Jul 21, 2005

emergency knit project +bonus nerd information!

I went to spend a long weekend with Rock Star in Boston. He started knitting a big project and I was left with idle hands (I know, I know, but I was recovering from a migraine when I left and had *no* interest in knitting while I packed).

So after a day or so we trucked to West Roxbury to the Joann Fabrics and I bought some of their new 'angel hair' yarn and am working on a leaf pattern stole to wear in my office, which is nearly frozen from overtime air-conditioning. I'll post some pics later. I usually don't go for 'crafty' yarns, but this stuff is really soft and will double for a nice pillow while I'm spending late nights working on my dissertation.

Now, for some nerd stuff.
The site that I am loving more than any now is gmapPedometer. I always want to know how far I've walked and this takes the cake! And, if you wanna see where I'm working, check this out. Make sure you click the 'satellite' view in the upper right corner. If you like this tool as much as I do, please comment and post links to your favorite places.

Wheeeee!

Jul 13, 2005

Maybe, Yes: iPods and a4A update

I've loved her a long time. Eleni Mandell has a marvelous voice. Maybe, Yes is a jazzy, nostalgic album which

I've recently 'lost' in the gigabytes of other songs that have crowded her out. I've ended up loading too many things that I *never* listen to - just because I can. Hmmmm.

The visit with SweetBasil was so relaxing. We sat in the garden with her new husband, toasted marshmallows, and caught lightning bugs. She brought me many fantastic finds from antique stores and I felt so loved.

Toasty

Do you call them 'lightning bugs' or 'fireflies'? I'm really curious, so comment if you feel like it and let me know where you grew up and which term you use. SweetBasil is from Seoul, and we started a little tangential convo about the regional use of the words. Either way, they are my very favorite insect.

The Beast was grumpy after she left, so I gave him a little homegrown catnip...

Stoned on Home-grown

... while I worked on my afghans for Afghans projects, a little hat and some baby booties:

Hat for afghansforAfghans.orgBooties for afghansforAfghans.org

And, because I just started this blog and am hoping to collect as many of my crafts as possible in one place, here's my Skully from Stitch-n-Bitch that I made last winter:

Skully

Jul 8, 2005

what's worse then babysitting a UNIX script?....

... babysitting it when it isn't working.
Which is what I've been doing all week.
Now things decide to crunch along, but it's Friday night and I'm ready to escape... Sweet Basil's in town!

Here's my latest finished project, the'lunch bag' from the latest Rebecca Home issue. Just ignore the bad data and food detritus that's surrounding it, but note the cell phone for scale:

lunch? bag

Knit with my old favorite - Lamb's Pride.

My question to the ggh folks is, what kind of crappy lunch are you supposed to carry in this?!

Maybe I'm just a pig.

Jul 7, 2005

afghans for Afghans

September 16.

That is the deadline for the next afghans for Afghans shipment.

My reasons for posting this are twofold:

1) Get you interested in the cause. No matter whether or not you support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, this project is fantastic for providing warm clothes to Afghan refugees.

2) Make me accountable to finishing and finally shipping some things to the project. I could go on about how busy I've become, or other projects I think I should be working on, blah, blah, blah. But the truth is that I have a stash I need to knit up before I move cross country (and that would make perfect booties). And doing so would be perfect therapy while I scream at the television at Shrub's latest bad acts.

Tonight I will take stock of what I have and how much I think I can reasonably finish and post a specific list.

So there.

Bed of the Beast (Fall-Winter 2004)

Another thing I made this winter was the Princess Snowball Cat Bed from S&B for my little beast. He really snuggled up to the base as I was making it:

New Bed Under Construction

I just knew he was going to love it when it was finished. After I made the sides in a denim-colored Fun Fur and Wool-Ease, he slept in it all of 1 hour. My parents' dog does love it. I gave it to him, so there are no photos of the completed project.

Jul 1, 2005

first sock (1-3.2005)

Here's my very first sock in progress:

First Sock

I started them after Christmas and finished them just as it became too warm to wear them out. The shade of green is really great and the yarn has little flecks of teal and yellow. Three skeins made two socks long enough to wear with motorcyle boots:

{insert pic later}

I had a significant amount of yarn left, so I could've made them even longer. Damn.

Double-Knit! (11-12.2005)

I'm trying to post some old, completed projects on this new blog for posterity. Waiting for a very slow script to finish running gives me a perfect time to do so.

Here's a double-knit hat I made for my brother for Christmas out of worsted Lamb's Pride yarn in Oregano and Onyx:

Reverse!

The cool part is that the reverse side has vertical stripes:

{insert link to scarf at a later date....}

The first few rows are tricky, but it goes pretty quickly once you get the hang of it. My BF has mastered the pattern better than I - he bought it at Woolcott & Co in Cambridge, MA.