the person in question has been kidnapped and get the state police and rescue services involved?

.......................Wait.....what? Yeah, welcome to my world. We went out to eat out-of-state the other night and the hubby's cell phone accidentally crank called his mother a few times while it was in his pocket. She took this to mean we had been abducted, like for REAL, and had 911 emergency services rushing out to our house like woahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Now you have to understand - this is a very quiet neighborhood. Very. Quiet. There is NO thru traffic on this street and I've only seen a police car once in my 7 years here and that was when One Eye John took ill. (His actual nickname - I swear I'm not making fun.) So when we got out of the restaurant there was a blizzard of voice mails from his mother, the Connecticut State Police and neighbors to deal with. CRAZY STUFF, man. And, per usual, we forgot to lock our sliding glass doors so I'm not even sure the police didn't come in the house on their own when no one answered the front door. Grrrrr. (Actually, we're lucky the front door was locked. I forget that one too sometimes. *sigh*) I'm glad to know that if something happened, people would notice but I'm not sure I needed firsthand knowledge of this. Hmph.

Sooooo, that's my crazy story for the week. Bet you can't top it. Here's hoping the holiday weekend is boring and drama free! lol

Have a great weekend, guys. :)

July Stockings

Finished up just in time!

I actually stitched them earlier in the month (way earlier) but put the finishing aside and then.................totally forgot they existed. I came across them last night while I was organizing stacks of crap some stash hanging around my living room and whipped them together. Not sure how much I like the wedding ring one though? The stitched part is so much smaller than the stocking template, it looks weird to me? I thought about trimming it/sewing it together so it was right on the edge of the cross stitched part but that would make it a lot smaller than all the other stockings I've done and I know THAT would bother me too so I left it as is. I'll just chalk this one up as "Not One of My Favorites" in the series. /shrug

It was a week of bad mojo for all my projects, I guess. I've been working on a pair of socks with my Watermelon yarn and was making good progress, was up to the toe on the SECOND sock...........and realized I had knit the leg too long by not ONE, but TWO pattern repeats. And I'm not going to lie - I contemplated how much it would bother me that one sock would be longer by about two inches than it's mate. Anything to avoid ripping out a few days of work. But OF COURSE that would bother me because it's such a STUPID mistake and who wants to be reminded of that? lol So I eventually came to my senses and  ripped it all out so I could start the heel/foot part all over again. (Which is where it sits for the moment because I think this project and I need a Time Out for a few days. Hurt feelings on both sides and all.) If you're not royally screwing up your knitting here and there, you're not doing it right.........right? lol

Here's a neat not-quite-a-recipe recipe for Corn on the Cob from Tasty Kitchen that I tried yesterday that came out wicked good. It looks odd - almost like you are cooking your corn in soap water. But the corn really *was* the best ever. Didn't need anything to accompany it other than a sprinkling of kosher salt. And I'm usually the sort to glop butter alllllllllllllllllll over my corn on the cob. I'm not much of a butter lover in the larger scope of things and almost always prefer my veggies plain steamed or roasted with a little olive oil, with two exceptions: corn on the cob and mashed potatoes. I just *have* to have real butter for those and that's that. Heart valves be damned, I say! But this came out so good it honestly didn't need it.