tales of spinning, school, and life as a lonely girl.

aha!

2007-04-18T13:43:00.000-04:00

100_2172
Originally uploaded by kittenlogic.

on a lighter note, here's the yarn that came from my dyed batts. there was absolutely no problem spinning them except for a few spots that weren't carded as smoothly as i'd liked, but other than that, this yarn came out fabulous. nice and super thin, and i haven't yet measured the yardage yet, but i know that it's at least 500 yards - probably a good 550.

the color isn't quite what i had expected, even though i still like it a lot. i expected it to be a lot lighter, but it was so thin that it darkened up quite a bit. also, since i was spinning from a batt, i tended to start spinning from the fold because it's quicker and easier and requires less concentration, but that made really weird color blends that weren't so great.

the third thing for next time is to make smaller skeins. this took forever from start to finish, just like pink elephant did. next time i'll either spin two smaller skeins or just sell one set of the batts, or something. i was literally in pain after finishing plying this beast. NEVER AGAIN!

the other photos are on flickr but there's no info yet. i'll do that later. sometime i'll post a little process post, because i know some people are interested in/curious about the whole batt dyeing thing.

17,000 asses.

2007-04-12T14:17:00.000-04:00

aw, shit. kurt vonnegut died.

my favorite quote ever, from Timequake, on the topic of evolution: "No matter what is doing the creating, I have to say that the giraffe and the rhinoceros are ridiculous."

found on LJ

2007-04-10T11:20:00.000-04:00

1. Go to google.com.

2. Click on Maps.

3. Click on Get Directions.

4. From: New York, New York.

5. To: Paris, France.

6. Then, read line #23.

7. Laugh.

8. Repost.

deedeedee

2007-04-04T13:29:00.001-04:00

while i'm being an antisocial ass, i still read LJ daily, and do still have a sense of humor: haha!

but what deserves a wholehearted ROFL is this: first two comments.

ps: is anyone still watching LOST? wtf are we doing? i'm both frightened for and excited about the final season.

oopsie

2007-04-02T02:47:00.000-04:00

if you happen to come upon this thing and it looks totally craptastic, please bear with me. it's because i'm trying to make it match the rest of the site and i fell asleep or something in the middle of changing templates. SRY!

did i mention how BA it is that when you switch to the new blogger you get tags? unless i just hadn't used blogger in so long that tags were implemented without my knowledge. WHATEVER. they're awesome.

edit: you know what's NOT awesome? the fact that i had FINALLY found a program that would crosspost to LJ and blogger, and now that blogger is the "new" blogger, it doesn't work anymore. wtf, seriously. i HATE having to login to two separate sites to copy and paste and reformat the same stuff. ARG! why has no one invented this yet? if they have, why can't i find it!???

65%

2007-03-29T13:44:00.000-04:00

o hay, i updated ur domain

yeah i did that finally, and it's not 100% yet. the ULTIMATE goal is to integrate this blog into the site so that everything looks the same (YOU KNOW i am anal in this way), but as much as it pains me to have them separate i can wait a little bit.

that's really it. i had to sub at the elementary school yesterday, and that was not awesome. they called again for it today and i said no. i'm willing to do a lot of things, but elementary school is not one of them.

i need to do more yarn, but i've been feeling so unmotivated lately. blech.

irritation at life

2007-03-14T02:36:00.000-04:00

i think the thing that annoys me the most about the internet is that i've had this domain for years and years, and i can't just do what i want to do. spam is absolutely out of control, and no matter what is done to combat it, the same douchebags are always thinking up a new way to get around it.

i had to give up on my simple greymatter blog a while ago, and when i went to check why my server had no space left anymore, it was because it was being relentlessly spammed in the comments. WTF!

i mean, in conclusion, i'm going to get fip up and running again with something other than this lame excuse for content, but i just wanted to tell you why i'm so upset. i really miss the people and the contents and the comments and the stuff! i really miss those days. i'm working on it.

i thought i posted this!

2007-03-08T15:14:00.000-05:00

100_2089
Originally uploaded by kittenlogic.

my neighbors just had a really scary screaming fight, then someone slammed the door, and like LEAPT in the car and SCREECHED away. wtf?

anyway, now for the project. i'm glad that it's like 60 degrees outside again, so there's hardly any use for them, but i made these (the other one is not pictured because it was on my hand) for jessica because she wouldn't stop hinting that she wanted fingerless gloves. i think fingerless gloves are stupid and pointless, but i CAN see the use of a convertible mitten. therefore, that's what she got.

the yarn was noro shinano, the needles were size 6 DPNs, and i used JUST over one ball of the noro on both mittens! like seriously, one ball and 1.5 yards. if i'd saved the tail from the cast on of the first mitten, i would have had enough.

i borrowed from a few patterns to make these, but really had to do a lot of math to get them to work with the yarn. i used a few lines from the peekaboo mittens in the newest magknits to do the opening for the fingers, and the "afterthought" thumb from knitty's fetching because i didn't feel like placing all those markers for a gussetted thumb. i hate a really baggy mitten, which is what the peekaboo mitten sorta looked like. i need to be able to reach and grab and do things. so i popped a little loop on the top of this one, sewed a button on the back so it wouldn't go getting snagged on anything, and there ya go. the loop is simply a knotted circle of yarn that comes out the top of the mitten, so if it rips or something from over use, it's easy to replace. and ... yeah.

100_2095
Originally uploaded by kittenlogic.

these were a REALLY quick knit - i got them done in a night, AFTER i finished all of my research. as you may or may not know, i don't really knit a whole lot, so i was sorta lost when it came to a lot of the techniques. but i mean, it's not really rocket science, and you'll never know unless you try. now i can make a set of these babies without a pattern. they're that easy.

if you're interested in making them, i can post the pattern i came up with. they're surprisingly self-explanatory!

sometimes i outdo myself.

2006-10-29T18:00:00.000-05:00

100_1834
Originally uploaded by kittenlogic.

this thing took me forever. it's just shy of 600 yards of merino, merino/silk, mohair top, and angelina. it was brutal and exhausting, but it might beat the bed of roses yarn as my favorite yarn ever. would you like to go on a yarn adventure? please join me.

i began with the aforementioned fibers. i carded them together to produce these 6 batts. they were a LOT more dense than they appear.

so then i went ahead and split them in half and proceeded to spin them onto two bobbins. this is bobbin #1, all finished.

i thought it looked like a lot more on one bobbin than when i usually ply, so i decided to go ahead and fire up the bulky bobbin for this job. and as it turns out, i needed it like whoa.

i've only ever filled this thing up when i was working with super fluffy coiled yarns. i knew the yardage was going to blow my pants off. here it is in all its finished glory, taking over my little table on the porch.

playing hard to get:

a dime for scale:

this thing took me about 10-12 hours from carding to finished hank. i still don't know if i'm going to sell it because of the price i will be forced to charge. i was considering splitting it into two separate skeins of 300ish yards each, but i'm not sure yet. what i do know is that i'm going to swatch it because i can't live without knowing how it will look knitted up.

and now it's time to do stuff.

makes your eyes go OOOH!

2006-10-18T18:38:00.000-04:00

here's something nice to look at for once instead of a bunch of school blather!

100_1750
Originally uploaded by kittenlogic.

this is a fabulous package i received from auto last week. i sent her some brown stuff i didn't want a while back, and she sends me this in return! i feel like i've been over-gifted. a ton of soft merino handdyed in pinks, burgundy, and wine, and then some batts from the "ugly" pile that i think are pretty awesome. (if you look at the larger sizes in my flickr you can really see the sparkles.) as usual i have no idea what i'm going to do with this. i'm torn between sock weight and coily, bubbly sparkles. hmmm. thanks again, ma'am! :-)

100_1754
Originally uploaded by kittenlogic.

and THIS is another, completely unexpected package from my swap partner from the craftster handspun swap. she felt bad after the swap that i had sent humongous yardage, but it's how much i normally spin because my bobbins hold a lot! she wouldn't have any of that though, so she spun me up another matching skein to go with the original green one she sent me. she also included that ridiculous lollipop with hillbilly teeth, and some glostix. whee!

so happy life! it makes me happy. you know, if you ever want to do a fiber or yarn swap with me, let me know! or don't! it's even more fun when it's a surprise. i will certainly reciprocate.

in other news, i think i've finally got my sleeping schedule figured out. i was having some serious issues, especially last week and the week before. but this week i've been feeling alright, and i'm not exhausted right now, so rock n roll. i had another review today. everything is going positively well! life is good. ♥

it's hard leading a double life.

2006-09-26T18:50:00.000-04:00

100_1734
Originally uploaded by kittenlogic.

it's hard having teaching things to post about and crafty stuff to post about. i would make a whole other journal but if i end up going to grad school after i'm done with this i'm only going to need it for 3 months and that's wasteful. so as i've said before, if you're not logged in viewing LJ posts, you're missing the ones about student teaching. i'll post about that after this one.

so anyway. when i was at NJ sheep and fiber i bought this huge ball of ashland bay brand fiber. i think it's merino and mohair, because it's too coarse and fuzzy to be silk. i really haven't had time to dye, since i've had to go home every weekend for this or that, so i thought it would be nice to have something that would provide instant gratification. what you see above is a wonderful fingering-sport weight yarn which will become winter socks for my tootsies. i kinda like knitting socks a lot. i thought i'd never want to do it, but it's really satisfying to shape them and watch them come together. plus, knitting makes me sleepy, so i do it before bed and sleep happy.

before student teaching started i was thinking to myself, "wow, it would suck to get sick while i'm doing this." and of course, my third week in, i'm sick. the kids are so filthy! they're just sneezing all over the place, not covering their mouths or anything like 5 year olds. gross. so like 50% of the teachers are sick and we've just been passing it around. however, i picked up some airborne because the ladies have been RAVING about it, and sho nuff, it's working. this, decongestants, and theraflu have helped me kick this thing pretty quickly. the grapefruit flavor tastes like straight up ass, but what do you want?

in gaming news, i picked up harvest moon ds the other day, and it's alright. it's exactly like the other versions. it's fun though, and addictive, but it really just made me want to play a wonderful life again. i'm in the 3rd year of that one, i think, and started a new game because i'm doing so well in my original one that i don't want to get really into it until i have adequate time. is anyone else into virtual farming or is it just me?

finally, boon and i went to ihop last weekend. i got this:

oh man. that should be illegal. let's not beat around the bush here. that thing is a donut. it is not french toast. it is a donut stuffed with sweet cream cheese, topped off with strawberries, powdered sugar, and whipped cream. i ate my heart attack and enjoyed every bite. luckily there are only 2 ihops that i know of, and they're both pretty far away.

a guy just pulled up in the parking lot, and when he opened his car door you could hear that he was BLASTING hootie and the blowfish. i think he knew how lame it was because he turned the radio down immediately.

that's all! what's up with YOU?

hmmm

2006-09-21T22:15:00.000-04:00

teaching has been interesting. i can't really go into it further. there are so many things to worry about and consider, so many things that make it so hard to do simple things. it's weird how poor a district can be and you don't even realize it.

i spun up this sock yarn last night and it's already dry and so nice, and i want to cast on now but i don't want to have this many UFOs floating around. i have ... 4 or 5 i think? and i know that's not many for a seasoned knitter, but it's too many for me.

before and after.

that's all i got! my bedtime's 10:00, you know. i'm late.

le sigh

2006-09-09T11:56:00.000-04:00

i just started student teaching on thursday, and haven't done much since there were half days and everything was all weird.

i can't write about it here, but if you want to know what goes on and you have an LJ, add me there so you can have access to the friends-only details. it'll probably be a ton of complaining and stressing, but that's what student teaching is about, right?

i'm watching fast times at ridgemont high. again. my tum is achey so i'm just chillin out. i have knitting to do but i left my needles at home - i ended up buying a different yarn than the pattern called for, so the needles i have are far too large to work with.

boon n i are probably going to panera for dinner. mmmmmm. panera. while we're up there i'm going to pick up some size 0s. i can't wait to swatch. sorry, can't tell you what it's for. it's a secret.

2006-09-05T17:20:00.000-04:00

ah, good afternoon.

090506f
Originally uploaded by kittenlogic.

i woke up first thing this morning and finished plying this yarn. it is the most incredible thing i have ever made with these two hands. it might not look like anything special, but it was a labor of love. dyeing merino/silk mill ends (which are a MESS to work with), carding them and recarding them, spinning the singles painfully thin, then finally plying them.

i have no idea the yardage on this thing, but after it was washed, it went from being about fingering weight to sport, but that's totally okay. i am going to list it for a lot. it would make incredibly soft/gorgeous socks, and if no one wants to buy it i will gladly keep it.

i have some more yarn work to do today, then HOPEFULLY i can get out to the yarn store tomorrow. this is a new one, and i'm really excited about going because if the stock is as good as they advertise, i will have a lot of fun knitting ahead of me. ooh! as i was looking for their address i found that there's another one relatively close by. decisions, decisions! it really all depends on what i get done here today, because both getting my personal update finished and running some more errands are a lot more important than browsing yarn.

i had so much to write about last night, then i decided to wait until i finished this yarn so i could post the picture and now i can't remember anything i was going to say. well. it's been raining since i woke up this morning - note i did say "morning," as my waking hours are slowly changing - and it's so cool outside that it's almost cold. i needed a sweatshirt when i went to the post office earlier. perfect for some tea and comfort. OH MY GOODNESS. i almsot forgot. comfort!? looksie:

that is the definition of yum. it is a betty crocker hot fudge cake. the best part is that you only have to add water! good for me, because i don't like to eat or use eggs really. there's a chocolate drizzle for the top, then when you cut into it, fudge drips out of the middle. my only regret is that i had no ice cream to put on it, but that might have ruined the pure chocolate sensation.

dinner's going into the oven. seeya! ♥

2006-09-03T14:38:00.000-04:00

HAHAHAHAHA WTF

oh MAN! i CAN'T believe i lost this auction!!!

HAHAIHSIFHQOIRUP(@U#O*@)*%$)*!~!@!@SLKFDSFK

please look.
oh man.

OMG

2006-09-03T00:10:00.000-04:00

when my parents go away on the weekends to work on the other house, pumpkin becomes THE most annoying cat in the universe. so annoying that it really takes all of your self control not to bash his head in. and seriously? i would never hurt an animal, ever. i like cats more than i like babies. but he is just SO irritating. i think he has like, separation anxiety or something when my mom goes away, because he's her little baby. and usually he's really sweet and adorable. but when she's not here, he's jumping on the table trying to eat our food, he's jumping on our computers, he's walking all over everything we're doing. and if you put him on the floor or something, he'll get right back up. you can put him on the floor 15 times, and he'll get back up 15 times. GOD. i just want to lock him in a room when my mom isn't here.

ANYWAY, what i was really posting for was for you to see this:

i originally found it on cuteoverload. they have an LJ feed that i never need to subscribe to. this makes my brain freeze and my heart melt with cuteness. i can't see it too many times or i'll die. enjoy.

2006-09-02T14:23:00.000-04:00

where is my home?

there was some kind of nonsensical accident today when i was taking ben to work. it just made me realize that no matter how much i like this area, i will never move back to central NJ. i won't go farther north than i am now. i really like it up here, and there are new schools opening up, but that's a horrible thing because it just means that our population is growing.

the road is a small road that was never very heavily trafficked, but all of the stupid yuppies who move in here from new york and north jersey drive their SUVs way too quickly and inattentively and make it dangerous for those of us who actually know how to navigate the area. of course, the accident was between an SUV and a horse trailer. i hope there were no horses in it at the time. whatever happened was bad enough that the small two lane road was closed completely, and 4 ambulances were called. i sat for a half hour waiting to get to my road, which was maybe 500 yards away, but there was no passage.

as irritating as the accident was, it got worse. because i turned around and went to go home through a development that i knew connected to a road near my house. as i drove through street after street of houses i couldn't tell apart, becoming more and more lost, i just grew so angry. why here? why new jersey? i know that these people exist elsewhere, but i just can't understand why swarms of them had to settle here and make everything so crappy for everyone else. sure, some of them aren't bad. but when there's a noticeable difference between traffic, manners (personal and while driving), congestion, and accidents from this year to even 3-4 years ago? i think it's fairly safe to make this generalization.

what can i do? they're driving me from my home and i have no choice but to go. i can't wait to come back in 10 years - who knows, even 5 - to see that all of the horse and vegetable farms and trees have been cleared out and smoothed down to make way for 100s of grossly overpriced McMansions complete with mr. and mrs. gas guzzlers.

on a lighter note, is it lame that a walk to remember is making me tear up a bit?

2006-09-01T20:21:00.000-04:00

what have i done!?

looks like a nice, unassuming sock, right? look closer.

this sock could be a board game. i'd call it "holes and ladders." for some reason my gauge completely changed after the heel. i started knitting it SUPER loosely, i don't know why. i was just being a jackass for some reason. so this one looks like crap! i saw how it was turning out and thought, you know? i'm not even going to bother ripping it because it's for me and i don't even care.

it's a handpainted sock yarn i bought from etsy seller ruby297, and it's fabulously soft and pretty. i should have used smaller needles, but i used 3s. like i said, it was a perfect choice until after the heel. whatev.

i have some yarn that was a custom for me, so when i get ready to start on that one i'm actually going to be very serious about it. till next time, socks.

it is freezing in this house! i'm so happy that it's actually cold. in the summer. it's cold enough here in the basement for me to want to turn on the stove. mmmmmm. can't wait till winter. mittens and scarves and love.

2006-09-01T13:18:00.000-04:00

i'd like to talk about this some more.

by "this," i mean multiblog. i mentioned in the last post that i was looking around for quite some time to find a client that would allow me to easily cross post from LJ (livejournal) to blogger. i found some things, but they all varied and ultimately were not what i wanted.

first there was a client called crosspost, which seemed really interesting and promising, but wouldn't even install on my computer. actually, it did install amongst errors, then wouldn't OPEN once "successfully" installed. this program claimed that you could cross post between almost any of the popular blogging services. it would have been great to try it out! but nothing.

second, i tried something called elicit, which received a really encouraging writeup on another site. it's a BMS or "blog management system," through which you can conveniently and easily register and update all of your blogs. it has all of these exciting features like a blog post calendar, content editor, and integration with sites like wikipedia, flickr, google, and del.icio.us. well, all that sounds great. except, the UI of the program is anything but intuitive. i was able to muddle around in it a bit, but when i'm looking for a program that will allow me to quickly and easily update my blogs, i'm looking for something like, instantly. i don't want to have to consult the help file within 5 minutes of looking at the thing. actually, i don't want to have to consult the help file at all, unless i'm trying to do something really crazy.

so, that seemed to be about it as far as programs go. there were probably a lot more, but i really didn't have the patience to sit around and search through all of the nonsense for them. i found a link to a site called peopleaggregator, which i'm not even going to link to because i didn't understand what the hell it was. supposedly you also have the capability of managing all of your blogs, photos, videos, music, and everything in this community setting. but i just wanted to be able to manage my blogs. talk about asking for too much! because you can't DO that directly through the site. you have to go to this OTHER site, called outputthis.org, register for that too, and hope that it will link back up with the original site. dude. fuck that. no, seriously. why all of this work? i just. want. to manage. my blogs.

i went to the shareware site and download.com, and nothing there really tickled my fancy. i just want something like semagic, and i want that something to post to other blogs.

and that is when i arrived at multiblog. it's not the prettiest program, but it does what it needs to do. it has the capability of posting moods and music, which is nice, because as i said before, LJ's capabilities are really what i'm interested in. i wish it could conveniently post images and links like semagic does, but i suppose i should stop comparing it to that program. you can preview your posts before posting, and there are two post buttons. one for posting, and one for posting and publishing. since blogger cannot accept titles, this is convenient to me, because i have the regular post button set to LJ, and the p&p button set to blogger, which enables me to quickly add some header tags which will "fake" a title for my blogger post before posting. not bad.

what i also like is that if i put in an LJ tag such as < lj user= blah >, it will post to LJ correctly, but not to blogger. that's great if i'm posting an LJ exclusive post. but if i go in and set up names in my address book, a simple code can be substituted which will post the lj user tag and a regular html link to whichever one will accept it. that is very nice, because back in the day when i was using the movable type to LJ crosspost plugin, typing out long LJ links to users became really old.

so what i'm saying here is that multiblog is pretty nice, but it does have some shortcomings. i've only been using it for about 24 hours, but at the sweet $5 registration price, i'll probably pay for it and hang onto it. there are some things that multiblog could add to make it absolutely perfect, but i can wait to see where it goes.

2006-09-01T02:03:00.000-04:00

finally, after some hours of searching.

000_2271
Originally uploaded by kittenlogic.

i've been looking for some time for a client that would crosspost LJ to blogger. i like LJ the most and use its features the most, but still want to use blogger because there are a lot of knit blogs that i like to read, comment to, and keep up with without having to post anonymously all the time. similarly, i'm sure there are people who have blogs who are interested in my adventures but don't want to bother coming all the way to LJ for my posts. so after like, hours of searching and trial and error, i finally found this program called multiblog which is working out nicely. it does have its limitations, but it's simple, it works, and i can deal with that. for now.

if you didn't see the little update i made to my post from yesterday, i neglected to check my catchall email account on my server and found an additional 30,000ish spam emails i had to painstakingly delete today. these 60,000 emails took up approximately 499mb of space. ain't that some shit.

the picture above? ben took it. when we were leaving VA the sun was setting. it was a really good capture. unfortunately my camera still needs batteries - the good kind, which are back at my apartment - so no new exciting pictures till i get that taken care of.

i can't wait to start on my secret knitting project. i can't wait for the sheep and fiber fest! but now, i can't wait to get to bed. nite ♥

wtf to life?

2006-08-30T20:02:00.000-04:00

seriously? i just tried posting that hat post and was running into a space exceeded error. how could that be? i have a ton of space on my server.

AS IT TURNS OUT, i receive such an insane volume of spam that it completely filled up my inbox and took up 300+ megs of space. that is absolutely unacceptable and inappropriate. i can't believe i can't just own a domain and have space on it without being bombarded with spam! i had to delete my greymatter because i was getting so many spam comments. i had to delete one of my hostee's comments and disable comments on her blog because it was taking up so much server space. there are so many tools to get rid of spam, but it's exhausting trying to keep up with all of them all the time for every thing that i use.

so if you're a hostee, please check your inbox if you have fip.com email! just get rid of any spam you may have, because it really is a strain on the server. i just spent hours working on my own and really don't have time to do yours as well.

in other news. this is really unfortunate. along with spam getting more and more oppressive, phishing is getting more and more sophisticated. can i not use ANY website anymore!? watch out for that one.

finally, i'm incredibly intrigued by pay per post and think i might end up doing it. i signed up for it but have yet to actually commit. i love writing about things and reviewing them, so why not? people are making tons of money off of it, too. you just write about things in your blog and get paid. there are word requirements, but they're really low. some people see it as "selling out," but i sorta see it as "getting paid." if you don't want to read the ads, then don't, you know? and why not read them since they'll be presented with my usual dry sense of humor and brutal honesty.

if you do it, how do you like it? if not, why not? tell me.

boop de doop

2006-08-30T17:47:00.000-04:00

082406b
Originally uploaded by kittenlogic.

i held out on changing to S2 for a while, because i like making my own styles a lot more, but the new styles LJ posted are actually really nice. i didn't put a lot of effort into checking whether or not they're customizable, but they are somewhat, so i decided to go with a prefab layout. it feels so strange, but it's a nice change because the one i just got rid of was over a year old, i think. changing ANYTHING from the default style was a humongous pain in the ass, but i figured it out and feel good that i was able to bust out some coding skillz since i haven't written any in a very long time.

VA was nice, as usual. we didn't get to stay long because my brother had to work on monday, so we sorta just dashed down there and came right back. but i wanted to give my dad the ugly hat pictured above, and the ugly lumberjack socks from a few weeks ago. he loved them both, and even though he's my dad and that's what parents are supposed to do, he put the hat up on top of his head as expected (he wears his hats right up on the top of his head like a weirdo), and wore the socks to bed. i was really happy. i wrote him out this really nice card, too. so it was a very good time.

he's trying to get me to move to virginia when i'm done with school and i'm thinking of it more and more. there are a ton of teaching jobs available down there. but i really enjoy being around civilization. we'll see. now that i'm thinking about it, i think my mom would probably never want to talk to me again. she hates my dad and hates me a little for having a relationship with him. think hard before you have kids and get a divorce! you'll ruin lives.

student teaching starts next week, and i've said on numerous occasions i'm not looking forward to it. maybe it'll turn out to be assloads of fun, but right now i'm just dreading it with every ounce of my being. i just don't want to teach high school. ugh. sigh. groan. all of this complaining to say that i can't post about it publicly here, so if you want to be in on my experience, let me know and i'll put you on the filter. this is mostly for you new friends, or those of you i don't actually talk to a whole lot - everyone i know pretty well will go on it automatically. let me know.

i miss yarn. i think i'm going to go to the yarn store tomorrow or thursday depending on whether or not my bro wants to take a ride. i have a small number of unfinished objects floating around but would like to start on something else i REALLY want to make. most of the other things were for practice, and got rather tedious. i actually have a very secret gift i need yarn for and can't decide if i want to spin it or just buy it. so i need to shop around a bit.

i'm so tired but so not. i hope i can get this sleep thing under control quickly. the night i got to my dad's my back was killing me from the drive, but i went right to bed instead of stretching it out and i suffered all night and the next day for it. my schedule's been awry since then. sigh.

goodnite, even though i'm not going to bed!

ps - i think i'm just going to crosspost from my LJ from now on. it's a lot easier, and i won't keep forgetting to update here.

just some things!

2006-08-22T17:26:00.002-04:00

082206a
Originally uploaded by kittenlogic.

imagine my very pleasant surprise when i found my swap yarns waiting on my doorstep! i signed up for the handspun swap on craftster and was partnered with my perfect match. i posted peeks of the yarns i made for her a few posts ago (before the teeth happened), and she really loved them. i love mine too! especially the green one. it's really awesome. the mohair one on the right is much softer than i thought it would be. i'm a very happy swap partner!

jessica and i shopped really hard for school clothes (teacher clothes, actually) today, and my mom took me shopping yesterday and i bought a ton of stuff, so now i feel totally prepared. all i have left to get is a bunch of socks and a pair of brown flats. i hate looking "professional."

i'm heading down to VA thursday night to see my dad before the summer is over. i don't know when i'll get down there again with the school schedule this semester, and ben working weird hours, so this is the best time, i guess.

why put freddy vs. jason on USA at this time of day? all of the heads getting chopped off, gratuitous boobies, and nonsensical swearing are all edited out. why bother?

anyhoo, see all y'all after the weekend is over!

ps - it's like 4 hours later, but i just finished eating dinner, and i'm going to die from a salad overdose. you wouldn't think that you could eat TOO MUCH salad, but i just crossed the line. i don't know when the funeral will be, but i'm sure it'll be closed casket, because i will have exploded.

oh hallo

2006-07-11T01:08:00.000-04:00

okay so i finished the sock after putting it down for a while. i just needed some personal time away from it. and i was sorta getting carpal tunnel.

i'll just copy what i said on flickr: finally finished! it fits me like a humongous bootie, but that's because it's for my brother or dad.

the toe grafting was easy peasy once i watched the kitchener video on this site: www.knittinghelp.com/knitting/basic_techniques/misc.php, about 1/2way down the page.

now it's time to cast on for the second one!

exactly. my needles came today, so yay to that. and i bought this with some extra paypal cash from seller ruby297 on etsy:

successfully completing a knitting project gives me unmeasurable joy, especially because i knit so infrequently.
that's all for tonight!

neat stuff.

2006-07-08T00:49:00.000-04:00

anyway, three things.

1.) i am insanely excited because after months of struggling to win a knitting needle lot for a reasonable price on ebay, i FINALLY did. for an absolute steal: woohoo! one pack of these is like $8 in the store. the yarn store's were even higher priced, which is why i did not get them there when i went. so yay for me, and i should have them early next week.

2.) this is funny. whether or not it's truly authentic is a whole different thing. if so, it's hilarious and sad at the same time.

3.) i'm 75% done with my first sock! i don't know why i bitched and moaned so much about socks. probably because dpns look like they're a total ass to use, but really aren't that bad when you get used to them. and the patterns are insanely confusing until you understand the basic construction of the thing, then you're like oh. geez. i haven't arrived at the toe yet, which i've read is a little tough, but whatev! it can't be harder than all the gusset/instep rearranging BS.

i do not shave my legs and they were definitely jungley in the first pic, so i had to crop it (no seriously, you would have seen it and said "ewwwwww"). unfortunately, you lost the good view of the cuff. if you're wondering, the yarn is some crappy AC Moore yarn. lion brand magic stripe. as soon as i finished the cuff i realized that i hate the yarn and these socks will be going to my dad or brother. i will purchase some pretty yarn for me, and fill my life with kneesocks.

this site saved my life through this process: http://www.royea.net/sockdemo1.html

that is all.