Category Archives: Knitting

Alongs, Knitting, Reading

Sometimes geeking can be woeful

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Don’t forget about Super International Pajama Day, coming up on February 3!

Many thanks to Jeanne and pao for assisting me with some blog woes over the weekend! The blog seems to be working fine again – whew! (I do admit to pestering Jeanne with the Yarn Harlot’s famous words: “Blog broken. Make blog go?”)

Also, in an effort to reduce comment spam, I’ve turned off commenting for posts more than 60 days old. Hopefully this doesn’t inconvenience anyone. 🙂

Reading Update
Heart of Stone: The Negotiator Trilogy, Book 1 by C. E. Murphy. This is the start of a new series by Murphy, and it was a very good read. Legal Aid lawyer Margrit Knight discovers that there’s more going on in NYC than she would ever have realized. This book has a dragon, a djinn, two selkies, a whack of gargoyles, and one vampire. (It’s ok, CarrieK – it’s definitely not a vampire novel. You’ll be ok. I promise.)
Web Mage by Kelly McCullough. This is an interesting premise – imagine that there’s also an mweb (magic web) in addition to the regular stuff on the internet… Sorceror and relative of the Fates Ravirn is just trying to get through the University of Minnesota’s CompSci program, so how did his life get so complicated?
Holidays Are Murder: A Maggie Skerritt Mystery by Charlotte Douglas. I continue to enjoy this low-key series about Pelican Bay, Florida, police detective Maggie and her former (police) partner, Bill. Since this series is published by a division of Harlequin, you may find them in the romance section instead of mysteries…
Key of Light by Nora Robert. This first book in the Key Trilogy was pretty good. Three modern women must solve an ancient puzzle while an evil sorceror attempts to thwart their efforts.
Hex Marks the Spot: Bewitching Mystery, Book 3 by Madelyn Alt. Maggie learns about Amish hexes when a local Amish craftsmen is found murdered.

Knitting Update
My black Velvet Touch “Scrunchable Scarf” continues to grow – and continues to be too unexciting to photograph. It is extremely soft and I’m quite happy with it.

*zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…* -Chaos

“Wha……..?” -May

Contests, Knitting, Those Cats

Niphead Mayhem

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Jeanne and Chelle have kicked off their 4th Annual k3tog Preemie Hat Knitting Extravaganza! Their goal is to collect 150 preemie hats in the month of January. They’ll be offering prizes for the hat(s) from furthest away, most hats knit, and several random drawings.

Christina’s been nominated for January Knit Girl – if you vote for her and let her know that you did, you’ll be entered in a drawing for a fibery prize.

I have a question for anyone using a Feliway diffuser – I put one out about three weeks ago and can’t tell if it’s actually diffusing effectively. The little jar is still about 2/3 full and the outside bottom of the jar seems to be collecting liquid – that doesn’t seem quite right to me.

I’m knitting myself a new scarf, but it’s simply too boring to bother sharing a picture. It’s, um, black, from Wendy Velvet Touch (100% nylon) – one of the few yarns that doesn’t make my neck itch. Silly neck.

CarrieK sent me a lovely thank you package! Check out the gorgeous and warm purple hat! She also sent season one of Jericho. If you’re keeping track, you’ll know that my queue now includes season one of Lost (conceivably Deb would like me to return that someday), season six of 24, and now season one of Jericho. To balance out the tv stuff, Carrie included a lovely black kitty girl bookmark and a “If only I could get paid to read all day” bookmark. She didn’t forget Chaos and Mayhem, either – they got some fun’n’froofy catnip toys. Thanks, Carrie!

“Do I detect… nip??!” -Mayhem

Chaos wasn’t too sure about the toys.

*poke poke poke* -Chaos

*sniff sniff sniff* -Chaos

“Oh, come on, big kitty – this is the good stuff! Here’s what you should be doing.” -Mayhem

“Hmm. They aren’t very… dignified toys.” -Chaos

“Dignity, schmignity!” -Mayhem

“Hey, who you callin’ a niphead?!??” -Mayhem

Knitting, Randonymity

Instead of ruby slippers, how about ruby sheep pjs?

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Just a few random things to finish off the year… Here’s my final FO of the year – toddler socks from some yarn I dyed a few months ago.

“Do you have any idea how happy I am that I’m not modeling those?!” -Mayhem

Mayhem received a fish-shaped Christmas stocking this year – only fair, since Chaos already had a Christmas stocking (“Spoiled”).

“Mine is better, big kitty – it has fur on it! And it’s shaped like a fish!” -Mayhem

“Don’t rub it in, May – mine doesn’t even have a picture of me on it. I don’t know what that little fuzzy thing is that Mom keeps insisting is me!” -Chaos

I got some fun presents to keep me busy in the new year…

“Can we watch an hour of our kitty dvd for every hour of 24 you watch?” -Mayhem

And… I got Ruby Sheep pajamas! 🙂

“Hmph. Why aren’t there more black cat pajamas?!? Always with the sheep pajamas.” -Chaos

I hope you all have a happy and safe New Year’s! (I’m just hoping for a much less painful start to 2008 than to 2007, personally.)

Contests, Knitting, Randonymity

Pass the Silk Nog, please

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Stop over and welcome Deb’s new black kitty, Sammy!

There’s a pretty cool contest over at Kathryn Ivy right now – you can win a complete Easter Egg Yarn Dyeing Kit. The drawing for the kit is limited to residents of the continenal US, but there’s a separate drawing for patterns that’s open to folks outside the US48. To enter, leave a comment (by noon PST, December 27) letting them know what you’re wishing for most this holiday season.

Scout’s looking for knitting inspiration – leave her a comment with your project idea by 8 pm MST, December 24, and you could win some goodies.

The present gnawer is definitely Mayhem. I watched her remove chunks from the poor thing last night. I wonder how picky my brother’s going to be about his present? It’s no longer even close to pristine. In fact, it sort of looks as if a furry, demented kitty girl has been going to town on it…

Some of you (*cough* Marina *cough*) may have noticed a certain lack of knitting around these here parts of late. I really haven’t felt all that inspired knittingwise. However, that hasn’t stopped me from having a plain old sock on the needles. The yarn is Wisdom Yarns, Marathon Socks – Boston (color 212).

“My goodness, Mom, I didn’t realize you still did this stuff.” -Mayhem

“Don’t move, Mom, or the sock is history.” -Chaos

“Told you not to move, Mom!” -Chaos

In the above picture, my pale wintery leg has been blacked out to spare all of you. It’s better this way. Trust me.

I may or may not post on Monday; I hope everyone has a good weekend and a wonderful holiday!

Contests, Knitting

Free to good (or, preferably, bad) home

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Hockeymom’s having a contest – suggest some potential projects for her new yarn and you could win some yarn of your own. Contest closes December 14.

Have you read these cats’ letters to Santa?! Brilliant. Only wish I’d thought of it myself. Hee hee – Mama Tulip, what do you think Chewy would ask Santa for? To be flame retardent, maybe?!

At the beginning of October, I purchased a couple skeins of the new fall Meilenweit colors. I took the skein of Stile (color 8004) to the hospital with me and discovered that the colorway, so extraordinarly lovely in the skein, was butt ugly knitted in whatever pattern I first tried. (I didn’t even document what that pattern was and have obviously blocked it out of my memory.)

After I got home, I ripped out that heinous sock and started another one. This time I used a slipstitch rib, hoping the slipped stitches would help… They did not. You might think, from the picture below, that these socks aren’t too bad. Ha! That’s because the taupe is hiding. In real life, the taupe jumps out and somehow unbalances and ruins the colorway. (Well, for me, obviously.)

This sock irked me enough that I’ve apparently never mentioned it on the blog – even though it’s been on the needles since October… Last night I got tired of it lurking around and decided it needed to be gone. So, if you’d like a mostly knitted sock (um, not really sure what size it is – it would fit my SIL, but damn, I can’t in good conscience give her such ugly socks) and its attached ball of yarn (needles not included) and promise to give it a bad good home, be the first person to leave a comment requesting said ugly ass yarn. How’s that for a sales pitch?! 🙂 ETA: Congrats (???) to Brigitte, who was the first human to request said skein!

A few more pictures – please note that neither yarn nor needles were harmed during this photo shoot, although I think Mayhem was totally nonplussed at how uncharacteristically involved Chaos got…

“Oh, good, I’ve been waiting for Mom to put some needles on the floor – I have something between my teeth that I just can’t get out…” -Chaos

“That needle did the trick! Damn, this is ugly yarn. What was Mom thinking when she bought it?” -Chaos

“Hmm… I really couldn’t begin to guess, big kitty.” -Mayhem

“Do you think it would look better if we tangled it up a bit for her, big kitty? I think most things look better when tangled.” -Mayhem

“Oh, good idea – let’s!” -Chaos

Knitting, Reading

Wow, I don’t usually have this much trouble thinking of a title

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Reading Update
In Deep Voodoo by Stephanie Bond. This is one of those mysteries that could be a romance, or a romance that could be a mystery. Let’s just say that I kept reading, which counts for something, no?
A Girl’s Guide to Vampires and Sex and the Single Vampire by Katie MacAlister. *fans self* *clears throat in embarassment* Moving right along!
Unzipped by Lois Greiman. I have now read this series completely backwards, after saying I didn’t feel the need to read the earlier books. *a-hem* Apparently, all it takes is a dark and appealing hero and I’m a goner.

Knitting Update
Sorry, Marina – there’s purple involved… 😉

Finally, the Crazy Boo Monkey socks are finished! This is some lovely Red Rocks Fiber Works sock yarn in the Boo! colorway (it is so not the Vikings colorway, Guinifer and Van), which was a convalescence gift from Michaele. I’m using the stitch pattern from the Los Monos Locos pattern (a speedy, non-purl Monkey alternative).

“Remember, Mom, I’ll take my payment for posing for this picture in MGWT time. Or small denomination unmarked bills. Or you could wire it to my Swiss account.” -Mayhem

Knitting, Those Cats

*yawn*

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I survived my first day back at work! I was pretty tired by the end of the day – but I must admit that it was one of those mornings when I woke up feeling tired. I’m blaming the aggressive kitty snuggling I was subjected to overnight! And curses, does work ever cut into reading blogs or what? Dang. I’m already way behind in bloglines. Woe.

Back before I had Mayhem, RheLynn of KnitOwl made me a wonderful mini-Chaos. She just sent me an adorable mini-Mayhem, too. Aw, thank you so much, RheLynn!

“It is very cute. But I am the real Mayhem! Me! And I am still the cutest!” -Mayhem

I finally sewed buttons on to the last of the bibs I knitted. Whew!

For some reason, Mayhem felt the need to show those bibs who was the boss.

“Ha! Take that, you wicked bibs!” -Mayhem

Knitting

Pinwheeling

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I had a non-sock, non-bib FO last week! Allow me to present the Child’s Pinwheel Sweater.

I knitted this with KnitPicks Swish (worsted weight) on US9s. From the center, I used Ballerina, Bubblegum, Wisteria, Red Pepper, Fired Brick, Bordeaux, and Navy Blue. I decided not to knit the loops around the edge; instead I did an i-cord bindoff, using the same size needle for the i-cord as I did for the sweater. If I do this sweater again (and it’s so speedy and cute, I probably will), I will set things up so that the beginning of the rounds is at the bottom of the sweater, not at the back of the neck, where either side might be visible. I will also use this “afterthought” armhole instead of the pattern as written.

“Big kitty, I really don’t understand how this sweater works.” -Mayhem

“Allow me to demonstrate, May.” -Chaos

“Wait a minute… now that I think about it, this is shameful. Don’t mind me, I’m just hiding in my box, as any shamed kitty should.” -Chaos

“Woe is me, woe is me.” -Chaos

“Hee hee, big kitty! I think I understand how the sweater works now. *snicker*” -Mayhem

Knitting, Reading, See the Sights

In which I lunch, accompanied by a furry guitar

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Remember the snow I mentioned Friday? Here’s photographic proof of it. May was enthralled, but she didn’t bird chitter at it the way she did last fall.

“If these are birds, they’re probably stupid, because they’re crashing right into the ground. Who wants to catch stupid birds?” -Mayhem

Reading Update
Unplugged by Lois Greiman. I’m reading these in reverse order, which isn’t brightest thing to do. Looks like I enjoyed Unscrewed (set after Unplugged) ok, but thought it covered so much of the previous books that I wouldn’t really need to read them. That explains why I had such a sense of deja vu as I read this!
Size 14 Is Not Fat Either: A Heather Wells Mystery by Meg Cabot. Former teen idol Heather Wells just keeps stumbling into murders as she tries to create a new post-teen idol life for herself.
Sex, Lies and Vampires and Even Vampires Get the Blues by Katie MacAlister. These are a bit silly, but since I am a sucker for cheesy titles, I keep reading them. 🙂

Life Update
Alas, I’ve healed so well that I return to work full-time on Wednesday. Waaaaah! If any of you know a single, cute, wealthy guy who has a great sense of humor and likes cats, send him my way, hmm? Thanks in advance! 😉

On Friday, after the snow had stopped and melted, I met Valerie (visiting from Massachusetts), her friend blog-free Kelly (visiting from Iowa),

the mysterious Guinifer (local, but I hadn’t met her before),

and Deb (yay, Deb!)

at 318 for lunch and knitting.

I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about knitting with Valerie, who you might know from Yarn4Socks, and Guinifer, who is a master yarn enabler (particularly sock yarn, but her reach is vast). However, I did manage to show up with a yarn that neither had heard of before – lovely sock yarn from Red Rocks Fiber Works (alas, nothing to their website yet), which was a convalescence gift from Michaele. I’m using the stitch pattern from the Los Monos Locos pattern, which I’ve knit before.

Besides the great company, conversation, and coffee, I really like 318’s decor. (Don’t look, Marina!)

“Why don’t Magical Flying Goldfish ever fall from the sky? Life sucks.” -Mayhem