- New releases: Tor.com (YA SFF, genre benders), Book Riot (romance)
- Liinkity from Smart Bitches.
- Patricia McKillip 🙁 .
- On Tolkien and linguistics.
- A ficlet called “Being Villagers”.
- Admire the straw necked ibis.
- Learn a little about chimney swifts.
- Did you know that otters have pockets?
- Mouse deer.
- The concept car that became the Batmobile.
- Ramen-inspired makeup.
- I think it’s a little late for the sign by this point.
- Plant IV bags.
- Very Fancy cat furniture.
- “Dog” beds for people.
- What a $20 million New York City apartment looks like.
- Abandoned funeral home (fortunately not for sale).
- I remain a fan of white ceilings.
- Another castle.
- Those stairs aren’t as attractive as I bet the designer thought they would be.
- Sorry, I got stuck at the pneumatic tube elevator.
- The water wheel is not the weirdest thing in this home – that shower…
- This one has its own mini sculpture park.
- Travel back in time to 1958.
- NO.
- NO!!!
- Another round house, but with built-in bookcases.
- Well then.
- Worst kind of party.
- Fruit cocktail eggnog pie.
- Dusting nightmare.
- Guillotine dining room table.
- Um.
- Sort of cool, but mostly disturbing art.
- “Hereditary taint”?!
- “How deep ends form in pools” – hover cursor/long-press for caption.
Category Archives: Knitting
Cats and socks and linkity, oh my!
- New releases: AAR (romance), Smart Bitches (romance)
- Linkity from Smart Bitches.
- Some bookish quotes collected by BookWyrm Knits.
- When the “Hero of the Valley” is dragged before the villainous king…
- About dragons.
- The size of blue whales compared to dinosaurs.
- Some ducks of Iceland.
- Feeding a hummingbird.
- Why tattoos don’t vanish when your skin replaces itself.
- Learn about lighting before electricity.
- Not a fun castle house.
- What the inside of a $3 million RV looks like.
- I like the idea of a round home, but I think I would need more flat wall space for bookcases.
- Mad Max but luxurious.
- “A cross between The Flintstones and the Wild West”.
- “God Glam” with “bonus cemetery”.
- Too much touching!
- An accident waiting to happen. And another.
- Huh.
- A $1500 cell phone from 1989.
- Back when phones came in about 12 colors total.
- Who knew Jell-O could look sinister?
- Spork is back with its cousin Speef!
- I think it was also the last small wide car.
- Snake bow tie.
- VERY CREEPY CAKE. CAN’T BE UNSEEN.
- Worst area rug ever.
- Epic burn indeed.
Socks for my SIL’s birthday. Some sort of Regia with the DK Flatiron pattern.
MORE socks for my SIL’s birthday, plus Harry (not for her birthday). This was Opal with a R1: Knit, R2: K1, P1 pattern.
First linkity of 2022…..
Oh hi… :waves: We’re all alive! Thanks to everyone who checked in – those were bright spots in some dark days.
So far I’m giving 2022 a 0/10 (do not recommend), to be honest. On New Year’s Eve day, I fell on ice and felt fine at the time but felt less fine over the next few days and then spent most of the next two months in bed. My hip and lower back feel SO much better now and I’m even back at work. And when I venture outside, I’m wearing something called EXOspikes on my shoes to deal with the snow and ice.
- New releases: Tor.com (YA SFF, scifi, fantasy)
- Linkity from Smart Bitches. And more!
- Linkity from BookWyrm Knits. And more!
- A ficlet about magic, power, a demon, etc.
- “It’s a beautiful day in the Shire and…“
- Have you seen the list of new snowplow names as announced by the Minnesota DOT?
- NO.
- Also NO.
- WHY.
- Sooooooo unique, indeed.
- UMMM.
- Oh sure, why not.
- EWWW.
- Spam Yahtzee.
- Soup-scented candles.
- BOOM.
- Wow, that is some top-tier quilting.
These look great, don’t they?
I hope they don’t just dissolve when my SIL wears them – I knit them from Poem yarn, which does NOT seem durable at all. Partway through, there was a knot and (although I couldn’t tell at the time) the colorway was attached backwards. 😮 Again, 0/10 (do not recommend) this yarn.
Mayhem on her way to a routine vet appointment.
In which linkity contains a photo of completed knitting! (I hope you were all sitting down.)
- Linkity from Smart Bitches.
- Linkity from Bookwyrm Knits.
- Learn a bit more about Shel Silverstein.
- A ficlet for writers.
- A ficlet about a Dark Lord with “a strict moral code”.
- Turning knitting into construction materials. (Thanks, KittenWithAWhiplash!)
- Don’t skip the tags on this one.
- All aboard the opossum bus!
- If you’ve ever wondered how centaurs would sleep, wonder no more.
- A sweet story of LEGOs. Maybe they’ll try this set next?!
- A sweet story that starts with foraging for hazelnuts.
- Art about everyday ableism.
- :blink blink:
- :blink blink blink:
- A little comic about a train.
- It’s tough being a knight.
- Oh snap!
Socks for me from Sparkly Grainbow yarn (Artistic Yarns by Abi) – Nicole knit herself a pair of socks from this yarn and I HAD to do the same. (Guest appearance by Polly.)
Man, linkity is sure having trouble coming up with titles these days
No linkity next week, as I will be listening to Hilary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton speak locally during my linkity making time.
Bookity
- Linkity from Smart Bitches.
- Cover snark from Smart Bitches.
- Linkity from the Pen Addict.
- “The bad faith attacks on Archive of Our Own have to end“. A history of fandom purges highlights how important ao3 is.
- “A history of deckle edges”.
- Listen to David Tennant read vampire stories to help you get in that Halloween mood.
- Georgia Tennant announced the birth of their fifth child in a fine Good Omens meme style.
- Story planning cheatsheet for you Preptober folks.
- VE Schwab on writing.
- Some fictional librarians. (via Book Riot)
- “The messy, beautiful worldbuilding of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe“.
- Have I previously linked to this version of Cinderella?
Do, Think, Learn, Make
- Flashback!
- Think twice before asking a neural net to pick your Halloween costume.
- If you want to read about terribly deadly sea creatures…
- The history of the ampersand. (Thanks, Nicole!)
- “Meet California’s nerds of neon“.
- “How untreated ADHD causes and traps you in depression“.
- “Use Kurt Vonnegut’s happiness trick“.
Cookity
- “Reddit users share their best weird, cheap meals“.
- 50+ pumpkin recipes.
- 25 butternut squash recipes.
- 5-ingredient chicken chili.
- Tomato rice with crispy cheddar.
- Pumpkin dump cake.
Gluten Free
Artsy Crafty
Cool
- LEGO dinosaur fossils.
- Replica Parthenon made from banned books.
- To remember if you’re having a rough day.
Cool or Wha…?
Wha…?
- Toasted coaster.
- Children’s films using HP Lovecraft.
- When your basement becomes a lake of blood, as they do.
- Watch “creatures of the deep…feeding on a whale carcass”.
Teh Cute
Reading Update
- SO MUCH Good Omens fanfic.
In shocking news, I completed my SIL’s 2017 birthday socks!
*unimpressed* -Chaos
And here are the socks, unobscured.
Linkity needs help with a dilemma
From Thursday, May 11, through Thursday, June 1, I will be taking a bookbinding class that’s required for my Book Arts Certificate (and which is always offered on Thursday evenings for some reason). Since Thursday evenings are my time for putting linkity together, I have a dilemma. A month without linkity seems a little extreme, doesn’t it?! How would y’all feel about maybe two Saturday linkities during that time?
Contest(s)
- Bookwyrm Knits is running a contest through the end of the month and the prize includes fountain pens, some ink samples, a self-inking Spiraldex stamp, and a blank journal. Make sure you read the details – comment early, comment often. 🙂 Closes 8 am PDT, April 30.
Bookity
- New releases: Smart Bitches (romance), Tor.com (genre-benders, scifi) and Gizmodo (scifi and fantasy)
- Linkity from Smart Bitches.
- Extended version of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
- The 2017 Hugo Award finalists.
- “When meditation doesn’t work, try journaling to stay sane“. Yes. Do try it! 🙂 It has been immensely helpful for me.
- “10 everyday phrases that come from printing“.
- “Scientists create a wheel of old book smells“.
- High school vocabulary test.
Think, Learn, Do, Make
- Hostile micronation warning!
- On scientists naming things.
- States of matter.
- How do centaurs eat?
- “The mystery behind Minnesota’s Devil’s Kettle waterfall has finally been solved“.
- Maybe another piece of the complicated puzzle that is celiac disease.
- “Court rules Civil Rights Act of 1964 also protects employees from sexual orientation discrimination“.
- I am unsurprised that we are stressed by climate change.
- But hey, Minnesota is the least-stressed state. 🙂
- April’s unusual holidays.
- Explore historic London with a combination of Google maps and old photos.
- Infographic of the most expensive ways to cross the US.
Cookity
- Chopped chickpea salad.
- Weeknight vegetable stirfry.
- Cheesy vegetable melts.
- Feta salsa.
- No-bake sheet pan yogurt lemon tart.
Gluten Free
Artsy Crafty
- Make your very own Wonder Woman plush uterus.
- 3D printed knitting.
- Knitting linkity from knittyBlog.
- Knitting linkity from kmkat.
Cool
- Truly spring must be on its way to the Twin Cities…
- LEGO Nye’s Polonaise! (That’s not going to mean much to you if you don’t live in the Twin Cities.)
- LEGO version of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 trailer.
- Scifi short about an astronaut.
- A little more from Elsewhere University…
- Dinosaur mugs.
- Linkity from kmkat.
Cool or Wha…?
Wha…?
- tRUMP on SNL.
- Cap’n Crunch infused beer.
- “Scientists want to use color-changing rainbow poop to diagnose your bowel problems“. (“Ma’am, you’re either dying or you’ve eaten a luridly colored Oreo recently – we just can’t tell.”)
- “You can now rent a Texas home that looks like a cowboy boot“.
- Cadbury Creme Egg pizza.
- Spaghetti doughnuts.
LOL
- Tiny Godzilla!
- For scale.
- In which we are all Ivanka tRUMP’s neighbor.
- Basketball autocorrects.
- Security advice. (Hover cursor/long-press for additional text.)
Teh Cute
- The owl and the pussycat (no pea green boat in sight)! Cheetah and babies! Baby penguin! Kittens! Baby kea! Baby lion!
Reading Update
White Corridor (Bryant & May #5) by Christopher Fowler. I gave it a couple of chapters, but it wasn’t working for me at all. It felt different from the other books in the series somehow. DNF.
Battle Street Bolero (Bone Street Rumba #3) by Daniel Jose Older. Very satisfying conclusion to this trilogy.
Improbable Libraries: A Visual Journey to the World’s Most Unusual Libraries by Alex Johnson. Very cool look at the many, many different ways that libraries reach people and people reach libraries around the world.
“What socks?” -Mayhem
Oh, these socks? 😉 These were for my SIL’s birthday… her March 2016 birthday. I finished them the day before her March 2017 birthday. Yay?!
Art Journaling Monday! Now with 100% more knitting than usual.
Welcome back to Art Journaling Monday! 🙂
- Hope.
- No one’s careful…
- Let America be America again.
- Rainbow critter!
- I am the Bill of Rights. Revolution intact.
- Very bright write over.
- Eye exam.
10 journal prompts to get you thinking about politics… if you can stand to do so.
The really funny thing about these socks I “finished” a few days ago? I discovered them when I was looking for something else… and they only needed two ends woven in to be done. Of course, I do remember moaning and bitching about the skein of yarn I used for them, which I firmly believe should’ve been sold as seconds due to the truly alarming number of ends in it. I’d planned to knit these matchy matchy, but by the time I started the second sock, I knew that wasn’t going to work (too many knots) so I knit it from the opposite end of the skein.
“What are these things on the floor?! They seem somehow familiar, maybe from a long, long time ago.” -Mayhem
In which I did my taxes instead of a Misadventure, so have some cute Mayhem on knitted socks pictures instead
Congrats to Dianna, who won Chyna Doll (Horizons #4) by Mickie B Ashling! Chyna Doll is being released today by Dreamspinner Press.
Random bonus picture from my weekend. I call it “Pinata Aftermath” – only five minutes earlier, this monkey had a body:
I’m still puzzled why a yarn designer looked at this colorway (blue/green/brown/black) and decided it needed hints of pink (not visible in the photo), plus sparkles. Yes, all of the little light-colored flecks are sparkles. Link to Ravelry project page.
“My goodness! MORE socks?! What is going on around here?!” -Mayhem
“Mmmmm… sparkly socks…” -Mayhem
Misadventure amnesty day
Congrats to Val, who won Secrets and Charms (Secrets #2) by Lou Harper!
Since I totally don’t feel like writing a Misadventure, I’m declaring a Misadventure amnesty day. Here, have a cute picture of a cat and a sock instead (click picture to embiggen):
“I love you, sock.” -Mayhem
Linkity listens to the howling wind and watches the snow blow by
Bookity
- New releases: Fiction Vixen (UF/romance), AAR (romance), and Tor.com (PNR)
- Book and publishing news from Dear Author.
- “Romance is not a feminist genre – and that’s okay“.
- Yet another reason reading fanfic lures some of us away from mainstream fic.
- Bring “squick” back to fandom.
- Important announcement about parentheses.
- Some Goodreads humor.
Do, Think, Learn, Make
- “If you threw cookie dough at the sun, how long would it take to bake?“
- Neil deGrasse Tyson will have a late night science talk show called Star Talk.
- Tour the Sriracha factory.
- Theater attendance hits a 19-year low.
- “Why the flu vaccine doesn’t always work“.
- The things that will be more expensive in 2015. (via Lifehacker)
- “Why are there so many dead malls? The middle class is dying, too“.
Cookity
- 7 meatless main dishes.
- 15 vegan recipes.
- 15 freezer-friendly main dishes.
- 17 make-ahead soups.
- Sweet potatoes with chickpea tomato sauce.
- Lentil soup.
- Sweet potato lentil soup with curry and lime.
- Shrimp and corn tamales with miso butter. (via The Kitchn)
- Sugar cookie popcorn. (via CRAFT)
Gluten Free
Crafty
Cool
- An extremely Minneapolis photo of someone ice fishing on Lake Calhoun in Uptown with the downtown skyline as backdrop.
- Smartish 9-volt battery that will contact you when your smoke detector goes off and before it starts beeping that horrible low-battery warning.
- Small LEGO scenes.
- LEGO-inspired furniture.
- Exoplanet travel posters from NASA.
- The Hubble Telescope celebrates its 25th anniversary.
- Photo of the Andromeda galaxy.
- Poignant short film about space exploration.
- Animation about hiding our true feelings.
- If you’ve missed playing The Oregon Trail…
- Design a hedge maze for the hotel from The Shining.
- Linkity from kmkat.
Cool or Wha…?
- Water bottles that look like rolls of film.
- Supercut of all the times Carl Sagan said millions, billions, etc.
- Life-sized cake of Dame Maggie Smith from Downton Abbey. (via The Mary Sue)
- R2-D2 projection keyboard.
- Jaws-themed baby crib. (via Tor.com)
Wha…?
- “Belfie Stick”, so you can take selfies of your butt.
- The Handicorn.
- Self-adjusting smart belt.
- Japanese domesticated owl cafes.
- GM will use OnStar to send coupons to your car.
- Drive a car remotely with a smartwatch – what could go wrong?
- Swarovski fitness tracker.
LOL
- 11 autocorrect sexts.
- How worried you should be when things happen in the movies vs in real life. (Hover cursor/long-press for additional text.)
- Should’ve done something like this when Chaos was wearing the Cone o’ Shame.
- Decorating tips from Basement Cat.
- Exploration!
- Maybe you should put that cat on a diet…
Teh Cute
Reading Update
- Look! Over there! In the sky!
“Hmm. The socks appear even when there aren’t any naughty boys around…” -Mayhem
And without Mayhem:
Ravelry project page, if you’re curious about the yarn, etc.