*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! :)

Will it be lion or lamb? Hmm..................

 This was the view on my road on March 1st so I'm thinking....................lion, right? Could go either way but I'm definitely leaning towards 'in like a lion'. If only the universe had made it a little easier to choose!  ;^)

(Here's to a lamb-like end-of-March!)

So definitely no walking outside for a bit until the snow melts (which it is doing today, matter of fact) but I had plenty of mail goodies to keep me company inside.

Lovely dishclothy and stitch marker gift goodness from Dee. LOVE IT! And the colors are perfect for me - purple AND lime. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :)

I really do love a good cotton cloth to use around the house* but hate knitting with cotton (it makes my elbows weep in anger) so I never knit them very often and this makes me sad.

*the more you use them, the better they get until that day when, oops, they completely unravel from the middle or something because you've used it so much. lol

And then there was this.

ARGH! I got sucked into joining QPB.... again! 

We've doing this dance for yearsssssssss. Literally. Over a decade now! (For real.) They go 'Psst. I'll let you have all these books for $1 each  if you just promise to love me enough to buy one more over the next year' and I get ALL TWITCHY AND DO IT. And I buy the one extra book, immediately cancel the membership, they woo me for a couple more years and keep adding stuff to the deals to catch my attention (this also came with a Star Trek-y book light and an overnight bag) until, one day, OMG I'M DOING IT AGAIN. Repeat until one of is dead. Honestly, I don't know why they keep wooing me because I'm not good for any other purchases - surely this is not a good business model? It is what it is at this point, I guess. Plus, as much as I love my Kindle(s), I do still love an 'old fashioned' paper book. Books in general make me happy. 

I was particularly pleased to get the Grimm's one. I had one of those when I was kid and it was quite fascinating and...........odd. Almost creepy and very un-Disney-like. I watch that show Once Upon a Time and it renewed my interest in them, to the point where I just wish listed one on Amazon recently. I'm not sure it's good 'reading' material to just sit and read all in a go but I know I'll enjoy going through it here and there. I don't remember them verbatim from childhood but I remember snippets, like, someone stomping their foot through a floor and that being his downfall? (Rumpelstiltskin?) I should probably finish one (or all) of the 4-5 books I've already started though first, eh? lol

Well here's something that hasn't happened to me in a while! Mr. Man and his 'make the leg longer, longerrrrrrrrrrrrrr, longerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr' made me run out of yarn on these when doing the toe*. BAH! (I swear he'd be happy if I made a pair of socks long enough to pull right up to his flipping EARS! lol)

Oh well. A quick dive into my leftover bits came up with this heathered gray that blends in so well you probably wouldn't have noticed I had run out of yarn if I hadn't said anything!

*The yarn was generous enough for a normal sized pair of socks so the fault is all mine - on that count. I have to say though, this Paton's Kroy line is a total bust and I won't be using it again. It knits up nice and thick, cushy and wears well. Good price on it. etc. So what's the problem? ABSOLUTELY NO RESPECT FOR THE CONCEPT OF DYE LOT. This is the second time I've used it for socks, using matching dye lots for the two skeins, and both pairs of socks ended up wildly different. One clearly has more vibrant colors than the other and they match only in that 'kinda sorta if you blink' way. Last year with a pair for my mother and now these - same thing. Not cool. Dye lots are there FOR A REASON and the coloring is off WAY too much for a commercial yarn to be anywhere NEAR acceptable. Grrr!

Anyhoo. I think next I might tackle one of the Cookie A patterns that just came in with my red sock club yarn. I'm kinda askeered of them though. *gulp*

They come with five charts to work through. For ONE pair of socks. 0_o

I blurred this a little so you can't really read them but you don't need to read them to see the page after page after page of charts for the design. Wish me luck! Heheheh.

Off to catch up on blog reading! Have a great weekend, y'all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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?!?

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*

Oh, sad day.

Sad, sad day.

My favorite pair of knitted socks finally wore through in the heel and now they are gone, gone, gone. *sob*

(Mr. Chicken is from the Pigeon Loft on Etsy. He's always helpful when something needs a good inspection. All business and cluck, cluck, cluck.)

These predate Ravelry so they are pretty old. I guess it was going to happen sooner or later. They were made with BMFA Socks That Rocks yarn, my all-time fav sock yarn, and no matter how much the color dulled, how many fuzzies they got, they were still comfy and squishy. Well, not too squishy in the heel, apparently, because the yarn seems to have just worn down to literal nothingness in that one spot. They were a little thick for wearing with shoes so I called them my 'slipper socks' and wore them around the house, usually once a week** in the winter.

The pattern is Crusoe from Knitty so I guess I'll have to put together another pair. I like the pattern (obviously) but I remember being slightly flummoxed, as a new knitter, at the number of stitches for the cast-on. My knitting 'brain' is all configured for a 64 stitch cast-on so a 44/48 stitch cast-on makes me break a few springs in the ole noggin', you know? It's not hard to reconfigure though. A few notes jotted down and you're set to go.

Anyhoo......Time to go digging through my stash to see what I have for BFMA yarn in there! (This sock was done with Fire on the Mountain but I'm open to all colors.) I don't currently have any socks on the needles so my way forward is clear. lol

**This is a big deal because I probably have 30 pairs (!!!) of hand knit socks in my drawer so I can rotate through them quite a bit if I want.

Apparently we've been bad.

Really really bad. 

And our punishment is to suffer the wrath of snow, more snow, and even more snow.

 Seriously, wtf is *UP* this winter with the snow?? The snow on the sides of my walkway is now piled up almost as high as I am (5 feet). And it's all come down within the last 3-4 weeks with another big storm coming next week. Anyway................sure glad I work from home so I don't have to deal with it too much. I hate driving in snowy weather. Ugh. :(

It's great knitting weather though because who feels like going out when it's this icky?? I sure don't. It's given me time to go back and watch some of the 234231234 gazillion hours of tv piled up in my TiVo. I had the whole season of Boardwalk Empire to get to and I figured now was as good a time as any since it just won some Golden Globes awards, right? Managed to get through half the season last week and make great progress on two new pairs of ribbed socks, even managing to finish these new ones for my mother (she's so spoiled - that's now TWO PAIRS for her this month!! lol):

Ravelry linkage.

This yarn is turned out to be something of a FAIL. Grrr. :(

Listen - I don't mind fraternal socks, I make fraternal socks ALL the time but when I pick out two skeins of yarn with the same dye lot I expect them to match a LITTLE better than this, yanno? One sock is a nice red/yellow/orange/etc rainbow and the other sock.............is just kinda green. I mean - WTF? 

HAVING SAID THAT, they did knit up nice and thick and it was pretty cheap, as far as wool sock yarn goes. (Less than $10 for both skeins.) It's the Paton's Kroy sock yarn that you can find at Joann's Fabrics, etc. I assume it's a knockoff of the (MUCH) more expensive Trekking type yarns that look just like this but to be honest, as far as knitting goes, I like the Paton's yarn better. That Trekking stuff splits like a mother and the yardage can be a little skimpy when doing men's socks. So I would use this yarn but I would definitely do a little looky-loo into the inside of the skeins before I bought them to try and match them up better!!!

I found this 'Brady Brunch special' skein of sock yarn at the local Job Lot this week for $2. The hubby said he would wear them if I make them so I bought it and we'll see if it happens. $2 for 75% wool yarn? That's a steal, but these colors are rocking a serious 70's vibe to me (and not in a good way). I hope it knits up better than it looks here. Heheheh.

Happy New Year!

Or Almost New Year. :)

I think I had big, soft-focus dreams of doing a whole lot of nothing this week and they turned out to be just that: DREAMS! lol Y'all are keeping me busy with orders this week so work, work, work it is. (Thank you!)

And somehow, the Christmas Knitting keeps going on.........and on, well past the holiday. Partly my fault. I knew we weren't going to be seeing his grandfather until AFTER the holiday so I waited to make the usual dishcloths I do for him.......and waited.......and waited. Cue crazy-ass knitting the day after Xmas and................SCENE!

I did nice sunny yellow/white ones for him and then a couple more using up some scraps hanging around in my kitchen cotton bag for my mother, etc. including this Xmas (strawberry patch maybe?) one. (Doesn't everyone have a bag of kitchen cotton in case of a dishrag emergency? YOU SHOULD. Matter of fact,  I just restocked my 'emergency bag' with a few new skeins from Joann's. BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW when the dishrag apocalypse is going to happen and then who is going to come out on top? ME. THAT'S WHO.)

That plus my mother was all I AM DISAPPOINT because I didn't make her a pair of socks this year so I cast on for a pair the other day and am making that my first knitting project for 2011. (Yes, I'm a few days early but I'm still TOTALLY counting it for 2011!) In her defense, the knitted ribbed ones fit her better than store-bought when her legs swell up because the ones I make can stretch out like crazy when needed. I do see her point but if she wants a whole drawer full of hand-knit socks she's going to have to let me sit her down and teach her how to knit so she can pitch in a little. lol

In the meantime, I'll keep picking out the craziest stripey yarn I have in my stash for her because it amuses me to no end to do so. Heh.  :)

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?