Catching Up

Ok, first and foremost . . . TA DA!!!! The new home of the stash.





They're cotton closet organizers from Walmart and I used two of the shoe sized ones and one sweater doohickey. Mathboy hung them in an unused corner of our bedroom and I'm quite pleased. It's not completely stocked yet because I was photographing and making notes as I went and it took longer than I anticipated. Of course as with everything else around here I received some unsolicited assistance . . .



That's Noko's tail. Isn't he helpful?


There has been more mail-ey goodness over the last few weeks; Some more birthday stuff . . . Watermelon Bombe roving from The Loopy Ewe and these adorable ball o' yarn earrings from knit picks.

Also from KP was a copy of Elizabeth Zimmermans "Opinionated Knitter" and the five skeins of yarn I needed for the Stripey Stocking Cap from Itty Bitty Hats. I went with all five of the pastel shades from the Swish Bulky line and I'm really pleased with the way it's coming out.

Now, about Mathboy. Sometimes I guess I paint him as a bit of an ogre and that's just not accurate. First of all he hasn't got green trumpet shaped ears he has an incredible amount of patience. Not with everything mind you, just ask anyone who's watched him play a video game, but he puts up with my flakiness and frequent bitchiness with an impressive amount of forbearance. He's never ever called me any names (not even a flaky bitch) or put me down in any way and disagrees with me when I say disparaging things about myself.

Anyways when it comes to finances he's the boss. He knows exactly how much money is in the bank at any given time and what the credit card balance is and I'm lucky if I still have the five bucks that I think I have in my wallet and sometimes "find" my credit card in my wallet and think "ooooh yeah! I have a different credit card now" (I've had it for two years!). The truth is that I need a financial keeper. It's not a gender thing it's just who I am. I am a world class, gold medal spendthrift and always have been. Worse I tend not to think about things before I purchase them and I often end up with a lot of junk. If I ask first it means I think about it "can I justify this purchase? Where will it live? Will I use it frequently?" and if we can't afford it it's a no or, more often "Can it wait?". The upshot of that is that I ask before I make a purchase greater than $10 and we continue to have enough money for frivolities like the mortgage, car payments, and dog food. It doesn't work for everyone and that's fine . . . as long as it works for us. < / end rant >

Yarns and soaps and pussycats

Nashua Handknits "Ivy" in Natural, Dark Teal, and Seafoam. It's 50% alpaca, 45% merino, and 5% "Estellina" and so very soft. Someday, the twelve skeins I received (well, they gave me six, three each of natural and seafoam, I rounded it up with a third colour to make a sweater's worth) will become an hourglass sweater from Last Minute Knits.




















Tonnes of gift certificates for the Loopy Ewe have, thus far, netted me a bottle of Soak in the "Celebration" fragrance (since sold out), Wendy Johnson's pattern for these socks, and four skeins of Dream In Color "Smooshy" in Wisterious. It's been a full twenty four hours since I last went into the stash/guest room to pet it, but I think of it often *grin* It's going to be a Jeanie when I finish my current home wip.















Speaking of that . . . . it's a Mimosa in all of it's linen and bead glory. I darn near killed a certain cat today when he took it upon himself to liberate the shawl from the cone of yarn I was working from. While I was working on it! I didn't even know what he was up to until the connection was severed.















Maybe he was registering his objection to the amount of attention I've been giving my knitting?? After all, while I was photographing the yarn, he was doing this at the door . . .

I Gotcher Pictchers Right Here.

Alright, I owe you folks about ninety seven photos so let's get right to it.


Six Teeny Red Sweaters . . . and one "Big" one




Pinwheel Jacket for Miss Em.




















Paton's SWS and a Circ for my Secret Santa Victim














Innocent Kitty who just wanted a nap in a cozy place for cryin' out loud.














Tomorrow (or eventually anyways) Yarn Porn! Mimosas! (A whole 8 rows!)

Ok, Choke Me.

Booo, hiss! There will be no Oreo sharing this Sunday as we have familial obligations in Okeechobee for the day and it's unlikely that a) I'll be back before 8 and b) in any shape to go anywhere after the drive down and back. There is a shiny spot in this though . . . think of all the knitting time I'll have!

I'll leave you with some pictures of the dogs "protecting" me from the rabid killer gopher tortoise who made the very poor decision to enter our yard a week or two ago.

"It's alive!!!!"

"Get Tachi! Get it"

For those who are concerned about the fate of our visitor, I locked the dogs in the house and gently removed her from the yard. She was last seen working her way north. And, for the record, the Gopher Tortoise is not known to be particularly blood thirsty or threatening unless you happen to be a slow moving piece of vegetable matter ;-)

Roller Skating Sox and Evil Pets

On Friday I did a field trip to a Tampa Roller Rink. I worked on the Clap for a few hours and then decided that I really need to cast on my Monkeys. I completed my cast on, joined it and had just begun working in the round when a woman walked up, asked if I was knitting socks and began fondling my yarn. Clearly a Knitter. As I'm rather shy (shaddup Sandy and Kelly. It's true!) and don't do well one on one with strangers, I didn't really have much to say. In retrospect, I could have asked if she had any wip's with her, would she like to join me, where she buys her yarn . . . So, stranger from the Roller Rink? If you're reading this, I'm not snotty...until I get to know you :-)

Monkey at the roller rink. Forgive the crappy cellphone pic.

The weekend was fairly uneventful, I was late getting to Panera because we spent Sunday afternoon in Tampa visiting with some of Mathboy's relatives but once I got to the restaraunt we had a giggling good time.

This morning I interrupted an impromptu "learn to knit" session on my bedroom floor. I've had to dissuade the dogs from thinking they could knit in the past but evidently I wasn't forceful enough in pointing out that 000 needles are just not a good idea for beginners. The needles were cheap, and it was my fault for being foolish enough to leave them where the rotten beasts instinct driven darlings could eat them but I'm still royally ticked.