You may or may not realise this about me, but I am addicted to lolcats. I check the site pretty much daily to see what funny new grammatically-incorrect cats have to say.

I have now discovered something one better: lolgraphs, otherwise known as GraphJam.com. I love geeking out in Excel almost as much as I love lolcats and to have the two put together? Priceless.

My boyfriend and I just about died laughing at this one:

more graph humor and song chart memes

And I have to admit to immediately going through the site’s entire archives. I only made the boyfriend look at one per page or so.

more graph humor and song chart memes

more graph humor and song chart memes

This post will be linked in the sidebar, and updated as I finish projects.

Feb 20th
Fleece Artist Socks (my Knitting Olympics project)

March 30th
River Stole from Rowan 38.

Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze, in Grace
Mods: I used US7 needles, and got 22 repeats in.
Measurements: 13″ by 58″.

April 19
Edgar scarf from Knitty.com

Yarn: Art Yarns Supermerino in 106 (a gift from my SP7)
Mods: Made graduated squares: 2 @ 31 stitches, 4 @ 33, 5 @ 35, 4 @ 33, 2@ 31
Measurements:

June 17
Jaywalker socks from Magknits.com

Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Colour 202 Bee Stripe
Size: Small
Mods: none
Measurements: fits my size 8 foot perfectly

November 13th
Fleece Artist thrummed mitts – pattern with kit

Yarn: Fleece Artist Blue Faced Leicester Aran
Size: Women’s small
Mods: Used much too much roving, Fleece Artist sent me more when I asked, plus I had to buy some to finish the thumb of #2.

December 3rd
Coronet Hat from Knitty

Yarn: Alpaca Indiecita, two strands held together
Size: Knit the Medium
Mods: Knit so the reverse-stockingette side shows when wearing. Yes, I did this on purpose. A couple other minor mods that we’ll just call ‘design features’ rather than mistakes.

December 28th
Eunny’s Endpaper Mitts

Yarn: Art Yarns UltraMerino4 (the green) and Fortissima Socka (blue)
Size: Medium-ish, 3.0mm needles
Mods: Used EZ’s sewn bindoff for mitt #2, because the Kitchener was a bit too tight.

Back, back Elann.com, back I say!
I will not succumb to your siren call of cheap yarn. I have plenty of yarn, and so many projects to make.
I’m supposed to be saving my birthday money, not spending it.

Okay, how’s this: I will not buy yarn for Raspy until I’ve cleared out that much yarn from my stash? Sounds good to me. No spendy-spendy.

I got second SP7 parcel today!!
No pics yet, as I’m at work (and won’t be home until tomorrow night), but suffice to say I have been thouroughly spoiled.
Knit Picks Andean Silk, so so so soft. A London notepad, and a Big Ben tealight holder, with tealights. Cute leaf cards from my SP, and an extra-special birthday suprise which I will show in the pictures.

Thank you so so much!

My SP was Brynne!

Pattern: River, from Rowan 38.
Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze, in Grace
Measurements: I was inspired by this River, so I used US7 needles, and got 22 repeats in. It works out to about 13″ by 58″.

I finished River! And mum loved it and wore it all weekend. She is also a crafty person, so she knows how much goes into something like that.
Mum arrived late on the 31st of March. I finished River that morning. River was all blocked, and I was in bed before 1am, let’s put it that way.

I would like to thank my model, Judy, as well as all her friends in the background: Judy, Judy, Judy and Judy. I think there’s a male Judy in there too. This is what is great about working in a theatre. Especially a theatre with its own shops on site and when the wardrobe department isn’t manned until May. I had a nice little photoshoot, with no one to bother me, or look at me like I was crazy. Also, at lunch time that day, when I was 10 rows from done, I realised that I have no pins here.
That sounds crazy, I know. How can a person not have pins? At all? I just moved into a small residence, and didn’t bring a whole lot. That is why I love Wardrobe. I just wandered down, opened the pin/fastener cabinet and snagged myself a box of at least 1000. Did the same thing when I found a rip in my pants. Snagged some thread, a needle, and repaired away. I will return the stuff, don’t worry, but it’s just so fun. Like a giant sewing supply library or something.

I blocked River on the floor of my bedroom in said small accomodation. It took up most of my floor. I completely imersed River in some warm water with a bit of Eucalan in, then rolled her up in a towel to dry her a bit. Then, I put two towels out on the carpet (it was too late at night to vacuum) and pinned her out. No measuring really, I just did it by eye, so she is a bit lopsided, but not noticeably. The scallops were easy to pull out, as there was one for every point of the design.

Finished mum’s River scarf/stole thing last night at around 12:40am. All knitted, washed, blocked and pinned out. Wove in the ends this morning, and it’s ready to be wrapped.

Pictures after the weekend. Me tired.

I believe River will be done in time for the arrival of mum this Friday. I’m on repeat #18, and I should have enough yarn for 22. Only a few more to go….

And then it’ll be time to move all my old blog posts over here. I know I don’t need to do that, but I’m a big fan of everything being in one place. And if I can ever get categories to work here, it’ll be great. I’ve found quite a few hacks to get categories on blogger, I’m not on my computer right now, but I’ll link to the list when I am. This post is mainly a test to see if I can get it to work. Apparently it can take a day or two to show up if you edit old posts, so this is a test post. This is only a test.

The long-awaited blog entry. I just signed up for a flickr account, and oooh it’s fun. I had taken some pictures of red stuff in the apartment, but thought they were pretty boring by themselves. Along comes flickr toys and they don’t look so bad.

I’ve also been madly knitting on River, the scarf/stole I’m making for mum’s birthday. This needs to be wrapped and ready to give by March 31st. I started on the 3rd, and only just started on ball #2 of 2 on Monday. I still think I can do it, if I make sure I make time to knit at least 1.5 pattern repeats per day, no more exceptions. And now, a River mosaic, as I haven’t posted any of these pics yet, and all would be too many.

This is a good pattern, it’s not too boring, and every other row is straight knitting, so it can be sort of mindless. I haven’t had any problems with the yarn (Kidsilk Haze) even though it is so thin and slippery. I’m using Denise needles, and yes, sometimes it does catch on the join, but not too badly. My main worry right now is how I store it. I keep my current project in a little drawstring mesh bag that once held MEC long underwear. It’s great for keeping everything together. My concern now is that pulling it in and out is fluffing it up. I don’t want it too fluffy. I’m hoping blocking will get rid of this problem. The other fun thing is the amount of static in it. What with said rubbing and the crazy high altitude, it’s quite the staticky ball of fluff.

So, no, not much content here lately.
I’ve been working a lot, and furiously knitting away at my mum’s River stole. I started ball #2 last night, which is good and bad all at once. Good, because I’m half done. Bad, because it’s taken me since early March to get this far, and I want to have it blocked and wrapped up by March 31. Small panic, over here in the corner.

That’s also why the blog looks like a construction site. Can ANYONE help with the stupid line down the right hand side? This template was too thin for my liking, and I found where to change the width, but I can’t seem to get that vertical bar, and the header to match up.
Also, I thought blogger had a tagging feature, so I could say, look at all my posts about Rogue by clicking on the appropriate link. I see now that this is typepad. Typepad not good because (a) you have to pay, and (b) as you can tell by the above plea, I’m no good with code. I’ll live. I’ve opened a Flickr account so I don’t link to my LJ gallery. I’d like to keep those separate. Plus Flickr has fun toys.

Come the end of the month, I will be done River, and then I will spend some quality time making this blog look pretty. And gathering together pics of all the stuff I want to make, so I can easily reference and think.

I have bought a few small knittythings recently, a couple weeks ago I went to a yarn store (heaven! I will save my LYS rant for another post) and bought some white sock yarn. Last week I went to Safeway and bought Kool Aid. I’m going to dye sock yarn! I can’t decide if I want self-striping or just mottled coloured. It’s going to be my Project Spectrum: April project (the dyeing, not the socks. I don’t know if I’d get that much done) so I have orange, and pink. There was no yellow, and I’m not really a yellow fan, but orange is an April colour.

My roommates will think I’m batty.

But first, I need to eat more pasta, because I’ll need at least one more sauce jar for this project.

One of my good friends is getting married in July. This is the first of my high school friends to get married, and it’s going to be a great big thing. I, therefore, need a dress. I have found a dress that’s about 3 times what I was planning on spending, but I’m in love.

Only picture me being shorter, and not blonde.

Wouldn’t a lacy brown shrug look so great with it?

If I do go with this dress, I will be on the yarn diet to break all yarn diets. I would be selling off yarn, to make myself feel better about buying a $300 dress.

Or I could be sensible and look for another dress. Damn me and my champagne tastes on a beer water budget. Damn my not-really-paid job. I mean, sure, I get a cheque on the 15th and last day of each month, but it’s a pittance because I’m an intern.

EDIT: Yeah, after a visit back to the dress in the store (and beign recognized by the girl working there, oh the embarassment!) and actually really thinking…. it’s a stupid idea. I need to save as much money as possible for when this contract ends. Because then…. I’ll actually be trying to find actual work in the actual theatre world in Calgary. Actually. For real. eek.

I’ve become too frustrated with My Old Blog, so I’ve come back here. Notice that right now the one and only post here is from September of 2004!
I originally ran away from here because my programming knowledge wasn’t good enough to get it to look how I wanted. Now I’m better, but still not quite good enough. Why is my sidebar not continuous? It jogs partway down, right where it says ‘archives’. Can I stop this happening? I made everything wider, because I’m not a fan of the very thin content, surrounded by two stripes of dead space. But I can’t move that little bit.

Pictures/info to come!

My thoughts on the fall Knitty.
Arisaig: pretty, I like wrap tops in theory, but the never seem to look right on me, so I’m scared of knitting one and spending ages on something that won’t look good.
Samus: want it, want it now. But not in orange.
Cinxia: I’m undecided. In one picture it looks nice, in the top one it doesn’t look like it fits right. Not for me.
Josephine: pretty, but for something that big, I’d just buy it. I’d love to knit it, but it’d take years. Maybe when I’m not in school.
Blackberry: shrugs are growing on me, and this is nice in that is it almost big enough to be a cardie.
Revolution: I love the stitch, but again, it’d take years, so no.
Lacey: ick. I’m sorry, but poufy sweaters are not something I would ever wear. ever.
Leaves in Relief: OMG Tree of Gondor sweater!!!
Bloom: oooh, a shawl I like! I like very much.
Ella: meh. Yet another lace shawl. Interesting shape though.
Flora: pretty, but I like my long scarves
Hipster: It’s still a fanny pack, and ever though it’s felted, I could see the belt part stretching
Falling Leaves: I’m a sucker for leafy things.
Bubby: Adorable, btu I don’t see what makes it a koala bear.
Edgar: I like it! But Kureyon is so rough for a scarf.
Astrodome: Unfortunate choice of name, considering recent events, but I like it. I’m not really a hat person, but I have had my hair cut, and may consider knitting myself this one.

Stuff I want to do:
-Felted Slippers – like ballet shoes, only warmer and more comfortable. I might even give them some proper soles.
-The Rockstar Jacket on this page. All thoughts of the sweater I started last winter have just fled my head.
-both the llamas and the sheep on this page. Just because they amuse me. The llamas more so.
-the yoga socks at the very bottom of this page. Those would be great Christmas presents for those friends of mine who do yoga.
-Quick and easy raglan sweater
-This is a ‘one day’ sweater. One day I”ll do it. Not soon.
-I want to knit a ton of dead muppet scarves so I can do the UVic craft fair in November, as I don’t have classes that day.
-scarf for mum for Christmas (got the wool already)
-luxurious scarf (or gloves) for me. I have that gift certificate, I may buy cashmere.
-uber-secret project what I’m designing myself. More on it later.
-a skirt. I was set on the one in the Fall 04 IK, but I actually got out a measuring tape, and it’s much longer than I want. It’s practically ankle-length! I may still do it, and omit one lace section or something.
-I also want to design my own huge knitted blanket from blocks in this book.

I now work in a bookstore, and I can see that my knitting library is going to grow rapidly in the coming months. I think working in a bookstore is not a good idea for me, because they’ll direct deposit my money, and it’ll just go in the hole where all the money I spent on books was.

EDIT: scratch the felted sheep up there, I’d much rather make Sam the Ram and Sue the Ewe.

Well, I’m off to Banff now for a few months. I’m taking the rest of the fun fur to finish the craft fair scarves. I’m leaving 9 finished ones behind, and I’m not sure how many balls I’m taking. A lot, let’s leave it at that.
I really wanted to take some other craft supplies; I signed up for a swap on the Canadian Altered Books Yahoo!Group. I had to drop out, I finished packing and there is not the tiniest sliver of room for anything else. Especially glue and paint. So my craftiness these next few months will be limited to knitting dead muppet scarves.

I have found the ultimate thing to do while knitting: usually I watch TV, but I miss things because I look at my knitting. Now, I have the magic of audiobooks. I have Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, and I’ve also subscribed to Audible Proops. JS&MN is great to fall asleep to, but I tend to drift off in the good bits.

If the hotel has wireless internet, you’ll hear from me soon. If it doesn’t, you won’t.

I had my workshop today with Suzanne Cannon; Niches and Drawers. I had so much fun! Most of the ladies there were about 20 years older than me, but that was fine. Many of them were scrapbookers, and brought tons of supplies. I can see how this could become addictive, and so could buying all the fun little things.
The niche was easy, I didn’t have anything 3D on me that I really wanted to put in, so I kept it fairly shallow. Island Blue had supplied some thingys for us, I put a page pebble (clear raised plastic sticker) and a fancy brad on mine, along with some ripped up bits of the pages I took out (some slightly gilded). In the niche is a picture I liked from the book, coloured in a little bit with a calligraphy marker.

The way I decided to do my drawers made everyone thing I was insane. Her instructions were to make a drawer out of cardstock, and then cut a hole to fit it. While doing this, I realised that if you cut neatly, and keep all the bits of pages together and glue them, you can cut a drawer out of the chunck of stuff you got out. You need to be really neat though, and no one there could believe I had the patience for it, or that I could actually cut that neatly. I love it.

I only did the one book, even though I brought three. I still haven’t decided what to do with the field flower guide, I either want to do a deep niche and put a little 3D butterfly in (on a suitably nice flower drawing, of course) or I had this idea about covering boxes in book pages…. who knows.

I’m just brimming with ideas for this new craft. It’s sad I’m going away next week, and won’t really be able to bring all the stuff with me. Tuesday I am going to Wells Books again, to stock up. One of the ladies there was visiting from Vancouver, and she is going home with 200lbs of books from Wells. I hope there’s still some left!

Wells Books (a local used bookstore) is closing soon, and has 70% off everything. I got 3 very nice books, older ones, and interesting. I got ‘Odd Craft’ just because altering books is and odd craft. The red one is Pickwick Papers and has the most beautiful Art Nouveau end papers (see below). I would feel bad about cutting it up, only it was just $1.00, before the the 70% discount. The green is a wild flower identification guide, with lots of nice drawings of flowers.
Obviously ex-library, just with discrete stamps, and no real damage. I think I’ll go back there during the course, it’s in the next block, and by then I’ll know if I want to do more, and if the course is what I was expecting.

I explained to the lady at the bookstore what I was doing, and asked if she had any wrecked books, or bits, and she had a little pile of covers that had fallen off other ones. I got two matching ones (not a pair from one book, the cover from each of two books that are the same). She threw them in for free with the books, so my total came to… $5.10.

To combat my being bored out of my skull until I leave for Banff, I signed up for a class at a local art store. I needed some photocopying done, and they have a ‘reprographics’ part of the store, so while I was waiting I was wandering around. I got so inspired! I’ve always loved small colourful things, and boxes with compartments to put small colourful things in, which is why I love crafting; it gives me an excuse for my obsession. I want to learn to paint now too, but that can wait until I come back in August. The class I signedup for is an altered books class.
I found the instructor’s website, I’m doing this one. the niches and drawers. I’ve had all sorts of ideas, and a possible plan of more things to sell at the craft fair in November.
I have also been reading this thread at Craftster, and decided I need a hand-crank drill and one of those Xyron machines. I almost bought one of those when I was working at Michaels. I should’ve.

I’ve decided to do the uni craft fair again this year. I’ve got until November, so I’m going to start now so I’ll have more than 15 scarves. A few weeks ago (on March 26th, to be exact) Michaels had a 30% your entire regular-priced purchase coupon. I went in and bought this much yarn:

That’s $114 worth of yarn right there, but if I knit it all up and sell it, I’ll have $250+. Plus the fun of knitting and not being idle while watching TV. I don’t count labour in selling knitting because a) no one would buy scarves at those prices and b) I watch TV while I knit, I don’t need to be paid to watch TV.

Getting a bit longer….