bag 'n' trash -- home of monster yarn

A List: Indecision and Other Crap

1.  so operation "ripping the house apart" continues.  yesterday morning, as i was getting ready to leave for work, j was already outside tearing down the shingles on the west side of the house.

2.  nothing crafty or yarny has been going on.  well not really.  i've been messing around with the larger than life bag, crocheting, frogging, and recrocheting the sides of the bag.  if i were knitting this bag and had to frog this much, i would have thrown everything in the trash.  but the best thing about crochet ... only one live stitch.  rip with confidence.  why am i having such trouble with the sides?  i made some adjustments to the pattern so at this point, i'm winging it. 

oh, there has been some spinning.  so that part about "nothing crafty or yarny" going on at my house was a lie.

3.  i'm having a major case of startitis.  i want to start some new socks but i can't decide on which yarn to use.  what do you think? 

from left to right we have:  knitpicks essential, aracaunia sock, and mirasol peru hacho. 

4.  my love for npr has reached a new high.  a few days ago carole and i were "discussing" how we both had noticed that the leaves were changing really early this year.   or at least it seemed like it.  and that we always thought the same thing every year, that the leaves were changing earlier than we remember.  and that it must be because we were getting old (well carole said that, i didn't).  i noticed the first leaves changing august 11th.  well i was listening to npr the other day.  and get this.  WE AREN'T GETTING OLD!!  THE LEAVES HAVE STARTED CHANGING EARLIER THAN NORMAL!  the northeast has had a particularly dry summer and a dry summer causes the leaves to start changing earlier.  ha!  i knew i wasn't getting old.

and finally... 5.  did you know there's another maryse out there?  i was reading some comments and came across one posted by "maryse" and i thought, "i didn't write that comment.  did i?  maybe i did.  no, that doesn't sound like me."  and then i did the sensible thing.  i followed the link.  duh. 

hi "other" maryse!

Construction Site

a few posts ago, i was so excited about finally cleaning up my office/craft room area.  i had taken some "before" shots (pretty lame actually) and was all set to take some "after" shots in preparation for a "before-after" post until something horrible happened.

j wrecked the house.

this is what the house looked like before (and still looks like from the front:

yeah, pretty "meh."  i like the house on the inside (we've done tons of work on it AND it has tons of storage), but the exterior of this house has depressed the hell out of me every since i moved in.  even the color reminds me of baby poo.   

but the worse of it has been the condition of the windows. 

most people would just replace their windows.  but not j.  nooooooooooooo.  that would be too easy.

no, j decided to rip the house apart.

starting in the back, the ugly poo colored shingles were removed as were the old windows, frames and all.  insulation was installed and in-laws were invited over for a "let's tyvek the house and install windows" party.

   

this is what the back of my house currently looks like.  i'm not a huge fan of the tyvek look, but it's better than baby poo.

next phase of the project -- the west side.

Email Broken Can't Work

today, our email at work was broken, which meant that for 5 hours i couldn't really do any work.  or not much anyway.  i did what i could, then just sat there.  waiting. 

i thought about writing a post.  it would have been a good time to do that, but i didn't have one in me.  i don't really have one in me now either.  but if i don't write, then i'll just have more to write later with even less inclination to do so.

i know in a previous post i was all cryptic and everything, but i didn't mean to be.  i just wasn't ready to put it in writing until i had actually done it. so i did it.  after work, i went to the local community college and signed up to retake general biology to help me study for the MTEL subject test which i plan on taking probably next spring (along with some education classes), you know, because i'm just insane enough to want to teach highschool biology some day.  (twenty years ago i graduated with a B.S. in biology, but that was a long time ago. so i need a little refresher)  i'm taking the communications and literacy skills test in october.  THE WEEKEND AFTER RHINEBECK!!! Midterms also happen to be the week after Rhinebeck so i'll be studying probably while everyone else is having fun.  *sigh*  after getting my master's degree, i really thought i'd never have to do this again.  i'm really nervous and scared.  not so much about the classes or the tests but about jumping into something kind of blindly. 

anyway.  so that was boring.  now you know what i'm planning.

other than that, what have i been doing?

making the feather and fan baby bonnet for my little niece in  honor of her christening. 

no, she's not amish.

and i've been crocheting squares for the larger than life bag from interweave crochet spring 2007.

i'm making my version with patons merino.

i'm a little further along than these photos might indicate but the challenge for me will be the lining.  you know, because i'm going to have to sew.

ok all of this talk about my future has me a little twitchy.  i'm going to bed. 

here's to email working tomorrow.

 

Things I Like Monday

i haven't written a "things i like" monday post in quite some time, but this weekend was a good one so here goes.  my list of things i like ...

1. the weather we've been having.  while the rest of the country is broiling or under water, here in new england the weather has been awesome.  the sky a gorgeous blue, with puffy white clouds.  the humidity non-existent.  the sun, wonderfully warm.  the temperature highs in the low to mid-70s.    just a small taste of fall. 

2. spending a wonderful saturday at the fiber revival at the spencer pierce little farm.  what a beautiful place.  and what great weather we had (except that the wind was a little fierce).

3. sharing the ride to the revival and a dyeing class  with ben.  oh and doing a little yarn shopping after the revival in newburyport at a shop called "loom with a view."  (sorry, no web presence)

4.  hanging out with all of my fiber loving buddies.  melanie was there, and kellee and baby b, and stitchy, and adrian, and marcy, and mamacate, and laurie and jess and maya and monica and baby lily, and kate and tadpole, and .....

5.  waving to danielle across the yard, having her do the same, only then to realize that she and i had never really met in person before, but somehow it didn't seem to matter.  having ms. mafia come running up to me and hugging me like we'd known each other for years when really we were meeting right then for the first time. 
(and of course having her save me from being EATEN ALIVE BY A GIANT SCARY BUG!!!).

6.  cute alpacas

it was a good, fun, exhausting day. want to see more pictures?  here are mine, adrian's, and cheryl's.

Wednesday FO

remember this?  it's blocked.

started:  sometime in august 2007
finished:  august 11, 2007

approximately 66" long
"nightshade" coopworth homespun singles from spunky eclectic

size 6 32in lace addi turbos (that i love by the way.  the pointiness is so nice!)
pattern:  branching out by susan pierce lawrence

 

TGIF

today has been a very good day.

for one, i took a personal day.  so i didn't have to go to work.  and that, my friends, is enough of a reason for why this day was so good.

but it gets better.  see, i took today off with one purpose in mind...and that was to clean my office/yarn room.   not a major clean up -- i didn't take all of my books off the shelves and sort them or anything.  my closet still has more craft crap than i can possibly use.  but those two messes weren't making me not want to come into the room.  it was the stuff on the floor, on the futon couch, stacked in corners, and the boxes.  the billions and billions and billions of boxes.  many filled with fiber and yarn. 

several hours later, 4 garbage bags, and a stack of flattened boxes (to save for packages of my own or for recycling) later, i'm done.  i ran out to home goods and found this awesome shelf/drawer thingy that now houses all of my unspun fiber.  and it matches the furniture in the rest of the room!  my floor is clear.  i even have a yarn cake winding station!   

oh, i also registered to take a test.  luckily, the test is scheduled the saturday AFTER rhinebeck. (i procrastinated all summer, my bad).   i think i'm ready to crack open the books again. i think.  i'm hoping i'm not too old or too stupid to go back to school.

and tomorrow, j and i are going to go out and buy windows and roofing supplies!  i've had such a productive day today that i'm even excited about windows!!!

i'll end this post with a little eye candy.  i think it's pretty anyway. 

Celebrating Another Anniversary

it was about a year ago that i learned how to spin on a wheel at adrian's knee.  in honor of this momentous occasion in my crafty life, i celebrated by BUYING A NEW WHEEL!!!!!!

isn't she beautiful?  she needs a name though.....

i'm thinking "thumbelina."

Transformation

one of the things i like best about spinning is watching a big pile of prepared wool  ...

get transformed through spinning ....

into yarn ....

that i then knit up ...

into a lacy scarf.  i still need to block.

the wool is coopworth sliver in nightshade by spunky eclectic.  it's a gorgeous mix of dark grays, rust, burgundy and lavender.

the scarf pattern is branching out from knitty.

Lion Alert!

the results of this quiz i found via Chris actually made me snort out loud.   after cleaning up the coffee on my boob (good thing i'm wearing brown today) i have to agree that this is a pretty accurate result, you know, if i were a lolcat.

Your Score: Lion Warning Cat

      

51%  Affectionate, 57%  Excitable, 46%  Hungry

      

      

      You are the good Samaritan of the lolcat world. Protecting others from danger by shouting observations and guidance in cases of imminent threat, you believe in the well-being of everyone.

To see all possible results, checka dis.       

Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

June and July Project Spectrum Review

another two months have passed and it's time for my june-july project spectrum retrospective.  for these two months, the colors showcased were red, black and metallics.

i thought that working with this color triad would be easy since black and red are two of my favorite colors.  but they're also winter colors to me.  i don't even wear red and black in the summer.  i did manage to finish a "red" project though:  the boteh scarf from the spring '07 issue of interweave crochet.

yeah it's kind of a dumb picture but i didn't feel like modeling it.  anyway, the pattern called for two skeins of lorna's laces sock yarn, so i used a 100g skein of sock yarn (of unknown pedigree -- i just know i bought it on ebay) and a size F (3.75 mm) crochet hook.  i think my "petals" or whatever you want to call them, were smaller than in the original pattern so i was able to make 20 of them rather than 16 as written in the pattern. 

yeah i didn't check gauge but it's a scarf.  a scarf always fits.  this one ended being 76 inches long. anyway, even if you're a relatively new crocheter, i think you can give this a try (just check for the errata first).  it's deceptively simple and very fun to make.  honest.  kind of cool looking and a great way to dip into your sock yarn stash.  go on.  i know you want to make one.