A New Computer, A Finished Sock, and Lizards Online

It's a good thing blogs are more for journaling and less of an actual news article or an actual web site for a business or some such, because at nearly 1am I'm not very coherent.

So why blog at 1 am you ask? Insomnia, I reply. Some nights I can't even get to sleep until 3 or 4. Which is a right pain in the arse when you have to be up by 8 to go to work. At least tomorrow I have the day off.

Other than the time it's a fabulous day. My new computer just came in. It has a nice big flat screen monitor and is somewhat faster than the hand-me-down computer I was using. Which I imediately handed down to my son James. I put together this one. He had to haul the old one into his room and set it up his own self.

I started a new sock in Tofutsies. Now that I look at it it doesn't actually say the name of the color on the ball, but it's 'Three Feet Short'. I'm doing this one for Great Yarns too.

The coolest thing about Great Yarns..... My Lizard pattern is up on the website! Isn't he darling.

Charity Knitting Postponed To Make Sock

My son James is thoughtfully holding up some Charity Bears, while thinking his Mom is a total goober for taking his picture.

Great Yarns, my LYS, does up a whole bunch of bears every year for children in hospice care and they also sponser a bereivement camp for children who've lost there parents or siblings. When I went in the other week they had the bears put up all over the place. These bears were dressed to the nines. There were bears in sweaters, shawls, hats, cardigans, made with every knitting technique known to man, entrelac, lace, intarsia, fairisle, even beaded. The talent pool of knitters at Great Yarns is just amazing. I was blown away.

And being a giving kind of person, I snatched up two bears to make clothes for then and there. Then I got to talking to Fontelle and she said they were getting in some fabulous new sock yarn. I am a sock yarn addict. We will never tell my husband how much sock yarn I truly have, so we will never have to hear him say something really foolish like 'don't you have enough sock yarn already'. He will never know.

Any way, Fontelle says they're getting in this new yarn and could I knit up a sock for the store's display. I said, 'Oh, yes, please!', just as soon as you get it in. I'm no dummy, I get to knit socks and not have to pay for the yarn first, and everybody gets to admire them and say what fabulous socks they are and how fine a job I did on them. Oh, yeah.

So I went in yesterday and the new sock yarn was in! It was wonderful. She had got in Tofutsie and Shi Bui. Two of my all time favorites. And then Fontelle tells me that she needs the first sock in Shi Bui by next Wednesday so she can take it to the Seattle Mariners Stitch and Pitch on Thursday. So I'm knitting socks and not bear clothes because all the bears have to be in by August 1st and the sock has to be done in 5 days. Eek. Good thing I knit fast.

The pattern I'm using is fun one, Fiber Trends Lupine Lace Socks, and the color we picked is called Anime. I knit some on it last night and this afternoon and it's coming along pretty fast. The pattern calls for Lornas' Lace sock yarn and size 1 needles. I'm using size 2 needles, because Shi Bui is just a tiny bit thicker, to knit the small size sock and I'm getting the medium size measurements out of it. One of the nice things about the pattern is that you get a great leaf pattern and after you've done one pattern repeat you never have to look at the chart again. I love easy to memorize patterns. And have I mentioned the yarn. It's so soft and you can wash it in the wash machine too.

FROGS!

I spent almost three blissful hours in my local yarn shop today. They have AC, my apartment does not. And even though it did not reach the, oh my Gods, 99 degrees F it got up to yesterday it was still toasty.

In case I haven't (bragged) mentioned it, Great Yarns is carrying my Little Lizard pattern. Pretty soon the patterns will be available on the website, and I'm doing up a pattern for poison dart frogs.

The first froggy ended up pudgy, with a square butt. Here's a picture before felting. I don't have one for after because that's when the hoodlums I call my children broke my camera. OK, I call my cats hoodlums too, I just like the word hoodlum. While I was basking in the AC I got out the fat frog to show Fontelle my progress. She thought it was cute. And then one of the regulars, yarn shops always have regulars, came in with her nephew and we gave him the frog as a distraction. It went strait into his mouth. I love it. That is the ultimate stamp of toy approval so far as I'm concerned. It's just not a successful toy unless it's played with.

While everyboby was going about helping folks and restocking and calling suppliers and all the stuff that keeps us yarn addicts in wool, I sat down to knit. As I had the frog on my mind I knit frog parts. I made three legs and half the body. I think I've gotten the reshaping on the body figured out too. Yeah.

It must be the wool fumes. It was the most relaxing afternoon I'd had in a long time. I love spending time with other knitters.

Crazy Aunt Purl

Last week I was raiding my friend Shelley's blog for links to other blogs, she has a fabulous list going, and I found Crazy Aunt Purl. Now to be honest I had heard of her before and just hadn't got round to visiting yet.

Long story short, she is fabulous. Who could not love a divorce' with four cats? I'm a divorce', remarried, with four cats, and three kids, but that's beside the point. Yesterday she lost a loved one, her cat Roy.
It's always hard to lose someone close but it's even harder to lose someone you've shared so muck of your life with. My heart goes out to her.

Web surfing and site collecting

This is me and my cat Crystal. She thinks that laying on me while I'm knitting socks is just too funny. She's a Turkish Angora, but we like to call her 'Bitch Kitty'. She's not real fond of the other cats.

There are four cats in my house. Sentry is the black and white medium haired one who likes to sleep on felted bags. Pixel is the huge orange striped one who likes to sleep and walk over me while I'm knitting anything other than socks. Bug-a-boo is the black one. Pixel and Crystal came to us from the Humane Society as adults. Sentry and Bug-a-boo were part of a set of five kittens we rescued, fostered, fixed and redistributed. I am a huge supporter of fixing cats, and adopting from shelters. The kittens we saved are the first kittens I've ever had, and if the stupid people next door had ever heard of a vet or fixing their boy I wouldn't have had them at all. The mom of the kittens died, we found them at barely four weeks old in our parking lot. My daughter Ryan, the Girl Scout, trapped them and brought them in the house. The poor babies were just able to eat wet kitten food. Now they almost one year old yarn theives, who like to wind wool all around the dining room table.

Tomorrow is going to be a very hot day and today was no peach either. So I haven't been doing as much knitting as usual, which is a pity, but I have been checking out my friend Shelley's blog. She has the most amazing list of links to craft blogs, it's not comprehensive but it is worth hours of cheap entertainment. When I'm done with this post I'm going to go and flesh out my hot list.

I love my cats.

Cat interference, roughing the yarn

As promised, here are some pictures of my cats getting in the way of knitting, or at least getting in on the picture taking.

This is Pixel, showing his enthusiasm for for the mesh bag I was working on a couple weeks ago.

And Bug-a-boo laying on some hand dyed yarn. I was trying to show the color variations you can get using food safe dye stuffs. He thinks that means a ready made bed or a quick game of chase the skein. He also likes my giant Wobbly Circles Tote.

Pictures!

Ok, the camera is toast. Whatever the kids dropped it in killed it. But the card, she is beautifique. My computer at home choked on it but my computer at work had no such worries. Yeah!

As you can see my cats love my knitting. Now I can blog in color.

More images and stories will be forthcoming. I've got a whole bunch of pictures of my Yarn Crawl through Portland and dying and cats interfering with knitting and more....

I love my kids and will not drown them

I will continue to not drown my kids even when they really deserve it.

I got in my universal card reader. From Hong Kong, which explains why it took so long, like a week is a long time.... Only to find out that the kids spilled something on my camera and now the furshluggina things broken. I can't read the card and I don't know if it's a computer thing or if the readers wonky or if the card got toasted with the rest of the camera. I had to wipe gunk of the card so ...... grrr.

I had almost a years worth of pictures of yarny goodness on that card. Every project for a whole year, including dying. That a lot of knitting pictures.

I'm very erked.