The eyes have it!

Hooray! My eyes & noses order arrived yesterday, so I was able to finish the octopus. The assortments I bought are wonderful; the cat's eye set has two pair each in seven different colors, and the normal eye set has two pair each in eight different colors. I chose a silvery-grey cat's eye pair for the octopus, and I really think it made all the difference in the world. So much better than my crappy embroidery skills could have produced, and because they are only 10mm they are a better fit than the huge eyes they sell at Michaels. Plus the color is fabulous!

So, I said I wouldn't post the name of the seller unless I was pleased with the order. Let's see now; quick delivery, packaged well so they didn't get scratched or broken; lovely colors on the eyes; the noses are nicer than I anticipated; the washers snapped onto the eyes without a struggle (unlike the ones I get from Michaels, which are a nightmare to attach); I'd have to say I am delighted with the order. The seller is glasseyesonline. He has an eBay store in addition to a regular website www.glasseyesonline.com; I purchased from his eBay "location." If you need eyes or noses for your crafts, I highly recommend this guy.

Chowing down on some banana nut granola. During the entire drive home from work I was thinking fondly of the kielbasa & potatoes that I *knew* Ralph had fixed for dinner. It wasn't until I got home that I remembered he had a doctor's appointment. Sigh. Not sure if I should start cooking now & risk it being burned or cold by the time he gets home, or wait until he gets here & hope he's not so late that it's time to go to bed rather than eat.

Cephalopod in process

As you can see, I'm working on yet another project from Amigurumi Knits. I am very close to being finished; just need to insert the eyes, add a bit more stuffing to the head, and then sew the two parts together. Project is currently on hold until the eyes I ordered arrived. This is a quick project--I started it yesterday and if I had the eyes I could have finished it this morning. And unlike the other three toys I did from the book, this pattern had NO ERRORS!!

In other good news, someone on Ravelry put me in touch with the person who brought the orange marmalade cupcakes to the WWKIP Day event. She then sent me the link to the recipe, and this morning I bought the ingredients. When I am done brain-sucking I am going to make a batch of them. Well, OK, after Ralph gets back from buying ink so i can print the recipe. Cher, I was able to forward the recipe to my e-mail; I know you were interested so if you want me to forward that to you just let me know. I think your e-mail address is still in my yahoo account.

Today is the start of an experiment in self-discipline. I have a very bad habit of eating out rather than packing a lunch or fixing dinner at home. This is both unhealthy and expensive. So, I am going to attempt to go one whole week without eating out. Ralph & I went grocery shopping today so there is plenty of food for preparing meals. This morning I made us breakfast sandwiches with bacon & egg on English muffins, and for lunch Ralph grilled up some carne asada while I fixed salads to go with it. I've already prepped some tuna salad to make sammidges for tomorrow's lunches (mine & Ralph's both), and have a kielbasa thawing for tomorrow's dinner. I'll fix that up with some potatoes, cabbage, onion and maybe a little red bell pepper.


We've eaten the three ripe tomatoes from our rogue plant. They were so delicious!! We had two in salads and the third we ate last night on our bacon sammidges. There are lots of green tomatoes on the vine still but nothing else ripe yet. I almost bought some at the store but they were $4.99 a pound which seemed a bit much, especially since I will get dozens for free if I just wait for them to ripen. I'm really surprised at how well that plant is doing, considering it is crowded up against the fig tree. In fact, it's *climbing* the fig tree to the point where I noticed blossoms that were higher than my head.

Well, I noticed when I signed on that Lizard FINALLY has a new post, so I'm off to go read it.

Eyes and noses

I realized today that I never posted a picture of the yarn I won at the WWKIP event. So, here it is. As usual, the picture does not do the colors justice.

Have received notification that my eyes & noses have already shipped. AND I received a tracking number for the package. AND I received a partial refund on the shipping charges for combined shipping (my order was technically three auction "wins"). I am impressed with this seller so far. I won't say who it is yet; if the product is as good as I expect it to be, I'll tell you then. However, I don't want to put the seller's name in the limelight yet, just on the off chance that I'm unhappy with the shipment. Don't want to point fingers & publicly bash someone you know. Frankly, though, I think that's a slim chance.

And I know this will sound silly, but--I'm so excited about this order that I actually dreamed last night that it had arrived already! I'm making plans for what to make with them. An octopus with yellow cat's eyes, perhaps, or a blue-eyed teddy bear. Or maybe that Scottie dog in the Debbie Bliss book. . . of course, it depends on what colors are in the mixed set. No sense getting my heart set on a green-eyed jackalope, for example, before I know if there are any green eyes in the set. Hmm, maybe a bunny, and then I can knit the carrot from the Amigurumi book to go with it. . .

Guess I really ought to post something

Knit up another project from my Amigurumi Knits book--a little starfish. And yes, this pattern also had an error in it; we're three for three. Good thing I'm a halfway decent knitter or this book would have had me in tears. This pattern is really a fast one; I think it took me about 4 or 5 hours from start to finish. I used the leftover yarn from Nessie (which itself was made from leftover fish hat yarn).

Speaking of fish hats, I am working on what I hope will be the LAST fish hat I ever have to make. It's a fun project and all, but this one is the eighth and as the TV show said, eight is enough!! I'm using navy yarn left from the angler fish (it only used a little bit in the mouth, so I have almost a full skein) with lavender lips, fins, and tail leftover from a previous fish hat.

I also went online looking for safety eyes. The local craft shop has a very limited stock & variety, and oh I found some lovely ones online. I had selected cat's eyes in three colors, and animal eyes in clear, and some noses, and a special tool to make it easier to put the backing on the eyes. Entered my shipping/billing/credit card info, and *just* as I was about to hit the final, this is it, you've placed your order button, I decided to check out the company on the BBB website. It's rating? F. Decided not to order from them after all. Went to eBay instead, and found an online eBay shop that carries quite a selection. No BBB rating, but the seller has 100% positive feedback, with a sufficient number of transactions that 100% positive actually means something. So I got a mixed pack of cat's eyes, a mixed pack of animal eyes, and a packet of animal noses all with the "buy it now" feature, all at fairly reasonable prices too. They should be here in about a week.

Going to a comedy club this weekend with Ralph, Lizard, and one of Lizard's co-workers. I think there might be some other people going but I'm not sure. I haven't been to a comedy club in over 20 years. I'm quite looking forward to it. We'll probably meet up for dinner first.

Well, it's a "school night" so I guess I better sign off & go to bed.

Fathead's Day

Well, it's Fathead's Day today (as we teasingly call it). Headed over to Dad's this afternoon. Lizard is bringing cake. Not sure what I'm bringing yet. Guess I better decide.

Finished the angler fish yesterday, complete with parasitic male. I think this is the only knitting project I've ever done that ended up being educational. Did you know that the male angler is 1/10th the size of the female? And that at a certain age, his digestive system shuts down? If he doesn't find a female to attach himself to, he will starve to death. Once attached (by biting her with special teeth), his body fuses to hers and in a couple weeks he is a permanent part of her, sharing her bloodstream for nutrients. A female can have as many as six males attached to her. A perfect mutualistic symbiosis: he gets nutrition, she has a ready supply of sperm for her eggs.

Then there's the lure. Only females have them. The tip glows due to bioluminescent bacteria living in it. Some species have a second lure hanging from their belly; no one is yet sure what the purpose of this one is. Anyway, there is a great video on youtube about these amazing creatures. And because I've *never* been able to get they hyperlinks to work on blogger here is the url to copy & paste: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RitJe16c3sM


As you can probably tell, not a whole lot going on today. Need to do some housework, what fun. Need to start a new knitting project. I've got a swatch on the needles right now, although I'm less than thrilled with how it's turning out. Maybe it will look better when I've completed the chart; I've only done about half of it so far.

Ralph's hostage target

Just wanted to post a photo of the hostage target. View large for best image, of course. Just look at how tight that grouping is!

Toe may toes!!

Aren't they beauties? The first ripe tomatoes off our rogue plant, freshly picked from the vine. Mind you, they'll look better after I've washed the dirt off of them. Going to see if I can find a nice pasta sauce recipe to use them in for dinner tonight.

Been having some car problems. Darwin just would not start yesterday; we thought it was the battery so Ralph charged it all night. Still wouldn't start, leaving me to take Emmett instead. Apparently after I left, Ralph realized the "key" button had been pushed (this means you have to actually insert the fob into the slot rather than just having the remote with you in the vehicle) and he was able to get it started with no trouble after pushing it again. He took Darwin to work to test it out. Keep your fingers crossed! I'm just grateful that this happened AFTER Ralph got back from Nevada.

Oh, didn't I mention that? Ralph was in Nevada with his Dad taking defensive shooting classes for a week, just got back on Tuesday. You should see the two targets he brought home. The first one was done early in the course, and while the shots are mostly within the target area, they were pretty widely scattered and one or two missed completely. The second was later in the week, and was from the hostage situation class. That target has a human-shaped silhouette (the hostage) with a silhouette of a head peeking out from behind it (the hostage taker). They were supposed to write the name of a loved one on it to be the hostage--Ralph's hostage was me, natch. He took seven shots. All seven landed within the kill range, and of those five of them were so closely grouped that it looked like only three shots. He said he'd never been more focused in his life than when he was taking those shots.

Not much else going on. Work has been extra busy as they did more layoffs this week, and our department now consists of Mr. Boss Man, The Other Manager, and me. Very stressful and very scary. I can't help but wonder how long it will be before they get rid of our department completely.

Knitting in public

Had a good time at the Knit in Public event today. Didn't get a lot of knitting done, or rather I did lots of knitting and almost as much frogging. I really shouldn't have chosen a project that requires so much counting when I knew I'd be yakking to people all day. I did manage to finish the belly of the anglerfish, and would have finished the upper lip if I had picked up the right number of stitches for it, or even if I had noticed sooner that I had the wrong number. Oh, well.

The potluck portion of it was really good, too. I finally decided to bring hot dogs, since I knew there would be a grill. Several other people brought hot dogs, too; there must have been at least three dozen weenies. I was thinking that maybe it hadn't been such a good choice since there were so many of them, but as it turned out most of the attendees had brought only side dishes & every last hot dog was eaten. There were also two kinds of pasta salad, two kinds of cucumber salad, fruit, spinach dip, several types of chips, lots of cookies, a corn casserole (similar but not identical to the one I make), bite-sized turkey wraps, and cupcakes. Oh. My. God. The cupcakes. When I first peeled the paper off mine I thought it was carrot cake & was a tad disappointed as that is not a particular favorite of mine. I bit into it and thought I'd gone to heaven. They were actually orange marmalade cupcakes with pecans and orange frosting. Absolutely incredible.

There was also a raffle at the end of the day. Everyone got one ticket for showing up, one ticket if they brought something for the freebie bin, and two tickets if they brought a prize for the raffle. I had brought some Sugar-n-Cream yarn with a pair of size 6 bamboo needles, but wasn't sure if I was going to toss it in the freebie bin or not. After about an hour I decided to do so. I am soooooo glad I did, because the ticket I got in exchange was the second number picked in the drawing! I won a skein of deep blue sock yarn--460 yards!!!!

One of Ralph's archery buddies, a woman named M, was there for part of the day. She is just learning how to knit; her current project (ribbed wristwarmers) is her very first project ever. In the course of our conversation, I found out that she knows our friend PH2; he was the best man at her wedding, although she has not seen him in several years. Small world, eh?

Right at the very end, we had "surprise guests" in the form of two newly-shorn alpaca. I tried really hard to get a good face shot of the youngest one as it had wonderful blue eyes; this is the best I was able to get. Looks better when viewed large, of course.

And lastly, the suspense is over. We have one tomato that is sufficiently ripe for us to know that the rogue plant in our backyard is (drum roll please) yellow tomatoes!! I am so happy, as the yellow ones tasted much better than the red.

Knitting Joys/WWKIP Day

Oh, what a difference a day makes! I looked more closely at the Nessie photos in the book, and realized that the front flipper orientation was the opposite of the hind flipper. This means that the hind one I had done *was* correct, and I didn't have to frog it after all. I am very close to being finished; just need to knit the "horns," embroider the eyes, and seam/stuff the tail.

I'm surprised at just how little yarn this project takes. I used leftover yarn from the fish hat I made for myself, and I *still* have some remaining. Not enough for another Nessie, but I bet I could do a starfish (another project from the book). Our bathroom has a rather fishy theme and I've been thinking that a basket of knit starfish would look nice in there.

I also started a new project today, the black devil anglerfish. I've done the entire back piece and have started to pick up stitches along the side to knit the belly. It's going to be really small when it's finished, maybe 6" long or so. Hmmm. . . maybe I can make a black devil anglerfish hat. . .




Tomorrow is World Wide Knit in Public Day. I usually manage to miss it entirely so I was glad to be reminded of it on Ravelry today. I did a search for KIP events near me, and guess what? There's one at the archery range that Ralph & I go to virtually every Saturday! It's a potluck event so I'll have to find/fix something to bring. I wonder if Domino's would deliver to a park? Probably not, since there's a $7 vehicle fee to get in (luckily I have a parking pass so it'll be free for me). I didn't have any real plans for the weekend so this is an unexpected treat.

Knitting Woes

Posting another picture of the ol' Chaos Theory socks, because this is the only way I can look at them right now. Yes, I have somehow managed to LOSE these astoundingly loud socks. I'm sure they will eventually turn up somewhere, although I am at a loss to explain how they vanished in the first place.

Still haven't finished knitting my Loch Ness Monster. I'm having real frustrations with how the flipper instructions are written. It says to pick up 12 stitches using the photo as a guide, and in the photo the stitches are picked up on the right side (as opposed to left, not as opposed to wrong). So that's what I did. Knit the flipper--and it was backwards. Apparently the instructions are for the *left* flipper. Sigh. Frogged it. There are no instructions for knitting it to face the other way; the instructions say to knit the second flipper "analogously" (I'll save you the trip to the dictionary; it means "in a similar way"). Had to recalculate the increases & decreases and placement of same to get it to face the right way. Only took three tries.

Then I did the left flipper. Even though I followed the instructions exactly, I got about halfway through & realized it didn't look right. Oh--the decreases slant in the wrong direction. Sigh. Frogged and re-knit. Still didn't look right. Oh--the increases slant in the wrong direction, too. Double sigh. Frogged and re-knit.

Today I knit the first hind flipper. Going on the assumption that the instructions were for the left flipper, I made the same adjustments I had made for the front right. I'm sure you can see where this is going. Frogging is in that flipper's future; just wish I'd noticed before I got to the penultimate row. Once I get this all figured out I'm going to write out the corrections and keep them in the book.

I've also looked ahead to the pattern I plan to make next. The materials call for three yarns: main color, contrast color 1, and contrast color 2. Part of the pattern is knit in contrast color 3. Yet another sigh. Fortunately that particular color is used for the animal's fangs, so it's obvious that one is to use either white or off-white, but geeze louise, the list of materials should include ALL the yarns needed.

My only consolation is that I think this is going to make me a better knitter in the long run. I really have to consider how a finished section is supposed to look, and ask myself, "Will these instructions result in the desired shape? If not, what changes need to be made?" I'm getting a better understanding of how using the correct technique improves the finished product.

Sunday, lovely Sunday

NOTE: The Boy, today's picture is just for you. It's a real honest-to-goodness STONECUTTER!! I took this at the Koroneberg Old Worlde Festival a couple weeks ago.

Had an extremely nice day today. Went yarn shopping with Lizard, where I bought four skeins & a set of size 5 DPNs. The yarn will be used to make a jackalope and an angler fish. We had lunch at In-n-Out Burgers (they make the best fries this side of anywhere--they slice the potatoes & fry them up when you place your order, so they are always hot & fresh) before coming back to my place for some knitting. Got a LOT done on my Loch Ness Monster; I'm just about to graft the belly seam (you stuff as you go), then I will just need to make the fins, sew the tail seam, and add eyes. I would say I'm 80% done at this point. I would have posted a picture if I could have found the camera.

Lizard is working on a Quant, which is an entrelac headband pattern. It's funny, I have that in my Ravelry queue & was thinking this morning that I should knit one, and here she shows up with one in progress! Then to top it off the current issue of Spin-Off arrived, and guess what's on the cover? Yup, a Quant--it's the featured project in this issue's Handspun Gallery. She's using the same colorway that I used for my LaStrange wristwarmers, only in a thicker yarn, and it's looking really nice so far.

Making one of my favorite "home assembled" meals for dinner tonight: beef over rice. It is soooo easy to make: Mix one can cream of mushroom soup, one can cream of celery soup, one can water, one envelope onion soup mix, and one pound stew beef in a large pot with an oven-proof lid. It will look pretty horrid at this point, but don't despair, it's supposed to look like that. Cover & put it in the oven for 2-1/2 to 3 hours at 350 degrees. Serve over cooked rice (I usually use minute rice for this dish). Tastes even better when re-heated the next day. Mine is about halfway through the cooking time & already smells fabulous.

Anyway, I'm anxious to finish Nessie so I'm off!

LaStrange: DONE!

Except for weaving in the ends, my LaStrange Wristwarmers are done! I am really pleased with how they came out. The thumb part was a bit trickier than I anticipated, mostly because I kept dropping stitches somehow.

Started a new project this morning, one of the patterns from my new "Amigurumi Knits" book: a Loch Ness Monster. I'm using yarn leftover from my fish hat. I think it will be a fairly quick knit; I started about 4 hours ago and am about 2/3 of the way through the back section. Unfortunately I'm going to get to a "stuck" point soon, as starting on row 171 (I'm on 145 now) you switch to knitting in the round, and I don't have any size 5 DPNs as far as I can recall. Might have to start another new project this afternoon! Luckily, Lizard is coming over tomorrow and part of our plans for the day include a trip to the yarn store so I can get a set of DPNs then.

I keep hearing an odd sound this morning. I swear it sounds like there's a peacock calling a couple streets away. I suppose it's *possible* since we have seen a peacock wandering around a few miles up the road, but that was several years ago & I don't know if it's still around or not. It's really rather odd seeing (or even hearing) such an exotic bird in a suburban neighborhood.

Had waaaaay too much sugar yesterday. Got about 15 miles up the freeway when I realized I had forgotten my medicine, so drove back home to get it. Grabbed a Zinger to eat on the way to work since a) it was handy b) sounded really really good and c) I was still a bit hungry from having a too-small breakfast. Had another Zinger with my lunch. Then at 2:00, we had cake in the office to celebrate the "go-live" of our new software system. I hadn't intended to eat the whole slice since I'd had sweet treats earlier, but it was absolutely delicious and I scarfed it all down like I'd never had cake before in my life. Going to have to keep an eye on the sugar intake today, especially since I'll probably eat junk tomorrow with Lizard coming over and all (hey, I have to have snackies out for my guest, right?).


I've been thinking of changing the header on my blog. I like the picture a lot, but it's just too big. Wish I knew of a way to shrink it in the header, but if such a way exists I haven't been able to figure it out.

Been having fun surfing youtube recently, having discovered "literal music videos." That's where someone overdubs a music video with new lyrics that describe what is happening in the video. My faves so far are "Penny Lane," "Daydream Believer," and "Total Eclipse of the Heart. Here's a link (hope it works) to "Daydream Believer."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nViC0K-zifk

If the link doesn't work, just go to youtube.com and do a search for "literal videos" and have fun!

And it's Thursday again.

Not really a lot to say this morning; just figured it's been several days since I've posted so I'd best post SOMEthing.

Making good progress on the wristwarmers. I've cast off the first one & just need to knit the thumb and weave in the ends on that one, and the other needs one pattern repeat, six rows of ribbing, the thumb, and of course weaving in the ends. Hoping to finish up today, although I'm not counting on it.

Went to see Dr. Y on Tuesday to treat a skin abscess. The fact that I went without protest should give you an idea of how painful it was. It drives me nuts that even though it takes at least 30 minutes per patient, his appointments seem to be scheduled about 10 minutes apart, plus he sees people in the order in which they have signed in rather than seeing appointments when they are scheduled and walk-ins when he can fit them in. My appointment was at 4:00. I got there at 4:05 & immediately signed in. At 5:20 the nurse/receptionist actually acknowledged my existence & took me back to the examination room. Doctor showed up at 6:48 (yes, I checked my watch). I pointed out to him that I had left work 2 hours early in order to be on time but he somehow manages to make one feel guilty for being upset at a nearly 3-hour wait. Now I'm taking antibiotics four times a day (capsules roughly the size of Wisconsin) & go back on the 9th for a follow-up.

Zoe was a Bad Dog yesterday. Ralph caught her licking bacon grease from a pan on the stove! Good thing it had cooled, or maybe not so good--if it had been hot still perhaps it would have taught her a lesson.

Life is good.

The past few days have been most satisfactory. On Saturday Ralph & I went to a Civil War re-enactment at El Dorado Park. No pictures, unfortunately, as we couldn't find the camera (it has since turned up). It was fun seeing costumes other than Renaissance, and there were lots of small environmental areas: a tavern, an inn, a blacksmith, a field medic, an apothecary, and an anti-slavery movement to name a few. The war re-enactment itself was just OK for the most part; none of the soldiers seemed very excited and I would think that being in a battle would be extremely exciting (although not in a good way). However, at the end of the battle when the bugler played "Taps" everyone got very still & quiet--even the little kids & babies in the audience were quiet, as though they understood how solemn the moment was.

I also got started on a new project (today's picture): fingerless mitts using the "Wide Awake" yarn Lizard gave me for my birthday. I picked a lace pattern from "Beautiful Knitting Patterns" which I think looks really nice with this colorway. I am calling them my "LaStrange Wristwarmers" because the colors & pattern combined for some reason make me think of Bellatrix LaStrange from the "Harry Potter" series. I don't like the term "mitts" and thus I'm using "wristwarmers" even though they are really too long to be that.

Yesterday we saw "Up." Very good movie indeed! Although, there were a couple parts that made me teary-eyed & glad I was with Ralph at the time. Yeah, I know, I'm an emotional pushover :-)

Major score today--got tickets for me, Lizard & Ralph to see Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo in February. Primo seats, too--FOURTH ROW just left of center. It starts at 4:00 pm which means we'll probably either meet for a late lunch beforehand or go out to dinner afterwards. Most likely the former, so that Lizard doesn't have to drive home after dark.

Lastly, my Amazon order arrived today, woo hoo! Obviously I'll have to end the post now so I can go open the box & drool over my new knitting book.