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Hallowsox

From my share of the ginormous pile of yarn at Mistress Cari's Drafty Brunch and Yarn Orgy have emerged these colorful little guys:

I'm ashamed to say that I've forgotton who brought this skein to the table (helloooo...anyone?) but let me thank you earnestly for allowing me to experience its mismatched, stripey goodness.  These were originally intended for me, but they're going to my mother for Chanukah.  See, when I had her try the first one on (I didn't have her measurements yet), she was all, "Oooh...these colors are really nice, aren't they?  And even though I asked for something in browns and greens (like mother, like daughter, hmmm?) I MUST HAVE THESE SOCKS.  YOU CANNOT DENY ME THESE SOCKS."  And because she's my mum and I love her, the socks will be hers.

YARN:  Opal ZwergerGarn
COLOR: Rodeo (I think - the label's all in German, and I might be misreading it.)
NEEDLES: Size 3 36" Addis (Magic Loop method)
PATTERN:  Basic Ribbed Sock from Socks Soar (modified to omit the ribs and to be knit on a single circ)

I want to finish two more pairs for Chanukah - for my Dad and Grandmother.  And I've got another gift pair in the works, and then a couple for Michael and the Martian...

Holy crap, this time last year I didn't knit socks at all.  And now I've got at least 7 specific sock pattern and color combos in mind and I don't even have to buy the yarn for 'em.  And there's so much about sock knitting to love - the affordability and portability of entire projects, the way colors stripe and flash and pool unexpectedly and the opportunity to master techniques that make you feel like a badass knitter.  Turning a heel makes me feel badass.  Picking up stitches and creating a gusset makes me feel badass.  There really should be a knitting equivalent of slamming an upside-down shot glass down on a bar. 

Any suggestions?

It's A Magic Number

Somebody around here turns three today.

My sweet boy, how you astonish, amaze and delight me in a thousand different ways, every single day.  Right now, your two favorite words are, "Why not?", usually delivered with an expression of extreme puzzlement, as you try to decifer this strange, strange world in which so many things are mysterious and unpredictable. When you can't find something (a favorite toy fire engine, the moon on a cloudy night, one of the cats) you shrug your shoulders and explain to me, "It popped."

You already know how to choose your clothes, fasten your sneakers, and reprogram the dvd player so that everything is captioned in french.  While you enjoy the Dora and Blues Clues games on Nick Jr.'s website, your favorite computer games are Word documents and Excel spreadsheets.  You scare me a little with this one.

As the undisputed king of the power naps, you can sleep 3-4 hours in an afternoon, left to your own devices.  Which of course means that you're wide awake at 10pm, but you're such a joy to be around that we're all pretty OK with this schedule right now.  Especially since Daddy often doesn't get home from tutoring until 9:30. I'll miss the naps when they go, as I know they will, eventually.  Partly because it's nice to have the break mid-day, but mostly because you're so damn adorable when you're asleep.

This year you learned (with only a little help) how to build a drum kit out of our pots and mixing bowls, make scrambled eggs (with two kinds of hot sauce), and wind a perfect center-pull ball of yarn (OK, more than a little help for this one.)  You're growing up so damn fast. I already have trouble remembering the day-to-day details of your first couple of years; there are so many, many new things that continually re-define who you are.  Whomever you will eventually become - know that you are now and always my joy, my light, my favorite martian.   

 

The Slippery Slope

So, there was good news at work yesterday. The last couple of weeks I've been preoccupied with a grueling re-write and re-edit, but it looks like everyone's finally happy with the result.  Next couple of weeks I'll probably be just as crazed with the fine-tuning of sound & picture, but it feels so much closer to being FINISHED now. 

Which allows me to relax just enough to organize and photograph the Spoils of The Rhinebeck.   Ready?

Socks That Rock.  Em's evil influence at work.

Spirit Trail sock yarn.  I was lucky to get anything at all - they were in their own little booth on the dirt road winding around the larger buildings, and I only found them by accident on the way out.  It was close to 4:00 and they were almost all out of sock yarn, but miraculously still had a couple of skeins in what I'm quickly realizing is my signature colorway of greens and browns. 

Brooks Farm Duet - I'm thinking I can squeeze a cropped, airy cardi out of this single megaskein.

There's another skein of sock yarn that I can't photograph because it's a gift, and the Shaeffer Ann which I hid so successfully that I'll have to take the stash apart to find it again, and the practice roving and the 'fancy' roving, and the copy of EZ's Knitting Workshop, and THIS little gem - even though I swore I was NOT going to buy any single skeins of anything, I couldn't resist the call of the alpaca.

I went back to touch it three times, and after the nice lady at the Burgis Brook Alpacas booth gave me its pedigree (spun from three of her favorite alpacas) I knew I couldn't leave the barn without it. I'm think there's enough for a short pair of fuzzy gauntlets, which I desperately need.

The scary thing, though, is that out of nowhere I suddenly developed an irresistible attraction to these.

And that way lies madness.

Nothing bought - not yet, at least, but damnit, they were EVERYWHERE, and all the wonderful spinners were just so nice and made it look so effortless.  There was this one amazing lady whose Louet seemed like an extension of her arms and legs, and to make it even more perfect there was a spider at work in her hair while we were talking.  I swear, I'm not making that up.

Forget The Fiber

For just a second, here.  Because after I tasted these up at Rhinebeck, I sure did.

Apparently, they were jarred only a couple of days before the festival.  Heaven.  Sheer, unadulterated heaven.  I'd say that even if it weren't midnight after a couple of glasses of Sancerre.

Words, Finally

Honestly, I don't think there's a damn thing left for me to say about Rhinebeck that everyone hasn't already said.  I drove up early with my friend Geralyn and the weather was gorgeous; there were beaucoup beauteous bloggers with whom I didn't get to spend nearly enough time (or missed completely, because I'm lame); there was corn chowder, pickled tomatoes, at least forty different kinds of cheese and several amusing quasi-cabernets; there were bunnies that looked like clouds and alpacas that hummed like bees.  And there was yarn.  A muchness of yarn.  MOUNTAINS of muchness of yarn.  So much freakindamn yarn that I was still seeing it three days later, skeins piled everywhere.

I didn't remember last year being quite so overwhelming - maybe because then I had the Martian in tow, which kept me from giving the fiber my full and undivided attention.  Unlike, say, this year, when I...well, I think "wallowed" probably sums it up nicely.

(Geralyn was feeling somewhat sheepish.)

There were felted things and needle-felting kits EVERYWHERE.  These pieces in particular were delicate and sculptural and the colors were stunning.

And there was yarn, of course - I haven't properly photographed it yet, so pix of the haul to come.  Gobs and gobs of sock yarn, roving, some Brooks Farm and a to-die-for tri-color skein representing no fewer than three alpacas. 

I meant this to be a longer post, but this has actually been kind of a hellish week at work and I'm just getting over a cold, so I think this is all I've got in me for tonight.  Yarny pix and more festival details soonest.  Until then, enjoy the lovely autumn.  'Bout time, too, isn't it?

DIY Balls!

This is why I love DIY:

The ever-brilliant Make 'zine has a new Crafts Archive, and the first thing I saw today was an entry about how to make your own ball-winder out of Legos.

Click here to link directly to the Craftster tutorial. Absolute, sheer fucking brilliance.

Off to Rhinebeck tomorrow, no matter how much damn high water there is. Must be an Aquarius thing, but I'm loving the water. Humidity kills me, but out-and-out rain is gooooood.

Back with pictures on Monday!

Somewhat Better

So thanks to my savior Christine, my crabby iDVD is up and running again. Turned out the sucker's preferences just needed to get well and truly trashed — yeah, him and me both. Agita averted; or diverted, at least for now. I still don't know what the fuck is up with my PC and its issues with my camera, but I'll deal with that later. MUCH later. Right now, I'm going to continue my deep breathing and general relaxation techniques in preparation for Saturday, where I will exert all my willpower to keep from degenerating into a slobbering yarn ho. In anticipation of the weekend fiber orgy, I held back from buying some of Peace Fleece's worsted in a gorgeous new shade of brickish red they're calling Sheplova Mushroom (I swear, they have hands-down the best yarn names around, don'tcha think?) Only problem is, what with my unpredictable dyselxia and all, I keep reading it as "Shlepova." As in, "Oy, I had to shlepova this HUGE box of yarn from the post office, and my back is killing me."

Can This Hard Drive Be Saved?

I am having some really, REALLY bad computer karma right now.  The USB port on the PC has stopped speaking to my camera, so even though I've had a finished FO for two days, I have nada to show for myself.  And I have a freelance deadline today, and can't create a DVD on my Powerbook because iDVD seems to have stopped working, and every time I try to open it I have what appears to be impending system failure.  Including refusal to force quit, restart, or shut down.  The USB nonsense I can handle, but I'm very, very worried about my 'book.  So I'm backing up everything in preparation for a little trip to Tekserve tomorrow, and will probably have to call my client soon and see if it's OK for everything to arrive a day later.  Geesh.

To try and distract myself from the agonizingly slow backup, I'm stealing a meme from Iris; you Google your name + "needs."  Hilarity ensues. (Well, Iris' was pretty hilarious - mine is actually a little depressing.)

• Gidget Needs A Home
• And like most celebrities, Gidget needs cosmetic assistance.
• Gidget needs to go to a home with a stockade/privacy fence as she’s very skilled at climbing chain link or digging under it
• Gidget needs to get himself back on track
• Gidget needs some exercise
• Gidget needs to put her feet up after a long day as a UN tour guide
• Gidget needs to grow up

Grumpy

I'm so heartily sick of this heat already. It's OCTOBER, and I'm tired of humidity and tank tops and my Converse slides with the peeling soles. I want to wear my jeans and motorcycle boots and sweaters without all the shvitzing, damn it. And I'm snappish and surly (you probably hadn't noticed, hmmm?) and a real bundle of joy to be around right now (actually, I typed 'bundle of Job', which is probably closer to how I actually feel.)

And I can't believe how sloooooooowly I'm knitting - it's taking me weeks and weeks to finish something in bulky cotton that I should have whipped off the needles in a couple of days. I just don't seem to have the energy. I'm meandering on the second cuff of a long sleeve variation on the — wait for it — OSW! Because that's all I knit, now! with a triple leaf lace panel going up each of the sleeves. The green Patagonia shrug from a while back just wasn't working for me - I made the back just a few inches too long and the edges rolled annoyingly, so I ripped the fucker out and reworked it using my new favorite shrug recipe. I'm expecting that I'll have pix just as soon as I finish, which at this rate should be sometime in early December.

Hopefully by then I'll be able to wear something heavier than a tank top.