This won't be a very long post--I just wanted everyone to know that i haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth.
We have occupied our new house for a couple of weeks now. Though, as you can tell from the title of the post, i'm still organizing.
More importantly, though, we're getting a puppy. I'm picking him up at the airport ONE week from today. We have decided to wait to name him till we get to know his personality, but this is what i can tell you so far: He's a brindle AKC english mastiff with CH bloodlines, he's about 12 weeks old (born 2 days after my sister's Bday), and he's got huge paws and ears... (see picture below)
His sire is 34" at the shoulder and 235 lbs. His dam is a slightly more petite 165 lbs. He's going to be a big fellow ;D
I'm so excited! Thanks Dawn & Dew Drop Kennels!
E.
i felt bad...
because i posted worthlessly before.
So, I'd like to post something of (at least semi-) comedic value.
I've been listening to the Veggie Rocks cd i usurped from my sister, and i love it. Particularly the "Belly of the Whale" version by Newsboys. But the part that REALLY keeps me in stitches is the Superchic[K] version of "The Waterbuffalo Song". If you haven't listened to this song, you're missing out. The part that's been cracking me up all day is after the second verse. They're singing about how "everyone's got a waterbuffalo" and this girl and her dad have this mini-convo:girl: Look! There's one! [a waterbuffalo]
dad: nope, that's a dog.
I'm still giggling just thinking about it.
I guess you just had to be there...
E.
mhmmph.
not that it really warrants its own whole post, but...
I HATE *K2, P2*
hate it, i tell you.
grrrrrr.
(it takes after its cousin, k1p1)
52PP update & cyber SEX...
Well, month #1 of the 52 Pair Plunge has flown by. I'm not too much the worse for wear, being only 1/2 a pair behind so far (hmm... 1/2 times 12 months... let's hope i'm not 6 pairs short at the end!).
Here is Pair #2
Unfortunately, i didn't get pics of pair #3 (my camera was M.I.A.), but you can see the hat that was to go along with it (pairs 2 & 3, plus the hat, were presents for a friend at work and her newborn-to-be)
Also, I wanted to share some pictures from my latest Stash Enrichment eXcursion (of the online persuasion)... I can't wait to knit this (colorway PINK PANTHER from White Oak Studios -- you should shop there, Jana's a peach!)up using the Rococo Pattern from Wildhorse Farm Designs!
More when i get a chance!
E.
"Golly, cheese & crackers, Wally!"
With sign-ups officially closed, I am proud to report that a whopping 90 people have signed up for the 52 Pair Plunge. I can't believe it. I was afraid i might only have one or two people join... all i can say is WOW, you guys! Wow.
Since this is the first KAL i've run, i didn't realize how much effort goes into webkeeping (luckily, all the members can post for themselves now). Now that sign-ups are over, however, i foresee a chance to update this site (Yay! I've missed my bluestockings!) and get back to some serious knitting.
In the works:
- Pairs 2 & 3 of 52 (baby socks for women at work)-(that is, for their babies)
- Something for the HP7 KAL (random side note: I had a dream last night that they upped the price of HP7 to $65--and got away with it... everyone still wanted one-- WHAT a NIGHTMARE!)
- Prayer shawl for N. on the Purple Heartwood size15 needles her husband, T., lathed for me (these are beautiful BEAUTIFUL needles--pics once I'm finished with the shawl)
- scarf (yeah, that one that that's STILL on my sidebar)
Here are my first pair of socks from the 52PP:
Elfine's Socks in Jojoland wool on sz 2's
A belated birthday for my sister, A.
Hope all are well!
E.
Map me, baby...
ooOOOooo!
aaAAAaah!
Check the awesomeness i created for the 52PP KAL!
(courtesy of Frappr)
E.
HOME is where the KAL is...
Well, it's official.
There is a new website devoted to the 52PairPlunge. Of course, you'll still be able to get updates here, but as Abigail pointed out, it'll be easier if you can post for yourself. Those of you who have requested to be part of the KAL should've gotten an email inviting you to join the KAL as an author. If you haven't, let me know!
I look forward to hearing from you & seeing your posts!
Your fearless (first-time) moderator,
E.
PS - the new website is http://52PairPlunge.blogspot.com/
Gearing up...
Hey Gals & Pals,
We are currently up to thirteen 52PP participants! Please go ahead and tell your friends to join ASAP. Sign-ups will be closing on 7 April 2007. One of our KALers expressed interest but was unsure if she'd be up to 52 pairs (yes, it is a lot to ask!)... Rest assured that there will be no ill-will if you are unable to complete all 52 pairs. Do your best & have fun! It's all about the thrill of a challenge!
Additionally, I am hoping to complete some 52PP-themed progress bars. If anyone is interested, just check back to this site over the next week or two!
Best Wishes!
E.
PS - yes, you can complete WIPs and they will count.
Yay! A KAL...
Okay, here i go, trying to be a hard-core knitter.
The week of 1 April (in honor of my birthday, which is not 1 April but IS during that week), The 52 Pair Plunge KAL will commence. Anyone interested in participating must pledge to knit 52 pairs of socks between now and 1 April 2008. There is no restriction on type of sock (child/adult/decorative/etc.) or level of difficulty or material used. Have fun with it! Of course, it is suggested to do a pair of socks each week of the year, but for those of us who like to procrastinate ;D... you just need to have 52 pairs done by the date above. If you're interested in participating, please help yourself to the button below AND please send me an email (eknitabeth AT gmail DOT com) so i can track your progress!
Best of Luck!
E.
Button, button, who's got the button?!
Not really sure who made this up...
... there are a lot of good books missing...
Look at the list of (100) books below.
Bold the ones you’ve read.
Italicize the ones you own.
Movies don’t count.
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible (Only parts)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
Needles, Pins, Triplets, Twins...
So, i am totally APPALLED at the fact that i haven't updated in 2 weeks... but, as we have ANOTHER snowday today, it's easily remedied!
I. Needles
II. Other people's babies
III. My babies (aka - projects)
IV. Adventures in the psuedo-library
(1) Guess what i bought! Yep. I finally broke down and did it! This should hold me for a while.
eBay is a wonderful thing. Sometimes.
(2) A hearty congratulations to Alison of The Blue Blog for her darling new arrival! Welcome to the world, Baby L! ... AND congrats to one of the JCS psychologists on her brand-new TRIPLETS!!
(3) As if it weren't enough... i can't even think of where to begin!
Let's start with PICTURES!!
The Desperate Housfrau (completed) in Homespun's "Edwardian" as modeled by the charming Guitar Case... ain't she a Bee-Yooooou-Tee!
Random Kitty #3 (completed; #1['Fred'] to my niece, #2 to my nephew, this one
The beginning of the Seth-man socks
(Which i've decided to do geisha-style)
The beginnings of a self-designed illusion scarf (already frogged once)...
This is why i'm excited:
OK. so. I was looking for something fun to play around with. I found the alien illusion scarf in SNB#1. For those of you who know illusion knitting, you use contrasting colors *usually* to create a picture through positive and negative space. You do this in 2x2 stripes. I don't know about you, but when i think illusion (appearing and disappearing) and stripes, only one thing comes to mind (see below).
The goal, if i can work it out (which i've been rabid about doing) is to picture the Cheshire Cat in the illusion part, but to stitch the eyes and smile on in white--so they can be seen at all times. Keep your fingers crossed. This scarf is going to kick some booty! Period. The End. (for now... more later, actually).
(4) I've re-started the HP series so as to follow along with the Knit-down to HP7. I'm about 150pgs into PoA, but i'm much further behind in the KAL portion. I've decided to do the "what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent" from Chapter 5 of SS. I've always fancied a try at free-hand knitting (my attempt at free-hand crochet resulted in my website's icon) and this seems like the perfect opportunity! I'm also mid-"J is for Judgment" in the ABC mysteries by Sue Grafton and getting involved in "Case for Christ". My immediate problem in discontent in deciding which i want to do: knit or read, as i'm eager to do both (and then figuring out what to read or knit). Thanks to Beth in WI for her sympathy! ;D
I promise i'll update sooner rather than later next time!
E.
Flashes of Brilliance to Come...
whoo-hoo.
Bring on the needles...
E.
Caught! Rainbow(?)-handed...
RAINBOW BREAD!
Makes for a good grilled cheese too!
mmm... part of a balanced lunch!
Even the crumbs are cooler...
And this is what i get for it!
Yeah, you wanna be me!
<3,
E.
Curlers & Crullers...
hehe... maybe just wishful thinking on the cruller part... not as if i could get one right now anyway...
(it may look benign, but that road is about 40% black ice... i know because i helped dislodge not only the hubsters car--empty space above--but our friend Marty's car from the other side of the development at, say, 7:30 this morning)
So many things going through my head right now: possiblities for the day...
As you can see above, we've had more snow... joy. I never thought i'd say it, but i feel kind of guilty having yet another snow day. The past two weeks have gone a little something like this--
Mon. 2 hr. delay, Tues. 2 hr. delay, Weds. closed, Thurs. 2 hr. delay, Fri. 2 hr. delay
Mon. regular day, Tues. closed, Weds. closed, Thurs. closed, Fri. OS day (no school)
On top of that, next Mon. is an IS day ("instructional support" for kids who may need extra tutoring... as well as a faculty senate meeting in the morning). Since my kidlings are not really in need of remediation, i've offered them the opportunity for a little extra-curricular enrichment... i'm teaching them to knit (see previous entries)... the only problems are (A) i haven't seen half of them in the last 2 weeks, so i haven't gotten very many RSVPs, so i don't know how many will actually show and (B) we're supposed to get another storm system coming through Sat. and Sun. but, seeing as i have no idea who's coming, i won't have a way to let the kidlings know if we're not having the get-together. *sigh*
Other knitting news... hmm...
Ooo! I am a genius. Just kidding, because i'm probably not the first person to have thought of this, but i got the idea to print knitters graph paper (in 10 different ratios) on overheads... not a problem, i thought to myself, i have plenty of extra overheads left from student teaching and i haven't touched an overhead all year! So i load up the graph paper on my computer and pop those little transluscent suckers into my printer and try it out... only one problem: if vellum is near impossible on inkjets, overheads are impossible... unless you LIKE a smearing mess. BUT THEN! i realized that if i print them out on regular paper, i could copy them at work... so i did. And now, i have loverly re-usable knitters graph paper that i can also lay on top of images for which i'd like to have charts. Yay!
Also, more knitting fun! I've finally got pictures of the "desperate housefrau" which i hope to complete tonight or tomorrow morning (at the latest)... just in time for our dress rehearsal tomorrow night.
(about 7 curlers to go)
(talk about a pile of curls)
On the reading front: I'm hoping to get most of the way through "I is for Innocent" tonight, so i can progress on "Case for Christ" since i decided i want to finish that before i start re-reading "Atlas Shrugged" which i promised Beth i'd do ASAP. ;D
Also, sometime today i'd like to whip up some tie-dye bread. If i get around to it, i'll post some pictures of that too! (kids love it, and it makes breakfast a breakFEST... haha hardy har har)
Have a great (snow) day, kidlings!
E.
eek!
must.
knit.
now.
There has been an "emergency" project that has come up...
For those of you who don't know me, i am trying to become more involved in the church that the hubster and i began attending last June. So far, i have been asked to take over the welcome table (temporarily) and to participate in KidStuf. KidStuf is a child-friendly/-participatory service we hold once about every two months that involves 3 preparatory practices (one of which is a complete dress rehearsal) and incorporates the written Word, singing, dancing and semi-comedic sketches into a bite-sized moral (the current one is "Service"). I volunteered to play Tony, the tow-truck driver, because Mrs. S (mother-of-four, with the youngest at about 8 months) thought she might not have time to learn the lines (she homeschools her children in addition to everything else she does, God bless her!) and/or juggle her kidling on her hip during the play (in which her husband also has a major part). I am excited about my role, it is just the right size--small, but necessary to the plot (i'm no actress for the most part). Anyway, I digress...
... Mr. P, who is playing Mrs. Mulligan (a crotchety old wench), needs a wig for his character. They haven't been able to find a suitable one, so i volunteered to knit one... enter "desperate housefrau"... I've picked up a skein of "Edwardian" Lion Homespun and found the prerequisite pink plastic curlers at the Dollar Tree... as a result of a few hours tonight, i have 3 of 25 finished. I believe Knitty.com classifies the pattern as "piquant"--it wouldn't be so bad if stretching the knitting across the rollers & k2tog for 11sts wasn't so tedious. I just hope it fits...
E.
Purrring like a Walrus...
The Hubster is home at last! 'nuff said. *swoon* *smile*
*wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more*
I went to a Lia Sophia jewelry party tonight... spent more money than i should have, considering student loans and saving for a house downpayment (but not an obscene amount--only in the double digits)...
Looking at my "tenterhooks," I've decided that my kitten has been in pieces for too long. I'm going to sew him up tonight before bed, even if i don't get the chance to embroider his face and add a collar/bow. These kittens (i've made 2 or 3 already) are just rediculously cute.
Hi to my new friend Beth in WI! Beth, you have to try the Hershey's Cocoa Reserve Dark-Chocolate Truffles if you haven't already... they're amaz-za-zing!
PS - sorry my brain is disjointed today... they've already announced a 2hr delay for tomorrow which makes the fourth one this week (not counting the closing on Weds.)... too much sleeping in, i guess.
E.
A Little Less Conversation...
Well, with the hubster up in Wheeling, and school canceled because of this--
-- I have been at home, alone for over 30 hours.
This has allowed me to work on some projects but has discouraged me from doing anything REALLY productive (like cleaning or laundry). The house is looking more like a bachelor's pad than the home of a young couple. That could also be owed to the giant Smith Machine that takes up the whole of our dining room...
The project, in particular, that i'm talking about is going to be a gift to my mother (shh! don't tell!). When my momma was a kidling, my great-grandmother made a blue poncho for her with red stripes & alternating fringe. Momma STILL talks about how, one day in elementary school, her teacher got cold and asked to borrow my mother's poncho, since it was hanging unused on my mother's peg. (See folks, teachers can have a positive influence your kids!)
My idea was to create a slightly larger and sleeker version--no more pilling superbulky yarn with huge childish stripes... (the updated poncho will indeed have stripes but much thinner ones and the yarn is a sport weight)... i feel a little bit like Amelie!
Momma's old poncho (details & the neck of the new poncho):
A little more action, please... (I prefer Elvis to the Beatles, for you fellow Pulp Fiction fans)
It is now time to go get some work done... i seriously doubt there'll even be a delay tomorrow, so i must at least redd up a little and maybe do some baking as well (i made REAL bread the other day for the first time--sans bread maker)...
Peace out, girl scout.
E.
