Contests, Tales of the Neighborhood

In which I seek orange and yellow in my neighborhood

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Mrs Pao has been taking some great Project Spectrum-related pictures during her walks around her neighborhood and has inspired me to do the same. So on Saturday, I grabbed my camera and headed over to Lake of the Isles – one of my very favorite places to walk in Minneapolis. (You’ve already seen one picture from that walk.)

The city of Minneapolis, known for its many lakes, doesn’t have any privately owned lakeshore. Most of the lakes have small parks with walking and biking paths around them. So all of the large houses around Lake of the Isles are set back away from the lake, on the other side of a one-way parkway encircling the lake. I thought this yellow stucco villa with orange tile roof fit the PS bill nicely.

Minneapolis also has lots of sculpture around – here’s a very cool pale yellow propellor peeking over a wall – doesn’t it look like it’s blowing in the wind?

It’s a little early for ducklings, but we’re prepared.

Some nice bright safety features that I noted during my walk.

Although we don’t have any greenery at all yet, people getting into the Easter spirit provided some spots of color.

We’re big on Charles M. Schulz here, since he was born in St. Paul.

Some paintings brightened up an alley:

And this sad sun mosaic seems to be waiting for greenery to hide behind.

“Where were you?! I was so worried. What if you didn’t come back in time to feed me?!”

Alongs, Randonymity, Those Cats

A is for…

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Abundance. (Hey, cut me a break – I joined the ABC-Along late! I’m caught up now. Well, after this entry, I am.)

Blogging has brought Abundance into my life: Abundance of laughter, of tears, of joys and sorrows shared… Abundance of friends I would never have met otherwise.

You’ve probably participated in or at least noticed the Abundance of Pal exchanges (be they Secret, Better, or other) and contests in the knitblogging community as we reach out and share with each other, getting to know each other better, getting to know each other beyond the blogosphere. That was something that I never expected when I started to blog – but I’m definitely not complaining.

I love to get postcards from my friends on their travels, but over the past 10 years or so, the cards and postcards have dwindled as the internets increase. We send more email and virtual cards and fewer physical cards. It happened so gradually, I don’t think I really noticed. Until recently. The cards below are all from other bloggers. How cool is that?!

“I’m sure Mom won’t notice if I get up on the TV right now…”

As part of getting to know some other bloggers and sharing the Abundance, I participated in a little spring exchange with Peeve, Mrs Pao, and Eileen. I thought I’d share some pictures of a few of the fun things that have arrived.

Yum… A package from Mrs Pao, with some alpaca, Regia Silk (which I’ve been dying to try), and Fyberspates (which I’ve never seen before):

Along with a very fun goldfish wand toy for Chaos – I love the cat picture on the package!

And the aforementioned chocolate bunny (really, when the hormones hit in a few days, I won’t have any qualms about devouring that bunny), some cute mini knitting needles, a ball of Scheepjes (another yarn I haven’t seen before), some tasty gluten-free biscuits…

And my very own toy mouse, made from some gorgeous fruitwood! We’re having a wee spot of trouble with this mouse right now, since Chaos insists on knocking the mouse down from wherever I put it. Apparently, all mice are his mice.

Along with more gluten-free biscuits and steamed pudding/cake thingies (not available for this photo *ahem*), Peeve sent me Kafka on the Shore, with the far superior non-US cover…

*sniff sniff*

And a “Cat Garden” kit. Although the box says it’s for things like catmint and catnip, I think I’ll be growing a crop of little tabbies and torties and tuxedos. 🙂

One out of one tails exposed to this kit agree!

I highly recommend participating in a Pal exchange, be it one of the larger ones or simply a small one that you organize. It’s a lot of fun, and spreads the Abundance of blogging.
Knitting, Randonymity, Those Cats

Random rainbows

55 Comments

I’m enjoying the playlists y’all are sending in for the Chaotic Playlist Contest! You still have plenty of time to email your playlist to the contest line – remember that all playlists received by 6 pm Central Daylight Savings Time on Monday, April 10, will be included in the random drawing.

Let us all pause a moment to curse Daylight Savings Time. I’m still not back on track after springing ahead last weekend. Yeah, yeah, that extra hour of light is nice – but maybe we could just stay on DST all year instead of switching back and forth? Just sayin’.

There’s still time to buy tickets for the Geek Prom… No, I’m not going – why ruin my perfect prom non-attendance now? (Besides, skipping the cow eye dissection sounds like a wise move.)

Brace yourselves – is this not the cutest chocolate bunny you’ve ever seen?! Thanks, Mrs Pao!! But here’s the problem – I’m not sure I’ll be able to actually eat this twee little bunny. I want him to come home and live with me always!

*sniff*

Right now, the poor little bunny is hidden in my desk, away from my evil and menacing coworkers who have threatened his continued existence. Hmph.

Yesterday Danielle wondered if I’d been doing any knitting or if I was just hanging around admiring my cabinets. So last night I mostly finished my pair of Ranbow Jays – I have about 1/2 inch of ribbing left to do on one, plus weaving in the ends. (Thanks to Sandra, who inspired me to use my “Fun Nation” yarn for Jaywalkers!) And no, the heels aren’t uneven, altho it sure looks like it in this picture:


Yup, this was definitely my April Project Spectrum knitting project.

“Doody doody doody do… Whoa. What the heck is going on here?”

“So… bright… must not look directly at the socks…”

Randonymity

The cupboard over the fridge

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Kate is having a very interesting contest – show her the contents of the cupboard over your fridge. Now, at first I thought this wouldn’t be worthwhile, since I use that cupboard (heaven help you if you’re less than 5’9″ and need a paper towel in my kitchen, is all I’m saying). But when I actually took a look at it…

I obviously use it less than I thought. From the left, some boxes of Nut Thins, the aforementioned paper towels, a mongo jug of salsa (*mental note to cross salsa off grocery list*), the smoothie attachment for my blender (the blender attachment was my wakeup call), more paper towels, and party type paper plates, cups, and cutlery. You can’t really see my collection of Chipotle napkins behind the center bar, alas.

Within moments of opening the cupboard…

“Oh, what’s in here? Tuna? No… paper towels! Mom, you know I love to shred paper towels! Why are you hiding them in here?”
“Hmph. I will sit on top of this cabinet and meditate imperiously upon this injustice.”
Contests

Contest!

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Chaos, pink was last month! No need to stick out your tongue now. Or are you going to taste test the yarn?

“Hmm, is that a hint of melon I detect?”

Interested in winning that lovely skein of Project Spectrum April-appropriate sock yarn you see pictured above by Chaos’ paw? It’s a skein of superwash sock yarn from ebay seller lotusblossom in color Sunburst. (No, Scout, the skein of Burples next to it is not the prize.)

If so, send an email to the contest line. In your email, list five songs (artist and title) that you would include in a playlist inspired by the Cat Chaotic, along with a few sentences about why you picked those songs. The winning entry will be chosen by random number from all entries received. Emails must be received by 6 pm Central Daylight Time on Monday, April 10 so the yarn can go out in the mail on Tuesday and you can get knitting! If the winning entry belongs to someone who isn’t a knitter, said person will receive a completely different prize and a second entry will be chosen by random number.

An operator is standing by… Um, Chaos? Hello???

“Leave me alone. I’m busy.”
Knitting, Project Spectrum, Those Cats

In which I actually knit something and also find some yellow and orange around the house

32 Comments

Yes, the slightly misshapen object below is a “necklace” for my iPod shuffle, based on Kristi’s Nano Necklace. All the lumpy lopsidedness is my own doing – Kristi’s Nano Necklace is gorgeous! What I needed was something to hold my shuffle while I walk around the Lakes this spring and what I got is very functional for that purpose. It was knit flat on an Addi Turbo 2mm for the body and Inox steel 1.75mm for the i-cord. The yarn is Regia Cotton Jacquard leftover from the first pair of fingering weight socks I ever knit (awwwww…..).

Please excuse the lighting – it was a bit dark outside when I finished…

Moving right along to Project Spectrum’s April colors of yellow and orange, Peeve started things out right by sending me this fabulous color appropriate card:

See Chaos there in the middle, begging? I think he’s flanked by Jeanne’s cats Bugsy and Pud. 🙂

I didn’t think I had much yellow and orange around and feared I would be reduced to taking pictures of the lemon dish soap and the Saran Wrap box. However, I did find a few things. Here’s a little cat sculpture that usually sits way up high, out of Chaos’ reach:

And here’s most of the yellow and orange media I found. Heck, there’s even some yellow in the upholstery on my futon couch that I hadn’t really noticed before:

“Whoa, what’s all this stuff on the coffee table?!”

“And the winner of the Chaos Booker Sniffer Prize is Children of God Go Bowling by Shannon Olson!”
Randonymity, Those Cats

Chaotic rambling, with Sundara

33 Comments

The Monday after Daylight Savings Time starts (aka today) is always sort of brutal for me (and for plenty of others, I’m sure). So I’m a bit bleary and crabby this morning – bleary enough that I forgot to put chocolate in my desperately needed mocha. Blech. Don’t mind me.

What I didn’t expect from Saturday’s Stash Flash: that seeing my stash would make so many of you happy to discover that you didn’t have stashing issues in comparison. Hmph. However, I must now send you to see Dawn’s mind boggling stash, which cheered me up immensely. Here’s her office stash and her home stash (she has sofa and suitcase stashes!). I’ll wait. Back? See? I have a very reasonable stash. Moving right along…

For those wondering how one breaks a windshield while changing wiper blades: I had finally wrestled the old wiper blade off and the “naked” wiper arm slipped out of my hand and smacked into the base of the windshield. That’s it. Instant spiderweb.

A week or two ago, I added some of the lovely Sundara sock yarn to my stash. The color is Black Lagoon and the pictures below don’t really do it justice – the color depth and intensity are better than a lot of the Koigu I’ve seen recently!


“Why is this yarn in a bag, Mom? Don’t you trust me?”
Can you spot the cat in this picture?
Alongs, Those Cats

Flashin’ the stashin’

61 Comments

This starts with five overview shots and then a few detail shots of some of my favorite things. For scale, I took the overview shots while standing on my coffee table. I don’t think Chaos is in any of these pictures (although he’ll make a guest appearance) because he was very busy in the closet that he’s never allowed into.

I have nine 66-quart Sterilite tubs, eight 33-quart Sterilite tubs, and all the “miscellaneous” in the first pictures. My conservative estimate is 1000 quarts of yarn… You can click on any of the pictures to make them larger.

Missing in action is another of those black crates, filled with bags of Cotton-Ease. I forgot that it was under the bed until just now…

I know storing yarn in plastic tubs isn’t supposed to be very good for it, since humidity can get trapped in the tubs. I solved that problem by sticking a refrigerator pack of baking soda into each tub.


“Mmmm… smells like salty yarn. Yum.”

A few detail shots… Here’s some of my Kureyon. There’s an Adrienne Vittadini kit (fuschia) that I won a few years ago on the right side of the bin. Some vintage Red Heart wool can be seen near the top of the photo. To the left of the bin are two skeins of Malabrigo.

A 33-quart bin of assorted Noro (mostly Kureyon):

A 66-quart bin of sock yarn, jammed very full:

A modestly sized basket with more sock yarn – Bearfoot, Fleece Artist, and Trekking:

Now I hope you’ll excuse me while I go squirrel away my yarn again… Oh yeah, all this yarny excess is stuffed into a 637-square foot condo. I haven’t resorted stuffing yarn into the furniture… yet.
Randonymity, Those Cats

Catnip mouse details and other bits and bobs

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The lovely Elizagrrl shared the details of the much beloved Red Catnip Mouse:

The mouse is from the Cat Warming Set in Stitch ‘n Bitch Nation. I used Lamb’s Pride Worsted, size five needles, and a combination of M1L, M1R, SSK and K2TOG for symmetrical shaping. For the insides, I made a little rectangular pouch for the catnip (a 3×3 piece of cotton folded in half and stuffed full of catnip), and wrapped it in a rectangle of quilt batting for loft…. Per my vet’s recommendation, I buy catnip in the bulk section at Wild Oats and Kally seems to prefer the toys made with it. Hopefully it doesn’t make Chaos too crazy! Kally was so mad that I didn’t give her that toy; I eventually caved into her whining and made one just like it for her. How she has me trained!

You must go see the picture’s of Eliza’s kitty Kally playing with Doppelganger Red Catnip Mouse! Too cute. Kudos to Knotty Mouse for correctly identifying the source of the mouse pattern yesterday – go check out Mouse’s very fun Maryland S&W buttons. This is my favorite so far (even though I’m not going):

Did you know that you can put a wicked crack in your windshield while changing your wiper blades? Or at least I can. And did. Curses. My inclination was to be lazy and have a shop replace them for me, but I decided I would be thrifty and change them myself. Heh. Let that be a lesson to all of you!

You may or may not remember that I won a contest over at Yarnivorous. The package from Lynne arrived at work yesterday. I had to take a picture of the wonderful Australian gluten-free goodies in my cube so that I could rip them open and chow down. I highly recommend the sticky fig and ginger cookies, er, “bikkies.” Yum. (My coworkers were a bit bemused by my picture taking. Best not to enlighten them.)

The package contained some gorgeous variegated blue sock yarn that Lynne dyed as well as some of her totally luscious handspun merino plied with purpley silk. (No, Jeanne, you cannot have my lovely blue Australian sock yarn…)

*sniff sniff* “Wow, this yarn smells so exotic!”
“Hey, I can knock things off the coffee table with my tail and make Mom scramble for them!”
“If I fit in here, do I get a return trip to Australia?”

Art journaling, reading, knitting, and cat parenting. It's a wild life.