The perfect place for a knitter to live?
Hopefully the kitties are keeping busy – but not too busy…
“Hold still, May. Don’t make me bite off your whiskers!” -Chaos
*mmmph* -Mayhem
Monthly Archives: June 2007
Oh, the felinity!
Things are gonna get kinda irregular around ye olde blog. We’re going on vacation scheduling here – erratic! I will have the SoC mobile blogging station with me, but I’ll tend to have time to post when nothing very interesting is happening – like from my motel room in Lincoln, Nebraska, tomorrow night! Wild times. Needless to say, I shall get very behind in bloglines and probably never catch up. 🙂
I’m packing. I almost have the knitting projects figured out. The book bag is filled and waiting. My ipod is loaded with Harry Potter books 1-5 and the His Dark Materials trilogy. I even have a backup book on tape (Wuthering Heights), just in case. What else…. D’oh! Clothes!
Whoa, flashin’ – and not just the yarn stashin‘! (Before this gets too out of hand- no human tummies, of any age, ‘k?)
JessZ is having a contest while she and Dv are in suspense to hear whether the offer they put in on a house has been accepted – complicated backstory and complicated point awarding system to determine the contest winner. (“Triple points if either one of us shoots a beverage out our nose while reading your comment.”)
Carol of Go Knit In Your Hat is having a contest looking for ideas for her imaginary line of greeting cards: “How I Really Feel”TM. Email her your ideas before midnight, June 25. Only emailed ideas are eligible for prizes! Also, she will have prizes for the non-knitters, so don’t let that stop you (yes, Tink, Van, TB, MamaT, Deb B-M – I’m talking to you).
Michaele is featuring some interesting things I could see on my drive from Minneapolis to Denver, should I so desire. Tragically, Carhenge would require quite a detour.
Nichole has a nice post about animal protection that includes information about the ban on ivory, which expires very soon.
Reading Update
Smitten by Janet Evanovich. Another of Evanovich’s romances from back in the early 80s. Cute, but not worth exerting any effort over.
Murder of a Sleeping Beauty, Murder of a Snake in the Grass, Murder of a Barbie and Ken, Murder of a Pink Elephant, Murder of a Smart Cookie, Murder of a Real Bad Boy by Denise Swanson. A whole bunch of Scumble River mysteries. They’re light and cute and reading them is sort of like eating potato chips…
Knitting Update
Finally finished my pink’n’black socks. Whew! Plain stockinette foot and slip stitch rib on the leg, just to break things up a bit.
“Just out for a living room stroll, dum-de-dum-de-dum.” -Mayhem
“What have we here? A new kitty bed?” -Mayhem
“Lots of support. I like that in a kitty bed. And such a flattering color for me!” -Mayhem
Rub-a-tum-tum
Edit: Hee hee – I wonder if they used Chaos as inspiration?!ÂÂ
I found another cat tummy or two myself. Chaos’ brother, Diablo (he’s on a diet!) – hmm, it’s a bit hard to tell, but doesn’t it look like he’s missing guard hair in the same spot Chaos is?! (I know, more exposed boy kitty nipples. Blog’s going to heck in a handbasket.)
A really bad shot of Chaos’ mom, Riley, and her white tummy spot – if it helps, part of her mouth is on the extreme upper left of the picture.
Our unsettled weather continues. Yesterday we had crazy, crazy wind. The big storms missed my area of Minneapolis, but the clouds over Lake Calhoun last night were pretty dramatic – these are from the south shore of Lake Calhoun, looking north toward downtown.
Ok, you busted me. I got nothin’! I’ve been doing all sorts of little things to get ready for vacation, but haven’t made a whole lot of knitting progress (although I am on the cuff of the second pink and black sock). Somewhere I have a reading update to post, too… I will post something else before I leave Monday, I promise!
Gratuitous Chaos shot to distract you…
*bite bite bite nip nip nip* -Chaos
Flat Mayhem
Local craftblogger Becka is having a goldfish names contest and the prize is a really cool felted bowl. There is also a prize for the most creative wrong answer! Winners will be announced June 11.
Chelsey’s coordinating the Official Knitter’s Book Swap Volume 1, in which knitters will swap their favorite non-knitting books. To participate, send her an email by 7 pm EDT, June 14.
There’s going to be a blogger meet up at Estes! Thanks for organizing this, Margene.
Ok, I have to admit it – I’m completely fascinated by Mayhem’s frog pose. You might’ve noticed. 😉 She spends a lot of time like that, so I’ve gotten some interesting shots. For reference, that chair rung is 4 inches from the floor.
*swish swish swish* -the sound of Mayhem’s tail
*swish swish swish* -more with the tail
“Are you done yet? I come under here to get away from you with that camera! This is my private time.” -Mayhem
Tummy Tour
My, when I posted a few tummy shots, who knew that this would happen?!
KitKatKnit is having another contest! No, not an art history contest – this one is about an ongoing reference in her blog to “Unlucky.” Go leave a comment speculating wildly what that whole “Unlucky” thing might be about and you could win some handspun yarn if you’re the closest or make KitKatKnit laugh the hardest. Contest closes at noon PDT, June 13
Last night I was hanging out at home with the cats when we heard some pretty darn loud thuds out the front window. I went to peek out in time to watch as a woman, cheerfully talking on a cell phone, hurled a brick through the side window of a running car. Then she unlocked the car from the inside, hopped in, and drove away. I’m assuming it was her car and she’d locked the keys in while it was running. But dang, wouldn’t it have been easier to wait for a locksmith?!
A bit later I walked into the bathroom to find Chaos on his hind legs rummaging through the medicine cabinet. Um, looking for something in particular there, Chaos?! Something to fluff up that tummy hair, maybe?!
Finally it was bright enough to take a few pictures of the rest of my dyed and reskeined yarn. Tangentially, we have had a lot of rain here recently – apparently, we usually get 4 inches of rain during June. By yesterday, St Cloud, MN (about an hour northwest of Minneapolis) had received 2.5 inches of rain in June. Yes, during the first three days of the month.
Anyway! Reskeined yarn.
I didn’t bother to reskein this small pink and aqua skein – I just wound it into a ball.
Hmm. Perhaps there’s something wrong with my camera – look at the black blob obscuring most of that shot! You can barely see the poor little ball of yarn.
Here are the other skeins – the top one is the Malabrigo and the others are sock yarn.
*sound of off-camera whistling* -Chaos
*sound of off-camera whistling* -Mayhem
Dang, sure is a lot of traffic in this living room, isn’t there?!
From Mayhem!
“Hold your horses, Mom. I’m not done on the computer. I have to see what that cutie Gandalf is up to!” -Mayhem
Chaos upside down cake
To celebrate Worldwide Knit in Public Day, the Twin Cities’ Knitters (TCKnit) are going to gather (with bag lunches) at the Lake Harriet Rose Garden in Minneapolis on Saturday June 9, 2007, from 11 am – 2 pm. I’m a maybe – vacation prep will be eating my brain at that point!
Karrie is having a contest – if you know anything at all about drum carders, please go share that information with her! If you don’t know anything about drum carders (like me, for example), leave a comment about one of your knitting must-haves. Contest is open until June 9.
Jennifer is having a contest to help her spend her birthday money. Leave her a comment or send her an email recommending an etsy seller that you think she might like and you could win a skein of Duet sock yarn. Contest closes at midnight on her birthday, June 13.
Congrats to Amy, Heather, and Susan, who won Project Spectrum Red/Black/Metallic mix cds! Thanks to everyone who played along. I’ll have another contest at the end of July for Project Spectrum Purple/Orange/Brown mix cds.
Pao and MrsPao sent me a lovely surprise package a week or two ago. Gluten-free goodies (including one of my very favorite treats, dark chocolate covered rice cakes – don’t knock them until you try them!), a cute little wooden vase, a lovely skein of Lisa Souza sock yarn, a sheep magnet, a felted mouse bookmark (that might be a challenge to keep away from Mayhem), a gorgeous black cat card, and an extremely noisy cat toy that babbles. A piece of packing tape toned it down enough that all three of us stopped jumping when it babbled (which I know has amused Pao mightily). Thank you both!
And then Peeve surprised me with a late birthday present. It’s getting close to my half birthday, so maybe it’s an early half birthday present… More gluten free goodies and two stunning skeins of very special yarn, dyed by the late Marta (and the skein on the right will coordinate very nicely with another skein that Peeve gave me during her visit). Thank you so much!!
So after I posted the picture of Mayhem’s fluffy tummy (complete with white bikini “smile”), there was some muttering in the comments about equal time for Chaos’ tummy. Well… funny thing about Chaos’ tummy. I suspect that he’s supposed to have a large white patch, very similar to that of his mother. However, he just has undercoat and a line of scraggly white hairs, leaving several of his poor little boy kitty nipples exposed. Inbreeding is a tragic thing…
“I can’t believe you just told them about the inbreeding. Do they really need to know that my father is probably my uncle, too?!” -Chaos
And finally, some knitting
How perfect is this? I Can Haz Cheezburger is having a caption contest! C’mon, u noes u wantz to. Contest ends June 6, 11:59 pm – and it’s a black cat you’ll be captioning. You know you can do it!
Aw, Mayhem really appreciated all the sweet birthday wishes yesterday! For those who are wondering where the heck the year went, I didn’t get her until September last year. Whew! No lost summer of 2006 for y’all.
A few details I neglected to include in my dyeing post earlier this week… I used an assortment of base yarns – some left over from last year and some I was just curious about. I had a lot of Kona fingering superwash, some Schoeller Zimba Top (picked up on Destash from Jennifer), some Kraemer Jeannie, and a random skein of Malabrigo donated by Yarnzilla. So far, my favorite superwash fingering sock yarns to dye are Louet Gems Pearl, Wool2Dye4, and Treadsoft.
We use Country Classics acid dyes, which have citric acid mixed in with the dye – much less stinky than using acetic acid (the acid in vinegar). Our technique is pretty fancy – we mix the dye in plastic cups and pour it onto the yarn, trying to use the minimum amount of water that we can. Then wrap the yarn in plastic wrap and nuke the yarn to set the dye. Make sure you use dedicated utensils and containers for mixing the dye and nuking the yarn! You can use use your regular microwave, but make sure the yarn is well-sealed in plastic wrap and air out the microwave afterward. Wearing gloves is a really good idea, too, unless you want to be mocked at work for your technicolor hands. Right, Jeanne?
Knitting *gasp* Update
I’m part of Sockamania, and we’re supposed to be knitting a pair of socks each month. I loved May’s pattern, but I got distracted by other things and didn’t get very far. I got a lot less far than it looks in this picture, actually, since I’ve decided the heel is way too tight and I need to rip back and start the gusset earlier.
The yarn is Regia Bamboo, color 1072 – I picked it because it had the April-May Project Spectrum colors of pink and green. This sock is probably on hold until after I knit the June Sockamania sock.
I started another, simpler sock, which fortunately covers one of the April-May PS colors and one the June-July colors.
“Hmph. So what if it wasn’t my birthday? What am I, invisible?!” -Chaos
Nope, I didn’t dye that yarn – I picked it up before we really got into dyeing. It’s from ebay seller lotusblossom, but it doesn’t look like she has anything now with Treadsoft superwash as the base.
“Teeheehee, big kitty! I am the cutest!” -Mayhem