What’s black and white and read all over?

Why, this pun-filled yarn from Crystal Palace!

You can see why I’m drawn to it, but Little Knits has a minimum of $25 per order and I just couldn’t justify buying more yarn to myself.  I’ve been doing the online yarn store cart thing again, but been very, very good and haven’t bought more yarn.  (Now trading, destashing or helping someone destash, that’s another story …)

(P.S. The yarn brand is called “Maizy” and it’s corn yarn, and the colorway is “News” and it’s from the joke in the title. Hilarious!)

80s Redux

Recently I’ve been on a movie watching kick.  I am one of the few people who does not (plan to) have a Netflix subscription, but I have DirecTV, TiVo and HBO, so I get tons of movies, and watch what they give me.  Besides the many Lifetime/WE movies I’ve been watching (I swear I only watch them if there is an actor in them that I like. They’re all pretty much the same, although I admit to enjoying “Lucky 7″ with Patrick Dempsey just a little bit too much.

There have been a lot of “older”, you know, dinosaur aged movies, from way back in the ’80s (I swear, DL said that once!) on as well that I’ve been enjoying.  I watched “Some Kind of Wonderful” again and it really didn’t hold up as much as I would have liked (who could ever see Lea Thompson as a teenager? She’s looked the same since “Howard the Duck” and never particularly young).  I also watched another Lea Thompson movie recently and I have a funny observation for you:

We have 8 more years until we’re in flying cars.

Remember “Back to the Future”? Well, Marty McFly went back 30 years to 1955, then Doc Brown went forward 30 years to 2015 and remember, “Where we’re going we don’t need roads”! Scarily enough all the actors from that movie look exactly like they did 23 years ago, and we’re 8 years away from those flying cars he spoke about!

Then again, wasn’t “2010″ “The Year We Make Contact”?

I got tagged!

Thanks to Carrie K, I not only get to officially work on a meme, but I get to play a board game too! Here goes:

The game is SCATTERGORIES … and it’s harder than it looks! Here are the rules:
* Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the questions.
* They MUST be real places, names, things … NOTHING made up!
* If you can’t think of anything, skip it.
* You CAN’T use your name for the boy/girl name question.
* If your name happens to start with the same letter as mine, sorry, but you can’t use my answers!

My name: Elspeth

1. Famous Singer/Band: Espers
2. Four letter word: ecru
3. Street: Easy (joke, and also a street in Maryland!)
4. Color: Eggplant
5. Gifts/Presents: Earrings
6. Vehicle: Elantra
7. Things in a Souvenir Shop: Engravings
8. Boy Name: Edward
9. Girl Name: Emma
10. Movie Title: Every Which Way But Loose
11. Drink: Earl Grey tea
12. Occupation: Editor
13. Celebrity: Eve Plumb
14. Magazine: Entertainment Weekly
15. U.S. City: Erie, PA
16. Pro Sports Teams: San Jose Earthquakes
17. Fruit: Elderberry
18. Reason for Being Late for Work: earthquake (I live in California!)
19. Something You Throw Away: Eggshells
20. Things You Shout: Egads!
21. Cartoon Character: Emily Elizabeth from Clifford

Boy, that was hard! I guess I need to get more practice on my board games, but my friend always makes us play Compatibility so we don’t get much practice on others.

The hardest part of being tagged is tagging someone else, and as most people don’t tag other people anymore, I think I’ll do a couple and see if they feel up to it. So how about Batty, Erica (give her some reference librarianship practice!), Jenny, Jennifer, and Lu.

Have fun, and thanks again, Carrie!

Eek!

I’m just about done with my stash reorganization project, and it turns out I have *over* 586 skeins of yarn! (Plus 2 cones.) But doesn’t my stash look great?

(BTW, the top box is open above because those are the skeins I’m destashing, and the ones on the bottom box need to be put in the bottom box and I’m lazy …)

I just have this little bit left to document, but at least it’s in boxes and not all over the place.

And this is what I’ve been working on while watching the multitude of movies I’ve taped to my TiVo from IFC:

I’ve got at least one more tangle of yarns I need to get to, which will include my Brilla yarn, among others. There goes 5 or so more skeins to add.

When I’m not at home organizing, I’m crocheting. I’ve run out of yarn for my 3rd Red Scarf 2008 so until I can get some more, I’m back to my 2nd Red Scarf 2008 that I have tons of yarn for (4 skeins of Red Cotton Ease not including the 2 I’ve already used on this one). Here’s #3, which I like a lot:

ETA: AAAhhhh! I just found yet another skein of red Cotton Ease! I have 6 skeins I’m not doing anything with, not to mention the black and yellow I have too, and I don’t even like that yarn! Don’t even get me started on the Palette, which I think is fading down to one or two.

P.P.S. I wish I knew how to do the linethrough in HTML/XML, whatever language the kids are using these days.  The latest count is 622 skeins, plus one small box and one pile of tangled yarn left.  Double eek!

Major catastrophe!

You are not going to believe this, but we used to have 4 remotes that worked, and now we are down to *zero*! Two remotes got smashed today (don’t ask), and now how are we going to watch TV? How am I going to get any knitting or any other household chores done without my TV and TiVo? Oh, the horror ….

On a better note, I have been busy documenting/organizing/preserving my stash and I have one and a half totes full to go.  Yesterday I was a bit “worried” because I had less yarn than I thought I had, but fear not, I currently have 477 skeins plus a cone documented, and I’ve got more to go! No pressure to knit it up

CIPing!

After having crocheted in public for about 2 weeks (off and on, in between dyeing and drying yarn) I finished my first Red Scarf 2008! It’s made of 3 skeins of Knit Picks Andean Silk handdyed by me (in a very, very volatile colorway), and the outer edging in Pingouin Pingofrance that I got from a trade recently. It was a fun crochet project, but I’m glad it’s done. I hope even if it’s not the most gorgeous scarf my recipient knows it’s made with love!

The Dark Side.

Well, I may be moving over (slightly) to the dark side. I am enjoying my two crochet projects, and am looking forward to doing a few more with my ever more organized stash. (Thanks, Ravelry.)

I went a bit stash crazy yesterday (and allowed the kids to go nuts too, boy did I spend time cleaning up after that one.) and organized maybe half of my stash. Now I know exactly what I have (in that half), even if I’m not exactly sure where it is. And I’ve put most of it into ziploc bags so I won’t ruin it by letting it sit there and get unwound. My only problem that is I have too much yarn. I don’t want to get a Flickr Pro account, but I’ve run out of space for my photos (you’re allowed 200 in a free account). So I have photos up for what I can and the others are blank. At least I have more of an idea what I’m working with.

I’ve also been busy with my Swap-bot swaps, 2 of which are in process, but one you can still sign up for (no pressure ). In case you’re still on the fence about Swap-bot, you’ve got to see just one of the great packages I received recently! I joined a “Quick Weekend Swap” where you send someone three items out of a list of maybe 15 and someone else sends you something. If’ you’ll look closely, you’ll see there are more than 3 in my package, including handmade address labels just for me! She also made me a handmade notepad in the middle there (with the pink center).  I love Swap-bot! Off to make more mix CDs …

Where to begin?

What a week. Somewhat eventful, but no, not really. Last Saturday my eyebrow hurt a bit, but I didn’t think much of it. Then my eye got more and more swollen. On Monday I decided to go to the doctor, but by that point I had decided that it was a spider bite (we have had a lot more spiders this year, but one on my pillow that close to my eye and I wouldn’t notice? Unlikely.) so I told my doctor that and she prescribed antibiotics.

Meanwhile, my eye kept getting more and more swollen, but I was supposed to come back on Thursday for my annual physical (I’ve got to get my entry in to Bezzie for her female exam contest!) so I didn’t get too worried. Thursday my doctor called in sick (!) but I didn’t want to wait until she was back on Monday, so I got an appt. with another doctor. The other doctor wasn’t too worried, but since my eye was still swollen, she recommended I go to the ophthalmologist. I did that, and after a very long appt. with lots of crafting time, it was the ophthalmologist (not the internists!) that decided I had *shingles*! Shingles is an adult version of the chicken pox virus (which, once you’ve had it once lays dormant in your body. Yuck!) and I guess I got a mild version, but it happened to be right around my eye so boy did it hurt! Well, it still hurts, but after 4 days of an anti-viral and 7 days of an anti-biotic I’m feeling a bit better. And oh boy does it itch!

I will say, however, that I have gotten a lot of crafting time in my week of doctor’s appts. I’m slightly stalled on my first Red Scarf 2008 because I had dyed a third skein but it was still too wet to add to the previous two skeins. I had dyed this skein 3 times because it never turned out close enough to the other two (and is not great now, but I’m done dyeing).

Speaking of dyeing, I tried to make my “purple”/light blue skein of Cascade 220 a bit darker, but after three different shades of Kool Ade, it’s barely darker at all.

I’ve mostly been working on my second Red Scarf 2008, crocheted out of Cotton Ease. Unfortunately I’m not a great crocheter, and it’s also become a bit hourglass shaped like my first scarf, because I missed a few stitches then tried to add them back in. I hope I can figure out how to make a rectangle in crochet, because I just may be going over to the dark side and enjoying at least some of the crochet stitches.

Copycat

Like Amanda, all I want to do these days is watch TV and crochet! Speaking of Amanda, I won her blog contest, and she sent me some gorgeous Knit Picks yarn! I have no idea why my camera is taking horrible pictures, but the colorway is “Sunset” and it is a brownish color, not obvious in this picture:

I’m so happy “My Boys” is back. I’m a huge, huge Jim Gaffigan fan (I feel like I knew him “back when”, but really it was from his Comedy Central special from 2000) and I really enjoy this show, and am glad he’s back. I was a fan of “Welcome to New York”, his ill-fated sitcom with Sara Gilbert, but alas it was cancelled (aren’t all the good ones cancelled?) so I’m glad My Boys is doing well. This week’s was so funny I literally LOLed – I don’t laugh out loud at many shows.

I also laughed out loud (let’s face it, I’m too old for text-speak) at the new IFC shows “The Business” and “The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman”. They were so funny, I can’t wait for next weekend for another episode!

I’m also happy to have found Lili Taylor’s new show “State of Mind”. It’s a bit weird, a la “Raines” in that she has characters “talk” to only her, but the show is well written and I like the characters. I also liked the cameo (?) by the guy who plays Herc on “Friday Night Lights”. It will be interesting to see where that character goes.

I’m scaring myself in other ways – I’m actually watching more WE and Lifetime movies and shows. (“Meredith Baxter gets beaten by a rod, in a Lifetime Original, ‘Rod’.” — Jim Gaffigan) I saw a cute movie today, “Lucky 7″ with Patrick Dempsey (hey, I loved him pre-Grey’s!) and Kimberly Williams Paisley, and a few others along the way. Wow, I’m really approaching middle age, aren’t I?

And now here I am crocheting, just like my grandmother. I did as much as I could do with my 9 foot long scarf yarn, and the yarn I dyed yesterday isn’t dry yet so I can’t add it until tomorrow. Meanwhile I decided to start another crocheted red scarf, this time using Lion Brand Cotton Ease.

Here’s a bonus, #7 Weird Thing About Me: I hate to do things that are popular, but tell me something is “rare” and I’m all over it. I bought some Cotton Ease last year when it was not being made anymore (for, what, 5 minutes?) just because it was so popular for being rare. I didn’t like it. I never got a gauge I liked that made a tight enough knit fabric.

Well, it turns out it is great for crocheting! I started my scarf today and just love how it looks! (Pictures tomorrow, I promise.) It still splits like it does so I have to look at it, but I’m looking while I crochet anyway. I decided I really like the intricacy of even the easiest of crochet stitches, and I’m starting to like the look of the fabric too. I’m going over to the dark side, I know, but hey, I do love black!

Lazy Sunday

I still haven’t seen The Chroni(what?)cles of Narnia, but I love that reference anyway.

After an incredibly stressful week (I didn’t say much, but our only bathroom sink broke so I had to get a contractor in quickly, plus shuttle two kids from one camp to another, plus D.L. had to have an MRI which was fun, sarcastically), I had a pretty nice weekend. I got knitting and crocheting done, watched some TV, went to the gym, baked and even dyed yarn!

Frarochvia was totally right when she said to just frog my red scarf in progress. I knew I should just frog it, but instead I came up with what I think was a great idea! Instead of frogging directly, I took this opportunity to take the end and practice my crocheting (I learned to crochet first, but haven’t done it in, oh, 25 years …) for a more fun red scarf. And as I need more yarn, it will frog automatically.

I’m not the best crocheter, obviously, but I decided to do one row of single crochet, one row of half double crochet and one row of double crochet. Crochet is fun, but I’m still not convinced that I like the finished product like I like knitted objects, and it’s very similar (at least to me) to picking up millions of stitches. I don’t like picking up stitches that much. And I have at least some times lost stitches. It’s still the thought that counts, right? It’s crocheted with love …

Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure I’m going to run out of yarn before I have more than an end table runner, so I decided to fix up some of the yarn that I dyed previously but didn’t really match this yarn. I did okay with one skein, but another is way too red, so I don’t know how and if I’ll try to keep them together into one scarf.

Just like I’m not the greatest crocheter, I’m not the greatest yarn dyer. The yarn on the left used to be Cascade 220, and now it’s way too pastel for me. It may end up on Good Yarn Karma when it dries … I’m done dyeing with Wilton dyes. I like dark colors, and I just can’t get a good color with Wilton dyes. Now if I were dyeing cake icing (yum!) I’d probably have a better result, but I haven’t done cake decorating in years either.

Now here’s some good dyed yarn:

Yes, that is handdyed (for me!) yarn from Chris, along with her great music mixes and some other goodies.  I’ve been enjoying the music all week, and hope to make some socks soon!  Thanks again, Chris!

Speaking of music, I’ve started a couple of my own Swap-bot music swaps.  Feel free to join!